WORTH REPEATING: Dope Boy Magick

[Illustration by ALEX FINE] PHILADELPHIA WEEKLY: Jahan Zeb Malik, “Zeb” to friends, was living in his tiny practice space on Columbus Boulevard, sleeping on a dirty mattress he’d crammed in amongst the maze of gear and the straggle of guitar cords. He had no shower. No fridge. No stove. No closet. His diet at the time mostly consisted of gas station hot dogs. Though sometimes he’d splurge for a gas station hamburger. The year was 2008, and everything had pretty much gone to shit. […] Opening for Nine Inch Nails as early as they did, as green as they were, […]

WES ANDERSON: ‘Baby, Step Inside My Hyundai’

RELATED: Moonrise Kingdom Trailer PREVIOUSLY: The Magnificent Anderson DAN BUSKIRK: In past films Anderson’s childish, self-involved characters could be frustrating as they moped around his immaculately dressed rooms yet this sort of navel-gazing magically transforms itself when transposed to sweet little woodland creatures.  And thankfully Roald Dahl’s original novel (adapted by Anderson with The Squid and the Whale‘s Noah Baumbach) gives them enough to do as they tunnel, fight and argue through their battles against the evil farmers Boggis, Bunce, and Bean.  Some of the film’s funniest moments are when the kvetching ends and the characters briefly behave like the […]

Romney Meets Black People, Possibly For 1st Time

BUZZFEED: Mitt Romney’s “who let the dogs out” moment from when he marched in the Jacksonville, Florida Martin Luther King day parade already lives on in YouTube infamy. This extended version of the clip shows even more painful Romney moments, including the former governor telling a young baby he is wearing “bling-bling” and a girl she should be a boy scout, to which she replies, “Why a boy scout?” MORE PHAWKER: Why do we get the distinct feeling this is the first time Mitt Romney has been around black people that weren’t taking his Big Mac order or cleaning his […]

RIP: Davy Jones, Monkee, Dead At 66

MSNBC: Singer Davy Jones of The Monkees has died of a heart attack at 66, the medical examiner’s office in Martin County, Fla., has confirmed to NBC News. Jones was most famous for his role in the pop group The Monkees, which was put together in 1965 for the TV show of the same name. Their hits included “Daydream Believer,” “Last Train to Clarksville,” “I’m a Believer,” and “Pleasant Valley Sunday.” The Monkees sold more than 50 million records. In 2008, Yahoo Music named Jones the top teen idol of all time. After “The Monkees” disbanded in 1971, Jones sang […]

BREAKING: N. Korea Agrees To Nuke Moratorium

REUTERS:  North Korea agreed on Wednesday to stop nuclear tests, uranium enrichment and long-range missile launches, and to allow nuclear inspectors to visit its Yongbyon nuclear complex to verify the moratorium has been enforced. The breakthrough, announced simultaneously by the U.S. State Department and North Korea’s official news agency, paves the way for a resumption of six-party disarmament negotiations with Pyongyang and follows talks between U.S. and North Korean diplomats in Beijing last week. It also appears to mark a significant policy shift by North Korea’s reclusive leadership following the death in December of veteran leader Kim Jong-il – although […]

NEWSPAPER: Israeli PM To Pressure Obama To Threaten Iran With Pre-emptive Airstrike

HAARETZ: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is expected to publicly harden his line against Iran during a meeting with U.S. President Barack Obama in Washington on March 5, according to a senior Israeli official. Israel wants Obama to make further-reaching declarations than the vague assertion that “all options are on the table,” the official said. In particular, Netanyahu wants Obama to state unequivocally that the United States is preparing for a military operation in the event that Iran crosses certain “red lines,” said the official; Israel feels this will increase pressure on Iran by making clear that there exists a real […]

JP MORGAN CHASE CEO: Journalists Way Overpaid

HUFFINGTON POST: The chief executive of the biggest bank in the United States says journalists are ridiculously overpaid. At the company’s annual investor day, JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon called the percentage of newspaper company revenue paid out to employees “just damned outrageous,” according to Bloomberg News. “Worse than that, you [the media] don’t even make any money!” Dimon then defended his company’s own pay levels, arguing it necessary in the struggle to retain top talent. “We are going to pay competitively,” he said, according to the WSJ. “We need top talent, you cannot run this business on second-rate talent.” […]

WORTH REPEATING: Facebook Will Not Replace Advertising As We Currently Know It Any Time Soon

AD AGE: The common view that Facebook “likes” equate to brand engagement took a hit last month when the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute shared some interesting data with us. Researchers found that less than 1% of fans of the 200 biggest brands on Facebook actually engaged. Their conclusion was based on a six-week study of Facebook’s People Talking About This metric, with researchers considering the number as a proportion of fan bases. Only 0.45% of fans engaged, if you subtract likes to isolate for more meaningful activity, including shares and comments. This confirmed something many readers already suspected: Facebook fan bases and […]

NPR FOR THE DEF: We Hear It Even When U Can’t

FRESH AIR Almost one year ago, the Fukushima nuclear disaster nearly led to a global catastrophe, if not for the efforts of a small group of engineers, soldiers, and firemen, who risked their own lives in the days after the disaster to prevent a complete nuclear meltdown. Investigative reporter Dan Edge wanted to find out what it was like for the workers who were inside the Fukushima Dai-icihi Nuclear Power Plant when the meltdowns began. His new Frontline documentary chronicles what happened to those plant engineers, as well as what happened to the small corps of workers who entered the […]

THE PEACE CORPS DIARIES: I Survived A 36-Hour Psychedelic Dance Party In The Heart Of Darkness

EDITOR’S NOTE: The author is finishing up a two year hitch in the Peace Corps doing health counseling in rural Paraguay. He sends Phawker intermittent dispatches of his adventures whenever he gets close enough to civilization for Internet access. BY ST. JOHN BARNED-SMITH SOUTH AMERICAN CORRESPONDENT Paraguay’s Chaco is a forbidding plain of mesquite, baking heat, and swirling dust. The last time I visited, I promised myself I would never return. But last month, after I heard about the Arete Guazu – a type of indigenous carnaval – I once again found myself spending eight cramped hours on a bus […]

RICK SANTORUM: Ignorance Is Bliss

[Artwork by WRIGHT SENARES] NEW YORK TIMES: Most of that attention has focused on his complaint that President Obama’s stated goal of making higher education accessible to all is a snobby one that assumes academic inclinations where they may not exist. But Santorum has also decried universities as enemies of faith, environments that leach some of the unquestioned piety out of young adults who are, in this new setting, being prodded to ask questions. He went so far as to call colleges “indoctrination mills” that ridicule and isolate young conservatives. […] If you couple the selectiveness and stridency of Santorum’s […]