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Archive: November, 2009
As if you didn't know: The Phillies won a tense game 5, forcing a game 6 tomorrow night in New York wherein Pedro Martinez will get a second chance to end the "who's your daddy?" chants once and for all.
Also, SEPTA called an audible, announcing a 3 a.m. strike shutting down all city subway, bus and trolley service, essentially holding true to the letter of their word to not striking during the World Series home games. Yes, yes, we support the union's right to strike, but tell it to the people waiting at bus stops at 5:30 this morning.
So we'll take this opportunity to share a word with the Bicycle Coalition of Greater Philadelphia who suggest you "Bike the Strike":
PHILADELPHIA - November 3, 2009 - The Bicycle Coalition of Greater Philadelphia urges SEPTA travelers to bike instead of driving. Commuters who bike will win out over those stuck in traffic jams of epic proportions."Avoid the crush and bike the strike," says Alex Doty, Executive Director of the Bicycle Coalition of Greater Philadelphia. "Bike the Strike to save time, money and help shrink your waistline. Plus, I guarantee you will have more fun than anyone trying to drive during the strike."
In cooperation with Philadelphia's Office of Transportation and Utilities, the Bicycle Coalition has established a Bike the Strike station at City Hall (Dillworth Plaza). The station has bike parking corrals, free coffee, bike maps and Bicycle Ambassadors on hand to give tips on bike commuting and personalized route planning.
Keeping safe while bicycling is critical. "Bicycles are considered vehicles, so we also urge all bicyclists to obey the rules of the road," said Education Director Breen Goodwin. "It's important for all bicyclists to be civil, courteous and comply with traffic laws, such as walking their bikes on sidewalks and stopping at all signals, to ensure the everyone's safety."
More biking tips after the jump:
BIKE THE STRIKE
Fastest Option
For those who commute four miles or less, bicycling instead of driving will get you to your destination faster and will take no longer than using a bus or trolley.
A Center City District study found that bicycling by following the rules of the road is always faster than walking, driving or taking the bus across Center City during rush hour.
Healthiest Option
Commuting by bicycle for 15 minutes each way (about 2-3 miles) meets the Center for Disease Control's minimum recommendation of 30 minutes of moderate-intensity physical activity per day
Regular physical activity may help reduce your risk for many diseases including cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, colon and breast cancers, and osteoporosis. It also helps to control weight; contributes to healthy bones, muscles, and joints; and reduces falls among older adults.
Safety First
Bicyclists are not pedestrians with two wheels. Bikes are vehicles and must comply with traffic laws just as motor vehicles do.
Bicycles should stop at all red lights and walk their bikes on sidewalks.
Stop by your local bike shop during the strike for a free bicycle safety check
For more commuting tips, go to www.bicycleambassadors.org and click on Handouts and videos
Now
55,000 commuters bike to work once a month.
On a typical day in Philadelphia, 11,000 bike-to-work trips are taken.
1.6 % of commuters ride their bike to work; Philadelphia has the highest percentage of bike-to-work commuters of the country's largest 10 cities
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[...] http://citypaper.net/blogs/clog/2009/11/03/phils-win-commuters-lose-bike-the-strike/Clef Club : One good thing about music: It inspired Sonata. ⢠Repertory Film : Your weekly guide to local film events, festivals and under-the-radar screenings. ⢠Thee Oh Sees : Sun., Oct. 11, 9 p.m., $5, with Golden Triangle, Love City, Reading Rainbow and Weatherbox, Danger Danger Gallery, … Place your free classified ad now. ⢠Billboards · Tuesday, November 3 2009, 11:47 AM | Partly Cloudy, and 58° F | Tomorrow: High: 64 F Low: 40 F Some sun; breezy in the p.m. … [...]
[...] Go here to read the rest: Phils win, commuters lose, bike the strike :: The Clog :: Blog … [...]
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| Jim Horwat |
| Click image to see full print. |
Jim Horwat, our favorite Phillies-loving, smile-crazy illustrator — the man behind last year's championship-celebrating tribute/collage — is back with a 2009 print featuring all the stars of this year's run and Brad Lidge and Eric Bruntlett. Oh, and it's also got HK and the Phanatic done up like some kind of Mayan priest.
