Arnold Arboretum

Foiled Assassins of the 1970s

Lynnette "Squeaky" Fromme. Pointed a pistol at President Gerald Ford while dressed in a red robe. Apprehended by Secret Service before the gun went off.

Janet "Tweety" McGuire. Poisoned National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski's lunch. Running late, Brzezinski skipped lunch that day.

Dolores "Mouse" Garrett. Attempted to run Secretary of State Cyrus Vance off the road. Her car, a 1975 AMC Gremlin, was not up to the task.

Marge "Tootie" Phillips. Struck Vice President Walter Mondale in the head with a lead pipe. Mondale was wearing a hard hat while touring a solar panel factory and was uninjured.

Karen "Birdie" LaChance. Schemed to kill OMB Director Bert Lance with a well-tossed lawn dart. Two days before her planned attempt, lawn darts were banned by the Consumer Product Safety Commission.

Beverly "Buzzy" Lee. Planned to stab Agriculture Secretary Earl Butz with a dagger. On her way to intercept Butz at a Cleveland hotel, she dropped the dagger down a storm drain while attempting to hail a cab.

Denise "Chirpy" Butler. Rented a motel room across the street from the office of HEW Secretary Joseph Califano, planning to take him out with a sniper rifle as he left the building. Butler failed to notice Califano's departure when she became engrossed in an episode of Barnaby Jones.

Rhonda "Perky" Schmidt. Plotted to strangle Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker during a meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee. Due to Volcker's height (six feet seven inches), Schmidt was only able to wrap the ligature around the Fed Chairman's mid-section.

Green Street Fountain

Fore River Shipyard

Choose Your Own Apocalypse

Slate is asking readers to Choose Their Own Apocalypse: How will the United States meet its end?

Out of 144 possibilities, my top 5:

Robot Overlords
Unitary Executive
China Unloads U.S. Treasuries
Isolation of Elites
Pax Sinica (Chinese hegemony)

According to my choices, I am a "humanitarian internationalist. You're convinced mankind will terminate America—but at least we won't off ourselves in the process. You'll know you're right when: Everyone on Earth pledges allegiance to a world government; the feds default on the national debt."

Red Sox Update

I am happy with the trade for Victor Martinez. We really needed a good bat, and Lowell is a statue at 3rd. When V-Mart plays 1st, Youk can play 3rd.

We still need to figure out the starting pitcher situation, though. Beckett and Lester can't do it all by themselves. Dice-K is finished in Boston for this season, possibly forever. Our elderly pitchers Wakefield and Smoltz are moving to and from the mound on Hoverounds™. Buchholz is unpredictable. Penny is doughy. Look for Theo to pick up another starting pitcher off the waiver wire.

Mt. Auburn Cemetery

English High School

Gove County, Kansas

Gove County, Kansas

Wheeler Geologic Area, Colorado

Half Moon Pass, Colorado

Wheeler Geologic Area, Colorado

Vegetable Pick-up

I'm just about to go pick up our weekly share of vegetables from the local farm, Heaven's Harvest. Here is what is in season now in Massachusetts:

Scallions
Edible Snap Peas
Edible Pod Peas
Pickling Cucumbers
Bok Choi
Green Peppers
Sweet Potatoes
Red Cabbage
Zucchini
Yellow Squash
Dandelion Greens
Green Leaf Lettuce
Red Boston Lettuce
Red Kale
Parsley
Sage
Oregano
Thyme

A full share is a bushel; we just get a half share, which means we only get the items that I've marked in red. However, we have gotten all of the other items in previous weeks.

This is the third week of produce (out of 15 total). The first two weeks we also got a pint of strawberries, but the cool wet weather has already washed out the rest of the strawberry crop. Blueberries are next.

The farmers bring our share, plus those for about 80 other families, to a warehouse here in town, once a week. I can ride my bike to go pick them up -- they fit in a backpack. When carrots come in, the carrot leaves fly out the top of the backpack like a flag.

It is fun to get these veggies and then have to figure out how to use them up within a week. Also interesting to see what is in season at a given time.

We pay for the produce ahead of time. That way, the farmer has the money at the beginning of the season, and we customers all take on part of the risk. If a given crop should fail, we all share in the loss. On the other hand, we all benefit if a particular crop does better than expected. The organic aspect is nice I guess but the main reason I like it is this financial set-up. It's proven as a good model for keeping these small truck farms going in the rural areas around large cities. I don't think it would work for the giant grain farms like my uncle's in Kansas: what would we do with 100 bushels of wheat or corn?!

Pont-Aven

Le Pouldu

Ploumenac'h

Ploumenac'h

Mont Saint-Michel

Omaha Beach

Forest Hills Cemetery

New Hampshire

Forest Hills Cemetery

Lincoln, New Hampshire

Mt. Flume, New Hampshire

Keith's Word of Warning: Diesel Fuel

When your uncle hands you a fuel filter that he just removed from a Freightliner semi truck tractor, do not hold the filter between your arm and torso as you bend over to pick up a gasket off the ground, because the fuel filter is filled with diesel fuel that will pour out over your shirt and jeans and soak all the way through to your underwear.

Situation Wanted

I feel certain that given my current skillset I could pilot an investment bank, savings and loan, and/or an insurance company into the ground with at least as much efficiency as the Dick Fulds of the world, but at a much more reasonable pay rate.

Fuld took home in the neighborhood of $350M over the past five years; I would have been willing to croak Lehman Bros for $80K per (plus snacks of course) and I can almost guarantee I would have done it in half the time.

The Free! Enterprise! System!

This is from February 2008, when the Bank of England nationalized – ahem, nationalised – Northern Rock Bank, but pretty much all of it applies to the U.S. banking system over the last two weeks.

Absurdism at the 50 Yard Line

Albert Camus, who preferred football (soccer) to the theatre, might have enjoyed this:


Pre-Game Coin Toss Makes Jacksonville Jaguars Realize Randomness Of Life

Convention Review

I am enjoying the little bits of the convention that I am watching. Trying not to overdo it.

I love-love-love Michelle Obama, so I was sure to watch her speech. It was OK, but not the best showcase for her qualities, and I thought her brother's intro was way too long.

I missed Hillary's speech -- seeing too much of her in the winter and spring is what led to my cold-turkey giving-up of the blogosphere except for Tyler Cowen.

Did see Bill C and Joe B last night. I like Joe B as a speaker very much and his mother is great. Will probably check out Obama at the Stade Fasciste football stadium tonight as well.