First Snow

Today was the first snow accumulation I've seen this season, despite it being barely visible anywhere yet, ...at least as of mid-afternoon today.

As we drove back into town from Looneyberg this afternoon, I kept noticing accumulations on the sides of the road, on and off. It's just barely a layer to make it look white, but enough to qualify for our first snow of the season.

I started taking shots of the sides of the road, as soon as we got into Worcester. When we got home, though, the yard was pretty much covered.

Stranger In The House

We got a new kitty today.

Kathy spent some time on the Pat Brody Shelter website over the last few days, and the long and the short of it is that we now have a new lord of the universe. He's a cross between a siamese lilac point and a ragdoll, nine months old.

We had gone up to look at another cat that Kathy had found on the website, and we spent about a half hour with that cat. But the whole time we were in that particular cat room, this other cat kept demanding my attention. It was, in fact, another of the cats that Kathy had in mind when she made the appointment to go up there today.

...AND he matches the couch.

The $70 An Hour Myth

I found it outrageous to think that the big three automakers would be getting a bailout when autoworkers were making an average of $70 per hour.

It turns out they've already taken some serious pay cuts, and average around $28 per hour with about $10 per hour average in benefits. It's the "labor burden" that adds up to $70 per hour of actual work when the cost of paying retiree benefits is included.

Piloting PILOT

This certainly is a surprise!

B.I.C. 25 - part 5

As you can see in this picture, they smoothed it over pretty nicely.

Driving over it, there's no more bump. So, we have to give them good marks on this finalized step in the month and a half process of covering up a hole in the road, and restoring the road surface.

I still can't figure why it had to take six and half weeks for them to get that final one or two inches of ashphalt onto this, though.

It'll be interesting to see how it stands up through the winter.

Blind Faith

I'm no champion of dogmatic belief systems. I do like to think that when I'm going to read a pop-sci article written by a real scientist, that I'm not going to have to wade through any dogmatic religious assumptions. But, unfortunately, there is often a sort of blindly profferred religious dogma embedded in what would otherwise be considered science based articles. In this case, it's from an anthropologist named Meredith F. Small, and the article she wrote is entitled, "The Human Soul: An Ancient Idea".

The whole slant of her column is tainted by her implied personal belief that there's no such thing as the human soul, that it's somehow a quaint and backward idea, that the majority of reasoning human beings in this world have "gotten past" this childishness. It's an assumption that she clearly states when she says of the soul: "...there's no evidence that such a thing really exists."

It's a precise claim, apparently scientific in its "spirit" and easily agreed to on the surface of its seemingly authoritative source. But it's completely false. There's plenty of evidence that the human soul exists. If one were to weigh the evidence for or against the existence of the human soul, then the testimony of the overwhelming majority of people alive today would have to count as "evidence". Even in her column, Small frames a history of this sort of testimony going back 200,000 years. So, how can she assert that there's no "evidence"?

Certainly, there's no scientific proof that the human soul exists. We can definitely make that claim. But lack of proof is hardly any basis for a conclusion that something doesn't exist. There's no doubt that many people do come to this conclusion, however, based upon the absence of any proof to the contrary. When people do so, I will generally be motivated to maintain that they've entered into the realm of belief, dogma, and blind faith... and stepped completely outside the confines of science.

Small's apparent disbelief in the soul can't be a result of any scientific process or any objective, rational method of sifting through facts, because there are no scientific facts to sift through. It's an entirely subjective, and quite religiously based conclusion. And in being so dogmatically attached to this belief, she yet manages to couch her subjective position on the matter as a tacit, yet clearly implied statement of scientific fact.

Frankly, the power of blind faith like hers never ceases to amaze me.

But I would never want to ridicule anyone for believing what they believe. Instead, I just get annoyed at people like Meredith F. Small when they write such a piece of thinly disguised contempt for those who believe differently than they do. This sort of slant in popular science writing has been evident on a wide basis ever since I was a kid.

For the purpose of defining what is and isn't religious dogma, it just doesn't matter what one chooses to believe, whether the soul exists or doesn't exist. Any conclusion one could make would be a religious one, a matter of personal, subjective preference... and about as "religious" as a person can possibly get.

B.I.C. 25 - episode 4

Today, the Bump Installation Crew switched hats and became the "20 minute road patch" crew.

It's only been six and half weeks since they created a bump in the road, right outside in front of my house. And I've been keeping a jaundiced eye on that spot ever since, hoping that they might demonstrate how to restore a road surface after digging a hole in the street.

There's always hope...

Of course, having a bump in the road for a month and a half kinda takes the edge off any perfection they might have achieved today.

I'll be going out to MacDuff's tonight, so I'll make a point of testing it out. I'm sure anyone who reads this blog will be eagerly awaiting my conclusions...

A Mighty Zephyr

Today is the first time I've gone up to the school campus to take a look at the completed wind generator at Holy Name High School. Up close like this, it's just plain gargantuan!

Last week, I noticed that the wind generator didn't seem to be turning. It was a pretty windy day, too. A couple days later, I spotted a blurb in the paper about how some cables twisted while it was trying to turn into the wind, and they were working on repairing it.

I didn't see anybody up there working on it today.

Bletch Friday

The day after Thanksgiving is called "Black Friday" because that's the day each year that retailers have traditionally been able to look forward to "being in the black" for the year.

Honestly, I didn't know this until last year.

This year, Black Friday may never actually come for many retailers, though...

Circuit City, for instance, is going into Chapter 11 Bankruptcy.


But the tradition of the Black Friday waiting line is still in full swing today. Here's a YouTube video clip made by a disappointed uploader in Utah who went to a Best Buy at 3 am last night, but the line was too long. This clip is a five minute collection of interviews someone did last night at a Best Buy in North Carolina. At 3 am last night, someone named "3amJosh" made this clip at an IHOP in South Carolina. Here's a blog post and video clip from a Baltimore radio show host who went to the local Wal-Mart this morning at 5 am and had the "CRAZIEST shopping experience" of her life.

All things considered, I just can't get into the spirit of waiting in line to buy something, though. I mean, if I have to wait in a long cash register line to pay for something, I'll just park the shopping cart and leave. ...I guess that probably comes under the heading of "old buzzardry" though, eh?

The really silly thing about all this is that, even if I did want to take advantage of any of today's specials, I can do so without even leaving the house. Wal-Mart will sell me today's "in-store specials" online, all I have to do is pick a store. Same thing with Best Buy, Sears, and even the now bankrupt Circuit City. In fact, from what I could see in my quick glance while digging up the URL's, there are plenty of "online only" deals today, deals that the line waiters would never be able to get in the stores.

Why wait in line?

Happy Thanksgiving

When I was a kid, our family would go over to my great-Aunt Laura's on North Street in Grafton for Thanksgiving Day dinner. The house is still there, a couple doors up past Pigeon Hill Road...

I just checked Google maps to see if there's a street view (there isn't), ...and it says that that road off of North Street is named Chestnut Street. That's the trouble with getting old, because I could've sworn that was Pigeon Hill Road. It goes up to Pigeon Hill, but maybe they decided to re-name it Chestnut Hill. Or maybe it was always called Chestnut Street and I just forgot.

The only other explanation I can think of is that I really have slipped into an alternate universe...

Anyway, my Aunt Laura's house is still there on North Street. It almost seems like yesterday when I recall what it was like to step into that house on Thanksgiving Day...

It wasn't a big place inside, as we basically all collected in the kitchen and the room where the TV was. It seemed even smaller with over a dozen and a half people, too. Us kids had very little to do. We could either watch the Thanksgiving Day Parade on TV, listen to whatever the adults were talking about in either room, or go outside and freeze (it was always very cold on Thanksgiving back then, ...before global warming). Our role as "the children" was pretty much to be as unobtrusive as possible.

The day centered around the feast. My Aunt Laura had a free standing broiler that she used to cook the turkey. And the turkey was always absolutely, positively delicious! She would get the turkey from Mazza's, out by Silver Lake. There's nothing like a local, range-fed turkey. I mean, you can do whatever you think might enhance the butterballs and the frozen boulders they sell in the supermarket, but a fresh-killed range-fed turkey is absolutely unbeatable!

I think the ultimate Thanksgiving experience, which I've never actually had... and probably never will... would be to go out into the woods and chase down the turkey you want for Thanksgiving. I mean, literally, chase it down without any weapons and catch it with your bare hands. And then, if/when you actually catch the bird, then you have to just strangle it on the spot. No knife, no axe, just strangle it with your bare hands. Then carry it back to a table or the tailgate of an SUV, and pluck it and dress it with a hunting knife, out there in the cold.

Certainly, such a scenario wouldn't make any heads nod in agreement at a PETA meeting. And I can hardly expect that any vegetarian or vegan readers will have read that last paragraph with any reaction other than horror, or at the very least a wholly negative one. But that process of hunting, killing, and dressing the Thanksgiving turkey would, in my opinion, lend some level of personal experience to what this holiday might really be all about... Maybe throw in a whole season of trying to grow the vegetables, too.

I don't personally know of anybody that gets anywhere even remotely close to that kind of Thanksgiving Day, harvest celebration experience, though. Instead, those of us who aren't vegetarians or vegans tend to merely go through the motions of this feast from a consumerist point of view, and a viewpoint that would prefer to not ever think about where the turkey might actually come from.

And I can't really see how hangin' out with friends and relatives for the central purpose of overeating has anything to do with Pilgrims, either...

Nope.

The real, true, and original meaning of Thanksgiving is now probabaly lost forever. Today, Thanksgiving is simply a tradition. And I think it's a really important tradition, cuz employers have to pay you for the day off.

Any day that they have to pay you for not going to work is a tradition worth keeping, wouldn't you say? And any excuse for friends and family to gather is a tradition worth keeping, too.

Enjoy the day off, relax and enjoy whatever feast you may partake of today. And then get plenty of rest tonight...

Tomorrow, tradition dictates that we must shop.

Update: Here's another tradition for this day: Alice's Restaurant.

Update2: This piece is an interesting historical perspective on the actual development of the day as a declared holiday, beginning in revolutionary times.

The Great Big Empty

Here's a shot taken from the corner of Washington and Gold, looking southwest.

This all used to be covered with large factory buildings, back when the commercial property in the city added up to 35% of the taxable base.

Today, it's all just empty space straddling Madison Street, and bordered by Washington, Gold, New Salem, Hermon, and Lamartine.

I like to take Harrison to Gold to Madison when I want to get from Grafton Hill to Chandler Street, so I go by this spot quite often.

Peering Into The Future

When I read the liveblog of last night's City Council meeting, I was struck by the two predictions said to have been made by Phil Palmieri (scroll down to the entry at 8:32 pm).

First, according to the liveblog notes, CitySquare "...is due for an announcement in the next few weeks."

Second, selling the airport "...is a couple months away."

Hmmmm.... well...

Is it just me? Or has the credibility capital been completely exhausted on this sort of thing?

Dual Tax Rate

Predictably, the Worcester City Council voted for the lowest residential tax rate last night. And, just as predictably, at least one person on the City Council wants to revisit the dual tax rate...

Is there any cause and effect relationship between the dual tax rate and the decline in the commercial property tax base in Worcester? Well... it's property we're talking about here, not necessarily businesses. It's true that both have declined, but what businesses are we talking about, and what properties are we talking about?

When discussing property, the only real effect here is whether it's more fiscally sound to leave an empty building standing in Worcester, or to tear it down. How else can the commercial property base actually decline, unless buildings are disappearing, or they are being converted to residential use? The fact is, those buildings that have disappeared from the commercial base over the last 25 years would've disappeared under a single tax rate, too. In fact, under a single tax rate, there probably would be a helluva lot less condos, and a lot fewer buildings left standing, at this point.

The cause and effect between the dual tax rate and the decline in business is, however, non-existent. Much broader, long-term, national and international forces have effected the decline of businesses in Worcester over the last quarter century.

Moving forward, on the other hand, the dual tax rate can clearly be seen as a potential deterrent for attracting new businesses to locate here. In that wise, it's clearly more fiscally sound for a business to construct a new building elsewhere.

It's my understanding that under prop 2-1/2, they'd have to raise the residential rate by no more than 2-1/2% every year, over the course of a number of years, in order to get to a single tax rate. Maybe they should've started doing that a long time ago. Still, had they actually done it, and were we now at the point of having a single tax rate in Worcester, ...hasn't anybody figured out that it would still be far higher than the tax rates for alternative locations nearby?

I mean, this argument that it's tough on businesses... this argument that the commercial tax rate in Worcester is higher than the tax rates for surrounding towns... you'll never see that go away, no matter what changes are made. And in that wise, I truly feel a sense of sympathy for the politicians on the City Council, because they really are between a rock and a hard place on this one!

Wetness

This is a cellphone cam shot taken this afternoon while driving inbound on Grafton Street, just before Valmor.

I've been practicing lately... taking cellphone pics while driving.

It'll be six months this week since I was last driving a cab on a daily basis. When I decided to take the summer off, just before Memorial Day, I figured I'd go back right after Labor Day.

Well...

I drove two days at the beginning of September. But I've managed to talk myself out of going in every morning, ever since.

Here's a shot I took while driving outbound on Grafton Street, right around Mendon.

I forget what excuse I gave myself for not going in on Monday morning. It was a good excuse, though... Even though I had planned to definitely go in and see if any cabs would be available that morning, and I had even updated my paperwork at the garage the week before...

I figure if I just go out and drive around for awhile (every day that I manage to talk myself out of going back to work), then I'll get the hang of it in a few days... especially if I take a lot of pictures with the cellphone camera.

Of course, now that I've pissed away most of my reserve cash, I have to go back to work whether I want to or not.

I like this shot, which is looking into Keese Street from Grafton Street, because off to the left there are two cruisers in a tete-a-tete. It's a good spot for cruisers to sit and watch for nutcase drivers, just about any time of day or night. Now that the new fire station is open, they ought to put a satellite police station right there under the bridge, just to round things off.

Wish me luck, ...and more to the point, wish me some freakin' ambition for this coming Monday morning. If I keep talking myself out of working every morning, the inertia will take over and I'll just sit here and stare blankly out the window for the rest of eternity.

Propaganda You Can Believe In - cont'd

I guess I'm not the only one who can add, subtract, multiply, and divide...

A couple of days ago, I focused on the jobless numbers that got tossed around, but Mankiw's simple calculations on cost/benefit are just as revealing.

Imagine if they actually taught everyone in public schools how to spot these simple mathematical incongruities?

First Snow - any day now

We're getting close... The national weather service is predicting chances of snow for tonight, Thursday night, Friday night, and also on Saturday.

Vegetarian and Vegan Turkeys

No, really, ...it's not only true, but a lot more expensive, too!

Swedish Drum Machine

A truly innovative substitute for percussion.

Who Writes This Stuff?

The anonymous pontificators at the T&G are at it again today. Although I tend to have a long list of pros and cons regarding whether the dual tax rate should be eliminated, the argument for it needs to cite facts, not typos.

These numbers were cited: "In an article on today’s Commentary page, Richard B. Kennedy, president of the Worcester Regional Chamber of Commerce, points out that commercial-industrial property, which was 35 percent of the tax base in 1984, is 19 percent today, while residential property has gone from 25 percent in 1984 to 81 percent."

Here's what Mr. Kennedy actually wrote: "In 1984, businesses accounted for roughly 35 percent of the total tax base and shouldered 45 percent of the tax burden. Conversely, residents accounted for 66.5 percent of the tax base and about 55 percent of the tax burden."

I mean, c'mon guys... the numbers were right there in the same daily issue of your own paper!

Nuisance Ordinance Team (NOT)

Today, the City Dictator replied to Dianne Williamson's Sunday column. Her column on Sunday was a letter concerning someone being cited for raking leaves into the street "too early" in Worcester, ...which left me speechless.

Today, after reading the City Dictator's response, I'm truly amazed.

Here, for example, is an amazing quote, "We allow residents to bag their leaves and bring them to our three yard waste sites..."

Thank you, Mr. City Dictator, for ALLOWING us to bag our leaves and bring them to a yard waste site.

Here's another one, "The Nuisance Ordinance Team traverses the city weekly, one day behind the trash route, enforcing existing city ordinances..."

Really? How many goldbricks get to run around every week on this cherry job? They've been doing it since March? How did they manage to miss the condition of the city sidewalk on Davis Street in all this time?

Maybe they can re-name the Nuisance Ordinance Team (NOT) to the Special Nuisance Ordinance Team (SNOT), then at least they'd be aptly named.

Making News Disappear

On CNN yesterday, Steve Forbes is reported to have called Treasury Secretary Paulson the worst Treasury Secretary we've had in modern times, according to the Huffington Post.


But if you follow the link back to the source at CNN, ...it's gone!

I spent a few minutes doing searches for "forbes" and "paulson" on the CNN website, but the only link for this story at CNN is "Sorry, but you are looking for something that isn't here."

Front to Back

I was sitting here this morning at a red light, looking at the spot where Front Street is supposed to break through and connect up directly with Washington Square, and it occured to me that it's been many years since the idea first bubbled up into the wind... this idea that the furniture might be rearranged downtown...

It would be difficult to pinpoint when, exactly, I first heard this idea. Maybe it was back when Clinton was still President. I remember hearing about it, or maybe reading about it, and before I could apply any slightest reasoning to it, the thought bubbled up into my consciousness, "Gee, what a stupid idea!"

But... well... there it was. And, honestly, I don't really consider it was a stupid idea, that was just a knee jerk reaction at the outset.

By the time the idea had progressed from a mere whisper of a rumor, and began taking on a more solid footing in the real world, I have to say that I was really enthused about that kind of a change.

I've been looking forward to it for so long now, though, that it seems like all I'm really doing is looking back on it.

Prov and Dot

A crossing guard keeps the traffic at bay at Providence and Dorchester Streets, this morning around 7:30.

The intersection is often called "Prov and Dot" by cab drivers and dispatchers.

Pardon Me?

Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Legal Recourse

I thought that the ultimate in liability cases had been reached when someone sued McDonald's for the injury they suffered when they spilled hot coffee on themselves. Honestly, I couldn't see how that suit could've been successfully pursued, but it was, and now we have those stupid warnings on coffee... y'know, about how it's hot?... and how we have to be careful?

Sheesh!

Anyway, I really thought that was the ultimate, but like any absurdity that I might think could never be surpassed, now there's a suit against McDonald's that I really can't believe is actually happening in the real world...

Things like this only lend more credence to the idea that I've somehow slipped into an alternate universe.

Propaganda You Can Believe In

You don't need a calculator to add up the numbers on this one. (On second thought, maybe you do.)

Barack Obama says he's going to save or create 2.5 million jobs over the course of two years with a "stimulus plan" at some point after he's sworn in as President in January.

That's nice.

During November, the rolling average of new unemployment claims has been over a half a million per week. Initial jobless claims last week totalled 542,000. That's over a half a million in one week! During the past year, it's been running between 200,000 and 300,000 a week, on average.

So, Barry's two year stimulus plan will save or create one to three months' worth of lost jobs?

The curious nature of statistical reporting shows its face in the third paragraph from the bottom in the T&G article (first link, above) where they say, "With about 1.2 million jobs lost this year, and more projected to be lost in 2009..." But how can a potential workforce of about 200 million be experiencing an annual average "unemployment rate" of over 5% for the year, based on new weekly unemployment claims, and have it only add up to 1.2 million? My calculator says that 5% of 200 million is 10 million. Did they put the decimal point in the right place?

I mean, really... Barry's weekly YouTube address just isn't doing it for me, and neither is the MSM's constant gushing. But if the President-elect says that only 1.2 million jobs were lost over the past year, I suppose it now must be true, eh?

Of course, that means that the American workforce now totals only about 25 million people...

I wonder who Barry will appoint as his Minister of Truth?... Winston Smith?

Leaves Me Speechless

Dianne Williamson's column today is the epitome of a Dianne Williamson column.

Protecting the city from the "nuisance" of leaves lying on the side of the street "too early" for the fall street cleaning is certainly in keeping with the City of Worcester's penchant for utter insanity. How about getting some of those city employees to grab some weed wackers and rakes and clean up city sidewalks like the one I took a picture of here?

Oh... I'm sorry... I forgot. They have union contracts. If the city's number one employee were to try to get one of those other city employees to do any sort of physical labor, each one of those fat, overpaid goldbricks feeding at the public trough could reply, "...that's not my job."

Auto Bailout Myths

The most succinct and sane piece I've found that explains why the big three automakers in Detroit should NOT be bailed out was published in WSJ yesterday.

Personally, I found more evidence while talking to a ham radio operator a couple of weeks ago. He had a two-way HF radio in the cab of his semi-trailer, and he drives all over the country, delivering freight. When I talked to him, he was sitting in a parking lot next to the loading docks at Ford, waiting to unload parts that are used to build cars. He had been waiting there four hours when I talked to him. Everyone he had asked about where to back his rig up to in order unload had told him, "...that's not my job."

Worcester State College LVTV

Aside from the blurb at the WSC webpage listing student organizations, there's no further evidence that anything might be going on with the Apple based video editing system called Final Cut, ...unless you go to YouTube and check out the LancerVision Channel.



These kids have posted 44 video clips on YouTube since March, and they certainly evidence a lot of talent and a great sense of humor. Most of the stuff is shot on campus. I wonder what would happen if they started shooting video out in public, asking townies perplexing questions and goofing on the Big Woo?...

November 22nd

Forty-five years ago today, John F. Kennedy was shot to death in Dallas, Texas. I remember it like it was yesterday. Until the morning of 9-11-01, I considered the assassination of our 35th President to be the most significant event of my lifetime...

Now, this day is hardly even noted. The last reference I saw a modern day politician make to this event was last month when John McCain referred to it as the intervention.

Quite frankly, I spent most of my life believing that things couldn't get any weirder than they did after Kennedy was killed. I was wrong.

And I always felt that there would be no possible way that I'd ever forget what happened on November 22nd in Dallas. But I was wrong about that, too. I was awake for at least two hours this morning before I remembered.

A Slight Incongruity

A week ago Thursday, I linked to this YouTube video clip taken from the security camera at Randell's Package store on Canterbury Street. At about 35 seconds in, it shows people running out of the San Miguel grocery store across the street. Bill Randell had posted it to YouTube on November 12th, apparently, because he found out that it showed a robbery just after 5 pm on November 11th.

The second item in today's regional digest section at the T&G describes one of those robbers who was caught, and says that he was one of two people who robbed the store.

The security camera video clip on YouTube, however, clearly shows three people running out of the store.

Worcester Airport - commercial flights resume

The first DirectAir flight out of Punta Gorda, Florida will be arriving at the Worcester Regional Airport tomorrow morning.

This article talks about Direct Air's commencement of operations for Punta Gorda. It says that the first flight from there to Worcester will leave the Charlotte County Airport at 7 am tomorrow. According to the DirectAir website timetable page, the flight should arrive in Worcester at 9:50 am.

Something Happening in Clinton

After an article in the T&G showed up on Tuesday, a post at No Drumlins appeared, questioning whether the reporter at the T&G might have some conflict of interest.

It got even more interesting yesterday.

Happy Birthday, Jim!

Today is Rep (D) James P. McGovern's birthday. He's 49 years old today. Jim shares his birthday with Sean Young, Bo Derek, Joe Walsh, Duane Allman, Norman Greenbaum, Dick Smothers, Jim Garrison, Joe Biden (VP-elect), Alistair Cooke, Robert F. Kennedy, and Edwin Hubble.

Videotaping the Police

In many cases, police have insisted that you're violating the wiretap laws if you videotape them in public, while they are in uniform.

Well, I suppose they can insist all they want, but it can get expensive.

Quote of the Week

.
"Once upon a time, live music reigned supreme in Worcester."

- Janice Harvey in WoMag

(There's actually a lot more live music here in town these days than there ever was in the 60's, 70's, 80's OR the 90's.)
.

The Incongruity

A perplexing incongruity from Strange Maps:

Divine Right of Kinks

Andrew Sullivan has discovered the legal underpinnings for arguing in favor of setting the secular law to deny homosexuals in California the right to get married.

GM Needs a Bailout?

Nice to see how they'll actually use the money.

The Drug Wars - In It for the Money

Mexico's top Interpol representative was arrested Sunday.

More than 4300 are dead so far this year in the Mexican drug war, more than the official US count of servicemen killed during the entire Iraq War. This is all happening right across our border. And for what? They're fighting over agricultural products that, because they are declared illegal here in the United States, are worth a whole helluva lot more than they would be if they were legal.

"There's no easy solution to it unless you put an end to the criminalization of drugs, and that's not going to happen," said Robert Pastor, a former national security adviser to President Jimmy Carter and now a professor of international relations at American University in Washington. He has been studying Latin America for more than four decades.

Sadly, Mr. Pastor speaks the truth when he says that putting an end to the criminalization of drugs isn't going to happen.

It won't happen because too many powerful interests are making too much money.

Dear Drivers of Worcester

Heh.

Don Davison

I'm glad to see that Dianne Williamson was willing to find out what's going on with Don.

I used to be acquainted with Don Davison, the Shrewsbury school bus driver who's been vilified for "reckless endangerment of a child" over the past several days. Actually, I haven't had any slightest contact with him for years, but he was one of the older crop of kids that I grew up with in Grafton. He's five years older than me, so it isn't like I hung out with him. But his family were members of the same church my family went to. I had plenty of interactions with him, none of which I could have ever characterized as negative. I knew his younger sister and brother. I knew his Mom and Dad.

They were and are, everyone in that family, good people.

Frankly, I can't believe that the local press is so starved for content that a story such as this could even merit the ink that was used to print it before the rest of the story, as Dianne has now revealed, makes it such a non-event.

Unfortunately for Don, it all had to happen in a town where all the children are perfect, and about whom there could be no question.

Selling the T&G

An article in the Herald today rambles on about the potential sale of NYT assets here in Massachusetts. It goes at the subject from the angle of "who will save" the Globe, something that doesn't seem likely to me. It doesn't seem likely because I can hardly imagine Arthur Sulzberger Jr. buying high and selling low...

The Globe and the T&G were purchased by NYT in 1996. They got the Globe for $1.1 billion, and they got the T&G for $296 million. In 2003, the New England Media Group was formed, which includes the Globe, T&G, and Boston.com. (It may have other assets, but I'm too lazy to keep searching.) Since January 2007, the value of the NEMG has dropped by $980 million. That decrease would, proportionately, put the T&G's value down to around $88 million at that point. But I suspect that it's much worse than that now.

The really painful thing about this is that the prospect of NYT selling assets would be based on how much it could raise to pay off debt. The debt could not be discharged by selling the T&G, that's for sure! The entire NEMG probably isn't enough, either. So, ultimately, the article settles on NYT's 17% piece of the Red Sox as the carrot on the stick that might do the trick... and the NEMG would be tossed in, just to get rid of the constant red ink.

It's a somewhat ugly situation, isn't it?

The question really isn't "who will save" either the Globe or the T&G, though. The question should be, "What are all those talented reporters and columnists doing to prepare for the inevitable?"

I really don't think they get it. I'd be willing to bet that most of them are still spending more than they make every month. Yet, over the past few years of staff cuts and chronic attrition, I suspect that even the ones no longer there could've pooled their resources and started their own local daily, well before the axe fell on them.

Sadly, all those talented people have simply been demonstrating, one after another, how the frog gets boiled. Really. It ain't the damn banner that needs "saving", it's the writing talent and the reportage.

Rift? What Rift?

With Joe Lieberman holding onto his Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee Chair, it should be noted by those of us out here in the weeds that the differences between Democrats and Republicans in Washington D.C. is practically nonexistent, when compared to the blind partisan loyalties in the public... that those politicians play to every election.

'Tis the Season

It won't be long, now...

I took this shot last December on Pilgrim Ave.

This morning it was only 20 degrees F. With that kind of morning temperature, it doesn't take hardly any precipitation at all to turn Worcester streets into skating rinks.

The National Weather Service is predicting snow flurries for tomorrow.

Someone made a comment to an earlier post (about the upcoming seasonal sidewalk snow removal issue), saying that Phil Palmieri never cleans the snow off the sidewalk in front of his house. Well, neither do I. Of course, I don't have any sidewalks abutting my property, so I can't get to be the test case. But maybe Phil will continue to neglect the sidewalk in front of his house this season (if what the commenter said is true), and the ACLU will take his Constitutional Test case against the city for involuntary servitude?...

Also of interest would be the whole issue of saving the space one has shoveled out on the street by putting a chair out there, or maybe some other worthless object. It's certainly a convention, a tradition, and an "everybody knows" sort of thing here in Worcester every winter: you just don't steal those parking spaces that somebody else worked so hard to create.

Once the snowfall has become heavy enough to not melt away for a while, we'll all be able to enjoy these things again, along with a significant percentage of our street surfaces being blocked by buried cars and piled up snow.

More Bailout

Wouldn't it make more sense for the big oil companies to bail out the big three auto companies?

Some people seem to think that "The auto industry is the major industry of this country.” In a sense, that's true. But it certainly isn't the biggest business.

When you factor in the questionable viability of paying employees an average of over 70 bucks an hour in wages and benefits to manufacture a product that only someone making that kind of money can afford to buy... well, maybe you can begin to see the problem.

Worcester Sidewalk Snow Removal Ordinance

Here's a shot of the sidewalk on Davis Street, looking downhill from Queen Street.

The City of Worcester expects property owners to remove snow from sidewalks abutting their property within 10 hours of a snowfall ending, under penalty of a fine plus costs if it's necessary for the city to hire someone else to do it.

The problem of involuntary servitude aside, does the City of Worcester plan to make the sidewalks safely passable for pedestrians under any other weather conditions?

It's evident that the people who run the city and those who work for the city don't really care about safety. All that really matters to them is revenue and the opportunity to feed at the public trough, respectively.

CVS - Constant Velocity Shopping

The new store kit appears to be almost fully assembled now, over at the corner of Park and May.

I really can't imagine how much more spare change a store like this is going to be able to squeeze out of that intersection. But, I suppose, the folks at the head office of what used to be a large Worcester business must know what they're doing in the short term. Maybe they know what they're doing in the long term, too... I sure don't, though.

Looking at the size of the building, now that it's shape and size are more definitive, I'm kinda scratchin' my head because I thought this was going to be some sort of super-sized CVS. It really doesn't look all that big at all.

Earlier posts on this new store can be found here, here, and here.

Statins for Dessert

The way they keep pushing statins, we'll be getting them as sprinkles on our ice cream cones by next summer. After last week's PR push, a little hunting around yields the more rounded out stories that, unfortunately, won't get such wide airing for the unsuspecting public. This article, for instance, won't get the same audience that last week's saturation campaign got. In it we find that "...because of the way the Jupiter results were reported, many healthy people are likely to get an exaggerated view of statins’ benefits."

How exaggerated? Well, re-phrasing the wallop of an alleged 50% reduction of heart risk, they could've said, "Only 1.8 percent of the subjects who took a placebo had a major cardiovascular problem during the study period. Among statin users, 0.9 percent did. In other words, the absolute risk of a serious cardiovascular problem (as opposed to the relative risk) was reduced by less than one percentage point." Instead, they said that the study showed the reduction in risk was 50%...

Amazing how 50% relative is actually only 0.5% absolute, eh? But the drug company spin-meisters are very adept at getting the heavy press on spin, and very little press on actual facts.

So far this year, the drug pushers have done PR campaigns to get children onto lifetime prescriptions for statins (in early July), and then a push to get people to believe they can avert Alzheimer's by taking statins (in late July).

What's next, ...indigestion?

Copyright and Copywrong - cont'd

I hadn't read Cory Doctorow's piece until just now.

Everything Cory talks about in that piece is on the same page that I would be on in any efforts to make copyright law sane. What's missing from that particular piece, in my opinion, is the basis for copyright law, to begin with.

Before the internet, before television, before records and CD's and mp3's, before radio, and even before the phonograph, there was copyright law. The right to copy one's own original works has always been vested in the author, by default, at first by social convention and later by law. This is where it starts. Someone writes an essay, or a short story, or an article for the newspaper, or a whole novel... it doesn't matter how long it is or how brilliant or stupid it might be, it just has to be original... that work is automatically, by legal default, owned fully and completely by the author... until they enter into an agreement with someone else that states otherwise.

This legal basis of copyright law, focusing upon the protection of the original author, goes back to the beginning of the 18th century in England.

You won't get any argument from me as to the complexity and agenda driven nature of legislation around the world ever since, and all the bullshit that has driven copyright law into the realm of utter insanity, and clearly been aimed more recently at furthering the benefit of distributors, rather than authors. But underneath it all, and at the heart of the "right to copy" original works, there will always be the individual author.

No discussion of copyright should ever ignore that.

Copyright and Copywrong

Billion Dollar Charlie is going after the RIAA.

YouTube in "high quality"

I'm not exactly sure how long ago the "view in high quality" thing started appearing at the lower right hand corner of You'Tube videos, but it's been a nice improvement showing up in more and more videos over the last couple of months.

There is some code you can add to links that will start the "high quality" mode automatically. There's also some additonal code you can add for embedding a video clip.

For instance, I used the additional code for the link to this video clip, which was shot by someone in Worcester and uploaded yesterday. When you click on that link, it will bring you automatically to the "high quality" version. At the bottom right it'll say, "watch in normal quality" instead.

Here's an embedded version of that same clip, with the additional code:



The code to add to a URL is: "&fmt=18"

Just add that to the end of the URL to the clip and it'll come up in "high quality" mode.

After pasting the embed code into a blog post, adjust the two video URLs (one in a param tag and one as the src parameter in the embed tag) by adding "&ap=%2526fmt%3D18" to the end.

Playin' at Ralph's

Alex liked it: "So all in all, it was another successful and fun gig in the Heart of the Commonwealth. For real: Worcester crowds are great."

Blinding Me With Science

There are plenty of examples to dissuade against quick consensus for theory, but the longer you reserve judgment, the easier it is to dissent.

Declining Literacy - cont'd

This week is American Education Week.

Last week, I posted about a webpage I'd found that claimed the literacy rate among volunteers for military duty in America in the 1930's was 98%, and that this fell off to 96% ten years later... essentially, no significant change.

Today, I found an article out of Maryland that starts off by saying that 21% of World War One draftees were illiterate. It goes on to say that, based on that high illiteracy rate, "...representatives of the National Education Association and the American Legion met in 1919 to seek ways to generate public support for education..." Apparently, whatever efforts were made to improve literacy in 1919 paid off quite well with literacy going from 79% to 98% in two short decades, and remaining basically level into World War Two.

After World War II, however, the literacy rate began sinking again, and by 1970 it was down below the levels seen in the WWI draftees. Apparently, whatever methods that were employed to bring literacy up between the first and second world wars worked, and whatever methods have been used since world war two have failed.

One thing stands out to me in all of this: it's difficult to find dependable historical metrics after world war two that aren't increasingly tainted by the need to make teachers look good...

Speculation 101

I wonder which will last longer: this video of her inside the parlor on West Boylston Street, getting a tattoo on her ass, ...or the tattoo?

The Self-Perpetuating War Machinery

How easily would the machinery (and all the excuses) for never ending war all just simply break down if drugs were not elevated to their current status as a super-expensive commodity in the world, simply because they are illegal?

In Terrorism, Crime, and Public Policy, Brian Forst describes the central method of finance for prolonged terrorist activities:

A distinct advantage for the terrorist organization of having internal financial support is that it can have a degree of autonomy that may not be as easily achieved when it is heavily reliant on external sources of funding (Napoleoni, 2005). The need for internal funding obtained through illicit activities may be especially great in countries that are disconnected from the global economy--what Thomas Barnett (2005) refers to as "gap nations." A nation's distance from the forces of globalization may thus deepen the vicious cycle of terrorism and illegal activities needed to support it, each feeding the other and breaking down formal and informal social control systems along the way. The greater the distance, the greater the inclination for terrorists to disrupt the forces of order and finance their operations autonomously through illegal activities--as exemplified by the poppy fields of Afghanistan and the coca plantations of Colombia.

Tom Barnett cites this and other excerpts from that book in a post yesterday for reasons completely removed from why I'm citing and linking it here.

What neither Barnett nor Forst appear willing to acknowledge is the presence of a core commodities market that could not exist without very broad support. The so-called war on drugs and the so-called Global War On Terror are huge, monster, money-making operations in this world. Who controls the borders across which the billions of tons of illegal drugs are moved? Who controls the airspace through which this material moves every day?

The simple fallacy of Forst's alleged autonomy of self-financing for terrorists is that such financing cannot exist in a vacuum. Without the global core support of illegal commodities trading, the whole argument is utterly without merit.

This Morning's Sermon...

Aside from the ditsy intro/outro on this video clip, this is a pretty good representation of what "meet the new boss: same as the old boss" sounds like to me this morning, as I read more about the transition...



But, I still have to reserve some semblance of hope that the new boss won't be the same as the old boss, don't I? I mean, realistically, the 2006 hope was that they'd impeach Bush and Cheney... but they didn't.

And in retrospect, we can probably all be thankful they didn't because then we would've had President Pelosi. Heh. Can you imagine?...

In the end, I guess this isn't a sermon at all...

It's just another in a never-ending series of utterances that, with some glimmer of hope... we won't get fooled again.

WFD - New Station update

There will be an opening ceremony on Wednesday, 11-19-08 at 3 pm.

Nine years will have passed, exactly three weeks later, since the warehouse fire.

There is an article in the paper today, and also a video, describing some of what all this is about from the perspective of the firefighters, and also from the perspective of the business next door.

I'm glad that Nick Kotsopolous also wrote something about all of this, though. It gets much closer to the heart of the matter...

Relief...

I've been moping around all day, alternately going unconscious on the couch and surfing in a sea of trash.

Finally, however, I found some good news to chew on.

In Defense of the Noosepaper Guys

They're going down the toilet, but it's not their fault...

Zonk Vids

I just spotted another Zonkaraz upload to YouTube by a "tagrignon" who I would suspect is Tom Grignon, himself.

Earlier vids uploaded by "jmjunkie" are noted here.

Update: more "tagrignon" uploads here.

No CWCBI's Over Here!

Just like Bush's famous "No WMD's over here..." speech, now we can start thinking about CWCBI's and where we might actually find them...

What are CWCBI's, you might ask? They're Changes We Can Believe In.

There aren't any CWCBI's over here.

Stop Bailing...

There are PLENTY of smaller businesses making cars in America, just waiting in the wings to fill the void if any of "the big three" dinosaurs are allowed to simply crash, burn, and die.

We've already been had by the Bush regime's manipulation of the so-called "free markets" as they give us their last, snidely smiling face and middle finger. How much more of this crazy effort to sustain the unsustainable is the outgoing Bush Regime going to stick us with?

Why should any of the unsustainable auto industry's big time idiots get any kind of bail-out, too?

Just let them crash and burn! Isn't that, after all, how "free markets" are supposed to work???

Calling All Republicans

I'm not a card-carrying political party animal, myself, but here's a call from the RNC Chairman to let your voice be heard as they try to figure out what the Republican Party might stand for, going forward.

Quote of the Morning

“What’s disappointing is that, after two years in office, the governor’s so-called turnpike ‘plan’ still amounts to little more than a press release.”
- from a joint statement issued by Senate Minority Leader Richard R. Tisei, R-Wakefield, and House Minority Leader Bradley H. Jones Jr., North Reading.

(What folks in Worcester should probably be wondering about is how MassPort could possibly buy the airport if any slightest part of the Big Dig debt is shifted its way...)

Worcester T&G: Evaporating Right Before Our Eyes

A truly heart-rending article on the current woes at the T&G can be found in today's edition of WoMag.

This long, drawn out process in taking note of the shrinkage, the slow demise of daily newspapers in general, reminds me of how to boil a frog...

You can't just toss the frog into the boiling water. You have to let the frog get comfortable in the water, then slowly raise the temperature, tiny increment by tiny increment. By the time the frog realizes it's being boiled... it's too late.

And even now, after all this time and after the heat has gotten all the way up to this point, I still don't think they get it.

Makin' the Rounds

Heh.

Update: It looks like somebody else was "makin' the rounds" on Canterbury street on Tuesday night, around 20 minutes of nine, but Bill Randell TV caught their getaway on tape!

Obama: 3rd drug user in the White House

Barack Obama will be the third President in a row who has, evidently, used illegal recreational drugs in the past but was never subjected to the legal consequences. Had Clinton, Bush, or Obama been caught by law enforcement, they would never have become President.

Let the anti-decriminalization whackos chew on that for a while!

ACLU and the 2nd Amendment

Over at TalkLeft yesterday, they posted about the surge in firearms sales since October, back when it was clear that Obama was poised to win the Presidency. An Obama Presidency is seen by 2nd amendment advocates, the NRA especially, as a threat to the right to bear arms.

From that post: When the U.S. Supreme Court voted last year to hear a case on the constitutionality of the Washington, D.C., handgun ban, Mr. Obama’s campaign told the Chicago Tribune: “Obama believes the D.C. handgun law is constitutional” and that “local communities” should have the ability “to enact common sense laws.”

Well, as it turns out, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled the D.C. handgun ban unconstitutional. So much for electing a "constitutional lawyer" to the Presidency, eh?

Personally, because I don't own any guns and I'm not planning on owning any guns, and I've never been even remotely interested in owning any guns, the only thing about all of this that really interests me is the ACLU in all of this. The next four years will be an interesting test of the American Civil Liberties Union's priorities, as it's a sure bet that the clearly enunciated second amendment right to bear arms won't be one of the "civil liberties" they'll be interested in defending.

...And I think the ACLU needs to answer up to this glaring inconsistency in their alleged mission.

A Non-Working Link

With the title of their opinion piece being, "A Working Link", you'd think that the anonymous knuckle-heads over at 20 Franklin Street would have at least checked to see if the subject of their praise even had a working link...

Well, I suppose I can't really belch any bile over it. They did mention that the CMREB "...is upgrading its Web site" in the same sentence as "...since February has tied into the city of Worcester’s computer systems..." But I should think that nine months would be enough time to get an existing non-profit "employment board" restructured enough to have something online a little further along than "under construction" at this point, wouldn't you?

Ah well...

Maybe someday the shakers and movers in this city will notice that the internet has something more than porn going for it.

Andrew Sullivan vs Sarah Palin

I'm sure that if Sarah Palin ever read The Daily Dish, that she'd be sure Andrew Sullivan doesn't like her.

But the fact is that Andrew really liked the pot-smoking, pro-life, pro-gay, feisty candidate from Alaska who emerged into the spotlight on August 29th.

It took a while for the Daily Dish to turn into the Sarah Palin Scandal Channel, but if you've been following it since August, then you'll know that the changeover from love to outrage was a difficult one.

His post today, entitled Why Palin Still Matters, is more of the same. I can't say that I don't find it palatable, however, because I think he's been doing a good job of keeping the pressure up and maintaining the focus upon Palin's bizarre candidacy, her pathological lying, and her hypocrisy.

Price Rite

The building going up next to Sclamo's on Southbridge Street looks like it's nearing completion.

Even though it's been made pretty clear that this is going to be a Price Rite, it's a little question mark that pops up when I see the sign in front that says, "AVAILABLE SPACE FOR LEASE".

Even long before the world economy starting going down the drain, Worcester already had a corner on that market.

But this isn't to say that I think Price Rite won't be moving ahead with their plan to open a store in this building when it's finished.

It's the other building I'm wondering about...

Who would've known?

I mean, the whole thing is now a two building deal.

I did not realize that. Did anyone else hear that this was a two building development?

Maybe I've just been too long on vacation, ...so I'm out of that street level loop. But I could've sworn this was just going to be the supermarket...

And what about the Sclamo's sign? Is it even going to be visible to outbound traffic when this other building is finished? I mean, Sclamo's is one of those places that you don't go to every week. Heh. You really need the big sign so that when you DO want to go there, you won't drive right by it, slam on the brakes, and try to make the turn in heavy traffic at the last second.

Hmmmm... I wonder what's going into that other building?

Well, it's a sure bet that it won't be a Circuit City.

Top of the Food Chain

Samples were taken last December from the following fast food joints:

Wendy’s
Store A: 500 Park Avenue, Worcester, MA 01610
Store B: 801 West Boylston Street, Worcester, MA 01606
Store C: 492 Lincoln Street, Worcester, MA 01605
Burger King
Store A: 163 Madison Street, Worcester, MA 01608
Store B: 711 West Boylston Street, Worcester, MA 01606
Store C: 53 Boston Turnpike, Shrewsbury, MA 01545
McDonald’s
Store A: 595 Mill Street, Worcester, MA 01603
Store B: 995 Main Street, Worcester, MA 01603
Store C: 766 West Boylston Street, Worcester, MA 01606

Those samples, along with many other samples from around the country, were used to offer up this report on Monday. Commented upon yesterday by Ed Yong, and also today by "revere", the whole thing has led me to the conclusion that the "civilized" part of the human race, long referring to itself as "the top of the food chain" is, in reality, at the bottom of the "feed chain" at this point.

The War to End All Wars

On the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month in 1918, ninety years ago yesterday, the War to End All Wars officially came to an end. The day was declared a national holiday, Armistice Day, and represented the celebration of an end to all wars... until after World War Two, when it was changed to Veterans Day, and the War to End All Wars began being referred to as World War One.

I, for one, do not want my government to continue preparing the way for the afterlife.

Post-Election Blah

This happens to me after nearly every election, local or national.

Basically, I just go unconscious.

Politically unconscious, that is.

And it isn't so much that I'm no longer interested in what's going on, it's just that I'm no longer faced with the prospect of casting a vote that might actually do something about it. Now the die is cast. The decisions have been made, and for better or worse, this is what we now have to trust over the course of the ensuing term...

I see that Ken Moynihan has collected a compendium of politically potent items that are as yet undecided, here in Worcester.

And I see that there are various post-election items of news that have been percolating over the past week. But, for the most part, both the right and left sides of the punditsphere have been hammering away on the deconstruction of the campaigns, and it's leaving me with a growing sense of impending nausea...

Consequently, in the interests of providing myself with constructive distractions, here are some online diversions that I found: The top ten best Seinfeld moments; some ER bloopers; golfing wisdom from Chevy Chase; How Not To Get Your Ass Kicked By The Police, from Chris Rock; The Rolling Stones on the Red Skelton Show; A Brief History of the United States of America, the South Park version; and the funniest video clip of all, two hilarious promises from Tim Murray.

Toad Hall

I spent the better part of the day today down in the nether regions of the Blackstone Valley at Toad Hall Studio with Bob Jordan.

Bob's been working on a bunch of songs over the last few weeks, and today was "let's shoot some video" day within the Instant Dogma universe, where high tech meets low tech and the confluence is great. With Steve on bass and Greg on drums, Bob played guitar and sang for a couple of takes on one number that we video'd. Three cameras, actually... one on Bob, one on Steve, and one on Greg.

It'll be interesting to see what Steve makes it into. Judging by some of the stuff he rolled for us, I'd say it's gonna be watchable more than once.

Toad Hall is in the basement of Steve's house, and it's actually another whole universe.

When stepping into the studio from outside, it's kinda like going through the looking glass, ...or maybe like going through the thing in the movie Stargate. There's this universe out here where Barack Obama just won the election, and then there's the universe inside that basement where nearly anything can happen.

It's been a distinctly Toad Hall - InstantDogma kind of day.

Quite refreshing, to say the least.

Kate Toomey

Kate seems to be the only City Councilor reported to have a brain at the City Council meeting last night. I didn't go, and I didn't watch it, so all I have to go on is the Daily Worcesteria liveblog post.

She is reported as having espoused that jaywalking laws be enforced! I mean, this, all by itself, puts Kate at the top my "re-elect" list!

She's also reported to have said that they need to wait for the colleges' side of the data to be collected before any decisions are made regarding PILOT. Well, duh! Nobody else was reported to have that level of perception...

Greenwald Blasts Scarborough

Leave it to Glenn Greenwald to point out the full significance of Scarborough's momentous F-Bomb.

Is this what they mean by "karma"?

Worcester Bug Hunt - part 20

The number of trees on the mulch list is now up to 3200, according to today's article in the T&G.

This is getting into a realm of numbers that I find difficult to comprehend. I mean, a couple dozen trees would be like a grove or a copse or a stand. And if you had a larger area, then you could call it a woods... but 3200 trees is a whole forest!

A forest is big enough to get lost in...

Scarborough Drops The F-Bomb

I wonder how long this will stay up on YouTube?

What's It Worth?

The T&G was purchased by NYT in 2000 for $296 million, according to this article published today in the Triangle Business Journal.

B.I.C. 25 - episode 3

Picking up from our last episode on this Bump Installation Crew, first brought to fame here on this blog on October 14th, we saw the crew return and carefully trim the edges of the bump on Friday, November 7th. Naturally, as soon as I saw them, I had to go out into the yard and snap a nice picture of them at work.

I did assume that there would be further work done to fill in that last inch or two of the hole, so that the patch they made would finally be level with the rest of the pavement on this street.

Unfortunately for me and my neighbors, though, all they did was trim the edges to make them nice and sharp again, and they never came back.

Now, here it is Monday afternoon, and it's apparent that this bump isn't going to be fixed today, either. So, I went out and took a short video to show what a nice bump it really is. After all, it's been there for about a month, now, despite the fact that the technology really does exist to restore road surfaces where holes have been dug... and to be able to do this immediately.



YouTube Link

Note: YouTube has been behaving very flaky today, and the video sometimes comes up as having been removed... but then it comes back a few minutes later.

Update: It's coming up as "no longer available" again, but still plays fine on this page. "Very flaky today" is an understatement, I think.

Declining Literacy in America

I've long felt that literacy in America has been declining for a long time. I haven't had a chance to gather enough info to figure out what the background might be on The Odysseus Group or John Taylor Gatto, but this particular page, entitled Intellectual Espionage, certainly makes some noteworthy (some are quite startling) claims regarding sources that show declining literacy and spins it in a very abrupt and fleeting reference to teaching reading with phonetics (which is how I learned how to read) going the way of the dodo.

Zonkaraz Video Clips

There were dozens of little video screens glowing in amongst the press of bodies against the stage Saturday evening at the Hanover Theater, so I'm not at all surprised to see two video clips showing up on YouTube, dated from yesterday. They're both shot from a vantage point within the crowd on the left-hand side, and a ways back towards the aisle. The audio isn't all that great, but it's listenable. Here's a link to "You And I", and here's a link to "Money Man".

All the Hi-Def video I shot that night is still in the can, where it will probably remain for a while... since I've pretty much O.D.'d on Zonkaraz, at this point.

Update: No sooner had I posted this, than another YouTube clip showed up with today's date on it.

Update 2: Another clip has been uploaded by the same person (they've been pretty busy!), this time with about the last 1/3 of "California" and all of "Different Song".

Update 3: And now there's another one: "Same Old Story".

Update 4: Somewhere Over The Rainbow and the last five minutes of the finale song, Jack Frost.

Politics In Lieu Of Taxes

Heh.

There are some interesting comments on that article, too.

Update: WoMag's Daily Worcesteria pretty much nails this whole thing with actual facts. Of course, since nobody on the City Council is likely to check Worcester's Online Echo Chamber before their meeting tonight, they won't know how utterly stupid they're gonna look if they keep making their PILOT noises.

Saturation Campaign - cont'd

It really is amazing to me that such a significant part of "news reporting" can include blatant promo for chemical company products, and how they'll wrap these types of ad campaigns into a package that appears to be "science news" of some sort. I noticed this latest one over the weekend and now I see that, today, the T&G is hopping onto the Crestor Promo Bandwagon, too.

Y'know, they touted this drug and Lipitor as a way of lowering cholesterol. But now they're trying to get people onto the lifetime subscription program, no matter what your cholesterol levels are.

Next thing you know, you'll lose your healthcare coverage if you refuse to take it.

Raising Bridges - episode 2

Today's article in the T&G provides more details about the $50 million that will be spent to accommodate CSX's desire for doubling their rail capacity between Boston and the western Massachusetts New York border.

We can certainly be happy about there being only one bridge in Worcester that'll have to be "raised" for this whole thing. But, of course, anyone who might use the James Street bridge on a regular basis will, unfortunately, have some extended period of traffic delays to look forward to, beginning at some undetermined, ...vague, ...difficult to figure out point in the not too distant future.

I wonder if they'll have to completely shut down the bridge, in order to raise it...

Saturation Campaign

The all-purpose "healthcare" drug, Crestor, is being given a new multi-million dollar PR campaign. First, there's the study that touts the increased effectiveness and wider application, and they don't even have to put "New and Improved" on the label. This is the "pull"... Then, for the one-two punch, they churn out some new statistics to pump up the "push" side and try to get anyone not taking it already to be a little more scared.

As if anyone in America who's over the age of 40 hasn't had a doctor suggest they go for the lifetime prescription yet...

Isn't it odd, though, that heart failure hospitalization rates for any age group would go up during any years that Crestor or any other statin drug enjoyed record sales? It kinda runs counter to the whole idea that it's been having any effect at all, as claimed in the "study"... I mean, how many more millions of tons of this stuff does the population have to eat before we get off this kick of chemical company promo posing as science?

This is where the old Doc needs to come up on the TV screen and give one of those thoughtful looks... "I cain't stop what's comin'," he'd say in a serious tone. "It ain't just waitin' on me. That'd be vanity. But I sure can tell y'all... and do my best to get ya'll to see it."