From the Madonna/Young column - http://www.fandm.edu/x18781.xml

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"But Bonus Gate markedly differs from past corruption in Pennsylvania. Corrupt politicians throughout state history have found many ways to steal and have stolen for many reasons. But historically personal enrichment and financial gain were common motivations for corrupt behavior. Since vigorous parties and abundant patronage provided the campaign resources necessary to run campaigns, crooked politicians of earlier eras were free to steal for themselves, and many did.

And the accused Bonus Gate malefactors are different too. Boiled down to its elements, they are accused of creating within state government a campaign organization that performed very similar campaign functions to those that parties and patronage performed in the past.

Well, many of my previous YPP posts on Mumia have elicited an intense reaction. While there are the expected hate-mongers who seem to be just foaming at the mouth when attacking the integrity of my work supporting Mumia, there have also been folks expressing an interest in learning more, and asking for some more general background.

I am writing this post mostly for them (the open minded ones)... But this also gives those folks that have been extremely rude to me, an opportunity to explain why my writing is such poor quality. Please, try and find a flaw here.

Here are several key facts from the case (esp look at the alleged hospital confession, and the story of Veronica Jones). Can anyone really claim that the trial was not unfair, and Mumia was not framed? Be sure and watch the Dec. 6 Today Show here:

July 18th, 2008 | Author: Anthony Springer Jr

A 25-year-old woman in New York City is suing the designer of an anti-Barack Obama t-shirt after she was assaulted while wearing one of his controversial t-shirts.

The woman, who has not been identified, purchased a shirt with the words “Obama is My Slave” shirt for $69. While wearing the shirt this past Tuesday, she was assaulted by four girls, who pushed her down, pulled out her earphones, and spit in her face according to the New York Metro News.

Apollo Braun—the Israeli born designer who made the shirt—is now saying the victim of the attack is trying to sue him for “all he’s got.”

Braun claims that his designs reflect the views of “ordinary WASPs (White Anglo Saxon Protestants).”

“For a lot of people, when they see Obama, they see a slave. People think America is not ready for a black president,” Braun told Metro.

Even if it is kicking and screaming, you now have the chance to help bring the City Government one step closer to the modern age, by forcing them to provide all citizens with access to electronic voting results. But, first, for those who have not been following this, here is a quick recap of where we are:

• The City Commissioners publish election returns online, behind a firewall, where only a small group of people can view them.
• I requested a password, which they denied, stating that their system only allows 150 people to be online at once. (They also mentioned they are getting in a new shipment of slide rulers, and that their dictaphone needs repairs.)
• Vince Fumo alone has 10 of those 150 passwords
• The City Solicitor granted my appeal, ruling that password protecting election results for your buddies is in violation of any notion of open government and the PA Open Records law. So, I have my password. Maybe they thought this would end the whole thing? If so, they severely underestimated how annoying I am.

Does me having a password really get us anywhere closer to the goal of open access for everyone? Not really, but, the ruling from the City Solicitor does, and that is where you come in. Today, in partnership with Hallwatch and with help from Philly for Change, we are launching a faxbank, where with the City Solicitor's ruling in hand, you can send in your own open records request to the City, asking for your own password.

Here is the basic idea: If the City Commissioners want to plead technological incompetence, we are going to use the ruling from the City Solicitor to force their hand. If we can get 25, or 50, or 100 people to request their own passwords, the Commissioners will be forced to make a decision: Take the small, easy step of putting election results online for all Philadelphians, or take away electronic access for their buddies.

Which do you think they will choose?

But, this only will work if you help. So, can you take 2 minutes and to open up Philadelphia government, and then spread the word? Click here, and lets get this done.

Election results are not supposed to be a perk for the connected few. And they should not fall under a constituent service. This. is. a. democracy. These. are. election. results.

Filling out a request is incredibly easy, and the City has to respond to you within 30 days. Please fill one out, spread the word to any and all who might be interested, and of course, let us know how the office responds.

Hi folks, this YPP post is two-fold:

First I want to share the new Philly IMC feature I wrote.

Second, is our appeal for donations to pay for our newspaper (hoping to get at least $100 in the next week or 2).

Anything you can do to help spread the word is most appreciated.

Last week, death row journalist Mumia Abu-Jamal filed an appeal of a March 27 US Third Circuit Court ruling that rejected his bid for a new guilt-phase trial.

What can you do tonight that combines the following awesome things?

