George Will wrote a syndicated column* that appeared in many newspapers throughout the country today, concerning the NCAA edict against Native American mascots. While I agree with his underlying theme that the NCAA is being overbearing, unreasonable and inconsistent, I was very disturbed by some of the other things he wrote in the column. He linked this NCAA action to a larger movement within what he called "academic liberalism" toward censorship of offensive material. Just so I'm being fair, here's a larger quote:
"Censorship -- e.g., campus speech codes -- often are academic liberalism's preferred instrument of social improvement, and now NCA censors say: The Chief must go..."
Again, I don't disagree with his beef with the NCAA. I do have a big problem with the rest of the statement. The assumption that censorship, in any form, is exclusively or even primarily coming from the liberal side of our society is laughable to me to say the least. Clearly, Mr. Will hasn't been paying much attention to the goings-on at the FCC since the Bush administration took control. Anyone who doesn't recognize that social conservatives are trying to change the course of society in this country, using censorship as their primary tool, isn't paying attention to current events.
These (Will's article) are the kind of half-truths, which are perpetuated by well-meaning conservatives who aren't seeing the current American political landscape accurately. Many conservatives fail to see that there are actually two major conservative camps in America today. The traditional conservatives (of whom Mr. Will is a member), value fiscal responsibly (tax less, and spend less), individual liberty (the government shouldn't tell me what to do unless absolutely necessary), small government (why would we need a big gov't if we are doing the previous 2), and local control (my local gov't knows me and my needs and should make most of the laws for my area).
There is a new conservatism, though. It is actually moderates masquerading as conservatives. This group (of whom the President and many republican leaders are members), thinks the gov't should have whatever power it wants. After all, how could the gov't ever do something wrong? The only thing conservative about them is their values. They are very socially conservative. This group, who have risen fast to power, value big government, federal control, stronger checks on individual liberties, and social conservatism.
One is forced to look at the implications of a ruling party that values federal control, big government, unchecked government spending and social conservatism. What are the future implications of this kind of governing philosophy for individual liberty and tolerance in our country?
While Mr. Will is concerned about academic liberals not letting schools have the mascots they want, I am concerned about the people who actually control our government and have a record of almost unprecedented expansion of censorship telling us what information we can and can't receive through forms of major media.
It is my personal belief that the greatest threat of censorship currently comes from the right, not the left. And I take strong issue with his statement that censorship is the left's preferred instrument of social improvement. Once you remove the option of killing people who disagree with you, censorship is everyone's preferred method of social improvement. That's why our political system was created with protections against it. There's no reason to try to pigeonhole it as exclusively a problem with academic liberals, and, therefore, another reason anyone who considers themselves conservative should hate liberals. I don't think Mr. Will was right to frame his arguement the way he did, but he can say all the stupid things he wants. Its his right, and I don't know any "liberals" who want to take that away from him.
*(It ran under different titles in different papers, but I think it was first published as The Chief Must Go, in the Washington Post on Jan 5)
Saturday, January 07, 2006
Thursday, January 05, 2006
My Sweet Rose
Alright, I had some things to say yesterday and didn't comment on the Rose Bowl, so today is the day. Not all of my commentary about the game is football talk, so if you don't care about sports, just scan over the football stuff. Since most of you know that I'm a negative guy, I'm going to approach my Rose Bowl commentary in the following way:
Top 10 Things I Hated about the Rose Bowl:
10) Keith Jackson was really bad. Honestly, do you think he woke up this morning and felt good about that performance last night? His voice and diction are fading fast, but he did pull it together a little for this one; you could barely understand him in some of his other recent performances. Also, he clearly didn't know much about either team beyond the big name starters. A couple of times he made comments about guys that even I knew weren't very accurate, and I don't follow either team. He also clearly has this "I'm the man, so I can say things other guys would never get away with" attitude. He was very harsh with the referees, which I'm sure made more than one network exec for ABC/ESPN squirm a little. Then, toward the end of the game, he just starts trying to dictate what we should believe like he is Moses coming down from the mountain or something. He thinks that because he has seen a million games in his life, he can tell us to believe that this is the greatest college football game ever (it clearly isn't and I'll get to that) or that V Young put in the greatest performance in college history (he didn't, not even close). Poor KJ. His "retirement" never should have ended. I honestly feel bad for the guy. Why can't people go away gracefully anymore?
9) The Rose Bowl is one of the truly great day-game stadiums left in the world. It loses a lot of charm at night. Why not do the national championship game on saturday or sunday afternoon like the super bowl?
8) I'm sick of hearing about the 2-time national championship thing. People forget that USC wasn't the BCS championship winner 2 years ago. That year, one poll essentially broke away from the BCS and declared USC their champion. Its ironic that, to make the BCS championship more important this year, they were telling people the 2004 game didn't matter.
7) This is more of a BCS thing, than strictly a championship game thing, but where were the bowl games on New Year's Day this year? None of the big BCS bowls are on that day any more. Plus, many of the other bowls were on Jan 2 for some reason this year, which meant that I saw about 3 bowl games this year. You see, myself and 4 other people in the country had to work on monday, Jan 2. Plus, I have become so adept at watching football while nursing a hangover, that it has become almost an essential part of the process.
6) Not enough shots of those Texas cheerleaders in chaps! Did you see that? I couldn't believe that? I felt like I was watching Striptease or Showgirls. Their mothers must be proud. Probably the only time these girls will ever be on national TV, unless their mobile home park floods, and these girls are dressed like the dirtiest sluts in the world. Someone at Texas needs to be fired for that one.
5) I kept thinking about all the terrible behavior I saw from USC fans when I went to the coliseum for the fresno state game. I didn't really root for either team, but I went to see an interesting game since I grew up in fresno and got free tickets from my father-in-law. USC fans were out of control. So what? Aren't most college football fans insane? Well, I have two problems with this.
-One, the Pac 10 has NO alcohol sales at their games. That’s right, no beer. So, either, you can't blame the bad behavior on brews, or you have to think seriously about not letting people in from tailgate parties who are clearly smashed out of their mind. In any other social setting, these guys would get pinched the minute they ran across a boy in blue. But at college football games, 15 po-po walk by these guys every half hour and do nothing. Meanwhile, 30% of the fans in the stadium are drunken idiots looking for any excuse to fight.
-Two, USC were two time national champions, with a 30+ game win streak. Fresno st. was, well, themselves. If my alma mater was USC, I would like to think that I would have some class and dignity. What do I have to get worked-up about? My school is great, wins all the time, 2 championships in a row, I can just sit back and bask in the success and wait for the outcome. If we lose, oh well, it was a good run. If we win, ok, we should win. USC fans clearly don't see things that way though. When they were losing, they flung verbal assaults on Fresno State fans as if it would put more points on the board for their team. When they finally won, they acted as if they were the underdogs who had just beaten the greatest team in the history of world. Don't act like you just cured cancer, act like you just escaped losing to a team you should have beaten by at least 21 pts. Every SC fan should have hung their head in shame and left the stadium feeling lucky to have their streak for another week after that one. I have heard that USC is a great school, but I seriously question the intelligence of the alumni after that experience.
4) Not enough LeAnn Rimes! I don't know why, but I have secret love for her. I think its idea that she could sing to me whenever I wanted. I'm not saying that she's any more than modestly attractive, or even close to the best singer. I'm just saying I wouldn't mind seeing more of her. She did a good job with the national anthem, too. A very hard song to do, and almost impossible in a stadium with the sound problems of the Rose Bowl.
3) The 5 pm start time is a little early on the west coast and I bet that cost them some first half ratings points (granted, the actual game didn't start to almost 5:30). There's no reason to not start at 6. Plenty of monday night football games get great east coast ratings with a 6 pm start time. The culture over there is just different when it comes to this stuff. People stay up really late to watch their favorite teams. Plus, no east coast team was playing, so they weren't going to get huge east coast ratings anyway.
