The Bell Curve

City Paper's Quality-o-Life-o-Meter

0 City Controller Alan Butkovitz criticizes the city's BigBelly compactors for not saving as much money or manpower as promised. He does this in a report titled "The absolute lowest-hanging fruit I could find, By Alan Butkovitz."

+ 1 The Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board's new wine kiosks, already available in Harrisburg, will debut in Philly as early as September. Finally, all the classiness of Harrisburg and the convenience of a Piercing Pagoda.

+ 3 Federal prosecutors push for a longer sentence for former state Sen. Vincent Fumo, who got 55 months for mail fraud, wire fraud, conspiracy, filing a false tax return and obstruction of justice. Like that one, which was 32 words!

- 5 The third high-ranking official in Gov. Ed Rendell's administration in the past year leaves for a job with a Marcellus Shale company. And, on his first day on the job, he is handed a balloon full of natural gas and made to breathe it in before the congregation. And when he does, he feels the heaviness of it enter his lungs, but also something else, an uneasy lightness, for his soul had escaped and flown away. As the day goes on, he laments his loss, but there is plenty more gas to be had, so he drowns his sorrows in that.

+ 2 In the first issue of a new DC Comics series, Superman visits Philly. Where he's awarded a no-bid contract to protect the city, gets fat and lazy, then expends his waning political power protecting his patronage jobs at the Philadelphia Hall of Justice.

- 4 WPHT host Dom Giordano camps outside Geno's Steaks to protest the federal lawsuit challenging Arizona's new illegal-immigration law. That's fine, Dom, do your thing. And if, late at night, Joey Vento stops by and the two of you just start making out on the fixin's stand, whispering sweet Spanish nothings into each other's ears, that's fine, too. Because even backward bigots deserve to be happy. Are you happy, Dom?

This week's total: -3 | Last week's total: 5