April 2008

Obama has admitted to being the underdog in what has become a showdown between the candidates and the Clinton campaign is jumping on that to undermine Obama’s “electability.” 

 

“I’m not predicting a win,” Obama said in a morning radio interview with KDKA-AM radio in Pittsburgh. “I’m predicting that it’s going to be close and that we are going to do a lot better than people expect.” 

 

With the beautiful weather and voting polls packed today in Center City, only time will tell.

Alia Sabur is 19 years old and is becoming the youngest person in world history to be a university professor. She will be teaching at Seoul’s Konkuk University as a full-time professor in the Graduate School Department of Advanced Technology Fusion.

Sabur is recognized as the youngest professor in history by the Guinness Book of World Records. Sabur broke the record set in 1717 by Colin Maclaurin, a Scottish mathematician and close friend of Isaac Newton, who became a professor at age 19.

Sabur went to college after 4th grade, earning a B.S. in Applied Mathematics from Stony Brook University at the age of 14. She earned her MS and PhD in Materials Science and Engineering from Drexel.

Click here to see the full article. Photo courtesy of Korea.net.

There will be a five-act concert for Drexel students this weekend at the Philadelphia Armory on our campus, in support of Earth Day. In order to gain admission, students must bring two aluminum, glass, or plastic bottles to the armory to be recycled.

The concert is being put on by Drexel’s Sierra Club and caps off multiple activities on campus for Earth Day 2008.

The five acts performing are Breaking the Silence, Drop Collective, Leiana, Matt Duke and Papa Midnight. The concert will be at the armory on Saturday, 4/26, with the doors opening at 6:30pm and the show starting at 7pm.

Picture is of Breaking the Silence, courtesy of their MySpace Page.

An article on KYW1060.com is reporting that students at at least nine Pennyslvania college campuses are going to be wearing empty holsters this week to classes, in order to protest concealed weapons bans at schools.

Jeremy Clark of Bethlehem, and a Villanova Law School student finishing up his second year, is one of about ten Villanova students taking part in the “Empty Holster Protest.”

Clark explains that there are two reasons he is supporting the protest: “First, is to raise awareness and dispel a lot of myths about concealed carry and to show people that concelead carry actually helps reduce crime. The second goal is to get states and school administrators to change their policies.” Clark, however, doesn’t have much hope that Villanova will change its no-concealed weapons policy in the near future.

Photo courtesy of KYW1060.com.

On May 5, the ability to use single-stream recycling, putting all of the recyclables in one container, will expand to 150,000 homes in North and lower Northeast Philadelphia, according to a Philadelphia Inquirer article. Once this is completed, only about 80,000 homes in the entire city will not have single-stream, but they will be added in July, according to the Street’s Department.

Before the single-stream programs began two years ago, the city only recycled about 5.5% of their waste, one of the lowest rates nationwide for large cities. The rate is now approaching 8%, with the goal to reach 18%, which is the national average. The tonnage of recycled items has increased 35%, and while the city pays $62 to send a ton of trash to the landfill, it can sell the recyclables for $37 a ton.

After the remaining neighborhoods get single-stream recycling in the next 3 months, the next goals will be to convert neighborhoods which get recyclables picked up every two weeks changed to be get them picked up every week, starting in January 2009. This includes Powelton Village and all of University City, in West Philadelphia.

Photo courtesy of CleanWaterAction.org.

The PhillyNews.com blog is reporting that the Philly Pretzel Factory will be giving away three free pretzels to everyone who goes to one of their 90 locations.

The company is expecting to use about 20,000 pounds of flour for the nearly 100,000 pretzels it expects to give away on National Pretzel Day, as they are calling it.

The polls have officially opened for the 2008 Pa. Primary and only one will stand at the end of the night.  Will it be Clinton or Obama?

Turnout at the Pennsylvania polls is expected to shatter all previous records as voters cast their ballots in today’s primary elections, according to The Philadelphia Inquirer.

The latest polls have shown Obama ahead of Clinton 2-1, but now it is up to the voters…

It’s your turn to decide.

According to a flyer distributed by the Powelton Village Civic Association (PVCA), there will be a meeting on Monday, April 21st at 7:30pm in the Community Education Center at 3500 Lancaster Avenue to discuss parking changes.

The PVCA is proposing sending a plan to the Philadelphia Parking Authority (PPA) that would suggest changing all of the residential permit street parking spaces (with two hour time limits) to be changed to 8:00am - 8:00pm. This would allow for more turn-over of the parking spaces with non-permit parkers having to move.

The meeting on Monday will take place during the PVCA Membership meeting, but it is open to everyone. There will be PPA members present and a vote at the end to decide if these recommendations should be put into place. See the PDF of the flyer below for exact street information.

PVCA Flyer
Photo courtesy of WPClipart.

Chelsea Clinton will visit Drexel’s College of Law today at 3:45 p.m.  The event will be open to Drexel CoL students only because of space limitations, Sarah Greenblatt CoL spokeswoman said.

From the Clinton Campaign: