One of my favorite things about New York is the “Voice of the People” section (i.e., letters to the editor; see Saturday’s collection here) of the New York Daily News. Three words: Archie Bunker lives.

To be honest, missives from yours truly appeared in the “Voice of the People” section twice during my years in New York. In one letter I specifically mentioned how much I appreciated the feature because “I enjoy a little idiocy with my morning coffee.”

Yeah, yeah, we’re New York, we’re the center of the universe, blah, blah, blah, you can’t find anything like what we got here anyplace else.

Really? Try reading the letters to the editor published Monday through Saturday by one of my favorite (and I really mean that) newspapers in America: the Philadelphia Daily News.

The section has its cranky regulars, along with an abundance of correspondence from the incarcerated, and, now and again, some fairly sketchy letters -- almost always accusing the PDN of being “a liberal rag” -- from “readers” living in places like Lolo Hot Springs, Ida., Cheraw, S.C., and Hillsdale, Mich., none of whom, I’m willing to bet, has the paper dropped on his doorstep each morning.

Today’s Philadelphia Daily News, though, stands out for special mention, including as it does, a remarkably audacious expression of idiocy from one William Lattanzio of nearby Spring City, Pa.

Lattanzio writes, in a letter I unfortunately can’t find replicated at the PDN’s web site (Shame perhaps?):

I’m happy with the outrage at PGW’s billing policies. [Rittenhouse: The reference here is to Philadelphia Gas Works and I’ll spare you the background on it because it is neither interesting nor particularly earthshaking.] But PGW is just one problem out of [sic] many.

Welfare, Section 8 housing, access cards, etc., are all forms of Communism, plain and simple! Take from the people who are working and give it to the people who aren’t.

I did hear some good news. The [C]ensus [B]ureau says that by 2050[] whites will be a minority in America. Maybe then I’ll get a free ride, too.

Amazing, isn’t it? Idiocy, lunacy, totally dated John Birchism, erroneous punctuation, flawed capitalization, poor grammar, faulty diction, and to top it off: blatant, unabashed racism.

It would appear, at least to this self-professed Philadelphiaphile (a/k/a “Philaphile”) that this great city, in all its greatness, once again has exceeded the standards generally perceived to be set and maintained by New York.

Well, I just lost all interest in the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament, that when Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, Okla., defeated St. Joseph’s University, Philadelphia, 64-62, to reach the Final Four.

In the past I’ve thrown around a phrase I am both proud and not a little ashamed to say I myself coined: “If you want something done right, do it yourself. If you want something wrong, take it to Philadelphia.”

That aphorism, however, doesn’t apply here.

In fact, the opposite is true, because, really, if you want college basketball done right, you really should take it to Philadelphia, and more specifically, to St. Joe’s. At least that’s where you can see it done right.

What a game. The Hawks almost had it.

What a team. Real athletes, real students, real men.

And one helluva coach.

By the way, aren’t we all just a little sick and tired of Duke and Connecticut and Georgia Tech and Oklahoma State and Kansas? (Well, Kansas is a different case, because they always choke in the tournament.)

Thanks to the Philadelphia Inquirer’s Beth Gillin, I learned yesterday that Brini Maxwell, the retro home stylist whose program I used to watch regularly on public-access television in New York, now has her own show on the Style Network (the very existence of which I also learned from Gillin’s article), airing Friday nights at 10:00 p.m.

Truth be told, when I lived in New York I watched Brini’s program when I remembered it was on, and if I was actually at home, and if Lifetime wasn’t running one of their stock-in-trade terrible movies that I like so much. Similarly, I missed “The Brini Maxwell Show” last night, too. I meant to watch it, and now I can’t remember if I forgot it was on, or if I wasn’t home, or if Lifetime was running some masterful and memorable nouveau film noir featuring Joan Van Ark or Meredith Baxter.

I’m not sure Gillin will appreciate my saying this, but strangely enough she seems to be in her element while reporting about Maxwell and the new program. (“Retro Chick With Quite a Shtick.”)

Gillin writes:

On an outing in the city’s Chelsea neighborhood, she’s a vision of citrus hues in a vintage Bonnie Cashin jacket of lime, lemon, orange[,] and pink plaid, color-coordinated beaded earrings and flower pin, and severely pointed yellow shoes that, yes, hurt her feet. “But look at those kitten heels -- aren’t they adorable?” she asks. Her blond pageboy is perfectly arranged, her makeup understated.

So it seems almost rude to bring up the persistent reports that she’s not an actual woman, but a performer named Ben Sander. Brini sets the record straight.

