PHILLY POST: Best I can tell, there’s some unspoken cop rule that says at the end of every car chase everyone gets a chance to kick and/or punch the perp, preferably when he’s down. I’m sure this is both a satisfying and effective way of working off all the adrenaline — not to mention the ‘roid rage — that builds up during one of those high-speed-squealing-tires-white-knuckle car chases. Plus, it sends a very clear message to everyone who’s not a cop: You run, you will get beat. Respect must be paid. Now, before we go any further, let me […]
SH*T MY UNCLE SAYS: Deliver Us From Evil
BY WILLIAM C. HENRY With Pope Benedict XVI on the lam, it’s time once again for the Catholic Consiglieri to elect a new Don. My first reaction upon hearing that disgraced Vulture (the truly beautiful black and red bird doesn’t deserve association with this far-less-than-princely predator) Roger Mahony would be allowed to vote for the new Pope (and it turns out he’s wasn’t the only one) was: You’ve got to be sh*tting me! My second was: Well, of course he will, and why not? Hell, if for literally scores of years, the hierarchy of the Catholic church had deemed the […]
SUPREME COURT: 1984 Is Here, Get Used To It
NEW YORK TIMES: The Supreme Court on Tuesday turned back a challenge to a federal law that broadened the government’s power to eavesdrop on international phone calls and e-mails. The decision, by a 5-to-4 vote that divided along ideological lines, probably means the Supreme Court will never rule on the constitutionality of that 2008 law. More broadly, the ruling illustrated how hard it is to mount court challenges to a wide array of antiterrorism measures, including renditions of terrorism suspects to foreign countries and targeted killings using drones, in light of the combination of government secrecy and judicial doctrines […]
JOHNNY CASH: Big River
Happy Birthday Man In Black, wherever you are.
BOOKS: The Most Deadly And Dangerous Drug Corner Is Inside Your Friendly Neighborhood Grocery Store
FRESH AIR: Dealing Coke to customers called “heavy users.” Selling to teens in an attempt to hook them for life. Scientifically tweaking ratios of salt, sugar and fat to optimize consumer bliss. In his new book, Salt Sugar Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Michael Moss goes inside the world of processed and packaged foods. Moss begins his tale back in 1999, when a vice president at Kraft addressed a meeting of top executives of America’s biggest food companies. His topic: the growing public health concerns over the obesity epidemic and the role packaged and […]
VEGGING: Miss Rachel’s Pantry
Photo by JASON BLEECHER EDITOR’S NOTE: Vegging is a new foodie feature wherein Phawker intern Patrick Kaisinger rates the city’s vegetarian and vegan eateries NAME: Miss Rachel’s Pantry LOCATION: 1732 W Passyunk Ave., South Philadelphia CONCEPT: If Farmer Brown went vegan and the cow jumped over the moon. DECOR: Walking from the streets of South Philly into Miss Rachel’s Pantry is like experiencing a complete reality shift, as the cold, grey streets, filled with parking spot anxiety, give way to the calming warmth of Miss Rachel’s world. The bright, welcoming dining room is reminiscent of visiting a slightly more modern […]
HELL’S ANGELS: Child Rapists Inc. To Stage ‘World Family Day’ In Philly In 2015 And Then Get Back To Raping Children, Buying Off Victims & Covering It Up
INQUIRER: Mayor Nutter and Archbishop Charles J. Chaput on Monday formally announced plans for Philadelphia to host the World Meeting of Families, a Catholic gathering expected to bring the next pope here in 2015. It was the first question to Chaput at a midmorning news conference: Will the new pope, expected to be chosen in March, come to the city? “I can’t imagine that he won’t, but I can’t promise that he will,” Chaput said at the Philadelphia Archdiocese in Center City. “We’re going to plan as though he’s going to come.” MORE
KANGAROO KOURT Cop Acquitted Of Sucker Punching Woman Despite Video Of Cop Sucker Punching Woman
INQUIRER: Triggering a deafening eruption of cheers from a courtroom packed with scores of Philadelphia police, a city judge this morning found ex-police Lt. Jonathan Josey not guilty of simple assault for swinging at and decking a woman during an unruly street party after last year’s Puerto Rican Parade. Municipal Court Judge Patrick F. Dugan said he remained troubled by Josey’s conduct on the 10-second video that shows Josey hit Aida Guzman from behind and knock her to the ground during the Sept. 30 incident at Fifth Street and Lehigh Avenue in the Fairhill section of North Philadelphia. Dugan, however, […]
ARTSY: Down By The River
The Philadelphia Live Arts Festival and Philly Fringe has a new name and a new secret hideout — underneath the Ben Franklin, across the street from the most-excellent Race Street Pier — and everyone’s invited! The nonprofit previously known as the Philadelphia Live Arts Festival and Philly Fringe has consolidated its name, thankfully, to FringeArts. Now you can tell your friends about it without running out of breath. (And the new name is a hell of a lot better than the even more reductive FArts.) The new Fringe digs were unveiled yesterday during a swanky press conference and pimped […]
BEING THERE: Horse Latitudes
Parx East, 1:04 PM by JEFF FUSCO
THIS JUST IN: Morrissey @ The Tower 4/6
Tickets go on sale Friday at noon. PREVIOUSLY: Morrissey first canceled concerts earlier this month, citing a bleeding ulcer and Barrett’s esophagus as the reason for his cancelation. “Morrissey thanks everyone concerned for their well wishes during this time and hopes for a speedy recovery,” a rep for Morrissey said at the time of the first cancelations. While he intended to resume his tour in El Paso on Feb. 12, that show was canceled and he announced that the tour would return on Feb. 21 in Denver. That show has since been canceled as well. A post on Morrissey’s […]
NPR FOR THE DEAF: We Hear It Even When You Can’t
FRESH AIR The remarkable story of gangster Whitey Bulger begins in the housing projects of South Boston and ends with his capture by the FBI in 2011 after his 16 years on the lam. By then, Bulger was wanted for 19 murders, extortion and loan sharking for leading a criminal enterprise in Boston from the 1970s until 1995. During much of that time he was also an informant and being protected by the FBI. In their new book, Whitey Bulger: America’s Most Wanted Gangster and the Manhunt That Brought Him to Justice, Boston Globe reporters Kevin Cullen and Shelley […]
JUST ANNOUNCED: New Stooges LP On Fat Possum 4/30
Better 40 years later than never: The follow-up to the first record ever to bear the Iggy and the Stooges logo–the immortal proto-punk masterpiece Raw Power–will finally be out April 30, when Fat Possum Records releases the all-new Iggy and the Stooges studio album, Ready To Die. Ready To Die finds Iggy Pop, guitarist James Williamson and drummer Scott “Rock Action” Asheton reunited for a full album of all-new material for the first time since the legendary Raw Power sessions, with Mike Watt filling in for the late Ron Asheton on bass. The results are the closest thing to a time […]