DAILY NEWS: Lawyers for the Daily News and the Inquirer are seeking to block efforts to force 10 reporters to testify about their sources in the probe into now-indicted slots parlor owner Louis DeNaples. A lawyer for the papers’ owner said that the subpoenas issued recently to the papers and the reporters – as well as several other Pennsylvania journalists – by lawyers for DeNaples “were really designed to harass members of the media.” “We believe that the subpoenas really are an attempt to intimidate the press and to deter the reporters from writing articles about the defendant that they […]
KILLADELPHIA: One More Dead Since U Went To Bed
INQUIRER: Police this morning identified a 37-year-old car wash employee who was fatally shot at work in North Philadelphia yesterday afternoon. Fassara Kouyate, of the 200 block of Birch Street in Kensington, was shot at 4:47 p.m. near the intersection of Broad Street and Lehigh Avenue, police said. He was taken to Temple University Hospital and pronounced dead at 5:20 p.m. No arrests were reported.
WORTH REPEATING: Confederacy Of Dunces
KAREN HELLER: Council incumbency is nearly papal in its security. Members die in office. People with IQs no higher than toasters cakewalk through elections in perpetuity, all the while able to collect multiple incomes and pensions while slogging through three months of no legislation. The only time a member gets ejected by a somnolent citizenry is when he or she does something truly heinous. Like driving without a license for 25 years. Philadelphia is such an oasis of promise that any little boy can grow up to be a member of Council. Provided Daddy was mayor first. Three former mayors’ […]
We Know It’s Only Rock N’ Roll But We Like It
HOW ARE YOU: Daniel Johnston, Popped Fest, WCL, Sunday Night BY SIMONE SECCI FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT Popped festival 2008: same graphics, same format, fancier names (Gogol Bordello, Daniel Johnston) and locations such as World Café Live and there was where your favorite Philadelphia-adopted Italian reporter was last night to delight his ears. Sunday night there were two stages, with the upstairs more oriented to a dancier, hip and more uncommitted entertainment and a downstairs where a various bunch of more or less underground rock acts gather the attendance. First on stage Gildon Works offered a really great live show of indie […]
SHOOTING HORSES: Jersey Jerk Cops To Killing ‘Cutie’
INQUIRER: A Lindenwold man pleaded guilty today to shooting a rodeo horse with a bow and arrow in Franklin Township, Gloucester County, then leaving it to bleed to death in a field near its owner’s home. Jason Allen, 20, was hunting for deer with two friends in January 2007 when they came across “Cutie,” [NOT pictured, left] he told a Gloucester County Superior Court judge. The steel-tipped arrow Allen fired struck the show horse, owned by a Tuckahoe Road family. Allen, along with Kamren Johnston, 25, and Mark A. Simmerman, 21, were arrested a month later and charged with multiple […]
NPR 4 THE DEF: Giving Public Radio Edge Since 2006
FRESH AIR George Carlin‘s iconoclasm, his envelope-pushing and pointed politics helped pave the way for comedians from Richard Pryor to Cheech and Chong to Eddie Murphy to Chris Rock to Bill Maher. “I like to find out where the line might be drawn and then deliberately cross it,” he said during an NPR interview in 2000. “There are an awful lot of taboos. … I just enjoy squashing them and stepping on them and peeling them apart and trying to expose them to people. For some reason, it makes me happy.” “There are 400,000 words in the English language, and […]
KILLADELPHIA: Aaron McKie Faces Gun Charges
INQUIRER: Former Philadelphia 76er Aaron F. McKie was arrested this morning on charges he lied while trying to buy two pistols despite a restraining order banning weapons possession. McKie, 35, is to be arraigned this afternoon in Montgomery County Magisterial District Court on one felony and one misdemeanor count stemming from his April 8 trip to Abington Gun Sports in Upper Moreland Township. While filling out paperwork to buy a .38-caliber Smith and Wesson and a 9 mm Ruger, McKie denied that he was subject to a court order restraining him from harassing his “child or an intimate partner or […]
INCONVENIENT TRUTH: Top NASA Climate Scientist Says CEOs of Big Oil Should Be Brought Up On Charges Of High Crimes Against Humanity And Nature
THE GUARDIAN: James Hansen, one of the world’s leading climate scientists, will today call for the chief executives of large fossil fuel companies to be put on trial for high crimes against humanity and nature, accusing them of actively spreading doubt about global warming in the same way that tobacco companies blurred the links between smoking and cancer. Hansen will use the symbolically charged 20th anniversary of his groundbreaking speech (pdf) to the US Congress — in which he was among the first to sound the alarm over the reality of global warming – to argue that radical steps need […]
HERCULES AND LOVE AFFAIR: Blind
NEW YORK TIMES: SOMETIMES you instantly know you have a hit on your hands. And sometimes it takes you a few years to realize it, because you mistakenly assume that your lone collaborator hates the song. In 2004 Andy Butler persuaded his friend Antony, the otherworldly singer of Antony and the Johnsons, to record a dance track he had written called “Blind.” They listened to it afterward, and Mr. Butler said, “Antony was like: ‘What did we just do? What did I do?’ ” This inscrutable response deterred Mr. Butler from trying to release the song. “Antony always thought it […]
RIP: Sage Funnyman George Carlin Dead At 71
REUTERS: Comedian George Carlin, a counter-culture hero famed for his routines about drugs and dirty words, died of heart failure at a Los Angeles-area hospital on Sunday, a spokesman said. He was 71. Carlin, who had a history of heart problems, died at St. John’s Health Center in Santa Monica about 6 p.m. PDT (9 p.m. EDT) after being admitted earlier in the afternoon for chest pains, spokesman Jeff Abraham told Reuters. Known for his edgy, provocative material, Carlin achieved status as an anti-Establishment icon in the 1970s with stand-up bits full of drug references and a routine about seven […]
Amy Winehouse Has Emphysema & Lump In Breast
HAPPIER MONDAYS: Amy Winehouse & Now-Jailed Husband Blake Sharing Unidentified White Pills ASSOCIATED PRESS: LONDON — Soul diva Amy Winehouse has damaged her lungs by smoking crack cocaine and cigarettes, her father said in an interview published Sunday. The Sunday Mirror quoted Mitch Winehouse as saying that Amy has early stage emphysema and an irregular heartbeat, and has been warned that she will have to wear an oxygen mask unless she stops smoking drugs.”The doctors have told her if she goes back to smoking drugs, it won’t just ruin her voice, it will kill her,” Mitch Winehouse was quoted as […]
NEWS CLUES: Like Retroactive Immunity For The Truth
Obama Vows To Strip Telecom Immunity From iSpy Bill (CBS/AP) – Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., issued a statement in support of the House’s update of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, but said he would try to strip a provision granting immunity to telecommunication companies when the bill comes to a vote in the Senate next week. The House approved a compromise bill Friday that would set new electronic surveillance rules that would also shield telecoms from lawsuits arising from their participation in the government’s warrantless eavesdropping on telephone and computer lines in the United States. The government eavesdropped on American […]
We Know It’s Only Rock N’ Roll But We Like It
LIVE AND DIRECT: The Philadelphia Popped Festival, 33rd & Market, Saturday [Photos by JONATHAN VALANIA & TIFFANY YOON & AMY QUINN]