Despite Ford, City Didn't Drop Dead

Yogi Berra once said, "I never said half the things I said."

As with many of Berra's utterances, this one makes more sense than might first be apparent. What he really meant is that many statements attributed to him never crossed his lips.

Such is the case with Gerald Ford, who, despite being President in 1975, never told New York City to drop dead. Yet you wouldn't know it if you read the New York Daily News on Oct. 30, 1975. The banner headline that day read "Ford to City: Drop Dead."

The subhead reads "Vows He'll Veto Any Bail-Out," but people tend to forget those words and focus on the ones in bigger type (which is only natural).

New York City, at that time, was in trouble. It was nearly bankrupt and had applied to the federal government for a bailout. President Ford denied the request, refusing to pour federal money into a sinking ship. Instead, he proposed a bill that would ease the city on its way into bankruptcy, from which it could claim protection from a host of federal laws.

Shocked New Yorkers were quick to voice their outrage, but Ford and the White House held their ground: New York must solve its own financial problems. History shows that Ford was right to stick to his guns and insist on getting the city to tame its own excessive spending, since New York did just that, the Daily News headline to the contrary.

Yes, in Her Backyard

That's a lot of effort for a backyard treehouse. The mother of three teen girls, however, insists that it was worth it.

The treehouse in question adorns a tree in the backyard of Melinda Hackett, who lives in Greenwich Village, New York City. Hackett and her girls (ages 11, 13, and 16) are recently transplanted from rural upstate New York. They were missing a bit of the more rural elements of the northern part of the state, and so Hackett decided to write a check for $5,000 and have a most distinctive treehouse built, wrapped around a London Plane tree in the backyard of a townhouse built in the mid-19th Century.

Architects were called in, as were carpenters and interior designers. About five months later, the treehouse was complete. That's when the trouble started.

It seems that a neighbor didn't approve of the treehouse and waited until the thing was built before complaining to the Environmental Control Board. Hackett appeared before the board and argued her case, alleging that all she wanted to do by commissioning the circular treehouse was to offer a space that serves as the inner sanctum, clubhouse, and refuge for her daughters. The handwritten No Trespassing sign echoes that wish.

After months of legal wrangling, the Environmental Control Board dismissed the case. Hackett and her daughters got to keep their treehouses.

They might want to move that No Trespassing sign to the front of the house.

Jane Austen Had an Editor? How Sensible

So now we have the story that Jane Austen wasn't the paragon of good grammar and stylish prose that we all think she was. Big deal. Some people probably still think she wasn't poking fun at her subjects or her society in her books.

If, as an esteemed professor claims after an exhaustive study of more than a thousand original handwritten pages from the sainted Ms. Austen, what she wrote and what we read aren't exactly the same thing, then so be it, it doesn't diminish the power of her ideas or the beauty of her characterizations. The fact that the description of Mr. Darcy may have had a few spelling mistakes in the first draft in no way detracts from the indelible impression that the brooding heartthrob has made on millions of readers. (After all, we don't read the first draft; rather, we read the final draft, the one for which a whole department, if necessary, of editors, proofreaders, and printers tidies up the manuscript and presentation so the reader gets the best of all possible words.)

See, Jane Austen had an editor — a good one, in fact. This would be William Gifford, who worked for Austen's publisher, John Murray. Gifford knew how to string sentences together (or, as it sounds like it was in Austen's case, how to distinguish one sentence from the next in a forest of semicolons). The editor knew best, and we need look no further than the finished product to see proof of that assertion. He was able to read Austen's scrawls as well as her intent and meld the two into compelling, universally appreciated prose.

Another point that the esteemed professor makes is quite telling, actually. Kathryn Sutherland, the professor (of Oxford, no less), asserts that Austen, in lumping her sentences together with sparse punctuation, may have been writing in a sort of stream of consciousness, taking chances with the writing style in order to get more compelling characters who would come alive more on the page — more Willoughby than Colonel Brandon, if you will. Those used to thinking of Austen as wearing a sort of literary straitjacket akin to the tight corsets worn my her matronly characters might need to reassess.

So where does that leave us? Jane Austen, one of the English language's most revered novelists, didn't produce the great British novel first time out, every time out. Who does?

2012 the End of the World? Not So Fast!

Wow! I've got my 2013 summer back!

I had stopped planning trips, mortgage payments, haircuts, and other important things for three years from now because, as everyone knows, the world is going to end in 2012. We all know this because the Mayan Long Calendar (not to mention a recent disaster movie) says so. The Maya knew a thing about the "end of days." Look no further than the fact that they're not around anymore.

For years, we've been told that December 21, 2012 would be the last day on Earth because that's the day that the Long Calendar ended. So all this fascination with President Obama's re-election campaign slated to take place in the summer of 2012 would have little meaning in the long run because first of all, he wouldn't be taking office because Inauguration Day would be January 20, 2013, and secondly, there's would be a long run because the Long Calendar would have meant that time had run out.

But wait. Comes a horseman with knows that the prophecy might be, shall we say, out of date. A new book by an expert in the field says that the calculations to bring the Long Calendar in line with our current calendar might be wrong and that the real year in which the world is going to end might be significantly different, like 50 years different, on either side. So, the world could be going to end in 2063. Or it could have already ended. Take your pick. I know what choice I'd make under those circumstances.

See, this Long Calendar has a long of street cred because the Maya were so good at keeping track of things like days, weeks, months, years, and apocalypses. Trouble was, they weren't so good at keeping track of things like disease, enemies, and other ravages of time. They were fascinated by time itself, however, as evidenced by their writings and etchings. They predicted all kinds of bad things happening in the present and in the future.

There's even a word for this end-of-days business: eschatology. The closer we get to 2012, the more people will escalate eschatology in their daily thinking. The more hype this kind of story gets, the more people will hunker down and get ready for the end, whatever and whenever it may be.

There's also the possibility of people bunkering down, perhaps to avoid whatever cataclysm might be referred to by the Mayan prophecy. It might be a war. It might be a nuclear war. We might go to ground —underground, to be more precise, in the precious bunkers that we built lo those many years ago to escape radiation from expected nuclear explosions. (After all, enough bombs exist now to blow up the planet many times over.)

I'd really rather not see that, actually. We'd have all sorts of issues with food, fresh water, living space, and fights in the War Room. Who would want to live through that?

RIP, June Cleaver

Barbara Billingsley, made most famous by her role as the mother in the American TV hit Leave It to Beaver, has died.

Billingsley had been out of the limelight for some time, having played parts of movies and in other shows on television. But it was as June Cleaver that most of America knew her. She was the understanding yet firm mother of Wally and Theodore and the wife of Ward. She was the epitome of the mid-20th Century American wife and mother. (She was so understanding, in fact, that she agreed to call her younger son by his nickname, Beaver.)

Beaver and Wally and their friends routinely got into trouble — not much of it serious — and Ward and June continually explained the need for thinking of consequences of actions before taking those actions. Sometimes the boys listened; other times, we had new episodes of Leave It to Beaver to watch.

To this day, I can remember laughing at Beaver as he walked around town while wearing a full-body rabbit costume.

To this day, I can remember the episode in which Beaver tried to pretend that he had eaten his Brussels sprouts but, in fact, had stuffed them in his shirt pocket.

To this day, I can remember how Wally learned a valuable lesson about workplace seniority by selling hot dogs.

The boys regaled their parents with slang as well. Things were "goofy." Astonishment gave way to "Gosh!" Excitement brought forth "Hot dog!"

The one thing that June especially but Ward as well provided for their boys was a mirror, which they would hold up occasionally, as it to say, "Do you realize just how much you're making of this little thing?" or "Do you realize how much I'm having to do to make amends for what you consider to be a tiny infraction?"

Another thing Wally and Beaver got from their parents was a lifetime supply of real and virtual hugs. Their parents were there for them, whenever and wherever. Oh, misbehavior might result in a lecture or a grounding, but the boys never felt like their parents were going to do more than that.

