News: May 2009 Archives

Here comes the Twitter action, folks. In case you don't know, the residents of the statusphere have collectively decided that Friday is a good day to start following people you haven't found yet. Hence, the birth of the thriving "follow Friday" meme. Take a moment today to share your favorite users with other Twitterists. Think of it as a way of thanking people who enrich your Twitter experience. You know, people like us.

This Phillyist would like to know who thinks feeding children is bad. Who, precisely, would look at a group of kids coming to school without lunch, and believe that it is okay for them to remain hungry?

• Attention, bookies: "The Delaware Supreme Court has ruled that a law allowing sports betting does not conflict with the state constitution..." This would make Delaware the only eastern state to allow betting on team sporting events.
• This kidnapping hoax just keeps getting better. It now appears that Bonnie Sweeten, who lied about her and her daughter's kidnapping in order to take a trip to Disney World, may have stolen upwards of $300,000 from her ex-husband's relative.
• A number of SEPTA Regional Rail stations will be undergoing a $240 million upgrade. Some stations will be demolished and rebuilt; others will be drastically renovated. In related news, SEPTA approved its new budget yesterday with almost no drama.
• The Philadelphia Orchestra agreed yesterday to salary cuts of 4.8 percent in the coming years. These cuts come on the heels of other major budget cuts taken by the Orchestra to stay afloat.

In the first really big piece of news for the Philadelphia Union since the team got a name (and a badass logo), it was announced today that Peter Nowak will be the manager when the team takes the field next spring. Nowak has two MLS titles under his belt—one as a player, and one as manager of D.C. United—so he brings more-or-less instant credibility to the Union franchise. He'll be officially introduced as manager at a press conference tomorrow afternoon.

• The Sestak vs. Specter smackdown begins! Rep. Joe Sestak has decided to run against Senator (and former Republican) Arlen Specter in the Democratic primaries.
• Protests against torture and the Inquirer's employment of John Yoo begin at 4:30 today. Scheduled activities include a free waterboarding demonstration!
• Nutter's chief planner resigned yesterday and is headed to London.

Proofreading Philly tries to capture typos, wordos, and all other kinds of grammatical mistakes that we see around the city. But we need your help! Email photos to us from your computer or your phone, and show the city that you care about good grammar.

• Bonnie Sweeten is in trouble. After filing a false report of an abduction, she took her nine-year-old daughter to Disney World by purchasing plane tickets with another woman's driver's license.
• Ray Kot was shot and killed at the Trump Taj Mahal Casino yesterday. Kot was shot and killed in the card and dice room—a non-public area of the casino. Police have recovered the handgun thought to be used. They have also apprehended the suspect.
• Delaware County hopes it can halt a proposal to expand the Philadelphia International Airport. Commissioners from Delco and Tinicum Township have filed a civil suit against the city saying that the township's consent is required before buying land.

You guys and gals have been busily updating your Twitter accounts since last we convened for some Twitterist action.

• The Supreme Court has agreed to determine whether shareholders can sue Merck over Vioxx's failures.
• The state seems unimpressed by Philly's proposed one percent sales tax hike.
• New Jersey is revisiting a bill to allow liquor sales in grocery stores. If passed, Pennsylvania will be one of only four states without that ability.

• Despite glimmers of hope, Northeastern Hospital will end all inpatient services by June 30, as originally planned. The hospital will reopen on July 1 offering a variety of outpatient services.
• Four men were killed over the weekend. The four homicides bring the city's total to 112 for the year which is down from 123 at this time last year.
• The Inquirer won its appeal to acquire records from Chester Community Charter School regarding pay and profits going to its for-profit management company. The school, the state's largest non-profit charter, declined comment as it is still exploring its options regarding the matter.

It's a three-day weekend. Are you still at work? Is your mind home while your body hangs out in the office for a few more hours? No, you're probably working really hard, so you can enjoy the long weekend without a bunch of crap to come back to on Tuesday.

• We noted it earlier, and now it's been confirmed: PECO has been doing test runs of the new LED system atop their building. The system is set to go public for the Fourth of July festivities.


• If you're reading this, you probably haven't left for the shore yet. If you're leaving later tonight, be sure to watch out for the Jersey Devil. The Inquirer has photographic evidence, from one hundred years ago.


• A mere day after the Ride of Silence, a boy and his father were critically injured while riding their bike near the Art Museum. There will be plenty of people out and about this weekend, let's please all be careful and watch out for others.

• Fourteen members of a Chester gang were arrested in an early-morning raid yesterday.
• The budget approved by the City Council, which would increase sales tax (temporarily, so they say) and make major changes to the city's pension fund payments, may face stiff opposition when it goes to the state legislature for approval.
• A squeaky clean looking math teacher at North Penn High School is being charged with having sex with a student and sending sexually explicit messages to that student and another over the Internet.

Welcome back to another tasty serving of local tweets. We try to find some interesting Philly-area Twitter users and give them a shout once a day or so.

Okay, since we started this post, we've gained about 100 followers! We're happy to hear from you, and we're hoping that most of you aren't robots or simply twitterfeed-ing your RSS updates to the statusphere. We want some back and forth, some good Philly conversation.

The Inquirer reports today that legislation (Bill #090380) has been introduced in City Council that would amend uses permitted in Recreational Districts (parks, for instance), thereby opening the park up to private development and construction of such things as catering facilities and single family homes on park grounds.

We hope everyone out there in the Philadelphia statusphere had a bearable Monday.

Riddle us this: the Philadelphia Zoo and Eagles in the Wild = "The Others"?

Miss Bee contributed to this post.

The good news is that, after a day off, Twitterist is back. The bad news is, well, so is the rain. But that didn't keep Philly's Twitter community from pushing out those updates.

Proofreading Philly tries to capture typos, wordos, and all other kinds of grammatical mistakes that we see around the city. But we need your help! Email photos to us from your computer or your phone, and show the city that you care about good grammar.

Is here today; we hope it washes this meteorologist far, far away.

We're not sure, but TVFF of Endless Simmer wrote us this morning with the photos above and a note saying:

Sports Illustrated recently published their list of the Best and Worst Owners of the four major team sports. And guess what, Philly? We made it! Or rather, Jeff Lurie made it.

We were happy to hear from @vboykis in the comments of yesterday's inaugural Twiitterist post. But we know that there are a lot more of you out there with your own Twitter account.

And does this mean that there will finally be an end to illegal Sunday parking?

We spend a lot of time on Twitter, doing our best to deliver a good mix of our headlines and real-time updates. And, in case you're not following us yet, or aren't on Twitter at all, you should know that ours is a very Twitter-friendly city.That's why we've decided to start a daily post lining up some of the more interesting tweets that fellow Phillyists have pushed out into the statusphere. In most cases, we leave the details to the original tweets, so click through, read, and follow your fellow Philadelphians. But, all alliteration aside, if you're on Twitter and we haven't found you yet, leave a link to your profile in the comments!

After word leaked late last Thursday night that the Philadelphia MLS franchise would be called the Union, this morning's "official" announcement was nothing if not anticlimactic. But those who attended the official announcement did get the first crack at buying official Union merchandise—which the rest of us can now get at the team's official website.

The New York Times' Travel section ran a piece today that calls Philadelphia a "destination city"—something we could have told them years ago. We're happy that The Times has finally decided to show the City of Brotherly Love a little affection (instead of that Sixth Borough crap from a few years ago), but we'd like to point out that their recommended schedule is almost as improbable as the route of the Rocky run.

Proofreading Philly tries to capture typos, wordos, and all other kinds of grammatical mistakes that we see around the city. But we need your help! Email photos to us from your computer or your phone, and show the city that you care about good grammar.

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Every day, in addition to "Yo, Philly in the News," Phillyist will be bringing you "Extra, Extra," an afternoon round-up of stories in Philly and Beyond. Have a news tip? Send it to tips@phillyist.com for consideration!