Results tagged “benjaminfranklin”

If you're in work and actually working, you're probably in the minority.

Fun around town, for $10 or less:

Jared Brey

Phillyist VIP Jared Brey

  • We have incredible amounts of news today related to the Pennsylvania primary. First off, applications for absentee ballots have to be in no later than 5PM today. Clinton is announcing a "major endorsement" at noon today at the state Capitol in Harrisburg. Obama admitted to the Daily News and the Inquirer yesterday that he had mangled his remarks when he talked about people being bitter and clinging to their guns and religion. The Inquirer has one in an occasional series about Pennsylvanians debating who to vote for; this one focuses on the customers at Mike's lunch truck in South Philly. The Inquirer also has an entry in another series focusing on the key issues of the campaign; this one looks at the candidates' health plans. Last night at the Philadelphia Democratic Party dinner at the Sheet Metal Workers Union hall, the city's 69 ward leaders, divided over which candidate to support, heard back-to-back speeches by Obama and Clinton. There'll be a debate between the Democratic presidential candidates at the National Constitution Center tomorrow. Tickets are hard to get, and the debate will bring traffic restrictions to the area. Finally, the Inquirer points out that the really important question to Democrats at this point is not the issues, but which candidate can be a viable opponent.
  • Joe Fritz
    Phillyist VIP Joe Fritz

    Natalia Smirnov

    Phillyist VIP Natalia Smirnov

    Brian Schuman

    Phillyist VIP Brian Schuman

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    matt.jpg
    Phillyist VIP: Matt Nelson

  • Also announced yesterday were the Franklin Institute awards; the Inquirer has a profile of one of the honorees. (Btw, did you see that the Franklin Institute is just calling itself "The Franklin" now? What's up with that?)
  • Hey, the 179th Philadelphia Flower Show opened yesterday! The Inquirer has the details.
  • Delaware River Port Authority officials announced yesterday that a $4 million network of cameras with "intelligent" software will be installed along the PATCO rail line and the Benjamin Franklin Bridge starting in April and scheduled to finish up by the end of the year. The cameras are designed to detect intruders or unusual activity in stations, parking lots, platforms and along the rail line.
  • We'd like to start this post off with something we just read in a press release:

    Ever wondered what it would have looked like if Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin fought about the Declaration of Independence? Wonder no more!

    The Philadelphia Marathon is fast approaching (ha!), and those fleet-footed folks are looking for volunteers to help support the thousands of athletes who will converge upon the Art Museum on November 18. Tasks range from stuffing runner bags two weeks out to distributing blankets and Gatorade on race day. You can sign up for a specific job or offer your services as a general volunteer to be dispatched where you're needed most. You can also form a team and sign up together for one of the larger jobs. For more info, contact Terry at GP Cares (215-564-4544).

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  • A report to be released today by City Controller Alan Butkovitz shows that two decades of expensive attempts to build a new computerized water billing system have achieved little, and the system will almost certainly not be done by the time Mayor Street leaves office, as the administration promised.
  • Although the Benjamin Franklin, Walt Whitman, and Tacony-Palmyra Bridges are still officially "safe," they're also described as structurally deficient or functionally obsolete. Most will be undergoing repair or updating soon.
  • Police are saying that 18-year-old Charles T. "Chuckie" Meyers was driving in South Philly on Saturday when he shot and killed a bicycle-riding 14-year-old boy when the boy wouldn't get out of his way fast enough. But friends and relatives of Meyers can't believe he would do such a thing.
  • The PA budget got held up a bit yesterday by some further discussion, especially about the Senate plan to fund hazardous-sites cleanup by taking $40 million from a land preservation fund. Lawmakers have made the wise decision to not decide on the most contentious bits until later, so the budget did indeed get through both Houses yesterday and will be signed by Rendell later today... hopefully, anyway.
  • As part of Sunoco's Welcome America! series, you'll be able to watch Rocky go the distance tonight on the steps of the Art Museum. And you'll get to watch it for free! This now annual event is a good time for all-- just be sure to bring a blanket. Those steps are hard whether you're pounding 'em or sitting on 'em.

  • About 1:30AM yesterday morning a woman died when she crashed her car into the back of a stationary PennDot dump truck in a construction zone on northbound I-95 near the Chichester Avenue exit. Northbound traffic was detoured until the lanes were reopened at about 4:30AM.
  • A Quirky Column about Dog Walking Adventures in the City of Dog-Owning Love...

    Nonprofit organization Campus Philly, in association with the city, IKEA, and plenty of other companies and organizations, is holding a huge free concert and festival Saturday afternoon to welcome and celebrate new and returning college students. It's called Campus Philly Kick-Off, and it will lead to un-fun things like road closings (the 2000 block of Winter Street will be closed during setup, and both directions of the inner drives of the Parkway, from 20th Street to the Eakins Oval, will be closed throughout), but it will also include fun things like a TNT Red Bull Freestyle Motocross event; a concert featuring folks like Fat Joe and Saves the Day, as well as local acts like The Capitol Years; an Involvement Fair where you can pick out a good nonprofit, community-based organization to join; free admission to plenty of museums for college students; a live skate jam; and an after party at Shampoo. There will also be a booth set up on the Parkway where you can register to vote, and a free bus loop out to IKEA, so you can do your civic duty and pick up an extra lamp.

    What's interesting on TV this week.

  • Does somebody or something hate the Wissahickon Creek? Not long after a still mysterious contaminant killed more than 1,000 fish in the creek, sparking a short-lived health advisory warning everyone to stay away, the creek has now had 55,000 gallons of raw sewage dumped into it due to "electrical problems" Monday night at an Ambler sewage treatment plant. How an electrical problem can cause huge amounts of raw sewage to end up in the Wissahickon Creek is not exactly clear to us, but that's neither here nor there. The point is, although the water is rather toxic for fish, no more fish appear to be dying, and there isn't enough contaminant in the water for it to be toxic to people. In other words, it's just the right amount of raw sewage! Mmm mm!
  • A number of interesting and generally solemn gatherings took place on Sunday, including a remembrance ceremony for the Jews who fought back against the Nazis, held at 16th Street and the Benjamin Franklin Parkway, near "the first public monument in North America dedicated to the victims of the Nazi Holocaust;" and a panel discussion about the effect of the media on right to die cases, with speakers Michael Schiavo and Julia Quinlan, as part of a conference at U Penn entitled "The Legacy of the Terri Schiavo Case: Why Is It So Hard to Die in America?"
  • Fun around town, for $10 or less:

    Seattlest saw a house party get senselessly attacked with a shotgun and end in seven dead. A local senator is debated and their version of the big dig is investigated. To truly get to the bottom of it they interview the writer Jonathan Raban.

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