I did get around to seeing Juno this weekend. Juno follows the story of a high school girl, played by the Canadian actress Ellen Page, who is knocked up up her boyfriend, played by Arrested Development’s Michael Cera, and follows her pregnancy and decision of what to do with the baby. The trend these days certainly seems to be to turn the plight of pregnant single women into a comedic situation to be enjoyed by all, but with exception of portraying women as the pants-wearers and fun-spoilers, Juno actually didn’t have all that much in common with Knocked Up. As different as Knocked Up was, it still had a feel of a big production hit, with a long script that went through various rewrites and tried seemingly hard to give its stars equal screentime. Juno, on the other hand, resembles Little Miss Sunshine more in that the script is short, tidy, with each character almost effortlessly coming across in their roles. In fact, the script was written by a blogger and pole dancer, Diablo Cody, an unusual source but a one who merits the commendations she has received so far.
I thought the casting was really well done as well. Rainn Wilson (aka Dwight Schrute) makes an appearance, Cera has perfected the role of high school awkwardness, Jason Bateman plays a preppy dad to be (and surprisingly doesn’t share a single scene with Arrested Development co-star Cera), and Jennifer Gardner stars as his wife.
This was the coming out party for Ellen Page, who has the responsibility to portray a rather quirky character. The toughest part for me was to get accustomed to the offbeat Juno, who treats her situation right of the bat in a very unusual matter-of-fact manner. However, without giving anything away, she clearly becomes more attached to the baby and begins to realize the significance of its life and the relationships surrounding her as the film develops and she gets closer to its birth.
The soundtrack is unusual, with tracks by groups such as Sonic Youth, the Moldy Peaches, Belle and Sebastian, and The Velvet Underground, as well as songwriter Kimya Dawson and even a title performed by Ellen Page and Michael Cera themselves.
I had to rate the film as I left the theater, since they were conducting exit polling. Their paper punch system resembled the chaos of hanging chads, but I did my best. The only choices above a C grade was B or A+, which made it rather difficult to use their system, but I would definitely rank it high. Like Little Miss Sunshine, I think Juno is a film that is best seen in the theater with large groups of people – it’ll make sharing those subtle moments much sweeter.
So go see the film Juno, whether quirky Canadians or Michael Cera in short shorts are you thing, and enjoy.
Is anyone actually surprised by the Mitchell Report? They shouldn’t be. It has merely been a confirmation of all that I have suspected for some time now. 409 pages of details on the drug use of baseball players. Current players. Inactive players. Perpetually injured players. Players with Cy Youngs. Players with MVP honors. Relievers, catchers, pitchers, designated hitters.
Performance enhancing drug use was (and continues to be) everywhere. If cycling and track and field (possibly the most tested sports of all time) continue to cope with this reality, why not baseball, a sport whose union until this point has refused to do anything substantial to even the playing field or protect the health of its players? If anything, I would be shocked that more players did not try steroids, and the numbers indicate that drug-abusing players merely redefined the playing field for all involved.
What steroids has done is contribute to the degradation of the sport. Sure, we all marveled at the “Bash Brothers” when Jose Conseco and Mark McGwire pounded their way through pitching, and got caught up in the home run chase of McGwire and Bonds. But the unreal accomplishments by these players encouraged others to play at high levels and extend careers. They were threatened by young guns (possibly using drugs as well), and healing early or getting over that groin problem could be the difference between getting that next contract that would provide for the family.
Sure, salaries have skyrocketed, but the culture has changed as well. A-Rod has to be the highest dough earner, to put a stamp on his status as the best in the sport. Gone are the days when players either had a lunch pail mentality (and pay) for their jobs; in are the days endorsements and celebrity. Fifty years ago, baseball players such as Jackie Robinson and Willie Mays were embraced as symbols of black progress, and even DiMaggio embodied New York City as the pride of the Yankess. What does A-Rod mean to fans? A better fantasy team. To baseball clubs? Filled seats. To marketers? Name recognition.
Pindar , the great Greek poet and chronicler of the original olympic games, speaks of “delights in the toil and the cost”, but he frames this in the context of providing greater glory for the city and family. As aristocratic as that may seem these days, players play for themselves. One CNN commentator asked a former major leaguer, “Isn’t that the point of sports? To display that god-given natural talent and hard work?”
Do not yearn, O my soul, for immortal life!
Use to the utmost the skill that is yours.
Yes, that was the point of sports. But much like wrestling no longer cares to test for steroids and turns a blind eye (or even encourages this behavior), sports has become an entertainment. ESPN, for all the good they have done in bringing us the stories of the atheletes, and magnifying their achievements, have also allowed those few stars to dominate the headlines. Entertainers who talk get airplay. Teams are celebrated, but ultimately he that gets the spotlight is he who creates controversy or talking points. Just look at the pathetic coverage of one Steeler’s “half guarantee” that they would beat the Patriots this last week.
But praise falls in with surfeit
and is muted, not in justice
but because of boisterous men, whose noise
would obscure beauty, for
sands cannot be counted,
and how many joys
this man has brought his fellows, who can say?
The media needs to shoulder some of the blame. They could have applied more pressure than they had, but instead it was more exciting and profitable to cover home run chases. In Greece, natural talent, training, hard work, and divine help was the recipe for success…today the last element has been replaced, and will contine to be replaced, by chemicals that will do nothing for the sport or its fans, but will merely serve its user’s selfish attempts to be a “true competitor.”
In many ways, we brought this about ourselves, refused to examine its implications, and while the Mitchell Report may not bring about change, we can no longer deny its presence or its influence.
What has been done
with justice or without
not even time the father of all
can undo. But with good luck
oblivion may come,for malignant pain
perishes in noble joy, confounded
whenever a fate from the gods raises happiness on high.
A coworker once had a bet who had seen the most movies of the IMDB Top 250. Surprsingly, I won. I don’t consider myself a movie goer at all, but I guess between seeing movies for school and catching AMC every now and again, I have made some headway into this list. The list does change occasionally (for example, Knocked Up was in the top 100 right after it came out, much like No Country For Old Men is now), but for the most part the classics have remained the same.
Here are the 135 movies I had already seen (more than half the list!):
Rank Rating Title Votes
1. 9.1 The Godfather (1972) 248,668
2. 9.1 The Shawshank Redemption (1994) 293,990
3. 9.0 The Godfather: Part II (1974) 142,336
5. 8.8 Pulp Fiction (1994) 252,721
6. 8.8 Schindler’s List (1993) 170,738
7. 8.8 Star Wars: Episode V – The Empire Strikes Back (1980) 181,197
8. 8.8 One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975) 127,055
9. 8.8 Casablanca (1942) 112,687
11. 8.8 The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003) 226,536
12. 8.8 Star Wars (1977) 220,330
13. 8.7 12 Angry Men (1957) 59,176
14. 8.7 Rear Window (1954) 74,210
16. 8.7 Goodfellas (1990) 136,757
17. 8.7 Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) 155,002
18. 8.7 Cidade de Deus (2002) 83,174
19. 8.7 The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001) 261,538
21. 8.7 The Usual Suspects (1995) 176,151
22. 8.6 Psycho (1960) 91,645
24. 8.6 Citizen Kane (1941) 97,391
25. 8.6 The Silence of the Lambs (1991) 156,184
26. 8.6 North by Northwest (1959) 60,715
27. 8.6 The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002) 214,167
28. 8.6 Fight Club (1999) 223,564
29. 8.6 Memento (2000) 166,481
32. 8.5 It’s a Wonderful Life (1946) 67,598
33. 8.5 The Matrix (1999) 244,433
35. 8.5 Se7en (1995) 166,728
36. 8.5 Apocalypse Now (1979) 113,384
37. 8.5 American Beauty (1999) 189,879
38. 8.5 Vertigo (1958) 58,612
40. 8.5 Fabuleux destin d’Amélie Poulain, Le (2001) 114,269
41. 8.5 The Departed (2006) 135,071
43. 8.5 American History X (1998) 127,577
45. 8.4 To Kill a Mockingbird (1962) 53,778
47. 8.4 Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004) 127,031
49. 8.4 A Clockwork Orange (1971) 120,512
52. 8.4 Alien (1979) 111,615
53. 8.4 The Pianist (2002) 71,963
54. 8.4 The Shining (1980) 102,359
56. 8.4 Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975) 106,091
58. 8.4 L.A. Confidential (1997) 112,845
60. 8.4 The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957) 38,301
62. 8.4 Boot, Das (1981) 48,051
63. 8.4 The Maltese Falcon (1941) 33,799
64. 8.4 Saving Private Ryan (1998) 173,846
65. 8.4 Reservoir Dogs (1992) 131,244
66. 8.4 Requiem for a Dream (2000) 106,374
67. 8.3 Forrest Gump (1994) 174,324
69. 8.3 Aliens (1986) 108,544
70. 8.3 Raging Bull (1980) 54,337
74. 8.3 Hotel Rwanda (2004) 49,426
76. 8.3 Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991) 138,541
79. 8.3 Some Like It Hot (1959) 43,330
80. 8.3 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) 105,508
82. 8.3 The Great Escape (1963) 37,817
83. 8.3 Amadeus (1984) 62,670
84. 8.3 On the Waterfront (1954) 25,090
87. 8.3 The Prestige (2006) 91,363
88. 8.3 Vita è bella, La (1997) 66,362
89. 8.3 Jaws (1975) 86,599
90. 8.3 The Manchurian Candidate (1962) 23,887
91. 8.3 The Sting (1973) 41,627
93. 8.2 Full Metal Jacket (1987) 89,980
96. 8.2 Braveheart (1995) 157,783
98. 8.2 Ratatouille (2007) 46,691
99. 8.2 Batman Begins (2005) 142,394
102.8.2 Once Upon a Time in America (1984) 41,586
103.8.2 Blade Runner (1982) 120,695
105.8.2 The Wizard of Oz (1939) 66,736
109.8.2 Star Wars: Episode VI – Return of the Jedi (1983) 142,363
111.8.2 The Bourne Ultimatum (2007) 59,240
113.8.2 Back to the Future (1985) 122,939
114.8.2 Ran (1985) 22,142
116.8.2 Million Dollar Baby (2004) 77,852
117.8.2 Cool Hand Luke (1967) 26,647
118.8.2 Kill Bill: Vol. 1 (2003) 139,856
119.8.2 Donnie Darko (2001) 124,554
120.8.2 Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989) 105,397
125.8.1 The Green Mile (1999) 116,473
126.8.1 Annie Hall (1977) 39,941
128.8.1 Gladiator (2000) 171,180
130.8.1 The Sixth Sense (1999) 160,676
132.8.1 Ben-Hur (1959) 36,794
135.8.1 The Deer Hunter (1978) 53,899
136.8.1 Life of Brian (1979) 59,719
137.8.1 Die Hard (1988) 111,102
139.8.1 The Incredibles (2004) 88,017
140.8.1 Finding Nemo (2003) 92,323
142.8.1 Platoon (1986) 67,211
144.8.1 V for Vendetta (2005) 120,843
145.8.1 American Gangster (2007) 32,063
147.8.1 Children of Men (2006) 79,480
150.8.1 The Graduate (1967) 49,661
151.8.1 The Princess Bride (1987) 87,632
152.8.1 Crash (2004/I) 103,349
155.8.1 Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969) 35,877
160.8.1 Gandhi (1982) 29,797
162.8.0 The Night of the Hunter (1955) 14,562
165.8.0 Kill Bill: Vol. 2 (2004) 106,897
166.8.0 The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938) 14,020
169.8.0 The Big Lebowski (1998) 101,548
171.8.0 Little Miss Sunshine (2006) 76,951
172.8.0 Wo hu cang long (2000) 78,912
173.8.0 Gone with the Wind (1939) 50,090
176.8.0 Duck Soup (1933) 17,077
180.8.0 Cabinet des Dr. Caligari., Das (1920) 9,422
182.8.0 Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens (1922) 17,026
183.8.0 Snatch. (2000) 95,329
184.8.0 Groundhog Day (1993) 81,943
187.8.0 Patton (1970) 25,397
188.8.0 The Ox-Bow Incident (1943) 4,766
190.8.0 Scarface (1983) 82,059
191.8.0 Toy Story (1995) 82,513
193.8.0 Glory (1989) 37,673
195.8.0 Twelve Monkeys (1995) 106,718
198.8.0 Hot Fuzz (2007) 66,098
199.8.0 Spartacus (1960) 31,284
200.8.0 King Kong (1933) 23,810
201.8.0 The Terminator (1984) 105,304
204.8.0 The Exorcist (1973) 63,212
205.8.0 Lola rennt (1998) 56,067
206.8.0 Frankenstein (1931) 13,660
210.8.0 Toy Story 2 (1999) 72,382
211.8.0 The Lion King (1994) 70,762
212.8.0 Big Fish (2003) 78,304
214.8.0 Bonnie and Clyde (1967) 23,801
215.8.0 Mystic River (2003) 66,458
218.7.9 Magnolia (1999) 80,150
227.7.9 All Quiet on the Western Front (1930) 13,225
228.7.9 A Christmas Story (1983) 35,869
230.7.9 Casino (1995) 59,581
233.7.9 Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003) 148,943
235.7.9 Casino Royale (2006) 98,494
236.7.9 Shaun of the Dead (2004) 69,047
238.7.9 Cinderella Man (2005) 39,590
242.7.9 Inherit the Wind (1960) 7,256
245.7.9 Shrek (2001) 119,695 14,189
A lot of the movies I have not seen are absolutely ancient (there seems to be a plethora of World War II movies, e.g., Stalag 17) or foreign (Nuovo cinema Paradiso) or both (Ladri di biciclette). Some are pure Americana (The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance).
If I had to make a list of 10 movies from the list that I want to see next, they would be
15. 8.7 No Country for Old Men (2007) 17,810
34. 8.5 Taxi Driver (1976) 92,621
50. 8.4 Laberinto del fauno, El (2006) 76,108
59. 8.4 Leben der Anderen, Das (2006) 26,494
110.8.2 Fargo (1996) 106,275
112.8.2 Unforgiven (1992) 57,116
148.8.1 Amores perros (2000) 35,325
158.8.1 Heat (1995) 86,810
167.8.0 Grindhouse (2007) 47,204
213.8.0 Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels (1998) 70,056
It is hard to come up with a list of favorite movies, or movies that I would recommend. I left out comedies, but I would feel comfortable with these 10 (ok, its 11) movies in my DVD collection if they are the only ones I could own. Each I think is unique in their own right and offers a superb look into moviemaking, acting, directing. More importantly, many are able to elicit emotion that few other films can rival.
1. 9.1 The Godfather (1972) + 3. 9.0 The Godfather: Part II (1974)
6. 8.8 Schindler’s List (1993)
9. 8.8 Casablanca (1942)
16. 8.7 Goodfellas (1990)
21. 8.7 The Usual Suspects (1995)
28. 8.6 Fight Club (1999)
36. 8.5 Apocalypse Now (1979)
49. 8.4 A Clockwork Orange (1971)
66. 8.4 Requiem for a Dream (2000)
82. 8.3 The Great Escape (1963)
I hope to get NetFlix or Blockbuster Total Access soon, and delve deeper into the IMDB 250 and beyond…and I should be seeing No Country For Old Men by this weekend. And Juno too, I hear that is supposed to be excellent. Maybe someday I’ll reach the goal of seeing every Best Picture Oscar winner…
Any other recommendations, from the list and otherwise?
It started out like any other Monday. I rolled into work, checked my emails, munched on a bagel, planned out my work for the day. Sometime around 10 AM I nonchalantly clicked over to the Yahoo! Sports page, and saw the headline “Redskin’s Taylor shot at home”. My first reaction was the typical one, right or wrong, for when athletes and violence mix: I assumed the somewhat trouble-ridden NFL star and local favorite was involved in a yet another scuffle, and wondered what else could go wrong this season for the Skins. Although I heard he had been shot in the groin area and was in the hospital in critical condition, I also assumed the young uber-athlete would pull though from what seemed like a non-lethal wound. Afterall, he was nicknamed ‘the Meast’, half man and half beast. I sent the link to a few close friends, who had similar ‘Oh Shit” reactions, but like myself more in disbelief in the circumstances themselves than facing the prospect of life without #21 ever setting foot on the field again.
Sadly, that would be the case. My radio alarm clock went off at 5 am on Tuesday morning, and as I usually do, I lay in bed drifting out of sleep. At 5:24, the announcement came.
“Sean Taylor, safety of the Washington Redskins, dead at the age of 24.”
I could hear the disbelief in the voice I heard as well, and in my groggy state I almost thought I was dreaming. I had put in a few silent prayers for Taylor to pull through, and the last news I has heard before falling asleep was that a mini miracle had occurred, and Sean had responded to those around him. Hopes were high, and seemed to confirm that everything would be ok. Yet when less than five minutes later the somber announcement was made once again, the finality of one man’s life, one man who was my same age, struck a shiver through me and I woke up for good. I couldn’t get up, I had to let the information sink in…but that did not make me feel any better.
I dressed for work and headed to the Metro, wondering if others had heard the news. It was clear they had. I was handed an Express newspaper before heading down the escalator, only to look at the face of a player who would no longer set foot on a football field, at the hopeful headline which now belied reality.
Why was I so shell-shocked over this death? After all, I had never heard Taylor speak, and knew little about his off field personality. On Sundays, though, he was larger than life. Hit after hit, he never held anything back. He brought an intimidating attitude to a defense that was improving week by week, and quickly becoming the face of the franchise. His recent injury had led to his stay with family in Miami where he was shot; in those weeks his absence on the field had led to five 30 yard plays (with him on the field, the Skins D had zero). His jersey was the bestseller; my friend had his jersey hanging up in his living room. We all live life vicariously through athletes, and no one was more colorful than Sean Taylor on Sundays.
But it wasn’t just his sudden loss of talent that had me reacting the way I did. This was a man who had just had a daughter, who was adopting a new attitude to life. Although he had had run ins with the law, his maturity was showing on and off the field. The early reports indicated that this was a burglary attempt; he had been shot in his own bedroom as his wife huddles underneath the covers. His daughter will now grow up without knowing her father. In life and on the football field, he resembled promise; promise that was then never even given a chance because of two shots fired one early Monday morning.
He was also my same age, entering the prime of his life. This prompted me to wonder what I had accomplished so far in life, and how certain things in life just cannot continue to be taken for granted like they have.
The news coverage was relentless. The angles were endless. Sean Taylor the Redskin. Sean Taylor the troublemaker. Sean Taylor the reformed man. Sean Taylor the family man. Sean Taylor, member of the biggest football fraternity, the Miami Hurricanes. Sean Taylor the NFL player. Sean Taylor the black on black crime victim.
Much of the coverage shed light on a man few had personally known. He did not conduct many interviews, instead wanting that attention to go to his teammates. In those few instances he spoke to reporters, he was reflectful, remarking that he had to lead life without regrets and an acute awareness of his mortality . He would make surprise visits to his grade school, singing autographs and spending times with the kids. His teammates spoke highly of him, clearly stricken by the loss.
However, the media also took it upon themselves to provide commentary on what his death really signaled. Some revealed conspiracy, such as that cutting his phone lines, leaving a knife on his bed two weeks before, and shooting him in the groin were a message Sean Taylor paid for with his life. They claimed, “you can take the boy out of the hood, but you can’t take the hood out of the boy”. They brought up his criminal past, which revealed more immaturity than a predilection towards violence, causing other media to claim the degradation of a man who had not even been buried.
