PlanPhilly: Planning Philadelphia's Future

An author-signed book, a Hootie and the Blowfish CD, a Baltimore Orioles batting helmet, a curled newspaper with the look and feel of parchment, a certificate of journalistic excellence, a 1989 city-issued municipal telephone directory, a press kit filled with lies, a Howard Eskin bobblehead. That was the top layer, the crust of one of the trash bins standing like corrections officers around our newsroom, a/k/a public housing for several generations of interracial mice. We are about a month from moving day and, for many reasons, this is not a happy shop.

When we think of the women that Republicans in Congress want to exclude from some protections in the Violence Against Women Act — undocumented immigrants, Native Americans, lesbians abused by female partners — we can’t help but think of a speech attributed to the Civil War-era abolitionist Sojourner Truth in 1851: "And ain’t I a woman?"

Sorry, I don’t wish to be a "party pooper" but the grandstanding of Mayor Nutter and Jay-Z on the Art Museum steps was not cute at all! It sent a bad message! America is not a "straight country" anymore. Too many mixed messages. Sell drugs and shoot people (including family members) to get your start-up money and just maybe … just maybe one day you will stand next to the mayor of a major city. Why? To promote a concert called "Made In America."

Finally, my church spoke truth to power, and fired a legal — and most likely lethal — shot against an oppressive, unconstitutional requirement that Catholics be forced to subsidize sin. True, not everyone thinks that artificial birth control is sinful, and that would include about the 98% of Catholic women who use it. But it’s one thing to say that you as an individual disagree with a fundamental church principle, and quite another for your government to threaten you with all the power of the executive branch if you don’t fall in line.

An author-signed book, a Hootie and the Blowfish CD, a Baltimore Orioles batting helmet, a curled newspaper with the look and feel of parchment, a certificate of journalistic excellence, a 1989 city-issued municipal telephone directory, a press kit filled with lies, a Howard Eskin bobblehead.That was the top layer, the crust of one of the trash bins standing like corrections officers around our newsroom, a/k/a public housing for a several generations of interracial mice. We are about a month from moving day and, for many reasons, this is not a happy shop. Each year one in six Americans moves, usually voluntarily, but in this time of underwater homes and pop-up foreclosures, many people are forced into it.

"Today, city officials, community activists, residents … gathered to commemorate the end of unmanaged vacant land as we know it in Philadelphia’s neighborhoods on what was the last unmanaged vacant lot in the city."

Dear Mr. Platt, In your salacious zeal to grab the attention of the masses, you clearly went above and beyond the pale with your latest headline — "TOURIST DEATH TRAP" — with the accompanying picture of Atlantic City on the front cover of your newspaper. The death of these two women is a horrific tragedy but it was an isolated incident. To classify Atlantic City as a lawless town is unconscionable and, quite simply, bad reporting.

In late April, Mitt Romney hired Richard Grenell as his campaign spokesman on foreign affairs. Grenell is impeccably qualified in foreign affairs but not, apparently, in domestic affairs. He wants to marry a man.

Joan Orie Melvin says that she is innocent of the four felonies and five misdemeanors that a grand jury charged her with last week, and claims that the investigation and charges were politically motivated. As a citizen, she’s entitled to the presumption of her innocence. But as a state Supreme Court justice, she is subject to a higher standard; her actions impact the perception of fairness and justice for the entire court system. As the Philadelphia Bar Association said in a statement last week urging her resignation, “We cannot have a sitting justice who has been indicted.”

LAST YEAR, Rachel Shapiro had a dispute with a contractor and took her case to Common Pleas Court. She lost. She appealed the decision to Superior Court, and then … nothing happened. The case hasn’t moved forward, and it’s been 15 months.

This whole incident is madness. The school officials should have just told the boys not to bring the gun to school. The toy pellet gun hitting the girl occurred off school property. The girl was uninjured, and is not complaining. “Corpus delicti” (plural: corpora delicti; Latin: “body of crime”) is a term from Western jurisprudence that refers to the principle that it must be proved that a crime has occurred before a person can be convicted of committing the crime. For example, a person cannot be tried for larceny unless it can be proven that property has been stolen. Likewise, in order for a person to be tried for arson it must be proved that a criminal act resulted in the burning of a property. Black’s Law Dictionary (6th ed.) defines “corpus delicti” as “the fact of a crime having been actually committed.”

