FRESH AIR In 1973, an infant chimpanzee was taken from his mother’s arms and sent to live with a human family as part of a Columbia University psychology experiment. The goal of the project was to see if the animal, named Nim Chimpsky, could be conditioned to communicate with humans if he was raised like a human child in a human household. He learned some very basic words in American Sign Language, but Nim continued to act like a chimp — he bit the children in the house and didn’t understand how to behave like a human child. It was […]
MEET THE NEW BOSS: Same Shit, Different Asshole
NEW YORK TIMES: Before he was named on Tuesday to lead the prominent but troubled Archdiocese of Philadelphia, Archbishop Charles J. Chaput spent the last 14 years in Denver establishing himself as one of the nation’s most prominent advocates of a politically engaged and conservative Catholicism. He is among a minority of Roman Catholic bishops who have spoken in favor of denying communion to Catholic politicians who support abortion rights. He helped defeat legislation that would have legalized civil unions for gay couples in Colorado. And he condemned the University of Notre Dame, a Catholic institution, for granting President Obama […]
DAILY SHOW: Fox News Says Reporting On Murdoch Scandal Is ‘Piling On’ But Fox Piling On NPR Was Not
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Q&A: Planned Parenthood’s Mama Grizzly
[Photo by MINDY TUCKER] BY MEREDITH KLEIBER Lizz Winstead, the co-creator and former head writer of The Daily Show, boasts a resume brimming with comedic achievements: included in Entertainment Weekly‘s 100 Most Creative People issue; produced The Jon Stewart Show; co-founded Air America Radio; and nominated Best Female Club Performer by The American Comedy Awards. Since departing from The Daily Show in late 1997, Winstead has continued to blaze trails in the world of entertainment. She is a regular contributor to The Huffington Post, founded a TV/web/theatre-production company called Shoot the Messenger, has appeared on countless television programs, and continues […]
Q&A With The Regulars Photographer Sarah Stolfa
BY JONATHAN VALANIA Pretty much everyone in this town knows about The Regulars, Sarah Stolfa’s stunning Bukowski-meets-Caravaggio portraiture of McGlinchey’s patrons, snapped from behind the bar where she earned the dubious distinction of Unfriendliest Bartender In Town. The series won her first place in the New York Times Sunday Magazine’s Photography Contest For College Students, a long-running exhibition at Gallery 339 and an asspocket full of local acclaim and national recognition, including a residency at the Whitney Museum Of American Art in New York. And now Artisan Books has published the series in richly-appointed book form with a snarky-but-snappy essay […]
SIDEWALKING: Genny Cream
Somewhere along Route 11, upstate New York, last week by JEFF FUSCO
Texting While Walking Is Not Illegal In Philadelphia; Cops WILL NOT Start Issuing $120 Tickets
CBS PHILADELPHIA: The program, dubbed “Give Respect, Get Respect,” was launched at the beginning of May, aimed at reining in bad behavior by motorists, bicyclists and pedestrians in Center City (see previous story). Since then, some tickets, but mostly warnings have been handed out. But Deputy Mayor Rina Cutler says starting in August, more citations will be issued. Pedestrians who text while they walk without looking ahead will also be targeted. The citations include $120 fines. MORE PHAWKER: Oh for fuck sakes! Of all the unsolved crime in this city, THIS is a priority? Really? Sixteen THOUSAND people have been […]
IT’S ALWAYS RUMMY IN PHILADELPHIA: Q&A with Brian McManus, Noted Author & Professional Drinker
Whenever we recall our gloriously misspent season in the dives, aka our 20s, we remember the good times, and those that served, and those that gave their lives, and those lines from Howl: “Who ate fire in paint hotels or drank turpentine in Paradise Alley, death, or purgatoried their torsos night after night…who sank all night in submarine light of Bickford’s floated out and sat through the stale beer afternoon in desolate Fugazzi’s, listening to the crack of doom on the hydrogen jukebox.” For one long, blurry, Bukowskian year, PW Food and Music editor Brian McManus was living those words. […]
BLOOD ON THE HACKS: Whistleblower At The Center Of The Murdoch Phone Hacking Scandal Found Dead
[Artwork byIAN DAVID MARSDEN] THE GUARDIAN: Sean Hoare, the former News of the World showbiz reporter who was the first named journalist to allege [former News Of The World Editor/spokesman for British Prime Minister David Cameron] Andy Coulson was aware of phone hacking by his staff, has been found dead, the Guardian has learned. According to a police statement: “The death is currently being treated as unexplained, but not thought to be suspicious. Police investigations into this incident are ongoing.” Hoare first made his claims in a New York Times investigation into the phone-hacking allegations at the News of the […]
EXTRA! EXTRA! READ ALL ABOUT IT: Phawker Scoop Triggers A Front Page Story In The Philadelphia Inquirer
INQUIRER: Signs of Jamaica abound at the Penn Relays, the 116-year-old track-and-field festival held each April in Philadelphia. Food carts sizzle with jerk chicken. Fans sporting the green, yellow, and black of the Caribbean nation’s flag sit together at the University of Pennsylvania’s Franklin Field, and roar. Each year about 40 teams are drawn from more than two dozen Jamaican high schools, with an additional four to six club teams composed of older runners. Now, however, it seems that some Jamaicans who applied for visas to compete in the Relays in years past were “mala fide applicants . . . […]
NPR FOR THE DEAF: We Hear It Even When You Can’t
FRESH AIR Gillian Welch and David Rawlings’ long-awaited collaboration The Harrow and the Harvest came out in June, marking an almost eight-year wait for fans of their 2003 album Soul Journey. The 10 songs that make up the new album deal with some heavy subjects: identity, loss, unfulfilled expectations, death and desperation. “We’ve kind of half-jokingly said that this record is 10 different kinds of sad,” Welch tells Fresh Air‘s Terry Gross. “And there are 10 songs on it.” On today’s Fresh Air, Welch and Rawlings perform an in-studio concert featuring several songs from The Harrow and the Harvest, and […]
ANNIVERSARY: Frank Rizzo Still Making ‘Atilla The Hun Look Like A Faggot’* 20 Years After Death
INQUIRER: The crowd surrounding the Frank L. Rizzo statue Saturday afternoon seemed to be in a time warp, as the former Philadelphia mayor’s entourage and admirers came out to pay their respects. The Quaker City String Band played as dignitaries arrived on foot and in cars, some following the motorcade that came down Broad Street from Holy Sepulchre Cemetery in Cheltenham to the Municipal Services Building, across from City Hall. Saturday marked 20 years since Rizzo died of a heart attack while campaigning for a third term as mayor, a job he had held from 1972 to 1980. Even in […]
THE FRACKING SONG: My Water’s On Fire Tonight
RELATED: Talisman Terry, the “friendly Fracosaurus” star of a coloring book published by Talisman Energy, will no longer explain the natural gas drilling process to youngsters after the company announced plans today to stop distribution of the controversial children’s book. “Talisman Terry’s Energy Adventure” was a 24-page booklet that explained natural gas drilling in kid-friendly fashion and could be downloaded from the Calgary-based energy company’s website. It had been distributed at community fairs in northeastern Pennsylvania through the company’s Good Neighbor program. Talisman Terry’s message is overt and unapologetic: drilling for natural gas in formations like the Marcellus Shale is […]