Neal Pomea

Where are you getting your numbers? I look at this source, Baseball Almanac, at http://www.baseball-almanac.com/hitting/hibavg3.shtml George Brett!

I think we are talking about different species. This, from Encyclopedia Britannica: "About 1,500 species of cicadas are known; most are tropical and occur in deserts, grasslands, and forests. In addition to the dog-day cicada (Tibicen and others) that appears yearly in midsummer, there are also periodic cicadas. Among the most fascinating and best-known are the 17-year cicada (often erroneously called the 17-year locust) and the 13-year cicada (Magicicada). These species occur in large numbers in chronologically and geographically isolated broods." Apparently in 2004 we had the Brood X 17 year cicadas, not 14 as I stated earlier. Washington Post story, Whistling Sweet Nothings, Cicadas Abuzz, June 1, 2004 "Act One was self-explanatory. Hibernating cicada nymphs emerged from the ground and crawled around. Act Two also was straightforward. They molted and left behind a diaphanous, buggy husk. They began to fly. Act Three, the Washington region has learned over the past week or so, is more mysterious and complex, something you almost have to experience to understand. Words seem inadequate to describe that vaguely menacing hum-whistle that seems to be everywhere but emanates from no single place in particular. Hollywood imagery helps. "It feels like an alien spaceship coming in," said Arlington resident Gene Miller, 66. "You ever watch that old 'Star Trek' episode where they leave their phasers on and try to melt something?" asked George Fox of Alexandria. "That's what it sounds like to me." We've entered the peak of the Brood X emergence -- a roughly three-week period when millions of male insects are doing what evolution designed them to do, which is mate before they die. That means the males are singing, often in unison. The collective mating call produces what many described in a sort of shorthand as, "you know, the UFO sound." Male cicadas gather in densely packed "choruses," projecting what entomologist David Marshall said is "among the loudest sounds in nature." The females are silent. "If those males don't mate, they've utterly failed," said Marshall, of the University of Connecticut. "So everything they're doing is centered around that sound." The noise probably will last until the third week of June, when most of the cicadas probably will be dead, said Gaye Williams, a Maryland Department of Agriculture entomologist. Predicting precisely when the emergence will end is difficult, she said, because it depends on many variables -- temperature, moisture, humidity. They sing until the bitter end, she said. "When they're dying, it's the last thing that goes," she said. "At the very end, it almost sounds like a heart monitor. It's very sad." The singing is mostly a daytime phenomenon. At night, cicadas for the most part go quiet because cooler temperatures and darkness calm them down. Conversely, direct sunlight and heat amplify the racket. "That's the main thing the males are doing out there," Marshall said. "They're doing some feeding, but other than that, they're calling to convince the females." The sound is produced by membranous panels beneath the cicada's wings. The panels, called tymbals, vibrate rapidly. The cicada's body, mostly hollow, serves as an amplifier. Even the bug's eardrum gets in on the noise making, vibrating along with the tympanum to produce an even louder noise. Each species has a signature song. The noise we hear in the Washington area is produced by three different species, all part of the emergence. Although it can be hard to tell when the cicada chorus is fully amped up, there are dozens of distinct sounds. Some cicadas prefer to whir. Some whistle. Others click. When a male cicada's song leads to success, specific sounds lead up to the procreative act, and then others are emitted during the denouement, Marshall said. "It's a very fast ticking," he said. Cicadas also emit a distress signal when they are threatened or trapped, a sound that is louder, less musical and more rattlelike than the mating call. This seems to unsettle listeners more. Staci Largen, 27, said she was awakened one recent morning in her fifth-floor Arlington apartment by what she initially thought was a person screaming. The noise came through her closed window. She later bought earplugs so she could sleep. "It sounds like somebody getting ax-murdered," Largen said. Others likened it to the thrushing squawk in Alfred Hitchcock's horror classic "The Birds." Gene Miller, a retired American Airlines freight handler, said it provides a "pleasant" soundtrack to his daily routine. He was scribbling in a book of logic problems -- his late-morning diversion of choice -- recently in Fort Ward Park in Alexandria. The UFOs were descending. "I think it's fantastic. I just like it, okay?" said Miller, sipping a Diet Coke at his favorite picnic table. "When they go away, I'm going to miss them." The chorus can reach about 90 decibels, experts said. That's roughly the equivalent of listening to a lawnmower from about 10 feet away. The noise isn't likely to cause hearing damage, said Brad A. Stach, president of the American Academy of Audiology in Reston. Eighty decibels is generally considered the threshold for hearing- damaging noise, Stach said. But it takes prolonged exposure to noise above 80 decibels to begin causing problems. "The likelihood that [cicadas] are going to cause you any permanent problems is small," Stach said. It is the haunting vibrato of the cicada choruses, less than the volume, that seems to inspire artistic interpretation. Tamara Smyth, a lecturer at Stanford University, designed the tymbalimba, an elaborate metal instrument which is played with the fingers, like a piano. It interacts with a computer to produce music. George Fox, an Alexandria Web designer and amateur composer, has written a song called "Brood X" (http://www.f2sys.net/brood-x/), which he produced with synthesizers. Melded into the throbbing electronic baseline are recordings of real cicada noise. "The rhythm track, what would be normally played on a cymbal or a high hat, are actually cicada," Fox said. Fox also wrote a song for the cicadas during their last emergence, 17 years ago. He tried to reproduce it by turning a bicycle upside down, spinning the wheel and clicking drumsticks across the wheel and spokes. "It was really experimental," Fox said. "I don't know if it was all that listenable." It's a tough noise to describe, much less duplicate. When words fail, even such experts as the University of Connecticut's Marshall resort to mimicry. "Wheeeeeeeeeeroo, wheeeeeeeeeroooo," the entomologist said. "Wheeeeeeeeeroo."

I don't think so. In the Mid-Atlantic states we get a variety that only comes out once every 14 years! Do they really come out every summer where you live? How about in the south? The noise they make might be associated with mating. Sounds like a crowded noisy bar with partying going on! They sure are a topic of conversation when they appear around here!

What a surprise! Well, I guess we know what Larry King's covering tonight.

Well, Manny did it with a walk off single and an error by Baltimore's left fielder in the bottom of the 10th. Can't beat those guys!

See this New Yorker article where the Wikipedia founder predicts the demise of Britannica and triumph of Wikipedia in 4-5 years. Delusions of adequacy! http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/articles/060731fa_fact

I am probably even more cynical today than BeBop. Will they be remembered 150 years from now? Are they remembered well today? The entry for Brittney Spears in Wikipedia is longer than the entry on Louis Armstrong! Of course, Wikipedia has a strong bias toward entries by people consumed with pop culture. Entries on pop culture have the same value and weight in Wikipedia as those things that have traditionally gone into an encyclopedia.

Trash the NL if you want, but every game in last year's World Series could have gone the other way. Brutal games. Some of you well said, if it involves Chicago and Houston, it is of no interest at all. It has to have Boston or NY. I don't think any teams from there will be going to the World Series this year. Maybe the Yankees. Doubt it.

Soriano stays in Washington for now. That surprises me. He could have helped a contender, and the folks on National discussion boards thought he could have been had for a few Radio Shack coupons and municipal bonds. Greg Maddux goes to the Dodgers for Izturis, and Julio Lugo goes to Dodgers for a couple of minor league prospects.

I think Hot Ptah got it right. In my own case, when I get aggressive, I've probably been doing the hooch. Too sleepy to talk but not to type! It's a good question. What makes people think they can send false or unreliable info to an online encyclopedia like Wikipedia? Good God, the entry on St. Augustine is not as long as the ones on Brittney Spears and Special Agent Jack Bauer!!! You talk about passive-aggressive behavior there! No sense of proportion or history! One scotch, one bourbon, and a beer...

It's really none of my business, but I think I am hearing spin both from ESPN and Reynolds. I really hope Reynolds' spin is not the worse. You don't get fired just for hugging a lady and she misinterprets it. Not at his level. It goes much deeper than that. If he did something wrong but only THINKS it was a misinterpreted hug, then it might be denial of a problem. Then if ESPN had other reasons to fire Reynolds, and just latched on to an accusation, there's little Reynolds or any of us can do if we are "at will" employees. They can fire us because of nothing if we work at their pleasure. I would give Reynolds the same advice he has been giving A-Rod. Don't talk too much!! Where is my smilie for take this with a grain of salt!

