Sepak Takraw

Didn't we invent this sport a few years back?

Jack

Jack and Steve

Jackson Ward Harvey

For those of you who have not yet heard, the newest addition to the Harvey family arrived yesterday, November 15th at 2:30am. Mom and baby are doing great. Jack was 9lbs and 22.5in. Just in time for Thanksgiving.

Kidnapped! - episode 2

[So where were we? Ah yes… I was being assaulted by two unsavory characters in a parking garage, one of whom had a gun and was threatening to blow my head off.]

The first thought that went through my endangered head was of the Norwegian fairy tale Three Billy Goats Gruff. I had only recently moved to Boston after spending all my money and time in grad school. My first pay check had gone to the one nice thing that I owned, my new Brooks Brothers suit. Obviously, they had picked me out for my splendid clothes. They had made a terrible mistake.

In addition, I had just spent most of my cash buying drinks for my fellow workers. I think I had to borrow a few dollars as I left the bar in order to have cash to pay for my parking.

So I immediately began to explain to the gunman and his friend that, "No, no, no…I'm not the one you want. I just moved to Boston. I have no money. Let me go and I'm sure someone with more money will come along, and it will be worth your while."

Unfortunately, the more I tried to explain the situation to them, the madder they got. As I now look back upon the incident, it seems like such an archetypal moment. Despite my slightly inebriated head, I was seeing the situation clearly and giving them the best advice that perhaps they had ever received in their lives. Take a pass on this guy and you won't regret it. Yet, as is often true in life, good advice is rarely received in the same dispassionate manner in which it is offered. The more I tried to convince them we were the wrong match, the more violent they became.

The plan was that they would drive me to my apartment and would rob me of all my goods. I had explained to them that I did not have a TV set (perhaps the one common thread of my life), but they refused to believe me. It was about this point—when I observed their complete incredulous reaction to "no TV"—that I resigned myself to the fact that we had some trust issues. I finally realized that, if I kept this up, I was going to be injured as well as robbed, so I completely changed my position. From that moment on I would be as passive and submissive as possible. I started doing whatever they said, and they calmed down considerably.

I gave them the keys to my Chevette and, per their orders, climbed into the back part of the car. The car was a hatchback and, as I have said, had no back seat, so I was lying curled up on my side in the back, seatless trunk. In addition to no back seat, the car had no automatic transmission. And neither of my assailants had much familiarity with a stick shift. Clearly they had not fully prepared for this line of work.

[To be continued…]

Jim's Inspiration

Jim has recently posted two poems on the blog: "Birds" and "Words." I gotta believe that this was his inspiration. (N.B. This is from a time when lyrics meant something.)

Kidnapped!

[Since it's Veterans Day, and Ellen is taking a creative writing class, I thought I would relate an old tale of greed, daring and crime.]

I will begin the story of my adventures with a certain morning early in the month of November, the 11th, to be exact—Veterans Day in Boston, as elsewhere. I took out my car keys to drive to work at the downtown offices of Arthur Young & Co. for the first time since arriving in Boston in September. Normally, I would be heading to a client, but, as this was Veterans Day, many of our clients' offices were closed, and we had scheduled an in-house training session. Previously I had always taken the "T" downtown, but since traffic would be light today, I thought I would experiment with the car. Little did I know that by the end of the day I would be surrounded by flashing police cars, shaken to my very core, and rewarded with the best story ever for impressing the opposite sex. 

The sun began to shine as I drove passed the whistling blackbirds and the mist that was beginning to arise and die away. It would be nice to share some time with my fellow accountants who had started with me at Arthur Young this fall. And that was true for, after the day of training, we went out to a nearby bar for a couple of laughs and drinks.

It was dark, past 7 o'clock, when we left. In good spirits I went to get my car at the Government Center Parking Garage. I had been able to park on the first level so I walked right to the car. There were only a few other cars parked there. As I opened the door to my Chevette—a remarkable car not only because the make was perhaps the least notable car of this or any other era, but also because mine had no back seat, just a hard plastic floor where the seat should have been—two darkly clothed men with ski masks over their heads emerged from behind a nearby parked car. One had a gun pointed right at me, "Don't make a sound. Put your hands on the car or I'm going to blow your head off!"

[To be continued…]

In the vein of Can Troy Get Any Cooler

Performance artist Lui Bolin prepares for one of his "Vanishing artist" performances/photos. (But he doesn't play football.) 

I have a feeling Dan has done this many times, but we just haven't been aware.

Comings and Goings

Good News! Ellen is coming to Pittsburgh and will be at her grandmothers' house Friday evening to lend comfort and good spirits. The bad news, as you may know, is her grandma broke both bones in her wrist from a fall on Wednesday.
Update: There are some shifts. Ellen's grandma may shift temporarily to Providence Point (for a few weeks), so Ellen may be shifting among 149 and 245 Jefferson and Providence Point.
Further Update: The plans did not go as planned. Mother has a room, 5103, in St. Clair Hospital for the next 3 days. Then she will probably be at Providence Point for a couple of weeks. I can't really explain this online, but many thanks to Mary and Maureen.

To follow birds

Words

by James Harvey

Suppose that God does not make birds,

But something else, for lack of words,

Identical in every instance — 

Unnamed, unknown, but with existence.

Imagine no modality;

Ubiquitous totality;

Everything is still all there,

But without words, we're unaware.

Or are we? Ah, now that's the game.

The world's the same, as some would claim.

Just what in life would be withdrawn 

If played with all our language gone?

No representation of sensation;

It's taxing, when up against creation.

In other words than words incurred

Wordlessness is just absurd.

But chances are that we'd get by,

As birds do now; they even fly.

There's something lost, but much more gained

When Nature's framed by how we name. 

As being, God is intervening, 

But words for us make up the meaning.

New York Knicks: 1967–1975

One of the multitude of discussions Jim and I had at the beach this year centered upon the one time in my life I had was an NBA fan: when I followed the New York Knicks of the late sixties to mid-seventies. This was the team of Willis Reed, Walt Frazier, Jerry Lucas, Bill Bradley, Dave DeBusschere and Phil Jackson, just to name a few. I arrived in New York in 1971 at the height of Knicks' popularity. We didn't call them the most talented team; we called them the smartest team in basketball.

Now it seems that the gods were listening in on our conversation, and I recently read of a new book out, When the Garden Was Eden: Clyde, the Captain, Dollar Bill, and the Glory Days of the New York Knicks. The New York Times begins its book review, "The Glory of the Knicks," as follows:

Who made the most dramatic entrance in New York City history? A historian might say it was George Washington, who led 800 soldiers into town on Nov. 25, 1783, as the British evacuated the city. For New York sports fans of a certain age, that is wildly off the mark; we all know it was Willis Reed. The captain of the Knicks strode — not limped, strode — onto the hardwood court of Madison Square Garden on the evening of May 8, 1970, moments before the start of the seventh and deciding game of the National Basketball Association finals, rallying from a crippling injury, inspiring his teammates to vanquish the Los Angeles Lakers, winning New York its first N.B.A. championship.

Indeed, my memory is more or less correct. The Knicks were the perfect team for the uber-sophisticated New Yorker. As the review states:

Knicks fans took pride in believing they had the basketball smarts to appreciate disciplined team play. Bradley says: “You began to hear the fans applaud the pass that led to the pass that led to the basket. You could hear the anticipation as the ball moved around the perimeter that something they would appreciate was about to occur.”

Anyway, it was a wondrous but brief moment in time which we may never see again: when smarts, team play and strong defense meant something in professional basketball.

Walt Frazier

Falling Down is Funny on Every Planet

You know…language

Birds

by James Harvey

Suppose a flock of birds sing prose

Opposed to verse by murderous crows,

Or covey of quail, gaggle of geese,

A peep of chickens, or hawks on lease.

Imagine rasps of guinea fowl

Squawk and squabble like parliament owl;

Ascending larks' loud exaltation;

Or starlings whir in murmuration.

But what rite is the spring of teal

Or wisp of snipe, which seems unreal?

Are Lapwing false in their deceit?

No doubt doves dole is but conceit.

This game of swans is just a cluster;

Magpie tidings won't peacocks muster.

A siege of cranes can not assail

The day watch of the nightingale.

Yet ere we're reined by plain refrain,

(As V-shaped geese in flying skein),

There's something gained despite the harm

When Nature's loosed by finches' charm.

Fools like God create mere birds

But only man can make up words. 

From the New Yorker

Ha Ha Ha — Technology saves the world, …again

The sods must be crazy. Also, for a good laugh, check out the comments.

Screenings -- Moneyball

I finally saw Moneyball. Co-written by Aaron Sorkin, it was not as frantic as The Social Network, but it was still about smart people being pretty smart. It's essentially a movie for people who love talking about baseball and also love statistical analysis (I'm thinking Jim here). Brad Pitt is impressive, as is Jonah Hill, and they make a great team.

Happy Hallowe'en

Some think that the twilight world of Hallowe'en is dressing up, carving pumpkins and getting candy. Well, our family tradition recognizes the real nature of Hallowe'en. Enjoy the music, but beware of the darkness.

 

[Um…could my little brother use your bathroom, please? He wet his pants at the house next door.]

Halloween and Other Stories

After we moved up the mountain to a new house at 262 Harding Drive, I would always go back to my old neighborhood to go trick-or-treating with Judy and my friends. I can't remember any costumes I wore, but I do remember that I was only allowed to take candy. Sometimes people would give us money, like a nickel, but I wasn't allowed to take the money. 

I remember one time when John and I were living in New Jersey that my mother came over to our house dressed in my father's clothes—like a hobo—for Halloween. She was crazy like that. 

A Few Words in Defense of the Crazy Ones

Science, like everything else, is messy, controversial, and misunderstood, but I'm going to give a definition, an operational definition: Science is systematically observing the world in search for repeated patterns. Theoretical science is when these patterns are organized into a meaningful model (or principle or theory or law).

Today Andrea Rossi, Italian 'scientist', demonstrated to a fairly large group of invited scientists, engineers, customer representatives and selected press…get ready… cold fusion! Using 52 bundled micro reactors, the experiment reportedly achieved 470 kW for 5 1/2 hours during self-sustain mode, i.e. no energy was added to the system. This is not 1MW which was advertised, yet 470 kW, if true, is incredible. It appears that the test was a resounding success. Rossi reports that the customer, who is an American company or government agency, was satisfied.

Per my definition, Andrea Rossi was not practicing science. He readily admits he does not understand the theoretical principles involved in his reaction—no one does. What he is practicing is engineering. Of course, he uses repeated experiments to improve his engineering. With the amount of time and work he has spent during the last 20 years, it doesn't appear that he is a charlatan, but time will tell if this demonstration will lead to world changing events or unrepeatable dead ends. Unfortunately, no one, including the press, was allowed to ask questions to the engineers running the demonstration.

The press has been reluctant to report on Rossi's demonstrations. This may change tomorrow. For now, perhaps wildly optimistic skepticism is in order. The best I can do is give you some links so you can make up your own mind.

Here is an article from January of this year. It is outdated, but it gives some background.
Here is Rossi's site with some of his (and others) comments on today's test at the bottom. There is a link, also near the bottom, where Rossi allows you to download his public report on the demonstration.
Here is a fairly detailed report from a site advancing cutting edge energy generation.
Here is Wired-UK's story on the day's proceedings with some positive and negative comments.
Note that there was someone from AP news service at the test, but no report yet.

Leave it to Richard Feynman to define science another way. In warning against the danger of believing scientists and not mother nature, he said, "Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts." If that's true, Rossi is a scientist.

It's the engineer's lament. "We can make it work in practice—now if we could only get it to work in theory!"

U.S. Senators swing into action

This is an even bigger political story than Republican candidate heresies. What can get Congress working again? Poverty? Income inequality? Occupy Wall Street? …yawn. The budget? The economy? …call my secretary. Housing? Health Care? …boring. No, we're talking college football!!!

West Virginia's two U.S. senators and a congresswoman expressed outrage Wednesday night amid reports that a Kentucky politician may have muddied the Mountaineers move from the Big East Conference that seemed all but a done deal Tuesday. 

The New York Times reported Wednesday that Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., pressured the Big 12 to consider Louisville as the league's next member instead of West Virginia. 

Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., said at a new conference in his Charleston, W.Va., office that he would call for an investigation in the U.S. Senate if necessary. 

"If these outrageous reports have any merit -- and especially if a United States senator has done anything inappropriate or unethical to interfere with a decision that the Big 12 had already made -- then I believe that there should be an investigation in the U.S. Senate, and I will fight to get the truth," Mr. Manchin said. 

Believe it or not, this is not The Onion.

I guess it's unethical for Kentucky senators to get involved and not West Virginia senators, because…well, it's not that there is more important work to do, but rather those pesky Wildcats are fair game for Mountaineer sharpshooters.

From Hertzberg's Blog

Answer Me These Heresies Three

Posted by Hendrik Hertzberg

Three shall be the number thou shalt count, and the number of the counting shall be three. Four shalt thou not count, neither count thou two, excepting that thou then proceed to three. Five is right out.
—Monty Python and the Holy Grail

ONE

Believe it or not, studies have been done that show that in Western Europe, people at the lower parts of the income scale actually have a better mobility going up the ladder now than in America.
—Rick Santorum, CNN Republican debate, October 18

TWO

No, it [i.e., the abortion issue] comes down to it’s not the government’s role or anybody else’s role to make that decision. Secondly, if you look at the statistical incidents, you’re not talking about that big a number. So what I’m saying is it ultimately gets down to a choice that that family or that mother has to make—not me as President, not some politician, not a bureaucrat. It gets down to that family. And whatever they decide, they decide. I shouldn't have to tell them what decision to make for such a sensitive issue… I can have an opinion on an issue without it being a directive on the nation. The government shouldn’t be trying to tell people everything to do, especially when it comes to social decisions that they need to make.
—Herman Cain, CNN’s Piers Morgan Tonight, October 19

THREE

I’m sorry, Rick, that you find so much to dislike in my plan, but I’ll tell you, the people in Massachusetts like it by about a 3-1 margin. And we dealt with a challenge that we had, a lot of people that were expecting government to pay their way. And we said, you know what? If people have the capacity to care for themselves and pay their own way, they should.... What we do is rely on private insurers, and people—93 percent of our people who are already insured, nothing changed. For the people who didn’t have insurance, they get private insurance, not government insurance.
—Mitt Romney, CNN Republican debate, October 18


Supplementary notes:

ONE: Santorum was apparently referring to a 2008 Brookings Institution (!) study showing that, as the authors put it, “rising on one’s own bootstraps is harder in the United States than it is in several Northern European countries,” to wit, Denmark, Norway, Finland, and Sweden. The study shows that the people of Canada, Germany, France, Spain, and Australia, too, are living the American dream better then Americans are.

All these countries have high taxes, government-guaranteed universal health care, ample social services, and non-crumbling infrastructure. But you already knew that.

TWO: No amplification needed. Transcript here. To the stake!

THREE: A little murkier, but Romney’s admonition that people who have the capacity to pay their own way should do so is actually a reference to the requirement that people get health insurance, with a government subsidy if necessary, or else pay a penalty—an idea promoted by conservatives like Newt Gingrich and the right-wing wonks of the Heritage Foundation, as Romney correctly noted. This is the notorious "individual mandate," a feature of both "Romneycare" and "Obamacare," as is the provision of care via "private insurance, not government insurance." But you already knew that, too.