2012 and scientists

by e-strategyblog.com
2012: Or, How the New Hollywood Loves Scientists, Even Though It Still Hates Plausibility
[Via The Intersection]

Last night I was privileged to attend a screening of the latest catastrohpic sci-fi blockbuster, Roland Emmerich’s 2012. And let me say, if you’re like me and love action-packed Hollywood world-enders, then you don’t want to miss this one. It is even bigger and better and crazier and more decadent than Emmerich’s The Day After Tomorrow.

Given Unscientific America’s argument about how Hollywood depictions have hurt the place of science in our culture, I couldn’t help analyzing this film through that lens (once I finished suspending my disbelief, anyway). And I have to say, 2012 presents the latest evidence that anti-science sentiment in Hollywood is really declining: We’re seeing a lot fewer mad scientists in major Hollywood films today, and a lot more scientist heroes.

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I’m not so sure that it is the New Hollywood, that is portraying scientists any differently. I am sure that Roland Emmerich movies almost always have a strong rational hero, usually a scientist. They usually start out as some hardworking researcher out on the fringes whose work becomes the dominating theme of the movie. Their emotional and moral foundations provide the needed clarity for their rational solutions. Let’s take a look at some of the ones he wrote as well as directed.

Stargate – James Spader’s character, Dr. Daniel Jackson, is a very smart researcher who is using his vast skills to propose theories that everyone else sees as wrong but turn out to be correct. His keen insights reveal the true nature of the Stargate. He ends up on the mission to enter the Stargate, acts as a moral compass for the mission, solves the problem of how to get back and gets the girl in the end.

Independence Day – Jeff Goldblum’s character, David Levinson, is a very smart computer scientist who is using his vast skills at a cable TV company. His keen insights reveal the true nature of the hidden messages of the aliens. He ends up on the mission to fight the aliens, acts as a moral compass for the mission, solves the problem of how to destroy their ships and may get the girl in the end.

Godzilla – Matthew Broderick’s character, Dr. Niko Tatopoulos, is a very smart researcher who is using his vast skills to investigate the effects of radiation on wildlife at Chernobyl. His keen insights reveal the true nature of Godzilla. He ends up on the mission to destroy Godzilla, acts as a moral compass for the mission, solves the reproductive mystery of Godzilla, and probably gets the girl in the end.

The Day After Tomorrow – Dennis Quaid’s character, Dr. Jack Hall, is a very smart researcher who is using his vast skills to investigate climate change in Antarctica. His keen insights reveal the true nature of the climactic catastrophe. He ends up on a mission to save his son, acts as a moral compass for the mission, solves the problem of surviving intense cold and surely gets the girl in the end.

2012 – Chiwetel Ejiofor’s character, Dr. Adrian Helmsley, is a very smart researcher who is using his vast skills to investigate abnormal changes in the Earth. His keen insights reveal the true nature of the global catastrophe. He ends up on the mission to save the remnants of mankind, acts as the moral compass of the mission, solves the problem that saves the ark and looks like he will get the girl in the end.

Yep, Roland Emmerich seems to have the same character in each movie. This is almost always portrayed as the rational man, the one who, while displaying strong emotions, uses reason to solve the crisis facing everyone.

I would say that Roland Emmerich is singlehandedly portraying scientists as heros because he does like the character. Combining the Wise Old Man with the Young Hero in order to solve the problem presented by the movie gives Emmerich a lot to work with.

I talked about 2012 the other day when I saw it. The theme of how do we react to changes in our world, some of them extreme, is a constant in these Emmerich movies. And in each he uses a rational man, a scientist, to explicitly espouse the rationale for what to do as well as provide a moral center for the reasons why.

For not only are these rational men (and he often uses just men) often directly responsible for the solutions to the crisis, they almost always present an emotional viewpoint that directly drives the narrative. Jackson’s emotional connections to Sha’uri allow him to not only protect their world from being destroyed but also results in the death of Ra. Levinson’s connection to his ex-wife results in his direct role in saving the world.

Tatopoulos connection to … well, let’s just forget about the travesty that is Godzilla. Hall’s connection to his son drives what the movie is about. Helmsley’s connection to humanity results in the climactic scene that saves tens of thousands of people.

Each of the characters also acts to provide a moral center in the movie. They question the often corrupt nature of authority figures, such as politicians and the military. They make sure the right things are done for the right reasons. They know more than anyone the dangers to be encountered yet face these troubles with courage.

Not to say that Emmerich always makes the same movie. I mean 10,000 B.C. and the Patriot are examples. But in his modern movies, particularly ones that deal with vast changes in societies, he presents scientists as the role model for how to properly navigate the new shoals. These characters give him the ability to present rational responses to the problems rather than strictly emotional ones.

However, in each case, it is the scientist’s emotional arc that really drives the movie. These are not unfeeling automatons. In fact, almost every scientist portrayed in these movies is shown to have strong human emotions. John Billingsley’s character, Professor West, in 2012 has just a few lines but one of them, almost yelled at the end, changes the course of the movie. Ian Holm’s death in The Day After Tomorrow and Jimi Mistry’s in 2012 show that other rational men in these movies are strongly emotional human beings.

That is really the thread that runs through each of these characters. They are logical in their approaches to the problems they confront. But these solutions are rooted in very emotional roots. In fact, in these movies, the scientists are often the most human of any character. They provide not only the rational solutions to the problems but also the moral clarity about doing the right thing.

It is their humanity and courage in the face of significant problems that demonstrate how to deal with a complex, ever shifting world. That is why I think that these movies will be seen as representative examples of movies made during this time. Just as watching many of the movies of the 30s can give us some insight into the Great Depression, so will movies like these that are being made today provide insight into the current times.

Yeah, I can write a lot of hooey about almost anything. But I do believe that the stories we tell ourselves during troubled times are attempts to deal with the problems we face. And even something that has no real aspirations above being a great popcorn movie, such as 2012, can still inform us.

Stories are how we learn to deal with the world. That is it is important to see what sorts of stories we are telling.

[Listening to: Surfer's Life from the album "Surf-N-Burn" by Blue Stingrays]

[Listening to: Rockaliser Baby from the album "The Doughnut In Granny's Greenhouse (Remastered)" by Bonzo Dog Band]

Not the Seattle news we like to hear

by orcmid
Not A Good Start  
[Via Eschaton]

That’s not supposed to happen.

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No one was on board but until there is a good reason for this, it sure makes traveling on the train line a little scary.

How it always starts

by bsabarnowl

As if they need help with this
[Via Pharyngula]

Clearly modeling his strategy after the anti-vaccination campaigns, Stephen explains how to cobble up your own homemade controversy on just about any subject. All you have to do is ignore all the evidence and invent a non-existent danger, and people will believe anything you say.

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Not only has he exposed their schemes but he also knows how they make money at it. Controversy will always get them on TV. And if they are glib enough, they’ll get passed around.

Maybe I’ll do mine about radial tires. See, the circular tread means that when they blow out, the tire wraps itself around the wheel, causing you to lose control, both of steering and braking control and then die in a sheet of flame. But bias tires will blow themselves off of the wheel, allowing you to come to a easy stop.

Or maybe ball point pens. In order to get the ink to flow unnaturally around the ball, all sorts of weird chemicals must be added to the ink. Using a ball point over time will cause your hands to become contaminated by these compounds, and is responsible for the rise in the cancer rates over the last 100 years. In contrast, the india ink used in fountain pens is made from natural sources. It is much safer for us all to use fountain pens. The basic principle has for hundreds if not thousands of years.

Or rice. Rice is really bad for you because the kernels are so small. This means that they can get stuck in the pockets found in everyone’s throats, especially the ones near the vocal cords. Over time, these pockets could become overfilled and cause severe blockage, preventing you from getting food into your stomach and eventually starving to death. This is made even worse by the large number of tonsillectomies performed in the US. The tonsils exist to prevent the overfilling of the throat pockets

This could be a lot of fun!

Chose a new project

from Wikipedia.

I think Stephen may have to start on another film:

In the July 2009 issue of Fantastique magazine, director Sommers had the following to say in an interview: “Steven Spielberg and I have a great script for When Worlds Collide. We just have to wait now because of Roland Emmerich’s 2012. It’s too close a project.”

2012 already did his movie and it will be almost impossible to top. It is too close a project.

[Some small spoilers follow]

I just got back from 2012 and it was so much better than I could have imagined. A great disaster movie has to have great special effects. 2012 does have those, with entire cities falling into the oceans.

But the good movies usually present something else. They present a series of postulates and provide examples to answer them.

How we as people should deal with the world when it completely changes, when things alter so far that they can not be the same again? Do we all panic and run around screaming? Or do we try and find something constructive to do?

Do we sit around pissing in our pants? Do we climb over everyone else and devil take the hindmost? Do we try and maintain our humanity or descend into purely animalistic violence?

All great questions for society today as we change from one phase to another, from Industrial Age to Information age, from fossil fuels to green energy, from exponential growth to sustainability.

2012 is a really well done lightweight movie but it does try and present some answers to these questions. That is why I think it may have a longer term impact than a simple popcorn movie might.

And as I was watching it, I was reminded a lot of When Worlds Collide. The causes of civilization’s destruction are different in the two movies and the scope of the special effects are not on par (the difference between an ‘A’ movie with 10s of millions to spend and a ‘B’ science fiction movie).

We have Danny Glover, as the President, suggest that perhaps they should have held a lottery to determine who gets a seat. That is exactly how ‘When Worlds Collide’ did it. 2012 took a different route to populate the arks. So it seemed to me that there was a wink at “When Worlds Collide” in 2012.

But a lot of the tropes are really similar. We have scientists who know what is happening, politicians dealing with the crisis, corrupt businessmen throwing their money, children in peril and a good-looking lead to sympathize with. We have arks to carry the survivors to a new world. We have love triangles.

The general sweep of the narrative is very close. The questions are similar, although answered slightly differently.

And in neither does the businessman make it on the ark while the good looking lead does. The third wheel of the triangle dies nobly. That is not a spoiler. We knew that was going to happen. There is a reason they are cliches.

But the reason 2012 may have any impact has to be more than simply great effects destroying the world. I mean, it does a great job doing that but it is the personal stories that really matter. Besides simply destroying everything, the reason for this sort of movie can rise above mediocrity is by how it answers those questions, what is the right way to react in the face of such terrible change.

Our stories are lessons, teaching us what our society expects of its members. 2012 does a remarkably good job presenting very strong examples of how to act through world-shaking change.

We can have the competent courage of John Cusack or Chiwetel Ejofor, the quiet dignity of Danny Glover, or the weaselly shouting of Oliver Platt. We can have John Billingsley, playing a minor scientific character, step up in his moment and utter the few words that allow the entire course of the narrative to shift 180 degrees. We can have George Segal, trying to call his estranged son for the last time or Johann Urb competently saving people’s lives while putting his a extreme risk.

The new ‘When Worlds Collide’ may have different special effects and a slightly different plot, but it will really cover the same narrative ground. Same questions and similar answers. Only it will be second and possibly travel on the same path that 2012 has blazed.

So I think it could end up like Deep Impact vs. Armageddon.

Not that either of those is as great a film of their type as 2012. But everyone remembers the narrative sweep of Armageddon while few do for Deep Impact. Similar narrative arcs are present in both, but Armageddon does so in ways that viscerally affect us while Deep Impact does not.

I’m afraid something similar would be in line for a remake of ‘When Worlds Collide.’ It is really hard to see how it could engage our senses with even better special effects for the end of the world, while doing a better job with its personal narrative.

What I would suggest is not to remake ‘When Worlds Collide” but to make the movie of the sequel, After Worlds Collide. No one has made a modern disaster movie that deals with the aftermath. In 2012, the three arks that carry the people left of humanity sail to Africa. Fade out. Independence Day – one final speech and fade out. The Day After Tomorrow – transfer everything to Mexico and fade out.

Tell us what happens next.

Tell us of how they manage to survive.What type of courage will be needed AFTER tremendous changes have altered the world? How does civilization actually survive and how does it look?

Tell us how that story should go. Because someday we are going to get past the problems we face. What should that world look like and what types of people do we want to be in it?

[Yes, I can not believe I wrote this much about a movie that should have been as slight as 2012. It is not meant to be a really deep movie and many characters are stereotypes. But they are cliches in the grand tradition of Jung and Joseph Campbell. There is a reason their actions become so important to us and why it is important to understand somewhat the overarching rationales for the narrative we are presented.]

[And yes, it is my ability to write these sorts of things about movies that helped raise my GPA at CalTech. Two quarters of classes where we watched movies and wrote about them. I got very good grades!]

Technorati Tags: General

British stiff upper lip

There is something to be said for the phlegmatic nature of the British. I imagine that if I were attacked by a lion, even if it was only playing, I’d be screaming my head off. Of course, I’d then probably be dead.

Here, the attacked reporter is actually more excited about getting some stitches, which he is around to get because he was so very calm as the lion bit him, while clawing his back. Why don’t we have any reporters in America as interesting?

Drumline of the gods

Awesome to the corps

[Via Bad Astronomy]

When I was in high school I was a marching band dork. Shocker, I know. But let me tell you something: we were good. Very good. We won a lot of competitions, and we hosted a drum and bugle corps competition at our school that pulled in the best from around the country. To this day, all these decades later, it’s still the loudest thing I have ever heard.

We humans have incredible talents: imagination, cleverness, dexterity, and musical abilities that are truly astonishing. Don’t believe me? Then behold:

Un. Flipping. Believable.

Those guys have major talent. Watch the bit from 4:50 to 5:10 again, and call those guys dorks. Holy mackerel, they rock.

Tip o’ the chapeau to Fark.

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Why I love the Internet. I played drums in the marching band in high school. We won state but never had a drum line like this. The Top Secret Drum Corps are from Basel. Switzerland. According to Wikipedia, they were one of the fist non-military groups to appear at the Edinburgh Military Tatoo in 2003, giving a performance that made them a little famous.

The performance from Bad Astronomy is from the Basel Tatoo, which was started in 2006, is now the second largest tatoo, and whose producer is the leader of the Top Secret Drum Corps.

But, if you want to be amazed, watch their performance from just this last August at the 2009 Edinburgh Military Tatoo. Flaming drum sticks and exploding bass drums!!

I’ve been drinking it

If Dr. Seuss Designed Produce…

[Via Cosmic Variance]

…he would have invented the dragon fruit.

Look at it! It’s fantastic! And when you cut it open:

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Dragonfruit is in the Vitamin Water I have been drinking, at least one of the types. I had been a little afraid to check out hat it was but this is really a nice thing to see.

There are plants available. I wonder how well they would do in the Pacific NW?Protect from frost but I wonder if they could really grow.

[Listening to: Komm, Gib Mir Deine Hand from the album "The Beatles.]

‘The reality of a world without Princess Di’

On Today’s Edition of ‘Onion or CNN’ …:
[Via First Draft]

Horrific 120-Car Pileup A Sad Reminder Of Princess Diana’s Death
A.

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Satire seems more mainstream every day. So few people seem able to tell the difference. This was just too close to what CNN, Fox, etc. do almost every week.

Technorati Tags: General

New and improved

Well, after updating to Snow Leopard, I had to also update a few of my programs, in particular, my blog editing software, ecto.

I love ecto but the new version, ecto 3, has taken a little getting used to. It has some thing missing from previous versions (nothing major) and some really nice additions (auto saving of drafts, for instance).

Mainly, it has taken me a while to alter my workflow somewhat to take advantage of some of its new bells and whistles. It has some really nice templates for adding stuff to the post.

Like below, I can easily add all the info about what I am listening to on iTunes while I work, with all the links, etc. with just a click of a button. Cool.

I decided to make the links go to iTunes rather than the default Google search. It is a little easier to connect with the songs that way. At least for me. Some of my songs may not be on iTunes but most will. Let me know what you think.

But all this is possible because of the ability to mashup my aggregator (NetNewsWire) to ecto, using URLs, which takes you to iTunes. Then my posts get moved over to Facebook or Twitter. So, a few minutes of mashing and I get lots of things posted and linked.

Listening to: Alive and Well and Living In from the album “Living in the Past” by Jethro Tull.

Listening to: All Along the Watchtower from the album “Dylan & The Dead” by Bob Dylan & Grateful Dead.

Do it the way Charlie did

by Smabs Sputzer

100 years of Big Content fearing technology—in its own words – Ars Technica

[Via Ars Technica]

It’s almost a truism in the tech world that copyright owners reflexively oppose new inventions that do (or might) disrupt existing business models. But how many techies actually know what rightsholders have said and written for the last hundred years on the subject?

The anxious rhetoric around new technology is really quite shocking in its vehemence, from claims that the player piano will destroy musical taste and the “national throat” to concerns that the VCR is like the “Boston strangler” to claims that only Hollywood’s premier content could make the DTV transition a success. Most of it turned out to be absurd hyperbole, but it’s interesting to see just how consistent the words and the fears remain across more than a century of innovation and a host of very different devices.

So here they are, in their own words—the copyright holders who demanded restrictions on player pianos, photocopiers, VCRs, home taping, DAT, MP3 players, Napster, the DVR, digital radio, and digital TV.

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A great article showing the Big Content always fears technology and always says that it is the end of the world, with Armageddon right around the corner if things change.

Well, it may be a big change for the people who make money off of content but not for the creators of such content. As I showed the other day, it is extremely easy for someone to create great content without the need for any Big Content companies.

As with previous technology changes, the really disruptive change is who makes money and how it is made. At one time, player piano roll companies were charged with copyright infringement. Just recently, MP3 players were viewed an inherent vehicles of infringement, simply for existing.

I think there should be a recognition that the best way to make money is on the things that can not be replicated digitally – the performer. At the moment, a novelist goes on a book tour to promote a book. A more likely scenario would be that the book is free for a PDF, cheap for a bound version but where the author makes money is from a tour where people pay to listen.

The article even makes a hint at this observation:

Content owners aren’t always wrong to say they’re being unfairly harmed (one thinks of writers like Dickens and Tolkien whose works were reprinted in the US without payment, though it did help fuel a lucrative lecture business for Dickens), and lobbyists and trade groups would be derelict if they didn’t conjure up worst-case scenarios and try to keep them from happening. Unfortunately, though, as we look over the statements above, the total result of this resistance to new technology is clear: it limits (or attempts to limit) innovation.

I have an old copy of the Times (from London) published on April 17, 1861. Right smack in the middle of the front page is this news item:

Mr. CHARLES DICKENS To-morrow, for the last time at St. James’s-hall, Piccadilly, will read the STORY of LITTLE DOMBEY and the TRIAL from PICKWICK. Stalls, 4s: balconies and areas, 5s: gallery, 1s : at Messrs. Chapman and Hall’s, 123, Piccadilly; and at Mr. Austin’s, ticket office, St. James’s Hall.

Quite a nice thing. This was right in the middle of his serialization of Great Expectations. His serials were probably driving his speaking engagements. Even if he was paid just a few hundred pounds for the stories, his personal appearances were bringing in the big bucks. You can see what the program would have looked like from a similar reading tour a few years earlier.

Now Dickens worked really hard at giving engaging readings. He developed a whole set of prompt copies to help him. By all accounts he was a real master, altering the presentation on the fly, creating an extemporaneous presentation more like a one man show than a simple reading.

Dickens continued to give quite a few of these at St. James’s Hall, ending in 1868, with his Farewell Readings for which he was paid 8000 shillings. This would be about £238,908.79 today.

And the cost of admission is not too different from today. 5 shillings then would be about £150 today. And the base price would be about £30. Whitney Houston’s 2010 tour of England has tickets ranging from £50 to £100. Not too different.

The St. James’s Hall held a little over 2000 seats. Say the average seat was 2 shillings. A sold out Hall would gross 4000 shillings which would be £200 or £118,954.40 today. For one date, and Dickens contracted for 100!

He had been doing readings since at least 1858 pulling in quite a bit of money. In 1859, he was clearing 500 shillings a week (about £16,829.91 today). I would wager that he was making substantially more from these readings than from the books themselves. And others who managed the tour were making quite a bit also.

Dickens had fought his whole life against people who stole his work outright to publish it.  America in particular would print and sell copies of his works without paying him any money at all. He tried to convince us to stop in his first visit in 1842. He did not succeed. He tried again to convince America to abide copyright when he visited again in 1867.

But this time, he got his revenge. He also spoke, netting £17,000 (which would be about £10,111,123.61 today). Not a bad haul. He also was a little more politic, selling exclusive access to early drafts of his works to the highest bidder, often getting publishing houses to pay a lot of money to become his ‘authorized’ publishers.

Giving readings could be a pretty lucrative business. Perhaps it will be again.

WIl be there

The Big-E Bang Theory:
[Via Bad Astronomy]

What happens when you take two of my favorite things in the whole world and put them together?

Why, you get my mancrush Wil Wheaton on The Big Bang Theory! Here’s the promo from CBS.

The episode airs Monday, October 19. Squeee!

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I’ll make sure I DVR it so I can watch it again and again. IN the last few months, Wil already made a great guest appearance on Leverage. Then on The Guild. Now this.

He is mostly a writer now and has a great blog to read. He has written about the experience without any spoilers (Here, here and here). His reaction to the promo is about as honest as any of us would be.

Reading his blog caused me to completely re-evaluate my feelings about Wesley Crusher. Wheaton is a good writer and a fine actor.

Technorati Tags: General

More Deity fun

Mr. Deity gets squishy

[Via Bad Astronomy]

IIf you don’t know about Mr. Deity, then where have you been? It’s a satirical video series that assumes that God is something of a clueless high-level executive, running into all sorts of issues while constructing the Universe. It’s been around a while, and a new episode just came out called “Mr. Deity and the Science Advisor”. Mind you, it’s only a biological science advisor; Mr. D never talked to an astronomer before constructing the Universe. But the advisor looks like someone I know. I assume that must be coincidence. Or some sort of pareidolia.

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I just love Mr. Deity! And he has been having some great guest stars recently. Adam, Michael Shermer and now PZ. You learn as you laugh, as with all good satire

I’ve followed Mr Deity for some time now. Not only is his character great but so is ‘Jesse’ (Watch Mr. Deity and the Scripts) and Lucy (I have to say ‘More Lucy.’ Her exasperation with Mr. Deity’s cluelessness is just wonderful.)

And poor put-upon Larry just makes it all work. One of the more fun web series. In fact, it seems to me that this is something that could never work on TV, even cable, as it appeals to a pretty small demographic – well educated people with a twisted sense of humor who can understand why something like a banana is funny.

But it does show that we elitists can find humor in just the geekiest things. Please donate to Mr. Deity so they can make more of these.

Education and authoritarian needs

byJim Linwood
Authoritarianism in American Politics

[Via FiveThirtyEight.com: Electoral Projections Done Right]

Authoritarianism & Polarization in American Politics, co-written by Marc Hetherington and Jonathan Weiler. (Disclosure: Jon is a longtime friend; we were in grad school together at Univ. of North Carolina.) The book is an examination of how authoritarian tendencies among American citizens inform and explain attitudes toward government, public policies and their fellow citizens. It is impossible to summarize the book properly in a blog post, but I wanted to hit on some of the points that struck me, many of which were unsurprising and yet startling to see demonstrated empirically.

The first point Hetherington and Weiler make is that authoritarianism is really about order–achieving it, maintaining it, and affirming it–and especially when citizens are uncertain or fearful. This, they say, is why authoritarians seek out and elevate, well, authorities–because authorities impose order on an otherwise disordered world. They provide a useful review the existing literature on authoritarian traits, which have been connected to negative racist stereotyping, a belief in biblical inerrancy, a preference for simple rather than complex problem-solving, and low levels of political information.

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An interesting set of numbers. It explains why authoritarian leaders want to keep the electorate uneducated. The citizens with the strongest need for strongest authoritarian leaders come from those with the least amount of education.

The easiest way to stay in power for authoritarians is to make sure that few people get a college degree. In fact, those with a graduate degree respond even less to authoritarian pleas than any other group n the figure.

Keeping people ignorant and misinformed is the best recipe for continuing power for authoritarian leaders. Claiming an educated person is simply an elitist makes it easier to maintain power. Denigrating the efforts of educated people has been a common ploy of the populist authoritarian.

Thus education, particularly public, is one of the best ways to oppose these figures.

State mottos for $1000, Alex

Humor: Our motto’s better than your motto:
[Via Crosscut]

I seldom boast about Washington state, but we do have the best motto. Our state motto is “Alki,” from Chinook jargon meaning, roughly, “Hold on,” or “Not so fast.”

“Alki” may also be translated as “by and by.” During the Eisenhower years, a group of legislative prudes, all of whom had served as hall monitors in junior high school, attempted to introduce the odious mistranslation, “hope for the future.” Speakers of Chinook jargon quickly exposed this fraud with the withering comment, “Man kloshe kopa yaka lepush pe klale kopa yaka tumtum,” which is loosely translated as “white man speaks with forked tongue.”

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Alki is pretty cool. I like ‘Not so fast’ better than ‘by and by.’ Other state mottos are pretty funny, though.

Maryland for instance. ‘Manly deeds, Womanly words.’ Okay. How about Michigan. ‘Si quaeris peninsulam amoenam circumspice (If you seek a pleasant peninsula, look around you)’ Classic.

And reading about the controversial changes in Oregon’s motto (Alis volat propriis) is quite enlightening. And while the motto of Texas sounds like something a marketing consultant came up with (Friendship) it is actually derived from the Indian word meaning friends or allies which the Spanish pronounced as Tejas. So its motto is also the state’s name. Nice.

Technorati Tags: General, Government

In defense of catchers

by Tammra McCauley

I am not a big Posada fan but as an ex-catcher (with the bad knee to prove it) I want everyone to know that it was his part in the play last night that was critical and simply amazing.

In last night’s game between the Twins and the Yankees, there was a very important play that had a impact on the game. Everyone talked about Jeter’s heads-up play. Getting to the ball was awesome but after that, it was pretty routine.

Seeing how far the runner had rounded third, he did what everyone is supposed to do – throw the ball to the next base. In this case home. He made a good throw but he is a pro ball player so that is to be expected.

Posada threw a rocket to third to get the runner out on the tag. He put the ball in the one place it HAD to get to in order to get the runner out – low and on the outside of the bag so the runner has to go through the tag to get to the base.

A bit higher or on the inside of the bag and the runner would have been safe. That could have changed the game completely.

Jeter was a heads-up play by a great ball player. but Posada’s throw is what made the out. His precision on the throw made the game.

Catcher’s rule!

Technorati Tags: General