Betsy Devine: Funny ha-ha and/or funny peculiar

Outdoors playing with cold wet leaves

Originally uploaded by betsythedevine

Today’s NYT says that even monkeys “rationalize” past decisions–so that, for example, expressing mild preference for blue candy rather than red quickly transforms itself into strong preference for those blue candies.

In my American middle-class life, my car is blue candy. It’s so easy to drive to the grocery store instead of walking, to drive into Boston instead of taking the subway, even to drive the kilometer to Harvard Square if I know Harvard Book Store will tempt me to buy lots of books.

Living in Stockholm, my car got turned into red candy. Parking is expensive. Buses and subways go everywhere, and go there often. Besides, walking and biking and busing are what people do here. So the one-plus kilometer walk back and forth to work, time spent outside in every kind of weather, is no longer an “inconvenience” to avoid, it’s just something I do–and more-or-less enjoy.

Because I can rationalize, just like anyone else!

Reason to love Stockholm #87

Originally uploaded by betsythedevine

Hilarious ads in the subway.

The funniest of these three ads for Åhlens department stores is the one in the middle. Sadly, my camera flash makes it hard to see.

On a sofa with lots of Åhlens pillows (“kuddar” in Swedish, and what a nice cuddly word for a pillow that sounds to English-speaking Betsy) a sweet white-haired grandma is beaming, her teenage grandson looks wide-eyed at the DVD she got at Åhlens to watch with him…a favorite “old” movie she loved once and now wants to share … “Basic Instinct.”

Swedish packet for Lipitor tablets

Originally uploaded by betsythedevine

… (people I’ve sat next to at various dinner tables in various countries)–every one of the ones taking cholesterol meds (every one that I asked, btw) takes Lipitor, and not its generic sibling simvastatin.

Yes, yes, I know this is grossly unscientific. Maybe more grossly unscientific than (er, grossly bit follows, skip to next paragraph?) my art historian friend who claimed “scientific” proof that shaving one’s legs made leg hair grow faster–she had shaved only the front of her leg-fronts for years, and found (in her 40s) that now her leg-fronts (shins) were hairier than her leg-backs (calves.) She was not happy when I counter-exampled (do you want to read this?) that I saw the same shin-to-calf difference despite shaving (or not) both, year after year.

Grossly bit ended; on to new-but-unscientific addition. My US doctor says that Lipitor is no better than Simvastatin, and my HMO makes me pay more for L-not- S. But when I needed prescription pills here in Stockholm, a Swedish doctor looked at my near-empty bottle of Lipitor and remarked, “Oh, so they found Simvastatin didn’t work for you and had to upgrade you to Lipitor?”

My US doctor to the contrary, I’ve been happy to pay extra for Lipitor. And can it be totally coincidence that she used to criticize me regularly, when I took Simvastatin, for not “doing enough” to reduce my cholesterol? But now I keep getting good marks for cholesterol virtue?

Just my very unscientific two cents on NY Times story.

Fun and funny web toy

Originally uploaded by betsythedevine

Go on, you know you want to.

Besides, I don’t want to be the only one on the web goofing off when I ought to be working.

In my own defense, I can’t really touch-type when I’m wearing these big tiger paws.

Red Sox parade on Tremont Street

Originally uploaded by sooz

Un-be-darn-lievable, isn’t it?

We won we won we won we won we won…again!!!! (Says Betsy, born in Boston, grew up in NH, lives in Cambridge, now on sabbatical in Sweden….and not in fact an actual player on any field when Red Sox play.)

Yaaaayyyyy anyway!

But, in totally unrelated news from Sweden, I was introduced today to the most delicious (and most Swedish) sandwich! Take a bunch of Swedish meatballs, cold. Mix them up with some red beet salad (a little mayonnaise, a lot of chopped-itty-bitty Harvard beets.)

Now stuff all this stuff into what we New Englanders call a torpedo roll, to make what Long Islanders call a submarine sandwich. But you’re not done yet.

Decorate the edge of the sandwich filling with tiny, flavorful, sour, gherkin pickles.

If anything could console me for missing the Red Sox parade, this sandwich would. And thank you, Sooz, for Flickring your awesome view!

The newspaper “Voice of Galicia” sounds sweet this morning, with a story by Kiko Novoa. Novoa enjoyed my account of “The end of the classical earth” and calls me “la conocida periodista estadounidense Betsy Devine.”

The deservedly well-known Galician journalist Kiko Novoa adds a quick, charming, colorful explanation of blogging:

Betsy dispone de un blog (http://betsydevine.com/blog/) en el que comparte sus experiencias con los cibernautas.

Roughly: “Betsy has a blog, in which she shares experiences with the cybernauts.”

