Microkhan by Brendan I. Koerner

Entries Tagged as 'Florida'

The Narcissism of Scoundrels

April 29th, 2013 · 10 Comments

After six years on the run, con man David Scott Srail was finally nabbed at a San Antonio airport last week. His capture was due in part to the efforts of a Florida woman, Jacira Paolino, whose daughter was swindled by Srail. Since virtually the moment that Srail went on the lam, Paolino has maintained […]

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The Slip-and-Fall Queen

May 24th, 2012 · 2 Comments

If the good folks at the National Insurance Crime Bureau are to be believed, the ol’ slip-and-fall con is thriving anew these days. Yet today’s practitioners of this tried-and-true scam are rank amateurs compared to Patricia Latham, who became a wealthy woman by perfecting the art of slip-and-fall. Her dedication to her craft was as […]

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The Economics of Bird Theft

May 18th, 2012 · Comments Off on The Economics of Bird Theft

I must confess to an undue fascination with bird theft, a crime too-seldom explored in the annals of popular literature. Though there is no shortage of stories about purloined finches, reporters never seem to explain how much the crooks stand to earn—or, more important, the mechanics of fencing illegally obtained birds. I was thus pleased […]

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A Clear Conscience

December 7th, 2010 · 3 Comments

Whenever my work involves looking at rolls of decades-old microfilm, I inevitably stumble across a handful of tremendous yarns that have been lost to time. Such was the case this past Saturday, as I whiled away the hours scrolling through old copies of The San Diego Union-Tribune. Lazily panning across the pages in search of […]

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The Turnaround

October 19th, 2010 · Comments Off on The Turnaround

Doing a quick trip down to Florida for some reporting, so either working or traveling for a short bit. Will try and use some downtime to read this 1831 tract, which bears one of the most irresistible titles in all of literature: A narrative of the wreck of the Minerva: whaler of Port Jackson, New […]

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Casketville

September 9th, 2010 · 8 Comments

I’ve recently been reading up on the history of the Blackstone Rangers, the gang whose criminal entanglements contributed greatly to the post-1965 increase in Chicago’s homicide rate. In the course of my research, I started wondering about how the Rangers’ impact on the Second City compared to that of Al Capone’s organization. I had long […]

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Union City Blues

April 20th, 2010 · 2 Comments

We’re still dealing with making sure all’s cool with the kid, so just a quick check-in regarding the 30th anniversary of the Mariel Boatlift. The clip above comes from a local station in northern New Jersey, home to the largest Cuban-American community outside South Florida. Make it to the back half and you’ll see that […]

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Twilight of the Panthers

November 23rd, 2009 · 2 Comments

It’s been a rough year for Florida’s official animal, as 15 percent of the state’s remaining wild panthers have perished (largely due to being hit by cars). Now comes particularly grisly news out of Yeehaw Junction: An anonymous caller reported seeing a dead Florida panther by the side of the Florida Turnpike near Yeehaw Junction. […]

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The Venom Trade, Cont’d

September 18th, 2009 · Comments Off on The Venom Trade, Cont’d

In yesterday’s post on Pakistan’s troubled system of snake-venom collection, we opined that technology seemed to have changed the field little. But if we’d read the latest issue of the journal Toxicon, we wouldn’t have been so quick to make such blanket claims. Because as it turns out, a Florida cottonmouth researchers are blazing trails: […]

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The Murder Project: Crocodile Tears

August 19th, 2009 · 4 Comments

We have to duck out for a few hours, to work on a big Wired piece that’s simmering on our front burner. Back as soon as possible; in the interim, please enjoy the above “gotcha!” clip of Dalia Dippolito, who was recently busted for trying to get her husband offed. Like so many murder-for-hire amateurs, […]

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A Bad Time to Get Bitten

August 7th, 2009 · Comments Off on A Bad Time to Get Bitten

We’ve long assumed that antivenins were stocked in every hospital pharmacy, so that snakebite victims need only worry about getting medical attention in time. But, alas, that’s really not the case at all—even mainstream antivenins such as CroFab must often be shipped in to address specific cases, and rarer remedies are getting increasingly hard to […]

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Cold Ironing at Port Everglades

June 16th, 2009 · 1 Comment

A major East Coast port finally wakes up to the environmental benefits of cold ironing. Granted, running an idle ship off shore-side electricity is pretty energy intensive. But it pails in comparison to letting the ship’s diesel engines keep on humming: Broward County Commissioner Kristin D. Jacobs said that by shutting down the engines and […]

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