Month: May 2006 Page 1 of 5

Last Friday Mike Pesca of NPR interviewed me for “Day to Day” about “X-Men: The Last Stand.” This latest X-Men sequel has the whiff of eugenics about it: A cure is developed for the mutants’ genetic flaws, and much of the plot is built around the theme of “should they/shouldn’t they.”

Pesca, bless his soul, remembered that I had written “Little People,” a book about dwarfism, a few years ago. He asked me to compare Halle Berry’s dilemma to that of a family faced with the prospect of having a child with dwarfism. Would they choose abortion? (Some would.) Would they choose a genetic “cure” if one were available? (Almost certainly.)

Anyway, Pesca’s interview with me was broadcast today. You can listen to it here.

Here’s a possible piece of the puzzle that is Matt Clement. We all know how well he pitched last year until he got hit in the head with a line drive. Well, it turns out that last year he pretty much stopped throwing his sinker. What about this year? From Dan Shaughnessy’s Boston Globe column of March 14:

The tall, veteran righty made his first appearance of the spring against big league hitters yesterday and threw four shutout innings against the Dodgers in City of Palms Park. He gave up two hits, no walks, and fanned three. He said he liked the way he threw his sinker, a pitch he largely ignored last year.

“That’s as good as I’ve thrown my sinker since my first couple of years with the Cubs,” said Clement. “It’s a pitch I pretty much forgot about, although it got me hit in the head once last year.”

So he was successful without his sinker last year — and when he threw one to Carl Crawford, it nearly got him killed. To my eye, it looks like he’s been throwing the sinker a lot this year. Why?

“I fully support our First Amendment rights. But I would love to put restrictions in it that [protesters] can’t be within 10 miles of a military funeral, not just 300 feet.”

“All’s not Wells for Red Sox” (Boston Herald); “Wells is hit after doing well” (Boston Globe).

Sean McAdam: “Clement may be far from reliable, but how many fifth starters are? Now, with Wells’ expected absence, Clement’s role becomes larger and the Red Sox pitching shortage becomes more acute.”

By popular request!

Bronson Arroyo on Monday: 7 innings, 6 hits, 1 earned run, 6 strikeouts, no walks. He’s now 6-2, and his 2.29 ERA leads the National League.

Matt Clement on Wednesday: 4.1 innings, 9 hits, 8 earned runs, 4 strikeouts, 4 walks, 1 hit batter (that drove in a run). He’s now 4-4. I don’t doubt that taking a line drive off his leg hurt his effectiveness, but the man’s ERA is now 6.31, which makes him 44th out of 49 American League pitchers.

Yes, I know the Red Sox tried to trade Clement in the off-season and no one wanted him. But isn’t that even more of a reason to hold onto Arroyo?

Meanwhile, Wily Mo Peña, the player for whom Arroyo was traded, is about to be benched, as Coco Crisp is finally just about ready to play. Wily Mo has not set the American League on fire.

But don’t worry — David Wells is back tonight.

My two cents’ worth on the “to comment or not to comment” debate, which Jay Fitzgerald captures here and here.

Glenn Reynolds once told me that he thought blog comments work best at medium-size sites. Too small, and comments are too rare to be worthwhile. Too big, and you get overwhelmed. Reynolds’ blog, InstaPundit, is ranked 14th by Technorati. Thus, if Reynolds turned comments on, it’s pretty much guaranteed that his site would be flooded with more posts than anyone could possibly read. Not much value there.

Take a look at David Corn’s site. Paging down the list this morning, I see 31 comments to one post, 109 to another, and 263 to another. Now, what good is that? When I go to Corn’s blog, I want to read what he has to say, not what’s rattling around in the brains of hundreds of other folks. There may be some wheat in there, but I can’t possibly take the time to sift through the chaff. More important, there could be some genuinely nutty, irresponsible comments. Is Corn supposed to screen them all?

Jay Rosen, who is as obsessive as he is smart, actually does take the time to sort through the comments in his PressThink blog. Once he’s posted an item, he’ll go back and write an “After Matter” roundup of reaction by other blogs and the best of his commenters. It’s got great value, but who, other than Rosen, has the time to do that? (I doubt Rosen has the time to do it, either. He just does it.)

Media Nation probably falls into the “medium size” category that Reynolds was referring to. I generally get somewhere between two or three comments or 15 to 25, depending on the topic. It’s not so tiny as to look foolish, but it’s also not so huge as to be useless. I’ve often been able to correct my posts thanks to smart commenters. Depending on how much time I have, I’ll post responses. Still, I find comments far from ideal. A few observations:

• I don’t like anonymous comments, and would turn them off if I could. I could restrict commenters to those willing to register with Blogger, but I don’t see much point to it, since people could still post anonymously.
• The late David Brudnoy taught me an unfortunate truth about talk radio: that the callers tend to be dumber than listeners who never call, making it a challenge for the host to keep matters elevated enough not to alienate the audience. Media Nation certainly gets its share of thoughtful, intelligent comments, and I appreciate those. But Brudnoy’s observation has obvious applicability to blogs, including this one.
• Commenters can commit libel, issue threats and engage in all manner of antisocial behavior, and it’s unclear how much responsibility I bear legally. I can delete comments, but I can’t always do it quickly. And if I delete one comment but fail to delete another, doesn’t that somehow make me liable for the one I let go? Maybe, maybe not. I’d just as soon not find out.

My bottom-line take on all this is that a blogger’s site is his or her own, and it has to be an individual decision whether to allow comments or not. I don’t think a lack of comments reflects on a blogger’s credibility in any way. After all, if you’ve got something to say, you can always start your own blog.

“O’Malley asks forgiveness for church sins” — Headline in today’s Boston Globe.

“Clement’s good to go” — Headline in today’s Boston Herald.

I meant to link to this astounding story in yesterday’s New York Times, but Jon Keller beat me to it. The lead:

The American Civil Liberties Union is weighing new standards that would discourage its board members from publicly criticizing the organization’s policies and internal administration.

The great Nat Hentoff told the Times, “You sure that didn’t come out of Dick Cheney’s office? For the national board to consider promulgating a gag order on its members — I can’t think of anything more contrary to the reason the ACLU exists.”

What’s especially distressing about this is that we need the ACLU more than ever. Also yesterday, the ACLU launched a campaign aimed at getting to the bottom of the NSA spying matter. From the ACLU’s announcement:

ACLU affiliates in 20 states today filed complaints with Public Utility Commissions or sent letters to state Attorneys General and other officials demanding investigations into whether local telecommunications companies allowed the NSA to spy on their customers.

This is vital work. Obviously, though, the organization needs to do a better job of living up to its own principles.

The fight over the Nantucket wind farm is now morphing into a turf war — make that a surf war — between the rich folks of Nantucket Sound and the working class of Buzzards Bay.

Jay Cashman, who unveiled his Buzzards Bay windmill plan earlier this week, says it would supply half the energy needs of Cape Cod. The Nantucket competition, Cape Wind, claims that its project would cover three-quarters of the energy needs of the Cape and Islands.

Gov. Mitt Romney, a Cape Wind opponent, has in the past talked about the Berkshires as an alternative.

Well, Media Nation has an idea: Why not build all three? Is there a more pressing need in this country than new sources of clean, renewable energy? Or am I making too much sense?