"...it’s not a title, it’s a job. It’s a position in a kitchen. It comes from an old German word that means 'boss' or 'head of the shop.' In which case I am the chef of my operation, but it’s a production company. It’s not a kitchen, even though we do have a kitchen. That’s the closest thing to chef I am. All the good chefs that I know say that they are cooks employed as chef. All the people that say, 'I’m a chef,' generally aren’t. The good ones will say, 'I’m a cook.' Once people start saying, 'I’m Chef Bob!'—yeah, whatever. I’m Captain Kangaroo. Have a nice day". The Onion AV Club interviews Alton Brown. [more inside]
posted by peachfuzz on Oct 19, 2009 - 110 comments

Chinese is a rather difficult language. That's why Rep. Betty Brown (R), of Texas, suggests that Asians change their names to something "that’s easier for Americans to deal with." Via.
posted by Ms. Informed on Apr 9, 2009 - 240 comments

On Tuesday, Conservative MEP Daniel Hannan took the opportunity to "skewer" Gordon Brown in the kind of biting rhetoric rarely, if ever, seen in UK parliament. Despite having alerted UK press organisations, including his own part-time employer, Hannan's speech was not picked up by the UK press until... it started getting a heavy push from the US punditocracy. [more inside]
posted by MuffinMan on Mar 26, 2009 - 46 comments

Good grief! Described as "arguably the longest story ever told by one human being", the entire run -- just shy of 50 years -- of Charles Schulz's Peanuts can now, legally, be read online. [more inside]
posted by evilcolonel on Mar 11, 2009 - 106 comments

British jobs for British workers? Workers at a Total refinery in north Lincolnshire walked out in protest over an Italian firm importing Italian and Portuguese workers to complete an expansion. Since Wednesday, the walk out at the Lindsey refinery has snowballed into a mass industrial action across the UK. The majority of the strikes and protests have been by energy workers, though some in other sectors (steel) hit by closures and vulnerable to job offshoring have joined the action in solidarity. Brown's government is trying to respond, without much success.
posted by Grrlscout on Feb 1, 2009 - 112 comments

Now even your plants can twitter you. Awesome!
posted by miss lynnster on Jan 26, 2009 - 34 comments

The stuff of legend, Van Halen's "No brown M&Ms" concert rider (most recently mentioned on MetaFilter here) has made the rounds by word of mouth, and word of internet, for years. Now, the Van Halen 1982 World Tour backstage rider has been found. It consists of 53 typewritten pages and contains the M&Ms prohibition - which actually says M & M's (WARNING: ABSOLUTELY NO BROWN ONES) - as well as other interesting demands, excerpted at The Smoking Gun. Via.
posted by amyms on Dec 12, 2008 - 91 comments

Coming in at just under $860,000, the take for the recently auctioned estate of James Brown fell well short of the two million that Christie's had hoped for. You'll want to browse the collection for yourself, of course. If I had the extra scratch, I'd have sure bought this.
posted by flapjax at midnite on Jul 19, 2008 - 21 comments

Fritz Langs M as adapted by comicbook artist Jon J Muth.
posted by Artw on Apr 24, 2008 - 34 comments

Tevis Howard, a 2007 Brown University graduate and recent recipient of the Draper Richards Fellowship and the Rainer Arnhold Fellowship, is the 2005 Founder and Executive Director of KOMAZA, a non-profit community-based organization in Kenya. KOMAZA's mission is to "end chronic poverty in Kenya by promoting health, economic growth, education, and infrastructure development" through a tree farming social enterprise. Partnering with the Tree Biotechnology Project, KOMAZA plants fast-growning, drought-tolerant Eucalyptus trees as a cash crop for rural, substinance farming communities. [more inside]
posted by lunit on Apr 10, 2008 - 7 comments

Kid Bailey was a Mississippi Delta bluesman blessed with the kind of slightly gravel-tinged voice that emanates authority. His recording career was a very short one, however, consisting of precisely one day, and yielding precisely two songs. Very little is known about Bailey himself, and the identity of the 2nd accompanying guitarist on his only known recording remains a mystery, though there has been some some speculation. I've been doing a little speculating myself, regarding some of Bailey's lyrics, and any of you blues linguists who might want to help fill in the blanks, please see the [more inside]. [more inside]
posted by flapjax at midnite on Feb 21, 2008 - 16 comments

Dance lessons with James Brown. And without him. Heeeeyaaaaahhhhhhhh! [more inside]
posted by miss lynnster on Sep 16, 2007 - 15 comments

another beautiful guitarist from louisiana Such a wise cat he even could replace t-bone walker in a minute. Well, so he said with his enthralling voice. He was such a beautiful singer. Unique violin player. He disappeared in the aftermath of hurricane katrina. Peace.
posted by nicolin on Sep 1, 2007 - 15 comments

Interpreted: JamesBrown meets Kraftwerk.
posted by Burhanistan on Jul 28, 2007 - 16 comments

Three out of four middle-managers are theives. Derren Brown, psycho-illusionist, gives a business-motivational seminar. Or so it seems. Really, he's using techniques of suggestion to 'program' his marks so that when presented with the opportunity (and a toy gun) they will commit armed robbery. Not everyone thinks its funny. Less grisly than his previous stunts. Nifty flash website he's got.
posted by harmoniousness on Jan 5, 2006 - 107 comments

Michael Brown starts Disaster Planning Firm After doing a "heck of a job", the former Commissioner of the International Arabian Horse Association teaches others how to avoid stepping in shit.
posted by null terminated on Nov 25, 2005 - 27 comments

It was just horrifying how quickly they became what I told them they were. The day after Martin Luther King Jr. was murdered in 1968, Jane Elliott, a elementary school teacher in Riceville, Iowa, conducted her Blue Eyes Brown Eyes exercise with her students, dividing them by eye color to ilustrate prejudice and racism. Since retiring from teaching in the early 1980s she's repeated the exercise for adults in corporations, at colleges, and on Oprah.

