philly

New Kids on Dem Block

Headline writers... Can't live with them, can't live without them.

That's the headline of an article in today's Daily News. I'm in it. It's about the young progressive movement going on here in Philly. And if you actually buy the paper for 60¢, you'll be treated to a pic of me, Hannah and Chris. Puzzling why Philly.com doesn't post all the photos that make it into the paper, maybe that's just the premium for the paper version. Aside from my own ego pumping, there is some juicy stuff in there.

Chris noted how we've come across quite a bit of pushback

We have received significant and very disturbing pushbacks from city committee... It's extremely counterproductive when you consider that a vast majority of what we're doing is challenging for seats where no one is doing anything.

Lucey [the writer] asked Congressman Bob Brady, the Philadelphia Democratic party chairman, about the pushback and he had this to say:

I'm not aware of it, nor am I concerned about it... Everybody has the right to run.

That's really funny. REALLY FUCKING FUNNY. Why? Because I remember being passed a few letters via a friend. One of them from the desk of Bob Brady, on Philadelphia Democratic Executive Committee letterhead and all that stated:

It has come to my attention that there is an organized effort to file petitions to become a Democratic committee person in many wards in the city. It is clear that this effort has been started by forces that seek to polarize and destroy this party. I strongly urge you to oppose their efforts. I suggest that you immediately notify me at City Committee of the divisions where this has occurred. I will have the petition reviewed to determine if it is defective. If it is, I will assist you in filing a petition with the Common Pleas Court to have the person stricken from the ballot on behalf of your designated candidate in that division.

We are a family united. As your leader and friend, I will fight to make sure we remain united.

I will also prepare withdrawal slips for these individuals that filed and I will try to have them withdrawn.

Does he not recall the letter he wrote and signed on March 8, 2005? It's shit like this that makes Hannah's words ring so true:

The Democratic Party will wither and die unless active people get involved.

I know of much nastier stuff going on than a simple letter.

And the ending of the story is just priceless with a quote from Terry Gillen, 30th ward leader. She sent out a letter of her own in defense of the sitting committeepeople which said, in part:

I wanted to pass along a letter from the Chairman of our Democratic Party, Bob Brady. He is concerned that many committeeperson throughout the City are being challenged by outsiders who are trying to created division within the Democratic Party and within some of our wards and divisions. I personally believe that some of the people who are doing this are working hand in hand with the republican [sic] Party.

This week, some committeepeople may receive a notice that their petition is being challenged in court. If you receive this notice, let me assure you that Bob and I and the Democratic Party will go to court and fight to make sure that you can run for reelection. Democratic Party lawyers will argue your case for free in order to keep your name on the ballot. We will do this because we all need to stick together and fight these people who want to divide us.

Let me know as soon as soon as possible if you receive a legal challenge of if you believe that someone is trying to remove your name from the ballot.

If we stick together we can stay strong. We won't play into the Republicans' hands and allow anyone to divide us!

The story ended with this:

What I hope doesn't happen is you have people knocking off longtime committeepeople and then dropping out in two years because it's boring.

It seems that she has failed to notice how her us are the ones who are now bored with the job and not doing a thing now. That's why we're running. The Party is broken here in Philadelphia. It is rotting from the inside out. I'm proud to say that I'm part of the fresh blood that wants to gut this rotting tree and plant a new forest of progressive change.

To think that people running for committeeperson are doing it for shits and giggles and aren't really committed to the job is such fucking bullshit. Who wants to take on another job wich pays nothing; takes up a good chunk of time in election cycles; is the first contact from the private citizens; and did I mention this is basically a volunteer gig which pays nothing? Committeepeople are almost a free customer service department for the city. Don't like the pothole on your block? Walk up to your committeeperson in the grocery store and tell them. A stop sign fall down? Knock on your committeeperson's door and tell them. Need help trying to get a cutout in a sidewalk? Let your committeeperson know and s/he'll send it up the ladder. What crazy fucks want that job? Crazy fucks like me. And crazy fucks like me have more crazy friends who are also running. Thank you everyone who is are committed to and running for change: Chris, Danie, Sabra, Marc, Stephanie, Andrea, Robin, Hannah, Sam...

McClellan Resigns, Bush Looks Forward to Reminiscing

White House Press Secretary Scott "Flounder" McClellan has resigned. Dubya had these idiotic words:

Bush said McClellan had "a challenging assignment."

