11 posts tagged “massachusetts”
One of my favorite place names is Assinippi, which happens to be very close to where I grew up. It's an area in Massachusetts near where the towns of Hanover & Norwell border each other. The main landmarks are the Assinippi General Store at the corner of Rt 53 and Rt 123, nearby Jacob's Pond off 123, a thin strip of commercial development along Rt 53, and a small handful of residential side streets. Nearby is the Assinippi Industrial Park, a small industrial complex notable mainly (to me) for hosting the headquarters of Zildjian, a cymbal company with some famous customers
Assinippi is not one of the 301 towns & cities in Massachusetts, as recognized by the commonwealth, which puts it instead on the list of Archaic Community, District, Neighborhood, Section and Village Names. It isn't even big enough to have a Wikipedia page to call its own, though it does come up on the list of place names in New England of aboriginal origin, which notes that the name is a Wampanoag term meaning "rocks in water". So there.
You wouldn't necessarily learn any of this from a naive Google search though. In the first 100 results, I count three hits for things specifically about the area: a painting of the Jacobs family (presumably of the above-mentioned Jacobs Pond), and a review of the Assinippi General Store and a listing for the adjacent Assinippi General Store grocery department.
This real estate directory looks like one of the only honest programmatically derived pages, and even it misses the mark in stating "We don't currently have an article about Assinippi. Here is an article about nearby North Pembroke." North Pembroke isn't actually all that nearby -- you have to go through Hanover to get there, but Hanover doesn't get mentioned. Whatever.
In any case, there's no way this many people are interested in Assinippi. It's just not that big of an area, and as it has no clearly agreed-upon boundaries -- unlike Hanover & Norwell, which are very well defined -- most people in the area think of themselves as living &/or working in the town of Hanover or Norwell, rather than the village of Assinippi, and so would start their Google searches from the town name, not the neighborhood name. The vast majority of these search results, except for the handful that specifically refer to a particular business or street address, have to be SEO Google spam. And if a little, unknown area like Assinippi is getting this many hits, how much of this kind of thing is targetting areas where there are actually a lot of people? A lot, surely.
Human societies have always depended on having ready access to cheap, efficient means of transportation.
The Egyptians built their kingdoms along the Nile. The Greeks built their civilization among their islands. The Mesopotamians had the Tigris & Euphrates, the Indians had the Ganges, the Chinese had the Yangtze. Later, the Romans and Incas built vast empires laced together by paved roadways.
In America, the continent was [re-]populated first by ships & horses, then Conestoga wagons, then the locomotive, then automobiles and airplanes.
The topography of ordinary life is a reflection of this need to have access to transportation, balanced against other needs for agriculture, trade, industry, and so on.
From what I've seen of Germany, most of the old cities & towns are organized along roughly similar lines, with a dense cluster of homes & other structures, clearly demarcated from the surrounding countryside -- often by a literal wall. Of course, this probably has old medieval origins where the people would live together in town but farm in the fields, and occasionally would have to hide behind the walls as the town was besieged by some invading army or mob. But it also means that for ordinary life, the things you need are all within walking distance of home -- your job, the people you trade with, and so on.
Older American cities on the east coast started out along similar lines, but with less fear of invasion (after all, Native Americans tended not to have cannons & muskets) plus good roads and horses to get around with (not to mention the allure of an entire vast continent to stretch out across), they never really had the tight, walkable density that old European cities had.
And then, of course, the train came, and not long behind it, the car. If you look at how American cities are laid out, especially as you move west, and as you look at cities that had most or all of their growth in the 20th century, it's obvious just how much these places grew up with the assumption that the car would always be there, would always be cheap, and was strong enough to be the almost physical foundation of how society is built, lives, and works.
It could be grim, according to an Atlantic article from March
It could be really grim, according to a LA Times article from this week.
American suburbs just aren't ready for this. Hell, even the cities are mostly unprepared for this. With a handful of exceptions -- New York City, San Francisco, and a few others -- even most city dwellers tend to need a car to get around. The transit systems aren't in place in most places, and where the are, they tend to be running near capacity (and over budget, accumulating debt), and are not equipped to service a big uptick in ridership in a short time frame, which is what we could see if oil prices continue their climb towards $200/bbl and beyond (they hit $140 this week)."You'd have massive changes going on throughout the economy," said Robert Wescott, president of Keybridge Research, a Washington economic analysis firm. "Some activities are just plain going to be shut down."
