POLITICS DAILY: On his daily radio and television shows last week, Fox News personality Glenn Beck set out to convince his audience that “social justice,” the term many Christian churches use to describe their efforts to address poverty and human rights, is a “code word” for communism and Nazism. Beck urged Christians to discuss the term with their priests and to leave their churches if leaders would not reconsider their emphasis on social justice. MORE GLENN BECK: I’m begging you, your right to religion and freedom to exercise religion and read all of the passages of the Bible as you […]
SPORTO: March Mildness
BY MIKE WOLVERTON SPORTS GUY With less than a week to go before the NCAA Tournament field is announced, lets take a look at how the local basketball programs are positioned. [The NIT, CBI and CIT are secondary, tertiary and gawd-awful tournaments, respectively, for teams that don’t make the NCAA Tournament]. LaSalle The Explorers will miss the Atlantic 10 Tournament after finishing 13th in the conference. Only the top 12 make the field. Saturday’s loss to Saint Joe’s sealed their fate. Season Highlight: Um, lets see…snapping their 8-game losing streak by beating UMass? Or maybe the 19-point […]
Sunoco Considering Sending Center City Jobs Overseas
PHILLY DEALS: Sunoco Inc., the Philadelphia-based oil company, says it’s paying EquaTerra Inc., a Houston consulting firm, to recommend whether Sunoco should “outsource” information technology, accounting, personnel, and procurement jobs from its Center City headquarters, home to 750 of Sunoco’s 10,000 employees. “We have hired EquaTerra to advise us as we explore potentially outsourcing some functions,” Sunoco spokesman Thomas Golembeski told me yesterday. Workers learned Friday of the possible job moves. EquaTerra didn’t return calls for comment late yesterday. Sunoco expects EquaTerra to report later this year on which jobs could be profitably outsourced to cheap labor markets in Asia […]
SMITH: The Last Temptation Of Allen Iverson
STEPHEN A. SMITH: Allen Iverson is in trouble, folks, deep trouble. The combination of alcohol and gambling – and a once-promising career in tatters because of the first two – won’t culminate in anything short of disaster if help does not arrive in short order. If numerous NBA sources are telling the truth – and there’s no reason to believe they’d do otherwise in a situation of this magnitude – Iverson will either drink himself into oblivion or gamble his life away. Moore, ever the protector, would never admit as much, of course. But that’s part of the problem, isn’t […]
WORTH REPEATING: Trying To Break Your Heart
President Barack Obama at Arcadia University by FIREFIGHTERSDAUGHTER PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER: After the event, Trisha Urban, 33, of Hamburg, hurried out to her car, in a race to get there before her daughter, Cora, 13 months, began to cry. “My husband died on the day she was born,” said Urban, who had been invited to attend by Sen. Bob Casey (D., Pa.). She and her husband, Andrew Urban, had insurance, she said, but when he was diagnosed with a heart condition and started needing regular medical care, their coverage was dropped. They struggled to keep paying the bills, but Andrew Urban […]
DOPE: NJ Weedman Still Crazy After All These Years
TRENTONIAN: Ed “NJ Weedman” Forchion is sparking a new kind of buzz these days, and he’s taking some heat for the way he’s used the likeness of President Obama. Forchion, who at one point or another ran for just about every elected office in New Jersey on a platform of marijuana legalization, is now running a medical marijuana dispensary in Los Angeles, and a poster for an upcoming party he’s hosting has gotten him in some hot bong water. Forchion, formerly of Willingboro, is set to host an “Obama One Year in Office Celebration” out in California, and the poster […]
Camden Teens Charged In Super-Brutal Slayings
INQUIRER: A 14-year-old Camden girl was charged with murder today in the grisly slayings of a man and a woman found buried last month in the backyard of a South Camden rowhouse. The girl was among a group of at least 10 people who beat and strangled Muriah Ashley Huff, 22, of Cinnaminson on Feb. 22, authorities said. Members of the same group also killed Huff’s boyfriend, Michael Hawkins, 23, of Mount Holly. Hawkins was bound and beaten for hours – until most of the bones in his face were broken – and then shot and stabbed repeatedly, said Jason […]
THE NEW DORK: Entrepreneur State Of Mind
Hilarious social media playa spoof of Jay-Z’s “Empire State Of Mind” currently blowing up viral on an Internet near you.
BRING IT ON: Let Philly Host ‘Trial Of The Century’
INQUIRER: Taken aback by the intense criticism from political opponents and local officials of President Obama’s decision to try Khalid Sheik Mohammed in a civilian courtroom in New York, the City of Brotherly Love just may be the perfect location to transfer the trial of one of the masterminds behind the 9/11 attacks. Philadelphia Convention and Visitors Bureau, take note. Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell may be historical, but they’re old news. A terrorist trial, that’s history in the making and would deliver the biggest financial payoff since William Penn made the deal with the Lenape tribe. All Mayor […]
SPARKLEHORSE: Sick Of Goodbyes
ASSOCIATED PRESS: Mark Linkous, the singer-songwriter who released his music under the band name Sparklehorse, has died after shooting himself in the chest in Tennessee. He was 47. Knoxville Police Department spokesman Darrell DeBusk said Linkous shot himself outside a friend’s house around 1:20 p.m. Saturday with his own rifle. DeBusk said Linkous was staying with friends and became upset after receiving a text message. DeBusk said Linkous left no suicide note behind. The North Carolina-based artist was moving to Knoxville and staying with two friends, who told police Linkous was drinking and became upset after texting with an unknown […]
EARLY WORD: Monster Mash
Miro Dance Theatre has set out this Spring to open up a creative laboratory. Blurring the line between chaos and creativity, the company is about to embark on an ambitious new edition to their Open Studio Series- The Miro Mash-Ups. Miro is joining forces with the rising Philadelphia rock band Toy Soldiers, a producer, and two new music composers to create a new dance and music work in four days each month in Miro Mash-Ups. The first one will be Thursday, March 18, 2010 at 6:30 p.m. All of Miro’s Open Studios take place at the Miro Studio at Girard […]
POTUS Makes Health Care Housecall At Arcadia U
President Barack Obama drumming up support for his health care reform legislation at Arcadia University WHITE HOUSE PRESS OFFICE: Leslie Banks introduced the President [at Arcadia University earlier today]. On February 11th, Leslie wrote the President an e-mail expressing her frustration with the cost of health insurance. Leslie is a self-employed, single mother with type 2 diabetes, whose daughter is a sophomore in college at Temple University. In January 2010, Leslie received a notice from her health insurance provider that her plan was being dropped. To keep the same benefits, the premiums for her and her daughter would more than […]
NPR FOR THE DEAF: We Hear It Even When You Can’t
FRESH AIR Melissa Febos’ new memoir, Whip Smart, details the four years she spent working as a dominatrix. Febos enacted fantasy sequences, spanked grown men and verbally humiliated them for $75 an hour in a dungeon located somewhere in midtown Manhattan. Febos, who writes that she got started in sex work to pay for a drug habit, tells Terry Gross that working in a dungeon felt like “being in a womb.” “Pretty much all of the dungeons were outfitted with some sort of coat rack-related thing that had all sorts of floggers, riding crops,” she says. “We had giant coils […]