Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Why is it so hard for them to condemn hate?

Too often we confuse noise with substance. too often we confuse setbacks with defeat.

Sadly, there is no cure for stupid.

The poor and middle-class pay taxes, the rich pay accountants, the wealthy pay politicians.

Reality always lies in wait for … Democrats.

You don’t get to peddle hatred on saturday and offer condolences on sunday.

Pessimism assures that nothing of any importance will change.

And now I have baud making fun of me. this day can’t get worse.

If you’re pissed about Biden’s speech, he was talking about you.

It’s time for the GOP to dust off that post-2012 autopsy, completely ignore it, and light the party on fire again.

Take hopelessness and turn it into resilience.

They traffic in fear. it is their only currency. if we are fearful, they are winning.

Teach a man to fish, and he’ll sit in a boat all day drinking beer.

This has so much WTF written all over it that it is hard to comprehend.

Republicans in disarray!

… pundit janitors mopping up after the GOP

Just because you believe it, that doesn’t make it true.

“woke” is the new caravan.

Whoever he was, that guy was nuts.

“Everybody’s entitled to be an idiot.”

We are aware of all internet traditions.

It’s the corruption, stupid.

A last alliance of elves and men. also pet photos.

This fight is for everything.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Long Reads

Long Reads

by | 94 Comments

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Been a super busy week (aren’t they all) so I have been slacking posting the long reads. Here’s a bunch I have been saving up.

What We Don’t Talk About When We Talk About Serial Killers

‘Here’s the system; it sucks’: Meet the Hill staffers hired by Ocasio-Cortez to upend Washington

The Story Behind The Song: Sultans Of Swing by Dire Straits

How a Stroke Turned a 63-Year-Old Into a Rap Legend

Let Me Tell You About My Friend Maria Butina — Who Might Be A Russian Spy

The Last Pioneer: A savage journey to the heart of the greasy-as-hell, California fast food dream.

Heavy Metal Confronts Its Nazi Problem

The latest Instagram influencer frontier? Medical promotions: Big pharma is partnering with influencers to sell new drugs and medical devices.

POWER BROKER SPECIAL REPORT: Inside a long-shot plan to buy a never-opened nuclear plant and sell its power to a single customer: MLGW

Lot of interesting stuff in there, I think.

Gerald is sick as a dog and his wife is working, so the boys are coming over for dinner. Got a pork butt and some sauerkraut in the slow cooker.

Reader Interactions

94Comments

  2. 2.

    NineDragonSpot

    Mister Donut, with their elaborately-decorated treats, was a fixture of my youth. Then it just disappeared from the US.

    Imagine my surprise decades later when I saw them flourishing in Taipei’s subways and malls. I guess they settled in Japan and branched out from there….

  3. 3.

    Brachiator

    Heavy Metal Confronts Its Nazi Problem

    What a surreal title.

    What We Don’t Talk About When We Talk About Serial Killers

    I didn’t like this one and it misses something obvious.

    Pop culture loves monsters, but it also loves to domesticate and defang them. So we go from Frankenstein to Abbot and Costello Meets Frankenstein.

    The original Ghostbusters movie might have been a hit had it been played as a straight horror movie. But it went from a comedy to a TV cartoon show for kids (and Frankenstein and similar characters later showed up on the Scooby Doo cartoon show).

    We’ve done the same thing to serial killers. We make them cuddly and familiar. None of this has anything to do with reality. This is just how we deal with monsters.

    One day, there will be a cartoon show about that monster we call Trump.

  4. 4.

    trollhattan

    Here’s one.

    Is the Colorado River in Crisis? by Dr. Brad Udall.

    Since the entire US Southwest relies on it, the Colorado’s future in a changing climate is a Big Biden Deal. A spoiler:

    So is the Colorado in crisis? “I don’t really like the word ‘crisis’ because it partially implies out-of-control and something that we’re not responsible for, but that’s not really part of the definition. If you truly acknowledge the facts: that the reservoirs are low – only 42%, and 40 million people depend on this system. It’s the worst hydrology in gauge record and climate change is already impacting these flows. To lose the ag in Imperial and Yuma and Central Arizona – that’s really important ag in the concept of winter vegetables and produce in this country, and it would be really hard on those economic areas.”

