ASSOCIATED PRESS: Investigators are trying to identify a white powder found inside a balloon at the downtown Philadelphia building that houses the historic Liberty Bell, a symbol of American independence. The Liberty Bell Center and part of a street next to it have been evacuated. A guard found the balloon inside the visitors entrance to the Liberty Bell Center on Thursday afternoon. FBI spokesman J.J. Klaver says testing is being done on the substance. He says it’s not explosive or radioactive but is what he calls a “biological substance.” Klaver says one type of biological substance is anthrax, an infectious […]
KITCHEN BITCH: Give Brussel Sprouts A Chance
BY MAVIS LINNEMANN Like any child, I hated Brussels sprouts. Detested them. They emitted that bizarre sulfur odor, tasted like garbage and looked like something the dog had thrown up. Even as an adult, I thought there was no way in hell you could ever get me to eat another Brussel sprout. Enter my roommate, Laura. Armed with a fistful of bacon and a killer recipe, Laura proved to me that these tiny cabbages deserve a place in my cooking repertoire. Since then, I’ve convinced many other avowed Brussels sprout haters to give them another go-round, and I dare say […]
REISSUED: Exiles On Mainstream
PW: Hangers-on aside, these were not the most ideal of recording conditions—the band hunkered down in a dank, sweaty basement for all-night sessions that were prone to power cuts and instruments detuning due to the oppressive humidity. They rarely saw daylight. You can hear it on the record as vocal tracks bleed into one another, the mix often muddy, Jagger frequently sounding as if he’s singing with a mouthful of molasses. And yet, out of chaos came a certain raffish, ragged glory, a triumphant last hurrah, before ennui, cynicism and nasty habits got the better of the band. Above all, […]
TWITCH HUNT: Is PA Attorney General Tom Corbett Abusing The Power Of His Office To Silence Critics?
TECH CRUNCH: Tom Corbett, current Attorney General of the state of Pennsylvania and Gubernatorial Candidate, has subpoenaed Twitter to appear as a Grand Jury witness to “testify and give evidence regarding alleged violations of the laws of Pennsylvania”. The subpoena orders Twitter to provide “any and all subscriber information” of the person(s) behind two accounts – @bfbarbie and @CasaBlancaPA – who have been anonymously criticizing the man on the popular micro-sharing service. MORE WIRED: Corbett is apparently treating his online critics as potential criminals, using his power as the state’s top law enforcement official to issue a grand jury subpoena. The subpoena does not state […]
EARLY WORD: It’s A Spring Clean For The Visqueen
RIOT ACT: Message To Garcia is a collection of Visqueen songs that represents a rock and roll epitaph to front woman Rachel Flotard’s father. After garnering countless fans, reviews, and playing shows with everyone from Guided By Voices, to Cheap Trick, Visqueen appeared to be on the verge of conquering the world. All of that changed when her father was diagnosed with terminal cancer. Their choice to be together for the duration of his illness would change her direction forever. Mr. George E. Flotard was a New York City steamfitter since the mid 1960’s. He fought and loved in Hell’s […]
STUDY: A Family Of Four Needs To Earn At Least $60,000 A Year To Make It In Philadelphia
INQUIRER: To survive in Philadelphia without food stamps or other government assistance, a family of four needs to make nearly $60,000 a year – a hard-to-fathom “sticker-shock” number that shows how expensive life has become. According to a study being released Thursday, two adults with one preschooler and one school-age child have to take in $59,501 a year to live on a bare-bones budget in the city. In 2008, the same family of four needed $53,611 to make it in Philadelphia. That’s the word from the Self-Sufficiency Standard for Pennsylvania, a highly respected University of Washington analysis that comes out […]
PHILADELPHIA WEEKLY: The Khyber Past
[Illustration by ALEX FINE] BY JONATHAN VALANIA FOR THE PHILADELPHIA WEEKLY On the afternoon of Nov. 26, 2008, death came ashore at the Indian coastal city of Mumbai in the form of 10 Pakistani assassins aboard a rubber dinghy. Young and cocky, the killers were dressed in bluejeans and cargo pants, pumped up on steroids and ripped from months of rigorous physical training. They brandished AK-47s and carried backpacks loaded with grenades and ammo. When fisherman asked them what was going on, the gunmen told them in fluent Marathi to, in effect, go fuck themselves. The fishermen reported the incident […]
NPR FOR THE DEAF: Obsolete Occupations
NPR: As computers and automated systems increasingly take the jobs humans once held, entire professions are now extinct. Click through the gallery to see examples of endangered professions, from milkman to telegrapher, and hear from people who once filled those oft-forgotten jobs. MORE
BIG BLACK: Journalists Threatened With Arrest For Filming BP Oil Washing Up On Gulf Shore
[click to enlarge] HUFFINGTON POST: A startling new image released by NASA today shows a massive column of oil extending out Southeast towards the open ocean. RELATED: When CBS tried to film a beach with heavy oil on the shore in South Pass, Louisiana, a boat of BP contractors, and two Coast Guard officers, told them to turn around, or be arrested. “This is BP’s rules, it’s not ours,” someone aboard the boat said. Coast Guard officials told CBS that they’re looking into it. As the Coast Guard is a branch of the Armed Forces, it brings into question how closely […]
TIME HAS COME TODAY: Sestak Beats Specter
JOE SESTAK: “I respect the man, but it is time. It is time for a different generation.” 9:47 PM: Sestak is currently up by 13,000 with 42% of the vote counted. Reportedly two thirds of the Philadelphia vote has already been counted. Specter’s only hope was the African American vote and it appears that he didn’t get it, or at least not enough of it to make a difference. Because this is the Internet, where being first trumps being right, we are going out on a limb here and declaring Joe Sestak the winner. 10:12 PM: Associated Press just called […]
EARLY WORD: I Am Not A Role Model
[photo by DUDLEY REED] John Waters | Role Models Free Library Of Philadelphia, Tuesday, June 1, 2010 at 7:30PM. Buy Tickets Online>> On Role Models–the new memoir from legendary American filmmaker, actor, and writer John Waters–author Augusten Burroughs comments, “How did somebody from a quiet Baltimore neighborhood grow up to become the outlandish, brilliant, and insane John Waters? Two words: Johnny Mathis.” In addition to the cult films he is famous for–among them Hairspray, Pink Flamingos, and Polyester–Waters has published two previous books, Shock Value and Crackpot, a collection of essays. A window into one of the most unique and […]
IN DENIAL: It’s Raining ‘Rent Boys’
NEW YORK TIMES: Rekers is no bit player in the cultuer wars. Though he’s not a household name, he should be. He’s the Zelig of homophobia, having played a significant role in many of the ugliest assaults on gay people and their civil rights over the last three decades. His public career dates back to his authorship of a theoretically scholarly 1982 tome titled “Growing Up Straight: What Families Should Know About Homosexuality.” (I say theoretically because many of the footnotes cite his own previous writings.) And what did Rekers think that families should know? By Chapter 2, he is […]