LARRY PLATT: Speaking of loud voices, I also want to welcome our new sports columnist, none other than Ed Rendell. Some fifteen years ago, I sat with Rendell in the mayor’s box at Veterans Stadium while the Eagles waged a furious on-field comeback. He stood up, hoagie innards spewing from his mouth, while he pounded the plexiglas separating his box from that of new owner Jeffrey Lurie, trying to get Lurie and his nonplussed guests to join him in full-throated cheer. Lurie placidly kept his eyes glued to the field. Finally, waving in disgust, Rendell returned to his seat, saying, […]

A.P. Ticker is many things to many people, a real man for all seasons, both an eternal optimist and a man of constant sorrow. But for most he’s the man who put the bop in the bop-shoo-bop-shoo-wop. A man with his finger on the pulse of popular culture, a veritable bellwether of what’s hip with the kids. This week A.P. runs down the top five albums in the nation (though admittedly it’s not entirely clear which nation): hot new releases from The Spinach Diplomats, Thundercake, the Sudge-Wumps, The Safe Words and the Long Black Veils. Plus he’s sneaks in a […]

PHILADELPHIA MAGAZINE: The task facing Greg Osberg was mandatory: Address a room full of union leaders suspicious of his intentions, and win them over. Never mind that such a goal seemed unattainable.For the past 18 months, ownership of Philadelphia’s most prominent newspapers had been the subject of a legal hair-pulling match. The Teamsters seemed to present the greatest challenge, because the side they favored, the Brian Tierney-led local ownership group, lost. So from their perspective, Osberg had arrived in 2010 as an empty suit, the living embodiment of  the faceless banks that won control of the papers following bankruptcy proceedings. […]

Chinatown, 10:15 AM by JEFF FUSCO

NEW YORK TIMES: On the fourth day of the London meeting, Assange slouched into The Guardian office, a day late. Schmitt took his first measure of the man who would be a large presence in our lives. “He’s tall — probably 6-foot-2 or 6-3 — and lanky, with pale skin, gray eyes and a shock of white hair that seizes your attention,” Schmitt wrote to me later. “He was alert but disheveled, like a bag lady walking in off the street, wearing a dingy, light-colored sport coat and cargo pants, dirty white shirt, beat-up sneakers and filthy white socks that […]

URBAN DICTIONARY: A Bill Murray story is when you create an outlandish (yet plausable) story that involves you witnessing Bill Murray doing something totally unusual; often followed by him walking up you and whispering, “No one will ever believe you” and walking away. MORE BLACK BOOK: My friend Matt Katrosar flew to Chicago last weekend to hang out with some of his Windy City pals and attend the Bears/Packers NFL playoff game. He was wearing a Green Bay jersey (in support of old-school Packers legend Ray Nitschke) amid a sea of Chicago blue. During the 2nd quarter, Matt celebrated a […]

[Illustration by khalid Albaih] AL JAZEERA: Protesters have returned to the streets of Cairo, following violent overnight protests across the country staged in defiance of a curfew. Demonstrators gathered in Tahrir Square in the Egyptian capital on Saturday morning, shouting “Go away, go away!”, the Reuters news agency said. The latest protests reflected popular discontent with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak’s midnight address, where he announced that he was dismissing his government but remaining in power. The several hundred protesters demonstrated in full view of the army, which had been deployed in the city to quell the popular unrest sweeping the Middle East’s […]

PHILLY CLOUT: Those funds went to overtime for city workers as well as paying for contractors and salt. The city — which does not budget money specifically for snow — still has to tally the cost of this week’s storm. And, with many winter weeks left, the costs could continue to climb. Snow removal costs put a dent in the city’s budget last year. The historic storms that blanketed the city last winter ultimately cost about $18 million, according to the mayor’s press office. RELATED: So far, this winter’s snow total stands about 18 inches higher than last year’s at […]

EXTRA: Early reports say Sheen was being treated for “abdominal pain.” Our source, Charlie’s friend Steve Brodersen, tells “Extra” the pain is the result of a hernia injury, worsened when Sheen laughed too hard at the TV. Doctors tell Sheen he may need surgery as soon as tomorrow morning to repair the hernia, for which he’s been treated in the past. Sheen’s best friend Tony Todd is by his side in the hospital. Charlie denies drugs were involved. MORE TMZ: Charlie Sheen had a “briefcase full of cocaine” delivered to his home — and was using large amounts of the […]

MOTHER JONES:  Two years ago, Mann says, he had never seen a pot plant. Today, he envisions weGrow becoming the “Wal-Mart of Weed,” a vertically integrated chain of big-box stores perfectly positioned to cash in on California’s booming marijuana industry as it moves from the shadows to the mainstream. In this “green rush” for semi-legal weed, Mann and his partner Derek Peterson, a 36-year-old investment banker, seek to be the modern equivalents of Levi Strauss and Samuel Brannan—the Gold Rush entrepreneurs who made a killing not from mining, but from selling pans, pickaxes, and victuals to the forty-niners.   From […]

ONION AV CLUB: It’s funny how Best Coast and Wavves—two bands fronted by songwriters whose lyrics focus almost entirely on loneliness, depression, and dejected self-esteem drops—have become the “it” couple of indie rock. MORE RELATED: Best Coast plays the Starlight Ballroom Tuesday with Wavves

Which pursuit befits a ‘golden god’ in twilight? A.) Recreating the metaphysical graffiti of his youth, i.e. reuniting Led Zeppelin for a global tour as Jimmy Page wanted, in a faintly desperate attempt to convince yourself and your audience that the last 30 years never happened?  B.) Trade the Hammer of the Gods for the sickle of the common man, paying tribute to the mountain music of yore by channelling the music’s vast, quasi-religious powers and redemptive grace for future generations? If you answered A, you would have been sorely disappointed last night at the Tower, where ex-Led Zep frontman […]