CITY SIRENS

I spent six hours with my wife in a hospital emergency room Friday night.
My wife fell on our stairs and, after X-Rays and a CAT scan; they discovered that she had broken two ribs in her back. Morphine and Percocet finally relieved her pain and they sent her home at 4 am
But the experience was humbling. A big city emergency room is an amazing eye-opener. The guy in the room to our right was in critical condition with head wounds from a gunshot and the woman on our left had abdominal pains which the nurse finally figured out was caused by hunger. They gave her a sandwich and released her.
There were 40 emergency cases admitted while we were there last night and Karen said she was almost embarrassed to take up their time with broken ribs caused by her own klutziness.
The people who work in hospitals like the ones who helped us last night-the ambulance guy who lifted my wife out of bed and carried her down the steps to a stretcher-the porter who gently put her in a wheel chair and escorted us to a taxi where he warned the driver not to drive too fast over our streets' old cobblestones-the doctors who looked like they'd had less sleep the we had - they are all such special souls.

DEAR MR. PRESIDENT...

Are we really going to fight over abortion again? Didn't we do that decades ago? Maybe the evangelicals weren't paying attention. So here's a thought: As Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg observed not long ago, abortion rights “center on a woman’s autonomy to determine her life’s course, and thus to enjoy equal citizenship stature.” In a New Yorker essay, Jeffrey Toobin says, "every diminishment of that right diminishes women. With stakes of such magnitude, it is wise to weigh carefully the difference between compromise and surrender."

Mr. President, we know that you are a compromiser and a consensus builder but issues such as this one demand you to stand up, face the heat, and refuse to budge. Let's remember that you won the election and you will win the next one in a landslide if you remain true to the principals that got you there.

THE WARRIOR NATION

I could be wrong about this and, if I am, Gogolplex will certainly set it right, but it seems to me that these United States of America have been at war for my entire lifetime.

That would take us back to 1943 - World War Two, the Greatest Generation and the hundred and seventy five movies that followed it and glorified our part in it. Then came the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the First Gulf War, the Second Gulf War and Afghanistan. Lest we forget, our troops also fought in Somalia, Lebanon, Haiti, Kosovo, Grenada, Cuba and El Salvador during this period, although some would dispute these as "not wars" and others would argue other fine points.

Nevertheless, I think it is fair to say that we have become a Warrior Nation, replacing the Brits, the Germans, the Romans, the Egyptians and even Genghis Khan himself. We are it, Baby. The nastiest bastards in the playpen.

Without this unchallenged record of carnage, would we have the standard of living we – at least some of us - now enjoy? Without Boeing, Dow, Blackstone, Lockheed, DuPont, and the entire military/industrial complex we have built, could we have political correctness, arugula, and vegetarians?

We are truly steeped in blood, brothers.

SCRAPPLE V. APPLE

In Philadelphia yesterday we did the expected and elected Democrats to the positions of District Attorney and City Controller. Across the river in New Jersey they did the unexpected and ousted sitting Governor Jon Corzine, he of the once powerful firm of Goldman Sachs. I believe if Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner had to stand for election, he'd be ousted too, so strong is the public revulsion toward big banks and their big bonused bankers. Bloomberg in the Apple, seems to have beat the trend. In Virginia a Republican was elected Governor and people will read in these events some sort of referrendum on Obama's Presidency thus far. I think this is more about the collision of powerful forces, like the Yankees and the Phillies.

The Apple and the Scrapple meet again tonight in game six of what has been a remarkable World Series. Each team takes turns dominating the other, and every pitch hold the promise of disaster or joy. This is what makes baseball such a great game. It is a lot like politics, although politics has more foul balls.

Go Phils!

WORLD SERIOUSLY

Tonight begins the end of the baseball season and I will be sorry to see it go. Only seven games remain, unless you believe, as my friend Paul does, that the Phillies will beat the Yankees in six games, in which case only six games remain, leaving us with no real team sport (Football, like boxing and wrestling, is not a sport in my view) to engage in until March, when baseball resumes.

Go Phils.

TRAVELS WITH CHARLIE

With apologies to John Steinbeck, these travels are with Charlie Manuel, the manager of the Philadelphia Phillies, not a raggedy dog travelling across the country, although I would like to do that some day. And more, this note is about baseball itself...

Despite the concerted effort of the rich guys who own the teams to ruin baseball, it endures and it sustains itself by memories and nostalgia. You have to be raised in the United States and, maybe, Japan, to appreciate baseball. France won't do it. Belgium, maybe. But they'll have to pronounce BAULLL more clearly.

I once tried to introduce baseball to my girlfriend, Beatrice, an exchange student from France, in the summer of 1960. The Phillies were futile and the old ballpark, Connie Mack Stadium, once known as Shibe Park, was a wreck, but it would continue to host major league baseball for another 10 years. Typically the Phillies would fill about 10,000 of the 55,000 seats available and many less for a day game. I took Beatrice to a day game; a Sunday afternoon match against the Los Angeles Dodgers.

I parked on 21st St. and paid the kid who propositioned me $1.00 to "watch my car, mister," a way to insure having wheels and not milk crates propping up the vehicle after the game. I drove a 1953 Chevy then, purchased with the lucre of my summer job the previous summer on the boardwalk in Ocean City NJ, all $500 of it. It was worth a buck ransom.

We sat along the third base line, I remember, and we played the Dodgers, who had moved to L.A. only two years before, but who were still the team of black America because they had brought Jackie Robinson to the Bigs. Most of North Philadelphia was seated along the third base line too. Everyone had a brown paper bag. And Beatrice and I were treated to every form of booze for the first two innings – Night Train, Baltimore Club, Strawberry Blonde, Jack - we sipped them all. It wasn't long, though, before our newfound friends vacated the seats around us and it wasn't much longer until I realized that I was the reason they had left.

By explaining baseball in front of a crowd who knew everything about baseball, I had alienated my entire section. Telling the infield fly rule might have been acceptable, but who wants to listen to a callow white kid explaining the foul lines? I might have gotten away with strikes and balls, but double plays made them leave in droves and find new seats.

Charlie Manuel would understand this. They left the seats in droves when he came to town too. Beatrice, who has returned to Strasbourg, might not.

RIVER RUN

This has nothing to do with Philly. That's the point.

The Zambezi River runs along the border of Zambia and Zimbabwe. Where it crashes over the Victoria Falls, both countries have erected a bridge from which to view the cascade and, incidentally, to cross borders. Below the Falls, the river foam dissipates, the crocodiles sleep on little sand bars and the flow deepens into a meandering river that could be anywhere – Mississippi, Brazil, Paris.

Suddenly, though, a herd of elephants appears on the Zimbabwe side and I know we are not just anywhere. There must be seventy of them. Our guide, who has been managing the outboard motor in our aluminum boat, suddenly shuts it off and whispers at us to be quiet. "I think they may want to swim across," he says, "Don't spook them."

So we sit silently in the hot African breeze as mokurues, dug-out canoes, glide by paddled by native people. They wave at us, careful to be quiet too.

A massive elephant, the herd's matriarch, steps out into the river, proceeds about twenty yards and stops to look around. We are only 50 yards away, but we don't appear threatening and we don't make a sound. Slowly, other elephants join her and they wade out further into the river. Then come the babies, cradled in the crooks of their mothers' trunks. They don't swim but they sure appear to be enjoying the ride.

And now the first elephants in the parade are reaching the Zambia side of the river, where they either shake themselves like poodles or role on the ground, making happy grunts and bleats.

The herd takes about a half hour to make the crossing from Zimbabwe to Zambia, where they continue their trek.

The Guide powers up the outboard and we continue our trek too. But we will never forget the moments.

LA VIE EN ROSE

It was in the summer of 1960-something and I was living in Paris at 10 rue Guy Patin, in an arrondissement you don't want to visit, when I ran out of flints for my Ronson cigarette lighter. Despite the finest French language instruction at my prep school in Germantown and at college, no one had specifically covered the word for "flint."

I borrowed Lee's, my travelling-roomie's, LaRousse, and learned that the translation is "pierre a briquet" which, back-translated literally means "stones of brick." I also inveigled Lee into accompanying me one morning to the local "Tabac" where stamps, envelopes, cigarettes and such things were sold.

Upon entering the Tabac, we were surprised to see so many local Frenchman drinking liquor on their way to work. We assumed that café noir was the morning drink and Courvoisier was reserved for the evening. But we had never seen the poor side of Germantown, where "Baltimore Club" was breakfast.

The bar man takes my order – "je veaux des pierre a briquet, s'il vous plait," says I.

"Oui, oui," says lui, and he ushers outside the bar to a sidewalk table.

So, we sit. I light a Gauloise with the very last spark of my spent Ronson. It is 9 am and Lee and I admire the Parisians on their way to work, a place we will not have to go for many years.

And, here comes the garcon. He has on his tray two bottles of beer that he ceremoniously unveils, and pours into two frosted mugs. "Messieurs," quoth he, "deux bierres a brequenoes" as he bows his way back into the bar.

Lee looks at me. I look at him. We are nineteen years old. It is too early in every way to begin drinking alcohol. Tough brickees.

Ca va.

WHAT JUST HAPPENED?

• It has been not quite a year since we replaced a Presidential buffoon with an educated, articulate, multi-ethnic young man who spoke from his heart about "change." What has happened?
  
• At his confirmation hearing for Director of the CIA, Leon Panetta said that "extraordinary rendition," where we have sent prisoners to foreign countries to be tortured, was a tool he meant to retain.
  
• The President has announced that past crimes by Bush officials would not be investigated – not even by a "truth commission" just trying to establish a record.
  
• Gay military personnel continue to be dismissed at the same rate as before.
  
• Despite consternation when Dick Cheney refused to divulge the names of energy executives who had come to the White House in 2002, the Obama administration refused to release names of its visitors until forced to do so by a lawsuit.
  
• Ours is the most virulent society since Britannia ruled the waves. We maintain more than 1000 military bases in other countries, so many that President Kennedy did not know, until the Cuban missile crisis, that we had nuclear weapons in Turkey.
  
• We have become a national security state bent on imposing our will and our culture on the world. The Bush Administration called the Geneva Conventions "quaint" in a memo written by Alberto Gonzales. Maybe our leaders, the present ones included, think of the Constitution as "quaint," too.
  
• In the words of, sheesh, Nancy Reagan, maybe it is time to "Just say 'no.'"

IN GREED WE TRUST

How did greed become the defining characteristic of the United States of America? When did capitalism, a rather bland 18th century formulation of the obscure British philosopher, Adam Smith, become the money grubbing I-got-mine-screw-you credo of our nation?

How does a country where 30% of its people prefer that the others get sick and die without affordable health care also produce the Peace Corps? How do those Christians, who know very well that Christ healed the leper, rationalize that the person who cleans their hospital room is not able to afford a hospital bed when she is ill?

What kind of two-faced hypocrisy does it take to vote a $1.7 trillion tax cut for the rich in the George W. Bush administration and then to stand on the same Senate floor now and say we cannot afford universal health care Senator Grassley, Senator Hatch?

How, indeed, did greed become the defining characteristic of our country?

HAPPY NEW YEAR

I know, it is not really a new year, except for many of us, it is. For kids returning to school in a new grade, this is a new year. For companies whose fiscal year ends in September, the new year is less than three weeks away. For teachers, this is a new year. And for those of us who love summer and dread winter this is, alas, a new year. Let is put up our tomatoes and peaches and basil. Let us store our tubersand bulbs and dream of next Spring's catalogues.

So happy new year to you and let it be so. Let go of the old year's barriers and tear down your personal walls. Lift up your goals for this year and set a new charge in your ambition machine.

Let the New Year Begin!

SCUMBAG MILLIONAIRE

As though the O.J. trial was not evidence enough of the disparate perceptions of black Americans and white Americans, the Michael Vick brouhaha here has been a sobering reminder. Where were you when the O.J. verdict was announced? I remember being in a conference room filled with work colleagues who were about evenly divided between white and black associates. And I remember being stunned both by the verdict and by the applause from the blacks in the room.

Tonight, Michael Vick gets his first start as an Eagles quarterback. And there will be marches outside the stadium, but not the sort of protest rally you, or and least I, would have expected. The marchers will be representatives of the NAACP and local black churches and other organizations that support the ex-convict. These are being referred to as "civil rights marches" by the local media and by the marchers themselves.

By what stretch of the imagination does this scumbag millionaire deserve a "civil rights march?" It puts to shame the real civil rights marches in Selma and Chicago and elsewhere that brought together people of all races to protest injustice. These marches are a sham and a disgrace.

WHAT'S TO EAT?

I was devastated when I received an email titled "Avoid Whole Foods." After years of shopping at the woebegone ACME, pronounced in the native Philly "Ack-Ah-Me," I had discovered the wonderful world of organic, expensive food at Whole Foods only a few years ago. Now I was being informed that the Founder-CEO-Crazy Sonovabitch of Whole Foods is a right wing, libertarian nut case. After a bit of research, so it is. I should have known better. All along, I knew the company was headquartered in Dallas, home of the Screwball. I should have known.

John Mackey, an original Screwball, leads the charge against Universal Healthcare, arguing in several op-eds in the Wall Street Journal (where else?) that rationing health care is the American Way. He also has been fighting against unions for umpteen years. So, anyway, do your own research. I am left with nowhere to shop for food, for God's sake.

Oh, you Southerners go ahead and smirk with your Publicks and Piggly-Wigglys, but we have winter and fallow times to deal with up North here. It's not like we can buy our produce year-round at the farm stand, or grow it out back you know?

A Wegman's has opened recently in Cherry Hill and we have a small Trader Joe's uptown, but now I have to investigate their socio-political lineage and all, and, shit, I need eggs!

Once upon a time, I thought all I needed to know was to avoid Walmart.

Life gets complicated.

BASEBALL IS PASTORAL

It has always been true that football is a violent game surrounded by thugs at the professional level. The Eagles have just proven that characteristic by signing Michael Vick, a convicted abuser of animals, specifically dogs.

Many outcries and promises never again to attend or watch an Eagles game have been heard around town today. The Eagles have scheduled a hasty press conference.

The Phillies' second baseman, Chase Utley's wife, Jen Utley, is on the Board of the Pennsylvania Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals and both she and Chase have been generous donors to the organization. They have also adopted a rescue dog.

As George Carlin noted, baseball is pastoral. Baseball is played in a "park." Football, on the other hand, is played on a "gridiron." It features the blitz and the bomb to get the ball to pay dirt, while in baseball one runs "home" to score.

