ASSOCIATED PRESS: A college student returning to school after the winter break fell victim to a prank at Philadelphia’s airport by a Transportation Security Administration worker who pretended to plant a plastic bag of white powder in her carryon luggage. The worker is no longer employed by the TSA after the incident this month, a spokeswoman said. Rebecca Solomon, 22, a University of Michigan student, wrote in a column for her campus newspaper that she was having her bags screened on Jan. 5 before her flight to Detroit when the employee stopped her, reached into her laptop computer bag and […]
MEDIA: Conan’s $500,000 F*ck You Farewell To NBC
[Illustration by ALEX FINE] According to ?uestlove, Tom Hanks’ walkout song on the finale of The Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien — the Beatles’ “Lovely Rita”, in honor of Hanks’ wife Rita Wilson — cost NBC $500,000. ?UESTLOVE: yo i hate spoiling but i will have you know that walk on song we just heard was half a milli. i know cause i got the list rate at nbc…tom’s walkon music on conan is on my “restricted” list—wow a $500,000 walkon song lol. [via TWITTER] CONAN O’BRIEN: “All I ask is one thing, and I’m asking this particularly of young […]
SIDEWALKING: Back In The Saddle
[Photo by JEFF FUSCO]
TONIGHT: Towering Babble
In case you passed out early in the 24-hour party cycle of this past New Year’s, you’ve got one more chance to kill it—tonight!—at the all-night, all-day performance of Eugene Ionesco’s The Bald Soprano. Originally scripted for an hour, Ionesco eventually chose to give his play meaning by looping it endlessly with pickled twists and interpretations, until it spirals into meaninglessness. Ionesco’s play holds an absurdist mirror up to the futility of human connection in the towering Babel of modern times, where non-sequiturs swarm and go viral and meaningful communication gets drowned out by the din of idle banter. Leave […]
DEENEY: DHS’s Trail Of Tears
BY JEFF DEENEY The most recent assault on institutional incompetence at DHS by the press comes this time from the Daily News in the form of a case study of sexual abuse against children placed into foster care by the agency. This information shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone familiar with how DHS resorted to removing children from homes en masse after scandal broke in 2007 about social workers, supervisors and even directors asleep at the wheel while children died on the agency’s watch. In a previous editorial I argued that increasing removals was an extremely unwise approach to […]
CINEMA: Children Of The Korn
THE WHITE RIBBON (2008, directed by Michael Haneke, 144 minutes, Germany) The school teacher’s narration at the opening of Michael Haneke’s high-art horror film The White Ribbon frames the story as a haunted memory. That perfectly describes how the winner last year’s Palme d’Or nestles in the memory a week after its viewing. The White Ribbon‘s deliberate rhythms and austere black and white images (courtesy of cinematographer Christian Berger) imprint themselves in the mind like a series of ancient daguerreotypes, evoking the fine arts while simultaneously resembling an Ingmar Bergman rebooting of the Children of the Corn franchise. The film’s […]
OLD CITY SHOOTER: The Defendent Is Presumed Innocent Until Proven Guilty In The Court Of Facebook
INQUIRER: Friends of Gerald Ung, the Temple University law student charged with shooting a Villanova University graduate six times in Old City last weekend, said yesterday that he is friendly, smart, and the opposite of a troublemaker. “Gerald is not a gun-happy, overstressed law student waiting to go postal,” one friend, Ernest Apaga, said in an e-mail. “He is extraordinarily gregarious and dynamic, and there is no doubt in my mind that his friends and professors at Temple are scurrying to figure out how to get him the proper legal counseling and funding he’ll need.” The man who was shot, […]
SUPREME COURT: The Defenders Of The Oligarchy
HUFFINGTON POST: By a 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court on Thursday rolled back restrictions on corporate spending on federal campaigns. The decision could unleash a torrent of corporate-funded attack ads in upcoming campaigns. WASHINGTON POST: The Supreme Court has opened the door to a new era of big and possibly shadowy election spending, rolled back anti-corruption laws and emboldened critics of fundraising limits to press on. In the middle of it all will be voters, trying to figure out who’s telling the truth. The court’s ruling Thursday lets corporate America start advertising candidates much as they market products and tell […]
COCKFIGHTING: Can’t We All Get Along?
INQUIRER: A North Philadelphia man was arrested last night after SPCA agents raided his home and allegedly found evidence of a cockfighting operation. Agents from the Pennsylvania SPCA confiscated 25 birds and a fighting ring from the basement of a house in the 2200 block of Orkney Street, said George Bengal, PSPCA chief of law enforcement. MORE
LOVE CHILD BLUES: Edwards Admits Paternity
CQ POLITICS: In a statement timed to preempt a new book by a former aide, John Edwards admitted paternity of a daughter with former mistress Rielle Hunter, despite his previous denials. MORE SALON: The former senator and presidential candidate admitted today that he is the father of former girlfriend Rielle Hunter’s daughter Quinn. The National Enquirer, which broke the story of the affair, had previously reported that Edwards was Quinn Hunter’s father. But even though he admitted to the relationship in the summer of 2008, Edwards had denied paternity until now. He’d also initially staged a fairly elaborate cover-up in […]
THE NEW PANIC: Plane Diverted To Philly After Jewish Teen Straps Prayer Device To Head
INQUIRER: A teenager strapping Jewish religious ritual prayer boxes to his head and arm caused a scare on a plane from New York to Kentucky this morning, prompting the pilot to land in Philadelphia, officials said. Authorities determined there was no threat and the 17-year-old boy and his 16-year-old sister, who live in White Plains, N.Y., were not held. Flight 3079, a U.S. Airways Express operated by Chautauaqa Airlines, was en route from New York’s LaGuardia Airport to Louisville about 8:15 a.m. when a flight attendant saw the youth putting on his tefillin, police said. Tefillin are leather boxes containing […]