NEW YORK TIMES: A discovery like Young’s can disorient a wildlife biologist in the most thrilling way — if he or she takes it seriously, which has traditionally not been the case. Various forms of same-sex sexual activity have been recorded in more than 450 different species of animals by now, from flamingos to bison to beetles to guppies to warthogs. A female koala might force another female against a tree and mount her, while throwing back her head and releasing what one scientist described as “exhalated belchlike sounds.” Male Amazon River dolphins have been known to penetrate each other […]
THE PEACE CORPS DIARIES: Letter From Paraguay
BY ST. JOHN BARNED-SMITH In Paraguay, there are 230 Peace Corps volunteers, ma o meno. That group is expected to rise to 300 or so in the coming year as Pres. Obama is pumping a lot more money into the agency as a whole. Peace Corps in Paraguay is also one of the biggest programs in the country — only Ukraine has more volunteers. Within the 230, 49 are in my “G” or training group. We will be working in three different sectors — Health and Sanitation (mine), Early Education, and Urban Youth. The Health and Sanitation group has about […]
I Wanted A Public Option But All Got Was This T-Shirt
THE ATLANTIC: The signing ceremony for the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act on March 23rd was supposed to be a winning moment for President Obama. Unfortunately for the President, his historic victory after a 14-month legislative battle was momentarily overshadowed by Vice President Biden’s accidentally audible profanity. Many Americans were put off by the gaffe, a purportedly inappropriate slip during such a historic moment. Others were nonplussed. President Obama laughed off the comment, telling reported he wished he’d said it himself. Nobody issued an apology. A week later, the Democratic National Committee is trumpeting Biden’s gaffe in commemoration of […]
KEYSTONE AWARDS: Pimping Our Ride
[Illustration by ALEX FINE] The winners of the Pennsylvania Newspaper Association 2009 Keystone Awards were just announced and we are proud to report that Phawker honcho Jonathan Valania’s PW cover story on the ACORN fiasco (see below) has won first place for NEWS FEATURE STORY. Wish we could say that ACORN made out as well. For those Phawker readers that are NOT ink-stained wretches, understand that the Keystone Awards are sorta the statewide Grammys for journalism, so this is kind of a big deal. Congrats to all the other PW, CP and Philly media types that won. You can see […]
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 […]
NEWS CLUES: Like A Flash Mob Of Truth
15-Year-Old Arrested For Selling 7-Year-Old Stepsister For Gang Rape TRENTON, N.J. – Police raided a New Jersey public housing complex Thursday where officials say a 7-year-old girl was gang raped, and arrested 27 people on outstanding warrants. Trenton Mayor Doug Palmer said the pre-dawn sweep of Rowan Towers was planned before the girl’s attack. He said police hope the arrests will lead to tips that help them find those who assaulted the girl, otherwise the arrests were unrelated to the case. “This is only the beginning,” Palmer said. “We’re not going to rest until that area is cleaned up so […]
Judge Rules That NSA Spying Program Is Illegal
NEW YORK TIMES: A federal judge ruled Wednesday that the National Security Agency’s program of surveillance without warrants was illegal, rejecting the Obama administration’s effort to keep shrouded in secrecy one of the most disputed counterterrorism policies of former President George W. Bush In a 45-page opinion, Judge Vaughn R. Walker ruled that the government had violated a 1978 federal statute requiring court approval for domestic surveillance when it intercepted phone calls of Al Haramain, a now-defunct Islamic charity in Oregon, and of two lawyers representing it in 2004. Declaring that the plaintiffs had been “subjected to unlawful surveillance,” the […]
IN DENIAL: Koch Industries Has Spent Nearly $50 Million To Refute Climate Change Science
GREENPEACE: Billionaire oilman David Koch likes to joke that Koch Industries is “the biggest company you’ve never heard of.” But the nearly $50 million that David Koch and his brother Charles have quietly funneled to climate-denial front groups that are working to delay policies and regulations aimed at stopping global warming is no joking matter. Charles G. Koch and David H. Koch have a vested interest in delaying climate action: they’ve made billions from their ownership and control of Koch Industries, an oil corporation that is the second largest privately-held company in America (which also happens to have an especially […]
Yale Student Jumps Off The Empire State Building
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS: A young man took a fatal plunge from the 86th-floor observation deck of the Empire State Building on Tuesday night, crashing down on W. 34th St. and horrifying pedestrians, police said. The jumper managed to get past the 10-foot-high spiked fence ringing the observation deck and then disappeared below the outermost ledge around 6:15 p.m., police sources said. He landed with a sickening thud on a sidewalk along W.34th St., near a bank branch at the northeast entrance of the famed midtown skyscraper. “He came down in front of the Bank of America. Boom! It was […]
Old Media Praying That iPad Will Be A Gamechanger
REUTERS: Publishers are placing big bets that Apple Inc’s iPad will kick-start a commercially viable transition to digital magazines and newspapers — even though few executives have laid hands on the tablet ahead of launch. In fact, many publishers likely will not announce their iPad applications until after the tablet hits U.S. stores on Saturday, due to the many constraints that Apple has placed on allowing its partners access to the device. While media content is critical to the success of the iPad — a 9.7-inch tablet that looks like a large iPhone and aims to bridge the gap between […]
Mega Suit Targets 20,000 Bit Torrent Pirates
HOLLYWOOD REPORTER: In what may be a sign of things to come, more than 20,000 individual movie torrent downloaders have been sued in the past few weeks in Washington D.C. federal court for copyright infringement. A handful of cases have already settled, and those that haven’t are creating some havoc for major ISPs. The lawsuits were filed by an enterprising D.C.-based venture, the US Copyright Group, on behalf of an ad hoc coalition of independent film producers and with the encouragement of the Independent Film & Television Alliance. So far, five lawsuits have been filed against tens of thousands of […]
HOT RATS: Wire-Chewing Rodents Caused Explosion
INQUIRER: Rats chewing on an electrical cable triggered an explosion that blew off a half dozen manhole covers on Market Street in West Philadelphia, officials says. No one was injured in the blast about 10:35 p.m. but at least three cars were damaged by the heavy metal manhole covers on the 5600 block of Market Street. The chewing rats caused a short on a cable that feeds power to SEPTA’s Market-Frankford Elevated line and that in turn ignited a buildup of gas in the underground utility tunnel, officials said. MORE UPDATE: [Another] explosion sent a manhole cover flying into the […]
ERYKAH BADU: Window Seat
WARNING: Some nudity & JFK assassination references [via DALLAS MORNING NEWS] Q: To start, what can you tell me about the thought process behind the video for “Window Seat”? EB: The song “Window Seat” is about liberating yourself from layers and layers of skin or demons that are a hindrance to your growth or freedom, or evolution. I wanted to do something that said just that, so I started to think about shedding, nudity, taking things off in a very artful way. I am from the theater, and this is just a part of expression to us, a part of […]