SLATE: Once upon a time, you had to be a person to assert a right to personal privacy. But more and more it seems that the demand for personal privacy flows to large blurry advocacy groups and even larger, blurrier corporations. This trend would be alarming under any circumstances. As it happens, individual privacy rights for real humans seem to be shrinking at the same time corporate privacy rights are expanding. […] The Supreme Court has now agreed to hear a case in which AT&T prevailed in its efforts to evade a Freedom of Information Act request because Exemption 7(C) […]
BACK IN BLACK: Still Amy After All These Years
NEW YORK MAGAZINE: The usually upbeat Harper’s Bazaar got WiHo for their November issue, which also includes interviews with Michelle Obama and Christina Hendricks, and their profile of her reads like one of the most honest to have run in the magazine in some time. Maybe they couldn’t resist sharing the less flattering moments of their time with her because being on set with her was, well, like this: Just before Winehouse goes to change for the next shot, I see her gulping down a big glass of wine. “Not,” she says aloud, “that I’m a rock-star alkie.” I have […]
SCUM DOG BILLIONAIRE: Web Site Welches On $1 Million Reward For The Obama Streaker
INQUIRER: The billionaire has thrown the streaker a bone. The Beverly Hills mogul, who promised $1 million to the first person to bare all in front of President Obama, will give the unemployed painter a payout. It’ll just be much smaller than expected. Alki David, the heir to a shipping fortune, is calling it a “generous consolation prize.” Others might call it “shrinkage.” David will give Juan Rodriguez enough cash to cover six-months rent on the naked runner’s Staten Island apartment, said an attorney to Rodriguez. David will also pay for some of the cost of medical treatment for Rodriguez’s […]
EARLY WORD: Philadelphia Uber Alles
BY ARTHUR SHKOLNIK In 1978, three budding musicians (and one complete lunatic) began playing casual punk shows throughout San Francisco’s North Beach area. That band was The Dead Kennedys and little did they know the music they produced would propel them down a long and arduous path to worldwide notoriety. The DKs officially broke up a year before I was born in 1986, when creative disputes between vocalist Jello Biafra and guitarist East Bay Ray led to a split between the musicians and Biafra, who served not only as the primary lyricist and voice of the band, but also as […]
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 […]
CONCERT REVIEW: Deerhunter At The Starlight
BY PELLE GUNTHER It was hard not to be excited as we walked into the large, disco-inspired interior of the Starlight Ballroom. The ceiling, adorned with such a variety of party lights, mirror balls, and strange bubble-making machinery, was show enough. This came in handy because I spent the first two acts staring upwards with fingers pressed against my ears as they were torn to shreds by what can only be described as auditory execution. It was like being dragged by your eardrums down a sidewalk covered in screechy treble, overly aggressive bass, mediocre looping and probably every “airy synth […]
STUDY: 75% Of Tweets Are Ignored
NETWORK WORLD: If a Tweet is posted on the Web and nobody sees it, is it worth the bother? That’s essentially the question social media analytics company Sysomos posed in a survey of 1.2 billion posts made over the past 2 months and found that 71% of the posts from the Twitter microblogging site elicited neither a retweet nor reply. “When a tweet generates a reply (aka @) or a retweet (aka RT), it suggests the tweet has resonated enough with someone that it sparks a conversation or encourages someone to share it with their followers,” the company writes. Of […]
PANDER BEAR: Gay Bashing Anti-Porn Paladino Sent Around Smutty XXX Emails While Son Ran Gay Bars
SALON: WNYMedia, based in western New York state, is the outlet that way back in April first detailed Paladino’s habit of emailing his favorite racist jokes and hardcore porn to a select group of dozens of friends and acquaintances. The folks at WNY have now taken the opportunity of Paladino’s attack on pornographers to post more of his mass emails (NSFW and possibly NSFH link here). Among the areas covered: lactation, bestiality, squirting. Sample subject line: “2 Chicks Turning up the heat – XXX.” Sample commentary from Paladino: “awesome.” MORE WNYMEDIA: Since Carl decided to make an issue of “pornographers and perverts” who […]
UPDATE: Goal Posts Moved On Obama Streaker
[Photo by MATT ROURKE/AP] INQUIRER: Alki David, a sometime B movie actor and an heir to an immense shipping fortune, is now demanding that the White House confirm Obama saw Rodriguez dash by in his birthday suit. The White House has so far refused to comment on what David has called a “prank.” And it’s unlikely that it ever will do so. “There’s no need or reason for the White House to accommodate the personal desires of another,” said Martha Kumar, a professor at Towson State University in Maryland who specializes in presidential communications. “In a time when we have […]
NPR FOR THE DEAF: We Hear It Even When You Can’t
[Click image to enlarge] FRESH AIR In the Oct. 18 issue of The New Yorker, historian Sean Wilentz examines “how extremist ideas held at bay for decades inside the Republican Party have exploded anew — and why, this time, party leaders have done virtually nothing to challenge those ideas, and a great deal to abet them.” Fox News host Glenn Beck addresses the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington, D.C., on Feb. 20. Historian Sean Wilentz says “there are polls that Tea Party members respect Beck more so than anyone else, even Sarah Palin, and that they consider [Beck] not […]
Kennett Square Man’s Japanese-Style ‘Detergent Suicide’ Is An Increasingly Popular Way To Go
INQUIRER: A 30-year-old Kennett Square man used a deadly mixture to create hydrogen sulfide inside his vehicle and end his life Monday, authorities said. The man, who has not been identified by police, became the first reported Chester County victim of a method of suicide being reported “with alarming frequency,” said Tom Glass, the county’s hazardous materials coordinator. Glass said the practice of creating this type of gas originated in Japan in 2008 but has been used increasingly in the United States. In March, similar incidents were found in Bucks and Lehigh Counties, he said. It has been called “detergent […]
WORTH REPEATING: Insane Christ Posse
THE GUARDIAN: ICP have been going for 20 years, always wearing clown make-up, which looks slightly lumpy because it’s painted over their goatees. They’ve been banned from performing in various cities where juggalos have been implicated in murders and gang violence. ICP have a fearsome reputation, fostered by news reports showing teenagers in juggalo T-shirts arrested for stabbing strangers and lyrics like “Barrels in your mouth/bullets to your head/The back of your neck’s all over the shed/Boomshacka boom chop chop bang.” All of which made Violent J’s announcement a few years ago really quite astonishing: Insane Clown Posse have this […]
UNCONSTITUTIONAL: Federal Judge Issues Worldwide Injunction Against ‘Don’t Ask Don’t Tell’
ASSOCIATED PRESS: A federal judge issued a worldwide injunction Tuesday immediately stopping enforcement of the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, suspending the 17-year-old ban on openly gay U.S. troops. U.S. District Judge Virginia Phillips’ landmark ruling also ordered the government to suspend and discontinue all pending discharge proceedings and investigations under the policy. U.S. Department of Justice attorneys have 60 days to appeal. Pentagon and Department of Justice officials said they are reviewing the case and had no immediate comment. The injunction goes into effect immediately, said Dan Woods, the attorney who represented the Log Cabin Republicans, the gay […]