Monthly Archives: July 2009

Paolo Nutini

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Paolo Nutini

Paolo Nutini


The catchy, infectious 2006 hit New Shoes that probably brought a smile to your face the moment you heard it and might even have made you go out and buy a pair of shoes, was the debut effort of a young Scottish artist named Paolo Nutini.
His second album, Sunny Side Up, was released this summer and it is a fascinating collection of songs.  Nutini’s style is not easy to classify.  I was a bit surprised to learn he was Scottish, in part because of his name but also in part because there is something about his sound on certain tracks, both here and on the first album, “These Streets” that has kind of a European lounge act feel to it.  The Jazz influences in his songs are unmistakable.  But he’s supported the Rolling Stone and Led Zepplin in concert, and the Rock and R&B influences he cites are also very clear in his music, too.
Nutini describes it on his web site better than I ever could.  “Musically where I’m at, I don’t really have a genre or style that I feel a part of,” explains Paolo. “I skip from Djhango Reinhart to Cab Calloway to Canned Heat. It’s a bit of a random mish mash. I honestly wanted it all to come out, and not harness it, not manipulate it. I just wanted it to be organic, and so immediate it’s in your face and you can’t help but take it all in.”
Nutini’s songs are “cool,” sophisticated and they seem like they come from someone with and experience of life well beyond his 22 years.  Here’s one video.  Check it out.
Paolo Nutini – Candy

A Week in the Fog

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It has been such an odd week!  Literally on the flights back from London I came down with some sort of respiratory virus that caused a sore throat and a nasty cough.  Not H1N1, thank heaven.  It was relatively mild, no fever, and the sore throat and other nasal/head symptoms went away quickly.  The cough is still with me, however, and it got worse.
So I have also not been feeling well, and I am drowsy most of the day, in part because of the medication and in part because of the sickness.The cough can leave me quite breathless.
Settling back to work has been a bit strange, too.  I came back from vacation, but now my boss is on vacation, as are a few of my colleagues.   And, of course, I left, I had just finished my last major event of the year.  Everything else is now in planning. It’s that time of year.  So while I have been at work, busy, and managing to catch up, it has been an odd week, a week of transition!
Then there is the fact that the weather has been so nasty.  Drizzly and gray all day.  Noon looks like dusk and it almost feels like perpetual twilight.  As someone said to me yesterday, it almost feels as if summer has been canceled in New England.
So this whole week has been surpassing strange.  Nine days that feel at once like a one long night and like a month.  It’s been busy.  I’ve gotten a lot done.  And yet it feels like I’ve done nothing but sleep.  So very odd!

The Global and the Local: Climate Control and Boston's T

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Watching the news this morning and reading my local paper, two items were juxtaposed in stark contrast.  On TV5 Monde I heard coverage of the summit in Aquila, Italy on climate change and the imperative to keep any increase in global CO2 emissions below 2%.  (Click here for an English report on the summit).  In the Boston Globe I read about a proposed 20% fare hike for riders of the T, Boston’s Mass transit system.  The T is massively in debt and it has alread received a massive bailout.  But it is still in the red and this plan is intended to help.

The proposal includes a broad array of increases that would bring in an estimated $69 million a year and affect everyone who uses public transportation, from the suburban resident who takes commuter rail once a month to the city resident who depends on a monthly bus or subway pass for all local travel.
Advocates have warned that higher prices will drive people away from public transit when the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority is struggling to retain riders who turned to the T when gas prices spiked last summer.

This is very true.  According to the rate chart published in the Globe, within the city discounted Charlie Card fares for bus and subway riders will still not be too bad, as long as you don’t want to get there fast on an express bus.  But the commuter rail price, already expensive, becomes nearly absurd.
Consider a very specific situation, mine.  To take the train from Wellesley into Boston’s Back Bay takes about 20 minutes and is less than 15 miles.  It takes about the same amount to time to drive if there is no traffic, 45 when there is.  I drive a Toyota Yaris, a remarkably feul efficient vehicle, exceeded only by the hybrids.  A tank of gas will last me two weeks or more.
Because I don’t work in Boston, when I drive in it is in off hours and it is seldom a problem to find parking at a free space of meter where I will have to pay at most a couple of dollars.
A one way commuter rail ticket into Boston is already $5.25 and under the proposed plan it will be 6.00, ONE WAY!  It is much more economical for me to drive.  Add to that the fact that the commuter trains are infrequent and you begin to see that perhaps the T needs a different business plan.  Perhaps it doesn’t need to boost fares.  Perhaps it needs to boost ridership.  So perhaps it needs more frequent, less expensive trains.
How does this relate to the summit in Italy?  I am sure you have figured it out.  Reducing emissions means getting cars off the road and getting cars off the road requires reliable transit options.  Boston’s options need work.

Pope Benedict on Economic Justice

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This is a good article on the encyclical from the Vatican on the global economic meltdown.  Matters of theology are of no concern to me, and I often have opinions that are diametrically opposed to those of the Catholic church’s hierarchy on most other things.  When it comes to issues of economic and social justice, however, the Vatican often has good things to say.

Pope Benedict’s long awaited encyclical calls for a radical rethinking of economics so that it is guided not simply by profits but by “an ethics which is people-centered.”
“Profit is useful if it serves as a means towards an end,” he writes in Caritas in veritate (Charity in Truth), but “once profit becomes the exclusive goal, if it is produced by improper means and without the common good as its ultimate end, it risks destroying wealth and creating poverty.”
He decries that “Corruption and illegality are unfortunately evident in the conduct of the economic and political class in rich countries…as well as in poor ones.” He also says that “Financiers must rediscover the genuinely ethical foundation of their activity, so as not to abuse the sophisticated instruments which can serve to betray the interests of savers.”
via Georgetown/On Faith: Pope Benedict on Economic Justice – Thomas J. Reese.

The irony is that such a large percentage of people who cling fiercely to the Vatican’s pronouncements on sexual morality, right to life issues and such are also those most likely to ignore the social justice messages, whereas those who might find the social justice message appealing, are also likely to be bothered by the more puritanical aspects of their faith.  Ironic, no?

Bare essentials of safety from Air New Zealand

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Here’s an interesting variation on the traditional safety video that they show on flights.  It and the airline’s recent publicity feature employees in painted on uniforms, playing on the slogan that Air New Zealand is “the airline that has nothing to hide.”
YouTube – Bare essentials of safety from Air New Zealand.

Solar Panel Theft is Rampant in California Wineries : TreeHugger

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What do you get when you make a sizable investment in technology so that you can be ethical and environmentally responsible?  Well, if you are a Napa Valley vintner the answer may be robbed, according to this article on TreeHugger.com.  Apparently there has been a rash of thefts, people stealing ground mounted solar panels.  In large quantities, too.

If stealing solar panels is your gig, the wineries are truly full of low hanging fruit. ZD Wines president Brett de Leuze tells the Wine Spectator:

“Our solar panels are ground-mounted at the far end of our vineyard. And in November, we are not regularly in the vineyard, so we didn’t even notice the theft until several weeks after it happened,” said De Leuze. “The first time they took 200 of our 700 panels, and the second time, 44.”

Read the full article here.

Independence Day Fireworks on the Charles River

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A short video of the fireworks on the Charles River for Independence Day celebrations.  Thanks to good friends who invited us to join them, we had a wonderful view of the fireworks from the riverbank.  You can see a gallery of my pictures and video-all of them, no matter how good or bad-shot with my iPhone.

Personal details of new UK spy chief on Facebook

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Be careful what you and your loved ones post on Facebook.  It may come back to haunt you some day, especially if you are nominated chief spymaster in your country.  Apparently that is what has happened to John Sawers in the UK, who is the incoming head or Britain’s international spy agency.
According to this report on CNN.com his wife posted personal details, the significance of which is under debate.

Web Site Story – CollegeHumor video

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I watched this and didn’t know whether to laugh or cry, especially when they got to the line, “I can’t wait to read about me later on your blog.”

Discovered via The Bilerco Project

Rediscovering Secular America

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This Fourth of July, those who identify themselves as non-believers, or humanists, or atheists — or a whole host of other names which signify a nontheistic worldview — have much cause for celebration. After eight years in the Bush wilderness — and an even longer period of ostracism by the Washington political establishment — a rising demographic of like-minded Americans and a new president are guiding us back to our roots as a secular nation.
“We have generally been a pariah group in America,” says Woody Kaplan, Advisory Board Chair of the Secular Coalition for America. “Pretty much unrecognized by the political establishment. Yet there’s almost no religious group in America as large as us…. We were that third rail that politicians failed to touch.”

More at TheNation.com