Uncategorized

Messed-Up Mascots

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Today’s post comes from perennial sophomore Bubby Spamden at Wendell Wilkie High School.

Hey Mr. C.,

I think it’s really cool that 700 people marched to the Metrodome the other night to protest the name of the National Football League team from Washington, D.C. The Vikings must have been kind of disappointed to see such a big crowd coming, only to find out they weren’t actually interested in tickets.

Me and my buddies have promised never to use the name of that Washington team again! We’re going to call them “The Washington Awkwards” from now on, ’cause that’s how it feels when we see their logo and all their uncomfortable-looking merchandise and stuff.

I hope they pick a new mascot soon.

WendellWillkie_edited-1

It makes me think of the ordeal we went through at Wendell Wilkie High School with our team name, which was “The Contenders”, because Wilkie was the Republican nominee for president against Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1940 and he almost won (NOT).

A lot of students don’t like “The Contenders” as a team name because it just sounds, you know, mediocre. I mean, there’s this feeling of trying your best, but kind of falling short. So the Young Republicans Club got on this kick to change the name to “The Nominees”, because that’s the contest that he actually won – in the Republican Party.

But then the Tea Party Republican Club found out that Wilkie was actually a Democrat before he was a Republican and became an emissary for FDR after losing to him, and wrote a book called “One World” and they felt so disappointed they started to push to change the name of the school to Ayn Rand High with a team called “The Objectivists.”

Just when that idea started to get some traction, the Students Hating All Military Madness In Every Sense (SHAMMIES) found out about Wilkie’s “One World” book and started to agitate for keeping Wilkie’s name on the school and calling the team “The Peacemakers.” But that idea got crushed pretty fast by the administration because (people say) Coach Gittum let them know he’d have nothing to do with it.

Then the Irony Club had to get into the act. They thought our team should be called “The Losers” because that’s what Wendell Wilkie is known for, after all. There were almost enough votes to get a resolution on that through the student council, but at the last minute a splinter group thought “The Failures” would be even more ironic, and they couldn’t keep their coalition together.

Finally a group of moderates in the Honorable Compromise Club pushed to change our team name to “The Statesmen,” which caught on with a lot of people as a less-bad option than all the other ones that were being discussed, and it passed the student council on a narrow, but statesman-like, vote.

But when it got to the Board of Education they threw out the whole idea because it would cost way too much to change all the school signage and letterhead and buy new athletic jerseys and stuff. So we’re still The Wilkie Contenders. Contenders who fell short of our goal! But they complimented us on our process and they hoped we learned something about democracy, which of course we did!

It sure burns up a lot of energy!

Your Pal,
Bubby

What was your Big Cause in High School?

Science

Seeing Speeding Space Chunks

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It appears that meteors of the sort that exploded in the air near Chelyabinsk in Russia are more common than scientists thought. The speeding rock caused a sensation when it streaked across the Russian sky last February, and the airborne blast created a concussion that broke windows. The bright light gave some people burned skin and the shock wave caused injuries on the ground.

Now some scientific analysis brings more information.

Most of the rock evaporated when it blew up 18.5 miles above Earth’s surface. Our atmosphere is 60 miles thick, or approximately the distance from St. Cloud to Minneapolis. So if the Chelyabinsk meteor were a metro area family returning home from a weekend up north at about 42,000 miles per hour (yes, that’s about how fast some of them drive), they made it to somewhere around Rogers before everything fell apart. That’s almost home by my reckoning.

Much of our worry has been focused on space rubble that’s more than a half-mile wide, but this lump was just 65 feet across. NASA is tracking more than 10,000 comets and asteroids though fewer than 1,500 have been classified as potentially hazardous to Earth. But the Chelyabinsk Chunk was made of a composite of gray and black stone, which reflects little light and is harder to spot. There may be more than 20 million asteroids with orbits that bring them close to Earth.

We can’t really protect ourselves against smaller space rocks. Gulp.

Where I once thought of space as cold, clean and empty, now I think of it as something like my basement, full of miscellaneous stuff I stopped thinking about.

Maybe rather than sending out movie-inspired space missions loaded with misfit deep-core drillers and explosives experts to destroy large threatening asteroids, we should launch misfit graffiti artists into orbit to paint the most threatening small debris so we can at least see it.

But this news, combined with our growing awareness of the long-term cost of concussions, will hasten the day when we all wear protective headgear most of the time, as both a fashion and safety statement.

Seriously.

Describe your everyday helmet – shape, color, decorations.

Uncategorized

Your State’s Favorite Name Here

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My favorite story about a person’s name came by way of a friend who had heard of an instance where a group of people were waiting at a government service center.  They had already turned in some paperwork so they were being called to the counter by name.

A puzzled clerk came to the front and hesitantly called out “Dee?  Deeah?”

After a moment’s silence, a clearly frustrated customer marched up to the clerk and demanded to see the name on the paper, which looked like this:  D-ea.

The customer rolled her eyes and huffed “It’s ‘Dee DASH ee ah’!  The dash is NOT silent!”

How could anyone know?  No wonder D-ea was miffed.  She probably realized in that moment she was going to spend a lifetime correcting people.  That can’t be fun, but it’s  the curse of having an uncommon name.

I suppose there’s a different type of frustration that rises out of having a name that is so ordinary, you run into like-named people at every turn.  I can scarcely imagine what it’s like to be a “Bob”.    Or a “Mary”!

Our national naming preferences are nothing more than fashion – a “hot” name sweeps the country and fades away, like weather or the flu.  That’s nicely demonstrated in the image below from the website Jezebel, which clicks through the years to show which girl’s names had favor in which states  at what times.

I’m amazed at the way “Jennifer”seized the national imagination and held it for so many years in the ’70’s.  It’s like the FDR of names – I’m sure parents at the time thought there would never be another top name for girls, ever.  Perhaps we need term limits for monikers.  Or it may be that our population is so diverse, there is less likelihood today that everyone will be on the same page, name-wise.  “Ashley” and “Emily” made a run at “Jennifer”-like status in later years, but the dominance Jennifer showed through Watergate and the Carter Administration is surely impressive and may never be equalled.    Today, it looks like “Emma” is ascendent.

But she’s no “Jennifer”.

How do you feel about your name? 

ku-bigpic

Uncategorized

Fall Back

63 Comments

Today’s post is a Questionable News Dispatch from disgraced journalist Bud Buck.

Trying Not To Turn Back Time
Trying Not To Turn Back Time

Tea Party conservatives have mounted a last-minute filibuster to delay the return to standard time this weekend. Assuming a now-familiar position in the well of the Senate, Republican Ted Cruz said “I take the floor to speak until next Spring, if necessary, to keep the nation from making the grave mistake of turning its back on anything with ‘savings’ in the title.”

In the House, Speaker John Boehner has acquiesced to demands from the most conservative members of his caucus that clocks at the Capitol remain untouched throughout this weekend and until further notice because “… nothing about the United States is ‘standard’.” Sources inside the Republican caucus say the Tea Party contingent rejected a compromise offer from Boehner to change the name of the four month interlude between the end and beginning of Daylight Savings Time from the traditional “Standard Time” to “Exceptional Time”.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell tentatively endorsed the effort, pending the discovery of a way to link the time change to Obamacare.

But as usual, not all Republicans were on board with the tactic. Arizona Senator John McCain called the strategy “asinine”, and said “Nobody needs an extra hour of sleep more than I do.”

How will you spend your extra hour this weekend?

Uncategorized

Home Away From Home

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I can’t quite grasp the breathless excitement of the writer when I find another article that touts the discovery of an amazing Earth-like planet found orbiting some distant star.

Typically the planet in question has qualities that make it tantalizingly similar to Earth – the size, the orbit, the gravity, Rocky Planet.JPEG-0bec9the composition.

But there’s always a deal breaker.

It’s like searching the city for a new house – there are always so many variables. You may find one that has the right number of bedrooms and the perfect kitchen with a right-sized, sunny yard, but the bathroom is a mess, or there’s mold in the basement, or it’s on fire.

Dang.

I’m waiting to hear about a distant Earth-like planet that is really like Earth. I want an ocean full of fish and forests with animals and a sunrise worth viewing through an atmosphere I can breathe. Knowing there is a far flung place we can actually go visit would make all the difference in our attitudes about deep space exploration.

Until a reasonable destination planet is found, I’d like to recommend a moratorium on use of the phrase “Earth-like”. In this case the headline should read “Flaming Hellscape Discovered At Safe Distance.”

Is there anyplace like home?

Uncategorized

Mind Your Knitting

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Today’s post comes from Bathtub Safety Officer Rafferty (B.S.O.R.).

tightrope

At ease, civilians! Stay at ease and stay relaxed. And always, always be aware of your surroundings, Remember that your primary job is to preserve life and limb. As my Grandma Rafferty always said, “Mind your knitting. Unless you’re driving. Then mind your driving.”

This basic bit of commonsense instruction was apparently never given to the captain of the Costa Concordia, who sailed too close to the rocks while his illicit squeeze was watching him work. Never let someone watch you work! Never allow your attention to be drawn away by a distraction of any sort, such as showing off for some sexy someone whom you desperately want to impress.

