Flashbacks: Boston chess champ squares off against a computer, the painful musical pairing of Paul McCartney and Michael Jackson, and the squabble over the Boston Tea Party Bicentennial festivities

CRUEL TO BE KIND
5 years ago
December 5, 2003 | Rebecca Paley profiled Dr. William Rashbaum, a long-time practicing, prominent second-trimester abortion provider.
“Husbands or boyfriends have been known to barge into his office and violently insist their baby not be aborted, to which Rashbaum replies with an equally violent, ‘Fuck you, Charlie, we can abort her.’ He won’t talk to them directly because, he explains, ‘I don’t treat men.’ But as Rashbaum talks privately to a patient...he shows another side, one that can sympathetically navigate highly emotional waters. An unabashed atheist, Rashbaum nonetheless has compassion for the religious conflicts that arise when women are told by priests not to have abortions. Gratitude comes in the form of files that have grown thick over the years with thank-you notes and birth announcements. Small, elaborate, hastily scribbled, or formal, the letters have arrived in many forms but all echo a similar sentiment: thank you for helping us through the most difficult time in our lives.” Read full article

PENTIUM SHMENTIUM
15 years ago
December 3, 1993 | Timothy Gower attended the Harvard Cup Versus Computer Chess Challenge, where Boston-based national chess champ Patrick Wolff was slated to square off against a computer powered by the powerful new Pentium chip.
“Two chess buffs were talking on the elevator at the Computer Museum. ‘Have you heard how the computers are doing?’ one asked.

“ ‘Well,’ the other responded, ‘I heard Patrick Wolff lost his first match.’ The two men arched their eyebrows and nodded.

“...[T]he rumor was true: a chess program called M-Chess Professional, considered one of the strongest programs in existence, had defeated Wolff that morning.

“ ‘I made a boo-boo...,’ Wolff said later. In the middle of executing a series of moves he thought would mate his computerized opponent, Wolff realized that he’d miscalculated...

“Event organizers remained poker-faced, but were undoubtedly tickled. The Harvard Cup is held in large part as a showcase for ever-improving artificial intelligence...Cup co-founders Dan Edelman and Christopher Chabrios spent the preceding week touting the speedy new Pentium computer chip from Intel...that would be driving the software this year. The faster a computer can consider possible moves, the tougher it is to beat. For the US champ to fall early was a sign that the humans might have met their match.

“Wolff was undaunted and unimpressed, however. He played five more games, winning four and playing to a draw in one. ‘I was surprised. I was expecting it to be harder,’ he said afterward. ‘Computers are getting quite good, especially with the Pentium chip. ... But this was way too easy.’ ”

KILLING US SOFTLY
25 years ago
December 6, 1983 | Joyce Millman weighed in on the awkward collaboration between Paul McCartney and Michael Jackson.
“Just as Mac can’t upstage Jack in the video...so he slinks away in defeat on the record. “Say Say Say” and “The Man” are tailored to Jackson like one of his punky, padded-shoulder tuxedos. The former song’s captivating but wispy melody threatens to dissolve under the weight of all the Thriller filler (vocoder, horns...) that McCartney and producer George Martin toss in as homage to Quincy Jones. McCartney sings smoothly, blandly, aiming for Jackson’s artless boyishness. Jackson, however bolsters his part with a dirty, grownup ferocity -- which McCartney can only mimic -- that briefly kicks some life into the song...If McCartney has any dignity, he won’t take on Jackson again -- but since he’s a cagy hitmaker...he probably will. He needs the young blood, the refreshed credibility -- that Jackson gives him. For they're part, Jackson and Wonder are equally affectionate members of this mutual admiration society; after all, they too grew up idolizing the Beatles. And Motown has always had a perverse weakness for pop schmaltz.”

SCHLOCK BLOCK
35 years ago
December 4, 1973 | Jim Sleepe reported on the rift developing between the state and something called the People’s Bicentennial Commission (PBC) over the festivities to be held on the 200th anniversary of the Boston Tea Party.
“Boston 200 is planning to commemorate the Tea Party by herding 3000 spectators into the Congress Street Bridge area to watch that costumed and choreographed National Guard dump something from the 75 foot replica of the Beaver, which will be docked next to the Salada Tea Company’s permanent exhibit and gift shop...[A]ll of the national media will be represented.

“Enter Ted Howard, Jeremy Rifkin, and the PBC, with a one-hundred fifty-foot vessel, the Unicorn, on loan from an unnamed private owner in New York, which they intend to dock next to the Beaver, bearing displays on impeachment and corporate power...A giant puppet of Nixon in royal robes...will emerge surrounded by oil drums and corporate effigies at the head of a noontime impeachment rally marching from Faneuil Hall along the route of the original colonists to the docks, and swarming into the midst of the dancers’ guardsmen’s choreography...

“ ‘Sure, the city’s defensive,’ chuckles Rifkin, ‘But it’s Catch 22; how the hell can they arrest people for being revolutionary at a commemoration of the Boston Tea Party?’ ”