Photo courtesy of PHILLY.COM Let us just say up front that we like Jim Kenney. A lot. He is almost always the voice of reason in the confederacy of dunces that is city politics. We’d like to see him run for mayor and barring the entrance into the mayoral race of some Martin Luther King/Bobby Kennedy dream candidate riding on a unicorn to save the day, we’d unconditionally endorse his candidacy. Hell, even if that happened, we’d still likely endorse him, seeing as how we got burned pretty badly by the last MLK/RFK dream candidate riding a unicorn we threw […]
ANNENBERG CENTER FOR MEDIA STUDIES: Public Learned More About Campaign Finance Skulduggery From Watching Colbert Report Than By Watching Broadcast News Or Reading Newspapers
Photo by PETER YANG DEADLINE HOLLYWOOD: The published study tested The Colbert Report against CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, and broadcast nightly news — as well as talk radio and newspapers – as sources of political information. The study, appropriately called Stephen Colbert’s Civics Lesson, was based on phone survey data from 1,232 adults 18 years or older who were interviewed between December 13-23, 2012. Watching The Colbert Report not only increased people’s perceptions that they knew more about political financing, but significantly increased their actual knowledge, and did so at a greater rate than other news sources, the study found. […]
BEING THERE: Roots Picnic 2014
Photos by PETE TROSHAK The Roots hosted their 7th annual picnic at Festival Pier on Saturday and, like the band itself, The Roots Picnic brand has aged like fine wine, with this year’s edition maybe being the best ever. The 2014 edition featured a series of incredible performances including a star-making turn by one rookie rapper and a must-see collaboration between hosts The Roots and one of the most successful and iconic singers in hip-hop’s illustrious history, Snoop Dogg. Early arrivers were treated to a fun performance by Roman Gianarthur, who delivered a Prince-like set of funk, some amazing guitar […]
WORTH REPEATING: The Ballad Of Bowe Bergdahl
ROLLING STONE: On June 27th [2009], he sent what would be his final e-mai to his parents. It was a lengthy message documenting his complete disillusionment with the war effort. He opened it by addressing it simply to “mom, dad.” “The future is too good to waste on lies,” Bowe wrote. “And life is way too short to care for the damnation of others, as well as to spend it helping fools with their ideas that are wrong. I have seen their ideas and I am ashamed to even be american. The horror of the self-righteous arrogance that they […]
NPR 4 THE DEAF: We Hear It Even When You Can’t
FRESH AIR Joaquin Phoenix started his acting career in 1982, when he was about 8, on an episode of the TV series Seven Brides For Seven Brothers. (His brother, the late River Phoenix, was a regular in the series.) He tells Fresh Air‘s Terry Gross that he still vividly remembers his first time on a set. “I remember feeling like I was buzzing, like my whole body was vibrating, because it was just so exciting to experience this thing that wasn’t real but at moments felt like it was real,” he says. “It’s basically the feeling that I’ve been […]
Talking Guided By Voices w/ Jay Carney, White House Press Secretary, United States Of America
Photo by JONATHAN VALANIA EDITOR’S NOTE: This interview originally ran September 12th 2012. We present this encore edition to mark the news that Carney has just resigned his White House Press Sec. post, with a lengthy, never-before published exchange about 9/11 wherein Carney speaks at length about being on Air Force One as a reporter for TIME Magazine on that day. BY JONATHAN VALANIA Back in the spring, MAGNET’s collective jaw dropped when we learned that White House Press Secretary Jay Carney declared, in the middle of a briefing with the Washington press corps, that Guided By Voices was “the […]
THE WHOLE MAGILLA: Delaware Lawmakers Propose Legalizing Recreational Marijuana Use
