Thingstosayaboutstuff

He hits you because he loves you

2012-01-22T23:12:00.000-05:00

What could possibly be wrong with an entire genre devoted to brooding, violent male love interests who don't really want to be bad, but are misunderstood by everyone but the teenage protagonist? All girls should read as much of this as possible.

This section was larger than the area devoted to Christian theology.

My favorite parts of Twilight are when she has to constantly apologize for tripping or otherwise being awkward - because that's not normal for teenagers of either gender, and any adolescent girls that display such behavior should immediately seek forgiveness and validation from the nearest male.

That, or when he almost kills her.

Religion says "slave", Jesus says "son"

2012-01-13T00:39:00.002-05:00

I really like this, though I cannot go as far as he seems to near the end. I do think that people often get too bogged down in do's and don'ts, as if they can somehow establish their goodness, either absolute or relative, instead of striving to reflect the love of God.

Play Nice

2011-12-13T19:27:00.002-05:00

Hours before I had to fire someone for the first time in my life, I received this text:

Don't forget to break it gently to the old lady dying of cancer that you're firing her a week before Christmas.

When I was later telling the same person how difficult it had been to deliver the news, she replied:

Aw. Did it ruin your day?
I bet it ruined hers.

The first one made me laugh out loud. It was the perfect tension release before a meeting that I had been dreading for days. The second one made me snort, then just marvel at the boldness it took to deliver such a mean joke.

I think I like her.

No, really - I fell down the stairs.

2011-12-03T22:56:00.000-05:00

On this new Buick commercial, we all agree this woman is a domestic abuse victim, right?

Under Pressure

2011-09-17T18:09:00.000-04:00

I attended the Wednesday night services at the Baptist church shortly after I arrived in town. On the prayer list handout, I saw that "Headmaster Search" had been crossed out and replaced with, "Pray for our new Headmaster (Me)".

It was terribly humbling to realize that people I hadn't even met yet have been praying for me by name. I really do not want to let the people of this community down. Unlike my neighbors in Pennsylvania, the people of Mississippi and Louisiana are familiar to me. I like the people here. However, I am honestly scared that I won't be able to live up to their expectations and may let them down. There are some fundamental limitations on the school and community, and I'm not sure I will be able to find the answers.

PS- I still love the job though.

I love my new job

2011-08-14T20:41:00.002-04:00

In the past 30 days or so, I have completed my thesis and master's oral presentation, moved from one apartment to another in PA, packed from that apartment to drive to Raleigh, flown from Raleigh to the Mississippi Delta via Atlanta for over eight hours of interviews, received an offer and accepted my first position as HoS (to begin six days later), flown back to Raleigh, driven to South Carolina, unloaded the car and packed for the move, hit a deer and spent three hours on the side of the interstate waiting to get that resolved, unpacked my now undrivable car to repack into a car borrowed from a family member, driven the last 500 of over 1200 total miles to get to the new job around midnight before my first day of work, then finished my first ever week as a Head of School in a small town culture that is familiar yet strangely foreign.

If the entire year goes like this first week (which was not without hiccups), I don't know if I will have to actually "work" all year. I love it.

"Falling Skies" Resistance needs a Valley Forge

2011-07-04T20:12:00.002-04:00

I really want to like Falling Skies, the new alien invasion drama on TNT. I like science fiction, and I'm willing to make some accommodations necessary to drive the story - like an alien species that can construct and support an invasion fleet across galaxies and quickly conquer the major civilizations of Earth but somehow lacks the technology to locate groups of several hundred humans. I get that you have to accept holes in their technology that are nonsensical in order to have a story. I don't get how incredibly stupid the human resistance is.

They capture a live alien and bring it into their resistance headquarters. That alone is risky, as they don't know if the aliens have telepathic abilities, or small weapons or soldier locators that alien species (in this case, us) would not recognize as inorganic, or even the limits of the alien's strength.

After catching it, they seemingly have no plans other than "let's do something with this creature." A nurse (Moon Bloodgood)wants to try to communicate with the alien. This is the most logical path, but she is apparently going to be overruled by the doctor (the irresponsible brother from Wings). He wants to vivisect the captive, for reasons that are unclear - the aliens seem to have an exoskeleton, but can be killed by conventional impact weapons. Both of them kind of argue, then walk out and live the alien and a child who was until two days prior under direct alien control through implanted mind control technology* alone in the clinic with the recaptured child's father. The father is armed, and has already shown absolutely no ability to follow orders in a combat situation. Whaaaat?

* It's ok. They removed the external evidence. All that's left are the needles described as 'behaving more like a living organism' and tapped directly into his nervous system through the spinal cord. They also discovered that the implant cured the child of a lifelong disease, but I'm sure everything else is exactly the same.

It is driving me crazy. I'm sitting here thinking, 'What is wrong with you people?!? '

I have zero military or alien-combat experience, but I already see about one thousand things wrong with this amorphous resistance. Somebody needs to take charge, instill real discipline, and designate some sort of team to coordinate a consistent plan to communicate with the alien captive while protecting both the human captors, and the prisoner from emotional decisions made by shortsighted people bent on revenge.

If this is humanity's last hope, were doomed.

Tom Brady is awesome

2011-07-02T00:17:00.000-04:00

The man apparently does all kinds of charity work I didn't know about.

I don't know who the elderly gentleman is, but it sure was nice of Tom Brady to try to make him feel better. I bet the old guy was jumping around after receiving a blessing from Tawm Brady.

I hate the Bobcats

2011-06-23T20:26:00.000-04:00

You have a team that cannot score at all, so you trade your only legitimate weapon to take a raw defensive stopper. Even the ridiculous name is awful. It sounds like a name for a bunch of six year old rec leaguers. Sadly, they will continue to fail, the fans will wisely continue to avoid wasting money on an inferior product, and someone will eventually buy the team from Michael Jordan, hire someone competent to run basketball operations, and move them to another city.

Can we please have the Hornets back?

I do not understand pregnant couple photo shoots

2011-06-23T18:13:00.002-04:00

Do these couples run to a photographer when one of them puts on twenty or thirty pounds for any other reason?

Dear FB Friends: Most of you know that Jason quit running after college. Between his slowing metabolism, eight hours a day at a desk, and lots of dining out, his body's changed quite a bit. Here are some pictures of both of us wearing all black while I make a heart around his exposed belly.

Look, I fully expect that I will consider my own expectant wife to be beautiful while pregnant, and I will tell her so frequently. I do not expect anyone else to necessarily agree with me. No one ever says, "Man, I really wish I had my baby weight back. Back when my belly was so distended that I had to buy an entirely new wardrobe, I looked goooood."

I refuse to participate in the sham comments. I'm happy for you and your growing family. Congratulations. Now put some clothes on, and stop plastering those photos all over the internet. It's gross.

It is better to be a pauper in Heaven, than a prince in Hell

2011-06-13T20:17:00.001-04:00

I don't know who first said that, but I bet he was the king of Pennsylvania.

The Braggart and the Cheater

2011-06-06T19:17:00.001-04:00

Politico has a piece on the President's love for golf. In talking about the President's passion for the sport, the writer offers a couple of rare glimpses into Presidential character, neither of which is surprising.

Apparently, our President can dish it out, but can't take it. One of his top aides says of President Obama, "When he’s winning, he’s telling you he’s winning. When he’s losing, he’s not talking quite so much.” Everyone's played sports with That Guy, and almost everybody hates That Guy.

To the President's credit, he is a stickler for rules, in "contrast to Clinton, a genial rules-buster known to take multiple mulligans on individual holes and take 5-foot putts as gimmes." That one made me chuckle, and reminded me of the old saw, 'If a man cheats in life he may not cheat at golf. But if a man cheats at golf, be assured he cheats in life.'

There was one other thing from the column that was not at all surprising: President Obama is expected to lose handily to his Republican opponent.

"Art is a feeling"

2011-06-01T16:43:00.002-04:00

What people don't realize is art is a feeling. I don't care what kind of music you listen to. I don't care what paintings you like. Art is about feelings, and you aren't gonna feel the same way about a piece of art as I do - Usher at the Institute of Contemporary Art, UPenn

When it comes to most modern and folk art, I am an unabashed skeptic. I believe Andy Warhol was a great showman who capitalized on intellectually shallow celebrity chasers. The Sheila Hicks exhibit still looked like a bunch of yarn to me, but I appreciated the visit for the opportunity to speak with this usher, an elderly black man who has worked there for many years and clearly loved his job.

Gene Simmons Delivers a KiisssssSSSS of truth

2011-05-24T17:40:00.002-04:00

I mentioned that I have been increasingly frustrated by our current foreign policy, going so far as to call President Obama the "Kumbaya President". Every time there is a major policy announcement, it sounds more and more like our government is guided by an idealistic fourth grader who hasn't yet put away childish things.

Former Obama voters who pay attention to foreign policy have started to notice. Gene Simmons candidly expressed his Obama buyer's remorse in a recent CNBC interview:

When you grow up you find out that life isn’t the way you imagined it, and President Obama means well... He has no f***ing idea what the world is like because he doesn’t have to live there...

Flotsam and Jetsam

2011-05-20T23:19:00.002-04:00

I've got a few things rattling around in my head right now. I still cannot post from my apartment due to the absolutely crackerjack IT department at my current school, so I don't know when or if I will have time to fully explore these topics, but I wanted to get out at least some mini-posts. Hopefully, I will have a chance to expand on them later. If nothing else, they will serve as a reminder of what I was thinking. That sentence will become slightly ironic below the jump.

Hey, free milk!- I recently listened to a fantastic series of messages expressing a Christian view of dating relationships. In addition to reminding me of how bereft of substance I find the chapel services at my current school of employ, they reminded me of a subject that's been on my mind for awhile.

There has been a lot written recently in mainstream and specialized press about how the dating field is currently tilted in favor of men. The basic premise of social scientists who study dating is that men generally desire sex, and women generally desire commitment. Obviously, there have always been men who want commitment, and women who want relations without commitment, but there is generally a clash of competing interests in the dating realm.

Due to some of the loosest social mores in American history, birth control that is more reliable than ever before, a shortage of men eligible for dating, and a popular culture that inundates even preteens with highly sexualized imagery, men are now having their way to such a degree that it has dramatically affected the price of prostitution. From Chapter 1 of SuperFreakonomics:

Why has the prostitute’s wage fallen so far?

Because demand has fallen dramatically... prostitution, like any industry, is vulnerable to competition.

Who poses the greatest competition to a prostitute? Simple: any woman who is willing to have sex with a man for free.

The stark reality that my niece will come of dating age at a time when prostitutes cannot compete with "normal" girls is both heartbreaking and terrifying.

Time Keeps on Slippin'- I am in the midst of reading Joshua Foer's Moonwalking With Einstein, which tells the history of memory, and how the definition of intelligence has changed with the advent of external memory technology to supplant what formerly could be stored only in the mind.

The author quotes Socrates decrying the spread of writing:

If men learn [writing], it will implant forgetfulness in their souls. They will cease to exercise their memory and become forgetful; they will rely on that which is written, calling things to remembrance no longer from within themselves, but by means of external marks. What you have discovered is not a recipe for remembering, but for reminding. And it is no true wisdom that you offer your disciples, but only its semblance, for by telling them of many things without teaching them anything, you will make them seem to know much, while for the most part they will know nothing. And as men filled not with wisdom but with the conceit of wisdom, they will be a burden to their fellow-men.

Just after reading of Socrates' fear of writing, I watched a 2007 lecture on time management by Randy Pausch, a since passed Carnegie Mellon professor and virtual reality pioneer. The difference in attitudes towards internal memory could not have been more stark. At around the 29:44 mark, Pausch says:

I don't care if it's paper or computer, whatever works for you, but you should have some system whereby you know where you're supposed to be next Tuesday at 2:00. Because even if you can live your life without that, you're using up a lot of your brain to remember all that, and I don't know about you, but I don't have enough brain to spare.

Foer later writes of Gordon Bell, an early computing pioneer and now Microsoft employee who has kept a digital record of everything he has read, written, spoken, heard, or even looked at (using a digi-recorder worn around his neck) for the last decade. Bell, a habitual pack-rat, has also scanned every notebook, document, and photograph in his possession back to the 1950's. All of the data "fits comfortably on a hundred-dollar hard drive."

As I read the story of Bell, I could not help but return to a Time magazine piece speculating that Moore's Law and remarkable breakthroughs in neuroscience could give humans the ability to transfer our consciousness to machines sometime in this century, thus achieving a form of immortality.

The Kumbaya President- Before being drawn back to Wednesday night class obligations, I started a post lamenting our current administration's facile approach to foreign policy. That was the day before he gave a speech that left Israel, one of a handful of reliable US allies, completely hanging out to dry by calling for a return to the nation's 1967 borders. To offer such a suggestion not only contradicts literally decades of American foreign policy under both Democratic and Republican administrations, but displays a naivete usually reserved for starry-eyed high school freshmen and wild-eyed university professors.

Look on my works, ye mighty

2011-05-16T03:11:00.001-04:00

The Army Corps of Engineers has been waging war with the Mississippi since the Treaty of Ghent. For the last half-century, under Congressional decree, they have been trying to prevent the Mississippi from taking a shortcut to the sea through what is now the Atchafalaya (rhymes with jambalaya) River distributary.

The Mississippi is overdue for a once a millennium change in course. The Atchafalaya route is about 160 miles shorter than the current route through New Orleans, and it enjoys about a three to one advantage in slope. The Mississippi drains about half the United States, and every expansion of pavement increases the amount of water feeding into the River. You can imagine how this is likely to turn out.

If you want the very brief version of the numbers, check out the xkcd blog, where I first learned of the story. If you have at least an hour, John McPhee delivered an excellent longform piece on the history and likely futility of the struggle for The New Yorker in 1987.

The romantic, youthful C would scream for us to let nature take its course. Among the casualties when nature inevitably takes its course: most of Cajun country, which would be submerged by the upheaval; Morgan City, which lies directly in the path of the new Mississippi; an economic hit of around $300 million per day in lost shipping over a period of months; all non-tourist industry in the city of New Orleans; billions spent relocating shipping and energy interests to the new mouth of the Mississippi; and the Louisiana crawfish industry, which currently harvests tens of millions of pounds a year from the swamps along the River's new course. While unlikely to lead to the same loss in life, letting the River go would be much, much more economically expensive than Hurricane Katrina.

I doubt the decision to open the Morganza Spillway today will set the Mississippi irreversibly on its new path to the sea, but the River will eventually win.

"Bridesmaids" is not a social obligation

2011-05-16T01:53:00.002-04:00

Go see "Bridesmaids" or they'll repeal the 19th Amendment. At least, that's what one might think from some of the advance press that has pushed the movie with a near-religious zeal. Apparently, the apex of Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton's hopes and dreams was that women could someday be as sophomorically crude and disgusting in a Judd Apatow movie as any man.

If the biggest concern of American feminism today is pushing people to see 90 minutes of fart jokes, feminism has either fallen to depressing depths, or has achieved it's overarching goals and must resort to grasping at trivialities to remain relevant.

I can guarantee it is not the latter. A colleague at a prestigious all-girls school casually mentioned their troubles raising money. I was appalled to discover that it is common practice for well-heeled families to generously support Son's school, but ignore or make a token gesture to Daughter's school fundraising. An administrator at another well-known girls' school confirmed that this is a near universal "challenge" for girls' schools.

Instead of "OMG! Let's unite in sisterhood because they made a movie where women use the F word!!", write about that. Common decency and fairness obviously means nothing to many of these families, so maybe they could be prodded to act out of shame. I suggested something like this to my girls' school colleagues. They said longterm, it would do much more harm than good if their school were ever involved in publicizing the deficit. They would get a temporary bump in financial support, and after things died down, families would quietly move their daughters to less troublesome schools.

This is just the latest example of why I have been frustrated with my time here. My politics would generally be to the right of the parents at these schools, and well to the right of many. In the grand scheme, this is due to their extremism rather than my own, as I am safely mainstream in my views. I like politics, but I have generally given up on most political discussions since moving up here. There is either an implied or stated superiority amongst many that I find both tedious and infuriating.

My parents would never, ever treat my sister or I different like the smug "progressives" that send their kids to these boarding schools. As an adult, I discovered that our parents literally saved receipts and counted throughout our childhoods so that there would not even be any variance in the amount of money spent on birthday or Christmas gifts.

I don't mind jackasses looking down their nose at me, but it pisses me off to no end that they would have as much scorn for my mother and father, when they aren't fit to lick Mama and Daddy's shoes.

Yayyy. Sighhhh.

2011-05-13T17:25:00.002-04:00

This was recently shared in the comments section of my favorite college football site:

A friend of mine (we’ll call her Abby for the purposes of anonymity) has been going through a divorce from her husband Dave. Here’s the backstory….

They’ve been married 15 years. Dave comes from old money, and has a net worth of around $15 million. When they married, there was a prenup that dictated “titled” marital property would be equally split, and everything else Dave would keep. The prenup spelled out a minimal amount of alimony ($1000 / month for 3 years).

Abby left her professional career when they married because Dave wanted her to be free to travel for extended periods. So, she did some charity work and had a couple part-time jobs during the marriage to keep herself busy. Abby left Dave when he was convicted of domestic battery for beating her up (she says it wasn’t the first time, but she had finally had enough and pressed charges and moved out). He’s also an alcoholic who has no interest in rehabbing.

Abby got a full time job that pays very little and has been living in a studio apartment for 2 years while the divorce has been proceeding. She has zero money to pay an attorney to represent her, so she has been working her own case. After some initial talk of a modest settlement that would give her enough money to buy a house, Dave and his lawyer have made it clear the last few months that they were going to enforce the prenup. In pre-trial conferences, the judge has basically told her that she doesn’t have any legal basis to contest the prenup.

So yesterday was the final court hearing. Everyone, including Abby, knew going in what was going to happen, but she decided to use it as a public forum. She invited all of Dave’s friends and family, a few of her friends, a local society blogger, and even the bartenders from the bars that Dave frequents.

Surprisingly, about 60 people showed up.

In court, she absolutely grilled Dave about every aspect of his marriage and life – every embarrassing detail about what a bastard he is, and got him to admit to all of it. Dave’s attorney objected several times, but the judge gave Abby incredible leeway, since even he recognized she was getting royally screwed in the deal. She listed out all his assets, including the ones that were bought during the marriage (cars and a vacation home, which were conveniently titled to his company so she had no claim on them.) She made him admit in front of his friends and family that he was a wife beater. It was both hilarious and disturbing. His family members that were there were furious (with him, not with Abby!), and after the proceedings his mom went up and gave Abby a tearful hug.

So, after 15 years of marriage, Abby is officially divorced from her multimillionaire husband. She is in her mid-40’s, makes $25K a year and has no 401K or savings of any kind. But, she got her day in court, and was happy to make Dave squirm for a bit. I imagine he’ll have lost the respect of many of his friends over it as well.

It is a great story. I have a lot of respect for anyone that can not only escape an abusive relationship, but find a way to expose the abuser for the world to see. Southerners, and South Carolinians in particular, are practically conditioned from birth to love stories about the disempowered outsmarting their persecutors, and Abby definitely achieved that.

However, that exultation is tempered by the proceeding's bittersweet resolution.

I get that the outcome is legally proper. That does not make it right. Abby is now free, but she is also financially adrift due to a poor decision she made as a naive 20-something bride-to-be. Despite the shame, her multi-millionaire ex will probably soon find a girlfriend young enough to be his daughter.

If the family has any sense of decency, Dave's "old money" mother better eventually give Abby a lot more than a tearful hug.

Cheering for Tiger

2011-04-12T14:54:00.001-04:00

Bill Simmons perfectly summarized how I feel about cheering for Tiger Woods in the aftermath of his public exposure as an unfaithful husband and womanizer:

If my son needs a role model, and he will, that person should be me. I don't need Tiger to teach my child how to behave. I need him to teach my son that it's fun to watch golf. Yesterday was the first lesson. There was a putt, and a roar, and a fist pump, and then my son screaming "Again!" Only Tiger Woods could have made it happen. It's a gift.

This piece, and the closing paragraph in particular, reminded me what a great writer Simmons can be. It is a shame that he can relate Phil Jackson's admonishment to Michael Jordan that Jordan's decision to walk away from basketball and play minor league baseball was wasting a gift and denying others the opportunity to enjoy his ability; yet Simmons cannot recognize the parallel with his own decision to veer from writing about sports - something Simmons does very, very well, to podcasting, where he is just another guy talking about pop culture.

Happy birthday, Mama!

2011-04-03T13:50:00.000-04:00

Today is my mother’s birthday. I’ve spent the better part of two weeks trying to figure out what to get her. Two weeks may not sound like much to some, but for a single guy, that’s an eternity of thought devoted to a gift. I can’t ask her, because the only response is, “Buddy, I don’t need anything. Just give me a card, and that’ll be fine.”