If we counted up the cost of the rash things that have been done to leave a favorable impression with someone, it would leave a very unfavorable impression! That’s because wanting to impress anyone is ALWAYS a threat to life and limb, even if you’re trying to wow them with how SAFE you are.

When I was a senior in high school, I was courting the woman who eventually became Mrs. BSOR. I felt that I needed to demonstrate to her that I was not going to be fodder for one of those teenage car tragedy songs. I decided to do it by showing her how quickly I could become secured in the driver’s seat, literally grabbing the restraint system as I slipped into the vehicle and with one deft and powerful motion, slamming the metal buckle into its receptacle. As a result, I mangled my index finger and became hopelessly entangled in the seat-and-shoulder belt harness. Still trying to seem suave, I made a move to get out of the car quickly and gracefully, and in the process I hit the power recline button and wound up spraining my neck!

It was ill-advised and reckless of her to marry me anyway – a lapse for which I will always be grateful.

Y.I.S. (Yours in Safety),
B.S.O.R.(Bathtub Safety Officer Rafferty)

What do you do when you want to show off?

Uncategorized

Fore!

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Photo: gal2.org/David July
Photo: gal2.org/David July

Today’s post comes from perennial sophomore Bubby Spamden.

Hey Mr. C.!,

I found out the other day that my whole generation has already turned its back on golf as a sport. That was interesting news to me, because I really had no idea golf still existed!

I mean, I’ve noticed when we pass by some of the courses in town that there are people out there driving little carts around on the grass, and that looks kind of cool except the carts go too slow and they don’t have big enough wheels. I’d want something more powerful and off-road. But still, driving a golf buggy could be fun for a while – maybe 15 minutes. I hear out in places like Arizona there are communities where people drive golf carts everywhere.

I don’t think I have the patience for that.

I asked my dad about golf and he said “The sport is doomed” because it’s too hard to learn, too expensive to play, it takes too long to get through a round, and all the people who love it are old and they wear funny clothes.”

That seemed pretty negative for a guy who has played golf all my life. So I asked him why he likes the game and he said he likes it because it’s a way for him to be with his friends where he can talk as much or as little as he wants. Because golfers have this “thing” about noise, it’s OK for a bunch of them to be together and still be quiet.

It made me think of when I’m with my friends and we all sit in the same room and focus on our phones instead of each other. And come to think of it, some of us wear funny clothes, too. So I guess I’m already doing something that’s kind of like golf and I didn’t even know

But at least what I do is cheaper. If you don’t count the cost of my data plan.

There’s one thing my dad told me that made golf seem like it might actually be worthwhile – at some of the courses in the summertime they have these cute girls who drive around selling food and beverages, including beer. For the most part the golfer guys are so old they really shouldn’t be flirting with the girls, but some of them do anyway. They get to be pretty heavy tippers out on the course, even though they’re not that way in the normal world. Kinda creepy. And then a lot of them buy beers and keep on driving their golf carts, which totally adds up to drinking and driving and not getting in trouble for it, which is something you can’t do anywhere else.

Depending on how many beers they have, they might also turn into heavy tippers when they go around a corner too fast. Golf can be dangerous.

Anyway, I asked my dad if I should take up the game, and you know what he said? This floored me. He said “No, look at you. A high school sophomore? You’re too old to start now. You’ll never be any good at it.”

He’s NEVER said anything like that before – it’s the first time I’ve ever been told I’m too old start something! A milestone for me – yay! Finally – an excuse for not being an achiever. I feel so grown up, I’m starting to have regrets about having lived so much of my life already – and all the stuff that’s passed me by.

I missed out on golf!

Your pal,
Bubby

If you could master any sport, which one would it be?

Songs, Uncategorized

Sugar, Um, High

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So now there is research to suggest that people with lower blood sugar levels have better memories and superior brain health compared to those with high blood sugar. That’s serious stuff, and a great cause of concern for someone with an incurable sweet tooth (like me)!

Chocolate_Cake

But the comforting news is – I’ll forget all about this alarming food-health connection after I polish off these delicious frosted brownies.

There is a cliche that those who are disappointed in love can find some solace in a sweets binge. Maybe now we know why. Or as the famous Nat King Cole could have said:

Unforgettable, that’s what you are
Or at least until I eat this bar.
Chocolate chips that whisper ‘Yum’ to me.
Now your name does not quite come to me.
In a few bites, you’ve dropped from my sights.

Unforgettable, make no mistake.
That’s what you were ’til I had this cake.
A delight I used to share with you.
Now I’m stuffed, and unaware of you.
And that means there’s more dessert for me too.

What is your “comfort” food?

Uncategorized

Do These Rings Make Me Look Fat?

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I don’t spend a lot of time looking at myself in the mirror – just enough so that I have to explain to people that I don’t spend too much time looking at myself in the mirror.

Some people assume if you’re constantly gazing into a pane of glass you’re a hopeless narcissist who can’t get enough of the one and only thing in the world you love. I wouldn’t know if such a motivation is even possible, but I contend that there could be another possible reason.

Reflection fanatics might be looking (and praying) for a new angle.

Ever walk past one of those three mirror alcoves in a clothing store only to be confronted with a side view of yourself? I do not recognize the side-view me as a real representation of me. I know what I look like, and it’s what I see head-on over the bathroom sink, 20 years ago.

But I do sympathize with the planet Saturn, which is almost always glimpsed on the horizontal or with its rings slightly tipped at a jaunty angle. Like an aging movie star, Saturn knew to keep the paparazzi at a distance, and always looking at that “good” side. That’s why it was so jarring when an “amateur image processor” from Croatia named Gordan Ugarkovic, produced this unusual image using 36 shots taken by the Cassini spacecraft. Cassini has been orbiting Saturn since 2007, sending back a steady stream of remarkable views.

Saturn_top

This is Saturn caught in an uncharacteristic pose. If it were me, I would argue that my rings look too wide and that shadow is unflatteringly massive. Why, yes, yes, of course it’s me – there’s no denying. But you shouldn’t sneak up like that and just start snapping photos. Give me a moment to compose myself. We outer planets can’t be as photogenic as Earth, all colorful and swirly most of the time. After all, feeling prepared and having good complimentary lighting are really crucial when you’re a gas giant.

What’s your best angle?

Songs, The Baboon Congress

Music: The Most Powerful Art Form

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Today’s guest post comes from Chris in Owatonna.

How many times have you been to an art museum, looked at a certain painting or sculpture, and started to choke up or cry, feel joy or triumph?

I certainly don’t recall any extreme emotional moments looking at art.

How many times have you looked at a photograph, read a book or a poem, watched a play, or experienced any other art form, and been moved to tears or other powerful emotions?

Once or twice? I’ll admit I’ve done that on rare occasions. A few years ago, I surprisingly choked up at the climax of The Help by Katherine Stockett. And yes, it was the book, not the movie.

Now, how many times has music brought you to tears of either extreme joy or great sorrow?

For me, dozens of times.

Right now, I bet some of you are saying, “Wait a sec. What about movies? Lots of movies make me cry. What about the ability of the filmmakers and actors to elicit such powerful responses?”

To that, I say try watching the movie with the sound turned off or the music edited out somehow. Example: the scene at the end of It’s a Wonderful Life where Harry makes the toast to “My big brother George, the richest man in town.” Everyone singing Hark the Herald Angels Sing sets up that line. Without the music, it’s just a happy party. The song signifies the town coming together for George and the apparent miracle that saves him. That’s why my waterworks start. The old cliché, “Cue the violins,” rings true because without an effective musical score, most movies would carry much less emotional impact.

This leads me to my point. I’ve stumbled across another one of those rare moments: a song that is arranged and sung so powerfully, so perfectly, that it stunned me into silence, then brought tears to my eyes. The last time that happened was the first time I heard Eva Cassidy sing Over the Rainbow on the Morning Show way back in February of 2000. I remember that day as vividly as September 11, 2001. It was just before 8:00 and I was cleaning up my breakfast dishes. Through the whoosh of the water, I heard this sweet voice and simple accompaniment. Mesmerized, I turned off the water, went to the living room, turned up the volume, and listened attentively. When she hit the last high note, then finished with that gorgeous chord progression and final arpeggio on the guitar, I melted. I couldn’t buy the CD fast enough, and when I got it, listened continuously for days. I’m sure I listened 100 times that first day, putting it on endless replay. By now, I’ve listened to Eva sing Over the Rainbow THOUSANDS of times. It can still make me cry on occasion, at the right moment for whatever reason.

This young man’s name is Sam Robson, and the performance I’ve linked of him belongs in the rarified strata of Eva’s best singing. I hope you enjoy it as much as I have. I only wish he’d put it onto a CD so I could buy a copy. In the few weeks since I first heard this, I’ve listened at least 100 times and can’t get it out of my head. Please listen on your best speakers, or better yet, with a good pair of headphones. And no distractions or multitasking. Just soak up this most beautiful noise.

What music moves you to tears?