One more thing climate change is f-ing up

I like lobster. 

I don't eat it all that often, and when I do, it's generally in the form of a lobster roll rather than my second choice, which is boiled lobster dipped in butter, where you have to go to battle for your meal. (And, yes, having waitressed in restaurants that sold a ton of lobster, I do know how to work a lobster: twisting the tail off, cracking the claws, poking the lobster meat out with a pick...)

But, even though I don't eat it all often, and wouldn't really miss it if it disappeared from menus, I really, really, really don't want to see wild lobsters go extinct, leaving us with nothing but farmed lobsters. (Just the idea...) 

I like seeing lobster tanks in restaurants. I like seeing lobster traps on piers. I like seeing the buoys that mark lobster pots. I like seeing lobster boats motor in and out of Maine harbors. And even around Boston harbor. 

But storms last month took a real toll on the Main lobster lobster industry, when "docks and piers...were destroyed, and the infrastructure that supports a vital industry took a massive hit."

The devastation felt by Maine’s lobster industry was an alarming warning that climate change is happening so fast, and with such seemingly cruel precision, that the scale of recovery may need to be greater than anyone had realized. 

“It just came up shockingly high,” said Allison Melvin, of Greenhead Lobster [Stonington, Maine], who watched as the ocean surged several feet in what seemed like a matter of seconds, buckling a conveyer belt that normally extends from its wharf down to the dock below, inundating forklifts, and lifting a tractor trailer truck used for refrigeration. (Source: Boston Globe)

Maine's Governor, Janet Mills, is warning that things will be going from bad to worse for what is an important industry in her state.  

“The ocean is warming, the sea is rising, the winds are wilder, and, perhaps even more importantly, we all know that more storms like these will follow,” Mills said at a special meeting of the state’s Climate Council, which advises the governor and legislature on ways to mitigate the climate crisis. “We have got to act now.”

And addressing the climate change that represents an existential threat to lobstering will not come cheap. Or instantaneously.  

But Mainers - especially those who work in tough and dangerous industries like lobstering - are nothing if not resilient. They're survivors. But will the lobsters they catch be? After all, as the waters warm, how will cold water lobsters survive. Those warm water lobsters are just not the same as cold water lobsters, which is what we get locally - a lot from Maine. Our lobsters have claws. Our lobsters taste better. Our lobsters look like lobsters. (C.f., what do you think is pictured on lobster bibs?)

I may not eat a ton of lobsters, but I don't want to see them go. 

Just one more thng that climate change is f'ing up.

"Plenty of Room in the Hotel California"

Can't say I've ever been a big Eagles fan, but I've always enjoyed their music. Where would the soundtrack of the 70's be without the Eagles? Their songs, for me, are definitely not in the "switch to another station when it comes on" category, other than (maybe: would depend on the mood) "Witchy Woman." And "Take It To The Limit" is one of my favorite 70's tunes.

So I liked the Eagles enough that the legal Eagles news of late has definitely caught my interest.

The story is this:

A week or so ago, three men went on trial in NYC for a conspiracy to sell 100 or so pages of Don Henley notes that show the development of the lyrics for "Hotel California" and a couple of other Eagles hits. One of the accused was Glenn Horowitz, a big-deal dealer who had been involved in the sales of the papers of the likes of Norman Mailer, Tom Wolfe, Vladimir Nabokov, and Bob Dylan. Pretty heady company for the yellow pads of the likes of Don Henley.

Horowitz had purchased the trove in 2005 from Ed Sanders. And the presence of Ed Sanders is where the story to me gets all the more interesting.

Sanders was a beat poet (who once won a Guggenheim, so he was legit) and co-founder of the anti-war counterculture band, the Fugs. In the early 1970's, Sanders wrote The Family, a best-seller about the Manson murders. He then turned to a milder topic, and scored a deal to write a book about the Eagles. So he hung around them for a while in the late 70's, doing extensive interviews. According to Sanders, the yellow pads were shipped to him by an admin who worked for the Eagles. Sanders was never told that the Henley notes weren't his, so he hung on to them for couple of decades, then sold them to Horowitz for $50K. And, by the way, his Eagles book was never published. 

Sanders isn't on trial for the conspiracy or theft of the Henley notes. (The prosecutors do allege that those notes were "originally stolen," but there's no evidence that he's been charged or even "identified as an unindicted co-conspirator.")

But he is implicated:

Mr. Sanders acquired the material for a book, prosecutors say in a court filing, but “the lyrics became ‘stolen’ and Sanders committed a larceny once he failed to return the lyrics to the Eagles within a ‘reasonable’ period following the contract’s termination.” (Source: NY Times)

Horowitz and his co-defendants (Craig Inciardi and Edward Kosinski), however, are on trial, and have found themselves in what the Fugs might have called a river of shit. (Note: "River of Shit" is the one and only Fugs song I know.)

Horowitz says that he acquired the notes legitimately and had no reason to believe that they had been stolen. And on top of that, after hanging on to the Henley notes for a while and despite his illustrious, big buck credentials (Nabokov! Mailer!), he only made $15K on the sale. 

Lawyers for all three defendants said their clients had done nothing wrong and that prosecutors lacked evidence that the notes had ever been stolen.

The defense largely rests on this:

Defense lawyers wrote in one of their filings that if prosecutors did not consider Mr. Sanders a thief, then the material could not be considered stolen, and the judge should dismiss the case.

Hmmm. If the notes are considered stolen, but Sanders hasn't been charged as a theif, what the fug? Is Sanders actually a witness for the prosecution...

There's is plenty of ammo on the side of the prosecution, especially considering that the charges are conspiracy to sell documents they knew were stolen, not the theft itself. 

When Inciardi and Kosinski tried to unload the notes that they'd acquired from Horowitz, Don Henley "told them that it had been stolen and demanded it back. Eventually, Mr. Inciardi and Mr. Kosinski went to the auction houses Christie’s and Sotheby’s with some of the material."

So, they'd been told that the material was stolen and still tried to sell it (unsuccessfully: no way Christie's and Sotheby's were going to get involved with documents of such dubious provenance). Not a good look, I would think.

Then there's the fact of the defendants attempt to create a fake provenance that would "prove" the notes weren't stolen. No stolen goods, no conspiracy to sell stolen goods. 

An indictment described what prosecutors said were Mr. Horowitz’s efforts to create a bogus history for the material, which included the idea that it had come from the Eagles co-founder Glenn Frey, who had recently died, rather than from Mr. Henley. Mr. Horowitz wrote to Mr. Sanders in 2017 that identifying Mr. Frey as the source “would make this go away once and for all,” the indictment said.

Oh, the old dead-man-dunnit defense.

Alas for the guys on trial, there's a Sanders email that indicates that he aquired the notes while “staying at Henley’s place in Malibu.”

So, they knew. So, no Glenn Frey defense.

I'll be looking for the outcome of this one.

The indicted co-conspirators may find themselves checking into some place other than the Hotel California. 

Meanwhile, it looks like Ed Sanders will, like the river of shit, flow on. 

Guess it's not always better in the Bahamas

The Bahamas has been in the bad news lately, with the late January travel advisory issued by the State Department, based on the heightened crime there. 

Not mentioned in the advisory - which was centered on 18 murders in the Bahamas during January alone -  is the Boston woman who was killed in a shark attack while paddleboarding on her Bahamas honeymoon in early December. 

