Philadelphia City Paper

City Beat Vote like it matters on Tuesday. Yeah, we got screwed. The fleeting early promise of an exciting Democratic presidential primary fizzled as the party’s front-loaded schedule — and the unscheduled ugly Iowa implosion of Dr. Dean — conspired to leave Pennsylvania voters with John Kerry as the last one standing (apologies to Dennis…

Pretzel Logic The 15-year-old squirms in the hard, wooden chair while his mother tries her best to keep him in line. “Stop that,” says the mother to the noisy teen. “Keep your mouth shut. I don’t want to be here.” Neither do I. But thanks to the teen, here we are. He, his mother and…

Pretzel Logic The missile that blew the top off of quadriplegic cleric Sheikh Ahmed Yassin’s head Monday may have done something that no Arab leader has ever been able to accomplish: create true pan-Arab unity. All over the Arab world, reaction to the assassination of Hamas’ founder has been ferocious. Tuesday, Shiite leader Grand Ayatollah…

Pretzel Logic I won my first election pool 20 years ago when I picked a tall, lanky lieutenant governor named John Kerry out of a crowded field of Democrats vying to replace cancer-stricken Paul Tsongas as the U.S. Senator from the People’s Republic of Massachusetts. Even though I was a mere freelancer/chef — scraping a…

Pretzel Logic The man from the Reform Party is obviously agitated as he leaves a couple dozen messages on my voice mail, cackling the mad cackle of a cartoon uber-villain. “Howard, baby, you are a kosher cocksucker,” Reform Party interim Chairman Dave Shrier says in one of his kinder moments. “Bwahahahahahahaha!” “I am going to…

Pretzel Logic On Nov. 4, as we in Philadelphia were deeply enmeshed in the bug-fueled re-election of Mayor John Street, the operator of one of my favorite Internet sites — www.cryptome.org — was being visited by the same organization that planted the devices in Street’s office. “Cryptome received a visit from FBI special agents Todd Renner and…

Pretzel Logic Barry Morrison, executive director of the Philadelphia branch of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), is on the line, reminding me about the time when a guy suggested that someone slit my throat, like they did to Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl. Oh yeah. The guy who called me a “Jew spy” for reporting where Dick…

Pretzel Logic Or: How Street learned to stop worrying and love the bug. At the end of the campaign, even John Franklin Street is amazed by the numbers. “I could not possibly have imagined that,” the mayor says moments before he leaves his last mayoral victory party. Not even Street figured that he would win…

Pretzel Logic The long, strange trip is almost over and I cannot help but think that I am really going to miss the madness. The maybe Molotov. Stolen phone records. Notlim. TuTu. Kentu. Blood. The bugs. The insane clown posse that has visited Philadelphia almost on a daily basis to spin and spew. Carville, Giuliani,…

Pretzel Logic It is just after 7, the sky is purple and orange and I am on the hunt for nova lox, which is very important to have when you are serving bagels and cream cheese. I am on the way to buy the finest nova lox, over at the Famous.David Auspitz, the owner whose…

Cover Story Fishing for answers with a mayor in turmoil. The office on the second floor of the old Reliance Insurance Building on 16th and Cherry is quiet, save for the thundering voice of the televangelist who is emoting heavily about salvation. The preacher, in a show called The Lord’s Prayer, tells a story about…

Pretzel Logic Call me crazy. You certainly wouldn’t be the first. But this bugging thing? I smell a rat. When FBI spokesperson Linda Vizi told reporters Tuesday that the putative listening devices found in Mayor John Street’s office had nothing to do with the increasingly ugly mayoral campaign, she was, in essence, saying that the…

City Beat Who stole Michael Youngblood’s cell-phone records? An inch-thick stack of allegedly stolen cell-phone records has touched off another firestorm in an increasingly ugly Philadelphia mayoral campaign. Each side is crying foul over the records — first reported by City Paper online Monday afternoon — and lawyers are threatening to sue anyone divulging the…

Pretzel Logic In the end, at the doomed stadium slated to be turned into dust, it is all about dirt. Men in tuxes digging up chunks of the mound and placing them in paper cups used by the Phillies. Uniformed police digging up chunks of the dirt where home plate was and putting them in…

Pretzel Logic When the phone rings at 4 a.m. it is almost always bad news, but in this case I am not sure so early on a Monday. My first clue as to the nature of this call is when my wife shrieks into the receiver. “You found it?” she shouts. “Where?” I bolt up…

Pretzel Logic If Patrick Henry were alive and in Phila- delphia today, I imagine his most famous speech might have turned out quite differently. “Give me liberty or — oh, what the hell, it’s too difficult. We can’t create a nation here. How can we compete with Boston? It’s too hot. Too many flies. Do…

Pretzel Logic It is cleanup day at my daughter’s preschool. I am sitting on the floor, alphabetizing kiddie books by author name, which I have been doing for the last several hours, when my cell phone rings. I juggle the pile of books — I am up to McCloskey, Robert, author of such classics as Make…

Pretzel Logic The mayor is late for his Molotov cocktail party. Everyone else is waiting. Deputy Managing Director Tumar Alexander, the mayorís son and the mayorís pal, Joey Temple. Sam Katz and his crew. The cops. Firefighters. An army of nosy reporters. Anyone in the city who gives a damn. A day-and-a-half after someone may…

Pretzel Logic The little Secret Service agent at the National Constitution Center seems more interested in John Ashcroftís tight USA Patriot Act spin-tour schedule than any constitutional rights when he stops me from following a flock of television reporters heading for a brief presser with the man who could not even beat a corpse. “You…

Pretzel Logic This is a story about contrasts. In Philadelphia, Mayor John F. Street is neck-deep in his biggest transportation initiative to date — removing the baggageof his brother from an airport baggage-handling contract. In Washington, D.C., Mayor Anthony Williams is dealing with his own transportation issue. Williams is hosting the Corporate Council on Africa’s…

Pretzel Logic It is very clear that, in the aftermath of l’affaire Blair, The New York Times has a lot of damage to control and a lot of faith to rebuild. But the paper’s decision to suspend Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Rick Bragg for two weeks — because a story with his byline from last June relied heavily on…

Pretzel Logic John Street is royally pumped as he joins a happy melee outside a mental health center on North Fifth. For him, the vibes are good as he cruises through the Seventh Councilmanic District, where few signs of the opposition are in evidence. But there are waves of Rick Mariano volunteers all around, platoons…

Pretzel Logic It is Halloween night 2001 and the Marriott Hotel is filled with African trade ministers, ambassadors, business people and the prime minister of Cote d’Ivoire. There are representatives from dozens of Philadelphia businesses and civic leaders like Police Commissioner John Timoney, Tommy Muldoon of the Convention and Visitors Bureau, Commerce Director James Cuorato…

Pretzel Logic The curious case of Mr. Fantastic seems to have come to a very curious close. The man who tried to sell me pictures of Site R — home of the so-called shadow government and the place where Dick Cheney hides when the going gets rough (“Chasing Shadows,” March 2002) — pleaded guilty this…

Pretzel Logic The Keystoner whooshed past misty farm fields, past a grass hut built on a table-sized island in the Susquehanna, past the Springfieldian towers of Three Mile Island, past the burned-out hulk of an airplane parked at the edge of a runway at Harrisburg International Airport. It hurtled through the early dawn, first light…

City Beat A City Paper investigation leads to espionage charges. Editor’s note: This is an updated version of a report that was published last week at www.citypaper.net. Six months after Philadelphia City Paper began receiving e-mails from an individual calling himself “Mr. Fantastic,” offering to sell access to one of the nation’s most secure facilities,…

Cover Story Sidebar Conversation with the White House Tues., March 12, 2002 My first call to the White House seeking comment about Site R results in a request that we consider not publishing its exact location due to national security concerns and the fact that The Washington Post , in its story breaking the news…

Cover Story How our search for the “shadow government” turned into an espionage investigation Mr. Fantastic is giving me an ultimatum.“The deadline for your first offer is Sunday by 5 p.m.,” the man writes in an e-mail, username mrfantastic_76 , on Sat., March 9. “That is when I get my other offer. They made an…

Pretzel Logic At least once a week since I first wrote about him some seven years ago, I get an e-mail or phone call about my old friend SOLLOG, the porn purveyor cum psycho psychic who claims to have predicted every disaster, ecological and man-made, since about 1995. Not everyone has a sense of humor…

Pretzel Logic Over the next several days Philadelphians are going to have to ask themselves a very difficult question: Who do you fear more, bin Laden or bin Drinkin’? If recent history is any indication, as evil as bin Laden is, the bin Drinkin’ idiots who will pour into town next Tuesday will wreak far…

