Like Stanley Milgram and Phineas Gage, Kitty Genovese is a key name in the field of psychology. The story of her widely-witnessed, unreported rape and murder came to define what’s called the bystander effect — the phenomenon of group apathy or paralysis in the face of a disaster.

Early Sunday morning, I, along with dozens of other drunken idiots outside Zee Bar, fell victim to the bystander effect. And if my story is less gruesome than Genovese’s, it’s as troubling and disheartening.

It started when I got kicked out of the club and into the street, where a crowd had already gathered. Two girls were alternately shoving and straddling each other, to the soundtrack of much hooting and hollering. These girls were young and well-dressed — they could have been Penn students were they less attractive. Two guys, clearly Zee Bar veterans, were catching all the action on a high-end video camera.

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All the hullabaloo about Philly being the sixth borough has mostly died down, but apparently there are still New Yorkers relocating to Philly in droves (including Pressler herself).

According to a recent article in The New York Observer, 8,334 New Yorkers have moved to Philly since 2001. Not including me, that’s still 8,333 southbound souls.

While that’s only about 0.1% of New York’s population overall, 8000+ transplants are more than enough to keep the “Chinese bus” in business and the demand for Tacconelli’s strong.

And to think, I fancied myself unique.

Why the mass migration? And — more importantly, for those of us who favor a little competition: which city wins?

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I’ve always pondered the lives of journalists. Most of the time, I’m envious of their world travels, their intimacy with countless subjects and their dogged spirit. Other times… well, not so much.

Case in point: I just read a story about a prank at a Philly high school involving dozens of chickens and even more chicken feces. Over the weekend, apparently, a crafty student sneaked countless hens and roosters into the school’s halls and abandoned them until their discovery early yesterday morning. The result? Hilarity, school cancellation and one big steaming pile of soft news. (Among other big steaming piles.)

But I feel bad for any journalist who had to cover the prank. This is the kind of story where some up-and-coming AP reporter gets a call around 6 a.m. about “school crime in Philly.” In his mind, this could be the story that makes his career. He gets excited, puts on his best I-make-less-than-you-but-know-a-lot-more clothes, runs outside to hail a taxi and tells the cabbie to “make it there before those Reuters bastards.”

Then he gets to the scene and almost immediately steps in chicken shit.

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With Valentine’s Day fast approaching, you might be thinking about about where to take your SO, or just where to wine and dine the person who happens to be on your arm for the night.

I probably don’t know you, so I can’t make any great recommendations. But — with the help of Philadelphia’s restaurant inspectors — I can prepare you for the night in a way that Hitch never could.

(Warning: Please stop reading now if you’re squeamish at the thought of a fly in your soup, because that will be the least of your concerns. )

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You know what the “Ride the Ducks!” tour is, right? It’s that ugly neon-colored boat on wheels crammed full of drunk tourists and their neglected children. The one that haunts Independence Hall and the surrounding area. The one where everyone gets this irritating plastic quacker and uses it like it’s their last day on earth.

It’s something I always figured was an annoying but inevitable part of the city’s landscape, like our excess of LOVE statues or our affinity for gun violence. But Walt Sherman thinks differently. He thinks he can bring real change. That’s why he’s made this video:

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There’s nothing quite like a fair weather fan.

I met a bunch of ‘em last night, all in the form of “Giants fans.” Some were from New York, others from Jersey. Some just wanted to see the underdog win. And some were on TV, like all those celebrities at the Super Bowl — among them Pamela Anderson and her own impressive giants.

Even last Tuesday I met a couple of fair weather fans. They called themselves “McCain supporters” after quickly switching candidates when Giuliani failed to win in Florida — where a campaign is less “Vote or Die” and more “Vote Before You Die.” So I’ve seen questionable allegiances everywhere in the last week, in politics and pigskin alike.

But this is not one of those rants against the fair weather fan. I’m from Chicago, so I understand what it’s like. Every summer I cheer for the White Sox or Cubs depending on who’s above .500 (so I usually end up rooting for neither). It’s far too convenient a practice to ever criticize.

What gets me, then, is that this campus is chock full of fair weather fans but absolutely barren of true Quaker fans. I think I might know why.

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Hideous but universally loved mascot Phillie Phanatic has gone through some rough patches over his career. There was the Tommy Lasorda assault in 1988. Then the Phanatic literally lost his head in 2004. But now, as Philadelphia Will Do reports, the Phillies’ mascot has reached a new low.

That’s right, it’s Phunky Phanatic Phriday on CBS 3!

Warning: watching this video will instantly transport you to the worst parts of the early nineties.

It’s not every day you see those sweatpants traded in for tailored suits and shoulder pads.

Last week, as I watched students march down Walnut in appropriate business attire, I wondered how soon they (you?) would be making more money than our fine new mayor.

How much does Nutter make? That’s public information: $186,044.

Depending on who you are, you might be wowed or seriously underwhelmed by that number. But if I may offer the moderately knowledgeable opinion of a Regular Working Person: that is a relatively measly sum for someone with what is — almost inarguably — one of the most difficult jobs in the county.

The catch, of course, is that salaries are in no way decided by how hard a job is — assuming such a thing can even be measured. (Imagine: seventh grade teachers and coal miners would be buying homes in Greenwich and summering in Tuscany.)

Of course there’s nothing easy about the 80-hour weeks recent grads put in at i-banks. But — upon graduation — Wharton undergraduates command an average starting salary of $108,509 (that’s base salary + signing bonus + annual bonus). 100 grand!

Pardon me while I peel my jaw up off the floor.

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Last Friday, a teen sex scandal hit Allentown, PA involving two girls, one cell phone.

The girls, 14 and 17, are students at Parkland High School, and the cell phone was used to take photos of both in pornographic poses. The images were subsequently spread via text message to approximately 40 Parkland students and then to the “wider world.”

Those are just the facts. I’ll pause for a second so you can laugh, cry or call your Allentown-area little sister to make sure she’s just a recipient.

But moving on, this story disappointed me for a few reasons. The first is that it reinforces the voyeuristic nature of adolescents, something we’re all too familiar with here at Penn. You probably remember about two years back, when an Engineering student posted photos on the Internet of two students having sex by an open window in the high rises (in the process redefining the term “glass blowing“).

This high school porn outrage isn’t much different, and both stories prove our incessant need to study biology outside the classroom. One Parkland student even created a Facebook group (”Parkland…Where Porn Stars Are Born”) to canonize the event. Good luck on internships, kid.

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“This is America. When ordering, speak English.”

So reads the now-infamous sign in the takeout window at Geno’s Steaks, where you used to be able to order a cheesesteak without a side of backwards politics. The sign — probably offensive and definitely stupid (after all: if you can read the sign, you can probably speak English) — led to a June 2006 civil rights complaint from the Philadelphia Human Relations Commission.

That’s all old news — or so I’d hope. Philly certainly doesn’t need anymore bad PR, especially when it doesn’t even represent the dominant attitude on the ground. But the Commission’s glacial pace has dragged this ordeal out for well over a year now, and — in lieu of either punishment or closure for Geno’s owner Joey Vento — they have provided instead a year of free publicity and a national spotlight. While the original sign was only seen by Geno’s patrons, images of it now appear all over the internet.

Xenophobic conservatives across the country have rallied behind Mr. Vento, labeling the City’s complaint as persecution and even going so far as to dub him a folk hero.

Yikes.

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