Total embarrassment to the city of Philadelphia. The writer, William Bunch, should apologize to the city of Charlotte on behalf of the 6 million people of the delaware valley. Will Philly ever get any class?

http://www.philly.com/mld/philly/news/local/7689362.htm

Hey Will Bunch : F.U.

What an idiot and how did this garbage get past the editors?

A year later, a year wiser (I hope) and I still can't figure out why people get upset about these kinds of articles.

You think the city gets a bad name over this? You're putting far too much stock into it.

I've lived in Wisconsin and near Dallas. When people asked me where I'm from and I told them near Philly, I wasn't confronted with seething hatred because our fans and a newspaper made fun of them before a football game. When the Eagles played one of their teams, they gave as good as they got, sometimes even nastier. After the game was over, I never heard about it again until the next time the teams played. It's just a part of sports.

Personally, I enjoyed the "Charlotte is so dull that the city's nickname is 'Charlotte.'" line. I don't even know why, but it made me chuckle.

That's great. My boss lives in Charlotte. I emailed him the link.

__________________
Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want and deserve to get it good and hard. - H.L. Mencken

Charlotte t'aint so great, but as someone who watches Nascar (and lives in Philly) it seems like this is all just sour grapes.

I wish the Eagles, and the city, good luck! As a Giants fan I'm happy with my season simply knowing that we got finally rid of Jim Fraudsel...

What strikes me is the childish nature of the article. It's almost bitter and sad. Why bother with making fun of Bad Charlotte? Pointing out the transient nature of both its professional sports teams and populace doesn't win the football game.

Sooooooo - Go EAGLES!!! Victory would not only be sweet, it would also hopefully eradicate the self-defeatist and defensive nature that *many* fans (and press members) here have adopted.

-G

Making fun of Charlotte is just as bad as the NYC or another bigger city press making fun of Philadelphia. It just pisses people off. I know these articles are nothing more than propoganda that really can't be taken seriously, but I fail to see how these articles do the city, the team, or the fans any good. All they do is reinforce people's perceptions of Philadelphia.

That was my point. If it was a clever well written good natured article I could enjoy it, but this was a bombastic dreadful mutilation of two pages of a major newspaper.

I know the Daily News is just trying to sell a few extra papers but that was flat out embarrassing.

Okay, I've actually stayed at Heritage USA...after it was converted into a regular hotel in Charlotte. Went there for a wedding and the motel the bride reserved was so bad and so loud we had to switch up. I kept wondering why there were crosses everywhere and religious programming on every channel. Additionally, the themepark was a bit odd. Luckily, my mom had an old AAA book in her purse, and looked it up. That's some good stuff.

Charlotte, upon my weekend stay, was yes, quite sleepy. However, if anyone saw the article a Toronto newspaper wrote on my hometown, Rochester, this is nothing. Additionally, I remember some slaying folks on this site did of Indianapolis. (To which I've never been...but the comments were funny.) Anyway, this article wasn't written very well--that's my gripe.

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Resident of Fishtown, Moderator of Fish/No. Libs/Kenzo forum, Real Estate Agent-Prudential Fox & Roach

Do those of you who have a problem with the article really think the Daily News feels that Charlotte is such a god forsaken place?

At what other times of the year does the DN devote an article pointing out the shortcomings of another city? To my recollection, it didn't happen in the past year, except when the Eagles played Atlanta and Tampa Bay last year. Maybe Miami near the end of the Phillies season, but I don't really remember one way or the other.

The fact is the article isn't serious. It's something for you to laugh at and gives you some tidbits to use against any Panthers fans you might know. Like skorah did e-mailing it to his boss. I would have loved the Green Bay edition last week if I wasn't out of town and missed it, because I know people in Wisconsin.

Do you really think people in Atlanta and Tampa Bay remember what the DN wrote last year? That when the city of Philadelphia comes up in conversation, people say, "Remember what those jerks wrote about us last year?!"?

Charlotte responds. My boss sent this to me today. I've posted it below as you'll have to register to read it. I can remove it if it's against policy.

http://www.charlotte.com/mld/charlot...rs/7696685.htm

COMMENTARY
Talking trash: Philly started it
TOM SORENSEN

Tom Sorensen

A thing that columnists do before the team from their city plays a big game against the team from another city is trash the city from which the other team comes.

