An assistant football coach of the Texas Longhorns had sex with a UT student at the 2009 Fiesta Bowl:

In separate statements released Friday night, Dodds and Applewhite called the incident a one-time occurrence. [UT Athletic Director Deloss] Dodds said it happened during activities related to the 2009 Fiesta Bowl, when [UT Offensive Coordinator] Applewhite was UT’s assistant head coach and running backs coach.

Dodds said he learned of the incident later that month, and that Applewhite admitted his “inappropriate conduct.” Applewhite “fully accepted his discipline, including counseling,” Dodds said.

“Several years ago, I made a regretful decision resulting in behavior that was totally inappropriate,” Applewhite said in his statement. “It was a one-time occurrence and was a personal matter. Shortly after it occurred, I discussed the situation with DeLoss Dodds. I was upfront and took full responsibility for my actions. This is and was resolved four years ago with the university.

The university may have had reason to make this belated disclosure:

Last month, Bev Kearney, the women’s track coach at the University of Texas, resigned over an affair with “an adult student-athlete” in 2002. Was the African-American, gay, woman forced out over a consensual affair while the white male football coach (who was also a star football player at the school) received preferential treatment? In Applewhite’s case, the affair was not with an athlete, but there may have still been a supervisory role. It will be interesting to see how Texas spins this.

It seems to me the central question is whether or not there was a supervisory role (and if there was, what was the nature of it). That, to my mind, is a critical difference between the two incidents. I could be convinced that Applewhite should have been fired for his transgression (UT is reviewing the policy). The case that Kearney shouldn’t have been fired is much more difficult to make. Even at the professional level, where there is a much more ambiguous power relationship between coach and player and the players are older, that is a fireable offense under any reasonable handbook. Such things are almost certain to cause instability within the team the coach was hired to lead.

In the Applewhite case, I can really see it going either way. It seems inappropriate for anybody who is even technically a sorta-member of faculty to be sleeping with students. It also sets a bad standard for the student athletes and their conduct (how they handle the attention and adulation they receive, if of course we care about such things). It can be hard enough to get coaches to crack down on inappropriate (or illegal) personal conduct without coaches having inappropriate relations with students ten years their junior. On the other hand, it’s consensual and there is very little to indicate that their was sufficient power differential to cause concern for coercion.

One suspects that the Applewhite case is one of those things that is going to depend heavily on factors unrelated to the allegation. Which means that someone more prominent like Applewhite stays, while a lesser-known figure would be quietly dispatched.

The other day at Safeway I happened to end up in line in front of the young lady I sold Crayola, my old Ford Escort, too. I was particularly happy to sell the car to exactly the kind of person she was: young and poor. I offered the car for a really low price and even knocked another $150 off after I met her and her boyfriend, the prototypical struggling young couple. I almost had an offer for the full asking price, but I ended up glad that didn’t work out because it was a gift for a grandson who was apparently less than impressed that his first car was going to be a compact. I wanted the car to go to someone that would appreciate it the same way I appreciated having any car that would run.

While we were waiting, I asked them whether they still had the car, and they did! I thought that I had seen it around town, but I hadn’t seen it in a while. Apparently, the old car successfully drove from the Mountain West, to the Great Plains, to the Texas, and back. I was pretty stunned since I had become reluctant to try to drive it to Redstone.

I will confess, however, that “wait, so you’re saying I could have held on to that car for two more years?!” crossed my mind. But a greater part of me was glad that I didn’t rip them off with a car that had less than a couple months left on it. Besides which, the car had become unreliable in extreme cold conditions. We haven’t really had that since I sold it to them, but piece of mind was also one of the things we purchased along with the new car and warranty plan. Also, with little Lain, the two-door compact would no longer have been useful to us anyway.

Meanwhile, my sister-in-law is asking me about smartphones and is interested in upgrading to one. That sort of stuff makes my day to begin with, but it worked out even better when it turned out that a phone I have that’s been gathering dust (literally - I’m looking at it now and it’s very dusty) fit her needs perfectly.

I always like it when things I can no longer use can find a home with someone who needs them.

I am back at the bookstore/coffeeshop that won’t let you use the bathroom without an escort.

When you tell them you need someone to unlock it for you, they go on the intercom and apparently their code for “Someone needs to unlock the restroom” is “Code USA.”

I went to Walmart earlier today to start getting everything in motion for a new pair of glasses. I specifically asked the Eye Care Professional if it was a problem that I forgot my prescription. Could they just get everything in line and then get the actual prescription tomorrow since I live an hour away? They said yes. By “yes” they apparently meant “no.” I spent fifteen minutes looking at frames, sat down to tell them what I wanted, and she then told me I would have to come back next week because apparently they need me and the prescription both in the same place.