This year's print is full color and available in a signed and numbered first edition on Horwat's web site. Do some early x-mas shopping and maybe buy the Phils a little karma tonight.
Social comments and analytics for this post... This post was mentioned on Twitter by PhiladelphiaRSS: What we : Jim Horwat Click image to see full print. Jim Horwat, our favorite Phillies-loving, smil.. http://bit.ly/12E1Wg...
Not to be that guy or anything, but I pretty much called it: When the chips were down, TWU declined to go on strike and fuck up the city's transportation system during its moment in the sun. According to the union, this happened because Gov. Rendell threatened to yank mass transit funding if either they or SEPTA officials left the negotiating table — an empty threat if ever I heard one. (Seriously, Fast Eddie's gonna punish 1 million some-odd SEPTA commuters because authority and union leaders throw adolescent temper tantrums? Right.) But anyway. Using the gov's alleged "threat" as cover, the union backed off its nihilistic promise to plunge this city into chaos over the weekend. Now, we're told, a deal is imminent.
Good. Now, with the worst presumably behind us, let's take a look at the bigger picture. First of all, I don't really have a problem with SEPTA threatening to strike, in teh abstract anyway. I've spent most of my life in a largely non-union state, Florida, and seen what happens when there's not a strong counterbalance to either governmental or business excess. My objection, rather, was to the nature of the TWU's threat — i.e. give us our way or we'll blow up the city. Sure. SEPTA shouldn't be dragging out negotiations for six months after the last contract expired, but trying to negotiate by taking the city hostage isn't my idea of maturity, or a way to engender my respect. The problem, in this particular instance, was one of tactics.
Does TWU have a case? Probably, at least in some respects. Yeah, rising healthcare costs suck, and no one wants to see their costs rise from 1 percent to 4 percent — when my insurance kicks in (please God, let me make it to Jan. 1) I'll be paying somewhere around 7 percent of my paycheck for me and my fiancee — as SEPTA proposes for its workers. But everyone's costs have gone up, everywhere. The cost of healthcare itself is increasingly astronomically (c'mon, public option), and without asking the union to pay up, those costs get passed along to riders and state taxpayers. But, OK, fine, whatever. Same with wages. Is SEPTA being a bit heavy-handed with a two-year wage freeze? I'll admit to not knowing the severity of the authority's budget woes, but I'd imagine they can bend a bit on that. I really haven't found TWU's argument for more pension money at all convincing.
The eventual agreement will probably fall somewhere in the middle. Seems there won't be an increase in health costs, but I would imagine (or hope) that in return the union will give up its pension pipe dream, and then they'll come to a middle ground on wages (maybe 1 percent a year instead of nothing; but really, the union's demands for 4 percent per year are simply unrealistic, and I reckon they know that).
The bigger issue, for me — and this may make me a bit unpopular in these parts — is the union's ability to muddy the authority's ability to innovate. No layoffs, guaranteed? Great, until there's a crisis that demands them. Guaranteed raises, no matter how well or poorly someone performs? I'm much more inclined to award merit over seniority.
See, to me, unions are supposed to be a counterbalance, not an anchor. SEPTA isn't a multi-billion dollar corporation; it's a state-funded authority, with a responsibility to provide transit at reasonable costs. The union would do well to keep in mind that that is its primary mission — it's not merely a guaranteed jobs program. The union is and should be there to protect its workers from being exploited; I support that. But making unrealistic demands and then threatening to strike on the most important weekend of the year if you don't get your way isn't about protecting workers, it's about manipulating SEPTA officials' to produce maximum returns for its members, even if such returns are ultimately harmful to taxpayers and SEPTA users.
In that sense, I glad their bluff was called. Next time, negotiate like grown-ups.
[...] did more than its fair share of what Tom would surely label as union-bashing, here and here and here. In part because of an excess of spleen but mostly because they relied on traditional journalism to [...]
If you think healthcare is expensive now, wait till its free.
He who laughs last... TWU grew a pair
I think Jeff needs to go back to his bread and butter subjects that worked so well for him in Orlando: gay adoption, crazy right wingers, christian bashing, raising taxes & expanding government as the solution to the world's problems, and "praying away the gay"...c'mon Jeff - write about these things instead of some obscure union dispute at a local transportation authority.
Way 2 claim credit for repeating wut everyone else was saying and everyone else whose been around for more then 10 minutes already knew.
Julia Harte with your morning fix.
Amy Gutmann, president of the University of Pennsylvania, was again among the highest-paid university presidents in the country with an annual salary of well over $1 million, according to the Chronicle of Higher Education's salary survey released today.
Afghan president Hamid Karzai automatically won a second term today after his only remaining challenger from the fraud-ridden election in August dropped out of the runoff election planned for Nov. 7, saying he believed the runoff would be as corrupt as the original.
Bagram Air Field, the largest U.S. army base in Afghanistan, already houses about 24,000 military personnel and contractors but is still expanding with rapid construction projects costing millions of dollars, even as President Obama debates whether to send more troops into the country.
The Iraqi oil ministry signed an agreement with a consortium of companies headed by the Italian firm ENI to develop the Zubair oil field in southern Iraq, marking the oil ministry's second major contract since the U.S. invasion. The group will extract 200,000 barrels of oil a day from the field, possibly eventually rising to 1.1 million barrels.
New York Waste Management has been paying townships and property owners in Philadelphia's northern suburbs millions of dollars annually to dump about 2,500 tons of trash from New York City in their landfills every day.
Last night's World Series game 4 had a little bit of everything for your local neighborhood Phils cynic. Let's not forget that while the Phillies are indeed a very formidable team, they've got their weaknesses — and almost all of them were exposed against the best power pitching and power hitting money can buy.
- CC Sabathia — his inability to do anything with Chase Utley notwithstanding — continued to make Phils lefties Ryan Howard and Raul Ibanez look look like Rico Brogna and Travis Lee.
- Joe Blanton, a yeoman 4th starter, despite a sick run from the second inning into the fifth where he painted the corners deftly, was undone in a fifth inning where nobody hit the ball all that hard, but, given Blanton's lack of an out pitch, was unable to drop the hammer and end an ill timed two-run rally.
- Charlie Manuel, despite finding himself in a situation — tied at 4 in the ninth after an improbable Pedro Feliz tying shot — where he might be facing extra innings, decided to not try to get another inning out of his best/most durable reliever, Ryan Madson, and went to Brad Lidge in a situation that called for perfection.
- In a bit of irony too rich for words, when the Phils employed a severe defensive shift against Mark Teixeira — the same one used so often against their own Ryan Howard — they got burned on a steal of second wherein Johnny Damon kept running right on down to an uncovered third base.
- Of course, then there's the mystery of why Brad Lidge stopped throwing his slider — his best pitch and possibly the best pitch on the entire staff — while facing Johnny Damon in the first place, but Brad Lidge mysteries could fill a book at this point.
Did I miss anything?
[...] Iraqi oil ministry signs contract and New York City trash being dumped in burbs north of Philly• Crumblin' Down: Game 4 a microcosm of Phils season• Appetite for Destruction 4: The Final Countdown• Appetite for Destruction 3: Fast [...]
@Brian: I'm accusing myself. Sports fans are a superstitious lot, and if I was a Phillies fan I wouldn't risk a jinx by writing "Lee is money in the bank" in the comments section. Now please allow me to continue. I think Lee is as close to a sure thing right now as you can get, and if the offense can muster more than 1 run, Pedro will get you to Game 7.
@JD: hah! thanks for clarifying.
@JD: Who are you accusing of jinxing the Phils?
Lee is money in the bank. If I was a Phillies fan, I would feel very confident about tonight, and I wouldn't be making comments that could jinx my team.
@Allan: You're right, I am still glad to be a Phils fan. And Lee's just the guy you want on the Hill tonight (though, arguably, he's the guy we wanted on the hill last night). @Tofoomeister: I heard the umps got together before the game and made up a ground rule about being near the plate being good enough.
I'd say the umpiring was a microcosm of the umpiring throughout the postseason. Hey, the one big missed call (Howard crossing home) went our way, but it's almost like the umpires are begging to be replaced by robots.
re: Did I miss anything? Aren't you *really* glad you're a Phils fan and not a follower of the Yankees? I am. Though their backs are against the wall, all the Phillies have to do is equal what the Yanks so far have accomplished... and they are Series Champs, Again. Win 3 in row. One Game at a time. Go Phillies!
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