All posts by Haruko Haruhara

Why I am boycotting “Ender’s Game”

enders-game-tvWhen I was about 12 or 13, one of my favourite books was “Ender’s Game,” written by Orson Scott Card. It won both the Nebula and the Hugo awards for best science fiction novel the year it came out — 1985. It’s a brutal story about kids drafted into a war against aliens called “The Buggers” (oh, the irony) that has very much a surprise twist at the end.

Ender’s Game led to a number of sequels. I think I gave up after the second book, “Speaker for the Dead,” as the books got more obtuse and harder to read (much like those endless “Dune” novels that became more and more unreadable.)

Another one of my favourite books is another Orson Scott Card book, “Pastwatch: The Redemption of Christopher Columbus.” A fascinating story about Christopher Columbus and how his discovery of the Western World led to the ultimate downfall of society.

I won’t be reading or buying any more Orson Scott Card novels, nor will I be going to see Ender’s Game.

ender's gameAbout two years ago, I started reading stories about Card’s rampant homophobia, just ugly, ugly stuff. Apparently, he’s harboured these opinions for many years, but in the past four or five years, has become more outspoken. Card is a Mormon and unfortunately, while his novels appear to be open-minded, he is a hateful, bigoted little man. Such an irony that one of his novels is called “Xenophobia.”

Card also belongs to some right-wing anti-gay marriage organisation called “The National Organization for Marriage.”

Now, I suppose it’s a free country and people have a right to believe what they want, but Card’s comments go beyond the pale, and exhibit just outright bigotry. If he wants the right to be a bigot, then fine, I have the right to not buy his books nor be a patron to his movies.

Here is an example of some of the swill Card has said and has written over the past several years about homosexuals (and frankly, Card has written so extensively over the years about homosexuality that it becomes painfully apparent he is bloody obsessed with homosexuality … to the degree that I believe it’s likely he himself is a closet case.)

Instead they are attempting to strike a death blow against the well-earned protected status of our, and every other, real marriage.

They steal from me what I treasure most, and gain for themselves nothing at all. They won’t be married. They’ll just be playing dress-up in their parents’ clothes.”

The hypocrites of homosexuality are, of course, already preparing to answer these statements by accusing me of homophobia, gay-bashing, bigotry, intolerance; but nothing that I have said here — and nothing that has been said by any of the prophets or any of the Church leaders who have dealt with this issue — can be construed as advocating, encouraging, or even allowing harsh personal treatment of individuals who are unable to resist the temptation to have sexual relations with persons of the same sex. On the contrary, the teachings of the Lord are clear in regard to the way we must deal with sinners. Christ treated them with compassion — as long as they confessed that their sin was a sin. Only when they attempted to pretend that their sin was righteousness did he harshly name them for what they were: fools, hypocrites, sinners. Hypocrites because they were unwilling to change their behavior and instead attempted to change the law to fit it; fools because they thought that deceiving an easily deceivable society would achieve the impossible goal of also deceiving God.

Now, there is a myth that homosexuals are “born that way,” and we are pounded with this idea so thoroughly that many people think that somebody, somewhere, must have proved it.

In fact what evidence there is suggests that if there is a genetic component to homosexuality, an entire range of environmental influences are also involved. While there is no scientific research whatsoever that indicates that there is no such thing as a borderline child who could go either way.

Those who claim that there is “no danger” and that homosexuals are born, not made, are simply stating their faith.

The dark secret of homosexual society — the one that dares not speak its name — is how many homosexuals first entered into that world through a disturbing seduction or rape or molestation or abuse, and how many of them yearn to get out of the homosexual community and live normally.

Please remember that for the mildest of comments critical of the political agenda of homosexual activists, I have been called a “homophobe” for years.

This is a term that was invented to describe people with a pathological fear of homosexuals — the kind of people who engage in acts of violence against gays. But the term was immediately extended to apply to anyone who opposed the homosexual activist agenda in any way.

A term that has mental-health implications (homophobe) is now routinely applied to anyone who deviates from the politically correct line. How long before opposing gay marriage, or refusing to recognize it, gets you officially classified as “mentally ill”?

Ugh, I really can’t read anymore. It’s just stomach-churning. Like I said, this ‘phobe is quite literally obsessed with homosexuality. I’ve yet to meet a sincerely straight person who thinks about homosexuality as much as this guy. And there is also a painfully pathetic whiny streak through much of his writing about gays. Like a typical right-winger nut job, he embraces the victim card with great enthusiasm. Bigots love to wear the mantle of victimhood.

Orson_Scott_Card_at_BYU_Symposium_20080216_closeup

Several gay rights’ groups are organising boycotts of Ender’s Game, which opens in theatres this weekend. I personally can’t stomach watching the movie after reading some of the obsessive garbage this guy has written over the years about gays. Boycotting Ender’s Game will not hurt Card financially; he is an executive producer of the film, but isn’t getting any royalties from ticket sales. Still, a message can be sent that people are sick of this kind of vitriol; no matter how articulately Card writes, hate is hate. I will be checking the box office numbers this weekend and am really hoping Ender’s Game tanks. It’s gotten very mixed review — 54% positive rating on Metacritic, 63% on Rotten Tomatoes (which includes bloggers). Very few movies have made money this year because movies have gotten too stale, too expensive and people have CGI fatigue.

It was so disappointing to find out that the author of these two books I loved as a teenager was such a vile, disgusting person.

Haruko’s baseball extravaganza 2!

Fear the Beards

AP Red Sox Beards

Hah, OK, now that I’ve written this, I’m sure to have put the jinx on the Scruffy Sox. I always do. I’m bad luck.

It won’t be the Red Sox’s scruffy beards that will get them deep into the postseason, though they are cute, sort of. Well, most of the beard are kind of ugly. I think Mike Napoli looks a little bit like Leonidis in “300.” The only one who really has an attractive beard is Shane Victorino, I think.

The Red Sox weren’t supposed to be any good this year; they were supposed to be in a rebuilding year. In fact, this team was built on a bunch of one-year free agent contracts, so next year’s Red Sox won’t look anything like this team, especially considering that Jacoby Ellsbury will likely leave as a free agent. Victorino is the only guy signed for more than 2 years (and he was signed for just three years).

Looking at this year’s team and why they were so much better than last year’s team. Obviously, their pitching was a lot better. The Red Sox really took off when they got Jake Peavy, who went 4-1 down the stretch. Clay Buchholz also had a remarkable year at 12-1 (.923 winning percentage) and Jon Lester bounced back after an awful season to go 15-8. Even Ryan Dempster and John Lackey, who had losing records both had good ERAs.

beard

And the Red Sox weren’t lucky, either. David Ortiz, Ellsbury and Victorino all got hurt at various times of the year. And they lost their No.1  closer, then lost their No. 2 closer and were looking at a total disaster in their bullpen, but they found a diamond in the rough by making Koji Uehera into a closer. He went 4-1 and had an ERA of 1.09 with 21 saves.

But, I think it was a lot of scary balance up and down the lineup. The Red Sox force pitchers to throw a lot of pitches, draw a lot of walks and usually get into other team’s bullpens by the fifth or sixth inning — even if the opposing pitcher is having a good game. And most team’s bullpens are just not that good, and that’s where the Red Sox have been doing a lot of their damage this year.

 

Here is an interesting and scary statistic about the Scruffy Sox. The Red Sox are not a particularly powerful team — they hit 178 home runs, but they had 8 guys who hit 10 or more home runs and 11 guys who hit 9 or more home runs. 11. There’s only 9 players on the field at a time!

And on top of 11 guys with 9 or more home runs, they had 11 guys with 40 or more RBIs and 7 guys who hit between .294 and .309. Talk about balance. Even back in the steroid days, teams didn’t have 11 guys with 9 or more home runs. And a couple of these guys — Mike Carp and Daniel Nava — were career minor leaguers who never got a chance before to play in the Majors. That’s team baseball.

Look at these remarkable stats. Other than Ortiz, none of these stats are great, but incredibly consistent:

David Ortiz          .309 30 103

Daniel Nava         .303 12 66

Dustin Pedroia      .301 9 84

Jacoby Ellsbury    .298 9 53

Michael Carp        .296 9 43

Shane Victorino    .294 15 61

Jarrod Saltalamacchia .273 14 65

Mike Napoli           .259 23 92

Stephen Drew        .253 13 67

Johnny Gomes       .247 13 52

Will Middlebrooks  .227 17 49

300-game winner update

Well, unfortunately, no 300-game candidate came out of the blue to make me look good this year. It looks like Tony Kornheiser and Michael Wilbon might be right. (Remember, I took offence to Kenheiser and Wilbon saying there would NEVER be a 300-game winner again). All the 300-game candidates had bad seasons this year and are making Wilbon and Kornheiser look good and make me look bad.

Here are the candidates:

.                                            2013                  ERA        Total wins           Age

CC Sabathia                       14-13                    4.78       205                       33

Tim Hudson                        8-7                        3.97       205                       38

Roy Halladay                     4-5                        6.82       203                       36

Mark Beurhle                     12-10                    4.15       186                       35

Justin Verlander                13-12                    3.46       137                       31

Felix Hernandez                12-10                    3.04       110                       28

So, out of that group, Sabathia still has a very valid chance of getting to 300. He is still only 33, and if he stays healthy, could pitch another 8 seasons. He would only have to average 12 wins a year over 8 years to get to 300. But, look at Sabathia’s ERA — 4.78. He might be losing his stuff.

Hudson was having a good year and probably would have won 13-14 games, but he broke his ankle, and I think that ends his chances to get to 300. Halladay had his second straight injury-plagued year and might be near the end of his career. Beurhle is too mediocre of a pitcher to get to 300. He hasn’t won more than 13 games since 2008.

Verlander had an off-year for him, but at 31, he is still young enough to do it. He’d have to pitch another 11 injury-free years and average exactly 15 wins a year. The same with Hernandez, he’s still young. But, look at his numbers last year. He went 12-10 and 9 no-decisions and had a very solid ERA of 3.04. Why? Because he was pitching for a terrible team that went 71-91 (and let’s face it, the only reason Seattle won 71 games is because they got to play 19 games against 51-111 Houston). For a lot of teams, he would have won 15-20 games. I said at the beginning of the year, Hernandez will never get anywhere near 300 wins pitching for a bad team like Seattle his whole career.

Todd Helton a Hall of Famer?

Todd Helton, Andy Pettitte and Mariano Rivera all retired this year. What are their chances for the Hall of Fame?

MLB: Chicago Cubs at Colorado RockiesWell, Mariano will get in on his first ballot and might get in unanimously. He was simply the best closer in the history of baseball, and his record of 652 saves might never be broken — you’d have to average 42 saves a year for 16 years to get there (even though we think saves are a vastly overrated stat).

Pettitte is a little tougher. He won 20 games twice, won more than 10 games 16 times, won 256 games and has the all-time record of 19 wins in the postseason. I would say he probably gets in the Hall of Fame except for one thing — his admission of doing HGH. That’s usually a dealbreaker with HOF voters. I think that will hurt him a lot in the balloting.

Now, Helton is someone I’ve heard very little buzz about for the Hall of Fame, but he put together some remarkable numbers over the course of his career. Helton batted .316 for his career, had an outstanding on-base percentage of .414 and OPS of .953. He hit 367 home runs and drove in 1,406 runs, and had 2,519 hits. Six times he hit more than 30 home runs and 8 times he had more than 90 RBIs, and he batted over. 300 12 times. He also won one batting title (.372) and three gold gloves. Add to that 11 times with 37 or more doubles and 592 doubles all time.

Helton is 26th all-time in on-base percentage, 20th all time in OPS and 16th all-time in doubles.

Wow, that is all a pretty darn good argument for the Hall of Fame. But one thing that will hurt him is he played during the steroid era, and that will cost him votes. Just playing during the steroid era will cost players votes (ask Craig Biggio). Plus, he played in Colorado, which has a tendency to inflate statistics. (He did have an embarrassing DUI arrest this year. But, DUIs don’t keep guys out of the HofF.)

Helton won’t get in on the first ballot, but I think short of direct evidence of steroid use, he deserves to go into the Hall of Fame, as does Biggio. You can’t keep guys out purely because of the era in which they played.

Haruko’s 2013 baseball extravaganza … for Steve Lardy

Ichiro Suzuki, overrated or one-dimensional?

ichiro_suzuki--300x300We have a friend who is a huge Mariners’ fan who hated Ichiro Suzuki as a player. He kept telling us Ichiro was overrated and he was part of the reason the Mariners sucked offensively. His gripe was that for a guy with speed, Ichiro didn’t use his speed and was a very passive baserunner for a guy who stole 30+ bases a year, who often didn’t take an extra base when he maybe could’ve nor did he come home on shallow flies when he likely could have scored. And that Ichiro didn’t do a lot of the little things to help the Mariners win, like move guys over or hit sac flies, etc.

I decided to take a look at Ichiro’s stats, and I found out, he does put up some very weird (and even freakish in some ways) numbers. I don’t think I would use the word “overrated,” but “one dimensional.” Ichiro is a very good example of how batting average is a very overrated statistic. Ichiro started in MLB at the age of 27, but he will easily get to 3,000 hits. He has also won numerous Gold Gloves, steals a lot of bases, is the best Japanese-born player in the history of baseball and will easily and deservedly make the Hall of Fame on his first ballot, but he is also a very good example of how batting average isn’t the most important statistic. Ichiro is the anti-Moneyball.

Plainly put, Ichiro is a lifetime .322 hitter, but he doesn’t do nearly as much damage offensively, especially for a leadoff hitter (though he doesn’t bat leadoff anymore, but did bat leadoff for the bulk of his career), as you would think — for two reasons. 1) He doesn’t hit extra base hits and 2) he doesn’t walk. For a .322 hitter, his on-base percentage is an above-average but unspectacular .365.

For an example of how “meh” .365 is … that is ranked No. 348 all time in MLB history. Ichiro’s career on-base percentage is lower than guys like Steve Kemp, Mickey Tettleton, Phil Bradley, Jeff Cirillo, John Jaha and Brian Downing. It’s even lower than Adam Dunn’s on-base percentage. Yeah, that Adam Dunn, the guy that bats .200 every year.

In Ichiro’s rookie season in 2001, he was second in the AL in runs scored, but since then, he has never finished higher than 6th and has not been in the top 10 in runs scored since 2008. This is a guy who averages 670 at-bats a year and 215 hits a year hitting leadoff … never higher than 6th in in the AL in runs scored since 2001. That pedestrian on-base percentage is part of the reason. His preponderance of singles is the other.

The other odd thing is, Ichiro does have power. He averages just under 9 home runs a year, which is decent for a leadoff hitter. But, he doesn’t hit doubles hardly at all, and he doesn’t hit a lot of triples for a guy with so much speed (about 6.5 triples a year). He simply seems content to slap the ball through the infield for easy singles. It means he has a really high batting average, but he isn’t doing that much harm to the other team.

Let’s compare Ichiro to other Hall of Fame leadoff hitters. I should stress that these are SINGLES hitters. Guys that didn’t hit a lot of home runs. But you can see that other than one guy, Ichiro’s numbers are not as good, when you add on-base percentage, slugging percentage and OPS (On base + slugging). Again, to reiterate, none of these players are home runs hitters and they batted leadoff for much of their careers.

.                            BA          OBP       SLG        HR (career)          OPS

Wade Boggs       .328       .415       .443       118                         .858

Tony Gwynn       .338       .388       .459       135                       .847

Rod Carew          .328       .393       .429       92                          .822

Pete Rose            .303       .375       .409       160                       .784

Ichiro                    .322       .365       .418       104                       .783

Lou Brock            .293       .343       .410       149                       .753

Wade Boggs is the best of this bunch. An incredible hitter who walked more than 87 times 9 times in his career. He also hit more than 40 doubles eight times (playing in Fenway helped). Tony Gwynn didn’t walk that much, but hit more than 760 extra-base hits. Pete Rose hit 40 or more doubles 7 times and walked 86 or more times 6 times (and his OPS numbers declined dramatically his last five years in baseball because he hung around until his mid 40s trying to catch Ty Cobb’s hit total — Rose only hit 6 home runs in his final 7 seasons, which really hurt his overall career OPS.). Lou Brock played in a deadball era in the 60s and early 70s and didn’t have an especially great batting average (.293), 29 points lower than Ichiro’s.

Ichiro has never hit 40 doubles, in fact, he’s never once even hit 35. He average 25.6 doubles a year and 41 extra base hits a year (Ichiro will assuredly get to 3,000 hits, but will barely crack 400 doubles — Craig Biggio has more than 600 doubles and Pete Rose more than 700). This is from a guy who averages an astonishing 670 at bats a year (and that is a freakish number), so that means Ichiro is hitting an extra base hit (double, triple or home run) about once every 16 ABs. Roughly … twice a week. Ichiro also averages 43 walks a year and has only walked more than 51 times once in his career. This is a leadoff guy, whose job it is to get on base.

Let’s look at Ichiro’s numbers now compared to some other good leadoff hitters, some of whom didn’t hit for average. Guys that walked and hit with some power (ie, did a lot of damage offensively).

.                                         AVG.      OBP       SLG        HR          OPS

Derek Jeter                        .313       .382       .448       255        .829

Rickey Henderson             .279       .401       .419       297        .820

Paul Moliter                       .306       .369       .448       234        .817

Craig Biggio                       .281       .363       .433       291        .796

Ichiro                                   .322       .365       .418       104        .783

Rickey Henderson wasn’t an especially great hitter (.279 career), but he walked an incredible amount (16 seasons 80 or more walks) and hit with power, and thus caused a lot more damage than Ichiro, as weird as he was as a player. Biggio for a .281 lifetime hitter scored an incredible number of runs (6 times 113 or more runs). Some of that was because of Jeff Bagwell hitting a ton or home runs behind him, but some of that was because Biggio hit more than 1,000 extra-base hits. By comparison, Ichiro has 492 extra-base hits.

Here’s Ichiro’s weaknesses illustrated. Look at these numbers. Difference between batting average and on-base percentage and percentage of hits that are singles. None of these players are even especially close to Ichiro.

.                                          Batting average/On-base percentage                      % of hits singles

Craig Biggio                                                     .82                                                               66.9%

Paul Moliter                                                     .63                                                              71.2%

R. Henderson                                                   .122                                                            71.4%

Lou Brock                                                         .50                                                              74.3%

Derek Jeter                                                      .69                                                              74.4%

Wade Boggs                                                    .87                                                                 74.9%

Pete Rose                                                         .72                                                                 75.3%

Tony Gwynn                                                     .50                                                               75.7%

Rod Carew                                                       .65                                                                  78.7%

Ichiro                                                                 .43                                                                81.1%

Wow, a whopping 81.1 percent of the time Ichiro gets a hit, it’s a single. None of these other players are even close. Only 18.9 percent of his hits are a double, triple or home run.

So, our friend had a point. Ichiro was likely part of the reason the Mariners were not a good offensive team the last few years. He fits a style of baseball that appeared prevalent in the 1880s, and probably fit Japan well, but in modern American baseball, he seems out of place. What I would call Ichiro is the greatest singles hitter in Major League Baseball since maybe Wee Willy Keeler. But, I would take Wade Boggs, Paul Molitor or even Craig Biggio as my leadoff hitter over Ichiro any day.

Last year, I missed a couple of guys who could get to 300 wins

tim_hudson  A few months ago, I wrote an article about four players who conceivably could get to 300 wins (after Michael Wilbon and Tony Kornheiser said it was IMPOSSIBLE — IMPOSSIBLE — for any player today to get to 300 wins). The four I mentioned were CC Sabathia (191 wins, age 32), Justin Verlander (125 wins, age 29), Roy Halladay (199 wins, age 36) and Mark Beurhle (174 wins, age 34).

There were two guys I should have mentioned. I missed them because they both had way more wins than I realised.

The first is Tim Hudson. I can be forgiven for forgetting him, because he had a six-year stretch in which he only won 68 games. But, in the last three years, Hudson has won 49 games (16.3 wins a year) and sits at 197 wins at the age of 37, within range of 300. Hudson has won 16 or more games 8 times, so he is a workshorse. He would have to average about another 17 wins a year for the next six years (retiring at age 42) or he would have to average 14.8 wins for another seven years (retiring at age 43). He is a longshot to get to 300, but he is pitching for a good team in Atlanta and has been healthy for four years, so it is not impossible. In fact, I would say Hudson has a better chance than Halladay, who appears to be injured and breaking down.

felix-hernandez

The other pitcher I should have mentioned is Felix Hernandez. Hernandez is only 27 and has already won 99 games, which surprised me. He has only won more than 14 games in a season once (19 wins), but he is a workhorse and doesn’t have a lot of injuries and pitches a lot of innings.

I would say he has a legitimate shot, except Hernandez pitches for Seattle, which is one of the worst offensive teams in baseball.  In fact, over the last five years, Hernandez’ ERA is under 2.90 and he has only won 68 games (13.6 wins a year), pitching for a bad team, and in particular a bad offensive team. In fact, the year Hernandez won the Cy Young, he only went 13-12, with an ERA of 2.27.

Honestly, I do not think Hernandez can possibly get to 300 continuing to pitch for the Mariners. Like I said, he has won more than 14 games once in his career and he would have to average 16.8 wins a year for the next 12 years to get to 300. He will simply lose too many 2-1 and 3-2 games pitching for that team. I was shocked he signed a seven-year extension to stay with them because they’re not going to be any good offensively any time soon, I don’t care if they moved the fences in 15 feet. (The dimensions of the park isn’t why the Mariners hit .234 as a team last year.)

Will Jeter catch Pete Rose?

derek-jeter-picture-1When Jeter was one of the youngest players to 3,000 hits in 2011, a lot of people talked about him perhaps catching Pete Rose at 4,256. At the time, I thought it was impossible, but then Jeter had a great year last year, hitting 216 hits and putting him at 3,304 hits at the age of 38. I thought he had a valid chance of catching Rose.

However, Jeter badly broke his foot last October and will likely be out until May this year, perhaps even June. I think that puts a serious dent in him attempting to catch Rose, because who knows how well he will be able to play when he comes back?

Jeter needs about 950 hits to catch Pete Rose. To do that in five years (retiring at the age of 43), he’d have to average 190 hits a year. If he averaged about 155 games a year, he’d have to bat about .317 (190-for-600 average per year). I think that’s impossible, for a guy 41, 42 and 43 years old to average 600 at-bats a year and a .317 average. The 2013 season, I seriously doubt Jeter will reach 500 ABs.

To do it in 6 years (retiring at 44), Jeter would have to average just under 160 hits a year. If he averaged about 145 games a year, he’d have to bat about .286 (160-for-560 AB average per year). Again, that’d be pretty difficult. And this is all assuming that his ankle will be OK. I predict Jeter will reach 4,000 hits, but he will come up a couple of hundred hits short of Pete Rose.

To get to 4,000 hits, say Jeter plays another five years. He’d have to average about 140 hits a year, and perhaps a .280 average (averaging about 130 games a year and 500 AB  a year). Very, very doable, I believe, if he is healthy.

Here comes the Scruffy Sox

jonny gomes

I’ve been having fun making fun of the Scruffy Sox. Almost all of their players have beards and even though the Red Sox have a fairly big salary, their team seems to be full of scrappy underachievers. I’ve been told the beards and long hair thing is some tradition that goes back to Bill Lee.

No matter how well they do (and who knows, they’ve started 3-1, which is encouraging), they should be fun to watch this year at least, especially considering the miserable season they had in 2012 with bigmouth Bobby Valentine and having to dump bad attitude Josh Beckett. First of all, the Sox seem to have gotten rid of all their jerks. Lackey has a history of being a bit of a jerk, but maybe being a lousy pitcher for two years, then spending another year on the IR has humbled him.

jackie bradley jr.

I would like to see Jacoby Ellsbury stay with the Sox, but I suspect they will trade him. He and Sox haven’t liked each other for a while, ever since Jacoby broke his ribs in a collision with Adrian Beltre, then left the team to rehab. I’ll cheer for him no matter where he plays!

The Sox’s new guys are (and I love this name) Jackie Bradley Jr. It totally sounds like a made-up name. But, he was their best player in spring training and played himself right into the everyday line-up. Remember that name … Jackie Bradley Jr.

Imogen and the Pigeons in Second Life

Imogen 1_001
The beginning of Imogen and the Pigeons

 

I initially began in Second Life to see if I might want to start a music club. I found out that would cost upwards of $400 a month for the “land” (bandwidth), and that would mean raising money and then that would mean looking for advertisers and then … it would become a JOB!

So, other than playing in some dance clubs, I haven’t gotten too involved with Second Life, but one thing I’ve found which is pretty neat. Second Life is pretty good at advertising unusual “sims” (usually an island).  I’ve checked out a couple of these sims and found them kind of interesting, but none really affected me until I came across “Imogen and the Pigeons.” The sim was created by Bryn Oh, and she is the author of the poems, as well.

Imogen and the Pigeons is an amazing multi-discipline art/poetry exhibit in Second Life. It’s also a fun little maze and game to find all the poems in the sim. The poems and images are both very powerful and sad. I came to realise of what kind of art could be possible in an interactive platform like Second Life.

When I first showed up at Imogen and the Pigeons, I wasn’t sure how it worked or was supposed to work. You arrive on a beach with a lot of old junk lying around — old mattresses, washing machines, etc. I wandered around and found a statue that played a sad little tune if you clicked on it. No clues about what Imogen and the Pigeons were about.

Me wandering through Imogen and the Pigeons
Me wandering through Imogen and the Pigeons

After a while, I found a flying chair. I kind of flew around in circles for a bit, but still didn’t come any closer to discovering the secret of Imogen and the Pigeons.

A very helpful person then told me to fly the chair up higher, as high as I could. So I took their advice and did it, and sure enough that’s when I saw, curling around a couple of cooling towers, some stairway up into the sky.

I thanked the person for their help, but I wanted to do the sim without cheating. So, I headed up the stairs. This was HARD. I must have fallen and gone “Splat!” a half dozen times. I felt like Lara Croft. (In Second Life, you can fall from a 1,000 feet and go “splat!” but then your avatar simply dusts herself off and is fine. Still, it sucked to keep falling. Also, in Second Life, you can usually “fly,” but in the Imogen and the Pigeons sim, flying had been disabled. No cheating allowed.)

Imogen 5_001
Me climbing up the stairway to the sky

I finally figured out the way up the stairs is by using the arrow keys on your keyboard, rather than the movements arrows within the Second Life screen. By using my keyboard arrows, I was finally to get up the monstrous stairs without falling. You finally come to a bright red platform high above the beach … hundreds of feet up.

You go through a portal at the red platform and enter a receptionist’s office. Here is your first poem, posted on a wall of the office:

Imogen 10_001
The Receptionist

 

The receptionist looked up

        her eyes rezzed so blue,

        do you have an appointment?

        to which you replied yes I do

Simple enough poem. But, the poems quickly become darker and more sad. Sad, oftentimes broken characters inhabit each room. Always alone, always seemingly isolated from the rest of the world in their dark rooms.

In the next room, you find a man pinning insects to a board. A lot of Oh’s poems are about insects. On the wall is this poem:

Inside the room

        lay a mind’s haute couture

        with a butterfly board

        and pins to cure

        

        He was the type of man

        who felt he saw much clearer

        from the darkened side

        of a one-way mirror

       

        His patients were pieces

        within a game

        which when molded correctly

        would bring him acclaim.

