? BY ANNE ALTHOUSE Bill says “No onion rings?” and Hillary responds “I’m looking out for ya.” Now, the script says onion rings, because that’s what the Sopranos were eating in that final scene, but I doubt if any blogger will disagree with my assertion that, coming from Bill Clinton, the “O” of an onion ring is a vagina symbol. Hillary says no to that, driving the symbolism home. She’s “looking out” all right, vigilant over her husband, denying him the sustenance he craves. What does she have for him? Carrot sticks! The one closest to the camera has a rather […]
BONNAROO: When The Music’s Over
[Click image for slideshow] EDITOR’S NOTE: All weekend long, assistant editor EVA LIAO and her trusty sidekick, book critic MAVIS LINNEMANN, hung out with guys named Dude and That Other Dude, consumed mind-bending substances and blogged photos and scene reports straight from the primeval muck of Bonnaroo to your mind’s eye. Hope you appreciated that these chicks were sweating their tits off in Vietnam-like conditions so you didn’t have to. I sure did. BY EVA LIAO AND MAVIS LINNEMANN LEXINGTON, KENTUCKY — We’re here at the airport, waiting to catch our flight back to Philadelphia. Frankly we don’t have the […]
TODAY I SAW…
[Photo by RACHAEL SHIRLEY] BY JEFF DEENEY “Today I saw…” is a series of nonfiction shorts based on my experiences as a caseworker serving formerly homeless families now living in North and West Philadelphia. I decided not long after starting the job that I was seeing so many fascinating and disturbing things in the city’s poorest neighborhoods that I needed to start cataloging them. I hope this bi-weekly column serves as a record of a side of the city that many Philadelphians don’t come in contact with on a daily basis. I want to capture moments not frequently covered by […]
PBS FOR THE BLIND: We See It Even When You Can’t
BY AMY Z. QUINN The common misconception about the Iraq War seems to be that military leadership inserted American troops into a conflict without an exit strategy. In fact, the opposite is true. From the moment American generals — all retired now, by the way — set foot on the sands of Iraq, the mission was to get out as quickly as possible. For Rumsfeld and the Neocons, the Endgame was the whole game. The problem is that the light military footprint game plan didn’t include a strategy for actually winning the war, and in the resulting lawless vacuum a […]
We Need A Pitcher Not An Underwear Stitcher
The Phillies, not that surprisingly, followed their recent stretch of good play by losing two of three to the Tigers over the weekend, and packed their bags as a third-place team once again for the road trip that began last night in Cleveland with Cole Hamels on the mound. As always with the Phils, things could be better, things could be worse. INQUIRER: Always Keep Your Eye On The Ball Not The Other Way Around
KILLADELPHIA: Stop & Frisk? You’re Soaking In It
What nobody mentioned is that stop-and-frisk — in which police stop people suspected of criminal activity and pat them down for illegal weapons — is already used by police in Philadelphia. “The idea of giving officers training to recognize [illegal] guns? That’s already in place,” said Lt. Fran Healy, a lawyer for the Police Department. Last year, Philly cops stopped 132,765 pedestrians, according to department data. Some of those stops would have involved a pat-down or an arrest. A rough analysis shows that Philadelphia averaged nine stops per 100 residents last year. New York City averaged six stops per 100, […]
NPR FOR THE DEAF: We Hear It Even When You Can’t
FRESH AIR Washington Post correspondent Thomas Ricks — author of the bestseller Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq ? talks about his latest trip to that country and the latest strategies the Pentagon is employing there. Ricks, a Pulitzer Prize winner and former Wall Street Journal staffer, is also author of Making the Corps and A Soldier’s Duty. ALSO, former Navy petty officer Stephen Benjamin, trained as an Arabic translator, was headed to Iraq when he was dismissed from the Navy under the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy. Benjamin is gay; his supervisors knew he was gay, and […]
KILLADELPHIA: Shooting The Messenger
It’s true, says Christopher Pearo. When you think you’re about to die, your life really does flash before your eyes. Pearo, 36, a newspaper-delivery driver for the Daily News and Inquirer, had just been robbed of $15 by two assailants and shot in the neck as he deposited papers yesterday in a locked drop-box at a deli at 64th Street and Buist Avenue, Southwest Philadelphia. DAILY NEWS: Stand And Deliver! RELATED: A 27-year-old man, who police said was one of the group, was beaten to death sometime early yesterday and left for someone else to find. Police found his body […]
FORT DIX SIX: 3 Surefire Ways To Get Bail Denied
Agron Abdullahu, one of the Fort Dix Six, scratched graffiti into the door of his jail cell that included an AK-47 assault rifle firing bullets at the letters “FBI,” prosecutors charged yesterday. They said he also etched the name of a town in Kosovo, his homeland, along with an Albanian acronym for the Kosovo Liberation Army, which prosecutors called a paramilitary organization with a history of war crimes. “The subject matter of the etchings alone is disturbing at best, and at worst demonstrates the volition of an individual predisposed to violence,” prosecutors wrote in a brief filed in federal court […]
THIS YOU MUST SEE: Taito Version 1.0
It’s Pixar-riffic!
NPR FOR THE DEAF: We Hear It Even When You Can’t
Georges Seurat Models (1887-88), oil on canvas, 79″ x 98″ Barnes Foundation RADIO TIMES While Philadelphia’s City Council has approved a lease agreement which would enable the Barnes Foundation to move to the Parkway, Montgomery County is floating a new plan to keep the Foundation in Lower Merion. We revisit the Barnes Foundation debate with GRESHAM RILEY and ROBERT ZALLER, who have been discussing the issue online in the Broad Street Review and at a May 21st public forum at Drexel. FRESH AIR Louise Arbour, the U.N.’s High Commissioner for Human Rights and onetime chief prosecutor in the Yugoslav and […]
GAYBO: Philly Radio Is Gayer Than Ever!
BY TOMMY ZANE GAYDAR EDITOR Is the buzz true — does Philly have a new “gay” radio station? Their name and slogan sound gay enough: “My 106.1 — Feel the energy!” Sounds like an ad for a Miami circuit party, if they could just cut the energy with GBH. A recent peek at an 11 a.m. weekday playlist includes ultra-’90s gay club hit “Show Me Love” by Robin S., equally queer ’90s diva Cathy Dennis with “Touch Me (All Night Long),” No Doubt’s “Hella Good,” and the unofficial overplayed song of 2006, “Unwritten” by uber gay Natasha Bedingfield. However, as […]