In the process of prepping a special series on first contacts (which will launch next week), Microkhan recently became acquainted with the work of John Webber, an English painter best known for accompanying Captain James Cook to Hawaii. Fortunately for us, Webber did not share Cook’s bummer of fate, and went on to create some […]
Tags:Alaska·anthropology·Captain James Cook·First Contact·Hawaii·John Webber·painting·tattoos
A few years back, Microkhan wrote a lengthy Wired opus about a thorny conflict in Oklahoma: The battle over whether descendants of freedmen should be allowed to join the Native American tribes that their ancestors had belonged to. Now the Obama administration may be entering the fray: In a letter sent to U.S. Attorney General […]
Today’s edition of NtHWS Extras brings us the amazing tale of Dr. Gordon S. Seagrave, arguably one of the most selfless and impressive American expatriates of the 20th century. There is nary a peep about Seagrave in Now the Hell Will Start, primarily because he’s not the sort of bloke you can just casually mention […]
Tags:Burma·Gordon Seagrave·medicine·Now the Hell Will Start·NtHWS Extras Month·World War II
The 1988 B-movie “classic” Bloodsport is notable for three things: Forest Whitaker’s nuanced supporting performance, Bolo Yeung‘s ‘roided-out pectorals, and the novel highlighting of non-Asian martial arts. Microkhan, for one, was first introduced to capoeira through the film, and has been a fan ever since (which meant that his time in Salvadaor de Bahia was […]
British science writer Simon Singh is no fan of chiropractors. In fact, he thinks the vast majority of what they do is pure quackery, and he spends a fair chunk of his book Trick or Treatment? making that abundantly clear. Spinal adjustments that can alleviate a range of ailments? Pshaw, says Singh (as does Microkhan). […]
When Microkhan posted yesterday about a California mule festival, he had no idea he was getting mixed up in a national spat. As several kind readers brought to our attention, the 40-year-old Mule Days celebration is a Johnny-come-lately compared to Mule Day (singular) in Columbia, Tenn. The hoedown in the Volunteer State is said to […]
Tags:animals·California·crime·Mule Day·mules·Mules Days·Tennessee
En route to the Indo-Burmese jungle, the main character in Now the Hell Will Start spent several weeks at a British rest camp called Deolali, about 125 miles from Bombay. Prior to World War II, the camp had been used as a holding area for British soldiers who’d completed their service in Asia, and were […]
Tags:chemical weapons·Deolali·India·mustard gas·Now the Hell Will Start·NtHWS Extras Month·World War II
Microkhan never tires of reading about the semi-ingenious concealment methods employed by drug smugglers. In today’s installment, an American college student allegedly attempts to shimmy her way out of Guyana while carrying gobs of cocaine. Her defense upon being caught, as explained by her lawyer to a Guyanese magistrate, is somewhat less-than-convincing: “It was quite […]
For an animal primarily known for its stubbornness, the humble mule inspires a surprising amount of human love and devotion. Microkhan recently became acquainted with mule fandom via Western Mule Magazine, a publication that led him to discover Mule Days in Bishop, Calif. Held annually over Memorial Day Weekend, Mule Days is a true whopper […]
We rarely get misty-eyed over the celebrity deaths, but yesterday’s passing of Dom DeLuise really got to us. That’s because he helped form our earliest impression of Ancient Roman decadence, with his turn as a gluttonous, Nero-like emperor in History of the World Part I. (Above; language slightly NSFW.) To this day, we can’t read […]
Tags:ancient history·Dom DeLuise·History of the World Part I·movies·Roman Empire
In the course of researching the Now the Hell Will Start chapter that deals with wartime prostitution, we stumbled upon a great little artifact called Morale-Building Activities in Foreign Armies. It’s an illustrated 1943 pamphlet that delves into the various methods used by both Axis and Allies to pep up their troops’ spirits. And it […]
Tags:Britain·Germany·Italy·Now the Hell Will Start·NtHWS Extras Month·World War II
