Just some stuff about ancient Inca rope language

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One tradition requires the villagers to murmur invocations during the bone-chilling night to the deified mountains surrounding Rapaz, asking for the clouds to let forth rain. Then they peer into burning llama fat and read how its sparks fly, before sacrificing a guinea pig and nestling it in a hole with flowers and coca.

– Simon Romero, N.Y. Times.

Pretty fascinating story from the Times about the struggle to decipher khipus, ancient Inca woven knots that some believe may have been that society’s secret to communication without written language.

Basically, there are these ropes with a series of intricately woven knots in them. A bunch of ancient towns have a bunch of these ropes, but no one knows how to read them anymore, in part because the Spanish colonials stamped them out. There are some that are used for math, but those are a different thing, apparently.

It’s not mentioned in the article and I’m sure the people working on it are smart enough to figure this out, but I wonder if there’s greater variance in the dialects, so to speak, of the ropes than there would have been in written languages in other ancient societies since the Incas didn’t have the wheel. Doesn’t it seem like that would make everything go a little slower, so the rope-language change a little bit more from town to town? Just a thought.

Also, and I mean no disrespect: Really, Inca civilization? No written language and no wheel? I mean, I totally appreciate what you’ve done with the llama, and I understand Macchu Picchu is about the most beautiful place in the world, but, you know, seriously?

Krod!

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I hope the ultimate fallout from this whole Frankie Rodriguez saga is that people start using the term “krod” as an expletive. Not K-Rod, krod. One syllable.

As in: “Krod! He’s bringing in Dessens again!” Or: “Man, he beat the krod out of that old guy!” Or: “Holy krod, why in krod’s name did they give a vesting option to a pitcher with such kroddy peripherals?”

Anyway, now Rodriguez is presumably done for the year. He gets thumb surgery, the Mets get Hisanori Takahashi closing games, and the girlfriend’s father gets to say, “you should see the other guy” when people ask him about his bruises.

The small glimmering scrap of upside — beyond the krod stuff, of course — is the hope that the Mets will be able to void the rest Rodriguez’s contract, though it seems unlikely. That would free up some money for the team to pursue free agents this offseason, though I wonder if those celebrating the possibility are giving the team too much credit.

Does anyone really think the Mets have, in a year and a half, gotten over the need for a ninth-inning reliever with the “closer” brand? It seems way more likely the Mets spend any money allotted to K-Rod on another silly contract to another closer, and quite likely one not as good as Rodriguez — albeit one less likely to fight in the family room.

I’ll allow that Takahashi could prove good enough in this audition to convince the Mets he has the elusive closer mentality and earn himself an extension — should they successfully part ways with K-Rod, of course. That’s about the best way this could play out.

Most likely, the Mets won’t be able to void K-Rod’s contract and they’ll end up with the reliever back for a super awkward year in their bullpen in 2011. I imagine that unless they’re right in the thick of a pennant race they’ll bend over backwards to make sure his ridiculous 2012 option doesn’t vest. But since they struggle to part ways with sunk cost, since K-Rod still brings actual value to the team despite his off-field problems, and since they’re almost certain to believe they need someone labeled “closer” for 2011,  he’ll probably be back.

So we’ll deal with that krod when we get there.

Loathsome hipster sleeping on your couch throws alley-oop pass to corporation hellbent on thought control

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“I think cutting down on physical commodities in general might be a trend of my generation – cutting down on physical commodities that can be replaced by digital counterparts will be a fact,” said Mr Sutton.

The tech-savvy Los Angeles “transplant” credits his external hard drives and online services like iTunes, Hulu, Flickr, Facebook, Skype and Google Maps for allowing him to lead a minimalist life.

“I think the shift to all digital formats in all methods and forms of media consumption is inevitable and coming very quickly,” said Mr Sutton.

– Matthew Danzico, BBC News.

I’ll fully admit that I’m a little bit paranoid. Not like tinfoil-hat paranoid, just like a guy who has read 1984 and Fahrenheit 451 and spent a lot of time thinking about how it all could go wrong.

So articles like this one, about the new and pretentious so-called 21st-Century Minimalists, freak me out a bit. The piece highlights a growing number of people who have parted with all their old-media possessions to go all-digital, including at least a few that tossed their apartments out with their DVD collections, preferring the enormously presumptuous route of crashing on people’s couches.

And look: I realize this (outside of the drifter thing) is the direction the world is going and its sort of silly to fight it. Eventually I’ll have a Kindle or an iPad or something like it, and most of the books I own will be in electronic format even if I love the feeling of making progress through pages in print.

But since many of the largest entities putting books online are corporations — beholden to different standards than schools or the government — what happens as we begin depending on eBooks more and more? What if Google wins a bunch of lawsuits and someday completes the Google Books project and we become reliant on it? Then we’re at their mercy, and if Google decides to move into Phase 2 and start working on thought control then, well, whoops.

I’m getting ahead of myself. I just still think there’s value in having something actually exist in some hard form of media, if only for posterity.

Also I didn’t even mention how desperately the guy quoted above is begging to be plugged into The Matrix. OK, bro, you want a fully digital existence? You got it. Now you’re powering Keanu Reeves’ war against the machines.

The Mets lineup tonight

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Seriously:

SS – Jose Reyes
LF – Angel Pagan
3B – David Wright
CF – Carlos Beltran
RF – Jeff Francoeur
1B – Mike Hessman
C – Henry Blanco
2B – Luis Castillo
P – Jon Niese

OK, look: I know the Mets are facing a lefty. And I know Ike Davis, Josh Thole and Fernando Martinez don’t hit lefties well. But you want them to someday, right? I mean, that’s the idea, I think.

Resting Thole is fine because he started the last couple of days and he’s a catcher. He should play like a starting catcher from here on out — not strictly like the left-handed part of the platoon — even with Rod Barajas’ impending return. Not only should the Mets want to audition Thole for the full-time job in 2011, but it’s becoming pretty clear he’s their best option for the role anyway.

Resting Davis, Martinez and Ruben Tejada makes almost no sense. The only possibility that would make it excusable is if Davis is hurting and no one’s saying anything. Otherwise, it’s awful. Ike Davis is supposed to be a huge cog in the Mets’ future. And now you’re platooning him with Mike Hessman? What? I like Hessman as much as the next day, but you’ve got to give Ike chances to learn against lefties, especially in what’s looking like a lost season.

And if Martinez and Tejada are going to be here, they should be playing. Neither is really ready to be in the big leagues. You can’t rush players up to sit on the bench. That’s terrible.

What this looks like — and I have no inside information whatsoever, this is just guesswork — is Jerry Manuel making a last ditch effort to hold onto his job, to hell with the front-office’s effort at a youth movement. Because yeah, against lefties it’s possible Hessman, Francoeur, Castillo and Blanco actually do give the Mets a better chance at winning. It just doesn’t help them win anything in 2011.

So my completely uninformed guess would be that Manuel’s thinking he can’t get canned if the team is winning, so he’s trying everything he can do to eek out some wins. But you’d think the front office could pretty easily take care of that problem by either instructing him to play the rookies, assuring him that his job is safe, or firing him and getting it over with.

Timo Perez didn’t want to talk

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I went to Binghamton on Saturday with our video producer, Jeff. We t drove up during the day, interviewed a few players, watched the B-Mets score 11 runs thanks to a brutal Reading Phillies defense, ate dinner, crashed at a HoJo’s and headed home. Quick trip.

Anyway, the most exciting part, for me, was when we took a look at the R-Phils’ (they really do call ’em that) roster posted in the B-Mets’ dugout. There among the outfielders, born in 1975, listed at 5’9″: Timo Perez.

And sure enough, there, leaning up against the batting-practice cage, no taller than 5’7″, was the familiar face of baserunning blunders past.

I grew giddy.

“We gotta get him! Dude, we’ve got to talk to Timo Perez. This is incredible!”

I didn’t even stop to think about what Timo Perez was doing there. I figured I’d ask him about his time with the Mets, and the little-heralded Matt Ginter trade that took him away, and how he was working with younger players now as an experienced veteran in something closer to a coaching role, and how he had played baseball all around the world and played in the World Series with the Mets in 2000 and won one with the White Sox in 2005.

So after the Phillies finished BP I made my way through their dugout, over a bag of batting helmets and into their tiny clubhouse where Timo Perez sat typing into his cell phone.

“Hey Timo — I’m Ted; I’m from SNY, the Mets’ TV network — you got a minute for an interview?”

“No.”

And that was that. A couple of his teammates appeared incredulous; probably most members of the Double-A Reading Phillies don’t get many media requests to reject. But Timo Perez didn’t want to talk.

It’s his right, of course.

And you know what? What an a******* I am for getting caught up thinking it’s funny, a 35-year-old former Met out in cow country trying to play his way back to the big leagues. That’s Timo Perez’s life.

I can point to his age and his .690 Major League OPS and his .663 mark in Reading this year and draw a pretty clear conclusion about what’s happening to him. But that might not be as easy to do when you’ve been playing baseball professionally for your entire adulthood.

So Timo Perez doesn’t want to chat up some grinning jackass who appears entertained by the fact that he played in the World Series five years ago and now is backing up 22-year-olds. Who could blame him?

Melvin Mora!

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Maybe my favorite Baseball Show ever? Melvin Mora, like I’ve said, was one of my favorite Mets in his brief tenure with the club. Our editors had to cut the part where he talked about his five 9-year-olds for length, so I’ll just write it: He told me they always demand to come with him when he plays in New York because they know it’s the city where their dad was a postseason hero. 

Now a full-fledged member of the media, Tony Dungy chock full of sanctimony

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Dungy, who retired as Indianapolis Colts coach after the 2008 season, said such behavior would cause him to disqualify Ryan from future jobs.

“It’s hard for me to be around that,” Dungy said on the Dan Patrick radio show. “If I were in charge, I wouldn’t hire somebody like that.

Dungy also said he thinks NFL commissioner Roger Goodell should speak with Ryan about his language. “I would hope that he does,” Dungy said.

– Sean Leahy, USA Today.

All due respect to a great football coach and all, but hey Tony Dungy — Rex Ryan’s got your lewd behavior right here, buddy: