The last time the Boston Red Sox won the World Series, I'd stayed up with a select group of people - and no, not all of them were Americans - at Ulpan Etzion in Jerusalem, Israel, to watch that history being made. This time around, on the day when it seemed that the so-called "Curse of the Bambino" had not only been lifted in 2004, but transferred to, oh I don't know, the Yankees by 2007, the history-making game I had my eyes and ears on was the Giants-Dolphins NFL game played at the new Wembley Stadium in London, England. To tell you the truth, a Red Sox victory seemed too easily won this time around - the magic of uncertainty had been replaced by a veritable Bostonian Blitzkrieg. To the victors go the spoils - and my congratulations.
Witnessing the incredible ease with which the Red Sox won this Series after very nearly being prevented from attending it by the Cleveland Indians is enough to make one wonder - had they been holding something back in the ALCS on purpose? Let's leave that as a highly unlikely possibility, but a possibility nonetheless, and consider this other notion - with two World Series rings earned by Boston in four consecutive seasons in this decade, and no World Series rings won by the Pinstripes since 2000, before they lost to, ahem, the Arizona Diamondbacks in 2001, has America truly become the Red Sox Nation? Are they the new "America's Team"? Are - perish the thought, God forbid - the Yankees the new Red Sox, and the Red Sox the new Yankees?
Those witty "Do the Math"-type t-shirts sold in many a Times Square and Yankees souvenir shop, the ones that show the dozens of NYYankees championship rings won over the last 90 years or so contrasted with a single, solitary Red Sox ring, are going to have to be replaced with a more updated version. At one time or another, this was bound to happen, but that it should be so soon must be particularly painful for die-hard fans of the Bronx Bombers. Oh, not to worry - those of us more "casual" (i.e., not-living-and-breathing-only-for-a-Yankees win) Yankees fans know that the Red Sox aren't about to catch up with our 26 anytime soon.
But once "the House that Ruth Built" is replaced by the new Yankee Stadium, will the "magic" that kept the Big Apple ahead of Beantown in the MLB be that sort of Lady that Frank Sinatra admonished Luck not to be, i.e., the one that wanders all over the room blowing on some other guy's dice (take that any way you will)...in this case, the dice being no longer those of the Yankees, but those of the Red Sox? It is, of course, foolish to believe in such "curses", but we can't deny the psychological power they have, that makes them capable of being self-fulfilling whatever can be proven of their veracity. I mean, look what stories of an ousted goat have done to Chicago Cubs fans over the course of many decades.
If it is indeed the case that the Earth's magnetic field has shifted and that Lady Luck has pulled a Benedict Arnold against New York's venerable Continental Army in favor of the Redsox controlling Fenway Pahk (alright, how many got the Revolutionary War references on the first read?), I don't think it is the case that anything supernatural - aside from Divine Providence - is ultimately to blame. Arrogance and caution at the top of the Yankees organization are the culprits, and with all due respect to Messrs. Steinbrenner and Cashman, they more than Joe Torre are who should be held accountable not only for the Yankees failing again to achieve the Fall Classic, but also for God's having possibly decided to trade in His well-worn Yankees cap for a Red Sox one at the Lids branch in Heaven.
Am I saying anything new, here? I don't think so. Rationally-minded or "aristocratic" Yankees fans know for whom their anger should be primarily reserved; as for the plebs, they may be just enough satisfied with Joe Torre's absence from the dugout in 2008 to let the others off the hook for now.
Wondering about those NYY fans whose cold anger still simmers against the upper management? Bear in mind that it is usually from cold anger that grudges are born and that the memories of some species of fans are as long as the memories of the Jews - they'll tell their grandkids (and, God-willing, great-grandkids) just who it was that enfeebled the Yankees in the first years of the 21st century to such a degree that it enabled the Red Sox to win one World Series too many. And you have to remember, for some Pinstripes fans, even just one World Championship ring won and worn by a Boston Red Sox player in the post-Babe Ruth era was one too many.
But two such rings for the Red Sox, in four seasons, in the first decade of the 2000s?
Well, if that's not a nakba, what is?
