A Million Stories

It was surreal

There was Steve Doocy, the smarmy, blond-haired doofus of Fox & Friends, on Dec. 11, lambasting the decision to use $25,000 of the stimulus to fund Philly's very own Pig Iron Theatre Co. He said "Pig Iron" witha heavy staccato on the "P," as though by virtue of its very name, Pig Iron wasn't worth a dime. And there was Tom Kaiden, chief operating officer (or CEO, as Doocy said) of the Greater Philadelphia Cultural Alliance (or the Greater Pennsylvania Cultural Alliance, as Doocy said), defending the decision to use stimulus dollars to fund the arts. Doocy is too dumb for words.

The spot on Fox came a day after Grandpa John McCain continued his tireless march against pork-barrel spending, which to McCain apparently means anything that doesn't involve an exploding projectile . McCain singled out a puppet theater, somewhere, and Fox chose Pig Iron as yet another example of how the Obama administration is throwing our money out the sun roof of its limo for all the artsy-hippie-fag-types to grab. (Also, Acorn!) The arts received $50 million of the $787 billion stimulus, from which Philly's arts community received $1.2 million . That includes the Asian Arts Initiative and the Philadelphia Orchestra, neither of which have names that immediately sound foppish to Philistines. Not like Pig Iron Theatre , which was discussed on Fox as the network aired the most ridiculous clip of a man prancing around in a black-and-white striped bedtime suit.

Why on Earth would we want to fund a sector that employs 1.3 million people and produces another 4.4 million ancillary jobs in the tourism and hospitality industry, a sector that is sine qua non to the economic-boosting dinner-and-a-show sphere?

"We're really grateful for the platform," says Kaiden of going on Fox. "I think people need to be reminded that arts jobs are real jobs ."

That may be true in Philadelphia, Mr. Kaiden. But as Fox News would like to remind you, Philadelphia is not part of The Real America.

On Dec. 16, the handful of scruffy media reformers and low-power radio savants known as the Prometheus Radio Project — the folks who, from a dingy church basement at 48th Street and Baltimore Avenue, beat the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) in a landmark federal-court case that reinstated the media ownership regulations the Federal Communications Commission had ditched in 2003, and whose regulatory director renamed himself Pete Tridish (sound it out) — succeeded in advancing their legislative crusade to its furthest point yet: The U.S. House of Representatives passed the Local Community Radio Act , which would allow low-power FM stations (little 100-hertz stations, as opposed to 10,000-hertz full-power stations) to occupy the spaces on the ostensibly public airwaves that are currently withheld from them.

Under current law, these stations are not allowed to exist on any "third adjacent channel," which means that if 95.7 is taken, the closest station these guys can occupy is 96.5 or 94.9. In an urban area like Philly, that free space doesn't exist . And this has effectively prevented these smaller stations from existing in cities for years, much to the delight of the big-money NAB .

The House bill opens up those third adjacent channels (although the first and second would still be verboten). On the face of things, lifting restrictions by 200 kilohertz doesn't seem like a bonanza for small operators , but it could clear the way for a significant number of small stations to open up in cities like Philly.

The bill has cleared the Senate Commerce Committee, and whenever the bullshit compromise is finally reached on health care, senators may finally have time to consider it.

This just in from the pothead desk

You Pennsylvanians, even you Pennsyltuckians , are OK with medical marijuana . According to a Quinnipiac University poll released Dec. 17, 59 percent of Pennsylvania voters think legalizing prescription weed is a good idea; just 35 percent oppose it. This includes 67 percent of Democrats, 61 percent of independents and even a slight plurality of Republicans in favor. Even the olds are fine with it: 56 percent of those over-55 give their assent, so long as you don't enjoy it too much, and it helps with your glaucoma or whatever.

So why, then, is Philadelphia state Rep. Mark Cohen 's medical marijuana bill, H.B. 1393, stuck in committee? Probably because the state Senate is controlled by Republicans, who have no desire to approve something that might pave the way to decriminalization , which could lead to dancing, which is a sin , so the House Dems aren't in a hurry to take it up. Interestingly, Cohen admits that, in fact, decriminalization might be the end result: "It depends what the public and the elected officials want to do [and] how far they want to take it," he demurs in an interview. Oh, and some good news: "I believe it is inevitable the bill is going to pass ," he says. Inevitable, eventually, but we're hoping for sooner rather than later — you know, for the carpal tunnel . We type a lot. Honest.