Reader's Forum Roundup

It's the moment you've all I've been waiting for: the BYU Newsnet Reader's Forum Roundup! Except they now call it Letters to the DU Editor, but whatever. It's been years since Bricks changed its name to Club Sound...or In the Venue...or something...but I still insist on calling it Bricks.

Heather Sabin from Federal Way, Washington, writes:

Students at BYU need to be more friendly! I didn't think friendliness made a difference until a friend told me that mine made her think twice about suicide. She is creatively endowed, but in other areas lacks ability and grace. She seemed satisfied with her poetry and galactic novels, but was really depressed. The severity of the situation eluded me until I learned she had planned to commit suicide. She told me my kindness and friendliness made her think twice.

Ok, before you knock yourself out talking about how kind and friendly you are, take a second to think about what you just wrote: She is creatively endowed, but in other areas lacks ability and grace. Uh, thanks for pointing that out. I hope your roommate doesn't read the editorial page.

And speaking of not reading the editorial page, Jeff Hill of Centennial, Colorado, writes:

To all of those that are having problems with the required religion classes, I have a few suggestions. First, if you haven't been able to receive an A grade in every religion class you've ever taken, maybe a university education isn't the best option for you. Second, if you don't like the religion classes, maybe our church isn't the best option for you. And last, if you don't like the editorials being written, maybe reading the editorials isn't the best option for you.

Thanks for clearing that up. I knew I should've dropped out of school after I got that B in Old Testament...

And finally, from Paul G. Jaehnert, the voice of reason from Vadnais Heights, Minnesota:

The largest contributing factor in high drug prices is advertising and promotion - about 37 percent of the price we pay. Costs of research and development for new drugs doesn't even approach that percentage, since a huge part of the research going into the development of new drugs is performed by our National Institutes of Health (NIH). About $25 billion of taxpayer money goes to the NIH each year, much of which is spent on research for new drugs. It's the pharmaceutical industry's advertising, promotion and excessive profits, not research and development, that drives up costs. . . . It's time to rein in the pharmaceutical industry drug cartel and their congressional co-conspirators.

Ever notice how drug commercials always have really attractive people holding hands and laughing and flying kites on the beach? Who can watch those without thinking, "Wow, cancer is the greatest disease ever!" And if that's not enough, the pharmaceuticals also try to convince you that you need a drug for everything. Do you have trouble getting out of bed in the morning? Hate your job? Can't cook a decent omelet? Well, we have a drug for that! Instant profit.

You're so special

So a coworker of mine was telling me how she's going to Tucson this weekend to attend one relative's high school graduation, and another relative's middle school graduation.

Wait a minute, I said. Did you just say middle school graduation?

The concept is foreign to me. Since when did leaving eighth grade count as some kind of amazing achievement? I mean, you don't even get to leave your parents' house like you do when you graduate from high school, or get to have your own place like you do when you graduate from college. You just get to move from one school building to another one across the street. No one should get a diploma for that.

Sure, it's great to encourage your kids and help them build confidence...but middle school graduation? It's things like this that contribute to the whole culture of praise, entitlement, and inflated self-worth that surrounds kids these days. They also deserve to eat peanut butter whenever they want and send text messages to their friends whenever they want. What's next? Here's a reward for getting out of bed in the morning?

It's like that cell phone commerical I hate—the one with the mom who has to dress up like a taco for a job she clearly despises so her lazy kids can keep on sending dozens of text messages every day? Don't worry, kids, instead of taking away your cell phones or asking you to contribute to the cell phone bill every month, we'll just sign up for this new plan that will add an extra $50 to an already hefty expense. Give me a break.

2 Questions for David Stern

I guess it's more like 2 topics to discuss with Stern, since each will likely end up having several questions that I think fans of the NBA deserve to have answered.

First topic: What is the league doing to prevent NBA teams from putting some unimportant player in a game to start an "altercation" to get important players to take a few steps off the bench? I read one ESPN columnist suggest that if that happened, it would be really obvious and the NBA would sniff it out and punish the team accordingly. My response to that would be: it just happened. No punishment for the Spurs and they got exactly what they wanted. In a league where the head coach has an extremely high salary and extremely low job security, there's a lot to benefit from having a couple of important guys on the opposing team sit out. Especially when winning a series may mean that a coach gets to keep his job. Also, it'll always be easy to find someone in America who's willing to accept a $1 million per year pay check to be a professional fan who's willing to start altercations on call. So what is the NBA doing? I see nothing being done and that's a problem.

Second topic: How can a player be punished for another player's action? David Stern's initial response to this would be that Amare Stoudemire and Boris Diaw were punished for their own actions because they got off the bench. That's true, but that's not entirely why they are being punished. So I would have to start off with the incident involving Duncan in the 2nd quarter. If Jumaine Jones would've punched Elson in the face after they got tangled up, would Tim Duncan have been suspended? If the answer is no, I would call Stern a biased Spurs fans that's using his power to give his favorite team the best chance at winning. If the answer is yes, I would say why is Duncan being punished for the actions of Jumaine Jones? Duncan didn't do anything differently, but if you can call it an altercation, he gets punished. The same thing goes for Amare and Diaw—they were running to help Nash when it was a flagrant foul, not an altercation. When it became an altercation, they ran back to the bench. So why are Amare and Diaw being punished because Horry and Bell and other players on the court escalated it to a so-called altercation?

If he can't answer those questions well enough to satisfy the fans, he should be removed from his duties as NBA commissioner and he can take Stu Jackson with him. The NBA is headed for a downward spiral, and eventually some star in their prime will get frustrated enough to sign with a European team that's willing to pay NBA money for the recognition they'd get.

Way to be consistent, David Stern.

I wanted to criticize David Stern before this suspension came out, but I wanted it to be official. Horry gets a 2 game suspension, and Amare and Diaw each get one game. The NBA, several years ago, decided to come up with this rule that basically states that if you're on the bench and a fight breaks out and you step onto the court, you get an automatic one game suspension.

First, let me give you the prevailing argument for the suspension, then I'll explain why it's wrong. People say that you need to be consistent with suspensions. If you let Amare off the hook, how could you suspend someone later for coming off the bench? I understand that argument, but it's not accurate, it's not fair, and they need to change this rule, or at least the way they enforce it.

How do you enforce it in a future incident if you don't suspend Amare? That's easy. If players have a normal reaction to a fight, then remember (or have coaches help them remember) the rule and go right back to the bench without escalating the conflict or having any contact with players on court, then don't suspend them. Otherwise, you have the right to suspend them (assuming you actually want to keep this rule at all, which I don't).

Now let me tell you why this decision can potentially hurt the NBA. In playoff basketball, when you play the same team several times in a row, it would be beneficial to have a non-contributing player with no other purpose than to start fights. If some unimportant player on your team, (aka Robert Horry), decides to toss a player to the floor and can get a 3 second reaction from any player on the opposing bench (aka Amare and Diaw) then you win. The opposing team loses two good players for one game and your team loses one crappy player for two games. I know most head coaches aren't smart, but they can all figure this one out. I'm not saying this is what Horry or the Spurs had in mind with this play, but I can't completely rule it out either. That's beside the point, though. The point is, the team that was clearly in the wrong is being rewarded.

This goes way beyond sending in a "goon" to start a fight with the opposing team's best player, because in that circumstance, the player being attacked would have to throw a punch or participate in the fight in some way to warrant an ejection. These guys have been punished, essentially, for taking 3 more steps than they should have. According to the league, those 3 steps are worse than kicking an opposing players Achilles or kneeing the opposing player in the nuts.

During a similar situation in the second quarter, when a player from the Spurs dunked and landed on a player from the Suns, they got tangled up and it looked like it could escalate, Tim Duncan got up from the bench and took a few steps onto the court. How can you punish Amare for taking a few extra steps and not Duncan? Probably for the same reason that if Duncan gets ejected for laughing about a call, the ref gets fired. But if a ref ejects Baron Davis for clapping at no one in particular there's no punishment for the ref. I'm not saying that Duncan should be suspended, and I'm not saying that the ref that ejected him didn't deserve what he got. What I am saying is, Amare should not be suspended either, and the ref that ejected Baron Davis should've been punished.

GS Warriors are the Swampcoolahs

There's plenty of reasons to like the Golden State Warriors. For one, they just accomplished the greatest upset in NBA history. They also play a fast paced, entertaining style that's easy to enjoy. Their star player has an amazing beard. They have a player who consistently shoots free throws like this. The fans where bright yellow shirts that say "We Believe." They have no center and up to 4 guards on the floor at any given time. Charles Barkley hates them.

