HUFFINGTON POST: [Yesterday], the New Yorker released its cover for the July 21, 2008 issue — and the reaction was swift and furious. The cover by Barry Blitt, called “The Politics of Fear,” shows Michelle and Barack Obama depicted as the worst of the prejudiced, smearing characterizations that have dogged them over the course of the campaign: Michelle Obama as a revolutionary in military fatigues, packing AK-47 and ammo; her husband dressed like the Muslim he is stubbornly accused of being. Both of them stand in the Oval Office, with a portrait of Osama bin Laden behind them over a […]
HELLO DALAI: Tibetan Spirtual Leader Comes To Town
BETHLEHEM, Pa. (AP) — The Dalai Lama said Sunday that “it’s totally wrong, unfair” to call Islam a violent religion. The Tibetan spiritual leader, appearing at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania, offered a defense of Islam in response to a question about the rise of violent religious fundamentalism. He added that he has made a point of reaching out to Muslims since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. The Dalai Lama arrived at Lehigh on Thursday for a series of talks on a 600-year-old Buddhist text. He took a break Sunday to lecture on “Generating a Good Heart,” and afterward took […]
Vai Sikahema Kicks Jose Canseco’s Ass
And then adopts FIVE children. What a mensch!
BREAKING: Stella Owns Bud
BLOOMBERG: InBev NV, the maker of Stella Artois lager, agreed to buy Anheuser-Busch Cos. for $49.9 billion to become the world’s biggest brewer and gain almost half of the U.S. market for beer, according to a person with knowledge of the accord. The $70-a-share takeover of St. Louis-based Anheuser-Busch is the second-biggest of a U.S. consumer-goods company and ends a month of court fights and public disputes over the future of the 156-year-old maker of Budweiser. Leuven, Belgium-based InBev will change its name to Anheuser-Busch InBev, preserving part of the U.S. company’s identity, said the person, who declined to be […]
Ocean Kills Three; Authorities Decline To Press Charges
ASSOCIATED PRESS: TRENTON, N.J. – Storm-driven waves and currents appear to have claimed the lives of three swimmers at the Jersey shore, authorities said Sunday. One swimmer drowned and another is missing following a Saturday evening swim off the Wildwood beach, while a swimmer died after being rescued from waves in Atlantic City on Saturday afternoon. The tricky surf is because of Bertha, now a tropical storm, far out in the Atlantic Ocean and approaching Bermuda. Coast Guard personnel, using a vessel and a helicopter, searched for the missing swimmer in Wildwood until 7:29 a.m. Sunday, when the effort was […]
All This Happened While You Were Sleeping
MCs Dozia & Red Richards + DJs Jafar Barron & mikefivedeuce, Patou, Last Night [Photos by ROZA FRYKOWSKA]
HEAR YE: Al Green Lay It Down
BY ED KING Almost forget about your anniversary and need to get your woman something fast? You won’t go wrong with this album. You know what they say about all the great singers: “So-and-so could sing the phone book and make it sound good!” On Lay It Down, Al Green’s continued return to secular recording, the reverend has ?uestlove and James Poyser behind the board and in the band — and it’s not exactly the phone book that he sings with such mastery but Hallmark-worthy inspirational platitudes. Be that as it may, the considerable strengths of this collection, which also […]
EARLY WORD: The Past Isn’t Dead, It Isn’t Even Past
When the smoke cleared after the hardcore punk wars of the ’80s — fought fiercely in the all-ages basements of West Philly and the early ’90s Jäger-fueled grunge matches at the Khyber — for a brief and shining moment Caterpillar had its turn in the sun. Consisting of three natty indie types and a gray-haired dude, the band rocked quite righteously — not quite punk, not quite grunge, but born of both — in a way that can only be described as Delawarean. Standing in the center of a local rock moment is a fleeting thing, of course, and in […]
We Know It’s Only Rock N’ Roll But We Like It
THE SUMMER OF SHOVE: No Age, First Unitarian, Last Night PHOTO & TEXT BY TIFFANY YOON A young, near-capacity crowd squeezed into the church basement like it was a pair of skinny jeans that no longer fit comfortably, it was sweatbox-hot, and nearly everyone was drunk and hormonal. In other words, I haven’t had this much fun at a show in a long time. Sadly, I missed Abe Vigoda open the show, but I did catch some of High Places set, but found it somewhat disappointing. They just weren’t very exciting to watch. Danceable music, definitely, but I just wanted […]
NPR 4 THE DEF: Giving Public Radio Edge Since 2006
FRESH AIR Zooey Deschanel has always been an anachronistic sort of gal. At age 8, when she wrote her first song, she was “really into the early 1900s.” “I think it was called ‘I’m Having Fun at the Fair,’” she tells NPR’s Alex Cohen, her big blue eyes peering out beneath bangs that have inspired fashion columns. “Did it have words?” asks the other half of She & Him. M. (short for Matt) Ward is sitting next to her at the Vista theater in Hollywood, where they’ll perform that night. “Yeah, it was very ‘Meet Me in St. Louis,’” she […]
KILLADELPHIA: One More Dead Since U Went To Bed
INQUIRER: A 24-year-old man, shot last night inside a Northeast apartment building, died this morning, according to Philadelphia police. Matthew Smith, 24, was shot in the chest and shoulder shortly before 11:30 p.m. inside the Brookmont Apartments at 600 Red Lion Road in Bustleton. Smith, who lived there, was taken to Frankford Torresdale Hospital, but was pronounced dead at 4:29 a.m. The shooting took place in a stairwell or hallway near the entrance, police said. Homicide detectives were at the scene this morning, asking neighbors for help in piecing together what happened.
PANIC: Fed Mulls Takeover To Avoid Meltdown
NEW YORK TIMES: Shares of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the beleaguered mortgage finance companies, plummeted again on Friday as the Bush administration sought to allay market fears. Following a report that the administration was considering a plan to take over one or both of the companies and place them in a conservatorship if their problems grow, Fannie Mae stock was down 25 percent in midday trading compared with Thursday’s closing price; Freddie Mac stock was down 21 percent. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have been hit hard by the mortgage foreclosure crisis. Their shares are plummeting and their borrowing […]
LESSNESS: The Plummeting Value Of American Life
ASSOCIATED PRESS: It’s not just the American dollar that’s losing value. A government agency has decided that an American life isn’t worth what it used to be. The “value of a statistical life” is $6.9 million in today’s dollars, the Environmental Protection Agency reckoned in May — a drop of nearly $1 million from just five years ago. The Associated Press discovered the change after a review of cost-benefit analyses over more than a dozen years. Though it may seem like a harmless bureaucratic recalculation, the devaluation has real consequences. When drawing up regulations, government agencies put a value on […]