Shots in the Dark

In the Times, Seth Stevenson writes that the Icelandic volcano has helped us rediscover the joys of traveling by land and sea.

My girlfriend and I recently set out to circumnavigate the globe without the aid of any aircraft. Along the way, we took the Trans-Siberian Railway across the wilds of Russia from Moscow to Vladivostok….

Where is John Belushi when you need him?

…other people have fun!

“A” for effort, though.

…who lost the new Apple iPhone. At a beer garden. On his 27th birthday.

Much as I like beer gardens and iPhones.

The Times reports that for grad students in the humanities it takes an average of 9 years and change to earn their doctorates.

As the recession has downsized university endowments and departments, the sense of crisis that has surrounded graduate education for more than a decade has sharpened. “What’s worse than desperate?” asks William Pannapacker, an associate professor of English at Hope College…

…Dr. Pannapacker calls the graduate apprenticeship system bankrupt and warns students against the heartbreak of pursuing a Ph.D. While finishing his own degree in American civilization atHarvard in 1999 (another difficult job year), he helped organize a protest at the annual meeting of the Modern Language Association.…

(Funnily enough, that’s the same program I was in at Harvard before dropping out in 1992, after 3 years, because I sensed what was coming (another six or so) and did a cost-benefit analysis.)

On the other hand, Gawker reports that 20% of librarians report having had sex in the library stacks. If this applies to grad students, then maybe that’s an incidental benefit of 9 years of scholarship. Or, maybe that’s why it’s taking them nine years—too much sex!

Okay, probably not.

In all seriousness, no one you’d actually want to hang out with/teach your children would be willing to spend nine lonely years before winding up heavily in debt and under-employed. Attention must be paid.

The Independent reports that a British radio station has determined that Stairway to Heaven is the UK’s favorite song ever.

That I can understand. But “Smoke on the Water” coming in at #5? And “All Right Now” (bet you can’t even name the band) at #8?

In yesterday’s New York Post, sports columnist Joel Sherman wrote about ten baseball figures who are, even this early in the season, “on the hot seat.”

Among them: David Ortiz and Cubs leftfielder (and former Yankee second baseman whom I never liked because of his complete lack of clutch hitting) Alfonso Soriano.

3. Ortiz — He got off slowly last year, too, before rallying to produce 28 homers and 99 RBIs. But his .794 OPS still was underwhelming for a designated hitter. This year he struck out in more than half (15) of his first 29 plate appearances without producing a homer.

And now he is more vulnerable because he is in the final year of his contract...

4. Soriano — Before this season, you would have gotten a good debate on which team had the worst five-year commitment left: San Francisco’s $94 million with Barry Zito, Toronto’s $97.5 million with Vernon Wells or the Cubs’ $90 million with Soriano. But Wells and Zito have both gotten off well. Meanwhile, Soriano’s always poor left field defense has deteriorated, costing the Cubs games and putting his playing time in peril.

Soriano’s hitting has also gone like t

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i

s.

What I think you’re seeing here is post-steroid decline, a phenomenon that is largely unwritten about because it’s hard to prove and because steroids in sports is such an unpleasant subject and everyone wants to move on.

But of course it’s still relevant because it lends new meaning to certain baseball happenings (the Red Sox championship in 2004, for example) and because the deteriorating performance of former steroid users is an economic and competitive worry for some teams, like the Red Sox and the Cubs.

On the bright side, the Yankees are off to a tremendous start.The Red Sox, however—not so much!

In the immortal words of Amalie Benjamin,

The clubhouse was quiet, nearly empty. The mood appeared gray, like the clouds over Fenway Park, like the rain that had showered the Red Sox off and on as they lost their third straight game to the Rays, their fourth straight overall, moving them closer to the Orioles at the bottom of the American League East than the Yankees and Rays at the top.

The joy, once again, had wandered over to the visitors’ clubhouse….

Darn that wandering joy!

My friend Ari co-wrote this very funny and quite pointed PSA protesting education budget cuts in California.

(He’s the creepy dad with the Transformers DVD on the right.)

As Ari emailed me, “Hot fun, and for a good cause.” I think the hot fun part means that he got to meet Megan Fox.

I’ve been away, so forgive me if this is old news, but I love this story about Sarah Palin’s contract demands.

She now commands fees of up to $100,000 for just one speech, and her engagements are controlled by her minders in minute detail.

Those details include demands that she have two bottles of still water and bendable straws placed near the lectern from which she delivers her speeches; that she be flown from her home in Alaska to wherever the event takes place on first-class commercial tickets or in a private jet of at least the size of a Lear 60; and that she be driven from the airport to the venue in professionally licensed SUVs or, failing that, in black town cars.

Some of this is mildly amusing—bendable straws?—and some of it might be telling. It’s hard to believe that someone demanding a Lear jet really plans to run for president in 2012. It’s not exactly populist, and the Tea Party People won’t like it.

My hunch is that Palin loves the attention and the money she’s currently receiving for pretty trivial effort. But running for president is hard work, and Palin shows no signs of wanting to do that work.

On the other hand, she might find the pull of fame and adoration so irresistible that she runs if only to continue to attract attention. (As her former son-in-law, Levi Johnston, wrote in Vanity Fair, Palin is at heart a narcissist, and that narcissism is the thread weaving together all of her actions.)

What remains clear is that Palin has no interest in what’s good for the country, only in what serves herself.

Sunrise, Socorro Island, the Revillagigedo Archipelago

April 12, 2024

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* Also known as Blogger’s Return.