Interview and article prepared for the Philadelphia Business Journal, as filed yesterday, without edits, to run in next Friday’s edition. In 2003, a Bucks County counselor told Dianne E. Reed something she foundstartling.
“She told me, ‘these kids are getting angrier,” Reed said.Five years later and fresh off a three year bid as budget director under former Mayor John F. Street, Reed wants to do something about it.In late January, she became the executive director of the Corporate Alliance for Drug Education, a 21-year-old nonprofit based in Old City that focuses on school-based behavioral prevention initiatives.The group trains and dispatches prevention specialists to work in select schools as ‘import teachers,’ speaking to students, as young as kindergarten, about drug refusal strategies and conflict resolution, among other things.“We’re helping kids accept and develop coping skills,” she said.She is eager to leverage her sizable experience to enact change in Philadelphia. Before her role as budget director, Reed spent almost a decade leading the Pennsylvania Economy League. Before that, she worked in the Philadelphia offices of KPMG for eight years.“I have the big picture,” she said. “I have seen how high levels of government implement prevention methods.”At its peak, CADE had 18 specialists working in schools. Now the group is down to nine. Reed hopes to increase that total again and spread throughout the region.State Representative Dwight Evans (D-Phila) last week secured a $50,000 grant so the organization could place specialists in schools in the neighborhoods of Cobbs Creek and Point Breeze for the remainder of the school year.She wants to more actively pursue corporate activity in CADE.On April 10, CADE is hosting a fundraiser and awards ceremony in conjunction with the Franklin Institute’s Star Wars exhibit. The night will include a reception, silent and live auctions, a buffet and an awards presentation.It’s an event to raise money so Reed and CADE can help the kids.
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Rappin' Mix Master Mayor
The previous post was on Michael Nutter appearing on ABC’s ‘World News Tonight‘ with Charlie Gibson on Wednesday. In it, Gibson mentioned video of Nutter rapping on his inauguration night. Check that video out below and be amazed. He doesn’t even embarrass himself. Seriously.
Michael Nutter on 'World News Tonight'
On Wednesday, Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter was on ABC’s ‘World News Tonight’ with Charlie Gibson, as I posted earlier. See a portion of it below.
New Opera makes East Coast debut in Philly
After debuting his first full-length Opera in Detroit, David DiChiera, the father of Michigan Opera scene, has brought “Cyrano” to the Opera Company of Philadelphia until tomorrow.
It is a modern form of “Cyrano de Bergerac,” Edmond Rostand’s famed 19th-century play of unrequited love.
DiChiera, 72, is old enough to begin his Opera-writing career, but he has been trained and involved in the art all his life.
(Photo: David DiChiera, in Philadelphia before Wednesday’s performance of “Cyrano,” the 72-year-old’s first full-length opera. By Jim Graham For The Washington Post, from an article referenced in this post)
First place Keystone Press Award
The winners of the Keystone Press Awards for 2007 were announced recently, both professional, academic and collegiate levels. The prizes are awarded by the Pennsylvania Newspaper Association.
I will be sharing first place in the personality profile category with Tyson McCloud for a feature we wrote for The Temple News on a Temple University alumni who found and lost love in World War II. There are 16 categories in the collegiate level, and nine staff members of The Temple News were recognized in seven different categories. Last year’s award winners.
(Above photograph depicts me with a 2006 Keystone Press Award for a first place standing from news coverage covering a SEPTA strike in 2005. I shared that finish with others.)
Look, another list that criticizes Philadelphia
Well, if there’s anything that media has figured out in this age of failure, it is that lists sell. Particularly lists stacking and ordering cities, something everyone takes pride in, even as people continue to leave them. So it is no surprise that Forbes magazine recently came out with a list ordering cities by a ‘misery’ code.To come to their conclusions Forbes made all sorts of quasi-scientific sounding scales and used all sorts of measures. Yeah.Philadelphia is in the top five, top place went to Detroit.To see the list, complete with the numbers Forbes came up with, check after the jump. Continue reading Look, another list that criticizes Philadelphia
The diary of a mad, black, super delegate
Americans. Who the hell knows what a super delegate is? Even if you do, you don’t really. Primary season can be about as labyrinthine as.. well, as every other element to the broken, patchwork voting system that elects leaders in the most powerful country in the world.
Thing is, they could end up being awfully important, if Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama continue to run tightly through to this summer’s Democratic Convention – which almost all are concluding they will. See, if the primary season doesn’t choose a presumptive candidate, then the Party’s 796 super delegates decide for them, as was displayed in an interesting report by the Philadelphia Inquirer’s Larry Eichel. No surprise, Philadelphia’s representatives in this game are voices of the city’s Democratic machine, notably Carol Ann Campbell, the city party’s secretary, former councilwoman, and resident caricature.
Campbell has said she isn’t saying who she supports yet, as the Inquirer’s Heard in the Halls blog reported. Another noted machine rep who is a super delegate is Ron Donatucci, a Temple University alumus and trustee, the city’s register of wills and has also served as the city commitee’s secretary. The city’s other superdelegates are senior elected officials, like U.S. Reps. Chaka Fattah, Bob Brady and Allyson Schwartz, Sen. Casey and Gov. Rendell. (Photo courtesy of City Paper, from an article that is referenced in this post)
My son was riding this Chinese bus
Good find on Philadelphia Weekly’s Will Do blog.
Chris Matthews, a Philly kid and MSNBC talking head, tried to talk about the Chinatown bus, and how his son took it to get home and vote. ‘Cept he kept calling it the Chinese bus, not that getting it right and calling it the Chinatown bus woulda helped most of the country know what the hell he was talking about.
So, yeah, though Matthews totally goes to bat for Philly on the reg, it’s fairly amusing.
Arrest that jaywalker
New Philadelphia Police Commissioner Chuck Ramsey unveiled his comprehensive crime fighting report early this month. Lots was made of initiatives to pump in new cops and lessen homicide totals with direct action, but a smaller plan is in the works.
An old suggestion by city cop Edward McLaughlin for Philadelphia to conform with most of Pennsylvania in a small and sensible way caught the attention of Ramsey and was included in his plan, as reported by the Philadelphia Inquirer today.Throughout most of the state, such quality of life offenses like littering, jaywalking and acting as a public nuisance require an officer just to write a citation, permitted the transgressor has proof of address. Since 1974, Philadelphia officers have had to arrest the person, and spend an hour or more bringing the individual to be booked and processed.
Don’t be too hopeful though. The change could take at least six months and could require a massive overhaul in processing, as there is the expectation for a huge upsurge in citations. We’ll see if Ramsey can fight Philly, where good ideas come to die.
Political ad of the century?
The embattled, corrupt, figurehead of the contemporary South Philadelphia Democratic machine, Vince Fumo, is running his reelection campaign for state senator, amid questions of his having to sell his Fairmount mansion – built more than ten years ago – to pay legal fees in defense of the usual sort of allegations of malfeasance. But, boy does he have an advertisement for you.
