[via BUZZFEED] NEW YORK TIMES: Even before the dust has settled after this weekend’s iPad bonanza, Apple is ready to announce a new iPhone operating system. Technology journalists received an e-mail message from Apple on Monday morning inviting them to “a sneak peek of the next generation of iPhone OS software.” The event is set for Thursday at Apple’s headquarters in Cupertino, Calif. MORE WIRED: Before all the iPad buzz has even had a chance to fizzle, Apple this morning sent e-mails inviting press to a sneak preview of the next-generation iPhone operating system. The event is scheduled for Thursday, […]
16 YEARS AFTER KURT: About A Girl
BY JAMES DOOLITTLE It was 16 years ago today that Kurt Cobain’s body was found. Sigh. With pinpoint accuracy, I know where I was when I first saw the video for “Smells Like Teen Spirit”, because it’s intrinsically linked to one of the great obsessions of my teen years; an Italian-American princess, three years my junior, who was both a card carrying member of the International Thespian Society, in league with the JV cheerleading squad AND a total Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio doppelganger, circa The Abyss. Ahem. A total babe. I was laying in a hotel room outside of Pittsburgh, a […]
CONCERT REVIEW: Drive-By Truckin’
BY JONATHAN VALANIA FOR THE INQUIRER The Drive-By Truckers have a well-earned rep for consistently delivering grungy Southern rock operas set in places where red meets neck, where dubious characters lead self-inflicted lives of quiet desperation: unanswered prayers, unrequited love, and unmitigated semiprivate disasters. The DBTs’ just-released The Big To-Do is no exception, although it is quite exceptional in its capacity to sketch out the private hells of jaded pole workers, homicidal preachers’ wives, and modern drunkards in high-def whiskey-hued vérité. Everyone’s on something – booze, pills, God, or all the above – and before all is said and done, […]
REEFER GLADNESS: Philadelphia To Decriminalize Possession Of Less Than 30 Grams Of Marijuana
INQUIRER: The city’s new district attorney and the state Supreme Court are moving to all but decriminalize the possession of small amounts of marijuana for personal use in an effort to unclog Philadelphia’s crowded court dockets. Under a policy to take effect later this month, prosecutors will charge such cases as summary offenses rather than as misdemeanors. People arrested with up to 30 grams of the drug – slightly more than an ounce – may have to pay a fine but face no risk of a criminal record. The shift is a major move in a reform agenda being hammered […]
THE LIMITS OF AMERICAN POWER: NATO Finally Cops To Slaughter Of Innocent Afghan Women; WikiLeaks Releases Baghdad Snuff Film
SALON: On February 12 of this year, U.S. forces entered a village in the Paktia Province [NOT pictured, above] in Afghanistan and, after surrounding a home where a celebration of a new birth was taking place, shot dead two male civilians (government officials) who exited the house in order to inquire why they had been surrounded, and then shot and killed three female relatives (a pregnant mother of ten, a pregnant mother of six, and a teenager). The Pentagon then issued a statement claiming that (a) the dead males were “insurgents” or terrorists, (b) the bodies of the three women had been found by U.S. forces […]
WORTH REPEATING: Health Care Reform Isn’t Totalitarianism, But Spying On Americans Sure Is
NEW YORK TIMES: The chief judge of the Federal District Court in San Francisco, Vaughn Walker, ruled last week that the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act was the law of the land for Mr. Bush and that when the government failed to get a warrant to wiretap, it broke the law. He also said that the government could not evade accountability with absurdly broad claims of state secrets. This ruling does not end warrantless wiretapping. The particular program The Times uncovered has been suspended; there are still others, however, and the 2008 FISA amendments permit warrantless spying. Judge Walker’s ruling […]
SPORTO: Goodbye Donovan
BY MIKE WOLVERTON SPORTS GUY The Redskins? You’re shitting me, right? The Redskins?!? I’m blown away that the Eagles would trade Donovan McNabb to a place where he can shove it up their ass twice a season. And help a division opponent at the same time. There are only two possible explanations; the first is that the Eagles think McNabb’s skills have eroded to the point that he will hurt the Redskins instead of help them. I reject that idea. That must mean the other explanation is true, that the Skins made an offer significantly better than anyone else. This […]
ARTSY: Darwinian Tract Housing
AMERICAN PHILISOPHICAL SOCIETY MUSUEM: The Tract House: A Darwin Addition presents an evolutionary twist on classic religious tracts. Artist Lisa Anne Auerbach solicited tracts—manifestos, diatribes, stories, rants, and poems—written by the general public, friends, neighbors, artists, poets, and even a Nobel Prize winner in response to Darwin’s life and ideas. Auerbach and graphic designer Roman Jaster then created printed ephemera based on this writing. The resulting tracts feature the same off-beat illustrations, chaotic type styles and breathless urgency that are the hallmark of religious and political tracts without being kitschy or retro. She calls it a “spread-the-word” project. Auerbach worked […]
PIGGIE OF THE WEEK: PA A.G. Tom Corbett
This week A.P. Ticker calls out Pennsylvania Attorney General Tom Corbett for suing to repeal health care reform in a shameless bid to draw Tea Party support for his gubernatorial campaign.
BLACK WIDOW: The Face Of Moscow Subway Terror
ASSOCIATED PRESS: This undated picture provided Friday, April 2, 2010 by the Russian news agency NewsTeam, is claimed by the Russian Kommersant newspaper to show Dzhennet Abdurakhmanova, left, and her husband Islamist rebel Umalat Magomedov. Russian newspaper Kommersant said Friday that one of the Moscow subway suicide bombers was Abdurakhmanova, the 17-year-old widow of Magomedov, an Islamist rebel from the North Caucasus killed by Russian government forces in December, 2009. The March 29 subway bombings in Moscow killed 39 people. MORE PREVIOUSLY: Two ‘Black Widow’ Suicide Bombers Kill 35 In The Moscow Underground
EARLY WORD: I Am Iron Man Redux
In theaters May 7th TIME: A great restaurant just opened — or maybe it’s a club, or a Broadway show — and everyone’s raving about it, but nobody can get in. Movies, though, are the people’s entertainment; Hollywood exists to give its vast audience instant gratification, to have enough screens for all the masses to attend the big new movie on its opening weekend, and in its optimum format. You want to see the new hit film? No problem. Theater exhibitors will increase the number of screens showing it. Buy a ticket and walk on in. Not now. At […]
WORTH REPEATING: Can Animals Be Gay?
NEW YORK TIMES: A discovery like Young’s can disorient a wildlife biologist in the most thrilling way — if he or she takes it seriously, which has traditionally not been the case. Various forms of same-sex sexual activity have been recorded in more than 450 different species of animals by now, from flamingos to bison to beetles to guppies to warthogs. A female koala might force another female against a tree and mount her, while throwing back her head and releasing what one scientist described as “exhalated belchlike sounds.” Male Amazon River dolphins have been known to penetrate each other […]