An 11th grader purportedly despondent about his grades brought a rifle to Springfield High School in Montgomery County this morning, fired high into a wall to frighten other students into a hallway and then shot himself to death, witnesses and officials said.No one else was injured, authorities said. […]Montgomery County District Attorney Bruce Castor told reporters at a late afternoon news conference that Halligan died after putting the barrel of the AK-47 semiautomatic rifle under his chin and firing. Castor said that a suicide note was found in the right front pocket of Halligan’s jeans and that the suicide followed […]
MONEY CHANGES EVERYTHING or How The TOWER Of Song Got Its Lean On
RICHARD KAUFMAN REMEMBERS: Tower Records, so many bittersweet memories. In those crazy go-go days of the early ’90s, there was so much optimism for the future. Papa Bush was imploding faster than a smart bomb, Fast Eddie was mayor, the Eagles had a mobile QB that would finally lead us to the promised land, and flannel-wearing rockers were starting to turn the rock world on its head. The word around the water cooler was that Tower was going public, and all of us smelly, underpaid buyers and clerks would get in on the ground floor. The Tower model seemed to […]
NPR FOR THE DEAF: We Hear It Even When You Can’t
RADIO TIMES WITH MARTY MOSS-COANE Hour 1 (Rebroadcast tonight at 11) A conversation with BOBBY GHOSH. He is Baghdad Bureau Chief for Time Magazine and is reporting the war in Iraq. Listen to this show via Real Audio | mp3 FRESH AIR WITH TERRY GROSS New York Times reporter Alex Kuczynski‘s new book is Beauty Junkies: Inside our $15 Billion Obsession with Cosmetic Surgery. No stranger to “beauty maintenance,” Kuczynski has had botox, an eye-lift, and liposuction, but gave it up after a bad experience with lip augmentation.
JUNK SCIENCE: Green Is The New Black
ELIZABETH FIEND REPORTS: Pollution and degradation of the environment happens in many, many unpredictable ways. It’s not just big business and the Feds — yours, mine, everyone’s personal, everyday actions have unforeseeable consequences on the environment as well. Everything is interrelated to extents we can’t even imagine. Rwanda has banned the use of plastic bags for environmental reasons. The bags are trashy, don’t disintegrate, and who would have guessed they would do so much harm to marine life? Plastic bags are made from non-renewable natural resources like oil. Rwanda has switched to raffia bags, woven from the dried leaves of […]
SMELLS LIKE JOURNALISM: Daily News Does Due Diligence, Puts Boots On The Ground In Atlantic City’s Sex Trade, Does Not Shy Away From Calling A Ho A ‘Ho’
Heaven and scores of other prostitutes who linger in this seaside town of glittery casinos and seedy motels know they’re playing a game far more risky than anything inside the casinos. Death has stared them in the face since four decayed bodies were found in a drainage ditch three weeks ago. All the victims were women. Three were known to Atlantic City police as prostitutes. A task force of local cops, state police and the FBI has descended on the slimiest sections of the city to trace the steps of a possible serial killer. “Sometimes I think to myself, ‘I […]
ROCKSNOB: Clap Yer Hands And Say ‘Meh’
ED KING REPORTS: Hey, I came across two tracks from the upcoming Clap Your Hands Say Yeah album, Some Loud Thunder! Check ’em out at their website! You kids still trying to squeeze into your Garanimals may want to free up space on your iPod when this bad boy hits the streets on January 30! If hearing these previews leaves you too thunderstruck to comment, let me do so for you! There’s a track called “Love Song No. 7” (a title construction that rarely bodes well) that is 4:31 of “Lick My Love Pump”-style piano chords, a bit of Syd […]
PEEPLE: Salon Finally Comes Out And Says It, PARIS MUST DIE
The other almost-supernatural aspect of Hilton’s reign of harebrained horror is the way that she herself remains intact while those around her wither. Hilton is like some kind of Dorian Gray cockroach. While her buddies waste away and collapse and see their careers flushed down the celebrity toilet after having been in her presence, she grows stronger: appearing on more magazine covers, getting bigger record contracts, attracting more attention, sleeping with more of her fading friends’ boyfriends. Even her Plasticine exterior seems unravaged by her excessive behaviors. She is, frustratingly, indestructible. Hilton has been caught on tape referring to two […]
Twinkle-Toed Footloose Dude Challenges Eakins Buyers To A Dance-Off, ‘For Pink Slips, Bitches!’
PHILADELPHIA – Kevin Bacon has joined a group fighting to keep Thomas Eakins’ 1875 masterpiece, “The Gross Clinic,” in its hometown. The Committee to Keep Eakins’ Masterpiece in Philadelphia will work to raise awareness about the social and artistic importance of the work, which was painted in Philadelphia and hangs in Thomas Jefferson University Hospital. Bacon, 48, is a Philadelphia native. He has starred in films including “Mystic River,” “Apollo 13” and “Footloose.” “This masterpiece and this artist are so intertwined and connected to this city that it should and must remain where it was created,” Bacon said in a […]
FLU WATCH: City Officials Slow To Respond To Gathering Threat Nothing New, Day-Late-Dollar-Short Response To Endangered Citizenry Stretches Back To At Least 1918
ATLANTA Dec 11, 2006 (AP) — Government health officials tried to build their case for school closings and similar steps during a flu pandemic by showcasing new research Monday that suggests such measures seemed to work during the deadly Spanish flu of 1918. Researchers found that cities like St. Louis, which instituted “social distancing” at least two weeks before flu cases peaked in their communities, had flu-related death rates less than half that of Philadelphia, which didn’t act until later. The whirlwind historical research project which started in August involves a team of researchers from the University of Michigan and the […]
SPORTZ: The ANSWER Raising Lotsa QUESTIONS, Internets Buzzing With Fan-Tastic Exit Strategies
Celtics — Jeff Clark from CelticsBlog.com: Offer Wally, Telfair, and West for Iverson. I know it is a low ball offer, but the salaries work and you have to start somewhere. When they reject that offer, sweeten it with a lottery protected draft pick. They might find that they can’t do better than that deal and just pull the trigger. Bulls — Stephen A. Smith from Philadelphia Inquirer: Chicago could send the expiring contracts of forwards P.J. Brown and Michael Sweetney, with guard Ben Gordon and a first-round pick to Philly for Iverson. Their brass will meet today but appear […]
We Know It’s Only Rock N’ Roll But We Like It
THE KIDS ARE ALRIGHT: They Might Be Giants, World Cafe Live, December 9, 2006 MA PHAWKER REPORTS: For a minute there toward the end, during “Birdhouse in Your Soul,” when the shorties were tired out and the gin and tonics were kickin’ in, it almost felt like we grownups had gotten one over on the kids we had squired to the show.See, one of the many chapters missing from the parenting books is the one discussing the wretched entertainment you’re doomed to sit through — the animated movies that don’t make any sense, the cheesy kid-friendly musicians, the unconvincing birthday […]
The Question Isn’t ‘Why Did This Happen?’ But ‘Why Doesn’t This Happen ALL THE TIME?’ And Therein Lies The Silver Lining
At Cherry Hill High School East – where news got out last week that five students may have paid a hacker to doctor their computerized grade transcripts – classmates say the burden to excel at a fast-track school may have led to the cheating scandal. According to a new study, that’s a reasonable theory. More than 40 percent of teens feel intense pressure to succeed academically at any cost, according to a national teen ethics poll released last week by Junior Achievement and Deloitte & Touche USA LLP, a financial advisory firm. And 22 percent of the 787 students surveyed […]