[Illustration by TIM DURNING] Dead Men Do Tell Tales Wed. October 13 8 PM Pen & Pencil Club 1522 Latimer St. Philadelphia, PA 215-731-9909 FREE There is an old saying that goes: under every mile of railroad track is a dead Irishman. Locally speaking this is almost literally true. Out near Malvern, under mile 59 of what was then the Pennsylvania Railroad and is today SEPTA’s R-5 line, lie the bodies of 57 Irish railroad workers. What killed them remains mystery that — 178 years later — appears to be on the verge of being solved. The official record says […]
CINEMA: Dead Man Talking
PATRIOT NEWS: R.Budd Dwyer pulled a revolver from the manila envelope. “This will hurt someone,” he cautioned reporters packed into Room 129 of the state Finance Building. As they pleaded with Dwyer, he waved them back with his free hand. Pennsylvania’s treasurer — fractured by fraud, racketeering and bribery convictions — had called the news conference on this snowy Thursday morning to proclaim his innocence for the last time. Then, with television cameras rolling, he shoved the gun’s six-inch barrel into his mouth. Almost 24 years since Dwyer’s public suicide on Jan. 22, 1987, the day remains a polarizing event […]
FAIR IS FAIR: Pay The Obama Streaker
AOL NEWS: The former homeless man who bared it all at a presidential rally to win $1 million says he needs the money for three children and a sister. He’s a fan of President Barack Obama and would even donate some of his winnings to the commander in chief’s favorite charity. Streaker Juan Rodriguez said he has no regrets, even though the fate of the prize is up in the air and the stunt in Philadelphia got him arrested. “My family needs the money, my sister needs an operation and it’s not cheap,” Rodriguez, 24, said Monday outside the Philadelphia […]
WHAT HE SAID: On The Mendacity Of Hope
HARPERS: Former Harper’s Magazine editor Roger D. Hodge has just published what may well be the definitive critique of the Obama presidency from the left: The Mendacity of Hope: Barack Obama and the Betrayal of American Liberalism. I put six questions to him about his new book. 1. White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs recently derided liberal critics of the Obama Administration as the “professional left.” Was he talking about you? What do you make of this line of attack? I’m not sure Gibbs has a coherent idea of what he means by the “left,” but if opposition to permanent […]
KA-CHING: School District Settles Student’s Spycam Lawsuit, Lawyer Takes Almost All The Money
ASSOCIATED PRESS: A Philadelphia-area school district agreed Monday to pay $610,000 to settle two lawsuits over secret photos taken on school-issued laptops.The Lower Merion School District admitted it captured thousands of webcam photographs and screen shots from student laptops in a misguided effort to locate missing computers.Harriton High School student Blake Robbins, then 15, charged in an explosive civil-rights lawsuit filed in February that the district used its remote tracking technology to spy on him inside his home. Later evidence unearthed in the case showed that he was photographed 400 times in a two-week period, sometimes as he slept in […]
BANKSY: The Dark Side Of The Simpsons
British street artist/graffitist/provocateur Bansky was invited to storyboard and direct the intro to last night’s episode of The Simpsons. Talk about biting the hand that feeds. Banksy takes us behind the cheery iridescent facade of the Springfield to show us the dark doings behind the scenes that make the show possible: dead-eyed Asian sweatshop laborers toil in a dank, dungeon-like factory, hand-draw each animated cell of the show and then dip it in a toxic goo, fluffy little kittens are fed into a chipper to make the stuffing for Bart Simpson dolls, a dead-eyed panda is yoked to a cart […]
GAMBLOR: Like Candy From Smoking Babies
PAUL DAVIES: I’m not a fan of casinos, regardless of the design. It is a bad, insidious business that preys on vulnerable people who can least afford to waste their money. But I was curious to check out the first casino in the poorest, big city in the country. While the outside didn’t grab me, the inside was even more depressing. Row after row of slot machines were dotted with people slouched in seats aimlessly pushing buttons. Most gamblers appeared to be over 50. Several had canes. A heavyset woman wheeled around an oxygen tank with tubes going to her […]
NOT WORTH REPEATING: Discredited Right Wing Ideologue Paints Obama As Terrorist-Liker In The Inky
CUP O’ JOEL: If you thought that new ownership might mean that Brian Tierney was no longer able to hand out op-ed contracts to right-wing cronies, well, don’t celebrate yet. Today’s Inky editorial page features Dinesh D’Souza — the guy behind the “Obama is a Kenyan anti-colonialist” idea that Newt Gingrich spouts. D’Souza is pretty well discredited even on the right; no reason for the Inky not to publish him! And hey, why not speculate that the president of the United States is happy to see terrorists at work! MORE DINESH D’SOUZA: If Obama shares his father’s anticolonial ideology, this […]
WORTH REPEATING: Douglas Coupland’s Radically Pessimistic Guide To The Next 10 Years
[Illustration by PHILIP BOND] 1) It’s going to get worse No silver linings and no lemonade. The elevator only goes down. The bright note is that the elevator will, at some point, stop. 2) The future isn’t going to feel futuristic It’s simply going to feel weird and out-of-control-ish, the way it does now, because too many things are changing too quickly. The reason the future feels odd is because of its unpredictability. If the future didn’t feel weirdly unexpected, then something would be wrong. 3) The future is going to happen no matter what we do. The future will […]
RIP: Solomon Burke, ‘The Bishop Of Soul,’ Dead At 70
CNN: Soul singer Solomon Burke has died at the age of 70 in the Netherlands, his Dutch representative said Sunday. Burke died of natural causes after arriving at Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport, his family said in a statement posted on Burke’s website. He was in town to perform for a sold-out show with the Dutch band De Dijk. “This is a time of great sorrow for our entire family. We truly appreciate all of the support and well wishes from his friends and fans. Although our hearts and lives will never be the same, his love, life and music will continue […]
EARLY WORD: Yes We (Still) Can, Can’t We?
WHAT: “Moving America Forward” Rally with President Obama and Vice President Biden WHO: President Barack Obama Vice President Joe Biden Musical performance by Philadelphia natives The Roots Pennsylvania Elected Officials and Community Leaders WHEN: Sunday, October 10th Doors Open at 3:00 PM Program starts at 4:00 PM WHERE: Park next to Robert Fulton Elementary School located at 60 E. Haines Street in the Germantown neighborhood of Philadelphia, PA RELATED: President Obama appears at a rally Sunday in Northwest Philadelphia to inspire his followers to elect Democrats to Congress and the Governor’s mansion. Here’s a look at the so-called enthusiasm […]
POLI SIGH: Christine O’Donnell Is Son Of Bozo (Sorta)
WILL BUNCH: Times reporter Mark Leibovich described Bozo – the TV clown made famous by Larry Harmon but ultimately franchised in the 1960s to local channels in dozens of cities, including Philadelphia – as Daniel O’Donnell’s “signature role,” […] the senior O’Donnell admits that it was hardly a “signature role” but a short-term gig; in fact, any full-time actor who played Bozo was required to attend a special clown school led by Harmon in Texas. “They gave me a book with 60 pages on how to be a ‘Bozo,’ ” O’Donnell recalled. Even though it was only a few weeks, […]