FRESH AIR Writer Hampton Sides was a 6-year-old living in Memphis when Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated on April 4, 1968. “I remember the tension,” he says. “I remember seeing tanks, and I remember feeling that our city was ripping apart.” Four decades later, Sides, an editor-at-large for Outside magazine and the author of the historical books Ghost Soldiers and Blood and Thunder, has returned to the subject of King’s assassination. In his new book, Hellhound on His Trail, Sides carefully weaves the movements of King’s assassin, James Earl Ray, with those of King, who had traveled to Memphis […]
LIVE FREE PA: Shoot First, Get A Clue Later
SALON: Gun nuts are the folks sponsoring “LiveFreePA,” a fun-filled gathering May 8 where participants can shoot their guns at old cars that represent bad liberal ideas like gun control, healthcare reform and property taxes, as well as taxes and regulations on tobacco and alcohol (h/t BuzzFlash). “It’s just a unique way to say we’re against these policies — shooting them down,” organizer Nate Benefield told a Lancaster paper. “I don’t really know where we came up with it, but it seemed appropriate.” “Appropriate” isn’t the word I’d choose, but hey, it’s a free country. Apparently, Ted Nugent headlined the […]
A MAN IN FULL: Clint Eastwood At 80
JOE QUEENAN: Because he started out as an actor, and very quickly became an actor that a large segment of the population positively adored, in the same way that they adored Jimmy Cagney and Cary Grant and both Hepburns, Eastwood has long benefited from a personal relationship with the American people that no other living director can even dream of. (In my lifetime, only Alfred Hitchcock, who came into everyone’s living room once a week to deliver his weird, deadpan introductions to his creepy TV series, has enjoyed this sort of ongoing, intimate rapport with the American people. But little […]
SCRAPPLE TV NEWS: With A.P. Ticker
A.P., um, comes clean about how his porn-filled backpack was mistaken for a bomb causing authorities to shut down Philadelphia International. Plus, the latest scuttlebutt on the Flyers and Fightins.
OUT RAGE: Tea Party Says Lindsey Graham Too Gay; Babette Josephs Says Her Challenger Not Gay Enough
INQUIRER: Veteran Rep. Babette Josephs (D., Phila.) last Thursday accused her primary opponent, Gregg Kravitz, of pretending to be bisexual in order to pander to lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender voters, a powerful bloc in the district. “I outed him as a straight person,” Josephs said during a fund-raiser at the Black Sheep Pub & Restaurant, as some in the audience gasped or laughed, “and now he goes around telling people, quote, ‘I swing both ways.’ That’s quite a respectful way to talk about sexuality. This guy’s a gem.” Kravitz, 29, said that he is sexually attracted to both men […]
SCRAPPLE TV NEWS: Special Pulitzer Prize Edition
A.P. Ticker interviews Daily News reporters Wendy Ruderman and Barbara Laker, recipients of the 2010 Pulitzer Prize or investigative journalism.
ALL ABOUT THE BENJAMINS: CNBC Sparks Debate With ‘Marijuana & Money’ Special Report
CNBC: “Marijuana & Money ” explores virtually every angle and aspect of the marijuana debate, from the economics of taxation and law enforcement; the likely business models of production and consumption; the lobbying effort and public health debate; professional and workplace issues; and, of course, the rapidly evolving world of legalized medical marijuana. Much of this you can track through individual state pages and a state-by-state tables. In some three dozen articles, videos and slideshows—and another dozen, diverse commentaries(pro, con and neutral) from major players and thought leaders in the arenas of politics and government, law, medicine, sociology, religion and […]
THAT’S COMCASTIC: Ed Snider, Owner Of The Flyers & 76ers, Launching New Right Wing TV Network
DAILY NEWS: The local sports mogul and longtime backer of conservative causes says he’s a major investor in a new cable TV network that may have an even more difficult task than bringing hockey’s crown back to Philly, and that is toppling the right-wing ratings champ, the Fox News Channel. The Snider-funded RightNetwork – with a looser approach to conservative topics, including a comedy show and a jocular front man in sitcom star Kelsey Grammer – is hoping to come to your cable box as early as this summer. Snider – whose investment in RightNetwork is personal and not linked […]
RACHEL MADDOW: The Ghost Of Timothy McVeigh Howls In The Bones Of The Radical Right
WASHINGTON POST:Â Fifteen years ago today, Timothy McVeigh parked a Ryder truck filled with explosives and ammonium nitrate fertilizer in front of the Oklahoma City federal building and detonated a bomb so strong it sheared off half the building and killed 168 people. History is still puzzling through the event’s lingering effects. McVeigh is dead (he was executed in 2001) and yet very much with us, in an eerie vibe that rolls around every April 19. At least he is for MSNBC talk-show host Rachel Maddow, who has been having 1990s flashbacks with the anti-government vitriol that most recently accompanied […]
SCRAPPLE TV NEWS: Piggie Of The Week
Fat, Republican and fuck-the-little-guy is no way to go through four years as governor of New Jersey, son.
SCRAPPLE TV NEWS: With A.P. Ticker
This week: All the local Pulitzer Prize news that fits.
FREE TIX: For The Philly Film Fest’s Spring Preview
TICKET OFFER: Philadelphia Film Festival has offered us limited number of passes for the Spring Preview screenings, if you would like to attend drop us a line at feed@Phawker.com and please include a cell-phone number. RELATED: Dan Buskirk’s Spring Preview Review *** SCRAPPLE TV NEWS: The Week In Weed A.P. Ticker puts Philly’s new pot possession policy in his pipe and stuffs it.
BREAKING: Steve Wynn Pulls Out Of Foxwoods Fail
BUSINESS WIRE:Wynn Resorts, Limited announced today that Development Associates, LLC, and certain other of its wholly owned subsidiaries have terminated all agreements and negotiations with respect to a potential investment in the Foxwoods Casino project in Philadelphia, PA. “We are fascinated by the legalization of full gaming in Pennsylvania and stimulated by the opportunity that it presents for Wynn Resorts, but this particular project did not, in the end, present an opportunity that was appropriate for our company,” commented Stephen A. Wynn, Chairman and CEO of Wynn Resorts, Limited. MORE PHILLY CLOUT: Just this week, Wynn released a colorful sketch […]