The military used “Geronimo” as a code name for the operation to get Osama bin Laden.

Geronimo, of course, was the Native American leader who fought against Mexico and the United States for expansion into Apache lands, and who was famous for evading capture for decades.

I guess that last point is the salient one. Evading capture.

“We’ve been oppressed for so long, it just doesn’t matter anymore,” said Leon Curley, a Navajo and Marine veteran from Gallup, N.M. “The government does what it wants when it wants. The name calling is going to stay around forever. But when you think about it, this is an insult.”

It’s true.

Sigh.

Key quote:

Americans make more “stuff” than any other nation on earth, and by a wide margin. According to the United Nations’ comprehensive database of international economic data, America’s manufacturing output in 2009 (expressed in constant 2005 dollars) was $2.15 trillion. That surpassed China’s output of $1.48 trillion by nearly 46 percent. China’s industries may be booming, but the United States still accounted for 20 percent of the world’s manufacturing output in 2009 – only a hair below its 1990 share of 21 percent.

“The decline, demise, and death of America’s manufacturing sector has been greatly exaggerated,” says economist Mark Perry, a visiting scholar at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington. “America still makes a ton of stuff, and we make more of it now than ever before in history.” In fact, Americans manufactured more goods in 2009 than the Japanese, Germans, British, and Italians – combined.

Our move to a service economy from a manufacturing economy is clear, and maybe it’s not a bad thing …

Key quote:

With Gonzalez reportedly having agreed to a seven-year, $154 million extension to his contract, the Red Sox have invested $296 million in a span of four days. The additions of Gonzalez and Crawford, two stars in their prime, should set the team up as contenders for years to come.

Red Sox Nation just got an early Christmas present …

Man, I am so glad I am not a journalist right now.

Check out this article from Sunday’s Boston Globe: “School system to get Muslim holiday.”

“At a time when I think the Muslim population is being characterized with a broad brush in a negative way, I think it’s important for us to say we’re not going to do that here,” [Cambridge School Committee member Marc] McGovern said.

Cambridge schools already close for some Christian and Jewish holidays, and McGovern said he believes Muslims should be treated equally.

“The issue that sort of came up was should we celebrate any religious holidays, but there was not the will to take away Good Friday or one of the Jewish holidays,” he said. “So I said, if that is the case, I think we have an obligation to celebrate one of the Muslim holidays, as well.”

I kind of want to move to Cambridge, now. Wow.

The last line is fantastic: “Can’t please everybody,” he said. “You have to do what you think is right.”

Check out this article from the Boston Globe: “Wakefield, Looney Tunes helping out kids.”

Sweet.

Corpus Coranicum is a project from scholars at Germany’s Berlin-Brandenberg Academy of Sciences to analyze various versions of Islam’s holy book, the Koran.

But, drawing on some of the earliest Korans in existence – codices found in Istanbul, Cairo, Paris, and Morocco – the Corpus Coranicum will allow users to study for themselves images of thousands of pages of early Korans, texts that differ in small but potentially telling ways from the modern standard version. The project will also link passages in the text to analogous ones in the New Testament and Hebrew Bible, and offer an exhaustive critical commentary on the Koran’s language, structure, themes, and roots. The project’s creators are calling it the world’s first “critical edition” of the Koran, a resource that gathers historical evidence and scholarly literature into one searchable, cross-referenced whole.

Origins of world religions fascinate me. It’ll be interesting to see what they find …

The “Nomar” in question (if there are even multiple “Nomars” out there?) is former Sox shortstop Nomar Garciaparra, who of course was a member of the historic 2004 World Series team – up until the trade deadline in July.

I was in Boston that weekend, and although I didn’t write about it at the time, I did take this photo:

August 01, 2004. The day after Nomar was traded to the Cubs.
Ironic, eh? 'Keep the Faith.'

Anyway, immediately after I heard the news today I got to thinking about retiring his jersey, number five. Rocco had it last season, but now he’s retired, too. So it’s free.

But the Red Sox official policy on retiring uniform numbers is based on the following criteria:

Election to the National Baseball Hall of Fame
At least 10 years played with the Red Sox

He’s a six-time All-Star and was the 1997 American League Rookie of the Year, so the Hall of Fame shouldn’t be a problem, we’ll have to wait five years but that’s no problem.

The second part – problem.

Nomar was only with the Sox from August of 1996 to the aforementioned July of 2004 – nine years.

Hmm.

Guess we do have five years to change that rule …

Can you imagine spring training has barely begun and he’s already saying stuff like, “I know I’m not going to be here next year”?

Oh I’m so very glad he’s not on the Red Sox anymore.