• Summer camp
• Empowering girls
• Rock and roll
• Public defenders
• Drinking

Come to the benefit for Camp Sojourner, a camp that's committed to helping Philadelphia girls 'to be strong, confident leaders who reach for their own dreams and are committed to making a positive impact on the world around them'!

THURSDAY JULY 17 from 6 - 8 pm at the IRISH PUB (1123 Walnut Street). There will be food and drink specials and LIVE MUSIC. Famous public defenders Shawn Nolan, Vic Abreu, and Dave Zuckerman have agreed to play for us that evening. It's guaranteed to be a good time! $15 suggested donation again goes entirely towards camp needs.

And you can help even if you don't come tonight.

Camp is just three weeks away!!! Each $245 raised will allow us to send another girl to camp. Donating is easy:

On-line: www.girlsleadershipcamp.org Click DONATE to be directed to PayPal

Write checks to: "Girls' Leadership Camp/RHD" and send them to: Camp Sojourner, Girls' Leadership Camp / 801 S. 48th St. Philadelphia, PA 19143

Donate camp supplies: art materials; outdoor gear (sun block, bug lotion, rain gear, flashlights, batteries, tents); gently used clothing (for the camper who forgot her jacket, or her bathing suit, or her socks, etc.). E-mail me to arrange donation drop-off.

Loan camp supplies: camping gear (tents, sleeping pads, etc); instruments (drums, other percussion instruments, keyboard, etc.) We will be liable if there is any damage to your tent or instrument.

Contribute your time: If you want to help out in the final month, please let us know. It's all hands on deck at the camp office!

Such an awesome, awesome project.

You would be hard pressed to find a Philly business that more people have general good feelings about than Philly Carshare. It is a locally run nonprofit, environmentally friendly, has good cars, and is reasonably priced.

And, one of the cooler things about CarShare was the partnership they have (had?) with the city government- so that city government had to purchase less cars of its own. Instead of buying new cars for the fleet, employees got access to CarShare. And, as a result, millions of dollars were saved and the environment was spared, as city employees simple shared with you and me.

In fact, CarShare is such a win-win that some veryimportantpeople decided to recognize them:

PhillyCarShare’s groundbreaking car-reduction initiative with the City of Philadelphia is among 18 pioneering finalists for Harvard’s prestigious Innovations in American Government Award, the “Oscar” of American government.More than 1,000 forward-thinking programs from across the country submitted applications to compete for the seven final $100,000 prizes.

PhillyCarShare’s project is among “the best and brightest, and represents government’s great capacity for creating positive change and achieving results,” says Gowher Rizvi, Director of Harvard’s Ash Institute. The project “takes a creative approach to a significant problem and demonstrates that [the] solution works.”

PhillyCarShare and the City of Philadelphia teamed in 2004 to create the first system worldwide in which government employees and local residents would share vehicles by the hour in a major car-reduction effort. Advanced technology facilitates easy independent access to vehicles 24/7, automated cost allocation, and unprecedented superb accountability.

The pioneering project has leveraged the City’s elimination of 330 vehicles, saving taxpayers nearly $2 million annually. Philadelphia residents have sold or avoided purchasing another 1,500 vehicles through the program. They drive 9.9 million fewer miles per year; walk, bike, and take transit 37% more; and save about $6 million annually versus owning cars, according to detailed participant surveys. All participants pollute 90% less while driving PhillyCarShare’s hybrid gas-electric vehicles.

The prize money is awarded specifically to support winning programs in the teaching of their model to other jurisdictions. “By celebrating and disseminating this kind of creative thinking at all levels of government, the awards program helps turn innovative ideas into commonly accepted practices,” said Patricia McGinnis, President of the Council for Excellence in Government.

Wow. That is from about two years ago, and sounds like the kind of company we want to encourage in Philly, right?

That is why I am wondering why the City/Mayor's Office gave CarShare a big smack in the mouth, and switched their contract over to Zipcar, a Massachusetts-based, private, for-profit company.

I don't have the exact numbers, but apparently CarShare was underbid for the City work, by something like 10 or 20k a measly 5k per year, and promptly shown the door. Does this make any sense at all? We have a Philadelphia-based company that is clearly doing a really good job, and created a partnership with the City that has saved us millions. CarShare is effectively turning into a public good for City residents, and is precisely the kind of company and innovative thinking we need more of here. And it is a Philadelphia-based company... (And, while I initially thought this was breaking news, this happened a month ago... The things you miss while sitting in Polish hotels. Gotta learn to use the google better.)

