Springfield, Massachusetts

I had never been there before last weekend, when I went up to visit my girlfriend, who is currently stationed there (temporarily) for her job.  It’s about 2.5-3 hours northeast of NYC.  I had lots of extra time to buzz around its museums, a park (Forest Park), and the Springfield Armory. 

 Basics.  It’s about 5 miles north of the border with Connecticut, on the Connecticut River, up on I-91 which branches north from 95 at New Haven.  Springfield is the 3^rd largest city in Massachusetts, after Boston and Worcester.  The town dates back to the 17^th century, essentially founded by William Pynchon.  Its peak was the early 20^th century, so it has a phenomenal array of houses and architecture from that time.  Although it has long past its peak, it is still very nice looking, not run down at all (or not much).

 Simpsons.  No, it is not the inspiration for their town, beyond the name itself.  Groening picked the name because it was so common across the country, but did not base the town on any specific US city.  In fact, I could see nothing in this town which would show up in a Simpsons context, aside from very oblique Dr. Seuss connections.

Springfield, Virginia.  Until recently, this was the only Springfield I had any familiarity with.  Ours is purely suburban, located right outside the Beltway south of Alexandria.  It boasts a large mall with the name but no urban area which could be identified.  No one would confuse it with the Massachusetts version, which is very much a true city.

 Inventions.  Friendly’s Ice Cream Parlors, Indian Motorcycles, S&W weapons, and Duryea automobiles.  The museums claimed that practically everything was invented in Springfield – maybe they need the Museum of Wheels and Fire – the only things NOT invented there. 

 Basketball.  Yes, basketball was invented here.  The Hall of Fame is here.  I didn’t go, as I’m not really into basketball.

 Dr. Seuss.  He was from here and put lots of Springfield things into his stories, though I didn’t recognize any of it until these people brought it my attention.  They have a sculpture garden dedicated to him.

 Armory.  Started by George Washington and closed in 1968 by McNamara.  It’s no longer functional as an armory; most of the buildings are now a technical college, with the main building serving as the museum.

 Forest Park.  Designed by Frederick Law Olmstead, the landscape architect of Central Park in NYC.  It has the usual sports fields, a pool, some nice looking aquatic gardens, and the bizarre Barney Mausoleum.

 Overall I’d say it’s a nice place to live and visit, remarkably attractive and well-maintained despite being decades past its peak, but I can’t identify anything so compelling or interesting to incline anyone from further away than Worcester or Hartford to visit.

Supersize Me

Recently I watched “Super High Me”, Doug Benson’s marijuana version of Morgan Spurlock’s documentary on McDonalds and fast food.  Naturally, I followed it up with Spurlock’s original, “Supersize Me”. 

 Basic premise:  Spurlock spent 30 days eating nothing but McDonald’s, for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.  Periodically he went to doctors and had himself weighed and tested.  He gained 20-30 lbs and his health went down dramatically; by one analysis, his liver took as much damage as a heavy drinker’s.  His wife complained that his energy and sexual performance were noticeably worse.  All the doctors advised him to stop eating fast food immediately.  He did enjoy the food, but not its impact on him.

 In addition to his own experiences, he talks about the huge pervasiveness of McDonald’s, the vast advertising campaigns of that company and all the others selling similar foods – compared to the miniscule advertising budgets for more healthy foods -  and the degree to which obesity is a problem in the country, and argued a direct correlation between that and the fast food industry.  This even included a discussion of the (unsuccessful) lawsuit against McDonald’s for causing obesity.

 But his methodology was completely bogus.  According to Spurlock, McDonald’s research classifies its “super heavy consumers” as visiting the restaurant 5-7 times a week, which is the most hardcore 22% of its customer base.  Assuming 3 meals a day, seven days a week, that’s 7 out of 21 meals, or 33%.  By its own calculations, McDonalds believes its most faithful customers are getting no more than a third of their food from the chain.  But Spurlock restricted himself exclusively to McDonalds – he ate breakfast, lunch and dinner there 7 days a week for 30 days, with absolutely no other source of food.  This is 21 visits a week, or 3 times the frequency of even the “super heavy consumers”.  No wonder he had health issues.

 You could do the same with wine or pizza.  Imagine that for 30 days, your only source of liquid was wine.  You’d be drunk most of the time, possibly get DUIs, get fired from your job, and do serious damage to your liver.  Or if your sole source of food was pizza, you’d expect to get scurvy at the least, as pizza has no vitamin C.  Neither of which shows that wine or pizza can’t be part of a nutritious diet – if neither is the SOLE element of your diet.  Come to think of it, there’s probably not ONE food which is so healthy, that you could live on that food alone to the exclusion of all others.  Whether it be fruits, vegetables, meats, fish, carbohydrates, or whatever, you’d be missing something and suffering accordingly.  So what did Spurlock’s experiment prove?  Actually, absolutely nothing.  He endangered his life and health, and yet didn’t prove anything.

 What does McDonald’s do?  From the very beginning, they have been, and are, a “burger joint”.  A burger is one particular type of food consumed at certain times by certain people.  Mr. Big Mac guy – apparently a big John Lennon fan – seems to be exception that proves the rule.  I’m not aware that McDonald’s has ever marketed itself as a healthy source of 100% of our nutritional needs – as opposed to a burger place you can hop off to for a burger every now and then.   A large supermarket, on the other hand, could make that claim.  Whether it be fruits, vegetables, meats, poultry, fish, breads, juices, milk, etc. theoretically such an establishment carries a varied enough selection to allow someone to build a healthy diet eating and drinking exclusively what that store carries.  McDonald’s has made no such claims, nor would I expect it to – nor should Spurlock expect to, or claim to.  This is the logical fallacy known as the “straw man attack”, where you knock down an obviously spurious claim which you attribute to your opponent in order to discredit him. 

 To add to the dishonesty of this, of course Spurlock uses the Michael Moore technique of “attempting” (without success) to contact the corporate spokesdroid, who of course refuses to return his phone calls.  Why should they?  This documentary had one sole purpose:  to crucify McDonald’s.  This was not a good faith analysis of the benefits, merits, and risks of the chain.  Spurlock was out to discredit and embarrass the company.  Any participation by a McDonald’s press agent would have been totally under Spurlock’s control to warp, twist, take out of context, or – and this is McDonald’s best case scenario if its spokesdroid said 100% the right things, none of which could be twisted out of context and used against them – simply ignored.    So why help Spurlock make its case?  Why give “the sanction of the victim”?  Why give him credibility?  And since this documentary was clearly biased against McDonald’s, why count it against them that they refused to show up at their own lynching?   Far from “hiding anything” this merely shows that someone at McDonald’s understands how to handle punks like this clown.

 Both Spurlock and Schlosser (in Fast Food Nation) put heavy emphasis on McDonald’s heavy marketing towards children.  Ronald McDonald, Grimace, Hamburglar, Mayor McCheese, etc., the Happy Meals with the free toys inside, the playgrounds, etc. all clearly appeal to, and are marketed at, children.  The idea is that children will bug their parents to go to McDonald’s, and the parents will be powerless to tell their children “NO”, or even “not today”.  But so what?  Whether for adults, or children, McDonald’s has never advocated or claim that its food be the sole source of nutrition for anyone.  This argument on Spurlock’s part puts too much emphasis on the children and not enough credit to parents for any discipline or self-control.  What we’re left with is yet another “the children!” (insincere weeping and wailing) irrational plea, instead of a truly coherent argument. 

 Plus, Spurlock was vague about how much McDonald’s he had been consuming before the experiment began, making his “control” questionable at best.  Since no one relies exclusively on McDonald’s for food, a more appropriate and meaningful experiment would have been to eat there ONE meal a day, for 30 days.  This would approximate the diet of the super heavy McDonalds’ customers.  Note “heavy” is my word, referring to the frequency, not necessarily the obesity, of the customers.

 Finally, and this is what differentiates fast food from tobacco, is that nowhere is it proven that fast food is addictive.  Does it taste good?  Definitely.  As Eric Schlosser notes, the food is scientifically designed, after extensive research, to taste good.  Why would we eat it if it didn’t taste good?  One of the Judge Dredd cartoons, back in the 2000 AD magazine, concerned “Umpty Candy”, a candy which was addictive solely due to its flavor and not any chemical dependency.  Perhaps an extreme, fictional example.

 As for fast food “causing” obesity, Spurlock played fast and loose.  A survey of nutritionists revealed that the vast majority believed that fast food played some role in America’s obesity problem. But what I didn’t hear was anyone – at least not a professional - saying fast food “caused” obesity; the obvious exceptions were the advocates and attorneys with vested pecuniary interests in making those arguments, and Spurlock himself.  There is a subtle distinction between saying A is a “factor” in causing B, and saying that A caused B.  This is the “necessary vs. sufficient” fallacy.  It is “necessary” that my car has gas in the tank to run.  But that doesn’t mean that having a full tank of gas will allow my car to run, is “sufficient”, if something else is wrong. 

 Let’s face it: there are a lot of overweight people in the US.  But it’s unreasonable to assume that 100% of them have simply flat out refused to go on any sort of diet or give up fast food when told to do so by their doctor or weight loss specialist.   Logic suggests that an appreciable percentage of them – maybe not a majority, certainly, but more than a nominal minority – have gone on diets and abstained from fast food.  Yet they are still overweight.  So while fast food probably has some role in promoting obesity, it cannot be the only factor.  And if it’s not the only factor, it can’t be said to “cause” obesity.

 So what we’re left with is:  McDonald’s food is delicious, but can be toxic if that’s ALL you eat.  You could say that about many things.  Does that mean we should ban them all?  Taken to its extreme, the arguments made by Spurlock and Schlosser would dictate that fast food, as a whole, should be banned, and that some central bureaucracy should dictate our diets to consist solely of bland, healthy foods with no concern about whether it tastes good or not.  Spurlock specifically did not advocate anything along the lines of “please exercise restraint in eating this food.  Once in awhile is OK, but not every day.”  His message was:  DON’T EAT THIS CRAP. 

 I used to eat fast food all the time.  I ate it without any concern about specifically limiting my diet or frequency.  Every Lent I’d typically remove fast food from my diet – which works out to be 6 weeks.  Starting in 1995, I changed my focus, and have it since then.  In general I keep my consumption of McDonald’s, or any other type of “fast food” down to about once or twice a week.   Roy Rogers, Chipotle, Firehouse and Wendy’s are my preferences these days anyway.  But ultimately it’s a matter of deciding, “NO, I am NOT going to eat at McDonald’s.”  As parents, it’s telling your children, “NO, we are not going to eat at McDonalds.”  I wouldn’t argue for a complete boycott, more like an intelligent rationing: we will go once a week, once a month, whatever is most appropriate, based on individual choice.  Last I checked, it’s a free country.

Baseball, Basketball, Hockey, and Other Sports

A few months ago my brother took me to the Nationals game at Nationals Park, my first baseball game ever.  Although the Nationals performed poorly against the Phillies – and the crowd was 50% Phillies fans – I still enjoyed the experience.  Maybe not enough to get season tickets, but if the opportunity arises again, I’d be inclined to take it.  I’ve driven past Camden Yards in Baltimore dozens of times without ever attending an Orioles game.  I suppose I’m long overdue.  But this gives me the opportunity to comment on sports other than the two I actually follow:  NFL and professional soccer.

 Baseball.  It’s funny, I understand most of baseball.  Balls, strikes, walks, outs, fly balls, innings, home runs, grand slams, etc.   I even understand about rotating pitchers whose arms wear out and drift further and further from strikeouts, much less no-hitters.  One of my favorite Intellivision games was the MLB game.

            What I really don’t buy into is this “America’s past-time”, “take me out to the ball game”, nostalgic reverence for baseball and adoration for Babe Ruth, Honus Wagner, Hank Aaron, Mickey Mantle, Lou Gehrig, Joe DiMaggio, etc., the classic ballparks, and really can’t stand “The Natural”, “Bull Durham”, “Major League”, “The Rookie” and all those teary-eyed baseball movies – much less sharing George Will’s bizarre, academic, abstract appreciation for the game.  I zone out about National League vs. American League, and don’t follow the games.  I don’t even watch during the World Series.  But if I’m forced to watch a game, I can follow it and enjoy it.  I played baseball and softball in school much younger, and I tended to enjoy it – with the exception of being stuck out in the outfield by a coach who didn’t like me.  I was OK – I could hit the ball and catch it fairly well, not spectacularly but not useless either; “adequate” probably best describes my aptitude at baseball.  Aside from that, I’m fairly neutral (definitely not hostile) towards baseball.  I suppose I’m an Orioles fan, but very lukewarm at best.

 Basketball.  Like soccer, basketball can rapidly change from offense to defense, but the scores are much higher – never a 0-0 tie! – and the action is far more intense.  But for some reason I can’t really get into it.  Here’s another sport where I understand the basics but zone out on the subtleties.  I don’t watch the Finals.  I don’t even have a favorite team.  As for ability, I’m in the lower percentiles in amateur games, just one step up from totally useless.  (If I had to pick the sport I play best at, it would be soccer.)

Hockey.  Same with hockey.  I get the idea – skate around on the ice, try to hit the puck into the net past the goalie.  Beyond that I zone out again.  And I don’t have a favorite team.  The fights don’t interest me either.   I have never played ice hockey, but I enjoyed field hockey ages ago at school.

 Lacrosse.  Never played this, even at college.  I really can’t imagine why anyone athletic enough to play lacrosse wouldn’t prefer to play football instead.  I wouldn’t call it a “faggot sport” but it really doesn’t compete well with most any other team sport.

 Golf.  Talk about boring.  I’ve played golf a few times, and really did not like it.  Face it: your best case scenario is to hit the ball into the hole the first time, every time, and then go home. The sole source of enjoyment I get on a golf course is driving the cart around.

            Golf strikes me as a sport designed to (hope) to make you look rich and sophisticated without having a shred of athletic ability or working up a sweat – a game for rich, out-of-shape men to enjoy.  It’s a degree removed from sitting in a fishing boat, drinking beer and waiting for a fish dumb enough to bite your hook.  At least with golf you walk around, swing a club, and walk some more.  I agree it takes skill to golf well, but I still find hitting the ball – whether with a driver, an iron, or a putter – very dull and watching someone else do it, no matter how good they are, is ten times duller.  The sad part this is this: the easier they make it look, the better they are at it, the more boring it looks.

 Bowling.  I went bowling recently, and enjoyed it.  Of course, this time the alley had gutter guards, which prevented 2-3 of the balls in each game from being gutter balls.  I did get a few strikes and spares.  This is a game I’d probably enjoy more if I had some decent lessons and better technique.  Unfortunately, I don’t know how much I’d enjoy throwing 11 strikes (a perfect 300 game), but this is something I probably don’t have to worry about.

 Boxing/MMA.  I don’t care if it’s Rocky, Mike Tyson, Muhammad Ali, or whoever, I find this dull.  Two guys beating each other up.  And MMA tends to degenerate into jiu jitsu all too often, which to my eyes is indistinguishable from wrestling (not the make-believe professional type).  I did enjoy aikido when I was involved with that (1995-99, ending up with a black belt) but watching martial arts or boxing is not particularly interesting.  Some of the movies, e.g. “Enter the Dragon” and Jackie Chan films, or the more recent slew of implausibly but impressively choreographed martial films such as “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” or even “Kung Fu Shuffle” and “Kung Fu Panda” (yes, I know it’s animated) are enjoyable.  I suppose “The Matrix” even qualifies as a martial arts film.

 The Olympics.  I tend to zone out on this: leaving aside sports like soccer or basketball which have non-Olympic equivalents, the main summer Olympic games are track and field, which don’t interest me.  Skiing is OK for winter Olympics, but not exciting to watch – much more fun to actually do in person.

 X-Games.  I watched some of the skateboarding and biking.  They look fun.  Like skiing, this looks like something more fun to do than to watch.   Unfortunately, 42 seems a little old for skateboarding, but I was tempted to join in at Venice Beach were it not for….not having a skateboard.

 Women and sports.   About the only women’s sport I pay any attention to is gymnastics, but “women” there is loosely used, few of these girls are as old as 16.  They do have nice legs.

            As for women actually watching sports:  my experience is that the majority of women do not care for sports, even (or especially) women’s sports.  Those that do, do so for the following reasons:  (1) to hook up with guys, (2) to watch the guys playing the sports, or (3) shock, horror and amazement, they actually DO like the sport.

 Poker.  PLEASE, don’t get me started on this.  This is not a sport.  Why is this on ESPN?  I agree it takes skill to play, a skill I concede I lack.  But this requires no athletic ability.  Big Blue could play it.  Keep it off the “sports” channel.

 Having said all these nasty things about other sports, I will agree 100% that soccer – one of my own favorites – can be excruciatingly dull to watch, especially those terrible games that go on for 0-0 even after overtime and require a penalty shoot-out (which is only required when they absolutely, positively can’t tolerate a tie).  And the brutal action of the NFL is often interrupted by penalties, commercials (scarcely appreciable with the obvious exception of the Super Bowl), and referee review of questionable calls.  Bad games are bad games.  But those are the sports I enjoy watching – and to a lesser extent, when the opportunity arises, playing.

Anarchism

I’ve commented at length on communists, socialists, and fascists.  I’ve even mentioned Libertarians from time to time.  Here’s a blog about the Libertarians’ fellow travelers, the anarchists.

 Anarchism is the advocacy of NO government.  Libertarians are not anarchists:  Libertarians advocate a very limited government which only serves to protect individual rights; but the Libertarian ideal of government is so limited, that relative to everyone else – Democrats, Republicans, communists, and fascists - they might as well be considered anarchists.  They certainly resent the association.  For many years, anarchists have been portrayed as crazy, bomb-throwing fanatics, an image the Libertarians take pains to reject on their own behalf.

 Anarchists are much more frequently associated with socialists and communists.  The communist ideal of a stateless, classless society, “from each according to his ability, to each according to his need” is basically anarchism.  However, the anarchists demand this occur immediately, while the socialists and communists insist that socialism is necessary as an intermediary step between capitalism and communism, and “socialism” tends to mean “dictatorship of the proletariat”.  Naturally, the socialists/communists themselves propose to be the ones running this dictatorship on behalf the working class.  So the real dichotomy winds up as:  anarchists as wild, crazy, dangerous, uncontrollable and unpredictable idealists, and socialists as cynical, opportunistic, manipulative, deceitful tyrants.  The anarchists accuse the socialist of wanting power its own sake, while the socialists accuse the anarchists of being little better than bandits wrapping a black flag of politics around what would otherwise be simply lawless chaos.

 Anarchists are still around, though in larger numbers and more active in Europe than the US.  Their peak was in the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries.  The primary sources of early anarchist philosophy are William Godwin, Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, and Mikhail Bakunin.   At the First International, in 1868, the anarchists (led by Bakunin) broke off from Marxists, led by Marx himself.   From that point, anarchists became very tied in with labor unions, often referred to as “anarcho-syndicalists”, e.g. the CNT in Spain.  Even among themselves, the anarchists debated whether to work within the system (i.e. among labor unions) or to throw bombs and blow things up and kill people, aka “propaganda of the deed”.  Due to the high profile acts of the latter group, anarchists held a role in contemporary society analogous to modern-day Islamic terrorists. 

 Haymarket Affair. On May 3, 1886, when strikebreakers attempted to cross a picket line in Haymarket Square in Chicago, a bomb was thrown, killing a police officer.  A riot broke out, in which several policemen and workers were killed.   Eight anarchists were charged with the murder; of these, 4 were executed and one committed suicide prior to his execution.  The next year, a rally was held to commemorate these fallen comrades, and the annual version of this became what we now know as May Day.

 On October 1, 1910, unionists blew up the Los Angeles Times building in L.A., in an effort to promote their campaign to unionize L.A. and oppose big business’ similar campaign (which included goons and strikebreakers) against them.  And on September 16, 1920, another bomb – 100 lbs of dynamite in a horse drawn wagon, its driver long gone - blew up on Wall Street in downtown Manhattan; although the perpetrators were never caught, they are widely believed to have been anarchists. 

 Sacco and Vanzetti.  In 1927, Italian anarchists Ferdinando Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti were executed for their roles in a bank robbery in 1920 in Braintree, Massachusetts.  The widely held consensus is that the evidence against them was scant (though by no means non-existent) and they were essentially convicted not because of their guilt but because they were undeniably anarchists; to use my Casey Anthony analysis, the jury bridged from “preponderance of the evidence” (evidence the prosecution could actually muster – indicating the defendants probably did commit the crime) to “beyond a reasonable doubt” (the standard the prosecution was obligated to meet, but fell short of) using the defendants’ political views.  As a result, they became martyrs to the anarchist cause.

 The three largest roles and impacts of the anarchists were (1) McKinley’s Assassination, (2) the Russian Civil War, and (3) the Spanish Civil War.  On September 6, 1901, at the Pan-American Exhibition in Buffalo, NY, Leon Czolgosz shot US President William McKinley twice at point blank range in the abdomen.  McKinley died on the 14^th.  Czolgosz was undeniably an anarchist and acted extremely difficult at his trial.  

 In fact, the modern day equivalent is Ted Kaszynski, the Unabomber – like the early anarchists, he pursued a lone wolf campaign of bombings targeted at authority figures based on political theories scarcely distinguishable from anarchism; the main difference is that his opponent seemed to be technology itself.  Although not cited as a source of his philosophy, Philip K. Dick’s writings share similar parallels of technology as being inherently oppressive; freedom and technology are often described as being mutually antagonistic.

 Russian Civil War.  During the civil war, entire armies of anarchist (“black”) armies erupted, of which Nestor Makhno was the most famous leader.  The anarchists acted as a wildcard to be used by the Reds to knock out their White opponents, and the Reds then turned on the blacks.  Makhno fled to Paris; the anarchists disintegrated as a coherent military force, which was scarcely more than bandits at many times.

 Spanish Civil War.  Likewise, during the Spanish Civil War, the anarchists – strongest up near Barcelona – opposed any attempts at control and coordination and could not fit into the Republican/Loyalist strategies to defeat Franco.  Here is a movement which opposes all forms of institutionalized authority as oppression, and rejects any form of discipline, even for expedience and military necessity, on principle.  The Bolsheviks’ own experiment in “non-discipline” early in the Russian Civil War was immediately and obviously disastrous, and Trotsky quickly re-instituted ranks and hierarchy into the Red Army.  No such reorganization occurred in Spain. 

 The CNT, formed in Spain in 1910 and survived through the Franco era, survived to the present day, and remains the strongest and well-known anarchist trade union in the world.  The IWW, originating in the US in 1905, remains active today, although far weaker over the years than the competing communist and socialist parties.

 After the turmoil of WWII, the anarchists resumed activities in the 1960s with the spread of radical left wing views.  Groups such as the Weathermen espoused violence and bomb-making, not merely emulating the methods of the “propaganda by deed” faction of the early anarchist movement, but ideologically almost identical to it as well. 

 During the 1970s, the punk rock movement was vocal in its political support for anarchism, but so much of their noise seemed to be more a nihilistic rebellion against society in general than a principled adherence to anarchism as a coherent political theory, to the extent it is that.  But it’s hard to mistake the political message intended by the name and logo of Black Flag.

 More recently, the World Bank and IMF protests have been the most prominent displays of radical anarchist militancy.  As noted earlier however, as militant and aggressive as the anarchists appear to be, as a hardcore nucleus of the most radical opponents of capitalism, they still remain a very small minority – too small to have any discernable impact upon the system as a whole.  However, their opposite numbers in the trade union movement continue to fight a parallel, though completely independent and uncoordinated, campaign to champion workers’ rights against what they believe is capitalist oppression.  It would be nice to believe that Michael Moore is an anarchist, but the Libertarians do a better job of convincing me of their quasi-anarchist views than Moore does – consistently, he comes across as a closet Bolshevik.  Note that his 18 wheeler across America was painted red with a hammer and sickle, not black with a circled A. 

 Literature:  There are 3 books I’d recommend with regard to anarchy, quite apart from any of the actual political writings on the subjects – none of which I’ve actually read.

 The World That Never Was: A True Story of Dreamers, Schemers, Anarchists & Secret Agents, by Alex Butterworth.  Non-fiction.  Astonishingly good tale of the anarchist movement in the late 19^th century, practically a story, a novel, it’s all so hard to put down.  Of course, the socialists of the time are players (Marx and Engels) but there is a wide variety of intriguing characters.  The book starts out with the Franco-Prussian War and the Paris Commune, taking views of each which gave me plenty of info I did not already know despite having studied both topics at length.  The story leads up to the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia in 1917 and ends very soon after.

 These two are fiction, but they’re set amidst the anarchist movement of that time and are contemporary stories:

 The Man Who Was Thursday, by G.K. Chesterton.  A highly amusing and entertaining book written in, and set in, turn of the century London.  An undercover police agent, Gabriel Syme, infiltrates a secret cabal of anarchists, and things get very weird very quickly; we won’t learn what’s really going on until the very end, but the ride is still more than enjoyable enough to make it all worthwhile.  GKC is an author I’d vaguely been aware of for some time but had never actually read. 

 The Secret Agent, by Joseph Conrad.  Considerably more dense and verbose than Chesterton’s work, which is much more light-hearted and flippant, for reasons which become evident by the end of the book.  In this case, the story revolves around the abortive bombing attempt on the Greenwich Observatory in London.  It seems the anarchist who was taking the bomb to blow up the Observatory, blew up himself when the bomb went off prematurely.  There are cops investigating “the usual suspects”, and foreign powers plotting to provoke extravagant terrorism to goad the complacent Brits into more repressive measures, hopefully to reign in the Continental anarchists who find an easy and convenient refuge in London from where they can plot further attempts on the Continent.  A French anarchist Louise Michel (veteran of the Paris Commune and briefly exiled to New Caledonia) joked that the anarchists were amused by the police agent provocateurs within their ranks, because the PAP’s always suggested the most ambitious and imaginative plots.  In this story, the foreign secret service agent operating in his own embassy complains that the London anarchist cell basically talks up a storm but does nothing, which brings to mind Reg (John Cleese) and the People’s Front of Judea.  I did enjoy this one, though considerably less than the Chesterton book.

"Modified"

I made some nasty comments in my F&F blog about modifications to imports.  I suppose it might be more appropriate to revisit the issue in general.

As I mentioned earlier, traditionally the cars most likely to be modified were Firebirds, Camaros, Mustangs, etc., but people have been modifying cars since they were invented: the Model T has aftermarket parts listed for it in 1920s Sears and Montgomery Ward catalogs.

 Here are some of the more popular modifications.

 Intake.  The theory is that cars make power by adding fuel to air and igniting it correctly.  Since the fuel added is dependent on the amount of air, and there’s only so much spark you can give it, ultimately the way to maximize power is to maximize air.  The crudest and most obvious way is simply displacement: a larger engine.  Leaving aside complete engine swaps, and assuming you simply want to optimize the performance of the engine already sitting under the hood of your car, here is how you do it.

            Performance intake manifolds and K&N air filters are the most popular modifications.  The former are usually aluminum and the aftermarket manufacturers claim to use CAD/CAM designing to ensure better airflow and better performance.   So they claim.  There are several catches to this.

            First, the intake system is only as efficient as its least restrictive element.  Opening up a part which was not the bottleneck in the first place will have no effect.

