HARRISBURG – Out of a job for only two weeks, former State Sen. Joe Conti today will be named chief executive officer of the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board, a newly created $150,000-a-year post with the nation’s largest buyer of wine and spirits. The Rendell administration pushed the appointment of the Bucks County Republican, calling him perfect for the job. Yet the news was immediately met with outrage by the LCB chairman.”This is not transparency in public government,” said Jonathan Newman, adding that he learned of Conti’s hiring when Rendell’s office gave him a job description for the new position at […]
BREAKING: Peter Boyle Dead at 71
Dec. 13, 2006 — Peter Boyle, who gained fame playing everything from a tap-dancing monster in “Young Frankenstein” to the curmudgeonly father in the long-running TV sitcom “Everybody Loves Raymond,” has died. He was 71. Boyle died Tuesday evening at New York Presbyterian Hospital. He had been suffering from multiple myeloma and heart disease, according to his publicist, Jennifer Plante. Boyle was beginning to gain notoriety playing hard-bitten, angry characters when he took the role of the hulking, lab-created monster in Mel Brooks’ 1974 horror film sendup. The movie’s defining moment came when Gene Wilder, as scientist Frederick Frankenstein, introduced his […]
PROFESSOR PLUM SAYS: Septegenarian Chadds Ford Handyman Killed Misses Peacock & Col. Mustard
A handyman who believed he was being given poisoned coffee has been charged with the four-year-old murder of an elderly Chadds Ford couple. Walter James Rosengarth, 73, will be arraigned today in the deaths of Miles Warner and Mary Chamberlin Warner, both 81, who were shot to death Dec. 10, 2002. Rosengarth is currently incarcerated at a state prison in Camp Hill on an unrelated attempted homicide charge. In July of 2003, he opened fire on two sheriff deputies who were trying to deliver an eviction notice to his Chester County home.[…] Rosengarth met the couple while riding his bike […]
OUT OF THE FRYING PAN: Philly River Docks Safely Out Of Hands Of Soft-On-Evil-Doers DUBAI PORTS, But Now At The Mercy Of The Truly Merciless, An INSURANCE COMPANY
Dubai Ports World is selling ports operations in New Jersey, New York, Philadelphia and four other U.S. cities to AIG Global Investment group. Dubai’s planned takeover of major U.S. port operations ignited a political firestorm earlier this year. Critics cited the United Arab Emirate’s history as an operational and financial base for the Nine-Eleven hijackers. The government supported the Taliban before the attacks. The company announced the deal Monday. The U.S. operations at six major U.S. seaports in New York/New Jersey, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Miami, Tampa and New Orleans were approximately valued at $700 million, but DP World did not disclose […]
DON’T STOP THE PRESSES: Guild And Company Reach Agreement, There Will Be No Strike, Repeat THE STRIKE HAS BEEN CANCELLED DUE TO LACK OF INTEREST ALL AROUND, Back To Same As It Ever Was
JUST IN FROM ATTYTOOD: The Newspaper Guild and the owners of the Daily News and Inquirer reached a tentative contract agreement minutes ago, averting a newspaper strike here in Philly…assuming the contract is ratified by union members (never a slam dunk). I know nothing of the details, although I imagine Steve Volk will figure it out soon. The upshot is you still have Attytood to kick around — aren’t you glad? GUILD PDF: NO STRIKE PREVIOUSLY: A Strike Would Be ‘Mutual Suicide’ SGT BYKO REPORTS: The Guild and the PN reached a tentative agreement on all issues at 10:15 p.m. […]
On Phawker Radio: LOS CUBANOS POSTIZOS
To mark the timely death of Augusto Pinochet (could not have happened to a nicer guy) and the impending depature from this mortal coil of one Fidel Castro, we bring you this wonderful 1998 collection of ersatz bueno vista social clubbing by Marc Ribot & Los Cubanos Postizos.
GUNCRAZY: Eagles Scout Gets Bad Report Card, Shoots Self In Head Between Classes
An 11th grader purportedly despondent about his grades brought a rifle to Springfield High School in Montgomery County this morning, fired high into a wall to frighten other students into a hallway and then shot himself to death, witnesses and officials said.No one else was injured, authorities said. […]Montgomery County District Attorney Bruce Castor told reporters at a late afternoon news conference that Halligan died after putting the barrel of the AK-47 semiautomatic rifle under his chin and firing. Castor said that a suicide note was found in the right front pocket of Halligan’s jeans and that the suicide followed […]
MONEY CHANGES EVERYTHING or How The TOWER Of Song Got Its Lean On
RICHARD KAUFMAN REMEMBERS: Tower Records, so many bittersweet memories. In those crazy go-go days of the early ’90s, there was so much optimism for the future. Papa Bush was imploding faster than a smart bomb, Fast Eddie was mayor, the Eagles had a mobile QB that would finally lead us to the promised land, and flannel-wearing rockers were starting to turn the rock world on its head. The word around the water cooler was that Tower was going public, and all of us smelly, underpaid buyers and clerks would get in on the ground floor. The Tower model seemed to […]
NPR FOR THE DEAF: We Hear It Even When You Can’t
RADIO TIMES WITH MARTY MOSS-COANE Hour 1 (Rebroadcast tonight at 11) A conversation with BOBBY GHOSH. He is Baghdad Bureau Chief for Time Magazine and is reporting the war in Iraq. Listen to this show via Real Audio | mp3 FRESH AIR WITH TERRY GROSS New York Times reporter Alex Kuczynski‘s new book is Beauty Junkies: Inside our $15 Billion Obsession with Cosmetic Surgery. No stranger to “beauty maintenance,” Kuczynski has had botox, an eye-lift, and liposuction, but gave it up after a bad experience with lip augmentation.
JUNK SCIENCE: Green Is The New Black
ELIZABETH FIEND REPORTS: Pollution and degradation of the environment happens in many, many unpredictable ways. It’s not just big business and the Feds — yours, mine, everyone’s personal, everyday actions have unforeseeable consequences on the environment as well. Everything is interrelated to extents we can’t even imagine. Rwanda has banned the use of plastic bags for environmental reasons. The bags are trashy, don’t disintegrate, and who would have guessed they would do so much harm to marine life? Plastic bags are made from non-renewable natural resources like oil. Rwanda has switched to raffia bags, woven from the dried leaves of […]
SMELLS LIKE JOURNALISM: Daily News Does Due Diligence, Puts Boots On The Ground In Atlantic City’s Sex Trade, Does Not Shy Away From Calling A Ho A ‘Ho’
Heaven and scores of other prostitutes who linger in this seaside town of glittery casinos and seedy motels know they’re playing a game far more risky than anything inside the casinos. Death has stared them in the face since four decayed bodies were found in a drainage ditch three weeks ago. All the victims were women. Three were known to Atlantic City police as prostitutes. A task force of local cops, state police and the FBI has descended on the slimiest sections of the city to trace the steps of a possible serial killer. “Sometimes I think to myself, ‘I […]
ROCKSNOB: Clap Yer Hands And Say ‘Meh’
ED KING REPORTS: Hey, I came across two tracks from the upcoming Clap Your Hands Say Yeah album, Some Loud Thunder! Check ’em out at their website! You kids still trying to squeeze into your Garanimals may want to free up space on your iPod when this bad boy hits the streets on January 30! If hearing these previews leaves you too thunderstruck to comment, let me do so for you! There’s a track called “Love Song No. 7” (a title construction that rarely bodes well) that is 4:31 of “Lick My Love Pump”-style piano chords, a bit of Syd […]