Contact sheet of “Everyone is Photogenic” Test Run / Photos by JJ Tiziou.

Stand in line at your local pharmacy and you’ll see the message loud and clear: your beauty is only worth the skin you’re in. It’s a message displayed between the lines of bright and bold typography—insistent typeface meant to catch your attention.

The messages we receive about how beauty’s defined—and what defines it—are a daily part of our lives. The way we regard ourselves is evidence of that.

But for West Philly photographer Jacques-Jean “JJ” Tiziou, there’s another epistle that should be shared—one that, if held with the same earnestness as it envisages, could dismantle superficial beauty standards.

That message? “Everyone is photogenic.”  Continue Reading

Photo courtesy of Partnership for the Delaware Estuary/Flickr

She’s a furry bouncing ball of shih tzu energy that tears up your favorite jacket for fun. He’s a cranky little bulldog sweetheart who plops on the couch while watching TV.

Don’t lie: your pooch is the apple of your eye, warts and all. But does your zany best friend have the chomps to take a bite out of pollution and serve as the Philadelphia Water Department’s 2013 Philly Water’s Best Friend Spokesdog? The Water Department is currently looking for two dogs from University City and Filter Square, respectively, to represent the city as ambassadors for “living the eco-friendly dog life.” West Philly dog owners who think their canine has what it takes have until May 31 to enter their sweet ol’ pup into this year’s competition, which will focus on Schuylkill River cleanup efforts.

The winning dogs will be chosen at a judged pageant-style community competition, and receive a $200 gift to a local business, toy and cookie prize pack, and have their adorable face gracing promotional materials. As a Philly Water’s Best Friend spokesanimal, the winning dogs and their caretakers will be required to attend at least three community affairs in 2013-2014, and distribute information on the importance of picking up pet waste.

The Water Department has crowned four spokesdogs in East Falls, Northern Liberties, Queen Village, Manayunk and Roxborough since 2011. Last year’s competition drew over 7,000 voters for more than 50 doggie candidates.

For rules and registration, visit http://phillywatersheds.org/spokesdog/. Program sponsors include the Friends of Schuylkill River Park, Partnership for the Delaware Estuary, Philadelphia Water Department, Powelton Village Civic Association, and Schuylkill Banks.

– Annamarya Scaccia

These middle-aged sweethearts have a lot to offer their prospective new families, including: the promise to catch on to housebreaking quickly, the ability to recognize the difference between their toys and your shoes with just a little guidance and most importantly, unconditional love and gratitude for saving them!

Pete is a 5-10 year old American Bulldog mix who was surrendered to the shelter because his owner fell ill and could no longer care for a pet. Pete isn’t letting his new life in the shelter phase him too much, mainly because he’s getting lots of attention from his new staff and volunteer friends. Pete is a big, tall guy, weighing around 80 pounds, but it appears as though his big, kissable head accounts for a fair amount of that weight.

Pete has quickly become a favorite at the shelter because of his low-key, easy-peasy demeanor. Despite his size, he’s pretty easy on the leash. While he loves to spend time with his human friends, Pete also did well when meeting other dogs at the shelter. He was tolerant of pushy, goofy play styles and was comfortable spending time with other low-key dogs as well. Pete has reportedly lived with other dogs AND cats in his past home. He’d be a great addition to any family looking for a big, easy-going companion. Interested in meeting him? Grab your resident dogs and stop by!

If you you searching for a sweet easygoing dog who is past all that “puppy” nonsense then Nikol is your girl. She is a full-figured, middle-aged girl who is looking for love and a forever family. She’s a low-key sweetheart who would enjoy curling up with you on the sofa on a cold day, or hanging outside with you enjoying the sunshine.

Nikol very much enjoys going for long walks to explore the great outdoors! She loves attention and will let you pet her for as long as you are willing. She is also very tolerant of her penpals putting her in costumes. Come meet her and maybe you will fall in love with her just like her volunteer friends. Bring the whole family, including any children and resident dog(s), if you have them at home already, so everyone can meet her at the same time to see if she is the right match to be a part of your family.

Interested in fostering or adopting one of these great dogs? They are currently residing at ACCT Philly located at 111 W. Hunting Park Avenue. For more information, click here: http://www.acctphilly.org/.

A statistics-powered website launched today that ranks schools in the city. Its creators hope it will help parents navigate the often puzzling enrollment process.

Endorsed by the District, GreatPhillySchools.org allows anyone with Internet access to enter the name of a school, the name of a neighborhood, a grade level or a zip code to see how schools compare.The site scores public, charter and Catholic schools.

The site’s calculations factor in academics (math and reading proficiency and standardized test scores), attendance, safety (based on the number of disciplinary incidents reported per student) and number of college-bound students (for high schools). These are combined together to place the school on a scale of 1 though 10. The website accessed several data sources, including PSSA scores, attendance records and grade point averages, to make the calculations.

For what it’s worth, West Philly’s Penn Alexander School (4209 Spruce St.) was the only neighborhood elementary school to score 10 out of 10.

GreatPhillySchools.org also includes statistical and demographic data on most schools that is available elsewhere online, but often hard to find.

The Philadelphia School Partnership, a philanthropic organization that raises money for schools in the city, the Public School Notebook and the Urban Affairs Coalition collaborated to build and maintain the site. Mayor Michael Nutter and Superintendent William Hite officially launched the site today during a ceremony at the Shepard Recreation Center (57th and Haverford).

H/T – The Philadelphia Public School Notebook and Newsworks.

Though West Philadelphia has long been on the forefront of the Philadelphia food justice movement that aims to obtain what we eat from local sources and/or sources that pay the producers fairly, the same cannot be said for what West Philly folks read. In the past three years, West Philadelphians, especially the academic communities of the University of Pennsylvania and Drexel University that have traditionally supported local booksellers, have been steadily and increasingly turning away from them in favor of Amazon.com.

Obviously, we’re not alone. The national market for books has been utterly transformed since Amazon came onto the scene in 1996. According to 2011 research done by Albert Greco, a Fordham University marketing professor who studies book retailing, Amazon has 22.6% of the book market — ahead of Barnes & Noble (17.3%), Borders (8.1%), Books-A-Million (3%) and independents (6%) with the remainder of the market going to various other non-book based retailers including price clubs, supermarkets, and convenience stores.

Full disclosure: I work at a local independent West Philadelphia bookstore, Penn Book Center (not to be confused with the Barnes and Noble, Penn Bookstore). Thanks to Penn and Drexel professors who choose to stock their required course texts at an independent bookstore, each September and January the PBC fills up with student customers excited to purchase their coursebooks. But the store also fills up with other students squatting in the aisles with iPods, droids, laptops, or just pen and paper in hand, with no intention to purchase books, but rather to copy down the ISBN numbers so that they can go purchase the books on Amazon.

The explanation I hear most frequently from these students is that Amazon is simply cheaper, a huge factor especially for students who are demanded to buy large quantities of expensive textbooks. The explanation I hear most often from my friends and peers who opt for Amazon—young professionals who are book lovers of varying levels—is that Amazon is also convenient, allowing exceedingly busy people who can’t make it to a bookstore during business hours to shop efficiently.

The parallel to the local food movement raised at the beginning of this piece becomes relevant here: these are precisely the points of resistance that local food activists face in trying to create and nurture systems of connecting West Philadelphians with locally and fairly grown food. It may be faster, more convenient, and slightly cheaper to buy a burger at McDonalds on 40th & Walnut or Checkers on 48th & Lancaster than it is to buy the necessary component ingredients at Mariposa Food Co-Op (even when subbing tofu or veggie burger for beef), but a growing number of West Philadelphians would agree that it is “worth it” to do so. During my recent new member orientation at Mariposa, I got educated on the historical context of the move towards food cooperatives and the history of West Philly residents’ commitment to food justice. We talked about what it meant to be a co-op member and how it was an investment in the community of West Philadelphia.

Yet, when it comes to books, perhaps many of us know it’s vaguely bad to purchase them from the multinational corporation that is Amazon, but could any of us really articulate why it’s “worth it” to buy books locally?

Here are three big reasons:

1) Amazon is steadily and systematically driving down the cost (read value) of books, a trend that will dramatically affect what books publishers are able to offer us, as readers. Selling books at deeply discounted prices often means that Amazon itself is taking a loss on book sales, figuring it will recoup this money through the sales generated when that book customer becomes an electronics or music or clothing customer. Amazon recently declared they would sell all ebooks for $9.99 regardless of publisher’s costs, effectively setting a hard price ceiling. Says Teresa Nielsen Hayde, an editor at Tor Books (an imprint of Macmillan), this price fixing in print and ebook publishing has taken a “shark-sized bite out of the market for hot new bestsellers, which is trade book publishing’s single most profitable area. That revenue source is what keeps a lot of publishing companies afloat. It provides the liquidity that enables them to buy and publish smaller and less commercially secure titles: odd books, books by unknown writers, books with limited but enthusiastic audiences, et cetera.” The result, she says, is “fewer and less diverse titles overall, published less well than they are now.”

2) Spending money in our local Philadelphia community puts money back into our local economy. No, really. The owners of West Philadelphia bookstores, House of Our Own (Debbie Sanford), The Last Word (Larry Maltz), and Bindlestiffs (Alexis Buss) are all West Philadelphia residents. Penn Book Center owners Michael Rowe and Ashley Montague are Philadelphia residents who employ almost all West Philadelphia staff. Spending a dollar at one of these local stores means they will then spend that dollar at the hardware store, or the grocery store, or on rent to their West Philly landlords, meaning the money changes hands several times within our community before it leaves. A dollar spent at Amazon supports nothing but Amazon.

3) Our local stores can do everything Amazon can do, sometimes for not much more, sometimes for less. Want a good used book of a common title for a class? The Last Word is truly a used book mecca. Want a rare, out of print, or just a not commonly available title? Penn Book Center will order it for you. And just like produce can sometimes be cheaper at Mariposa than at Fresh Grocer (whereas cereal certainly is not), it’s worth thinking critically about the different types of books you’re looking for and where it makes sense to get them from. House of Our Own and Penn Book Center, as they operate on independent business models set by different people with different wisdom, are sometimes able to offer better deals on packaged coursebooks and/or commonly used paperbacks than is Amazon.

As of February 18th, 2012, Mariposa Food Co-op has 1,225 members and counting.

Imagine if 1,225 West Philadelphians joined together in intentional commitment to buying books from local vendors at fair market prices? Imagine what kind of statement that would make about us as a neighborhood, about us as an intellectual community that values the service that print publishing houses provide and the life-changing creative work that writers offer. That’s a community I’d like to live in.

– Emma Eisenberg

Reader Lisa has written to us expressing her concern about the increasing number of dogs without leashes in our area. She wrote:

“I’ve been noticing more and more people walking their dogs without leashes. Inside the bowl at Clark Park is an accepted location, but I’m talking about up on the sidewalk, in the north section of the park, and around the neighborhood. I am afraid this is a bad trend, and something bad is going to happen. My dog does not like when other dogs run up to him, even if they are friendly, so we stay out of the bowl. Today I had to leave the park altogether because two large dogs were roaming the sidewalks quite a distance from their apparent owners. How do I know if they are friendly or not, or how close I can get without them trying to meet my dog, or if they will run immediately to their owners if called? There are plenty of children (and adults) who are not fond of dogs either. It is likely that off-leash dogs make them uncomfortable also.

I’m sure the owners think their dogs are perfectly trained, always friendly, and thus special and safe enough to disobey the law. Many may be right, but certainly there are exceptions. Is it really fair to ask me to assume that any off-leash dog must be friendly and safe just because the owner obviously thinks it is? Can a parent be expected to promise their child that the 80 pound dog down the street is not going to run up to her? Everyone has the right to feel safe. That is the point of the leash law. I’m glad owners of social dogs have the bowl to let their animals run, but that should be the only place. What can we do? Post more leash law signs? Ask the police to give out tickets for a while? Or will a few good dog fights or bitten children solve the problem?”

Lisa adds that she does NOT want law enforcement to ticket dogs that are off-leash.  Also, with the number of dogs, it is remarkable how rarely we see missed droppings in the neighborhood.  The community is generally good at that.  However, she does not want “a few overconfident people to mess things up.”