Phillies Fever: Catch It!

Gannett reports on the popularity of Phillies merchandise with the team’s second straight NL East title. (Sign of the poor economic times: No one at Modell’s is even interviewed!)

The Phillies will put their logo on anything, including a knock-off off those popular “Stop Snitchin’” t-shirts the kids are wearing. Only it’s “Stop Phillies Country.” (Both shirts, directly or indirectly, promise danger to those in noncompliance.)

The owner of the Sports Depot on the Black Horse Pike said he ordered 1,000 Phillies pennants and has only 70 left. And (gasp!) Phillies merch even outsold Eagles stuff (no thanks to the blimp cam) at his store. The two authors of this piece also notify us of a store called “Hello Sports Fans.”

Fans flock to S.J. stores for Phillies merchandise [Gannett/Courier-Post]

This Is Even More Dangerous Than Stop Snitchin’

Crime Watch Community Sign - $15 [Craigslist]

Leftovers: Donovan Not Invited To T.O. Bash

• Jevon Kearse wasn’t at the Eagles’ game Monday night because he was at Terrell Owens’ birthday party. He hung out with Chris Rock, Penny Marshall and Bobby Brown, and was looking for Bobby Brown’s mistress. No word if Freddie Mitchell was there. [Inquirer]

• ; And, it turns out that, indeed, snitches don’t just get stitches, they get shot three times in the head. But, hey, the people at the McDonald’s say he got what he deserved, so I guess they’re right. Er. [Inquirer]

• Annnd you knew it was coming: Taco Bell is being sued by a guy who got E. coli. And if you want a joke, then you’re out of luck — it’s Friday afternoon and I think my brain left at around 2:15. [AP/6 ABC]

See No Evil, Et Cetera

The Daily News crime blog, Philly Confidential, recently reported a few extra facts about a shooting last week.

The shooting, which occured June 15, began when a man was sitting on his step with his baby. Then a guy came up and fired 50 shots. Quite a story, eh? Well here’s what happened when the reporters and cops showed up:

“I didn’t even know someone got shot,” one wrinkled woman said with a straight face, even though her porch was about 30 yards from the shooting. You didn’t hear the first shot? The fortieth? “No, I only heard the cops when they got here.”

When Philly Confidential overheard another woman telling her friends about what she heard and/or saw, we ambled over. Turns out we must have been imagining things. “I was inside,” was her curt response. “Why, did something happen?”

In the interest of not snitchin, I think I’ll leave this one without a punchline.

Creep Shoots At Dad, Baby [Philly Confidential]

Five-Year-Olds Already Snitchin’

Let’s say you’re a parent — and, yes, for me and for a section of my readers that’s a fairly scary thought, but just pretend — and you’re on your way to a birthday party at your son’s school. What’s one thing you wouldn’t do?

If you said “Well, I wouldn’t hide my weed in my son’s schoolbag before school, and I wouldn’t come to the party possibly high,” you win the prize! I’m not sure what that prize is, but it doesn’t involve being arrested, as Serena Gills is after her five-year-old son went up to a teacher and said, “Mommy’s weed is in my bag.”

The teacher notified police, who confronted Gills when she got to the party. They said she smelled of marijuana and they found a half-smoked blunt in her purse.

Gills, you may remember, is the mother of Erica Pratt, the then-seven-year-old girl who was kidnapped in 2002 and then managed to escape her bumbling captors, immediately becoming one of the coolest seven-year-olds ever.

Here’s what we’re thinking, though: Although what the mom did was really effing stupid, her son was the one who told on her. Clearly, she needs to get him a “Snitch and Die” t-shirt, pronto.

Mom Arrested at Son’s School Party [6 ABC]

Leftovers: Snitchin’ Ain’t Bitchin’

• Ex-Rick Mariano lawyer Nino Tinari is now a consultant with Philip Chartock’s defense team, who are now saying Mariano was simply a thief and not someone who could have been bribed. There are so many stories that you just can’t make up today. It’s been too much. [Inky]

• Despite all this, here’s the headline of the day: “NFL Great’s Relative Admits Having Sex With Student.” Yes, and it’s George Halas’ great-nephew. That’s a bit of a stretch. [NBC 10]

• How do you publicize next month’s Phillymag issue? Why, you publish the article about Donald Trump online, because what we really need is to read more about him! The kicker, though: The article’s effing detailed, well-sourced and actually just tremendously interesting. One of the better things I’ve read in a while. Yes, I know. Black is white, and down is up. I can’t figure out what the hell’s going on, either. [Phillymag]

• Ex-MTV jock Chris Booker is headed to Q102, and the straight ladies and the gay men scream. Meanwhile, everyone else is like, “Holy shit! Q102 still exists?” [Inky]

