THE GUARDIAN: Google faced down demands from a US law enforcement agency to take down YouTube videos allegedly showing police brutality earlier this year, figures released for the first time show. The technology giant’s biannual transparency report shows that Google refused the demands from the unnamed authority in the first half of this year. According to the report, Google separately declined orders by other police authorities to remove videos that allegedly defamed law enforcement officials. The demands formed part of a 70% rise in takedown requests from the US government or police, and were revealed as part of an effort […]
OFFICIAL: Rich Getting Richer, Everyone Else Getting F*cked
NEW YORK TIMES: The top 1 percent of earners more than doubled their share of the nation’s income over the last three decades, the Congressional Budget Office said Tuesday, in a new report likely to figure prominently in the escalating political fight over how to revive the economy, create jobs and lower the federal debt.In addition, the report said, government policy has become less redistributive since the late 1970s, doing less to reduce the concentration of income. “The equalizing effect of federal taxes was smaller” in 2007 than in 1979, as “the composition of federal revenues shifted away from progressive […]
AP TICKER: Eric Cantor Is A Wussy
AP reads the speech Eric Cantor was to much of a pussy to read at Wharton on Friday.
RAWK TAWK: Q&A w/ Seattle Grunge Historian Stephen Tow
BY TONY ABRAHAM Cheltenham resident and Delaware Valley College professor Stephen Tow has just published The Strangest Tribe: How A Group of Seattle Rock Bands Invented Grunge, which is, to date, the definitive history of the Seattle music scene that went from beer-stained garage band obscurity to globally iconic in the space of a few years. Tow digs deep into the pre-historic, establishing the geneology of seminal, but lesser-known pioneers — band like the The U-Men, Green River and the Thrown Ups — that established the aesthetics and infrastructure that eventually made bands like Nirvana and Pearl Jam household words […]
NPR FOR THE DEAF: We Hear It Even When You Can’t
FRESH AIR When Steve Jobs died on Oct. 5 from complications of pancreatic cancer, many people felt a sense of personal loss for the Apple co-founder and former CEO. Jobs played a key role in the creation of the Macintosh, the iPod, iTunes, the iPhone, the iPad — innovative devices and technologies that people have integrated into their daily lives. Jobs detailed how he created those products — and how he rose through the world of Silicon Valley, competed with Google and Microsoft, and helped transform popular culture — in a series of extended interviews with Walter Isaacson, the president […]
THE BIGGER PICTURE: What Is The Difference Between The ‘Tacony Dungeon’ And For-Profit Prisons? Not That Much
RELATED: Investigators are working to discover the extent of the alleged scheme after finding more than 50 Social Security cards, power of attorney documents and other such forms. The suspects may have been taking in the downtrodden and disabled for their Social Security checks, then holding them captive in wretched conditions without enough to eat or drink, police say. MORE RELATED: By the end of 2010, the United States was home to 25 percent of the world’s inmates, with roughly 2.4 million people behind bars and over seven million under “correctional supervision.” In any given year, 13 million people pass […]
DEMOCRACY FOR SALE: Everything Must Go!
POLITICO: Good news for rich people, corporate power players and labor bosses who want to buy some real influence with members of Congress: It just got a lot easier. Many voters assume it’s always been easy to buy influence with lawmakers: Send a few contributions their way and suddenly, you get special treatment. But the fact is, that’s pretty rare. Up until recently, individuals could give a couple thousand bucks to candidates or $5,000 to political action committees each election, while companies and labor unions could give $5,000 — but only through their PACs. For members raising millions of dollars each […]
EARLY WORD: Bubba Agonistes
[Portrait by CHUCK CLOSE] On Saturday, October 29 at 12:30 PM, Occupy Philly will march from 15th and Market to Temple University where William Jefferson Clinton will be speaking on behalf of Mayor Nutter’s re-election. They will be standing up for all the American workers who have lost their jobs as a result of The North American Free Trade Agreement, which was signed by then-President Clinton. H Ross Perot, then a wild card third party candidate, warned that if NAFTA was signed there would be ‘a giant sucking sound’ where American jobs used to be and we all laughed. But […]
INSTANT KARMA: Khadafy Sodomized With A Knife
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS: The rebels who captured Moammar Khadafy visited a final humiliation on the brutal Libyan dictator while dragging him from a drainage pipe to his doom – they tortured him with a knife, disturbing new footage revealed Monday. Graphic footage released Monday by GlobalPost.com shows a rebel jabbing a helpless Khadafy in the backside with what appears to be a U.S.-made combat knife called a BK&T – and which the Libyans called a “Bicketti.” Khadafy, who used rape to terrorize political opponents, appears bloodied and terrified. And screams in Arabic can be heard amid the vengeful cries […]
LIAR LIAR: Mitch McConnell Is An Awful, Awful Man
[Illustration by RUSS WHITE] POLITICO: In an interesting policy-political joust Sunday with CNN “State of the Union” host Candy Crowley, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell stuck by his assertion that stopping federal funding to stave off local police, teacher and firefighter layoffs is the right thing to do – and that federal regulations are the country’ top economic problem. Last week, McConnell and fellow Republicans, along with a few Democrats scuttled a measure supported by President Barack Obama that would have pumped $35 billion to cash-starved localities. “I’m sure Americans do — I certainly do — approve of firefighters and police,” the […]
ARCADE FIRE (FEAT. NEIL YOUNG): Helpless
PREVIOUSLY: In a more accurate world, if you looked up anthemic in the dictionary, you would invariably find a picture of the Arcade Fire. Rousing, heartfelt and everyone-can-sing-along have been, heretofore, the hallmarks of the Montreal band’s recorded output. The just-released The Suburbs, which largely eschews the fist-pumping chorales of previous outings in favor of low-boil brooding, may well change all that. But Monday night at the Mann Music Center The Arcade Fire got back to what they do best: passionately pounding out sweeping, densely-layered, stadium-shaking soundtracks for people who have long ago made peace with the fact that sooner […]
INCOMING: Psychotic Reactions & Carburetor Dung
A Q&A with Cheltenham resident/Delaware Valley College professor Stephen Tow, author of this just-published definitive history of grunge. Tow will be reading at UPenn’s bookstore tomorrow night. Look for it tomorrow on a Phawker near you!
TONITE: Sister Act
Girls Rock Philly, The Friends of Rosetta Tharpe and The Pennsylvania Historical & Museum Commission are proud to present the dedication of an official State Historical Marker commemorating Sister Rosetta Tharpe’s Philadelphia home with a free screening of the BBC documentary “Godmother Of Rock N’ Roll: Rosetta Tharpe” tonight at 7:30 in the auditorium at the Central Library, 1901 Vine St, Phila, PA 19103. PREVIOUSLY: Sister Christian Gets Her Due PREVIOUSLY: SEE THAT MY GRAVE IS KEPT CLEAN: 35 Years After Death, Sister Rosetta Tharpe Finally Gets A Headstone