Dear Guild Member, Today several of our members, with the support of National Association of Black Journalists, met with top executives of the Philadelphia Inquirer and Daily News. Attached is a summary of their talking points, passed on with their permission: THE PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER DIVERSITY OBSERVATIONS January 16, 2007 African American (11.3 percent), Asian American (4.7 percent) and Hispanic American (2.1 percent) journalists are the minorities represented on The Inquirer?s newsroom staff, according to the latest survey of the American Society of Newspaper editors. African American (16) and Asian American (5) journalists represent a disproportionate share (28 percent) of the […]
SAME AS IT EVER WAS: Neil Stein Spotted Walking Towards Rittenhouse Square & Looking FABULOUS!
Stein, 65, said that he wanted to create a high-end, boutique hotel called Wow with computers and flat-screen televisions in every room, with a bistro, rooftop club, limo service, Philadelphia’s best spa, and – in place of a check-in desk – a concierge service to escort guests to their rooms. Or he’d try franchising Rouge, the bistro he created on Rittenhouse Square, perhaps opening versions in Miami Beach or the Georgetown section of Washington. Or develop a rehab center for alcohol and drug addicts in Center City; he’s a recovering addict. He said he had even given some thought to […]
HALLWATCH Launches Letter Campaign To Spur City Council To Sue Pants & Underpants Off Gaming Board
The Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board chose the two worst sites for Casinos in Philadelphia. Councilman DiCicco has offered to file a law suit to challenge the Gaming Board’s decisions, but law suits are expensive, very expensive. In order to proceed, he needs to convince City Council to fund the lawsuit. They will be voting on this budget before the end of January. Please write in to City Council ASAP. They need to hear from us that we need this funding. Sample Letter: Dear Council Member, Please fund Councilman DiCicco?s effort to file a lawsuit with the PGCB. Thank you, YOUR […]
2nd City Hall Break-In, Intruders Rifle Thru Supreme Court Files, Leave Behind Inspirational Messages, Smiley Faces, “i”s Dotted With Little Hearts, Etc.
For the second time in less than a week, an apparent break-in has been discovered at Philadelphia City Hall. On Sunday, the glass pane of an office door leading to the fourth-floor office of the City Council president was found smashed (see related story). Then, on Tuesday morning, workers found that an exterior window in the offices of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court in City Hall had been smashed and the offices left in disarray. There is scaffolding outside the south side of City Hall reaching up to the fourth floor, and officials think someone got access to that scaffolding by […]
GUNCRAZY: Suicide By Cop Done ‘By The Book,’ Say Experts
Police say officers twice tried to tame the man in Center City with shots from a Taser electronic stun gun before he lunged at them with the knife, yelling, “Kill me! Kill me!” The five officers shot him down in a fusillade. He was the second man killed by police gunfire this year. Police yesterday disclosed few new details about the 2 a.m. confrontation, which was captured by surveillance cameras outside the Robert N.C. Nix Federal Building on Market Street near Ninth. The assailant, said to be in his 30s, has not been identified. Experts say police, in their account […]
GUNCRAZY: Suicide By Cop Outside The Gallery
(AP) PHILADELPHIA Philadelphia police say officers shot and killed a knife-wielding man who yelled “Kill me” and lunged at them early Sunday morning. The killing is the second this year by city police. Police say it happened about 2 a.m. as the officers were responding to a report of a broken window at a federal building across the street from The Gallery, the downtown mall. Police Captain Benjamin Naish says the officers tried several times to use a stun gun, but couldn’t disarm the man. Naish won’t say how many officers fired or how many shots were fired at the […]
GAYBO: HIPSTERS, TRAMPS AND SLEAZE, MORRISSEY DOES EUROVISION? NO FUMAR y NO ESTACIONAR & THREESOME OF THE WEEK
BY TOMMY ZANE Aging Granddaddy of all hipsters and ambivalent sex-God Morrissey is rumored to have jumped in the race to write and/or perform this year’s U.K. entry in the Eurovision Song Contest, to be held May 12 in Helsinki, Finland. The 52 year-old contest counts ABBA and Olivia Newton-John among its discoveries (the Aussie warbler lost out to the ABBA’s “Waterloo” in the 1974 go-round) but Eurovision is mostly known for its high camp and lousy pop songs with flashy Solid Gold-esque choreography. If Morrissey does indeed sign up to represent the U.K., I can only imagine a domino […]
ARTSY: Grand Dame Of 60s Op-Art Still Hip at 90
BY AMY S. ROSENBERG INQUIRER STAFF WRITER In the ’60s, she was making art that was part of the psychedelic fabric of its day, mind-blowing optical trickery, paintings that vibrated and moved, art that anticipated a digital medium few had imagined. But Edna Andrade was no hippie, no part of the like-wow drug culture that embraced the op art movement of the 1960s. She was middle-aged, living on her own on Carlisle Street in Center City, her architect husband having left her, isolated from the New York or European art scene, no starving waitress thing for her, no East Village […]
PBR: FOOKIN’ PUNTERS!
BY PATRICK BERKERY Down in the Big Easy, where the Eagles’ unexpected playoff push came to a screeching halt Saturday night, there’s a colloquialism called lagniappe. It means ?a little something extra.? And what Jeff Garcia, Brian Dawkins, Brian Westbrook, Marty Mornhinweg et al gave us after Donovan went down was a totally unforeseen little something extra. Well done, boys. Well done. That said, the way it ended stings. Badly. Lagniappe, schmaniappe, I say. The defense might?ve been sucking wind late in the fourth quarter, but Garcia was still cocked and loaded (insert rumors of Garcia being homosexual-related punch line […]
SMELLS LIKE JOURNALISM: Inky Editorial Board Descends From Ivory Tower To Hear Vox Populi
Talking to Philadelphians about their city is like talking to a woman about the guy she’s been married to for 30 years. She has his quirks and habits down cold. If you ask nicely, she’ll recite them all for you, in rueful, sarcastic detail. But don’t you go criticizing him, or she’ll knock your block off as soon as she looks at you. She’ll never pretend he looks like Pierce Brosnan or George Clooney, but then again, she never cared that much about that kind of thing. Anyway, for a guy his age, who’s been through what he’s been through, […]
GAMBLOR: Will Philly Slot Shacks Have ‘Timeout Room’ For Sore Losers With Hunting Knives?
ATLANTIC CITY ? A Philadelphia man was arrested after allegedly stabbing a woman multiple times late Friday night outside the Tropicana Casino and Resort. A Tropicana doorman and a valet driver witnessed Christopher Barnes, 54, stabbing an unidentified female in the property’s South Tower drive-through shortly after 11 p.m, police said. The two men managed to pull Barnes off the victim and hand him off to casino security officers, who detained Barnes until police officers William Pollack and Keith Bennett arrived to take him into custody, police said. Police found a hunting-style knife on the scene, which they believe was […]