Pretzel Logic The good news is that 7,000 room nights have been booked at seven different Center City hotels. The bad news is that they will be filled with lawyers. “This is a desirable group to have in town, and, frankly, it couldn’t have come at a better time,” states Allan H. Gordon, chancellor of…

Pretzel Logic Somewhere in the piles of paper shredded in Enron’s 50-story glass tower in Houston may be the remnants of canceled checks written from the former energy giant’s political action committee to Pennsylvania politicians. The checks don’t represent truckloads of money — $3,500 in donations to five Pennsylvania pols in 1998 and 2000. But…

Pretzel Logic Even as the jury deliberates the fate of Krichmar vs. Raab, workers step up the effort to dismantle Courtroom B at the stately old John Wanamaker Building. In all likelihood, this automobile-accident dispute — on which I have the pleasure of serving as juror No. 8 — will be the last case ever…

Pretzel Logic Never one to fret too much about anything, my old buddy Bill didn’t let the crash of Flight 587, or a frantic call from his wife begging him not to get on his own flight, stop him from coming to Philly for a business trip. Bill and I go way back, to our…

Pretzel Logic Even as I am on the phone, I feel kind of stupid. I have a cold. The usual sneezing, sniffling yucky kind of achy-painy minor misery that I often get every autumn. But this is the time of The Stand. There is a constant blather of information, disinformation and misinformation about the risks…

Pretzel Logic It will be hot, no doubt, on Aug. 17, and the city will be crowded. A group of people with names like Wade and Rat are coming from California to rocket down Falls Road in Fairmount Park. Another group, backed by people with names like Ed and B.J., is coming to rock the…

Cover Story After 30 years in the DA’s office, she’s seen it all. Assistant DA Judith Rubino speaks out in a rare interview — prompted by the latest chapter in the ongoing saga of the Kimberly Ernest murder. In her three decades as an assistant district attorney, under the likes of Specter, Rendell, Fitzpatrick, Castille…

Pretzel Logic “Run Alex, Run.” City Commissioner Alex Talmadge, Jr. says he hears it everywhere he goes. “I will go someplace and they say, ‘We need you,’” Talmadge says. “I go to a church and the people will say, ‘We are behind you.’ I will go to a bank and people will recognize me and…

Pretzel Logic Nearly 37 years ago, a young woman in Queens, NY, named Kitty Genovese was stabbed to death while more than three dozen people watched and did nothing, saying later they just didn’t want to get involved. A nation was outraged, conferences were called and the press was full of stories about “Genovese Syndrome,”…

Pretzel Logic For a while, it was fun watching the ever-swelling crowd of storm-stranded rail riders mill about in confusion. But that soon got old. After more than an hour at Market East waiting for my train, boredom had set in. Then the payphone started ringing. I have this thing about payphones. If nobody answers,…

Pretzel Logic Craziness is breaking out at both ends of my Philadelphia journey. In Mt. Airy, my new neighborhood, the one to which I moved to escape constant gunfire, one or more individuals cruise the streets trying to lure children into cars. Meanwhile, back in my old neighborhood of Grays Ferry, in separate incidents, a…

Pretzel Logic When the word began to spread about the Inky settling Ralph Cipriano’s libel suit, the jokes immediately started flying in this newsroom and, I am sure, in newsrooms across the country. “Please,” I begged my editor. “Please say something bad about me to Howie Kurtz. Tell him I’m a bum. Tell him I…

Pretzel Logic There they all were, the suits of the narco war, and even a Colombian general, standing around the podium talking proudly of the latest victory over the bad guys. It was quite an undertaking. For the first time, information that was developed in Philly’s fertile crescent of dope-dealing led directly to the dismantling…

Pretzel Logic Like one of those Japanese soldiers who hid out in caves decades past the end of the Big One, bayonets at the ready, waiting for the right day to seize glory for the emperor, Phil Berg is holding out until way past the end, fighting for what he believes is right. Last seen…

Pretzel Logic The calendar turns to 2001 and like most people subjected to Stanley Kubrick’s film version of the Arthur C. Clarke classic, I can’t avoid spaking of Zarathustra, the Nietzscheian cave dweller who inspired Richard Strauss to write what would become the movie’s timpani-pounding opening flourish. “My suffering and my fellow-suffering — what matter…

Cover Story Sidebar “We never asked anybody to do anything wrong” The Dominican Revolutionary Party is still an active socialist organization in Philadelphia, serving the Dominican community back home by raising funds in the United States. Party leaders blanche at allegations that the PRD was involved in organized drug running. “Mr. Pena Gomez answered those…