I used to think that was just something parents say to their children, until I entered adulthood. Now I find myself saying the same thing to friends and family whenever a gift-giving occasion approaches.

That doesn’t stop me from wanting to give my mother a birthday present though. The more I thought about it, the more I realized there is nothing I could possibly give her that would not pale next to everything Mama has done for me.

My mother is incredible, and I have always been proud of her. When we were kids, she always volunteered for school activities. In Mrs. O’Neal’s 1st grade class, I remember Mama bringing in food for a class party and one of the other kids turning to me and saying, “That’s your mother? She’s so pretty!” In elementary school, you were supposed to downplay compliments, but I remember bursting with pride.

Mama poured so much of herself into raising my sister and me, and she helped create a home where we always felt comfortable and knew we were loved. From childhood into college, our home was always the one that everyone wanted to hang out in. Even Daddy’s corny jokes couldn’t scare them away.

She also gave me my love for reading. Both my parents read to us at night, but as I grew older I noticed that Mama read her own books for fun. When we went on long trips, she would read stories to all of us while Daddy drove.

My sister and I first learned our goofy sense of humor from Mama, though by the time we were teenagers, she probably regretted it. By then, we often amused ourselves with jokes that just made her shake her head and declare, “Y’all are weird."

My mother is also the most tenderhearted person I know. If she could, she would adopt every stray animal and hurting person she came across. I am so grateful for the example she continues to provide, and for the gentle rebukes she offers when I go too far with my own sometimes mean-spirited jokes.

As much as I loved my family growing up, it wasn’t until I began substitute teaching in college that I really appreciated how fortunate I was to have them. The more I learned of the typical student’s home life, the more I recognized how rare my experience was.

Mama, I hope you have a wonderful birthday. I am so proud that you are my mother. Thank you for always loving and supporting me unconditionally, for being the “strict” parent that always knew where we were and what we were up to, for always being brave and never becoming bitter, for never being afraid to be silly with us, never being afraid to discipline or make us angry when necessary, for teaching me to love and look out for others, and for truly never caring ‘what my grade was, as long as I did my best.’ I love you.

PS- Daddy, you helped too. :-)

Coach Speak 101

2011-03-28T14:15:00.000-04:00

In a pregame fluff piece on CBS, Kansas head coach Bill Self said of his team, 'They're even better human beings than they are basketball players.' Really? 'Cause I'm pretty sure that as basketball players, they rate among the top 1% of people on the planet. You sure you want to stand by that, Coach Self?

I know plenty of human beings who would not instigate a pregame scuffle by trying to walk through an opponent's huddle - for instance, every other team on Richmond's schedule. I also know plenty of people that wouldn't pick fights with other sports teams at their own school, or talk trash to a seemingly overmatched opponent in the pre-game captains' meeting.

I can accept comments about the rare, once-in-a-generation type player, but I haven't seen any Kansas Jayhawks feeding the hungry, or working with orphans, and I doubt anything of the sort figures in Markeiff's plans for the future.

The Kansas players are good at playing basketball. They are not heroes, or, judging by their propensity for physical altercations and bullying behavior, even moderately decent human beings. Don't take me for a fool and try to claim otherwise.

While he may have deviated from his predecessor's tendency to recruit players who stayed out of trouble and played the game with respect for opponents on and off the court, it's nice to see Bill Self is preserving one of the traditions of Kansas basketball - losing to a less talented opponent in March. Rock choke Jayhawk.

Steven Davies: Big in Europe

2011-02-28T15:56:00.002-05:00

Steven Davies, a wicketkeeper on England's 30 man provisional World Cup cricket squad, publicly outed himself as a gay man Monday. According to media reports, "In his eight ODIs so far, [Davies] has scored 244 runs, with a highest score of 87, taking eleven bounders and eight catches." One of those stats is made up.

Davies is the first active professional cricketer to come out of the closet. I was as shocked as anybody by the news. Apparently the other 29 members of the English team continue to insist they are not gay, despite speaking with obvious English accents, not being Jason Statham, and openly playing cricket.

Comparing Apples to Peaches

2011-02-19T00:08:00.007-05:00

I frequently visit a well-known college football site, even during the offseason. The writing is entertaining and full of snark, and the regular commenters are among the most well read and erudite I have encountered anywhere online. One of the few rules is no politics. As a result, the moderators cut off a potentially very heated conversation about the reform effort and resulting teacher strike in Wisconsin. I understood their decision, but it really short-circuited a conversation about which I have very strong feelings.

I spent several years in an excellent metro Atlanta system, and graduated from the same system. I am currently working in a private boarding school and enrolled in an Ivy grad school program. In our class discussions, we occasionally have conversations that break along private/public lines, and private employees imply or claim that their schools and teachers are better because of their test scores or the colleges their students attend.

I once borrowed the Ann Richards line in exasperation - 'Some of the private school people are born on third and act like you hit a triple. Of course you get higher test scores. By definition, you are drawing from higher incomes, and we all know there is a strong correlation between family income and student achievement. Even your recruited "diversity" is minimal and carefully prescreened with admissions applications and testing.'

With advantages like that, if private school kids weren't scoring significantly higher on every test, something would be horribly, horribly wrong.

The Wisconsin natives who claimed they have good schools because of their strong unions were guilty of the same type of inaccurate assumptions. Go to any educator and ask them, based only on these statistics, to rank the following three states by average test scores:

State 1
Median Income: $50,834
% below poverty level: 14.7
HS Graduates: 78.6%
Non-Hispanic White: 57.5%

State 2
Median Income: $52,103
% below poverty level: 10.5
HS Graduates: 85.1%
Non-Hispanic White: 84.6%

State 3
Median Income: $44,695
% below poverty level: 20.3
HS Graduates: 76.3%
Non-Hispanic White: 64.9%

If they are comfortable talking about such things, they will immediately and correctly rank them 2 (Wisconsin), 1 (Georgia), 3 (South Carolina).

Wisconsin should have higher test scores than South Carolina and Georgia. Just like the northeastern private schools looking down their nose at public school counterparts, Wisconsin has a student population that is wealthier, whiter, and born of better educated parents. For Wisconsin to score lower than those states would require negligence bordering on neglect.

I say all this not to bash Wisconsin schools, which are among the nation's leaders in average SAT and average ACT (18th among all states, 3rd among states that favor the ACT). I just want to point out that Wisconsin is more homogeneous than much of the nation, and there are plenty of warning signs that the difference in test scores may be related to factors beyond the quality of the teachers in the public schools.

All of the following is based on ACT scores for Wisconsin, Georgia and South Carolina; primarily because it is the only test taken by a significant % of eligible students from all of the states (69% WI, 44% GA, 52% SC). The ACT scores are also readily available by state and ethnicities within each state.

Most people look at the average score. In 2010, Wisconsin's average score is 22.1, well above the national average of 21.0. Georgia and South Carolina score 20.7 and 20.0 respectively, slightly and significantly below the national average.

However, look at the state scores broken down by ethnicity, along with the US average:

	WI Score	GA Score	SC Score	U.S.
White	23	22.9	22.1	22.3
Black	16	17.4	16.5	16.9
Hispanic	18.7	20.1	19.8	18.6
Asian	20.3	23.6	23.4	23.4
Native Am	20.2	20.8	19.6	19
No Response	21.2	20.9	20	20.6
Composite	22.1	20.7	20	21

Wisconsin's only advantage over South Carolina is among white students (23 vs 22.1), as every other statistically significant* group (black, Hispanic, and Asian students) trails their South Carolina counterparts. Wisconsin and Georgia score about the same among white students (23.0 vs. 22.9), while the Southern minority students again outpace Wisconsin students in every other major subgroup.

To help put these numbers in context, here is the representation of each group in the states' population of tested students:

	% of WI Tested	% of GA Tested	% of SC Tested
White	79.08	48.6	55.4
Black	7.02	36.48	35.31
Hispanic	3.96	3.96	2.3
Asian	3.63	4.19	1.8
Native Am	0.69	0.29	0.35
No Response	5.62	6.48	4.84

*Native American students comprise less than 1% of students tested in each state. I dropped the Native American scores for their small sample size, and the "no response" subgroup because they just muddy the waters while presumably representing something close to the same population breakdown as those that provide their ethnicity.

This chart represents the adjusted percentage of the state population for the four remaining subgroups:

	ADJ WI Base %	ADJ GA Base %	ADJ SC Base %
White	84.4	52.13	58.43
Black	7.49	39.13	37.24
Hispanic	4.23	4.25	2.43
Asian	3.88	4.49	1.9

An admittedly simplistic adjustment for ethnicity alone moves Wisconsin from among the highest scoring states to scoring between Georgia and South Carolina, and right at the national norms:

Adjusted to	Georgia	Wisconsin	South Carolina	U.S.
WI Base	22.4	22.19	21.63	21.78
GA Base	20.66	19.96	19.87	20.08
SC Base	20.8	20.24	19.98	20.22

If you were to adjust further for the vast difference in income between Wisconsin and South Carolina, the students of the Palmetto State would move into the lead. Every Wisconsin minority subgroup has an achievement gap larger than those found in the Southern states, and larger than the national average. Two of the three populations (black and Asian students) score significantly lower than the national average for their ethnicity, while WI Hispanics score right at the national average. All three groups' raw scores are lower than the scores of minority groups in South Carolina and Georgia.

The score for black students in Wisconsin is 16. That is farther below the national subgroup average than the white population is above average, and a tremendous gap of a full 7 points on a 36 point scale between the two groups. That difference translates to 19.4 points on a traditional 1 to 100 grading scale. That is far from an acceptable margin.

Based on these scores, the best one could say about Wisconsin teachers is they do a slightly above average job preparing white kids for the ACT. However, the poor performance for every other group and the tremendous achievement gaps lead me to believe that even that may be due more to income and other lesser factors than anything specific to Wisconsin teachers. It sure looks like Wisconsin public school teachers were born on third and demand to be paid and praised like they've hit a triple.

The system I graduated from and worked in posted an average ACT of 22.3, well above the national average. That system is one of the largest in the nation. Of the 165,000 students, 67% are non-white, and just over 50% are eligible for free or reduced lunch. The numbers do not indicate a system that should outpace national averages, which is why the county recently won the Broad Prize given to the top large system in the nation, a year after finishing in the top five for the same award.

In short, it is an absolutely fantastic school system. This is despite, not because of the teachers' union, even a union much weaker in Georgia than those found in the Great Lakes and Northeast. I know a multitude of teachers who have left the system, several of whom went to private schools where they took a five figure pay cut. They were tired of dealing with a system that rewards seniority over merit, where mediocre or poor teachers hang on forever, as long as they make it to tenure.

If you want your kids to have a better education, one of the fastest ways to get there is to vote for and support reform governors trying to break the teaching union. If you have friends who were stuck with Wisconsin teachers instead of those found in South Carolina and Georgia, you may have to explain this to them.

Praying for a Pony

2011-02-17T01:00:00.000-05:00

I recently had a discussion with my friend T about our mutual frustration with people who offer prayers of the sort that say, "God heal Grandma, and we thank you ahead of time for the miracle we know you have prepared for her."

Really? How do you know? Maybe it is in God's plan for Grandma to die.

God is not a genie in a bottle that jumps out at your whim to grant wishes, and He doesn't appreciate being questioned or addressed as such. Pray that His will is done, He is glorified, and we are able to come to terms with His will. Anything else is just praying for a pony.

Wifi in Heaven

2011-02-08T21:34:00.000-05:00

My third-grade nephew's thoughts take some curious twists and turns, and often produce offbeat questions seemingly out of nowhere. By now, my sister has learned not to be surprised by anything that comes out of his mouth, so when he turned to her and suddenly asked, "Mama, do you think they have Playstations and wifi in Heaven?", she was unfazed.

"I don't know about that, buddy. I know the Bible says that Heaven is a place where everybody is full of joy all the time."

Nephew liked this answer. "Good. Playstations give me joy, so that means they'll have Playstations in Heaven."

My sister didn't want to give in to his vision of a Best Buy in the clouds though. "Or maybe people will just be so happy because they get to be around Jesus all the time."

Nephew thought about this for a moment. "Hmmmm...... or an X-box!"

Fighting the good fight

2011-01-27T14:43:00.000-05:00

Like most adults, I'm occasionally troubled by some of the messages to kids in pop culture. The birth of my niece made me even more conscious of the messages delivered to girls, and my sister is already doing her best to counteract such messages whenever they arise.

Over the holidays, my family was watching "The Sound of Music", when Maria sings to the eldest daughter:

Gone are your old ideas of life
The old ideas grow dim
and behold you're someone's wife
And you belong to him

K and I immediately exchanged concerned glances. She paused the movie.

"E, you know that isn't true, right?"

My niece replied, "What's not true?"

"What they just said. You will never belong to anyone else. Even after you are married, you are still your own person. No one should ever own another person or control them. I want you to understand that."

"Yes, ma'am."

It was a really small thing, but I was so proud of my sister.

Here's to you, Mrs. Robinson

2010-12-07T15:51:00.000-05:00

I once read of a veteran football coach who said he knew he was getting old when he first found himself going on recruiting visits and thinking the recruit's mother was attractive. I was attempting to get some work done at Starbucks this afternoon when a couple of what looked like players on the local HS girls soccer team came in with their mother. The mother was really good looking.

We found out for certain

2010-12-02T02:17:00.002-05:00

My grandfather has Alzheimers.

The thing I am most ashamed of in my life is that I used the excuse of being away at college to avoid seeing my uncle when he was in the last stages of his brain tumor. The truth was I couldn't stand to see my boyhood hero - the guy that played all time quarterback when he was home from college, took me to my first Carolina game, endulged any of my "What if's", and retained a boyish zest for life even after he was a married father of three - descend into dementia. I didn't think he would live forever, but I thought he would at least be there til I reached middle age. I certainly didn't expect him to go from picture perfect health to the grave in a matter of months.

His early death left a hole in our family that never really healed, and sent me into a depression that took up a good part of my 20's, a depression I didn't even fully recognize as much more than stereotypical post-collegiate wandering until the last year or so.

I can't count the times I have wished for a second chance to live through my uncle's final days so that I could be there with the rest of the family, regardless of whether or not he recognized me or knew I was there. It looks like I now have that chance with the other man who, aside from my father, is most responsible for shaping me into the adult I am today. I know I can handle it, but I would give almost anything for someone to take this cup from me.

I think we're supposed to be sympathetic

2010-11-29T15:37:00.001-05:00

The New York Times published a profile of a family that, like many across the country, has run into economic difficulties. It was linked by Yahoo News as:

One Family's Hard Fall From Affluence
The Martins had $14 million*, an Aston Martin, and a $173,000 horse, but now they're broke. How things went sour...

* They actually had $10 million. As some are prone to do when counting other people's money (but never their own), Yahoo used the family's pre-tax windfall.

I can save you the time of following the link and explain the Martin's fall rather succinctly: They spent their money on things like Aston Martins and a $173,000 horse.

Guess the year

2010-11-17T19:13:00.002-05:00

Someone shared a story from a suburban public school system in the northeast. This took place at a high school in an upper class, extremely white community, with six black students in a graduating class of six hundred.

The history classes had just studied Roman society and slavery, and the teachers decided to have a fundraiser. The fundraiser would be a slave auction. You read that correctly. Students would be auctioned as slaves to others, and the money would go to fund some club at the school.

In about what year did a black family have their teenage son arrive home and announce, 'We're going to have a slave auction!'

If you said mid-90's, you win.

I could not believe it. I was just sitting there slack-jawed as she told the story, and that was when I thought it happened in the 70's or 80's. Yet Southerners are bigots.

2010 Election Reaction from GOP Leadership

2010-11-02T23:37:00.005-04:00

The Democratic House leadership predicted victory ahead of tonight's midterm election, and remained defiant as the returns began to come in from the Eastern time zone.

The Republican leadership has a slightly different take on the Democrats' mid-term performance:

I almost posted my first Facebook note today.

2010-10-30T02:46:00.004-04:00

I had started the cut and paste, when I realized there was a reason I have not yet gotten into FB notes. I still have semi-anonymity here. Most of the people who read this are either people I trust and with whom I feel comfortable sharing whatever I write, or complete strangers who cannot even connect me to a FB profile. I'm fine with either of those groups. It's the undefined people you knew in high school, semi-friends, and friends of friends on facebook that I want to shield myself from.

However, I still want to think about the fifteen writers who have most influenced me.

The Rules: Don't take too long to think about it. Fifteen authors (poets included) who've influenced you and will always stick with you. List the first fifteen you can recall in no more than fifteen minutes.

If you know me at all, you will not be surprised to learn I am not following these rules. I'd rather be thoughtful about it. If I'm going to be thoughtful, I think there should be some semblance of order.

Listing from most influential to least would be nigh impossible. I could put one nearer the top and another nearer the bottom, but there is no way I could tell you with a straight face, 'This was the seventh most influential writer I have ever encountered, but this one was slightly more influential, so he goes at number six.' Plus, there are different types of influential. Prose writers influence in a much different way than poets, and fiction writers in a different way than non-fiction writers.

We have grown used to seeing things ranked by quality, but I would never try to rate literary figures in that way. I could tell you with confidence that William Shakespeare is qualitatively superior to John Grisham, but that is about it. As one gains experience, you realize that people who are absolutely positive beyond a shadow of a doubt are often either fanatics or lunatics. Certainty is the province of youth.

I still wanted a sense of order, so I'm listing the fifteen in the chronological order in which I first encountered them.

1. Arthur S. Maxwell - I didn't know this man's name, but as I tried to think of the writers who have most influenced me, I kept coming back to a series of bedtime books I had always assumed were produced by collaborative effort. To this day, I have not read the complete Old or New Testament, but I know the larger structure and the stories most referenced in both church and the secular world thanks to The Bible Story books. They were among our favorite bedtime books as children, and they passed to my sister when she became a mother. One day, I suppose I will read them to my own children.

2. C.S. Lewis - I can't remember for sure when I first read the Chronicles of Narnia, but I think I picked up The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe around 2nd grade. It seems like everyone at P Elementary knew Aslan, though it wasn't until high school that it occurred to me, "Wait a minute... Aslan is a Christ-figure!"

3. J.R.R. Tolkein - I read The Hobbit around third grade, and I went onto the Lord of the Rings immediately after. I finished the series shortly after we moved to Florida. It was in middle school that I first read The Silmarillion. I played with granddaddy long-legs as a kid, but the spiders of Mirkwood and Shelob's Lair cured me of that. In boyhood fantasies, I was one of the Riders of the Rohirrim, and I think the image of Theoden leading his men to what they all believed to be an honorable and certain death was the reason I loved "The Charge of the Light Brigade".

The Silmarillion's tale of creation being sung into existence is one of my favorite stories from literature; and the notion that, though anything evil may be used to produce good, it still remains evil was one that shaped my theological development.

4. William Shakespeare - My first exposure to Shakespeare came from a condensed childrens' series in the 5th grade gifted class. I liked "A Midsummer Night's Dream", but it wasn't until I was exposed to the tragedies in high school that I really fell in love with Shakespeare. Kenneth Branagh's version of the St. Crispin's Day speech is in heavy ipod rotation, and Hamlet remains my favorite literary figure.

5. Robert Frost - In ninth grade, Frost first cracked open the door to the world of poetry. I wasn't ready to go through yet, but a couple of years later, I crossed the threshold.

6. Harper Lee - I want to name my son Atticus (with the blessing of the future Mrs. CG of course). You can't get much more influential than that.

7. William Faulkner - I really don't know what to say about Faulkner. You either get and love him or you don't. I wrote my AP Lit thesis on The Sound and The Fury, and I chose Absalom, Absalom! for my Southern lit term paper in college.

8. John Donne - I was first seriously introduced to Donne (and Wordsworth) through junior year English lit with Mrs. Mardis. For Whom the Bell Tolls from Meditation XVII was very influential on a teenager in the midst of defining his relationship to the greater world. Indeed, it became an unofficial touchstone poem for the AP kids of my graduating class. It was only later that I discovered his love poems. You have to appreciate a guy who uses the bite of a flea to bed a fair maiden.

9. William Wordsworth - If Wordsworth had written nothing but The World is Too Much with Us, he would still make this list. I am a big fan of the English Romantics, and Wordsworth wrote much more.

10. Khalil Gibran - I love The Prophet. It was the greatest of my high school graduation gifts, and has lain by my bedside for years. A memorable passage expanded on Donne's conceit of mankind as a continent:

And when one of you falls down he falls for those behind him, a caution against the stumbling stone.
Ay, and he falls for those ahead of him, who though faster and surer of foot, yet removed not the stumbling stone.