“I am a woman,” she declares. “But the man who created me, isn’t.”

Now that was tastefully done, handled with aplomb even, and I mean by both Maxwell and Gillin.

See you next week, Brini.

[Post-publication addendum: For more on Brini Maxwell, see Edwin Drood. (Link thanks to Julia.)]

Yes, I know, it’s been a light week again here at Rittenhouse.

The lack of posts, for which I apologize, resulted primarily from technical difficulties.

First, since Wednesday I have experienced some consistently erratic behavior on the part of my PC (and the oxymoron there is intentional). My PC, God bless her, is now four years old. What is that in dog years? In human years? Regardless, don’t fail me now, Gertie!

Second, I continue to encounter recurring problems with Blogger’s software, a frustrating situation compounded by the inability of Blogger’s support staff to comprehend even the simplest of explanations of the template-related problems I relate to them, combined with their seemingly innate ability to brush off my concerns as misguided, ill-informed, and irrelevant.

I hope to resolve all of these issues by Monday.

Monday is the day.

Monday, March 29.

That’s the day by which one must be registered with commonwealth officials in order to vote in the upcoming Pennsylvania primary elections, including the presidential primary.

The date matters to me, at least a little, because I recently moved from one part of Philadelphia to another.

In order to vote in my new precinct, my change of address form must be received by local election officials by 5:00 p.m. on Monday, March 29, 2004.

Procrastinator that I am, I finally mailed the dopey form Friday morning. I think I’ll be okay. If not, I expect to be able to vote in my former precinct, the polling place for which is a mere eight blocks away.

Like it matters.

You see, March 29 is the deadline for registering to vote in the primary. The primary election will not be held until Tuesday, April 27.

That’s us . . . Pennsylvania.

Big. And irrelevant. By design or by default. And frankly, we’re not sure which.

Readers of Travel & Leisure and something called “AOL Travel” ranked Philadelphia dead last among 25 American cities ranked according to the appearance and stylishness of their residents.

So we’re ugly, huh?

And you may recall, we’re also fat, that according to Men’s Fitness magazine.

And as I’m sure you’ve heard, we’re mean, too. We, or at least some of us, recently ran MTV’s “Real World” out of town.

Though here’s some breaking news, just out on the wires: They’re coming back!

Speaking for myself, as a Philadelphian, I know I’m not fat. I’d like to think I’m not ugly. And I most definitely am not mean. Uh, wait. Strike that last one.

And I’m glad the producers of “Real World” changed their minds. It’s one heck of an opportunity to show the world we’re not fat or ugly, but for now, we’ll withhold a determination on that whole “mean” thing.

A lovely little item from “Page Six” of today’s New York Post about Courtney Love, that horrible piece of trash that just won’t burn:

[Kofi] Asare says he was heading into Wendy’s around 8 p.m. last Wednesday when he saw Love flashing her breasts at paparazzi outside. “All I wanted was some chicken nuggets,” Asare says. “I saw Miss Love flashing everyone. I had to push the envelope. I figured, ‘This is a once in a lifetime opportunity.’ She flashed me so I was like, ‘May I?’ She was cool with it. It wasn’t like I was trying to do anything to degrade her.”

Rest assured, Mr. Asare, you did not. At this point, Miss Love, as you call her, is simply no longer degradable.

For reasons known but not worth exploring or discussing here, at least now, my memory is failing badly. I’m not alone in that, at least when it comes to the general voting public, particularly diehards on the right, and politics.

And that’s why we should all be grateful for bloggers like Tim Dunlop of the Road to Surfdom for reminding us, or bringing to our attention, the fact that not so very long ago Secretary of State Colin Powell was confidently assuring Americans the invasion of Iraq was supported by “many . . . nations” that chose not to be publicly associated with the endeavor. (“The Coalition of the Silent,” I suppose.)

Each day, or most days, I read or at least scan many newspapers, and I’ve yet to see the connection Dunlop has made in any one of them.

Nice work, Tim.

When one sets up a wish list at Amazon.com one has the option or the ability to avoid seeing whether anyone has purchased something on one’s behalf.

Something about not spoiling the surprise and all.

I know I shouldn’t look, but occasionally I check, if only because, at heart, I’m still the little boy who can’t wait for Christmas morning. (Just ask my longsuffering parents.)

I sneaked a peak this evening, and all I can say is, “Wow!”

I’ve got four books and a DVD headed my way. I can’t wait, particularly since all of the purchased items are very much desired and needed.