PBS's 1985 documentary A Class Divided is viewable online [Real and Windows Media], as are parts of the 2002 documentary Australian Eye [QuickTime and Windows Media]; both feature participants' reactions. (Related: different reflections by a participants in similar exercises; and a program evaluation and transcript of the exercise.)

Ms. Elliott recently said, "What is distressing is that I get the same results today with adults that I got using the exercise with children in 1968."
posted by kirkaracha on Jun 13, 2005 - 64 comments

I couldn't remember the name of that guy who does fruit and veggie art. No, not Kei Kosa, he's trippier than this fellow. Not Greg Brown (not to be confused with "mural Greg Brown" of Alien Saucer Crash and Buckethead Man with Paddleball fame) either, though Brown's cool too, sometimes whimsical, sometimes (woo!) suggestive. Fruits and vegetables have often been used suggestively, in advertising or even classics, maybe the innuendo of Joachim Beuckelaer's art such as Woman Selling Vegetables.
No, the guy I was thinking of takes into consideration the intrinsic character and personality of each piece he "sculpts." I remember! It's Saxton Freymann!
(...maybe influenced by the Thai fruit-n-veggie carving tradition?)
(...but he does not approve.)
posted by Shane on Feb 18, 2005 - 11 comments

Now there's a time but I say none like now: After the eastern cantilever span of the Oakland-Bay Bridge collapsed in the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, CalTrans engineers recommended replacing it with a cable-stayed bridge. The estimated cost was roughly 1 billion and would be completed in 2003--that is, until the Mayors Brown got involved. Then-SF-Mayor Willie Brown objected to the new design, saying the abutment at Yerba Buena island would interfere with his planned condominium development. Brown coaxed the Navy--who owned the land on which the foundation would be built--into preventing CalTrans from performing soil-engineering tests, saying the new bridge wasn't safe, making references to other bridge disasters, and interviewing engineers all over the Bay Area until he finally found one who agreed with him. Jerry Brown--former governor of California and current mayor of Oakland--voiced his opposition, calling the design a "bland viaduct" and proposing an international competition to design "a world-class bridge." When CalTrans told Brown his objections were a year late, he dug up an old Frank Lloyd Wright design and asked CalTrans, "Say, can we put trains on it, too?" The delays and design changes have increased the cost to over five billion, and its completion date is anyone's guess. According to Governor Schwartzenegger, this is the Bay Area's problem, not California's. (Fine then! Can we have our water back?) Fifteen years, two audits, and one angry architect later, the questions remain: how and by whom will this new bridge be funded, what will it look like, and will it be finished when the The Big One hits?
posted by fandango_matt on Nov 29, 2004 - 18 comments

Brown Equals Terroist - the story of a photography student who refuses to provide his ID to a security officer, and is swiftly confronted by Homeland Security. His ongoing struggle with the event is chronicled in the related blog.
posted by falconred on Jul 9, 2004 - 112 comments

Black, White & Brown. A great 9-part video feature on the NYT site (registration required) featuring a discussing between Cornel West and Henry Louis Gates, Jr. commemorating the 50th anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education.
posted by adrober on May 16, 2004 - 2 comments

WeenAmp...peer-to-peer software? After signing with Sanctuary (now label-mates with Morrissey), releasing a pair of on-line only live CDs, cheesing off a pizza chain, and getting its back catalog from Elektra; Ween is developing software with InQuest Technologies that will tie together the band's official web site, the 24/7 Ween Radio broadcast, a message board, chat rooms and the ability to trade live concert mp3s without being confused with The Gourds (just try searching for "Gin & Juice" on your favourite peer-to-peer program). The band hopes to have the program bundled with it's new release quebec (yes, with a small q) on August 5th.
posted by boost ventilator on Jun 19, 2003 - 10 comments

"Sometimes you just have to make the cats." Civil War buffs Ruth and Rebecca Brown have created thousands of clay cats in Union and Confederate uniforms.... the twins bring history to life by creating sweeping battle scenes and dioramas of dramatic moments, as interpreted with clay cats. Via Obscure Store. (and here comes mr. hand, Oh Noooooooo!)
posted by dchase on Oct 19, 2001 - 35 comments

Students for Suicide Pills? On October 12th, 1984, 1900+ students turned out to vote on a referendum asking that their university's Health Services be allowed to offer cyanide pills in the event of nuclear war.

57% of students said they wanted it.
posted by Fat Elvis on Sep 4, 2001 - 11 comments

"Brown Students Steal Univ. Paper" File Under: When headlines get into this weird intentional?/unintentional? pun thing.
posted by Outlawyr on Mar 19, 2001 - 19 comments