            Second, depending on the compression ratio and cylinder heads, the engine can only ingest a limited quantity of air.  Opening the intake larger than that not only won’t help, but if it decreases the velocity of the incoming air, will actually hurt performance.  This is why K&N filters, despite their claims of higher air flow than the stock air filter, usually don’t deliver noticeable performance gains because the engine doesn’t need any more air than the stock filter can deliver.

            Having said that, I do have a TPIS Big Mouth lower intake and SLP runners, plus an SLP throttle body with an airfoil.  I can’t say I’ve noticed a huge difference with the Big Mouth (which is Edelbrock’s model ported out a bit more); the main benefit is theoretically increased top end.  The OEM TPI baseplate was designed for a 305, and I have a 350.  Whether that makes a difference at streetable RPMs is something I’ve yet to hear explained.

 Camshaft.  Rodders love to replace the camshaft, which is what controls how the valves open and close – how far open (lift) and for how long (duration).  A hot cam gives the car a nasty, lopey idle – close to what we think of when we hear a Harley engine - but kills the low-end torque.  I haven’t replaced my cam yet, though I have the new cam in my possession (Crane with 214/220 @ 050” duration).  A bad cam will make the car fail emissions and make it unpleasant to drive on the street, a high price to pay for a lopey idle.

 Carburetor/chip.  Older cars can sometimes see a benefit with a carb change, mainly 2 barrel models upgraded to 4 barrels with the appropriate intake manifold.  Notice that NASCAR still uses ONE carburetor, so a dual quad on a street car may well be overkill; best to use a reasonably sized and properly tuned 4 barrel carburetor (Rochester Quadrajet, Holley, Carter AFB/Edelbrock).   Late model EFI cars can benefit from a performance chip; these remap the fuel curve for more power and a more aggressive ignition curve while still keeping emissions compliance.  I replaced the chip on my base Firebird (5.0L TBI) and my Formula has the SLP chip for its 5.7L TPI V8.

            I found out the hard way that TPI systems prefer working injectors and fuel pressure regulator, which you would think would be common sense.  I was thrown off by a speed shop and two dealers claiming my engine was worn out.  Another speed shop correctly diagnosed the fuel system as the real problem, and now that these parts have been replaced – without a new engine – the car passed emissions and accelerates as it hasn’t done in years.

 Cylinder Heads.  Expensive, but since this is the heart of the intake/exhaust system (along with the camshaft) it pays to pay attention here.  I have yet to be able to afford aftermarket heads, or even to have my cast iron heads ported with a 3 angle valve job, but I’d definitely upgrade when the money allowed. 

 Ignition.  Here is one mod that is way overrated.  The aftermarket companies claim huge horsepower gains, when the reality is that even their heavily touted systems really give practically no benefit over the OEM system.  The most that can be said is that a properly set up ignition system – plugs, wires, cap & rotor – are essential, but the difference between a properly set up OEM system vs. an aftermarket system is almost impossible to tell.

 Exhaust.  The flip side of the intake is the exhaust.  This usually means headers and mufflers, with a catalytic converter (cat) in between on any car made from 1975 onward.  By now they’ve developed cats which flow enough not to compromise performance, so there’s really no excuse for removing the cat and losing emissions compliance.  The muffler has no emissions role and simply reduces the sound.  A good muffler can improve performance and give a bad-ass sound, so this is one area where the money is well spent.  The main caveat here is that a muffler that’s too loud will get annoying (particularly for female passengers) and attract unwanted police attention.

 Transmission.  On an automatic, the best mods are shift kits which bump up the shift points and firm up the shifts.  A firmer shift improves the longevity of the transmission, and may even cause the tires to “chirp” on gear changes.  A properly modified A/T can frequently push the car to competitive performance with a similarly-equipped manual transmission car.  Also, a higher stall converter can improve the car’s speed if picked correctly.  Of course, you can replace the transmission itself for an upgrade: swap out your Turbo 350 for a 400, your C4 for a C6, your Torqueflite 904 for a 727, or replace any of these with the modern, electronically controlled, overdrive variants for better fuel economy and reliability with no loss in torque capacity or performance.

            For manual transmission cars, the better mods are better clutches and even full trans upgrades.  Although I’ve always preferred and owned automatic cars, my choice for a manual would be a Richmond Six Speed.  This has a 1:1 fifth gear with the sixth gear being overdrive. 

 Rear Gears.  Stock cars tend to have rear axle ratios in the neighborhood of 2.73-3.55.  Some rare cars have 4.11 or 4.33 gears from the factory.  My own Formula came with 3.23 gears in the back, which I upgraded to 3.73.  A higher numerical gear ratio will improve the low-end acceleration but limit the top end, but since we never drive at 120 mph we’d never notice the latter part of the tradeoff but certainly notice the former part, i.e. the benefit.  Warning:  Richmond gears are VERY noisy – and annoyingly so.  I went with Precision Gears, which were much quieter.  When you replace the rear gears you definitely have to replace the speedometer gears, or the speedometer will be way off, like 10-15 mph.

 Suspension.  The best mods here are upgrading shocks to performance varieties and adding sway bars to cars that didn’t already have them.  Stiffer springs usually don’t help nearly enough to justify the far harsher ride quality they inflict.  A car that handles well is more fun to drive, and suspension mods have no emissions impact.  I even put a rear bar on my Neon – Neons have excellent aftermarket support as they were popular in some SCCA classes – and it did much better.

 Wheels/Tires.  Usually this means larger wheels with lower aspect ratios.  I was lucky that my Formula already had 16x8” wheels fitting a 245/50ZR16 tire.  The OEM Gatorbacks were never that good, and over the years I’ve upgraded to Dunlop SP4000s, Goodyear Eagle F1 GS, and most recently Firestone Firehawk Indy 500s.  The tire selection in this size has shrunk dramatically since I bought my car back in 1995. 

