May 19, 2015

"You don't want a criminal lawyer. You want a *criminal* lawyer."

The New Mexico Law Review just published an issue dedicated entirely to Breaking Bad. It features eight articles that analyze the illegal acts committed on the show, their real-world parallels, and the consequences attached:
Given the array of legal issues raised, our editorial board was excited to take the opportunity to present analysis of Breaking Bad by scholars and legal practitioners. In April 2014 we issued a call for papers requesting abstracts on topics including the application of the Fourth Amendment to drug crimes under the New Mexico and/or U.S. Constitutions; the War on Drugs; ethical duties of lawyers; drug-offense sentencing; drug enforcement in rural, urban, and/or Tribal areas; and substance abuse and the law.
Some of the greatest legal minds in New Mexico (and the country) came together to examine how Walter White would look to a jury, how the war on drugs affects peripheral citizens like Skyler, and whether Heisenberg could have stayed legit by fighting for his stake in Grey Matter in the courts. [via] [more inside]
posted by Room 641-A at 8:17 PM PST - 25 comments

The Big Bang Is Hard Science. It Is Also a Creation Story.

Even with its explanatory power, Big Bang theory takes its place in a long line of myths [more inside]
posted by the man of twists and turns at 8:13 PM PST - 116 comments

Before and After

The Gorilla Group in the Akeley Hall of African Mammals in the American Museum of Natural History is one of the largest and most beloved scenes in the museum. The gorillas were killed in 1921. In 2010 curator Stephen Quinn returned to the exact location depicted in the diorama to document the scene as it appears today. previously.
posted by bq at 8:02 PM PST - 2 comments

Now It's Time for Things I Bought at Sheetz

Podcast king Justin McElroy, of My Brother My Brother and Me and Sawbones (previously) has a new food review/quiz show in which Justin and a friend review purchases from Sheetz. The results are... informative? [more inside]
posted by KernalM at 7:33 PM PST - 40 comments

The Sound of TED: A Case for Distaste

The American Reader makes a critique of TED talks and then uses it to bootstrap a critique of cultural criticism itself.
A decent strategy with TED might be to reclaim our teenage capacities and treat these videos as hopelessly passé—ignore them to death. Critiquing them, even as I have done, will do what criticism has done for television: creating an added enjoyment as you go on consuming the crap you despise. I know what I am watching is disgraceful, but aren’t I great at seeing why it’s disgraceful? I only watch it to keep up-to-date with the unwashed masses.
Previously, previously, previously
posted by maskd at 6:26 PM PST - 66 comments

Peter Dinklage + Coldplay, together at last

Game of Thrones: The Musical – Peter Dinklage Teaser [YouTube] - one of a series of songs for a humorous musical send-up of Game of Thrones. It's all for Red Nose Day in the States (May 21, 2015, 8 p.m., NBC). More on Red Nose Day from the NBC website for the event that raises money for charity; you can read more about Comic Relief and the most recent Red Nose Day in Britain at Wikipedia (and not forgetting the Comic Relief UK website). Previously: 1, 2
posted by joseph conrad is fully awesome at 6:22 PM PST - 10 comments

Netflix-o-Matic

Netflix-O-Matic lets you browse a randomly generated list of real Netflix microgenres, like Gritty Drug Movies based on Contemporary Literature or Foreign Slice of Life Documentaries or Goofy Werewolf Comedies. On the main page, click on the arrow to view actual Netflix titles, or click any individual term in a subgenre title to browse a random list of other subgenres containing it (like "understated" or "visually striking"). And if you click on a given movie, it will show you what other categories that movie might come up in.
posted by showbiz_liz at 4:30 PM PST - 40 comments

The free development of each is the condition of the war against all

Some Paths to the True Knowledge[*] - "Attention conservation notice: A 5000+ word attempt to provide real ancestors and support for an imaginary ideology I don't actually accept, drawing on fields in which I am in no way an expert. Contains long quotations from even-longer-dead writers, reckless extrapolation from arcane scientific theories, and an unwarranted tone of patiently explaining harsh, basic truths. Altogether, academic in one of the worst senses. Also, spoilers for several of MacLeod's novels, notably but not just The Cassini Division. Written for, and cross-posted to, Crooked Timber's seminar on MacLeod, where I will not be reading the comments."
posted by kliuless at 2:34 PM PST - 12 comments

A Broad Box Labeled "Beautiful Things"

