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On a chilly, rainy day in late October, I stared into the eyes of a killer. They were the eyes of a man who had mercilessly butchered four people, including a 3-year-old girl. It was Thurs., Oct. 27, and John Eichinger and I were being escorted from a Montgomery County courtroom by...

What you don’t know can most likely kill you. That’s at least the thought process behind a new bill that’ll be considered in the Legislature when it reconvenes next year. Rep. RoseMarie Swanger of Lebanon County has introduced House Bill 2029, which would amend Title 42 of the Pennsylvania Consolidated Statutes, prohibiting...

Rues Road—which winds through an idyllic and remote area of Upper Freehold Township, New Jersey, past lush farm fields and the occasional McMansion set back on a sprawling parcel of land—doesn’t look much like a battlefield. But it’s become ground zero in the fight over the state’s Compassionate Use Medical Marijuana Act,...

A lot has happened in the world of Occupy Philly since the alleged sexual assault last Saturday night. With a push from the city, protesters have been mobile. Some Occupiers plan to move to another location while others intend to stay at Dilworth Plaza until what will certainly be a bitter end....

Ron Paul supporters and Occupiers make for strange bedfellows: While Paul’s supporters and Occupiers agree that this country is in big trouble, they advocate wildly different solutions. On a recent afternoon, a Paul supporter hanging outside the Ron Paul tent on the Northwest corner of Dilworth Plaza explained the ideological rift. “[Occupiers]...

A month ago, I wrote a column in PW comparing the Tea Party and the Occupy movement. Specifically, why the American Right decided to immediately embrace one and not the other. It was a fairly tongue-in-cheek question. One look at who the Occupiers are, and who their enemy is, supplies the answer....

Best Place to Sear Your Soft Palate Slurping the juice out of the Shanghai soup dumplings at Dim Sum Garden is the embodiment of the old phrase “hurts so good.” Sure, the broth from that first one will likely leave you with gently crisped skin at the top of your mouth. And...

“I think at this point, the only way to really get a reader to feel anything is to create a new place for them to feel it,” says Sarah Rose Etter, author of Tongue Party, a collection of stories that won the prestigious Caketrain Chapbook Competition in May. “All the stories about ‘my...

Dying young is no laughing matter. Except in the case of 50/50, an awkward, heartfelt and extremely funny picture directed by Jonathan Levine, from a script by Will Reiser that has the rough, pants-kicking sting of real life at its (slightly compromised) core. Reiser, a television writer for Da Ali G Show as well as...

“I’m not the best filmmaker in the world,” confesses Danish filmmaker Nicolas Winding Refn, in town to discuss his acclaimed neo-noir Drive. “But I’m the best filmmaker at doing the kinds of films I make.” These may sound like the words of a stereotypically cocky director, albeit one who speaks just above a...