That kind of consistent accuracy is unimaginable to me. But that's why he's so good!
Regarding the playoffs, I'm remarkably pleased by the teams still in the running this year. I'd be pretty darn happy if any of the following teams won the Superbowl:
Indianapolis Colts (My favorite team, of course, largely thanks to Peyton. They never do well in the playoffs with rest, so I worry that they'll suffer an ignominious defeat at the hands of Baltimore.)
New Orleans Saints (I've been a Drew Breese fan since he competed with Doug Flutie for the starting job in San Diego. He's made such a difference for the Saints, and I love to see that kind of turn-around.)
Arizona Cardinals (Kurt Warner might be an annoying Christian, but I love his up-from-nowhere story in St. Louis and then his back-from-decline story in Arizona. And wow, he played an amazing game on Sunday with more touchdowns than incomplete passes! A Superbowl win would cement his legacy as a great quarterback.)
Minnesota Vikings (Brett Favre, still so awesome and still loving the game. I'm fond of grizzled old quarterbacks, and he's the most grizzled of them all! A Superbowl win would also make fabulous story.)
San Diego Chargers (I became a San Diego fan after we moved to Colorado, when Doug Flutie played for them. They've been good -- but under the radar -- for too many years.)
That's five of the eight teams currently in the playoffs, so I'm pretty likely to be pleased on February 7th. So basically, I'm just hoping that my parents (Baltimore fans), my aunt (a Jets fan), and Santiago (a Cowboys fan) are all very despondent on Superbowl Sunday.
By Diana Hsieh @ 2:00 PM
Despite a mediocre regular-season record, Paul won the Superbowl of the John Galt League! Go Mr. Woo! (My own winning percentage this season was between that of the Cleveland Browns and the Buffalo Bills. Eli Manning was not a good choice for quarterback, to say the least.)
Paul and I are not done yet though, as we've decided to play the NFL Playoff Challenge. It's a simple variant of fantasy football just for the playoffs. If you want more fantasy football -- or if you'd like to get a taste for what fantasy football is like, sign up! It's free, and if you drop me an e-mail, I'll send you an invitation to join this new "John Galt League."
Just do so quickly, as time is a-tickin'... tic-tic ... tic-tic ... tic-tic ...
By Diana Hsieh @ 8:00 AM
I've become a major fan of the NFL's new "RedZone" channel this season. The basic idea of the channel is that it switches between the most exciting portions of all the games playing on Sunday mornings and afternoons, without any commercials. So unless I want to watch a full game -- which I'll do for Indy and other notable games -- I'll just watch the best of all the games via the RedZone channel.
A recent Sports Illustrated column sang the praises of the channel. It even reported on the best description I've seen yet: "as if God was holding the remote control." That seems apt to me, as I often say that I worship at the Church of the NFL on Sundays! That NFL God is Scott Hanson. Here's a bit on him from the article:
"You get a bucketful of 100-percent concentrated football awesomeness," says Scott Hanson, the studio host who deftly sets the scene each time RedZone switches games. Hanson's enthusiasm seems boundless, even though inmates at Leavenworth have a cushier setup: During his seven hours on the air he gets only a two-minute bathroom break and, if he's lucky, a bite or two of a sandwich.
I like Hanson's style as a host. He's very smooth, easily able to handle the swapping between games. Plus, he's relentlessly focused on the football. I've heard him cut away from a game just after a touchdown, where the camera was focused on the scoring player's end zone dance, saying something like "Okay, enough of that" with just the perfect touch of exasperation.
Oh, and need I mention that I was not happy with Jim Caldwell's controversial decision to rest starters in the Jets game on Sunday? Probably not: it goes without saying. Granted, I was disappointed, but wowee, Peyton looked downright irate. He kept his helmet on while pacing the sidelines for quite some time. Normally, he's on the bench reviewing plays with a baseball cap on. (Yes, I'm totally appalled that I'm such a football fanatic that I know that.) Of course, Peyton was gracious in the post-game press conference.
Of course, any and all disappointment will be forgotten if the Colts win the Superbowl!
By Diana Hsieh @ 2:00 PM
If you're an NFL fan, you've probably seen some footage of the dramatic end to last week's Browns-Lions game. I'd definitely recommend watching the whole thing -- with mic'ed up Lions quarterback Matt Stafford. It's phenomenal.
Such moments are what I most relish about NFL football. This footage doesn't merely document a gripping end to a game. Heck, the game wasn't terribly meaningful, given that both teams were 1-8. The footage records the unfolding of real-life moral drama: Matt Stafford was so determined to achieve his goal, so committed to winning, that he was willing to endure lay-down-and-cry-worthy pain. I love to see that kind of resolve in action, and I'm fascinated by the response of other team members to such actions.
I hope, notwithstanding the loss of the Lions to the Packers on Thanksgiving Day, that this moment signals a turn-around for a team that has been abysmal for far too many years.
By Greg Perkins @ 1:00 PM
I started looking into CrossFit after seeing it mentioned by various health/fitness guys I've learned a lot from -- like Richard Nickoley, Mark Sisson, and Art De Vany, who talk about the value of mixing things up, using high intensity, intervals, resistance training and such. I liked what I was finding in the methodology and was intrigued at its potential, so I was eager for an opportunity to try CrossFit in a way that includes the coaching I knew I would need to not hurt my middle-aged self. (Sure, it's free if you do it at home, but who goes out on their own and just starts doing Olympic-style lifts? Not me!) Happily, a couple of months ago Tammy and I noticed that a CrossFit gym was about to open near our house. We checked it out and took the plunge! So far, it's been very cool.
Before giving reports from the front and breaking out the obligatory pictures of progress, let's start with a little about what CrossFit is. The headquarters site says
CrossFit is the principal strength and conditioning program for many police academies and tactical operations teams, military special operations units, champion martial artists, and hundreds of other elite and professional athletes worldwide.
Our program delivers a fitness that is, by design, broad, general, and inclusive. Our specialty is not specializing. Combat, survival, many sports, and life reward this kind of fitness and, on average, punish the specialist.
And in a CrossFit Foundations article, creator Greg Glassman writes, "CrossFit is a core strength and conditioning program. We have designed our program to elicit as broad an adaptational response as possible. CrossFit is not a specialized fitness program but a deliberate attempt to optimize physical competence in each of ten recognized fitness domains. They are Cardiovascular and Respiratory endurance, Stamina, Strength, Flexibility, Power, Speed, Coordination, Agility, Balance, and Accuracy."
Of course, I'm not a Navy SEAL, a stick-fighting champion, or a fireman -- but developing serious competence in all of these domains, and therefore a powerful "ready state," would be awfully useful for the sorts of play I like to engage in: mountain biking, summit-scrambling, snowboarding, maybe a spontaneous half-marathon hill run or whatever else Tammy or my friends might want to draw me into. And it would come in handy for those (hopefully vanishingly) rare times when Stuff Happens -- plus as I age, maintaining as much physical capacity as possible would be invaluable for health and autonomy.
There's a lot of empirical observation and some pretty good epistemology behind various aspects that I can go into later, but today I'll just share the central CrossFit prescription for efficiently achieving that broad, general, and inclusive fitness: constantly varied functional movement performed at high intensity. Every element of that is essential. Glassman breaks it down in a brief article on Understanding CrossFit:
Functional movements are universal motor recruitment patterns; they are performed in a wave of contraction from core to extremity; and they are compound movements -- i.e., they are multi-joint. They are natural, effective, and efficient locomotors of body and external objects. [Author's note: Examples include squats, pullups, situps, jumping, running, throwing, lifts like deadlift and clean & jerk and overhead press. They are elemental movements, used in lots of activities.] But no aspect of functional movements is more important than their capacity to move large loads over long distances, and to do so quickly. Collectively, these three attributes (load, distance, and speed) uniquely qualify functional movements for the production of high power. Intensity is defined exactly as power, and intensity is the independent variable most commonly associated with maximizing favorable adaptation to exercise.
Recognizing that the breadth and depth of a program’s stimulus will determine the breadth and depth of the adaptation it elicits, our prescription of functionality and intensity is constantly varied. We believe that preparation for random physical challenges -- i.e., unknown and unknowable events -- is at odds with fixed, predictable, and routine regimens. [emphasis and paragraph break mine]
Plateauing is not easy when the adaptational response never has a fixed target -- plus, the novelty of not knowing what will be coming next keeps us from getting bored. As sick as it might sound, it actually becomes a fun adventure to show up at the gym not knowing what challenge we'll be hit with! One day it's a 5k run or row for time; another day it's finding the maximum weights you can deadlift, press, and back-squat; on another it is a butt-kicking, lung-searing sequence of a dozen varied exercises done for time (here's one we were given a week or two ago, as demonstrated by a bunch of uber-fit trainers at a certification: [wmv][mov]).
CrossFit turns fitness itself into a sport by making general fitness quantifiable, setting standards, and measuring performance in a very visible way. So people get to see their own development, have fun competing with themselves and their buddies in some sense, get encouragement in a group setting, and so on. This all goes toward motivation and intensity (making it fun to show up, and keeping you engaged in the work when it's soooo hard).
Turning fitness into a sport also makes the CrossFit Games possible. The Games are a proving ground for demonstrating general fitness, and a way to draw attention to those who might have a more effective training method. Elite athletes train all year and show up to compete -- but what's special about this competition is that they have to train while not knowing exactly what the events will be. They only know they will be tested in some way that is broad and brutal enough to differentiate the fittest person. So the athletes have to focus on developing that well-rounded, inclusive fitness to win. The rest of us get to marvel, and learn.
Then we throw ourselves into tomorrow's unknown workout. Three.. Two.. One.. GO!
Some links:
"What is CrossFit" is a one-page promotional summary from an affiliate gym's website.
The Okinawa Speech is a video of a great talk by CrossFit's founder, Coach Greg Glassman. He presents the the origins of the CrossFit definition of fitness, the development of the training methodology, addresses safety, efficacy and efficiency, and a lot more. Worth the time.
"God's Workout" in NY Times Magazine made me laugh (and of course I have seen no dangerous, macho behavior, nor any cultlike attitude -- in fact, I've only seen the opposite on both counts).
"The Truth About Crossfit" is a pretty good perspective piece by a fitness writer, fun to read, from a big bodybuilding site/magazine (though it has some goofiness, like defending another of their writers who apparently had some sort of tussle with CrossFit's founder, Glassman).
By Diana Hsieh @ 2:10 PM
The John Galt League just completed its draft a few minutes ago. It went very smoothly. (Thank you, Kevin!) I relied heavily on ESPN's rankings in my selections, as I've paid almost no attention to football so far this year.
I plan to be extra-committed to football when the regular season begins later this week. Sundays will be for football and chores -- and nothing else. I've even downloaded the whole NFL calendar into iCal so that I don't miss anything! Woo Hoo!
Hopefully, my fantasy team will do well. Here they are, the noble and courageous players of the Sedalia Sea Monkeys, in draft order:
By Diana Hsieh @ 12:00 PM
The John Galt League -- the fantasy NFL league for Objectivists and other fans of NoodleFood -- has one open slot. We want it filled!
We're holding the draft this Monday at 3pm ET. (If you want to play but you can't do that time, I think you can do set the computer to select your highest picks.)
If you want to sign up, you can do so via this link. It's first come, first serve. So hurry!
If you have any questions or problems, please contact league commissioner Kevin McAllister at kevin@mcallister.ws.
By Diana Hsieh @ 3:01 PM
I'd like to play fantasy football this year, but I don't want the burden of acting as league commissioner, as I've done in the past. I'd just like to be a mere team. (Go Sedalia Sea Monkeys!)
Is anyone interested in putting together a league of NoodleFood readers?
By the time they have been retired for two years, 78% of former NFL players have gone bankrupt or are under financial stress because of joblessness or divorce.
Within five years of retirement, an estimated 60% of former NBA players are broke
The article analyzes the psychology behind the bad decision-making and puts them into four main categories:
1. The Lure of the Tangible 2. Misplaced Trust 3. Family Matters 4. Great Expectations
As the article notes, many professional athletes are very similar to lottery winners in that they suddenly gain a great deal of money out of proportion to their life skills. Either they raise their life skills to match their money, or they lose money until their bank accounts are again proportionate to their life skills.
These athletes' stories also illustrate the following truth from Francisco D'Anconia's "money speech" in Atlas Shrugged:
...Money will not buy intelligence for the fool, or admiration for the coward, or respect for the incompetent. The man who attempts to purchase the brains of his superiors to serve him, with his money replacing his judgment, ends up by becoming the victim of his inferiors. The men of intelligence desert him, but the cheats and the frauds come flocking to him, drawn by a law which he has not discovered: that no man may be smaller than his money.
...Only the man who does not need it, is fit to inherit wealth -- the man who would make his own fortune no matter where he started. If an heir is equal to his money, it serves him; if not, it destroys him.
By Diana Hsieh @ 10:01 PM
Wow, what a stressful game -- and a disappointing ending.
Normally, I do really like the Chargers, and I must admit that they played an excellent game overall. (My hat is off to runningback Darren Sproles and punter Mike Scifres!) But I didn't want the Chargers to do so well against my most beloved Colts!
By Diana Hsieh @ 7:47 PM
Woo Hoo! NFL Playoffs begin tomorrow!
I decided not to do any regular season fantasy football this year, but I can't resist a very bit at the end, so Paul and I will both be doing the NFL's Playoff Challenge 2008. Here's how it works, in brief:
It's free and easy to play
Create a team of 8 NFL players
Collect the most Fantasy Points throughout the postseason
Pick players whose teams will continue playing all the way to the Super Bowl
You pick your eight players (without any kind of draft) before the first game, then you you can make eight roster changes throughout the rest of the playoffs.
Also, if you want to know why Peyton Manning became the MVP of the league -- and why his Colts had such a rocky start and then a spectacular finish -- don't miss Peter King's write up. It begins about halfway down that first page, then goes on to the next page. It's mind-blowing.
By Diana Hsieh @ 2:26 PM
Bryan nails the insignificance of the scandal about the too-young Chinese gymnasts. (I'm going to quote the whole post since a cut-and-paste wouldn't do it justice.)
The IOC should heed the immortal words of Mark Twain, who said: "It's better to keep your mouth shut and be thought a morally castrated coward, than to launch a ridiculous sham investigation of the age of some Chinese gymnasts and remove all doubt." (That's from memory, but I'm pretty sure those were his exact words.)
Look: the Chinese government has spent a decade cheerfully spitting in the IOC's face, flouting every last promise they made in order to get us all to ignore 800-pound elephants like Tiananmen Square, Tibet, the Falun Gong, and the slave labor camps, and give them the games. Human rights? Sorry. Free speech for Chinese citizens? Please—they've extended their censorship so effectively that even foreigners and visiting athletes are now subject to it. China has proven that they'll make whatever empty promises they have to in order to pry what they want out of a clueless and docile IOC, which has not protested. And now the IOC wants to demonstrate its moral authority and commitment to fair play ... by humbly requesting documents verifying the age of some gymnasts?
Of course they're cheating! Hell, they even Milli Vanillied the opening ceremonies! Now it's true that as a layman I don't have all the documentary evidence, but China has definitely crossed enough lines that there's absolutely no reason to extend them the benefit of the doubt, nor the presumption of innocence (and when it comes down to common sense versus a Chinese government-issued passport, I'll trust my lying eyes, thank you). And that's why it's a kind of treason for the IOC to get exercised over trivia like this, while piously ignoring China's systematic violation of the standards of decency and fair play.
The IOC knows who they're dealing with, and has known for years, and has taught China to rely faithfully on their "turn a blind eye" policy. There has never been even a token effort to hold them accountable for their promises. That's what makes this gymnastics business a red herring, designed only to distract people from the utter spinelessness of the IOC (Usain Bolt has also been victimized by this cowardly behavior). So let's do a thought experiment, and ask ourselves what might happen if the IOC gets smoking-gun evidence that proves beyond a doubt that China forged those little girls' passports. After prostrating themselves before demonstrably empty promises for all these years, does anybody imagine that they'll suddenly find what it takes to stand up to China, in any way other than the most meaningless and trivial?
If hard evidence turns up, and that's assuming that the IOC doesn't already have it and hasn't already destroyed it, then I think we'll see a sort of sacrificial lamb scenario: at most, China will permit one or two little girls to be stripped of their medals, and the IOC will pronounce itself satisfied, and praise China for its openness, and the story will fade away into the general tarnish that's descended onto the popular ideal of the Olympics as a fair, un-politicized, and sportsmanlike enterprise. Frankly the whole thing makes me sick.
Oh, and let's add one more item to the long list of China's evils, to which supposedly civilized nations routinely turn a blind eye: Taiwan.
By Brandon Byrd @ 1:24 AM
Like many of you, I had been anxiously and ambivalently awaiting the beginning of the Olympic summer games in Beijing. On the one hand, I love the exhibition of raw human potential at some of its most actualized. The games offer a rare chance to glimpse the efficacy of human choice and loyalty to values, as the world beholds athletes who have been training their entire lives to achieve almost unimaginable feats of strength, speed, and agility. That I find the Olympics inspirational is an understatement. I celebrate the Olympics for showing me the height of what's possible and giving me the knowledge that it can be made actual. Despite my enthusiasm for the genuine value I find in the Olympic games, I had some considerable difficulty making sense of the extravagant opening ceremonies in Beijing this past weekend.
While watching the opening ceremonies, I found myself totally confused as to what I thought or felt about the spectacle that was unfolding before me. It was undoubtedly sensational, a grand event that dazzled the senses and left one's head reeling in wonder as to how it was all being accomplished. I heard that China spent something equivalent to roughly $300,000,000 (doesn't seeing all those zeros concretize the magnitude of the expense?) to produce the ceremony, and one can see that they got their money's worth. In the run up to the games, it was not infrequent for commentators to argue that the 2008 Olympics is “China's coming out party” and that the games would set the stage for China to gain recognition as a serious political and economic player. And indeed, this seemed to be largely the theme of the ceremony's presentation. Much of the pomp and circumstance was directed at the end of both celebrating Chinese culture and emphasizing the idea that China wants to cooperate with the rest of the world.
The celebration of Chinese culture went something like this: once upon a time there were Chinese who invented gunpowder and fireworks, had huge drum circles, fashioned incredibly ornate dresses, made some incredible paper and printed on it, and who philosophized at roughly the Pre-Socratic level of scope and sophistication. (The pre-Socratics [Western philosophers before Socrates] were the first group of Western philosophers and their interests primarily revolved around how to explain the metaphysical phenomenon of change (and how things persist through change without changing their essence). They typically did so through claims about how opposites [light and dark; night and day; hot and cold; atoms and void] interact. All this is also distinctive of much Chinese philosophy, as I understand it.)
Were these not the basic features of Chinese cultural greatness that were presented to us in the ceremonies? Perhaps the Chinese also demonstrated that they could get really large groups to do things precisely by drilling them for months on end. But what these massive demonstrations of precise collective action were used to demonstrate were the cultural products of Chinese civilization. Truly, these are not small change in the grand scale of human achievements, and I appreciate these things in the same way that I appreciate their Western analogues. To the extent that these things were done well, they represented significant advances in the human condition.
Upon reflection, however, I viewed the ceremonies as essentially a ploy to use some of Chinese culture's greatest offerings (in terms of its art, innovation, and philosophy) as a symbol for the greatness of the current Chinese regime. My reasons for believing that this is so largely because of a recent admission by certain Chinese officials about a memorable event during its supposedly glorious opening ceremonies.
Today the New York Times reports that there has been a bit of a recent scandal related to the opening ceremonies. The article reports that one of the most touching and memorable elements of the performance actually involved a bit of deception.
At one of the key moments in the ceremony, an adorable 9 year old Lin Miaoke stood center stage, replete with red dress and 'cute-little-girl hair,' and sang a song called “Ode to the Motherland.” (A video can be found on YouTube here. [Link Fixed]) Some time into her performance, the national flag of China enters in grand, Party-Approved fashion (the song is basically an ode to the flag, making it the perfect choice for a 9 year old girl to understand and communicate) and the whole world goes “Awww! Let's all be friends with China.”
However, this event was not everything it seemed. The NYT reported that the voice we heard was not Miaoke's, but instead that of another girl, Yang Peiyi. It was Yang Peiyi who had the vocal range and skill to sing the Ode to the estimated billion viewers of the opening ceremony. She had the voice of the girl who should sing the song,
But not her face. Photos posted online showed a happy girl with imperfect teeth, hardly an uncommon problem in China. “Everyone should understand this in this way,” Mr. Chen [general music designer of the opening ceremony] said. “This is in the national interest. It is the image of our national music, national culture, especially during the entrance of our national flag. This is an extremely important, extremely serious matter.”
As the Joker might ask, “Why so serious?” The article explains:
Miaoke’s song was considered critical because it coincided with the arrival of the national flag inside the massive National Stadium, known as the Bird’s Nest. In his radio interview, Mr. Chen said that a member of the ruling Communist Party’s powerful Politburo, whom he did not identify, attended one of the last rehearsals, along with numerous other officials, and demanded that Miaoke’s voice “must change.”
By Tuesday, the Chinese media had already pounced on the story, instigating a national conversation that government censors were trying to mute by stripping away many, but not all, of the public comments posted online. The outrage was especially heated over the cold calculation used to appraise the girls.
Let me summarize: China's ruling party is censoring Internet traffic because it demanded that the general music designer of the opening ceremony fake a performance designed to glorify the Chinese nation. It was dissatisfied with this element of the ceremony, since at the end of the day they had to decide between a cute girl with insufficient vocal chops, and a less cute girl who had the voice to sing the song. Why choose? Why compromise Chinese national self-image (and thus cast doubt upon the Communist Party's ability to govern an international event? THIS IS SERIOUS! Though they could not choose between Miaoke and Peiyi, they could rebuild them; they had the technology (thanks to Western innovations in audio and video processing software).
Why China faked the ceremony and why they oppressively censor online comments is essentially the same reason: the Chinese regime is nationalist. At root, the opening ceremonies were meant to be a nationalistic demonstration of a nation's power on the world stage, showing how Chinese competence could produce a magnificent ceremony. That is, it was viewed by Party members (who had the power to shape the final form of the ceremony) as an expression of political prowess. It was China's coming out party, and nothing could blemish its reputation – not even an orthodontic travesty or a flat note here or there. Any expression of weakness or failure is an indication of national failure, of China's inability to succeed. The state, the people, the NATION must look good at any cost, even if it means engaging in deceptive behavior that manipulates children (who may or may not have known about the lip-synching at the time of the performance); even if it means selecting potential Olympic gymnasts at the age of three... even if it means placing stringent government controls on what can and cannot be said through electronic media.
Whenever I speak of Chinese collectivism, given their communist legacy in the 20th century, I often am met with a response like “Oh, China... sure they're ruled by a communist party, but they're not really communists. Look at all of their economic reform and liberalization!” This response seems to miss the mark altogether. The distinctive feature of communism was the view that individual interests could be curtailed for the sake of promoting class interest. Under Mao and his communist successors, collective interests took priority over individual rights and the liberties they secure. This view is precisely the same view held by the current Chinese regime, though they're replaced “class interest” with “national interest.” The principle that one can see manifested everywhere throughout contemporary Chinese politics and public policy is the same collectivist principle invoked by the communists: that individuals exist to serve the state, that the interests of the state take priority over the interests of the individual.
It was indeed China's coming out party, and the opening ceremony was supposed to communicate a message of friendship, cooperation, and human unity. It was supposed to show how China was willingness to engage in civilized participation with the rest of the world. It included a performance by 810 figures in Han-dynasty era clothing, who joined together to communicate the question “Isn't it great to have friends coming from afar?” and sent “All men are brothers within the four seas.”
Despite the inclusion of elements like this, I couldn't find myself convinced that the opening ceremonies should be viewed positively. Regardless of all the razzle-dazzle, what we witnessed was a calculated attempt by an oppressive government to justify itself through a mesmerizing performance on the world stage. It's a variation on the old Roman “bread and circuses” theme, except, of course for the bread (think how many capital goods $300,000,000 could buy to increase worker productivity and thus help to alleviate the wide-spread poverty in China). The ceremonies were a debut ball for China as a nation, with all this implies for a country ruled by a nationalistic authoritarian regime; they were a thinly-veiled celebration of the state. In this respect, I found the 2008 opening ceremonies eerily similar in tone to the 1936 games in Berlin.
All this is to say, I found China's ceremonial pleas for friendship and and cooperation to be disingenuous. To the extent that a person, culture or political system preaches collectivism, its hostility to individual human life makes it necessarily “unfriendly” (to say the least). A friend is someone who shares our values, and one cannot genuinely befriend anyone who advocates the destruction of individual liberty for the sake of the state. A friendly nation is one that does not oppress and censor its citizens. No amount of fireworks or electronic displays could change that.
