Recently in Philly Personalities Category

Isn't this a pickle, Mr. Pink? When last we left the contract negotiations between SEPTA union leaders, SEPTA management and city, state and congressional elected officials trying to broker a deal to end the week-long public transportation workers strike, the various parties looked about as willing to settle this as the double crossing bad guys in the final scene of Reservoir Dogs. As you'll recall, that debut Quentin Tarantino bloodbath ended badly for everyone. That's what happens when everybody has a gun pointed at each other's heads. Right, Mr. Brown?

That would be Mr. Willie Brown, president of the striking Transport Workers Union, who has been cast as the heavy in this suicidal gunfight because he seems responsive only to internal hardliner union voices while tone deaf to the rising chorus of anger and disgust from a riding public as unsympathetic to the union's rejection of the offered contract as they are to executive bonuses for taxpayer-bailed-out mortgage companies. Whatever valid reasons the union brass may have had for calling this strike, they're lost on a public unable to get from home to work to their second job and back home again. Mr. Brown, meet Mr. Ten. He's the new unemployment rate in America. He's also the friend and next door neighbor to your rank and file, and believe me, Mr. Ten is giving your membership an earful. That's why you can't take up Mr. Bald's challenge.

And that would be Gov. Ed Rendell, who used his long-receding hairline -- "I'll be combing my hair in a pompadour" -- to describe the likelihood of a union demand being accepted. Rendell challenged Brown and the TWU executive committee union to put the contract to a vote by the entire union membership by no later than the end of business today. A challenge that stands a pomodour's chance in a wind storm of happening.

  Rendell, who usually acts the adult in a room full of nitwits, showed his frustration in a Saturday night news conference where he threatened to take his $7 million state money football home to Harrisburg unless. . .To me this sounded very much like Mr. Bald pointing a gun at Mr. Brown's head with everyone from Mr. Brown's union watching.

 Whatever do you think Mr. Brown will do? (Spoiler alert). Mr. Public meet Mr. Bullet.

Let's talk about second chances. Specifically let's talk about second chances for two Philadelphians; one by birth, one not, both bought, both cons. Vincent Fumo, the power and glory of gravey-stained South Philadelphia Democratic politics, is off to the pokey by the end of the month to serve a stretch in a federal pen for getting caught doing what his downtown kinsmen have done since the Latin phrase "quid pro quo" was Americanized to mean "wetting my beak." Fumo was Don Vincenzo accepting the obvious tribute, both offered and expected, from grateful subjects under his harsh yet benevolent reign. Fumo walked among princes, both elected and appointed, and proved himself to be the most Machiavelian among his political peers. He served his interests well.

Michael Vick was a kid from the low-slung housing project neighborhoods of North Philadelphia, except his neighborhood was located in the vague desperate sprawl of urban poverty found in Virginia's tidewater sewer towns. Vick grew up in a culture where it was acceptable to murder puppies as sport and to drop to the ground at the sound of a pop. Followed by, "Pop. . . pop, pop, pop!" Both men made millions. Both men were famous. Both men failed to learn the larger meaning of the millions or the fame or life before doing what they did to get themselves hauled off to jail, a fair trial, a guilty verdict and years in prison.

In this transition of Philadelphia's embarrassment from being the lifelong home of yet another corrupt politician to being the canine-killer rehab facility for NFL felons, the eyes and barks of America will be directed at us. Fumo will go away quietly (what with all the Xanax and Ambien he says he's addicted to) and be nothing more than a Pennsylvania curiosity. But all football season long America will be reminded that Michael Vick plays for the city of Philadelphia. I foresee shaggy costumed Santa's being pelted like snowballs by stuffed puppy dolls. I can already hear "Who Let The Dogs Out" blaring from the sound systems at away-game stadiums when Vick enters the game. I'm beginning to feel sorry for him -- and for us -- already. Which of course makes me mad. So now I'm rooting for Michael Vick to prove me wrong. You got a second chance, Michael, now earn it. As for you, Vince? No excuses. You went to the Prep, man. You let everyone down.