[Illustration by ALEX FINE] BY JONATHAN VALANIA FOR THE PHILADELPHIA WEEKLY There’s an old joke that goes like this: A pimp and a prostitute walk into an ACORN office and ask for advice setting up a brothel and smuggling in underage Salvadoran girls to whore out for fun and profit. The punchline is the pimp and the prostitute were in fact a pair of twentysomething right-wing media provocateurs armed with a hidden camera. Over the summer James O’Keefe and Hannah Giles visited an undisclosed number of ACORN offices on the East and West coasts—including Philadelphia. While the Philly office didn’t […]
NPR FOR THE DEAF: We Hear It Even When You Can’t
VANITY FAIR: As the Bush administration waned, the Treasury shoveled more than a quarter of a trillion dollars in tarp funds into the financial system—without restrictions, accountability, or even common sense. DONALD BARLETT and JAMES STEELE reveal how much of it ended up in the wrong hands, doing the opposite of what was needed. MORE RADIO TIMES Hour 1 It has been one year since the U.S. Congress authorized the U.S. Treasury Department to spend roughly $700 billion to stabilize the nation’s economy. In an article in the October issue of Vanity Fair, investigative journalists DONALD BARLETT and JAMES STEELE […]
TRAGIC: Tom DeLay Quits Dancing With The Stars
ASSOCIATED PRESS: Politician Tom DeLay and actress Debi Mazar have turned in their last dance. Both are leaving “Dancing With the Stars.” DeLay withdrew from the ABC dance-off Tuesday after being diagnosed with stress fractures in both feet, while Mazar was eliminated the traditional way: low scores and insufficient fan support. Fan votes kept DeLay afloat, but doctors and show producers advised him to quit the competition because of his injuries. “I want to dance no matter what,” the 62-year-old former House Republican Whip said Monday, but he reconsidered on Tuesday. MORE ALSO: Google Doing This Right Now ISLAND CRISIS/BLOGGED […]
SURVEILLANCE STATE: Big Brother Is Getting Bigger
NEW YORK REVIEW OF BOOKS: On a remote edge of Utah’s dry and arid high desert, where temperatures often zoom past 100 degrees, hard-hatted construction workers with top-secret clearances are preparing to build what may become America’s equivalent of Jorge Luis Borges’s “Library of Babel,” a place where the collection of information is both infinite and at the same time monstrous, where the entire world’s knowledge is stored, but not a single word is understood. At a million square feet, the mammoth $2 billion structure will be one-third larger than the US Capitol and will use the same amount of […]
Barnes Foundation Unveils New Design Plans
NEW YORK TIMES: The Barnes Foundation, the major art collection that fought for years to relocate from suburban Philadelphia to the city’s downtown, has taken another big step in that direction. A design for its new building there, by the New York architects Tod Williams and Billie Tsien, is to be officially unveiled this week. The Philadelphia Inquirer’s Web site published a series of renderings of the project on Monday. MORE INQUIRER: Today – the day the Barnes Foundation, long of Latchs Lane in Merion, unveils the design for its $200 million gallery on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway – is […]
MADDOW: David Berman’s Dad Is Shockingly Evil
BUSINESS AND MEDIA: “What you might not know from all of the breathless ACORN damnation coverage is what ACORN actually does,” Maddow said. “They do things like advocating for a higher minimum wage. They do things like helping low- income families file their taxes. They do things like helping low-income families find jobs. They do things like registering people to vote.” So with all those good deeds why was ACORN getting such bad press? According to Maddow it is because when corporations feel threatened they hire lobbyists and create “corporate-funded purportedly grassroots organizations” to hold the poor down. “That sort […]
MANAN TRIVEDI FOR CONGRESS: Decorated Soldier, Doctor, Democrat, Health Care Reformer, Eagles Fan
