In My Closet

Posted on by Mark Aldrich

It is said that Albert Einstein once asked, “If a cluttered desk is a sign of a cluttered mind, what are we to think of an empty desk?” While not famous for his quips—although E=mc2 is the soul of wit in its brevity—this neatly captures the perspective of a person who kept his desk almost confrontationally cluttered.

The human mind is an organizer, the greatest one we happen to know, the one that all of our tools and machines are built in an attempt to replicate its principles and imagined actions. Nature itself does not organize. Every organizing structure we come up with is an imposition on nature and is thus radically random, at least as far as nature is concerned: No method of organizing is more “correct” than any other.
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Today in History: April 18

Posted on by Mark Aldrich

The longest professional baseball game in history started 35 years ago today. The Pawtucket Red Sox (box score above) and the Rochester Red Wings, two Triple-A teams, played 32 innings to a 2-2 tie between 8:25 p.m. and 4:07 a.m. the next morning, April 19. Several players recorded more than a dozen at bats each in the game. (Wade Boggs went four for 12 for Pawtucket and Cal Ripken, Jr. went two for 13.)

Most cities and, thus, most professional sports leagues have mandatory curfews that dictate a game should be suspended at a certain time if it is tied. This is for many reasons, all of them having to do with common sense: courtesy to the neighbors of the ballpark if the park is located in a residential neighborhood, for one thing, and also so that those in attendance who need mass transportation services to get home can catch the last trains home. The rule book in home plate umpire Dennis Cregg’s possession did not happen to have the league’s curfew rule included in it. So when 12:50 a.m. ticked by, which was the league’s mandatory, common sense, curfew hour, the two teams continued playing.
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Inside Raif Badawi’s Prison Cell

Posted on by Mark Aldrich

An Exclusive in The Gad About Town

Raif Badawi is one of Saudi Arabia’s most prominent prisoners—a political prisoner, certainly, a young blogger who was convicted of insulting Islam in his essays on his web site and then flogged as a part of that punishment; but other than a 750-word article that he dictated over the telephone to serve as an introduction to his book, “1000 Lashes: Because I Say What I Think,” he has not been heard from in years. His face is known to millions, and sentences from his eloquent writings are seen on thousands of placards and internet memes celebrating freedom of speech, but he is in danger of being reduced to a symbol.

One of my sources in the “Free Raif Badawi” movement shared with me this weekend a glimpse inside Raif Badawi’s current prison existence. This source requested anonymity but encouraged the writing of this article, and I will reveal neither the name nor even the gender of the source. This individual has indirect contact with Raif Badawi and communicates regularly with two other sources inside the prison complex in which Raif Badawi is now being held. We will not betray any information that can compromise Raif Badawi’s security or condition, so I can not quote Raif Badawi directly. I myself have not had contact with Raif Badawi.
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