2) People keep saying that it was the best game ever. It wasn't even close. The first half was very sloppy, with stupid fumbles and going for it on fourth down for no reason. Pete Carroll blew it with his timeouts in both halves, and did not once ever think about spying V Young. It's so basic. When you have a QB who takes off, at least try keeping a LB home to spy him for a couple plays and see if it works. This game WASN'T two great heavyweights trading blows! It was more like to really fat, old heavyweights flailing at each other and hoping to land a lucky punch that knocks the other guy down.
1) I hate myself for using this stupid Top 10 List to do my Rose Bowl commentary. If I ever wanted to become a writer, it’s over now! Seriously, I must have thought to myself, "I'll use the most trite and simple format I can think of today." Plus, I think I owe David Letterman like $800,000 now. Nice.
Top 10 Things I Hated about the Rose Bowl:
10) Keith Jackson was really bad. Honestly, do you think he woke up this morning and felt good about that performance last night? His voice and diction are fading fast, but he did pull it together a little for this one; you could barely understand him in some of his other recent performances. Also, he clearly didn't know much about either team beyond the big name starters. A couple of times he made comments about guys that even I knew weren't very accurate, and I don't follow either team. He also clearly has this "I'm the man, so I can say things other guys would never get away with" attitude. He was very harsh with the referees, which I'm sure made more than one network exec for ABC/ESPN squirm a little. Then, toward the end of the game, he just starts trying to dictate what we should believe like he is Moses coming down from the mountain or something. He thinks that because he has seen a million games in his life, he can tell us to believe that this is the greatest college football game ever (it clearly isn't and I'll get to that) or that V Young put in the greatest performance in college history (he didn't, not even close). Poor KJ. His "retirement" never should have ended. I honestly feel bad for the guy. Why can't people go away gracefully anymore?
9) The Rose Bowl is one of the truly great day-game stadiums left in the world. It loses a lot of charm at night. Why not do the national championship game on saturday or sunday afternoon like the super bowl?
8) I'm sick of hearing about the 2-time national championship thing. People forget that USC wasn't the BCS championship winner 2 years ago. That year, one poll essentially broke away from the BCS and declared USC their champion. Its ironic that, to make the BCS championship more important this year, they were telling people the 2004 game didn't matter.
7) This is more of a BCS thing, than strictly a championship game thing, but where were the bowl games on New Year's Day this year? None of the big BCS bowls are on that day any more. Plus, many of the other bowls were on Jan 2 for some reason this year, which meant that I saw about 3 bowl games this year. You see, myself and 4 other people in the country had to work on monday, Jan 2. Plus, I have become so adept at watching football while nursing a hangover, that it has become almost an essential part of the process.
6) Not enough shots of those Texas cheerleaders in chaps! Did you see that? I couldn't believe that? I felt like I was watching Striptease or Showgirls. Their mothers must be proud. Probably the only time these girls will ever be on national TV, unless their mobile home park floods, and these girls are dressed like the dirtiest sluts in the world. Someone at Texas needs to be fired for that one.
5) I kept thinking about all the terrible behavior I saw from USC fans when I went to the coliseum for the fresno state game. I didn't really root for either team, but I went to see an interesting game since I grew up in fresno and got free tickets from my father-in-law. USC fans were out of control. So what? Aren't most college football fans insane? Well, I have two problems with this.
-One, the Pac 10 has NO alcohol sales at their games. That’s right, no beer. So, either, you can't blame the bad behavior on brews, or you have to think seriously about not letting people in from tailgate parties who are clearly smashed out of their mind. In any other social setting, these guys would get pinched the minute they ran across a boy in blue. But at college football games, 15 po-po walk by these guys every half hour and do nothing. Meanwhile, 30% of the fans in the stadium are drunken idiots looking for any excuse to fight.
-Two, USC were two time national champions, with a 30+ game win streak. Fresno st. was, well, themselves. If my alma mater was USC, I would like to think that I would have some class and dignity. What do I have to get worked-up about? My school is great, wins all the time, 2 championships in a row, I can just sit back and bask in the success and wait for the outcome. If we lose, oh well, it was a good run. If we win, ok, we should win. USC fans clearly don't see things that way though. When they were losing, they flung verbal assaults on Fresno State fans as if it would put more points on the board for their team. When they finally won, they acted as if they were the underdogs who had just beaten the greatest team in the history of world. Don't act like you just cured cancer, act like you just escaped losing to a team you should have beaten by at least 21 pts. Every SC fan should have hung their head in shame and left the stadium feeling lucky to have their streak for another week after that one. I have heard that USC is a great school, but I seriously question the intelligence of the alumni after that experience.
