July 2008 Archives

10 Things to Scratch From Your Worry List

Throughout my life, I have been surrounded by one form of worry wart or another. It's very entertaining most of the time, but when it boils down to being told what vessels to drink my water out of, and where I should carry my iPhone, it is going too far. I have planned many times to do hours of scientific research to debunk the worries of my wartish friends, but like so many things (like taking out the trash and washing all of my dirty clothes) I just can't find the time or energy.

Lo! Today I see this article on NYTimes.com. A lot of my legwork has been done for me, and in a very few, short paragraphs too. Now I don't have to worry about compiling this list anymore.

My favorite quote (and this one is for my old boss):

Nalgene has already announced that it will take BPA out of its wonderfully sturdy water bottles. Given the publicity, the company probably had no choice. But my old blue-capped Nalgene bottle, the one with BPA that survived glaciers, jungles and deserts, is still sitting right next to me, filled with drinking water. If they ever try recalling it, they'll have to pry it from my cold dead fingers.

Now I need to go refill my bottle that I keep on my desk, that I will never take camping.

One last pitch for Tim Drew

I heard this piece on NPR this morning and sought it out when I got to work. It made me shed a manly tear that nearly caused me to blow through a traffic light. This page has an audio link to Frank Deford's audio story as well as a transcript of the same story.

For a little over a week now, at JT's encouragement, I have been reading this blog that is ostensibly a critique of how the press covers baseball. It being a critique of baseball journalism, I didn't think of posting it here as I imagined it would be of little interest to the average BPC reader, but, lo!, today I spy a piece that we can all get a chuckle out of. It's a pretty funny sideswipe at ESPN commentators doing their best Siskel & Ebert on the new Batman movie.

Enjoy!

My uncle Willy died last Friday. He was 78. While alive, he was the wiry, hairy-chested type of old man of which the world does not make any more these days. He's the first of my dad's siblings to die and I believe that it has affected my dad in ways that even his mother's death over ten years ago has not. When I got the message I was sitting in a park listening to indie rock music in Chicago. I couldn't help from imagining how strange Willy would have thought the whole scene to be, and in imagining that I thought of how far I have come from my family: that thing I grew up with, and as, that I spent much of my adolescence trying to outdistance, and have spent much of late 20s and 30s trying to figure out how to get back to.

What I knew of Willy is that he farmed a bit: sweet potatoes and the like. He worked for several years at the Nu-Tread tire company, just behind the outfield wall of the old Durham Athletic Park; the same park where the Durham Bulls play and where the movie Bull Durham was shot. He also bought cords of wood in the fall the at he would cut, split, and deliver to houses nearby for winter heat. On the property that he owned there are two ponds that my brother and I frequented on weekends for fishing. Bass and bream could be caught in such aplenty, with bobbers and worms or crickets or grasshoppers, that one would think that Willy stocked the pond, but that was just not him. It's almost as if the fish were there because a man like Willy could only have a pond with such plentiful fish.

In the fall, my brother and I (and sometimes father and mother) would help harvest the sweet potatoes. It seems that I even remember gathering bailed hay at some point as well. When a tire went flat on one of the cars we would go to the used tire and repair shop that Willy and a friend had established in a building on his property.

He had a wife named Nelly and a daughter named Patricia, my cousin, who lived across the street with her husband. I would not know Patricia if she were to walk right up to me. Probably wouldn't recognize Nelly anymore, maybe not even Willy in his last few years.

Beware the ides of July, the day before you leave for Chicago and the day where every minute will be twice as long as they were yesterday. And the day after... before the airport, every minute thrice as long as even today. Logarhythmic expansion.

And at work there's too much to be done. Self-imposed deadlines the I am trying to shirk. Trying to just cruise into it all, to not have an all-nighter like I seem to always have when getting ready to depart for a few days.

The upcoming New Yorker cover and its consequent fallout is a shame. I would totally expect the reaction that the Obama campaign is having from a conservative candidate in his shoes. After all, they have done all that they can to discredit the "liberal media" (i.e. media not controlled by conservative owners and organizations) over the last decade or so, so much so that people are not sure what is real information and what is purely myth, as attested to by the purely-myth, conservative mass email that was forwarded to me today about all of the ways the Democratic party has screwed the American people over Social Security over the last few years.

Hollywood's Hero Deficit -- The American, A Magazine of Ideas

The article's basic gist is that "true" heroes have disappeared from American cinema in the last few decades, or when they do exist, they are relegated to "a world far, far way":e.g. Star Wars, Superman etc. It downplays what it calls "victim heroes," which it says characterizes all of the heroes from films in recent years: e.g. Erin Brockovich, Michael Clayton... The author states that Hollywood fails to give us such "true" heroes, even though audience obviously want such heroes, although the author fails to provide a source for this matter of fact.

If you cannnot tell from tone here, I think this is a load of horseshit. So, tipped by the add for a Newt Gingrich book on the same page as the article, and remembering my college conservative news rag's (The Duke Review) proclivity for printing photos of John Wayne, I decided to do a little research.

What is poetry? And does it pay?
This story in Harper's may call into question all of the most recent statements I made about poetry and its importance. The writer goes to an annual meeting of the "Famous Poets Society." One which happens at the Gold Nugget in Reno, of all places. Top prize: $25,000. I laughed out loud several times while marveling at the author's ability not to completely come unglued at certain of the goings on.

I'm having the after lunch cigarette and reading my book about the 60s around-the-world sailing race, when he walked up, looking like he had taken a hammer rather than a toothbrush to his teeth.

"What's that book about?"

I show him the cover, A Voyage for Madmen.

"Ah... vo...age...for...madame... What's it about?"

"About these Europeans who raced each other in a solo non-stop sailing race around the world in the 1960s."

"Sailing?"

"Yeah, with boats that have sails on them?"

"Oh yeah, that reminds me of... what's his name?... You know who I am talking about... What's his name?"

"I don't know."

"You know!... What's his name?.... It's uh... It's uh... Oh, that's right... Columbus!"

"Well he was an explorer and sailor. Not really in a race around the world. But I see what you are saying."

"Yeah, Columbus. Just like him. Have you ever raced an ostrich?"

"An ostrich? No."

"What about an elephant?"

"No not an elephant either."

"A horse?"

"I've ridden horses before, but not in a race."

"I've raced all three."

"Really!?!?!?"

Yesterday I heard a co-worker that sits near me, who I don't really know, was speaking frankly with someone on the phone. From the best I can tell the person on the other end asked one of those simple questions like, "So, how are things going?" I guess we most of the time fall into the pleasantries of saying, "Things are going fine," but that's not where Peter went:

Well, Katie and I are getting a divorce, and my brother calls everyday and he's losing his mind. Says he needs to check into a psychiatric ward. Wants to know what I think, but won't tell me what all is going on.

Republicans Vote Against Moms; No Word Yet on Puppies, Kittens
I don't know how I missed this story, but it's good one. Just reminds me that I am not the only one who acts like a child some times... but these guys aren't drunk, or at least they are not supposed to be.

The Disadvantages of an Elite Education
Interesting essay by a Yale English professor that has been known to not mince words when giving his opinions. I didn't go to any of the Ivys that he mentions in the article, but Duke is close enough. I agree with much of what he says about the state of the academy, even back when I was in school. I especially find his idea that elite schools are virtually becoming glorified vocational schools now. I don't agree with the part that elite education making a person an elitist: