FRESH AIR William Hurt plays an ex-con who takes a road trip across post-Katrina Louisiana in an attempt to get his life back on track in the new film, The Yellow Handkerchief. To prepare for the role, Hurt spent a night in Louisiana State Penitentiary — better known as Angola. Entering the maximum security facility, he tells Terry Gross, was an “amazing experience.” “I spoke with every member on the row … those who would speak to me,” Hurt says. “I had a three-hour conversation with the man in the next cell. I never saw his face,” he said. From […]
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 […]
THE HURT LOCKER: Fetus-Hoarding Doctor Tied To Controversial Botched Abortion Experiments
INQUIRER: Harvey Karman, a California psychologist who ran an underground abortion service in the 1950s, wanted to make abortion simpler, cheaper, and less painful. He succeeded by inventing a soft, flexible tube, the Karman cannula, that is still used in early-stage abortions. Then he “set out to revolutionize second-trimester abortion” with a plastic spiral, “the super coil,” that could be inserted into the uterus to trigger an abortion, according to Tunc. At the invitation of the Bangladeshi government, Karman tested the device on hundreds of women there who had been raped by Pakistani soldiers. He claimed there were no complications. […]
Orca Kills Trainer In Front Of Sea World Crowd
LOS ANGELES TIMES: An orca killed an animal trainer at SeaWorld in Orlando on Wednesday as dozens of horrified tourists watched, park and law enforcement officials said. The killer whale had been involved in two previous deaths elsewhere. Dawn Brancheau, 40, [pictured, above] was finishing up a session with Tilikum [pictured, above], a 12,000-pound male killer whale, after a show. Witnesses said the killer whale grabbed her by the upper arm, disappeared underwater with her and swam to the other side of the tank, thrashing Brancheau around until she drowned. At least two dozen tourists looked on from above the […]
EARLY WORD: Fate Up Against Your Will
ECHO & THE BUNNYMEN KESWICK THEATRE SUN., APR. 25, 8 PM Tickets on sale this Sat., Feb. 27 at Noon! Woo hoo! We can still vividly recall the spring of 1984, furtively blowing bong smoke out our dorm room window while Ocean Rain blared from its semi-permanent perch on the turntable, only to be replaced by the Smith’s Meat Is Murder and REM’s Reckoning. Ah, good times — even if the jocks kept calling us ‘faggot’ because of our Ian McCulloch haircut (looking back at old pictures, we mighta brought that on ourselves, but still…).
ALERT: Region To Bend Over For Another 12 Inches
ACCUWEATHER: The monster storm set to target the Northeast will also drop monster snow totals. The storm will unleash over a foot of snow across the mountains of northern New England and from central New York to northwestern New Jersey. All of this snow is expected to start on Thursday. The worst of the storm will rage Thursday afternoon into Friday morning. At that time, the snow will fall at a rate of 1 to 2 inches per hour where total of over 6 inches are expected. Strong winds will severely blow and drift this heavily-falling snow, making travel nearly […]
Captain Janks Punks ESPN’s Sportscenter
HUFFINGTON POST: Brian Westbrook was released Tuesday, ending an eight-year career with the Eagles during which he racked up nearly 6,000 rushing yards and more than 3,800 receiving yards. Naturally, ESPN sought an interview with the former All-Pro running back, and they appeared to secure one. That is until “Brian Westbrook” actually spoke on SportsCenter. The caller’s real identity is Captain Janks from the Howard Stern Show, and it took less than 30 seconds of speaking before the impostor said that he has “nothing but respect for head coach Andy Reid and I look forward to a future of worshipping […]
NPR FOR THE DEAF: We Hear It Even When You Can’t
FRESH AIR In The Hurt Locker, Jeremy Renner plays Sgt. 1st Class William James, the leader of an Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) unit responsible for disarming improvised explosive devices (IED) in the Iraqi desert. On the film’s set, Renner spent hours a day packed inside a Kevlar bomb suit, while temperatures climbed upward of 100 degrees. For his intense, swaggering portrayal of James, Renner was nominated for an Academy Award. Renner, 39, wasn’t widely known in Hollywood before he landed the role. Kathryn Bigelow, the film’s director, has said that she chose Renner to play Will James after seeing his […]
Anti-Smoking Campaign Leaves Bad Taste In Mouth
WASHINGTON POST: PARIS — A provocative anti-smoking ad campaign featuring teens in a subservient sexual position has sparked a storm of controversy in France, with the country’s family minister calling Wednesday for the advertisements to be banned. The ad, sponsored by the Association for Nonsmokers’ Rights, features a teenage boy who could be construed to be performing oral sex on a man in a suit, except the teen has a cigarette in his mouth. A caption reads, “Smoking means being a slave to tobacco.” There are two other ads in the same vein, one featuring an adolescent girl. The leader […]
WEBCAMGATE: Orwell Or ‘Oh Well’?
KAREN HELLER: The laptop-in-every-lap program began two years ago at Harriton and this academic year at Lower Merion. Why did the district hand out MacBooks like so many No. 2 pencils? Because it could. The schools are situated in one of America’s richest communities, where almost all family bank accounts are above average – the median household income is $112,300. The houses are exceptional, too, the median home valued at $583,900. The family poverty rate is almost squat, 2.4 percent. Among Southeastern Pennsylvania’s 64 school districts, Lower Merion is top in student expenditures, $21,663 per child in 2008-09, while the […]
AP Declares The Recession Is Not Just Good, It’s ‘Great’
BLOOMBERG: The longest and deepest U.S. economic slump in seven decades has been dubbed the “Great Recession” by the Associated Press. The AP Stylebook Online notified subscribers this month it had added the term as a reference for the downturn that began in December 2007. The entry will also be in the printed edition of the Associated Press Stylebook when it is published later this year, along with “a couple of dozen other terms,” said David Minthorn, manager of news administration and one of the manual’s three editors. The book, first published in 1953 and updated annually, is a mainstay […]
JUST SAYIN’: Guns N’ Butter
WASHINGTON POST: More than eight years after the Taliban was toppled from power, the number of U.S. military fatalities in the war in Afghanistan is nearing 1,000, a grim milestone in a resurgent conflict that is claiming the lives of an increasing number of troops who had survived previous combat tours in Iraq. As of Tuesday, 996 U.S. military personnel had died while serving in Operation Enduring Freedom. The roll call of the fallen began on Oct. 10, 2001, when Air Force Master Sgt. Evander E. Andrews was killed in a forklift accident in Qatar while building an airstrip in […]