During game 2, I realized the real reason why so many people like them. And that is because they are the Swampcoolahs. Reggie Miller pointed this out during the game after Baron Davis threw up a pretty crazy shot that went in somehow. Miller said, "There's no such thing as a bad shot when you're a Golden State Warrior."

From the words of Reggie Miller's mouth, the Golden State Warriors are the Swampcoolahs.

Jesus Camp

Last night we watched Jesus Camp, a documentary about an Evangelical summer camp that teaches kids to love Jesus and hate liberals. At first glance it's easy to talk about how crazy and brainwashing the Evangelicals are. After all, the leaders screamed at the kids to feel the healing blood of Christ so their sins would be washed away, then encouraged them to yell out jibberish while in some scary emotional high, which left most kids in tears. They also taught them that evolution is not based on science, but is a belief that the liberal school system was drilling into their heads, as if every day at school they are being told that creationism is stupid.

After thinking about some of the things that I saw, I realized that many of the problems I have with Evangelicals, I also have with Mormons. I'm not sure why this crossover exists, but for some reason many Mormons and Evangelicals have the same faulty logic. One focus of the Evangelicals in the documentary is that we are at war, specifically with the Muslim religion and we have to train our kids to fight against this. I also have heard this same line of thought with Mormons, and I think it's racist and wrong to think of Muslims as our enemy. Another thing that was brought up several times was they inferred that this generation of kids is some sort of chosen generation, saved to fight evil in these last days. Mormons had been spreading similar rumors around, even attaching names of general authorities to made-up quotes, until the First Presidency came out and told people to stop doing it. This kind of goes along the same idea that we're at war--the Evangelicals seemed to relish the idea of war and loved to think of themselves as being strong enough to fight it. This kind of attitude seemed completely contradictory to any of Jesus' teachings in the Bible. The next resemblance is the attitude of Evangelicals that the way to make yourself better is to pray, read the Bible and go to church. Not to feed the hungry, clothe the naked and accept others even if they're different than you. When I was young, I knew that any question in Sunday school could be answered by saying, "Pray, read your scriptures and go to church," when none of those things actually directly help anyone. So my problem is, Christianity is raising a generation focused on doing things that aren't actually helping anyone except for, arguably, themselves. The sick aren't being healed, the homeless aren't being sheltered, the mentally ill aren't being accepted or treated, the poor working class aren't being represented. With all these major problems going on in the world and billions of people needing aid of some sort, the Evangelicals decided to focus their efforts on protesting abortion in Washington by putting red tape with the word "life" written on it over their mouths. They prayed fervently for a righteous government that would turn over turn Roe vs. Wade. They desperately want these unborn children to have a chance at a life. Once given this chance at life however, Christians seem to be the last to help those who are born into poverty or other hard circumstances. They reject a nation that supports welfare and will fight to keep these poverty stricken people from having access to any form of birth control. Big businesses that they support through their conservative votes will gladly take advantage of the poor working class, using loopholes and lobbyists to keep wages and benefits ridiculously low. But the liberals are the evil ones because they are abortion supporting murderers.

This generation of Christians seems to be more focused on putting themselves above other people because they have the truth, rather than helping anyone in any way. In my opinion, Christianity, and maybe organized religion as a whole, needs to be completely revamped or completely abandoned. I spend three hours at church every Sunday and the only people that may get helped from it are members of the Mormon church because I pay money to a fund to help members. Other than that there's not much that my time or efforts at church or church activities go to actually helping people, which is what I always thought Christianity was supposed to be about.

Biggest upset ever!

Not only did the Warriors upset the #1 seed, they did so in a seven game series (never before done by an 8 seed) and they won the clinching game on their home floor (also never before done by an 8 seed). There have only been two previous 8 over 1 upsets in NBA history since they moved to the 16 team format in 1984. The first was Denver over Seattle in 1994, which likely could've been the Sonics' back-to-back championships instead of Houston's if they had a best of 7 first round like they do now, but I guess we'll never know. The second one barely even counts because it was in the shortened season due to the lock-out in 2000. In both of those cases, they came down to the last possession of game 5 to be decided, in the first case there was an OT in game 4 that Denver edged out to force game 5, then another OT game in to allow Mutombo to scream on the floor holding the ball. The other one was decided by Allan Houston's shot that seemed to bounce around forever as the buzzer sounded.

This series was much different. Not only did the Warriors beat the Mavericks 4 times instead of 3, but they seemed to look like the team that had 67 regular season wins. No time in this series did I ever think, "Dallas is really the better team here." I don't blame it on Don Nelson's big brother syndrome (you know, the big brother always wins no matter how much better the younger brother is) either. I do give Don Nelson a lot of credit, even though I've complained about him ruining the Warriors forever in the mid-90s. He's completely redeemed himself in my mind--just by treating his players better he gets better production from them. Read what Matt Barnes has to say about his coach. So not only did Golden State beat the Mavs with a game buffer (4-2 in the series) but they did so in a 111-86 blowout. This will mark the first time that an MVP will have to take a break from vacation to receive his award since the 16 team playoff format started (assuming Dirk gets MVP).

I also think something should be said about the officiating in this series. Mark Cuban has been known to complain about the refs, but I don't think he can say with a straight face that the refs favored the Warriors. Just looking at the first half of this game, it seemed to obviously favor the Mavs. In the only two games that the Warriors lost the refs seemed to favor the Mavs. Baron Davis got thrown out of game 2 for a combination of two bogus technicals. The first was for trying to play peacemaker in a mild confrontation between the two teams. And the second was for clapping, not saying a word, just clapping. Then in game 5 Baron Davis was given his 6th foul while GS was only down by 1, because the ref thought Davis was trying to foul. But when you look at it, Davis didn't even touch the Mavs player. The refs getting rid of the leader of arguably the most dependent and emotional team in competitive games is the only reason the Mavs got a win.

Nobody gave the Warriors a chance going into the series even though they proved they could beat the Mavs. Even after a surprising game 1, many still predicted the Mavs in 5. After proving they belong and going up 3-1, still people were saying the Mavs would show they are the superior team and come back to win in 7. Now the Warriors move on and the Mavs go home for a long summer.

Indie rock music is the new pornography

During TNT's coverage of Game 4 between the Warriors and Mavericks, Charles Barkley once again demonstrates his struggles with geography:

I love Baron Davis, love Don Nelson . . . [but] Golden State as a city sucks.

Anyone remember when they gave Barkley a map of the world and a list of countries to identify? I can't recall the exact details, but he did something like place Bolivia in Europe.

Anyway, the NBA has come a long way since its lame-o "NBA Cares" Rob Thomas days now that they have the New Pornographers as the voice of the playoffs. Maybe Carl Newman figured that it couldn't be any worse than selling out to the University of Phoenix. Which can't be any worse than selling out to the Outback Steakhouse (Of Montreal), Mitsubishi (Flaming Lips), M&Ms (Iron & Wine), Nissan (Modest Mouse), UPS (Postal Service), or Cesar dog food (Magnetic Fields). And no, I'm not making the last one up.

I guess I don't really mind, since we all have to make a living somehow. It's just kind of weird.

(By the way, Carl explains the whole University of Phoenix thing in a pretty amusing interview with Pitchfork that you can read here.)

Adding insult to injury

As if inviting Dick Cheney to speak at commencement wasn't bad enough, BYU decides to give him an honorary doctorate for public service. What exactly is their idea of public service? Starting a bloody mess in Iraq on false pretenses and saying it's about fighting terrorism and spreading democracy and protecting Americans when it's really about oil? I'm horrified.

Reader's Forum Roundup

Oh, BYU Daily Universe opinions page, how could I have neglected you for so long? You're like a one-stop shop for all of my needs for ignorant, racist, sexist commentary. Here's a sampling from the April 16 and April 18 editions:

Richard Garn of Coldwater, MN, on the BYU anti-Cheney protests: Recently I had heard news accounts about BYU professors protesting the Vice President coming to BYU to give a commencement address. The school must come to grips with this situation. The school allowing this to happen and to make quiet a good and honorable person is unacceptable. The effort by the academic community across the country to quell free speech is unacceptable.

Ok, any efforts to take this guy seriously immediately disappeared when he called Cheney a "good and honorable person." And apparently, Cheney is the only person in this whole controversy who is entitled to free speech.

Jason Miller of Provo, UT, on Virginia Tech: The shootings of Monday were a terrible tragedy and unfortunately as long as universities like BYU continue to ban legal licensed citizens from carrying guns on their campuses these types of tragedies will continue to take place.

Of course, guns aren't the only thing at issue here, but if we lived in a society that made it harder for certain individuals to buy guns, isn't it obvious that average citizens wouldn't need to be armed?

David Blackmer of Draper, UT, on the recent suspensions of two BYU football players on breaking and entering charges: [Head coach Bronco Mendenhall] may have had a swift reaction, but I do not see any swift action (or any action at all for that matter) to clean up the team. . . . I think the problem is we are recruiting and pampering players who do not care about BYU values. . . . I don't even care if we lose a few games as long as I don't have to be afraid of some of the people walking around campus.

Why don't you just come out and say it: you think BYU should stop recruiting those scary-looking non-Mormon minority athletes and stick to the clean shaven, returned missionary variety. Because we all know that Bronco Mendenhall can tell exactly which of his potential recruits will be BYU honor code following, law abiding citizens just by looking at them.

Matthew Crandall of Twin Falls, ID, on girls who wear sweatshirts to class: I heartily disagree with the letter "Unrealistic expectation" (April 13). Shame on you for encouraging casualness and sloppiness. To all the girls who wear make up, high heels and who care about how they look, I say thank you. It is people like you who make this world a prettier place to live in.

Right, because the main reason girls attend class is to look pretty for people like you.

Hollinger gives Nuggets/Warriors some credit

John Hollinger from ESPN, who originally gave the Denver Nuggets and Golden State Warriors almost a zero percent chance of advancing past the first round based on his prediction model, admits now that his data might have been a little skewed.

Hollinger, who makes his career by doing bad statistics with bad assumptions (which in turn creates bad models), always acknowledges that his models are based on assumptions, and things such as injuries, streaks and "tanking" may not correctly reflect the true odds. However, his correction is still not accurate according to his logic. He throws out all data points for the Nuggets and Warriors if they had a significant player injured, if they didn't need to win or if the team they were playing didn't need to win or may have been trying to lose. But he didn't do this for their playoff opponents, which means the Nuggets/Warriors records get inflated because of bad situations and the Spurs/Mavs don't get this same benefit. Although those numbers would greatly improve Denver and Golden State and only mildly improve (if at all) Dallas and San Antonio, which means his corrected numbers are a lot better than his old ones. The point is, his logic is always a little misguided.

My main problem with Hollinger is his famous PER, which supposedly is the tell-all of how good a player is based on efficiency. Of course he doesn't publish his formula, except in a his book that he expects me to buy. Having said that, I don't know what he emphasizes in his PER, and I haven't really tried to figure it out, but I do know that there are several things wrong with it. The most glaring error is Steve Nash, who's having his best season and one of the most efficient seasons I've ever seen as an NBA fan. Steve Nash is apparently the 12th most efficient player in the NBA according to Hollinger's numbers. If you base this on offensive efficiency, Nash should easily be number one. His fg% is .532, which of the 11 people in front of him, only Duncan, Gasol and Boozer are better, and these are guys who spend a lot of time under the basket getting easier shots. Not to mention that in true shooting % (which factors in that 3-pointers are worth more) Nash is at .654, which is a lot better than anyone in front of him. In fact, he's number 2 overall in that category behind Brent Berry, who basically only shoots wide open three pointers and doesn't exactly have any pressure to create offense. So basically Nash is the most efficient shooter in the NBA, and as far as other offensive stats go, there would be assists (which Nash dominates) and turnovers. The turnovers for Nash can be easily factored into an assist to turnover ratio, which is 3.08 for him, much better than anyone ahead of him on the list. The only major category which Nash isn't relevant is rebounding.

I don't know how Hollinger got his numbers, but it just seems to me that the best shooting player in the league who also leads the league in assists and who might be in the top 5 all-time efficient players, should probably be higher than number 12 in the 2006-07 PER.

13yo is txt msg champ rofl!!1! <3 <3

In today's news of the obvious, a 13-year-old girl from Pennsylvania won a cell phone texting contest by typing "supercalifragilisticexpialidocious" from "Mary Poppins" in 15 seconds.

And what does she plan to do with the $25,000 in prize money? Save it for college, maybe? Help her parents pay off the 8,000 freaking text messages she sends to her friends every month? No, she's "going to go shopping and buy lots of clothes."

And if that isn't bad enough, let's check in on the runner-up:

So dedicated is she to the art of the text message that Tirosh apparently unwittingly uses abbreviations such as BTW (by the way), TTYL (talk to you later) and LOL (laughing out loud) in her normal speech.

Seriously, WTF. What is this world coming to? Why does this contest even exist? On one hand, you're rewarding a spoiled brat who apparently has nothing better to do with her life than annoy the crap out of her friends by sending them hundreds of text messages everyday. And on the other, you're encouraging a 21-year-old law student who can't even use actual words or sentences in normal conversations. Please, the legal system has enough problems as it is. Put down the phone, go back to English class, and get a hobby. Read a book. Go outside.

Ahoy, mateys

During my lunch break today I spotted an item in the LA Times about a just-announced TV series that combines two of my greatest passions in life: pirates and reality shows.

“Pirate Master” will send 16 modern-day pirates on a high seas adventure where they will live as buccaneers and travel around the Caribbean island of Dominica in search of hidden treasures worth $1 million. Over the course of 33 days, these pirates will live aboard a massive 179 foot, square-rigged barque which carries 12,500 square feet of sail.

Unfortunately, the rest of the description makes the format sound really similar to Survivor, which I hate (and which also makes sense, since both shows are produced by the same guy). But I really want to like this show. I mean, it's pirate themed, for one. Plus, what else am I going to watch between the end of Amazing Race and the beginning of Project Runway? Baseball? I don't think so. Unless it involves someone getting hit in the face with a pizza.

Tragedy at Virginia Tech

More details from yesterday's shooting at Virginia Tech emerge. Several of the 32 victims have been named and the gunman was a student from Centreville, a city about 30 minutes away from where I lived growing up.

Reading news reports as the events unfold has been disturbing. It gets worse when you read about some of the people who lost their lives: the world-class biomechanics researcher who was also kind and dedicated to his family; the 75-year-old aeronautics professor who blocked the classroom door with his body to save his students; the 22-year-old student who was known by his friends for always smiling and being a good listener. It's sad to think that they are gone. They were the kinds of people we need in the this crazy, messed up world.

The Washington Post reported yesterday that Virginia Tech had become a popular college destination for kids from the D.C. suburbs. I don't have any direct ties to the school, but I know several people who do. Probably half of my high school applies there every year. *I* applied there. My best friend's brother went there. Forget the Cavaliers, it's the Hokies I cheer for during rivalry week. It's so terrible and bizzare to me. I can't even imagine how it feels for those who survived the mayhem or who lost friends and family when the madness was finally over.

And of course, there is already the inevitable talk about things like gun control and media violence, and I don't like it. I personally hate guns and don't care much for images of death and destruction on my TV screen, but please, barely a day has gone by with little facts or motives to speak of and we're already going to try and politicize what just happened?

I don't know. I'm still just trying to wrap my head around the whole thing.

The ship just keeps on sinking

Right on the heels of the new Watergate scandal:

The Justice Department identified five Bush administration insiders as replacement U.S. attorneys almost a year before most of the prosecutors were fired, contrary to repeated claims that no such list had ever been drawn up, according to documents released today.

E-mails sent to the White House in January and May of 2006 by D. Kyle Sampson, then chief of staff to Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales, list potential replacements for U.S. attorneys in San Diego, San Francisco, Grand Rapids, Mich., and Little Rock, Ark.

The replacements on the list were all high-level administration insiders, including two who have gone on to different U.S. attorney postings: Jeff Taylor, now chief prosecutor in the District, and Deborah Rhodes, now U.S. attorney in Alabama. The others were Rachel L. Brand, currently head of the Office of Legal Counsel, and Daniel Levin, a former senior Justice and White House official, the memos show.

Read the full article here.

This comes two weeks after Sampson, testifying under oath, told the Senate Judiciary Committee that he had no one in mind to replace any of the dismissed prosecutors.

Considering this administration's past record, I can't say that I was totally surprised.

Noooooo

Apple just pulled a Microsoft and announced it will delay Tiger for 4 months.

In its statement, Apple cited the need to divert its team of programmers to the challenge of introducing the iPhone, which it said was still on track for shipment in “late June.”

Four months is so far away! Stupid iPhone.

Jackie Robinson Day

So I was watching ESPN today, and they were talking about how all of the Dodgers and anyone else in Major League Baseball that chooses to do so, will wear Jackie Robinson's number 42 on Sunday to commemorate the 60th anniversary of his MLB debut. Baseball is probably one of the only sports where you could get away with everyone having the same number. This idea came from Ken Griffey Jr. and was approved by Bud Selig. Sounds like a respectable tribute to remember a very important figure of the civil rights movement. Nobody could disagree with that, right? Well, apparently at least one MLB player disagrees, and surprisingly, it's an African American player.

Torii Hunter (yes, that's really how he spells his name) was on PTI and SportsCenter, explaining that he doesn't think everyone should be allowed to wear number 42 because some people will be wearing it "to look cool" without understanding what Jackie did for baseball. He also went on to say that people don't understand that Jackie played in games where fans yelled out racial slurs at him, and that many of his teammates and other players in the league harassed him. Now, I'm white and I don't even like baseball, but I know at least as much as Torii does about the Jackie Robinson story (or at least as much as he explained in his interview). Torii continued to dig himself into a bigger hole and was about one step away from saying that only African American players should be allowed to wear Robinson's number.

Later on, some ESPN baseball experts were talking about the decline of African American baseball players in recent years, mentioning that inner-city kids typically think that baseball isn't as cool as football or basketball. One guy even mentioned that Jackie Robinson is rolling over in his grave because of how few African American baseball players are in the MLB today. I have a problem with this conclusion. First of all, Jackie Robinson was doing more than just paving the way for African Americans to play baseball in the MLB. He opened the door for both football and basketball to accept African Americans (the first to be allowed to play in the NBA happened in 1950) so I don't think Jackie Robinson would be upset that inner-city kids choose to play basketball instead of baseball. From what I can understand from Jackie Robinson's story, he would be very happy to see that everyone has the chance to play any sport of their choice and should be just as happy to see Tiger Woods dominate golf. To compare what the world was like in 1972, when Jackie passed away, and what it's like today, I see progress and he would be proud of his legacy. We just had a Super Bowl with two African American head coaches going head-to-head for the first time. There are several African American coaches and even an African American owner in the NBA. We even have an African American with a good chance to become our next president.

I guess what I'm saying is that Jackie's legacy should not be tainted by the fact that African Americans would rather play football or basketball instead of baseball. The fact that they can choose to play baseball or any other sport and be given a fair chance is exactly what Jackie Robinson was fighting for. Sunday should be a day to remember him and what he has done, and I think this tribute is an appropriate way to remember his legacy.

Chain Reaction on GSN

Bwahaha. First of all, this show probably has the hardest final round format of any game show I've ever seen. Two team members have to help a third team member (who is blindfolded) guess seven hidden words in 90 seconds by building sentences made of alternating single word clues.

That explanation probably doesn't make any sense if you haven't seen the show. But I am a nerd who has seen it plenty of times, and never in my life had I witnessed any team good enough to win the final round.

Until tonight.

You're sitting there amazed, watching the two guys building really great clues for the guesser and basically tearing through the round. And then they get to the point where the hidden word is frog.

Guy #1: What
Guy #2: is
Guy #1: opposite
Guy #2: [looks confused] of
Guy #1: toad
Guy #3: [hits buzzer really fast] Frog

I laughed so much, and I don't even know why. I mean, it makes perfect sense, right? The opposite of toad is frog. Like the opposite of alligator is crocodile, or the opposite of Coke is Pepsi.

Still can't touch the Family Feud hamburglar incident, though...

So it goes.

I was scanning the headlines for something stupid and/or political to write about, when I discovered that Kurt Vonnegut died yesterday at the age of 84.

It makes me sad to think that we just lost someone who had so much moral vision.

What would James Dobson say?

Yesterday's global warming debate between Newt Gingrich and John Kerry took a bizzare turn:

Before Kerry got a word in, Gingrich conceded that global warming is real, that humans have contributed to it and that "we should address it very actively." Gingrich held up Kerry's new book, "This Moment on Earth," and called it "a very interesting read." He then added a personal note about saving vulnerable species from climate change. "My name, Newt, actually comes from the Danish Knut, and there's been a major crisis in Germany over a polar bear named Knut," he confided.

The warm and fuzzy Gingrich surprised Kerry, who jettisoned prepared remarks that accused the former speaker of "marching in lock step with the climate-change deniers." Instead, Kerry found himself saying: "I've always enjoyed every dialogue he and I have ever had." He added that "your statement is very, very important" and gushed: "I frankly appreciate the candor."

The debate ended. They shook hands. Kerry put an arm around Gingrich. Gingrich put an arm around Kerry. For a brief but terrifying moment, they appeared to be on the verge of a hug.

Alright, so Newt did offer a bit of a reality check when he proposed tax incentives as the answer to the warming problem. But seriously, cue the Twilight Zone theme. First Geraldo, and now Gingrich? Is someone trying to run for office somewhere?