Random Thoughts on Sports And Leisure: The Over-Serious Edition

I.

So Michelle Wie came so very close to actually contending in an LPGA Tour event. After the second day on tour, she was challenging for a victory, which would have been as big an icebreaker as Danica Patrick's Indy Car victory earlier this year--although Patrick is known more these days for getting into spats with other drivers.

But Wie forgot to sign her scorecard within the assigned tent space, and was walking away when a volunteer called her back. She returned and signed it, but nevertheless, this violated some arcane LPGA rule, so after the third round the next day, she was told that instead of competing for victory, she was being disqualified.

People argue that rules are rules, and that it was sloppy of Michelle to walk away with her scorecard unsigned. These are valid arguments, but keep in mind that golf is the sport which hosts a showcase event--The Masters--at a golf course with a "No Girls Allowed" policy, which kind of takes the shine off of any high and mighty stances taken by the powers that be.

Rules are made to be changed, or broken, especially if they are this stupid.

II.

Speaking of sports and leisure institutions taking themselves too seriously, my new favorite toy, Scrabulous on Facebook, has been disabled by its creators because Hasbro is suing them and Facebook. I understand that copyright infringement is troubling, and that Hasbro has the right to protect its interests, but the alternative they provided to Facebook, Scrabble Beta, does not actually work. That's just bad customer service, pressuring Facebook and the designers of Scrabulous into shutting down before giving users another choice.

On the other hand, the designers are keeping the game up on their own website, so it could be a disingenuous move on their part, since they voluntarily disabled the game on Facebook. Perhaps they wanted to stir up some protests against Hasbro, to make them look bad, even though, admittedly, all that their own 'creative' work entailed was deleting the text from a Scrabble board, and also making a dictionary that does not recognize 'gi' or 'id' as valid words, but does accept 'ed' (as in Drivers' Education).

The designers are from India; I should research how U.S. copyright laws applies in India, or how that would affect their website. Anyone have any insight on this? I'm curious, but I don't have time to research this first.

Hurray! Bold New Horizons With George W.

Speaking of natural catastrophes, President Bush's recent statement proclaiming a 'time horizon' for withdrawal from Iraq is about as vague and abstract and meaningless a political notion as anything I've heard. The newspaper describes it as a concession, but really, it is disingenuous to describe it as anything more than a bubble of rhetoric, devoid of real substance.

The thing with a horizon is that no matter how long you walk towards it, you're never going to get there. Bush is either practicing to deceive again--and doing it badly--or he believes in a flat Earth.

Actually, the latter idea is frighteningly plausible.

Perhaps it is one more example of a clever manipulation of emotions on the part of the lamest-duck president I've ever encountered. He isn't necessarily lying outright; he just wants to sound like he's promising something without actually committing to anything specific. It's the problem of a political system designed to win elections, not engage in a true debate over the best course for the country.

The idea of horizons is romantic, and plays on the 'over-the-rainbow', Westward Ho! sort of mindset. The problem with that is it doesn't actually DO anything, and while I have spent years wishing Bush would do less, this irks me. It's just a bad metaphor, and that offends me as a writer. Plus, it smacks of that sort of grand, epic mentality that produced "Axis of Evil", and we know how well that worked out.

Random Thoughts: The Confidence Game

We all live in gated communities. Sometimes literally, as in housing projects with security fences, or a country-club enclave of the rich and snobby, but always figuratively. (Brief random tangent: San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom is getting married in the Bitterroot Valley, spending time in the new gated community near my hometown. How weird is that?)

Most of us have been spared hardships the rest of the world suffers, such as drought, food shortages, civil wars. Until recently, we were relatively unscathed by natural disasters. Even after the heartbreak of Hurricane Katrina, we have still been able to tune out stories of floods and tornadoes in the Midwest and around the world as apparently lacking a direct effect on our lives.

And the foundation of that insularity is our money. Economists talk about bubbles bursting, and I find that image quite appropriate. So much of our economy is based on intangible ideas, the perception of what something is worth, and a general understanding and acceptance that stocks are worth what we agree they are worth. Consider the subprime mortgage crisis: speculators, mortgage brokers, a whole flotilla of people greedy or gullible or both, all overextended their reach, like a balloon that is inflated too far.

It is not just our economy that is based on abstract ideas of value, of course, and there are sophisticated laws of supply and demand and market value that I won't pretend to understand. But fundamentally, we take pieces of paper and say, "Okay, this paper is good for this much product." Or we say, "This piece of paper called a stock was worth this much a while ago, and now, a few days later, it is worth an entirely different amount." It might make for an easy substitute for trading five oranges for a loaf of bread, or trading sex for free housing, or other more tangible economic transactions, but it is undeniably abstract, and based on 'consumer confidence.' And now in the heyday of electronic transfers and credit cards, it is a game of numbers, a confidence game. And of course, everyone wants to win when it comes to games.

