Philly Flag Day: Philadelphians United by Their Flag

Did you know that March 27^th is the birthday of Philadelphia’s flag?  And the city celebrates it every year?  (And yes, the city does have an OFFICIAL flag.)

The flag, with it’s IKEA colors (which commemorate the original Swedish settlers), is there to UNITE us.

The flag’s motto, “Philadelphia Maneto,” seems to have several translations, though the official one is: “Let Brotherly Love Continue.”  However, maneto, from the Latin manere, can have another, “earthier” meaning as well.  It can mean to spend the night – in a romantic sense!  Was this the inspiration for that Philly’s More Fun When you Sleep Over ad campaign…?

Maybe Philly Flag Day could usher in a banner year!  Perhaps by celebrating the flag we could change the city for the better.  By waving it (like the white flag of surrender) at gangs of marauding youth, it could cast a spell of brotherly love upon them and they wouldn’t pummel their fellow citizens.  Having politicians wrap themselves in the flag would be a GOOD thing as the four principals — PEACE, HOPE, JUSTICE, AND PROSPERITY – rubbed off on them and corruption disappeared from our fair city.  And if the unifying effects were flagging at some locations, then you could just call up the Philly Pride Lady who’d arrive in her colorful costume to give you a civic booster!  What a beautiful dream…

Sure there are other things you could be doing that day – working, watching TV or even going bowling – but I know what I’ll be doing on March 27th!

Philly's more fun when you're bowled over.

Philadelphia Barnes the Center of the Art World

Isaiah Zagar was right all along!!!  Philadelphia is the center of the art world.  Maybe he’s some sort of homegrown Nostredamus…I wonder if he could tell us who’s going to win the Republican nomination…No, of course not!  Who cares about such a debased subject as politics!  Art is beauty, art is uplifting and art is NOT about money (well, mostly not, unless you’re trying to control a whole collection of it).  Sure the new Barnes Foundation on the Parkway, has membership levels as high as $25,000, BUT you may still be able to get in for FREE!

Philly is welcoming the new museum with open arms, and some think the collection has happily escaped the grasp of Lower Merion.  Stu Bykofsky, however (channeling the late Albert Barnes) has a very different take.  Well, as they say about money, you can’t take it with you.  And if you’re long gone, it’s not going to stay where you left it either.

It's an ART study center, not a YOUTH study center!

Rendell, Blatstein, High Finance, and the Tangled Tale of the Philadelphia Media Network

In a slightly convoluted story (though, admittedly it IS convoluted), The Naked Philadelphian gives some justification for the recent snub of Bart Blatstein’s group in its attempt to purchase Philadelphia Media Network.  The scuttlebutt is that a dislike of Raymond Perelman and his bad business practices are at the heart of the strange dealings.  However, Naked’s Laura Goldman implies that Roger Altman has his eye on a cabinet position with the Obama administration and thinks Ed Rendell can get him some extra added traction.  (It may be a long shot for Altman, as Wall Street bankers are not that popular these days, Obama would have to let Timothy Geithner go, and there are still a number of other candidates to contend with before Altman had a shot at Treasury.)

Philadelphia Media Network has hired Altman’s firm, Evercore Partners, to broker the sale.  One of the current PMN owners, Angelo Gordon, is apparently eager to unload the entity he bought at auction in 2010.  Alden Global is another owner whose CEO ostensibly has a bad business beef with Raymond Perelman, who claims HE was prevented from bidding on the media group (Ray was part of Bart’s homegrown group and made an unsuccessful attempt to buy PMN last time around).

Ed Rendell still maintains that he is just doing good for the city and its economy.  He does not appear to be fronting any money in this venture, even though he is the frontman for his group.  He also says he had nothing to do with the recent censorship debacle at the Daily News.  Laura Goldman intimates that was also partly Evercore’s doing because they don’t believe Bart is a big enough player nationally so they froze him out.

There are more than a few local journalists who are suspect of Rendell’s claimed civic mindedness because his investor group includes people who are highly politically connected.  Ed emphasizes his desire to keep Philly journalism independent and even spoke of erecting a “fire wall” between management and the day-to-day reporting.

