It's the least surprising surprise ever! After a series of unconfirmed, unofficial statements from both fighters, their managers, and well placed but somehow shadowy figures in the MMA world, the match we all knew was going to happen since Rashad Evans beat Rampage Jackson is set for November 20th. Only the location and the undercard remain mysteries.
The outcome is not. Rampage Jackson, for all his strength, aggressiveness, and takedown abilities, cannot beat Lyoto Machida if The Dragon shows up in form - by which I mean, in strategic form.
Machida is a karate based counter fighter, and though he has KO power in both hands and some serious damage potential with his feet, his greatest advantage is his mind. Rampage is no thinker. He is a mouth, a sense of humor, and a lot of muscle.
If Machida can keep himself under control and not look for a KO, he can easily create a situation for his opponent to get himself into trouble.
My prediction: Machida, unanimous decision.
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
Sunday, July 25, 2010
Odd Traffic Ventures
Man gets ticket. Man tries to pay ticket. Ticket does not show up on website. Man forgets ticket. Ticket does not forget man.
I work off of a truck. Each morning, I wake up around six and head down to a parking lot in Chelsea. I walk over to a decently sized Mitsubishi Fuso painted a lurid shade of lime green and wait for my partner. Together, we drive around four of the five boroughs and relieve people of their unwanted junk, a service for which they are exorbitantly overcharged and we are grossly underpaid. Often, our labors require us to pass over bridges and through tunnels, and our glorious nation's current security culture means that the police often wave us into security checkpoints. (Not as often as truckers who happen to have light brown skin though).
Usually, our conversations with police officers on these occasions are practically scripted.
"What's in the truck?"
"Just junk. Furniture and shi - I mean stuff."
"Open the back."
"OK."
"And your license and registration please."
"Here you go."
(five minutes pass, we strategize the rest of our day and bitch about our bosses while the cops watch porn in their car, pretending a license check takes five full minutes)
"OK. You can go on."
"Thanks."
Imagine my surprise when this insipid script suddenly went off the rails.
"Are you aware you're driving with a suspended license?"
"...No. Why is it suspended?"
"Unpaid ticket in Brooklyn."
"...What?"
"Get out of the car. You're being arrested."
Cops, incidentally, do not read you your rights. They have guns. You don't. That's the extent of your rights, as far as I can tell after being arrested twice.
Apparently, if you are driving with a suspended license, the police are under an obligation to arrest you. In full view of everyone on 35th street at rush hour, a policeman pulled me off of my truck and put me in handcuffs. ("Are those really necessary, officer?" "Yes they are, you're being arrested.") I spent the next four hours in jail while the police ran my prints on a computer that looked like it was from the 80's.
While in the cell, I thought a lot. It was not the first time I'd been in jail for a ridiculous offense, so I was pretty calm. I came up with many questions.
1) Why should a bureaucratic oversight lead to a morning in jail?
2) Why did this ticket only show up now, and not when I tried to pay it on the Traffic Violation Bureau's website?
3) Who was in this cell before me, and why did he draw centaurs all over the walls?
and
4) When will someone come to take care of the man in the next cell, who has bad gas and is complaining of severe chest pains and clamminess (heart attack, in other words).
The police were nice to me once I was in custody, and I had to fight the urge to think of them kindly. It's something that happens a lot to people who've been arrested. They forget that the man who is now concerned for your safety ("Watch your head," or"I'm gonna hold your arm so you don't fall," or "Are you thirsty? Hungry?") put you in handcuffs and is looking to keep you away from freedom for as long as he can. Or she. (When did the NYPD start hiring remotely attractive females?)
Instead, I tried to figure out the logic behind spending money, paper, and manpower on putting people like me - non-violent, unaware violators of a law or sanction they didn't know existed - in jail for 4 - 48 hours.
I couldn't.
My court date is on August 20th. I have been to the DMV, which was not half as painful as expected thanks to my girlfriend who played chess with me while waiting and the unexpected speed with which the civil servants there addressed my concerns, and my license has been restored.
But after my court date, I plan to focus my energies on what happened to me. Why was I arrested? Why are the police required to arrest people like me? What does our culture's obsession with jailing mean?
By circumstance, I find myself increasingly interested in what's happening with our security and imprisonment cultures.
I work off of a truck. Each morning, I wake up around six and head down to a parking lot in Chelsea. I walk over to a decently sized Mitsubishi Fuso painted a lurid shade of lime green and wait for my partner. Together, we drive around four of the five boroughs and relieve people of their unwanted junk, a service for which they are exorbitantly overcharged and we are grossly underpaid. Often, our labors require us to pass over bridges and through tunnels, and our glorious nation's current security culture means that the police often wave us into security checkpoints. (Not as often as truckers who happen to have light brown skin though).
Usually, our conversations with police officers on these occasions are practically scripted.
"What's in the truck?"
"Just junk. Furniture and shi - I mean stuff."
"Open the back."
"OK."
"And your license and registration please."
"Here you go."
(five minutes pass, we strategize the rest of our day and bitch about our bosses while the cops watch porn in their car, pretending a license check takes five full minutes)
"OK. You can go on."
"Thanks."
Imagine my surprise when this insipid script suddenly went off the rails.
"Are you aware you're driving with a suspended license?"
"...No. Why is it suspended?"
"Unpaid ticket in Brooklyn."
"...What?"
"Get out of the car. You're being arrested."
Cops, incidentally, do not read you your rights. They have guns. You don't. That's the extent of your rights, as far as I can tell after being arrested twice.
Apparently, if you are driving with a suspended license, the police are under an obligation to arrest you. In full view of everyone on 35th street at rush hour, a policeman pulled me off of my truck and put me in handcuffs. ("Are those really necessary, officer?" "Yes they are, you're being arrested.") I spent the next four hours in jail while the police ran my prints on a computer that looked like it was from the 80's.
While in the cell, I thought a lot. It was not the first time I'd been in jail for a ridiculous offense, so I was pretty calm. I came up with many questions.
1) Why should a bureaucratic oversight lead to a morning in jail?
2) Why did this ticket only show up now, and not when I tried to pay it on the Traffic Violation Bureau's website?
3) Who was in this cell before me, and why did he draw centaurs all over the walls?
and
4) When will someone come to take care of the man in the next cell, who has bad gas and is complaining of severe chest pains and clamminess (heart attack, in other words).
The police were nice to me once I was in custody, and I had to fight the urge to think of them kindly. It's something that happens a lot to people who've been arrested. They forget that the man who is now concerned for your safety ("Watch your head," or"I'm gonna hold your arm so you don't fall," or "Are you thirsty? Hungry?") put you in handcuffs and is looking to keep you away from freedom for as long as he can. Or she. (When did the NYPD start hiring remotely attractive females?)
Instead, I tried to figure out the logic behind spending money, paper, and manpower on putting people like me - non-violent, unaware violators of a law or sanction they didn't know existed - in jail for 4 - 48 hours.
I couldn't.
My court date is on August 20th. I have been to the DMV, which was not half as painful as expected thanks to my girlfriend who played chess with me while waiting and the unexpected speed with which the civil servants there addressed my concerns, and my license has been restored.
But after my court date, I plan to focus my energies on what happened to me. Why was I arrested? Why are the police required to arrest people like me? What does our culture's obsession with jailing mean?
By circumstance, I find myself increasingly interested in what's happening with our security and imprisonment cultures.
Monday, July 5, 2010
Honey: Yemen's Liquid Gold
No one considers Yemen an agricultural or trading powerhouse today. Though it is the most densely populated Gulf country, Yemen imports most of its food and raw materials and, unlike its neighbors to the North and East, does not have large oil reserves. In the past, however, travelers and traders referred to the area as “Arabia Felix” – Happy Arabia – as a result of Yemen’s incredible agricultural wealth, trading savvy, and commodity production. Yemeni coffee, incense, and honey, together with its strategic position along East-West trade routes, formed the basis of this famed wealth.
Yemen no longer exports incense. The coffee trade remains negligible, despite a recent resurgent interest in Yemeni coffee. Qat cultivation has almost destroyed the region’s former agricultural versatility. As a result, Yemen is one of the poorest countries in the world, according to the UN.
One Yemeni product remains just as famous, rare, and expensive as always, however. Connoisseurs consider Yemeni honey the best in the world, and Yemeni apiculture strives to maintain and develop this reputation.
Honey has a long history, not only in Yemen, but all over the world. Ancient Egyptian art sometimes depicts beekeeping, several historical works mention the practice, and one even finds reference to honey in the Quran. “And your Lord inspired the bee: build homes in mountains and trees, and in (the hives) they build for you. Then eat from all the fruits, following the design of your Lord, precisely. From their bellies comes a drink of different colors, wherein there is healing for the people. This should be (sufficient) proof for people who reflect.” (16:68-69).
Yemeni apiculture remains traditional. The best Yemeni honey comes from Hardamawt, and harvest occurs in the winter months. Yemeni beekeepers harvest their honey using an ancient, all natural method - they smoke the bees out of a hive, then scoop out and prepare the honey by hand. Many beekeepers are nomadic, following their swarms, moving to places where flowers and trees known for yielding quality honey abound. Not only are the beekeepers nomadic, but they refuse to use modern techniques to protect and nourish their hives. Western apiculturists often introduce chemicals or pesticides into hives that destroy parasites, and at times supplement a hive's natural diet of nectar with sugar water. The idea of using such techniques is anathema to Yemen's beekeepers.