The idea resonated and was one more I subsumed into a rapidly solidifying belief system.
Gibran's image of children as living arrows launched into the future under the Archer's guidance was another emblazoned in my memory.

11. P.J. O'Rourke - I discovered P.J. O'Rourke in the first year or two after college. His political satire made me angry and made me laugh, often at the same time. Eat the Rich is my favorite O'Rourke book, closely followed by Give War a Chance, but the most memorable passage comes from his preface to Parliament of Whores.

12. Gabriel Garcia Marquez - Garcia Marquez is probably the only writer I can think of that has brought tears to my eyes multiple times. To this day, I can remember where I was when I first read of Fermina encountering and instantly rejecting Florentino in the market, of Aureliano José's murder and the destiny denied him and his intended bride, and Santiago Nasar's final words with his mother. "The last image his mother had of him was of his fleeting passage through the bedroom. ... So she would remember him forever."

In case you're wondering - at a two-top near the back of Moe's at The Forum, on the bottom bunk of the old beds at the lake, and on a futon in the sun room the morning before Appalachian State beat Michigan.

13. Donald Miller - He is best known for Blue Like Jazz, but Searching for God Knows What had just as great an impact in helping me refine some of my spiritual thoughts over the last five or six years.

14. Neil Gaiman - American Gods was the first Gaiman novel I read. That was about three years ago, and I followed that with Neverwhere and Coraline. I've always enjoyed his work, but when I read The Sandman this past summer, I emerged with an entirely different appreciation of Gaiman's work. I am vastly disappointed that I did not write about it when it was fresh in my mind, but I was both recovering from trips, and had sporadic net access at the time. It would have been interesting to write about Sandman and Inception, which I saw shortly after finishing the story.

Sandman is absolutely fantastic, and one of the few books I have nearly universally recommended. There are many great passages and quotes. A couple of my favorites:

Everybody has a secret world inside of them. All of the people of the world, I mean everybody. No matter how dull and boring they are on the outside, inside them they've all got unimaginable, magnificent, wonderful, stupid, amazing worlds. Not just one world. Hundreds of them. Thousands maybe.

And:

Our existence deforms the universe. That's responsibility.

15. Michael Chabon - I had owned Michael Chabon books for a couple of years before I finally got around to finally reading one last fall. Summerlands was good enough to get me to move on to another. I don't know that The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay influenced me in the same way as some of the other works and writers I've listed, but it is probably the best novel I have ever read.

I don't necessarily mean that it would be the best novel you have ever read, even if you have read only and all of the books I have read. If you are female, I would almost guarantee it would not be the best you have ever read, any more than The Awakening would be mine. However, I think (or hope) it would be close.

I think I mean it is my favorite. I don't really know, because I didn't really realize that it was "the best" until I started writing a few moments ago and realized Chabon hadn't really affected my development or philosophy or world view in the same way as the first fourteen people. I was actually about to replace him with someone else. I had even started deleting the words when I realized Kavalier & Clay had prompted me to reach for a notebook or pen more often than any other book in my life, and that I had raved about it for months afterwards to all of the readers in my friends and family, and many of the non-readers.

Anyway, Chabon's Kavalier & Clay will definitely stick with me, and he belongs on this list as much as anybody else.

That's my fifteen, and I am glad that I spent way too much time writing a blog post about them instead of throwing out a FB note for all to see. Feel free to share your's.

Others considered: Yann Martel, Robert Fagles/Homer, Mark Twain, William Butler Yeats, Fred Chappell, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Bill Watterson

Never considered for even a moment: James Joyce

Movie mash-ups, in which I am victorious

2010-10-03T18:03:00.007-04:00

My friend K has been on a movie mash-up kick. K is much better than me at movie mash-ups (though I would dominate at book mash-ups - Texans can't read). I'm determined to stump her. Failing that, I'm determined to at least make her work for it a little. Below the jump are twenty original movie mash-ups. Almost all of them are movies you (and by "you", I mean me and my age cohort peers) have probably seen, or at least are familiar with by reputation.

If you want to play, post your answers in the comments. I will supply the correct answers later. If you want to provide your own ORIGINAL (anyone can cut and paste from other sources) mash-ups, feel free to do so.

For the uninitiated, mash-ups combine two movies with a shared word connecting the title. You write a tagline or description of the "plot", and others try to guess the answer. For instance:

"Nobody loves these bloodthirsty adolescents who are just trying to survive and escape the tough streets of LA."

Answer: Lost Boys n the Hood, a movie I would pay money to see. So would you, and don't even try to deny it.

1. A forlorn banker discovers that, though his life of sacrifice has failed to liberate Judea, he has managed to make many differences in the world around him, as he would already know if he could look on the brighter side of things.

2. A car salesman with marquee appeal is in danger of losing it all until he is saved by a formerly silent partner who teaches him to kick up his heels.

3. A hardboiled but simple pachyderm must stop an ambitious kangaroo with a secret to save a sultry but tiny dame and her leporine mate.

4. A talented athlete conquers all foes in competition but cannot overcome his inner demons and insecurities, so he concentrates on mentoring the next generation and falling in love.

5. A bumbling tourist is mistaken as a spy and becomes the only person who can stop a theatrical invader from space with a taste for power and fertilizer... of blood!

6. An underemployed slacker discovers he is going to become a father and decides to cast aside years of defenses and take a chance on love, only to discover the girl was only using him all along.

7. On a whim, wealthy industrialists toy with the lives of others, but are shocked when their targets band together to overcome prejudice and the Mississippi to bring the orange juice to the market and save the farm.

8. An egotistical social engineer gets more than he bargained for and discovers love with a now unmuzzled subject from the other side of the tracks through shared interest in infants, elocution, and meatballs.

9. An emotionally distant monarch and English widow get to know each other as their misogynistic antics and skirt chasing threaten to disrupt a friend's nuptials.

10. A doctor tries desperately to cure the vampire apocalypse by applying the wisdom he learned as a caddy in burned out Savannah.

11. A sidewalk artist and forgotten prom date are among the many suitors who pursue this entrancing au pair over the rooftops and chimneys of Florida.

12. A charming con man plans to profess a long-secret love to his high school dream girl at a graduation party, but hijinks ensure which keep them one step apart until a chance meeting on a plane he shouldn't even be piloting.

13. A streetsmart private eye and strong-willed Southern belle team to fight invading southies who want to save the city by destroying the city but find that, in a world of moral Grays, sometimes love is not enough.

14. A newly arrived immigrant trusts the wrong yarnspinner, and must navigate a tapestry of intrigue to save his hide, avoid the big cheese, and find his sister somewhere out there on the isthmus.

15. An FBI agent is forced to fight deadly serpentine and simian foes in order to get his charge to New York.

16. The big man on campus loves the ladies and ignores the rules until he says too much about the horrors of war and is kicked off the air.

17. A pair of musicians hide in an all girls band to escape a horrific genocide sweeping the land. Hijinks ensue.

18. A lovestruck, geeky teenager must conquer an insecure novelist and his offbeat, feminist mother to win the girl.

19. A young cowhand falls for the boss's daughter and becomes caught up in a long simmering feud that forces him to come to grips with his stern upbringing and learn lessons of patience and perfection through fly fishing.

20. A promiscuous doctor falls for a chaste partner while the invading army explores a magical passage into an award-winning actor turned puppet master.

Explanation

2010-10-03T17:41:00.004-04:00

I realize only about six to ten people actually follow anything I write, but I still feel like explaining the dearth of recent posts. There is both a practical and a technical explanation.

I had an extremely busy summer and intermittent net access. The schedule has not lightened with the start of a new school year. Not only do I have my regular full time duties, but I have also started full time grad school. The program demands not only a ridiculous amount of reading, but also an internship that requires me to take on more duties at work. Thus, my time for personal writing has greatly diminished.

The more practical issue is there is an ongoing communication problem between blogger and the on-campus servers. I am publishing this from a Starbucks down the road (because Starbucks is better than your locally grown coffee so shut-up, though they also pay their workers better if you care about such things), but it is obviously not practical for me to run to Starbucks every time I want to write something. However, I really miss writing for fun, and I'm working on a solution.

You're really tall at music

2010-09-07T14:28:00.000-04:00

My current studies in grad education expose to a lot of readings that presuppose the reader accepts the concept of "multiple intelligences". The problem is, I don't.

The multiple intelligences movement is really just an attempt to redefine other talents and abilities as intellect. The idea is popular because it creates a real life Lake Wobegone, and every parent is glad someone is finally recognizing how wonderfully bright their special little snowflake is. Sure, he's in third grade and still eats crayons, but that's only because he's an explorer. He has tactile intelligence!

It's just like the pablum 'everybody is beautiful in their own way.' Maybe, but only some people are beautiful in the way that makes other people want to sleep with them.

Some kids are smart. Some are not. Many of those who are not smart are good at music, or sports, or something. That does not make them an example of multiple intelligences. That makes them a person of less than above average intelligence who is a gifted artist.

Words have to represent the same ideas to the majority of the population, or they lose their value. The concept of multiple intelligences frustrates me because it is an attempt to change the meaning of intelligence to a synonym for talent or ability so some can delude ourselves into believing we live in a world of gumdrops and kittens where everyone is a genius. Kum-ba-ya.

No thanks, I already have a father

2010-08-06T16:18:00.000-04:00

Intending to compliment Lyndon Johnson, the historian David McCullough says, “His aspirations were enormous. He wanted to do something for everyone. He wanted to be the best father Americans ever had...” McCullough unwittingly provides a perfect encapsulation of why the more success the President has with his agenda, the more unpopular he becomes.

While few Americans (20-25%?) truly believe the government should merely, according to the oft quoted Libertarian mantra, "Defend the shores, deliver the mail, and stay the hell out of the way", this remains a center-right nation that generally prefers a less obtrusive federal government to a European style nanny state. Any leader that ignores that reality does so at his own electoral peril.

LeBron James and Team Cerberus should be celebrated

2010-07-10T21:36:00.000-04:00

I'm already sick of being told I should feel sorry for Cleveland. A trio of free agents took less money so they could play on the same team as their close friends, and increase their chances of winning a title. This is a good thing.
How often do you hear fans grumble that it is 'all about the money'? Three superstars made decisions that were unquestionably not about the money, and one of them is being excoriated for it. I'm glad to see LeBron go to a decent organization and escape the Cavs' trainwreck. I don't particularly like LeBron James or Miami, but I do like to see well played basketball. I will see more of that from the new Heat than I would have seen from six more years of Lebron in Cleveland.

Cavs fans should be thankful for the seven seasons they got to enjoy watching LeBron James - seasons they never deserved. The franchise shamelessly tanked to increase their lottery odds, and were fortunate enough to see things work out for them. They did an awful job of surrounding their golden ticket with matching pieces, and wasted several seasons on a God-awful bench coach, then whine as if they are cursed by the Almighty when a guy acts in his own interest rather than their's.

Grow up.

Quick political aside - If Cleveland and Ohio leaders want to see sports superstars and regular joes stick around, they should lower their tax rates. Without a sign and trade, James could make more per year in Miami than Cleveland due to the lack of state income taxes. People vote with their feet, and there's a reason it is called the Rust Belt. In the linked Bill Simmons column, notice how many of the hypocritical Cleveland fans bemoaning LeBron's lack of loyalty list hometowns outside of Ohio.

Whooooooooo!!!

2010-07-01T18:22:00.000-04:00

leads to

but not before

and the resulting

Awww.... I mean, ha-haa!

Undefeated on two continents

2010-06-25T23:53:00.064-04:00

As I was crossing the plaza in front of the Cologne Cathedral, I heard a group of men loudly carousing just after the building had closed for the evening. I looked around and found the men making the ruckus right outside the Cathedral, and laughed when I saw what was going on.

Yep. They're playing beer pong.

I quickly approached and asked if I could take their photo.

They answered in German accented English. 'Photo? You can play with us. It is his soon to be married...'

"Bachelor party?"

'Yes. Bachelor party. You must play the groom!'

Of course I accepted. They shared an airline sized bottle of apple flavored liquor and set up the cups. The first shot was way off. The second bounced off the side of a cup.

The groom missed too, giving me another chance.

One of the Germans asked, 'Don't Americans play basketball?' Another immediately replied, 'Yes, but like the movie, the white men cannot jump.'

Now I feel like I have to not only protect my perfect record in the game (I didn't drink in college, so I've only played about four or five games), but the honor of 'merica. I rolled my shoulders a couple times, shook out my arms, and measured the distance. I took the shot, and the German bachelor party exploded as it went straight into the cup.

The best part of the story is whenever someone mentions the Cologne Cathedral, a marvel of medieval architecture and one of the most famous churches in the world, I can say, "Oh yeah. I played beer pong there."

I don't get the Anne Frank House

2010-06-21T13:14:00.001-04:00

The Anne Frank House was not on my list of things to see in Amsterdam. It is literally two blocks from where I'm staying, but holds absolutely no appeal for me. I mentioned this to a couple of other Americans, and they reacted with disbelief.

'You need to see it, just to know what they went through in that tiny room, blah blah blah...'

I finished dinner around 6:25, and almost every other attraction closed at 6:00. I've already purchased the city pass, so I figure I might as well check out Anne Frank since it is the only place open til 7:00. I pick up my camera, head out, and make it before the 6:30 entrance deadline.

The ticket attendant explains, "I'm sorry sir, we don't accept the museum pass."

Now this is what I picture in the Anne Frank House:

"This is Anne Frank. She and her family lived in this tiny

space for two years and could not even open the windows to see the sunlight."

"That's awful."

"This is her diary. It is the little girl's attempt

to make sense of the world around her."

"That's even more awful."

"Her family was eventually turned in by neighbors -

Dutch Nazi-collaborators. She and her family were captured

and sent to concentration camps where they all died."

"That's the most awful thing yet."

"Sir, you owe me ten dollars*."

I shrugged my shoulders and left. Outside I took a picture of the house.

* It was actually eight Euro. That was about eleven dollars at the start of this trip, and was just under ten when I started writing this. It is probably down to $9.50 by now. Thanks, Greece!

How A Separate Peace explains the World Cup

2010-06-11T07:46:00.000-04:00

In A Separate Peace, there is a description of Phineas viewing himself connected to the world "in vastly expanded levels of loyalty" until he is ultimately connected to all of mankind. As it was first described to me, it is as if he viewed himself as a pebble dropped into a pond, with the rings that connected him to others radiating outward until they spread to every shore.

I loved that image. I've always thought it is a perfect metaphor for sporting loyalties, except in reverse. I can tell you exactly where each team in college football falls in relation to South Carolina. There is some movement dependent on how a particular outcome affects my team, but I have an opinion on each game. The closer I get to South Carolina in the middle, the more passionate I am about the outcome. I typically want SEC teams to always beat non-conference foes. I want non-ACC Southern teams to beat ACC teams, and both to beat Big Ten teams.

It's like each concentric circle radiating outward is one degree farther removed from South Carolina, and thus one degree slightly more Other. No matter what, Clemson is always the far shore of absolute hatred.

I'm not sure I actually understood the novel.

Nevertheless, I will have similar rooting interests in almost every game played in the World Cup, which kicks off tomorrow morning at 9:30 Eastern time in South Africa. Many Americans will probably want to watch some of the action, but have no idea who to cheer for in games not involving the United State. Accordingly, I've decided to provide a casual fan's guide to the World Cup, or who to cheer for and why.

1. 'Merica- I assume most people reading this are American and do not need to be reminded to cheer for the US. If you're not American, you should cheer for us anyway. We're awesome. Just ask any American outside of Manhattan or San Francisco.

2.the Netherlands- The Dutch traditionally play the most aggressive, attacking style of any of the World Cup powers. The nation would almost rather lose playing "total football" than win with the pulled back, neutered style employed by other sides. I'm looking at you Italy. They have never won the Cup, despite producing some of the most talented attackers of the modern era. The worst thing I can say about them is their national team colors are orange, but they even partially overcome that with one of the best nicknames in sports- Clockwork Orange. They will likely be undone at some point by their suspect defense, but they will provide moments of brilliance before going down in flames. If you are trying to explain to someone why soccer can be glorious, show them the Dutch.

3. Honduras- Honduras is one of those countries that has been hurt by the US emergence over the last quarter century, but it has not led to any bad blood between the teams. When Jonathan Bornstein scored the US goal that gave the Americans a 2-2 tie against Costa Rica, he also became a Honduran national hero. The American tie clinched a spot for Honduras in the World Cup for the first time since 1982, and touched off wild celebrations in the capital; you know, the typical pro-America street parties so commmon in Latin America.

Honduras is one of the few small countries that consistently tries to win against the US and Mexico instead of bunkering in and playing for a tie. They also hate Mexico (the national team, not the country). The enemy of my enemy is my friend.

Since Honduras is a member of CONCACAF, the soccer association of North America, their success is good for the US and could potentially earn more bids for the region in future world cups. ~~S-E-C!~~ CON-CA-CAF!

4. Australia- A lot tougher than their Socceroo nickname would lead you to believe. Australians are about as closely related (metaphorically) to Americans as you can get. In 2006, they were robbed by an Italian dive (this is a common theme) in the Round of 16.

5. New Zealand- Awwww... they're so cute! Australia's move to the Asian qualifying zone gave the All Whites* an opportunity to qualify from Oceania. They won that zone by about thirty goals, then semi-stunned the world by beating the 5th place Asian side in a playoff. I say semi-stunned because it was Bahrain, but still... nobody expected the Kiwis to get here. Nobody expects them to stay long either, so if you want an adorable 16 seed that will punch you in the face for calling them adorable, go with New Zealand.

* The rugby team is the All Blacks, after their jersey colors. The basketball team is the Tall Blacks. The soccer team wears white.

6. South Korea- Crazy in a good way, unlike some Koreas we could name. The Red Devils attack, attack, then attack some more. They're like Kzin. Dae han min gook! If you haven't noticed, countries tend to get a bonus for being friends of the USA. It's sometimes intentional, and sometimes coincidental.

7. Spain- Team is nicknamed La Furia Roja, which is still cool in English - The Red Fury. South Africa (#22) could take a lesson in names that still sound cool in other languages. Yeah, they are a favorite. Yes, they have a history of diving. However, they are have started to move beyond that reputation lately. Long a second tier contender, the current Spanish side features the best collection of offensive talent in the field. They are the top ranked club in the world, but expect them to go home disappointed once again.

8. Germany- I've just always liked Germany. The fact that I will watch their second match in Germany probably gives them a slight bump. Traditionally characterized by a boring, staid style of play, and a nickname to match (Die Mannschaft means The Team), the Germans showed a little more attacking flair in 2006. Hopefully that will continue in this Cup. Penalized for the 2006 handball.

9. Nigeria-The African teams typically have great nicknames, and the Super Eagles are no exception. Aggressive style of play, and cool names up and down the roster, just like most Americans I know of Nigerian descent.

10. Ivory Coast- Their star player, Didier Drogba, gave a real life, "If I can change, and YOU can change, everybody can change" speech. Not only did the assembled masses not chuckle at his droll 21st century sense of irony, but it actually worked. He stopped a war, y'all. They might move higher if they would give up trying to make everyone say their country's name in French. It's IVORY COAST. Not C'ote D'Ivoire. Do I look Quebecois?

11. Chile- Number 11 with a bullet. They came out of nowhere to finish second in South American qualifying, and they play a 3-3-1-3. That's three forwards and a forward-mid behind. According to mainstream tacticians, the technical term for the formation is "insane". I am really looking forward to seeing their game with Spain. If they are as aggressive as they sound, they will become my new favorite national side I have no other good reason to like.

12. Japan- Like their neighbors South Korea, the Japanese are very aggressive and also very overmatched. One of the Blue Samurai's best players is a Brazilian born Japanese-Brazilian turned Japanese. Brazil has the highest Japanese population in the world outside of Japan. As intermarriage has become acceptable over the past forty years, that has led to a growing number of Japanese-Brazilian models and actresses... I'm sorry... what were we talking about?

13. England- Normally the English would rate much higher. I once watched WC games in Mexico, and the English fans were the only others who consistently cheered for the US. I would show up for English matches and cheer for Eng-er-land, and they would show at the American games to cheer for us. However, they are our biggest rival in this year's group, and it has brought out an unseemly arrogance in many of their fans. Unlucky #13 is still second in the group.

14. Cameroon- The Indomitable Lions have the best nickname in the field. They also have a star player who responded to criticism the criticism that he did not make the national team a priority by threatening to skip the World Cup. I like them a lot better when they were lovable overachievers instead of thin skinned jerks.

15. Argentina- They are only this high because of entertainment value. They have Lionel Messi, and they are coached by a certified lunatic who may or may not be trying to ensure Messi's legend does not grow enough to challenge his own. One of the most talented teams in the tournament. Latin, and thus their players will often fall to the ground and writhe in agony at a slight breeze. Uniforms that are I can't quite decide if I like or not (kinda cool, but also a little close to UNC-CH baby blue). Watch them and wait for fireworks.

16. Ghana- Black Stars sounds more like a seventies funk group than a soccer team. They play aggressive soccer like almost every other sub-Saharan team. However, they are also penalized for beating the US in 2006.

17. Slovenia- There's a good explanation for how Slovenia ended up right in the middle. Half the Slovenes I know are terrific people. The other half I want to repeatedly punch in the face.

19. Switzerland- I know next to nothing about their soccer team. I like Swiss Miss, William Tell, that they preserved their neutrality by becoming one of the most heavily armed states in Europe, German (one of their three national languages), Swiss Mister, and chocolate. The more I think about this, the more I think they should maybe move up a bit,

19. Slovakia- There's that whole Velvet Divorce thing. That's all I've got.

20. Paraguay- The most amazing thing I know about Paraguay is they once declared war on Uruguay, Argentina, and Brazil at the same time. They were the aggressor nation. The War of the Triple Alliance turned out about like you'd expect - despite forming entire infantry battalions of children to try to fight nations that outnumbered them 20 to 1, the Paraguayans lost badly. At war's end, 50% of the male population was dead, and they lost over a quarter of their land to the victors who were defending themselves from the crazy, little guy. They play ugly, ugly soccer. Even Jim Tressel thinks they should open things up a bit.

21. Algeria- This is yet another African team with a cool nickname. The Desert Foxes beat archrival Egypt to get here, which made me laugh. Egypt keeps winning the African Cup of Nations, then stumbling badly in World Cup qualifying. Fans tend to riot violently in victory or defeat, which is surprisingly common in Third World locales.

22. South Africa- Didn't qualify for 2006, so they took a bid from a more deserving team by virtue or hosting. There are legitimate concerns that the cup will be a logistical disaster, and that World Cup visitors will be targeted by the nation's rampant criminal class. You definitely do not want to stop if anyone steps in front of your car anywhere in South Africa. You probably shouldn't even slow down. Nickname "Bafana bafana" is fun to say, but it kind of loses something when you find out it just means "The Boys". Still, even at 22, Bafana Bafana is the highest rated team from Group A, so I hope they win the Group of Meh. I guess.

23. France- The headbutt Zidane gave Italy actually made me like them more, especially when you later learned of the things Materazzi said to provoke it. Still, they are French. They denied plucky Ireland a place in the Cup with an obvious handball from Theirry Henry, and they insist on pronouncing his name as "an-ree", when everybody can see it is clearly Henry.

24. Denmark- Do you know what I thought when I first met you? Nothing... you made no impression whatsoever. If someone can help me source this movie quote, I'd really appreciate it.

25. Uruguay- Believe it or not, they are actual a past champion. They hosted and won the first Cup in 1930. I like to say the name of their capital. Montevideo. It just sounds cool. When that is all you've got going for you, and you are known for playing an overly physical game predicated on maiming opponents and minimizing the impact of skill, you end up near the bottom of the list.

26. Serbia- Neven Subotic is one of their best young players. He played on the US U-17 team, but was run off by an incompetent manager. I don't hold it against him, but I don't want him to enjoy success either. They gave us Vlade Divac, so there's that. They also gave us the Black Hand, and ethnic cleansing.

27. Greece- Ugly soccer. Have been in a decline since Pericles, and they are now doing everything but asking the Germans if they can crash on the couch.

28. Brazil- How can you have Brazil so low? They are the best team in the world! Nike said so!

Every American pseudo-fan's favorite team loses points for those fans, their yellow jerseys, and their insistence on pronouncing it Brasil. You aren't fooling anyone. When soccer becomes ,mainstream popular, you will just move on to lacrosse. They gain points for their own fans.

Unfortunately, they do not gain enough points to overcome their shift in strategy under Dunga, or their continued insistence on going by only one name, whether they've earned it or not. Dunga was a defensive midfielder. That fact alone should disqualify him from coaching what is traditionally, with the Dutch, one of the two most entertaining world powers in the sport.

He has taken Brazil from their flowing, attacking mindset, and instilled a boring, counter attacking style based on defense. Yawn. I know the US often plays that way. We don't have the talent to play any other style. Give us Chris Paul, Percy Harvin, and co, and things would be a lot different. You don't see our basketball team walking it up and working the shot clock, and you shouldn't see the Brazilian soccer team playing like Paraguay. Again, for American fans, we have an analogy for that.

29. Mexico- Like Honduras, they are in CONCACAF, so their success it theoretically good for the US. Unlike Honduras, this is not a friendly rivalry. Americans players regularly have bags of urine thrown at them when playing in Mexico, and anytime the US beats Mexico (which is anytime the squads play anywhere on Earth outside of their smog filled, mile high Mexico City home stadium), you can always count on a few players getting chippy in the final five minutes and taking cheap shots at American players.

World Cup Fun Fact of the Day: Did you know that, despite the competition being afterthought in the US and the childhood dream of every Mexican boy for literally generations, the US has won the same number of World Cups as Mexico? Did you know that my golden retriever has also won the same number of World Cups as Mexico? It's funny because they suck. Get it?

30. Portugal- They actually dive more than Italy, but they also wilt under pressure, so they have never actually won anything important. This makes them slightly less insufferable. If you want a fun drinking game, take a drink every time a Portuguese player goes down as if shot with no contact whatsoever. Haha, just kidding! You'd be dead of alcohol poisoning in thirty minutes. Ask an American man to design the archetype of Euro feminine-masculinity, and the result would be Cristiano Ronaldo.

31. Italy- The Italians are a bunch of diving cheats. They represent most of what Americans hate about the game. They also play such an ugly brand of soccer, they managed to make Americans cheer for France in 2006. Materazzi had it coming. Also, hahahahahaha!

32. North Korea- They are crazy. That's not a figure of speech. The entire nation is nuts. Their method of testing South Korean military responses is shooting down ROK planes or sinking their ships. And they probably have nuclear weapons.

Shouldn't a dynasty win more than none?

2010-06-10T16:20:00.001-04:00

Boom goes the dynamite - Southern Cal FINALLY hammered by NCAA

2010-06-10T02:15:00.001-04:00

According to multiple reports, the NCAA will finally announce the results of their four year investigation into the Reggie Bush scandal at Southern Cal, and it will not be the wrist slap many had long expected. The Trojans will get a two year bowl ban and lose more than twenty scholarships, which would be the harshest sanctions since the 2002 punishment dealt to Alabama.

Luckily, Southern Cal has a steady hand at the helm to guide the program through this crisis.

I just saw the pictures from the gulf coast

2010-06-08T22:20:00.000-04:00

Wow. I guess the Democrats weren't kidding when they said they would stop at nothing to make New Orleans a chocolate city once again.

I hope he wasn't expecting something warm and fuzzy

2010-06-03T01:14:00.001-04:00

Writing end of quarter/semester/year comments can be very monotonous, but it offers the chance to be refreshingly honest with a departing senior:

Student is a decent guy, but he just doesn't "get it". He enjoys provoking others, then tries to play the innocent victim when they inevitably respond.

He is one of the oldest students in the cottage, but in many ways one of the most immature. One of the marks of adulthood is the ability to accept responsibility for one's actions. Student appears to be years away from understanding this.

I don't think I heard him accept responsibility for the consequences of his actions even once over the course of the entire year, to either a student or faculty member. Instead, he always offered excuses for why it wasn't really his fault, or he was somehow being singled out unfairly. Student needs to learn how to say the words, "I'm sorry", and really mean it.

I fear that he may encounter difficulties in college if he continues to delight in incessantly needling others and no longer has faculty members to run to for protection from the response he provokes.

And by "encounter difficulties", I mean get beat up. A lot.

Bless her heart

2010-05-30T18:58:00.001-04:00

My sister's family recently moved to a state where even elementary schoolers have to pass a comprehensive exit exam to move to the next grade. They just received their results, and my niece and nephew both passed easily. This morning, Sister was speaking to one of the older kids at church.

"How'd you do on your tests?"

The 8th grader replied, "I failed the reading part, so I had to take it again. I failed that too."

My sister hesitantly asked, "So... what does that mean?"

The girl's older brother quickly chimed in. "It means she can't read."

It turns out the teacher will simply request a waiver on that section of the test, and the girl will move on to 9th grade.

My sister still said, "I told Husband, I just don't know what I would do if Ev or Et couldn't even pass a reading test. I just wouldn't know what to do with a dumb child. I think I'd want to kill myself."

"I mean, that girl's sweet as can be, but I've talked to her. She really is dumb as dirt."

PS- For those unfamiliar with the South, if a Southerner ever says, "Bless your heart", do not respond "Thank you." I can't think of an equivalent phrase, but there is about a 90% chance they mean something like, 'Awwww. You poor, sweet idiot.'

Football relegation in the United States FINALLY

2010-05-30T03:27:00.004-04:00

Any football fans in America who have clamored for relegation and promotion in domestic leagues will finally have it, though only in a video game.

What did you expect? I told you it was football. The game we play in the World Cup is called soccer. Suck it, Eurosnob.

USA 2 - Turkey 1

2010-05-30T01:21:00.003-04:00

At halftime of the soccer team's send off match against Turkey, I was despondent. Clint Dempsey's move up top to compensate for the loss of Charlie Davies had obviously weakened the US midfield, and the offense still looked awful. Not only that, but Oguchi Onyewu did not start, and our defense was very suspect in his absence. We went into the half down 1-0, and I was ready to write off our chances of even making it out of group play. Then they played the second half.

After four substitutions (Robbie Findley, Jose Torres, Onyewu, and Steve Cherondolo), the US was literally and figuratively a different team for the final forty five minutes.

While not as decisive running at the goal, Findley provided a pace and style of play at forward very similar to what Davies brings to the table. He linked with Landon Donovan on the first goal, and was a handful for the Turkish defenders all night. Almost as importantly, his insertion allowed Dempsey to move back to the midfield, where he was much more effective. Not only did Dempsey score a goal, but he knocked another off the post and was in on several chances.

Findley isn't Charlie Davies. He twice beat his man but hesitated too long to send a cross into the box and ended up running the ball past the endline. However, he provided a speed option up top and aggressively attacked the Turkish defense. His ability to bring the ball forward made our other attackers much more effective.

Jose Torres was another revelation. Torres combined with Michael Bradley in the middle to help the US control possession for most of the half, did a nice job linking with the forwards, and almost added a third goal with a nifty free kick that went off the near post. He certainly looked like our best pairing for Michael Bradely in the central midfield.

Onyewu looked a little better than he did in the last tune-up against the Czechs, and provided hope that he will be able to provide the physical presence we sorely need in central defense.

Cherundolo was not Jonathan Spector, which was really nice.

All four of the second half subs made strong claims for starting positions, and Stuart Holden looked back in form after returning from the broken ankle he suffered in Amsterdam.

After glumly writing off our chances in South Africa midway through the first half while inwardly railing at the poor decision making that led to Davies' crash, I was back to cautious optimism by the end of the game. The US is not one of the four best teams in the world, but we are better than the 2002 squad, and capable of winning a couple of games and getting into the semifinals. We have little margin for error though, and are also capable of crashing out in first round.

If the four second half subs start and play like that in South Africa, we should beat Algeria and Slovenia, and have a decent chance at getting a result against England. If we make the round of 16, we have proven capable of beating anyone in the world in a one off situation, and the European powers will not have the home continent advantage. I cannot wait for the tournament to get underway.

Other soccer notes

It still bothers me just a little that two of my favorite US MNT players (Onyewu and Holden) went to Clemson. South Carolina wasn't shut out, but Gamecock Brad Guzan is the third goalkeeper, and extremely unlikely to see the field. I take some consolation that, thanks to Clint Mathis, Gamecocks currently enjoy a 1-0 advantage in World Cup goals.

Dempsey and Ricardo Clark are former Furman Paladins, giving the 23 man roster five players with Palmetto State connections.

New Zealand beat former US U-17 and U-20 star Nevan Subotic and Serbia 1-0. I said "Ha-haa". Now if only someone would take care of what his name and the Italians...

Wayne Rooney is considered one of the top players in the world, and he is also renowned as a physical striker who punishes and overpowers defenders. Wayne Rooney is also five foot, nine and half inches tall. It is a very big "IF", but if the United States ever gets even five percent of the caliber athletes currently playing DB, RB, QB, PG, or SG for high level division one college teams to play soccer from an early age, we will easily be one of the world's premier soccer nations.

Sadly, I live here

2010-05-28T17:04:00.001-04:00

From the latest Bill Simmons Mailbag:

Q: Wanna know why sabermetrics still hasn't caught on with some baseball fans? Some of us hook up with girls. Do I think Ryan Howard is the best hitter in baseball because he gets 140 RBIs every year? No, but he's a damn good first baseman and I don't need some nerd running lab experiments to tell me so. I'd rather spend my time drinking beers in the parking lot and shouting obscenities in Spanish at passing Mets fans. That's what baseball's all about. If I wanted to do math and science I wouldn't be watching baseball.
--Ragan, Philadelphia

For those of you who don't know and don't click links, sabermetrics is applying mathematical analysis to develop tools that objectively measure performance and discover undervalued talent or strategies. When sabermatrics burst onto the scene, the reaction from many GM's and baseball beat writers was very similar to Ragan's. Not surprisingly, sabermetrics was developed by people who are probably a little bit brighter than the typical sports journalist. They also had a pronounced educational advantage over managers and GM's of the day, many of whom were former players, which means they likely did not go to college, or at least the colleges which produced sabermetricians. The old school finally started paying attention to sabermetrics when they noticed that some teams with limited resources were consistently exceeding reasonable expecations of their onfield performance. Now almost every team employs a sabermetrician or ten with degrees in statistics or economics from some of the top schools in the country, though some teams are more devoted to the field than others.

If Ragan is giving his true evaluation of alla them eggheads and their books, it means he lives a generation behind in a world where RBI's = good position player, and wins and strikeouts = good pitcher. He is essentially bragging of his ignorance.

The use of sabermetrics means, if we were each made GM's and I were given 80% of Ragan's financial resources, my team would consistently beat Ragan's team's brains in. I know much less about baseball than basketball or football, and this is not an bragging. It is a statement of fact.

As to his pregame ritual, Ragan would do this while wearing a backwards Phillies hat and dressed like a giant toddler. Since moving here, I have met approximately 379,000 variations of Ragan, which is why, even though I have absolutely no interest in hockey whatsoever, I hope the Flyers lose. I know Ragan and his friends do care deeply. A Flyers loss will make them unhappy, and that will make me laugh.

Whatizit? A worse mascot than Atlanta 96

2010-05-24T20:25:00.001-04:00

London unveiled the official mascots of the 2012 Summer Games today.

That is a real picture of their carefully orchestrated worldwide debut, right down to the chalk rainbow in the background a professional artist was paid way too much money to create in the style of a children's drawing. The whole things reminds me of Daniel Tosh's joke about parades.

Let's see, a marketing company comes up with a vaguely defined computer creation designed to appeal to kids, complete with an animated creation story, which stirs an immediate negative reaction from everyone over the age of 12...

Nope. This doesn't sound familiar at all. At least Atlanta gets credit for trying something new. London has no excuse. They already had the Atlanta fiasco to learn from, and they still ended up with a soulless, focus group driven abomination.

Six Flags over New Jersey. Whadda yoo lookin at?

2010-05-23T14:24:00.002-04:00

I chaperoned a trip to Six Flags Great Adventure in New Jersey yesterday. The Six Flags in New Jersey makes everyone enter through metal detectors. They also don't allow you to take pictures of the metal detectors with your cell phone, which seems weird. There are no other super secret security measures to foil would be gang bangers. I'm pretty sure everybody knows how metal detectors work, so there are no secrets there.

I decided they just didn't want the pictures in circulation of families looking for a day at the amusement park being subjected to metal detectors and all the incongruity such photos would suggest. That was puzzling too. The incongruity is the entire reason I wanted the photos, and if I were a parent considering taking my kids to a theme park a mere thirty minutes from Newark and Camden, New Jersey, I would want to see pictures of everyone going through metal detectors before they were allowed inside the park.

As a father of two from New York City explained while we were waiting for one of the roller coasters, "New Jersey doesn't have any real cities, but what they do have are a bunch of shitholes." He also said he doesn't like to visit the park with his young daughters during hot summer days, because the "mood of the park completely changes with all the packs of teenage kids roaming around, especially after dark." I'm pretty sure he is in the pro-metal detector camp.

I was wrong about everyone understanding the principle behind metal detectors, which is just stunning. If I were waiting in line and had never heard of a metal detector, but knew both of the common English words that make up the name, I think I could noodle together a pretty good guess at what was about to happen, especially after watching a dozen other people empty their clothing of all metal before stepping through.

Nonetheless, two of the guys in our group were surprised when I told them they would have to temporarily remove their belts to get through the metal detectors.

One responded incredulously, "My belt buckle will set it off?"

I looked at the buckle, a blindingly garish audacity the size of a coffee plate. It would make the Texas State Fair cow roping champion gnash his teeth in envy. "Yeah. I'm pretty sure it'll pick that up."

He removed the belt buckle. He had to put his legs at an almost 45 degree angle to prevent his shorts from immediately falling down around his ankles.

Artist's Rendering

As the line advanced, he shuffled forward slowly, with the tension his legs exerted against the shorts barely winning the battle against gravity. We finally made it through, and everyone gathered round as he slowly filled his pockets.

As the guy regained control over his sliding shorts, he said, "Even if I had lost my shorts, it wouldn't be that bad. I'm wearing designer label underwear today, so I wouldn't mind if everyone saw it."

He's one of the best guys in my dorm.

I also had to deal with a father in his forties that could not figure out how to get through the screening for REentry to the park. He had gone through the process once and made it into the park. He later left the stamped reentry gate for lunch, and, in the four hours between the opening of the park and his return from lunch, he forgot everything he'd experienced.

He passed through once. BUZZZ.

"Sir, have you emptied your pockets of all metals?"

He hands over a cell phone and a couple other things. BUZZZ.

"Sir, are you wearing a metal belt buckle?"

He mutters under his breath, but removes the belt and tries again. BUZZZ.

"Sir, do you have any other metals in or on your clothing that could set off the alarms?"

"I'M NOT TAKING OFF MY F'ING CHAINS!"

He really said that. He was wearing several gold (plated?) chains, enough hair gel to start his own hair salon, and a New York Yankees A-Rod jersey. I'd like to point out that this man has already reproduced twice.

They brought over someone with a hand wand to finish the inspection. BEEP for the chains. Another BEEP.

"Sir, please empty your pocket."

He reaches in and pulls out his car keys.

The guy walked through a metal detector three times and called for a supervisor with a hand wand because he did not remove his car keys from his front pocket. Two children in the gene pool.
Fist pump.

The white donkey in PA-12

2010-05-21T00:07:00.003-04:00

Pennsylvania's 12th Congressional District recently elected another Democrat to Congress, despite going for John McCain in 2008. While some are claiming this is a refutation of the developing Republican wave storyline for 2010, most are going to great lengths to explain that the district is not really Republican, and actually has a long and consistent pattern of voting for Democrats. They then write off 2008 as an aberration, without really offering any explanation why it was such an outlier in a strong year for Democrats nationally. It's driving me crazy, because if PA-12 were located south of the Mason-Dixon line, political commentators across the nation would be falling all over themselves to explain it's 2008 vote in the context of it's voting history, summarized nicely by Sean Trende of Time's Realclearpolitics.com:

In truth, this is probably more of a D+4 or a D+5 district top-to-bottom - if it was really Hoeffel's best district in 2004 that means that it went more heavily Democratic that year than the Seventh (D+3), the Eighth (D+2), the Eleventh (D+4) and the Thirteenth (D+7), all of which send Democrats to Congress today.

After all, these are voters that still really want to pull the lever for a Democrat almost as badly as when they were madly for Adlai. These aren't even Reagan Democrats; they voted for Walter Mondale (Fayette County gave him 62% of the vote!), and for Jimmy Carter (twice). They voted strongly for Bill Clinton (twice), and for Michael Dukakis. They voted strongly for sometimes-southern-accented Al Gore in 2000, and they even did so, albeit narrowly, for a Northeastern, urban liberal like John Kerry in 2004.

They went for John McCain in 2008, but did so by four-tenths of a point, Obama's best showing in a non-urban Appalachian district. In fact, if the Democrats had nominated anyone other than Obama, I believe he or she would have carried this district handily and we wouldn't be having this discussion, even though it would be the exact same voters! And those Democrats who stuck with Obama are pretty hardcore - this is not a district with a lot of "surge" Obama voters who will be hard to turn out in midterm elections; there weren't many blacks, Hispanics, or college kids here.

