telescreen.org

Another piece for NewYorkology, this one on Prohibition, Repeal Day, and historic (and modern) New York speakeasies.

This morning, I went over to Le Bernardin to cover the launch of Zagat's Vintage Dinner Series for NewYorkology.  Here's my report.

Kudos to Chico Bangs for an awesomely interesting BoingBoing Gadgets article on advances in motion-capture technology.  No trackers or calibration needed!  Pretty cool stuff.

This made me very happy.

Three wonderful ideas for websites:

• It's not Its;
• It's Lovely! I'll Take It! (kind of the real-estate version of Cake Wrecks); and
• Dear PR Flack...

The Times made my day by posting a nice article on the "Expressway Visual", my favorite route into LaGuardia.  It's a relatively-rare "visual approach", in which pilots find their way to the airport by using visual landmarks instead of GPS or other electronic methods.  As the chart indicates, pilots approaching from the south fly over Prospect Park, pass the waypoint known as "DIALS", then turn right and follow the Long Island Expressway until they get to Flushing Meadows-Corona Park, at which point they make a sweeping left turn around -- or over -- Shea Stadium and line up almost exactly northwest to land on Runway 31.  (Like all runways, it's named for the first one or two digits of its compass heading -- the opposite end is necessarily referred to as Runway 13.)

It's great fun to watch from the ground, too, especially for dorks like me who like to take pictures of airplanes.  The planes' low altitude combined with their tightly banking turn makes for a dramatic flyby, and the planes go about three-quarters of the way around you as you watch.  I like to go out to the eastern end of the World's Fair Promenade adjoining Flushing Bay and watch them wheel around me.

It's almost as much fun from the plane -- there are some good YouTube videos out there, or check out this quick-n-dirty animated gif made up of photos I shot from the left side of an arriving plane:

Some links for your perusal:

• The TSA is right: liquids can be dangerous;
• Someone used one of my photos (under the CC license) and incorporated it into some Steampunk Wallpaper.  Nice!
• File under: completely unnecessary;
• Whadaya know, Meghan McCain has pretty decent taste in blues.

Rooftop sign, originally uploaded by Vidiot.

I've got a review of the Empire Hotel Rooftop up on NewYorkology.

(Short version? If you know me, and you know the kinds of bars I like to hang out in, and if your proclivities in any way overlap with mine, give it a pass. But there are lots of people who like this thing, and it was reasonably well-executed, so if it's your deal, go for it.)

Meme time!  Spotted this over at Paul Frankenstein's site.  As Andrew Wheeler puts it:

Below is a list of 100 things that I think every good omnivore should have tried at least once in their life. The list includes fine food, strange food, everyday food and even some pretty bad food - but a good omnivore should really try it all. Don’t worry if you haven’t, mind you; neither have I, though I’ll be sure to work on it. Don’t worry if you don’t recognise everything in the hundred, either; Wikipedia has the answers.

Here’s what I want you to do:

1) Copy this list into your blog or journal, including these instructions.
2) Bold all the items you’ve eaten.
3) Cross out any items that you would never consider eating.

The Omnivore’s Hundred:

1. Venison
2. Nettle tea
3. Huevos rancheros
4. Steak tartare
5. Crocodile  (does alligator count?)
6. Black pudding
7. Cheese fondue
8. Carp
9. Borscht
10. Baba ghanoush
11. Calamari
12. Pho
13. PB&J sandwich
14. Aloo gobi
15. Hot dog from a street cart
16. Epoisses
17. Black truffle
18. Fruit wine made from something other than grapes
19. Steamed pork buns
20. Pistachio ice cream
21. Heirloom tomatoes
22. Fresh wild berries
23. Foie gras
24. Rice and beans
25. Brawn, or head cheese
26. Raw Scotch Bonnet pepper
27. Dulce de leche
28. Oysters
29. Baklava
30. Bagna cauda (no, but this sounds great)
31. Wasabi peas
32. Clam chowder in a sourdough bowl
33. Salted lassi
34. Sauerkraut
35. Root beer float
36. Cognac with a fat cigar (no cigars for me)
37. Clotted cream tea
38. Vodka jelly/Jell-O
39. Gumbo
40. Oxtail
41. Curried goat 
42. Whole insects
43. Phaal
44. Goat’s milk
45. Malt whisky from a bottle worth £60/$120 or more (not malt, but rye.)
46. Fugu
47. Chicken tikka masala
48. Eel
49. Krispy Kreme original glazed doughnut
50. Sea urchin
51. Prickly pear
52. Umeboshi
53. Abalone
54. Paneer
55. McDonald’s Big Mac Meal
56. Spaetzle
57. Dirty gin martini
58. Beer above 8% ABV
59. Poutine
60. Carob chips
61. S’mores
62. Sweetbreads
63. Kaolin
64. Currywurst
65. Durian
66. Frogs’ legs
67. Beignets, churros, elephant ears or funnel cake (Yes x4.)
68. Haggis
69. Fried plantain
70. Chitterlings, or andouillette
71. Gazpacho
72. Caviar and blini
73. Louche absinthe
74. Gjetost, or brunost
75. Roadkill
76. Baijiu
77. Hostess Fruit Pie
78. Snail
79. Lapsang souchong
80. Bellini
81. Tom yum
82. Eggs Benedict
83. Pocky
84. Tasting menu at a three-Michelin-star restaurant.
85. Kobe beef
86. Hare (if rabbit counts.)
87. Goulash
88. Flowers
89. Horse
90. Criollo chocolate
91. Spam
92. Soft shell crab
93. Rose harissa (I like regular harissa, though.)
94. Catfish
95. Mole poblano
96. Bagel and lox
97. Lobster Thermidor (Only boiled lobster, lobster roll, lobster risotto, and other preps.)
98. Polenta
99. Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee
100. Snake (Of the rattle variety.)

Ouch.  79/100.  I eat too much.

By the by, I have a review of mad46 up on NewYorkology.

Some linky goodness for your Friday-afternoon perusal:

• An interview with the kid on the cover of Nevermind...he's 17 now, and I feel old;
• How not to do an American accent;
• "Learn to read the signs, [bodily orifice]!";
• "She was yelling 'I have power, I have power, I have power'," Perry said. . ."It makes you feel like you have no rights.";
• Finally;
• I thought The Boys and the Subway was utterly charming;
• A letter to a Times sub-editor.  I can't rite reel gud, but this was great.

Overtime battle, originally uploaded by Vidiot.

So I went out to Coney Island yesterday to shoot pictures of the Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest.  My Flickr set is here, and I'll be adding more pictures as I edit them.

Reigning champion Joey Chestnut defended his title against six-time champion Takeru Kobayashi. Chestnut and Kobayashi had consumed 59 hot dogs and buns each after the end of the ten-minute race, forcing the first-ever overtime in the contest's history. The winner would be the first to consume five more hot dogs and buns, and Chestnut finished seven seconds before Kobayashi. The coveted Mustard Yellow Belt stays in American hands.

George Shea, the contest emcee and IFOCE honcho -- and, not incidentally, a brilliant PR huckster of the old school -- was in rare form, as well:  this blog collects some of his bons mots from the contest.  My favorite moments, however, occurred before the contest:  he told jokes, he brought out cops, musicians (including Amos Wengler, who sang "Hot Dog, Hot Dog") and a rabbi, he turned the mic over to a guy who popped the question to his girlfriend...and then Shea surprised the happy couple by announcing that he'd recently been ordained by the Universal Life Church and married them on the spot.  But Shea really got going when he introduced the eaters at greater length before the live telecast began:

• "He is a genius of competitive eating.  He knows why they call it couscous, and not just cous.  He remembers what he had for lunch on March 17, 1996:  tuna salad."
• "He was once the bologna-eating champion of the world, but he lost that title and the prestige that went with it.  And it burned him.  He felt as felt the old man who has lived long enough to watch his son hang from the gallows.  And like that old man, he won't be ashamed to remember that his life had no meaning, and no hope."
• "I have seen dark visions of the future, signs of the apocalypse.  Smoldering rubble.  A tearful girl holding a limp doll.  A monkey riding horseback on a poodle.  My ears have been shredded by the mournful news they have heard, because I have witnessed the horses riding!  I have witnessed the coming of the leader of the Four Horsemen of the Esophagus!  He has a cloven tongue with which he eats the cloven hoof!  He is the pig's-feet-eating champion of the WOOOOOOOORLD!"
• "13.7 billion years ago, all matter and energy in the universe was compressed into one single infinitely small point, and the pressure was such that it created a singularity, an explosion that sent matter and energy outward, creating the universe, as it did.  And as that matter cooled, it became gas, and as the gases cooled, they became planets.  And as the planets cooled, chemicals combined on their surfaces, in ever more complex ways, until one day life was born.  And one form of life climbed from the ocean, and gained self-consciousness, the ability to observe that the observer and the observed are one and the same.  And as he stood on his wobbly hind legs and opened his round wide eyes, what did he see?  He saw the frybread-eating champion of the WOOOOOOOOORLD!"

(These quotes are taken from a recording I made -- the 40MB MP3 is available here, and it's definitely worth a listen.)

For more on competitive eating, check out this WSJ blog post on the medical aspects, complete with fluoroscopy!

I'm all for decreasing the death rate for HIV -- especially now that new drugs mean that AIDS can be managed and that HIV+ diagnosis is no longer an automatic death sentence -- but this kind of disturbed me:

The written consent requirement, she said, has been a barrier in emergency rooms, where doctors often feel it interferes with more immediate needs.

Under the new initiative, hospital administrators in the Bronx have agreed to test in emergency rooms, while still following state consent law. Dr. Futterman said she had carefully constructed a script for doctors that follows state law but squeezes what is typically a 20-minute counseling and consent process into five minutes. A doctor with lots of experience could deliver the script in three minutes, she said, and her own record is one minute.

(From the Times' story on the new effort to test every adult living in the Bronx.)

Does "informed consent" really mean anything at all when the doctors take pride in explaining a complicated, potentially life-altering process in one minute?  In a twentieth of the normal time?

 

I'm writing this from the Middle of Nowhere (tm), on an elderly borrowed laptop equipped with a cellular-broadband card that likes to go belly-up at crucial moments and glacially-slow the rest of the time.  So please excuse any latent testiness.  (Any more than usual, that is.)

Anyway:  Sometimes the Times gets it really, really right.  Their blogs are great, from City Room's focus on New York stories to Errol Morris on truth and images and what they tell us, to Dick Cavett on...well, whatever Dick Cavett wants to write about, because I'll sit at his feet and hoover up every mot, bon or not.

But Measure for Measure, the NYT's new-ish blog about the craft and art of songwriting, is fantastic -- check out people like Roseanne Cash (!) on what it's like to write with Kris Kristofferson and Elvis Costello, Andrew Bird (!!) on recording at the Wilco loft, and Suzanne Vega (!!!) on what it's like to be a "two-hit wonder" and, not-so-incidentally, breaking down the genesis of "Luka".

And damn, they've gone and made it better; the newest contributor is none other than Peter Holsapple, who talks us through a brand-new song.

(Oh, and the flipside to that?  Sometimes the Times, like all of us, trips over its merry boots of clay.  Is Florence Fabricant trimming her nails and using them to combine root beer with semifreddo? 

Somehow I doubt it.  And this may be a point for the other blog, but a Cuba Libre is Coke (not just "cola"), rum, ice, and lime.  Vital ingredient, there, and it's what separates a Cuba Libre from a garden-variety rum 'n' Coke.)

You've been allowed to fly without ID (contrary to what you may have heard, even from TSA officers) for some time now -- you don't have to produce photo identification, as much as the airlines would like you to.  (They don't want to make it easy for passengers to freely buy and sell tickets.)  After all, this is putatively still a free country, right?

Flying without ID comes at a small price, though: you get lots of extra security screening.  (Some actually claimed that this sped up their dealings with TSA, as the extra security screening also got them jumped to the head of the line.)  And if you aren't a hardass civil libertarian or are trying to make a point about security theater (after all, how difficult can it be to come by a fake ID?), and have simply mislaid your driver's license, no big deal: submit to the extra screening, and you're on your way. 