June Cleaver also was an ideal. Her hair seemed to be continually perfect and her clothes just so. She always looked like she could go to a dinner party at a moment's notice. (There was that ever-present pearl necklace, for one thing.) She was always there for the boys — literally, since even though she was involved in social pursuits, they took a back seat to her family.

Billingsley made June Cleaver believable, down-to-earth, and friendly. The actress will be missed, but her most famous character lives on.

You Want Fries with That Wedding Cake?

"We see this as a business opportunity."

Those words could apply to almost anything, including a wedding at McDonald's.

Yep, it's happening — or it will be happening, as of January 2011, when a Hong Kong outlet of the venerable American fast food restaurant begins accepting requests for what could only be described as a McWedding.

In a situation that is an economics instructor's dream scenario, demand is driving supply. It turns out that the idea came from customer requests. So many regular consumers of Big Macs, fries, shakes, McSalads, Happy Meals (well, OK, maybe not Happy Meals) asked for the thing at the place that the owner of the place decided to provide the thing being requested.

Seems the romantic attraction of meeting, dating, and becoming engaged at McDonald's was enough to drive some customers to want to legally formalize their relationship there.

And it's not just the reception, with a menu filled with normal fare. No, it's the whole nine yards of marriage ceremony, wedding cake (the only unusual item on the menu), and reception for up to 100 people. All the happy couple (or the family of the bride) have to pay is 250 British pounds ($400). One thing that won't be on offer is champagne, since alcohol isn't allowed (not even BYO).

And, in a reminder that business is business, the restaurant manager wishes to inform prospective McWedding participants that the restaurant will remain open during the ceremony and reception and that, because it would be normal business hours, restaurant staff would be obliged to serve customers unassociated with the wedding, even if it meant that the flower girl who got a sudden craving for McDonaldLand cookies would have to stand in line.

No word yet on whether the outlet will offer any sort of honeymoon catering or other … arrangements.

$1 Billion House Towers over Mumbai

Nothing like being ostentatious in an era of nearly global austerity.

Mukesh Ambani, a very rich Indian man, has moved himself and his family into his new house in Mumbai. No ordinary house, this one has 37,000 square meters (nearly 400,000 square feet) of space. Now, the family (two parents, three children) isn't large enough to need all that space, so they all have plenty of room to spread out — and out and out — maybe invite a few neighborhoods full of friends over for a week at a time.

The house is so big that it requires 600 staff to keep the lights on and the floors clean. Those staff probably don't all live onsite, but they could, if they bunked in together on the bottom four floors. The available parking space could accommodate all 600, though, if they carpooled, four to a car. A total of 160 cars can fit in the underground garage. That leaves a comfortable 10 spots for the fleet of cars that the Ambani family no doubt owns.

You don't have to get there by car, though. You can fly your way in, landing at one of three helipads on top of the 173-meter-high (567-feet-high) building. From there, you can make your way down to the living space, pausing long enough to appreciate the small trees growing in the elevated garden (complete with high ceiling so the trees won't have to be cut down to size every few months).

Don't miss the onsite health club. Not just a gym, the health club has all manner of facilities resembling a full-building club, including swimming pools and a dance studio. Speaking of dance, you'll appreciate the large ballroom and 50-seat cinema as well, for dance and/or movie entertainment-filled evenings, after which you can sleep it all off in one of the many guest rooms scattered about the place.

Ambani is certainly the richest person in India, but it's bigger than that: He's the fourth richest person in the world. How did he get that way? He owns much of Reliance Industries, a mammoth conglomerate of oil, commercial, and biotech companies worth 18 billion British pounds (nearly $29 million). He had no problem paying for the new house, which cost a bit more than $1 billion.

By the way, the name of the house is Antilia, which was a legendary Atlantic Ocean island never found by Spanish or Portuguese explorers. Some traditions connect this island with the story of the Seven Cities of Gold.

Google Road-testing a Really Smart Car

I'm not sure what to think about this new self-driven car that Google is trumpeting. The self part of that self-driven doesn't mean you drive and no one else in the car. No, it means that the car is driving itself.

See Google is always on the lookout for new markets. This time round, they're looking to get into the AI road software business. Now, I'm not sure if this is just another opportunity to showcase Google Ads — theoretically, if you're in the car but you're not driving, you could be a captive audience for more Google Ads on your laptop, smartphone, dashboard, rear view mirror, makeup case mire, or whatever other kind of screen you could see from where you sit.

This happens now, with passengers. If Google is driving your car for you, then you're no longer the driver but are instead a passenger, free to make phone calls, surf the Web, answer email, tweet, write a blog post, record a Facebook update, or whatever else you might do in the Web 2.0+ generation.

But back to the car. So the system has a host of cameras, inside the front seat area and strapped onto the roof (in a setup that looks a bit like Darth Vader's fighter ship), and these cameras feed all kinds of information back to a central computer that does the rest.

This isn't exactly a new thing. Automated vehicles have been on the roads for years. This particular project has had seven test cars logging more than 1,000 miles with no human intervention whatever. The number of miles in which a human has to step in occasionally (such as to wait for a pedestrian who was taking an extremely long time to cross the road at a crosswalk or to avoid cyclist who had carelessly run a red light) is well over 100,000. So these folks know what they're doing.

This latest test involved a human-free navigation of Lombard Street, San Francisco's famously windy street. That test went off without a hitch — or a crash or even so much as a dent.

Google also reports having a Prius driving a preprogrammed route up a major highway in the middle of traffic for a distance of 35 miles. A human was behind the wheel but had to do nothing other than monitor traffic. The AI software did the rest, including braking, accelerating, and even changing lanes. (The car, of course, drove the speed limit the entire time.)

Where does this leave us? Probably not as close to the Jetsons as we might think. Still, it's probably closer to that sort of thing than most people realize.

No Gray Area Here: STOP Means Stop

An argument is raging in Southern California over the legality, fairness, you name it of the installation of cameras at remote STOP signs and of the issuance of expensive tickets for people who were caught on camera blowing through the signs. In particular, the people who got citations in the mail are complaining that they didn't realize that they were driving through a speed trap and, further, that they had no warnings to prevent subsequent infractions.

Right issue, wrong focus.

The argument that a physical stop by a patrol officer who handed out a citation would have prevented further infractions doesn't hold up when compared to a list of repeat offenders that nearly every law enforcement department could furnish. Also, the argument that drivers didn't know that they were photographed violating traffic laws and so didn't know that they were breaking the law doesn't hold up, either, since the clear presence of a STOP sign is a black-and-white (and red) indicator that a traffic law is there to be obeyed.

But again, that isn't the point. The point is this: A STOP sign means STOP. The octagonal red signs at intersections don't have shades of gray in the wilderness. A STOP sign is absolutely a restriction on forward progress, full stop. Unlike stop lights, which have yellow lights that can be interpreted as "Proceed with caution" but are more likely to be interpreted as "Get through the intersection before the light turns red," STOP signs go straight to red.

STOP signs are absolute. They say what they mean. Drivers should follow instructions.

To argue that a STOP sign doesn't need to be followed because it is at an intersection in a remote area assigns a qualifier to a situation that has no room for qualification. Down that slippery slope lies vast potential for confusion and injury, not to mention future arguments about when and whether the law applies in certain situations. We just don't want to go down that road as a society in any meaningful way. Traffic laws are on the books to protect drivers, cyclists, pedestrians, and anyone else who might be using roads. Traffic laws are not intended to be followed discriminately, nor should they be so enforced.

STOP does not mean SLOW AND PROCEED IF NO ONE IS COMING. STOP means STOP. If issuing citations to drivers who break the law in this regard is what it takes to get people to focus on road safety, then that is a price worth paying (and yes, I would be willing to pay a steep fine if I so broke the law).