EARLY WORD: Takin’ It To The Streets

Location: Meet at Broad St. and South St.; Headhouse Square, Philadelphia, PA 19147 Time: 3:00 PM – 7:00 PM Date: Saturday, May 01, 2010 In over 300 cities worldwide, supporters of marijuana law reform take to the streets to protest prohibition policies and demand the changes that are inevitable. Legalization and regulation of cannabis hemp for all purposes – industrial, medicinal, recreational, and religious – it doesn’t matter why you support marijuana legalization, come out and join hundreds to thousands of your fellow reform advocates here in beautiful downtown Philadelphia. Our route begins at the intersection of Broad St. and […]

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CINEMA: Enter Sandman

A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET (2010, directed by Sam Bayer, 95 minutes, U.S.) BY DAN BUSKIRK FILM CRITIC What could it be but nostalgia that took me to the Riverview theater last night for a 12:01 am screening, losing valuable sleep in order to catch the first showing of Nightmare on Elm Street, Michael Bay’s rebooting (oh, I’m starting getting sick of that word) of the long-running horror film series? Seeing the original way back in 1984 was one of my giddiest teen-age movie memories, discovering the character of child killer Fred Krueger with other kids who like me worked […]

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NEWS CLUES: Like A Sticky Bear Trap Of Truth

EX-NEWSWEEK CHIEF NAMED NEW PUBLISHER OF THE INQUIRER AND DAILY NEWS The new owners of The Inquirer have selected Gregory J. Osberg, former president and worldwide publisher of Newsweek and Newsweek.com, to be the publisher and chief executive officer of the paper’s parent company. A native of Paoli and a graduate of Conestoga High School, Osberg, 52, most recently was president and chief executive of Buzzwire Inc., a mobile-media company that provides content and video for mobile phones. He has previous experience running an Internet-based recruitment service. Osberg called himself a “change agent” and saw his role, in part, to […]

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THE BLOB: Oil Enters The Mouth Of The Mississippi; ‘Drill, Baby, Drill!’ Choir Uncharacteristically Silent

THE GUARDIAN: The US coastguard is investigating reports that oil from the Deepwater Horizon rig has begun washing ashore near the mouth of the Mississippi river. Yesterday the coastguard said up to 5,000 barrels a day were flowing into the sea – five times the rate previously estimated – as an assistant chief at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) said he was “frightened for the country”. Louisiana has declared a state of emergency and the White House said the president and the joint chiefs of staff were being briefed regularly on the situation. Yesterday Barack Obama said BP […]

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EARLY WORD: Another Brian Jonestown Massacre

June 8th at the TLA. PREVIOUSLY: 15 Essential Rock Artifacts Unearthed In 2005 By Jonathan Valania 1) Patti Smith Horses: 30th Anniversary Legacy Edition (Arista) As the high priestess of punk, Smith revived the shamanistic notion that words could be strung like Christmas lights, and — when whipped around like whirling dervishes atop three-chord garage rock — could open the portal of the ecstatic. 2) Bruce Springsteen Born to Run: 30th Anniversary Three-Disc Set (Sony) After two commercial duds, the suits demanded a hit or else. Written as a time-lapse snapshot of one long summer night in the teenage jungleland […]

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DEENEY VS. DISTEFANO: The Future Of Newspaper Journalism Is ‘Location, Location, Location’

[Photo by MICHAEL PENN] DISTEFANO: The creditors hung on and bested the hometown investors because they believe we, the people who put together, distribute and sell the news, features and investigative reporting assembled daily under veteran Inquirer editor Bill Marimow and frugal Daily News boss Mark Frisby can make them more money than if they grabbed the best offer and ran. MORE DEENEY: One component of the price is the company’s real estate, including its building at 400 N. Broad St. and its printing plant near Conshohocken, which was valued at $30 million. The new owners might ultimately decide to […]

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SEX IN THE CITY: Men I’ve Dated

  BY GLORIA MARIS Ever date someone who was so gorgeous and witty and talented that you couldn’t believe they were slumming it with you? He’s a performance artist, actor, and filmmaker. When he lived in Philly he paid his bills by working for a moving company. He didn’t need to belong to a gym. Some large two-digit percentage of his body was tattooed, most of it professionally, some of it half-covering a few old scratches that looked as though he’d done them himself. We met at a weekly artists’ social night shortly after I moved to Philadelphia, when I […]

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WHY SO SERIOUS: Glenn Beck Has Lost One Third Of His Television Audience Since January

MEDIA MATTERS: Let’s put Beck’s ratings into context. Yes, in the world of cable news, his numbers are impressive, and virtually any host would be happy to have them. But look how far Glenn Beck has fallen recently. In late January and into February, the program was averaging 3 million viewers each week. And late last year, the show spent month after month flirting with that figure. Today, the viewership is trending around 2 million (Last week it was exactly 2.01 million viewers.) — which means that in a span of just three months, Glenn Beck has lost nearly one-third of its television audience.And that has […]

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NPR FOR THE DEAF: We Hear It Even When You Can’t

FRESH AIR “Song of Myself ” captures in a particular voice and at a particular moment something alive, generous, and hopeful in the developing culture of the United States, and it escaped, almost immediately, the bonds of its fervent nationalism: it became a way forward in the twentieth century for poets all over the world — in Latin America and Russia and Portugal and China and India and North Africa. For all its fame, the poem and the years during which it came into being are something of a mystery — one that has been studied by Whitman’s many biographers. […]

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