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Serious Municipal Matters

I am probably in a minority, but I absolutely love the fact that Philadelphia mayor John Street camped out in line to get an iPhone today. As we all learned during the wiretap scandal four years ago, the man lives on his BlackBerry, and I think it’s great that he’s demonstrating that he can use the city’s wireless network to stay connected and do his job out in the field. Plus it gave citizens a chance to speak their mind – which many did, criticizing him for being in line when the city’s murder rate is so high and so forth.

I admit, I don’t get the criticism. If Street were in his office making phone calls and sending e-mails, would that somehow be better? Did Philadelphians think their mayor was patrolling the city himself? And for crying out loud, we have a governor who comes back from Harrisburg to Philadelphia for every Eagles game and then spends several hours on camera as a post-game analyst. These elected officials are allowed to have lives, so until someone points out a bit of city business that didn’t get done today, I don’t have a problem.

What I do have a problem with is the Inquirer’s headline. “Mayor on line to buy iPhone.” As my brother and I have said on many occasions – you don’t wait on a line, you wait in a line. Unless someone’s painted a line on the ground and told you to stay there, anyway. I’m willing to excuse this as a pun based on the iPhone’s net connectivity since the writers got it right within the article, but c’mon people. We have a linguistic heritage to stick with here.

About

Born and raised in Philadelphia. Studied philosophy at Fordham University in the Bronx, where I made many great friends and met my wonderful wife. We moved back to Philadelphia, where I studied philosophy some more and became a teacher. Online and off, I'm looking for ways that we can be better citizens and build stronger communities.

June 29, 2007 @ 11:33 pm
Culture and Media

2 Comments

  1. Ping from Earl Green:
    Monday, July 2nd 2007 at 4:31 am | 

    I’ve heard a lot about “waiting on line” for something, but I’ve only ever heard it from folks in the northeast. Are your lines two stories there, with people standing on top of other people? I am confused.

  2. Ping from Dave Thomer:
    Monday, July 2nd 2007 at 3:23 pm | 

    It was the bane of my existence while I lived in New York, let me tell you.