The Dalai Lama is in town today, and appeared at the Kimmel Center during the lunch hour.
Instead of an oasis of calm and spiritual awakening, the pavement outside was the scene of rage and tears.

Vocal protesters, cordoned off by the police to the south of the Center, held placards reading "the Dalai Lama is lying." One man held a bullhorn and led the group of 40 in jeers. The group consisted mostly of Caucasians, including women with short-cropped hair dressed in saffron-and-crimson monk-like garb, Chinese and Chinese-Americans.

Patrons attending the appearance slowly filed in due to the presence of metal detectors and security guards searching for weapons, a powerful reminder of the emotional discourse and loaded issues that continue to surround the Dalai Lama and Tibet.

It was an incongruous setting. The Kimmel Center, palace of the arts, temporaily transformed into a temple of spiritual awakening
at $75 a ticket. In turn, the appearance incited more politics, hurt and anger that most Kimmel performances, even thought the 14th Dalai Lama profresses "compassion, forgiveness, tolerance, contentment and self-discipline."

A large group of Tibetans and Tibetan-Americans, dressed in traditional garb, became enraged by the anti-Dalai Lama protestors. Several women erupted in tears. Some Tibetan patrons quickly made "Paid for by China" signs adorned with arrows directed at the group, and waved them at a phalanx of cameras while yelling at the anti-Tibet group and telling everyone they could find that the group were "phonies put up and paid for by the Chinese."

Several event organizers tried to mollify the distraught Tibetans with hugs, repeating "This is a spiritual event. Don't play into their games."  But the Tibetans were too upset by the other protestors, especially in regards to their homeland, to be placated even if their religious leader preaches spiritual harmony.

So Ed Snider plans to blow up the Spectrum at the end of the 2008-2009 season, soon to join the ghosts of sports venues past. This is getting to be a tradition down there on South Broad.

"This has been one of the hardest decisions I've ever had to make," Snider said today.  "The Spectrum is my baby. It's one of the greatest things that has ever happened to me..."

If true, then Snider's life isn't nearly as exciting as we thought.

The new venue, currently named Philly Live!, will be an entertainment and game complex that could feature a hotel, restaurants, bars, stores and more.

If Snider manages to wrangle state and/or city funding for this project, public screaming should commence immediately.

Then again, Snider is one of the major names in the stalled Foxwoods Casino project on the riverfront. Plans for the new entertainment complex are not detailed but there are plans for major enterainerment while relocating the sports teams that now play at the Spectrum.

All of this has the distinct smell of.....slots.

Editor David Remnick defended the cover in an interview with the Huffington Post: "What I think it does is hold up a mirror to the prejudice and dark imaginings about Barack Obama's — both Obamas' — past, and their politics. I can't speak for anyone else's interpretations, all I can say is that it combines a number of images that have been propagated, not by everyone on the right but by some, about Obama's supposed "lack of patriotism" or his being "soft on terrorism" or the idiotic notion that somehow Michelle Obama is the second coming of the Weathermen or most violent Black Panthers. That somehow all this is going to come to the Oval Office."

Many people consider The New Yorker to be the best, most substantive magazine in America, this writer included.

This is not the first time the New Yorker, once the most twee of publications, has courted controversy with its cover art. They've had clerics of opposing religions in an embrace, gay covers, as well as enough anti-Bush and -Cheney to stuff a book.

Jeffrey Goldberg, a former New Yorker staffer, wrote at Atlantic.com that the July 21 cover was "exceedingly funny."

People are talking, which I suppose is the point. It's doubtful this will garner new readers while soliciting cancellations from long-time subscribers. The content of the publication is still unrvialled. I look forward to reading Ryan Lizza's presumably less saticial report on Obama inside.

This is, afterall, what many know nothings think about the Obamas so it challenges this in a visceral reaction. Your reaction?

I think that we’ve proven that both parents are important in the success of a family so, no I don’t believe in gay adoption."

This is what John McCain told the New York Times in a recent interview, portions of which were published Sunday.

This quote, ostensibly about gay adoption, also is a rather broad slap at single parents everywhere. Let's be frank: Most of those single parents are mothers. Many of them are republican. 

Does it really take "both parents" for the success of a family?

And, if that's really true, do both parents have to be different genders?

Who knew Harrisburg was such a hotbed of fun? You can get paid buckets for doing little according to the beach read of the summer, the Harrisburg Grand Jury Presentment. Comp time for allegedly no work! Paid "volunteers." Spending $1,000 of taxpayers money to campaign for two days in Beaver County! Sushi for basketball dinners!

All this and hiring Miss Rain Day 2001 to do very little work other than her class work after she asking her paramour to help her get into law school.

You can read more here: http://www.philly.com/inquirer/columnists/20080714_Karen_Heller__Spending_the_money_of_others.html

Check the calendar. It's 2008, right?

Turns out a man of mixed race, a woman, and a Latino can all run for the presidency, but a single guy isn't a good catch for No. 2.

Gov. Charlie Crist of FLORIDA -- caps intentional -- is on John McCain's short list for veep. He was one of three candidates who travelled to the senator's Arizona ranch last weekend for interviews.

The rub is the perpetually tanned Crist, his skin at all times approximates the color of well-done bacon, has been single for three decades after a marriage that lasted a matter of months.

"Perennial bachelor" is not a good description when you're potentially courting the religious right.

Guess what the governor, who was born in Altoona, did this week? He got himself engaged after a whirlwind courtship that began last fall.  

To the fetching Carole Rome who has a taste for low-plunging frocks and whose family fortune is in, we kid not, Halloween costumes.

The only downside is that Rome hails from New York and not OHIO --  again, caps intentional -- which is a true blue state. She's divorced from Todd Rome, CEO of Blue Star Jets. Her high-spending ways led to their divorce, according to the Palm Beach Post. 

"I had a large number of homes because, as a general rule, no sooner was a new home built, bought or rented, [Carole] would become dissatisfied with it," he said in divorce documents. "We lived in a succession of no less than five apartments and three houses ... and four vacation houses in the Hamptons."

Fortunately, the veep job comes with the Naval Observatory mansion on Washington, D.C.'s Embassy Row.

Today's subject is the ongoing issue of where to put the casinos, Gov. Ed Rendell's favored fiscal recovery project.

Though some of the suggestions are made in jest, Lincoln Financial Field does present possibilities. The $512 million playpen is in use a whopping 18 days a year, which gives slot lovers more than 11 months of fun!

We paid for it -- $85 million from the commonwealth, $96.2 million from the city -- let's play with it!

The Linc offers plenty of space, parking, bathrooms, and convenience to the Broad Street Line, I-95 and the Schuylkilll. What location offers more? Plus, if a gambler is particularly lucky, he can do a dance in the end zone.

Of course, this deprives developers of building big windowless boxes and enjoying tax abatements but it seems like a win for residents.

Here's the link to the column: http://www.philly.com/philly/news/local/24306544.html

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.