The Arbitrary ChuckJerry

I was watching the NCAA championship lacrosse game yesterday on ESPN. Also last weekend I was at a local high school for a JV baseball game and after the game I stayed and watched some of their high school lacrosse game. I must say that lacrosse is pretty fun to watch.

It seems like lacrosse is a cross between hockey, basketball, and even football to a lesser extent. The sport is basically hockey without the ice. There are shift changes and some sort of off sides rule and penalty boxes and such. The fact that you're running around, though, instead of skating makes it also a lot like basketball. The setup looks like a basketball team running a motion offense and a zone defense. The difference, obviously, is that you can't just pull up in lacrosse and shoot the equivalent of a jump shot because there is a goalie. You gotta really whip it by them.

Lacrosse is a pretty entertaining game. Maybe college lacrosse should be more popular. I have just never seen lacrosse played anywhere. My high school didn't have lacrosse and I guess my college did, but we weren't really known for sports. Lacrosse is played mainly by rich schools. I know they played lacrosse in like the Ridgewoods and Don Boscos of northern New Jersey. The high school I was at last week is just a public high school in Queens, but it's known as one of the better ones. Also they were playing against Fieldston, which is a rich as prep school. I wonder if there are any other public schools in New York that have lacrosse teams. Maybe a Stuyvesant or Bronx Science.

Bottom line is that lacrosse is pretty cool and I had no idea it was so entertaining.

I didn't write until now because I thought Joe might post about it, but Brad Rutter won the Ultimate Tournament of Champions on Jeopardy this past week. In fact, the final round match wasn't even close. Rutter won all three games by a comfortable margin and he could not be beaten going into the last Final Jeopardy.

So Brad Rutter had been the high money winner on Jeopardy after winning the $1 million tournament at some point. Then Ken Jen comes out and wins $2 million and change by winning 74 in a row, an impressive stretch by any account. But Rutter took back the crown by winning $2 million in the final round and I wonder if he also gets the cash from the first 3 games he played, probably about $40,000 per game on average. So now Rutter is the all time money winner on any game show ever. He's won more than $3 million playing Jeopardy. That's some ill shiznit.

He didn't breeze through the entire competition, by the way. Rutter was getting killed in one game and he got lucky and was the only one who answered Final Jeopardy correctly so he won the game.

So Ken Jen is going to start hosting a game show on Comedy Central. I guess someone had the same idea I did. Also if you look at that post you'll see that I predicted he would win the Tournament of Champions pretty handily, when in fact he didn't. I guess we all can't be right all the time.

So if you want to win a date with Brad Rutter, then you should get in touch with Joe, who's his friend and who's apparently also his pimp. Keep it real, Rutter.

Howard Dean was on Meet the Press this past Sunday and made a good point about the Democratic party's stance on abortion. He made a point that has been made several times, but he articulated it pretty well (which is quite frankly somewhat surprising for Howard Dean, who is strangely awkward in my opinion).

Anyway, the idea is that there's no one on Earth who is "pro-abortion". Rather, each woman or family or whomever is making the decision should be allowed to come to the decision that best suits them. Dean told a story about a woman he met in the South (this "people story" thing is one of the lamest political strategies, by the way, but was pretty effective in this case) who said that she was pro-life, but really wasn't. She said that she doesn't believe in abortion and whe would never have one, or encourage anyone to have one, but if her neighbor decided to have one, then she wouldn't begrudge her. That person is pro-choice, despite the fact that she views herself as pro-life.

Howard Dean was talking about how this has come down to a semantic issue for the most part. There are lots of people who are maybe on the opposite side of the issue. The Republicans also do a good job of making Democrats seem as liberal as possible on this issue, as if Democrats go out and recruit people to have abortions.

At this point we should stop fighting this battle from 1974 or whenever and get to ironing out the details. There are some interesting decisions to be made regarding abortion dealing with minors and third term abortions and what not that at this point are just politicized.

Today I threw Oasis's album, What's the Story Morning Glory, into my CD player. I was in the mood for some catchy rock and I listened to that album a lot when it came out because I enjoyed every song.

