And to all a good night! We will see you all on Friday bright and early…
HECKUVA JOB, BROWNIE: Did The Former White House Press Secretary Just Bring His President Down?
THE NATION — Scott McClellan’s admission that he unintentionally made false statements denying the involvement of Karl Rove and Scooter Libby in the Bush-Cheney administration’s plot to discredit former Ambassador Joe Wilson, along with his revelation that Vice President Cheney and President Bush were among those who provided him with the misinformation, sets the former White House press secretary as John Dean to George Bush’s Richard Nixon. It was Dean’s willingness to reveal the details of what described as “a cancer” on the Nixon presidency that served as a critical turning point in the struggle by a previous Congress to […]
CINEMA: Causality Of War
REDACTED (2007, directed by Brian De Palma, 90 minutes, U.S.) BY DAN BUSKIRK FILM CRITIC Coming off the highest profile flop of his career, a flat-footed adaptation of James Ellroy’s The Black Dahlia, Brian De Palma is proving himself still spry at 68, with his camcorder-eye view of the Iraq War, Redacted. It’s an audacious move for De Palma, not just politically (the film has O’Reilly and his ilk frothing madly) but stylistically as well, robbing him of his trademark slow-motion set-pieces, florid musical scores and his gliding tracking shots. With Coppola soon to arrive with his bare-bones return to […]
WORTH REPEATING: Squandering The Peace Dividend
BY JOHN BRUHNS We watched as legislation that had no substantial impact on ending the war was debated. There ARE anti-war resolutions still floating out there that call for a real end to the war, but the groups I worked for wouldn’t spend one dime to promote legislation considered out of the mainstream of the Democratic Party. Any genuine anti-war message was filtered through media consultants who provide politically correct “talking points” to veterans for them to carry out a phony message that is beneficial to the campaign. We threatened Republicans with “political extinction” if they didn’t change their votes […]
WILLIAM BURROUGHS: Thanksgiving Prayer
Amen, Bill.
QUESTION EL PARKING AUTHORITY: PPA Goes CYA
DAILY NEWS: A week after the Daily News raised questions about the size of the Philadelphia Parking Authority’s auto fleet, the agency has asked 18 of its mid-level managers to give up the car keys. The Parking Authority issued a news release yesterday, saying that it expects to save $400,000 next year by limiting the number of managers permitted to take company cars home for the night, and by postponing the purchase of 18 new sedans and SUVs. The authority also projected $1 million in savings from a reduction of 10 management jobs through attrition and retirements.Last week, the Daily […]
TECH: Did This Man Just Kill Print?
Books have been very good to Jeff Bezos. When he sought to make his mark in the nascent days of the Web, he chose to open an online store for books, a decision that led to billionaire status for him, dotcom glory for his company and countless hours wasted by authors checking their Amazon sales ratings. But as much as Bezos loves books professionally and personally — he’s a big reader, and his wife is a novelist — he also understands that the surge of technology will engulf all media. “Books are the last bastion of analog,” he says, in […]
ADBUST: You Had Us At ‘The Circulation Goes Up…’
But you completely lost us on the ‘and the pigs touch down‘ part. What does that even mean?
KEVIN SPACEY: Impersonating Christopher Walken
Auditioning for the role of Han Solo. Priceless.
NEWS CLUES: It’s Like Adderall For Your Eyeballs
Supreme Court Rules Against Foxwoods, Casino Construction Delayed Indefinitely Back in May, Philadelphia City Council voted to overturn a Mayor Street veto of its anti-casino bill. The bill would reverse the zoning status of the proposed Foxwoods site, delaying the beginning of construction indefinitely. In June, Foxwoods filed an emergency petition with the PA Supreme Court. In Count I of the petition, Foxwoods asked the state’s highest court to overturn the anti-casino bill on the grounds that it is somehow “unconstitutional.” Today the high court ruled against Foxwoods, calling the matter “not ripe for adjudication” and dismissed the casino’s request […]
UPDATE: Tierney, Drexel Mum On Sale
We’ve had a request for comment into Drexel’s media relations office since last night, and a follow-up phone call this morning asking for confirmation or denial of the rumors floating around that Drexel has bought or is about to buy the Inquirer Building at 400 North Broad. And as of this writing: Nothing. Given the pace of the modern news cycle, you might be tempted to say that Drexel’s communication’s office is utterly incompetent — I mean, c’mon these rumors are floating on the Internet for going on 24 hours and to date the Drexel communications office has communicated nothing […]
KILLADELPHIA: Fiddling While Rome Burns
HARRISBURG — Despite an impassioned personal plea by Gov. Rendell to do more, a state House panel this morning endorsed one bill aimed at curbing gun violence but rejected two others and tabled action on a fourth.In a 27-2 vote, Judiciary Committee members approved a bill sponsored by Speaker Dennis O’Brien (R., Phila.) to create a mandatory minimum prison sentence of 20 year for anyone who fires a weapon at a police officer. Also by wide margins, the committee rejected bills that would limit the number of handguns a person can buy to one a month and allow cities to […]
NPR FOR THE DEAF: We Hear It Even When You Can’t
FRESH AIR Washington Post correspondent Thomas Ricks has recently returned from Iraq — where senior military commanders now say that the key threat facing the U.S.effort isn’t terrorists, it’s the intransigence of the Shia-dominated government. Ricks, a regular Fresh Air guest, is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author of the best-selling Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq. PLUS, Say “Christopher Plummer,” and some people automatically think of The Sound of Music, in which he played the Baron von Trapp. But that’s just one of about 100 films Plummer has been in; recent highlights from his big-screen career include Syriana, […]