Wednesday, July 23, 2003

Still in Cambridge Mass.

If you come to Harvard I recommend that you stop at John Harvard's Brew House. They have a selection of excellent beers. I have tried their Pale Ale and Red and both were very good.

For breakfast there is a little place in Harvard Square called The Greenhouse. They offer several breakfast specials at a reasonable price and the food is good, especially the bread products.

This is a very lively place at night, even on a Tuesday. There were several musicians playing on the street with small crowds sitting and watching. There are also a lot of "street people" but I guess that is a characteristic of most college towns. There was one old guy with a long gray beard and bushy gray hair sitting in a doorway writing on a napkin and mumbling. Three hours later I walked by again and he was still there, still writing on a napkin and talking to himself. It looked like some sort of mathematical problem that he was working on, but it could have been jus a bunch of letters.

The Harvard campus is beautiful. The buildings are beautiful. I'll have to post some pictures when I get home.

I am going to a friend's apartment in Brighton tonight for dinner. Then back to the library tomorrow.

Tuesday, July 22, 2003

Baseball in Boston

I went to the Red Sox-Tigers game last night--it was a blowout. Boston scored five runs in the second and the six in the third. I enjoyed the experience. We sat in the grandstand seats in right field, right down the first base line.

I went to the concession stand to get a beer--for $6.25, not a big beer just a 16 ounce cup with an inch of foam on top. I felt like John Travolta in Pulp Fiction when Uma Thurman orders a "five dollar shake" and he asks her for sip so that he can see what a $5.00 shake tastes like. A $6.25 beer tastes about the same as a $2 beer, only warmer. Anyhow, I recommend the Polish sausage with peppers and onions...mmmm.

I thought that I was going to die coming back to Cambridge from the game. I took th "T" (subway) and the line at the station went up the steps and on to the street. If there would have been a fire or something hundreds of people would have been trampled.

I want to go back and take the Fenway Park tour later this week if the weather cooperates. But right now I am headed back to the library.

President Bush Deceives the American People

Saturday, July 19, 2003

Harvard Bound

That's right, I'm headed off to Harvard. My parents would be so proud...if it were true. Actually I am going to Harvard but only for a week. I'll be using one of the libraries and staying on Hahvahd Sqayah. I also got tickets to the Red Sox game on Monday. That will be my first time at Fenway Park so I am excited about that (even though I am not much of an American League fan).

I probably won't post for a few days, so if someone would like to post some controversial comments to keep things lively, it would be much appreciated.



Thursday, July 17, 2003

Lies, Forgeries, Cover-up

Read this letter to Dubya by an organization of retired CIA, military and NSA intelligence officers:


Tuesday, July 15, 2003

Socially Acceptable Table Talk

I had to go to a friend's wedding over the weekend. I was seated at the academic table with a retired professor and his wife, a recent PhD who is starting his first job in the fall and his wife (a grduate student), and a grad student in English who is finishing his masters thesis and getting out of academia.

The retired professor and his wife are great and I have known them for several years. We talked about baseball and department politics and other mutual interests. None of us knew the grad student so we asked him about his work. He said that he is studying rhetoric in contemporary christian "literature." Well, I had to explore that a bit.

I asked him about the themes and writers and he said that he tries to stay away from writers that are political or write about political topics. He went on to say that there are some in reaction to feminism and mentioned something about Promise Keepers and that one of the writers he is studying is James Dobson. My reaction: "WHATTTTT????? Are you an idiot?" Okay, I didn't really say that, but I wanted to.

Is this guy serious? He was telling me how he is only studying non-political writing and then brings up feminism, Promise Keepers, and James Dobson. How much more political can you get? I had to bite my tongue, I wanted to get into it with this guy but I decided to just smile and nod.

Friday, July 11, 2003

Numbers

from BuzzFlash:
Are you better off than you were four years ago?

Mullet Night?

I took my dad to a Reading Phillies game on Wednesday night and I swear it must have been Mullet Night at the ballpark. Maybe you could get in for half price with a mullet. I haven't seen so many mullets (yes even a few "fe-mullets") in over a decade.

The one guy looked like Doug from the movie Ghost World, only with longer hair in the back. This guy was about 30 and he was pushing little kids out of his way so that he could get a foul ball.

Well, we enjoyed the game and the entertainment. In addition to the mullet show there was Rockin' Ray and the Amazing Skyy Dogs. The game was kind of sloppy but the hotdogs were hot and the beer was cold.

Wednesday, July 09, 2003

Hop Toads

When I was a kid we lived on a street that ran between a river and a creek that feeds into it. As a result we had numerous "visitors" in our backyard--everything from copperhead snakes to muskrats, even an escaped naked mental patient (that's another story.)

Anyhow, my mother reminded me of the time that my brother and I (we were about 3 and 4years old) collected a bucket-full of tiny hop toads that had invaded our yard. These are the little guys that are about 3/4 of an inch and pee on you when you pick them up. Well, we decided that we were going to "liberate" some of these little toads by taking them to Grandma's house and setting them free in her big yard.

So we got in the Impala with our bucket-o-toads and set off for Grandma's house--a mere two miles away. Well, on the way there the bucket fell over and the toads escaped. That's right, dozens of little toads hopping around inside the car. So we pulled over and tried to put them back in the bucket or let them out of the car. So a few made it to Grandma's house but most of them were set free along the road somewhere.

Tuesday, July 08, 2003

Lies

Daniel Schorr had an interesting commentary on All Things Considered yesterday about the manipulation of intelligence to get Congress to approve war on Iraq.

Here's the link

Thome Snubbed

The MLB All Stars were announced today and Jim Thome was missing from the lineup. The Phillies lone representative this year will be pitcher Randy Wolf.

I think I jinxed the Phils. They have lost three in a row since I posted about them.

Saturday, July 05, 2003

Go Phillies!

It is the July 4th weekend, the half-way point in Major League Baseball, and the Phillies are 5 1/2 games above .500, they are also 5 1/2 games behind the Braves in the NL East. The good news for the Phils is that the Atlanta pitching staff is hurting.

If the Phillies can get some runs to compliment their pitching they will be in good shape. Burrell and Bell especially are under-performing offensively. And thanks again Cleveland for Jim Thome, your loss is our gain. Not only can he swing the bat but he has only one error this season at first base (Gold Glove?).

Friday, July 04, 2003


I found myself in an awkward position yesterday while watching the Cubs-Phillies game. Usually I would like to see the Phillies score as many runs as possible, but in the bottom of the 8th inning and Phils on second and third and two outs the Cubs brought in reliever Juan Cruz. He hit the first batter that he faced, Mike Lieberthal, to load the bases. Then Cruz just could not find the plate. He ended up walking in two or three runs and one of the pitches for ball four was behind the batter.

I actually wanted him to just put a pitch over the plate so that someone could hit into an out. After about six or seven pitches in a row that were out of the strike zone he got one over for a strike and the Philadephia crowd cheered. Then he struck out the last batter.

I felt sorry for the guy. Standing out there in front of 60,000 fans and he could not throw a strike.

Thursday, July 03, 2003

Tuesday, July 01, 2003