philly

SEPTA just sucks. I'm not going to discuss how the system isn't 24 hours, how single tokens can't be bought, trains stop almost nowhere, passes are for block dates [Sun-Sat / 1st to 30th] instead of 7-day or 30-day values… I'm gonig to be pissy about how I can't get a fucking monthly pass at 10p on the 30th.

I've been really fucking busy these last few weeks, this week more so than the rest probably. Working more and more hours on the Pennacchio campaign is incredibly rewarding, but it has made me forget little things [or rather push them aside for awhile] like picking up my monthly pass. I usually pick it up the week before, but I probably put in somewhere around twenty hours in last week [seven hours on Saturday canvassing all over Philly] and I just forgot. So I realized that I needed my pass at around 9.30p tonight. So I thought, okay, even though I'm tired as fuck right now, I should go take a bike ride over to Market East and buy my pass tonight instead of spending $1.30 to get to City Hall in the morning and get a pass during the rush.

So I trek on up to Market East. I lock up my bike and walk passed a dog tied up to a lamppost, it's barking incesently, no tags. I head downstairs and round the corner and I see the line of clerk booths. They're dark. I think to myself. Fuckity fuck fuck those asshats. If the damn station is open, why the fuck aren't there any clerks manning the windows?

I walk up to the lady at the info booth. I ask her if there's anyplace where I can go get a monthly pass. She says no. I walk away.

It would be one thing if there were, say, automated machines where I could purchase a monthly pass. Like, say the other two major cities I've travelled extensively through, NYC and DC. But noooooooo. No people at the windows. No machines to buy a pass from.

I walk up the stairs and passed the same barking dog [sadly, I recognize that someone probably abandonned it there] and hop back on my bike. I bike on over to an ATM and take out some money because now I have to walk on over to the Walnut-Locust station to buy a pass in the morning. Because they don't sell them at the Broad-South station. And the Walnut-Locust station doesn't take plastic, how convenient [at least that was the case last time I bought a pass there].

So SEPTA, fuck you too, you fuckers. Your bloated middle management [I've read that their management to worker ratio is a horrific and unbelievable 1:1] has middle managed themselves into a comlpete clusterfuck of a transit system which seemingly goes out of its way to fuck over commuters. Another example of fuckwadery over at Young Philly Politics.

The Legal Intelligencer article that mentions my immigration rally photos is online here. Luke posted a little more detailed bloggy info here.

And Monday is a nationwide a call to action recognizing "A Day Without an Immigrant" and Philly IMC has the details on the past events leading up to this one as well as what's going on in the Philly area for Monday. On top of that, they have a great immigrants rights resource page.

Danie forwarded me an email saying that we can wear simple white t-shirts in solidarity. A very simple sign. Not everyone can take the day off. Or get to a rally during lunch. But wearing a white t-shirt [or a white button down if your job stupidly requires it] is a simple act and they also never go out of style. White t-shirt and jeans it is for tomorrow, easy wardrobe choice for me.

We got back a little late from going out to some grub and we missed the entry of the people down the faux red carpet. But we did get back in time to see the introduction of the people up at the dais. The new guy elected to the board of the White House Correspondent's Dinner got no applause. The photographer from the NY Times Doug Mills got no applause. Then Tony Snow and some other FAUX News guy got a huge applause. So did outgoing Press Secretary Flounder. On the other side of the dais was Helen Thomas who got some nice applause and then it was Stephen Colbert who got up and pointed at the crowd and did that gun with the fingers thing, hilarious. Classic Colbert. Then they introduced Laura, and the hilarious speech from last year.

Then they broke for the dinner portion and they're showing archival clips starting off with Laura Bush's speech from last year.

There's my gigantic head along with an equally gigantic black and white cookie from Famous 4th St Delicatessen over on 4th & Bainbridge Sts.

Lady got herself a chocolate chip cookie which she thinks they baked with an entire stick of butter [that's per cookie]. I took a little nibble of it and it was yummy [and tasted like a stick of butter was in it].

That gigantic black and white caught my eye immediately. I instantly thought of the black and whites from Junior's and Zaro's and just about every corner deli in NYC. This was the first black and white I can recall seeing here in Philly. So I had to get it. Sadly, it was quite shitty. Chewy specifically. The top wasn't hard enough either. The bread cookie part of it was just chewy and not slightly soft. Lady didn't like it either. Blech. Maybe it was a bad batch. I dunno. But it wasn't a good one.

