Albert had two disturbing emails sent to him today that may impact his run for committee person in his ward. Please go to his site. If you have any information to share with him – please do. If Albert is a Republican then I am a Martian.
Category Archives: Philly
Missing Monday and vote in the Koufax awards
* Spread the word about missing people by posting information on a missing person today. See the growing list of participating blogs at Philly Future.
* Philadelphia is all over this year’s Koufax awards. Philly Future, among many favorites of mine, was nominated for best state and local blog! Go vote!
See PF for a full list of Philadelphia nominated blogs.
Vote
Vote for Philly Future’s Next Featured Blog:
Here are the results from our first foray into open nominations for Featured Blog – now it’s up to you to vote (if you’re ready now, click here to access the poll). The three finalists are:
If you are unfamiliar with any of these three blogs, please feel free to click on the links above to sample them. Then once you’re familiar, you can click here to visit the poll and vote. Remember, the polling will be closed by Sunday afternoon, so make sure to vote before then.
This was fun – due to the open nominations and Howard’s suggestion to exclude those who have been already been featured – by doing that we’re been given the opportunity to see some folks who are not the usual suspects get nominated. Go check them out and vote.
“Happy 300th, Ben!”
Philadelphia Inquirer: Happy 300th, Ben!:
If Benjamin Franklin were alive, he might skip the events planned around town today for his 300th birthday.
Too much folderol for his taste, too much speechifying. Too much Franklin, Franklin, Franklin.
It would offend his sense of modesty, and while Franklin wasn’t humble (he knew he was smarter than most), he worked hard at being modest.
It was a virtue he cultivated, aware of its value in everyday life. To be a leader of men, he realized, it was best to be one of the guys: generous in praise, respectful of divergent opinions, quick to give credit to others, slow to take it himself.
In short, Franklin was a genius with a first-class disposition, a rare thing. His brainpower, his energy, and his high emotional IQ made him the de facto civic leader of Philadelphia, its go-to guy, while still in his 30s.
The story of the founding of Pennsylvania Hospital is one example of his uncanny ability to get things done.
It wasn’t Franklin’s idea. It was Dr. Thomas Bond, a London-trained physician, who wanted a hospital for the poor and indigent. As Bond pitched his idea around town, people invariably asked: Have you talked to Franklin?
Franklin embraced the plan. But how to raise the 4,000 pounds?
Franklin had an idea. (He always had an idea.) He had a citizen petition presented to the Colonial Assembly, asking it to create a hospital.
When – as he knew they would – rural legislators objected to such a large expenditure for Philadelphia, Franklin, a member of the Assembly, rose and asked it to put forward half the money – but only if the other 2,000 could be first raised privately. Assembly members agreed, thinking that the private appeal would fail but that they could collect political credits for their generosity.
Franklin then organized the fund-raising, the 2,000 pounds was raised, the Assembly put up the other 2,000 pounds, and America’s first hospital was erected at Eighth and Pine Streets, where it stands today.
Thus did Ben Franklin invent one of the mainstays of modern philanthropy: matching funds.
As Franklin wrote later: “I do not remember any of my political manoeuvres, the success of which gave me at the time more pleasure…”
The hospital was chartered in 1751, three years after Franklin retired to give time to civic and scientific pursuits.
To friends who asked why he would give up a lucrative printing business, Franklin explained that when he died, he would rather have people say that “he was useful” than “he was rich.”
Related: Dan Rubin: Happy Birthday, Blog Daddy. Indeed he was.
Congratulations Albert
Philly Future team treasure, and local blogger extraordinaire Albert Yee just recieved his grand prize award from NowPublic for his outstanding entries in its Citizen Photojournalism Awards.
Congrats Albert! You deserve the recognition and the camera that money buys 🙂
Check out Albert’s photoblog for more of his great art and work. Not to be cliche, but it’s very much possible you can learn more about Philadelphia in a one of his photographs then you can in a thousand blog posts.
A party day in Philly
Hang out with fellow bloggers and make new friends at this month’s regional blogger meetup. We’ve changed location – Nodding Head treated folks rudely – so your loss Nodding Head. This one looks to be the biggest yet.
Afterwards you can get together with the folks from Young Philly Politics to celebrate their birthday. Congrats YPP!
PhillyCrime.org now covers the entire city, but needs your help.
And I’ve collected a small round up of OSM reactions across the web here. I’m honestly disgusted. These folks are people that supposedly claim they “get the web” and the media looks to them more and more for a window into what we do. Indeed, many are highly influential. It’s obvious they don’t. Or maybe the truth is – they do – and they fully intend to take advantage of it.
We interrupt this quiet blog for an announcement
Remember – today is election day. Get out and vote.
Now we return you to your regularly scheduled …. ummm…
Seriously – I’ve been far to busy at work, with Philly Future and with other matters to update this personal site this past week or so. It’s important to keep focused and I’m not going to let my compulsion to blog get in the way (sounds like I’m convincing myself don’t it?). But it’s true – I’ve gotten a terrific amount done this past week.
In other news however – my band plays the Hollywood Bistro this Saturday. Hope to see you there.
Summer of antics blurs focus on field
Inquirer: Summer of antics blurs focus on field
So it turns out a summer filled with distractions, disgruntlement and dismay carries over to the playing field after all.
All through training camp, Andy Reid assured reporters (and possibly himself) that the craziness surrounding his team wouldn’t affect his mature, veteran players.
The Eagles coach was proved wrong last night.
Actually, Reid had better hope he was wrong and the Eagles’ wobbly season debut was the result of too much T.O., too much Brian Westbrook, and too much Corey Simon. The alternative explanation is too grim to think about.
The issue here is focus, and the Eagles were out of it last night.
Jeremiah Trotter was the first to lose it, allowing himself to be baited into a pregame shoving match with Falcons backup cornerback Kevin Mathis. Trotter was ejected. So was Mathis, but you have to think that’s a deal the Falcons would happily make any time.
Donovan McNabb couldn’t have been focused when he threw that bizarre pass for Westbrook that landed well behind the running back and became a fumble.
Terrell Owens didn’t look focused on the deep pass McNabb threw him in the first quarter. Owens never looked back, and Atlanta’s DeAngelo Hall was able to make an easy interception. And then there was the third-down pass Owens dropped, killing another drive.
The Eagles were called for illegal-formation penalties on each of their first two possessions. That is just plain ridiculous. After six weeks of practices at Lehigh and in South Philadelphia, how do you line up in an illegal formation twice in the span of five offensive plays?
Lack of focus, that’s how.
August Philly Bloggers Meetup was terrific
This month’s meetup was great. We had real turnout and I was a little awestruck at the chance to meet so many great folks I have known online.
The regional meetup has grown steadily and now I hope we’ve finally reached our tipping point – where folks will realize we’re not such a scary group and decide to take a chance and come on out to have a few chicken fingers (or wings) and a few beers. Get to know one another. Maybe even make a few friends.
Scott (our event czar) posted a list of bloggers who came on out. Mixed among them were a couple of folks who don’t blog and were just curious – and that was awesome. I hope they got a chance to get to know some of the community. Make sure to check out Scott’s list and find what everyone else had to say of the day.
Thank you everyone for coming out. Here’s to growing our community, connecting, and to new friendships.
Spread the word: August Bloggers Meetup Tomorrow
I hope to see you there.