It’s videos like these that leave me seriously conflicted ’bout the fact I remember so little of the Seventies. Sort of love how snowmobiles were the height of vehicular technology back then—along with glass-domed helicopters, of course.
Entries from February 27th, 2009
Another Action Jackson Forerunner
February 27th, 2009 · Comments Off on Another Action Jackson Forerunner
The Original Action Jackson (er, Jaxon)
February 27th, 2009 · Comments Off on The Original Action Jackson (er, Jaxon)
A big slab of my research for Now the Hell Will Start took place in the bowels of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. I spent way too many hours jacked into the library’s microfilm machine, flipping through wartime copies of the Chicago Defender. As you might expect, a lot of what caught […]
The Monkeys Strikes Back
February 27th, 2009 · Comments Off on The Monkeys Strikes Back
I was watching a rerun of Six Feet Under last night, and caught a throwaway factoid that had slipped from my mind: Chimps are more closely related to us than they are to gorillas. My first thought upon hearing this, of course, was, “Well, where does that leave the poor monkeys on the primate scale?” […]
Tags:Daddy Like·India·music·primates
The Limits of Hectoring
February 27th, 2009 · Comments Off on The Limits of Hectoring
My occasional Hulu habit has brought me in contact with a series of anti-reckless driving ads aimed at teens. They’re actually kinda clever—a game-show host magically appears in a careening car, offering the most fabulous prize of all (continued life). All the commercial’s protagonist has to do is tell his dumb-dumb pals to slow down—a […]
Tags:advertising·psychology
“Barely Worth Dismissing”
February 26th, 2009 · 1 Comment
Apologies for today’s lighter-than-usual posting. I’m mobile, working on the Now the Hell Will Start movie and enjoying Assamese tea at a Cobble Hill joint. Rest assured, the esoterica will recommence in full tomorrow. In the interim, please enjoy one of Microkhan’s guilty pleasures: Hilariously negative movie reviews. There just aren’t many harsher thumbs downs […]
Tags:Bad Movie Friday·housekeeping·lambada·movies·Now the Hell Will Start
Volcanoes of the Deep
February 26th, 2009 · Comments Off on Volcanoes of the Deep
NW Rota-1, located near the Mariana Islands, is arguably the most active undersea volcano ever witnessed by man. The video above was taken during a 2006 mission to the Pacific’s depths; a University of Texas at Dallas professor will soon return to the scene of the violent eruption, aboard his trusty Shinaki 6500 submarine. Hope […]
Nigerian Dupe, Technological Laggard
February 25th, 2009 · Comments Off on Nigerian Dupe, Technological Laggard
The most troubling part about this story is not that Nigerian e-scammers were likely able to wheedle a few pounds out of Jack Straw’s pals and constituents (who really should have known better, given the con artists’ straight-out-of-Lagos grammar and syntax). No, what’ll keep me up tonight is that fact that Britain’s former Foreign Secretary, […]
Tags:Britain·crime·information technology·Jack Straw·Nigeria
Seven Thousand, Four Hundred
February 25th, 2009 · Comments Off on Seven Thousand, Four Hundred
That’s how many children have gone missing in Delhi since 2006, and have yet to be found. For comparison’s sake, a Department of Justice study (PDF) found that about 2,500 American kids who went missing in 1999 had not been located by the turn of the millennium. The population of the United States at that […]
The Lipstick of Dictatorship
February 25th, 2009 · Comments Off on The Lipstick of Dictatorship
The happy gentleman to the right is José Eduardo dos Santos, Angola’s president for the past 30 years. During that time, he has allegedly managed to skim $4 billion from the nation’s oil revenues—quite a despicable feat, given that Angola remains one of the world’s poorest countries, with 70 percent of the population living on […]
Tags:Angola·corruption·journalism
Ares’s Laboratory
February 24th, 2009 · 1 Comment
If you ever find yourself at the intersections of Skull Valley and Stark roads in western Utah, take a long peek out the car window. See that barren nothingness that extends as far as the eye can see? That’s paradise for budding Air Force jocks: The Utah Test & Training Range, where the munitions of […]
The Consequences of Patronage
February 24th, 2009 · Comments Off on The Consequences of Patronage
Given my curious fascination with Sri Lanka and its long-running ethnic conflict, I thought it wise to provide some context. The island nation’s 34-year civil war is pretty baffling, and the partisan journalism on both sides doesn’t make it easy to parse the details. That’s why I heartily recommend Sri Lanka: History and the Roots […]
The Fighting Bulbuls of Assam
February 24th, 2009 · Comments Off on The Fighting Bulbuls of Assam
Every year ’round this time, the denizens of Assam throw a harvest shindig called Bhogali Bihu. Folks eat too much, dance around bonfires, and bang on dhols all night. Less predictably, they also watch drunken songbirds beat the tar out of one another. Fighting bulbuls attract thousands of onlookers during Bhogali Bihu, and countless rupees […]
The Sound of One Browser Refreshing
February 23rd, 2009 · Comments Off on The Sound of One Browser Refreshing
The perfect end-of-day time waster: A Zen koan generator. Keep refreshing ’til you get one that applies. It took me three spins to reach “Gutei’s Finger,” which is equal parts cruel and wise. I, for one, would certainly swap a digit for eternal bliss.
“Gambling, Golf, and Gangsters”
February 23rd, 2009 · Comments Off on “Gambling, Golf, and Gangsters”
An excellent New York Times piece on the murder of Oakland newspaper editor Chauncey Bailey is today’s must-read, at least if you (like me) are something of a journalism geek. The article’s one flaw is an all-too-brief namecheck of The Arizona Project, a multi-paper investigation into the 1976 assassination (via car bomb) of Arizona Republic […]
Tags:Arizona·crime·journalism
The Allure of the Fuzz
February 23rd, 2009 · 1 Comment
It doesn’t take a fancy head-shrinking degree to guess why some folks like to imitate cops. But we’ll let an expert break it down for you nonetheless. “The ordinary person who impersonates a police officer is likely to feel powerless in some way in their life,” says Dr. Phillip Resnick, director of forensic psychiatry at […]
Legendary Rats with Wings
February 23rd, 2009 · 2 Comments
The handsome squab pictured at right is none other than Burma Queen, a charter member of the Army Pigeons Hall of Fame (PDF). Back in 1944, this brave pigeon helped save an entire battalion of Allied troops, by racing 320 miles with a key SOS message. She was only five months old at the time—not […]
The Perks of Having a Huge Noggin
February 20th, 2009 · Comments Off on The Perks of Having a Huge Noggin
I’ve previously delved into how physical anomalies can sometimes be a boon to athletes; check out this recent post on Muttiah Muralitharan, the great Tamil cricketeer, whose crooked arm has made him an especially devious bowler. Bree Schaaf’s peculiarity, by contrast, doesn’t necessarily make her a better bobsledder. But it’s nonetheless played a role in […]
Bhutan’s Only Airport
February 20th, 2009 · Comments Off on Bhutan’s Only Airport
I’ve been fascinated by Bhutan ever since reading this 1999 New York Times piece, in which Peter de Jonge bears witness to the nation’s first day of television. The article includes one of the most immortal lines in all of magazine-dom: History strongly suggests that few people will choose to spend eight hours a day […]
We Don’t Serve Your Kind ‘Round Here
February 20th, 2009 · 1 Comment
Urban theorist Mike Davis is usually credited with coining the phrase “bum proofing,” back in his 1990 classic City of Quartz. The target of Davis’s ire back then was a redesigned bus bench, turned cylindrical so as to discourage sleeping. Countless seating areas have since been retrofitted to prevent the incursions of bums; the most […]
Tags:crime·urban design
Avenging a Shark Attack
February 19th, 2009 · Comments Off on Avenging a Shark Attack
The Australian Navy is hunting for the shark that recently mauled one of its more experienced divers. How will the Aussies know when they’ve found the real culprit, rather than just another shark? It ain’t easy.
