October 7, 2011
(Note written on October 21, 2011: It seems as if I got wrong what I wrote here about smoots on October 7, 2011. For the final correction to what I wrote, please see blog page 1. Newblog2011: 10/21/11 Smoot Update. L. Kochman).
(Note written on October 22, 2011: Please see page 1. Newblog2011: 10/22/11 Purple Smoot)
1. Newblog2011: 10/07/11 So far, today
At the beginning of the bridge over Mass. Ave., from Cambridge to Boston, since last night, somebody painted things on the sidewalk of it.
If there are people who aren't familiar with Boston, there isn't really any feasible way to get to Cambridge from Boston and vice versa without going over a bridge. The Mass. Ave. bridge is also the most direct route into downtown Cambridge, which is where everything that I ever need to do in Cambridge is. It's not my choice to take a bridge there.
In large, purple letters, starting at the beginning of the left side of the bridge, on the sidewalk, from Cambridge to Boston:
1
364.4
SMOOTS
+ 1 EAR (It's a "plus or minus" sign in front of the words "1 EAR"
-
Here's what I found from an MIT website called "spotlight: a salute to Smoot" about the term "364.4 SMOOTS and one ear":
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
December 19, 2005
Oliver Smoot, MIT class of 1962, is retiring from his chairmanship of the American National Standards Institute. He lent his name, and not coincidentally also his height, to a unit of measurement which is now part of history.
As almost every MIT student knows, a smoot is a unit of length equal to five feet seven inches. Most students also know that the length of the Mass. Ave. bridge between MIT and Boston is precisely 364.4 smoots and one ear.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
why smoots?
This unique unit of measurement was developed in October 1958, Smoot's freshman year, and is one of the more famous MIT hacks.
It came about as a way to measure the length of the Mass. Ave. bridge, and gauge the distance between the Boston fraternities and main MIT campus on cold days. The pledgemaster for Smoot's fraternity, Lambda Chi Alpha, used Smoot as a measure because he was the shortest, and because the name sounded "scientific," like "meter" or "watt."
They laid him down, end over end, and painted the markings that still bear his name. The name and legend have endured renovations to the bridge, 47 years of LCA pledges, who repaint the markings every year...........
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
October 7, 2011
I have less than 10 minutes to write more about what happened this morning.
I recently wrote on WordPress about a woman in a homeless shelter who threatened to bite my ear off.
Last night, I wrote on WordPress about graffitti on the Mass. Ave. bridge such as "DREAM ACT" and "DREAM ACT NOW," and expressed my unhappiness about the presence of that graffitti there.
The entire left sidewalk of the bridge has had numbers repainted on it, in purple, green and yellow.
For example, the 1-270, which still shows some of its original yellow paint, has had only the numbers 1 and 2 repainted, in purple.
Words also were painted:
--On the short wall that bounds the traffic side of the bridge, the words "RED CORN" were painted in yellow.
--On the sidewalk, the words "PIZTOL 80" were painted in purple.
--The words "HALFWAY TO HELL" were painted on the sidewalk, with "HALFWAY" and "HELL" in yellow, and "TO" in green. (I think that's probably something that's been painted as part of the same SMOOT prank for a long time, with color-coding now in reference of some kind to The Situation.)
In Boston:
Much of Newbury Street, which is the street that has the day shelter, The Women's Lunch Place, has been torn up. There are blocks of the street that have had large sections of one lane removed. There's an entire block that has caution cones up and down each side of the street, with industrial pipe lining each side of the street, also. At least one police officer is there to oversee the "work."
Maybe I'll have time to write more detail later.
In front of the Victoria's Secret on Newbury Street, which is write in front of the WLP, a large section of Caution tape has been put between 2 green sticks that are cemented in 2 Homer Paint Buckets.
The notice says:
"STOPPING, STANDING OR PARKING PROHIBITED"
Time from 5 pm Time to Midnight
Parking of vehicles within the posted area in front of Boylston Street @ 501 Effective on 10/07/2011 and continuing until 10/07/2011 will be prohibited due to the issuance of a Construction Permit by the City of Boston, Public Works Department......Contact person DAVE BECKMAN, Tele # (617) 424-7275.
If you are parked within this posted area during the date and time that this restriction is in effect.....you will be ticketed and towed.
Boston Transportation Department"
The government, at various levels, has been telling the public that there's no money for things that the public needs. For example, the government has been telling the public that there's no money for public education, and that education should be funded by corporations. Many of those corporations not only endorse the abuse of women but endorse child molestation, also.
At the same time that the government is telling the public that there's No Money for one thing after another that the public needs, the government, at least the government in Boston and also Cambridge, is spending money on ripping up entire roads, paying people to go out in the middle of the night, or any time, to put out miles of Caution cones, Caution barrels, and everything else that I've described.
The first sound that I heard when I took the corner to Newbury Street was the sound of jackhammers; they're not fixing anything that needs to be fixed. I'm telling you that they were ripping up rectangular sections of an entire lane, just these rectangular sections, one after another, along the street, then putting Caution cones around them. People can't drive on that side of the street.
This is going on, even as news shows continue to do things such as reporting that "flooding" or "fallout from a bridge problem" or "potholes" back up traffic along routes that have numbers that get used as code for me. "There's a lot of fog/rain/flooding---traffic can't go anywhere, it's terrible."
One of the commercial vehicles parked along the side of Newbury Street in the Unnecessary Construction Zone had, written on the side:
"Monique
Ceramica de Espana
"We Bring Color To Your Home"
The conglomerate likes to talk about money, likes to talk about the recession, likes to talk about how much it cares about the public and and its financial problems.
Here are some questions about money:
It's been a while since I drove a car with any regularity; is gas now miraculously inexpensive, so that it's no problem for people to drive around entire roads that get blocked off while the conglomerate rips up the roads and repaves them for no reason?
What about parking? Is it now no problem for people to drive around looking for parking, because entire streets get blocked off and people can't park there?
What about people being late for work because of those things? That doesn't cost them money, doesn't make things difficult for them with their employers, doesn't result in lost productivity for those employers?
What about the money that gets lost to businesses that are on streets that get blocked off? How many days in a row is going to be that Newbury Street is going to be the way it is? Even if people are determined to shop or do other business in areas where they can't park, or where they gave to go to a parking garage in order to park their cars, what about the noise, dirt, and debris created by the construction, the machines, and everything that goes with it? It's not pleasant to be around.
There was one business in particular (Timberland) that I saw participating in unnecessary construction; whatever it had in front of its business, before the sidewalk, is two trenches of dirt now. Who's paying for the extra cost of unnecessary construction and other harassing activities done by businesses that are part of the conglomerate or that want to be noticed by the conglomerate? Do people who then go to those businesses get to pay higher prices because of it?
What about businesses that go bankrupt while partipating in the conglomerate's activities? What's next, government bailouts for those businesses?
Copyright, with noted exceptions, L. Kochman, October 7, 2011 @ 9:05 a.m./addition @ 9:57 a.m./9:59 a.m./addition @ 11:20 a.m./addition @ 2:43 p.m./addition of a note at the top of the page, Copyright L. Kochman, October 21, 2011 @ 8:26 a.m./addition October 22, 2011 @ 10:24 a.m.
(Note written on October 21, 2011: It seems as if I got wrong what I wrote here about smoots on October 7, 2011. For the final correction to what I wrote, please see blog page 1. Newblog2011: 10/21/11 Smoot Update. L. Kochman).
(Note written on October 22, 2011: Please see page 1. Newblog2011: 10/22/11 Purple Smoot)
1. Newblog2011: 10/07/11 So far, today
At the beginning of the bridge over Mass. Ave., from Cambridge to Boston, since last night, somebody painted things on the sidewalk of it.
If there are people who aren't familiar with Boston, there isn't really any feasible way to get to Cambridge from Boston and vice versa without going over a bridge. The Mass. Ave. bridge is also the most direct route into downtown Cambridge, which is where everything that I ever need to do in Cambridge is. It's not my choice to take a bridge there.
In large, purple letters, starting at the beginning of the left side of the bridge, on the sidewalk, from Cambridge to Boston:
1
364.4
SMOOTS
+ 1 EAR (It's a "plus or minus" sign in front of the words "1 EAR"
-
Here's what I found from an MIT website called "spotlight: a salute to Smoot" about the term "364.4 SMOOTS and one ear":
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
December 19, 2005
Oliver Smoot, MIT class of 1962, is retiring from his chairmanship of the American National Standards Institute. He lent his name, and not coincidentally also his height, to a unit of measurement which is now part of history.
As almost every MIT student knows, a smoot is a unit of length equal to five feet seven inches. Most students also know that the length of the Mass. Ave. bridge between MIT and Boston is precisely 364.4 smoots and one ear.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
why smoots?
This unique unit of measurement was developed in October 1958, Smoot's freshman year, and is one of the more famous MIT hacks.
It came about as a way to measure the length of the Mass. Ave. bridge, and gauge the distance between the Boston fraternities and main MIT campus on cold days. The pledgemaster for Smoot's fraternity, Lambda Chi Alpha, used Smoot as a measure because he was the shortest, and because the name sounded "scientific," like "meter" or "watt."
They laid him down, end over end, and painted the markings that still bear his name. The name and legend have endured renovations to the bridge, 47 years of LCA pledges, who repaint the markings every year...........
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
October 7, 2011
I have less than 10 minutes to write more about what happened this morning.
I recently wrote on WordPress about a woman in a homeless shelter who threatened to bite my ear off.
