The following is an email making the rounds, and comes via THE FIELD NEGRO: “1 – James McDougal – Clinton’s convicted Whitewater partner died of an apparent heart attack, while in solitary confinement.He was a key witness in Ken Starr’s investigation. 2 – Mary Mahoney – A former White House intern was murdered July 1997 at a Starbucks Coffee Shop in Georgetown . The murder happened just after she was to go public with her story of sexual harassment in the White House. 3 – Vince Foster – Former White House counselor and colleague of Hillary Clinton at Little Rock’s […]
NEWS CLUES: ‘Boring But Important News’ Edition
NITTANY LION KING: Obama Draws 20,000 At Penn State Rally, Urges Crowd To ‘Take The Skinheads Bowling, Take Them Bowling’ UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. (AP) — Shivering in blankets of Penn State’s colors, some 20,000 people filled a campus lawn Sunday to hear Barack Obama say he can win the Democratic nomination even if rival Hillary Rodham Clinton stays in the race. Supporters stood in long lines for hours to hear Obama ahead of the April 22 Pennsylvania primary. Some Democrats, particularly Obama’s supporters, have voiced concern that the hard-fought, drawn-out race is already hurting the party‘s chances to win in […]
REVIEW: This IS Your Father’s R.E.M.
[via PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER] R.E.M. Accelerate (Warner ****) Just when I’d concluded that R.E.M.’s three-legged dog don’t hunt no more, they turn in their most powerful and cohesive work since 1992’s Automatic for the People, a record brimming with all the things that made them great in the first place: clangy autumnal melodies, droney proto-emo vocals, trippy nuance, the haunted poetics of regret, the routine eschewing of the obvious and the familiar in pursuit of the sublime and the unexpected. This one goes out to the long-suffering superfans, the kind of people whose faces light up when you say that the […]
STUDY: Cell Phones More Carcinogenic Than Cigarettes, Experts Warn Of A Global Brain Tumor Epidemic
THE INDEPENDENT: Mobile phones could kill far more people than smoking or asbestos, a study by an award-winning cancer expert has concluded. He says people should avoid using them wherever possible and that governments and the mobile phone industry must take “immediate steps” to reduce exposure to their radiation. The study, by Dr Vini Khurana, is the most devastating indictment yet published of the health risks. It draws on growing evidence that using handsets for 10 years or more can double the risk of brain cancer. Cancers take at least a decade to develop, invalidating official safety assurances based on […]
RAW FOOTAGE: Demolition Of Mantua Hall
PREVIOUSLY: TODAY I SAW two 16-ft. moving trucks parked back-to-back in front of Mantua Hall, their loading ramps extended so they almost touched each other. Every day is moving day now. The building is slated to be emptied by the end of the year, and while most families have already left there are still some stragglers waiting for the Philadelphia Housing Authority to approve their new scatter-site placements. PHA is paying for the families to relocate, so the moving trucks come in pairs and when one leaves another arrives. The shrill, intermittent symphony of ear-piercing smoke alarms going off about […]
BEANIE AGONISTES: Sigel Facing 3-Month Lock-Up
ALL HIP-HOP: Philadelphia rapper Beanie Sigel will spend the next three months in prison, after he was accused of violating his probation for a third time yesterday (March 28). Probation officials revealed that Sigel provided a false urine sample and tested positive for Xanax and Percocet five times over the past month. Sigel, who admitted to being addicted to the painkiller and muscle relaxer, was originally sentenced to six months house arrest in January, after a second probation violation. In that case, a federal judge found that Sigel took an unauthorized trip to Atlantic City, New Jersey, and had contact […]
WORTH REPEATING: Five Things Every American Should Know About The Current Violence In Iraq
Muqtada al-Sadr’s Militia parading through Basra in an undated photo. [via ALTERNET] U.S. is propping up unpopular regime; Sadr has support because of his platform One of the ironies of the reporting out of Iraq is the ubiquitous characterization of Muqtada al-Sadr as a “renegade,” “radical” or “militant” cleric, despite the fact that he is the only leader of significance in the country who has ordered his followers to stand down. His ostensible militancy appears to arise primarily from his opposition to the U.S.-led occupation of Iraq. He has certainly been willing to use violence in the past, but the […]
All Of This Happened Whie You Were Sleeping
TURBO CHARGE: Turbo Station, Trocadero, Last Night, [Photos by TIFFANY YOON/CLICK TO ENLARGE]
We Know It’s Only Rock N’ Roll But We Like It
THE DIRTY SOUTH WILL RISE AGAIN: Drive-By Truckers, The Fillmore, Last Night BY JONATHAN VALANIA FOR THE INQUIRER The Drive-By Truckers write songs about the dirty South, where life is hard and folks die soft and squishy and often emphysemic, dirty deeds get done dirt cheap, and everyone goes to church but nobody really goes to heaven. These songs are like the weeds in the cracks of the trailer park, or the pile of broken beer bottles in the woods, or the lipstick traces on the stubbed-out Kools overflowing the ashtray. Oh, the things they have seen. It also bears […]
LIVE & DIRECT: From Clinton Headquarters
On Monday we will have a report from Obama headquarters.
NPR 4 THE DEF: Giving Public Radio Edge Since 2006
FRESH AIR In the climax of Arthur Penn’s 1967 classic film, Bonnie and Clyde, the bank-robbing duo’s days of crime end abruptly when they are gunned down in a shower of bullets. It’s a realistically violent scene, shot in slow motion, which has been both praised and criticized for its brutality. Penn says that the scene was influenced by media reports and images of the Vietnam War, which were broadcasts daily during the filming of the movie. “It was a time,” he says, “where, it seemed to me that if we were going to depict violence, then we would […]
JUNK SCIENCE: Heavy Metal Fishing Lot
BY ELIZABETH FIEND LIVING EDITOR Subway’s Tuna sandwich is advertised as dolphin-safe but they fail to mention it comes with a side order of heavy metal — mercury, to be exact. Not just hoagies, sushi too. Shocking news outta Manhattan recently. How much mercury did you say was in that sushi? Yikes, just eating two or three pieces a week of bluefin tuna sushi could be a health hazard for an adult. There are dangerous levels of mercury in marlin, shark, and swordfish, too. Tuna is the fish most often consumed by Americans, so this is the vehicle for most […]