Any other place in town carrying fresh black and white cookies?

The place to be for neighborhoodie documentation here in Philly is, of course, PhillySkyline.com and I finally got my ass around to putting something together in the form of a photo essay to sit on the same server space as Brad's great shots.

My shots of the immigration rally are up here with a short introduction essay. Thank you Brad for the opportunity! I have some other ongoing projects that will someday be up there too, but here's my first contribution.

It is Saturday night and Stephen Colbert will be the man at the mic. He'll tell those fuckers about terms like factesque and truthiness.

Oh the fun times on a Saturday night. I like the SPAN, but it was Lady who caught the mention this morning. Lady and I will be watching. 8p - C-SPAN.

Always fun to watch is the commentary-less C-SPAN camera showing the red carpet entrance to the dinner hall. Oh the humanity.

And she also caught that Colbert will be on 60 Minutes on Sunday night [7p CBS].

***Liveblog and links to transcript and video here***

Sort of. I fixed the big bug that caused the main content to be completely fucked up. For those at work using MSIE, I feel for you. If you're allowed to, go install Firefox. Ask your IT people to do it for you if you don't have the admin rights. Plead with them that they should plead with their upper ups to allow them to allow you to in turn do so.

Thank you Scott, Matt, Scott, Yoko [new blog to come!], rzklkng, Jo and Tulin for helping looking at what the problem was.

It seems as if I didn't put in a ul tag in one of my lists. And MSIE really didn't like that at all. Ugh. MSIE still isn't reading the .css fully. But this is as close to perfect as I can get it. I'm no coding pro. Web development sucks because MSIE sucks and it dominates the marketplace.

Woo hoo Firefox!

If you prefer an RSS feed, that's available here and a host of specialized [Google, Yahoo, Bloglines…] services are easily subscribable if you scroll down the page on the furthest right sidebar. Also, an email feed via Feedburner. Bitchin.

Thank you AP Photographer Pablo Martinez Monsivais for capturing this image. The AP caption:

House Speaker Dennis Hastert of Ill., center, gets out of a Hydrogen Alternative Fueled automobile, left, as he prepares to board his SUV, which uses gasoline, after holding a new conference at a local gas station in Washington, Thursday, April 27, 2006 to discuss the recent rise in gas prices. Hastert and other members of Congress drove off in the Hydrogen-Fueled cars only to switch to their official cars to drive back the few block[s] back to the U.S. Capitol.

Didn't even have the decency to ride in that car to get out of reach of your average telephoto lens. What a schmuck.

via Susie >> Political Wire

Speaking of us, I just got finished reading through Chris Bowers' post on his first ward endorsement meeting [for the Democratic Primary] in Ward 27 over in West Philly. Chris was appointed to a vacant spot and is a committeeperson and is currently running to be elected for the first time in the May 16th primary in Division 23.

Twenty-one out of thirty-two (65%) of the committeepeople showd up for the official endorsement vote. He noted that it is the time for finals [he lives in a very college-heavy area] and several of them were in school hard at work. Who has time for an endorsement when there's o-chem to cram, yay!

The ward voted to endorse progressive candidate for Lt. Governor Valerie McDonald Roberts. They also voted to endorse conservative candidate for US Senate Bob Casey. Two ends of the spectrum of the Democratic party if you can still call Casey a Democrat. Chris noted several times on how interesting it was that in what he thinks may be the most progressive ward in the entire state decided to go with the progressive candidate for Lt. Governor, but turn around and vote to endorse Casey as well.

Chris also parsed out the twenty-one people and noted their voting tendencies throughout the night which were interesting. It's a good read. Insightful. It's a look into the stuff that I want to get involved in. Providing that I can win one of the two contested seats in my area [Ward 5 Division 8], I'll be able to make an impassioned speech [as he did for Pennacchio] for the candidate I strongly believe in at an endorsement meeting.

I do not worry about what "message" my vote in the primary sends to people, because my vote is what I believe in. I believe that primaries are where you should always and only vote for what you believe in. If I thought my beliefs sent the wrong message to people, I would quit politics right now. Many Americans think that Democrats do not stand for anything. If, in our own primaries, when only Democrats are choosing among potential candidates, we vote not for what we believe in, but rather for what we think will appeal to the most people, then how can we ever combat the belief that Democrats do not stand for anything?