Curl Up & Dye with Kim

Why Do Coins Make Your Hands Smell Funny?

He was thought to be the oldest man in Tokyo - but when officials went to congratulate Sogen Kato on his 111th birthday, they uncovered mummified skeletal remains lying in his bed.

Mr Kato may have been dead for 30 years according to Japanese authorities.

They grew suspicious when they went to honour Mr Kato at his address in Adachi ward, but his granddaughter told them he "doesn't want to see anybody".

Police are now investigating the family on possible fraud charges.

While the officials were knocking on the door, the following conversation was overheard:

"Please, grandfather."

"No! I will not hide in the fruit cellar! Ha! You think I'm fruity, huh? I'm staying right here. This is my room and no one will drag me out of it, least of all my big, bold granddaughter! "

"They'll come now, grandfather! He came after the girl, and now someone will come after him. Please grandfather, it's just for a few days, just for a few days so they won't find you! "

'Just for a few days'? In that dark, dank fruit cellar? No! You hid me there once, girl, and you'll not do it again, not ever again; now get out! I told you to get out, girl.

See, also: Sokushinbutsu.

Ousted Agriculture Department employee Shirley Sherrod said Thursday that she will sue a conservative blogger who posted a partial video clip of a speech she gave, saying the clip distorted the context of her remarks.

A furor erupted over the blogger's posting of portions of a speech Sherrod gave in which she told of giving short shrift attention 24 years ago to the pleas for financial aid by a poor white farmer.

Sherrod is black, and the operator of the website BigGovernment.com posted a portion of her speech. The blogger, Andrew Breitbart, said he did so to illustrate racism within the NAACP, which earlier accused the tea party of having racist elements.

Make it hurt.

Rude And Stupid Is No Way To Go Through Life

Cat on a leash

Six-Month Pinhole Exposure

Ever wondered what an indie-rock-themed Time Cube site would look like? Well, your wondering is over. Behold: Evolving beyond ‘indie music’: The Era of Ternative Music!

I feel like ‘everything that needs to be said about indie music has been said’, and now modern music journalists are ‘on cruise control’, writing puff pieces and ‘insightful’ blurbs that make obvious conclusions about the ‘meaningless genre of indie music.’ Sort of like when ‘hipster’ articles were ‘big’ between 2k6-2k11. Music journalists and blog blurbers are important tastemakers, introducing users/consumers to new content/bands/artists. It seems like we/’the altosphere’ has hit a point where the most influential tastemakers must ‘dumb down’ their writing/content/presentation for the mainstream masses.
...
We will listen to ternative music. Ternative is the only way we can ‘embrace indie for what it is’ and differentiate music/aesthetics in the immediate future. All we really needed was a ‘new term’ by which we could differentiate music

Will you take my hand, and transform into a ternative bro with me? (Ternative is already inside of u).
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As we enter the post-Vampy Weekend #1 album in the World era, we must mentally prepare ourselves’ for this ‘charting’ phenomenon 3-5 more times in the next year. It seems like when a band ‘charts’ in the top 10 upon their album release, we should call them “MINDIE” bands, short for Mainstream INDIE. I feel like the term ‘indie’ could be relegated to shitty bands who perpetuate the ‘trying 2 be earnest’ indie aesthetic from the mid-2k0s. Sort of like bros who make a decent product, but don’t really ‘get’ why their music will never reach more than several thousand fans.

Some ternative music already exists, but the ternative era will really be prevalent between 2k10.5-2k11.75. It might be a microtrend ‘frowned down upon’ by music purists, sort of like blog house. It will be an enjoyable era where music will be fun/chill, and the expectations of turning a band into a mindie sensation will be removed. Ternative bands will exist, and they will be largely untainted by huge marketing campaigns and gimmicky music videos meant to inspire coverage/social network sharing.

Ternative! Your social network microtrend mindie-bros are soaking in it.

Carbonic maceration

Here's Powell's summary of a book called "Claim of Privilege":

On October 6, 1948, a trio of civilian engineers joined a U.S. Air Force crew on a B-29 Superfortress, whose mission was to test secret navigational equipment. Shortly after takeoff the plane crashed, killing all three engineers and six others. In June 1949, the widows of the engineers filed suit against the government. What had happened to their men? they asked. Why had these civilians been aboard an Air Force plane in the first place?

But the Air Force, at the dawn of the Cold War, refused to hand over the accident reports and witness statements, claiming the documents contained classified information that would threaten national security. The case made its way up to the Supreme Court, which in 1953 sided with the Air Force in United States v. Reynolds. This landmark decision formally recognized the "state secrets" privilege, a legal precedent that has since been used to conceal conduct, withhold documents, block troublesome litigation, and, most recently, detain terror suspects without due-process protections.

Even with the case closed, the families of those who died in the crash never stopped wondering what had happened in that B-29. They finally had their answer a half century later: In 2000 they learned that the government was now making available the top-secret information the families had sought long ago, in vain. The documents, it turned out, contained no national security secrets but rather a shocking chronicle of negligence.

The story is also told in Act 2 of this week's This American Life.