From a news story on a proposal in Great Britain to do away with the notion that there are correct and incorrect spellings of words:

Playwright George Bernard Shaw was fond of pointing out that the word "ghoti" could just as well be pronounced "fish" if you followed common pronunciation: 'gh' as in "tough," 'o' as in "women" and 'ti' as in "nation."

The proposal does not seem to be getting any traction, but it's an amusing article all the same.  It seems to me that it would make teaching children to read and write all that much more difficult if you throw out the idea that there are right and wrong ways to spell a word.  But I would get tremendous satisfaction if one of my kids were clever enough to come with a spelling like Shaw's for fish and tried to get it past a teacher.

From Fox News:

ARCHES NATIONAL PARK, Utah —  One of the largest and most photographed stone arches in Arches National Park in the U.S. has collapsed.

Wall Arch fell sometime late Monday or early Tuesday, though no one has reported seeing it collapse, said Paul Henderson, the park's chief of interpretation.

Chief of interpretation?  I'm not sure exactly what the job title means, but there you have it.  The story has before and after photos as well, and unfortunately I have not figured out how to add images to the blog, so I did not paste them in.  Here are the image links in case that is helpful:  Before.  And after.

Sometimes if you can't find a way to laugh, you just want to scream:
 
    * 'World's Greatest Dad' Pleads Guilty to Child Sex Abuse

====================================================

From Seinfeld's "The English Patient" -

[The New York Hospital]

Izzy is in a hospital bed, as Jerry stands beside it.

JERRY: Again, Mr Mandelbaum, this back specialist is supposed to be the best.
So if there's anything else I can do, please don't hesitate to, uh, try and
find my number.

Jerry turns to walk out.

IZZY: Uh, oh, wait.

Izzy rummages on his bedside table and picks up a t-shirt. He holds it up to
his chest so Jerry can read what's written on it. 'World's Greatest DAD!'

IZZY: How 'bout that, huh? The World's Greatest Dad. My son made it for me.

JERRY: (humouring him) That's very nice.

IZZY: The best in the world. (pointing to himself) Which means I'm better
than just number one.

JERRY: Well, I don't know how official any of these rankings really are.

The folks at Maclean's can't seem to make up their minds whether life in the Great White North is better in every conceivable way than here in the U.S.:

Once a month, Henry Tenby jumps in his car — just after the morning rush hour and with a tank close to empty — and makes a 45-minute drive from his Vancouver home to Blaine, Wash. After zipping across the border using his recently acquired Nexus pass, he fills up with cheaper American gas and stops off at a packaging store, Hagens of Blaine, where the aviation buff and Internet entrepreneur picks up the computer parts and memorabilia he routinely buys online from the U.S. and has shipped there under his name. The cross-border shopping ritual saves him anywhere from $50 to hundreds of dollars a trip — at the very least, the equivalent of a nice dinner out, he says. This month, he plans to buy a piece of new computer hardware in the U.S. for about $200. Buying the part in Canada would cost $320, he estimates. As for Canadian retailers charging more than their American counterparts: "I think they're just being greedy and gouging Canadians," he says. "I don't like it."

Senator Barack Obama will be campaigning in my hometown today.  Actually, there's probably a little bit of a dispute on that point, as he will be appearing at Concord High School's gymnasium, which I think is technically not located in the City of Elkhart.  The Concord school system is separate from the Elkhart school system, and I don't think all of the land in the Concord area has been annexed into the city.  In any event, the news stories are indicating that Sen. Obama is in Elkhart, so we'll all go along with that characterization for now.

As for the appearance itself, Sen. Obama will be at McCuen Gymnasium.  In talking to my father, I understand the gym hold about 1,000 people.  This would be a nice little rally in a town of about 45,000.

But Sen. Obama could have had a rally in an even bigger venue in Elkhart.  North Side Gym holds approximately 7,000 people.  This gym was built in 1954 and I believe it was one of the largest gyms in the state for high school basketball for a long time.  The gym is actually located at one of the junior high schools (now called middle schools) in town, and both of the Elkhart high schools play their home basketball games there.  As a young kid in the 1970s, I remember going to games on Friday and Saturday nights and the gym would be full.  For sectional and regional games when the state basketball tourney started, the gym would be overflowing, and I can remember sitting in cramped corner bleachers in the upper level for many games, feeling like the whole gym would collapse under the stomping feet of the crowd.

Things have changed over the years with high school hoops in Indiana.  It's now been over 10 years since a single team was crowned THE state champs at the end of the tournament.  Now there are four class champions, depending on the size of the schools.  There will never be another Milan Miracle, upon which the movie "Hoosiers" was loosely based.

And the crowds at Elkhart high school games are not what they used to be.  I went to some of the games when I still lived in town after law school.  North Side Gym was nowhere near full.  A lot of the bleachers in the upper level weren't even rolled out for use.

I'm a little surprised that Sen. Obama apparently could not muster enough excitement in his campaign appearance to at least match the crowds at North Side Gym that I remember.  I'm sure his campaign staff would not want to have him speak in a quarter full gym in a small town in Indiana.  It wouldn't make for very good pictures.  So the smaller venue at the newer school out in the suburbs will probably be just fine.  It will be full with a cheering crowd, like it was when Sean Kemp played for Concord almost 20 years ago.  I wonder if Kemp's name will come up in today's events?  He's probably the most famous athlete to have attended the Concord schools.  If someone on the campaign staff did their homework, it may not be a bad reference to make, at least to try to connect with local celebrity and former glory.

... both the apparent boom in the lowland gorilla population is in some way thanks to warmer global climate, while at the same time the alleged decline in polar bear population (or floe ice, or whatever is the claim) is also in some attributable to the same thing?

It kind of stands to reason that a warmer climate may lead to a decrease in the population / habitat for one species, while it may lead to increases somewhere else.  Let's get the Diane Fossey / Jane Goodall chimp champs to slug it out with the Knut Knights and enjoy the fireworks!

I hope the news out of China this morning, about an apparent attack by Muslim terrorists that killed 16 police officers in far western China, does not turn out to be an even worse harbinger of what we may see in the next few weeks with the Peiping Olympics.  The smoggy, brown, polluted air, locust infestation, and raging algae blooms seemed like enough unpleasantness without the far worse spectacle of reliving the Munich Games.

I see at the Maclean's site they have a story comparing/contrasting Canada and the U.S.  Turns out they think life in Canada is a much better deal than here in the States.  Here's the summary:

The numbers are in. Compared to the U.S., we work less, live longer, enjoy better health and have more sex. And get this: now we're wealthier too.

Is this some kind of viral attempt to get people to move from the good ol' U S of A to Canada?  Maybe to make it an attractive destination for supporters of whichever candidate loses the fall presidential election?  Maybe a look at the immigration numbers will show that rather than trying to get to the U.S., all those poor third worlders are merely using our country as a convenient jumping off point to sneak over the 49th parallel into Canada for a Molson Canadian and a Tim Horton's, eh?

Turns out that for all the hype of the lead-in, the end of the piece reveals a slightly different "truth" than the starting point:

Be it sports, health care, business or wealth, Americans are still competing to be the best. And it's true that the best in the U.S. is the best you'll find on the planet. But when you look at the medians and the averages, their accomplishment pales. As the hard numbers in this report show, Americans have shorter lives, poorer health, less sex, more divorces, and more violent crime. Which may mean that perhaps America isn't the greatest nation on earth. After all, you can't judge a nation by the best it produces, you have to judge it by the success of the average Joe. And the average Joe in Canada is having a way better time.

Hmmm.  Medians and averages can certainly be interesting comparisons on this kind of thing.  But raw numbers might also be interesting.  My guess is that in terms of sheer numbers, a nation of 300 million has a lot more people who are experiencing a standard of living that is equal to and in many ways better than the standard of living of comparable Canadians among their approximately 33 million population.  Twain's observation on statistics, damn statistics, and lies still holds.

Jay Mariotti's latest column in the Chicago Sun Times takes the position that the Bears "blew" their chance to get Brett Favre in a trade with the Packers.  I don't know whether this is a sincere opinion by Mariotti, taking the entirely cold-blooded view that once a guy is on your team, everything that comes before if forgotten, or if it is merely a contrarian position meant to tweak Bears fans who do not want to see Favre, ever, wearing a Bears uniform.

I understand that it's antiquated to think of players as "our guys" and "their guys."  But as we are often reminded by sports columnists, we're called fans because it is a shortened version of fanatics.  We are not entirely rational in our views when it comes to our sports teams.  So Brett Favre is the enemy.  He played for the enemy his entire career.  He should never be considered as someone to simply bring over in a trade because he would be better than the guys you currently have at the position.  Heck, I still have a problem with Jim McMahon going to play for the Packers long after he'd been traded from the Bears.  The Punky QB was our guy.  That may be the only Super Bowl win I will ever experience as a Bears fan, and McMahon was a key part of it.  Seeing him in a Packers uniform made me ill.

So am I happy with Grossman, Orton and the rest?  No, I think they are underwhelming and could lead the team to another middling to poor season.  But I would rather watch them take their shots and be able to root for them and the team, together, than face the conflict of having Favre at quarterback and wanting to see the team do well and win, while also wanting Favre to get his clock cleaned on every play.  As a fan that's just not tolerable.

A while back, I posted some comments on "Extreme Home Makeover," the ABC television program where a family has their current home completely demolished and replaced with their "dream" home, which I understand to be a mortgage-free deal.  My kids usually enjoy the show, and we often have it on after dinner on Sunday nights.  My earlier comments raised the question of what happens to these families and their new homes when the television crew and the community have gone on with their lives.  My fear is that the families who are often chosen as the recipients of these wondrous gifts are going to find themselves unable to maintain the properties in the long run, and the homes will either fall slowly into disrepair or be sold to someone who can maintain them.

Tonight I saw a quick post at the Galley Slaves blog which pointed me toward this story:

LAKE CITY, Ga. -- More than 1,800 people showed up to help ABC's "Extreme Makeover" team demolish a family's decrepit home and replace it with a sparkling, four-bedroom mini-mansion in 2005.

Three years later, the reality TV show's most ambitious project at the time has become the latest victim of the foreclosure crisis.

Apparently the family used their home as collateral for a $450,000 loan to start a construction business.  The business failed, and now they are facing possible foreclosure on the property.  Even more disheartening information from the story:

Materials and labor were donated for the home, which would have cost about $450,000 to build. Beazer Homes' employees and company partners also raised $250,000 in contributions for the family, including scholarships for the couple's three children and a home maintenance fund.

So even with the free home and a quarter of a million dollars for education costs and home maintenance, this family still is on the verge of losing their home.  The story goes on to note that ABC advises the families it selects to work with financial planners to make sure they make sound financial decisions.  Whether the family in this case consulted a financial planner is not clear.  The mayor of the town where the house was built, who was also one of the volunteers who helped build the house, is quoted in the story as saying the family squandered what they were given.  It's hard to see how that is not the case.

It makes for sometimes heart-rending television to learn the backgrounds of the "Extreme Home Makeover" families, and it is wonderful that so many people in communities across the country are willing to put in so much hard work to try to help them.  Hopefully the families truly are being helped in the long run and are not simply enjoying a temporary respite from the very difficult struggles that made them the subject of the television show in the first place.

Here in New Jersey, I typically see a lot of Obama lawn signs and bumper stickers.  But in the Target parking lot this morning, I was actually stopped in my tracks by the two bumper stickers on the car parked across the aisle from mine.  The bumper sticker on the right hand side of the car was a standard Obama '08 model.  But on the left was a bumper sticker that read:


I still have no clue how these two bumper stickers go together on the same car.

Granted, it's a little bit of a pet peeve of mine, but the following sentences from an email reportedly sent by the Executive Editor of the Los Angeles Times, Meredith Artley, really set my teeth on edge:

I should have first not encouraged posting on this topic, but if any of you feel that you have a post you really to write, to please discuss it with Tony and myself first since we must always tread carefully on unverified stories.

First, we're apparently missing the word "want" between "really" and "to write."  All right, it's an email. [Thanks to cakinli for the catch.]  It happens when you don't proofread.

Second, the word "to" following "to write," either needs to be removed, or the thought should be more fully expressed by writing something along the lines of, "we ask you to please discuss..."  Again, we'll give Ms. Artley the benefit of the doubt and chalk it up to email haste / sloppiness.

But "discuss it with Tony and myself..."?  Would you tell another person to "discuss it with myself" if you wanted them to discuss it with you?  How can you get to a position as the executive editor of a newspaper as large as the L.A. Times and still make this kind of mistake, even casually?  I have seen this same awful usage in several books recently as well, so perhaps there is a great shortage of competent editors throughout the publishing world.

Well, maybe it was just an isolated incident.  No.  The first sentence of the very next paragraph of Ms. Artley's email is as follows:

Russ, myself, Tony and all the editors you work with trust you guys to engage us in open and frank dialogue on just about anything that’s on your mind, and we’ll do the same.

So, myself trust you guys to engage in open and frank dialogue?  Is that really what you would say or write?  It can not be that difficult to figure out which word you should use in different contexts.  Maybe an enterprising writing instructor in the L.A. area can offer to give the folks at the Times a few refresher courses.

If the name Steve Bartman sounds only vaguely familiar to, you must not be a Cubs fan.  Let's go back to the fall of 2003, Game 6 of the NLCS, when the Cubs were a mere five outs from a trip to the World Series.  Mark Prior, at the time one of the Cubs' great young starters, was on the mound and his club had staked him to a 3-0 lead.