But what does it mean to win this game? To have a bank account with inflated numbers? Does that really do you any good in the event of a natural catastrophe?

A current example of this can be found in Mexico. My friend Marina works for a non-profit group that distributes grant money to conservation projects in Mexico. They are currently gearing up for another battle against hotel lobbyists to defend current laws aimed at preserving mangroves along the coasts. Hoteliers want to remove the current stringent laws that forbid any destruction of wetlands; the people of New Orleans could tell them what a good idea that would be. But the thing is, hoteliers could make money by building additional properties, and their argument is that would benefit the locals economically. They do not consider the tangible effects of their actions on the environment. It's an argument of the abstract versus the tangible.

Standardization of costs and values through the abstract techniques of our modern economy is beneficial in many ways. An economy is a method of collecting and distributing and using resources, and money is, obviously, a simplifier for that process. But the process needs to stay tangible. We must understand that it is a tool to allow us to live, not a goal for which we live. Abraham Maslow's hierarchy of needs features many elements that can be fulfilled only with the possession of resources. But it is a long way to go between needing shelter and needing multiple homes in the suburbs, or needing satellite TV, or needing a new car every couple of years. A Humvee is not self-actualizing.

If we are told that suddenly our stocks have less value, or the dollar is losing strength, for most of us, that is a very abstract notion based purely on confidence and instinct. Phil Gramm has many flaws, including: a) calling Americans 'whiners', which is mostly unfair; and b) supporting a candidate for President who has not unequivocally distanced himself from the worst administration I have ever known. However, his assessment that we are going through a 'mental recession' is not entirely baseless, even if he didn't quite get the idea or the presentation right. Say what you will, but we are not the happiest people in the world by any measure.

The trick is to find meaning in life that can be more tangible, to establish what you really need, as opposed to what society says you want. Do something tangible, like pick up trash on the beach. Figure out what toys you might want that you would actually use. How much do you really need?

Random Thoughts, How San Francisco Is Like Missoula: Lessons From Mexican Masked Wrestling, Burlesque, and Comedy

I went through the looking glass the other night. And on the other side, I found that San Francisco was just like another day in Missoula, at least in the Fillmore for a performance of Mexican Masked Wrestling, Striptease, and Comedy¹.

Here is an itemized list of the things I saw and heard in San Francisco that are right out of Missoula:

1) A midget dressed as a chicken leaping fifteen feet from a balcony into a flying-elbow-drop onto the stage below.

2) The above was part of a three-on-three wrestling match between those natural enemies, orcas and chickens. This led to an auditorium full of drunk and high San Franciscans breaking into that oh-so-common cry of support and partisan passion, that universal political rallying cry that has presaged revolution and justice through the ages,"VI-va CHICK-en!"

Though why the ORCAS had to be the villains is beyond me.

3) Robin Williams.

Marina whispered to me at one point, "Robin Williams is standing right behind you." I turned, casually as possible, and out of the corner of my eye saw the man standing there in a black turtleneck and black glasses and gray hair, looking for all the world like just a normal person out for an evening of Mexican Masked Wrestling, Burlesque, and Comedy.

I was tempted to try to sound clever, saying something casual to Marina like, "Oh, this is JUST like Missoula, Montana. Yep, just like it." But I didn't, because really, that would just make me seem lame, trying to pretend to be ironically feigning cool and worldliness around Robin Williams, right?

Robin Williams.

Besides, given the random bewigged and masked people coming up to him and telling him how awesome he is and trying to get him to join in the show, I'm sure he appreciated my casual pretending that I hadn't noticed it was him. If you're reading this, Robin, you're welcome!


4) An epic three-way match for a sparkly belt between Team Mexico, dressed up like a dinosaur and a tiger respectively, Team USA, dressed up like The Hardy Boys Meet The Dukes Of Hazzard Meet Steroids Meet Professional Wrestling Attire, and Team Gay, dressed up as glitter. Did I mention this was Pride Week? Team Gay was clearly the crowd favorite, entering to "It's Raining Men".

And did I mention Robin Williams was there? Like two feet from me?

5) Twins dressed as schoolgirls beating the hell out of some thugs in a fairly acrobatic and gymnastic manner. Sexo y Violencia is the theme of the show, which I guess isn't really disturbing as long as the good guys win, and by good guys, I mean women. Right? Right? Or am I just a prude?

No, it's still disturbing. Cool, but disturbing.

