I particularly love the “midnight buffet”. At midnight the doors to a vast restaurant open and passengers stream in to gorge themselves on elaborate food sculptures, while one of the staff stands above them with a microphone telling them over the speakers the amazing statistics of how much they are consuming on a voyage.

One freezing evening we happened upon the young men in this film, who were illegally dismantling a former Cadillac repair shop. They worked recklessly to tear down the steel beams and copper fasteners. They were in a hurry to make it to the scrap yard before it closed at 10 p.m., sell their spoils and head to the bar.

Surprisingly, these guys, who all lacked high school diplomas, seemed to have a better understanding of their place in the global food chain than many educated American 20-somethings. The young men regularly checked the fluctuating price of metals before they determined their next scrap hunt, and they had a clear view of where these resources were going and why.

Hostess filed for bankruptcy protection today. But don’t worry, you should still be able to get deep fried Twinkies at the state fair:

The company said that it does not anticipate any disruptions in the making of or delivery of its breads or cake products and reassured that its popular brands, which also include Drake’s, Ding Dongs and Ho Hos, will still be available.

Jehovah’s Witnesses made their annual visit to our house. They ended up asking for investment advice from Scott, but left a copy of the Watchtower for our consideration.

Vizio plans to enter the laptop and all-in-one market and undercut competitors’ prices while they’re at it. While the design certainly falls within the current Apple aesthetic, if I were looking for a non-Apple PC, I’d definitely consider one.

After we’d talked for a while, we got in my rental car and went for a drive around his ward. “It’s beautiful, but it’s not for us,” Knowles said, as we rode through Harbor Shores. “It’s not for poor people.” I had asked Knowles if he slept at City Hall, and he took me by his house, which he said he rents for about $250 a month. “I don’t sell dope,” he volunteered, explaining how he pays his rent. “I come out and hustle — electrical jobs, cutting grass, whatever.” […]

When I dropped him back at City Hall, Knowles got out of the car and said goodbye, then poked his head back in the passenger window. “Hey,” he said, “can you spare a couple of bucks so I can get myself a bag of chips and a pop?”

This is an excerpt from Jonathan Mahler’s Simon-esque piece on Benton Harbor, Michigan, for the NYT Magazine a few weeks back. The bit above is from a conversation Mahler has with an unemployed Benton Harbor resident who is also a city commissioner for one of the city’s poorest wards.

For those of you who don’t know, I grew up in the area and my family has lived there for a few generations. The article is a longer piece focusing on the city’s socio-economic problems and new divisions over a golf course and property development on Lake Michigan called Harbor Shores, which is hoped to improve the impoverished city’s attractiveness for future investment. The only problem is that most of the developers and proponents for Harbor Shores are affluent and white, while most of Benton Harbor is impoverished and black – oh, and the golf course was built on a chunk of the city’s one nice park at the lakefront.

It’s a feature worth reading and not just because it’s about the clashes between a city’s residents and a group of well-intentioned (if not woefully ignorant) outsiders that believe they can solve deeply-rooted problems of poverty and crime by introducing the game of golf. I like to think it’s also because Mahler turned my old stomping grounds into a moral fable for today’s social, cultural and economic divisions.

“In 1901 you needed to be under the mistletoe to steal a kiss in public,” said Mr. George. “In 2011, you can do just about anything you want in public and it goes unnoticed.” When asked about the shortage, Mr. George was confident there would be no love lost.

Amish mullets are all ordnung in the front, rumspringa in the back.