There’s actually been a small silver lining to our newfound anxiety over the lead content in balsamic vinegar: it’s got us thinking about education spending in a new way. How’s that? Well, upon learning that our favorite salad-dressing base might well harm Microkhan Jr.’s neural health, we started thumbing through the literature on lead poisoning’s […]
Tags:educuation·intelligence·lead poisoning·public health·statistics·UNESCO
The recent dearth of posts has been due to a confluence of factors: a hectic sked of writing FOIA requests, the petty frustrations of trying to get the next Wired feature going, and the sheer agony of checking out potential preschools for Microkhan Jr. We’re almost through the worst of it, though, and we’ll be […]
One of our favorite slept-on tracks of recent years is “Cali Hustle”, off the criminally hard-to-find Bay Bury-Ya compilation. In the song’s final verse, Mac Mall kicks off his bars with this clever line: Colombian neckties for small fries We’ve always taken it for granted that such a grisly fate has befallen many a criminal […]
Tags:cocaine·Colombia·Colombian necktie·crime·urban legends·War on Drugs
While watching this propaganda film of Albanian dictator Enver Hoxha celebrating May Day in 1983, we had one thought, and one thought alone: what percentage of those workers in the parade earned their living digging useless bunkers?
Tags:1980s·Albania·Communism·Enver Hoxha
The Danes are not alone in their ability to infuriate pious Muslims with drawings. A Bangladeshi cartoonist has just been sentenced to six months in prison for a work deemed blasphemous. The original kerfuffle occurred two years ago, when Arifur Rahman’s cartoon sparked riots in Dhaka. The offending artwork can be glimpsed here. The translation […]
Tags:Arifur Rahman·Bangladesh·blasphemy·cartoons·Islam·religion
One of our favorite scenes in The Godfather trilogy occurs near the beginning of the second installment, as Michael Corleone dances with his wife at a lavish party in honor of their son’s First Communion. Kay Corleone asks her hubby when, exactly, the family will go legit—something that Michael promised several years prior. “I’m trying, […]
Tags:crime·Kenya·Maina Njenga·Mungiki·politics·The Godfather
Late start today, due to the fact we stayed up late last night watching our beloved Colts mount a miraculous comeback against their archenemies. For the record, we think Belichick’s gamble was a good one—the Pats had been unstoppable in short-yardage situations all night, and the Colts’ D has been decimated by injuries. That said, […]
It just seemed cruel to cap the week with Ms. O’Donnell’s execrable work, so we’re gonna give you a retro-futuristic treat: a World War II-era view of the rise of personal aircraft. The pamphlet’s title really says it all: Will There Be a Plane in Every Garage? The answer, as you might surmise, is a […]
After a week’s hiatus, Bad Movie Friday returns with a vengeance, in the form of the made-for-TV Rosie O’Donnell vehicle Riding the Bus with My Sister. Perhaps Ms. O’Donnell reckoned that her star turn as a mentally handicapped woman would be critic proof, as no one wants to be accused of insensitivity. But she didn’t […]
Tags:Bad Movie Friday·movies·New York Times·Riding the Bus with My Sister·Rosie O'Donnell
Since 1983, the average amount of time a condemned American convict spends on death row has tripled to 153 months. Yet that mammoth stretch of time is nothing compared to that endured by Sadamichi Hirasawa. When he passed away from natural causes in 1987, the alleged mastermind of Japan’s most infamous and lethal bank robbery […]
Tags:art·death penalty·Japan·Sadamichi Hirasawa·Teigin Case·Unit 731
The rest of our day looks certain to be divvied up between childcare and working on a major secret project, so let us leave you with the latest from Big Boi—yet another track we got turned on to by the Fresh Produce crew. We can barely understand a word that guest star Gucci Mane slurs […]
In response to our tongue-in-cheek allusion to the Shriners in this post, a treasured reader noted that his uncle was a “Shriner clown.” At first we took this to be some sort of jest, but The Tubes quickly proved us wrong: the fez-wearing brotherhood is darn serious about its clowning. In fact, the organization hosts […]
Our second installment of the Bulletproof Project takes us to the eastern Congo, where Mai Mai militiamen have been wreaking awful havoc for years now. These soldiers are known not only for their brutality, but also their unwavering faith in dawa, or sinister magic. This belief became apparent to Western observers during the violent upheaval […]
Tags:Africa·Che Guevara·Congo·insurgencies·Mai Mai·The Bulletproof Project
We first got turned on to Donny Hathaway by reading the liner notes for The Chronic. We were amazed by how many of the samples were copped from Extension of a Man, and so we saved up some hard-earned cash to buy the album. It’s since become one of our favorites, a platter we’ve spun […]
After posting a vintage pro-SDI ad on Monday, we got to wondering about this “Coalition for SDI” that sponsored the spot. Who could be so bold as to create the risible “Peace Shield” euphemism? We connected the dots back to Daniel O. Graham, who claimed to be the coiner of the term “Strategic Defense Initiative.” […]
Tags:1980s·Daniel O. Graham·Lyndon LaRouche·politics·space·Strategic Defense Initiative
