Neighbors Shocked, Shockingly

What I love about stories like this one today about the Pottstown teenager accused of plotting a school attack are not just the awesome graphics they inspire from TV news stations. (An example, not from this story, is at right. It’s from ABC on a story I am far too lazy to go back and check.) And it’s not really that I’m happy a school shooting was thwarted, though that’s all well and good.

And it’s not even that these stories are sometimes on Philly.com, which sometimes has awesome side headlines like, “http://www.philly.com/philly/blogs/greenliving/Sustainable_seafood_Grocery_chains_still_falling_short.html”>Sustainable seafood: Grocery chains still falling short.”

No, what I really like are the quotes from shocked neighbors, friends, etc., about how they could never imagine said suspect (in this case, 15-year-old Pottstown High School freshman Richard Yanis) doing such a thing:

Neighbors of the Yanises said the young man was a familiar presence who seemed outgoing and friendly with other children.

One young man with whom Yanis sometimes played football, tag and video games said he was shocked by the accusations.

“I really don’t think he is the person who was going to do that,” Nat Creasy, 11, said. “He was always a nice kid.”

Brian J. Steer said that he had known Yanis since the family moved in across the street about seven years ago and that “the idea he would do anything along these lines, to me, is hard to believe.”

These are in every story like this, and in many stories about murders, and yet the quotes could have been pulled from the Random Shocked Quote Generator 10000, available from me for only four easy payments of $45.45. Does someone have to wear a black trenchcoat in order to commit a school shooting, like in that famous one 10 years ago?

I’m not quite sure what reporters should do; interviewing neighbors is part of the game, and I’m sure every once in a while somebody says, “Oh, yeah, that guy just arrested for ax murder was a real asshole.” And so that probably makes it worth it, even though the newspaper will change the quote to “real [bleep].”

In the meantime, act now: The RSQG 10000 has just been slashed to three easy payments of $45.45!

Pottstown teen accused of plotting school attack [Inquirer]

Things Are Tough All Over

There is one good thing about having the summer end when you’re 25: I don’t have to go back to school! Ha ha, you stupid kids get the summers off, but at least we adults (or, in my case, “adult”) don’t have to spend all our time learning! Plus, now that all the kids are heading back to class, the Gallery will be less crowded. Ha ha, just kidding.

Anyway, one of the schools heading back this week is Lower Merion High School, a rich public school out in the ‘burbs with such famous graduates as Kobe Bean Bryant of the Los Angeles Lakers and Dan Bean Gross of the Daily News. While the kids at LMHS probably already make more money and you and me do put together, at least we had parking when we were in high school. (Or at least I did.) Thanks to the construction of a new school building, there is no student parking at the school. Hey, it’s not like kids need to drive to school or anything. Erhm.

The school says it prefers its students get dropped off or walk to school, because… oh, man, I was all set to make fun of the LMHS kids when I started this story and instead it appears the administration is completely, 100 percent stupid here. The school actually even posted a video about the new traffic patterns at the school, to make themselves look even sillier.

Anyway, it’s not all bad news: The kids at LMHS will now get $30 parking tickets every day, KYW 1060 reports. Things like these make me feel better about not being in high school anymore, even though I’d probably be going on a hunger strike to protest were I a senior at that school right now.

For Returning Lower Merion HS Students It’s, Like Totally, a Parking Crisis [KYW 1060]

Actually Eating Good In The Neighborhood

The Illadelph points to a Philadelphia Business Journal story last week that should let all Philadelphians breathe a sigh of relief: Chain restaurants are largely avoiding Center City.

While Center City does have some chain restaurants, particularly steak houses, most of the big casual dining chains have swarmed to the suburbs. To the point, the nation’s two largest owners of casual dining restaurants — Darden Restaurants Inc. of Orlando and OSI Restaurant Partners LLC of Tampa, Fla. — have a combined 48 restaurants in the eight-county Philadelphia market, but only three are in Center City.

