recent developments

[desh]

Yesterday was a great day for Philadelphia! The Phillies and Michael Nutter both won! I was at the baseball game, listening to news radio and updating Lesley and flyinbutrs and dredpiraterober on the election results, just as Brett Myers blew a save for his first time ever. A few minutes later, when the three of them were all debating whether to stay for potential extra innings, dredpiraterober said, "It won't matter, this guy [Ruiz] will hit a homer." And he was quite right. I usually disagree with him almost all of the time, but I gotta give credit where due.

Mayor Nutter. I can get used to the sound of that. But Mr. Nutter, I voted for you because of your record and rhetoric for going against the status quo and the corruption for the good of the city. [Assuming you win the general election, which I guess is technically not a definite thing yet,] I'm going to hold you to that.

Also, for Ballot Question #1, the "Yes"es won by a score of 835 to 359, or 70% in favor. The total vote on this question was about 0.4% of the total vote for mayor. The official, legal text of this question: "REMOVED BY COURT ORDER". (For the record, I was one of the 835.)

EDIT: I can't believe I forgot to post this! In Tom Knox's concession speech, he said (and I believe this is a direct quote) "I vowed to spend whatever it takes to take the 'For Sale' sign down off of City Hall." This man spent over ten million dollars of his own money in this campaign, while all the other candidates were severely limited by local campaign finance laws. I'm glad this man, who apparently has no sense of irony, will not be our mayor.

Comments

[dagoski.livejournal.com]

Any law enforcement action on this problem is a short term, tactical measure. The real issue here is that young people coming out the schools in most of Philadelphia's neighborhoods don't really have much a future due the dearth of meaningful jobs. I also wonder how attainable college is for many of them as well. I'm used to cities that have a variety of public schools in commuting distance, but the greater Philly area seems to be dominated by private schools with really high tuitions. One way or another, I think it's pretty clear to a lot young people that there's not much out there for them and that turns into a type of fatalism that I haven't seen anywhere else I'ved lived or traveled. This all feeds back into the drug trade and the violence it brings in the form of personal disputes over money.

Out of curiosity, when did all the manufacturing leave the city? I was riding out from dropping my car off at the body shop by Temple and noticed, as I pedaled through some really distressed neighborhoods, abandonded factory after factory and the buildings didn't look all old. Seems like where a lot jobs in this city once upon a time.

BTW, for those who don't know me, I'm a transient grad student married to an equally transient grad student and we're not from around here.