Your written expression is copyrightable, but not your ideas and concepts. Ideas are not protected by copyright. Only tangible expressions. Maybe you are using the word "concept" in a way I don't understand. Under what is not protected by copyright see this quote: "Ideas, procedures, methods, systems, processes, concepts, principles, discoveries, or devices, as distinguished from a description, explanation, or illustration." You might have something that can be patented.

Well, I asked about this in the MLB thread, not thinking it would have its own thread. Have any of you heard that it is really about the ESPN coverage of A-Rod, focusing on that angle during the recent Yanks Rangers series? They are saying he had an encounter, a major disagreement with ESPN, over its coverage. For my money's worth, the trashing has been cruel, borne of jealousy of his money more than anything. I mean in the stadiums. If Reynolds had issues with ESPN about it, I wouldn't blame him. Then again, I hear the Yankee fans booed Mickey Mantle during his heyday. Guess they want to be known for being tough, by which I mean "semi-tough." Two cents.

Any idea why ESPN fired Harold Reynolds? I liked him and thought he gave good commentary. I have heard a couple of theories, but what have you heard?

Southwest Louisiana had a lot of local groups record. Later a term was coined, swamp pop, which I never liked, but the genre still sells well. See Floyd's Records under Swamp Pop. Popular artists were Rod Bernard Jivin' Gene Cookie and the Cupcakes Johnny Allan Randy and the Rockets Bobby Page and the Riff Raffs Tommy McLain T.K. Hulin Warren Storm Phil Phillips Dale and Grace Charles Mann The Boogie Kings Lil Bob and the Lollipops

Did anybody mention Johnny Cash? I Walk the Line Folsom Prison Blues Get Rhythm Big River I Still Miss Someone Train of Love Come in Stranger Home of the Blues There You Go

Awesome come from behind victory for the Nationals over the Yankees on Fox today. 2-2 early going. Then the Yanks went ahead 9-2 in the fifth. Then the Nationals chipped away and won against Rivera 11-9.

NO! Proud flip flopper here!

My country rock lps by New Riders of the Purple Sage, Grateful Dead, Great Speckled Bird, Byrds, Ian Matthews.... Canned Heat; Fleetwood Mac when it was Peter Green, Jeremy Spencer, and Danny Kirwan; John Mayall Back to the Roots Savoy Brown, Hellbound Train Rockpile, Seconds of Pleasure Neil Young, Harvest and On the Beach Band, Big Pink and brown album Got just about all of Fahey if that counts

I misread that as The Voice of Revival Tires and couldn't understand what y'all were talking about. I am probably one of the four people Revival Tires would like to go to Hell.

The Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra Salutes.....Boxcar Willie! Slim Gaillard, Slim Whitman....The Songs of Big Mama Thornton Jon Hendricks scats Eddy Arnold

I've been a Houston fan since the time they were the Colt 45s! One they should have listed was trading Rusty Staub to Montreal. He was an all-star player there, and a local favorite for the Louisiana fans like me. In those early days it seemed like every time they traded somebody, that player became a star for another team. Mike Cuellar went to Baltimore and was one of that 4 man rotation that were all 20 game winners (the last time that happened, probably!) Now I am in the DC area and a Nationals fan. Too early to call the Soriano deal a big failure, in my opinion. Conventional wisdom is that he'll be a free agent after this season and sign with the highest bidder, but you never know. Wilkerson is a good guy and I wish him well with the Rangers.

Well, it takes more than money, I think. He'll be a king in Houston for the rest of his life if he returns or even retires, but not so much if he goes to Boston. At least that's what I thought I heard Gammons think out loud.

Nobody much follows the AL East anymore, but is anyone counting out Toronto just yet? Wild card is as likely to be Detroit as anybody East. Clemens got a good offer from someone he might not be able to refuse: http://www.theonion.com/content/node/48399

I think Bonds will just pass Ruth and retire soon afterward before passing Aaron, don't you? He looks like he's playing in so much pain. What was his point with passing Ruth? Ruth will always be a greater icon in baseball history. How many seasons did he spend pitching? I thought he held some pitching records for many years before he ever was the home run hitter. He changed the game. Passing Ruth meant something for Aaron at the time, but what is the point now for Bonds? I just don't see it. Is it all about spiting his enemies in the press?