Early reports are confused and conflicting, but from what we can gather Philadelphia Newspapers CEO Brian Tierney is meeting with Daily News peeps as we type this, to discuss folding the Daily News into the Inquirer…DEVELOPING UPDATE: Just got off the phone with a DN newsroom source and here’s the deal: Starting March 30th, The Daily News will become ‘an edition of’ the Inquirer. This is largely a technicality, meaning no job cuts, both papers function pretty much as is, separate news staffs and managers, both competing for stories, etc. By making DN an ‘edition of’ The Inquirer, Philadelphia Newspapers […]
TONITE: Rare Bird Watching
*** REAL ESTATE: South St. Not Just For Drunken Fat Tuesday Titty Shows Anymore [Photo by NDBUTTER] ASSOCIATED PRESS: A touristy shopping strip is battling the economic crunch by turning over vacant storefronts to artists, hoping the creative community will again breathe new life into a neighborhood it brought back from the brink in the 1970s. The plan is to establish a “creative incubator” on the South Street corridor by giving artists nearly free rehearsal or work space (they pay utilities but no rent) in a high-traffic area they couldn’t otherwise afford — giving their endeavors a wider audience while […]
NEWS CLUES: Like A Torture Tape Of The Truth
BURN AFTER READING: CIA Destroyed 92 Torture Interrogation Tapes The CIA destroyed nearly 100 videotapes of interrogations and other U.S. treatment of terror suspects, far more than previously acknowledged, the Obama administration said Monday as it began disclosing details of post-Sept. 11 Bush-era actions. The interrogations were a highly contentious issue during the administration of President George W. Bush, with many Democrats and other critics saying that some methods used amounted to torture _ a contention Bush and other officials rejected. A criminal prosecutor is wrapping up his investigation in the matter. Monday’s acknowledgment, however, involved a civil lawsuit filed […]
FORECAST: Fantastic Blog-Reading Weather!
[First Australasian Antarctic Expedition, 1911-1914. SOURCE: The Mitchell Library] ACCUWEATHER: During the day Monday, the heaviest snow will spread throughout New England. At the same time, storm will wind down over the mid-Atlantic. Disruptive snowfall will reach 3-6 inches along a narrow band through the Carolinas to Virginia, Maryland, Delaware and southeastern Pennsylvania. Travel will be difficult Sunday night into the Monday morning rush. Northeastward from New Jersey, including greater Philadelphia and New York City, snowfall will reach at least 6 inches in a swath that will broaden over most of New England. MORE KYW: What’s Closed, Canceled Or Delayed […]
NEWS CLUES: Like The Medical Marijuana Of Truth
TIMES A-CHANGIN’: Obama Halts Fed Medical Marijuana Raids Supporters of programs to provide legal marijuana to patients with painful medical conditions are celebrating Attorney General Eric Holder’s statement this week that the Drug Enforcement Administration would end its raids on state-approved marijuana dispensaries. Federal raids on medical marijuana distributors continued at least into the second week of Barack Obama’s presidency, when federal agents shut down at least two dispensaries in California on Feb. 3. Holder was asked about those raids Wednesday in Santa Ana, Calif., at a news conference that was called to announce the arrests of 755 people in […]
Q&A: Author & Ex-Inquirer Maverick Ralph Cipriano
BY ADAM BONANNI Jim Beasley looks damn proud on the cover of his book, standing with John Wayne-like swagger atop his desk in his richly-appointed, oak-lined office suite. He has reason to be. Beasley and former Inquirer reporter Ralph Cipriano [pictured, below left] have gathered their favorite cases of Beasley’s long, impressive career as a crusading plaintiff’s attorney between the covers of Courtroom Cowboy. Beasley comes across as a hard-nosed, steadfast litigator who exudes charisma and never did believe in the phrase “backing down.” If you don’t back down in court from Don King, Ira Einhorn, Osama Bin Laden, or […]
Top Five Things You Should Know About Thievery Corporation At The Electric Factory Last Night
1. As much as Thievery Corporation come across as a DJ duo on CD, they don’t really live it out live. In addition to incorporating organic instruments and lead singers that take the stage as performers, they tend to just play songs straight. They didn’t leave any room for improvisation or even a short showcase resembling a DJ set. Kind of earns them the label “studio DJs.” 2. When a live band gets mixed with DJs and they’re playing groove-centric songs to the T, things are rarely unexpected, or exciting. Save a couple percussion solos, someone with sitar skills, hearing […]
RETURNING FIRE: An Open Letter To Joey Sweeney
BETTER DAYS: The editor with an old, dear friend, circa 2006. [EDITOR’S NOTE: The following open letter is in response to this.] Jojo, I find it ironic in the extreme that despite all your frantic efforts to paint me as a stick-in-the-mud rockist and yourself as the ever-evolving purveyor of What Comes Next, I see Phawker as a DJ — mixing, mashing and adjusting the visual BPM of all the media drifting in the ether, constantly re-writing the recombinant DNA of the news — and you see Philebrity as a band, where all the songs start with “I” and end […]
WEEK IN REVIEW: The Good News Flower Hour
The Good News Flower Hour #11 The week that was in just five minutes, told by a stoned daisy with the obligatory voice of God. [cough, cough] Would’ve had this up sooner, but these suckers take five people 20 hours to make. Oy, is my Google tired!
UNPLUGGED: Philadelphia Will Do(ne)
PHILADELPHIA WILL DO: And that’ll do it for the PW version of this blog. Thanks to the people who gave me this (relatively ridiculous) chance and to everyone who checked in over the past three-plus years…I hope I succeeded in my original goal: Lowering the productivity of the American office worker, at least a little. Yeah, I think that’s what my original goal was. MORE WHYY: The other blog that closed this week was Ed Goppelt’s Hallwatch.org. It was a local government watchdog website that went offline last night at 11:59 p.m. He gave us some warning when he posted this […]
PAPERBOY: ‘Dawn Of The Darkness Twins’ Edition
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 […]
RAWK TALK: Q&A w/ The Badmaster Records Dudes
BY TIFFANY YOON West Philly-based Badmaster Records‘ roster spans a spectrum of genres, from Tickley Feather’s bedroom drones to the danceable disco beats of Le Tigre-like Pony Pants to the experimental noise of Drums Like Machine Guns. The common link amongst all the Badmaster bands is their capacity to try something different and new, maintaining the DIY and anti-Establishment ethics of punk, but not necessarily sounding like punk music. Amongst the slew of independent Philadelphia record labels like High Two and Park the Van, Badmaster has survived the Bush Administration and is still staying afloat in Apocalypse Now of America […]