Scott Simon

A 'Tough, Smart, Proud Town' Meets Terror With Determination

Scott Simon — Sat, 20 Apr 2013 15:52:00 +0000

People in Boston can speak for themselves. And do. Loudly, bluntly and often with humor that bites.

It's a city that speaks with both its own broad, homebrew, local accent — although no one really pahks thea cah in Havahd Yahd — and dialects from around the world. It is home to some of America's oldest founding families, and fathers, mothers and children who have just arrived from Jamaica, Ireland, Bangladesh and Ghana.

There are people in Boston who dress in pinstripes and tweeds, and tattoos and spiked hair.

Roger Ebert: Elegance and Empathy

Scott Simon — Sat, 06 Apr 2013 09:11:00 +0000

Roger Ebert was a critic, not a blowtorch. He could be sharp if he thought a movie insulted the audience, but had a champ's disdain for a cheap shot.

Many critics ridiculed the film Deep Throat when it came out in 1973. Who couldn't mock its absurdities?

Back From Extinction: Brooding Frog Or Thank you Note?

Scott Simon — Sat, 23 Mar 2013 12:13:00 +0000

The gastric brooding frog may be coming back. Does that give us a lot to brood about, too?

This week scientists at the University of New South Wales' Lazarus Project announced they have reproduced the genome — that bit of biological material that carries our genetic structure — of a gastric brooding frog.

The gastric brooder once lived in the rainforests of Queensland, Australia, and was declared extinct in 1983. It was not so named because it had the temperament of a Russell Crowe character, but because it gave birth through its mouth.

Cheating Might Buy Home Runs, But No Hall Of Fame

Scott Simon — Sat, 12 Jan 2013 15:29:00 +0000

The Baseball Hall of Fame is a tourist attraction, not a papal conclave. And the people who cast votes for the Hall are sportswriters, not the College of Cardinals.

But there was something momentous this week when the Baseball Writers Association elected no one to the Hall of Fame. Not Roger Clemens, who won a record seven Cy Young Awards. Not Barry Bonds, who hit a record 762 home runs. Not Sammy Sosa, who hit 60 or more home runs in a season three times.

But those glorious stats were amassed under suspicion of what's now known as the "Steroid Era" in baseball and possibly all sports.

Good Intentions, Complicated Results

Scott Simon — Sat, 08 Dec 2012 11:47:00 +0000

When news organizations, including ours, told of New York Police Officer Lawrence DePrimo buying boots for a barefoot man on the streets of Times Square one cold night last month, it seemed an irresistible holiday story: A kindly cop in a hard city helps a bedraggled man walking with blistered feet over some of the richest streets in the world.

The nameless, shoeless man became the best-known street person in America — just long enough to be recognized walking along the Upper West Side, where a New York Times reporter found him.

The man's name is Jeffrey Hillman.