Hey, That’s My Neighborhood in Boston

4/17/2013

It’s everybody’s neighborhood, actually. Boston is one of the greatest iconic American cities, source of so much history and character in a growing nation.

Not being a Yankee fan, I never bought into the obscenities, the hard feelings, the rivalry. There’s no place like Fenway or the old Boston Garden, for that matter, or the Marathon. People who ran it talk with awe about striding down Boylston.

Years ago, I drove my young son up on Patriots' Day; we left at 4 AM and actually bought tickets and sat behind right field and watched Fred Lynn's game-ending home run get larger and larger as it flew into the next section. Then we walked down to Boylston and watched the early wave of finishers. That day will make a Boston fan out of anybody.

Boston is the place to send children for college; it’s the great young-person’s city in America. (Our three all got a visit to Boston to visit colleges, but somehow resisted.)

Boston sends strong people out in the world. In New York, we hear the accents of Michael Bloomberg and Suzyn Waldman. Never lose them, kids.

And Boston keeps strong people. Two people I care about could easily have been near the finish line on Monday; in past years they would have been. I needed message assurance that they were all right, and they were. Now we have so many more people to care about.

One other thing: In recent years, my wife and I have made glorious trips to Boston, usually staying a block or two from Boylston and wandering down to the T station to catch a movie in Cambridge or visit one of the art museums.

Often we stop in at the Bangkok Blue Thai restaurant at 755 Boylston, consistently good, feels like home. The last time we were in there, a couple of workers were planning to take one of those bargain buses to Manhattan for a day of sight-seeing. We gave tips on the best way to see our city.

To me, Boston and New York are linked far beyond cheapo bus lines or the shuttle or Amtrak, or some baseball rivalry. Boston is the great city where we have never quite lived.

I’ve tried calling and e-mailing Bangkok Blue in hopes that everybody is all right. No answer, so far.

Becky Collet

4/17/2013 02:17:14 am

A wonderful tribute to my city from a dear friend.....Boston loves you too George....

Brian Savin

4/17/2013 03:19:09 am

Never been scared like this before. Our daughter lives in Boston. She had lots of friends visiting her who were running the Marathon. We were in a sausage shop in Hartford when someone came in with the news. He said it happened at the finish line. Call Meg! My wife quickly pulled out her cell phone. It took ten long minutes before she received that wonderful text message sound: "Everyone OK, will call soon." We were at the Atlanta Olympics when that bomb exploded. Funny, but when I was there then, I didn't feel as scared. I felt more in control. It is so very preferable to be in the midst of danger than to be removed from it while loved ones are not. I'm lucky today, but hundreds of families not as much. That makes me sad, and very, very angry.

George Vecsey

4/17/2013 04:10:31 am

Brian and Everybody: Read Tom Friedman's column in the NYT today.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/17/opinion/friedman-bring-on-the-next-marathon.html?ref=thomaslfriedman&_r=0

We all got called in Atlanta when the bomb went off. I knew my columnist-daughter was up late on a Friday night, and was worried until Dave Anderson ran into me on a downtown street and said, "Hey, I just saw Laura filing from a pay phone. She's OK."

It's sickening to see people hurt, in Syria, in Afghanistan, whevered. GV.

Karen Koshner

4/17/2013 07:04:51 am

We welcome you back. And soon.

Alan Rubin link

4/18/2013 09:28:02 am

George

Although I grew up a Yankee fan in Manhattan, that is also my neighborhood in Boston. I've been commuting from the Berkshires for the past two years for eye treatment at Boston’s MEEI, which is only a few blocks from the site of the explosions. Since we often stay overnight for early morning appointments, we roam the area and enjoy it’s great restaurants, particularly on Charles street.

Tom Friedman is correct in that we cannot give in to terrorism and that one of America’s many strengths is how quickly we get back to normal.

However, I find too much of America’s normal very upsetting. The following are only a few samples of the outrage at the Senate’s cave-in to the special interest groups. President Obama summed it up when it called it an outrage and stated that it went against ninety percent of the nation.

The following are only a few samples in today's NT Times:

A Pretty Shameful Day in Washington-- Editor’s Blog:
http://takingnote.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/04/17/a-pretty-shameful-day-in-washington/?hp

The Senate Fails Americans on Gun Bills--Editorial:
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/18/opinion/the-senate-fails-americans-on-gun-bills.html?hp

A Senate in the Gun Lobby’s Grip by Gabrielle Giffords:
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/18/opinion/a-senate-in-the-gun-lobbys-grip.html?ref=opinion

With the Senate’s recent defeat of background checks, the tragedy of the Newton, CT massacre is already losing impact. This is one of America’s sad norms.

Are we still the same democracy that our Founding Father’s created? They had the same differences that exist today; regionalism, state’s rights, industry vs. agriculture, etc. They put the overriding common goals of independence and creating a constitution above all else.

Today, it is self-interest and reelection at the expense of the voters.