And not mentioned in the advisory was a recent incident that occurred at the Atlantis Paradise Resort, when a little boy participating in the "Walking with the Sharks" adventure ended up bitten by a shark. And to compound the horror. once there was blood in the water, the 10-year old was circled by sharks. Fortunately, the kid showed tremendous presence of mind in kicking his way to the surface, and his father showed tremendous courage by jumping into the tank to rescue his son. (Go, Dad!) The little boy needed surgery but on last report, was doing okay. 

The "Walking with the Sharks" excursion costs $110 for 30 minutes of "fun," during which folks 10 years old and up can hang with some sharks. 

Now, we're talking reef sharks here, not Jaws-style great whites. 

Still, reef sharks are big enough - 8-9 feet - and they are wild animals. 

Witnesses told TMZ the boy climbed into the tank with the staff and that two of the reef sharks were aggressively swimming around the boy when one of them darted through his legs, causing the child to lose his footing and straddle the shark.

The shark then turned around toward the boy and bit into his right leg, which began profusely bleeding in the tank.

As the boy frantically swam to the surface with his injured leg, the sharks continued to swim back and forth around him. (Source: Independent UK)

Although I live on the ocean, I don't spend a lot of time in it. Even when my sister Kath still had her house in Wellfleet on Cape Cod, where I was a frequent guest, I might step toe in the water once a year. If that. And it was generally on the bay side, rather than the open ocean side of Wellfleet. 

Step toe in, by the way, was pretty much all I ever did. Splash in. Get wet. Let a wave roll over me. Maybe do a bit of a back and forth paddle not far from shore. 

But actual serious swimming? Nah! I'm not that strong a swimmer to begin with, let alone getting in the open ocean where there are rip tides and great whites. And there are great whites marauding around Cape Cod - not just on the Outer Cape (ocean side) but in Cape Cod Bay as well. And sometimes they do kill people. (In 2018, a man was killed by a shark on Newcomb Hollow Beach in Wellfleet, where I've been a number of times.)

Given that I'm not ofen in the coean, I don't spend a ton of time worrying about shark attacks. But just about the last fun excursion I'd go on in the Bahamas - where I'm not apt to go to begin with - would be swimming around in a shark tank. And even more lastier than last would be letting my kid jump into a shark tank. Not that I'm blaming the parents here. I'm sure the adventure was advertised as harmless, harmless, harmless, safe, safe, safe. 

After all, people swim with manatees. They swim with dolphins. Why not a bit of a frolic with the Bambis of the shark world.

Hope the kid make a full recovery. And that however many waivers of liability the family signed before letting their kiddo walk with sharks, they're going to get a good-sized settlement here. 

Bottom line is that, despite the old advertising campaign, thinkgs aren't always better in the Bahamas.

Not Dana-Farber!

Allegations of plagiarism have been coming fast and furious of late. The recently deposed president of Harvard. The wife of the man behind the outing of the president of Harvard for plagiarism. Et al.

I haven't read the stories all that carefully, but a lot of the plagiarism seems to involve not adequately citing references and omitting quote marks. A lot of the accusations, from my cursory read, seem to be around using non-material technical definitions of the "a horse is an animal with four legs" variety without noting where those definitions were lifted from - which is apparently a generally accepted practice in some fields. (One of the charges leveled against the wife of the blowhard-whistleblower who went after the recently-deposed president of Harvard, a man whose motivations seemed as political as anything else, was that she used content from Wikipedia without referencing it - probably because referencing Wikipedia in an academic piece would be viewed as pretty ludicrous) 

Much of what I've read has not been about stealing someone's ideas, theories, and interpretations and palming them off as your own. Much of what I've read has been embarrassing - sloppy, shoddy, half-assed "scholarship," which is shameful but not - to me, anyway - a sign of deep corruption. For what it's worth, I'm not an academic but I'm pretty damned careful about the citations in a blog that's mostly for my entertainment, and that of my small cadre of readers. Someone who is an academic should be at least as careful as a minor-league blogger.

All that said, most of the recent stories reveal sloppiness and a bit of shadiness that's harmful to the sloppy and shady, but isn't really life or death.

But there's another entire category of academic malfeasance, and that's falsifying research. 

There's a still broiling embroilment of a Harvard Business School professor (and highly-regarded and mega-well-paid business consultant) whose field of study was honesty of all things. She's been accused of falsifying her researech jiggering it to get the results she wanted. 

Falsifying data in studies on honesty? Well, honestly, that's almost LOL funny.

But falsifying data in scientific research that could be life and death? Yikes! 

And now Dana-Farber, the prestigious Boston cancer center, is caught up in allegations that some of the published papers authored by Dana-Farber Cancer Institute scientists contain non-trivial errors. So far, six papers have been retracted, and a couple of dozen other papers are in the process of being corrected. 

The allegations — against top scientists at the prestigious Boston-based institute, which is a teaching affiliate of Harvard Medical School — put the institute at the center of a roiling debate about research misconduct, how to police scientific integrity and whether the organizational structure of academic science incentivizes shortcuts or cheating.

...A biologist and blogger, Sholto David centered attention on Dana-Farber after he highlighted problems in a slew of studies from top researchers.

In early January, David detailed duplications and potentially misleading image edits across dozens of papers produced primarily by Dana-Farber researchers, writing in a blog post that research from top scientists at the institute “appears to be hopelessly corrupt with errors that are obvious from just a cursory reading.” (Source: NBC News)

Dana-Farber is pushing back a bit, stating that just because the images appear to be manipulated doesn't prove that there was any "intent to deceive." And the Insitute notes that "the allegations all concerned pure, or basic, science, as opposed to studies that led to cancer drug approvals."

So there's that.

And Dana-Farber is getting some props for responding quickly once the allegations surfaced.

Still, there are all those retractions and corrections, and the process and culture that enables regular sloppiness and/or deceit to occur. (Part of that process and culture is likely leaving the scut image work to more junior colleagues who, eager to please the top dogs, may "manipulate results and chase favor.")

AI software will increasingly be used to spot problematic work pre-publication and, of course, to examine published works to determine where the science is sketch. Alas, "AI programs can [also] generate realistic looking figures of common experiments." Swell. 

I'm very sorry to see Dana-Farber implicated here. 

I know a few folks who have been treated - and treated well, if not always successfully - there. And one of the most well known local charities, the Jimmy Fund - which has been promoted by the Red Sox for as long as I've been watching them - raises money for Dana-Farber research. Jimmy Fund - Dana-Farber isn't one of my main charities, but I have made small donations over the years. 

Damn!

AI is going to out all the paper chasers who make mistakes, both those involved in petty carelessness and those doing major, conscious cheating. Which is a good thing, but you hate to see it. How about being more careful and less dishonest to begin with.

No tension in THIS workplace...

Just like pretty much everyone else who's worked more than, say, forty-five minutes in their life, I've been in workplaces where there is tension.

Someone takes credit for another's work. An undeserving nincompoop gets promoted. A guaranteed-to-fail deal is signed. An unpopular and/or strategic decision is announced. A backstabs B. There's a lay-off coming. The lay-off occurs. There's another lay-off coming. 

Sometimes the tension is of a more personal nature. C has a crush on D, who doesn't know C exists. E's screwing around on his wife with F, and then they break up. Etc.

