BY REBECCA GOODACRE When I told people I was spending a year abroad studying in America, more specifically at Temple University in North Philadelphia, more than a few looked at me with slightly raised eyebrows and asked “Are you going to be safe?” I just brushed it off and made a few lame jokes about joining the Crips and getting myself a Smith and Wesson loyalty card. However, being a 5’5 white middle class girl from rural England, neither of these suggestions had any real viability, and so my friends and family just shook their heads and began worried aloud. I come […]
RIP: The Last Living Louvin Brother Dead At 83
NEW YORK TIMES: Resolutely traditional in approach, Charlie Louvin and his brother, who died in an automobile accident in 1965, were proponents of the high, lonesome sound of the southern Appalachian Mountains, where they grew up. Some of their best-known recordings were updates of foreboding antediluvian ballads like “In the Pines” and “Knoxville Girl.” Other material centered on the wholesome likes of family and religion, including “The Christian Life,” an original that later appeared on “Sweetheart of the Rodeo,” the landmark Byrds album featuring the singer Gram Parsons. Alternative rock acts like Elvis Costello and the band Uncle Tupelo (which […]
MUST SEE TV: James Franco On The Daily Show
The Daily Show With Jon Stewart Mon – Thurs 11p / 10c The Daily Show on Facebook Freshly-nominated for an Oscar for his role as a hiker who gets his hand stuck under a rock and has to cut it off to survive, James Franco gets his hand stuck in the mini-fridge in the Green Room of the Daily Show while reaching for a Snickers and is about to cut it off before, mercifully, Jon Stewart intervenes with some common sense.
UNSTOPPABLE: Duck Boats To Re-Take Delaware
INQUIRER: Just hours after the city rejected a plan Tuesday to move the duck boats to the Schuylkill, the company that operates them said it plans to return to the Delaware River, the site of a July 7 accident that killed two Hungarian tourists. There appear to be few hurdles in the way – at least for now. The Coast Guard has cleared Ride the Ducks, the Georgia company that runs the business, to resume operations on the Delaware. Joseph Forkin, vice president of the Delaware River Waterfront Corp. (DRWC), which holds the lease for the ramp the ducks use, […]
New Line Of Marijuana Soda To Debut In Colorado
TIME: A company based in Soquel, Calif., has created a new line of soda pot — or, marijuana soda — that it plans to launch in Colorado in February. Canna Cola isn’t the first marijuana soda on the market, but its designer Clay Butler, who said he has never used marijuana or smoked a cigarette but is a “firm believer that adults have an inalienable right to think, eat, smoke, drink, ingest, decorate, dress any way they choose,” told the Santa Cruz Sentinel that his beverage collection will be distinguished by marketing. “You look at all the marijuana products out […]
SCRAPPLE TV NEWS: With Your Host AP Ticker
This week, AP discusses explains how West Philly High School student Brandon Ford got invited to sit with the First Lady for the State of The Union address, the Gosnell abortion horror show, and the Onion coming to town. Also, he explains why the U.S. will not be able to indict or extradite Wikileaks’ Julian Assange and pays tribute to his old pal Don Kirshner of Don Kirshner’s Rock Concert fame.
REALITY CHECK: Taco Bell Sued For Falsely Advertising Mysterious Meat-Like Substance As Beef
FOX NEWS: The suit against the YUM-brands chain also has a “beef” with the company’s advertising, charging its claims of using “seasoned ground beef” or “seasoned beef” in its food products is false. According to the suit filed by the Alabama law firm Beasley, Allen, Crow, Methvin, Portis & Miles, the YUM-brands owned chain is using a meat mixture that contains binders and extenders, and does not meet the minimum requirements set by the U.S. Department of Agriculture to be labeled as “beef.” Attorney Dee Miles said the meat mixture contained just 35 percent beef, with the remaining 65 percent […]
EARLY WORD: The Dismemberment Plan And I
BY DAVE ALLEN Every show begins the same way: “We’re the Dismemberment Plan from Washington, D.C.” The history section of the band’s website provides a helpful elaboration: “The Dismemberment Plan was based in, and very much a natural result of, Washington, D.C.” It makes sonic sense: the Plan brought together the jazzy cut-ups and frenetic energy of Fugazi and other D.C. punk acts, the glittering synths and deep bass of go-go, the driving percussion and MC-like delivery that both styles featured, and made you dance to it. When I discovered the band, I was based in rural Frederick County, Maryland, […]
NPR FOR THE DEAF: We Hear It Even When You Can’t
FRESH AIR Our universe might be really, really big — but finite. Or it might be infinitely big. Both cases, says physicist Brian Greene, are possibilities, but if the latter is true, so is another posit: There are only so many ways matter can arrange itself within that infinite universe. Eventually, matter has to repeat itself and arrange itself in similar ways. So if the universe is infinitely large, it is also home to infinite parallel universes. Does that sound confusing? Try this: Think of the universe like a deck of cards. “Now, if you shuffle that deck, there’s just […]
LYKKE LI: Get Some
She plays the TLA on May 16th.
TONIGHT: State Of The Union B-I-N-G-O
Tonight, head over to the National Constitution Center to, um, play bingo? Why, yes! The Center will be hosting a FREE State of the Union Address viewing party from 7:30 to 10 PM. The night’s entertainment includes a pregame of Constitutional Quizzo and a “Lurid Lives of the Founding Fathers” tour of Signers’ Hall — which we can only imagine will be full of sexual intrigue, fallen horses, depression, gout, and maybe even syphilis! Attendees receive free access to all Center exhibitions, including the featured “Art of the American Soldier” show — an impressive collection of over 15,000 paintings and […]
PENTAGON SOURCES: U.S. Investigators Unable To Establish A Connection Between Manning And Assange
[Photo by DEVOLVE] THE GUARDIAN: US investigators have been unable to find evidence directly linking WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and Bradley Manning, the army private suspected of passing on confidential documents to the whistleblowing website, according to a report last night. Jim Miklaszewski, NBC News’s chief Pentagon correspondent, reported sources inside the US military as saying they could detect no contact between Manning and Assange. If accurate, then US authorities have no realistic chance of successfully prosecuting or extraditing Assange for the leak of thousands of classified documents. MORE RELATED: Manning, a 23-year-old Army private suspected of passing thousands of […]
WILL BUNCH: If You Knew Keith Olbermann Like I Do
WILL BUNCH: I went to high school with Keith Olbermann; in fact he was the first editor, on our school newspaper, that I ever worked for (I’m about 10 days older than Olbermann, but he had skipped two grades ahead of me — even his enemies have never said the guy isn’t smart!). So we knew each other somewhat, way back when, and then about seven or eight years ago we became occasional email buddies; I’ve also been a guest on Countdown twice. So when I watched Olbermann on MSNBC, there’s always been an element of “I knew him when” […]