The election is over, and suddenly so is Philadelphia City Council’s unified opposition to casino construction. A package of bills introduced yesterday by lame-duck Councilman Juan Ramos would, if passed, give the city’s blessing to the proposed SugarHouse casino in Fishtown. The bills, which were introduced by Ramos at Mayor Street’s request, are a sharp departure from Council’s pre-election casino moves. Until yesterday, Council members had unanimously sided with anti-casino forces in vote after vote. They had even voted 17-0 to put the ill-fated casino referendum on the May 15 primary ballot — before courts removed it. INQUIRER: Thanks God […]
Accused Date Rape Dude Led Rich Fantasy Life
– Owned a 9mm Beretta pistol, which he named “Priscilla,” and would “talk to it as if he were Elvis.” – Claimed to kill people for the CIA, including a friend who went through secret-agent training, flunked out, and had to be killed on Marsalis’ order because “he knew too much.” – Said he had a helicopter on stand-by in case he was needed to flown to the White House. – Would call her to report he was crawling around in caves in Afghanistan hunting terrorists. – Trained as an astronaut so he would have something to do “after he […]
EARLY WORD: Free Girl Germs Included
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All Of This Happened While You Were Sleeping
THE TEACHA: KRS-One, World Cafe Live, Last Night [Photo by EVA LIAO]
GRUMPY OLD MEN: Q&A With The Phillies’ Bill Giles
[Illustration by ALEX FINE] Bill Giles, The P.T. Barnum Of The Phillies, And The Creature He Brought To Life BY ED KING Pouring Six Beers at a Time and Other Stories from a Lifetime in Baseball is the new autobiography from Philadelphia Phillies’ longtime executive and partner, Bill Giles. The book, like the man I spoke to, has the jovial tone of a true dreamer. A Bill Giles tale is punctuated with knowing chuckles and the uncanny sense that the story is taking on new details since its last telling. Giles came to the public eye in the Philadelphia sports […]
TODAY I SAW…
[Photo by JONATHAN VALANIA] 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 […]
Main Line Nanny Basher Is The New Face Of Evil
According to the criminal complaint in the first incident, [banking heiress Susan Tabas] Tepper threw all the food on the floor, told the nanny to clean it up and then struck her in the chest with a bag of carrots. The complaint said Tepper [NOT pictured] then attacked the woman by pushing her into the refrigerator and striking her on the head with a telephone handset. Tepper then pulled Salinas’ hair, scratched her face, broke her glasses and tried to push her down the stairs, it said, and then yanked Salinas’ pocketbook away from her and took about $800, believed […]
MEDIA MAN: A Guide To Un-Fucking The Fourth Estate
EXCERPT: “Sometime in the early 2000s, it was clear that the building of American journalism was on fire, and yet we all stood outside on the sidewalk like it was some kind of drill…chatting about last night’s “American Idol” or the Phillies’ inept bullpen. In 2007, we’re finally starting talking about calling the fire department, grabbing some extinguishers and searching for the dead and the missing. But the flames are climbing here into the night. And we are still out there on the sidewalk?talking about it.” ATTYTOOD: If You Can Read This, The Newspaper Business Is Already THIS Fucked
ARCHAEOLOGY: Ye Olde Head Shop Excavated
INDEPENDENCE MALL — The excavation of the President’s House, across from Independence Hall, continues to uncover treasures from the past. Archaeologists have unearthed several foundations over the past few weeks. They are now focusing on the wells and privy pits, and are also finding tobacco pipes from a store that was on the site after the President’s House was demolished in 1832. The dig’s field director is Douglas Mooney: “It was typical for Philadelphia in the late 1800s, when people went onto public water and public sewers, that they filled in their old wells and privies. And when they did that, […]
VIET NOW: This Is An I.E.D.
WARNING: Loud noise, strong language, G.I.s voicing anti-war sentiments BAGHDAD – Nine U.S. soldiers and Marines were killed in Iraq on Tuesday, U.S. officials said yesterday, and the military reportedly identified the body of a man found in the Euphrates River early yesterday as that of an American soldier abducted during a deadly ambush south of Baghdad almost two weeks ago. Also yesterday, about 100 Iraqis were killed and 130 injured in mortar strikes, suicide attacks, car bombings, drive-by shootings and other violence nationwide, according to law-enforcement authorities and news-agency accounts. [via WASHINGTON POST] ASSOCIATED PRESS: In the soldiers’ hometowns, […]