Selling Out and Marathon Men

Okay. So I've decided to sell out and commercialize this blog. Sort of. I'm using AdSense, which you can see on the right and bottom of the blog. I think that I get like $0.01 each one of my readers clicks on those ads. So, between the 7 readers that I have, assuming that they each click on an ad a week, I will be making $0.07 a week, which works out to roughly $3.65/year. And since they will cut me a check for every $100 I accrue, I should be seeing my first paycheck from my blog in roughly April, 2035.

To quote Dave Chappelle: I'm rich, bitch.

And all of that revenue will be a very nice addition to my warchest for Chairman '36: Run for 1600 Pennsylvania. I think that I've given up on my "Chairman 2020: A Perfect Vision for America" run for the White House. I'm not sure how my "Death Before Dishonor" platform of mandatory euthanasia for the elderly will play then. But by 2036, we'll have had time for the Baby Boomers to thin out a bit, taking away the power of the AARP voting bloc. Also, by that time, maybe we can finally convince Congress to legalize those 12th trimester abortions that I'm in favor of. And my run could be made a little easier if my "Don't Vote - It's Lame" message takes hold. Basically, if I can manage to keep the total score low, and turn the race into a defensive struggle and win 10-7 in overtime, I think that we'll have a good chance.

Let's see what AdSense comes up with for my advertisements, based on that last paragraph. I'm really hoping that it's a message for the Stalin '08 campaign.

But regardless of what I do, it won't be as cool as what's going on in Kenya. Never trust a country who's main export is marathon runners. As usual, the New York Times has excellent coverage and photos:

I went to a riot, and a marathon broke out. I hate running.

There's nothing like just a ho-hum attitude toward genocide.

This fellow was underdressed for the event... NBA All-Star Weekend: Vegas '07, I believe.

“This is how we express our outrage,” explained Evans Muremi, a social worker, who stacked tires to burn while wearing a jacket and tie.

You know, we teach the same thing in our social work program here at the U.

“We’re angry and they’re angry,” said John Maina, a stocky butcher, whose weapon of choice on Saturday was a three-foot table leg with exposed screws. “I don’t see us living together any time soon.”

This guy's seems to be pretty good at this whole stating the obvious at a press conference routine. Seems like Bill Belicheck has a competitor. Maybe he could do a little media consulting. You also have to enjoy any news article that includes the description of someone using a table-leg with exposed screws as a weapon. That sounds like an old-school ECW pay-per-view event. Maybe we could send in Sandman and Tommy Dreamer into Kenya.

This ambitious lad is well on his way to earning his Fire-starting Merit Badge.

Hopefully, there won't be as much outrage when I'm finally POTUS. Or at least, I'll have consolidated military power and be ready to quell the rebellion in a swift manner.

-Chairman

Provoking Thought: Death Pool

To anyone who had Heath Ledger, you have just won. Yikes. Chris Farley, you'd expect. George Burns, you'd expect. Heath Ledger? Not so much. It appears that death catches up to everyone.

But what happens to us as we think about death, while we are living?

A lot of it depends on your views of how the world works. Modern psychological research speaks to this with something that I've briefly talked about before, Mortality Salience, which is a part of the broader Terror Management Theory. One way to look at it is that in life, we all want to be a part of something. When we're faced with death, we want to make sure that what we were a part of actually mattered. Some cultures make ostentatious displays of their lives. The pharaohs had their pyramids. Other elaborate tombs were common for leaders in many cultures. Some tribal cultures burn mounds food as a show of wealth. So, whatever matters the most to us is embraced further when we are faced with death. For some, it's family. For others, it's possessions. For others still, it's faith.

Whatever it is, your world view becomes more entrenched when you are faced with death, as you rely on it to make sense of the world. Think of the scene when the plane's about the go down, and the truth comes out in Almost Famous. That seems to be an accurate portrayal of what people do in the face of death. It's obviously more magnified, when death is imminent. However, even the thought of death triggers some response.

A lot of this makes sense when you see how those who have lived fruitful lives are often unafraid of death. The portrayals of those who have missed their chances (think of Scrooge from A Christmas Carol) fear death.

My cohort is getting old. OD turns 30 within the week. C-Lauff just turned 30 this past weekend. Capt. Matt, Schultzie, and Olthoff have been there. Suckers. I think that most of these guys have pretty strong views of the world, to which we can rely on when we think about death.

As for me? Beats me. I'm planning on living forever.

-Chairman

The Year of the Tiger

What in the world could this posting be about?

It's definitely not about Chinese astrology. The new year is actually the year of the Rat, once Chinese New Year hits. So, it's not about that.

Thank God. Astrology is for nitwits. And women with too much time on their hands. Not saying that these groups are mutually exclusive. In fact, the overlap may be uncanny.

It could be about nooses and lynchings and our favorite Cablinasian golfer. While this topic is sort of interesting, I honestly don't know about the relevance of Tiger Woods as a socially influential icon, a la Jackie Robinson. The biggest problem is with Tiger as an agent of change is that he's a golfer. There's a fascination with blacks in elitist arenas, like golf and racing (remember, open wheel racing was originally a contest for the rich, unlike NASCAR). I think that it would be much more interesting for an NBA superstar (a la LeBron) to be an agent for social change by going back and helping his community at large in a truly influential way. It's one thing to employ your posse. It's another to stimulate economic recovery in the streets and make social change happen by uplifting your people. It's much harder to do so as an icon in an unapproachable arena.

I think that part of this is with the notion of equality at the highest levels. The problem is, what this does is bring up the black folks who are already in higher positions. Who benefits most from aid that's achievement-based, but only after you allow minority candidates? It's not the inner city kids from lousy schools. Sure, you'll be able to fish out a couple of kids who would have been otherwise lost to the environment. But the folks that benefit the most are the children of existing black professionals. Why should someone get additional benefits, when they are already in a position to succeed? Why should they have an edge if they are black, but came from a family with a mother who was a lawyer and a father who was a stock broker?

So what does this do? You push up a few, while largely ignoring those at the bottom. This is the same thing for golf. It's hard to lift people up from high perch. It's much easier to push them up from the bottom. The black media is calling for someone to latch on to. I wonder if this is for themselves, or for Black America. The black media is successful, educated, and have already broken into the upper echelon of society. Tiger would be their icon. And maybe it would trickle down to the masses.

But I wonder how many black kids out there knew Ralph Wiley's work. If it's there, but it's not accessible, does it really matter (in terms for affecting change)? The black masses may have a hard time identifying with Tiger. This was a kid that was golfing from the time he was 2. He was on national TV as a little kid, and went to Stanford. This isn't inner-city America. For this to work, it would be trickle-down social change. I don't believe in the trickle-down theory in most matters. No point starting now.

Geez. I thought that this wasn't about Tiger Woods...

Well, it isn't, really. At least it wasn't. I have a tendency to ramble.

Duh. So what were you really planning on writing about?

So what I was originally planning on writing about was this little nugget that was on the news a couple weeks ago. Now, apparently, the idiots who provoked the tiger out in Frisco, were drunk and stoned. Awesome. Somehow, this just gets more and more amusing. Especially if you read the comments on this New York Times blog.

My buddy Dino said it best when he said, "There just aren't enough predators to keep the prey in check." He was suggesting that the attitudes of society don't allow for enough of the predator-prey interaction to help people become acculturated. But it would've been cooler had he meant that we should have more tigers running around in the streets.

-Chairman

Provoking Thought: Everyone Thinks They're Awesome

My buddy, Judge, has a little line he likes to use when we're out. A close paraphrase is:

People always think that they're awesome.