For tens of thousands of years, wild horses have inspired humans - to nurture, to create, to slaughter - culminating in the past century of America’s legal and psychological battles over the horses we can’t own. [more inside]
posted by erratic meatsack at 11:57 AM PST - 25 comments

the temperature of a freshly killed snake

"At most restaurants, you are served what you ask for so routinely that your eyes glaze over with boredom. Javelina does not fall into the trap of dull predictability. One night after I left, I realized the guacamole I’d ordered had never arrived; it’s not every restaurant that gives you something to think about on your way home. Meanwhile, people at the next table were presented with a dish they insisted they hadn’t asked for. “You didn’t order brisket?” the server asked, keeping up the playful spirit." Move over, Flavortown: NYT's Pete Wells reviews Javelina
posted by everybody had matching towels at 10:58 AM PST - 215 comments

Industrial Light & Magic

The Untold Story of ILM, a Titan That Forever Changed Film
posted by infini at 10:21 AM PST - 23 comments

"My silences had not protected me. Your silence will not protect you."

Michelle Obama's painful discussion of America's racial inequality and deep misogyny exists, for many, on the same spectrum as [Saida] Grundy's blunt remarks about race, power and privilege. Where the first lady used her commencement speech at one of the nation's premier HBCUs to deliver a seminar on institutional racism and our nation's anti-black culture, Grundy's social media commentary dispensed with complexity to deliver screams, sometimes angry, other times humorous, that reflect equally important truths about contemporary race relations, black women's activism and the limits of freedom of expression in the 21st century.
Peniel E. Joseph for The Root: What Happens to Black Women Who Boldly Speak Truth About Racial Inequality [more inside]
posted by divined by radio at 9:53 AM PST - 24 comments

The Oreo went down the wrong pipe.

A writer, a hermit, and Oreo cookies: The strange and sad tale of Cole Waddell's first magazine story
The story: Penny Loafers and Alligator Belts by Cole Waddell
posted by cjorgensen at 9:30 AM PST - 9 comments

Generational thinking is just a benign form of bigotry

Why we need to ditch generational labels.
posted by Shepherd at 9:25 AM PST - 46 comments

1 Corinthians 13:11

I09 criticizes Simon Pegg's recent interview with The Radio Times where he 'Worries The Love Of Science Fiction Is Making Us "Childish"'. Pegg responds.
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 8:30 AM PST - 155 comments

Judy Blume for adults, again

She had, however, uncovered what she insisted would be her last adult novel. And she had discovered something else: The '50s were not that boring; there were currents running through the time that intrigued her after all. "All of these things that were going on underneath that the children didn't know, now, as an adult, I can know," she said, and smiled with the power of it. "Or I can make it up."
Judy Blume, the author you grew up with, whose books have consistently made the American Library Association's list of 100 Most Frequently Challenged Books and one of the most frequently censored authors in America, is about to publish a new novel for adults (NYT).
posted by Melismata at 8:05 AM PST - 12 comments

Running on empty

"But what if you cut out all the cars taking a detour for the gas station versus one truck going directly to each car?" A new startup that, for a $7 surcharge, sends a tanker truck to your car to fill it with gas saving you the trouble of having to drive your car to a gas station.
posted by octothorpe at 6:12 AM PST - 166 comments

The curated chaos of Jewish History

Yisrael Mizrachi, a 28-year-old Sephardic Jew, runs a book store in Brooklyn through which the written flotsam of Jewish history flows. His mission is to hunt the rare and obscure. However, his store serves all, including the casual lovers of stories as well as seekers of pieces of their family's past.
posted by batbat at 6:11 AM PST - 10 comments

The Wasting

Raimondi had recently found himself undergoing an unexpected and not entirely desirable career shift: He had been thrust into the role of sea star detective. Though he is a marine biologist who divides his time between analyzing data and conducting research trips along the Pacific Coast, Raimondi is not entirely ill suited to the part. There is a private-investigator quality to his round, inquiring face, active eyes, and urgent, impatient voice.
posted by ellieBOA at 4:16 AM PST - 11 comments

"a letter from the hearse chasers"

He had been found dead at his flat some three weeks earlier. And the family only found out because a slightly dodgy looking genealogy company got my stepson's address wrong. Bear in mind as well that the approach this company took to telling my stepson his father had died was through hinting that he was going to be quids in.
Jamie K. on the reality of austerity in the UK: when the first notification of the death of a family member comes not from the police or the coroners office but through a form letter of a company wanting to sell the illusion of a big inheritance payout.
posted by MartinWisse at 2:25 AM PST - 24 comments

True and Not-So-True Detective

With the release of a new trailer for True Detective Season 2, and an accompanying Q&A in Medium, Nic Pizzolatto dispels earlier speculation that Pynchon's The Crying Of Lot 49 would serve as an inspiration for the upcoming series. This speculation (or diversionary online discussion forum tactic?) was discussed here previously.
posted by hippybear at 1:59 AM PST - 50 comments

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