4) Not enough LeAnn Rimes! I don't know why, but I have secret love for her. I think its idea that she could sing to me whenever I wanted. I'm not saying that she's any more than modestly attractive, or even close to the best singer. I'm just saying I wouldn't mind seeing more of her. She did a good job with the national anthem, too. A very hard song to do, and almost impossible in a stadium with the sound problems of the Rose Bowl.
3) The 5 pm start time is a little early on the west coast and I bet that cost them some first half ratings points (granted, the actual game didn't start to almost 5:30). There's no reason to not start at 6. Plenty of monday night football games get great east coast ratings with a 6 pm start time. The culture over there is just different when it comes to this stuff. People stay up really late to watch their favorite teams. Plus, no east coast team was playing, so they weren't going to get huge east coast ratings anyway.
2) People keep saying that it was the best game ever. It wasn't even close. The first half was very sloppy, with stupid fumbles and going for it on fourth down for no reason. Pete Carroll blew it with his timeouts in both halves, and did not once ever think about spying V Young. It's so basic. When you have a QB who takes off, at least try keeping a LB home to spy him for a couple plays and see if it works. This game WASN'T two great heavyweights trading blows! It was more like to really fat, old heavyweights flailing at each other and hoping to land a lucky punch that knocks the other guy down.
1) I hate myself for using this stupid Top 10 List to do my Rose Bowl commentary. If I ever wanted to become a writer, it’s over now! Seriously, I must have thought to myself, "I'll use the most trite and simple format I can think of today." Plus, I think I owe David Letterman like $800,000 now. Nice.
Slip inside the eye of your mind don't you know you might find a better place to play
My ears are bleeding, and I just threw up in my mouth. That's right. I'm listening to Oasis right now. Why would I endanger my mental health like that? Well, I'm listening in honor of my good friend Doug who lives in Eugene OR. I'm also writing in orange in honor of his hair color. He's sick in the hospital right now, and we are all hoping and praying that he gets well very soon. Cheers Doug!
Freedom!
Yesterday was my last day at a long-term job that has occupied a lot of my time since the beginning of November. I was teaching a sixth grade class of 31 students in Oildale, a predominantly white, lower class area of Bakersfield. I have to say that I was being compensated pretty well, and the progress that I was making was gratifying. That said, I am looking forward to not working on grading or lesson plans tonight. Any time you work hard on something, it is difficult to leave it behind. I find that it is even more so when your work involves people's lives. I won't get into the specifics of what I was doing, but I think its fair to say that at least a few students were benefiting from what I was doing. Unfortunately, the teacher for whom I have been filling in for the last few months is still unable to return, and the state rules will no longer permit me to be in the classroom because of the type of credential I have.
Thus, the class will be turned over to another substitute teacher who I fear will not do a very good job. This teacher taught this very class for a week before I took it over, and about 5 total assignments were turned in during the whole time. Let's try to do the math on that one real quick: 31 students x about 4 assignments per day x 5 days. That means the whole class turned in 5 out of a possible 620 assignments (if I did my math right)! I feel like I just built a house (a very mediocre, perhaps even poor one, but a house none-the-less), and now someone is going to burn it down. But I did my best, and I guess that's all I can do. It is out of my hands now, and I need to learn not to put responsibilities on myself that don't belong to me.
Sorry if this post is a little to down for some of you. Just being "real" (whatever that means?!).
I also apologize if there is too much "teacher talk" in here. I tried to keep it to a minimum. "Teacher talk" is the phenomenon that I have noticed where two or more teachers find each other in a social setting and then force the rest of the people in the group to listen to them having a two-way conversation about the detailed specifics of their job for hours on end. Have you ever noticed this type of thing happening? Why does it seem that teachers do this almost exclusively. At least in my experience, accountants, construction workers, farmers, secretaries, medical professionals and retail workers don't seem to exhibit this behavior. Put two elementary school teachers in a room of fifty other people, though. In less than 10 minutes, they will have found each other and begin to talk so loudly about work that everyone else in the room has no choice but to stop their respective conversations and listen. I vow to never do this! If you see me doing it -- I mean, if I am crossing the line from simple, polite answer concerning how my work is going, to insanely self-centered teacher-person, I want you to come up and physically hurt me in some way that will teach me a good lesson but not make my wife a widow or hurt her chances of having children with me. Seriously! Hurt me!
Thus, the class will be turned over to another substitute teacher who I fear will not do a very good job. This teacher taught this very class for a week before I took it over, and about 5 total assignments were turned in during the whole time. Let's try to do the math on that one real quick: 31 students x about 4 assignments per day x 5 days. That means the whole class turned in 5 out of a possible 620 assignments (if I did my math right)! I feel like I just built a house (a very mediocre, perhaps even poor one, but a house none-the-less), and now someone is going to burn it down. But I did my best, and I guess that's all I can do. It is out of my hands now, and I need to learn not to put responsibilities on myself that don't belong to me.
Sorry if this post is a little to down for some of you. Just being "real" (whatever that means?!).
I also apologize if there is too much "teacher talk" in here. I tried to keep it to a minimum. "Teacher talk" is the phenomenon that I have noticed where two or more teachers find each other in a social setting and then force the rest of the people in the group to listen to them having a two-way conversation about the detailed specifics of their job for hours on end. Have you ever noticed this type of thing happening? Why does it seem that teachers do this almost exclusively. At least in my experience, accountants, construction workers, farmers, secretaries, medical professionals and retail workers don't seem to exhibit this behavior. Put two elementary school teachers in a room of fifty other people, though. In less than 10 minutes, they will have found each other and begin to talk so loudly about work that everyone else in the room has no choice but to stop their respective conversations and listen. I vow to never do this! If you see me doing it -- I mean, if I am crossing the line from simple, polite answer concerning how my work is going, to insanely self-centered teacher-person, I want you to come up and physically hurt me in some way that will teach me a good lesson but not make my wife a widow or hurt her chances of having children with me. Seriously! Hurt me!
Sunday, January 01, 2006
Happy New Year!
As promised, here is a picture of our little child D'Wayne. Sure enough, as soon as I began posting, Julie's sixth sense kicked in and she ran into the room to look over my shoulder. How does she do that?! I feel so sorry for our kids if/when we have them. She will be one of those moms who always knows when the kid is doing something wrong no matter how sneaky the kid is. I honestly believe that she should have followed her childhood dream and become a spy.
On a totally unrelated note, this is the time of the year I usually spend avoiding all forms of media. Does anyone else hate all of those "Best ____ of '05" and "What will/should happen in '06" shows/articles? I am also not a fan of the New Year's resolution. I am the type of person who is constantly evaluating my life and trying to decide what I should change. I'm not saying I am superior to those who make yearly resolutions. In fact, being as introspective and analytical as I am can be down right depressing and counterproductive. All I am saying is that I can't really identify with the resolution thing, and I always get trapped by the inevitable casual conversation "What is your resolution this year?" I can never think of a good answer. On the other hand, I love learning new things, having new experiences and being exposed to things I didn't know existed. So, for me, every New Year brings the excitement of new experiences. This is where YOU come in! That's right, YOU!!!!! I'm going to post some things that I really think you should check out, if you haven't already, and I hope that some of you will let me know some things that I could discover in '06. So here we go:
Books:
1. Freakonomics by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner
2. The Average American by Kevin O'Keefe
3. The Dogs of Bedlam Farm by Jon Katz
As far as music, tv and movies go, I try to throw out a suggestion with each of my posts so you can connect with what I'm listening to or watching if you want. For today, I'm listening to Jack Johnson's cover of Badfish / Boss DJ and Mid November by Johnathan Rice right now. I am looking forward to hearing suggestions from any or all of you about what I should read, listen to, see or do in this next year. HAPPY NEW YEAR!
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