It’s almost enough to make me just get the glasses in Callie. The gas costs of coming up here for a pair of glasses strip any savings. As it turns out, I have a job next week at the Holding Tank Alternative School. So I should be able to do it then.

Meanwhile, at my favored coffee shop (which closed at hours thus why I am now at the bookstore), the Truthers that own the place are apparently voting straight ticket Democrat at least at the state level (Democratic signs all over the place - sans Obama). I was actually wondering. The last time politics was discussed, they weren’t interested in voting for the Kenyan, but also had some pretty big reservations about voting for the Mormon-Freemason Cabal’s candidate.

The air quality up here is worse than it’s been in Callie.

From a piece about SeaWorld (subscription maybe required):

The first Sea World opened in San Diego in 1964. It was the brainchild of four college friends who originally planned it to be little more than a restaurant with some aquatic viewing areas. Featuring dolphin shows as the main attraction, the park was popular from the start. But when the owners purchased the original Shamu in 1965 for $70,000 and began displaying her, revenues soared. Eventually Sea World would open locations in Florida, Ohio and Texas, and orcas came to be the parks’ mainstay. Sea World is zealous in defense of its use of orcas for understandable commercial reasons: Mr. Kirby cites figures suggesting that orcas account 70% of the parks’ revenues.

Huh. I’ve been to three different SeaWorlds and have absolutely no recollection of seeing Killer Whales. I had no idea it was that central to the business. I was always more interested in the dolphins (which killer whales apparently are a type of, but I mean dolphins-dolphins). Or maybe it was that the Killer Whale shows were too crowded, thus explaining both how important they are to Sea World and why I never saw them.

Anyhow, the piece is about a book about how it’s wrong to keep killer whales in captivity. It apparently makes a pretty good case, if it has Jon Last convinced.

I overheard at the supply store today someone telling a story. He was relating a conversation with a third party. Somewhere in the words or thoughts were “Hey man, fuck that, this watch cost $8.”

I was not sufficiently curious to inquire further about the conversation, nor did I see his watch, but as a fan of $8 watches, I’m pretty sure I take his side in the conversation.

I accidentally ordered one too many of my US Polo watches. The extra one has been sitting in the basement unused. I fished it out yesterday and can’t for the life of me figure out why I sidelined this one in particular. It’s cosmetically superior to the one I was using in every way. It was a $22 watch and not an $8. I feel inferior to the guy who makes do with an $8 watch.

Well, it’s one part bookstore and one part coffeeshop. A competing chain of B&N. I come here because, aside from Starbucks and convenient stores, it is the only place in Redstone where I can get frou-frou coffee after 5pm. Most of you know that, but I mention it in case you have forgotten.

In order to compensate for the Internet, I have my phone rigged up for tethering. Since I’ve started relying on WiFi at home, I have bandwidth capacity to spare on my plan.

Here’s an odd thing. The poster for this place here in Redstone has a mildly hipster-looking guy a tattoo and a wedding band. The same guy, I’m pretty sure the same picture, back home in the South has neither the tattoos nor the ring. They’ve been photoshopped on, or off. Either one got the poster before the other, or it has something to do with market research. That would be some pretty wicked market research: I would actually bet that people (whites, anyway) around here are more likely to have tattoos, and more likely to marry young.

I arrived in time for happy hour, which is buy-one-get-one-free. Frustratingly, they won’t let me buy one now and get the free one later. I guess they’re betting I say “never mind the second one” but the end result is that I get two, just in case. I may put the second one to waste.

Sitting here alone with two cups of coffee on the table makes me feel oddly lonely.

Next door to this place is a Rent-a-Center. The existence of Rent-a-Center brings out an unpatriotic side of me. It… should… not… exist. At least not in its current form. A more stunning indictment of American consumerism/capitalism does not come to mind.

Bring a rural doctor, my wife knew going in that it would be different than what she’s done before. When we were in Deseret, there would periodically be a patient of hers that would run into us at Walmart and immediately dive in giving Clancy an update on how whatever she was last in for turned out. When I’m in Redstone, I’ve periodically run into students or the occasional teacher at the local bookstore or Walmart. But here in Callie, it’s different.

The other day she took a vacation day off work because she had an afternoon appointment (if she just takes the morning off, she can still be double-booked to the point that she would have to work through the afternoon to get through everybody). She still had an AM morning she had to go to and when she left she went to the local coffeehouse to take care of some paperwork. While there, she ran into a colleague who had herself taken a couple vacation days to take care of hospital and clinic paperwork. There were some officey things to discuss, but as soon as she was done, she ran into a patient. They chatted for a while (about, among other things, the need for substitute teachers in Callie). Clancy came back a little regretful of not having been more productive at the coffeehouse, but it was pretty apparent that the time had done her some good. That represented the good side of working and living in such a small town.

