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CP in the Community
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So, remember that post about The Roots doing the Obama rally I threw up this morning? In describing the awesomeness of The Roots, which is considerable, I used a certain bad word — a word so terrible that it is considered a âbomb,â and is deeply offensive to everyone who hears it, even though it is rather frequently used in our amoral society; this word also happens to be among the most flexible in the English language, and can be a noun, a verb or an adjective, or perhaps all three in one sentence (â[WORD] you, you [WORD]ing [WORD]â); a word that may date all the way back to ancient Germanic translations of the act of love (fiken) or the Swedish word for male genitalia (fock), perhaps even to the Latin fÅ«tuere or the Greek pephyka. And while I (and anyone with a modicum of decent musical taste) stand by my description of The Roots' awesomeness, which again, is considerable, that one little word seems to have cause quite a stir.
The Democratic National Committee, in making its official e-mail announcement about the event, including the text of my little blog post — which included the aforementioned naughty word. Fox News is on the DNC's e-mail list. You can see where this is going.
The Democratic National Committee is promoting an upcoming rally for President Obama by sending out a blog that touts the musical act preceding him as "f---ing awesome.â A DNC spokesman blasted out an e-mail alert Monday that included a post from the Philadelphia City Paper's website. The paper reported that hometown heroes The Roots would be performing at Obama's Oct. 10 rally in Philadelphia. "You heard it here first: Just got word from a Democratic source that The Roots, who campaigned for Obama in 2008 and are f---ing awesome, will perform next Sunday as part of President Obama's Move America Forward Rally," the City Paper reported without editing the explicit language.
Ugh. Sorry, Mom.
Anyway. Let's go to the comments, where I'm sure the superbly intelligent readers of Fox News' website will handle this very important "news" story (someone let me know this thing makes Hannity tonight) with characteristic grace, tact and not-racistness:
johndeagun: Obama playing to the bros cause no one else is stupid enough to vote for him..... pants on the floor
flicker66: Speaking of Obama "You can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. Right from the begining he has been uncouth, displayed the lack of refinement and demonstrated how ill mannered he really is.
velva: Another sad commentary on the morals of our times. When people use terms like this it just proves their ignorance and lack of vocabulary. When will we have a civil society again? I hope very soon, because the language being used in this day and age is sickening, to me. I was disgusted when Obama made jokes about Emanuel's cursing. I think it's a sign of ignorance and a lack of respect.
john_q_militia: You can put lipstick on a turd, but its still Obama.
sooner58: Yes, I agree.......Michelle looks no better in lipstick!!sunsu12: The rap group (roots) picked to perform at the bobo rally. I was going to post some of the lyrics from this "band" but I couldn't. Anyone want to guess why? Check them.....http://www.elyrics.net/song/r/roots-lyrics.htmlsooner58: Yes, this, so called band, is what the "New Democrat/Communist/Marxist/Socialist Party" loves to listen to. This is the kind of "DOPE AND CHANGE" that the Democrat Party is hoping to help get their "little Commie's" off their couch and out to vote.......
It was really, really sad more so for the fact that they were grasping at straws than anything else.
Not being a prude here, but I don't see the need for F-bombs and other inappropriate language in your articles, which has been a regular staple of your articles since you arrived.
Harmless emphasis; that's all it is. Everyone grow up. It's just a fucking word. ;)
More importantly, where can I get that t-shirt??
[...] The t-shirt in the photo on this post: http://citypaper.net/blogs/clog/2010/10/04/fox-news-does-not-approve-of-my-potty-mouth/ [...]
did you really just comment on your own article?? let the readers have their say.
Took me 1 minute of google searcing. ;) http://www.bant-shirts.com/fk-news-t-shirt.htm
I think cursing in an article is a bit immature. It adds no value to the story and only helps to offend people who are a little sensitive to such things. You might not thing it is a bad and offensive word, but many people do.
It's funny that the 'sensitive' posters on the FOX 'News' site have no aversion to racism. Why is cursing offensive when used to display a deeply held conviction? At times, it's effective, concise, and unabashedly honest. If only the detractors on the Fox site could be as honest about why they've taken offense.
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The headline basically says it all: City Paper has been judged the overall best non-daily newspaper in the state by the Pennsylvania Newspaper Association in its annual Newspaper of the Year awards. Papers from all over the state sent in randomly selected issues and were assessed on a host of criteria, including news coverage, opinion pages, layout and design and advertising, among others. We competed in Division V, or larger circulation non-dailies, which includes alt-weeklies, business journals, community papers and the like. You can peep all the individual categories here.
CP won first place in Newswriting Excellence, Layout & Design and Editorial/Opinion Page Excellence, and second place in Advertising Excellence, Best Use of Photography and Special Section.
Congrats all around.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GGXzlRoNtHU
From everything I've seen, you guys deserve it. The writing and reporting has been really good, and this is, hands-down, the best news blog in Philly. Keep up the great work!
[...] immediately for my replacement, and will be looking for someone to guide an award-winning staff (Pennsylvania's non-daily Newspaper of the Year 2010!) to greater [...]
(Editor's note: We get lots of e-mail. Some of it is about stuff we've written, which is cool. Some of it is general bitching about the city, which is fine, too. But then there's the rest: chain e-mails, press releases, solicitations, ruminations on Obama's secret socialist plans, letters imploring us to find Jesus, etc. Good stuff all, but sometimes it's hard to find a place for it in the paper, what with the diminishing page counts and all. And that's a goddamn shame. So, without further ado, allow us to present the first-ever Clog addition Non Sequitur, letters to the editor about whatever. This letter, presented exactly as it hit our inbox, comes from Randy R., a hero and a gentleman from Washington Square. Enjoy!)
Green light at the corner of 7th and Market. Morning rush hour. A delivery truck is in front of my car. But it can't make the right turn onto Market Street because a horde of pedestrians is passing through the crosswalk. As usual, they're taking their sweet time, as if this is a lazy morning stroll in the park. They keep coming, like a disinterested herd of bison, with no regard for the line of traffic waiting on them. The light is now yellow. The truck can't move, which means I can't move—nor can the ever-increasing trail of cars behind me. I'm watching the faces of every one of these pedestrians. Not one offers even a cursory glance at the mounting vehicular logjam to which they're contributing. The light goes red. The truck bolts around the corner. I'm still on 7th Street. One green light—one vehicle through. In my frustration, I honk my horn—not at the truck driver, but at the oblivious mass that—along with Philadelphia's perpetual constructi on and its medieval prohibition on right-on-red—helps create the city's daily congestion.
A police officer sipping his coffee at the corner as he watches the entire sequence walks around to the driver's side of my car. Signaling me to lower the window, he then chews me out in a tone just shy of a yell. I tell him that I was honking at the pedestrians exhibiting not the slightest ounce of urgency in crossing the street and holding up an entire line of traffic. âPedestrians have the right of way!â he snaps. Sure they do. But we motorists also have to get to work—and it would be the decent thing to do, as well as beneficial to the city's ubiquitous traffic problem, if pedestrians would hustle as half a dozen or more automobiles sit paralyzed in their path. The police officer continues angrily that I'm guilty of âunauthorized use of a car horn.â Apart from the rather sizeable gray area concerning how, from whom, and, most critically, how long it takes a driver to obtain authorization to honk the car horn in relation to its timely use, I muse to myself that this entire problem could be eradicated if, instead of reprimanding motorists at the mercy of pedestrian sloth, the officer could suggest to the street-crossers that they make an effort not to render intersection turns nigh unto impossible.
I walked many a mile as a full-time pedestrian in Philadelphia, so I've seen life in the slow lane from both sides. And when I was hoofing it to work, or any destination on the far side of an intersection, I generally operated under the imperative that insouciance and asphalt don't mix—but that apparently made me an anomaly: a 2005 study from Portland State University reported that the average walking speed for pedestrians under sixty years of age—the vast majority of people on whom I was waiting at the green light—was 4.85 ft/sec, which means that they should traverse the 64-foot-wide Market Street in approximately 13.2 seconds. I twice timed myself crossing the same street and found that, using my considerate they're-waiting-on-me stride, I made it from curb to curb in 11 seconds. Now, an improvement of 2.2 seconds doesn't seem like a lot, but when extrapolated across every pedestrian who leaves the each side of the street at a different point in time at each intersection, and then repeated at each succeeding intersection encountered, the data clearly indicate that the average pedestrian doesn't give a rat's ass about clogging traffic.
