“The Fast Trains And Self-Driving Cars Will Help The Airports”

September 6, 2012 in Excerpts, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

The recent book Aerotropolis argues that high-speed rail will increase, not decrease, air traffic. More people will simply use the trains to reach airports. A similar argument from Brad Templeton’s new Singularity Hub article about high-speed rail and driverless cars:

“The air travel industry is not going to sit still. The airlines aren’t going to just let their huge business on the California air corridor disappear to the trains the way the HSR authority hopes. These are private companies, and they will cut prices, and innovate to compete. They will find better solutions to the security nightmare that has taken away their edge, and they’ll produce innovative products we have yet to see. The reality is that good security is possible without requiring people arrive at airports an hour before departure, if we are driven to make it happen. And the trains may not remain immune from the same security needs forever.

On the green front, we already see Boeing’s new generation of carbon fiber planes operating with less fuel. New turboprops are quiet and much more efficient, and there is more to come.

The fast trains and self-driving cars will help the airports. Instead of HSR from downtown SF to downtown LA, why not take that same HSR just to the airport, and clear security while on the train to be dropped off close to the gate. Or imagine a self-driving car that picks you up on the tarmac as you walk off the plane and whisks you directly to your destination. Driven by competition, the airlines will find a way to take advantage of their huge speed advantage in the core part of the journey.”

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Thoughts About The DNC’s Second Night

September 6, 2012 in Politics | Permalink

Bill Clinton: Wait, I’ve got more.

Bill Clinton gave a pretty masterful if overlong speech. It’s funny how every great Bill Clinton speech is on the verge of being a terrible Bill Clinton speech because he goes on and on. But he showed you can actually work policy into a convention address, put aside his ego (somewhat) in acknowledging that he couldn’t have done any better with the collapsed economy than Obama, and refuted every GOP charge against the President (save criticism of the stimulus).

It’s amazing someone as bright as Clinton wasn’t a better President. He was above average in a few ways, but far below in others. Certainly not a disaster like his successor but sort of underwhelming considering his gifts. He was undisciplined and unfocused in foreign policy, and made plenty of bad cabinet appointments. To his credit, he was able to work with some of the very same creeps who tried to railroad him out of office, but he truly was the recent Democratic President who led from behind, at least domestically. And you can triangulate your way into a second term but not greatness.

The Obama charge that rankled Clinton so much–that he was a transitional President instead of a transformative one–still rings true. But no one has ever questioned Clinton’s party loyalty and last night he put aside his chilly relationship with the President the way a senior statesman will. The GOP has no analogue to him and its poorer for that.•

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“In This World Man And Machine Were One”

September 6, 2012 in Excerpts, Science/Tech | Permalink

From novelist Chloe Aridjis’ Granta article about cosmonauts trying to adjust to space–and readjust to Earth:

“Initially, it was unclear how man in space would react, how he would endure weightlessness and ‘unknown nervous-emotional overloads’. In a pre-emptive move, a ‘logic lock’ was installed aboard the Vostoks – early Soviet spacecrafts – to prevent any ‘irrational intervention of the cosmonaut in the direction of the ship’. Gagarin, for instance, had no control over his voyage.

After all, in this world man and machine were one, incorporated into a single control system, its two main exponents poised to operate at highest potential and coherence. Yet despite all the preparation there were human variables, and the symbiotic relationship led to both real and imaginary ailments. One healthy cosmonaut, for instance, experienced cardiac arrhythmia after being exposed to sustained stressors related to onboard equipment failure.

During the first ninety-six-day Salyut mission in 1978, cosmonaut Yury Romanenko was apparently so mesmerized by the vastness of the cosmos that he stepped out to have a better look and forgot to attach himself with safety tethers to the space station. Fortunately his cohort noticed and quickly grabbed his foot as it floated out of the hatch. Even the most trained and disciplined individual could ignore all precautions and checklists and succumb to a greater urge.

And then there was the monotony of space, the long stretches of nothingness, whether experienced alone – certainly the deepest emptiness of all – or in a small group, when tensions nearly always arose. Despite the speed of the aircraft, inside there was often no sensation of movement and everything appeared fixed and motionless. Moments of sensory bombardment alternated with extended periods of sensory deprivation. The first few cosmonauts were given books; later ones, curiously, were instead handed knives, wood blocks, coloured pencils and paper with which to pass the time. Some individuals would apparently become so exasperated with the lack of stimuli that they’d wish for the equipment to break down simply to provide some variety.”

••••••••••

“I can assure you that I had no butterflies or anything else in my stomach”:

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“What Do You Intend To Do Now?”

September 6, 2012 in Sports, Videos | Permalink

We don’t know what we will face in life…

…we don’t even know what’s inside of ourselves…

…yet we make plans.

Bobby Fischer, unaware of the terrible thing he would become, discusses his future in 1972, shortly after dispatching Spassky.

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Recently Posted On NYC’s Craigslist

September 6, 2012 in Misc., Urban Studies | Permalink

“Make my day, pussies.”

I AM THE BIG MAN (BROOKLYN)

hey all of you punks that want a piece of me meet me at richies gym..on stanwix street..if you have the balls come in and ask for big jim..we can box right there, i need a few punks to spar with for my next fight..ill be there all week long..there i have named the place and time punks make my day pussies..THE GREAT MAN FROM BROOKLYN HAS SPOKEN AND WILL SPEAK AGAIN.

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“In Just Six Hours, The World’s Deserts Receive More Energy From The Sun Than Humans Consume In A Year”

September 6, 2012 in Excerpts, Politics, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

“We have proved the commercial profit of sun power in the tropics and have more particularly proved that after our stores of oil and coal are exhausted the human race can receive unlimited power from the rays of the sun.”–Frank Shuman, New York Times, 1916

Desertec, a European consortium, is trying to realize Shuman’s dream of a “sun engine,” attempting to turn the Sahara into a gigantic solar farm. From Leo Hickman’s recent article in the Guardian:

“Gerhard Knies, a German particle physicist, was the first person to estimate how much solar energy was required to meet humanity’s demand for electricity. In 1986, in direct response to the Chernobyl nuclear accident, he scribbled down some figures and arrived at the following remarkable conclusion: in just six hours, the world’s deserts receive more energy from the sun than humans consume in a year. If even a tiny fraction of this energy could be harnessed – an area of Saharan desert the size of Wales could, in theory, power the whole of Europe – Knies believed we could move beyond dirty and dangerous fuels for ever. Echoing Schuman’s own frustrations, Knies later asked whether ‘we are really, as a species, so stupid’ not to make better use of this resource. Over the next two decades, he worked – often alone – to drive this idea into public consciousness.

The culmination of his efforts is ‘Desertec,’ a largely German-led initiative that aims to provide 15% of Europe’s electricity by 2050 through a vast network of solar and wind farms stretching right across the Mena region and connecting to continental Europe via special high voltage, direct current transmission cables.”

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“It Will Have Not Only Height And Width But Depth As Well”

September 6, 2012 in Science/Tech, Videos | Permalink

Mike Douglas and Twiggy receive a demonstration in holography in 1977 from Abe Rezny and Steve Cohen and their wonderful, wonderful beards.

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4 Thoughts About The DNC’s First Night

September 5, 2012 in Politics | Permalink

Gov. Christie: Shut up, idiots, I’m talking. (Image by Bob Jagendorf.)

  • Deval Patrick delivered the speech everyone expected Chris Christie to deliver at the RNC: tough, confident, challenging to his own party as well as the rival one and announcing his own arrival on a national stage, while never taking the spotlight off the top of the ticket.
  • Keynote Speaker Julian Castro made a great impression, but I  don’t agree with the talk that his speech will propel him into national prominence the way that Obama’s 2004 convention address did. It’s not his fault–he’s just too young at 37 for any parallel to occur. If Texas demographics continue, as expected, to trend Hispanic, he will likely run for governor of that state at some point.
  • The large number of references to gay marriage don’t only speak to a new plank of the DNC, but also seem to suggest that Dems are worried about an enthusiasm gap between this Presidential election and the last one. You know, fire up the part of the base that has a chance for real progress in the near future. 
  • Michelle Obama uses the usual rhetorical affectations any orator employs, but she still manages to communicate genuine feelings and emotions incredibly well. Pretty much all Republicans did the smart thing, speaking glowingly of her, realizing that’s the best way to minimize her effect. Only Ari Fleischer, an unrepentant jerk, was not able to contain himself.

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A Brief Note From 1890 About A Grocery Store

September 5, 2012 in Old Print Articles, Urban Studies | Permalink

From the April 28, 1890 Brooklyn Daily Eagle:

“While a boy was cutting bananas from a bunch hanging in front of a Burlington, Vt., grocery store, a large tarantula sprang at him, striking him on the back of the neck. From the boy’s neck the insect leaped into a barrel half full of crackers. No one caring to meddle with such an ugly customer, at the suggestion of a policeman, the barrel was doused with kerosene and then carried into the street and set on fire.”

