Opinion
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FeaturesTHE LOCAL LENS
A few years ago all hell broke loose when a group of Mummers, all Caucasian men, wore Native American headdresses. At that time I wrote, “Sometimes it's fun to worry…
Thom Nickels | 01/18/2016 -
FeaturesNew Paper, New Website: Same Quality News
If you’ve visited the Spirit News website before, you’ve probably noticed a few changes today. That’s because we just rolled out the newest version of the site to go along…
Matthew Albasi | 01/14/2016 -
FeaturesLetter From the Editor:
It’s been a while since a newspaper has been on these streets, but certainly not because of a lack or want or need. Today, that changes. Today, we begin The…
Matthew Albasi | 01/14/2016 -
Crime in KensingtonOPINION: What’s Holding Up the Investigation of Last Year’s SEPTA Cop Taser Incident
At around 2 AM on the morning of October 26th of last year, an unknown SEPTA police officer escorted Omar Lopez out of the closed elevated station at Huntingdon and…
Austin Nolen | 01/13/2016 -
FeaturesTHE LOCAL LENS
Throughout my recent travels to Israel with other journalists, one thing became apparent to me: most of the writers on the trip had food issues. I know people who are…
Thom Nickels | 01/11/2016 -
FeaturesTHE LOCAL LENS
When soon-to-be ex-Mayor Michael Nutter announced his desire to ban Donald Trump from the City of Philadelphia, he was jumping on a bandwagon. This “stoning” brigade of numerous mayors and…
Thom Nickels | 01/04/2016 -
FeaturesTHE LOCAL LENS
Israel’s Dead Sea is a tourist attraction on the level of Disney World or Universal Studios. In fact, when vehicles pulled up to our designated hotel, I was shocked at…
Thom Nickels | 12/22/2015 -
FeaturesTHE LOCAL LENS
There are no armed guards in Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion Airport, at least not on open display. Entering from the arrival terminal, the airport initially seemed smaller than other airports…
Thom Nickels | 12/14/2015 -
FeaturesTHE LOCAL LENS
For years I have heard stories about Key West, Florida. The island city, after all, is the land of Tennessee Williams and Ernest Hemingway. Hemingway, in fact, called Key West…
Thom Nickels | 11/06/2015 -
FeaturesThe Local Lens: The Rise and Fall of City Paper and the Philly Alt Weekly
On September 30th, Broad Street Media announced that it had acquired Philadelphia City Paper from SB New York, Inc., the publishers of Metro. As a result of the acquisition, City…
Thom Nickels | 10/16/2015 -
FeaturesThe Local Lens: Debut as a Public Nudist
As a journalist, I’ve covered a lot of strange events. Perhaps one of the strangest was in the late 1990s when I was asked by an editor to cover a…
Thom Nickels | 10/08/2015 -
Features in Port RichmondThe Local Lens – Sitting in on Service at St. Anne’s
Far from the excessive papal lockdown of Center City, with its fences and overkill road restrictions, the open doors of Saint Anne’s Church on East Lehigh Avenue welcomed a diverse…
Thom Nickels | 10/01/2015