To drive home this last point, (that spectacle is no substitute for achievement), I'd like to contrast China's grand debut ball with another debut ball, the one given for Dagny Taggart in Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged. It, like the Chinese opening ceremonies, was an extravagant event of considerable cost, designed to celebrate Dagny's entrance into adult society. The following passage sets the scene:
The ballroom of the Wayne-Falkland Hotel had been decorated under Mrs. Taggart's [Dagny's mother's] direction; she had an artist's taste, and the setting of that evening was her masterpiece.
"Dagny, there are things I would like you to learn to notice," she said, "lights, colors, flowers, music. They are not as negligible as you might think."
"I've never thought they're negligible," Dagny answered happily. For once, Mrs. Taggart felt a bond between them; Dagny was looking at her with a child's grateful trust. "They're the things that make life beautiful," said Mrs. Taggart. "I want this evening to be very beautiful for you, Dagny. The first ball is the most romantic event of one's life."
Dagny's enthusiasm for her debut ball wanes as the event drags on. By the end of the event, her initial excitement has turned into a dull complacency, the spark of the celebration now gone. She asks:
"Mother, do they think it's exactly in reverse?" she asked. "What?" asked Mrs. Taggart, bewildered. "The things you were talking about. The lights and the flowers. Do they expect those things to make them romantic, not the other way around?" "Darling, what do you mean?" "There wasn't a person there who enjoyed it," she said, her voice lifeless, "or who thought or felt anything at all. They moved about, and they said the same dull things they say anywhere. I suppose they thought the lights would make it brilliant.
Dagny's analysis seems totally applicable to the Chinese opening ceremonies. The ruling Communist Party seemed to believe that if it surrounded itself with a remarkable, perfect display, it could claim perfection for itself and thus enhance its legitimacy. That is, the Party believed that the lights would make them seem brilliant. But as the world knows, the Chinese government has little to celebrate.
I'll spare you the familiar complaints about the government's shortcomings and summarize my view as follows: It is only after the Chinese government abandons its authoritarian, collectivist ideology and adopts ideals of individualism, individual rights, and capitalism that we can recognize the People's Republic of China as a true friend.
It is only then that they will have reason to celebrate in as grand a fashion as they did on 8.8.08.
[Edited 2:46 EST on 8.13.08 with new YouTube link]
In preparation for the August Olympic Games in Beijing, China has installed hardware and software in all hotels, to make it easier for state security to monitor foreign visitors that use the Internet. Some foreign owned hotels leaked the documents (orders from the Chinese government to install the systems) to U.S. government officials, who made it public. The foreign owned hotels in Beijing were threatened with closure if they did not comply.
Years ago, the Chinese government promised there would be open access to the Internet during the games. This despite the fact that the Chinese Internet is designed to be easily monitored by a huge (over 30,000 people) bureaucracy that does nothing but monitor Internet use (and imprisons those who say anything the state does not approve of.)
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has said that they are "surprised" by this decision, especially since the IOC has been telling foreign journalists all this time that they would have "free and uncensored Internet access".
The real surprise is that the IOC would have believed the earlier Chinese government promises of "free and uncensored Internet access", despite decades of authoritarian and repressive behaviour by that same government.
These are the problems you get when you grant undeserved moral sanction to countries like China, treating them as if they were on par with much freer countries like Japan, Australia, and the those in Western Europe.
By Greg Perkins @ 8:09 PM Whew! I was still a bit depleted Monday, with my brain a little foggier than usual.
This past weekend, we decided to try out an annual mountain bike ride that veteran riders around us have been talking about: the Wild Rockies Boise-to-Idaho City Tour!
Here are the essential stats: we mountain biked about 90-95 miles over two days, climbing a total of about 14 thousand feet (maybe seven hours of riding each day). Tammy and I may be pretty solid riders, but we don't usually do those kinds of numbers -- my rear is still hurting!
We got to ride with about 100 people from around the valley, going from Boise to Idaho City (an old mining town) on Saturday, camping there overnight, and riding a different route back on Sunday.
