For the fifth straight year, Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia tops the list of “America’s Best Children’s Hospitals” compiled by U.S. News and World Report. CHOP, as the pediatric medical center is frequently called, has also finished No. 1 for five years running on Child magazine’s list of the nation’s best children’s hospitals. This year, rankings were based not just on reputation, but on statistics about services, performance and quality of care, the magazine said in a news release.The magazine surveyed 122 children’s hospitals and got 113 replies that even delved into such difficult procedures as bone marrow transplants and heart […]
WAR PIGS: Ari Fleischer Is An Ignorant Slut
See here for the backstory. Ex-White House snake oil salesman spokesman Ari Fleischer, fresh off his immunity-from-prosecution deal in the Valerie Plame investigation*, is on Hardball to hype the Save The War ad campaign being rolled out in 20 states by Freedom’s Watch. (“For people who believe in peace through strength, the cavalry is coming.”) The Hardball guest-host cues up one of the ads featuring a double amputee Iraq vet who asserts, more or less, that if we pull out now he will have lost his legs in vain. When it’s over the host asks Fleischer for the vet’s name. […]
WORTH REPEATING: Diane Arbus (1923-1971)
“I want to photograph the considerable ceremonies of our present because we tend while living here and now to perceive only what is random and barren and formless about it. While we regret that the present is not like the past and despair of its ever becoming the future, its innumerable, inscrutable habits lie in wait for their meaning. These are our symptoms and our monuments. I want simply to save them, for what is ceremonious and curious and commonplace will be legendary.” — Diane Arbus, American Photographer
AUDIT: Federal, State & Local Government Among The Biggest Employers Of Undocumented Workers
If President Bush is serious about getting tough on U.S. employers who hire illegal aliens, he can start with his own administration, which employs thousands of unauthorized workers, says the top Republican on the House immigration subcommittee. A 2006 audit showed federal, state and local governments are among the biggest employers of the half-million persons in the U.S. illegally using “non-work” Social Security numbers — numbers issued legally, but with specific instructions that the holders are not authorized to work in the U.S. The Social Security Administration used to, but no longer does, issue non-work numbers to legal aliens who […]
ELEPHANT WALK: Senior GOP Senator John Warner Tells Bush To Begin Iraq Withdrawal In September
WASHINGTON (CNN) — The influential former chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee has called on President Bush to start bringing U.S. troops home from Iraq by Christmas. Republican Sen. John Warner is urging President Bush to begin a troop withdrawal from Iraq in September. Sen. John Warner, a Virginia Republican, said Thursday that a pullout was needed to spur Iraqi leaders to action. He has recommended that Bush announce the beginning of a U.S. withdrawal in mid-September, after a report is released from the top U.S. officials in Iraq, and that those troops should be back in the U.S. […]
PAPERBOY: Special ‘Hooray For Us!’ Edition
BY AMY Z. QUINN Like time, news waits for no man. Keeping up with the funny papers has always been an all-day job, even in the pre-Internets era. These days, however, it’s a two-man job. That’s right — these days you need someone to do your reading for you, or risk falling hopelessly behind and, as a result, increasing your chances of dying lonely and somewhat bitter. Hey, we know how it is — so many words to read, so little time to surf for free porn. That’s why every week, PAPERBOY does your alt-weekly reading for you, freeing up […]
NPR FOR THE DEAF: We Hear It Even When You Can’t
FRESH AIR NPR’s Baghdad bureau chief, Jamie Tarabay, has been living in and covering Iraq since December 2005. She spoke to Terry Gross in Fresh Air’s Philadelphia studios, during a two-week break from her reporting duties. Australian by birth and Lebanese by heritage, Tarabay speaks fluent Arabic and French. She lived for three years as a child in Beirut during the bombings there. Before joining NPR she was a correspondent for the Associated Press, reporting from Southeast Asia, Jordan, Lebanon and Egypt. She’s the author of the book A Crazy Occupation: Eyewitness to the Intifada. Tarabay talks to Fresh Air […]
BLOGADELPHIA: MEET BETTY CONFETTI
As you may have heard by now, our esteemed colleague and Phawker Editrix AMY Z. QUINN, aka Citizen Mom, has been hired by McClatchy Newspapers’ Washington, D.C. bureau chief as a full-time blogger to cover the 2008 Presidential election. Her bi-weekly columns will run under the header BETTY CONFETTI, and her beat will be the intersections of pop culture and political culture rendered with all her patented Maneater-From-Manayunk bitchslap sass. We will be proudly excerpting her BETTY CONFETTI columns on a regular basis, and could not be more proud or horny. Here’s her auspicious debut: So, if we’re talking about […]
INSTA-REVIEW: M.I.A. Kala
NOW PLAYING ON PHAWKER RADIO. WHY? BECAUSE WE LIKE YOU! BY SARA SHERR As you’ve no doubt read in a million and one places already, M.I.A. was set to make her sophomore effort, Kala, with Timbaland, but then visa troubles (her father being a Tamil Tiger can’t help) kept her from working in the U.S. So she traveled the world, collecting beats, textures, and sounds. Unlike most of the acts that garner a lot of blogger hype and print-crit “me too”-ing, M.I.A. is truly worthy of your time and effort. No other record that comes out this year will sound […]
ADVERTISING: The Movement To Save The War
Ad Wars Heat Up Ahead of ‘Surge’ Report Gen. David Petraeus is scheduled to begin testifying on Capitol Hill about the troop surge strategy on Sept. 11, exactly six years since the attacks in New York and Washington. Several anti- and pro-war- groups are spending money this month to mold public opinion ahead of Petraeus’ comments, and the broader debate on the future of the war. The latest pro-war campaign rolls out today. Freedom’s Watch is a non-profit group “dedicated to educating individuals about and advancing public policies that protect America’s interests at home and abroad, foster economic prosperity, and […]
PAPERBOY EXTRA! Today I Saw Jeff Deeney On The Cover Of The Rolling Stone The Philadelphia Weekly
BY AMY Z. QUINN Today I saw Phawker’s own Jeff Deeney rockin’ the cover of this week’s Philadelphia Weekly! Of course we’re happy for him, but the story itself is sad and sickening — and I know Deeney will understand the compliment that’s in there — elaborating what happened on Hurley Street, said to be the city’s worst, before and after one of the city’s shootings this summer. It’s one of those stories about how people trying to live and raise children in Philadelphia live in a literal war zone, and how a block rots from the inside out while […]
JUST IN: Inquirer Confirms Our Stephen A. Story
BY PETER MUCHA/INQUIRER STAFF WRITER Inquirer columnist Stephen A. Smith is due to resume his career as a reporter, where he made his name as a beat writer for the Sixers and the NBA. William K. Marimow, the newspaper’s top editor, said this morning: “Stephen A. Smith is an excellent reporter. He’s got a huge reservoir of sources in the sports world, and we want him to return to reporting.” Marimow declined further comment. * PHAWKER EXCLUSIVE: Stephen A. Smith Stripped Of Inquirer Column
REVEALED: White House Handbook For Squelching Public Protest At Bush Public Appearances
BY PETER BAKER/WASHINGTON POST STAFF WRITER Not that they’re worried or anything. But the White House evidently leaves little to chance when it comes to protests within eyesight of the president. As in, it doesn’t want any. A White House manual that came to light recently gives presidential advance staffers extensive instructions in the art of “deterring potential protestors” from President Bush’s public appearances around the country. Among other things, any event must be open only to those with tickets tightly controlled by organizers. Those entering must be screened in case they are hiding secret signs. Any anti-Bush demonstrators who […]