            Do NOT cheap out on tires.  Crappy tires are terrible: the car feels uncontrollable in the rain, a real terror to drive.  Good tires grip the road and keep the car ON the road when it rains.  Pay the money to get the good tires.  It’s worth it.

 Brakes.  No one really cares about this much, and I haven’t upgraded my brakes except to slotted rotors in front and keeping with OEM GM pads on all 4 wheels, which are MUCH quieter than aftermarket pads.  Here’s one area I leave well enough alone and stick with GM stuff.  Besides which, I haven’t modified the car enough to make an upgrade necessary.

 Nitrous.  Made famous in the F&F movies.  Nitrous oxide – yes, the same stuff we used for general anesthesia back in the 70s – gets injected with fuel and gives a huge bump in HP…while the bottle lasts, activated at wide open throttle, and IF the engine doesn’t grenade in the process.  Hot Rod (or was it Car Craft) even did an article where they juiced a stock engine just to see how much it could endure before blowing up.  Nitrous kits are far cheaper than superchargers or turbos, but have those important drawbacks. 

 Supercharger/Turbocharger.  As mentioned earlier, the engine can only take in so much air by itself.  To add more air than the pistons can draw in on their own, an air pump can be used.  Either it’s run off a belt from the crank pulley – a supercharger – or uses exhaust gases to spool a turbine, which is linked to another turbine on the intake side, i.e. a turbocharger.  Turbos need a bit of time for the gases to spool up the turbine – turbo lag – while superchargers come on right away.  Centrifugal superchargers can fit under the hood, whereas Roots style typically tend to stick way up out of the hood – although in recent years they’ve begun designing extremely low-profile models which will fit under the stock hood.  None of these kits are cheap, but they do make some serious horsepower.

 Stroker Kits.  These replace the stock crankshaft with one with a larger stroke, which typically increases torque while limiting top RPM.  The kit includes new pistons, the full reciprocating assembly, i.e. crank, connecting rods, pistons, and piston rings.  One of the more popular stroker kits is a 383 combo for the 350 small block Chevy V8 – the crank from a 400 in a 350 block.

 Crate Engines.  These range from short blocks (the block and reciprocating assembly minus the heads), long block (same, but with heads), all the way to turnkey motors ready to be dropped into a car.  The ZZ4 has been a popular Chevy 350 crate engine, and GM has upgraded its 454 HO (LS6) with 502, 540, and 572 cubic inch big blocks, plus crate versions of highly sophisticated late model EFI engines; as you can imagine, they aren’t cheap.  Mopar Performance has reissued the 426 Hemi as a crate engine, and upped the ante with a 528 cubic inch version of the same engine.  The V10 Viper engine is also available in crate form for those with a wallet large enough to pay for it.

 Top Aftermarket Companies.  The most popular are:  Edelbrock (intakes, cylinder heads, carbs, cams, and more recently crate engines and suspension products), Crane (camshafts), Lunati (cams, stroker kits), Holley (carburetors), AFR (cylinder heads), Hooker (headers), Flowmaster (exhaust), SLP (late model EFI cars), Lingenfelter (late model EFI cars), MSD (ignition), Paxton & Vortech (superchargers), Gale Banks (turbo), NOS (nitrous), B&M (automatic transmissions), Richmond Gear (rear gears and manual transmissions) just to name a few.   GM Performance Parts, Ford Motorsports, and Mopar Performance also make aftermarket parts for their brands and a wide and impressive array of crate engines.

            While they can be very expensive, crate engines come with extended warranties, are put together intelligently with mutually compatible parts for a specific intended purpose (stock replacement, high performance street/strip, or full race), and are brand new.  When replacing like with like (e.g. one-piece rear main seal late model small block Chevy V8) it’s simply a matter of pulling one engine and replacing it with another.

 Warnings.  By now we’ve learned to take the aftermarket suppliers’ claims of horsepower gains with a grain of salt.  They typically diss the OEM engineers as incompetent hacks diligently trading off HP to satisfy federal emissions and fuel economy standards, whereas their own wizards know how to unlock obscene amounts of horsepower.  The reality is that the car companies hire smart engineering students and spend $$$ trying to figure out the best system before an engine is even stuffed into a prototype, much less put into a production car sold to the public.  I’ve read an article which showed absolutely no HP gains from various aftermarket intake manifolds over the OEM Pontiac 4 barrel cast iron intake; the stock Pontiac cam grinds, all the way up to the Ram Air IV cam, were likewise intelligently designed and do well when properly selected.

            The major problem is that the fiduciaries we “trust” - Hot Rod, Car Craft, and the local speed shop – all have a vested interest in maintaining the fiction that the aftermarket products are better than what came on your car from the factory.  The car magazines can’t afford to alienate their advertisers; their installations invariably occur with no snafus or missing parts, and the aftermarket part ALWAYS performs as promised, which we know almost never happens in real life.  Unfortunately, there is no Consumer Reports for the automobile aftermarket.  The speed shop makes its money selling you these parts and installing them for you, so they naturally want to sell you the most expensive upgrade, e.g. a custom-built, balanced and blueprinted engine, when your stock engine just needs new injectors and a fuel pressure regulator and it will be on its way.      

Charley Varrick and Hopscotch

For years, our family was subjected to an obscure Walter Matthau film from 1980, “Hopscotch”, about an involuntarily retired CIA officer, Miles Kendig, who decides to write unauthorized memoirs and leads his erstwhile comrades and the KGB on a humorous wild goose chase across Europe and the US.  My father loved the film and had memorized half the lines, much to our annoyance, but the memories of his obsession are now endearing and sentimental since he’s been gone. 

