NEW YORK TIMES: You know the story of the Volt, don’t you? As the General Motors entry in the race to build a viable electric car — a race that includes the all-electric Nissan Leaf, a raft of Fords in various stages of development and an electric sedan that Tesla will soon begin selling — it may well be the most hyped American automobile since Lee Iacocca rolled out the Chrysler minivan. Begun four years ago, and championed by the legendary auto executive Bob Lutz, the Volt project managed to survive G.M.’s descent into bankruptcy, and emerge as the company’s […]
AP TICKER: Gets Medieval On Flash Mob Violence
Our top story tonight: Mob violence. No, not the Goodfellas/Sopranos kind of mob — I’m talking about flash mobs of violent black teenagers roaming the streets of Philadelphia looking for people to beat unmerciful — people whose only crime, best we can tell, was being white at the wrong place at the wrong time. This is so not good. This is bad for Philadelphia — setting back years of revival and revitalization. This is bad for white people — justifying the worst instincts of the racist and the borderline racist. This is especially bad for black people, because if this […]
Is It Time To Re-Name The Fencl Awards?
[Illustration by ALEX FINE] DAILY NEWS: The 12th Police District squad car creeps down Chester Avenue, in Southwest Philadelphia, turning the head of nearly everyone on the street. Onlookers squint, their faces tensing up in the sunlight. Passers-by crane their necks to get a better look at who’s behind the wheel before the car comes to an abrupt stop. Everyone watches as an officer emerges and dons his blue police cap, badge No. 2431 gleaming as the sunlight hits the silver at a perfect angle. “Hey Joe!” someone invariably shouts from the street at Officer Joseph Young, the district’s community-relations […]
NPR FOR THE DEAF: We Hear It Even When You Can’t
FRESH AIR If you bite into a tomato between the months of October and June, chances are that tomato came from Florida. The Sunshine State accounts for one-third of all fresh tomatoes produced in the United States — and virtually all of the tomatoes raised during the fall and winter seasons. But the tomatoes grown in Florida differ dramatically from the red garden varieties you might grow in your backyard. They’re bred to be perfectly formed — so that they can make their way across the U.S. and onto your dinner table without cracking or breaking. “For the last 50 […]
LOST & FOUND: Return Of The King Of Carrot Flowers
PITCHFORK: ATP’s Portishead-curated I’ll Be Your Mirror Festival comes to Asbury Park, New Jersey September 30 – October 2. The fest’s roster already includes Portishead themselves alongside Bonnie “Prince” Billy, Swans, Battles, Ultramagnetic MCs, Cults, the Horrors, Mogwai, Deerhoof, and plenty of others. It also features the semi-reclusive Neutral Milk Hotel frontman Jeff Mangum. MORE RADIO EXILE: The story of Neutral Milk Hotel’s short existence has been told and told well (see Kim Cooper’s wonderful 33 1/3 book on the subject). What is untold, and in many respects, far more interesting, is the influence of Neutral Milk Hotel. There are […]
The Onion Is All Fun And Games Until Somebody Gets Hurt And Then They Are Heartless Money-Grubbing Corporate Greedheads Just Like All The Rest
DAILY NEWS: Emily Guendelsberger doesn’t have health insurance, so she will be wholloped with medical bills associated with the surgery she needs to fix her leg, which was broken in last Saturday night’s stampede of marauding teens down Broad St. Guendelsberger is the local arts and entertainment editor for The Onion, the satirical news and entertainment site, and she is not covered under its health-care plan. My colleague Dan Gross asked an Onion spokeswoman if the company would help Guendelsberger with her bills anyway. Here was the cagey answer. “We can’t divulge any details surrounding the compensation or benefits packages of our […]
SH*T MY UNCLE SAYS: Job Killing For Electoral Gain
[Artwork by WMXDESIGN] BY WILLIAM C. HENRY What the Republican party is doing to the American economy is the most detestably intentional attempt to ensure failure since Tonya Harding & Co. brought down Nancy Kerrigan. Never before in their often sullied history have congressional Republicans purposely acted with such disdainful disregard for the best economic interests of the American people. Sound disparaging? Hell, the words I’d really like to use in describing these lying, cheating, elitist, two-faced, hypocritical, obstructionist, bottom-feeding bastards would likely be censored by even the most “liberated” publications. Throughout the campaigns leading up to the 2010 elections, […]
DENY THE DENIERS: Exxon STILL Buying The Finest Climate Change Denial Science Blood Money Can Buy
[Illustration byBEN HEIENE] MOTHER JONES: Back in 2008, ExxonMobil pledged to quit funding climate change deniers. But according to new documents released through a Greenpeace Freedom of Information Act request, the oil giant was still forking over cash to climate skeptics as recently as last year, to the tune of $76,000 for one scientist skeptical of humankind’s role in global warming. This—and much more—came to light in a new report about the funding of Wei Hock “Wille” Soon, an astrophysicist with the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. Soon has been a favorite among climate skeptics for years, since coauthoring a paper […]
MARCELLUS FAIL: New York Times Acquires Investor Emails Calling Gas Drilling ‘A Giant Ponzi Scheme’
NEW YORK TIMES: Natural gas companies have been placing enormous bets on the wells they are drilling, saying they will deliver big profits and provide a vast new source of energy for the United States. But the gas may not be as easy and cheap to extract from shale formations deep underground as the companies are saying, according to hundreds of industry e-mails and internal documents and an analysis of data from thousands of wells. In the e-mails, energy executives, industry lawyers, state geologists and market analysts voice skepticism about lofty forecasts and question whether companies are intentionally, and even […]
WIKILEAKS: Coming Soon To A Theater Near You
THE ATLANTIC: At latest count, at least four studios are working on at least five movies about the WikiLeaks story. And with Assange somewhat out of pocket while on house arrest, plenty of option deals are going to journalists who are covering the secretive organization. Guardian reporters David Leigh and Luke Harding sold rights to their book WikiLeaks: Inside Julian Assange’s War on Secrecy to DreamWorks Raffi Khatchadourian embedded with Assange for a New Yorker profile and sold rights to his HBO and the BBC which will release a documentary by Inside Job director and Oscar winner Charles Ferguson. Bill Keller sold his life rights to a production […]
HEAR YE: Nick Cave & Neko Case Duet On Cover The Zombies “She’s Not There” For True Blood
KCRW: This season, the 4th, is going to kick off with a bang. Not just watching the latest adventures of Sookie Stackhouse and all her supernatural friends but I am so very excited about the new version of The Zombies’ “She’s Not There” a new collaboration with Neko Case and Nick Cave. A little background. If you are a fan of True Blood you know that each episode is named after one of the songs that are in that episode. So it’s always exciting for me to crack open the script and see what the writer has in mind for […]
People Of Earth Push Back Against Jersey Shore Towns’ Efforts To Privitize The Ocean
ASSOCIATED PRESS: New Jerseyans have to put up with taxes, tolls, toxic waste and, occasionally, Snooki. So an occasional trip to the beach is all that keeps some folks here sane. Now officials in the nation’s most densely populated state are rewriting public beach access rules that could make it easier for well-to-do towns to keep out-of-towners off their beaches , and a sandstorm is brewing. The state says it had to act and give more local control over access after a court decision struck down more stringent rules that spelled out uniform standards for each shore town. The state […]
A Small Army Of Assholes Beats Up Onion Editor
DAILY NEWS: A WOMAN’S leg was broken and several other people were injured Saturday night when a large group of teens accosted pedestrians in Spring Garden, police and witnesses said.Philadelphia police responded to two reports of pedestrians being assaulted by a large group of young people along Broad Street about 9:30 p.m. One of those reports came from Emily Guendelsberger, 27, city editor for local arts and entertainment content for the Onion, the satirical newspaper and website. She was walking with seven friends on Green Street near Broad when they were accosted, she said. Guendelsberger, who remained hospitalized with a […]