Sir, Put Down the Harmonica Immediately!

Some of you might have heard this already, but to me it’s fairly recent news.  For months now, local authorities have been enforcing a ban on unsolicited music in Rittenhouse Square, prompting a protest by permitted musicians today that I could not watch because I was at work (oh, pooh).  The recent ban has effectively dissuaded [...]

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Jackie

 
Many of you have been hearing quite a bit already about today being the anniversary of Jackie Robinson’s entrance into the league.  It’s certainly a special occasion that has special bearing on baseball, sports and American culture and history at large, so there are certainly plenty today that have tried to encapsulate the significance of Robinson [...]

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Mistakes Were Made (Really?)

How often have we heard this line in the past couple of years, or at least a variant of the same thing?  It feels like quite a bit, especially most recently in several news items involving the current administration.  Wanna recap?
 - Here’s President Bush commenting on his displeasure with the federal prosecutor dismissals, and hey, here’s [...]

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Hard Times at West Philly High

It seems that West Philadelphia High School is making the local headlines often lately, and for all of the wrong reasons.  It’s a scary scene that some of us are all too familiar with; schools that seem to have fallen into disorder and disarray as students rebel against the authorities therein, feeding the growth of a [...]

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Stop the Presses

Some people who could use more than a little less press coverage than they already receive:
In Philadelphia:
 - Milton Street:  The fact that he is the Mayor’s older brother and that he is an amusing nutbag are the only real reasons why he gets so much press.  He plans on running for Mayor or City Council, depending [...]

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Royalty…Snore…

I’ve never understood the American fascination with English royalty.  Though it’s been since over 200 years ago that we cut the umbilical cord, a lot of people get really excited about what the Royal Family is up to, a feeling I obviously don’t share.  So, no dirt on Prince Willy for me.  No strong inclination to [...]

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Lucky Us

 
After we had finished watching the Casey-Santorum televised debate last night on ABC [1], my roommate reminded me of one of my favorite Lewis Black lines:  “You see, in our two-party system, the Democrats are the party of no ideas and the Republicans are the party of bad ideas.” [2]  Too often, this sentiment rings [...]

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