BY TIFFANY YOON LIVING ARTS CORRESPONDENT Last night Phawker was literally EVERYWHERE! And boy, are my arms tired. Bada-BUM! First stop, the 17th Annual Philadelphia Film Festival’s press conference turned cocktail party to brush elbows with other anxious members of the media. This year’s Philadelphia Film Festival runs from April 3-15 and is focusing on music and documentary. It will commence with Young@Heart and close with Patti Smith: Dream of Life, which is a documentary on cult rocker Patti Smith. Should be awesome. Second on the list, in an order that doesn’t seem to make any sense, the Hillary Clinton […]
CDC: 1 Out Of Four 4 Teen Girls Have STD
WASHINGTON POST: At least one in four teenage American girls has a sexually transmitted disease, suggests a first-of-its-kind federal study that startled some adolescent-health experts. Some doctors said the numbers might be a reflection of both abstinence-only sex education and teens’ own sense of invulnerability. Because some sexually transmitted infections can cause infertility and cancer, U.S. health officials called for better screening, vaccination and prevention. Only about half of the girls in the study acknowledged having sex. Some teens define sex as only intercourse, yet other types of intimate behavior including oral sex can spread some diseases. Among those who […]
All Of This Happened While You Were Sleeping
PATRIOT ACTOR: Paul G, “John Adams” Screening, Constitution Center, 6 PM BY AMY Z. QUINN Meta moment: I’m sitting inside the small theater at the National Constitution Center, watching HBO’s preview of Episode 2 of John Adams. On the screen, the British actor Tom Wilkinson is doing a mighty fine Dr. Franklin. I look to my left and there, a few rows down, is Ralph Archbold, wearing average guy clothing but with that unmistakably Franklinesque hairdo. Also in attendance: Historian and author David McCullough, author of the book which spawned the miniseries; writer Kirk Ellis, in period garb no less; […]
MISSISSIPPI: ‘Yes We Can’
ASSOCIATED PRESS: Barack Obama coasted to victory in Mississippi’s Democratic primary Tuesday, latest in a string of racially polarized presidential contests across the Deep South and a final tune-up before next month’s high-stakes race with Hillary Rodham Clinton in Pennsylvania. Obama was winning roughly 90 percent of the black vote but only about one-quarter of the white vote, extending a pattern that carried him to victory in earlier primaries in South Carolina, Alabama, Georgia and Louisiana. He picked up at least six Mississippi delegates to the Democratic National Convention, with 27 more to be awarded. He hoped for a win […]
DAISY DUKES & DOOBIES: Mary Ann Just Got Hotter
ASSOCIATED PRESS: DRIGGS, Idaho — Dawn Wells, who played Mary Ann on “Gilligan’s Island,” is serving six months’ unsupervised probation after allegedly being caught with marijuana in her car. She was sentenced Feb. 29 to five days in jail, fined $410.50 and placed on probation after pleading guilty to one count of reckless driving. Under a plea agreement, three misdemeanor counts — driving under the influence, possession of drug paraphernalia and possession of a controlled substance – were dropped. On Oct. 18, Teton County sheriff’s Deputy Joseph Gutierrez arrested Wells as she was driving home from a surprise birthday party […]
I, POLLSTER: Phawker’s Hilariously Un-Scientific Pennsyltucky Primary Keystoned Cell Phone Poll
BY JONATHAN VALANIA A long time ago, in a Clinton campaign far, far away, James Carville famously declared that Pennsylvania is Pittsburgh and Philadelphia and Alabama in between. Aw, yeah: Pennsyltucky. We know thee well. It’s sort of like watching the Dukes Of Hazzard after smoking too much kielbasa. Like sweat socks with a Sunday suit. Like the Deer Hunter costumed by Wal-Mart. It’s the long dark Chicken Dance of the national soul. Lord help us all. Anyway, with the national press are already converging on the Keystone state to get some local color on their laptops, we feel an […]
HOT DOCUMENT: Federal Lawsuit Claims McCain’s Panama Birth Disqualifies Him From Presidency
[via JUSTIA.COM] PREVIOUSLY: Panama Birth Canal Could Disqualify McCain U.S. CONSTITUTION: No person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any Person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty-five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States. AMERICAN CHAOS: John McCain was born August 29, 1936 in the Panama Canal Zone, to two U.S. citizens. It’s a common misunderstanding that the zone was a U.S. […]
JUST WONDERING: Why Are We Still Schocked — SHOCKED! — By The World’s Oldest Profession?
SLATE: Why, exactly, is prostitution illegal? The case for making it against the law to buy sex begins with the premise that it’s base and exploitative and demeaning to sex workers. Legalizing prostitution expands it, the argument goes, and also helps pimps, fails to protect women, and leads to more back-alley violence, not less. This fight over legalization has been waged in the last few years over international human-trafficking laws and proposals to make prostitution legal in countries like Bulgaria, a movement that the U.S. government helped defeat. In 2004, the federal government expressed its position: “The United States government […]
WORTH REPEATING: Like A Virgin 4 The Very 1st Time
BY AMY Z. QUINN FOR THE INQUIRER It’s May 29, 1985, and my best friend Laura and I — all of 13 and 12 years old — are standing in front of the Spectrum, clutching rainbow-hued Ticketron passes to see Madonna. Not only is this Madonna’s first U.S. tour and her first time in Philly, but more important, it’s our First Concert Without Parents! One of my older sisters drops us off at Broad and Pattison, and we strut around the Spectrum for a bit before taking our seats, leaving frosted-pink lipstick stains on the cigarettes we brazenly smoke out […]
TODAY I SAW: The Valley of The Shadow Of Death
[Photos by JUSTIN ROMAN] BY JEFF DEENEY What looks at first glance like a makeshift pyramid of stuffed animals outside an abandoned brownstone between 22nd and 21st on Dauphin Street is in fact it is one of Philly’s many street shrines for neighborhood homicide victims. The stuffed animals comprising this shrine are mostly bears of different sizes, shapes and pedigree. There’s writing in black magic marker on the bears that reveals a name: Mook. The same name is spray painted on the front window of the house next door to the abandoned brownstone. “RIP Mook” is scrawled in big, black […]
World Record-Holding Marathoner Will NOT Compete In Beijing Olympics, Citing Appalling Air Quality
THE INDEPENDENT: Haile Gebrselassie says he will not run in the marathon at the 2008 Beijing Olympics over fears about the high pollution levels in the city. The Ethiopian marathon world record holder, who suffers from asthma and missed the 2007 London Marathon because of the problem, will now run at the shorter distance of 10,000m in Beijing. “The pollution in China is a threat to my health and it would be difficult for me to run 42km in my current condition,” Gebrselassie said. “But I am not pulling out of the Olympic event in Beijing all together. I plan […]
THE WAR: 8 U.S. Soldiers Killed In One Day
BAGHDAD (AFP) — Insurgents killed eight US soldiers in two separate attacks in 24 hours in Iraq and nine more people died on Tuesday in clashes in the north. In one of the deadliest days for the US military in several months, the insurgents on Monday killed three US soldiers and their translator in the Iraqi province of Diyala where a massive American and Iraqi military sweep has been targeting Al-Qaeda militants. The military, which announced the Diyala incident and casualties on Tuesday, said another soldier was also wounded in the bomb attack. On Monday, five other US soldiers were […]