Sponsored by Power 99 FM, the panel will be moderated by Dr. Marc Lamont Hill of Columbia University.

Panelists include the first African-American District Attorney of Philadelphia, Seth Williams, Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas Judge Renee Cardwell Hughes, actor Hosea Chanchez, better known as Malik from the sitcom “The Game”, bestselling author Terri Woods, Jamira Burley of the Philadelphia Youth Commission, and Kevin Harden, Jr., a student at the Temple University Beasley School of Law.

Doors open at 4 PM on December 10, 2009. The townhall meeting will begin at 5 PM. The South Philadelphia High School is located at Broad & Snyder Streets in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Philadelphia Community Access Media (PhillyCAM) began cable casting on Comcast 66/966 and Verizon FIOS 29/30 on Friday, October 23, 2009.  This is a momentous event in a city that struggled for over 27 years to launch a public access television channel to allow citizens the democratic right to communicate with each other.

PhillyCAM will provide Philadelphia residents and organizations with the opportunity to communicate with each other through the creation and distribution of non-commercial media and access to media-making tools, training and opportunities for interaction between diverse communities.  All Philadelphians, not just the influential, will have the opportunity to make and watch programs about themselves, their lives, and interests, as well as utilize other new technologies.

It’s on! If you live in Philadelphia you can see PhillyCAM on Comcast 66/966 and Verizon Fios 29/30.

 Get in the Picture

 Calling all Philadelphia media makers, PhillyCAM is seeking programming of all genres to show – documentaries, shorts, music videos, narratives, news programs, educational videos and youth-produced work.

Download a Programming Submission Form or email us at programming@phillycam.org.

Public access serves as an “electronic park” where people from all communities have the opportunity to share their views and information on just about anything. But it’s only as strong as its membership. Plus in the coming months PhillyCAM members will be able to take advantage of training, equipment access and other production opportunities.

 PhillyCAM

4212 Chestnut Street, 3rd Fl,  Philadelphia  PA  19104

 Contact us: info@phillycam.org

The rally had spurred from two shootings that had taken place that week. The second shooting that happened, last Wednesday, left eight bullets entering the home of one of my co-workers , Ms. Yvonne, damaging her walls and nearly striking her 5 year old daughter.

For the web article my initial plan was to get an account of Ms. Yvonne’s day leading up to when she arrived home from attending Project HOME’s 20th anniversary celebration,  to when the bullets began firing. I was unsuccessful in talking to her first, a journalist from either the Inquirer or some other publication beat me to it.

Though after the rally was over Ms. Yvonne wanted to be left alone and have some time with her family, after the ordeal who could blame her. I had tried calling her over the weekend but still was unable to talk to her, she was either asleep or just didn’t feel like talking at the moment. I was really feeling the pressure of getting the piece done, not only to meet the word count (600-800 words) but to make it something that the reader could get into, even if it was just a short coverage.

That Sunday I worked all that on the article, visiting the Project HOME website for info on Rowan Homes where the rally took place, to calling the co-executive of Project HOME and community leader, Helen Brown. From the lenght it doesn’t seem like it was a lot to be written, but it took time, and I wanted this article to be near perfect.

At around or near 9 p.m. the article was finished and sent off to the weekly, that Monday I received a call from their web editor, and later on in the day it went up.  Perhaps not so much of an exciting process towards getting an article done, but its a great feelinig having people actually read your work, from a wider audience than that of the NPM I should say.

I am working on another peice for the weekly, its proving a little harder than anything I had worked on previously…

Check out the link in the News section of the site.

Yikes!, school is back in session already, where have I been these past few months? I would like to say that a lot was done this summer, working with a group of loverly third graders, sleeping in later, working at a loverly cafe’ with loverly co-workers, and  having the chance to help out with the Philadelphia Public School Notebook’s Fall Guide, the first and hopefully not the last.  The ‘guide will be out the first day of school (September 8), so make sure to grab a copy, I’ll have a link up to the actual publication if one is set up in the ‘News’ section of the site.  A post  about my experience at the Notebook, as well as a few others will be up soon, so stay tuned.

By the way, for some reason there is a special connection being felt with the cover photo taken by Mr. Harvey Finkle

UPDATE: The Guide is up, and I have the link posted in the ‘News’ section

Pretty soon it will be hard for some schools in the Philadelphia area to say that they’ve been around since the very beginning, especially since most of them, like William Penn, are being closed down. These schools, in the end, might become new charter schools or possibly just an empty shell of their former selves.Recently Thomas M. Pierce Elementary school, located at 23rd and Cambria, celebrated its 100-year anniversary on February 27, 2009. The celebration was filled with food, fun, and a host of teachers who have been teaching at Pierce for years.

“When I first came here, they still had kerosene lights on the walls,” joked Ms. Jones, a former employee at Pierce, “that’s how long I’ve been around.”

Mrs. Sonja Tucker, T.M. Pierce’s school counselor has been so for nearly twenty-one years, but has been a part of Pierce for nearly twenty-four. Mrs. Tucker started out as a pre-kindergarten head start teacher from 1985-1988. “What this means to me, is just as our principal was saying earlier, a celebration of years of learning. A lot of children have passed through this threshold and we have quite a few success stories. I feel proud and happy to be part of the staff and school.”

