Remarks of President Barack Obama—As Prepared for Delivery The Way Forward in Afghanistan and Pakistan United States Military Academy at West Point December 1, 2009 Good evening. To the United States Corps of Cadets, to the men and women of our armed services, and to my fellow Americans: I want to speak to you tonight about our effort in Afghanistan – the nature of our commitment there, the scope of our interests, and the strategy that my Administration will pursue to bring this war to a successful conclusion. It is an honor for me to do so here – […]
Search Results for: valley of the shadow
MAILBAG: California Dreamin’
EDITOR’S NOTE: The following was posted in the COMMENTS section last night by Bdogg. I have been living in the 215 for a stretch now & you know what I rep…i’m a L.a nigga & all that hateing add up to nothing. I had some run ins wit philly niggaz since I been here & i’m still standing, had 2 put a lil work in but let me stop becausa a nigga aint fin ta snitch on himself & no disrespect but philadelphia is a playground compared to L.a even tho philly was the murder capitol for a couple of […]
The First Time I Got High…
BY JAMES DOOLITTLE I was always the new kid. By the time I reached the 7th grade, I had lived in four states, gone to three different parochial schools and had an encyclopedic knowledge of the Star Wars universe – which for the era, served me with kindling for conversation starters, so handy when it came to working my way through the bottom rungs of a new district’s social ladder. That was the thing about Bobby. He didn’t know Star Wars from Battle Beyond the Stars. He didn’t read comic books, didn’t collect baseball cards and sure as hell wasn’t interested in playing nice. I was […]
YOU HEARD IT HERE FIRST: Crips! Bloods! Oh My!
ASSOCIATED PRESS: A new report shows the notorious Bloods street gang has a firm grip on the New Jersey prison system. The State Commission of Investigation report released today shows the Bloods and other street gangs run their crime operations from inside prisons with ease. The report shows drugs and smuggled cell phones are plentiful. The panel calls for statewide reforms, including better security inside prisons and stronger management of inmates’ money. The commission says inmates who want to take advantage of rehabilitation services and re-entry programs deserve protection against gang violence. MORE PREVIOUSLY ON PHAWKER: Last summer a former […]
REWIND 2008: The Year In Obama
[EDITOR’S NOTE: New and improved, with more content than ever!] Look! Up in the sky! It’s a bird! It’s a plane! No, it’s Obama in the White House, the Democrats in control of Congress and the motherf*king Republicans down in flames. If this is a dream, we don’t wanna wake up. Join with us now as we stroll down the memory lane of our in-house commentary and analysis on the 2008 Presidential election (for our complete coverage CLICK HERE). Like Same Cooke prophesied in 1963, a change has come. Truly a once in a lifetime moment in this American life. […]
PAPERBOY: Special ‘Men Behaving Badly’ Edition
BY DAVE ALLEN Like time, news waits for no man. Keeping up with the funny papers has always been an all-day job, even in the pre-Internets era. These days, however, it’s a two-man job. That’s right, these days you need someone to do your reading for you, or risk falling hopelessly behind and, as a result, increasing your chances of dying lonely and somewhat bitter. That’s why every week, PAPERBOY does your alt-weekly reading for you. We pore over those time-consuming cover stories and give you the takeaway, suss out the cover art, warn you off the ink-wasters and steer […]
PHAWKER EXCLUSIVE: The Man Who Howled Wolf
BY JON MICHALS The reason for my weekend trip to Columbus, Ohio was twofold; one to give Ohio a purple nurple for its role in recent elections, two to see Tom Waits. Both missions accomplished. Boo Ya! I made the 7 hour drive out with my friend Mike and this little Chihuahua named Carlos who had some sort of skin disease (don’t ask). Tom came into Columbus, Ohio and literally took over the town for the night. Every bar you went to was playing Tom songs. Every dude in town was a bearded thirty something that you knew was […]
Q&A: It’s Too Late To Fall In Love With Sharon Tate
BY JONATHAN VALANIA Meet Roza Frykowska, 26, a recent emigre from Lodz, Poland. She is a barista at Cafe Ole in Old City. She is also an up and coming photographer, and recently started shooting for Suicide Girls. All of that would make her interview-worthy in and of itself in our book, but wait, it gets better, or worse, actually. Roza’s grandfather, the filmmaker Wojtech Frykowski, came to America in the late ’60s to establish a career in Hollywood, at the behest of his dear friend, Roman Polanski. Wojtech and his then-girlfriend, Abigail Folger, heiress to the Folger coffee fortune, […]
HEAR YE: Love Forever Changes
ROCK SNOB ENCYLOPEDIA: Baroque, psych-rock opus by the band Love; a Technicolor shapshot of L.A. circa 1967, a time and place awash in orange-sky sunshine and dark shadows. From 1965 to 1966, Love ruled the Sunset Strip, with enough record industry pull to get the Doors a record deal. They started the hipster Burt Bacharach appreciation society 30 years before Elvis Costello and Austin Powers via their gnarly, garage-stomp cover of “My Little Red Book.” Led by Arthur Lee–a charismatic frontman, gifted composer and hippie fashion plate who would later claim that Jimi Hendrix stole his look–Love recorded two albums, […]
HEAR YE: Brighter Than Creation’s Dark
Now playing on Phawker Radio! Why? Because love you, ya big dummy! BY ED KING ROCK EXPERT I dodged a bullet recently after having applied some of my tough love to the latest platter from The Raconteurs. Maybe you heard. A handful of Jack White’s biggest fans jumped me in a cubicle, took a red pencil to my draft — marking Roman at each instance of boldfaced text. “It’s my editor’s idea of a parody of a gossip column!” I pleaded, but that wouldn’t stop them. They called me names then shoved their iPods in my face, making me recite […]
“There’s a common loneliness that just sprawls from coast to coast. It’s like a common disjointed identity crisis. It’s the dark, warm narcotic American night I just hope I’m able to touch that feeling before I find myself one of these days parked on Easy Street.” –TOM WAITS, 1976
THE MAN WHO HOWLED WOLF TEXT BY JONATHAN VALANIA/PHOTOS BY CHRISTIAN LANTRY The Astro is a broken-down, drunk motel located about an hour north of San Francisco in Santa Rosa, near the arid, wine-growing region of the Sonoma Valley. It’s Tom Waits country – he lives somewhere around here, although exactly where remains a closely guarded secret. MAGNET booked a room at the Astro because the price is right, but upon closer inspection, it’s the ideal setting to await an audience with the man who elevates the down and out in song. The bard of boardinghouse madrigals. The man who […]
War Pig Watch: Blackwater Is About As ‘Green’ As A Golden Shower
Excepting St. Paddy’s Day, when everyone pees green. Check this shit out: You may have heard of Blackwater USA. They’re the shadowy, Virginia-based soldier-for-hire company with roots in the U.S. military intelligence community. It has reaped untold millions in Pentagon and Homeland Security contracts since the advent of the Bush administration, from the fires of Fallujah to the floodwaters of New Orleans. Simply put, Blackwater USA is not the kind of company you’d expect to get behind the Green Party, with its far-left platform that ostensibly seeks to pull the United States out of Iraq and end the type of […]