“[T]he original ‘hot dog man’ may have been a Jamaican-born, German-speaking former circus strong man who plied his wares in Paterson [New Jersey] in the late nineteenth century.”
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[D]isposable coffee cup lid[s] … have been collected, dissected, and put on display by a handful of notable design critics and curators. […] ¶ Despite the Solo Traveler’s celebrity status, to my mind, these lids are most interesting when considered as a group, unified by function and yet differentiated in form. Patton, Harpman, and others have traced their design evolution over time, from the “primitive days” of simple vented plastic circles, through the invention of the sip tab, to the multi-functional straw/sip-through domes of today.
An interesting design history, and they look great displayed side-by-side. via Ali
Cut & Paste
Poll-driven middle-class welfare for families earning over $150 000 a year is a bad thing, says The Australian—until Tony Abbott’s talking points decide otherwise.
End welfare to the well-off! Editorial on 8 April 2008:
It defies logic for a Labor Government to face a downturn, whenever it comes, with the poll-driven handout system it inherited from the Coalition; a budget that favoured higher-income families ahead of singles, self-funded retirees ahead of those on the age pensions, and baby-boomer landlords ahead of generation X and Y renters. Budgets must ration spending in good times. The rule of prudent housekeeping applies doubly in a downturn. Every dollar in middle-class welfare that continues to be paid to the well-off when the economy slows is one less dollar the Labor Government can spend to support those out of work or to help business start hiring again.
And again. Editorial on 19 June 2008:
We urged the Government to wind back the Howard government’s expansion of middle-class welfare. We have argued for the introduction of a means test for eligibility to the baby bonus, and do not have a problem with the Government’s chosen $150,000 threshold.
But wait! The Australian’s middle-class warrior, James Massola, on 11 May 2011:
About 40,000 families will be stripped of middle class welfare payments in the first year of new budget cuts despite an admission by Wayne Swan that affected households aren’t “rich”. … Under the move, the cut-off thresholds for family payments, paid parental leave and the baby bonus will be frozen for four years, pushing families off benefits at the upper end of the income spectrum. … Opposition Leader Tony Abbott has signalled he may oppose the welfare cuts, saying they are a form of “class war” that hammer everyday households.
Just following the new editorial line. Editorial on 11 May 2011:
The hidden pain in the Gillard government’s first budget will be felt by working families. They will suffer most of the collateral damage from Wayne Swan’s lax fiscal discipline, which makes it more likely that home loan interest rates will rise. And it is clear the Treasurer is calculating that more working Australians will be forced into higher tax brackets, where they will face a double hit: higher tax and lost benefits. … With the top rate kicking in and a range of benefits and concessions disappearing at incomes of $150,000 a year, it is clear this is the income at which the Treasurer believes people are rich enough to pay extra. In Wayne’s world, a family earning $150,000 and repaying a mortgage is sitting comfortably. This theory is likely to be tested at the ballot box by voters who can expect tough times over the next few years.
Update: The middle-class welfare hokey-pokey continues. Editorial on 12 May 2011:
[S]ome newspapers yesterday portrayed families on incomes of $150,000 a year as the new poor mired in “mortgage povery” in Sydney’s western suburbs. While cost of living pressures are real, and are felt disproportionately in the outer suburbs, there is no justification for doling out welfare to those on this level of income. Even in Sydney, this is an income that most families only aspire towards.
But $200,000 a year in inner-suburban Melbourne is a whole different matter. Anthea Cannon meets the new poor, from The Australian on 11 May 2011:
The Allardyces both work full-time and together earn about $200,000 a year. That makes the Dutch-born working mum rich according to the federal government. She doesn’t feel that way. … With the cost of living increasing, eligibility for family benefits should have been lifted, Ms Allardyce said, as tax brackets were not keeping up with the true value of a dollar. Instead, they have been frozen by the budget.
The Saga of Biorn: “To gain entry [to Valhalla] he has to die honorably in battle, but he discovers that the right death isn’t so easy.” [via]
… a cartoon by New Zealand-born cartoonist Murray Ball, apparently well known for a series called Footrot Flats, about a farm. It ran in Labour Weekly, an official [UK] Labour Party publication that was closed down in 1988 — and given the year, and the tone of this cartoon, it’s not hard to imagine that the weekly was being run by a cabal of those who, as official Labour Party history has it, ran the Party into the ground — macho, workerist, class warring, hairy. [...] ¶ It’s just a little a bit startling to find an official Labour Party publication advocating, via Roman/British Empire alternative reality or otherwise, that shoving daggers into the bellies of the ruling class is the means of changing society.
These songs were performed at a benefit for Queensland flood relief. Please donate.
Dungeons & Drawings: new illustrations of classic monsters from the D&D bestiary. Highlights include spriggans, kobolds, howler wasps and rust monsters. [via] ¶ Related: how Gary Gygax invented the rust monster.
Mug shots of Australian criminals, 1912–1964. [via] ¶ Criminal Wisdom: “A journal of transcursions”. [via] ¶ Last Words of the Executed.
DanKam, an augmented reality aid for red-green colourblindness. ¶ Word Lens, an augmented reality language translator.
More than any other technical design or social institution, the railway stands for modernity. No competing form of transport, no subsequent technological innovation, no other industry has wrought or facilitated change on the scale that has been brought about by the invention and adoption of the railway.
Tony Judt on trains, tracks, distance, time, industry, class, cities, travel, art and everything. [via]
After abandoning Cleveland this season, LeBron James learns that if you ask a stupid question, you’ll get an honest answer. [via]
Chief Justice French’s address to the Victorian Bar Association is a corker: I can imagine his Honour gleefully trawling through the High Court archives, poring over Robert Menzies’ counsel book and tracing the ownership of a mysterious bottle of pure Norwegian Cod Liver Oil. And then there’s this tale of his early career:
Sometimes, creative attention getting is the best that an advocate can hope for. Returning in memory to that gladiatorial arena of my professional novitiate, the Court of Petty Sessions in the 1970s, I was representing a man charged with driving with a blood alcohol concentration in excess of 0.08 per cent. He was embarking on his evidence-in-chief. It was 3 o’clock in the afternoon. The magistrate’s eyes were closed and his relaxed posture strongly suggestive of a state of altered awareness. A court clerk faithfully recorded my client’s evidence with a noisy manual typewriter. I endeavoured to rouse his Worship from his slumbers. I coughed. I dropped books. All to no avail. I spoke to the prosecuting sergeant, a man of long and bitter experience in that jurisdiction. I said to him: ‘I think the magistrate is asleep’. ‘What else is new’, he replied. At this point necessity became the mother of invention. I shouted at the magistrate: ‘Your Worship’ – he sat up suddenly attentively alert. ‘It is possible’, I said, ‘that you have not heard all of my client’s testimony above the sound of the typewriter.’ Without hesitation he responded, ‘I have great faith in the transcript, Mr French.’ I suppose I could count it as a victory in a small interlocutory battle, on the way to losing the war, that I woke him up.
Interestingly, the first decisions French made as Chief Justice were in Cesan and Rivadavia v The Queen — two appeals brought because the presiding judges slept through the trials. It is hard to imagine his Honour’s formative experience was not at the front of his mind while he was grilling counsel about the practicality of “constantly eying off his Honour’s or her Honour’s eyes and facial expression and so forth”. His judgment noted that “the phenomenon of the sleeping or apparently sleeping judge has a long history dating back to Plato’s reference to ‘dozing judges’”, but that “[t]he standards to which courts are held and to which they hold themselves have become higher in recent times”. The appeals were allowed; perhaps French CJ won the war after all.
After Steve Lieber’s comic, Underground, was pirated online, he noticed a massive sales spike. As a result, he’s experimenting by making the whole book available for free download — and the early results are promising. It’s a gripping story and looks superb on the iPad. [via]
You may be aware that I am in love with Mamasita and its corn. In the Financial Review this morning, head chef Jason Jones revealed the recipe:
I would have to say that corn is my no.1 ingredient. Let’s face it, where would a Mexican restaurant be without it? It’s used in many dishes in the restaurant, though one that stands out in particular, is the Elotes Callejeros. I steam them [the ears of corn] whole in their husks until tender. Then we peel them and chargrill them until quite charred. They are then brushed with chipotle mayonnaise, rolled in finely grated sheep’s cheese, sprinkled with a dry mix of chilli, paprika, ground pepitas and lime zest, and lastly a generous squeeze of fresh lime.
The first time we visited the restaurant, Matt Lane told us the sheep’s cheese involved is kefalograviera. Chipotle mayonnaise is a cinch to make—here’s Thomasina Miers’ recipe—and everything required is available from Casa Iberica. I look forward to a long summer experimenting with elotes until I get them just right. ¶ Jason Jones shared some more recipes when he appeared on television recently, and he is reportedly publishing a book later this year.
Update: Delicious magazine featured a number of Mamasita recipes—including elotes callejeros.
Marque Lawyers reviewed the penalties for various corporate transgressions. The Corporate Evilness Quotient shows the government’s priorities:
Is it more evil to fix prices with your competitors than carelessly kill your workers or lie to asbestos victims? The CEQ has given a definitive answer, yes it is. Good to know.
Stories about D&D groups: a new trend in short fiction? Belinda Rule’s The Secret of the Dark Elves in Meanjin; Sam Lipsyte’s The Dungeon Master in The New Yorker.
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Audra Mae — Sons of Anarchy soundtrack — Forever Young [via]
Roger Cohen on pigs and dogs and pets and food:
Generally, the notion of pigs as pets seems bizarre or repellent. ¶ Why? There’s nothing rational about the view that taking a pig for a walk on a leash is weird, while eating a pork chop, if you so choose, is reasonable.
¶ Meanwhile: “One of Melbourne’s biggest dog-training clubs has endorsed the inclusion of a pig.” One day I will have a pet pig.
Eddie Jabbour designed KickMap to provide a user-friendly alternative to the official New York subway map. His essay about the design process — referring to international and historical maps for inspiration — is utterly fascinating. [via]