The man to the right of the pelican above is Bryan Vorster, a South African animal handler who loves to edutain the kids. Under the nom de scène Snake Bite Jones, he’s long been a fixture at the Johannesburg Zoo, where he thrills audiences by trotting out a vast array beasts—including the vultures used in […]
Tags:crime·reptiles·smuggling·Snake Bite Jones·snakes·South Africa·wildlife management
Our pal who lusts after a Mozambique holiday also co-hosts one of the best Internet radio shows you’ve never heard of: Fresh Produce, which broadcasts far too seldomly from “an undisclosed location in South London.” The show’s most recent installment kicks off with the Hot 8 Brass Band doing a bonkers cover of “Sexual Healing,” […]
An MIT economist argues that botched incentives, rather than scientific hurdles, are frustrating the quest for an HIV vaccine. The point that jumped out at us the most: It has become increasingly apparent that an HIV vaccine may need to be administered in combination with antiretroviral drugs, even if a stand-alone vaccine remains the ultimate […]
A pal of ours recently quipped that he’s always had a yen to visit Mozambique, albeit because he’s always dreamed of traversing the sandy beaches of the Bazaruto Archipelago. No, our friend is attracted to the nation for a single, simple reason: he digs flags that feature weapons, and Mozambique’s official banner certainly qualifies. Given […]
Tags:animals·bears·flags·Medieval history·Russia·Yaroslav the Wise·Yaroslavl Oblast
In response to Friday’s post on the launch of our “Bulletproof Project,” a commenter wryly noted that we should include the Strategic Defense Initiative among our list of magical shields. That quip naturally reminded us of this classic ad, in which a pro-SDI group tried to break down the appeal of Star Wars into the […]
Want to ruin your chances of attending a Chinese university? Simply get tattooed: At the National Entrance College Examination of 2009, Zhong was accepted into a major university in Chongqing. But after the physical examination, the university ultimately refused to accept him because of the wolf head on his chest. Zhong’s university dream was broken. […]
At first glance, there doesn’t seem to be much of interest in this plain-Jane rundown of Ukrainian President Viktor Yuschenko’s income and assets. The man who rose to the top of Ukraine’s political structure after surviving a bizarre assassination attempt is certainly well-off by his nation’s standards, but it’s not like he’s pulling a pulling […]
No Bad Movie Friday this week, as The Tubes yielded up precious few usable clips from Smokey and the Bandit Part 3. Instead, we’re gonna hit you with a special treat—rare archival footage from the heyday of Father Divine, taken during his prosperous Harlem phase. It’s best viewed in tandem with this 1953 Life spread, […]
Tags:Bad Movie Friday·Father Divine·Harlem·nuclear power·religion
If you’ve yet to read this jarring New York Times piece, do yourself a big favor and click over stat. It’s a damning account of how the Iraqi cops have been duped into buying a handheld “bomb detector” that apparently works no better than an old-school divining rod. Scary stuff, considering that so much of […]
Tags:Ghost Dance·Iraq·Native Americans·New York Times·The Bulletproof Project·U.S. history·Wounded Knee Massacre
Of all the sundry worries that vex us every day, annihilation by celestial object is fairly low on the list. The same can’t be said of the insurance industry, which knows it could be wiped out if we ever got another Tunguska event of 1908. If something similarly destructive happened in the skies above New […]
Before the Sandman took hold last night, we managed to dive into the first few pages of Lawrence Wright’s New Yorker piece on last January’s war in Gaza. It’s a topic we know little about, and so we were genuinely surprised by a passing mention regarding the paranoia of Hamas. According to Wright, the organization’s […]
Tags:conspiracy theories·Freemasons·Gaza·Hamas·Israel·Lions Club·Middle East·Shriners
Earlier this year, we rescued several heaping armfuls of vinyl from a building on our blocks that’s undergoing a gut renovation. Many of the platters were too damaged to be of use, but there were gems amidst the trash—most notably an original pressing of the soundtrack for Three Tough Guys (aka Tough Guys). The lead […]
Tags:Geto Boys·hip-hop·Isaac Hayes·movies·music·Three Tough Guys
When Latin percussion god Tito Puente died some years back, The New York Post speculated that a 40-year cocaine addiction had finally caught up with the man. This piece of gossip turned out to be of (to say the least) dubious veracity, but it stuck with us nonetheless. That’s because it got us thinking about […]
Tags:cocaine·drugs·public health·Tito Puente·War on Drugs·World Health Organization
Yesterday’s quick mention of religious snake handling set us off on a minor research tangent. We’re accustomed to witnessing the practice via cheesy TV segments, which have always struck us as a tad too overproduced to convey the emotional appeal of grasping serpents in the name of the Lord. Fortunately, The Tubes now contain a […]
Tags:Holy Ghost People·Jimmy Swaggert·movies·religion·reptiles·snake handling·snakes
The industry that exists to service laboratory primates is surprisingly vast. Our close genetic cousins can’t just live off kibble while caged, nor can their brains remain limber with nothing more than a hamster wheel to occupy their time. So companies like New Jersey’s Bio-Serv exist to peddle “primate enrichment” products designed to make captivity […]