It really was pretty cool how they trapped those guys with their legs and somersaulted them through the air before slamming them to the canvas.


So yeah. It was exactly like Missoula, except for all the drunk and high people. ¹

¹For clear disclosure purposes, note that I said I went through the looking glass, so please take all comparisons with Missoula with a grain of salt, except for the drunk and high part, which you can take with a grain of salt on a margarita glass.

Random Thoughts, Getting Out The Youth Vote

I am not young enough to know everything.--Oscar Wilde

Show me a young Conservative and I'll show you someone with no heart. Show me an old Liberal and I'll show you someone with no brains.--Winston Churchill

The question of the youth vote is an increasingly important one, and one that is the subject of two pending pieces of legislation in California that may or may not survive, lacking GOP support. One measure would allow 16- and 17-year olds to preregister, so that when they turn 18, they would automatically be registered to vote. The other measure would allow 17-year olds to vote in primary elections as long as they would turn 18 by the time of the general election.

It is certainly a time of growing civic engagement among youth. As Al Gore says in The Assault on Reason, the Internet will continue to grow as a core arena in the democratic process, and in the age of Facebook, MySpace, blogs, and flash mobs, youth will serve and be served, and I think that is a development of fundamental importance.

The quotation from Churchill, while appealing, is perhaps a bit too simplistic, especially as terms such as conservative and liberal have had chameleonesque shifts in meaning over the years and from country to country, particularly in reference to political parties--not to hear the media say it, with their set-in-stone, sound-byte usages. Nevertheless, there is a clear divide between the GOP and the Democrats when it comes to supporting these pieces of legislation.

From an article in the San Francisco Chronicle:

It's only natural that young voters would be more inclined to be liberal and to register Democratic, said Assemblyman Anthony Adams, R-Hesperia (San Bernardino County), vice chair of the Assembly's Election and Redistricting Committee.

"I'm a pretty conservative guy now, but when I was 17 I was a raging liberal," Adams said. "You start to see problems as you get older. As you get older, you get wiser."

He also argued that it would be wrong to set up a situation where political parties could send organizers into California high schools and attempt to recruit impressionable students.

"Our concern is that we want an informed and worldly electorate, and here we have these kids in high school and they're trying to get a grasp of the world," Adams said. "The assumption is that they're not able to make informed decisions, so we have to have a legitimate cutoff" date.

Gosh, why would Republicans be concerned about youthful, idealistic, and passionate new voters registering as Democrats?

My response is twofold, the sardonic and the sincere. Let's start with the sardonic, because that's just more fun.

Mr. Adams said he used to be liberal, then became wiser. Ah yes, the wisdom of conservatives, much like the experience that John McCain has subtly implied that Obama lacks, the sort of experience accrued by Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld in the Nixon administration that has been so beneficial to our country and our world in the last decade.

Mr. Adams also says he wants an informed electorate, so that we need a legitimate cutoff date, which is apparently 18. Of course, not so long ago, 18 was "old enough to kill, but not for votin'," according to Eve Of Destruction--which, along with Masters of War, comprises the heart of my two-track Dick Cheney tribute mix. 18 is as arbitrary as anything else when it comes to marking maturity.

Granted, our public education tends to stop at WWII, or the last time the US might legitimately be argued a hero in world history (Japanese-American internment camps being one of many glaring asterisks, of course)--the first Gulf War rendered ineligible for consideration after we gave Saddam the mustard gas he used on the Kurds and Iranians in the 1980s. And it is true that teenagers are sometimes prone to falling for fads and buying into an image, which can be a danger in a culture where, among many valid critiques, one of the arguments against Condoleeza Rice as a vice-presidential candidate is her status as a single woman. Substance is sometimes hard to separate from the chaff when it comes to political coverage.

However, senior year, American Government in Mr. Mitchell's class, we read The Ugly American and considered the effects of Vietnam. Youth does not inherently imply an inability to render careful analysis and make sound political judgments.

There are many reasons why a liberal such as myself would seriously consider expatriation from a culture that so often seems out of step with compassion. But as Gore argues in The Assault On Reason, the ideals of democracy that we possess are worth fighting for, and with a reinvigorated civic debate among youth, I think this can be done. Whether or not these particular pieces of legislation pass, the idea behind them is valid, and as long as we continue to pursue paths that open doors to political participation for the youth and the otherwise heretofore disconnected, then there is hope, which can be dangerous, but which can also be a beautiful thing.

Whether there is much difference between Democrats and Republicans, or whether a groundswell of youthful idealism could lift third-parties into relevance, those are not questions I can answer. But like Oscar Wilde, I do think there a fine potential in youth. For one thing, youth is not Dick Cheney.