Some people say they’ve got the blues. I’ve got the greens. No only have I realized that I look good in bright green lately, but I’ve also noticed that Philadelphia and this country is finally realizing, hopefully not too late, that we need to go “green.” This is a bandwagon I am happy to jump on. There are so many ways you can reduce your negative environmental impact. As I’m watching “Today,” which is showing me numerous ways you can go green, I get a message from a friend about LocalHarvest, an organization who is educating the masses on how you can learn about and buy locally grown food products. (The Ethicurean is also good!) I started with a lightbulb change (incandescent to compace flourescent). Now I try as hard as possible not to use plastic bags. I’m currently using a tote bag, a granny cart (I’ll be pimping this soon), and reusing bags I already have.

Selling my car was a big decision, but how often did I really need it? If you live and work in the city, why not join Philly CarShare? This May, they’ll be sponsoring a challenge for you Philadelphia drivers to find alternative ways to get around. You can win a bike! (Please don’t ride it on the sidewalk)!

I was out of town after the Philly Spring Clean-up, but have found the results of the largest United States cleaning day in history. This Nutter’s on to something! All major goals were surpassed. Look out for future clean-ups. Here’s a beautifying event, sponsored by Greater Philadelphia Cares.

One final note: Keep your eyes peeled for GreenFest Philly, held on South Street. I haven’t been able to find the date of the event yet, but check back for updates! (September-ish)

In one of the most exciting primary elections in recent history, Senator Clinton (NY) takes the PA primary with a 10 point lead over Senator Obama (IL).

While Obama overwhelmingly won the support of Philadelphians (65% to Clinton’s 35%), Clinton proved that she is the clear choice for Pennsylvanians state-wide. Being a huge supporter of Senator Clinton, I listened intently to her victory speech last night. She said one thing that really stuck in my mind (not verbatim), “…I’ve seen parent’s with their daughters saying – See? You can be anything you want to be.”

On an even more local level, Larry Farnese won the 1st District Senate Seat – proudly representing South Philadelphia. While I voted for Anne Dicker, I was very satisfied that union boss John Dougherty did not clinch the victory. Dougherty also “killed” more trees then Farnese and Dicker – and if anyone knows, I am all about greening South Philadelphia.

Mayor Michael Nutter is encouraging all Philadelphia residents to join him in a city-wide cleanup. Tomorrow, Saturday April 5th, between 9am and 2pm, thousands of people will be out and about showing their dedication to beautifying the city. Post cleanup, Mayor Nutter will be hosting a BBQ at Lincoln Financial Field in South Philadelphia. Volunteers ride SEPTA for FREE to the BBQ and back home. Check out this link for details on how to help: http://www.phillycleanup.com/pages/Home.asp?Section=Home

Dear commuters who share a car, train, bus, subway or trolley with others,

Brush your teeth before you leave in the morning. Maybe even throw in a little mouth wash. No on wants to smell your nasty bacteria-laden stankbreath. This goes double for those who also share offices or cubicles in close proximity.

Thank you.

This week marks the opening of a new arts and wellness community center in West Philly called Studio 34, so named for its convenient location on the Rt 34 trolley.

According to their website:

Studio 34 serves as a hub, both online and onsite, for healing, art and wellness information. We want people to be well—period. We collaborate with other healing and arts organizations, including practitioners of eastern and western medicine, to host workshops in several healing arts, music and creative arts events, support groups, and community meetings.

To celebrate, many yoga and pilates classes this week (March 22-29) are free! The grand opening party is Saturday, March 29 from 7-11 p.m. with live music from the Citywide Specials and Walt Bibinger with Jessi Teich.

Mayor Michael Nutter is inviting you, citizens of Philadelphia, to help cleanup the city of Philadelphia, on April 5, from 9a.m. to 2p.m.

