Category: Life in the Big City

In the shadow of Mercury metro

~ susie ~ 1 Comment

wall2

So I was driving a friend to the train station after dinner last night. We were stopped at a light and she said, “Oh, you can drop me off here at the corner.”

“You know, this has been a real bitch of a retrograde, I think I’d rather drop you off at the curb cut. It’s probably safer,” I said. She said okay. “Yeah, it really sucked, didn’t it?”

The light changed, and we saw a cop car turn into the intersection and hit a woman who was walking across, her face stuck in her smartphone.

“Holy shit,” I said. We watched as the woman got in the car — I guess the cop was taking her to the ER to get checked out.

So as it turns out, it was a good idea not to let my friend get out at the corner.

Mansplaining

~ susie ~ 12 Comments

Office elevator stuck on the 13th floor

I was in an elevator yesterday with a man maybe ten years younger, and we shared traditional Philadelphia summer pleasantries: “Sure is hot!”

But he insisted it was no hotter than ever, and that storms weren’t getting worse.

“The bad storms happen more often, and do more damage,” I said.

“That’s not true, you just think that. None of it’s any worse,” the man, who is apparently a part-time meteorologist, told me. “You’re listening to these green types, they just want to keep the country from proper industrial development.”

“Have a nice day,” I said and walked away.

Pennsyltucky budget process

~ susie ~ 4 Comments

TomCorbett

God, I hate PA Republicans. Just hate them. If the Capitol building collapsed and killed all of them, I’d say, “Oh, that’s such a shame.” But on the inside, I wouldn’t care.

Sen. Chuck McIlhinney (R., Bucks) said in a statement that he voted against it because he was angry about the budget plan’s allowance of additional gas drilling on state forest lands to raise revenue.

Senate Republicans had been willing to consider raising revenue through tax increases – including a new tax on the extraction of natural gas from the Marcellus Shale – but Republicans in the House took a hard line against any new or increased taxes.

Under the Republican plan, spending would increase by about 2.5 percent over the previous year – but the package also adds $220 million to that year’s budget. Though there would be increases for public schools and social safety-net programs, they are not what Corbett originally asked for when he unveiled his proposal this year.

For instance, Republicans are seeking to pare back Corbett’s “Ready to Learn” program from $240 million to $100 million. Philadelphia stands to receive $33.7 million under Ready to Learn.

Republicans have also been unable to agree on a plan to rein in the cost of public employee pensions. The Senate late Monday did pass a bill that would require elected officials, including legislators, judges, the governor, and the attorney general, to move into a 401(k)-style plan.

But that is a far cry from the overhaul Corbett is seeking, which would affect all new employees.

On Sunday, Corbett and House Republican leaders had given Philadelphia Democrats an ultimatum: Vote for the GOP pension plan in return for Republican support for an increase to the cigarette tax in the city.

Democrats criticized the ultimatum as political horse trading that holds the welfare of Philadelphia schoolchildren hostage.

One of my friends just suggested we secede from the state and form our own. After all, we send a lot more money to the state than they send back!

H/t Shawn Sukumar Attorney at Law.

Another reason we need to end the war on drugs

~ susie

westphillyhouse

These civil forfeiture laws are nothing but plunder against the poor in the name of the state, and this is a particularly egregious case. Philadelphia is about to knock possession of marijuana down to a misdemeanor, but our ambitious District Attorney is still going after cases like this? Shame on him, and shame on the craven legislative overreach that came up with this unconstitutional property grab. This poor woman suffered through the MOVE bombing (her house is on the corner of 62nd and Osage, the street that was in flames), and now the city drops another bomb on her:

Remember: No one even had to be convicted for this to happen!

At once tidy and stalwart, but pockmarked, too, with its share of boarded-up homes, Elizabeth Young’s neighborhood in the Cobbs Creek section of West Philadelphia is the epitome of urban grit.

No one would mistake this tough patch of the city for a hotbed of real estate action. And yet the District Attorney’s Office stands to make a pretty good return here.

On April 3, 2013, Common Pleas Court Judge Paula Patrick ruled in favor of the D.A.’s Office and ordered Young, 69, a widow active in her church, to turn over her home to the city. The city had arrested her son and another man for the sale of small amounts of marijuana there, and then, under civil forfeiture statutes, moved to seize Young’s home.

They were able to do this even though Young had never been accused of a crime, much less convicted. The loss of the home is no small thing, say her lawyers. She has been forced to stay with relatives. The house was appraised at $54,000, and it was her main asset.

That and her 1997 Chevrolet Venture minivan. The D.A.’s Office took that, too.

Young’s case is now on appeal before Commonwealth Court. A three-judge panel originally heard the case in October, but in a sign of how seriously the court views the constitutional issues implicated by the seizure, a majority of its 11 justices decided to rehear the matter in May. It is expected to rule any day now on whether the seizure violated Young’s constitutional protection against excessive fines under the Eighth Amendment.

Young’s lawyers at the firm of Ballard Spahr, Jessica Anthony and Jason Leckerman, have no quarrel with the city’s aggressive posture toward drug dealing. They say the concern is that in his zeal to push back against drug dealers, District Attorney Seth Williams is subjecting people to exceedingly harsh punishment for crimes that someone else committed.

In fact, under the law, there doesn’t even have to be an underlying conviction for a civil forfeiture action to proceed.

“Civil forfeiture punishes property owners for someone else’s wrongs,” said Anthony. “That means individuals can lose their homes because a family member, friend, or even a stranger has been accused of using, storing or selling drugs in their home, even if no one gets convicted for the crime. The loss of one’s home . . . is a harsh punishment.”

Philadelphia isn’t all bad news

~ susie
MATT SLOCUM — AP Photo
MATT SLOCUM — AP Photo

Hey, we take our happy stories where we can get them!

PHILADELPHIA — It’s rush hour in Philadelphia for thousands of baby toads as they hop across a busy residential street on a rainy summer night.

Why do toadlets cross the road? To get to the woods on the other side — where they will live, eat mosquitoes and grow up to be full-sized American toads (bufo Americanus). After a couple of years, they’ll make the reverse trek as adults — unless they get squashed by a car.

That’s where the Toad Detour comes in.

The Schuylkill Center for Environmental Education sets up a roadblock each year in the Roxborough neighborhood, rerouting cars so the amphibians can cross the two-lane street without fear of, um, croaking.

The cycle starts in early spring when adult toads, which can fit in the palm of your hand, emerge from the woods to breed. They cross Port Royal Avenue, scale a 10-foot-high embankment and then travel down a densely vegetated hill to mate in the abandoned Upper Roxborough Reservoir. Their offspring — each about the size of a raisin — make the journey in reverse about six weeks later.

So many baby toads were on the move Monday evening it looked like the road’s muddy shoulder was alive. Volunteers scooped them up in plastic cups and deposited them on the habitat side of the street.

“I didn’t expect at all that there were going to be so many of them in one area,” said 17-year-old Kaitlyn Hunt as she held a cup with more than a dozen toadlets. “And they’re so tiny. They look like bugs.”

Road rage

~ susie ~ 1 Comment

Man and Woman on motorcycle in alley

So I was driving through Fishtown Friday night, and there was a hipster guy on a motorcycle (girlfriend on the back) who seemed to be driving a little erratically. (It was the weekend of the local beer festival, and I was afraid he was drunk.) A couple of lights up, the guy pulled to the left, as if he were making a left turn. He wasn’t. He turned right in front of me (I was trying to get past him), and I just avoided hitting him.

Thank God, nothing happened.

Except the guy starts screaming at me in a purple-faced rage. I said, “Hey, you pulled to the left and then you made a right without using your turn signal!” Because I wanted him to know that he almost caused an accident.

“You’re a fucking liar! I used my turn signal! You’re an asshole!” His girlfriend chimed in, too. The two of then were yelling all kinds of nasty stuff, and then it escalated.

“I’m going to spit right in your face!” he said, and made noises like he was getting ready.

“That’s assault, and don’t think I won’t file charges,” I said. I closed my window and drove off. I was quite shaken.

First of all, I don’t freak out at people on the road. What’s the point? I assume most drivers are doing their best, and sometimes you’re in a blind spot or whatever, and shit happens. Or almost happens. If I’m in a near-miss, my primary emotion is relief that nothing happened.

But this made me feel really unsafe. I guess I should be happy this guy didn’t have a gun.