The LuLac Edition #2782, November 24th, 2014

VISION FOUNDER DIES

The late Vince Kabacinski. (Photo: Citizen’s Voice)

Vince Kabacinski, who operated VISION rotating homeless shelter for men in Luzerne County for three decades, died Sunday at around 5:30PM . He was 65 and according to his friend local broadcaster Rob Neyhard, he had just retired one month age.
Kabacinski was one of those local people who were legendary in their commitment to their job. As a matter of fact t was a vocation. Vince would always be interviewed on the coldest night of every winter trying to round up homeless people so they did not die.
I met Vince when I was a staff member of The United Way and he always made the case for his agency not in financial terms but in terms f humanity. He used local media in getting his message across and getting things done. Kabacinski was a modest man and appeared in the media when it was necessary. He died way too young. Unlike others in the Human Service Community, there are no buildings or awards named after him. And I’m sure that was okay with Vince. The true reward of his life was the number of faceless people (who no one bothered with and passed on by)  who benefited from his compassion and humanity. There is a hole in the heart of Wyoming Valley.

FORMER GOP CANDIDATE DIES

A campaign card from then candidate Muzyka. (LuLac archives)

Richard Muzyka was a political fireball in the 1970s. He ran a few times against political legend Dan. Flood. A Hazleton native, he moved to New Jersey where he passed away at the age of 67.
Muzyka was very active in the 1976 Ford/Dole effort and represented himself and his party well;.

THE REAL SURVIVALIST

Former D.C. Mayor Marion Berry. (Photo: Fox News)

That punk who killed one State Trooper and attacked another in September was no survivalist. Now Marion Berry, that was a political survivalist!
Barry was first elected mayor in 1978 after building a political career as an official of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee and a local activist in Washington. Re-elected in 1982 and 1986, he was dubbed "Mayor For Life
But then he was caught smoking crack with “a friend” and spent 6 months in jail. In 1992, he made it back to city government, winning a council seat representing the poorest of the city's eight wards. That victory helped propel him to a fourth, and final, term as mayor in 1994.
"Marion Barry changed America with his unmitigated gall to stand up in the ashes of where he had fallen and come back to win," poet Maya Angelou said in 1999.
Indeed. Quite a survivor.