We suspect this story will continue to be front page news — provided the local media continues to cover it and they can still afford to print a front page…

Talk about a media circus....geez!

 

Philadelphia Media Network – Now I want it, now I don’t….

What sort of shell game are folks playing with our local dailies?  Are Daily News stories being shuffled around so as to seem to disappear?  The hometown crowd of potential buyers seems to keep stepping right on up.  Now you see their story right on the printed page, oops, and now you don’t!

And how much would you pay for this lovely media group?  You might ask how much is it worth…?

 Is Ed Rendell buying the papers through the goodness of his heart?  Is Bart Blatstein trying to get the scoop on Fast Eddie’s group?

All things will be revealed in good time.  Then again, in a town with no transparency, the truth is like the Ace in a game of 3 Card Monte…

“Theme-park plan for Burlington Island advances”

What’s history and nature got to do with a theme park…???

The Place Where PCBs Come Through?

 

Christmas Traditions Around the World

There are all sorts of unusual holiday traditions all over the world: the Austrian anti-Santa known as the Krampus; the giant Swedish yule goat that is traditionally a victim of arson; and that special Christmas chicken from KFC in Japan.

Some of the earthiest traditions seem to occur in Spain.  First is the caga tio, the log that shits out candy after a beating, and then there’s my favorite, the caganer.  The caganer is a pantless, squatting figure relieving himself in traditional nativity scenes.

The original peasant caganer figure has now been joined by a whole host of celebrity versions.  There’s a pooping Queen Elizabeth, a pooping Pope, and even one of our own Barack Obama.

Pooping in good company -- Einstein, Obama and the Queen!

This is a tradition that might be right at home here in Philly.  First, it’s ecologically friendly — a sort of “green” holiday figure.   And second, we have no shortage of characters who shit on the city.   It would be fun to have a pooping Philebrity.  Hmmm, now what potential candidate most recently and famously shat on the City of Brotherly Love…?

Former head of the stool department?

When Good Food Goes Bad at School

Well, the food Nazis are at it again.  Trying to interfere with the free market by pretending there’s some problem with our school lunches.  They’re the enemy of value added, and want to take us back to a time when frumpy lunch ladies actually cooked food!  Nobody’s gonna do THAT anymore!

In some schools, we now have large, successful food companies (like Philly’s own ARAmark) who are in business to make money, create jobs and feed our kids in a wholesome, cost-effective way.   They are emblematic of how private industry is helping our public schools — helping to get rid of entitled union employees cooking in the cafeteria kitchen.  We should trust these experts to provide school lunches to our most precious resource – our children.

According to Lucy Komisar, writing in the New York Times (that liberal rag!):

“…Michigan Department of Education, for example, gets free raw chicken worth $11.40 a case and sends it for processing into nuggets at $33.45 a case. The schools in San Bernardino, Calif., spend $14.75 to make French fries out of $5.95 worth of potatoes.”

SEE!! Value added (so what if there’s a few empty calories added as well)!

Don’t let some liberal feed you the line about childhood obesity or chronic illness from eating overly processed food.  Everyone knows a little baby fat is cute!  And lower test scores in the schools that serve processed foods….Why do you hate America’s food?!?!

If the school district receives 1 chicken for free and then buys it back as nuggets from the food processor for $10.00, how much money did it save?

“Penn grads petition for University name change”

If you’ve ever heard a UPenn student correct someone who has mistaken their Ivy League school for the state university, you know they’re just a tad sensitive about it.  So now it is not surprising that some students want to distance themselves as much as possible from that other (embarrassing) institution of higher learning — even if it’s only a semantic distance.   (There’s an article in today’s Metro.)

 It doesn’t look like there will be a name change anytime soon (UPenn is loathe to change historical names), but here are a few suggestions just in case:

This might be the most cost effective option

 

Why let that cool dolphin go to waste? And the Latin is classy!

 

Or maybe they could just change the design of their shield.  Though that might also be a hard sell since they have a pretty strict usage policy for those symbols.

Et tu, Brutus, you think we're a state school?

 

I'd rather have a social reformer possessed of an Inner Light than some fake feline for a mascot.