Why am I a sports fan?

Considering there are more than 330 teams participating in Div. 1 basketball in the NCAA, and using this sport as a limited example, only 1 team will be crowned the National Champion at the end of the season, that leaves many, many fans disappointed. Considering also that in the 25 years I have been a college hoops fan the team I have chosen to follow, the North Carolina Tar Heels has won the championship twice (1993 and 2005). (They had previous to my following them also won championships in 1957 and 1982.) Looking only at the end-of-season result, I have been "disappointed" 23 times - a staggering 92% of the time. This is not a high rate of success. In those 25 years there have been 19 different teams who won those 25 championships (Kentucky(2), UNC(2), Duke (3), Uconn(2), and Florida(2) all had multiple championships), leaving somewhere near (the total number of teams has changed over the years) 300 schools who have not won the championship once in the past 25 years. And yet, I, and so many others, have continued to be loyal to "our" team, and to be a fan. What are we thinking?

Why am I a sports fan?

I could not help thinking this over the past week as I watched the Colts lose to the Chargers in the wild-card game (NFL playoffs), I read about the upset Boston College staged over the Heels @UNC and then watched my CBS Live Scoreboard as the #3 Heels lost on the road to the (now) 13-0 #4 Wake Forest Demon Deacon's. I am not a huge NFL fan, and I was surprised how disappointed I was watching the game. I am a huge college hoops fan, and I was very disappointed and even hurt to read about and watch the UNC losses. I find myself being confused as to why it is that important to me. Nothing in my life, not my family, not my job, not my income (I do not bet on sports), nothing is different because a team I am cheering for won or lost. Nothing.

Sure, when the team I am cheering for wins I feel good about it. I will celebrate, and brag to my firends (especially if they cheer for another team), but the positive benefits are really quite small and they do not last very long. I am infused with a small amount of "fan happyness" for a short period, a couple of hours to a few days, but that is always the extent of it. In fact, after those few days I am already getting caught up in the "what about next year" chatter.

But when the team loses (and, as I have said, every team loses more than they win - at least as far as the championship goes) it seems to hurt a lot more. And that hurt is so much more painful than the "joy" of the victory when they do win. Logically I should stop being a fan, as avoidance of the hurt should outweight the potential joy which is really not that much of a high.

But I don't. I keep cheering. I keep following. I keep rationalizing to myself, 'this is the year', 'the next game will be better', or 'if "we" could only do more of x, y, and z.'. I cling to a thread that my support of the team is actually making an important difference in the team being successful. This group of people, none of whom I have ever met, are needing me to remain positive and keep my faith in them so they can be successful. The illogical arguments are unlimited. But I must continue, for I am a fan. And this is what fans do.

Interesting. It seems I can not even understand myself. No wonder most women are driven crazy by their "sports fan" husbands. I should spend more time thinking about this but I can't. I've got articles to read and besides, we've got Virgina on Thursday and then 2 days later Miami(FL) at home. Heck, the way I see it, by the time we play @Duke on Feb. 11 we can go from being 0-2 in the ACC to 7-2. And, those Dookies are in trouble...they have to play Wake twice this season.

Choices

Life is full of choices.

Small meaningless ones, like what kind of coffee, or what to order in a restaurant, which route to take to the store, etc. We have gotten used to the huge number of choices, it is one of the things that happens in our society today. Most of these choices mean nothing, but what they do is suck up our time and energy. We no longer choose to do important things, we allow ourselves to be sucked along with whatever comes up.

We rarely choose what our lives are going to be about, or at least I don't. I simply go along with whatever course I have been on since my last major decision, which come about fairly rarely. I don't check and see if I am really doing what I should be, or want to be, I just keep going. I am an energizer bunny, but without the energy. I don't want to be that person, but can't seem to stop. I want my life to be focused, to be true, to be somehow "right". I just don't know how to get there. I feel like I am on the wrong path, but I have no idea whatsoever where the right path is. At some time in the past I did know, but now I am not so sure I am on it.

I feel like I am driving on this highway at 120 km/hour I can see in the distance the mountains that are my goal, but in between, I cannot see if my road connects to them, for all I know the next dip in the road hides a curve that will lead me away from them. I feel lost and I don't even know if I can make a better choice. It makes me disconsolate. I wish for better choices, wiser choices. I am tired of simply choosing a latte, when I could be making a life choice.

If I am at "A" and I want to be at "G", do I need to go through B,C,D,E,and F to get there, or is there another way, that I cannot see. I am lost, and so I just continue trudging towards "B"... I hope that is the next step, but I am no longer sure. My next choice could be huge, but probably will be whether or not to get to work, or get a cup of coffee...sigh.

Choices...

Propostition 8: The People have spoken - not hardly!

I just read an article about the Gay marriage vote on propostition 8 in California. Now as you may or may not know Proposition 8 was passed with 53% of the vote. This effetively (for now) ends gay marriage in California. This is not the part I was interested in though, what intrigued me, was the fact that the governor, and other proponents of gay marriage have said is that they will have this propostion thrown out by the courts as not valid.

Well isn't that interesting...they may even be right, proposition 8 may in fact be a constitutional revision (not subject to change by vote) rather than an ammendment (which is able to be enacted by popular vote). The problem for me is that 53% of the people who voted decided that they did not want gay marriage.

In North America today, we do not accept votes as being "what the people want", unless they go in our favour. What we like to say is that, the vote isn't right, or that's not the way it should be done. Those arguments were available prior to voting day, but they thought they would win, and so said nothing. Now that they lost, they can't accept that 53% of the people don't want this, it must be flawed somehow.

This is one of the things wrong in Canada and the U.S., we have no respect for differing points of view. If the election goes the wrong way, then people are stupid and misled, and worse the whole vote was flawed, and not legal. It does not matter that the majority decided, they must not have understood, or something. They can't be smart and disagree.

I am not above this, I understand, I just fight it in myself. I get that you and I might not agree on much, but that doesn't mean I am smart and you are not, it just means we disagree. What how can that be? In California 500,000 people was the difference. 5.4 million people voted to ban gay marriage. I assure you these are not 5.4 million dumb people, just as the 4.9 million people that voted for gay marriage are not dumb, but yet these people disagree.

I am concerned that we are quickly becoming a society that values nothing but our own opinion, we have little to no tolerance for dissent. I don't know the solution, but I do know, I need to put more value in listening to others, and less in talking about my own thoughts (except here, of course).

Round Bails and Carrot Cake are evil!

Okay so I know what you are thinking. He's crazy!

You are saying to yourself, I love Carrot cake, and probably, that is just a dumb thing to say. How can round bails and Carrot cake be evil. They are inanimate objects, oh and by the way carrot cake is delicious. I get it, I understand your sentiment, but bear with me. Here is what i mean...

Round Bails - You see the options are square bails (rectangle actually) or round bails. Round bails are better for the farmer, less work to produce, more profit. That is exactly the point I say, square bails are better for the end user, you can haul them by yourself, don't need a machine. So why do they make them round? Aren't you listening, they are easier for the farmer, they make more money. My problem is, the square bails are better, so the oround bails serve one purpose, make more money, and make it easier (okay 2 purposes). Well why is more profit bad? It is not if more profit is good for all, but you see it is not, it is only better for one party. They chase more profits at the expense of the better product. This is exactly where society is going, we don't care about better, we only care about more (McDonalds is a good example). Guess who wants us to focus away from better, Satan, that's right Satan. He wants us to focus on more money, not on better lives, or better products. So he created round bails. Get it? They are evil!

Carrot Cake - Well, this one is actually easy. No one really likes Carrot cake, they only really like the cream cheese icing. Thye cake is just the delivery method. That is not why carrot cake is evil though, it is evil because it is a trick. Dessert's purpose is not to give us nutrients, it is to give us joy, a little piece of heaven on a plate. Carrot cake is deceitful, it combines vegetables and cake, then covers them with a delicious icing to fool us. Where I ask does deceit come from? Satan! That is whay Carrot cake is evil.

Take that to the bakery!

Interesting

http://www.joethepeacock.com/2008/03/how-to-actually-talk-to-atheists-if.php

Housing Crisis

Read this interesting article. Quick note, before I post it here, I think it becomes far too unfair towards Barack Obama. He did not cause this crisis, and though he did not prevent it either, he was no in a position to do so in my opinion. Nevertheless the article does raise some interesting and salient points about what happened...

By Orson Scott Card

October 5, 2008

Would the Last Honest Reporter Please Turn On the Lights?

An open letter to the local daily paper -- almost every local daily paper in America:

I remember reading All the President's Men and thinking: That's journalism. You do what it takes to get the truth and you lay it before the public, because the public has a right to know.

This housing crisis didn't come out of nowhere. It was not a vague emanation of the evil Bush administration.

It was a direct result of the political decision, back in the late 1990s, to loosen the rules of lending so that home loans would be more accessible to poor people. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were authorized to approve risky loans.

What is a risky loan? It's a loan that the recipient is likely not to be able to repay.

The goal of this rule change was to help the poor -- which especially would help members of minority groups. But how does it help these people to give them a loan that they can't repay? They get into a house, yes, but when they can't make the payments, they lose the house -- along with their credit rating.

They end up worse off than before.

This was completely foreseeable and in fact many people did foresee it. One political party, in Congress and in the executive branch, tried repeatedly to tighten up the rules. The other party blocked every such attempt and tried to loosen them.

Furthermore, Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae were making political contributions to the very members of Congress who were allowing them to make irresponsible loans. (Though why quasi-federal agencies were allowed to do so baffles me. It's as if the Pentagon were allowed to contribute to the political campaigns of Congressmen who support increasing their budget.)

Isn't there a story here? Doesn't journalism require that you who produce our daily paper tell the truth about who brought us to a position where the only way to keep confidence in our economy was a $700 billion bailout? Aren't you supposed to follow the money and see which politicians were benefitting personally from the deregulation of mortgage lending?

I have no doubt that if these facts had pointed to the Republican Party or to John McCain as the guilty parties, you would be treating it as a vast scandal. "Housing-gate," no doubt. Or "Fannie-gate."

Instead, it was Senator Christopher Dodd and Congressman Barney Frank, both Democrats, who denied that there were any problems, who refused Bush administration requests to set up a regulatory agency to watch over Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and who were still pushing for these agencies to go even further in promoting subprime mortgage loans almost up to the minute they failed.

As Thomas Sowell points out in a TownHall.com essay entitled Do Facts Matter? "Alan Greenspan warned them four years ago. So did the Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers to the President. So did Bush's Secretary of the Treasury."

These are facts. This financial crisis was completely preventable. The party that blocked any attempt to prevent it was ... the Democratic Party. The party that tried to prevent it was ... the Republican Party.

Yet when Nancy Pelosi accused the Bush administration and Republican deregulation of causing the crisis, you in the press did not hold her to account for her lie. Instead, you criticized Republicans who took offense at this lie and refused to vote for the bailout!

What? It's not the liar, but the victims of the lie who are to blame?

Now let's follow the money ... right to the presidential candidate who is the number-two recipient of campaign contributions from Fannie Mae.

And after Freddie Raines, the CEO of Fannie Mae who made $90 million while running it into the ground, was fired for his incompetence, one presidential candidate's campaign actually consulted him for advice on housing.

If that presidential candidate had been John McCain, you would have called it a major scandal and we would be getting stories in your paper every day about how incompetent and corrupt he was.

But instead, that candidate was Barack Obama, and so you have buried this story, and when the McCain campaign dared to call Raines an "adviser" to the Obama campaign -- because that campaign had sought his advice -- you actually let Obama's people get away with accusing McCain of lying, merely because Raines wasn't listed as an official adviser to the Obama campaign.

You would never tolerate such weasely nit-picking from a Republican.

If you who produce our local daily paper actually had any principles, you would be pounding this story, because the prosperity of all Americans was put at risk by the foolish, short-sighted, politically selfish, and possibly corrupt actions of leading Democrats, including Obama.

If you who produce our local daily paper had any personal honor, you would find it unbearable to let the American people believe that somehow Republicans were to blame for this crisis.

There are precedents. Even though President Bush and his administration never said that Iraq sponsored or was linked to 9/11, you could not stand the fact that Americans had that misapprehension -- so you pounded us with the fact that there was no such link. (Along the way, you created the false impression that Bush had lied to them and said that there was a connection.)

If you had any principles, then surely right now, when the American people are set to blame President Bush and John McCain for a crisis they tried to prevent, and are actually shifting to approve of Barack Obama because of a crisis he helped cause, you would be laboring at least as hard to correct that false impression.

Your job, as journalists, is to tell the truth. That's what you claim you do, when you accept people's money to buy or subscribe to your paper.

But right now, you are consenting to or actively promoting a big fat lie -- that the housing crisis should somehow be blamed on Bush, McCain, and the Republicans. You have trained the American people to blame everything bad -- even bad weather -- on Bush, and they are responding as you have taught them to.

If you had any personal honor, each reporter and editor would be insisting on telling the truth -- even if it hurts the election chances of your favorite candidate.

Because that's what honorable people do. Honest people tell the truth even when they don't like the probable consequences. That's what honesty means. That's how trust is earned.

Barack Obama is just another politician, and not a very wise one. He has revealed his ignorance and naivete time after time -- and you have swept it under the rug, treated it as nothing.

Meanwhile, you have participated in the borking of Sarah Palin, reporting savage attacks on her for the pregnancy of her unmarried daughter -- while you ignored the story of John Edwards's own adultery for many months.

So I ask you now: Do you have any standards at all? Do you even know what honesty means?

Is getting people to vote for Barack Obama so important that you will throw away everything that journalism is supposed to stand for?

You might want to remember the way the National Organization of Women threw away their integrity by supporting Bill Clinton despite his well-known pattern of sexual exploitation of powerless women. Who listens to NOW anymore? We know they stand for nothing; they have no principles.

That's where you are right now.

It's not too late. You know that if the situation were reversed, and the truth would damage McCain and help Obama, you would be moving heaven and earth to get the true story out there.

If you want to redeem your honor, you will swallow hard and make a list of all the stories you would print if it were McCain who had been getting money from Fannie Mae, McCain whose campaign had consulted with its discredited former CEO, McCain who had voted against tightening its lending practices.

Then you will print them, even though every one of those true stories will point the finger of blame at the reckless Democratic Party, which put our nation's prosperity at risk so they could feel good about helping the poor, and lay a fair share of the blame at Obama's door.

You will also tell the truth about John McCain: that he tried, as a Senator, to do what it took to prevent this crisis. You will tell the truth about President Bush: that his administration tried more than once to get Congress to regulate lending in a responsible way.

This was a Congress-caused crisis, beginning during the Clinton administration, with Democrats leading the way into the crisis and blocking every effort to get out of it in a timely fashion.

If you at our local daily newspaper continue to let Americans believe --and vote as if -- President Bush and the Republicans caused the crisis, then you are joining in that lie.

If you do not tell the truth about the Democrats -- including Barack Obama -- and do so with the same energy you would use if the miscreants were Republicans -- then you are not journalists by any standard.

You're just the public relations machine of the Democratic Party, and it's time you were all fired and real journalists brought in, so that we can actually have a daily newspaper in our city.

Woolly Mammoth

This is a woolly mammoth. I am a Christian.

My belief in Christ does nothing to deny my belief in the woolly mammoth. I am tired of people assuming that because of one, I must be denying the other. The creationists (and Me) claim that God created the universe.Some also claim a bunch of other stuff like the earth is only 6000 years old. I think it is important to actually think. I am not just talking to Christians here, but the atheists and agnostics who can't seem to discern between the two things, or perhaps choose not to. I actually don't mind what you believe, but maybe, just maybe how about this...Just because i believe something different than you does not make me stupid or evil or even wrong. You don't believe what I do, I don't assume that you are stupid or evil or even necessarily wrong. I believe you are wrong, but I am also aware that my belief is based on faith, just as yours is. Oh I know you say, no it is science, but come on, lets be honest. you don't know how the universe was created any more than I do. We have different explanations that's all. Mammoths were on the earth 36000 years ago, okay fine. Wow, see how easy that was. I believe God created them. Oh wait that bothers you too. I bet in a discussion about evolution you don't even know the difference between micro and macro evolution. Until you do, lets not talk about your theory, lets just agree to disagree.