Book Log 2018 "#3": 1493 by Charles Mann

Turns out I read this book in 2012, and didn't consult this very book log when I took it out and read it (again) in 2018. Turns out I pretty much felt the same way about the book then as I do now (not quite as good as 1491 but still pretty darn good). Though I don't know that not remembering that I'd read it before is much of an endorsement.

You've likely heard that the New Orleans NBA franchise is planning to change its nickname from Hornets to Pelicans. Some have mocked the new name, but there's one spirited defense that makes me doubt I'll ever go bird watching in the bayou. There's additional talk that the Carolina Bobcats will reclaim the Hornets name, which makes a certain amount of sense.

Personally, I'd prefer to see New Orleans trade the Hornets name to Utah. The New Orleans Jazz would ride again, and the Utah Hornets makes a bit of a call out to the honeybee, the Utah state insect and Mormon symbol.

In any case, this got me thinking of what other teams could use a name change.

MLB: the most obvious case here is the Washington Nationals, a name whose generic quality underscored the whole ridiculous process that brought the team down from Montreal. I can understand why they didn't want to revive the Senators name - and if you don't, check out the pre-1960 seasons listed for the Minnesota Twins - but there are other options. Ambassadors, Diplomats. Monuments. Capitols (or even Capitals, it's not like that name's getting a lot of use right now).

My second option here is the Cleveland Indians, which I would roll back to Spiders. 

NFL: And with the Indians in mind, my suggestion here would be the Washington Redskins. I don't mean to pile on the District, but of the few Native American nicknames that still persist in pro sports, this one's the most egregious.

But rather than go with Warriors or something, I'd go with a tribal name - the Powhatans. Their territory covered Maryland and Virginia, and there are state recognized tribes today that trace back to the Powhatans. Cut a deal, change the logo (but keep the colors, I have a fondness for the unis), make the change.

For those not looking to tackle racial and ethnic issues, I'd suggest a name change for the Carolina Panthers, a snoozer of a nickname.

NBA: The New Orleans name change is not the most needed change in the league. The team that most needs a change is the Toronto Raptors, an example of why you don't name your team after something appearing in a currently popular movie. That sort of synergy only goes so far.

Reviving the Huskies name (from Toronto's brief 1940s stint in the BAA) would have made more sense. Even if you were going for something ferocious or dangerous, Dragons or Scorpions (both suggested) would have been better. Really almost any of the other nine names that made it to the final cut would have been better than Raptors (the only one that wouldn't be an improvement was T-Rex, for obvious reasons). So let's just go with Dragons and work out a deal to mimic the Barcelona Dragons kit, which was the best thing to come out of the World League of American Football.

NHL: If we ever have professional hockey again, I would hope to have it without the Minnesota Wild, a nickname that has never made any sense to me. I get that Minnesota has all those lakes and trees and such, but I don't think that it translated well into a nickname. Or at least this nickname.

The other finalists weren't much better (I suppose Voyageurs was the best of the lot), so I'm not sure what to go with here. North Stars was pretty much perfect, so I suppose I'd suggest some sort of name trade with Dallas, who could then don whatever bovine-related nickname would work best with Cowboys and Mavericks.

The other option here, of course, is the Chicago Blackhawks.

MLS: The truly awful names of Major League Soccer are thankfully gone (though I don't know if FC Dallas and Sporting Kansas City are huge improvements over the Burn and Wiz[ards]). So while I don't particularly dislike any of the names, the one I'd tab to change is the Columbus Crew. It's not awful, but it's kind of goofy (as is their logo of guys wearing hardhats).

If they're looking to honor workers in heavy industry, well, I don't know what to go with that's not Steelers. Suggestions welcome.

No second option, none of the other names really bother me.

NCAA: I'm not suggesting a specific school to change, but am rather suggesting the retirement of a nickname: Wildcats. How lazy is that as a nickname? It's not like we have teams called the Fish or the Mammals. Even the Greendale Community College Human Beings use a specific primate. It's a nickname for a school that either can't be bothered to go with something overused and specific, like Bulldogs or something.

The closest NCAA division 1 school to me that uses that name is the University of New Hampshire, and given the lack of athletic distinction in Durham (they didn't get their University of No Hardware nickname from their smashing successes), Wildcats almost works for them. They also have the problem that they have a native feline - the Fisher Cat - but that's being used by a minor league baseball team (which should have been called the New Hampshire Primaries, but that's another issue).

I looked up the official New Hampshire state symbols to find a new nickname, and it's not helping. The state bird is a finch. The state insect is the ladybug. There are really only two options if we go this route: Bucks (the white-tailed deer is the state animal) or Granite (state rock). I don't rend to like non-plural nickname, but I do think the UNH Granite has a certain ring to it.

40 Days, 40 Churches

Day 41: Universal Life Church, the Internet

So the idea of this feature was that, during the 40 days of Lent, I'd mention a church that I'd been to or had some connection with, significant, tenuous, or otherwise. But then we go to church yesterday and the bulletin mentions that Lent doesn't end until Holy Saturday, which is the day before Easter. Apparently, the Sundays during Lent don't count. Heck of a time to learn this, though if nothing else it gives you an idea of the level of detail we went into in Sunday school.

So, for better or worse, more churches for you. But I have a feeling they'll be more like today's entry than those previous.

As some of you know, I am an ordained minister in the Universal Life Church. Have been for over a decade, when on Halloween in 1997 I put in my name, clicked a button, and received my certificate. It is just that simple. I did it in furtherance of something Halloween-related, but whatever it was I don't think it came to pass, so I became ordained for nothing.

I assume I'm still an active member of the ULC's clergy, though I don't think I'd fall back on it to get a decent parking space or perform a wedding. Though as Massachusetts does grant one day licenses to perform weddings, I am available for your matrimonial needs.

Mike Huckabee has Chuck Norris, and now John McCain has Sly. So who would the other candidates have to back them up?

Mitt Romney: Arnold Schwarzenegger. Both are/were Republican governors of states that aren't thought of as conservative. Neither had elected experience before becoming governor. Arnie had well-sculpted pecs. Mitt has well-sculpted hair. Both have killed alien life forms that have the power of invisibility. They're perfect for each other.

Rudy Guiliani: Harrison Ford. Everybody loved you - for a time. You even had a moment where you looked completely Presidential. Now, you've had your mid-life crisis, done some odd things (ranting about ferrets and Six Days, Seven Nights, respectively), and remain on the edge of relevance with a level of popularity that's surprisingly soft.

Ron Paul: Nicolas Cage. Neither seems to belong in the category they're in, and neither really started out in a way that would make you thing they'd be where they are now (Paul is a doctor, while Cage's first role was in Fast Times at Ridgemont High). Both have popularity beyond what you'd expect. And both are loony tunes.

And for the Dems...

Barack Obama: Wesley Snipes. Always bet on black.

Hillary Clinton: Linda Hamilton. There aren't that many female action stars, and comparing Hillary to a man would probably lead to some sort of protest. So I'm going with Hamilton based on both women having matrimonial difficulties. Hamilton has been married three times, while Clinton... well, you know that story. Both also achieved their greatest success after moving to New York to pursue a career. Which is something, I suppose.

John Edwards: Steven Segal. He's always fighting on the side of the people, which befits the new, populist stance that Edwards is using. Both also continued on long after the point where they should have moved on and done something else with their lives.

Dennis Kucinich: I have nothing. It's hard to come up with an action star for someone whose campaign website touts "Strength Through Peace." Suggestions welcome!

(UPDATE: Kucinich has saved us the trouble of finding him an action star by dropping out of the race. The article I read on this reminded me that Mike Gravel is still in it, though, so I have to pick someone for him. I'm going with Ron Ely, best known for playing Tarzan back in the day. Like Gravel, you barely know who he is (if at all) and haven't seen him in quite some time.)

Reading this post from the Bruce has finally gotten me to address the looming Massachusetts primary, which, like California's, will be held on Super Duper Tuesday. After reading his post, I was stunned to learn that there's a decent chance that he and I will wind up voting for the same person. I wouldn't have concieved of that four years ago. Or even four months ago, for that matter.

Now that I'm an unenrolled voter, I get to choose which party's primary to vote in, a first for me. So how might it go down?

Democrats - I have to admit, my decision here is based mostly on personalities and ephemera rather than positions, as from what I can tell the differences between the major candidates isn't that great. I'm discounting John Edwards as I find his populist posturing a little too sudden and opportunistic. And I don't think I'd go for Hillary as I've still got some Clinton fatigue from when her husband was in office.

This brings me to Obama, even though I have the same concerns about him that I did about Deval Patrick, namely that I'm not sure there's enough substance under the inspirational message. On the minus side, the Presidency is a tough job to learn while doing. On the plus side, he'd be able to choose his Cabinet and other staffers to help get things going. But then I think of our current leader and the example of how this sort of plan can go horribly awry. As you can tell, I'm not particularly convinced about this.

There is an outside chance I'd throw a vote to Joe Biden in honor of his "noun verb 9/11" analysis of Guiliani's campaign. It may be the most on point thing anyone has said during this campaign.

Republicans - voting here would be driven by voting against Romney. His tenure as governor was not impressive (granted, he didn't have a lot of support, given how thin Republicans are on the ground here), and I don't buy for a second his "evolution" into conservatism. I tend to think he was always conservative, but played at moderate positions in order to get elected. This hardly makes him unique, but it makes it hard for me to believe what he's saying at any given time. A good rule of thumb with politicians generally, but it strikes me as being particularly important with him.

A vote here would be guided by how candidates have done in the states to come and how things appear to be shaping up in the polls. Were I casting this vote today I'd probably go with McCain, even though I probably more closely aligned with Guiliani on issues. We do have a thing for McCain in New England. It's probably due to his curmudgeonly attitude and fondness for sweaters (which, based on this, may have an odd same-sex marriage/union corollary).

Should Guiliani show some life in Florida, I may throw him a vote. It seems unlikely, although if it would help Romney finish third here it'd up the odds.

The other option would be Ron Paul, even though he's a couple of steps on the wrong side of the good crazy/crazy crazy line. I've probably seen more signs for him here than any other candidate, and had be fared better in New Hampshire I'd be more inclined to pay tribute to the dedication of his supporters.

Huckabee gets nominal consideration based on performance to date. Everyone else is out.

Green - yes, there is Green Party primary here. Most of the names are of party functionaries that I've not heard before. Ralph Nader is on the ballot, as is Cynthia McKinney, best known for her time as a cop-slapping Georgia Congresswoman. I don't know what would drive me to vote here, though I am tempted to cast my first vote for Kat Swift, who will turn 35 this year, just so I can cast my first vote for a candidate younger than I am. But I suppose that day will come soon enough, so I'll likely pass for now.

You can see the lineup for the Massachusetts primary ballots here.

For anyone thinking about getting a passport who may be worried about long application times, you may want to act now. I filed a renewal just before Christmas, and got my new passport yesterday. Pretty good, considering how long the wait times were not that long ago and that the estimated time I was given was 6-8 weeks.

That being said, I may have benefitted from renewing rather than applying first time. Not sure if that makes a difference or not.

The new one is one of the ones with the RFID chip in it, making me a prime target for Big Brother or identity thieves. It's been redesigned quite a bit, comparing it to my old one. The cover is stiffer, and instead of my picture being on the inside cover it's been moved to the back of the first page. And while it's not as bad as my driver's license photo, there is a Whitey Bulger's bagman look to the picture.

The pages have replaced the state seals with scenes of Americana (rocky coasts, purple mountains majesty and so on) and various quotes from famous (and not so famous) Americans. So if nothing else, the propaganda value of the passport has improved.

A quick one-handed update: had surgery on Friday, seems to have gone well. I got into the hospital at 6:30 and was home by 11, and likely would have been out earlier if my doctor hadn't been late (a rarity for him, from what the other docs were saying). I remember very little thanks to the sedation. I do recall not feeling my left arm at one point, which would have been pretty disconcerting under normal circumstances.

For the next week to 10 days I'll have my left index and middle finger at rougly a 90 degree angle to my palm, so as to not put tension on the nerve. It's not particularly comfortable, but it could be worse. I do have a sling I'm supposed to wear, but around the house I've mosly just been keeping it elevated.

Otherwise, it's pretty similar to the first few days I had the brace with the original stitches. I'll try not to kill myself buttoning my pants.

Three things I learned this weekend about the airport in Chattanooga, Tennessee:

1. They seem to be reducing their carbon footprint by turning off lights - even when people are still in the terminal. I was waiting for a couple of people, and while sitting near the gate where my plane came in the lights in that part of the terminal were shut off. I got the hint and moved to the gate where I expected one, if not both of the flights I was waiting for to come in. Both flights were late, and when the second one came in and both were boarding they shut off the lights in that part of the terminal. While people were still there waiting to board.

Maybe they needed the extra juice to run the baggage return? I mean, there were probably a dozen people with checked baggage on those flights.

2. Before flying in I checked to see if there was a bus or something to get from the airport to downtown. The bus system doesn't have a stop at the airport. I found this odd, given that in most places a public transit link at the airport is the norm.

I now know why there isn't one: the local transit authority is getting a cut of the extortionate rates that cabs charge for runs from the airport. For two people, they charged $33. Renting a car for the day would have been cheaper. Now, we didn't ask the rate before getting in, which is a total failing on our part. Thinking about it, I wonder if this is some sort of off the books thing, as the meter wasn't even on during our trip.

Can you tell I don't take cabs too often?

3. Skybus flies to Chattanooga, which you think would be handy as they also fly to Boston. Except in this case "Boston" actually means Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Which would be great if I were leaving a car, as the free parking (referred to several times, always in all caps, on the Pease website) would compensate for the longer drive.

The other problem is that the Skybus flights aren't necessarily coordinated. So while I could go Portsmouth-Columbus-Chattanooga, it wouldn't work in reverse as they only have one flight from Chattanooga a day.

I also ran across something called Allegiant Air, which offers flights from Bangor, Maine to Orlando, apparently. Something to keep in mind for the in-laws.

So the good news is that I'm now up to 1.5 hands, as I've had the splint off since Sunday and I've been able to reincorporate my non-filleted fingers into day to day tasks.

The bad news is that, at some point in the not too distant future, I'll be back down to one hand for at least a couple of weeks. This isn't too unexpected given the nature of the surgery, but what I didn't expect is that for those weeks, the repaired finger will have to be immobilized in a bent position so as not to place undue tension on the nerve, which could stretch it.

(I won't go into the details of the procedure, which at one point used terms like "zig zag stitch" and things that I'd rather not consider happening to my corpus.)

And after that I get to wait 6 to 8 months for the nerve to fully regrow. At which point the doctor I saw estimated I'd have 50 to 60 percent recovery of sensation. Which is enough for the important things, but not enough to get fine sensations. That's better than the ongoing numbness I have going on now, at least.

I'll find out my surgery date in the next couple of days. I'm hoping it'll land when we're closed for the holidays, as that would cause the least amount of disruption with work and other plans. It'd also give me an excuse to lay on the couch and watch bowl games. Not that I need one per se, but if I have one I'll take it.

A cooking tip for you all: if your serrated chef's knife gets stuck in a head of cabbage, work it out slowly and with your free hand nowhere near the knife. Otherwise, your free hand may later look like this:



I will say that this looks a lot better than it did about 22 hours ago. Eight stitches will do that. I managed to cut an artery and apparently a nerve, which will require some sort of microscope-assisted surgery. Fun times ahead.

Oh, and typing with one hand? Not as much fun as you might think.

On this day when the Red Sox begin their quest to win another World Series, I've come to a conclusion.

We need a second baseball team in Boston.

My reasons are several:

1. It's become well-nigh impossible to get tickets to home games. With limited supply and huge demand, it's no wonder that there are increasing numbers of fans taking mini (or full) vacations around road trips, and many more who just stay home.

2. This is one of the few areas of the country where baseball is still the dominant sport. I base this off of the Sports Illustrated fan map from a few years back that showed New England as one of the few places where the top fan-supported team was not the local NFL franchise, but the local nine.

3. We used to have a second team, so there's a history there, and even a few scattered fans who never made the jump over from the Braves to the Sox. It's not as common as finding Giants fans, but they are out there.

4. The Red Sox are making a transition from team to brand, between the foray into NASCAR, non-sport TV ventures like Sox Appeal, and the whole Red Sox Nation embarrasment. Being a Sox fan now is like being a Celtics fan in the 1980s. It's more about the scene and the aura of winning than it is about the sport. A second team would give an outlet to people who want to spend an afternoon at the ballpark actually watching baseball, not shooting a reality show or something.

So here's my plan.

I. TEAM

The most obvious choice for getting a second team is moving a currently floundering one. And as we already have an AL team in town, a National League team would work best.

Paging the Florida Marlins.

They're pretty much perfect for this operation. They're in the NL East, so they don't have to move divisions. They've won a couple of World Series, so they have some tradition, but are new enough that they aren't bound to Florida by tradition. They have no current fan base in Miami to speak of, and no real prospect of getting a new stadium. And they have some exciting players - including former Sox prospect Hanley Ramirez - to build upon.

The only negative with this team is their owner, Jeffrey Loria. Given the way he's operated both this team and the Montreal Expos, it'd be best if we could separate him from the team beforehand.

II. NAME

I have a couple of ideas. The first is the Pilgrims, trading off of a name that, despite what people think, was not an old name for the Red Sox. It's not the most hip name, but it's better than some of the other old names (official and otherwise) for Boston baseball teams: Puritans, Beaneaters, Bees, Somersets, etc.

The other name that comes to mind is Shamrocks. It salutes Boston's Irish community (which may be important, as will be discussed later), which the Sox have largely been able to co-opt for themselves. I actually like this quite a bit, as I think about it.

III. STADIUM and LOCATION

I've not been to all of the major league parks, but I can say that I've been most taken with PNC Park in Pittsburgh out of all the new baseball stadia. I liked the way it combines traditional layout and look with modern features, and its skyline views of the river and downtown are tremendous.

In order to capture that here, I'd look to do something along the lines of PNC, but slightly bigger (PNC seats 38,496; I'd look to seat about 43,000). And to get that view, it'd have to be in the Seaport District.

This raises some problems, as the Seaport District is also known as the South Boston Waterfront. As a neighborhood, Southie wasn't exactly amenable to a previous proposal to move the Sox in, and it's likely they'd feel the same way about the Shamrocks (the obvious pandering of the name aside).

However, between the Big Dig making the area more accessible for Route 93 and the Mass Pike and the ongoing development that's seen a convention center, the Institute for Contemporary Art, a major hotel, and several condo complexes go in, there may be reduced resistance to a baseball team.

I wouldn't look for public financing of the stadium, as we pay enough in taxes already. Given the presence of Fidelity Investments in this part of town (they have offices there and own the Seaport Hotel complex), perhaps they'd be just the right people to buy the team and get things moving.

If this doesn't come to pass, my next favored location would be out by Suffolk Downs, one of the proposed casino sites. There's still a chance to get city views, and it is located on the T. The only real road of note in the area is Route 1A, which is problematic, to say the least.

So there it is, embryonic in form but an idea whose time has come.

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.