From Crystal Club Soda to Gertrude Hawk Chocolate

This bleak former coal town in northeastern Pennsylvania occupies a unique perch in this year’s presidential contest.  It’s the hometown of “Obama Girl,” the New York City model of YouTube fame whose racy videos proclaiming her crush on Barack Obama are definitely not campaign-sanctioned. Her parents still live here, and her unlikely career break has gotten older, working-class whites talking more than they otherwise might have about the young black politician from Chicago.  [McClatchy]

CNN published a story on the “Pizza Capitol of the World”, Old Forge.  [CNN]

Last week it was Senator Hillary Clinton, today Senator Barack Obama is in Scranton, making two campaign stops. The first stop after arriving at the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton International Airport was downtown Scranton and Whistles Pub, where the senator was greeted with a smattering of cheers. He offered a quick wave before walking inside the bar for a scheduled round-table discussion with Iraq war veterans. The event is sponsored by MTV. The senator is also slated to be the keynote speaker at the Society of Irish Women dinner at the Radisson at Lackawanna Station later this evening.

A mother and her four daughters were arrested Wednesday after they allegedly hit, pushed, shoved and kicked two state troopers responding to a domestic dispute at the mother’s house.  Investigating Trooper John D. Decker charged mother Mildred Angueira, 43, Desiree Roman, 24, Crystal Angueira, 21, and Samantha Angueira, 19, with aggravated assault on police officers and resisting arrest, and filed a juvenile petition for aggravated assault and resisting arrest against a 15-year-old daughter, whom they did not name.  he incident, Trooper Decker said, started with a “squabble over a computer” and quickly turned into bedlam, with troopers fighting off kicks, punches and biting as they tried to handcuff the women.  Continue reading.

The state Department of Conservation and Natural Resource issued a press release touting an agreement with the U.S. Geological Survey to put the department’s PAMAP high-resolution aerial photography on Google Earth, where the image of a phallus on the field was discovered in early December.  The release describes access to images of Pennsylvania that are “at a scale 10 times better than what was previously available” on earlier maps.  Pranksters used herbicide to create the outline of a phallus on the turf of Harman-Geist in the summer of 2004, before the sod was ripped up and replaced with an artificial surface. The grass died and the image — which stretches from sideline to sideline, or about 53 yards — became visible.  Continue reading.  Editor’s note.  To see a picture of said phallus, click here.

A Pennsylvania woman who helped run a fraudulent work-at-home business was sentenced to time served for bilking 77,000 people out of $3 million, prosecutors said Thursday.  The Houston Chronicle reports that Misty Stafford, 26, of Gillett, Bradford County, was sentenced to more than 22 months in prison after pleading guilty to concealment of a felony, said acting U.S. Attorney Martin Carlson. Stafford, who was also ordered to pay more than $293,600 in restitution, was given credit for the time she served while awaiting sentencing and has been released.

Would you believe its near the corner of Cedar and Shaft? Google reportedly grabbed the image from Pennsylvania’s Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, who took the aerial photograph in 2005.

Here’s what happened:
Pranksters in 2004 used weed killer to etch the giant phallus into the turf of Harman-Geist Memorial Field, located in northeastern Pennsylvania. Short of sod, it would seem, the Hazelton Area School District used green paint to cover up the prank. But by the time the DCNR rolled around to survey the area, the paint had washed away. Frank Victor, superintendent of the Hazleton Area School, upon hearing the prank is now visible from Google Maps, had no comment. “Really, what’s there to say?” he tells Hazelton’s Standard-Speaker. Editor’s Note: Good joke, bad artists.

AM New York has an interesting article about a man who commutes 175 miles from Montrose to Long Island 4 days a week.  That’s a SIX hour commute!  Editor’s Note:  I will never complain about my daily commute to Wilkes-Barre ever again.

According to the Scranton Times-Tribune, police say a Wilkes-Barre man impersonated a priest the last few weeks at a West Pittston supermarket, telling trusting clerks to put his charges on a church’s tab.