PHILADELPHIA — Tua, the Philadelphia Zoo’s female Sumatran orangutan, is getting a companion: Sugriwa (Sue-GREE-wuh), a male Sumatran orangutan. Sugi arrived in Philadelphia from the St. Louis Zoo in December. Since then, he has gone through the zoo’s routine quarantine period for new animals, then was slowly introduced to Tua and to the zoo’s male and female gibbons, Mercury and Solstice. ASSOCIATED PRESS: Hot Monkey Love!
SIDEWALKING: The Naked And The Def
A MAN IN FULL: Norman Mailer, The Free Library Of Philadelphia, Tuesday Night BY EVA LIAO Full disclosure: I have never read a Norman Mailer book from cover to cover. And the perfunctory excerpts thrown into the textbooks of my contemporary lit college courses don’t really count. I do know, however, that after writing 45 books and providing decades of titillating fodder for the media — co-founder of the Village Voice, winner of multiple Pulitzer Prizes and devotee of Marilyn Monroe, not to mention the whole wife-stabbing incident — the guy has a reputation. He’s kind of like an older, […]
READ BETWEEN THE LINES: Cop Raped Man?
BY DAVE GAMBACORTA A Philadelphia police officer is being investigated for allegedly having had an “inappropriate sexual encounter” with another man earlier this month, police sources said yesterday. The incident occurred while the officer was on duty early on March 16, hours before the city was blanketed by a sleet storm. Police sources said the incident happened inside the cop’s patrol car. At the time, the officer was assigned to the 92nd District, headquartered on Lincoln Drive near Gypsy Lane in East Falls. The man reported the incident to the Internal Affairs Bureau, which is investigating his allegations, a police […]
COMING ATTRACTION: Chix We Dig
Coming soon! A PHAWKER Q&A with WHYY’s Marty Moss-Coane [above, 1969]
GAMBLOR: Oh Yeah…Just Remembered…TURNS OUT THERE’S A LAW AGAINST THAT SORT OF THING!
BY PATRICK KERKSTRA OF THE INQUIRER Somehow, it just didn’t come up. Amid all the lawyers, the petitions, the protests and the huge stakes, little was said about Section 14-1624 of the Philadelphia Code – which bans certain adult-oriented businesses from part of the Delaware riverfront. DiCicco said he’s alerting his lawyers to the relevant section of the city code and intends to add this issue to the lawsuit Council has filed against the state Gaming Control Board over its casino site selections. Still, it was unclear yesterday just how large a challenge Section 14-1624 — approved by City Council […]
PHAWKER RADIO: Amy Winehouse
UK songstress Amy Winehouse packs a solid soulful punch with this 60s-era era throwback on a non-traditional theme-addiction and recovery. Sounds like Nina Simone soaked in Phil Spector and tossed in a blender with The Supremes. Stunningly upbeat stuff, smile-inducing for even the most miserable hipster. —Tommy Zane
POP IN TAPE: Hot Wax In The 215
BY MICHAEL ‘Fich’ FICHMAN Baseball is America’s perpetually redeeming characteristic. I care too much — I’m a harsh critic, a cynic. Sometimes I’ll hate something just on principle. I think too much, can’t relax. I’m always thinking about which 10 things I need to be doing, instead of doing them. But in the spring, I’m mellowed out and ready for baseball. This is a music column. However, I used to be a sportswriter and hey, a guy can like both pickles and ice cream, sometimes at the same time. I’m gonna throw together some kosher dill pistachio mint for yinz […]
FORECAST: BLACK HOLE SUN
We are seriously thinking about NEVER taking this down. Ever.
NPR FOR THE GODLESS: Golden Calf Radio
FRESH AIR The Irrationality Of Belief In God. Clinton Richard Dawkins (born March 26, 1941) is a British ethologist, evolutionary biologist and popular science writer who holds the Charles Simonyi Chair for the Public Understanding of Science at Oxford University. Dawkins first came to prominence with his 1976 book The Selfish Gene, which popularized the gene-centered view of evolution and introduced the term meme into the lexicon, helping found memetics. In 1982, he made a widely cited contribution to the science of evolution with the theory, presented in his book The Extended Phenotype, that phenotypic effects are not limited to […]
MEDIA: Evolve Or DIE
For the first time in years, every sector of television news lost audience in 2006, and newspapers, despite garnering a larger audience than ever for their content via online platforms, faced increasingly downbeat assessments of their business models, a new report from the D.C.-based Project for Excellence in Journalism finds. According to the fourth-annual edition of State of the News Media, shifting economic fundamentals are spurring mainstream news organizations to try to build audience around “franchise” areas of coverage, specialties, and even crusades. Cable’s”argument culture” is giving way to an “answer culture,” a growing pattern that has news outlets, programs, […]