The weekend calls, and I know of nothing that makes the drive home on a Friday night feel any sweeter than lining up The Who as they rewrite Mose Allison's "Young Man Blues" from the Live at Leeds lp.

Well, why not get a jump on the game? Headphones on. Sound to 11. Careful not to hit the desk with your windmills. When 'XPN did their desert isle promotion a few months back, this song was my No. 1, and here's a particularly ferocious version from the Isle of Wight Festival in 1970.

Not sure what's best -- The Ox's glow-in-the dark unitard, Daltry's freak-flying David Crosby jacket or Townsend's finger-slicing 360s. Maybe it's Keith Moon, nailing it in place with that Bedlam smile. Or the fact just three instruments made all that thunderous noise. Happy weekend.

I'm not sure which of these I like better, the sweet, joyous whimper of contestant No. 1 or the strange, baying, yowl of contestant No. 3.

On this Veterans Day, how about a series of videos of soldiers coming home to their dogs?

Click here unless you've got a heart of stone.

When a five-tool player arrives in a minor-league town people often wonder how long he'll stick around.

Pete Shellem stayed 23 years in Harrisburg, leaving a record of accomplishment for himself and his paper, the Patriot-News, that would ticket him for Cooperstown, if journalism had such a hall of fame. Who at bigger papers did the work that he did?

He got four people out of jail, after his stories showed their murder convictions were wrongful. He had a hand in a fifth, too. Official misconduct pissed him off.

He tracked down evidence to Leipzig, Germany, and found witnesses missed by the police.

What might be most impressive is that he did this in a conservative town while holding down a beat, the local courts. He owned his beat, by cultivating extrordinary sources, mastering records, knowing how to ask precise questions, and then having both animal instincts and a sense of outrage. 

Today's metro column is about a champion of the underdog who couldn't save himself.

I thank Mario Cattabiani of the Inquirer's Harrisburg desk for starting me off with sources and insights, and this piece, from the American Journalism Review two years ago. Shellem told him this: :

"I was always taught that reporters are supposed to be government watchdogs. The most drastic thing the government can do to an individual is charge them with a crime and send them to jail. We have a good justice system in this country, and it pisses me off to see people misuse it to run over people, most of whom are at some sort of disadvantage."

The light turns red and you glance down to see that someone has called or emailed.

Don't touch that phone.

The Philadelphia police started handing out warning notices this weekend, warming up the wired to the new rules that take effect Dec. 1 and will cost you between $75 and $300 if you're using the phone while behind the wheel.

Unless:

you've got a hands-free device.

you've pulled over to the side of the road and are not in gear.

you're a goverment official, doing business, and using the two-way radio.

The rules apply to skateboarders, in-line skaters, and bicyclists. Hands-free devices only.

Today's metro column goes into more detail. Already the e-mails have been interesting.

This came from someone's area-code 609 phone this morning. Please tell me they weren't driving.

It's gratifying to know that the distracted driver who kills me will be a bureaucrat on a 2-way radio. Priorities, right? Police, fire ok.

BOSTON  -- When you haven’t played a meaningful game against a team since 1950, it’s easy to forgot how much pleasure can come from hating them. And where better than Boston could I go for a few lessons in loathing the New York Yankees?

Monday's metro column digs into the uneasiness in Cheltenham township, where local and county officials have  opposed a question from appearing on next week's ballot that would give the people more power to stop development.

Score a victory for a group called "We the People of Cheltenham," which fought officials in court - and won. The question will go to the voters.

So who ARE those guys behind We the People? What do we know about this non-profit law firm based in Chambersburg, PA., which worked pro bono to create a citizens bill of rights then get it on the ballot?

They're called the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund.

We know they helped Ecuador write laws to protect the environment by granting rights to nature.

This is what the New York Times wrote last December:

Even so, it is a milestone for environmental organizations that seek to rewrite our treatment of nature. In fact, one such group, the Pennsylvania-based Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund, helped draft the new protections in the Ecuadorean Constitution. The C.E.L.D.F. posits that most laws define nature as someone’s property, forcing environmentalists to prove extensive damage before regulations can be put in place. A rights-based approach, it argues, reverses that burden, putting the health of ecosystems first.

We also know that C.E.L.D.F. is helping back a broader bill of rights in Spokane, Wa., that would encompass conditions for healthcare, labor and development.

Here's a profile from The Inlander of leading attorney, Thomas Linzey. Can't vouch for the article, though I note it gets the name of the Pennsylvania town he's from wrong.

And here's the group's Web site.

Today's metro column -  Why I still go to see The Boss -  begins with a line inspired by this video - sitting with the savages in Section 205.

Some genius mashed the German-language film, "Der Untergang," with a problem common to all, even wackos with world power: not getting special access for Springsteen in New Jersey.

The text has some language problems for those sensitive to four-letter words. And there is a possibility you might be offended by anything that makes fun of Hitler, and if that's the case, you'd better move on.

Another day, another insult. Another survey story.

They think we're fat. They think we're ugly. They think we're miserable. No wonder some Yogurt company thought we were constipated.

Today's metro column, a tale of two surveys (we're smarter than we're beautiful), brings to mind the single most reliable indicator of a metropolitan area's worthiness.

I call it the Keith Hollar rule.

Keith was a copy editor in Norfolk, Va., which would win neither a beauty contest nor a college bowl, but was a fun  place nonetheless . He'd moved from Charlotte and had kicked around smaller southern towns before that and probably since.

He judged a place this way:

Is it big enough to warrant a separate Yellow Pages from its White Pages?

Has it synchronized its traffic lights?

How cheezy were its late-night TV ads for local used-car lots?

As good a measure as any - probably more useful, actually.

We love this place as it is. But fix the lights and work on the commercials, huh?

Another academic honor for a Stooge.

As we ponder the Thursday induction of Louis Feinberg, aka 'Larry', into the Hall of Fame of his alma mater, the bookish Central High School, we received this email from a fellow alum, Dr. David Brookstein, dean of engineering at Philadelphia U.:

Turns out that I too visited the Stoogeum several years ago with a friend of Gary Lassin, David Steinbrink….Steinbrink also was a great fan of the Stooges…Then…several months later we were having a BBQ with Dave Steinbrink and his father Rabbi Dick Steinbrink,,,,We start talking bout the Stooges and Rabbi Steinbrink tells us that he was the one who officiated at Larry Fine’s funeral……Of course we asked him if when they through the dirt on his coffin did they say Nyuk, Nyuk, Nyuk….And of course they did.

…..I saw Schemp’s army “discharge papers”……The key word here is discharge.  Turns out the Schemp was discharged from the army for “excessive nocturnal emissions”……Serious as I can be.

Today's metro column, honors for the sublime Larry Fine.