I’m sitting here in East Cambridge, right next door to Democrat Central, good old Boston. I just heard extended rumbling and roaring explosively off in the short distance. I’m pretty sure it was fireworks, not the dreaded dirty bomb of fear. I’m guessing, though, only because I didn’t hear BOOM – SIREN. Just BOOM.
(I started this at about 10 p.m. It’s midnight now. I would be freaked if I heard distant explosions at midnight, and it’s not January 1.)
I did try searching for info on events to determine if fireworks were involved. I couldn’t find anything. My guess is the big shindig at Government Center. Although, given the demographics of anyone who would be digging Keith Lockhart presenting R&B fossils, surprise unannounced pyrotechnics in the middle of the hyperbole rocked state of security we got going on here seem kind of prankishly cruel.
I drove the length of Mass. Ave. today from Cambridge down through Boston and into Dorchester and back again. The South End seemed tight with security around the wide open area that normally would be the entry ramps to Route 93. I saw Sheriff’s, City, Special Forces vehicles and a whole lot of differently uniformed folks. I even got edged out of my lane by a tricked out, very shiney black, new looking behemoth Escalade with dark tinted windows and “U.S.” license plates. Don’t know who they were or what they were doing, but they smelled official.
Meanwhile, my town continues to amuse me. When you got to the Cambridge part of Mass. Ave. more streets were closed and barricades erected. But, not for securing the perimeter lock down. Nope, just a street fair and parade (featuring a spine as a nod to something Kerry should be growing stiffly and proudly. Glad the more popular metaphor isn’t “get a sac!” since I don’t think kids should see a giant pair of cajones being marched down the street.)
They are also totally hip to the “13 days of dissent” thang that the Zeitgeist gallery has going on around Inman.
The aging hippie slogan for Cambridge’s reaction to the convention? The Unconventional City.
By the way, for Boston, this whole ad campaign is fucking sad. How many ways can you insist on “diversity” until you just sound like a fuckhead at a pary talking about having a Black friend or two? If you keep having to tell people, who will be here and looking around, maybe it’s not exactly your strongest suit.
(Any delegate e who has actually been to a city that has hardcore minority populations (and would entertain a mayor of color or whatnote) is probably checking those adds and thinking “Fuckwads. Nice whitey whiteness, Beantown.”)
Clearly, the comment above is SPAM uncaught by my SPAM-commenting filters. But, it’s so short and so true in a Reader’s Digest “Campus Comedy” way, I hate to delete it. I only wish I were as witty as that comment. Oh wait, maybe I am.
To err is human, to moo bovine.
When the SPAM comments are as profound as these, I hate to delete them…
A Plan for the Improvement of English Spelling
by Mark Twain
For example, in Year 1 that useless letter “c” would be dropped
to be replased either by “k” or “s”, and likewise “x” would no longer
be part of the alphabet. The only kase in which “c” would be retained
would be the “ch” formation, which will be dealt with later. Year 2
might reform “w” spelling, so that “which” and “one” would take the
same konsonant, wile Year 3 might well abolish “y” replasing it with
“i” and Iear 4 might fiks the “g/j” anomali wonse and for all.
Jenerally, then, the improvement would kontinue iear bai iear
with Iear 5 doing awai with useless double konsonants, and Iears 6-12
or so modifaiing vowlz and the rimeining voist and unvoist konsonants.
Bai Iear 15 or sou, it wud fainali bi posibl tu meik ius ov thi
ridandant letez “c”, “y” and “x” — bai now jast a memori in the maindz
ov ould doderez — tu riplais “ch”, “sh”, and “th” rispektivli.
Fainali, xen, aafte sam 20 iers ov orxogrefkl riform, wi wud
hev a lojikl, kohirnt speling in ius xrewawt xe Ingliy-spiking werld.