Some Chicago Boyz know each other from student days at the University of Chicago. Others are Chicago boys in spirit. The blog name is also intended as a good-humored gesture of admiration for distinguished Chicago School economists and fellow travelers.
The SS United States, a fast and beautiful passenger liner, was built in 1952 and operated in commercial service until 1969. She is now in danger of being scrapped.
Lots of pictures in the slideshow at the link; also, some of the comments are interesting.
More about the ship at Wikipedia, and here is an organization which is attempting to save this vessel.
Three mini-reviews in this batch:
“Vanity Fair,” William Makepeace Thackery
“The Promised Land,” Mary Antin
“Metropolitan Corridor,” John Stillgoe
I picked up Thackeray’s “Vanity Fair” from the shelf where it had lain unread, lo these many years, and spent two weeks utterly immersed in the world of Becky Sharp and her friends associates victims. I’d never read the book before, but did see a made-for-tv movie based on it several years ago…IIRC, the movie was far more centered around Becky herself, whereas the book develops the other characters to a considerably greater degree.
Very funny (once you get used to the dense writing style) and utterly unsentimental: Thackeray called it “a novel without a hero.” Those looking for escapism by reading about the elegant lifestyles of the English upper classes should definitely look elsewhere: for all others, this book is highly recommended.
***
“The Promised Land,” by Mary Antin, is the story of the author’s journey from Polotzk, Russia (a town which was part of the Jewish Pale of Settlement) to Boston, Massachussetts, with her family, in the late 1800s. Antin was a keen observer and a vivid writer–particularly impressive given that she had no exposure to English until she was 13. “The Promised Land” was published in 1912, having been first serialized in the Atlantic Monthly.
General Motors has announced that the Chevy Volt will get 230 mpg for city driving, and probably around 100 mpg for combined city/highway driving.
The Volt obtains this performance, of course, through its use of a battery recharged from the grid. “230 mpg” means “230 miles per gallon of gasoline,” and ignores the coal or natural gas which in most cases will supply the recharging. The Electricity Fairy has not been coming around a lot lately.
A proper metric for a vehicle such as the Volt depends on what factors the buyer really cares about…
If your main concern is “energy independence,” then “miles per gallon of gasoline” is probably a reasonable criterion.
If your main concern is operating cost, then you need “total cost per mile,” based on a combination of gasoline cost and electricity cost.
If you worry that the world is going to run out of energy, you should be looking at “BTUs per mile.”
And if you really believe CO2 is going to destroy us all, then the metric you should care about is “CO2 emissions per mile.”
The steamboat Delta Queen is a well-known and much-loved vessel. Built in 1926, she is 285 feet long, with a steel hull, powered by two steam engines of 2000HP each. She was originally used for passenger service between San Francisco and Sacramento. After being refurbished in 1945, she began service on the Mississippi River and its tributaries, and has operated in that role ever since. Thousands of Americans have enjoyed river cruising on the Delta Queen.
Not any more, though. Delta Queen made her last passenger voyage in 2008, and is now tied up as a hotel in Chattanooga. The end of passenger service is not due to any structural or mechanical problems with the vessel, nor is it due to the difficult economy. Rather, the demise of the Delta Queen says a great deal–not much of it very encouraging–about the political and cultural environment now existing in this country.
Milo clued me in to a new scheme the British government came up with. Turn in your old car to be destroyed (at taxpayer expense!) and get a credit towards a new one.
There already is an incentive offered to get people to buy new cars. It is called a “trade in”, where cash or credit towards a new car is offered by the dealers themselves. And then the dealers fix up the old cars and sell them for a lower price to those who can’t afford a new one. Everyone wins!
But the new scheme in Great Britain would do away with used cars. Buy a new one or go without. I suppose the government over there just hates poor people.
I wouldn’t even bother to mention this at all, considering how it is an internal political matter in a foreign country, except that I just found out that Pres. Obama has suggested that the US adopt the same stupid plan!
Words fail me.
(Hat tip to Insty, and I cross posted this essay over at Hell in a Handbasket.)