All Seinfeld, all the time:
If you're in the habit of quoting from Seinfeld episodes, here's a reference guide.
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May 31, 2006
Sinkers:
I could not resist linking to this.
First in the nation -and the world:
The LAPD blog is getting a lot of mainstream press, from the LA Times to the London Times.
And according to the UK's Guardian, the LA police blog is the first of it's kind. Now, a police department in Mangalore India is claiming not only that was it the first to start a police department blog -- beggining in December 05 -- but that it was the inspiration for LA's blog.
Hold on now. Boston's BPDNews was first (Nov 05) and obviously the inspiration for the LAPD blog. Let's get that straight.
The LA papers covered the local police blog story. Even the Mangalore media covered its town's police blog. So why the silence from Boston media on the first police blog in the nation right in its own back yard? Seems strange, doesn't it?
Mall walking:
Crime in DC? And it doesn't even involve Congress!
Billion dollar baby:
The new one thousand foot high skyscraper set for the site of the city parking garage on Devonshire Street is, as Jay Fitzgerald writes, one step closer to being built.
When open, tenants on the south side of the building, which could be built by 2012, will have a nice view of Turnpike Park, still under construction.
May 30, 2006
Done deal:
The mayor of Boston has no say in what gets built on a major green space running through the city, but the state Turnpike Authority does. It doesn't make sense.
At issue is the privately funded, proposed Armenian memorial that will be built near Christopher Columbus Park. Everyone is against it, but no matter.
"It's going there," said Fred Yalouris, director of urban architecture for the Big Dig. "The only question is the design, and what the inscriptions are."
Director of urban architecture for the Big Dig? Now that's quite a title.
Paved-over paradise:
Not much culture, unless you count NASCAR. Lots of traffic. But then there's the beautiful weather, the nice homes for $200K, jobs in nearby Jacksonville and Orlando and an enormous commitment to building out schools and infrastructure.
Guess which way the population numbers are running in this Florida county?
Out of the routine:
No online Herald this morning?
Error:
Sorry, we are performing routine maintenance of the database. Please check back shortly.
Routine maintenance on a Tuesday morning after a holiday weekend? Sounds like something broke.
May 29, 2006
Memorial Day:
First the parade down Main Street.
Then the names of the town's war dead are recited in Marshfield's Veterans' Memorial park, in a ceremony that Jules Crittenden wrote about yesterday.
Originally the site of a 17th century grist mill, the park is maintained by volunteers and it was in great shape today despite being flooded out just a few weeks ago.
The waterwheel still turns.
Off-limits:
A week or so ago, I was stopped in traffic in front of the State House watching a couple of tourists walk up to the black gate. They tried to take pictures, positioning their camera with some difficulty between the rods of the fence.
The building looked beautiful, the lawn well groomed and the statues polished. It seemed strange to me that it was all off-limits behind the locked gates and large metal fence.
Apparently I was not alone. (The question, raised by a tourist quoted in the Globe, is whether the fence is to keep the tourists out or the politicians in?)
If another set of screeners for the front door is too burdensome, at least open up the front lawn. We are paying the bills, after-all.
May 27, 2006
Aids in Asia;
This haunting photo essay on aids victims in Asia is an incredible piece of photojournalism.
Hey Now:
Stumbled on this collection of TV wav files. Lots of good stuff.
Lateral discussion:
There's more on the comments vs. no comments issue. Dan Kennedy weighs in with some thoughts about his commenters and the commenters weigh in right back.
Chris Cagle zeros in on the truth: it's links to other sites and other blogs that make a blog a blog.
Comments are just a fancy accessory, a plus in some cases, but not a necessity.
Glass half full:
Unmoved by recent articles that describe a fleeing populace and bleak economic future for Boston, real estate firm Spaulding and Slye commissioned their own analysis.
Apparently it's time to pull out the sunglasses because the future looks awfully bright.
...The improved fundamentals and healthier job market should increase the comfort level of many with Boston's economy, and the increase in jobs would suggest that people are more likely to stay.
I guess it's no surprise that a real estate firm would paint a rosy picture while media does the opposite. For the latter, bad news sells and for the former its good news that brings in the customers. We should assume that the truth lies somewhere in the middle.
New car smell test:
From a post at TUAW, I ended at Wikipedia and learned that that new car smell can kill.
Both the smell and what produces it vary somewhat in different kinds of automobiles. It is believed to come from volatile organic compounds that enter the air of the car, and possibly also from phthalates, plastic-softening chemicals that leach out over time.
The article references a Daily Telegraph story that compares breathing this stuff to sniffing glue.
I believe I feel a local TV news expose' coming on.
Breathless:
I didn't get the chance to post yesterday, but apparently it was a very slow news day. The big story, as we all know, was the wall to wall coverage of construction work in a government office building in Washington.
After the first half hour it became obvious that there was no situation and that Capitol Police were merely doing their due diligence, checking the building and attempting to control rumors. But for hour, upon hour, upon hour, CNN covered the question of whether the obviously-not-gunfire gunfire would turn out to be a car backfire, a door slamming, or construction noise.
DC School administrators watching the unfolding events on TV decided to lock-down. It was, seriously, a fine example of electronic media coverage run amok.
May 25, 2006
In the thrall:
Hmmmm. Carpundit has more Mac gear than even I do. Including a Cube! It's clear what I need to do... M-U-S-T---B-U-Y---B-L-A-C-K---M-A-C-B-O-O-K.
Sunday Mass:
Charlie Radin writes about the plight of Saint Peter's on Bowdoin Street.
Although I came from a different parish there's no denying that St. Peter's was one of the grand churches in the city. It was built in the 1870's and Sunday attendance, back in the day, could reach 20,000.
That's a lot of history for a lot of people.
On the 'up side':
This Wasserman cartoon is a variation on a series of jokes that has been going around. The fact that it has been printed in the Globe says more about the sorry state of the Catholic Church than it does about the taste of the cartoonist.
My comment:
Jay Fitz, correctly, I think, takes on Bryan Person for his sweeping pronouncement about what makes a blog a blog. But Bryan's point about comments, however artlessly made, is valid: comments are a big part of the blog conversation.
Which raises the question, why don't I have comments? Well I used to, but the comment spammers attacked (like this) and my provider reacted by changing the permissions on the directory that made them function (before I got a big bandwidth bill.) And I just left it at that. Obviously I could have installed spam blockers and set up moderated comments, but unfortunately I don't have a whole lot of extra time to do all that.
Are comments critical for a blog to be a blog? Obviously not, as Jay points out. The discussion about comments vs. no comments has been going on for quite a while in the blogosphere, on blogs with and without comments. So yes, I agree that the blogoshpere is about two-way communication, but I also agree that you don't need comments enabled to participate.
See? I'm (we're) doing it right now.
Expose'-a-day:
Far be it for me to defend judges, but I'd take today's Herald expose' with a grain of salt. Just because you go to a seminar at a golf resort doesn't mean you're golfing, especially so when the seminar is in December. There's no there there.
And I'm sure that if a photographer could have caught a single judge on the links, you would have seen that on the front page instead of the (albeit clever) graphic.
May 23, 2006
Blackbird singing:
On this day in the Spring of 1663 in London, a blackbird was singing in Sam Peyps' garden. It's the little details in the diary that make it so interesting.
Realism in the real world:
There's talk in the White House of abandoning the 'regime change' approach to addressing threatening states (I can't imagine why) and taking a more realistic, you could almost say, Kissingerish, posture.
Our new partner, Libya, is the poster child for this change in philosophy.
Faculty tantrum:
50 of 3200 BC students turned their backs yesterday when Condoleezza Rice spoke at their graduation. However pointless, it's usually appropriate for students to protest in this way. The 200 protesting faculty members on the other hand, not only look ridiculous (in the linked Globe photo) but they've positioned themselves as hypocrites.
It's not complicated. Unlike the students, the faculty have options. They work for BC. BC did something that they didn't like. So quit. Of if you're too weak-kneed to do that, miss the commencement.
But if you choose to take BC's money and then you show up at the boss's party, turn around, face the speaker and behave like an adult.
Conspiracy theory:
Oliver Stone and George Bush in cahoots? Only in the mind of Hugo Chavez.
Row of columns:
Save the Franklin Park columns, if it isn't already too late. Charles Swift has the details.
May 22, 2006
Half-eaten power lunch:
Covering the DaVinci happenings, John Farrell references Anthony Lane who is at least as good a writer (and judge of writing) as he is a film critic. And he's a very good film critic.
This is not an ad:
Chris Reidy at the Globe writes about the opportunities that blogs present for advertisers.
He's right of course. Interested? Sign up to the right, or click here.
