Book Log 2007 #28: The Book of Fate by Brian Meltzer

An aide to a former President learns that the events surrounding an assassination attempt - which left him scarred, another staffer dead, and the President disgraced - may not have been as they seemed. Along the way he tumbles to a cabal involving the nation's security apparatus and, perhaps, the Masons.

The pot never quite boils on this book, a pretty standard political thriller that delievered less than I expected based on the description. Lots of thriller conventions here - a hero who winds up falling for a woman who gets involved in the investigation, shadowy governmental figures who are more powerful than their positions would indicate, and a killer whose insanity is clearly, if perhaps overly, portrayed. The whole thing could have used a tightening; it's a little bloated at 528 pages.

It wasn't a total loss, but it didn't do much to capture my interest, either. Probably good for commuting or the beach, though I found it didn't take much to pull my attention away.

As I was getting of the T last night, a guy was at the top of the escalator asking for 50 cents. I had nothing and gave the shake of the head I usually give people asking for money, but a question then popped into my head.

How much longer is panhandling going to be a viable way to get money?

It may be the cheerily dystopic Visa commercials, but the general sense I have is that the average person is less likely to carry cash now than, say, five years ago. And if we ever work out payment from sources like cell phones, I'd think that the likelihood of someone carrying cash would decrease further.

Of course, not everyone is going to embrace card or electronic payment fully, but as generations become more comfortable with the technology that number is going to drop. Why do I get the feeling that panhandlers are going to wind up getting most of their money from other panhandlers?

Anyway, that's my random thought for the week.

Looks like you can move the Tour de France into the ugly column.

I'd mentioned yesterday that the race leader, Michael Rasmussen, was under a cloud for not being available during a couple of his out of competition drug test days. He said he was in Mexico, and couldn't re-file the paperwork about his whereabouts in time.

Which is all well and good, until another rider sees you bumming around Rome when you were supposed to be on another continent. His team's sponsor, not surprising in the current climate, didn't like that he'd lied to them about something related to doping control, and pulled him out of the race. Deadspin had a good comparison when they noted it'd be like Barry Bonds getting whacked with a drug suspension while rounding the bases.

I didn't watch last night's stage, taking the night off after the Vinokourov affair. Now, I don't know if I'll even bother to tune back in.

Which leads me to this thought: how would the US pro sports leagues look if they had the same doping controls as cycling?

Good: Next year will see some form of competition in car insurance rates in Massachusetts. Right now we're the only state in the Union where regulators fix rates, and our last stab at de-regulation in the 1970s didn't go so well (I have very vague memories of this, more from the news than anything with my family).

So, finally, I may be able to get car insurance from a caveman, Cockney lizard or a pink-haired secret agent/robot football player/baseball fan. Given how we're getting jerked around by our current carrier, I'll happily put my fate in the hands (paws?) of one of these folks.

Bad: More doping allegations at the Tour de France, most notably Alexander Vinokourov's reported positive test for homologous transfusions, which led his entire team to drop out. On top of that, race leader Michael Rasmussen missed a couple of test dates outside of racing, which he blames on the process required to notify the sport's governing body of changes to his itinerary (to be fair, it's a little mind-boggling that riders can't make changes on-line somehow).

Cycling is dependent on sponsor money, and doping makes it that much harder to get new ones. Tyler Hamilton's suspension killed a good Phonak team that was transitioning to a new sponsor, and with deals soon to run out with T-Mobile and Discovery, more high-level names getting busted won't help keep current sponsors or find new ones. On the positive side, this may make some room for folks like Team Slipstream and others who are trying to clean things up.

Though I'm concerned about a cycling team powered by Mexican food. Don't get behind their riders in the peleton.

Ugly - this whole Michael Vick thing. Ugh.

For those of you willing to help a co-worker out, please check out and rate this video. It was done as some sort of "face of FiOS" promotion that Verizon is doing in Rhode Island. To vote you would have to register, but it appears you could use a dummy address to do so (not that I would advocate that, no siree).

Of course, high ratings for Patrick would be appreciated, as would low-balling those folks who are currently ahead of him.

Book Log 2007 #27: Catholic Matters by Richard John Neuhaus

After reading all these books where the Templars come back to life or something, I figured I'd try some actual religion after seeing this title a few times at the library. Neuhaus is a convert to Catholic practice, and has that conservatism/orthodoxy that is said to mark converts. Or at least it seems that way, as I didn't actually finish this book, which lays out his thoughts as to how to reinvigorate the church.

Or at least I think that's what he was doing. It's circticiously written, and for every interesting story about conversion or reflection on being a Catholic in America, there's a lot of theological talk which didn't quite connect. From what I did read I think Neuhaus would very much be in favor of the retrenching against Vatican II that seems to be underway. So in a way I'm glad I didn't finish it.

Not recommended, but it may be more accessible to people with a better grasp of Catholic thought and theology than me (not that that would take much).

Three points about softball:

1. Not allowing walks is a problem when you have teams whose pitchers can't (a) arc the ball or (b) get the ball within three feet of the plate. Without the walk you force hitters to swing at crap, making it to a team's benefit to have a lousy pitcher. I'd rather hit off a tee than spend as much time as I did last night loitering around the plate.

Make the walk six balls or four balls in a row. Something to force at least mediocre pitching.

2. No one likes to lose; as someone much wiser than I once said, winning beats losing. Even so, batting out of order to give the women on your team fewer at bats is one of the lamest cheats going, especially from supposed adults. Worse still is that the women on the team seemed to have no problem with this.

(Oh, and point 2a: umpires should be clued in enough to see this is happening.)

3. I am in no shape to leg out a (defensively-aided) triple. But I did. Good thing we won, I'd have hated to almost kill myself in defeat.

Now that I think about it, the real coda to our trip was the discovery that I'd managed to run my passport through the laundry. I didn't take it out of my jeans when we got home, and didn't think to check the pockets before putting them in the wash. It's pretty beat up, but the pages are all intact and legible. But I still think it's a good thing I don't plan on leaving the country any time soon. More time to flatten it out.