Campanastan

Kurt Warner Hangs 'Em Up

Kurt Warner, whose NFL career is one of the most unusual odysseys one could ever imagine - grocery-store shelf stocker to Super Bowl winner/MVP to has-been and back to (almost) the top - has decided to hang up the spikes at age 38.

He is a remarkable talent and a tenacious competitor who always gave it everything he had. His teammates revere him.

Warner is also an exemplary human being - a humble, born-again Christian who runs a foundation, First Things First, with his wife Brenda. When I hear the term 'role model' I think 'Kurt Warner.'

If I were a betting man, I would wager that he'll be in the pro football Hall of Fame as soon as he's eligible.

He's already in life's Hall of Fame.

“Success is going from failure to failure without losing your enthusiasm.” -- Abraham Lincoln

Memo to Paul Shirley: There But for the Grace of God...

When I was young, one of my mother's favorite maxims was "There but for the grace of God go I." She'd usually say it when she saw someone less fortunate than we. It's a saying that has stuck with me lo these many years.

For those of you who prefer a non-religious aphorism, I proffer, "There but for fortune go I."

I couldn't help but think of my mother when I read this column by former pro basketball player Paul Shirley, If You Build It, They Will Come, which takes a decidedly different approach to the Haitian earthquake:

I haven’t donated a cent to the Haitian relief effort. And I probably will not.

I haven’t donated to the Haitian relief effort for the same reason that I don’t give money to homeless men on the street. Based on past experiences, I don’t think the guy with the sign that reads “Need You’re [sic] Help” is going to do anything constructive with the dollar I might give him. If I use history as my guide, I don’t think the people of Haiti will do much with my money either.

In this belief I am, evidently, alone. It seems that everyone has jumped on the  “Save Haiti” bandwagon. To question the impulse to donate, then, will probably be viewed as analogous with rooting for Charles Manson, John Wayne Gacy, or the Spice Girls.

Neither the 2004 tsunami nor Hurricane Katrina escape Shirley's vitriol:

After the tsunami of 2004, the citizens of the world wailed and donated and volunteered for cleanup, rarely asking the important – and, I think, obvious – question: What were all those people doing there in the first place? Just as important: If they move back to a place near the ocean that had just been destroyed by a giant wave, shouldn’t our instinct be to say, “Go ahead if you want, but you’re on your own now.”?

We did the same after Hurricane Katrina. We were quick to vilify humans who were too slow to respond to the needs of victims, forgetting that the victims had built and maintained a major city below sea level in a known target zone for hurricanes. Our response: Make the same mistake again. Rebuild a doomed city, putting aside logic as we did.

Shirley even includes a letter to the Haitians in his diatribe:

Dear Haitians –

First of all, kudos on developing the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. Your commitment to human rights, infrastructure, and birth control should be applauded.

As we prepare to assist you in this difficult time, a polite request: If it’s possible, could you not re-build your island home in the image of its predecessor? Could you not resort to the creation of flimsy shanty- and shack-towns? And could some of you maybe use a condom once in a while?

Sincerely,

The Rest of the World

Shirley's arrogance and ignorance are quite remarkable. I'm guessing that he was a better basketball player than humanitarian.

He makes Rush Limbaugh look like Mother Teresa.

"Blessed is the man, who having nothing to say, abstains from giving wordy evidence of the fact." -- George Eliot

Jon Stewart: Playing H-O-R-S-E in South Carolina and Other Delights

Palmetto State refugee Michael Dale sent me this item, originally at Brad Warthen's blog.

Now we know why Mark Sanford is still governor of South Carolina.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Thank You, South Carolina - Andre Bauer
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Health Care Crisis

 “My grandmother was not a highly educated woman, but she told me as a small child to quit feeding stray animals. You know why? Because they breed. You’re facilitating the problem if you give an animal or a person ample food supply. They will reproduce, especially ones that don’t think too much further than that. And so what you’ve got to do is you’ve got to curtail that type of behavior. They don’t know any better." -- Lt. Gov. Andre Bauer (R-SC) 
 

n2a's New 789 Chevy

Marty Ennis, angling to add Campanastan's Minister of Transportation position to her portfolio, sent along these pictures of n2a Motors' 789 Chevy. It sits on a C6 Corvette chassis, has a front like a '57 Chevy, side like a '58 Chevy, and a rear like a '59 Chevy. Hence the moniker '789 Chevy.'

The company plans to build about 100.

"I drive way too fast to worry about cholesterol."  ~ Unknown

Sen. Scott Brown's Stimulus Package Scores Big

Campanastan's Minister of Women's Affairs insisted we put this up.

Thanks to Mary_Claire. Here is the original link.

"I promise a stimulus package the likes of which no one has ever seen in Washington." -- Sen. Scott Brown (R-MA)

Mark McGroid Comes Clean - Sort Of

I'm so glad Mark McGwire came clean about his steroid use. It's comforting to know that he used steroids only to restore his health and not to enhance his strength. True, steroids won't improve your hand-eye coordination and make it easier to hit a baseball, but you'll hit it farther when you do make contact.

Had McGwire not been named the St. Louis Cardinals' hitting coach I suspect he would have kept his mouth shut.

McGwire's mea culpa is just another admission that makes José Canseco  look more and more like a prophet despite baseball's best efforts to paint him as your crazy uncle. I don't think everything Canseco says is spot-on, but I have to admit that his credibility on this issue is greater than that of people like Mark McGwire.

Here's Jon Heyman's take on McGwire's story. Joe Posnanski is more conciliatory.

Let's not forget that many of us enabled guys like McGwire. Team owners and Major League Baseball turned a blind eye as all the home runs filled ballparks and bank accounts. Ditto for the players' union. Fans and sportswriters reveled in the excitement.  

Time will tell whether McGwire has burnished his image enough to make the Hall of Fame. But I do know that if he gets in, he won't be the only one who bent or broke the rules. We have HOF members like Gaylord Perry (greaseballs), Whitey Ford (scuffballs), plus many who took "greenies" (amphetamines) and such substances during the 1960s and 1970s.  

Check out the interesting timelines on Baseball's Steroid Era.

“The players and owners disagree on most things, but when it comes to making money, they’re on the same page.” --  José Canseco  

“It's still a hand-eye coordination game, but the difference [with steroids] is the ball is going to go a little farther. Some of the balls that would go to the warning track will go out. That's the difference.” -- Ken Caminiti

Honoring King, Remembering the South

Today we honor Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., who would have turned 81 earlier this month. I have come to appreciate and admire him (and all the civil rights workers) by reading Taylor Branch's brilliant  trilogy of the civil rights era: Parting the Waters: America in the King Years, 1954-63; Pillar of Fire: America in the King Years 1963-65; and At Canaan's Edge: America in the King Years 1965-68.

What thoroughly amazes me were the toughness, resiliency, and resolve of the civil rights workers, and how they honored King's insistence upon nonviolent resistance. Along with King, the names of heroes such as John Lewis, Ralph Abernathy, Hosea Williams, Rosa Parks, Coretta King, Septima Clark, James Meredith, Andrew Young, Marian Wright, Diane Nash, Fannie Lou Hamer, James Bevel, Bob Moses, et al., are forever burned in my mind. Similarly, I shall not soon forget place names like Selma and Montgomery, or people like Lester Maddox, George Wallace, Bull Connor, Orval Faubus, Strom Thurmond, and their ilk.

As I read the aforementioned books, cringing at what humans can do to each other, one thought haunted me: what would I have done had I been a Southern white person during that time (I am actually half-North Carolina Scots-Irish WASP)? I've concluded that I probably would not have been one of the segregationist ringleaders, but certainly would not have risen to the defense of the oppressed. I probably would have (very quietly) supported their cause, but not done anything to jeopardize my comfortable middle-class lifestyle (see the quote below). Certainly Northerners were no better than Southerners when it came to desegregation; recall the Boston busing "incidents" of the 1970s.

Another thing also amazes me: how much the Southern poor whites ("poor white trash") and blacks had in common. Both were horribly oppressed, but skillful politicians kept the poor whites riled about the "uppity Negroes". If the two groups had united, there would have been hell to pay.

Here is King's "I Have a Dream" speech:

I do have a few interesting memories about that period, as I was a student in Virginia (College of William and Mary) from 1966-1970. Just after I arrived in Virginia, Sen. Harry F. Byrd died - he was the scion of the infamous Byrd (members of the FFV) political dynasty in Virginia, and the whole state mourned his death. What I remember most about that time is the characterization of Byrd by a local columnist:

"Never was there a man who so dragged his feet through the sands of time."

 How true!

I recall going on field trips to areas in the rural South and being "bold" enough to enter the "Colored" bathrooms or drink from the "Colored Only" water fountains. To me it was a game; I had little realization or understanding of all the hatred and oppression embodied in those few simple words. And I am now embarrased to admit that my roommate (a Jew) and I (a Yankee) had a Confederate flag in our dorm room. Sure, we used it to cover holes in the wall, but that's a lame excuse - we could have used a psychedelic poster or a peace symbol, not a heinous symbol anathema to millions.

One recollection, though, is humorous. I was playing with the W & M marching band at the Southern Governors' conference in Williamsburg. As we stood at attention, Governor Lester Maddox of Georgia came by and started scurrying among us, chattering away, grabbing at our instruments and asking if we would play "Dixie". Finally, our stoic band director, Charles Varner, could restrain himself no longer and quietly but firmly said to Maddox, "I'm afraid we don't know 'Dixie', Governor, but we would be glad to play 'Marching Through Georgia' for you." That stopped Lester dead in his tracks, and he frowned and walked away. After that, for me, ol' Chuck's stature zoomed upwards.

We all have a huge debt to Dr. King and his followers. They were all remarkable, courageous people.

"We will remember not the words of our enemies but the silence of our friends." -- Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., 1929-1968   

Pat Robertson: "I Thought Hades Had an Earthquake, Not Haiti!"

Satan wrote a letter to Pat Robertson after the televangelist claimed that the Haitians had made a pact with the Devil to gain their independence from France.

Dear Pat Robertson,

I know that you know that all press is good press, so I appreciate the shout-out. And you make God look like a big mean bully who kicks people when they are down, so I'm all over that action.

But when you say that Haiti has made a pact with me, it is totally humiliating. I may be evil incarnate, but I'm no welcher. The way you put it, making a deal with me leaves folks desperate and impoverished.

Sure, in the afterlife, but when I strike bargains with people, they first get something here on earth -- glamour, beauty, talent, wealth, fame, glory, a golden fiddle. Those Haitians have nothing, and I mean nothing. And that was before the earthquake. Haven't you seen "Crossroads"? Or "Damn Yankees"?

If I had a thing going with Haiti, there'd be lots of banks, skyscrapers, SUVs, exclusive night clubs, Botox -- that kind of thing. An 80 percent poverty rate is so not my style. Nothing against it -- I'm just saying: Not how I roll.

You're doing great work, Pat, and I don't want to clip your wings -- just, come on, you're making me look bad. And not the good kind of bad. Keep blaming God. That's working. But leave me out of it, please. Or we may need to renegotiate your own contract.

Best, Satan

LILY COYLE, MINNEAPOLIS

Maybe Andy Borowitz is right: Robertson thought it was Hades, not Haiti.

 "(T)he feminist agenda is not about equal rights for women. It is about a socialist, anti-family political movement that encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism and become lesbians." –Pat Robertson

Stewart Calls Out Limbaugh, Robertson, and Maddow on Haiti Comments

Jon Stewart takes Rush Limbaugh, Pat Robertson, and Rachel Maddow to task over their comments about the Haitian disaster.

Limbaugh's and Robertson's comments are especially despicable. 

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Haiti Earthquake Reactions
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Health Care Crisis

"I think I know the cause of your heart trouble. You don't have one." -- Jon Stewart, on Rush Limbaugh

"It may be a blessing in disguise. ... Something happened a long time ago in Haiti, and people might not want to talk about it. Haitians were originally under the heel of the French. You know, Napoleon the third, or whatever. And they got together and swore a pact to the devil. They said, we will serve you if you will get us free from the French. True story. And so, the devil said, okay it's a deal. Ever since they have been cursed by one thing after the other." –Pat Robertson, on the earthquake in Haiti that destroyed the capital and killed tens of thousands of people, 13 January 2010

“Look, let me put it to you this way: the NFL all too often looks like a game between the Bloods and the Crips without any weapons. There, I said it.”-- Rush Limbaugh

Aid for Haiti; Information Sources

No need to explain what this post is about. Right now, aid organizations need money. I suspect many of you have your favorites but if not, you might consider the organizations accessible through these links.

MSN.com

Sarah van Gelder in The Huffington Post 

CNN (impressive list!)

The Washington Post 

Christian Science Monitor

NPR: Haiti - Some Ways to Help

I'll post more as I come across them. Please give what you can.

You can vet your charity here.

For those interested in helping immediately, simply text "HAITI" to "90999" and a donation of $10 will be given automatically to the Red Cross to help with relief efforts, charged to your cell phone bill. Keep in mind that if you take the texting approach, it may take a while for your money to show up.It depends upon whether your carrier transfers the money immediately or waits until you pay your bill.

Here is the New York Times' Haiti Twitter. It has reports from individuals, news organizations, and relief agencies in Haiti.

There is a good discussion (debate) of what kind of help Haiti needs in the New York Times.

"Beyond mountains there are mountains." -- Haitian proverb

Man Bites Dog in Northern Ireland: Mrs. Robinson Meets Her Benjamin

Let me guess - you're tired of hearing about some pompous, Bible-quoting (especially!) male politician who cheats on his wife (often with with a younger woman), then begs forgiveness in front of a national TV audience with his wife standing by his side with a pained look.

Well, I am too.

But this story is different. Yesterday's New York Times carried this piece about Iris Robinson, a Northern Ireland lawmaker and wife of party leader and Northern Ireland's First Minister Peter Robinson.

Mrs. Robinson, who has a reputation as a social conservative (anti-gay, for instance), engaged in an affair with a 19-year-old man. She then gave the man $80,000, supposedly to help him open a cafe. It's been further reported that Mr. Robinson concealed financial information about that payment.

Mrs. Robinson also attempted suicide because of depression over the affair.

All this is threatening to bring down the NI government.

I don't know if Mrs. Robinson went before the cameras with Mr. Robinson at her side, but perhaps they do things differently in the UK, because here's a video of Mr. Robinson, who sounds like he's doing the mea culpa thing (there is a longer version accessible from the NYT article): 

object width="560" height="340">

Hide it in a hiding place
Where no one ever goes.
Put it in you pantry with your cupcakes.
It's a little secret,
Just the Robinsons' affair.
Most of all, you've got to hide it
from the kids. -- "Mrs. Robinson", Simon and Garfunkel, written by Paul Simon
 

Proposed 28th Amendment to the Constitution?

From Aguanomics:

"Congress shall make no law that applies to the citizens of the United States that does not apply equally to the Senators or Representatives, and Congress shall make no law that applies to the Senators or Representatives that does not apply equally to the citizens of the United States."

Sounds good to me. Just need to add something in there about the equality of health insurance plans.

“(I support efforts) to limit the terms of the members of Congress, especially members of the House and members of the Senate." -- Dan Quayle, fomer vice president

Never Mistake Activity for Achievement

The title of this post comes from a quote attributed to legendary basketball coach John Wooden and it is appropriate for this post.

Here at Oregon State University, our president and provost seem intent upon reorganizing the school to prepare us for the future. I have no problem with that.

But one of the the most controversial (I would say 'stupid') moves they have made is to create a Division of Earth System Science (DESS). So what's wrong with that? Nothing, but when our leaders omit the Department of Geosciences (my department) from that unit, they display a great deal of ignorance. A DESS with no discipline that is fundamental to the study of Earth?  

So far, our leaders have not responded to some trenchant agruments against their scheme.  

So I ask, "For what future are they preparing us?"

An earlier post comes to mind.

I recently came across the following quote and thought that, like John Wooden's quote above, it is entirely relevant to today's post.

"We trained hard, but it seemed that every time we were beginning to form up in teams we would be reorganized.  I was to learn later in life that we tend to meet any new situation by reorganizing. And a wonderful method it can be for creating the illusion of progress while producing confusion, inefficiency, and demoralization."– attributed to both Roman satirist Gaius Petronius Arbiter (210 BC); and Charlton Ogburn, Jr. (1911-1998), in Harper's Magazine, "Merrill's Marauders: The truth about an incredible adventure" (Jan 1957)

Campanastan Develops Ultimate Thermonuclear Weapon

Campanastan's nuclear scientists and engineers, the best money can buy, have perfected the ultimate thermonulcear weapon. Not only will it vaporize entire populations, it disses them as well.

Our experts have named it Bird of Prey.

Your President-for-Life may test the efficacy of this weapon on our neigboring country of Absurdistan, a land of extremely boorish people.  

 
 
"There was a recent fire at Absurdistan's National Library; all 20 books were destroyed. The real tragedy is that 15 had not yet been colored in." -- apologies to Steve Spurrier

Graphic: Life Expectancy vs. Health Care Costs by Country

Click on the graphic twice to enlarge.

Campanstan is nowhere to be found.

From National Geographic.

"The United States spends more on medical care per person than any country, yet life expectancy is shorter than in most other developed nations and many developing ones. Lack of health insurance is a factor in life span and contributes to an estimated 45,000 deaths a year. Why the high cost? The U.S. has a fee-for-service system—paying medical providers piecemeal for appointments, surgery, and the like. That can lead to unneeded treatment that doesn’t reliably improve a patient’s health. Says Gerard Anderson, a professor at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health who studies health insurance worldwide, “More care does not necessarily mean better care.”  —Michelle Andrews 

"Your health is our business, not our concern." -- Unknown health insurance company employee 

Wannabe U: Inside the Corporate University

Happy New Year! ¡Prospero Año Nuevo!

Gaye Tuchman, a professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Connecticut, has recently published Wannabe U: Inside the Corporate University.

As the title implies, the nonfiction book details the efforts of a state research university to improve its academic standing and enter the realm of elite state universities. It's a poorly-kept secret that Wannabe U is, in fact, Tuchman's employer, the University of Connecticut.  

Here's a news article about the book by Scott Jaschik at Inside Higher Ed. There are a number of interesting comments in response to his article. 

If you want to sample the book, here's a scanned copy of Chapter 1:

Download WannabeU

The synopsis from the book's WWW site:

In most debates over its future, the university is represented—by both its critics and its champions—as a secular temple for learning, a sacred space freed from the more mundane concerns that trouble other institutions. But lately this lofty image looks increasingly tarnished, especially with regard to public research universities. There, a new class of administrative professionals has been busy working to make colleges as much like businesses as possible. In this eye-opening exposé of the modern university, Gaye Tuchman paints a candid portrait of these wannabe corporate managers and the new regime of revenue streams, mission statements, and five-year plans they’ve ushered in.

Based on years of observation at a state school, Wannabe U tracks the dispiriting consequences of trading in traditional educational values for loyalty to the market. Aping their boardroom idols, the new corporate administrators wander from job to job and reductively view the students as future workers in need of training. Obsessed with measurable successes, they stress auditing and accountability, which leads, Tuchman reveals, to policies of surveillance and control dubiously cloaked in the guise of scientific administration. Following the big money to be made from the discoveries of Wannabe U’s researchers, Tuchman probes the cozy relationships that the administration forms with industry and the government.

Like the best campus novelists, Tuchman entertains with her acidly witty observations of backstage power dynamics and faculty politics, but ultimately Wannabe U is a hard-hitting account of how higher education’s misguided pursuit of success fails us all.

I suspect many of my academic colleagues would decry the types of change that Wannabe U is attempting to implement. It's no surprise that academics are among the biggest whiners around, despite the fact that many of them have the closest thing our society has to 'lifetime jobs' (as yours truly does).

What amazes me about academics is that they pride themselves on being on the cutting edge of change - in science, engineering, medicine, the humanities - but are themselves highly resistant to change at their own institutions.

Having said that, it's good to remember that not all change is necessarily good, or well thought out.

Campanastan's Minister of Education has been instructed to digest this book and regurgitate a summary. Your President-for-Life is looking forward to reading her synopsis.

"The purpose of education is not to make men carpenters, but to make carpenters men." -- W.E.B. Du Bois

"Never mistake activity for achievement." -- John Wooden