"I thought he handled his assignment with class, integrity," the president said. "It's going to be hard to replace Scott, but nevertheless he made the decision and I accepted it. One of these days, he and I are going to be rocking in chairs in Texas and talking about the good old days."

The fucking "good old days" — holy shit. Doesn't that sound just bat-fucking-shit insane?

Yeah, remember those good old days where we raped the world for billions? How we lead the world to war on false pretenses? How we caught that guy, what's his name, oh wait... we never did catch that what's his name guy did we? How we killed the middle class of America? How we liberated all those Arabs? How we saved all those people during Hurricane Katrina? How we... what were we talking about? Oh yes, the "good old days" that's right...

Jeff Fusco PW Photog

Jeff Fusco, the staff photographer for Philadelphia Weekly is my favorite photojournalist here in the Philly area bar none. It was his photography that pulled me towards PW over the City Paper when Lady and I moved down to Philly almost two years ago. No offense to Mike Regan, his stuff is wonderful, but there's just an extra something to Fusco's shots for me. The above shot from Monday's immigration rally shows his greatness. I bumped into him in the fray, I was hoping he'd be there for awhile and he was. We chatted for a sec and I've been waiting for the shots ever since and he didn't let me down.

The rest of the online exclusive essay is wonderful [the shot of the little boy in full dress and the man screaming above the 'silencio' sign are two other favs], but this image sticks out for me. He's got emotion, he's documenting the rally itself with the prominent Mexican and US flags flying overhead, the sun is diffused through the flag offering up some not too harsh light and I think he's got some additional fill flash from the camera centered on the man's face and left arm.

I love everything about the photo. The only thing I don't like is that I didn't take it.

Photography drives a paper/magazine. Even if the writing of a publication starts to dip in quality, if the photography stays top notch, it'll continue to stay relevant. That's what an old boss of mine at VIBE told me and that's how VIBE was able to stay relevant for so long, he said. Their photography assignments and editing kept them at the top. PW's writing is top notch [so is CP's], but honestly, it's Fusco's photography that keeps me looking out for the yellow boxes every Wednesday. Seeing his stuff online is great, but nothing beats the full tabloid-page shots inside the book.

And congrats to the local alt weeklies for raking in a shitload of 2006 Keystone Press Awards in Division VI [.pdf].

Bitchin Korean Director

So I'm home in NY for my mom's birthday [it was yesterday and we feasted!] and that means I get to read the physical, paper version of the NY Times Magazine! Oh how I love this thing. It is probably my single favorite thing to read. Sure I can read it online, but there's something about it. I love to just sit down and read the longer articles while not sitting in front of a screen.

This week, there's a cover story on El Salvador. Why El Salvador? Because they are a nation that criminalizes abortion. I haven't read it yet, but that's next and should prove to be very interesting as that is where this country of ours is heading, and quickly.

The first article I read was this one on Park Chanwook, a newish Korean director known for his über violent revenge themed films. It played in the 2005 Philadelphia Film Festival, but it was sold out the three times I went to see it. It came out on DVD last month and I bought it and watched it on the edge of my seat. I don't think I wrote about my thoughts on that film, I should do that later...

The article took me deeper into Park's mind and the experiences that formed his filmmaking tendencies of today. He spoke of his own guilt in sitting idly by during his childhood as he saw his peers protesting in the streets of Korea during an oppressive state. The article discussed several of his other films which I now very much want to find, buy and watch. This genre of 'Asian Extreme' is a large genre which clumps together probably more than it should, but Park's films belong squarely within it methinks.

It's always interesting to read articles focussing on directors, creative people in general. In particular, articles on people whose work I've taken in and enjoyed. Whether it be film, photo, audio or whatnot. I very much enjoyed doing several interviews over on Philly Future with some local photographers. I gotta work on a new one, but maybe next month after I get some breathing room after the May 16th Democratic primary.

PA Senate Debate

Arg, I was busy for the second half of Friday and I'm at home now in NY and I didn't get a chance to watch the debate between Chuck Pennacchio, Bob Casey and Alan Sandals. But I'm told that the audio of the event will be posted on the PCN Podcast page. I look forward to that. I'll give it a thorough listen and offer my thoughts then.

But for now, initial thoughts can be read and shared at the Pennacchio blog and eRobin of Factesque liveblogged it.

The AP article on the debate.

G-Ho

Easily one of my favorite photoblogs out there, let alone here in Philly is Brad Maule's PhillySkyline.com. A collection of incredible photo essays of Philly's myriad neighborhoods and beyond. I interviewed him at Philly Future a few months back and got to learn a little more about him in the process which was really cool. And today, everyone can read about him in the Metro on his quest to rename the Graduate Hospital area "G-Ho" as he stated in this photo essay.

