NEW YORK TIMES: The Justice Department’s ethics office has recommended reversing the Bush administration and reopening nearly a dozen prisoner-abuse cases, potentially exposing Central Intelligence Agency employees and contractors to prosecution for brutal treatment of terrorism suspects, according to a person officially briefed on the matter. When the C.I.A. first referred its inspector general’s findings to prosecutors, they decided that none of the cases merited prosecution. But Mr. Holder’s associates say that when he took office and saw the allegations, which included the deaths of people in custody and other cases of physical or mental torment, he began to reconsider. […]
We Know It’s Only Rock N’ Roll But We Like It
SET THE CONTROLS FOR THE HEART OF THE SUN: Asteroid #4, Kung Fu Necktie, Last Night [Photo by TIFFANY YOON] BY WILL HANNAN Drugs make for better music. Whether you’re playing in a stoner metal three-piece ripping bongs and noodling on your Gibson or you’re in a throwback psychedelic band eating acid and drooling on a friend’s vinyl collection, the introduction of psychotropic substances will inevitably make your music more interesting. If you don’t trust me, take it from the two bands that played Kung Fu Necktie last night: The Asteroid #4 and Gondola. Gondola, a Sabbath-inspired bass, guitar, and […]
SEPTA GIRL: A Touch Of Evil
BY PHILLY GRRL The thing about night school is, you’re practically brain dead when you get out from class. A typical workday coupled with three mind-numbing hours of lectures can leave one in a daze. At least that’s the excuse I use when people ask me why I almost got myself killed on the subway this past Monday. Okay, that’s an exaggeration. I didn’t almost die. What I did do, however, was violate one of my number one SEPTA subway rule: Always exit in groups. I tend to get lost very easily when it comes to the orange line. I’ve […]
SUFJAN STEVENS: The BQE
ASTHMATIC KITTY: Back in October of 2007, Sufjan Stevens debuted The BQE — a visual and musical homage to the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway — at the Brooklyn Academy of Music’s (BAM) Howard Gilman Opera House in downtown Brooklyn. Originally commissioned by BAM for the Next Wave Festival, The BQE featured three simultaneous film projections, a 35-piece band and orchestra, and live hula hoopers for a 3-night run. One week following the performances, Sufjan and his orchestra went into the studio to record the soundtrack, but afterwards, feeling disenfranchised by the magnitude of the universe, Sufjan decided to shelve the project. Until […]
BRENDAN CALLING: Open Letter To Dom Pileggi
Dear Sen. Pileggi: I can call you Dom, right? Even as state senate majority leader, you’re still a public servant, answerable to me and everyone else in Pennsylvania, so I don’t mind being a little informal with the help. Thanks to your intransigence and obstruction holding up both the state and the city’s budget in the Pennsylvania State Senate, nonprofits are running out of money, the city’s cutting jobs and delaying police training, and counties from east to west are owed money. All because you missed YOUR deadline: and now everyone has to suffer because you’re in a pissing match […]
WORTH REPEATING: Why Is This Man Not Leading The Charge On White House Health Care Reform?
