MAN ON CAMEL: “The March of Abraham” by József Molnár RELIGION DISPATCHES: Well, it’s been quite a whirlwind week for same-sex marriage, from North Carolina to Obama to Colorado—and, of course, to the many outraged conservatives concerned with preserving traditional marriage, i.e., the time-honored sacred bond between one man and one woman. Why, just last week, Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council said that marriage has meant just that for over five thousand years. Huh? Time to break out your Bible, Mr. Perkins! Abraham had two wives, Sarah and her handmaiden Hagar. King Solomon had 700 wives, plus 300 […]
Don’t Kid Yourself, The News Can Kill A Man
PHILLY.COM: A railroad worker was killed today when he was crushed by an 1,800-pound roll of newsprint at the Philadelphia Inquirer and Daily News Schuylkill Printing Plant in Upper Merion. Mark Block, a spokesman for Philadelphia Media Network, the newspapers’ parent company, said the roll apparently had shifted in its boxcar during shipment and fell out about 9:30 a.m. when the train’s engineer opened the door. “Unfortunately it crushed the individual who was right there,” he said. MORE
WORTH REPEATING: When Judges Get High
NEW YORK TIMES: I did not foresee that after having dedicated myself for 40 years to a life of the law, including more than two decades as a New York State judge, my quest for ameliorative and palliative care would lead me to marijuana. […] My survival has demanded an enormous price, including months of chemotherapy, radiation hell and brutal surgery. […] Nausea and pain are constant companions. One struggles to eat enough to stave off the dramatic weight loss that is part of this disease. Eating, one of the great pleasures of life, has now become a daily battle, […]
Corporate Tax Dodgers Are Unpatriotic Parasites!
THINK PROGRESS: The right-wing has been laudingFacebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin for his decision to renounce his U.S. citizenship in order to avoid taxes. But he isn’t the only one who’s going to slash his tax bill in the wake of Facebook’s upcoming initial public offering: both CEO Mark Zuckerberg and the company itself will lower their tax bill for years to come. While Zuckerberg will pay a hefty tax bill right off the bat if he follows through on his plan to sell $5 billion in Facebook stock options, as the New York Times noted, he may then never pay […]
LAST DAYS OF DISCO: Donna Summer Dead @ 63
NEW YORK TIMES: Her collaborations with the producer Giorgio Moroder in the 1970s broke new ground for dance music and have been influencing the genre ever since. Few vocalists could match the sensuous eroticism she brought to some of her best recordings, which for many fans came to define the disco era. Born and raised in Boston, Ms. Summer learned to sing in church in a gospel choir and as a teenager performed in a short-lived psychedelic rock group called the Crow. After high school, she moved to New York and soon landed a role in a German production […]
Gen. Ratko Mladic Still A Evil After All These Years
LOS ANGELES TIMES: Bosnian Serb Gen. Ratko Mladicconfronted the accusations against him at the opening of his war crimes trial in The Hague on Wednesday with contemptuous gestures to the court and the victims who had come to see him face justice for atrocities during the 1992-95 Bosnian war. Slowed by age and the hardships of 15 years on the run from the indictment by the United Nations tribunal, Mladic still mustered a hint of his trademark swagger as he entered the courtroom, giving a thumbs-up to the judges and mocking applause for those watching from a glass-walled gallery. […]
SIDEWALKING: Can’t Get There From Here
34th & Springarden, 2:14 PM today, by DAVID BROWN
CONTEST: Win Tix To See Reggie Watts@ The Troc
So we just caught Reggie Watts‘ Comedy Central special while absently flipping thru the Box Of Lies over the weekend and our first reaction was that somebody must have put angel dust in our dime bag and it was only a matter of time before we’d be naked, sweating, handcuffed and kicking out the back window of a cop car. First there’s the hair, which can only be described as mid-70s Wooly Mammoth. Then there’s the look — like he covered himself in honey and shot himself out of a cannon through the wardrobe closet of Santa’s elves. Finally, […]
NPR 4 THE DEAF: We Hear It Even When U Can’t
FRESH AIR When writer Florence Williams was nursing her second child, she read a research study about toxins found in human breast milk. She decided to test her own breast milk and shipped a sample to a lab in Germany. What came back surprised her. Trace amounts of pesticides, dioxin and a jet fuel ingredient — as well as high to average levels of flame retardants — were all found in her breast milk. How could something like this happen? “It turns out that our breasts are almost like sponges, the way they can soak up some of these chemicals, […]
JUDAS PRIESTS: The Top Priority Of The Archdiocese Was Never Protecting The Rape Victims Of Pedo Priests, It Was Protecting The Archdiocese
PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER: That portrait of Lynn drawn from his grand jury testimony — an innocent, inexperienced priest thrust into a job that required the training of a lawyer, detective and psychologist — has been a mainstay of his defense in the landmark Common Pleas Court trial in which he accused of enabling pedophile priests to continue to prey on children. City prosecutors today continued trying to undercut that portrait using documents from the church’s Secret Archives on abusive priests that were turned over to prosecutors in February on the eve of the trial. A 2002 memo from Bishop Joseph […]
KILLADELPHIA: Dead Men Tell No Tales
Sparks Street, Olney, Monday night, by JOE KACZMAREK DAILY NEWS: IN A CITY where justice frequently is thwarted by a no-snitching culture, Rodney Ramseur did what others are too scared or too heartless to do: He spoke up and told what he allegedly saw, fingering a former friend at a court hearing last week as the gunman who shot a neighbor in 2010. But Monday night, someone gunned down Ramseur and his girlfriend as they sat in a springtime drizzle on the porch of his Olney home. Now, police are probing whether a retaliation-minded murderer targeted Ramseur for his role […]
BREAKING: AP Ticker To Be The New Celebrity Pitchman For The Philadelphia Brewing Company?
We sure hope so. He is easily the second or third most interesting man in the world. He’s so funny he makes milk shoot out of his own nose. He’s the kind of the kind of guy you see at a bar and then turn to the barkeep and say ‘I’ll have what he’s having.’ And the barkeep is like ‘It’s peyote.’ And then you’re like, ‘Bring it, motherfucker.’ And the next thing you know you’re standing on the infinite plain of some Salavador Dali painting littered with burning giraffes and melting clocks and a space coyote with the voice […]
BRAIN DRAIN: Exit The Last Honest Man
NEWSWORKS: It wasn’t that long ago that the term “bioethics” wasn’t well known. But more than any other American scientist, Dr. Arthur Caplan has been credited for bringing this somewhat abstract intersection of philosophy and medicine into to the public discourse. After founding the University of Pennsylvania’s Center for Bioethics, Caplan is now taking his expertise to New York University. Caplan’s office at 36th and Market streets looks eerily neat: no piles of folders in corners, only a few book in shelves that were once filled to capacity, no photos or awards. It’s all packed away. All this calmness is […]