BY PELLE GUNTHER It was hard not to be excited as we walked into the large, disco-inspired interior of the Starlight Ballroom. The ceiling, adorned with such a variety of party lights, mirror balls, and strange bubble-making machinery, was show enough. This came in handy because I spent the first two acts staring upwards with fingers pressed against my ears as they were torn to shreds by what can only be described as auditory execution. It was like being dragged by your eardrums down a sidewalk covered in screechy treble, overly aggressive bass, mediocre looping and probably every “airy synth […]
STUDY: 75% Of Tweets Are Ignored
NETWORK WORLD: If a Tweet is posted on the Web and nobody sees it, is it worth the bother? That’s essentially the question social media analytics company Sysomos posed in a survey of 1.2 billion posts made over the past 2 months and found that 71% of the posts from the Twitter microblogging site elicited neither a retweet nor reply. “When a tweet generates a reply (aka @) or a retweet (aka RT), it suggests the tweet has resonated enough with someone that it sparks a conversation or encourages someone to share it with their followers,” the company writes. Of […]
PANDER BEAR: Gay Bashing Anti-Porn Paladino Sent Around Smutty XXX Emails While Son Ran Gay Bars
SALON: WNYMedia, based in western New York state, is the outlet that way back in April first detailed Paladino’s habit of emailing his favorite racist jokes and hardcore porn to a select group of dozens of friends and acquaintances. The folks at WNY have now taken the opportunity of Paladino’s attack on pornographers to post more of his mass emails (NSFW and possibly NSFH link here). Among the areas covered: lactation, bestiality, squirting. Sample subject line: “2 Chicks Turning up the heat – XXX.” Sample commentary from Paladino: “awesome.” MORE WNYMEDIA: Since Carl decided to make an issue of “pornographers and perverts” who […]
UPDATE: Goal Posts Moved On Obama Streaker
[Photo by MATT ROURKE/AP] INQUIRER: Alki David, a sometime B movie actor and an heir to an immense shipping fortune, is now demanding that the White House confirm Obama saw Rodriguez dash by in his birthday suit. The White House has so far refused to comment on what David has called a “prank.” And it’s unlikely that it ever will do so. “There’s no need or reason for the White House to accommodate the personal desires of another,” said Martha Kumar, a professor at Towson State University in Maryland who specializes in presidential communications. “In a time when we have […]
NPR FOR THE DEAF: We Hear It Even When You Can’t
[Click image to enlarge] FRESH AIR In the Oct. 18 issue of The New Yorker, historian Sean Wilentz examines “how extremist ideas held at bay for decades inside the Republican Party have exploded anew — and why, this time, party leaders have done virtually nothing to challenge those ideas, and a great deal to abet them.” Fox News host Glenn Beck addresses the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington, D.C., on Feb. 20. Historian Sean Wilentz says “there are polls that Tea Party members respect Beck more so than anyone else, even Sarah Palin, and that they consider [Beck] not […]
Kennett Square Man’s Japanese-Style ‘Detergent Suicide’ Is An Increasingly Popular Way To Go
INQUIRER: A 30-year-old Kennett Square man used a deadly mixture to create hydrogen sulfide inside his vehicle and end his life Monday, authorities said. The man, who has not been identified by police, became the first reported Chester County victim of a method of suicide being reported “with alarming frequency,” said Tom Glass, the county’s hazardous materials coordinator. Glass said the practice of creating this type of gas originated in Japan in 2008 but has been used increasingly in the United States. In March, similar incidents were found in Bucks and Lehigh Counties, he said. It has been called “detergent […]
WORTH REPEATING: Insane Christ Posse
THE GUARDIAN: ICP have been going for 20 years, always wearing clown make-up, which looks slightly lumpy because it’s painted over their goatees. They’ve been banned from performing in various cities where juggalos have been implicated in murders and gang violence. ICP have a fearsome reputation, fostered by news reports showing teenagers in juggalo T-shirts arrested for stabbing strangers and lyrics like “Barrels in your mouth/bullets to your head/The back of your neck’s all over the shed/Boomshacka boom chop chop bang.” All of which made Violent J’s announcement a few years ago really quite astonishing: Insane Clown Posse have this […]
UNCONSTITUTIONAL: Federal Judge Issues Worldwide Injunction Against ‘Don’t Ask Don’t Tell’
ASSOCIATED PRESS: A federal judge issued a worldwide injunction Tuesday immediately stopping enforcement of the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, suspending the 17-year-old ban on openly gay U.S. troops. U.S. District Judge Virginia Phillips’ landmark ruling also ordered the government to suspend and discontinue all pending discharge proceedings and investigations under the policy. U.S. Department of Justice attorneys have 60 days to appeal. Pentagon and Department of Justice officials said they are reviewing the case and had no immediate comment. The injunction goes into effect immediately, said Dan Woods, the attorney who represented the Log Cabin Republicans, the gay […]
EARLY WORD: Duffy’s Cut Live
[Illustration by TIM DURNING] Dead Men Do Tell Tales Wed. October 13 8 PM Pen & Pencil Club 1522 Latimer St. Philadelphia, PA 215-731-9909 FREE There is an old saying that goes: under every mile of railroad track is a dead Irishman. Locally speaking this is almost literally true. Out near Malvern, under mile 59 of what was then the Pennsylvania Railroad and is today SEPTA’s R-5 line, lie the bodies of 57 Irish railroad workers. What killed them remains mystery that — 178 years later — appears to be on the verge of being solved. The official record says […]
CINEMA: Dead Man Talking
PATRIOT NEWS: R.Budd Dwyer pulled a revolver from the manila envelope. “This will hurt someone,” he cautioned reporters packed into Room 129 of the state Finance Building. As they pleaded with Dwyer, he waved them back with his free hand. Pennsylvania’s treasurer — fractured by fraud, racketeering and bribery convictions — had called the news conference on this snowy Thursday morning to proclaim his innocence for the last time. Then, with television cameras rolling, he shoved the gun’s six-inch barrel into his mouth. Almost 24 years since Dwyer’s public suicide on Jan. 22, 1987, the day remains a polarizing event […]
FAIR IS FAIR: Pay The Obama Streaker
AOL NEWS: The former homeless man who bared it all at a presidential rally to win $1 million says he needs the money for three children and a sister. He’s a fan of President Barack Obama and would even donate some of his winnings to the commander in chief’s favorite charity. Streaker Juan Rodriguez said he has no regrets, even though the fate of the prize is up in the air and the stunt in Philadelphia got him arrested. “My family needs the money, my sister needs an operation and it’s not cheap,” Rodriguez, 24, said Monday outside the Philadelphia […]
WHAT HE SAID: On The Mendacity Of Hope
HARPERS: Former Harper’s Magazine editor Roger D. Hodge has just published what may well be the definitive critique of the Obama presidency from the left: The Mendacity of Hope: Barack Obama and the Betrayal of American Liberalism. I put six questions to him about his new book. 1. White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs recently derided liberal critics of the Obama Administration as the “professional left.” Was he talking about you? What do you make of this line of attack? I’m not sure Gibbs has a coherent idea of what he means by the “left,” but if opposition to permanent […]
KA-CHING: School District Settles Student’s Spycam Lawsuit, Lawyer Takes Almost All The Money
ASSOCIATED PRESS: A Philadelphia-area school district agreed Monday to pay $610,000 to settle two lawsuits over secret photos taken on school-issued laptops.The Lower Merion School District admitted it captured thousands of webcam photographs and screen shots from student laptops in a misguided effort to locate missing computers.Harriton High School student Blake Robbins, then 15, charged in an explosive civil-rights lawsuit filed in February that the district used its remote tracking technology to spy on him inside his home. Later evidence unearthed in the case showed that he was photographed 400 times in a two-week period, sometimes as he slept in […]