THE NATION: Something rather remarkable happened on Tuesday’s Morning Joe. Rep. Anthony Weiner of New York pointed out that the health insurance industry has no clothes, and Joe Scarborough, after first trying to spin it some gossamer threads, broke down and said, By God, you’re right, this emperor is a naked money-making machine! Well, he didn’t use those exact words, but Joe did seem to finally get that America has granted insurance companies the right to create bottlenecks in the financing of healthcare in order to extract profits out of the suffering of ordinary people–without providing any actual healthcare whatsoever. […]
CINEMA: A Little Of The Old Ultra-Violence
INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS (2009, directed by Quentin Tarantino, 153 minutes, U.S.) BY DAN BUSKIRK FILM CRITIC Inglourious Basterds is everything we’ve come to expect from a Quentin Tarantino film: Violent, talky and cartoonish. But shorn of English dialogue, taken out of its contemporary time frame, and re-routed across the Atlantic, away from American pop culture, Tarantino has found a way to recast his various obsessions to create his most assured work in a decade. It’s a welcome reminder that despite his often self-conscious smart-alecky aesthetic hijinks, at his best few directors can compete with Tarantino’s pure cinematic mastery. The advance word […]
MAILBAG: After Birther
Jonathan, You are a joke as a journalist. Obama IS HIDING SOMEHTING [sic] and not it is NOT because he is too busy with other things. He has spent $1.4 million to DONATED campaign funds to his lawyer that is fighting the DOZENS of lawsuits. He is either hiding something embarrassing, such as his biological father possibly being Frank Marshall Davis. Or, he is possibly hiding a foreign birth. Whatever it is, he IS HIDING SOMEHTING [sic] from the American people. Your casual attendance to this is obvious. Oh, and I am not a ‘birther’. Rather, I am a TRUTHER. […]
HOT DOC: Memo From Tierney
Best we can tell, this is the equivalent of telling your credit card company: “This debt I’ve accrued is way too high for me to ever to pay off, so how about I give you one fifth of what I owe you and we can call it even, hmmmkay?” The bad news is that shit don’t fly for people like you and me. The good news for the Inquirer/Daily News is that Brian Tierney ain’t people like you and me. PREVIOUSLY: A PRAYER FOR THE CITY: God Save The Philadelphia Inquirer And Daily News And All Who Sail On Them
NPR FOR THE DEAF: We Hear It Even When You Can’t
FRESH AIR Writer-director Robert Siegel wrote the screenplay for the acclaimed 2008 film The Wrestler; Patton Oswalt, the stand-up comic and actor, starred in CBS’s The King of Queens and provided the voice for Remy, the main character in Pixar’s food romance Ratatouille. Now the two have collaborated on a new film — a drama, not a comedy — called Big Fan, about an obsessive 35-year-old New York Giants fan. Oswalt’s character, Paul, works as a parking-garage attendant, lives with his mom, and finds an outlet for his passion — and a minor kind of celebrity — as a frequent […]
Police Release Sketch Of Immigrant Murder Suspect
WPVI: The suspect is described as a black man, between 19 and 21 years old. He is said to be skinny with dark skin, standing about six feet tall. He was wearing a blue baseball cap, and was wearing a green polo shirt with an orange polo logo, blue jeans and house slippers. MORE PREVIOUSLY: A Temple University student and West African immigrant was shot in an attempted robbery this morning in a Southwest Philadelphia park because he did not understand the gunman’s commands, police said. Mamadou Makadji, 22, was pistol-whipped and shot once in the chest around 1:12 a.m. […]
RENDELL: Don’t Mess With Bill
[Photo by MATT GOLDFINE] ASSOCIATED PRESS: “No more cuts!” Cosby declared at the beginning and end of a short speech that was part of a celebration marking the steady improvements in Pennsylvania students’ test scores in math and reading. The Philadelphia native, a well-known education advocate, joined Gov. Ed Rendell and educators at the event designed to put pressure on the state Senate’s Republican majority to support more money for public schools. “Ladies and gentlemen, is it that we don’t like children? I mean, what did these people ever do to you that you want to cut? They’re moving on […]
ARTSY: You Say It’s Your Birthday
“EPIC BIRTHDAY” Solo Exhibition: Photographer Ken Penn K E N C R E D I B L E August 15, 2009 through September 15, 2009 Amberella …sugary & sweet… Gallery & Boutique is pleased to present to you the delicious work of photographer Ken Penn… otherwise known as KENCREDIBLE! The Solo Exhibition, “EPIC BIRTHDAY”, opens August 15th, 2009 from 8-11pm to celebrate, most appropriately, the photographers actual birthday and show opening! With fashion photography being a strong focus of his work, Penn has worked with a long list of independent designers and models around the United States, Canada and Europe, […]