76ers Celebrate MLK Day With Rabbit

Above, the Philadelphia 76ers celebrate Martin Luther King Jr.’s legacy by throwing Hip Hop, their rabbit mascot, into giant bowling pins. Afterward, Eagles receiver Reggie Brown does not compare Dr. King to Donovan McNabb or Terrell Owens.

Philadelphia Will Do’s (Annual, Maybe?) Martin Luther King Day Spectacular!

While we honor George Washington by selling cars next month, today America honors great American civil rights leader Martin Luther King by closing government offices and making high school kids do a day of service.

A lot of us today are in this sort of limbo of whether today is a work day or not, especially bloggers like me who could possibly figure out how to explain to bosses that no one’s going to be reading the blog anyway, so I might as well sleep ’til Tuesday. (You’ll be sad to know The Bulletin isn’t publishing today, though they do have Papal mass tickets available.) Alas, though, I am already awake and might as well post throughout the day, though since I dunno who’s reading it I’ll probably write 2,000 words on the NFC Championship Game and different breeds of puppies and you will enjoy it. Oh, and the normal stupid shtick, of course; everything’s in play here during the PWDMLKDS!

The only other option is to write about how some local teens honored MLK day, and that’s just a lot less fun. Enjoy the collage of kings (”kings”) at right, including the headline of the year for 1990, “Million Dollar Man Spends A Rare Moment With Our Reporters.”

SEPTA Might As Well Spit In MLK’s Face

A letter in today’s Daily News addresses why we don’t really honor Martin Luther King because SEPTA has the audacity to run a weekday schedule:

I’ve never understood how we have a Martin Luther King Day, yet it still isn’t a holiday.

Dr. King has done more for us all than half the presidents we’ve had - or will have. But his day is not even a total national celebration.

They think that by giving the kids a day off from school and closing state and federal buildings and stopping mail from being delivered it’s good enough. Well, I’m here to say it isn’t!

I got up to go to work on that Monday morning because, unlike a real holiday when I’m actually off, I had to work. (No, I had the option of working, but what it really boils down to is if we are open, you are working.)

So I got on SEPTA and realized it was operating on a regular schedule, not a holiday one, which made it official that Jan. 15 was not a holiday, just Dr. King’s birthday. And it will forever be just that unless we stand up and do something.

There was a recent national day of grief for a president who died, but we can’t have a real national holiday for a man who gave his life to better the lives of all people in the world, not just black people, but white, pink, yellow and red?

We need to wake up and get our priorities straight because enough is enough.

Shakia Summers
Philadelphia

Yeah, I do think someone needs to get her priorities straight.

MLK Day is inadequate [Daily News]

Frankford? You sure?

Wow! Who woulda thunk it!

King’s dream is realized in Frankford [Northeast Times]

Blogicized: This is the end

• When it rains (during an apocalypse, of course, as I’ve been harping on today), some people get wet. And your umbrella might get ruined. But your co-workers will still ask you stupid questions. [Starting a Landslide in My Ego]

• Aww, doggies are so smart! They can tell the power’s out before anyone else! Or, well, I guess at the same time as we humans. Still, I bet this dog sensed the Apocalypse Philadelphia before I did. [Pesky'Apostrophe]

• This is awesome. It’s a transcript from Philly Indy Media of an event yesterday for MLK Day, and it’s like an extended church service with a cantor and responses. [Philly IMC]

• Speaking of the holiday, Martin Luther King Day really eased those racial tensions. I think. [Overheard in Philly]

• And, a very fun photograph of the Atlantic Building. [dragonballyee]

• And local pol Allyson Schwartz decides to vote for things she said she wouldn’t! A politician saying one thing and doing another? Well I never! [Attytood]

Blogicized: Welcome, Teddy!

• Uncle Ted (Turner, that is) is bringing his steakhouse to Philadelphia as the restaurant officially opens today at Broad and Spruce streets in the old Atlantic Richfield building. [Philadelphia Restaurants]

• None other than the Cos played Atlantic City over the weekend, and he was in “funny” mode, not “annoying” mode, apparently. [Freudian Slips]

• There’s a secret connection between weed and Fox 29, and it has something to do with a domain name squatter and other Internet goodness. [Blinq]

• And, hey, what better way to get ready for baseball season than by watching a Phillies prospect play in the Dominican Republic? [Beerleaguer]

• Who knew MLK was a master of the trick shot? [Young Philly Politics]

Answering complicated questions with a simple [yes/no]

Well, that settles it. Equality for all!

CBS 3

Quickies: A day on, not a day off

• The giant disembodied floating head of Martin Luther King, left, attempts to scare you into doing service on this federal holiday. [DN]

• New Jersey becomes the latest place to ban smoking in public spaces. Well, except for casinos. Naturally they get an exemption. (Also, you now can’t buy cigarettes until you’re 19.) [Inky]

• In war on smoke of a different kind, the Nottingham Fire Company in Bensalem is offering free college housing if you agree to become a volunteer fire fighter. And, as we all know, all the good colleges are in Bensalem. (Seriously, where could you go to school and live in Bensalem? Holy Family, I guess, but where else?) [KYW 1060]

• Yet another expose on snitchin’, although here it’s spelled with the more grammatically correct ‘g’ at the end. [Bucks County Courier Times]