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Saturday, April 4th, 2009
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8:26 pm - This is long
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Hey everybody, I was looking for an opportunity to have an interesting [and civil] discussion. This is the only place I know where to go where I can reach people who will disagree with me. However, being the internet, I expect it to get ugly quickly and somebody will call somebody else Hitler and well, that's just how it goes, I guess. Also, I don't know if any of you people are even still alive.
( Ready for a wild ride? )
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(comment on this)
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| Sunday, June 15th, 2008
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7:21 pm - Tim Russert
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| Wednesday, March 12th, 2008
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9:30 pm
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| Wednesday, November 14th, 2007
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9:51 pm - Hey guys
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| Thursday, August 2nd, 2007
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9:49 am - Hypocrites in sports, media
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Last week was dubbed "The Worst Week in the History of Sports" due to scandals hitting the NBA (Tim Donaghy and his points shaving), the NFL (Mike Vick and his dog fighting), MLB (Barry Bonds approaching Hank Aaron's record), Cycling (more doping scandals in the Tour de France), NCAA Football (one of UCLA's coaches getting arrested for burglary), and NCAA Basketball (Skip Prosser died at 56). People in the media are mourning this as some sort of milestone that marks (mostly) professional sports, and some are wondering where the good guys are. The media, of all people, should know. They made sports this way.
They made sports this way because people like to read about celebrities who do bad things. ESPN doesn't help, either, since when things like this happen, they show it constantly on their 24 hour network. There is only so much sports content in a day, so when Michael Vick, arguably the biggest name in the NFL, gets indicted for dog fighting, guess how much coverage he's going to get, especially during the summer.
The NBA's problem is probably the most serious, followed closely by Cycling's. Having a rogue referee raises questions about the integrity of the game itself. Are we watching sport are we watching pro wrestling? What's the difference anymore? Cycling's drug issues have been part of the sport so long that it's hard to divorce steroids from cycling anymore. The harder they crack down, the dirtier they find it is.
( More sports stuff below )
A few columnists have asked, "Where are all the good guys in sports?" They're out there; of course they're out there. But we don't hear about them. So I find it a little disingenuous when the media outlets get all judgmental on Vick, Bonds and the Tour. The contempt for Donaghy is probably fair; he allegedly has mob connections and manipulated the outcome of basketball games for profit. The other guys are products of the media. Warrick Dunn should be. Derrick Brooks should be, too. The Mannings. John Lynch. Danny Wuerffel (although he's not really still in sports...). Jerome Bettis. Kurt Warner. But they're not, because building houses isn't news. Starting a new school in Tampa for the poor isn't news. Creating and managing community based charities just isn't news.
The thing is, none of those people stopped last week. Dunn didn't stop with his Habitat work, Brooks didn't stop trying to make college accessible for poor kids, and Wuerffel didn't stop working towards cleaning up New Orleans. Too bad nobody heard about that.
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(comment on this)
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| Sunday, June 17th, 2007
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10:23 pm
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There is a writer on Slate.com that is blogging the Bible. It's really a fascinating idea, where he reads, asks questions to the Slate readership and discusses the sorts of things (some of the time) that people would ask about the book. I don't know if book should be capitalized in that sense, but I don't think it is and I don't mean to be disrespectful if I'm wrong.
I was thinking of a passage he wrote after reading Numbers 17 the other day. (Although these events take place in Numbers 16 in my Bible.) He was wondering why, after so many miraculous spectacles that happened, were the Hebrews so whiny. He says that they must either be faithless or that the spectacles didn't actually happen or they didn't see them.
( Here's what I think about this. )
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(5 comments | comment on this)
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| Wednesday, June 13th, 2007
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9:36 pm - Episode 3
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| Monday, June 11th, 2007
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10:10 pm
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I try to stay up on various opinions writers. You know how kids in high school jazz band sit around and talk about Miles Davis? It's like that for me, except I don't have anybody to talk to about how awesome David Broder is. I check out the Washington Post, Orlando Sentinel, Miami Herald and sometimes a few others. I stay away from the NY Times because they make me pay for their columnists when it used to be free. I never was a fan of Paul Krugman anyway. I also keep up with a conservative post site called townhall.com, which is populated largely by crazy people. I felt I ought to balance this, though, with alternet.org, which is populated by crazy people who hate Bush instead of worship him. As far as I've been able to find, insanity is a prerequisite for forming a political site like either of these.
( A sort of analysis of this article I read. )
Mostly I was bothered by the tone, and then the way it was received by the people below it. At one point he calls Bernard Kerik a "hairy assed Sancho Panza." Why? Because, I guess, he thinks it's funny. There is definitely a bit of jealousy in my writing this post. I'm going to be sitting in a lab tomorrow trying to come up with something productive to do to speed my graduation this summer while this infantile writer is getting published on a very widely read website and magazine. I could do two hours of research and put something like that out too. But I guess I wouldn't get the 15 year olds' chuckles or sound angry or childish enough for the readers of Rolling Stone to find it interesting.
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(comment on this)
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| Friday, April 27th, 2007
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1:21 pm - Questions about the ERA/WEA
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The Post ran an guest column today about passing the Equal Rights Amendment/Women's Equality Amendment. I know there are people on my friends list from varying political points of view, so I'd like to take advantage of that to figure this out a little bit better. Obviously, I'm not trying to be confrontational about it, but I do have some disagreements with what I've read and some questions, since this amendment is essentially asking for unintended consequences on purpose. I don't think I need to say that I think this amendment is a bad idea, and I know that some of you are going to disagree.
( This could be long. )
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(comment on this)
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| Sunday, April 22nd, 2007
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11:57 am
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I was offered space for a final column a few days ago, as a generous offer from my editor to say goodbye to the paper and the campus that has been my home for the past two years or so. I said ok before a college student decided to make diabolical history on the campus of Virginia Tech, before the Hokies went from a hated sports rival to people whom when they arrive in Death Valley next year, will be shown a little extra helping of Clemson hospitality.
I have only been to Blacksburg once. It was on the tour of visiting possible places for grad school that eventually led me here. The entire city, much like Clemson, is almost completely wrapped up in the school. It’s a pretty little town, where the gray uniformity of the Hokie stone buildings gives the unmistakably erudite feel of a university, while the consistent effort of drivers on campus to stop for pedestrians, even when they were not at a crosswalk, made me feel welcome in a place I had never before been and be waved across the street by a student with a smile.
Universities are interesting like that. There is an unusual combination of family and anonymity that binds every student who attends. There are people who work in the same building I do that I’ve never met, but when I go home and wear my orange, I’m not surprised anymore to hear a “Go Tigers!” from a stranger in Florida. While universities try and usually do a pretty good job of trying to foster and grow that sense of family, it is still easy to get lost in the anonymity, and to lose people in it.
This one college student, who got so far lost in that anonymity, finally did find a way to escape it forever. 4/16 will be one of those horrible dates that people in Virginia remember for the rest of their lives, stained forever with the corrupted memory of this student who would have otherwise been forgotten. Hopefully, the memory will not be restricted to just Virginia, because this is one of those horrible days where the evil ought not be forgotten. We owe it to the victims, people like Jarrett Lane and Juan Ortiz, who, if given then the chance, may have gone on to be remembered for something less tragic. Or Professor Liviu Librescu, whose last actions were block the door of his classroom with his body in an effort to allow his students a better chance to escape danger. It is moving to read about heroism like that, but awful that it must be revealed in such a tragic circumstance.
It is awful that this will inevitably be co-opted by political activists trying to take advantage of the death of thirty-three members of the Virginia Tech family to push some sort of agenda. It has started already; go read the letters to the editor in the New York Times or Washington Post on this event, and there are volleys being fired about how we need more gun control or more guns, depending on the writer’s point of view. There are questions that will need to be raised, of course, but not yet. It is not fair for parents and wives and husbands to hear things like claims that the administration should’ve been able to stop this madman, especially with as much information that has come out so far. It is still time for grieving, and there is likely nothing that would have been able to prevent this. It was, unfortunately, one of those heartbreaking days where nothing makes sense.
So, what we can do is work in good faith to try to enhance the sense of family while minimizing that anonymity. We can pray for those in Virginia whom this has directly affected, the parents throughout the world who have lost children on 4/16, Virginia Tech as a school and colleges in general. We can offer our condolences to a friend in need. We can continue to smile at strangers and say hi. Those are the things that we can take away from this. We should be vigilant, but not at the expense of the sense of community that makes places like Clemson, South Carolina and Blacksburg, Virginia the places that they are. Places to which it is hard to say goodbye.
Originally published in The Tiger.
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(comment on this)
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| Saturday, March 17th, 2007
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9:28 am
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Lá Fhéile Pádraig! Éire go brách!
(Happy St. Patrick's Day! Ireland forever!)
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(comment on this)
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| Tuesday, January 30th, 2007
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11:22 pm
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Every once in a while, I start writing something and get disgusted with the direction it turns, and just throw it away -- like in the movies, when the authors tear the paper out of the old mechanical typewriters in a rage. I think I'd like to write on a typewriter, for the auditory stimuli. If it's electronic, it's so much less dramatic; just click the "No" box when the ding asks if I want to keep these words. I wonder how many of those I wish I had back.
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(9 comments | comment on this)
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| Wednesday, January 24th, 2007
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12:21 am
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| Monday, January 15th, 2007
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3:58 pm - How Observant
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Over the holidays, I ran into ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) katsby for the first time in like 800 years. One of the things we talked about was how I post to the other blog more than this one, and she suggesting cross-posting. I don't know if I'm going to do that, but I wanted to remind everyone of the url of the other one.
howobservant.blogspot.com
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(1 comment | comment on this)
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| Thursday, January 4th, 2007
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4:18 pm
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Terry Bradshaw, a bloke who is an NFL hall of famer, is now an announcer at various levels of football and a huge idiot. Wait, that sentence was ambiguous; Bradshaw's always been an idiot. In the year immediately following the Janet Jackson Nipple Incident (JJNI), Paul McCartney was selected to perform at the half-time show because he's a lot less likely to get naked after his songs (although it would shore up the aging female Baby Boomer demographic...). In the pregame for this Super Bowl, Bradshaw sang "A Hard Day's Night" with Sir Paul, which would be thrilling for anyone, even an NFL Hall of Famer with four Super Bowl rings. So thrilling that he got the words wrong. In fact, the next year, even Howie Long, another idiot extraordinaire, called him out on it. I include this to make clear that I am no fan of Bradshaw (or Long and his horrible, horrible Radio Shack commercials. Teri Hatcher is ok, though.).
Bradshaw and Long were in the booth of the Sugar Bowl last night, and I was braced for horror -- like Aliens popping out of your chest horror. Fortunately for me, I didn't have to kill myself after watching the telecast. Bradshaw and Long weren't awful. In fact, they were good. Bradshaw made comments about what the QB was looking for in coverages, how even though a particular pass was complete is wasn't well thrown, and even said that he wasn't smart enough to play for LSU. That level of self-deprecation deserves to be rewarded. Not smart enough for
LSU.
I watch a lot of football, so I know a little about the game and football theory. I can identify a dumb play call or a poorly executed run. But I've never played quarterback and would have no idea how to tell if a defensive back is in man or zone based on how there eyes scan the offense or exactly what went wrong on the release which led to a spectacular catch. That's the sort of commentary I'd like to see in my football. I could give a damn about listening to Jamie Foxx or Matthew McConaughey has to say about anything. You hear that Kornheiser? I don't like Bradshaw as an interviewer or sports anchor, but I will never bitch about his commentary again.
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(2 comments | comment on this)
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| Thursday, December 14th, 2006
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8:47 am - Bowl Season!
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I love this coming time of year. The Bowl Games fill me with a wondrous delight, making me wish that Div II got better coverage so I would care about it enough to want to faithfully watch all of their playoff games as well. Anyway, the Bowl outcomes will determine whether elreydetortugas or I will win this year (there's no prize), so next year, if you want a piece of this, let me know before August.
( Bowl games! )
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(4 comments | comment on this)
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| Friday, December 8th, 2006
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5:32 pm
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Writers have weird egos. Well, maybe that's not true; I'm only speaking from personal experience, so this might be uniquely me. It's extremely easy to put something out there in written format, like a newspaper article or a fortune cookie fortune, because it isn't read in front of me, and if it is, it's only like one person at a time. You can look at an individual and say, "Well, if he doesn't like it, the next guy probably will." It's called self-delusion.
If it's a performance of something in front of a lot of people, it's different. I remember the first time something I wrote was played in front of people - the first Film Club show, with Adventures of BJ and Ed, Advice From Florida, The Gentleman (pts I and II) and, of course, The Deming Gallery. (Some of those should get thrown up on YouTube, don't you think?) If there are others, I forget what they are. It was terrifying. We were sitting in a classroom of about 25, maybe 30, people. And as soon as the opening credits of my first sketch came up, I felt like Shamu must feel in those tanks. Except I was slightly less wet. The difference, of course, is that if 30 people don't like your stuff, it's a lot harder to say, "Well, if this 30 people doesn't like it, the next 30 probably will." But you still want to hear them laugh. It's a horrible, horrible Catch 22.
A friend of mine (<a href="www.johncallawayband.com>you can check out his website here</a> is playing at a coffeeshop downtown tonight, and he said to me last night, "Hey, I might play that song we worked on." I already told him I'd go, so I'm trying to think of ways to combat the trapped orca feeling already. I'll bet he doesn't even play it, and I'm getting bothered over nothing. And it's not like it's all mine, anyway. If it sucks, I can just blame him, right?
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(comment on this)
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| Wednesday, November 29th, 2006
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6:39 pm - Championship Week
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I'm not talking about last week. Except to say that elreydetortugas put his picks in after they had started, and he got 7 right. I got 5, but I'm counting it as a tie, since that's still kind of not cool. 5-6-2.
This week will be a little different - ACC, SEC, Big XII championships, plus important Big East and Pac10 games, and the Army-Navy game. It won't be a round number, and sadly, Clemson is at home this week. Everybody cheer for Tech on Saturday, so Clemson will go to the Gator Bowl!
( Games )
This week's games: 5/6
This week's spread: 4/6
My best week yet - I'm now 6-6-1, so the bowls will settle this!
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(1 comment | comment on this)
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| Wednesday, November 22nd, 2006
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11:52 am - RIVALRY WEEK!
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Sitting at 5-6-1, there is only championship week and Bowl Season left! elreydetortugas or me will be the 2006 College Football champion at picking games. It's not over yet, kids.
Who doesn't love rivalry week? If you don't, you're not an American. My only regret is that since The Battle of the Palmetto State is taking place in Death Valley, I will miss the early ones.
( Rivalry games! )
This week: 5/11
Spread: 3/11
Last week sucked
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(comment on this)
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| Wednesday, November 15th, 2006
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10:44 am - College Football - Top Ten + Clemson
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Week 12, fools. 4-6-1 against elreydetortugas. This week, I'll close the gap even more.
( Football! )
This week's games: 6/10
This week's spread: 3/10
I beat Spencer again by one game - I'm 5-6-1!
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