Artwork via REDBUBBLE DELAWARE ONLINE: Delawareans could legally possess up to an ounce of marijuana for “personal use” under new legislation backed by Democratic lawmakers in both chambers of the General Assembly. The legislation would set the minimum age for marijuana possession at 21 and would only impose a $100 civil fine on anyone found consuming marijuana in a public place, including streets, parks and sidewalks. Under current Delaware law, possession of small amounts of marijuana is currently prosecuted as a misdemeanor, punishable by up to six months in jail and fines of up to $1,150. Rep. Helene Keeley, a […]
NOVOCAINE FOR THE SOUL: Q&A w/ Eels
BY JONATHAN VALANIA It’s hard to believe there’s been 10 albums since 1996’s Beautiful Freak and the song “Novocaine For The Soul” — a three minute and eight second fever dream for the ears — that started it all. (Key line: “Life is white and I am black/Jesus and his lawyer are coming back”) And yet here we are. For the uninitiated, Eels is essentially Mark Everett’s one-man band of joy. Comfort and joy. And Beefheart-ian electro-shock pop. Think of it as mental dance music for the heavily medicated and Mark Everett is the white-suited John Travolta of the […]
INSIDE EDWARD SNOWDEN: On Civil Disobedience
“Unjust laws exist; shall we be content to obey them, or shall we endeavor to amend them, and obey them until we have succeeded, or shall we transgress them at once? Men generally, under such a government as this, think that they ought to wait until they have persuaded the majority to alter them. They think that, if they should resist, the remedy would be worse than the evil. But it is the fault of the government itself that the remedy is worse than the evil. It makes it worse. Why is it not more apt to anticipate and provide […]
RIP: Maya Angelou, Knower Of Why The Caged Bird Still Sings, High Poetess Of Presidents, Dead @ 86
NEW YORK TIMES: Maya Angelou, the memoirist and poet whose landmark book of 1969, “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings” — which describes in lyrical, unsparing prose her childhood in the Jim Crow South — was among the first autobiographies by a 20th-century black woman to reach a wide general readership, died on Wednesday in her home. She was 86 and lived in Winston-Salem, N.C. Her death was confirmed by her longtime literary agent, Helen Brann. No immediate cause had been determined, but Ms. Brann said Ms. Angelou had been in frail health for some time and had […]
WORTH REPEATING: The Character Assassin’s Gate
PROSPECT: The Errors Of Edward Snowden And Glenn Greenwald ANTI-WAR.COM: George Packer, resident egghead-journalist at the New Yorker – and Iraq war supporter-turned-“anguished” semi-recanter – is the latest “liberal” to turn his guns on Edward Snowden and Glenn Greenwald for their alleged devotion to libertarianism. A whole genre has grown up around this subject: Sean Wilentz, writing in The New Republic and the boys over at ThinkProgress are exemplars of the form. They compete with neocons like David Brooks and the Weekly Standard gang to see who can demonize the Snowden-Greenwald team in the most damning terms. And to […]
DEENEY: Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely
THE ATLANTIC: In 2012, an officer was arrested for selling heroin; he was one of 40-some officers charged with corruption after the “Tainted Justice” investigation. That may be evidence that “Tainted Justice” sparked more oversight, but more likely it’s an indication that police corruption has continued with abandon despite it. Last year, Jeffrey Walker, another rogue narc-squad officer in West Philly, was charged with robbing drug dealers. He pleaded guilty and agreed to cooperate with prosecutors. Courthouse insiders say that Walker will finger as many as 15 dirty cops who are still on the streets. The city’s capacity for […]
LED ZEPPELIN: Whole Lotta Love (Rough Mix)
The video is a composite of several classic Led Zeppelin live performances, some well-known and others rarely seen. The “Rough Mix With Vocal” version of “Whole Lotta Love” is featured on the deluxe edition of Led Zeppelin II which is set for release on June 3, along with deluxe editions of the band’s debut album and Led Zeppelin III. “This version of ‘Whole Lotta Love’ is the mix down from the night that we recorded it,” says Jimmy Page. “So it doesn’t have any of the overdubs that everyone will be familiar with, because when they hear this they’ll think, […]