BrianKaneOnline

Curses, Foiled Again!

Brian — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 16:57:10 +0000

This article in yesterday’s Boston Globe is an interesting case study in why some restaurant locations never seem to work out. The place is about to reopen as yet another restaurant after a parade of places that came and went with so much regularity you couldn’t be sure what would be there any time you drove by. The article doesn’t seem to address what I think is the central reason nothing lasts: it’s too far removed from the rest of Davis Square’s assortment of dining choices to attract a walk-in crowd. While the spot worked out well for the bakery cafe that was there for a long time, people walking around looking for lunch or dinner aren’t too likely to wander that far away from the action in the middle of the square. Until it becomes a destination in its own right, which the new chef-owner clearly believes it will, it’s likely to stay a revolving door.

Location doesn’t explain a couple of other similar revolving-door places I can think of in Arlington. Right in the center of the town, along with a cluster of very successful places, there are a couple of spots right on Massachusetts Ave that are as regular as clockwork with the changing of the management. In one particular case, it was actually successful for a while as an Indian place called Punjab; so successful that they moved to a bigger space a couple of doors down and sent their original space back into Cursed Cafe territory. So even a doomed spot can be turned into a success if the right thing happens — in the case of Punjab, there were too many Asian restaurants and no Indians ones, plus they benefitted from the coincidence of a regular program of Bollywood movies at the theater a block away, which brought lots of Indian visitors to the district.

I also find myself wondering what sort of inertia keeps lackluster places going year after year when better ones come and go. I suppose some places develop that vibe of being an institution in their particular geography, but usually those places have SOMETHING to recommend them. In the very same locations where the revolvers I’m talking about live, there are restaurants that seem to exist in some Bizarro world where no traffic equals longevity. Funny thing, the restaurant business.

Soapbox Hero

Brian — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 16:21:39 +0000

The British singer-songwriter Billy Bragg is also a political activist in the U.K., and the Manchester Guardian has this video of him recently standing on a soapbox at Speaker’s Corner in London’s Hyde Park. His speech to the assorted people gathered is about his decision to withhold paying his income taxes in protest over the British government’s mishandling of bonus money being handed out to bankers in a situation not too different from the egregious bonus scandal in this country. What I liked about his speech, though, is how well he explains the importance of taxes to society in general. Teabaggers and similar idiots in this country live in a fantasyland when it comes to taxation, and they have too many people in this country convinced that taxes are EEEEEEEVIL and that somehow everything would be perfect if nobody had to pay them. Bragg makes plain the value of the social contract not just for the general welfare of the people, but also as a political force. American government, even moreso than other democratic governments, derives all of its power from the consent of the governed, contrary to what the Supreme Court would have us think, and taxation is a direct tool of that power. Eliminating taxation deprives citizens of a necessary means of political control, which he demonstrates by refusing to pay his taxes. Granted, the efforts of an individual will never be more than symbolic, but it’s the little lesson in “Why It’s Important” that I wanted to share with you.

In Soviet Russia…Oh, You Know The Joke

Brian — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 15:58:41 +0000

The Siege of Leningrad was one of the longest and costliest battles in history, lasting 872 days and resulting in 1.5 million Russian casualties and an additional 1.5 million evacuees. The failure of the Germans to take the city marked a significant turning point in the war, and to this day it remains an important part of Russian national identity. The underlying cause of most of the deaths in Leningrad was not military action but starvation, as the stalemated Germans changed tactics to simply starve out the entire population. This first-hand account talks about tens of thousands of people dying month after month from hunger and deprivation.

