BY MIKE WALSH It was in October that we got the notice in the mail. A nearby township was running a bus to the Trump Taj Mahal in Atlantic City on a Sunday afternoon in December to see the Wayne Newton Christmas Extravaganza. The cost was only $15, which included the bus fare, ticket, and $10 in gambling chips. Since the final cost was only $5 and since we hadn’t been to AC in quite a while, and since we’re always interested in bizarre spectacles, we sent in our money. We suspected that a Sunday afternoon Wayne Newton concert would […]
NRA Totally Wastes Nation’s Time With Same Old John Wayne Fantasies, Gets Punked By Code Pink Patriot
ABC NEWS: The National Rifle Association stood its ground today in arguing that the answer to gun violence in schools is an armed security force that can protect students, while blaming the media and violent entertainment and video games for recent deadly shootings. “The only thing that can stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun,” NRA executive vice president Wayne LaPierre said in presenting the NRA’s first comments about the Connecticut school shooting since it occurred a week ago today. LaPierre offered no olive branch to gun-control advocates who have called for tougher […]
WORTH REPEATING: California Dreaming
NEW YORK TIMES: “It’s shocking, from my perspective, the number of people that we all know who are recreational marijuana users,” said Gavin Newsom, the lieutenant governor. “These are incredibly upstanding citizens: Leaders in our community, and exceptional people. Increasingly, people are willing to share how they use it and not be ashamed of it.” Marijuana can be smelled in suburban backyards in neighborhoods from Hollywood to Topanga Canyon as dusk falls — what in other places is known as the cocktail hour — often wafting in from three sides. In some homes in Beverly Hills and San Francisco, it […]
What If They Threw An Apocalypse And Nobody Came?
QUESTION: Are there any threats to the Earth in 2012? Many Internet websites say the world will end in December 2012. NASA: The world will not end in 2012. Our planet has been getting along just fine for more than 4 billion years, and credible scientists worldwide know of no threat associated with 2012. QUESTION: What is the origin of the prediction that the world will end in 2012? NASA: The story started with claims that Nibiru, a supposed planet discovered by the Sumerians, is headed toward Earth. This catastrophe was initially predicted for May 2003, but when nothing happened […]
WORTH REPEATING: The Real ‘Cop Killer’
Artwork by Bunnyack “It was specifically designed for use by counterterrorism teams because it fires a very small but very high-velocity bullet that will penetrate body armor — what people call ballistic vests or bulletproof vests. When FN first manufactured this gun, they recognized how dangerous it would be on a civilian market and they claimed they would never sell it to civilians, that it would only be for police and counterterrorism units. In fact, it’s become a very popular gun on the American civilian market and is exported to Mexico, where it’s called the mata policia, or police killer, […]
PISSED JEANS: False Jesii Part 2
Punk friggin’ rock. Allentown represent!
There Is A Mass Murder In This Country Every 2 Weeks
USA TODAY: Mass killers target Americans once every two weeks on average, in attacks that range from robberies to horrific public shooting sprees like the massacre Friday of 27 people in Newtown, Conn., a USA TODAY examination found. Using news accounts and FBI records from 2006 through 2010, the most recent years for which complete records were available, USA TODAY identified 156 murders that met the FBI definitions of mass killings, where four or more people were killed. All told, the attacks killed 774 people, including at least 161 young children. The review offers perhaps the most current, complete picture […]
ARTSY: Postering Over The Fiscal Bluff
RELATED: Our country isn’t broke — It’s being robbed. Stand up against cuts to vital programs and demand the wealthy pay their fair share. You’ve probably heard about the political game called “The Fiscal Cliff.” But, it’s actually a Fiscal Bluff — a self inflicted crisis designed to create urgency to make us believe our nation is broke and that we must cut vital programs. This is false and we won’t stand for it. Corrupt billionaires, tax-dodging corporations, and those who serve them have manufactured this crisis and are refusing to pay their fair share. Join us in telling them: […]
INCOMING: Q&A w/ Sopranos Creator David Chase
We talk to Sopranos creator David Chase about his new movie,Not Fade Away, a weedy coming-of-age dramedy about being young, horny and trying to be the Rolling Stones in the teenage wasteland of suburban New Jersey in the mid-’60s. Discussed: Kolhack: The Night Stalker, Orson Welles’ Touch Of Evil, the meaning of the end of Antonioni’s Blow-Up, Jagger/Richards, Chinatown, The Sex Pistols, Jonathan Richman & The Modern Lovers, Dylan’s wig and why he will have to answer for making Journey cool again when he meets his maker. Look for it Friday on a Phawker near you! RELATED: David Chase & […]
WORTH REPEATING: A Well-Regulated Militia
NEW YORKER: Does the Second Amendment prevent Congress from passing gun-control laws? The question, which is suddenly pressing, in light of the reaction to the school massacre in Newtown, is rooted in politics as much as law. For more than a hundred years, the answer was clear, even if the words of the amendment itself were not. The text of the amendment is divided into two clauses and is, as a whole, ungrammatical: “A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.” […]
NPR FOR THE DEAF: We Hear It Even When You Can’t
FRESH AIR When Christoph Waltz auditioned for the role of SS officer Hans Landa in Quentin Tarantino’s 2009 film Inglourious Basterds, he read the passage assigned for the audition, then kept going until he had gone through the entire role as Tarantino himself filled in for the other parts. “It was partly hilarious, partly just fabulous, partly scary,” Waltz tells Fresh Air‘s Terry Gross. “And we arrived at the end and then we parted and I said to the casting director, ‘If this should have been it, it was definitely worth it,’ and, well, then they called me back.” Waltz […]
How To Disarm The NRA: All You Need Is Love & $38 Mil
BY JONATHAN VALANIA FOR THE PHILLY POST It is a sad testament to the depth of our national indifference that it took the massacre of 20 six year olds in their first grade classroom to finally trigger a united and sustained public outcry for an end to the madness. After 62 mass murders and counting since 1982, we have, it would appear, finally reached the tipping point. On this we can all agree: Never again. In fairness, this complacency was not entirely our own fault, it was, by and large, fostered and fomented by the National Rifle Association, which runs […]