I think this isn't a light pop/rock album, I think this is a great rock and roll album. It's really phenomenal. Every song is good and a lot of them are great. Every one is catchy and there's a good deal of musicality involved.

There is a huge and obvious Beatles influence to Oasis and Noel Gallagher, the guy who wrote their songs (or was it Liam who wrote the songs? I think Noel.), readily affirms that he sometimes steals directly from the Beatles for a bar or two. The thing is that this one album is not simply derivative of the Beatles, but it attempts to take the music a step further, or at least in a different direction. It's not better than the Beatles, to be sure, but it is a very well done homage.

If you would have asked me before today about that album I would have said that it's probably pretty corny, but I do enjoy it. I think now that I underestimated it. It's a really great album, and was sortof underrated at the time it was current. It was successful, but in a pop vein, rather than real rock and roll.

Oddly, I don't have any other Oasis albums. I saw a video for their next album and didn't especially like the song, so I didn't get the record, even though I really enjoyed the one I had. I think they have something like 3 or maybe even 4 albums out there. I'll have to pick one or some of them up.

I was teaching about permutations and combinations today in class. One of the girls asked me to explain the difference between the two and I asked her to read the word problem so I could ask her to interpret it. My student, while reading out loud, said:

"There are 6 terrorists that arrive 15 minutes before a plane is about to take off. When they get there, there are only 3 seats left on the plane..."

I stopped her
"Wait. There are 6 what?"
"There are 6 terrorists who want to get on the plane."
"Is that what it says?"
"I think so. Yeah, 6 terrorists."
"Why would someone write a word problem about terrorists getting on a plane?"
"I don't know."
"That doesn't say terrorists. It says tourists."
"Oh really. My bad, mista."

Apparently the reports of Dave Chappelle's demise have been grossly overstated. He did an interview with Time magazine where he says he's just taking stock of himself and staying with a friend in South Africa on a "spiritual retreat".

I guess that's good, since it's one less crazy person out there. Also maybe he'll pull himself together and we can get this damn show back on the air. Unfortunately the president of Comedy Central says he doesn't envision the show being back at all in 2005.

Anyway, glad you're not crazy Dave. Keep it real.

I wrote a worksheet for my class that was on geometry. I find it easier to write geometry worksheets because I can draw the triangles and what not more wasily that trying to do it on the computer. Anyhow, I split the sheet up into two parts, on the top was classwork and on the bottom was homework.

In the top left corner I wrote "CLASS WORK" and then towards the middle I wrote "HOMEWORK" so the kids would know which was which. The copy machine, which is known to cut of the edges of your paper, rendered the top heading as "ASS WORK" instead of the intended title.

I didn't notice until I had handed all the sheets out, so that led to about five minutes of hilarity, which I joined in on, because, quite frankly, it was pretty funny. Actually, I didn't notice at all until the kids pointed it out. I guess that's what happens when you assume.

Last week the word came out that Dave Chappelle's show on Comedy Central had been postponed because they couldn't get their shit together. This week it came out that Dave checked himself into a mental health facility. On top of this, my man is in South Africa undergoing this mental health treatment.

Apparently he hadn't shown up for taping of the show for about a week or so and then Comedy Central put out the word that they were delaying the season premier. Then he was just gone.

It seems like Chappelle is having trouble dealing with the enormous fame. It seems like he tried to quit after the second season except they paid him $50 million, so he couldn't turn it down. Now he's trying to be extra funny to outdo himself and isn't happy witht the results or something to that effect.

All I know is that I hope he gets better and if he's up for it, I hope they continue the show, because it's the funniest goddamn show of the last 10 years at least.

There's absolutely no way on earth that the voting for American Idol is on the level. Let's think about it. The voting lines are open for two hours after the show is over. If you try to call any of those lines for those two hours you get shut out most of the time, which means that every line is full for the entire two hours, which does not offer ample opportunity for the votes to be different.

The favorites always win. In season one Kelly Clarkson was the favorite from the second or third week, she won. In season two Reuben Studdard was the favorite since week one, he won, despite the fact that Clay Aiken was much better than Reuben by the end and he had more fans. In season three Fantasia Barrino was the favorite since the auditions, she won.

There is no doubt in my mind that the producers pick who they want to win, who they want to be eliminated on a week to week basis, and the entire course of the show. They pick one of the favorites when there are about 4 or 5 guys left and eliminate him. This year it was Constatine. Last year there were two girls called Jennifer Hudson and something else who were just like Fantasia and they got out early.

It seems to me sometimes like they are feeding Simon lines. Even if they don't tell him exactly what to say, it seems like they tell him who to dis and who to love.

Anyway, there is absolutely no way that the fans are choosing the winner of this competition. The producers have chosen all three winners and they will choose the fourth this year. I'm pretty sure it will be Carrie Underwood, but I can see a Bo Bice victory as well. There is no way Vonzell will win, despite the fact that she is the best one left. Also this year they got rid of some of the great contestants in the first couple weeks of the finals this year.

UPDATE: On top of the competition, it seems as if some, but not all, of the auditions are set ups. This I don't feel as strongly about as I'm sure there is no shortage of crazy people trying out for American Idol, but some of them just seem so contrived.

Congratulations are in order to my homeboy Brian for getting engaged to Meaghan over the weekend. He asked me to keep it quiet because he didn't get a chance to tell his mom yet, but I don't think she reads my blog, so it's all good.

I just want to echo Luke's sentiments, that their kids will be mad tall, very smart, and will drink like good Irishmen.

I'm going to start lobbying hard for an usher position.

My main man Luke started a blog that everyone on Earth should read.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: Luke is always right. Unlike the Bible, we can take Luke literally.

Read his blog.

This is an issue that Joe blogs about with relative regularity (his most recent related post). I feel the need to put my thoughts down as well.

Christian groups in Kansas this week are organizing a trial of sorts that pits evolution vs. creationism, or what they call intelligent design.

Lots of people have beliefs that I disagree with, and generally I feel I just have to live with the fact that not everyone thinks like me. I am willing to concede that matters of opinion are subjective, and I am even willing to concede that I may be misguided in some of my beliefs, but this intelligent design crowd is just downright loony.

There is no other politically active group who takes the stage and sounds so unintelligent. I start to shake sometimes when I hear them speak.

First of all, one may not claim to be an intelligent person and not believe in evolution. Evidence of evolution is literally everywhere you look. At the same time the argument that evolution is "just a theory" makes the same people sound even more unintelligent. Clearly they understand that a theory is something that is accepted as true, yet cannot be definitively proven because it would require us to prove the same thing an infinite number of times, an impossibility. Since they must know this, they are making a purely semantic argument designed to deceive people even dumber than them.

I refuse to believe that someone does not take evolution as a given. I simply cannot fit this into my view of the world.

Secondly, I do not understand why evolution is at odds with a workable intelligent design theory. The idea that living things adapt to their environments is not the polar opposite of the idea that God created the Earth and humanity. It's not even a directly related topic. It is tangentially related at best. Is it not possible that God created an Earth that follows the laws of evolution? That seems to be a perfectly reasonable argument.

Why do people insist on taking the Bible literally. And when they do, why do they only take pieces of the Bible literally. The Bible contradicts itself time and time again. It is not possible to take the Bible literally. The book of Genesis contradicts itself in chapters 1 and 2 regarding the order in which things were created. The first book contradicts itself in the first 2 chapters.

Jesus was known to espouse his teachings through the use of parables, stories that weren't necessarily true, but did a good job of outlining the point he was trying to make. Is it not then conceivable that the entire Bible is a parable of sorts? Rather than an account of history, couldn't the Bible be a guide to living a faithful life? Clearly there is some history strewn into the mix, but to take every word as a true account is nothing short of foolish.

My intention is not to demean religion. I find it to be truly astonishing that people are capable of such faith, and I admire everyone who holds true to their religion. Rather, I feel that there's no reason to pit religion and science against each other. Discovery is what makes life interesting. Knowing how things work does not put one in opposition with God. Using religion to demean science, which is what intelligent design does, is a step backwards from the truth. In particular when that truth is something as basic and evident as evolution.

Why doesn't the intelligent design camp go after physics? The notion that the Earth is a tiny planet that circles a tiny sun in a nondescript galaxy that is one out of billions of other galaxies like it mustn't sit pretty with them. The fact that it's true doesn't seem to bother them. I'll bet the main reason is that most of them don't really understand.

Evolution is easy to pick on because the idea is so elegantly simple. Even small children can be taught the basics of evolution, despite the fact that the underlying mechanism is clearly much more complex.

For most issues in life I can just agree to disagree. Those who honestly believe that evolution is patently false, however, do not garner any amount of respect in my book. The argument is not even worth entertaining.

An article in the New York Times on Tuesday cited a study that says ugly kids get less attention from their parents than good looking kids. The observers watched kids and parents in supermarkets and rated the kidson good lookingness from like 1 to 10 or something.

Good looking kids get strapped into seatbelts 3 times more than ugly kids. Ugly kids are allowed to stand up in shopping carts and walk away from their parents without being reprimanded.

There's no concrete explanation for this, but one of the ideas is that, from an evolutionary standpoint, we need the good looking kids to survive and procreate, whereas we need the ugly kids to not survive and procreate since no one wants to get with them.

One of the experts said that's probably not true because there's no evidence that good looking people have more kids than ugly people, and that would need to be true for the evolutionary thing to happen.

I don't know about all that, all I know is that the day of the ugly kids is over. Sucks for you, ugly kids.

I think it's interesting that the Yankkes are terrible so far this year. What's also interesting is that Gary Sheffield and Derek Jeter are both hitting about .340 and A-Rod leads the league in HRs and has 20 something RBIs and the Yankees still can't get it done.

Hideki Matsui and Jorge Posada are slumping, but they'll probably turn it around soon. Tony Womack is historically a slow starter and even so he's hitting about .280 and his on base percentage is respectable.

Clearly their problem is the pitching staff. It is deplorable. Randy Johnson has been OK, but not great. Mussina is below average. Pavano has been not bad. Jaret Wright is terrible. Kevin Brown is beyond terrible. Their bullpen is shaky at best, especially with Tanyon Sturtze on the DL.

I am of the opinion that all of the Yankee's woes this season thus far can be traced back to one move: the decision not to re-sign John Lieber and instead to replace him with Jaret Wright. Lieber is currently 4-2, and his last start was a hard luck loss to Pedro. He was consistent for them all last year and there's no reason to believe he wouldn't have been again.

That's it, end of story.

At the moment all I want out of life is a t-shirt that says "Seacrest Out" and maybe with a picture of him on it.

One of the things that I love in life is t-shirts. I like shirts that are really random or funny or witty or kick it old school.

The current jewels of my collection are my "FOIL, keepin' algebra fresh" shirt and my shirt that has the logo from The Goonies. I also have one of Chunk doing the truffle shuffle. I got one with Bert and Ernie on it too.

If I had one that said "Seacrest out", I would be in Heaven. I tried to Google "Seacrest Out t-shirt", but didn't come up with anything. I could get one from like a neighborhoodies.com, but that's kinda ghetto style. I might do that, though.

At my school around this time of year they give out awards for most improved attendance. It's a way to show kids that even if you were screwing around at the beginning of the year, you can turn it around and it's never too late and some othr such nonsense. They give it out to about 150 students who've started going back to class.

Anyhow, one of my best students from last year was cutting her last couple of classes this year in order to be with ehr boyfriend. When I found out I was pretty shocked and asked her about it and such. Not an entirely fruitful conversation, but that's aside from the point.

