This year is the 50th anniversary of the opening of the Verrazano-Narrows bridge.
Earlier this week, the NYT ran a retrospective piece about the young reporter who covered the construction of the bridge; a man named Gay Talese
The Times piece includes links to some of Talese’s original articles, if you want to feel nostalgic for the old NYT, or the Robert Moses era, or…
History has shown, Scruff observed, that you can never have too many fireworks.
Indeed. We spent a fair amount of money on fireworks for tonight, but the people of Dyckman Street make us look like pikers.
Of course, this is illegal in New York City. But the people of Dyckman Street don’t give a rat’s ass.
Do you smell that, former Mayor Bloomberg? It smells like…freedom.
Somehow I missed this until today, but: Buddy Cianci is running for Mayor of Providence. Again.
My first thought: what do they mean by “run out of oxygen”? Does the band play until they pass out? If so, how will anyone know, given that the box is soundproofed and opaque? Do they just play until a certain CO2 level is reached? Do they have sensors and an alarm in the box?
My second thought: how long will the band actually play? Or, to phrase the question in another way, how long does it take to use up all the oxygen in the box? Apparently, this isn’t the first time a death metal band has played in the box (though it is the first time this has been done in London). Surely there must be some stats on this, like average length of time spent in the box.
My third thought:
My fourth thought:
Sounds like pretentious bullshit to me.
The convicted:
Long and Craig are particularly interesting: you may remember them as the dynamic duo who went to an FBI agent’s house and threatened her with arrest.
Also:
Ah, yes. The good old “Nuremberg Defense“.
From the NYPost:
(Previously. Please note that my linking this is more for my own amusement, and should not be taken as an endorsement of the article; while I think it makes a good point or two, I also think it comes close to suffocating itself in the usual entitled whining that seems to characterize far too many (but not all) New Yorkers.)
Geoffrey Hawk, 44, the owner of a gun business called “In Case of Emergency,” was showing a semiautomatic .380 handgun and accessories to Krysta Gearhart, local TV station WNEP reported.
But there was a round left in the weapon and during the demonstration the would-be customer took a slug in the thigh, raising the question, are gun shows safe?
Another article quotes the vendor as suggesting that someone chambered a live round while his back was turned, running background checks. Which raises some questions:
But it gets better.
…
This took place in the parking lot, not inside the show itself, and took place late in the day. My guess is that Redacted #2 unloaded his gun before going into the show, and was reloading it as they were leaving. Count the Four Rules violations here.
I didn’t just buy guns at the S&W Collectors Association convention. I also bought some old paper, which I’ve slowly been scanning in.
I thought I’d upload this one, since it touches on two of this blog’s fairly recent obsessions. This dates from 1944: I am not a lawyer, but based on my understanding of copyright law, it is in the public domain unless S&W renewed the copyright in 1972. I am doubtful that they did, but if I receive evidence to the contrary I will remove this.
I have some more in this series if this proves popular, and if I don’t get a DMCA challenge.
(And I apologize for the bleed-through; these were done on fairly thin newsprint. I did try putting some black construction paper behind the pages to see if that would cut the bleed, but it didn’t help as much as I thought it would.)
Even though it has been widely reported (and I had a busy morning), I can’t let Eli Wallach pass without notice.
This brought a smile to my face:
Edited to add: According to (I know, I know) Wikipedia, he graduated in 1936 with a history degree. Assuming he started in 1932, $30 then is about $520 now. If I’m reading this chart right, a history major today would be paying $4,673 a semester if they were a Texas resident.
Not that I’m grinding an axe or anything…
Headline in the LAT:
Elliot Rodger used knife, hammer, machete in killings, attorney says
But of course what we need are more gun control laws.
…
…
The first trial of Malcolm A. Smith has ended in a mistrial.
Strippers. Always with the strippers. What happened?
Charles Myers was my mother’s uncle, which would make him my grand-uncle. Not mentioned in his obituary, but told to me by my mother: he was on the beach at Normandy.
Remember…
The NYT obit for Chester Nez clarifies a point I was confused on:
…
This should not be taken as an attempt to diminish the accomplishments of Mr. Nez, the other 28 original code talkers, or the ones who followed the first 29; I’m just trying to make sure the historical record is clear. (I felt some of the other media coverage confused this point.)
This goes out to our great and good friend RoadRich: Whiskey 7 made it back to Normandy. Briefly: Whiskey 7 is a restored C-47 transport that originally dropped troops over Normandy. It was in a museum in New York, but was invited back to Normandy for the 70th anniversary. So a crew from the museum flew it across the Atlantic…
(One of these days, I want to ride in a C-47. Or a DC-3. I’m not picky.)
Fun feature piece by John Marchese in the NYT:
Things I didn’t know: