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Archive: October, 2011
Gov. Corbett's school reform plan, outlined at York's Lincoln Charter School today, offers students a lifeline out of the worst-performing 5 percent of failing schools, many of which are in Philadelphia.
“Some students are consigned to failure because of their ZIP codes,’’ Corbett said. “They live in the shadow of failing public schools they must attend because their families lack the resources or ability to enroll them elsewhere... Opportunity scholarships provide additional choices for Pennsylvania students.’’
The hitch: When the student leaves the district, their funding goes with them. Download the full release here.
Occupy Philly (and boy is it getting hard to write that without the # sign) had a few interesting developments over the past few days.
One, that will be racing across the blogosphere by the time you read this, involved race. A group of women claim to have been harrassed and called racial epithets a few days ago. The incident, according to a Tumblr page created afterward, invovled two white people from the "tech committee" tent calling the women "niggers," and used other racist language.
Last night, that tension simmered during the group's "general assembly" meeting during confusion over the creation of a People of Color Committee.
The Media Mobilizing Project, a Philadelphia coalition of community groups that uses the media to get their message out, helped produce a five-part documentary for The Poverty Tour: A Call to Conscience. The 11-state tour is being organized by big-time television host Tavis Smiley and the high-wattage Princeton intellectual Cornel West, and was launched to raise two prominent black voices highlighting President Obama’s failure to deal with poverty — in the black community and throughout America.
Some 46.2 million Americans live in poverty — that’s one in six of us. And the Census Bureau only counts people who make, say, $17,374 for a family of three as impoverished.
Here comes Occupy Wall Street, Occupy Philly, Occupy Everywhere — and it looks like pretty serendipitous timing to air their films.
We've all spent our share of time cursing late buses and inaccurate timetables — but this weekend a bunch of technically savvy types got together and tried to help fix the system. The two-day marathon event, Apps for SEPTA, turned out to be a civic-minded hackathon/love-in resulting in computer and smartphone applications, and one futuristic project that utilized an Xbox Kinect. "The biggest thing we achieved isn't getting stuff into people's hands — it's energizing the tech community in and around SEPTA," said Chris Alfano, one of the organizers of the event and a partner at Devnuts, the Northern Liberties hackerspace where the hackathon was held.
View gallery
More than 2,000 people, from bed-headed young people who had slept the night at City Hall to union workers and families, marched past the Liberty Bell to Independence Hall to support Occupy Philly’s call for economic justice.
“We are the hardworking people,” said Jennifer Martinez, a Certified Nursing Assistant from North Philadelphia and member of SEIU Local 1199-P, whose members sported purple t-shirts reading Stop corporate greed. “It took us too long. I think we’re sending a message not just to the Tea Party, but to the world, that we’re taking America back.”
The speed with which preconceptions become conventional wisdom is impressive: Every opinion people seemed to have about Occupy Philly before it actually began seems to have been magically borne out in press accounts and general chatter.
Let's boil it down to a sentence: This whole Occupy Whatever thing is a bunch of unemployed white kids who lack organization, message, plan, and purpose, and who are protesting for the hell of it.
It's a fine opinion. But it's a woefully inadequate representation of what has, in fact, transpired so far.
Presenting the top five myths about Occupy Philly — and why they're wrong.
Occupy Philly protesters held a lengthy meeting last night to decide two questions: whether or not to accept "fiscal sponsorship" from Jobs With Justice — meaning they would use that non-profit's tax-exempt status to receive donations; and whether or not to apply for a permit for the demonstration from the city. Also, Mayor Nutter's spokesman said the city would look into helping the group watch the Phillies game.
The Occupy Philly protesters have formed several committees — in charge of everything from sanitation to media outreach to security and safety. Each committee gave a brief report before the assembly moved on to the agenda.
The process by which these decisions were made was a consensus-based vote of the "General Assembly" — essentially, as many members of the group who cared to participate in the meeting, easily more than a hundred people last night.
Each item up for a vote was explained to the crowd. Following that, the speakers facilitated clarifying questions from the crowd. Following that, members were invited to share their opinions. Next step: a non-binding straw poll, to see how close the group was to consensus.
The first item — fiscal sponsorship — passed muster, though not before crowd members asked several questions, including whether accepting de facto nonprofit status was an endorsement of the U.S. tax system.
The decision whether to apply for a permit was tabled, after the group came close — but apparently not close enough — to a near-consensus on the matter. Mayor spokesman Mark McDonald, present for the entire meeting, made it clear that the city would grant the permit more or less immediately. While the group itself would have to submit a timeline for the event, McDonald seemed unconcerned about the duration.
"If we have to renew it, we'll renew it," McDonald told CP.
After the vote was tabled — it will be taken up again today — McDonald told City Paper:
"In a city steeped in the traditions of Quakerism, the General Assembly has decided that they want a greater consensus — even though overwhelmingly the vote was in favor of getting a permit. But I understand."
"They're also asking for an electric feed so they can have a TV to watch the baseball game tomorrow night," McDonald added. "We have to check, but we will certainly give it every consideration."
More Occupy Philly stuff:
- Check out Daniel Denvir's opinion piece: Occupy Philly should apply for the permit.
- Check out my latest Man Overboard! column: Occupy Philly owes no justification of itself.
- Follow both of us — @danieldenvir and @isaiah_thompson on Twitter for updates.
We're happy to welcome Samantha Melamed as our new news editor. A Fishtown dweller, Samantha had been previously working across the river: She was the executive editor of South Jersey Magazine and the founding editor and editor in chief of South Jersey Biz Magazine. As a freelancer she's contributed to the Inquirer, the departed Brownstoner.com (where I was also a contributor), Philadelphia magazine, MediaBistro.com and more. She spent a year and a half as a reporter and editor for The Cambodia Daily (which adds to our international flair here in the newsroom, seeing that staff writer Dan Denvir spent time in Ecuador and I once edited an English-language magazine in Cairo.) We look forward to Samantha's contributions.
Video by Marquise Lee. First four photos by Kae Crack, and the rest by photographer Kaytee Riek.
Send your personal testimonies and photos to daniel[DOT]denvir@citypaper[DOT]net and we will post them over the coming weeks--or months?
Follow @DanielDenvir and @Isaiah_Thompson on Twitter for continuing Occupy Philly coverage.
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