A Million Stories

Evan M. Lopez

Last Monday, a post on the online forum philadelphiaspeaks.com, titled "Duck on a leash," caught City Paper's attention.

"I was walking on Forbidden Drive on Saturday when a family walked by with a dog and a duck ... on a leash. Seriously."

Then two more people posted: they'd seen the duck/dog pair, too.

Do Philadelphians keep ducks as pets — and, if so, how many? And ... why? A call to the city yielded little: Jeff Moran, communications director for the city health department, says that while the city does maintain a list of registered pets, "the only pets that are licensed in the city of Philadelphia are dogs."

An Internet search yielded three 2009 ads for adoptable ducks, all posted by lifelong Philadelphian and animal lover Kenny Ayre.

Ayre, an engineer by trade, has always loved animals, fowl or otherwise (he was 12 when he made his first rescue: a domestic rabbit with a urinary tract infection). Since then, he's saved a cat, some lizards, two parrots and other unwanted animals, all of which have found shelter in his Lawncrest rowhome.

The duck thing started in 2003, around Easter (appropriately enough), at a reptile show (less intuitive) in Hamburg, Pa., where Ayre came across three female ducks for sale. Ayre, fearful that they would be purchased as snake food, bought the little flock for $10.

Ducks, it turns out, can't really be housebroken. So Ayre cut diapers in half and harnessed them to the ducks, who spent their time swimming in his bathtub or "just wobbling around the house." The girls soon bonded with their new owner. "They respected me as part of the flock," he says. "They trusted me."

Ayre was quickly pulled, largely via Internet forums, into the bigger world of duck rescue. There was the Muscovy duck with a staph infection in Pennypack Park, the Cayuga duck with bumble foot, the egg-bound Pekin duck (which, sadly, survived only a few days after its rescue).

Most of these ducks, he believes, are domestic and abandoned by their owners. Readily available online or at feed stores, the ducks are larger than their wild brethren and often too fat to fly, making them easy targets.

Ayre believes the situation has improved since the passing of a 2004 city ordinance that makes "farm animals" — including ducks — illegal within city limits. And the Pennsylvania Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, which handles animal control for the city, says it has yet to be called out on a duck rescue.

Ayre, meanwhile, found himself unable to properly care for his own flock and began looking last year for someone to adopt them. Luckily, things worked out: The ducks soon found a home with Maggie Montieth of Phoenixville, where, she says, they now enjoy swimming in a 100-gallon pool on her 3-acre property. "They've got quite a nice resort out here."

—Juliana Reyes

High Society

It's that time of the year again, folks. Pennsylvania Society Weekend time! That's right: 'Tis the season for scads of Pennsylvania's elected officials to get together with our state's finest ultra-powerful law firms, lobbyists and industry magnates for a weekend-long private, special-interest-funded soiree.

The event began more than 100 years ago, but has expanded to include dozens of fundraisers, private receptions, cocktail parties and plain party-parties sponsored by powerful players with a stake in the game.

This year's schedule (thanks to politicspa.com) is out, and boy does it make us wish we had influence to wield. Among the many invitation-only events that (some of) our elected officials will undoubtedly attend: cocktails with the Waste Management Eastern Group; breakfast with the chairman and CEO of PNC Bank; a party at the 21 Club with mega-lobbying firm Cozen O'Connor(founder Stephen Cozen also represents the struggling former Foxwoods Casino). How about an after-dinner reception with the Marcellus Shale Coalition — the very industry lobby group that successfully fought off a tax on gas extraction in Pennsylvania? Tax-free snails, anyone?

"We have nothing to do with those events," says Pennsylvania Society Executive Director Carol Fitzgerald, explaining that the Society is responsible only for its annual dinner.

Of course, wherever you have elected officials being lavished upon in private by special interest groups, you're gonna have somebody trying to kill the good vibes. In 2007, it came out that state Rep. Mark Cohen had spent $2,000 of taxpayer money to attend. Now-indicted former Speaker John Perzel received some $55,000 in contributions from groups given the privilege of sponsoring a reception in his honor in 2004. And the Inquirer reported just a few weeks ago that Pa. Supreme Court Justice Ronald Castille allowed a law firm that argues before him to pay for his own trip to the Society, including a $1,900 hotel bill — all perfectly legal.

When it comes to Philly, the ethical rules are "pretty complicated," admits city Ethics Board director Shane Creamer, explaining that city law bars employees from accepting a gift of "substantial economic value," that could reasonably be believed to influence their decision-making. In other words, you and I might point the ol' fishy-eye at elected officials sipping oysters with industries they regulate and the firms they contract with — but the word "substantial" is highly subjective. Will we see said oyster-sipping on any financial disclosure statements? Probably not.

—Isaiah Thompson

Center of Attention

The country's ongoing unemployment crisis has become a kind of perpetual motion machine for the news media.

And what better visual aid than photos of the unemployed themselves, voicing their anger in public demonstrations and via powerfully worded signs? But if you look closely, you'll notice something weird: A lot of the pictures are from Philly. Whether it's The L.A. Times, The Portland (Maine) Press Herald, the Honolulu Star Advertiser, The Washington Times or NPR — the photographs of the unemployed protesting benefits cuts and general joblessness are of Philadelphians. But why?

The answer has to do with the Philadelphia Unemployment Project (PUP), a Philly-based advocacy group and services provider for the jobless. Since 1975, PUP has helped its members navigate the Byzantine processes of securing aid while mobilizing them to fight the even larger political battle with government for jobs programs and better unemployment benefits.

Now, all of a sudden and all over the country, when a story runs about the unemployed, you're likely to see a picture of a PUP rally. The sudden attention hasn't gone unnoticed by PUP Director John Dodds, who explains the phenomenon as a sign of how rare organizing among the jobless has become: "We're actually organizing unemployed workers. Unfortunately, there are very few groups doing that," he says, adding, "Back in the '70s, there were lots of unemployed groups everywhere."

Still, the organization is making the most of the spotlight while they've got it. Says Dodds, "A picture's worth a thousand words."

—Jake Blumgart