Then, as with all things Cubs, it all went downhill.  The most famous and memorable incident of the meltdown was the foul ball down the left field line that landed just in the seats.  Moises Alou, the Cubs left fielder, was in position to try to make a play on the ball, leaping up over the wall to reach into the first row to try to make the catch.  But instead of coming away with the ball, Alou collided with Steve Bartman, an unfortunate Cubs fan who made a terrible mistake in trying to catch the ball himself rather than get out of Alou's way.

So the Cubs didn't get an out on that play, and of course they wound up losing that game, and then the NL Championship Series in Game 7.  And Steve Bartman's life would never be the same.

To his credit.  Bartman has not changed his name to try to get away from this unfortunate incident.  He did not move away from the Chicago area to try to start over.  And now, he has turned down an offer of $25,000 to sign a photograph of the infamous Alou play from Game 6.

It's rare in today's world that someone doesn't try to cash in on whatever type of fame they may have.  Bartman could have probably done local ads that played off the incident.  He probably could write a book about his experience after Game 6.  And it's hardly surprising that some sports memorabilia dealer would try to get him to sign a photo of the play to make a few bucks.

But Bartman has refused to profit from his trip to the spotlight.  Good for him for continuing to be a regular human being and die-hard Cubs fan.  Should the unthinkable happen in my lifetime, I hope Bartman is also around to appreciate it.

The Yankees and Red Sox are the teams you usually hear about when it comes to trying to just buy a pennant or World Series.  Their payrolls are staggering, but there are certainly other teams that have the resources available to compete if that's the approach they want to take.  The Mets spend a lot of money, and I seem to recall the current Angels owner as being reputedly willing to spend big to try to win.

One team that manages to usually spend a fair amount of money but still not make its way to a World Series title is of course the Cubs.

So the latest news that the Cubs have been fined half a million dollars tells us what?  Here's the quick and dirty:

The Cubs' fine for violations related to the June draft of first-year players was a whopping $500,000, SI.com has learned.

Major League Baseball ruled that the Cubs violated a couple of baseball rules, including failing to report a signing to MLB's New York offices and putting the player on the field before receiving approval for the signing from MLB offices.

The Cubs were said by people familiar with the case to have exacerbated the situation by how they responded to MLB's concerns. MLB higherups apparently didn't believe Cubs people were completely forthcoming regarding their actions in the case when questioned about them.

I would certainly like to think that the Cubs front office is made up of sharp-eyed baseball minds who somehow made brilliant acquisitions that will help turn the team into a juggernaut over the course of the next decade.

A century of futility and a little bit of common sense makes me think it's far more likely that the front office is badly run and that if this year's team manages to win a title the most appropriate analogy for the role of the front office in all this would be to think of them as the thousand monkeys that finally produced a Shakespearean play.

 

...you sometimes think of some seemingly very disjointed things.  But in the end, you can kind of make sense of them.

For instance, today I found myself thinking about baseball, as I often do when cutting the grass.  As a Cubs fan, now living in between New York and Philadelphia, I was thinking about the Yankees and their manager, Joe Girardi.  Girardi started out with the Cubs, and I wound up meeting him and actually sitting next to him on the Cubs bench when I was asked to serve as the Cubs batboy for the day.  That's a long story perhaps for another time.  The point is, I met Girardi, but would certainly never expect him to remember me.

As it turns out, however, Girardi attended Northwestern University at the same time as one of my cousins.  More importantly, she mentioned at one time that she knew Girardi from college.  I don't know if they were anything more than casual social acquaintances, if even that, but she apparently remembered having met him and spoken to him when they were students at Northwestern.

So I found myself wondering about a potential conversation with Joe Girard should I ever run into him somewhere.  It would be interesting to see if he in fact remembered my cousin from school, and my guess is we would have a few laughs about my one game with the Cubs.

But then my mind turned to thinking about how small the world is in some ways, and how it seems really ridiculous that some middle-aged guy who grew up in a smallish town in northern Indiana, now cutting his grass in central New Jersey, has some albeit very thin and tenuous connection to the manager of the New York Yankees.

Which of course made me think of the idea of Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon, and whether, through Joe Girardi, I somehow am a short couple of hops from Kevin Bacon.

Then it struck me that the same cousin who went to school with Girardi also was an extra in the movie "About Last Night...," with Rob Lowe, Demi Moore, Jim Belushi and Elizabeth Perkins.

And since Demi Moore was in "A Few Good Men" with Kevin Bacon, and Elizabeth Perkins was in "He Said, She Said" with Kevin Bacon, I guess I kind of have a Kevin Bacon Score of 3 through my cousin, as we were in multiple high school drama productions (and countless family productions of varying degrees of taste).

Which of course makes the relevant question:  What movie did I wind up falling asleep to last night after everyone else had gone to bed