The bad side came the next day.

Clancy and I don’t live in the best part of town. In fact, she inwardly groans when she recognizes an address being nearby ours. It often (though not always) means a problem patient of one sort or another. And so it was with a patient that came in the next day. Without going into details, it was a bad visit and authorities had to be contacted (legal and professional responsibility). And wouldn’t you know it, the patient lives on our street (I haven’t a clue who it is - don’t want to know). Anyhow, on account of this, when Clancy walks the dog, she’s going to be going out the back way for a while.

Several years ago (approaching 15… gah!), I was talking to a cop and he made a comment that he would never work in the same city where he lived. He used the metaphor of eating where you excrement. Prior to talking to this cop, most of the cops I’d gotten to know had been in the city of Phillipi. My ex-girlfriend Julianne lived there her father was a volunteer fireman, and there is a fair amount of crossover between being a cop and a volunteer fireman. Not a single Phillippi police officer I knew didn’t live in Phillippi as far as I knew. The idea of living in one community and protecting another seemed rather strange to me.

When I started substitute teaching, rather than subbing in Callie, where I live, I signed up to do so out in Redstone. There were a number of reasons for this. Redstone is the bigger district so I figured I would get called in more often. Callie gave me the run-around while Redstone asked the soonest day I could take the TB test. I had my standard question when asked about it, though: “I’ve never subbed before. I figured by substituting in Redstone, if I was lousy at it, I’d be messing up some other community’s kids. Since then, I’ve heard more than once that there is actually a pressing need in Callie. It also turns out that a teacher in Redstone knows the superintendent down here and is willing to write an email of recommendation. With the kid on the way, working closer to home makes more sense. Yet, for all of my joking about messing up Redstone’s kids, I actually have that sort of sense that it’s really not bad living in one town and working with the youth of another.

(To be clear, it’s not that. I’ve grown fond of some of the “repeat customers” I’ve had at Redstone schools. I also like the excuse to go out there sometimes. But I really do find the prospect of substituting neighborhood kids to be daunting, despite the fact that the kids here are generally better adjusted than the kids in Redstone, and kids surprisingly don’t hold a grudge against a substitute who gets them in trouble.)

Which brings me back to the medical community. There is a degree of separation between the medical community here and the broader community. Most of the doctors (of the ones I know where they live) live well outside of town in unincorporated county. There was actually a big to-do here many years ago where the doctors and other individuals essentially pulled their kids out of the local high school and took over a school a half-hour away. There’s a whole story there, but it’s a part of what I consider to be a broader detachment. Before we decided we would be sticking around, Clancy and I talked about where we might get a house and she felt pretty strongly about getting one out of town. Some of it is her introversion (oddly, my introversion is why I think getting a place out of town would be a really bad idea), though another part of it is the general eating/excrementing thing.

In an ideal world, none of this would be the case. The Phillippi model would true. I think in Redstone itself, of all places, it actually does. It’s one of the things I’ve always admired about that place. Interestingly, Redstone and Phillippi are both rather blue collar. Both tend to draw sneers from outsiders. For a variety of reasons, though, they retain a degree of community spirit that I think is healthy. I am thinking that such places are the exception as much as the rule, however. I know some places actually pass laws requiring civil servants to live in town. Not much they can do about doctors, I suppose.

I got to see the world premier of a movie over the weekend. The world premier was in… Callie, Arapaho. Namely because it was filmed around these parts. It was a really low-budget film, though they did a really good job of making the money count.

We have a two-drop theater here in Callie. Most of the time, we don’t get first-run movies. When a big one - particularly, fortunately, one that stars a Marvel superhero - comes out, we’ll get that one. But otherwise, it’s dollar-theater timing at real theater prices. Of course, not many real movie theaters have reclining seats. This one does. It’s pretty rare there are more than a dozen people in the theater for any given movie. I’m a little worried that they will go out of business, but they seem to be getting by.

Today, in stark contrast to usual, they had a packed house. The movie was a half-hour late getting started as they tried to fit everyone in. Fortunately, the fire marshal wasn’t around. I ended up with what might have been the best seat in the house. It was almost certainly the only seat where nobody was sitting behind me and I could actually recline.

