Monthly Archives: September 2003

Administrivia

Boston, Banzai!

I just got back from a quick trip to Boston for a story I'm engulfed in. Boston is one of my favorite cities, but I've spent almost no time there over the past two years since the end of my dot-bomb travel budget.

If you ever have to stay in Boston for a day or two, and your corporate travel caps prevent you from staying anywhere actually decent, I can now provisionally endorse the Days Inn at 1234 Soldiers Field Road, on the banks of the Charles near Watertown. It didn't suck that bad.

I do suggest, however, that you avoid American Eagle's regional jet service if your're over 5'6″ and 125 pounds. It may only take an hour and 20 minutes to get from Baltimore to Logan International (and the same back) that way, but you may develop curvature of the spine and deep vein thrombosis in the process. It's like getting shoved into a pneumatic tube cartridge from a comfort stanpoint–sure, you get there, but you're left wondering if the trip was really necessary.

Dave Winer never responded to my hail, so I ended up lunching with a friend in PR (on my dime) at the Panera in the Arsenal office park (which is apparently on land owned by Harvard). Then I spent an hour or two talking with the president of a midmarket CRM consutlancy nearby, and had dinner with some other friends at Jasper White's Summer Shack in Cambridge. Dave, this is the kind of place you shoud do a blogger dinner at–unless you have a shellfish allergy.

Then I got up at 4 am. You know, the Mass Pike and Ted Williams Tunnel are a cakewalk at 5 am. I got on a plane at 6:50 and was back in Baltimore in time for breakfast.

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General Chaos

There’s something blowin’, but it doesn’t smell like an answer.

As we here in the mid-Atlantic start battening down for the big blow, John Negroponte was administering a big blow of his own, vetoing a security council resolution condemning Israel's plans to exile Arafat. His reason? He used the “r”
word–it lacked a “robust condemnation of acts of terrorism.” Whatever.

And the Greenspan Gang decided that, since there was no basement left for short term interest rates, that they would hold them where they were–and said low rates can be preserved for a “considerable period.” That's a swirling vortex of hot air, as the interest rates that individuals can get have already decoupled from the short term rate, and are rising on their own without any help from the Fed.

Then there's the hot wind out of California, where it looks like the recall vote may or may not be delayed, depending on the actions of the Ninth Circuit Court, and possibly Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, or even the full Supreme Court. I can't get worked up about it either way.

There was some good news today from another usual source of hot air–the Capitol. The Senate repealed the FCC's proposed new rules for media ownership. Imagine my surprise to be on the same side of some issue as Trent Lott.

But the White House may still get its way on this despite popular opinion. The spinning winds from the White House: “The rules that the FCC came up with more accurately reflect the changing media landscape,''according to White House press secretary McClellan.

Right.

So, Isabel isn't the only destructive wind blowing around out there right now. And the people of this country not eligible for one of Dubya's sweetheart corporate welfare deals are the ones who'll end up getting soaked.

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