Indonesia regularly languishes near the bottom of Transparency International‘s corruption index; in the 2008 rankings, the world’s fourth-most populous nation came in tied for 126th, alongside Honduras, Uganda, and Mozambique. With everyone’s hand out when foreign investors come knocking, it’s no wonder that major development deals fall through all the time. So what’s to be […]
We’ve long been looking for an excuse to shout-out Fresh Produce, an eclectic podcast that airs semi-regularly from “an undisclosed location in South London.” Thankfully, their latest show gave us a killer hook: The strange career of Jamaican rocksteady legend Phyllis Dillon. As recounted by Fresh Produce co-host Daddy Like, who spun Dillon’s fantastic “Don’t […]
In light of February’s horrific chimpanzee attack in Stamford, Connecticut legislators have proposed a sweeping ban on pets deemed capable of harming humans. And they’ve spared no effort in identifying animals who they’d like to render bestia non grata in the Nutmeg State. This entry in the bill’s verboten list caught Microkhan’s eye: (10) The […]
The Bengal Famine of 1943 receives barely two paragprahs’ worth of ink in Now the Hell Will Start, a lamentable oversight that we now hope to correct as part of NtHWS Extras Month. Our interest in the famine has less to do with its devastating scale—as many as 4 million Indians may have perished from […]
Tags:Bengal·Calcutta·famine·India·Now the Hell Will Start·NtHWS Extras Month
Since folk-medicine techniques ostensibly develop over many centuries, one would think its practitioners would slowly come to realize that some practices are actually harmful rather than helpful. But, alas, it turns out our species isn’t always aces at connecting cause to effect. And so we keep using treatments that are several degrees worse than doing […]
Tags:Indonesia·infant mortality·medical science·medicine·Timor-Leste·trepanation
Alaska’s Mount Redoubt, a 10,197-foot-high volcano located a little over 100 miles from Anchorage, is burbling anew. Witness the ashy stir via the Alaska Volcano Observatory’s three Mount Redoubt webcams; Microkhan’s favorite snaps regular pics from the volcano’s northern flank, though the angle from a nearby seismic station is mighty intriguing, too.
Tags:Alaska·Mount Redoubt·volcanoes
Growing up in Los Angeles, I always idealized cow milking. It seemed like such a delightful, salt-of-the-earth activity, with just the right amount of grossness thrown in for good measure. Plus, being the curious sort of bairn, I was always fascinated by the thought of tracing my beloved Kraft Singles back to the source. Turns […]
Let Microkhan go on record as saying that we’ve enjoyed at least one frequently derided Sylvester Stallone flick (the campy-yet-terrifying Cobra). But when it comes to Over the Top, we have no choice but to agree with the masses. Like so many of Sly’s 1980s vehicles, it’s all-too-easy to envision the movie-exec brainstorming that went […]
Tags:arm wrestling·Bad Movie Friday·movies·Over the Top·sports·Sylvester Stallone
The earliest draft of Now the Hell Will Start contained a long passage about the efforts of Sen. Theodore Bilbo (D-Miss.) to deport America’s black population to West Africa. The Bilbo tangent got lost in the shuffle, and probably for the best. But the senator’s vitriol is something to behold, and it’s worth reviving for […]
Tags:Now the Hell Will Start·NtHWS Extras Month·politics·Sally Hemmings·Theodore Bilbo·Thomas Jefferson
In 1953, America dispatched Vice-President Richard Nixon to the island nation of Ceylon (still nearly two decades away from being rechristened Sri Lanka). The Eisenhower Administration was mighty worried about reports that Ceylon was shipping strategic materials to newly Communist China, a sign that the former colony might be contemplating an even more dramatic leftward […]
An intriguing debate (PDF) over whether schizophrenia is a uniquely modern disease. Given the ailment’s genetic origins, Microkhan has long assumed that it’s been with our species since time immemorial. But based on their examination from 15th-century Islamic medical textbooks, a pair of South Carolina doctors disagree: Serefeddin Sabuncuoglu (1385-1470) was a general physician who […]