Which is why I suggest that pedestrians should have 11 seconds to cross Market Street before they're fair game. (Narrower streets would require accordingly less time.) Many of we city dwellers have twenty- or thirty-mile drives to the office, and these lethargic slugs make an all-consuming ordeal out of merely getting to the expressways. Let's see if they can put a little courteous oomph in their step when a three-thousand-pound vehicle that's already waited the majority of a green-red cycle is bearing down on them like a Brunswick on a baby split in the tenth frame. That seems just and equitable to me.
We could examine the psychology behind why most pedestrians show apathy in the face of idling traffic: Is it pure indolence? A sense of entitlement to the green light? The culture of insensitivity that has obliterated the Golden Rule? But I never really cared why the chicken crossed the road—as long as he did it quickly and got the hell out of my way.
I wasted too much time reading this in its entirety. Captain Rush-rush here could have been more courteous and saved my time by being more concise. I can boil your point down to one sentence: People walking make me mad and I want to run them over because there a lot of them and they are slower than my car. You're welcome.
"A sense of entitlement to the green light?" Philadelphia has its share citizens feeling entitlements but none are greater than those driving the motor vehicles through a highly residential city.
Wow. Just Wow. My main question is: why is he living in the city if he has a 30 mile commute? I feel for you, the editors, who have to read this garbage day after day (and you probably can't really comment back to these crazy people).
Market Street is 4 lanes wide and the crosswalk is heavily used at that intersection because pedestrians are coming and going from the Federal complex. The cop was right as pedestrians do have the right of way, most especially while in a crosswalk on a green light. Pick a different northbound street and stop your bitching.
As a pedestrian myself, I agree. If you're not an entitled twit, no, you don't jam up an intersection sauntering through a green light. It's obnoxious. Try stopping on the curb to let cars go by and get roared at by some psycho whose folks did a crap job on that whole every-toy-in-kindergarten-ain't-yours principle. If you can't make it across Market in 12 seconds and you're not on a Rascal, using a walker or crutches, or toting a baby in a basket on your head, then count yourself among the ever-growing numbers of the inconsiderate. It's hard to misinterpret your message.
This is a very interesting post. Great work!!
I completely agree. Pedestrians can suck it!
Good letter. Funny how some people don't have a sense of humor.
I'm still wasting time on this letter. First, you assume all pedestrians start crossing the street neatly the moment the light turns green and the reason for the congestion is lollygagging. Wrong. As someone who has run to catch a light, I can tell you that many pedestrians make it across the street in under 5 seconds, but they may not start until the 7th second of the green. They're not lollygagging, but they are part of the stream of pedestrians in your way. Second, you live in the city and you haven't learned to avoid Market Street, yet? Turning onto Market is an exercise in futility and frustration. You're better off finding another route out of the city.
On the day my Italian Market story came out, I caught Richard Rys's solid tale of what became of Old City in Philadelphia magazine. This quickly became a contrast of two homes for me — where I live now and where I used to live. I wrote lengthily (and splendidly, I might add) about the
Yes, there were cheesy promoters and cheapo lounge managers looking to cash in. But that happens everywhere, always. It needed an influx of charming couture boutiques and late evening shopping spots — from AKA Records to Matthew Izzo — sooner. Now, solidly groovy hot spots like Sassafras (a holdover from its past), Cuba Libre and the entirety of the Serrano/Tin Angel complex are there. National Mechanics is there. The Arden Theater is there. City Paper is there. There's so much to put it at par with other busy neighborhoods. If you don't dig Lucy's Hat Shop after too many cheap vodkas, try the Mansion in Rittenhouse Square or one of several remaining everyday guy sports bars in Fishtown.