Pretzel Logic Did it happen or didn’t it? Though it is always fair, and important, to question history, to re-examine our evidence and challenge our assumptions, the fact that there is so much doubt about the existence of Hitler’s slaughter of the Jews is disturbing. On so many levels. The survivors are rapidly dying off.…

Pretzel Logic The little voice in my head keeps whispering. “Don’t go there.” “Don’t go there.” “Don’t go there.” People are tired of Grays Ferry. But I just can’t help myself. I am reacting to Citizens Voice, a little white newsletter that has found its way to my junkyard of a desk. Specifically, I am reacting to…

Pretzel Logic It never ceases to amaze me just how quickly we get bent about things in this country. A perfect example is the hullabaloo over “Tricks of the Trade,” the now-controversial pamphlet for prostitutes distributed by a local AIDS prevention organization called Prevention Point. Last week, in a piece headlined “Undressed For Success,” Daily News columnist…

Pretzel Logic Stuart Schlaffman has a message. Wake up, America, says Schlaffman, owner of The Mood, a South Street purveyor of lingerie, candles and sex toys. When it comes to media mergers, there’s censorship to be had. Schlaffman was only trying to advertise his store and make a good honest living when he learned that…

Pretzel Logic The young teenager spoke with the weary wisdom of a press-flogged pol. “Reporters,” said the girl, “are all liars.” A student in Ileen Green’s seventh-grade class at the Rush Middle School in the Northeast, the girl was not speaking in the abstract. The girl, who asked that her name not be used, was…

Pretzel Logic Big Marty Weinberg had his arms spread wide as he walked out of Courtroom 285 in City Hall a court-anointed resident of this city. Wading into a sea of lights and cameras and microphones and notebooks, Big Marty told the assemblage that it was time to cut out all the funny business and…

Pretzel Logic After 12 years marketing and selling plastic-producing chemicals, Joan Pastor wanted to do something to help people. In 1993, Pastor quit the field and entered Widener’s nursing program, graduating one year later. In 1995, armed with her nursing degree, she took a position as a research nurse at the Veterans Affairs medical center…

Pretzel Logic Ever since the summer, when attorney Fred Ambrose called to pitch me an incredible story about a cover-up in the Kimberly Ernest homicide, I have been running into my editor’s office, shaking my head in disbelief. Repeating the same refrain. “Hey, David, just when I thought this story couldn’t get any more bizarre……

Pretzel Logic Last week, I received a blue envelope in the mail. MInitially, I thought it was a joke, because the sender was one Linda R. Tripp, the Mrs. Doubtfire of the body politic. Perhaps it’s from Comedy Central, I thought, hyping the retooled Daily Show. It wasn’t. The envelope’s contents were actually funny. Well, at…

Pretzel Logic Kudos to Gov. Tom Ridge for his decision to veto House Bill 907, the back-door funding measure dubbed the “Immaculate Deception” that would have given Pittsburgh state funds toward the construction of two sports stadia. And shame on the legislature for not taking the time to read the bills on which it was…

Pretzel Logic Like most Philadelphians, my kids didn’t want to vote on Tuesday. My daughter was too busy and my son, well, he wasn’t particularly interested. Unlike most Philadelphians, however, my kids had an excuse. Hannah is 8 and was rushing off to a hectic day as a third-grader. Zachary, who is 5, was much…

Pretzel Logic Mondesire, Morris and mistaken identification—and you think the Eagles had it rough. A Group of knuckle-dragging submorons otherwise known as Teamsters apparently decided that an anti-Clinton protester had forfeited his Constitutional Rights. As bad as Eagles fans may be feeling this week, democracy fans in Philadelphia have even more to grouse about. The…

Pretzel Logic On the night of the presidential visit,some choice words that didn’t cost two thousand bucks. To Titelman’s driver, it was just another night ofstanding around, waiting for his fare to finish up and go home. As he leaned against the yellow police barrier, theone set up to keep the John Hinckleys of this…

Pretzel Logic Our technology is lagging behind, but the view is fresh. I have learned that they don’t call my new neighborhood Old City for nothing. Since City Paper relocated down to Second and Chestnut, away from the hookers and the junkies and the drag queens that made 13th Street the moveable feast that it is, I…

Pretzel Logic Watch the watchdogs, but don’t bring out the muzzles. A couple of very interesting and somewhat disturbing perspectives on the media have been played out in the last several days. And I am not even talking about reaction to coverage of the president’s proclivities. To the denizens of greater Philadelphia, none of that…

Pretzel Logic Why won’t Jerome Mondesire let the people decide? Far be it from me to inject myself into a debate, but anyone who doesn’t want to see John Street, John White and Dwight Evans have at each other in a primary election is nuts. And anyone who thinks that staging an all-black preliminary bout…

Pretzel Logic A Philly man claims the nation’s 33-year-old ban on Cuban cigars is just hot air. For 29 years, Philadelphia raconteur David Weisenthal has had a very curious relationship with the island nation of Cuba. The relationship began on Dec. 19, 1968. The same day that the United States tested an atom bomb 60…

Pretzel Logic If you ask Larry Norton, Philadelphia is neither the City of Brotherly Love nor the Place That Loves You Back. No, Philly, according to Norton, is “The City That Wants To Have Sex With Your Mother.” Who’s Larry Norton? He’s a morning-drive radio personality for WGRF-FM, 97 Rock, in Buffalo, NY. To celebrate…

Pretzel Logic A march through Grays Ferry won’t help the blacks and whites who are trying to live together peacefully. Let me tell you a little story about Grays Ferry and the people who live there. With all that is going on in this neighborhood, a place that I call home, it’s a good time…

Pretzel Logic Manipulating the media and other tales from Castle Fumo. I know that Vince Fumo didn’t hire Gary Tuma for his comedic talents. But watch out, Letterman — the man is hilarious. He had me in stitches last week, when I was reading Ron Avery’s story in the Daily News about our troubles with…

Editor’s Choice City Paper Choice Awards Issue 1996 Awards The Nikita Kruschev Freedom of Information Award To State Sen. Vincent Fumo, for meritorious sealing of public records never before sealed. The Elizabeth Taylor Love Is Forever Trophy To fired Phillies manager Jim Fregosi and general manager Lee Thomas for their very public lovespat. The Roseanne…

Pretzel Logic SOLLOG might have had a case if he hadn’t played God. A lot of wacky business takes place in the Philadelphia Criminal Justice Center. There are murder trials and rape trials. There are burglary trials and car theft trials. There are all manner of miscreants and human flotsam squeezing through the intestinal tract…

Hit and Run Politics is not the only thing that makes Mayor Ed Rendell and Council President John Street hedge their bets. When asked after their respective inaugurations for a prediction on Sunday’s Eagles’ second-round playoff matchup against the hated Cowboys, neither red-suited pol would come out publicly picking a final score favoring the home…

20 Questions Background: Bob Denver didn’t set out to be the world’s most famous First Mate. After graduating from high school in Brownwood, Texas, Denver enrolled as a pre-law student at Loyola University. But somewhere along the line, he stumbled upon the Del-Ray Players and, hi-diddle-dee-dee, found the actor’s life was for he, er, him. However,…

Pretzel Logic There’s big bucks in public toilets — and the advertising that pays for them. Let me be the first to warn you. There’s going to be a lot of potty humor in this town in the coming months. It’ll all start next week, when four public toilet manufacturers will display their wares outside…

Pretzel Logic The Carmen Bolden affair reaps an unexpected benefit. Carmen Bolden, the more-than-titular head of the Centro Ayuda mental health clinic, may turn out to be a blessing in disguise for the city’s impoverished Latino community. I know this concept may be tough to swallow, considering how much harm she has already done to…

20 Questions Background: For Chris Van Allsburg, author of 14 of the most wonderfully illustrated children’s books ever, drawing was supposed to provide a mental respite from sculpting — his true vocation. But a funny thing happened on the way to the drawing board. Van Allsburg’s books became overwhelming hits. And it’s been years since the…

Hit and Run It was Black Wednesday at the Ivory Tower of Truth. First, the troops learned of a top-level shakeup. Then they learned that unless they accept the company’s request by the end of this weekend to delay raises, the newspaper will kill the Sunday magazine, eliminate the corps of suburban correspondents and force…

Pretzel Logic Will the Teal Fiefdom lord it over newspaper boxes? If you’re reading this column, chances are you picked up City Paper from one of the hundreds of honor boxes standing on corners throughout the city and beyond. First, let me thank you for taking the time to reach in and pull out a paper. Secondly,…

