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Date » 2005 » November « Home

Blogicized: Don’t call it a “Holiday Tree”

• Saying goodbye to Stan Berenstain, the Bucks County kids book author who went to that big treehouse in the sky yesterday. [Metroblogging Philadelphia]

• NPR has apparently taped two shows at World Cafe Live to air on Christmas Eve. [XPN All About the Music]

• Today at City Hall: Christmas Tree lighting. [Phillyist]

How to spin a story

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Hey, take a look at that! Woo-hoo, right? Yay no more rate hikes, all rainbows and puppydogs?

Well, not really. You see, in October, PGW hiked its bills 19 percent, with the possiblity that they could hike them more. They’re not going to, but the rates are still said 19 percent higher than in, say, September. And so heating your home this year is still going to cost, oh, $500,000 for the winter.

But I dig the phrasing of the headline. (Thanks KYW, you’ve been a fountain of knowledge today.) I wonder how this “always look on the bright side of life” kind of thinking could be applied to other Philadelphia institutions:

  • John Street not as bumbling as his brother, Milton!
  • Terrell Owens not as annoying as Drew Rosenhaus!
  • SEPTA buses haven’t spontaneously combusted this year
  • City’s murder rate on the decline in the last 10 minutes 15, 16, 17 seconds…
  • Philadelphia Will Do contains very less typos than usual today!

There you have it. Look at it this way: Do you want to hear bad news, or do you want to hear good news. You can piuck, but I think we all know the answer.

PGW Predicts No Further Rate Hikes This Winter [KYW 1060]

Motownphilly’s back again

According to the Inquirer, and this is only a possibility, but there’s a new slots coalition in town:

Donald J. Trump’s casino company has partnered with Philadelphia-area investors, including former 76ers president Pat Croce, to apply for a slots license in the city. [...] Croce said the local investors he has put together include three members of the musical group, Boyz II Men.

Woohoo! I can’t wait to gamble in a Donald Trump, Pat Croce, Boyz II Men-owned slots parlor.

Trump signs Croce for Phila. slots parlor team [Inky]

The Bad News Brigade

From NBC 10’s front page:

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Uhh, guys? Is there anything good going on in the area? No? Oh, well, okay then.

NBC 10

Just like in that stupid Nic Cage/John Travolta movie

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Suggestion for a new city motto: “Philadelphia: Where at least 57% of the people are so ugly they’d consider getting a face transplant.”

French Hospitals Report First Partial Face Transplant [AP via NBC 10]
Face/Off [IMDB]

Drawing conclusions

113005slyjohnson.jpg To begin, a story: I wake up at every morning at around 6:30 in order to get ready for my day. I’ve been waking up recently to KYW 1060, because it allows me to listen to the news while still in bed, which means it’s like I’m working — getting the news that I’m going to poke fun at later in the day — at the same time I’m still hugging my pillow.

This morning was weird; I was drifting in and out of sleep at around 6:45 and I heard somebody on the radio say something like, “And police commissioner Sylvester Johnson lashes out at a cartoon in the Daily News.” My ears perked up. “That’s my kinda story,” I thought, but when I listened I didn’t hear anything about it. By the time I was skimming the morning papers and starting my writing, I had forgotten all about the Johnson thing. The time I did think of it, I actually thought I had dreamt it. I thought I was the biggest tool ever, dreaming up fake news story that would be easy to comment on.

And, yet, the story is not a dream.

Yes, Police Commissioner Johnson (at left) is upset at a Signe Wilkinson cartoon that ran the other day in the DN, depicted a KKK travel agent telling people that Philadelphia has “great views of young black men killing each other.”

And Johnson has seemingly gotten angrier in public at this cartoon than he has at any of the 300+ murders committed in the city this year.

But then it gets weirder, when DN editor Michael Days says that “[e]ditorial cartoons, of course, aren’t meant to be funny.” Wha?

I have a solution: let’s everyone quit murdering people and have all the city’s editorial cartoonists — including PW’s own fantastic Jay Bevenour — make their editorial cartoons as funny as possible. How’s that for a compromise?

Police commish: Cartoon, murder rate ‘not a joke’ [DN]
Hoagie Dip [PW]

The thrill of the hunt

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I’m not actually all that surprised that a Pennsylvania man was mistaken for a deer. (Some of our fatter men don’t really look all that human.) But I am surprised that there was a deer on the side of the road and not one Pennsylvania resident came forward to collect the carcass.

Dead Man Mistaken For Deer, Left On Road For Days [AP via NBC 10]
Oct. 28: Deerly beloved (if you’re a Pa. resident)

There’s one in every family

From today’s Metro:

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Translation: She’s one of those people who give out homemade crap for Christmas, which is promptly thrown away upon returning home.

Editor’s Note: Yea, yeah; I’m sure her art is fine and dandy.

U.S. Editions [Metro]

I bet the plan includes “freedom” and “hard work”

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Wait, what? Now? Just now? Hasn’t the war been going on for almost three years now? Bush is just mappin’ this thing out at the end of 2005?

Bush maps out Iraq war strategy [AP via Philly.com]

Phantastic Photo!

113005sex.jpg Attention, Penn students: if you take photos of two people have public sex, you could risk, oh, charges of sexual harassment.

Some background, real quick: Penn has three high rises between 38th and 40th streets. Sometime last month two people had sex up against the window of one of them in their room (at left). And another kid, in another high rise, saw it, snapped a photo.

Naturally, it started making the rounds around campus through e-mail, and even got sent to alums like me. I considered posting it here, but eventually lost interest. And probably forgot. This was a while ago, though, and I hadn’t thought about it in forever. Until an article in today’s Daily Pennsylvanian, the Penn student newspaper:

What started out as two risque pictures has turned into a very serious matter for one Penn student.

According to confidential University memos obtained by The Daily Pennsylvanian, an Engineering junior — who snapped photos of two students appearing to have sex in the window of a Hamilton College House dorm room — currently faces sexual harassment and other charges from the University.

These photos and others were widely circulated via e-mail on Penn’s campus and one now appears on the popular Web site collegehumor.com.

The University has alleged that by featuring the photo on his personal Penn Web site, the photographer violated the school’s code of student conduct, sexual harassment policy and policy on acceptable uses of electronic resources.

Oh snap. This is just the start of something big, especially if the student gets in major trouble with the school.

Racy photo lands student in trouble [DP]