Generally, this is when we're being judgmental and critical of people that we see out in public. Because that's what we do. What's implied is that they're generally delusional. But maybe it's not just some sort of delusion that's driving this phenomena. Maybe it's just a cultural trend. It turns out that people are more narcissistic than they used to be. They're getting at being self-absorbed, thinking that you are at the center of the universe. And this article suggests that it's more of an issue now than in the past.

Of course, not everyone believes that. People have always thought that the latest young generation was going to lead to the downfall of civilization. And certainly, you can make the case that as people grow up, they develop a social conscience. Essentially, if you look at it as a 2 dimensional issue, with obligation on the horizontal axis and entitlement on the vertical axis, you start to see how things show up.

There are some funny quirks. Blacks and Latinos in the U.S. tend to be low in obligation and high in entitlement. This is generally a bad formula for success, since you end up disenchanted in your outcomes. Republicans and conservative Christians tend to be relatively low on entitlement, but high on obligation. My best guess is that there's some guilt-driven behavior that's associated with notions of original sin or other characteristics of the Christian faith. But I don't want to delve into these quirks this time.

There sort of an equity line that runs from the bottom left to the top right. Essentially, you end up with a relatively equal amount of obligation (what you should give) and entitlement (what you should get). There are some interesting findings with this stuff. Generally, people end up near the equity line. Women are a little further up and to the right (should give more, but should get back more) than men. Democrats are up on the top-right, as they believe that people should give a lot back to society, but that society should give back to the people. Makes sense. And libertarians are down on the bottom-left, as they don't believe that society owes them anything, and that they don't owe society anything.

Now what's interesting with the idea of being self-absorbed is that you can put it in this framework pretty well. You see that as people get older, they decide that they should contribute more to the world around them. Of course, people used to say that as you grow up, you go from being a liberal to a conservative. This would suggest that as people age, the go from the top-right to the top-left (essentially still feeling as obligated to contribute, but feel that they deserve less from the world around them). This sort of makes sense, if you match this up with typical income arcs. As people make more, they figure out that their stuff doesn't matter as much, so they are okay with giving more, despite not getting back more. Reminds me of Ecclesiastes. So, as a whole, society gets more than it has to give out. This helps the achievement of social goals. From an evolutionary psychology standpoint, you have to account for evolution of the group, as opposed to just the individual, if you want to have any hope of accounting for how human society has evolved. This account makes sense. If you only have individual improvement accounted for, you can't explain how social structures have evolved, and why social groups are often the driver of success.

What's a bit disturbing is that some research (also done by my buddy Judge) doesn't show this movement from the equity line, up to the top left as people age. He's finding that people sort of stay on that equity line as they age, and more from the bottom-left to the top-right. What's scary is that with this evolution, people simply believe that they are less at the center of the world, that the things around them matter more. That's good. However, if you still insist on equity (that your obligation and entitlement even out), then you never are able to see a real contribution to society.

My take: In the long term, this doesn't bode particularly well for society. Derive whatever you want from this :-)

-Chairman

Bleeding Orange and White

So, we were at the Illini-Ohio St. basketball game. Our offense looked really good at times, but awful at times against the 2-3 zone, which Ohio St. ran, exclusively. We actually had a high number of assists, as we made a concerted effort to get the ball into the high post. We scored in a variety of ways, basically all of the way I described in my basketball overview posting. Randle finally played well, and Chester actually had a reasonable game on offense, going for 7 points, hitting a 3, and getting a drives in the halfcourt offense, and nailing a couple FT's. Both guys did a nice job getting the ball into the high post, whether it's with a pass or with the penetration. The players that absolutely killed us on both ends of the floor was Trent. Trent couldn't get open on offense, turned the ball over, and shot awfully. Additionally, he was a huge liability on defense, as our rotations couldn't get off of their men to help and recover. We had other issues, including Calvin's inability to handle the rock, and being sloppy with the ball, but the biggest problem in that game was Trent's inability to defend and hit shots on offense.