Imogen 18_001
Me and Elliott

 

After this first room, you enter a creepy hallway with a series of doors . The next room was my favourite.  A young boy is drawing a chalk drawing on the floor. As you step nearer, the chalk drawing suddenly comes to life. This poem:

Chalk fingers sat

        for hours engrossed

        his fingertips tracing

        things he longed for most

       

        he would stay with each

        but for a day

        then at night

        wash them away

       

Imogen 34_001
The Little Boy and his chalk drawing come to life

 

        so they’d not fasten

        to his heart

        because so many things

        do depart

       

        and all his lies

        were really dreams

        come apart

        at the seams

In the next room, a figure is huddled under her blankets. You never get to see her. There is nothing else in the room but a television playing static:

Under a blanket

        with holes throughout

        nobody sees in

        but Juniper looks out

 

Imogen 16_002
The girl under the blanket

         come under with me

        and together we’ll hide

        hold me in the darkness

        there’ll be no outside

       

        where people are cruel

        and winters are cold

        where I don’t fit in

        and everything’s sold

       

        climb inside

        we’re two hands in a glove

        fingers entwined

        because you are my love

See? These are not happy poems. The next room is a sad little girl again lying on a bed (there are beds in all the rooms). In the middle of the room is a boat sailing on the floor:

Imogen 17_001
The girl and the boat

        a paper boat

        far out to sea

        I would float

       

        To breathe the wind

        and feel the spray

        while my body

        slowly decayed

       

        absorbing the chaos

        body asunder

        closing my eyes

        to descend down under

       

        Into the dark

        and swaying peace

        my tears diffused

        upon release

 

The next room has another poem about insects:

Elliot was shy

        and very soft spoken

        he loved moths

        because they fly like they’re broken.

       

        He dreamed of amber

        housing ants suspended

        in sienna coffins

        tarsus extended.

       

        He would sit on a step

        in the middle of the stair

        where none would stop

        a place neither here nor there.

The next room is another person lying on a bed. This time it’s Imogen, and she is hooked up to IVs. She is ill. Is she dying, I wondered? You can hear pigeons cooing outside a window. This begins a series of poems about Imogen and the maze gets a little tougher.

Imogen sat

        quiet on her bed

        the books on her mattress

        one hundred times read.

       

        Eyes to her friends

        huddled out on the wire

        cooing softly

        it was her one desire

       

This is sick Imogen, dreaming of being a pigeon
This is sick Imogen, dreaming of joining the pigeons

        to join with them

        out past her bars

        where no one could test her

        with Monarchs in jars.

       

        She rose from her bed

        tube fallen aside

        and determined to join

        her pigeons outside.

 

        But will they fly

        off to the skies

        unless I wear

        a clever disguise?

       

        I must approach

        like a whisper in moonlight

        so they’ll not startle

        so they’ll not fright.

       

        And we’ll make a family

        warm shoulder to wing

        they’ll coo softly

        and I’ll learn to sing.

Here, the sim gets tricky. There’s a couple of little clues about needing to pick up a pigeon’s feather to continue on. I picked one up and discovered that while holding a feather, you can walk up the walls. I walked up the wall to a window high above the floor, then I had to walk sideways along a curled path (sort of like a roller coaster). The first time I tried this, I dropped the feather and then I plunged 1,000 feet and went “Splat!” on the beach down below and was forced to start over from the beginning back up the stairs to the sky (Grrrr…!). I figured out not to drop the feather until I was sure I no longer needed it.

Imogen 22_001
Walking straight up

Eventually, you enter a room full of mannequins and Imogen sitting in a corner sewing.

Imogen arrived

        upon a scene

        of mannequins

        and sewing machine

       

        the lights revealed

        fabric pigeon grey

        dusty and torn

        its edges frayed

       

        and from there she sewed

        her pigeon dress

        that enveloped her body

in a gentle caress.

Here, you enter a tough part of the maze. You have to walk along a ledge and you find Imogen down at the end of the ledge.

She stepped through a window

        and onto the ledge

        the wind in her hair

        and pigeons on edge.

       

        She found on the stones

        a loose feather

        then gathered up more

        and sewed them together

       

        to fashion some wings

        for her disguise

        to join her flock

        within the skies.

After you find Imogen, you can drop down to a lower ledge. There is a rope to another ledge on the other side of an alley. I tiptoed across the rope (it looked hard, but you actually have an inch or so of leeway on each side of the rope.). And if you are successful, you are rewarded with a little Bryn Oh doll. I carried the doll with me through the rest of the sim.

Me and my Bryn Oh doll
Me and my Bryn Oh doll

The next room is a creepy hair salon with a curved roof.

Imogen mused

        that she was more pigeon than swan

        as she climbed down the walls

        to the Beauty Salon

       

        She entered a room

        surrounded by chairs

        lowered the curlers

        and singed feather to hair

       

        Her disguise now complete

        she walked to the ceiling

        and saw a vision emerge

        in her dream revealing

       

        a future suppressed

        like fading notes to a song

        that we desperately grasp

        yet can not prolong.

You have to pick up another feather and walk up the curved wall to the ceiling, through a hole in a ceiling and into another room.

She climbed up the pole

        that rose like a spire

        and attempted to join

        her pigeons on wire

       

        but startled they flew

        so Imogen leapt

        spreading her wings

        and silently wept

       

        missing her dreams

        by seconds and feet

        she soared for a moment

        then fell to the street

Through a blindingly white room you find another poem.

Static emerged

        like cracks in a road

        and her minds construct collapsed

        which housed her binary code

        that was preserved for the day

        when it could be rewired

        into our human cells

        once we were expired

       

        but her memories were a virus

        that corrupted the core

        of her archived life

        preserved at the Rebirth Store

 

Sure enough, here the maze gets bloody impossible. I think you are supposed to hop down a series of ledges, but I was never able to do it and plunged, “Splat!” 1,000 feet back down to the beach (I felt like Imogen failing to join the pigeons). Here, on the beach where you started your journey through Imogen’s world, there is one final poem:

Zeroes and ones

        created a two

        in the form of a child

        from memories accrued

Imogen 32_001
Imogen and the Whale

       

        through her books and dreams

        realities and fever

        reborn for Imogen

        never again to leave her

       

        and the computer slowed

        as the sand did rise

        but eternity waited

        within her child’s eyes.

Just past this poem is an image of Imogen reaching up to a giant blue whale hovering in midair. That is the end of Imogen and the Pigeons.

 

 

There will never be another 300-game winner? The math says “not so fast”

cc-sabathia

About a year ago, I was watching PTI and  Tony Kornheiser and Michael Wilbon were talking about when the next 300-game winner in baseball would be… and the conclusion they reached is that there would be no more 300-game winners. There are no current pitchers anywhere near 300 wins and we had seen the last of the 300-game winners because teams use their bullpens more and pitchers don’t pitch as many games as they did in the old days, and thus don’t get as many decisions.

That talk always gets the gears in my brain cranking, so I looked into it, and discovered that they were right, there were no current pitchers (other than Jamie Moyer, who quickly retired this year) remotely near 300 wins.

But, there would NEVER be a 300-game winner again. NEVER? Because it’s impossible now, with pitchers starting fewer games, getting fewer decisions and bullpens being used more heavily.

Now, I look at some numbers, and I strongly disagree with the PTI guys. I simply don’t think you can say it will NEVER happen, in fact, there are three, maybe four active pitchers who have a shot at 300 wins … and in fact, one of them has a very, very solid shot at 300 wins. If anyone gets to 300 wins, it won’t happen for at least another 7 years.

Here are the four pitchers

.                                          Age                       wins

CC Sabathia                       31                          191

Roy Halladay                     35                          199

Justin Verlander               29                          124

Mark Buehrle                     33                          174

Now, compare that to these 300-game winners

.                                          Age                       wins

Phil Niekro                         29                          31

(in fact, Niekro at age 34 still only had 110 wins)

Gaylord Perry                    29                          76

Early Wynn                         29                          83

Randy Johnson                  32                          104

Roger Clemens                  33                          192

Let’s look at each individual pitcher, first with the 300-game winners:

Phil Niekro

Niekro was a knuckleball pitcher who pitched into his late 40s, so this one is a bit of a cheat because knuckleballers don’t tend to decline in their 40s like regular pitchers. Still, he didn’t become a starter until the age of 25 and won over 200 games after the age of 35.

Gaylord Perry

Perry won 191 games over a 10-year stretch after the age of 30. He pitched in an era (the 1960s and early 70s) in which starters got 35 to 40 starts and 35 decisions or more every year.

Early Wynn

Like Perry, Wynn won a ton of games in his mid- to late-30s. He won 188 games over 10 years after the age of 30, and was making 35 to 40 starts a year (in the 1950s), with 30 or more decisions almost every season.

Roger Clemens

CLEMENS

I included Clemens only because he pitched in an era in which pitchers started 30-35 games a year and almost always get fewer than 30 decisions a year, but still went well over 300 wins.

His career had begun to wind down at 33. Over the past four years, he had only won 40 games and had a middling 40-39 record. After the age of 34, he won 149 games over the next eight years. In not one of those 8 years, did he have more than 28 decisions. That’s important to remember.

Now, it’s fairly clear now Clemens had help from PED to regain his fastball late in his career and to stay healthy. I don’t care if he was acquitted of lying about it, the guy was a juicer, so he might not be the best example … a better example is …

Randy Johnson

Johnson’s career to me is the best barometer that you can NEVER say no one will EVER get to 300 wins again, PTI guys! Johnson only had 104 wins at the age of 32 and was coming off major, potentially career-ending back surgery. He went on to win 176 games over the next 10 years, in an era in which he was only starting 30-35 games a year. He never once had a year in which he had more than 30 decisions.

To be fair, Johnson, who was never implicated in juicing, did pitch in an ERA in which PED use was rampant, so you have to honest that PEDs may have played a role in his longevity. Today, players cannot get away with the same PED use due to testing.

Today’s candidates for 300 wins

CC Sabathia

Sabathia definitely has the best chance to get to 300 wins. In fact, PTI guys, I personally give him a 50-50 shot. He is only 31 and 109 wins short of 300. He plays for a big-money team (the Yankees) that scores a lot of runs, so he can tally double-digit win totals even when he has down years. This year, he won 15 games even though he spent some time on the DL.

If Sabathia stays healthy, and he does not have a history of injuries, all he has to do is average 13.6 wins a year for the next 8 years (pitching until he’s 39) to get to 300. That’s very, very doable. Sabathia has averaged nearly 16 wins a year over his 12-year career. Sabathia’s win pace is well ahead of Randy Johnson, Clemens, Wynn, Niekro and Perry. Seriously, I really think he has a very solid shot at 300 wins. You definitely cannot say he will NEVER get there.

Roy Halladay

D7K_4969_Roy_Halladay

Halladay’s chances took  a hit this season because he was hurt and did not pitch particularly well. He only won 11 games and his ERA was around 4.50, but he still sits at 199 wins at the age of 35, which makes him a legitimate candidate for 300. He would have to win 101 games over the next 7 years (pitching until the age of 42), averaging 14.4 wins a year. Basically, he’d have to start 200 games over the next 7 years and win approximately 50 percent of his games. That’s doable; it’s certainly not impossible (look at Randy Johnson). But, I suspect it’s unlikely Halladay gets to 300. He has had a history of injuries and has lost two or three seasons as a result. He has to stay healthy to have a shot.

Justin Verlander

VerlanderJustin-unknown-via-rumorsandrants.com_2

It’s still somewhat early in Verlander’s career, but at age 29, his win total (124) is well ahead of Wynn, Perry and Niekro and WAY ahead of Johnson. Verlander would have to stay healthy for a while. He would have to win 176 games over the next 12 years (pitching until age 41), for an average of 14.7 wins a year. Very doable considering he has averaged 15.5 wins a year in his career so far, but let’s check back in 5 years.

Mark Buehrle

I was actually surprised he has 174 wins. I’ve barely heard anything about this guy other than he has pitched a perfect game. But since he’s still just 33, I felt I needed to mention him. I think it’s very, very unlikely Buehrle gets to 300 unless he revitalises his career. Buehrle won a lot of games early in his career — he had 85 wins by the age of 26, but he has only won 89 games over the last 7 years (12.7 wins a year), and has won 13 games every year for the past four years and has won more than 16 games only once in his career.  He would have to pick it up to get to 300. He needs to win 126 games over the next 8 years — 15.8 wins a year — to get to 300.

Happy Easter — Jesus Christ Superstar (angels with white afros and go go boots!)

Happy Easter — Jesus Christ Superstar, an amazing and controversial rock opera made by an agnostic Canadian (that everyone thinks is Jewish but isn’t)

40 years ago, an amazing film was made deep in the Israeli desert a few months before the Yom Kippur War. I’m blown away at the ties between this opera and Deep Purple, hockey, Walt Disney, Evita Peron and Murray Head!

Jesus Christ Superstar was made by an amazing and underrated Canadian director, Norman Jewison. He has a Jewish sounding name, but he’s actually Episcopalian and has claimed that isn’t a very devout person. In fact, in his large body of films, only one or two really deal with spirituality in any sense.

His body of work is spectacular and deal with everything from racism to corruption to the glorification of violence. Here is a short list of films that he made — The Cincinnati Kid, Heat of the Night, The Thomas Crown Affair, The Russians are Coming, The Russians are Coming, Fiddler on the Roof, Jesus Christ Superstar, … And Justice for All, Agnes of God, Moostruck and Other People’s Money. Probably his most famous film came after Jesus Christ Superstar, an extremely controversial indictment of hockey and corporations. It’s not Slap Shot. Can you guess what it is?

Jesus Christ Superstar, based on the stage play, was filmed entirely in the deserts of Israel in Negev, Avdat and the Dead Sea, a few miles from the Egyptian border (though Israel at the time controlled the entire Sinai).

Norman Jewison was an extremely hot director who had hit after hit. His last film had been Fiddler on the Roof, about Jews in Ukraine (further deepening everyone’s conviction Jewison was actually Jewish).

He was not a religious man, but people involved with Fiddler on the Roof asked Jewison to make a film version of Jesus Christ Superstar. Jewison at first was reluctant, but after listening to the album, agreed to do it.

Jesus Christ Superstar was the third musical penned by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice. Their first play was something no one’s ever heard of (written when Webber was only 17), but their second musical, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat, likewise based on the Bible, was a big hit, and is still in production today. Amazingly, Webber was only 22 when he wrote the music for Jesus Christ Superstar. Rice was only 25 when he wrote the lyrics.

Of course, everyone knows Webber went on to write Evita!, Phantom of the Opera and Cats. Tim Rice wrote the lyrics for Evita!, later wrote the lyrics for Chess (with Murray Head) and then wrote the lyrics for several stage productions based on Disney cartoons (The Lion King, The Beauty and the Beast).

Jesus Christ Superstar was a perfect storm of talent. An astonishingly young and athletic cast and playwrights, being put in the hands of an established Hollywood director at the height of his powers. I don’t know why, I’ve never liked Godspell, but I love this opera. Jewison’s production has some weird quirks in it that are fun — Chromed helmets for the Romans, tanks, tinted glasses for King Herod, and of course, white afro wigs and go go boots for angels.

Stealing the film is the very athletic Carl Anderson, a fantastic singer who had some minor hits in the 70s. However, Judas in Jesus Christ Superstar was his biggest role. He returned to the role many times over well into the the early 2000s. Unfortunately, he died of leukemia in 2004.

The play and film are controversial for many reasons, but the biggest reason is its sympathetic treatment of Judas. Judas is portrayed as Christ’s muse, his inner conscience, attempting to steer Christ in the right direction and deeply distraught over the growing cult surrounding him. “You’ve begun to matter more than the words you say,” Judas implores Christ in the opening song, “Heaven on Their Minds.” The cult of Jesus becomes more alarming a few numbers later in “Simon Zealotes” (where the term Zealot comes from), where Simon urges Jesus to lead his followers into war against Rome.

Judas was also controversial because Carl Anderson is black. Why was a black man cast as one of the most evil men in the Bible. Either Tim Rice or Webber supposedly said, “because he gave the best audition.”
Ian Gillan played Christ on stage, and Jewison wanted him for the film. But, Gillan was also the lead singer of Deep Purple and they were in the middle of a worldwide tour, so instead, they turned to Gillan’s understudy, Ted Neeley. Like Anderson, Neeley essentially made his career on Jesus Christ Superstar, returning to the role many times in several revivals.

You might recognize two of the songs from the musical. The overture “Jesus Christ Superstar” is very familiar, and was even used on a TV show for a while about athletes competing in silly games for prize money. The song, “I Don’t Know How to Love Him” was a minor pop hit in the early 70s, and while the context was about loving Christ, it could also be interpreted as someone not knowing how to love in a relationship.

My favourite numbers are Heaven on Their Minds, Simon Zealotes, Jesus Christ Superstar, Damned for All Time, The Temple and Lepers and Gethsemane (Ted Neeley hits some serious high notes here, for a guy who was supposedly an understudy.), where Jesus expresses his doubt and frustration with God.

Jesus Christ Superstar was very successful. It was the eighth-largest grossing movie of 1973 (in today’s dollars and ticket prices, would have made well over $100 million). Jewison made an even more successful movie in 1975. He was disgusted with the violence of hockey (and if you think hockey today is violent, it was really bad in the 70s and 80s), and wrote a science fiction screenplay about a corporate-run orgy of violence, called “Rollerball.” I’ve always thought it was funny that Jewison went from making a movie about Jews in Ukraine to Jesus Christ, to one of the most violent movies ever made at the time, but that’s how incredibly versatile he was.

So, Jesus Christ Superstar.

You don’t have to believe. Just listen to the performances and watch the amazing choreography.

[Poop, I discovered that several weeks ago, several of these videos had been removed from YouTube. They were HQ videos and had been posted by the same person. Perhaps there were some copyright issues. I was able to cobble together videos from most of the various numbers, but the quality varies from video to video now. Oh, well.]

“The Grey:” Existentialist wolves

The Existentialist Alpha Male

I went in to “The Grey” with my mind made up I was going to hate the movie, but then found it weirdly compelling for its existentialist themes. I knew this would be a highly controversial movie, many environmental groups have railed against the film. I was ready to defend its allegorical message  … then I read an interview with the director Joe Carnahan claiming that his movie accurately depicted wolves, rambling about  some “superpack” in Siberia that slaughters everything in its path. I found another interview in which he defends the wolves as just being metaphors for nature (so it sounds like he is playing both sides.)  It reminded me of Zach Snyder, who gave interviews defending the accuracy of “300.”

I saw the wolves as metaphors for death and the fear of mortality always nipping at all our heels. I certainly didn’t see them as real wolves.

The Grey Alpha
The Grey Alpha

The cleverly done CGI wolves in “The Grey” were far too big (in one scene, the alpha male of the is about the size of a small lion), too black (virtually every wolf in the movie has black fur) far too vicious (killing for revenge and trespassing and playing mind games with their victims) and even psychotic. They didn’t act like real wolves; they didn’t even sound like wolves. Their growls were actually the growls of lions or tigers and their howls were the yippings of hyenas. I much preferred “Two Socks” in “Dances with Wolves.”

♥♥ Two Socks! ♥♥

Many people will say, “it’s just a movie,” yet after Jaws, sharks were slaughtered by the thousands worldwide, in part because of the hysteria created by the film. “300,” helped do its share to create and inflame the narrative that Iranians and Easterners in general are evil, while it was the West and West alone that promoted freedom and justice. (Never mind the fact Spartans owned slaves and raped and murdered in conquest.). In fact, in many ways, “The Grey” reminded me a lot of “300,” — a technically well made movie that nonetheless embraces ignorance. Both movies are essentially fantasies.

Real wolves

I live in the American West, and I can’t buy into the rhetoric that “it’s just a movie.” I wish Carnahan had been a lot more assertive about that in some of his interviews. I live in country where wolves are considered the epitome of pure evil by many people. The stories run rampant in the West from hunters and ranchers of wolves stalking and chasing hunters and killing livestock out of pure malice. These stories have all been proved to be false. There is no evidence of wolves stalking humans and wolves do not kill for no reason. If they kill a sheep and leave it, that’s because they are caching it for later. Live in the West long enough and you will hear, “sooner or later they’re going to kill a baby.”

A very controversial film

Wolves have come to weirdly represent everything wrong in America to some people — the federal government, environmentalists, rules, regulations. Wolves have become a metaphor for an out-of-control government bent on meddling in the lives of locals.

In reality, wolves are just animals. Animals at the top of the food chain that eat to survive. In fact, wolves have killed a grand total of two people in recorded history — two people in the past 150 years (perhaps wolves have killed some Indians before recorded history, but likely, this was very rare, as well.). More people than that die every year in the U.S. from domestic dog attacks.

Back to the film. In “The Grey,” the wolves are not just animals, but devils lurking in the mists and trees, waiting to claim their victims. The movie, filmed in British Columbia, takes place in the Alaskan winter. A motley crew of oil workers returning from a long shift in north Alaska, are plunged into terror after a plane crash. It is a grim, brutal, bleak movie.

One by one, the black devils, patient and efficient, come out of the mists and snow and take another victim. The survivors run, but they can’t hide from death. Each man faces their mortality differently, some stoic, others giving in to panic and then finally acceptance of their fate much like someone dying of cancer, while lead Liam Neeson like many of us, continues to fight and struggle against the inevitability of death because that is all he knows to do.

