BRIAN HICKEY: Ever since a hit-and-run driver mowed me down in Collingswood on Nov. 28, I’ve been considered a “patient.” The conversational-English translation of that term is “dramatically injured person at the total mercy of insurance-company whims.” After I was released from inpatient care at Philadelphia’s Magee Rehabilitation in January, I was forced to wait more than six weeks for outpatient physical, occupational, and cognitive therapy. For context, more than two weeks of waiting risks regression on all three fronts. My mistake? Figuring my local insurance company would grasp why I wanted to stick with the therapist who inexplicably got […]
COMING ATTRACTION: Exactly How Soon Is Now?
Morrissey, Academy of Music, last night [Photo: MICHAEL T. REGAN] Standby for our flood-the-zone coverage of Morrissey at The Academy of Music last night. We’ll have a must-see slideshow from ex-CP staff photog Michael T. Regan, who did a bang-up job on Tom Waits for us over the summer. And Kylee Messner and Dianca Potts — two twentysomething Smiths acolytes/embittered Temple J-schoolers — will give the play-by-play of their first audience with the man called Mozzer. Look for it later today.
NSFW: Ashton Kutcher Twitters Demi Moore’s Butt
PEOPLE: With ex-wife Demi Moore and her husband Ashton Kutcher among the guests, Bruce Willis said “I do” with model and actress Emma Heming on Saturday, PEOPLE confirms. The small wedding ceremony took place at the actor’s home in Parrot Cay, Turks & Caicos. Also present among the small group of guests were Moore and Willis’s daughters, Rumer Willis, 20, Scout, 17, and Tallullah Belle, 15. MORE TWITTER: While on the island, Ashton Kutcher took a snapshot of Demi Moore in her bikini bending over while steaming his suit and put it on twitter Saturday afternoon. He made no mention […]
WEEK IN REVIEW: The Good News Flower Hour!
The Good News Flower Hour #14 The week that was in just five minutes, told by guest anchor/adorable-voiced rosebud Daisy Powers! Funny. Sad. Good for you. Just do it.
WHITER SHADE OF TRASH: Drunken Doggie Porn
THE SMOKING GUN: Meet Michelle Owen. Concerned that an ex-boyfriend had used her laptop to search for child pornography, the Indiana woman asked police to search the computer for illegal images, but had her plan backfire when cops discovered two videos of her engaged in illicit acts with a dog. Owen, 24, was charged last week with two felony bestiality counts in connection with the video files, which a detective found in the laptop’s “recycle bin.” At the time Owen asked cops to search the computer, she was locked up in the Johnson County Jail on a public intoxication charge […]
BEING THERE: The Good News Flower Hour!
The week that was in just five minutes, read by a stoned daisy that sounds just like me. Look for it every Friday. PREVIOUSLY: The Good News Flower Hour #13
CHANGE: Obama Offers Iran A New Deal
FINANCIAL TIMES: President Barack Obama on Friday issued a widely awaited message to the people and government of Iran in his bid to end a 30-year diplomatic standoff between the US and the Islamic Republic. In an Iranian New Year video message released on the internet, Mr Obama emphasised the benefits of increased cooperation with Washington rather than stressing sanctions or military action. “The US wants the Islamic Republic of Iran to take its rightful place in the community of nations,” he said. “You have that right but it comes with real responsibilities and that place cannot be reached through […]
CASE FOR LEGALIZATION: It’s The Gangsters, Stupid!
FOREIGN POLICY: Violence in Mexico is getting worse by the day. There are reports of beheadings, killings in the several thousands, and an environment of fear that makes it impossible for Mexican officials to do their work. The country’s very stability may be threatened. It’s time to put an end to U.S. policies that subsidize these murderous drug gangs. The first step, as a growing chorus of voices is arguing, is to end the quixotic policy of prohibition, a proven failure. But the United States can do even better; by empowering a domestic marijuana industry, the United States would squeeze […]
GAYDAR: My Life In The Ghost Of Bush
BY AARON STELLA Welcome back to another long awaited edition of GAYDAR! Let’s do a little recap on the parts of my crazy so-called life I have shared thus far: My family had extricated themselves from a crazy Christian cult in Augusta, GA, and have fled to Alabama to wait out the imminent apocalyptic storm of Y2K. We were, disappointed, to say the least, with the grand finale. Fast forward to 2003, I no longer live with my family. My homosexuality being one of the many reasons. My friend Andrew’s family has taken me in, and I’ve just heard word […]
PAPERBOY: Slow Jamming The Alt Weeklies
BY DAVE ALLEN Like time, news waits for no man. Keeping up with the funny papers has always been an all-day job, even in the pre-Internets era. These days, however, it’s a two-man job. That’s right, these days you need someone to do your reading for you, or risk falling hopelessly behind and, as a result, increasing your chances of dying lonely and somewhat bitter. That’s why every week, PAPERBOY does your alt-weekly reading for you. We pore over those time-consuming cover stories and give you the takeaway, suss out the cover art, warn you off the ink-wasters and steer […]
CINEPHILE: O Holy Mountain
The Holy Mountain (1973 Directed by Alejandro Jodorowsky, 126 Minutes US, Mexico) BY EGINA MANACHOVA As the man who was once told an interviewer “I want of cinema what most of North America wants of psychedelic drugs,” director Alejandro Jodorowsky put his money where his mouth is, or rather John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s deep pockets where his talent lies, in the making of The Holy Mountain. Visually stunning and intensely symbolic, The Holy Mountain follows The Thief (who is both a Christ-like figure and The Fool) as he plays witness to the absurdities of modern life. When we first […]
WORTH REPEATING: Journalism Will Survive The Death Of Its Institutions And Nothing Can Save Them
NEW YORKER: Journalism is, admittedly, a kind of accident of history. The big, confident, foreign-reporting, government- and corporation-investigating newsrooms of the period between 1960 and 2005—and the skills and standards they developed and disseminated—resulted from the confluence of quasi-monopolistic business models, the elevation of the scientific method in American society during the post-war period, and the cultures of professionalism that grew up simultaneously in the social sciences and practical professions (not just journalism, but law, accounting, economics, etc.). Professional journalism as we know it—independent investigations on behalf of the public; impartial witnessing of terrible events at home and abroad; independent […]
POPE: My Opposition To Condoms Will Kill Millions Of Africans — Muhahahaha! — Also, The Earth Is Flat!
REUTERS: The Vatican on Wednesday defended Pope Benedict’s opposition to the use of condoms to stop the spread of AIDS as activists, doctors and politicians criticized it as unrealistic, unscientific and dangerous. Benedict, arriving in Africa, said on Tuesday that condoms “increase the problem” of AIDS. The comment, made to reporters aboard his plane, caused a worldwide firestorm of criticism. HIV, the virus that can lead to AIDS, infects 33 million people globally and has killed 25 million. “The pope saying they are not good is like someone saying traveling by air is not 100 percent safe, so we should […]