ASSOCIATED PRESS: WASHINGTON — Idaho Sen. Larry Craig’s political support eroded significantly Wednesday as three fellow Republicans in Congress called for his resignation and party leaders pushed him from senior committee posts. The White House expressed its disappointment, too and not a word of support for the 62-year-old lawmaker, who pleaded guilty earlier this month to a charge stemming from an undercover police operation in an airport men’s room. Craig “represents the Republican party,” said Rep. Pete Hoekstra of Michigan, the first fellow GOP member of Congress to urge a resignation. Craig said Tuesday he had committed no wrongdoing and […]
EDITORIAL: Who Breaks A Butterfly Upon A Wheel*
EDITORIAL: This is a fool’s errand, we know, but in the name of decency, fairness and The Golden Rule, we are calling on the local media to exercise some measure of restraint in reporting on the drug and criminal justice problems of the brothers Reid. And no, we’re not just talking about the kind of restraint that keeps you from getting sued, but the kind of restraint that comes when editorial decision-making is attached to journalistic ethics — not just ratings aspirations. As we type this, Philly.com has just splashed a top story about the pills allegedly found in Brett […]
THE TAO OF EVA: The Motorcycle Diaries
BY EVA LIAO TAIPEI — Today I saw a pretty young high school girl run down by a motorcyclist as she tried to cross the street. The girl wasn’t paying much attention, but then, neither was the guy on the bike. She put her black knee-high-clad foot into the road just as the speedster turned the corner, right into her side. The girl went down, her blue pleated uniform skirt went up and her tote skidded across the asphalt, spewing an impressive load of school books. The culprit wore a surgical mask over his face — one of those […]
HOT DOCUMENT: New Sigur Ros Movie, Double CD
Sigur Ros Heima DVD Hvarf / Heim Double CD Out November 6 Exclusive Advance Screening September 14 in Akureyri, Iceland
CENSUS: Rich Get Richer And The Poor Get Deader
BY JEFF DEENEY A lot of noise erupted in the media yesterday about what the new census poverty numbers mean. I thought it’s was a little soon for a victory lap, though Bush and the Red State regions of the blogosphere were quick to I-Told-You-So. “Poverty Numbers Decrease Substantially” was the headline on Drudge. Bush said, “More of our citizens are doing better in this economy, with continued rising incomes and more Americans pulling themselves out of poverty.” However, the fact is that the numbers mean different things for different regions, all of which are made up of different kinds […]
RIP: Hilly Crystal, CBGB Founder, Dead At 75
BY SEWELL CHAN FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES Hilly Kristal, who founded the punk-rock club CBGB and ran the legendary Bowery institution for nearly 33 years until it closed its doors last October, died on Tuesday at Cabrini Medical Center in Manhattan. He was 75. The Associated Press, citing Mr. Kristal’s son, Mark Dana Kristal, reported that the cause was lung cancer. “The club — its initials mean Country Bluegrass Blues and Other Music for Uplifting Gormandizers — was a hangout in a dire location,” Jon Pareles, The Times’s pop-music critic, wrote in October, when the Lower East Side club […]
NPR 4 THE DEF: Giving Public Radio Edge Since 2006
FRESH AIR Judas Priest lead singer Rob Halford kicks off a series of interviews on hard rock and heavy metal. The band, originally from Birmingham, England, was a pioneer of the heavy metal sound at the height of its popularity in the 1970s and 80s. The band’s name comes from the title of the Bob Dylan song, “The Ballad of Frankie Lee and Judas Priest.” Halford left the band in 1991, citing internal tension. In 1998 he came out of the closet during an interview on MTV. Halford, whose nickname is the Metal God, returned to Judas Priest in 2003. […]
GAY OLD PARTY: Craig Denies Gayness; Says He Pled Guilty Because He Is Innocent; Dumped By Romney
NEW YORK TIMES: Just when Republicans thought things could not get any worse, Senator Larry E. Craig of Idaho confirmed that he had pleaded guilty to misdemeanor charges of disorderly conduct after an undercover police officer accused him of soliciting sex in June in a Minneapolis airport restroom. On Tuesday, Mr. Craig, 62, held a news conference to defend himself, calling the guilty plea “a mistake” and declaring, “I am not gay” — even as the Senate Republican leadership asked for an Ethics Committee review. It was a bizarre spectacle, and only the latest in a string of accusations of […]
INSTA-REVIEW: Meet The New Boss!
BY CITIZEN MOM I used to live on 10th Avenue in Belmar, NJ, a few blocks away from the house on E Street that served as the band’s namesake and first rehearsal space, which of course makes me eminently qualified to render an instant-opinion on the first single from the Boss’s forthcoming album, Magic, which drops Oct. 2. The single, “Radio Nowhere,” is NOW PLAYING on Phawker Radio and for this week only is available as a free iTunes download. Ahem. First listen: Hmmm. Kinda familiar four-note guitar riff, though I can’t quite figure out what it reminds me of. […]
THE TAO OF EVA: Teaching Old Dogs New Tricks
BY EVA LIAO Today I taught my 75-year-old grandfather [that’s him and my grandmother back in the day] to use the computer. Or, at least I tried to. We began at the very beginning: I showed him where the monitor power button was and how to turn on the system unit. We got to Windows, opened up Firefox. And then we hit a roadblock — apparently, double-clicking is problematic when you’re this old and have never touched a mouse before. We spent 10 minutes practicing on the glass table. “Grandpa, you have to do it quickly.” Tap-tap. Tap-tap. I demonstrated […]
NPR FOR THE DEAF: We Hear It Even When You Can’t
FRESH AIR Novelist Bill Flanagan wrote the comedy A&R about the smooth operators and the scatty artists who make the music business so entertaining; now he’s lampooning the cable-TV industry in his novel New Bedlam. The source for his send-ups? His career as an MTV networks exec. ALSO, On his third album, Up Front & Down Low, singer-songwriter Teddy Thompson covers classic country songs including “She Thinks I Still Care,” “(My Friends Are Gonna Be) Strangers,” and “I’m Left, You’re Right, She’s Gone.” RADIO TIMES Hour 1 The number of suicide bombings in Iraq have surpassed those conducted worldwide since […]
CYBERPUNK: Flippin’ Sweet Deal For iPhone Hacker
The teenage hacker who found a way to unlock the iPhone so that the device would not be restricted to use solely on AT&T Inc.’s cellular networks will be trading his reworked gadget for a new car. George Hotz, of Glen Rock, N.J., said he had reached the deal with CertiCell, a Louisville, Ky.-based mobile phone repair company. Hotz posted on his blog that he traded his modified iPhone for a “sweet Nissan 350Z and (three) iPhones.” The 17-year-old Hotz said he will be sending the three new iPhones to three of his online collaborators who helped him unlock Apple […]