INQUIRER: U.S. Attorney Patrick Meehan this morning told his staff that he intends to step down as the top federal prosecutor for the eastern part of Pennsylvania and practice law. Meehan, a former aide to U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter (R., Pa.) and former Delaware County District Attorney, will hold a news conference this afternoon to formally announce his plans. Meehan, 52, a Republican from Delaware County, was nominated by President Bush for the powerful federal position in August 2001. During his tenure, prosecutors in his office won convictions in a number of corruption cases, including those involving former City Treasurer […]
MILESTONE: S.O.S. Celebrates 100 Years Of Distress
TIMES ONLINE: “Send SOS,” one of the Titanic’s radio operators supposedly said to another after the famous ship struck that infamous iceberg. “It’s the new call and besides this may be your last chance to send it.” That “new call” is 100 years old today, and people around the world who owe their lives to that piece of Morse code may reflect this morning on its importance. In the past century, “SOS” has become a firm part of popular culture used in everything from DIY programme titles to Abba hits. But it began life in a far more serious setting […]
HECKUVA JOB: The Scaredest Man In America
Tragi-comic dispatch from the Washington Post’s Dana Milbank, wherein Phillip Swagel, Assistant Secretary of Treasury for Economic Policy stutters, sputters and mutters his way through an anxiety-riddled yet curiously half-hearted attempt to spin the latest economy numbers. Milbank dryly reports that 16,000 jobs were lost last quarter and speculates that many of them must have been journalism jobs, judging by the shockingly sparse attendance. It’s all fun and game until you realize that the economic fortunes of 300 million Americans are in the hands of men like this — straw men so easily blown over by the first strong wind […]
STUDY: Mushrooms Produce Religious Experiences
REUTERS: The “spiritual” effects of psilocybin from so-called sacred mushrooms last for more than a year and may offer a way to help patients with fatal diseases or addictions, U.S. researchers reported on Tuesday. The researchers also said their findings show there are safe ways to test psychoactive drugs on willing volunteers, if guidelines are followed. In 2006, Roland Griffiths of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, and colleagues gave psilocybin to 36 volunteers and asked them how it felt. Most reported having a “mystical” or “spiritual” experience and rated it positively. More than a year later, most still said […]
THE FLEET FOXES: White Winter Hymnal
[Dir. by SCOTT COLAN]
KYW Silences Dem Ad Critical Of ‘Grand Oil Party’
THE HILL: A Philadelphia news radio station has rejected a Democratic ad that features an impersonator of President Bush thanking GOP congressional candidates for supporting the “Big Oil” agenda. Philadelphia KYW-AM Vice President and General Manager David Yadgaroff said his station decided not to run the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) ad because it was worried its listeners would be misled. “As an all-news station, we were concerned that our listeners would have been misled by usage of an impersonator in the creative delivery,” Yadgaroff said in an e-mail sent to The Hill. The ad was part of a $100,000 […]
GAMBLOR: Guv To Ask Casinos To Move Off River
DAILY NEWS: Claiming that “the political landscape has changed” in the battle over casinos in Philadelphia, Gov. Rendell said yesterday that he will meet with operators of two proposed gaming houses about abandoning their Delaware River sites. Rendell spoke a day after two powerful Philadelphia legislators – State House Appropriations Committee chairman Dwight Evans and State Sen. Vince Fumo – threatened the operators with legislative recrimination if they didn’t agree to relocate the casinos. Rendell said in an interview that opposition to the sites by the lawmakers and by Mayor Nutter were reason enough for him to convene a meeting […]
FREE SPEECH AIN’T FREE: The $400 Million Man
[Artwork via 23/6] NEW YORK TIMES: Limbaugh informed me that I was the first journalist ever to enter his home. Mary Matalin, the Republican consultant, calls the place “aspirational,” which is one adjective that fits. The place, largely designed by Limbaugh himself, reflects the things and places he has seen and admired. The massive chandelier in the dining room, for example, is a replica of the one that hung in the lobby of the Plaza Hotel in New York. The gleaming cherry-wood floors are dotted with hand-woven oriental carpets. A life-size oil portrait of El Rushbo, as he often calls […]
NEUTRAL MILK HOTEL: National Anthem
[Dir. by SCOTT COLAN]
Jesse Helms, Racist Culture Warrior, Is Dead At 86
ASSOCIATED PRESS: Former Sen. Jesse Helms, who served 30 years in Congress, died on the Fourth of July, the Jesse Helms research center says. He was 86. The center, based at Wingate University in North Carolina, said Friday that he died at 1:15 a.m. Jimmy Broughton, Helms’ former chief of staff, says the former senator died of natural causes in Raleigh. Helms built a career along the fault lines of racial politics and battled liberals, Communists and the occasional fellow Republican during his decades in Congress. MORE WIKIPEDIA: Helms was particularly vitriolic when speaking of gays and lesbians, blaming them […]
INDIE DAY: Excess In The Defense Of Liberty Is No Vice
(Details after the jump) WHAT’S GOIN’ ON: From the city to the Shore, weather could be a mixed bag on Saturday and Sunday. A chance of thunderstorms threatens to rain on Independence Day parades. Forecasters say it’s still too early to tell if fireworks might be washed out. Keep your fingers crossed. Watch out for traffic gridlock. The Benjamin Franklin Parkway is playing host to the region’s biggest events this weekend, so if you’re planning to be anywhere near the Art Museum and on four-wheels, make sure it’s a skateboard. Capice? That goes for Thursday, too, when the Parkway is […]
VIVA LA NPR: A Public Radio Revolution Since 2006
FRESH AIR Before the Cuban Revolution, Havana was a playground for American gangsters, mafiosi and the debauched tourists who frequented their casinos. T.J. English’s new book Havana Nocturne provides a vision of the darker side of the city, focusing on gangland imperialism and the dirty dealings that happened in jazz clubs. In addition to Havana Nocturne, English has written a number of other true-crime works. His book Paddy Whacked concerns the Irish mob, and Born to Kill focuses on Vietnamese organized crime. English has also written episodes for the television dramas Homicide: Life on the Streets and NYPD Blue. He […]
FUNNY PAPERS: Dick Cheney’s Great Grandfather
[via MARRIED TO THE SEA]