Go grab a copy of the Metro and look at the bottom of the front page or download this .pdf of the whole paper.

Help Brad spread the word and convince the South of South Neighborhood Association to adopt G-Ho! Yes, the name is one part joke, but also at least one part reality. Sometimes it's something as stupid as a catchy name to get people to move there. SoSo isn't the best nickname for a neighborhood, makes the area sound, well, so-so and that's not good.

NYT.com Redesign

Still working out a few bugs I presume as some things don't work, but the site looks quite bloggy. A note from the paper here about the redesign a year in the works.

Our goal when we set out to redesign The Times Web site more than a year ago was to make experiencing The New York Times online simpler and more useful. We hope you conclude that we have done that on the new pages appearing for the first time this month.

We have expanded the page to take advantage of the larger monitors now used by the vast majority of our readers. We've improved the navigation throughout the site so that no matter what page you land on, you can easily dig deeper into other sections or use our multimedia.

We also wanted to give our readers a greater voice and sprinkle a little more serendipity around the site by providing prominent links to a list of most e-mailed and blogged articles, most searched for information and popular movies. A new tab at the top of the page takes you directly to all our most popular features.

I was quite intrigued by the "Most Blogged" category and I clicked over. They list all the articles, but not the blogs that link to them. What a crock of shit.

NYT.com has been the gold standard in webdesign, but times have changed quickly as they've patched things here and there, but now the Old Grey Lady has changed her clothes with the times.

I hope this editor's note ends up at the top of the "Most Blogged" list. Too bad you won't be able to see what people think of the note though. But maybe NYT.com doesn't care what they think, just that it's being linked to. Links mean traffic and traffic will drive their online ad sales. That's their ultimate concern, money.

Air America Radio Turns Two

Today is Air America Radio's second anniversary. I've been listening for it all along the way. I was so thrilled on launch day, I was out in my car during my lunch break to catch it for half an hour. I vividly remember Randi Rhodes rip into Ralph Nader resulting in him hanging up on her live on the air.

As much as fathead Limbaugh and bully O'Lielly want them off the air, they aren't going anywhere. They have over eighty stations across the US including XM Satellite Radio and growing.

Here's to them and here's to hoping they'll be back on the radio dial here in Philly soon. Until then, I'll be listening via their stream online.

Norgs: Philly IMC Video

Philly IMC just put up a post with a .mov of seven short interviews from the day. Download the file here. It's an 11.7MB file and you'll need QuickTime to view it, preferably QT7 with the H.264 codec.

The interviewees are: Jennifer Kronstain of PhillyBlog, Jonathan Tannenwald of The Daily Pennsylvanian, Greg Palmer of Keystone Politics, Paul Socolar of The Philadelphia Public Notebook, Amy Webb of Dragonfire, Susie Madrak of Suburban Guerrilla and Kevin Donahue of Philly.com.

Very much worth a watch. It's 7m 41s in length.

Norgs: Starting

Here's a shot of the start of the day.

I was immediately overwhelmed when I walked off of the elevator into the top floor classroom in the Annenberg School. About thirty or so people were already there, an additional dozen or so would come before things got underway and after the lunch break. I recognized some familiar faces. Local people like Dan Rubin, Will Bunch, Aaron Couch, Howard Hall, Karl Martino, Duncan Black, Susie Madrak and Matt Gold.

But I'd hear so many other people speak throughout the day. People from PhillyBlog, Annenberg work study studennts, Daily News interns, someone from Pew Charitable Trusts. People from the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Philadelphia Daily News, the brass from PNI, columnists, writers, editors, managers from under the PNI umbrella. Harry B. Cook from Philly1. People from Philly IMC [who shot video of the day along with short interviews], the NYC Indypendent. A sports writer from the Daily Pennsylvanian. People from Dragonfire. People from the tech side of Comcast. Paul Socolar from The Philadelphia Public School Notebook, Greg Palmer of Keystone Politics, Jeff Jarvis, from Buzz Machine among other ventures and Dean of the Annenberg School Michael X Delli Carpini.

That's just a partial list of everyone who was there. I can only begin to start digesting all of this a day later. I've put up a flickr set of the first edit of seventy-four down from 300+. And I've gone through those seventy-four and whittled it down a bit to thirty-eight shots that have been edited with a little post processing and some cropping here and there.

Stories of the day to come still...