The eggheads are learning things from the Hubble Telescope. But even if they weren't, it serves an even greater purpose: you and me are seeing our universe. Nothing compares to the majesty and just plain coolness of seeing a comet breaking up. The closest this comet will come to us is 7.3 million miles away. But the Hubble puts it on our desktop with video like this....
The woman who saved New York City's West Village from Robert Moses's bulldozer has passed away. Jane Jacobs rejected modern architecture's monstrous high rises, with its empty plazas and separation of people from their livelihood. In her book "Death and Life of Great American Cities," written in 1961, Ms. Jacobs's enormous achievement was to transcend her own withering critique of 20th-century urban planning and propose radically new principles for rebuilding cities. At a time when both common and inspired wisdom called for bulldozing slums and opening up city space, Ms. Jacobs's prescription was ever more diversity, density and dynamism — in effect, to crowd people and activities together in a jumping, joyous urban jumble. Ms. Jacobs's thesis was supported and enlarged by her deep, eclectic reading. But most compelling was her description of the everyday life she witnessed from her home above a candy store at 555 Hudson Street. She puts out her garbage, children go to school, the drycleaner and barber open their shops, housewives come out to chat, longshoremen visit the local bar, teenagers return from school and change to go out on dates, and another day is played out. Sometimes odd things happen: a bagpiper shows...
Ever want to know what goes into that rustic Italian sopressata? Ever want to go to your local greenmarket and drive away with a whole pig carcass draped over your Vespa? Here's a great article by Bill Burford about learning how to butcher a pig from Dario Cecchini, the man who inspired his Babbo-ness, Mario Batali. In one passage, Buford describes an old Tuscan recipe for the pig's hind legs, called proscuitti. You started by breaking the legs down into their major muscles, using your fingers to find “the seams.” The Maestro had taken me through the process and created a road map of sorts. The result was a bowl of pork pieces—around a dozen. Next, you brined them by tipping an abundance of salt into a bucket of water and swirling until it half dissolved into a soupy paste. Two days later, you removed the pieces and cooked them slowly in white wine, leaving them to cool overnight before storing them in olive oil in the morning. The pieces, half cured, wine-flavored, and submerged in oil, keep for a year. The recipe, I now appreciate, was probably devised to clean up problem pork during the hot months. In...
Due to a technical maneuver by a Democratic state representative, House Republicans might soon be answering some very uncomfortable allegations that could result in a Bush impeachment: Representative Yarbrough stumbled on a little known and never utlitized rule of the US House of Representatives, Section 603 of Jefferson's Manual of the Rules of the United States House of Representatives, which allows federal impeachment proceedings to be initiated by joint resolution of a state legislature. From there, Illinois House Joint Resolution 125 (hereafter to be referred to as HJR0125) was born. Detailing five specific charges against President Bush including one that is specified to be a felony, the complete text of HJR0125 is copied below at the end of this article. One of the interesting points is that one of the items, the one specified as a felony, that the NSA was directed by the President to spy on American citizens without warrant, is not in dispute. That fact should prove an interesting dilemma for a Republican controlled US House that clearly is not only loathe to initiate impeachment proceedings, but does not even want to thoroughly investigate any of the five items brought up by the Illinois Assembly as high...
The Aryan Brotherhood began as a prison organization in the 70's, when race riots were common in prison. It's members call it 'The Brand' and branched out from white prison supremacy to dealing narcotics, racketeering, extortion, murder. They've created a criminal organization that rivals the mafia's. When Gotti wanted to punish the black guy who punched him out in prison, he went to the Brand. Now 40 people have been indicted and four are currently on trial. The Aryan Brotherhood launched a campaign a decade ago to become the most powerful criminal organization in the world, a former high-ranking member of the prison gang told a federal jury Tuesday. This New Yorker article is full of shocking details about the organization. Upon entering a new prison, Brand members would often carry out a “demonstration” killing or stabbing, in order to terrorize the inmate population. The Baron reportedly ordered that one foe be “taken out in front of everyone, to let these motherfuckers know we mean business.” Indeed, rather than conceal its murders, the gang flaunted them even in front of the guards, as if to show it had no fear of repercussions, of being shot or sentenced to life...
No, not that kind of cheesehead. If you've always been afraid of the word "podcast," it's time to get over it. The husband-and-wife team of Michael Claypool and Sasha Davies are setting out to travel the country and visit artisanal cheesemakers, documenting it on their site Cheese By Hand. And they'll be producing a regular podcast. About cheese. Get those mp3 players fired up now....
The third installment in The Weekly Sir Neglejai is a spastic rooftop voyage on Sunday afternoon in Long Island City, starring the incomparable Anthony Frazzini. Watch here....
