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We Call Shenanigans
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This afternoon, the state Senate passed — without debate, without a public hearing, and with a single dissenting vote — the insidious SB 1469, which will basically allow local governments to slink further away from the spirit of the hard-fought Right to Know Act the legislature passed in 2008. And seeing how our own city leaders handle public records requests, this is not at all confidence inspiring. Among other things, this bill will allow the fine folks at City Hall and other local agencies to charge you up to 12 1/2 cents per page just to look — not to copy, but to look — at public records.
Want to take a gander at, say, the city's contracts with its labor unions? Or maybe a city budget? How about some personnel files, or the Internal Affairs files of dirty cops? Bring your checkbook: Those things can run into the hundreds of pages. And that's exactly the point, despite Senate Majority Leader Dominic Pileggi's disingenuous claim that this bill would only address procedural problems, or whatever.
Another âprocedural problemâ: The bill would also narrow the citizenry's ability to obtain records about government contractors — you know, like the kind the state recently contracted with the spy on activists.
The bill now goes to the House, which is also considering its own affront to the Right to Know Act, a bill that would exempt government workers' dates of birth and home addresses from public records, as Social Security numbers are already exempted. Of course, these are also the types of info newspapers often use to sort out different people with the same name. As Deborah Musselman, director of government affairs at the Pennsylvania Newspaper Association, tells us, âEliminating these identifiers from public view could result in an innocent person being wrongly associated with criminal case records.â
The House bill is currently in appropriations. Hopefully it stays there. And hopefully the House — which has had more than its share of corruption problems of late — recognizes that the last thing this state needs is a weakened public records law, and dumps this thing. OK, maybe we keep the good parts of the bill, like the part the requires state agencies to produce records in the requested format, and the part that expands access to drafts prepared at public meetings. But the rest of it needs to go.
Sunshine, as they say, is the best disinfectant; sadly, our leaders are all too happy to live in the shadows.
More on this in A Million Stories this week.
*With reporting by Holly Otterbein.
Getting to public records in Philly is already a sad joke. This is FUBAR.
Okay, if movies have taught me one thing, it's that robots will soon become sentient beings and kill us all. It's the reason I don't trust Roombas and it's the reason this ad creeps me the fuck out. Pay your taxes, or Pennsylvania (or should I say Skynet?) will find you.
(h/t Meg)
Creepy... and effective. I've already paid my taxes, but I'm considering sending another check, just to keep them from vaporizing my home.
Well, OK, they didnt actually say that. But, close enough. Yesterday, lawmakers in Harrisburg berated the booze warriors over their general fuckery in the raids on three Philly beer bars last month. These bars, you'll recall, supposedly committed the very high crime of selling improperly licensed microbrews (though, not really). Here's KYWs account (if only we had the budget for a Capitol reporter; dang):
John Taylor, ranking Republican on the House Liquor Control Committee, believes the response was excessive:
To have four armed agents go into a small establishment about this kind of violation is an overuse of manpower.
But Maj. John Lutz, director of the state police department's Bureau of Liquor Enforcement, says his troopers often go into volatile situations:
With all due respect to these three bars, there are a lot of bars that we go into that may not have that particular clientèle, and there is a danger.
BLE officials go into volatile situations? In gastropubs? Really? I had my doubts, so I ran a search of newspaper stories over the last five years that included the words "Bureau of Liquor Enforcement," "agents," and "Pennsylvania." Surely, if such dangerous situations arose, some newspaper somewhere would have reported it, right?
Apparently not: I got nothing. So, I called up the BLEs Harrisburg office, to ask if they had any record of a state booze cop pulling his weapon in the line of duty in the last few years. They said they'll get back to me sometime this afternoon. If/when they do, I'll update.
In the meantime, some statistics: In the first two months of 2010, according to its Web site, the BLE has filed 37 criminal complaints throughout the state (of which just three were here in Philly, and 19 came from Pittsburgh, for whatever that's worth). As of the end of February, the PLCB had reported 2.064 "total incidents," meaning everything from warnings to routine inspections to compliance checks to something called "speeches" (not sure what those are, but there were 38 of them during this timeframe). Of these 2,064 incidents, 414 came from Philadelphia, which leads the state.
Anyway, back to the point, which is that, basically, it seems like overkill on steroids for these BLE agents to go in, armed (!), to raid beer bars for selling beer that may not (or, in this case, may) be on the state's omnibus "approved" list, which in and of itself is a really stupid thing, but that's a discussion for another day.
Allow us to echo Rep. Taylor:
Taylor says that state police need to use common sense in each situation.
[...] Bureau of Liquor Enforcement: Common sense is for pussies :: The … [...]
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So I'm reading one of the most horrifying stories to come out of New Jersey/anywhere in a while, posted on Phawker (via the Associated Press), about a 7-year-old girl who was gang-raped by as many as seven men, after being sold to these men by her 15-year-old stepsister.
