And, now, another wretched idea....the staycation.
That’s this summer’s buzz word for not doing anything due to high gas prices, recession, the misery of air travel, the housing slump, the market slump, the Bush slump, the interminable campaign, a loose hangnail and whatever other excuse people can conjure for doing nothing but sitting around for days.
Life’s too short. The summer’s too long. The calendar kindly gives us a long weekend this year with the Fourth falling on a Friday. Complaining about gas prices is becoming a cliché and a not-altogether believable one given the number of vehicles still clogging the nation’s highways.
For example, if you drive a sensible, non-Hummer vehicle, you can get to the Jersey Shore, the Eastern Shore, the mountains or a place not ressembling home for less than a tank of gas. In a sensible sedan, you can drive to the wonderful beaches of Delaware from Philadelphia for a quarter of a tank of gas, about $15.
So what’s with all the complaining?
If you take a staycation, are you really staying home to paint the bathroom and weed?
There are ways to deal with the economy and still have fun.
Let us know what you’re doing for the holiday weekend or the weeks to come to stay happy, keep summer summer, and avoid house work, which sounds like no vacation at all.
Aaron McKie plans a move to Gladwyne. Take a look at the posts on today's story. These are the kinds of comments that are popping up all over the web and, particularly of late, on philly.com.
Kathy Bocella's story is treated to them today. Tuesday, Chris Satullo received a book full when he dared to condemn torture. Rush Limbaugh added fuel on his national radio show.
Two days ago, I benefited from such wrath in a column that began by questioning the maturity of certain City Council members and ironically questioned the worth of cheesesteaks. What spewed forth was some serious hate, bad spelling, questionable judgment and every sort of "ism" imaginable.
Why do internet comments descend into the sort of name calling, slurs and hostility prohibited on playgrounds? Is relative anonymity license for the sort of bad behavior condemned in daily life? Is there this much free-floating anger out there and the web is the only place to put it?
Themes emerge. Comments tend to devolve quickly into an Us vs. Them mentality, with Them being people who think they're better but are not. Us? Terrific and infallible.
Then name calling commences, following by charges of elitism (a favorite of philly.com posts), neighborhood slamming (ditto), sexism, and defamation of character, looks (especially if the writer or subject is female) and religious orientation. From there, it's a quick hop, skip and a jump to name distortion of the fifth-grade variety.
Finally, as one online editor tells me, it will descend into the primordial sludge of racism, even if there is no apparent thread.
The internet was praised for being the ultimate democratic form of expression, free and open to all, a blessing. But if comments descend into such anger, a verbal and virtual Lord of the Flies scenario, what good are the messages and communication?
Isn't the intent to open this space to have thoughtful, intelligent dialogue, and robust debate? Juvenile hall posts are warding off meaningful discussion while sliming much of everything in their wake.
The weekend's almost here. In an effort to put off weeding, or any other chore that resembles work (and unpaid at that), we resume the Populist Summer Reading Challenge.
What are you reading this summer?
Each summer, the Populist tries to tackle a big book, one of those classics that most of us are embarrassed to admit we never read and we might regret never having read on our deathbed.
That's not to say that great books consitute all our summer readin, or that all Great Books are work.
Trollope proved enormously entertaining, both The Way We Live Now and Orley Farm. A few years ago, The Brothers Karamazov attracted a few snickers from fellow beachcombers but proved an absolute treat and surprisingly funny in parts.
During the summer, the Populist has also discovered some terrific true beach writers like mystery greats Robert Wilson, Alan Furst and Jake Arnott.
Please share your recommended summer reads or what you plan to devour this season.
So far we have recommendations of the new War and Peace translation, Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, James Joyce's Ulysees, Crime and Punishment, and Cry, The Beloved Country. Oh, and also Anna Karenina, which we candidly admit to having never read.
Other suggestions?
Already we've heard from a couple of people who argue that Aaron McKie lives in Penn Valley not Narberth, including a borough official who stridently argued otherwise.
According to our database, McKie votes in Narberth. According to the court proceedings, he's a resident of Narbeth. But real-estate listings state he lives in Penn Valley, as does the Narberth borough representative.
The two towns share a zip code and some confusion, though clearly Narbeth residences make a distinction between their town and Penn Valley. Is there a big difference between the two?
Here's today's columns about guns, gross generalizations about the city, and a former NBA star.
Karen Heller: McKie, guns, and the savage city
On Monday, he was arrested after allegedly lying in the purchase of two handguns, a .38-caliber Smith & Wesson and a 9mm Ruger.
"Unfortunately, Philadelphia's become a pretty dangerous place," his attorney Brian McMonagle said, "and for athletes like himself, there's certainly no good reason for them not to try to protect their families and themselves."
My guess is that when athletes like himself come into Philadelphia, they're more likely to be greeted by fans, autograph pens and heartfelt handshakes than by pistols.
Yet the lawyer played the Philadelphia-is-dangerous defense. By the way, McMonagle said this standing in Montgomery County.
There are 23,700 gun permits in the city. Yes, guns don't kill people. Stupid people with guns do.
This argument "reinforces a stereotype that the answer to violence is more violence," says Joe Grace of CeaseFire PA. "All the available data shows that the more you introduce handguns into the situation, the more violence you get."
Dangerous burbs
McKie no longer lives in Philadelphia. He resides in a $1.8 million, 7,417-square-foot French colonial with five bedrooms and 61/2 baths in the bucolic burg of Narberth. So danger is less likely to come from thugs than from deer.He was denied the purchase due to a September protection-from-abuse order regarding his former girlfriend and mother of his daughter. Kianna Williams said McKie threw her to the ground, in Narberth, shouting, "I want you dead. I promise I'm going to kill you."
In 2001, McKie was part of another protection-from-abuse order when Williams alleged he punched her, dislocating her jaw. This unfortunate, alleged incident also occurred in the suburbs.
Maybe McKie shouldn't have any guns, in the suburbs or elsewhere. His lawyer, though, worked the obfuscation game and blamed the purchase on the wicked city.
McKie never forgot the neighborhood where he grew up. He launched AM8 Foundation - 8 being his Sixers number - and gave money, food and gifts to the Belfield Rec Center, around the corner from the street where he first lived.
"Belfield became Aaron's home-away-from-home," according to his foundation's Web site, "a haven for him to work on his game."
Benign Belfield
Given how McMonagle says Philadelphia is such a dangerous place, I paid a visit to Belfield.Risk-taker that I am, I went unarmed.
It was a splendid summer afternoon. Kids frolicked in the ice-blue pool. Teenagers shot hoops. Camp begins in two weeks.
In seven years of working there, Belfield's George Cowan says, there's not been a single incidence of violence. Jerry Boligitz, the rec department's district manager, worked there for two trouble-free years. There are kids here all the time. It is indeed a haven.
"Belfield's one of the city's basketball meccas," rec department program director Stuart Greenberg said. Rasheed Wallace played here, too.
Belfield has launched a baseball program. Next week, Cowan expects computers to arrive for the summer and after-school program.
Philadelphia doesn't need more guns. Or high-priced defense lawyers blaming failed gun purchases on our wicked streets.
It needs hoops. And computers.
As I was taking notes, a teen playing on the basketball court yelled, "Can you get someone to get us some fiberglass backboards?"
As it so happens, four new boards cost about as much as a .38-caliber Smith & Wesson and a 9mm Ruger, and would make the city, its kids and streets a better, safer place. Which you can't say about guns.
Maybe Brian McMonagle would like to do his part?
Contact staff writer Karen Heller at 215-854-2586 or kheller@phillynews.com. Read her blog at http://go.philly.com/populist.
The other movies are The Italian Job (breaking myriad traffic laws in a Mini Cooper), Unbreakable (weird doings in Wanamaker's and Franklin Field) and Unvincible (Vince Papale and the Eagles).
Besides showing a certain fondness for Mark Wahlberg, what do these selections tell us about Mayor Nutter and the City?
Bill Clinton wants to help Barack Obama in his run for the presidency, according to an Associated Press article in today's Inquirer.
This from a man who labeled the Illinois senator's opposition to the Iraq War "a fairy tale" and charged that the Obama campaign "played the race card on me."
Hmm, given the former president's volcanic temper and how often he wounded his wife's campaign for the White House, perhaps it might be better if he worked for John McCain.
Who needs soap operas or reality shows when there's the eternal drama of CBS 3?
Honest, those of us who bemoan there's nothing much on television now that the primaries are over, the Phillies are in a sort-of slump (please end this soonest!), HBO is on hiatus (so why do we continue to subscribe?) and Mad Men has yet to return to AMC (July 27!), should just keep tuned to As the News Clots: The CBS 3 Saga.
Why you can get all your entertainment needs right here at Philly.com.
