WASHINGTON POST: A tidal wave of public outrage over bonus payments swamped American International Group yesterday. Hired guards stood watch outside the suburban Connecticut offices of AIG Financial Products, the division whose exotic derivatives brought the insurance giant to the brink of collapse last year. Inside, death threats and angry letters flooded e-mail inboxes. Irate callers lit up the phone lines. Senior managers submitted their resignations. Some employees didn’t show up at all. MORE TIME: The rescue of AIG is warping the banking system and unnecessarily extending the credit crisis. This misguided effort stems from a lack of transparency and […]
NEWS CLUES: Like A Lux Hi-Rise Condo Of The Truth
SENATOR: AIG Executives Should ‘Resign Or Go Commit Suicide’ Expressions of outrage across the political spectrum reached a new crescendo Monday when Sen. Charles Grassley suggested in an Iowa City radio interview that AIG executives should take a Japanese approach toward accepting responsibility for the collapse of the insurance giant by resigning or killing themselves. “Obviously, maybe they ought to be removed,” the Iowa Republican said. “But I would suggest the first thing that would make me feel a little bit better toward them if they’d follow the Japanese example and come before the American people and take that deep […]
RAW TAPE: F*ck It, We’ll Do It Live!
BOING BOING: Thanks to Al Franken, we all know that Bill O’Reilly wrote a terrible pornographic novel in 1998. Now the Village Voice’s head garage-sale nut has digitized a bunch of choice clips from the audiobook (read by O’Reilly), including “Say baby, put down that pipe and get my pipe up,” “Cup your hands under your breasts and hold them for ten seconds,” and “Cunnilingus involves the lips and tongue.” MORE *** WORTH REPEATING: We Have Met The Enemy… DAILY NEWS: There was an unindicted co-conspirator in the case against Fumo. That would be the city that spawned him, took […]
MAILBAG: The Trouble With Tweeney
EDITOR’S NOTE: The following represents two divergent reader responses to Jeff Deeney’s new Twitter project for Phawker (CLICK HERE for the details). Deeney responds in the comments section which should be of interest to all you people that love giving or getting a good flamejob. DEAR PHAWKER, This is downright shameful. Poor black people say the darndest things, right? Ya, well so do self-inflated white dudes. Your snippets of conversation provide no context and smack of the same poverty porn you’ve been peddling on this site for a while now, Deeney. It is so disheartening to see how you’re capitalizing […]
NPR 4 THE DEF: Giving Public Radio Edge Since 2006
FRESH AIR Acrassicauda is an Iraqi heavy-metal band — though its members live in a one-bedroom apartment in Elizabeth, N.J. Despite their humble quarters, the band is happy to be together: When they were still based in Iraq, their practice space was bombed and they received death threats. The band first gained widespread notice in a 2007 documentary, Suroosh Alvi’s Heavy Metal in Baghdad, which followed the band in the days after the fall of Saddam Hussein. Initially hopeful, the band members watched their country crumble around them. Two years of exile in Syria and Turkey followed before the men […]
I, GAMER: Meet The Rape Simulator
EDITOR’S NOTE: I am old enough to have witnessed the birth of Pong and sorta lost the plot sometime around Defender, but I realize that lots and lots of young folk spend hours and hours playing games. Hours that could be better spent reading Phawker. Now there’s a way you can do both. Introducing our brand spanking new game column, I GAMER, penned by intern-to-the-stars Adam Bonanni. Adam is 21 and attends Temple University. BY ADAM BONANNI It’s embarrassingly easy to become so desensitized to violence and sexuality from gaming that it takes a real atomic bomb to start raising […]
NEW FEATURE: Meet Jeff Tweeney
Hey folks, Jeff Deeney here to let you know how this new Twitter project we’re rolling out will work. From now until Philadelphia no longer needs me for cannon fodder in the trenches of the War On Poverty, I will be posting the little overheard snippets of unintentional brilliance and frequently unhinged insanity that comprise the background noise of my work day. Think of it as Today I Saw for the ADD set; I will bring you the streets in 160 characters or less. All dialogue 100% overheard. You’re already a couple days behind, so start following the Phawker Twitter […]
BREAKING: Fumo Guilty On All Counts
INQUIRER: Former State Sen. Vincent Fumo was convicted of all 137 counts against him today as his marathon federal corruption trial ended in a stunning victory for prosecutors. The jury also found co-defendant Ruth Arnao guilty of all 45 counts against her. After a 30-minute hearing this afternoon, U.S. District Judge Ronald L. Buckwalter agreed to let Fumo and Arnao remain free pending sentencing although he ordered them to post bail of $2 million and $500,000, respectively, by Wednesday. The two had been free on unsecured own-recognizance bail since they were charged. Both defendants were ordered not to leave the […]
THIS JUST IN: It’s Peanut Butter Jelly Time!
THE ROOTS LAUNCH SECOND ANNUAL ROOTS PICNIC! Starring THE ROOTS TV ON THE RADIO, THE BLACK KEYS SANTIGOLD, ASHER ROTH & MORE And a special performance: PUBLIC ENEMY performs IT TAKES A NATION OF MILLIONS TO HOLD US BACK backed by ANTIBALAS and THE ROOTS PHILADELPHIA’S FESTIVAL PIER AT PENN’S LANDING Saturday, June 6 @ 2pm Tickets Go On Sale This Friday, March 20 @ 10am Get tickets at LiveNation.com, 877-598-8696, EFC Box Office (111 Presidential Blvd, Bala Cynwyd, PA / cash purchase is service-charge free on-sale only) and Festival Pier (Columbus Blvd & Spring Garden St, Phila, Pa / […]
USELESS INFORMATION: Miley Cyrus Vs. Radiohead
US MAGAZINE: A war of words has erupted between Miley Cyrus [above, right] and her former rock Gods Radiohead [not pictured, above]. The argument started when Miley tried to use her clout to meet her heroes backstage at the Grammys. The notoriously shy band refused. Miley then blasted the group on a syndicated radio show as “Stinkin’ Radiohead!” and said, “I’m gonna ruin them, I’m gonna tell everyone.” But the band aren’t taking the insult lying down. A spokesperson for the band responds on their behalf, “When Miley grows up, she’ll learn not to have a sense of entitlement.” MORE […]
DAILY NEWS: Did Facebook Just Eat The Fumo Trial?
DAILY NEWS: “STAY TUNED for a big announcement on Monday everyone!” So wrote a blogging juror who’s been deliberating for five days in the public corruption trial of former state Sen. Vincent J. Fumo, in a comment posted Friday on his Facebook Internet profile. The posting by Juror No. 5 — Eric Wuest of suburban Collegeville — raised questions: Is a verdict imminent? Did Wuest have third-party discussions about the trial as a result of his postings on Facebook and Twitter social networking Internet accounts during the 15-week trial and the ensuing deliberations? Last night, Fumo defense attorneys NiaLena Caravasos […]
NEWS CLUES: Like A Domestic Dispute Of The Truth
RAMPAGE: Husband Kills Wife, Boyfriend, Family, Then Self A Miami man upset by his estranged wife’s affair with a younger man intruded on a party early Sunday and killed her, the woman’s daughter, grandmother and boyfriend. Before cops could catch up to him, police said, he set his home and truck on fire, then shot himself. Detectives on Sunday afternoon were piecing together the carnage of what marked the second high-profile murder-suicide in three weeks in Miami-Dade County. Last month, a South Miami-Dade man killed his wife and two teenage daughters before killing himself. The shooting began shortly after midnight […]
HEAR YE: The Feelies The Good Earth
Now playing on PHAWKER RADIO! Because it’s the best record you never heard. VILLAGE VOICE: Though we may be the lone strangers on this one, companion-less contrarians careless of the compulsory crit-pick of Crazy Rhythms, likely the only thing writer Rick Moody and I have in common is our commitment of needle to the Feelies’ Good Earth vinyl over a thousand times apiece. Easy. This, the band’s second album — released in 1986, a good half-dozen years after their debut, Crazy Rhythms — served as the soundtrack to Moody’s own novelistic debut, 1992’s Garden State. (No, not that Garden State. […]