Hmm. So they vote historically and consistently for liberal, moderate, and opportunistic liberals masquerading as moderates Democratic candidates at the national level, have sent Democrats to Congress for a half century, and has low numbers of "blacks, Hispanics, or college kids", yet they voted against the 2008 Democratic candidate in a strongly Democratic year. There must be something about that particular candidate they did not like. I wonder what it could possibly be...

It frustrates me that everyone is dancing around trying to explain why PA isn't really GOP+1, but solidly Democratic when the answer is so simple. They are a bunch of backwards bigots who will vote for white Democrats but don't think a black man should be President. I can only assume no one is saying this because they don't feel comfortable contradicting the dominant MSM meme on bigotry by calling out Democrats or Pennsylvanians or (most likely) Democrats in Pennsylvania, even when it is as obvious as the ~~sheet~~ nose on their face.

Grownups play WoW too

2010-05-17T22:58:00.000-04:00

Not me. I'm not a dork. But some do. :-)

Really cool lecture about online communities and the way they are replacing and altering traditional face-to-face socialization. Touches on WoW, Lost, Club Trillion, and the site where I play my fake baseball.

The bit about "accidents of proximity" is something I think many people intuitively sense, whether you are familiar with the phrase or not. I have spent much more time on-line since moving to a new state.

Education rant

2010-05-06T23:39:00.001-04:00

After starting in a public system, moving to private boarding schools was a shock. Last year, several teachers took advantage of their academic freedom to inject an unhealthy* amount of their own political views into the classroom, often at the expense of the course material. The most ridiculous example was an AP lit course that spent a month on Dreams of My Father just before the 2008 election. Privately, even students who shared the instructor's political beliefs complained that they weren't getting adequate literature instruction because they "wasted all {their} time" talking about current events.

I've encountered a different frustration at my current school. This school has recently experienced a change in administration. The new Head of School is introducing some much needed changes, including an announced intent to pare the payroll through attrition. The school has over 100 employees for 200 students.

He is also trying to introduce cross-curricular instruction, which interferes with the sacred academic freedom prized by private school teachers. These people think they are teaching college or something, and it is ridiculous. The students and teachers of the suburban Atlanta public system where I graduated and started my teaching career would put those here to shame, and some kids pay tens of thousands to go here.

Anyway, someone was talking at the lunch table about how great it was to see cross-disciplinary instruction on an observation trip to another school. Take it with a grain of salt, because this history instructor was also amazed at the other teacher's mastery of the subject matter.

'I had to think, wait, who was Carthage again? What did they do?' He teaches history. I stared at my food and reminded myself to stay out of it. This isn't my first experience with gaping holes in content knowledge at public or private schools. At a local trivia game, an American history instructor at my last school was unable to come within a quarter century of the date of Amelia Earhart's disappearance. He ~~indoctrinated~~ taught current events to death though.

Anyway, back to the lunch table discussion I'm trying to avoid. One of the other teachers agrees that interdisciplinary studies would be great, but wonders how you are going to get everybody on board. Wha...? Someone else asks what she means.

'I mean, how do you change the existing culture? People are used to doing it their own way, and I think you are going to have problems challenging that school culture.'

I cannot bite my tongue any longer.

"The way you change it is the administration makes a decision, then they tell all the teachers this is the way it is going to be. It's pretty simple. You can either get on board, or find a new job. A school isn't a democracy. There is a leadership that sets policy, and it's teachers' job to follow their directions and implement that policy."

One department head chimed in with a similar message, though she had a slightly softer delivery. I let others take the conversation from there, lest I really let my frustration show, but I left the table shaking my head at the rest of my profession for probably the thousandth time.

I sometimes wonder how many teachers would starve to death if forced to get a job in any other field.

* "Healthy amount" of your own political views that is appropriate in a secondary environment: zero.

You cannot freestyle.... just.... no. Don't

2010-04-30T17:12:00.000-04:00

One of the unique challenges of my current job is finding the balance between reasonable accommodation of the needs of teenage guys in a residential environment with neighbors' desire to enjoy their own living space - specifically my desire to enjoy my living space.

It is a particular problem given the vast divergence between my interests and the interests of students at this school, where the great outdoors is something to be avoided at all costs. They'll walk a city street at night with no problem, but bugs are terrifying. Suffice it to say that, unlike my previous home, the typical student does not place a premium on quiet time for introspection.

I have been reminded of that once again as an absolutely beautiful day is occasionally ruined by some kid trying to freestyle in his friend's room directly above my apartment.

Possibly the meanest thing I have ever said

2010-04-28T12:12:00.003-04:00

In an online chat, L had just told me she will be working at a center to teach the developmentally challenged in order to save money for her move to Los Angeles. L is one of the nicest and sweetest people I know, which is probably why I couldn't resist my reply.

She said something like, "Come back home and visit."

I replied:

I will. I'll try to bring some retards from up here so you can take their money.

Thus abruptly ended the chat.

Sympathy for the devil

2010-04-28T11:22:00.002-04:00

My reading has recently slowed to a crawl. It is partially due to my fake baseball team and the inordinate and borderline unhealthy amount of time I devote to getting a season under way. However, it is even more the fault of Blood Meridian, an interminably slow read and utterly disappointing experience.

I read The Road a couple of years ago and enjoyed it, despite Cormac McCarthy's disdain for punctuation. Though I absolutely loathed the movie adaptation from the Coen brothers, I read No Country for Old Men and was pleasantly surprised to find the book enjoyable and much less pretentious than the movie.

With those two experiences, I moved on to Blood Meridian, the book widely praised as McCarthy's masterwork. Oh, where is the NBA Jams guy to chime in with "Bad Decision" when I really need him?

When I described it to my friend as "a slog", S asked, "Why don't you just put it down?" I stuck with it because someone told me it was a story of redemption, and also because I am stubborn enough to ignore sunk costs. I should have taken S's advice.

The book was thematically shallow and predictable. Violence begets violence. Thanks. Let me write that down. That's it. There is your entire theme for the magnum opus of a writer some have compared to Faulkner and Hemmingway.

The most interesting character is the Judge. At his first appearance in the novel, another character describes the Judge to the reader, "This is him. The devil. Here he stands."

Apparently that was a little too subtle for some. 'Wait, he's educated? He disapproves of organized religion? Such a man could never be truly evil. He must be the novel's moral center!'

Those of us who did not arrest our emotional growth after the first semester of college immediately recognize the Judge as completely evil, a view that is reinforced at every turn. The Judge purchases two puppies from a street urchin just so he can throw them off a bridge into the river. He is metaphorically, and, given his resistance to age and borderline superhuman abilities, quite likely literally the Devil. Short of giving him horns and a pitchfork, the author cannot make his malevolence much more obvious.

As for McCarthy's style, I cannot offer a more scathing critique than this from litkicks:

We don't use quotation marks here, because the world is evil and everything is dark and now it is day. And you can make anything sound profound when you don't use quotation marks or punctuation. Witness the following lines of dialogue from the TV show "Friends":

Monica said, Oh my god, Chandler. I can't believe it.

Chandler said, I know.

You gave my father a lap dance.

Chandler said, why do they put so much steam in there.

Ross stood up. Because otherwise they'd have to call it the room room.

The lack of punctuation marks is a recurring element of McCarthy's work that I tolerated in the two books I enjoyed, but it quickly grew tiresome and made this one even more difficult to get through.

There is no accounting for taste, but this struck me as yet another of those things intellectually insecure people like because it makes them feel smart. They get it. The world's a scary place. People are mean. Yawn.

'at book ain't got no clothes on.

Gizmodo likes high school pranks

2010-04-20T16:13:00.001-04:00

Midway through my senior year of high school, my school system put a new TV in every classroom in the county. Within a few days, a handful of people realized if they had the same model television at home, their remotes would work on any TV in the school. For about a week after that, we entertained ourselves with TV's suddenly turning on during a test, turning off in the middle of a movie, or randomly skipping channels when we were supposed to be watching the school news.

I still remember furtive glances and smiles with T Mueller, as poor Frau Mallett fiddled with the new TV, trying vainly to figure out just what was wrong and why we couldn't watch our German videos. A couple times people in on the prank volunteered to help. Of course, we usually experienced the success that eluded the teacher. If it was a teacher that was particularly unpopular, we would sometimes throw our hands up in exasperation as well. 'I don't know what it is Ms. _____. I can't get it to work either!'

Within a couple weeks, word passed through the faculty and all the remote ports were covered with books or duct tape, but I still smile at the memory.

The good people at Gizmodo carried some TV-B-Gones to a tech convention and proved that the joke is still funny.

Stranger in a strange land

2010-04-12T17:35:00.001-04:00

I know I am still in the same country, and only a few hundred miles from home, but there are still some really weird things up here.

I had to drive a trip that carried me to a farming region the other day. There were a couple of real Mexican restaurants out there, along with a small but noticeable Hispanic community. I was surprised that this sparked a bit of homesickness. Aside from the school campus, this is by far the least diverse place I have ever lived.

The lack of diversity leads to a ridiculous level of insensitivity, in students and faculty alike.

I was talking to another faculty member about the different groups in our cottage and how, as little as they socialize together, it is as if they are merely occupying the same space. The other adult said very matter-of-factly, "Yeah, but you're not going to be able to do anything about that. Black people and white people aren't going to want to hang out with each other."

WTF? This is a guy that is supposed to model appropriate behavior, and he sounds like someone out of the 1970's at best.

I've worked in two other high schools where people socialized by shared interest. Yeah, there were sub-groups of kids among the whites, blacks, Asians, and Hispanics that you rarely or never saw with people who looked any different than them, but most kids got along just fine. I experienced the same thing as a student in high school and college.

In my limited experience up here, it is not only the norm for kids to self-segregate to a remarkably disturbing degree, it is tacitly accepted by faculty as if this is the way the world should work. Some of them seem to think they are open minded people simply by working at a school that accepts so many non-white kids, though they have done everything but threaten a mutiny if asked to move on campus and be next door neighbors with those same kids.

Sometimes the insensitivity comes up in ways that are just amusing, like when a kid asked me why I didn't teach a square dancing class.

"What?"

"Yeah. I mean, you're from down there. Don't you know how to square dance?"

I laughed.

"I'm sorry, Luis. I don't mean to laugh at you, but I can't help but laugh at that question... It would be like me asking you, 'Hey, aren't you Hispanic? You ought to teach everybody how to bullfight. You know, since you're Hispanic and all.'"

I explained that square dancing was from a different time and was common in rural areas beyond the South, and he seemed surprised to learn that Southerners did not just arrive in 2010 PA straight from "To Kill a Mockingbird".

Sometimes the insensitivity is decidedly less amusing.

A 9th grade kid mentioned they watched Amistad in history. I showed the same movie at N, and it sparked serious debate and discussion in every class regardless of the level.

This kid complained that it sucked.

"That movie is awesome", I said.

"You liked that movie? Why?"

"Because it was well made and told a good story in an entertaining fashion... because it brought to light an overlooked event that was representative of a tragedy in our nation's past... because it basically did the things good movies are supposed to do."

To this point, I am just annoyed at the kid's obviously flippant attitude towards the subject matter.

Then his friend mentioned the scene where the crew runs low on rations and throws living slaves overboard in the middle of the Atlantic, still chained together.

"I know some people get all sensitive about things like that, but I thought that was funny."

I just about lost it. "You what? You thought that was funny?"

The kid was obviously too oblivious to detect the edge in my voice, or he would have backtracked, even if it meant lying. "Yeah. I just th..."

I interrupted. "That was not funny. It was a scene from a movie, but things just like that* happened to real people. Literally millions of people died on ships just like that. Millions. The others never saw their family or home again. Be smarter than to say that is funny."

What was amazing to me is the only black student in the room did not get involved. He just ignored it and kept working. Apparently he's used to ignorant comments like that. I'm used to better race relations, but if he said something that colossally stupid anywhere back home, somebody would want to beat his ass, and I'd be tempted to let 'em.

* I know dumping people in the middle of the Atlantic due to miscalculating the amount of food required for the passage is unlikely. The scene was an artistic liberty to give a strong visual image of the inhumanity of slavery and the human misery and suffering it inflicted.

George Lucas relieves himself once again on your treasured childhood memories

2010-04-05T22:38:00.001-04:00

George Lucas is not content with Jar Jar, the worst kid actor ever as young Anakin, a prequel trilogy filled with dialogue that makes Twilight seem worthy of a screenwriting Oscar, and a horrible Indiana Jones movie involving nuclear explosions, aliens, and other abominations I have mercifully cleansed from my memory. Today, Lucasfilm announced plans for an animated series that will take an irreverent, comedic look at the Star Wars universe. According to one of the co-creators, "We're going to pull back the curtain of some of those behind-the-scenes shenanigans."

The man has a pair of Bad Idea jeans he put on in 1990 and has never removed. I'm pretty sure he even sleeps in them.

I once asked several friend, if you were given a time machine and allowed to go back in time and kill any one person in history, who would it be and why. Half-jokingly, one answered, 'George Lucas, right after the release of The Last Crusade.'

It's getting harder and harder to disagree.

Text chat highlights from the Final Four

2010-04-05T20:57:00.005-04:00

I've been busy with real life and fake baseball the last week or so, and haven't posted lately.

I was not actually at the games, but there were a few exchanges (mainly with T) that I enjoyed. I'll watch the UConn coronation and NBA playoffs, but there is only one basketball game left that I really care about.

At about the 10:00 mark, Michigan State had a four point lead, and the Butler starting center was on the bench with two fouls. I texted:

"Butler's winning this game Officials are calling a good game and MSU won't get away with playing big ten defense"

T replied that some of the calls seemed to be going MSU's way, and I explained:

"I agree, but they will still run out of players. They play too physical for a semi-tightly called game."

It bothers me that the announcers didn't pick up on this. They reported the Spartan's foul trouble when their starters had 2-3-3-3-4 fouls, but anyone can read a stat sheet (especially with someone whispering the numbers in their ear). Michigan State plays strong defense, but they do it in a way that will lead to foul trouble with many crews outside of the Big Ten and Big East.

Some conferences allow more contact. A lot of Big Ten games look like NBA games from the late 90's or early part of this decade. They allow a very physical brand of defense. I (and officials from other leagues) think they allow too much contact. They were fortunate that this had not become a problem earlier, but it was only a matter of time until they ran into a crew that called their pushing and shoving.

Some talking heads look at total fouls and say, "Butler got the calls." In fact, Matt Howard had a couple of very weak calls mixed in with his four. After his third (the one where he was sliding with a perimeter player on a switch and finally called right along the right baseline), I said if the Spartan players were called the same way, they would already have run out of frontcourt players.

It was very obvious that a good FT shooting team was going to be going to the line early in each half, and that Michigan State was going to run into foul trouble. That is exactly how the second half played out. Michigan State's inabilty to play defense without fouling allowed Butler to win with two starters injured and a stretch of 8:00 or so where they did not hit a FG.

"Bet Butler never loses this lead"

Sent when Butler went up 34-33 at the 17:44 mark of the first half. Butler never lost the lead.
I am amazing.

They came close though. The Spartans cut the lead to 50-49 with 56 seconds left. Butler came down and ran their offense without a timeout. Defensive specialist Ronald Nored missed a contested shot in the lane, giving the Spartans the ball and a chance to win.

I was surprised Brad Stevens let it go, saying, "Needed TO there to make sure best player took biggest shot in program history."

Fortunately, Butler came up with one final defensive stop to clinch the victory.

Non-basketball related exchanges after the jump.

"Is that Terry Tate, office linebacker?"

Sent after the new Old Spice, BO Blocker commercial. Turns out it was the President from Idiocracy. - South Carolina, whassup? I love Terry Tate.

"Wonder why the networks didn't give Bush puff pieces on their high profile sporting events?"

The halftime horse game with the President annoyed me. One reason to watch sports is to get away from things like that. The President's advisers could not have designed a better piece of high profile, free advertising if they'd tried. I would expect a different 40% of the populace to have reacted the same way if it was our previous President.

I didn't watch it, but I cannot believe a former NBA (?) player lost a lead in a game of HORSE he was trying to win. If he did throw the game, that ticks me off too. Herm Edwards and friends agree with me.

"It makes me happy that they mentioned that guy hit the gamewinning FT against Tennessee, then he misses two.

I just picture Tennessee fans wincing at home as they watch."

Pretty self explanatory, but I chuckled at the grimaces that sequence surely induced across Rocky Top country.

"I love all your teeth"

This is another of my favorite new commercials. T responded that he was in the process of texting, "Ditto".

T: "Gordon Hayward is my new favorite player! He plays such good defense and is almost always in the right position."

"And he was awesome in the Andy Griffin show."

There was a shot of Magic Johnson in the stands wearing Michigan State gear. The announcers rightfully praised Magic for always supporting his alma mater, claiming his love for school and dedication were just two "of his wonderful attributes."

"Another of his wonderful attributes - inexplicably resistant to HIV."

After a shot of Lupe Izzo, the wife of the Michigan State coach, watching from the stands.

"Lupe? Tom Izzo married his maid?"

Following Michigan State's miss on their final possession:

"Lupe ess no happy"

T: "Shouldn't she be home cleaning the house?"

"You mean because she's a woman, right?"

_____________________________________

My philosophy for the second game:

"Go Duke. It makes Unc fans unhappy."

In the radio preview of the Duke-West Virginia game, Bill Walton made a comparison for one of the Mountaineers that was completely lost on me, and I would guess 90% of the listening audience.

"Bill Walton just said some guy "plays like Lenny Wilkens" I have no idea what that means"

Talk about not knowing your audience. I mean, I know Lenny Wilkens made the HOF as a player and won a title with the 1979 Sonics. That's it.

The only necessary basketball commentary on the surprising mismatch came a couple minutes into the second half.
T: Btw, this game is over. Duke isn't going to lose this game.

"I agree. Is that good or bad for Butler?"

T: I don't know.

"Believe it or not, I think Butler is a better matchup. Butler is a disciplined enough to stay with their shooters, and the Blue Devils are less likely to run them off the court."

Hopefully it will play that way. I'm afraid Duke gets their fourth title though.

The game was so one-sided, we got side tracked into a discussion of Archer. I am not going to put those comments up, but you really should watch Archer. It is mean spirited and wildly inappropriate. Go there as soon as you finish this and watch it.

Da'Sean Butler's knee injury brought us back to the game.

"That sucks. Season ending injury and a foul.

I thought Huggins was going to kiss him."

D: Dude just tore that acl

"Yeah. I thought I was watching a girls game."

D: Girls do that kind of crap all the time (his wife was a D-I player and is now getting into coaching)

"That's God's way of telling them to get in the kitchen"

T: I wonder why you're single?

"Because I say what you think"

T: Exactly!

I watched most of the second game out, unsuccessfully looking for a good place to watch a game not involving the Phillies.

With less than a minute left in Duke's blistering of West Virginia:

"The DJ just put on Country Roads. :-D"

The next game reference was not nearly as clever:

"Lead singer just made "the Butler did it" joke. Just... don't"

There are several differences between styles up here and back home. Most of them are kind of jarring. A short sleeve t-shirt that shows off your tribal armband tattoo is considered appropriate for a Saturday night out in much of Philadelphia. That is not the only (or even the worst) way ostensibly grown men dress like little boys.

"There are FOUR grown men here w backwards hats!"

T: That's just sad. Wait, am I considered grown?

"Wait... Five. This state is full of tools."

St. Mary's and race

2010-03-26T19:29:00.000-04:00

I think it is generally wrong to make choices on the basis of race. However, along with their style of play, one thing I enjoy about St. Mary's is they give me the chance to see guys that look like me succeeding in an arena (high level basketball) where guys like me do not usually succeed.

Not only is their success unusual, but occasionally they succeed in a style that is similar to my game, though they obviously possess a much higher skill level. It was nice seeing Butler's post employ moves I have used, though I employ them against guys six to eight inches shorter than the Syracuse frontline.

Accordingly, I will cheer for the Gaels for the same reason millions of black Americans cheered for Doug Williams and Donovan McNabb, Asian-Americans cheer for Yao Ming or Harvard's Jeremy Lin, and Jews cheer for Omri Caspi.

Go Gaels.

Citysolve Atlanta, wherein I am reminded I am no longer 18

2010-03-26T17:34:00.004-04:00

One of the highlights of the trip home was a last minute entry into a puzzle race around downtown Atlanta. DW had planned to enter with AS, but D had a conflict the day before the race. Since I was already staying with him, I was the first person he turned to to take his place, and I jumped at the chance.

A and I show up not really knowing what to expect. My pre-race preparation was limited to choosing a team name. I hate the task of choosing a clever name for things like this. As a college counselor for a HS church trip to the beach, I named our group Team Bob, to the delight of the group's 9th grade boys, and the utter confusion of our adult chaperon.

I'd tried to farm out the naming to some friends, but they had even less interest in the task than I. The girl handling registration asks for our team name, and I throw out a tried and true name from trivia nights - My Girlfriend's Only Three Feet Tall, But I'm Nuts Over Her.

I can't be highbrow all the time

I probably had a little less idea of what to expect than A, as he at least had the sense to wear decent running shoes. I am wearing jeans and worn out tennis shoes. The first indication that this might be more about racing and less about puzzles than I anticipated is the number of people stretching and limbering up in full running regalia.

Hmmm. This could be a problem. I last ran when I entered the Peachtree four or five years ago on a similar last minute whim. That turned out alright. I finished ahead of most of my friends who had trained for the race, and still enjoyed 4th of July festivities later that night. However, I had been playing basketball semi-regularly at the time. Now, I am just emerging from my first winter up north and the most prolonged period of physical inactivity of my life.

We are initially given a clue directing us to a spot a quarter mile away where we will pickup the remainder of our clues for the day. We are maybe the second team there, and I feel good about our chances. There aren't any HS kids running around, so I figure we are as fit as any other team in the race. I'm also pretty confident we will be able to figure out the clues better than most.

That confidence is shaken when, after several minutes of trying to figure out clues, we take off at a jog and discover we now trail a couple of women who were drinking mimosas in the pre-race. Apparently most teams just solved a clue and took off jogging or walking, figuring to solve the other clues en route.

Thanks to A's year spent running 10K's and my stubborn belief that I can keep up as if I have been training for months, we pass many of the teams on the way to a MARTA station (public transportation is allowed, but no bikes or taxis). We've decided to go to the farthest clue first. We hop on MARTA, but still have about a mile and half jog to get to the New Yorker Deli after we get out.

The winning times for other cities had averaged around 1:45. We do not get to the New Yorker Deli until 45 minutes after the start of the race. Another team runs up right after us from the opposite direction. We learn that they chose to get the destinations close to the Midtown starting point first, then took MARTA to Buckhead. The deli is their fourth stop

At that point, our goal shifts from, "Maybe we can do pretty good in this thing," to, "Let's try not to embarrass ourselves."

This is also when it starts to become really apparent which of us has been running for a while. A starts giving pointed hints like, "I'm going to run on head for a bit."

It is really frustrating. My whole life, I've been either the athletic guy in the smart crowd, or the smart guy in the athletic crowd. I could at least hold my own in either group's area of strength, and really excel in the other area. However, even when hanging out with my friends who are better overall athletes, I've been able to outrun most of them.

Clearly, that will not be the case today. Curse you, dreary Pennsylvania winter. More than one friend later appreciates the irony of me being the one slowing the team down.

When A hints about a faster pace, I'm thinking, 'You do that. I'm just going to labor along back here.'

FWIW, I am still doing better than a lot of the other racers. I just can't keep up with A. He's like the David Pollack of Citysolve. His motor never stops.

We finish the Buckhead stops, and jump on MARTA again to get back to Midtown. We make it to our sixth stop just ahead of the team from the New Yorker. It is their next to last stop, and their final destination is along the route to the finish.

I am no longer trailing behind due to being out of shape. My knee has started to feel kind of funny.

After a bit of confusion near Georgia Tech where A and I temporarily end up at different clues, we get the three clustered near the NATS and strike out for a Barnes and Noble where we plan to get the final clue on the way back to the finish.

We had assumed we'd be able to get one of the time bonuses on the Tech campus. It asks for a photo of four people wearing spirit gear for Atlanta sports teams. Georgia Tech has thousands of college students, and they aren't on break. I figure we will be able to find four in Tech gear.

The campus is a wasteland. As we begin to realize we are not going to find Tech students hanging out on the quad throwing a frisbee, I turn to Anthony in disgust.

"I'm sorry, I know this is your school, but it's because Tech students are a bunch of dorks. They're probably all holed up in their dorms having a World of Warcraft LAN party."

These words are no sooner out of my mouth than I notice someone approaching across an otherwise empty courtyard.

"Ummm.... is that Buzz?"

Sure enough, the Georgia Tech mascot is strolling across a desolate courtyard towards us.

We stop to get our pictures taken with Buzz in the most surreal moment of the weekend. We still have no idea where he was going, but he must have been late. He took off at a jog after leaving us behind.

Anthony runs ahead to try to gather what we need from Barnes and Nobles. I take a straight path, while he wanders a little in one last attempt to get the spirit wear time bonus.

As I near the edge of campus, I pass the Pi Kappa Alpha house. There's a beer pong table in the front yard. The table and surrounding lawn is a graveyard of empty beer cans. There are a half dozen Pikes sitting or standing around the table. They are clearly still in various stages of drunkenness.

It is three o'clock in the afternoon.

I really want that bonus, so I ask if any of the brothers inside the house are wearing Tech hats or shirts. The Pike I'm talking to focuses on me with some difficulty. He stares and blinks in confusion.

Another brother seems a little better off. He is merely slightly drunk, and is standing without even leaning much on the table. He slurs, "Thers a baseball game back there", while pointing inside the fraternity house.

A light clicks on for the sitting Pike. "You should go there! There's all kinds of Tech stuff at the basheball game."

All of them are very friendly drunks, and I soon have pieced together directions to the Tech baseball field. I call A, but he has already been redirected to the game. I thank the Pikes and head off in the opposite direction from their instructions. I don't think they notice.

By now, my knee has moved from discomfort to borderline pain. I am ninety eleven years old.

We meet at B&N for the final clue and head for the finish. A tries to exhort me to finish strong. I've given a similar speech dozens of times, and I really want to, but I am now doing a Terminator hop with my right knee. To make up for my lack of speed, I try cutting through a few backyards on the way to the finish. It actually lets me catch A near the finish.

Yay for Pythagoras.

I mumble something to A about, "If this causes us to finish 4th instead of 3rd, I'll feel really bad," but we both know we are just trying to avoid finishing near the bottom. We last saw another team at the Bakeshop, and that was the couple that needed one more photo on the their way to the finish.

We stumble into the restaurant/bar that serves as the finish line. As we enter, there is a smattering of applause from teams already relaxing inside. It is exactly the kind of response you expect for the teams struggling across at the back of the pack. They might as well give us a 'Gold Star for Effort' award. We give a halfhearted smile, roll our eyes, and sign in.

I ask what place we are in. I'm stunned to hear, "Well, you're the fifth team in, but we still have to assess penalties and hand out bonuses."

The team that we bumped into several times along the way is clearly in first, but I also learn that the guy in their team finished 2nd the previous year and competed in the national race in Las Vegas. Most of the other teams at the finish line are also veterans.

We have no time penalties and picked up both bonuses, vaulting us from fifth to third in the final standings. We miss 2nd and a couple of nice prizes by about 45 seconds. This leads to a lot of fun at A's expense that afternoon, and a little bit of silently kicking myself afterwards. However, the top three teams get a free entry into the national championships in New Orleans.

New Orleans for Halloween weekend sounds pretty good to a couple of single guys. We figure we jogged between six and eight miles throughout the afternoon, but it was a lot of fun. We have a much better idea of what to expect, and will be better prepared next time.

Citysolve is run in many cities across the nation, and the Atlanta stop was one of their first of the season. I'll probably run another one up here in April. If there is one near you, you should definitely check it out.

Sweet 16 - Go Big Red

2010-03-25T20:05:00.007-04:00

Not necessarily my picks, but who I want to win in the Round of 16.

Cornell over UK- I picked UK to win it all in my bracket, but I don't see how you can pull against the Ivy League champs. They are the first Ivy Leaguers to make the Sweet 16 in the 64 team era, and they are also the team I think I would most like to hang out with. They have that offbeat, smart guy sense of humor. I don't imagine the other teams would think it was funny to slip corny movie quotes into their press conferences.

Washington over West Virginia- I like Bob Huggins (as long as he isn't coaching at my school), but I would love to see Washington run with either team in the UK-Cornell matchup.

Butler over Syracuse- I take great joy in the whining from co-workers after Big East teams lose. Butler also plays a great team game, and they have won big for several years now without top tier recruits.

Xavier over Kansas State- No strong feelings here. It has been great seeing Xavier move from 14 seed territory to a top thirty program. However, it would also make me laugh to see K State make a Final Four while Jayhawk fans pout over their second round flameout.

Northern Iowa over Michigan State- You think they ever play that "Prince Ali, fabulous he..." song from Aladdin at UNI games? I don't think there has ever been a Michigan State team I actually liked. They play ugly, overly physical ball. Purple Panthers is also the second coolest nickname left in the field.

Tennessee over Ohio State- SEC vs. Big Ten? This is a no-brainer. Tennessee may be a bunch of cheating punks, but they're our cheating punks. The Vols under Bruce Pearl play South Carolina's style, they just do it with more depth and better players. I like the up and down style. Finally, any good Southern sports fan will tell you it is always a good day if you get to see Ohio State lose.

Duke over Purdue- I spent three summers at Duke, and have always had a soft spot for Coach K's team. It also gives me joy to see the Duke haters get upset after every Blue Devil win. The fact that they could eliminate a Big Ten team is an added bonus.

St. Mary's over Baylor- The Gaels have the coolest nickname left in the field. Omar Samhan looked like a high school senior playing a bunch of sixth graders against Villanova. His footwork was incredible. It was like seeing a poor man's Kevin McHale demolish the Wildcats. More about this later, but St. Mary's also won while doing something I have never seen in my life in a major college game. Every minute of the game was played with five white guys on the court.

Philadelphia flash mob devolution

2010-03-23T23:44:00.003-04:00

Flash mobs started around 2003 as loosely organized outbreaks of fun. Plans were spread via email groups, texts, and social networking sites. About as close as they came to violence was a 2006 Philadelphia pillow fight at the city's iconic Love Park.

With social media now popular at all rungs of the socio-economic ladder, it was only a matter of time until flash mobs were twisted to something decidedly less fun. Philadelphia's new experience with flash mobs consists of hundreds of teens receiving texts and emails that say things like "Bring baseball bats to South Street".

The Philadelphia City Council is responding with threats to sue Facebook and Twitter over the incidents. Seriously. With crackerjack leadership like that, I can't figure out why this city has a crime problem.

Bart Stupak is a despicable liar

2010-03-22T18:26:00.001-04:00

This is not a post about health care. I disagree vehemently with the Obama-Pelosi worldview, and I am disappointed they were able to twist enough Democratic arms to get their health care bill passed. However, at least Pelosi is honest and committed to her principles, and Obama is committed to his principles. Ostensibly "pro-life" Congressman Bart Stupak is neither.

There is a wide divergence of views on abortion, with roughly the same percentage of extremists (around 1 in 5) favoring either universally legalized abortion, or no abortions in any circumstances. The remainder of the populace is somewhere in-between, which is why most politicians with aspirations beyond the House figured out in the mid 80's to follow Kang's lead. Within that middle ground, there is a sizable number of Republicans and a growing number of Democrats who label themselves some form of pro-life.

Congressman Bart Stupak (D-MI) is one of those who claims to believe that at some point before birth (I don't know if he believes conception, first trimester, or what), a fetus becomes a person, and to end the life after that point is murder. Regardless of your own views on abortion, try to imagine for the remainder of this post that you hold this conviction as professed by Stupak.

If I thought abortion was a murder, there is nothing you could legally do that would convince me to vote for a bill that increases the number of abortions performed in this country. I imagine the same is true for anyone reading this. After all, what is a committee appointment, or reelection help, or a new bridge in your hometown when the price is the deaths of infants? Again, some of you may not believe this, but the point is, Stupak claimed that he did.

Stupak announced he would not vote for a health care bill that reversed existing law and allowed federal funding of abortions. It was every bit as principled a declaration as Pelosi's determination to disregard the polls and push through the government health care bill.

As the whips began counting votes, it was clear that the Democrats could not prevent enough defections to secure passage without the votes of Stupak and some of his allies. Thus, one final machination was enacted to secure passage.

The President announced the issuance of an Executive Order that, contrary to the language of the Senate version being passed into law, no federal money will be used to fund abortions. In essence, the Executive Order is an attempt to negate the portion of the Senate bill that allows such abortion funding. Stupak called a press conference to announce he could now support the bill. He and some, but not all, of his bloc provided the deciding votes in a narrow passage.

There is a reason the most pro-abortion President in history would issue such an order, and none of the extremist pro-abortion House Democrats defected after it was announced. The order is not worth the press release it is printed on. The first time someone challenges it in court (which should happen the day after the bill becomes law), a judge will be asked to decide the Constitutionality of a Presidential fiat to ignore a law passed by Congress and signed by the same President. You can guess how that judge will rule.

I disagree with the worldview of most who voted for the bill, and I disrespect those who caved to behind the scenes arm twisting to vote for it. However, I have nothing but disgust for someone who claims to believe abortion is murder, and votes for a bill that will lead to more abortions.

Bart Stupak will claim he stayed true to his beliefs, but he knows the eventual outcome of the Executive Order. No one can win election to the House and remain ignorant enough to believe otherwise. He is a disgusting coward who lacked the courage to stand up against pressure when, according to his beliefs, the cost was measured in the blood of innocents. I find that absolutely astonishing.

I hope his district replaces him this fall, and I really don't care much if it is with a pro-abortion or anti-abortion politician, as long as it is someone who is not a liar.

It IS white boy day

2010-03-18T19:21:00.002-04:00

BYU and St. Mary's have already won, and Butler seems comfortably on their way. Cornell's probably kicking themselves that they don't play til tomorrow.

Somewhere, Drexl Spivey is most displeased.

And then this happened... which was awesome

2010-03-15T13:04:00.009-04:00

I almost forgot about the (only) best part of working the twirling competition. While the parents were trying to clean, this little boy pulled a bunch of bubble wrap out of the trash and had fun. If I'd let it run just a few more seconds more, I would've caught him saying, "Wheww. I'm really tired!"

Lifelong OTP needs ITP help

2010-03-12T11:40:00.001-05:00

I'm running the Citysolve Urban Race Atlanta at noon tomorrow. I feel good about my ability to figure out the clues, but not so good about matching those clues to physical locations in the city. If you know the attractions, notable restaurants, and landmarks of Atlanta, feel free to offer help from 12 to 2. We're allowed to call or email for help. Even better would be if you are bored and going to be consistently online.

I don’t talk as much good as I thunk

2010-03-10T20:50:00.021-05:00

I took the GRE today. Since I haven’t taken any classes in a while, I was prepared for the scores to be a bit lower than my last standardized testing experience. A half dozen question into the math section, I was regretting that I hadn’t at least glanced at a review book or study guide before waltzing into the testing center.

I was prepared to lose 80 to 100 points from math atrophy. I was not prepared to come off like a knuckle-dragging simpleton. Nevertheless, I found myself wracking my brain trying to remember whether or not integers must be positive.

I stared at the screen, thinking, ’If they must be positive, then the answer is the quantity in Column A is larger. If they can be any whole numbers, positive or negative, then it is C, there is not enough information to determine the answer. Crap…. I am an idiot. How can I not remember this? What did Mrs. Thompson tell us in 9th grade? Oh yeah… I probably wasn’t paying attention because only mouth-breathing morons don’t know the definition of an integer by 9th grade.’

I finally made my choice.

The questions became markedly easier after that, which was quite a letdown. If there is a discernible difference in level of difficulty, it means you have probably passed a gateway question and the program has adjusted the questions up or down in response. It’s like FreeRice.com, with the added bonus that all your friends can retroactively guess your scores by seeing where you take classes the following fall.

The most difficult part of the math section was the loss of certainty. Even on the easy problems, I double or triple-checked my answers, doubting they could be that simple. I don’t even think I would recognize the teenager that confidently breezed through such tests and put his head down to rest for the final fifteen or twenty minutes.

This tentative experience suddenly gave me a new appreciation for the impact of self-confidence or test taking anxiety on student scores. I wasn’t anxious about the test. Oblivious to my surroundings, I had danced around the lobby while Dynamite Hack's "Boyz in the Hood" cover pumped through the earbuds. It psyched me up like the age of irony, white kid from the exurbs I am.

However, once the math section started and I recognized how little I remembered, my confidence quickly faltered. The questions that should have taken seconds took a minute. The questions that should have taken a minute, took several minutes. I found myself glancing at the timer and rapidly calculating whether or not I was ahead of pace to complete the section.

I basically ran out of time on the final problem, which was a new experience for me. I was puzzling over some interesting problem that gave a single measurement of an interior side, then asked you to determine the perimeter of some figure that was a combination of a semi-circle and several squares and triangles. That was the type of problem I loved in high school, but I had only managed to slowly stumble halfway through using snatches of half remembered axioms and equations when I noticed the clock was ticking off the final 30 seconds. I hurriedly chose one of the two possible answers and hoped for the best.

I performed very well on the essays, and still managed to finish the verbal**** sections with a few minutes to spare. Though a couple of the vocab analogies really made me wish I had spent some time on FreeRice in the last six months or so, I still felt as if the section became steadily more difficult, and I was still getting the right answers with relative ease, especially compared to the trial by dentistry that I’d experienced in the math section.

Before I clicked the button to receive my scores, I steeled myself for a math score in the low x00’s, hoping that I would at least manage not to fall below x00. Meanwhile, I was confident my score in the verbal section would fall comfortably in the y00 range, where y=x+1. I consoled myself that whatever the score, I had knocked the essay out of the park, and should still be able to get into the program I want.

I took a deep breath and clicked “Show me my scores”.

My math score was y00, and my verbal score was y00 – 10. Huh? The overall worked out to about what I had expected, but with far different sub-scores.

I chuckled. As I left the testing center, I called my father to give him a report.

When he picked up, I greeted him with, “Well, I guess I don’t talk as much good as I thunk.”

Swingers reference that does NOT involve the "So money..." speech

2010-03-10T09:00:00.020-05:00

Near the beginning of Swingers, one of the struggling actors complains about his recent callback for a job as Goofy at Disneyland. "I don't think I'm gonna take it... There's just something about being "Goofy" ... There's just this stigma associated with the character."

His friends try to comfort him. "Hey, man. At least it’s Disney."

A few weeks later, his buddies ask him about the Disney job. He sadly confesses, “They went for someone with more theme park experience... I woulda killed for that job!”

I think I may soon be facing a similar experience.

My current school will pay half of all education expenses for any advanced degree, which is one of the things that attracted me to the job in the first place. There is a one-year masters program at a very strong university nearby. Though I ultimately desire to return to Georgia or the Carolinas, I was fully prepared to apply for and complete this program in 2010-11. It would be great for my career, and a program that allowed me to return to the South in fall or spring of 2011 would dovetail nicely with things that were developing in my personal life.

I went home for Christmas prepared to finish the application and be one of the first to get everything in for rolling admissions. I completed 15% of the online app before the things developing in my personal life went crazy.

Suddenly, I was facing the first personal crisis of my life without a support system within a few hours drive. If I gave any thought at all to my home for the 2010-2011 school year, it was based on the idea of getting as close to home as possible, preferably last week. By the time I grudgingly accepted that, regardless of other factors, the program would still be great for my long-term professional growth, the chance to be an early applicant had long passed.

I called the admissions office last week and figured out I am not yet behind, but I’m not exactly ahead of the curve either. I’ve submitted the application, essay, and recommendations, but learned I must retake the GRE, as the one I took shortly after graduation just misses the window for eligible score reports.

Thus, I find myself travelling to Greenville, SC to take a four-hour exam before continuing on to Atlanta for the remainder of my break. Whether it is due to over-confidence (unlikely - I really expect to struggle on the math), apathy (probably), or a subconscious desire to sabotage my chances of admissions (possibly), I haven’t even studied for the test.

I spoke with my sister the other night, and she asked if I felt ready for the GRE.

“I don’t know.”

“Well, don’t sound too excited.”

“I’m not really... I mean, if I get in, that’s good I guess. But if I don’t, I’m not about to complain about anything that removes my final obstacle to getting out of Philadelphia.”

I say all that, but if I really do find that my lifelong battle with procrastination has cost me the chance to at least consider the option, I’ll probably be kicking myself and saying, ‘I would have killed for that Goofy program!'

A Thousand Splendid Little Miss Sunshines

2010-03-07T12:53:00.104-05:00

I ended up sticking around for another day when I was offered the chance to work a Saturday on campus event for pay. It turned out to be a twirling competition for girls from about four up to early teenagers.

The most stressful part of the job was making sure the bathrooms didn't run out of soap or other supplies. Otherwise, I pretty much hung out and tried to interact with the competition parents as little as possible. Neither of these tasks were as easy as they sound.

I quickly discovered it is not as easy to find an empty women's bathroom as you would think. I waited for what couldn't have been more than five minutes, but felt like twenty, for a break in the steady parade into the restroom. Finally, I just got a chair with a sign that had "Restroom Temporarily Closed" clearly printed in about 20 font. I set it up to block the doorway and waited for those already inside to leave.

It had not been there more than a minute when some twelve year old prima donna primly sidestepped it, and continued into the bathroom. I was absolutely incredulous. I can only imagine her thought process.

'Hmm, look – a chair placed directly in my path… and that prominently placed piece of paper seems to have some words on it. I shall disregard them and continue unimpeded upon my route.'

I think that left a bad taste in my mouth towards the competitors. A few moments later, I was walking through the crowd and heard one of the teenage girls ask her friend, "Amanda, are you modeling?"

I almost snorted as I thought, 'Ohhh honey, I think models are supposed to be pretty.'

I later learned that modeling was one of the types of competition. I had retreated to the coaches and judges' room to read. The lone parent-coach in the room mentioned that she hoped her girls did well in the the modeling competition after lunch.

Most of the teams had some pretty elaborate costumes, so I asked, "Oh, are they judged by their costumes?"

"No, it isn't that." She paused for a bit before continuing, "It's more how they wear their costume... how it looks on the girls, how they carry themselves... things like that."

I smiled and nodded politely, while thinking, ‘That’s awesome. It’s never too early to start teaching girls that the only thing that matters is physical appearance, and people will judge them solely on that basis for the remainder of their lives. Young girls don't have enough challenges already. I’m glad someone is doing something about that.’

I realize this completely contradicts my previous joke, but a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.

To say the parents were not my type of people would be an understatement. Apparently the feeling was mutual. Around lunchtime, the event organizer approached me as I was writing in the breakroom.

"Are you with the school?"

"Yes."

"Hi, I'm Uptight Biddy."

"Hi, I'm Me."

"Ummm, would you mind moving somewhere else? This is the coaches' room, and none of them know you, so I don't know if they really feel comfortable around you."

They're paying the the bill, so I gave a polite, "Sure." I thought that was nicer than saying what I was thinking. 'They could always ask me. I speak English and everything.'

I later vented to M about it. He listened and said, "Yep. Welcome to the north, man."

To sleep, perchance to dream

2010-03-06T18:47:00.000-05:00

would be nice. Instead, I feel a bout of insomnia coming on once more. I think I might as well just drive to North Carolina tonight rather than tomorrow morning. At least I'll be productive.

What does red smell like?

2010-03-06T18:36:00.001-05:00

There were a couple of things that really stick out from my conversations with BD.

He attends a very good private school, but he did not choose to go there. He has family on staff, and can attend for practically free, so he really had no other choice. He said something that hinted he wished he could have picked another school.

I laughed. “It’s not like you’re at Valdosta State. You’re still going to a great school. It’s one of the top twenty in the country.”

“Yeah… but just barely.”

That gave me a good laugh, but the second memorable exchange was a little more substantive.

Then, while we were grabbing something to eat in a diner, he suddenly declared, “I think I’m going to be an atheist.

I listened to a lecture series by a professor from Yale. He says if anybody makes a claim the burden is on them to prove their claim, not on everyone else to disprove it [surprisingly, there are some people who still don’t understand this].

Like if I said I know unicorns are real and they live in caves, you wouldn’t be expected to travel to every cave in the world to prove unicorns aren’t there. It would be up to me to produce proof.

So he doesn’t try to disprove the existence of God or the soul. He just spends the first three or four lectures taking apart the most famous arguments that claim to prove the soul and God are real.

It was really interesting. I think you would enjoy it.”

I took a few moments to gather my thoughts before responding, “I don’t really think it’s the type thing I’m interested in. Those type of intellectual discussions of spiritual matters don’t really appeal to me much any more. I’ve come to realize that constructing these elaborate intellectual arguments over things that are spiritual in nature is like arguing over the smell of colors.“

To revisit B's analogy, if I did know unicorns exist, if I had somehow experienced unicorns in a way that let me know they were real, I would hold to that truth regardless of whether or not others accepted it or searched the caves or whatever.

One of my favorite parts of The Life of Pi is when Pi indicates that the bane of intellects is their inability to trust in faith. I'd probably have to reread the book to find the exact quote, but I have seen evidence of that in many people's lives. They are used to being able to get a handle on everything, and they cannot just sit in wonder when they finally encounter something they cannot fully grasp.

Though I know He is real in the same way I know I am real, I cannot prove God. I don't even try. That's why they call it faith.

A is for Awesome

2010-03-06T18:14:00.006-05:00

It wasn't quite Harvey Keitel dancing through the bar in Mean Streets, but I had a surprisingly good Friday night in Philadelphia.

BD is in-town for some sort of pan-Asian association convention at Penn, and wanted to meet downtown after their welcoming ceremony. He actually called it the “Opening Ceremony”, and I envisioned groups of Asian-Americans marching in a procession wearing costumes traditionally associated with their schools or hometowns. I pictured the University of Alabama contingent outfitted in football jerseys and houndstooth hats, or Southern Cal in checkered shirts with only the top button clasped with their white t’s visible underneath. I realized it would be pretty easy for the Georgia Tech crew. Their president could just tell them to wear their normal clothes, including pocket protectors. Neerrrrds!

Since the snow has almost melted and it wasn’t supposed to drop below the 30’s, I decided to venture into the city for the first time since Christmas and meet him up with him. Any decent trip in Philadelphia means an outing on SEPTA, the regional rail system.

When I first rode SEPTA, I was surprised to discover you can get on without a ticket, as long as you have cash. Conductors move up and down the cars asking the destination of those without tickets displayed. They punch the appropriate stop, and sell tickets in cash for a dollar or two more than those bought in advance.

It’s a convenient system, and I always enjoy watching the people who hop on for a one or two station ride and anxiously monitor the conductor’s progress, hoping the train will pull into the station before they have to buy a ticket, and they can get a free trip. Once, on a particularly busy train, I saw a group of collegians give celebratory high fives after they completed a five-station trip without getting tagged.

My trips are always forty-minute affairs, so I don’t even bother. My twenty was out as the conductor approached. He gave me a gruff, “I’ll get you in a second,” and turned to the guy on the opposite aisle. After checking that ticket, he continued on his way, selling and punching tickets down the aisle.

I kept the money out so I wouldn’t have to go digging for it when he came back up to take care of my side of the train. A few moments later, he ambled by with a nod. Hmmm.

Just in case, I had my money in hand, albeit a little less conspicuous, when he walked down the aisle after the next stop. This time, he gave me a very subtle “hold-on-a-second” gesture, and kept walking.

I might have been born at night, but it wasn’t last night. I realized, ‘He’s letting me ride for free! He must know how awesome I am!’

Suddenly, the trip became just a little exciting. The secret that I was riding for free turned it into a sort of cloak and dagger affair. Every once in awhile, the conductor would nod as he walked by. I tried to be as nonchalant as possible, without spending too much pity on all the poor suckers handing over cash left and right.

I finally reached my destination, one of the big stations downtown. The conductor strolled off just after me to take his break. I shook his hand enthusiastically and thanked him.   For the first time, he stepped out of his ‘Don’t mess with me’ train persona and broke into a smile that enveloped his entire face. “Alright, just glad I can help. Have a good night.”

There was a little bit of a hop in my step as I exited the station. Before meeting B, I was headed for a lounge with a good reputation, but high cover charges unless you get there before 10.

As I emerged onto the street, I began talking to a couple of women obviously dressed to go out. We discovered we were headed to the same place, and they suggested we walk together.

We got there just a couple minutes before the cover charge jumped to a price I would never pay (unless there is a band I know and like, this is often any amount above zero), and whisked inside.

I was wearing a coat older than me. It is a corduroy jacket my father wore while dating my mother, and I have memories of him wearing it throughout my childhood. A couple years ago, he gave it to me, and it is one of my most prized possessions.   I had no intention of risking a spilled drink in a crowded bar, so I checked the coat and wished O and C a good night with their law school friends.

I still had some time to kill before meeting B. Since it was only 10, the place was still relatively empty. One thing I’ve learned is that in many bars and clubs, the staff is more fun to talk to than the clientele.   Since it was relatively dead, I approached a group of employees and asked one of the barbacks about trains to Penn. And then I had to ask him again.

I have a subtle but unmistakable drawl. E reminded me of this recently.   I remarked that I don’t have much of an accent, and she just about drove off the road.

“You don’t think you have an accent? You sound like somebody out of To Kill a Mockingbird. J and I both love the way you talk.” Since E and J are multi-generation Southern, I take their word for it that I have a good Southern twang.

That twang caught the barback off-guard. He offered a confused, “Sorry?”

He was prepared the second time, and we began talking about the area and the best way to get to where I was meeting B.

I learned on my initial trip downtown that most Philadelphians like Southern accents. A lot of them react to hearing me speak the way we react to people with Australian or Boston accents - Ha! Just kidding, Boston! Your accent sucks. See a speech therapist and get that thing fixed. Until then, just wear an old school chalkboard around your neck and scribble everything down like a 19th century mute, ‘cause the rest of us would rather hear scraping on a chalkboard than endure one more word coming from your mouth.

Since most people seem to like a drawl, I wasn’t surprised when the bartender jumped into the conversation. She asked where I was from, and we were soon joking about the differences between Philadelphia and home. After a couple minutes, I wandered off to explore the rest of the lounge. By the time I had seen the entire area, I figured I had stayed long enough to earn my stamp for re-entry, and left to meet B, leaving my coat so I could enjoy the brisk night air.

B and I bounced around Philadelphia for a while, talking about life, the universe, and everything. I left him with some of his friends and glanced at my phone to learn it was about an hour later than I thought. I had already missed the regular midnight train out. The only option left was a Friday night special departing from another station at one am.

Fortunately, I was only a couple blocks from that station, with 30 minutes to get there. Unfortunately, I was about 20 blocks from my coat. I struck out towards my original stop. After a couple minutes, I hailed a passing cab. He was able to quickly get me to the deserted lounge, and it looked like I would be able to make the last train after all.

I flashed my hand-stamp at the door and walked trough the basement entrance to emerge into a packed club. The dance floor was a mass of people, and patrons were crowded at least two deep around every bar.

I had about twenty minutes to decide if I wanted to take the train, or stay til close. While mulling it over, I drifted back to where I had earlier spoken with the bartender. I figured I had time for one drink, and elbowed my way into a spot at the bar.

She noticed me and greeted me with a big smile, “You’re back! How was Penn?” I explained that I hadn’t really seen the school; my friend had just been there for his Asian association convention.

Anyway, to make a long story every so slightly less long, the conversation with the bartender had me leaning towards staying. I figured I had enough time to figure out how I would get home before they closed down.

When she placed a lemon drop (shut up - they're good) in front of me and said, “It’s on me,” I knew I was staying. I spent most of the time at that bar, careful to talk to everyone around me. I left a little after close with a $12 tab (about 1.5 drinks in Philly) for a half dozen drinks, and a phone number so I could call or text to avoid cover charges.

Now, all I had to do was get a taxi out to School. J told me to expect at least $75, claiming she had paid $50 to get to Candyland (not really, but it might as well be for my knowledge of local geography), which was "a lot closer." That was a bad sign, as she had some obvious advantages over me in such negotiations, but I was determined not to see all my savings from the night go up in smoke on a cab ride.

I knew better than show an iphone in front of the cabbie, lest he think I had more money than I was willing to pay. Before I stepped outside I used the map feature to figure out it was about 24 miles. I took the money I had saved on my free train ride plus five dollars from my wallet and counted what was left. I had forty-six dollars.

I took the $46, hid my wallet and iphone and started hitting the taxi line. After offering everyone $46 to go "23 or 24 miles" to Train station, I finally found a taker. I got a nice cab ride from my new BFF Salim, and enjoyed another great conversation about Algeria, Islam, South Carolina, Christianity, football, and soccer. He also invited me to his mosque. I've been assured it is moderate and non-Muslims are welcome, so I might check it out. I mean, I visited liturgical services.

Be true to your school

2010-03-04T20:42:00.003-05:00

One of the most memorable moments at my first teaching job came in a road basketball game played against my alma mater. My mentor was the new school's lead assistant, and one of my closest friends on faculty, a fellow Sandlapper who had started the same year as I, was the second assistant. Those friendships and my love of the game meant I saw many of the home and away games, and I found myself at the old stomping grounds for a late season game.

The school where I taught was then ranked #1 in the state, and the alma mater's (for me) new gym was every bit as packed as the old bandbox next door had been for big games with Cedar and South. The home team was undermanned and undersized, but, to everyone's surprise, they went toe to toe with the heavily favored visitors and were right in the game into the 4th quarter.

Even though all the younger brothers and sisters I knew had graduated and gone on to college, I felt a little weird on the visiting side of the court. A couple minutes into the 4th, I really started to feel like a fish out of water.

The student section started the sing-song chant I remembered from so many games: "Cennnn-trallll... Cennnn-trallll..." It was quickly picked up by the rest of the fans, "Cennnn-tralll... Cennnn-tralll..." Just as I remembered, they began to slowly build towards the crescendo, getting a little bit louder and a little bit faster with each repetition. "Cennn-TRALLL.. Cennn-TRALLL..." I turned to a friend from my new home and explained that I'd taken part in and heard this one many times, but never from the opposing sidelines. The crowd continued "CENN-TRALL. CENN-TRALL. CENN-TRALL" I was grinning ear to ear and literally had goosebumps on my arms by now. "CEN-TRAL! CEN-TRAL!" I couldn't resist any longer and, ever so quietly, joined in for the final repetition, "CENTRAL! CENTRALLLLLL!" as the fans exploded into an ecstasy of raucous stomping and screaming.

The home team fell short that night, but the experience of seeing the old school, with a student body much more diverse than it had been only a few short years earlier, chanting the same cheers with just as much fervor as we had ever displayed, the same cheers that connected us to generations of Black Knights that had gone before, is one of my most cherished memories from my tenure in GC.

Last night, with a typically undersized and shorthanded roster, Central faced the defending champs in the second round of the state playoffs. The favorites came in with a frontline bigger than those found at many small colleges, and a reputation for recruiting away top players from opposing schools. The last high D-I Black Knight had transferred there to finish out his career. As a senior, he led them to their 2009 state title.

Before the game, visiting fans complained that the vagaries of the state tournament forced them to drive an hour in traffic to watch a bunch of smurfs get blasted by 30 points. Playing with a tenacity that would make recently retired Coach S proud, the scrappy Black Knights pulled out a victory to advance to the Elite Eight for the first time since 2002.

If the star point guard (and tallest starter) can lead them to another victory this weekend, Central will make the Final Four just as I arrive in town for spring break. If they do, I can think of no better place to spend part of the break than in the Arena, clad in black and gold, cheering loudly for an alma mater that blessed me with countless memories and friendships in my four years as a proud Black Knight.

I see you!

2010-03-04T19:26:00.002-05:00

No, really. I do. Thanks, it makes me smile.

I wrote a new post today that I am really proud of, but it is not going up. It is the first thing I have ever written where I immediately thought, 'This is really good. I think I can get this published.'

I'm going to submit it to various literary type publications. It's my first chance to sell out, and, much like Mick Jagger, I want to do it as quickly as possible. Money is nice. It can be exchanged for goods and services.

It still isn't over!

2010-03-03T00:01:00.010-05:00

I've got seventeen* more to go. A couple weeks ago, I saw the Boston Globe's list of the most romantic films of all time. I already admitted I can be a bit of a sap, so, after seeing a few minutes of When Harry Met Sally while flipping past TCM this weekend, I decided to watch these movies and make my own decisions.

In several cases, I will be rewatching them. I've already seen a lot of them, and even briefly mentioned one on the blog. Of the ones I've missed, Titanic will probably be the last I finally watch. The movie is so closely tied in my mind to the swooning teenage girls that packed the theaters for months (OMG! Jack is sooooo cute!!!) that it never appealed to me. An Affair to Remember and Breakfast at Tiffany's are also going to be postponed, though for different reasons.

Since it had been several years since my only viewing of the movie, I decided to start with The Notebook.

I liked the movie. I remember being prepared to dislike it as formulaic saccharine-infused puffery the first time I saw it, but I came away genuinely impressed and entertained. It held up just as well on the second viewing.

However, seeing The Notebook ranked #3 on the list is like seeing Hawaii in the top five before the 2008 Sugar Bowl. Yeah, they're cute little stories and they're fun to watch, but in your heart, you know they don't have the substance to be up there with the big names.

For me, the story of Allie and Noah's youth is the only part worth watching. The nursing home stuff is too sweet and too predictable. The only good thing about it (other than providing a vehicle for telling the real story) is it lets Brett Maverick on the screen. The bad thing is, you see Brett Maverick in a nursing home.

The chemistry between Allie and Noah is very realistic. You really feel like it is two people falling head over heels in just a couple months. If you've ever been there, you know it can occasionally happen so quickly, you're caught before you even realize it.

The movie's action also takes place almost exclusively in South Carolina. That alone makes it about 150% better. I do wish they would have squeezed some Hootie in there. Everything's better with a little Hootie.

Anyway, the way that Allie and Noah come together produces some really good scenes and quotes. Here're some of the ones that jumped out at me. I put them in an order so that, with a little imagination, they could tell a story on their own.

Duke/Noah: I am nothing special; just a common man with common thoughts, and I've led a common life. There are no monuments dedicated to me and my name will soon be forgotten. But in one respect I have succeeded as gloriously as anyone who's ever lived: I've loved another with all my heart and soul; and to me, this has always been enough.

My Dearest Allie. I couldn't sleep last night because I know that it's over between us. I'm not bitter anymore, because I know that what we had was real. And if in some distant place in the future we see each other in our new lives, I'll smile at you with joy and remember how we spent the summer beneath the trees, learning from each other and growing in love. The best love is the kind that awakens the soul and makes us reach for more, that plants a fire in our hearts and brings peace to our minds, and that's what you've given me. That's what I hope to give to you forever. I love you. I'll be seeing you.

Noah: I want all of you, for ever, you and me, every day. Will you do something for me, please? Just picture your life for me? 30 years from now, 40 years from now? What's it look like? If it's with him, go. Go! I lost you once, I think I can do it again. If I thought that's what you really wanted. But don't you take the easy way out.
Allie: What easy way? There is no easy way, no matter what I do, somebody gets hurt.
Noah: Would you stop thinking about what everyone wants? Stop thinking about what I want, what he wants, what your parents want. What do YOU want? What do you WANT?
Allie: It's not that simple.
Noah: What... do... you... want? Whaddaya want?

Allie's mother: Sometimes when I'm in the area, I just stop here and I watch him, trying to picture how different my life might have been. [she cries]

Allie: You gotta be kiddin' me. All this time, that's what I been missin'?

Final verdict: Awww... good movie that I expect will settle somewhere around 15 or so on this list, but currently #1 by default.

* There isn't a #18 or #12 on the linked list. You hear me? They're not there.

Go FradiKosar Hawklike things!

2010-03-02T01:01:00.003-05:00

I love FradiKosar of the Hungarian Women's First League, and you should too. I just discovered Petra Nagy*, an alum and native Hungarian, plays for the club currently sitting atop the semi-pro B league.

Like most European sports leagues, they use a system of promotion and relegation. If FradiKosar stays on top of the standings** through the end of the season, they will get promoted to the fully professional A league.

Meanwhile, Collins Hill alum Maya Moore will still be toiling in obscurity for some college team in the northeast. No wonder Coach Hembree jumped to the 'cross! She clearly recognized the true prestige program in Gwinnett girls basketball, and took the first opportunity to move across the county to Spalding Drive.

My favorite non-basketball memory of Petey came at a home football game. She had come down to the fence surrounding the field to talk to some of the basketball coaches and other faculty that watched the game from there. As she approached, she covered her nose and said, "Man, it smells like supdog down here." Coach M, then a first year assistant, looked at me before asking, "What's supdog?"

Petey broke out in a huge smile that someone had played along and replied, "Chillin'. Sup witchyou?" It was hilarious, both to see how happy she was with her joke, and to hear the punchline in what was a still noticeable Hungarian accent.

* She does not have sisters on the team. Nagy is the Smith of Hungary

** Magyar is a language isolate. Unless you happen to be familiar with the languages of the Russian steppes, don't even try to decipher the club's webpage. Petey assures me they have only one loss to other B League teams, and barring a disaster, should move up at the end of the year.

I am Landon Donovan

2010-02-28T19:28:00.009-05:00

At least, I was in last night's dream. Seriously - that was my dream. I was myself at first, but then I became Landon Donovan, but I was also still myself.

We were playing in the World Cup. I split defenders with a pass to get it to someone up top. They were attacking with me as I made a great run down the middle, and I didn't get the ball back in space. The other guy did something to mess around and lose the ball without getting it to me as I charged towards the goal.

I remember being really mad, because I'm freaking Landon Donovan. I am the superstar. When I run onto the goal, stop messing around and get me the ball. In the dream, I am absolutely furious about this.

Later, I received the ball in the box with my back to the goal. I wheeled and fired a right footed shot on goal. It was clearly going in the right side of the net, but my family was inexplicably walking across the field to be able to watch from the sidelines in the top corner. The ball hit one of my parents and was harmlessly cleared.

At this point, I was no longer LD at all. I was back to being myself, though I'm kind of uncertain if it happened before or during the shot. We were still playing England in the World Cup though, so apparently my soccer game has greatly improved since I last played a competitive match ( indoor intramurals in college - it was a "have fun" team, and they'd recruited me because I'd played on the winning team in basketball and football. We lost a lot, which means I did not have much fun).

At the half, my father was trying to encourage me because it was still tied 0-0. I mean, I'm playing for USA against England in the World Cup. I should be happy we're tied at the half.

I wasn't. I basically told him, "I wasted what should have been a goal. We're not going to get many chances, and I wasted one of them, so really, it's like we're behind 1-0." For some reason, I was not upset that it had bounced off a family member, or even confused why they were on the field. I was just angry at myself for not putting the ball in the back of the net.

In the second half, it got really weird. At first, I remember trying to make a run with the ball. It was barely moving, but I still somehow could not quite catch up to my first touch. I was running full speed, and it was always just a little bit ahead of me. I was really frustrated because I somehow knew I was the fastest player on the field, but I could not catch up to this ball.

We were now playing Mexico, and I was moving towards the goal on a regular pitch, when it suddenly shifted to the tiled floors and wide hallways of a school. The field disappeared, but the defenders were still there. They knocked the ball away, and I had to roam the mazelike hallways trying to find it. There are lockers lining the walls and everything. I would occasionally see the ball, but the walls would shift and rearrange themselves before I could get to it.

Finally, I saw the ball about two thirds of the way down a long, empty hallway. Somehow I knew the goal was nearby - I had to get the ball to the end of the hallway, and take a right to get to the goal. I start sprinting towards the ball. My family is back in their top corner sidelines positions, and they are now cheering me on. As I approach the ball, a faceless defender comes around the corner from the goal. We are about equidistant from the ball, and I am charging onto it as quickly as I can. My family is screaming for me. We reach the ball practically simultaneous to each other, and we both kick at the ball while elbowing and jostling each other. And then... I wake up, a full hour before my alarm is scheduled to go off.

I drifted back to sleep, but, of course, I was unable to recapture the dream. Analyze that.

Sometimes I'm a sap

2010-02-26T17:29:00.001-05:00

Yeah, I watched it and went 'awww.' I'm the same guy that heard someone singing "when the day is done, my mama's still my biggest fan" on the radio last week, and immediately called home. I'd be willing to bet they aren't using the same soundtrack in the UK though (excuse to link).

Cherchez la femme

2010-02-26T16:58:00.004-05:00

After weeks of headlines, Wayne Bridge announced he is quitting the English national team due to the affair between national teammate John Terry and Bridge's longtime girlfriend. The married Terry had already been stripped of his captaincy after news of the affair surfaced.

When I first saw the poll in the linked article, over 40% were saying Bridge was crazy for quitting on the brink of a World Cup. The players' union offered to serve as mediators, and there are rumors the national team coach believes he can still smooth things over before South Africa.

Uhhhh.... what?

I don't think the poll even understands things enough to offer the the likely explanation as an option. It suggests that Bridge is quitting as a noble gesture for team solidarity. I suspect it is probably much more personal. He's quitting because he doesn't want to be in the same room as John Terry.

Fans sometimes forget that athletes are human. They face all the emotions and reactions that you and I endure. In this situation, Wayne Bridge is just a guy dealing with the emotional turmoil that follows a failed relationship, complicated by the discovery that someone he considered a friend was one of the causes.

I'll admit, my initial response was, 'But it's the World Cup!' Then I thought of the times in my life I had felt betrayed, and the times I had been scorned in love. Imagining those two together, I realized there isn't a game in the world that would make me tolerate being in the same room as my own John Terry.

At least his Manchester City teammates and manager seem to have a better understanding. One teammate has has mentioned Bridge is especially looking forward to this weekend's match with Terry's Chelsea club, and the City manager has said he will allow Bridge to skip Terry in the traditional pregame handshake. If a guy doesn't even want to do a quick handshake, he certainly isn't ready to pretend things are fine and dandy inside a locker room.

I'm curious to see if there are any fouls between the two. I guarantee there would be if I were in the shoes of the wronged party. In basketball, I delivered message fouls for things that happened in-game. I certainly would send a few in a situation like this. I wouldn't do anything to intentionally endanger a career, but the other guy would know I was on the field every chance I got. If the outcome was already decided, there might even be a yellow or red in the final moments if I got half a chance.

One of the Ken Bruen books I've been reading talks about how you aren't over someone til you can see them with someone else without it bothering you. It sounds like Bridge isn't even at the point where he wants to be near the guy that destroyed his relationship. Most of us have been or will be there. It's all one more reason to watch the World Cup - to hope that John Terry will make a horrible mistake that costs his team a game and makes him the most hated man in all of England.

Getting all emo and stuff

2010-02-23T20:21:00.000-05:00

I came across a well known exchange between future Senator Patrick Moynihan and a then famous columnist. In the aftermath of the JFK assassination, the columnist melodramatically laments, "We'll never laugh again." Moynihan replies, "Mary, we'll laugh again, but we'll never be young again."

Oddly, I've had a very similar epiphany over the last couple months. It's a weird realization to suddenly come to grips with.

Refuge in Books

2010-02-23T19:32:00.008-05:00

"There'll be times when the only refuge is books. Then you'll read as if you meant it, as if your life depended on it. " - Ken Bruen, The Killing of the Tinkers

I have been reading an inordinate amount since New Year's. I've ripped through almost everything Charlie Huston has written. I am picking up his newest this afternoon, the only one I haven't yet read. I read Huston for his dark humor, snappy dialogue, and terrific noir characters, especially the imperfect men swept into wrong man/wrong place stories, struggling to figure it out and escpape alive. While waiting for Sleepless to come in, I started looking for similar writers. Amazon suggested Ken Bruen.

After reading Bruen's stand alone American Skin, I jumped into his best known series, the Jack Taylor novels. The Jack Taylor reading experience is the weirdest relationship I've ever had with a book or author. I don't like the protagonist. In contrast to many hard-boiled heroes, Taylor creates his own mess with selfish, self destructive choices. I don't want him to fail, but I don't sympathize with him either. Despite this, I keep plowing through the books at a fantastic pace.

Bruen taught English around the world, and his literacy shines through in his work. The most respectable aspect of the Taylor character is his love for books, and Bruen's novels are replete with references to and passages from a vast array of writers and poets. For instance, each of the first three books contained a reference to Ranier Rilke. I'm halfway through the fourth, and hoping to catch another Rilke allusion. Personally I don't care for Rilke. I'm not a big fan of his poetry, but I appreciate that Bruen is. I think it would be a neat touch if he managed to slip a hat tip to one of his favorite poets into each novel.

Despite the multitude of references to other writers and poets, I probably still would have walked away from the Jack Taylor books if Bruen were not such an incredible writer.

The thing is, Bruen is an incredible writer.

After recounting the origins of his love for poetry in The Guards, Taylor explains: "That's how I started to find poetry. I was never to find it in my life, but it was always within reach." In The Killing of the Tinkers, Bruen describes the demonstrations of grief at an Irish traveler's funeral, "It's not that they rend their garments: they lacerate their very souls. Dylan Thomas, when he wrote of raging against the dying of the light, would have witnessed his words personified."

Any writer that can give me a couple lines like that in every book is worth reading, and because of stuff like that, I will continue to read anything by Ken Bruen I can get my hands on, regardless of my disdain for his fallen hero.

Curse you American pop cultural stereotypes!

2010-02-22T01:04:00.002-05:00

I blame you for tricking me into wasting five minutes clicking through profiles of the Swedish women's hockey team. Isabelle Jordannson is a very talented young lady, but she will be clearly overmatched against a powerhouse Team USA, which has talent up and down the lineup and is the clear gold medalist in this field.

Note: Do not be fooled by sexy names like Svetlana and Tatiana. The Russians went old school in putting their team together. They are not a threat to reach the podium.

Hey, look, an abyss!

2010-02-18T18:14:00.005-05:00

Michael Chabon wanted to call one of his books "Jews with Swords" to fight American's image of Jewish characters as nerdy, Woody Allenish accountants reduced to stuttering at the mere thought of physical confrontation. The recent assassination of a Hamas terrorist in a Dubai luxury hotel reminds us we need not look to novels to counter such stereotypes. The Israeli Mossad is one of the most efficient and lethal secret service agencies in the world, and they are not afraid to act far beyond Israeli borders to eliminate the many enemies of Israel.

Dubai's security services has released nearly a half-hour of hotel surveillance footage of the eleven member team. I could not stop watching. My first inclination is to think, "I can't believe they got all this on tape.'

Then I notice how little actually appears on tape.

Every time the team members exchange bags or keys, they do it either in a shopping center with no internal cameras, or the one section of the hotel lobby that seems to lack camera coverage. They are all wearing wigs or hats in the hotel, but they look entirely normal. Aside from the woman, everyone that appears anywhere without a wig has a shaved head. Again, it looks normal, but it also means you cannot figure out hair color from the tapes.

The guy in the red baseball cap (from one of the assassination teams) does a particularly great job of subtly tilting his head away from the cameras so they never get a good look at his face. You wouldn't think anything of it if you were there in person. It is only when you watch it after the fact that you realize they were always aware of the security cameras, and likely memorized exactly where each one.

It should be no surprise that the actual hit took place in a hotel room without cameras. They somehow locked the door from the inside (including the chain) to delay discovery, and everyone was out of the country long before the body was discovered, let alone identified (the terrorist was traveling on a fake passport).

When the last video shows the passports of the team members, I actually chuckled. Ireland has already said there are no records any of the three "Irish" team members exist, and that the three passports are fake. The British passports seem to be in the names of real British citizens, but that is the only thing real about them. The ID's have been stolen and used by men who look nothing like the holders of the real British passports. Germany and France have not yet commented, but everyone has already accepted that the investigation into their "citizens" will also result in deadends.

I found the entire thing fascinating. I don't know what it means that I can watch a man get on an elevator with people I know are hours away from killing him and, as the doors slide shut, think, "Wow, this is amazing... and cool." I believe that I think that because I know he is a Hamas terrorist. He is a bad guy, and the good guys are doing their job, Mission Impossible style.

However, there is a part of me that worries that is not it; that I think it is cool solely because those guys are about to kill that other guy. I don't think that's it. I really hope that's not it. I don't even really want to think about the possibility, because it terrifies me about what that says about me and anybody else who watches the videos and thinks, "Wow, this is so cool."

Babies hate your basketball game

2010-02-18T17:14:00.002-05:00

That is what I take from this FreeDarko chart of Tracy McGrady's shooting percentage on the 2nd day of back-to-backs before and after the birth of his daughter. If you have friends with young children, this probably isn't a huge shock. Most of my friends almost immediately began losing the ability to do cool things after the birth of their first child too. I bet you'd see a similar decline if you charted McGrady's ability to laugh at mean spirited jokes, or recognize any pop culture reference not involving educational cartoons.

In a blaze of glory

2010-02-18T16:13:00.002-05:00

The best thing about a permanent two feet of soft snow on the ground is you can have a snowball fight in reasonably mild 40 degree weather. With several activities canceled this afternoon, a good one broke out on in the courtyard.

What started as a fight along cottage lines, quickly turned into two of our guys (GL and MM) against eight to ten guys from the neighboring dorms. To make it worse, several of the other guys were outfielders and pitchers getting a day off baseball conditioning. For the first time in my life, I actually heard a couple of snowballs as they flew through the air.

Our guys were quickly overwhelmed and pinned down inside the dorm. I had to tell them to either throw in the towel, or go outside and take on the the wolfpack surrounding the exits. To their credit, they decided to fight.

I'd like to say they fought like warrior poets. Unfortunately, it was more like watching poets fight warriors. After intervening a couple times when it got too bad, I finally ran for my camera and caught the final showdown on film.

I am familiar with the works of Pablo Neruda

2010-02-16T14:25:00.003-05:00

For awhile I knew nothing more of Neruda than he was Chilean, he wrote Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair, and he was the subject of the classic Simpsons punchline. It is only within the last year or so that I have actually read any of his poems. Some of his stuff is a bit too maudlin for my tastes, but at least one ranks among my favorites. I can see why even a philistine like Bart knows his work. I mean, I certainly can't think of a better Chilean poet.

In Soviet Georgia, luge rides YOU!

2010-02-14T01:01:00.003-05:00

This joke actually was a product of a facebook thread. In an update about the Winter Olympics, someone said at least we won't lose to the Soviet Union in ice hockey anymore.

I followed that with the meta-joke, "In Soviet Russia, noun verbs YOU!"

SH is always quippy and mean spirited, and he turned the recent Winter Olympic death into a college football joke about the perennial preseason champ Bulldogs by saying something like, 'I'm just glad we won't have to listen to those cocky Georgia fans talk about how awesome their luge team is this year.'

Seeing those two side by side led me to the Yakov joke above.

I looked around on google to see if anyone else had made the same joke yet. As best I can tell, they haven't, but I did find a Yakov joke that was new for me and made me laugh.

Roses are red,
violets are blue,
in Soviet Russia,
poem reads YOU!

That's what friends are for

2010-02-14T00:50:00.002-05:00

A few months ago, I woke up and found a 3 am voicemail on my cell from my friend MH. When he left it, he had just come in from a date. He'd accidentally opened his white car door into the side of my black car, leaving both a paint mark and slight dent. The message was a stammering apology, along with an offer to pay for repairs and disclaimer that "I haven't even had anything to drink."

I had slept in and didn't get the message until around 11 am. After looking over the damage, I called MH. As soon as he picked up, I asked, "You were a starting pitcher in college, weren't you?"

He was caught completely offguard, and obviously just waking up. He chuckled, but offered a confused, "I don't....?"

I repeated, "When you played baseball at (college), you were a starter, right?"

"Yeah, wh.."

"I thought so, cause anybody coming home alone at 3 am sure can't close!"

He must have really wanted to prove me wrong, because he proposed to her this weekend.

MH knew to be cautious from seeing me set up others with seemingly innocent comments or questions. Near the start of the year, I was waiting in the workroom along with another teacher while MH used the copier.

A couple days prior, this foreign language teacher had confided one of her biggest professional frustrations was the number of colleagues and parents who treat French as if it is no longer a serious, "useful" language, and constantly encourage students to study Spanish, German, or even Mandarin.

At the time, I responded with a sympathetic nod, and, "I can see how that would get frustrating." I then said something about how as a history teacher I could think of a multitude of ways French was useful to 21st century graduates. Encouraged by my understanding tone, she began to launch into a speech about the many uses of French.

I cut her off. "I mean, you must appreciate Pepe le Pew on an entirely different level. And those Tom and Jerry cartoons where they dress up like Musketeers and fall into the wine. I mean, I get it, but I bet you really get it."

That conversation had ended abruptly with my cartoon jokes. The encounter at the copier was the first time I had seen her since. I told her, "Thanks for being such a good sport the other day. I hope you know I was just messing around."

She accepted the apology, and I explained, "You know, my parents actually wanted me to take French."

"Really?"

"Yeah... I thought about it really hard, but I finally realized I didn't really have any interest traveling to areas where French would be terribly useful... like the 17th century. I took Latin instead."

MH interrupted her indignation with, "Don't mind him. He's just a dick."

I just hope it doesn't lead to dancing

2010-02-14T00:34:00.003-05:00

I was driving back from a grad school info session at today and heard a commercial that began with a young boy telling his mother, "Ryan from the bus said if you give a girl candy for Valentine's Day, you have to marry her."

I don't know what came next, because I immediately started laughing and said, "Ryan from the bus must be Baptist."

Charles Barkley rips Paul Pierce / Larry Bird Comparison

2010-02-14T00:01:00.009-05:00

Paul Pierce won the 3 Point Shootout, but Charles Barkley was the the MVP of All Star Saturday night. During Pierce's first rack of the opening round, Kenny Smith noted that Pierce was shooting in his warmup jersey, "just like Larry Bird"

Almost immediately, Sir Charles says, "Did you just mention Larry Bird and Paul Pierce in the same sentence?"

I didn't realize how good it was about to get, so I didn't fully catch exactly what came next. I know Smith tried to put the Bird comparison in context before closing with, "Well, [Pierce] is one of the top five Celtics of all time."

No sooner had the words escaped his mouth than Barkley came in with, "You outta yo' mind!"

There was a slight pause before, "You crazy... Don't be sayin' crazy stuff." Barkley than claimed Pierce wasn't even in the top ten Celtics.

Smith challenged him to name ten better, and Charles immediately began rattling off names. I was enjoying the exchange too much to get all the names, but I think he kept going til he reached ten.

Barkley muttered through the rest of Pierce's round and into the next shooter's performance, before dropping one of my favorite lines of the exchange. "Kevin McHale would roll over in his grave if he knew you said [Pierce] was in the top ten Celtics of all time."

I didn't even know Kevin McHale was dead, but that certainly goes a long way to explain the current state of Timberwolves.

The grumbling continued when Pierce returned for the final round. "I just thought of another one - Dennis Johnson. Dennis Johnson shoulda already been in the Hall of Fame."

Barkley then explained that Pierce is a great player, but the Celtics are the greatest franchise in NBA history, and have produced some of the greatest players in league history. While he's an All Star, Pierce does not merit being compared to guys like Russell, Bird, Havlicek, Cousy, and others. You could be a perennial All Star, and still be only the 11th or 15th best Celtic ever.

Barkley's critique will probably get a lot more attention than his explanation (especially from a certain LA Clippers' season ticket holder), but he is right. Until the arrival of Kevin Garnett, Pierce was a very good, but not great player. He'd made five All Star teams, but nobody will tell their grandkids about seeing a young Paul Pierce in his prime.

Pierce has the good fortune of being a very good player in a major northeast media market that recently won a title. He's never led the league in a major statistical category, aside from turnovers. The arrival of Kevin Garnett changed the public perception of Pierce from a healthy, poor man's version of Tracy McGrady, to NBA Champion Big Game Player Paul Pierce.

He doesn't have a single appearance on the All-NBA first team (McGrady has two), which means he has never been deemed one of the best five players in the league in any given year. Pierce has only a single appearance on the All-NBA second team, yet a respected NBA analyst was willing to argue he was one of the five greatest players in Celtic history. If not for Barkley, a lot of viewers would have let it pass without giving it much thought.

Barkley willingly plays the role of clown so often, it is easy to forget how good of an analyst he is. As Kenny Smith proved tonight, it's easy even for professionals to fall victim to recency bias. To his credit, Charles Barkley instantly jumped on the remark. Rather than playing up to a recent champion and current All Star, as many media members are prone to do, Barkley candidly put Pierce in accurate historical context as a great player but borderline Hall of Fame candidate.*

Paul Pierce is a great Celtic. I'm sure he is among many New Englanders five favorite players of all time. However, five favorite is not the same as five best.

* For me, the top ten on this list are sure fire Hall of Famers. McGrady is a first ballot member of the What If? Hall of Fame, along with his cousin at 14. Pierce is the almost, but not quite there cutoff, though I could understand if somebody wanted to argue he should get in. Nobody below Pierce is deserving yet.

Barkley was in rare form all night. He came up with several more gems throughout the evening.

Kenny Smith came to Channing Frye's defense after Barkley criticized the Phoenix Sun's less than perfect shot rotation. Smith explained he also had a bit of a tornado rotation as a result of keeping his left hand on the ball a split second too long, but, "If you can do something consistently, you can adjust and make work."

Barkley responded, "That's what I said about my golf game, and that ain't workin'."

Following a mention of Gatorade, the dunk contest sponsor, Barkley says, "Kevin Garnett and Michael Jordan and Peyton Manning - Gatorade works. It don't work on Leroy."

Barkley finally got tired of underwhelming dunks from Shannon Brown and Gerald Wallace. "This thing is worse than... what's that movie? Rush Hour. Rush Hour 2 was alright, but this is worse than Rush Hour 3."

He came to Reggie Miller's defense after Reggie mangled a 'goodnight John boy' dismissal of eliminated dunkers. "Kevin, no disrespect, the brothers weren't watching The Waltons."

When Nate Robinson inexplicably brought Dallas Cowboy cheerleaders on the court for his first dunk of the finals, Barkley dryly noted, "It'd be impressive if he was taller than one of them."

Cheryl Miller vainly tried to build anticipation before announcing the champion of a slam dunk contest that clearly needs to be revitalized or retired. Sir Charles would not play along. On a live mike, he closed out the night and spoke for millions of fans watching at home when he interjected, "Maybe nobody will win."