Nate Knows Nada

More and more people frommy academic department are lurking on the
margins of my blog, as some of them tell me that they have discovered
it or that their friends have.

I haven’t decided whether this makes me nervous or excited.

From today’s Boston Globe columnist Alex Beam:

Assume there is a Supreme Being. Assume that She is all-powerful and
beneficent. But she is not indulgent. She will grant one, and only one,
of your two most fervent wishes: Either John Kerry will be inaugurated
as the 44th president of the United States.

Or the Boston Red Sox will win the World Series this fall.

What will it be?

I hung around Downtown Crossing yesterday for about an hour running
this question by 52 Bostonians. (If only Butch Hobson were still
managing the Sox, we could call this a true Hobson’s choice.) Many
respondents were torn, but ultimately the people spoke. Twenty people
felt it was more important for their junior senator to take over the
White House. Thirty-two implored the Deity to intervene and send World
Series rings to the Olde Towne Team. If there was a common theme, it
was skepticism that either event was likely to take place.

I
should point out that I don’t care about the Red Sox one whit. 
Well, only for the sake of marital harmony, but even then….  But
the Sox aren’t my team, and their supporters seem united as much by
their hatred of the Yankees as by their love of the Sox.