The workplace is a compilation of human beings. Of course there's tension. 

But there's tension and then there's TENSION. And I can only imagine that what's happening in the Plymouth Fire Department is TENSION. 

Here's the sitch.

A firefighter has been charged with installing spy cameras in the house he had shared with his girlfriend, who post-breakup stayed put for a while, renting the house he owned for a few months after they'd split. 

While his GF was still in residence, Richard Pimental slipped her a couple of spy cams mickies. One was in a clock that he'd gifted her with, along with an apologetic note. (Awwww....) She then found another cam "disguised to look like an outlet plug."

Pimental stopped by, supposedly to set some mousetraps, but, no, it was to setup a storage device for the videos from the spy cams.

After the couple split, the GF had started seeing another fellow. As luck and circumstance would have it, the new BF was a fellow firefighter of Pimental.

So the videos Pimental made were of the exGF and a current colleague getting it on.

Morons being morons:

Pimental allegedly shared what he was doing with the cameras with at least one firefighter and another first responder. In one text, Pimental allegedly acknowledged that installing the cameras and recording the people inside the home was illegal.

“She found out it seems,” Pimental texted the first responder, adding that he had recorded the woman “which was illegal...”, according to court records. (Source: Boston Globe)

And morons being morons, Pimental is apparently unaware that the authorities can figure out exactly what you've searched on. 

Based on a court-authorized search of Pimental’s phone, investigators located Google searches including “Top 7 Best Hidden Cameras That Look Like Everyday Objects” and “Massachusetts law about hidden cameras in house,” according to police.

And scorned lover morons being scorned lover morons, Pimental shared a 10 second cut of the exGF and the new fellow firefighter BF with yet another firefighter and an EMT.

What a colossal a-hole!!!

As for now, Pimental's a colossal a-hole who's been "released on personal recognizance."

He was ordered to stay away from his former girlfriend and her new boyfriend, who is also a Plymouth firefighter, unless they need to work together, according to court records.

Plymouth FD is not NYFD or even Boston FD. Plymouth is a small city with a handful of fire stations and 120 firefighters. Sure, it's large enough that it's possible to set up schedules so that Pimental and the new BF aren't working together. But what if there's a major fire or some sort of incident that requires all hands on? And what about friends of Pimental and friends of the new BF who work together? This is a small fire department in a small city. I'm guessing that most Plymouth fire fighters at least vaguely know all the other guys in the department. 

Sure, I'm guessing that there will be plenty of awful humor about this situation. But I'm also guessing that there will be plenty of TENSION in that workplace.

And firefighters are pretty rugged guys. When they're not fighting fires, which is most of the time, a lot of them are working out. I sure wouldn't want to get into it with one of them. Not to mention that fire stations are full of firefighting equipment that could be used to fight more than fires. Surely, a halligan can be weaponized.

Maybe I'm reading this all wrong. Maybe the entire situation will be passed off as a small embarassment, a bad joke, an opportunity for commentary on buff-hot bods (or not). Maybe Pimental's buddies think that the revenge porn is justified. Maybe the exGF and the new BF really don't care all that much.

But no one wants to spied on by an ex or anyone else.

TENSION levels at Plymouth FD have got to be running plenty high.

Let's hear it for John King, tinkerer

I volunteer at a homeless shelter, where many of our guests are coping with substance abuse problems. Folks sometimes pass out. And sometimes they pass out because of the drugs that are in their system. Sometimes they need a spray of Narcan to revive. I'm not trained to administer it - all/most staff members are - but I know where the Narcan is located, and I've seen it given. Sometimes I'm around when a guest comes out of the restroom to report that someone has collapsed in there. And I know who to alert.

But, thanks to John King, a local electrician who's a lifelong tinkerer, folks collapsing in bathrooms don't have to go unnoticed until someone stumbles in on them.

The 63-year-old electrician has become the nation’s go-to expert on motion-sensor technology that can detect when a person has overdosed on drugs and has stopped moving in a closed space. Based on King’s records, more than 3,500 people have been resuscitated from potentially deadly overdoses using motion-sensor systems that he designed and helped install in scores of health facilities across the country, from Hyannis to Los Angeles.

“It’s like a mini-time machine,” King said while doing a routine maintenance check on one of his systems. “It gives you the opportunity to roll back the clock a few minutes and save someone’s life.” (Source: Boston Globe)

King's systems use a ombination of sensors that detect body movements, tracking them from when someone goes into a room to when they leave. If there's no movement detected for a set period, "an alarm goes off and an emergency medical team can respond."

The first of King's systems was installed in Boston seven years ago. His interest stemmed from a routine job as an electrician at a clinic run by Boston Health Care for the Homeless. He was just finishing up:

...when a facility administrator pulled him aside and asked if he knew of a way to wire the bathrooms to detect overdoses, which were happening at a rate of five

per week at the clinic, King said.

King poured himself into the project. He outfitted the basement of his Andover home with motion sensor devices and electrical relay circuits, equipment that he had once used on alarm systems he installed in banks. Then he talked to doctors, nurses and custodians to understand what happens to a person who overdoses, even acting out the experience in his basement worksite.

(In case you're wondering, there's no visual surveillance involved here. People still have privacy in restrooms. It's just that their movements are detected.)

Since his first installation in 2016, demand for King's systems has grown. (He has an LLC set up, Life Saver Alert, where you can learn more about his approach and product.)

Demand has grown as has, unfortunately, the number of overdose deaths. Thanks in large part fentanyl, in 2022, Massachusetts recorded well over two thousand fatal overdoses, "more than triple the number from a decade ago."

One of those 2022 fatal OD's was a fellow I knew through my volunteer work. He was a very interesting, sweet and almost always out of it older guy who always wore a big knit Jamaican-rasta cap. Most days, he signed up to take a shower - this is my department - and most days he shambled off without taking one. I'd see him panhandling at the Park Street T station and I'd give him a few bucks to get on the train. 

He had just gotten housing in one of the 56 SRO (single room occupancy) units that my shelter runs in our main building, and we were all rejoicing that he'd be out of the elements. We're always thrilled when someone finds housing, especially when it's one of our older guests, or one of the women who come through our doors (they are a lot more vulnerable on the streets). We were especially delighted for C, who was a universal favorite.

And we were universally saddened to learn that, shortly after he got housing, he also got his hands on some fentanyl-laced weed, which killed him. 

I think he died in his room, and not in one of the communal bathrooms that the residents of our SRO's share. Still, to think that lives are saved when bathrooms are equipped with a King monitoring system makes me glad. (My shelter's clinic is run by Boston Health Care for the Homeless, but I don't know if we have any of these systems installed. The men's room on the floor where I do my thing is not equipped with one, nor is the lone private toilet we have for women. The women's toilet is right next to the counter in the Resource Center, which I help staff, and we always keep an eye on who's going in and out and checking when someone is in there for a while. I don't think we've ever had an OD in the women's toilet. We're more likely to have incidents like someone stuffing hundreds of paper towels down the toilet, or leaving a major horrendous mess. One time, we pounded on the door after someone had been in there for way too long, and when she left we realized she'd been in there smoking crack. It happens.)

But there may be Life Save Alert systems elsewhere at St. Francis House. I hope so, as they save lives. (It's estimated that King's systems have been responsible for saving more than 3,000 of them.)

