[via BRENDAN CALLING] PHILADELPHIA – The publisher of The Philadelphia Inquirer is defending his decision to make former football player Michael Vick a regular columnist who will write about breeding and raising dogs. Vick was the “the key figure” of an extensive unlawful interstate dogfighting ring operating over a period of five years that critics call cruelty to animals. One critic of the Inquirer’s Vick columns says it’s like having O.J. Simpson write about the criminal justice system. Inquirer Publisher Brian Tierney says that’s a silly comparison. He says Simpson has been found liable for wrongful death of a human […]
HOT DOC: Disbarment Complaint Against John Yoo
NEW YORK TIMES: A coalition of left-wing advocacy groups filed legal ethics complaints on Monday against 12 former Bush administration lawyers, including three United States attorneys general, whom the groups accuse of helping to justify torture. The coalition, called Velvet Revolution, asked the bar associations in four states and the District of Columbia to disbar the lawyers, saying their actions violated the rules of professional responsibility by approving interrogation methods, including waterboarding, that constituted illegal torture. By writing or approving legal opinions justifying such methods, the advocates say, the Bush administration lawyers violated the Geneva Conventions, the Convention Against Torture […]
NPR FOR THE DEAF: We Hear It Even When You Can’t
FRESH AIR Best known for creating the TV series Nip/Tuck, writer, director and producer Ryan Murphy turns his attention to high school in Glee, his upcoming comedy series for Fox. The series features a high school choir director and his ragtag group of singers. In addition to his television work, Murphy has penned screenplays for Running With Scissors as well as Eat, Pray, Love, based on Elizabeth Gilbert’s best-selling memoir. RADIO TIMES Hour One State Rep Mark Cohen has authored a bill to make the use of medical marijuana legal in Pennsylvania. To date, 13 states have legalized medicinal cannabis. […]
COURTS: American Apparel Settles With Woody Allen
NEW YORK TIMES: So much for the trial of the century: a lawsuit filed by Woody Allen against American Apparel was quickly settled on Monday morning for $5 million, Reuters reported. Mr. Allen was suing the clothing maker for using without permission an image of him from “Annie Hall,” in which he was dressed as a Hasidic Jew, on billboards that appeared in New York and Los Angeles and in online advertisements. The weeks leading up to Monday’s brief courtroom action had been tense. In a deposition in December, Mr. Allen said the ads were “sleazy” and “infantile,” according to […]
YOO HOOEY: Inky’s Harold Jackson And Daily News’ Will Bunch Trade Blows Over ‘Torture Guy’ Editorialist
HAROLD JACKSON: Paris. Yes, the one in France. That’s the farthest point from which The Inquirer received e-mails protesting our contract with John Yoo to write a monthly column, which mostly centers on legal topics. The hundreds of e-mails received are a testament to the power of the blogosphere, and of its superiority to newspapers in getting the word out about, well, about anything. But I’ll save my whining about the murky future of my preferred vehicle of employment for a later date. Obviously, people would prefer that I talk about Yoo, the former Bush Justice Department official who penned memos […]
WHERE’S THE BEEF: Inquirer Puff Piece On Glenn Beck Long On Froth, Short On Questioning All The Hateful Moronic Things He Has Said Over The Years
UPDATE: Glenn Beck Puff Piece Author John Timpane Is Live Chatting With Readers RIGHT NOW! INQUIRER PUFF PIECE ABOUT GLENN BECK: Glenn Beck is dressed to kill. His show on Fox News hits in about an hour, and he’s ready in black suit, pink shirt, maroon tie — and black Converse Chuck Taylor high-top sneakers, no laces. The Chucks, like Beck himself, are upmarket with a dash of irreverence.Depending on who’s talking, Beck, 45, is a hero, maniac, lightning rod. He calls himself “a guy on the radio bus.” That bumpy ride took him through Philadelphia and WPHT-AM (1210), where […]
I, GAMER: I Walked With A Zombie
BY ADAM BONANNI There’s a special place in hell reserved for Popcap Games. They’ve been addicting droves of casual gamers with Bejeweled and Peggle for years, and now they’re back to pick up the rest with Plants vs. Zombies. Well played, Popcap. I have friends who need to be in Peggle rehab, and now we to deal with this. Plants vs. Zombies belongs to the tower defense genre. The objective behind these games is to build a series of auto-attacking defensive towers along a path that a horde of enemies traverses. If any enemies reach the end of the path, […]
‘The Past Isn’t Dead, It Isn’t Even Past’
NEW YORK TIMES: TO paraphrase Al Pacino in “Godfather III,” just when we thought we were out, the Bush mob keeps pulling us back in. And will keep doing so. No matter how hard President Obama tries to turn the page on the previous administration, he can’t. Until there is true transparency and true accountability, revelations of that unresolved eight-year nightmare will keep raining down drip by drip, disrupting the new administration’s high ambitions. That’s why the president’s flip-flop on the release of detainee abuse photos — whatever his motivation — is a fool’s errand. The pictures will eventually emerge […]
WEEK IN REVIEW: The Good News Flower Hour
The Good News Flower Hour #21 …has been CLASSIFIED for your protection.
MEDIA: The Daily Beast Took My Deeney Away
EDITOR’S NOTE: A little while back we received a note from The Daily Beast peeps wondering if we would be terribly upset if they poached Jeff Deeney for a piece they wanted written about the Coatesville Arson Insanity. We responded something to the effect that introducing writers like Deeney to places like The Daily Beast was half the purpose of Phawker, BUT NO FUCKING WAY! Just kidding about the last part. You can read Deeney’s Coatesville arson piece HERE, co-authored with Philly native/DB staffer Gregory Gilderman. Below you will find an addendum to the piece that Deeney filed for Phawker. […]
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 […]
JIMMY PAGE: Mama Don’t Allow No Skiffle Playin’
Via the BBC circa 1957. Yes, that Jimmy Page.
TAKIN’ IT TO THE STREETS: Craigslist Will End ‘Adult Services’ Ads As Per Law Enforcement Request
REUTERS: Online classified site Craigslist will replace its “erotic services” ads with a new adult category “to bar flagrant prostitution and porn,” the Connecticut attorney general’s office said on Wednesday. Craigslist’s sex-service listings have faced intense scrutiny following the April 14 murder of 25-year-old masseuse Julissa Brisman, who advertised on Craigslist in Boston. Philip Markoff, a 23-year-old Boston University medical student, was charged with killing Brisman and with attacks on two other women he met through Craigslist. The “erotic services” section will end within seven days and be replaced with a new section called “adult services” where every advertisement will […]