Checking It Twice

As I think about Christmas, I'm in the mood to make lists. Santa has his Naughty/Nice list. We've got our list of New Year's Resolutions (well, not everyone). TMobile has it's Fave 5 List. Dick Vitale has his PTP'er and All-Rolls Royce Teams. Most of my readership knows that I find Christmas to be overrated, particularly from a religious context. But what about from a secular stand point? I'm actually OK with the Christmas season - it's like watching the shit show. You just sit back and watch, and enjoy the unending stupidity of man. But are there some parts that I'm not really a fan of? Of course.

So without any further ado, my Holiday Season Overrated/Underrated lists.

Christmas Shopping
Overrated: Standing in line at 2am to be first to go nuts on Black Friday.
Underrated: Hitting clearance racks after Christmas.

Christmas Present
Overrated: Cars. Really. Who buys his and hers Lexuses for Christmas? Douchebags.
Underrated: Books. People don't read enough anymore.

Christmas Cookie
Overrated: Anything with too much lousy, colored icing.
Underrated: Simple shortbread, butter cookies.

Christmas Eve Tradition
Overrated: Leaving cookies for Santa Claus.
Underrated: Midnight Mass, followed by eating all of Santa's cookies.

Christmas Church Service Music
Overrated: Bells. Pretty lame.
Underrated: Strings. Particularly harps. But violins work.

Drink to Accompany Cookies:
Overrated: Milk
Underrated: Bourbon, rocks.

Morning Tradition
Overrated: Waking up at the crack of dawn to open presents.
Underrated: Waking at the crack of noon to use the bathroom, and the promptly going back to bed.

Holiday TV Programming
Overrated: A Christmas Story. Not as funny as everyone thinks. Lame.
Underrated: Big time NBA matchups. Shaq vs. Timmy, Kobe vs. the Celtics, and LeBron vs... vs... uh? The Wiz? (well, you can't have them all, I suppose)

Christmas Meat
Overrated: None. All meat is wonderful.
Underrated: Rack of lamb. It's really pricey, even when you make it yourself. But boy, is it good.

Christmas Poultry
Overrated: Turducken. Keep it a Thanksgiving thing.
Underrated: Goose and Duck. Old school and underutilized.

Christmas Side Dish
Overrated: Candied yams. Generally, too cloyingly sweet, and the marshmallows are normally mediocre.
Underrated: Ham. Some may say that it's a protein, and thus a main dish. I think that anytime that you can squeeze more smoked pork in a meal, you're obligated to do so. Failing that, roasted chestnuts.

Christmas Ham Preparation
Overrated: Pre-glazed, spiral-sliced.
Underrated: Scoring the ham and making your own glaze (mustard, citrus, berry, honey, spices, and sugar).

Christmas Drink
Overrated: Store-bought egg nog.
Underrated: Homemade egg nog. With bourbon.

Christmas Dessert
Overrated: Nothing, really. But I'm not super fond of anything store-bought.
Underrated: Roasted pears. With bourbon glaze, and good vanilla ice cream.

New Year's Eve Event
Overrated: Non-exclusive, all-inclusive buffet/open bar events. Food's lousy, lines at the bar are long, you're getting free well drinks, and you're generally surrounded by the dregs of the earth.
Underrated: Going out to a good dinner, and then hitting a party with a smartly chosen wet bar.

Anyway, here's to the things that make the Christmas season what it is, for better or worse. The Board Room wishes the best to you and yours. We'll catch you guys soon.

-Chairman

Hoops Dreams

I've talked a little about our adventures on the basketball court back in the day. There was a broad cast of characters, but they guys that are most memorable because of their similarity were Matt, my first roommate, C-Lauff and Westy, who were roommates (C-Lauff later lived with me), and Mikey, who also lived with me and C-Lauff.

Matt was someone who I was usually on the same team with, since we'd show up at the gym together. He and I always worked together well - lots of screens to set up open jumpers and lots of patience with entry passes and kick-outs. Matt wasn't much off the dribble, and wasn't particularly fast, but he was always active. Which is why he was always good to put against Westy. Westy was pretty good at every aspect of the game, but never had one particular strength, other than constantly moving. It always amazed me how Westy would always get cheap buckets by always moving on bad defenders. If you got lost while Westy, you could pretty much count on a layup for your troubles. So, putting Matt on Westy was actually a pretty nice matchup, since Matt wasn't particularly fast, but he'd always just jog along with Westy, who was generally too disciplined to try to force the issue on someone who was still in front of him. Unless it was C-Lauff. If there was one person who Westy would try to go after a little more on offense, it was C-Lauff. I don't recall there ever being a clear victor in those skirmishes. Maybe Westy and C-Lauff can remember some of that rivalry for us.

What was funny was that Matt hated guarding C-Lauff. He couldn't check him at all. C-Lauff was quick enough to beat Matt off the bounce just enough to get off that leaner. C-Lauff pretty much killed Matt. And Matt wasn't the one-on-one player to get back at C-Lauff on the other end of the court, since he wasn't quick enough to beat him, and wasn't strong enough to take him in the block. The neat part was that Matt, C-Lauff, and Westy were all about the same size (a little over 6', and relatively skinny - about 165 pounds).

Then you had me and Mikey, two oddballs in the mix. I'm rolling in there at 5'11" and about 235 pounds (back then - much more now). I don't really recall Westy being matched up on me, but C-Lauff hated guarding me, since I would just try to work him in the post. I don't really know how, but he managed to come as close to blocking my shot as you could possibly get, but he would almost never block it. I just managed to sneak buckets in on C-Lauff. And on the other end, I could force C-Lauff into being a jump shooter. Somehow, I managed to be able to cut off the baseline on him just enough to keep him from getting the idea of putting that leaner up on me. I think that C-Lauff just didn't like the contact. On the other hand, Matt thrived on fouling the crap out of me. He definitely wasn't afraid of hacking and pushing on me before and after I got the ball. I was never particularly effective against Matt, since I didn't have the heart to elbow him in the chops on my way up to the hoop. And Matt scored on me a little more than you would expect, as he put up this little hook shot that I could never do much about. It was strange. If you had a game where Matt guarded me, I guarded C-Lauff, and C-Lauff guarded Matt, you may get a 0-0-0 tie.

Where you would not get a tie was if I played against Mikey. Mike was about 5'9", 170 pounds, and lightning quick. I'd get matched up with Mikey every once in a while, and neither of us could guard the other at all. I'd just completely sag off of him, and give him about 5 feet, and that jumper, out to 20 feet. If I close out on him, I'd steal the ball once every 10 times. The other 9 times, he'd just beat me and get a layup. My best defense was to hope that he's take a bad jumper (which was not his strong point). On the other hand, Mike was too short to guard me. I was smart enough to not dribble more than 2 times on him, since he'd steal the ball if that happened, but I would set up a power dribble, and just shoot over him. And failing that, just back him down on the block. If we played one-on-one, it would be one of those games, where the first person to miss would lose. And it was roughly the same story with Mikey and the other guys. The other guys could score on Mikey if they used their height, which they all managed to do reasonably well. But as soon as they started to dribble, the advantage would switch over to Mikey.

What was always funny to me was that we never all played on the same team, whether it was in IM's or in church tourneys. I think it was a difference in style for me and Westy. Westy was smart. He'd find people who were better than he was, and would actually form competitive IM teams, and C-Lauff would play with Westy. I was a sucker, and would have open invites, and end up with a bunch of stiffs from Bible study (sorry, Schultzie!) or the band kids that Mikey lived with. Westy and C-Lauff would always be complementary players on teams that made deep runs. Me, Matt, and Mikey would always be the best players on teams that would just make/miss the playoffs, and just come up short.

Perhaps one of the more interesting tourneys was one where C-Lauff, Mikey, and me ended up on the same team, for our church's basketball tourney - the Pineapple Classic. Matt had graduated already, and Westy ended up playing with a different team. But C-Lauff and Mikey and I had decided that we were going to rep TFS (our old apartment's moniker). So, we had us 3, and people from our Bible study (Schultzie, Dunn, and a couple others, as I recall). We ended up playing against a very tall team, that had one guard and 4 guys all 6'3" and bigger than us. It was getting a little fiesty, particularly after C-Lauff took it to the hole, and got nailed with a cheap shot from their little guy (go figure - the little dude takes the cheap shot and his bigs have to defend him). The ball scored, but they didn't give us the point, since he had called a foul. The tourney rules hadn't said anything about continuation or not, but we had been playing with continuation for the first couple games. So, not only was there a heated discussion about the play, but the little guy who committed the foul was acting like a punk, and mouthing off. So, I made a bold statement.

"Fine. Check ball. But you'd better not come into the lane."

On our next defensive possession, I was playing with one foot in the lane when one of their bigs came down low on C-Lauff. I went over and clobbered him on his way up, knocking him down. I stood over here, and I said something like, "I told you that you'd better not come in here." And then their little guy drove down the lane, and I clobbered him, and he made the bucket, but had called a foul. Without even blinking, I said, "Check ball. No bucket. He called foul."

Up to that point, they had controlled the offensive glass and their little guy had actually driven for a handful of layups on Mikey. After I clobbered those two guys, even though they were much bigger than us, they played with 5 guys on the perimeter, and the little guy didn't try to drive the lane again. So in the process of sticking up for C-Lauff, I also managed to change the flavor of the game by absolutely thugging one of their bigs and their little guy who had the big mouth. It ended up being one of the ugliest games I've ever played in, and even though we ended up losing a close game, one of the more memorable ones. Sadly, we weren't good enough to carry us, and we didn't have enough of a supporting cast to bail us out, but I think that was one of the more fun TFS bonding experiences. And as I recall, Westy played with the Teefey's and some folks from IV or Cru, and ended up winning. And I'm guessing that he didn't have to go and clobber anyone. Oh well. Like I said, Westy was always smarter than us.

Over the last 4 or 5 years, I've had all sorts of knee issues. And everytime I thought that I was going to regain my form as a pick-up game warrior, I came crashing back down. On numerous occasions, I've posted here about how I thought that I was back. And I really did believe it. But every time, within a week or two, I'd have banged up knees again, and wouldn't be able to run or jump. The sick part was that in that stretch, I actually had some games where I played like I used to, where I could control the ball on offense, defend the block on defense, and be one of the better players on the court. Of course, that would lead to wishful thinking that I was back, followed up by the next outing, where my legs just didn't have anything, and I couldn't move.

For the last 8 months or so, the knees have been relatively pain free. And I've been playing basketball, a little less than once a week, with mixed results. I was out of shape and had lost what little explosiveness I had. I was limited to guarding bigs down low. I had improved as a spot-up shooter, but had lost my entire mid-range game, and really, had lost my decent post game. I could still muscle up a couple shots, but I couldn't actually get legit looks, even down low. I had somewhat resigned myself to being a thug on the blocks for the rest of my pick-up career, which actually is sort of cool. But then about 4 weeks ago, I noticed that I was getting a little higher on rebounds, and was comfortable with the ball in my hands for a couple dribbles. And more importantly, I noticed that I was able to play ball more than once a week.

For the last few weeks, I've been going up to the gym 2 times a week with the sole intention of playing pick-up hoops. And for the last few weeks, I've gotten better everytime out. Part of it is getting into a little better shape, though I'm still woefully out of shape. But the most enjoyable part for me is that I'm starting to be able to do cool things on the court again.

A couple days ago, I was running with 4 little guys, so I was the rebounder and low-block player. They weren't particularly great, but they were OK enough to get us out to a little lead. But then, they got tired, and the other team came back on us, and actually tied the game up at 9. I force my guy into an ugly shot, and pull the rebound. Normally, I just turn and throw out a hard outlet pass up the court to let my guards force the tempo. But I wanted to slow the game down and give myself a possession on offense to take back control of the game.

I had a big guy guarding me. Maybe 6'4", 250 or so, but soft. I was definitely shorter, but was a lot stronger than this guy. I had given him fits on defense, but hadn't really made him guard me on offense, as I had stayed outside, and drew him out to open up the lanes for our small guys. I figured that it was time to change things up. I walked the ball up into a 1-4 high set. I had hit an outside jumper earlier, so my guy didn't sag on me. This time he decides to actually guard the ball on me, and I see him start to attack my dribble, which was perfect, since I was looking drive on him. I take a hard dribble to my right, which I knew he wanted to cut-off. This sets me up to go back left. I give him probably the best crossover that I've ever had and blow by him clean, and rumble down the lane. I had a great takeoff, and actually got up in the air unchallenged.

And then I bricked the lay-in. Go figure.

I was a little angry, but was also laughing hysterically. I settled myself, and actually ended up closing the game out nicely. I had a play where I was being fronted in the block, and my guard threw a terrible entry pass fromt the top of the key. I actually jumped up and reached over my defender to grab the ball, and in one motion, turned 180 degrees in the air, landed, and went back up for a lay-in. And I had another one where I was setting a screen on the block for my guy to come across the lane and out to the wing, when I see a terrible shot/pass go up. I manage to come off of the screen, jump over a defender who had his back to the play, get the ball, and flip in a reverse lay-up on the other side of the hoop.

Now, I'm still not quite confident enough to try to force the issue off the bounce to set up my midrange jumpers. And when I have the ball, I'm still generally looking to set up screen-roll, rather than take my guy off the dribble. But, I'm working pretty good in the post, and getting a couple buckets off of hustle, which is a happy result. The plan is to keep playing ball twice a week, pushing myself to play that 4th game each time I'm out, and to slowly get back to handling the rock on offense, and maybe even forcing the issue once or twice a game, when my team needs a bucket.

Who knows. Maybe I'll get myself in shape for another run at IM's next year :-) Sadly, we don't have Westy, C-Lauff, Matt, or Mikey around to take a shot at it together.

-Chairman

The Democratic Process: Giving Props

This is a leftover from last month's election day results that I never got around to finishing until now...

You have love democracy. A democratic process where one man gets one vote. No matter how incredibly smart and influential that man is, he only gets one vote. And no matter how poor, uneducated, unintelligent, etc. that man is, he gets the same vote.

Okay. So maybe it isn't the most efficient form of government. In fact, I was reminded of this when I saw some of the celebrations after Obama won. Let's just say that when some dude with a sideways baseball cap who is flashing gang signs for the camera at a political rally gets the same power that I do, I sort of wonder about how efficient this process actually is.

But dammit, it's our form of government. Sort of. We're not really in a democracy, but sort of a hybrid democratic republic. For the most part, we don't get to vote on laws. We elect officials, who then propose and pass laws. So that's a republic. But every once in a while, we get good ol' fashioned democracy. This time around, it happened out in California.

I don't really say this often, but I have to give some props to the folks out in Cali. Why? They gave their props to the democratic process... Prop 8, specifically. In case you weren't aware, they were trying to legalize gay marriage out in California.

Now, there's a phrase, that just goes against everything I believe in.

Gay Marriage.

I'm not really a fan of gay. I'm not homophobic. I think that homophobia is usually a misnomer. I'm not really afraid of gays, per se. I don't really care who's sleeping with who. I just don't like the culture or values of the homosexual community. Maybe that makes me homosexist, or maybe anti-gay. But not homophobic. We need to find a better word, anyway. But the gist of this is that I don't like "gay" (actually, I think that preferred term is "queer" ) culture.

And marriage. Those cultural values may be even worse. I mean, who wouldn't want to go out to pick moldings and curtains at Home Depot on a Sunday afternoon, instead of recovering from Saturday night, while watching the games, and reveling in being awesome. And who doesn't want to have extra pillows on the bed that you never really use, and aren't even comfortable enough to use even if you had to.

All I can say is that if you have a proposition to ban gay culture, I could see myself taking the time to go vote. And if you had a proposition to ban the institution of marriage, again I could see myself voting. But a proposition to ban both in one fell swoop? I'm surprised that I didn't establish residency in California so that I could vote. Heck, I'd consider voting twice.

But that would have been a lot of work. The good people in California (in particular, the Mormons), saw fit to go out and vote down gay marriage. Which saved me the trouble. In any case, I'm just glad that we can violate civil rights in an orderly, democratic fashion. Because that's what I'm about.

-Chairman

Child Left Behind

Nebraska is sort of the opposite of "No child left behind."

A splendid article in the NYT talks about how the state of Nebraska has unfairly revised one of the greatest laws in the history of the United States. Basically, there's a safe haven law in every state. What this sort of thing does is gives parents a way out when they realize that they should punt. This is a great law that's a bit limited in scope, generally. Most states were smart to write in some maximum age that you could return your kids to the stork. Not Nebraska. Wanting to leave things to the imagination, their law just said that you could dump your "child" whenever you wanted.

So what would any sane parent with a lousy kid do?

You slip some sedatives to your ritalin-depending kid, and leave him at the hospital. You may have to fill out some paperwork, but it's so much easier than monkeying around with some loser kid. What can you say? Someone takes a shot at parenting, realizes that they suck, and then punts. This is entirely better than being a lousy parent, and then being oblivious to that fact, and then raising some sociopath. What's cool is that "child" means anyone under 18. So you were legally able to dump high school seniors for acting up. No questions asked.

Of course, this is only a stopgap measure, like putting a band aid on a serious wound. To really fix the problem of defective kids, you need to go to the source.

The Freakonomics answer is that we abort more kids. Particularly more kids from the poor, black/hispanic populations, since they're statistically more likely to become criminals. But I can't promote that. Especially since roughly 117% of my readership is Westy, who is definitely against abortion, but apparently, for woolly mammoths. And since I'm still making pennies per month on AdSense, I definitely don't want to jeopardize my revenue stream.

(Aside for Westy - if we genetically recreate a neanderthal, does it have a soul? And would a cloned human have a soul?)

Now, a while back my buddy Dino (at least, I think it was Dino) had the great idea of sprinkling RU-486 in people's drinks when you want to make sure that certain people don't reproduce. But it turns out that RU-486 isn't just something that you pop, like Flintstone Vitamins. You actually have to go to a doctor. And there's some controversy, since RU-486 is used for killing live fetuses.

So we need another plan. So we'll go to Plan B. Literally.

Paraphrasing my pharmacist buddy, you (the girl, actually, not "you" in the generic term - though that would be interesting...) just pop a double dose of birth control the morning after, and then another double dose later that day. No pregnancy. No killing fetuses. No need for personal responsibility, beyond remembering to pop a couple pills, twice the day after risky sex. Of course, even that may be too much, given the prevalence of once-a-week (or even once-a-month) contraceptives.

Now, what's interesting is that Plan B doesn't really kill a fetus. It just keeps one from forming. I'm not big on science or facts, but the Plan B website makes a big point of this. Of course, I have a suspicion that the anti-abortion folks aren't fond of Plan B, either. But we'll see how that plays out. But in any case, it seems that putting Plan B in the water supply may be a better way of controlling thing, at least in comparison to Nebraska's old safe haven law, and would be more tasteful than using RU-486.

-Chairman

My Dirty Little Secret

I have a secret.

Not only did I vote, but I enjoyed it so much that I was chuckling as I filled in my ballot.

Was it because I was making history, like I alluded to in my last post?

Nope.

It was because they actually had write-in votes for president. Sadly, they didn't have write-in votes for any of the other positions. But let's just say that I garnered a little momentum in my 2020 presidential campaign. And I would have finished third in the race for congressman, if they would have allowed write-in votes there.

So now that I've let you in on the secret that I voted myself for POTUS, I'm sure that many of you are asking who I had as my running mate on my ballot. Only the most qualified candidate, possible.

Sabre-toothed Cougar.

Chairman and Palin in 2008.

Of course, this is symbolic in nature, since there was no chance that I was winning this time around. But it foreshadows my choice in 2020. By that time Sarah Palin will be old news. But you know who will be right in the public's eye? Here's a hint: Bristol.

Yep. The pregnant, unwed teen daughter of Caribou Barbie. Bristol Palin. Now, some of you naysayers may say that she'll only be like 29 at that point, or offer some equally inane rebuttal. All I have to say is that as someone who has never been a Washington insider, I don't acknowledge the bureaucratic red-tape (i.e., the Constitution) that has bogged this country down for so long.

So it was with this forward-thinking mindset that I was chuckling as I cast my vote in this year's election. For myself. So not only was this the first vote for the future POTUS, this was also a historic vote against the first black POTUS.

That's what we call a full day's work.

And now I know why people are so big on voting.

-Chairman

Participating in History

This is strange. A have this peculiar urge today. I sort of want to vote. Given my stance that apathy and sloth outweighs civic duty, this is strange. But wouldn't it be cool to be a part of history. In all likelihood, we are going to elect our first black president tonight. And we're going to elect our 47th stiff, old white dude as vice president.

A complete aside. In 1881, James A. Garfield, our 20th president, died, and Chester Arthur, the vice-president took over the presidency. Who became vice president?

Anyway, back my original thought. Wouldn't it be cool to be a part of history? If I voted, perhaps, I could say that I voted for the first black American president. But you know what would make for a better story? I could say that I voted against the first black American president. That would be a story to tell my grandchildren. Sort of like how a journeyman pitcher who made it to the big leagues could tell his grandkids about how he beaned Barry Bonds in his only inning in the majors. Which would be cool, only in a psychologically troubled mind, such as my own.

And I think that I just compared Barack Obama to Barry Bonds.

In any case, the voting booths are on the way to the gym. I'm off to lift. We'll see if the lines are short enough to justify my being a part of history, in either direction.

-Chairman

Palin Comparison

Sarah Palin. Caribou Barbie? That's a pretty cool nickname. Personally, I'm going with Sabre-Toothed Cougar. But in any case, she's got my endorsement. Thought I'm not sure what value that has. As you all have seen in previous postings and discussions, I'm not exactly an "issues voter." Heck, I'm not even a "voter." In fact, that position was my initial foray into blogging.

But, I am somewhat decent at this sort of analysis. My instinct went to Obama relatively early on, and I was right about Edwards being shady. I was on the Huckabee trend relatively early (and hoped that he could pull it out), but knew that he didn't have much of a chance. I was pretty accurate with my early assessment of Romney as being too stiff, despite being an early favorite. But Sarah Palin? Awesome choice. Not for winning or anything like that. But awesome choice.

Now, I don't have a clue who this Caribou Barbie chick actually is, what she stands for, or anything else, other than that she was Miss Alaska or something back in the day. That's sort of like being the fastest kid at the Special Olympics, but still, it's cool. But this is what I do know:

Alaska. Cold state. Hot Governor. 128% Awesome.

Like I said, Sabre-Toothed Cougar. She's cracking jokes, winking at the camera, and going on SNL and being awesome. Now compare this to what we've had in the past, when it comes to women in politics. In fact, there's a beautiful symmetry at work. Back in 1984, Caribou Barbie was strutting around in a swimsuit, while the lady below was making a run at the White House as VP for the democratic ticket.

Aerosmith sang about this, right?

Happily, Geraldine Ferraro isn't strutting around in a swimsuit on YouTube now. Yeah. I'm guessing the League of Women Voters ran a DNA test, but I think that's a dude in drag. And if you consider our almost-option, Hillary, there isn't much improvement.

I don't make this stuff up. There are already enough people who do that.

Don't even need to add to that headline. In any case, what we will probably be seeing more of is this lady:

Not so much scary as nuts. In a fun way. Sort of like Left-Eye burning down Andre Rison's house.

I don't think that she's exactly scary. Maybe a little insane. She's got this thing where she sees her husband as a messiah. Of course, since Louis Farrakhan thinks that he's the messiah, then I'm down.

Conclusion? Like OJ's book... If I were to vote, here's how I would do it... Palin. I'm not voting for McCain. Just Palin. I'd going to cross out McCain's name on ballot, and replace it with Obama's. And then I'd vote again by crossing out Biden's name, and replacing it with Palin. I could care less about who's going to win the election (since it's going to be Obama). But I want more Sarah Palin, and more impressions from the sneaky-hot Tina Fey.

That is, if I were to vote. Which I won't.

-Chairman

Ramble On

It's been a while since I've had a rambling, train of thought sort of posting. So here goes.

My goal is to offend as many distinct philosophical viewpoints as I can.

First of all, I'm concerned with the state of education in this country. I get some great stories from my little bro who's teaching out in Hawaii. Now, he's not exactly one of those teachers that will be getting an award for excellence any time soon. But from the stories that he's telling me, he's struggling with his new job because he actually seems to be caring too much. When that's the case, you have to wonder about the future of our children. You hear report after report of how schools are failing, how "No Child Left Behind" has resulted in everyone being slowed down. And then you hear about how teachers are subpar now, and how our best and brightest are not going into teaching.

I have a hypothesis. And before I get into it, I want to clarify that, though I am a misogynist, that only partially explains my position.

Women's rights have made our children dumber. There's more to it that just women's rights, but that's the part that makes this rambling more interesting (and is likely to generate more hate mail).

The basic premise is this. You also make the assumption that high mental ability leads to success in the workplace, as well as socioeconomic status (income, education, occupation). That's a pretty reasonable assumption, based on most of the research that's been done. Now, you also assume that people are inherently greedy, which is a basic assumption upon which the discipline of economics is built on. So, smart people will try to maximize their income by filtering into high-paying occupations. Nothing particularly intriguing, right? We've always known that people went into med school, law school, and B school to make bank.

Now, you assume that men and women have equal mental ability. Naturally, this assumption is faulty, since it's been proven that at the highest levels, women find math to be tough (I'd cite this, but I'm not exactly sure how to quote those old Barbie dolls with the pull strings). But let's assume it anyway. So, you take the next step and make sure that everyone in the world hates you by stating that if there was less female empowerment in this society, our schools would be better.

How do we make that drastic leap? Before the women's lib movement, what were the occupational roles that educated women played? Teacher, nurse, receptionist/typist, housewife. So, most of your smart women were being sent into the workplace, with a much higher proportion of them sent on a mission to educate our children.

Now, flash forward. Women have been told that they have the ability to be lawyers, doctors, engineers, pilots, astronauts, soldiers, accountants, race car drivers, CEO, vice president, president (note, the last two remain theoretical), and whatever else a man can do. And for the most part, that's been great for the individuals. For example, I'm sure that GoDaddy girl Danica Patrick has carved out a great life for herself. But what does this do to our educational system?

We have an economic system where teachers don't make much, compared to other professions, and have relatively low prestige. So, logically speaking, where should the smartest folks go first? Probably into the engineering, law, and business schools and the hard sciences. Or into bikini modeling, but that correlations between intelligence and beauty are rather spurious. And only after we filter out the smartest folks do we get into teaching.

Now, in years past, that was OK, because there were fewer acceptable occupations for women. And pay for nursing, teaching, and office work were about the same (actually teaching probably was better). So our brightest women were going into teaching. Even though men didn't really go into teaching, we still had a lot of smart people becoming school teachers. Maybe the smartest 5% went into some non-traditional roles, but you can say that the next 30% were probably teachers or nurses. So, out of the overall population, you had access to a good chunk of the top 1/3 for teaching. Note, I'm just making up the numbers, but you should get the point. If anyone cares to dig up actual numbers, we could see if all this still makes sense.

Flash forward today, and even though there are more men going into teaching, we're still missing out on the smartest folks. After you filter out all of the smart folks who are driven by income/prestige (which is still a basic assumption that's fairly robust), you have much more limited access to the top 1/3 of the population, and are largely limited to the next 1/3.

Back when we had more glass ceilings, we funneled more smart people into teaching. Thus, women's rights have led to dumber kids.

Now, there's more to the story. The free market also has led to dumber kids. I'm sure that Ron Paul and our libertarian friends will have hate mail for me. And heaven forbid if there are any feminists that support Ron Paul that read this.

The free market basically lets individuals set prices according to value. This works out well when things are quantifiable (commodity prices come to mind quickly). And this works as a system at the individual level, where social factors are small.

Wages are the price for labor. So, higher wages are offered for positions where employee ability is valued more. Employers want employees that contribute value (i.e., profit) to the employer. We have good accounting rules (generally speaking) that help us measure value in this realm.

But what happens in social services where the value goes to society? And what happens when these things are difficult to measure?

The tragedy of the commons.

The free market is this idea at work. People act independently, trying to maximize their value. Unregulated, shared resources (the commons) are inevitibly depleted, though no one believes that is a good outcome.

The free market sets the price for tangible things well, but poorly for less tangible things. This intangibility leads to more risk when it comes to investment. And even if we could measure the value of something like the quality of education, it may not make economic sense for us to invest in education. After all, if my investment in education leads to smarter accountants and financial analysts, it may only benefit society in a minimal way. So, my investment on a public good, may not be good for me.

Basically, the free market sets a lower price for things like public education, environmentalism, community health, and other social issues. Part of this is the increased riskiness of investment associated with intangiblility, and part of this is that the benefits of associate with the outcomes are outweighed by the costs. So, even though we know that we should invest in education to get more talented poeple into the classrooms, and we know that the degradation of our educational system would be catastrophic, it may not make sense for individuals to invest.

So why can't we privatize education? We could, but there's no clear business plan for education as a profit maker, is there? I don't really know, but nothing jumps out at me. Current models basically take the same taxpayer money in, and use it to run schools privately, with the profits coming in efficiency. But efficient delivery only gets you so far. You still have the same issue - how do you convince individuals to pay for this? In a free market, you basically don't. In our system, we have taxes. Now, traditionally, we have a pretty laissez-faire attitude, so our tax structure is geared toward allowing free markets. If you compare this to somewhere like, say, Norway, where things are basically socialist, you see a very high quality public education system. Of course, many Norwegians go abroad for college. Norwegian universities are not world-class. Now where the American system shines is in higher education, where the goal is excellence of the individuals involved. This shouldn't be surprising. Our relatively free market system leads to the greatest rewards for individual success.

Now, as you go more broadly, from education, to society, you have to ask "what's the answer?" I think that we're seeing many outcomes that suggest that carte blanche free market structures lead to problems when goals are at a social level. However, we also see where the free market leads to excellence at the highest levels. I think that you can incorporate both structures. The question is where you shift from more socialist to more free market.

I think that free market proponents overstate the degree to which free markets have benefits. Areas where you need excellence , need free markets. Bear in mind, excellence has been diluted. Not every company is excellent. In fact, by definition, most are mediocre. And bear in mind it should be the need of excellence that is important. Many industries can thrive with mere competence. So, regulations should be geared toward a free market where radical innovation and knowledge generation can be rewarded. Heavy R&D companies come to mind. For example, phamaceutical companies need to be rewarded for breakthrough drugs (though they need to be strongly regulated for drugs that are only incrementally beneficial - like the myriad drugs that are essentially the same, save for an additional feature that allows for a new patent). Companies that can change the way energy is consumed need to be rewarded for helping us live sustainably (but companies that contribute to the status quo should not recieve such protection).

At the individual level, we can do this through smarter taxing. For environmental issues, we can regulate consumption. If you read Gregg Easterbrook, you've read about how improving fuel efficiency, going from 10 mpg to 20 mpg is much more beneficial than going from 20 mpg to 30 mpg. Since companies often use their manufacturing cost as a baseline for pricing, we often misprice goods by not considering the societal cost of usage. For example, SUV's can be considered underpriced, because we don't consider the increased cost of usage. We can increase the tax on the SUV, but we can also increase the cost of the gasoline for SUV's. For community health, we can impose taxes based on healthiness of the food, with unhealthy options taxed higher. We're starting to do this with tobacco. Alcohol should probably be more expensive, given the costs to society. But where this really can change society is with foods, particularly with processed food manufactureres and our incredibly screwed up agricultural industry.

And back to education. School taxes should not stay local. The broad role of basic education is not for individual excellence - it's for competence amongst the masses. Basics need to be instilled - this requires standardized programs where there is equal access, regardless of a community's income. National curriculum that sets a high bar is needed. This is of particular importance in K-6. Within each individual school, recognizing the most talented individuals and giving them some separate instruction for part of their studies can still allow for individual achievement, particularly in teaching writing, logic, mathematics, and ethics. The teaching of facts doesn't necessitate a separate classroom. Overall, it's providing uniformity in education, regardless of the neighborhood you happen to live in. This isn't a small change on how we teach. This is taking a bulldozer to a system that's intrinsicly skewed.

Oh yeah. And we need to get smarter people back in there as teachers. My first thought is to severely restrict employment opportunities for women in other arenas :-)

Remember. Roland in 2020. A Vision for the Future. I'm guessing that I won't be President anytime soon. But, I think that if I ever become Dictator For Life, that I'll have some interesting ideas.

-Chairman

The Waiting

The waiting is the hardest part
Every day you see one more card
You take it on faith, you take it to the heart
The waiting is the hardest part

-Tom Petty

So now I wait. I just had a campus visit last week. This was a final interview for a position on the faculty in the business college of a reasonably well-regarded BCS school. I think that I did well on the interview. I'm one of 3 finalists, and was the last one to take my campus visit. We'll see how it goes, but I think that I've got an above average chance, so instead of 1 in 3, maybe 50-50? I have to say, I enjoyed my visit, so if I get the offer, I'm pretty much there. And if not? Beats me.

All I know is that this time next year, I'll be hanging around a different town, being overpaid as a professor. The thought of making roughly 6-7 times my current salary sort of makes me laugh. I mean, I definitely think that I'm underpaid right now for what I do, but I definitely don't think that if you give me 50% more work (which is roughly what the difference will be) that I would expect to get paid 600% more. Honestly, if you told me that I was going to basically do what I'm doing now, only teach one more class each semester, I'd be happy to make $50K. Now, let's go ahead and more than double, or maybe even triple that number?

If you remember my old posts that discuss why I should never be rich...

This can't be good. Can it?

-Chairman

Formulaic, but Important

If you guys get the chance, take 90 minutes out of your schedule to watch Glory Road. The movie's sort of paint by numbers. More or less, you take Remember the Titans, and change high school football to college basketball. But the story was important. It changed sports and society in many parts of the country, particularly the southeast. Though Texas Western (now UTEP) has had some success, the current beneficiaries of this story are the SEC fans who are enjoying a bit of a renaissance in SEC sports, as well as the players who have had opportunities open up as a result of Kentucky's somewhat stunning loss.

The man that really drove that story was Don Haskins, who passed away earlier today.

The Board Room offers a moment of silence.

-Chairman

More of the Same

IMPE is dead.

It has been replaced by the Activities and Recreation Center, or the ARC.

Long live IMPE.

I spent many hours in our old Intramural Physical Education Building, or IMPE for short. Many of my fondest memories took place in that old gym. I started and cemented some of my best friendships in IMPE. I've always believed that you could learn a lot about people about how they play sports. Do they share the ball? Do they make the people around them better? Do they want to win? How do they handle losing? Can they think on the fly? Can they adapt to different situations?

Earlier this week, I took my first look at the ARC. It's spectacular. For someone who knows what to look for, you can see the remnants of old IMPE. You see where the old tennis courts have become new basketball courts. You see rounded walls that used to accommodate a small running track. You see the old gym all the way to the right that no one used to play on, still there, off in the periphery. It was a new, upgraded version of the old IMPE.

Completely randomly, I met JohnnyO playing pick-up volleyball on Friday afternoons during my junior year. It was the first Friday of the school year. Johnny was there w/ a couple others, and just happened to see a rag-tag crew playing some pickup. We had a couple OK players, among which I was probably one of the better ones. JohnnyO was more or less elite, and other good players started to come out when word got around that there was volleyball on Fridays that was decent. Johnny and Co. would come out and play, and I would get better. We'd spend hours out there. We'd start up at 3 (after cutting our Friday afternoon classes), and play until 7. It was hot, muggy, and exhausting. But it made me better to be in that crucible - demanding to dominate that last game, despite leaden legs and burning lungs. Making that last dig, that last perfect set, that last swing, that last block. This was more intense than volleyball practice was for me in high school. We were never any good, and there wasn't any aspiration to get better. We were happy to just goof around and have fun. Friday afternoon volleyball was different, despite the lack of official records and trophies. We all had a lot of fun, but the good players all wanted to become better to compete w/ Johnny, and Johnny was more than happy to be there, just because he liked playing. Eventually, the Friday volleyball led to friendship with JohnnyO and a lot of the crew. It started with rolling out to the women's volleyball matches. And then I'd go hang out with them afterwards. I'd roll with them to their parties, and I'd give rides to drunks and keep people out of bar fights. I eventually became their TA for a math course, and have remained friends with those guys since. I still see them a few times a year, when they roll down to campus, or when I roll up to the city.

The ARC is nice. There are three volleyball courts that are always available. There seem to always be at least a couple people playing. I jumped into a pick-up game yesterday. We actually played for almost 2 hours. The others weren't all that great. There was one guy who was OK, but other than that, it was pretty much family reunion volleyball. The funny part was that I was probably the best player there. Definitely the best passer and setter. And I actually jumped OK. But the legs moved a little slower. The reflexes were still more or less there. Passing and setting is still solid, but the jumping is off. When everything clicks just right, I can still get up close to what I used to (which isn't really all that much), but the problem is that everything doesn't always click right. Maybe it's just rust, but maybe I'm getting old.

I also spent a lot of time on the basketball courts. It started out with just me and Matt, neither of us particularly good, during freshman year. I was woefully out of shape, and had to play center, despite being under 6' tall. I had just enough basketball IQ to get myself into trouble, by trying to make plays that were right, but that either I couldn't make or the people around couldn't make. I was limited to these slow, low-post power moves where I'd just try to plow over people. Eventually, I got into pretty good shape, and became much quicker and explosive, to the point where I was actually pretty good, and played point guard or out on the wing, and developed a nice mid-range jumper and started using that basketball IQ to start throwing passes with some mustard on them. Me and Matt expanded to me, Matt, Ed, Westy, C-Lauff, Mikey, and a cast of thousands (or so it seemed). I think that my most successful memory on the basketball court is a stretch of a month, where C-Lauff and I were paired up together and won something like 18 straight games during Sunday morning basketball. There were some games, where we were just great. I'd attack the block and C-Lauff would get the ball in the high post, and put on that beautiful leaner. I'd come up with that little 14' bank shot off the bounce, or C-Lauff would start draining outside shots. But we didn't always play beautiful basketball. But we found a way to win. Sometimes, it was clamping down on D, while our teammates bailed us out on offense. Sometimes, it was just waiting out the other team, who was playing even worse. That may have been the most useful experience for me, in terms of learning to win and learning to succeed. But that's sort of boring.

My funniest memory happened, just off of the court. In the bathroom, right next to the west gym, in fact. We'd play on Sunday mornings, at 10. Waking up at 9:30 was (and is) sort of hard for me on the weekends (or during the week). But I'd roll out of bed at 9:30, brush my teeth, put on gym clothes, and roll out the door. One Sunday, I was playing w/ Matt and Ed, and we won our first game. I had played really well, scoring something like 5 out of 11 points, and was probably the best player on the court that game. Of course, I didn't have time to use the bathroom before basketball, so right after the game, I hustled off to the bathroom. I was sitting on the toilet for about 5 minutes, when Ed came in, looking for me, and seeing if I was alright. I as in the middle of a pretty wicked BM. He realizes that it was me on the can, hears me groaning a bit, and just starts cracking up.

"Uh. Yeah. Can you start up? I'll just sub in when I'm done."

I'll bet that never happened to MJ.

What's interesting about me on the basketball court is that if I'm the 3rd most skilled player on a team, I can do a lot of good things. I'll make a couple tough rebounds, set good screens, make some good passes, and lock down on D. I may even score a couple times. But if you ask me to be the best player, particularly the best scorer, we're in trouble. Part of it is my mentality. One thing that I usually try to do is to make the "right" play. I'll keep making passes to open shooters, even when the open shooters are awful shooters, and haven't made anything all day. I'm stubborn like that - I firmly believe in a "right" way to play basketball, and would rather lose playing "right" than start taking more shots to win. I think that I lost a lot while playing basketball.

One game that I remember winning was a game that I played with Mikey, his roommate, and a couple band geeks. We rolled out to IMPE, and jumped on a court, with a bunch of black dudes out there playing. It became one of the more interesting games that I've played. I was matched up with AJ, who was a good ball player (he started for an A-level intramural team that always went deep in the playoffs). The game devolved into a full-court game of 2-on-2, with me and Mikey vs. AJ and his buddy. If the other team just plays basketball, they kill us, since the band geeks were dead weight. Instead, we managed to get them into this shootout, where AJ wasn't quite strong enough to guard me inside 15 feet, and Mikey was going crazy making steals and getting breakaway layups. I outscored AJ 7 to 6, and Mikey outscored his guy 7 to 3. We won 14-12. The other team was yelling at each other at the end of the game. The band geeks were happy, and could say that they held court against the black dudes, probably conveniently leaving out the fact that they never scored a bucket. I learned that people are happy to be associated with winning, even if they don't have anything to do with it.

So that begs the question of what is "right?" Is it following your principles, regardless of outcome? Or is it the outcome what is right, leaving you to work backwards to figure what the best path is for the best outcome? My most memorable game at IMPE was a game where I was a gunner, and it got my opponent riled up enough to go after me, and forget about the teammates. This was completely opposite my nature, but it was very satisfying to win. I became acquaintances with AJ afterwards. We'd always chat when we'd see each other in the streets, and we'd look out for each other on the court, and try to get into the same game. So, there was some respect there. Interestingly, it came when I was playing somewhat selfishly.

I ran a few games earlier this week. The legs felt good. I was out of shape, but I managed to get through the third game. Much like in volleyball, I've lost a lot of the explosiveness. Every once in a while, I can still get up for a rebound or a shot. The problem is that I'm never quite sure when I can get the lift that I want. So many times, I'll just jump, and I won't go quite as high as I'm expecting. It's excessively frustrating to miss shots that you know that you should be making because you didn't get the lift that you were expecting. Maybe I can capture some lightning in a bottle, and get my legs and my wind back. It's not unheard of to be in better shape in your 30's than in your 20's. But more likely, I'll have to adapt. I'll have to learn new ways to do the things that I used to do.

Perhaps the transition of IMPE to the ARC can mirror my transition, my adaptation. Maybe I'll be new and improved. Is IMPE really dead? I hope not. I trust that anyone who knows will be able to see the old structure, and see how the new has been built up around it. And who knows? Maybe there's some resurrection to be had in this old soul.

Long live IMPE.

-Chairman

Even the Fights are Lame...

Don't get me wrong. I love me some fundamental basketball. But that doesn't mean that I particularly like to watch fundamental basketball on TV. So let's just say that I'm not a huge fan of women's basketball on TV. I actually like the guard play that I see - there are some talented chicks that could run in just about any pick-up game with the guys, and probably dominate most of them. These gals can shoot and pass at an elite level. My problem is actually with the bigs. Most of the 4's and 5's that you see are these plodders. Think of the goofy, white centers that you used to see in the NBA. Greg Ostertag comes to mind as one of the better ones. Not much in the way of skill or athleticism. But he was tall and big, and could make a little 4 footer. That's what most of the bigs that I've seen in women's basketball remind me of.

Greg Ostertag (right) scores on a fundamentally sound, but aesthetically displeasing, layup.

Of course, there are some notable exceptions. Lisa Leslie is like a KG sort of player in the women's game. Tall, lanky, can play inside or outside, can shoot, dribble, or post. And another one is Candace Parker, who can actually "dunk." Sort of - if you count laying the ball in the rim, and hanging on the rim dunking, which admittedly is more than I could ever do, with a basketball, at least (Full disclosure: I was able to "dunk" a tennis ball, but that was because I'd just put it between my finger tips). But Parker's definitely got game. The problem is that many of the effective players aren't aesthetically pleasing, and neither are their games. Courtney Paris, daughter of former 49er offensive lineman Bubba Paris comes to mind.

Paris (left) scores a touchdown to put the Sooners ahead, 42-3.
This picture is representative of the Oklahoma-Baylor "rivalry" on a general level.

But then I hear about The Brawl and the Place II, and I had a glimmer of hope for women's basketball. If women could resort to violence to settle their problems, then perhaps there was potential for the WNBA, after all. But after reviewing the film, I've decided that the fight sucked, too.

Angry black women pushing and shoving: A highlight from the 8th season of Cheaters.

There was so much potential. The NBA is notorious for having terrible fights. Think back to Larry Johnson and Alonzo Mourning pawing at each other like, well, girls. So, if we could have had a true, Hanson Brothers, hockey-style fight, that would have totally redeemed the WNBA, and shown us where girls can be better than the boys.

The Hanson Sisters, circa 1997, showing us that girls can be better than boys. The young one is hot.


Correction: The previous photo of the Hanson brothers featured the bitch-pop trio, not the fictitious trio from Slap Shot. The Board Room regrets the error.

Long story short - tempers flare when Plenette Pierson, a journeywoman player, who scores 9 points per game, takes a cheap box-out on Candace Parker during a meaningless free-throw, with the game over, and takes her down. Some other lesbian comes over and tackles Parker, and Parker takes a swing. Then there's some sort of pushing and yelling. And then nothing. The best thing that happened? DeLisha Milton-Jones (no, I'm not making that name up) attacked Rick Mahorn from behind, looking like a little Mexican wrestler attacking Andre the Giant.

DeLisha Milton-Jones prepares to swing.

Andre the Giant ultimately prevails.

I was waiting for Mahorn to turn around and choke slam her, but sadly, that was not to be.

Oh well. Maybe next time.

-Chairman

Enfranchisement

I've decided that we're hypocrites. In this country, we are actively disenfranchising voters in Florida and Michigan in the Democratic primaries. Additionally, our voter turnouts are so low that we've resorted to campaigns by hip-hop stars to try to get people to vote.

I'm glad that these people are influencing how people vote.

Meanwhile, out in Zimbabwe, we have a real-life hero not just talking game, but actually living out game. Who is this man? Mugabe. No, not the bad guy in Zoolander. And that was Micronesia. Mugabe is running the show in Zimbabwe. And you know that he means business because he's wearing a sash. This means either a) he's just won Miss Teen USA, b) he's getting crunk on your 21st birthday, or c) he runs a moderate sized dictatorship in Africa.

Mugabe? Mugatu? Whatever. Respect the sash.

Do we praise him for creating record voter turnouts? No, we're talking about how he's intimidating people into voting. Does this look intimidating? Hardly. This is a very orderly line. Compare this to the lines outside of Best Buy the day after Thanksgiving.

The line to get in wraps around the block. This party must be jumpin'.

I think that we need a little Mugabe in this country to get people out to the polls. For example, look at me. Do I vote? Of course not. Why do I not vote? I have no intention of listening to P.Diddy tell me about civics. Now, if it was Suge Knight or Louis Farrakhan, I'd probably think twice. But Diddy? Or Paris Hilton? Okay. That's going to work. Do you know what would get me to vote?

A little encouragement helps oil the wheels of civic duty.

Exactly. If Michael Irvin was to chase me with a giant stick until I voted, you bet that I'd be voting. Probably twice. All I got to say is this. You gotta suffer if you want suffrage.

-Chairman

Deer in the Headlights

Two weekends ago, I was up in Chicago for a conference. Good conference. I'm convinced more than ever that I'll be off in a small town in the middle of nowhere next year. Which isn't all that different from where I am now, actually...

But, it was on the way back that the story got interesting. I'm cruising down the freeway, just about 25 miles from home. I'm in the left lane, since the right lane was a little bumpy. Nothing too extravagant. Maybe 72 or 73 mph. I had a couple grad students in the car with me heading back to school. We're actually having a pretty interesting chat about God and religion, when a deer comes wandering out from the median, which was sort of different.

Naturally, my first instinct was to recognize the problem, namely that there was a deer in the road that I was bearing down upon at high speed. My riders heard a somewhat quiet mumble of, "uh-oh." This is somewhat normal. What was much more interesting was my next thought. Instead of fear or anything like that, I went straight to annoyance and disgust, thinking, "Dammit."

Go figure. In a potentially life or death situation, my instincts gravitated toward annoyance at having to deal with a situation, even before survival. What does that say about me as a person? Yikes.

In any case, I start to turn into the right lane to avoid the deer, only to have it continue to cross the road. So, I had to break back left to go behind the deer. I saw the car heading into the ditch in the median, so I swerve back right, only to lose control of the car. What was scary was that I was headed for the start of a metal guardrail, which is a pretty solid object. Slamming into that would have been bad. I proceeded to take my car down into a ditch on the right side of the road.
The drop off from the road was pretty steep. If you didn't know where to look, you never would have seen the car. But somehow, I came in at just the right angle to go down the hill pretty easily. No trees, no rocks, or anything else. I ended up killing a lot of grass. And the car was pretty much OK. I even tried to back the car out, but the rains that had come made for slightly muddy ground, combining with really long, wet stalks of grass to keep me from just backing out myself. Instead, we lost a couple hours, waiting for a tow truck (AAA to the rescue again!) and chatting with the state trooper that made it out there (and almost drove by because he didn't see where it happened).

The best part? That was Sunday night. On Tuesday, I ended up driving out to Boston to help my brother pack up a bunch of stuff, right before he moved out to Hawaii. And I just made it back home last night. Brutal. But somehow, we're back, with a bunch of cool stuff courtesy of (not so) little bro, and with a car that's not any worse for the wear.

Forget semi-charmed. I think that I've got a fully charmed kind of life.

-Chairman

Lock Down Defense

So, I am technically a Doctoral Candidate now.

But if anything, I feel somewhat dumber now.

The proposal defense was sort of anti-climactic, actually. To some extent, this process is just trying to minimize the downside. Namely, you just want to make sure that you pass. No matter how good your proposal is, it's just a proposal, after all. And, I was pretty sure that my advisor wasn't going to let me send anything out to my committee unless it was good enough to pass. And I knew that there were some flaws to my proposal, so I had no illusions about it being perfect.

I walked into the room, got everything set up, and then they asked me to leave, so that they could talk about things by themselves. This is a rather nervous few minutes, actually. You're out in the hallway for 10 minutes, just wondering about what could go wrong. Then, I came in, and started presenting. Normally, I expect to have professors just tear into your theoretical arguments right off the bat. Instead, there were basically no questions at all for the first half of my presentation. Later, I found out that the committee actually liked my theoretical arguments quite a bit. But it was sort of interesting to have no real comments. Then I got into my proposed experiments. And this is when I started feeling dumb. As I start explaining what it is that my hypotheses were, I noticed that I had made a mistake in my presentation, and in my actual paper, getting something backward. Whoops. Not only is that embarrassing, but you start wondering about how you let that slip through.

I made a couple choices with my experiments, essentially only testing a part of my theoretical framework, and leaving the rest for future research. They hated that idea, suggesting (very accurately, actually) that what I was doing was sort of over-promising, and not delivering. And, there were some very legit comments about my experiments, as well. Basically, I need to trim down my very nicely crafted conceptual framework so that what I'm testing is the focus of the dissertation, and everything else is placed as implications and future research. After I take care of that (which isn't actually too difficult), I'll need to re-design some experiments (which may be a bit of a pain).

I get all of this feedback, and then they send me out of the room again. And this time, I'm out there wondering if I had screwed up bad enough so that they were going to fail me. And a few minutes later, everyone calls me back in, tells me that I passed, and we smile and shake hands. Go figure. To make it even less exciting, I still had to teach my class that afternoon, and by the time I got done with that, I was too zonked out to do anything remotely interesting (score some crack or heroin, call in a team of midgets, hookers, and midget-hookers, and/or play online poker), other than head out and watch some basketball and have a buffalo chicken sandwich (which was excellent).

But, this process is over with. And it's time to start thinking about interviewing for a job. I hear that Wendy's is hiring...

-Chairman

Chipping Away

Well, it's been a bit of a haul this last semester, but I was finally able to grind out a dissertation proposal. Something like 85 pages, double spaced, 1" margins, 12-point font. This doesn't include my references (I don't even want to think about how long those will be). And it also doesn't include any appendices (which will be at least a few pages long). And more importantly, it doesn't include any data analysis, discussion, or conclusions. I'm killing a lot of trees.

So, on May 28, I'm going to do my proposal defense. I'm guessing that it'll be OK, as I doubt that my advisor would have been willing to get things scheduled if it wasn't going to be OK. But we'll see how that goes.

In the meantime, I'm teaching summer school this year. It shouldn't be hard, since I've already done it once. But my level of apathy is starting to amaze even myself.

But more importantly, I'm starting to golf more. It's an interesting sport, particularly when you're bad, like me. You walk around for about 6 miles, carrying a bag full of clubs and beer. Then you stop periodically to either drink a beer or to take hack at a golf ball. Or some woodland critter that has the misfortune of crossing your path. But golf gets pretty tiring, when you have to walk back and forth looking for your ball. Plus, I take about 125 swings, so I end up getting a nice little ab and back work out. You also end up with cool tan lines if you wear a hat and sunglasses. But the best part of golf? You get to gamble. And if you're betting on holes, you can pretty quickly forget things when you take a dozen hacks at the same hole.

I don't know what this has to do with anything, other than I definitely blew off my afternoon responsibilities to shoot 18.

Maybe this is why I didn't get my proposal defended in May 2007.

But you know what?

So worth it.

-Chairman

The Earth Moves, Under Your Feet

Just a quickie. Earthquakes are sort of cool, if you know that there won't be any damage. I definitely got woken up on Friday morning with a little rumbling outside. And it was sort of cool. I felt it, and immediately thought, "Nice. Earthquake." I assumed/hoped that if the initial earthquake wasn't so bad, then nothing catastrophic was going to happen. And then I did what I do best: went back to sleep.

-Chairman

Why I Should Never Be Rich

Some of you may have heard me joke about reasons why I should never be rich. For example, I would enjoy offering people money to do demeaning things. Part of this discussion extends from the poo dollar prank that some of you may be familiar with. For example, would you knowingly pick up a poo dollar? What about a poo five? Ten? Twenty? At what denomination would you pick up currency that had fecal matter on it? That's a fascinating question, and one that I'm sure that hasn't been explored in research. Similarly, I would love to figure out things like how much money it would take for reasonable people to let me dump a gallon of cold clam chowder down their pants. Or to let me push them into a mud filled kiddie pool with all of their clothes on.

Part of this is my fascination with behavioral economics. And part of this is that I love the idea of doing bad things to people with no repercussions.

So, today on the Quad, there were some folks trying to raise money for cancer research, or something like that. What were they offering? Awesomeness for a buck. They had a "Pie a Nerd" booth. They had kids dressed up as nerds, and they would let you shove a paper plate filled with a mound of whipped cream into their faces for $1. Bargain. I have to say, that if they had charged $2, I probably would have still been happy to contribute to cancer research. At $3, you start pushing it. So, needless to say, I was happy with this value.

There were three people working the booth, so I put my $3 on the table and asked to pie each of them. I wasn't going to do anything particularly mean, like yelling "look!" to get them to open their eyes before I pied them. However, I did savor my moment. After they got ready for their pie in the face, I took advantage of the time to just hold it there for a second, just to watch them flinch. This is sort of like asking whether you would prefer to be slapped in the face 10 times right now, or to be slapped in the face 5 times, at random, unknown times. Not knowing when it's coming makes it all worse.

That's not to say that I wasn't paying attention to my technique. First of all, you want to start low, and go upward, at an angle. This helps get the whipped cream into the nostrils. Additionally, if you slow down a bit, you can time it with their breathing. If you time it so that you get them when they inhale, you can get a little extra whipped cream up the nose. I even considered hanging around and just blowing a few more bucks at the pie stand. Sadly, I had to get to office hours. However, I definitely noticed that I had a little extra spring in my step as I was walking toward office hours today.

If you get the chance to pie someone for a relatively low price, you should definitely take them up on it. Trust me. It will brighten up your day.

-Chairman

15 Minutes of Shame

First of all, I decided that it would be sweet if I added an adult content warning on my blog. Why? Because it's awesome. Also, think about it. What would screw up a kid more. Seeing nipples? I mean, come on. For heaven's sake, in everyday TV we see most of the boobie anyway. Heh. I just said boobie. Anyway, would seeing a nibble be more harmful than being exposed to my ramblings. For example, earlier today I was at the book store, and was just enthralled by:

Two of my historical heroes. Available on Amazon.com.

It wasn't so much that I wanted to read the book (it was mainly pictures), but it was more that I liked the idea of having that on my coffee table as a conversation piece, much like my other coffee table books ("Modifying Retarded Behavior" and "Understanding Abnormal Behavior"). That's me, in a nutshell, and this blog is an extension of that. And really, where else do you get to hear my thoughts on 12th trimester abortions and mandatory euthanasia of senior citizens? I have to say that pictures of boobies are great and all. But my thoughts are much cooler. Perhaps that's why my readership is right around 6.5 people.

Of course, I also managed to find another cool book in the book store today:

I don't have many goals in life. Being on this list has become one of them.

I'm not sure what sort of destructive things you have to do to make it into this book. But I'm sure that I can come up with something. Sadly, I took a peek inside this book. Mainly, it's about a bunch of hippie, liberal professors who bitch and moan about stuff. The only Illini in there? Some dude named McChesney, who's in Communications (now renamed the College of Media), which is generally useless. Like most English or Womens Studies academics. How's he so dangerous? Even he doesn't think so. Lame. When I see the label of dangerous, I want to see people like Ken Shamrock. Or Chuck Norris. Or Ted Kaczynski (the Unabomber, for those of you who have never watched Good Will Hunting). I want to hear about Iranian nationals working on nuclear secrets here in the U.S., or Chinese engineers working as professors to develop high tech processes that can be used in weapons of mass destruction. Not some professor organizing a bunch of grad students to write newsletters full of incomprehensible logic.

I'm starting to think that we should've slapped that "adult content" warning on this page a long time ago. We'll see how long it lasts.

So anyway, on to the shame.

The nature of social networking has helped us develop shame in a variety of ways. I was hanging out with one of my buddy Fierce, when he looked over at this girl, and goes, "She's really familiar. Where do I know her from?" Of course, she wasn't particularly attractive, so I didn't really care. I'm sort of shallow that way. But then again, it's perfectly reasonable from a Cognitive Miser perspective. My focus went back to the tasty Guiness that I had in front of me at the time, while Fierce continued his contemplation.

"Wait. Now I remember. I think she has a blog on Xanga."

I sort of snorted. And started laughing. I could only get a couple of words out: "Wow. Awesome."

"Yeah, that's sort of creepy, isn't it?"

Yeah. And then some. There's nothing like stalking someone online, and then recognizing them. I mean, some things are fun to do with online stuff. For example, having a laugh over the pictures of people on Match.com has long been a way that I've killed time. Trust me, this is hilarious, particularly if you live in east-central Illinois. I've also used facebook as a quick background check on people. After I get a phone number, I'll generally facebook a girl to see if they have a boyfriend, which helps me in deciding whether or not to actually call. It's one thing to do online dating. And even Craigslist is sort of out there. But to actually meet someone online who doesn't know that you're meeting them? Yikes.

Of course, it could be worse. You could be one of those folks who actually does this regularly. So Fierce tells this story to some of his colleagues at lunch, expecting to get the same mocking from them that he got from me. But instead, he gets something to the effect of:

"Oh yeah. That happens to me all the time. Did you see what her interests were? If you know what kind of music she likes, you can have something to talk about."

Wow. Even Fierce was dumbfounded. Instead of having a laugh over someone's poor behavior and spicing up lunch conversation, we get some guy who takes social behavior to a new level of ineptness. Sad. And I'm sure that he's not nearly the worst one out there. It's stuff like this that makes me want to really push for my social engineering initiatives in my 2036 Presidential run.

-Chairman

Self Imposed Victory

Rock, chalk, championship.

I'm not sure if that was the best call ever. I suppose it could have been worse, though.

Congrats to Bill Self, for taking it to the next level. I've always been a fan, so like Roy Williams' Jayhawk sticker, I was rooting for Coach to get it done.

As an Illini fan, watching that game was interesting. It was familiar, in a strange way. The Bill Self offense has evolved a bit. Part of it was that stronger guards that Kansas had (remember, Dee and Deron were only freshmen under Self, and Luther was always drifting on D, doing mystifying things, and jacking up outside shots, essentially being Warren before Warren got there), and the non-dominant bigs (you'll also remember that we had Brian Cook out there in the post). So, less of the high-low. More of an emphasis on the perimeter motion. And anytime that happens, you have the risk of going into a lull, offensively, which is what happened to Kansas for about 8 minutes in the 2nd half.

But some things never change.

Right after timeouts, Kansas was superior to Memphis because they had plays coming out of the huddle that worked well. The same was true for in-bounds plays, where Kansas seemed to be more efficient than Memphis. A couple alley-oops. A couple layups. A press that seemed to surprise Memphis that resulted in the 3 that really gave Kansas something to believe in. The net result is that they steal maybe 4 points off of easy buckets off of dead balls. In a close game, those points are huge. This was something that we got used to at Illinois.

I think that's a part of what I've not liked about the Weber regime. For as much talk about FT shooting that we had about the Illini this year, I didn't hear anyone (other than me) complain about how much we surrendered our in-bounds plays... Really, we had 2 plays that tried to run. 3 if you count the high lob toward halfcourt where we give up any chance of attacking. We had the interior lob to Pruitt, which teams caught on to quickly. And then we would run a high screen that we'd send two guards curling off of. The first guard through would be a decoy, and just run through. The second guard would be Trent, who would jack a 3. Sadly, that was our best in-bounds play all year. The thing is, let's say that you're on offense. With about 22 seconds left on the shot clock, the ball gets knocked out of bounds. If you just surrender the play and lob it back toward half-court, you automatically lose 4 seconds, taking you down to 18. It's easy to guard for 18 seconds. It's even easier when the offense doesn't get into an attacking set for another few seconds. Often, you'd see possessions just evaporate when we'd not attack the in-bounds, and then try to set up a sloppy motion attack with 8 seconds left on the clock. If we had better sets off of the in-bounds, and could have turned just 2 of those into easy layups, we would have been a pretty different team. For us, part of it is teamwork...

...which was the other thing that Kansas did beautifully. Most of the time, people will catch on to the notion of team defense. And that's crucial. Just ask Bobby Knight, who refused to answer some mundane question about what player would be the X factor. He said bluntly. Defense will be the X factor. Playing defense isn't just shutting your guy down. It's understanding that it's a team goal. Your head has to be on a swivel, and you have to be ready to help when your teammates get beat. Kansas did a marvelous job of that against both UNC and Memphis. But where teamwork often get overlooked, particularly away from the ball, is on offense. The slow-motion replay of the weakside alley-oop shows that it's not just a guy that's faster, stronger, and jumps higher than his defender. It shows that it's a teammate (in this case, Brandon Rush - their superstar, NBA prospect) setting a great back pick on 2 guys that opens up the entire play. Again, advantage Kansas.

This is in comparison to watching the Illini set screens (and run off them) like little girls afraid of contact. Part of that is the mentality. It looked like we were coached to slip screens, so as to keep the motion faster. That sort of results in a soft mentality on offense, especially when you're down on the blocks. It also makes you easy to guard, since defenses don't have to foul and don't have to run nearly as far as you do (they're jogging around the perimeter of a smaller circle). Teams that impose their will by setting great screens will wear down the other team. Watch the play against Wisconsin where Randle separated his shoulder. That was a great screen that was set by Wisconsin, where the offensive player punished the defender.

All day, Kansas' bigs set nice screens on the ball out high, which forced Memphis' bigs to come high and play defense, opening up the weakside for cuts. Those alley-oops don't happen on accident. Compare that to watching Pruitt come out high for a pseudo screen that our guard doesn't run off of particularly well, and you see why we didn't open up much on offense.

How you win in basketball is by playing defense, boxing out, sharing the ball on offense, and helping your teammates at all times. Everything else falls in place. This is why a group of 5 guys that aren't particularly great individually can show up to the gym and hold court for 2 hours over a bunch of guys that are better, but have never met their teammates before. Kansas looked like the highly skilled version of the former. The Illini often look like a version of the latter. Who's that on? To some extent, the individuals involved. But also the leader. Can this change? Of course. Sometimes things just get away from you. I think that's what happened after those bad home, non-conference losses this year. But changing the culture of the team is harder, after you've let it slip away.

-Chairman

Free The Waycross 9

I don't know much, but I do know that I'm proud of some very special and courageous third-graders down in Waycross, Georgia right now. In case you hadn't seen the article, "The Waycross 9" decided that enough was enough, and hatched an elaborate plan to deliver justice on behalf a compatriot who had been publicly shamed. This comes in advance of Swamp Fest in Waycross, evidently an annual festival that is traditionally highlighted by the killing of a local elementary school teacher.

These brilliant young minds, who had obviously watched a number of Law and Order and CSI episodes, devised an ingenious, multifaceted plan that efficiently divided labor. In comparison, the Jena 6 look like a bunch of mouth-breathers, whose plan was to jump a hillbilly and beat him up because he wouldn't let them hang out under a tree. On the other hand, The Waycross 9 plan included: disruption of enemy communications (drawing the blinds closed and putting paper over windows), initial assault (knock her out with a crystal paperweight), follow-up assault (stab with broken steak knife), prisoner security (handcuffs and duct tape), and post-op maintenance (cleaning up afterwards). Unfortunately, this plan was uncovered with Gestapo-like techniques. The ACLU is considering legal action on behalf the Waycross 9, suggesting the their rights to privacy were invaded.

Interestingly, some "experts" doubt that these kids would have succeeded. However, I have full faith in the youth of America. I believe that our children can attain any goal they desire. Other "experts" question whether the kids understood their actions. On the other hand, I fully believe that today's youth is more sophisticated, and has process more information than any other cohort in the history of mankind. Perhaps I am naive, but I am predispositioned toward hope, but our "experts" seem to be in the business of doubt. Additionally, these "experts" have obviously never watched either Lord of the Flies or, more recently, Kid Nation.

It is a travesty of justice that the Jena 6 walk free, while The Waycross 9 may face detention at recess, or even after-school detention. I urge you to call your local congressman, to call Jesse Jackson, and to call Nancy Grace and Oprah, and tell them to get the word out, that the world must know that we must "Free the Waycross 9."

-Chairman