The systems are not, of course, failsafe. 

False alarms are inevitable. In homeless shelters, King noted, it’s common for people to be so exhausted when they come in from the elements that they fall asleep in restrooms — setting off the alarms. Other times, people pass out from drinking alcohol or simply sit motionless on the toilet for so long, reading or watching their phones, that the sensors fail to pick up movement, King said.

But, as I said, these systems save lives. As far as John King knows, no one has died after triggering one of his alarms.

I hope King sells a lot more of his systems. I hope he's patented his technology. I hope that he can scale up. I hope he makes a ton of money.

Bravo, John King, tinkerer. The world could use a lot more of you! 

Some Steward they turned out to be

Steward Health Care is a for-profit system that runs nine hospitals in Eastern Massachusetts, most of them disproportionately serving poorer segments of the population. 

Steward has fallen on hard times. Needless to say, the profiteers have been profiting, but there are threats that the system will be shuttering its Massachusetts hospitals, which will throw hundreds of thousands of largely elderly (Medicare) or indigent (Medicaid) patients into a situation where they don't know where to turn for help.

In a state where the major (non-profit) healthcare systems are pretty prestigious: Mass General-Brigham, Beth Israel - Lahey, UMass Memorial, Steward is composed of a bunch of St. Elsewheres: rundown, generally urban, nothing-fancy operations.

On of those St. Elsewhere's is St. Elizabeth's, which was back in the day, the big Catholic hospital in Boston - and not lacking in a modicum of prestige, if that prestige was somewhat parochial.

I've had limited experience with St. E's.

One summer when I was waitressing, I lived in Brighton, where St.E's is located, and I fell and broke my elbow. Once I realized I couldn't straighten out my arm, it was off to the ER at St. E's. 

The X-ray tech told me I needed to straighten out my arm. I told her that not being able to straighten out my arm was why I came to the hospital. So she just straightened my arm out for me. More than 50 years later, I can still recall the pain as she pulled my arm down and held it there for the x-ray. Yowza!

Whoever read that x-ray declared that nothing was broken, and issued me an ace bandage and a sling.

Since it was too painful to work, I went home to Worcester to hang out there for a few days while my arm repaired itself. 

A few days later, I got a phone call - in Worcester - from St. E's. They'd somehow gotten in touch with my roommate, who gave them my mother's number (PL3-5811). They called to tell me to come back in to the hospital, as I had a hairline fracture that needed to be set. So back I went.

This was the day of plaster casts, and after a couple of weeks, I decided I'd had enough - for one thing, it was summer, and my arm in that cast was sweaty and itchy; I remember shoving a wire hanger down to scratch - so I just went ahead and cut the cast off. Without ever availing myself of any further services from St. E's.

A few years later, my Uncle Ralph died in St. E's. I was in the process of moving from Worcester to a dump of an apartment in Boston, and had driven in with my mother and sister Trish to bring a few things into my new dump of an apartment. On the way back to Worcester, we dropped in to St. E's to visit my uncle, who had been admitted there for some heart problems he was having. There, the folks at the reception desk had to relay the grim news that Ralph had died a few hours earlier. 

Fortunately, we weren't far from his nearby home in West Newton, so we were able to immediately drive over there to visit with my Aunt Margaret (my father's sister, Ralph's wife). I can still remember when she opened the door to greet us. Her first words to us were "Isn't it awful?" 

So both of my experiences with St. Elizabeth's Hospital were, yep, pretty awful.

But nothing like the experience of Sungida Rashid, who gave birth there last October, only to bleed to death the next day. 

The 39-year-old’s heart had already stopped once. Medical teams revived her, but the clock was ticking. Doctors soon identified the problem: a bleed deep within her liver. In the operating room, caregivers had a plan to quickly treat it, but the staff there soon discovered something alarming — the embolism coil that doctors could have used to stop the bleeding wasn’t available.

Weeks prior, the hospital’s inventory of the devices had been repossessed, according to hospital staff. A company rep from the manufacturer, Penumbra, explained to staff that Steward Health Care, the parent company for St. Elizabeth’s, hadn’t paid the bill.

Some of the staff members at the Brighton hospital had feared this would happen, raised the alarm with executives, discussed it among themselves. But the warnings hadn’t reached all staff. Now, as the emergency unfolded before them, they did not have the coils. (Source: Boston Globe)

Repossessed equipment, eh. Well, small shame on the manufacturer, but Steward - across its multi-state system - did owe them in the millions. So let's reserve the big shame for Steward for not paying their bills. (They're not paying a lot of other bills, including those for from contract employees and other medical device and equipment vendors. Some vendors are continuing to provide products/services because they don't want to put patients at risk.)

By the way, while Steward serves a largely indigent population, this wasn't the case with Sungida Rashid and her husband Nabil Haque. They both hold/held PhDs and had just moved to Boston where Haque had taken a position as a researcher at Boston University. Both of Haque's parents are physicians. The family is from Bangladesh, and Haque and his infant daughter have (understandably) moved back there.

Back at St. Elizabeth's Rashid was eventually transferred to Boston Medical Center, but it was too little, too late. 

Stunningly, Sungida Rashid died, leaving her grieving husband and a perfectly healthy day-old baby. 

The Steward financial situation is pretty convoluted. Steward is the largest physician-owned healthcare system in the country, and there's been private equity in and outs, and complex real estate leasing goings-on. What hasn't escaped notice is that the system's founder, Dr. Ralph de la Torre owns a $40M

superyacht. While his system has patients dying because it doesn't pay its bills.  

I am by no means anti-capitalism, but there are certain services where it might be better if there weren't pressures to be make profits. Like education. And prisons. And healthcare.

Isn't stewardship supposed to be about trusting the steward to do what's right for those under their care?

Some stewards Steward's turned out to be.

Selectively celebrating Presidents' Day

I actually think Joe Biden has been a pretty good president, considering the malign endogenous (intra-US: think DJT and the Congressional puppets whose strings he's pulling, and the generally fetid political atmosphere) and exogenous (everything else) arrayed against him. Not that he's been by any means perfect. He hasn't IMH - and no doubt Underinformed - O, Biden could be more forceful when it comes to Netanyahu, should be exercising his executive authority on border matters, and a few other things. Still, on balance he's been pretty darned good - and good for the country. Running a pretty much scandal-free administration (save the ginned up BS that Jordan, Comer and their compatriots keep coming up with). Getting an infrastructure bill passed. Doing something about insane drug prices. Restoring respect for the US throughout the the world (save for the Gaza situation, which is admittedly a pretty big 'save for').

That said, I would have preferred it if he had decided not to run for a second term.

No, I don't think Biden's demented. His verbal gaffes aren't appreciably different from the ones he's been making throughout his career. (Interesting that even political opponents like Kevin McCarthy insist that the President is sharp in negotations, etc.) And I chalk up his sometimes hesitant walking to his ideopathic peripheral neuropathy. (I'm seven years younger than Joe, and when my ideopathic peripheral neuropathy is kicking up, that's how I walk.)

But he's 81 years old, FFS. Although he's pretty fit, he's undeniably an old man. And he's slowing down.

I wish he had bowed out. But, alas, that die is cast.

So, Biden 2024 it is. Go, Joe!!!

The opposite is too dreadful to imagine. 

Back to my selectively celebrating Presidents' Day:

Happy Presidents Day to President Joe Biden. You are someone whose presidency I am selectively celebrating.

And here's last year's roundup of  who else is on my celebration plate. Make that celebration bowl as, once again, I will be lifting a spoon of Ben and Jerry's Cherry Garcia to at least some of our presidents. 

Puts the Twinkie defense to shame

Eli Regalado is no ordinary Christian pastor. 

For one thing, his church - Victorious Grace out of Denver Colorado - is online only. (And when I checked, the online presence is, alas, no more...)

But Regalado is also a business man, who on his Linkedin Profile has this tagline: "I love Jesus, people, and business!" (Props for using the Oxford comma, Eli.)

He's Founder and President of Grace Led Marketing, a digital marketing agency founded in 2012 that's "specializing in Kickstarter crowdfunding marketing, product launches, and driving eCommerce sales." (Again, Oxford comma props.)

Since 2022, he's been the full-time CEO of something called INDXcoin, where "You Just Found The Perfect Utility Coin...Your Digital Pass To A Vibrant Community & Exclusvie Content Deisnged to Help You Create Wealth, Discover Your Purpose & Build The Life You Long For." (Looks like Eli dropped the Oxford comma ball on this one, and What's With The Capitalizing Every Word?)

It's Regalado's INDXcoin hustle that's gotten him and his wife Kaitlyn in a bit of a jam. 

They've just been:

...charged with civil fraud for selling a cryptocurrency that regulators described as “practically worthless.” His explanation: God told him to do it — although it’s possible he “misheard.” (Source: WaPo)

Apparently, their grace-led marketing instincts got them to target the local Denver Christian community. By promoting their crypto offering as a "'low risk, high profit investment'" they managed to raise over $3M from this trusting community. Which I guess at least initially confirmed Regalado's instinct that God wanted him to do this. Unfortunately, as Colorado investigators allege, the Regalados' offering "was actually 'illiquid and practically useless.'"

Regalado's sticking with his "the Lord told us to do [it]" defense, which to me puts the Twinkie defense to shame. (The Twinkie defense goes back to the defense mounted by Dan White, who in 1978 assassinated SF's Mayor, George Moscone, and Supervisor (and gay icon) Harvey Milk. A psychiatrist testified that White's mental health problems were exacerbated by his consumption of junk food, including Twinkies. It somewhat worked, in that White ended up being charged with and convicted of manslaughter.)

The Regalados managed to dupe about 300 of their congregation out of more than $3M, and handily pocketed $1.3M for their personal use. Hallelujah! 

They used some of this money on a "'home remodel that the Lord told us to do.'" (No word on whether the Lord also told them to buy a Range Rover and luxury goods like handbags and jewelry.)

Not that Regalado didn't put up a bit of a wrestle:

“I said: Lord, I don’t want to do this. I don’t know how to do this. I don’t have any experience in this industry. I don’t know what I’m doing. I don’t want to be caught up in something.”

But darned if the Lord didn't win that wrestling match and convince Regalado that getting all those investors was grace-led.

Eli Regalado now admits that he may have "misheard God." That or "'God is still not done with this project.'"

For now, the investors are SOL. INDXcoin has been offline since last fall, which means that the investors had no way to cash out. (Not that they ever did...)

But Regalado, in announcing that INDXcoin was offline, did get a few licks in at his congregation/investors:

He suggested investors “stop being ruled by mammon (chasing money)” and “remove all negative talk from the community,” which he complained was being flooded with negative comments.

Wondering if he also recognizes that he just might have been "ruled by mammon" himself.  

Regalado is hoping for a miracle. Maybe if that fails, he'll switch up his defense to the devil made me do it...

Ashes to ashes

Well, today is the confluence of two important days, at least on some calendars. Just not mine. Anymore, anyway.

It's Ash Wednesday.

I grew up in a staunchly Catholic family - and, through college (other than my public school kindergarten), attended Catholic schools. 

So Ash Wednesday was a biggie. 

It signaled the beginning of Lent, with all the hoohah that came with it. Lent meant the keeping of the mite box, where you put aside money for the missions in excess of what they were already forcing us kiddos to fork over on a regular basis. The mite box - a little cardboard box decorated with cartoon pagan babies in all colors other than white - had little checkboxes on it, where you could "x" in whether you'd put in some mission money, given up something (like candy) for Lent, gone to daily Mass, etc. (I was never any good at giving anything up; nor was I one for daily Mass. The best I could do was throwing a nickel or a dime in every week so we could baptize some more of those cute little pagan babies.)

Lent also meant a lot more religious thangs going on. The weekly - every Friday after school - Stations of the Cross, where we got to sing the super-draggy dirgish hymn, "Stabat Mater." (At the Cross her station keeping, stood the mournful Mother weeping, close to Jesue to the last.) And, in my parish, the annual St. Francis Xavier Novena where, for nine-days, we went to a special afterschool service where we got to listen to some blowin Jesuit talk about St. Francis Xavier, and we got to lustily sing the the wonderful (to me as a kid) Francis Xavier hymn.

Oh, Father Saint Francis, we kneel at thy feet,
While blessings and favors we beg and entreat,
That thou from thy bright throne in heaven above
Wouldst look on thy clients with pity and love.
Saint Francis Xavier, Oh pray for us!
Saint Francis Xavier, Oh pray for us!

And where each year, we debated whether it was classier to sing the good saint's name as Fra-an-cis Zavier vs. Francis Ex-Zavier. (There was also a prayer that used the word "vouchsafe," so each year we had to learn once again what "vouchsafe" meant. It means grant.)

Lent was also backended with special services during Holy Week. And getting a half day of school on Spy Wednesday, and the entire day off on Holy Thursday and Good Friday. 

But it all started with Ash Wednesday, when we got ashes smudged on our foreheads, while the priest intoned “Remember, man, that thou art dust, and unto dust thou shalt return.” 

Since memento mori was a very big part of the regular parochial school curriculum, this reminder of our impending death was not exactly a big, startling deal. After all, the nuns were always yammering on about the the glories of martyrdom - the more gruesome the better. We were surrounded by bloody, violent iconography. (The Protestant cross is just a cross; the Catholic cross is a crucifix with a statue of the bleedy, tortured, dying Christ on it.) We were told all that time that we were terrible and deserving of an early death. 

The smudge of ashes as a reminder of our impending death. Yawn.

But it did let us troop around showing off to all the world that we were Catholic. As if the uniform green jumper and bowtie weren't enough of a giveaway. And just who were we witnessing for? Worcester's population at that time was about two-thirds Catholic. My neighborhood was more like 95% Catholic. Anyway, Ash Wednesday meant ashes on the forehead, which we all felt was kind of cool.

I know that today, if I'm out and about in Downtown Boston, I'll see a few people with ashes on their forehead. 

These days, the ashes are more likely to look like an actual cross mark. When I was a kid, any resemblance to a cross was accidental. This may have been because the priest was trying to zoom through 400 kids in short order and was just capable of pressing a smeary thumbprint on you. (The picture used here was the only one I found that wasn't a perfect ash cross.)

Today is also, of course, Valentine's Day, which when I was a kid was a big deal. At school, we exchanged valentine cards, and I'm pretty sure that in most of the years of my grammar school you had to bring one in for everyone in the class. It was one of their few gestures of kindness, the nuns wanted to spare any child from going without. 