• This story has everything: A ridiculous interpretation of spelling bee rules, a lot of angry parents, a lot of angry parent backlash and a newspaper editor accusing another newspaper of doing hack jobs on the spelling bee his paper sponsored. It’s the scandal of the century in the Lehigh Valley! [A List Of Things Thrown Five Minutes Ago]

• A woman in Bucks County has topped that whole newsstand stealing thing: She stole a whole house. She didn’t get a crane to pick it up or anything, though — check fraud is not nearly as cool. [AP/Inky]

How Shameful Joy Can Help You Get A Life, Get Kissed, And Give You A Nice Easy Blog Entry Topic

Yesterday, I noted that I wasn’t feeling much, if any, schadenfreude over the resignation and coming jailing of Rick Mariano. Well I’ve come to tell youse all today with a simple retort: Fuck that.

You see, this morning we’re feeling so much schadenfreude we’re speaking in the third person and we’ve copied the word “schadenfreude” so we can keep using it over and over without accidentally spelling it wrong. Schadenfreude, schadenfreude, schadenfreude. See how fun it is?

Oh, so why are we feeling this way? Two things, mainly. First is a national story, one you may have heard about. Harvard sophomore — and we’re going to have to be copying and pasting this too — Kaavya Viswanathan’s first novel, How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild, and Got a Life (which she got a $500,000 advance for), happened to not be entirely her work. Specifically, she seemed to have copied passages from two works, Sloppy Firsts and Second Helpings, by Megan McCaffrey McCafferty.

Of course, then she came out and said she merely “internalized” the earlier novels. Oh, sure. That’s it.

After that lame-o non-apology, she can only get into more trouble now. Hence the extreme schadenfreude we’re feeling today.

The other story we’re feeling kind of happy about today is that of Devonzo Dawson, who was arrested yesterday. He was arrested for, oh, telling his daughter that she didn’t see anything right before she went to the witness stand.

And not only is that witness intimidation, that’s bold witness intimidation. And really effing stupid witness intimidation. And we happen to think it’s kind of funny he got arrested. And we’re feeling a lot of schadenfreude today.

Ahh, that felt good.

Student’s Novel Faces Plagiarism Controversy [Harvard Crimson]
After duplicated words, words of apology [Boston Globe]
Witness’ father is charged over her recanting [Inky]
Yesterday: Denoument: Rick Mariano
March 8: Stop snitchin’: The saga continues

Yes, But The Real Reason People Don’t Testify Is A T-Shirt That Tells Them Not To

After testifying, teen shot dead [Daily News]

Effectiveness of Stop Snitchin’ t-shirts greatly exaggerated

It seemed like every day in the Faheem Thomas Childs trial, another witness would recant on the stand. At least eight witnesses in all just got up and decided that their previous statements implicating Kennell Spady and Kareem Johnson were untrue, coerced, fake, whatever.

From this trial, a few things are clear. (1) Something fishy was going on with all those witnesses and (2) Even with Stop Snitchin’ t-shirts o’er the land, people can still be found guilty:

Two men were found guilty Thursday of fatally shooting a 10-year-old boy outside his elementary school, a case that bedeviled authorities for months because witnesses were reluctant to come forward.

Kennell Spady, 21, and Kareem Johnson, 22, were charged with first-degree murder for their roles in a wild gunfight that caught Faheem Thomas-Childs in the crossfire, killing him as he walked to school on Feb. 11, 2004.

The non-jury trial over the past several weeks had been a nightmare for prosecutors, with at least eight witnesses recanting their statements to police. One woman allegedly was coached by her father as she took the stand to say, “I don’t remember.”

Oh, yeah, and (3) Spady and Johnson should have gotten a jury trial.

Guilty Verdicts In Faheem Thomas-Childs Case [KYW/AP]
March 9: Stop Snitchin’: This is the song that never ends

Stop Snitchin’: This is the song that never ends

Jesus. I could just write the same thing as yesterday. And if I finish this in five minutes I can post it at the same time, too.

Let’s jump right in:

For instance, Russell Brown, 42, said yesterday he couldn’t remember any details he had given to investigators in a five-page statement he signed in 2004.

“I don’t remember seeing anything,” Brown said. “That was a long time ago. I don’t know where I was at when the shots were fired. [...]

According to his signed statement, Brown said he had witnessed loud talking between a man named Cassius Broaster and defendant Kareem Johnson. He said he had seen Johnson pull out a pistol and run up a street and then he “heard shots, lots of shots.”

But yesterday, Brown’s memory came up empty. “That was a long time ago,” he said.

Hmm… you’d think there’s some sort of a pattern here, but I can’t quite put my finger on it. Maybe someone should look into it.

Editor’s Note: Four minutes! So posted a minute earlier than yesterday’s.

Despite his signed statement, another witness ‘goes south’ [DN]
Yesterday: Stop snitchin’: The saga continues