When I first set up the Wish List I assumed I would never learn the identities of the givers. This was not correct. When the books or other merchandise arrive the giver and his or her address is provided, offering an opportunity for the recipient (that would be me), to send a tasteful and gracious thank-you note.

And I do, or I will, with respect both to gifts already sent and those on the way. (I’m running a little behind with my thank-you notes, including those related to gifts through PayPal.com, where, of course, donations are still and always needed and apreciated).

So, in advance, I say thank you. I love getting stuff in the mail; particularly stuff I really need, both for personal edification and for my growing collection of writing projects.

You people are the best.

Philadelphia-area residents interested in the ongoing issue of the estate tax, the repeal of which I might remind you is thoroughly reversible, are advised that Chuck Collins, co-founder of United for a Fair Economy and Responsible Wealth, and co-author, with Bill Gates Sr., of Wealth and Our Commonwealth, will be in the area on Sunday and Monday.

Collins will speak on Sunday, March 21, at 11:00 a.m., on “Wealth and Our Commonwealth: Why America Should Tax Accumulated Fortunes,” at the Philadelphia Ethical Society, 1906 S. Rittenhouse Square. Collins’s speech will explain the history, mythology, and policy of taxing inherited wealth in the U.S. and how changes in the nation’s tax laws have fostered and are encouraging economic inequality.

On Sunday afternoon, from 2:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m., also at the Philadelphia Ethical Society, Collins will be joined by UFE’s Dedrick Muhammad for a workshop on the growing wealth gap between whites and peoples of color in the U.S.

And on Monday, March 22, Collins will appear at White Dog Café (3420 Sansom St.), joined by Ed Schwartz, founder and president of the Institute for the Study of Civic Values and chairman of the Philadelphia Tax Reform Commission, for a “Table Talk” dinner and presentation, addressing the topic, “Shift, Shrink and Shaft: The Conservative Tax Agenda and What it Means for You.”

The cost for this event, which includes the speakers’ presentations and a discussion, along with a three-course dinner is $35.00 (tax and gratuity included). Senior citizens and full-time students will be charged $25.00 with advance notification to the White Dog Café. For reservations, call (215) 386-9224.

* “Screwing the middle and working class” are my words and not those of the UFE, Responsible Wealth, the Institute for the Study of Civic Values, the Philadelphia Tax Reform Commission, or the White Dog Café.

Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, responding to criticism of his January duck-hunting trip with Vice President Dick Cheney, today said in a written statement: “I never hunted in the same blind with the vice president. Nor was I alone with him at any time during the trip, except, perhaps, for instances so brief and unintentional that I would not recall them -- walking to or from a boat, perhaps, or going to or from dinner.”

Imagine that. Being alone with Mr. Number Two and not being able to remember a thing about it. Cheney must be some conversationalist.

And “unintentional.” That’s a nice touch. Sounds like Scalia was almost avoiding the not-all-that-vaguely creepy Cheney. Or maybe he just wants us to think he was.

Finally! An article about blogs and blogging in a major newspaper that manages to cover the subject intelligently and creatively, and even more important, without mentioning, not even once, any of the members of the gruesome threesome that have formed the nut graphs of hundreds of articles in the mainstream media: Glenn Reynolds, Mickey Kaus, and Andrew Sullivan.

Congratulations are in order for Beth Gillin of the Philadelphia Inquirer for writing what I long had assumed was the unwritable.

You’ll find Gillin’s article, “A Boom Time for Blogs and Bloggers,” in today’s paper.

I may have to give up this little gig. Tina Brown just isn’t giving me enough to work with.

Today’s column, “Granddaddies of Rock-and-Roll,” is launched, straight off the bat, as is Brown’s wont, by reference to a fashionable New York party.

This time it’s the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction party held Monday night “at New York’s Waldorf-Astoria.” (Isn’t that place, the Hall of Fame, I mean, in Cleveland?)

You weren’t invited? Not to worry. Brown helpfully notes, parenthetically, no less: it's “to be televised Sunday.”

The column reads like a giddy middle-aged woman’s diary entry. And like there were just like soooo many cool rock stars there, and they all like looked really cool, and it was like cool because I there.

In reference to Prince, Brown writes: “We loved him then because he was so seedy and weird, but in his last six years of hibernation the world has gotten so much seedier and weirder than he ever was.”

Sometimes, in her inanity, Brown nails it, as she did with that observation. Of course, that’s most likely to occur when she writes facing her vanity mirror.

Delimar Vera, the six-year-old Philadelphian who last week gained the world’s attention when she was returned to her natural mother, may be quite a kid, but the adults in her life, every single one of them apparently, are certainly a strange bunch.

Credit the Philadelphia Daily News for trying to sift through the mess surrounding Delimar’s disappearance and seemingly sudden return home, a story that failed the smell test here from the beginning.

Read “Odd Twists Mark Delimar’s Tale,” by Barbara Laker, Nicole Weisensee Egan, and Regina Medina, but do so with pen and paper in hand. You’ll need them to sort out the convoluted stories and intertwining relationships among this very odd collection of characters.

Do your ever use, or at least remember, the phrase, “POW”?

I mean that in the acronym’s less honorable or horrific sense, referring here not to “prisoner of war,” but rather to “piece of work,” as in, “My Aunt M. [or My Aunt A., fully interchangeable the two] is a real ‘POW.’”

Now where was I going with this?

Oh, I remember now.

Blogger.com.

This particular fly-by-night doesn’t exactly qualify as a POW, but instead falls into the category of POC, or “piece of crap” -- no offense, of course, to one of my favorite blogs, World O’ Crap -- this classification resulting from Blogger.com’s inability for more than 36 hours and counting to accept almost any changes whatsoever to the Rittenhouse template, including its maliciously truncated sidebar.

Tonight I feel as if I’m sharing a bonding moment with my two newest nieces, C. and P.

I’m experiencing a mild outbreak of impetigo, if you can believe it.

I know, I know, as the kids say, “T.M.I., Uncle Jim!” (That means “too much information,” for the hopelessly clueless.)

It’s okay, though. It’s made me feel young again.

Then I looked in the mirror and I saw about 12 gray shoots -- that’s what I call them, shoots -- growing, without prior authorization or any permission whatsoever, just above my eyes.

That made me feel old. But they’re gone now. And I feel sort of young again.

How’s this for multicultural diversity?

A local chamber music group, the Amerita Chamber Players, an ensemble sponsored by the America-Italy Society of Philadelphia and comprised of (note the surnames) Nancy Bean, Lloyd Smith, Michael Shahan, Davyd Booth, and Richard Woodhams, tonight performed in concert at Temple Beth Zion-Beth Israel.

The Italian part?

Oh, well, that was included in the program, which featured works by Giovanni Battista Buonamente, Marco Uccellini, Antonio Vivaldi, Giuseppe Sammartini, Lelio Colista, Antonio Caldara, and Tommaso Giordani.

This is, in my opinion, neither a bad thing nor a good thing, it’s just a thing, an interesting thing.

The group’s next performance is scheduled for April 28, also at Temple Beth Zion.

The other day I took a prescription to a national drugstore and pharmacy chain.

Price, all out of pocket of course: $74.99.

The price seemed high compared with what I recalled having paid at the little stand-alone pharmacy in my old neighborhood, but, my memory being rather unreliable, I thought perhaps I was making it all up in my head.

And so, to reassure myself and for future reference, I called the little stand-alone pharmacy in my old neighborhood and asked for a quote on the very same prescription.

$44.00.

“Life to the fullest,” the national chain says of itself.

I guess it all depends upon which side of the register you’re standing.

Look, unless you’re truly desperate and in dire and immediate need, don’t take your prescription just anywhere. Call around first.

I’m pleased to report I have a new job. No, it’s not a paying position, nor is it a full-time occupation -- though being the obsessive-compulsive type, who knows? -- but it’s still one I am eager to take on.

Recently I was asked to be the politics editor of the Journal of the Lincoln Heights Literary Society, a journal edited by Ginger Mayerson. (Mayerson may be familiar to Rittenhouse readers through her association with The Hackenblog.) I was honored by the invitation and I accepted it immediately and with appreciation.

The JLHLS is out with its third issue. The latest number includes: “Explorations in Rye: Searching for Miss Mapp,” by Kathryn L. Ramage; “A Visit with J.F. Elouardio,” by Maxwell Maxfield; “Orchard Two” and “Two-Loon Blessing,” by Geoff Fernald; “Domestika,” by Kathy LaFollett; “The Moon Asks a Tough Question,” by Mick Harrigan; “Don’t Panic!” by Kitty Johnson; “It’s in Your Head” (Part 2), by Donatella DelBono; “These Poets,” by Mick Harrigan; “Naked Flying Babes,” by Ginger Mayerson; and “An Interview with Brooke McEldowney,” also by Mayerson.

You can read the JLHLS online or download the latest and previous issues in Acrobat PDF format.

