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POPSIs Michelle Obama Responsible For The Wright Fiasco?
What can it be that has kept Obama in Wright's pews, and at Wright's mercy, for so long and at such a heavy cost to his aspirations? Even if he pulls off a mathematical nomination victory, he has completely lost the first, fine, careless rapture of a post-racial and post-resentment political movement and mired us again in all the old rubbish that predates Dr. King. What a sad thing to behold. Then, how is it that the loathsome Wright married him, baptized his children, and received donations from him? Could it possibly have anything, I wonder, to do with Mrs. Obama? This obvious question is now becoming inescapable, and there is an inexcusable unwillingness among reporters to be the one to ask it. (One can picture Obama looking pained and sensitive and saying, "Keep my wife out of it,") ?Mrs. Obama's 1985 thesis influenced by? "separationism" offered by Stokely Carmichael and Charles Hamilton in their 1967 screed Black Power: The Politics of Liberation in America.
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POPSMark Steyn: Grandma Got Over At The Press Club as the real deal. With less impressionable types, such as voters, Senator Obama is having a tougher time. The Philly speech is emblematic of his most pressing problem: the gap — indeed, full-sized canyon — that’s opening up between the rhetorical magic and the reality. That’s the difference between a simulacrum and a genuinely great speech. The gaseous platitudes of hope and change and unity no longer seem to fit the choices of Obama’s adult life. Oddly enough, the shrewdest appraisal of the Senator’s speechifying “magic” came from Jeremiah Wright himself. “He’s a politician,” said the Reverend. “He says what he has to say as a politician… He does what politicians do.” The notion that the Amazing Obama might be just another politician doing what politicians do seems to have affronted the senator more than any of the stuff about America being no different from al-Qaeda and the government inventing AIDs to kill black people.
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POPSPenn State Rife With Voting Problems Why is it so hard to have a reliable voting scheme... unless it is intentional. Don't officials understand that eyes are upon them? Could it be simply that they don't give a crap about the public they are supposed to be servants to, and that they know that things are so out of whack that their misdeeds, intentional or not, have no repercussions?
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POPSWho's The Daddy? Ever thought your child looks a little too much like the mailman? Confirming your child's paternity is now as easy as taking a trip to your local Rite Aid - and, according to this Philly Inquirer article, they've been flying off the shelves. To use the kit customers have to scrape cells from the cheek of the child, mother and father in question and send it to a lab for analysis, which takes about a week. I was surprised to find out last year just how many different kinds of home-use health tests are available today. You can check everything from the alcohol content in your breast milk to whether you might have colon cancer. Check out the piece I wrote on the topic last year: http://www.forbes.com/health/2007/05/11/health-home-test-forbeslife-cx_avd_0514health.html
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POPSTeen faces WMD charge after plastic egg explodesmisguided Prank goes wrong. Just a little over the top with the WMD bullshit. Officials should be charged with misuse of powers. Hopefully the judge will bring in sanity. If Charlies kids can flaunt swastikas, this kid should be able to pull a prank, even if a little silly.
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POPSRepublican Hypocrites Release Campaign Ads in Spanish More: Think Progress also noted: "Last fall, the owner of Philadelphia cheesesteak restaurant Geno's Steaks endorsed Giuliani. Vento became notorious for posting a sign in his restaurant that read: 'This is America. When Ordering Please Speak English.' " The Giuliani campaign posted a video clip of Vento's endorsement from an interview with Fox News' Neil Cavuto on the campaign's official YouTube site. In an October 3, 2007, Philadelphia Inquirer column, Monica Yant Kinney reported that during a visit to Vento's restaurant Giuliani told a local reporter: "Whenever I'm at Geno's, I order in English." As campaign cliches go, it doesn't get much better than Giuliani dropping by Joey Vento's neon palace in South Philly. The Italian American who wants to seal the border, bonding with the Italian American who once told a reporter that immigrants are infecting the U.S. with disease because "Mexicans play and drink out of the same water."
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POPSJoey "Speak English" Vento (Geno's Cheesesteaks) does not represent South Philly
A student of history, Jacovini can talk at length about Italian-Americans in the civil rights movement and how Italian-Americans were the second most likely group to be lynched in the South. He describes how in the 1870s—in the streets of Northern Liberties and South Philly—Philadelphia's native (aka English) Americans fought Gangs of New York-style battles with the Irish. And how the Irish in turn refused to let the newly arrived Italians use their Catholic churches. Today, “the cycle of the last person who came into the country stepping on the next person to come into the country has been broken. That's the real story.” He points to how the pastor of St. Paul's invited Mexican South Philadelphians to carry a statue of Our Lady of Guadeloupe—the patron saint of Mexico—in the traditional (and very Italian) procession of saints. “To me, this was the Italian community's way of welcoming their new Mexican neighbors. I'm proud because no one welcomed us when we first arrived.
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POPSPhilly Inquirer Replaces Circulation Director While it's not clear why Proebstle was replaced, the move solidifies CEO Brian Tierney's control of the former Knight-Ridder paper, which PMH acquired from McClatchy in June 2006. Since then, Tierney has replaced every top executive at the Inquirer, including Editor Amanda Bennett and Publisher Joe Natoli, although he claimed last year that he wanted Natoli to stay. (The former publisher is now CFO of the University of Miami.)
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POPSHow To Network: For Introverts He had me until he said that you shouldn't overtax yourself - only go to 1-2 events per month. 1-2 per month??? OMG I could never handle that. On the other hand, I guess I already go to 1 per month - the Philly.NET user group. And I really like it. So why does the thought of going to 1-2 events per month sound so scary?
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POPSWelcome to the Substream summer concert series We're having a bunch of concerts on my roof this summer with some great acts! Each concert will feature acts from all kinds of genres- hiphop to drum n bass, jazz to punk, reggae to indie rock. The first of these concerts is SAT May 19th with two great indie glam bands (similar to that new stuff on the radio/MTV... sorry I'm not a big fan of rock but these bands are all the rage now in Philly) - Univox and Qwirk, a killer DJ (DIEFEX) and my two fave hiphop acts from Philly- The GreaseMonkeys and The Knowmadz! Click on the flyer image for more info and for Myspace links to the bands- they're GOOD- trust me, these are handpicked the best of the crop right now:
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