the crushing cost of bullshit

i'm in a lively and fascinating discussion with a few friends on the environmental impact of reusable things (it started talking about drinking cups vs water bottles) and things got around (i admit it, i started it) to the confusion around the environmental friendliness (or not) of hybrid cars. i expressed an opinion (based on some extended reading) that hybrids aren't the environmental panacea many have presumed, and, of course, the discussion then was driven straight to the old (completely false) canard (fostered by idiots like george will and others) that hummers were more environmentally friendly than priuses. (prii?)

well, that hummer thing is complete and utter bullshit, and we all should know it. the impact of a hummer at 15 mpg so dwarfs the impact of a prius at 50mpg, that any idiot (who isn't george will, apparently) will correctly recognize that the hybrid is the better way to go. common sense, right?

only the trouble is, all these "common sensers" never bother to get out their pencil and paper, just the same way that the morons who can convince themselves that hummers are responsible environmental policy never do before they start blathering on about the indefensible, and now we have a binary tug of war over a bullshit argument instead of anybody anywhere learning anything at all. and the fault lies squarely with the bullshit argument--those who would make it when an actual, thought-out and reasonable and responsible argument was there to be made are the ones who cause the reasonable alternative never to get heard because the bullshit took off and reason was left far behind.

so lets say you're smart enough to know that priuses aren't all that. you know that batteries are made out of all sorts of rare metals that are bitches to mine, and toxic to the environment, and that "greenies" are ignoring this when they brag about their 50mpg. fair enough. but the moment you get lazy and resort to stupid and easily-disproved hyperbole, you cause all the reasonable people in the middle who might otherwise be able to understand that batteries are bad for the environment to reject your point of view outright, and dismiss the rest along with it.

truth is, at 50mpg, a prius barely gets 15 more mpg than your average econobox. (i know a civic driver regularly getting 40 out of his gas-only). truth is, prius batteries fail before 100,000 miles at a remarkable rate. (my ex drove a hybrid and found that out the hard way). truth is, at $3000 for the battery, the $3000 in gas savings (that's all you gain, sorry--it's math) is a complete wash. AND YOU'RE STILL STUCK WITH THE ENVIRONMENTAL COST OF THE BATTERY WHICH ISN'T BEING FIGURED IN YET!!!

people ought to know about this. people ought to think about it, and realize that resorting to a hybrid instead of a bicycle is NOT an environmentally friendly thing to do. yeah, it's better than a hummer, but we all know what kind of selfish assholes drive hummers. if you choose to drive a car, you are choosing to screw the environment, even if your car is a prius. it's the truth.

but, because of the crushing cost of bullshit spewed by george will, et al., people will never hear this. they'll dismiss the hummer alternative and congratulate themselves on being so "green".

i wish people thought more about the crushing cost of bullshit before they forwarded every obama birther smear they receive, not because obama is being a good president, but precisely BECAUSE HE IS NOT. he's busted our deficits and debts to unprecedented proportions, erased civil liberties at unprecedented levels, and kept us killing innocents abroad at an unprecedented pace. if you don't like obama, please, PUH-leeeeeze, look up some actual facts, and share those. i'll rail on the romney apologists to do the same.

but anytime you forward bullshit arguments to your friends who hate the same things you hate, you are, in the process, giving all the reasonable people in the middle the exact reason to never agree with you.

and, because of that, not only do you lose, but we all do, too.

just say no to bullshit, please!

beer

downtown lowell apparently has a love/hate relationship with beer. those who love good beer hate that downtown lowell establishments can never seem to figure out that we'll pay whatever it costs for it, and downtown lowell establishments apparently hate taking a chance on them/us. (more of that intractable chicken/egg stuff i think). meanwhile, everyone who tasted the new michelob ultra 19th hole "beverage" this past weekend nearly spit it up it was so foul, and it astounds me that we're still in this no-win situation.

let's stipulate two things for the record, shall we:

people WANT to spend more money on good beer.
establishments WANT people to spend more money.

so, what's missing, you ask?

how about GOOD BEER!!!!

take this michelob ultra ultimate swill. it was all you could order at one of the downtown venues this past saturday night if you were absolutely lifetime sick of bud/bud light, the ultimate kleenex of bland, tasteless and ubiquitous garbage beer. (and i won't inflame the conversation by naming names--other spots i visited opted for things like heineken and coors light, which are, if i might be so humble as to suggest, even worse). where was the guinness? (a pint of guinness has fewer calories than a pint of that michelob ultra 19th hole, by the way) where was the harpoon ipa? (doesn't anyone care about drinking local?) where was anything, ANYTHING, with even the slightest hint of drinkability among the dreck and dross and absolute sewer effluent being poured everywhere a person might look?

nowhere, that's where.

if you were out downtown this past folk festival you were wincing through plastic cups and "aluminum bottles" of the worst of the worst, and you were among the legion who said things like "this stuff is so bad--i think i'm going over to the worthen". and the downtown beer merchants (they actually ran out of budweiser where i ended up) count the rumpled dollar bills in their till and continue to figure, "well, that's all there is".

*sigh*

people will spend good money on good beer. ward 8 is full of people every night proving it. the back page is full of people every night proving it. even the old court, who was guilty of heinekening and coors lighting their outdoor crowd on saturday night, is proving it every other night indoors at least.

why is this so hard to get???

the paper blog of record suggesting that lowell was "shining" this past weekend for folk festival. i will tell you, if there was any shining going on, it was the curious mixture of glistening just-fallen rain combined with reeking sticky puddles of michelob ultra 19th hole poured from the "i'd rather pour it out than drink it" cans of everyone unlucky enough to have been duped into buying one.

complete fail.

yeah, you, boott mills

it flies under a lot of radar in this city, but ENEL of the "gee, don't worry, our proposed bladder dam that holds back more water than ever before won't make that flooding in your basement any worse" pawtucket dam fame also owns a subsidiary here in town called boott mills LLC, which, in turn, owns, among a bunch of other stuff, the obscure "coal pocket" building behind the mass mills apartments and adjacent to the national park service parking lot. those who do know where the "coal pocket" building might be might also know that the structure has been deemed an immediate public safety risk for well over a year now (over a year and a half, i think) and have noticed the safety fencing and scaffolded walkway beneath it. i know i have.

well, anyway, last year the folk festival folks found it "reasonable" to push the walkway over right next to that hulk of falling masonry (and collapse risk--this is no joke) so they could zip their little club cars back and forth for maximum convenience. forget that it's the three days of the year that the absolute most people with small children in strollers would be exposed to the danger--it was "reasonable" for them to continue to enjoy the coincidence of someone else's easement to run their little golf cart fleet as they pleased.

this year, i am proud and pleased to say, the city of lowell has said "ENOUGH" and insisted that the festival folks not increase an already long-outstanding public safety hazard, and run their little cart party somewhere else. kudos to building commissioner robert marsilia for the last-minute "save". it's greatly appreciated.

but, see, here's where the long-simmering outrage at this situation starts to fester. it's been A YEAR AND A HALF. boott mills, and its trustee/president/treasurer/manager/custodian/whatever-you-call-it, marshall field, have thumbed their noses at the city, its residents, and any and everyone who lives in the vicinity of this looming and leaning hulk of falling brickwork, and have made absolutely not one single move to fix the problems for which they are responsible. NONE.

i heard the estimate that the repairs would require a weekend, a bucket lift, and some capping mortar, and maybe ten grand to pay for all of it. maybe marshall wants to comment here and correct any possible misinformation. but it's getting to the point of absolutely ridiculous that two folk festivals will have passed since the problem was identified, and cries of poverty (seriously--the company claims it can't afford ten grand, despite all the property and other assets and income they have) just don't cut it with me. first of all, it's a public responsibility for a public company. second of all, it's THE RIGHT THING. third of all, resign if you can't do the job.

so, anyway, if any of you wind up in a queue waiting to crawl beneath the scaffolding there behind the coal pocket building, remember to thank marshall field for both the inconvenience, and the life-threatening risk you took going there. (anyone who thinks that scaffolding would save a pedestrian in case of a collapse should drop a brick on an ant beneath a matchbox and observe the results). it's about time something gets done. i even have the name of the judge that's sitting on a contempt order for mr field to whom you can write your own opinion.

enough is enough.

scrooge mcfolkfest

yeah, that's me... scrooge mcfolkfest. i was looking through the lineup of this weekend's folk festival performers, and am i the only one who is well more than 50% nonplussed?

klezmer? (seen it last year. don't need to go back).
cajun? (i love cajun, but at what point can we all agree it's enough?)
irish fiddle "music"? (i am SO over it, and, yeah, i'm a hater).
french canadian accordion? (at least they didn't bring fiddles...)
blues, gospel, polka and bluegrass? are these default categories now???

don't get me wrong, i love blues, and i love gospel, and i've enjoyed all the blues and gospel and cajun and bluegrass and other repeat-genre acts they've had over the years for that matter. but, seriously? i'm excited about the columbian gaita players. i'm excited about the dominican bachata player, the zimbabwean tuku music and the brazilian forro players. and that's about musically it. i should say i'm very much looking forward to catching the navajo hoop dancing and the hawaiian hula stuff, and i'm even open to the greek santouri and zilia stuff. but that's a pretty thin list of "gee, i've never seen that--i really want to go" options.

they don't even seem to have the nigerians and their goat stew on the list of food choices.

humbug.

BUT!!!!

fear not--there's a free punk show in the parking lot across from the worthen tonight, (if you haven't caught the subprime lenders yet, you must go), and there's the uptown music and arts festival on market street saturday night (after we catch peter lavender at the back page, thank you) that i'm hoping will more than assuage the bitter tears of disappointment for me. roll the tanks is headlining for crissakes, and if you didn't catch them shredding the kinks' father christmas back at the old court several christmases ago, you haven't been living.

which all brings me back to the so-called folk fest, which isn't really feeling all that "fest" to me this year. and it's certainly not a whole lot of new folk by even their own standards.

humbug.

TARP is crap spelled with a T

listen to this interview with one of the leading administrators of the TARP bank-bailout program:

http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/daily-ticker/tarp-even-worse-think-abysmal-failure-barofsky-says-161743679.html

initiated under bush, and feverishly embraced by obama. and a complete and utter clusterfuck of economic failure at the pure expense of american taxpapers.

sapere aude

your daily dose of (actually fun) olympics

my friend, beth, gets credit for forwarding this one: grant hill was on the dan patrick show the other day, (not syndicated for broadcast anywhere here in massachusetts, sorry), and grant was talking a bit about the 1996 gold medal us mens basketball team and the subject of piss-testing athletes after their performances. see, it seems that even the olympic organizers themselves are a bit put out by the whole process, so that they only test a limited number of athletes, including the leading scorer on any winning basketball team after each game. so, you know those winning highlights full of alley-oop and other incredible passing from all those more-than-30-point-average wins? yup, that's right--once the game was well in hand, those players would be dishing the ball almost to the point of comedy not just because they were that good--they were dishing that ball because it was absolutely like a giant game of drug-test-wonder-ball in which no one wanted to be the last one with it on top of the basket.

i'm still chuckling about the story even now.

no, not because any of those athletes were worried about not passing. nope. they all passed with flying colors. but nobody wanted to be the guy who scored the most and had to spend 2 hours after the game going through the process.

you just can't make this stuff up!

to wit:

Q2 economic growth slowed to a trickle--just 1.5%--which is far too slow a rate to offset chronic long-term unemployment, or to provide an engine to pay off the crushing tax rate and debt burden now strangling that very same economy, and its scheduled to become precipitously worse at the end of this year. (story here: http://finance.yahoo.com/news/us-economic-growth-slowed-1-123346624.html)

we can only hope the president's most recent comments lauding small private enterprise and expressing a commitment to support it are the real truth behind his ironicaly equivocating public pronouncements. (we will let the english handle retorts to mr mittington romney for his ongoing public speaking nonsense).

my concern is that those behind the twin-headed, economy-obliterating hydra of republicrat and demican hegemony over our congress and chief executive's chair are learning nothing whatsoever while they play the "it's either us or them" game in complete refutation and denial of third, fourth and fifth parties' insistence that a return to private personal and economic liberty, sensibly regulated, (recalling sandy weill's recantation of his and his industry's glass-steagal blundering), and vastly reduced government bloat, (it's that bloat which is the anchor which drags down the economy--care to guess how many percent of would-be growth is hoovered up by our leviathan government boondoggle and disappears before it could ever be taxed?), is the right answer.

answer for yourself, why don't you: do you feel the patriot act and other executive orders are anathema to our founding principles? do you feel that our government spending and staggering deficits and resulting national debt comprise the number 1 threat to our sovereignty and strength? are you disgusted with how thoroughly mismanaged the entire process has been by the revolving door of republicrats and demicans in our seats of power?

sapere aude. choose better.

not for nothing, but think about something simple, like the supermarket soda aisle. anyone remember RC cola? anyone think it was any shortcoming to the flavor of RC cola that has resulted in coke and pepsi virtually taking over the entire soda aisle? or, perhaps, could it have been this nonsense notion that we needed to take sides in the war between the big 2 that caused it? and, then, think about bottled water. why do we have it? is it possibly because soda is bad nutrition AND bad public health policy? and why do you think coke and pepsi now have HUGE bottled water brands and operations.

if you favor bottled water, do you care if it's delivered by coke or pepsi? could it be that simply dropping out of the soda war and drinking bottled water has resulted in coke and pepsi using their giant bottling and distribution might in bringing more bottled water to everyone?

your vote for a candidate NOT named barry or mittington IS productive. especially if it doesn't win in november. votes not for D's and R's are of staggering power, and their message is heard even if the candidates can't win.

if you want D's and R's to do better, drink water. do the right thing.

the "you didn't build that" apologists just don't get it

jon stewart went off (i mean OFF) last night on knee-jerk R propagandists twisting barry o's recent stump speech gaffe (even jon stewart repeatedly called it a gaffe, even while he was saying it was not a gaffe) and made easy hay of their ridiculous fixation on "you didn't build that". (jon's bit about the importance of choosing plural pronouns, and suggesting slick willy could have avoided a huge amount of grief if only he had said "i did not have sex with *those* women" was certainly a hoot). fair enough. a few people here in town have engaged in a similar discussion making similar points. fair enough.

but, see, that's not the real point, and the fixation on the idiots fixated on "that" is just as ridiculous as the idiots themselves.

the huge philosophical eight-hundred-pound gorilla in the room is the basic question: are we going to make a priority of the leaning-ever-so-slightly-towards-socialist powers of government to provide infrastructure, or are we going to prioritize the leaning-ever-so-slightly-towards-robber-baronism entrepreneurial powers of small business, to get us out of this cluster-fuck of an economic morass into which runaway government spending has placed us? or are we going to try to see both for their flaws, as well as their indispensable strengths?

think about it, barry apologists--would you say we are here because of not enough government spending, or too much? (i would suggest too much. so would a lot of other americans. but you can suggest your opinion for yourself).

but the real point is that there are a lot of voters (and i mean a LOT of voters) who recoiled at barry's statement not because it inarticulately confused an object pronoun, but because it expressed a decided priority to nominate government infrastructure ahead of individual entrepreneurship as the panacea to all our woes.

thoughtful people, i will hope, will observe that BOTH engines are necessary to fly this great airplane of our america without crashing it to the ground. but it is instructive to note that the government engine cannot and does not exist without first taxing the entrepreneurship engine, (and diminishing it in the process), and any excess on the government side chokes the combination as surely as you and i are reading and writing about it now. government, after all, creates no wealth--only redistributes it. (on worthwhile infrastructure projects if we're lucky, but you've seen how our present congress is operating--how do you really feel about the chances of that?)

so, to summarize my vehement and visceral rejection of barry's one-sided premise--i believe that to create the wealth to build the infrastructure to create further wealth, we must absolutely find a way to get the private sector engine humming along again. we can certainly help it by judicious choices in how we build infrastructure to support it. but to prioritize the feeding (and possible bloating) of an already crushing government bureaucracy ahead of nurturing our national wealth production, is a philosophical approach that i cannot and will not support. to fund the social and safety-net programs i so dearly think we critically need to care for our disadvantaged it is necessary to build up the engine which can be taxed. we cannot build up that engine by taxing it first. we simply can't.

chicken and egg, yes. but there is no chicken without the egg. or egg without the chicken. so to suggest that one is a chicken farmer or an egg farmer alone is to be wrong. dead wrong. the republicans who want unfettered commerce without restraint or protection for the vulnerable 99-percenters are wrong. the democrats who want unfettered government without restraint or protection for the vulnerable entrepreneurs are wrong.

it's a gaffe. now please, barry, tell me that you have learned why and can articulate how you are going to farm both chickens and eggs, please. we in the great undecided middle would dearly like to hear it. (and, oh, by the way, we're listening to some other alternatives, too, who aren't so glib about trashing those who build their own businesses in favor of those who push government papers).

wow

the phishers have taken it to the next level.

i work for an international company. our commercial prominence insures that our email addresses are ubiquitously and readily available for all sorts of professional reasons, and, thus and therefore, constantly exploited by spammers. generally, our corporate spam filters catch 99% of it owing to suspect internet domains and other tell-tale forensic email clues, and it's not hard to recognize the rest.

but now enter the genius of human innovation.

i have to admit i had to think about this one for a minute, though, i am thankful, my inner bullshit meter prompted me to look more closely right off the bat. the payload is attached to a very legitimate-looking email from info-update@irs.gov, easily verifiable as the official domain of the internal revenue service. and the genius is that the payload is really nothing electronic at all. it's simply a pdf image of an (altered) W-8 BEN form with instructions to fill out and fax.

clue #1--nobody faxes anymore.

the text of the email describes somewhat accurately the situation for many if not most of my fellow employees, whose tax status is forever complicated by portions of our income originating from countries which are not our own. in this case, the form is intended/purported to eliminate federal withholding on interest and dividend income, which, coincidentally, we all receive on a small portion of our incentive compensation. all you have to do is fill out your personal information on the irs form, photocopy the front page of your passport, and you're good to go.

clue #2--the irs does not identify taxpayer status via passport.

the total genius of this ruse is that, armed with your personal information and an image of your passport, it's a trivial step to imitate your identity and empty your bank accounts, and much easier if all that you might have had otherwise would be the account numbers themselves.

genius.

i fear for anyone whose busy and distracted bullshit meter wasn't tripped by the exercise. we are, after all, forever filling out government paperwork these days, aren't we. anyone following the simple instructions and faxing the requisite paperwork would be, i'm sure, robbed within minutes.

but the crowning genius? between the anonymity of spam email sources, and the anonymity of email retrieval of fax documents, there is absolutely no way i can conceive that these criminals can be stopped from thieving identities this way. maybe, just maybe, they can be apprehended from clues left by their theft of the money itself, but i am highly skeptical, if only because anyone smart enough to have secured their anonymity this far, is going to be clever enough to have more tricks up their sleeve at the teller window. after all, the apparently legitimate ID they will use will be yours, not theirs.

wow

conceiving the inconceivable

grief and shock from the colorado movie theater tragedy is reverberating in waves through our national and local media. i just read a story on the AP of four separate women who were shielded and spared by the instinctive and immediate actions of their male companions, who laid their bodies down in the face of deadly fire in order to sacrifice themselves, that others might live. it's profound stuff, and all the more so because of the inconceivable nature of the tragedy that now must be conceived by all survivors.

i'm also shocked (though not necessarily all that surprised) by the immediate polemicization of the circumstances by groups alternately insistent that too many guns are to blame, and others insistent that we have not enough.

foul.

i call foul.

this isn't about guns. this is about psychotic, sociopathic behavior and its consequence in profound grief and loss.

if you want to see in this reason for your fervent belief that all guns should be forever banned, a la dylan, yes, you can see it. if you want to see in this despair that more could not be done in the moment to blunt the killing blows, yes, you can see it. if you want to make this about politics and argument, then, for all you've seen, and for all you think you know, for god's sake, still, shut the fuck up.

my heart is sick to read of so many father's losses, and i see the faces of my children in every young life cut short, because it cuts me to the bone, and i am on the edge of tears in my selfish astonishment that all i have in this world could be taken from me in any sudden moment. and i know the only thing i can do with this grief is to stand ready to do whatever i can do to comfort those whose losses in this tragedy, and every other tragedy that occurs in this world on a daily basis, surpass always my own.

i am inconceivably fortunate, while so many others are inconceivably devastated. there is no reason for it. only this world, and the choice of what we will do about it. some in that theater, with only one instant with which to make a choice, made it to lay down their lives so others could live. am i ever to be given the privilege of such a choice? is the choice to go on with my life and do the best for those i love all that i ever will have?

then i have to choose it. i have to choose to do with my life the best i can for love is the one power i perceive in all of this more persistent and more powerful than all the rest. because anything else is inconceivable.

taking one for the team

the penn state community, even more than just the university itself, has found itself highly conflicted over the revelations that their revered and de factor university saint, joe paterno, repeatedly put the unversity's PR image ahead of saving children from a heinous and craven sexual predator. on the one apologists' hand, "joe pa" stands perhaps unique in the history of college athletics as the ultimate personal icon of his university and his program, but, on the other far more important hand, he put himself squarely on the wrong side of one of the most emotionally-charged and important social issues of his and our day--the sexual abuse of children--and did more damage to his vaunted university's reputation in the process than he ever could imagine.

the ncaa today announced their sanctions, and they are unprecedented in scope and impact:

• a $60 million fine, to be paid into an endowment for sexual abuse victims
• a 4 year, 40% elimination of football scholarships allowed, from 25 to 15
• a 4 year ban from all bowl and league championship games
• a forfeit of 14 years of football victories, from 1998 to 2011

to the very good and just impact of these penalties, the forfeiture of victories ensures that joe paterno is no longer and will never be the winningest college coach in NCAA history. kudos to the inspiration for this, and for the resolution to make it so. some happy valley folks will undoubtedly in the future feel compelled to scrawl an asterisk on such conversations, but, the everlasting good news is that to scrawl such an asterisk is only to renew the shame of the guilt which enforced the penalty in the first place. joe paterno, when push came to shove, and for all his high-sounding words about character and morality, chose a child molester over an innocent child. in fact, he chose that child molester over uncounted numbers of innocent children, and repeatedly over years. and i, for one, applaud the removal of his statue and all associated disgrace that goes along with that. a more fitting example could only be the defrocking of the pope and his minions for their part in doing exactly the same. (we can only stand by in faith and hope).

to the not-so-good and hardly just impact of a mere $60 million fine (equivalent to barely one year of penn state football revenue), the size of this part of the penalty is a bit more troubling. we're talking decades of abuse, and an ocean of football-related money, yet only a few months of financial compensation for these and other victims. yes, $60 million is something. but half a billion would have had a much nicer ring, and a much more equivalent scale to the crimes. oh well.

but the unfortunate circumstance and truth is that there is collateral damage endured by innocent individuals as part of this package, and they, indeed, are taking an awfully big one for their team. gifted collegiate athletes on scholarship enjoy both the privilege of a free education as well as a stage for the display of their talents. for better or for worse, ten student athletes matriculating to penn state this year have been dealt a cruel blow for the sins of their would-be adopted program: ten young athletes have now had their hard-earned scholarships revoked outright, and all the players on the team have had their best opportunity to earn a showcase for their talents eliminated entirely. no big 10 championship game. no bowls of any kind. sorry.

clearly, the ncaa understood the impact of their decision on these students--in recognition of the disproportionate penalty to their innocent lives, the ncaa has, at least, waived the one-year transfer waiting period, so penn state football players can find programs elsewhere if they can. but most won't be able to ever recover the full promise of their commitment to penn state, and they are certainly suffering for joe pa's sins in their way, and through no fault of their own.

hard lessons.

le tour de wiggins

one reason it hasn't been necessary to put in daily tour updates this past week is that the results are steady and predictable. bradley wiggins, the race leader for some time now, so easily turns away every challenge that it's a foregone conclusion that the ultimate top podium finish in paris is his already. sure, he could be hit by lightning on his way around le arch, but the rest of the riders would just then pick him up and push him over the line first--he's been that good, and he's earned all of their respect for many reasons, some noted here previously.

one of the best reasons is indicated in how loyal his teammates have been for him this year, with sprint legend mark cavendish pulling wiggins up over some of the most severe mountains in the alps and the pyrenees like you KNOW he hates more than anything else in bike racing. (sprinters loathe even little hills--they like it flat flat flat). that a man standing on the verge of such remarkable records (one more stage win and cavendish pulls away forever from lance armstrong's mark) is eager to put them all aside to put his teammate to the podium is remarkable in and of itself.

but most remarkable of all is that, not once, but TWICE this tour bradley wiggins has put his yellow jersey at the front of a long sprint lead-out train (something that never, EVER happens in le tour) and led the way for his domestiques to gain their honor in the sprint finishes. it happened again yesterday, and mark cavendish captured the stage to match armstrong and honor wiggins' effort in the best possible way.

it's a joy to watch wiggins work. whether it is leading his team by his example, or the peleton in cases where sportsmanship demands nothing less, wiggins has made himself one of the most deserving leaders in the history of the tour.

he's aces in the time trials, and that's what on for today. stay tuned. paris awaits!

one last thing...

one last few things about the proposed liquor rules and possible enforcement:

last night the point was beaten like a dead horse (commissioner weicker flogged it more than all others) that riot and mayhem at fortunato's last year has been corrected by its closing, and many (most?) would want this to be taken as an indication that the system as it exists is working.

well, i have a couple of observations about that:

first of all, the closing of fortunato's was NOT effected by action of the license commission. that closing was effected by enforcement by the board of health. license commissioners wishing to cite this as an example of why further rules are unneeded are actually emphasizing the point that they are not doing enough to enforce their existing rules. after all, if the only effective response for violations of liquor ordinances is not coming first from the license commission, something is definitely wrong and in need of improvement.

second of all, the reason downtown residents, police, city councilors and others are moving forward proposals for stepping up restrictions on liquor establishments is not just because we had just one particularly egregious flaunting of the rules. it's not even because we have a lot of ongoing little flauntings of the rules.  commissioners were happy to point out that public urination now comprises the plurality of downtown disorder according to published police statistics. but this diminishes and disrespects the point that in just the past week, we have seen two citizens bleeding from the head as a result of severe wounds received as a result of liquor-related disorder, and one of those injuries was of such severity as to be life threatening. that such extreme and life-threatening injury might recur every week or two here downtown as a result of overserving and other liquor-related violations is unacceptable, even if the number of violations were to plummet to just those.

i learned, years ago as a part of my software job, of a curiously ineffective quality initiative at a major manufacturer of motorized lawn equipment. as a result of flagging business due to diminishing product quality, the manufacturer instituted a program intended to improve quality by tracking any and all product defects, assigning them to the responsibility of each responsible factory unit, and meting out financial rewards and punishments accordingly. sounds good, right? better quality work would be rewarded, and poorer quality work would be penalized.  things should get better, right?

trouble was, the quality metrics mixed things like paint defects with other things, like, um, say, a lawnmower blade spontaneously detaching and severing the foot of an operator. those lawnmowers and lawn tractors from that outfit did indeed become the best-painted in the industry, but nobody bought any more of them, because they still sucked where it counted most.

well, our downtown disorder stats seem to me to be an awful lot like that. while people discuss the cosmetics of lawnmower paint jobs and public urination, the truly important issue of extreme bodily injury goes disrespected.  yeah, we also had a riot.  but those trivialities and that one particular riot wasn't and isn't the real problem, or its full extent.

i, for one, do not feel that the overall and total *number* of incidents is all that significant. (in fact, i LOVE the fact that the stats are up, because that means more is being done to enforce the rules). but i will adamantly and resolutely refuse to accept that any proven decrease in inconvenience to the neighbors of an establishment can compare to the likelihood of someone walking in the area to be seriously injured as a result of poor liquor enforcement.

any commissioner interested to argue trivia with the superintendent risks missing the point.

better belated than never kudos, and an apology for the delay

readers may recall (i know at least some will) i have been, in the past, very hard on several particular downtown establishments for what i have witnessed first-hand to be their occasional and even not so occasional lapses in business practice and liquor enforcement. i try to be clear that i am not intending these comments to represent the full or at all unbiased picture of what goes on down here--i'm one guy, and these are anecdotes from my personal observations which are, by definition, subjective. sometimes i'll even report rumors i've heard from others and i try to identify them so. but i hope everyone keeps in mind that this in no way constitutes a completely fair or balance perspective, even while i will insist that it does constitute a valid opinion.

anyway, one of the speakers at last night's license commission meeting was nick petrakos, owner of the blue shamrock. i am feeling remiss that i have not said so earlier, but i will take this opportunity now to express my appreciation for the positive example now being set by the quiet and respectful conduct in the shamrock's outdoor seating area, the well-managed and well-behaved crowds entering and exiting throughout the evening, and the overall high marks i would give the bar for its management this year. in the past, i would not have been quite so able to say such things, but the improvements have been significant and not unnoticed or unappreciated, and i would not want to belabor any water gone far under the bridge by saying more about the difference.

i was pleased to hear and agree with nick's reasoned and concise opinions expressed at last night's commission meeting, and glad that the commission sided with those opinions. the answer is, in my opinion, better enforcement. the shamrock makes of itself a good example these days. thanks, nick, and kudos for the effective effort. and apologies for not having said so sooner.

do the right thing

last night's license commission meeting was a civil affair, and though i'll mention a few minor ironies, i felt, being part of it, that the overall process was fair, and the outcome just. if you're just reading about it now, the readers digest version is that the commission declined to second commissioner akashian's motion to enact the city-council-proposed changes to liquor and entertainment licensing that would have rolled back serving and entertainment hours and placed a good number of further requirements on bar owners.

at first blush, and likely as politics will want to make it sound, the commission is stonewalling citizen and city council consensus that additional rules are needed to reduce, as the superintendent of police likes to entitle it, "downtown disorder", which includes mayhem, assault, bloody battery, vandalism and other crimes. the deeper reasons the motion was not seconded include the imperfection of the proposal, and the significant burden those rules would place upon establishments that do not, under the current rules in place, have any difficulty in running a safe and trouble-free business. as a downtown resident, and vocal advocate for better enforcement, i agree with the commission, the bar owners and employees who spoke against the proposal, and many if not most downtown residents that penalizing responsible business, and, as several speakers last night phrased it, "painting with too broad a brush", is not the answer.

people may note that i spoke in the portion of the evening reserved for those "in favor" of the regulation, but i hope that my comments were not misunderstood. the crowning irony of the proceedings in my humble opinion was commissioner bayliss' repeated remarks later on, admonishing everyone in the room that stricter enforcement of existing rules, laws and regulations was the answer, even while he refused to accept my own firm suggestion at the start that the license commission needs to be the prominent part of that increase in enforcement. (i say "refuse to accept", because he found it necessary to defensively respond to my points even as i was in the process of making them, to answer, among other things, that the license commission has "never had a ruling overturned by the ABCC". (though commission weicker was able to correct him that they had, indeed, been overturned once). my response, in addition to asking for the courtesy to be allowed to finish my points, was that failure to find enforcement opportunities to the complete limit of those allowed by ABCC oversight was part of the problem, and if you aren't getting to where some efforts are overturned, you are not assured of having pressed your enforcement privilege to its proper limit. (yes, there is a cost to having rulings overturned, but here i am willing to suggest the price in terms of legal support and time is worth the advantage in reduced 2am mayhem, but, hey, that's just one man's opinion, right?) i agree wholeheartedly that the proposed regulations are too broad and to onerous to be workable, and very much unfair to responsible owners. my point is that if we simply enforce those regulations that are currently in place, we would not be here finding it necessary to discuss stricter ones. clearly, if we aren't enforcing the rules, the answer can't possibly be more rules.

anyway, the applause at the meeting was all in favor of declining the new regulations, and clearly the scope of the new rules are, in their entirety, ham-handedly onerous and pointlessly burdensome to owners of licensed establishments. however, in their detail they contain many useful and obvious improvements to our current scheme, and commissioners were not hesitant to say so in candid conversation afterward.

my disappointment? though the commission correctly did the right thing and declined to act on the city council proposal as it was made verbatim, they did not do the right thing (yet) by moving and acting upon those portions of the suggestions that they felt right. i further stand by my pointed remarks that they need to be more strict and energetic in their (to the extent of their legal powers) response to any and all violations. no more "gee, we know you screwed up last year on the terms of your special permit and kept the neighborhood up until all hours, but here's your new one". no more "yeah, that's too bad that your staff once again has been caught serving underage drinkers, but don't sweat it, here's a toothless warning". no more "the cops and the patrons and the residents all need to do better, but we're doing just fine, thank you very much". we ALL need to do better. a lot of scrutiny was placed on the impact increased law enforcement has likely been having on the crime stats. but no meaningful appreciation was made for the extreme nature of the personal injuries that continue to occur downtown as a result of overserving. heads are being pounded into pavement. yeah, not as often as people are urinating on the churches. but one life-threatening injury every few weeks is TOO MANY. let's ALL do better.

i, personally, love to see the stats high, and the police tolerance minimal. the suggestion for police to hold perpetrators and pursue driving license revocation for those caught attempting to pass invalid identification isn't a bad one. but refusing to acknowledge that the license commission can, indeed, also do a larger part in amping up enforcement is leaving the offer of such suggestion less compelling. imagine if you are the police, and everybody else is stepping up their efforts. i believe you will be compelled to do more. (and, let's be honest, the police are already doing a lot and deserve commendation for it).

the license commission point that establishments paying for their own details should not be punished when those details catch wrongdoing is a fair one. (those are where a large number of the crime stats originate, and commissioner weicker was insistent to point out that request made in february for the police to provide analysis of the breakdown of where the reports originate has remained unanswered). but, again, the license commission is not doing their whole part here, and the righteousness of such a point needs to be reinforced with leadership in bringing irresponsible owners to task for their irresponsibility when it is brought before them. as i said, no more "gee, we know you screwed up last year on the terms of your special permit and kept the neighborhood up until all hours, but here's your new one". no more "yeah, that's too bad that your staff once again has been caught serving underage drinkers, but don't sweat it, here's a toothless warning". no more "the cops and the patrons and the residents all need to do better, but we're doing just fine, thank you very much".

do the right thing.

a good suggestion for all of us.

here's to looking forward to license commissioners raising a motion at their next meeting to adopt several of the proposed provisions. i'm patient enough to wait for their next meeting, though i suppose ax-grinders might want to make that sound foot-draggingly irresponsible. it's something that deserves to be done right, so i, for one, have no trouble with time being taken to do so. but doing the right thing is, indeed required.

let's do it.

tour de ugly

sorry for the lapse, but things interfere with free time to type stuff about the bike race...

the big news for those missing it is that last year's podium supported at least one doped rider (frank schleck) and he's been invited to leave, as they say. maybe i'll get to the tivo later about today's stage, but one suggestion is that you can tune into nbcsn right now and watch the finish live, or you can go to letour.com and read all about it, too.

wonder what the next non-racing news event might be that will overshadow the athletics, sportsmanship and competition that ought to be the center of our attention? sad...

heatwave

props to martha and the vandellas, and an honorable mention to linda ronstadt. (and credit to brian and ed holland and lamont dozier for the writing). anything covered by both the supremes and the jam has gotta have it going on for sure.

but once we're done genuflecting to the gods of rock and roll for their divine aural providence, we're left crawling through a gauntlet of 90+ degree days and 70+ degree nights as best we can. the largest federal disaster area in history (counties across two thirds of the 50 states and counting) is now on record for the drought corresponding to this brutal spate of H-O-T hot, and anyone still confused about the summer extremes of "climate change" can step outside and become educated. this has been the hottest first half of a year here in the history of recorded temperatures, just a second summer after the hottest year ever recorded.

a lot of folks are still inclined to want to argue about who started it, just like children in the back seat of an overloaded station wagon, (i'm too old to want to say "minivan", and, besides, those are all air-conditioned these days anyway, which is absolutely not the same), but it's getting to the point where the discussion has to rather wind around back to "what the heck are we going to do about it", or we're all going to be roast on our own petard. (to coin a phrase).

even if we don't do anything about it, we ought to at least figure out how best to fuel all these air conditioners that are becoming more and more necessary more and more to the north here in this country. this year marks, coincidentally, the 50th anniversary of centralia, while the radiation from fukushima is still washing ashore on our side of the pacific, and you can flip a coin between exxon valdez and deepwater horizon for the most egregious and expensive oil examples. the fossil and nuclear power routes are clearly more expensive than our electric bills and prices at the pump would have us otherwise mistakenly believe. unfortunately, even for us small government types, all this illustrates an acute necessity for centralized planning, even if only to decide upon a decentralized solution. (my favorite approach).

here's my prediction: if you're not generating your own power, you're heading for some tough times ahead.

the worst and the best

le tour de france is a world phenomenon that stands, much like the boston marathon, as the signature event of its sport. also much like the boston marathon, le tour affords crowds remarkably close access to the participants who are, hence, supremely vulnerable to them as well. years ago, the boston marathon was forced to establish secure, official watering stations, but the slow pace and relatively short course have kept unfortunate incidents to a minimum. today's stage of le tour, however, highlights the added vulnerability of cycling and cyclists to the mechanical nature of the sport, and a particularly ugly incident (the strewing of tacks across a narrow roadway on the mur de peguere just one day after the detonation of smoke bombs among the riders the day before) now mars this years tour and sets clouds forever on its future, even as it demonstrates its resilience and its refusal to be cowed at the same time.

to recap: seconds after a small pack of race leaders passed, over 30 of the riders, along with several official tour motorbikes and biking team cars, suffered sudden tire punctures from the malicious act of sabotage, throwing the race into chaos while participants and support personnel were left to make important decisions based on imperfect and incomplete information. last year's winner, and this year's third place contender, cadel evans, was among the victims, who were all left waiting at the side of the road for replacement wheels while their competitors cycled on ahead, initially unaware of the scope of the damage.

to his everlasting credit, and to the clear credit of a sport that still maintains a strong code of honor despite all opportunities to abandon it, race leader bradley wiggins insisted that the entire peloton of riders abate their pace and wait until all repairs could be made and all riders returned to the pack before continuing. it was, at first, not a unanimous decision, and i will not name those who initially refused to honor the pause, but to say that they were eventually shamed by the refusal of the leader to chase them--essentially putting his very leadership of the tour on the ground for them to take if they would continue to have the poor sportsmanship to take it from him in that fashion, exactly as wiggins refused to take from cadel evans his fair shot at the final podium for an incident beyond all control.

it was one of the most inspiring and remarkable displays of pure sportsmanship it has ever been my honor to witness.

even beyond wiggins' demonstrated leadership and strength of character, there were countless other moments of honor and pure altruism among the support teams, as they all offered all the spare equipment in their cars to try to repair their competitors' machines. (the narrow roadways and disabled cars made reaching stranded cyclists by their crews almost impossible in many cases). it wouldn't happen in nascar. it wouldn't happen in almost any other sport.

but it happened today in le tour de france--the worst of human behavior overcome and neutralized by the best. yes, increased vigilance and precautions will now become necessary, and that is a sad thing to say. some people can indeed be thoughtlessly cruel.

others can be better and shine an example for the rest.

bradley wiggins, count me a permanent fan.

blood on the streets

i reconnected with an old friend from pittsburgh (good times to be a bucs fan for sure) last night, and one beer turned to two (the multi-lobster and fresh corn feast kept rolling into the night right along with the conversation) so it was very late (early?) when i rolled back into lowell, and i thought maybe it might be nice to see if other old friends were still out downtown before last call. (linda mccluskey is in from paris--lowell artistes take note!) i started the trail of breadcrumbs at fuse, which was facebook's last suggestion of possible whereabouts, but they were already chairs and lights up there, so i turned a quick right turn down palmer street towards the back page where i knew the music might have drawn the party.

the village smokehouse was at that hour a belching furnace of over-served testosterone and tight quite-likely-teenage minidresses, spilling its magma and ash all over middle street. wending ones way through the knotted crowds of young lust was an oft-amusing exercise in patience and personal navigation, as the unsteady posture and gaits of all these prostitots and their would-be suitors made the pathways between them an ever-shifting puzzle most resembling a giant game of sidewalk frogger. i was thinking it was business as usual, observing the smokehouse' prior record of repeated alcohol serving violations, but i wasn't inclined to want to spoil the party by diming what had been, to that point, an urban nuisance best left to the neighbors and the patrol cops to decide if of which they'd had enough. (though the thought that the police were likely to be necessary was right there in the front of my mind).

in the time it took me to walk from there past the little park where all the empties always turn up in the morning, (maybe a few dozen yards), an unmarked cruiser had already been summoned, turning the corner from central onto middle with a quite potentially dangerous in and of itself purpose, racing up the cobblestones in a roar of V8 engine and rumbling tires, straight into the center of the maelstrom. (i guess it says a lot about me and my time living in DTL that it didn't prompt me to turn my head around to see why--i quite knew why--not to mention the extreme noise that preceded the riot that would have made its sounds indistinguishable). by the time i reached the back of the td bank and ran into two friends returning home from the back page, and then turned to follow their wide-eyed gaze back from whence I came, three more marked cruisers had converged on the smokehouse from the other direction--two traveling the wrong way down palmer and up middle to get there. at least one other marked unit (it was getting a bit difficult to keep count) closed in from central street, and my returned gaze back down one of the most picturesque and quiet, quaint streets in downtown lowell, or anywhere around for that matter, became full of the grotesque sights of a beautiful summer evening gone very, very bad.

most striking was a handcuffed man in the middle of middle street, with blood pouring from wounds to his head (of unknown origin--i hadn't been watching, i had been walking the other way). the police were talking to him, and he was alert, even if he was profoundly woozy from drink and from, my presumption, his head either hitting a wielded bottle or the pavement. he was extremely bloody, and his splattered trail up the sidewalk to his current position in the middle of the street was clear enough that no CSI would have been necessary to follow it. the blood was everywhere. it became clear as the three of us navigated back through the madding crowd of confused, drunk and disorderly to the point of caricature smokehouse patrons, that mayhem was not limited to the cases corralled and restrained by the cops doing their yeoman's duty on the street. blood was on the sidewalk. blood was on the cobblestones. blood was on the walls of the buildings beside, and spattered onto the cars parked there as well.

my friends' comments? "it's crazy like this most weekend nights we walk home"... "if we walk up merrimack we get the crowds spilling out of hookslides, and when we choose to walk up middle street instead we get this sort of thing from the smokehouse".

so the cops did their jobs. they were there within an instant, and in reassuring force. i'm expecting they will further do their jobs to show up at the license commission meeting and recount for the commissioners their reports. anyone interested to wager what the consequence to the smokehouse will be for having spawned all this?

there's a camera at the intersection of palmer and middle. once again, as with the violent thefts from ayer lofts, if that camera has not captured usable evidence to identify the perpetrators and both their egress and prior ingress from and to the smokehouse to indicate the possibility of their having been overserved there, it's time for those cameras to come down. we were told it was for safety. well, it's not safe to walk in my neighborhood. it seems to me at least something's ought to be done about it.

and, as for the license commissioners, it'll be yet another opportunity for them to go against type and actually carry out the duty to which they have been sworn. or not. (i've been to this rodeo before).

it's blood on the streets.

(edited to add: i'm given to understand one of the altercations involved one man biting off the ear of another, a la tyson). rob mills, are you out there?

see click fix? not exactly.

the city recently rolled out its participation in the "seeclickfix" iphone app, and i immediately installed it and picked the most obvious nearby opportunity for good-doing. (the almost-blocked sidewalk in front of centro, impeding access to the post office for all the mobility-impaired people living further up the block).

the result? one commenter refused to believe it was really like that, and was only mollified by my posting a photograph to show the situation clearly. (a nice feature of the app to be sure). the city? someone "closed" the issue without doing one damn thing about it, beyond  mentioning:  "thank you for reporting this issue to the city of lowell. It has been referred to development services for review".

i guess it's just me.  somehow i had the funny notion that "closed" would have meant something actually being done about it, even if only to say, sorry, no soap.  but, no, i am but to learn that "closed" to the city means "not my job", and, essentially, "kiss off".

disappointing.

ima go to city hall, just like i used to do before someone invented this colossal waste of electronic time.

wiggins ftw

another french finish today on the first alpine stage--pierre rolland crushed it by overcoming an early crash to run away with the stage over the best of the best. most notable is the growing respect between third place rider, vincenzo nibali, and race leader (with a bullet) bradley wiggins, who had been seen by some to be disrespectful of nibali via ill-received stares, but who was most definitely recognized to be embracing nibali on the bikes as they crossed the stage finish together just a few minutes ago. (i'm sure we cannot comprehend the respect that gets built between competitors over the grueling trial that is nearly 120 miles up down and up again some of the steepest mountains of the alps).

also remarkable was the ride today of white-jersey wearer, (best young rider and american) teejay van garderen. with clear stamina shown and solid potential to put a significant charge against the stage leaders on the final climb and a clear shot to put himself into contention for the overall tour, van garderen instead selflessly answered the call to drop back and drag his team leader, cadel evans, up the final monster climb. van garderen took the wind and the hit for evans to preserve as many precious seconds as could be saved while race leader bradley wiggins put the chance-deadly hammer down. (also notable was wiggins' sky teammate, chris froome, not only serving as domestique and vanguard for his team leader, but solidly biking into a firm second place in the overall standings).

van garderen was particularly gracious when baited by the reporters to brag on his superiority: "i was just trying to pace cadel back to the leaders... it's just a pity [evans] he was on kind of an off day, because normally he'd be the one dropping me, not the other way around".

watch van garderen. wiggins may appear to be running away with this year's tour, but it's not the last one, nor the last time we will be seeing teejay's smiling face at the end of a race.

mountain man

tour designers made us a beauty today. most prominent was 20km (!!!) "hors categorie" climb square in the middle of the stage, (that's 12 miles uphill beyond a 10% grade), but not insignificant was the following 10km categorie 3 climb that preceded the last 20km downhill to the finish.

but wait!!!

right when you thought that nice little view of the valley leading down to lake geneva would have made a perfect little sprint finish, the winking little men with their winking little pencils sketched in a devilish little uphill climb to the final line just for grins.

jens voigt is every day of 40 years old and more. (his 41st birthday is in september). when he and the rest of the peleton watched the little pack of four riders led by frenchman thomas voeckler break away before the final summit, the several minutes those leaders earned in hand for the final 20km downhill meant that only the most inspired and breakneck of rides and riders could possibly bring another man up to the front before the finish. yet there he was--by most accounts the most popular rider on this or any other tour--40 years young and bent on exactly that.

in the closing kilometers, voigt not only caught voeckler and the rest, but he punished them with a continuation of his pounding pace, and took a sizable gap into the last town on the route.

and then the organizers had their wink, and the french had their second stage winner in as many days. the pace and the pressure finally cracked voigt in the final meters, and voeckler gutted his way back to the front to take the finish.

cracking good cycling all around. (teejay van garderen, american wunderkind, had a descent for the storytellers for sure, and he's still in the tour top ten for the effort).

bradley wiggins kept his icy grip on cadel evans' back wheel, and his significant tour lead intact.

tomorrow--the alps.

fox vs cnn: whose side are you on?

if you answered either of them for yourself, have i got a story for you that should further solidify your belief in your favorite choice. you can pick the one you like best. and then, i would implore you, examine both stories and figure out how, exactly, you figure one differs from the other.

first, for the cnn haters in the audience (oh yeah, you foxies are gonna love this):

on june 12th, christine romans of cnn interviewed jesse ventura, once governor of minnesota among many other colorful accomplishments, while he was stumping for his new book, "demoCRIPS and reBLOODlicans: no more gangs in government". in the interview, ventura, a member of the independence party, closes by endorsing gary johnson, a member of the libertarian party, itself somewhat newsworthy. however, by the time the interview was posted to cnn, ventura's comments to the effect that "if people truly want to rebel this year, then vote for gary johnson. the former governor of new mexico is running with the libertarians, who won't get any press coverage because mainstream media is also owned by the corporations" were censored and eliminated. (coverage here).

but, lest the foxies have short memories, this is for the lefties who well and truly despise that particular outlet, and might be feeling a little hurt by the previous:

remember last year, when ron paul won the CPAC straw poll at the start of the republican nomination process? fox' interview with paul was altered, removing the cheers of the standing ovation he was receiving while being interviewed, and replaced it with a soundtrack of boos. (story here).

i'd say, and i'm hoping all can agree, cnn's omission was pretty bad, but fox's addition was, if anything, even worse.

so from both the right and the left of our single party (republicrat/demican) system of money interests, we have clear malfeasance and fraud, on top of bizarre refusal to simply cover the situation as it fairly exists. (i'm sure gary johnson has unpopular beliefs. why don't they try to cover them?)

if you count yourself a democrat, or a republican, i count you as complicit to the fraud. i won't support a man who believes in assassination of citizens, (no thank you very much, barry o), and i won't support a man who believes in everything and nothing at the same time. (do we need to roll out the romney flip/flop clips people?)

i count myself a proudly unenrolled voter with an immunity to both brands of bullshit. can you say the same? i hope more and more will be able.

disgusted and resolved to do something about it

we're being fed a non-stop diet of robama and obamney by the bought-and-paid-for media, while any semblance of individual initiative and choice is choked at the source. color me disgusted and resolved to do something about it.

i wrote the other day about the malfeasance currently being perpetrated against legitimate and certified convention delegates by one of the major political parties right here in massachusetts against the chances of republican ron paul. now this: after polling as high as 9% recently, (the national debate threshold is set at 15), libertarian presidential nominee gary johnson has suddenly gone conspicuously absent from almost every poll in the nation. (the single exception being zogby, and good on them for the courage). why is that?

http://www.examiner.com/article/latest-round-of-polls-excludes-libertarian-presidential-nominee

i'll tell you one reason why. unions have funneled over $4.4 BILLION dollars into political campaigns (92% of those for democrats) over the past six years. (coverage here). big money interests, for example the list of the top 16 institutions bailed out by the federal reserve (confirmed by the GAO no less), comprise 9 of mitt romney's top 20 campaign donors. (goldman sachs, credit suisse, morgan stanley, barclays--yeah, that barclays, that was recently caught fixing LIBOR rates, bank of america, jp morgan chase, UBS, wells fargo and citigroup). oh, and five of them were on barry o's top 20 list, too. (goldman sachs, jpmorgan chase, citigroup, UBS and morgan stanley).

the status quo is terrified that a responsible and legitimate candidate might espouse smaller government, restored civil liberties, retirement from afghanistan and iraq, reduced squandering of national resources to prop up foreign governments while our own is insolvent, etc. etc. etc., and the curbing of the status quo's republicrat/demican hegemony over our economy and our lives. the status quo, which is robama/obomney to its core, (they really don't care which--it's all the same in the end, and the last 10 years proved that beyond all shadow of doubt), will do anything in its vastly monied power to deny us our legitimate right to make a diffferent choice.

my question is, if the libertarian cause, or any other for that matter, is so flawed, why are the big money, political racket folks so terrified of it so as to want to silence it entirely? wouldn't letting it speak for itself further prove their point, and be even more effective in securing their interests?

i didn't think so.

sapere aude. think for yourself. unenroll. get informed. vote your informed choice. whatever and whoever that might be. tell the righties and the lefties to meet us all in the middle--both extremes are riding us down to ruin. and that's a fact.

lowell farmers market rocks

this past friday afternoon at 2, the 2012 edition of the lowell farmers market kicked off its season, and it's already a great one.

first of all, i know they have little cafes in some of the supermarkets around these parts, but nowhere are you going to get an "arnold palmer" like andy jacobsen of brew'd awakenings coffeehaus makes 'em--fresh squeezed lemons, homemade simple syrup, and fresh-brewed fair market loose-leaf tea to boot. stroll around in the fresh afternoon air with one of these and tell me that's not shopping at its finest. (because it is!)

but it's more than just ambience at the lowell farmers market.

what's prompting this little reverie is this sublime bowl of general mills' cheerios (not available at the lowell farmers market) in front of me, garnished with fresh local blueberries and topped with shaw farms' best. (whole milk in the glass bottle--you know how i roll). i buy blueberries when they're looking decent and the price is good at the supermarket, and i enjoy them just fine, don't get me wrong. but the difference between supermarket blueberries and these little blue explosions of juicy nirvana is dramatic and profound, even four days in the refrigerator later. this pint of locally-grown berries (in the bio-friendly and degradable container) was only marginally more expensive than the plastic-caged facsimiles over which they so righteously kick ass, and so many times better and more delicious that it's not a contest at all.

our local farmers are bringing the best in the world to us, right here and right now. it's up to us to make the final difference. BUY LOCAL! and, remember--no farms, no food.

i'll also pause to pay respects to the sheaf of chelmsford butter and sugar corn (four ears) and pair of massachusetts-caught lobsters which made my friday night dinner last week. the corn was 2-for-a-buck, and the lobsters 2-for-ten (4.99 per pound). where else are you going to eat like this for this kind of money?

nowhere, that's where.

friday afternoon at 2. be there!

something short of paradise (with chords)

Something Short of Paradise -- Dick Wagner
(Performed by Tim Curry on the album "Fearless")

With chords

Intro:
Eb G Cm Eb7 Ab Dbm C Fm Bbsus Bb



Eb G

I’m giving up this restless life

Cm Eb7 Ab

My wayward friends, the bad advice they give

Dbm C Fm Bbsus Bb

I’m settling down to keep you company

Eb G

I’m starting over one more time

Cm Eb7 Ab

A change of heart, I’ve crossed that line again

Dbm C Fm

It took me all this time to see


Bbm
that what we’ve got is

Chorus:

Gb Bm

Something short of paradise

Bb Ebm

A little bit less than we might like

B Bdim7 Bb

I know this ain’t heaven--it’s close enough for me

B B

I know this ain’t heaven--it’s close as I’ll ever


Gb D
be



Bridge:

G B Em G7 C Bdim7 Am Bbsus Bb

Eb G

It won’t be easy changing style

Cm Eb7 Ab

Shape I’m in it just might take awhile

Dbm C Fm

But in the end I know you’re gonna see


Bbm
that what we’ve got is



Chorus:

Gb Bm

Something short of paradise

Bb Ebm

A little bit less than we might like

B Bdim7 Bb

I know this ain’t heaven--it’s close enough for me

B B

I know this ain’t heaven--it’s close as I’ll ever


Ebm Bbm B ... ... Gb
be

thesis

no matter how much you study, and no matter how much homework you turn in, there's always the matter of a thesis, and i've found getting beyond the three-chord garage musician game is all that and more.

three chords is actually not so bad when you practice it a bit. (i like to think i'm the classic case in point, and buddy holly thank you very very very very much). but beyond that simple little form, there's a universe of musical expression that both defies beginners' ears and bedevils beginners' fingers. yet such has given me some of the most enjoyable fits of my life.

looking back at the woefully short distance i've traveled, i would say that i've scraped together what little i know of arrangement and song craft most often from my oft-futile attempts to unravel the more complicated of my favorite songs from my favorite songwriters, from hoagy carmichael to peter lavender. (hoagy stands above and beyond, and peter is no slouch). some people have heard my failure to do justice to hoagy's "the nearness of you", (my apologies to both them and most of all to hoagy), but i like to think that there's been something in there worthwhile for my efforts, and one of the more talented players i know so generously suggested as much this past weekend which prompted a not-nearly-gracious-enough thank-you for the kind words, and a renewed drive to take on one of the hairiest of my collection. (i'm not counting keyboard jazz from the likes of donald fagen which is so far beyond my ken that it's necessary to pretend it's not out there beyond...)

the song was written by dick wagner, whose many claims to fame include featured contribution to lou reed's rock and roll animal album, and a long-time collaboration with steve hunter as the backbone of alice cooper's heyday. (welcome to my nightmare, goes to hell, lace and whiskey, etc. etc. etc.) dick wrote and/or played for, beyond reed and cooper, aerosmith, kiss, meat loaf, ringo starr, etta james, peter gabriel, rod stewart, tina turner, hall & oates, roy orbison, jerry lee lewis, little richard, etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. "only women bleed" is his song, as is nils lofgren's "shine silently".

so is "something short of paradise", a contribution dick made to tim curry's fearless disc. (you know, the one with "i do the rock" on it).

in this one, if my rough and ragged ear is anywhere in the ballpark, dick repeats a chord about as frequently as most writers are capable of scoring one, which is to say, there are 10 unique ones on the verse, (none repeated), six more on the chorus, (dick actually repeats two of those--what a lazy guy), and then shifts key to add another 8 new ones on the bridge. (i think there's a B and a G and a C in common with elsewhere in the piece, but in a completely new progression). it's something i've yearned to figure out for decades, (the album came out in '79), and i've finally got it to where i'm willing to say "close enough", and share it with the world.

i'm not doing this so much to show off, but to offer it (via google) to the next person like me who falls in love with the song, aches to be able to play it, but stands mute before the near-impenetrable wall of it. i'll give it its own post, and i'll try to format so the chords go with the general vicinity of the lyrics, though, if you listen to or know the song, you'll know that there's nothing exact in it at all--just tim's beautiful phrasings that are, like he is wont to be, all over the place.

thank you, mr wagner, for a very beautiful song, and a very rewarding couple of weeks.

you don't know, jack

an occasional commenter here on this blather-fest enjoys to ridicule me for my refusal to be sucked into the fetid swamp that are today's major party politics. his argument, what little there might be of it, is that you have to join the big rackets in order to earn a political score. otherwise, he would say, and has said right here on this blog, you're "self pleasuring to political kiddie porn sold by ron paul".

(sometimes a person's words say all that needs to be said about them, so i'll just continue to leave it at that).

anyway, i was thinking of our little political jackie paper as i read over the weekend the revealing corruption within the massachusetts state republican party that is conspiring with the romney campaign to punish via expulsion those with the jackie-like naivete to have joined the racket, but then possessed themselves of the temerity to fail to follow scripted marching orders in favor of actually wanting to have a real impact based on their better beliefs.

jack, of course, would spout a partisan party line to deny such could ever possibly happen within his chosen side/racket, and say something like, "see, that's why my side is better", but, see, there are a majority of voters in this commonwealth who are both unenrolled and perfectly capable of seeing right through that completely bullshit partisan argument. today's major party politics are dirty, corrupt swamps comprised of the worst of human behavior, and it's not really all that clear if they have ever been better than that. to participate in them is to be complicit to outright crimes, and to bring shame on the entire process.

to wit:

17 duly appointed and sworn delegates to the republican national convention have been de-certified by the massachusetts state republican party for the simple reason that they are supporters of a particular active candidate for the republican nomination and not the one that the bosses would prefer. forget that they were duly appointed and sworn to uphold their commitment to cast nomination ballots for mitt romney per the results of the primary election here. the paranoia runs so broadly and so deeply that the party bosses invented a completely bullshit exercise (a badly worded affidavit was invented for certain delegates to sign, and a ridiculously short window for it to be returned was further applied so that the party bosses could claim that they had grounds to dismiss the legitimate delegates in favor of their illegitimate slate) to accomplish what a legal election otherwise could not--they're own private cadre of lock-steppers to be counted upon not to follow the legal process, but whatever process turns out to be necessary to produce a result regardless of law.

the massachusetts liberty caucus can keep you informed on this situation as it progresses here.

the boston herald's coverage, under the headline "mass gop deals dirty, can be found here.

ben swann covers it in his reality check on youtube, found here.

it's all a perfect case in point as to why making a difference now requires making a commitment to repudiate the major national political parties, and sapere aude.

think for yourself.

the mountains

today's first mountain stage set the stage for the real iron to emerge. team sky's bradley wiggins grabbed the yellow jersey, followed a mere 10 seconds behind by bmc's (and last year's winner) cadel evans. (yesterday's news and prior tour leader, fabian cancellara, fell over a minute and a half back). frank schleck, last year's runner up, is almost four minutes off the pace owing to his misfortune to be part of yesterday's crash. americans teejay van garderen, chris horner, and levi leipheimer are all within four minutes of the lead, (all but levi are ahead of frank schleck), and within the top 30 riders.

current third place rider vincenzo nibali is becoming the talk of the ridership, with comments from wunderkind and teammate peter sagan that he's only getting stronger. (strong words from someone already proven to be among the strongest on the tour). it's both anybody's race, as well as cadel and bradley's little private battle right now.

got chocolate milk? (you've seen the olympic spokespeople haven't you, riffing on gatorade's latest ad campaign with one of their own in favor of chocolate milk?)

i like mine plain, thank you.

wunderkind

matty goss didn't have it. (his team had some hard luck on the way down to the finish line, and popped a chain at the absolute worst moment possible). andre greipel didn't have it. (actually, greipel had everything but the finish going for him today, if you don't count the two crashes he endured on his way to the final line, with his supremely organized team doing the textbook lead-out for the final sprint). the man with it all is once again wunderkind peter sagan, who is making a runaway of the green jersey competition by coming out of nowhere to tug on all the supermen's capes--and he's getting away with it. (in fact, in the process, climbing into the top 10 in the overall standings).

it'll take hours to sort out all the implications of this one.

nascar fan?

i've been told that many nascar fans watch more than the rest for the crashes. these folks, i'm sure, would be loving this year's tour de france--yet again today, like each and every day so far in this year's tour, there has been a massive crash that's sent multiple riders to the hospital, and some of the most unfortunate straight out of the tour entirely. today's wreck towards the rear portion of the peleton with more than 20km to go until the finish has severely damaged, if not outright eliminated, tour hopes of several major riders. (e.g. one of last year's podium finishers, frank schleck, etc.) the hardest luck rider of all may very well be american tom danielson--he's been riding with a separated shoulder suffered in a bad crash days ago in the third stage of the race--who has had to abandon his tour hopes and dreams for today's cycling cataclysm.

post race contretemps have flared with increasing intensity this week as riders call out those perceived to be riding irresponsibly. tonight? you know the conversations will become even more intense.

the penalty this year for not riding at the front of every stage is dear. today's sprint finish will be among a terribly depleted number, given those forced back by misfortune. the good news, if there could ever possibly be any from such unfairness, is that men who seldom are given chance to contend for glory will have theirs today.

my money's on goss this time. his team was making pace at the front when the storm hit, and it's all together intact for the final push. watch 'em roll.

that's when the bats are coming

one of the most intriguing temptations in le tour de france (or any other major bike race of any length) is to break out from the peleton early, and attempt to put the race out of reach before the riders enjoying greater preservation from wind resistance (even more than incline the most sapping of forces against bike riding endurance) become inclined (hehe--see what i did there?) to leverage that advantage and claim the easier win. four riders tried it today, and except for the last few hundred meters of the race, it appeared within their reach to seize it.

of the four, jan ghyselinck took the first final leap towards the line, but he was soon overtaken by pablo urtasun, who, with less than a kilometer to go, (1000 yards or less than a minute of riding time), was climbing the final incline towards the finish line with a purpose. and that's when any bike rider with an ounce or even a milligram of sense knows that the bats are coming. why? because as they say, when you can't hear the bats, that's when the bats are coming.

yet, inexplicably and to my outspoken amazement, (the person watching the race with me today couldn't help but tease me about it), he kept looking around to see the distance.

???

you KNOW the bats are coming. you KNOW the peleton and all those gaudy sprinters are churning up and chewing up the pavement behind you to get their shot at the podium. you KNOW it.

so why ever would you waste momentum and rhythm and break cadence to look???

urtasun was dropped to 25th place by the surge of the peleton at the end, and who knows how many of those places were to be attributed to his all-too-human irresistible urge to turn around and look for the bats coming out of the dark to get him. (ghyselinck was plummeted to 36th). could urtasun have achieved top 10? could he, dare he or any of us dream, have kept enough momentum to have vied to be first?

we will never know.

the bats came for pablo, and he cracked, not least reason for which was turning to look at the inexorable engine of his destruction.

you KNOW the bats are coming.

head down. rhythm intact. cadence sustained.

all you can ever do in life is keep pedaling.

matty goss tried, but andre greipel succeeded.  mark cavendish, even with his team behind him today the way it wasn't earlier in the week, was broken as surely as urtasun and ghyselinck.  the tour gets more and more interesting with every mile!

the anguish of darwin

i've been following with dread two local stories (miraculously via the lowell sun, though i should say, thankfully via rob mills) where several extremely young children have been fighting, one tragically unsuccessfully, for their lives. the first, a 10 month old, has died from having fallen into some water on the property behind his family home. the second and third, ages 3 to 4, are severely burned from having been too close to improperly secured fireworks on their family's back deck.

my ex wife and i made several dangerous choices in the rearing of our brood, and our hearts are broken at the anguish these children's parents face. in our case, we made conscious choices, among other things, to build our home beside a lake, and to heat it with wood. from the moment our children were conceived, we worked tirelessly to respect and confront and mitigate the dangers posed by those potentially-lethal choices. that two families have found themselves on the wrong side of similar risks (drowning and burning) creates a lead weight of dread and sorrow in my chest.

upon moving to lowell over half a decade ago, a friend of mine's father blackly joked that one could always tell the arrival of summer in this city by the sounds of babies in the acre hitting the pavement. i found the disparagement of one particular neighborhood over others to be prejudicially unfair, but i took his point. some years ago a parent of toddlers in my building had been allowing hers to play up on window shelf in her living room in front of but a flimsy screen over one hundred feet up from the pavement below, and my heart was in my throat at just the sight of the potential. i begged her to be more careful for their sakes, yet i know she thought i was being unnecessarily alarmist, and would return to her habit the moment i left. it has troubled my sleep on more than one occasion since. (she has since moved from the building, to what i hope is a much less lofty abode).

but water far and away more than anything else is kryptonite to toddlers. their reflex upon falling into some even just a foot deep is to push reflexively with their arms, which are too short, and their heads too heavy, to save them from anything more than just a few inches in depth. their instinctive panic makes it impossible for them to stand to save themselves. and it takes but a moment for their panicked breath to draw water into their lungs, and render them unconscious. and by a "moment" i mean seconds. as in maybe 10 or 15. it ends that quickly. anyone with children should know this, but anyone with children in constant proximity to water of any depth should have it burned into their brains so as to be thinking of it every waking and sleeping moment of every day. (and, yes, a "kiddie" pool is more than sufficient for this discussion, and perhaps even more so because of its innocuous appearance). a minute outside of sight and mind can be the last minute such a child draws breath on this earth. i know my ex wife and i spent our children's entire young lives burning the same respect for the danger into their brains, and though there were a lot of rules around our house, they all knew that the nowhere-near-water-without-parent rule was inviolate and supreme. yet, even with those admonishments, my ex and i knew that children were children, and it was on nobody else but us to ensure that they never, EVER, strayed near the water without our tirelessly watchful supervision.

i can recall standing RIGHT NEXT to my middle son one afternoon in the shallows, on a hot summer afternoon, and watching in increasing alarm while he lost his balance, fell outside my grasp, and struggled in barely a foot of water. he was RIGHT NEXT to me. in the time it took to hear the splash, look down take the extra step to be right over him and reach down to haul him up, he had swallowed a lungful of water, and he came up spluttering and coughing in tremendous distress. if i had been even a few feet further away on the beach, i am certain he could have been rendered unconscious by just that in just the few seconds that it would have taken me to run to him--and that presumes i would have been watching him specifically and intently, and not for a moment distracted by the common sounds of children splashing in the water to discern the distinction between play and tragedy. i know by the terror i can still vividly recall in his eyes that it was a lesson that was deeply impressed upon him in that moment as well.

all i can do, and all rob mills can do by publishing the tragic cost of failure, is beg parents to understand the risk equivalency to a loaded gun the presence of water of any kind poses to children. i am oh-still-so-cautiously relieved that my children have been taught how to be safe around water, and i can only hope they carry that lesson forward with their genes to my further descendency, though i know any of us is but a single generation removed from the unlearning of such lessons. (i can only hope for their children they have learned this part of the lesson, too). reading today's report of a boat capsizing last night in new york while families were watching fireworks, and that children were thrown into the water and drowned for not having been forced against all objection to be wearing life vests, is no less sobering a tragedy. water kills as surely as it is elemental to our existence.

i am so very sorry for their losses...

as for the risks of fire, these are ironically more acutely and instinctively understood, even if only slightly less lethal. we all tell our children not to play with matches, but, like a standing body of water, a standing stash of combustibles presents an acute and persistent danger often poorly understood and even more poorly managed. children are mimics. they see us light matches and do all sorts of fascinating things with fire, none more fascinating that the wonder of fireworks. i blanch at the inundation lately of apologists and "why not-ists" that massachusetts almost completely alone of all the states (i think there may be three others?) bans the unlicensed possession and use of pyrotechnics. and why shouldn't they be freely legal?

i'll tell you one possibility why: a family in pelham new hampshire, universally recognized by their neighbors for having been among the safest and most deliberate about their fireworks over the years, grieves for two small defenseless children who are badly (life-threateningly i fear) burned as a result of premature ignition of their 2012 stash. i cannot help but wonder if by their burns being the worst of the family (all burned in the tragedy) those children were closest to the pile when it went off, and, by being closest to that pile, unwittingly complicit in the combustion?

our wood stoves were surrounded by nested layers of defenses, most prominent of which was a rank of wooden fencing (yes, right there in the house) upon which not even childish hands were to be put upon. like the no-water-without-parents rule, there were no exceptions, and the punishments were sharp and severe for any infractions. even minor expressions of curiosity were met with discussions and demonstrations and repeated remonstrations for the reasons for and importance of the rules. they were taught all the mechanics of proper fire starting, the same way they were taught from infancy about swimming. but they were never handed an unattended match, nor let stray from arm's reach near the water or the wood, because my ex and i knew that nobody but nobody but us, least of all our children, were responsible except for us. i know both were risks that we took, and that tragedy was but a knock on the door away. so we barely slept lest we fail in our vigilance.

i fear that two families have learned hard lessons about the inadequacy of perhaps even as much as my ex wife and i did. i know that darwin has a bit to say about what might have been less...