Yeah, there are some chains, but there is a difference between, say, Morton’s and the Olive Garden. Even Fado and Fox & Hound are on a different level than the Big Four (Applebee’s, the Olive Garden, T.G.I. Friday’s and Chili’s — did I miss anything?).

Anyway, apparently we have old people (who have enough money to eat at nice places or are grizzled enough to hate chain restaurants) and young people (who would rather drink at McGlinchey’s on the cheap) but not enough suburbanites. Imagine that, not enough suburbanites in the city! (But who’s living in all these condos?)

“Center City has a strong residential population,” some consulting firm president told the PBJ. “It’s mostly young and old, but not the middle, which is the market for casual dining.”

Somebody remind me when I’m 40 if I want to go to Applebee’s all the time that I’m a big sellout or whatever.

Tastes of Center City denizens prove, thankfully, to be far too refined for the likes of artless national chain restaurants [The Illadelph]
Chain restaurants expand in the suburbs, not in city [PBJ]

Back To School Jail

Now that Labor Day weekend is over, school is back in session for most of those little punk kids. If you’re not in school, remember it is our duty as members of the working world to laugh at these kids trudging back to boxy buildings to learn who Charlemagne was, a skill that will help you immensely down the road.

Anyway, it also means rich suburban public school districts are on the lookout for parents from Philadelphia who send their kids to better public schools in the suburbs. And what happens to those parents if they’re caught trying to give their kids a better education while defrauding a public school?

In some cases, Ferman says, districts hire people to set up surveillance and follow people to their homes. The warning: if you get caught, they will prosecute you.

A Norristown woman was sent to jail for sending her four kids to the Colonial School District.

Ha ha, sorry, kids! Now you have to go to Norristown High and live without a mom.

Local Officials Issue Warnings and Reminders As New School Year Begins [KYW 1060]

Breaking: Bored Teenagers Are Destructive

If you haven’t spent much time in the suburbs (or, alternatively, haven’t seen Stand By Me), you might not be familiar with the teenage art of mailbox destruction. In the suburbs, there’s not much else to do besides hang in basements and drink in the woods, so people come up with ridiculous games to play. One of them is going down a street and destroying mailboxes, with cherry bombs, baseball bats, rabid wolverines, whatever.

The Bucks County Courier Times has a big article about teen vandalism today, noting that it picks up in the summer because kids don’t have to go to school. It also notes that most kids don’t know why they destroy mailboxes and blah blah blah.

There’s also this sentence: “While there is only one way to throw an egg, there apparently are several ways to destroy a mailbox, according to police reports detailing the destruction.” Oh, come on — hasn’t this guy ever heard of an egg catapult?

Teen vandalism can come with high cost [Bucks County Courier Times]
[Image from the comic strip Gil Thorp]

Suburbanites Are Cul-De-Suckers

The Bucks County Courier Times today fills us all in on the number one problem facing America today. That is, of course, cul-de-sacs.

For those who don’t know, a cul-de-sac is the highly sensitive area behind the cervix that can cause female orgasm. No, wait! Wrong cul-de-sac! A cul-de-sac, at least for purposes of this article, is a suburban street (usually in a development) that separates has no outlet. Its purpose is to cut down traffic on residential streets.

Apparently, though, in recent years the cul-de-sac has become a menace, with New Urbanists (whoever they are) saying that the cul-de-sac actually increases traffic in suburban areas! Not on the cul-de-sac, of course, but on other roads in the area. Essentially, the anti-cul-de-sac movement is all part of the suburban backlash of the past 10 years or so.

Still, though, those New Urbanists can get pretty nasty:

Here and across the country, some municipalities have limited or banned cul-de-sacs altogether in favor of streets laid out in more orderly grids. And many urban planners view the suburban dead-end streets with a scorn usually reserved for, say, foot fungus.

“Cul-de-suck” is just one derisive nickname.

Just one? Oh, please, Courier Times, we demand a full list!

Are cul-de-sacs more of a nuisance than a benefit? [Bucks County Courier Times]