[0] Mayor Nutter tells a federal judge the decision to ban feeding the homeless outdoors was not influenced by pressure from businesses on the Parkway. “Especially not the Barnes Foundation at 21st and the Parkway, home to one of the world’s finest holdings of Impressionist, post-Impressionist and early-modern paintings, African sculpture, metalwork and more.” 

[+1] Asked why she couldn’t move her “church without walls” indoors to feed the homeless, Rev. Violet Little tells the same judge “You can’t have a church without walls with walls.” Adding: “Also, it would make our hover-ceiling kinda pointless.”

[-2] A four-alarm warehouse fire in Northern Liberties shuts down the El until the building can be demolished. “We prefer it if our passengers didn’t have cool things to look at during the ride,” explains SEPTA spokesperson. “Too much stimulation. Just sit there and stare at each other till it’s over. It’ll all be over soon.”

[-6] Facing a deficit of around $282 million, the school district may soon lay off 500 blue-collar workers. And because each makes $560,000 a year, this solves the problem.

[+1] This weekend, four journalists will livetweet coverage of the annual re-enactment of the Battle of Gettysburg. And then it’s off to law school until the economy turns around. 

[+1] U.S. labor unions plan a “shadow convention” in Philadelphia three weeks before the Democratic Convention. Topics include “This One’s a Bunny Rabbit” and “Look, I Made a Swan.”

[+1] Amtrak announces its plan to decrease the length of a trip between Philly and New York City to 37 minutes by 2040. Can we get a direct line from Northern Liber-ties to Will-iamsburg? You know, for inter-league kickball.

[+1] Around 200 Occupy protesters begin their march from Philly to New York. And soon find out that the Jersey Devil likes the Bush tax cuts and agrees with the Citizens United ruling. My, how they argued! Then he devoured them all. 

This week’s total: -3  |  Last week’s total: -9