The ultra-celebrated Ta-Nehisi Coates has lent us plenty of support over the years, so we’d like to return the favor by calling attention to his latest conquest: the vaunted pages of The New Yorker, where his killer MF Doom profile just debuted. Though to call it a mere profile is a disservice—it’s also a meditation […]
About a dozen years ago, there was a minor to-do in Kentucky over the health hazards of burgoo—specifically the possibility that the consumption of squirrel brains could lead to some variant of Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease. The state’s government thus engaged in a pointed campaign to discourage the consumption of roadkilled squirrels, the brains of which are […]
For the second time in less than a month, we’re off to the Land of 10,000 Lakes for a brief, work-related visit. We’ll do our best to post from the road, though we may get too caught up in ironing our shirts and watching tonight’s Titans-Steelers tilt. Oh, and if anyone can recommend a good, […]
Staying on yesterday’s Black Hawk theme, we found a major scientific curio related to the Sauk chief: an 1838 account of Black Hawk’s phrenological characteristics, published in the not-so-renowned American Phrenological Journal and Miscellany. We’re big lovers of old-time junk science, and this paper is chock full of such wrongheaded (though utterly sincere) treats. One […]
Tags:Black Hawk·Native Americans·neuroscience·phrenology·pseudoscience
As soon as President Obama invoked Theodore Roosevelt’s name last night, we started digging through the archives in search of details about the Bull Moose’s call for health-care reform. It was a tougher get than we expected, as the proposal amounts to little more than a single line in the Progressive Party’s final 1912 platform; […]
Tags:Barack Obama·economics·presidents·prisons·public health·Theodore Roosevelt
Trust us when we say that Voodoo Funk pretty much defines the phrase “Internet essential.” If you have even a cursory interest in vintage African sounds of the ’70 and ’80s, or even just plain ol’ vinyl collecting, you owe this site many hours of your time. It’s recently introduced us to a bevy of […]
Tags:Africa·music·Voodoo Funk
In response to our post below about Oklahoma’s artery-mucking official meal, one of our favorite commenters chimed in: This reads like every last meal I ever read about while I was growing up in the South. I guess Oklahoma death row inmates can save some time ordering– “I’ll have the ‘Official,” they say. Alas, the […]
Tags:death penalty·Oklahoma
One of our big hobby horses ’round here is the natural rate of divorce—that is, the theory that a certain percentage of marriages are invariably doomed, and that policymakers should realize this when crafting divorce laws. If those laws are too strict, you just get a lot of miserable couples who become a drag on […]
In researching the history of freedmen’s towns this morning, we came across a rather irresistible bit of trivia: the fact that Oklahomans have an official state meal. And what a doozy of a repast it is (PDF): Chicken-fried steak Barbecue pork Fried okra Squash Blackeyed peas Cornbread Biscuits Sausage gravy Grits Corn Strawberries Pecan pie […]
Tags:chicken-fried steak·food·obesity·Oklahoma·public health
For those of you residing in or near the County of Kings, please consider checking out our live appearance tonight. No, we won’t be boring you with yet another Now the Hell Will Start reading. Rather, we’ll be taking part in Adult Education, which proudly bills itself as “a useless lecture series.” Tonight’s topic is […]
Tags:beer·housekeeping·marketing·Zima
We here at Microkhan are avid fans of Robert Young Pelton’s World’s Most Dangerous Places series, in part because we never cease being amazed by the man’s utter ballsiness. (Algeria sans security in the thick of civil war? Really?) But the lure in Pelton’s work isn’t just his bravado—it’s his frankness about which travels threats […]
Tags:cars·economics·Kazakhstan·public health·Robert Young Pelton·statistics·travel·World Health Organization
Speaking of Karōshi, we’ve been feeling a might frazzled by our workload as of late—not to mention the daily stresses of tending to Microkhan Jr. as he masters his use of the word “no.” So we’re looking forward to a few days in the Massachusetts hinterlands, where a longtime pal’s getting hitched over the holiday […]
Tags:Bollywood·Chaiya Chaiya·housekeeping·India·movies·music
As you’re stuffing your face with sweet sausages and Budwesier Chelada this holiday weekend, we hope you’ll pause for a brief moment to remember those who really could have used a Labor Day respite: victims of karōshi, who remain far more numerous than they should be. Karōshi translates from the Japanese as “death from overwork,” […]
Tags:economics·games·Japan·karōshi·law·public health·statistics·suicide
Sorry ’bout the lack of posts this morning. We’re scrambling on a million things, both pre-Africa and pre-holiday weekend. Please go check out our take of yore on Grover Cleveland’s desperation, and we’ll try to circle back to y’all once more before our all-too-brief vacation kicks in. Danke sehr, dear readers.
Apologies for the light posting today, a phenomenon which is sadly sure to repeat itself between now and Labor Day. We’re scrambling to prepare for two major reporting trips—one to East Africa, the other to the American Heartland. On top of that, we’ve got a lecture to prepare for—next Tuesday, we’ll be regaling Brooklynites about […]
Not that we expect any of y’all to remember this, but we left you hanging a couple of months back. See, we dug up a copy of Lee Mason’s “Shady Blues”, which we first fell in love with as a much-used hip-hop sample. And at the conclusion of that long-ago post, we promised to “follow […]
Every once in a while, we stumble upon an online resource that makes us wonder how we ever managed to get along without it. Such is the case with the clunkily named First World War Digital Poetry Archive, which features even more interesting historical tidbits than advertised. The main focus here, of course, is one […]
Tags:history·movies·World War I
Legal wolf hunting has finally returned to the Lower 48, ostensibly as a way to control the species’ population while also earning Idaho’s state government a few bucks. The program obviously has some folks in a lather, as history shows that rapacious hunting was responsible for the gray wolf‘s longtime residency on the endangered species […]
Tags:economics·hunting·Idaho·Nebraska·wildlife management·wolves
It gives us immense pleasure to announce Microkhan’s favorite rapping competitive eater, Eric “Badlands” Booker, is back with his fifth album, Extended Play. As always, Booker’s lyrical content focuses on his gustatory dedication, as well as the perks of being a minor celebrity. The cut above does an excellent job of conveying both the stress […]
Tags:Badlands Booker·competitive eating·hip-hop·music·sports·Yosemite Sam
We’re currently prepping for a work-related trip to East Africa, which means we now get to spend lots of time being freaked out by ominous Centers for Disease Control warnings. (According to the CDC’s literature, setting foot in half the countries on the planet appears to be a recipe for gory death.) It also means […]
Ordinarily we’d save Lockjaw: Rise of the Kulev Serpent for our weekly Bad Movie Friday feature. But, honestly, we don’t think we can sleep too many more days without knowing exactly what star DMX mumbles in the middle of this trailer. We think his closing line is, “The only thing you have to look forward […]
Tags:Bad Movie Friday·DMX·Lockjaw: Rise of the Kulev Serpent·movies·Shakespeare·snakes
Left-of-center politicians are often demonized for simply “throwing money at a problem” instead of concocting a more innovative solution. But there are, in fact, instances in which direct cash incentives are by far the most efficient tact. Such appears to be the case in India, which continues to have a serious problem with female infanticide, […]
Tags:bribery·India·infanticide·marriage
According to WordPress’s handy dashboard counter, the words you’re now reading constitute my 500th blog post. So what better time to temporarily drop the royal we and think aloud regarding what this whole blogging deal has taught us—and, perhaps more importantly, why we keep at it despite the ludicrously imbalanced labor-to-reward ratio. When I launched […]
