Snow is coming, Rocky is moving, and Philly is unimpressed | Weekly Report Card

This is a solution in search of a problem.

Rocky already has a perfectly good spot. People find it. They take photos. They run the steps. They leave happy. The city gets its tourism moment without blocking views, rerouting pedestrians, or turning the top of the Art Museum steps into a permanent selfie bottleneck.

Moving the statue to the top isn’t about improving the experience — it’s about maximizing it. More drama. More branding. More spectacle. And, quietly, more privatization of space that used to just be… there.

That’s the part that grates. The Art Museum grounds have been slowly filling up with things that make sense individually — pop-ups, shops, events, installations — but collectively start to feel like you need a reason, a ticket, or a purchase to exist there. Rocky at the top isn’t just a statue move; it’s another inch taken from a public place that worked fine as-is.

There’s also the price tag. Spending up to a quarter-million dollars to relocate a movie prop in a city that can’t reliably maintain sidewalks or fund its parks feels, at best, tone-deaf. At worst, it sends the message that the view matters more than access.

Rocky is supposed to represent the everyman. Putting him on a pedestal, literally, kind of misses the point.

Leave him where he is. Let the steps belong to everyone.

The snow itself? Gorgeous. Magical. Instagrammable. The Wissahickon is about to look like a snow globe and for about 12 minutes, we will all pretend winter is charming.

The problem is everything that comes with it.

The grocery stores are already stripped bare like a snowstorm personally offended them. Bread is gone. Milk is gone. Eggs are gone. Somehow the rotisserie chickens are gone. People who have never once made French toast are suddenly preparing for a weeklong siege.

Then there’s the shoveling. The bending. The freezing. The part where you convince yourself it won’t be that bad and then immediately regret every life choice once your boots hit the sidewalk. And that’s before you remember some forecasts are floating numbers as high as 17 inches.

Group chats will fill with radar screenshots and passive-aggressive optimism. “Let’s see how it looks Sunday morning,” someone will say, knowing full well no one is leaving the house.

And yes, we’re all rooting for the plows. We always do. We say their names like prayers. We lower our expectations just enough to avoid heartbreak, but not enough to stop hoping.

An F because while snow may be pretty, it is also disruptive, exhausting, and a logistical nightmare that turns adults into meteorologists and grocery shoppers into survivalists. Enjoy the view. Then grab a shovel.

Every January, right on schedule, PETA shows up with a new proposal to fix Groundhog Day. And every January, Pennsylvania responds with the same energy it reserves for people who suggest putting ketchup on a cheesesteak.

This year’s idea: Retire Punxsutawney Phil to a sanctuary and replace him with a massive, color-changing 3D hologram. A digital marmot. A Bluetooth rodent. Phil, but make it Coachella.

The problem isn’t animal welfare — it’s that Groundhog Day is not a TED Talk. It’s a pre-dawn ritual involving cold fingers, bad coffee, and a collective agreement to believe in something deeply unserious. Turning Phil into a hologram misses the point entirely. If people wanted a clean, efficient, high-tech weather forecast, they would simply look at their phones and go back to bed.

The most Pennsylvania response came from Josh Shapiro, who posted a photo of Phil with “DON’T TREAD ON ME,” effectively summarizing the state constitution in four words. This is not a debate about projections versus puppets. It’s about tradition versus disruption, and Pennsylvania will pick tradition every time, even when it makes no sense.

This one landed like finding out you’ve been calling a close friend by the wrong nickname for years… not out of malice, just momentum.

At his introductory news conference with the Boston Red Sox, Ranger Suárez casually mentioned that his name is traditionally pronounced “Rahn-HER.” Then, like the polite king he is, immediately added that “RAYN-jurr” is fine too.

Record scratch.

Because Philly didn’t just like Ranger Suárez. Philly loved him. He was homegrown. Trusted. October-tested. His walk-up song was literally “Mr. Rager.” We chanted it. We printed it. We built a whole vibe around it. And somehow, in all that time, nobody stopped to say, “Hey, by the way, is this right?”

The funny part is that this revelation didn’t come with tension or correction. It came with grace. Of course it did. Suárez wasn’t scolding anyone. He wasn’t reclaiming anything. He was just explaining, gently, to a new city, while reassuring the old one that we didn’t need to panic.

This could’ve gone sideways fast. A fictional front page cameo is exactly the kind of thing that can feel smug, indulgent, or weirdly self-important.

Instead, Abbott Elementary used The Philadelphia Inquirer the way Philly actually does: as a marker that something interesting is happening — not a guarantee that anything is about to get fixed.

In this week’s episode, the paper shows up to cover Abbott’s unexpected success while the school operates out of an abandoned mall. The headline is glowing. The teachers react. Janine beams. Melissa checks whether her quote made it in. Barbara does a victory lap. And then, crucially, the moment passes.

Because in Philly, a front page is not the finish line. It’s a moment.

The district still drags its feet. The construction crew gets reassigned. The attention becomes something administrators can point to instead of acting on. That’s the joke, and it’s a sharp one. Abbott understands that recognition often arrives right before progress stalls, not when it accelerates.

Look, nobody is confused about who this is for. It’s still jarring to see the number written down.

The new Sky Garden penthouse at Four Seasons Hotel Philadelphia at Comcast Center clocks in at about $25,000 a night: roughly the cost of a decent used car, a year of SEPTA passes, or several lifetimes of happy-hour oysters.

For that price, you get 4,000 square feet, sweeping views, curated art, wellness rooms, and menus tied to Vernick Fish and Jean-Georges. Luxury, in other words, is being taken extremely seriously.

And to be fair, this makes sense on paper. Philly is bracing for a monster tourism year with the World Cup, the Semiquincentennial, and a calendar stuffed to the margins. High-end visitors are coming, and the city would like to make sure they don’t stay in New York and commute down like it’s a day trip.

Still, there’s something very Philly about the collective reaction here, which is less awe than quiet disbelief. Not outrage. Not moral panic. Just a pause, followed by: Who is actually booking this?

Because this is a city where luxury tends to coexist awkwardly with reality. A $25,000-a-night penthouse sits a few blocks from potholes, delayed trains, and a whole lot of people who are very proud of finding a good deal.

Somehow, four of the five women on Netflix’s Members Only: Palm Beach have Philly ties, which is impressive considering most Philadelphians watching immediately asked, “Who are these people?”

This isn’t fun, campy reality TV. It’s stiff, glossy, and deeply invested in rules that feel made up for the sole purpose of excluding someone. The clothes are loud, the behavior is small, and the hierarchy is treated like gospel. Everyone is performing wealth as if it’s a full-time job, and no one seems to be enjoying it.

Set in the orbit of Mar-a-Lago, the show mistakes proximity to power for personality. Conversations revolve around who belongs where, how to dress “properly,” and which customs are acceptable. It’s uncomfortable in a way that feels less accidental than the show probably intends.

The Philly connection only adds to the weirdness. Aside from one recognizable name, these aren’t women who reflect anything most people here recognize as Philly culture. They don’t feel local. They feel imported, like a version of “high society” that got lost on the way to a country club and wandered onto Netflix instead.

And yet, it’s weirdly watchable. Not because it’s good, but because it’s baffling. The kind of show you finish not feeling entertained, just slightly grimy and confused about how this became the vibe.