VIA THE YES MEN: Information Launderer Dr. Patrick Michaels Will Accept Corporate Climatology Award from Swarthmore Students for Scientific Industrial Progress (SSSIP) Corporate-funded information launderer Patrick J. Michaels of the free-wielding, free-enterprising Cato Institute* is giving a lecture tonight at Swarthmore College entitled “Is It Extreme Not to Be Extreme on Climate Change?” We don’t really know how he or we will answer this convoluted question, but we do know that it is extreme to manipulate science on behalf of the fossil fuel industry, and we plan to make this very clear to him. This talk is on April 20th, the […]
New Bon Iver Album Art And Release Date Revealed
Bon Iver, Bon Iver comes out June 18th on Jaguwaguar. RELATED: Bon Iver, Bon Iver was recorded and mixed at April Base Studios, a remodeled veterinarian’s clinic located in rural Fall Creek, Wisconsin. The main recording space is constructed over a defunct indoor pool attached to the clinic. “It’s an unique space and destination; it’s our home out here,” says Vernon, who purchased the structure with his brother in late 2008 with the sole intention of converting it into his ideal recording studio. “It’s been a wonderful freedom, working in a place we built. It’s also only three miles from […]
STYLE COUNCIL: PIFA’s Brave New World
It could be argued that the beginning of modern fashion was the end of the Victorian-era, when women strapped themselves into corsets with little regard for human anatomy or lung capacity. After that came the flappers of the Roaring ’20s, who let it all hang out with un-cinched waistlines and accessorized with all that jangly stuff that went so well with all that jazz. But what exactly happened in between that got the style world from the reserved to roaring? PIFA’s “Brave New World” fashion exhibit, currently showing at the Drexel’s Leonard Pearlstein Gallery, seems to have all the answers. […]
AP TICKER: Plutocracy Now!
AP explains how we would like to think we live in a DEMOCRACY but in fact we are living in a PLUTOCRACY, how nearly half of all the wealth in this country is concentrated in the hands of the top 1%, so that rest of us 99% have to fight over the other half. How things have gotten so out of whack because the top 1% has become so rich and powerful they can literally buy and sell the federal government, and ensure that all legislation rigs the game so that literally the rich keep getting richer, the poor get […]
HELLO, IT’S ME: Local Pornographers Are The Biggest 1-800 Number Phone Sex Spammers In North America
ASSOCIATED PRESS: Records obtained by The Associated Press show that over the past 13 years, a little-known Philadelphia company called PrimeTel Communications has quietly gained control over nearly a quarter of all the 1-800 numbers in the U.S. and Canada, often by grabbing them the moment they are relinquished by previous users. As of March, it administered more 800 numbers than any other company, including Verizon and AT&T. And many, if not most, of those 1.7 million numbers appear to be used for one thing: redirecting callers to a phone-sex service. Dial 1-800-Chicago and instead of reaching a tourism hotline […]
This Is Your GOP Presidential Candidates On Weed
MOTHER JONES: When it comes to pot, we’ve come a long way from the days of “I did not inhale.” Fifteen states (plus the District of Columbia) currently permit the use of marijuana for medicinal purposes, and according to a recent Pew survey, 45-percent of Americans say they’d support legalizing marijuana outright—a 29-point increase from just two decades ago. Cannabis is fast losing its political stigma, too: The GOP might march in lockstep on abortion and tax cuts, but when it comes to pot, things get a bit hazier. Some of the party’s presidential candidates have never touched the stuff; […]
ARTSY: The Night In 1965 That Andy Warhol Started A Riot At Penn’s Institute Of Contemporary Art
WALTER HOPPS: That Philadelphia exhibition of Andy’s was one of the most bizarre mob scenes I’ve ever witnessed… It was the first survey of all his work… It was crazy. It was the first time I saw a young avant-garde artist have a show mobbed as if it were a movie premiere… all kinds of people clamoring to get at Andy as if he were a star. MORE SAM GREEN: Andy was mobbed. We were pretty scared because we arrived late from drinks and thousands were jammed into the museum. It was a mob scene and they were all out […]
BLOTTO #12: Rehab Is For Quitters
BY LANCE DOILY Generally speaking, sobriety has never been a venerated personality trait amongst the guys in the warehouse. Let’s put it this way, Royce has been the straightest one of us behind the wheel the past couple years, and he’s hooked up to a morphine drip most of the time. Not since Rex’s historic four day run of sobriety (He wound up falling off the horse hard at a happy hour afterwards and woke up a few days later on a cargo ferry headed to Sri Lanka) had it even been attempted, but today was my time to shine. […]
TECH: Wanna Report City Government Fraud And Waste? Now There’s An App For That!
