MOVEON: How do you get to 100 years in Iraq? Six months at a time.
NEWS CLUES: ‘It’s A Dog-Eat-Donkey World’ Edition
ASS ATTACK: Escaped Pitbulls Fatally Maul Two Beloved Burros Two South Jersey pitbulls were captured last night after allegedly killing a miniature donkey and fatally wounding another, police said. The dogs escaped from their Vineland home Tuesday morning and eluded capture. Neal Parker, who owns a 26-acre farm in Millville, Cumberland County, spotted the two dogs running on his property. One of Parker’s beloved donkeys, a 14-year-old named Webster, was dead in a pen. Another donkey, Carolyn, 10, was mortally injured protecting its foal. Parker summoned police who searched for the dogs without success, a Millville police spokesman said. A […]
SUMSITA SEN: Dilbar Dilbar (aka The Nipple Song)
So juvenile and yet undeniably hilarious. [h/t WAYNE HAMILTON]
CINEMA: The Matriarch, The Mugger & The Little Girl
HORI SMOKU SAILOR JERRY (2008, directed by Erich Weiss, 77 minutes, U.S.) BY DAN BUSKIRK FILM CRITIC There are few more entertaining films in this year’s festival than this enthralling look at the origins of modern tattooing. Held in highest esteem among ink lovers is Norman “Sailor Jerry” Collins, who from his shop in Hawaii created the iconic American designs that decorated the chest, arms and backs of soldiers headed into battle in WW2. Hori Smoku makes a convincing case for Collins as a major folk artist and he’s as colorful as his designs, full of pranks, hard-bitten wisdom and […]
CONTEST: We Have A Winner!
Phawker reader Brian Wilkinson and his best PLUS ONE is going to see Spoon at the Electric Factory tonight! WIKIPEDIA: “The Agony Of Laffitte” single from indie rock band Spoon. It was released in 2000. The two tracks were later added to their 1998 album A Series of Sneaks when Merge Records reissued it in 2002. Seeing the potential to sell records with an up-and-coming indie rock band, Elektra Records, along with A&R man Ron Laffitte, signed Spoon to their first major record deal, which produced their second LP, A Series of Sneaks. Unfortunately, after four months of low sales, […]
Army Ships ‘Evil-Doer Detectors’ To Theaters Of War
MSNBC: The Pentagon will issue hand-held lie detectors this month to U.S. Army soldiers in Afghanistan, pushing to the battlefront a century-old debate over the accuracy of the polygraph. The Defense Department says the portable device isn’t perfect, but is accurate enough to save American lives by screening local police officers, interpreters and allied forces for access to U.S. military bases, and by helping narrow the list of suspects after a roadside bombing. The device has already been tried in Iraq and is expected to be deployed there as well. “We’re not promising perfection — we’ve been very careful in […]
CHINESE DEMOCRACY: Just Twitter It
LIKE WHERE’S WALDO? WITH TEXTING: Latest Twitters from Team Tibet, currently doing the protest slalom with the Olympic Torch out in San Francisco.
CONTEST: The Beast And The Dragon, Adored
The first person to correctly answer this question — Who was the inspiration for “The Agony Of Laffitte”? — wins two tickets to see Spoon tomorrow night at the way-sold-out Electric Factory. Send your answer to FEED@PHAWKER.COM. Good luck and godspeed.
BILAL IS FREE: Iraqi Judge Dismisses Terror Charges
BAGHDAD (AP) — An Iraqi judicial committee has dismissed terrorism-related allegations against Associated Press photographer Bilal Hussein and ordered him freed after nearly two years in U.S. military custody. The decision by a four-judge panel says Hussein’s case falls under a new amnesty law and orders Iraqi courts to “cease legal proceedings.” The ruling says that Hussein should be “immediately” released if no other charges are pending. The ruling is dated Monday but AP’s lawyers were not able to thoroughly review it until Wednesday. AP President Tom Curley is hailing the decision and demands that officials “finally do the right […]
NEWS CLUES: ‘Two-Heads Better Than None’ Edition
STRANGER THAN FICTION: Two-Headed Baby Worshiped As A God In India A BABY born with two faces is doing well one month on from her birth. Tot Lali was born in a northern Indian village with two noses, two pairs of lips and two pairs of eyes – but only two ears. Hundreds of pilgrims have visited Lali, worshipped as the reincarnation of a Hindu goddess, and her impoverished parents to touch her feet out of respect and receive blessings. The baby has caused a sensation in the dusty village of Saini, 25 miles from New Delhi. When she left […]
NPR 4 THE DEF: Giving Public Radio Edge Since 2006
FRESH AIR The band R.E.M. recently released Accelerate, its first album in four years. Critics have been describing the disc as a “comeback,” saying it’s the band’s best album in ages and that the group is playing with “the urgency and insurgency they did in their early years.” Among the album’s tracks: “Houston,” which details the narrator’s crisis of faith after the devastation of Hurricane Katrina and the government’s unfocused response, and “Living Well Is the Best Revenge,” which R.E.M. frontman Michael Stipe has described as a reaction to modern media culture. R.E.M. came together in Athens, Ga., in 1980, […]
SCUM BAGGED: Mom Fends Off Baby-Beating Muggers
DAILY NEWS: She was born with the last name of Peace, but anything but that befell the young mother Monday night as she was walking to catch a SEPTA trolley at the 69th Street Terminal. Samara Peace, 18, of Sharon Hill [pictured below, with Upper Darby Police Superintendent Michael Chitwood], was carrying her 7-month-old daughter, Samya, close to her chest when, about 11 p.m., a young man later identified by police as Carlos C. Boothe, 19, of Upper Darby, approached her on Lennox Road near Penncock Avenue and asked for her phone number, she said. At the same time, a […]
CINEMA: The Fraud, The Horror & The Rapture
ELECTILE DYSFUNCTION (2008, directed by Mary Patel & Joe Barber, 93 minutes, U.S.) BY DAN BUSKIRK FILM CRITIC Philadelphia City Paper columnist Mary Patel teamed up with co-director Joe Barber for this exhausting but not exhaustive look at the gaping flaws in the U.S. electoral system. It’s a Grand Central Station of talking heads, all delivering little more than soundbites. And while I love a diversity of opinion, I’m not sure what unique perspective Elliot Gould and Schoolly D bring to the stew. Freely mixing in the angry and clueless public with disgustingly hardened insiders, Electile Dysfunction never drums up […]