Except that, effective today, the TSA is changing their rules.  If you refuse to show ID, they won't let you past the checkpoint:

Beginning Saturday, June 21, 2008 passengers that willfully refuse to provide identification at security checkpoint will be denied access to the secure area of airports.

(The missing comma bugs me almost as much as what I'm about to type next.)

But what's really bizarre about this new policy is what follows:

This change will apply exclusively to individuals that simply refuse to provide any identification or assist transportation security officers in ascertaining their identity.

This new procedure will not affect passengers that may have misplaced, lost or otherwise do not have ID but are cooperative with officers. Cooperative passengers without ID may be subjected to additional screening protocols, including enhanced physical screening, enhanced carry-on and/or checked baggage screening, interviews with behavior detection or law enforcement officers and other measures.

In other words, if you've forgotten your ID, it's still OK.  Take the extra search, and you're still good to go.  But if you're doing this to exercise your Constitutional rights, to protest against regulations you're not allowed to examine (but are nonetheless bound by), or to point out how pointless this entire ID business is at actually increasing passenger safety and security?  You're out of luck.  TSA is being petty and retributive (big shocker there):  if you "cooperate" (meaning: don't give them any static), you'll get to make your plane.  If you don't want to show ID -- even if you cooperate and cheerfully submit to extra screening, just like Grandma in the next lane who left her purse on top of her Buick -- then you don't get to fly.

As Bruce Schneier comments:

[People] who refuse to show ID on principle will not be allowed to fly, but people who claim to have lost their ID will. I feel well-protected against terrorists who can't lie.

I don't think any further proof is needed that the ID requirement has nothing to do with security, and everything to do with control.

Schneier has actually thought extensively about security, something that by all appearances the TSA has not.  (And titling your press release "TSA Announces Enhancements to Airport ID Requirements to Increase Safety" doesn't exactly convince me, Kip: just because you say something doesn't make it efficacious.  Or even true.)

Jim Harper concurs with Schneier, pointing out that "[no] terrorist or criminal would draw attention to him or herself by obstinately refusing an ID check."  Good point.  Didn't all the 9/11 highjackers have valid, legal ID?  And didn't they all successfully clear security screening?  And, more concretely, shouldn't TSA be even more confident that a passenger without ID isn't a threat, given that they've just passed a far more intrusive security screen than the rest of the passengers?  This does nothing to further the TSA's core mission of making transportation systems safer and more secure, but that's no real surprise either.  The TSA, as they almost constantly do, confuses authority with security. 

And I'd agree with Daniel Solove, who points out that this new requirement seems unconstitutional:

This new TSA rule strikes me as problematic from a First Amendment standpoint, since it seems to be designed to target those who don't present ID for expressive reasons. As such, this new TSA requirement might be a form of viewpoint discrimination.  

Although the First Amendment doesn't restrict the TSA from requiring IDs in order to board an airplane, it does restrict using the ID requirement to penalize people who engage in expressive conduct. Because the TSA requirement seems to be targeted to this kind of expressive conduct (hence the exception for lost or stolen IDs), it may run afoul of the First Amendment.

If the TSA were announcing a new rule, one in which everyone absolutely must show ID or not be allowed on an airplane, it would still upset some people (including those that believe in a right to travel freely about one's own country.)  But I'd find it far less troublesome, given that TSA wouldn't be punishing travelers based on what it sees as their intent. The TSA is giving their screeners -- yes, the same ones featuring in travelers' horror stories involving lack of judgment -- the power to decide travelers' intent in flying without ID.  Is this guy making a political statement?  Or did he lose his wallet?  It's entirely up to the screeners' gut instincts.

And, something tells me that if you're not white, or speak with an accent, or have your head covered by a scarf and you've forgotten your ID, then you just might as well go Greyhound, because you won't be flying the friendly skies anytime soon.  (Hey, at least they let you bring bottled water on the bus.)

Have you caught the flap about the AP vs. bloggers?

So the AP, in flagrant dismissal of the "fair use" doctrine (Title 17, Section 107, U.S. Code), is declaring war on bloggers by saying that any quotation of their copy of five words or more requires licensing and payment.  They got lots of criticism from various bloggers, as you might expect.