And after that, we are going with some out-of-town, national company, instead? To save a very small amount of money? (And, how long will that last anyway?)

Whoever made that decision in the City needs to have their head examined.

I got an email today from Women's Way reminding me about something one of their grantees had done:

Last month, PathWays PA released the 2008 Self-Sufficiency Standard for Pennsylvania which measures how much money a family needs to earn in order to meet their basic needs without public or private assistance. The report found that a family of four (two adults, one preschooler and one school age child) must make $53,611 annually to sustain itself, and a family of two (one parent and one preschooler) needs to take in $36,208 a year. Both minimum earning standards far exceed the Federal Poverty Level.

Now those are the dollar figures for a statewide average. But digging deeper you find that a single parent in Philadelphia with a preschooler and a school-age kid needs to earn $48,528 a year just to make it. (You can look at data in even more depth here.)

Anyone want to venture a guess on current Philadelphia median wages? (Hint: they are way below $48 k).

This is very useful data, but also depressing. Luckily for City Council members looking to take initiative on their own, or looking for things to discuss to with state legislators, Pathways does include some useful recommendations:

STRATEGIES TO CLOSE THE GAP

There are two basic approaches for individuals to close the income gap: reduce costs or raise incomes. The first approach, modeled and discussed in the previous section, reduces costs through subsidies and supports, such as child support, food stamps, and child care assistance. Strategies for the second approach, raising incomes, are detailed below. Note, however, that reducing costs and raising incomes are not mutually exclusive, but can and should be used sequentially or in tandem. Some parents may, for instance, receive education and training leading to new jobs, yet continue to have their incomes supplemented by work supports until their wages reach the self-sufficiency level. Whatever choices they make, parents should be able to choose the path to self-sufficiency that best safeguards their families’ well-being and allows them to balance work, education, and family responsibilities.

1) Continuing on the Casino theme from last week, Casino Free Philadelphia is asking for signatures on their letter to Gov. Rendell and co. on the Casino re-siting process. Their first demand is:

The resiting process must be fair, transparent and inclusive. The process used by the PGCB was unfair, secret and exclusionary. Any effort to resite the casinos must be the opposite.

I agree, and I signed their letter. And, let's keep in mind what that statement means: there is no site that can be picked anytime soon, outside of possibly the airport.

Inga Saffron asked for a 'political solution' to this problem, then suggested that Rendell and Co. have new sites for the Casinos by the end of the month. Sorry, but that is a totally impossible timeline. and bad idea in general. She is right that Politics got us into this. But to revisit those sorts of politics will only result in a misplaced slots barn strangling a different neighborhood.

(And, on a side note, while Inga said community input should be important, she then said said that we should consider East Falls, "Vehement protests from nearby East Falls residents notwithstanding." So, get community input over the next week, magically pick one by the end of the month, then if the locals don't like it, screw em! That sounds very soothing.)

There can be no solution to re-siting Casinos in the next month, period.

2) Dan McQuade has another good column about the stupidity of the drug war, this time talking about yet another 'road to hell' type policy: 'Drug free school zones.' Obviously the intent of a bill like that is reasonable, but when those zones are so big that an entire City (or, at least 76 percent of it, in the case of Newark) is inside of them, they become useless, except to simply elevate almost all drug sentences without saying that is what we are doing, and exacerbating the stupidity of our war on drugs.

3) We have talked about this a million times, but, we are finally starting to put in upgrades to the website. Some things will be functionality stuff that no one will see but admins. But, here are some other ideas we have had:

• A news feed/'quick hits' section, where a number of people can post short links for stories they want people to be aware of, but, don't have enough for a full blog entry for.
• A Philadelphia progressive calendar, where groups and individuals can see what is going on in Philly (and subcribe to if you use google calendar)
• An activism center, where people can see what groups need help, both for volunteering, and for sending emails, etc.
• A job bank for Philly organizations to post job openings in the region.
• A mobile version for people on Blackberries.

Anything else?

The Freedom Archives: An Interview with Claude Marks

by Hans Bennett

Claude Marks is the director of The Freedom Archives, a San Francisco-based organization. Through the website and email list-serves, it provides a valuable resource documenting both revolutionary struggle and police state repression. Freedom Archives also creates high quality audio and video documentaries, including the recent video about the San Francisco Eight, titled "Legacy of Torture."

