philly

Frank Nitty as Jacko?

Now, I really could care less about Jacko being in the news, but did anyone else see what Jacko wore to court today? While better than his crazy outfit with the shinguards and shoulder tassles, doesn't he look like Frank Nitty? As in Al Capone's right hand man played by Billy Drago in Brian De Palma's The Untouchables.

This trial could end in a footrace to the roof of the courthouse from which Jacko will be pushed off of the roof into his circa 1920s car in front of the courthouse which he was driven to straight from the Moonwalker music video set.

I'm just sayin... Things could happen.

Photo: Carlo Allegri/Getty Images

Students and the First Amendment

I was appalled but not all that shocked after reading this AP story on how knowledgeable American high school students were of the First Amendment.

[W]hen told of the exact text of the First Amendment, more than one in three high school students said it goes "too far" in the rights it guarantees. Only half of the students said newspapers should be allowed to publish freely without government approval of stories.

"These results are not only disturbing; they are dangerous," said Hodding Carter III, president of the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, which sponsored the $1 million study. "Ignorance about the basics of this free society is a danger to our nation's future."

The students are even more restrictive in their views than their elders, the study says.
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Three in four students said flag burning is illegal. It's not. About half the students said the government can restrict any indecent material on the Internet. It can't.

"Schools don't do enough to teach the First Amendment. Students often don't know the rights it protects," Linda Puntney, executive director of the Journalism Education Association, said in the report. "This all comes at a time when there is decreasing passion for much of anything. And, you have to be passionate about the First Amendment."

This has to be an aftereffect of all of this testing and less actual teaching and learning. Nationwide, mandatory, standardized tests. The dumbing down of America in action.

Zen Master to the Knicks?

I just read that rumors are starting to buzz about the Zen Master coaching the NY Bricks. This kind of rumor is always thrown into the fray whenever a NY sports team needs a new star player or a new manager since it is the biggest sports media market in the U.S. so I rarely get my hopes up.

I don't really follow the NBA until after the Super Bowl is over and it's a week or two before the All-Star game. Why? Because there are just too many games in the season and they don't really start gelling and kicking into 5^th gear. The first half of the season is just atrocious. And with constant expansion and rule changes, the game is just getting sloppier and sloppier. Now, I'm not saying that the way Americans play ball should be more like a Soviet-like rigid scheme, but there has to be a little more emphasis on the basics. Everyone says this, but little is done.

I don't know how much good Jackson could do in NY. With so many huge contracts that cannot be unloaded in the next 50 years, there's just no room for new players to come in and make a difference. And who knows if this 59-year-old and very happy in retirement Zen Master wants to come back to face the onslought of the NY media. But the sentimentality of his old Knickerbocker days of yore may be enough to bring him back.

SEPTA and Slots

The Daily News reports on Tim Kearney's plan for permanently funding public mass transit using the profits from the soon-to-be slots halls.

My idea is to take the first $300 million of the $1.6 billion that will go into the pockets of private owners of the state's 14 slots parlors every year and dedicate it to funding mass transit in Pennsylvania.

According to Kearney, SEPTA is and has been run by Repugs throughout its history and it was Repugs who have accrued this deficit without appropriate safeguards in the past. And now, those same Repugs refuse to fund the ailing program.

Q: What's your beef with [state House Speaker John] Perzel (R-Phila) regarding mass transit?

A: Perzel is a powerful Republican. SEPTA is run by Republicans and has been throughout its history. The SEPTA board has always been controlled by Republicans and SEPTA is filled with Republican patronage jobs. If there's waste, it's Republican waste. If there's misuse of money, it has to be laid at Republican feet. So I find it particularly disturbing that Republican legislators in Harrisburg, like Perzel, won't properly fund the system that they've run for more than 30 years.

An interesting proposal for the use of private funding. Let's see how much backing this gets in the coming weeks and months.

Birthday Meal

Methinks I'll have a 'steak from Pat's on my birthday Thursday. Perhaps a midnight trip there to ring in my birthday.

The big 2-5.

Crossfire Going off the Air

Well, if you haven't heard already, CNN's Crossfire is going off the air after twenty-three years. A pretty good run for a television show. I can't think of many that have been on longer. But what was it that finally did them in? Many people cite Jon Stewart's awesome appearance [.wmv] as the last straw.

Here's L.A. Times' Op-Ed / Editorial Page editor Michael Kinsley's take on the end of Crossfire. He even calls Jon Stewart America's "philosopher-king."

It is certainly true that if intellectual sophistication is what you're looking for, the New York Review of Books might be a better choice than the McLaughlin Group. And if, as a journalist, you want to explore and analyze an issue, the New Republic or the Los Angeles Times editorial page (two other places I have worked) are of course better forums than "Hannity and Colmes" or "Hardball."

But the conversation of democracy is conducted on multiple levels, and there is a trade-off. An article in the New Republic is a topical lotion on the body politic that may or may not penetrate down to the vital organs. An appearance on "Bill O'Reilly" is an injection straight to the heart. (To pursue this tortured analogy, decorous broadcast venues like Charlie Rose or Terry Gross' "Fresh Air" are like Lasik surgery, or maybe liposuction, or … heck, I give up.)

The conceit that there are exactly 2.0 sides to every question, one "left" and one "right," is a genuine flaw of "Crossfire"-type shows. So is their Groundhog Day quality: The argument goes on forever, nobody's mind is ever changed. But this format has a great advantage over other variations of TV talking-head journalism in terms of intellectual honesty.

And speaking of political talk shows, on Meet the Press in 10 hours, John Kerry will be the guest. Let's see what this quitter has to say for himself in his first television interview since quitting on America.

