Posted 5:48 PM by Gene

A few months back the CEO (or whatever his title is) of Thomas Jefferson University had a tantrum. Jeff (as we locals call it, with some disgust) has turned a whole big thriving chunk of Center City into a dead zone with ugly brick boxes. (Ironic, too, for an institution named after an ARCHITECT, although evidently not that ironic.) Anyway, this tantrum -- and there was a tantrum -- probably involved hundreds of staffers (including the MARKETING DEPARTMENT if it has one, as I suspect it does) and lots of buzzwords, like BRANDING. The result was two glary signs atop a fine old Beaux Arts building opposite the Walnut Street Theatre, Philadelphia Electric's former HQ, now JEFF!!!!!'s HQ (it's called the Edison Building, but why it is not called the JEFFERSON!!!!! Building is beyond me). The signs remind me of how full of it EDDIE!!!!! is when he and like no-brains insist that HEALTH CARE!!!!! and EDUCATION!!!!! will save his precincts, forgetting that HEALTH CARE!!!!! and EDUCATION!!!!! are MOSTLY GOVERNMENT, and more HEALTH CARE!!!!! and EDUCATION!!!!! merely means a glorified welfare state. And Philadelphia has enough HEALTH CARE!!!!! and EDUCATION!!!!!

(Cropped from photo posted here. As someone wrote on that site, "While Jeff is rightfully regarded as one of the nation's best hospitals, something we can all be proud of, their conduct as an urban neighbor the last few years has not been such a point of pride." That's putting it mildly.)