I QUIT SMOKING FOR THIS? Skimming the online edition of the Los Angeles Times, I clicked on the headline, “State’s Air Is Among the Nation’s Worst”. According to an EPA report, “Californians are breathing some of the most toxic air in the nation, with residents of Los Angeles and Orange counties exposed to a cancer risk about twice the national average.” My first thought was, “Whew, I glad I got the heck out of there.” Which was soon followed by a haughty, derisive, “Hah, you silly, smoothie-slurping, tracksuit-wearing, image-worshipping, smoking-in-bars-banning exercise freaks! Your precious SUVs spell your doom.” Of course, the third paragraph of the article reads, “New York tops the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s list” for highest chance of contracting cancer from breathing the air. Curses, foiled again.

THERE’S SOMETHING FISHY GOING ON AT AMAZON.COM and it has to do with the new Iron Maiden concert DVD. Even though I agree with the reviewers who are critical of Steve Harris’ atrocious, hyperactive editing, I can’t help but be suspicious of the six most recent one-star reviews (dated March 7–8). Or is it perfectly normal for users named Pitchulo Dun Dun, Poverty “Tungan”, Kael, Gergellor, Patherson and Carmarthen — who apparently live in places called Filha de Uma Puta, Puta Que O Pariu, Jugland, Supimpalândia and Zunder — to post nearly the exact same review in two days? Even more bizarre, five of the six use the word “edition” when they mean to say “editing”. I can’t even begin to form a theory, unless some nutso metalhead actually has six different Amazon.com identities and felt compelled to post a negative review under each. But that’s just crazy.

THE NEW YORK TIMES SPREADS FEAR AND DESPAIR with this wonderful oddity of an article about “iconic crimes” in today’s metro section. I don’t know whether they publish this sort of thing to give publicity to the writer’s new book or to drive down housing prices, but it’s still fun to read this doozy of a closing thought over tea on a lazy Sunday afternoon:

The crimes that become iconic etch themselves into the collective consciousness because they suggest a frightening truth: that the universe does not rely on cause and effect. If that is true, there’s no possibility of control, and that thought opens an abyss of despair. People speak of “senseless” killings, but every crime makes sense to the criminal who commits it. Iconic crimes are those that are senseless to the victims, and to the public. They are a reminder that there is no way to guarantee safety. If a police officer mistakes you for someone else, you can be shot 19 times. If you go for a jog, you can be raped, beaten and left for dead. If you send your child to school, he may never come back.

And if you linger over a drink after closing time, your battered, empty body can turn up in a desolate place, under a lone streetlight, far away.

Just the thing to get you fired up for another Monday morning.

WEIRD. I THINK I AGREE WITH DAN SHAUGHNESSY. Apparently, New Englanders can no longer watch the Sox once a week for free on UPN. Basically, if you don’t pony up for cable, you don’t get to watch the Sox. Or more specifically, if you don’t pony up for NESN, which the Sox own, you don’t get to watch the Sox. Not very neighborly of the hometown team.

By the way, the New York Times owns part of the Red Sox and the Boston Globe. Corporations call this “synergy.” Shaughnessy calls it “the cartel.” I call it “the suck.” Who the heck are you supposed to trust when the newspaper of your hometeam’s biggest rival co-owns the hometown newspaper, as well as a significant percentage of the hometeam itself, which also belongs to a group of owners who own the only channel that will broadcast the hometown team’s games (except for the handful of Fox broadcasts). Well, at least people who can’t afford the ol’ cable TV can still listen to the games on WEEI, which ain’t entirely a bad thing.

UPDATE: I guess I jumped the gun on WEEI. Apparently, WEEI’s contract with the Sox is up for re-negotiation next season.

HOPEFULLY, MANNY BEING MANNY is a phenomenon we get to enjoy close-up for many, many seasons to come. The Sport’s Guy’s email exchange with Curt Schilling reminds me why idiot savant baseball can be way more fun than regular baseball:

SIMMONS: My favorite “Manny being Manny” moment happened in the final game of the regular season — he had just crushed a home run, the cameras caught you guys sitting next to one another in the dugout, he was talking excitedly about what pitch he had hit, and somewhere along the way, you just started staring at him in disbelief, as though he had just said something like, “I knew it was going to be a slider because I started craving a pork sandwich, and that always means a slider’s coming!” And you just kept staring at him, and then he walked away to another part of the dugout, and you started shaking your head in shock like, “Wow, I will never, ever, ever figure that guy out.” How many of those Manny encounters happen per season?

SCHILLING: Three to four per day.

SNOW IS ON THE GROUND, but single game tickets for next season went on sale today. And, just like Butch asked Sundance, Gordon Edes of the Boston Globe asks what we’re all asking: “Who are these guys?”

So, we ask again: Is this progress? Loretta and Lowell have been productive players, but they’re both coming off subpar seasons. The Sox are high on Youkilis, and he should certainly give them more production than Kevin Millar did. If a Tejada deal is a nonstarter, Gonzalez, the free agent shortstop who was not offered arbitration by the Marlins, is a terrific fielder. Marte could be a jewel, a throwback (Lajoie’s word) third baseman who might wear out the Wall. The plan is for Marte to move up as the need arises, though some Sox insiders still wonder if the team would be willing to give up Marte for a pitcher such as Javier Vazquez.

Loretta’s presence gives top prospect Dustin Pedroia another year to develop, too.

If Damon and Ramírez stay, the offense should still be potent. The pitching will be better with Josh Beckett, and the bullpen is already better with Guillermo Mota.

But what we knew about Kevin Millar and Bill Mueller and Tony Graffanino and John Olerud and Doug Mirabelli and Wells is that they knew how to win.

The new guys from Florida can flash World Series rings, but the imports still have some proving to do here.

IN A PERFECT WORLD, we’d still be boring and intolerable, because we’d all be running around obnoxiously content and at peace with everything, rubbing it in each other’s faces, as if there was absolutely nothing wrong in the world, which would be true, which would make it all that more annoying. On the bright side, the world isn’t perfect, and even better, whenever we foolishly begin to think things can’t get worse, George Saunders is there to remind us, “Why not?”. Exhibit A, an excerpt from his story, “CommComm”:

Dad worked thirty years at Gallup Chain, with his dad. Then they discontinued Automotive. Only Bike remained. A week after his layoff, Grandpa died. Day of the wake, Dad got laid off too. Month later, we found out Jean was sick. Jean was my sister, who died at eight. Her last wish was Disneyland. But money was tight. Toward the end, Dad borrowed money from Leo, the brother he hated. But Jean was too sick to travel. So Dad had an Army friend from Barstow film all of Disney on a Super-8. The guy walked the whole place. Jean watched it and watched it. Dad was one of these auto-optimists. To hear him tell it, we’d won an incredible last-minute victory. Hadn’t we? Wasn’t it something, that we could give Jeanie such a wonderful opportunity?

But Jean had been distilled down to like pure honesty.

“I do wish I could have gone, though,” she said.

“Well, we practically did,” Dad said, looking panicked.

“No, but I wish we really did,” she said.

After Jean died, we kept her room intact, did a birthday thing for her every year, started constantly expecting the worst.

Believe it or not, there’s a happy ending. But even better, maybe there’s such a thing as redemption in real life, too.