“Healing power of sports” nonsense thoughtfully refuted: If, in the long run, you need sports to help you through a time of tragedy and to take your mind off a grimmer reality, then you are emotionally in so much trouble in not understanding what is real and what is fantasy that the prospects for your long-term emotional health are probably not very good. Read more →
Author Archive: Paul Epps
1st Day of 4th Grade
We have Mr. Walker for 4th grade this year . . . I saw an article today: Do Kids Need MP3 Players for School? It seems obvious to me that they don’t, and why even bring it up, although a pair of my kid’s back-to-school pants actually came with a built-in MP3 player holder. His reaction: “Cool! . . . what’s an MP3 player?” Read more →
Geometry or Epistemology?
With school starting up in a couple of days, my wife is trying to get our boy in an academic frame of mind . She has him doing some exercises from a geometry workbook and of course he’s not interested. “I can’t tell if these lines are exactly alike,” he says. Holds the book up to his face. “They look exactly alike . . .” Call me biased, but turning the whole exercise into a philosophical problem, rather than just saying “I don’t want to do this,” is a pretty sophisticated plan of attack for a 9-year-old. Read more →
Editor Dies in Fall
A NY Times business editor took an apparently intentional header off the 15th floor of the Times building. Too bad he wasn’t the crossword editor, it would have made a better headline. You’d want to work the phrase “15 Down” into it . . . Read more →
Overheard
A brief conversation between Victor, one of our project managers, and our Sales VP as Victor is walking out of the VP’s office: VP: You’re the greatest! VICTOR: I’m trying. VP (louder now, as Victor is halfway down the hall): Thanks, Wayne! Read more →
Talking to Your Kids
ME: I hope when you and Jeremy are over at Jessica’s house, that you include her in your activities, not just ignore her because she’s a girl and do your own stuff. HIM: Dude, she’s a STU-pido! Read more →
At the Ballpark
Woman collapses, dies in Orlando Rays’ minor-league promotion — ESPN.com Nothing like this ever happens when I go to the ballpark. The story doesn’t give the woman’s height and weight — it may have been newsworthy in that 28-year-old women normally don’t keel over and die after a short run. At least one paper elected — somewhat insensitively, I think — to run news of the woman’s death in a baseball roundup column, immediately followed by the mesmerizing news that the Blue Jays activated Carlos Delgado from the 15-day DL. Read more →
“Hiring the Best” Explained
An employer is always somewhat reassured by the ignominiousness of his staff. At all costs the slave should be slightly, even much, to be despised. A mass of chronic blemishes, moral and physical, are a justification of the fate which is overwhelming him. The world gets along better that way, because then each man stands in it in the place he deserves. A being who is useful to you should be low, flat, prone to weakness; that is what’s comforting; especially as Baryton paid us really very badly. In cases of acute avarice like this, employers are always a bit suspicious and uneasy. A failure, a debauchee, a black sheep, a devoted black sheep, all that made sense, justified things, fitted in, in fact. Baryton would have been on the whole rather pleased if I had been slightly wanted by the police. That always makes for real devotion. — Louis-Ferdinand… Read more →
Introducing a 9-Year-Old to Van Morrison
I can hear her heartbeat for a thousand miles . . . “That’s impossible!” Read more →
Soccer Balls
Testicle cancer rates for World Cup nations ranked Like they say, here’s one that won’t show up in the box score . . . Read more →
Quietus
ORANGE COUNTY, CA – A 26-year-old Sacramento man was stabbed to death late Tuesday in front of a Garden Grove apartment where he was visiting residents, police said. — The Orange County Register Probably the only way to stop him whining about the Lakers-Kings series . . . Read more →
Watching the NBA Finals with a 3rd Grader
The Nets have new uniforms. See, it says ‘New Jersey’ right on the front. On Nets guard Lucious Harris shooting 2-for-23: “They’d be better off having Lucious Malfoy [a wizard in the Harry Potter books]. He could point his wand at the ball and make it go in the basket. Read more →
Another Difference Between USC and UCLA
NBC analyst Bill Walton attended UCLA. FOX Sports analysts Marques Johnson and Jack Haley also went to UCLA. Los Angeles Lakers owner Jerry Buss attended USC. Read more →
Coherence
The Vatican’s Fides news service weighs in on the fashion of wearing crosses decorated with diamonds and other precious stones: Is it consistent with the Gospel to spend millions on a copy of the sacred symbol of the Christian faith and perhaps forget that there are people all over the world who suffer and die of hunger? In other Church news, Time magazine’s report on church finances indicates that Boston’s Cardinal Law lives in a $130 million residence, the Detroit diocese owns an $18 million golf and conference center, and the Providence diocese owns a $22 million dollar mansion that it rents out for parties. Meanwhile, the cardinal of the Chicago diocese has to make do with a $10 million residence, which may need to be sold off to cover sex-abuse claims. Read more →
Embracing Couple Killed By Train
A young couple in New Jersey held hands and stepped in front of an Amtrak train, electing to be simultaneously obliterated in one final embrace. Relatives told The Associated Press that the couple were drug addicts who had been evicted from their apartment and saw suicide as their only way out, which takes a lot of the romance out of the story as far as I’m concerned . . . Read more →
Warhol’s Prophecy
I wish Andy Warhol was around to see that his most famous prophecy — that everyone will eventually enjoy 15 minutes of fame — came true with a vengeance. Talk shows opened the stage door to trailer park America, and now game shows are celebrating anyone who knows the capital of Spain or who marries a potential wife-beater on camera . . . — Michael Musto, Village Voice Read more →
The Modern Critic
‘This book [Judith Levine’s Harmful to Minors: The Perils of Protecting Children from Sex] encourages children to have sex, and that is very, very dangerous,’ Bill O’Reilly said on his show. He also provided a sampling of the complaints against the book, calling it ‘vile,’ ‘disgusting,’ ‘insane,’ ‘perverted,’ ‘sick stuff,’ ‘outrageous,’ and ‘evil.’ (He also admitted on air that he hasn’t read it.) [Emph. added] — Hannah Rosin, “Lust Busters” Read more →
Dogfood
The netscape.com domain, which is owned by AOL, has replaced its Netscape-Enterprise servers with AOLServer. Repeat: netscape.com no longer runs on Netscape servers. Also: netscape.co.uk now runs Apache, while in France, netscape.fr runs Microsoft-IIS. Read more →
Senegal 1, France 0
In a historic upset, Senegal, making its first appearance in World Cup competition, defeats France, the defending champs. Senegal was a French colony until 1960. Ironically, France has previously scored a number of impressive victories against the African colonies, although it must be noted that they were competing with guns against spears in those matchups. Read more →
USC Alumni Notes
Trojans win 16th NCAA men’s tennis championship. Mark Prior strikes out 10 in major league debut with Cubs. Chandra Levy found. Read more →