smokerblog

Scrawny Kid from Austria

You know when you watch a Shakespeare movie or play, how it takes a few minutes to get used to the funny accents and really start paying attention to what the actors are saying? That's what it was like for me watching Arnold Schwarzenegger give his speech at the Republican National Convention tonight.It started slow, but by the time Arnold called Kerry and Edwards "economic girlie-men," he was really hitting his stride.

Like any good political argument, there was little that one could outright disagree with, but I happen to object to many of the premises that Arnold based his speech upon. Still, it was a great speech. I'm going to play the online video of Arnold's speech next to Barack Obama's DNC speech. Then I'll decide who I'm going to vote for in 2012.

For Best Results, Freeze Your Books

It rained cats and dogs this afternoon. Fortunately, Kari and I were inside the movie theater when it happened. Unfortunately, this morning I left the book I had been reading outside on the patio table and it got soaked.

Kari suggested I put the book in the oven to dry it out. Instead, remembering the great de-skunking recipe I found a couple of years ago, I decided to turn to the internet for advice. The best strategy appears to be to stand the book on end in front of a fan. It seems to be working so far.

There was some other interesting tips for flood or fire victims who are scrambling through the cleanup process. Until you have time to deal with the problem, put the book in the freezer. This prevents mildew and keeps the water from seeping any father into the book. It doesn't help with the drying process, but it buys you time.

Abby is Awesome

The US Women's Soccer Team won their second ever gold medal in dramatic fashion yesterday off the head of local hero Abby Wambach. Here in Rochester, we're crazy for Abby and, by extension, the entire US Women's Team, especially since this performance was the last hurrah for the trailblazing veterans such as Mia Hamm, Julie Foudy, Joy Fawcett, et al. As the veterans move toward retirement, exciting players like Abby are still drawing interest in women's soccer.

Still, it was a little surprising to me that today's Democrat and Chronicle devoted the entire front page to Abby and her temmates' gold-medal-winning effort. Not the front page of the sports section, but the front page. To which I say: yay! If it takes a soccer goal to knock the Swift Boat he said-she said blather off the front page, I'm not going to complain.

BTW, this Abby is awesome, too.

Wedgies are Just Part of the Game

For those who hadn't gotten sick of the Olympic gymnastics competition, NBC brodcasted the superfluous gymnastics gala last night. The best part of the show was having a chance to see the gymnasts to finally relax and have some fun, but where's the tension, the excitement, the ruthless competition?

Performance sports (gymnastics, diving, weight-lifting, equestrian, etc.) are exciting because of their inherent difficulty and create tension or a sense of danger to go with the competetive scoring . Any race (swimming, track, cycling, etc.) has tension and competition built in. Same thing for team or head-to-head sports (table tennis, volleyball, basketball, etc.) and bout competitions (judo, fencing, wrestling, etc.).

On CNBC I could watch boxing, possibly one of the most brutal and competetive of sports. But there is one team sport that embraces the the physical brutality of boxing: water polo. Now, I appreciate the skimpy beach volleyball uniforms as much as anyone, but why doesn't NBC put water polo into their prime-time lineup?

From a Washington Post article (requires registration):

Water polo is a combination of swimming, soccer and basketball, plus wrestling, boxing and mugging. The players are phenomenal athletes who perform amazing feats of speed, grace, stamina and ball-handling. They also perform amazing feats of kicking, punching, scratching, clawing and choking. And that's just the men. The women are also fond of tearing each other's bathing suits off.

...

"A couple guys got punched in the face and a couple got kicked in the face," [Defenseman Dan Klatt] said with a shrug. "But that's just part of the game."

A few yards away, another game had started, this one between Russia and Serbia and Montenegro. Up on the big TV screen was a candid shot from the pool: A Russian player appeared to be giving a Serb player a big bear hug. The Serb hugged him back.

For a split second, it looked like one of those heartwarming moments of Olympic brotherhood. Then the two men started trying to drown each other, and you realized it was just another heartwarming moment of Olympic water polo.

Now this is a sport worth staying up 'til 11PM for.

Gold Medal with an Asterisk

Should Paul Hamm give up his gold medal in light of this year's gymnastics judging controversy? Some say yes, other say no. The answer is that it's probably too late for a graceful solution to the problem.

It would be one thing if there were any foul play, but this was just a basic, stupid mistake. Throughout the history of sports, there have always been controversies where the officials plain messed up and altered the outcome of a match. Bad refereeing has to be endured by the loser like bad weather, it's a part of the game.

It would have been nice if the South Korean coaching staff had filed an immediate protest. It would have been better still if Paul Hamm had kept quiet about the dispute. He's coming across in the media as ingracious and belligerent. It' not over yet, either. The Olympic officials could still strip Hamm of his gold medal, although it appears more likely that they may decide to award two golds medals. If Hamm graciously accepts the decision of the officials, he may actually earn the repect due to an Olympic champion.