Monday, October 29, 2007
Friday, October 26, 2007
U.N. sez Earthquakes, Tsunamis due to Global Warming
26 October 2007 (RealSlimSlavin News): A new study financed by the United Nations and released today to the public reveals that one of the modern world's greatest tragedies, the Southeast Asian Tsunami of December 2004 that left hundreds of thousands dead and a teeming multitude homeless, was caused in fact not by a great undersea earthquake, but rather sparked by global warming. The study notes that while a massive disruption of water - sparked by an earthquake - was indeed the cause of the tsunami itself, the rise in global temperatures over the past 30 years has been found to be directly influencing the movements of tectonic plates under the Earth, thus negating the natural or "Act of God" nature of the historic event and placing the blame squarely on the shoulders of humankind.
This announcement, following a recent decision by the U.N. Human Rights Council that Israeli military actions against Palestinians are directly to blame for climate change and one by the U.N. General Assembly that "Zionism equals Global Warming", has already been praised by both Al Gore and the Arab League. The study, titled "Earthquakes and Climate Change: A Doomed World", is already being touted worldwide as a landmark achievement in scientific research, common sense and objectivity.
"We now have definitive proof that global warming was responsible for the horrific tsunami of December 2004," the doctor who led the investigation says. "Having recently found a direct correlation between climate change and the prevalence of earthquakes, the explanation is really quite unremarkable in its simplicity. In fact, you could probably trace the occurrence of every known earthquake - and earthquake-inspired tsunami - back to some form of human-induced climate change. It explains a lot."
What exactly can be done about the connection between climate change and the sliding-plates-under-the-earth phenomenon remains to be seen; the study has already sparked fierce debate among academics and politicians. At the very least, this discovery vindicates the tireless efforts of activists to portray the infamous "Ring of Fire" as incontrovertible proof that humanity is responsible for every single rise in global temperatures, despite the effects of ash and soot from volcanoes whose origins are found deep beneath the planet's crust, as well as cattle methane emissions. Already we are hearing rumblings from the scientific community that an announcement is forthcoming on the relationship between climate change and those aforementioned volcanoes - perhaps asserting that global warming causes volcanoes, and not the other way around.
Another scientist who participated in the study's drafting had this to say: "Look, we already know that global warming killed off the dinosaurs - or, if you subscribe to Dr. Thomas Henry Huxley's theory of saurian evolution, it spurred the transformation of many dinosaurs into avian-like creatures, known today as birds. Though it's a stretch, we're pretty sure we can find a human connection between the meteor that slammed into the Yucatan peninsula 65 million years ago and the disappearance of the 'terrible lizards' of yore. Perhaps even Halliburton had a relationship with the asteroid company that sent the big rock. Really, if you think about it, you can blame everything that goes wrong - or that we don't yet fully understand - on humanity, and especially America. Oh, and the Jews. Which is really alarming to me, because I am one."
Several institutions are looking into the many other areas it is believed that global warming could be influencing or which it has already influenced. Even as Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad denies the Holocaust, one private group in Switzerland is looking into whether climate change can be retroactively blamed for the genocide of the Jews during World War II, perhaps seeking absolution for the former Nazi regime in Germany. Next Tuesday, the International Court of Justice at The Hague, in the Netherlands, is set to hear arguments on behalf of deceased Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic that global warming, and not attempted ethnic cleansing, was to blame for the Kosovo conflict of the late 1990s. And a team led by a university professor in Ohio is investigating claims that climate change is directly responsible for America's ongoing sub-prime mortgage crisis.
Meanwhile, in places like Indonesia, Sri Lanka, and along India's southeastern coastline, the finding that global warming caused the tsunami has created quite a stir. Questions abound about the effectiveness of new tsunami warning systems that have been installed in an age when global warming may spark sudden, massive earthquakes; people say it is all well and good that they now have the capability of receiving a heads-up when massive walls of seawater are heading their way, but that it is downright inhumane to be leaving these countries and their citizens without a qualitative means of predicting trends in climate change short of alarmist media stories, all-too-frequent NGO studies, and local weather reports and forecasts. And "Earthquakes and Climate Change: A Doomed World" is not without its critics even in the region it speaks of.
"Enough of these bad news studies. We want to know exactly how the world will end, and when," one villager in Indonesia's Aceh province told a visiting reporter. "Otherwise, all we'll be doing is endlessly worrying without any clue of what, exactly, we are worrying about."
Compiled from Wire Reports of my Ever-Active Imagination
This announcement, following a recent decision by the U.N. Human Rights Council that Israeli military actions against Palestinians are directly to blame for climate change and one by the U.N. General Assembly that "Zionism equals Global Warming", has already been praised by both Al Gore and the Arab League. The study, titled "Earthquakes and Climate Change: A Doomed World", is already being touted worldwide as a landmark achievement in scientific research, common sense and objectivity.
"We now have definitive proof that global warming was responsible for the horrific tsunami of December 2004," the doctor who led the investigation says. "Having recently found a direct correlation between climate change and the prevalence of earthquakes, the explanation is really quite unremarkable in its simplicity. In fact, you could probably trace the occurrence of every known earthquake - and earthquake-inspired tsunami - back to some form of human-induced climate change. It explains a lot."
What exactly can be done about the connection between climate change and the sliding-plates-under-the-earth phenomenon remains to be seen; the study has already sparked fierce debate among academics and politicians. At the very least, this discovery vindicates the tireless efforts of activists to portray the infamous "Ring of Fire" as incontrovertible proof that humanity is responsible for every single rise in global temperatures, despite the effects of ash and soot from volcanoes whose origins are found deep beneath the planet's crust, as well as cattle methane emissions. Already we are hearing rumblings from the scientific community that an announcement is forthcoming on the relationship between climate change and those aforementioned volcanoes - perhaps asserting that global warming causes volcanoes, and not the other way around.
Another scientist who participated in the study's drafting had this to say: "Look, we already know that global warming killed off the dinosaurs - or, if you subscribe to Dr. Thomas Henry Huxley's theory of saurian evolution, it spurred the transformation of many dinosaurs into avian-like creatures, known today as birds. Though it's a stretch, we're pretty sure we can find a human connection between the meteor that slammed into the Yucatan peninsula 65 million years ago and the disappearance of the 'terrible lizards' of yore. Perhaps even Halliburton had a relationship with the asteroid company that sent the big rock. Really, if you think about it, you can blame everything that goes wrong - or that we don't yet fully understand - on humanity, and especially America. Oh, and the Jews. Which is really alarming to me, because I am one."
Several institutions are looking into the many other areas it is believed that global warming could be influencing or which it has already influenced. Even as Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad denies the Holocaust, one private group in Switzerland is looking into whether climate change can be retroactively blamed for the genocide of the Jews during World War II, perhaps seeking absolution for the former Nazi regime in Germany. Next Tuesday, the International Court of Justice at The Hague, in the Netherlands, is set to hear arguments on behalf of deceased Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic that global warming, and not attempted ethnic cleansing, was to blame for the Kosovo conflict of the late 1990s. And a team led by a university professor in Ohio is investigating claims that climate change is directly responsible for America's ongoing sub-prime mortgage crisis.
Meanwhile, in places like Indonesia, Sri Lanka, and along India's southeastern coastline, the finding that global warming caused the tsunami has created quite a stir. Questions abound about the effectiveness of new tsunami warning systems that have been installed in an age when global warming may spark sudden, massive earthquakes; people say it is all well and good that they now have the capability of receiving a heads-up when massive walls of seawater are heading their way, but that it is downright inhumane to be leaving these countries and their citizens without a qualitative means of predicting trends in climate change short of alarmist media stories, all-too-frequent NGO studies, and local weather reports and forecasts. And "Earthquakes and Climate Change: A Doomed World" is not without its critics even in the region it speaks of.
"Enough of these bad news studies. We want to know exactly how the world will end, and when," one villager in Indonesia's Aceh province told a visiting reporter. "Otherwise, all we'll be doing is endlessly worrying without any clue of what, exactly, we are worrying about."
Compiled from Wire Reports of my Ever-Active Imagination
Monday, October 22, 2007
Dumbledore's Alleged Gayness Doesn't Matter
Okay, I get that in this era where the push for "gay rights" has inexcusably been confused with being of the same importance as "civil rights" for blacks, any news of a "celebrity", even a fake celebrity, being gay is bound to garner major headlines. But I really don't see how author J.K. Rowling's revelation that Albus Dumbledore, the former headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry in the Harry Potter series, is - or rather, was - gay is such a big deal. Since the news came out...ha ha...it is as if fans have been rushing back to their bookshelves to try and find all the little remarks and other clues in the book series which make you go "Hmmm..."
No doubt, there are certain people who, having no lives or common sense, are celebrating Dumbledore's "outing". Here's the thing: Unless there is a specific passage in any of the Harry Potter books where Dumbledore leaves no doubt as to his sexual orientation, J.K. Rowling's statement in New York last week - despite her authorship of the series - should be seen merely as just being her own opinion. It's not "canon", and since J.K. Rowling is not God, her word - her ex post facto word - has not and cannot earn the status of "gospel".
While I'm not the most cynical of people, J.K. Rowling's choice of "revealing" Dumbledore's "true nature" at Carnegie Hall appears to me to be - in no small way - a slimy attempt at appearing more tolerant than she actually is. Oh, she may very well have written the character of Dumbledore with the knowledge stored up in her head that he was gay. But since she declined to reveal this "fact" until several months after the seventh and final book in the series was released, there is more than just a reasonable amount of doubt in my mind about her motivations in doing so now.
You see, had J.K. Rowling "revealed" this news before the Deathly Hallows was released to the public (or before any of the other books were published), like it or not that may have affected whether parents would have allowed their children to read the series. Many parents who may have already been wary of the prevalence of "witchcraft and wizardry" in the books, but chose to buy the books for their kids anyway, would probably have been much more opposed than they would openly admit to their children reading books about children who attend a school whose headmaster is openly gay. But what harm, really, can be done by the author saying Dumbledore is gay after the fact?
Not much. The copies of books, the copies that have made J.K. Rowling one of the richest women in the world, have already been sold. Newcomers to the series may scrutinize the text more than those who patiently waited for and read the books over the course of several years, and their thinking about certain statements by the Albus Dumbledore character will undoubtedly be colored by J.K. Rowling's recent announcement about him, but nothing, really, has changed. And unless J.K. Rowling rewrites, revises, etc. one or several of the Harry Potter books, nothing will change about that being the situation, for the better or the worse.
Does J.K. Rowling's "outing" of Dumbledore change the way I view the Harry Potter series? Quite frankly, no. I don't think of myself as being thick-headed for "missing clues" about Dumbledore's sexual preference, because I don't recall ever being told (over the past six years or so) to look for such clues. That wasn't the point of the books, though certain idiots will likely now claim that it was.
Whatever J.K. Rowling says - non-canonically - about the late Albus Dumbledore doesn't erase the fact that millions upon millions of kids who might otherwise have had their faces planted in front of video game consoles or HDTVs instead sat down on couches, at kitchen tables, or in parks to read. And read. And read some more. And she didn't just get ADHDTV kids to read, either. One of my fondest hobbies this past summer was walking around Bryant Park in Manhattan at midday and counting how many adults had their noses buried in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (I estimated, one day, that at least 70% of the people in the park were - and there were a lot of people - reading the book at that particular moment).
Celebrating J.K. Rowling's "don't ask, don't tell" policy about the character, a policy which lasted for the better part of a decade, seems pretty stupid to me (especially in this day and age, when "pride" in - and openness about - who you are is supposedly all the rage if you're gay or lesbian). We're talking about a fake wizard and an author's ability to turn that wizard into whatever she wants once the checks have been cashed. If Dumbledore being gay really "mattered", J.K. Rowling would have been open about it in the books, rather than coy. So no, it doesn't make a difference to me whether Albus Dumbledore was gay or not. Not really.
What does matter about the whole Harry Potter phenomenon in general is that however shrewd and selfish a businesswoman J.K. Rowling is, she got people not only to buy books, but to read them, and not only to read them, but to anxiously await the publication of another book year after year after year. That's pretty special, that's a big accomplishment, that's what's important, and if kids - and adults - should take away anything from the Harry Potter series, it's not questions about whether Dumbledore's queer. It should be that reading can be fun...and people should do a lot more of it.
No doubt, there are certain people who, having no lives or common sense, are celebrating Dumbledore's "outing". Here's the thing: Unless there is a specific passage in any of the Harry Potter books where Dumbledore leaves no doubt as to his sexual orientation, J.K. Rowling's statement in New York last week - despite her authorship of the series - should be seen merely as just being her own opinion. It's not "canon", and since J.K. Rowling is not God, her word - her ex post facto word - has not and cannot earn the status of "gospel".
While I'm not the most cynical of people, J.K. Rowling's choice of "revealing" Dumbledore's "true nature" at Carnegie Hall appears to me to be - in no small way - a slimy attempt at appearing more tolerant than she actually is. Oh, she may very well have written the character of Dumbledore with the knowledge stored up in her head that he was gay. But since she declined to reveal this "fact" until several months after the seventh and final book in the series was released, there is more than just a reasonable amount of doubt in my mind about her motivations in doing so now.
You see, had J.K. Rowling "revealed" this news before the Deathly Hallows was released to the public (or before any of the other books were published), like it or not that may have affected whether parents would have allowed their children to read the series. Many parents who may have already been wary of the prevalence of "witchcraft and wizardry" in the books, but chose to buy the books for their kids anyway, would probably have been much more opposed than they would openly admit to their children reading books about children who attend a school whose headmaster is openly gay. But what harm, really, can be done by the author saying Dumbledore is gay after the fact?
Not much. The copies of books, the copies that have made J.K. Rowling one of the richest women in the world, have already been sold. Newcomers to the series may scrutinize the text more than those who patiently waited for and read the books over the course of several years, and their thinking about certain statements by the Albus Dumbledore character will undoubtedly be colored by J.K. Rowling's recent announcement about him, but nothing, really, has changed. And unless J.K. Rowling rewrites, revises, etc. one or several of the Harry Potter books, nothing will change about that being the situation, for the better or the worse.
Does J.K. Rowling's "outing" of Dumbledore change the way I view the Harry Potter series? Quite frankly, no. I don't think of myself as being thick-headed for "missing clues" about Dumbledore's sexual preference, because I don't recall ever being told (over the past six years or so) to look for such clues. That wasn't the point of the books, though certain idiots will likely now claim that it was.
Whatever J.K. Rowling says - non-canonically - about the late Albus Dumbledore doesn't erase the fact that millions upon millions of kids who might otherwise have had their faces planted in front of video game consoles or HDTVs instead sat down on couches, at kitchen tables, or in parks to read. And read. And read some more. And she didn't just get ADHDTV kids to read, either. One of my fondest hobbies this past summer was walking around Bryant Park in Manhattan at midday and counting how many adults had their noses buried in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (I estimated, one day, that at least 70% of the people in the park were - and there were a lot of people - reading the book at that particular moment).
Celebrating J.K. Rowling's "don't ask, don't tell" policy about the character, a policy which lasted for the better part of a decade, seems pretty stupid to me (especially in this day and age, when "pride" in - and openness about - who you are is supposedly all the rage if you're gay or lesbian). We're talking about a fake wizard and an author's ability to turn that wizard into whatever she wants once the checks have been cashed. If Dumbledore being gay really "mattered", J.K. Rowling would have been open about it in the books, rather than coy. So no, it doesn't make a difference to me whether Albus Dumbledore was gay or not. Not really.
What does matter about the whole Harry Potter phenomenon in general is that however shrewd and selfish a businesswoman J.K. Rowling is, she got people not only to buy books, but to read them, and not only to read them, but to anxiously await the publication of another book year after year after year. That's pretty special, that's a big accomplishment, that's what's important, and if kids - and adults - should take away anything from the Harry Potter series, it's not questions about whether Dumbledore's queer. It should be that reading can be fun...and people should do a lot more of it.
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