The Analyzer’s Sad End
February 19th, 2009 · 1 Comment
Back in my days as a cub reporter, I worked the hacker beat for U.S. News & World Report. My first story was about a crack of the Pentagon dubbed Solar Sunrise. It was perpetrated by a trio of young geeks: Two California juveniles and their online mentor, Ehud “Analyzer” Tenenbaum of Israel. The crime […]
Dear Leader is Strictly Business
February 19th, 2009 · Comments Off on Dear Leader is Strictly Business
Really wish I had the funds for an early March trip to The Hague, as this event (PDF) looks damn nigh unmissable. It’s certainly not the longest business seminar I’ve ever seen, which I guess says a lot about the state of the North Korean economy. Poor Evert Jacobsen, for example, only gets 15 minutes […]
Tags:business·North Korea
Yet Another Mammoth Fear
February 19th, 2009 · Comments Off on Yet Another Mammoth Fear
Life was apparently no picnic for the Pleistocene epoch’s woolly mammoths. For starters, they had to be super-wary of where they clomped—one careless step and the tar pits would snag you for all eternity (as well as the eventual edification of schoolchildren). And there were always plenty of saber-toothed tigers lurking about, waiting to snatch […]
Avast, Ye Scurvy Dogs
February 18th, 2009 · Comments Off on Avast, Ye Scurvy Dogs
I tend to distrust state-run news organizations, so color me skeptical upon reading this “doth protest too much” story from Russia’s RIA Novosti. It seems there have been some rumors floating about that crewmen on a Russian frigate came down with scurvy while patrolling the waters off Somalia. The official denial goes: “Reports of technical […]
Swallowed by the Mighty Sea
February 18th, 2009 · 1 Comment
If all had gone as planned, the S.S. American Star would now be a floating hotel in Thailand. But while being towed to its new home 15 years ago, the decommissioned luxury liner ran aground in the Canary Islands. The ship was left there to rot, slowly cracking apart and slipping beneath the waves. It […]
You Know You Have Too Much Money When…
February 17th, 2009 · Comments Off on You Know You Have Too Much Money When…
…you employ a full-time personal shopper. I wonder if she earned overtime while watching Bonds inject exotic fish paralyzers into his kiester. Sure hope so.
The Other Mr. Magic
February 17th, 2009 · Comments Off on The Other Mr. Magic
No, I’m not talking about the DJ who Nas shouts out in “Halftime”. The object of this post’s praise is Turkish “artistic billiards” champion Semih Sayginer, aka “Mr. Magic”, aka “the Turkish Prince”. This guy’s such a supreme wiz that none other than Eric J. Yow proclaims him a personal hero. Eric Freakin’ Yow, I […]
The Bambi Tally
February 17th, 2009 · Comments Off on The Bambi Tally
A storm’s a-brewing over Nevada’s plan to slay a whole bunch of cougars. This is being done in the name of protecting the state’s deer, who we’re told now number 108,000 (down from 240,000 a decade ago). How did Nevada come up with such an accurate census of deer? A helpful guide to counting ruminant […]
The Mysteries of Chimp Strength
February 17th, 2009 · Comments Off on The Mysteries of Chimp Strength
A tragedy in Stamford brings an old mystery to the fore: Why are chimpanzees so fantastically strong, at least compared to their human brethren? The rule of thumb states that chimps are five-to-seven times stronger, pound-for-pound, than members of our species (with whom chimps share 99 percent of their DNA). That’s a bit puzzling, since […]
Borg Me Up
February 16th, 2009 · Comments Off on Borg Me Up
While hunting about for photos of WWII-era Army prison camps, I stumbled upon the vintage snapshot at right, taken from the archives of the National Museum of Health and Medicine. It’s dated circa 1950, which surprised me a bit—I didn’t realize that prosthetic arms were that Robotech-y over a half-century ago. Turns out, however, that […]
Tags:medical science
