INQUIRER: A group of local investors will rescue the city’s trailblazing wireless network from what seemed like imminent shutdown, with a new for-profit company that will replace Earthlink Inc. as the system’s operator, according to multiple sources close to the deal. Although the details of the deal were unclear yesterday, the new company is said to be considering an advertising-based business model that would provide free Internet access to all, or at least in those places where the spotty network is available. Earthlink charged $20 a month for the service. The sources said little, if any, taxpayer money would be […]
NPR 4 THE DEF: Giving Public Radio Edge Since 2006
FRESH AIR The critically acclaimed television series Weeds is back for its fourth season, and creator Jenji Kohan is relocating the satire from suburbia to the borderlands. Nancy Botwin (Mary Louise Parker), suburban mother and drug dealer, trades her gated community for a beach town just miles from Mexico. The focus shifts from bourgeois hypocrisy to larger social issues such as immigration, free trade, and the larger effects of drug trafficking. Kohan is optimistic about the reinvention of the series and is eager to welcome actors like Albert Brooks to the cast. Before creating Weeds, Kohan also served as a […]
ACQUITTED: The Last Temptation Of R. Kelly?
NEW YORK TIMES: CHICAGO — It took more than six years for prosecutors to get the R&B star R. Kelly into court on charges of child pornography. It only took a few hours for a jury to declare him not guilty on all 14 counts. Mr. Kelly had been accused of making a 27-minute sex tape with an under-age female. But a high-powered defense team convinced the jury of nine men and three women that the identity of the girl was not conclusive. As the verdicts were being read on Friday, the singer started crying and whispering “Thank you Jesus, […]
OFFICE SPACE: How To Go Off The Reservation
Back in the olden days, men in white suits and butterfly nets would be dispatched to reel a guy like this back in. READER WRITES: For a few weeks now, a grainy video has been circling the Internet of an office worker going absolutely insane. It originated on Break.com, and I’ve included it after the jump for your critical enjoyment. Those fearing that their cubicle neighbor might engage in similar hysterics can breathe easy — it was all a sly bit of viral marketing from Timur Bekmambetov for Wanted. He revealed the stunt over on his personal blog, where he […]
ZOOEY STARDUST: Talking Mutter With Letterman
CARRIE RICKEY: As for The Happening, [M. Knight Shayamalan‘s] throwback horror flick that plays like The Birds meets The Blob, it’s beyond good and evil. It’s dumbfounding. At the hollow center of this unapologetic B-movie is Mark Wahlberg, typically the low-key everyman, in overwrought-robot mode. He portrays Elliot Moore, a Philadelphia science teacher (at Masterman High, for you homeboys and girls), called out of class one sunny morning and warned of a random plague — an airborne chemical toxin? — sweeping Manhattan, triggering suicides. From Massachusetts to Maryland, Central Park to Rittenhouse Square, urban greens are particularly perilous. As a […]
CENSORSHIP: Comcast Won’t Run Ad Exposing Its Role In The Fascist Takeover Of The United States
SALON: Two weeks ago, the Blue America PAC submitted ads to numerous cable television stations, newspapers and radio stations criticizing Blue Dog Rep. Chris Carney (D-Pa.) for his support of a bill to expand dramatically the President’s warrantless eavesdropping powers and to immunize telecoms (such as Comcast) which broke the law in enabling the Bush administration to spy on their customers with no warrants. The ads also documented that several of the lawbreaking telecoms which would benefit most from the amnesty Carney advocates donated substantial sums to his campaign (with Comcast being the largest such contributor to Carney). The ads […]
A NEW LOW: Fox’s ‘Terrorist Fist Jab’ At The Obamas
MEDIA MATTERS: During the June 6 edition of Fox News’ America’s Pulse, host E.D. Hill teased an upcoming discussion by saying, “A fist bump? A pound? A terrorist fist jab? The gesture everyone seems to interpret differently.” In the ensuing discussion with Janine Driver — whom Hill introduced as “a body language expert” — Hill referred to the “Michelle and Barack Obama fist bump or fist pound,” adding that “people call it all sorts of things.” Hill went on to ask Driver: “Let’s start with the Barack and Michelle Obama, because that’s what most people are writing about — the […]
BYKO: Stick A Fork In Mendte, He’s Done
BYKO: “WHAT WILL happen to Larry Mendte?” I’ve been asked that a few times, because people know that I covered TV for five years, I know the players and I know the process. I know how the squirrels who run TV stations arrange their nuts. After stitching together what has been reported, what is believed to have happened and what is likely to happen, an Etch-a-Sketch picture emerges. To that grainy image I add what else might happen. Larry Mendte is kaput at CBS 3. Why? Odds are he will cop to electronic snooping. In exchange for saving the government […]
MUST-SEE WEB TV: Wasgoinon?
You may remember our pal Kilroy from his days as Phawker TV anchorman, which included this priceless interview with Barack Obama. He’s got his own show, Wasgoinon?, currently in production with our New Media partners in crime Woodshop Films/ScrappleTV, in which he more or less tries to see how much trouble a grown man in knickers and a tricorn hat can get into in this city. Get behind it before it gets in front of you.
HBO: Extremism In The Defense Of Liberty Is No Vice?
STEVEN REA: Yes, Polanski was guilty of having sex with a minor. But after his arrest, after months in the public spotlight, dogged by TV cameras and the press — a press intent on resurrecting the horrid 1969 murder of Sharon Tate, Polanski’s pregnant wife, at the hands of Charles Manson’s homicidal hippie cult — the filmmaker became something of a victim himself. As revealed in Marina Zenovich’s 75-minute film, which premieres on HBO tomorrow night at 9, the Polish-born Polanski was at the mercy of a grandstanding, media-obsessed judge. Laurence Rittenband, a Santa Monica jurist who sought out celebrity […]
MEDIA: Philadelphia Media Holdings Defaults On Loan
BLOOMBERG: Philadelphia Media Holdings LLC lenders blocked a June 1 interest payment after the company, owner of the Philadelphia Inquirer, fell into technical default on loan covenants, Standard & Poor’s reported. The two sides are negotiating to resolve the default, Standard & Poor’s Leveraged Commentary & Data said today, citing unnamed sources with knowledge of a Citizens Bank-led phone call Wednesday in which lenders learned of the missed payment. The company is seeking an $8 million equity investment, S&P said. In January, Chief Executive Officer Brian Tierney warned of “a dire situation” if costs weren’t cut by 10 percent by […]
HELL HATH NO FURY: You’re Damn Right I’m Bitter
[EDITOR’S NOTE: The following views do not represent the views of the Editor.] BY AMY Z. QUINN Yes, it smarts. Yes, I’m angry and disappointed today. And yes, I’ll still vote for Barack Obama in November. But you should understand why I’m not feeling great about it this morning. Now that it’s over, now that everybody’s been able to run their ecstatic headlines, can we all just admit that the MSM and the Yes! We! Can!-crazed online world had a deep desire to see Obama win, if only so everyone can soak in the aura of the New Kennedy or […]
BUBBA AGONISTES: Vanity (Un)Fair?
VANITY FAIR: Bill Clinton’s relevance—and his presence in public life—is as close to permanent as any politician’s can be. Before touching off a string of controversies in his wife’s campaign this year, he was among the most popular figures on the planet, one of only three Democratic presidents in the 20th century to serve two full terms. His looming presence will make him a factor in the Democratic vice-presidential sweepstakes, the fall campaign, and every future presidential election of his lifetime, whatever his wife’s fate. I have covered Clinton on and off for 16 years, since his 1992 presidential campaign. […]