The thugs have made the headlines today, but the boys of summer have won our hearts.

Go Phillies.

THIS IS BULLSHIT

And so now we come to the hard place and the rock. Philadelphia, due to its lack of fiscal responsibility under numerous mayors, has had to report to a special commission appointed by the State on all fiscal matters since 1986. One of the requirements of the State (for underwriting City bonds) is that it maintain a balanced budget. The State Senate, controlled by Republicans, has failed to approve the Governor's (a Democrat) budget, which was due to be approved by July 1.

The legislature has passed a special bill to pay State employees, so the State Police cars still roll along the Turnpike. But Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, which are both detested by the militiamen, gun toting NRA slobs, and the crustaceans who occupy the rural center of the State, are dying.

Philadelphia's Mayor, Michael Nutter, has presented his required balanced budget to the powers that be, but it has not been accepted because all financial bills are stalled in the Republican-controlled Senate. The mayor was told that, unless his budget is approved by August 15, he would have to take other measures to reduce the City's expenditures. It is not likely that the City's balanced budget can be approved, since the Senate has adjourned for the summer.

Meanwhile, 3000 city employees, including a friend of ours who moved here from New York to accept a city job last winter, are expected to be laid off next week. At the height of the summer heat, trash collections will be curtailed too. 600 police will be fired and 400 firemen will have to go.

This is civilized? This is not the City of Brotherly Love. This is bullshit.

THE DOG DAYS

They are here, the dog days of August. The temperature is approaching one hundred and the humidity is about the same. Each afternoon brings thunderstorms but no relief. The dogs lie down on the marble floor and pant even though the air conditioning keeps the house at a comfortable 72. They are not pleased with the term "dog days." They are insulted by it and refuse to be amused when such miserable weather is named after their kind. They think "cat house" is hilarious, though.

Crazy things come with the dog days. Here in Philadelphia, the Mayor is preparing to lay off 3000 city employees because the State has refused to pass a budget and the city's finances are closely tied to the State's. Since July 1, State workers have not been paid, nor have any vendors. No budget; no money. The Republican controlled State House of Representatives is about to declare its summer recess and go home. The rest of us just watch, take names and hope we remember them come election time.

Crazy times, these dog days.

GO PHILS

The big news in Philly is that the Phillies have obtained a Cy Young award-winning pitcher, Cliff Lee, from the Cleveland Indians for four minor leaguers. The basball cognescenti are predicting that this virtually guarantees them winning the NL Pennant and returning to the World Series as defending champs.

We'll see, but hearts beat faster on Broad Street these days.

DARLIN' ARLEN

Our esteemed Constitutional scholar, Senator Arlen Specter, who was a Democrat before he was a Republican before he was a Democrat, has sent out an email crowing about the suitability of Ms. Sotomayor to join the Supremes. At least, that's the email I got. Up in the conservative coal regions of our Commonwealth, who knows what position he took? There has rarely been a more vicious or two-faced politician than our Darlin'. Anita Hill can testify to what it was like to be demeaned by this nasty "gentleman."

Arlen, who is now 79 years old, is famous here in Pennsylvania for standing on all eight sides of every issue. As far back as the Warren Commission, it was Arlen (who served as their special counsel) and his single bullet theory who managed to explain away the gunfire from the grassy knoll, the Cuban conspiracy possibility and the Mafia gunmen theory all at once.

Now that he is a Democrat again, a real Democrat is preparing to run against him for the party nomination for his Senate seat. Joseph Sestak bears watching. He is a retired Admiral who spoke out forcefully against the invasions of Iraq, a stand that got him elected to Congress from a Suburban Philadelphia county.

Representative Sestak, who is conducting a State-wide "listening tour" now is very likely to end Darlin' Arlen's remarkably slimy service in the Senate.

Remember, folks, you read it here first.

BASEBALL BEEN BERRY, BERRY GOOD

This is one of those times when I set out to write and I have no idea about what...I thought I was going to discourse on T. S. Eliot, but then I changed my focus to F. Scott Fitzgerald and now here I am, with no idea why. Maybe I am meant to write about initials?

No, I think I am caught up in baseball, having witnessed the All Star Game last night. St. Louis is, indeed, a hallowed city for baseball fans, more so even than Manhattan. Bob Gibson, Stan Musial, Ozzie Smith and of course Albert Pujols...they all have meant so much to Baseball. And let's not forget Steve Carlton. Did the Phillies not steal him from the Cardinals for a bucket of spit?

Come to think of it, T. S. Eliot would have made a nifty little shortstop.

Play Ball.

THE DAY THE HOT DOG DIED

It was reliably reported today that Oscar Mayer died in Wisconsin at the age of 95. Farah, Michael and now this. Who's next, Howdy Doodie?

He did!?

HAZY, CRAZY, LAZY

Summer has finally arrived here in Philly with temperatures in the 80s, no rain and low humidity. It is very pretty. The excess of rain in May and June has made everything green and lush. The farm markets are bursting with fresh lettuces, peas, radishes and rhubarb. Last night, the City began its annual 4th of July celebration with a concert and fireworks at Penn's Landing and on the 4th, itself, Sheryl Crowe will serenade us from the steps of Rocky's Art Museum and then more fireworks. Loverly.

It is time to eat ripe peaches just picked from the tree, and to kick back and read a pot-boiler.

Ah, summer.

THE WAGES OF SIN

While Mark Sanford cried on television about being unfaithful to his wife, another politician a world away also called a news conference to discuss his sex life. Silvio Burlesconi, Italy's President, wanted it to be completely understood that, at 72 years of age, he has never had to pay for sex. He was shocked, I said shocked, when the media suggested that his publicly photographed romps with prostitutes had been a commercial exchange. And he regretted that his 18 year old girl friend had been embarrassed by the charges. His wife ran screaming from the Presidential Palace straight to divorce court.

Jenny Sanford, on the other hand, dragged Mark to a Bible study group, muttering about a reconciliation. Sanford, while he had been in the U.S. Congress, voted for three of the four articles of impeachment of Bill Clinton, citing "moral turpitude." Now, he just cries for Argentina, despite what Andrew Lloyd Weber taught us all about that.

THE BLUBBERNOR

Pennsylvania's Governor, the congenitally blubbering Ed Rendell, has proposed a 17% increase in individual State income taxes as a way to preserve "services" from the Commonwealth. Then, he began to run around the State predicting what dire consequences will result if the legislature does not bow to his wishes. Number one, he will cut off autistic children and other services to the handicapped. Number two, he will stop fuel oil deliveries to the poor in the winter.

Could this be the same bloated egotist that I admit I voted for twice for Governor and twice for Mayor of Philadelphia - the guy who on his first day as Mayor invited the public to help him clean up City Hall and got down on his knees to scrub a toilet?I am afraid so. This is the same guy who invited casino gambling into the State, who cowered before the NRA when it opposed a bill to require STOLEN HAND GUNS to be reported stolen to the police! This is the same jerk who loves to hang his arms around young women (preferably blond ones) and gave double-entendre come-on invitations to a reporter who then reported them!

This is the guy who we elected to an office in Harrisburg, but who insists on keeping an office in one of Philadelphia's most expensive office buildings, with a town car outside always at the ready.

Now this creep, who cannot stand for office again and has nothing to lose, wants to preserve our "services" by raising our taxes. In the middle of a Depression. Eff off, Ed.

HAPPY BLOOMSDAY, LEO

June 16th! It is Bloomsday once again and it has special significance for Philadelphians. Bloomsday celebrates the day on which James Joyce's protagonist, Leopold Bloom, made his "odyssey" through Dublin in "Ulysses." The entire novel takes place on June 16. And the entire hand-written novel resides in Philadelphia at the Rosenbach Museum, once the Delancey Street home of the brothers Rosenbach who collected rare manuscripts as a hobby. Every June 16, volunteers undertake to read from the manuscript as visitors come and go from the old house and listen in to Joyce's writing.

In addition to "Ulysses," the Rosenbach has the original manuscripts of Charles Dickens' "Pickwick Papers" and Joseph Conrad's "Lord Jim." Other interesting items on display are Nathaniel Hawthorne's personal copy of "Moby Dick" and Herman Melville's bookcase. The original illustrations for Lewis Carroll's "Alice in Wonderland" and the only surviving first printing of "Yankee Doodle" are housed at the Rosenbach.

It is a fine resource we have here in Philly and one that we are proud of.

An Abundance of Theater in New York

I saw three plays in anticipation of the Tony Awards, two of them representing multiple nominations. Those two were God of Carnage and Waiting for Godot. I also saw Our Town, revived at the Barrow Street Theatre, largely because Edward Albee recommended it at a “Talk-Back” following the production of his “Zoo Story” at the Philadelphia Theatre Company this year. He responded to a question from the audience saying that he believed Thorton Wilder’s Our Town is the best American play and that, by the way, it was experiencing an excellent production in NY right now... Thanks, Mr. Albee; Our Town was the best play we saw, although it is not nominated for a Tony.

God of Carnage, in my opinion, was next best although my partner did not agree, likening it to a re-hash of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Wolfe, which it does resemble in that two couples go at it pretty intensely. I think Hope Davis should win Best Actress award in God of Carnage, although Marcia Gay Hardin is the New York Time’s pick in the same play. I thought Marcia Gay Hardin overdid it. She reached a peak of emotion and never varied it. Could be that is the Director's fault although he is nominated for Best Director for this show.

James Gandolfini was terrific and so was Jeff Daniels, both in God of Carnage, and both are nominated for best actor. I think Gandolfini was better. God of Carnage would be my pick for Best Play, since Our Town was not nominated.

Waiting for Godot was terrific except for John Goodman, who really chewed the scenery. His performance was over-the-top and it required a lot of physical activity, which led to a concern that Goodman, who must weigh more than 350 pounds, was going to die on stage. Seriously. It detracted from the play because he is so obese.

Bill Irwin and Nathan Lane were terrific, both in Waiting for Godot, and I could agree with either of them winning Best Actor nods, although I think my choice would still be Gandolfini.

We heard wonderful things about Geoffrey Rush, but did not see his show.

I wish we could have stayed a week and seen two plays a day, but the cost would have bankrupted us. We bought tickets for the three shows we saw back in February and, even so, each seat was over $100, with the most crazy price being the two for God of Carnage which came it at more than $150 each. Nevertheless, we were on the first or second row for each show, so I think it was worth it, especially for these kinds of plays. I’ll sit in the balcony for a musical.

SMARTY PANTS

A small article in the NY Times last week got me thinking about the limits of human intelligence.

For years we have assumed that global warming would result in the rising of tides and the loss of coastline as the ice caps melted. Al Gore, in his movie, showed graphically how the Florida peninsula would be reduced to a little pencil-thin strip of land as the water rose. And Manhattan has been depicted as disappeared with a few tops of the tallest buildings poking above the waves.

Well, science has begun to measure the affect of the shrinking glaciers and, guess what? In all our speculation about the rising tides, we forgot to figure that glaciers have weight. And when that weight is removed from the land, the land actually rises and the waters recede! Studies of both the north polar icecap and Greenland have measured an increase of coastline, up to thirty feet more beach in Greenland where the melting has been very severe.

How about that? More waterfront property to uglify!

OINK, INC

I think all of us who are reading this blog should create a bank. I mean, how difficult can it be? Look at all the schmucks who already have a bank. Why shouldn't we have one too?

I considered calling it Goldman, Saks, instead of Goldman Sachs, for my wife's benefit, but then I thought-I don't want to be confused with those crustaceans, do I? On the other hand, I wouldn't want her to walk around with a platinum Goldman Saks credit card which nobody, not even Saks, would accept.

So I think we should create Oink, Inc.

Our logo will be a pig at the trough, with a background ofAlan Greenspan testifying to Congress. In the background, will be piles of pig shit, like Congress itself.

And the logo will be surrounded by sheaves of greenbacks, which makes the whole thing run.

So, sign up now for the OINK BANK, Inc. Maybe we'll get some TARP funds.

What would we want for our motto?

The Rain in Spain...

..may fall mainly on the plain,
But here in Philly it falls willy-nilly.

There seems to be no let up from the cold and dreary, rainy Spring we are experiencing. It has been raining here since last Friday and the forecast is for it to continue through next Saturday. Nothing to be done about it but cuddle up with a good book, which I am doing. In fact I have three books under way at the moment: Toni Morrison's "A Mercy" has just ended (mercifully-I hated it) and I am reading two short story collections, "Bad Dirt" by Annie Proulx and Jhumpa Lahiri's "Unaccustomed Earth." I am also reading "The Limits of Power," by Andrew J. Bacevich, a history professor at Boston University. He seeks to identify and chart the decline of American political influence, which he tracks to the 1965-1973 period. For those of us who lived through this era, it is a fascinating hypothesis. I was turned onto this book by my Mother-in-Law and not many of us are fortunate enough to have a Mother-in-Law smart enough and curious enough to be reading stuff like this.

Fortunately, the Phillies are playing in St. Louis, which is blessed with sunny skies and temperatures in the 70s and Ryan Howard, whose home town is St. Louis, celebrated with a grand slam last night. "Watch this, Albert." (You'd have to be a baseball fan)

May the weather move East.

COLONIAL CONSUMPTION

A friend whose name we won't reveal, but who is commonly called "Steven," commented privately: "BTW, I didn’t want to blog it, but I find it difficult to believe that the FDA would allow City Tavern to be serving the very same food they were 223 years ago. Of course they had salt with which to preserve meats back then, but that still seems an awfully long time. The same holds true for the menus. Most assuredly they’d be greasy, tattered, shreds of paper by now. What do you take us, your readership, for?"
Perhaps Walter Staib, who now runs City Tavern and who is an old friend from Aer Lingus and ARAMARK will comment, although - come to think of it - he once prepared airline food! Gak!
As to Steven's (oops) other comment about the readership, I really didn't know that there was one. I thought I was writing this for therapy. If not, I might have to be more careful.
Not to worry - I know there is almost no one out there, so I can continue to hold my penis while I write or write this. Therapy is therapy.
As for City Tavern: Try the hard (overcooked) lamb, still called "mutton" on the menu. This is the last gray lamb in the colonies. Or perhaps you'd like the pheasant, shot this morning while cavorting on the Mall, and then known as pigeon. Maybe the rabbit stew, hard from the local pet shoppe?Too bad, we're all out of the Deer Testicles. (Sorry Walter)
BTW: If there is a "readership" please speak up and I'll clean it up.