Generally, kindness wasn't on the menu. We generally sat grouped by the nuns by their evaluation of our intelligence. Each quarter, everyone's report card was read out loud. The results of standardized tests were sometimes broadcast to everyone in the class. Not to mention the routine insults, putdowns, humiliations, and cruelties some kid or another was subject to on a daily basis. Etc.

I don't know why Valentine's Day was an exception to the general promotion of cruelty. Maybe it was because the nuns wanted to make some mission money by selling religious valentines they crafted up during their convent weekend recreations. Most of the nun-made valetines were a piece of construction paper with a relgious saying scrawled across it and/or holy card pasted on. (With aoly card: a nickel; without, two cents. They also sold fancy ones made out of old Valentine's Day chocolate boxes, but I never had fifty cents or a dollar to spend on a valentine for my mother. I was too busy poking any spare nickels into my mite box.) 

None of us liked the nun-made valentines, but we were pretty much coerced to buy a couple of them anyway.

Mostly we exchanged the cute and/or "funny" valentines that came in big packs - which you needed if you were going to give one to each of your 50 or so classmates. Many of them used puns of the "won't you bee mine" variety, where the card depicted a bee. 

And then there was this pretty bleak one I found on Colleen Eulere's Pinterest page. It's named the "WTF old fashioned valentines day card" and WTF is right. A little skunk who's thinking of two ways to kill himself if you won't be his Valentins. Surely this is a degree of violence (and abuser behavior) not generally associated with Valentine's Day greetings. 

But somewhat on point given that Ash Wenedsday and Valentine's Day coincide this year.

I don't remember this ever happening in my childhood, and, indeed, it did not. The last time it occurred was 1945. So it's a less-than-a-blue-moon occurrence.

Anyway, although I'm eons away from having been a Catholic, I don't think you wish people a Happy Ash Wednesday. But although it's not a high holiday on my calendar, I do know that you wish folks a Happy Valentine's Day.

So Happy Valentine's Day to those who observe. 

Who you calling a liar?

February 5th was Truck Day, the day when the gear leaves Fenway Park headed for Red Sox Spring Training HQ in Fort Myers, Florida.

Tomorrow, pitchers and catchers report.

Baseball season is just around the corner.

Yawn...

I'm a lifelong baseball fan. I'm a lifelong Red Sox fan. 

But it's exceedingly hard to get excited about the 2024 edition of The Olde Towne Team. 

Ordinarily, by now, I'd have already gotten tickets for a few games. 

This year, it's...well, I was gonna say 'meh' or 'yawn' (again). But my reluctance to purchase tickets is on beyond 'meh,' on beyond 'yawn.' This season, I'm mad as hell, and I'm not going to take it anymore. (At least for now.)

I will no doubt follow matters Red Sox, as I've done since I could read. I will no doubt watch part of most games on NESN, as I've done for years. 

But other than a Noah Kahan concert in July, I have no plans to push through the turnstiles at America's soi-disant "Most Beloved Ballpark" anytime soon.

And I feel kind of bad about this.

I love baseball. I love going to games. But the Red Sox - having yet again raised their already sky-high ticket prices, despite putting what promises to be yet another lackluster, basement-dwelling team on the field - have completely turned me off.

Oh, I'll no doubt break down at some point - a beautiful evening, a lovely afternoon - and see if I can find a deeply discounted ticket on the secondary market. But at present I have no plans to put money directly in the pockets of the greedy, couldn't-care-less owners.

Ptooey!

My displeasure - and that of pretty much every citizen of Red Sox Nation - began when they let Mookie Betts go for not much more than a bag of balls and a used set of spikes. 

Mookie was a once-in-a-generation super star. A homegrown, up through the Red Sox minors talent who is destined for the Hall of Fame. Mookie had all the tools as an athlete, plus had a great personality and was a good-in-the-community kind of guy. Absolutely beloved by the fanbase. But someone who was going to be expensive to keep. 

Not that the Red Sox couldn't afford to keep him. They just chose not to. Choosing, instead, to try to get their payroll costs down.

It didn't help matters that, when LA Dodger Mookie came back to Fenway last summer he said that he had wanted to stay in Boston. This was counter to the word the dastardly Red Sox organization had put out when they made the "trade" - was it really a trade, or just a giveaway? - which was that Mookie wanted out.

Since dealing Mookie in 2020, the Red Sox have given us three divisional last-place finishes - including the last two years - and one season when they managed to eke out a second place finish, but then went nowhere in the playoffs.

Like most reasonably intelligent fans, I do not expect my team to win every year. I'm not looking for the NY Yankees decades-long dynasty. I'm exceedily happy that the Red Sox have won four World Series in this century - something I never thought I'd see. (I never thought I'd live to see one World Series win in my lifetime.) But I do expect the Red Sox to field a competitive team, and not the dull, shoulder-shrugging, terribly boring (or is it boringly terrible?) bunch of colorless nonentities they've been putting out there.

Last fall, Red Sox Chairman Tom Werner - he who, admittedly, helped give us those four glorious World Series wins - said that the team would be going "full throttle" for 2024. 

Unfortunately, what they've done since then looks more like full choke than full throttle. 

Craig Breslow, who was brought in to replace failed (and over--blamed) GM Chaim Bloom, is looking like he may turn into Chaim Bloom 2.0. (It doesn't help that they have the same initials.)

Fans, who were hoping for a lot of Hot Stove League action - great trades, stunning free agent signings - have been exceedingly disappointed. And haven't been quiet about it. 

And fans - including me - have been exceedingly ticked off by recent pronouncements coming out of the powers that be at Jersey Street. 

One such pronouncement came from Tom "Full Throttle" Werner. He was asked at a fan forum why fans should pay one of the highest ticket prices in baseball to see one of the crappiest teams. In response, as reported by local sports talk guy Marc Bertrand, Werner:

...said that the team is selling the “Fenway experience”. ...They said it out loud. They said that they are selling the “Fenway experience”. They’re selling tourists on seeing the ballpark and paying the prices to go to the games. That’s what they’re doing now, they are now fully admitting it. They’re reducing their payroll again. The salary floors go up, the Red Sox payroll goes down, the ticket prices go up, and they admit that they are selling you on a trip to the ballpark. (Source: Sports Hub)

In other words, the Red Sox org doesn't give a damn whose butts are in the seats, as long as there are butts. Actual fans? Who care? A bucket list tourist from god-knows-where who has a trip to an old-timey ballpark on their bucket list? Bring it!

From a business perspective, this makes some sense. But for a fan to hear it said "out loud?" Dagger in the heart!

And I do get that there is a "Fenway experience," because I've been experiencing it since 1960, when I saw my first game there. 

I still get excited when I walk into the ballpark. It's all wrapped up in memories of my father, in nostalgia, in my identity as a New Englander, in my love for baseball. And I'm more than annoyed that they're putting me in a position where I'd feel like a dupe, a dope if I were to spend any money on them this year. (At least until we see if there's any life in the squad they've assembled for 2024. I'm perfectly capable of backtracking, that's for sure. If I have to eat one of my many caps, so be it.)

