THE TELEGRAPH: Kimberley Vlaminck had insisted she dozed off after asking the tattooist for just three small stars – then woke in horror to find her face was covered. The Belgian blamed the Flemish-speaking tattooist for not being able to understand her French and English instructions. Amid a frenzy of media attention, she then said she would sue the tattoo artist, Rouslan Toumaniantz, for the £9,000 she needed for laser surgery to have them removed. She said after the tattooing last week: “It is terrible for me. I cannot go out on to the street. I look like a freak.” […]
ED MCHMAHON RIP: You Were Correct, Sir!
LOS ANGELES TIMES: Notwithstanding the dozen years of hosting “Star Search,” a role in the 1997 Tom Arnold sitcom “The Tom Show,” a high-profile Cash4Gold ad during the last Super Bowl and all that knocking on people’s doors in the name of the Publishers Clearing House, McMahon was a professional sidekick, a less-than-equal partner in an enterprise of which he was nevertheless a vital part: Thinking of Johnny, one proceeds quickly and naturally to Ed, who by dint of association was almost as famous as his boss — I say “almost” to include that fraction of the world that may […]
Barney Frank Files Bill To Decriminalize Marijuana
WBZ: A controversial law in Massachusetts could go national if Congressman Barney Frank gets his way. Frank has filed a bill that would eliminate federal penalties for personal possession of less than 100 grams of marijuana. It would also make the penalty for using marijuana in public just $100. “I think John Stuart Mill had it right in the 1850s,” said Congressman Frank, “when he argued that individuals should have the right to do what they want in private, so long as they don’t hurt anyone else. It’s a matter of personal liberty. Moreover, our courts are already stressed and […]
OUTRAGE: Families Of Dead Forced To Pay ‘Bullet Fee’
WALL STREET JOURNAL: When Mr. Alipour didn’t return home that night, his parents began to worry. All day, they had heard gunshots ringing in the distance. His father, Yousef, first called his fiancée and friends. No one had heard from him. At the crack of dawn, his father began searching at police stations, then hospitals and then the morgue. Upon learning of his son’s death, the elder Mr. Alipour was told the family had to pay an equivalent of $3,000 as a “bullet fee”—a fee for the bullet used by security forces—before taking the body back, relatives said. Mr. Alipour […]
CAN’T HAPPEN HERE: Why Iranians Took To The Streets After A Stolen Election, But Americans Did Not
[Illustration by ALEX FINE] BY JONATHAN VALANIA Iran, 2009. Millions take to the streets to protest what is widely perceived to be a stolen election, despite the prevailing threat of arrest, bodily harm and a body count that currently numbers a dozen protesters shot dead by government forces. And still, day after day, the Iranian people take to the streets to protest the gross violation of their democratic rights. Rewind. The year is 2000. The place is Florida in the immediate aftermath of a presidential election — Bush vs. Gore. The initial tally has Bush ahead by a mere 300 […]
CONCERT REVIEW: Top Five Things You Need to Know About the Old 97’s at the TLA Last Night
1) The Old 97’s would be a much more depressing band if Rhett Miller weren’t around. The structure of “An Evening With the Old 97’s,” as the show was billed, gave a unique insight into what half of the 97’s bring to the table: With no opening acts, first was a solo set by bassist Murry Hammond, who trudged through a dozen dirges that were about as cheery as a plane crash. “I’m all about the funerals,” he noted before one particularly depressing Carter Family cover. Next was a set of poppy love songs by lead singer Rhett Miller. While […]
Big Brother Moves To Lancaster, And Nobody Cares
LOS ANGELES TIMES: This historic town, where America’s founding fathers plotted during the Revolution and Milton Hershey later crafted his first chocolates, now boasts another distinction. It may become the nation’s most closely watched small city. Some 165 closed-circuit TV cameras soon will provide live, round-the-clock scrutiny of nearly every street, park and other public space used by the 55,000 residents and the town’s many tourists. That’s more outdoor cameras than are used by many major cities, including San Francisco and Boston. Unlike anywhere else, cash-strapped Lancaster outsourced its surveillance to a private nonprofit group that hires civilians to tilt, […]
GUARDIAN COUNCIL: Votes Counts In 50 Iranian Cites Exceeded The Number Of Registered Voters
NEW YORK TIMES: TEHRAN — Locked in a bitter contest with Iranians who say the presidential elections were rigged, the authorities have acknowledged that the number of votes cast in 50 cities exceeded the actual number of voters, state television reported Monday following assertions by the country’s supreme leader that the ballot was fair. But the authorities insisted that discrepancies, which could affect three million votes, did not violate Iranian law and the country’s influential Guardian Council said it was not clear whether they would decisively change the election result. The news emerged on the English-language Press TV as a […]
JAILHOUSE ROCK: Fumo Looking At Hard Time
KAREN HELLER: After all these years of Vince’s being the Prince of the City and Harrisburg, of battling and fighting for you, but often for himself, in that $9-for-you, $1-for-him way of his, it comes down to this: He’s between a rock and hard time. Talking to a battery of leading defense lawyers and former prosecutors, I can tell you this: Based on the sentences of other corrupt officials, Fumo’s most likely going away for a long time, and soon. Convicted in March on all 137 counts, the former state senator faces a possible term of 21 to 27 years. […]
LIVE REVIEW: Seinfeld At The Academy Of Music
BY JONATHAN VALANIA “Comedians are the new philosophers,” the girl next to me whispered in my ear conspiratorially, like this had just occurred to her for the first time — at 24, she was roughly half the median age of the crowd at the Academy of Music Friday night where Jerry Seinfeld was staging a two-night/four-show big-ticket stand, endeavoring to put the lie to F. Scott Fitzgerald’s dictum that there are no second acts in American lives. I just shrugged and thought: Maybe back in the day. Lenny Bruce, George Carlin, Richard Pryor, Bill Hicks — those guys were philosopher […]
KILLADELPHIA: 5 Dead Since You Went To Bed
INQUIRER: Father’s Day ended violently yesterday with four people — two women, a 50-year-old man and a 17-year-old boy — gunned down about two hours apart in different parts of the city. The first shooting happened at 7:21 p.m. in the 2200 block of Wanamaker Street in the city’s Overbrook section. Police said they believed a 60-year-old man shot two women, a 31-year-old who died at the scene and the other, described as the shooter’s 55-year-old girlfriend, who was declared dead at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. Their names were not released. According to neighbors, the man shot […]
TONITE: I Walked With A Zombie
BY KYLEE MESSNER Easter Sunday 2006 began the first of Philly’s annual Zombie Crawls, in honor of the birth of J.C. Today, Philadelphia is the second city in the country to host an official zombie crawl, with events like Zombie Prom and the new Zombie Beach Party under its belt. Tonight marks the inaugural Zombie Beach Party and to mark the occasion we chatted up Zombie organizer DJ extraordinaire Robert Drake. PHAWKER: Explain what the Philly Zombie Crawl is. ROBERT DRAKE: For some it’s a chance to take make-up and costume design to an extreme and really embrace their […]