Posts tagged Philadelphia

Creating Graffiti With Yarn - NYTimes.com

Stitching and bitching takes on a public dimension:

The bronze statue of Rocky near the Philadelphia Museum of Art irked Jessie Hemmons. She found the statue too big, too macho and too touristy, so last month Ms. Hemmons, a 24-year-old artist, bombed him. With pinkish yarn.

Using a stepladder and a needle, Ms. Hemmons stitched a fuchsia-colored hooded vest on the fictional boxer with the words “Go See the Art” emblazoned across the front, to prod tourists to visit the museum that so many skip after snapping their photo with the statue.

She calls the act of artistic vandalism “yarn bombing,” adapting a term for plastering an area with graffiti tags.

“Street art and graffiti are usually so male dominated,” Ms. Hemmons said. “Yarn bombing is more feminine. It’s like graffiti with grandma sweaters.”

Yo Adrienne! How about some matching shorts in Angora wool?

A tax on sugar

According to the Washington Post, the U.S. beverage industry is mounting an expensive campaign to derail local government proposals for a citywide soda tax, setting up a showdown between city grocers and health advocates over how best to curb childhood obesity rates.

Wikipedia defines a soda tax as:

A soda tax or soft drink tax is a tax or surcharge upon soft drinks. It may focus on sugar-sweetened beverages (soda sweetened with sugar, corn syrup, or other caloric sweeteners and other carbonated and uncarbonated drinks, and sports and energy drinks). As an example of Pigovian taxation, it may aim to discourage unhealthy diets and offset the economic costs of obesity.

If rolled out nationally, the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services reports that the tax could generate $14.9 billion in the first year alone. Similar proposals have surfaced - and are being contested - in Philadelphia and New York.

Learn more: