Aaron F-ing Boone

Last night's Aaron Boone visit to the Red Sox dugout was priceless.  Don't fret Red Sox fans, there's always next century.

Excerpted from Dan Shaughnessy's Boston Globe story.

"BALTIMORE - The greatest choke in baseball history ended the only way it could have ended, with the Red Sox gagging on the Camden Yards lawn one last time.

Truly unbelievable. This feels like revenge for 2004 and 2007. It is as if the baseball gods are punishing Red Sox Nation for hubris and arrogance and good times that seemed so good, so good, so good.

The Sox were set to pop champagne last night. They were leading the Orioles, 3-2, and the Rays were trailing, 7-0, in the eighth inning. Just a few simple outs and the Sox were going to Texas to start the Division Series tomorrow.

Then the earth opened up and swallowed the Sox and their fans. Stoic Jonathan Papelbon came on to close it out in the ninth, struck out two, then surrendered back-to-back doubles and a walkoff single that $142 million Carl Crawford (typically) failed to catch. Sox lose, 4-3.

Mere seconds later, the Sox were in their clubhouse when Evan Longoria hit the walkoff heard ’round the Gulf to give Tampa Bay an 8-7, 12th-inning victory over the laydown Yankees.

Say goodbye to Terry Francona. Tell Theo it’s OK to talk to the Cubs. This might have been the last roundup for Papelbon, Tim Wakefield, Jason Varitek, Big Papi, J.D. Drew, Miss Heidi, and several of the others you’ve loved all these years.

In the midnight confessions, Francona spoke of 'the mess we got ourselves in,' then said, 'We needed to take care of business and we didn’t.'

In historic fashion.

This goes right up there with Denny Galehouse, Bucky Dent, Mookie Wilson, and Aaron Boone (who visited the Sox dugout before the game - how’s that for an omen?). The 2011 Red Sox had a nine-game lead in the wild-card chase on Sept. 3, and now they are out. They are the first team in baseball history to hold a nine-game lead in September, then fail to make the postseason. This makes them worse than the ’64 Phillies or the ’78 Red Sox. They are the poster boys of the Heimlich maneuver.

The humanity!"

Like Pigs to the Slaughter

Wake up little piggies! 

Nik Cubrilovic, a blogger down under, posted about how even after Facebook users have logged off, the social networking site's cookies continue to track your web browsing and report the data back to Faceborg headquarters.

Once again, Facebook says move along, nothing to see here.  Your head is in the sand if you don't believe Facebook's serial privacy breaches are the direct result of their deliberate strategy to monetize users, their content and web behavior . . . all at your privacy's expense.

In other news, Facebook has moved into high gear lobbying influential politicians and lining pockets ahead of its planned IPO.

%&#$ You, Buddy!

Driving is one of the great urban experiences of living in or near a major city.  Despite the many benefits of the trains and subways, I still prefer to drive to New York City, and will this Friday for the Yankees-Red Sox game in the Bronx.

IBM just released the company's annual "commuter pain index" comprised of ten issues: 1) commuting time, 2) time stuck in traffic, agreement that: 3) price of gas is already too high, 4) traffic has gotten worse, 5) start-stop traffic is a problem, 6) driving causes stress, 7) driving causes anger, 8) traffic affects work, 9) traffic so bad driving stopped, and 10) decided not to make trip due to traffic.

New York City fared pretty well.  Then again, there's always the suburbs.

Closing Time

Mo makes it 602.  The best closer ever with the record to prove it.

Indian Summer

Moshup catching his dinner.

Moshup mural at the Katharine Cornell Theater
By Stan Murphy

Person of Interest

Looking for one Henri Matisse.

Alpha Males

The post-Murdoch era at The Wall Street Journal continues to surprise me.  Who, exactly, is the target of this article titled "Are Alpha Males Healthy?" And, if there is a readership, beyond a sad sack beta like me, will alpha males change?

An excerpt:

"One evening a week, a group of CEOs meets in a Manhattan psychiatrist's office and engages in an ancient ritual. Ostensibly, it is a support group. Inevitably, it becomes a battle for dominance.

'Whenever you put alpha males together, the most aggressive will overpower the others,' says T. Byram Karasu, the veteran psychiatrist who has run the sessions for the past 23 years. The fighting is subtle, but it's vicious. 'Even giving advice is geared toward lowering the others' self-esteem. Those at the lower end of the group come away doubting themselves, and their testosterone falls. They tell me they can't have sex for three or four days afterward.' "

And Obama wants to tax them more for their corporate jets.  Life isn't fair, any baboon can tell you that.

Martha's Vineyard Maps

Preston McAdoo

Preston McAdoo

Steve Reich's WTC 9/11

Steve Reich's WTC 9/11 with the Kronos Quartet.

"The piece is scored for three string quartets; Kronos recorded all three parts for the album. WTC 9/11 also uses pre-recorded voices, the speakers' final vowels and consonants elongated in a stop-motion sound technique that Reich says is the 'means of connecting one person to another--harmonically.' Those voices and their texts belong to NORAD air traffic controllers, as they raised the alert that the airplanes were off course; FDNY workers on the scene; friends and former neighbors of the Reichs, recalling that day; and women who kept vigil, or Shmira, over the dead in a tent outside the Medical Examiner's office, reading Psalms or Biblical passages."

Connected

Watched a screening today of Connected at the 2011 Martha's Vineyard International Film Festival.

The documentary is by Tiffany Schlain, founder of the Webby Awards, who posits that technology's connectedness promises to make people more engaged and "interdependent" than ever before. 

I found the documentary entertaining, but light in scientific and intellectual rigor.  Others, like Nicholas Carr and Carl Safina examine the issues of technology, population growth and mankind's and the planet's future more thoughtfully and, frankly, with less starry-eyed optimism.

September Girls

A classic.