Wednesday, May 30, 2007

Football v. Soccer

You'll remember earlier this week that I asked a question about debate methodology. It was a clever trap. Momentary Academic fell into said trap. Her first salvo is on her blog over here. You should read that before you read my response below.


GSR moderates and scores the debate for us. His comments are in italics.

********

The distinguished gentle-woman from The District of Columbia makes a valid and important point about athletics in general. Everyone gets the opportunity at low skill levels to participate and improve their personal health.

I should note that never once in the history of my writing have I ever mentioned my shapely arms gripping the handlebars of my bike. You might be adding in your own fantasizing. I think that's super.

At this point, I should write a quick disclaimer stating that I have the utmost respect for athletes professional and otherwise regardless of what sport they choose. I make no judgements on the validity of soccer, indeed, I find many positive aspects of its game play, first and foremost that it is an activity that adds to the health of an individual.

Your central and eloquent argument pirouettes in a gentle declining orbit about a misguided point. That point, namely that soccer is the most accessible sport, is incorrect. I believe you fail to make the area of amateur and non-professional sport equally available to all sports in your argument. I remember many an afternoon with my brothers playing the game of football with nothing more than a vague imaginary line drawn between two convenient trees or fence posts. With only a ball, we were totally able to play an approximation of the sport. In fact, we could have changed the shape of the ball and just as easily have been playing soccer in the same yard.

If I were to choose one sport where equipment is truly a non-issue, I would choose as my sport wrestling. There are no real requirements save two competing egos.

This debate is, however, soccer vs. football.

My preference for football rests on the simple fact that it balances so well the kinesthetic and intellectual. Football is an incredibly intelligent sport, in fact more intelligent than any sport of which I am aware including soccer. While soccer is an exciting and very strenuous approximation of a tactical environment, the sport never satisfies the overarching definition of real-time strategy. I should mention here that the definitions of tactics and strategy I am using are standard military.

The purpose of contact sport is to simulate warfare or battle. Football simulates warfare on a larger scale than does soccer. In the real world, divorced I realize from the arena of sport, a nation going to war will utilize several totally disparate forces and resources toward the accomplishment of the goal, victory. They will mobilize strategic bombers to fly high and slow, they will utilize sea-borne assets with long range strike capabilities, special forces, etc. These assets will not operate in the same capacity as their teammates, or even their fellow services, none of which are nicknamed after the goddess of fire.

While soccer will have several possible plays and tactics available and certain players who specialize on the field, football has three different types of players who do not share the field. Defense, offense, and special teams function as strategic assets fighting the clock and the efforts of the other team. In this way, football better simulates warfare, and soccer better simulates an individual skirmish. I would prefer to see the strategy in a real sense on the field simultaneous to tactical feats.


As the moderator of this debate allow me to welcome both of the participants. The lovely lady from D.C. is someone I have known now for almost 5 years. The gentleman from Colorado is someone who has insulted me and intellectually jabbed me from the moment that I met him. To help balance this seemingly unfair dynamic The Momentary Academic is arguing for soccer, a sport that I never enjoyed playing or watching. Casey is arguing for football, which is the most tangible proof that there is a benevolent God in heaven that we mere humans can witness. So all in all, I should be able to stay impartial-ish.

In this first round of the debate M.A. does a nice job of playing the sympathy card. Her arguement that soccer can be enjoyed by many, regardless of income level, is quite compelling. It is supported by the overwhelming popularity of the sport in third world countries where the price of a baseball glove or a football helmet for each member of a team could be equal to the cost of a families annual income, but one coveted soccer ball can be enjoyed by the masses.

Casey, on the other hand, has done an excellent job pointing out that one football can also be enjoyed by a veritable neighborhood's worth of children. Having first hand experience playing backyard football with 7-10 friends, I can attest to the fact that the only pieces of "equipment" needed to have a backyard game of football are the ball, a working set of feet/hands, and some trees to serve as the goal marker.

More importantly, for the sake of the debate, Casey has done an excellent job of talking about the strategy involved in playing the game of football. His comparisons to modern warfare are impressive, and my one critique is that for those of us who have never gone to battle he could have at least worked in a Stratego analogy. But I digress...

The winner of this first round is Casey. He is awarded one point based on the merits of his arguements.

Friday, May 25, 2007

Codified Rambling

I'll be gone the rest of the weekend, so this is what you get. By the way, the last post is still up for discussion.

