BlackBook

Another weekend in the city, another weekend spent out partying, socializing, complaining about the gloomy weather overhearing all sorts of dates, arguments, and bad conventional wisdom tossed around. In this post-OkCupid world, it seems one of the more pernicious clichés plaguing romance is also one of the easiest to mindlessly agree with: “Relationships are a lot of work.” Uh, not really.

Model Sanja Miletic creates the perfect palette as she takes to the water with ease.

According to The Argus, a resident of Brighton, England, has discovered “a vortex to another dimension, complete with a giant snake.” This could be something to worry about.

The zippy new Citi Bike bike-sharing program is set to launch in New York on May 27, immediately solving all of the city's transit, pollution, and energy problems. It's a neat system. Anybody of any age can just grab a bike and ride wherever they like, returning the bikes whenever they like, or not at all, and it's absolutely free, or something like that. I haven't actually read the fine print on the website. Bike racks are going up all over Manhattan right now, and everybody loves them, especially one group: vandals. A quick scan of the newly-installed row of bike racks on 16th Street just off Union Square--there are 47 spaces in all, plus a big Citi Bike sign--reveals that one excited early-adopter couldn't help but add a pithy message to space #2: "Nite Moves." Bob Seger was unavailable for comment at press time.

Not really sure why 19 people getting shot at a Mother’s Day parade in the 7th Ward of New Orleans isn’t bigger news right now, especially given the focus on terrorism lately—it doesn’t even seem to be on the front page of the New York Times website! But it’s still news, and horrible people are still saying horrible things about it just because the victims and probable shooter are black. Let’s dive right in!

Wonderful: once the furor over attacks on teachers unions by the likes of Governors Rick Scott, Chris Christie and others has died down a bit, we get this instantly viral video of Texas high school student Jeff Bliss telling off his history teacher for, essentially, not being the Disney-fied, Stand and Deliver-type inspirational educator his class deserved. Also: he didn’t want to take a test.

Here in the U.S., having far too many children is the hallmark of the Hollywood elite—they can’t adopt the little red carpet accessories fast enough. But over in China, where not a few of these adoptees come from, there’s a price to be paid for excess reproduction, and I don’t mean in that struggling-teen-mom way: acclaimed film director Zhang Yimou is facing a fine of up to $27 million for allegedly fathering seven offspring.

I mean, right? It’s inconceivable to me that researchers working to uncover remains of the doomed 17th century colony of Jamestown, Virginia, would go to all the trouble of digging up this skeleton, figuring out it was that of a 14-year-old-girl, putting together a mask of what she looked like and announcing that Read More »