Christopher Chung

Interesting array of opinions on the shooting at Fort Hood. OK - Hasan may have been motivated by his Islamic faith. So what? - Christopher Chung from Bookmarklet

The Standard Hotel, in the Meatpacking District, is offering customized fixies to its guests for rent or purchase. I mean, seriously. - Christopher Chung from Bookmarklet

I'd never heard of this before. America! F--- yeah! - Christopher Chung from Bookmarklet

Nutters. "Violence struck on a southbound D train Monday morning after two women got into an argument over one's refusal to cover her mouth while coughing. It ended with her spitting on the other, a punch, and the second woman dragging the first to the floor of the car by her hair. Here's the play-by-play account, as witnessed firsthand by The Business Insider's Lawrence Delevingne: "No one got the conductor -- it just seemed like a shouting match -- but as the train pulled into 42nd Street, the coughing woman spit on the other, provoking what sounded like a punch from the reaction of the crowd (we didn't directly see it). Then the cougher attempted to exit the train as the doors were open, but the second woman grabbed her by the back of the hair, violently yanking her down to the floor."" - Christopher Chung from Bookmarklet

Now that I think about it, most of the fights/arguments I've seen/heard of on the subway are between women. sup with that? - Christopher Chung

"Heat blazed down from the sky and radiated up from the sidewalk, but Natividad Zirate, hard at work truing a bicycle wheel beneath an oversized umbrella more appropriate to a hot dog cart, seemed not to notice. Business had been good, he said, since he returned from California and started repairing bikes on the northeast corner of Second Avenue and Houston Street in June. From a small black suitcase stuffed with tools and blackened with chain grease, his sidewalk mechanic shop had expanded — tires, wheels and bikes leaned against a fence or were locked to a nearby signpost, his tools now found a new home in a brushed metal delivery cart with rubber wheels.... “People didn’t trust me in Venice Beach,” said Mr. Zirate, 63, his hands caked black with grease, his glasses miraculously unsmudged. “But it’s different here. There’s not the same stigma of being homeless.”" - Christopher Chung from Bookmarklet

"Mariano Rivera, who got the final five outs, holding the trophy as the Yankees celebrated their first title in nine years." - Christopher Chung from Bookmarklet

Boohoo. Nine years without a title. Poor guys. - Christopher Chung

A good sum-up of the Agassi drama, plus as quick a fair accounting of his life and career as you can get. "Agassi calls his father "violent by nature," and recalls being in the car when his father pointed a handgun at another driver. _ He writes about making money by hustling people on tennis courts and remembers when, at 9 years old, he beat former NFL great Jim Brown in a match to win a $500 bet for his father. _ He poignantly recalls a telephone conversation with his father after winning Grand Slam title No. 1 at Wimbledon in 1992. Dad's initial reaction? "You had no business losing that fourth set," Agassi writes." - Christopher Chung from Bookmarklet

"Walking up the West Drive in Central Park on Tuesday morning with tea in her hands and a scarf around her neck, Evelyn Stevens stopped to chat with two women, former teammates, as they rested on a bench after their workout. “We obviously had the best kits,” Ms. Stevens, 26, said of the women’s black-and-white racing uniforms. It was only last summer that three had raced together, but in that year, Ms. Stevens has gone from a novice rider to one of the nation’s best female racers. “It’s hard to understand,” said one of the women, Kimille Taylor, who has been racing in New York for more than six years. “It’s not easy to win bike races.”" - Christopher Chung from Bookmarklet

She is truly naturally gifted. In men's racing, that wouldn't matter, because she'd be competing with 20 other genetic freaks like herself. But women's racing has such a shallow bench that Jeanie Longo in her 50s still regularly places on the podium, so natural talent there goes a long way. Of course, a lot of that shallow bench is also explained by the much lower compensation women receive in sports. - Piaw Na

"The more things change, the more they stay the same. The Times' cycling blog, Spokes, reports today that the paper's coverage of bike-related issues has remained strangely consistent over the past century. In the Gray Lady's 1890s "Gossip of the Cyclers" column — which was apparently the StreetsBlog.org of the McKinnley administration — the paper covered strikingly contemporary bike issues including reckless cyclists, brake-less bikes, and even concerns about bicycle access to the Brooklyn Bridge. In fact, the Times has covered each of these issues within the past few months. Though the Times no longer refers to bicycles as "the wheel" or fast cyclists as "scorchers," it's remarkable that more than 100 years later, both the paper — and the city — are still arguing the same topics." - Christopher Chung from Bookmarklet

This just shows how little progress the USA has made compared to Europe. - Piaw Na

