BY KYLEE MESSNER With blogs like Sorry-mom.com and Thisiswhyyourefat.com, it’s become clear to me that people can and will blog about anything, and many will read, enjoy, and come back for more. When I came across Will They Grow, I figured it was just another shameless self-absorbed blogger seeking attention. Martina, the 26-year-old NYC resident behind WillTheyGrow, assured me otherwise. For those unfamiliar with Martina’s blog, it is a daily documentation of the effects of birth control on her breast size, complete with photos. It’s not necessarily supposed to make sense to viewers, she assures me, and coming across it […]
IRAN: The Counter Revolution Will Be Digitized
[Photo courtesy of TEHRANLIVE.ORG] BBC: All over the world people are monitoring unfolding events in Iran via the internet, where an apparently decisive election victory by the incumbent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is being challenged on the streets. Although there are signs the Iranian government is trying to cut some communications with the outside world, citizen journalism appears to be thriving on the web. Here is a selection of popular links, many of which have been written from a particular point of view but – when taken together – provide a wide range of perspectives. MORE GUARDIAN: In days gone by, crushing […]
WAR IS OVER: The Drugs Have Won
NEW YORK TIMES: This year marks the 40th anniversary of President Richard Nixon’s start of the war on drugs, and it now appears that drugs have won.“We’ve spent a trillion dollars prosecuting the war on drugs,” Norm Stamper, a former police chief of Seattle, told me. “What do we have to show for it? Drugs are more readily available, at lower prices and higher levels of potency. It’s a dismal failure.” For that reason, he favors legalization of drugs, perhaps by the equivalent of state liquor stores or registered pharmacists. Other experts favor keeping drug production and sales illegal but […]
AMERICAN ASSHOLE: Q&A With Arthur Kade
BY AARON STELLA GAYDAR EDITOR Until my Internet-savvy roommate directed me to arthurkade.com—in particular, a post titled Eulogy — I had no idea who Arthur Kade was. Four sentences into the post, I got the picture: he’s a delusional, narcissistic bag-of-douche, a whore to glamor and slave to fashion, but most of all, an irrepressible and frighteningly charismatic advocate of all the ruinous aforesaid. Upon finishing (no small feat without throwing up a little bit in my mouth) I decided to peruse other posts (Drunk Girls, The Kade Scale, Relationships, etc.), when all the sudden, mid-Kade, I felt the journalist […]
THE DEATH OF ANALOG: The Big Switch
DALLAS MORNING NEWS: Today, all broadcast television stations in the U.S. have to turn off their analog signals and convert solely to digital. There is no set time today for the transition, so stations may switch at different times during the day. If you have an older analog television and are using an antenna to get your channels, your TV will stop working unless you buy a converter box or sign up for cable, satellite or fiber-optic television service. Converter boxes are sold at many retailers. The federal government is also offering up to two coupons worth $40 each to every […]
ALWAYS RUMMY IN PHILADELPHIA: Danny DeVito
Gettin’ fresh on Fox. Live, no less. Note the can of beer and the fact that it’s 8 AM when this went down. When we grow up, we wanna be Danny DeVito!
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 […]
AXIS OF EVIL: North Korea Sentences Two Female American Journalists To 12 Years Hard Labor
VOICE OF AMERICA: North Korea’s state news agency says a court has sentenced two female American journalists to 12 years of hard labor. The Korean Central News Agency said Monday that the court found the two women guilty of committing an unspecified “grave crime” and illegally crossing into North Korea. Last Thursday, North Korean state media announced the start of the trial of Euna Lee and Laura Ling, reporters for the U.S. media company Current TV. North Korean authorities arrested Lee and Ling in March while they were working on a story near the Chinese-North Korean border. U.S. State Department […]
Sometimes Good Things DO Happen To Good People
As you may have heard, Woodshop Films/Scrapple TV founder Marc Brodzik, our partner in New Media crime, has been awarded a Pew Grant for media art. We could not be more proud or horny. For those unfamiliar with the Big Man, here’s his Pew bio: Marc Brodzik, media arts Born 1967 Marc Brodzik is a documentary filmmaker interested in filming portraits of the common man. In a recent documentary he focuses on small family owned coal mines and the struggles they face to stay in business in today’s market dominated by large corporations. His work has been screened at the […]
TONITE: Clap Your Hands And Say Yeah
PORTRAITS IN MUSIC Photographs by Michael T. Regan at the PRIMER Microstudio Opening First Friday, June 5th Doors open at 6:00pm Michael T. Regan is a sucker for heart and soul. At a young age, he discovered that music moved him and, in the next heartbeat, fell in love with the idea of capturing its’ essence on film. With skills honed at NYU’s Tisch School of Art and through hard work, humility and passion, Mike has been fortunate to carve out a successful commercial career shooting portraits for newspapers, magazines, labels and agencies such as URB, XLR8R, Scratch and […]
NO NEWS IS GOOD NEWS: Mendte Sues Inky & DN
DAILY NEWS: Former CBS 3 anchor Larry Mendte filed a lawsuit late yesterday against two Inquirer reporters and a former Daily News columnist, claiming charges of defamation and false light, according to court documents. […] Named in Mendte’s suit are Inquirer gossip columnist Michael Klein, Inquirer entertainment critic Jonathan Storm and former Daily News columnist Jill Porter, as well as the newspaper’s owner, Philadelphia Media Holdings. The lawsuit was filed in U.S. Bankruptcy Court because the company filed for bankruptcy protection in February. It says that because of the defendants’ stories, Mendte “suffered harm to his professional and personal reputation.” […]
NJ State Assembly Approves Medical Marijuana Bill
UPDATE: New Jersey moved closer to allowing chronically ill patients to smoke marijuana to relieve symptoms of pain and nausea. The Assembly Health and Senior Services Committee approved the medical marijuana bill by an 8-1 vote with two abstentions Thursday. New Jersey would become the 14th state with such a law if it passes the Legislature and Gov. Jon Corzine signs it. Corzine has said he would. MORE THE EXAMINER: Just when we thought that New Jersey would be the fourteenth state to ratify laws lifting the ban on medical marijuana, a new obstacle has appeared to slow it down. […]
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 […]