Brendan I. Koerner's Blog, page 120
July 13, 2009
The Western Union Economy
As we continue to plow through Patrick Radden Keefe's excellent The Snakehead, we've been giving tons of thought to the impact of immigrant remittances. We never cease to be amazed by how much working-class immigrants are able to save and then contribute to the families they left behind—so much, in fact, that some economies become hugely dependent on those wired sums. Check out this absolutely fascinating chart from STRATFOR to get a better sense of which nations might descend into utter chaos w
July 10, 2009
"I Don't Like the Axe…"
After a holiday hiatus, Bad Movie Friday returns with a true gem: 1987's The Barbarians, starring bodybuilding twins Peter and David Paul (aka the Barbarian Brothers). Though obviously a blatant attempt to copy the then-successful Conan blueprint, The Barbarians attempted to infuse the swords-and-sorcery formula with ample amounts of proto-ironic humor. More often than not, these attempts consisted of having the Pauls make random animal noises. (The end of the clip above contains a classic case-
Doughy Justice in Cameroon
Cameroon's Ministry of Trade does not mess around when it comes to enforcing the nation's new price-control regime:
Yesterday, officials of the Ministry of Trade uncovered a clandestine bakery at the Etoudi quarter in Yaounde which uses expired products to produce bread. One of the products that was seized and displayed at the site was yeast which long expired in January this year.
With the aid of the forces of law and order, officials of the Ministry of Trade forced open the bakery and carried aw
White With Fright
There's an anecdote in Now the Hell Will Start regarding an Assamese tea planter whose arm was chomped off by a Bengal tiger. According to the primary source—a diary kept by an American officer—the trauma of the incident caused the poor planter's hair to turn white virtually overnight. (The specific time span isn't mentioned, but the tone of the entry makes it sound like the whitening happened right quick.)
At least one critic of the book has noted that the hair-whitening aspect of the tale sound
July 9, 2009
Severely Burnt French Toast
We're on a Wired deadline this afternoon, so we're gonna outro early with a classic hoops clip: a young Vince Carter absolutely posterizing French center/stiff Frédéric Weis. Yes, we realize you've seen it before; trust us, it's worth a second (or tenth) look, if only for the confused expression on Weis's face at the end of the play. And the French commentators' reaction is pretty nifty, too.
To be honest, we do feel a bit bad for Weis, who's name is now synonymous with terrible NBA drafting. Ac
The Washington Generals of Rome
Perhaps due to our early exposure to the Mel Brooks versus Gregory Hines fight scene in History of the World: Part I, we always figured that trident-and-net gladiators—known in Latin as retiarii—were decidedly badass. For years, in fact, we've always claimed that, should we ever suddenly be cast back to the year 100 A.D. and enrolled in gladiator school, we'd choose the trident over the sword or club.
Yet it appears that Hollywood's depiction of retiarii has caused us to be misinformed. Because a
"Amorous Paranoia"
The tragic death of former Tennessee Titans quarterback Steve McNair—one of the toughest competitors to ever play the position—gives us a chance to loop back to one of Microkhan's most dicussed topics: suicide.
For those who don't already know, McNair perished in a murder-suicide perpetrated by his young girlfriend. We've long been morbidly fascinated with such tragedies, primarily because we struggle so mightily to understand the mindset of the shooter. What motivates a person not only to take t
July 8, 2009
"Stolen by the Beast Who Has No Name…"
Yesterday's riff on Medieval weaponry got us thinking about one of of our favorite Saturday-morning shows of yore: the cartoon version of Dungeons & Dragons. To be totally honest, we were never really big on the game behind the series—guess we suffer from that whole lack-of-imagination thing, and thus needed moving images spoon-fed into our brains. But the cartoon was far from dreck—in viewing some clips this morning, we were struck by the sophistication of the acting and plotting (if not the an
The Trick to Extortion
Granted, a 46-year-old exotic dancer in Moorehead, Minnesota, is unlikely to understand the delicate economics of successful extortion. But she still should've realized that her scheme to squeeze a North Dakota pastor would end badly if she kept pressing for hush money. Given that she hadn't picked a wealthy target, Bunny Byington really should've kept the initial payment and moved on. But when she tripled her initial request? That's when the pastor decided to bite the bullet:
Three years into a
Holy War in China
In getting up to speed on the Uighur riots in China, we've been spending appreciable time delving into the history of the nation's numerous Muslim rebellions. No 19th-century history of China is complete without an extensive section about these uprisings, which were eventually put down in the most brutal fashion imaginable. We're particularly enamored with Hodong Kim's Holy War in China, a preview of which is available here.
Kim traces the region's tensions back to the military campaigns of the Q
