POLITICAL WIRE: “He’s earned our support and confidence, and the time is now to make him commander-in-chief. I’m delighted to support John McCain and I’m pleased that he’s chosen a running mate with executive talent, toughness and common sense, our next vice president in Sarah Palin.” MORE FOX NEWS: “John McCain had to vote 90% of the time with Bush and Cheney to get that endorsement. He had to serve as Washington’s biggest cheerleader for going to war in Iraq. He had to support economic policies that have gotten us into this mess, so Senator McCain worked hard to get […]
Folks, I Think We’re Gonna Win This Thing
REAL CLEAR POLITICS: Pew Research is out with its final pre-election poll. After allocating undecideds nearly evenly between the two candidates, Pew is projecting Obama will finish with 52% of the vote on Tuesday to 46% for John McCain. MORE GALLUP POLL: Gallup’s interviewing conducted Wednesday through Friday shows that 27% of registered voters who plan to vote have already voted. The trend in early voting has trended consistently upward on a day to day basis, moving from 7% of registered voters, who had already voted during the period of Oct. 17-19, to the current estimate of 27%. Another 8% […]
All Of This Happened While You Were Sleeping
THE HEADMASTER RITUAL: Of Montreal, Electric Factory, Last Night [Photo by JONATHAN VALANIA]
JOHN MCCAIN: With Friends Like This
Who needs enemas? My Friends: The Musical [Humanitainment: Mr. Straight Talk himself stars in this musical inspired by his most favorite of phrases.]
RIP: Studs Terkel, Voice Of The Face In The Crowd
TEXAS OBSERVER: He is beloved “Uncle Studs” to many who grew up listening to WFMT, the Chicago radio station that broadcast his eclectic daily mix of music and interviews from 1952 to 1997. To anyone who has ever heard his raspy, empathetic voice, there is only one Studs: Studs Terkel, singer of the unsung American. Louis Terkel acquired his nickname in the 1930s while performing in Clifford Odets’ Waiting for Lefty. He was carrying around books by fellow Chicagoan James T. Farrell, and to differentiate Terkel from two others in the cast also named Louis, members of the Chicago Repertory […]
POLL: Majority Of Americans Afraid Of Sarah Palin
HALLOWEEN MASK: Print Out, Cut Out, Put On, Scare White People NEW YORK TIMES: A growing number of voters have concluded that Senator John McCain’s running mate, Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska, is not qualified to be vice president, weighing down the Republican ticket in the last days of the campaign, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News poll. All told, 59 percent of voters surveyed said Ms. Palin was not prepared for the job, up nine percentage points since the beginning of the month. Nearly a third of voters polled said the vice-presidential selection would be a major […]
HOW SWEET IT IS: Sittin’ On Top Of The World
[Photos by ANDY YOOS and TIFFANY YOON]
THE CHANGELING: Q&A With Christopher Buckley
Christopher Taylor Buckley is an American political satirist and accomplished novelist. His books include God Is My Broker, Thank You for Smoking, Little Green Men, The White House Mess, No Way to Treat a First Lady, Wet Work, Florence of Arabia, Boomsday, and, most recently, Supreme Courtship. Tom Wolfe calls him “one of the funniest writers in the English language.” Recently, he made headlines when he publicly endorsed Senator Barack Obama for President. In advance of his appearance at the Philadelphia Free Library on November 5th, we spoke with the son of conservative movement standard-bearer William F. Buckley about his […]
All Of This Happened While You Were Sleeping
Dead pigeon, 20th & Spring Garden, October 1st [photo by RAY SKWIRE]
CINEMA: Boogie Knights
ZACK & MIRI MAKE A PORNO (2008, directed by Kevin Smith, 102 minutes, U.S.) BY DAN BUSKIRK FILM CRITIC The disappointment of director Kevin Smith’s latest film isn’t so much that it isn’t very sexy, or is only sporadically amusing or even that his ability to stage a scene remains stubbornly amateurish. What lets you down is that the title characters, played by the ingratiating slob Seth Rogen and the bubbly Elizabeth Banks, don’t have the shameless guts to actually let it all hang out in a porn film. Smith wants to titillate us with that great title yet his […]
GOOD CAUSE: Send A CP Kid To College
BY HEWHOCANNOTBENAMED My girlfriend works as a pediatric physical therapist, largely with kids who suffer from cerebral palsy, and whatever victories she achieves may appear small. She comes home, in fact, and says things like “Tommy* stood on his own for 30 seconds today. First time ever!” I probe her with questions (questions, I said, get your head out of the gutter), find out Tommy is 16 years old and this was no small victory. In fact, for Tommy and his mother and the rest of his family (not to mention his physical therapist) it is a moment for high-fives […]
BRIDGE FROM NOWHERE: Goodbye Garden State
BY DAVE ALLEN Having been a frequent visitor to Philly for years, I finally broke down and moved here at the end of July. Well, not quite “here.” I moved to the suburbs, south and east of the city in Gloucester County, New Jersey. For three months, I’ve been a commuter, coming to “the city that is devoured by locusts each day and spat out each night,” as E.B. White said of NYC’s suburb-dwelling workforce. For three months, I’ve been a locust. But no more. This Saturday, I move into an apartment in the city. It’s a decent-sized one-bedroom place […]
SEASON’S GREETINGS: It’s Halloween!
HISTORY.COM: Halloween’s origins date back to the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain (pronounced sow-in). The Celts, who lived 2,000 years ago in the area that is now Ireland, the United Kingdom, and northern France, celebrated their new year on November 1. This day marked the end of summer and the harvest and the beginning of the dark, cold winter, a time of year that was often associated with human death. Celts believed that on the night before the new year, the boundary between the worlds of the living and the dead became blurred. On the night of October 31, they […]