Heroin Town

First time director Josh Goldbloom sprung into action after watching Dan Rather's rather scathing report entitled Heroin Town. Here's the intro to his piece

This is a story about a small town in New England that has a problem you’d never expect.

Heroin. It’s a problem that has existed for decades.

It’s been so bad for so long that some people call the place "Heroin Town."

Spend some time there, and you’ll begin to understand why the war on drugs has been such a failure. Dan Rather reports.

I saw the report and it was pretty dramatic. I remember thinking, hey, where's the other side of this story? I don't recall them speaking to any of the residents in a positive light.

Lady took me out to see the film last night in her hometown of Willimantic, CT a.k.a. Heroin Town. Technically speaking, the film was pretty lacking. It was basically Goldbloom with a handheld DV cam and some mics. Lots of camera shake, poor exposure settings and no white balance. But the content was good and that's what's most important in a documentary. As long as the filming process doesn't take care of the content, I won't really complain.

The film focused on the residents of the Hotel Hooker featured in the 60 Minutes story. While 60 Minutes focused on the negative side, Goldbloom focused on the positive side. The residents who were trying to better themselves. There was Toni who was an admitted heroin addict, but she wanted to start winning the battle. She said that she knew that she would never get over her addiction in the long run, but she wanted to beat it if for only a little while.

There was Pat, a somtimes cross-dressing gay man who used to be hooked on smack, but has since been a part of a methadone program.

There was Rose who had lived and worked at the hotel for ten years.

There was Mike who was once homeless, but had since checked into the hotel and is on a fixed income vie the state.

This wasn't exactly the most balanced documentary, but it did give the other side of the story that 60 Minutes left out.

I don't think this will be on a nationwide theatrical release, but who knows. If you do get a chance to see it, see it. It's a great story of a small town that was bulldozed by 60 Minutes without being able to tell their own side of the story to a national media. This film is their testament to the good that goes on inside of their town. Everyone has their faults, but to point them out does not make you the better person. To point them out and then stay around and help improve and fix those problems takes effort and CBS sure as hell didn't want to do that. Too bad.

For more info on the documentary, here's Goldbloom's Heroin Town site.

Up in CT for the Weekend

Hopefully, I'll be able to get out just enough to take some photos outside of Philly. It's nice to go somewhere newish and take some photos and take a break from my Illy stomping grounds for a bit. But it is oh so cold outside. We'll see.

Let's see if I can get a nice shot of the Romantic Willimantic Frog Bridge. You gotta see it to believe it. On another note, Willimantic, CT is also known as... Heroin Town!

Sometimes, Dreams Do Come True

Jeff Thomason's dream was just answered. He's going to play in the Super Bowl for the Eagles. What's so special about his story? Earlier this week, he was training to become a project manager for Toll Brothers construction company.

He enjoyed a 10-year NFL career as a tight end where he played for the Bengals, the Packers and finally the Eagles from 2000-2002. But the Eagles selected a tight end from Temple in the 2002 draft and Thomason was released. After one more tryout with the Panthers in 2003, he hung up his cleats and went home to NJ to look for a "real" job. He was nine months into the training program when current Eagles tight End Chad Lewis gave him a call on Monday morning.

Thomason and Lewis became good friends while they were teamates from '00-'02 and have remained friends since. Lewis injured his foot in the NFC title game and when the results of his tests came back, he was told he would need surgery. Lewis called Thomason to tell him the bad news, but then sprung some godo news too: he wanted Thomason to take his place in the Supr Bowl. A few calls and a few days later, Thomason passed his physical, learned the playbook and was on the practice field with the rest of the team.

He'll be playing in the Super Bowl next Sunday and he'll have the City of Philadelphia cheering him on, just like it was a few short years ago. Who knows if he'll play well enough to be offered a long-term contract from the Eagles or another team, but he'll always have the experience in playing in the Big Dance and who knows, he may even get a nice ring out of it.

This just made my day. Go Iggles!

Cheney's Formal Coat

I first heard about Cheney's attire at yesterday's gathering at Auschwitz on Air America Radio this morning and saw the images on Eschaton. Here's the link to today's Washington Post story.

Cheney stood out in a sea of black-coated world leaders because he was wearing an olive drab parka with a fur-trimmed hood. It is embroidered with his name. It reminded one of the way in which children's clothes are inscribed with their names before they are sent away to camp. And indeed, the vice president looked like an awkward boy amid the well-dressed adults.

Like other attendees, the vice president was wearing a hat. But it was not a fedora or a Stetson or a fur hat or any kind of hat that one might wear to a memorial service as the representative of one's country. Instead, it was a knit ski cap, embroidered with the words "Staff 2001." It was the kind of hat a conventioneer might find in a goodie bag.

It is also worth mentioning that Cheney was wearing hiking boots -- thick, brown, lace-up ones. Did he think he was going to have to hike the 44 miles from Krakow -- where he had made remarks earlier in the day -- to Auschwitz?
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Some might argue that Cheney was the only attendee with the smarts to dress for the cold and snowy weather. But sometimes, out of respect for the occasion, one must endure a little discomfort.

Just last week, in a frigid, snow-dusted Washington, Cheney sat outside through the entire inauguration without so much as a hat and without suffering frostbite. And clearly, Cheney owns a proper overcoat. The world saw it during his swearing-in as vice president. Cheney treated that ceremony with the dignity it deserved -- not simply through his demeanor, but also through his attire. Would he have dared to take the oath of office with a ski cap on? People would have justifiably considered that an insult to the office, the day, the country.

A little tasteless? Remember when you were younger and you didn't want to dress up for church, funeral, family event, what-have-you, but your mom or dad said that you have to and you'd understand later why? It's just respect. And Dick just didn't show any class yesterday at the chilling anniversary of the atrocities committed at Auschwitz.

Photo: Herbert Knosowski/AP