    “So my answer is yes, of course it’s in crisis.”

  5. 5.

    Mary G

    OMG, this took me back:

    When I saw Dwight Yoakam at the Hollywood Palladium last year, he busted out a song he almost never plays — “Carmelita,” by Warren Zevon. When he sang, “He hangs out down on Alvarado Street, by the Pioneer Chicken stand,” all the old L.A. punkers cheered.

    We didn’t eat there that much, we were into Tommy’s on Beverly and Rampart, where at 3 or 4 a.m. one night somebody threw a Molotov cocktail onto the roof and nobody left the line. Good times.

  8. 8.

    A Ghost To Most

    @trollhattan: Yes, it is. The good news is the mountains in the Colorado watershed are getting large amounts of snow this year. For a change.

    The article on rejecting fascism in death metal was quite interesting, and heartening.

  9. 9.

    Brachiator

    The Last Pioneer: A savage journey to the heart of the greasy-as-hell, California fast food dream.

    An odd little story that is wrong in so many details. But it is fun to read a story where you know as much, if not more, of the social history behind the story as the author. In Southern California, Pioneer Chicken was always the also ran to KFC and Popeye’s, and all of them started to falter as tastes changed and people wanted healthier, less greasy versions of cooked chicken.

    But yeah, Southern California (not simply Los Angeles) was the place where many fast food places, diners, and casual restaurants began. Bob’s Big Boy, for example was founded in 1936. Pink’s where the Lord God came down and blessed the perfect hot dog, began as a push cart operation in 1939.

  13. 13.

    NotMax

    @Brachiator

    One day, there will be a cartoon show about that monster we call Trump.

    The Traitor Tribe, premiering on Nickelodeon in (taps firmly balky, out of focus crystal ball) 2029. Barron somebody or other, executive producer.

    :)

  14. 14.

    NotMax

    Senior moment #I-forget-which:

    Made a sandwich for dinner last night. Halfway through consuming it, realized I had neglected to remove the paper between the cheese slices.

    Heck, it’s roughage.

  16. 16.

    Yutsano

    Oh hey look at that I had a post completely disappear amazing how that happens! And now I don’t feel like re-typing it.

  21. 21.

    MomSense

    John, I wish we were neighbors. My neighbor broke her hip last week so her husband, who has had his own health problems, is home alone. I’ve been making extra and bringing him meals every day. This week It’s school vacation week and I’ve got a bunch of extra kids at my house. They’ve been eating non stop all day and now I’m making pizzas for them. It sounds like you and I are the respective cooks in our neighborhoods and it would be fun to cook big meals together.

  22. 22.

    trollhattan

    I kan haz giant bee? Yes, you kan haz giant bee.

    The world’s biggest bee has been re-discovered, after decades thought lost to science.

    The giant bee – which is as long as an adult’s thumb – was found on a little-explored Indonesian island. After days of searching, wildlife experts found a single live female, which they photographed and filmed. Known as Wallace’s giant bee, the insect is named after the British naturalist and explorer Alfred Russel Wallace, who described it in 1858.

  23. 23.

    cmorenc

    Love the link about the story behind “Sultans of Swing”, one of the great blues-rock songs of all time IMHO.

  25. 25.

    schrodingers_cat

    @John Cole: I just remembered something. When Tulsi Gabbard announced there were several questions about the caste system and Hinduism, India and I offered to do one guest post/AMA about the caste system. So if people are still interested I could do that.
    FWIW I think that the leftier-than-thous someone like Cornell West will probably attack Kamala Harris for her mother’s upper caste antecedents. Because one of the lines of attack is that she is too privileged to understand what the have-nots have to deal with.

    ETA: I have an idea, just like we have the morning photographs that Alain puts up, we can have rotating guest posts (essay, Q and A) by the commenters. Make it a weekly feature. If its once in a while many people will do it. There are so many interesting Balloon Juice commenters.

  27. 27.

    Brachiator

    @oatler.:

    Any of you… whippersnappers remember the Chicago-area Cock Robins?

    Sadly, no. A place with a little history behind the name?

    Is this the place: Cock Robin Restaurants of Melrose Park and Brookfield, Illinois

    Now only existing as a nostalgic, tasty memory, the “Cock Robin” fast food eateries of the Chicago area once numbered 23 in all (one source indicates 25). The first of the “Prince Castle” restaurants (as they were originally called) opened its doors in 1929. By 1931, there were 5 of these fast food places in the Chicago area.

    Founded in Naperville, Illinois by Walter Fredenhagen and Earl Prince, these ChiTown diners featured, among other things, a variety of soft ice cream flavors, signature “one-in-a-million” milk shakes, and their own, unique sandwich, the steak burger.

    The various “Prince Castles” started slowly changing their names to “Cock Robin” starting in 1955. In time, all of them were called “Cock Robins” and had appropriate signs to announce the fact. It seems that nobody is still around who knows just why the name change occurred.

    Seen in this youtube video are scenes from the Melrose Park, Illinois and Brookfield, Illinois “Cock Robin” restaurants. The former was filmed in April of 2004 while the latter was shot in July of that year.

  28. 28.

    Mnemosyne

    @Brachiator:

    She does have somewhat of a point. I have a really interesting book on my shelf called Hunting Humans, which is a Canadian sociologist’s analysis of serial killers and mass murderers with a few case studies.

    His basic conclusion is that serial killers are often driven by a deep feeling that other people are getting ahead of them and taking their rightful place in society, so therefore they’re going to lash out and punish those people. Most of the time, they’re white male fragility in action.

    Mass murderers tend to be a little more racially diverse, but they’re driven by a similar urge to punish other people for what they see as their unfair treatment by society. The mass shooters we’ve been seeing the past few years fall into this group.

    Both groups share a sense of entitlement and a feeling that, if they’re not doing as well in their lives as they want, it’s everyone else’s fault.

  29. 29.

    A Ghost To Most

    Republican congressional candidate Mark Harris on Thursday admitted that he had lied to state officials investigating ballot theft by his campaign during the 2016 midterm election.

    Harris is a former pastor who served as president of the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina before running in the state’s ninth congressional district in the 2016 midterm election.

    The North Carolina State Board of Elections ruled unanimously on Thursday to vacate the election results and call for a do-over election, The New York Times reports.

    After spending months trying to be certified the winner, Harris admitted on Thursday that the illegal actions by his campaign tainted the election

    rawstory

  31. 31.

    MomSense

    @NotMax:

    Hey you, any good tv / movie recommendations? I just watched Derry Girls. It was a bit over the top but at least it wasn’t about politics or something gruesome.

  39. 39.

    schrodingers_cat

    @MomSense: If you have Amazon Prime, watch Raazi. A Kashmiri Muslim woman is a deep undercover spy, married into a high ranking Pakistani military family and how she foils the plans to sink India’s only aircraft carrier during the build up to the Bangladesh war. Alia Bhatt is the spy and its directed by Meghana Gulzar. I loved it.
    ETA: Apparently, its based on a true story.

  40. 40.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    The first one, the serial killer one. I am sensing senagines here. I’ve read several articles recently like this and they all follow the same format – the writer is a woman, she’s somehow just as much of a victim as the women who were killed, this is all the men’s fault, Net Flicks is just unspeakable for doing this Bundy thing. Is this some kind of weird stealth publicity campaign for that Bundy movie? Grow audience interest by making it a forbidden fruit kind of thing.

  42. 42.

    A Ghost To Most

    @Steve in the ATL: Since I haven’t skied in 30-odd years, I tend to think of it as delaying our entrances into the best parts of CO (I no longer screw with snow up on the trails). No bitching, though. Water comes first.

  43. 43.

    Mnemosyne

    @ruemara:

    I used to read a lot about serial killers, and then I came to the same conclusion at that article’s author: they’re all pretty much the same. They’re hollow people with very little interior life and zero insight about why they do what they do.

    And you should totally email Cole and make him give you the keys. ?

  45. 45.

    Brachiator

    @Mnemosyne:

    His basic conclusion is that serial killers are often driven by a deep feeling that other people are getting ahead of them and taking their rightful place in society, so therefore they’re going to lash out and punish those people. Most of the time, they’re white male fragility in action.

    I don’t buy it. There is also an obvious, stupid bias at play here. The serial killers talked about are mainly white men, but clearly there have been serial killers all over the place, and of all genders. Did this Canadian sociologist have anything to say about Canada’s most notorious murderers, who were a male and female team? Paul Bernardo and Karla Homolka.

    There have probably been more female serial killers who got away with their murders by killing husbands and children, and others under their care.

    When I was a teen, I had a brief fascination with reading true crime books, trying to understand human cruelty. Gave up after deciding that the subject is unfathomable.

    It’s too glib to try to pin this on white male fragility.

    Both groups share a sense of entitlement and a feeling that, if they’re not doing as well in their lives as they want, it’s everyone else’s fault.

    There have been aristocrats who have been able to use their social status to get away with their activities as serial killers. They also had ready access to victims. Often the difference between their social status and that of their victims prevented them from being punished.

  47. 47.

    Mnemosyne

    @rikyrah:

    Stone is totally going to Manafort himself by committing additional crimes while he’s out on bail. I suspect that Mueller’s team has not asked for his bail to be revoked so they can catch him at it. ?

  49. 49.

    Brachiator

    @Mnemosyne:

    Panda Express was started by the owners of the Panda Inn in Glendale, which is still in operation today.

    The most fun fast food story I’ve ever run across. How One Cambodian Refugee Started Southern California’s Donut Empire

    And then there’s the fact that Southern California’s donut shops run significantly Cambodian owned. There are, California Sunday Magazine estimates, over 1,500 stores run by Cambodian refugees or their children. Over the past five decades, greater L.A.’s Cambodian community has come to elevate a quintessentially American pastry—in the process, making it more American, in this nation defined by immigrants. The story of the Cambodian-owned donut shop is, in many ways, the story of America.

    Also, Cambodian donut shop owners are why a lot of donuts come in pink boxes.

  50. 50.

    Major Major Major Major

    @Brachiator: why, there was a big show just last year about a gay Asian serial killer.

    I have actually looked this up and as I recall serial killers aren’t nearly as white as they’re popularly assumed to be.

    ETA they tend to kill in-group, though, and the media tends to report on the ones who kill white people, so.

  51. 51.

    NotMax

    @MomSense

    Hm. The bulk of what I’ve watched of late has been unrelentingly average, so not recommendation worthy. Several questions:

    1) What genres do you favor, if any?
    2) What genres are a no-go, if any?
    3) Is foreign language with English subtitles a major negative?
    4) Which streaming services do you use or subscribe to?

  52. 52.

    Raven

    OK so you know how you buy a car and then all the sudden you see that kind of car everywhere? Same with stroke, cognition and aging. Everywhere I go and everything I do this stuff pops up. “The Kominsky Method” is all over it, my wife and Lil Bit’s Eve Vet had fun poking at me about not remembering EVERYTHING I told now this article. It doesn’t bother me because lie Dr Rap, I do everything I’m supposed to and it didn’t keep me from having one. FIDO

  53. 53.

    debbie

    @ruemara:

    Nonsense. Your perspective is interesting.

    I remember suggesting you, rikyrah, and lamh could work on collaborative posts: pick a topic and each of you give your thoughts. It seems to me it would be a great starting point for a lot of back and forth between you three and the rest of us.

  55. 55.

    oatler.

    @Brachiator: Thanks for that memory, and I’ll be thinking of the place next time I get to Chicago and visit the Tomb of the Long Chevrolet Newsboy.

  57. 57.

    Mnemosyne

    @Brachiator:

    We’re going to have to get into definitions, though, because you’re not considered a “serial killer” unless you match certain specific criteria that usually require the PRIMARY reason for the murders to be sexual. Most of the female “serial killers” (including Aileen Wuronos) killed their victims in order to rob them or otherwise financially benefit from their deaths, which makes them not “true” serial killers as far as criminologists are concerned.

    If you want to argue with my definition of serial killers as being murderers who are primarily motivated by sex, take it up with the FBI and other criminologists. The serial killers who worked in pairs (including male/female pairs) had a sexual motive, which is why they’re considered serial killers.

