A beautiful and serene, snowy landscape greets me this morning as I contemplate (for all of two minutes) whether to go in to work today. Since my last posting, the Super Bowl has come and gone, Chauncey Billups and Carmelo Anthony have departed, Hosni Mubarak vacated the presidency of Egypt, Peter Forsberg came back and went away in the blink of an eye and, best news of all, baseball Spring Training has begun!
Super Bowl XLV was an entertaining game, as Green Bay outplayed the Steelers, thereby emphatically validating the Packers' decision to keep Aaron Rodgers over Brett Favre. The NFL Draft will be held in New York City at the end of April, and then, the suspense over the pending labor negotiations intensifies. The owners and players will posture and argue over how 3 billion dollars should be divided. Billionaires arguing with millionaires. Thank goodness, baseball is here!
The Melo Drama over the last few months came to a head this week as the February 24 NBA trade deadline approached. Carmelo (no "D" in) Anthony and his wife LaLa Vasquez finally get their wish, and return to New York. I think the Nuggets will be a better team without 'Melo. They've only had two games since he left, just one with the new players, but they already look like they are going to be better for George Karl to coach than the team was with Anthony. More passing, more moving without the ball, more picks, more hustle, much more entertaining basketball. And did you see Karl's face after the Celtic game? He was smiling, and obviously happy that his team listened to him at the last time out when he told them that defense was going to win the game in the last 3 minutes. They held the Celtics scoreless after that. Now the battle of the comments begins. Karl said after the game that Carmelo's defensive focus and intensity was disappointing. When told of those comments, Anthony responded by tweeting, "Amazing, when the grass is cut, the snakes will show." Too bad that the Knicks and Nuggets don't meet again until next year, unless they meet in this year's NBA Finals (hardly likely).
So sad that the collateral damage from the deal is that Colorado and Denver basketball hero, Chauncey Billups had to be included in the trade. Billups, is the best basketball player from Colorado, ever. Four times an All-State player while at George Washington High School (one state championship in 1994), three times Colorado Mr. Basketball, two years at the University of Colorado, All-Big 12 and All-American in the 1996-97 season, and a first round NBA draft pick (by the Boston Celtics) in 1997. NBA Champion and Finals MVP for the 2004 Detroit Pistons. He led the Buffs to the school's first NCAA tournament victory in over thirty years in 1997, over Bobby Knight's Indiana Hoosiers in the first round of the NCAA bracket. They lost to the North Carolina Tarheels in the second round. Lute Olson's Arizona Wildcats beat the defending champion Kentucky Wildcats in overtime that year. CU's previous appearance in the NCAAs was the Cliff Meely-led Buffs in 1969 (who lost to the Colorado State Rams in the second round of the Midwest Regional). I remember going to the old Balch Fieldhouse on the CU campus those days to watch the Sox Walseth-coached Buffs play. Cliff Meely, Mike Coleman, Gordie Tope, Jim Creighton, Ron Maulsby, Boyd Pickens, Dudley Mitchell..... fun times. It was so loud and raucous and fun. It's great to see renewed excitement surrounding the current Buffaloes' basketball team. They've been so irrelevant for so long, since Chauncey left.
So, I don't follow world events all that much, but the thing that happened in Egypt this month caught my attention. President Mubarak had ruled, or presided, in Egypt since Anwar Sadat was assassinated in 1981. He enjoyed over thirty years of largely unopposed, iron-fisted rule over Egypt. As a 'friend' to Israel and the United States, Egypt enjoyed billions and billions of dollars and shekels in aid and support. Now that Mubarak and his family have retired to southern Sinai with, presumably, his billions intact, growing concern emerges that Israel has no more allies in the Middle East. Growing unrest in Libya, Tunisia, Turkey in addition to the changing of the guard in Egypt, are bringing about some real disturbing prophesies. Have you ever played the old board game "RISK"? We used to play in college all the time, and ultimately, it always seemed that the critical end-game showdowns invariably boiled down to that geographical bottleneck around, you guessed it, the Middle East.
It was with great joy and anticipation that I heard the Peter The Great was going to attempt a comeback to the NHL with the Colorado Avalanche. I am not a big hockey fan, but the Avalanche sure were fun to follow when they moved here from Quebec for the 1995-96 season. Joe Sakic, Patrick Roy and Peter Forsberg spoiled us Colorado sports fans by bringing the first ever major sports Championship to us in their very first year here. What amazing skill Forsberg possessed on the ice in his prime! Then, after a few practices, he made his appearance for two games, on the road, back to back nights in Columbus, then Nashville. He played over 17 minutes against the Blue Jackets and then another 17+ minutes effort the very next night against the Predators. Now, I appreciate that the Avs were struggling, and Coach Sacco was searching for any spark to get the team back on track, but too much ice-time for Forsberg, after over three years of retirement, burned him out, and he re-retired before even one appearance on the home ice at the Pepsi Center. No chance for his expectant, adoring fans to see him one more time, wearing the Avalanche colors, gliding across the rink, delivering his trademark hits, skillfully handling the puck like it was attached to his stick. What a wasted public relations opportunity for the woeful Avalanche, and what a disappointment for the dwindling hockey fans here in Colorado.
Finally, Spring Training 2011, has begun! Thank god for the MLB Channel. I just watched their (arbitrary) countdown of their Top 100 Major League Players Right Now. No shock, Albert Pujols #1, Roy Halladay #2. Top Rockies, Tulo #14, CarGo and Ubaldo in the top 40. Las Vegas Hilton sports book has the over/under for Colorado Rockies wins this season at 86. Last year, the number was 83-1/2. I had a $100 ticket that the Rox would win OVER 83-1/2 games, or an 84-win season would cash me a $100 profit. With two weeks to go in the season, the Rockies were 81-67. They beat the Dodgers in LA on Saturday night, Sept 18th to win their 82nd game. Five straight losses brought us to Saturday night, Sept 25. Against the Giants, Tulowitzki hammers a two-run homer in the 5th, a two-rbi double in the 8th, and hits the walk-off, game-winning double in the bottom of the 10th, to drive in Carlos Gonzalez. Rockies win 10-9 to knock the Giants temporarily into second place in the NL West. Little did I suspect that this would be the final win for the Rox in 2010, they lost the final 7 games of the year, leaving them with an 83-79 record, and just short of a winning ticket for me. Go figure. Spring Training always represents that age-old "Hope Springs Eternal" adage, everybody's tied for first, nobody's out of the pennant chase just yet. I predict the Rockies will win 90 games, win the National League West Division. I hope they face the Yankees in the World Series, and win Game 7 here in Coors Field. Then all Colorado Rockies fans, especially my mom, can rejoice, and vindicate the notion that good guys CAN finish in first.
Friday, February 25, 2011
A beautiful, snow-covered Colorado landscape, as I delay reporting in to work on this Friday morning. Much has happened since my last post, and it's difficult to decide what to jabber about.
The Super Bowl, Green Bay beats Pittsburgh in an entertaining contest, a lot more engaging than the two weeks of pretext and preamble. Too bad for the Dallas-Ft. Worth metro-plex that the weather was so horrible in the days before the Big Event. Even Jerry Jones' money and influence couldn't deter Mother Nature from dampening the celebratory magnitude of the two weeks leading up to Super Bowl XLV. Snow and sleet and ice-covered streets did more for the integrity of many professional athletes than their normal tendencies would historically dictate. Fewer arrests, sparser-than-anticipated attendance at the two dozen or so strip clubs in the Dallas area, difficulty in navigating Escalades and Hummers to parties really minimized the TMZ/Enquirer moments. It's obvious gangstas don't like wintry weather. There's an idea - sentence gang affiliated criminals to prison work camps in Wisconsin or Minnesota or North Dakota in the winter months. They gots it too darn comfortable in California, Texas or Florida. Anyway, back to the Super Bowl; the popularity of the game each year astounds me. The road to that penultimate football game is a very difficult and arduous path. It's become a 12-month endeavor for all of the organizations, beginning, really, with the Super Bowl itself. For, it's the result of that game which finalizes the order in which the 32 teams draft the incoming class of college football players. Lots of finagling and jockeying with trades, free agents, waivers and franchise tags are in store before the draft is conducted in New York on April 28, 29 and 30 at Radio City Music Hall. This year, we have the added benefit of wondering and watching the owners and players' union play a huge game of chicken to see if the billionaires can subjugate the millionaires. The threat of "no football" hangs over us all as each side tries to pressure the other into dividing up three billion dollars 'equitably'. Thank goodness, Spring Training has begun.
The "Melo Drama" has finally concluded in Denver, and I think that the Nuggets did okay. They got rid of a selfish, one-way offensive player and got some talent in return. The collateral damage was that Chauncey Billups had to be part of the package. But, let's inspect the damage. We love Chauncey, Mr. Big Shot, Colorado's 3-time Mr. Basketball, Big-12 All-Star at the University of Colorado, All-American, first-round NBA draft pick. Best, most beloved basketball player to come from this state, ever. But, I maintain that the loss of Billups benefits the Nuggets. Chauncey is at his best on physical and methodical teams that play team defense. When Billups and Carmelo Anthony were on the floor at the same time, the rest of the team literally slowed down and watched, flat-footed and motionless. I know that it's just been two games since they left, but the team is now back in control of one of the best coaches ever to coach in the NBA, George Karl. One game with all the new players, against the Celtics (sure, the Boston squad was short-handed, but so what), defense and energy and passing are enjoying a renaissance at the Pepsi Center. Karl's coaching experience can now be utilized, without Carmelo (no "D" in Anthony) and Chauncey here, the kids will listen to the ball coach again. Twenty three games remain on the Nuggets' regular season schedule, 10 games at home and 13 on the road. They are in 5th place in the Western Conference, and if the season ended today, they'd face the Lakers in the first round of the playoffs. But, the Nuggets will probably finish as high as 4th and have a home-court advantage in the first round. Then, they'll beat Oklahoma City in the first round and fall to Dallas in the second round. We'll see. But, I maintain, the Nuggets got better with 'Melo gone, and even losing beloved Chauncey Billups. Still, thank god baseball is here!
Lots of warm and fuzzy reports coming out of Scottsdale. The new Rockies' spring training facility at Talking Stick, Scottsdale, Arizona, is being credited already for improving the Colorado Rockies' chances for success in the National West Division pennant race. No more long bus rides from Tucson and back. Helton gets to face better competition in spring training because he didn't make the bus rides out of Tucson, therefore only faced the Diamondbacks or the Rockies farmhands who didn't make the trip up to Phoenix. The Diamondbacks and Rockies were the last two teams to train in Tucson, and now they're together forever in their jointly owned facility at Talking stick.
The Super Bowl, Green Bay beats Pittsburgh in an entertaining contest, a lot more engaging than the two weeks of pretext and preamble. Too bad for the Dallas-Ft. Worth metro-plex that the weather was so horrible in the days before the Big Event. Even Jerry Jones' money and influence couldn't deter Mother Nature from dampening the celebratory magnitude of the two weeks leading up to Super Bowl XLV. Snow and sleet and ice-covered streets did more for the integrity of many professional athletes than their normal tendencies would historically dictate. Fewer arrests, sparser-than-anticipated attendance at the two dozen or so strip clubs in the Dallas area, difficulty in navigating Escalades and Hummers to parties really minimized the TMZ/Enquirer moments. It's obvious gangstas don't like wintry weather. There's an idea - sentence gang affiliated criminals to prison work camps in Wisconsin or Minnesota or North Dakota in the winter months. They gots it too darn comfortable in California, Texas or Florida. Anyway, back to the Super Bowl; the popularity of the game each year astounds me. The road to that penultimate football game is a very difficult and arduous path. It's become a 12-month endeavor for all of the organizations, beginning, really, with the Super Bowl itself. For, it's the result of that game which finalizes the order in which the 32 teams draft the incoming class of college football players. Lots of finagling and jockeying with trades, free agents, waivers and franchise tags are in store before the draft is conducted in New York on April 28, 29 and 30 at Radio City Music Hall. This year, we have the added benefit of wondering and watching the owners and players' union play a huge game of chicken to see if the billionaires can subjugate the millionaires. The threat of "no football" hangs over us all as each side tries to pressure the other into dividing up three billion dollars 'equitably'. Thank goodness, Spring Training has begun.
The "Melo Drama" has finally concluded in Denver, and I think that the Nuggets did okay. They got rid of a selfish, one-way offensive player and got some talent in return. The collateral damage was that Chauncey Billups had to be part of the package. But, let's inspect the damage. We love Chauncey, Mr. Big Shot, Colorado's 3-time Mr. Basketball, Big-12 All-Star at the University of Colorado, All-American, first-round NBA draft pick. Best, most beloved basketball player to come from this state, ever. But, I maintain that the loss of Billups benefits the Nuggets. Chauncey is at his best on physical and methodical teams that play team defense. When Billups and Carmelo Anthony were on the floor at the same time, the rest of the team literally slowed down and watched, flat-footed and motionless. I know that it's just been two games since they left, but the team is now back in control of one of the best coaches ever to coach in the NBA, George Karl. One game with all the new players, against the Celtics (sure, the Boston squad was short-handed, but so what), defense and energy and passing are enjoying a renaissance at the Pepsi Center. Karl's coaching experience can now be utilized, without Carmelo (no "D" in Anthony) and Chauncey here, the kids will listen to the ball coach again. Twenty three games remain on the Nuggets' regular season schedule, 10 games at home and 13 on the road. They are in 5th place in the Western Conference, and if the season ended today, they'd face the Lakers in the first round of the playoffs. But, the Nuggets will probably finish as high as 4th and have a home-court advantage in the first round. Then, they'll beat Oklahoma City in the first round and fall to Dallas in the second round. We'll see. But, I maintain, the Nuggets got better with 'Melo gone, and even losing beloved Chauncey Billups. Still, thank god baseball is here!
Lots of warm and fuzzy reports coming out of Scottsdale. The new Rockies' spring training facility at Talking Stick, Scottsdale, Arizona, is being credited already for improving the Colorado Rockies' chances for success in the National West Division pennant race. No more long bus rides from Tucson and back. Helton gets to face better competition in spring training because he didn't make the bus rides out of Tucson, therefore only faced the Diamondbacks or the Rockies farmhands who didn't make the trip up to Phoenix. The Diamondbacks and Rockies were the last two teams to train in Tucson, and now they're together forever in their jointly owned facility at Talking stick.
Tuesday, February 1, 2011
Unemployed and Uneducated
A bright sunny day, -4 degrees, up from 16 below this morning. Ah, Colorado, 70 degrees and golf on Friday, snow and frigidity on Tuesday. I get messages from a friend in Florida, and a friend in Maui, that temperatures are warm, sunny and tropical. For just a moment, I wish I were there. Ah shit, who's kidding who? I wish I were there right fucking now!
Spent a goodly portion of the last two days watching TV. Science Channel has a series, "How It's Made". Forty-eight hour marathon, I didn't watch 'em all, but I watched a bunch of them. Fascinating, the processes that have been developed to manufacture products. There is not much that the show features that is made by human hands, except that maybe the machines that do most of the 'manufacturing' had to be designed and built by humans, at least until there was a pattern made, then computers and robotic contraptions can do the rest. While I am watching these industrial marvels intricately and consistently produce item after item, I am struck by the reason why there is so much unemployment in this country. Industry and commerce reward, through increased profit, those companies which can produce goods efficiently so as to be more profitable. The 'Henry Ford' model of mass production has displaced human labor to an astonishing degree. And even those jobs that people can still perform, can be done more cheaply in China, Singapore, Thailand, India. Why? Because those nations' infrastructures do not require such cumbersome anti-commerce details such as health insurance, workman's comp, minimum wage, safe workplace rules, coffee breaks, pension plans, unions. Yes, American workers had it good, until they didn't. We hardly produce anything in this country anymore. And what we do produce, we make do with the minimum of human interaction and collaboration. I won't blame unions, or government, or immigration, or the media, or global warming, or even Barry Obama. The real reason are the money magicians. The ones who really operate the strings of the puppets they control. I am firmly convinced that less than a dozen people really control what happens in the world, as far as commerce and banking are concerned. And banking and commerce determine how governments and countries act and react. Our American Congress, because there are more than 500 greedy bastards out to accomplish their own agendas, cannot agree on anything of substance, so it's easy to pull their collective strings. Our lawmakers think that they can be very imaginative with their smoke-and-mirrors approach to hoodwinking the American public into assuming that they have our best interests in mind, but who are we kidding? By the time we figure out that we're getting fucked, it takes another couple years to get rid of the crooked scoundrels, and by then somebody else, who is bought and paid for, steps up and takes their turn in the sack. But, the real villains are the ones who pull the strings, like I said. The entrenched merchant bankers and 'industrialists' of the world. When one of them bastards cuts himself shaving, whole countries bleed to death.
Ah, but back to unemployment: why are there so many unemployed American citizens? Because there are too many goddamn non-citizens in this country. It's not an easy problem to deal with. I don't pretend to have a viable, humane answer to the question. In my opinion, it's too late to put the cat back in the bag. There is a terrible money crisis upon us, and the next thing that will happen is that slowly (I hope slowly), there will be an increasingly severe food problem. It's already reached famine proportions in many corners of the globe, and it will slowly creep into the 'civilized' pockets of the world, including right here. This country needs to get back to producing and making stuff again. Oh, it will eventually have to happen. Way before fossil fuels run out, money and credit won't matter. The only things that will matter are food and water. And SportsCenter.
Next question I have: why is our education system in such turmoil and disrepair? Because too many kids don't care because too many parents don't give a shit. I am reading article after article that chronicle the failings of our over-burdened school systems, the failings of our school boards to manage their resources, the failings of teachers that do not engage enough of their students, the failings of our government to prioritize education. STOP! Education begins, and ends, at home. And the state of national emergency should be focused upon what's happening at home. How many two-parent, stable homes are there any more? I know of many one-parent homes that are successfully maintaining stable family values, and I applaud them. But, for the most part, kids are struggling, because adults are struggling. How many homes have fewer than three televisions? What percentage of parents meet their kids' teachers? What percentage of kids get fed a wholesome meal away from school? How many kids really know what my generation would define as "The American Way"? My guess is that the current definition of the american way is: Fuck everybody, get as much as you can, any way that you can, and step on anybody in your way. Sounds about right. My son is in his first year of teaching, and he is eager to engage and affect every kid he comes into contact with. But, while he's doing that, he has to fill out report after report about how the required tests, and check-points, and competency guidelines are being met. And formulate and institute plans and ideas to increase 'average test scores'. So that administrators and officials can sit at their computers and examine the findings, and pontificate some more about how the schools need to do better to reach the poor, and the English-as-second-language kids, and the ones who are falling behind, and the disadvantaged, and the learning-challenged. Meanwhile, the kids who ARE learning, get punished because they have to wait for the others to catch up. We are dumbing down America because we are placating the lowest common denominators in our society. Teachers' hands are tied, because they cannot afford to teach the kids that are truly engaged, they have to spend most of their time allotted on trying to reach kids who really don't give a fuck anyway. Because each one of those kids counts just as much to the aggregate "score" as the kid who is really learning. Yes, there are targeted programs like IB and AP, and charter schools try to target a more motivated audience, but the vast majority of our citizenry is more interested in obtaining objects, than in reaching objectives. Do I see any improvement on the horizon? No, do you? So, kudos to the many engaging and influential teachers in my life. Not just the ones that I encountered in school. Many friends, relatives, and employers, co-workers, clients, children, people on TV and in some movies, and in books and magazines, everyone that I have learned from, thank you. And most of all, thanks to MY parents, who instilled the thirst to learn, to go forward, to engage the world, and make it a better place. That's what I hope to instill in my kids, and grandkids. That's the only hope I see for my part in improving the status quo, because I ain't got none of them fucking strings!
