I spent many hours over the past couple of weeks going through thousands of photos in two archive systems to come up with the handful you can see in our end-of-the-year slideshows. On average, the photographers at the Reporter file anywhere from 400-600 photos per month in the system, about half of which are destined for the Town Center page. The majority of "hard news" photos were of fires throughout the area, including the famous Lans-Bowl fire in March, which was one of our most highly-viewed website features this year. There was plenty to choose from in sports, since so many of our local teams went deep into playoffs. Some of my personal favorites from this year - LC football; the Hatfield borough fire in April (one of our first hard-news videos); the Ganesh festival in Montgomery township; Souderton baseball playoffs; and meeting some very, very cool people at the Philadelphia Folk Fest this summer.
- Chore coupons. Present one to get a chore done. These things never get cashed, so it's like giving for nothing. - Lottery tickets. There's nothing like a gift that probably won't give at all. - A squirrel. They're everywhere, if you can catch one. Acorns make a great stocking stuffer, too. - A CD mix of your favorite music. Nothing like stolen MP3's to express your love. - Christmas decorations. They're about 75% off now. - Envelopes. I can never seem to find one when I need it. - Pine cones, spray-painted in various colors. I don't know what to do with them, but I have plenty. - Alka-Seltzer. You don't hear much about this wonder product any more, but it really works. - Black Sharpie markers. - Low-energy-use light bulbs. - Oil - A wall organizer for post-holiday bill envelopes - Cash. So tacky, yet so very appreciated.
The city may not have the bustling holiday scene it once did, but there are still some good decorations to see. First, the tree at city hall:
Not bad. But if you want to see a really great tree, duck into the Ritz Carlton just a block south on Broad Street. There is also a life-sized gingerbread house there, made from real gingerbread.
And of course, the real reason to come to Center City...the Wanamaker's...uh, I mean Lord and Taylor....uh, that is to say the Macy's light show. It is much shorter than it was in the past, and the dancing fountains are still nowhere to be seen. But I am happy that the people at Macy's are keeping this treasure at all, and the show and the pipe organ both seem to be in good repair.
Sorry this is so short. I don't want to step on anybody's copyright.
Once again the word 'coward' has been used to describe somebody accused of an atrocity. This time, the mayor of Omaha used the word to describe a shooter killed eight people at a shopping mall so he could be famous. The word was also famously used following 9/11 to describe the terrorists who flew planes into buildings to honor their religion by killing thousands. There are many words that can be used to describe these individuals, but coward is not one of them. To look a fellow human being in the eye and coldly pull a trigger or crash a plane is neither fearful or timid. These are the acts of people full of hatred and empty of compassion. Let's not fool ourselves by underestimating them.
ROME (AP) _ Tweety may get a chance to take the witness stand and sing like a canary.
An Italian court ordered the animated bird, along with Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck and his girlfriend Daisy, to testify in a counterfeiting case.
In what lawyers believe was a clerical error worthy of a Looney Tunes cartoon, a court in Naples sent a summons to the characters ordering them to appear Friday in a trial in the southern Italian city, officials said.
The court summons cites Titti, Paperino, Paperina, Topolino — the Italian names for the characters — as damaged parties in the criminal trial of a Chinese man accused of counterfeiting products of Disney and Warner Bros.
Instead of naming only the companies and their legal representatives, clerks also wrote in the witness list the names of the cartoons that decorated the toys and gadgets the man had reproduced, said Fiorenza Sorotto, vice president of Disney Company Italia.
____________________________________
And here's what a few media outlets came up with:
Courtroom farce becomes animated (Times Online) Will Mickey Squeal? (Detroit Free Press) The trial is real, the 'witnesses' aren't (Philadelphia Daily News) I call my next witness...Mickey Mouse (ABC News) Court's for the birds...and mouse (Toronto Star) Goofy summons animates court case (Ottowa Sun) Court a Mickey Mouse operation (Irish Independent) Raise your right wing: Italian court orders Tweety, Donald to testify (Minneapolis Star Tribune)
RSS
