Poor Richard's Scorecard

Remember 'The Franklin'? Atwater Kent Gets Its Rebranding Right

You're forgiven for thinking that the Atwater Kent Museum of Philadelphia is a repository of old radios. It's actually the city's history museum, founded in 1941 thanks to the largess of the inventor and radio pioneer after which it is named. Is it any wonder the current leadership thought some rebranding was in order?

Wing Bowl: Doing More Harm to Philadelphia's Image Than a Thousand Snowballs Aimed at Santa

To criticize Wing Bowl as a civic embarrassment is to risk being seen as a sour killjoy, someone too highfalutin to appreciate such commoners' fare as Buffalo wings and young hotties who like to take their top off. Well, guess what? I like those things--like 'em a lot, actually--but I can't stand Wing Bowl, the annual wing-eating contest held earlier today in South Philly.

Philadelphia Fans, Profanely Preserving Childhood Memories for Generations

Any broadcaster planning on augmenting his or her World Series commentary with the usual tired reference to the infamous booing of Santa Claus by Philadelphia fans is advised to read this, from a response to a question on Ask Metafilter from a Yankees fan who wants to watch the Series in a Center City bar "where I won't be lynched":

Phodder: Someone Please Tell Vince Fumo That His Diet Is Now Bread and Water, Not Whine and Cheese

• As if Vince Fumo's lawyers weren't sufficiently tone-deaf, now they're bitching about his country-club prison being too far away for his family to visit. Dude, it's, like, jail. It's supposed to be hard.
• Make you a deal, Philadelphia Media Holdings: I'll support your "Keep It Local" campaign for the Inquirer, the Daily News, and philly.com if you give me more local reporting instead of the reams and reams of wire copy I now have to wade through.
• The recent 40th anniversary of Woodstock elicited several breathless, overhyped stories in the Sunday Inquirer recently. For the 40th anniversary of the Internet, readers got merely a wire-service analysis buried in the Tuesday business section. And papers wonder why young people aren't reading.
• Curt Schilling's musings about a political run surely must originate in his belief that it isn't fair for Jim Bunning to be the only loudmouth psycho Republican ex-Phillies pitcher in the Senate.
• I'm glad I'm still young enough to see the cultural value of the Fringe Festival to the city. And I'm glad I'm now old enough not to have to convince myself that I have to go. | PRS

Boston, San Francisco, and Baltimore Tamed Their Urban Highways; Why Can't Us?

Last Friday my family and I spent the day in Baltimore. We zipped across the harbor on a water taxi, ate lunch and dinner at waterside restaurants, people-watched, and walked to and from our hotel with absurd ease. We pointed out attractions we hoped to attend in future years, when the girls are older and interested in different things. On Saturday morning I went for a run along the perimeter of the harbor, which was lined with all manner of restaurants, museums, shops, and upscale residences. Throughout our entire time in Charm City, I was struck by how accessible and welcoming and fun the Inner Harbor is--and how Philadelphia continues to lose a golden opportunity to showcase its waterfront.

Phodder: For a Guy Who Doesn't Wield a Paint Brush, Timothy Rub Is Earning a Lot of Notice from the Art Press

Happy birthday, America! ... Wow, did the Inquirer spend an awful lot of column-inches on the incoming director of the Philadelphia Museum of Art. ... The Phillies had no compunction about punting Brett Myers to Lehigh Valley last season to straighten out his head and let him play through his fog without hurting the club; at what point do they start thinking about the same tactic for Jimmy Rollins? ... Discussions about shunting Interstate 95 away from the Delaware River waterfront in Center City to open up that vastly underused area for much-needed development are long overdue. Yet I worry about the algebra: Massive public-works project + Philadelphia = epic corruption. It would make Boston's Big Dig look like a Boy Scout meeting. ... The city's postponement of parking rate hikes is all well and good, but doing something about the crippling cost of doing business would have greater long-term impact. ... The saturation coverage of the double murder at the Piazza at Schmidt's again raises the question of why we don't pay such attention to all victims--including, say, the ones who aren't noted figures on the local club scene. ... Brian Boucher arrives, Mike Knuble departs; I don't like that math. | PRS

Phodder, a collection of brief thoughts regarding some of the week's happenings in and around Philadelphia, appears Saturdays in Poor Richard's Scorecard.

