[Photo by JONATHAN VALANIA] EDITOR’S NOTE: This concert review of Gogol Bordello’s show at the Electric Factory last Wednesday somehow got stuck in the pipes of the Internets. Ordinarily, it would be far too after the fact to run a review at this late date, but we are going to make an exception because it’s Gogol fucking Bordello. Because, dammit, when we say we are going to review a Gogol Bordello concert, well, as God is our witness, that Gogol Bordello concert gets motherfucking reviewed! Our word is all we have. BY PELLE GUNTHER The Electric Factory almost guarantees a […]
HEALTH SCARE: Uninsured Climbs To 50 Million
ALTERNET: Last week the Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured issued a new report giving a grim assessment of the toll the recession and high unemployment has taken on the nation’s workforce: the number of uninsured rose to 50.0 million in 2009, an increase of 4.3 million. There are now nearly as many uninsured non-elderly people as those receiving Medicaid or other public insurance (such as CHIP, the children’s insurance program, Medicare and military/veterans coverage). MORE RELATED: Republican leaders in the new House say they’ll hold a vote next week to repeal President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul. The […]
KENSINGTON STRANGLER: Hell’s Angels
BY JEFF DEENEY The media discussion of the Kensington Strangler has at this point strayed pretty far from the essential questions, so I would like to try to bring it back to center. When I say the discussion has strayed from the essential questions and has stopped really informing media consumers I would point to Dave Davies’s unfortunate interaction with Mayor Nutter on WHYY last week. The intent here isn’t to beat up on Dave, because I think nearly all agree that he’s about the best we have going in terms of Philly reporters. But the fact that even Dave […]
UNEXPLAINED: All At Once 5,000 Black Birds Fell Out Of The Sky Over A One Mile Radius Of Arkansas
ASSOCIATED PRESS: Environmental service workers in the US have been picking up the carcasses of about 2,000 red-winged blackbirds that fell dead from the sky in a central Arkansas town. The birds had fallen on Friday night over a one-mile area of Beebe, 40 miles from Little Rock, and an aerial survey indicated that no other dead birds were found outside of that area. The workers from US Environmental Services started the clean-up on Saturday, and confirmed the last dead bird was removed at 11am on Sunday morning. Beebe mayor Mike Robertson said workers wore protective suits for the removal […]
REWIND 2010: Our Favorite Albums Of 2010
ALBUM OF THE YEAR ARCADE FIRE The Suburbs 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 and on The Suburbs, they continue passionately pounding out sweeping, densely layered, stadium-shaking soundtracks for people who have long since made peace with the fact that sooner or later the world will break your heart. If nothing else, Arcade Fire proved that the profound sense of loss – of innocence, of control, of loved […]
SEASONS GREETINGS: Auld Lang Syne, My Dears
Look for REWIND 2010: The Year In Music tomorrow at a Phawker near you.
REWIND 2010: The Year In Cinema
BY DAN BUSKIRK FILM CRITIC 2010! What a confounding year politically-speaking, and a similarly confused, bleak and exciting year for film as well. I can never quite get into movie critic character, striding down from the mountaintop and proclaim “The Twelve Greatest Films of the Year!” But here’s a dozen films I’d like to remember from 2010, realizing that the market ubiquity of successes like David Fincher’s The Social Network and Aronofsky’s Black Swan (both of which I really liked) will make those films unavoidable for the next decade. What could be more universal than a depiction of life after […]
PAPERBOY: Slow-Jamming The Alt-Weeklies
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 […]
WIKILEAKS: Glenn Greenwald Vs. Wired.Com
FOREIGN POLICY: I love a good blog fight as much as anyone, but after reading several thousand words of accusations and counter accusations being slung between Salon blogger Glenn Greenwald and Wired‘s Evan Hansen and Kevin Poulsen, I’m left scratching my head trying to figure out what, exactly, this particular dispute is all about. For those of you who haven’t been paying attention, first of all: congratulations. Second, here’s a quick synopsis: MORE BOING BOING: The smackdown started a few days ago with Greenwald reiterating his demand that Wired.com reveal more of the chat logs in which Pvt. Bradley Manning, […]
REWIND 2010: The Year In Phawker Interviews
Talk is cheap on the Internet, but at Phawker it’s totally free, baby — at least for you, dear reader. Trolling through the vast and dusty Phawker archives, we have dug up fat sack of conversations worth re-visiting: the always prickish-but-worth-it Will Oldham on authenticity, Americana and his testicles; the inimitable Black Francis susses out Doolittle for us; graphic artiste extraordinaire Charles Burns on the darkness within; author Hampton Sides discusses the banality of Martin Luther King assassin James Earle Ray’s evil; Dave Bielanko discusses Marah’s last chance power try; folk/rock legend Richard Thompson discusses Fairport Convention and reuniting with […]
Feds Launch Criminal Probe Into Christine O’Donnell
ASSOCIATED PRESS: A person with knowledge of the investigation says federal authorities have opened a criminal probe of Delaware Republican Christine O’Donnell to determine if the former Senate candidate broke the law by using campaign money to pay personal expenses. The person spoke on condition of anonymity to protect the identity of a client who has been questioned in the probe. The case, which has been assigned to two federal prosecutors and two FBI agents in Delaware, has not been sent to a grand jury. O’Donnell, who set a state record by raising more than $7.3 million in a tea […]
TRUTHY GRIT: The Case Against Billy The Kid
CBS NEWS: Descendants of Old West lawman Pat Garrett and New Mexico Territorial Gov. Lew Wallace are outraged that Gov. Bill Richardson is considering a pardon for Billy the Kid, saying Wallace never offered a pardon, and a petition seeking one is tainted because it comes from a lawyer with ties to Richardson. Sheriff Pat Garrett’s grandson J.P. Garrett and Wallace’s great-grandson William Wallace submitted their objections after Richardson set up a website last week to take public comment on the possibility of a posthumous pardon for the Kid on a murder indictment. The governor plans to make a decision […]
THE STINK AT THE LINC: Vikes Bag Birds 24-14
THE EAGLETARIAN: Eagles coach Andy Reid pulled no punches after his team’s shocking, 24-14 loss to the Minnesota Vikings on Tuesday night at Lincoln Financial Field. “It was a pathetic job. It was a complete tail-whipping” Reid said. “Terrible, terrible job. It wasn’t only the players. It was the coaches. It was me. It was terrible, in every phase. It was terrible. The whole offense was awful. “They [Vikings] came to play. We didn’t come to play. You gotta play, at all positions. You gotta play. [We had] penalties, missed assignments, too many people on the field, missed substitutions. Terrible. Absolutely […]