Food Stuff Consumption And Miscellany

Wednesday, July 4, 2007

bottle of peach iced tea (16 fl.oz.)
ham/egg/cheese on bagel sandwich
med coffee/shot of espresso combo
toasted onion bagel with cream cheese
1 hot dog (mustard/raw onion)
2 lg glasses of fountain coke
pint of lager
2 pints of lager (*) diff. location
glass of fountain coke
2 pints of lager (diff. location)
pkg of saltine (2 per) crackers
sm amount of potato salad
sm amount of coleslaw
1 sm takeout container serving of (asian) veg./rice medley with papaya slices
sm amount of french fries
sm amount of hush puppies
sm side of coleslaw
lg plastic cup of fountain lemon iced tea (20 fl.oz.)
pack and half of cigarettes

(*) additional pint of lager


Photo Essay: The Morning After (July 5th, 8:45 a.m. - 8:50 a.m.)













more local news:

Vocalist acquitted of charges

JUL 5, 2007

CENTER CITY - Street singer Anthony Riley was acquitted Tuesday of disorderly conduct charges that stemmed from what he is known for — singing outside.

The 20-year-old aspiring vocalist from West Philadelphia was cleared of the March 27 charge in Community Court after witnesses testified that the arresting police officer told Riley, “This is Afghanistan,” after Riley questioned why he couldn’t sing in Rittenhouse Square.

“We won,” Riley’s attorney Evan Shingles said after the hearing. “And [the judge] was kind enough to note that this indeed is not Afghanistan and this is America.”

The arrest led to a public debate over free speech rights that involved a musical rally for Riley in Center City’s posh square as well as Fairmount Park and city officials weighing in on whether musical events were allowed without permits prior to the performance.

City Solicitor Romulo Diaz Jr. recently weighed in with a memo to Police Commissioner Sylvester Johnson writing that “a musical or theatrical ‘event’ implies some sort of staged production. The fact that an individual is simply playing a musical instrument in a public space ... does not suggest that the individual is inviting others to watch or participate as an audience.”

Metro Newspaper (Philadelphia edition, July 5, 2007)


related:

Letter to the Editor (Weekly Press, July 4th, 2007 edition, Philadelphia)

RE: Turning Rittenhouse Square into Times Square, New York.

For the past twenty-nine years I have lived on Rittenhouse Square. I came here because of the beauty of the park and the tranquility it offered in the heart of a big, noisy city. For the first twenty-seven of these years, Rittenhouse Square served all the nearby residents well as our neighborhood park, just like Washington Square and Fitler Square. In the last two years, however, a small group of young people from outside the area have been trying, for their own purposes, to turn Rittenhouse Square into Times Square, New York.

I do not know where these definitely amateur "musicians" and their friends come from or why they feel so strongly that it is perfectly all right for the discordant and loud sounds that they make on their out-of tune instruments to be allowed to override the music I am listening to, or the conversations I am having, in my home. It also frequently occurs just when I need some peace and quiet, or when I am ready to get some well-needed rest. But their insistence on being in Rittenhouse Square seems a bit perverse because there so many other nice parks in close proximity to Center City where they could play their instruments without disturbing the peace. (In fact, their presence at several other locations in Center City is already starting to create serious problems for the people and businesses in those areas).

Lord knows, there are plenty of natural noises I hear all day from down on the street. That is to be expected in this busy area. And there are many times during the year when professional musicians and entertainers, authorized by the Fairmount Park Commission, perform in the square - sometimes during the day, sometimes in the early evening. As good citizens, my neighbors and I respect the right of our neighborhood organizations to use the park for important cultural, religious, charitable and communal events that end before sundown and last only for a few days at most.

I can't believe that it is either fair or legal for a few uncaring itinerants to seriously disrupt the lives of hundreds of respectable citizens living in a well-established historic neighborhood. I also believe that once people start trying to change a law that has been in effect for over one hundred years, without complaint, other outsiders will also make every effort to change the other regulated regulations. And once that happens "there goes the neighborhood." But by then the troublemakers will have moved on and my neighbors and I will have to work hard to re-establish the kind of neighborhood that brought us to Rittenhouse years ago.

(name withheld)*
Rittenhouse, Center City

*editor's note: name withheld by Automotive Acne blogspot (Allan Smithee) not Editors at Weekly Press (Philadelphia)