“Voluntary Electrical Brain Waves…Will Maneuver Large And Small Robots Remotely”

September 5, 2012 in Excerpts, Science/Tech | Permalink

A concise summation of the long-term applications of brain-machine interfaces from Miguel A. L. Nicolelis’ new Scientific American article about the advent of artificial limbs controlled by thought:

“In this futuristic scenario, voluntary electrical brain waves, the biological alphabet that underlies human thinking, will maneuver large and small robots remotely, control airships from afar, and perhaps even allow the sharing of thoughts and sensations of one individual with another over what will become a collective brain-based network.”

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“You Need To Get Down Into These New Patterns, These Micro-Patterns”

September 5, 2012 in Excerpts, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

Esther Dyson has called for quantified communities, and others are working in the same direction. Computer scientist Sandy Pentland argues at Edge that Karl Marx and Adam Smith didn’t possess the proper information to be completely correct, but we now do:

“These Big Data issues are important, but there are bigger things afoot. As you move into a society driven by Big Data most of the ways we think about the world change in a rather dramatic way. For instance, Adam Smith and Karl Marx were wrong, or at least had only half the answers. Why? Because they talked about markets and classes, but those are aggregates. They’re averages.

While it may be useful to reason about the averages, social phenomena are really made up of millions of small transactions between individuals. There are patterns in those individual transactions that are not just averages, they’re the things that are responsible for the flash crash and the Arab spring. You need to get down into these new patterns, these micro-patterns, because they don’t just average out to the classical way of understanding society. We’re entering a new era of social physics, where it’s the details of all the particles—the you and me—that actually determine the outcome. 

Reasoning about markets and classes may get you half of the way there, but it’s this new capability of looking at the details, which is only possible through Big Data, that will give us the other 50 percent of the story. We can potentially design companies, organizations, and societies that are more fair, stable and efficient as we get to really understand human physics at this fine-grain scale. This new computational social science offers incredible possibilities.”

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“The Difference That Swamps All Of These Is The Difference Between The Present And The Past”

September 5, 2012 in Excerpts, Science/Tech, Sports | Permalink

We don’t know precisely what the future will look like, but we know that it will look different. Often we think we’ve reached our limits, though we don’t truly know where our limits lie. If we’re lucky, the future will lap us and laugh at us. We should welcome that. From a post by Stuart Armstrong at Practical Ethics:

“In 1920, Jackson Scholz set the men’s 100m world record at 10.6 seconds. The 100m race is one where progress is very hard; we’re getting towards the limit of human possibility. It’s very tricky to squeeze out another second or fraction of a second. Still, in 2009, Usain Bolt set the men’s 100m world record at 9.58 seconds.

Apart from the Bolt, who else today can run faster than Jackson Scholz? Well, the fastest 16 year old ran the 100m in 10.27 second. The visually impaired world record is 10.46seconds. The woman’s world record is 10.49 seconds.

The point of this extended metaphor is that we are focused on the differences we see today: between teenagers and adults, between men and women, between the able-bodied and those not. But the difference that swamps all of these is the difference between the present and the past.”

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“So I Decided To Try A Sensory-Isolation Experiment”

September 4, 2012 in Excerpts, Science/Tech, Urban Studies, Videos | Permalink

John C. Lilly explaining his 1954 invention, the isolation tank, in a 1983 Omni interview:

“Omni:

Tell me the circumstances that led you to invent the first isolation tank.

John C. Lilly:

There was a problem in neurophysiology at the time: Is brain activity self-contained or not? One school of thought said the brain needed external stimulation or it would go to sleep–become unconscious–while the other school said, ‘No, there are automatic oscillators in the brain that keep it awake.’ So I decided to try a sensory-isolation experiment, building a tank to reduce external stimuli–auditory, visual, tactile, temperature–almost to nil. The tank is lightproof and soundproof. The water in the tank is kept at ninety-three to ninety-four degrees. So you can’t tell where the water ends and your body begins, and it’s neither hot nor cold. If the water were exactly body temperature, it couldn’t absorb your body’s heat loss, your body temperature would rise above one hundred six degrees, and you might die.

I discovered that the oscillator school of thought was right, that the brain does not go unconscious in the absence of sensory input. I’d sleep in the tank if I hadn’t had any sleep for a couple of nights, but more interesting things happen if you’re awake. You can have waking dreams, study your dreams, and, with the help of LSD-25 or a chemical agent I call vitamin K, you can experience alternate realities. You’re safe in the tank because you’re not walking around and falling down, or mutating your perception of external ‘reality.'”

••••••••••

“The tank was unusual in that it was vertical and looked like an old boiler”:

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“Imagine Personal Flight As Intuitive As Riding A Bike”

September 4, 2012 in Science/Tech, Urban Studies, Videos | Permalink

Aerofex in California is in the test phase of a new hovercraft vehicle. From the site copy: “Imagine personal flight as intuitive as riding a bike. Or transporting a small fleet of first-responder craft in the belly of a passenger transport. Think of the advantages of patrolling borders without first constructing roads. In pursuit of this vision, Aerofex is flying a proof-of-concept craft developed as a test-bed of manned and unmanned technologies.”

Old Print Article: “A Hideous Sect,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle (1890)

September 4, 2012 in Old Print Articles, Urban Studies | Permalink

“Gradually he widened his teachings to his little band until he openly advocated the drinking of blood for all diseases.”

A 19th-century American religious cult became convinced that drinking human blood was the way to cure all ills, as evidenced by this article in the January 27, 1890 Brooklyn Daily Eagle:

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Recently Posted On NYC’s Craigslist

September 4, 2012 in Misc., Urban Studies | Permalink

“The item is an answering machine, with the voice of the dead on it.”

Own the RAREST paranormal item (New York)

I offer a item so rare AND GENUINE that I felt New York was the best location to offer it at. I reside in Las Vegas, as does the item. The item is an answering machine, with the voice of the dead on it. This is no joke…it is real. My name is Kurt Mayne, and the entire story of this item (as well as some of my strange life) can be found by a you tube search of my name. The featurete is called Beyond The Strip. My financial woes put me in this position of offering something I swore I would never part with. Make me a offer I truly can not refuse. It MUST be a very serious offer…this is for the dicerning collector of the paranormal, or the macabre. STARTING BID..$5,000.

“I Often Have To Cut Into The Brain And It Is Something I Hate Doing”

September 4, 2012 in Excerpts, Science/Tech | Permalink

The opening paragraph of neurosurgeon Henry Marsh’s excellent Granta essay about what goes on in his brain as he is slicing open someone else’s:

“I often have to cut into the brain and it is something I hate doing. With a pair of short-wave diathermy forceps I coagulate a few millimetres of the brain’s surface, turning the living, glittering pia arachnoid – the transparent membrane that covers the brain – along with its minute and elegant blood vessels, into an ugly scab. With a pair of microscopic scissors I then cut the blood vessels and dig downwards with a fine sucker. I look down the operating microscope, feeling my way through the soft white substance of the brain, trying to find the tumour. The idea that I am cutting and pushing through thought itself, that memories, dreams and reflections should have the consistency of soft white jelly, is simply too strange to understand and all I can see in front of me is matter. Nevertheless, I know that if I stray into the wrong area, into what neurosurgeons call eloquent brain, I will be faced with a damaged and disabled patient afterwards. The brain does not come with helpful labels saying ‘Cut here’ or ‘Don’t cut there’. Eloquent brain looks no different from any other area of the brain, so when I go round to the Recovery Ward after the operation to see what I have achieved, I am always anxious.” (Thanks Browser.)

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“He Has Become The Master Of Keeping Audiences On The Edge Of Their Seats”

September 4, 2012 in Film, Videos | Permalink

Mike Douglas and Alfred Hitchcock in conversation for 14 minutes in 1969. That’s Joan Rivers whom Hitchcock zings at the opening.

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“Human Speciation Will Happen At An Explosive Pace And Our One Species Will Become Many”

September 4, 2012 in Excerpts, Science/Tech | Permalink

Perhaps I’m a pessimist but based on information in “The Coming Age of Wonders,” Rudy Rucker’s 1997 Washington Post review of a Freeman Dyson book, I’m predicting a war in the year 3000 between the people of Saturn and those of Jupiter. An excerpt from Rucker’s piece:

“Going further into the future, Dyson says that sometime around the year 3000, our descendants will have dispersed over the whole solar system. Due to the vast size of this space, our population could become many millions of times as large. ‘No central authority will be able to regulate their activities or even be aware of their existence. The process of speciation, the division of our species into many varieties with genetic endowment drifting gradually further apart, will then be under way.’ Thanks to genetic engineering, human speciation will happen at an explosive pace and ‘our one species will become many.’

As well as there being many more people, the quality of human experience may change. ‘Some of our descendants will be eager to explore the delights of collective memory and collective consciousness, made possible by . . . radiotelepathy. The experience . . . will enormously enlarge art, science, religion and history. . . . Those who have experienced the merging of memory and consciousness into a larger mind may find it difficult to communicate with those who still rely on spoken or written words. Those who have been part of an immortal group-mind may find it difficult to communicate with ordinary mortals.'”

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“Still, We Can Let Them Back In To Visit Family And Friends A Few Days A Year”

September 3, 2012 in Excerpts, Politics, Urban Studies | Permalink

Here’s a (mostly) tongue-in-cheek thought experiment from the Philosopher’s Beard aimed at solving the problem of wealth inequality in America. It’s ridiculous but is written with that blog’s customary dark wit and works like a piece of speculative fiction:

“Hence my modest proposal. We should first identify with some precision the category of what it seems reasonable to call rich i.e. those people whose capabilities for independence from and command over the rest of us crosses the threshold between enviable affluence and aristocratic privilege. That definition should be ‘absolutely relative’ rather than merely relative (e.g. we can’t just use the richest 1%, because there will always be a richest 1%). A good way to go might be to use some multiple of the median citizen’s wealth as a proxy for the distance from and power over ordinary citizens that defines problematic wealth. What that multiple should be is a matter for social scientists to investigate and democracies to debate, but, for the purposes of this discussion, let me suggest 30.

Exact numbers are tricky here because measuring wealth is highly subject to accounting definitions and methods. Another issue is that wealth defined in terms of net financial value of one’s assets depends on market conditions. For example, the assets of the middle-class are primarily their house and pensions, which have both been hit hard by the economic crisis; while the assets of the rich are primarily financial products, and thus prone to continuous fluctuations. In light of this, it might be best to set bands based on average data, and then revise them every few years to take account of long term trends. But for reference, the median American household’s wealth is presently around $120,000 (having declined 35% over the crisis), suggesting a cut-off of $3.5 million. (For context, $5.5 million is the present entry point to America’s richest 0.1%.) On the other side of the Atlantic, the slightly less unequal UK apparently has a median wealth of £200,000, suggesting a rather more generous wealth allowance of £6 million.

Then, when anyone in our society lands in the category of the problematic rich we should say, as at the end of a cheesy TV gameshow, ‘Congratulations, you won the economy game! Well done.’ And then we should offer them a choice: give it up (hold a potlatch, give it to Oxfam, their favourite art musuem foundation, or whatever) or cash out their winnings and depart our society forever, leaving their citizenship at the door on their way out. Since the rich are, um, rich, they have all the means they need to make a new life for themselves elsewhere, and perhaps even inveigle their way into citizenship in a country that is less picky than we are. So I’m sure they’ll do just fine. Still, we can let them back in to visit family and friends a few days a year – there’s no need to be vindictive.”

“The Solution Is To Take The Best Of Yourself And Put It In A Robot”

September 3, 2012 in Science/Tech, Urban Studies, Videos | Permalink

Artist-scientist Patrick Tresset considers (very deeply) the meaning of robotics.

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“It’s The Year 2020 And Newlyweds Tom And Sara Are Expecting Their First Child”

September 3, 2012 in Excerpts, Science/Tech, Urban Studies, Videos | Permalink

At IEEE Spectrum, Dan Siewiorek of Carnegie Mellon imagines the future of smartphones. Timelines are notoriously difficult to predict, but he suggests nothing outlandish. The opening:

“It’s the year 2020 and newlyweds Tom and Sara are expecting their first child. Along with selecting the latest high-tech stroller, picking out a crib, and decorating the nursery, they download the ‘NewBorn’ application suite to their universal communicator; they’re using what we’ll call a SmartPhone 20.0. Before the due date, they take the phone on a tour of the house, letting the phone’s sensors and machine-learning algorithms create light and sound ‘fingerprints’ for each room.

