INKY/DN BANKRUPTCY: Judge Bitchslaps All Parties

ASSOCIATED PRESS: Philadelphia Newspapers hopes to use $35 million in new capital to settle nearly $400 million in debt and emerge from bankruptcy. An opposing creditors’ plan would leave the newspapers saddled with up to $85 million in debt, making it difficult for The Philadelphia Inquirer and Philadelphia Daily News to survive, a company lawyer said Tuesday. Lawyer Larry McMichael offered broad outlines of the competing reorganization plans after a hearing Tuesday, but neither has been filed in court. A new judge handling the case chided various parties involved Tuesday for offering “untenable” options to resolve the company’s finances, which […]

GREATEST HITS: Today I Saw…Revisited

BY JEFF DEENEY Today I saw a hot sun shining down on North Philly for the first time this year. The forecasted high was 82 degrees with nothing but bright blue overhead; compared to the cold spring the city was emerging from, it felt like mid-July. The flavor on the streets was beer, even at 11 a.m. on a Monday. On 25th Street near Dauphin, a young girl in skintight capris, a halter top and a waist-length weave drained a Miller High Life bottle on her front step, her head tilted back 45 degrees and her throat open in full […]

THE TOWNHALL TEMPER TANTRUMS WILL BE TELEVISED: Raging Against The Dying Of The White

?Embedded video from CNN Video HUFFINGTON POST: The entire episode, carried live by all three major cable news stations, offered a window into the type of conservative histrionics currently being exhibited at these town hall forums. It also, at least in one instance, exposed how unconstructive some of these opponents of reform truly are. After one participant detailed his concerns with the legislation, Specter asked the gentleman what he would like to see done. “Some of the things I would like to be done, okay, are…” the man paused, searching for an answer. “Tort reform!” the crowd screamed. “Tort reform, […]

SOMETHING WICKED THIS WAY COMES: Brand New Nick Cave Novel Set For Publication This Fall

The Death of Bunny Munro is Nick Cave‘s first novel since his critically acclaimed debut, “And the Ass Saw the Angel,” which was first published in 1989. Penguin is releasing a new edition this September to tie in with his new novel. The Death of Bunny Munro will be published in hardcover by Faber and Faber, Inc., an affiliate of Farrar, Straus and Giroux, on September 8, 2009 (ISBN: 978-0-86547-910-4; $25.00). Bunny Munro sells beauty products and the dream of hope to the lonely housewives of the south coast of England. Set adrift by his wife’s suicide and struggling to […]

NIGHT IN THE RUTS: The Internet Is Killing Porn

LOS ANGELES TIMES: The adult entertainment business, centered in the San Fernando Valley, has weathered several recessions since it took off with the advent of home video in the 1980s. But this time the industry is not dealing with just a weakened economy. A growing abundance of free content on the Internet is undercutting consumers’ willingness to pay for porn, and with it the ability of many workers to earn a living in the business. For Stern, 23, the rapid decline of job opportunities in the porn business over the last year has been dramatic. She has gone from working […]

SEN. NERO: Pileggi Tells Philly To Hurry Up & Wait

INQUIRER: Under mounting public pressure, State Senate Majority Leader Dominic Pileggi predicted yesterday that a pair of measures sought by Mayor Nutter to rescue Philadelphia’s budget would be approved, but he warned that there would not be a vote for at least several weeks. If Pileggi (R., Delaware) is right, and Harrisburg approves the penny-per-dollar city sales-tax hike and pension restructuring that Philadelphia has asked for, the city would avoid the mass layoffs and most of the crippling service reductions — such as closures of most libraries and all recreation centers — that Nutter has warned will be necessary if […]

CITY BUDGET CLOCK: Five Minutes To Doomsday

An urgent plea from Mayor Nutter: Dear Phawker, I need your help today to encourage the Pennsylvania State Senate to take action now on House Bill 1828, legislation that will help our city fund vital services and will ensure that our city will not have to make massive, drastic budget cuts beginning next week. All Philadelphia State Senators support this legislation. As a result of the global financial crisis and the ongoing recession, our city faced a potentially huge budget shortfall, which would have led to difficult choices between drastically cutting city services and significantly increasing tax revenues. To preserve […]

LYING LIARS: Stop The Insanity!

[via POLITIFACT] USA TODAY: Some August town hall meetings around the country have degenerated into furious shouting matches, driven by outrageous misinformation borne of many sources. The Internet spreads anonymous chain e-mails to a public that is both vulnerable and gullible. Groups with a financial or ideological interest give the rumors a boost. Talk radio provides an echo chamber for the demonizers. […] The distortions have become so numerous that they’ve often won Politifact.org’s “pants on fire” award (as in “liar, liar, pants on fire”). So in the interest of correcting some of the misinformation, here are a few truths […]

BORN IDENTITY: You’ve Been Punk’d!

TALKING POINTS MEMO: It now looks like the forged “Kenyan” Obama birth certificate that was briefly promoted by the Birthers — actually an altered copy of a decades-old South Australian birth certificate — was deliberately designed as a prank on the Birther movement itself, Dave Weigel reports. An anonymous person has put up an Internet posting showing photos of the document, against a bedsheet background that matches the photo promoted by Orly Taitz. One of the photos shows a crumpled up certificate with the following message written on it: “YOU’VE BEEN PUNK’D!” MORE [via FEARLESS BLOGGING] Fine cotton business paper: […]

CONCERT REVIEW: Asher Roth & Kid Cudi

BY JONATHAN VALANIA FOR THE INQUIRER Asher Roth is nothing but a good time, although the haters, and they are legion, would deny him even that. Of course, none of them was in attendance Thursday night at the Electric Factory, where the sandy-haired Morrisville native and West Chester alum wrapped up his 20-date Great Hangover Tour with a sweaty throw-down before an adoring, largely under-21 audience. Minus the naysayers, it was a night of guilty pleasure — which is, in a nutshell, what Asher Roth is all about. Rolling onstage behind the wheel of a tot-size Cadillac SUV and armed […]

CONCERT REVIEW: Cursive At FUC

BY DIANCA POTTS After nearly an hour of traveling South on 309, I agonized over the perfect parking spot, finally settling on 22nd and Market. Standing at the crosswalk while facing First Unitarian, the long line of Cursive fans wrapped around the block and down the alley way. Comprised of half suburban and urban dwellers, I sensed a dichotomy of 20-somethings and fresh faced teens, making me feel slightly old at barely 22. En route towards the end of the line, I was stopped by a red-headed emo with a simple, “Hey cutie.” Confused, I paused while she accusingly declared, […]

A PRAYER FOR THE CITY: God Save The Philadelphia Inquirer And Daily News And All Who Sail On Them

[Photo by KEVIN BURKETT] NEW YORK TIMES SUNDAY MAGAZINE: By the early 20th century, the raucous, elbows-out era of American newspapering, there were 10 daily papers in the city. Now down to a besieged two, Philadelphia is a particularly good place to observe what appears to be big-city journalism’s last stand, when many of America’s metropolitan newspapers must quickly figure out how to become profitable again or face likely extinction. […] Annenberg’s sale of The Inquirer and The Daily News in 1969 to the Knight newspaper chain (which later became Knight Ridder) had the effect of elevating the journalism. The […]