And my level of annoyance with the Red Sox faux throttle front office went sky high when I read the message from Red Sox President Sam Kennedy. He was responding to a question from sports reporter Chris Curtis, who asked about the team's level of commitment to field a winning team:

"When we have two sucky seasons like we've had, these are natural questions. We have to take them," the executive said. "But I can tell you, as a kid who grew up less than a mile from Fenway Park, if you think for one second that we aren't passionate, committed, dedicated to the Boston Red Sox, you're wrong, you're a liar, and I'll correct you on it, because it's total BS." (Source: Bleacher Report)

Oh, Kennedy - after days of screaming, full throttle feedback - walked it back a bit, saying he could have chosen a better word.

But, damage done (and likely real SK feelings revealed0, and now anyone who questions the Red Sox commitment to winning is a "liar?" WTEF (where E = everlovin')?

Sorry, but the fact that the Red Sox have been keeping their payroll low and acting like a mid-market, low expectation team, as they are regularly accused of doing, suggests that their commitment to winning is kinda sorta tepid. 

Not that big spending turns into the World Series trophy. Just ask the NY "Hey, big spender" Mets. Or the Yankees, for that matter.

Still, the path the Red Sox are on doesn't seem like it's going to produce a winner anytime soon.  

And for Sam Kennedy to flat out say that those of us who dare utter these words are liars...

Who you calling a liar, bub?

House overboard. (By the sea, by the sea, ,by the beautiful sea.)

I don't live on the water. But I live near the water. Some water, anyway. The closest water is the Charles River - a couple hundred yards, max. Then there's the Atlantic Ocean, which ain't all that far. I'm about a mile from Boston Harbor. But it's enough of a ways away that, even when we have heavy rains and king tides, I don't tend to get water seeping in through the cracks.

But my condo is on the Flat of the Hill, which:

...is built on 19th century-made land along the Charles River. The Flat is geologically part of Back Bay and culturally part of Beacon Hill, with the architecture of both. (Source: Boston by Foot)

Nice to know that, while I may live in what is geologically part of Back Bay, I'm culturally part of Beacon Hill. Good thing, because Beach Hill is definitely how I identify. 

But the operative words in this little description are "19th century-made land." 

In other words, I live on landfill, in an area that used to be water. Literally. The name "Back Bay" didn't come out of nowhere.

So, geologically, I'm living on reclaimed ocean, and I live in some minor fear that the ocean will one day want their territory back.

And if that's going to happen, I certainly hope it doesn't happen until after I sell my condo to someone who doesn't know or care about rising sea levels. (For the life of me - especially given that I'm unwilling/unable to read a kabillion page manual explaining how to interpret FEMA flood maps - I can't really tell what type of flood zone I'm in. I think it may be an AE, which I think may mean vulnerable-to-a-hundred-year-storm. But I don't really know. I do have some sort of flood insurance, but it's only a few hundred bucks a year, so I'm guessing I'm not in a mega-ly hazardous flood zone.)

Anyway, I do keep my eye on the Massachusetts communities that get whacked whenever there's a major storm - winter Noreaster or summer-fall hurricane, and (more recently) spring floods - and end up with houses falling into the drink.

Plum Island on the North Shore. Scituate on the South Shore. Chatham on the Cape. Nantucket. Etc. 

There's a more or less steady flow of stories around here about homes that a few decades ago had lots of land between house and ocean, and are now teetering precauriously at the water's edge. Every once in a while, it's HOUSE OVERBOARD!

And then there are the insurance claims, the government bailouts to restore homes to their homeowners. But there's a movement afoot to end that cycle of paying to rebuild, only to have another storm wash the rebuild away.

In the age of climate change, as sea levels rise and more intense storms wear away the natural landscape that had protected coastal communities for generations, state and local officials are considering more radical measures, including paying people to abandon their waterfront properties altogether.

Massachusetts, for example, is exploring the feasibility of a program that would purchase particularly vulnerable or extremely damaged properties from their owners, rather than continue to expose the buildings to further risk, a concept known as managed retreat. (Source: Boston Globe)

The theory is that, rather than keep throwing buildings up in watery zones, we let the watery zone return more or less to nature, where they may be able to protect territory a bit further inland.

Sounds good to me.  

Why should taxpayers keep footing the bills to shore up the shore for individuals with oceanfront property? Why should taxpayers have to keep perpetually funding infrastructure repair work that's just going to keep Groundhog-Daying it?

FEMA already has a buyback and relocation program, but it runs into a lot of resistance.

I get it.

You live on the ocean. You love sitting there with your G&T, just taking it all in from your front porch. You love being lulled to sleep by the waves rolling out, the waves rolling in. 

The ocean is incredibly beautiful. 

And every time I see one of those oceanfront properties start floating away, I feel terrible for the folks whose home just washed out to sea. 

But, gee whiz, didn't the Bible warn folks about the foolish man who built his house upon the sand? Or something like that...

Turns out that, despite the increasing vulnerability of houses built on actual or metaphorical sand, if you're on the ocean, and you have enough $$$, you're willing (and can afford) to rebuild, even if you're in a doom cycle. And if you want to be on the ocean, you're willing to pay for the privilege of breathing in the salt air, even if there's a high likelihood that you'll end up rebuilding at some point. Which is good for oceanfront property owners looking to sell on the market. 

Because your property is actually worth more than what FEMA's willing to pay you to leave.

At some point, I suspect that flood insurance companies and FEMA will stop bailing homeowners out. Maybe they'll pay for one rebuild, but after that, you're on your own. 

I also suspect that at some point, the damage will be so great - and your little plot o' paradise will be six-feet under - that, no matter how deep your pockets, you won't be able to rebuild unless your rebuild is a houseboat. But folks are guessing that this won't happen until they're six-feet under, so it'll be someone else's problem.

Just hoping I'm lucky/smart enough to sell out in time...

Changing lanes? Use yah blinkah!

There's an electronic message that appears on the overhead signs along the Mass Pike that reads: Changing lanes? Use yah blinkah?

Personally, I love it. It's a direct reminder that many drivers need, and, given that page two of the message is in Massachusetts-ese, it's got a fun local element.

Alas, signs like this will no longer be overhead, but in the rearview mirror of our driven, driving lives. The U.S. Federal Highway Adminstration has decreed that signs that are a bit quirky, a bit fun, will need to be eliminated by 2026.

Administration officials said overhead electronic signs with obscure meanings, references to pop culture or those intended to be funny will be banned in 2026 because they can be misunderstood or distracting to drivers.

The agency, which is part of the U.S. Department of Transportation, said signs should be "simple, direct, brief, legible and clear" and only be used for important information such as warning drivers of crashes ahead, adverse weather conditions and traffic delays. Seatbelt reminders and warnings about the dangers of speeding or driving impaired are also allowed.

Among those that will be disappearing are messages such as "Use Yah Blinkah" in Massachusetts; "Visiting in-laws? Slow down, get there late," from Ohio; "Don't drive Star Spangled Hammered," from Pennsylvania; "Hocus pocus, drive with focus" from New Jersey; and "Hands on the wheel, not your meal" from Arizona. (Source: WCVB)

Okay, I can see that a joke about the old in-laws might take a bit of time to read. And that hocus-pocus might make drivers lose focus. Not to mention that "Don't drive Star-Spangled Hammered" might take a bit too long to process. I'm assuming that this one was used for the 4th of July, but is "Star-Spangled Hammered" even a thing?

But "Use Yah Blinkah." It's pithy. It's a quick read. And, unlike hocus-pocus-focus, it's pretty funny.