When they settle Tom Jr. down for his first nap at home, they place the SmartPhone 20.0 in his crib. Understanding that the crib is where the baby sleeps, the SmartPhone activates its sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) application and uses its built-in microphone, accelerometers, and other sensors to monitor little Tommy’s heartbeat and respiration. The “Baby Position” app analyzes the live video stream to ensure that Tommy does not flip over onto his stomach—a position that the medical journals still report contributes to SIDS. Of course, best practices in child rearing seem to change quickly, but Tom and Sara aren’t too worried about that because the NewBorn application suite updates itself with the latest medical findings. To lull Tommy to sleep, the SmartPhone 20.0 plays music, testing out a variety of selections and learning by observation which music is most soothing for this particular infant.

As a toddler, Tommy is very observant and has learned the combination on the gate to the swimming pool area. One day, while his parents have their backs turned, he starts working the lock. His SmartPhone ‘Guardian’ app recognizes what he is doing, sounds an alarm, disables the lock, and plays a video demonstrating what could happen if Tommy fell into the pool with no one else around. Not happy at being thwarted, Tommy throws a tantrum, and the Guardian app, noting his parents’ arrival, briefs them on the situation and suggests a time-out.” (Thanks Browser.)

••••••••••

When function reached its limit, Bell Labs focused on modernizing form. The landline, nearing its last gasp, 1977:

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A Brief Note From 1896 About Free Love

September 3, 2012 in Old Print Articles, Urban Studies | Permalink

From the December 19, 1896 Brooklyn Daily Eagle:

“Some crazes are social in nature, but social laws are so fixed by custom that these usually only have a local run. When I was a lad in New York City, setting type, I fell in with a smart newspaperman who had set up a free love institution on the co-operative plan. A number of married couples went to live in the establishment, and they all traded wives and husbands. The notable fact about the affair was its outcome. After the trading had gone on for a year or two nearly all the original couples returned to their old relationships and became heartily ashamed of their departure from the orthodox marriage state.”

“Artificial Limbs Have Already Entered The Microelectronic Age”

September 3, 2012 in Science/Tech, Videos | Permalink

I can’t embed, but go here to see a short clip from “The Real Bionic Man,” a 1979 BBC show about the emergence of a new wave of “smart” prosthetics.

“Pretty Much Anyone Who Wishes To Compete…Takes Something To At Least Dull The Pain”

September 3, 2012 in Excerpts, Science/Tech, Sports, Urban Studies | Permalink

There’s a good chance that you’re favorite baseball legend from an earlier, “cleaner” era used some sort of performance-enhancing drug, whatever was available at the time. From an interview at the Classical that Pete Beatty did with Villanova professor and baseball historian Mitchell Nathanson:

“The Classical: 

In your book, you talk about presenting ‘counter-stories’ to the anodyne, mostly cheerful history of baseball that MLB espouses—for every Black Sox scandal that teaches a canned moral, there’s a Hal Chase; for every PED bust, there are steroid-era records that will never be asterisked or erased. What do you think some of the counter-stories of the future might be for baseball, or some of the issues that will shape how we see the future history of the game?

Mitchell Nathanson: 

I think we’re in the midst of one right now: the Melky Cabrera ‘tainted’ batting title story. As it becomes more and more likely that he’ll win the NL batting title, there’s going to be an ever-increasing push to strip it from him by whatever means necessary in order to protect the ‘integrity of the game.’ Of course, this assumes that that PED story is a black-and-white one—involving ‘good guys’ like Andrew McCutchen and ‘bad guys’ like Melky Cabrera. The truth is that everyone and everything is shrouded in gray. I don’t know what McCutchen (or Derek Jeter for that matter) takes to enable him to hit consistently well over the course of a grueling season but I’m willing to wager that it’s more than milk and spinach. Those days are over (in fact, they never existed). The only difference between the so-called good guys and the bad ones is that the supplements taken by the alleged bad guys have been banned whereas the ones taken by the alleged good guys haven’t been—yet. Don’t forget that that bottle of Andro spotted in Mark McGwire’s locker in 1998 was purchased legally as a widely available ‘over the counter’ nutritional supplement. The truth is that pretty much anyone who wishes to compete—at the professional or even the amateur level—takes something to at least dull the pain enough to enable them to make it through nine innings or eighteen holes. Supplements are a growing fact of modern life and the lines between what is acceptable and what isn’t are blurred and only becoming blurrier by the day. This holds true, by the way, for the people who write, often sanctimoniously, about the game as well. I’m pretty sure that more than a few of the scribes calling on Bud Selig to do something, anything, to purge Cabrera’s name from the record book are meeting their daily late night deadlines with the help of a Five Hour Energy drink or something like it.”

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