The movie itself was worth my time. It was free, though I wouldn’t have felt bad putting money down for it. It mostly took place on a ranch and the open range, but the “city” scenes were recognizable Callie locales. The story itself involved a ranch family and one of their ranch-hands. There were a number of predictable elements, such as the ranch hand’s love interest being the daughter of the ranching family. There were some interesting class elements in the movie, wherein you look at a set-up where one family has accumulated enough so that they can mostly rely on others to work on the ranch, while the hands do the heavy lifting and wait on that paycheck. The patriarch is handicapped, and the older son is works on the ranch (until he disappears, which is the plot). The younger son is sort of kept away from it. The idea was apparently to groom him to help run the ranch, but since he was never relied on, he was never groomed.

When the film ended, I felt the urge to clap, but nobody else clapped. They eventually did when the credits started rolling and some local names appeared. It was a little bit weird when the lights turned on and one of the main actors of the film (and the director) that I’d been watching on the screen was suddenly standing right there. It felt a little bit like when I was in a urinal next to a guy that I had previously seen on CMT.

I took a rare trip to Redstone that did not involve a substituting gig so that I could take care of some of the stuff I don’t have time to when I am in school all day. However, I got a bit of a late start and by the time I got up here and through Walmart (to return those clothes we bought in Delosa in lieu of having luggage), it was too late to go to either of the ideal coffeehouses. So it was Hastings or Starbucks. I opted for Hastings.

And wouldn’t you know it, I ordered the coffee and fired up the computer only to find out that the Internet was down. I couldn’t get an IP address. I convinced them to reboot the router, which turned out to be a mistake because they inexplicably put their business operations and “Free WiFi” on the same router. So their entire system was down during the reboot and nobody could buy anything. Oops.

Anyhow, rebooting the router didn’t work. So I decided to put my nice new Android phone to the test and see if I could tether (connect computer to phone to Internet). This involved two OSes that I am not remarkably familiar with, Linux and Android. But I got it to work! Booyah! Linux has actually made significant strides in making it easier to install third party software. And Android has turned out to work quite well.

I do have to watch my usage, since I’m on a 4GB limit. At least for now. I called Verizon to ask about something else and the girl on the other end very helpfully pointed out that I was only put on the limit by mistake. She submitted a request to get me back to unlimited. We’ll see if it happens.

I only got up to .5GB last month. I only had it part of the month, but I spent the whole time downloading apps and other stuff that would use an abnormal amount of bandwidth. So I feel pretty confident about staying within the limits.

Unfortunately, I can’t check past usage because of a glitch on Verizon’s site. Another glitch on the site is why I had to call. And yet another glitch is why I was put on 4GB in the first place. Verizon’s website needs work.

It’s hard not to get a chuckle from this:

The cheap signs smashed into lawns and along the corners of busy intersections are hard to miss. “We Buy Junk Cars!” ‘’Cash for Your House!” ‘’Computer Repair.” The eyesores have vexed Hollywood Mayor Peter Bober for the past few years as he wastes valuable resources plucking up the signs only to watch them pop up in even greater numbers.

While stopped at a red light a few months ago, Bober studied the unsightly signs and came to a realization that would help him fight their proliferation: The criminals had left their calling cards in the form of business phone numbers.

“These people want us to call them, so let’s call them so much their head spins,” said Bober, who bought a $300 software program in March that makes robocalls to the businesses. The volume of calls has reached as high as 20 calls each to 90 businesses in a day.

Not sure if it’s legal, but I like it if it is. I’ve had that thought before. It’s not like we don’t know who is putting up the signs. The companies in question can say “Hey, that must have been done by some overenthusiastic boy we hired, sorry or whatever” or something, but this gives a particular incentive for them to take it down. There’s little more obnoxious than repeated calls. And unlike tickets, you don’t end up losing money due to court costs (if the businesses are smart, they collect the fines and then go to court and demand a separate hearing on each ticket).

There was an article in the Redstone newspaper a while back about the city coming down on people who aren’t taking care of their property. Most notably it was about enforcing a little-known rule that if the registration on your car isn’t current, you can be ticketed whether you are driving it or not. They’re starting to write these tickets now. The goal is not revenue-generation (for once!) but rather as a means of getting people to either fix or dispose of old cars that are considered a blight on the city.

More locally, there is the case of Kevin Erickson. The first time I met Kevin, it was because he called the police on me. We’d just moved in and he wanted the police to look into who these people were hanging out at the house next door to his aging mother’s. I haven’t seen much of him since his mother died.

Erickson has been in the Callie paper recently. He is an entrepreneur of sorts with a couple of businesses, selling off old stuff. Not the old stuff that we approve of like antiques and whatnot, but rather old cars and tractor equipment. There is a push to shut him down because the old tractors and such are considered, at least by some, to be unsightly. It doesn’t help that one of Erickson’s lots are seen by everyone who passes through Callie.

Now, in one sense, I am more sympathetic to Redstone than Callie, and in another sense I am more sympathetic to Callie. I have some sympathy for Redstone because it does have a pretty serious image problem. As a sort of junky place. And things like cars on cinder blocks for years on-end aren’t helping. And, to their credit, they’re also starting to offer people free disposal service. Whatever it takes, just so long as you get rid of your junk! Callie, in my view, has less to complain about. It doesn’t have a huge image problem. In fact, Erickson’s lots are really the only place in the entire town that is any sort of problem. On the other hand, unlike with Redstone, the lots do stick out like a sore thumb.

Ultimately, I sort of give Redstone a pass. But generally speaking, I look at some of these things as the things that make Arapaho what it is. And not entirely in the negative way. The fact that some people around here are only vaguely aware of what an HOA is just makes my heart sing a little. And when I am driving in the middle of nowhere, a broken down car in the middle of a field is actually more interesting than it is unsightly. The mountains out here are beautiful. We have trees and rivers. But I consider some of the broken down sheds to be a part of the landscape. There are some things about Arapaho that I consider unsightly, but these are not among them.

At the same time, I sort of do understand why these things are considered unattractive in suburban Colosse (for example). I’d probably be kind of upset if I just spent $250k on a house (which is a lot, in Colosse) only to have some hucksters next door making the neighborhood look a lot more like that other neighborhood where people spent $150k on their house.

However, the most enduring characteristic of Arapaho, and I would actually say the Mountain West more generally (outside some of the larger cities) is that you simply don’t have to care about such things. It’s the freedom of not caring. I read somewhere that the average car on the road is 11 years old, which once upon a time would have seemed bizarre. But around here, I even see Dodge Colts. Nobody cares. We live in a 2,400 square foot house (not including the basement) that is adjacent to trailers and mobile homes. It’s not ideal, but unlike the hustle and bustle of the suburbs where the “right” neighborhood means everything, it’s actually quite liberating.

The freaking out over Erickson’s lot reminds me of one of the things I was happy to leave behind from Colosse.

I am not what you might think of as a fashionista. I like to tuck in my Hawaiian shirts. The only matching I really care about involves belt-shoes-watch.

Every now and again I will do something conspicuously right. I bought an old cop’s shirt at a thrift store and would sometimes wear it unbuttoned over a white t-shirt and for whatever reason strangers would compliment me on it back in the early aughts.

And, apparently, I am a very good Walmart dresser.

When I suddenly had to replace my missing warddrobe in Genesis, we went to Walmart in order to restock. I bought a black plaid button shirt and some black jeans. Both of Clancy’s sisters complimented me on it even before they realized where I had bought the outfit and put it together.

It came up again at the wedding when their aunt complimented me on my suspenders (suspenders being another thing that I have done right over the years - people apparently like suspenders) and commented “I’ll bet you didn’t get that at Walmart.”

I hadn’t gotten it at Walmart the day before, but with the exception of the shirt, I had indeed gotten all of it at Walmart. The pants were Wrangler slacks, though, and not the typical Puritan/George that one things of as Walmart pants.

The whole weekend was another one of those God Bless Walmart situations. If you’re stranded without your luggage, there’s one place you can go to get things in order in a jiff even in a comparatively rural place like Genesis.

I was at that media/coffee place in Redstone that I have discussed before, when there was a bit of downtime and the woman behind the counter started talking to a customer that she apparently knew.

The baristess apparently greeted with the news that every mother wants to hear from her twenty year old son: My girlfriend is pregnant! And we just eloped! She had a way with words, it turned out, and said “Something gained and something lost. I gained a daughter-in-law and maybe a grandkid, but lost hope in my son’s future.”

She will no doubt love the grandchild, but she’s not particularly fond of the daughter-in-law. She secretly suspected that this was how things were going to turn out.

Anyhow, her lack of enthusiasm did not go over well with her son. She told him that he had just thrown his life away… just as she had twenty years before. Insert stuff about “Not that I don’t love my children…” here, which she quickly added.

Anyhow, the son apparently had designs on being a police officer. He won’t be able to do that now. So what, pray tell, was he going to do? That’s what she asked him. He replied that maybe he would become a security guard.

This next part (like the “something gained and something lost” quote above) is a direct quote, in part because I had to keep myself from laughing out loud:

“A security guard? Son, we live in Redstone. There’s nothing here worth paying someone to protect!”

If that isn’t the perfect encapsulation of Redstone stereotype, I don’t know what is.

Patrick Hruby argues that NCAA basketball players should go on strike. The argument for paying college football players is weak. The argument for basketball is even weaker. If they want to get paid, and they’re really good, they have a multitude of options. Also, Title IX. You can’t may men’s basketball without also paying women’s.

According to a new study, cursing at work can help you make friends and reduce stress.