Not Your Grandma's Badminton

So far, NBC's coverage of the 2004 Olympics has been quite good. Not too many sappy background stories and just enough action to keep me interested. My only complaint is that the less popular sports have been almost totally neglected in prime time. The past few nights have been dominated by swimming, gymnastics and beach volleyball. If you can, try to catch some of the cable coverage on NBC's sister networks: MSNBC, CNBC, USA and BRAVO. After dinner last night, I got to catch a sport you rarely see on TV: badminton.

Unfortunately, badminton is a sport that does not televise well. You thought it was hard to keep track of a hockey puck, try following the path of the shuttle (aka, "birdie") around the screen...especially from the up-and-behind camera angle that NBC was using. The slow motion replays from a side angle revealed much more of the strategy and finesse involved in the sport.

And this is a serious sport, bearing little resemblance to backyard badminton. Badminton players require a blend of catlike reflexes and a soft touch. The net is placed at about eye level (for the typical 6-foot-plus player) and serves must be executed from about mid-torso level. Shots range from soft dribbling over the net to smashes from the back line and everything in between. Play resembles a frenetic but graceful dance, darting back and forth, leaping up and back, the racquets swing from all angles.

Fun fact: the feathers of the shuttle are actual goose feathers, 16 of them, plucked from the left wing of the goose. This is apparently for consistency's sake; the bend of a right-wing feather is reversed and players of Olympic-caliber can tell the difference. And those feathers can get pretty beaten up during play. During one match I watched, the shuttlecock was changed at least a dozen times (probably twice that).

I wonder what happens to all the right-wing goose feathers...

Sam's on a Diet

Sam had his annual vet checkup yesterday and he's gained 15 pounds in the last year(!). We've been lazy about excercising the dogs and Sam's figured out a way to break into the basement and occasionally help himself to dinner.

So it's only fair: if Sam has to lose weight, I should too. Since I weigh 3 times more than him, I should lose 3x as much, right? Well, my target is only 2x. Morning jogs and no second (and third) helpings at dinner, that's my diet plan. No need for any Atkin's silliness. At least not yet...

Consider the Backlash

So now that I've read David Foster Wallace's coverage of the Maine Lobster Festival, I'm amazed that Gourmet would allow such a wide-eyed and personal inquiry of meat-eating ethics to be published within its pages. It almost makes me want to go out and buy a subscription, if only to show support for the editor's display of cojones. Indeed, judging from some of the indignant posts in the Gourmet forum, they've lost some subscriptions already.

Erik Markus, a vegan who obviously has little love to spare for Gourmet or their readership, applauds DFW's article. He hypothesizes that the Gourmet editors were stuck with an article from a prestigious (and high-priced) writer and were forced to publish it or eat (no pun) the cost. But then he quotes this passage where DFW confronts the Gourmet readership with the central issue:

Given the (possible) moral status and (very possible) physical suffering of the animals involved, what ethical convictions do gourmets evolve that allow them not just to eat but to savor and enjoy flesh-based viands (since of course refined enjoyment, rather than just ingestion, is the whole purpose of gastronomy)? And for those gourmets who’ll have no truck with convictions or rationales and who regard stuff like the previous paragraph as just so much pointless navel-gazing, what makes it feel okay, inside, to dismiss the whole issue out of hand? That is, is their refusal to think about any of this the product of actual thought, or is it just that they don’t want to think about it? Do they ever think about their reluctance to think about it? After all, isn’t being extra aware and attentive and thoughtful about one’s food and its overall context part of what distinguishes a real gourmet? Or is all the gourmet’s extra attention and sensibility just supposed to be aesthetic, gustatory?

By the end of his review, even this semi-militant vegan is forced to concede that perhaps the editors have enough respect for their readers to let them form their own opinions. Bottom line: the article is vintage DFW. Hilarious and sharp-witted without being cruel. Troubling and thought-provoking without being preachy. Something for everyone. (Kari even liked it.)

How to Humanely Dispatch a Lobster

The most recent David Foster Wallace sighting is in this month's issue of Gourmet. "Consider the Lobster," is his reporter-in-the-field-type account of last year's Maine Lobster Festival, an annual celebration of America's favorite crustacean delicacy, being held this weekend in Rockland, Maine. Now, I just picked up a copy of the magazine tonight so I haven't read it yet, but from all accounts, it is a literary success. The subject matter, on the other hand, may be more than some lobster lovers can stomach.

Apparently, Wallace spends the better part of the article contemplating, in his inimitable self-consciously twitchy way, the animal cruelty implications of boiling live lobsters. I have no frame of reference, having never "prepared" lobster myself, but Kari tells me stories of she and her brother as children playing with live lobsters on her next-door neighbor's kitchen floor just prior to the steamy execution.

This has reminded me of a recent "Good Eats" episode where the host, Alton Brown, displays a crudely drawn chart of the animal kingdom with "lobster" listed next to "cockroach" and then spends the rest of the episode referring to his lobster as "the bug." Point being, if you don't have a crisis of conscience stepping on spiders or swatting flies, then you shouldn't worry about cooking and eating a lobster.

