Not sure whether it was due to budget cuts, a crappy economy, or over-drinking the night before, but the brigades I watched “walk” up Broad Street this year, just did not bring it.

Has the Mummers Parade become a made for TV event, where brigades just walk up Broad Street, playing obnoxious RECORDED music, with their instruments dangling by their sides, until they hit the judges stand and TV cameras?

No strutting? No live music? No performing? From South Street to City Hall? At least for the hour and a half that I watched. WTF?

Even my one year old son (who is very easily amused) seeing the parade for the first time, looked bored.

Conservative Columnist Bill Kristol

Or droppin’ acid. Or dosin’ on mushrooms. Or something. Because, he’s got the most warped sense of reality in journalism today. Now, I enjoy a good conservative foil as well as the next guy; someone to balance the coverage in the New York TImes. But Bill Kristol’s just wrong way too often. Here’s a Harvard educated columnist working at one of the most prestigious newspapers in America, who insists on using the phrase “media elite” as if he weren’t the embodiment of both. In today’s NY Times, he makes the following mind-blowing observations; “Sept. 11 did not result in a much-feared (by intellectuals) wave of popular Islamophobia or xenophobia”. Are you joking? Tell that to the legions of Muslims who suffered abuses daily at the hands of irate, psychically wounded Americans. Tell that to the innocent victims of hate crimes and anti-Muslim racism, or to the people who’ve been wrongly imprisoned, or stripped of their rights in the aftermath of 9-11. Or, the other gem Kristol posited, “the market crash has resulted in remarkably little popular hysteria or scapegoating.” Bill, maybe you need to come down from the mountain, so that you can see the hysteria up close. You and your well-insolated friends may not be panicking, but a boatload of Americans are.  But, Kristol’s column is more than just wrong on scores of fronts. It’s irresponsible.

His are the rantings of a elitist snob, who’s been exposed for backing an enormously flawed and unpopular administration, and then who supported, and some say endorsed, the selection of Sarah Palin to be John McCain’s running mate. And, regardless of the outcome in November, that association leaves Kristol with some serious egg on his sanctimonious face.

For your sake, Bill, I hope you’re just high. Or maybe they’re making that Kool-ade a little too strong these days. Anyway, most of your colleagues (even David Brooks) have stopped drinking it. We suggest you do the same. Or, step away from the laptop until November 5. Those are your only responsible options.

Free Box - Ashley Simmons and Lauren Smedley

Rate Philly - SE Young Kim, Eunice Lai, Elizabeth Morrison,  Tara Taylor

Redacted - Rebecca Haviland, Keella Murnane, Amanda Eutsey

lpadding=”2″ align=”center”>

MyCityPaper - Joe Vu, Cathy Socci, Ryan Casey, Gordon Sexton, Brian Santoro

From the Illustration department:

Rachel Burkhard - Illustrator

And from the Industrial Design Department.

Flower Box - Thomas Reynolds, Shannon Malone

The Honor Bowl - Adam Rusiski, Wesley Thomas

Read more about the project in Brian Howard’s Editor’s Letter in today’s City Paper.

Check out other City Paper coverage of Design Philadelphia here.

Props to all of the students at Uarts who responded so creatively to our challenge. And, to the professors who guided this process on short notice. Namely, Dean Steve Tarantal, Chris Myers, Tony Guido, Kristie Williams, Richard Felton, Laurence Bach, Debra Drodvillo, Jennifer Bernstein, Matthew Curtius, Jennifer Goettner, and Regina Barthmaier.

The anticipation was palpable. This was to be the biggest media event since, well, I don’t know…. the Thrilla in Manila? The Rumble in the Jungle? How do I know? Because the always reliable cable networks DECONSTRUCTED THE WHOLE DAMN THING FOR THE LAST 72 HOUR!!! WTF! Anderson Cooper’s double panel of expert pundits resembled the NFL Game Day line up of commentators paid to analyze every match-up, injury, and tendency of each player. And all because some nobody from Palookaviile got thrown into the ring with a seasoned fighter. Can we talk about CNN’s “10-point must” scoring system that appeared on the screen while the candidates were talking. Anybody else find that meaningless and distracting? I won’t even comment on the actual debate. You’ll hear enough about that in the coming days. But, I think the cable news stations were the big losers here.

For those who are unfamiliar, Sam Zell is the real estate magnate, arts patron, controversial turnaround maven who purchased the Tribune Company, which includes The Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times, the Chicago Cubs, various radio and television stations, and whole litany of other properties.

Sam Zell

And, well, Sam likes to have fun. So, every two years or so, he creates a ‘balls out’ party experience in Chicago, for a few hundred of his closest friends and family. I’m attached to the latter.

Here are a few pics from last weekend’s soiree:

Liza among the performers

Wacky lampshade installation

Illuminated photo installation

Sexy bearded ladies.

Jesse riding the carousel elephant

Kinetic sculpture installation

Host Sam Zell, and his wife Helen

Don Henley and company

Still the “king of all media

… consolidation”.

After all, according to a recent Forbes.com article, Rupert Murdoch has been losing $1.5 million dollars per hour this year. As reported on mediabistro.com, despite the popularity of the Fox brand and its purchase of Dow Jones, publisher of The Wall Street Journal, News Corp’s stock price fell 34% over the past 12 months. Last I checked, ol’ Rupert owned about 1/4 of the media in the UK. That makes him the “King of all Media Consolidation“. I’m one of those people, by the way, who believe that media consolidation is among the biggest threats to democracy.

As you’ll recall, Michael Nutter ran on a platform which focused, in general terms, on improved customer service. His predecessor, it should be noted, didn’t really understand the concept, or perhaps more accurately didn’t really care. Anyway, I’m interested in whether or not you’re feeling the love from the Nutter administration; whether you’ve had occasion to interact with any city agencies, and whether they’ve met, or even exceeded your customer service expectations. Select the answer that best suits your feelings. Comments are invited, too.

Want to fill that $700 billion hole we’re about to dig by bailing out those big financial institutions? How about removing the tax-exempt status for churches, and making them pay their fair share? What the hell, the line between church and state has been trampled so badly over the last eight years anyway. Besides, couldn’t the Catholic church alone cover that with one evening of world-wide internet Bingo? 

Hmmm…

I remember hearing an interview in a film about the Icelandic music scene. The artist stated that the reason it’s so different, is that they could be as free as they wanted, because they didn’t have to worry about record sales. With the population of the whole country at around 380,000, a hit record means around 80,000 copies sold. Not much incentive to bend to the will of any record label executive.

This band puts as much imagination into their video as they do their music. Here’s a version of Glosoli. Enjoy.