MEDIA MATTERS: Yesterday, we highlighted a Newsmax column by John L. Perry essentially advocating a military coup to resolve the “Obama problem” (while, of course, claiming he was advocating no such thing). It’s just the latest example of extreme right-wing rhetoric directed at President Obama. Now, it appears that Newsmax has removed the column from its website; the link to it defaults to Perry’s main column page. Fortunately, we made a copy. MORE NEWSMAX: There is a remote, although gaining, possibility America’s military will intervene as a last resort to resolve the “Obama problem.” Don’t dismiss it as unrealistic. America […]

BY GLORIA MARIS I spent one of my better New Year’s Eves with an academic. He was (or still is) a professor of Latin American Studies at a small university in the outer, outer western suburbs of Philadelphia. We went to see a band at a club on South Street.We’d arrived early enough to get seats at the bar and started kissing shamelessly as soon as the clock on my phone rolled to midnight. The bartender passed out tiny portions of champagne in plastic cups. Part way through the show, another former lover of mine arrived unexpectedly. He immediately fell […]

FRESH AIR Nick Hornby has written the screenplay for the new film An Education. The movie — about a teenage girl coming of age in ’60s Britain, post-war and pre-rock — is based on a memoir by journalist Lynn Barber. This isn’t Hornby’s first foray into film; many of his novels have been made into movies, including About a Boy and High Fidelity. His novel Fever Pitch, about a soccer-obsessed English teacher, was adapted for the silver screen, then re-adapted for American audiences with a Boston Red Sox fanatic (Jimmy Fallon, playing opposite Drew Barrymore) as the protagonist. Hornby has […]

YOUTUBE: Hypocrisy is a special kind of gall. If Senator Vitter is so outraged by the ACORN prostitution scandal, surely he doesn’t mind talking about his own. The group that Vitter and others so easily condemn provides vital services to some of the poorest people in America. ACORN is clearly imperfect, but it takes a bold man to attack their sex worker interactions when his own have gone unpunished. So as long as the self-proclaimed “most outspoken critic of ACORN” is sitting in judgement of prostitute consultations, let’s benefit from his real world experience. Call up Senator Vitter’s office, ask […]

SALON: For months now multimillionaire healthcare entrepreneur Rick Scott has been at the center of the aggressive campaign to derail healthcare reform in Washington, D.C. Reprising the role he played nearly 20 years ago, when as the head of a national hospital chain he helped kill Clintoncare, the former hospital-chain executive founded the group Conservatives for Patients’ Rights, raising $20 million to fight Obamacare, including $5 million of his own money. The tall, lean Scott, whose shiny bald head swivels in exasperation at the idea of government involvement in healthcare, even stars in its nationwide ad campaign comparing Democratic proposals […]

DAILY BEAST: So what was the claimed impropriety that got the DA’s office to scrape off 30 years of rust and start the wheels grinding? A backroom chat in 1977 between prosecutor Wells—not the prosecutor assigned to the case—and Judge Laurence Rittenband, during which the judge asked how he could get out of the deal that’d been made for no additional time and send Polanski back to prison. Supposedly, Wells told him how. If true, that’s an ethical violation, no question about it. It’s absolutely forbidden to have one-sided communications with a judge about a pending case. Still, Wells denies […]

MTV: One month after DJ AM was found dead in his New York apartment, the city’s medical examiner has announced a cause of death in the case. After a battery of toxicology tests, the New York City medical examiner’s office has determined that AM’s accidental death was caused by acute intoxication brought on by a cocktail of prescription drugs and cocaine, a spokesperson from the office confirmed. The toxicology report released on Tuesday says that the 36-year-old celebrity DJ (born Adam Goldstein) had cocaine; painkillers OxyContin and Vicodin; anti-anxiety meds Ativan, Klonopin, Xanax; antihistamine Benadryl and Levamisole (a drug used […]

LOS ANGELES TIMES: In the twilight hours, that liminal space between sunset and sunrise, the eyes and ears are prone to trickery. The imagination takes over; hazy objects resemble ghosts, and faraway sounds evoke werewolves. But on the precipice of Sunday morning, amid Hollywood Forever Cemetery’s tombstones and mausoleums, the misty fog and leaning palm trees, Bon Iver provided an ethereal soundtrack to sunrise. It was dreamlike as indie folkster and Wisconsonite Justin Vernon walked onstage with his band, Bon Iver, around 6 a.m. It was almost completely dark when the band opened with Brian Eno-esque layers of sound — […]

ASSOCIATED PRESS: A woman was arrested after her 14-year-son told authorities he escaped from a home where he’d been kept for 4 1/2 years, spending most of his time locked in a bedroom closet, police said Monday. A security guard at a National Guard facility in Oklahoma City called police on Friday after the teen showed up malnourished and with numerous scars and other signs of abuse, police Sgt. Gary Knight said. “He was hungry. He was dirty. He had numerous scars on his body,” Knight said. “It was very sad.” The boy was taken to a hospital to be […]

The Dodos play First Unitarian October 12th

ASSOCIATED PRESS: The U.S. Secret Service is investigating an online survey that asked whether people thought President Barack Obama should be assassinated, officials said Monday. The poll, posted Saturday on Facebook, was taken off the popular social networking site quickly after company officials were alerted to its existence. But, like any threat against the president, Secret Service agents are taking no chances. “We are aware of it and we will take the appropriate investigative steps,” said Darrin Blackford, a Secret Service spokesman. “We take of these things seriously.” MORE PREVIOUSLY: I SEE A DARKNESS: Feds Nab Three Jihadist Bombers In […]