Bike Ride: Boston Logistics and Industry

Started at South Boston's Carson Beach with airliners gliding into Logan over Dorchester Bay. Then around Pleasure Bay and past the Conley container terminal to the South Boston piers — a couple of Navy ships in port today, one in drydock undergoing repairs. Followed the still-discontiguous but improving "Harborwalk" to the North End and walked the bike over the Charles River Dam and Locks.

Followed the bike path along the Charles River, crossing here and there as needed, all the way out to Waltham and the site of the first power loom in America, the prototype for the giant Merrimack River textile mills of Lowell and Lawrence.

With time running out and quadriceps barking, hauled my way back home over the hills of Newton and Brookline.

Distance: 43 miles. Interactive map below:


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Bike Ride: Stony Brook Reservation

Milwaukee Who? In the years before Prohibition, Boston had more breweries per capita than any other American city. My neighborhood of Jamaica Plain hosted as many as 17 breweries at one time, all clustered along Stony Brook, known for its exceptionally clear water.

Prohibition killed off brewing in Boston. But in the 1980s, Jim Koch founded Boston Brewing Co., locating it in the old Haffenreffer Brewery on Germania Street in Jamaica Plain. Using an old family recipe, he created Sam Adams beer, launching an entirely new market segment in U.S. brewing: the craft beer. Nowadays, Sam Adams is brewed in industrial quantities in giant breweries in Pittsburgh and Cincinnati, but there's still a small working brewery at the Haffenreffer site, where brewmasters test new formulations. Plus there are the inevitable brewery tours and tastings.

Stony Brook rises in the Stony Brook Reservation, which straddles Enneking Parkway on the Hyde Park - West Roxbury border. It then flows northward and empties into the Muddy River in the Back Bay Fens, and from there the short distance to the Charles River. Unfortunately, today Stony Brook is completely "culverted," routed through concrete pipes buried six feet under.

Distance: 10 miles. Fully interactive, zoomable map below:


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Bike Ride: Blue Hills Reservation via Hyde Park Ave.

Living at the end of a subway line, I thought I resided on the fringes of Boston. But Boston extends miles and miles to the south along Hyde Park Ave, terminating in something called "Readville," which has been rumored not to even exist. To the south of Readville lies the Fowl Meadow wetland, part of the Neponset River Reservation. (Here in Massachusetts, "meadow" means "swamp" and "Reservation" means "Park.")The meadow was saved from certain destruction in 1967 when grassroots activists blocked plans to extend I-95 through the meadow and straight into the heart of downtown Boston.

Distance: 19 miles. Fully interactive, zoomable map below:


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Bike Ride: Houghton's Pond via Blue Hills Ave.

No time to go swimming at the pond — too bad because it was a very hot day. Returned via Truman Highway. 19 miles.


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Iowan Dance No. 5

Gagne with a Spoon

Eric Gagne blew it again. AP reports:

"Obtained from Texas on July 31 to fortify the back end of the bullpen, Gagne endured another damaging performance. Seeking to hold a 3-1 lead in the eighth, the right-hander entered with a runner on and promptly yielded a tying home run to Tejada on a 3-2 pitch.

"Gagne retired the next two batters, but he has allowed seven runs in four innings over five games. On Friday, Gagne got one out while blowing a four-run lead in a 6-5 defeat."

The Sons of Sam Horn heaped a lot of scorn on manager Terry Francona for insisting on replacing ace set-up man Hideki Okajima with the shaky Gagne in the 8th with the tying run coming to the plate. It was the sort of by-the-book "matchups" move that, when it blows up, is especially frustrating to the armchair managers at home.

The Sons were also frustrated with Francona's practice of refusing to use ace closer Jonathan Papelbon late in road games until after the Sox have the lead. They don't like the fifth or sixth best pitcher in the bullpen (in this case Kyle Snyder) on the mound with the game on the line while a better pitcher like Papelbon sits in the pen waiting for the Sox to take the lead. Especially after Snyder allowed the first two batters to reach with no outs, creating a situation where the Sox needed strikeouts. This wasn't second-guessing, either -- in the online game thread, the Sons were questioning Francona's moves as he made them, not afterwards.

I suspect that Francona, and managers in general, take an outsize share of the blame for controversial decisions that don't work out. When they do work out, the players generally get the credit. When they don't, it's the manager who is blamed.

All Hail Hideki Okajima

Hideki Okajima (3-0) pitched 1 1/3 hitless innings for the victory. The rookie left-hander, who struck out Orlando Cabrera in the sixth with the potential go-ahead run at third, has stranded 18 of his 19 inherited runners.

Andruw Jones

What happened to Braves centerfielder Andruw Jones?

He is a ghost of a shadow of a shell of a husk of his former self.

First Lolcat Submission

This is "Sugar," a cat that Helen fostered a couple weeks ago, starring in my first attempt to submit a lolcat to the website I Can Has Cheezburger?

Baseball Geekdom

A couple of years ago I heard about Sons of Sam Horn, a Boston Red Sox fan website. Initially, I would occasionally check it out to read the "game threads" -- real-time message exchanges between viewers that played out as a game progressed. It was great, for example, in the winter of 2004-05 to go back and read the game threads from Boston's improbable comeback in the American League Championship Series against the Yankees.

This year I've gotten into the habit of following the game thread during each game. The folks who post to the game thread are fairly knowledgeable, and fairly funny, so it is like watching the game with a group of humorous, savvy fans. I've definitely improved my baseball knowledge by following along with the threads.

SoSH limits its membership as a quality control measure. Becoming a member requires that you be "noticed" for your baseball acumen on the special lurker-friendly section of the site. So I don't post to the thread myself. However, anyone can lurk on the game threads, or any of the other myriad topics, and the level of obsession is impressive.

For example, there has been much frustration concerning the poor batting so far of centerfielder Coco Crisp. In the past few days, however, Crisp has been doing much better: he is 4 for 9 with two walks and no strikeouts.

SoSH member "Marbleheader" quotes from MLB.com:

Red Sox outfielder Coco Crisp put in some extra work before the game with hitting coach Dave Magadan. The center fielder has been looking to eliminate unnecessary "movement" from his stance and stand taller in the batter's box, Francona said.

And then Marbleheader quotes another SoSHer's request:

It was mentioned that Magadan is trying to get him to "stand up" more in his stance. It looks noticable to me. Does anyone have the ability to post a split screen shot of Coco's older stance vs. one from the last couple days?

Marbleheader obliges, providing a handy side-by-side visual comparison of screen captures from a May game next to Saturday's game against the Giants. He even took the trouble to try to get two images at roughly the same point in the pitcher's delivery:


And yes indeed, it does appear that Crisp is standing up straighter.

AL All-Star Ballot #3

First Base: Ortiz, D., BOS
Second Base: Polanco, P., DET
Third Base: Rodriguez, A., NYY
Shortstop: Cabrera, O., LAA
Catcher: Martinez, V., CLE
Outfielder: Guerrero, V., LAA
Outfielder: Hunter, T., MIN
Outfielder: Ordonez, M., DET

Youkilis cools off a bit, Ortiz back in at first base.

Rodriguez is back on top of Lowell at 3B owing to his better batting numbers.

At shortstop, Orlando Cabrera has gotten nearly as good as Jeter at the plate and quite a bit better in the field. Plus, of the five shortstops who have played in Boston over the last four years, O.C. was the most consistent, especially compared with the current Sox SS Lugo, who has been dreadful at the plate.

And at catcher, Cleveland's Victor Martinez is second in OPS and first in RBI among AL backstops. Posada is still right there, though.

Born to Run

According to a year-old article in Discover:

Biomechanical research reveals a surprising key to the survival of our species: Humans are built to outrun nearly every other animal on the planet over long distances...

The physiological evidence: tendons in our legs not needed for walking, a special neck tendon that keeps our heads steady while running, and an outsize gluteus maximus that balances forward momentum.

According to the theory, hunting was not so much stalking or lying in wait, but slowly and steadily chasing prey animals to the point of exhaustion.

AL All-Star Ballot #2

First Base: Youkilis, K., BOS
Second Base: Upton, B., TB
Third Base: Lowell, M., BOS
Shortstop: Jeter, D., NYY
Catcher: Posada, J., NYY
Outfielder: Guerrero, V., LAA
Outfielder: Hunter, T., MIN
Outfielder: Ordonez, M., DET

Starting Pitcher: Beckett, J., BOS

Changes since last week's ballot:

Youkilis impossible to leave off. Not fair to Ortiz, but what can I do? Maybe write Youkilis in at third base -- he plays there sometimes.

Lowell has eclipsed ARod at the plate, but it's still close between the two of them because Mike leads the league in errors at third base with 9. In other ARod news, not sure what to make of the "Mine! / Hah!" incident in Toronto. Some major-leaguers say it happens all the time, others say it never happens.

B.J. Upton now sporting a 953 OPS to lead all AL second-basemen. Polanco and his zero errors could return to the list, however.

AL All-Stars: Ballot #1

Just voted my first slate of the American League All-Stars, one of 25 votes I can cast between now and whenever voting ends. I'll try to submit a new ballot every week or so.

This is based on impressions based on the season so far, which I haven't followed closely except for Red Sox games. There's a bias toward teams the Sox have played so far.

First Base: Ortiz, D., BOS
Second Base: Polanco, P., DET
Third Base: Rodriguez, A., NYY
Shortstop: Jeter, D., NYY
Catcher: Posada, J., NYY
Outfielder: Guerrero, V., LAA
Outfielder: Hunter, T., MIN
Outfielder: Ordonez, M., DET

I hated leaving out Youkilis, who normally plays 1B for Boston but since this year's All Star Game is in an NL park, Ortiz is on the ballot instead. In the end, Ortiz barely edged out Youk but Kevin is right there and could show up as a write-in on a future ballot.

ARod still getting credit for his torrid April. Jeter is Jeter. Posada is leading the league in hitting, and is a Sox-killer to boot. In the outfield, Ichiro is hanging around the three guys I picked.

Starting pitcher is not up to the fans, but if the All Star Game was today the honor (if not the start, due to his injured finger) would go to Josh Beckett, and Jim Leland agrees.

America Before the Estate Tax

Back in early 2001, at my last job, I had kind of a loopy advertising concept to defend the estate tax against abolition: images of sooty, child-labor-y America around the turn of the 20th century arrayed beneath the headline "What Was America Like Before the Estate Tax?" (The estate tax was first enacted in 1916). It was too over-the-top for the people in charge of the pro-estate-tax campaign, and became kind of a running joke at my expense, but now there is a website full of these images.

It's easy to imagine that life would be just ducky if we just got rid of taxes and regulations and ran a laissez-faire economy, but we tried that already, and I don't think most of us would really like to go back to those days.

(Via BoingBoing)

Plumber Self-Talk

Had a plumber in yesterday to replace a part of the main drain system. There was a lot of plumbing-related finagling, banging, and struggling going on. Working in my office down the hall from the bathroom, I would occasionally hear the plumber make a short comment to himself. Here is a complete transcript:

Oh boy.
Oh brother.
Boy, this is a mess.
This ain't good.
This guy sucks.
Not good.
Oh, that's different.
Oh hell.
Makin' progress.
Whoops.
Oh boy.
Oh geez.
What the-
Oh heck.
Well I'll be.
Oh well.

Combinatorics

From Indexed.

24 Live Blog: 8:00 - 10:00 am

8:10 am Bauer jacks a Cherokee Grand-Theft-Auto-style. Doesn't all the veering and fishtailing around corners take more time than it's worth?

8:24 am Shouldn't Jack be wearing his seat belt? Hey, Curtis isn't wearing his either. Now, Jack and Curtis have a moment. Great to hear a nice big helping of that stilted "24" dialogue: "hundreds -- maybe thousands -- of victims" ... "a peaceful resolution to all of this."

8:25 Suburban mom proves wily by failing to properly treat Kumar from "Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle's" wound. Her also-wily son Eddie Vedder goes into kitchen to get Kumar some water, palms a knife, this isn't going to work out well....phew, he decides not to chance an attack.

8:37 The writers have done a good job of writing the dialogue in the civil liberties theme in a way to appeal to people on both sides of the issue....Whoops, a body cavity search has just been announced.

8:41 Dr. Bashir from Deep Space Nine and the suspect are both wearing their seatbelts. Kudos, Dr. Bashir.

8:44 Curtis's day is made as he gets to establish a perimeter, check that, a MOVING PERIMETER.

8:46 Memo to Tac Team: The roof is not the best place for your doughier snipers.

8:56 Jack: Fayed might have a "nucular" weapon.

8:58 "I need to speak to the president, Priority 3?" Doesn't that sound a bit low?

9:00 Good to see that Buchanan is right on time with his early-episode Exposition Phone Call.

9:05 Take your jacket off and stay awhile, Mr. President!

9:11 Come on, Suburban Dad, disable the component. And, where did he find a working pay phone?

How much do we hate the UPS whiteboard commercials?

9:14 This has been another edition of American Backstory Theatre, starring Chloe and two of her boyfriends.

9:21 President Wayne Palmer, how I love your out-of-fashion goatee beard.

9:22 As usual, international terrorists require a written contract before agreeing to an amnesty offer.

9:31 Remembering Eddie Vedder's touching offer of his friendship necklace, Kumar wishes he didn't have to kill him.

Person(s) of the Year

Here are the results of my own little POTY survey, conducted via e-mail. Multiple votes in parentheses.

Donald Rumsfeld (3)
Keith Olbermann (2)
George W Bush (2)
Borat (2)
Michael Richards (2)
Milton Friedman
Democratic Party
Britney Spears
Sanitation Workers
Al Gore
The Blog
YouTube
Allah
Steven Colbert
Truthiness
Jack Murtha
This Moment
Barack Hussein Obama
Rahm Emmanuel
K-Fed
Wilford Brimley
Tomkat
Macaca
JPL's Mars Recon Observer

$77 per Ton

Earlier this fall, Sir Nicholas Stern, former chief economist for the World Bank, issued a report on the potential economic costs of climate change. His headline figure was that the annual worldwide costs due to climate change could amount to 20% of world economic output by 2100. Insurance companies are already beginning to take note of such dire warnings and are raising premiums on waterfront property or refusing to insure it altogether.

The report also contained another useful estimate: a present-value "social cost" of $85 per tonne of CO2 emitted into the atmosphere -- equivalent to about $77 per U.S. ton. It represents the discounted sum of all the future climate-change costs imposed on society by each ton of CO2 that we take out of the ground and send into the atmosphere. For example, at eight-tenths of a pound of CO2 emitted per mile, driving the typical car costs society 3 cents a mile -- or $300 for every 10,000 miles -- just in terms of climate change.

Crastpog Catalog: PastaBelt Organizer

Having a hard time finding the right pasta, or the right belt for that suit? You need to get organized. The PastaBelt Organizer neatly stores up to 40 varieties of fresh pasta -- from linguine to angel hair -- plus 28 belts on non-slip hooks. Push the toggle switch and they rotate forward or back. The motor is so efficiently designed it's almost completely silent. The convenient non-glare light comes on automatically when the rack begins rotating to help you pick the right noodle and/or belt. Adjustable bracket mounts to most closet rods or kitchen cabinetry. Matte finish with natural wood trim. Uses 4 D batteries (not included). Not recommended for use with gnocci.

$60.00.

William James on the Unconscious and Religious Conversion

According to William James, the unconscious mind plays a key role in religious experience and conversion. People who have conversions are especially susceptible to "incursions" from the unconscious into the conscious.

But even if a person’s individual psychological makeup is the cause, James argues it does not reduce the religious significance of a conversion. In James’s formulation, we ought to judge a conversion by its “fruits, not its roots.” James also argues that the "subliminal theory" does not rule out the participation of a Diety in a conversion. He proposes that higher spiritual agencies might touch us through a “subliminal door.”

Here James confronts the medical-materialist view, which posits a natural explanation for all supposedly religious phenomena, and James tries to accommodate religion by building a doorway between the natural and the supernatural. It’s the sort of accommodation that tends to displease both sides of the issue, and it makes the whole system less elegant.

Overall, James’s conception of the unconscious and its role in conversion is powerful and coherent in either the psychological or the theological realm. The trouble comes when James tries to argue that the unconscious can serve both masters at once. Scientists find his accommodation of religion superfluous, and theologians find the psychological mechanisms insufficiently supernatural or even heretical. James says both camps are excessively sterile, dogmatic, and monistic. Forget about One Big Truth in favor of billions of individual truths, says James.

James’s pluralism is admirable. And his pragmatism – judging beliefs by their fruits, not their roots – is a remarkably good way to live, day-to-day. But at the end of the day, for someone seeking to understand the way the world really works, James’s pluralism and pragmatism constitute elaborate cop-outs, evasions of the question. Many, if not most, of the people who have religious or conversion experiences become dogmatists themselves – what of those fruits of conversion? Unfortunately, James does not say.

Mayonnaise Sleigh

Inject a little Christmas spirit into every-day condiment consumption with this battery-powered sleigh that also holds your favorite mayonnaise, sauce, or spread. Integrated circuitry plays "The First Noel" and "Jingle Bells" repeatedly as the sleigh tours the dinner table in an 18" diameter circle. Keeps kids pretty well occupied.

13 oz.
$24.99

From the Crastpog Enterprises "Home for the Holidays" Catalog, Christmas 1986.

Funny cat photos

From BoingBoing. There are many more photos here.

Cheney Finally Overruled: Rumsfeld Gone

With Bush's replacement of Rumsfeld with Bob Gates, from the Bush 41 crowd, the 2006 midterm election has turned out to be the equivalent of a presidential election where power changes hands in the executive branch -- at least in terms of Iraq policy. NBC is reporting that Bush finally overruled his vice president in deciding to can Rumsfeld and the neocon approach and bring in a realist. Had Kerry been elected in 2004, I don't think he would have been able to implement a much more important shift in policy.

On MSNBC all the pundits are gushing about how great it is that Bush finally made a decision on his own and told Cheney to take a flying leap. I have to admit I didn't see it in him, and I confess to finding myself impressed by the long-awaited acceptance of reality that Bush displayed in the press conference. I know he'll never admit that the Iraq adventure was a big mistake (sinister oil grab? wacky neocon fantasy?) founded on manipulated intelligence, but the DOD housecleaning is better than nothing. Presumably the neocons won't be on anyone's foreign policy dance card for a long while now, which is also good.

It's not all happy-happy-joy-joy. The invasion was still a crime, in my opinion, and the perpetrators will probably escape prosecution, and that's not right. But I do appreciate Bush's willingness to listen to the message of the election, and I'm glad to see that an election can have an effect. I hope it is a real, lasting effect.

China Already Ahead of US on Auto Fuel Efficiency

According to the NYT, China is burning coal like crazy, but they have set fuel-economy requirements for new cars that are more stringent than the United States.

As David Brent would say: Pathetic.

Our fleet fuel economy hasn't budged since I was in grade school. What am I missing here?

Most Relieved Man in America

"You don't have to be crazy to work here, but help?"

I didn't do so well on my October 18 predictions, which were way too pessimistic. I predicted only 12 Dem pickups in the House; they'll get at least 30 or so. And I was way off on the Senate. Of 8 contested races, I got four wrong -- RI, MO, TN, and VA, assuming Webb holds on in VA.

I Let My Fingers Do the Walking

...today, and used MoveOn.org's nifty phone number and script generator to make a few dozen calls from my home to voters in some tight House Districts around the country. The numbers and scripts were generated on the fly and after every few calls I'd get transferred into a new district. Before calling into a new district I'd check out the candidates' websites so I wasn't totally ignorant, but nobody I talked to was interested in chatting about the candidate. An enjoyable geography lesson if nothing else.

Here's where I called, in order, (with results added later on during the night as they came in):

New York 24 - Central New York - Michael Arcuri (D) is looking to replace Sherwood Boehlert (R) who is retiring. This district went for Bush in 2000 and 2004 but Arcuri had a small lead over Raymond Meier (R) going into the election. RESULT: Arcuri won 54-45%.

New York 26 - Western New York - Jack Davis (D) trying to unseat Tom Reynolds (R), the head of the House Republican Congressional campaign committee. Reynolds was hurt a bit by the Foley scandal but has recovered since then. This race was called a toss-up. (Hoo-boy, one of Davis's planks was to "Eliminate the Death Tax.") RESULT: Reynolds won 52-48%.

North Carolina 11 - Ashville and Western North Carolina - NFL-quarterback-washout-turned-politician Heath Shuler (D) hopes to unseat incumbent Charles Taylor (R). NY Times says the district is leaning toward Shuler. RESULT: Shuler won, 54-46%.

New Hampshire 2 - Rural New Hampshire - Paul Hodes (D) trying to knock off moderate Republican Charlie Bass. NY Times calls it a toss-up. RESULT: Hodes won, 53-45%.

Florida 22 - West Palm Beach, Boca Raton - Ron Klein (D) hopes to unseat Clay Shaw (R) in the land of the Buchanan Butterfly Ballot. This ticket-splitting district voted for Gore in 2000 and Kerry in 2004. NY Times calls it a toss-up. RESULT: Klein won, 51-47%.

Illinois 6 - Chicago western suburbs - Iraq War vet and double amputee Tammy Duckworth (D) vs. Peter Roskam (R) to see who will succeed Henry Hyde (R), one of the Clinton impeachment poobahs; the district was Bush country in 2000 and 2004. A toss-up. RESULT: Roskam won, 51-49%.

Nevada 3 - Las Vegas suburbs - US Senate staffer Tessa Hafen (D) takes on two-term incumbent Jon Porter, who is a slight favorite. RESULT: Porter won, 48-47%.

Texas 22 - Sugar Land, Houston southern suburbs - Tom DeLay's district! Democrats are running Nicholas Lampson. DeLay's name is still on the ballot -- the Republican, Shelly Sekula-Gibbs, has to run a write-in campaign -- but the district is so conservative that Lampson is only given an even chance of winning. RESULT: Lampson won, 52-42%.

Mussel Motel

Clams check in, they won't check out. Control household mussel population. Non-toxic.

Item no. MM-4576
$5.95 / pack of 3

From Crastpog Enterprises "Back Home for the Holidays" Catalog, Christmas 1986.

Henry David Thoreau

Now here's a philosopher I can get behind. Thoreau is the featured writer for this, week six of my "Classics of American Thought" class. Up to now, we've had five philosophers, four of which were clergymen, and they're all so darned positive about everything. Winthrop with his City on a Hill, Berkeley with his God is controlling each and every one of our thoughts at all times, and that blowhard Emerson with his "Oooh look at the pretty night sky...I think I shall faint with joy" schtick.

In Walden, Thoreau is realistic about the grim prospects life might hold.

I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practice resignation, unless it was quite necessary.

Unless it was quite necessary. Finally, someone who admits that ultimately, there might not be any meaning to life whatever, and resignation might just be the only sane course. Such an admission makes me credit the rest of his views all the more.

I wanted...to reduce [life] to its lowest terms, and , if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world.

I also appreciated his professions of frugality in the service of stripping away all luxuries, such as his discovery that bread without yeast tasted just as good as bread with, even if I didn't always quite believe him.