Mayor Nutter Raps At His 2nd Term Inauguration Party With The Legendary Roots Band from Identity ink on Vimeo.
HATFUL OF HOLLOW: DN’s Local Boy Becomes Pope Of Scientology Story A Whole Lot Of Not Much
DAILY NEWS: Jenna Miscavige Hill, herself a former member of the church, says Scientology caused her to become isolated from her family while she was growing up – an unofficial church policy often referred to as “disconnection” – and she no longer speaks with many relatives still in the church. “I feel that there is a good possibility that the Miscavige family would be better off if my grandpa had not found Dianetics,” she told the Daily News in an email yesterday. “I can’t say that if [he] didn’t find that, then he wouldn’t have found something else. But not […]
LIFE LESSONS: With Your Life Coach, AP Ticker
Words and images by Bernard Colan.
THE DEVIL AND RICK SANTORUM: Rupert Murdoch Endorses The Google Scat-inator
[Illustrations by ALEX FINE] DAILY MAIL: As Rick Santorum continues his surprise climb up the polls, he has received support from an unexpected quarter – media mogul Rupert Murdoch.The day before the Iowa caucuses, the News Corporation boss wrote on Twitter that ‘all Iowans’ should ‘think about’ supporting Mr Santorum in the Republican race. While Mr Murdoch’s endorsement may not count for quite as much since the phone-hacking scandal engulfed his company, it is still a rare accolade coming from one of the world’s most powerful political figures. Mr Santorum’s campaign may welcome the news as evidence that their candidate […]
BEST OF: Sh*t My Uncle Said In 2011
EDITOR’S NOTE: OK, admittedly it’s not a very original title, but it IS accurate. William C. Henry is better known to me as ‘Uncle Bill.’ He’s always been a man of strong opinions and a persuasive argument-maker, but I was a little surprised to learn — after re-connecting with him after a prolonged period of radio silence — that his current perspective so closely mirrors that of Phawker. Which is refreshing, to say the least, since most (white) people seem to turn into Fox News zombies when they get to be his age (early 70s, FYI). Not Uncle Bill. It […]
SIDEWALKING: Insane Clown Posse
Mummer’s Parade, Broad Street, Beer:30 PM, Sunday By PETE MARSHALL
BEST OF: Our Favorite Albums Of 2011
Tom Waits has become the secret handshake of cool — either you know it or you don’t, and after 20 albums, if you still have to ask you’ll most likely never know. Me? I’m a lifer. True story: Back in college I borrowed 1985’s Rain Dogs from the public library and got so lost in its lurid tales of the depraved, the derelict and the dispossessed camping on the wrong side of the tracks in Reagan’s Morning in America that I didn’t return it for a year and a half. When I finally brought it back, I was banned for […]
REWIND 2011: BEST OF Q&A: The Year In Questions And Answers
THE TESTIFIER [Illustrations by ALEX FINE] BY JONATHAN VALANIA In advance of her recent reading at the Free Library to promote her new book Reimagining Equality: Stories Of Race, Gender And Finding A Home, we present a conversation with Anita Hill, professor of social policy, law, and women’s studies at Brandeis University. Discussed: The fantasia of a Post-Racial America; the mendacity, narcissism and hypocrisy of Clarence Thomas and Herman Cain; the right wing’s racializing the blame for the 2008 financial crisis; how she passed the lie detector test Clarence Thomas refused to take; the emancipation of her grandfather from slavery; […]
DEAR READER: We Wish You A Merry Christmas
From all of us here at Phawker to you and yours.
THAT’S COMCASTIC: Meet Federal Government Inc.
“Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the merger of state and corporate power.” – Benito Mussolini RELATED: THE MAN WHO SOLD THE WORLD: How Comcast Gets To Do Pretty Much Whatever The F*ck They Want To Do RELATED: WEASELS IN THE HENHOUSE: FCC Chairman Quits To Lobby For Comcast, Her Reward For Fastracking The Mega Merger With NBC With Minimal Restrictions RELATED: DEMOCRACY FOR SALE: Everything Must Go!
CONLINGATE: Deadspin’s A.J. Daulerio Comes Clean On Backchannel Advice To Disgraced Scribe
UPDATE: Another woman has come forward to say that Bill Conlin, the Hall of Fame baseball writer and former Philadelphia Daily News columnist, sexually assaulted her when she was a child. The woman, who asked not to be identified, said Conlin repeatedly abused her when she was about 7 and lived in the Whitman Square section of Washington Township, Gloucester County. She was a childhood friend of Conlin’s son, Peter, and often spent time at his house nearby. It was there, she said, that Conlin molested her. She is the fifth person to tell The Inquirer that Conlin assaulted her. […]
CINEMA: Slaying The Beast
THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO (2011, directed by David Fincher, 158 minutes, U.S.) BY DAN BUSKIRK FILM CRITIC The U.S. version of Stieg Larsson’s international best-selling thriller The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo has arrived, a little more stylish and pumped up, yet containing much of the same problematic structure that dogged its previous adaptation and the source novel itself. Like the Harry Potter series, this film adaptation has ballooned to a jumbo length of more than two and a half hours to capture the many details of the novel, whether it makes for energetic storytelling or not. In […]