TIME: Comparing the move to an Orwellian plot, NBC reports that the city of Philadelphia is set to require bloggers to purchase something called a business privilege license. Not really making money from your blog? Doesn’t matter, says NBC, you still have to pay for the license. MORE CITY PAPER: For the past three years, Marilyn Bess has operated MS Philly Organic, a small, low-traffic blog that features occasional posts about green living, out of her Manayunk home. Between her blog and infrequent contributions to ehow.com, over the last few years she says she’s made about $50. To Bess, her […]
BUSH TAX CUTS: Let Them Eat Cake
PAUL KRUGMAN: The Obama administration wants to preserve those parts of the original tax cuts that mainly benefit the middle class — which is an expensive proposition in its own right — but to let those provisions benefiting only people with very high incomes expire on schedule. Republicans, with support from some conservative Democrats, want to keep the whole thing. And there’s a real chance that Republicans will get what they want. That’s a demonstration, if anyone needed one, that our political culture has become not just dysfunctional but deeply corrupt. What’s at stake here? According to the nonpartisan Tax […]
WORTH REPEATING: I Of Newt, Tongue Of Toad
ESQUIRE: In the twelve years since he resigned in defeat and disgrace, he has been carefully plotting his return to power. As 2012 approaches, he has raised as much money as all of his potential rivals combined and sits atop the polls for the Republican presidential nomination. But just who is Newton Leroy Gingrich, really? An epic and bizarre story of American power in an unsettled age. […] Back in the 1990s, she told a reporter she could end her husband’s career with a single interview. She held her tongue all through the affair and the divorce and even through […]
DISS INFORMATION: Rape Charges Filed Against Wikileaks’ Julian Assange, And Then Withdrawn
THE TELEGRAPH: Hail Julian Assange, international man of mystery, brave anti-war crusader, ultimate cyber-hero and now, according to his cultish followers, victim of a smear campaign orchestrated by the CIA, the Pentagon and other dark, oppressive forces. On Friday, Assange, who recently posted 90,000 unexpurgated United States military reports from Afghanistan on his Wikileaks.org website, was revealed by the Stockholm newspaper Expressen to be the subject of a Swedish arrest warrant on suspicion of rape. Less than 24 hours after the rape allegation emerged, Swedish prosecutors withdrew the warrant, citing a lack of evidence, while maintaining that Assange, an Australian, […]
Meet Jesse McReynolds, Iron Man Of Bluegrass
BY BRENDAN SKWIRE When I tell people I’ve never been to the Philly Folk Festival and never plan to, I invariably hear “but you’re a bluegrass fan, and there’s always at least one bluegrass band at the Philly Folk Fest.” This is true… but I’m picky about my music, and generally not willing to pony up the bucks to sit through a bunch of bands I don’t care for just to hear 45 minutes of music I like. But this year, I may have to make an exception, because bluegrass legend Jesse McReynolds is making his first appearance in Schwenksville […]
WORTH REPEATING: The RIAA Wasn’t Always Evil
VICE: Many, many people believe that the Recording Industry Association of America is a giant hairy tumor on the neck of the music business. Many people further feel that this disgusting malignancy has slowly spread its cancerous wrath across the public domain in recent years. Over the past decade, the RIAA has sued the following individuals for allegedly using illegal means to download music: a 66-year-old grandmother from Boston who was accused of nabbing thousands of rap songs even though her computer wasn’t capable of running the software she was supposedly using, a 12-year-old honors student in NYC who lived […]
RAWK TAWK: Q&A With Richard Thompson
BY ARTHUR SHKOLNIK Quintessential Englishman Richard Thompson has been pushing the boundaries of finger-style guitar since the mid-sixties, when he founded Fairport Convention as a teenager. Five decades and over 40 albums later, Thompson has proven himself a force not to be folked and he is consistently ranked as one of the top five living guitarists and one of the greatest songwriters in recent memory. His newest album, Dream Attic, is a collection of 13 new tracks recorded in real time during a series of West Coast shows. The music continues to emulate life through introspective lyrics and incandescent guitar […]
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 […]
VALLEY OF THE SHADOW OF DEATH: Exhuming The Old-Timey Mass Murder Mystery At Duffy’s Cut
[Illustration by TIM DURNING] “The past is never dead. It isn’t even past.” —William Faulkner BY JONATHAN VALANIA FOR THE PHILADELPHIA WEEKLY There is an old saying: Under every mile of railroad track is a dead Irishman. Locally speaking, this is almost literally true. Back in the 19th century, the Main Line, not to mention large stretches of the railroads in this part of the country, were built on the blood, sweat and tears of Irish Catholic immigrants, who back then commanded about as much respect as Mexican immigrant workers command today. Out near Malvern, under mile 59 of what […]
EARLY WORD: Dean Wareham Does Galaxie 500
EDITOR’S NOTE: Galaxie 500 remains very near and dear to our hearts. They made the late 80s sound like a passing sad daydream, which was pretty much how it felt at the time. Luna was fine, and sometimes great, but you you never forget your first love. We have interviewed Dean Wareham on numerous occasions over the years and always concluded the conversations with the eternal question: When is Galaxie 500 getting back together? He would sigh and respond with some slightly more polite and elegant variation of ‘don’t hold your breath.’ Friday night at the Troc he’s doing the […]
COMING ATTRACTION: Q&A With Will Oldham
He plays the Philadelphia Folk Festival on Friday under the nom de rock Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy. He HATES doing press, but we managed to get him on the horn and ask him, among other things, to confirm or deny that he does in fact sing the line “the smell of your box on my mustache” in the song “That’s What Our Love Is” from the recently-released The Wonder Show Of The World. (TMI alert!) He was just to the sort of thoughtful prickly pear everyone who has ever interviewed him says he is. Look for it Friday on a Phawker […]
REALITY CHECK: The ‘Ground Zero Mosque’
WILL BUNCH: This much is clear in the great national debate that continues to smolder in lower Manhattan: Never before has there been such a controversy over what to do with a former Burlington Coat Factory. But in 21st century America, few things are easy – not when the Islamic faith, memories of the 9/11 terror attacks or sound-bite politics are involved. And so, the once obscure proposal by a Muslim group called Cordoba House to build a community center, including a prayer space, at a site roughly two blocks from a corner of the former World Trade Center has […]
CORRUPT AND CONTENTED: Feds Raid Offices Of State Rep And Traffic Court Judge In South Philly
INQUIRER: FBI and IRS agents descended on the South Philadelphia office of State Rep. William F. Keller (D.-Phila.) and the home of Philadelphia Traffic Court Judge Robert Mulgrew this morning. FBI Special Agent J.J. Klaver confirmed agents from the two law enforcement organizations were at both locations, but declined to provide other details. He would not say if the agents were executing a search warrant. They were accompanied by uniformed Philadelphia police. Agents were also at Keller’s sporting goods store, K O Sporting Goods, at 2001 East Moyamensing Ave. where they were removing boxes of files and computers with tags […]