However, as the Washington Post noted, the NYT has defended the AP's actions, and so has an outfit called the Media Bloggers Association, which purports to represent bloggers in their dispute with the AP.  The MBA has opened "negotiations" with the AP to come up with "guidelines" on how bloggers can quote from AP material. 

Why are guidelines necessary?  If you don't consider bloggers' quoting from your articles to be fair use, then sue for a copyright violation.  And, as a blogger, I'm highly dubious about someone who is supposedly negotiating on my behalf.  Who are the membership of the MBA?  Well, they're not listed on their site.  (Until today, when MBA honcho Robert Cox mentioned a few on his blog.)  And can I join?  Well, no, they themselves admit that they haven't processed any membership applications since "early 2007."

So the inimitable Teresa Nielsen Hayden of Making Light did some research into Robert Cox and the MBA, and wowee, lookee at what she found:

The Media Bloggers Association substantially consists of one lackluster blogger named Robert Cox. His weblog, Words in Edgewise, and the MBA website, are two halves of the same site. Robert Cox isn’t all that interested in blogging per se. What he’s really into is self-aggrandizement by representing himself as someone who speaks for bloggers and blogging. An embarrassing number of organizations have fallen for this.

But yeah, go read the whole thing for a truly epic takedown of a self-aggrandizing self-appointed Spokesman For The Blogsophere.

Yesterday, I went to a press junket at JFK about the launch of OpenSkies, a new airline flying between New York and Paris.  I filed a story for NewYorkology, and I have some more pictures here.

I enjoyed this Walking Off The Big Apple post that compares Paris' Île de la Cité with New York's own Roosevelt Island.

She had a great run, but I miss Cyd Charisse:

By the by, I have a review of Salon de Ning up on NewYorkology.

New York hotels for $58 a night?  Too good to be true, you might say, and you'd be...well, exactly right.

NewYorkology investigates the newest Expedia ad, and finds them to be a little liberal with the truth.

Not quite things that make you go "hmmmm", but things that I thought were ultra-cool lately:

• Alan Taylor, a friend who writes the excellent Kokogiak, has come up with an amazing blog concept for Boston.com, where he works.  The Big Picture is just that, or rather, a selection of big pictures about a current news event.  It's stuff from the AP photos feed, but much, much higher-quality and more striking pictures, well-curated and assembled with a discerning eye.  Do check it out.
• Most. Awesome. Renovation. Ever. This NYT story made my jaw drop:

What Ms. Sherry didn’t realize until much later was that Mr. Clough had a number of other ideas about her apartment that he didn’t share with her. It began when Mr. Klinsky threw in his two cents, a vague request that a poem he had written for and about his family be lodged in a wall somewhere, Ms. Sherry said, “put in a bottle and hidden away as if it were a time capsule.”

And then the designer went a little nuts, and liberally salted the entire apartment with secret messages, hidden compartments, and obscure codes.  So cool.  (And check out the accompanying slideshow, too.)

• PBS host and guidebook writer Rick Steves recently went to Iran, and his pictures and blog posts about daily life there are fascinating.
• "The Symbols On My Flag (And What They Mean)"

So, um, hi.  It's been a while.

The usual blogger hand-waving and excuses apply -- busy life, crazy work schedule, houseguests, travel, et cetera.  Plus I decided not to write about politics for a while, for various reasons.  And without viewing the world through the prism of politics, there suddenly was a lot less that felt like it demanded my urgent, passionate response.  When Presidential and local politics is off-limits, there's less that just plain pissed me off, in other words.

Or I'd find stuff that I wanted to link to, but didn't have time right then, and I'd put it off, and put it off, and then the moment had passed.

Or I couldn't think of anything -- anything! -- interesting to say or write (Not that this stopped me before, but.)

But I'm gonna try to do better this time, baby.  Please, will you take me back?

Headline a couple of days ago in the NY Sun:

Will He Be Hanged for Helping Israel?

The story's lede, with emphasis added by me:

A Palestinian Authority police officer accused of helping Israel with counterterrorism is facing death at the hands of a firing line unless a last-minute appeal to President Bush can save him.

So, no.  Shot, maybe, but not hanged.

Today is Law Day, when we honor the rule of law and the fundamental role it plays in preserving liberty in our nation and in all free societies.