Are we truly a democracy??? Have we become a delusional nation that continually believes that the United States is the best in the world?

We are still a great nation, but we can do much, much better.

A few examples of where we rank internationally:

World Health Organization

Rank Country
1 France
2 Italy
3 San Marino
4 Andorra
5 Malta
6 Singapore
7 Spain
8 Oman
9 Austria
10 Japan
11 Norway
12 Portugal
13 Monaco
14 Greece
15 Iceland
16 Luxembourg
17 Netherlands
18 United Kingdom
19 Ireland
20 Switzerland
21 Belgium
22 Colombia
23 Sweden
24 Cyprus
25 Germany
26 Saudi Arabia
27 United Arab Emirates
28 Israel
29 Morocco
30 Canada
31 Finland
32 Australia
33 Chile
34 Denmark
35 Dominica
36 Costa Rica
37 United States of America

Education

The three-yearly OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) report, which compares the knowledge and skills of 15-year-olds in 70 countries around the world, ranked the United States 14th out of 34 OECD countries for reading skills, 17th for science and a below-average 25th for mathematics.

General

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_rankings_of_the_United_States

I mentor small businesses, Junior college and high school students. My cardinal rule is that they “always be honest to yourself”: all else is a bonus.

Congress is in need of some very strong mentoring.

George Vecsey

4/18/2013 12:49:36 pm

Alan: I agree with you. The Gaby Giffords Op-Ed piece in the NYT is excellent. GV

http://www.valfsug.org/node/7526 link

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Comments are closed.

QUOTES

Measuring Covid Deaths, by David Leonhardt. July 17, 2023. NYT online.
The United States has reached a milestone in the long struggle against Covid: The total number of Americans dying each day — from any cause — is no longer historically abnormal….

After three horrific years, in which Covid has killed more than one million Americans and transformed parts of daily life, the virus has turned into an ordinary illness.

The progress stems mostly from three factors:
First, about three-quarters of U.S. adults have received at least one vaccine shot.
Second, more than three-quarters of Americans have been infected with Covid, providing natural immunity from future symptoms. (About 97 percent of adults fall into at least one of those first two categories.)
Third, post-infection treatments like Paxlovid, which can reduce the severity of symptoms, became widely available last year.
“Nearly every death is preventable,” Dr. Ashish Jha, who was until recently President Biden’s top Covid adviser, told me. “We are at a point where almost everybody who’s up to date on their vaccines and gets treated if they have Covid, they rarely end up in the hospital, they almost never die.”

That is also true for most high-risk people, Jha pointed out, including older adults — like his parents, who are in their 80s — and people whose immune systems are compromised. “Even for most — not all but most —immuno-compromised people, vaccines are actually still quite effective at preventing against serious illness,” he said. “There has been a lot of bad information out there that somehow if you’re immuno-compromised that vaccines don’t work.”

That excess deaths have fallen close to zero helps make this point: If Covid were still a dire threat to large numbers of people, that would show up in the data.

One point of confusion, I think, has been the way that many Americans — including we in the media — have talked about the immuno-compromised. They are a more diverse group than casual discussion often imagines.

Most immuno-compromised people are at little additional risk from Covid — even people with serious conditions, such as multiple sclerosis or a history of many cancers. A much smaller group, such as people who have received kidney transplants or are undergoing active chemotherapy, face higher risks.

Covid’s toll, to be clear, has not fallen to zero. The C.D.C.’s main Covid webpage estimates that about 80 people per day have been dying from the virus in recent weeks, which is equal to about 1 percent of overall daily deaths.

The official number is probably an exaggeration because it includes some people who had virus when they died even though it was not the underlying cause of death. Other C.D.C. data suggests that almost one-third of official recent Covid deaths have fallen into this category. A study published in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases came to similar conclusions.

Dr. Shira Doron, the chief infection control officer at Tufts Medicine in Massachusetts, told me that “age is clearly the most substantial risk factor.” Covid’s victims are both older and disproportionately unvaccinated. Given the politics of vaccination, the recent victims are also disproportionately
Republican and white.

Each of these deaths is a tragedy. The deaths that were preventable — because somebody had not received available vaccines and treatments — seem particularly tragic. (Here’s a Times guide to help you think about when to get your next booster shot.)
***

From the great Maureen Dowd:

As I write this, I’m in a deserted newsroom in The Times’s D.C. office. After working at home for two years during Covid, I was elated to get back, so I could wander around and pick up the latest scoop.
But in the last year, there has been only a smattering of people whenever I’m here, with row upon row of empty desks. Sometimes a larger group gets lured in for a meeting with a platter of bagels."

--- Dowd writes about the lost world of journalists clustered in newsrooms at all hours, smoking, drinking, gossipping, making phone calls, typing, editing.
***
"Putting out the paper," we called it.
Much more than nostalgia.
---https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/29/opinion/journalism-newsroom.html

Hey, That’s My Neighborhood in Boston

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