INQUIRER: Police arrested 18 juveniles for disorderly conduct this afternoon after a large group of teens became unruly in Center City, police said. Store owners on the 1400 block of Chestnut Street called police about 4:15 p.m. after a large fight broke out near a CVS drug store, said Lt. Frank Vanore, police spokesman. “The stores called us right away, and we moved in,” Vanore said. Police arrived on the scene minutes after receiving the call, and made the arrests as the mob of about 40 scattered. “We believe they may have been en route to the Gallery but never […]
TIM AND ERIC: Still Not Ready For Primetime?
Tim & Eric kicked off “Season Cinco” of their Adult Swim show Tim And Eric Awesome Show Nice Job! with this dead-on parody SNL’s opening credits circa the early 90s. Nice. PREVIOUSLY: PHAWKER TAWK: Q&A With Tim and Eric
U BETCHA: Sarah Palin Is Shopping A Reality Show
[Illustration by ALEX FINE] REUTERS: The former Alaska governor is teaming with uber-producer Mark Burnett (“Survivor”) to shop a reality series about her home state, network sources confirm. Palin and Burnett made the rounds at least three of the major broadcasters (NBC, ABC and Fox) while in Los Angeles for her taping of “The Tonight Show With Jay Leno” this week. Palin and her family would be on-camera in the show, which one executive described as “‘Planet Earth’ meets Alaska meets her family,” referring to Discovery’s high-definition nature hit. MORE ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: The former candidate for the vice presidency was seen leaving […]
LA TIMES: Alice In OKland
KENNETH TURNAN: One pill makes you larger and one pill makes you small, and the pills Tim Burton gives you don’t do very much at all. With apologies to Jefferson Airplane’s “White Rabbit,” that more or less sums up “Alice in Wonderland,” the director’s middling new version of the Lewis Carroll tale. It has its successful moments but it’s surprisingly inert overall, more like a Burton derivative than something he actually did himself. […] Given the strength of Burton’s imagination, it’s not surprising that many of these creatures are engaging, especially if, like that rabbit, they are voiced by top […]
THE EARLY WORD: The Price Of Free Speech
[Illustration by ALEX FINE] Journalist Maziar Bahari and Dr. Hamid Dabashi, Professor of Iranian Studies at Columbia University, join the National Constitution Center for a conversation on the future of free press and free speech in Iran on Thursday, March 4, 2010 at 6:30pm at the National Constitution Center. Bahari was held in solitary confinement following Iran’s disputed elections in June 2009 for allegedly playing a role in a Western media effort to instigate unrest. He was released in October 2009, and is currently an international correspondent for Newsweek. The program is taking place in conjunction with the One Book, […]
NO SHIT, SHERLOCK: Brooklyn DA Clears ACORN
[Illustration by ALEX FINE] NEW YORK DAILY NEWS: Brooklyn prosecutors on Monday cleared ACORN of criminal wrongdoing after a four-month probe that began when undercover conservative activists filmed workers giving what appeared to be illegal advice on how to hide money. While the video by James O’Keefe and Hannah Giles seemed to show three ACORN workers advising a prostitute how to hide ill-gotten gains, the unedited version was not as clear, according to a law enforcement source. “They edited the tape to meet their agenda,” said the source. “On Sept. 15, 2009, my office began an investigation into possible criminality […]
HAIR AND THERE: Is Pubic Hair The New Tonsils?
SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN: Still, in Western countries, the “hairlessness norm” is gathering a lot of steam. Several recent studies reveal just how common shaving one’s nether regions has actually become. In a 2008 issue of Sex Roles , Flinders University psychologists Marika Tiggemann and Suzanna Hodgson, for example, found that more than three quarters (76 percent) of a sample of 235 female undergraduate students from Australia reported ever having removed their pubic hair. Sixty-one percent currently did so and half of this sample said that they routinely removed all traces of their pubic hair. The current trend for men appears to […]
THIS JUST IN: Acela Takes Another Life
INQUIRER: A man killed last night by a high speed Amtrak train in Delaware was identified today as a decorated Wilmington fire investigator who was on duty when he was fatally injured. It is not clear why Fire Department Inspector Brian P. Waynant Sr. was on the tracks when he was hit. The State Police said they were awaiting a report from the state Medical Examiner’s Office to ascertain the manner of death, that is whether it was accident, suicide or undetermined. Foul play is not suspected, police said. A statement issued by the city said only that Waynant, 45, […]
NPR FOR THE DEAF: We Hear It Even When You Can’t
FRESH AIR For the past four seasons, Chloe Sevigny has played Nicolette “Nicki” Grant on the HBO series Big Love. Nicki is the second of polygamist Bill Henrickson’s three wives — a modest woman suspicious of the outside world, while keeping several secrets of her own. Sevigny tells Terry Gross that she prepared for the role by immersing herself in the polygamist culture of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints — a polygamous offshoot of the Mormon church, or LDS. “I read as much literature as I could find … just trying to wrap my head […]
Vampire Weekend & Run DMC Headline Roots Picnic
BILLBOARD: Vampire Weekend will headline the third annual Roots Picnic, which will also feature a performance by the Philadelphia-based Roots plus two associated side projects from drummer Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson and rapper Tariq “Black Thought” Trotter. The event will be held June 5 at Philadelphia’s Festival Pier; tickets go on sale Friday (March 5) via LiveNation.com. Also on the bill are Clipse, Mayer Hawthorne, Nneka, the Very Best, Tuneyards, Das Racist, Bajah and the Dry Eye Crew and Pattern Is Movement. In addition, Questlove will play a set with fellow Philadelphia native DJ Jazzy Jeff, while Black Thought will perform […]
THE GRINCH WHO STOLE CONGRESS: Ex-Phils Pitcher Jim Bunning Is GOP’s Senator No #1
WASHINGTON POST: In his 17 years pitching in the big leagues, Jim Bunning was known for his graceful curveball, his rising slider and his sidearm fastball. Now 78 years old and about to retire from the Senate, the Republican of Kentucky is apparently down to only one pitch: the screwball. For four days, he has been on a one-man campaign to cut off unemployment benefits, kick the unemployed off of health insurance, cut Medicare payments to doctors, deny satellite TV to rural Americans, shut down federal flood insurance and highway projects, and furlough thousands of federal workers. Democrats can hardly […]