Fishtown

Philadelphia police are looking for surveillance photos and potential witnesses in the death of a 32-year-old man, shot in the chest early Sunday morning near Fourth and Lombard Streets in Society Hill. Michael G. Hagan Jr., an information-technology consultant who grew up in Pennsauken and moved to the city's Fishtown neighborhood several years ago, was an apparent robbery victim. Family members said Hagan had been out Saturday night on the Delaware River waterfront with two old friends from Pennsauken, a schoolteacher and a Peace Corps volunteer.

Asked about the latest study from the public health experts at Harvard who say eating red meat regularly probably trims a half-dozen years off your life expectancy, Stephen Verica sniffs dismissively. "Basically," he says, "whoever has the research grant has to earn his money. " Verica, owner of Kissin Fresh Meats, is an unapologetic, unabashed, unreformed carnivore. "I eat beef or veal and pasta seven days a week," he says. "It's the way I was raised. " Let the experts carp about the dangers of heme iron intake and the increased risk of diabetes, heart attacks, and cancer.

PHILLY-NATIVE RAPPER Eve returns to town Wednesday for a free show at the tiny Kung Fu Necktie (1250 N. Front) in Fishtown. The 6-to-8 p.m. party is presented by Reebok Classics and marks the first local performance for the hip-hop and former sitcom star in quite a while. Her last public appearance in the area was for a Jill Scott video shoot last year. To attend, submit your name at tinyurl.com/evekfn . If you're selected, you will hear back from event organizers. Geno's inspires book The famous sticker from late Geno's Steaks owner Joey Vento — "This is America: When Ordering Please Speak English" — has inspired a book.

A deeply offensive comparison I found the commentary "Film's dystopia rings familiar" (Friday) deeply offensive. To compare President Obama's administration, which is trying to bring better health care to all of our citizens and to prevent banks from using our savings in very risky financial deals, to a regime that requires children to kill each other is beyond the pale. It is on the same level as those who have called Obama a Hitler. The author seems to have a searing personal hatred for Obama, not a reasoned argument against his policies.

Coming Apart, the book I published a few months ago, tracks the cultural divergences in America's classes from 1960 to 2010, focusing on whites as a way of getting people to understand that the problems I describe aren't driven by minorities. I used Belmont, an affluent Boston suburb, as my label for the white upper middle class, and Fishtown, referring to Philadelphia's own Fishtown, one of the oldest white working-class communities in America, as my label for the white working class.

The case of a fired Philadelphia police officer on trial for allegedly beating up a female friend took a strange twist Tuesday when a witness had to be brought to court in handcuffs and a damaging phone message was played for the jury. James Kanagie, a lifelong friend of defendant Damien Walto, 32, was arrested Monday and brought to court yesterday on a bench warrant signed by trial judge Willis Berry Jr. after he failed to show up on his own. Kanagie's testimony against his Fishtown buddy got even more interesting when he mentioned that Walto had contacted him by phone to discuss what he would say in court.

THOMAS JOHN LEDERER had his hands full with all those kids. There were his own six children, followed by 16 grandchildren, not to mention nieces and nephews - and even neighborhood youngsters, for whom he was a surrogate father. But Tom loved it. He never lost his zest for living or his optimistic attitude. If you asked him how he was doing, he'd invariably say, "I never had a bad day. " Tom Lederer, a retired surveyor for the city Water Department who helped run water lines across many Philadelphia parks, a lover of nature who planted gardens in his neighborhood and who taught the kids to look at the stars, collapsed and died Thursday behind the wheel of his car on I-95, south of Savannah, Ga. He was driving back to Philly from Cocoa Beach, Fla. His wife of 56 years, the former Rita Lavery, took the wheel and guided the car safely across four lanes of traffic to the side of the highway.

The renowned and controversial conservative scholar Charles Murray has identified the wellspring of all that ails poor white America, and wouldn't you just know, it's in Philadelphia. Fishtown, to be precise; the once-healthy waterfront community east of the El that, over the last 50 years, devolved into a rare white urban ghetto. The residents of Murray's Fishtown - particularly its adult men - are such a godless, shiftless, morally bankrupt bunch that he serves them up as a metaphor for the social decline of white working-class America.

RE: "For Olney Wife, a Ghastly Find" : This article sheds light on the senseless acts of violence plaguing our society. I have lived in Philadelphia for more than 30 years. I would have never foreseen the "City of Brotherly Love" to be as violent as it is. The article sent chills through my spine. It made me realize just how cold and murderous people have become. One can only imagine the pain this poor woman is feeling. The thought of coming home to find your spouse murdered is devastating.

By Donna Cooper In his new book, Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1960-2010 , Charles Murray uses Fishtown as a prototypical white, lower-class community in decline. Philadelphians know Fishtown as one of a few city neighborhoods attracting urban hipsters and young families. Where Sanka was once considered gourmet, La Colombe is now widely sold. I should know; I've lived in Fishtown for 27 years. An earlier book that Murray cowrote, The Bell Curve , was roundly criticized for its flawed conclusion that blacks are on average less intelligent than whites.