BY MICHAEL CURRIE SHAFFER INQUIRER STAFF WRITER Mayoral candidate Chaka Fattah yesterday proposed examining a “congestion charge” that would require drivers to pay to bring their cars into traffic-clogged parts of central Philadelphia at peak hours. Fattah offered few specifics about what his plan would cost or just how it would be implemented. He said he hoped only to “study” the idea. “We cannot have a city in which everyone expects to be able to drive their car everywhere they want to go,” Fattah said. Fattah’s idea is modeled on a program that has slashed vehicular traffic and commute times […]
THE MICHAEL SMERCONISH EXPLAINER: Wiping The Smirk Off Mr. Clean With The Dirty Rag Of Truth
As we reported last week, Michael Smerconish is now a regular fixture of the Inquirer’s Sunday Op-Ed page. Bully for him, we’re all for equal time and open debate. But as we have said before, it’s because of guys like Smerconish — Machiavellian media climbers that will say ANYTHING to ensure their butt space in the game of musical chairs that is the talking head puditocracy — that people don’t even expect to hear the truth anymore, let along demand it. Mr. Smerconish is a cunning fellow who likes to pass himself off as too guileless to have an agenda. […]
NPR FOR THE DEAF: We Hear It Even When You Can’t
FRESH AIR Investigative reporter Lowell Bergman is the producer of the new documentary, News War: Secrets, Spin and the Future of the News. The series is about the mainstream news media and the political, legal and economic forces at play. PLUS, lead singer/guitarist Pat DiNizio and drummer Dennis Diken from the band The Smithereens. Their new album, Meet the Smithereens, is a track-by-track homage to the Beatles’ Meet the Beatles. RADIO TIMES In light of the Lewis Libby trial, we discuss the relationship between the White House and its Press Corps. Our guests are RON HUCHESON, White House Correspondent for […]
THE SECRET POLICEMAN’S OTHER BALL
Vancouver GM Place (May 28) Seattle Key Arena (June 6) Denver Pepsi Center (9) Las Vegas MGM Garden Arena (15) Bonnaroo Festival (16) Phoenix US Airwaves Arena (18) Dallas American Airlines Center (26) New Orleans Arena (June 30) St Louis Scottrade Center (July 2) Toronto Air Canada Center (22) Montreal Bell Centre (25) Boston Fenway Park (28) New York Madison Square Garden (August 1,3) Additional North American concert dates in Chicago, Columbus, Detroit, Edmonton, Hartford, Houston, Los Angeles, Miami, PHILADELPHIA, Tampa, San Francisco, Minneapolis/St. Paul and the Washington/Baltimore area will be announced in the next few weeks. [Via NME]
CARTOON NETWORKS CANNOT HURT YOU
All told, Adult Swim makes us feel safer than Homeland Security. Plus, their cartoons are funnier.
HOT DOC: Emancipation Proclamation Phones Home
PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) – A museum on Thursday unveiled a rare copy of the Emancipation Proclamation, a document signed in 1863 by President Abraham Lincoln declaring the end of slavery in the United States. The document is one of about 24 known copies to survive out of 48 that were originally printed. It was acquired on behalf of The National Constitution Center museum from an unnamed private collector. “This is one of the rarest, most valuable, most significant documents in history,” president of the non-profit museum Joseph Torsella told a news conference. “With the possible exception of the Declaration of Independence, […]
THE POLICE: Can’t Stand Losing You
LOS ANGELES — The Police 30th Anniversary reunion world tour will kick off May 28 at Vancouver’s GM Place and travel through North America until early August. The official tour announcement will be made this morning at legendary Sunset Strip club Whiskey A Go Go by singer-bassist Sting, 55, drummer Stewart Copeland, 54, and guitarist Andy Summers, 64. Ticket prices are expected to be in three ranges — approximately $225, $90 and $50. Police to hold press conference to announce tour at the Whiskey A Go Go this morning. Philly date inevitable. DEVELOPING
GRAMMYS: Free Speech Makes Comeback Of The Year
Connecting past and present, one-time folk protest queen Joan Baez introduced current freedom-of-speech fighters and five time Grammy nominees the Dixie Chicks, still “Not Ready to Make Nice” to the country conservatives and spineless radio programmers who totally abandoned them for criticizing (barely) the President’s pre-emptive war tactics. An hour later, the same tune was named Song of the Year, a recording industry affirmation that left the group’s usually outspoken Natalie Maines speechless “for the first time in my life,” she declared. But by the time the Chicks returned to take Best Country Album for “Taking the Long Way,” Maines […]
ARCHITECTURE: The Bad Poetry Of New South St. Bridge
No matter how many turrets and stainless-steel railings are pasted on this deeply flawed scheme, the current design remains a lost opportunity for Philadelphia. The engineers have dutifully outfitted the proposed span with bike lanes and a ramp connection to Schuylkill Banks park, yet there isn’t an ounce of poetry in its steel bones. After a decade of tinkering with its design, the bridge promises to be little more than a chute for efficiently moving traffic onto the most frightening of the I-76 entry ramps. If city leaders were seriously interested in branding Philadelphia as a vital modern metropolis, they […]
WEATHER: Valentine’s Day Massacre?
While an arctic front will spark snow showers across the Northeast today, mainly over the interior, and bring an end to the recent moderating temperatures tonight, the storm strengthening in the southern Plains today will have a greater impact on the region as Valentine’s Day approaches. With the front draped to the south, areas from near the Mason-Dixon line to the North Carolina border will have, from north to south, a bit of snow, a wintry mix and rain tonight. Since the southern Plains’ storm will begin heading towards the region, the precipitation will fall the heaviest over West Virginia […]
GUNCRAZY: Cops Bag 4th Dubious Trophy Kill Of The Year
A police official said yesterday that a man fatally shot by two officers Saturday night in Southwest Philadelphia – the fourth victim of deadly police force in 2007 – refused requests to drop his loaded .45-caliber semiautomatic pistol. Philadelphia Police Capt. Benjamin Naish said Raheem Pridgen, 27, caught the attention of the officers on patrol in the Elmwood neighborhood because he was sitting in his car, which was running and facing the wrong direction in the 6400 block of Dicks Avenue at 6:15 p.m. Naish said Pridgen got out of the vehicle and ran as an officer approached; the officer […]
NOW PLAYING: NEW MAGNETIC WONDER
[NOW PLAYING ON PHAWKER RADIO] REVIEWED BY AMY Z. QUINN The last time Apples in Stereo released an album was in 2002, not long after being featured in a New York Times piece about the then-growing trend of indie rockers selling their music for advertising. In early 2001, when the piece ran, the Apples were still angsty over deciding they needed things like baby furniture as much as artistic cred. Half a decade later, that baby furniture is probably still serving Hilarie Sidney and Robert Schneider’s child well, so in terms of the small world of their own family, they […]