Segway Verdict: Dorky

OK, So I guess this is officially a trend: two Segways in 3 days. First, one passed me on Fifth Avenue near the office. That was the first one I've seen live. Then on Sunday, some guy was riding his down the Riverside Park bike path while his female companion jogged alongside.

Apparently, they are quasi-legal on New York sidewalks. (Which is just as well, since our sidewalks are in way better shape than our streets, witness the wading pool size potholes on my block. Driving has definitely taken on an obstacle-course quality in much of Manhattan.)

Meanwhile, the Harvard Business School has printed an excerpt from a book on the Segway that describes the reaction of Steve Jobs and Jeff Bezos to the Segway. Vintage Jobs:

Perhaps more to the point, it looks dorky. Driving one seems about as sexy as driving the forklift at Wal-Mart. The company seems to understand this as their website is filled with pictures of goofy Middle Americans attending to mundane tasks on their Segways.

And the stories of how their lives have been changed — I mean, seriously, people, get a grip. Apparently, the hype machine is gearing up, though, as Justin Timberlake rode one on the MTV awards. If anything is going to kill this machine, that kind of exposure will.

The Madness of the Ideologues

What is about anti-US writers that none of them can come up with a coherent argument that is worth reading? Case in point, Eric Hobsbawm's screed in Le Monde Diplomatique, here excerpted and translated in The Guardian.

Here's Hobsbawn morally incomprehensible:

In other words, The world needs a force for good, but I don't propose lifting a finger to have one. Naughty dictator, naughty naughy. Please stop.

Here's Hobsbawm with an interesting observation:

This is true, the ultimate dominance of the US is and will continue to be, cultural and economic. The military component so current right now needs to be short. A) because the US can't really afford it, B) because the American people ultimately don't support it, and C) most of the problems of the world are not conducive to solution in this fashion.

Once we pass beyond the current situation of terrorists and terror-states aided and abetted by European appeasement and collaboration, the US military venture will probably subside. Also, maybe someday there will be a Democratic Party that will overcome it's own rampant inanities and form a significant opposition.

As to why people like Hobsbawm can't string a coherent and rational argument together, it seems to be part of the "madness of the ideologues" — too blinded by their hatred and anger to actually grasp the world.

Is there anyone out there that is actually writing progressive analysis that is readable? I have some ideas but I welcome other's observations.

Positively 44th Street

The New York Times Company mission statement:

Well, it certainly has created news, and distributed much high-quality entertainment this past few weeks.

Here's the New York Post's take, classic and wonderful tabloid head:

Shooting the Wounded

For those among you what don't get the "dead trees" version of the New York Times, there was an editorial page ad from TomPaine.com that must certainly qualify as "Self-Foot Shooting 101".

Their message: not only must we Democrats fight against a popular President who shows aplomb at dealing with national and international crisis, we need to kill off each other first in order to do it. They even venture a gratuitous slap at front-runner Lieberman, targeting his speeches as unexciting.

George Bush may be beatable, but it looks like George Bush is the only guy who can beat him, since these Democrats remind me of the Black Knight in Monty Python and the Holy Grail, the one who has his arms and legs cut off and won't quit: "Oh. Oh, I see. Running away, eh? You yellow bastards! Come back here and take what's coming to you. I'll bite your legs off!"

Flag of the Week

Odd Job Lot, New York, May 26, 2003

My Sordid Past

I have to come clean. My history is not clear of suspicious team associations.

When I went to Ossining High School, we were the Indians. Actually, strictly speaking, the jocks were the Indians — I was on the Debate Team and the newspaper. Last fall, the High School dumped the Indians mascot, despite the historic association of the town with the Sintsink Indian tribe. (Originally the town was called Sing Sing, but the infamy of the prison led to a name change in the mid 20th century.)

Our arch-rivals were the Headless Horsemen of Sleepy Hollow. No one objected to that name, I guess because the headless don't have a constituency in America (or as my wife said, they don't have a voice). This despite the number of them in Congress.

McGill University's teams are The Redmen. (The women are The Martlets, and the baseball team The Redbirds.). I'm not certain if Redmen ever referred to an Indian mascot (I suspect it did, maybe someone can enlighten me). The school colors are Red and White so that is apparently the imagery they encourage now. Given the origin of the James McGill fortune, we're just lucky they weren't The Beavers, I suppose.

{By the way, McGill was critical in the history of football, inventing many of the basics back in 1872-1874. For more.}

Apropos of nothing perhaps, I wanted to point out that my son's High School has an elaborately complex set of team names, since apparently they could never agree on a single image. Makes reading the school paper confusing at times.

Stuvesant High School:
Boys —
baseball, tennis, soccer: The Hit Men
basketball: Runnin' Rebels
Football: Peglegs
Swimming: Pirates
Handball: Dragons
Girls —
basketball: Phoenix
swimming: Penguins

Peglegs because Peter Stuyvesant had a wooden leg, of course. I hate to think of the origin of Hit Men (must have been when the school was on the lower east side).

My son is on the cross-country team. Needless to say, they don't run as the Peglegs, just Stuyvesant Track.

Team Names Redux

In my new-found role as an oppressed minority member (Celt)*, I find this an interesting development: The Minneapolis Star-Tribune may revise its ban on "insensitive" team names.

Notice how the editor posits it as a return to accuracy in reporting (as opposed to "sensitivity" or political correctness, I presume).

I'm unclear how "Redskins" is less denigrating than "Skins". Of course, references to "warpath", "scalps" and "scalping" (except about tickets) shouldn't be tolerated.

On the other hand, has anyone thought about how Minnesota's use of "Vikings", "Twins", "Wolves" could be deemed objectionable to Norwegian-Americans (or People of Color: Blond), multiple-birthed Americans, and endangered species?

Me, I still haven't ordered my "Fightin' Whities" T-shirt.

*I don't know how many Americans have encountered Canadian Tire Money, but for a striking example of insensitivity to Celtic sensibilities:

If you're not part of the problem, you're part of the problem

There is a movement afoot by anti-US radicals to bring down the "unilateral hegemon" by organizing the world's masses to economically strangle the US. But more on Arundhati Roy's wet dream another time.

A report from the G8 protests shows how unlikely that scenario is to unfold. The protestors have met the enemy and, to rephrase the immortal words of Walt Kelly's Pogo, they are them. One group attacked a Socialist Party meeting for being insufficiently radical.

This started a while ago. This ludicrous graphic appeared a few weeks back on one of the main anti-G8 web sites:

The point, of course, is that it is unacceptable (except to "bobos") to want to change globalism, say to make it better for the world's people.

So if they need to amend their chant, I'd suggest: We are 2000, They are six billion.

Two camps of European activists — wonder if you could classify them by odor?