VIDEO: The Man Who Sent The President Ricin

“This is KC & I approve this video,” he says on his You Tube page, echoing the sign-off his ricin letters to the president and the senator. He might be a lousy bioterrorist, but he’s not a bad honky tonk singer. Well, he’ll have a captive audience for the next rest of his life. RELATED: Associated Press, quoting an FBI agent, separately identified the suspect as Paul Kevin Curtis, 45, of Corinth, Mississippi [PICTURED, BELOW RIGHT]. The letter to Obama was intercepted at an office away from the White House, where all mail to the president is subjected to a […]

VEGGING: Vegan Tree

  VEGAN TREE 742 South St., Philadelphia, PA 19147 (215) 454-2898 CUISINE: Simply put, Vegan Tree is a nice place to eat. They definitely score points for the 100% vegan guarantee and the gluten free designations on the menu and all of the quirky extras like bubble tea, milkshakes and smoothies make the whole experience worthwhile. Vegan Tree runs the risk of paling in comparison to some of the other local vegan/vegetarian restaurants that make up my usual dining rotation and it often gets skipped over for some of the other restaurants that I obsessively crave but whenever I go, […]

WORTH REPEATING: Sound Familiar?

  THE GUARDIAN: So there’s been no polling bounce for Cameron, even as he claimed that Thatcher “saved our country”. And while people recognise her strength, polls show clear opposition to many of her flagship policies, including privatisation (only a quarter think it’s delivered a better service). Most don’t believe she “put the ‘Great’ back into Great Britain” at all, her economic policies are seen to have done “more harm than good”, and her legacy is regarded as one of division and inequality. Which is what the facts show. Far from saving Britain, Thatcher’s government delivered rampant inequality, social breakdown, […]

Woman Is Still The N-Word Of The World

BY WILLIAM C. HENRY Forty years ago, the Supreme Court ripped sole control of reproductive rights from the iron fist of the patriarchy and handed it back to the people who actually do most of the living, dying and birthing in this matter: women. The patriarchy has been furiously lashing out legislatively ever since. Alabama’s de facto overturning of Roe v. Wade is but the most recent example of male dominance in the War Of The Womb, which begs the question: Why do so many American women appear to be waving white flags and allowing men to dictate what they […]

JUST ANNOUNCED: Steely Dan @ The Mann

  Steely Dan plays the Mann September 21st. Tickets go on sale Saturday @ 10 am. ALL MUSIC GUIDE: Most rock & roll bands are a tightly wound unit that developed their music through years of playing in garages and clubs around their hometown. Steely Dan never subscribed to that aesthetic. As the vehicle for the songwriting of Walter Becker and Donald Fagen, Steely Dan defied all rock & roll conventions. Becker and Fagen never truly enjoyed rock — with their ironic humor and cryptic lyrics, their eclectic body of work shows some debt to Bob Dylan — preferring jazz, […]

FLAMING LIPS: Try To Explain

From the just-released The Terror. RELATED: The Wizard asks what I think of the new album and I tell him I find it pretty dark and forbidding sonically — perched somewhere between early Hawkwind and late period Kraut rock– and lyrically it’s just so bleak and hopeless. I like it but I’m not sure anybody else will. The lyrics document a traumatic, hope-crushing loss of faith in the transcendental power of love. File this under ART IMITATES LIFE: Around the time The Terror was being written and recorded, Wayne was in the final stages of splitting up with his wife […]

SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK: The Time The Boston Marathon Brought Out The Very Best In Humanity Instead Of The Very Worst

  THE NATION: Through 1966, women weren’t allowed to run the grueling 26-mile race. But in 1967, a woman by the name of Kathrine Switzer registered as K.V. Switzer and, dressed in loose fitting sweats, took to the course. Five miles into the race, one of the marathon directors actually jumped off a truck to forcibly remove Switzer from the course, yelling: “Get the hell out of my race!” But the men running with her fought him off. For them, Kathrine Switzer had every right to be there. For them, the Boston Marathon wasn?t about exclusion or proving male supremacy—pitting […]

Boston Marathon Bombing Kills 3, Wounds 141

ASSOCIATED PRESS: Two explosions shattered the finish of the Boston Marathon on Monday, sending authorities out on the course to carry away the injured while stragglers in the 26.2-mile race were rerouted away from the smoking site.  Competitors and race volunteers were crying as they fled the chaos. Bloody spectators were being carried to the medical tent that had been set up to care for fatigued runners. “There are a lot of people down,” said one man, whose bib No. 17528 identified him as Frank Deruyter of North Carolina. He was not injured, but marathon workers were carrying one woman, who […]

NPR 4 The Deaf: We Hear It When U Can’t

FRESH AIR In 2003, police in Somerset County, N.J., arrested a hospital nurse named Charlie Cullen who was suspected of injecting patients with lethal doses of a variety of medications. Cullen would turn out to be one of the nation’s most prolific serial killers, murdering dozens, perhaps hundreds of people in nine hospitals over a 14-year period. Journalist Charles Graeber spent six years investigating the Cullen case, and is the only reporter to have spoken with Cullen in prison. In his new book, The Good Nurse, Graeber pieces together the elements of Cullen’s story. “We’ll never know how many people […]

JUST IN: New Order @ The Mann 6/26

Tickets go on sale Friday @ 10 am. ALL MUSIC GUIDE: Rising from the ashes of the legendary British post-punk unit Joy Division, the enigmatic New Order triumphed over tragedy to emerge as one of the most influential and acclaimed bands of the 1980s; embracing the electronic textures and disco rhythms of the underground club culture many years in advance of its contemporaries, the group’s pioneering fusion of new wave aesthetics and dance music successfully bridged the gap between the two worlds, creating a distinctively thoughtful and oblique brand of synth pop appealing equally to the mind, body, and soul. […]