Philonoist.net

In the wake of a myriad of doping scandals in this years Tour de France, it’s nice to see someone like Geoffrey Wheatcroft put it all in perspective. This is short expository at is best.

The eclipse of French cycling, combined with this other
dégringolade, the cascade of doping scandals, might seem to make the
Tour a reflection of the malaise and morosité that have supposedly been
afflicting France. Yet plenty of visitors to France may wonder what the
French have really got to be morose about.


Here is a country with superb roads and railroads, glorious cities
and landscape, and food and wine that don’t need my praise. That’s not
to mention an excellent health service, or industrial productivity
quite as high per hour worked as it is in the United States (it’s just
that the French don’t care to devote quite so much of their lives to
working as the Americans).

Maybe the Tour should look at France as its image, rather than the other way round.

Technorati Tags: Tour de France

Thursday is Bagel Day here at ATG: each member of the bagel club brings in a couple dozen bagels and a few types of shmear, and we gather ’round the toaster and chat about things. It’s a great way to have non-work conversations at work (and for newbies like me to meet lots of great people), and of course, who doesn’t like bagels?

Mostly, we get big chain bagels (Brugger’s, Finagle, and Panera compete for the most-often spot), so I was pleasantly surprised when we got our bagels from Bagel Rising in Allston.

The trick to finding a good bagel place, according to my girlfriend who knows these things, is their ability to do a salt bagel. Most places won’t try it: it’s a difficult thing to do well. Apparently, the salt makes it difficult for the bagel to remain edible (and not a hockey puck). Bagel Rising delivered: their salt bagel was coated in pretzel-like salt, but still managed to be chewy and delicious.

Unfortunately for you non-Bostonians out there, Bagel Rising is only available in Allston. But the next time you’re in town, consider your salt bagel on me.

Technorati Tags: Boston, Allston, Bagels, Bagel Rising

Pulled up the good ol’ GReader this morning, and the first three links were about Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Two were from National Public Radio, and the third from the venerable Gray Lady herself.

I’m going to guess that this is a gosh darn big deal. Huge, if you consider that the book is still some news cycles away and the Times is already running its review. Ginormous, if you remember that it’s been two years since book the sixth, and the countdown has been going since. Keeping the momentum for two full years? Even the iPhone might not manage that.

Granted, it’s not like I didn’t see this coming. I mean, holy shit, Harry Potter is bigger than Jesus. (Remember the last time something from the UK was like that?) But I guess the wizard boy that entertained me a decade ago (I own a first edition thanks to my mom) is a tad bit bigger than he used to be. I think the Boston Globe has been talking about HP for months.

My two concerns are: how will book the last be received, and is this really book the last? For the former: I assume well, but the latest in a whole bunch of franchises haven’t been exactly trumpeted.

As to the latter: I’ve never heard anything to the contrary, but Harry Potter is a pretty lucrative franchise….for a select few. HP isn’t exactly a thrill for booksellers, especially after Warner Bros. decreed no profiting parties for Potter. And since bookstores have long lost their claim to exclusivity for selling HP books (I’ll be buying mine at my local Shaw’s supermarket, gas station, or Costco….), and they don’t make a profit on the book anyway, who knows if they’ll be prepared for possible book 8.

What do you think? Will you be going to a Potter Party? Going to hang out in Hogwarts Square? Will there be a book 8 or 9?

Technorati Tags: Harry Potter, The New York Times, NPR, J.K. Rowling

Right now, I’m struggling to finish Washington’s Spies, the topic of which (espionage in the times of the Revolutionary War) has been on my mind since I toured the International Spy Museum in DC last summer.

The book is well researched and the topic engaging: my problem lies in the density of the material. A lot of names and supplemental anecdotes leaves me grasping to remember who the “important” people are, and who is merely side-story.

I want to like this book, but I can’t help but find it work to finish it. I’m just not in the mindset right now to truly appreciate it. I really want to put the book down and start in on The Economic Naturalist, but I find the idea of leaving a book unfinished somewhat abhorrent.

To me, books should be the last bastion of devoted attention. I’ll turn off a crummy movie or terrible TV show, and I’m even willing to walk out of a bad play, concert, or sporting event, but I can count the books I’ve left unfinished on one hand: and a few of those are only because I left it on a plane.

I’ve given Washington’s Spies a fair shake, reading a hundred pages or so. And I suppose I would be more amenable to finishing it if I actually had the time to read it. (Any tips?) But the loads of other, more interesting books on my list (birthday in two weeks!) make me itch to wander.

What do you think? Are you willing, or even able, to put a book down?

Technorati Tags: Reading

Folgers Coffee, long been the best part of waking up, is taking a different approach to its advertising. And it is wacky McScary.

I’m sorry, but if overly happy shiny bright people came and bothered me while asleep, I’d kill them. Then I’d go to Starbucks.

Link

Technorati Tags: YouTube, Folgers, Advertising

Alright, Mr. David Hasselhoff, you’re making a comeback. The only problem is, you’re really not coming back from anything. Knight Rider? Sorry, I was always more of a KITT fan. Baywatch? Nobody watched Baywatch for you. “Du”, your peaking-at-43-in-Germany album? It gaves laughter and tears. Mostly tears.

But needless to say, I’ve seen too much of David Hasselhoff in the past few weeks to really be comfortable with the state of affairs in the world. First, there was NBC’s America’s Got Talent, a meidocre variety show at best and a painful eye-gouging experience at worst. Here are the highlights of the show:

• The British has-been or never-was leans across the table and hits the other judges “X Buttons” because an act is truly terrible.
• David Hasselhoff clapping with a slow-child-like mirth. There’s nothing really as unintentionally hilarious as seeing a grown man clap wildly when another grown man juggles.
• Moesha Brandy’s fake “I care about you, but not really” voice when she has to be the deciding third vote.

But, for the love of all that is holy: Don’t defile KITT in your music video. Don’t show yourself dancing in front of Ayers Rock and the American Flag while you pick up a seventeen year old and go crusing. And, lesson 01, given to everyone gratis: Don’t ever, EVER put yourself in a situation where screenshots of your video could be your downfall.

Like most things, it must be seen to be believed.

Technorati Tags: David Hasselhoff, The Hoff, music

Oh Puzzle Pirates, why do you tempt me so? You know the last time we dated, I got exceedingly violent at your insolent ways, your stupid ‘bilging’ game and your frustrating ‘sailing’ game. But, alas, there’s really nothing like playing drinking games with your mates with a case of frothy(?) grog.

Oh, wait, I know why we broke up. You wanted to charge me $74.95 a year. I spend less on shoes (and they even light up!)

You’re trying to come back into my life, with your e-mailing me three years later, like the girl that drunk-dialed me last week. But I won’t have any of it. I’ve moved on to better things. I guess you could say you booched it.

No, no, I’m impressed, really. I like what you’ve done with yourself. You’ve got a new couple of jobs, like shipbuilding and alchemy. That’s great. I still have feelings for you, like Nicole and Tom. Maybe if we had settled down in the past, had a couple of kids, we’d have that kind of loving-but-despising relationship. But I’m a Leo, you’re a computer game. It just wasn’t meant to be.

Hey, while you’re here, I think I’ve still got some stuff in a closet for you. Let’s see here — aha, right here in a box marked “Plundercats”. Remember those days, those Plundercats? Reckless abandon. The good times. No, they’re not tears. The box was just dusty.

Memo to Fox News, CNN, MSNBC:

Stop. You’re killing people.

I know you love the big story. I know you can’t resist the urge to talk for hours on end to anyone with a few lines of color on their chest or a political affiliation about a “major” current event. I know that you get a rush to your collective heads when you can use phrases like “worst case scenario” and “disasterous”. I advise you to seek counseling for this. In the long term, you may be able to fight the effects of this psychological condition of calamitism. But in the short term, think long and hard about what you lead in with on your primetime shows, about the kinds of silly questions you ask. Here’s a passage – verbatim – that I had a tough time with from The Situation Room, Wolf Blitzer’s late-afternoon early-evening CNN show (emphasis mine):

BLITZER: Before we get to New Orleans and levees, how ready you are, maybe you are, maybe you’re not, what about Florida and this first topical storm — named storm, Alberto, which could become a hurricane? Are you worried about any Corps of Engineer projects right now in Florida?

LT. GEN. CARL STROCK, U.S. ARMY CORPS OF ENGINEERS: No, I wouldn’t say any of our projects. There are really not up in the area where we expect to have landfall. There is some concern about Lake Okeechobee on the part of the some of the locals down there because it’s an older dike that was built in the ’30s. But we’re very confident that Okeechobee can handle any rainfall that might arise from this storm.

Huh? This is Florida you’re talking about: land of the perpetual hurricane. This may be a valid question if the storm is hitting New Orleans or Biloxi (and think of that media field day!) or if the storm were 60% more powerful. But the factor in a tropical storm is never the wind damage, but the large amount of rain that comes with these storms.

The response isn’t much better: why even mention Lake Okeechobee? For those unfamiliar with the geography of the Sunshine State, it’s on par with asking how Philadelphia is holding up when there’s rain in DC. Governor Jeb Bush and the correspondents at FoxNews also talked extensively about the Okeechobee dams and levees. Bush also gets the quote of the day award: “Good God. You know. Who would have thunk it?” said Jeb.

And yet, this storm passed. A plane accident, resulting in one fatality, was attributed to bad weather from the storm. 20,000 (a far cry from the million plus of Katrina) evacuated to shelters, to higher ground. The hell of brush-fires has been extinguished by the high waters of another tropical storm. Do I personally count my blessings? Yes, of course. I, my parents, most Floridians (especially Tampans) know this wasn’t the storm, the next in the list after Andrew, Katrina, Hugo, Camille that we talk about, that we fear, when there’s a disturbance in the Atlantic or the Gulf. My pool needs an extra chlorine tablet this month, the branches in the front yard probably need picking up. And when an event the magnitude of Katrina occurs, where millions are displaced and homeless, we saw the effect, the power, the media can have. Without extensive, 24-hour coverage, Michael Brown would still be director of FEMA.

But this very same power is overused with events like Alberto. This is a story, but not the top story. Because in a week, or a few days, when the media reports on “cleaning up from Alberto”, people will look and say “it’s not that bad”. Of course, it’s not that bad because this storm wasn’t that bad. But the next one could be. Or the one after that.

The point here is the classic one: Don’t cry wolf, especially when it’s just a poodle. Don’t pretend this is the end of days. Don’t suffer from your egregious calamitism. Because we, the residents of the Gulf, fall asleep, lulled into disregarding your false warnings, your overpuffery. And when Katrina v2.0 comes around, we might not realize it until it’s too late.

I grant you: you do not, cannot decide for us when it is our time to go, when to stay. But you control the flow of information, the path that gets what we need to hear to us. So, when you trump up what we need to hear (evacuation orders, bridge closings) with what you think sells (Levee bursting, Price gouging, Murderous mayhem over the last bag of ice) that confuses us. That puts us in danger. Not to mention it disrespects our intelligence. So stop. You’re killing us. Both literally, and figuratively.

Technorati Tags: Fox News, CNN, MSNBC, Alberto, media, hurricane, wolf blitzer

“Over the past few weeks, I’ve been fielding questions regarding bird flu and our preparedness regarding hazards associated with this illness (and other associated illnesses.) As a participating member of Needham’s Local Emergency Planning Committee (LEPC); Olin and Olin’s Crisis Management Team have assembled tools and resources for emergency response and management. Both the team and the LEPC continue to prepare for (and would respond as necessary to) pandemic flu outbreaks/incidents.”

Internet junkies will have undoubtably seen one red paperclip, the internet bartering story of a man who started with the titular item and has “traded up” in his quest for a house. When I last checked in, one red paperclip guy had half of a duplex rent-free for a year. Not bad for starting with a paperclip.

Of course, the story is rife with slightly questionable trades and people looking to cash in on the fame castoffs (the Coleman grill for the doorknob is the most egregious bad trade), but they’ve always been in favor of ORP guy (whose real name is Kyle).

I was a little disappointed to see Kyle trade the duplex deal in for an afternoon for Alice Cooper. WTF, mate? The current offers section shows what’s being offered in exchange for golfing with the “School’s out for summer!” singer. None of them, in my opinion, have any real potential.

We’ll see how Kyle gets out of this jam. My advice: take the country music radio promotion.