BY JONATHAN VALANIA FOR PHILADELPHIA MAGAZINE It’s the Ides of March, a date that lives in infamy, the day that Julius Caesar was betrayed and butchered by members of the Roman Senate — friends, Romans and countrymen, to a man. That was back in 44 BCE, and it’s been a bad-omen day ever since. But John Fetterman, the hulking lieutenant governor of Pennsylvania and, as such, the president of the state Senate, which he’s moments away from gaveling into session, isn’t sweating it. After all, he gets Et tu, Brute’d by the Republican-controlled Senate on a semi-regular basis. At this […]
REALITY CHECK: The Stone Cold Truth About Trump’s Tenure At The University Of Pennsylvania
PHILADELPHIA MAGAZINE: It was, it can be said without fear of exaggeration, a day that will live in infamy. When President Donald Trump emerged from his mysterious one-on-one summit with Russian president Vladimir Putin in Helsinki in July of 2018, the respective visages and body language of the two world leaders could not have been further apart. The Russian president looked smug and sated, like a vampire with a bellyful of peasant blood; Trump looked like a man who’d just received a painful enema. Or, as grizzled, now-banished White House aide-de-camp Steve Bannon describes it in Siege, Michael Wolff’s […]
WORTH REPEATING: Hail To The Karen-In-Chief
PHILADELPHIA MAGAZINE: Because hell hath no fury like a mildly inconvenienced middle-aged Caucasian lady, the Internet gave this genus of white privilege a name: Karen. In Internet memes, she is invariably pictured with a South Philly mom cut — think Kate Gosselin’s kicky cowlicked bob gone rogue. Current mood: She would like to speak with the manager, please. Lately it seems like the Karens have gone wild in America, as you’ve no doubt seen all over the Internet: freaking the fuck out at Red Lobster and Trader Joe’s, calling the cops to report flagrant BWB (barbecuing while Black), calling the […]
HERE’S TO THE QUITTERS: We Couldn’t Have Gotten To 122K Covid-19 Deaths Without You!
Photo by Salvatore Laporta/KONTROLAB/LightRocket via Getty Images via PHILADELPHIA MAGAZINE BY JONATHAN VALANIA FOR PHILADELPHIA MAGAZINE Here’s to the COVID quitters, who have grown bored with this lethal pandemic, who are done with Netflix binging, mac ’n’ cheese and Zoom sex, who have places to go, things to buy, crowds to join, haircuts to get. Here’s to the quitters, who have fearlessly cast off the dystopian chains of medical science, epidemiology and other big words, who are striking a blow for freedom where it is currently making its last stand: at the nail salon and the Red Lobster. Here’s to […]
THE DEVIL’S ADVOCATE: Meet The Man Who Sued Led Zep Over “Stairway To Heaven” & Lived To Tell
Photo by BRYAN SHEFFIELD via PHILADELPHIA MAGAZINE PHILADELPHIA MAGAZINE: The fact that Philadelphia barrister Francis Alexander Malofiy, Esquire, is suing Led Zeppelin over the authorship of “Stairway to Heaven” is, by any objective measure, only the fourth most interesting thing about him. Unfortunately for the reader, and the purposes of this story, the first, second and third most interesting things about Malofiy are bound and gagged in nondisclosure agreements, those legalistic dungeons where the First Amendment goes to die. So let’s start with number four and work our way backward. At the risk of stating the obvious, ladies and gentlemen […]
THE NAKED AND THE DEAD: The 5 Important Questions The Media Should Be Asking Petraeus But Won’t
BY JONATHAN VALANIA FOR THE PHILLY POST Somebody’s got to say it: The media has been asking all the wrong questions about the unfolding Peyton Place-like Petraeus saga. As I type this the FBI is raiding Paula Broadwell’s home and it’s been revealed that the just-appointed Supreme Allied Commander of NATO is under investigation for “inappropriate communications” with Jill Kelly, the local girl made good who dragged this whole sad story out into the light when she told the FBI that she was being cyber-harassed by Broadwell — so stay tuned. But I’m willing to bet Mitt Romney $10,000 that […]
HIZZONER: The Problem With Nutter’s Black Problem
[Artwork by HUGGIE!] PHILADELPHIA MAGAZINE: Who can blame Michael Nutter, though, for […] bristling at the fact that he was — again — being forced to publicly defend his authenticity as a black man?As the Mayor puts it to me, in an interview in his office a few weeks after the party, “I’m fully secure and clear about who I am, where I came from and what my life experience has been as an African-American.” Then he adds, “The fact of the matter is, neither you nor anyone else has walked into Ed Rendell’s office and said, ‘Are you white […]
UPDATE: Soon-To-Publish Philly Mag Story Rumored To Dispel Talk Of Rendell Hanky Panky, Not Confirm It
As we reported last week, the new issue of Philadelphia Magazine, which comes out tomorrow, will feature a juicy story about governor Ed Rendell’s alleged extramarital affairs, but it may not be what you think. The latest buzz is that the story will actually quash rumors of infidelity, not foment them. PREVIOUSLY: We have been hearing talk that the July issue of Philadelphia Magazine, which hits newsstands next Friday, will feature a story about the extramarital affairs of Governor Ed Rendell. We called up Philly Mag Editor Larry Platt and asked him to confirm or deny and he said the […]