Phodder: Buzz Blasts, Raul Rants, and Schools Slide

H.G. "Buzz" Lightyear Bissinger raised some valid points in the critical assessment of Mayor Nutter he published in last Sunday's Inquirer. But after his mouth-foaming anti-blogging rants, it's difficult to accept him as a credible commentator. ... And speaking of misconceptions about the role of blogging, the Raul Ibanez steroid rumor, which would have remained a little-read post until the Inquirer threw gasoline on the barely smoldering ember, did nothing more than dig up and open a coffin long since buried. Uh, guys? Two thousand six called; it wants its MSM/blogging "debate" back. ... Maybe it didn't come from superintendent Arlene Ackerman, but someone leaned on Philadelphia public school teachers to pass students with failing grades. And you have to wonder why, since the practice has absolutely zero positive outcomes for anyone--students, teachers, administrators, parents. ... So suburban Reading's not-so-favorite daughter and son are set for a "major announcement" Monday night. Kate and Jon Gosselin's decision to expose their life and their children to the prurient eyes of America's reality-television watchers was made, I believe, in their family's best interests--two years ago. The family's best interests today involve getting as far away from cameras and boom microphones as possible. ... The Inquirer this week front-paged the ass-kicking even tony Chestnut Hill has taken during the economic downturn. Yet the storefront that has sat empty at the corner of Germantown and Willow Grove avenues for every day of the decade we've lived in the area was a prescient sign that the Hill had some troubles even before things tanked. ... Any night at the ballpark offers its share of unusual sights, but last night at Citizens Bank Park I spied someone wearing--no, really--an Eric Bruntlett t-shirt in Section 104. | PRS

Phodder, a collection of brief thoughts regarding some of the week's happenings in and around Philadelphia, appears Saturdays in Poor Richard's Scorecard.

But Does 'The Real Housewives' Keep Tourists Away from North Jersey?

If all of Philadelphia's municipal government agencies worked as ruthlessly efficiently as the Parking Authority--if the Parking Authority's performance were the rule rather than the exception--perhaps the nationwide angst fostered by the A&E series Parking Wars would be easier to swallow. Instead, as the Inquirer reports today, the reality show, which "traces the not-so-glamorous workday lives of Philadelphia Parking Authority employees as they boot, tow, and ticket their way through the day," is turning off potential tourists from coming to the city. Sigh. Imagine how much the city could lure--tourists, start-ups, corporate headquarters, college graduates--if the School District, Sanitation Department, Streets Department, Police Department, etc., etc., etc.,--worked as well as the goddamned Parking Authority. | PRS

Same Great Coverage, Now In More Places Than Ever!

Time for a little shifting around here at Poor Richard's Scorecard. Recently I became aware that Examiner.com, a national blogging network that's developing a presence in various regions around the country, was in need of Philadelphia sports bloggers. I applied and, lo and behold, they brought me on board. So for the foreseeable future I'll be posting most of my sports-related observations there, but linking to them here just to keep you aware of things. Non-sports posts examining the silliness we know as Philadelphia will continue to appear here.

At Least Wearing His Eagles Jammies to Bed Doesn't Cost the City Anything

So Pittsburgh Mayor Luke Ravenstahl has temporarily changed his last name to Steelerstahl in support of the Steelers' push to reach the Super Bowl, which they can do by beating the Baltimore Ravens this Sunday. A similar option is, of course, unavailable to Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter, since the city is in such an abysmal fiscal situation that it would be unable to afford the administrative fee the court would charge to enact the change. Here's hoping the mayor dug into his own pocket to buy the Eagles baseball cap I've seen him in lately. | PRS