JUST YESTERDAY

Benjamin Franklin landed right here on the shores of the Delaware River, having taken a packet boat from northern New Jersey, the last leg of his trip from Boston, where he had fled an apprenticeship at his brother's printshop. It seems he landed somewhere around Market Street and he remarks in his biography on the view of the Christ's Church steeple, still a landmark three blocks in from the riverfront, although in Franklin's day much closer to it. As Philadelphia grew inland from the Delaware River, the construction debris was dumped into the river, extending the city by about two handred yards into the river. Front Street was once the riverfront and the landfill debris now supports a six lane highway (InterState 95) plus a four lane road (Delaware Avenue) plus various waterfront developments, condos and piers. Franklin would be hard-pressed to point out exactly where he stepped ashore.
Some two hundred years before Franklin, William Penn's landing in Philadelphia is commemorated today by the Penn Treaty Park, where he is said to have signed a peace agreement with a tribe of the local natives. The park is located about a half mile north of where Franklin landed. But the park, like the modern waterfront developments, rests on landfill accumulated over the ensuing centuries and, while Penn may have signed his treaty waterside, he was assuredly not in this park.
Although neither Penn nor Franklin would recognize the riverfront of Philadelphia today, much of the city's charm lies in just how much a colonial resident would find familiar. Franklin could easily trace his path up Chestnut Street to Independence Hall and back down Second Street to City Tavern where the framers of the Constitution dined after their debates in that hot summer of 1776. Today, you can order the same food from the same menu in the same room where they ate. He would recognize the bronze plaques on the fronts of houses showing four interlocking wrists because his fire company insured those houses and put those plaques there. And he would note those houses that have lightening rods on their roof, an invention that stemmed from his kite-flying experiments.
To Franklin, it might seem like only yesterday.

Pandemics We Have Known

Today's news is all about the swine flu and Arlen Specter, not that they are related or contagious. It now appears that Joe Torcella, who had announced his run for the Senate, will stay in the race on the Democratic side, although he is also rumored to be the leading candidate to replace Mark Schweiker as President of the Greater Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce. And Pat Toomey has attracted competition on the Republican side of the Senate race with Pat Luksik (sp?) who is even further to the right than Toomey. Republicans in Pennsylvania have definitely entered the nut case realm.

The Swine flu has made its appearance in Delaware at the University, where more than 20 cases are reported. Should we quarantine Joe Biden?

It is nice to know where to go to reach your elected representatives. Councilman Jim Kenney, for example, holds forth nightly at the bar of the Palm in the Bellevue, 230 South Broad Street, where you can engage him on any subject you'd like and be entertained by his frank and sometimes outrageous opinions about the buzz of the moment. The Bellevue, of course, provided our own pandemic several years ago when its ancient air conditioning system incubated and brought forth Legionnaire's Disease.

Panic ensued, as formerly jolly veterans shrivelled up and died across the country, with the only connection among them that they had visited Philly. Our town can do that to you sometimes. Ask George Washington why he ended up in Valley Forge....

And A Turned Ankle

Chase Hamels, the Phillies' fragile superstar, turned his ankel in last night's game. "A mild sprain" said today's paper. But you can't imagine the chill that ran down the spine of Phillydom when he went down. Brad Lidge, our other pitching hero from a year ago, is already sidelined with a bum knee. Here in Philly we expect the worst to happen. And when it doesn't we celebrate enthusiastically. However, the worst usually does happen to us and we have history on our side to believe it will again.

• We were the first capital of the United States. Lost that one.
• We were the country's financial capital. O for two.
• Then we were its Second City. - Heard of Chicago?
• Ben Franklin was ours, right. Nope - Boston's.
• With our ancient history, we must have produced many Presidents, right? - O for five
• Well our baseball team is 129 years old. Must have won a lot, huh? - Two World Series Championships.
• Must hold a lot of records, though. - Yeah 10,000 losses.

See what I mean?

Our Own Turncoat

When I read his essay in this issue of the New York Review of Books, I thought Arlen Specter was just positioning himself with the Liberals as he usually does and would then travel to Scranton to support the NRA, as he usually does. He has been a turncoat for so many years that this move to become a Democrat suits him well.

We here in Pennsylvania have been famously called a State with Philadelphia in the East, Pittsburgh in the West and Mississippi in the center. This is a fair analogy for a State (officially, a Commonwealth) that has the largest NRA membership in the United States. We like our guns, as our Governor, who has failed to ban assault weapons for twenty years, has learned. One must give Ed Rendell credit for opposing the NRA in a State like this.

But Darlin' Arlen will survive, which is his principal purpose, and he will deprive the country of the services of Joe Torcella, who would have become the next Senator from Pennsylvania. Torcella, who has headed the National Constitution Center and worked as an aide to Mayor Rendell, would have put a real liberal in the Senate, not a right-wing Democrat like the incumbent Bob Casey (Who opposes gun control and abortion) or a turn-coat like darlin' Arlen, who will win as a Democrat.

Awaken Your Sophomore Humor

It has, indeed, been a fruitfly weekend. No, I didn't mean fruitful - fruitfly is what I meant. By Saturday, the record warmth had the bananas browning, the peaches drawing fruitflies and the red wine turning to vinegar. Broke a record yesterday when Philadelphia topped out at 94 degrees.
I just drove back from Princeton and the car registered 97 outside - this, of course, is unofficial, and taken on I-95, which may even make it suspect. I saw a wonderful French movie called "Dinner of Idiots," at least that is its English translation. The literal French title is "Dinner of Assholes."
This movie is available with English subtitles and I highly recommend it. The plot involves a group of Parisian intellectuals who meet for dinner each week. One of the members is required to bring an idiot to the meal and the others are meant to enjoy the idiot but not let him know that they think he's an "asshole." Sounds cruel when the plot is summarized but, in fact it is hilarious and will bring out the Sophomore in you. I highly recommend it.
Other ways to bring out your sleeping Sophomore may include listening to the latest commentary of Dick Cheney, reading anything written lately by Rick Santorum, or tuning into Fox News if you can stand it. Whoopie cushions are also available if those methods don't work for you.

SPRING AHEAD

Here in Philadelphia, Spring continues to tease. Although the flowers and trees are in full bloom, the weather has been gray, cold and wet. We are promised a sudden increase in the temperatures to the eighties this weekend, so we'll see.

Back in William Penn's day, the Delaware River teemed with Shad this time of year. The little-known-in-other-parts-of-the-country fish used to spawn near Lambertville New Jersey and New Hope, PA, nearly ninety miles up the river from Delaware Bay where they swam in from the Atlantic ocean.

Since the river has been cleaned of most of its industrial waste for many years now, the Shad have returned, as evidenced by the annual Shad Festival sponsored by the town of Lambertville. It is to be held this weekend and we wouldn't miss it. Here's to Shad Roe and local asparagus, the harbingers of Spring!

PHRED'S PHEARLESS PHORECAST

As is traditional, we begin with a review of last year's amazingly prescient prognostication:


PHRED'S PHEARLESS PHORECAST (Last Year)

W L
PHILLIES 94 68
NY Mets 90 72
Atlanta 89 73
Washington 75 87
Florida 68 97


ACTUAL 2008 PHINISH
W L PCT
PHILLIES 92 70 .568
NY Mets 89 73 .549
Florida 84 77 .522
Atlanta 72 90 .444
Washington 9 102 .366

Phans:

World Champions. Wasn't it a great season?! Even though I missed the actual W-L numbers by 2, I did pick the phinish correctly; keeping intact a ten year record of trying very hard.

For this year's phorecast, I visited the Phils' spring training camp in Clearwater, saw some of the minor league prospects play at the Carpenter Complex, analyzed the starters at Brighthouse Networks Field, and arrived at what I believe will be an accurate phorecast, albeit one that will disappoint you.

I think the Phils, despite replacing Pat Burrell with Raul Ibanez in left field, have basically stood pat. But the Mets did not. Their acquisition of Francisco Rodriguez and some putz named J.J. Putz have made them measurably more formidable. Although our new left fielder has a more consistent hitting record than the streaky Pat Burrell, he has spent his entire career in the A.L. It will take him at least twice around the league to know the pitchers, the stadiums and the different pace of games in the N.L. By then, it will be July and as in past years, we should be four or five games back of the Mets by the All-Star break. July also is when we can expect Chase Utley to start rounding into form from his off-season surgery. This spring, Chase looked very awkward in the field, throwing off-target and getting his feet in the way of his fielding. July, too, is when our 46 year old Jamie Moyer ought to begin to feel his years. I don't expect Ryan Madson to maintain his set-up form from last year because I think he is fundamentally a frail head case. And speaking of head cases, who knows which Bret Myers will take the mound this year? Cole Hammels has already been shut down once this spring and I think we can look for more of that as the season progresses. He was over pitched last year. Chan Ho Park? Ho hum.

With our three left handed hitters (Utley, Howard, and Ibanez) in the meat of the order, we'll be lucky to see a right handed pitcher in any key situations all season. Add to this the simple difficulty of repeating as winners over the long grind of the season and I think we should all remember last year's parade as fondly as we can for as long as we can. I don't think we'll see another one for a while. In fact, based on Phillies' history, we are due for our next championship season in about 2080.

So here it is, pholks:PHRED'S PHEARLESS PHORECASE 2009

W L
NY Mets 94 68
PHILLIES 89 73
Atlanta 88 74
Florida 75 87
Washington 64 98



Go Phils!!

Phred

With Brotherly Love

“Married people don’t live any longer. It just seems longer.” – W.C. Fields



“Liberty without virtue would be no benefit to us.” - Dr. Benjamin Rush

“I never drank anything stronger than beer before I was twelve.” – W.C. Fields

“Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to eat for lunch.” – Benj. Franklin