The Journal’s editorial policy and submission guidelines can be found here. The deadline for submissions for the next issue is July 1.

And just to prove how contemporary and savvy the LHLS and its journal are, they have their own blog: The Journal of the Lincoln Heights Literary Society Authors and Editors Weblog.

Just rolls off your tongue, doesn’t it?

Only kidding. It’s worth your time.

I hope you will join me in supporting the JLHLS.

The Rittenhouse Review is experiencing some bizarre Blogger.com-related problems. Hence the truncated sidebar at right. I’m working on it. I think they are too, but with Blogger, one never really knows.

The Philadelphia Inquirer today includes a special section on two of the city’s oldest neighborhoods, Old City and Society Hill, the latter being the area that recently became my new home.

Among the Inquirer’s articles about Society Hill:

“Society Hill Emerged Amid Tumultuous Times,” by Stephan Salisbury;

“Breaking Down the Boundaries,” by Linda K. Harris;

“House Hunters Buying Into Vitality, Amenities,” by Eiles Lotozo, because, as you know, in such special sections of newspapers and magazines there must always be a tired article about real estate and housing prices;

“Condos, Conversions Take Advantage of Rising Prices,” by Alan J. Heavens, because just one article about real estate is merely standard, a second moves the coverage into its own class of pornography, and that sells;

“Living and Breathing History on Blocks Where It Was Made,” by Howard Shapiro;

“Local African Americans Left Two Centuries of Landmarks,” by Murray Dubin;

“Historic, Hip -- and Homey,” by Julie Stoiber;

“Small-town Feel in the Big City,” also by Stoiber; and

“First a Field Trip, Now a Dream Fulfilled,” by multiple writers from the community.

Several readers have written to express concern or lament about the recent paucity of posts at Rittenhouse.

I apologize for that and I promise to do better.

I blame it on the house’s no-smoking-inside rule.

There are 44 steps from my third-floor bedroom to the main floor with its access to the garden.

(I know there are 44 steps because Mildred counted. And that wasn’t easy for her because she has but four fingers on each hand. Oh, excuse me, four claws on each paw, as one of her former veterinarians, Cindy Xanthopoulos, Chadds Ford, Pa., once disdainfully and condescendingly corrected me.)

I wrote more when I smoked more.

I don’t know if Inga Saffron, architecture critic for the Philadelphia Inquirer, is large and muscular or small and waiflike or something in between.

But I do know she writes some of the most simultaneously intelligent and accessible architectural criticism appearing in the general-interest media in America today.

And I also know she, no matter her size, can, with her bare hands, or at least with words alone, single-handedly yet figuratively demolish the disappointing, almost insulting, several-ton bronze sculpture by Glenna Goodacre known as the Irish Memorial at Penn’s Landing, located near the Delaware River in Philadelphia, into a pulp of peat and potatoes and other hackneyed symbols, a fate the trite and tired sculpture so poorly deserves.

How far we have come. And so fast.

The Associated Press reports:

Two ministers were charged with criminal offenses yesterday for marrying 13 gay couples in what is believed to be the first time in U.S. history that clergy members have been prosecuted for performing same-sex ceremonies.

District Attorney Donald Williams [of Ulster County, N.Y.] said marriage laws made no distinction between public officials and members of the clergy who preside over wedding ceremonies.

Unitarian Universalist ministers Kay Greenleaf and Dawn Sangrey were charged with multiple counts of solemnizing a marriage without a license, the same charges leveled against New Paltz Mayor Jason West, who last month drew the state into the widening national debate over same-sex unions. The charges carry a fine of $25 to $500 or up to two years in jail. […]

Williams said he decided to press charges because the marriages were “drastically different” from religious ceremonies since Greenleaf and Sangrey publicly said they considered them civil. Some Unitarian ministers, Greenleaf included, were performing ceremonies for gay couples before the issue entered the national debate.

So is this what it’s come to? Arresting the clergy? Can anyone but the most fringy of the fringistas be pleased by such a development?

Many Americans, both black and white, object to parallels between the efforts of gays and people of color to achieve full civil rights (e.g., “Comparison is Wrong,” a letter to the editor of the Philadelphia Inquirer by John A. Teets, Horsham, Pa.), but before long there will be no denying the obvious.

The battle to ban, block, and prevent gay marriage has yet to find its very own Bull Connor or Lester Maddox, but it’s not for lack of trying on the part of scores of aspirants, including Rep. Marilyn Musgrave (R-Colo.).

Musgrave, by the way, continues to write to me regularly. No, she’s not seeking a dialogue, she’s just asking for money.