US – Saturday, November 7
National
Military base is site of soldier’s rampage
An Army psychiatrist who had treated soldiers wounded in foreign wars opened fire with two handguns on soldiers preparing for foreign deployment at the Fort Hood U.S. Army post in Texas on Thursday, killing 12 and wounding 30 others.
 
International
Sante D’Orazio: You can’t hide from this lens
With Sante D’Orazio behind the camera, celebrities will do the craziest things. Famous faces from Angelina Jolie to Pamela Anderson have posed for the photographer. Now D’Orazio presents his favorite photos from the past 10 years in a new book, “Barely Private.”
 
The Word
A wee little way to try to get famous
There are hundreds of ways to get your name in the paper: appear on reality TV, get knocked up by a reality star, film yourself while getting knocked up by a reality star ... the list is endless. But here’s a new one: A model named Yvette Monet has put a restraining order on ex-boyfriend Verne Troyer, according to RadarOnline.
 
Movies
A ‘Carol’ that hits some high notes
REVIEW. There is something creepy about the way Robert Zemeckis makes movies. In his last three films — first “The Polar Express,” then “Beowulf,” and now “A Christmas Carol”— the director has employed a hybrid method that crosses live action with animation. He no doubt thinks the work is pioneering, but “pioneering” usually has a positive connotation.
 
Business
Wal-Mart: $20 meal for 8 people
NEW YORK. Wal-Mart has cut prices on turkeys and other Thanksgiving staples. U.S. stores began yesterday selling whole, 12-pound turkeys for 40 cents a pound. That’s a third of last Thanksgiving’s average price.
 
My Travel
Get your groove back in Jamaica
Haunted colonial mansions, triathlons and motivational theme parks — not things you think of when you think of Jamaica? Think again, mon. Jamaica is fast becoming the health and activity capital of the Caribbean. Feel like you need to recharge rather than merely relax? With direct flights on JetBlue launching in January and locals that welcome you with open arms, you’ll be getting your groove back in no time.
 
Published 21:49, March the 9th, 2008
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DeLeon: Is a free poster too much

On a rainy Friday, the same day that it was reported that Barack Obama had raised an inconceivable $196 million dollars for his campaign, I stood next to a young woman offering herself as a volunteer at the reception desk at Obama’s Philadelphia headquarters on the fourth floor of a former bank building at 15th and Sansom streets in Center City. She asked for a poster to put in her front yard in Powelton Village. She was told that such a sign would cost $5. And she paid. “I felt guilty,” she said later, noting that when she worked as a volunteer for Chaka Fattah during his run for mayor no one charged her for campaign posters. She didn’t have to add that she also felt stupid and vaguely insulted. Five dollars for a campaign poster? This is change?

Earlier that same week, a middle-aged city employee and District Council 47 union activist used her lunch hour to stop by to ask for a sign to put in her South Philly rowhouse window. She was treated like a bag lady trying to get over on eBay. “You people come in here expecting free material,” said a shockingly unpleasant man. If I hadn’t witnessed the one incident, I wouldn’t have believed the other. But in a very short time Friday evening, I heard multiple and unforced stories about how creeped out people were by their experiences. “They looked at me like I was al-Qaida,” said one very non-Muslim-looking guy with an Irish surname who walked out of headquarters at the same time I did. Maybe Obama staffers thought he was a Hillary mole.

 So why would Obama campaign people act like surly sales clerks at The Gap? I could venture a guess or two, none of them kind and none of them a valid excuse. Maybe they were tired. Maybe they were hungry. So what? They’ll never have another opportunity to make a good first impression. And that’s bad politics. The last thing the Obama campaign needs is to appear uninterested in and disconnected from people in Pennsylvania, a state that doesn’t love you back, as well as one thickly populated by lifelong residents who never forget a slight. And if a free campaign poster is too much to ask for, what are the odds of getting universal health care?

Clark DeLeon is a Philadelphia writer. He can be found at clarkdeleon.com.

 
 
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Music
MMMpod
The November MMMpod features interviews and music with a band called Girls, a band of girls called Supercute, and a supercute vampire. Yes, listeners, we have Pattinson!



 

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