A FATE WORSE THAN DEBT

Our story about Philadelphia Courts’ campaign to collect decades-old criminal debts and the threats to jail debtors [“Resurrect Debt,” Daniel Denvir, Oct. 4, 2012] got citypaper.net commentator Frank Black riled up: “These dinks show the regression of the Democratic Party: extract money from those who don’t have it is a core conservative principle. Nutter and the court administrators should spend 30 days in their new, illegal, debtors prison. 

But commenter samac had a different take: “This is the sort of boondoggle that occurs when you let Philly machine hacks run things. You want a simple solution? Bring back bail bondsmen. The Democrats got rid of them in the 1970s to curry favor with the criminal vote, which based on this [story] is about 400K of Philly’s 1.5 million people. Though I have to say, if they include old unpaid parking tickets, I am in the 400K. Never paid a penny in parking tickets when the Dems ran the PPA. Ah, those were the days.”

TECHNICALLY SPEAKING

A post on our Naked City blog about Councilman Bill Green’s bill to require all city websites to be compatible with various Internet browsers [“Councilman Green to City: Internet Explorer Only? Really?,” Isaiah Thompson, Oct. 11, 2012] evoked this droll observation from Phillysphinest: “The [city’s] EContracts website uses Comic Sans. I mean, come on.”

BUILDING A CASE

A Naked City blog post about the City’s Controller’s efforts to rein in out-of-control development around Temple [“City Controller to Slam Temple-Area Developers?,” Isaiah Thompson, Oct. 9, 2012] made commenter samac break out the sarcasm: “Obviously a special investigation is needed to determine why the hell anyone would ever invest in North Philly. They must be dealing crack or something. Yes, someone needs to fix that problem of too much investment. Thank God for Philly politicians and their L&I lapdogs sticking their hands out at every sign of progress. No-show union jobs in lieu of cash contribution will be deemed acceptable payment.”

THIS IS NOT A TEST

And responding to a Naked City blog post on the state Department of Education reducing the number of grade levels in charter schools that need to meet testing goals, in what seems like an effort to make them look better than public schools [“PA Makes It Easier for Charters to Pass State Tests,” Daniel Denvir, Oct.8, 2012], Democracyined wrote: “Just another way for the Secretary of Education to cheat on the test and game the system. What a disgrace.”