Thursday, May 25, 2006

One of Two Things.

I can't claim to be an American Idol viewer. I've seen all of 30 minutes of the show, ever. I understand why it's popular.

There's a fading Laker girl, a man who calls everyone "dawg" and a cruel British guy. Makes sense, that's a good start for entertaining the masses. Oh, and there are people embarrasing themselves singing songs everyone knows. It's like karaoke meets MST3K. I get it.

But not being a viewer I miss out on a lot of the details. Recently I heard there was a guy (who now I learn has won) Taylor Hicks who talks about "Soul Patrol." First the term "Soul Patrol" seems like a shitty buddy cop/CHIPS movie staring Ice Cube and Cedric the Entertainer. Like Soul Plane, but you know...with cops. So this Hicks fellow irks me for that reason. Also troubling is the stipulation that contestants must be younger than 28. While I grant that Taylor Hicks has been --at one point in his long life--only 28, I doubt that is the case at present.


28, I think not. Also am I the only one who thinks that Taylor Hicks looks like the love child of Jay Leno and Benny Hinn?



So that's one of the odd things about American Idol.

The second for me is the voting. I'm astonished by the vote totals this show gets. And every season there's some "scandal" about rigged voting. People get more upset with rigged voting for a show about the next Big Singing Star* than say a Presidential election. Thrilling.

This quote from a Fox executive in the Washington Post addresses concerns about voting:

"Fox, of course, vigorously defends 'Idol.' "The producers and network have gone to great lengths to ensure the integrity of the voting process, Fox spokesman Scott Grogin said in a statement. 'America votes, an independent company calculates the tally, and the show reports those results. While acknowledging that dedicated fans may be unhappy with the outcome, 'American Idol's' process -- the most sophisticated voting system in existence -- only reports the decision of the voting public.'"[emphasis added]


W/r/t this statement, one of two things is true: 1) American Idol's vote process is the most sophisticated voting system in existence and therefore the world is a depressing and horrible place. If that's true, why are we paying Diebold this money? Shouldn't we just have America text message some company with our presidential selection. 2) The other option is that Fox is lying and the process isn't the most amazing one in existence, in which case they should seriously just shut the fuck up. It's a show, and not a very important one at that. They're determining who will get signed to a record contract. Time was that these things were settled by young aspiring singers sleeping with producers or sealed over a line of coke. It's not some great holy process. You'd think American Idol was the new version of the conclave. Instead of white smoke it's text messages from pimply teens and disturbing karaoke fans. The process doesn't have to be perfect--you're picking a singer, not a pope or a president.

Monday, May 22, 2006

Pitchers.

Over the weekend BRDM played a tournament up near Philly. Actually we were closer to Kennett Square, which also, we later learned served as the location of the hospital for Barbaro. Thankfully none of our injuries this weekend were so severe that we had to consider putting anyone down. Paul hurt his hamstring, but I think we'll just put him out to stud.

We lost more than we won, but we improved dramatically this weekend. We started to make more and better cuts, and make better decisions. All in all a really rewarding weekend. I managed to avoid any great injury, so I was pleased in that regard.

As with every tournament there was a lot of random chatter and bizarre (or bizaro-charles) comments/commentary. My favorite line from the weekend came from Keith (also of RAZE). We're ordering drinks and so forth at this Italian restaurant near the hotel and Keith asks if they have "pitchers." The waitress eagerly says, "Yes." Keith asks for a pitcher of Miller Lite to which the waitress replies: "We only have wine in pitchers." Now I have to imagine she means caraffes, because I can't imagine a place that would be so low class as to serve wine in a beer pitcher. Though I guess I'd have to admit I'd like to go to just such a place. Tired from a day of ultimate, and just looking to get some beer, Keith asks with some frustration creeping into his voice, "Well, then can I just have a couple of beers."

I don't know that "can I just have a couple of beers" will seem funny to anyone else. But to me, it's this wonderful line. It's forlorn, and earnest, hopeful and pathetic. Congrats to Keith for the line of the weekend, in my mind.

Friday, May 19, 2006

Iran.

Iran is considering forcing all non-Muslims to wear cloth that indicates their faith. Christians get red, Zoroastrians blue...and in an obvious homage to attrocities gone by, Jews would wear yellow.

I don't believe in comparing people to Hitler. I think it's a useless analogy and one that simply prevents rational discussion. But I don't imagine that's going to stop a great many people from invoking those comparisons here.

Decisions based on poor analogies are dangerous, and considerably moreso when the analogies are drawn to reinforce a pre-existing political goal. I would love to believe that in the face of such awful human rights violations that our government would work together and try to solve this problem. What I do believe is that the administration will use this to further its electoral goals. They will paint Democrats as weak, as having not learned the lessons of the Holocaust. In 2002 Democrats were compared to Osama Bin Laden, now it'll be Neville Chamberlin, and images of death camps.

I would like to believe that our national goal will be to solve the problem--to see to it that religious minorities in Iran are not singled out and persecuted. That's a goal worth working toward, but I imagine this may simply be a tool to futher bludgeon one another.

Here's another thought: it's been in the parliament for 2 years. where has the Bush administration been those past two years. where was their concern then? where was their pressure then?

Wednesday, May 17, 2006

Where should I go.

For the past 5 years I have been a proud owner and a frequent user of a Northwest Airlines VISA card. I've been dutifully using the card to earn miles and after living in Minnesota and Seattle--both NWA hubs--I've earned a goodly number of miles, roughly 77,000.

So now that I have all these miles, what should I do with them? I'm trying to think of places that I could visit. I don't really want to use this (these) free ticket on something mundane, or something that would under normal circumstances be a small fee. So flying to Boston, or even Seattle seems pointless.

Assuming (unrealistically) that getting time off for travel wasn't a concern where should I go? Why should I go there? Would you want to come along? What would I do?

London?
Anchorage?
Hawaii?
Rome?

It costs 25,000 miles to travel in the lower 49 (not Hawaii)
35,000 to Hawaii
50,000 to Southern South America
50,000 to Europe
60,000 to Asia

Tuesday, May 16, 2006

English

So last night during the speech Bush talked about immigrants learning English, and in some respects I agree with the concept. I think learning English is a good step to improving one's life here. But I find it silly this notion that there are millions of people who are actively trying to avoid learning English.

But declaring that everyone should learn math, or everyone should learn how to use a PC isn't the same thing as making that possible. I think that many people's lives would be improved if they spoke and wrote English, could balance a check book, could prepare healthy meals, could write poetry, etc. But to assume that the millions who don't know English will learn it because we have decreed it seems moronic.

Wouldn't it be great if instead of bluster, Bush had said he was going to build upon AmeriCorps and encourage/incentivize 50,000 young people between 22-26 to serve their country by taking a 1 year training program, and then pledging to teach English and civics to immigrants for 2 years. The classes would be free and available nights and weekends. And in return the AmeriCorps members would receive tuition reimbursement and a stipend.

Black or White.

It appears I'm on some sort of a color kick with these last two posts.

This weekend RAZE (my clique team) played in the second round of the WAFC playoffs. Generally an unpleasant experience. I found the other team annoying, generally unpleasant. Our team came out flat, and played poorly. The weather threatened rain all day...basically it wasn't much fun. It was, however, made that much worse by the asshole-ity of the other team. Several examples come to mind the most illustrative is this.

They chose to wear white and so we were red. One person on our team wore a black jersey because he didn't have a red. Midway through the first half one of their guys puts up an ill advised throw and it gets D'ed by our guy who is wearing a black jersey. The thrower comes up to me and says, "Can you have him change into a red?" I was incredulous and asked, "Because it's too hard to tell his black jersey from your team's whites?" and he said, "Yes."

To recap, this guy was having trouble distinguishing between his player's white jersey and my teamates black. Granted, I'd rather that we were all in red, no doubt about that, but to complain that you turned it over because you confused a black jersey for white is just moronic.

The other telling instance from the game came on game point. One of their players fell and caught the disc, and thinking he was in the endzone sprinted around, spiked the disc and began screaming and gesturing like he'd won the World Championship of Greatness and the Nobel Prize for Awesomeness in the Field of Coolness. Several problems:

1) COORDINATION He fell down while catching the disc, no layout, no jump. Dude was barely able to manage the dual tasks of motion and catching without great failure.

2) COMPETITION He caught the winning score in a quarterfinal game in clique B league, in Washington DC. A quarter final game in a secondary level league, in a tertiary or worse level region. To further illustrate the arrogance, think of the clip of Jordan celebrating his game winning shot over Craig Ehlo. But instead of it being the NBA playoffs, imagine if you acted like that when you beat your friends playing miniature golf in 7th grade.

3) RESPECT You don't spike in Clique League, and certainly not in a game where the final score is 15-10. It was neither close nor terribly dramatic. But to spike and galavant around is just poor sportsmanship. This is the same player who earlier in the game grabbed and took hold of the disc when I faked a throw. He just reached out and grabbed the disc. A clear violation. I called him on it and his response was (maybe he was joking, I couldn't tell) "You put it in my hand."

4) REALITY He wasn't in the endzone. That's right, dude decides to behave like a moron and disrespect everyone...and doesn't have the courtesy to actually score. Instead he falls down, gets up and runs around, spikes the disc and carries on like a crazy man -- only, he never, at any point, reached the endzone, didn't even run into it. So our sideline calls turnover. He did, afterall, drop/throw the disc so we gain possession where he spiked the disc.

To further explain how annoying his team was, their sidelines were shouting that we shouldn't get possession because before spiking it he travelled. I called back, being a bit saucy myself, "It's alright, we never called travel, so we'll just take the turnover. But thanks for your concern."

All in all a frustrating game and a sad one. I love ultimate. I love the idea of ultimate. But I find myself playing more and more games with people who behave rudely, crassly or are just plain violent. It's sad. I don't know what I can do about it, but I miss the game I fell in love with. The game where there's more pressure to do the right thing than to win. I still get yelled at by my sidelines for calling myself out of bounds too often. I figure I'd rather win without any qusetion as to my honor, and if I can't win that way then I guess I have to train harder. Sadly that ethic seems in danger. Makes me sad.

I guess as games become more competitive and players more aggressive it becomes harder to see that line. It's harder to tell when you're in bounds (literally and metaphorically). The line is being blurred, what was once as clear as black and white is now harder to see.

Friday, May 05, 2006

Red or White...

One of the most basic tests of wine knowledge is matching wine to food. From what I'm told certain foods are best paired with certain wines. White wines go with fish, red with heavier meats--things like that. Knowing when to order a red vs. a white is something of a testament to ones sophistication, a mark of at least some understanding of viniculture, etc.

American politics seems to have a similar test. For the first year or so after Congressional elections the Republican Congress seems to focus its energies on delivering benefits and monetary rewards to the affluent and well connected. No bid contracts, expensive and pointless projects. There are many names for it, corruption is a popular one, greed works as well, some people like to use the term pork. The other white meat.

But then there's a moment where the focus changes. I think we're at that moment, again. It's right about this time of year when Republicans go from pork to beef, from white meat to red meat. For the next few months we should expect great anguished cries about the denigration of Christian values. Should be a whole lot of hating the gays, a whole lot of talk about the flag, and 10 Commandments.

In fact, it's not even a secret. From today's Christian Science Monitor

"GOP leaders are gearing up to bring a number of issues on the Christian conservative agenda to the floor of the House and Senate in the next few weeks, including gay marriage, broadcast decency, the 10 Commandments Act, a cloning ban, and laws protecting "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance."

Yup, it's red meat time again. Let's bash some gays, defend the millions of horribly oppressed Christians--you know the people who run and have run the government and other institutions of power for the entirety of our country's history.