Oreck you glad to see Fumo?

Former state Sen. Vince Fumo will be transferred from a Kentucky federal prison Tuesday to a North Philadelphia halfway home as I wrote in this column.

Fumo's fiancee, Carolyn Zinni, doesn't fly so he will be making a 10-hour journey back to Philadelphia by car and must report to Kintock by 9 p.m.

Reaction to the column was, to the say the least, interesting. But then Fumo can bring out strong emotions.

"Was he really that bad ?" one reader asked. "I think he did a great job for the city in Harrisburg. No one has stepped up to fill his shoes. I really could care less about how he is transported. That is a perc everyone deserves after what he or anyone has accomplished. All I know is we were better with him in Harrisburg than without him."

True, no one else has stepped up to fill his shoes.

However, no one else stole $4 million from taxpayers and two nonprofits, or shook down PECO for $17 million, then tried to get more.

So there's that.

Another reader thought that the reference to

"I read your article on Vince Fumo. I, too, loathe the guy. There are so many reasons to be contemptuous of him, and you have brought them all out. You were doing pretty well for awhile, but then your contempt of Italian-Americans got the better of you when you alluded to his 'ancestral baronial duchy of South Philadelphia.'. Tsk, tsk. Well, I guess even 'open-minded' libs like yourself have their biases, right?"

OK, I had no idea that writing about an "ancestral baronial duchy" was anti-Italian. France had dukes. England, too. Austria, Germany, the Netherlands, etc.

And then were was this:

"Your (sic) jealous Vince is popular and your (sic) not. So obvious!"

Followed by an email, by the same reader: "GET A REAL LIFE LEAVE MY UNCLE ALONE!!! ITS PEOPLE LIKE YOU THAT ARE SO GOD DAMN ORDINARY!!"

Both emails were signed by someone named Fumo.

Tell you, readers' mail is rarely dull.

--Karen Heller