Now, Jamar Butler went off on us, particularly in the second half. Why did this happen? Partially, Chester's D wasn't shut-down, but to get there, Ohio St. switched tactics in the middle of the 2nd half, by going with high screens. Chester gets screened, we decided to have him try to fight through, and Butler gets open 3's or layups. So, we have to change things up. Instead of having Chester fight through, we start doubling with Pruitt in the 2nd half. At this point the game was still in question, but as soon as we change tactics, we got killed by two wide-open 3's by Matt Terwilliger. Big, goofy, unskilled Matt Terwilliger. So what happened? Butler comes in from the wing to get the high screen from Terwilliger. Pruitt doubles. No one else rotates. It probably should have been Randle off of the next rotation, and on the first shot, you saw Randle hesitate, since he saw that the next rotation (Trent) wasn't moving. So, instead of coming off of Hunter, who would've been open under the hoop, Randle stays, and Terwilliger nails a 3. We manage to get a couple nice buckets to keep it at 9, but two possessions later, they run the exact same set, and again, Randle has to stay low with Hunter because the rotation isn't there. Goofy Terwilliger nails another 3, effectively ending the game.

I don't delve into race much, other than to point out how dumb race is as an issue. But I actually had something sort of irk me quite a bit a the end of the game. Really, the notion is more of ignorance and implied racism, rather than overt racism. With a few seconds left to go, Bruce subs out Chester, and somehow, we have about half of the arena start booing him as he walks off the court. Of course, this is a winter break game, so we've got a bunch of the yokels in here. The profile is basically a bunch of white, jump shooters who worship the Hoosiers ideal, think that trash talk and dirty play is restricted to black folks, and believe that John Stockton and Larry Bird got to be as good as they were by being saints. Our home court decides to boo our hardest working player, our best defender, our best rebounder, and a guy who just had a decent game out there.

We don't boo Trent after a sorry ass game. That's because he can light up bad teams like Weber St., and play the role of the Great White Hope. We believe that Kyle Hudson would make a great slot receiver in the right system and how he has great hands, despite watching him drop pass after pass. We're in the heartland, where we love "scrappy" players. And by "scrappy" I mean, undersized, relatively unathletic, typically one-dimensional, and most importantly white looking. It drives me nuts. I think that a big part of it is that people overvalue the things that they are able to do. So, if you were a good jump shooter back in the day, who couldn't handle the rock and didn't play a lick of defense, then you empathize with Trent. I don't believe that it's overt racism, but I think that it's no coincidence that our fans have decided to start riding the blackest, corn-rowed, tattooed, toughest, scrappiest player out there. If Chester were a white kid with a crew cut, he'd be a regional celebrity, and maybe even get national attention like Lucas Johnson did if the Illini made a run. Instead, he gets booed at home.

It's crap like this that makes me wonder if the anti-Chief folks had a more accurate perception of the reality in this area than I thought.

-Chairman

Iowa Fallout

Okay. First of all, I was wrong in one earlier assessment. Barack Obama doesn't bore me. The idea of Obama bores me. But, I forgot about his speech at the Democratic National Convention last time around, and I happened to catch his victory speech. Wow. He's a talker. I may have to consider throwing my non-voting support to Obama. On the other hand, Huckabee mopped up Romney and the field in Iowa. And he's a talker, as well. He also plays the self-deprecating humor well.

What's interesting is that I don't have a clue about what either guy's policies are, as a whole. I know some snippets, like the "fair tax" thing that Huckabee's going on. But, like what I've been talking about, both here and over on IJAB (R.I.P, Greg, by the way), it's not your policies. It's how tall you are, how good your hair is, and how well you perform on TV. I mean, did you see Huckabee on Leno? The candidates that have a winning personality, and let it show on TV do well. I'm convinced that Bob Dole could've made it a closer race against Bill Clinton, had he done SNL and Conan before the election. Instead, he was a punching bag for Conan. But once he got on there, people saw that he was funny, good-humored, and was more than just a stodgy war vet with a pen in his hand.