Welcome, cybernauts! And thanks to Jorge Mira Pérez for calling my attention to Kiko Novoa.

Old Sink

Originally uploaded by artsyevie

Amazingly, the guy who said this asked the New York Times to keep his name a secret.

”He brings you the entire kitchen sink, and says, ‘Look what I brought you, a kitchen sink. Let’s throw it at the guy.’ You have to have a grown-up around who says, ‘Well, I’m not sure we should throw the entire kitchen sink at the guy, but what an interesting brass spigot you found.’ ”

The “he” in question is Christopher Lyon, an opposition researcher perhaps most noted for claiming a NH politician’s wife was part of an “orgasm cult.” But our need for grown-ups has much wider relevance.

Any campaign can attract somebody who sees nothing wrong with tearing up opponents’ signs, disrupting their events, or even jamming their phones on Election Day.

So campaigns need experienced “grown-ups” to slow down such hotheads. The tragedy of Republicans under Karl Rove is that experienced politicians were afraid they would be fired if they stood in the way of dirty tricks, which had been admiringly re-christened “pushing the envelope.”

What the world needs now is fewer pushed envelopes and a lot more grown-ups.

“The central premise of Moneyball,” (says Wikipedia) “is that the collected wisdom of baseball insiders (including players, managers, coaches, scouts and the front office) over the past century is subjective and often flawed.”

Moneyball charts the rise of Billy Beane’s Oakland A’s by looking beyond “instinctive wisdom” about who does or does not “look like a ballplayer.”

Which brings me to a small blip from the Mercury News, on the conference She’s Geeky:

A venture capitalist who rejected Mary Hodder’s start-up for funding later told her he did so in part because Hodder had no male co-founder, and he thought she would quit because she’s a woman. Hodder didn’t quit. Her video search and social networking Web site, dabble.com, is doubling its registered users every 2 1/2 months.

Mary herself says the VC was not “a bad guy,” adding that “we all have our stereotypes, our biases, our prejudices.”

But how much more money, it seems to me, a VC will make who can Billy-Beane his (or her) bias. I’m sure Harvard drop-out Bill Gates didn’t “look like” success. To quote some statistics from Score:

• Women represent more than 1/3 of all people involved in entrepreneurial activity. (Source: Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) 2005 Report on Women and Entrepreneurship)
• Between 1997 and 2002, women-owned firms grew by 19.8 percent while all U.S. firms grew by seven percent (Source: SBA, Office of Advocacy)
• The number of women-owned firms continues to grow at twice the rate of all U.S. firms (23 percent vs. 9 percent). (Source: SBA, Office of Advocacy and Business Times, April 2005)

Score adds that “The greatest challenge for women-owned firms is access to capital, credit and equity.” I’m sure the big-money players who did bet on Mary will do very well.

We walked home yesterday…

Originally uploaded by betsythedevine

Go Red Sox tonight, because (according to the Boston Globe, a totally non-partisan source of news) the Heavens have SPOKEN:

“Comet Holmes, which has been orbiting quietly since its discovery in 1892, has undergone a million-fold brightness increase on October 24 — and is now visible to the naked eye (though difficult from under the lights of Fenway),” [MIT Professor of Planetary Science Richard P.] Binzel said…

Can the Red Sox’ fortunes be predicted by celestial events? Some fans may recall the lunar eclipse of Oct. 27, 2004 — the night Boston won its first World Series in 86 years. For Game 2 tonight, there may be another sign in the sky.

“There will be a full moon (but no lunar eclipse as in 2004) for tonight’s World Series game,” Binzel said.

Go, Red Sox!!! Let me add to Professor Binzel’s suggestions, and just as scientifically, that the pictured red sky in Sweden just a few days ago probably also should serve to predict your next victory!

Mt. San Miguel continues to burn. San Diego wildfires.

Originally uploaded by slworking2

Good news for exhausted firefighters and refugee California residents–a change in the weather has now slowed the spread of the flames.

The LA Times says that back in 2004, a “Blue Ribbon Panel” said California firefighters needed some 150 new firetrucks, but as of 2007 only 19 new trucks had ever been ordered…and zero delivered. Risking their lives in Vietnam-era helicopters, because recommended replacements for those had also never been purchased, California firefighters deserve enormous gratitude…

…which should be expressed by giving them tools that they need to do the hard dangerous job that they are doing on our behalf. Are you listening, all you tax-cutting Republicans whose SUVs are spackled with bumper stickers saying how much you respect soldiers, firemen, and policemen?

In funnier news, there’s a spoof piece at Daily Kos with photos of FEMA marshmallow distribution and a Bush “fireside” photo-op.