BY PHILLYGRRL Last month, 35-year old Manan Trivedi, a physician and Iraqi war veteran, announced that he was running for the position of U.S. Representative in the 6th Congressional District of Pennsylvania. The post has been held by Republican Jim Gerlach for four terms despite a significant increase in Democrat voters in the district. The post became vacant when Gerlach announced in February that he will be running for governor of Pennsylvania in 2010. Since then, Trivedi, a Democrat who grew up in Berks County and currently works and resides in Reading, PA, has been spreading the word about his […]
TONITE: Pop Can Eat Itself
Looking for something to do tonight? Phawker has you covered. Check out alternative hip-hop group Anti-Pop Consortium tonight at the Silk City Diner. Anti-Pop Consortium opened for Radiohead in 2001, before disbanding in 2003. Now the band, featuring Beans, M. Sayyid, Earl Blaize, and High Priest is back, promoting their fourth album, Fluroescent Black, which was released in late September. Tonight’s show also features a performance by Lushlife, the Philadelphia-based hip-hop producer/MC who just released his second album, Cassette City. — Phillygrrl Tuesday, October 6, 2009 at 9:00pm Silk City Bar Diner & Lounge 5th & Spring Garden $10 Advance […]
PREDICTION: And The Winner Is…Not Us
[Photo by KILLADEFIA] BY MIKE WOLVERTON SPORTS GUY I nailed the playoffs last year. Picked the winners all the way through before it started and hit 6 out of 7 series. Correctly had the Phillies over the Rays in the World Series before a single playoff pitch was thrown. What I’m saying is…if only 1 of these 7 predictions pan out, I’m still batting .500 over the last two years. Here we go. Division Series (Best of Five) Yankees over Twins/Tigers. The winner of today’s one-game playoff between the Twins and Tigers will have some momentum, after all they’ve […]
ZOMBIELAND: You Are Soaking In It
TIME: In the race between a bunch of zombies and three stars who are also directors — Ricky Gervais, Michael Moore and Drew Barrymore — the humans never stood a chance. The horror-comedy Zombieland won the weekend in North American theaters by scaring up $25 million, according to early studio estimates, which is more than the $23.6 million it cost to shoot the thing. 1. Zombieland, $25 million, first weekend 2. Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs, $16.7 million; $82.4 million, third week 3. Toy Story 3-D and Toy Story 2 3-D, $12.5 million, first weekend 4. The Invention of […]
STYLE: Lohan Fashion Line The Toast Of Hatesville
[Photo via the DAILY MAIL] THE ENVELOPE: Lindsay Lohan and Spanish designer Estrella Archs showed off their new hot mess of a Spring 2010 Ungaro collection today in Paris. And the Fashion World’s Mean Girls could simply not stop ragging on how bad it was. MORE DAILY MAIL: But the star admitted that the show has been ‘the hardest thing I’ve ever done’. The thigh-skimming dresses in peach, hot pink and white seemed designed for a Malibu Beach party, while sparkling nipple pasties flashing from underneath loose blazers were a reminder of Lohan’s own occasional wardrobe mishaps. ‘It’s not good […]
AFGHANISTAN: 10 U.S. Soldiers Killed In 2 Days
A U.S. Marine, from the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit, has a close call after Taliban fighters opened fire near Garmser in Helmand Province of Afghanistan May 18, 2008. The Marine was not injured. (REUTERS/Goran Tomasevic) WASHINGTON POST: The attack began in the early morning hours. Taliban-linked militiamen struck from the high ground using rifles, grenades and rockets against the outpost, a cluster of stone buildings set in a small Hindu Kush valley that has been manned by 140 U.S. and Afghan forces. By the end of a day-long siege, eight Americans and two Afghan security officers were dead, marking the […]
TELEVISION: Monty Python’s Circus To Fly Again
NEW YORK TIMES: The show has had a surprisingly durable afterlife in this country, giving rise to second and third generations of fans who watch it on DVD and on YouTube, where it’s so popular it now has its own dedicated channel. Mr. Cleese said recently that in England he is far better known these days as Basil Fawlty, the title character in his post-Python series “Fawlty Towers,” than for his role in “Flying Circus.” But even in American middle schools now, there’s often a smart aleck or two who can do Mr. Cleese’s Silly Walk and know the Dead […]