  59. 59.

    cmorenc

    @trollhattan:

    Is the Colorado River in Crisis? by Dr. Brad Udall.

    Since the entire US Southwest relies on it, the Colorado’s future in a changing climate is a Big Biden Deal.

    A big part of the problem is that the Lake Mead and Lake Powell reservoirs set the stage for unsustainable population growth in the Southwest, particularly the Phoenix area in Arizona, under the false assumptions that the flows and water levels in these reservoirs were long-run sustainable, a dubious assumption even before the scientific community became aware of global climate change. One big clue that should have been obvious was the forced abandonment of Anasazi settlements such as Mesa Verde around 1300 A.D. (well before any European Invasion came along to displace Native Americans) due in substantial part to a prolonged persistent period of severe regional drought.

    Among the maddening retrospective regrets of the late environmental activist David Brower was, at the time building another large Colorado River basin reservoir was under discussion, choosing to save the region along the Green River that became Dinosaur National Monument instead of Glen Canyon, in large part because so few people (including himself) were familiar with the second Grand Canyon-quality potential national park being sacrificed along Glen Canyon by the decision – but also with insufficient foresight how the damming of Glen Canyon would greatly amplify the potential for unsustainable urban population growth in arid regions of the southwest.

  61. 61.

    mrmoshpotato

    @rikyrah: Yup. He’s spot on. The media continued non-stop coverage of Dump with no real pushback even after he said outrageous things like killing the families of terrorists. And he said that one to a shocked Steve Doocey on a call in to Fox and Friends.

    He said something so fucked up that it shocked Doocey and Kilmeade. And yet everyone went on showering in the ad dollars it was bringing in.

  64. 64.

    chopper

    @Brachiator:

    What a surreal title.

    it’s crazy, yeah, but it really isn’t as much an issue as lots of people think. if you’re going off into the nordic black metal area then yeah but that shit is off the hook in a lot of ways.

    much of it is metal’s insistence on being, well, extreme. when your lyrics aim to describe the worst among people, the biggest atrocities etc, it ends up being a contest as to who can be the grossest, the biggest asshole in their lyrics.

    it was similar in the hardcore world regarding music as opposed to subject matter. after a while bands were competing to be the fastest, craziest, most hardcore act you could find. you ended up with powerviolence bands who could pack an entire song into 30 seconds and nobody had a chance of understanding any of it. it was beautiful but after a while you’d think at this rate the stuff is gonna be so fast we’ll be in the realm of quantum physics in 10 years.

    makes me happy tho that metal bands are deliberately doing anti-fascist shows. that was never much of a problem in hardcore which has always had a strong political/social justice bent. that’s always been a big blind spot in metal music.

  66. 66.

    NotMax

    @Roger Moore

    the gourmet food truck

    What a racket.

    “If they’ll pay five bucks for a cup of coffee then they’ll shell out sixteen for a grilled cheese sammich.”

  67. 67.

    Raven

    @debbie: Mine was a “pons” or “lacunar” stroke that gave me double peripheral vision for a month or so. I’m doing statins and low dose aspirin. I also had a neurolinguistics class where we look at some of the impact of head injuries and such. There was a case of a dude who got whacked really hard and suddenly spoke German!

  68. 68.

    MomSense

    @NotMax:

    I’ve got all the streaming services. No problem with subtitles. I like most genres but lately I haven’t been able to handle things that are too stressful. I deal with awful things at work like child protection so I need escape at home.

  69. 69.

    Brachiator

    @Mnemosyne:

    If you want to argue with my definition of serial killers as being murderers who are primarily motivated by sex, take it up with the FBI and other criminologists.

    I got no problem challenging the “experts.” When I was reading this stuff, I often made notes on the narrow assumptions underlying a lot of their “analyses.”

    And the idea that “true serial killers” don’t do it for financial gain is kinda dopey.

    The serial killers who worked in pairs (including male/female pairs) had a sexual motive, which is why they’re considered serial killers.

    The male killer often had a sexual motive. The motives of the female partner were often not deeply investigated.

    And killer duos, like childhood friends John Duffy And David Mulcahy, are a special kind of crazy.

