FRESH AIR According to the National Cancer Institute, the number of people who have developed melanoma has more than doubled over the past 30 years. Dermatologist Darrell Rigel joins Fresh Air to explain the sun’s effects on the skin, what “SPF” means and why skin cancer rates are going up. A clinical professor at New York University Medical Center, Rigel has tested sunscreen efficacy for Johnson & Johnson and the Procter & Gamble Company. He is the lead editor of Cancer of the Skin, the major textbook in his field. Rigel maintains a private practice in Manhattan. ALSO, journalist Bradley […]
GOODNIGHT MR. WELLS: PW Writer Extraordinaire Steven Wells Loses Long, Public Battle With Cancer
Damn. Steven Wells was THE funniest, ballsiest, take-no-prisoners writer to grace the pages of Philadelphia print media in recent memory. His long, tragic battle with cancer was no secret, he wrote about it with the same unflinching honesty, hair-on-fire rage, savage wit and gallows humor he wrote about everything. Sir, it was a privilege and an honor. You will be sorely missed. Good night Mr. Wells, wherever you are. PW: Steven Wells Farewell Column WIKIPEDIA: Steven Wells is was a British journalist and author currently based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. Born in Swindon, England in 1960, Wells moved to the […]
MYSTERY SOLVED: Turns Out Missing South Carolina Governor Was In Argentina Cheating On His Wife
NEW YORK TIMES: Mark Sanford, the governor of South Carolina, apologized in a rambling news conference on Wednesday for having an extra-marital affair with a woman in Argentina, ending a mystery over his week-long disappearance that had infuriated lawmakers and seemed to put his rising political career in jeopardy. Governor Sanford admitted he had been in Buenos Aires, Argentina, since Thursday, not hiking on the Appalachian Trail as he told his staff. In revealing an affair that had gone on for about a year — and which he had disclosed to his wife, Jenny, five months ago, he said: “This […]
PRESIDENT ARCHIE BUNKER: Secret Tapes Reveal Nixon Was Pro-Abortion For Interracial Pregnancies
NEW YORK TIMES: On Jan. 23, 1973, when the Supreme Court struck down state criminal abortion laws in Roe v. Wade, President Richard M. Nixon made no public statement. But privately, newly released tapes reveal, he expressed ambivalence. Nixon worried that greater access to abortions would foster “permissiveness,” and said that “it breaks the family.” But he also saw a need for abortion in some cases, such as interracial pregnancies. “There are times when an abortion is necessary. I know that. When you have a black and a white,” he told an aide, before adding: “Or a rape.” Nine months […]
NPR FOR THE DEAF: We Hear It Even When You Can’t
FRESH AIR Bloody protests in the streets of Iran following that nation’s June 12 presidential election have captivated the world’s attention, but what does it all mean? Political analyst Karim Sadjadpour of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace joins Fresh Air to discuss this unprecedented moment in the country’s political history. Before joining Carnegie, Sadjadpour was the chief Iran analyst at the International Crisis Group, based in Tehran and Washington, D.C. A regular contributor to BBC World TV and radio, CNN, National Public Radio and PBS’ NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, Sadjadpour has written for The Washington Post, The New York […]
Barney Frank Files Bill To Decriminalize Marijuana
WBZ: A controversial law in Massachusetts could go national if Congressman Barney Frank gets his way. Frank has filed a bill that would eliminate federal penalties for personal possession of less than 100 grams of marijuana. It would also make the penalty for using marijuana in public just $100. “I think John Stuart Mill had it right in the 1850s,” said Congressman Frank, “when he argued that individuals should have the right to do what they want in private, so long as they don’t hurt anyone else. It’s a matter of personal liberty. Moreover, our courts are already stressed and […]
OUTRAGE: Families Of Dead Forced To Pay ‘Bullet Fee’
WALL STREET JOURNAL: When Mr. Alipour didn’t return home that night, his parents began to worry. All day, they had heard gunshots ringing in the distance. His father, Yousef, first called his fiancée and friends. No one had heard from him. At the crack of dawn, his father began searching at police stations, then hospitals and then the morgue. Upon learning of his son’s death, the elder Mr. Alipour was told the family had to pay an equivalent of $3,000 as a “bullet fee”—a fee for the bullet used by security forces—before taking the body back, relatives said. Mr. Alipour […]
CAN’T HAPPEN HERE: Why Iranians Took To The Streets After A Stolen Election, But Americans Did Not
[Illustration by ALEX FINE] BY JONATHAN VALANIA Iran, 2009. Millions take to the streets to protest what is widely perceived to be a stolen election, despite the prevailing threat of arrest, bodily harm and a body count that currently numbers a dozen protesters shot dead by government forces. And still, day after day, the Iranian people take to the streets to protest the gross violation of their democratic rights. Rewind. The year is 2000. The place is Florida in the immediate aftermath of a presidential election — Bush vs. Gore. The initial tally has Bush ahead by a mere 300 […]
Big Brother Moves To Lancaster, And Nobody Cares
LOS ANGELES TIMES: This historic town, where America’s founding fathers plotted during the Revolution and Milton Hershey later crafted his first chocolates, now boasts another distinction. It may become the nation’s most closely watched small city. Some 165 closed-circuit TV cameras soon will provide live, round-the-clock scrutiny of nearly every street, park and other public space used by the 55,000 residents and the town’s many tourists. That’s more outdoor cameras than are used by many major cities, including San Francisco and Boston. Unlike anywhere else, cash-strapped Lancaster outsourced its surveillance to a private nonprofit group that hires civilians to tilt, […]
GUARDIAN COUNCIL: Votes Counts In 50 Iranian Cites Exceeded The Number Of Registered Voters
NEW YORK TIMES: TEHRAN — Locked in a bitter contest with Iranians who say the presidential elections were rigged, the authorities have acknowledged that the number of votes cast in 50 cities exceeded the actual number of voters, state television reported Monday following assertions by the country’s supreme leader that the ballot was fair. But the authorities insisted that discrepancies, which could affect three million votes, did not violate Iranian law and the country’s influential Guardian Council said it was not clear whether they would decisively change the election result. The news emerged on the English-language Press TV as a […]
JAILHOUSE ROCK: Fumo Looking At Hard Time
KAREN HELLER: After all these years of Vince’s being the Prince of the City and Harrisburg, of battling and fighting for you, but often for himself, in that $9-for-you, $1-for-him way of his, it comes down to this: He’s between a rock and hard time. Talking to a battery of leading defense lawyers and former prosecutors, I can tell you this: Based on the sentences of other corrupt officials, Fumo’s most likely going away for a long time, and soon. Convicted in March on all 137 counts, the former state senator faces a possible term of 21 to 27 years. […]
YELLOW JOURNALISM: The Last Truth Teller
POLITICO: POLITICO learned today that the Washington Post has terminated its relationship with liberal columnist/blogger Dan Froomkin. Froomkin authored the “White House Watch” blog and was told today that the blog had essentially run its course. MORE PAUL KRUGMAN: OK, I have no idea about the actual decision process. But I have a theory about the general mindset of the people who made this decision. Here’s how I see things: many people in the news media, especially at the managerial level, decided a long time ago that movement conservatism was The Future — and that the sensible thing, whether or […]