Spent a goodly portion of the last two days watching TV. Science Channel has a series, "How It's Made". Forty-eight hour marathon, I didn't watch 'em all, but I watched a bunch of them. Fascinating, the processes that have been developed to manufacture products. There is not much that the show features that is made by human hands, except that maybe the machines that do most of the 'manufacturing' had to be designed and built by humans, at least until there was a pattern made, then computers and robotic contraptions can do the rest. While I am watching these industrial marvels intricately and consistently produce item after item, I am struck by the reason why there is so much unemployment in this country. Industry and commerce reward, through increased profit, those companies which can produce goods efficiently so as to be more profitable. The 'Henry Ford' model of mass production has displaced human labor to an astonishing degree. And even those jobs that people can still perform, can be done more cheaply in China, Singapore, Thailand, India. Why? Because those nations' infrastructures do not require such cumbersome anti-commerce details such as health insurance, workman's comp, minimum wage, safe workplace rules, coffee breaks, pension plans, unions. Yes, American workers had it good, until they didn't. We hardly produce anything in this country anymore. And what we do produce, we make do with the minimum of human interaction and collaboration. I won't blame unions, or government, or immigration, or the media, or global warming, or even Barry Obama. The real reason are the money magicians. The ones who really operate the strings of the puppets they control. I am firmly convinced that less than a dozen people really control what happens in the world, as far as commerce and banking are concerned. And banking and commerce determine how governments and countries act and react. Our American Congress, because there are more than 500 greedy bastards out to accomplish their own agendas, cannot agree on anything of substance, so it's easy to pull their collective strings. Our lawmakers think that they can be very imaginative with their smoke-and-mirrors approach to hoodwinking the American public into assuming that they have our best interests in mind, but who are we kidding? By the time we figure out that we're getting fucked, it takes another couple years to get rid of the crooked scoundrels, and by then somebody else, who is bought and paid for, steps up and takes their turn in the sack. But, the real villains are the ones who pull the strings, like I said. The entrenched merchant bankers and 'industrialists' of the world. When one of them bastards cuts himself shaving, whole countries bleed to death.
Ah, but back to unemployment: why are there so many unemployed American citizens? Because there are too many goddamn non-citizens in this country. It's not an easy problem to deal with. I don't pretend to have a viable, humane answer to the question. In my opinion, it's too late to put the cat back in the bag. There is a terrible money crisis upon us, and the next thing that will happen is that slowly (I hope slowly), there will be an increasingly severe food problem. It's already reached famine proportions in many corners of the globe, and it will slowly creep into the 'civilized' pockets of the world, including right here. This country needs to get back to producing and making stuff again. Oh, it will eventually have to happen. Way before fossil fuels run out, money and credit won't matter. The only things that will matter are food and water. And SportsCenter.
Next question I have: why is our education system in such turmoil and disrepair? Because too many kids don't care because too many parents don't give a shit. I am reading article after article that chronicle the failings of our over-burdened school systems, the failings of our school boards to manage their resources, the failings of teachers that do not engage enough of their students, the failings of our government to prioritize education. STOP! Education begins, and ends, at home. And the state of national emergency should be focused upon what's happening at home. How many two-parent, stable homes are there any more? I know of many one-parent homes that are successfully maintaining stable family values, and I applaud them. But, for the most part, kids are struggling, because adults are struggling. How many homes have fewer than three televisions? What percentage of parents meet their kids' teachers? What percentage of kids get fed a wholesome meal away from school? How many kids really know what my generation would define as "The American Way"? My guess is that the current definition of the american way is: Fuck everybody, get as much as you can, any way that you can, and step on anybody in your way. Sounds about right. My son is in his first year of teaching, and he is eager to engage and affect every kid he comes into contact with. But, while he's doing that, he has to fill out report after report about how the required tests, and check-points, and competency guidelines are being met. And formulate and institute plans and ideas to increase 'average test scores'. So that administrators and officials can sit at their computers and examine the findings, and pontificate some more about how the schools need to do better to reach the poor, and the English-as-second-language kids, and the ones who are falling behind, and the disadvantaged, and the learning-challenged. Meanwhile, the kids who ARE learning, get punished because they have to wait for the others to catch up. We are dumbing down America because we are placating the lowest common denominators in our society. Teachers' hands are tied, because they cannot afford to teach the kids that are truly engaged, they have to spend most of their time allotted on trying to reach kids who really don't give a fuck anyway. Because each one of those kids counts just as much to the aggregate "score" as the kid who is really learning. Yes, there are targeted programs like IB and AP, and charter schools try to target a more motivated audience, but the vast majority of our citizenry is more interested in obtaining objects, than in reaching objectives. Do I see any improvement on the horizon? No, do you? So, kudos to the many engaging and influential teachers in my life. Not just the ones that I encountered in school. Many friends, relatives, and employers, co-workers, clients, children, people on TV and in some movies, and in books and magazines, everyone that I have learned from, thank you. And most of all, thanks to MY parents, who instilled the thirst to learn, to go forward, to engage the world, and make it a better place. That's what I hope to instill in my kids, and grandkids. That's the only hope I see for my part in improving the status quo, because I ain't got none of them fucking strings!
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