BY WILLIAM C. HENRY Do you consider yourself a “political” being? Politically speaking, do you have an anger “tipping point”? If so, is that the point at which you take action, or when you just let it slide? Are you–with sincerest apologies to Mr. Faulkner and The Bard–“but another walking shadow, a poor player who struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more. Is yours but a tale told to a mirror, full of harrumphs and a harangue or two, signifying nothing.” Pretty funny stuff, huh? Except I’ve never been more serious. These questions are at the very heart […]
CONCERT REVIEW: St. Vincent At Union Transfer
BY PELLE GUNTHER Pop music is rarely given creative justice anymore in the modern entertainment industrial complex. Sure every now and again there’s a flash of creative inspiration, but for the most part, it’s the same, played-out, recycled ideas just swimming around in the fishbowl of the radio dial. Amid the sea of Justin Bieber’s and T-Swift’s, calling St. Vincent’s music pop seems incredibly rude and simple minded for the level of care and composition put into these thoughtful arrangements. The songs of Annie Clark, the woman behind the mask, tumble—with no fear of any predictable musical constructs—from glitchy electronica […]
LISTEN LIKE THIEVES: New Old School GBV
[On newsstands now; click HERE to order] After a fifteen year hiatus, the “classic line up” of Guided By Voices finished off its year-long reunion tour by recording an album of 21 new songs, making a deliberate effort to return to what bandleader Robert Pollard calls the “semi-collegial” approach of iconic GBV albums like Bee Thousand and Alien Lanes. Let’s Go Eat The Factory is some kind of return to form: sprawling, variegated, and yet still recognizably and coherently Guided By Voices in both its literal and mythic senses. Choosing to eschew the recording studio, Let’s Go Eat The Factory […]
FACT: Percentage Of Americans Out Of Work For A Year Or More At Astonishing, Historic High
[via TALKING POINTS MEMO]
WTF: Cops Storm Comcast, Arrest Wrong People
[Photo by Rob Bender] INQUIRER: Ten protesters were arrested during an Occupy Philly sit-in Wednesday afternoon at the Center City headquarters of Comcast Corp. Several hundred people, including protesters and onlookers, watched the spectacle unfold at the Comcast Center on John F. Kennedy Boulevard. Area traffic was jammed for hours. About 1:30 p.m., nine protesters got into the lobby and sat for about an hour before being arrested. Another demonstrator had been arrested outside earlier. They had marched from the Occupy Philly tent city at Dilworth Plaza in solidarity with a “general strike” organized by Occupy Oakland protesters after a […]
LOCO: Anonymous Takes On Mexican Drug Cartels
STRATFOR: A member of the online activist group, Anonymous, released a video statement October 31 stating that it will continue to search for and publicize sensitive data about Mexican criminal organizations despite the physical threat of doing so. Based upon past examples, the latest Anonymous campaign against Los Zetas could spill over into the real world, resulting in violence and deaths as Los Zetas target a new group. Online media has been in conflict with Mexican criminal and drug organizations for some time now. Journalists are known to be targets of the cartels and plenty have been killed in the […]
SCRAPPLE NEWS: A.P. Ticker Responds To Wharton
SAMANTHA TAYLOR, WHARTON GRADUATE 2012: You have all these anti-establishment, “mad at the man” hipsters running around leading this movement when in reality they are living off of plush trust funds funded by the establishment that they’re so mad at. Many of them need to go occupy the homes in which they grew up, nestled in the safe, upper middle class suburbs of America. Why don’t they occupy the Apple store, or are they too afraid of not having the newest stylish Mac to pose with at the local coffee shop? While the dispersion of wealth in America is no […]
EARLY WORD: ‘We’re All Scott Olsen Now’
RELATED: The incidents in Oakland last week have only emboldened Occupiers in major cities around the country. Last Tuesday, police drove occupiers out of their encampment in the Bay Area at 5 a.m., sending thousands scattering around town, with nowhere to go, but plenty to shout about. The next phase of this rude awakening was a city-wide scourge in which demonstrators allegedly threw bottles and splashed paint on police officers and officers in return fired 37mm tear gas containers into the crowd, wounding young Iraq war veteran. OccupyOakland responded by calling for a citywide strike today. In solidarity, OccupyPhilly is […]
Gold Seller Glenn Beck Peddles Charged With Fraud
ABC NEWS: Goldline, a company that used endorsements from Glenn Beck and other conservative icons to sell hundreds of millions of dollars to consumers, has been charged with theft and fraud in a 19-count criminal complaint filed Tuesday by local officials in California. The criminal complaint filed Tuesday by the Santa Monica City Attorney’s consumer protection unit marks the latest in a series of allegations it has leveled against the gold dealer, which pioneered the practice of weaving its sales pitches into broadcasts by popular conservative political personalities — including two former presidential candidates — to sell hundreds of millions […]
WORTH REPEATING: The Transfiguration Of Steve
[Illustrations by ALEX FINE] NEW YORK TIMES: Death didn’t happen to Steve, he achieved it. He told me, when he was saying goodbye and telling me he was sorry, so sorry we wouldn’t be able to be old together as we’d always planned, that he was going to a better place. Dr. Fischer gave him a 50/50 chance of making it through the night. He made it through the night, Laurene next to him on the bed sometimes jerked up when there was a longer pause between his breaths. She and I looked at each other, then he would heave […]
DUFFY’S CUT: Dead Men Will Tell No More Tales
ASSOCIATED PRESS: The location of the mass grave remained elusive until recent weeks. A radar survey of the land beneath the stone monument a few years ago yielded nothing, so the Watsons assumed the marker was inaccurate. But geophysicist Tim Bechtel recently used more sophisticated techniques, including electrical imaging and seismic surveys, to conclude the ossuary is likely near the monument after all — but 30 feet below the surface. It’s also on Amtrak property. The rail company will not permit any digging because of its proximity to the tracks, spokeswoman Danelle Hunter said. “I don’t blame them for not […]
PRISON INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX: One Year Of Prison Costs More Than One Year Of Princeton
[SOURCE: Public Information] WALL STREET JOURNAL: The almost-constant growth of the U.S. prison population during the past 30 years has pushed the number of people behind bars past a new threshold, according to a study released yesterday.With more than 2.3 million people in local jails and state and federal prisons, more than 1% of the U.S. adult population is locked up, according to the Pew Center on the States. The rate is the highest in the world, and the statistics are starker for some groups. More than 11% of the nation’s African-American men ages 20 to 34 are behind bars, […]
SIDEWALKING: Seasons Greetings
Third & Chestnut, 9:38 PM last night BY JONATHAN VALANIA