Sad, sad, sad world, right?
And then I look to the image (see above) that Phawker ed Jonathan Valania posted to accompany the story. Wait, what? is he likening this 15-year-old who sold her own sister away to become a sex slave as someone who should go and brush her shoulders off???
Now look, we could get into a long discussion here about how Jay-Z and every other rapper since the beginning of time has glorified pimps, and how that's not cool. But the fact is, in the context of Jay-Z's "Dirt Off Your Shoulder," "pimp" is a metaphor and the phrase "ladies is pimps, too" is an empowering statement, one of solidarity. No one who commits such a heinous crime as that mentioned above should be compared to a woman who deserves to brush her shoulders off.
Which is long way of saying that, essentially, Phawker's post creeped me the fuck out. Worse yet, it isn't the first time.
As much as rappers would like you to pretend that the word "pimp" doesn not mean a pimp, the story of the public housing child gang rape involves a teen pimp who sells a little girl. Not quite so fun to blast that rap song now, is it?
Nah, I agree that glorifying pimps anywhere is bad, Cleanup. All I meant was that the discussion over rappers doing it has been had many times before, and I just didn't feel the need to reiterate it at this time. And I do think that, in a weird way, Jay-Z probably meant that specific lyric ("ladies is pimps, too") to be empowering and pro-women.
Actually, the fact that Phawker de facto celebrated a teen pimp, by likening her to a woman in a song lyric that itself glorifies pimps further is meta mindfuck.
And I suppose, in that way, Phawker could have been posting that image ironically. If that's true, I'd still argue that it's damaging to do so, because I seriously doubt many people would "get" it.In the immortal words of Charlie Brown: Good grief. Your reaction to a story about a 15-year-old pimping out her 7-year-old stepsister for a gangrape is to complain about the graphic I grabbed off of Google Images to accompany the story? That's like hearing about the Holocaust and complaining that the striped pajamas the Jews had to wear in the concentration camps made their asses look big. Also, if you keep roasting marshmallows at Joey Sweeney's bonfire of the inanities you are only going to get burned. Trust me on this. In the immortal words of Animal House's Dean Wormer: Fat, drunk and Sweeney is no way to go through life, son.
Few people have recognized the 15-year-old girl as a victim too. She's a minor, and that qualifies as statutory rape. Her role in her sister's rape may be sensational but an abused teen's actions aren't the same thing as the adult men who took sick, sick actions on both these children.
Not really buying that analogy, Jon. The image accompanying the story is a commentary on that story. And, in this case it signals a callous disregard for a tragic event. Don't think it's really what you intended, but it was a funky choice of images, to say the least. Oh, and Holly's the last person I'd accuse of being a sycophant. Trust me, son.
You'd think they'd learn. Back in 2005, as reported by City Paper's Nicole Sarrubbo, the developers behind ye Old City Parkominium, in an attempt to drum up interest in their condo-style parking garage, put fliers designed to look like parking violations on the windshields of cars parked in Old City. As you can imagine, people were pissed.
When Ryan Wexelblatt walked out to his car two Thursday mornings ago, he could not believe what he saw: Every single car on Wood Street had a Philadelphia Parking Authority ticket on its windshield. Confused, he picked the "ticket" off his windshield and opened it. Lo and behold, the "ticket" was really a flier for the Old City "Parkominium," encouraging residents to purchase a space and not let "another ticket ruin your day." Wexelblatt was outraged: "It literally was the most obnoxious thing I had ever seen."
This morning, mild-mannered CP production director Michael Polimeno walked in, as incensed as a mild-mannered production director gets, having found this flier on his window this morning:
Before he realized it was, in fact, not a parking violation but a PRETZEL Violation, Michael said he experienced several stages of disbelief rage, deep embarrassment, shame before he realized he'd been the victim of a dubious bait and switch on the part of Philly Pretzel Factory, whose deals were listed on the back of the flier.
"Will I ever forget the name Philly Pretzel Factory?" asked Michael. "No."
He suggested, however, that his lasting memories may not exactly be fond ones.
[...] DEPARTMENT OF DIRTY TRICKS: Parking violation-style fliers still חοt сοοƖ ... [...]
fixed! Looks like our circa-2005 copy desk could have used an idiom cop of it own.
"Low and behold"?! Seriously?!
A weird, weird poll out of Franklin & Marshall tonight: According to f&m, less than three months out from the May primary, three of our Democratic gubernatorial candidates are tied at 6 percent each. Seriously.
