March 25, 2016
Way to give the people what they want, Connery
he should have eaten the other five
This Week In UFOs
After the damp squib that was the X-Files miniseries, UFOs have had a mostly good week. Star quarterback Aaron Rodgers admitted he saw one and Hillary Clinton pledges to get to the bottom of the mystery. Renewed interest in UFOs even reached the petty criminal demographic as a display piece was stolen from the UFO Museum in Roswell, NM this week.
Never Pay For Food Again In NYC
In 2010, U.S. supermarkets and grocery stores threw out 43 billion pounds, or $46.7 billion worth, of food, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). [more inside]
How the 'risk' of making The Night Manager paid off
BBC: It's been a ratings smash, caused meltdown on social media and an online leak of the last episode has made global headlines. But is the success of the TV adaptation of John Le Carre's The Night Manager down to its star names - or the enduring appeal of the spy? [There are no actual spoilers in this piece, although there are a couple of images from later episodes.]
“Oh, what a big gun you have.”
NRA [National Rifle Association] Rewrites Fairytales to Include Firearms. by David Barnett [The Guardian] The US pro-gun lobby is entertaining its younger members with its own take on classic fairytales, but they have a unique twist: firearms. The National Rifle Association’s nrafamily.com website is featuring the pro-firearms stories:
Little Red Riding Hood (Has a Gun) &
Hansel and Gretel (Have Guns) by Amelia Hamilton. [more inside]
Early american life insurance: goat rituals and tree stump headstones
Woodmen of the World was a fraternal society formed by the conveniently named Joseph Cullen Root, who wanted to form a group that would "clear away problems of financial security for its members," in a time before Social Security, when life insurance could actually be a threat to people's lives. How do you expand your membership and ensure members pay their dues? Lodge initiation devices, initially created by Ed DeMoulin and his brothers, Erastus and Ulysses, whose workshop became known locally as the Goat Factory. And tree-trunk shaped headstones were a nice benefit for members who had passed. They're parts of Goat Rituals and Tree-Trunk Gravestones: The Peculiar History of Life Insurance [Via Presurfer] [more inside]
Latenight mansplaining
Canny political players, not pawns or victims
Writing women characters into epic fantasy without quotas, an essay by SFF writer Kate Elliott. [more inside]
In Defense of the Trend Piece
This past weekend saw the latest eruption in a long-running campaign to shame the New York Times into no longer publishing trend pieces in its Styles section. It’s a tradition that goes back more than a decade—remember Jennifer 8. Lee’s canonical “man date” story or Warren St. John’s paradigm-shifting “Metrosexuals Come Out”?—and one that owes its longevity to the tantalizing sense of superiority many readers of trend pieces experience when scolding the often lovely and exuberant reportorial form as an affront to serious journalism.
An odd disturbance at the head end
Archaeologists who scanned the grave of William Shakespeare say they have made a head-scratching discovery: His skull appears to be missing.
Paige has a lot of jawn to do
Red Lake County, Minnesota
After calling it "the absolute worst place to live in America" this past August (MeFi discussion), Christopher Ingraham and his family are moving to Red Lake County, Minnesota. [more inside]
A Riddle from 538
Not blackface but black faces. Well, blackface too.
He wanted to do not “Shuffle Along” but the making of “Shuffle Along” (official title: “Shuffle Along, or the Making of the Musical Sensation of 1921 and All That Followed”). He would tell the story of the original creators and cast and how they pulled it off ... Interesting approach, you say, sounds great. But to make it work, you couldn’t stint on the dancing and the songs. Those were what made the show go: syncopation, fire, artistry.
The moving story behind America’s first penis transplant
A lot more people stand to benefit if the transplant is successful:
Though Johns Hopkins is only planning to offer the operation to combat veterans for now, a lot more people stand to benefit. Foremost among them are cancer survivors and transgender individuals looking to gain a functional penis.
An Ascot ting
UK Garage Horse Racing (SLYT)
“It’s a good school. It’s capable of being a better school.”
A proper reckoning
Feminist economics deserves recognition - "In 2014 only 12% of American economics professors were female, and only one woman (Elinor Ostrom) has won the Nobel prize for economics.[1,2,3] But in terms of focus, economists have embraced some feminist causes. Papers abound on the 'pay gap' (American women earned 21% less than men for full-time work in 2014), and the extra growth that could be unlocked if only women worked and earned more. A recent paper, for instance, claimed that eliminating gender discrimination in Saudi Arabia could bring its GDP per person almost level with America's. (Feminists, of course, consider gender equality a worthy goal irrespective of its impact on GDP.) That raises a question. Does 'Feminist economics', which has its own journal, really bring anything distinctive?" [more inside]
"If the Internet could see the two of us like this it would have FITS"
When io9/Gizmodo writer Katharine Trendacosta asked "What Is Your Favorite Single Comic Book Panel?" she got plenty* (including some 2-panel to full-page sequences, but we'll overlook that). Some were classic moments, some iconic motifs and others just something else, but the largest number were funny... comic books being comedic (NOT just Deadpool and Squirrel Girl and often unintentionally), so she posted a follow-up with her picks for The 30 Funniest Single Panels in Comic Book History and got even more in the comments. [more inside]
An awful lyre
The seal was a remarkable find, bearing the name of an unknown princess and the only depiction of an ancient Israelite harp. Good enough to be depicted on Israeli coinage? Almost too good... The Trouble With the Maadana [more inside]
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