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 […]
We Know It’s Only Rock N’ Roll But We Like It
BOW WOW WOW: Deerhunter, First Unitarian, Last Night [photo by TIFFANY YOON] BY TIFFANY YOON Bradford Cox and his gang put on a killer show, with the setlist drawn largely from their new album Microcastle, easily in my Top Five of the year. Cox seems to love Philadelphia, which he will forever associate with scrapple and pneumonia. I think he tells these stories every time he plays a show in Philly, but let’s start with the scrapple. Apparently, Cox didn’t know what scrapple was until he went to the Melrose Diner the last time through town. Curious, he orders some […]
NUTTER: City Finances Win World Series Of Hurt
INQUIRER: Mayor Nutter will announce drastic new steps today to close a $1 billion gap in the city’s five-year budget, including the closure of 11 of 54 branch libraries and dozens of city pools, a freeze on tax reductions, reduced hours or programs at more than a dozen recreation centers, and fewer engines at some firehouses, according to sources familiar with his plans. Until now, Nutter had estimated the budget gap at up to $850 million. “At $850 million, it continues to grow,” he said last night. To address the even bigger figure, scheduled city-funded cuts in the business and […]
HISTORY TURNS A PAGE: And So It Begins…
NEWSWEEK: Secrets Of The 2008 Campaign [HIGHLY RECOMMENDED] POLITICO: Critics said they were too nice, too vague on the issues, too obsessed with the youth vote and too dependent on all those penny-ante Internet donors. But Obama’s core group of Chicago advisers, led by former reporter David Axelrod, has created a new paradigm for post-Rove campaigning. Instead of exploiting wedge issues (as Rove did) or micro-targeting demographic niche groups (as the Clintons and their pollster, Mark Penn, did), they focused on exciting a new base of young people, educated whites and minority voters. Get-out-the-vote wizard Steve Hildebrand built a hyperdisciplined […]
OFFICIAL: Barack Obama President-Elect Of The USA
[Photos by DIS-SECTION & RICKYO] POPULAR VOTE: OBAMA: 63,508,605 MCCAIN: 52,214,109 ELECTORAL NUMBERS: OBAMA 349, MCCAIN 166 (270 NEEDED TO WIN) NEW YORK TIMES: Senator Barack Obama stood on the brink of an historic victory Tuesday after he appeared to have won enough electoral votes to defeat Senator John McCain for president and to become the first African-American to serve as the nation’s chief executive. CNN and ABC projected at 11 p.m. Eastern time that Mr. Obama had won the election. MORE YES WE DID: South Broad St. 10:57 PM Last Night [Hat tip to JOHN REFANO] NEW VISION, UGANDA’S […]
ENDORSEMENT: Why I Voted For Barack Obama
BY JONATHAN VALANIA EDITOR-IN-CHIEF PHAWKER.COM Because I don’t believe in politicians, but I believe in this man. Because the rest of the world believes in this man, and contrary to what some would have you believe, that is a good thing. In fact, it’s crucial. Because words matter and he is a man of his word. Because he appealed to our best hopes instead of our worst fears. Because he ran on the content of his character, not the color of his skin. Because despite all that, he had to be twice as good. Because he is neither black nor […]
AMERICAN DEMOCRACY: Just Do It!
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A PRAYER FOR THE CITY: Pathway To Hope
BY JEFF DEENEY With the mercury starting to dip and the nights getting longer expect the Inquirer to drop their boilerplate homelessness story any day now. They’ve been reprinting this story annually, simply changing the date with each iteration, for as long as I can remember. You can set your watch by this story — it’s better than a department store full of fake pine trees and giant plastic candy canes for letting you know the holidays are almost here. You know, that story where an Inky reporter first gets Center City District CEO Paul Levy on the phone for […]
Obama’s Grandmother Dies Of Cancer, Had Hoped To Live Long Enough To See Grandson Elected President
REUTERS: Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama‘s grandmother died of cancer, he said in a statement on Monday, a little more than a week after Obama interrupted the White House race to say goodbye to her in Hawaii. “It is with great sadness that we announce that our grandmother, Madelyn Dunham, has died peacefully after a battle with cancer,” Obama said in a joint statement with his sister, Maya Soetoro-Ng. “She was the cornerstone of our family, and a woman of extraordinary accomplishment, strength, and humility.” Dunham helped raise Obama from the age of 10 while his mother was working in […]
We Know It’s Only Rock N’ Roll But We Like It
I AM SUPERMAN: Of Montreal, Electric Factory, Friday Night BY JONATHAN VALANIA FOR THE INQUIRER The only constant with the Athens, Ga., indie-pop band Of Montreal — over the course 11 years, nine albums, five EPs and innumerable personnel shifts — is change. In its decade-long evolution from twee psych-pop for second-wave Elephant 6ers recording collective to its current status as the definitive, post-everything party band for barely 20-somethings, Of Montreal’s mantra has remained the same: Change or die. Likewise, the band’s live show is a study in perpetual flux. During the course of the band’s two-hour tour de farce […]
ROAD TRIPPIN’: I Went Punkin’ Chunkin’ And All I Got Was A Good Time And A Bad Hangover
[Photos by KEVIN LUDWIG] BY BERNARD DOWNEY Admiring the autumnal foliage heading south on I-95, the white noise rush of traffic whooshing in my ears, along with the occasional Guns N Roses song on the radio, I press the pedal to the metal of my ’84 Corolla and race towards the annual World Championship Punkin Chunkin in Sussex County, Delaware. I didn’t really know what to expect. For the last 22 years, on the first weekend after Halloween, beery revelers have gathered in this picturesque community to catapult pumpkins with homemade cannons. Do not let the term ‘homemade’ dissuade you […]
PAY TO PLAY: Volunteers Say ‘Show Me The Money’
PHILLY CLOUT: PhillyClout correspondent Dave Davies reports in on a growing wave of concern in the city’s Democratic party about “street money,” the funds distributed to pay for Election Day workers. When Democratic ward leaders fire up their election day operations tomorrow, they’ll do it without “street money” from the Obama campaign, and many are ticked about it. City Democratic chairman U.S. Rep. Bob Brady hasn’t returned out calls on it, but we heard from several ward leaders that Obama stiffed Bob and the local party, choosing to rely on his own massive volunteer army. Ward leaders told us they […]
WORTH REPEATING: Ask Not What Your Country Can Do For You, But What You Can Do For Your Country
“Now the trumpet summons us again—not as a call to bear arms, though arms we need; not as a call to battle, though embattled we are—but a call to bear the burden of a long twilight struggle, year in and year out, “rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation”—a struggle against the common enemies of man: tyranny, poverty, disease, and war itself. Can we forge against these enemies a grand and global alliance, North and South, East and West, that can assure a more fruitful life for all mankind? Will you join in that historic effort?” — John F. Kennedy, Inaurgural […]