Last night, I wrote on WordPress about graffitti on the Mass. Ave. bridge such as "DREAM ACT" and "DREAM ACT NOW," and expressed my unhappiness about the presence of that graffitti there.
The entire left sidewalk of the bridge has had numbers repainted on it, in purple, green and yellow.
For example, the 1-270, which still shows some of its original yellow paint, has had only the numbers 1 and 2 repainted, in purple.
Words also were painted:
--On the short wall that bounds the traffic side of the bridge, the words "RED CORN" were painted in yellow.
--On the sidewalk, the words "PIZTOL 80" were painted in purple.
--The words "HALFWAY TO HELL" were painted on the sidewalk, with "HALFWAY" and "HELL" in yellow, and "TO" in green. (I think that's probably something that's been painted as part of the same SMOOT prank for a long time, with color-coding now in reference of some kind to The Situation.)
In Boston:
Much of Newbury Street, which is the street that has the day shelter, The Women's Lunch Place, has been torn up. There are blocks of the street that have had large sections of one lane removed. There's an entire block that has caution cones up and down each side of the street, with industrial pipe lining each side of the street, also. At least one police officer is there to oversee the "work."
Maybe I'll have time to write more detail later.
In front of the Victoria's Secret on Newbury Street, which is write in front of the WLP, a large section of Caution tape has been put between 2 green sticks that are cemented in 2 Homer Paint Buckets.
The notice says:
"STOPPING, STANDING OR PARKING PROHIBITED"
Time from 5 pm Time to Midnight
Parking of vehicles within the posted area in front of Boylston Street @ 501 Effective on 10/07/2011 and continuing until 10/07/2011 will be prohibited due to the issuance of a Construction Permit by the City of Boston, Public Works Department......Contact person DAVE BECKMAN, Tele # (617) 424-7275.
If you are parked within this posted area during the date and time that this restriction is in effect.....you will be ticketed and towed.
Boston Transportation Department"
The government, at various levels, has been telling the public that there's no money for things that the public needs. For example, the government has been telling the public that there's no money for public education, and that education should be funded by corporations. Many of those corporations not only endorse the abuse of women but endorse child molestation, also.
At the same time that the government is telling the public that there's No Money for one thing after another that the public needs, the government, at least the government in Boston and also Cambridge, is spending money on ripping up entire roads, paying people to go out in the middle of the night, or any time, to put out miles of Caution cones, Caution barrels, and everything else that I've described.
The first sound that I heard when I took the corner to Newbury Street was the sound of jackhammers; they're not fixing anything that needs to be fixed. I'm telling you that they were ripping up rectangular sections of an entire lane, just these rectangular sections, one after another, along the street, then putting Caution cones around them. People can't drive on that side of the street.
This is going on, even as news shows continue to do things such as reporting that "flooding" or "fallout from a bridge problem" or "potholes" back up traffic along routes that have numbers that get used as code for me. "There's a lot of fog/rain/flooding---traffic can't go anywhere, it's terrible."
One of the commercial vehicles parked along the side of Newbury Street in the Unnecessary Construction Zone had, written on the side:
"Monique
Ceramica de Espana
"We Bring Color To Your Home"
The conglomerate likes to talk about money, likes to talk about the recession, likes to talk about how much it cares about the public and and its financial problems.
Here are some questions about money:
It's been a while since I drove a car with any regularity; is gas now miraculously inexpensive, so that it's no problem for people to drive around entire roads that get blocked off while the conglomerate rips up the roads and repaves them for no reason?
What about parking? Is it now no problem for people to drive around looking for parking, because entire streets get blocked off and people can't park there?
What about people being late for work because of those things? That doesn't cost them money, doesn't make things difficult for them with their employers, doesn't result in lost productivity for those employers?
What about the money that gets lost to businesses that are on streets that get blocked off? How many days in a row is going to be that Newbury Street is going to be the way it is? Even if people are determined to shop or do other business in areas where they can't park, or where they gave to go to a parking garage in order to park their cars, what about the noise, dirt, and debris created by the construction, the machines, and everything that goes with it? It's not pleasant to be around.
There was one business in particular (Timberland) that I saw participating in unnecessary construction; whatever it had in front of its business, before the sidewalk, is two trenches of dirt now. Who's paying for the extra cost of unnecessary construction and other harassing activities done by businesses that are part of the conglomerate or that want to be noticed by the conglomerate? Do people who then go to those businesses get to pay higher prices because of it?
What about businesses that go bankrupt while partipating in the conglomerate's activities? What's next, government bailouts for those businesses?
Copyright, with noted exceptions, L. Kochman, October 7, 2011 @ 9:05 a.m./addition @ 9:57 a.m./9:59 a.m./addition @ 11:20 a.m./addition @ 2:43 p.m./addition of a note at the top of the page, Copyright L. Kochman, October 21, 2011 @ 8:26 a.m./addition October 22, 2011 @ 10:24 a.m.