Benefits? Yes, a 15-year study of exotic-dance clubs nationwide (published by the University of Texas Press) challenges what is said in the Daily News article “Dirty Dancing: Strippers bring prostitution, violence, cops say.”

With Memorial Day weekend just a few days away, my thoughts turn to the rites of summer — the shore, barbecues, Phillies games. For kids I hope they also turn to getting a summer job. Sadly, they’re not getting much help from what they’re taught in schools or an overregulated society that is cracking down on things like lemonade stands. This is the time of year for kids to do lemonade stands, mow lawns, have garage sales or find a thousand other ways to make a buck. In addition to the pleasure of having some of your own money, kids can learn about the free-enterprise system and maybe what it takes to get their feet wet with being an entrepreneur.

The more things change… We had reason to hope that, after years of neglect, the city’s parks had turned a significant corner in 2008 when the city (and its voters) saw the wisdom in combining the city’s parks and recreation departments. This fixed an illogical division between passive parkland, overseen by a commission unattached to city government, and recreational facilities, managed by a city department. The merger dissolved the Fairmount Park’s ruling board and created a new commission made up of people who actually had expertise or a stake in the parks. But more to the point, it came with a renewed sense of the importance of our parks and the role that they play in making the city great.

I know that I am not the only person who is angered at the Archdiocese of Philadelphia’s type of sentencing of Reverends Mazzotta and Campbell, because I am sure that they did not have only one encounter of child molestation — it was only one “reported” encounter for each priest, who should be excommunicated from the Church. To my knowledge, no priest/molester has been excommunicated from the Church, as the Church has taken steps to excommunicate abortionists, murderers or anyone else who intentionally deviates from Church teachings. In the New Testament, Jesus tells his Apostles to forgive sins as He does, so we, the laity are relieved of having to forgive the Mazzottas and Campbells in the clergy. However, we, the laity, also have the right to refuse to financially support those subjected to the Penance sentencing in Darby where we are not totally isolated from the priest-molesters. Treating these priests as criminals should be what we should be doing within the Archdiocese and within the Church. If new rules have to be put into place, then so be it for the laity’s sake.

What do you get when you combine edgy scientific ingenuity and the beautiful sensibility of art, or maybe cross Marie Curie with Pee-wee Herman? I don’t know exactly, but it might look like some entries in Saturday afternoon’s sixth-annual Kensington Kinetic Sculpture Derby, folded into the seventh-annual Trenton Avenue Arts Fetival. The event has a lot in common with the Mummers — it pulses up from the community, it’s in the street, it’s in your face, it has color and music and laughs.

An open letter to Philadelphia Congressional Representatives Bob Brady, Chakah Fattah, and Allyson Schwartz: Important decisions are being made in Congress, giving more money to the military and taking away money from our states and communities. At the same time, Philadelphia City Council and School District are struggling with massive budget deficits. Catastrophe is right around the corner. While there is an effort to cut spending across the broad array of annual discretionary spending programs, Pentagon spending, which comprises 57 percent of the discretionary budget in the FY 2013 request, continues to absorb the lion’s share of spending. Without more cuts to Pentagon spending, even very deep cuts to all other discretionary funding taken together will fall far short of alleviating deficit spending and the rising debt. Pentagon spending needs to continue to be on the table as we consider our fiscal future.

Perhaps Jason Kaye should take a break from the “activism” and do some serious fact-checking before dispatching ill-informed missives.

The Daily News People’s Editorial Board is a group of citizens who gather to debate hot topics in Philadelphia. Read more at philly.com/peb.

With warm weather bringing out swimsuits, it’s time to think about fitness, and a return to the gym. So there I was at the gym, and there it was, up against the wall, a gleaming new machine I hit hard for half-an-hour. It had everything I wanted: