Category: Uncategorized

Two excellent Red Sox pieces today.

The must-read is by Globe columnist Bob Ryan, on the 39th anniversary of the day that the late Tony Conigliaro got beaned. Ryan:

But Aug. 18 is always a somber date for me, and, I’m sure, for many others. Tony C is the greatest of all “What-Ifs?” in Boston sports history. When he stepped into the box in that fateful fourth inning, he was 22 years old. He was the Golden Boy, en route to the Golden Career. Who among us wouldn’t have traded places with Tony C?

The should-read is a feature in today’s New York Times in which John Branch attempts to determine the exact border separating Red Sox fans from Yankees fans. He focuses on Connecticut, but eventually makes his way to Vermont and upstate New York.

There are a lot of unfortunate references to “Red Sox Nation,” but that phrase, like the loathsome “blogosphere,” appears to be beyond stamping out at this late date. Otherwise, first-rate.

“Tigers attack in Sri Lanka north.” Oh, my. What about lions and bears?

A closer look reveals that the story is about the latest raid by the Tamil Tiger separatists.

This is truly outrageous. A nurse at Merrimack Valley Hospital in Haverhill marries her same-sex partner. She asks that her spouse be covered under her Blue Cross plan. And she’s refused, because the hospital’s Tennessee-based owner is self-insured and is thus governed by federal rather than state law.

What is the point of having legal same-sex marriage in Massachusetts if gay and lesbian couples can still be discriminated against on something as basic as health insurance?

I don’t want to pretend that I know what the right decision should have been in the Katrina insurance case decided yesterday. But I found this quote from insurance-industry flack Joseph Annotti, reported by the Associated Press, to be astonishing:

From our perspective, it lifts a very large cloud of uncertainty that has been hanging over the insurance market of the Gulf Coast. A healthy insurance market is absolutely key to a rejuvenated economy down there.

Except that, to Annotti, a healthy insurance market requires not paying people for the losses they suffered. How is that going to rejuvenate the economy?

I’ve complained about the Eagle-Tribune papers’ Web sites before, especially with respect to Media Nation’s local daily, the Salem News.

Now Seth Mnookin, author of the Red Sox book “Feeding the Monster,” unloads on the E-T’s lack of Web savvy in the course of praising the paper’s baseball writers.

He’s right — notwithstanding the fact that the sites are actually somewhat improved following a recent redesign.

So I show my iBook to one of the “geniuses” at the Apple Store. He can’t figure it out. He does this. He does that. He waves his hands over it. Suddenly, it’s working. I don’t know what he did. He doesn’t know what he did. But I’m back in business.

Last night my iBook began refusing to hook up to the Internet, even though it tells me I’m getting a strong, clear WiFi signal. So it’s off to the “genius bar” this afternoon (I don’t care if they’re not really geniuses, but I wish it were really a bar), and, in all likelihood, no blogging.

Is it just me? Is the Web ridiculously slow today? Or is that guy in the pickup truck across the street pilfering my WiFi signal?

It certainly doesn’t make me feel like blogging, although I’ll try again later. For now, I’ll leave you with Jody Rosen’s ridiculous Slate essay about Johnny Cash in which he asks: “Can pop music be both great art and shameless kitsch?”

Answers: (1) Uh, yes; and (2) I believe that was settled about 50 years ago.

David Scott on Boston’s lily-white sportswriting brigade.

According to this post at Blue Mass Group, Attorney General Tom Reilly is pushing ahead in his efforts to help the State Police suppress an online video of a man being arrested in his home.

In April, a federal judge ruled that the video — posted with the arrestee’s permission — could remain on the Web as a matter of free speech. The arrestee, Paul Pechonis, and the person who posted the video, Leominster resident Mary T. Jean, claim that the clip shows State Police taking Pechonis into custody without a warrant.

Last month I gave the State Police a Phoenix Muzzle Award for their persecution of Jean, who could be facing up to two years in prison for having the temerity to exercise her constitutional rights.

I don’t know the identity of the person who posted the item to Blue Mass Group, and I’m also concerned that the item links back to Jean’s own Web site — hardly a neutral source of information.

But as this May 12 story the Worcester Telegram & Gazette makes clear, Reilly’s stand on the wrong side of this First Amendment issue is not new. Let’s hope that U.S. District Court Judge Dennis Saylor makes his preliminary injunction permanent.

And perhaps someone can ask Reilly at the next gubernatorial debate whether he would have prosecuted the person who made the Rodney King video.