I saw her and another of my students from last year who are friends outside the school one day. I waved and kept walking until they both stopped me and the following conversation ensued:

Student 1: Hey Mr. Gardner (she's one of the very few who actually uses my name), I've been giong to all of my classes now. I'm passing all of them.
Me: That's good. I'm proud of you.
Student 2: I started going to all my classes again, too. I've been going for like a month now.
Me: Also good. I'm proud of you too.
1: I'm getting a most improved attendance award this week. They sent me the invitation to the ceremony.
2: Hey, how come I'm not getting one? I go to class now, too.
1: I don't know, but I really just stopped going for a while, so maybe that's why.
2: No way, I stopped going completely for like a whole month, and now I go every day.
1: I don't know, I guess you didn't deserve it.
2: I can't believe it, I was cutting for so long.
Me: Look guys, I'd love to stay here and argue about who's the best at cutting class, but I've got to go home.
2: Wow, we sound mad dumb.
Me: Something like that.

The Nets got blown away by the Heat, who are clearly a better team. I guess I was wrong about this year having the best 1-8 matchups ever, since both 8 seeds are getting blown away.

Anyhow, I like the Nets chances for next year. Kidd, Carter, and Jefferson is a pretty good damn nucleus to build around and Nenad Krstic has been relatively impressive in his rookie year. If they add some size, I think they can compete in the East.

Udonis Haslem is a free agent after this season and maybe they can go after him. He'll probably re-sign with the Heat, since they're good, but he's the type of guy the Nets should be going after. I guess they can't do much with their draft in the way of improving, but hopefully they can get someone good through a trade or something.

It's too bad that Alonzo Mourning basically forced his way out of New Jersey, because he could have contributed to the Nets what he contributed to the Heat in this series, but I guess that's how it goes.

Anyway, look for the Nets to improve mightily on their record from this year. They started the year with only Jefferson as a scoring leader and the three main guys only played like 10 games together. Let them get some chemistry, along with Krstic improving steadily, and they may be the third best team behind Miami and Detroit in the East on paper.

Reggie Miller retiring is going to have a bigger impact on Indiana than his statistics would make it seem, I think. Also there is almost no way they can bring Ron Artest back to their team. I don't expect them to, anyway. Clearly I'm the authority on these things.

The Republicans in control nowadays are running the risk of isolating a good number of people in America. At the end of the day, they could run themselves right out of the majority.

The problem I'm perceiving is that the folks in charge today paint themselves as religious conservatives, which is in favor, but necessarily isolates a huge portion of folks. Let's assume that most people take their religion and their politics separately. Even if we don't account for all the different religions and just say that one is either religious or secular and if we don't account for the spectrum of political positions and say that one is either conservative or liberal, then that leaves us with four types of people in this country.

One can be either a religious conservative, secular conservative, religious liberal, or a secular liberal under the (clearly oversimplified) parameters we defined. This gross oversimplification has merit because these are the parameters the current leaders are trying to cram all of us into. In fact, the current leaders are trying to cram us into only two of these four groups.

Many Republicans today are going out of their ways to be "religious conservatives" and are also making a point to paint everyone else as "secular liberals". Republican leaders are actually using the words "secular liberals" in speeches and what not defending their somewhat arbitrary stances on issues.

I think that's dangerous for them because they're isolating both of those missing groups. I think it's safe to assume that a religious conservative and a secular liberal will rarely agree on much, but those two in between groups are sortof up for grabs.

I'm guessing (without real evidence) that there aren't very many secular conservatives, but who knows? Certainly there are Republicans who are not enormously happy with the new religious bent of the party. The ones easiest for me to name are from the NY/NJ area - Christie Whitman, who wrote a book about it, Pataki, and Giuliani. These people are vocal about their perceived isolation within the party.

The religious liberals, which is a huge group of people, must feel slighted at the Republicans co-opting religion for political gain. Since something like 90% of people in America claim to be religious to some extent, one could argue that every blue state and every battleground state is rife with this fourth group. If someone is genuinely struggling between voting with their religious convictions and another similarly rational set of criteria that doesn't jibe with religion, then it would seem that the Republicans are making it easier for them to go the liberal route.

What goes without saying is that the Republicans are also effectively pushing out any non-Christians out there.