Best Burger in NYC?

Ani, you will be pleased to read that the Burger Joint got the 6th best burger according to the Burger of the Month Club:

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2009/05/06/dining/20090506-burger-interactive.html

Thanks to you, it is the only burger on the list that I have tried! (Shake shack is only #30)

 

Yarrrr

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/22/nyregion/22pirate.html?hp

Ani – care to weigh in here? You think they’ll start teaching a course at HLS called “Pirate Law”? Cause that would be awesome.

“We are expecting this to be a very long trial proceeding,” said Omar Jamal, the director of the Somali Justice Advocacy Center in Minneapolis, which helps Somali immigrants with legal and social issues. “How long has it been since the United States tried a pirate? They must dig through the books for precedents.”

 

Facebook And Kids: Are Their Brains Ready for Social Networking?

One day, a call came from the principal informing Jill and her husband, their middle daughter was being given in-school suspension for creating a Facebook group used to make fun of another student. Called something like, “Eric is a Hairy Beast,” the group quickly filled with loads of kids making fun of a quiet Armenian boy, uploading cell phone pictures of him and becoming more brazen by the day.

These kids are “A” students, and far from brats; but most are not cognitively developed enough to recognize their behavior is hurtful to others. According to Lisa Ott, the Youth Empowerment Coordinator at the Women and Family Life Center, this is on target with research in adolescent brain development. Kids get into trouble with sites like Facebook and MySpace because they are too self-centered in their overall development to understand the impact of what they are doing, she said. Middle school age children are the most susceptible to cyber bullying, and high school students most likely to use poor judgment in giving out information.

We were really on the forefront of this stuff. Russ – this reminds me of your getting in trouble for complaining about the MCAS on your blog. Back then, because the blog was outside the classroom, I felt that the school had no legitimate juristiction to punish you for it. However, after reading anecdotes like that, I think my mind has changed…

 

oh, re: CORIs

CORI stands for Criminal Offender Record Information. It’s a MA program that originated as a recordkeeping system for the state’s criminal justice organization – the CORI includes not only convictions but any “contact” with the criminal justice system – if you’ve ever been arrested, you have a CORI, regardless of whether or not the case was dismissed, or you won, or whatever. The severity or the date of the crime doesn’t matter – if you got arrested for underage drinking when you were 15, that’ll show up.

CORIs have a second problem, which is that because of their origins, they’re written in some kind of parole officer slang. This means that, aside from the crime you were charged with, the CORI is basically incomprehensible. A lot of agencies in MA (and now employers, landlords, and lots of other agencies) will, instead of reading a CORI, just request one, and see if it comes back. Since no one can tell what the thing says, a lot of employers just assume that even having one is bad in itself.

Needless to say, this is not a good system.

 

a theory of crime

i was at a panel on criminal justice inequities in Mass – specifically the problem with CORIs (if anyone is curious I’m happy to post about this) – and someone threw down this theory as an aside, and I thought it was really cute:

axiomatic:

crime committed in public space is more likely to be apprehended than crime committed in private space

people with more access to private space will shift a greater percentage of their criminal activity to private space

assume:

all individuals commit crime equally, regardless of wealth

wealthier people have greater access to private space

therefore:

poorer people will seem to commit more crime, because they are more likely to be apprehended

–

empirically, this seems reasonable: in wealthy neighborhoods, such petty crimes as minor drug use, underage drinking / disorderly conduct, schoolyard fighting, etc., take place in secluded areas – in someone’s backyard, in the woods, in parents’ houses. for poorer persons, who either live on the street (where there is no private space), or live in housing projects or tiny efficiencies, it is difficult to indulge in these activities behind closed doors, ergo they’re more likely to be caught.

when we get into more serious criminality, this model breaks down, but given that juvenile offenders are more likely to be serious criminals in part because of the devastating effects that a juvie arrest can have on job prospects, college admissions and aid, immigration, etc., this is still clearly a factor.

also, all of this ignores the tremendous amount of racism in our policing; take the same argument, but now imagine that the poor neighborhoods are also policed thrice as hard, and it’s even more striking.

 

Sickly Musings: A-Rod

Not feeling too well today, stupid cold and realized I haven’t posted in awhile.  I really want to post on the Obama inauguration but we are three weeks past that and in the midst of his presidency.  Anything I want to talk about is sorta unfolding as we speak and the President at his press conference basically said what needed to be said.

So, instead I want to talk about the A-Rod scandal in baseball.  I’ll come right out with it, I am a Red Sox fan, a huuuuuuge Red Sox fan and hate the Yankees with a passion.  I usually take any chance I can get to deride them.  However, in this case, I don’t care.  Why?  Because I would be denying what has been going on in baseball for at least a decade.  Steroids were a part of the game, we need to accept that and I, as a fan, have to accept the fact that in all likelihood Red Sox players were taking steroids.  And I am not the only person who has noticed this denial from Red Sox fans.  Plus, lets be honest, SI violated A-Rods privacy rights in finding this document and making it public, despite the fact the record is sealed.

Do I wish baseball was more pure?  Absolutely, but I have to accept the fact that there were players using enhancers.  I also have to accept the fact that players I grew up watching were using them.  Any “fan” who feigns outrage over A-Rod is just looking for a reason to hate A-Rod when there are better reasons to hate him and NOT be a hypocrite.

 

Oxford English Dictionary man-hating, adj.

This is today’s OED Word of the Day:

man-hating, adj.

DRAFT ENTRY June 2008

 

Brit. /manhet/, U.S. /mænhed/  [< MAN n.¹ + -HATING comb. form, probably after earlierMAN-HATER n.] 

    1. That hates human beings.

1613 G. MARKHAM 2nd Pt. 1st Bk. Eng. Arcadia f. 46^v, The grim detested visage of a man-hating monster. 1925 V. LINDSAY Tale of Tiger Tree III, in Coll. Poems (rev. ed.) 363 Ten thousand man-hating tigers Whirling down from the north, like a flood!

    2. That hates the male sex.

1844 Blackwood’s Edinb. Mag. July 97/1 Now must this haughty man-hating creature go about begging, catching and carrying fish to market, and so submitting herself to the scorn and laughter of her former lovers. 1868 E. H. PLUMPTRE tr. Æschylus Suppliants in Tragedies II. 189, I should have guessed, Undoubting, ye were of th’Amazons’ tribe, Man-hating, flesh-devouring. 1993 M. ATWOODRobber Bride xlv. 348 He thinks they’re a bunch of man-hating hairy-legged whip-toting feminists.

 

To Serve Man

I want to come up with a good recipe to, uh, serve man. (don’t ask why)

I’m thinking that we ought to taste like pork, given the medical similarities. It’s been pointed out to me that even if our meat is similar at birth, that we eat way more meat. The problem is that animals like bears are very gamey compared to humans. What I need is a good cooking technique to bring out the flavour of carnivorous animals, that doesn’t involve real over-cooking.

I’m hoping for a sort of new-American sort of thing, with some French touches.

Any ideas?

 

China Censors Parts Of Obamas Speech

Russ – did you have to watch a censored speech!?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/01/21/china-censors-parts-of-ob_n_159603.html

 

Anyone read this book yet?

http://fish.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/01/18/the-last-professor/?em

Alarming, really. Hopefully this sentiment will change now that we have a Philosopher-King as president.