Ray-speak:
When a post-Katrina looter was confronted and asked why, the response, according to Douglas Brinkley, was, "This is our time." Ray Nagin yesterday on reconstructing New Orleans with federal money: ''This is our shot. This is our time."
Probably just a coincidence. Here's more Ray-speak yesterday, from an AP story titled "Nagin aims to mend divisions."
''Business people are predators, and if the economic opportunities are here, they're going to stay. If not, they're going to leave," said Nagin, in his now famous vernacular style. ''I don't worry about that stuff. I think there's enough interest around the country that we're going to attract top businesses. . . . God bless them. I hope they stay, but if they don't, I'll send them a postcard."
Now that's a whole new kind of division mending.
May 21, 2006
Immersion:
The Dorchester YMCA is a long way from the River Jordan but the pool there is a good substitute when it comes to Baptisms.
Opportunity knocking:
Jay beat me to it, drawing together the Globe Ideas piece by David Greenberg on Democratic infighting over foreign policy philosophies and Joan Vennochi's take on the Bush team's low standings over how it handled (and is handling) Iraq (among other things.)
In an alternate universe the Democrats are kicking butt right now. In this one, they're still trying to figure out where they stand. Talk about missed opportunities.
Jay is optimistic about Iraq. I'm less so. But I agree with him that we should support whatever progress the Iraqis make in forming a government.
Reconstruction:
Glen Reynolds on the Nagin victory:
I predict substantially less support for New Orleans reconstruction. Betweeen the Louisiana delegation's absurd overreaching in demanding a huge amount of pork-laden funding, and this, they've managed to squander a lot of the sympathy that was present in in September. Louisiana's political class isn't just greedy -- it's greedy and stupid...
Indeed.
But Will Collier has a different take. He sees the race as a tough choice -between neophyte incompetence (Nagin) and entrenched corruption (Landrieu).
...We're going to help you. We really are. You are our neighbors and our countrymen and our friends, and we love you today as much as we ever did, in spite of and in no small part thanks to all the weirdness and flaws down your way. It's hard to see it from where you are, but we're helping you now, in our slow and ponderous way. We're not going to let it end like this.
But like every deal, this one has two parts, and I'm going to state yours very bluntly: You people are going to have to get your act together. You're going to have to end a lot of the old ways of doing things. You're going to have to get serious about corruption. You're going to have to get serious about crime. You're going to have to get serious about joining the 21st century economy. You're going to have to pick up the trash and take care of your yard, and nag your neighbor to take care of his. Yes, all that is going to change you, and we know you don't like to change, but you can't go back now.
One thing I can promise you is, you cannot go back to the way things were Before. You have been down that road, and you know exactly where it ends.
Well said, but I'm less optimistic about that change occuring.
Selling solutions:
Technology solutions don't come cheap. Sometimes they don't come at all. When the sales folks come knocking, let the buyer beware.
That probably goes for any big technology solutions company, but according to Robert Cringely, IBM is imploding, resulting in overcharging and under-delivering on its projects.
Fool me twice:
It was called the the most important election in New Orleans history. Nagin won. So it looks like New Orleans will get the political leadership it deserves.
Hurricane season officially starts June 1st, just about the same time as the Mayor will be sworn in.
May 20, 2006
The Big Uneasy:
At least they're having some fun in New Orleans on election day. Amazingly, in the mayor's race it's a dead heat. You can follow the returns as they come in at NOLA.
I just finished Douglas Brinkley's book on Katrina, The Great Deluge (highly recommended). I don't think people even now realize just how bad things were in New Orleans after the hurricane, flood and breakdown of civilization. Brinkley collected accounts of survivors and rescuers and reconstructs events to paint a picture of the natural and man-made disaster and of the suffering of those caught in the middle.
(A body lays rotting in the heat. I took this photo in central New Orleans a week after the storm. I was hesitant to post it in the first round of photos, but since a similar photo of the same body was published in Brinkley's book, I decided to go ahead and post it.)
Brinkley has plenty of criticism for people all levels of government who dropped the ball, but with Nagin running for re-election, today the focus is on him. From the book:
One person not often seen on the streets, at the Superdome, or on a rescue boat of any kind was Mayor Ray Nagin. Occasionally he'd pop up inside the Superdome, clinging to the exit doors, then disappear. Since the storm had approached the Crescent CIty, Mayor Nagin had been cloistered in the Hyatt, lording over the Superdome. From the get-go he was terrified for his own personal safety...
As things reached crisis stage, Nagin did nothing.
...His primary post-storm initiative was to get a generator hooked up to the elevator so he wouldn't have to walk all those stairs [to get to his room in the Hyatt]...
...At the Superdome in New Orleans scared citizens needed Nagin. But he feared that if he mounted a soapbox at the Superdome, he'd get shot, lynched, or bloodied up. He made the costly mistake of viewing the displaced persons as malcontents. He had squandered the golden moment, putting his own personal safety ahead of those poor and elderly in trouble.
Nagin's inaction, incompetence, lack of planning, lack of coordination and lack of judgement, as described by Brinkley, was stunning. Landrieu on the other hand, comes off looking much better. He did go out in rescue boats and, according to Brinkley, acquitted himself well in the crisis.
I can only imagine Nagin's campaign slogan: "Hey it probably won't happen again, but if it does, I'll try to be less ineffective."
UPDATE: Here's an articulate slate of endorsements from a poster at the New Orleans Metroblog.
"Sycophantic amorphousness"
How often do you get to see Ray Flynn, Don Imus and Ron Howard mentioned in the same blog post? When it comes to the DaVinci backlash, these things happen, as Carpundit shows. He even throws in William Donahue and Bo Dietl for good measure.
Happiness all around:
What makes local "celebrities" happy? Inquiring newspapers want to know. Probably being asked what makes them happy makes them happy, or they wouldn't have ended up being celebrities..
Cheap backup:
Hiawatha Bray writes about a $5 a month backup service started by a Boston guy. Strangely, the online story links to everything BUT the company at the center of the article: Carbonite (Definitely a Web 2.0 design.)
System for the Vigilance of the Rio Grande:
Sensors, planes, satellites... it all sounds very complicated. And expensive. All they asked for was a fence. But as Jay points out, Ratheon has its bid in for a high-tech "virtual fence" on the Mexican border modeled after one they built in Brazil.
I'm guessing Perfection Fence, as expensive as they are, would be cheaper than Ratheon. And a nice ornamental picket would look great running from Tijuana to Brownsville.
May 18, 2006
Data everywhere:
Don't forget to backup your... phone? And that won't be the end of it. As more everyday objects get smart and connected, you'll have to think about backing up everything from your car to your refrigerator.
The new history:
Is the world really "bracing" for tomorrow's opening of The Da Vinci Code? If so, I must have missed the memo. Op-ed writer Ethan Gilsdorf reminds us not to get too caught up in a minor work of semi-historical fiction.
This summer, in the wake of the film, hordes of tourists will descend upon France, England, and Scotland, wielding their ''Da Vinci Code" like guidebooks, and wondering why treasures aren't really buried under Rosslyn Chapel and the gift shop of the Louvre.
Really? I can see heading to Dublin on June 16th, say, but I just don't get this Da Vinci thing.
We are Prius:
DNA research is revising the conventional wisdom of evolutionary history in fascinating ways. New research suggests that modern humans are descended from hybrid offspring of an early human species that bred with chimps and then went extinct.
Big River:
25,000 workers, $24 billion dollars, enough concrete to hold back Lake Superior and construction is ahead of schedule. It's not the Big Dig, that's for sure. The Washington Post looks at the nearing completion of the Three Gorges project, an excuse for me to post a few photos from the site.
The last risings of the river level have been approved. The photo below, taken in 2005, shows a meter along the Yangtze indicating how high the water will rise.
Cities such as Waxian, below, have dismantled soon to be inundated neighborhoods close to the waterline in anticipation of the rise.
But at least the Three Gorges dam has become a tourist attraction, drawing people from all over China and the world. That's more than you can say for the Big Dig.
May 17, 2006
Disconnect:
I've been out of the box for a couple of days traveling and I missed the local papers. But via Adam, I caught up with Eileen McNamara's column that hit a bulls-eye by highlighting how politicians obsess over suburban flooding while urban violence rages.
Jay and Carpundit also weigh in on the flood of grandstanding.
The reality is that for a Republican governor running for president, there isn't much of a percentage in publicly taking on the problems of the city. (This may have something to do with that. (To their credit, the Romney administration is doing some behind the scenes work to tackle gang violence.))
I'm reading Douglas Brinkey's book on Katrina and the lesson for politicians everywhere is that inaction during a natural disaster can be its own disaster. Apparently that hasn't been lost on Romney's handlers. But still, you have to wonder about the disproportion.
I used to be disgusted...
May 15, 2006
Ready the ark:
Here's today's forecast. And the next ten days doesn't look encouraging.
Power sharing:
It's back to work for the Northern Ireland Assembly today, for the first time in years. Violence still smolders and the parade season is getting underway, but overall, the pendulum seems to be swinging in the right direction.
Fool me once:
The government of Zimbabwe wants the farmers back, offering them long term leases to return. For most, the offer is too little, too late.
Collective taste:
These people voted Tony Morrison's Beloved, the best American fiction in the last 25 years. I would have gone with American Pastoral.
As expected, Roth, DeLillo, Updike, Carver, et al, are well represented as runners-up and I was happily surprised to see Mark Helprin's Winter Tale included.
May 14, 2006
Talking back:
It's too crowded, nobody goes there anymore:
In a recent Commonwealth Magazine article, Christopher Lydon pilloried the Globe for abandoning the city for the suburbs and beyond. In today's paper, the Globe, in a series of articles, indirectly responds by exploring how the city is changing around them.
They start out on the front page with a look at the fleeing middle class who are leaving mostly for financial reasons, although the weather and traffic also play a role.
Only 8 percent of respondents indicated crime as a major factor for their move, while 9 percent cited the public schools, 12 percent cited Massachusetts' liberal bent, and 13 percent its political leadership.
If crime isn't a big concern for the middle class, it certainly has an impact on the working class. Crime comes up in an article on two streets in Dorchester that have been the scene of regular firearm violence. There's an appearance by a family that bought a condo on Hamilton Street and is now "jarred" by the violence in the area, and the woman from Wendover Street who, when vacationing in Florida, was tempted to never return.
And then there's money. Earlier this year the Globe noted the increase in millionaires in the area and today in a cover magazine article they pay homage to the buying power of the new monied class, while modeling them as the new Brahmins.
An Ideas section article by Michael Jonas asks if Boston has become an "ephemeral city." Pitting the ideas of Joel Kotkin against Jane Jacobs, he explores whether it's a healthy school system or the presence of a "creative class" that makes a city viable?
All in all it's not a pretty picture, with the middle class leaving, working class neighborhoods stressed by violent crime and a growing number of millionaires buying up real estate and happily chatting with each other on $5,000 cellphones. But are things all that bad? Jonas says maybe not.
...[A]s real as these concerns may be, Boston doesn't look much today like a city on the brink of ruin. After more than a dozen years not of decay and blight but of resurgent urban neighborhoods, soaring real estate prices, and, until recently, markedly lower crime rates, even Kotkin admits that Boston, with its intrinsic attractions and unrivaled concentration of colleges and universities, may be a place where ephemeral just might work. ''It's an evolution that Boston, due to its many blessings, may be able to survive in reasonably good shape," Kotkin says.
There's cause for concern, especially over how real estate is pricing people from all income levels out of the area. But I'll side with Jonas and take the glass-half-full stance. If worse comes to worse, we can all move to Somerville.
Positive negatives:
In a front page Herald Story, Kevin Rothstein points to a study that finds people's emotional take on Mitt Romney is that he is an empty suit.
Romney is strongly associated with attractiveness and to a lesser extent with optimism and likability, but he receives low marks for conviction, honesty and uniqueness.
The implication, of course, is that that's a bad thing for a presidential candidate. I'm not so sure.
May 12, 2006
Boston fog:
A man panhandles at a red light in Roxbury on a foggy Friday afternoon.
Across town:
Moving the big Forth of July festivities from the esplanade to Moakley Park in South Boston would be... different. It's certainly a break from tradition.
The fireworks parties in Back Bay townhouses would be replaced by cookouts in the McCormack projects. And if Southie steals the Fourth, it's only fitting that the Saint Patrick's Day parade be moved to Beacon Street.
May 11, 2006
Afternoon coffee:
Forget sliced bread, THIS is a great idea. Pinkandgreengirl suggests a Dunkin Donut delivery service. Of course!
Speaking of double D's, has anyone tried the new dysfunctional Dunkins on Melnea Cass Boulevard? There's no foot traffic, nowhere to park and yesterday I waited while the crew argued among themselves about how to make a black coffee. ("Black coffee, medium." "Sugar?" "No sugar." "No SUGAR??" "NO SUGAR!!!!")
It's a nice place. I hope they get their act together. And some parking.