All I wanted was some Sam Cooke

Best Buy, Square One Mall, Saugus, MA. 8:45 p.m. CD section.

Me: Excuse me, can you tell me where the Motown section is?

Best Buy bubble gum girl with fake tan: Umm, let me see.

Me: OK.

(We start to walk to the back of the section)

BBBGG: Did you say Botown?

Me: (pause) I'm sorry?

BBBGG: Was that Botown?

Me: Motown. Moe. Moe-Town.

BBBGG: Oh. (Pause) Let me call someone who can help you.

Cape Wind, Don Young, and sleazeball politics

Think Washington's lobbying scandal has nothing to do with you? Think about this:

Everyone around here knows about Cape Wind and the pitched battle playing out down on the cape. The latest came out of the Globe: Representative Don Young of Alaska has inserted an amendment to the Coast Guard reauthorization bill to kill the Cape Wind proposal. The Washington Post has picked up on the story.

So a Representative from Alaska wants to kill a wind farm proposal in Massachusetts. Let's look beyond the obvious, that Alaska's oil industry feels threatened by the prospect of successful offshore wind farms. Young has been lobbied hard by the deep-pocketed opponents of the wind farm. Apparently, the view from a millionaire's window is worth at least $100,000 in disposable cash. And that's just from the first half of last year.

Add into that Young's entanglement with Jack Abramoff (exposed by the always great Talking Points Memo), and you start to get a picture of the street fighter nature of this issue. The rich folk on Cape Cod are willing to purchase a renegade representative to kill a renewable energy project that's been green lighted at every regulatory venue. And Don Young's services are clearly up for sale. So you tell me; Does hiring an Alaskan lobbyist and giving him huge gobs of cash translate into legislative action? Or was Don Young of Alaksa always intested in the shipping routes along Horseshoe Shoal near Cape Cod, some 4,700 miles away?

Whither Revere wireless?

It looks like Boston is closer to going wireless city-wide, and that got me thinking: Should Revere (where I live) and other surrounding communities try to make the same jump now? I know that it's a bit of a jump, but the ultimate benefits to residents is potentially huge, and it helps a city already struggling to snatch a piece of the Boston business market keep pace. Plus, if a group of cities bordering Boston all jump on, it should help reduce some cost, right? I mean, I have no idea if that's true, but it seems true. Ah well.

Then again, this is Revere's Web site, so I don't know how much the powers that be here value the information age...

A couple of things

• It's official: frat boys and college freshman burnouts have ruined Bob Marley for everyone else.
• My friend Gienna has a crazy neighbor who lives upstairs. Said crazy neighbor is fixing up her place to sell, and all the crazy is tumbling down the stairs to Gienna's house. Learn about the lamp here, and well meaning but not so swift Carlos here.
• Larry Summers is out at Harvard, and all of a sudden, there are throngs of folk out there defending the guy. Where were they last week? The Globe ran one last jab at Summers yesterday. Harvard people are such friggin' navel gazers. I only thing I want to hear about Harvard is that they'll finally stop killing locals.
  
• You've seen the trilogy, now see the real story of two men who fight hate and fear, and ultimately find love: Brokeback to the Future
  

Have you seen the news? There was a snow storm this weekend!

Seriously, if it wasn't for the good people at channels 4, 5, and 7, I would never have known and likely died of exposure. Fortunately, these guys have weather coverage down pat, and follow some simple but reassuring rules to keep me, the guy in the middle of the snow storm, informed that , yes, it is snowing.

My buddy Jason at Happy Scrappy mentioned some of the more annoying aspects of local news weather coverage, but he's from Florida and doesn't understand that these things, which he complains about, are as woven into the fabric of New England as the Puritans, Red Sox, and bussing violence.

So for all you people not from around here, I give you the 10 immutable laws of local news storm coverage:

1. Send out reporters to at least two of the following four coastal areas: Revere/Winthrop, Hull, Scituate or Gloucester. At at least one location a wave will clear the sea wall. Run clip 743 times.
2. Send a reporter to somewhere along Route 128. During the blizzard of '78, motorists died as they became stuck on the clogged road and snow covered their vehicles' exhaust pipes. That will never happen again, but there needs to be a reporter on the scene for the possibility of a corpse interview.
3. If the station has a bigger budget, send someone to Worcester City Hall, which serves as a reminder that there is some form of civilization in Baja Vermont after all.
4. Doppler radar: This is a new entry to the weather coverage. It's no longer good enough to get radar information from the National Weather Service. Each station must have its own doppler radar tower that will provide "up to the minute" coverage of a 36 hour Snow Event.
5. Call the storm a Snow Event. This is mandatory.
6. Keep at least two weathermen (ahem, meteorologists) inside the station at all times. It makes the team look rugged, like one is on the air while the other is catching 10 minutes of sleep on a cot set up in a broom closet somewhere. Like firefighters or Jerry Lewis during the telethon.
7. The anchors get to wear sweaters, like they just came in unexpectedly, and were't aware they were working the weekend shift like four days ago. No blazer or otherwise professional clothing. If I can't believe that Ed Harding was at home splitting firewood when he was called for the extended coverage, then clearly NewsCenter Five doesn't care about the Snow Event.
8. Nothing is a bigger story than the Snow Event, even when the Vice President shoots a man.
9. The following events, if captured on film, must be shown at least 743 times: A man falls, a car fishtails, water clears the sea wall (see rule #1), close-up of plows clearing the highway, kids with shovels trying to make some extra cash, a reporter losing their hat or hood in the wind. There are others, but these are your meat and potatoes.
10. At least one meteorologist must wonder out load "Will we get to official blizzard status?" and then remind us of the rules of a blizzard as defined by blah blah blah.

Farewell, Arrested Development

A show truly before its time. Matthew Gilbert gives Arrested a proper send-off in today's Globe.

Ipods can save the world

I've long held the position that legislation and court decisions regarding technology and its uses will generally skew towards the reactionary and restrictive, because judges and senators are generally out of touch with cutting edge devices and concepts. As I mentioned in an earlier post, these are the same people who still think it's funny that they can't program a VCR's clock. With a senator, it's even worse. I'd love to poll the senate to find out how many of the 100 have their secretaries print out e-mails for them to read.

So it shouldn't surprise anyone that when you give an Ipod to an 82-year-old senator, he starts to take a more common sense position on piracy, fair use and copyright protections.

The Senate Commerce Committee has been mulling the concept of broadcast flags, which are Digital Rights Management script sent by the content provider with the show/movie/song. The bill would allow the FCC to require device makers to build flag recognition into their products, and thus allow the content provider to have veto power on what you can and can't do with the show/song/movie. In essence, the flags would take today's technology and trap it in amber. New technologies would be unable to accept the content you want to use. If this happened 20 years ago, there would be no VCR. Ten years ago, and there's be no Ipod.

Sen. Ted Stevens, an enormously powerful and kinda crazy Senator, had been a vocal proponent of the crippling technology. Then his daughter bought him an Ipod, and his tone has changed considerably. Once he got his hands on the technology and saw how easy it became to listen to his favorite music or watch a favorite show on his own schedule, the idea of banning such convenience made less sense to him.

That's a startling development, and it proves that the unknown is a powerful factor in technological disputes. Now there's an organization that's fundraising to buy Ipods for every senator, so a Stevens-like awakening can happen on all front. If you got a little cash to spare, send it their way. Your TiVo will thank you.

It's the Globe's fault, so why do I have to watch an ad?

The Boston Globe and Worcester T&G sent out the credit card and bank information of 240,000 customers with the bundles of papers delivered Sunday. It's a stunning error, and one that deserves a great amount of scrutiny. I'm amazed that the Herald's largely held fire, even though the Globe deserves a smack for this.*

I went over to the publisher's letter on the Web to see his explanation. I wanted to read the Globe's explanation about why the confidential information of a quarter million people was betrayed.

Instead, I had to watch a splash ad and click on "go directly to boston.com" to read the damn letter. That's good planning, guys.

Next up, I went to the actual Globe article online. I read and read and read for an explanation, and instead got boilerplate about how this happened to a bunch of other companies, too. Then, finally, the last four grafs explained what happened to allow this:

Officials of the newspapers said they are recovering as many of the toppers as possible, although most have probably been discarded. The T&G has ended the practice of using any recycled paper for toppers. The Globe does not recycle paper in this fashion.

The newspapers have also added a safeguard to the computer system so only the last four numbers of credit and debit cards can be printed.

The Globe and T&G share a computer system. Larkin said the data was printed out on two occasions over the past few weeks by T&G business office employees. In one instance, an employee inadvertently hit the print button, aborted the job before the run was complete, and discarded the paper. In the other instance, another employee began printing a report, but soon realized it was the wrong one, aborted that print job, and discarded the paper.

Larkin said the newspapers are still investigating the T&G's procedures for handling confidential customer information. But he said the employees weren't disciplined because the errors were inadvertent. ''There's no reason to believe this was intentional," he said.

How exacty was this paper discarded if it ended up in a pile to print out bundle toppers? Clearly, they just threw it in a recycling bin. If the employee inadvertantly printed out sensitive financial information of customers, why wasn't a manager notified, or special precautions taken to destroy the information?

The Globe and T&G can't let this die today. Neither paper would allow such a flimsy answer pass as the final word if this happened to another company.

*I used to work for Communicty Newspaper Company, which is owned by Herald Media.

The Globe on domestic spying

The Globe's Ombudsman Richard Chacon has a great quote from the paper's Washington bureau chief on why it refers to domestic spying as, well, domestic spying:

We've used spying, wiretapping, surveillance and probably a few other terms to describe Bush's NSA program. In the first few stories we explained in detail what was known about the program (the monitoring of overseas phone calls by Americans, etc.) and what was not known, such as the extent of the surveillance. Since then, the story has become broader -- a test of presidential authority in wartime, as applied to torture, the Patriot Act and detainee policy as well as the domestic spying program. In these broader stories, we needed a shorter way of describing the NSA program and more or less settled on "domestic spying."

We emphasize domestic because there are different sets of laws governing wiretapping of Americans and foreigners, and it's only the domestic side of these phone calls that has raised a furor. If we called it "spying on international phone calls and emails," or something like that, it could disguise the real issue. It could also cause confusion, as in sentences like "Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter said he had "grave doubts" about President Bush's spying on international calls. . .," since the claim is that Bush has violated laws governing domestic surveillance.

As for spying, I think it's the clearest and most easily understood term. Wiretapping is not quite broad enough because the surveillance includes emails. Surveillance and eavesdropping are fine by the dictionary, but seem a little esoteric to me. Given the complex and legalistic subject matter, I think we should strive for the most easily understood term. (And while surveillance may be a less loaded term than spying, I'm not sure that's true of eavesdropping -- it sounds more polite, but no less intrusive.)

It's clear, it's called domestic spying because the targets are Americans (even if the call is being fielded or sent to someone internationally. That's all the explanation you need. The Bush administration's semantic push was a clever idea that sort of blunted momentum on the story, but it should be settled now, and the pressure has to be reapplied. I mean, really, did anyone buy that whole "It's not really domestic because that's not what it says on phone bills" bit?

Lunch was interesting yesterday

I was out at Marblehead Light eating lunch yesterday, which is sort of an everyday thing for me. While snacking away and listening to WEEI and NPR, I looked around the parking lot. There weren't many cars there yesterday, but I did see this Red VW Jetta or Passat or whatever about 15 feet away from my car. I hadn't noticed it when I pulled into the lot, and I didn't see anyone walking around out in the park near the lighthouse. OK.

After about five minutes of eating, listening and watching the waves hit the rocks, I look over again, and now I see people in the car; there's a guy with the passenger seat tilted way back, and a girl who's sitting with her back toward me. She was upright but leaning over towards the guy. Crazy, I think, I didn't see them walk back to their car. Was she…are they… And I sort of scold myself for being a sick pervert and thinking that that was what was going on.

Then the girl's shoulder starts moving rhythmically, and the guy gets this look on his face like he's constipated or has searing gas pain or…Jesus, is this really happening? I think, and now I can't stop looking in this car. I can't see anything that can confirm my suspicion, and I wonder at what point happy guy looks over at me and freaks out (Or gives me a thumbs up?).

Then I scold myself again, because really, who's that dumb to give someone a tugger in the car at 1:30 in the afternoon? I had to be imagining things, even if the guy now had his hand on the back of our heroine's head in the classic filthy guy move.

But apparently, I wasn't alone in thinking that these kids were taking matters into their own hands. An old lady, who had heretofore been sitting with her husband in her car, gets out and walks over to the red VW to check things out. She clearly was trying to be nonchalant about it, but was about as obvious in her snooping as any mom checking in on her teenage daughter.

At that point, I sort of craned my neck to check out this old lady (she was behind me). Then I look over at the happy couple. The girl was looking at the woman with a shocked look on her face, and wheeled her head around and looked at me with the same shocked look.

Next thing I know, she straightens up in her seat, starts the car and takes off. The entire time the guy is still in a supine position with his hand on her head. Talk about pressing your luck…

This is a weird feeling

I have to side with Mitt Romney on this one: Churches should not have to share financial information with the state.

It's clearly a constitutional issue, and the state legislators behind this have made no effort to hide their motives; this was a move to curtail the power of the Boston archdiocese by blocking real estate deals and meddling in abuse settlement cases. No matter how wrong the archdiocese has been over the last four yeas, I can't believe people feel that degrading the separation of church and state is the correct course of action. You weaken your stance against prayer in school and other C &S issues if you do this. It's not worth it, even to harass and expose the embarassing actions of the archdiocese.

Maybe you should pass me a note instead, John Henry

Well, this isn't what we had in mind.

According to the CHB, the Red Sox will put out a press release rather than stand up in front of a press conference and explain the whys and hows of Theo Epstein's return. How exactly will they announce the acquisition of Coco Crisp, when all anyone will want to talk about is Theo. Did John Henry and John Harrington have a mind meld or something? What happened to the open administration over at Yawkey Way?

Theo's back, but nothing is resolved

Theo's back. That's great news, ultimately, but I can't help but feel embarrassed for everyone involved in this debacle. After three months of flailing about, we end up right where we started, so what was the point of all this? Everyone loses face on this deal, and it's embarrassed the organization.

Shaughnessey seems more upset that the Sox blew his scoop than anything else, but he does ask the right question; if you were in the front office of another team, or an agent, who in the Red Sox organization do you call for definitive answers? Is Larry Lucchino really still in charge, or has Theo usurped his baseball responsibilities? And what about the two patsies, Jed Hoyer and Ben Cherrington? Do they have any sway, or just over inflated titles? And if the Sox bust their collective rank, do these guys walk to take a job elsewhere?

Supposedly, the Sox will answer these questions early next week, but who can believe what they say? Theo made it clear things had to change for him to come back (even though he never really disengaged from the club in the first place). So did those things change? What were they?

Clearly, he was talking about his relationship with Lucchino. So does Lucchino walk out and talk about his diminished or refocused role in the club? Of course not. The two men will walk out and say everything is smoothed over, misunderstandings were cleared up and they're both ready to get to work together. No one will explain what's changed, so no one will believe anything's changed. And if nothing's changed, this thing will blow up again.

Pay close attention to next week's press conference. If the club is honest, they'll say how embarrassed they are about things played out, where Theo, Larry, Jed and Ben all fit in the command structure, how the individuals came to that conclusion, and what changes were made to facilitate Theo's return. Anything less will just fuel speculation.

Maybe they need to walk into that room with Coco Crisp. In that case, all would be forgiven…

Buckle up or Die!

Scott Lehigh has a column today detailing the latest effort to force Massachusetts drivers to wear their seat belts.

Scott lays out the most obvious and compelling reasons why this is such a stupid idea, but I feel like piling on. Seat belts laws are paternalism at its worst, and the government has no right to tell me or anyone else how to live. If I decide, stupidly, not to wear a seat belt,I harm only myself.

He also notes that the state is already has the lowest driving-related fatality rate in the country, so the argument that we'll all be safer seems a bit hollow.

Beyond the column, though, there are other things to think about. Making seat belt violations a primary offense gives the police carte blanche to pull anyone over, for whatever reason. There's that small number of cops who will take advantage of that and profile minorities, even if the Globe pooh-poohs the idea in an editorial.

For the vast majority of cops who work hard and care about their jobs, this is just another headache that adds meaningless work to their schedule. Most cops have better things to do than tut-tut drivers who forgot or are unwilling to buckle up.

I almost always wear my seat belt, because it's stupid not to. I hector passengers to wear their belts as well. But if someone says no, that's the end of it, because it's none of my damn business what other people do. It's not the government's business, either. And that goes for seat belts, smoking dope, killing yourself, or whatever else you do that doesn't directly harm anyone else. Just because something is smart and good doesn't mean the government has to step in and require it. I'm no libertarian, but I don't think you need to be one to understand the point.

UPDATE: The bill narrowly passed in the house, 77-74. Here's a breakdown of how each rep. voted. Maybe next week we'll get a bill requiring everyone eat their broccoli.

A couple of things...

• The T wants to make Copley Square handicap accessible, and everyone is happy. Except for the Neighborhood Association of the Back Bay (People's Front of Judea?). Brian McGrory has the details.
• The New York Times has an excellent and sad series on the Diabetes epidemic, and how this chronic disease is poised to explode over the next 10 years. Meanwhile, nearly zero funding is dedicated to combat the problem, leaving the prospect of an army of amputees and blind retirees. Very scary stuff.
• Tom Reilly: Isn't it clear that this guy is already parylized by campaigning for governor? Does it really take a week to come up with this lame an excuse? Reilly says he called to DA to make sure the media wouldn't get the autopsy report. But that's already barred by state law, so who are you trying to convince.
• OK, I take shots at GM all the time, and maybe this is just another nail in the coffin. It comes three years too late (at least), it's following the lead of others, and it won't keep the wolves at bay, but this is truly a Bitchin' Camaro (Via Jalopnik).

Pulling a fast one with Fast Lane

Fast Lane works. It's fast, convenient, and helps increase traffic flow. That should be financial incentive enough for the state, but apparently they aren't done charging you to travel on their roads. The state now plans to charge for replacement transponders because, well, other states are doing it.

Fast Lane already pays for itself. Toll collections are more accurate, meaning the state loses less money. The toll plazas no longer require as many workers, so the state doesn't have to pay salary, health and other benefits, or a pension. All it has to do is cover the equioment installed. There's less idling traffic, which cuts pollution significantly. Hell, you could argue that people are getting to work faster, increasing productivity for the state's employers.

And with all that, you are going to charge someone extra money to do somethig you want them to do in the first place? This makes sense how?

It doesn't help that the tolls are a selective tax that should have been abolished years ago, when the intial projects they funded were paid off. I'll accept the fact that we do have to pay for the Big Dig. But we all should foot the bill for public works projects that benefits all of eastern Massachusetts. The South Shore gets a free ride into town every morning, paid for by me on the North Shore and all those poor slobs in Metrowest. The idea that there's not space enough for a toll plaza is foolish. You just built:

• a tunnel which required freezing the living earth under your feet and spanning water so dirty divers couldn't see their own hands
  
• the widest cable-stayed bridge in the world
  
• one of the busiest interstate highway interchanges in the world (90/93)
• a subterranean highway while the existing highway remained in use above it

And you're telling me putting an outhouse-sized booth on a ramp at the Mass Ave. exit on 93 is just too difficult to handle?

stupid, stupid boomers

 

Baby boomers want paper checks for social security because they like going to the bank. Aparently, they don't trust direct deposit, so me and everyone else with a job have to pay millions more each year so they can feel secure in something that they are guaranteed to get anyway. Because they like to go to the bank

 

Please. It's just another reason to slap a boomer. It's right up there with "still thinks it's funny they can't program a VCR clock," and "think they really stopped the Vietnam War."

Romney unveils his political strategy

Romney has spent the better part of the past year barmstorming ealry primary states across the country, pulling himself out of the moderate positions he used to win election in Massachusetts. Now that he's all but certain to run in 2008, he has to cover his tracks. How do you do that? Blame the media.

Romney really, truly belives we're all stupid. And why shouldn't he? We're the ones who let him get away with office shopping between Massachusetts and Utah. We bought it when he said he took a moderate position on abortion. We elected him. We let him trash the city of Boston when it hosted the Democratic National Convention. We allow him to mock us when he stumps for his presidential campaign. He thinks we're stupid because we are.

Mitt Romney is a do-nothing governor. There's no list of accomplishments from his tenure as governor. His budget reforms were largely rejected. His education reforms were rejected. His insurance reforms are actively being rejected. He hasn't delivered on health care. What is his legacy? What makes him such an attractive candidate? At some point, someone will figure out the emporer has no clothes.

But that hasn't stopped the Repunlican party from picking a fraud before, so who knows how far he'll go.

Johnny Damon's gone...

...and I don't care.

The Yankees totally overpaid for Damon, offering him $52 over four years. There's no way Johnny's worth that much, especially in years three and four of the deal. He's a great leadoff hitter and solid defensive centerfielder, but not irreplaceable.

Torii Hunter is not the same player, but he could be a good short-term solution. Coco Crisp, Jeremy Reed, Juan Encarnacion are also possibilities. I also think the Sox will talk to the Braves about Andruw Jones if the braves don't contend this year, and will talk more seriously in the winter of 2006.

But please, remember to breathe. It's a tough loss for the Sox, but not insurmountable.

Filene's building sweepstakes underway

Seven developers are interested in the Filene's building, according to the Globe.

It's a complicated deal, because the building is protected as a historic site, and Filene's Basement has a long-term lease, popular support and plenty of political cover. I'm OK with a residential tower going up over the building, which at least one developer is proposing. Creating a residential component will inject new life into the area.

Of course, people get stupid when it comes to Downtown Crossing. When the city confirmed a million-dollar spruce-up for the area a couple of months ago, critics screamed about the mallification of the area. If people get that huffy about new planters and restored sidewalks, what will they think of condos in the area?

But putting people in the area puts action on the street level. It'll help foster movement in the area after 7 p.m., which is a major problem for such a marquee destination.