Too Little, Too Late

Boston’s Real Estate Cafe is having a coffee meetup to talk about projected ten percent decline in the price of single-family homes in the next year. I don’t know what to say except “woohoo?” Loss of population, price declines, and the MBTA aside, housing in these parts is still too scarce, too expensive, and too far from public transit. For as long as I’ve been paying attention, the problems have been obvious and the solutions have been simple, if unpopular (Dense mixed-income housing! In your colonial town!)

Meanwhile, The Times tells me that Bernanke is “clamping down on exotic and subprime mortgages,” something that’s been obviously necessary for at least four years. Keep this up, boys, and you just might get the barn door closed by the time the horse gets bored of romping around the farmyard and decides to come back out of the rain.

I Spit On Your Grave

More and more on the legacy of Jesse Helms. I’m not saying he was a bad person or a racist, but he spent years railing against “pinkos” and “Yankees,” thought that Martin Luther King and the civil rights movement were fronts for communism, socialism and sex perversion, and that Social Security was a terrible idea. When Carol Moseley-Braun was elected to the Senate, he sang “Dixie.” He thought that interracial marriages were abominations. He thought that AIDS research was a waste because gay people deserved it. In response to a protest in Mexico he said that “Latins are volatile people…. I was not surprised at the volatile reaction.” He refused to attend a joint session of congress addressed by Nelson Mandela.

Oh, wait, I am saying he was a racist and a bad person.

I’m sure I could find common ground with him on something, at some point. Perhaps I could be convinced that the NEA is probably not the best use of government money, or that kids these days are up to no good. But blocking treaties against the use of land mines? Why not just vote that puppies and kittens should be stomped to death?

This Is The Year Of The Milf

Best headline of the week: MILF frees 2 Marines abducted in Basilan. The Milf in this case is not a yummy mummy, but in fact the Moro Islamic Liberation Front. I’m sure the mullahs in that group are thrilled every time they search for news of their latest military attack and find nothing but pornography.

OK, I’m thrilled by that idea. I don’t know what anyone else thinks about it. Also I’m highly amused by the idea of two marines being held captive by hot moms. How easy do you think it would be do develop Stockholm Syndrome in that case, eh boys?

Status

Is updating his status
Is misquoting song lyrics
Can’t tell which way the wind is blowing
Is wondering what “friends” really means these days
Can tell you there’s no more road to ride
Is you know, OK, I guess, you know, it’s hard to say
Is calling in shoutouts on the radio
Is wondering what became of the past
Can’t step away from the computer
Can’t look away
Keeps updating his status

Privacy, Recalls, Itching

Privacy: It didn’t really exist prior to the industrial revolution in any meaningful way. Nor does it exist now that we have so much electronic monitoring. It seems to have been something that happened roughly for 100-and-some years starting shortly after 1900.

Paying $15,000 – $30,000 for a motorcycle does not guarantee a well-programmed fuel injection system or reliable sprockets: Ducati has issued a recall for its top-of-the-line 1098 motorcycles.

Oh my god, shingles can cause you to scratch a hole all the way through your skull and damage your brain: “Only in the Emergency Department at Massachusetts General Hospital, after the doctors started swarming, and one told her she needed surgery now, did M. learn what had happened. She had scratched through her skull during the night—and all the way into her brain.”

Cambridge Street Between Charles/MGH And Government Center

Short list of things I have seen on Cambridge Street while walking to and from work this month:

  • A man wheeling a 25-pound sack of MSG into a restaurant.
  • A woman who looked like she’d just been released from MGH, sitting in a doorway, picking listlessly at the bandages around her wrists.
  • A man in scrubs who looked like he’d just gotten off work, ducking into a Beacon Hill doorway to drink from a tall-boy in a paper bag.
  • A brown late-80s Chevy station wagon in the early stages of being converted to donk awesomeness: The body was ugly but rust-free, the vinyl interior was badly cracked, and the owner had installed enormous speakers and even more enormous chrome wheels (22 inches at least).
  • A Ducati 1098 S piloted by a man wearing khakis and sneakers, who took both hands off the handlebars while moving to adjust his gloves. Contrary to all rules of schadenfreude and justice, he didn’t drop it.