A Really Good Gumshoe

An excerpt from The New York Times -

The Tax Sleuth Who Took Down a Drug Lord

By NATHANIEL POPPERDEC. 25, 2015

Gary Alford, a special agent with the I.R.S.,
pored over old blog posts and chat room logs that led,
eventually, to Dread Pirate Roberts. CreditCole Wilson for The New York Times

Gary L. Alford was running on adrenaline when he arrived for work on a Monday in June 2013, at the Drug Enforcement Administration office in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan. A tax investigator, he had spent much of the weekend in the living room of his New Jersey townhouse, scrolling through arcane chat rooms and old blog posts, reading on well after his fiancée had gone to sleep.

The work had given Mr. Alford what he believed was the answer to a mystery that had confounded investigators for nearly two years: the identity of the mastermind behind the online drug bazaar known as Silk Road — a criminal known only by his screen name, Dread Pirate Roberts.

When Mr. Alford showed up for work that Monday, he had a real name and a location. He assumed the news would be greeted with excitement. Instead, he says, he got the brushoff.

He recalls asking the prosecutor on the case, out of frustration, “What about what I said is not compelling?”

Mr. Alford, a young special agent with the Internal Revenue Serviceassigned to work with the D.E.A., isn’t the first person to feel unappreciated at the office. In his case, though, the information he had was the crucial to solving one of the most vexing criminal cases of the last few years. While Silk Road by mid-2013 had grown into a juggernaut, selling $300,000 in heroin and other illegal goods each day, federal agents hadn’t been able to figure out the most basic detail: the identity of the person running the site.

Continue at the link below.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/27/business/dealbook/the-unsung-tax-agent-who-put-a-face-on-the-silk-road.html?ribbon-ad-idx=8&rref=homepage&module=Ribbon&version=origin&region=Header&action=click&contentCollection=Home%20Page&pgtype=article

Meet the 26-Year-Old Hacker Who Built a Self-Driving Car... in His Garage

From Bloomberg Business -




http://www.bloomberg.com/features/2015-george-hotz-self-driving-car/

Final Thoughts on Amsterdam

Amsterdam is what every city should strive to be - new and inviting, with old world charm.

It's a city designed to walk and stroll and bike, to really enjoy.

Dam Square - Many of the European cities
have these wide open spaces surrounded by great buildings and monuments.
My hotel was across the street from this area.

There are all kinds of folks here - ethnicities galore.  It truly is one of the most diverse cities I've visited.  There are plenty of people who looked like me.

The natives are friendly, in a hands-off kind of way.

This is the Royal Palace, a truly magnificent structure.
It is located in Dam Square.

Marijuana is legal and freely smoked on the streets in the sidewalk cafes.  The gift shops offer paraphernalia of every imaginable kind.  There is a wide assortment of edibles, too.  Cookies.  Brownies.  Fudge.  Lollipops.  Yum yum.

Of course, I was curious and asked about it.  I was told by a merchant that marijuana is legal for personal use, but illegal to sell or to transport out of the country.

So, two big no no's in the US - prostitution and marijuana - are par for the course here. No big deal, at all.

That tidbit might be all the nudge some of you need to book your next vacation.

This is the National Monument and the wax museum
below are also in Dam Square.

Madame Tussaud

Whether that is your cup of tea or not, Amsterdam offer this and so much more.

If you're looking for fun, clean or otherwise, this is the place to be.

The House of One in Berlin

http://magazine.good.is/articles/church-synagogue-mosque-house-of-one-berlin

Anne Frank's House

The museum opens at 9:00 each day, and after seeing the long lines the previous day, I made sure to get there early.  Even arriving a half hour before opening, there were at least 100 people in line ahead of me.

I was bundled up for the weather though, and didn't mind the wait.

The house is located on a narrow street that overlooks one of the many canals.  I didn't take a picture of it because I would have had to cross over on the other side of the canal to get a shot.

It is very nondescript.  It looks very much like all of the other homes/buildings in the area.  A small sign at the entryway is the only clue to the history it holds.

A view of the house from across the canal.
It is the one with the grey panels behind the tree in the middle of the picture.
Photo found online.

Here's another photo found online.
Everything from the right corner to there the bikes are is the museum.
What you can't see is the vast number of people waiting in line to get in.

I had not purchased a ticket online, and just took my chances that I would be able to purchase one at the door.

Thankfully, I could.

The street level of the house has been converted into a museum foyer, with all of the necessary trappings to accommodate the number of visitors each day.

It is a self-guided tour, which is nice.  You can go at your own pace.

Although there were many people, it was totally quiet.

A very somber scene.

There are videos throughout, explaining what was happening at the time, and the only voices heard.

The house is four stories, with incredibly steep stairs.  Access to this area was through an entryway disguised as a bookcase.  When moved, it reveals a secret passageway upstairs.

This is a diagram of the house, also found online.

There were eight folks hidden away here for over two years.

They were betrayed by someone, and their whereabouts noted and they were arrested and sent to the concentration camps.  Of these eight people in hiding (Anne, her older sister, mother and father plus four others) only her father survived the Holocaust.

When you think about the atrocities leveled against these folks and millions others, it's hard to imagine that degree of loathing and hatred.  And yet, this place is living proof of that, and of the resiliency of the people to survive.

The Kindness of Strangers

As the other passengers and I heard the boarding call for our departing flight out of Abu Dhabi the other day, as usual, we were separated by economy and business class lines as we were ushered forward.

I noticed a couple, first sitting and waiting like the rest of us, then again when they stood in the business class line.

The guy was black, I'm guessing about 35 or so.  He had on those big imposing headphones, listening to music I suppose.  The woman was white.  She looked older, fiddling with her phone.

While waiting, a young man in a wheelchair was wheeled forwarded, pushed by an airport porter.  He was traveling alone.

Immediately, this young black became aware of the man in the wheelchair, and kept a close eye on him.

Interestingly, the buildings here are not wheelchair friendly, at all.  Public transportation either.

This flight required us to board a bus, and be taken to the tarmac across the airport, to board our plane.

There was no way to get this wheelchair-bound man on the bus easily.  Although a thin man, it took three guys to lift him in his wheelchair onto the bus, as there was not an automatic lift.

The black guy and his lady friend were already on the bus, but he immediately came forward to help when he saw what was happening.  He doted over the man, making sure his feet were properly positioned and that he was ok and comfortable.

He helped to guide him off the bus when we reached the plane.

All of the other passengers, including me, emptied the bus and climbed the 20-plus steps to enter the plane from the tarmac.

When I reached the top of the stairs and looked back, I saw the black guy had lifted the wheelchair man out of the chair.  He proceeded to carry him up all of those steps, brought him into the plane, sat him down and settled him in.  His lady friend carried his bag for him.  She then disappeared into the business class section of the plane. The man, however, arranged it with the flight attendant, changed his seat, and sat down next to the wheelchair man for the remainder of the flight.

Now this man had a business class ticket that would have been way more comfortable for him, as he was a big guy, but he gave it up to sit by the man through the flight, making sure he was OK.

You would think the wheelchair man would have been grateful for the help, but I didn't hear a whisper of thanks, or a motion of gratitude, which I thought was odd, tacky even.

But then, I thought about it some more, and realized that this young man was probably embarrassed that he needed help.  But the man helping him was undeterred by all the attention.  He continued to be his guardian angel.

It was an incredible case of kindness on display.

The consideration this guy showed the wheelchair man was extraordinary.  It's like he'd done this before.  He wasn't intimated by the chair or what it meant.  He didn't care what others around him thought.  He was all about action.  Helping this man in any way he could.

This was a powerful gesture - one of overwhelming concern - for his fellow man.

I was reminded of Ben's accident.

The six months or so that Ben was wheelchair-bound was a tough time, but it was a time of learning and growing, too.

Mostly, it was clear that folks in wheelchairs are so often invisible.  In Ben's case, they chose to look away, and not acknowledge his presence.  I'm sure these events were typical of others in the same predicament.

It is because of this experience with Ben, that I'm so much more conscious of people in wheelchairs and the logistical things that entails when they're trying to get around, like uneven payment and curbs.

This young man's actions warmed my heart.

May his unselfish act, be an example for us to follow.

As we celebrate this Christmas Season, may we all have the will and the wherewithal to reach out and help those in need, not for show, or expecting anything in return, but simply because it's the right thing to do.

The Nutcracker Reimagined

What Did Jesus REALLY Look Like? | Decoded | MTV News

This coat changes into a sleeping bag. And changes lives.

As seen on The Grommet -




https://www.thegrommet.com/the-empowerment-plan?utm_campaign=20151224&utm_content=27902&utm_medium=email&utm_source=CC&trk_msg=PN295E1SDLAKF1GGS4G795OUH8&trk_contact=6PJ17299EJ5SLGM27119G0AQ7K

Merry Christmas!

Here's wishing you and yours a very Merry Christmas and a spectacular New Year!

May 2016 be the beginning of the best years of your life!

Consider Oslo

From The Root -

For Americans of Color, Is Norway a Racism-Free Utopia?

It’s not cheap to live there, but for these expats of color, Norway is a place where no matter your color, you’re American first.

BY: DAYVEE SUTTON

It’s cold, with really short days in the winter. Like, sunset is at 3 p.m. And it’s white. Like, really white—as in the descendants of Vikings. But in the city center of Oslo, Norway, black American expats are living what seems to be the dream of Martin Luther King Jr.: being judged by the content of their character and whatnot.

It’s so good at times that instead of worrying about random police stops when he leaves his house for work, Washington, D.C., native Anthony Durham is cheered with the nickname “Obama” when he walks inside his barbershop, which is operated by a Somali-and-Nigerian duo. He’s praised because he’s an American. White women don’t clutch their purses in his presence; instead, he says, most days he blends in with his new community. At most, he may get a glance out of curiosity when he and his wife speak English with an American accent.

“They’re like, ‘Are they tourists?’” he says. “In Norway it’s like I’m American first and black second.”

~~~~~~~~~~

The complete article can be found at -

http://www.theroot.com/articles/culture/2015/12/for_americans_of_color_is_norway_a_racism_free_utopia.html?wpisrc=newsletter_jcr:content%26

End Gun Violence

Kudos to these athletes for joint forces and speaking out against gun violence.

Amsterdam Sights

Those of you who know me well, know that I have a theory about white folks and cold weather.

It's this - when you look outside and see white folks in coats, that means black folks (OK, maybe just me) should grab three.

Today when I ventured outside, and saw folks bundled up tight, I ignored my theory, thinking it was a fluke.  It really was a mostly mild, overcast day, or so I thought.

The streets are narrow and the buildings tall, so I was shielded from the weather as I trekked to the bus stop, about a ten-minute walk from my hotel.

As I typically do on these solo journeys, I hopped on a tour bus to get an overview of the city.  We were near Anne Franke's House (the Jewish teen who chronicled her life in hiding during World War II in The Diary of Ann Frank), so I decided to get off and visit the museum.  The line was crazy long, and to my surprise, it was crazy cold, so I quickly scratched those plans and sought a cafe for a cup of joe to warm up.

Oh my goodness, I couldn't believe how cold it was, with a fierce biting wind!

So this, my friends, provides even more proof that my theory is, in fact, a valid one.

Below are some of the sights of this vibrant city.

This house with the red lights in the windows, literally means it a "red light district" place of business.
Prostitution is legal here.  There was a woman in a very tiny bikini standing in one of the windows.
She backed away when she saw me taking pictures.
One of the windows had the name "Esther," the name of the woman showcased there, I assume.

This city has embraced bicyclists like no other I've seen.
There are thousands of bikes everywhere.
There are bike shops and bike rentals on every block it seems.
The bike lanes run parallel to the sidewalks, separated from the automobile traffic.
Here everyone has their own lane.
It's a pretty awesome sight to see.

There are canals and bridges all around.
There are boat tours, but even with covered boats,
I'm thinking that would be too cold for me.

This flag is the official flag of Amsterdam, the capital city of the Netherlands.

This is a view of the many houseboats that line the canals.

Here's another view of houseboats.

Although this picture isn't great, I was tickled to see these toddlers
riding along in their covered motorized wagon.  

A street view

Life along the canals.

My plan is to get up early, bundle up, and beat the lines at the Ann Frank Museum tomorrow.

Wish me luck.

Greetings From Amsterdam!

This is the view from my hotel window.

I arrived late afternoon today, and will be here for a few days.

It's a beautiful, very picturesque city.  It was overcast, so most of the pictures I took today were too dark to publish, but I plan to hit the streets early tomorrow, with the hope of a sunny day.

More soon.

Senior Computer Skills

Young folks.  Laugh.  In the blink of an eye, you'll be the seniors that kids are making fun of.

Forwarded from Forrest -

Senior Computer Skills...

         
Tech support:   What kind of computer do you have?
Customer:         A white one...
Tech support:   Click on the 'my computer' icon on to the left of the screen.
Customer:         Your left or my left?

 ************************  
Customer:   Hi, good afternoon, this is Martha, I can't print. Every time I try, it says 'can’t find printer’.
I've even lifted the printer and placed it in front of the monitor,but the computer still says he can't find it..
 *************************  

 Customer:        My keyboard  is not working anymore.
Tech support:   Are you sure it's plugged into the computer?
Customer:         No. I can't get behind the computer.
Tech support:   Pick up your keyboard and walk 10 paces back.
Customer:          OK
Tech support:   Did the keyboard come with you?
Customer:          Yes
Tech support:  That means the keyboard  is not plugged in.
 *************************  
Customer:           I can't get on the Internet.
Tech support:     Are you sure you used the right password?
Customer:           Yes, I'm sure. I saw my colleague do it.
Tech  support:   Can you tell me what the password was?
Customer:          Five dots.
 *************************  
Tech  support:  What anti-virus program do you use?
Customer:         Netscape.
Tech support:   That's not an anti-virus program.
Customer:         Oh, sorry... Internet Explorer..
 *************************  
Customer:    I have a huge problem.A friend has placed a screen saver on my computer,

but every time I move the mouse, it disappears.
 *************************  
Tech support:    How may I help you?
Customer:          I'm writing my first email.
Tech support:   OK, and what seems to be the problem?
Customer:         Well, I have the letter 'a' in the address, but how do I get the little circle around it?
 *************************   
This one and the next    are our personal favorites! 
A woman customer called the Canon help desk with a problem with her printer.
Tech support:    Are you running it under windows?
Customer:  'No, my desk is next to the door, but that is a good point.
The man sitting in the cubicle next to me is under a window, and his printer is working fine.'
 

 ************************  
And last but   not least!  
Tech  support:   'Okay Bob, let's  press the control and escape keys at the same time.
That brings up a task list in the middle of the screen.  Now type the letter 'P' to bring up the Program Manager.'
Customer:         I don't have a P.
Tech  support:  On your keyboard, Bob.
Customer:         What do you mean?
Tech support:  'P'.....on your  keyboard, Bob.
Customer:  I'M NOT GOING TO DO THAT

Living in Chaos

First, apologies for being awol.  Between finishing up with the first half of school and dealing with some health issues, I've done very little beyond the absolute necessities.  Thankfully, all is well health-wise and we started our two week winter break yesterday.

A few days ago, I picked up David Gregory's book How's Your Faith and found a common thread - being raised in a household with an alcoholic parent.  Of course, that's where the commonalities end, as he was a child of privilege, and I was definitely not.

What was intriguing to me was how dealing with an alcoholic parent impacts, not just your childhood, but every aspect of your life.  Reading his story illustrated this wasn't an isolated occurrence for me, but others dealt/are dealing with this, too.

At 59 years old, some memories of my childhood stand out crystal clear.

Like -

Mom hiding money and half-filled liquor bottles around the house, trying to convince my father he had drank it all, and there was no money left for any more.  Actually I think this strategy backfired more often than not, as he would just go back to the liquor store and buy more on credit.  When he got paid, his liquor bill was the first bill paid, with Mom having to make do with what was left.

Like -

The vivid stench of rancid liquor that seeped from every pore of his body.  That was coupled with having the job of helping Mom to clean the vomit that he regularly upchucked while she wrangled him to go to bed to sleep it off.

Like -

During my middle and high school days when he went five years without a drink, and then when he arrived home late stumbling in from the detached garage, I knew in an instant that our reprieve from his drunken days of chaos was over.

Like -

When I was home for a break from college, and needed a ride to the bus station to get back to school, he was so drunk, my mother refused to ride the twenty miles to the bus station to see me off because it would have meant riding back with Daddy, who was flat out pissy drunk.  You see, she never learned to drive.  I drove the car to the station, but he would have to have driven it back home.  She knew she would be helpless and completely at his mercy on that drive home.  So she didn't go.  Of course, I didn't blame her.  Once Daddy and I arrived at the station, I went inside to wait on the bus.  Somehow he managed to stagger into the building, and when he did his pants fell to his ankles.  The embarrassment.  The shame.  The indignity . . . was palpable.  How he made it home alive and without killing someone else on the road was purely by the mercy of God.

These experiences are but a few that have shaped my life and my views of people who drink.  Of course, most folks don't allow themselves to fall into the "pissy drunk" category, but the assumption (wrong though it may be), is that's where they're headed until proven otherwise.

That's why it was so incredibly painful when I discovered that Ben and Frankie drank. Not because I thought they'd end up like my Dad, but because the possibility was too real in my eyes.  This is a topic I've covered many times with them, and it's not my intention to rehash old wounds, but simply to illustrate how all of our experiences - good or bad - go into shaping the people we become.

I share this not to make you feel bad if you're a drinker.  But hopefully, it's just a reminder that the things that happen when you're under the influence can/do have lasting effects.

Young, Gifted & Black

From The Atlantic - 

'What It Means to Be Young, Talented, and Black'

• EMILY ANNE EPSTEIN
 
• 7:00 AM ET
 
• 20 PHOTOS
 
• SPOTLIGHT

Sophia Nahli Allison defines her photography essay, Marching Together, by what it’s not. “This is not a story about an underfunded program or urban youth succeeding in band as a way to escape violence,” she said. Her images of Hillside High School’s award-wining marching band captures the students’ determination  and ambition, while simultaneouslycounteracting the stereotypically negative representation of black teens. They want to go to college. They want to win. This, she said, “is a visual exploration of what it means to be young, talented, and black.”

http://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2015/12/marching-together/419955/?utm_source=atl-daily-newsletter

Really Cool Lamps

Made in Sacramento!

http://www.chandewheel.com/about.html

Three Generations of Blacks in Russia

From The Root - 

Black in the USSR: 3 Generations of a Russian Family

Escaping the oppression of a racist America, a black scientist named Oliver Golden took Soviet citizenship in the 1930s and began a legacy for his family that endures in Russia today.

BY: STEVEN J. NIVEN

In 1932, the poet Langston Hughes spent Christmas in the “dusty, coloured, cotton-growing South” of Uzbekistan, then one of the Soviet Union’s Asian republics. Hugheshad been in Moscow, working on a film critical of American race relations, but the project was abandoned, in part because the Soviets were then seeking official diplomatic recognition and improved economic ties with the United States. After an exhausting 2,000-mile journey on frozen, ramshackle Russian trains, he arrived on Christmas Eve in Yangiyul, near Tashkent, “in the middle of a mudcake oasis frosted with snow,” and visited “a neat, white painted cottage,” where “it was jolly and warm.”

His hosts were Oliver Golden, a black Mississippian, and Bertha Bialek, the white New York-born daughter of Polish Jewish immigrants, who had prepared a traditional American meal capped off with pumpkin pie to celebrate the season—washed down, of course, with copious amounts of local cognac and vodka. Most of his fellow guests were black men and women. As he looked out his window on Christmas morning, Hughes saw some tall, brown-skinned Uzbeks on horseback, padding across the snowy fields, and was reminded of images he had seen in Sunday school when he was a boy in Kansas: “In their robes, these Uzbeks looked just like Bible characters, and I imagined in their stable a manger and a child.”

http://www.theroot.com/articles/history/2015/12/black_in_the_ussr_3_generations_of_an_african_american_family_in_the_soviet.2.html

A Priceless Comeback

From Now I Know -

Crease and Desist

OCTOBER 15, 2013

Major sporting events don’t want objects flying around the stands or onto the field. That sounds like a pretty good rule, as you don’t want fans or players to get hurt — that’d be bad for everyone involved. To avoid problems, even items which are generally harmless are often banned; the New York Yankees, for example, explicitly state that beach balls are prohibited. But generally speaking, such specificity isn’t required. The general rule makes enough sense and is easily enough enforced — usually. Unfortunately for one fan of the NFL’s Cleveland Browns, the team did not enforce the rule to his liking. So in 1974, he — an attorney — wrote the letter below, demanding action by threatening a lawsuit.

The letter, by attorney Dale O. Cox, spells out the grievance. Cox, a season ticket holder, was upset that other fans were flying paper airplanes “generally made out of the game program,” and tossing them around. Cox was concerned about “the risk of serious eye injury and perhaps an ear injury” that such paper projectiles could cause, so he asked the team to stop such behavior. And then there’s the legal threat: “I will hold you responsible for any injury sustained by any person in my party attending one of your sporting events.” Fighting words, in legal-speak.

The Browns’ general counsel, James Bailey, replied to Mr. Cox — that’s what would generally happen in a matter like this, and in this case, he did so by a letter dated just a few days later. But the letter didn’t inform the aggrieved Mr. Cox of the team’s decision to crack down on paper airplanes. It didn’t have any legalese in it, explaining the team’s view of the law. In fact, it didn’t say much of anything. Yet, it may be the best legal reply ever written. You can see it below.

A few years later, the Cleveland Scene, an alt-weekly, discovered the above letters (without explanation as to how), and the letter became a cultural meme of sorts. (It recently made its way into an episode of NPR’s Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me!, as a trivia question.) As absurd as Mr. Bailey’s response seems, it’s real. In early 2011, a reporter from the Cleveland Plain Dealer tracked down Bailey and Cox, both of whom recalled the response fondly. Cox even admitted to using a similar reply tactic “a couple times [himself] since.”

http://nowiknow.com/crease-and-desist/