FRESH AIR Former CIA chief George Tenet said the Bush administration used him as a scapegoat over intelligence issues with the war in Iraq, and debate among top officials was absent when decisions were made to invade the country. In an interview with CBS’s 60 Minutes to air Sunday night, Tenet discussed claims made in his forthcoming memoir At the Center of the Storm: My Years at the CIA, which focuses in part on his dealings with the Bush administration in the weeks and months leading up to the Iraq war. In the memoir, Tenet expresses frustration with Vice President Dick […]
NOW PLAYING ON PHAWKER RADIO: New Feist
BY DAN DELUCA INQUIRER MUSIC CRITIC On a recent shopping Saturday, I found myself in a suburban Banana Republic, a Pine Street photo gallery, and a chichi Center City cafe. I bring this up not merely to establish my credentials as an effete poser, but because Feist was playing in all three places. That’s Leslie Feist, the Canadian indie-pop singer who goes by her last name when making her own music. (She’s also a sometime member of the Toronto collective Broken Social Scene, and used to perform along with electro-rapper Peaches under the name Bitch Lap Lap and sing with […]
LIVE & DIRECT: Michael Nutter For The Deaf
JONATHAN VALANIA REPORTS: Michael Nutter speaks in complete paragraphs, with subsections A., B., and C. and attendant footnotes, which also have their own subsections A., B., and C. He is overflowing with good ideas, not just slogans. Smart, principled, and aspirational. Spidey senses tingling. Is he the The One to lead us out of of the Matrix of our own bullshit? (Spidey senses also warning against crossing metaphors) True, he needs a joke writer or a court jester. (Although he did just describe himself as “just another unemployed guy from West Philly looking for a job.”) His only crime is […]
EATING CROW:Philebrity Retracts PW Sale Story While Blaming PW For Scuttling The PW Sale (Story)
OFFICAL OFFICIAL STATEMENT We here at Philebrity regret that we inadvertently published what has turned out to be false information regarding the sale of the Philadelphia Weekly to Village Voice Media. We initially published, based on what we believed to be a credible tip from a knowledgable source, that a deal was on the table between the two parties. What we could not have predicted and did not know at the time was how far up the corporate ladder the Weekly’s ineffectual, incompetent malaise stretched; we could have never known that at whatever key moment, the Weekly brass would have […]
EVERY DAY THIS WEEK: NPR For The Deaf, LIVE!
Every day this week, Marty Moss-Coane will be devoting an entire hour of Radio Times to one of the five candidates running for mayor, continuing Wednesday with MICHAEL NUTTER at 10 AM. Phawker will be on hand each day, watching her back, observing the men who would be mayor up close and, um, blogging phawking live from the studios of WHYY.
NPR FOR THE DEAF: We Hear It Even When You Can’t
FRESH AIR For many people, Clarence Thomas will be forever linked to Anita Hill, accusations of workplace harassment, inappropriate jokes, and one of the most bruising confirmation hearings in modern history. As a Supreme Court justice, Thomas is arguably the most powerful black man in public life. And yet, most black Americans have not embraced the conservative Thomas — or worse, despise the man who was tapped in 1991 to replace retiring civil-rights icon Thurgood Marshall on the nation’s highest court. That’s according to a new biography of Thomas, Supreme Discomfort. The book, written by Washington Post reporters Kevin Merida […]
GAMBLOR: The Sands To Auction-Off Glass Sinatra Kept His Dentures In, Plus Some Other Stuff
The gambling hall is having a giant liquidation sale on Thursday, and many items once touched by New Jersey’s own Frank Sinatra are up for sale. There will be hidden treasures aplenty, according to organizers, including everything from the Plaza Club, a swank 19th-floor hideout that became Sinatra’s private playground whenever he stayed at the Sands. Chandeliers (priced at $4,250), a marble-and-wood bar, and leather chairs are among the furnishings from the club that are expected to go quickly. All told, about $1.5 million worth of merchandise is being sold off, from one-dollar towels and linens to the giant red […]
TODAY I SAW…
BY JEFF DEENEY “Today I saw…” is a series of nonfiction shorts based on my experiences as a caseworker serving formerly homeless families now living in North and West Philadelphia. I decided not long after starting the job that I was seeing so many fascinating and disturbing things in the city’s poorest neighborhoods that I needed to start cataloging them. I hope this bi-weekly column serves as a record of a side of the city that many Philadelphians don’t come in contact with on a daily basis. I want to capture moments not frequently covered by the local media, […]
KILLADELPHIA: Gunman Now Deadman
Police internal affairs and the homicide division have taken over the investigation into a police-involved shooting early Tuesday morning in South Philadelphia. Philadelphia police were called to the 1200 block of South 19th Street at the turn of midnight Tuesday when neighbors reported a man screaming. As officers arrived on the scene, authorities say, a man [NOT pictured] exited a home and approached them, pointing a shotgun. Despite warnings, the man refused to drop his weapon. Police fired one shot that struck the suspect. He was rushed to the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, where he died. KYW: Guns […]
I AM JADED FUCKIN’ INDIE GUY: The New Modest Mouse Is Hard To Love, But Even Harder To Hate
BY ED KING ROCK CRITIC Whew! My head hurts from all the time I’ve spent with the latest Modest Mouse album, We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank. This thing’s hard work. When did the world get so smart that they all get it and I’m not sure I do? This band is moving units, right, and you can’t attribute their appeal to hot looks and sweet hooks. In an act of brutal self-analysis, I persevered. And yes, I’m a better man for having done so. For the first few spins, all I could think of was why I […]
LIVE AND DIRECT: Bob Brady For The Deaf
Marty: Do you own a gun? Bob Brady: Yes. Do you know why I have a gun? I have children and grandchildren. JONATHAN VALANIA REPORTS: Bob Brady would be the perfect mayor for this city — if it were 1945. Big, beefy, with hands the size of Easter hams, grandfatherly in a Sopranos-esque kind of way, he is the prototypical loveable ‘Big Lug’ and as Philly as an old soft pretzel. Marty just asked him his prime motivation for wanting to be mayor: “We have to be safe as a city.” Solution: bring back beat cops. A return to the […]