PHILADELPHIA — The 14 plaintiffs — most from Mexico — worked for Rosenbaum-Cunningham International Inc., a Palm Beach, Fla.-based janitorial firm. In Philadelphia, the company placed workers in Dave and Buster’s Inc., the restaurant chain that has a popular waterfront outpost in the city. Rosenbaum-Cunningham and three top executives were indicted this year in Michigan on federal charges they harbored illegal immigrants for profit and failed to pay the federal government more than $18 million in employment taxes. The charges are still pending. The immigrants say they worked as many as 110 hours a week cleaning kitchens, washing floors and scrubbing […]
THE EARLY WORD: Goldberg’s Rubes
[Photo by STEVE DUFALA] Originally presented as a workshop performance at the 2002 Philly Fringe, machines, machines, machines, machines, machines, machines, machines was a runaway hit with standing-room only houses and an extended run. Newly reimagined and performed by original co-creators Gabriel Quinn Bauriedel and Geoff Sobelle, of Pig Iron Theatre Company, with rainpan 43 co-founder Trey Lyford, the play is a physical and comic send-up of America’s obsession with technology and security. Through a unique blend of clowning and engineering, machines, machines, machines, machines, machines, machines, machines reveals the claustrophobic bunker of three paranoid brothers so fixated on protecting […]
TODAY I SAW…
[Photo by JONATHAN VALANIA] 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 […]
NPR FOR THE DEAF: We Hear It Even When You Can’t
FRESH AIR The 60th Cannes Film Festival drew more than 4,000 journalists, so it’s possible you’ve heard a little something about the hits and misses there. Michael Moore screened a damning documentary about the U.S. health-care system, while singer Norah Jones made her acting debut in a film from Hong Kong auteur Wong Kar-Wai. Critic-at-large John Powers reports on other high- and low-lights. RADIO TIMES Finding humor when everyone thinks you’re a terrorist. We’ll talk with one of the founding members of the Axis of Evil comedy group, and one of their regular guest comedians. MAZ JOBRANI, is an Iranian-American who […]
MAIL BAG: “Good Taste Is The Enemy Of Creativity” — Pablo Picasso, Spanish Cubist Painter, 1881-1973
J, I’m sure you knew what I was gonna say before you even opened the email, but that shit is in poor taste.These gifs provide a very cheap shock, and it’s the cheapness and casualness that I believe underscores both of our points. I understand that you are trying to put a shocking face on violence in Philadelphia because you think it’s being ignored to a certain extent. However, it comes off as childish and unthinking because of its comic nature and the ease and frequency with which you put up those types of graphics. Your motives are unclear and […]
LOL: For Your Consideration
Q: Does this make you gay? A: Hmm, a little bit. [Hat tip to The Wook]
NAKED LUNCH: PETA Chick To Get Naked At Noon
Philadelphia — Wearing nothing but spatters of fake blood and a banner that mimics Burberry’s signature pattern and reads, “When Plaid Goes Bad,” sultry PETA member Amy Jannette [not pictured] will protest outside a Burberry store in Philadelphia tomorrow today. Other PETA members will hand out leaflets and show PETA’s fur-farm expose — narrated by world-famous fashion designer Stella McCartney — to let shoppers know how countless animals suffer and die to become part of a Burberry coat. Date: Wednesday, May 30, Time: 12 noon sharp Place: In front of Burberry, 1705 Walnut St.
EVIL MOTHERS: FBI Nabs The Most Wanted — And Despised — Woman In Philadelphia
(CBS 3) PHILADELPHIA The FBI swarmed a home in Kensington Tuesday and captured Philadelphia’s most wanted female fugitive. Agents and police converged on the house and quickly apprehended Ann Kirby. Kirby is accused of viciously beating her nine-year-old step-daughter and then going on the run for two years. While Kirby was on the run, sources said she collected welfare under different identities and even gave birth to two children of her own. Kirby was the only female on the Philadelphia FBI’s top 10 most wanted list. KYW: Here’s Your Cuffs, What’s Your Hurry? No Really, We Got Nothing But Time
KILLADELPHIA: 1 More Dead Since You Went To Bed
Early this morning, a North Philadelphia man became the city’s 165th homicide victim of 2007. A few minutes after midnight, Keith McCoray, 23, was found outside with gunshot wounds to the chest and foot on the 2500 blook of North 25th Street, police said. INQUIRER: #165 A Done Deal
‘Molester At 30,000 Ft.’ Sent Back To Horny Island
An Indian computer engineer who groped female passengers during a London-to-Philadelphia flight in March and later caused a commotion in a courtroom here was sentenced yesterday to 69 days in prison, or time served. Thirumurthy Nakka Boomaiah of Chennai, India, is expected to be deported. He had pleaded guilty to interfering with a flight crew and faced a sentence of as long as six months. Boomaiah was arrested March 21 at Philadelphia International Airport after passengers and crew complained that he had rubbed the legs and genital areas of female passengers and thrown water in the face of a flight […]
BEER LEAGUERED: Dick Yuengling, Union Breaker?
POTTSVILLE, Pa. – Dick Yuengling Jr., fifth-generation owner of the brewery that bears his name, called his employees together a few weeks before their labor contract was set to expire to talk about the future of the business. “Read between the lines,” he told them at one point, according to government documents on the management-union feud that followed. Depending upon whom you ask, Yuengling’s speech was either a pep talk to urge employees to work harder or an ultimatum to dump the Teamsters union, which is what they did. Union leaders say Dick Yuengling told the workers that he would […]
WOMEN ON THE VERGE: Another Texas Mom Kills Her Children, Then Herself
HUDSON OAKS, Texas – A relative found the bodies of a 23-year-old woman and her four small daughters hanging in a closet in their mobile home Tuesday morning, all of them dead but an 8-month-old, who was taken to a hospital, the sheriff said. The other children, ages 5, 3 and 2, had all had been hanged with strips of clothing and sashes, Fowler said. Neighbors in the rural community of 1,600 were stunned. Less than five years earlier, another Hudson Oaks family was torn apart when Dee Etta Perez, 39, shot her three children, ages 4, 9 and 10, […]