I suppose there could be folks driving on the Mass Pike who don't know what a blinker is, since I understand that in most parts of the country, it's called a turn signal. (Yawn!) And there may be those who don't know what a Massachusetts accent is and could not translate "blinkah" into "blinker," let alone turn signal.

Still...

Even though I'm only rarely on the Mass Pike, I'll be sorry to see it go. 

(There were a couple of other Mass Pike signs, but I don't recall ever having seen them. Of that bunch, even though it has no local flavor, I rather like "Keep calm and drive on." And for local color, "Make ya mah proud, wear ya seat belt" ain't bad.)

If I were in Arizona, I wouldn't mind seeing "Seatbelts always pass a vibe check" jettisoned, mostly because I don't know what a vibe check is. But I'd miss the "I'm just a sign asking drivers to use turn signals" one, which has a nice existentialist, theater of the absurd, ring to it. At least it checks that vibe for me.

I don't spend a lot of time complaining about federal government overreach, and I probably won't until or unless there's a white nationalist fascistic takeover of the country, and the feds start reaching into Massachusetts with their guns and ignorance. 

But this seems a bit overreach-y to me.

This does remind me of an earlier Mass Pike sign that went by the boards a while back. I do understand that indigenous people might be offended by the arrow through the Pilgrim hat pointing out a direction, but it was kind of funny. 

Oh, I do get why that one had to go.

But "Use yah blinkah"? Get outta here!

Makes "Gilligan's Island" look like fun

My idea of a cruise is taking the 90-minute fast boat from Boston to Provincetown. So I would never, ever, ever in a billion years sign up for a three-year cruise. 

But chacun à son goût, and for  Joe and Kara Youssef, the goût was selling most of what they owned - including two apartments - and taking most of their savings out and putting it all on a dream: a multi-year round the world trip of a lifetime. Their first step along the way: getting themselves to Istanbul, where the ship was suppose to cast off on November 1st. 

They were hanging around Istanbul, waiting to leave when, in late November, they learned that the trip was canceled.  

Here's what the Youssefs had signed up for:

The Turkish company, Miray Cruises, had announced the cruise, called Life at Sea, in March. It claimed it would be the longest cruise ever — 382 port calls over 1,095 days — and a community at sea, with opportunities to explore the globe. Starlink internet and a business center would allow passengers to work remotely. (Source: NY Times)

The potential cruise didn't come cheap. I don't know what the Youssefs bought into, but giving all that they sold, etc, it likely wasn't the lowend $90K for a pokey inside cabin. 

After the cruise was announced, sales were promising, Within short order half of the 400 cabins had been reserved. Unfortunately, Miray Cruises was biting off more than it could chew. A three year trip, with 382 stops, is a pretty complex endeavor. You need a good sized ship to carry all that community: cruisers and staff. And you can't just sail from one port to another in hopes that they'll let you dock there. You need to secure docking rights for all 382 stops. And you need to make sure you have funding to carry the whole thing off. (Trips of this duration - three years - are rare. Most long-time cruises are no more than a year because of the complexity of the logistics.)

Miray has promised refunds, but precious little has been given back to the folks who put their money down. The Youssefs had made a deposit of $80K, and they're still waiting for a refund.

In an interview in December, Vedat Ugurlu, the owner of Miray, blamed a lack of financing and interest for the cruise’s cancellation.

“We tried everything to find a solution, but at the end of the day we couldn’t get the investors and we couldn’t sell enough cabins,” he said.

Lack of financing? Lack of interest? Well, duh. 

But that begs the question, where did the Youssefs $80K go??? That's what Kara Youssef would like to know. 

“They kept leading us on, making us hold out hope until the very last minute, just days before we were supposed to depart,” she said. “We sold everything we have to make this dream happen. We feel completely defeated.”

She's not the only one.  

Despite having never been on a cruise, Ohio marketing professional Keri Witman, who is in her sixties, was looking to shake her life up.

She liked the ability to travel while continuing to work. “This seemed like the perfect opportunity,” she said.

Ms. Witman was one of the first to book in April. She asked a lawyer to look into the company and, after finding no red flags, placed a $5,000 deposit for her $185,120 cabin and put her house up for sale.

Et al. 

Behind the scenes there was all sorts of pisspoor planning going on involving the idea/marketing guy  (Mikael Petterson) who'd conceived the notion of the three-year cruise, ship owners (since the idea guy didn't have a ship), brokers, et al.  

The owner of Miray (Vedat Ugurlu) thought his ship, the MV Gemini, would be a good fit for a three-year, round the trip voyage, even though the Gemini had "mainly [been] used for excursions between Turkey and the Greek islands." 

Which apparently didn't raise any eyebrows, even though it strikes me as something of the equivalent of renting Gilligan's S.S. Minnow to cross the Pacific, even though it'd never been at sea for more than a three-hour tour. (A three-hour tour...)

Folks - though not enough of them - began signing up, but questions started to emerge around technical details like whether the Minnow, errrrr, the Gemini could "even hold enough fuel to sail between some of the more distant ports," which would be required if you were going around the world and needed to cross the Altantic and the Pacific. 

Another question was whether the Gemini was going to be large enough to provide enough space for the passengers to get out of their cabins and mingle with the community, and actually have a satisfying "Life at Sea," which is how the cruise was being marketed. Three years is a lot of time to live in a ship cabin...

There were also plenty of financial difficulties, like how the deposits (let alone full fares paid upfront, which is what Miray wanted) would be processed. There was a question of which bank accounts to use. At one point, Miray's head guy - who owns a Florida pizza parlor - wanted deposits to go into the pizza parlor's account. Doesn't sound fishy at all to me.

No escrow account was ever set up, no bonds to protect deposits. 

With all kinds of craziness around payments, the idea guy asked Miray to refund everyone's deposit. And wary passengers started canceling. Then the idea guy quit the deal entirely. He'd "dismantled" his brainchild, Life at Sea, and tossed responsibility/accountability into Miray's lap.

Then there was a switcheroo, in which Miray attempted to acquire a larger ship which they claimed was "due to unprecedented demand." All this while the cruise wasn't fully sold out, and passengers were canceling. 

Everything, it seems, was at sea, other than the cruise itself. 

Needless to say, there's been plenty of back and forth between the two main parties, the Life at Sea idea guy and Miray the pizza guy. 

Meanwhile, potential passengers continued to make plans - and payments. Those who voiced their doubts about the cruise's viability were told to read the fine print in the contract, which entitled them to a paltry 10% refund if they opted out. And they "were assured that the ship would sail, even with as few as two passengers." 

Two passengers you say? The professor? The movie star? Mary Ann? The millionaire and his wife?

In late November, the cruise was officially canceled, but most passengers are still waiting for refunds. 

Meanwhile, the idea guy and the Miray pizza guy "are now separately working on other three-year cruises, to launch next year." (My guess: someone will be trying to get the original passengers to put their refunds towards the next pipedream cruise.)

I hope that all potential travelers have access to google and can save themselves both money and heartache. And hope that the Youssefs, Witman, and the others see some of their money.

Finally, I'd like to note that Gilligan's Island ran for three seasons on TV in the sixties. I think I'd rather take my chances being marooned on Gilligan's Island for three years than sign up for one of these ferkakta tours. At least you wouldn't be out your life savings.