FREE TIX: For The Philly Film Fest’s Spring Preview

TICKET OFFER: Philadelphia Film Festival has offered us limited number of passes for the Spring Preview screenings, if you would like to attend drop us a line at feed@Phawker.com and please include a cell-phone number. RELATED: Dan Buskirk’s Spring Preview Review *** SCRAPPLE TV NEWS: The Week In Weed A.P. Ticker puts Philly’s new pot possession policy in his pipe and stuffs it.

SANITIZED FOR YOUR PROTECTION: Reuters Spikes Story About The ‘Collateral Murder’ Of Its Reporters

GAWKER: David Schlesinger, the editor in chief of Reuters, declined to run a story by one of his own reporters containing claims that the 2007 killings of two Reuters staffers in Baghdad by U.S. troops may have been war crimes. Reuters staffers Namir Noor-Eldeen and Saeed Chmagh were killed by U.S. helicopter gunships in Baghdad in 2007. Video of the attack, which shows the journalists standing next to unidentified armed men on a Baghdad street and records the destruction of a van attempting to retrieve a wounded Chmagh, was published this week by Wikileaks. The video has launched a debate […]

BREAKING: Steve Wynn Pulls Out Of Foxwoods Fail

BUSINESS WIRE:Wynn Resorts, Limited announced today that Development Associates, LLC, and certain other of its wholly owned subsidiaries have terminated all agreements and negotiations with respect to a potential investment in the Foxwoods Casino project in Philadelphia, PA. “We are fascinated by the legalization of full gaming in Pennsylvania and stimulated by the opportunity that it presents for Wynn Resorts, but this particular project did not, in the end, present an opportunity that was appropriate for our company,” commented Stephen A. Wynn, Chairman and CEO of Wynn Resorts, Limited. MORE PHILLY CLOUT: Just this week, Wynn released a colorful sketch […]

RIP: Sex Pistols Svengali Malcolm McLaren Dead At 64

BBC: Malcolm McLaren, the former manager of punk group the Sex Pistols, has died in New York, aged 64, his agent has said. McLaren, the ex-partner of designer Vivienne Westwood, was believed to have been diagnosed with cancer a while ago. He set up a clothes shop and label with Westwood on London’s King’s Road in the 1970s and was later a businessman and performer in his own right. His agent told the BBC McLaren passed away on Thursday morning. Spokesman Les Malloy said he expected McLaren’s body to be returned to the UK before it is buried in Highgate […]

CINEMA: Philadelphia Film Festival Spring Preview

BY DAN BUSKIRK FILM CRITIC Most local film lovers don’t even want to discuss the collapse of this Spring’s Philadelphia Film Festival, it’s down there with bummer thoughts like the loss of a beloved pet or the rise of the Tea Party.  I know some of the my favorite films of the decade were features caught during the festival that never again arrived on area screens.  Like a friend looking to cushion the blow, the Philadelphia Film Society has staged a Spring Preview mini-festival this weekend, bringing twelve new films to the Prince Theater and the best thing is that […]

PAPERBOY: Slow-Jamming The Alt-Weeklies

BY DAVE ALLEN Like time, news waits for no man. Keeping up with the funny papers has always been an all-day job, even in the pre-Internets era. These days, however, it’s a two-man job. That’s right, these days you need someone to do your reading for you, or risk falling hopelessly behind and, as a result, increasing your chances of dying lonely and somewhat bitter. That’s why every week PAPERBOY does your alt-weekly reading for you. We pore over those time-consuming cover stories and give you the takeaway, suss out the cover art, warn you off the ink-wasters and steer […]

GLEEN GREENWALD: When Presidents Kill

GLENN GREENWALD: In Barack Obama’s America, the way guilt is determined for American citizens — and a death penalty imposed — is that the President, like the King he thinks he is, secretly decrees someone’s guilt as a Terrorist.  He then dispatches his aides to run to America’s newspapers — cowardly hiding behind the shield of anonymity which they’re granted — to proclaim that the Guilty One shall be killed on sight because the Leader has decreed him to be a Terrorist.  It is simply asserted that Awlaki has converted from a cleric who expresses anti-American views and advocates attacks on American […]

SOS: God Save ‘The First Lady Of The Sea’

LOS ANGLES TIMES: Once, it was the fastest and one of the most luxurious ocean liners in the world. On its maiden voyage in 1952, the United States set a transatlantic speed record — New York to Bishop Rock, England, in three days, 10 hours, 40 minutes — eclipsing by 10 hours the mark set by the Queen Mary in 1938. But for 14 years, the pride of a nation has gone nowhere, rusting away at a pier in South Philadelphia, a fading landmark seemingly destined for one last journey: to the scrap yard. Its owner, Norwegian Cruise Line, which […]

NEWS CLUES: Like A Shoe Bomb Of Truth

QUATARI DIPLOMAT SCRAMBLES F-16s BY SMOKIN’ IN THE BOYS ROOM Two F-16s scrambled to escort a United Airlines jet into Denver International Airport on Wednesday night after a Qatari diplomat apparently tried to sneak a cigarette, then joked that he had wanted to set his shoe afire, federal law enforcement officials said. Initially, the incident raised fears of another terrorism strike similar to a passenger’s Christmas Day attempt to ignite explosives in his underwear as a Northwest jet approached Detroit, and to the 2001 shoe bomber, Richard Reid, who tried to set fire to his shoes on a transatlantic flight […]

NEWSPAPER DEATH WATCH: Tierney Says Inquirer And Daily News Will Be Out Of Money By July

INQUIRER: Brian P. Tierney, president and CEO of Philadelphia Newspapers L.L.C., lashed out at his company’s lenders Wednesday, suggesting that they were purposefully trying to financially destroy the media firm by seeking to delay the company’s scheduled April 27 auction. […] Should the auction be delayed, the company’s bankruptcy case could drag on well into the summer and beyond, which would be a financial disaster, Tierney said. The company has estimated that it will run out of operating cash by July. MORE UPDATE: Philadelphia Newspapers L.L.C.’s bankruptcy auction remains scheduled for April 27. A three-judge panel with the U.S. Court […]

THE PEACE CORPS DIARIES: Letter From Paraguay

EDITOR’S NOTE: The author [pictured above with the jawbone of a cow] just started a two year hitch in the Peace Corps doing health counseling in rural Paraguay.  BY SAINT JOHN BARNED-SMITH I was walking back from a pickup soccer game yesterday. One of my fellow [Peace Corps] trainees called me over to where he was standing with three other people. They had clustered around a black cow tied to a tall pole, which it was circling slowly. “Hurry up, we’re helping a cow give birth,” he said. That’s when I noticed two miniscule hooves poking out underneath the cow’s […]

NPR FOR THE DEAF: We Hear It Even When You Can’t

FRESH AIR As a teenager, Frank Meeink was one of the most well-known skinhead gang members in the country. He had his own public access talk show, called The Reich, he appeared on Nightline and other media outlets as a spokesman for neo-Nazi topics, and he regularly recruited members of his South Philadelphia neighborhood to join his skinhead gang. At 18, Meeink spent several years in prison for kidnapping one man and beating another man senseless for several hours. While in prison, Meeink says, he was exposed to people from a variety of ethnic and racial backgrounds and started reevaluating […]

WHY MUSIC MATTERS: Nick Cave

WHY MUSIC MATTERS: Music Matters is a collective of people across the music industry, including artists, retailers, songwriters, labels and managers, formed to remind listeners of the significance and value of music. MORE