American Madness

Elvis has been gone for a while. Having died almost 30 years ago you wouldn’t exactly expect to see new pictures of him popping up anywhere. Except that is exactly what’s going on.

This isn’t some vast conspiracy theory. No Elvis spottings at Wal-mart or descending from a UFO, but rather photos taken by George Kalinsky 36 years ago at Madison Square Garden. Kalinsky was asked to give a picture of an iconic New York Moment and chose Elvis at MSG. He was expecting to dig through his file and find 8 to 10 pictures from the night and instead discovered 4 rolls of film, close to 100 never before seen pictures of the King.

Besides the general excitement of this recent discovery the folks at Graceland are thrilled, calling one of the photos one of Elvis’s most iconic ever. The NY post even has a slide show of six of the images. I would expect to see them on display somwhere before the end of the year with a catch title like “The Lost Elvis Photos” or something along those lines.

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Should we bring back the asylums of yesteryear?

Is the promise of modern medication exceeding its actual effectiveness?

These are questions that come to mind having read yesterday’s Freakonomics Quorum post by Stephen Dubner.

The column, How Much Progress Have Psychology and Psychiatry Really Made? is definitely worth reading in its entirety.

There is one section I would like to discuss and that has to do with a woman whose son was bipolar and who committed suicide when he stopped taking his medications. The writer says:

“Four years ago I lost a beloved son to suicide due to bipolar disorder. As devastating as this is, I do believe that the treatment he received increased his quality of life and chances for survival. His doctors and therapists were compassionate and concerned, working very hard to assess and adjust his treatments, and I came to respect the complexity of his condition and what they were trying to do on his behalf.

Is it possible he was in some ways a guinea pig in terms of the various medications he took? Perhaps, but I believe they were our only hope of giving him a chance in light of the seriousness of his condition and his previous suicide attempt. When he did complete suicide, we discovered that he had stopped taking his medications, so I don’t blame the medications, but the lack of them.”

Now as horrible as it may seem, I feel compelled to take issue with this lady. The problem which caused her son’s suicide was the fact that he stopped taking his medication. We have recently had a spate of mass murders in America committed by psychiatrically disturbed individuals who were mainstreamed in society because they were on medication. The problem that resulted in the killings has often been that the patient stopped taking the medication. Read the rest of this entry »

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Subject: Vacationing in the Queens County Courthouse

If you’re reading this on April 9, it means you have the misfortune of being in your home or office while I, existing on a higher plane of existence, experience the many splendors of the Queens County Municipal Court System as I prostrate before the alter of civil society to fulfill that most sacred obligation of judicial service. Until you have eaten lunch near the Queens County Courthouse, you do not know what it means to live. Jury duty illuminates C.S. Lewis’ argument in The Problem of Pain, notably, that “either there is no spirit behind the universe, or else a spirit indifferent to good and evil, or else an evil spirit.”

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On Monday I posted a link to New York Magazine who had a recipe for a bacon infused Old Fashion and directions for making bacon infused Bourbon. I remain skeptical about Bacon infused bourbon. Regardless, showing themselves a little love, Grub Street, one of New York Magazines Blogs picked up the post and added into their daily email.

So now we have an AmericanMadness post linking to New York Magazine being linked from New York Magazine. They even give an oh-so-brief commentary on Bacon “We said it here first: Bacon has jumped the shark.”

Fantastic, loving the love-fest (and clearly contributing to it as I write this), but it goes a level deeper. I got an email from New York Magazine last night informing me about a video they shot of the bacon-infused bourbon and it’s creator Don Lee mixing up an Old-Fashion. They were addressing my concern (and gag -reflex) from the previous post where I said a bacon cocktail seemed a bit much:

I noticed you linked to New York’s bacon-infused old-fashioned recipe the other day. We shot a video demo of PDT’s Don Lee preparing the drink, which makes the bacon infusion a little easier to swallow.

So that makes this post an AmericaMadness post about a New York Magazine post about an AmericanMadness post about a New York Magazine post.

And of course I am going to link the video (watch the ball of congealed bacon grease bobbing in the bourbon, if that doesn’t make you want to try this, I don’t know what would).

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Last year around this time we brought our readers attention to a job called the Junior Lucky Bastard, offered through Fifty Five DSL.

Well, they are at it again, this is your chance to apply for the Junior Lucky Bastard job, here is how they sum it up:

We will spend the bulk of our lives at work. We will spend more time with our coworkers than with our family. If we’re not careful we will eventually become our job.

Read the rest of this entry »

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I’ve written often on this site about the propaganda tactics used to create the false impression of a scientific consensus about the effect of C02 on the earth’s climate. Because of this many people probably don’t see me as an environmentalist, but the truth is that I do care deeply about creating a clean environment where humans can live in relative symbiosis with nature. Part of my motivation for moving to New York City was the fact that urban dwelling just seemed like logical best approach to living in a world which will have 9 billion inhabitants in the not too distant future.

That being said, I was rather disappointed to see Mayor Bloomberg’s congestion pricing plan go down in flames. Unlike his Olympic Bid and the West Side stadium, this proposal actually seemed to make sense. New York City is simply not designed to support massive numbers of vehicles. If most people did not already take public transport, the system would not work at all. As the population swells and more and more cars try to jam themselves into the The City the system will break down.

I’d like to ride my bike on my city’s streets without having to fear for my life. I’d like to be able to ride on a public transportation system that isn’t a relic from 1965 (The $350 million for public transport that Albany denied us will ensure that this does not happen). I’d like to be able to breath cleaner air.

The Legislature in Albany, who always seem to have New York City’s worst interests at heart, have denied me and other New Yorkers the right to live in a decent environment, so that they can drive their stinking SUVs into The City whenever they feel like it, without paying a toll for the misery it causes the rest of us.

Fuck you Albany.

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Starbucks launched the new Pike Place Roast today along with a new cup design. While the Pike Place blend still maintains Starbucks’ trademark paint thinner bouquet, it is noticeably smoother. The excessive caffeine level seems to have remained the same ensuring that Starbucks will not loose it’s legions of faithful junkies, who cling to this last legal addictive substance.

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The Pulitzer Prize Award winners were just announced and you can see the full list of winners over at their website, or below the jump. Notice that there was no award given this year for Editorial Writing. Also notice Bob Dylan got a Special Citation “for his profound impact on popular music and American culture, marked by lyrical compositions of extraordinary poetic power.”

Reading through the Pulitzer requirements it is interesting to read up on what the award for Editorial Writing is all about:

11. For distinguished editorial writing, the test of excellence being clearness of style, moral purpose, sound reasoning, and power to influence public opinion in what the writer conceives to be the right direction, in print or in print and online.

You would think in a year so ripe with topics that some one would stand out in the field. Maybe next year AM will have to toss its hat into the ring.

Here are a selection of quotes from some Pulitzer winners.

And a Reuters story by Andrees Latif about how he snapped his prize winning photo.

And The Winners are: Read the rest of this entry »

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Nice work people. I thought the free world might just let the Olympics happen without batting an eye at the hypocrisy and brutality that is China’s single party government. We would have, but then they went and messed with Tibet.

San Francisco

London

Paris

Paris

Paris

Athens

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