PHILADELPHIA BUSINESS JOURNAL: Philadelphians who spot fraud or waste will now be able to report it directly to the city controller’s fraud unit, using a new free smart phone app unveiled Tuesday. Called “Philly WatchDog” the app is available for the iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch and can be downloaded from the App store or through iTunes, said City Controller Alan Butkovitz, who called it the first app of its kind in the nation. MORE NEWSWORKS: Brian Dries of the Controller’s office gave examples of abuse people could capture with the app. “You might have a city worker that a […]
CINEMA: Blow-Up Turns 45
VANITY FAIR: Forty-five years ago, English model Jill Kennington agreed to appear in an art-house film—one that would memorably capture the energy of London’s 1960s fashion and art scenes. Michelangelo Antonioni’s 1966 classic, Blow-Up—his first English-language film—was a sensation, and earned the Italian modernist Oscar nominations for directing and writing. Today, Kennington discusses her participation in Blow-Up and the real-world London atmosphere it depicted with Philippe Garner, international head of 20th-century decorative art and design at Christie’s. With David Alan Mellor, Garner has co-written a book that analyzes and contextualizes the film: Antonioni’s Blow-Up. (Steidl). MORE ROGER EBERT: Antonioni uses […]
TRUMP: Nobody Ever Went Broke Lost An Election Underestimating The American Public
ASSOCIATED PRESS: Sounding increasingly like a candidate, Donald Trump repeatedly told a raucous tea party crowd Saturday he has the qualities needed in the White House and the conservative ideals necessary to seal the Republican nomination should he decide to run. […] He derided President Barack Obama, calling him the worst to occupy the White House in history. He again questioned whether the president was born in the U.S., even though the fact has been affirmed by officials in Hawaii, where Obama was born. And he maligned China, saying the U.S. should take control of Iraqi oil and described American […]
NPR FOR THE DEAF: We Hear It Even When You Can’t
*** THE WORLD CAFE Sam Beam, better known by his stage name Iron and Wine, released his first album, The Creek Drank The Cradle, on the Sub Pop label back in 2002. He wrote, performed, recorded and produced every track by himself at a studio in his home. Featuring acoustic guitars, banjo and slide guitar, the album’s music has been favorably compared to that of Nick Drake, Simon and Garfunkel, Neil Young and Ralph Stanley due to its alt-country and progressive folk arrangements. Earlier this year, Beam released his most adventurous album and most successful record with Kiss Each Other […]
AMERICA, WHAT WENT WRONG: The Not-A-Moment-Too-Soon Return Of Bartlett & Steele To The Inky
BARTLETT & STEELE: Eric Cantor, who has represented a section of Richmond, Va., in Congress since 2001 and now is the House majority leader, appears to want to craft a permanent U.S. tax system that caters exclusively to those at the top. So does Michele Bachmann, the Republican representative from Minnesota, a onetime tax lawyer who hopes to make a run for the White House. Likewise, Tim Pawlenty, the former two-term Republican governor of Minnesota, who also sees himself sitting in the Oval Office. Needless to say, none state their proposals like that. But that’s the way their numbers and […]