I just got back from a two-week trip to the west coast. I am a totally Philly nativist, but man is it cool out there. They have a different way of doing things. In fact, do you know the first thing I did when I got off the plane in the Portland, OR airport? I dropped my magazines in a recycle bin. Crazy, huh?

That's why I am not as excited as the Inky is in this article in today's paper:

City leaders cut the ribbon on a new solar-powered trash receptacle yesterday and then, appropriately, threw the ribbon away.

The ribbon-cutting in Center City came during the unveiling of the BigBelly, a trash receptacle and compactor that can store four times the volume of ordinary litter baskets and cut fuel use and greenhouse emissions from trash collection by 80 percent.

Don't me wrong, this is very cool. And last week's announcement that the entire city is going single-stream is even cooler. And certainly a huge improvement over the otherwise slow pace with which Philadelphia has tackled recycling.

But we are in an environmental crisis. We need more. So why would the city invest ANY money in new on-street refuse receptacles that don't also include recycling bins? Can you imagine how much paper gets trashed at City Hall alone by subway and trolley riders every day? Do you know how many soda cans and water bottles line the streets and end up in trash cans just in Center City on an average day? And if you go to our airport's watse containers...I shudder to even think what you'd find...

Solar power compactors are great, but basic recycling collection in public spaces would be even better.

Apparently the rumors to the effect that indictments might shortly follow the conclusion of budget negotiations have played out. Republican Att'y General Tom Corbett today indicted former PA House Minority Whip Michael Veon and 11 others today -including sitting Rep. Sean M. Ramaley (D., Beaver).

According to the Inky its tad a tangled web of who's who of who faces charges with it even including the one obligatory lurid detail:

Also charged were former top Democratic staffers Michael Manzo, chief of staff to House Majority Leader Bill DeWeese (D., Greene) until last year and Jeff Foreman, Veon's former chief of staff, who is now is counsel to Rep. Keith McCall, (D.,Carbon).

DeWeese was not charged in the criminal presentment.

Hi YPP folks, hope you enjoy the interview and if you can make it, check out this conference. CR was very influential on me back in 98.
Best,
Hans

Organizing to Abolish the Prison-Industrial Complex

--An interview with Rose Braz of the CR10 Media Committee, about Critical Resistance’s 10 year anniversary conference on Sept. 26-28 in Oakland, CA.

By Hans Bennett

The prison abolitionist group, Critical Resistance (CR) is organizing a conference to mark the tenth anniversary of their groundbreaking 1998 conference at UC-Berkeley. For more info: www.criticalresistance.org

Hans Bennett: What does “prison abolitionist” mean?

Rose Braz: CR seeks to abolish the prison industrial complex: the use of prisons, policing and the larger system of the prison industrial complex as an “answer” to what are social, political and economic problems, not just prisons.

(See Update Below)

Today the Inquirer had a doom and gloom article that mentions how many people Philadelphia lost since 2000. It is a pretty depressing article, and similar ones could have been written in 1975, 1995, 1998, 2001, 2004, etc.

It tells us about how much Philadelphia is shrinking. But, unless I am crazy, something is missing from this:

Phila.'s population shrinking, though region's is growing
The city's rate of loss was second only to New Orleans', census data show.

Continuing a long-running downward trend, Philadelphia lost more residents between 2000 and 2007 than any U.S. city except hurricane-ravaged New Orleans, newly released estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau show.

Population in the city decreased from 1,517,550 to 1,449,634 in the seven years, a loss of nearly 68,000 people, according to Greg Harper, a demographer for the bureau.

That drop of 4.5 percent represents the largest percentage loss in population of a top-25 U.S. city between 2000 and 2007, figures show.

I don't want to pretend like losing that many people isn't a big deal, because it is. But, seriously, there is one big piece of context missing from the article, specifically:

Philadelphia population, 2006: 1,448,394
Philadelphia Population, 2007: 1,449,634

So, if the article is right, and our 2007 population is 1,449,634, Philadelphia gained 1,240 people in the last year. I don't have year by year numbers, but, I would bet this is the first time in at least 30 years that Philadelphia has not lost residents. If those numbers are right, it seems to me like a cause for celebration. Yes, overall, the numbers are bad. But, for the first time in my life, more people live in Philadelphia this year than the last.

Isn't that the story we should be talking about?

UPDATE: Too good to be true? Maybe. It looks like the numbers, released by the State Data center, have higher estimates for us for than the 2006 numbers listed above, meaning that we may have lost people after all?