Hazleton is en fuego

First, the penis on the high school football field is picked up by Gizmodo, Gawker Media's gadget blog. Then Gawker's consumerist blog inexplicably runs an awful vintage commercial for the Game Store at Laurel Mall in Hazleton.

Watch the commercial at consumerist.com

Hazleton penis made famous by Google Maps

Has everyone else noticed that Google recently upgraded their northeastern Pennsylvania images -- and now you can see the penis vandals created on high-school football field in Hazleton a few years ago. The Standard-Speaker wrote about this in a story Saturday that will undoubtedly make it's way through the Internets in the coming days. A tipster passed along this bigtentailgate.com item.

Read the S-S story

The girl from Hazleton: Judi Nathan Giuliani

Vanity Fair went to Hazleton recently to report for the magazine's big profile of Rudy Giuliani's wife, Judith -- who, a lifetime ago, was Judi Stish of Hazleton's Nannygoat Hill section. It's not a flattering profile. Hazleton is apparently off-limits to campaign reporters -- "I'm hearing bad reports about you. Bad reports. You interviewed Mrs. Giuliani's father, in Hazleton!" a flack tells the reporter. Judi's mom tells the reporter -- who got to dad first -- that they're not allowed to talk to the press. Good stuff. Hazleton, as usual, is portrayed as the shithole it is.

TL writes about the Hazleton cop hiring info it fought so hard for

Steve Mocarsky writes about civil service scores and hiring practices at the Hazleton Police Department -- information the paper went to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court to get. Kudos to the effort.

TL to buy Spanish-language Hazleton monthly

Of course, the story doesn't say how much the Times Leader is paying. Interesting tidbit in the story's last legs: "El Mensajero’s offices in Hazleton provide “a solid base” to help The Times Leader expand in the southern tier of Luzerne County." Will the TL reopen and staff a bureau there?