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.

I suppose it’s a growing trend today for some people – profiting from naïve youth, padding your pockets without a care in the world and not thinking twice about it. The problem: a dangerously flawed reasoning process.

Promoters, attendees and djs claim that many people do not understand the rave culture. What’s there to understand? Most people that attend these parties are under the age of 21, high on something all the while their parents/guardians/etc. are sitting at home (or out, I won’t speculate all attendees even have a stable home environment) without a clue as to what their offspring are doing. P.L.U.R.? Really? For those who don’t know raver speak, P.L.U.R. stands for, “Peace, Love, Unity and Respect.” I suppose that when you are under the influence of illegal substances, there is a fabricated sense of peace and possibly of love – and if everyone’s on drugs, well, that’s unity, right? But respect? My friends, there is NO respect in this culture (if you want to call it that).

Those involved in the culture claim that rave parties do not promote drug use. These parties go until 6am. What does it take to continue on dancing and promoting P.L.U.R. until 6am? Drugs. Not just good beats, man. Recently, NBC 10 ran a story regarding raves that took place after hours, on weekends in a charter school basement in West Philadelphia. Promoter Mickey Fronick or Tru Skool Productions claims his heart is in the right place. All the while, he also does not deny the use of illicit substances by underage minors and of age attendees. Question: why is this man not in jail? I applaud NBC 10 in their investigation. However, I am doubtful that much – if anything – will change.

No thanks to several delinquent teen boys from Simon Gratz High School, South Philadelphia has lost one of its long time residents. Sean Conroy, 36, manager at a local Starbucks, died of a fatal asthma attack brought on by blunt force trauma while waiting for his train at the 13th and Market subway stop. The murder occurred on March 26th.

What’s particularly troublesome to city residents and frequent Septa riders is that the homicide occurred in the middle of the afternoon in a relatively busy and seemingly well-patrolled area.

16 year-old Kinta Stanton has been charged as an adult with Sean Conroy’s death. His accomplices: Ameer Best, 17; Arthur Alston, 16; Rasheen Bell, 16; and Nashir Fisher, 16, will hopefully be charged with murder as well.

As a writer who tends to get a message across with as few words as possible, I am deeply saddened by such cruel and hateful actions by city youth. My heart goes out to Sean’s fiancée, family and neighbors.

I also wonder: what can be done to prevent such attacks in the future? What can we do to teach city youth that violence is not the answer?

I just stumbled across this announcement a little while ago, although it’s several days old. Apparently a Philadelphia couple were chosen by the M&M company to spend an entire month communicating only via messages printed on M&Ms. They wrapped up the month on Wednesday, July 26th and finally got to speak to each other at a ceremony at Franklin Square. It seems sort of crazy to me to be willing to spend 31 days not speaking to your partner, but people will do a lot of $31,000.

If you normally listen to the streaming audio from WXPN while at work, you’ll find that the feed will be silent tomorrow. They, along with other internet radio stations, are going off the air tomorrow in order to protest the royalty rates that could go into effect as early at July 15th.

Silence is what Internet radio may sound like after that date because of a royalty rate hike scheduled to go into effect. The new rates will also be retroactive for 17 months and payment will become due to the SoundExchange collection organization under the terms of a recent Copyright Royalty Board (CRB) decision. The new rates could cost WXPN more than $100,000 annually; several times the annual funds raised by business support on the Internet streams.

The regular XPN signal will go silent for two minutes at 4 pm tomorrow afternoon as well. If keeping internet radio affordable and accessible is important to you, please take a moment to sign the online petition.

XPN Copyright Update

Who knew that the act of memoir writing could be turned into a competitive sport? Well, the folks over at First Person Arts have deemed it to be, and launched their 6th Annual Memoir Writing Competition about five days ago. They say…

There will be two categories in the competition: Short Memoir (up to 3,000 words) and Short-Short Memoir (up to 500 words). The theme for both categories is Objects of My Affection - we want to know how objects in your life have impacted, influenced or changed you. First-place winners of both contests will have their memoirs published in the Philadelphia City Paper, and all finalists will have their work featured on the Philadelphia City Paper and First Person Arts websites. In addition, winning submissions will be read live by the authors or by readers selected by First Person Arts at the memoir competition showcase during the annual First Person Festival (November 7-11, 2007).

So start searching your soul (or your childhood) for those objects that had significance for you. The deadline for submissions is August 15, 2007. For more information, check out their website here.

Yesterday afternoon, I walked into the lobby of my apartment building, just as a young woman was talking to the desk clerk and handing him a small stack of glossy magazines. Being my nosy self, I walked up to investigate what was going on and discovered a brand new magazine devoted to Rittenhouse Square. The June/July issue is the premiere edition and they hope to continue to produce them at a rate of one every other month. It’s a free magazine that features the businesses, events and activities of the Rittenhouse Square area. There are copies being left at locals around the area, so you should be able to pick up a copy if you’re interested. If you can’t find a physical copy, you can check it out online here.

She wrote a column using a courtship paradigm for the mayoral race, and it’s wonderfully funny. I’m so happy my chosen candidate won, of course, but the day after elections always feels a little down. Sort of a hangover or crash if you will. Or maybe that’s the aftermath of celebratory Trader Joe’s chocolate lava cake.

Earlier tonight I noticed a funny smell, like burning rubber, drift in through my window. I didn’t think too much of it, but about an hour later, my roommate came bursting in, saying “check the internet, there’s a big fire burning down near the airport!”

I pulled up the NBC 10 website and it reports that there is a two alarm fire burning stacks of scrapped cars at 26th and Penrose. The fire has closed the Platt Bridge, so if you need to get to the airport tonight you should take I-95 and not I-76.

I am deep, deep, deep within the throes of addiction. It’s terrible.
My addiction? AM Talk Radio. Specifically KYW.
I know I have already written about this. But it’s getting serious. I’m serial.
Last night I went in to brush my teeth. We have a clock radio, it sits on the toilet, and it’s tuned to 1060am KYW. Every time I walk, no matter what I’m doing, I turn it on. I get snippets on news, traffic, weather. It’s great. I am very informed. Constantly. Honest.
But last night when I turned on the radio, it was static. Now sometimes I have to listen to my beloved traffic reports through showers of static, but I’m resigned to it. It doesn’t bother me. However, only static does bother me. I got concerned. I stopped brushing teeth and tried to tune the radio properly, to 1060. I couldn’t find it. I got worried and concerned.
I found something though and it sounded like news. Good enough, I thought. I was tired and went to bed.
But it’s now Day 2 and the madness continues.
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