"The idea for Sesame Street cropped up at a dinner party near Gramercy Park hosted by its future co-creator Joan Ganz Cooney when a guest who’d found his daughter sitting rapt before a TV test pattern wondered aloud if the tube’s hold on toddlers could be used to educate. It’s been shot here ever since, and its 40th season begins November 10." - Christopher Chung from Bookmarklet

"Big Bird has, amazingly, been played from the beginning by Caroll Spinney, who’s now 75. Says Michael Davis, author of Street Gang: The Complete History of Sesame Street: “His right arm is above his head for twenty minutes at a time, because his hand is up inside Big Bird’s head manipulating his eyes … And they’ve got a video monitor strapped across his body so he can see where he is.”" - Christopher Chung

"From 1894 to 1899, it tracked the growing popularity of cycling in its nascent years, offering a revealing — and often amusing — window into the days when riding on two wheels was as high tech as writing code. “It was the P.C. of back then,” said Carl Burgwardt, owner and curator of the Pedaling History Bicycle Museum in Buffalo. “That was the topic of the day. The bicycle was the hot thing.”" - Christopher Chung from Bookmarklet

"On Friday, I sat down with Kaiser Permanente CEO George Halvorson to talk about health-care reform. ... before we really got into the weeds, Halvorson handed me an astonishing packet of charts. ... it showed something I've never seen before, at least not at this level of detail: prices." - Christopher Chung from Bookmarklet

Definitely give a listen to the two "This American Life" shows on this topic. Really interesting stuff, and they go a little deeper than the soundbytes. I linked to them here http://friendfeed.com/mikepk... - mikepk

"Basically, we started out with a year that matched the Great Depression, but have since pulled back a bit from the edge of the abyss." - Christopher Chung from Bookmarklet

"To hear Yelp reviewer "Sean C." tell it, San Francisco's Ocean Avenue Books really didn't appreciate his pan of the "TOTAL MESS" of a store: The owner somehow found his home, he said, and tried to force her way in. Fellow Yelpers were initially skeptical about Sean C.'s claims in this Yelp comment thread until he produced apparently authentic screenshots of the owner's angry private Yelp messages to him.." - Christopher Chung from Bookmarklet

yowzers - Jeannie Choi

Seriously? "As soon as Mebrahtom Keflezighi, better known as Meb, won the New York City Marathon on Sunday, an uncommon sports dispute erupted online, fraught with racial and nationalistic components: Should Keflezighi’s triumph count as an American victory? He was widely celebrated as the first American to win the New York race since 1982. Having immigrated to the United States at age 12, he is an American citizen and a product of American distance running programs at the youth, college and professional levels. But, some said, because he was born in Eritrea, he is not really an American runner." - Christopher Chung from email

Historically, it's been quite American to question whether those unlike us are 'American enough'... :( - Dan Hsiao from iPhone

such bollocks. - Felicia Yue

that is sad :( - Jeannie Choi

sigh - Felicia Yue

"At yesterday's investor conference held in Taipei, Asus boss Jerry Shen confirmed that a Smartbook device will be launched in the first quarter of 2010, with the price of the device likely to fall in the vicinity of NTD6000 (USD184)." - Christopher Chung from Bookmarklet

Wow. Is it supposed to be a good machine, Mr. Netbook expert? ;) That price is ridiculous! - Dan Hsiao

ARM processor? What's the OS? - Andrew C

Sad. "Some surprising trends: the New York Post has the same circulation it had two decades ago! Also, the once-captivating battle of the New York City tabloids has become completely moot. Some unsurprising trends: the Los Angeles Times is an absolute horrorshow. Not shown: the Boston Globe disappearing off the bottom of this chart, in a two decade decline from 521,000 in 1990 to 264,105 this year." - Christopher Chung from Bookmarklet

Freddie DeBoer: "The point is this: give Douthat a goddamn blog, New York Times. He can keep writing his column. You can ask that he talk about stuff in his column that doesn’t appear in the blog. You can insist that he operate in a different voice in the column than he does on the blog. You could even have the proviso that it be a blog about policy, or culture, or whatever. But give the man a blog on your website. Let him post about things that are a little less consequential. Let him stretch his feet out a bit. You hired this guy because you think he’s talented. Why not given him broader ranger to show it?" - Christopher Chung from Bookmarklet

" "The time has come to repeal the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). Enacted 13 years ago when the idea of same sex marriage was struggling for acceptance, the Act is a relic of a more tradition-bound time and culture," Senator Arlen Specter (D-PA), a former Republican who not only voted for DOMA but once supported a constitutional amendment. " - Christopher Chung

" "If Dick Cheney can support marriage, so can every Senator. So can every Democrat, Republican, Liberal Conservative. Equality should know no bounds, and we must not rest until we have marriage in all fifty of these United States," - Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY), who opposed marriage equality just last year. " - Christopher Chung

"According to CBO, [FY 2009] ended with spending at $3,515 billion and revenues of $2,106 billion for a deficit of $1,409 billion. To recap, the deficit came in $223 billion higher than projected, but //spending was $28 billion and revenues were $251 billion less than expected//. Thus we can conclude that more than 100 percent of the increase in the deficit since January is accounted for by lower revenues. Not one penny is due to higher spending.... I think there are grounds on which to criticize the Obama administration's anti-recession actions. But spending too much is not one of them. Indeed, based on this analysis, it is pretty obvious that spending - real spending on things like public works - has been grossly inadequate." [emph added] - Christopher Chung from Bookmarklet

"For nearly four hours on a recent Monday night, about 7,000 people, almost all of them African-American, made a joyful noise unto the Lord -- singing along with gospel classics, cheering on their favorite choir and praising God. They were attending the St. Louis regional finals for "How Sweet the Sound: The Search for the Best Church Choir in America." The evening was organized by sponsor Verizon Wireless as a straight-forward competition among eight church choirs. But by the end of the night, contestants and audience members alike had participated in a powerful, if heartbreakingly brief, moment of racial harmony." - Christopher Chung from Bookmarklet

if you read the comments below, one person is saying that recognizing it as a white choir discounts this moment as one of racial harmony--I disagree. Racial harmony doesn't mean ignoring our racial differences. - Jeannie Choi

There is one Boston Market in New York, and I will go there. - Christopher Chung from Bookmarklet

I support you :) - Jeannie Choi

In the NYT, Gay Talese recounts a brief encounter with the Chief Justice of the SCOTUS this past weekend: "My writer friend Sidney Offit and I were dining at Lumi’s on 70th Street and Lexington Avenue on Saturday night with our mutual friend, the enduringly beautiful 78-year-old model Carmen Dell’Orefice; and seated next to our table, quietly engaged in conversation with his wife, Jane, while sipping red wine, was the chief justice of the United States, John G. Roberts Jr." - Christopher Chung from Bookmarklet

Hilarious: "To the over the hill a#@hole sporting spandex and F#$%ing greying hair trying to RACE me on my casual ride to work today: I'm sorry you can't handle the fact that a GIRL might possibly be able to pass you on your DOUCHY road bike, but you might want to act your OVER THE HILL, MID-LIFE CRISIS age, and not KICK a GIRL on her BIKE!!!!" - Christopher Chung from Bookmarklet

"Girlfriends and gaming don't usually go together, but this lovestruck nerd was an exception to the rule and managed to inject some romance into a Super Mario video game. A gaming geek proposed to his girlfriend inside a Super Mario World level by spelling out the words "Lisa Will You Marry Me?" using gold coins." - Christopher Chung from Bookmarklet

Interesting take by John Heilemann on Hillary at State: "As it was [during her arrival in the Senate], so it is here and now. At the start of the year, Clinton found herself deposited in a realm—Foggy Bottom in particular, the diplomatic orbit in general—just as cloistered and clubby, hidebound and testosterone-fueled, as the Senate. (And one, it should be noted, she never expected or particularly aspired to enter.) Her approach to the task has been nearly identical. She has steered clear of the press and put her nose to the grindstone, studying furiously and doggedly to get on top of her brief. She has delved deep into the managerial mess at the State Department left behind by her predecessors. She has quietly built relationships and alliances with Gates and national-security adviser Jim Jones. She has uncomplainingly—in fact, gladly, I’m told—delegated responsibility to megawatt envoys Richard Holbrooke, George Mitchell, and Dennis Ross. To the outside world, all this laying low has made Clinton look like less of a player. But the reality is almost exactly the opposite." - Christopher Chung from Bookmarklet

I don't find this the least bit surprising. She is an intelligent, serious person. Intelligent, serious people apprehend the task ahead of them and set to preparing themselves for it. Others posture. Loudly. With winking. - Ayşe E.

"If approved, the deal would commit Iran to temporarily exporting 75 percent of its known stockpile of low-grade nuclear fuel to Russia for additional enrichment. Negotiators say that would prevent the possibility that Iran could turn the fuel into weapons-grade material anytime soon. Western suspicions that Iran is secretly developing a nuclear weapon despite its repeated denials are at the heart of the negotiations, which represent the first time the United States and Iran are in serious diplomatic talks after 30 years of estrangement." - Christopher Chung from Bookmarklet

heh, i like the font of george bush. and the ppl in the fire ejaculating. i guess they thought it would help put the fire out? - Felicia Yue