WWG member Ann de Forest has published a sharp and moving piece at Hidden City Philadelphia about Philly's long history as a sanctuary city. The context: Mayor Jim Kenney insists the city will remain a sanctuary, while PA's own senator Pat Toomey wants to cut the city's federal funding as punishment. Ann invites Sen. Toomey to come take a tour of some key city sites to see the heritage he's trying to deny.

Here's a link to the article.

A couple of key excerpts:

"Long before there was even a dream of a United States of America, William Penn established the colony of Pennsylvania as a Holy Experiment. The city of Philadelphia was envisioned as a haven for immigrants fleeing religious persecution in their homelands."

"The physical evidence of William Penn’s vision remains strikingly present on the streets of Old City and Society Hill. There, within a half mile radius, we will find a variety of houses of worship that trace their origins to colonial times.... Each of these centuries-old congregations has a fascinating story in its own right. Even more remarkable, though, is the panoply of houses of worship seen as a whole. In America we take for granted that Presbyterians, Catholics, Quakers, and Jews all worship in the same neighborhood, their sanctuaries within striking distance of one another. But in the 17th century, the juxtaposition of denominations and faiths in the houses of worship on the streets of Philadelphia was radical, even jarring. Pennsylvania represented a conscious paradigm shift from the separatist impulse that spawned most of the other 13 British colonies in North America."

Sam Gridley, the author of our title The Shame of What We Are, has contributed a short audio clip to the Superstition Review blog in which he discusses how he came to write the story "Ranger Ringo," which ultimately became a chapter in the novel.

The story/chapter relates the young protagonist's tragicomic experiences in the audience of a local cowboy TV show, circa 1953. The illustration here is the one Tom Jackson did for the book, showing the giant old TV camera and the tin badge on the pretend-ranger's shirt.

The audio is embedded below. To read the magazine editor's short introduction to the clip and to find a link to the original story, go here.

And, if you're impressed, you can click here to buy the whole book.