Joint inheritance:
Gordon Brown reaches out to the American people this morning through the pages of the Washington Post.
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July 30, 2007
Two steps forward:
There seems to be a consensus opinion in opposition to the Armenian memorial on the Greenway. Pasqua Scibelli, vice president of the North End Resident's Association, is not part of that consensus.
Across the board it continues to be slow going on the Greenway. And to add insult to injury, Google Maps has brought back the elevated central artery.
Heating up:
Here's another tidbit for the global climate change deniers.
Buying and selling:
Occasionally I check in with the futures market for presidential candidates. It still looks like Clinton vs Romney.
July 29, 2007
Made in China:
It's a long march, but after a series of disasters, China is beginning to rehabilitate its reputation in the global marketplace.
What goes up:
Iraq won the game but it wasn't pretty.
Four people have been killed and 17 injured in Iraq as a result of celebratory gunfire today after the nation's football team won its first Asian Cup championship.
The initial concern was that celebrating crowds would be targeted with car bombs but, ironically, the celebration itself turned out to be deadly.
Hometown reading:
Speaking of book blogging, Jay Fitzgerald has compiled (as a work in progress) a Boston reading list. There's some good stuff, fiction and non, The Last Hurrah, Common Ground and The Friends of Eddie Coyle among others. It's too bad that space, presumably, limits George Higgins to only one book. I've been thinking, just about everything he wrote has a Boston nexus and it's all great, especially the books from the eighties and early nineties and especially the Jerry Kennedy series.
I'd also recommend The Strangler by William Landay and not because of the character's name. It's a great crime novel centered as much around the building of The New Boston as on the Boston Strangler.
Distributed criticism:
In the Globe Ideas section, Swen Birkirts argues for a centered approach to literary criticism, a guild of experienced critics who can make definitive cultural judgments. The blogoshpere, he says, is not that.
...many of the blogs venture a more idiosyncratic, off-the-cuff style, a kind of "I've been thinking . . ." approach. At some level it's the difference between amateur and professional. What we gain in independence and freshness we lose in authority and accountability.
Hmm. Establishment literary criticism itself has a mixed record. James Joyce was among the "Unintelligibles" according to contemporary critic Max Eastman. And as far as the role of "amatuers' goes, Chekhov and Shakespeare were both popular with the unenlightened masses before they were appointed by critics as cultural icons.
And then there's the damage that insular criticism has done to poetry. The blogoshpere may have saved poetry as popular art had it been around twenty or thirty years ago, and in fact may be doing so now.
It's not that I don't value print critics. Most of the literary criticism I read is in print form. And I recognize that that form is, unfortunately, shrinking. But that's the way it is. Bloggers are here to stay. Journalism is starting to adapt. Literary criticism has to do so as well.
Surfin safari:
You have to be dedicated to be a surf enthusiast in New England where the best waves come in cold weather. Cindy Atgoji writes about the 'Endless Winter' of surfing in today's Globe. The article even contains links (!) including NESurf.com. But they missed the hometown B-Town surf blog run by Bostonian Andy Creed. Who knew there was a surf community here?
And if surfing can survive New England winters, it seems that it can also flourish in violence crippled Gaza. Shades of Apocalypse Now.
July 22, 2007
Bottomed out:
It's that time of year again and I've been looking forward to Shakespeare on the Common. The good news is it starts Tuesday. The better news is that this year it's the Dream. But there's bad news too: funding has been cut and the production will only run for a week.
July 21, 2007
First class:
Planes don't generally crash. But when they do, which seat is the safest? Popular Mechanics did the math and it turns out that the cheap seats in the back are where you want to be.
Therefore they are:
A new batch of French leaders are afraid that there's too much thinking going on in the country.
In proposing a tax-cut law last week, Finance Minister Christine Lagarde bluntly advised the French people to abandon their “old national habit.”
“France is a country that thinks,” she told the National Assembly. “There is hardly an ideology that we haven’t turned into a theory. We have in our libraries enough to talk about for centuries to come. This is why I would like to tell you: Enough thinking, already. Roll up your sleeves.”
The intellectual class doesn't agree, of course, but it's certainly a healthy debate.
And someone should tell Sarkozy that if he wants to look like an American jogger he should lose the collared shirt.
July 12, 2007
Made in China:
First pet food then toothpaste and now tires. Chinese manufacturers are really getting a bad name.
It usually takes a crisis to cause large scale change and I'm guessing that the Chinese will respond in a big way. At one time the lable 'Made in Japan' was an indication of poor quality but in the 70s and 80s Japanese industry responded by increasing the quality of its manufactured goods, especially electronics and cars, to the detriment of US manufactures.
With it's firm central control the Chinese are in an even better position to fix things (think executions) and I wouldn't be surprised to see the terms 'Chinese goods' and 'quality' much more associated in the future.
(I should also note, for what it's worth, that on the back of the superbly engineered iPhone it says, "Designed by Apple in California. Assembled in China.")
Don't blame me:
Michael Kranish reviewed previously secret Nixon tapes of conversations leading up to the 1972 election.
"How about Massachusetts?" the president asked. Hearing that he might lose there, Nixon said, "I must say if we got to lose one, let's lose that one."
I wouldn't be surprised if Romney strategists have had the same thought.
UPDATE: Jay, thinking along the same lines, beat me to the punch.
Next stop:
The BPL wants to rename Copley Station to Boston Public Library Station. The T is not enthusiastic.
"Who will come to us next and want the station next to them renamed?" said Joe Pesaturo, spokesman for the MBTA, who added that several historic churches nearby could just as easily demand their names be included. "It's not to be taken lightly when you change the name of a station that has had the same name for decades, if not a century."
If City Hall moves to the waterfront someone might suggest renaming Government Center Station to Big Barren Windy Plaza Station.
A seller's market:
Did Middleborough over play its hand in the casino negotiations? New Bedford is hoping so. Stay tuned.
On the mark:
Say what you will about Michelle McPhee, her story in the Herald this morning is a good one.
July 9, 2007
Off the leash:
Forget the religious right, Romney had better worry about the dog demographic. (Via HubBlog)
If you build it:
Howard Kurtz writes about the Huffington Post and finds that, although it started out as a vanity project, it has developed into successful internet media empire.
But that depends on how you define success in the on-line world. The HP has plenty of readers but "has drifted in and out of profitability." Still, impressive for only being around for a couple of years.
Silence:
When gang members shoot gang members, people often rationalize not getting involved out of fear for their own safety. From today's Times:
“You just keep to yourself,” said Shaunte Bellamy, who raised her children in the project, explaining that she concerns herself only with what happens inside her own apartment. “If it didn’t happen in 3C, it didn’t happen to me.”
But when a 7-year-old girl is the victim, silence equals cowardice, both for individuals and entire communities. As the saying goes, no justice: no peace.
Cartoon music:
I'm a big fan of Carl Stalling's music written for Warner Brother's cartoons, especially Bugs Bunny. The Merrie Melody theme is an American classic. The idea of great big orchestras playing complex music for cartoons is pretty cool.
I also love the musical intro to The Jetsons and The Simpsons. (Check the version with real people. Also, here's the original version.) And the Simpsons' take on the Flinstones Theme is pretty good too. At least one of these will be stuck in your head all day. (All via YouTube)
Kamikaze mission:
Who is going to run against Tom Menino? Mike Flaherty, Ralph Martin, Rob Consalvo and others have said they would like the job but if they're smart, they'll wait for Menino to leave. Beating him will be tough. So how long will they have to wait?
"I haven't finished my job yet," Menino said, seated in the dark wood-paneled office he has occupied since July 12, 1993. The mayor, who turns 65 this year, said age is not a factor.
"How old was Reagan," he said, referring to President Ronald Reagan, who was 77 when he left the White House in 1989.
At that rate they'll have to wait until the 2017 election -at least.
July 8, 2007
Mowing:
Here's an interesting NASA image of lawn surface area in the US. It looks like there's more Kentucky blue grass in the Boston area than in all of Kentucky.
Some things never change:
Charles Swift links to the 1886 Bacon's Dictionary of Boston which includes this entry on fountains (page 162):
Boston is favored with a number of fountains, more or less graceful in their design, but of which the most noticeable feature is the absence of water...
It looks like Mr Bacon scooped the Herald by 121 years!
Immunity:
Would a full pardon of Scooter Libby have been a better alternative? Craig Crawford writes about the legal implications, noting that a half pardon for Libby amounts to a full pardon for Cheney.
Many worlds:
The existence of parallel universes is a tough concept to get your head around. But after 50 years of controversy, scientists are beginning to come to grips with it as a viable possibility.
Larger than life:
Homer Simpson as Falstaff, but funnier. The Times of London profiles "the greatest TV character of all time".
July 7, 2007
iPhone take II:
Just a couple of second-week impressions on the iPhone. I would like to see the ability to copy and paste added. And syncing with iTunes, especially contacts and calendar, takes longer than it should. That may be because I sync a lot of stuff from iCal, .Mac, Google Calendar, Outlook, etc. Engadget has a pretty comprehensive review of pros and cons, most of which I agree with. And Cringley has some interesting predictions on what might be coming for Christmas.
All in all, I'm still pretty happy with the thing. I'd love to see an Ecto blog posting app, but as it is, I can post from Safari on the phone using the Moveable Type portal. No links, though, without copy and paste.
Cheeseburger remnants:
Lifehacker offers a seasonal tip on cleaning the grill.
Running dogs:
Jogging as a right-wing, totalitarian, anti-intellectual activity? French intellectuals are aghast at their new president's exercise regime and the British press are eating it up.
OK:
Fifteen spam comments per second. As soon as my provider turned me back on, the spammers turned me off. A .htaacces file and some other tricks with MT seem now to have done the trick. So back to blogging.