Can't wait for the movie or miniseries. Who should play eternal tan-man Larry Mendte? Kelsey Grammer? George Hamilton? How about Alycia Lane? Courtney Cox is too old. Mandy Moore? One of the Jessicas, Biel or Alba?
Here's the column I wrote today on Philadelphia City Council, a legislatative body that doesn't legislate for three whole months. No exaggeration. Council had it's final session last Thursday, June 19 and doesn't reconvene until Sept. 18.
How's your summer going?
Karen Heller: City Council's excellent vacation
City Council, too.
In a case of harmonic convergence, Philadelphia School District students finished work Thursday, the very same day as did the Sage 17 of City Hall's fourth floor.
City Council is a legislative body that ceases to legislate for three full months. Council members earn a base salary of $102,000 - enviable pay for most of us - while legally allowed to work other jobs.
Which is where those three months come in handy.
"We've got to go to our farms in the country and pick vegetables," Bill Green says.
He jokes. Green's moonlighting job is as a corporate and securities lawyer at Pepper Hamilton.
Council's summer of light lifting follows swiftly on the suntan lotion of Memorial Day Week.
We get a Monday, council takes a week.
It's subsistence governing. Perhaps the three months afford Council time to travel back to the districts. By horse and buggy.
The seventh district's Maria Quiñones-Sánchez - like Green, a freshman - has no outside job. Her plans? "We're going to do a staff retreat. I'm going to spend time with my family. We've got a big litter initiative for my district. And I'm going to take a vacation."
Is the heat too much for Council's sensitive constitution? The mayor continues to mayor. The courts continue to convene. You, perhaps, continue to labor.
Council members insist they keep very, very busy in the summer, penning future legislation and providing constituent service, doing grip-and-grins at barbecues.
Guess what? People who work hard never need to defend themselves. You know, people who work 12 hard months, instead of nine.
As for why the seasonal windfall, inquiries to multiple hall officials yielded a unanimous answer: "Tradition."
You can almost hear Tevye fiddling through the corridors.
Members of the U.S. House of Representatives take off one month. They are paid $169,000 annually, represent more constituents (almost 700,000, half Philadelphia's entire population), maintain two residences, often travel substantial distances between their districts and the Capitol, and work assiduously to be reelected every two years.
By comparison, Council incumbency is nearly papal in its security. Members die in office. People with IQs no higher than toasters cakewalk through elections in perpetuity, all the while able to collect multiple incomes and pensions while slogging through three months of no legislation.
The only time a member gets ejected by a somnolent citizenry is when he or she does something truly heinous. Like driving without a license for 25 years.
Philadelphia is such an oasis of promise that any little boy can grow up to be a member of Council.
Provided Daddy was mayor first.
Three former mayors' progeny - Frank Rizzo, Bill Green and Wilson Goode Jr. - sit in council. It's our version of the Junior League.
As the old adage goes: Politicians, old buildings and prostitutes become respectable with age. This is a boon to politicians' children. Sharif Street's mistake was running for Council while Dad was in still office and not yet some romanticized version of an addled collective memory.
Where else can a guy like Frannie Rizzo, a former Peco lineman, rise to become a vaunted councilman?
Indeed, the money shot in his bio is that he has introduced "Ethics legislation regulating Lobbyists, banning Gifts, prohibiting Nepotism."
Prohibit nepotism? How would Council ever reach a quorum?
Some citizens might argue that City Council meets too often, and they may be right.
In that regard, perhaps the three months is simply a bit of paid insurance for the rest of us. Surf's up! Enjoy that summer!
What are you reading this summer?
Each summer, the Populist tries to tackle a big book, one of those classics that most of us are embarrassed to admit we never read and we might regret never having read on our deathbed.
That's not to say that great books consitute all our summer readin, or that all Great Books are work.
Trollope proved enormously entertaining, both The Way We Live Now and Orley Farm. A few years ago, The Brothers Karamazov attracted a few snickers from fellow beachcombers but proved an absolute treat and surprisingly funny in parts.
During the summer, the Populist has also discovered some terrific true beach writers like mystery greats Robert Wilson, Alan Furst and Jake Arnott.
Please share your recommended summer reads or what you plan to devour this season.
So far we have recommendations of the new War and Peace translation, Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, James Joyce's Ulysees, Crime and Punishment, and Cry, The Beloved Country. Oh, and also Anna Karenina, which we candidly admit to having never read.
Other suggestions?
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