You might think going after tobacco companies or auto manufacturers is taking on the big fish, but try taking on the Roman Catholic Church…in Italy…and asking them to prove that Jesus existed. Now that’s big fish. Read about it here.
If I’d known you could get away with this kind of exercise in academia I might have tried a little harder to stay between the ivied walls. I don’t know if I’m more impressed with the fact that the author of the paper could get credit for exploring the implications of the f-bomb or that he could get away with a four letter title: Fuc- (I’ll let you guess the fourth letter). Following is the abstract for the piece (please note that since this a family blog and I never cuss I’ve edited out the offending word…okay, I admit it’s just because I don’t want to get inundated with a bunch of porn related comment spam):
Abstract:
This Article is as simple and provocative as its title suggests: it
explores the legal implications of the word f—. The intersection of
the word f— and the law is examined in four major areas: First
Amendment, broadcast regulation, sexual harassment, and education. The
legal implications from the use of f— vary greatly with the context.
To fully understand the legal power of f—, the nonlegal sources of
its power are tapped. Drawing upon the research of etymologists,
linguists, lexicographers, psychoanalysts, and other social scientists,
the visceral reaction to f— can be explained by cultural taboo. F—
is a taboo word. The taboo is so strong that it compels many to engage
in self-censorship. This process of silence then enables small segments
of the population to manipulate our rights under the guise of
reflecting a greater community. Taboo is then institutionalized through
law, yet at the same time is in tension with other identifiable legal
rights. Understanding this relationship between law and taboo
ultimately yields f— jurisprudence.
Who knew you could write a sentence that ends with the phrase “f— jurispudence”?
This story is like something out of a Carl Hiaasen or Elmore Leonard book. A guy named Dom Perignon Champagne was killed in a couple of years ago in a shooting that was apparently gang related and involved an ex-Navy marksman. Dom’s mother’s name is Perfect Engelberger. You really can’t make stuff like that up.
When I was a kid, way back in the 70s, my favorite toy was my SSP racer. I haven’t seen them for years..until now. Someone has loaded a video of old 70s toy commercials on YouTube. Commercials include Bing Bang Boing, SSP, SSP Pee Wees, Water Wiggle, Bug-Out!, Screech, Masterpiece.
Totally unrelated: when I was a kid I asked my mother why God let hurricanes happen. She used my SSP as an analogy and I’ve never forgotten it, but that’s another post.
A scientist has poured orthodontal plaster down ant hills to create a perfect cast of what they look like. Visit here to see the full gallery.
The boys at Freakonomics have come up with another interesting point. In this one they posit that we’ll probably see a disproportionate number of players born in January and February in this year’s World Cup. Their reasoning has to do with FIFA’s adopting a January 1 cutoff date for determining eligibility on national youth soccer teams which should have a ripple effect throughout the rest of the players’ careers.
Upon further review they decided that since different countries use different dates for their own "in country" purposes that the World Cup might not be the best example. So they looked at the NHL and found a very strong relationship between birth months early in the year and participation in the league (hardly any players were born between September and December).
I was one of those kids with a September birthday that could make me either the oldest kid or youngest kid in the class. My mom was told that if I was held back I’d probably get bored and become a troublemaker so she opted for me to be the youngest, which wasn’t really a problem until 8th and 9th grade. I was a late bloomer so when I got out of 9th grade I was barely 5 feet tall which didn’t help my athletic or romantic prospects.
For 10th grade I transferred to a small private school (85 students) and by default all the boys played every sport. That coincided with my first growth spurt so by the time I was through 11th grade I was 5’8 and getting some playing time on the soccer field and basketball court. My senior year I was 6 feet tall and weighed in at 150 pounds (I couldn’t put weight on no matter how hard I tried) and I averaged 16 points a game on the varsity basketball team. I often wonder what kind of high school career I would have had if I was held back a year. I put 20 pounds on my freshman year of college and I can only imagine I would have had a pretty good senior year.
No regrets though; I might have been good enough to get a scholarship to a small school which would have changed the course of my whole life. I wouldn’t have gone to GMU, met my wife and as happy as I am now I wouldn’t do anything to change those eventualities.
Back to the original point: in my mind there is absolutely no doubt that the arbitrary cut-off dates that youth sports leagues use has a huge impact on kids’ level of success.
There’s an interesting post on Freakonomics call "Luckonomics, Anyone?" in which Stephen Dubner says:
In the vast majority of the “success literature” I’ve read (including
rags-to-riches autobiographies as well as the biographies of
politicians, athletes, businesspeople, etc.) and the vast, vast majority
of the media appearances and lectures I’ve seen by successful people,
luck is almost never mentioned as a major contributor. It’s always
dedication, hard work, brilliance, grace under pressure, etc.
He goes on to say that he’s been encouraged recently to read articles in which luck is recognized as a large factor in some person’s or entity’s success. I’ll throw my hat in the ring with Mr. Dubner and say that I firmly believe that luck, both good and bad, is a huge component of everyone’s life.
I’d like to add, however, that I think that if you were to read interviews with many people they will attribute their success to God, Yahweh, Allah, etc. I think they would argue that good fortune bestowed by God is not the same as good luck, or that bad luck is not equivalent to God’s wrath because the faithful basically believe that God has an active hand in their lives. Personally I subscribe to the weather theory; that God had an active hand in our creation, including our capacity for critical thinking and that the rest has been left up to us.
That means I do believe in luck. If my house is struck by lightning do I blame God? No, it just so happened that my house was in the wrong place at the wrong time. If I’m watching a baseball game and a screaming foul ball misses my head by inches but brains the minister sitting behind me do I credit God’s guiding hand? No, I just got lucky that I was sitting in my seat and not in the seat behind me. After all if God’s hand guided the ball away from my head that means that it also guided it to hit the minister which really doesn’t make a lot of sense.
When I was a teenager I used to watch the news and see the video of mass starvation in Ethiopia and wonder, "Why would God allow that to happen?" and I’d also wonder at why I was born and raised in a rich country, never missing a meal in my life and surrounded by caring and thoughtful people. Why wasn’t I born in Ethiopia, surrounded by starving and desperate people? I just couldn’t buy the idea that God intentionally put children in that spot. I still don’t buy it.
So what I do think is this: God created this universe and everything in it. God gave human beings the ability, the right, to be free and to think for themselves and with it the responsibility to manage their little corner of the universe. Luck, good and bad, is a result of the trials that God built into the universal order. Bad weather, bad people, bad decisions, etc. are an intentional aspect of God’s creation. It is our test to see how we use our tools, our rights, to respond to our good or bad luck, and our "grade" will help determine where we’ll eventually go when we move into the next realm.
If you are a fortunate one do you endeavor to share your good fortune? If you are an unfortunate one do you exact revenge on the more fortunate, or do you endeavor to change your fortunes? Personally I feel I’ve been very fortunate in this life (one longtime friend says there must be something called "Lowder Luck" because I tend to get very lucky breaks very often) but I worry that I have not done enough to share my good fortunes. Perhaps it is time to change that.
A big ‘ol chunk of ice fell on a park in Oakland and apparently it wasn’t frozen poo from a plane since it was clean and clear. This is happening more frequently around the world and one theory has it that ice is forming on the bellies of planes and then falling off. Another theory being put forward by a scientist is this:
As global warming continues to heat the earth, his theory
goes, upper atmospheric temperatures become cooler, opening more
opportunities for the ice to form.
My first question is this: even if it is coming from the bellies of planes why hasn’t it happened before? What has changed?
My second question is whether or not anyone knows where I can buy a steel umbrella.
I’ve been driving a 2002 Saturn SL for a few years now. I bought it when I was commuting into DC because it got good mileage, it was easy to park, it fit the entire family comfortably (the kids were a lot smaller then) and who in the hell would steal a Saturn? Since moving to NC it has been relegated to family back-up status and the mileage primarily comes from my occasional drives to DC for business. I’m going to hold onto it so the kids can drive it in about two years. It’s a reliable car, but no one has ever uttered "Saturn" and "cool" in the same sentence. Until now…check out the Sky.
Befuddled 