[click to enlarge] HUFFINGTON POST: A startling new image released by NASA today shows a massive column of oil extending out Southeast towards the open ocean. RELATED: When CBS tried to film a beach with heavy oil on the shore in South Pass, Louisiana, a boat of BP contractors, and two Coast Guard officers, told them to turn around, or be arrested. “This is BP’s rules, it’s not ours,” someone aboard the boat said. Coast Guard officials told CBS that they’re looking into it. As the Coast Guard is a branch of the Armed Forces, it brings into question how closely […]
TIME HAS COME TODAY: Sestak Beats Specter
JOE SESTAK: “I respect the man, but it is time. It is time for a different generation.” 9:47 PM: Sestak is currently up by 13,000 with 42% of the vote counted. Reportedly two thirds of the Philadelphia vote has already been counted. Specter’s only hope was the African American vote and it appears that he didn’t get it, or at least not enough of it to make a difference. Because this is the Internet, where being first trumps being right, we are going out on a limb here and declaring Joe Sestak the winner. 10:12 PM: Associated Press just called […]
EARLY WORD: I Am Not A Role Model
[photo by DUDLEY REED] John Waters | Role Models Free Library Of Philadelphia, Tuesday, June 1, 2010 at 7:30PM. Buy Tickets Online>> On Role Models–the new memoir from legendary American filmmaker, actor, and writer John Waters–author Augusten Burroughs comments, “How did somebody from a quiet Baltimore neighborhood grow up to become the outlandish, brilliant, and insane John Waters? Two words: Johnny Mathis.” In addition to the cult films he is famous for–among them Hairspray, Pink Flamingos, and Polyester–Waters has published two previous books, Shock Value and Crackpot, a collection of essays. A window into one of the most unique and […]
IN DENIAL: It’s Raining ‘Rent Boys’
NEW YORK TIMES: Rekers is no bit player in the cultuer wars. Though he’s not a household name, he should be. He’s the Zelig of homophobia, having played a significant role in many of the ugliest assaults on gay people and their civil rights over the last three decades. His public career dates back to his authorship of a theoretically scholarly 1982 tome titled “Growing Up Straight: What Families Should Know About Homosexuality.” (I say theoretically because many of the footnotes cite his own previous writings.) And what did Rekers think that families should know? By Chapter 2, he is […]
YouTube Audience Now Exceeds Network TV
WIRED: America’s Funniest Home Videos may have pioneered the YouTube concept, but as the site reaches the five-year mark, its audience size is no laughing matter. YouTube’s viewership now exceeds that of all three networks combined during their “primetime” evening time slot, with more than 2 billion views per day, Google announced Sunday. Granted, YouTube’s numbers come from worldwide views, while ABC, CBS and NBC broadcast their primetime channels within the United States. But this is a significant milestone nonetheless, and hints at an eventual tipping point when the internet could become the world’s dominant video-delivery system, Mark Cuban’s predictions […]
APPRECIATION: Let Us Now Praise Andrew WK
BY JAMIE DAVIS Andrew W.K. is a god. And I don’t mean that in the sort of way Jimmy Page is a god, or John Lennon is a god. I mean that he is the archetypal embodiment of pure awesomeness. He doesn’t fuss with metaphors, or new ideas, or silly things like that, he just takes the awesomest things he can think of and combines them. Epic orchestral opening, seguing into an even-more epic guitar solo, climaxing in a chorus that’s sheer will to annihilate will have you air-drumming like it’s 1985? That would be “Never Let Down,” whose video […]
TONITE: ‘Don’t Say That You Love Me’
The Lindsey Buckingham Appreciation Society perform Fleetwood Mac’s Tusk in its entirety Mon., May 17, 8 p.m., $8, with Jennifer O’Connor, Johnny Brenda’s, 1201 N. Frankford Ave., 877-435-9849, johnnybrendas.com. CITY PAPER: In 1979, Fleetwood Mac followed up their gazillion-selling Rumours (1977) with the double-album Tusk. While maybe not as avant-garde as its reputation suggests, Tusk still afforded the band’s resident frizzy-haired control freak, guitarist Lindsey Buckingham, ample room to let his freak flag fly. The disjointed, off-kilter arrangements of the title track, “The Ledge” and others helped ensure the album’s overriding cult status. MORE PHILADELPHIA WEEKLY: After years and […]
SPORTO: Steal This Sign
BY MIKE WOLVERTON In honor of my ADD children, here’s a quick Q&A with myself on some of this weekend’s pressing sports issues. Q: Are the Flyers the greatest team ever? A: Obviously. Here’s a team that has had goaltending issues since the Lindbergh/Hextall days of the ‘80s. There’s seemingly a new goalie in town every year (who remembers Ray Emery?). Now the plan has been accelerated to a new goalie every two weeks! The Flyers fell behind the Bruins three games to none in Round 2 of the playoffs, then lost goalie Brian Boucher to injury in Game 5. […]
SPECTER VS. SESTAK: The Thrilla In Pennsylvania
PITTSBURGH TRIBUNE-REVIEW: Pennsylvania voters go the polls Tuesday for a primary election that could determine more than who bears the Democratic and Republican standards in November. The results will measure Obama’s influence with voters, the credibility of party hierarchies, the fate of a Capitol’s worth of incumbents, and the mood of a key swing state. “What’s at stake is the message to Washington and the political direction of our country,” said Lara Brown, political science professor at Villanova University. “It could literally moderate all the policy in Washington.” MORE DICK POLMAN: Two Capitol Hill insiders have been summarily dumped by […]
THE PEACE CORPS DIARIES: Letter From Paraguay
BY SAINT JOHN BARNED-SMITH So this ends my time as a Peace Corps Trainee. I’m officially a Volunteer, and we are now at T-2 years and counting. I’ve been thinking a lot about what I’ve learned through this process, how I might have changed, how I might change in the future. First, I’m learning how to handle awkward and uncomfortable better. This is a skill I think I’d already started to develop as a reporter – it’s not particularly fun or easy to ask a man how his mother was shot to death by her cracked out boyfriend for a […]
RIP: Ronnie James Dio, Elfin Metallurgist, Dead At 67
ASSOCIATED PRESS: Ronnie James Dio, the metal god who replaced Ozzy Osbourne in Black Sabbath and later piloted the bands Heaven & Hell and Dio, has died, according to his wife and manager. Dio announced last fall he was suffering from stomach cancer. He was being treated at a Houston hospital, according to his website. “My heart is broken, Ronnie passed away at 7:45 a.m,” said a statement by Wendy Dio posted Sunday on the site and confirmed by publicist Maureen O’Connor. Wendy Dio said that friends and family were able to say their goodbyes to her husband, and asked […]
When Tierney Goes Will He Take Yoo With Him?
ASSOCIATED PRESS: The publisher of The Philadelphia Inquirer and Philadelphia Daily News is leaving as part of the transition to new ownership by company creditors. Brian Tierney will step down as chief executive on May 21, and as publisher when the sale closes in late June or early July, the company said. “It’s obviously with a certain sense of sadness when you see the folks around here that you’ve enjoyed working with,” Tierney, 53, said. However, he noted that the Inquirer has survived for more than 180 years. “The future is bright. I want to be cheering them on the […]