Death catches up
Death catches up

Two scenes in this movie stuck with me. One was a night scene in which the impossibly huge alpha male makes his first appearance. All you see is a single eye gleaming in the firelight (all CGI), the eye flickers from one survivor to the other, then the wolf retreats into the black. The message is sent. “You have all been noted.”

The other is when Neeson’s will is finally broken near the end of the movie. Earlier in the movie, the survivors talk about their faith. Neeson, contemplating suicide earlier in the movie, speaks of his atheism. After watching the rest of the survivors succumb, Neeson finally breaks down and asks God for help, but finds nothing in the grey sky. And finally mutters to himself, “fuck it, I’ll do it myself.”

Many of the survivors have reasons to struggle. Families and children back home. So they fight to survive and fend off death. The person who gives up admits he has nothing to live for, he has led an utterly empty life. In the end, we find Neeson has nothing to live for, as well. As he is surrounded by the demons of the snow and they back off and out of the mist enters the giant alpha. Liam Neeson decides to fight to the bitter end, facing death in his way, fighting for the sake of fighting, for the sake of life itself.

Again, powerful metaphor. Powerful allegory. Too bad the poor wolves are picked upon to represent it.

The Passion of Tim Tebow

tim-tebow-creation
There was an interesting and fun discussion last week on Current.com about Tim Tebow.Tebow is one of the most weirdly polarizing figures in the NFL. It’s weird, because he’s never been arrested, never gotten a DUI, never been accused of slapping a woman. He’s polarizing because he’s extremely religious (and belongs to a very conservative sect), and because his most rabid fans worship him as the second coming of Jesus (an exaggeration — but not by much).

Last week, I was actually shocked at the venom I heard on TV talk shows being directed at Tebow. It was some of the most scathing, withering invective I’ve ever heard flung at any athlete — I didn’t hear a couple of quarterbacks who murdered dogs and were accused of terrible acts in a bar bathroom catch the amount of flak Tebow was catching.

He had a terrible game against a team with a good defence — Detroit. He was ripped down one side and up the other; he was called awful, horrible, an embarrassment. Commentators said he had no business being in the NFL and worse . One commenter, a guy I usually despise named Skip Bayless, said the hatred toward Tebow was bordering on pathological. It might be the one and only time I ever agree with Skip Bayless. At a certain point, this doesn’t have anything to do with football anymore — it has to do with annoyance over his public displays of faith and annoyance with his rabid fans. (An interesting column about that here.)

http://www.cbssports.com/nfl/story/15959762/tebow-can-thank-his-selfrighteous-fa…

Well, what I’m hearing is the haters appear to be JUST as rabid. They are simply feeding the frenzy that is Tebow by turning him into a martyr … and hard core conservative Christians absolutely LOVE martyrs. We live in Bronco territory and I’m still trying to find a Bronco fan that doesn’t literally despise Tebow. I mean literally HATE him. I haven’t found one yet!

What did Tebow do Sunday? He started terrible, but then finished 4-for-5 for 55 yards, threw 2 TDs, ran for 117 yards, had no INTs, and had 240 yards of total offence — and brought his team back from being down 17-7 to win 38-24 (It will be interesting what his haters have to say this week.). Tebow has started a total of six games and is 3-3 as a starter. Denver was 1-4 without him and is 2-1 with him and suddenly they’re in a playoff chase. In a weird way I find myself cheering for him, as much as I am uncomfortable with his conservative brand of religion (but, hey, it’s America, right? He can worship who he wants, however he wants.). I find myself more uncomfortable with the virulent level of hate toward him, hate that seems to be as much if not more about his personal faith than about his play of the field.

I just wonder sometimes if Tebow were a devout Muslim, how some people would feel about some of the vitriol being thrown at him.

Does his latest good game mean he is a good quarterback? No. Does it mean he will be a good quarterback someday? No. He may. He may not. It will probably take a couple of years to know for sure. Should he have been a first-round draft pick? Probably not, but that’s not his fault Denver drafted him too high. What it means is he is raw, inexperienced, has an eccentric throwing motion that may never fit the NFL, but he is not quite as bad as the vitriol being spewed about him. It means he is playing well enough to be given the opportunity to keep playing. How good was John Elway after six games? Steve Young? Michael Vick? Brett Favre?

http://msn.foxsports.com/nfl/story/Tim-Tebow-has-right-stuff-to-succeed-in-NFL-b…

The Rugby World Cup — The greatest sporting event you’ve never heard of.

new_zealand_all_blacks

The biggest sporting event in the world is probably the Olympics. The next biggest is the FIFA World Cup. The next biggest is something I bet most of you have never heard of. The Rugby World Cup. It is watched by a billion people worldwide.

The Rugby World Cup has only been around since 1987, but like the FIFA World Cup and Olympics, it comes around once every four years. 20 teams from around the world compete, including the United States and Canada, but the U.S. isn’t very good.

Tomorrow, the No. 1 ranked team in the world, the New Zealand All Blacks, are playing the No. 2 ranked team in the world, the Australian Wallabies, in the Rugby World Cup semifinals. The entire country will be watching that game. New Zealand is 5-0 in the World Cup this year and has outscored its opponents 273-59. The Wallabies have a very tough defence and beat the mighty Springboks in the quarterfinals.

new zealand world cup

The other semifinal is today — tiny Wales versus France, another rugby powerhouse. Wales is ranked No. 4 in the world, while Les Bleus, the 2007 World Cup champion, is ranked No. 5.

Rugby is New Zealand’s national sport. New Zealand is favoured to win the World Cup virtually every tournament and they have been ranked either No.1  or No. 2 every single year of the 21st century. But, they have only ever won it once, the first one in 1987. New Zealand has lost a series of heartbreakers ever since. The heavily favoured All Blacks lost in the World Cup finals in 1995 in a terrible heartbreaker to the South Africa Springboks. You might’ve seen a Clint Eastwood movie about it called “Invictus.”

New Zealand also lost in the semifinals in 1999 and 2003.

One of the reasons New Zealand is so powerful is the All Blacks always feature a number of Maori stars. Moaris like many Polynesian people are a very strong and powerful people (It’s the same reason there are so many Samoans in American football.) Before each match, the All Blacks perform a stirring Maori “Haka” war dance to try and intimidate their opponents. It is done with all due respect and the other team usually stands still and respectfully watches.

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Rugby is very much like your American football, only no high-tech helmets and no forward passes. Imagine American football with a series of laterals and that is pretty close. It is a terrible brutal and violent sport, with a lot of blood and broken noses. We were made to play it in school, though we played “touch” or “rippa” rugby, which is not nearly as violent, but still resulted in our fair share of bloody noses and tears. I played rugby all the way into college. Of course, it was touch rugby, our insurance would have never covered tackle.

Despite its massive popularity around the world, it’s hard to catch some of the World Cup on American TV. It’s on some obscure network called Universal which has been showing the matches. We had to go a sports bar to watch one All Blacks match, but NBC is showing some of the matches. I believe NBC will be showing the finals.