John Fischer's Philadelphia
Vol. 1 - Number 47 - 09/24/99
Yesterday was a big news day in the city and the nation.
First off, Mayor Ed Rendell has been selected to serve as the chairman of the Democratic National Committee. In his first news conference, Rendell stressed the need for the Democratic Party to move forward in a positive fashion. "Forget partisanship and negativity", the mayor stated. He stressed the importance that the party put forth its own message rather than attack the message of the opposition.
If Rendell can bring just a touch of the civility to the national scene that he has brought to the City of Philadelphia, then we all become winners by this selection. Rendell will continue as Mayor of Philadelphia as well as maintain his leading role in many nonprofit and tourist related groups such as Millennium Philadelphia. His role in Philadelphia 2000, the host committee for the Republican convention next year becomes much more complicated with his new position.
After so much work with top state and national Republican leaders to bring the convention to Philadelphia, it is now unlikely that Rendell will have the opportunity to appear before that convention unless the Republican Party is also willing to heed Rendell's words to "forget partisanship".
It was also announced yesterday that Peco will be merging with Chicago's Unicom Corporation to form what will be the largest electric utility in the nation. Unfortunately, however, the headquarters for the new company will be in Chicago. Yet again, a major corporation in the city has been swallowed up by an out of state entity and another major local presence is removed. Can anyone say First Union or Conrail?
I suspect that this merger will prompt more people to take advantage of the electric choice option here in Pennsylvania. We may see more folks choose to hook up with a company headquartered closer to home. In the first year of the electric choice option relatively few people have chosen to switch from Peco. I suspect a large part of the reason for that is that in most things we all tend to stick with the familiar. We may now see that all change.
In an interesting Internet development, two of the nation's largest internet service providers, Mindspring and Earthlink, have agreed to merge to form a new company under the Earthlink brand name. The new company will create the second largest company providing access to the Internet second only to the juggernaught AOL.
Just a month ago, I was choosing a new ISP for myself and my final two choices were Mindspring and Earthlink. Now it appears I will get all of the benefits of both and still be able to retain my Mindspring e-mail address.
My advice to any of you who are accessing the net with a service other than a direct ISP is switch now. You will find your connection time quicker, you will surf the net faster and in the end you will be happier and you may also find that it's cheaper.
Well, that's my spin on things. What's yours? You can join me in our chat room almost every evening - Philly Chat - or drop me a note at philadelphia.guide@about.com. Also, be sure to check out our new Philadelphia Forum where you can share your comments and feelings, ask questions, post classifieds and much more
If you missed any of our recent columns you can still catch them:
John Fischer's
Philadelphia 09/07/99
John Fischer's Philadelphia 09/13/99
John Fischer's Philadelphia 09/16/99
John Fischer's Philadelphia 09/20/99