Look, there're always more guys in baseball caps and un-tucked striped shirts and women in Snooki boufants and low-designer jeans (them) than there are those of kinda-tasteful decorum (me — I hope — and us). That said, a great bustling neighborhood needs all sorts to sustain and survive. Rittenhouse gets it from the Irish Pub down to the Walnut Room. The Piazza will find this out soon; as much as they want to (and may actually) secede from the
Thanks A.D. for putting the article in perspective. As an Old City resident for over 10 years and now a new business owner in the district, I can remember all of the changes you've mentioned - the end of Revival, the birth of Stephen Starr, and yes, the changeover from Eroticakes to the beloved Franklin Fountain. Old City is in transition and there are a lot of great things happening here besides the weekend crowd: great boutiques, salons and spas, byob's and more. Every district has a mixture of nightlife combined with the civility found during the weekly shopping hours. Old City is still a great place to live,visit, and be proud of.
I really believe that these social networks will have a huge impact on what we can accomplish as groups, it'll help us be very organized and communicate.
So, we didn't make the Byko political comedy charity thing last night because, well, we have this little ritual we do on Tuesdays night called putting out a newspaper. But we did read all about it on this morning's always excellent Capitol Ideas blog from the Allentown Morning Call. And here's what we've learned:
- Manan Trivedi, who we totally have a hetero man-crush on, is still fucking awesome:
Trivedi, who's running against Republican U.S. Rep. Jim Gerlach, got off some of the best lines of the night. His set was a reminder that the best comedy always comes from experience. "I was the only kid who would go cow-tipping [in Berks County] and the have to worship the cow afterwards," said Trivedi, the son of Indian immigrants. In high school, he was voted "most likely to run a convenience store," and his senior quote was "Thank you, come again." (It helps if you do that last one, like Trivedi did, in the best stereotypical Indian accent you can muster).
- Bob Brady can veer dangerously close to racism. Shocking.
"You know why the Mexican team is not so successful at the Olympics?" [Brady] cracked. "Because everyone who can run, jump or swim is already in America."
- Tom Corbett could definitely not write for Bell Curve.
"I read the police blotter and found that two drunks had knocked over the statue of the Philly Phanatic," Corbett joked. "Now you know why I'm for the death penalty."
- Ditto Pat Toomey.
Referring to the bills that Congress is rumored to be considering during its post-Election lame-duck session (this includes the repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell, legalizing marijuana, and immigration reform), Toomey observed: "If you're a gay Mexican drug dealer looking to sneak across the border to join the Navy, then this is your year," he said.
Referring to the bills that Congress is rumored to be considering during its post-Election lame-duck session (this includes the repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell, legalizing marijuana, and immigration reform), Toomey observed: "If you're a gay Mexican drug dealer looking to sneak across the border to join the Navy, then this is your year," he said.
- Chaka Fattah took the opportunity to voice some venue-inappropriate but totally justified (in our view) righteous indignation at the Republican Party:
Fattah, the veteran Philadelphia Democrat, nearly silenced the room with a lengthy rant about the evils of Republicanism. He never quite achieved the Rickles-like Zen needed to accomplish truly funny insult comedy. "Do not give them the keys to the car back. We don't want this cast of characters in charge," Fattah said at one point. "I think it's very funny that Republicans put their names on the ballot given the performance of the previous president."
- And Dem gubernatorial candidate Dan Onorato took a shot at Toomey that referenced us:
Onorato, who was running late because he was holding a fund-raiser at the Philadelphia Convention Center with former Prez Bill Clinton got off a crack at Toomey that required a little explaining:
"I found out he worked for the Club for Growth," Onorato said. "So I read an advertisement on the back of the Philadelphia City Paper to find out exactly what that was."
The back of the City Paper, readers, is where you'll find the adverts for ... ahhh ... "adult" services and entertainment. If you have to explain the joke ...
Onorato, who was running late because he was holding a fund-raiser at the Philadelphia Convention Center with former Prez Bill Clinton got off a crack at Toomey that required a little explaining:
"I found out he worked for the Club for Growth," Onorato said. "So I read an advertisement on the back of the Philadelphia City Paper to find out exactly what that was."
The back of the City Paper, readers, is where you'll find the adverts for ... ahhh ... "adult" services and entertainment. If you have to explain the joke ...
Yeah, we have hooker escort ads in the back. This required explanation to the buttoned-up crowd that, apparently, has never picked up an urban alt-weekly anywhere, or whatever. (Hell, at my last employ, three of our sales reps were actually arrested for selling ads to cops posing as hookers. But that was Florida. And those charges were pleaded down to nothingness.)
But anyway, props to Onorato for a at least making a stab at a boner joke, even if it didn't resonate with the Byko crowd. Pat Rapa would be proud.
This weekend, CP senior writer/resident rapscallion Isaiah Thompson will have a story on public radio's This American Life. Yes, it's a big freaking deal.
It'll air on WHYY at noon on Sunday.
Can't wait that long? Well, if you have "the Internet," you can listen via live stream. Check publicradiofan.com for real-time streaming schedules. The show's first airing will be tonight, Friday, at 8:00 P.M. (East Coast time) on Chicago's WBEZ.
[...] Dutifully switched on This American Life last night to hear CP’s Isaiah Thompson fulfill his lifelong dream of participating in the public radio program (and meeting Ira Glass, to boot). Not for nothing, the story about a group of ex-sex offenders [...]
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Investigative reporter Ralph Cipriano, author of this week's probing cover story on the city's Deferred Retirement Option Program (or DROP), "The Billion Dollar Boondoggle: DROP is Bleeding us Dry " was on Fox 29 this morning discussing the story and the program.
Watch the video here:
Glad you're getting the word out about DROP, Ralph. Good showing here despite the distracting and emotive commentary of your interviewer.
[...] PREVIOUSLY >>> Cipriano talks DROP on Fox29. [...]
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| cover illustration | Thomas Pitilli |
Back in January, when City Paper published its annual writing contest issue featuring the fiction of Jessica Penzias ("Death by Oboe") and poetry of Sean Webb ("The Bridge"), we set Feb. 10 as the date for our winners reading, figuring blizzard season was over. How silly we were.
It should come as no surprise that this evening's scheduled reading with Penzias, Webb, fiction judge Elise Juska, poetry judge Thomas Devaney and CP senior editor Patrick Rapa at the Tin Angel in Old City, has been POSTPONED.
City Paper, Tin Angel and the readers are working to reschedule for an upcoming Tuesday evening, so please stay tuned here and to the event's Facebook page for updates.
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| Taylor Swift is a friend of CP Honor boxes. Now you can be, too! |
Hey City Paper readers,
We up here at the 123 are hunkering down — as are you, likely — for Snowpocalypse III: The Re-Re-Reckoning. But before we do, we're putting a paper out so you've got something hot and fresh to read over your snow-day French Toast.
Of course, Mark Burkert and our team of incredibly intrepid drivers, can only get the papers into your local honor box if they can get to the honor boxes. To this end, we're equipping them with shovels, but we ask that, if you have the time and elbow grease to spare, you help them and us as you dig out and rescue your local honor box. We're calling it our "adopt-a-box" program and it essentially goes like this: If you can find it in your heart to dig out a City Paper orange box, take a picture of it, e-mail it with your name and the box location to bhoward (at) citypaper (dot) net, and we'll post it on The Clog with your name and a digital gold star, and we'll invite you to the next CP happy hour (or, y 'know, show up at the Khyber at 5:30 on a Friday).
So doing this.
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| I'm Isaiah Thompson, and I approve this message |
Come see Isaiah accept his award tonight at the Trocadero, 10th and Arch, 8 p.m.
I can hear him working on his speech right now, and it's a doozie.
Isaiah thanks you all for your votes.
[...] fish balls, chicken gizzards and cattle kidneys. Prices top out at $2.50 (!). Team Meal Ticket and award-winning CP staff writer Isaiah Thompson, who’s a serious connoisseur of Philly Chinatown eats, have [...]
[...] he’s not winning awards, CP staff writer Isaiah Thompson is out eating somewhere. Here’s a shot he took for a piece [...]
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