The New York Times Business section (so, OK, expectations aren’t high, but still . . .) has an article today on a lawsuit against the manufacturers of the artificial sweetener “Splenda”. The issue hinges to some extent on how the sweetener is synthesized, and the reporter tries to explain this horrifically complex process to the reader. It’s not a pretty sight.
April 6th, 2007
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General, Politics, School, Economics, Environment, Writing, Culture, Science, Health, Education, Media, Food & Cooking, Technology, News & Current Events, Math |
5 comments
America’s Pastime just isn’t what it used to be.
I went to my first Yankees game in a long time last night. Ticket prices have gotten so outrageous that I go to the local single-A minor-league games a lot more often than major league games - who can afford it? There’s less stupid commericalism and intrusive lights and signs and such in the minor-league parks as well. But somebody at work kindly donated some tickets they couldn’t use, and I was lucky enough to get them, so I rounded up a few friends and we took ourselves out to the ballgame. A series of shocks ensued:
I happened to glance at the face value printed on the ducats. Four tickets for decent but not spectacular seats in the mezzanine balcony were, together, over $250! Who goes to ballgames at these prices?!
Next: the season is getting too long. I know they’ve extended the post-season. I don’t know if they’ve pushed Opening Day back very far, but it’s pretty damn early. It was unbelievably cold at Yankee Stadium. In the 8th inning, it started to snow!
And: the games are too long. This one - a sloppy, high-scoring early-season game played in the cold - ran just minutes shy of four hours. It wasn’t long ago that they were complaining about three-hour games. It’s getting out of hand.
I know I’m not the first to mention either the extended season or the slow play, but . . . really. I’m sitting there last night watching them play baseball at 11 o’clock at night, in the snow! Although, technically, the season starts in the spring and ends in the fall, in terms of weather it essentially starts in winter and ends in winter. That just isn’t baseball.
And, finally, in one of the worst major-league games I’ve ever seen, I had to watch the Yanks get cleaned by the worst team in their division. It was ugly.
But through it all, it was still fun. There’s something wonderful about the game. No matter what they do to it, they can’t take that away.
April 6th, 2007
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General, Sports, MLB/MiLB |
3 comments