[...]
Push prices up fast enough, he said, and "it would be the urban-planning equivalent of an earthquake."
Assuming you can't pull up roots and move to New York, San Francisco, or heck London or Paris, then where would be a good place to live for the next 10, 25, 50 years? What criteria would a "nice", "smart" place to live be? Good access to public transit, preferably rail, but bus should work too (there's always biodiesel or electric trolleybus options). Being able to walk to things like jobs, schools, and supermarkets would be good. Access to a river would be nice -- just in case we get reduced back to Egyptian levels, though I'm not quite that pessimistic yet -- but I'm willing to assume that some kind of motorized means of transportation is going to be a permanent fixture of human society now, even if individual, personal motorized transportation may not always be taken for granted the way it has been for the past century. What else? For that matter, what kind of physical home makes sense? Should we all move in to Manhattan / Soviet style apartment complexes, or is a patch of lawn still an option? Is an oil heated home any better or worse than gas or electric? The time to plan seems to be now.
The effects of the rise in energy prices continues to unfold.
This was fun. Amanda Palmer, the piano-playing half of The Dresden Dolls, did a show last night with The Boston Pops.
As Keith Lockhart said in introducing the show, whether you came for the Pops or you came for Amanda, the show wasn't going to end up being what you expected.
Reviews:
There was a shooting a block from our house this afternoon.
We found this out indirectly because the police had the street blocked off on the way home from work, and we had to circle around the neighborhood, then move a barrier out of the way, to get to the driveway. A neighbor who got home at the same time thought there was a shooting, but didn't really know what was going on.
Of course, nothing had been mentioned (yet?) on WBUR/NPR radio, and by the time I had a chance to get to the computer to look it up, there was still nothing on Boston.com/The Boston Globe, WBZ/CBS, WCVB/ABC, or WHDH/NBC -- the latter of which in particular has pretty much staked its claim to "if it bleeds, it leads" style sensationalist journalism.
But then there's the little Somerville Journal, which already had it on the home page: it happened around 5:30 (it was around 7:00 when I was finding out), and all they knew at that point was that it seemed to be a drive-by shooting.
Police sealed off the intersection of Cross and Pearl streets after a drive-by shooting Thursday evening, temporarily shuttering local businesses and stranding area residents making their way home from work.
Early police radio chatter indicated gunfire at 5:30 p.m., and were looking for four men in a black 1997 Toyota Camry.
Reload the article an hour later and it now has more details, photos, and even a YouTube video with an interview with the police. Plus, this reassuring paragraph:
The victim, who is believed to be 16- to 17-years-old, was taken to the hospital with non-life threatening gunshot wounds. He is in stable condition and was talking and alert when police responded to the scene, according to Holloway.
So that's good, at least. Inasmuch as "non-life threatening gunshot wounds" can be thought of as being "good".
Meanwhile, there were still pedestrians milling around as late as 8:30, presumably not knowing what was going on (the police weren't talking, but they were still out there with lights, sirens, etc. Score one for local web journalism to explain what's going on 100 yards from home... :-/
Brass Monkey
That Funky Monkey
Brass Monkey, Junkie
That Funky Monkey-- The Beastie Boys, "Brass Monkey", License to Ill
There have been stories for a couple of years now about how the rise in prices of basic mineral commodities fueling the rapid economic growth in China and southeast Asia has in turn spawned a thriving global black market in stolen metals, as thieves steal all kinds of things for the raw materials, from automotive catalytic converters (platinum), to roofs (lead), plaques (bronze), and -- my favorite -- home electrical wiring (copper).
The items aren't taken for their own value -- there aren't underground art collectors out there building up catalogs of public statues -- but rather they get melted down and sold as slabs to dealers who export them to Asian factories. This seems to be safer & more profitable than more traditional crimes like mugging, drug dealing, home burglary, etc.
(Perhaps ironically, the rise of this kind of crime has coincided with a broader fall in crime rates, particularly violent crimes, that has itself been tentatively linked to banning lead from paint & gasoline -- so maybe somehow, in some way, our baser urges are driven by minerals trade. Or maybe I'm just taking this line of thought too far, nevermind.)
In any case, while this raw materials black market has been percolating for years, I was reminded of it recently by a local story about someone stealing a quarter-ton of cast iron metal from an active roadway construction site, and somehow no one saw it happen.
Someone stole 475 pounds of cast iron metal off the new pavement of Josephine Avenue Sunday night, according to police, and no one saw a thing.
The suspect traveled along Josephine Avenue, from Kidder to Broadway, and stole 20 manhole and 15 water gate covers, police said.
The manhole covers weigh at least 20 pounds and the water gate covers weigh five pounds, said Somerville Police Captain Paul Upton. They had been taken from the street and stacked on top of one another as work crews repaved the road and replaced sewer infrastructure, according to city spokeswoman Lesley Delaney Hawkins.
“They’re not light,” Upton said. “It took some time for it to happen.”
The police do not have a suspect. Upton said residents have not been able to provide police with information. None, he said, reported hearing or seeing 475 pounds of metal taken from their street between 5 and 10 p.m.
Last night police sent out an automated call to every home within four square blocks of Josephine Avenue asking for help.
“Not only is this a crime but it presented a serious safety concern for anyone walking or driving along this street,” Upton said in the message.
The weighty heist begs the question: how did it happen? Any scenario it seems would involve a vehicle with a lot of storage room. But Upton said there are other possibilities.
“It’s not inconceivable that someone living right on the street rolled them into their backyard,” he said.
“It’s unlikely but you can’t rule any possibility out.”
But this kind of thing isn't unique to Somerville, of course. Apparently it's also a problem in southern California, as roadway thieves have taken traffic signals, signage, and guardrails, as well as tools and wiring. And it's happening all over the place.
In the United States, a quick search turns up everything from California military bases and Oregon firefighting equipment, to Missouri scrap yards, Connecticut swimming pools, and Michigan electrical equipment.
Around the world, headstones are stolen from cemeteries in Australia, the lead roof is stolen three times in one month from a church in England, a robbery at a cable company is blocked in India, and fibre optic data cables are stolen by divers in Vietnam (oops! those are made out of cheap glass, not valuable copper).
And this isn't even getting into the many stories about how people driven by the subprime mortgage crisis are being evicted after foreclosure, and getting back at the banks by taking everything they can, from appliances to lighting fixtures to the wiring from the walls. One could almost take a charitable view here and argue that these aren't even really theft, as the house had recently belonged to them, it was arguably taken away by forces beyond their control, and besides, it isn't like the bank is going to get a quick sale on the place anyway, unless maybe the government wants to buy the house. But maybe that's a bit too charitable.
In any case, it's clear that this is an accelerating worldwide trend, being driven by metals prices that are rising just like the prices on gas & food are rising. Where will it all end? Back here in Somerville, the manhole cover theives are still at large, but the police did catch four men trying to steal "hundreds of railroad spikes and plates". Which would be great for the trains, if anyone actually took the trains, but hey, the police have to start somewhere.
Sometimes it's hard to tell when Fake Steve Jobs is kidding.
Apparently, today Fake Steve was not kidding.
Most of the towns around here are named after British towns.
A break from all the apocalyptic gloom & doom I've been posting here -- some photos from our visit to the Franklin Park Zoo this weekend.
You may have heard that milk prices worldwide are rising at the fastest rates ever.
Unfortunately prices for milk will be higher for the foreseeable future.
We will continue to monitor the market and adjust milk prices to offer you the best value possible.
We apologize for any inconvenience.
Declining egg production and an increased demand for dried egg whites used in manufacturing as product ingredients has resulted in a decreased supply of fresh eggs.
This decrease in supply has caused the cost of eggs to rise dramatically, which has resulted in increased egg prices.
We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused.
[...] He said he bought the business in February 2008, just in time to see the price of wheat, flour and Romano cheese “skyrocket.”
“Everything I need has gone up about 30 percent” in the last three months, he said. In addition, vendors have begun charging for the gas they used when delivering to him.
“We're trying to hang in,” he said. Masci said family members have helped by coming into work without taking a paycheck and he has added wraps, chickens and turkeys for the young professionals of the neighborhood.
He also said the economic downturn has made potential customers a little tighter with a dollar. “I get the sense that people are saving their money to pay for gas right now,” he said.
