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Monthly Archives: September 2015

“The Middle-Class Squeeze”

26 Saturday Sep 2015

Posted by Richard in Articles & Books of Interest, The Outer Loop

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

"The Middle-Class Squeeze", Bernie Sanders, Charles Moore, Distrust of Government, Donald Trump, Hilliary Clinton, House Republicans, President Obama, The Middle Class, The Wall Street Journal, WSJ

middleclasssqueeze                                                                      Illustration: Robert Neubecke

Thanks to an email from CT, I read an article this morning that seems to put some clarity and understanding into what may be an important (and less often discussed) factor behind many issues affecting our country.

Why is Trump hitting a note with some people in the country (beyond his theatrics)?

Why isn’t Obama getting adequate recognition for what in many ways has been a successful presidency (beyond the racism)?

Why is Bernie Sanders also hitting a note with some people in this country (beyond his progressive rhetoric and beliefs)?

Why is Hilary Clinton not walking away with the Democratic nomination (beyond her email issues, her gender, and her sometimes grating personality)?

Why are two to four dozen Republican House members (and some Republican Senators) able to have such a (negative and powerful) impact on the business of the House and the country (despite their safe, gerrymandered seats)?

Why is distrust of government at its highest level in many years (beyond the media’s inadequacy in presenting a clear picture of what is underway in this country)?

While there are differing and numerous explanations for each of these questions, I think one factor that perhaps underlies all of them and has not received sufficient discussion and understanding is contained in a recent Wall Street Journal‘s article, The Middle-Class Squeeze, by Charles Moore.

Check it out and feel free to add your opinion in the Comment section of this post.

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Our Carceral State

22 Tuesday Sep 2015

Posted by Richard in Articles & Books of Interest, The Outer Loop

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

"Letter to My Son", "The Black Family in the Age of Mass Incarceration", "The Case for Reparations", Politics & Prose Bookstore, Sixth and I Historic Synagogue, Ta-Nehisi Coates, The Atlantic Magazine

I had to look up the word in the title above, but it is quite appropriate.

It is a word that Ta-Nehisi Coates uses frequently in his most recent and lengthy article, The Black Family in the Age of Mass Incarceration in the October 2015 issue of The Atlantic.

This article has certainly expanded my thinking and my understanding about something that is happening in our country but that rarely makes the news.

I am reprinting first the Atlantic’s Editor’s Note that introduces the article and will give you a sense of what will follow if you invest time in reading the Coates’ piece.

(Also, at the end of this Editor’s Note, there is information about two free tickets to see and hear Ta-Nehisi Coates in Washington, DC  Oct. 14th.)

Editor’s Note

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I Never Seem to Learn

17 Thursday Sep 2015

Posted by Richard in Escapes and Pleasures, Family and Friends, Go Sox

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

Baltimore Orioles, Boston Red Sox, David Ortiz, Nats' Tickets, NY Yankees, Orioles, Sox, Washington Nationals, Yunkees

As you can see from the pictures below, I spent an entire Red Sox game last night wearing a Yankee hat.

endof game(Sox defeat Orioles, 10-1)

Why?

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Papi Gets 500

13 Sunday Sep 2015

Posted by Richard in Go Sox

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

500 Home Runs, Big Papi, Boston Red Sox, David Ortiz, Home Runs, Papi, Red Sox, Sox

300x152_Ortiz_500_ggd8l77z_z0sfeolz

No doubt by now many of you know that David Ortiz last night hit two home runs to get to his 500th home run, a ‘feat’ accomplished by 27 other major league players.

Here are a few other bits of information for you:

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“Consider the Lobster”

13 Sunday Sep 2015

Posted by Richard in Articles & Books of Interest, Escapes and Pleasures, Family and Friends

≈ 8 Comments

Tags

"Consider the Lobster", "Consider the Oyster", Broome's Island, Calvin Trillin, Crab Cakes, David Foster Wallace, Gourmet Magazine, John McPhee, lobster, Maryland Blue Crabs, MFK Fischer, Patuxent River, Stoney's Restaurant

In a recent review of several movies (Five Movies to Recommend), I mentioned the name of a writer, David Foster Wallace, whom I somehow didn’t know. Or at least I didn’t know I ‘knew’ him. Thanks to an alert MillersTime reader (KC), I was reminded of an article he wrote in the now defunct Gourmet magazine in 2004 entitled Consider the Lobster. So I reread the article — I think I had never paid much attention to who authored it — and was again amused and delighted.

Wallace had taken on an assignment for Gourmet to write about the annual Maine Lobster Festival, held in July in the state’s mid-coast region. No doubt taking a page from MFK Fischer’s wonderful small book, Consider the Oyster, (written in 1941), Wallace’s essay took the opportunity provided by the festival to explore an issue many of us who love lobsters and prepare them at home occasionally ‘consider’.

Trust me on this one. If you’ve ever ‘considered the lobster’ and if you like the writings of Calvin Trillin and John McPhee (a high bar I know), I suspect you’ll enjoy Wallace’s Consider the Lobster. And be sure to read the 20 footnotes which are really just an extension of this amusing and delightful essay and likely the only footnotes you’ll ever read with pleasure.

Rereading Consider the Lobster also reminded me about how much Ellen and I have enjoyed an annual weekend that has been centered around lobsters and friendship.

IMG_3472(1)

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“Angels of Fenway” & How the Nats Lost It

09 Wednesday Sep 2015

Posted by Richard in Go Sox

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

"Angels of Fenway", "Before This World", "You've Got a Friend", and Storen, Arnie Beyeler, Big Papa, Boston Red Sox, Brian Butterfield, Familia, Fenway Park, Jackie Bradley Jr., James Taylor, Joe Kelly, Jordan Zimmerman, Matt Harvey, Mets, Mookie Betts, Nats, Nieuwenhuis, NY Mets, Papelbon, Red Sox, Rick Porcello, Rivero, Rusney Castillo, Ryan Zimmerman, Sox, The Washington Nationals, Trieinen, Tyler Clippard, Werth, Xander Boegarts

Angels of Fenway

No. I’m not referring to the new Sox outfield of Mookie Betts, Jackie Bradley, Jr., and Rusney Castillo, tho “Angels of Fenway” might be an apt way to talk about to those three young, exciting players (see more below).

James-Taylor-Boston-Globe_Final_Approved_ResizedBut I am talking about that Fenway and someone familiar to most Sox fans.

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What Makes Some People More Successful Than Others?

07 Monday Sep 2015

Posted by Richard in Articles & Books of Interest

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Angela Lee Duckworth. The Key to Success?, Grit, TED Talk

What’s the most important ingredient of knowing how well our kids, and all of us actually, will do in school, in a job, and perhaps in life itself?

Here’s a 6.09 minute TED talk that discusses one person’s answer.

Check it out.

What do you think?

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Five Movies to Recommend

06 Sunday Sep 2015

Posted by Richard in Escapes and Pleasures

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

"Althogh Of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself", "Infinite Jest", "Mission: Impossible Rogue Nation", "Phoenix", "Rolling Stone", "Rosenwald", Avalon Theatre, Aviva Kempner, Christian Petzoid, Conrad Anker, David Foster Wallace, David Lipsky, DC Shorts Film Festival, Documentarties, Films, Jason Siegel, Jesse Eisenberg, Jimmy Chin, Julius Rosenwald, Mount Meru, Movies, Nina Hoss, Renan Oztruk, Ronald Zehrfeld, Rosenwald Fund, Rosenwald Schools, Sears. Roebuck & Co., Shark's Fin, The Ciesla Foundation, Tom Cruise

Five more films to consider, including at least one that is available everywhere.

Phoenix ****

Phoenix poster.11191735_ori

Good filmmaking and very good acting make this suspense filled drama engrossing.

Writer and director Christian Petzold creates and tells a story about a woman who returns from a concentration camp badly disfigured and who undergoes facial reconstructive surgery. She then sets out to find her husband, who may or may not have been responsible for her arrest and imprisonment.

While the story has some implausible aspects, it nevertheless grabbed me and held me throughout. Both the women, Nelly (Nina Hoss) and her ‘perhaps’ husband, Johnny (Ronald Zehrfeld), are intriguing characters, strikingly portrayed, and well acted, particularly Nelly.

Phoenix is not a thriller tho it is filled with suspense. Post-war Berlin is the setting, and there is something about the filmmaking that makes it compelling and enthralling.

Rosenwald****

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What’s Going on in Baseball?

02 Wednesday Sep 2015

Posted by Richard in Go Sox

≈ 9 Comments

Tags

baseball, Beantown, Betts, Bradley, Bryce Harper, Castillo, Cherrington, Dombrowski, Don Orsillo, Hanley Ramirez, Jerry Remy, Mets, MillersTime Baseball Contests, MLB, Nats, NESN, New Rules, Orioles, Red Sox, Son Orsillo, Sox, Yankees, Yunkees

In no particular order, here are some comments, thoughts, observations, and perhaps even an occasional insight at this point in the 2015 baseball season: ** For those of you who can remember back to preseason, I wrote about the new baseball rules for shortening games and predicted they’d work (see: It’s Gonna Work – Betcha). At the All Star break this year, roughly the halfway mark of the season, the average length of the games was down almost exactly 10 minutes.  The rule about batters having to keep one foot in the batter’s box accounted for half of the reduction in game time. Calling for a play challenge from the dugout and limiting the time between innings, probably make up the other half. Recently, however, the game time has crept up a bit. (It seems to me that batters are staying out of the box more now than they did at the beginning of the season, perhaps because MLB and the Players Union agreed not to use the financial penalties that were supposed to kick in in May?) ** If you think there are more no-hitters this year than last, you’re right (six already versus five for all of last year). And there were 33 no ‘hitters’ thru 6 innings (better than all of last year), 17 through 7 innings and 10 through 8 innings. But pitchers on the whole are doing worse than last year. The ERA of all the Major League teams is up over 2014, from 3.74 (full season) to 3.82 (thru 8/31/15). Batters are doing better (makes sense if ERA is up) in all categories: Ave. – 254/.251, OBP – .315/.314, SLG. – .402/.386, and OPS –  .718/.700. Fielding PCT is virtually unchanged (.985/.984). ** What’s up with the Sox? They have been out of it for most of the season, largely because of weak pitching and weak hitting. (Outgoing GM Cherrington should’ve listened to me when I said stay away from Hanley Ramirez). They have done well over the past several weeks as they have settled into what is likely to be an outstanding outfield — Bradley, Betts, and Castillo (photo below) — for next year and beyond, tho it’s not clear yet which position each will play in that outfield. Their hitting is up and so is their starting pitching; relief pitching, however, has worsened, especially with the loss of Uehara for the remainder of the season. They have a modest chance of avoiding last place if they continue at their present pace. Everyone is on their toes trying to prove to their new president of baseball operations Dombrowski that they deserve to play next year.

-BOSTON-RED-SOX-AT-CHICAGO-WHITE-SOXCaylor Arnold/USA Today Sports

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