I spent some time riding along the rim of a canyon. I stopped at the crest of the box end and found a rock to sit on.

Due, I'm sure, to the exhaustion and pain of sweat seeping into a scraped knee and abraded calf, several profound thoughts occurred to me, or at least vague notions I've been working on I can now codify. I once listed as a hobby "thinking." It is a hobby I never lost. Sitting in an inspiring place and reading my thoughts on the pages of my brain is beautiful and bountiful. One of those thoughts is mine and mine alone, but the others I will share in order of appearance.

1. All Life Is Sacred

Truly, whatever mystery we hem and haw and turn into religion must return to the point of life. Life is unlikely. Actually, extremely unlikely, especially in the form of awareness. Think for a minute about your consciousness. Why do you have it? Where does it come from? I am aware of the selfless theory in vogue now, the one that says identity is a coping mechanism and a fallacy. I don't accept that particular thought as it leaves much to be explained. The Buddhist ideas of selflessness on the other hand, though coping mechanism they may be, I find sort of romantic. A freedom is available to those who believe they are truly not.

2. Causality is Bullshit

There are no causes.

3. Pseudopodia

I am a physical person. I live a lot of my life between my ears, but I live a sizable minority of that same life between my legs and between breaths of action. I find that five minutes of motivation can easily replace twenty minutes of preparation. Consider the machines we use to assist our lives. At my former employment, I always found it easier to just get in and move the heavy and large objects that made up my day. We had a plethora of mechanized assistance, but by the time you went to grab the machine, chased everyone out of the area, and moved the behemoth to your work site, you could have been up and down an old fashioned ladder ten times over. My personality is such that I'd rather just grab the ladder and grunt and struggle and get it over with.

Sometimes, my coworker was Bill. Bill was in a wheel chair. I would be constantly up and down ladders, carrying heavy products from a random here to a random there. I often broke a sweat at work. Bill did not. Bill was in a wheel chair. Many other men I dealt with during my day were overweight, or old, or had some malady that angered me. Men with sickness or disability anger me. I don't know why, and I know it's wrong, but they anger me. I still have incredible empathy for them. I believe strongly that at this point in history, we have room for everyone. We don't have a herd to slow down, and regardless, humanity is descended of pack animals, a completely different mentality from a herd.

When I pass these wheelchair-bound or obese people on the street or when they see me with a bike helmet or with my forehead beaded with sweat and my bulging quadriceps, do they think I am showing off? It feels like I'm showing off when I feel my body's mahinery bulging up and straining so close to the surface of my skin in their presence. That makes me sad. Why should it make me sad? I am no more responsible for my genetic stock than they are. And don't pretend that even the obese are to blame. Any number of factors can contribute to sedentation. Remember:

Causality is bullshit.

4. Population

At this moment, humanity is stretching the limits of their home. I should not say humanity, as that makes it sound as if the species has blown past the checks of carry capacity. We have not. The Earth can accommodate us as an organism. What it can not accommodate is the damage of our wills. Were I to eat a deer, the tragedy to that dear, and one could argue to the immediate herd, would be great, but Deer in a platonic sense would be unaffected. When my body turned the deer into fuel and did not perform the task with greater than 45% or so efficiency, I would have to get rid of the deer inside me. The Earth could absorb and reuse what I would discard. Life would explode out of the nitrogen I did not use.

However, this plastic lid to my cup of coffee will find its way into the system. It will not die or be reabsorbed very quickly. For the first time in the history of large individuated life, an organism's discards will outlive the organism. You could argue that the discarded oxygen of the precambrian forms of life did much the same thing, but the stakes are higher now. And as such:

5. Humanity

As in Humanity can no longer change. Think on this: at this point in history, the further speciation of the genus homo is no longer possible. Humanity is too connected for a separation event to last long enough for the nucleic acids to mutate that much. We can no longer evolve. People the world over are mating with diverse other people, which I think is great. I participate in the activity myself whenever possible. Racism won't be possible when we're all the same shade of caramel. On the other hand, it also hands us a standard and unified truth. This is the only humanity we will have for a long, long time. There will be no waiting around for better people. We are all there will be. This is our one shot.

Shot to do what? Improve, I guess. Improve our lives, our culture, our species. We have the ability, we do not have the will. We need to get our heads out of our global asses.

6. Causality is Bullshit

There are no causes.

