I've got no dog in the fight, to be sure. But this is the image that sticks in my mind when I think of Philadelphia:
And at the risk of antagonizing the inhabitants, this video does little to alter my perception.
I've always wondered just what goes through the minds of people who profess to be great champions of liberty because they favor obscenity. I listen with bewilderment to artists like Anthrax and Eminem sing songs painting themselves as martyrs against the oppressive hand of The Man because they aren't allowed to use F-words on TV or the radio, apparently following from the theory that you should just shower kids with profanity and let them decide for themselves whether to be offended by it. Freedom, see. Same goes for porn and drugs and voting rights and murder. Any restrictions on any of these things in polite company is a mortal blow against liberty.
I realize I'm a trifle young to be shaking my cane at the kids on my lawn—and maybe I shouldn't be mouthing off immediately after again seeing the 50s as depicted in Back to the Future—but there's a difference between freedom and anarchy. Once upon a time, Philadelphia was the spiritual capital of that kind of intellectual distinction. Now names like Jefferson are invoked to urge people in that same city to wash their hands after they "do".
And I can't help but think that it might have done the world some good if having Chase Utley scream an F-bomb to a prime-time live audience of millions led to some kind of, you know, scandal or something—or caused the feed to cut to a test pattern, or prompted the MC to quickly usher him offstage, or provoked a boo or two from the throngs, or something. Not just indulgent lionization.