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Stu!
So we're guessing you've seen the whole Stu Bykofsky/fake-Keith Olbermann spat that got picked up by CP contributor Jonathan Valania's Phawker and then by everybody else.
We caught up with Bykofsky via e-mail to ask the man how the whole duping went down and if the e-mails from him in this hoax were his or were also faked.
According to Byko, "I did send the emails to keith@keitholbermann.com" and "I did receive what you have seen as a reply."
"My responses are mine," he adds. "Olbermann's, it seems, came from Tucker Carlson."
As has been previously uncovered, the domain keitholbermann.com is owned by a right-wing site called Daily Caller which is owned by Tucker Carlson.
Sort of lost in all this furor, which erupted because Bykofsky was writing a column about Olbermann's journalistic ethics, is the potentially unethical behavior of the hoaxer and whoever leaked the fake convo.
"I sent questions to him as part of my job as a journalist," says Bykofsky, adding, "So, I was hoaxed into believing it was Olbermann. It was all a non-issue â until the exchange got out. I had shared it with a few friends, because it was funny. How it got out, I can't say."
We've got an e-mail out to Valania to see if he can divulge that info.
By the bye, Bykofsky still thinks Olbermann owes him, and the public, an answer to the questions he posed in his first e-mail, which were:
Do you think you were treated fairly by MSNBC?
Do you consider yourself a journalist or a commentator?
If a journalist, is it proper for you to give your opinions?
If a commentator, should you be anchoring a newscast, such as Tuesday night's election program?
Do you regret chastising others (Rupert Murdoch) for making political donations?
Is there a difference between what he did and what you did?
"If it turns out he never replied" to the questions asked by him and others, says Stu, "People should be asking him why not."
Stu, How can he respond if you sent it to the wrong email address? Idiot. You're just mad cause he called you out on the stupid comments you made when you said you wanted another 9/11.
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.
The Daily News' Stu Bykofsky and I have a little back-and-forth going over the bike lanes on Spruce and Pine, and today I invited (okay, challenged) Stu to take a bike ride with me and CP's Isaiah Thompson first down a city street without a dedicated bike lane and a city street with one.
Last week, in my editor's letter, I accused Stu of being a bully. And this morning, Stu sent me an e-mail that read:
"Stu bullies motorists today. Don't miss it!"
And I'll hand it to Stu for sticking it to the maniacs who find it acceptable to operate their two-ton steel, glass and vinyl weapons on residential city streets while texting, dialing and/or talking on cell phone.
And though I take issue with his use of statistics in some of his bike lane pieces, he's got good numerical backup in this morning's piece:
That cellphone use creates deadly distracted driving is disputed by no (sane) person I could find - and I even looked on the Internet, the corkscrew colony for crackpot contrarians.
Cell-phone use quadruples the risk of an auto accident, according to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. It causes 636,000 crashes, 330,000 injuries and 2,600 deaths annually, according to the Harvard Center of Risk Analysis, which estimates the cost at $43 billion.
All age groups use cell phones while driving, but it creates an unusual effect among the young - the least experienced drivers and the most cell-addicted:
"If you put a 20-year-old driver behind the wheel with a cell phone, their reaction times are the same as a 70-year-old driver who is not using a cell phone," says University of Utah psychology professor David Strayer. "It's like instantly aging a large number of drivers."
Is it an easy target? Sure. But a very worthwhile one nonetheless. In the piece, Byko makes enforcement suggestions that would be well applied to cyclists as well.
Drivers have been warned, but many continue to roam with phones in hand. Does this come from a misplaced sense of entitlement - or no sense at all?
Why do they persist? Not enough enforcement.
Solution? Blanket enforcement.
For a week, police should stop and ticket every violator they see. They are not hard to find.
Skip a few weeks, then repeat as often as necessary to drive the fear of enforcement - and the $75 fine - through their gooney-bird skulls.
To all the people who complain about scofflaw cyclists — yes, there are cyclists who bend and snap the law. And the reason they do is that there's next to zero enforcement (and that cyclists are regularly treated as non-entities by the police and drivers).
I tend to agree on the downside of bike lanes. Also the mentality of 20 year olds driving while texting (in my opinion) is far more dangerous than an 80 year old driver with limited vision. On the other side.. cyclists need to adhere to the same laws and they need to be strictly enforced. Things would be much simpler if that were to happen. Myself, I don't see it happening in the near future. It's going to take a major catastrophe before something is done. Same as everything else in our lovely city. I rest my case!
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Philly News Now, Yancey @YanceyG. Yancey @YanceyG said: Stu sticks it to drivers: The Daily Newsâ Stu Bykofsky and I have a little back-and-forth going over the bike lane... http://bit.ly/cxIiLY [...]
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| STU! |
I haven't been in town all that long, but I'm developing a deep appreciation for my man Stu Bykofsky, over there at the Daily News. Every major media market needs an old, out of touch curmudgeon to yell at the sky, and whether it's a lecture on those damn kids bicycling in your driving lanes, an essay on why Muslims are not belligerently pro-'mercan enough, or a simple rumination on why you should be able to pop a cap in someone's ass if you think you're being threatened because the district attorneys can all figure it out later or something, Stu's your go-to geezer.
So, it was with particular interest and tingly anticipation that I hurried over to Stu's little corner of Philly.com this morning, to uncover his taken on a subject about which I know little, but about which I've been told much: The Mummers. Now, in fairness, I'm not precisely sure what these people do or why anyone cares about them. I gather they have some sort of New Years Day parade, and then everyone goes to South Philly, gets drunk on shitty beer, pisses in the streets and vomits up shell pasta. Also, there are sequins involved, somehow. Do I have it about right?
Apparently, this passes for culture around these parts, so as a newbie Philadelphian is my goddamn duty to enjoy this ⦠um, thing that happens. (In the immortal words of U.S. Rep. Bob Brady, in an interview with this newspaper's "editorial board" back in 2007 when he was running for mayor, "Mummers is cultures!" Or so editor-in-chief Brian Howard recounts. Anyway.) But it seems that the Mummers have come upon hard times. The city, being flat-broke and all, might not be willing to pay for them to frollic in the streets, or whatever it is they do.
Stu, who, you know, has previously come out in favor of parades having to pay their own way, thinks this is bullshit (or, in his generation's vernacular, poppycock, or even horse hockey). See, as Stu tells it, the mummers are special. Why?
The Mummers are a special case. I admit my bias, as a former Mummer marcher and a dedicated parade lover.
Oh, wait, that's not his real reason.
The Mummers, like the now-departed Dad Vail Regatta, bring in more money than they cost the city.
How much? An estimated $9 million, according to an economic impact report from the Center for Forensic Economic Studies.
You can argue the precise amount, but you can't argue that hotel bookings zoom during an otherwise dead time of year; you can't argue the money spent by Mummers clubs on feathers and fabrics, on carpenters and choreographers, on decor and deli.
Economics! OK, I can't quibble with the "hotel booking zoom" thing, because I haven't been here. But it does occur to me that this event happens on New Years, the day after a night where everybody gets positively shit-faced, and since they don't want to drive home and spend the evening in the drunk tank rather than singing Auld Lang Syne and making out with some girl they met at a party, perhaps there are other variables at play in the hotel bookings.
Post hoc, ergo proctor hoc, Stu. Just because two things appear to be correlated, doesn't mean one caused the other. And I'll confess not knowing much about the Center for Forensic Economic Studies, whatever that is, and I'll assume they're on the up and up, but one thing I've learned covering cities the last decade or so is to not put a lot of stock into economic impact studies. Maybe this one's the exception.Who knows? Doesn't matter.
I'm sure the Mummers spend a lot on sequins and feathers and clothes and choreographers — wait, so this thing doesn't happen in the gayborhood? — and eat a lot of shell pasta and drink a lot of lager or whatever it is they imbibe, and that'll probably help out the local economy. But does it do so more than the St. Patrick's Day parade, which sounds like pretty much the same thing, only with green stuff, more booze and less, um, you know, straight dudes in drag?
Stu's got an answer for us there, too:
Most importantly, the Mummers are unique, only in Philadelphia. They are part of our cultural heritage, as much as the Liberty Bell, whether you like them or not.