Wednesday, May 23, 2007

A Request

If you notice, the last post was a statement of my being. That was something I've been wanting to do for a while, and I figured I would state a different being verb correlating to the alphabet for twenty three posts. The decision to spend time on self introduction sprang from a brief self-introduction of the author in one of my favorite travelogue. He said something intelligent sounding about people not being able to visualize characters without them being described. Then I realized I had nothing for "B."

I also realized that I am not the kind of person who can do the same thing twenty three times in a row. The thought is scrapped. I also have another idea that will be a complete departure for this site that may show up if I decide it's worth the time. Two departures, in fact. I think I already mentioned the Friday Fiction thing. Besides, lately my writing has been shit, so a departure might be nice.

On to the point:

So, I have an idea. I'm thinking of having a debate.


Recently, someone disagreed with my views on a minor topic, and I have to admit to being captivated. I have debated the issue, which I don't really care that much about, with others before with passion and fire. I have good ammo. I have presentations and parallels to show the wide-eyed audience. I considered making a PowerPoint.


I don't know how to do this. I want the debate moderated, but informal as I have no idea how formal debate actually works. The moderators should be people who are either dispassionate on the subject or people who are able to be rational. I'm not sure I have that many fans, for lack of a better word, who fit the criteria.


Also, the location of the forum. Gmail? Conference call? Smoke signals?


I don't even know why I'm giving it this much thought as it would be less debate and more of an argument, really.


Any ideas are welcome. I'll be more or less absent for the rest of the week and on into the weekend, but I may get a few minutes before Friday to worry about all this.

Monday, May 21, 2007

I Am Argumentative

At some point I will have truly given up on this semidaily vomitous mass of words and I will start doing what I have wanted to do all along: just pass on links from The Onion.

I have read The Onion now for years. A friend of mine used to have a subscription and quite a bit of CPSD 51's Internet resources were dedicated to downloading their Statshot and Infographic features. I don't think I have a sense of humor of my own, I just adopted snide Tom Servo lines and memorized swaths of The Onion.

What truly makes The Onion funny as I get older and maybe more mature is the parallels I can find between the universe of my favorite root vegetable and my own life.

They have an article running right now entitled Area Man Somehow Roped Into Arguing Passionately For Green Day. I don't think you'd ever catch me arguing over Green Day, but this situation has become exceedingly common in my life. I find myself defending thoughts and practises that i really don't even like. Maybe it's because so many of the subjects are related to a demographic I pretend to identify with.

I have found myself in loud and impassioned arguments over the validity of oil-assist twin turbos in the International 6.0 Powerstroke. I don't give a shit about that engine. I don't even forsee a time in my life where I would spend the amount of money required to purchase a vehicle so equipped. Independent front suspension? Hate it. Don't know why. 7005 aluminium tubing? Yeah, just try to talk some shit about it. Go ahead, seriously. I will end up defending the crap.

I find myself defending entire genres that I hate. (CAUTION: MUSIC SNOBBERY) Country music is complete garbage. That is a lie, country music is by and large garbage. I bounced in a country bar, I have half of Nashville's catalog memorized and I hate every pandering bullshit lyric. But let someone say Hip-Hop is better. I will be spewing the musical equivalent of Luther's Diet of Worms speech. Why? I don't know.

I will argue the validity of motorsports. Specifically NASCAR, especially if someone is making disparaging or downright cruel remarks about the fanbase of the sport. I don't give two shits about NASCAR. I don't really care about that many practises or issues enough to hate them. Or love them. Why do I keep doing this?

I mean sure, everyone knows Soccer is pointless and boring and a game of sissies, do I have to find new reasons that are intellectually qualified to dislike the "sport?"

Friday, May 18, 2007

non-Fiction Friday

So, I meant to start something new today called "Friday Fiction." You know, just whimsical fun.

I have a complicated reason for not doing that, but that would need a longer post. All I have today is this:

While sitting at home, with no classes to go to or work to do, I decided to turn on the TV. I never watch the TV. Anyway, whatever you do, do not turn this thing on after the news is over in the morning. There were all these shows that really entice a guy's sense of morbid curiosity.

Large women who don't know who they baby's daddy is, this show with Barbara Walters and some very loud older women, some bald-headed psychologist, etc.

I flipped through all four channels you can get up here on the hill and then I saw a familiar face. It was Gary Busey.

On the Jesus channel. Preaching. To Smokey Robinson.

I don't know what else to add.

Wednesday, May 16, 2007

Drunken Ramble #437

I just say he was the leader of a steel driving gang.

