Wednesday, March 4, 2009
Tuesday, March 3, 2009
NYC Street Crime = Knicks Championships?
With the GFC gripping us ever tighter in it's credit-branded claw, folks are starting to worry that street crime will start to rise in New York City.
If a shrinking economy, soaring jobless claims and a troubled financial sector are not angst-producing enough, the threat of increased crime is leading many conversations toward a nagging and persistent question: Will the bad old days of record numbers of murders and ubiquitous street muggings be far behind?
Honestly, my answer would be, "I f*&kin' well hope not."
The Knicks were at the peak of their powers and winning Championships back in the '70s when folks were dropping dead from smack and learning how to fall asleep to the regular sound of rounds busting off.
Paleovirology: Neitzsche Was Right
These viral fragments are fossils that reside within each of us, carrying a record that goes back millions of years. Because they no longer seem to serve a purpose or cause harm, these remnants have often been referred to as “junk DNA.” Although many of these evolutionary relics still manage to generate proteins, scientists have never found one that functions properly in humans or that could make us sick.
That is until Thierry Heidmann who runs the laboratory at the Institut Gustave Roussy, on the southern edge of Paris, brought one to life. Heidmann long suspected that if a retrovirus happens to infect a human sperm cell or egg, which is rare, and if that embryo survives—which is rarer still—the retrovirus could have the evolutionary power to influence humans as a species becoming part of the genetic blueprint, passed from mother to child, and from one generation to the next, much like a gene for eye color or asthma.
I wonder, then, what accounts for my 'outlandish sex appeal' gene? Perhaps a heavy head cold that my great-great-great grandfather caught out on the bogs of County Mayo.
Citizen C.I.A.
Come decimate dictatorships and over throw regimes in extoic far-off places,the vacation of your dreams.You'll assemble puppet governments and play the hand of God. We're an equal-opportunity crime fighting squad
-CHORUS-
Citizen C.I.A
Citizen C.I.A
Now I've trained an army for my kids to fight one day. We'll teach them all our secrets and then we'll walk away. We're knee deep in guerillas, yeah the party never stops.
United States of America undercover cop!
-CHORUS-
Five weeks paid vacation and a 401K
-CHORUS-
They said I'd be workin' with Sydney, man this sucks!
This post started off being about how the C.I.A. lied to cover up the fact that it destroyed 92 tapes of interviews with terror suspects, but I had to include the lyrics to the excellent Dropkick Murphys song. And then I had to include the clip for Shipping Up To Boston. Sue me, it's my f*&king blog.
Sunday, March 1, 2009
Flicks and $hit
Just saw Francis Ford Coppola's Rumble Fish the other day. Starring Mickey Rourke and Matt Dillon, with support from the likes of Dennis Hopper and Laurence Fishburne (back when he was still calling himself Larry), it's a little 'art for art's sake' but it's excellent. Especially good to see Mickey Rourke as nature intended him to be. Highly recommended.
You Ain't This Kind Of Irish
If you're interested in NYC organised crime stuff, you may know about The Westies. Either way, you should read this article about The Lords of Hell's Kitchen.
THERE IS SOMETHING ALMOST QUAINT IN the image of Irish organized crime, something that calls to mind old movies with Jimmy Cagney lording over a troop of saucy wharf rats. That mythic era of Irish street glory appeared to end with the opening of Manhattan's dark, secretive slums to the forces of development and homogenization. But if the Westies seem like ghosts, they are harrowingly real.
New York law enforcement officials hold the Westies responsible for more than 30 murders during the last 15 years. ''This is the most violent gang we've seen,'' says Michael Cherkasky, the head of the Rackets Bureau of the Manhattan District Attorney's office.
These dudes did some rude stuff (decapitation and dismemberment was standard operating procedure, it's all about corpus delicti don't you know). But don't worry, the neighbourhood isn't called Hell's Kitchen anymore, it's called Clinton. Cute, huh?
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