NEW YORK TIMES: For The Times, Bernie Sanders’s entry into the presidential race was almost a nonevent. Although many candidates’ declarations were treated on the front page with considerable fanfare, Mr. Sanders’s was tucked inside the paper on Page A21. Since that time, the Vermont senator has received considerable attention from The Times, but for his supporters, not nearly enough. And the tone of the coverage, many complain, has sometimes been derogatory or dismissive, and has been focused on personality, not issues. […] Looking at August alone, The Times ran 14 articles on Mr. Sanders, compared with 54 on […]
Win Tix To See The L7 Reunion @ The Trocadero
Let us set the Wayback Machine to planet 1992. Where the women wore the combat boots and the men wore the mascara and fishnets — well, at least Kurt Cobain did. Girls rioted. The glass ceiling on the moshpit was shattered (in hindsight, glass was probably a poor choice for a mosh pit ceiling). And the Lolla first Palooza-ed. LA-based all-girl alt-rockers L7 led the charge of girl-positive rockers like Hole, Babes In Toyland and The Breeders who kicked down the door of the old boys club that was rock n’ roll. Things would never be the same. Fast […]
KURT VILE: Life Like This
As far as high concept videos go this one looks like low tide at inspiration beach, truth be told. Call us old fashioned but we believe every Kurt Vile video should always leave behind a two-story mural on the side of Fishtown fixer upper. Because, let’s face it, Kurt Vile is a Fishtown fixer upper. New album, the capitalization-handicapped b’lieve i’m going down, out September 22nd. Now, this new Battles vid? Surfs up , bra. Surf is motherfucking up!
Five Years Ago I Warned That ‘The Philadelphia Prison System Is Violent, Predatory & Deeply Corrupt,’ Yesterday The Feds Finally Took Action
[Artwork by ALEX FINE] BY JEFF DEENEY Back in the summer of 2011, I wrote about an acquaintance who worked in the The Philadelphia House Of Correction on State Road who was having trouble getting up in the morning and going to work. It seemed like each day brought some unbearable new horror story of violence perpetrated against prisoners by the Corrections Officers (COs) tasked with maintaining order in the facilities. Much of the disorder, the person claimed, on the intensely overcrowded cell blocks was in fact driven by crews of COs that operated like organized crime syndicates. Working with […]
The Philadelphia Prison System Is Violent, Predatory And Deeply Corrupt Because Nobody Is Watching It
[Artwork by FERNANDO BOTERO] EDITOR’S NOTE: The following first posted to Phawker on July 22nd, 2011 BY JEFF DEENEY A couple months ago I was approached by a person in the midst of a major moral dilemma: This person works inside the Philadelphia Prison System, and claimed to have been witness to massive, systematic and ongoing abuses inside the institution. This person described the common practice among Correctional Officers (COs) of ganging up on troublesome prisoners in their cells and dishing brutal beatdowns to put them in line. The person described an incident where a prisoner was tied to a […]
THERE WILL BE BLOOD: The NFL Is A Cruel And Shallow Money Trench Where Liars And Pimps Run Free And The Truth Dies Like A Dog Every Sunday
THE ATLANTIC: Even if you’re not a football fan, the litany of unpleasantness emanating from the National Football League in recent months has been hard to avoid, because it keeps spilling out of the sports coverage to lead the nightly news: cheating, taxpayer fleecing, bounty hunting, domestic abuse, brain damage, suicide, even murder (and murder-suicide). For his clumsy handling of much of the aforementioned, Roger Goodell, the NFL commissioner, has been called, among many other things: “pathetic,” a “liar,” a “power mad autocrat,” a new “Torquemada,” a “buffoon,” a “puppet,” and a “shit-eating moron.” But Goodell is also very […]
INCOMING: Tommy Keene You Hear Me?
“A direct concoction of the Beatles meet the Who by way of Big Star, with a little Stones for good measure.” — Tommy Keene On Tommy Keene WIKIPEDIA: Tommy Keene (born June 30, 1958) is an American singer-songwriter, best known for releasing critically acclaimed new wave/power pop songs in the 1980s. He has a longtime cult following among fans of the musical genre of power pop.[1] Originally hailing from Washington D.C., his 1984 EP Places That Are Gone became one of the year’s top selling independent releases.[2] The EP garnered a four-star review in Rolling Stone, and was voted […]
NPR 4 THE DEAF: We Hear It Even When U Can’t
FRESH AIR Growing up in the 1950s, Margo Jefferson was part of Chicago’s black upper class. The daughter of a prominent doctor and his socialite wife, Jefferson inhabited a world of ambition, education and sophistication — a place she calls “Negroland.” That afforded her many opportunities, the Pulitzer Prize-winning cultural critic says. But life was also undercut by the fear that her errors and failures would reflect poorly on her family and, subsequently, her race. “It was very important that you show yourself a bright, lively, well-spoken person,” Jefferson tells Fresh Air’s Terry Gross. “If you go back and […]
THE RAPTURE: Kim Davis Is Free At Last!
RIGHT WING WATCH: Mat Staver, the Liberty Counsel attorney who is representing Kentucky clerk Kim Davis during her ongoing refusal to issue same-sex marriage licenses, appeared on the “WallBuilders Live” radio program today, where he said that requiring Davis to issue such marriage licenses is like requiring her to provide licenses to “sodomize children.” “A clerk provides licenses to do something,” Staver explained. “A license to operate a motor vehicle on the road, a license to build a particular facility or a license to do this or a license to do that or a license to operate a business. So […]
WORTH REPEATING: James Joyce, Psychonaut
Artwork by ROY WALLACE Via DISINFORMATION: “Joyce’s prose prepared me to enter psychedelic space.” – Timothy Leary, FLASHBACKS “(Finnegans Wake is) about as close to LSD on the page as you can get…” – Terence McKenna, Surfing on Finnegans Wake “If you’ve never had a psychedelic, reading Joyce is the next best equivalent.” – Robert Anton Wilson, RAW Explains Everything “I have read Finnegans Wake aloud at a time when takers of LSD said, ‘that is JUST LIKE LSD.’ So I have begun to feel that LSD may just be the lazy man’s form of Finnegans Wake.” – Marshall McLuhan, […]
LAST WEEK TONIGHT: Back To School Edition
WARNING: Many, many spoiler alerts for just about every book you will-ever/were-supposed-to read in school.
CINEMA: Femmes Fatale
MISTRESS AMERICA (2015, directed by Noah Baumbach, 84 minutes, U.S.) BY DAN BUSKIRK FILM CRITIC Director Noah Baumbach is back with his second release of 2015, showcasing the dare-I-say zany charm of his writing and romantic partner Greta Gerwig in their latest joint, Mistress America. This bittersweet comedy comes off as a continuation of their celebrated collaboration from 2012, the effervescent Frances Ha, although in their latest tale Baumbach and Gerwig seem to take her character to task for being the sort a ditsy flake with which today’s New York City will no longer abide. Where Frances Ha showed us […]
DEAD WEATHER: “I Feel Love”
Recorded live at the Third Man Records Bat Cave in Nashville.