New York City's greatest administrator, Parks & Rec Commish Adrian Benepe, has folded or wadded in the face of the bizarre Coney Island toilet-paper rationing disaster. (Workers or their superiors took it upon themselves to ration out toilet-paper.) Today Benepe comes out swinging: "It's our business to help New Yorkers do theirs." THAT'S GOOD STUFF. As we have noted before at length, Benepe is responsible for much of the recent beautification of New York City. For instance, did you go down to the Hudson last night for the fireworks? (Surely you did, because apparently everyone was there, it looked like Cloverfield on the way home, with people [...]

Though almost always considered a 'beginner's flower,' the zinnia nevertheless has a long and controversial history. Records of its use date back to at least to the 1500s, when it first appears in Aztec garden blogs and anonymous conquistadors 'snarkily' referred to it in the comments as 'mal de ojos' (which of course is Spanish for 'fugly'). German botanist Johann Gottfried Zinn (1727 – 1759)-after whom the plant is named-brought it back to Europe, however, where it faded in and out of popularity for several centuries.