Community Bank Stock Update - how are our local community banks doing in this crisis?

PA in the WSJ - PA features in a number of Wall Street Journal stories - Above Average Jane points you to them.

Part 1 of a series: THE SCHOOL OF HARD KNOCKS: Whatever Happens In Room 315, Stays In Room 315, Whatever Happens In:

Room 315 is a dumping ground of sorts; here are sent the students nobody else can or wants to teach. They are chronically truant, emotionally damaged, academically stunted and so disruptive that their presence makes mainstream classes unteachable. They haven’t yet offended badly enough for the School District to send them to Community Education Partners, or CEP, as the city’s three privately run discipline schools are called. CEP has a reputation for its hard-nosed student body and is sometimes less favorably referred to in the neighborhood as “Children En-route to Prison.” The kids of Room 315 aren’t welcome in the mainstream and yet can’t be shipped off somewhere else. Room 315 is where education makes its last stand in the lives of a small group of troubled children who slipped through the cracks, and are on the verge of drifting off the map entirely.

PhillyIMC: Hannah Jane Sassaman: Hundreds Rally to Save Kingsessing Library

I've fallen way behind on handling Philly Future add requests. Rest assured I will be getting back to you shortly. Apologies on the delay.

Karl

Hormel Foods Corporation hard pressed to keep up with demand.
[Spam and eggs, spam and cheese, spam on toast... bleh.]

Story Link: Spam sales way up.

Cartoon from Sid in the City

It's Our Money is putting out a call for ideas to fix the budget.

Young Philly Politics: How To Save The City Part I: Evaluating Our Economic Prospects:

Philadelphia—like, we should remember, every other city and state in this country—is in a financial crisis. It may be a little worse here because of our previous failures to make our city government more efficient and save for a rainy day (a point Gaetano has made more than once). But if we want to think seriously about where we are, we have to acknowledge to begin with that we are in the same boat as many other cities.

Young Philly Politics: Keep My Taxes the Same! Save the City!:

Here is the reality: Courtesy of the state, everyone who pays wage taxes in the city will be getting cuts next year, to the tune of about 100 million dollars. (Consider it a gift from the grandma who is spending her social security check at the Casino in Chester, with a couple cents trickling back to you. It also is coming, regardless of what happens with Foxwoods and Sugarhouse.)

So, even believing that the deficit is one billion dollars, which I question, and even believing that there are not much better ways to save the City money, which I don't believe, the City could instantly cut half of the deficit by simply saying that they were going to- temporarily or permanently- raise wage taxes by the same amount the Casino revenues will drop them by.

In the first year, that is $100 million dollars into the kitty. By simply paying the same wage taxes we do now, rather than taking a cut, we can immediately cut half off of the deficit. I think it is very plausible that with savings, with some help from the Feds, etc., the libraries and the parks and the pools can stay open.

Brendan Calling: Philly’s Budget Shortfall: Time for Corporations to Step Up and Give Back.:

Our city is in trouble, and as the saying goes, “to whom much is given, much is required.” Pony up, guys.

Is Mayor Nutter still calling for a cut in the BPT?

According to Michael Lewis at the Wall Street Journal and John Lancaster at The New Yorker, it is an end of an era on Wall Street. According to experts, the effects of the economic crisis have yet to be fully felt and will be touching out into every part of America over the next couple years.

Nationally, fewer are giving to charity, in Philly we have a what appears to be tightening job market, horrific stories of crime and heartbreak, and city budget that is on the ropes, triggering Mayor Nutter to pursue cuts across the board that will certainly effect livability in the city, if not lead it to being less safe.

Monday night residents in Fishtown protested proposed cuts that would eliminate the local library.

WHYY's It's Our City interviews the Inquirer's Ben Waxman on the budget process.

Jim Kenney, City Concilman-at-large, calls for cooperation to see the cuts through for the survival of the city.

If you're not already involved somehow, now it is especially needed. And if you are looking for ideas online, there are many places to discuss them and pursue them. This being just one of many in an ever growing Philadelphia online community.

Thank you.

November 19th: Philly Drupal Camp

November 19th: Media Mobilizing Project: Digital Inclusion Coalition meeting.

November 13th - November 20th: Independents Hall: BarCamp Rocked - Keep the Energy Up! - lists a number of upcoming events.

More at Phillygroups.com and PhillyNewMediaHub.

Kudos to the those that organized and attended BarCamp Philly at The University of the Arts. The event pulled together a terrific cross section of Philadelphians involved in technology and media.

Every session I attended had vigorous discussion in which I learned much, I loved meeting people I have been following on the Web for so long, but the last session was a real eye opener. In it we shared pointers with each other to the larger Philadelphia tech community. Speaking as someone who has been on the periphery, it was a delight to see how it has grown and prospered these past few years. Let me share those I copied from the whiteboard. Philadelphia is happening in media and technology. Click, converse, connect.

Sites

PhillyNewMediaHub.com
Independents Hall
Geekadelphia.com
Meetup.com
Benjamin Franklin Technology PArtners
PhillyIMC
Labs.IndyHall.org
PhillyBlog.com

Places

National Mechanics
The Franklin
Franklin Fountain
Independents Hall
Drexel Smart House
The Hacktory

Events

Junto
PhillyCHI
PhillyPHP
PhillyStandards.org
SEOGrail
Philly Net Squared
PhillyOnRails
PANMA
IgnitePhilly
DrupalCamp
First Person Arts
Philly Geek Dinner
Technically Speaking Radio 1540AM
Philadelphia Area Computer Society
MAKEPhilly

I know I missed a lot. Philadelphia New Media Hub has a great collection of links and events to get you involved.

Special shout out to JP Toto, Roz Duffy and The University of the Arts for making this happen.

Note to BarCamp attendees - Anyone can sign up for an account at Philly Future and publish stories. Selected stories are promoted to the home page. In addition you can request to have your blog or site highlighted via the wire page.

Story Link: Goldendoodle talked up as first dog.

Cartoon from Sid in the City

WHYY’S IT’S OUR CITY TO FEATURE SCHOOL DISTRICT SUPERINTENDENT,
MAYOR’S CHIEF EDUCATION OFFICER IN TV12 INTERVIEW NOVEMBER 14

Interview Focuses on Mayor’s Education Plan to Cut the Dropout Rate,
Boost Number of Philadelphians Who Earn Four-year Degrees

PHILADELPHIA, November 7, 2008 — The next installment of WHYY’s It’s Our City will feature an interview with the Philadelphia School District superintendent, Arlene Ackerman, and Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter’s chief education officer, Lori Shorr, on TV12 on November 14 at 10:00 p.m.

It’s Our City is a multiplatform civic engagement project produced by the award-winning News and Information Service of WHYY, Greater Philadelphia’s leading public broadcasting station, in partnership with the Philadelphia Daily News.

In the interview, Ackerman and Shorr address Nutter’s plan for the public school system in the face of Philadelphia’s projected budget gap of about $1 billion. The mayor outlined an initiative in mid-September to halve the city’s 45 percent high school dropout rate and double the number of Philadelphians who earn college degrees — both in five to 10 years. Just 18 percent of Philadelphians hold four-year degrees, placing the city 92nd out of the top 100 cities in the nation.

Ackerman explains in the interview the purpose of keeping scorecards for each of the district’s schools to gauge students’ attendance and performance, among other criteria. She also discusses differentiated pay scales for teachers and ways to improve neighborhood schools so charter schools can be utilized as alternatives solely for their curriculum specializations.

WHYY opened its phone lines and accepted e-mails from Philadelphians before and during the interview, originally broadcast on WHYY FM on October 3. WHYY also took its cameras to Philadelphia neighborhoods to gather residents’ questions and comments, several of which will be shown during the episode.

The episode will also be accessible on November 15 at noon on the It’s Our City Web site, www.whyy.org/city.

Dave Davies conducted the interview. The senior writer for the Philadelphia Daily News regularly fills in for Terry Gross as host of WHYY’s renowned national radio program, Fresh Air, and on WHYY’s regional public affairs call-in show, Radio Times with Marty Moss-Coane.

Longtime WHYY producer Alan Tu serves as managing editor for It’s Our City, whose first episode, broadcast in June, featured an interview with Mayor Nutter. Wendy Daughenbaugh is the producer of It’s Our City.

Funded by The William Penn Foundation, It’s Our City evolved from WHYY’s award-winning The Next Mayor project, which, Philadelphia Magazine said, “managed a neat trick, creating a place where local political junkies can get a fix and the rest of us can get a clue.”

###

Phawker, which continues to provide terrific commentary on the region, shares a piece on Pathways to Hope, a homeless initiative that focuses on the "housing first" strategy to fighting homelessness, and its establishment of services in Philadelphia.

Philadelphia Inquirer: From the streets to a home: Pathways to recovery

Pathways to Hope joins a number of services serving the same space thru different means in Philly, significantly Project H.O.M.E. and The Philadelphia Committee to End Homelessness.

The fantastic coverage of the Phillies last week and the election this week exemplified why The Daily News and Inquirer are so important to our region. I'm gearing up an essay about how having a shared resource at times such as these is still so important and if these last two weeks didn't hammer it home for you, then the numbers of folks who ran out to buy keep sake newspapers should.

In any case, NBC is going local and their Philly service is looking pretty spiffy. This joins MyFoxPhilly, which should be congratulated on the last couple weeks as well.