Ali, who runs the Beit a-Nahl shop in the Tahrir area, looked disgusted when he spoke of supplementing a bee’s diet. The reason, he explained, is purity. Yemeni honey comes directly from flowers – the beekeepers provide no supplements for their bees, nor do they use pesticides to control the parasites that might easily decimate a hive. Yemeni honey, then, is completely unadulterated, and the Yemeni honey business is subject to the will of nature.
“Bee keepers cultivate bees, not flowers,” Ali told me as he indicated different honeys and where they are from. “They move around with the bees. It is a nomadic sort of business.” Ali has been working with bees for most of his life. “I became interested in apiculture because of my family,” he said. “They were beekeepers. I love this business because it requires patience,” he continued, scooping up some honey and watching it run slowly off of the spoon and back into the container. “One can’t rush honey.”
Entering a Yemeni honey shop, one is struck by the sheer variety of honey types and honey products. I asked Ali to explain the differences between honeys, and how they are classified. His answer shocked me in its similarity to how we classify Scotch.
“Different flowers yield different tastes, colors, and effects,” he said, indicating the row of different colored honey on the counter. “There are honeys that come from only one flower, and these are more expensive.” In other words, Yemeni apiculturists divide honey into single and blended malts, if you will, with a corresponding effect on price. They further classify the honey by flower and region, as well as medicinal properties.
Ali, along with every other person I spoke to, claims that the best honey is Sidr honey, Nobody hesitated a moment in giving this answer – it was an automatic response. “This honey comes from the Sidr tree,” he told me, “And we use it as medicine.” Its color is a deep, dark brown, and its flavor is complex, with a marked but not unpleasant medicinal aftertaste. A kilogram of Sidr, bought in the store, costs approximately sixty dollars. A quick internet search reveals that the price of Sidr honey can rise to two hundred dollars per kilogram when ordered from abroad.
What can honey cure? According to Ali, just about every minor illness. “We use it for indigestion, for infection, for breathing problems, as an aphrodisiac.” One of the oldest medical papyri ever discovered concerns the preparation of a poultice for burns, and the main ingredient is honey. Folk medicines the world over include honey, and modern research suggests that honey does indeed have health benefits, as honey has natural antibiotic properties. Honey’s Ph hovers around 3.8, making it about as acidic as orange juice and preventing bacteria from colonizing. It is also more easily digestible and less deleterious for one’s health than glucose. “The simplest fact is that table sugar is a disaccharide, while honey is a monosaccharide, so that is one step in digestion already taken care of…honey [also] includes a number of digestive enzymes,” said Dr. Sally Chapman, head of the chemistry department at Barnard College. In 1985, the British Medical Journal published a study on the use of honey in treating juvenile intestinal conditions. The study found that “honey shortens the duration of bacterial diarrhea, does not prolong the duration of non-bacterial diarrhea, and may safely be used as a substitute for glucose in an oral rehydration solution containing electrolytes.” Additionally, honey is high in Vitamins A and B, and darker honeys are rich in minerals such as Potassium.
Beyond its taste and medicinal attributes, honey holds potential growth opportunities for Yemen. Unlike qat or coffee cultivation, apiculture requires little water, and, given its nomadic nature, is entirely sustainable. The cost of honey means that, on a small scale, it can compete with qat. Yemeni honey’s deservedly high price makes it a lucrative commodity for export as well, yet only about fifteen percent of locally produced honey finds its way into international markets. However, though Yemeni honey remains a commodity known only to a few, there is hope that it will assume a larger role in Yemen’s economy in the future. Scotch, for example, has grown from a niche market to an obsession in the West in a staggeringly short time. Yemen needs a natural product of the same quality and uniqueness, if not the same effect, and honey seems to fit the bill.
Yemen no longer exports incense. The coffee trade remains negligible, despite a recent resurgent interest in Yemeni coffee. Qat cultivation has almost destroyed the region’s former agricultural versatility. As a result, Yemen is one of the poorest countries in the world, according to the UN.
One Yemeni product remains just as famous, rare, and expensive as always, however. Connoisseurs consider Yemeni honey the best in the world, and Yemeni apiculture strives to maintain and develop this reputation.
Honey has a long history, not only in Yemen, but all over the world. Ancient Egyptian art sometimes depicts beekeeping, several historical works mention the practice, and one even finds reference to honey in the Quran. “And your Lord inspired the bee: build homes in mountains and trees, and in (the hives) they build for you. Then eat from all the fruits, following the design of your Lord, precisely. From their bellies comes a drink of different colors, wherein there is healing for the people. This should be (sufficient) proof for people who reflect.” (16:68-69).
Yemeni apiculture remains traditional. The best Yemeni honey comes from Hardamawt, and harvest occurs in the winter months. Yemeni beekeepers harvest their honey using an ancient, all natural method - they smoke the bees out of a hive, then scoop out and prepare the honey by hand. Many beekeepers are nomadic, following their swarms, moving to places where flowers and trees known for yielding quality honey abound. Not only are the beekeepers nomadic, but they refuse to use modern techniques to protect and nourish their hives. Western apiculturists often introduce chemicals or pesticides into hives that destroy parasites, and at times supplement a hive's natural diet of nectar with sugar water. The idea of using such techniques is anathema to Yemen's beekeepers.
Ali, who runs the Beit a-Nahl shop in the Tahrir area, looked disgusted when he spoke of supplementing a bee’s diet. The reason, he explained, is purity. Yemeni honey comes directly from flowers – the beekeepers provide no supplements for their bees, nor do they use pesticides to control the parasites that might easily decimate a hive. Yemeni honey, then, is completely unadulterated, and the Yemeni honey business is subject to the will of nature.
“Bee keepers cultivate bees, not flowers,” Ali told me as he indicated different honeys and where they are from. “They move around with the bees. It is a nomadic sort of business.” Ali has been working with bees for most of his life. “I became interested in apiculture because of my family,” he said. “They were beekeepers. I love this business because it requires patience,” he continued, scooping up some honey and watching it run slowly off of the spoon and back into the container. “One can’t rush honey.”
Entering a Yemeni honey shop, one is struck by the sheer variety of honey types and honey products. I asked Ali to explain the differences between honeys, and how they are classified. His answer shocked me in its similarity to how we classify Scotch.
“Different flowers yield different tastes, colors, and effects,” he said, indicating the row of different colored honey on the counter. “There are honeys that come from only one flower, and these are more expensive.” In other words, Yemeni apiculturists divide honey into single and blended malts, if you will, with a corresponding effect on price. They further classify the honey by flower and region, as well as medicinal properties.
Ali, along with every other person I spoke to, claims that the best honey is Sidr honey, Nobody hesitated a moment in giving this answer – it was an automatic response. “This honey comes from the Sidr tree,” he told me, “And we use it as medicine.” Its color is a deep, dark brown, and its flavor is complex, with a marked but not unpleasant medicinal aftertaste. A kilogram of Sidr, bought in the store, costs approximately sixty dollars. A quick internet search reveals that the price of Sidr honey can rise to two hundred dollars per kilogram when ordered from abroad.
What can honey cure? According to Ali, just about every minor illness. “We use it for indigestion, for infection, for breathing problems, as an aphrodisiac.” One of the oldest medical papyri ever discovered concerns the preparation of a poultice for burns, and the main ingredient is honey. Folk medicines the world over include honey, and modern research suggests that honey does indeed have health benefits, as honey has natural antibiotic properties. Honey’s Ph hovers around 3.8, making it about as acidic as orange juice and preventing bacteria from colonizing. It is also more easily digestible and less deleterious for one’s health than glucose. “The simplest fact is that table sugar is a disaccharide, while honey is a monosaccharide, so that is one step in digestion already taken care of…honey [also] includes a number of digestive enzymes,” said Dr. Sally Chapman, head of the chemistry department at Barnard College. In 1985, the British Medical Journal published a study on the use of honey in treating juvenile intestinal conditions. The study found that “honey shortens the duration of bacterial diarrhea, does not prolong the duration of non-bacterial diarrhea, and may safely be used as a substitute for glucose in an oral rehydration solution containing electrolytes.” Additionally, honey is high in Vitamins A and B, and darker honeys are rich in minerals such as Potassium.
Beyond its taste and medicinal attributes, honey holds potential growth opportunities for Yemen. Unlike qat or coffee cultivation, apiculture requires little water, and, given its nomadic nature, is entirely sustainable. The cost of honey means that, on a small scale, it can compete with qat. Yemeni honey’s deservedly high price makes it a lucrative commodity for export as well, yet only about fifteen percent of locally produced honey finds its way into international markets. However, though Yemeni honey remains a commodity known only to a few, there is hope that it will assume a larger role in Yemen’s economy in the future. Scotch, for example, has grown from a niche market to an obsession in the West in a staggeringly short time. Yemen needs a natural product of the same quality and uniqueness, if not the same effect, and honey seems to fit the bill.
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