BY AMY Z. QUINN This morning, “Good Morning America” featured segments from a sit-down Diane Sawyer did with the U.S. Senate’s so-called “Sweet 16,” or its entire female membership. In case you failed math the way I did, that’s a paltry 16 percent of the Senate’s membership, a fact not even vaguely “sweet.” To make it worse, ABC undercut Sawyer’s entire effort by including the obligatory “Can women senators handle job and work” poll. Still, either I’m getting old, or my sense of what matters is waaay off, because I came away from the piece bothered not so much by […]
Company Response To Guild Diversity Complaints: Seniority Rule Is Colorblind & Indestructible
Melanie Burney, an Inquirer reporter who attended the meeting, said the group was upset that the recent layoffs involved a “disproportionate” number of minorities. While the Inquirer newsroom is just 18% minority, some 28% of those laid off were minority employees, she said. During the meeting, Tierney agreed to form a diversity committee for the two papers to study the issue, but stopped short of making any changes to the layoffs list, Burney said. “I wanted to see something concrete happen today,” Burney told E&P. “An immediate solution, but we did not get any. I wanted too hear that there […]
McCaingry: Is Presidential Bid Of SAINT JOHN THE ESCALATOR The Latest Casualty In Iraq?
For seven years, conventional wisdom has said that the state’s pivotal independent voters would line up behind maverick Sen. John McCain, as they did so famously in the 2000 GOP primary. But new polling data, to be released later this week, will suggest that might no longer be the case. Manchester, N.H.-based American Research Group finds that McCain’s popularity among New Hampshire’s independent voters has collapsed. “John McCain is tanking,” says ARG president Dick Bennett. “That’s the big thing [we’re finding]. In New Hampshire a year ago he got 49 percent among independent voters. That number’s way down, to 29 […]
GUNCRAZY: Is That A Gun Under Your Crested Blazer Or Are Just REALLY Pissed To See Me?
(CBS 3) PHILADELPHIA Police are searching for several young suspects after a shooting outside a school in West Philadelphia. Authorities said a 17-year-old male was shot at least three times in the leg outside Sayre Middle High School near 59th and Spruce. The victim was taken to the Children?s Hospital of Pennsylvania. His condition is unknown. Three young males, possibly wearing school uniforms, were seen running from the scene following the shooting. Police recovered a gun one block away at 59th and Walnut. No arrests have been made. KYW: We’ll Settle This Like Men, After Gym Class
JACKASS FUNHOUSE: Iggy & The Stooges To Play Bam Margera’s Wedding, Said To Be Working Up Really Friggin’ Awesome Smear-Yourself-In-Peanut-Butter And Roll In Broken Glass Version Of ‘Electric Slide’
Rock legends Iggy and the Stooges will perform at the Feb. 2 wedding of Bam Margera and Missy Rothstein. So will The Sounds. “Jackass” troublemaker Margera announced the news on his Sirius Satellite Radio show on Monday. Margera and Rothstein are being followed by MTV for a new series, “Bam’s Unholy Union,” which premieres Jan. 30. The wedding will be held at an as-yet- undisclosed location in the area, and we’re told the couple had a difficult time finding a spot because a few locations turned them down, afraid the hellraiser, or his cronies, would tear their place apart. DAN […]
ALMOST FAMOUS: ‘F*CK Da Eagles’ Chick’s 15 Minute Fame Clock Already Ticking
LOTS OF FANS responded to my request for alternate suggestions as to the story behind the young lady wearing the “(Bleep) Da Eagles” T-shirt on camera during the Fox telecast of Saturday’s game. Many were creative but unprintable. The image and story behind it have taken on a life of their own, to the point where Maxim magazine is looking for the woman for a possible photo spread. (With actual winged, feathered, strategically placed eagles, one would hope… maybe they can borrow the one Stephen Colbert uses in the opening to his show.) — Reader Mitch Gerhart feels there is […]
Zoo Officials Relieved That Rare Tigers Are Fucking Like Rabbits Instead Of Disembowling Each Other
BY SANDY BAUER INQUIRER STAFF WRITER PHILADELPHIA – She paced in front of the mesh, flopped to her back and writhed seductively. She was the experienced one. He hid behind a tree, staring at her, then drew closer. He was middle-aged and still a virgin. For about an hour Tuesday morning, Kira and Dmitri, two Amur tigers, sniffed and growled as they got aquainted across the divide of two separate exhibits at the Philadelphia Zoo. The plan – a dangerous one – was to get them to mate. But it was worth the risk. Both carry valuable genes that can […]
ARTSY: Nice Cock!
Eric Fausnacht’s chickens and roosters at Muse Gallery are birds of a different feather. In a way, his paintings and prints that seem to be reproductions of his paintings, make the case for chickens as dandies and grandees. Their plumage is spectacular, at least as Fausnacht paints feathers. And the cockscombs are baroque, looking more like the velvety flower of the same name than like my personal image of a cockscomb. ARTBLOG: Taking Fartsy Out Of Artsy Since At Least 10 Minutes Ago
PHAWKER RADIO: The Transfiguration Of Vincent
BY JONATHAN VALANIA First, a word about his sponsor: While I can’t ever foresee the need to hear a new Superchunk album in this lifetime, the label those folks have set up, Merge, so consistently releases product of uncommon purity and indispensability that it should make the likes of Matador, Touch and Go, Sub Pop and Drag City glow with the red-blush shame of the recently spanked. I tip my hat to them. Folk music gets a bad rap, having long ago been relegated to the leafy retreats of crunchy granola ninnies in white socks and Birkenstocks, where its rough-hewn […]
FOURTH AMENDMENT: THE DECIDER Decides To Pull Plug On NSA Eavesdropping On American Citizens
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Justice Department, easing a Bush administration policy, said Wednesday it has decided to give an independent body authority to monitor the government’s controversial domestic spying program. In a letter to the leaders of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said this authority has been given to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court and that it already has approved one request for monitoring the communications of a person believed to be linked to al-Qaida or an associated terror group. The court orders approving collection of international communications _ whether it originates in the United States or […]
Why Do We Have To Go To England To Read Joe Queenan’s Definitive Critique Of the Rocky Franchise?
Throughout the saga, Balboa has been lionized by the cowed American press as the champion of working stiffs everywhere, a lovable lummox with a particularly strong psychic connection to blue-collar Philadelphians. Philadelphia, in fact, is a city whose population is roughly 50 per cent African-American, the vast majority of whom are working-class. I cannot recall the last time any film critic went out and asked black residents of the City of Brotherly Love what psychic connection they felt with a fictional thug from a section of a city not widely known for its affection toward minorities. It’s worth noting that […]
STRANGER THAN FICTION: Suicide-By-Cop & City Hall Break-Ins Part Of Same Tragically Bizarre Narrative
Before his deadly confrontation, Kelley scaled four floors of scaffolding outside City Hall and smashed a window leading to a well-appointed room where the state’s Supreme Court justices meet. Inside, he scribbled religious messages on legal pads, and rifled through desks and cabinets, police said. Kelley didn’t stop there. He circled around that floor to the offices of City Council President Anna Verna, where he broke another window, this one on a door. Again he searched desks and cabinets. He found two items that struck his fancy: a Bible and a large serrated knife. Kelley had both, police said, when […]