The thing is, you saw Obama pull it off on SNL last year. You see that Obama's got his serious side, but he can be a cool cat to roll with. But when Hillary tries to do it, she comes off flat. She's just a bitch, no matter where she is. Bill rocked it out on MTV, with his sax and his "boxers or briefs" questions. The best thing for Hillary could be rocking it out on TRL, and having some college kid ask her if she wears a thong... of course, that could also be the worst thing for her, as well if people start visualizing that... yikes.

On the elephant side, I think that McCain can start to get some momentum, as can Fred Thompson, if they have similar success in New Hampshire. I can see this Romney bid falling apart quickly if he doesn't improve, because he won't be fighting for 1st in South Carolina...
The Ron Paul movement's an interesting one to watch. I enjoy seeing how people are willing to waste millions of dollars on an unelectable candidate (honestly, he just comes off as being the very nice, but sort of crazy old man that gives out loose change on Halloween, not a leader of men) so that they can express the sentiment that they support the basic theory they don't have to do anything unless they want to.

With the donkeys, I'm intrigued by Edwards' success, sort of waiting for Obama and Hillary to slug it out, and maybe slip in. His "everyman" message still seems reminiscent of those old carpet baggers who swindled poor folk back in the day. He's just too slick, too pretty, with hair that's too good, to be in it for a grass-roots sort of thing. I think that's why I think that he's shady... it's just not a congruent story.

Next posting will be talk about ignorance, implicit racism, and sports here in the heartland. I'm already riled up about it...

-Chairman

Wait 'til Later This Year

It was scary how good USC looked. First, on defense, they were incredibly fast to the outside. As I recall, we only had a single good outside option play, where we got a nice little chip block on the end, and Rashard Mendenhall took it about 25 yards. But other than that, they killed us to the outside. Really, the only complaint that I had about them was that they were passing too much early in the game. Booty didn't look good early on, and was not accurate with the ball. They were running the ball at will, but still throwing on 1st and 2nd down in the 2nd and 3rd quarter. That actually gave us a chance to come back in the 3rd quarter, but it wasn't enough.

In a game where we needed the bounces and calls to go our way, we had them go the other way in droves:

-The non-fumble to open up the game (as well as the non-challenge)
-The McKnight "Immaculate Reception" sort of play on their first scoring drive
-USC hitting a trick play to make it 14-0
-A missed chip shot figgie

Of course, our defense got some traction, and started competing legitimately (thanks largely to USC passing too much). You could've made the argument that it could've easily been something like USC 14, Illinois 10 at halftime, but instead, it was 21-0. But even in the 3rd quarter, we looked alright. We had 2 big plays go our way in a very nice Mendenhall 79-yard TD run to make it 21-10. Then we got our stop, and got another big Mendenhall play, a 55-yard play off of a short dump off pass. Our defense was starting to slow down the run, and we were getting some more pressure on Booty. Our offense had seemed to get things figured out. Then, we threw a completion deep into USC territory, which was followed immediately by:

-The Willis fumble going toward the endzone to keep it from going to 21-17

This was brutal. This was the reverse of the "hometown boy stars in underdog role" story. Along with the early Kyle Hudson dropped pass, this was the "hometown kids come up short" story, which isn't nearly as sexy. But, our defense was still competing, so if we could have gotten another stop, we were still in business. Instead:

-The lateral that McKnight picked up and ran 65 yards (as well as the bad challenge)

That made it 28-10 with a lot of time left to go, but to put the nail in the coffin, Juice overthrew Cumberland, and got picked, which led to USC scoring to make it 35-10, effectively ending the game. Looking at it honestly, we got 2 big plays, and had 6 go against us. If things balance out, we get the 2 big ones, and only have 4 go against us, we're looking at something like 28-20, with us starting a drive with about 4 minutes left in the 3rd. We're still behind, but we're competing. So, we ran into a superior team that got a couple more bounces than we did. That's a recipe for a blowout.

Now, some folks had issue with the play call on the last interception. I don't.

We got exactly what we wanted. Our biggest receiver (a Walter Young type guy) 1-on-1 to the outside. We actually got a shot with that same matchup in the 2nd quarter and took a shot. On the earlier play, we say that Harris (the CB) was actually outrunning Cumberland on the play, blanketing him. That play ended in an incompletion. Cumberland had about 6" on Harris, so the best throw there is a high, jump-ball sort of throw. Conversely, since Harris was playing ahead of Cumberland, a slight underthrow would been great, as well. So, on a play where Juice had to go with either the high jump-ball, or the underthrow, he zips a laser that's overthrown, and gets picked.

That said, I like Juice a lot. What I described above is something that you only see good QB's do. Right now, Juice is probably still under orders to throw the ball away at the first sign of trouble. I'm guessing that by design, he has 2 downfield routes that he's looking at, as well as a safety valve. He has improved his passing tremendously, but still needs to add to his repertoire. He has looked much better this year on the little swing passes, and some of the short passes across the middle. You still want to work receivers in front of him, rather than have him make reads across the entire field. He is still very much a work in progress.

You saw some issues with height. He's listed at 6'2", which, coincidentally, is the shortest that many NFL teams will allow their QB's to be. Rumor has it that he's a hair under 6'1". In the opening quarter, there were 2 throws tipped at the line, the 2nd of which was picked on the play immediately preceding the flea flicker that made it 14-0.

But here's the thing. He just finished his sophomore year. Right now, he's ahead of where Dennis Dixon, Troy Smith, and most college run/throw QB's not named McNabb, Vick, or Tebow were after their sophomore years. QB's take time to mature. You see quantum leaps from a lot of guys. Dixon looked shaky until this year. Andre Woodson was shaky until his junior season. Troy Smith really became an excellent QB after his junior year. Donovan McNabb was ahead of Juice, but even he was under 55% in his 2nd and 3rd years starting, before having a great senior season.

So, I think that things look rosy for the Illini, just not at this moment. Next year, we get more experience out of Benn/Cumberland as WR's, as well as Brian Gamble, who switched over from the defensive side of the ball. We'll have to replace some of the interior linemen, including our all-Amerian, Martin O'Donnell. On the defensive side, we'll lose a little more, notably J Leman, Antonio Steele, and Kevin Mitchell. We'll see how guys like Josh Brent and Martez Wilson fill in on the defensive line, and we'll see who steps up to fill the role that Leman played for us the last few years. Best guess is Britt Miller will do very well in the LB, and that Will Davis will have a good year on the line.

The biggest question is whether Mendenhall will be back next year. I think that Mendenhall showed the burst, as well as the toughness to go on the 1st day in the draft. I'm guessing that he'll work out for teams, and get evaluated. If he's a 1st rounder, he pretty much has to go pro. From what's out there, the consensus top 3 RB's are Darren McFadden, Ray Rice, and Felix Jones. Mendenhall may be able to creep in there, maybe even up to #2, which would put him in the mid/late 1st round. But if he projects out as a mid-2nd round pick, that's a big difference in guaranteed money than a mid-1st round. That likely means that he'll be back next year as a preseason Heisman and Doak Walker candidate, and in line to be a top 20 pick next year, and really cash in. Of course, even without Rashard Mendenhall, we still have Walter Mendenhall, who has shown a some toughness (though not the speed) to get a few carries. And Daniel "Shawshank" Dufrene has busted a few long ones, including the non-fumble early on against Ohio St.

In any case, early guess is that we'll be in the top 10-15 to start out the season. After that, it's up to how we perform on the field. I think that another bowl game will happen, but the question is what sort of bowl we'll be going to.

-Chairman