Ira Einhorn’s long, strange trip

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The man whom Philadelphia loves to hate greets me with a bear hug each time I make the trip to State Correctional Facility in Houtzdale, Pa., his home since his extradition from France last year to face a 25-year-old murder charge. After the months I’ve spent digesting the enormous literature devoted to him, it’s something of a surprise to find that the baby-boom Hannibal Lecter is a nervous person of 61, some 6 feet tall with a full head of white hair, trim in his orange prison-issue jumpsuit, attentive and anxious to please. But any doubt that this is Ira Einhorn, the famous ’60s icon and infamous international fugitive, is put to rest immediately by the pink scar still visible above his collar, a reminder of his last night in France, when he cut his throat in front of reporters. A chipped front tooth gives him his crooked smile, familiar from pictures. His eyes, which contain a nearly manic intensity in their shocking blue, are very hard to meet.

Read the rest in this Salon article.

IT workers get back to basics

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A timely metalfilter thread inspired by a timely Slashdot thread on a NYTimes article.

If the Internet economy was built on vapor, these new ventures are all too real. “I buy eggs, flour and cheese and turn it into things people like and will pay more for than I did,” said Assaf Tarnopolsky, 31, a Wharton School of Business graduate who is now the proud owner of two crepe stands in San Francisco, under the self-bestowed title of the West Coast Crepe King. Mr. Tarnopolsky lost his $125,000-a-year job last September when his employer went bankrupt, so he turned to an earlier love.

…They were in a fantasy world. Now we’re in a back-to-basics mode,” he said. “Hot dog stands are about handling real merchandise and interacting with real customers. It takes hard work and time to see results when you build a business the old-fashioned way.”