THE CHICAGO 10 (2007, directed by Brett Morgen, 110 minutes, U.S.) BY DAN BUSKIRK FILM CRITIC In 1980, radical activist Abbie Hoffman titled his autobiography “Soon To Be A Major Motion Picture.” Poor Abbie, his revolution never arrived and when he committed suicide in 1989, his Hollywood biopic was nowhere in sight. Robert Greenwald took a well-meaning yet flat-footed stab in 2000 with Steal This Movie (it’s hard to imagine that the hulking Vincent D’Onofrio was anyone’s idea of Abbie Hoffman), and now documentarian Brett (The Kid Stays In The Picture) Morgen tells the story of the 1968 Democratic National […]
DEADLINE: Register Now Or Forever Hold Your Peace
How to register Monday is the last day to register to vote in Pennsylvania’s April 22 primary. Only voters registered with a party can vote in that party’s primary. Individuals may register at a county voter registration office or at other designated sites.For information, call 1-877-868-3772 or go to www.votespa.com. The site, from the Pennsylvania Department of State, includes a registration form for downloading. [via the PHILLY.COM]
KILLADELPHIA: 6 Shot, 4 Dead In Easter Massacre
DAILY NEWS: Easter weekend in the city was nothing to celebrate. Four men were shot to death and two others were riddled with bullets but somehow managed to survive. The latest murder victim was a 22-year-old man shot multiple times on 11th Street near Diamond, North Philadelphia, at about 6 p.m. yesterday. He was pronounced dead at Temple University Hospital. A 24-year-old man was shot to death shortly after 2:30 a.m. yesterday in the Phuong Phanh Coffee Shop, a Vietnamese restaurant on 5th Street near Duncannon Avenue in Logan, police said. He was killed with a single gunshot inside the […]
HEIL HANNITY: Fox News Pitbull Tied To Neo-Nazis
HUFFINGTON POST: The folks over at NewsHounds have been watching their Fox News Channel quarry dither over Senator Barack Obama’s associations with pastor Jeremiah Wright, and noted Fox’s own Sean Hannity getting himself tripped up in the guilt-by-association tango. Seems that one of Hannity’s close chums is a neo-Nazi named Hal Turner who used to be a radio host, is apparently the top man in Bergen, NJ white-supremacist circles, and probably spends a lot of his time in his basement with Star Wars action figures acting out Holocaust-denier versions of The Return of the Jedi. In short, just the sort […]
WORTH REPEATING: Iraq On $5,000 A Second
NICHOLAS KRISTOF: The improvement is real but fragile and limited. Here’s what it amounts to: We’ve cut our casualty rates to the unacceptable levels that plagued us back in 2005, and we still don’t have any exit plan for years to come — all for a bill that is accumulating at the rate of almost $5,000 every second! Granted, the cost estimates are squishy and controversial, partly because the $12.5 billion a month that we’re now paying for Iraq is only a down payment. We’ll still be making disability payments to Iraq war veterans 50 years from now. Professor Stiglitz […]
All Of This Happened While You Were Sleeping
PEOPLE HAVE THEIR USES: Making Time, Transit, Last Night[photos by TIFFANY YOON/CLICK TO ENLARGE]
DIGITAL DIVIDE: Municipal Wireless A Bridge Too Far
NEW YORK TIMES: It was hailed as Internet for the masses when Philadelphia officials announced plans in 2005 to erect the largest municipal Wi-Fi grid in the country, stretching wireless access over 135 square miles with the hope of bringing free or low-cost service to all residents, especially the poor. Municipal officials in Chicago, Houston, San Francisco and 10 other major cities, as well as dozens of smaller towns, quickly said they would match Philadelphia’s plans. But the excited momentum has sputtered to a standstill, tripped up by unrealistic ambitions and technological glitches. The conclusion that such ventures would not […]
All Of This Happened While You Were Working
YES WE CAN: Black Thought Stumping For Obama, Klein Hall, Temple, 5 pm [Photos by TIFFANY YOON/CLICK TO ENLARGE]
SHILLING: Tom Waits For Purina Butcher’s Blend?
Or an amazing simulation? Standby for word from the man himself.
NPR 4 THE DEF: Giving Public Radio Edge Since 2006
FRESH AIR w/ TERRY GROSS Today, as Christians around the world commemorate Good Friday, Christian scholar and former priest John Dominic Crossan joins Fresh Air to discuss the historical Jesus, the role of crucifixion in antiquity, and the beginnings of Christianity. Crossan is professor emeritus of biblical studies at DePaul University in Chicago and a founding member of the Jesus Seminar, a group of scholars who meet to determine the authenticity of Jesus’ sayings in the Gospels. He is also the author of more than 18 books on Christianity, including the national bestsellers Who Killed Jesus? and The Birth of […]
DAN GROSS: Wake Up White People!
This ran on PhillyGossip yesterday: We thought we heard this, but we wanted to go back and listen to the clip of Sen. Barack Obama on 610 WIP this morning to be sure. 610 WIP host Angelo Cataldi asked Obama about his Tuesday morning speech on race at the National Constitution Center in which he referenced his own white grandmother and her prejudice. Obama told Cataldi that “The point I was making was not that my grandmother harbors any racial animosity, but that she is a typical white person. If she sees somebody on the street that she doesn’t know […]
EARLY WORD: Holy Ghost Stories
He’s been a puppet, a poet, a pirate, a pawn and king. He’s been up and down and over and out — and he still really likes the LSD thing. He’s Brother JT and he’s come to tell us all that the emperor has no clothes, the sky is falling, God is dead and, most important, God is great. He’s also leading the protest movement against the war going on in this country about looking good. Musically, expect the sorta cerebellum-tickling, zap-your-head psychedelic sturm und drang the good Brother has been cranking out for well-nigh on a decade. Some nudity […]