Matt Yglesias points out that if we had more dense cities, we’d have less dense elsewheres. This would allow for more things like grass-fed cattle ranching. Though true, it still doesn’t explain how you get the rest of the country to agree to more dense living.

Derek Thompson investigates how spending has changed over the years.

Why are city centers growing more quickly when wealth becomes more suburbanized?

A World Without People: pictures of abandoned places.

Due to a labor dispute an entire Arena Football team was fired during a pregame meal. Stranger still? The on-the-spot replacement team went on to win.

I really hope that makeshift publishing becomes a thing. If we’re going to keep paper books around, the inventory problem has to be dealt with.

China has begun construction of a megacity, planned to be four times the population of New York and twice the size of Jersey. A part of me thinks this is just awesome. Except that I fear it will be disasterous.

As folks around here know, I oppose a playoff for college football. The notion that it produces the “fairest” result is far from clear when. More to the point, though, there is no perfect way to determine a champion. March Madness isn’t perfect. Major League Baseball isn’t perfect. The pursuit of perfection, often in the form of allowing more and more teams into the playoff because the 9th team is arguably just as good as the 8th, merely pushes the can down the road.

This post isn’t about playoffs. This post is about what is often behind the push for playoffs. That pursuit of perfection. A fool’s errand, as often as not. The notion that any system is going to produce the perfect result, unsullied by a freak loss here or a bad call there.

Until relatively recently, I was opposed to instant replay of any form in football. The idea being, even the instant replay people aren’t going to get it right sometimes. The typical “incontrovertible evidence” standard means that the replay booth is left to decide between whether it really looked like the ref’s call was wrong, or whether it really, really looked like the ref’s call was wrong. And sometimes they get it wrong entirely. Sometimes a pivotal call is one that can’t be reviewed. Sometimes the call on the ground is so effed up that there is no right way to do it (a fumble is confused for a forward pass, a whistle blows the play dead and the live ball is picked up with an open field for a touchdown… how do you sort that one out?). There is, of course, more fair and less fair, but the delays and such didn’t seem worth it.

My mind changed as (at least at the college level) the reviews got a lot better and, most importantly, faster. Particularly in the first half of the season. There seemed to be some backsliding towards the end of the season. But the first half of the season, as well as last season (which is when my mind was changed), demonstrated that it’s possible to correct the obvious bad ones (of which there are many) without delaying the game. My main point, though, about sometimes just accepting the bad calls as a part of the game rather than a betrayal of the game, stands… in the abstract, at least.

While I was down in Colosse, I watched a Southern Tech basketball game against (who else?) Utica. I don’t watch basketball on all that regular a basis, but it was the worst officiating I believe I have ever seen. Of course, that’s one of the fundamental differences between basketball and football. In football, there are some bad calls (even with instant replay) and they can sometimes have a powerful impact on the game. You can debate it, discuss it, pick it apart. But basketball? It comes down to 100,000 ref calls throughout the game. And there can’t be anything like instant replay. And a whole lot of them are in gray areas and all of them are in realtime. In a lopsided game, there isn’t much the refs can do to affect the outcome, but if it is at all close, the best you can hope for is that the refs screw up equally.

And that’s okay. It, like at least some crummy officiating in football, is built into the game.

To get back to playoffs, when I think of March Madness, whatever problems I have with it from a fairness standpoint, I don’t think anything it does even remotely compares to the arbitrariness of the referees. A reason for me to prefer football, perhaps, though in the end it’s as much about the excitement of the games as it is about a true contest of superiority.

And that’s yet another reason why the LSU-Alabama rematch sucked.

Imagine yourself in a coffeehouse, book store, or some other third place. A man who appears to be in his late-twenties walks up to you and says, “Excuse me sir/ma’am, but do you have a cell phone?” Do you:

(a) Say “buzz off”

(b) Say yes, suspiciously.

(c) Say yes and ask why without suspicion.

(d) Say “go away”

(e) Say yes, grab your cell phone, and hand it to the stranger.

My answer, I must confess, would be (b). I wouldn’t lie or be so rude as to tell them to buzz off, but I guess I am just suspicious of strangers walking up and asking me something like that. It’s not necessarily a rational thing, but once I did loan my cell phone to a stranger when they proceeded to use it for twenty minutes trying to get a hold of somebody. I wasn’t in a hurry, but my plan was not to hang around where I was for twenty minutes. Then being the villain anyway for asking for my phone back before they were quite done.

I was the late-twenties guy (I’m not in my late twenties, but I look like I am) and asked that to a guy at a coffee shop in Redstone. He went with (e), though before he could actually give me the cell phone I told him what I was wanting (”Could you call my cell phone? I can’t find it.”). He called the cell and proceeded to walk around the coffee shop and help me find it.

