FRESH AIR Under Jim Crow laws, black Americans were relegated to a subordinate status for decades. Things like literacy tests for voters and laws designed to prevent blacks from serving on juries were commonplace in nearly a dozen Southern states. In her book The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, legal scholar Michelle Alexander writes that many of the gains of the civil rights movement have been undermined by the mass incarceration of black Americans in the war on drugs. She says that although Jim Crow laws are now off the books, millions of blacks arrested […]
KILLADELPHIA: Brutes Bash Temple Grad’s Brains Out On The Steps Of The Second Bank Of America
INQUIRER: Just before 2:25 a.m. Saturday, Kless and two female friends were walking on Chestnut Street near Fourth Street when he tried to hail a cab. The bars had just let out, and the three had just left Lucy’s Hat Shop Restaurant & Lounge a few blocks away. The cab’s rooftop lights were on, signaling it was available, but there were passengers inside, and the taxi didn’t stop. Police said Kless yelled, “Turn off your f-ing lights. A maroon Mazda with four men inside drove up behind the cab as traffic likely slowed briefly. The people in the Mazda may […]
LIFE LESSONS: The Cure For Sweat Shops
AP Ticker explains how a GLOBAL MINIMUM WAGE would put an end to sweat shops and the migration of fairly paid labor to places on the planet where the poor and the uneducated (which often means CHILDREN) are made de facto slave laborers for the United States and Europe.
SIDEWALKING: F*ck Art, Let’s Dance
Zoe Strauss 10 Years Dance Party, Philadelphia Museum Of Art, 11:19 last night, by PETER CRIMMINS PREVIOUSLY: Wowie Zoe
GONE FISHIN’: Be Right Back
[Artowrk by JASON SEILER] We’re heading down to Nashville to hang out with the Black Keys — more on that later — we should be back in business Monday, God willing and the creeks don’t rise.
SIDEWALKING: She Was A Fast Machine
Springdale Road, Cherry Hill, 8:02 AM by JEFF FUSCO
EARLY WORD: Wowie Zoe
South Philly photographer Zoe Strauss has come a long way since she received a camera as a gift in 2000–so far, in fact, that an exhibition of 150 of Strauss’s photos (titled Zoe Strauss Ten Years) opens at the Philadelphia Museum of Art this Saturday night. Despite the amazing achievement of a museum show for Strauss, she also convinced the museum and Clear Channel to finance the placement of 54 of her photos around Philly on billboards, substituting the unreal optics of advertising with the real thing. PMA managed to bring her inside, but in the process, Zoe managed to […]
SH*T MY UNCLE SAYS: I, Misanthrope
BY WILLIAM C. HENRY A question from a friend (to whom I attribute perhaps unwarranted powers of observation) following a recent discussion on the sorry state of Republican politics got me to wondering just how my true sentiments concerning that cauldron of cacophony, callousness and cowardice should “properly” be categorized. The question was, “When did the symptoms of your misanthropy first appear?” Well, although momentarily taken aback, I quickly realized that perhaps an opportunity “too good to refuse” had just been dropped into my proverbial absence of a lap. So, with albeit a little skirting of the issues now and then, and […]
EARLY WORD: Build It And They Will Come
The Department of Architecture & Interiors of the Westphal College of Media Arts & Design at Drexel University will present Robert A.M. Stern as the second speaker of this year’s Farajollah & Maryam Badie AARFA lecture series in architecture. Stern is the dean and J.M. Hoppin professor of architecture at the Yale School of Architecture. He is also the founder and senior partner of Robert A.M. Stern Architects of New York City. The lecture titled “Architecture and Place,” will focus on the power of architecture to improve our cities and campuses. The lecture is free, starting at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday, […]
Obama Still Drinking The Drug War Kool-Aid, DOJ To Crack Down On Medical Marijuana
HUFFINGTON POST: The Associated Press reports that federal officials are beginning a California-style crackdown on medical marijuana businesses in Colorado. As CBS4 originally reported in December when rumors of crackdown were beginning to take shape, the crackdown will be focused on medical marijuana businesses that are within 1,000 feet of schools. They must shut down within 45 days or face federal penalties. Letters were sent out to 23 medical marijuana businesses in Colorado on Thursday, according to The Denver Post. This is the most aggressive law-enforcement action that the federal government has pursued in the state. […] This comes after […]
DISCLAIMER: 5 Myths About The Arab Spring
WASHINGTON POST: When the Arab Spring began a year ago, the Western world was shocked. On the surface, it had seemed that liberty had bypassed the Arabs; they had seemed resigned to tyranny. But once unleashed, the upheaval knew no restraint, and there were mayhem and promise in the streets of the Arab world. Since then, the rebellions have spawned a steady stream of punditry and conventional wisdom about the Arab Spring — some of it vastly mistaken. Let’s explore what really fueled the uprisings. 1. Obama’s 2009 Cairo speech helped inspire the Arab Spring. Nothing could be further from […]
Santorums Were ‘Pillars Of The Communist Party’?
[Artowrk by CATGIRLKARI] DAILY BEAST: The elder Santorum matriarch doesn’t understand why he has diverged so far from the family’s longtime political stance. “In Riva del Garda his grandfather Pietro and uncles were ‘red communists’ to the core,” writes Oggi journalist Giuseppe Fumagalli, likening the family to “Peppone” after a famous fictional Italian communist mayor who fought against an ultraconservative priest known as Don Cammillo and about which a popular television series is based. “But on the other side of the ocean, it’s like his family here doesn’t exist. Instead he draws crowds as the head of the ultraconservative faction […]