Harvesting items, newsworthy or not

 
Super Bowl Weekend and memories

I suspect we all have markers in our lives with which we measure time; sports events seem to be mine.

I was eating lunch this afternoon, while watching a baseball game (UH vs. Florida State; college seasons start early), and I got to thinking about memories, and how many of mine are brought back by sporting events. I remember the time I spent on Kwajalein whenever I see that famous clip of Carleton Fisk waving his arms in the air, willing that ball fair for his home run in Game Six of the 1975 World Series. I didn�t see that game live; on Kwajalein at the time there was no dish TV or anything of the sort. We got a single video tape of that whole World Series; fortunately it was a tape of Game Six.

Similarly, when I am reminded of the World Series of 1987 (between the St. Louis Cardinals and the Kansas City Royals), I am immediately transported to a hotel room in Edinburgh, where I met my parents on a two-week vacation. They had left Hawaii about two weeks earlier, wandering around Glasgow, among other places; I�d been able to schedule my trip in such a way as to meet them, and the first question my father asked me when we met was �Who won the World Series?� We went all over the castle and the city for a couple of days before heading south via BritRail for London. We found what must surely have been one of a very few genuine Mexican restaurants in all of London, and I celebrated my 37th birthday there. Almost every birthday I�ve had since I was about 13 has been marked by dinner at a Mexican food place, and damned if being in London was going to keep my parents from that tradition.

In January 1988 I was in a hotel room again, again with my parents. We watched Super Bowl XXII at the Marriott Airport Hotel in Los Angeles. Well, we watched the first half, anyway; that was the one between Washington and Denver, when Doug Williams hit four touchdown passes in the second quarter for a 35-10 halftime lead. I left, driving back up to a rented condominium on Century Park West in West L.A. That condo had the kind of art on the walls that I call �Proud Parent Deco;� no one but a parent would consider living with it in their home. Mom and Dad were on their way home from another vacation; I was working for a club development company which had just completed a rehabilitation project in Culver City. I flew over from Honolulu to LA and back nearly every week for a while; in fact, a year earlier, I had been sitting on the tarmac at Honolulu International watching �The Drive,� that amazing series of plays that put Elway and the Broncos into Super Bowl XXI. Some enterprising soul had gotten the movie screens on the plane lowered while people were still boarding and picked up the television feed, so we excited passengers could watch the end of the game.

There have been countless other memories; somehow my vacations (nearly all of the driving variety) have often coincided with the baseball playoffs. In 1986 I went to Expo �86 in Vancouver, B.C. and picked up a rental car there; I drove all over the states of Washington and Oregon, listening to the Mets/Astros playoffs in the car, and finding a motel by 5:00 p.m. to catch the start of the Red Sox/Angels games. In 1993 I remember seeing Joe Carter of the Blue Jays hit a home run to beat Philadelphia to win the World Series, only four months after burying my father. In 1977 I was in Honolulu for a vacation from Kwajalein; I watched in disbelief as Reggie Jackson hit three home runs in Game Six to defeat my beloved Dodgers for the Series title; a year later I watched the Yankees do it again. I was so frustrated in 1978 that I left in mid-game at one point, went across the street where the neighbors were shooting hoops in their driveway, and promptly broke my right foot while guarding somebody. I was in a cast for a month.

For the past 10 years I�ve been going across town to a Super Bowl party at a friend�s place, and that�s where I�m headed again; most of those memories have more to do with the commercials than the game, although the one two years ago was exciting enough. That was when Tennessee was stopped at the one-yard line as time ran out. But some of the commercials! EMS and the cowboys herding cats stands out; of course, the all-time standard might have been set with Apple and the Macintosh commercial in 1984. Who can forget the woman throwing the hammer through the screen where "Big Brother" was speaking?

That�s enough rambling through history for one day. Enjoy the game, everybody!
posted by Link Meister at 6:29 PM

 
I know it's the BBC, but sometimes I wonder. Here are two articles which could have appeared in the National Enquirer: a woman in a coma gives birth?? And another whose child weighed in at 12 lbs., 2 oz. with no painkillers?? A far more serious article, and one which makes startlingly innovative use of virtual reality, is this re-creation of Bloody Sunday, the day when Northern Ireland turned from (mostly) non-violent protest into The Troubles.

Proving that it isn't only the Brits who occasionally have silly research projects, here are the results of a survey of 1,500 married Americans questioned about their weight(!). And, for all the information junkies who love the places, a whole slew of Library Weblogs! Who knew? I give you: LISNews, Library Stuff, AcqWeblog, LibLog, NewPages, 'Brary blog, Library News Daily, and Librarian.net. All of those courtesy of the October issue of American Libraries, the journal of the American Library Association.
posted by Link Meister at 4:11 PM

 
And now, Ashcroft and the Naked Statue (the 1/30 column)! And Enronomics Explained! Both of those courtesy of participants in a book club to which I belong. However, those stories are as nothing when compared to Mike Moore's letter to W. Y'all know Mr. Moore, right? The film-maker (Roger & Me, Canadian Bacon)? Link lifted from Greg, whose major failing is that his blog and mine share the same layout and colors. In what Batgrl is pleased to call Obfusgate, apparently the Bushies think that documents from the Clinton Administration are perfectly acceptable for release to Congress, while Reagan and Bush 1 Administration documents are not. Could this be (gasp) politics?

Following on that, is this a sign of the times or what? I just got a 1099-Misc Form (Acrobat required), and was startled to see that Box 13 is for "Excess Golden Parachute Payments." There are that many of those payments floating around that the IRS determined it needed to put a special box on the damned form??? I'm speechless. Another item from the Feds which leaves me not speechless, but shaking my head in disbelief: increased funding for abstinence education. I'm all for it, but I think it shows the blind spot conservative Administrations have towards human nature. Teenagers don't listen to preaching well, in my experience. Have none of these folks had children? President Bush's kids have had well-publicized alcohol episodes; his older brother has a daughter who is currently in the news for drugs violations. I'm very sure those three girls were told about the "wrongness" of such behavior, yet...

Yesterday's spot of domestic amusement: Tigger the Pointer was asleep in the doorway to my office when the smoke detector in the hallway ceiling went off; since the house was not and is not burning, apparently that was merely the last gasp of the battery. Great alarums and excursions ensued. She issued forth with noisy barking, staring about wildly in an attempt to determine the source of this horrific noise. Then, as I'm putting a new battery into the gadget, it starts emitting a steady howl, rather than the intermittent bleats it had been making. More consternation. Tigger is like most of us, I concluded; change is unwelcome. What had been a pretty quiet day chez Linkmeister was suddenly disturbed by God-knows-what, and this was not good.
posted by Link Meister at 12:11 PM

 
Is anyone else perplexed by the demands of the WSJ reporter's kidnappers? I can't remember another set of demands which included the completion of a 20-year-old arms deal (for jet fighters, no less) and the return of prisoners to be tried in their own country. "Return our comrades so they can help us continue the struggle against the oppressive government," yeah; but "give 'em back so we can hand them over for trial?" Weird; makes me wonder just who these guys are.

Here are a couple of interesting stories about copyright and the Internet: The first concerns Open Source publishing; the second is a rather rueful essay about uncredited articles on the 'Net. But lo! Serendipitously, here's an idea about digitally identifying authors from text strings! Another nebulous (pun intended) idea: "...its already tenuous atmosphere may literally freeze solid and fall to the ground." That's from an article about Pluto (the planet, not the dog). The idea of air getting so cold that it freezes and becomes solid is really difficult for me to get my mind around.

"So my economic security plan can be summed up in one word, jobs." But. In Bush's new budget, job training programs for the laid-off will be cut. Another item which I found unusual is this commentary. What strikes me is that it is pro-regulation in a newsletter devoted to deals, mergers, and other acquisitive capitalistic behavior.

And, finally, there's the daily Enron revelation. "Curtis Hebert, the former chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, confirmed for me last week that he was 'interviewed' by Ken Lay for his job."
posted by Link Meister at 3:55 PM

 
When it rains, it pours. If I were Arthur Andersen, I'd be looking at my hole card; now another client has declared bankruptcy, and the audit fees are dwarfed by those it charged for consulting. And Bank of America just fired a couple of execs for their role in the Bank's Enron-related losses. Also, Enron employees are coming to DC to "advocate for aid to layoff victims..."; I have a problem with that. I don't see that the Federal government has any responsibility to these folks; commiseration, surely; an obligation to tighten regulations and force the accountants to raise red flags for all to see, assuredly; restrict 401(k) plans' company stock investments, probably. But make these folks whole? It sounds cold, but I think they need to get in line with the rest of the creditors. In related matters, the GAO announced today that it will sue the Administration to get access to the Energy Task Force records.

Now this is really odd: Marin County has the highest rate of breast cancer in the world. All manner of theories are proposed to explain this, but... On a related subject, genetic profiling may allow tailored treatment for those with breast cancer. Equally far down the road, but intriguing: some fish have "biological antifreeze" compounds which could have human applications in many areas, including organ preservation. Not all medical action goes forward: the Pennsylvania State House has decided to try to limit economic damages for patients suing their doctors for malpractice: the bill has a catchy title, I'd say: "Sign or Die." Want more background? Go here. Other state legislature news: Texas (home of our illustrious President, lest we forget) is being sued for not providing adequate long-term care facilities, despite a 1997 agreement to do so. Who was governor of Texas in 1997? Oh, yeah.

Ah, but on a brighter and more amusing note, I will leave you with this innovation(?): a glove-donning machine. Useful for clean-room techs and superheroes equally, I guess. And the burning question of the day (or another candidate for the IgNoble awards[op. cit.]): "Can Sex Cause a Heart Attack? Should You Care?"
posted by Link Meister at 5:35 PM

 
How did HIV species-jump to humans, and from what species? That just may be the biggest medical mystery of the past millenium.

Ben & Jerry's subversive parody of the State of the Union message. More vital and important news about politicians: Gerhard and the Hair Dye! More seriously: Shelagh! You OK? Storms ravage England!

"Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice..." The SEC put up a phony website to measure how well it was getting its investor education process across. Not well, apparently. Ah, well...didn't PT Barnum say something about this? The other scam of note has engendered a wonderful line; writing about Enron, Paul Krugman says, "it came apart at the seems."
posted by Link Meister at 6:03 PM

 
Twelve hours to the minute later, all those loads of laundry finally got dry. Then this morning we went off to the dentist for some repair work (Mom's choppers, not mine), and I finally got to start the work week about 2:30 pm Monday. Herewith some of the fruits of those labors (?):

How television deals are structured: here's an interesting article about the NFL, Direct TV, Fox & CBS. How the Church is structured: "I decree, no matter how impractical, and you obey." Know any Catholic divorce lawyers? Or any contact lens wearers? Some of those cleaning solutions may not be strong enough. Camera ticketing vans, on the other hand, are plenty strong enough. Hey, as long as they spell the state's name right, and acknowledge we're part of the US! And if anyone is still sleeping with teddy bears---STOP!

All Enron, all the time: now the British politicians are chewing on one another about the company's contributions, as well. Back on these shores, our illustrious VP, emerging from his bunker (blinking, no doubt), vows to stand on principle and refuse to turn over Energy task force documents to Congress. Wonder if he saw his shadow? Of course, it's not all bad news; the reporter who first questioned Enron's financials is now the toast of the press; I saw her on the Today show last week.
posted by Link Meister at 5:59 PM