David Brooks on Mother Nature

Apr. 24 - Seems everyone has an opinion about the latest study which concluded that slightly overweight people live longer, and David Brooks weighs in happily, opining that Living Longer Is the Best Revenge:

Mother Nature, we now know, is a saucy wench, who likes to play cosmic tricks on humanity. If the report from researchers at the National Cancer Institute and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is correct - and it is the most thorough done to date - then it seems that Mother Nature has built a little Laffer curve into the fabric of reality: health-conscious people can hit a point of negative returns, so the more fit they are, the quicker they kick the bucket. People who work out, eat responsibly and deserve to live are more likely to be culled by the Thin Reaper.

I can't tell you how happy this makes me. Since I read about this report a few days ago, I haven't been able to stop grinning.

I've been happy because as a member of the community of low-center-of-gravity Americans, I find that a lifetime of irresponsible behavior has been unjustly rewarded. If this study is correct, I'll be ordering second helpings on into my 90's while all those salad-munching health nuts who have been feeling so superior in their spandex pants and cutoff T-shirts will be dying of midriff pneumonia and other condescension-related diseases.

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George lets 'em have it

Apr. 18 - George Steinbrenner is not happy with the performance Yanks record. (Others, of course, are delighted.)

Orioles 8, Yankees 4: With Only 150 Games to Go, Steinbrenner Checks In:

The offense is batting .208 with runners in scoring position, including 4 for 21 over the weekend. The starters have not had a quality start (at least six innings and no more than three earned runs) in nine games. The bullpen has been abysmal, and the Yankees have given up at least seven runs in every loss.

It seems their dismal record has been a solid team effort.

The CNN poll on their home page asks if Steinbrenner over-reacted in criticizing "the highest-paid team in baseball." 85% had said "no last time I checked, which is the first time I can recall so many people siding with George S.

Manager Joe Torres must feel like hockey coach Harry Neale, who is reputed to have said "We can't win at home, we're terrible at home, and my failure as a coach is that I can't think of anywhere else we can play."

Since I'm on a sport topic, it is worth while to mention Lance Armstrong's decision to retire after the Tour de France in July.

I have to go to a meeting tonight and then to work. So long!

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Volcano! (updated)

Apr. 17 - Mount Karthala is definitely cranky, causing Hundreds to flee as volcano belches smoke from the crater.

"The ground has started trembling and we have seen cracks appearing," a local official on the island of Grande Comore, near the scene of the volcanic activity, said.
Residents near the affected villages described a strange smell wafting from the volcano, followed by a steady drizzle of black rain on the Indian Ocean island.

"Villagers are in total darkness, gritty rain is falling and visibility is zero," a resident, who gave his name as Charif, said.

20:07 More here, global location of Comoros Islands here. The lava flow seems to be contained within the crater at present, but the bigger danger is from the poisonous fumes coming out of the volcano.

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Expos Nats begin new season

Neale News

Apr. 15 - I just have to note this moment in history. We have a good friend who is still a diehard Senators fan (he even wrote and published a book about them) and Mark has long bewailed the lack of support for the Expos, who consistently played better than their payroll warranted, so now there a cosmic merging of The Underappreciated and The Arcane as the legacy of the Expos and Senators combine to create the Nationals.

Great article in the Washington Times about the President's intense preparation before throwing the initial pitch including the fact that he warmed up before taking the mound. Guess only women who love baseball lovers would understand, but I just know he constantly peppered Laura with the all-important question: slider or a fastball?

The Times says "It was a fastball. A ball. High and inside to a phantom right-handed batter." Mark said the catcher called it a strike, and I made the error of observing that, sans batter and umpire, it can't be anything because without the latter, It ain't nothing until he calls it.

Mark replied smugly, "The catcher knows" which in itself is a bit of a switch as Mark rarely admits to pitcher error on a wild pitch because it's the catcher's job to catch whatever is thrown. So now a catcher is all-wise and all-knowing? (Of course, Mark was not only a pitcher but a southpaw to boot which are two strikes against his sanity.)

I'm a baseball fan, but I'm not as fanatic as certain people like someone sitting 10 feet away who reads baseball blogs but doesn't read mine ...

Charles Krathammer tries to figure out why he cares about 25 guys he doesn't even know:

It is one thing to root for your son's Little League team. After all, he is your kid, and you paid for his glove -- and uniform, helmet, bat, and, when he turns 9, cup. You have a stake in him, and by extension his team.

But what possible stake do grown men have in the fortunes of 25 perfect strangers, vagabond mercenaries paid obscene sums to play a game for half the year?

The whole thing is completely irrational. For me, this is no mere abstract question. I have been a baseball fan most of my life. I could excuse the early years, the Mantle-Maris era, as mere childish hero worship. But what excuse do I have now? Why should I care about these tobacco-spitting, crotch-adjusting multimillionaires who have never heard of me and would not care if I was dispatched to my maker by an exploding scoreboard?

[...]

Presto. It is 1975 all over again. I begin to care. I want them to win. Why? I have no idea. I begin following day games on the Internet. I've punched not one but two preset Nationals stations onto my car radio. I'm aghast. I'm actually invested in the day-to-day fortunes of 25 lugheads I never heard of until two weeks ago.

The Washington Senators were often observed to be First in war, first in peace, and last in the American league. If only for the sakes of Tom, Mark, George and Charles, I hope the Nationals have a terrific season and make 'em proud.

Apr. 16 - 08:34: Sorry, forgot link to Krauthammer's column. Fixed now.

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The "Nerf"-ing of kids' lives

Apr. 14 - Sometimes Nick at Quotulatiousness drives me nuts. He writes very well, but too often contents himself with just quoting other people leaving his readers thirsty for more.

Now I've got him! He's got a post in which he does much of the driving himself here and scores:

The author also waves that wonderful "self esteem" flag, but that's a rant for another time.

Sooner, please. It's time to take parents off the hook for trying to "raise their child's self-esteem" and getting him/her to do their durned homework so they can get the grades that might make that self-esteem an earned achievement.

I think we may be going too far to attempt to protect our kids from the real world by making even their most competitive environments less challenging (the "Nerf"-ing of kids' lives). How much of a shock is the real world going to be to someone who's never been exposed to the good and the bad of real personal conflicts outside the home?

The "Nerf"-ing of kids lives. Perfectly stated.

Read the whole thing.

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Volcano!

Apr. 13 - Now Mount Talang is acting up (Thousands flee Sumatra volcano) coinciding with a series of moderate earthquakes which are most likely aftershocks of the December earthquake that caused the devastating tsunami, in the region.

PBS has a terrific series some years ago called "Rim of Fire" (maybe it was a NOVA presentation?) about the volcanos that dot the land masses in and around the Pacific.

No real content to this post, I just find plate techtonics fascinating, all the more so when it was learned that the planet Mars has one single plate (so why all the volcanos there? As I said, fascinating.)

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Pope John Paul II 1920-2005

Pope John Paul II waves to pigrims in Sept., 1989
CLAUDIO LUFFOLI/AP

Apr. 3 - There is absolutely nothing I can write that I would consider an appropriate tribute to this Pope. Such a tribute lies best in the hearts of the many of us who celebrate his life and mourn his passing.

There is something discomfitting about the death watches we have held - the one for Terri Schiavo was followed much too quickly by the one for the Pope. They are linked not only by time but by by content and although I am not a particularly religious person I can't avoid feeling that there is deep significance therein which I can barely grasp but trying to define it substantively still eludes me.

The obvious is that we should revere life in the infirm young and infirm old. We should not presume to play God but leave those things which are the province of God firmly in His hands.

Maybe it is about humility for the grace of the human spirit and awe for sustained endurance in the face of suffering on both physical and spiritual planes.

Parkinson's disease wracks the body with pain and disability, yet the Pope did not complain but instead resisted mediction to alleviate that pain because he believed his suffering brought him closer to our Lord. Most of us are unlikely to emulate his example but we cannot ignore it.

I find it disgusting that those who so recently disparaged efforts to save Terri Schiavo (including some despicable characterizations of her physical state) and spoke scornfully of the "religious right" cannot - or dare not - be so dismissive and disrespectful as the world marks the death of the man who spoke so fervently on behalf of the sanctity of life, who joined in the calls to let Terri live, and who led the Roman Catholic Church which, by it's continued opposition to contraception, abortion and homosexuality, stands somewhat to the right of those who have been so recently under attack.

Do those whose vicious words so recently attacked those of us who pled for mercy for Terri Schiavo recognize their hypocrisy as they remain silent or, worse, speak with feigned admiration of the Pope? Or do they believe their words of tribute sincere because they have been, by their own blindness, rendered incapable of seeing beyond their ideology to be struck with this unmistakable connection?

I don't support the Church's positions on homosexuality and contraception nor do I support wholly the Church's position on abortion (my personal belief of "a women's right to choose" is limited to the first 3 months and I expect sexually active women to use contraceptives.) But I am also not surprised that the Church adheres to those doctrines. As the lesson of Galileo's struggle with the Church demonstrates, the Church is implacable on matters of faith.

Yet despite my differences with the Church I found a revival of my religious leanings through this Pope, and believe that many people feel the same way. Charles Krauthammer addresses this:

I am not much of a believer, but I find it hard not to suspect some providential hand at play when the white smoke went up at the Vatican 27 years ago and the Polish cardinal was chosen to lead the Catholic Church. Precisely at the moment the West most desperately needed it, we were sent a champion. It is hard to remember now how dark those days were. The 15 months following the pope's elevation marked the high tide of Soviet communism and the nadir of the free world's post-Vietnam collapse.

[...]

And yet precisely at the time of this free-world retreat and disarray, a miracle happens. The Catholic Church, breaking nearly 500 years of tradition, puts itself in the hands of an obscure non-Italian -- a Pole who, deeply understanding the East European predicament, rose to become, along with Roosevelt, Churchill and Reagan, one of the great liberators of the 20th century.

This first ever Polish Pope transformed the world because

He demonstrated what Europe had forgotten and Stalin never knew: the power of faith as an instrument of political mobilization.

Under the benign and deeply humane vision of this pope, the power of faith led to the liberation of half a continent. Under the barbaric and nihilistic vision of Islam's jihadists, the power of faith has produced terror and chaos. That contrast alone, which has dawned upon us unmistakably ever since 9/11, should be reason enough to be grateful for John Paul II. But we mourn him for more than that. We mourn him for restoring strength to the Western idea of the free human spirit at a moment of deepest doubt and despair. And for seeing us through to today's great moment of possibility for both faith and freedom.

World leaders have marking the passing of Pope John Paul II with tributes and praise, including the unlikely country of Cuba, one place where the ruling elite is least likely to mourn his passing:

"We always saw, and continue to see, Juan Pablo II as a friend," Cuban Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque said. "We express our message of condolences and respect to all Catholic believers in Cuba and all of the world."

Poland's solidarity movement began shortly after the Pope's visit there in 1979 and culminated into the fall of Cuba's one ally, the Soviet Union. I doubt that fact has escaped Cuba's rulers, but even they dare not try to stop the faithful in Cuba from mourning.

This may say it best for me:

"We all feel like orphans this evening," said Vatican's Undersecretary of State Archbishop Leonardo Sandri.

Orphans, that is to say, with the comfort of a guiding hand and a renewed faith in the immense power of that hand to imbue the human spirit to defy that which would constrain it.

12:50 - I should have read Michelle Malkin earlier. My belief that MSM and others would have respect for the Pope was completely wrong.

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"You don't know how good you are"

Apr 1 - The bells are tolling. Pope John Paul II has died.

When he was in Toronto for World Youth Day, he gently told the assembled "You don't know how good you are."

Words to cheer, to comfort and aspire to.

I'm sorry, I just can't write about this now.

13:49 - The news now states the Pope's heart and heart are still functioning, which by my definition means he is still alive.

I should try to get some sleep. I should at least try to rest. I can't explain it, but it somehow seems disrespectful not to maintin a private vigil as he slips away.

Apr. 2 - Fox reported at 14:59 that AP had announced that the Pope had died. At 15:04, they reported that the Vatican had sent out an email informing news media of the death. As of 15:23, the lights in his apartment have not been turned off. I find that break with tradition to be comforting, as though to remind us that the body fails but the spirit remains illuminated.

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