It’s not unlike back when I was living in Deseret. Shortly before I left Colosse, my car was broken into and a few thousand dollars worth of stuff was taken from my car (it’s a long story as to why I had a few thousand dollars worth of stuff in my car). I called the Colosse PD, who couldn’t have been less interested if they had tried. I had to basically force them to take the serial number of my laptop in the event that it resurfaced at a pawn shop.

Flash forward to Deseret and I left my jacket somewhere. In my jacket was a checkbook. A couple months later, someone wrote a check to a pizza delivery place with said checkbook. I’d already canceled the account that the checkbook was cancelled to (something I had intended to do anyway, since the bank had no branches in Deseret) but the loss of my last checkbook expedited matters. Anyhow, the pizza delivery place sicked the credit collection dogs on me. In order to get out of it, I had to file an affidavit.

I apologized to the detective for taking up his time. But his response couldn’t have been more different from the Colosse PD’s. He got a subpoena for the cameras for the day in question. They didn’t have that, so he interviewed employees there. He gave me updates every two or three days. I didn’t stop him because I was interested in retrieving the jacket if it was at all possible. After about a week, he apologetically said that he had burned all leads.

Of course, we can ask “What else would a detective in small-town Deseret actually do with his time?” No doubt, there is some truth to this. But I became acquainted with the Detective over time because he lead a handful of drug arrests at the apartment complex I was living at. He was not an unimportant guy. Flash forward a little later after my car had been broken into and the culprit arrested, a DA visited me personally to ask if the plea bargain they had worked out was okay with me or if they should pursue it to the maximum extent of the law (I told her the plea bargain was fine).

I was at a tire place this morning. In the waiting room was a woman talking on the phone. She talked about all of the gossip going on around her (maybe the local) LDS church. She was actually quite witty and I cracked a smile at some of the things she said. This got a Look Of Death from her for listening in to her conversation.

Of course, I would rather not have been listening in to her conversation. I would rather have been watching TV on my phone, but I couldn’t hear it because she was talking. So instead I just got caught up on blog-reading. The only alternative was for me to go outside, where it was -5 degrees. It’s because of that I don’t blame her for not going outside to talk, which is what I would have done if I’d needed to have a phone conversation while waiting for winter tires to be put on my car. This, despite the fact that it is a pet peeve when people talk on the phone in places that are difficult to leave. I feel that way when I am driving and a passenger is talking on the cell phone. It not only means I have to listen to half of their conversation, but also that I can’t be listening to something that I would rather be listening to.

So I don’t blame her for talking inside, even in the waiting room. Except that (a) it did not seem to be a necessary conversation, and (b) when you have a conversation in such a place, your expectation of privacy is nill.

I was reminded to look into something relatively trivial today: Whether a former apartment complex I used to live in (Midlerth) was located in a particular district in town. I discovered, to my chagrin, that it’s not. I say “to my chagrin” because, with a city as sprawling as Colosse is, it’s helpful to be able to say I lived in Cameron Grove rather than trying to find the two nearest streets of note and saying “around there.” On the upshot, being able to say that I lived right by Cameron Grove is almost as good.

Anyway, Cameron Grove is actually more known as a business district. It includes the corporate headquarters of a global software company that you have probably never heard of but is actually one of the largest in the world. It was founded by a Southern Tech alumnus and benefactor. There is actually a sweet story about one of the nicer water fountains on campus that was placed there because he proposed to his wife at that particular spot on campus decades ago. They divorced three years ago.

Another generous benefactor of Southern Tech died not too long ago. This is important to Sotech, but not because he was universally beloved. In fact, a lot of people don’t care for how he made his fortune. He was also known for being a rather personally difficult, reckless, and an alcoholic. He had a DUI conviction and died in an automobile accident with a passenger (and without a seatbelt). Unmarried and childless, he left his entire state to his do-good foundation. Southern Tech, his alma mater, is expected to see a lot of that. So, god bless the bastard. (It’s actually kind of funny: Most well-known Southern Tech alumni are… somewhat disreputable individuals. The guy from the previous paragraph is an exception.)

EDK writes on Forbes about the changes we’re going to need to make for a better environment and to deal with Peak Oil.

The car culture we�ve cultivated since Eisenhower�s highway project won�t survive when gas prices get too high, and even the electric car requires power generation, which requires coal.

It�s not likely that solar and wind can power the vehicles of the future unless those vehicles drive a lot less. Alternative modes of transportation, such as rail, are a key ingredient.

Redesigning our cities to be more dense, walkable, and green will be another key. And the political forces arrayed against solar quite literally pale in comparison compared to the thicket of political resistance to improving zoning laws, increasing dense urban development, and putting an end to the suburban model of city planning.