It's unique. It's culture. It's special. Stu says so. (And he used to be one of them, so he knows.)
Give them whatever they want, Nutter. The sage of the stone age has spoken.
Hey Jeff, Don't you think it's about time you stopped writing about your ignorance for (and disdain of) Philadelphia and started (quietly) learning something? I'm not claiming I agree with Stu, but your condescension isn't any better. In fact, it's worse.
[...] though newbie Jeffrey Billman doesn’t get it, we’ve got some Mummers news for y’all.Hillary Rea, former CP intern extraordinaire and [...]
Yes, Stu Bykovsky can be narrow-minded and short-sighted. Yes, his articles about cyclists and Muslims are poorly-researched. But Billman's article is just as narrow-minded and poorly-researched as any of Bykovsky's. You cannot attack him for being a curmudgeon when you write just like one. If you replace the word Mummers with that of any ethnic group, Billman would righly be accused of prejudice and racism.
this was a really lame post. realy lame. and suprisingly very long for someone who keeps confessing to not knowing what he's talking.
I offer the writer congrats for proving why Philadelphia no longer needs two alt weeklies.
Please. Go back to wherever it is you came from. You add nothing to the conversation here.
Why would a local paper allow an out of towner to write (like an idiot) about a treasured city tradition? Do us all a favor - don't go to the parade. And don't bother writing about it anymore (or anything else related to Philly either). Other than that, keep up the good work and welcome to town.
I like to make fun of stu bykofosky's angry-old-man bit as much as the next guy, but this post coulda used a lot more work, especially since the writer seems to miss the most important part about the Mummers: IT'S FUN. You'll have a much better time here in Philadelphia if you drop the superiority act: no one likes a snob, Jeffrey, especially an ignorant snob who's also a newcomer. It's also not just Stu Bykofsky who says "it's culture". The Mummers have at least a century of history in Philadelphia, and it's part of a traditiont hat goes back even further than that. It's one of the last remaining DIY parades (maybe THE last) in the US. It's a working class celebration: many of those "guys in drag" are union carpenters and electric. they build the floats themselves: it's not funded by macy's or some giant corporation. trashy? yeah, a little. low-brow? definitely, but so what, IT'S FUN. get over yourself dude. Enjoy the parade, and stop looking down your nose at your neighbors.
For the past six years, I have been moving around the US and internationally for school. I grew up in Philadelphia. The Mummers may not appeal to everyone, but it's something unique to Philadelphia and enjoyable while drinking a Yuengling on Broad St. to cure a New Year's hangover. The costumes are very expensive and they rival anything you see at Mardi Gras. The parade adds to the celebration of the New Year, and the Mummers social clubs are popular with my generation (25-35). The Mummers are also part of Philadelphia's identity and something worth affording value, just like the Thanksgiving Day parade. If you want no parades or uniqueness and relatively blandness year round, I advise moving to East Central Illinois. On a further note, over here in Edinburgh (Scotland), you hear locals complain about Hogmanay. It's a waste of time/money, they say, with no cultural or economic value. It's all relative.
Why in the world should a neighborhood organization have it's celebration paid for? I don't understand that. If they can't afford to put up the money for their celebration themselves, tone it down to where they can. I bet just as many peolpe stay out of the city that day, I certainly do, than go into it because of that mess.
Ditto on Phil's point. It's not cute or attractive to personalize your disagreement with a fellow journalist. Calling him an old, out of touch curmudgeon is uncalled for, even if its only purpose is to appeal to your readership base. You should refresh yourself with the meaning of ad hominem attack. Sounds like you are an out of touch quasi-journalist, with a need to use foul language, in a City you ought to acquaint yourself with first before opining.
It is unique, and I have friends who come to Philly just to see it. Granted, they sleep on my floor and don't contribute much to the city's economy, but its a part of Philadelphia culture. As a self-describe newbie, you should be a little less condescending towards the people who already live here with your stereotype of Mummer's and their fans (I don't eat pasta or drink alcohol) Part of living in a city is acknowledging the diversity around you. There is an honest debate to be had over the city paying for the Mummer's Parade....but your tone just makes you sound like some sort of cultural snob.
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