Though the people of Leningrad were forced to eat their pets and any other animals they could catch just to survive, this English Russia post honors the cats of Leningrad who are memorialized by statues all over the city (once again called St. Petersburg, of course). The cats who were lucky enough not to become food themselves were crucial to the city to keep the exploding rat population in check. Indeed, the post points out that 5000 cats were gathered up from all over Russia and sent to Leningrad to aid in rodent control. Sadly, it’s safe to assume that the cats also ended up aiding the starving citizens, but at least one cat outlasted the blockade and became a national hero:

A Little Book Larnin’ Never Hurt No One

Brian — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 15:34:24 +0000

Here are a couple of book reviews I encountered this week that have me itching to hit the One-Click button:

Wired’s “GeekDad” contributor Jonathan Liu looks at Hollowing Out The Middle: The Rural Brain Drain And What It Means For America. Liu, who lives in a small town in Kansas, has the advantage of first-hand observation of the phenomenon detailed in the book, namely the long-standing tradition of young people moving away from those small towns to pursue brighter futures elsewhere. The situation is neither recent nor particularly American — virtually every culture in the world has experienced this since the first cities popped up in Mesopotamia — but in a large country like the United States, the scale of the situation means the societal impact is more pronounced. The book, which focuses on one particular rural community in Iowa, takes on the elements of other significant sociological studies like the famed “Middletown”. Given the flap this week over the Daily Kos poll about Republican core values and the distorted significance of the political power of the “flyover states”, the need to staunch the “brain drain” in those places is pretty fierce.

Internet smarty-pants gadfly Morgan Meis, posting at 3Quarks Daily, shared a Bookforum.com review by writer/historian Rick Perlstein about Garry Wills’ latest book Bomb Power: The Modern Presidency And The National Security State. I tried to use the direct link to the Bookforum page, but it wants you to register first…so use the link in the 3QD post unless you’re okay with registering for Bookforum.com. But either way, do make the effort to read Perlstein’s review; other than some mild fawning over Garry Wills, the piece is the sort of review that makes you want to go right out and buy the book RIGHT NOW. Wills presents the thesis that the Presidency as it came to be after the death of FDR was completely redefined by the invention of the atomic bomb, not just in the raw significance of the power of having nukes, but in style and substance by taking on the trappings that were given to the Manhattan Project. It is this vision of the President as having a complete and all-encompassing shadow role as guardian of the nuclear option, Wills argues, that leads directly to the anti-democratic and paranoid machinations of people like Richard Nixon and Dick Cheney, and which may no longer be reversible by any President. Perlstein, by the way, if you are not familiar, is the author of the well-regarded 2008 Nixonland, so if someone with that degree of familiarity with American political history is so enthusiastic about Wills’ book, it’s probably worth the look.

Carrots Are Divine, You Get A Dozen For A Dime, It’s MAAAAAAAA-gic!

Brian — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 16:37:16 +0000

Yesterday I mentioned that the maple sugar producers would be hoping that ol’ Punxsutawney Phil would not see his shadow this morning, but, as usual, he did (although, that linked NatGeo article says that Phil is only right about 40% of the time). So it might not be a great year for maple syrup.

However, the cold weather that has dipped all the way down into the southern states this winter has had a beneficial effect on the carrot crop, according to this Atlantic food blogger, who lives in Texas. Apparently colder weather results in sweeter carrots. In fact, January is National Carrot Month, and tomorrow, February 3, is National Carrot Day, so obviously the dead of winter is ~~Wabbit~~ ~~Duck~~ Carrot Season!. There’s even a cute little song:

BKO: Your Source For Useful Information

Brian — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 16:22:09 +0000

If you’ve been thinking about running in the Boston Marathon this year, you are already too late to sign up, even though the race is still almost 10 weeks away, according to this True/Slant blogger. The open slots were filled all the way back in November. It’s only the second time in the race’s history that all the available slots have been taken.

However, if you’re a fan of Laura Ingalls Wilder’s “Little House” books, there’s still plenty of time to register for LauraPalooza 2010, being held in July in Mankato, Minnesota. The final details for the conference schedule will be announced over the weekend, but you can already make your reservations for lodging at the university which is hosting the conference. You don’t have to run 26.2 miles, either…although they may be arranging for a plague of locusts, a blizzard, or some other “Little House”-style entertainment.

Yes, badgers do have vanilla creme filling, but who could resist these delightful chocolate hedgehogs!

Ooh, I hate it when that happens: How To Fall 35,000 Feet And Survive Protip: Carry an ACME Brand parasol at all times!

What? No Corkscrew?

Brian — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 15:27:42 +0000

Check out this “Roman Army Knife” that has gone on display at the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge, England. It’s part of their newly-refurbished Greek & Roman antiquities gallery.

It’s not actually part of a Roman soldier’s kit; it dates back to the Third or Fourth Century, is made of silver, and was probably owned by a wealthy Roman, according to this Daily Mail article. I think it’s interesting that a fork is one of the implements, since forks were generally not used as eating implements by Europeans until the Renaissance, but maybe it wasn’t used for eating by whomever owned it. Or maybe he was just ahead of his time. The article says that folding knives were actually very common articles in the Roman Empire, usually made of bronze, since steel was difficult to produce in ancient times. In the picture above you can see that the knife blade of the tool has deteriorated to just a small rusty end.

A (Maple) Tree Grows In Brooklyn

Brian — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 16:30:28 +0000

Tomorrow is Groundhog Day, which marks the half-way point of winter in the Northern Hemisphere. The days are already noticeably longer, but the cold weather has been hanging on with unusual tenacity this year, and so all eyes turn to Punxsutawney Phil to tell us if the weather will cut us a break or if we are destined to grind on with the bitter winds and biting temperatures. Because it’s still so cold, the maple syrup producers in New England are undoubtedly hoping Phil will not see his shadow — they are usually getting geared up in February for their production season in March, but when the weather stays cold, the sap doesn’t flow much.

I guess conditions are a bit milder in the New York City area, because here’s a first-hand account in the NYT from a woman who got to help out with a small sugaring operation right in the heart of Brooklyn. And by “small operation” I mean one sugar maple in some guy’s backyard, but they still do the whole thing with the taps and plastic tubing and buckets just like the farmers in Maine and Vermont. She got two gallons of sap for her efforts and then set up her own evaporator station in her kitchen to boil it down into Grade A syrup. You need 10 gallons of sap for 1 quart of syrup, so she didn’t get much finished product, but the very idea of boiling your own maple syrup on your stove seems like it would be a kick.

Here’s a clip from my favorite TV show, Dirty Jobs, where Mike Rowe, the host, helps a maple syrup farmer tap his trees, to help you get a sense of what the job is like. You can do it in your own backyard, too, if you have a sugar maple tree. This webpage has a video that tells you how to distinguish a sugar maple from other maple trees (which do not produce edible sap), since sugar maples are not as common in settled urban areas as Norway maples.

An Apology

Brian — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 15:57:14 +0000

A former Christian publicly apologizes for being a shit-head for all those years.

Money quote:

3. I apologize to all my former Sunday school students because I taught you that the bible was the word of god. I perpetuated a myth that the bible is a special book that should be regarded ‘much more highly than it ought’. I encouraged you to trust this book, to think this book contained sacred ideas about life and god. I made you think that the stories in the bible were intrinsically valuable and could teach you about how god works and who god is. I apologize for always referring to god as a ‘he’, thereby further anthropomorphizing a pretend deity and making you think ‘he’ was real and decidedly masculine. I apologize for teaching you to think that you were a sinner and that Jesus had to die for you when you are really just a beautiful child, perfect in every way from the minute you were born (except for when you aren’t). I apologize for telling you that Jesus conquered death and that you should put your trust in him when there is not a shred of evidence of the resurrection except for what is in the bible. I apologize for not respecting your intelligence and glazing over thorny issues and rationalizing all the bullshit that is so present at all times in ‘god’s word’. (I apologize for saying bullshit in this apology). I apologize for ever calling the bible ‘god’s word’. It isn’t ‘god’s word’. It’s just a book. There are a lot of other much better books. There are books that helped humanity move beyond misogyny and slavery and tyranny. There are books that led to scientific discoveries which led to medicine and helpful machines and made the world a better place. None of those books are in the bible. In fact, the bible helps people to justify misogyny and tyranny and slavery and the bible made church leaders fear science and so they burned scientists and doctors and smart people because what those smart people were learning was often in direct conflict with what the bible and the church taught. I apologize for not telling you that the bible and christianity are two of the main reasons that it took people so long to move from tyranny into democracy, from slavery to human rights, from cruel religious mandates to civil law. I hope someday you will figure that out for yourselves in spite of what I taught you.

The unfortunate thing is that she gets so much Christian hate-mail, she’s shut off the comments on her blog, so I guess they haven’t exactly accepted her apology.

Funny, I Thought They Liked Blueberry Muffins

Brian — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 15:36:16 +0000

This English Russia post tells us that Russian sailors have noted that polar bears LOVE toast. Of course, anyone who has ever read Daniel Pinkwater’s charming series of Polar Bear Larry books KNOWS that polar bears love muffins, but toast is probably the best you can expect living on an ice flow in the Arctic, where there are few muffin bakeries. Of course, what the polar bears probably REALLY want for breakfast is Russian sailors. Polar bears are likely to be extinct in the wild within forty years due to loss of habitat, and all the toast in the world isn’t going to change that, I’m afraid.

Somewhere, Our Hero Laments

Brian — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 18:01:33 +0000

“Kiss your country goodbye” – Alan Grayson

Seven Things About The Economy Everyone Should Be Worried About — Huffington Post

“The Things We Leave Behind” by Sara Robinson

“You can’t hurt us, we’re already dead” — The Daily Show

“Hope Is Fading Fast” — The Propagandist

Truth Or Dare

Brian — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 17:45:30 +0000

Here’s my guilty confession of the day: I’ve never read “Catcher In The Rye”. My high school’s American literature syllabus was strictly 19th century except for “The Great Gatsby” (not even a little Hemingway!), and my personal reading inclinations as a teenager were more towards genre fiction than literary fiction. Plus, I wasn’t the rebellious, angsty, struggling teenage type, so I wouldn’t have been drawn to that sort of book organically. As I headed off to college, my reading shifted to non-fiction, where it has remained ever since, with only the occasional dip into reading a popular novel here and there, but never any genuine attempt to make up for my lack of literary depth. At middle-age, I occasionally have a pang of intellectual remorse for not being better read in literature, but it doesn’t ring very deeply. No one could ever accuse me of not being a reader, I was just never set on fire by made-up stories, no matter how gorgeous the writing.

Sorry, J.D.

I’m Not Bad, I Was Just Drawn That Way

Brian — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 17:13:04 +0000

Remember what a huge deal “Who Framed Roger Rabbit” was when it came out in the late 1980s? It was a monster hit at the box office and was one of the key elements in the re-birth of animation in pop culture that would skyrocket with the advent of “The Simpsons” a couple of years later. But somehow, nothing more really ever came out of that success in terms of developing a franchise except for a couple of Roger Rabbit shorts that were tied to some Disney releases.

This Neatorama post from earlier this week has a lot of interesting bits I never knew: for example, I had no idea the movie was based on a novel, or that the long-shelved prequel has once again been dusted off by the first movie’s director, Robert Zemeckis. There are some other neat little tidbits of info in the Neatorama post, too.

You ARE The Disease

Brian — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 16:55:01 +0000

Frankly, I find this a little disturbing: Eight percent of the human genome comes from the insertion of genetic material from a virus. A kind of RNA virus called a bornavirus has the ability to replicate in the nuclei of cells, causing its DNA to be incorporated into the DNA of the cells of the host organism, and thus passed along from generation to generation, eventually evolving into part of the “normal” genome. The researchers who have been studying this think that the resulting genetic mutations might be at the core of psychiatric disorders like schizophrenia and Republicanism.

BrianKaneOnline

Curses, Foiled Again!

See Also

Soapbox Hero

See Also

In Soviet Russia…Oh, You Know The Joke

See Also

A Little Book Larnin’ Never Hurt No One

See Also

Carrots Are Divine, You Get A Dozen For A Dime, It’s MAAAAAAAA-gic!

See Also

BKO: Your Source For Useful Information

See Also

What? No Corkscrew?

See Also

A (Maple) Tree Grows In Brooklyn

See Also

An Apology

See Also

Funny, I Thought They Liked Blueberry Muffins

See Also

Somewhere, Our Hero Laments

See Also

Truth Or Dare

See Also

I’m Not Bad, I Was Just Drawn That Way

See Also

You ARE The Disease

See Also