 Matthau had an earlier film in a similar vein, from 1973, “Charley Varrick”.  He plays a small-time crook, a former crop dusting/barnstormer, who robs a small New Mexico bank with his comrade, Harland (Andrew Robinson, the “Scorpio” killer in “Dirty Harry” and much later, Garak, the Cardassian tailor/spy on “Star Trek: Deep Space Nine”).  When the pair count the loot back at Charlie’s trailer after a successfully getaway, Charlie realizes they have a major problem.  Instead of $5,000 – the likely contents of a small town bank vault – they have $750,000, which is probably Mob money.  So now instead of just the local sheriff (William Schallert, the station manager in “Trouble With Tribbles”) they have a mob hitman, played by Joe Don Baker (best known for playing Felix Leiter, Bond’s CIA counterpart, in the early Sean Connery Bond films) chasing after them; the Mob won’t bother with search warrants and habeas corpus, and won’t give up until he’s dead.  Even John Vernon, aka “Dean Wurmer” from “Animal House”, is in here as the main mobster trying to get his money back.  The rest of the film is Varrick’s clever scheme to evade the hitman and cover his tracks, permanently.  It’s very entertaining, an underrated 70s action adventure film.

 “Hopscotch” is based on a novel for which the plot is – for all intents and purposes – the same as the movie, though the movie is somewhat more humorous and lighthearted than the novel.  Kendig is brought back to Langley for a desk job, an assignment he definitely does not enjoy.  He abruptly leaves the Agency and begins writing his memoirs.  He mails each chapter of the manuscript directly to his former superior (Ned Beatty) and to his counterpart at the KGB.  The KGB man is considerably more amused than Beatty, but both agree that Kendig is airing dirty laundry which could cause both sides a lot of problems.  Unfortunately, catching him is quite a challenge:  he never stays in one place long enough and is constantly throwing them off the trail, sometimes in a very mocking fashion:  at one point he rents Beatty’s summer house in South Carolina, which the FBI then shoot up.  He’s assisted by Glenda Jackson (I believe her character was absent from the book), an Austrian aristocrat who appreciates his sense of humor, as exasperating as it is sometimes.   His replacement, Joe Cutter (Sam Waterston) is in awe of his mentor and acutely recognizes the futility of the apprentice trying to beat the master at his own game.  Finally – as you can imagine – Kendig sews the whole thing up quite convincingly.  As often as I’ve seen it, I can still recommend it to anyone who hasn’t been subjected to it countless times. 

Another One Rides The Bus

Awhile back I commented on school bus memories.  After a recent trip up to NJ by “Chinatown” bus, I can comment on inter-city bus travel as well.

 Back when we lived in the US, before moving to Paris in January 1979, we must have taken a few bus trips to New York.  I recall we went to my cousin Colleen’s wedding in Glens Falls.  We had to switch buses in NYC at the main bus terminal.  I do recall at least one other trip to NYC by bus.  We’d take a Greyhound bus from the terminal in DC, which was next to Union Station.

 In 1995 I went up to Flint, Michigan with my best friend Phil, to purchase a 1968 Pontiac Firebird 400.  The owner claimed he’d meet us at the bus terminal in Detroit, then abruptly changed his mind.  We had to get a cab to the airport, rent a car there, and drive up to Flint to see the car – which we couldn’t buy.  The return trip was in the rental car.  Driving back by rental car, we could take a much more direct route than the bus took: no delays going through Pittsburgh or Cleveland on the way back.  The bus trip up was overnight, with a 3 a.m. stopover in Cleveland.  This is, so far as I can remember, the only overnight bus ride I’ve taken, and I had no more luck sleeping than I ever do on overnight flights. 

 More recently, my friend’s younger daughter would travel to and from DC to NYC by BoltBus, for which the drop-off was somewhere in DC (NY Ave).  With my car acting up – a repair should fix the problem soon – making long distance travel iffy, I tried the Chinatown bus, which was just $40 round trip.  I left from Rosslyn and got off in Hoboken, then picked it up in downtown Manhattan for the trip back.  It took a bit longer than it would have had I driven, but I saved $100 in gas and $38 in tolls, a net savings of $100.  I could read, listen to my iPod, and recharge my cell phone with the plug socket. 

 On one hand, it’s a great relief not to have to drive.  There is little risk the bus will break down on you.  You can sit back and relax, and read; and on this trip, the bus made very short trips (15 minute stops) at rest stops along the way.   Since the bus is higher up off the road, you get a better view as you go along, and can pay attention to things which otherwise you’d miss focused on the road ahead of you.

   

 On the other hand, you’re limited to the exact bus schedule:  your ticket is only good for THAT time (no cancellations).  You have to pick up and get off at specific spots which are not all that convenient; it also restricts your flexibility at changing plans.   I’m not convinced the benefits outweigh the costs, even allowing for the lower total price.

 Bus vs. Plane.  For cross-country trips (down to Florida or over to L.A.) you really can’t beat the plane.  But for short hops, e.g. DC to NY, the quick flight is less competitive due to time spent getting to the airport and going through security.  There is NO security on buses: you just hop on.  Your friends, relatives and loved ones can see you off at the bus itself and be there at the stop when you arrive.  

 Bus vs. Train.  Security-wise both are the same: none.  The train is immune to traffic issues which snarl buses as well as your car.  The rail lines typically snake their way through a seedier part of town than the highways, giving a much different view.  I haven’t been on any high speed trains, so most train rides take about as much time as an equivalent bus trip.