What the Web brings to news

we were quite surprised to hear the radio news yesterday. The lead story was about the tractor-trailer that that flipped over in Chicopee (MassLive.com). It's rare to have a Boston station carry a story, let alone lead with one, that comes in from west of 128.

The newspapers and broadcast outlets got the basics just about the same - how this truck driver swerved to avoid a car that had stalled on the highway, how the gasoline and diesel fuel exploded, the heroics of a passer-by who helped the truck drive escape, the mixed safety record of the trucking company. Overall, it was a scary story that could have been even more tragic.

The worldwide web, in the meantime, finds additional, different ways of looking at tragedy. For example, there is a site called truckspills.com that focuses on the weird and varied stuff that trucks have spilled as the result of accidents.

Then, there's the granddaddy of them all, Bus Plunge.It's been around since the start of the decade and brings gripping and grim tales of buses going off of the sides of roads.It's what the web does best - bring you answers to questions that you didn't know you are too embarrassed to ask.

Families are wonderful, for most folks

Sometimes, a family is just too much:





















And, you can never trust those realetors.

What kind of thinker are you?

Your Thinking is Abstract and Random

You are flexible, adaptable, and creative. There's many ways that you can learn - and you're up for any of them. You relate well to other people, and you do well working in groups. You can help people communicate together and work with each other's strengths. You don't work well with people who are competitive or adversarial. You prefer to work toward a common goal... not toward conflicting goals.

What Kind of Thinker Are You?

A walk through suburbia

It's not as serious as dodging sniper fire on the tarmac in Bosnia, but these suburban roadway present their own hazards. Many of the roads don't have sidewalks and can be quite narrow, particularly when SUVs in a hurry are taking up both lanes. Fortunately, the snow banks have melted away, so Marley and I can step into the safety of someone's muddy lawn.

Although most people associate Holden with the land of mega-houses, there are a lot of five-, four-, and even three-room houses nestled along the older side streets, houses built 50 to 75 years ago on a quarter-acre tucked into what had been woods. These houses don't always age well. They weren't built with the best of materials or by the best carpenters. Nevertheless, they were and are someone's home.

Yesterday, as Sandra, Marley, and I walked to the Worcester line, two large shadows passed over us, blocking the noon sun. Two hawks were flying low, looking for lunch.

T&G - Arrest made in church vandalism

Last week, someone painted anti-Christian and other not-nice graffiti on churches in Phillipston and Gardner. The suspect turned himself in yesterday. What I found most interesting in the story, Worcester Telegram & Gazette News: "Arrest made in church vandalism," is that the reporter used the suspect's MySpace info (NSFW).

This week's RoasterBoy playlist

• Electric Flag - Another Country (Tuesday, Mar 25 at 08:37 PM GMT)
  As with so many talented folks, Mike Bloomfield died too young, died of just too much of too much. He founded the Electric Flag after leaving the Butterfield band in 1968. The one album, A Long Time Comin', had rich talent - Nick Gravenites, Buddy Miles, Harvey Brooks - and laid out a rich set of complex tunes with amazing blues threads holding it all together. The sweetness of Easy Rider sits up there with Peter Green's Albatross in my blues licks hall of fame.
• Wormtown Underground Radio Network (Monday, Mar 24 at 07:29 PM GMT)Wormtown Underground Radio Network
  
  BTW: This was post #100 on the Playlist.
  
  
• 3 Mustaphas 3 - Soba Song (Monday, Mar 24 at 06:59 PM GMT)
  Let's see, we have a west Texas swing song extolling the virtues of a Japanese noodle soup, modulo some klezmer and middle Eastern woodwinds. It's like tuning into four or five radio stations at once.

A great big bucket of "It ain't fair!"

[Update 3/25/08: Smokey passed at home away this afternoon.]

M&L's cat, Smokey, has been losing weight for a while and has shown little interest in eating, even the good stuff. I brought him to the vet on Friday and today received the results of the blood tests. In brief, his body isn't producing any new red blood cells even as it destroys the ones that he has. It sounds like cancer in the bone marrow.

We concluded that the best thing to do is nothing, except to try to keep him comfortable. He doesn't seem to be in any pain. He's lethargic and, as mentioned, has little interest in eating. At yesterday's Easter gathering, he just wanted to sit on the carpet in the middle of everything. We'd move him out of the way and he'd come back to the same spot.

Smokester is the mellowest cat I've known, particularly for being an outdoor cat. He'll spend a day in the woods hunting and then come home to be carried around like towel in a family of six kids.

The real kicker is that Smokey and Tess are just about the same age, a few weeks apart. They got Smokey shortly after Tess was born. They've grown up together. Tess will have go on without him. Ouch.

TJL's letters

XP08B - Lebeaux, Thelma Jurva (c1925-?) née Hakkarainen, wife of Lincoln Lebeaux - Letters from Edward Glover to Thelma Lebeaux (ref. P08)

(Thanks to brother Mike for the tip.)

No late-night radio, eh?

I've had satellite radio (Sirius) in my car for the past couple of years and so don't listen to AM or FM much at all. Occasionally, I check the local news or traffic reports, but that's about it. Time was, however, when I'd listen to lots of different radio stations. One in particular, CBAM, the CBC Radio One station out of Moncton NB, delivered a powerful signal after dark. When commuting home during the winter months, I'd get to listen to the CBC news The World at Six and As It Happens.

CBAM-AM is going off the air in early April. The locals have a high-powered FM station, giving them a better signal all day long. And, the CBC national feed is available on Sirius.

One less AM station to bounce off of the night-time sky.

Easter for many, but not all, Christians

Bronislaus Kush wrote a very interesting and informative piece, Split in churches rises with Easter, about the differences between the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches. Most notable today is that the western churches, including the Roman Catholic and Protestant denominations, are observing Easter today. The eastern churches use a different calendar and different method for calculating the date of this movable feast; they will observe Easter in about five weeks.

There are also many profound differences between the east and west, divisions that stretch back through more than three-quarters of the Christian era. This includes the primacy of the bishop of Rome, the role of the national churches, and many details in the Mass itself.

Because most American Christians are affiliated with the western churches, today is our day for sunrise services, chocolate rabbits, and Peeps.

[Update: Here's some more info about how the Easter date is calculated (for the western churches) from God Plays Dice: Easter's early this year. Deal with it.

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Along the lines of the questions regarding the historical churches, I have a couple of questions that I hope some reader might be able to answer:

• Why do many Protestant churches (Anglican/Episcopal and Methodist notably) refer to various saints who were elevated before the Reformation?
• Have the Anglicans, or other churches, for that matter, elevated any new saints?