The Bridge, again.

O Sleepless as the river under thee,
Vaulting the sea, the prairies' dreaming sod,
Unto us lowliest sometime sweep, descend
And of the curveship lend a myth to God.

Hart Crane, "To Brooklyn Bridge"

The hits just keep on coming.

This blog has alredy set records this month for both visits and page views (see here), and it's only the 20th. Thank you, my loyal readers.

I'm curious, though (not that I mind at all), as to why it's suddenly so popular in British Columbia.

Update: An anonymous interlocutor (from - where else? - Vancouver) suggests "DawnCoyote's jealous boyfriend?" If that's so, at least I have the comfort of knowing there's the breadth of a continent between us.

But then I think of General John Sedgwick (see here).

Concerning the provenance of hits.

Dawn Coyote (click on "View Full Size" under her eyes for a vision that, if you're attracted to women, will make your heart palpitate) has used her Sitemeter to determine what Google searches have brought visitors to her blog, Fond Adversria, and reported the results here. I tried the same thing, but my results were quite prosaic compared to hers (yeah, I know, it's to be expected - no one wants to see my naughty bits).

However, tonight one of my visitors had, as the URL referring to my blog, that for a post titled "Why Lying Works" in a blog titled "Survival Guide to Homelessness". I went to it, and found no link to my blog, either in the main post or in the comments. However, I found it well worth reading.

Update: Dawn Coyote has replied with a lovely video clip about addled arachnids. Well worth a look.

A sad note to follow a great season.

As those of you who've read my posts on college football know, this has been a really good season for me, despite my premonitions of disaster at every turn. The Gators won the big one, and my alma mater, South Florida, had their first bowl triumph.

Now this. I'm ashamed to say that my first reaction was to hope it wasn't the fault of the USF coaching staff; that Keeley Dorsey had some undetected somatic disorder. But all that matters is, as the Beach Boys once sang, "A young man is gone."

Addendum: Today's New York Times has a story by Alan Schwarz (if you're not already registered with the Times, you'll need to do so to see the article; it's free) about the outcome of medical tests following the recent suicide of former Philadelphia Eagles defensive back Andre Waters (see bio here). Waters, who was 44 at the time of his death and lived in Tampa (coincidentally also where Keeley Dorsey died) had suffered from depression over the past several years. According to Schwarz's story, a post-mortem examination of Waters' brain tissue showed that it was similar to that of an octogenarian in the early stages of Alzheimer's. Over the course of his football career, Waters had suffered perhaps fifteen or more concussions.

I'd be quick to say that, whenever I'm watching a game and see a player down on the field, whether he's with the team I root for or the other, I nod in agreement with the announcer who says, "Don't you just hate it when that happens?" I watch football to see the well-placed pass that threads the defensive needle, the graceful reception, the runner finding a gap in the line and artfully eluding defenders downfield, the defensive back tipping the ball away at the crucial moment, the field goal in the final seconds to win or go to overtime, even the punt into the coffin corner. Yes, but what about the jarring tackle that shakes the ball from the hands of the leaping receiver or lunging runner? The linebacker catching the quarterback from the blind side and slamming him down, or the blitzing safety plowing into him head-on? Well, these are part of the game too, and, yes, an enjoyable part.

So long as no one really gets hurt. But how do we know?

Are unions evil?

It seems that even Mickey Kaus thinks not (but you have to wait until the end of the discussion to find out).

Am I alone in thinking that Kaus looks like someone who would beat someone else up for lunch money, and Robert Wright looks like the kid he would beat up?

The romance of asphalt.

A few days ago, I was sitting here at the computer when the blast of a ship's whistle from the East River made me grab my camera and rush downstairs and across the street to the Brooklyn Heights Promenade (see here). The passing ship, heading south into New York Harbor, proved to be Asphalt Seminole, a small (108 meters length, 9,400 deadweight tons) liquid asphalt carrying tanker. A little Google research showed her owner to be an Isle of Man corporation belonging to the Sergeant Group of companies, headquartered in Boca Raton, Florida, and her registry to be Irish (as "Dublin" below her name on her stern - click on the photo to enlarge - indicated). She was built in a Croatian yard, and her trading range is shown on her owner's website as Caribbean/South America/West Africa/Europe, so this voyage had her a bit outside her usual stomping grounds.

What intrigues me about this ship is her Irish flag. Has the Celtic Tiger become a "flag of convenience"? I also found in my research a piece about a new container ship owned by the Evergreen group, of Taiwan, which flies the British flag. Has the whole flag of convenience game taken a new turn?

My small contribution to blogger knowledge.

If you want to attract visits to your blog, posting about a celebrity will spike your hit count for a short period, but blogging about a train will get you a steady stream of visitors.

Addendum: David Carr, of the New York Times, has a column in today's business section about his experience as a blogger. He has the following trenchant observation about having a blog: "[T]hink of [the blog] as a large yellow Labrador: friendly, fun, not all that bright, but constantly demanding your attention."

As I was still chuckling over that, however, I came to this chilling quotation from New York University professor Clay Shirky, with whom Mr. Carr was discussing blogging: "There is an obsessive, dollhouse pleasure in configuring and looking at it, a constant measure of social capital."

I could say more, but it's time to go check my Sitemeter.

A turning point in the climate change controversy?

Am I naive to think that this is a significant development?

Update: As of now, it doesn't seem to have had much effect on Exxon Mobil's stock price. (The gain for Exxon today appears to have been caused by a jump in the price of crude - see here.)

More on the oil front: Lord Browne, who was the first major oil CEO to break ranks on the greenhouse emissions issue and strove to create a "green" image for his company, is stepping down earlier than expected. This Wall Street Journal article implies that his departure was caused by dissatisfaction over BP's poor safety record over the past several years, not over his environmental stance. The sidebar on his successor, Tony Hayward, now head of BP's exploration and production, doesn't give any indication of his environmental views. Nevertheless, it seems unlikely he would try to reverse BP's course, especially in light of Exxon's action.

Was someone trying to tell me something?

(Click on image to enlarge.)

An offer that should not be misunderestimated.

Henry Blodget in today's Slate.

Possibly the greatest legislative speech ever made.

Every time I despair of the mess in Albany (and right now I'm skeptical of Spitzer's ability to make good on his promised reforms, at least so long as Joe Bruno and Shelly Silver keep their leadership posts in the Senate and Assembly, respectively), I can cheer myself up a bit by thinking of Texas. Kevin, a Canadian expat in Tokyo, put a link in his blog, The Woodshed, here, to a story about a Texas legislator who wants to allow blind people to hunt game with rifles. Stories like this bring to my mind an aritcle Molly Ivins wrote for The Atlantic back in the 1970s, titled "Inside the Austin Fun House", which described some of the wackier goings-on in the Texas "Lege". Included in the piece was the text, in full, of a speech on the floor of the Texas Senate in support of a bill to increase the tax on liquor by ten cents a bottle. It went approximately as follows:

Gentlemens, I wants you to imagine yourselves goin' to the store to buy yourselves a bottle. And on your way to the store, this little child comes up to you, and he says, "Mister, can you buy me a lollipop?" And you says, "Naw, son, I cain't buy you no lollipop." And you goes into the store and buys your bottle, and you pays your extra ten cents tax. Ain't nobody yet ever paid what it's really worth. And you says to yourself, "If I can afford an extra ten cents for this bottle of liquor, I can afford to buy that little child a lollipop." So, gentlemens, I asks for your vote on this bill, for the sake of the children of Texas.

All in all, an elegant rejoinder to Amity Shlaes' screed against Pigovian taxes, don't you think?

College football Wow! Gators win by palindromic score.

Florida 41, Ohio State 14. Eat crow, all you play-it-safe pundits, all you believers in Big Ten supremacy, all you worshippers of Tra-DI-shon. I could name names, but you know who you are. (Confession time: I almost joined you, but I hedged.)

Addendum: Last night's gratifying outcome got me to wondering - how many palindromic football scores are possible? Here's my list (for an obvious reason, I've limited my universe to four-digit scores):

21-12, 31-13, 32-23, 41-14, 42-24, 43-34, 51-15, 52-25, 53-35, 54-45, 61-16, 62-26, 63-36, 64-46, 65-56, 71-17, 72-27, 73-37, 74-47, 75-57, 76-67, 81-18, 82-28, 83-38, 84-48, 85-58, 86-68, 87-78, 91-19, 92-29, 93-39, 94-49, 95-59, 96-69, 97-79, 98-89

Anything past 62-26 seems extremely unlikely (63-36, 71-17 and 81-18 seem barely plausible). I did some quick Google research to try to find the highest total score in a college football game ever, but came up blank. Does anyone know?

Update: Hipparchia (be sure to follow that link and check out the lemming trampoline jump; also note that she calls SAB one of her favorite blogs - Smooch!) reminds me of something that was in the back of my mind, i.e. that Georgia Tech was once involved in a very high scoring game. She found a link that confirms my vague recollection (too vague to put in my post above) that the Yellow Jackets beat Cumberland 222-0 on October 7, 1916; that is, when my mother, whose 90th birthday we celebrated last year, was a five day old infant. I'm reasonably confident that's the highest total score ever in a college football game (maybe even in any football game); the odd thing being that all the scoring was on one side.

The Dark Side revealed!

What you see above is an image, made by Chandra, of two colliding clusters of galaxies. The red areas at the center of the image are normal interstellar gas heated by the collision. The outer blue areas are the first visual evidence of the "dark matter" that theorists have posited as making up most of the mass of the universe. The dark matter is not heated because units of such matter do not interact with each other or with normal matter in ways that generate heat. The dark matter is detected by gravitational lensing; that is, by the distortion of the light from more distant objects behind it.

I found this image, as in my earlier "Galactic Greetings" post, through a link in Cosmic Log. This link took me to a post of the "Top Ten Astronomy Images of 2006" in a superb blog called Bad Astronomy. The other images are well worth perusing.

Farewell to the H-Bomb.

No, not the weapon. On New Year's eve, we had some friends over for dinner and to watch the fireworks from our roof. My wife suggested that I play some James Brown, so I dug out my Roots of a Revolution, which documents his early years with King Records in Cincinnatti, backed by the first version of the Famous Flames. After that played, our guests were in the mood for more historic R&B, so I put on the third disc, "Things Have Changed 1951-1955", of a superb collection, Stompin' at the Savoy, which includes jump blues and R&B cuts released on the Savoy label from 1944 to 1961. The first cut on the "Things have Changed" disc happened to be "Good Lovin'" (not to be confused with the song released in 1966 by the Young Rascals) by "H-Bomb" Ferguson, a jump blues with a bellowing vocal backed by a snazzy band. The singer's name elicited some curiosity; all I could say was what I had read in the booklet accompanying the disc: that he was a blues shouter who recorded for Savoy in the early 1950s and had a style reminiscent of Wynonie Harris. The nickname came from Savoy producer Lee Magid, who said Ferguson's "voice could shake a room."

This morning I was reading an article by Will Friedwald in the arts section of the New York Sun inspired by a forthcoming Highlights in Jazz concert at the Tribeca Performing Arts Center, featuring the great alto saxophonist Lou Donaldson. Friedwald's article stresses the importance of Donaldson's roots in blues, and notes that, when he settled in New York after World War Two, he "began to study music seriously, working extensively with R&B singers such as H-Bomb Ferguson and Larry Darnell and touring with Wynonie Harris."

I figured that encountering references to the same relatively little-known R&B artist twice in three days must signal kismet. These days, kismet leads me to Google, where I learned that H-Bomb left New York in the late 1950s for Cincinnatti, where he, like James Brown, recorded for King Records. When his recording career didn't take off like Brown's, he continued to perform live, but didn't make a CD until 1993's Wiggin' Out, which took its name from his late career habit of performing in brightly colored wigs. You can hear a sample of "My Brown Frame Baby", from that album, here.

My Google search also uncovered this amazing list of "bomb songs" (including H-Bomb's 1952 "Rock H-Bomb Rock") compiled by an outfit called Conelrad (remember the original?) in a multi-disc collection called Atomic Platters - Cold War Music from the Golden Age of Homeland Security. Click on any song title to get a short account of the artist and history, along with the lyrics. For example, here's "Jesus Hits Like an Atom Bomb" by Lowell Blanchard and the Valley Trio, and here's the scarifying "When They Drop the Atomic Bomb", by Jackie Doll and his Pickled Peppers.

My research on Mr. Ferguson came to a sad conclusion with this item from Variety, noting his death just over a month ago.

Put a laurel crown over Exit Nine.

As I've noted here before, Rutgers played in, and won, the first college football game ever. But it's taken them 137 years to get their first bowl game victory. The boys from New Brunswick defeated those from Manhattan (Kansas, that is) by 37-10.

Meanwhile, on a different tectonic plate, a Florida State team that only managed to break even in its regular season beat UCLA by 44-27. Recalling that the Bruins beat Southern Cal by 13-9, a four point margin, and noting the Noles 17 point advantage over UCLA, can we conclude that FSU is better than USC by 21 points? No, no, no. Football teams are not elements of a well-ordered set.

Pre-title game update: Joey Johnston seems to be rethinking his earlier diss of the Gators.

A big "Thank you!" to Josh Levin, in Slate, for agreeing with me that the college game is more fun. (Now I'm kicking myself for missing the Fiesta Bowl.)

A white post-Christmas

On Christmas day, there was no snow to be seen in far northern New York State, where we were visiting for the holiday. On the morning of the 26th, however, we woke up to find this scene.

Bulls are bowl victors.

A first for the young football program of my alma mater, South Florida: a bowl game win. They defeated East Carolina 24-7, largely by dint of a superb defense. Freshman QB Matt Grothe played very well in the first half, but was forced out by a blow to the shin late in the second quarter. Senior Pat Julmiste, whom Grothe had dislodged as starter early in the season, did yeoman service in the second half. Though the Bulls did not add to the 24 points they had gotten early, Julmiste directed an effective ball control game, relying largely on the running of Benjamin Williams. This meant the defense could get some rest, which paid off when the Pirates failed to score either, despite several incursions of the USF red zone.

One of the commentators remarked that some publication has already put together a pre-season college fotball top 25 for 2007, and that South Florida is its number 25. I probably put less stock in this than most people would. Still, it's possible to imagine them going to something a bit more prestigious than the Papa John's Bowl next year.

Update: Todd Wright of Sporting News has a piece on the "worst bowl names ever", and Papa John's is the first mentioned (though with the observation that it is far from the worst). Wright saves my favorite, the Poulan Weed-Eater Independence Bowl, for the final graf of his article.

Galactic greetings.

This Christmas tree light-like display is an image of one of our galaxy's centers of new star formation, called W3. It was made by Harvard's and NASA's orbiting Chandra X-Ray Observatory (see here) (named for the great astrophysicist Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar), and the image was downloaded from Alan Boyle's splendid Cosmic Log, on MSNBC.

A heartwarming holiday story.

Mr. "You're fired!" shows his forgiving side, and Tara keeps her tiara.

It's a wonderful life.

12.20 extry: The Daily News's perhaps inevitable page 2-3 banner today: "Teary Tara to Keep Her Tiara". On page one, she's called "Queen of Denial".

Lagniappe

If you're not familiar with the word I've used to head this post, and there's no reason why you should be if you haven't spent some time on the Louisiana or Mississippi Gulf Coast, the definition is here. It's interesting to see its etymology, coming to Creole French via Spanish, but having its origin in the Native American Quechua language.

Anyway, I've used it to head this post because this is a season for gift-giving, and I'd like to use this post as a way of sharing a few things that I hope will make your season brighter. First, you may remember that, a month ago, I recommended and linked to a blog called The Goat Rope (see here). Being caught up in pre-holiday stuff, I've been neglecting my blog and failing to keep up with some of my favorites. On looking into El Cabrero's latest offerings, I was delighted to see a series of posts (here, here, here, here and here) in which, responding to a reader's challenge, he gives his vision of a just society. I find little to fault in E.C.'s prescriptions; to find areas where we disagree, you need to go back to an earlier series of posts to which he links in his discussion, particularly this one (yes, I'm sort of taking the side of Denny Dimwit). I mean to write what I hope will serve as a well-thought-out response to E.C.'s series once life calms down a bit. For now, suffice it to say I think that, in some areas, I'm a little less conservative and perhaps a bit more optimistic than he is.

I know this is a busy time of year, and I've thrust a lot of links at you. I hope you'll come back to this post at your leisure and enjoy. Before closing, though, I want to share with you the "Seasonal Mediation", as he (Freudianly) typed it, that The Rev. Stephen Muncie, Rector of Grace Church, Brooklyn Heights, had printed in the bulletin for today's services (the identity of the author is not known):

If, as Herod, we fill our lives with things,
and again with things;

if we consider ourselves so unimportant
that we must fill every moment of our
lives with action,
when will we have the time to make the
long, slow journey across the desert as did
the Magi?

Or sit and watch the stars as did
the shepherds?

Or brood over the coming of the child as
did Mary?

For each one of us, there is a desert to
travel. A star to discover. And a being
within ourselves to bring to life.

Atlantic Avenue and the Yards controversy.

Atlantic Avenue has been called the Champs-Élysées of Brooklyn, an analogy that does neither thoroughfare any good. Atlantic is a broad boulevard that traverses the width of the Borough, from west to east. It begins amid piers facing the Buttermilk Channel, the strait separating Brooklyn from Governor's Island, and extends eastward into Jamaica, Queens, not far from Kennedy Airport. It does not include any vista of Brooklyn's triumphal arch, instead passing some ways to the south of it. While portions of it, as you will see below, have become chic, most of it is still characteristic of what the name "Brooklyn" evokes in many minds: ethnically diverse and gritty.

My first view of Atlantic Avenue (a fairly comprehensive one, beginning not at the waterfront but at Boerum Place, a few blocks inland, and extending to its eastern teminus in Queens) was in the 1970s, when I was still living in Manhattan, and took a taxi to catch a flight at Kennedy. The driver knew that the quickest route from lower Manhattan to JFK at the afternoon rush was not the expressway, but straight-as-an-arrow Atlantic, which, despite the inconvenience of traffic lights, was not so heavily used. What I saw as we headed eastward was an amazing unfolding of the polyglot patchwork of Brooklyn: first Arabic, then African-Carribean, then Hispanic-Carribean, then a complex melange (on one block, I saw a social club for Cape Verde Islanders), then many blocks of grim industrial buildings with the now-elevated subway clattering overhead, followed by a semi-suburban stretch in which the names on commercial establishments were mostly Italian or Irish (Italy and Ireland are two of the "three Is" of traditional ethnic Brooklyn; the other is Israel).

Since then, Atlantic has steadily been gentrified along its western stretch, from its origin at the waterfront to Fourth Avenue, coinciding with the same trend in the adjoining neighborhoods of Boerum Hill (which you can read about in its pre-yuppified state in Jonathan Lethem's The Fortress of Solitude) and Fort Greene. Fortunately, amid the proliferation of antique shops (like that shown at right) and clothing boutiques, some of the older establisments have survived. Some of these, like Sahadi's food market and the Damascus Bakery between Clinton and Court Streets, and the Brawta Carribean Cafe at the corner of Hoyt Street, have developed a yuppie following while keeping clientele from their respective ethnic communities. There has also been (as is common throughout the more desirable parts of the City in recent years) some conversion of formerly commercial buildings to residential use. The building shown above is an example of this, but its owners have decided to highlight its original commercial use by repainting the faded sign that has adorned its facade for many years following the departure of Mr. Curtin's firm.

The dominant landmark over the western part of Atlantic Avenue is the Williamsburgh Savings Bank Building, for many years Brooklyn's lone skyscraper, and described in Slate by writer Jonathan Ames as "the most obviously phallic building I've ever seen." Check these views from Bridge and Tunnel Club, and see if you agree.

I took the photo at left last Sunday, looking east from the corner of Atlantic and Hoyt. The uppermost part of the tower, including the clock face, is shrouded in scaffolding and black netting, because the Building, like so many older office buildings in New York City, is being converted to residential use. Apartments on the higher floors will afford some spectacular views. The steeple at the lower right corner of the picture belongs to a Belorussian Autocephalous Orthodox church.

Just to the right of the Williamsburgh Savings Bank Building, where Atlantic, Flatbush and Fourth Avenues intersect, is Brooklyn's most contested site. A branch of the Long Island Rail Road terminates here, at the underground Atlantic Terminal, where several MTA subway lines also converge and thousands of commuters change trains. To the east of the Terminal are the tracks making up the LIRR's Vanderbilt Yard, which for some distance are below ground level but uncovered. Bruce Ratner, a real estate developer who has been very active in Brooklyn, plans to use the space above the rail yard, and some neighboring space, which will necessitate the demolition of some buildings, including some former warehouses that have been converted to loft apartments, to create an enormous mixed-use complex known as Atlantic Yards. The focal point of this development, occupying the apex of the wedge formed by the intersection of Atlantic and Flatbush Avenues, would be an arena for the Nets, the NBA team now playing in New Jersey, but which Ratner has bought and has said he intends to bring to Brooklyn. Coincidentally, this is the same site on which, in the early 1950s, Walter O'Malley wanted to build a new park for the Dodgers to replace Ebbets Field, a plan that was vetoed by Robert Moses, who wanted to relocate the Dodgers to Flushing Meadows, Queens, which is where Shea Stadium was eventually built for the Mets. O'Malley wouldn't take his team east to Queens, and instead took it west to Los Angeles.

The proposed Nets arena alone would be sufficient to raise controversy because of the additional traffic it will generate, although it is located on one of the best sites in the City for mass transit accessibility. It is what else Ratner proposes for the entire 22 acre site, though, that has elevated the animosity between those supporting and those opposing the project to a level that the Village Voice has characterized as a second "Battle of Brooklyn" (for details about the first one, see here). Looming above the Nets arena would be a huge office building, designed (as will be the arena and the rest of the buildings on the site) by Frank Gehry, and dubbed "Miss Brooklyn". This building would be considerably taller (though plans have recently been downsized) than the nearby Williamsburgh Savings Bank Building, thereby violating what some project opponents claim is a taboo, rather like the Philadelphia version involving Billy Penn's hat (see here), which was broken in 1984. If Miss Brooklyn is built, perhaps Priapus will put a curse on the Nets (and maybe my beloved Cyclones as well) just as Billy Penn is said by some to have done to the Eagles, Flyers, Phillies and Sixers. Below is a view, prepared by Gehry's firm and taken from the image gallery on Ratner's official Atlantic Yards website, of the arena and Miss Brooklyn, seen from the south at night. Note the Williamsburgh Savings Bank Building at the far left of this view.


Note also in the view above the buildings extending beyond the arena/Miss Brooklyn complex, as well as the one to the left, west of Flatbush. In addition to office buildings and a hotel, the site is planned to include thousands of apartments, including both market rate and "affordable" units.

Opponents of Atlantic Yards have mostly united under the slogan "Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn" (see website here). They have objected to the project because of the already-mentioned traffic issue, as well as the effect the scale of the development will have on surrounding, largely low-rise residential neighborhoods. In addition, they point to the possible use of eminent domain to clear portions of the site, which would constitute a taking of private property by government to further a private development, on the theory that the development serves a public purpose. Such a taking of property was recently upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in its controversial 5-4 decision in Kelo v. City of New London (see here).

Those supporting the project include people who think they may benefit from the jobs it will create, sports fans excited about bringing a big league team to Brooklyn, and those who simply believe that likely benefits of the proposed development outweigh its costs. Among these last are Mayor Bloomberg, Brooklyn Borough President Markowitz and, apparently, Governor-elect Spitzer.

Both sides have employed visual propaganda to bolster their arguments. The Gehry firm has produced depictions of the public spaces within the Atlantic yards development (see example at right), which project an Edenic image of urban oases, an image made explicit by a quotation on the official website from Herbert Muschamp, architecture critic for the New York Times. An opponent of the project has done a Google Earth rendering of the proposed buildings (see below; image by John Keegan from Invisibleman; this image is licensed under Creative Commons) which produces monolithic representations lacking in architectural detail. Note also that the proposed buildings are colored an angry red, not a soothing blue or cheerful green (in the Gehry depiction above, they are a mixture of angelic white and lustrous gold).


Some of the most insightful commentary on the Atlantic Yards brouhaha, in my estimation, comes from a writer and blogger named Steven Berlin Johnson, who lives in Park Slope, and is therefore in a position to be affected by the project. In this post, he links to John Keegan's Google Earth model, shown above, but Johnson notes that he, like me, is a qualified supporter of the project. (If you scroll down into the comments, you'll find a thoughtful rejoinder from Keegan.) And here he links to an article on contemporary misunderstandings of the urbanist philosophy of Jane Jacobs, written by the unrelated Karrie Jacobs and published in Metropolis Magazine, that refers to the Atlantic Yards controversy. Johnson's commentary, as well as that in the comments following the post, is also well worth reading.

12.12.06 Update: James Gardner, in today's New York Sun, pans Gehry's first major New York City commission to be completed, the IAC Building at 11th Avenue and 18th Street, in Manhattan.

12.19.06 Update: Yesterday's Sun editorialized against approval of Atlantic Yards by the Public Authorities Control Board, cheering for Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver to do an encore of the "Dr. No" role he played regarding the West Side Stadium. The Sun editorialist doesn't object to the project per se, just to the use of eminent domain to condemn private property in order to build it. But, in today's Sun, columnist Nicole Gelinas attacks the Atlantic Yards proposal root and branch, on "free market" grounds, calling it "A Bit of Everything [that's] Wrong" with New York City.

12.21.06 Update: Contrary to previous reports that a vote would be delayed until January, the Public Authorities Control Board yesterday approved Atlantic Yards. This closes the regualtory process, meaning the only remaining obstacles to the project are several citizen group lawsuits. The Times article is here, but you need to register (which you can do for free) to see it; the Sun's piece is here. According to the Times story, one of the compromises made to secure approval was a reduction in the height of "Miss Brooklyn" to less than that of the Williamsburgh Savings Bank Building, so Priapus can relax.

Better late than never: joining the "speed of a meme" crowd.

A few days ago, I followed a link from Fray friend Hipparchia's blog Gun Tamga that led to another blog, Rough Theory, which belongs to an Australian Ph.D. candidate, N. Pepperell, who, I was glad to find, shares some interests (urban planning, cultural studies, evolution) with me. The post on Rough Theory to which Gun Tamga linked concerned plagiarism, which prompted me to post a comment to it, linking to the lyrics of Tom Lehrer's song "Lobachevsky" (to which I also had occasion to link in my college football rant directly below this post).

Rough Theory also referred to another blog called Acephalous (like the acephalous horseman who pursued poor Ichabod Crane in Washington Irving's The Legend of Sleepy Hollow), which I finally got around to looking at today. It's the project of one Scott Eric Kauffman, evidently an academic in California who is about to attend a meeting of the Modern Language Association. It's his intention to present to the MLA the result of an experiment in transmission of a "meme" (the brainchild of Richard Dawkins) through links between blogs. Anyway, he's asked that whoever reads his post on this meme-transmission experiment first link their blog to the post (as I've just done), ask readers to do the same (I'm asking you, please, to do so, linking directly to the post I've given you the link for just above, and not to my post), and then ping Technorati (very easy - just follow the instructions on the linked page).

Believe me, this is not a chain letter, or the moral equivalent thereof. No money or other goodies will come your way if you follow these instructions (at least I'd be surprised if it happened), and no misfortune will befall you just because you choose to ignore them (of that I'm quite sure).

Update: I may have to modify my "no ... goodies will come your way" prediction, as I've seen a large increase in hits on my site meter since I posted this morning. I can only guess that this is because I've pinged Technorati. Maybe I should do that more often.

So, anyway, if your attitude toward visitors on your blog is, "The more, the merrier" (as is mine), following the directions three paragraphs above may well be to your benefit.

I wuz wrong! (But I'm glad.)

Gators win SEC. Meanwhile, Bruins stuff Trojans. So, will the Lords of BCS give the Gators a shot at the championship, or will Michigan (idle today) get a rematch? We'll see ...

(My guess? Big Ten centrism prevails, and Florida gets relegated to the dreaded rematch with N.D.)

Meanwhile, my other prediction does come true, as West Virginia scotches Rutgers' shot at a BCS bowl.

Update: Wrong again, glad again. The Gators go to Glendale. Every sensible cell in my brain tells me they'll lose; nay, not just lose, but lose embarassingly, like that last championship matchup in Arizona, the one against Nebraska. There's even the possibility of a dreaded pundits' Tevye dance: "Woody Hayes, Tra-di-shon!", and so on.

But given my recent record of fallibility, I'm not making any prediction now.

Upchuck: Joey Johnston has already started shaking the tambourine for the pundits' dance. And Sporting News's Chris Russell says of the Gators what Izvestia said (to paraphrase slightly) of the book by the protagonist of Tom Lehrer's Lobachevsky: Ya idu kuda sam tzar' peshkom hodil (They stink).

We'll see.

Uprarious: Russell Levine of the New York Sun analogizes Florida's selection for the BCS championship game to the role of the State of Florida in the 2000 election.

"Winter is icumen in, ...

... Lhude sing Goddam"

-Ezra Pound

This fall has been unusually mild, with temperatures here in New York typically topping off in the mid 60s, and getting no colder than the high 40s at night. Today, it's supposed to get up to near 70, but then, the storm that's now blasting western New York State and Pennsylvania will get here, heralded by winds predicted to gust as high as 60 miles per hour. Things will cool off a lot, with highs next week in the 40s and lows at night just above freezing. In other words, we're in for some weather I'd consider normal for early November in this part of the world. Global warming? Maybe.

If you're looking for some visuals and text that will really cool you down, I recommend this blog by David Ruth, a sculptor who works in glass, and who has been given a National Science Foundation grant to spend just over a month at Palmer Station, on the Ross Ice Shelf that extends from Antarctica. Ruth's mission is to study the qualities of ice and its relationship to glass, and he posts lots of pictures of fantastic ice forms, interspersed with photos of, and text about, Antarctic wildlife and the people and facilities at Palmer. Well worth a visit.

More views from Maine.

Lobster catchers tend their pots on Casco Bay on a pleasantly brisk November afternoon.


It's been many years since the freight car on the right, now part of the Maine Narrow Gauge Railroad Co. & Museum's collection, was used to haul a Thanksgiving staple.


The Danish tanker Nordeuropa is discharging her cargo of crude oil at South Portland, southern terminus of a pipeline that serves the Montreal market.


Your guess is as good as mine.

Almost enough to make me root for Arkansas this weekend.

MSNBC's Joey Johnston tells Florida fans what Brooklyn Dodger fans used to say to their Yankee-loving counterparts: Wait 'til next year!

OK, I'm game for a wait. After all, I'm a Mets fan, too (must be something about teams that wear blue and orange). But then he raises the spectre of a Gator/Fighting Irish clash in the Sugar Bowl, assuming Florida manages to get by Arkansas in the SEC championship match. Yikes! A replay of the 1992 Cheerios Bowl, which I watched, first joyfully, then in agony, on the Lion's Head TV. Well, OK, shouldn't I want the Gators to get another shot at Notre Dame? Wouldn't victory this time be so sweet? Yeah, but all I can envision is Florida carrying another lead into the final minutes, then the great "Ol' Mo" switcheroo, with the boys from South Bend getting maybe a 45 yard go-ahead FG with seconds left on the clock. And then, the ultimate torture: the assembled commentators squatting on their heels, commencing to kick and, in Tevye mode, chant: "Golden Dome,Tra-di-shon! Joe Montana, Tra-di-shon! ..."

Better the Gators should lose in Atlanta and play Cincinnatti in the Roto-Rooter Bowl.

Addendum: I had a nagging feeling there was some connection between the Florida Gators and the Brooklyn Dodgers (besides being teams that often broke their fans' hearts). Now I remember -- it was Red Barber (see bio here). A native of Mississippi, Barber studied English in Gainesville and found a sideline as an announcer for the campus radio station, where he did live commentary on Gator football games. This started a career that took him to New York, where he became the voice of the Dodgers, and caused phrases like "sittin' in the tall cotton" and "tearin' up the pea patch" to become part of the Brooklyn patois.

Genghis Khan: the first liberal?

Yes, there are other contenders. For example, I think a strong case could be made for Cyrus the Great. Nevertheless, consider this passage from the introduction to Jack Weatherford's Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World, at page xix:

"As he smashed the feudal system of aristocratic privilege and birth, he built a new and unique system based on individual merit, loyalty, and achievement. He took the disjointed and languorous trading towns along the Silk Route and organized them into history's largest free-trade zone. He lowered taxes for everyone, and abolished them altogether for doctors, teachers, priests, and educational institutions. He established a regular census and created the first international postal system. His was not an empire that hoarded wealth and treasure; instead, he widely distributed the goods acquired in combat so that they could make their way back into commercial circulation. He created an international law and recognized the ultimate supreme law of the Eternal Blue Sky over all people. At a time when most rulers considered themselves to be above the law, Genghis Khan insisted on laws holding rulers as equally accountable as the lowest herder. He granted religious freedom within his realms, though he demanded total loyalty from conquered subjects of all religions. He insisted on the rule of law and abolished torture, but he mounted major campaigns to seek out and kill raiding bandits and terrorist assassins. He refused to hold hostages and, instead, instituted the novel practice of granting diplomatic immunity for all ambassadors and envoys, including those from hostile nations with whom he was at war."

Lowered taxes? Yes, if you define liberalism as "tax and spend", that may not seem an especially liberal move. But consider that the taxes he reduced likely were not entirely devoted to paying for the functions of government, but rather largely consigned to the enrichment of the monarch's coffers. Also note that those for whom he abolished taxes are considered to be the "liberal" professions or institutions. Most of the remainder of his program: advancement by merit not birth, free trade, freedom of religion, the rule of law (including international law), and the abolition of torture, comprise a set of classically liberal principles.

Today we think of Genghis Khan primarily as a bloodthirsty conqueror and despot. Weatherford, at pages 254-260, ascribes this to Eurocentric bias arising in the Enlightenment and later used to justify colonialism as well as vigilance against "yellow peril". But can we say, taking into account all of his accomplishments as described above, that the Khan was truly "liberal"? First, what do we mean by that much-abused term? I've already alluded to the contemporary "tax and spend" usage, implying belief in the desirability of an activist government that seeks to provide services as opposed to merely maintaining internal order and defense against external enemies. From Weatherford's description of the Khan's administration of his empire -- in particular his redistribution of wealth taken in conquest, institution of a system of fiat money, improvement of communications and monitoring of statistics -- we can conclude that he did to some extent believe in government's role in advancing "positive liberty".

I've also referred to actions the Khan took that advanced the classical liberal concept of "negative liberty", that is, non-interference with individual autonomy. In particular, these include the reduction of barriers to trade, religious tolerance, the limitation of the use of coerecive measures in the administration of justice, and the subjection of the monarch himself to the rule of law. Yet it is still fair to ask whether he was himself a "liberal" in the sense of subscribing to what the political philosopher Gerald Gaus calls the "fundamental liberal principle": that the freedom of the individual is "normatively basic, and so the onus of justification is on those who would limit freedom." Here I think we have to conclude that the answer is "no", at least to the extent that the Khan demanded total loyalty, which is certainly antithetical to a primary commitment to freedom, from his subjects. He was perhaps above all a pragmatist, having learned in his rise to power that allies were indispensable. He may have shrewdly anticipated the insights of Hobbes, Locke and Adam Smith, perceiving that the best way to create and sustain alliances is to rely on appealing to the self-interest of those whose loyalty one seeks.

Although the ascendancy of the Mongol Empire had a profoundly liberatory effect on the Eurasian world, it is ironic to note that it represented the triumph of a "primitive" nomadic society over "civilized" polities characterized by settled agriculture and urban centers. As Weatherford suggests at pages 233-34, this may be explained by the Mongol religion's having lacked a thick doctrinal structure, thereby allowing greater scope for syncretism and for pragmatic approaches to governance, trade and science.

Although Genghis Khan may not have been a "liberal" as we may strictly define that term, he was certainly "progressive". As Weatherford sums it up (at page 267): "He worked to create something new and better for his people."

Postscript: Rundeep sez: Sounds more like a capitalist to me. And I ain't talkin' e.e. cummings!

Well, dear lady, the archetypal Liberal Party (British) was, in its origins, about as pro-capitalist as you can get.

As for cummings, wasn't he an anti-capitalist?

What does this blog have in common with a fan site for a three woman rock band from China?

Both include a photograph of the Merchant Marine Memorial (see here).

Free Time, who publishes the linked blog, was kind enough to quote mine and link to it. I had never heard of Hang On The Box before finding this link. I recommend going to some of the music videos linked to the site. HOTB has a very interesting sound.

College football confusion.

I spent most of Friday watching games I didn't much care about, with the exception of Arkansas/LSU, about which I had mixed feelings. LSU is a team I like, and generally root for whenever they're not playing the Gators. This goes back to the days of Billy Cannon and three-platoon football, featuring the Chinese Bandits. Today, I still find much to admire aesthetically about LSU's game, featuring compact, agile players who execute a well-balanced offense and a quick, swarming defense. The Bayou Bengals occupy the same space for me in college football that the Cardinals do in my baseball universe.

Be that as it may, I had reason to want Arkansas to win. The Hogs are already slated to play Florida in the SEC championship game next week, and a win over a once defeated (and still theoretical title contender) team would do the Gators more good in the BCS standings than one over a twice defeated team. So I watched the game with my amygdala shouting "Geaux Tigers!" while my cerebrum whispered "Soo-ee-ee."

It was my amygdala that got to celebrate. Meanwhile, my cerebrum is forced, once again, to recalculate Florida's chances in the SEC showdown. I'm now backing off my previous waver, and am sticking with my original prediction of an upset by Arkansas. Losing to LSU will make the Hogs hungrier and more focused.

Today we were on the road, so I missed the Florida/Florida State game. The outcome, a 21-14 Gator victory over a Seminole team having a miserable season, will not do Florida's cause in the BCS any good. That, coupled with the fact that beating a twice-defeated Arkansas won't do them as much good as if the Razorbacks had beaten LSU, means the Gators' prospects of a shot at the national championship look to be pretty much obliterated. On top of that, we have the news from L.A. (Once again, I was rooting for the Irish, despite earlier animosity.)

Once again, consolation is provided by my alma mater showing, for the second consecutive year, their ability to upset a team ranked in the top ten. Their appearance in some minor bowl now seems assured. Ignore the hype about this meaning Rutgers still has a shot at the BCS. The Scarlet Knights beat an even worse than usual Syracuse team yesterday, and the Mountaineers aren't about to let themselves be upset twice in a row in Morgantown.

I break holiday radio silence briefly ...

... to note that Mickey Kaus has attempted to explain something that has long puzzled me (indeed, I've posted about it here, but am too lazy to look up the post), which is: how can an exception prove a rule? (Scroll down to his November 20 discussion of the "incumbent rule" and Menendez's victory in New Jersey, following this link.)

According to Kaus, an exception can "prove" a rule if the "exception" can be shown to be in some basic way distinguishable from other possible exceptions. Specifically, Kaus posits the "incumbent rule" in predicting election results, which holds that if the incumbent has less than 50% in the final pre-election poll, he or she will lose, because undecideds always break against the incumbent. He then says Menendez is "the exception that proves the rule .. because ... he had only been in office a few months, having been appointed in January, 2006 to the seat vacated by now-Gov. Corzine."

Well, as the nerds in my law school classes always said when the professor called on them, it seems to me that Menendez doesn't prove the "incumbent rule", he simply provides a basis for narrowing it to exclude those whose incumbency has been brief, or possibly all those whose incumbecy is a result of appointment not election. More importantly, it seems that the incumbent rule isn't a "rule" that can be proven (in the sense that a Euclidean theorem can be proven), but rather a theory that can be supported, though never "proved", by empirical means, and can be falsified by contrary evidence. What Kaus is really saying is that Menendez doesn't falsify the incumbency rule if "incumbency" is defined in a strict way. Of course, the "rule" would be falsified if, in a future election, someone who has less than 50% in the last pre-election poll and has held office for a full term or more, still manages to win.

So, I'm still looking for an exception that proves a rule. Anyone who can give me a satisfactory one may have my mid 1960s vintage edition of Copi & Gould's Introduction to Logic (provided I can find it).

Update: Keifus, helpful as always, suggests that an exception "proves" a rule in the sense that it tests it, rather as a new kind of car is put on a test track to prove its driving characteristics. So, what Kaus is saying is that Menendez's re-election "proves" the incumbency rule in this sense, which differs from my more formal definition of proof.

I think this is kind of like saying, "What doesn't kill you makes you stronger", no?