I don't like to trash the other city until I run out of legitimate ideas, however. So I was hoping to save the Trash Philadelphia column until Thursday. But a columnist from Philadelphia, whose Eagles play Carolina for the NFC championship, already has trashed Charlotte. (Full column )

Will Bunch, columnist for the Philadelphia Daily News, ripped Charlotte for the same reasons everybody else does. We're bland, we're boring, we've got George Shinn, Rae Carruth and Tammy Faye Bakker, but no soul. "Actually, Shinn is just the latest in a long line of hypocrites to come out of Charlotte and the backward hinterlands that surround it," he writes.

I'd like to be nasty, too. One problem -- I like Philadelphia. Philadelphia is more a collection of neighborhoods than a big city, which ought to mean residents are less likely to feel anonymous and overwhelmed.

While covering the NBA playoffs in Philadelphia a few years ago, I stumbled upon, and later out of, a little neighborhood Italian joint in which everybody not only knew everybody but had grown up with everybody. We were the only outsiders. But instead of resenting us, they invited us into their circle. Good food, cheap wine, great conversation -- that's the Philadelphia experience with which I'm familiar.

Alas, Philadelphia, like most places, is not without flaws. People say the city is dirty.

To check, I went to the archives of Philly.com Monday and typed in CORRUPTION. In the last seven days, the city's two newspapers have run 35 stories that include the word. And it was a slow week.

On Oct. 7, two days after the Philadelphia Eagles beat the Washington Redskins, the mayor of Philadelphia found a listening device in his office. Who put the device there? The FBI. Why did the FBI put it there? It is investigating allegations of municipal corruption.

In most cities, this would be a huge deal. In Philadelphia, it's like going to the Italian neighborhood restaurant and saying, "Give me the usual." Lawyers are diligently working on the city's defense. Taxpayers are diligently being billed.

Philadelphia's Schuylkill Expressway is the worst road in the United States. The Pennsylvania Department of Transportation is the country's worst department of transportation. Drive by a crew and you'll see one guy working and 12 guys watching. You know what they call it when 11 guys watch and two guys work? Overtime.

Across the N.J. border from Philadelphia is Camden. If the mayor of Charlotte bet with the mayor of Philadelphia on the outcome of the game, and Charlotte put up a pound of barbecue and the mayor of Philadelphia put up Camden, Charlotte would say, "And what else?"

The next time somebody from Philadelphia rips Charlotte, all you have to do is invoke Derrick Coleman. After a two-season stint with the Philadelphia 76ers, the Charlotte Hornets signed Coleman in 1999.

Coleman is a tremendous talent, but he's lazy. He is lazier than he is talented. He allowed himself to become so out of shape here that he moved down the court like an ice floe. He divided the team, turning coach against players and management against coach. Finally realizing their mistake, the Hornets tried to shed him. But they were convinced they were stuck.

Inexplicably, Philadelphia agreed to take him. Take him? To acquire Coleman, the 76ers gave up hustling forward George Lynch. The day Coleman left town, two Charlotte Bojangles' Famous Chicken 'n Biscuits went out of business.

The spirit of knowledgeable 76ers' fans bottomed out. But stock for Tastykake, the calorie-laden Philadelphia treats, hit an all-time high. As long as Coleman, the player Charlotte rejected, stays in Philadelphia, Tastykake stock will soar. The 76ers will not.

Philadelphia is the city that, when building a stadium, tells the architect it will require a soft grass field, expansive hallways, plenty of restrooms, a spacious locker room for the home team, a decent locker room for the visitors and a jail.

When fans in other cities complain about an obstructed view, they're talking about a pole or pillar. In Philadelphia, they're talking about bars.

To their credit, Eagle fans stay longer at games at their stadium than Panthers fans do at theirs. But I attribute this to the leg irons.

__________________
Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want and deserve to get it good and hard. - H.L. Mencken

i's the Daily News for Pete's Sakes. is anyone really surprised?