Extra cool was how the ride was hosted: they transported our camping gear, and there were lunch and a few "snack break" stops along the way, dinner at the destination -- oh, and there were showers at the high school in Idaho City! I'm pretty sure Tammy thought that improved things in the tent. :^)
Very satisfying to be able to hang with that kind of crowd! (And nice that there were no real injuries in such a large group.)
By Paula Hall @ 12:26 AM
Tiger Woods won the U.S. Open again. He did it right after coming back from knee surgery, the recovery from which was still causing him pain. He did it after a must-make putt for birdie in regulation to force an 18-hole playoff. He did it by making yet another birdie putt when the score was still tied after the playoff. It was brilliant. He is awe-inspiring.
My husband and I have, from time to time, wondered aloud why we tend not to root for the underdog against Tiger Woods. We decided it was from sheer admiration - we are grateful to Tiger for creating in himself someone to admire. Of course, we appreciate anyone working hard to beat a statistical favorite, as Rocco Mediate did. Statistics don't describe individuals, and individuals must always fight. On the other hand - watching someone as accomplished as Woods is as close as an atheist will ever come to worship. He is just inspiring. Inspiration is food for the soul.
Now, contrast this attitude with that shown by David Brooks in his recent New York Times column on Woods's victory. The column is a blatant demonstration of sneering at and denigrating the good because it is good.
Brooks appears to start off well. The first one-and-a-half paragraphs of his column describes Woods in positive terms. But as the column progresses, terms commonly used pejoratively creep in. "Frozen." "Stone-faced." Then it gets a little worse, as Brooks starts to employ caricature (emphasis added below):
As an adult, [Woods] is famously self-controlled. His press conferences are a string of carefully modulated banalities.
And:
He's become the beau ideal for golf-loving corporate America, the personification of mental fortitude.
Now clearly, Brooks recognizes Woods's greatness, because Brooks's column is also filled with unambiguously positive descriptors of Woods, just a few of which are: "focused," "embodiment of immortal excellence," "exemplar of mental discipline," "precosity" and "athletic prowess." But Brooks gives with one hand, while with the other he taketh away. For example:
[Woods] achieves, they say, perfect clarity, tranquility and flow. We're talking about somebody who is the primary spokesman for Buick, and much of the commentary about him is on the subject of his elevated spiritual capacities.
Here, Brooks notes others' glowing praise for Woods -- and then belittles the praisers for their failure to note that Woods is a highly-paid spokesman for a car company. The implication: you can't use elevated terms to praise someone who trades the value of his good name and reputation for money. Snarky enough, but then Brooks does it again:
The ancients were familiar with physical courage and the priests with moral courage, but in this over-communicated age when mortals feel perpetually addled, Woods is the symbol of mental willpower. He is, in addition, competitive, ruthless, unsatisfied by success and honest about his own failings.
This paragraph reminds me of the way Ayn Rand defined the conjunction "but" in her Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology. To paraphrase, Rand explained that the conjunction "but" was to be used prior to introducing information that contradicts what would ordinarily be inferred from what was previously communicated. The first sentence of Brooks's paragraph implies that Woods is something positive, a throw-back to an era where men recognized greatness. But the second sentence is clearly meant as an insult, as a "but," because Brooks assumes (probably correctly, for most Times readers) that the column's readers share his appraisal of "competitive," "ruthless" and "unsatisfied" as derogatory terms.
Perhaps, by describing Woods's obvious excellence (usually through others' eyes), Brooks is hoping his readers will credit him with an ability to recognize and appreciate greatness. Perhaps Brooks is hoping his readers will miss the snide swipes at the character and virtues that made Tiger Woods's accomplishment possible, and credit Brooks with graciousness instead of metaphysical sour grapes.
Then again, perhaps not. Perhaps Brooks is counting on his readers sharing his disdain for achievement. Because the first sentence of the column's two-sentence final paragraph begins:
You can like this model or not.
I submit that the one thing a writer is aware of is that the last words penned are the most powerful in fixing in readers' minds the message the writer wishes to convey. The message in Brooks's last words? Whether you admire virtue and achievement is a mere matter of taste.
My last words to Mr. Brooks: speak for yourself. To anyone considering Tiger Woods's victory at the U.S. Open, I would ask, rather, "What's not to like?"
E-mail Diana Hsieh
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