What did I say to the captain (What’d I say)? You know, the time he brought the steam drill ‘round.

Shaker you better pray, if you miss your six feet of steel, Tomorrow’s gonna be your burying day, day, day.

Polyanne would have been a hell of a woman. Driving steel like a man and so forth.

Fuck yeah.

Oh Lord.

Whatever. Causality pisses me off. Women and men always try to lay blame here and there when the fact is that there is no one at fault. Sure, that last person to date was a bad person, they fucked around. They ruined good things. They were intriguingly melodramatic. At some point in their developmental life, they were used, abused, misused, misguided, or some other decent reason to be unworthy of continued breathing. Fill it to the top, cause I hit rock bottom this time. This paragraph was not autobiographical.

This song is fun. And rocks. Poor me. Poor me. Pour me another shot of whiskey.

Right, causality. Lately, I been getting into bluegrass more than normal. Banjo rolls are God speaking to the soul of man. Declarative sentences rock. “What does that mean,” ask you.

Well, that means I am shit-hammered, Soon as I make a playlist that consists of almost exclusively of Ray Wylie Hubbard, Hank Williams, and mandolins, shit has went wrong.

I want to play so bad. Music is pouring out of me, but is not flowing into anything. I am not religious, but I’ll be Goddamned if a Blackface Twin with a couple of JBL’s worth of tubes driven to the limits of physics don’t throw me into convulsions.

Wednesday, May 09, 2007

Warning! This Post Contains A Politically Incorrect Joke!

So...whatcha doing.

Drinking. Studying. Drinking and studying.

How's that working out for you?

Eh. I am having some serious give a fuck problems at the moment. Impending deployment and all. I have a hard time worrying about Glassner's lame-ass book about paranoia where he tries to frighten everyone. I can see why Michael Moore likes this guy.

You know, you're the smartest person I know.

I am aware. I should be the only person you know, what with you being my conscience/internal monologue and so forth. You are exclusively my conscience, right?

Um, yeah.

Wait, you mean you work for other people?

Sort of, we've been through the amalgamation thing before. There's a few consciences I timeshare with. I'm also supposed to guide a conch fisherman in La Paz. That's why you seem to be obsessed with Baja, more than likely. Just like I'm the conscience of several Russian prostitutes and a handful of hobos.

That's kind of random. Do you have to draw straws? Like, why the baja kid? Are you sure you're qualified for all this?

We have an eight-week class and a cultural indoc for all the different people we have to be. I am current in several cultures, Indonesian, Indigenous New Zealander, Reformationist Hindu, and I'm working on my Appalachian qual. Kind of a tough one.

Well, most of my microculture derives from similar origins to most of your Appalachian people.

Really?

Oh yeah, I even knew how to yodel at one point. That and all the weird religious backstory is pretty much straight out of the hill people. I think anyway. You'll run into a lot of the same words.

Scrame?

That's one, I still catch myself using it sometimes. Past tense of scream. And Drame, past tense of dream. Also, scrempt.

Scrempt?

An indirect scrame, mostly.

Example.

"A call went out from some Brethren in Carbondale who had a young'n get croupy for the Elders, but they had to leave a day late; the elevator wouldn't take our beans early until Bro. Claudy went and scrempt at 'em."

I don't know whether to be fascinated or not.

I don't either, really. So, how much time do you really spend on me?

I just picked you up for the bullet on my annual eval, but you've taken up a lot of my time. The kid in Baja? He never needs shit from me. Of course, all he does is spear conches. I caught him screwing a tourist's daughter a while back, but I figure what the hell, the kid deserves to misbehave a little.

Tourists in La Paz?

Long story. Hey look at that, a sailor recalled even though he was discharged for being a fruit.

Woah, you can't say it like that! What the fuck kind of conscience are you? Besides, see where he was sent?

Naval customs battalion bravo, Iraq. Ha. That's funny, that's where you're getting recalled into. Know what the difference between your recall and his is?

There's a difference?

Yeah, he LIKES getting fucked in the ass.

Wow. Um...is it OK to laugh at that joke?

Quietly in your head is fine.

Saturday, May 05, 2007

Research is Damned!

I was rumbling through Wikipedia the other day, trying to find something substantial to say about the isolation theory of speciation. About halfway down the article, I happened on a section devoted to epigenetics. In typical Wikipedia form, they immediately circled the wagons around what is really not a controversial issue and breathlessly lined up a tier of pikes, "epigenetics is not a challenge to the Theory of Natural Selection."

