MAILBAG: Ask Not What Your Country Can Do For You

DEAR PHAWKER, We have a military veteran friend [NOT pictured] who was honorably discharged during the Vietnam era. He served in the US Navy while having dual citizenship (Canadian/US). He was born in Canada and his family moved to New York when he was a child and became dual Canadian and US Citizens. After discharge my friend worked in the US for over 3 decades, paying US taxes and Social Security. When it came time to retire and apply for his pension he was informed that the US Department of Homeland Security had revoked his US citizenship and did not […]

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CINEMA: Whatever Happened To Donnie Darko?

SOUTHLAND TALES (2006, directed by Richard Kelly, 144 minutes, U.S.) BY DAN BUSKIRK FILM CRITIC Move over Michael Cimino. Grand in design, epic in its failure, Richard Kelly’s follow-up to the cult hit Donnie Darko is bound to be the new historical benchmark for young directors sending their careers up in flames. At nearly two and a half hours, the apocalyptic Southland Tales propels itself through its End Days scenario like an SUV rolling over on the freeway: it flips and flips and flips and flips till one wants to shout out in fear “Jesus, won’t this thing ever stop!” […]

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EYES WIDE SHUT: Judge Opens Jena 6 Trial To Public

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — A state judge has agreed to open the juvenile trial of one of the black teenagers known as the Jena Six. District Judge J.P. Mauffray agreed Thursday to open Mychal Bell’s trial but noted in a court filing that he was not required to open pretrial hearings. Bell, 17, is set for trial Dec. 6 on charges of aggravated second-degree battery and conspiracy in an attack last December on Justin Barker, a white student at Jena High School. Barker spent several hours in the emergency room, but attended a school event later that day. Typically, juvenile […]

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NPR FOR THE DEAF: We Hear It Even When You Can’t

FRESH AIR BY DAVID EDELSTEIN Brian de Palma is one of cinema’s most hypnotic stylists, a virtuoso who can expand your perception of space, time and motion onscreen. So when he throws away his jazzy technique and goes for rough-hewn and immediate — as in Redacted — it’s a major statement. Redacted — De Palma‘s fictionalized restaging of the rape and murder of an Iraqi girl and the killing of her family by American soldiers — is in form a kind of furious charcoal sketch: an assemblage of fake documentary footage, much of it from soldiers’ camcorders, with inserts of […]

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JUNK SCI: Does This Holiday Make My Ass Look Big?

    BY ELIZABETH FIEND LIVING EDITOR The holiday season is fast approaching, and I know a lot of you men are starting to worry about how you’ll keep your figure through all that festive, stressful, eating- and holiday-related gathering. It’s football season, too. With games on Sunday afternoon, Sunday night, and Monday night too, that’s a lot of beer. Go Eagles! (Why do I even bother?) Body-image problems are usually considered a women’s issue. But nowadays, men are concerned with their bodies and lookin’ good too. And men have to worry not just about their weight, but things women […]

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PAPERBOY EXTRA: Separated At Birth?

Bad ideas have a way of making friends in low places, but shit like this shoulda never made it up the ladder. The image on the right is easy enough to find, just Google “rats” and “Jews”; the image on the left is the cover of this week’s PW. Frankly, we think it should have been the euthanized before it got beyond “Hey, what if we…” stage. Given the long and well-documented history of vicious anti-Semites — from the Nazis to the Al Aqsa Brigades — comparing Jews to vermin, we can only look at the cover of this week’s […]

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LOWLIGHTS IN LAW ENFORCEMENT: New Police Chief Had Car Stolen; Ordered Mass Arrests At Bush 2001 Inauguration; Hogtied Detainees — Including Reporters & Tourists — For 36 Hours During IMF In 2002

D.C. Chief’s Vehicle Snatched ‘Cars Are Getting Stolen Every Day,’ Ramsey Says By Del Quentin Wilber Washington Post Staff Writer Tuesday, June 21, 2005 Wanted: Stolen car. Make and model: Ford Crown Victoria. Owner: D.C. police department. Reported stolen by: Police Chief Charles H. Ramsey. So goes the saga of car theft in the District, where even the police chief’s department-issued car can get swiped a block from his home. “There is not a whole lot to add to it,” Ramsey said. “The car was taken, and there was nothing of real value in it. Cars are getting stolen every […]

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ABORTION OF JUSTICE: Saudi Court Sentences Gang Rape Victim To Six Months In Jail & 200 Lashes

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia — A Saudi court sentenced a woman who had been gang raped to six months in jail and 200 lashes — more than doubling her initial penalty for being in the car of a man who was not a relative, a newspaper reported Thursday. The decision by the Qatif General Court came in a case that had sparked rare debate about the kingdom’s justice system when it surfaced more than a year ago. In its decision Wednesday, the court also roughly doubled prison sentences for the seven men convicted of raping the 19-year-old woman, the Arab News […]

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