A Million Stories

From this day hence, let the word go forth: If you give us free beer, A Million Stories will grace your event with our presence. And if you give us free good beer, we'll probably write about it, too.

With our mighty journalistic standards in tow, on Oct. 8 we drove to the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology for "Uncorking the Past: Ancient Ales, Wines and Extreme Beverages," an event hosted by Penn professor Patrick McGovern and Dogfish Head founder Sam Calagione. Working with McGovern, a molecular archeologist, Calagione and company have created a handful of specialty brews that mimic ancient formulas uncovered at archeological sites throughout the world. (If you're extra nerdy, McGovern has a book out on the subject: Uncorking the Past: The Quest for Wine, Beer and Other Alcoholic Beverages.) And after a 45-minute, standing-room-only lecture on how our forefathers got their drunk on, we sampled the goods. (We'll have you know, we are meticulous researchers.)

Dogfish Head brought along four re-created beers: Midas Touch, a take on a 2,700-year-old Turkish beverage using ingredients from the tomb of King Midas; Theobroma, based on a chemical analysis from 3,000-year-old Honduran pottery fragments and brewed with cocoa powder; Chateau Jiahu, a 9,000-year-old recipe drawn from the preserved pottery jars of a Neolithic Chinese town; and Chicha, a South American purple corn brew fermented with human saliva, which is admittedly gross. Of these, we'd recommend the Chateau Jiahu, which is light and fruity, but not in an emasculating way. Oh yeah, and if you're curious about that last one, sorry. We polished off the last keg in existence.

On Sept. 24, Elliot Madison and Michael Wallschlaeger became the first two people arrested in the United States for sending public information to political protesters via Twitter.

Madison was in a hotel in Pittsburgh that day, scanning police radio and using a Twitter feed to update G20 protesters about where police would be stationed, when police stormed through the door and arrested him and Wallschlaeger. The main charge against them was "hindering apprehension or prosecution." In other words, by telling protesters where the cops were — and that cops had issued an order for the protesters to disperse — the pair somehow hindered the police from arresting them. Yes, it's exactly as dumb as it sounds.

Several other G20 protesters maintained similar feeds, but Madison believes he was targeted because of his anarchist politics. One week later, FBI agents burst into Madison's Queens apartment and spent 16 hours scouring for materials "intended as a means of violating the federal rioting laws," according to the search warrant.

Among the highly clandestine materials the agents reported seizing: "Curious George toys" and "one cat poster." "The only questions they asked me were about my political affiliations," Madison says.

"It's bullshit," says Madison's attorney, Martin Stolar. He persuaded a U.S. District Court judge to halt inspection of the seized materials until a court appointee decides which of the materials fall under the purview of the anti-rioting law. (The FBI did not return our calls seeking comment.) "What's scary is, not only does the government go after protesters in an effort to criminalize dissent, but now they've taken it one step further and gone after the network of people who support protesters," Stolar adds. And here we thought this Big Brother crap was supposed to stop last Jan. 20.