Category: Thoughts

Newscasts plus Auto-Tune plus some inspired silliness equals… club-worthy rhymes about how the Supreme Court really does need another female voice. It’s at least as danceable as, and significantly more informative than, the top-40 hot R&B hits about having the number 1 ring-tone.

Things I have learned recently:

From the NYT on tattoo history: “The red star trademark of Macy’s department store, we learn, might well have evolved from the tattoo that the store’s founder, Rowland Macy, had on his arm when he sailed on a whaling ship.”

The word bombora is an Australian aboriginal term for places where big, big waves break over offshore rocks. Bomboras represent a navigation hazard and an awesome surfing challenge. (Learned this reading Breath, by Tim Winton, a story of risk, death, coming-of-age, and the origins of big-wave surfing.

Texas governor Rick Perry hates interference from Washington and would consider secession, but not before getting $11 million from the feds to rebuild his mansion.

There’s a strong correlation between Wealth, education, and liberalism, and a converse correlation between poverty, ignorance, and voting for McCain.

(Please note: This is a motorcycle geek post. If you don’t care, skip it).

A lot of people dislike the rules of the relatively new Daytona Sportbike class in AMA racing, feeling that it gives an unfair advantage to Buell. After all, the Japanese and British manufacturers are running bikes with around 600 cubic centimeter engines, and the Americans and Italians are running literbikes. And as we all know, there’s no replacement for displacement.

Well, that’s the whole point of Daytona Sportbike, to my mind: There is a replacement, and it’s a combination of more revolutions per minute, lighter weight, and better handling. Buell riders do seem to have a real advantage on the straightaways, but on a curvier track, the Japanese bikes definitely outmaneuver them. And that’s what I really find interesting about the class and about its rules – the way it pits bulk against agility.

You can make a variety of arguments for and against different portions of the rules, and I don’t doubt that they’ll need further tweaking as the bikes develop and the races continue. But on the whole, the Daytona Sportbike class seems to be providing entertaining racing and plenty of fodder for ongoing trash-talking between fans of liter-class and mid-weight sportbikes.

Today’s insane New England real estate listing: Nice Single Fam Home in need of a little TLC…. Close to restaurants and transportation.”

The street address: McGrath Hwy. Well, I suppose it’s technically a highway onramp rather than on the highway itself. Still, it’s kind of brazen Realtor-speak to use “close to transportation” to mean “actually on the highway.” The listing has no picture but look at the google map here and spin it around so you can see the view from the front steps:

The kicker: They’re asking $379,000 for it, although the agent says they’ll consider offers from $349 and up. Bad Realtor! Not only have they misdescribed the house, failed to include any pictures in the listing, and failed to help the seller pick a reasonable sale price, but they’re undermining the seller by announcing they’re interested in lowball offers.

I’m not one of those knee-jerk tax opponents. I don’t enjoy paying taxes, of course, but I’m well aware that they are the entry fee for civil society. I appreciate the existence of police and fire services, public education, parks, public health, bridges, transit, and so on. I have no intention of moving to New Hampshire to escape “socialism.”

Even when I read about crippling pension and health care costs for state and city agencies, I wonder whether people who rail against them are merely jealous that only government employees get a safety net that everyone really ought to have.

And yet, when every day seems to bring a story like this one, about how the Boston Redevelopment Authority has two full-time model builders with “few regular responsibilities” and salaries that wind up in six figures with overtime, I wonder how the legislature can justify a sales tax increase without any kind of institutional reform. Daniel Gross says that operational efficiencies are the next mine of productivity improvements – maybe we need to look into that. And into firing some people. And probably eliminating a few extra city and state agencies, notably the widely deplored Turnpike Authority and Boston Redevelopment Authority.

It’s the same thing I say every time the MBTA gives me a survey to fill out: I’d gladly pay more for my fare if I thought you weren’t just wasting the money I give you now.

If you haven’t seen it yet, this picture of one of the statues in Davis Square seems to me like a very good indication of the zeitgeist: On the one hand, we’re all worried. On the other hand, we know our worry is absurd. So, we put silly ineffective masks on statues.

As long as we feel like we’re doing something, it doesn’t matter whether the thing we do is actually effective or even relevant.

The special environmental-message uniforms will only be worn once.

Kate says exactly what I was feeling. Puma and the Volvo Ocean Racing series have a Station Domination campaign up in Park Street Station, and it’s all “Habah” and “Stopovah” and “Dance Floah.”

It’s trite. It’s been done. It’s kind of insulting. And it’s definitely counterproductive.

Probably fewer than 20% of the people who walk through that station have a “Boston accent.” Those that do would probably tell you there’s more than one regional accent, and none of the variations is well-represented by just replacing “R” with “AH” in a billboard. Even if they did write it accurately, it’s pretty condescending. You wouldn’t try to reach the urban market with a half-assed parody of hip-hop slang, would you? Wait, don’t answer that. (Yes, I’m looking at you, Boost Mobile).

Most importantly, it’s an ad that just won’t work. It marks the advertiser as an outsider desperate to fit in, as a tourist, as an out-of-towner. You might as well walk the Freedom Trail in khaki shorts, sandals with socks, a tricorner hat and a t-shirt with a lobster on it. That’s definitely not the image Puma wants, but it’s what they’re getting.

Seriously, if you’re going to spend that much money on a media buy, why waste it with an idea that’s so bad on so many different levels?

Just like the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, the National Organization for Marriage has reprehensible goals, dubious methods, and a hilarious acronym.

Here’s their ad about how gay marriage will cause us all to be struck by lightning:

They are humorless, and yet they actually go by the name NOM.

UniversalHub and co are having a rally in defense of the Boston Globe. And while I think a good newspaper is a good thing, and will probably feel nostalgic for it, I wonder if there’s really much left to save. It’s already, de facto, a regional edition of the New York Times. You might as well acknowledge that, and cut it back to a metro desk and local art coverage, and just run wire stories. At which point it would be… well… a daily version of the Phoenix or the Dig.

And there are plenty of people who would really cheer if the Globe shut down entirely: Paper Economy blames it as being a cheerleader of the corrupt, sinful, unsustainable practices of the past fifteen years of economic malfeasance.