Here are his goals:
Recruit over 10,000 volunteers
Clean up 5,000 neighborhood blocks
Clean more than 50 commercial corridors along major thoroughfares
Clean 10 neighborhood recreation centers
Clean 10 areas in Fairmount Park
Remove over 1 million pounds of trash and litter from across the city!

If you’ve ever wanted to help out in making this city better, this is a great way to begin. It is very easy to sign up. I, for one, would be very happy for Philly to lose the reputation of “Philthadelphia.” Besides, aren’t we trying to become a green city?

Forbes magazine took it upon itself to create a list of the most miserable cities based on the Misery Index and the Misery Score compiling a list on Forbes.com. Evidently we are #5.

How miserable is Philly? The residents of the City of Brotherly Love once booed Santa Claus and pelted him with snowballs at an Eagles game. Maybe it’s the long commutes, violent crime and plethora of toxic waste sites that has people grumpy. Philadelphia scored in the top 20 in all three areas.

As if Forbes telling us we are a miserable bunch wasn’t enough the LA Metbloggers have decided that we suck based on this list with their post entitled, Detroit, New York, Philly, Chicago All Suck Worse.

Well LA let me tell you something. We tossed snowballs at Santa Claus because he was a fraud and we don’t like frauds. We enjoy our inconsistent weather. We like our long commutes. We like our tixic waste sites, we call them playgrounds. We like to dodge bullets on a daily basis because we are bad ass and we like to live on the edge. We’re not a miserable bunch, we’re happy so F off.

So the American Planning Association has come out and listed their 2007 Great Streets and Great Neighborhoods and guess what? If you guessed that Philadelphia made the list you would be wrong. Instead we were beat out by…. Oh does it really matter who we were beat out by? Who actually came up with this list? Pittsburgh has one of the top ten neighborhoods in the country? Pittsburgh? Really?

C’mon we have plenty of great neighborhoods. What about…. you know that neighborhood where the guy got shot last night. You know which one I’m talking about, right? That’s a great neighborhood. And as for streets, where is the intersection of Red Lion and Roosevelt Blvd.? Or Grant And Roosevelt Blvd.? Sarcasm aside, we certainly have better neighborhoods and streets than some of the ones on their list. Screw you American Planning Association.

Treehugger, that bastion of eco-blogging, noticed that PhillyCarShare now has more than 25,000 registered users. One more step in changing our city’s reputation from an environmentally backward, aging, industrial city to something just a bit more hip and aware.

You know you like living in Philly, but how often do you think to put a list together of 30 reasons to love it? Well, now you don’t have to, as Jael McHenry has done it for you over at Intrepid Media.

The Philly Geeks/P’unk Ave/Indy Hall get together once again to plan the Philadelphia tech revolution and there are pictures to prove it.

If you’re looking for ways to entertain yourself this weekend, the Fall Fine Arts Show is holding court all around Rittenhouse Square. If you have transportation and would like to get out of the city, think about heading out to West Chester on Sunday afternoon for the Chester County Restaurant Festival from 12 noon until 5:30 pm.

There was a lot that happened in Philly this last weekend, and I ended up missing most of it. My weekend was chock full of meals with friends, thesis work and cooking, so my time was well spent, but had I the ability to be in multiple places at once, here are some of the places you would have found me.

Podcamp Philly. Audio and video podcasters (here’s mine) from all over the country (as well as a few from Canada) converged at Drexel University on Saturday and Sunday to talk, network and learn from one another. There’s a bunch of terrific coverage from attendees up and you can find some of it here, here and here.

Sunday morning many of the city’s major arteries were closed to cars, so that Bike Philly could take over the streets. They do something similar in Portland called Bridge Petal and I’ve always meant to do it when I lived there. I’m excited that there’s an alternative here, although I skipped out this year because of timing and cost. However, local blogger Frank Roche rode and took some pictures.

Down on South Street yesterday afternoon, the Philly Greenfest rocked the neighborhood. The Urban Vegan was there and has pictures of the music, veggie sculptures and tasty food.