I would never have thought that it would be. I see no way that it can. But, they doth protest too much. Perhaps there is something going on in the graveyard that I should be aware of, said I. So, after an exhaustive research of epigenetics, I found absolutely no reason to even ponder why this would be a challenge to TNS. I am biased here and must admit that I find very little that is a challenge to the theory.

Then I thought, "So, you wonderful bastion of sense and intellectual prowess (as I have titled myself), where could we find an opinion on this soft inheritance that could direct one away from the consensus."

I hate consensus and try to veer whenever possible.

Ah, thought I, Conservapedia.com. Were there ever a database of challenges to Darwin, sure this is it. So I typed out the address and struck the enter key with aplomb. I would surely find the chink in all of the scientific elite's armour now!

A page lacking refinement and class burst open in my browser. "Conservapedia" was stamped with authority on Old Glory waving in a badge upon a field of neutral and academic color. This is where those cretins with their doctorates from accredited universities do not want you to go. They will not control me, sayeth I!

I typed in the search field "epigenetics" and struck the enter key again. Nothing. No mention at all of this obviously Achillean problem to this simply unproven theory. Ha! Forsooth! I must have mispelt. I whispered a dastardly chuckle to myself, frightening a few at this wifi hotspot. Their bemusement was of no consequence to myself, the great disprover of the hokery of Evil-ution. I had them on the run now, cursed lovers of monkeys!

I typed carefully this time and hit enter once more. Nothing!

How could these do-gooders with nothing but the kindness of humanity in their hearts not know of this chink in the bricks of scientific conspiracy? So, I too it upon myself to type into the search field. Evolution. After a link was followed I was at a momentous occasion on this day. The Trial of Scopes' Monkeys!

I soldiered through a sentence or two. Apparently the main researchers of American science's last best hope are all in eighth grade. Bryan's oratorical skills were unmatched? How do they know? There was not a footnote. There was no proof whatsoever for the claim. What about Alexander the Great? He may have been a little light in his loofas, but he had to be fairly persuasive. Lincoln? Probably a better orator. What of Jesus? The guy went on for days on some occasions.

No, thought I, this is not the hope of science. This page is no help at all. Who writes these articles? "As crafty as the day is long, [Clarence Darrow] arrived in Tennessee armed with his bag of tricks." Not since sound found a home in motion picture has anyone resorted to such colloquial jargon in sholarly circles.

What the fuck? scrame I. Patrons of the coffee shop fled. So said I to the constable, "But sir, they posit that the defeat of the evolutionists allowed George W. Bush to carry the state of Georgia thus winning the presidential election of 2000."

He was unmoved.

After posting my somewhat unreasonable bail, I tried a new tack on Conservapedia. Surely they would help my revolution in science if I simply looked for the right article. The results are less than encouraging.

Thursday, May 03, 2007

Last One, I Promise

I swear, this will be the last post dealing with her. Maybe if I write it out, I can get her off my mind for good.

Who? Well, the girl who's been parading through all of the posts the last month or so. She flaunts my feelings for her across the ribbons of my mind and her scandalous wanderings through the backdrop of that mind paint any post I can give.

She hints at herself when I write about leaving. She insinuates herself into my words about sex and desire.

She's not a bad girl, just honest. She was honest about the prospects of her being able to wait around a whole year. I wouldn't have asked that of her anyway. Maybe she won't spend this year tied up in knots if I'm not someone she is officially tied to.

She was with me in life and death. I thought I was dying a while back and was absolutely miserable to be around. She stayed by. She held fast. There's a reason boats are named after women.

Now she's gone. I wish I could say she took all my money. My best friend.

Regardless, it's the same old story, and here it comes again.

I have to leave, not only my home and my plans, but I have to leave her. I laid on her, a woman all of ivory and tourmaline (fucking geology references), and I told her that when I come back I know I will not be the same person. Every combatant is a casualty. I have come home from these things before. I could not pretend with her that I would return and we could start where we left off.

I didn't know it was goodbye until her hug lasted a little too long. I promised to call her before I go. Her life is complicated. I have since been informed that before me she hated men. That is an understandable state given her past. I never would have guessed she had anything but love for men, but maybe that love was mine and mine alone, compounding the tragedy of it all.

I hate tragic people. I hate when I am one. Sorry for the lack of funnies and for the lack of anecdote.

I'll call her from the terminal when I'm leaving.