NEW YORK TIMES: The two companies completed the sale Sunday evening and announced the deal just after midnight on Monday. AOL will pay $315 million, $300 million of it in cash and the rest in stock. Arianna Huffington, the cable talk show pundit, author and doyenne of the political left, will take control of all of AOL’s editorial content as president and editor in chief of a newly created Huffington Post Media Group. The arrangement will give her oversight not only of AOL’s national, local and financial news operations, but also of the company’s other media enterprises like MapQuest and […]
INSTA-REVIEW: O Vs. O’Reilly
BY MATTHEW HENGEVELD A visibly nervous Bill O’Reilly desperately tried to balance his otherworldly patriotism with his overbearing hatred of Democrats when he interviewed President Obama during the Super Bowl pregame. What resulted was an unnerved and arguably unprofessional interview from O’Reilly and a collected President Obama, who took most questions in stride. O’Reilly’s concern for Egypt seemed obligatory judging by the quickness with which he bypassed a substantive discussion and his casual disregard for Obama’s view on the situation — The President’s opinion on the situation in Egypt hasn’t changed or wavered much in the few days since he […]
Obama Broke Pledge To Help Struggling Homeowners
PROPUBLICA: Before he took office, President Obama repeatedly promised voters and Democrats in Congress that he’d fight for changes to bankruptcy laws to help homeowners—a tough approach that would force banks to modify mortgages. “I will change our bankruptcy laws to make it easier for families to stay in their homes,” Obama told supporters at a Colorado rally on September 16, 2008, the same day as the bailout of AIG. Bankruptcy judges have long been barred from lowering mortgage payments on primary residences, though they could do it with nearly all other types of debt, even mortgages on vacation homes. […]
SIDEWALKING: Big Fish Story
Italian Market, 12:47 PM by JEFF FUSCO
DEVENDRA BANHART: Love-In For Oliver Peoples
PREVIOUSLY: It all started, for me anyway, at Brooke Sietinsons‘ walk-up loft/hobbit hole on Second Street, somewhere in that OK Corral-esque strip between the Standard Tap and the 700 Club. Even though she no longer lives there, the exact location will have to remain a secret because, technically speaking, L&I could still fine her for dispensing the Morning Glory seeds of Philly freak-folkdom without a permit. But the select initiates invited to these hash-pipe hootenannies — culled from some of the most remote and impenetrable redoubts of local bohemia — know where I’m talking about. A Jesus-haired figure sits crosslegged […]
Prosecutors Considering Death Penalty For Gosnell
MYFOXPHILLY: Prosecutors also disclosed after the hearing that they could have charged Gosnell with a “hundred murders.” Gosnell was ordered to hire an attorney for next Wednesday;s preliminary hearing after he unsuccessfully asked for a public defender for he and his wife. The district attorney’s office is still debating if it will seek the death penalty in this case. The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania has 217 death-penalty convictions on record, but the state hasn’t executed anyone since mass-killer Gary Heidnik in 1999. MORE RELATED: Gosnell seemed surprised when Hughes explained that he did not qualify for a public defender because he […]
ARTSY: First Friday Picks
[Yue Minjun, Woodcut 1 from The Grassland Series, 2008. Woodcut on paper.] BY CAROLINE SCHMIDT February 4th marks the birthday of Alice Cooper (1948), Rosa Parks (1913), and Fernand Léger (1881). It is also the day Neal Cassady died (1968), along with head of Soviet NKVD Nikolai Yezhov (1940). It is also first Friday in Philadelphia (2011). Here is a list of top five gallery picks, selected by yours truly, in no particular order. Post-Mao Dreaming: Chinese Contemporary Art (pictured above), the current exhibition at The University of Pennsylvania’s Arthur Ross Gallery is well worth the trip to the wild […]
iPhone 5 To Usher In The New Paradigm Of Search?
[Artwork by C. LaRochelle] NEW YORK TIMES: Among Apple’s other high-profile acquisitions was April 2010’s buyout of Siri, a personal mobile assistant that was spun out of SRI International, and whose core technology came from a DARPA-funded artificial intelligence project called CALO. Siri was transformed into an iPhone application that could listen to questions either spoken aloud or typed in and then provide answers. At first, the focus was on the sort of out-and-about questions you may have, e.g. When does that movie show? What Chinese restaurants are nearby? Can I get a table at my favorite Italian place? What’s the […]
NPR FOR THE DEAF: We Hear It Even When You Can’t
FRESH AIR Spanish actor Javier Bardem burst into the American moviegoing consciousness in 2007, when he played a very bad man with a very bad haircut in the Coen brothers’ film No Country for Old Men. He won an Oscar for his trouble, then turned up again as a romantic Spanish artist in the Woody Allen film Vicky Cristina Barcelona. Bardem recently received his third Academy Award nomination — his first was for the 2000 film Before Night Falls — for his performance in Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu’s new film Biutiful. Bardem plays Uxbal, a small-time Barcelona criminal managing a crew […]
RIHANNA: S&M
RELATED: Perez Hilton doesn’t get all the fuss. The influential blogger is trying to make sense of the dizzying controversy surrounding Rihanna’s tongue-wagging video for her new single ‘S&M.’ The kinky clip features the raven-haired hell-raiser sporting a skin-tight pink latex outfit and other bondage clothing while being hounded by reporters wearing ball gags. The fallout? ‘S&M’ has already been flagged by YouTube, reportedly banned in 11 countries and edited down by MTV. Hilton appears in the clip, playfully being walked like a dog (leash and all) by Ri-Ri and pretending to pee on a fire hydrant. MORE
PAPERBOY: Slow-Jamming The Alt-Weeklies
BY DAVE ALLEN Like time, news waits for no man. Keeping up with the funny papers has always been an all-day job, even in the pre-Internets era. These days, however, it’s a two-man job. That’s right, these days you need someone to do your reading for you, or risk falling hopelessly behind and, as a result, increasing your chances of dying lonely and somewhat bitter. That’s why every week PAPERBOY does your alt-weekly reading for you. We pore over those time-consuming cover stories and give you the takeaway, suss out the cover art, warn you off the ink-wasters and steer […]
FEELS GOOD: DeSean Jackson Presents Jersey To Bullied Boy From Upper Darby On The View
PREVIOUSLY: A 13-year-old boy who was attacked while walking home from school earlier this month in a Philadelphia suburb said Tuesday that he had been bullied since the beginning of classes. Seven teenagers were in custody Tuesday in connection with the videotaped beating of the teen, authorities said.A video taken on the cell phone of one of the suspects shows the boy being kicked, dragged through the snow and stuffed into a tree, then hung from his jacket on a tall wrought-iron fence. On the video, the boy can be heard screaming as his attackers laugh. MORE BLEEDING GREEN NATION: […]