Oh, and no one's really paying attention to any of the other races either:
2010 Senate: Democratic Primary
33% Specter, 16% Sestak (chart)2010 Senate: General Election
Registered voters:
33% Specter, 29% Toomey
25% Toomey, 22% Sestak
So, let me get this right: In a choice between Specter, who's been this state's senator since, you know, forever, and Toomey, the former congressman/Club for Growth corporate whore who nearly knocked off Specter six years ago hardly an unknown character the winner is "I don't know"? Or that, in the relatively high profile race involving a longtime Repub who switched parties and a Navy admiral who pissed off his own party to challenge him, more than 51 percent of the electorate hasn't the slightest clue who they'll support less than 90 days from Election Day? Or that, in the freaking race for the freaking governor of the freaking commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the most any Democrat can muster is 6 freaking percent (in a poll, I should mention, with a 4.5 percent margin of error)?
Either this poll is all kinds of screwy, or Pennsylvania's voters are just ridiculously (and dangerously) uninterested and politically illiterate. If it's the latter, it doesn't bode well for our little experiment in democracy.
I'm voting for Corbett. The state needs a Republican governor. There's so much money thrown at Philly, for example, that is just wasted. While I appreciate the ideals of the Dems, my wallet says I can't afford to pay five times the market rate for one "affordable" house for the local family that deals crack and smack in my neighborhood. Philly needs more paying customers, and too many folks who don't need to be are on the dole here.
In an article hilariously titled "Del. teen found in igloo with pot, bongs, knife," the AP says:
NEW CASTLE, Del. - Police responding to a report of a suspicious man carrying a gun instead found two legs sticking out of a homemade igloo. New Castle County police said the legs belong to Delaware teen who was arrested Wednesday after he was found to be carrying a survival knife, a hammer, 7.5 grams of marijuana and two marijuana pipes.
So, shit, the police found just his legs? That's effed! Oh, wait â¦
County police spokesman Senior Cpl. Trinidad Navarro said the teen was released to his parents. Police said he was charged with carrying a concealed deadly weapon, carrying a concealed deadly instrument, possession of drug paraphernalia and possession of marijuana.
Nope, dude is fine (relatively, considering he was arrested). The AP just phrases things awkwardly as hell.
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My South Philly-parked car was "relocated" for paving on Oct. 19. I freaked out, wrote a Clog post about the ordeal, looked for it, freaked out some more and finally found the damn thing a handful of days later, with the help of about a half-dozen city agencies and their employees of varying degrees of uselessness. (No offense, June of the Streets Department.) You may recall Oct. 28's Million Stories:
After one final hiccup (in which the tow truck driver called me to say he'd found my car at Sixth and Morris, although it looked more gray to him than silver — maybe because it wasn't my car), I got my Honda back: It was at 11th and Wharton, one measly block from where I'd been searching the night before. It was parked across the street from the Police Department, covered in dirt. No tickets, no damage.
That was a month ago. Trees still had their leaves back then. Halloween candy hadn't yet been replaced by Christmas wreaths at CVS. The Phils were still in the game.
Looks like, as of yesterday, the Philadelphia Inquirer's finally caught on: In Sunday's paper, Monica Yant Kinney reports on the business of relocation from the perspective of a young kid, Alec Nelson, whose car got moved.
"According to the Third District," he shared, "the car was towed to the 1700 block of South 12th Street." ⦠Nelson was dubious, but rushed to the spot.
"That was one of the first places I looked," he said, calling from the block. "It wasn't there then. It's not there now."
The next day, [Deputy Streets Commissioner Stephen] Buckley went back at it. Perhaps someone had misread the file? In short order, a highway engineer found Nelson's car one block away, at 1605 S. 12th St.
"Maybe I missed it, but my friends and I were on that block a bunch of times," Nelson said after finding his Focus. "The cynical side of me thinks it wasn't there to begin with."
I feel for you, Alec, believe me. But ... this whole thing sounds awfully familiar. Kinney even stole our damn (OK, kinda obvious) tagline: Dude, where's my car? C'mon guys. Way to stay on top of things.
It's rare that we get comments on music previews â why would we? They're noncontroversial service pieces that are usually less than a hundred words. So, when we saw a comment on the Fruit Bats preview, it was much to our chagrin that it came from Phrequency.com, Philly.com's music/arts coverage site/bid at relevancy:
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C'mon, dudes, you're gonna link your review on our site? We know you're ailing and all, but this is like the big dog stealing from the little dog's food bowl because he's a bit peckish. And as BH pointed out, at least try to add something relevant to the conversation before you whore yourself on our bandwidth. You stay on your site, we'll stay on ours.
Looks like somebody at Philly.com went to an "improve your search rankings" seminar. It's smart what they're doing, but you're right, they could be more transparent and contributory about it. By far the best part? Philly.com doesn't allow links or HTML in their comments.
Funny. They tried this on our site as well. Luckily, Wordpress has a fun little "mark as spam" button.
wow...hostility much? i thought the philly music press was supposed to SUPPORT each other...
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