Brendan I. Koerner's Blog, page 86

Fake It 'Til You Make It

Nations at odds have long resorted to counterfeiting one another's currencies, on the theory that doing so can severely undermine a foe's economy. But the tactic just doesn't sting like it used to, in part because cash is so less essential today, but also because the increasing sophistication of anti-counterfeiting technology has made the gambit incredibly expensive. Manufacturing a high-quality $100 bill is now estimated to cost $50, which means achieving any meaningful destabilization of...

A Third Trip Around the Sun Commences

Today marks the second anniversary of Microkhan Jr.'s birth, an event that can only be appropriately honored with the De La Soul cut above. The kid sorta shares a name with the group's DJ, plus we agree with the spoken sentiment at the song's beginning—fatherhood makes up for a lot of day-to-day drudgery. Though, granted, it also makes us occasionally yearn for a simpler era—say, 2002 or thereabouts, when we were able to devote the bulk of our spare mental bandwidth to the pursuit of...

Desperation in Action

One of our treasured Japanese correspondents just have us a heads up about this tragedy, involving an airplane stowaway who apparently froze to death while concealed in a Boeing 777's landing gear. Such deaths are actually somewhat common, not to mention quite predictable—at 35,00 feet, temperatures are insanely icy, and oxygen scarce. Yet men and women desperate to escape terrible circumstances keep on tossing the dice.

Do any of them ever win the gamble? We actually looked into this very...

The Soul-Warping Nature of Fandom

Last night, a certain sporting event didn't go the way we had hoped, leaving us questioning why we invest so much of ourselves in supporting certain teams. Even under the best of circumstances, such fandom leads to nothing but heartache most years, as seasons inevitably end on sour notes. Is it time, perhaps, to give up our juvenile affection for our Big Three teams (the Colts, Clippers, and Angels) and move on to less depressing outlets for our excess mental energy?

That may sound like...

The Man Who Wasn't There

We fully acknowledge that this wasn't a red-letter week at Microkhan, at least in terms of posting frequency. Paying gigs got in the way, as did Microkhan Jr.—the parenting equation has changed dramatically now that he's figured out how to open the front door. Worry not, though, we'll be back to full strength next week—though perhaps with a mighty hangover on Monday, if we're forced to resort to the bottle after an unthinkable Colts loss. (Yes, we've got some serious angst over Dwight...

Let Me Stand Inside Your Fire

South Koreans are scrambling to incinerate their dead like never before, a trend that has forced the government to revise the law and allow funeral homes to cremate bodies, rather than ship them to one of only four crematoriums in the entire nation. That certainly seems like a much-needed legal step, given the recent increase in South Korea's cremation rate:

According to the Health Ministry, the nation's cremation rate for 2008 marked 61.9 percent, up from 27.5 percent 10 years ago.

That stat ...

Supply, Demand, and Pugilistic Marsupials

Apologies for being late with this year's obligatory Australia Day post. Though we've never had the pleasure of visiting the island continent ourselves, we've long enjoyed the company of Aussie compatriots—especially those we've encountered while roaming the far corners of the globe, since the Aussies always seem to know where the bar is. More importantly, we dig their self-deprecating sense of humor, which has included the adoption of the boxing kangaroo as a symbol of national pride.

Thankfu...

Funk Amidst the Food Riots

The mid-1970s were a gloomy time in Polish history, even by that long-accursed nation's standards. Government-mandated price increases on essential goods led to a series of violent protests, which were quelled in typically brutal fashion. To paraphrase a certain Shogun Assassin quote made famous on GZA's Liquid Swords, it was a bad time for Warsaw.

But it was also a wonderful time to be a Polish funk musician, thanks to the benevolence of the state-owned Polskie Nagrania Muza record label...

The Congressional Culture of Violence

While today's Congressional politics may seem somewhat distasteful to fans of decorum, Capitol Hill's past is full of far more vicious conflict between ideological opposites. As noted in this New York Times report from 1856, the people's representatives were once none-too-shy about resorting to the gun or sword when positions seemed irreconcilable—though, to the American politicians' credit, they were not quite as violent as their British counterparts:

Duels have been fought by members of...

The Arachnids Shall Inherit the Earth

Zastava Koral. The smart money's usually on the cockroach, due to its alleged ability to survive a nuclear Armageddon. And no one has ever gone broke by betting on the resilience of Rattus rattus, a species that has certainly proven itself an aggressive populator of barren landscapes. ...