  71. 71.

    trollhattan

    @cmorenc:
    All good points. Now that we’re filling in vast holes in the historical record via paleoclimatology we can see numerous very long droughts (70 years for California not so long ago) and the folly resulting from using an abnormally wet period to predict how much the Colorado can and would produce. To your point, the system is vastly overdesigned and the region, overpopulating.

    None of the paleoclimate era includes CO2 concentrations above 350ppm. We’re over 400 ppm and climbing.

  72. 72.

    NotMax

    @MomSense

    Haven’t tried watching it, but Umbrella Academy is getting mostly rave reviews.

    If noir (this time with a comic tinge) floats yer boat, Fallet was notable, as well as not being a long term commitment of time.

    Both on Netflix.

    On Amazon Prime, especially for fans of the author’s characters, Dickensian gets an A for effort, albeit sometimes plodding or murky. Also, just as a fun romp, A Raven Called Poe.

  73. 73.

    Steve in the ATL

    @MomSense: have your fainting couch ready—there is homosexuality, drug use, promiscuous women, immigrants—the full New York City experience!

  74. 74.

    Hob

    @schrodingers_cat: I would certainly be interested in a post from you about caste.

    Also:

    I think that the leftier-than-thous someone like Cornell West will probably attack Kamala Harris for her mother’s upper caste antecedents

    I’m going to make the not at all bold prediction that Cornel West will attack Kamala Harris, Kirsten Gillibrand, Cory Booker, Beto O’Rourke, Joe Biden, Julian Castro, and every other non-Sanders Democratic candidate, because they are Democratic candidates, and because they’re not pure, and because they don’t pay proper respects to Cornel West. Those who were in public office during the Obama administration will also get attacked for having Obama cooties. And Harris will get some extra venom for 1. having been a prosecutor, and 2. being Black but not in the right way.

  75. 75.

    Steve in the ATL

    @NotMax: I’m watching it as we type! Fun show, and I’m not a comic book person.

    NB: graphic novels are comic books; don’t even try that argument.

  76. 76.

    Brachiator

    @raven:

    Here’s the Villa Park Cock Robin and the bowling alley/pool hall where we hung out.

    Had a problem with the link.

  77. 77.

    NotMax

    @MomSense

    I haven’t been able to handle things that are too stressful

    Ah, that helps. Amazon Prime: Six Dance Lessons in Six Weeks and Little Big Voice. For history buffs, the documentary The Real African Queen is well worth a view.

  78. 78.

    Steve in the ATL

    @NotMax:

    Also, just as a fun romp, A Raven Called Poe.

    Shit—you don’t get enough raven here at B-J?!

    @cmorenc:

    One big clue that should have been obvious was the forced abandonment of Anasazi settlements such as Mesa Verde around 1300 A.D. (well before any European Invasion came along to displace Native Americans) due in substantial part to a prolonged persistent period of severe regional drought.

    Do we know this for certain? I heard that they abandoned the settlements because of onerous HOA regulations.

    @Raven: Mein Gott! How does that happen? Past life thing? Too many WWII movies as a child?

  80. 80.

    debbie

    @Raven:

    I seem to recall hearing about a Midwestern farmer’s wife who woke up from an accident with a British accent. Everyone she knew was convinced she was faking it. The brain is something else!

  81. 81.

    eemom

    Love that Dire Straits story….never knew SoS was their groundbreaker hit. Fucking brilliant band, and Telegraph Road one of the best rock songs ever written, imho.

  85. 85.

    Hob

    About the serial killer thing, I see Murnick’s point but I think it’s 1. not new—I’ve been seeing articles about how being interested in serial killers is the same thing as glorifying them for my entire life—and 2. a little simplistic.

    Some of these people are indeed boring ciphers, like the guy Murnick is talking about. And some have bizarre extreme pathologies that can be traced back to a history of severe child abuse. And some have bizarre extreme pathologies that seem to come from nowhere. Some are men who can’t get ahead in life so they blame women. Some are pretty successful and don’t seem to have any unmet needs, except that they feel a need to kill people.

    I think it is natural for people to be fascinated not only by violence and gore (and sensationalistic crime stories have been a thing ever since we had mass media of any kind), but by any kind of behavior that seems far outside of our understanding. If there’s something there to be understood, beyond “it would be good to reduce misogyny in general, and also child abuse”, then figuring it out would be a good idea; in that sense, focusing on the killer isn’t about ignoring his victims, it’s about hoping that one day we can either prevent men from becoming this way or at least intervene earlier, so there won’t be more victims. That was the goal when the FBI first started studying serial killers in a methodical way. Of course, that led directly to Thomas Harris and a new boom in serial-killer-related fiction, which wasn’t about understanding anything at all.

    But I certainly can’t fault Murnick for having the point of view that she has. I can’t imagine what it would be like to lose a friend that way and then spend years hearing about the case and thinking about that fucker.

  87. 87.

    Pogonip

    There are 4 Arthur Treacher’s in Ohio? I may have to move back there. Their fish was SO much better than the ubiquitous Long John Silver’s.

    I also miss Bill Knapp’s. A few IGA’s still sell the birthday cakes, but the restaurants are gone.

    Re killers: when Charles Manson died there was a lively discussion about whether any members of his gang were still around. Upon Googling, the group was disgusted to find that police and autopsy photos of the victims were all over the Internet. The murders occurred in 1969. These people still have living relatives. I don’t think such photos should be published when the crime’s recent enough that relatives may stumble upon them.

  88. 88.

    Robert Sneddon

    @Hob: There’s a few things about serial killers that both attracts attention and repels people at the same time. One thing is that they get away with killing several times before they get caught, if they do get caught. Most murderers get caught the first time they kill and so never become “serial” killers. Most folks can’t grok the concept of killing someone else, a serial killer has to plan their killings and carry them out, if not totally in cold blood at least with less remorse than most people can accept. Just being prepared to kill is a much bigger step than most folks will take — keeping duct tape, tarps and a saw in the trunk of his car “just in case” is one thing I saw mentioned about a serial killer case a while back.

    Most killings are done within a close group, a family or small community and the killer is usually obvious — an uncle or cousin, a workmate or drinking buddy or neighbour and that narrows down the possible culprits as well as making it easy to collect evidence from people connected with the victims. Serial killers cast their net more widely, selecting strangers or others with reasons to hide their identities and actions, like gay men or prostitutes. The numbers of killings increases the evidence against a given killer but the wide range of their locations, family connections, friends etc. and in some cases an unwillingness for their in-groups like hookers or gay people to talk to the police handicaps the ability of law enforcement to track down the culprit before they kill again and again.

    DNA evidence is making a big dent in cold cases now though. Killers already in jail are being tied to unsolved murders from decades ago and cross-checking of new DNA samples from people convicted of other crimes are revealing links to older cases too.

  89. 89.

    schrodingers_cat

    @MomSense: It has a pretty awesome score too. It was one of the big hits of last year. Another thing I liked it was not jingoistic, people on the other are portrayed as people not monsters, who are doing their patriotic duty. Also too, women telling women’s stories, what’s not to like. And a movie with a patriotic Muslim heroine in today’s India, and its a pretty good yarn too, not preachy at all.

    Here is Sehmat getting married. I loved they flipped that trope of the red sparrow around. Our spy has the perfect cover, a sweet obedient newly wed daughter-in-law.

  90. 90.

    HinTN

    Haney’s an interesting character, John. The article is pretty fair and I was not aware that he had bought it. TVA’s nuclear program was overambitious and poorly funded but the engineering was sound. In terms of greenhouse gases, nuclear is a great choice. The devil is in the long term waste disposal details, but we’ve got an immediate problem and nuclear generation is an answer to that. That he’s proposing to lower poor folks’ electric bills is a social plus, too. Thanks for the link.

  94. 94.

    MARYRC

    @cmorenc: I’ve always disliked that story, especially since Knopfler not only based the song on the supposed joke of a down-at-heel jazz band having the pretension to call themselves “Sultans”, he apparently used the band’s actual name while he made millions out of mocking them. How does he think they felt? As far as I know, no-one in the original band ever came forward to say anything, but they had to have resented this. What a jerk.

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