Pretzel Logic With Specter gone, who’s going to keep the GOP from veering even farther right? If you ever wanted to know how far off-kilter the Republican party has fallen, consider this. Bob Dole is probably the most moderate of the candidates still in the race for the ’96 GOP presidential nomination. This chilling tidbit…

Pretzel Logic Not only were these guys killers, they did it for rock-bottom prices. Three hundred bucks doesn’t get you much these days. Dinner for three, not including beverage or gratuity, at Le Bec-Fin. About a monthly payment on a 1990 Lincoln Town car from Olde City Auto Sales. A round trip ticket to Albuquerque…

Pretzel Logic Will there ever be peace in the Holy City? I am not what you would call a religious man. Neither Orthodox, Conservative or even Reformed, I am what a friend once dubbed a “gastronomic Jew” — he who celebrates his heritage not through the reading of the Torah, but through the eating of…

Pretzel Logic Why the Rendell-Street team are the Maddux and Glavine of Philly politics. The last several years have been kind of frustrating for us looking-for-scandal types. Oh, there have been plenty of scandals. Plenty of dirty deeds dug up by the local media. Or, in the case of the New Era charity debacle, deeds…

Pretzel Logic Why I rant about PNI so much, and what you can do to make a difference. I am often asked what is behind my seeming obsession with events at the Ivory Tower of Truth on North Broad. An obsession that recently led Inquirer mouthpiece Charlie Fancher to complain to trade weekly Editor & Publisher, in a…

Pretzel Logic Eugenio Selvaggi and Giovanni Salvi will probably take in the Liberty Bell, the Art Museum and a couple of soft pretzels when they come to Philly for the weekend. As visitors to our little town, they might even hit Penn’s Landing or tour the ItalianMarket. Then again, they may not have much time…

Pretzel Logic What’s a nice yid like me doing with a dream like this? Let me let you in on one of my deepest, darkest secrets. I have papist envy. I want to be Pope when I grow up. I even hear music in my head sometimes, from the musical Fiddler On The Roof, explaining it…

Hit and Run Anyone who worries that O.J. Simpson is going to starve now that he’s right up there with Adolph Eichmann on the List Of People You Don’t Want To Sponsor Your Product should call Scott Andreadis. Andreadis, an electrical contractor from Egg Harbor Township, is expecting to make a fair killing on an…

Pretzel Logic The real winners and losers in the O.J. trial. I think I’m the happiest white guy in town. Unlike most of my pigmentary landsmen, who are walking around this city with a collective hangdog I have not seen since 1986, when all of Boston was mired in a deep collective funk over the…

Hit and Run The Pen & Pencil Club, the nation’s oldest press club, celebrates its newest digs with a kick-off shebang Friday night. The club was housed until recently in a dump on a crime-ridden block of Sansom Street, where a man with an Uzi walked in one night and held up members. The new…

City Beat Attorney general launches criminal probe of Carmen Bolden and the mental health clinic. Agents from the state attorney general’s office last week raided the Centro Ayuda Mental Health Clinic, shutting the place down for several hours. And on Friday, Sept. 29, State Rep. Ben Ramos is scheduled to hold a press conference outlining…

Pretzel Logic A dead Kennedy’s girlfriend on a resume? What was I thinking? The woman at the window was incredulous. “Marilyn Monroe?” she asked. “You sent a resume with a Marilyn Monroe stamp? My God, man, what were you thinking?” That sick feeling of guilty nausea welled up in my stomach. My God, what was…

Pretzel Logic Mix up a name, and the result can be sweet. Technology is a fine thing and no doubt a time saver, but somehow, it also provides too much to fill the time that I save. Take, for instance, the anagram-o-matic. The anagram-o-matic is a computer program, accessible via the Internet, that allows the…

Cover Story Carmen Bolden already convicted of ripping off the AIDS and Latino communities, is now in the mental health business. Former employees have complained to authorities that she’s providing shoddy treatment and bilking the state. Why are taxpayers still footing this woman’s bills? A tall, thin man in a tattered hat and scraggly beard…

Pretzel Logic It’s new, expensive and secure — and works just as badly as the old one. Don’t mind me. My head is still throbbing. My eyes are all glassy. My stomach is gurgling. My hands are still shaking. And my knees are wobbling like old Uncle Willie’s. It’s not the flu. Not a touch…

