May's Cookie of the Month: Lemon Poppyseed Shortbread

One of the things I find most annoying about blogs is the incessantly recycled content.  Maybe I'm not diversified enough in the blogs I follow, but the same cute nursery designs and delicious-sounding pickled ramp recipes get posted on multiple blogs I follow, getting progressively less cute and delicious-sounding with each post.  [Now that a student explained it to me (thanks Pat!), I understand that "RT" in twitter parlance is a "re-tweet": essentially forwarding someone else's tweet like an email to your followers.]  

So it is now with some shame that I join the ranks of the lazy bloggers and re-hash a decent cookie recipe I found on Lottie + Doof.  Good blog (excellent food photography, solid recipe selection)... so-so cookie.  Not hard to make exactly, but lots of refrigeration time between mixing and baking, and I'm not sure shortbread is worth the wait.  They look pretty, though, and could be customized with your cookie cutter collection or you could go crazy with some freehand designs.  The verdict: 6 out of 10.  Eh.

Big Brother in Baltimore

Check out this article on Baltimore's network of surveillance cameras in Governing magazine. Comparisons to "The Wire" are too easy, but since I've been away from the blog for three months now, I'll swing at the softball: a real-life Lester Freamon, an "after hours club" called Lil's Place, a Lil' Wayne concert (one wonders if he partied after hours at Lil's Place...).  I hear the last line growled in Slim Charles' inimitable voice: "Well, it do's and it don't."

Anyone troubled by the civil liberties aspects of this?  I'm not sure you have a right to privacy if you shoot someone on a city sidewalk.  Should you shoot them in the comfort of your own home, now that's another story...