“This year the T.M. Pierce Elementary School family celebrates 100 years of existence, during which it has continually distinguished itself as a leading educational institution in the Central Region and School District of Philadelphia.” Stated the school’s principal, Terrel Paris. “The years ahead will provide continuing opportunities for teachers, students, parents, and concerned citizens of the community to perpetuate the magnificence of this outstanding elementary school in the forefront of the District’s progress.”

(Peak Johnson, Student Vanguard)

Mr. Jackson, this time, going out to his friends, neighbors, and co-workers decided to voice the concern of why he believes charging for garbage pickup was a bad idea to begin with.

Dear Mr. Nutter,

Here we go again,

I know you have already made a decision on this, but charging five dollars per household was crazy to begin with. What are we paying our taxes for, our health? If you were to do this the poor Blacks, Whites, and Hispanic communities of Philadelphia would suffer, especially senior citizens. Do you not care at all about the poor?  Mr. Nutter, people are trying to pay their mortgages and bills, feed their families, and survive the best way that they can. A lot of people are being laid off and collecting unemployment, which is really nothing. These are problems that you do not need to worry about; you are not in any financial trouble, you’re living large.

Mr. Nutter ever since you have been elected mayor, you have been acting as if you are better then the citizens of Philadelphia, sometimes you make me think that you want a statue like past mayor Frank Rizzo. You will never be the mayor that Frank Rizzo was, I believe that you are going to be a one time mayor, in fact why not retire and let Brady, Fattah, or Dwight Evans take over. We need a mayor that has a heart, your heart is cold as ice, and you don’t seem to care about a lot of important issues that should be of concern.

If you had passed this bill, I wonder, would your family have to pay too? I hope you know that in my opinion you are the worse mayor in history and I hope you enjoy your first and only term. Citizens of Philadelphia I want you to begin keeping track of what our mayor is doing to us, so when its time to vote once again, you’ll know truly who to vote for.

When reading The Soloist a few months ago, the image of Robert Downey Jr. and Jamie Foxx portraying the main characters of Steve Lopez and Nathanial Anthony Ayers played throughout my mind while I progressed through the story. I am positive that a lot of people fabricate what a character in a story looks like as they read.

If not reading the movie adaptation of The Soloist I would have had to picture the chracters using my own imagination, something that is real easy to do once I really get into a story. I am happy that I was able to meet the actual Steve Lopez at a book signing at the Free Librairy of Philadelphia. Recently he paid a very special visit to Project HOME, wish I had attended now that I think about it.

I always wondered, like others, what the real Nathanial Anthony Ayers looked like. This video, which was sent to me by an employee from Project HOME from the original site, shows an interview with Steve Lopez and the actual Nathanial Anthony Ayers.  I would advise all to read The Soloist and to find out more about Steve Lopez, the guy use to write for the Philadelphia Inquirer.

Woud you let your 8 year old child see this?

This past Saturday I went to the Pearl theater to see the new movie, Watchmen.  The Pearl is not my ideal theather because of their laxed rules, but who am I to know what you are or what you are not supposed to do at at a theather. Anyway,  despite the reviews that were already circultating, rather  by the web or by newspaper critics about ‘Watchmen‘ I still decided to go, overall I think the movie was good.

‘Watchmen‘ is rated R, obviously because of  the mild nudity, language, and fighting. There are more reasons that I probably missed, but knowing this I ask, would you bring an 8 year old or younger to see this movie?

Yes, there were a lot of adults who actually brought their child(ren) to see this movie and I really don’t understand that. For those of you who did not  go and see it, their is passionate scene involving heroes Ms. Jupiter and Nite Owl. Another scene that comes to mind, the anti-hero the Comedia shooting and killing a pregnant woman.

This, to me, really says something about the parenting that is going on today in society and it bothers me. Is it that parents just don’t care what they take their children to see? Is it that they just don’t care? Perhaps this is the reason why kids do whatever they want.

It should not matter if you ,the parent, really want to go and see a movie that is rated R, you have to be responsible and think.  When picking out a movie to see for the weekend, do a little research, find out the movie’s rating and what else is family friendly. You are responsible for what your child sees, do not take them to a violent sexed out movie because you want to go see it. Please be the parent and set the example, educate these young minds, don’t destroy them.

On February 27, 2009, in a heated conversation about the issue of police deaths versus civilian deaths, the term “…punk ass cop” was mentioned in reference to the death of Officer Pawlowski. The young man who said this has a right to upset, but he was out of line. Anyone who can go out each day and put their life on the line, not knowing if they are coming back, deserves some kind of respect.

I’ve never had a negative encounter with a police officer and it is for this reason that some might say that I do not understand where they are coming from. True, though sometimes I believe that it is all how you portray yourself, example such as walking down the street with your pants sagging and cursing loudly for no reason at all.

This article entitled, Understanding the police, gave me a chance to see down and talk to a real officer of the 23rd district. At the time I had not realize how deep I could have gone into article, maybe next time, nevertheless this was and still remains one of my favorite interviews.

Editor’s Note: If a little blurry (sorry still new to this) you can see the entire hip hop issue as clear as a whistle at The North Philly Metropolis page.