Pretzel Logic An ex-cop’s accused in a neighborhood tiff. Is there a cover-up? As fights go, this one was about as mismatched as Tyson-McNeely. On one side was an allegedly gun-wielding man named Tom Feilke, a guy in his 40s, built like a steam engine. On the other side was Roma Otterson, all of five…

Pretzel Logic The columnist says he’s had enough of corporate journalism, and is leaving the Inky. Frankie Bags said it best about Inquirer columnist Clark DeLeon when he skewered the man at the Gridiron Club dinner show last April. By far the funniest skit of the evening, Bags’”The Pain Of Clark DeLeon” lampooned DeLeon’s penchant for letting…

Pretzel Logic Parking problems? Fix it yourself. A lot has happened since the day Brian Altman (no relation, really, I swear) tried to get the city to replace a no-parking sign that was stolen from its post in front of his house. The Russians invaded Chechnya. The Republicans took over Congress. O.J. went Bronco-busting on…

City Beat Philly lawyer, representing cop who found Foster’s body, says independent counsel will rule no foul play in Clinton aide’s death. Special prosecutor Kenneth Starr will, like other investigators, rule that the death of White House aide Vince Foster was a suicide, according to sources close to the case. “Every indication is that Starr…

Cover Story Harris Wofford’s back, this time trying to save the darling program of the Peace Corps/Vista set. Can he succeed? Should he? It is only by coincidence that the man on the phone, who is talking in measured yet excited tones about what President Kennedy asked him to do for his country 34 years…

Pretzel Logic Why this white boy will attend the National Association of Black Journalists meeting. Talk about timing. Mumia and his masses. Mark Fuhrman and his mouth. If I were a black journalist, I would definitely want to be in Philadelphia this week, where the 20th annual National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) convention is…

Pretzel Logic SOLLOG sez: Randall’s neck to snap like twig if he doesn’t quit football — and renouce the Bomb. He’s baaaaaaack. That wacky, witty, wild and crazy coot calling himself SOLLOG (Son of Light, Light of God) has returned from his self-imposed hiatus (which probably had something to do with his death threats against…

Pretzel Logic Good news and bad news from the Inky’s exalted leader. I am reading a memo from Chairman Bob Hall and, as far as I can tell, what we have here is the classic good-news/bad-news scenario for my favorite local newspaper conglomerate. Last week, Chairman Bob, publisher of the Inquirer and Daily News, issued…

Pretzel Logic Death-and-drug rhetoric keeps ’em happy at the GOP’s big bash. The natty Republicans in their fine suits and dresses stood on the balcony of the Wyndham Franklin Plaza Hotel grand ballroom and smiled. They smiled at the crowd of bedraggled left wing leftovers who looked quite the rabble in their nose rings and…

Cover Story A crucial question for Republicans gathering here this week: Do pro-choice voters hold the key to the party’s presidential hopes? Less than a year after a record-setting midterm election that ended 50 years of Democratic rule in Congress, Republicans are poised to jump on a weak president whose approval ratings are about as…

Pretzel Logic Now available: an underground mound for a paranoid pitcher. Ever since I read about the plight of poor, demented Steve Carlton in Philly Mag, I have been thinking about what I could do to help. I know how tough it can be when you can’t sleep at night because you are worried that…

Hit and Run Amin Bitar, co-owner of Bitar Specialty Foods at 10th and Federal, had a grand vision. Why not turn unused space in the back of the business, which specializes in Middle Eastern foods, into a restaurant? A place reminiscent of Arab coffee houses, where people gather to meet, eat and especially talk. Well,…

Pretzel Logic Allegedly, a DJ can hire a hit man. So why can’t I? This whole tale of Stale Cheesedoodle Jerry Blavat supposedly wanting Nicky Scarfo to off Stale Cheesedoodle Hy Lit because Lit was playing the same stale records as Blavat gave me an idea. I called my old pal, Myron “The Siren” Greenblatt,…

Cover Story The Inquirer fights a Sunday circulation drain. With a loss of almost 70,000 readers over the last five years and staff morale dangerously low, the Inquirer’s most important edition is fighting feverishly to get back on track. Walking out of the fourth floor cafeteria in the big newspaper building at 400 N. Broad,…

Pretzel Logic Strange bedfellows fight the Communications Decency Act. I am closing my eyes. I am seeing a vision of Newt Gingrich, Speaker of the House of Representatives, sitting at his desk in the Capitol Building. It is late at night. He is all alone. He is having mad, passionate sex. Not with himself. With…