I have to confess that I do have a little bit of a knee-jerk reaction to proclamations that the solution to a pressing problem (or more than one) are to redesign a society in a way that we would prefer society be redesigned even without the pressing problem(s). There seems to be an astonishing correlation between those who believe (a) suburbs are culturally dreadful places and (b) they will just have to change their ways because of such-and-such problem.

In a previous piece, I asked what if suburbanism and increased oil prices are not incompatible? Because they might not be. Granted, our current car culture is environmentally wasteful and may indeed be unsustainable. But this treats the question as an either-or. We can still be reliant primarily on automobiles and still consume a lot less resources than we presently do.

The issue with the car culture is not entirely one of a lack of density and public transportation. People can choose to live closer to their jobs, for instance, and still drive. Decisions within the car culture are presently being made with comparatively inexpensive gas in mind. As gas prices go up, people may start making different decisions. Those decisions may be something other than holing up in a condo or row-house less than half the size of their current abode.

The last three places we’ve lived have all been chosen specifically to be near my wife’s work. Walking distance, really. But she drives. And if gas were $20 a gallon? She’d still drive. Walking takes too long and biking isn’t an option for much of the year due to ice (at her previous jobs, ice wasn’t an issue but personal safety was). And $20 a gallon doesn’t add up all that quickly when you’re refilling your tank once every couple of months.

My commutes have, historically, been much longer. If gas had been $20 a gallon, that would have factored pretty heavily into my decision to work. I might have been more eagle-eyed towards finding work near me, but more density wouldn’t have been all that favorable to me seeing as how I worked and lived in different towns. For three straight jobs, I did this.

A lot of long (and therefore gas-eating) commutes are not the subject of the typical suburb-to-city (which is to say, sprawling-to-dense) situations. And when you can live within a few miles of your work, you can afford some pretty expensive gas. And, if we run out of gas, electrically powered cars fueled by other fossil fuels, nuclear, solar, or whatever.

When we talk about the things that make our day-to-day cost of living, one of the big ones is real estate. Sprawl, for all of its faults, can help keep real estate prices down. Maybe you can ease housing costs in the dense areas cheaper with ever-more and ever-higher construction, but I still maintain that there is a really strong chance that the price tensions will result in less density as jobs relocate and satellite offices are opened up in places more near where people actually live. And rather than a thousand corner markets opening up, people may instead make monthly trips to Walmart where they can get everything in a single trip.

In conclusion, tough decisions are going to need to be made. A world in which people have to live closer to their work would result in sacrifices. But those sacrifices are not necessarily the ones that urbanites are expecting or hoping for.

I don’t know if it was a league-wide thing or just the team that I followed, but I know it used to be that some major league baseball franchises had a ban on beards. I know that it was true at least of my favorite franchise, because I remember when they did away with it. Maybe it was a league rule and then it was passed to the teams, or whether it was just team-by-team and something that most teams did. I struggle to think of anyone from the 80’s or before who had a beard.

It sounds pretty ridiculous when you think about it. A beard? How offensive is a beard? Aren’t they taking it a little too far? That was kind of my thinking at the time. At east in part because I never like mustache’s and there were a lot of them around.

Flash forward a decade or two, though, and I think that either MLB or the teams had a point. I was watching the World Series. It happened to be on TV when the football game I was watching ended and it was a close game. Not having watched baseball in a while, I was really struck by how… ragged… the players look these days. They used to look like professionals or at least adults. Now they look like college drop-outs on weed. At least some of them look like the sort of person you would avoid while walking through the park. Few of them look like people you would necessarily trust to babysit your kid.

Some of this is, no doubt, a function of age. When you’re young, all old people look like adults. When you become an adult, well some look more adult than others, except you think of it in terms of “respectability” and whatnot, if you differentiate.

How did we get from here to there? I suppose there is an argument to be made that the rules were too strict for too long so that when they were finally allowed to “let loose” they did so in a conspicuous faction. Maybe it was gradual and for some reason nobody said “Look, a goatee is fine, but you do have to cut it every now and again.”

Or maybe it’s just a sign of the times. Things that were once rebel have become rather common - especially among athletes. Back in the day, rebels were often clean cut by today’s standards except for their hair and their clothes (clothes are, of course, the team uniforms and 80’s hair doesn’t work so well under a baseball cap, so they were clean-cut by default). And so athletes are a mirror of society in general. There are also ethnic considerations, though it’s worth pointing out that baseball has been integrated for a long time.

Whatever the case, it makes me feel old in a “get off my lawn” sort of way. Not that it’s the first time, since I look around at what constitutes “business attire” and roll my eyes.