WASHINGTON POST: The lawsuit claims Meridian police routinely arrest students without determining whether there is probable cause when a school wants to press charges, and the students are routinely jailed. The lawsuit says the students are sent more than 80 miles to the Rankin County youth detention center because the one in Lauderdale County closed earlier this year “because of longstanding legal battles over the conditions of confinement.” Once arrested, the students end up on probation, sometimes without proper legal representation, according to the lawsuit. If the students are on probation, future school violations could be considered a violation […]
CONTEST: Win Tix To See Aimee Mann @ Union Transfer
Photo by Sheryl Nields We love Aimee Mann. How could we not. Just look at this picture. Those boots made for walkin’. Those glasses made for readin’. That coat made for wearin’. And don’t even get us started on that backdrop. Like butter, it is. We’ve loved her ever since the nihilists cut her big toe off in the Coen Brothers The Big Lebowski. That’s not true, we loved her before that. We loved the gorgeously melancholic soundtrack to PT Anderson’s Magnolia (SEE BELOW). We loved it when she was Sleater-Kinney’s maid, as humbling as that must have been. We […]
WORTH REPEATING: The Vagina Dialogues
PW’s mighty Tara Murtha, a fearless defender of the defenseless in the GOP’s rape-y War On Vaginas Women, has some very good questions for Mr. Romney and Mr. Ryan about just what this brave new post-Roe v. Wade world they are promising will look like. Questions nobody else seems to be asking. If nothing else, if you cut off contraception and access to safe, legal abortion, there’s gonna be a LOT more little mouths sucking on the Big Government tit. Plus, we’re gonna need to build many, many more prisons and we’re gonna need a shit-ton of body bags, […]
TONIGHT: Let It Shine, Let It Shine, Let It Shine
Tonight the Fairmount Park Conservancy is mounting a benefit called GLOW in the Park at FDR park. The event takes place outdoors at the Boathouse at FDR Park located at 1500 Pattison Avenue, South Philadelphia. The boathouse will ‘glow’ in the dark thanks to a special lighting configuration that will be, presumably, stunning and/or breathtaking or at the very least not dark. There will be cocktails, food trucks and live music by Hazie Blu. The event begins at 6:00 p.m. and goes until 9:00 p.m. GLOW in the Park will benefit the Fairmount Park Conservancy, the non-profit organization that […]
EARLY WORD: John Cage Superstar
Philadelphia Museum of Art’s Art After 5 will double down on its innate awesomeness this Friday with the commencement of Bowerbird‘s CAGE: Beyond Silence, a series of live performances celebrating the arrival of Dancing Around The Bride: Cage, Cunningham, Johns, Rauschenberg, and Duchamp, a new multi-media exhibit that opens Tuesday marking the centenary of one of the most influential composers of the 20th century. Art after 5 is already pretty awesome. It is a contact zone of all sorts, a heady mix of cocktails, eclectic music and one of the world’s great art collection under the magnificent vaulted ceilings […]
WORTH REPEATING: Open Letter To Ann Coulter
EDITOR’S NOTE: The following is an open letter from Special Olympian John Franklin Stephens to Ann Cuntler Coulter after this tweet during Monday night’s Presidential debate. Dear Ann Coulter, Come on Ms. Coulter, you aren’t dumb and you aren’t shallow. So why are you continually using a word like the R-word as an insult? I’m a 30 year old man with Down syndrome who has struggled with the public’s perception that an intellectual disability means that I am dumb and shallow. I am not either of those things, but I do process information more slowly than the rest […]
CINEMA: Film Fest Highs And Lows
BY DAN BUSKIRK It’s the last weekend of the Philadelphia Film Festival, whose films stretch on through its closing this Sunday night. In my overview. there was a shocking lack of lowlights. While the festival has cut the number films to nearly a third of the massive number that played in its pre-crash years, it seems like the ratio of excellence in their selection has gone through the roof. I was a little underwhelmed by David Chase’s Not Fade Away. It had all the great character detail you loved from Chase’s The Sopranos (including Tony Soprano himself, James Gandolfini […]
CONCERT REVIEW: Sea & Cake @ Johnny Brendas
BY JOE PAONE MATH-ROCK CORRESPONDENT Back in the mid-90s, when I first saw The Sea and Cake at Silk City, the Chicago quartet’s performance was an anomaly in my twenty-something post-hardcore world. Firstly, the band wore shirts with buttons! Secondly, the audience wore a lot of leather and seemed to be into “fashion.” Thirdly, the music was a mite too smoooooth for me, although I enjoyed their records very much and found them perfect for mellowing out awkward twenty-something sexual encounters. TMI! Anyway, the band appeared last night at Johnny Brenda’s, nearly 20 years older and having lost absolutely […]
SIDEWALKING: Itsy Bitsy Teeny Weeny Pink Rizzo Bikini
15th & JFK yesterday by STREETS DEPARTMENT RELATED: Ishknits does it again!! Philly’s preeminent bomber of yarn knitted a bra and panties on the statue of controversial – to say the least – Mayor of Philadelphia, Frank Rizzo, at 15th and JFK yesterday. (But before you go running off to Instagram it, you should keep reading below.) This has to be the best use of a yarnbomb ever. Seriously, EVER… And if you’re not totally sure why Frank Rizzo was the ideal target for this, just pursue the man’s career on Wikipedia for a bit and I’m sure you’ll start […]
TEA PARTY SENATE CANDIDATE: Pregnancy Resulting From Rape ‘Is Something That God Intended To Happen’
CHICAGO TRIBUNE: Indiana GOP Senate candidate Richard Mourdock opposes abortion even in the case of rape and incest, he said at a Tuesday night debate, because pregnancy from rape is “something that God intended to happen.” Mourdock, who is in a tight race with Democratic Rep. Joe Donnelly, was responding to a question about whether abortion should be legal in cases of rape or incest. “I know there are some who disagree, and I respect their point of view, but I believe that life begins at conception,” the tea party-backed Mourdock said. “The only exception I have, to have an […]
CRUEL & USUAL: The Obscene Living Conditions Inside Philadelphia’s House Of Corrections And The Inquirer Series That Helped Make It That Way
Painting by Fernando Botero BY JEFF DEENEY Recently I had a rare opportunity to go inside Philadelphia’s House of Corrections, the oldest jail in the Philadelphia Prison System, and see the conditions inmates live in. I was there in my capacity as a social worker and not as a writer and frankly I had no intention of writing about the experience. But as I walked the block prisoners implored me to, perhaps thinking I was a reporter, so I feel I must report on their behalf. “Tell them out there about this overcrowding you seen here!” “Put it in the […]
Inside The Secret Cermemonies Of The Mormons
RELATED: Mormon temple ceremonies are a closely held secret. Until now. For the first time in the 170+ year history of secret Mormon temple activity, those activities have been captured on film with a hidden camera. Watch with your own eyes the sworn oath, known as the “Law of Consecration,” that US Presidential candidate Mitt Romney has raised his arm to the square and vowed to obey, an oath that requires faithful Mormons to consecrate 100% of their current AND FUTURE time, talents and everything they will ever be blessed with, to the Mormon church and it’s goal to achieve […]
WORTH REPEATING: The New Yorker Endorsement
Photo by PLATON THE NEW YORKER: Romney has embraced the values and the priorities of a Republican Party that has grown increasingly reactionary and rigid in its social vision. It is a party dominated by those who despise government and see no value in public efforts aimed at ameliorating the immense and rapidly increasing inequalities in American society. A visitor to the F.D.R. Memorial, in Washington, is confronted by these words from Roosevelt’s second Inaugural Address, etched in stone: “The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is […]