So but still, just because you plan to eat his juicy flesh doesn't mean you can't do the poor creature a favor and ease his passing. The preferred technique involves placing the lobster in the freezer for a short time (just long enough to dull his senses) and then with a sharp knife, bisect his neural system in one clean stroke. That "Good Eats" episode had a lot of other interesting lobster cooking tips; here's the transcript for those who are interested.

Bon appétit!

Spreading the GoMeme

Here's a pseudo-scientific experiment to track the spread of ideas over the internet and improve my google ranking in the process. If you host a blog and would like to take part in this experiment, simply copy the text below, starting at the beginning of the next paragraph all the way to the end and post it in your blog, updating it with your personal info where necessary.

Tort Reform

Lawyers are an easy target. The only profession more despised than trial lawyers might be used car salesmen. This is why the GOP is making such a big deal about how trial lawyers (like John Edwards) are bad for America and is hammering away at tort reform as an issue to rally around. I've talked this over with my lawyer...I mean, my wife, and she's convinced me that some measure of tort reform would be a good thing. But that just it, some measure of reform would be good, but it's a very delicate balance.

Tort reform would be bad when limits on product liability lawsuits would allow manufacturers to ratchet down quality controls. For example, the FDA has recently released guidelines about labeling for the most common allergens in food products. Many food manufacturers currently process different foods with the same equipment, introducing the possibility of allergen contamination. With limited liability, that manufacturer might make the decision not to update labels or modify their processes when the potential cost of defending against lawsuits is low. This exposes their consumers to unnecessary risk and possible bodily harm or death. Statutes and regulations set the bar for manufacturing standards, tort law is one way by which these standards are enforced.

However, tort reform would be good in those fields that are inherently high-risk, such as medicine. Obstetricians are facing an ever-increasing number of lawsuits and increased malpractice insurance premiums as parents focus the blame on doctors for complications that arise during birth. The result is that fewer doctors are willing to practice obstetrics to begin with, and doctors who do practice prefer to deliver through cesarean section whenever possible. The result is more painful and expensive for the mother (and insurance companies), but has been interpreted in the courts as less risky for the child.

On the campaign trail, Republicans will attack trial lawyers (always a good strategy) while Democrats will portray themselves as defenders of victims' rights. On this issue, you're not going to see any shades of gray from either candidate as they continue to paint their issues in black and white.

My politics are showing

I've been watching the coverage Democratic National Convention pretty closely this week and what I've been struck by is the influence of FOX News all over the place.

First off, a disclaimer: it should be clear by my wine-tasting, jazz-listening, Michael-Moore-watching habits that I am a li...liber...lib...left-leaning moderate.

So but here's the thing: FOX is so successful not (just) because they are offering a right-of-center slant to the news, but because they offer the news in an entertaining way. MSNBC has followed suit. CNN is trying, madly, to follow suit and is mostly failing miserably. The major network news divisions have given up long ago, relying on "hard-hitting" prime-time news magazines to provide their "edgier" news coverage. Cable shows like The O'Reilly Factor, Hannity and Colmes, Hardball with Chris Matthews, and Scarborough Country provide their entertainment by thriving on controversy; nothing new of course, but these shows actively fan the flames or kick up the dying embers when necessary.

The Republicans have had this figured out for some time (the lessons of Nixon, perhaps), but the Democrats are just now learning how to deal with it. This year's convention so well scripted and "on-messagge" that many of these shows have had to focus on trivia for their entertainment. For three days, the only controversial stories revolved around Theresa Heinz Kerry's "shove it" comment and Michael Moore's ubiquitous and ponderous presence in front of the cameras. Oh, except for Reverend Al. Commentators thirsty for some juicy "red meat" from the convention's speeches had to content themselves with Al Sharpton. Even then, controversy is nothing new with Al, so the big news became, "Why did Al stray from the prepared text? Did DNC officials see Sharpton's speech beforehand? Did the extended speech throw off convention's schedule?" *Yaaawn*

Sean Hannity, anxious to sink his teeth into something at the convention, had to settle on a Alec Baldwin, who referred to the Republican party as "fundamentalist wackos" while speaking at a DNC-sponsored forum. Whoa, stop the presses! Hannity then had to resort to an interview with comedian and AirAmerica Radio host Janeane Garafalo to provide his biggest fireworks. (Janeane held her own quite well, I think.) Meanwhile, Bill O'Reilly took great pleasure in interviewing Michael Moore, and linking him with the Democratic mainstream at every opportunity. MSNBC spent much of their post-acceptance-speech analysis heatedly arguing whether Kerry had stepped on his applause lines rather than analyzing what Kerry actually said. Poor, sad CNN spent the first minutes after the speech covering the shocking controversy of why the celebratory balloons failed to fall in a timely fashion. Before they had even begun analyzing Kerry's speech, their microphones picked up an event coordinator cursing in frustration. Crack journalism, that.

In the unlikely event that Kerry builds up enough of a lead to threaten Bush, we might see some fireworks later this month at the Republican National Convention. In all likelihood; however, we'll see more of the same: pundits talking to pundits about other pundits, spinning the spin, while the only voters paying attention to the actual speeches are the ones who have already made up their minds. Maybe the networks aren't so stupid after all...