Can We Wear Obama On A Bandana? YES WE CAN!

Let’s start this inauguration off right: With this wonderful accessory my wonderful girlfriend purchased for me today near 30th Street Station. There’s even a website address on it in case you really need one of these. Ha ha, the Obama Pepsi knockoff logos in the corner! And the little sheep holding the Obama flag! Man, not even president yet and he’s already broken the record for presidential commemorative merchandise.

I’ll also direct you to this incredible faux-Warhol shirt Erica bought. Look, the inauguration is pretty cool, and Obama’s “Georgia 300″ train is really awesome, but I think it’s all the people trying to make a buck that are really getting into the true spirit of America. It almost makes a man want to cry.

Joe Biden’s speaking in Wilmington. He just quoted James Joyce: “When I die, Delaware will be written in my heart.”

Google ‘Obama Looking Hopeful’

Everyone’s a-writin’ about Obama again, what with the inauguration coming up next week. (I voted “No” on that Facebook poll, by the way.) From Inquirer photographer Tom Gralish comes the story of the photo behind the Obama “HOPE” poster, made by Shepard Fairey. Turns out it’s a Reuters photo by Jim Young, shot in 2007, of Obama during the confirmation hearings for Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte.

Fun story, plus it’s so appropriate that the enduring image of the 2008 campaign is, in essence, a stolen Reuters photo found with a Google Image Search and then flipped horizontally. I can only hope Fairey was using a bootleg copy of Photoshop as well.

The Obama Poster Photographer ID’d [Scene on the Road]
Image via Mike Webkist used under a Creative Commons license

Protesting Philly Residents Have Incredible Signage

Huge ups to whoever made this sign It’s Our City called “mean-spirited” (no way!) at Monday’s budget cuts town meeting with the mayor. Just when I thought the stupid “HOPE” meme was finished, it turns out there are a lot more ways to go with this. “CHANGE Your plan for budget cuts” would also have worked.

But as the WHYY blog points out, “Top it off, this is an area that has fought ground wars before i.e. Sugarhouse Casino. That war is still going on.” I can’t believe we’ll soon have our 1,000th casualty of the Great Casino War.

[via]

Philadelphia Will Do Update

Hi everyone! Sorry for the lack of posting lately; I saw the sign above outside yesterday (the Obama office is upstairs, in case you forgot) and it made me laugh so hard I broke a rib. Okay, no, the real deal: A combination of a deluge of spam comments and the nearly 8,000 posts I’ve done in three years has made it impossible to post.

But there is hope! (And change!) Soon, Philadelphia Will Do will be undergoing a complete overhaul: New blog publishing system (WordPress) and new design (it’s all purty and doesn’t include half of Camden). It’s all pretty slick: Even permalinks to old pages should just redirect to the new WordPress post that’d been copied over. What an age we live in.

This should all be moved over by Monday, so youse will get to read all my lame jokes, hilarious abridgments of Daily News columnists and all the other random stuff I’ve been attempting to write about the past week or two.

We’ve turned comments off temporarily in an attempt to allow me to post the rest of the day. Keep F5′ing furiously, please.

Update: Hmm, looks like it wasn’t comments killing the system this time. I won’t bore you with my technical troubles and will just give you this update instead: Monday morning, we’ll have a new site design! And be able to post! And you will all just eat it up! Or maybe you’ll all protest the site’s new look and eventually I’ll be fired because nobody will be reading anymore.

I’m the kind of guy who will get really motivated by something like a redesign, even though I really don’t know why. The design guys did a really great job on the new look; hopefully I can match its brilliance with some really great jokes about Philly.com commenters. I mean, really, have you seen some of the comments on this one? It’s like they’re improving superficially but actually getting much, much worse.

Obama To Make All Gas Free

Hey, let’s post some more political ads. Look, it’s some union PAC (or whatever) sponsoring an ad where people tell you gas prices are high and that Barack Obama will magically make them lower. So it’s essentially the same thing as that other Barack Obama ad, except this one is from an independent group.

Yes, he doesn’t take money from oil companies! We know that already! Now will you people just tell us if he hates America or not?

Liveblogging The Debate Tonight

PW endorses Obama today in the paper in our political issue today; indeed, everybody is thinking about politics all over Philadelphia!

Why, tonight is the only debate before the Pennsylvania primary, and I will be liveblogging it along with PW’s Alli Katz. To celebrate my new drug column, I will also be doing several lines of hope and shots of change beforehand, and drinking bitter beer.

Obama Poster Scares Oldheads

By now you have most definitely seen the image in the photo at right, which the Daily news Clout column mentioned today. Apparently, it makes Barack Obama look like a totalitarian leader to people over the age of 35 or so, since they are not familiar Shepard Fairey’s Obey posters, what this is obviously a total homage to.

And, hey, what do you know! The poster is designed by Shepard Fairey, the “Andre the Giant has a posse” artist. (There are obviously other artsy Obama posters that kinda look like this as well.) Even though this poster is pretty much the least annoying thing about supporters of Barack Obama, people are upset and angry about it. They find it creepy, even though it’s about 100 times less creepy that Obama just making shit up in his ads and a million billion trillion times less creepy than anything John McCain or Hillary Clinton will ever do.

Of course, most people don’t make rational decisions, so I will not be surprised if this poster is directly responsible for President John McCain.

Clout: Obama mania: Is this 2008 … or 1984? [Daily News]
Semi-related: Barack Obama as re-imagined by Time’s Joe Klein [Attytood]

Obama Just Loves Steel Workers

Hey, here’s Barack Obama’s new ad. If you’re like me, the more you see Barack Obama’s ads, the less you like him. This ad opens with the line: “I moved to Chicago to help workers whose lives were torn apart when steel plants like this one left town.” Really? Did you hover on the power of hope and change to get to Chicago just to help stranger steelworkers?

Good thing Hillary Clinton’s ads are just as unintentionally loathesome and Walnuts! McCain is, well, Walnuts! McCain.

New Obama Ad [PA Votes Blog]

Obama Exploiting Hopeful Poor For Change

Barack Hussein Obama has the charm, the looks, the delegate lead. But things aren’t all blow and weed for the presidential front-runner: His name sorta makes him sound like he could be a terrorist (as first reported in Metro in 2006), he has a friend who’s on trial in Chicago for throwing puppies and both Satan and Osama bin Laden have offered their support.

Still, things are pretty good: In February Obama raised $55 million, roughly the equivalent of eleven Ron Paul Liberty Dollar money bombs. So with a cool 55 mil in the bank just from last month, why is Obama charging the hopeful poor for campaign signs? Clark DeLeon writes on his blog:

I stood next to a young woman offering herself as a volunteer at the reception desk at Obama’s Philadelphia headquarters on the fourth floor of former bank building a 15th and Sansom Sts. in Center City. She asked for a Barack Obama poster to put in her front yard in Powelton Village. She was told that such a sign would cost her five dollars. And she paid.

“I felt guilty,” she said later, noting that when she worked as a volunteer for Chaka Fattah during his run for mayor of Philadelphia no one ever charged her for campaign posters. She didn’t have to add that she also felt stupid and vaguely insulted. Five dollars for a campaign poster? This is change? Earlier that same week a middle aged city employee and District Council 47 union activist used her lunch hour to stop by Obama’s newly opened Sansom Street headquarters (right above PW!—dmac) to ask for an Obama for President sign to put in her South Philly rowhouse window. She was treated like a bag lady trying to get over on Ebay. “You people come in here expecting free material,” said a shockingly unpleasant man.

Barack Obama clearly is coming up with a backup plan here: If he doesn’t win the presidency, at least he’ll have all the money in the country. Clearly, this is a good plan.

What’s up wid dat? [The Daily DeLeon]

Listen To The Commandments Of Favre

I’ve been in a self-imposed Brett Favre media blackout all week, but Green Bay native Jacqui Banaszynski’s column today hit me right in the face when I thought i was in a Favre-free zone, Poynter.org.

Anyway, apparently we journalists are supposed to throw a bunch of the worst-timed interceptions of all time and get addicted to something. Hey, wait, that kinda already sounds like journalists!

Oh, and No. 11 (yes, this is an 11-item list) says Favre “inspired hope.” I’m going to change my name to Favre Hussein Hopeful, Changemonger; I’ll be president in no time.

How Brett Favre Could Save Journalism, If Only We Would Pay Attention [Poynter]