health care reform and mid-term elections

i saw this on politico recently and found it interesting. apparently the democrats are circulating a memo detailing how to talk to voters this fall about the passing of health care reform. most of the slides are fairly standard -- keep it simple, give personal stories, and say thats its not a perfect law but that its a good start.

the interesting part is the final bullet point of the final slide. listed under things not to do:

















but didnt the president among others say it WILL reduce the deficit?


so why should politicians stay away from mentioning it during the midterm elections? makes you wonder where the truth lies.

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larry king

larry king began his interviewing career in the late 1950s on the radio. but he will probably be most remembered for hosting "larry king live" on cnn starting in 1985. he has conducted thousands of interviews of the years and has become the go-to interviewer for anyone dealing with a media crisis mostly due to the fact that he asks softball questions and basically just allows his subject to say whatever they want without much follow-up questioning. and some of his comments and questions are so asinine you have to wonder how he has kept his job for so long.

so this week, the person dealing with a media firestorm was dr laura schlessinger for her on-air usage of "the n-word." heres some links to an audio recording and transcript of what she said on her radio show. in my opinion, dr laura was making a valid point albeit it in a clumsy, misguided way. but in a world where people like al sharpton roam just waiting in the shadows for anyone to say anything of near insensitivity, dr laura had to spend her week on an apology tour. aka, larry kings domain.

you only need to listen to first 25 seconds of the below video to understand why larry has lost his mojo. but heres a partial transcript:

KING: Before we get to the announcement, the one thing that you said was interesting. You said that on HBO, black comics use the N- word.

SCHLESSINGER: Rap music.

KING: But, Jewish comics can kid Jews, Hispanic comics, Josh Lopez, kids Hispanics all the time. Gay comics kid the gay situation. It's OK, isn't it? But not OK when the non-N-person (emphasis mine) uses it.

NON N-PERSON?!?! thats the best way for you to say that larry? good grief!

well, at least he announced that he is retiring from his cnn post which will be taken over by piers morgan of "americas got talent" fame. but maybe not any time soon enough.

British journalist and "America's Got Talent" judge Piers Morgan, who is widely thought to be King's replacement, is apparently having trouble obtaining a work visa, according to several sources...

As a British citizen, Morgan needs a special visa that will allow him to work full-time in the US -- and those types of visas are increasingly difficult to get, according to lawyers who specialize in the field.

so for better or worse, the larry king live unintentional comedy hour rolls on.

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let's go to the movies

after a year of filming around the streets of charlestown and right around my house, the trailers for ben afflecks new movie "the town" have started airing. perhaps im a little biased because it takes place in my neighborhood, but it looks like its going to be another good one from bennie. my question is about bens next film topic. he won critical acclaim for "gone baby gone" taking place in south boston. now "the town" features charlestown. which boston neighborhood is next?

heres the trailer:


on a personal note, a friend of ours (who i will refer to as Detective McMurty to conceal his identity) was able to get a small part in the film as well. in the trailer he played one of the gangsters firing a gun in the car while wearing a nun mask. and if youre into oddball, strangely funny short films you can check out more of his work here.

theres a part of me that wants to go see "the expendables" but you know its only going to be good in how bad it is. the volume of action stars crammed into one movie though is staggering: bruce willis, sly stallone, arnold, jason stratham, jet li, mickey rourke, steve austin, dolph lundgren, randy couture. wow! and YOU KNOW every one of them will have some sort of clever tag line as that terrorize and destroy. im sure california residents are just happy that arnold had some extra time in his schedule to film a movie as his state falls to shambles.

lastly, i finally got around to watching "crazy heart." i know im late to the game on this one, but if you havent seen it, you should. what a great movie. excellent acting. superb music from t. bone burnett once again on the soundtrack. who knew that jeff bridges and colin farrell(!) had such good singing voices? and for colin to morph into a american country western accent was impressive.

so make yourself some popcorn and settle into the couch or venture out to the theatre to escape the summer heat and get lost in the movies.

enjoy!!

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all over the place

it's the dog days of summer and there's no reason to be thinking too hard on a sunday. plus i feel like i've been away from making updates recently. so here's some ramblings and musings with no particular focus.

do you know where the phrase "dog days of summer" originated? i had always assumed that it simply meant that it was hot outside which would result in dogs lying around in the shade. nope, it has to do with the stars. canis major or "the big dog" is a constellation. sirius is the brightest star within this constellation and is sometimes called "the dog star." during the summer months, roughly july and august, the sun, earth and canis major are in alignment. so go download an app to your phone that allows you to find the canis major constellation.
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jersey shore is back! i didn't like the fact that the same cast was just being moved to miami. i wanted it to be a fresh batch of maniacs hanging out in seaside. now they all have some level of celebrity attached to them which taints the reality experiment. though i have to admit that there was something nice about seeing familiar faces and not having to get to know them. you can already predict some things for this season:
** sammi sweatheart and ronnie will get back together...
** ...though it will result in constant bickering and arguing.
** angelina will get punched in the face. probably by jwoww.
** the hot tub will get polluted

is there a drinking game for the jersey shore? there should be! theres so much you could incorporate.
** take a drink when:
> every time snooki whines
> angelina says "classy"
> the situation says "grenade"
> ronron juice is seen or discussed
** multiple drinks for:
> pauly d in the dj booth
> fights
> dance floor scenes that include beating back the beat
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why do they measure movies by box office dollars and not actual ticket sales? how do you compare movies between eras when obviously more recent movies obviously make more money because tickets cost more? the music industry uses album sales and not the money generated from album sales, so why can't the movie industry figure it out? for example: gone with the wind ranks #124 on worldwide box office sales but #1 when you adjust for ticket price inflation. in the reverse, avatar is #1 for sales yet #14 when adjusted.
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who is buying this?! and why?





















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speaking of beer. while on vacation i had the pleasure of stopping in two places that served cask beer. cask ale beer is the term for unfiltered beer served from a cask without additional nitrogen or carbon dioxide pressure. it may also be referred to as "real ale." it's difficult to describe how it tastes differently than beer with carbonation from a keg, but it just does. find one in your area.
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i feel like i'm late to the game but i can not stop playing "wagon wheel" by old crow medicine show. apparently portions of the song were written by bob dylan but never recorded then lyrics were added by OCMS. it appears that the band is in europe right now but keep an eye out for when they are in your area.
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that's it for now. hopefully that didn't tax the brain too much. labor day and the end of the summer is going to be here before you know it so go enjoy some sunshine, or go fishing, or float down a river, or play golf, or see some live music in an amphitheatre or just sit and relax.

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MA vacation hotspots

so it's the vacation time of year. the MA legislature recently released a list of the top 1000 places to visit in MA in order to help boost tourism. according to one state rep, "The difficult part was getting down to 1,000 places," from the initial list of over 13000.

so when the list is finally finalized and released...

A list of the top 1,000 attractions released with much fanfare by the Legislature last week was intended to promote tourism, but the Boston Herald reports that some sites don’t exist any more, some are closed to the public, and some are listed in the wrong towns.

The list – which actually has 996 places – included the Baker Robinson Whale Oil Refinery in New Bedford, which has been gutted to make way for a hotel; and Worcester’s African Cultural Center and Ashland State Park, both closed.

One place, St. Stanislaus Kostka Church in Adams, was ordered closed by the Springfield Diocese two years ago although parishioners remain in vigil.

oh well, at least they are trying. come visit us in new england!

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global warming flashback

last friday the nixon library released 100,000 pages of presidential records. among those pages are memos that show the nixon administration was debating the possible effects of climate change.

a memo from nixons democratic advisor daniel moynihan:

Moynihan wrote in a September 1969 memo that it was "pretty clearly agreed" that carbon dioxide content would rise 25 percent by 2000, "This could increase the average temperature near the earth's surface by 7 degrees Fahrenheit," he wrote. "This in turn could raise the level of the sea by 10 feet. Goodbye New York. Goodbye Washington, for that matter."

so how correct were those statements from 40 years ago?

regarding the CO2 levels:


















regarding the temperature increase:










regarding the sea level rise:













so moynihan predicted:
** a 25% increase in CO2 levels yet it appears that CO2 rose by 64%.
** a 7 degree fahrenheit rise in global temperature yet it only rose 0.6 degrees celsius or 1.08 degrees fahrenheit
** a 10 foot rise in sea level yet we only witnessed a 75mm or 2.9 inch rise. im sure residents of new york city and washington dc are grateful that my moynihans predictions of their cities being submerged were inaccurate.

so despite a carbon dioxide level increase that was more than double what was being predicted, the global temperature and sea level rise predictions were drastically off.

now, im not saying that we shouldnt do anything to get away from fossil fuel usage and move to renewable energy supplies. or that we shouldnt be doing things to generally protect the global environment. however, it has to be taken with a grain of salt when people start trying to predict what the climate will be like in 20, 40 or 100 years from now.

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the boys of summer

so i had the opportunity to enjoy myself in the bleacher seats at fenway park earlier this week and watch my red sox beat tampa bay. as is typical when im at a game, i feel like i have ADD. sure im paying attention to the play on the field but there is so much downtime during a game that i start watching the crowd, dugouts, umpires, bat & ball boys, security, field crew...you get my point.

a few years ago major league baseball decided to be a little more fan friendly. part of this initiative was throwing balls into the stands as fan souvenirs at the end of innings. which got me to thinking about how many balls does a major league baseball team use during the course of a season and at what cost?

MLB seems to be fairly tightlipped on any specifics but after doing some research it seems to break down fairly close to this.

** the home team is required to have 5 dozen balls at the ready for a game
** a balls typical lifespan is 6-9 pitches
** there are roughly 250-300 pitches thrown per game
** which means that 35-50 balls are used per game
** which means that each team uses 2800-4100 baseballs in a season
** which means MLB uses between 84000-123000 baseballs during the course of a season (i did read in some places that it could be as high as 160,000 but in doing the math it seemed a little too high)

** im assuming that MLB has a special bulk contract with rawlings since they use so many balls in a season. but lets stipulate that they pay the normal rate.
** rawlings charges $170 for a dozen baseballs
** which means every team spends between $39000-$174000 per season on baseballs
** which means MLB spends between $1.1M-$1.7M per season on baseballs


so my initial thought from the bleachers was that giving away baseballs to fans was an expensive way to gain fan loyalty to the team and league. but if you consider that the average ticket price at fenway park is now slightly over $50 (MLB baseball average is $27), it may not be such a bad idea. 35000 fans at $50 each is just shy of $2 million PER GAME! or the cost for 11 seasons worth of baseballs.

happy 4th of july everyone!



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