Brendan I. Koerner's Blog, page 100

Livin' It Up in Kiev

At first glance, there doesn't seem to be much of interest in this plain-Jane rundown of Ukrainian President Viktor Yuschenko's income and assets. The man who rose to the top of Ukraine's political structure after surviving a bizarre assassination attempt is certainly well-off by his nation's standards, but it's not like he's pulling a pulling a Bongo on his people.

But upon closer inspection of Yuschenko's loot, we did a double-take at his choice in personal motor vehicles: when not sitting ...

"Kingdom of Heaven Number One"

No Bad Movie Friday this week, as The Tubes yielded up precious few usable clips from Smokey and the Bandit Part 3. Instead, we're gonna hit you with a special treat—rare archival footage from the heyday of Father Divine, taken during his prosperous Harlem phase. It's best viewed in tandem with this 1953 Life spread, which neatly sums up Father Divine's penchant for ostentation:

In the peaceful setting of Pennsylvania's wealthy Montgomery County, 20 miles into the Schuykill River countryside...

The Bulletproof Project

If you've yet to read this jarring New York Times piece, do yourself a big favor and click over stat. It's a damning account of how the Iraqi cops have been duped into buying a handheld "bomb detector" that apparently works no better than an old-school divining rod. Scary stuff, considering that so much of the country's security depends on the effectiveness of checkpoints.

The article got us thinking about how folks come to believe in snake-oil solutions, even when the consequences of that...

If the Cosmos Turn Against Us

Of all the sundry worries that vex us every day, annihilation by celestial object is fairly low on the list. The same can't be said of the insurance industry, which knows it could be wiped out if we ever got another Tunguska event of 1908. If something similarly destructive happened in the skies above New York, what sort of price tag could we be looking at? Risk Management Solutions Inc. is glad you asked:

Their report, "Comet and Asteroid Risk: An Analysis of the 1908 Tunguska Event,"...

Really? These Guys?

Before the Sandman took hold last night, we managed to dive into the first few pages of Lawrence Wright's New Yorker piece on last January's war in Gaza. It's a topic we know little about, and so we were genuinely surprised by a passing mention regarding the paranoia of Hamas. According to Wright, the organization's stated enemies include none other than the Lions Club, which Hamas considers a major backer of Zionism.

This struck as an exaggeration—how could anyone feel threatened by a bunch ...

"Be Cool, or Be Cooled"

Earlier this year, we rescued several heaping armfuls of vinyl from a building on our blocks that's undergoing a gut renovation. Many of the platters were too damaged to be of use, but there were gems amidst the trash—most notably an original pressing of the soundtrack for Three Tough Guys (aka Tough Guys). The lead cut off the B side, "Hung Up on My Baby, provided the hook for the Geto Boys most memorable tune. As for the movie itself—well, we've yet to see the whole thing, but anything in w...

The Marching Powder

When Latin percussion god Tito Puente died some years back, The New York Post speculated that a 40-year cocaine addiction had finally caught up with the man. This piece of gossip turned out to be of (to say the least) dubious veracity, but it stuck with us nonetheless. That's because it got us thinking about whether or not cocaine use inevitably leads to addiction, one of the central tenets of the "Just Say No" campaign that was inescapable during our Reagan Era youth.

The issue is more...

"They Shall Take Up Serpents…"

Yesterday's quick mention of religious snake handling set us off on a minor research tangent. We're accustomed to witnessing the practice via cheesy TV segments, which have always struck us as a tad too overproduced to convey the emotional appeal of grasping serpents in the name of the Lord. Fortunately, The Tubes now contain a full version of the greatest snake-handling documentary ever made: 1967's Holy Ghost People. The clip above contains the meat of the ritual; the snakes come out...

Vincent van Guenon

The industry that exists to service laboratory primates is surprisingly vast. Our close genetic cousins can't just live off kibble while caged, nor can their brains remain limber with nothing more than a hamster wheel to occupy their time. So companies like New Jersey's Bio-Serv exist to peddle "primate enrichment" products designed to make captivity a bit more bearable.

One of their latest offerings is finger paste, which we reckon is meant to encourage artistic expression. But can...

Antivenin and Econ 101

We initially didn't quite believe the top-shelf venom prices quotes in this 1995 piece about Caucasian vipers. Upwards of $1,000 per gram just struck as too high, given the relative abundance of the most desirable species. But sure enough, the latest price list from the Kentucky Reptile Zoo proved our skepticism misplaced; a gram's worth of poison from the fangs of an Eastern coral snake will, indeed, run your a thousand bucks. A similar quantity of venom from a Mexican bearded lizard, by...