Pioneer Gay rights activist Barbara Gittings at the first homosexual rights demonstration, Independence Hall, Philadelphia, July 4, 1965. Feb. 19 (Bloomberg) — Barbara Gittings, one of the earliest activists to push the U.S. government to provide homosexuals with equal rights, has died. She was 75. Gittings died yesterday at 7:25 p.m. in Kennet Square, Pennsylvania, after a lengthy battle with breast cancer, said friend Mark Segal, publisher of Philadelphia Gay News. She is survived by her partner of 46 years, Kay Lahusen, and sister Eleanor Gittings Taylor. In 1965, Gittings and several gay men and lesbians were the first to […]
VIET NOW: Iraq Amputee Disinvited From Bush Photo-Op For Wearing Shorts In Summer Time
WASHINGTON POST — No one questions Sgt. Bryan Anderson’s sacrifice. He holds the gruesome honor of being one of the war’s five triple amputees. Bryan, 25, lost both legs and his left arm when a roadside bomb exploded next to the Humvee he was driving with the 411th Military Police Company. Modern medicine saved him and now he’s the pride of the prosthetics team at Walter Reed. Tenacious and wisecracking, he wrote “[Expletive] Iraq” on his left leg socket. Amputees are the first to receive celebrity visitors, job offers and extravagant trips, but Bryan is in a league of his […]
NY Times Spotlights Philly DJ Crew Raided By RIAA
The Aphilliates’ inner circle, in their Atlanta studio, from left: Willie the Kid, DJ Drama, Jay Stevenson (the studio engineer), DJ Sense, DJ Don Cannon. By SAMANTHA M. SHAPIRO In 1996, Sense and Drama, then both freshmen majoring in mass communications, met in Brawley Hall, their dorm at Clark Atlanta University. C.A.U. is part of the country’s largest consortium of historically black colleges, directly abutting Morehouse and Spelman. Drama and Sense were both aspiring D.J.s, and they were both from Philadelphia. After they met, they competed in a local D.J. battle and became friends. The following year they met Cannon, […]
CREEP: Coweta County’s Most Wanted Found In Philly
COWETA COUNTY, GEORGIA — The man who has topped the list of Coweta County’s most wanted fugitives since Dec. 8, 2002, when he allegedly kidnapped his ex-girlfriend and killed her protector, was arrested Friday in Philadelphia. Indicted for murder in absentia in 2004 for allegedly killing Kerry Arnold in a Main Street home in Newnan before kidnapping Karon Moss, Warner Lee Arnold is now in custody. Warner Arnold was picked up by authorities in Philadelphia Friday, according to Coweta Circuit Assistant District Attorney Ray Mayer. Prosecutors in Mayer’s office had Warner Arnold indicted on charges of murder, felony murder, burglary, […]
NOW PLAYING: NEON BIBLE by THE ARCADE FIRE
[NOW PLAYING ON PHAWKER RADIO: NEON BIBLE by THE ARCADE FIRE] Recently, we found a copy of the new Arcade Fire album under a rock somewhere, or maybe it was under the sea. It doesn’t really matter. The point is we think it’s REALLY FUCKIN’ GOOD, if you like that kind of thing. Just to be sure, we focus-grouped it with several key Phawker demographics. Here’s the feedback we overheard from behind the two-way mirror:
NPR FOR THE DEAF: We Hear It Even When You Can’t
THE WORLD CAFE Yoko Ono visits host David Dye on the World Cafe. The avant-garde pioneer’s new album, Yes, I’m A Witch, is a collection of Ono’s works as interpreted by notable alternative bands. … With contributors ranging from The Flaming Lips, to The Polyphonic Spree, to Cat Power, Yes, I’m A Witch showcases the extent of Ono’s influence on today’s popular music. … The material selected for the CD spans her career, including some early work with John Lennon. … While most of the remixes retain only Ono’s vocals, her art-rock sensibilities shine through with each new rendition. RADIO TIMES […]
DVD REVIEW: MUTUAL APPRECIATION
(2006, directed by Andrew Bujalski, 110 minutes, U.S.) BY DAN BUSKIRK FILM CRITIC Andrew Bujalski’s 2002 debut Funny Ha-Ha was such a dead-on portrait of confused urban twenty-somethings that I was curious to catch his well-reviewed follow-up, Mutual Appreciation in the theater. Would a young audience find this devastatingly unvarnished study of dumb-struck hipsters funny, or would the humbling awkwardness of the main characters hit too close to laugh along with? Alas, I still don’t know; when I caught the film during its brief run at the Ritz in Center City, there were only three other attendees, all of them […]
BOOK REVIEW: Blonde On Blonde
The Blonde by Duane Swierczynski (St. Martin’s Minotaur. $23.95) BY MAVIS LINNEMANN From the opening line of Duane Swierczynski’s crime novel, The Blonde, you know you’re in for a wild ride. “I poisoned your drink,” says the titular blonde to Jack Eisley, a print journalist in Philadelphia to sign his divorce papers. Kelly White — The Blonde in question — has been infected with a deadly new technology, nanomachines, which have been designed to make privacy virtually obsolete. If there isn’t someone within 10 feet of Kelly at all times, she will die. Even more unnerving is that these nanomachines […]
THE B-52s: Private Idaho
On the ground like a wild potato. Don’t go off the patio…
OBAMA: The Man Comes Around, Wallets Open Sesame
The [fundraising] event was closed to reporters, an edict efficiently enforced by the senator’s staff. “I don’t want to put the folks raising money on the spot,” Obama said on his way into a ballroom at the Sheraton City Center Hotel, adding that he likes frank question-and-answer sessions with donors. “It gives people a chance to look under the hood and kick the tires,” he said. The dinner was Obama’s first big money event outside his hometown of Chicago since he announced his candidacy Saturday at the Old State Capitol in Springfield, Ill., the site of Abraham Lincoln’s famous “House […]
GUNCRAZY: Two Dead Since You Went To Bed
Jamal Richardson, 18, of the 1800 S. 30th St., was shot once in the chest in the 2600 block of Dickinson Street in South Philadelphia. He was still alive when found shortly before 5 p.m, but was pronounced dead less than a half-hour later at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. No arrests have been made, and police are still trying to determine a motive. Wesley Powaserys, 52, of the 2900 block of Livingston is the man found dead yesterday in a car in Kensington, the victim of an apparent robbery, police said. He had been shot in the […]
WEATHER: The Day After Tomorrow?
Hundreds of motorists were stranded overnight — when temperatures dipped to the low teens — and into yesterday afternoon on a 50-mile hilly stretch of I-78 west of Allentown. State officials, under mounting criticism over their handling of the storm, said an unusual combination of snow, ice and immovable vehicles left road crews unable to keep up. The storm dumped seven inches of snow on I-78, followed by a three-inch crust of ice. Gov. Rendell declared a state of emergency yesterday afternoon, directing all agencies to use full resources to cope with the storm. Late Wednesday, National Guardsmen deployed in […]