Gradually, the truth came out on what happened that night and the man Sean was becoming, and put these speculations to shame. His murder was accidental, a botched burglary attempt gone awry. But the more details came out, the more tragic the news became. His sister knew at least one of the shooters; Sean himself had let them have a party at his house out of kindness. One man mowed his lawn. The sister may have bragged about the luxuries Sean had shared with his family; he would pay for their theft attempt with his life.
I happened to have tickets to my first ever NFL game that Thursday, and although I was hoping to bask in the typical NFL experience, it was anything but. The players were clearly drained emotionally, but the fans were eager to show their respect for #21. Fittingly, the team began their first defensive set with only 10 players – leaving Taylor’s spot vacated on the field to honor him.
It seemed every NFL team had a teammate of his from the Miami Hurricanes national championship team, and even those who had never been on his team considered him one of their own as an NFL player. The Ravens defense is led by three ex-Hurricanes – Ray Lewis, Ed Reed, and Samari Rolle – who in the pregame huddle dedicated their efforts that Sunday to Sean: ” This is not about winning or losing. This is about how we play the game. We bury one of our own tomorrow. Let’s send him out right..let’s make him proud.” They would board a plane as soon as the game ended to fly down to Miami.
Sean Taylor was buried a week after his death. Thousands showed up to mourn him, from players to agents to coaches to childhood friends. Numerous scholarships have been created in his remembrance, to create opportunity for others. They will not show up on SportCenter’s Top 10 plays like his jaw dropping hits, but ultimately their impact will be greater than anything that can be accomplished on the football field.
Shortly after the funeral disbanded, the four suspects involved were brought to Miami to face charges for Sean’s murder. They had confessed and were nervous, and hoped for a speedy resolution. All had criminal records, but none could have foreseen the death of Sean or prepared for the reaction they may certainly receive. They will serve their just punishment, but it is my hope that they will see the that life can be turned around, and must be valued at all cost. Sean’s legacy is living proof of that.
Hope everyone had a great and relaxing Thanksgiving. I have been MIA for the past several weeks…not for the lack of writing material, just extremely busy. My firm pays for me to take the CFA exam, and I have been putting my efforts into passing Part I, which I sat for this last weekend. The test apparently only had a 42% pass rate last time around, so it is rather difficult, plus me being liberal arts major and all in college I had to put in a lot of time to learn new material and prepare. We’ll see how it went come February…
Speaking of the CFA, if I never have to go back to the Dulles Expo Center again (well, ok, until Part II) I will be really happy. Totally inaccessible via public transportation, generally in the middle of nowhere, and essentially a no frill empty warehouse, it was the perfect place to spend 8 hrs of my Saturday. There were hundreds of people there to take the test, ranging from young guns like myself to 40 year olds, white, black, Indian, Asian, you name it, it was a pretty diverse crowd. Of course, the women were lacking… it is one of the few places in life where the line for the men’s restroom is longer than that of the women’s.
The testing tables were your standard Beirut tables (yes, that is my point of reference) with plastic wrap stretched over and stapled on top (presumably so one doesn’t leave with tetanus). There were proctors a plenty, who were in effect locals paid to spend a Saturday screaming and monitoring people. They must look forward to this moment, because they seemed really into it. I mean, who wouldn’t want to wear black jeans and a mock turtleneck, wear bright green reflectors reminiscent of school crossing guards, and find a way to tell the same person “No Cell Phones” five times in a row in different ways? Someone actually forgot to give up their cell phone, which promptly went off during the test, and which led to an amusing scramble by the Dark Side to find the culprit (of course they couldn’t find the person). We also had to place our IDs on the table for security purposes…I understand the importance of making sure that cheating does not occur, but I thought it was funny they walked around and looked over the ID for five minutes (yes, proctor, Connecticut is a real place) and multiple times several minutes apart. I mean, I think people would notice if I, say, got up, traded my ID with the Asian girl a row down, walked back to my seat, and tried to pass that off as myself.
Lunch was a mad rush, and since I foolishly hadn’t packed lunch I headed to the Taco Bell, which had a line out the door but still was a shorter wait than the other fast food places attached to the desolate mall that adjoined the Expo center. (One can imagine the potential ramifications of eating at a Taco Bell before sitting for the three hour second section of the test – but hey, I was hungry, and thankfully, I was ok).
At the end of the test everyone has to wait as they look through the books to make sure no one is stealing pages out of the exam book to fax to their West Coast friends, at which point I noticed how everyone decompresses by making small talk with those around them. I think this is since everyone has gone through such a long effort of studying and have been stressed out, and having that shared experience lends itself to finding an easy outlet for release. The two gentlemen behind me, a young white kid who just left college and the other a middle aged black man who spent his nights getting a masters degree, were chatting and I (clearly) listened in. They gradually got over the topic of spending so much time studying and delved into married life. The kid had just gotten married, and commented how leading a single life is fun, but in the end, he concluded, it was rather selfish. “All the time you are thinking of yourself…It is nice to have someone else to be responsible for, you know?” As the man pointed out, having a wife and kid are the greatest responsibilities one can have in life. I found myself agreeing with his comments, although his reasons for getting married or even having a kid are precisely those that turn people off to the prospect as well, I suppose…
Anyway, enough about that…time to get to Thanksgiving. I’ll keep it brief, but here are the highlights/lowlights…
-I couldn’t get my rear in gear in time to get an Amtrak reservation, so I had to resort to Greyhound to get home. My travels obviously never go well, so little surprise in how that turned out. I showed up at 6pm for the 6:30 bus, and had to stand in line, which was expected given the holiday traffic. However, the line refused to move, even though they had buses outside. WTF? I mean, it wasn’t like the traffic was getting better, or that they needed to be cleaned last minute or something (come on, are they ever clean?). So I had to resort to sitting on my luggage, putting together a last minute meal of overpriced vending machine edibles (Pringles, Coke, and a Snickers hit all the necessary food groups, right?) and reading a book/study for the exam. When finally the bus left, the driver announced on the PA system “Welcome to the 630pm bus to New York City…” I along with everyone else just shook our heads and groaned, as we looked at our watches. It was 8pm.
I tried to fall asleep, but for some reason this bus was ridiculously small, and even though the kid next to me was of average proportions, somehow he had half his ass on my seat, and I had to resort to essentially awkwardly sticking half my body and head into the aisle. This resulted in me getting hit seemingly every five miles by those getting up to go to the restroom. I finally felt the bus come to a halt, and groggily opened my eyes and checked the time. It was already 11:30. My hope was to get to Grand Central by 1pm, so that I could make the last Metro North trains. I wandered out of the bus, and discovered we were some place in New Jersey, according to the license plates on the cars around me. However, there were no maps in the rest center, just a gift store and a closing Roy Rogers selling its now cold sandwiches to eager bus passengers. Great. If there is one thing that is the opposite of being with your family at home for Thanksgiving, its waking up to find you are in an unknown area somewhere in the middle of New Jersey. I called my bro and we decided he would leave a car for me at the station in CT, which ended up working out…
-Wednesday was NYC day. We piled into our car and took off around noon. My mom had discovered that there was a Pissaro exhibit at the Jewish Museum, so this was our first stop. The museum is located in an inconspicuous building on Museum Mile alongside Central Park. I thought it was an odd choice of museum, not only because I had little Jewish heritage to speak of, but also because I found it strange an impressionist artist was Jewish. Well, I was wrong. Pissaro was Jewish, although he was the only one. He was also born in the Caribbean, and spent his earlier life there. Which I guess makes him a Caribbean Jew Impressionist living in France – quite an anomaly. I liked the exhibit though, and you could clearly see how much Pissaro liked the harbors from his earlier days, as he painted these more than the other impressionists. He also was friends with Van Gogh, and his choice to use broader brushstrokes was evident from spending time together.
On the bottom floor was an even more interesting exhibit on William Steig. I had no clue who Steig was – until I took one look at the artist’s renderings. Steig was a cartoon artist for the New Yorker, responsible for the iconic covers and captioned illustrations we now identify so closely with the magazine. In fact, his first cover he presented to the New Yorker editor they liked so much, they offered to but the idea, but insisted someone else draw it. He came back and said, “My mom says I shouldn’t accept your offer, and I should paint it myself.” Quite the momma’s boy indeed. In fact, he grew up lifeguarding, and he said if he earned $500 dollars a summer, his dad would take $492 of it, which he thought was perfectly reasonable since his dad provided and cared for him throughout his life. I’m quite sure most youth would not have seen things the same way he did. During the Great Depression he helped his dad wallpaper houses and perform other construction tasks. The patterns from the wallpapers he dealt with in his youth and other details depict themselves in his children’s books, which have an attention to these elements that such illustrations typically lack. Oh, yeah, he only started writing children’s books in his sixties, but what a career he had. I think I read everyone one of his books as a kid, from Dominic to Amos & Boris, from Doctor De Soto to Brave Irene and the Amazing Bone. He won numerous awards, all well deserved. Perhaps what he is best known for is the book Shrek! , which was the basis for the DreamWorks picture of the same name. The exhibit had book on display, as well as his letters to the producers of the movie with suggestions. He sketched out what Shrek would become and provided suggestions, such that Shrek’s mother be they typical ever worried Jewish mother (I’m picturing George Costanza’s mom from Seinfeld here), but clearly this never made it into the movie. All in all, a great exhibit well worth the while.
After the museum, we wandered down the street, getting a great view of the lake in Central Park at dusk.
After dinner, it was Opera time. I don’t think I have been to the Opera since Middle School, and it was quite the experience. My family had tickets to Le nozze di Figaro, and after mingling in the foyer and reading up on the story (operas can be confusing, regardless of what language they are sung in), we headed inside. Our seats were on the upper tier, but it was a pretty good view (I brought binoculars just in case). The performance was very well done, especially by the Countess. The opera was three and half hours long (with breaks), and while I enjoyed every minute of it, it was impressive just how much singing the leads managed to almost effortlessly do (plus memorize all the Italian!). During the break we saw Pavarotti’s costumes on display from the past performances he had done at the Met – pretty cool. The building has a pretty neat design as well:
The binoculars came into use as well, as I kept checking out the orchestra members in the pit and what they did during and between songs. Most were pretty stoic, but the bassoonist player, who resembles Dwight Schrute, kept cracking up, making jokes and sarcastic gestures, and even at one poignant point of the opera where multiple audience members inexplicably coughed he could barely retain from laughing out loud. Almost as amusing as the opera, I swear. The best moment came when the Countess came out from backstage to join the congratulatory line, and someone from way, I mean way back, rifled a bouquet of flowers in her direction. I saw the throw form the corners of my eye and I kind of gasped, anticipating an ugly collision. Thankfully, she managed to halt right as it fell to her feet, and we were saved an ugly scene. I don’t think she expected it either, as she looked quite startled, but she recovered well and received the loudest applause for her performance.
-Thursday was Turkey Day. Aside from watching football, I had the chance to take a walk around the neighborhood with my mom. My coworker once commented as to why Connecticut has some many stone walls, so I decided to take some pictures of them. I live near the Old Post Road, which back in the day was the main stretch of roadway between Boston and New York City, and many of the original walls still exist and line the street.
Here are some pictures.
Here is a fountain where the horses refueled:
An old mile marker:
Here is some foliage, which I miss in DC:
-Friday I ended up back in the city again, to visit a friend and go out. He is getting a PhD at Columbia, and I was supposed to meet him at his place off of Amsterdam and 120th. So I took the train into Harlem, and figured I could walk from there. Bad idea. One, it was cold out. Two, I had no idea where Amsterdam was except to walk towards the Hudson. Three, as my friend pointed out, there were two parks in between the train station and him, and walking through those at night was probably not the best idea. So I smartly cabbed it, and after following the ride along on the in-cab monitor (did you know they have ESPN on those things?) I realized it would have taken me a while to walk anyways.
We threw back some beers at his place and then headed out to dinner. Dinner ended up being at this Chinese restaurant, called Silk Road, I think, and it had unlimited white wine alongside generous portions of Chinese cuisine. And they did not hold back on the wine either. In fact, we tried to see if we could even pour out a whole carafe without it being filled by a server. We could only do it once, and that was on a technicality. Sure, it was boxed wine, but it was great. A long line for tables began as soon as we sat down, but as people were waiting they were given wine as well. Our entire meal, with tax and tip, ended up amounting to $15 per person, which in NYC, for food and drink we got, was well worth it.
After stopping by a bar and playing a round of beer pong (they seem to have this a lot more than in DC), we headed to Evelyn’s Bar. As we entered there was a sign that read “Scarsdale High School Reunion 2002”, but we figured there was room for us. The bar is set up with a Moroccan style motif, so we found some couches in the back and ordered drinks. Conveniently, there was tons of free food for the high school reunion, which of course no one else was eating, so we helped ourselves to some chips and hummus to prevent it from going to waste. I went to look for the bathroom at some point, and I overhead one girl asking another guy, “So how many young single friends do you have?” Yikes. I was so tempted to walk up to a random person and pretend like I knew them…maybe say something out of the blue, like ” Wait, you are straight? All this time…No way!” and then look around and say, “Can anyone here vouch for this?” and then shake may head in disbelief. Maybe another time, I feel like eating their food was bad enough. I did encounter problems when I tried to reenter the back room though – apparently I was supposed to have a stamp on me. However, we had already been there for 20 minutes, so there was little the man could do to stop me.
We left the bar after several drinks and headed to a more typical bar, which was fine with me, since I was pretty tired at this point anyway. Granted, the combination of car bombs and boxed wine may have contributed to that as well…
-Saturday night I attended an annual Thanksgiving party food family friends of mine throw each year. It seems like people are always away during Christmas, but almost everyone is in town for the Thanksgiving holidays, so it is always a great opportunity to see people. It’s pretty much what you would expect: old Victorian style house, catered drinks and hors’douvres, parents trying to extol their children’s latest accomplishments, and us twenty year olds spending time around the bar. I actually ran into some people from my high school days I hadn’t seen in six years, and man, was it interesting to see what was going on their lives. Nothing too shocking (although one was going to crew a boat in the Caribbean), but it was nice to see what they ended up being interested in and talking about their college experiences. Oh, and one girl got married, apparently at the protest of her parents, who wore black to the wedding and whose siblings didn’t attend. They even cut off her college funding (I guess they don’t think too highly of the guy. The also heard the bachelor party was ridiculous, since somehow it merged with the bachelorette party, and the bride to be slept with a female stripper that night. Oh, and the groom punched a wall in anger and had his hand so swollen the wedding ring couldn’t even fit on his finger. Oh, am I sorry I couldn’t have been there for that…
My mom apparently was talking about seeing “Knocked Up” over the break to some guests, but called it “Knock Off”. A friend of mine overheard and quickly offered to provide clarification, insisting it was called “Knocked Up”. My mom, who clearly is missing some idioms from her vocabulary, asked everyone, “What does knocked up mean? How is it different from knock off?” At which point she got strange looks, and my friend explained that ‘knock off’ is a cheap imitation of something, while ‘knock up’ is to get someone pregnant and have a child. To which my mom promptly replied, beaming, “Oh…then considered me knocked up for a span of thirty years!” Just priceless…
After the parents mostly left someone whipped out the Playstation module and hooked up Karaoke to a projector which was showing a slideshow earlier in the outside tent. This of course resulted in some drunken singing of classics, including a group rendition of Whitney Houston’s “And I Will Always Love You” that I hope my ears will never hear the likes of again. When I left the tent to go home I could still hear the singing even as I walked further down the street…I am sure the neighbors loved it.
Anyway, I’ll leave you with an appropriate picture of some guests to sum up the fun evening.
Across the Great Divide: Investigating Links Between Personality and Politics
Patricia Cohen
NEW YORK TIMES
Folk music and a collection of feminist poetry may well be dead giveaways that there is a liberal in the house. But what about an ironing board or postage stamps or a calendar?
What seem to be ordinary, everyday objects to some people can carry a storehouse of information about the owner’s ideology, says a new wave of social scientists who are studying the subtle links between personality and politics.
Research into why someone leans left or right — a subject that stirred enormous interest in the aftermath of World War II before waning in the 1960s — has been revived in recent years, partly because of a shift in federal funds for politics and terrorism research, new technology like brain imaging and a sharper partisan divide in the nation’s political culture.
”I believe that recent developments in psychological research and the world of politics — including responses to 9/11, the Bush presidency, the Iraq War, polarizing Supreme Court nominations, Hurricane Katrina, and ongoing controversies over scientific and environmental policies — provide ample grounds for revisiting” the psychological basis of Americans’ opinions, party and voting patterns, John T. Jost, a psychologist at New York University, wrote in a recent issue of American Psychologist.
The newest work in the field, found in a growing number of papers, symposiums and college courses, touches on factors from genetics to home décor. Some people have greeted the results with fascination. Books by George Lakoff, a linguist and cognitive scientist at the University of California, Berkeley, who studies the psychological power of metaphors and the framing of issues, became required reading among Democrats after their defeat in the 2004 elections. Others have been decidedly less thrilled with studies they say portray conservatives as pinched and neurotic.
For anyone who assumes political choices rest on a rational analysis of issues and self-interest, the notion that preference for a candidate springs from the same source as the choice of a color scheme can be disturbing. But social psychologists assume that all beliefs, including political ones, partly arise from an individual’s deep psychological fears and needs: for stability, order and belonging, or for rebellion and novelty.
These needs and worries vary in degree, develop in childhood and probably have a temperamental and a genetic component, said Arie Kruglanski of the University of Maryland. A study of twins, for instance, has shown that a conservative or progressive orientation can be inherited, while a decades-long study has found that personality traits associated with liberalism or conservatism later in life show up in preschoolers.
No one is arguing that an embrace of universal national health care or tax cuts arises because of a chromosome or the unconscious residue from a schoolyard spat. What Mr. Jost and Mr. Kruglanski say is that years of research show that liberals and conservatives consistently match one of two personality types. Those who enjoy bending rules and embracing new experiences tend to turn left; those who value tradition and are more cautious about change tend to end up on the right.
What’s more, these traits are reflected in musical taste, hobbies and décor. Dana R. Carney, a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard University, who worked with Mr. Jost and Samuel D. Gosling of the University of Texas at Austin among others, found that the offices and bedrooms of conservatives tended to be neat and contain cleaning supplies, calendars, postage stamps and sports-related posters; conservatives also tended to favor country music and documentaries. Bold-colored, cluttered rooms with art supplies, lots of books, jazz CDs and travel documents tended to belong to liberals (providing sloppy Democrats with an excuse to refuse clean up on principle).
Jonathan Haidt, a social psychologist at the University of Virginia, said he found this work intriguing but was more inclined to see a person’s moral framework as a source of difference between liberals and conservatives. Most liberals, he said, think about morality in terms of two categories: how someone’s welfare is affected, and whether it is fair. Conservatives, by contrast, broaden that definition to include loyalty, respect for authority, and purity or sanctity. Conservatives have a richer, more elaborate moral horizon than liberals, Mr. Haidt said, because there is a ”whole dimension to human experience best described as divinity or sacredness that conservatives are more attuned to.”
So how does he explain the red-blue divide? ”Areas with less mobility and less diversity generally have the more traditional,” broadened definition of morality, ”and therefore were more likely to vote for George W. Bush — and to tell pollsters that their reason was ‘moral values,’ ” he and his co-writer, Jesse Graham, say in a paper to be published this year by The Journal Social Justice Research.
Mr. Jost did his own research on the red-blue divide. Using the Internet he and his collaborators gave personality tests to hundreds of thousands of Americans. He found states with people who scored high on ”openness” were significantly more likely to have voted for the Democratic candidate in the past three elections, even after adjustments were made for income, ethnicity and population density. States that scored high on ”conscientiousness” went Republican in the past three elections.
Some of these psychological studies have been dogged by charges of bias however. In 2003 a mammoth survey of more than 50 years of research on the psychology of conservatism that Mr. Jost and Mr. Kruglanski undertook with the help of Jack Glaser and Frank Sulloway at Berkeley concluded that conservatives tend to be ”rigid,” ”close-minded” and ”fearful,” less tolerant of minorities and more tolerant of inequality. At the time the conservative columnist George F. Will ridiculed the results: ”The professors have ideas; the rest of us have emanations of our psychological needs and neuroses.”
The authors insist they are not making value judgments; whether a particular trait is positive or negative depends on circumstance. ”Fear of death has the highest correlation with being conservative,” Mr. Sulloway said. But he continued: ”What’s wrong with fearing death? If you don’t fear death, evolution eliminates you from the population.”
Accusations of bias against conservatives go way back, to Theodor Adorno and other scholars who, after World War II, came up with the ”authoritarian personality” to explain the link between the far right and fascist regimes.
As for the present research, John Zaller, a political scientist at Berkeley, said: ”I am personally embarrassed by some of the leading work by psychologists on personality and conservatism. I take the data to be valid, but I feel the manner of describing it too often sets up conservatives to look bad.”
Mr. Haidt, who agrees liberals and conservatives have distinct dispositions, still thinks bias is a problem: ”Our own biases as researchers — because we are almost all liberal — make it difficult for us to understand the psychology of conservatives.”
A slanted interpretation isn’t the only cause of skepticism. Definitions of liberal and conservative shift, critics say. How would you define a liberal or conservative in the former Soviet Union? And what about people who are conservative on economic policy but liberal on social issues?
What is important, said Larry Bartels, a political scientist at Princeton University, is howpsychological tendencies are translated into views about specific political issues: ”In 2000, George W. Bush ridiculed nation-building; now he seems pretty committed,” he wrote in an e-mail message. ”Which of those positions (if either) represents rigidity, resistance to change, or discipline? On the other hand, how many flexible, curious, open-to-experience liberals do you know who want to experiment with restructuring the Social Security system?”
Personality may have something to do with a particular political outlook, he said, but so do a lot of other things.
Cafeteria lady: So, you been good this weekend? Frat boy: No! Me and my girlfriend got totally shit-faced! Cafeteria lady: ‘My girlfriend and I.’ Frat boy: What? Cafeteria lady: ‘My girlfriend and I got totally shit-faced.’ Frat boy: Whoa! You have a girlfriend?! Hardcore!
–NYU
Girl: Yeah, so me and Ronnie broke it off. Guy: Really? Why? Girl: Well, remember that girl, Nene? Yeah, she was like 14 or something, and he was fucking her. Guy: And how old is he? Girl: Twenty-one. You know what? I’m just done dating child molesters — been there, done that.
–R train, 57th St
Girl: I’ll have a dozen bagels. Bagel guy: I can’t pass up on this opportunity. I have to tell you that you’re really cute. Girl: [Blushes.] Bagel guy: Do you know what the difference between cute and not cute is? Girl: … Nooo, what? Bagel guy: Three bagels. [Hands girl 15 bagels.]
–Jumbo Bagels, 57th & 2nd
Waiter: We do have a great selection of cocktails. Customer: That just makes me feel queer.
–Max Brenner’s, 14th & Broadway
Customer: I need cigarettes. Cashier, pleasantly: How would you like to kill yourself? Customer, expressionless: Newports. Cashier: Here you go.
–CVS, 25th & 6th
Girl: It’s not that I’m such a slut– Guy, interrupting: –But I would be happy for you if you were. Girl: You’d be happy for me if I were a slut? Guy: Yes. Girl: Me, too.
–27th & 3rd
Queer: So, I was on a date with this guy, Christian — like the religion — the other night, and we had a nice hug and kiss goodbye. Then he went down into the PATH train. Right after he left, my phone started ringing and it said Christian was calling, and I was like, ‘What? How’s he calling me?’ And then I realized it was Cristian, C-R-I-S-T-I-A-N, this other guy I hooked up with a few months ago. So I answered and we ended up hooking up again that night… So, I had two Christians in one night. If this were ancient Rome, I’d be the lion in the Colosseum.
–-Posh bar
Middle-aged black lady: Those are some nice pants. Latino dude: Yeah, I’m buying it for Jack’s* wedding tomorrow. Middle-aged black lady: Didn’t he just get out of high school? Latino dude: Well, he’s 22 now. He’s marrying his old Health teacher. She’s 28. Middle-aged black lady: He… He was her student? Latino dude: Yeah! The first day of class she kicked him out because he was being an asshole. He was like, ‘Suck this dick and lick these balls, biotch!’ Middle-aged black lady: Well, I guess she took his advice. Latino dude: Yeah. Life’s funny like that…
–JCPenny
Middle-aged white lady: What are you trying to do? You are so rude! I can’t believe you! I am going to get you fired! Clerk: [Silence.] Middle-aged white lady, to entire line: Can you believe these people? They are so rude! I can’t believe they are trying to short me my coffee! It’s unbelievable! Young black man: Stop being so white.–Dunkin’ Donuts, Atlantic & 4th, Brooklyn
White guy, about pretty black chick passerby: Yo, why do black girls always look at you but not me? Black guy: Same reason why you piss close to the urinal and I gotta stand a foot away.
–35th & 6th
Ghetto chick #1: When I have kids I’m going to beat them. Ghetto chick #2: Yeah, my mama and daddy beat me, and it showed me right. Ghetto chick #1: Me, too. I came out fine. Ghetto chick #2: You know what happens when you don’t beat your kids? Columbine.
–Pace University, Spruce St
Black woman to tanning salon flyer guy soliciting her: Nigga, you be blind!
–W 4th St & 6th Ave
Blonde: Don’t you think getting fucked by Harry Potter’s wand would be hot, because it’s like an extension of himself? Butch girl: Oh my god, I’ve been thinking about wand-fucking for like six months!–Bethune & Greenwich
Teen boy: Do you ever wonder, like, if you die, what will happen to your MySpace and your Internet stuff? Teen girl: Yeah. You have my password, right? Promise me you’ll go on and approve the good comments?
–-N train, Brooklyn
Skinny model girl #1: Why is that line to the bathroom so long when no one is on that other line? Is the bathroom out of order? Skinny model girl #2: Oh… Well, this bathroom has a table… So it’s easier to do coke. But if you just have to pee, use the other one. Skinny model girl #1: Oh, no, I’ll just wait, then. Thanks.
–LES
Smoker girl: We should do a wine power-hour tonight. Friend: A wine power-hour is a bad idea. I lost my virginity after a wine power-ten minutes.–-83rd & 1st
Six-year-old girl, grabbing a Bud Light: Daddy, can I get this? Four-year-old sister: Yeah, can I have one too, Daddy? Dad: Not right now, but if you two are good, I’ll get you a keg later. Mom: I’d be down for that.
–Penn Station
Student: I think social deviance is relative. Professor: That’s a good theory. Explain it. Student: Well, if you’re a New Yorker and a stranger goes up to you and says hi, you’d be like, ‘Why the hell are you talking to me?’ But if you’re from California, you’d be like, ‘Oh, hey, this stranger is saying hi to me!’ Professor: That’s because everyone in California is perpetually on crack.
–Sociology, Fordham University
Guidette to friend: Like, I’m a really good friend, y’know, because I like to listen to people. Like, so many people aren’t good friends because they don’t wanna listen, but I listen to people, y’know? Friend: Really, it’s like– Guidette, cutting her off: –I know, some people just don’t listen, but I’m such a good friend because I love listening, and I’m a good listener…
A Coach and APlayer
A Relationship That Began Four Years Ago in Harvest, Ala., Has Developed Into a Lasting Bond.
By Harlan Goode Hoya Staff Writer
Thursday, November 8, 2007
File Photo:Andreas Jeninga/The Hoya
The Renaissance of Georgetown Basketball took place by a flat stretch of I-65 so far into northern Alabama you might as well call it Tennessee. There, in a drafty high school gym so tiny they didn’t bother to give it a name, was where the coach first saw the player. That is where the coach would first notice the player’s focused gaze — a look so familiar he could not forget it even when it should not have mattered anymore. That is where the 39-year-old man and the 18-year-old boy began a relationship that would take them to the pinnacle of college basketball and weave them so close with each other it would blur the line between coach and player.
Coach
When the coach walked into to the gymnasium at Sparkman High that winter night in 2004, he wanted the player to be a Tiger. The coach had liked what he’d seen from the smallish point guard on film, and the sharp-minded player was just the type he coveted for his Princeton program. Quite possibly the first Princeton man to ever visit the sleepy home of the Sparkman Senators, the coach kept a low profile. Low enough that it was not until after the game, when someone introduced the two, that the player realized the stranger in the black sweater sitting behind the cheerleaders in the gym’s far corner, away from everyone else, was the college coach who had been calling him.
Player
He didn’t even know who the coach was, past the fact that he had a famous dad and that the school he came from was far from Harvest. But when the coach started talking, the player realized his pitch was nothing like the ones he had been hearing from the recruiters at Murray State, Birmingham Southern and Samford. It seemed like this coach with the orange “P” on his hat didn’t have much to say at all, which made the player, who was himself quiet by nature, feel all the more at home. What the coach did say was honest — he believed in discipline, hard work and academics — the same things the player’s father had preached all along.
Coach
The coach went back home. But he couldn’t stop thinking about the way that player in the tiny gym carried himself. His demeanor. He was so focused. He had the same tunnel vision that blinded the coach when he stepped on the court. It was almost like he was watching himself out there.
A few months later, the phone rang. The coach answered it. Dream job on the line. Just like that, he was going back home, to where he had spent his childhood watching his father cut down nets and hoist championship trophies. Now that he was home at Georgetown — where Ewings and Mournings and Iversons came to play — he wouldn’t be needing that kid from the tiny gym anymore.
Or would he? He couldn’t stop thinking about him. The smooth shot, the court sense, his demeanor. Sure, he had only spoken with him for a minute. Sure, recruiting trips are mostly a shot in the dark. But the player had such character. He was the kind of kid you would build a program around.
Player
The phone rang. The player answered it. Dream school on the line. Georgetown? It was that coach’s voice again — quiet, understated, honest.
“You’ll never play if you come here, you know,” the coach said, according to the player’s accounts. “And I can’t offer you a scholarship right now.”
It didn’t matter. The player wanted to play for that coach — and that coach only. He made him feel comfortable, and besides, deep down, he knew he could play with anybody.
Coach
It was hard. Harder than it had been at Princeton. He had fared well in his first year, beat Pitt, made the NIT, done his best to make his dad proud — but he hadn’t made the NCAA tournament like he had the year before at Princeton. But that player, the one who he’d told would never play, the one with the heart of gold and — he was getting good. He was smart, calculating. He never took a bad shot. He almost always made the right decisions. Most of all, he kept quiet and let his actions speak volumes, the same way the coach had always tried to do.
Player
It was hard. But not as hard as he’d thought. Georgetown was different than Sparkman, but the coach, he helped him along. He seemed to know the perfect balance of when to look out for him, when to let him figure it out on his own. There was just something about the way the coach talked. It was different. Maybe because he was the only freshman that the coach had recruited. Maybe it was that the coach’s son, who watched each practice from the sideline, shared his same name. Maybe it was that he had always just felt right with him. And it was happening: He was playing, starting. He had had faith that it would happen eventually. But this fast? He felt the confidence in his three — so he dropped 20 points on Davidson. He could see what the St. John’s back court was going to do next — so he picked their pocket four times.
Coach
It was happening. His team was getting better. The athletic forward was growing into “the man.” The tall awkward center was looking more like Dikembe Mutombo than Manute Bol. But it was the player who came from nowhere that kept surprising him. Every game he made him feel better about putting him on the floor. He did not get scared against Duke. He refused to let a loss to West Virginia get him down. No matter how bright the lights shone, the player could not lose his cool. The coach marveled at how, in the conference tournament, the kid from the tiny gym looked perfectly at home in Madison Square Garden.
Player
It was happening. They were beating teams. Good teams. Teams like Duke and Pittsburgh and Cincinnati. Programs he had never even dreamed of playing, or beating, when he sat listening to the salesmen from Samford and Southern. This was happening just like he knew it would from the time the coach sat in his living room and talked books and basketball with his father. They were advancing in the tournament. Knocking off the big guys just like the coach told them they would. No matter whom they faced, no matter what all-American was guarding him or what Hall of Fame coach tried to scheme against him, he felt the same calm that the coach had always shown to him. The loss to Florida was bitter, but they had come so close — the coach wouldn’t let that happen next year. Neither would he.
Coach
The shot left the player’s hand at the top of the key with 31 seconds left. It hung suspended in the air for a pause, then sliced through the net and lodged itself in North Carolina’s heart. The coach watched as the Tar Heels first panicked, then slowly accepted their fate with a look of somber disbelief at the wound the player had left gaping in them. He watched as the player — without batting an eye — led his teammates through a thrilling five-minute overtime. It was an eerie feeling, like he was almost playing in the game himself. This was it. This was what he had seen that north Alabama night in the tiny gym when he first saw the player. There was that calm, that confidence, that demeanor. He had trusted it back when the player was a raw freshman. He hadn’t lost faith in it when his team suffered crushing defeats to Old Dominion and Oregon early in the season. He had believed in it with his team down 14 to Carolina late in the second half. He had always had felt a trust in the player — and now it was taking him to the Final Four.
One
It is now nearly four years since John Thompson III first met Jon Wallace. But now it’s hard to tell where one ends and the other begins.
“With [Coach] being with Jon since day one, they have grown in this program together in the four years together. Coach really believes and trusts in Jon a lot,” Jessie Sapp says.
“He’s kind of like a baby Coach,” DaJuan Summers adds.
Sapp, Summers and the rest of Wallace’s teammates speak of how striking the similarities between the coach and player have become — their linear focus, their stoic manner, their demeanor.
“[Our relationship] is a special one, me and coach,” Wallace says. “I talk to him a lot of time in the position I am. I try and grasp what side of it he has and the structure he has in doing things and try to carry it over on to the floor. A lot of times you have to have that focus in mind just so I know I’m doing what he wants me to do and carrying it out onto the floor.”
When Thompson is asked about his team, he is usually quick in response. Summers needs to “make plays.” Roy Hibbert has “improved with time.” They all need to take it “one game at a time.”
But a question about Wallace is followed with a pause, as if Thompson is envisioning his point guard’s three against Carolina arcing through the air.
“Jon Wallace is, Jon Wallace is someone that I trust. I trust him with the game, I trust him with the ball in his hands, I trust Jon Wallace,” Thompson says. “I want people like him around me. That is much more important than the type of basketball player he is. It has turned out that because of the type of person he is, he’s turned into a damn good basketball player. I don’t believe there are too many guards in this country that are better than him.”
It is hard to imagine the second Georgetown Dynasty existing without Jon Wallace exacting John Thompson III’s battle plan. But next season, Thompson’s and Wallace’s time together will be through. Everyone with a drop of Hoya blue in their veins wants to see Wallace on the bench alongside Thompson. Thompson says that Wallace would make a great coach, but for now it appears Wallace may have something else in mind.
“I will miss that type of guidance, but he’s groomed me for a level beyond here,” Wallace says. “So all I can do is just take what he’s instilled in me as a player and as a person and just carry that with me.”
Years down the road, when John Thompson III is far from where he is now, after all the Chris Wrights and Austin Freemans and Greg Monroes, you get the feeling he won’t hesitate when asked who meant the most to him — or will he? After all, he always pauses when speaking of the player who helped him build it all.
“Jon Wallace is,” the coach says, pausing, still struggling for a word to describe what he sees in the player. “Jon Wallace is special. He is truly, truly special.”
WASHINGTON, DC—According to a groundbreaking new study by the Department of Labor, working—the physical act of engaging in a productive job-related activity—may greatly increase the amount of work accomplished during the workday, especially when compared with the more common practices of wasting time and not working.An American worker can triple his work output by working.
An American worker can triple his work output by working.
“Our findings are astounding: By simply sitting down and doing work, employees can dramatically increase their output of goods and services,” said Deputy Undersecretary of Labor Charlotte Ponticelli, who authored the report. “In fact, ‘working’ may revolutionize the way people work.”
Perhaps even more shocking, the study reveals that not working significantly decreases worker productivity, sometimes even resulting in no work getting done at all. Similar findings were reported in the areas of avoiding work, putting off work, complaining about work instead of actually working, pretending to work, and fucking around.”
Fucking around is in fact detrimental to the work process,” the study reads in part.
To conduct the study, researchers split the staff of a Washington-based insurance company into two groups and assigned each group a series of tasks to be completed by the end of the day. The control group engaged in normal workplace activities, such as standing around and talking, staring vacantly at the computer screen, and surfing the Internet. The other group was instructed to do work and complete its given tasks. Incredibly, the group that did not do any work failed to get any work done, while the group that did do work finished all the work.
The researchers believe that these lessons could possibly be applied to fields outside the insurance industry. Typical workplace activities, such as shooting the shit, turn out to be less productive than not wasting time.”
Based on the study, we can safely conclude that if an employee’s job is to process expense reports, doing a crossword puzzle will result in the successful completion of that task zero times out of 100, while processing expense reports will result in the successful completion of that task 100 times out of 100,” head researcher Richard Schoemberg said.
Jon Halper, a Baltimore-area small-business owner, claims that people used to laugh whenever he told them that the key to worker productivity was not checking friends’ MySpace pages for hours at a time, but rather working.
“After this study, I feel vindicated,” said Halper, who believes working is so important that for years he has required all his employees to work throughout the day. “Hopefully, more companies will embrace the idea that employees working on things that they are supposed to do is practically essential.”
A similar study conducted at Harvard University over a period of three years attempted to determine conclusively whether working was more productive than various different subsets of not working. The results showed across the board that working is 100 percent more productive than listening to music and checking e-mails, 100 percent more productive than meandering around the office socializing with coworkers, 100 percent more productive than playing online Sudoku, 100 percent more productive than watching YouTube videos of nostalgic childhood television programming, 100 percent more productive than reading celebrity-gossip blogs while chatting with friends on Instant Messenger, 100 percent more productive than napping, and 98.2 percent more productive than not showing up to work.
Despite the staggering new findings, many American workers say that they still do not feel comfortable working on the job.
“I love coming into work every day,” Arlington, VA sales manager Bryce Davidson said. “I get to have great conversations with Sandy, challenge myself with Yahoo! TextTwist, and still have time to set my fantasy-football roster. Why would I want to ruin work by working?”
This weekend I watched American Gangster, the new Denzel Washington film about the life of former heroin king Frank Lucas. Russell Crowe is in the film as well, playing a cop who finally is able to discover the extent of Lucas’ operations and bring him (and many others) to justice.
The film itself was good, although at times it was trying to be more than it was (an epic it is not), and while introducing a score of characters whose lives were effected by Lucas, the movie really addresses them in a haphazard way throughout. The movie also should have ended earlier than it did, but oh well. Denzel does a great job as usually with the role, and much like George Jung’sBlow, we as an audience are given a interesting rise and fall of a drug dealer story.
What was most interesting to me was how Frank Lucas was portrayed in the movie. In many ways, he was a businessman on the wrong side of the law, but the film quickly establishes the law was on the wrong side of drugs as well, as he not only paid off cops, but some essentially extorted money form him as well. When he is ultimately captured, he is able to provide information to capture those that assisted him – leaving us with the impression he was a innovative man under dire conditions who did well for himself because he had to.
In reality, Frank Lucas was a violent man, who only identified since childhood with such a way of life. At the age of 12 he mugged men as they left brothels, and only left for NYC when he fooled around with a farmer’s daughter, laid him out with a piece of wood when discovered, then burned his house down. Another stark reality the movie glosses over was the effect of heroin on the Harlem community, although I am ready to admit that in his absence others merely would have thrived instead. But the drugs are one thing, the lifestyle is another. The movie points out that his cousin does not want to try out for the Yankees because he wants Frank’s lifestyle instead – many talented athletes became victim of heroin (see the Goat) or the image of success the dealers gave off.
Also, Frank never gave up his Army sources who helped him smuggles the drugs, which was convenient because that would have been a scandal that the government would not wanted to have dealt with. But maybe they never asked, knowing how extensive the operation may have been.
I tried to do a bit more research into Frank Lucas, and came up with some interesting reads. There is some interesting discussion on the film at Truth and Opinion, including some contributions by those who knew Frank Lucas.
Here are some excerpts:
Frank Lucas never used his gun like that and he never had a real crew like that. He was a country boy who was in Harlem. Yes, he had money but so did every other hustler during that time. But he wasn’t gangster like that and if he was he wouldn’t have been alive because no new york cat that was down during that time would’ve let that country boy come off gangster like that. All Frank was into was women and money and he abused them both. In every way! Just like any other stereotypical drug dealer. Please do not use the term innovative when you talk about Frank Lucas. He didn’t innovate anything. Just another common criminal who was a millionare amongst many doing the same thing back in those days. There were several millionaires on every block in halrem during those times. I am a brother and it hurts me to say this, but the real hustlers in harlem during those days were the Mafia. They are the ones who got rich. And Frank Lucas wasn’t even close, not even amongst the brothers.
Posted by: Banger on October 26th, 2007 at 9:18 pm
American Gangster” will draw a bigger box office in one day than Malcolm X did during its whole run. why? Because America prefers and is very comfortable seeing Black Folk in the role of drug dealer, pimp, hustler, ho, etc. And that my friends is the secret of the success of Gangster rap as well.
What is going on here? How have we allowed ourselves to be bamboozled like this? Frank Lucas is not an American Entreprenuer. He was just a drug dealer plain and simple who had enough darkness in is heart and enough disregard for the sanctity of life to assist in the conspiracy to destroy a community.
Posted by: Rashaan on October 28th, 2007 at 12:00 pm
I’ve read every single blog about FRANK LUCAS posted here. I personally knew Frank Lucas as well as Nicky Barnes and quite a few others. I, myself just got out of prison in 1998 because of the Frank Lucas incident. Frank was indeed a true innovator! He was the first to go directly to the ’source’ of the herion(Bangkok and Saigon) and brought the drugs back in the coffins of our dead soldiers. He also “sold” to the mafia….instead of them selling to him. Frank would sell to the mafia families at 33% cheaper thatn they could get the drugs. The mafia resented him for this, but after over 15 attempts on Franks life, they relented, because Frank indeed had a army of over 600 gun toting men who were willing to kill on a whim for Frank (He paid extremely well). They would bomb, shoot and kill anyone and everyone including the Italian mobsters, the Irish mobsters, the Dutch mobsters as well as other black mobsters and kingpins.Frank was not bigger than the mafia, but was richer than any and I do mean…any mafia DON at that time. When money was stolen by police from Franks house…it was later determined that over 80 million dollars was taken…just from his house. Frank has killed…over 40 people that I know of from his own hands, but I doubt if he would ever admit to killing anyone. All of us know that no matter how long ago a murder happened, tht we can be tried for it. There is no ’stature of limitations’ on murder/homicide. I know tht at one time I was making $50,000. a week just for working for Frank and another guy was making over $100,000. who was working with me.It may not seem like a lot of money now…but in 1973, $50,000. a week made me feel rich. Remember..a loaf of bread was only 20 cents. Frank …even tho he told on the police…he is considered a snitch still. The code is to keep your mouth shut…period. He should have killed the police instead of snitching on them. He is very much alive…Frank is about 73 to 77 years old now. I haven’t talked with him directly, because I’m angry about his snitching and the killing of a friend way back then (I’m not forgiving)
Posted by: REAL DEAL on October 31st, 2007 at 4:56 pm
One thing I’m disappointed about is, they don’t talk about his relationship with Billie Mays (Willie Mays daughter). She was the most sought after woman in that time. He apparently stole her away from Walt “Clyde” Frazier. I’ve tried to find pictures of her but can’t seem to locate any. If anyone does please post the link.
Posted by: D-Nice on November 1st, 2007 at 12:55 pm
The film itself is based on an article written in New York Magazine several years ago…it’s definitely worth the read. (BTW, I love the fact how he remarks he hates ‘ghetto culture’ nowadays such as the Wu-Tang Clan, yet a member of the group is an actor in the movie).
Here is a more recent interview, where Frank and Nicky Barnes sit down for the first time since his arrest.
Two gay guys checking out the Drag Queens after the race:
Guy #1: “Who would want a photo with her?”
Guy #2: “Oh, I know.”
(Queen turns around)
Guy #1: “Oh, that’s why.”
Guy #2: “Nice ass.”
This past week before Halloween was the annual Drag Race along 17th St in Dupont, and since this event essentially runs right past my apartment, I had a chance once again to see all sorts of cool costumes, men who should never again attempt to pull off drag, and, yes, even Mayor Adrian Fenty.
Student Announcer Ensures Laterals Are Heard Around the World
By Joe Lapointe
New York Times
Jonathan Wiener is a sophomore English major from Mississippi who enjoys William Faulkner novels. He is comfortable with bursts of words and long, descriptive paragraphs.
So when Wiener’s narrative skills were put to a test Saturday in a football broadcast booth, he was prepared. For a young man with broadcasting ambitions, it was the pop quiz from heaven.
“I can’t think of anything better in the world than watching football and talking about it,” Wiener, 20, said in a telephone interview yesterday. “It was only one of the most improbable plays in college football history.”
Wiener, a student at Trinity University in San Antonio, was the play-by-play announcer for the Division III college football game between Trinity and Millsaps College in Jackson, Miss.
He was part of a four-man crew with only one camera in a telecast seen live only over the Internet. Trinity won, 28-24, on the final play by completing a forward pass and then scoring after 15 lateral passes that zigzagged across the field, taking 62 seconds to cover the 60 yards to the end zone.
Wiener kept his cool through the frenzy and described most of the details precisely as they occurred. The replay of the video with Wiener’s description has been shown on national television and has become a hit on the Internet.
“It wasn’t much of a call,” Wiener said. When someone suggested to him that it really was a pretty good call, Wiener replied: “Well, I tried. They were moving so fast. You do what you can.”
The play began with two seconds left on the clock and the ball on the 40-yard line of Trinity. Just before the snap, Wiener’s color analyst, Justin Thompson, finished a Wiener thought by suggesting that the offense might have to “start lateraling.”
Moments later, after quarterback Blake Barmore completed a pass to Shawn Thompson, the players began to throw the ball to each other, either sideways or backward but never forward (which would have been illegal). Riley Curry ran it into the end zone after catching the last lateral, which bounced, at the Millsaps 34.
Seven players touched the ball, including two offensive linemen. Wiener mentioned all the players, except the linemen, who did not hold the ball long enough to be recognized. Wiener also kept track of the ball’s position on the field. “He’s going to throw it to Thompson; Thompson at the 30-yard line; Thompson now laterals it back to Curry at the 35; they’re running out of spaces; Curry fakes; he’s going to lateral it.”
Wiener’s voice increased in volume and pitch only after Thompson — the color analyst and brother of the original pass-catcher Shawn Thompson — began to shout. And then Wiener, too, began to shout, like Russ Hodges at the Polo Grounds.
“CURRY SCORES! THE GAME IS OVER!” he shouted, continuing, “THE TIGERS LATERALED IT AND KEPT LATERALING! AND THE GAME IS OVER! THE TIGERS WIN! THE TIGERS WIN!”
“OH, MY GOODNESS!” he added.
Wiener said he had not planned to cover the game but decided to stop in Jackson while returning from a journalism convention in Washington. The game just happened to be played in his hometown, a few minutes from his parents’ house.
His mother picked him up at the airport and dropped him off at the field before kickoff. Along with his major in English, Wiener is studying for a minor in communications.
Wiener said he had a native Mississippian’s love of Faulkner and read “Absalom, Absalom!” last summer while doing an internship as a basketball writer for Slam magazine in New York.
He said he would start reading Faulkner’s “Go Down, Moses” this week while preparing to announce Saturday’s home game against Centre College of Kentucky.
Faulkner, by the way, did a little sports reporting, too. In 1955, he wrote an impressionistic essay about a hockey game at Madison Square Garden for Sports Illustrated. Faulkner described the movement of players in a game between the Rangers and the Montreal Canadiens as “bizarre and paradoxical, like the frantic darting of the weightless bugs which run on the surface of stagnant pools.”
In other words, hockey to Faulkner looked sort of like the football play that Wiener described Saturday in Mississippi.
On Wednesday, Facebook announced its decision to allow Microsoft to invest $240 million in exchange for a 1.6 percent stake in its company. While this certainly does not give Microsoft any increased control over Facebook, it does lend some credence to the worth of the company, which is now estimated at $15 billion. That’s right, a company run by a 23 year old, with only $150 million in projected revenues, is worth $15 billion.
Where are these future additional revenues going to come from? Well, there has been talk about the applications that are being added each day, but advertising has long been Facebook’s weak point, consistently being one of the worst performing sites on the Web:
As one person pointed out, the valuation does seem high when considering current traffic levels.
$15Billion valuation at 42million registered users comes out to over $300 per user. Now let’s say Facebook earns a VERY healthy $5CPM and we assume a 33% sellthru.
That means to recoup the investment, a user would have to log in every day and have 50 page views per day would take over 9 years to make their money back.
Here is what the recent trend looks like…the valuation clearly assumes traffic levels wll quadruple in a rather short period of time.
“What’s significant is how much money Facebook is raising and what it wants to do with it. Facebook took $250 million from Microsoft and hinted that it is looking to raise more. It said it wants to grow from 300 to 700 employees. And it defined its business as “social computing.”
This is a signal that the company wants to take on Google, at least in some realms, by having a battalion of engineers developing original technology. That’s very different from most Web 2.0 companies that pride themselves on using a handful of engineers to do quick, lightweight front ends. And it’s different from MySpace, the other big social network, which is adding media content but can’t seem to improve its central technology.
… [Mark Zuckerberg] talked about how his role models—like many in his generation– are Steve Jobs of Apple and Google’s founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin. They weren’t chastened by the excesses of the Internet bubble and have been rewarded for thinking big.
Mr. Zuckerberg, at least, has earned the right to at least consider thinking big. Facebook has risen above hundreds of rivals through a good sense of how to please users and an excellent approach to technology. Anyone who lived through the first crash would have simply cashed in his chips at this point. But Mr. Zuckerberg is doubling down.”
Clearly Google lost out on this one, though it probably is more of a loss for Yahoo than anyone else.
“Yesterday, in a conversation with reporters, Google co-founder Sergey Brin was asked whether he thought there were similarities between Facebook and Google in its early days.
A somewhat flip Mr. Brin responded: “I think the location was somewhat similar.” Facebook is in Palo Alto, across University Avenue from the former home of Google.
Mr. Brin was more serious when it came to highlighting the differences between the two companies. “We really started to grow (Google) during the bust of the dot com bubble,” he said. “Their timing may be somewhat inverted.” Google, he said, benefited from the discipline imposed on it by the bust. “I think that’s an extra challenge that they face,” he added.
One way that challenge is likely to play out is that Facebook will have to get more creative to offer prospective employees a shot at the same kind of Internet riches that Google afforded to hundreds, if not thousands, of its early employees.”
However, tenured Google employees are already leaving for Facebook, looking to cash out their stock options and strike while Facebook is hot. According to tech reporter Josh Quittner, Benjamin Ling, one of Brin’s “Golden Boys” and a top engineer, is leaving Google for Facebook.
Steven Colbert, beloved comedian, a man who does not see race, a man who has his own eagle mascot (albeit Canadian) , and who is not afraid to pose in front of a portrait of himself (posing as himself in front of himself, in front of himself…), has declared himself a presidential candidate…in South Carolina. He will be running in his home state on both tickets, as a Democrat and a Republican, a strategy he does concede “may allow him to lose twice”.
Here is the clip of Colbert filling out his paperwork.
Colbert in ’08 has become a rallying cry for those who are fed up with the current candidates, would like to see a third party candidate, or, let’s face it, can’t get enough of what is by all accounts the greatest American (no, seriously, google “the greatest American” and see who shows up – and we all know google cannot lie).
So how serious is his candidacy? Well, grassroots campaigning has already begun, as indicated by the social meter that is Facebook. The group “1,000,000 Strong for Steven T. Colbert” as of this posting has 867,083 members. Not impressed? Consider that “1,000,000 Strong for Obama” has been around for a year, yet its group total of some 381,000 was passed by Colbert’s group in less than four days.
Yesterday’s Rasmussen survey indicates his support is picking up as well. As a third party candidate, a remarkable 13% of voters gave him the nod over frontrunners Hillary Clinton and Rudolph Guiliani. We claim this race is over, and that Hillary is already planning her redecorations of the Oval Office, but that was pre-Colbert. This is a whole new political force to reckon with.
The Washington Post reported on Colbert’s campaign this week that Public Opinion Strategies, another polling firm, found the following:
In the Democratic primary, Colbert takes 2.3 percent of the vote — good for fifth place behind Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (40 percent), Sen. Barack Obama (19 percent), former Sen. John Edwards (12 percent) and Sen. Joe Biden (2.7 percent. Colbert finished ahead of Gov. Bill Richardson (2.1 percent), Rep. Dennis Kucinich (2.1 percent) and former Sen. Mike Gravel (less than 1 percent).
Wow, Bill Richardson. You are behind a comedian…I don’t think your campaign manager is laughing too hard now.
What is Colbert’s platform, you might ask? Well, according to the Washington Post coverage:
He’s ticked that Georgia is known as the Peach State even though, he contends, South Carolina grows more peaches. He’s worried about Chinese shrimp imports hurting his home-state fishermen. And, he adds out of nowhere, “we shouldn’t fall prey to the homosexual agenda.
I’m sure he’ll build on that. But really, won’t this already speak to the primary voters in South Carolina more than what the other candidates have promised?
Like many, I am looking forward to Steven Colbert’s participation in any future debates. The other candidates may practice truthiness, but at least let’s hear from the candidate that coined the word.
Fifty years ago today [Oct.10] Ayn Rand published her magnum opus, Atlas Shrugged. It’s an enduringly popular novel – all 1,168 pages of it – with some 150,000 new copies still sold each year in bookstores alone. And it’s always had a special appeal for people in business. The reasons, at least on the surface, are obvious enough.
Businessmen are favorite villains in popular media, routinely featured as polluters, crooks and murderers in network TV dramas and first-run movies, not to mention novels. Oil company CEOs are hauled before congressional committees whenever fuel prices rise, to be harangued and publicly shamed for the sin of high profits. Genuine cases of wrongdoing like Enron set off witch hunts that drag in prominent achievers like Frank Quattrone and Martha Stewart.
By contrast, the heroes in Atlas Shrugged are businessmen – and women. Rand imbues them with heroic, larger-than-life stature in the Romantic mold, for their courage, integrity and ability to create wealth.
They are not the exploiters but the exploited: victims of parasites and predators who want to wrap the producers in regulatory chains and expropriate their wealth.
Rand’s perspective is a welcome relief to people who more often see themselves portrayed as the bad guys, and so it is no wonder it has such enthusiastic fans in the upper echelons of business as Ed Snider (Comcast Spectacor, Philadelphia Flyers and 76ers), Fred Smith (Federal Express), John Mackey (Whole Foods), John A. Allison (BB&T), and Kevin O’Connor (DoubleClick) – not to mention thousands of others who pursue careers at every level in the private sector.
Yet the deeper reasons why the novel has proved so enduringly popular have to do with Rand’s moral defense of business and capitalism. Rejecting the centuries-old, and still conventional, piety that production and trade are just “materialistic,” she eloquently portrayed the spiritual heart of wealth creation through the lives of the characters now well known to many millions of readers.
Hank Rearden, the innovator resented and opposed by the others in his field, has not created a new type of music, like Mozart; rather he struggled for 10 years to perfect a revolutionary metal alloy that he hoped would make him a great deal of money. Dagny Taggart is a gifted and courageous woman who leads a campaign – not to defend France from England on the battlefield, like Joan of Arc – but to manage a transcontinental railroad and, against impossible odds, to build a new branch line critical for the survival of her corporation. Francisco d’Anconia, the enormously talented heir to an international copper company, poses as an idle, worthless playboy to cover up his secret operations – not to rescue people from the French Revolution, like the Scarlet Pimpernel – but to rescue industrialists from exploitation by ruthless Washington kleptocrats.
Economists have known for a long time that profits are an external measure of the value created by business enterprise. Rand portrayed the process of creating value from the inside, in the heroes’ vision and courage, their rational exuberance in meeting the challenges of production. Her point was stated by one of the minor characters of “Atlas,” a musical composer: “Whether it’s a symphony or a coal mine, all work is an act of creating and comes from the same source: from an inviolate capacity to see through one’s own eyes. … That shining vision which they talk about as belonging to the authors of symphonies and novels – what do they think is the driving faculty of men who discovered how to use oil, how to run a mine, how to build an electric motor?”
As for the charge, from egalitarian left and religious right alike, that the profit motive is selfish, Rand agreed. She was notorious as the advocate of “the virtue of selfishness,” as she titled a later work. Her moral defense of the pursuit of self-interest, and her critique of self-sacrifice as a moral standard, is at the heart of the novel. At the same time, she provides a scathing portrait of what she calls “the aristocracy of pull”: businessmen who scheme, lie and bribe to win favors from government.
Economists have also known for a long time that trade is a positive sum game, yet most defenders of capitalism still wrestle with the “paradox” posed in the 18th century by Adam Ferguson and Adam Smith: how private vice can produce public good, how the pursuit of self-interest yields benefits for all. Rand cut that Gordian knot in the novel by denying that the pursuit of self-interest is a vice. Precisely because trade is not a zero-sum game, Rand challenges the age-old moral view that one must be either a giver or a taker.
The central action of Atlas is the strike of the producers, their withdrawal from a society that depends on them to sustain itself and yet denounces them as morally inferior. Very well, says their leader, John Galt, we will not burden you further with what you see as our immoral and exploitative actions. The strike is of course a literary device; Rand herself described it as “a fantastic premise.” But it has a real and vital implication.
While it is true enough that free production and exchange serve “the public interest” (if that phrase has any real meaning), Rand argues that capitalism cannot be defended primarily on that ground. Capitalism is inherently a system of individualism, a system that regards every individual as an end in himself. That includes the right to live for himself, a right that does not depend on benefits to others, not even the mutual benefits that occur in trade.
This is the lesson that most people in business have yet to learn from Atlas, no matter how much they may love its portrayal of the passion and the glory possible in business enterprise. At a crucial point in the novel, the industrialist Hank Rearden is on trial for violating an arbitrary economic regulation.
Instead of apologizing for his pursuit of profit or seeking mercy on the basis of philanthropy, he says, “I work for nothing but my own profit – which I make by selling a product they need to men who are willing and able to buy it. I do not produce it for their benefit at the expense of mine, and they do not buy it for my benefit at the expense of theirs; I do not sacrifice my interests to them nor do they sacrifice theirs to me; we deal as equals by mutual consent to mutual advantage – and I am proud of every penny that I have earned in this manner…”
We will know the lesson of Atlas Shrugged has been learned when business people, facing accusers in Congress or the media, stand up like Rearden for their right to produce and trade freely, when they take pride in their profits and stop apologizing for creating wealth.
Friday night was Midnight Madness for Georgetown’s basketball team, the kickoff to what should be an absolutely terrific season. Sadly, this is the first one that I have missed, but I suppose I have to grow out of it sometime (ok, so actually, the growth of the program enabled only students who lined up at 5pm to get in…).
The team has high expectations for the year, and is already projected to be ranked anywhere from 5th to 8th in the preseason polls. However, with the 7’2″ Experience returning as well as four out of five starters, plus two All-Americans, I would say a title run is in order, and well within reach. Thankfully JTIII has received a six year contract extension, for the man deserves all the credit in the world for reviving the program.
Midnight Madness takes place all over the country at big program schools, and even though ESPN chose to broadcast Georgetown’s live, none have the intimate feel that McDonough Gymnasium can offer. The cavernous Verizon Center may be our main venue for home games, but it is always great to see the players introduced in front of 2,000 screaming students. Georgetown has also used MM and its showcase of our rich basketball heritage and devotion to the program to impress recruits, and many have committed after the event. This year’s may have been the stacked of all, as Greg Monroe, the #1 recruit in the country, along with twenty other recruits, were in attendance.
The festivities Friday night included dunking, a three point contest, unveiling our 2007 Final Four banner, as well as hanging Jeff Green’s jersey up to celebrate his joining of the NBA. But the best highlight must have been when Jerry Rice, the great 49ers’ wide reciever, was introduced, and Patrick Ewing Jr taught him the ‘Soulja Boy’ dance. Jerry Rice’s daughter is a sophomore at Georgetown and he particpated in “Dancing with the Stars” so perhaps it was only appropriate.
Here is the video:
Much more videos of the entire event can be found here.
I love that Roy Hibbert, who last year chose to do a Kevin Garnett entrance (clapping the chalk), spent his introduction jumping into the stands with the students, walking through them and high fiving all the way. For someone who gave up guaranteed millions as a lottery pick to return to give Georgetown a chance at a national title, it is great to see him as humble as ever and let them show their enthusiasm and thanks.
The euphoria certainly wasn’t lost on Greg Monroe, who announced a day later he would commit to Georgetown, before even visiting his other schools, Duke and UConn. Just incredible. A 6’10” 17 year old, with excellent grades, demeanor, excellent defense and unusually strong passing skills, the #1 recruit in the nation…what more could we have asked for? He will fit in perfectly in JTIII’s Princeton offense, and if a Final Four appearance didn’t announce Hoya Paranoia is back, this committment has.
Here is ESPN’s summary:
With more consistent effort, Greg Monroe could eventually emerge as the best player from the ’08 class.
Monroe has the ability to easily perform every task on the basketball court, much in the same manner in which Lamar Odom, another left-handed combo-forward, does for the Los Angeles Lakers. Monroe has smooth footwork and post moves, which allows him to easily score on the block, seeming just as comfortable facing up in the post or playing with his back to the basket. Despite his size, Monroe has the ability to consistently knock down perimeter jump shots with range that extends out to 15-17 feet. He has very good lateral quickness and surprisingly deft ball-handling skills for a player of his height.
Monroe places immense pressure on the opposition due to the match-up problems that he presents. When guarded by a bigger, slower post-player, Monroe uses his quickness to drive past the defender on the perimeter. If defended by a smaller perimeter player, Monroe can move into the post to exploit the size differential. He also runs the floor very well and has good leaping ability. Monroe also has very impressive vision and passing skills. He effectively rebounds the ball on both on the both ends of the court. Monroe also contests, alters and blocks shots on defense. If he plays with a high level on intensity on a consistent basis, increases his strength and adds muscle to his frame, Monroe will quickly evolve into an NBA-level prospect.
Due to his vast array of skills, Georgetown will utilize Monroe in a variety of ways. Monroe’s vision, passing skills and mobility will fit perfectly with JT3’s quick, motion offense that relies on passing, precision and teamwork. Monroe’s future teammates will find themselves on the receiving end of many outstanding passes, due to Monroe’s unselfish style of play and knack for spotting open teammates. The Hoyas will lose All-American center Roy Hibbert to graduation and will look to Monroe to help fill the considerable interior scoring void.
With Hibbert’s development over his four-year stint at Georgetown, JT3 has shown that he knows how to develop interior players similar to the way his father developed post players during the Golden Age of Georgetown Basketball, and Monroe will greatly benefit from Thompson III’s tutelage. Monroe has the lateral quickness and foot speed to run in Georgetown’s up-tempo offensive attack. Monroe will provide the Hoyas with shot-blocking ability and will learn to become a better defender while playing for Georgetown. In fact, he will initiate many fastbreaks by blocking a shot or grabbing a defensive rebound, running down the court and finishing on the offensive end. With the freedom to move from the perimeter to the post that the motion offense provides, Monroe will have a chance to showcase both his post-play ability and perimeter skills. Monroe gives the Hoyas with another ball-handler, making it increasingly difficult to press them. Along with current forwards DaJuan Summers and Vernon Macklin, Monroe will give John Thompson III the opportunity to attack the opposition with multiple alignments and use the high-low game to his advantage.
Monroe becomes the fourth prospect to commit to Georgetown, joining fellow ESPN 150 recruits 6-3 combo-guard Jason Clark (Arlington, Va.), 6-10 C Henry Sims (Baltimore, Md.) and 6-9 PF Chris Braswell (Chatham, Va.). With Monroe, Braswell, and Sims, the Hoyas have the chance to go big and play Monroe at the small forward spot. Monroe’s inside-outside game will mesh perfectly with the physical style of play that Braswell utilizes, allowing Monroe to play on the perimeter and use his considerable offensive skills on smaller perimeter players. Monroe, with his passing and shooting ability, can play on the perimeter and the Hoyas can run high-low sets with Monroe and Sims on offense.
With all three prospects having great shot-blocking ability and length, Georgetown will create defensive nightmares for the opposition when they attempt to score. With their propensity to block shots and rebounds, this impressive trio should provide plenty of extra scoring chances for the Hoyas through their defense. This collection of interior depth should remind Georgetown fans of the plethora of interior players that played on the 1984 National Championship team that featured Patrick Ewing and Michael Graham and the Alonzo Mourning/Dikembe Mutumbo teams of the early ’90s. Adding the explosive Clark to the equation gives JT3 the talented guard that flawlessly complements such great interior depth and will help lead the Hoyas on more deep NCAA Tournament runs in the very near future.
Here is the schedule for the season:
11/10/07 vs. William & Mary Verizon Center 12:00 p.m. ET
11/15/07 vs. Michigan Verizon Center 7:30 p.m. ET
11/21/07 at Ball State Worthen Arena 7:00 p.m. ET
11/28/07 at Old Dominion Convocation Center 7:00 p.m. ET
12/01/07 vs. Fairfield Verizon Center 1:00 p.m. ET
12/05/07 at Alabama Birmingham Civic Center 7:00 p.m. ET
12/09/07 vs. Jacksonville Verizon Center 1:00 p.m. ET
12/15/07 vs. Radford McDonough Aren 7:30 p.m. ET
12/22/07 at Memphis Fedex Forum 12:00 p.m. ET
12/29/07 vs. American Verizon Center 1:00 p.m. ET
12/31/07 vs. Fordham Verizon Center 2:00 p.m. ET
01/05/08 at Rutgers Rutgers Athletic Center 2:00 p.m. ET
01/08/08 at DePaul Allstate Arena 12:00 p.m. ET
01/12/08 vs. Connecticut Verizon Center 2:00 p.m. ET
01/14/08 at Pittsburgh Petersen Center 7:00 p.m. ET
01/19/08 vs. Notre Dame Verizon Center 12:00 p.m. ET
01/21/08 vs. Syracuse Verizon Center 7:00 p.m. ET
01/26/08 at West Virginia Morgantown 7:00 p.m. ET
01/30/08 at St. John’s MSG 7:00 p.m. ET
02/02/08 vs. Seton Hall Verizon Center 12:00 p.m. ET
02/05/08 vs. USF Verizon Center 7:30 p.m. ET
02/09/08 at Louisville Freedom Hall 9:00 p.m. ET
02/11/08 vs. Villanova Verizon Center 7:00 p.m. ET
02/16/08 at Syracuse Carrier Dome 12:00 p.m. ET
02/18/08 at Providence Dunkin Donuts 4:00 p.m. ET
02/23/08 vs. Cincinnati Verizon Center 12:00 p.m. ET
02/27/08 vs. St. John’s Verizon Center 9:00 p.m. ET
03/01/08 at Marquette Bradley Center 2:00 p.m. ET
03/08/08 vs. Louisville Verizon Center 12:00 p.m. ET
I came across this in the New York Times. Sure, I know about it, but the fact that now it can become water cooler talk by more than already boastful Ivy League grads sucks.
We used to be in the Orange Bowl. That’s right, Mississippi State vs. Georgetown, 1941. Look it up if you don’t believe me.
I know President DeGoia is a former footballer, but really, DC is not a great recruiting area, we have no facilities (nor the room for them if we tried) and our academic standards don’t exactly scream football school. Yeah, we aren’t Notre Dame (thank god) but it doesn’t look like former assistant Navy coach Kevin Kelly can call more than a couple of plays. I’ll give it time but losing 100-7 in two weekends makes me think this is not heading the right direction. As a former swimmer, I hate to see all that money spent on scholarships and equipment with essentially a negative return, when so many other sports could use even a fifth of the money to thrive.
Thank god Midnight Madness is upon us at last. Memphis, watch out. PE JR and the big fella know no mercy.
You don’t need to be a Ph.D. economist to know something big is happening in the job market.
The salaries of Wall Street’s financial engineers are surging while wages in industrial companies stagnate. Manufacturers complain about “skill shortages” while cutting payrolls. The number of health-care jobs soars 45% over 15 years, outstripping the 25% increase in other jobs. Computers seem to have infiltrated every job, yet demand for unskilled, low-wage immigrants doesn’t abate.
For decades, employers in the U.S. and other industrialized countries sought more skilled workers as technology and the availability of low-wage workers abroad diminished the employers’ appetite for lesser-skilled workers at home. It was painful, but simple: Employers of all sorts wanted more skills and more education, and paid more to get them.
How do you think the U.S. job market is changing? Should the government do anything to respond to those changes?
It is no longer that simple. Cue the Ph.D. economists.
There is still strong demand for high-end workers — the stars of finance, software, law, sports and entertainment — as well as for the highest-skilled factory workers. The only news is the intensity of that demand, which is pushing up pay for those at the top.
But — and here’s the switch — demand is increasing for some workers at the low end of the pay scale: the ones who wipe brows in hospitals, care for kids, clear tables at bistros and stand guard in office-building lobbies. In 1980, about 13% of workers without any college education were working in such personal-service jobs, according to calculations by David Autor, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology economist. In 2005, 20% of them were.
The losers? “The sagging middle,” says Princeton University economist Alan Krueger.
As Harvard economists Lawrence Katz and Claudia Goldin put it recently, “U.S. employment has been polarizing into high-wage and low-wage jobs at the expense of traditional middle-class jobs.”
Here’s the hypothesis evolving among these and other academics. Technology and globalization are boosting demand for the most-educated workers, those prized for abstract or conceptual skills. Top hedge-fund managers aren’t being replaced by computers; they’re harnessing them, to their great profit.
By contrast, technology and globalization are eroding demand for workers who do routine tasks in factories and offices, many of whom are high-school or even college grads. The voice-mail system does away with switchboard operators; back-office software eliminates bookkeepers; robots replace assembly-line workers. Or the work is shipped overseas to a foreign factory or an office linked to the U.S. by fiber-optic cables.
But technology and globalization are not eroding demand for personal-service workers. Those tasks can’t be done by computer or shipped offshore. The services have to be delivered here in the U.S. — and in person — either by natives or by immigrants.
Indeed, as the folks at the top make more money, more of them want nannies, gardeners, personal trainers and gourmet chefs. These workers are indirect beneficiaries of the upward flow of wealth.Their wages have been rising while those of midlevel factory and office workers, though still higher than those of many service employees, are stagnating.
Dissecting data on 741 American communities, MIT’s Mr. Autor and colleague David Dorn examined places that were particularly heavy with easy-to-automate or easy-to-outsource jobs in 1980. By 2005, they discovered, wage inequality in those communities had widened more than elsewhere. The erosion of jobs and wages in the middle coincided with increasing employment and wages for personal-service workers at the bottom of the income ladder and highly educated workers at the top.
Some economists speculate that the same economic forces are at play in Europe, but are hidden because rules and customs that restrain incomes at the top also restrain demand for personal-service workers at the bottom. That means less inequality than in the U.S., but also fewer jobs overall and more people on the sidelines, the ones who would be service workers if there were jobs to be had.
So what, if anything, should the U.S. do about this? That’s a harder question.
Economists warn that shoring up the middle by shielding manufacturing industries from imports or otherwise meddling with the market would cost consumers heavily. Some, certainly not all, suggest letting the market be, and using the tax code to transfer money from the biggest winners. Others suggest “professionalizing” personal-service jobs, perhaps encouraging unionization, to boost wages. Unlike factory jobs, advocates reason, these jobs can’t be moved offshore or automated if employers have to pay more.
The more popular solution — at least among economists — is a familiar one: Educate all workers so they are better at interpersonal or abstract skills (the jobs of the future) as opposed to dial-turning or keyboard-pounding (rapidly disappearing jobs of the past).
I have been meaning to see a lot of movies in the theater lately, and thanks to a certain incident at the Georgetown Loews theater, I was able to see two for the price of one this weekend.
I had heard some strong recommendations from friends to see the new Clooney flick Michael Clayton, so even though I was dying to see Eastern Promises, I went with my brother to the 7:30 showing. Well, without giving it away, the premise of the movie is a thriller (even though it pans out as the anti-Grisham movie), so half an hour in the audience (including myself) are locked up in suspense. I am surprised to see a couple enter the theater so late, but try to focus on the film.
However, they make their way towards the upper reaches of the cinema, and spot an empty seat directly in front of me. The man, about fifty years old, holds his wife’s hand and excuses his way through the aisle, much to the dismay of in our vicinity. He stops short at the empty seat, where a young man about my age is sitting in between it and another empty seat to his right. The husband asks the man to move over a seat, so he and his wife cna sit together, but he answers with a curt, “No,” and continues to wach the film. The man asks again, this time in a more angered tone, but receives the same response.
At this point he pulls out the sympathy card, telling him, “I just picked up my wife from the hospital. That is why I am late.” The young man proceeds to be engrossed in the movie, or perhaps just in George Clooney himself. The husband then pleads, “Please. She feels very sick. I want to be next to her in case she needs to throw up.”
At this point the charade had taken up several minutes, and the crowd around us grew restless, and those in the front stole glances at the commotion above. I was with the husband until that last comment, and was even contemplating giving up my seat, but this was too much. His wife, a waifish figure, was indeed holding her hand to her mouth, and did not look well at all. Which, needless to say, made me not want to put them directly behind me. Meanwhile, the three people further down the same row in question became disgruntled, and asked the man to sit down so we could watch the movie. There was a woman closest to the man, who must have said something that disgreed with him, because he immediately shot back a retort, although all I heard was, “Is this your wife?”. The woman then became really upset, and got up, to complain. As soon as she did, the man took her seat, and his wife sat down next to him. She then started yelling at the man with the sick wife, demanding her seat back, but he wouldn’t budge, and then her and her friends got up and headed to the exit, complaining of harassment.
A couple of minutes later, a cinema employee walked in and they pointed out the row where they had been sitting, but the employee did not do anything, perhaps realizing he would cause a commotion (or more thanthere was already – the one guy seriously looked like he was ready to clock the older man, ill wife be damned). The friends went back to their seats, but still visibly upset at the situation, and the woman did not have her seat back. They loudly remarked that they would get the police and press charges on the man. The man and his wife, meanwhile, were trying to watch the movie (which, by the way, between coming late and the drama unfolding before us, they could not possibly have understood). The wife, though, was bent over, her hands covering her mouth, emitting strange coughs and occasionally sounding like she was one heave short of letting a meal fly over her unfortunate forward seatmate’ head. This, and the strong remarks that continued be let loose by the woman and her friend’s resulted in pained looks towards our area, and by the time a cinema manager entered the theater anything Michael Clayton was resolving on screen could not match that which was taking place right there in the theater seats. Moments later three(!) DC Metro police entered, and asked that the man and his wife join them downstairs. The man escorted his coughing wife down the stairs, and we turned our attention back to the film.
As we left our seats, I heard two girls in front of me discussing what happend, and since they clearly were ignorant in what had caused such a disturbance, I gave them an executive summary, which only prompted looks of disbelief. As we reached the hallway, two thearter attendents were handed out free movie vouchers, as the manager profusely apologized for what went down. But we all decided for the extraordinary prices now being charged ($9.50 even using my expired student ID!), even something as disturbing as what we went through was worth the extra movie.
I ended up the following day seeing Into The Wild, the Sean Penn film based on the bestselling Jon Krakauer book by the same name. As a big fan of On The Road, I really liked this movie, even if it did drag on a bit at parts. Think road trip meets Man Vs. Wild, with great cinematography…what’s not to like?
I want to read the book now, which intersperses other adventure stories in with that of Christopher McCandless.
Here is the article that was the start of it all, although I feel like going into the movie blind made it more sensational.
Movie Grade:
Into the Wild A- A film that definitely will speak to people and stick with them after they have left the theater.
Michael Clayton B+ Well made, well acted. Takes a different slant and manages to hold audience.
Next up: Darjeeling Limited, Eastern Promises, and November 2nd, Bee Movie of course.
Yesterday night I went to the 930 Club to see Josh Ritter, an up and coming artist who is drawing comparisons to songwriting legends Paul Simon, Bob Dylan, and Bruce Springsteen. I came across his album Animal Years a while back, and was immediately drawn to his bare style and imaginative lyrics. His previous albums, such as Hello Starling, are grounded in a much more folk motif, but with this years’ The Historical Conquests of Josh Ritter, he has branched out to a style more reminescent of the alternative genre, while still reminding his listeners of his roots. His rise in the US coincided in a large part with “Girl in the War”, a song that takes a unique look at the side of a young man whose love is the one in the face of danger.
An Idaho boy, Josh never intended to become a musician, instead studying to become a neurologist like his parents. But while in college he bought a guitar at a KMart, and began composing. What is tantalizing is that he is still finding himself as an artist, despite his critical aclaim (Paste claims, “Put simply, Ritter is the most gifted interpreter of Americana, as an arranger and a lyricist, working today.”) He just learned to play the piano, and is beginning to dwelve in different genres, introducing rock infused drums and electric guitar, and the brass and sax of jazz, into his most recent work.
But what Ritter does that places him above his peers is write lyrics that tell a story and cleverly capture raw emotion. In “The Temptation of Adam”, he recounts his apocalyptic encounter with love:
I never had to learn to love her like I learned to love the Bomb
She just came along and started to ignore me
As we waited for the Big One
I started singing her my songs
And I think she started feeling something for me
We passed the time with crosswords that she thought to bring inside
What five letters spell “apocalypse” she asked me
I won her over saying “W.W.I.I.I.”
We smiled and we both knew that she’d misjudged me
The show itself at the 930 Club was a real treat, as Josh Ritter performed almost all of his hits, totaling over an hour and a half. A novice to the venue, I was barely 15 feet away, and felt the intimate feel of the packed house served his performance well. However, he claimed that this was the largest venue he had ever performed at, and seemed to be having the time of his life. Much of his previous years were spent touring, especially abroad, where he has a strong following, and he still seems starstuck with his success. NPR was broadcasting the performance live as well, so hopefully more fans will follow. Ritter entertained in between songs by recounting stories from his Idaho roots, providing some insight into the inspiration for his songs.
Here are two clips, many more can be found online. The first is the upbeat “To the Dogs or Whoever”, and the second is the more mellow “Girl in the War”.
What a year for sports do far. And not in the good way.
I was watching Marion Jones’ tearful apology yesterday on TV, and realized that cheating is so widespread in sports nowadays, it is a wonder athletes even feel compelled to apologize at all. Everyone seems to be doing it, and if these are the role models for those with aspirations, we could be in a lot of trouble.
Let’s begin with baseball, the American sport. From Jackie Robinson breaking the color barrier to the mighty Yankee teams to the great home run chase in 1998, this was supposed to be a sport that inspired and reflected the values that we hold so sacred to our heritage. But now the past is just shrouded in a mist of controversy and unsettling discoveries that leave us wincing as even the most pressing of questions are being answered.
We know Cameneti, the AL MVP, did steroids, and paid with his life. Jose Conseco told us steriod use was widespread. Baseball, and us, turned a blind eye. Then came the suspected users, and the BALCO investigation began. McGwire, a future hall of famer, went in front of Congress, and couldn’t deny using performance enhancing drugs. So testing began.
First it was the small fish, beginning with Alex Sanchez, an obscure pitcher for the lowly Devil Rays. Then MLB announced 38 minor leaguers tested positive, resulting in suspensions. Palmeiro, another potential hall of famer, denied using PEDs, wagging his finger at Congress, but tests found a serious steroid, stanozolol, in his system. Federal IRS agents raided pitcher Jason Grimsley’s home, collecting enough evidence to get Jason to name names. Those names? The best pichter of the last 30 years, Roger Clemens. The best shortstop in the game, Miguel Tejada. And a clutch postseaon veteran pitcher Andy Pettite. Not quite small fish at all, even if they were just names (for now).
Which brings us to 2007. Bond’s record breaking season, where he became baseball’s all time home run leader. And did anyone out of San Francisco care? Well, yes, because of the allegations of PED’s. We debated whether the commissoner should be present, whether Hank Aaron had an obligation to be there. While one of the most hallowed records in sports, Bond’s quest was not met with enthuasiasm, but disgust.
But there was a silver lining, in a player named Rick Ankiel. Once a promising young pitcher in the major leagues in 2000, one day he just couldn’t pitch anymore. Really. He hit batters left and right, throwing five wild pitches in one inning. Demoted to the minor leagues, he disappeared. And then there were rumours he was trying to make it as a hitter. This August, some seven years later after making his mark as a pitcher, he was called up by the Cardinals, and on his first day hit a three run homer. Two days later, he went 3-4 at the plate with two homers. As he slugged his way to a remarkable comeback, he was deemed “the Natural,” a true feel good story for the season. But then news broke that Ankiel received HGH shipments from January to December 2004. He claimed vehemently the drugs were prescribed for his recovery from Tommy John surgery, and technically baseball only banned HGH in 2005, but it was too late. This savior, this “natural”, was to many just another athlete who misled us and was willing to use drugs to get ahead.
The BALCO investigation led us Marion Jones, the Olympic sprinter who won five gold medals. She denied the charges, to the point of mocking the media. But this week she admitted to cheating, offering a tearful apology to the fans, her family, and her country. She gave up her medals, but the harm done to her sport, the USA, and her fellow competitors is irreparable. The feeling of earning a gold medal can not be emulated after the fact, and while her Olympic competitors may gain the medals back, it can only be a bittersweet justice.
Marion isn’t the only Olympic gold medalist accused of cheating. Justin Gaitlin, the gold medalist who tied the World Record time in the 100 m with a 9.77. But he, as well as seven other athletes under track coach Trevor Graham, have been found with illegal substances in their bloodstream. Gaitlin is currently serving an eight year ban from the sport. This spring, he tried out for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, in an effort to be a wide receiver in the NFL.
Which is only appropriate, because if there is one sport that continues to ignore cheating, it is football. Players are getting bigger and faster, and its not just hard work that gets them there. Look at Bill Romanowksi, a linebacker who won four Super Bowls. A “nutrition nut,” He is best remembered for his on field altercations, no doubt fueled by the drugs he used. These included breaking a quarterback’s jaw, kicking a player in the head, spitting in a player’s face, tossing a football into a player’s groin, and even punching a teammate (dislocating his eye socket and ending his career). And his reward? He was deemed a perennial Pro Bowler and future Hall of Famer. He later admitted he did steroids and human growth hormone, supplied by Victor Conte, the same man identified by the FBI in the case against Bonds. Does this admission show up on his Wikipedia page? No, it passes over this issue entirely – largely reflective of the attitude the NFL has taken. Sure, they test players, and occasionally some get snared, such as the NFL defensive player of the year Shawn Merriman, or the Patriot’s Rodney Harrison. Merriman even missed 4 games last year due to serving out his penalty – yet was still voted into the Pro Bowl. If the league and the fans won’t hold players accountable for such actions, why should bother policing themselves? Any high school football player would admit that they witness fellow players taking performance enhancers, proving that it never is too early to start to valuing the rewards over the risk. Of course, there are other ways to cheat in the NFL, as the Patriots proved when they were caught videotaping the Jets. Once again, the NFL put their business interests first, by allowing the infractor (Coach Belichick) to remain on the sideline coaching for the entire season, and, when they requested all tapes be handed over, destroyed them all quickly, claiming there was nothing to see. (Huh? If that doesn’t reek of a coverup, I don’t know what would.)
The United States also managed to join the rest of the cycling community when Floyd Landis was found with illegal substances in his system after winning the Tour de France. While cycling greats Ivan Basso and Jan Ullrich were pulled from the Tour de France for doping, the US looked like it had the rare clean winners in Lance Armstrong and Landis. But no sooner were we celebrating his termendous achievement, then Landis, too, like all the others before him, was just another dirty winner. After mutiple appeals, all rejected, Landis as of today has only one more (in front of the Court of Arbitration for Sport) with which to clean his name.
The spotlight on the drugs these athletes abuse extends even to such sports as wrestling, where steroid use is considered part of the job. The tragic death of Chris Benoit, of whom I wrote about earlier, highlighted the deadly consequences these chemical imbalances could inccur, not only on the individual’s health, but those around them. This week an investigation discovered that the doctor had prescribed too high a dosage of steroids, which contributed the head trauma preceding Chris’ murder of his family and suicide. Vince McMahon, in the name of his entertainment business, has done next to nothing to provide awareness of the danger his entertainers/athletes may be in, while we continue to tune in on our TVs.
And it is not as if it is hard to get steroids. ESPN published a story this month, where they detailed their efforts to set up a phony supplements company to try to procure such performance enhancers. Once they got in touch with a supplier (Florida’s IDS Sports) they were quickly able to place an order for what the contact described as “highly androgenic”. Without even showing any identification whatsoever, and forking over $1,000, they were able to receive four boxes of drugs. As the contact promised, the drugs proved negative after even the most rigorous drug tests. LA’s Antu-Doping Research Institute finally took a look, and discovered that the drug, Sostonal, contained Madol, a powerful designer steroid originally developed by BALCO chemist Patrick Arnold. One industry expert claimed, “No one is making this stuff in the U.S. The only place you can get it is China.”
A damning accusation indeed, especially with the Olympics in Beijing ahead in 2008. China has been scrambling to clean up its city for the occasion, banning cars and having its offical Weather Manipulation Office seed the air with chemicals to lift the orange tint from its polluted skies, even if only for a couple of weeks. It has cracked down on drug labs, and issued a law making suppplying any athletes, coaches, or sports federation performance enhancing drugs illegal. We can take for granted that Beijing will not fully solve its pollution problems, but let’s hope their efforts on behalf of producing clean athletes is met with as much rigor.
The bottom line is that cheating in sports has too long been overlooked and forgiven. Track has taken itself seriously, but its athletes continue to be on the cutting edge of new drugs, and push the limits. Baseball still has no standard random blood testing, and largely lives off of its revival from the Home Run Chase years. The NFL rewards its players with Pro Bowls. Cycling is almost defunct as a sport, since the best cyclists are constantly the ones doping and being banned.
When a professor, or author, commits plagerism, punishment is rarely handed out. When a student does, he can be expelled. Students largely refrain from such behavior because of the lack of leverage, and the dire consequences they may face. But it is not in the best interest for universities to take the same stance with those that bring name recognition and money. Therin lies the danger, that students can tune into any sporting event and see the risks being taken and see the rewards so great. It may not happen in college, but at some point, they will be reminded of this lesson, and know that cheating is only wrong when caught, but is more commonplace than playing it straight. Students are taught to bring their talents to an even playing field, but in reality will come across ones that they know are not. And at that moment, knowing that cheating is becoming a way of life, they will make that choice based not on what they ethically believe to be right or wrong, but what the reward could very well be.
There used to be four common life phases: childhood, adolescence, adulthood and old age. Now, there are at least six: childhood, adolescence, odyssey, adulthood, active retirement and old age. Of the new ones, the least understood is odyssey, the decade of wandering that frequently occurs between adolescence and adulthood.
During this decade, 20-somethings go to school and take breaks from school. They live with friends and they live at home. They fall in and out of love. They try one career and then try another.
Their parents grow increasingly anxious. These parents understand that there’s bound to be a transition phase between student life and adult life. But when they look at their own grown children, they see the transition stretching five years, seven and beyond. The parents don’t even detect a clear sense of direction in their children’s lives. They look at them and see the things that are being delayed.
They see that people in this age bracket are delaying marriage. They’re delaying having children. They’re delaying permanent employment. People who were born before 1964 tend to define adulthood by certain accomplishments – moving away from home, becoming financially independent, getting married and starting a family.
In 1960, roughly 70 percent of 30-year-olds had achieved these things. By 2000, fewer than 40 percent of 30-year-olds had done the same.
Yet with a little imagination it’s possible even for baby boomers to understand what it’s like to be in the middle of the odyssey years. It’s possible to see that this period of improvisation is a sensible response to modern conditions.
Two of the country’s best social scientists have been trying to understand this new life phase. William Galston of the Brookings Institution has recently completed a research project for the Hewlett Foundation. Robert Wuthnow of Princeton has just published a tremendously valuable book, “After the Baby Boomers” that looks at young adulthood through the prism of religious practice.
Through their work, you can see the spirit of fluidity that now characterizes this stage. Young people grow up in tightly structured childhoods, Wuthnow observes, but then graduate into a world characterized by uncertainty, diversity, searching and tinkering. Old success recipes don’t apply, new norms have not been established and everything seems to give way to a less permanent version of itself.
Dating gives way to Facebook and hooking up. Marriage gives way to cohabitation. Church attendance gives way to spiritual longing. Newspaper reading gives way to blogging. (In 1970, 49 percent of adults in their 20s read a daily paper; now it’s at 21 percent.)
The job market is fluid. Graduating seniors don’t find corporations offering them jobs that will guide them all the way to retirement. Instead they find a vast menu of information economy options, few of which they have heard of or prepared for.
Social life is fluid. There’s been a shift in the balance of power between the genders. Thirty-six percent of female workers in their 20s now have a college degree, compared with 23 percent of male workers. Male wages have stagnated over the past decades, while female wages have risen.
This has fundamentally scrambled the courtship rituals and decreased the pressure to get married. Educated women can get many of the things they want (income, status, identity) without marriage, while they find it harder (or, if they’re working-class, next to impossible) to find a suitably accomplished mate.
The odyssey years are not about slacking off. There are intense competitive pressures as a result of the vast numbers of people chasing relatively few opportunities. Moreover, surveys show that people living through these years have highly traditional aspirations (they rate parenthood more highly than their own parents did) even as they lead improvising lives.
Rather, what we’re seeing is the creation of a new life phase, just as adolescence came into being a century ago. It’s a phase in which some social institutions flourish – knitting circles, Teach for America – while others – churches, political parties – have trouble establishing ties.
But there is every reason to think this phase will grow more pronounced in the coming years. European nations are traveling this route ahead of us, Galston notes. Europeans delay marriage even longer than we do and spend even more years shifting between the job market and higher education.
And as the new generational structure solidifies, social and economic entrepreneurs will create new rites and institutions. Someday people will look back and wonder at the vast social changes wrought by the emerging social group that saw their situations first captured by “Friends” and later by “Knocked Up.”
So Be It? The dangers of defining “torture” down. BY BRET STEPHENS (WSJ)
It all but goes without saying that torture, properly defined and in nearly every circumstance, is wrong. But what do you make of the following statement, from a recent editorial in the Economist: “Dozens of plots may have been foiled and thousands of lives saved as a result of some of the unsavory practices now being employed in the name of fighting terrorism. Dropping such practices in order to preserve freedom may cost many lives. So be it”? The subject of torture is again in the news thanks to a front-page story last week in the New York Times. It claims that in 2005 the Justice Department issued secret legal memorandums authorizing what the paper calls “severe interrogations,” even after the administration had apparently renounced such methods. President Bush responded to the Times’s story, as he has previously, by insisting “this government does not torture people.” But the editorial writers at the Times were not impressed: “Is this a nation,” they asked, “that tortures human beings and then concocts legal sophistries to confuse the world and avoid accountability before American voters?”Two significant questions arise from this debate. First, what do we really mean by the word “torture”? And second, is the “So be it” standard put forward by the Economist a persuasive one?
The first question is not just a hairsplitting one, although a lot of hair gets split when government lawyers are asked for their opinion. Torture is a word that preserves its moral force only when used precisely and consistently to denote uniquely barbarous acts. “The needle under the fingernail” is one example. Simply to mention it causes most people instinctively to shudder.
By contrast, “slaps to the head,” among the examples cited by the Times of the administration’s “brutal” methods, doesn’t come close to meeting any plausible definition of torture. The other examples–“hours held naked in a frigid [50 degree Fahrenheit] cell; days and nights without sleep while battered by thundering rock music; long periods manacled in stress positions; or the ultimate, waterboarding”–come progressively closer to the line, and perhaps they cross it. But how do we tell?
A useful benchmark was offered by a landmark 1978 decision laid down by the European Court of Human Rights. In Ireland v. the United Kingdom, which dealt with Britain’s (extrajudicial) treatment of members of the Irish Republican Army, the court concluded that the following methods did not amount to torture:
“(a) Wall-standing: Forcing the detainees to remain for periods of some hours in a ‘stress position,’ described by those who underwent it as being ‘spreadeagled against the wall, with their fingers put high above the head against the wall, the legs spread apart and the feet back, causing them to stand on their toes with the weight of the body mainly on the fingers.’
“(b) Hooding: Putting a black or navy colored bag over the detainees’ heads and, at least initially, keeping it there all the time except during interrogation.
“(c) Subjection to noise: Pending their interrogations, holding the detainees in a room where there was a continuous loud and hissing noise.
“(d) Deprivation of sleep: pending their interrogations, depriving the detainees of sleep.
“(e) Deprivation of food and drink: subjecting the detainees to a reduced diet during their stay at the center and pending interrogations.”
Remarkably, the European Court reached this careful judgment despite the fact that the “five techniques were applied in combination, with premeditation and for hours at a stretch” and that some of the detainees sustained “massive” injuries. The court’s reasoning wasn’t meant to excuse the behavior of British authorities, which it rightly described as “inhuman and degrading.” But by maintaining the “distinction between ‘torture’ and ‘inhuman or degrading treatment,’ ” the court sought to preserve the “special stigma [attached] to deliberate inhuman treatment causing very serious and cruel suffering.”
These distinctions are not “legal sophistries,” as the Times would have it. They are a juridical necessity to ensure that our definition of torture does not become so diluted as to render its prohibition unenforceable. But the abuse of the word does have its rhetorical uses: As with the militant anti-abortion movement, which believes that every abortion is murder and thus that every abortionist is a “murderer,” the Times editorialists and their fellow travelers would characterize anyone who favors so much as touching a hair on 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed’s head as “pro-torture.” This isn’t argument. It’s moral bullying.
For the record, count me as one who does not object to the interrogation to which KSM was reportedly subjected, including waterboarding. This is not because I take the use of waterboarding lightly (although I have a hard time concluding that a technique, however terrifying, to which CIA officers are willing to subject themselves experimentally can properly be counted as torture). It’s because I take the threat posed by KSM seriously.
That makes it difficult for me to subscribe to the “So be it” line of reasoning. Taken seriously, it says that the civilized world would be better off sustaining a nuclear 9/11 than tarnishing its good name, that righteous victimhood is a finer thing than an innocent life saved through morally compromised methods, and that self-preservation is not the most fundamental requirement of democratic life.
In nearly all conflicts, even existential ones, limits should be observed, and it’s worth thinking through where exactly the limits lie. But when the moral trade-off comes down to KSM waterboarded in order to extract actionable intelligence, or some mother’s child murdered, it’s not a tough call. And no amount of inflated, imprecise and tendentious allegations of torture should change that.
I was surfing YouTube today checking out music videos when I came across a slew of live performances of Dire Straits. I grew up listening to the band, who really made their mark in the early 80s, and the combination of great lyrics and masterful guitar playing by Mark Knopfler never ceases to amaze me. I discovered that The Killers did a cover of their song “Romeo and Juliet” recently, and was able to pull up a version of this as well. I’m still predisposed to the orginal (the sax part which begins at about the 6:40 mark is great), but I think the sound of The Killers ended up serving them well for this song.
Dire Straits
The Killers
A lovestruck romeo sings a streetsus serenade
Laying everybody low with me a lovesong that he made
Finds a convenient streetlight steps out of the shade
Says something like you and me babe how about it ?
Juliet says hey it’s romeo you nearly gimme a heart attack
He’s underneath the window she’s singing hey la my boyfriend’s back
You shouldn’t come around here singing up at people like that
Anyway what you gonna do about it ?
Juliet the dice were loaded from the start
And I bet and you exploded in my heart
And I forget the movie song
When you wanna realise it was just that the time was wrong juliet ?
Come up on differents streets they both were streets of shame
Both dirty both mean yes and the dream was just the same
And I dreamed your dream for you and your dream is real
How can you look at me as if I was just another one of your deals ?
Where you can fall for chains of silver you can fall for chains of gold
You can fall for pretty strangers and the promises they hold
You promised me everything you promised me think and thin
Now you just says oh romeo yeah you know I used to have a scene with him
Juliet when we made love you used to cry
You said I love you like the stars above I’ll love you till I die
There’s a place for us you know the movie song
When you gonna realise it was just that the time was wrong juliet ?
I can’t do the talk like they talk on tv
And I can’t do a love song like the way it’s meant to be
I can’t do everything but I’d do anything for you
I can’t do anything except be in love with you
And all I do is miss you and the way we used to be
All do is keep the beat and bad company
All I do is kiss you through the bars of a rhyme
Julie I’d do the stars with you any time
Juliet when we made love you used to cry
You said I love you like the stars above I’ll love you till I die
There’s a place for us you know the movie song
When you gonna realise it was just that the time was wrong juliet ?
A lovestruck romeo sings a streetsus serenade
Laying everybody low with me a lovesong that he made
Finds a convenient streetlight steps out of the shade
Says something like you and me babe how about it ?
Here is Mark performing his “Local Hero/Wild Theme”, showing off his unique finger picking style and getting notes out of his guitar most professionals can only dream of…
Apparently an award-winning commercial development firm in Washington, D.C., will present design plans this week for a grand “Tower of Invincibility”. The proposal is that it be built in the nation’s capital as a permanent monument celebrating freedom, sovereignty, and peace in America.
Mr. Abramson will hold a news conference to present the plans on Friday, October 5, at 11 a.m. (ET) at the Hay-Adams Hotel, 16th and H streets, NW, in Washington. The event will be webcast live at www.TowerofInvincibilityDC.org.
Mr. Abramson said the people will decide where the Tower of Invincibility will be built. “Everyone is invited to visit the website http://www.TowerofInvincibilityDC.org. and submit three possible locations in Washington for the Tower of Invincibility in the order of their preference. Invincibility is the domain of every citizen and therefore everyone should have input on where this great testament to national invincibility will be built,” Mr. Abramson said.
Wow, as if we did not already have an uber phallic symbol in our capital, nor a freedom tower in our financial capital designed to be 1776 ft tall. I almost want to attend the meeting on Friday to see if I can make further suggestions…like making it look like a middle finger to the rest of the world.
We all know Facebook dominated our college lives (but never work, right?), and then before you could say “news feed” high schoolers were prowling the pages. And then even our parents. Facebook then went abroad, becoming the fastest growing network in the UK, with 500,00 users and growing in London alone.
For number nerds, here is what that growth has looked like:
A Selection of Leading Social Networking Sites Ranked by European Unique Visitors* Total European, Age 15+ – Home and Work Locations** Source: comScore
Property
Total Unique Visitors (000)
Jan 2007
July 2007
% Change
Total European Internet Audience
218,063
224,759
3%
MYSPACE.COM
20,341
25,176
24%
Skyrock Network
11,327
13,785
22%
BEBO.COM
7,461
12,101
62%
FACEBOOK.COM
2,066
10,795
422%
HI5.COM
6,979
9,554
37%
PICZO.COM
7,557
8,035
6%
NETLOG.COM
8,140
7,450
-8%
DADA.NET
4,957
6,689
35%
MSN Groups
6,941
5,528
-20%
BADOO.COM
1,923
5,192
170%
*Based on a selection of comparable sites, does not constitute a direct ranking.** Excludes traffic from public computers such as Internet cafes or access from mobile phones or PDAs.
The next stop? A language specific Facebook seems inevitable. We all know Europeans love to get along (see: WWI, WWII, EU Constitution) so look for Facebook to build its global network. However, it will have to overcome some obstacles. Those resolute Germans still swear by piczo.com, and haven’t latched onto the Facebook the way the Brits have. And sneaky France? They have created Facebook Paris already, a site hosted through the social network Ning. My guess is that Zuckerberg forgot to register the domain name, and either a lawsuit or a crapload of money is due for the creators.
Maybe your affinity for Facebook began with a simple desire to keep in touch with your friends, or make new ones online. Or perhaps you were just bored. But now Facebook is the thorn in your side, and possibly a bona fide addiction. If you’re finding it difficult to spend an hour of your waking life without checking or thinking about Facebook, you may be looking for a way out. This is it.
Wikinvest
Monday also marks the launch of Wikinvest, a web site co-founded by former Amazon.com manager Mike Sha. Similar to any other wiki site, users can edit articles or contribute new information, and the site is constantly updated with the most recent stock quotes and data. Companies are listed with company history, stock symbol, current stock outlook, bullish and bearish comments from visitors and members, and stock history graphs. The Concepts section even allows users to list a company or product (for example, the iPhone) that may affect the future of other companies.
This could be a great source for misinformation (just like wikipedia) but also may prove to be just as useful as well. Those that edit comments can at least be tracked with an IP address, and the Bulls/Bears forum essentially allows any viewpoint to be heard. Wall Streeters may snub the tool, but Main Street and a Jim Cramer audience may find themselves exploring the simplified format for investment ideas and feedback.
The site is but one day old, so contributions are still in high demand. But check out Apple or GE for some idea what the site may look like in a long run.
Most people who knew Gabriel Hammond at Johns Hopkins in the late 1990s could have predicted he would rise quickly on Wall Street. As a freshman, he traded stocks from his dorm room, making a $1,000 bet on Caterpillar. Soon after, he abandoned his childhood dream of becoming a lawyer and, upon graduation, joined Goldman Sachs as a stock analyst.Three years into his new job, Mr. Hammond noticed something. Very few of his young co-workers were taking a hiatus from Wall Street to go to business school, long considered an essential rung on the way to the top of the corporate ladder.
So he, too, decided to forgo an M.B.A.. Instead, he raised $5 million and started his own hedge fund, Alerian Capital Management, in 2004. The fund now manages $300 million out of offices in New York and Dallas, and Mr. Hammond, 28, enjoys seven-figure payouts.
Like other young people on the fast track, Mr. Hammond has run the numbers and figures that an M.B.A. is a waste of money and time – time that could be spent making money. “There’s no way that I would consider it,” he says.
So begins a recent New York Times article, “Bye Bye, B-School”, which addresses the current state of business schools, long seen as the key gateway to successful careers on Wall Street and beyond. Costs of attending school are up, attending is as competitive as ever…but is B school worth it?
The fact is, as the article points out, B school is increasingly losing its cache. The fast paced world of business today no longer grants the luxury of taking two years off and losing industry experience, nor is what is taught in the schools necessarily valued by employers.
“If you want to make the most money in the shortest period of time, you can’t be away from work for two years,” says Vitaly Dukhon, 30, who recently left the Fortress Investment Group in New York to join another hedge fund.
While in college at Harvard, Mr. Dukhon thought he would go to business school in his mid-20s, but in his first job on the Treasury desk at Deutsche Bank, he realized that the smartest people just a few years his senior were staying put. “I saw that people that had been working for 20 years did have M.B.A.’s, but people five to six years older than me were not going,” he says. “Going to business school is a way for people to try to open the door, to try to get into a company or hedge fund. But if you’re already there, it doesn’t make sense to go.”
Mr. Hammond of Alerian noticed the same trend while he was an analyst at Goldman Sachs. His co-workers who went to business school either wanted to change careers, or they were not doing well in their current jobs, he says.
In other words, business school is a place to change careers, not enhance them. This is a sobering message being sent out to elite insitututions that pride themselves on on their influence. But both recruiters and even the professors themselves are claiming that the primary mission of the schools, education, is too often passed over for the goal of placing those few in lucrative career fields:
Next month, Prof. Khurana of Harvard is publishing a critique of business schools’ evolution over the past 50 years. His book, “From Higher Aims to Hired Hands,” argues that famous B-schools, including Harvard, have lost track of their original mission to produce far-sighted leaders who can help the economy run better….”The logic of stewardship has disappeared,” he says. Panoramic, long-term thinking has given way to an almost grotesque obsession with maximizing shareholder value over increasingly brief spans.
As a result, he declares, getting an advanced degree in business no longer amounts to entry into a full-fledged profession, like law or medicine. It’s just a badge that lets graduates latch onto situations where they can jostle the actual managers of companies and make a lot of money for themselves in the process.
For his part, Prof. Khurana would like to see business schools take much more aggressive steps to mend their ways. He is impressed by the ways that law and medical schools certify graduates’ knowledge and require lifelong continuing education. Perhaps business schools should do something similar, he suggests.
Yet Prof. Khurana has identified an important imbalance. In the current environment, many brilliant young M.B.A.s don’t aspire to be corporate chief executive officers, who struggle to uphold their agendas against pressure from all sides. These students would rather be consultants who earn big money fomenting change. Better yet, they want to be the powerful investors who hire and fire CEOs.
Until those dynamics change, it will be hard for top business schools to resume their traditional – and vital – role as training grounds for the next generation of corporate leaders.
This is reiterated by a recent WSJ report on recruiter’s picks for business schools. University of Michigan’s Business School, Ross, fell from the number one ranking in recruiters’ eyes. Why? Students had too much a sense of entitlement versus experience and education, they say. It seems as if the schools are building up expecations, rather than provide industry ready graduates. In the New York Times article, one student from Tepper is hired upon receiving his MBA – not because of his degree, but his computer background from his previous years of study and work.
The one value business schools unequivocally offer is a network of graduates who are established in their fields and can provide meaningful connections for entry. However, as the NYT article pointed out above, this point is mute if the candidate already should have proven themselves in their field, and truly is most helpful to those who truly have reverted from one career path to the other.
Two personal experiences shed light on the MBA for me.
I attended a MBA session attended by representatives by all the major B school players (Stanford, MIT, Penn, etc.) several months ago. It was a crowded room, with many eager 20 somethings looking for hints on getting in and how to differentiate the different schools. My question for the day was, “How come B Schools universally claim to develop great leaders, when in fact 90% of those I personally know attending are only going because their 80 hr week jobs require them to after 2 years?” Their answer, in effect, was: “If you don’t have extracurriculars to put in your leadership section, that’s fine. We can’t expect you to do a lot if you are working a busy job.” So…those earning high pay, whose jobs sponsor their MBA, and are mostly lackeys for their high finance bosses, get a pass at this? I suppose it is hard for them to do different, but in truth I feel this is one reason why many entrepreneurs and movers and shakers don’t come out of Wharton – B School can be very self selective in this way. On the other hand, the B Schools were desperate for career changers as well, maybe because of the discussed trend, noting that GREs are as acceptable as GMATs. One attendee asked what distinguished each program from the next, which absolutely killed the panel. They didn’t want to bash the other schools, and didn’t want to claim their superiority in one field at risk of demoting another. Most pandered and said the people. Someone else asked why the shoudn’t just go to Europe, and in a global world, why they should stay in the U.S. .The answer here was that schools were creating global campuses…but really, this is not the same thing, just playing catch up, and may be another way to score dough from those MBA bound. This left me with the conclusion that business schools, unlike undergraduate studies, may attract certin individuals, but don’t create great businessmen. More Fortune 500 CEOs come from state schools than anywhere else, those that were in high finance are back after a mandatory MBA, and those looking to enter business may just end up with a more advanced network depending how high up the B school ladder they go. But come recruiting time, great leaders will have been great leaders before B school, and quant whizzes could probably have saved themselves two years.
I once interviewed at a startup and ended up being passed over for someone with an MBA. Barely out of school, and I was seriously considered for the role. I lost out not because the other candidate had an MBA, because, as the CEO said, “those mean nothing these days,” but because the other person had startup experience.
Nevertheless, I admit B School will still be seen as a requirement in certain industries, and for this reason for the foreseeable future they will still be holding the cards in their hand. My brother, who started his own successful company abroad and has never been to B school, found a position at qualification-obsessed Google only after he could convince them a high GMAT score taken years ago and excellent experience was just as good as any MBA. He was hired, but remains one of few without that extra certification. Even if Google covered the cost now, would it be worth it? The trend apparently says no.
Will I go to B school? Someday maybe, with a clear purpose. And I may richer for it, but certainly not much smarter.
It turns out our lives aren’t necessarily always dictated by our genes. Scientists are now discovering that the murky material inbetween our genes – non coding DNA, or ‘junk DNA’ – is in fact more vital than we ever realized.
Whereas many traits have been attributed to our genetic code, from diseases to our psychosis, research teams have determined that diabetes and even cancer stem from more than a muted gene. Instead, they result from processes occuring in these areas once referred to as genomic wastelands.
If this doesn’t make you believe we have only scratched the surface of human disovery, nothing will…
My coworkers and I frequently shared Metro stories with each other, because life is never boring on the Red and Orange lines during rush hour. That it is, until she moved close to the office, and I was the only one left with the strange Metro encounter stories.
Here is my most awkward commute ever, on the way back from work yesterday.
1) I enter into the Orange Line Metro car, and look around for a seat. The handicap seat is open, with a short but stocky man occupying the adjoining seat. I turn around to sit down, suddenly feeling a hand underneath my ass. It was the man next to me. I kinda of jumped up, and he too looked surprised. Apparently he was half asleep, not awake as it seemed, and while I assumed his hand, which was resting next to him, would be withdrawn as poeple were sitting down, he did not, resulting in a very uncomfortable situation.
2) As we are nearing Metro Center, the train slows down (as it, and every other Metro car, normally does). Yet some woman dressed in a power suit goes flying literally five yards down the aisle and lands in my lap. I was too stunned to react, but others helped her to her feet, but it took a while to get her up, as I could do little but have my body serve as a seat cushion for about ten seconds until the momentum of the train slowed.
3) Finally free of the Metro, I make my way home. Near the Soviet Safeway, a mom is walking with a kid ahead of her. The kid, barely higher than my knee, is running towards me down the sidewalk yelling with glee, and as he comes close to me, raises his left hand in the air. Confused, but certainly not wanting to leave him hanging, I stick out my left hand in a friendly manner to slap him high five.
The kid nears me, hand still raised, and runs smack into my hand.
With his face.
Fuck, I guess he wasn’t going for a high five…What the hell else was that? A sieg heil? The momentum from running into my hand wheels him to the side and knocks him down. I was staring ahead at this time still, walking forward, so I could see the mother’s reaction. She just had this look of utter shock on her face, as if I had just smit her firstborn. Which I might well have done, but I wasn’t sticking around to find out. The kid seemed ok, and not wanting to make this more awkward than it was, continued on, The Killers playing in my IPod.
Tourist lady: Where’s the ladies’ room? Waiter: Top of the stairs on the left. Tourist lady: I was just up there. It’s not marked for ladies, so I was afraid to use it. Waiter: It’s a unisex. Tourist lady: Excuse me? Waiter: It’s for everyone. Men and women. Tourist lady: You’re all going to hell. Do you know that?
–Bar 89, Mercer St Girl: So, do you know anything about the Holocaust?
Roommate: Like what? Girl: I don’t know — like, fun facts or something?
–Dorm, Columbia Coworker #1: Is it just me, or are the rats in New York getting smaller? Seriously! Coworker #2: Maybe you’re just getting bigger.
–D train platform, Rockefeller Center Asian mom to child in stroller: You feel trapped? Well, so do I. Now you know how I feel.
–51st & 3rd JAP on cell: I mean, the one thing I hate more than communism is arts and crafts!
–NYU Yuppie to toddler sitting on friend’s lap: … And the benefit of wearing Nike clothing is that it’s made by children not much older than you.
–Central Park Teen: So, this one time I got kicked out of Barnes and Noble for moving all the Bibles to the ‘Fiction’ section…
–74th & Columbus Customer to cashier: Can I have a job application, please? Cashier to manager: I need a job application for this guy. Manager: Why in the hell would you want to work here? I’m trying to quit!
–McDonald’s, Queens College Woman on cell: I mean, my God — do I look like I’ve had children? Suit passerby: Yes.
–53rd & Lex Sketchy dude #1: So, what you do is you buy crack, and then you tell the cops where you got the crack, and then you get to keep the crack! Sketchy dude #2: And what’s that called again? Sketchy dude #1: Court informer. Sketchy dude #2: Yeah, court informer. I’m gonna be that!
–A train Office woman: So, what is Matt up to these days? Delivery man: He just got a job as a fudge packer. Office woman: Oh, that sounds exciting! Tell him I said hello!
–23rd & Park Hobo yelling to college couple: Hey, bro! Hit that pussy tonight, bro! Another male passerby: Yeah — better do what the man says!
–114th & Broadway Lawyer at deposition: What is your native language? West Indian woman, offended: English! Lawyer: Lady, you must speak some other language, because I’ve been questioning you for an hour and I haven’t understood a goddamn word you said.
–Supreme Court, 360 Adams St, Brooklyn Chick #1 on cell: I mean, have you ever shaved your pussy and then a couple of nights later you can’t sleep because it itches so bad? Chick #2: Um, hello, we can all hear you. Chick #1 to #2: Well, has it ever happened to you? Chick #2: Well, yeah, but I don’t tell the whole subway.
–F train Guy #1: I’ve been playing the guitar for years. Guy #2: You play guitar like Bette Midler has sex. Guy #1: Fuck you.
–86th & Lex platform 45-year-old man: … And since I’m on my way to a business meeting, this drink I just bought you is tax deductible. College girl: Well, that’s nice, I guess. 45-year-old man: Yeah, you’ve got a big butt and you’re tax deductible. That’s how I like them.
–Coffee Shop Bar, 14th St Smoker chick: I lose lighters like I lose men.
–Central Park
Boy staring at dinosaur fossil: Dude, these animals died a lot. Friend: Word.
–Museum of Natural History Hipster girl #1: I was blowing him and it was taking, like, 20 minutes, so I finally told him to hurry up since my jaw was hurting. Hipster girl #2: I hate that! How can they take that long to just finish?
Suit nearby: If you would do it right, it would only take two minutes.
–2 train Hoochie #1: Wait, he has a kid? Hoochie #2: Yeah! Crazy, right? Hoochie #1: So, are you going to be a step-mommy? Hoochie #2: No, no, no… Not a step-mommy. I’m the slutty, hot, 25-year-old that fucks Daddy.
–Astor Pl Chick: So, today I went to the doctor, and in the waiting room there was this gay guy who told me he liked my Steve Maddens. [Three guys across from her stare blankly.] Oh my god, I’m eating dinner with three straight men.
–Restaurant, 6th Ave Woman passerby: Come on, you fucking tourists! Get a life! It’s only a fucking cupcake! Girl in line, mockingly: Oh my god, you’re making such an important social statement! Old lady in line: Seriously, it’s not our fault she’s a fat bitch.
–Magnolia Bakery, Bleecker St D.A.R.E. volunteer: Sir, before you leave, would you please– Rushing guy, interrupting: –Do I look like I just say no to drugs? D.A.R.E. volunteer: We don’t pre-judge people.
–Outside Marshalls, Atlantic Center, Brooklyn Chick #1: Hey, you ever been with a guy and then his mom calls, and he, like, picks up? Chick #2: You mean during sex?! Chick #1: Yeah. Chick #2: Hell no! Chick #1: So, you’ve never been with a Jewish guy, then? Girl #1: So, now I’m going to need a new roommate, I think. Girl #2: Wait… Let me get this straight — you walk in, she’s on the bed, nude, rolling around on a bunch of pearls? Girl #1: Yeah. Our jewelry had just arrived from ShangBy, and I guess she got excited… Want a pearl necklace?
–58th & 5th Girl #1: Are any of our friends not in therapy? Girl #2: Yeah, Jeanie isn’t. Girl #1: But that’s ’cause she can’t afford it. Girl #3: Jeanie’s not rich? Girl #1: No.
–Cupcake Café, 9th Ave Hobo: Hey, kids, read a book, stay in school, and don’t do drugs! Woman: Come on, kids, don’t talk to strange, crazy people. What did I tell you about that?! [To hobo, who looks insulted] It’s nothing personal — I just don’t want them to, like, get kidnapped or something, you know? Hobo: Oh… Oh, um, yeah, I understand… [When woman’s out of earshot] Bitch.
Sorting through the maze that is the internet can be quite daunting, and every so often tools pop up that make finding the latest news, videos, or articles that much easier. So I was very grateful to discover Popurls, which is a great central hub and dashboard for what is moving the internet at any given moment. I definitely recommend checking it out…
My brother, who works at Google, organized an Ultimate Frisbee game against Facebook several weeks ago, and Google proceeded to lose. This prompted Facebook to leak this information out to Valleywag, the irreverant blog of Silicon Valley gossip, who wrote the story up under the heading, “Facebook Delivers Ultimate Humiliation to Google“, and in which one girl claims that they are looking to hire geat engineers and asks others to include Frisbee skills on their resumes. I don’t think this went over so well back on the Google Campus, especially since founder Sergey Brin has been known to disc it. But I also think they were pissed that a friendly game turned into a marketing opportunity (I wonder if they would have done the same?)
Well, another match was set up for last Tuesday, and since I needed to pick my brother up to go to my other’s brother’s house for dinner, and I would have to wait anyway there for him to finish playing, he suggested that me and my twin join in, especially as some main people were out for Google. So I picked him and several Googler’s up from Campus and headed to the Stanford fields, where the game was taking place. The Googlers had three times as many people show up, but Facebook’s best players were a lot better, including several who played for Stanford and club teams in the area. So the depth didn’t really help at all, as their best players remained on the field. It was a fun game though, and even though my twin and I were rarely on the field at the same time and hardly effected the outcome (guarding good players without wearing cleats is near impossible) we gelled toward the end, and lost 15-12 (hey, 1 pt improvement!). We then started playing a mixed game, but it got dark out – regrettably, since I think this would have been fun. It was cool to meet some people from both companies, although I realized that it is a very homogenous group, with the majority coming from MIT, Stanford, and Harvard.
It turns out that this game was written up in Valleywag again, under the headline, “Facebook Repeats Google’s Ultimate Humiliation“. I guess this would suck if anyone other than myself read this blog. I am even mentioned, “…some believe the Googlers may have brought on ringers who don’t actually work for the company.” It’s too bad we didn’t win the game, otherwise I may have been a better “ringer”. They must have been ok with it at the start, beacuse clearly all three brothers did not work at Google at the same time – any such company would not make it though the week. I suggest Sergey cleat up next time, as well as if some who couldn’t make it get some extra motivation to spank Facebook next time.
Either that or I will have to add my resume to the pile at Google. Sergey, I could really help you perfect that crossfield hammer…
It’s weird, once you get used to writing and reading each day, even a short break can make you feel strangely disconnected. I know others out there blog from their vacations, but I literally was in the middle of nowhere…the desert that is Blackrock City, Nevada.
Yes, I was at the Burning Man Festival, 21st edition. For all those Easterners, this will mean very little, or as one friend IM’ed me:
Friend: YOU HIPPIE POTHEAD
Friend: (OK, secretly cool…)
Which kinda sums up the general reaction of those who have heard of it before. In fact, apparently most of my friends had heard of the festival through the show RENO 911, in which they go undercover and then get pulled over by the police who think they are smuggling drugs. Here is the only clip I could find.
As the clip suggests, it’s a festival of “self reliance and self expression” and yes, crazy costumes (though maybe not Lt. Dangle crazy…) But really, this doesn’t begin to describe it, and all preconceptions go out the window once you are actually there.
I was invited by my older brother, who is living in San Francisco, and went last year for the first time, and insisted that me and my twin bro go. I had seen a few photos from his trip, but it was difficult to tell what exactly this festival was about. I knew it had a “liberal”, or “hippie” as people here tend to call it, vibe and that I should be prepared for this. I’m pretty open minded, and this didn’t scare me off. So a couple of weeks ago I received a list from my brother of supplies for the trip, ranging from funky costumes to camel baks, and flew out to Oakland.
On my stopover in Dallas I was halfpaying attention to a CNN screen in front of me in the waiting area while finally reading The World Is Flat when I heard “Burning Man” mentioned. I looked up and found out that 1) yes, CNN does cover this perhaps not so alternative festival and 2) the Green Man, the wooden man sculpture to be burned on Saturday night, had prematurely been set ablaze by an arsonist. Here was the mug shot:
What? I hadn’t even reached the festival and the Man already burned? And by this dude nonetheless (although I admit that mug shot is classic). However, the anchor reported that a small, modified version of the Man would be built in time for the weekend. But apparently I missed a lunar eclipse as well as the actual Burning already.
(Incidentally, the arsonist was bailed out by his friend and at the festival on Saturday, signed autographs. Rumors persist it was an inside job (I have doubts) and a reaction against the corporate nature the festival has taken on as its popularity has increased (although in the video he released on Sunday he goes off on an Iraq tangent, which probably is more to garner sympathy than anything else). He does seem a bit, uh, not all there.)
My flight to California was led by a very interested pilot, who took us over Four Corners, Lake Powell, Grand Canyon, Zion, Canyonlands, and Bryce Canyon, plus a desert I can’t remember the name of. I had been to all these places in my childhood, so it was fascinating to see them from above. I snapped some cool pictures as well, and included them in my photos…
It was after arriving in the wonderful city of Oakland that I experienced many firsts, from renting my first car (being under 25 is expensive!), and visiting my first Wal-Mart (it was inevitable). Wal Mart does, in fact, have everything one would ever need, and to add to the convenience it was right next to the airport, so I could buy the brunt of supplies while waiting for my brother’s flight to land. I stocked up with everything from flashlights to Cup-of-Soup, and, since apparently my last line of defense in the desert is wet wipes, made sure to buy plenty of those. I tried to find the guns a la “Bowling for Columbine” but somewhat disappointingly there weren’t any, only a couple of paintball guns behind a counter. So I headed to checkout with my cart full of goodies, and unloaded a weeks worth of food and camping supplies.
The lady scanning my items, a heavy set black woman, stared at me quizzically,then asked, “You goin’ to that Burnin’ Man thing?”
“Um, actually…yeah.”
“Aw, I knew it…someone else just came through here.”
“Oh, really?” I laughed.
“That’s in the desert right? Where is it?”
“Uh, north of Reno, I think.”
“That’s crazy…They have drugs over there?”
“Well…I guess so. I mean, that’s what I hear.” Is this my mother? or a sting operation?
Suddenly interested, pressing: “Like what? They got shrooms? ecstasy?…”
“Uh, well… think of it like the Wal-Mart of drugs. You can probably find anything.” And I left it at that.
So that was my first Wal-Mart experience, although not my last of the day. My older brother called as I left and insisted I go back and get a Wal-Mart bike, so I returned once more, and after a very animated employee brought me and a young couple to the back of the warehouse to check out the bikes, and clearly checking the spoken for girl out, and deciding my brother would not go for the pastel blue and pink girl’s bike, I was told to go the next Wal-Mart..two exits down the highway. Which basically resulted in me getting lost in Alameda for a bit, finally getting a $70 bike at the other Wal-Mart, and then fighting through rush hour to make it to Russian Hill.
We packed up and headed up to Gerlach, Nevada the next morning. Somewhere north of Sacramento, my older brother realized that he left the tickets for Burning Man at home. So…we drove all the way back, got the tickets, got stuck in traffic, and five hours after leaving that morning, were barely 100 miles out of the city. We stopped off to load up for water (2.5 gallons per day is needed to brave the desert) made it to Reno around 9, and had quick meal at Jack-In-The Box (where is an In-N-Out-Burger when you need it? Their logo is a bit scary…)
We pulled off of 80 and headed towards a two lane road, which provides the only access to Gerlach and the festival site. The locals must hate the traffic, even though I imagine it brings in a lot of revenue, as the speed signs went from 65 to 45 to 25 to 45 to 15 all within a couple of hundred yards, which just confused the shit out of me, as tired as I was. Plus they had police hidden shortly after each sign, and even after I just decided to fuck it and go 5 mph they flashed their sirens at me.
Reaching the camps at night for the first time was a bit of a surreal experience, as Burning Man is such a distinct community in itself. We made our way through a maze of people on bikes, wearing costumes and florescent lighting, and found our camp, Mystical Mysfits. We parked our van and set up our tent (another first – this is some sheltered life I’ve led) behind an RV to maximize shade (it gets really bright out early morning). As soon as we had pitched the tent, we headed out for the night, exhausted but eager to see what the playa held for us.
The first thing I noticed was just how lit up the playa is at night. Not only are people generally decking out their bikes with lights, but lasers shot out from camps, and fire roared from corners of the desert I could barely see.
We hopped into an art car, which is essentially cars pimped out to the extreme in the most creative ways possible, usually blasting music from three foot speakers and drinks aplenty inside. This particular car was a converted bus, with a bar in the back. We were checking out the landscape as we drove across the desert flat when I noticed my brother saluting someone. He was wearing some vintage army dress gear with a hat, so I suppose someone thought that was the appropriate salutation. But then I saw that he was beckoned over to the back, and next thing I know this good looking barmistress leans over the bar, wraps him up and makes out out with him for like 10 seconds. Everyone falls for a soldier. “Good costume choice,” I tell him when he rejoins us.
We got off once we reached the Deep End, where a lot of the partying takes place. The rest of the night we just wandered around, watching different performers and mingling. It was a bit overwhelming at first, and I felt as if I was crashing a party I was invited to but didn’t know anyone. But I gradually grew more comfortable, and despite being tired from the day of travelling, insisted on staying out to see the dawn break. As light crept across the sky and began to warm up the desert, I could make out the vast dimensions of the Playa, and realized how many people there were, noting scores of others still going strong. I snapped some pictures and headed off to our tent, hoping I could catch some sleep despite the sunlight that was already intense. Thankfully, exhaustion set in, and with the techno beats still reverberating across the Playa, I was lulled asleep.
Here is a picture taken by a fellow Burner of the layout of the Playa. The art sculptures, as well the Green Man, were in the center of the semi-circle, with Center Camp at the middle of the stretch of camps. So, 48,000 people in the desert, on a salt flat flanked by mountains, only to depart after a week and leave absolutely no trace whatsoever of their presence. Pretty remarkable, no matter how you look at it.
The Playa
People: I must admit that true Burners are their own breed, but I found there was a suprising diversity of participants. I saw families with children, teenagers, couples, tech gurus from Silicon Valley, artists, and entertainment industry professionals from LA…I even met someone who came all the way from Maine. Heck, Wall Streeters are now attending. My camp was made up of mostly L.A. people, and it does seem that the greatest number of Burners made the trek from L.A. I was expecting the Festival to have a very “East Coast Hippie” feel to it, but in face this was not the case. The large amount of L.A. Burners and artists gave the whole scene an attitude of creativity and having fun, rather than one driven by any social agenda, or the more apathetic, drug-infused scene of Amsterdam). It was also refreshing to meet such a group (although clearly self-selective) of people for the entire week who were clearly free of pretenses, self-confident, and generally very open to those around them. Coming from the East Coast, and from Georgetown especially, this was pretty unique, and definitely added to my experience. But most of all, the people at the Festival will be some of the most interesting, outgoing people you will ever meet. And don’t worry about trying to fit in – the important thing is to remain open minded to new experiences and those surrounding you. Who knows, even that witch doctor from L.A. whose card I have may come in hand.
One New Jersey girl, upon learning I was from Greenwich, mentioned that this was in fact one of the most exclusive communities – even more than cities like my hometown – one could be a member of. She remarked, “Think about it: How many people know about this festival? Are willing to give up a week to come out here? Brave the desert? Ignore what their parents or coworkers may think of them? Get out of their own comfort zone? And to not only be here, but be a participant?” and what she said was very true. It took a pretty unique confluence of factors to be standing next to her at that moment.
Counterculture: As mentioned above, I was initally expecting more of an agenda from those around me, but I think this is ambivalent at best. It is supposed to be anticapitalistic, but really, this is only true in that it takes place in the desert and there are no outside vendors. Also, thousands of people driving across the country in RVs is not good for the environment, nor can using gallons of fuel for the various burnings. This year they tried for a more proactive stance, naming the theme The Green Man, and including in a pavilion various environmental exhibits, and obviously some theme camps stressed environmentally sound practices, but otherwise any statements were relatively muted. As the festival becomes more corporate, it will be interesting to see which direction this will go.
Here is some charts detailing the carbon footprint at Burning Man:
(click to enlarge)
Center Camp: There is only one place where cash can be used, and that is at Center Camp. A large tent with colored banners, it is the prime stop for coffee, juice and water. Couches and tables are set up inside, and during the day people congregate to grab some shade, hang out, or check out what talents have contributed to the Burning Man exprience. Here are some things I noticed wandering through:
Poetry recitals
Music performances
Food samples from camps
Drumming
Massages
Body Painting
Tatttooing
A “Green Man” themed board game
Yoga
Art: Most of the main art sculptures are in the center of the playa. Each year, 30 artists are given grants to build various structures, ranging from the Temple to a manmade Treehouse. Most of the daytime is spent wandering the Playa and checking these out. The Temple in particular was the interesting for me. Constructed entirely of elabaorately latticed wood, it is burnt on the last day, Sunday, in a more subdued ceremony. Burners place notes to lost loved one, those ill, or any cause that is burden to them, and the burning of the Temple is a symbolic release from these. Also cool was two truck rigs sculpted together, which you could climb into:
I have to say the best burn was that of the Oil Rig, which took place after the burn of the Green Man. A fog machine set up a screen of mist for 20 minutes, obscuring the entire structure. Then, fireworks began to be go off, and the Oil Rig slowly came into view, as the fog lifted and lit by the fireworks. The fireworks were the best I had ever seen, expertly orchestrated and possessing great variety. Finally, the Rig was set on fire, the leaping flames quickly outling the kerosene laced structure. All of a sudden, a tremendous explosion occurred, resulting in a gigantic fireball whose heat singed my face (I was right up front, of course, clearly not expecting this), and caused me to look away and feel whether my camera survived the heat (thankfully, it did). Here is what it looked like:
Fun stuff: Exploring the camps and the playa can lead to all sorts of amusing discoveries. Sources of entertainment ranged from a mini golf course someone set up right in the middle of the desert, to a roller skating rink, to kareoke, to a basketball court, to a makeshift bowling alley, to movie screens, to band performances, to fire juggling, to break dancing lessons,to an extreme version of dance dance revolution, in which participants’ misktakes were rewarded by a shot of fire in their face (with a flame retardant suit of course!). Not to mention the Thunderdome, which is right out of Mad Max, where Burners can fight each other in the cagelike structure. At night, some of the most reknowned DJs in the world run parties that last until morning.
Nudity: Yes, there is some, especially during the hot desert day. In fact, I would say about 40% of the women were topless at any given moment (or at least it seemed that way). And some men are too, although this is much, much rarer. While this was a bit strange at first, I was surpised at how quickly I adapted and how normal this was. First of all, the extent of nudity is typical of any beach in Europe, and since during the day time the desert is reminescent of a beach, this made it seem a lot more natural. I understand Americans are very uptight about this, but really it isn’t (and shouldn’t) be such a big deal – if any family abroad can deal with it going to a local beach, so should we in the right circumstances. In addition, it’s not like this leads to some mardi gras or grand voyeristic atmosphere – in fact everyone is very cool about it, and the reasons for going topless are more about practicality and self expression than anything else. People may be into themselves in terms of getting what they want out of the Burning Man experience, but they are not the judging kind, and are extremely comfortable in their own skin (literally and figuratively). It felt strange to give something like this a second thought, and by the third day it just became part of the festival environment itself. As one Burner pointed out, “I am surrounded by beautiful half naked women, and all I can think about is getting enough water.” But I suppose there is little to complain about when those in question are fit West Coast girls…
Gifts: Burning Man runs on a bartering economy, or at least that was what I was told prior to arriving. However, it is more about giving fellow Burners unconditional gifts, whether that be alcohol, food, or other necessities. In many ways Burning Man is like a free amusement park: people put years of effort into each festival, and rarely get anything in return, but it is always good to be able to give something back to people you meet to enhance the experience.
Dust storms: “Be prepared for these,” was the stern warning I always heard before heading out. I carried with me a face mask and googles to protect my eyes, but thankfully we missed out on the biggest storm the day before we came. We were stuck in one on Friday, with reports of 65 mph winds coming from nearby Gerlach. We happened to be in an art car at the time, and decided to stay onboard. The art car, a converted bus, had to stop, as visibility was terrible, and we closed all the windows to protect ourselves and breathe easier. However, we found that up top, on the open end of the double decker bus, others were checking out the storm and still dancing to the music blaring from the speakers. Burners would emerge from the brown mist occasionally and prop their bike against the protected side of the bus, and essentially chilled with each other until the storm let up. It was actually much better up top rather than downstairs, as the dust tended to stay low on the ground, and I didn’t even need to use my mask or goggles, despite wearing contacts.
The best reward of the dust storm was the rainbow that appeared afterwards…oh wait, make that a double rainbow, the clearest one I had ever seen:
Drug use: Yes, it is there, but surprisingly discreet. Just walking around, it I saw very little open drug use, although I suspect that it may have surrounded me. I am not counting smoking pot, since invariably I would run into this, but ecstasy, shrooms, or even heavier drugs. I was offered absinthe though. At night you sometimes felt you were four drugs short of joing the rest of the party with certain crowds, but other times it seemed very constrained. I’ll repeat this, but Burning Man really is whatever you want it to be, and if drugs aren’t your thing, not doing them certainly doesn’t subtract from the experience.
Safety: This may be one of the safest festivals you will ever attend. 40,000 people for a week and only 60 citations, 90% of which are misdemeanor citations? Although there was an injury last year when someone got stabbed at the “Comfort and Joy” theme camp (oh, the irony!) and there was a death for the first time this year, as someone tragically hanged himself.
Telling Experience: We forgot to run the car each day, and wore out the battery evey time we retrieved our stuff. This was a rental car, so we were really concerned, and needed help starting it. At once we had a fellow Burner bring an extra 12V battery over, which of course he charged via solar power. However, it wasn’t starting the car, which made us even more anxious, as even the lights weren’t reacting. However, one Burner brought over a battery meter, told us we had a ridiculously low battery level of 3.2 V, and instructed us after bringing a car over to run the other car for five minutes to charge the battery up, then keep our foot on the acceleration for a good half hr. He came back later and the car was as good as new. He apologized he couldn’t be of help earlier since he was high (or on something). We thanked him and made sure he parted with some gifts. So there you have it, Burning Man virgins and your typical seasoned Burner rolled into one.
Parting the Playa: We headed out before the Temple burning, knowing traffic would be high and exhausted a bit with all Burning Man had to offer. There was only one line to leave and get on the two lane highway towards Reno, so it took a good three hours just to make out way out of the Playa. However, my bro and I tested out the desert flat for frisbee, and soon a bunch of people (although less than I expected – where are hippies when I need them?) joined us. When we joined my older brother back in the car, people got out of their cars and passed around leftover food to much on, Tequila shots (drivers excluded, of course) and some Swedish girl even passed out small bottles of Schnapps liquor. As we finally turned on the main road, I stared behind me, sad I was leaving but already feeling that it wouldn’t be too long before I was back.
For those of you who want a mardi gras carnival atmosphere without the frat party lewdness, the best club music on the desert, a Halloween with no costume restraints, art you didn’t think was possible, people from all walks of life, cirque de soleil caliber performances, and the best fireworks/fire shows experts have to offer, this just may be your thing. And maybe I’ll see you there, and ask, “How’s your Burn?”
These distinctions are not “legal sophistries,” as the Times would have it. They are a juridical necessity to ensure that our definition of torture does not become so diluted as to render its prohibition unenforceable. But the abuse of the word does have its rhetorical uses: As with the militant anti-abortion movement, which believes that every abortion is murder and thus that every abortionist is a “murderer,” the Times editorialists and their fellow travelers would characterize anyone who favors so much as touching a hair on 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed’s head as “pro-torture.” This isn’t argument. It’s moral bullying.
The Roaring Mouse 
