I was vaguely aware that people used to hijack planes to Cuba. But I didn’t know much about how often it happened and what the motives were. I started looking into what was going on back then, and I was blown away by how common hijacking once was. Brendan I. Koerner Read Quote
Spike optioned my first book, ‘Now the Hell Will Start,’ and he trusted me to write the screenplay, too. That was an awesome learning experience – I grew up watching Spike’s movies, and here he was giving me handwritten notes about structure and dialogue. His feedback taught me so much about how to craft a cinematic narrative. Brendan I. Koerner Read Quote
The hazards posed by Near-Earth Asteroids are assessed by Sentry, a computer system developed by the Near-Earth Objects Group at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. The software factors together a cosmic rock’s coordinates, distance, velocity, and gravitational influences to calculate its trajectory. Brendan I. Koerner Read Quote
The dearth of business activity on the traditional day of rest makes Sunday an ideal time to declare insolvency. Bankruptcy petitions are time-stamped to the minute, instantly dividing a failed company’s dealings into pre-bankruptcy transactions and post-bankruptcy transactions. Brendan I. Koerner Read Quote
Mystical groups such as the Theosophical Society and the Rosicrucians turned tarot into an American fad during the early 1900s. Many American tarot practitioners use a set of cards known as the Waite-Smith deck, created in 1909 by A.E. Waite, a British member of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, and the artist Pamela Colman Smith. Brendan I. Koerner Read Quote
According to tarot historian Gertrude Moakley, the cards’ fanciful images – from the Fool to Death – were inspired by the costumed figures who participated in carnival parades. Brendan I. Koerner Read Quote
Tarot cards likely originated in northern Italy during the late 14th or early 15th century. The oldest surviving set, known as the Visconti-Sforza deck, was created for the Duke of Milan’s family around 1440. The cards were used to play a bridge-like game known as tarocchi, popular at the time among nobles and other leisure lovers. Brendan I. Koerner Read Quote
A duped newspaper or magazine could contend that a fiction-spouting journalist obtained part of his salary via fraud, and use a criminal proceeding to try and recoup that money. Given the profession’s notoriously low wages, however, it’s probably not worth the publicity headache and legal fees. No news organization has ever pursued such a case. Brendan I. Koerner Read Quote
Monorails have their own fan club, which claims more than 2,500 members who swap monorail toys and trinkets. Modern light rail can claim no such devoted fan base. Brendan I. Koerner Read Quote
The goal of mass transit is to convince people to abandon their cars, which feature such enticing accessories as CD players and elbow room. Brendan I. Koerner Read Quote
