Matisyahu singing Happy Hannukah @ Radio 104.5, 2 PM Bala Cynwyd, by JEFF FUSCO
NPR FOR THE DEAF: We Hear It Even When You Can’t
Illustration by roaar01 FRESH AIR In the latest issue of The New Yorker, journalist Raffi Khatchadourian writes about a secret chemical weapons testing program run by the U.S. Army during the Cold War. Throughout the 1950s and ’60s, at the now-crumbling Edgewood Arsenal by the Chesapeake Bay in Maryland, military doctors tested the effects of nerve gas, LSD and other drugs on 5,000 U.S. soldiers to gauge the effects on their brain and behavior. “People who were getting sarin, people who were getting other nerve agents that the Nazis had developed, they would … experience giddiness, lassitude, depression, and at […]
SMUS: Corporate Wealthfare To Work
BY WILLIAM C. HENRY Recently I authored a piece on the fiscal impasse that showcased the deceit of the military/industrial complex and its partners in arms the cowardly and complicit in the Democratic and Republican parties, and the scapegoat social welfare programs on which they’re trying to pin the rap. Now I’d like to shed a little light on the second most rogue elephant in the rooms of capitol hill. It’s called “corporate” welfare. It’s the aptly named, equally insidious, other nasty little secret the One Percenters and their Washington minions are loathe to talk about lest they be […]
RIP: Ravi Shankar, Sitar Master, Godfather Of ‘World Music’ And Norah Jones’ Father, Dead At 92
NEW YORK TIMES: Mr. Shankar, a soft-spoken, eloquent man whose performance style embodied a virtuosity that transcended musical languages, was trained in both Eastern and Western musical traditions. Although Western audiences were often mystified by the odd sounds and shapes of the instruments when he began touring in Europe and the United States in the early 1950s, Mr. Shankar and his ensemble gradually built a large following for Indian music. His instrument, the sitar, has a small rounded body and a long neck with a resonating gourd at the top. It has 6 melody strings and 25 sympathetic strings […]
SIDEWALKING: Bridge To Nowhere
Ben Franklin Bridge, 2:09 PM yesterday by JEFF FUSCO
THE SMITHS: Panic
RELATED: Between 6 and 10 August 2011, thousands of people took to the streets in several London boroughs and in cities and towns across England. The resulting chaos generated looting, arson, and mass deployment of police. Authorities and mass media referred to these events as riots, while sympathisers described them as protest,[13] insurrection,[14][15] revolution[16] or “English Spring”[17] (to parallel the Arab Spring). The events were also called “BlackBerry riots” because people used mobile devices and social media to organize.[18][19] Disturbances began on 6 August 2011 after a protest in Tottenham, following the death of Mark Duggan, a local who […]
EARLY WORD: St. Louis CK
Illustration by MIKE BURNS Tickets for his three night run at the Merriam (1/16-1/18) on sale now HERE. RELATED: Louis CK’s Snappy Answers To Vanity Fair’s Stupid Questions PREVIOUSLY: Why Louis CK Doesn’t Talk About Sarah Palin’s Vagina On Twitter Any More PREVIOUSLY: What Louis CK Said About Sarah Palin’s Vagina On Twitter THE ATLANTIC: The state of Mississippi’s public radio has banned nationally syndicated interview show Fresh Air with Terry Gross. The afternoon program, in which Gross holds relaxed chats with artists, academics, and celebrities, claims 4.5 million listeners across 450 public radio stations. Mississippi Public Broadcasting cited “recurring […]
REPORT: 891,903 U.S. Troops Hospitalized So Far
HUFFINGTON POST: The new report by the Armed Forces Health Surveillance Center said that 891,903 troops were hospitalized from October 2001 to June 2012. These patients drove the stateside hospital bed occupancy rate up to 4.2 million days, almost four times the normal peacetime rate, a number that reflects the serious nature of the patients’ physical and mental wounds. Among the 891,903 hospitalizations recorded during the wartime period, 153,936 were for physical injuries and 161,385 were for mental health diagnoses. The report also documented 1.7 million ambulatory visits to military health facilities for mental disorders. The mental health injuries […]
SIDEWALKING: Flags Of Our Fathers
Fifteenth & Market, 10:43 AM by JEFF FUSCO
NPR FOR THE DEAF: We Hear It Even When You Can’t
FRESH AIR It’s been more than six years since Daniel Handler, aka Lemony Snicket, concluded his enormously popular 13-volume young adult series, A Series of Unfortunate Events. Now Handler has revived the Snicket narrator in his YA novel Who Could That Be at This Hour? The book is the first of a series — All the Wrong Questions — and a prequel to A Series of Unfortunate Events. It tracks the young Snicket’s adventures during his apprenticeship at the V.F.D., a mysterious organization that readers familiar with the Snicket stories will recognize. While the Unfortunate Events books play with ideas […]
BIRDLAND: Don’t Call It A Comeback
BY JOE PAONE IGGLES CORRESPONDENT With an atmospheric gloom smothering the city, it was prime Bird-watching time. And there I was, jumping out of my comfy chair, pumping my fist and screaming “YEAH!!!!” at key plays during an Eagles game like I’d done countless times in the past—but not a single time this year. Even when this team won three of its first four games, the wins weren’t exactly scintillating. The view back then was, “Wow, they’re a mess so far, especially the defense, but what a bunch of gamers.” Then came the next eight games, which were perhaps […]
DOPE: Louis Armstrong Wants To Take You Higher
NEW YORK TIMES: Louis Armstrong’s celebrity cannot be separated from his artistry; it is central to his place in the history of jazz, which is harder to explain than is commonly understood. He did not invent jazz, nor was he its first important figure, and it is not even quite right to call him the first great jazz soloist (Sidney Bechet preceded him, and Bix Beiderbecke emerged as a major soloist at the same time as Armstrong, almost to the month). Instead, he became the first great influence in jazz — the player other players copied — and one […]
SIDEWALKING: The Monkey That Went To IKEA
IKEA, suburban Toronto, Sunday by DZD_LISA THE GUARDIAN: In an incident which would defy belief had it not been well witnessed and, more importantly, captured on Instagram, shoppers at an Ikeastore in suburban Toronto were greeted on Sunday by the sight of a tiny, confused and seemingly lost pet monkey running round the entrance lobby. If this was not enough, said monkey was clad in a close-fitting, button-up sheepskin jacket and wearing a nappy. Toronto police believe the animal was inside a cage in a car parked at the store in North York but somehow managed to free itself. “It […]