“During the decade-long real estate bubble preceding the global financial crisis, a bubble that itself strikingly resembled Mr. Madoff’s Ponzi scheme, the world’s largest financial institutions earned several hundred billion dollars in fake profits. Some of them made billions by using derivatives to bet against the very investments they sold to their customers as safe. A large percentage of these profits were then personally appropriated by the top 1 per cent in the financial sector. Yet despite substantial evidence of large-scale fraud, nobody has gone to jail, nobody’s compensation has been clawed back, and only a few firms have paid even trivial fines.”
 — It’s funny how you can see something you know, and have known for a while, stated plainly somewhere, and suddenly you’re like, “Oh, right, THAT happened.” Your reaction is either blinding anger or weary numbness. I saw these lines in this review of a new book about Bernie Madoff and was initially in the latter, head-nodding camp, but I could probably work myself up about it pretty well if I wanted to. You?

In 2009, “490,000 blacks and Latinos were stopped by the police on the streets, compared with 53,000 whites.” 6% of those stops resulted in arrests. In Brownsville, “Men between 15 and 34 in the area were stopped an average of five times” — that means that “the police made over 52,000 stops between 2006 and 2010 in one eight-block neighborhood with a total population of only 14,000.”

All those stops have previously gone into “The ‘250 Database,’ so called after the UF-250 form that officers use to file stop-and-frisk reports,” which is effectively “a record of the names and addresses of most working-class youth in the largest American city.” Last year, outgoing Governor Paterson signed a law that made keeping those records illegal. But that hasn’t stopped the practice of illegal searches that begin as stop-and-frisks, which result in hundreds of arrests of people carrying marijuana.

What does this all mean in the day-to-day? Well, with widespread stop-and-frisk, things happen like what happened to the Almonor family.

What a mess. According to the Times report on the trial, 13-year-old Devin Almonor was walking his friend to the bus stop at 8:30 on a Saturday night, when he got stopped and frisked — and taken to the precinct. “He was part of a rowdy group and had reached toward his waistband as the police approached,” is what the police say. (I did not know that being “rowdy” on the street was a crime for 13-year-olds walking with their friends. Apparently I should retroactively spend my entire high school career in jail.)

His parents went up on felony assault charges; his mother went to the precinct house and allegedly used curse words in front of cops and was “hostile,” because there’s nothing cops hate more than foul language. Her husband, a retired cop, was accused of punching a cop in the face. (It sounds rather like the kind of “punch” that happens when you are being wrestled to the ground by a roomful of cops — it’s easy to get charged with assault when part of your body makes contact with a cop while you’re trying not to lose your teeth.)

In fact, he was acquitted, and she was convicted of just a trespassing violation. In the end, the City will spend a fortune settling their lawsuit.

More often, things like this happen:

Antonio Rivera, 25, said he gets stopped by police up to five times a month. In January, he said he was stopped and frisked near the corner of E. 183rd Street and Creston Avenue in the Bronx. He was arrested for misdemeanor marijuana possession….

Rivera said his marijuana was in his pants and that police pulled it out of his clothes after searching him without his consent.

Rivera had lodged a soft Ziploc bag of marijuana between his legs inside his pants while still in the room where he bought it. He said he never took the drugs out when he went outside, but the police officer who arrested him told prosecutors Rivera was openly displaying his drugs.

These are the cases that clog up New York City’s courts, where it’s the word of the arresting officer versus the word of the suspect. The good news is, that’s a situation that sits increasingly less well with juries of New Yorkers.

Reuters: “A farmer in southwest China is raising a pair of twin baby black bears after finding them near his farm.” These cubs are plenty cute now, but am I the only one who thinks this is not going to end well?

Get yourself outside before the late afternoon, when it is supposed to rain: it is nice and warm out there already, and today seems like it’ll be a mild preview of our no doubt scorching summer to come. Enjoy it while it’s not so oppressive that you’ll be begging me to dispense with my proscription on the wearing of shorts.

“I had a guru who left the mortal world in December. He gave me a meditation on the spirit, it was a female spirit, very beautiful but it made me think about that; how this body is just a material body, like an outer shell. It will deteriorate and die, but we can leave something behind in our music or art.”
 — Poly Styrene, born Marianne Joan Elliott-Said, has died at the age of 53. Oh, let’s play one more!

14. The Babysitter

13. The Moonlight Murderer

12. Jack the Stripper

11. Bible John

10. The Rainbow Maniac

9. The Grim Sleeper¹

8. The Zodiac Killer

7. Beer Man

6. The Doodler

5. Jack the Ripper

4. Axeman of New Orleans

3. The Mad Butcher of Kingsbury Run

2. Servant Girl Annihilator

1. Charlie Chop-Off

¹ Suspect awaiting trial.

Rick Paulas is a writer living in Los Angeles.

“I think I’m getting out just in time. Watching the news, everything seems to be in disorder. Everybody seems to be unhappy. We’ve lost the knack of living in the world with the sensation of safety. I wonder why people still have children. I mean, why put kids in the world when the world is so insecure? This is how old people rationalize their death. You get a little crotchety with the world.”
 — Maurice Sendak seems a little down. And why wouldn’t he be? He’s absolutely right.

Today in “awww”: Twin polar bear cubs mug for the cameras.

With the sudden arrival of spring, a diversity of mens’ shoes blossoms! The slushy shoes of winter are over!

So, this is a very complicated time to get dressed. Times photographer Bill Cunningham declared the death of “dress down Friday,” as he was seeing people dressing way, way up. And while he’s always right, that doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s true in your office. But what it does mean is that you can often dress in the way you see fit. Often, it’s easiest to start dressing from the shoes up.

And do you even know what kind of shoes you’re wearing right now?

Get ready. This is going to be intense.

KINDS OF SHOES

Oxfords, derby shoes, gibsons, bluchers and balmorals.
Yup, this is all going to be terribly confusing, because different countries call these different things. You may not even know what is on your feet. Look down! Look up! Cry! Okay don’t panic. In America, what we call an “oxford” is really a derby. (Annnddd… that’s when you clicked “close tab.”) The difference between the two is a bit of technicality: basically, if it has a “flap” atop the shoe that has the lace holes into it, it’s a derby shoe.

This is a derby shoe.

See how that top leather part-thingie is sewed atop the shoe? That makes it a derby. This is an oxford.

That’s all! One has a little thing sewed on for the laces, the other just has lace-holes.

Basically you can die now, right? Well bad news, the “oxford” is also called a “balmoral,” and you know what, don’t worry about that. (Unless you go to Barneys, where the official terminology is “balmoral.”)

So the true oxford shoe makes for a very sleek profile and front view, as it’s so close to the foot and because the laces draw it completely together; the derby shoe, with its little bulk-adding flap, often has a little more manly chunk to it. I often feel too much like a lady in an oxford shoe! But that’s totally personal. Dudes like what dudes like.

Brogues and wingtips.
A wingtip can be any of those! “Wingtip” just means they’re decoratively punctured. (You might use an awl to do the leatherworking!) The short version here is that a “wingtip” shoe is a “full brogue” and it is easy to identify: it has a “W.”

Other kinds of perforated shoes are kinds of brogues too.

Here is something important to know about wingtips: people nowadays see them as very formal and fussy “banker and lawyer” shoes. This was not until recently the case!

The saddle shoe and the spectator shoe.
This is like a trick question, because the saddle shoe, no matter what color, has a saddle.

And spectator shoes do not.

So you would basically never wear a spectator shoe unless you were going to a “Gatsby”-themed lawn party.

But you can wear a beat-up saddle shoe on the weekends and look nice and not totally silly! Also these are both brogues. DO YOU WANT TO PASS OUT YET?

Monk shoes.
It’s a “monk shoe” if it has a buckle, basically. I have never met one that I liked. This is an extremely expensive Berluti shoe. No thanks! Not for me! If you take five people shoe-shopping with you and they all agree you look amazing in a buckle shoe, then knock yourself out.

Loafers (as in, “Venetian-style” shoes, or “slippers”). Oh, a tricky one. You can actually wear a nice version of a Venetian loafer to the office of a Friday.

This is a Brooks Brothers “classic” Venetian loafer.

That is not an office shoe.

But this, this could be (or a nicer version of it), if you were wearing nice jeans or something.

Regular loafers, boat shoes and topsiders.
For your boat or your lawn.

TOES
I am not going to torture you about the shape of your shoes’ toes. Toe caps are like skirt styles; they come in and out of vogue. There were two horrible years when every shoe was pointy; there was a revolution when every toe was squared off. I say split the difference for safety — and if you love it, wear it! But you should know these are extremities of style and it’s easy to make enemies at either end of the spectrum. (I personally cannot wear pointy shoes without feeling like I’m in a witch costume.)

COLOR
According to How to be a Gentleman, a book to which I do not subscribe at all, brown shoes are some scary, risky thing. Hogwash! Brown belt and a not-black suit and you’re golden for brown shoes. Blue summer cotton suits and brown shoes are great. They’re not funereal — although they’re also not, obviously, super-formal. If you are wearing separates, there’s no reason not to wear brown.

THREE BRIEF THOUGHTS ON SHOES
• If your work shoes are uncomfortable, you’re doing it wrong. Shoes don’t hurt. (With rare exceptions. I’m looking at you, vintage Dirk Bikkembergs.)

• If you have a ton of cash to spend on shoes, go on up to John Lobb, even if just to look. They’re incredibly well made, if overly traditional for some of us. Like, really well made. And they’ll answer your questions and stuff!

• If you feel really super good and strutty about your shoes, it doesn’t matter what dirty looks you’re getting on the street. You’re the one that matters.

Sponsored posts are purely editorial content that we are pleased to have presented by a participating sponsor, advertisers do not produce the content. This series/post is brought to you by Gillette. Learn more about Gillette and its products at Gillette.com.

“Godrej and Boyce — the last company left in the world that was still manufacturing typewriters — has shut down its production plant in Mumbai, India with just a few hundred machines left in stock.”