WIKIPEDIA: Who Are The Monks?
BEWARE: Taxi Charging Outrageous Fares At Gunpoint
INQUIRER: Four people who hailed cabs in the early-morning hours last month were taken on a wild ride at gunpoint when the hack and his accomplice turned out to be armed robbers, police said yesterday. They warned city riders to beware, especially if there is a passenger up front with the cab driver. All the victims were college-aged. Central Detectives Lt. Richard Brown said it appears the robbers are using a real cab that had been put out of service. It is described as a black Ford Crown Victoria with a white logo. Victims, including one from the University of […]
Pot-Bellied Cops To Crack Down On Saggy-Assed Pants
EDITOR’S NOTE: Parts of this post first appeared on Phawker on August 14th, 2007 MANSFIELD, LA — “Pull ’em up or pay up.” That’s Police Chief Don English’s interpretation of a new law that took effect in Mansfield on Sept. 15. Anyone caught wearing sagging pants who exposes his or her underwear will be subject to a fine of up to $150 plus court costs, or face up to 15 days in jail. Mansfield aldermen voted unanimously at today’s 4:30 p.m. meeting to enact the new law. The law makes it illegal to found in a “state of nudity, or […]
We Know It’s Only Rock N’ Roll But We Like It
A QUIET NIGHT IN WITH: The Mekons, World Cafe Live, Tuesday Night BY JONATHAN VALANIA FOR THE INQUIRER If you ever crunched the numbers on rock stardom, you would ask yourself why anyone bothers trying. Sure, there will always be that one-in-a-million talent that, whether through luck or lightning caught in a bottle, will shoot human cannonball-style into the rarefied heights of immortality. But for most it is a life of minor-key daily indignity, a soft but uninterrupted hell of winnowing expectations and diminished returns that will bring them all the fame of philatelist and all the riches of a […]
AUTHOR AUTHOR: John Leland Saw The Best Minds Of A Generation Destroyed By Madness, Starving Hysterical Naked, Dragging Themselves Through The Negro Streets At Dawn Looking For An Angry Fix, Angelheaded Hipsters Burning For The Ancient Heavenly Connection To The Starry Dynamo In The Machinery Of Night. Etc.
PHAWKER: You were, to my mind, the first white rock critic of stature to take rap music seriously. You had that column in Spin back in the mid-80s when Spin really mattered and you were always plumbing the depths of Stetsasonic and Biz Markie and shit. I remember Guccione writing in his Letter From The Editor “is Leland really serious with this rap thing?” What flipped your switch and caused you to sit up and pay attention? JOHN LELAND: I lived in an apartment on 99th Street [in New York] which was right by the handball court and where there’s […]
THE REVOLUTION WILL BE DIGITIZED: The Video The Burmese Junta Does Not Want The World To See
Shaky amatuer video of pro-Democracy protest in Myanmar (formerly known as Burma), at about the five minute mark the soldiers arrive in mass numbers and then the shooting breaks out, the crowd scatters and all is chaos.
NPR 4 THE DEAF: Giving Public Radio Edge Since 2006
FRESH AIR September 11, AIDS, the Holocaust — comic and actress Sarah Silverman has repeatedly proved that practically nothing need be off limits in a joke. Take the title of her Off-Broadway show, which later became a film: Jesus Is Magic. Or the music video, available on her Comedy Central show’s blog, of “The Doodie Song.” Silverman has appeared in films including School of Rock and There’s Something About Mary and she was a member of the Saturday Night Live ensemble in the early ’90s. The second season of The Sarah Silverman Program begins tonight on Comedy Central. RADIO TIMES […]
HOT DOCUMENT: Bush Eats Kittens, Kicks Puppies
Dear jonathan, You’re not going to believe this — President Bush just vetoed health care for millions of low-income children! I know that’s hard to believe, and I wish I were making it up. But I’m not. Earlier today, President Bush vetoed a bipartisan expansion of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) — a successful program that provides health care to [six] million low-income children. [Bush just vetoed a bill that would have enabled four million more children to join the ranks of the insured] All I can say is, compassionate conservatism indeed. I can’t believe Bush’s nerve, and […]
MONICA: Red Meat For Rotting Vegetables
BY MONICA YANT KINNEY INQUIRER COLUMNIST Dios mio, I’m thinking as Rudy Giuliani graces Geno’s Steaks with his presence the other night.So many young, white college kids hoping the GOP presidential front-runner might accidentally touch them as he moved among the masses. So many Republicans united by disgust over the changing face of America, they don’t notice the enemy playing futbol on a rec center field across the street. As campaign cliches go, it doesn’t get much better than Giuliani dropping by Joey Vento‘s neon palace in South Philly. The Italian American who wants to seal the border, bonding with […]
YA GOTTA BELIEVE: In This Town, The Ring Of Sweat Inside The Blue Collar Is Always Tinted Phillies Red
BY JAMES DOOLITTLE I swear that at some point yesterday, I sped past a news article that made mention of a Pat Burrell sighting at Five Guys Burgers over on Chestnut Street following Monday’s Phillies rally at Dilworth Plaza. For the record, I can’t put my finger on this news brief, although I will say it was full of non-specifics and only contained two purported facts — that Pat The Bat was eating a burger, and he was eating it alone. I spent a good part of last night questioning whether I could have hallucinated this item, or whether […]
TODAY I SAW . . .
BY JEFF DEENEY TODAY I SAW a psychotic man harassing the African vendors who hawk oils and knock-off handbags on Market Street outside the Forman Mills on 49th. The psychotic’s beard was thick and matted, his clothes filthy, and the bulky leather jacket he wore over a thick hooded sweatshirt was too heavy for a warm fall afternoon. It looked like he hadn’t changed clothes since last winter. His ranting was incoherent; he wasn’t stringing full sentences together, his yelling hopped from topic to topic. His anger was unfocused but his gestures pointed in the general direction of a younger […]
INSTANT KARMA: We Are With You In Myanmar
THERE is growing concern for hundreds of monks and other protesters detained by the Burmese military regime since it began its crackdown a week ago. Witnesses reported slightly fewer troops on Rangoon’s streets yesterday, but raids on homes by gangs looking for dissident monks and civilians suggested [UN Special Envoy] Gambari’s nascent shuttle diplomacy and international calls for restraint had made little difference. “They are going from apartment to apartment, shaking things inside, threatening the people. You have a climate of terror all over the city,” a Bangkok-based Burma expert said. The UN and regime officials said yesterday that at […]