Ash Wednesday
There seem to be many different theories about why Christians place ashes on their foreheard at the beginning of Lent. Here's one:
One of the earliest descriptions of Ash Wednesday is found in the writings of the Anglo-Saxon abbot Aelfric (955-1020).
In his Lives of the Saints, he writes, "We read in the books both in the Old Law and in the New that the men who repented of their sins bestrewed themselves with ashes and clothed their bodies with sackcloth. Now let us do this little at the beginning of our Lent that we strew ashes upon our heads to signify that we ought to repent of our sins during the Lenten fast."
Aelfric then proceeds to tell the tale of a man who refused to go to church for the ashes and was accidentally killed several days later in a boar hunt!
There are two kinds of people on Ash Wednesday: those who wipe off their ashes immediately and those who leave them on all day. I suppose there is a third kind, those who don't take ashes in the first place and are accidentally shot during the boar hunt.
Should teams use American Indian nicknames? (continued)
As I've written before, it's always seemed silly to me that teams and colleges would spend a lot of goodwill and millions of dollars litigating over their teams' nicknames.
It's not a tax. It's not a taking of property. It's not the right to vote, worship, assemble, or party. It's a nickname. You can keep it. But if it's offensive, why not just change it? What's the big deal?
It's not as if there are no other options. You can name your team about a million things. People have named their teams the Nimrods, the Fighting Artichokes, the Poets, the Vandals, and the Cornjerkers. Maybe you don't like those. Think of another one. Use your imagination.
Living in Washington, D.C., you get used to the debate over whether our hometown NFL team should drop its nickname: the Redskins. The debate flares up and then dies out. But nothing changes. People like me continue using the word "Redskins" without a thought, like I would use the word "upholstery." Upholstery is just upholstery. It's the stuff on furniture. The Redskins are just the Redskins. It's the team everybody around here complains about. I don't think of the word "Redskins" to describe anything but a football team.
Then somebody will bring the nickname issue up again, like this article discussing the background of the team's desegregation:
The [Redskins nickname] is a fluke that would have been changed long ago had it not slipped in under the radar of fierce battles to racially integrate the team. The protests of Native Americans were simply overshadowed by confrontations between civil rights activists and groups such as the American Nazi Party, which marched around what is now RFK Stadium in 1961 chanting: “Keep Redskins white!”
[Integration] was vindication for black athletes, who had to put up with claims that they weren’t smart enough to play the game alongside whites. In a bitter irony, a racist team name became linked to one of professional football’s most hard-fought civil rights victories — a caricatured Indian head as a symbol of both interracial triumph on the field and newfound racial harmony in the stands.
Suddenly, everybody but Native Americans wanted to keep the name, lest we forget the lessons of that struggle for inclusiveness. By keeping the name, however, we showed that we hadn’t learned a thing.
I don't know if the name has been retained because of integration, or because of inertia, or because not enough people did anything about it. For whatever reason, the nickname has stuck since 1933, when it was given to the Boston Redskins, who kept it until they moved to the nation's capital in 1937 and became the Washington Redskins. That makes 80 years of the Redskins.
Let that sink in for a bit: The Redskins.
Thinking about it, isolating it, the "Redskins" starts to evolve. It's not like "upholstery." It's more like a word, actually exactly like a word, that describes somebody solely by the color of their skin, with lots of history and implications packed into it.
I don't think a name like "the Washington Darkies" would have lasted 80 years in this city. Isn't it a no-brainer to change the "Redskins"?
Like many no-brainers, though, there has to be something about the issue that makes it a brainer. There are a few points that are frequently raised in favor of keeping the name:
1) The team was named in 1933 in honor of its then-coach William Dietz, who was half Sioux.
2) The name honors the strength and courage of American Indians.
3) A number of polls show that most American Indians find the nickname acceptable, including 90 percent in this poll.
4) Many Redskins fans are passionate about the name and would consider themselves victims of political correctness if the team were to change to something else. As one said: "I understand the the intellectual argument for changing the name of the Washington Redskins, but it is like saying I have to change the name of my child."
5) The team has sunk a ton of money into the name, and it has become a valuable mark. The Redskins are the third most valuable NFL team, worth about $1.6 billion.
I don't mean to sound cynical, but I just think it's true that number 5 is the big one. The Redskins have already sunk a lot of money into keeping and protecting the name, and it won't change until it's financially worthwhile for the franchise to do so. The NFL is a business, not a civil rights movement. A team called the Washington Darkies would lose money because of its name. When a team called the Washington Redskins starts to lose money because of its name, it will probably become something else.
Washington, D.C. star sightings
Washington, D.C. is sometimes called Hollywood for ugly people. I think that's a little harsh. I prefer to think of this city as Hollywood for geeks.
That includes the types of star sightings we have. Our stars are stars for the dorks.
I don't count actors and musicians who are here filming, promoting, lobbying, or touring. We have a lot of those, but they usually do a softball interview for the Washington Post at their Four Seasons suite before blowing out of town. You rarely see those types of stars. Those are Hollywood or New York stars. I'm counting only the stars that live and work here.
The type of star that lives here is more of a political, military, lobbying, judicial, or journalism star. The kind of star that appeals to news or political junkies. Most people in the United States would recognize them and maybe even know their names, but they're not famous for something cool like dancing or singing. They're famous for talking or thinking or writing.
Many weekend mornings I'll be in line for coffee at my coffee place. Half asleep, looking at the doughnuts. And then Andrea Mitchell, the NBC News anchor and reporter, will enter and get in line right behind me. The atmosphere in the room changes. I suddenly feel a little nervous. It's Andrea Mitchell. She's on TV all the time. I keep my eyes on the doughnuts. She's off duty. She doesn't want a bunch of people looking at her.
When I walk outside with my coffee, I usually see her famous husband, former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, waiting outside for her in his Jaguar. He's never the one that goes to get the coffee, it's always Andrea that has to do it.
That's a big-time DC star sighting. A two-fer.
By a quirk of fate one summer, I saw conservative Washington Post columnist and ABC commentator George Will multiple times. There he was at the next table in a restaurant, wearing his bow tie. Then a week later, there he was at the Nationals game. Then again, just walking around in Georgetown. He looked exactly the same in person as he does on TV. George Will is the ultimate buttoned-down, uptight Washington insider, the kind of guy who uses the word "stadia" for the plural of "stadium," and yet it was pretty cool to run into him all those times. Hanging in the city with my BFF GW.
I used to see George Stephanopoulos all the time, back before he moved to New York to become an ABC anchor, when he was still a Washington, D.C. geek star. His office must have been close to mine because I saw him more often than Leave It to Beaver. He was shorter than I expected. He'd walk without taking his eyes off his phone. He never just looked around.
I was in a restaurant having a late lunch. There was hardly anybody there. Halfway through the meal, Newt Gingrich and his wife were seated at the table right next to me. They both have really white hair. They didn't need bottled water, they were fine with tap water. I respect people's privacy, but it's hard to sit in a quiet restaurant next to Newt Gingrich and not try to eavesdrop.
The presidential motorcade is a frequent occurrence. The first few times it's pretty cool. All those cars! Car after car after car after car. The guy with the machine gun at the top of one of them. The ambulances. Then it gets tiresome. Just another obstacle to getting home. That's not really a star sighting, I suppose. That's just traffic.
I literally ran into Karl Rove one time going into the elevator at a movie theater. That was back when he was working for George Bush, and it was strange to see him doing something relaxing.
That's what strikes me about all these star sightings. The DC kind probably aren't different from the other kinds. When you're around somebody famous you feel a little different for a while, like it's a big deal. Then you realize they stand in line for coffee or order tap water or go to movies. When they appear on television, it seems they don't need to do those things.
Not too long ago, I happened to walk alongside one of the country's most influential people, whose identity I'll keep to myself. He's a household name. You've probably seen his picture dozens of times. He had no security detail, no handlers. Most shocking of all, he got into a PT Cruiser and drove away. One of the most powerful people in the world, and he drives his own PT Cruiser.
LA stars don't drive PT Cruisers. DC stars do.
Why are there only women in cleaning product ads?
I can't think of a single commercial I've seen for house cleaning products with a guy, unless he's there to hand dishes and laundry to his wife or to admire the finished product. I suppose you could count Mr. Clean as a guy. But he doesn't actually clean. He's Mr. Clean.
I don't know anything about making commercials, but I've always assumed a couple things about them.
First, they're never accidental. Ad agencies don't just make up something on the fly, throw it on the air, and hope for the best. A lot of money, planning, thought, revision, and test marketing goes into an ad by the time we see it.
Second, they serve one purpose and one purpose only: to make you want to do something, usually to buy something. Commercials can be funny, serious, ridiculous, bland, offensive, or shocking, but they are ultimately supposed to make you want to buy the product they're hawking. I suppose sometimes they may have a secondary purpose. They may express support for the troops, or for gay marriage, or for some other cause, but deep down they are really about selling the product.
So why do ad makers show only women mopping the floor or doing the laundry or vacuuming the rugs?
There was a time when women did all the housework. That may still be the case in many homes, and it seems that on average, women still do more than men. But even though I know some lazy men, I don't know any that do zero cleaning at their homes. I would bet that almost all men do at least some housework, especially those with kids, and many do half or more.
When ads target a demographic, they often use an actor from that demographic. You'd think that ad agencies would want to appeal to males, close to half of the population, who buy and use the cleaning products they're selling. You'd think that some of their commercials would show a guy folding laundry, so when a guy like me goes out to buy detergent, he'd be brainwashed into thinking that he needs to buy that detergent.
But there aren't any ads like that. How come?
My best guess is that while men do much more housework than they used to, they don't like to admit it and they don't want anyone to know about it. They wouldn't like an ad showing a guy scrubbing the tub. That's women's work. Guys watching don't want to associate themselves with that kind of pathetic, hen-pecked, emasculated guy with his head down in the tub.
The ad maker doesn't want guys thinking too much about the ad. All they want is for people, male or female, to remember their tub scrubbing gear the next time they go shopping. Featuring a guy in the ad must be too shocking, like that Go Daddy kissing commercial that is getting bad reviews.
And yet here we are, talking about Go Daddy.
The advertising world is a dark, twisted world.
Me? While I'd be all for having somebody else do the housework, I do the dishes, I clean the counters, and I want credit for it. I'm tired of being discriminated against, I'm tired of women getting all the glory.
I don't like using Roman numerals for the Super Bowl
First of all, Roman numerals are hard to figure out. I'm pretty good at I through X, but then I get lost. Anything past XXXIII is a mystery.
You know how to say "78" in Roman numerals? It's "LXXVIII". How about "1888"? Take a deep breath: "MDCCCLXXXVIII". The Romans needed 13 characters to say what only takes us four. That's just plain inefficient. A surprisingly unimpressive system from the people who invented the aqueduct.
I'll admit it was pretty cool when the year 2000 was MM. But that's about the only good one. I don't like to watch the credits to old movies and see something like "MCMLXXXII" roll past. How am I supposed to know? What's wrong with just using the working man's year?
Somewhere along the line, people thought Roman numerals added flare to things. They started to use Roman numerals for the Olympics. "The Games of the XXVIII Olympiad," and so on. But the Greeks invented the Olympics. How do you think they'd feel about our using the numerals of the Romans for their games? Well, I think they'd be pretty pissed off about it. I'm no historian, but I don't think there was much affection between the Greeks and the Romans.
The NFL coopted the Roman numeral facade for the Super Bowl. Figured it would drape the game with dignity and meaning. It wasn't enough to say "Super Bowl 2." It had to be "Super Bowl II." They must have felt pretty silly during those early years, attaching such grand-looking numerals to what was then a relatively puny game. Like putting a bronze plaque on your store: "Fine plumbing supplies since 2011!"
I think that's phony. A guy who throws a lot of French words into his movie reviews.
Like all things involving Roman numerals, the Super Bowl titles and logos work pretty well when it's a good numeral, like "Super Bowl XV" or "Super Bowl XIX" or even "Super Bowl XXX". Maybe not so much that last one, but you get the idea.
Most of the time, though, it's a catastrophe. Take this year: "Super Bowl XLVII." Next year will be "Super Bowl XLVIII." I think that's unappealing. Lumpy.
The heart of the problem is this: Roman numerals aren't even numerals. They're letters! Every single one of them is a letter. I'm just a bumpkin, but I think numerals should be numerals and letters should be letters, and they should be expected to do only one job.
The Romans might have been a superpower at one time, but they couldn't hack it and got taken down by a bunch of Goths. I'm all for preserving Roman buildings, but I would like to see the decline and fall of their numerals.
What's so great about Downton Abbey?
I'm paranoid about being a marketing victim. I always try to pay attention to why I'm buying something. Is it just because I was told I needed it? Is it just another Pet Rock?
But I get suckered like everyone else. Why did I pay $130 for sneakers? Because they're really comfortable. But they really aren't that comfortable. I paid $130 for those sneakers because somebody — usually somebody I know who in turn had been successfully marketed by somebody else — told me they were really comfortable. Or they were really good for my feet or my posture. Or something else that poked at the mass of insecurity that we all carry beneath our flesh.
We buy many things simply because we were successfully marketed. That makes the world go around. It would screech to a halt if we bought only things that were absolutely necessary for survival.
We also continue to buy things because sometimes a product really is as good as advertised. That's how I feel about the iPhone. March Madness. Pirate's Booty. And that's how I feel about Downton Abbey, the smash PBS series about a fictitious Yorkshire county estate in the early 1900s.
Because of my skeptical nature, I was a latecomer to the show. It looked like any other PBS British period drama with butlers and an introductory trumpet diddy. The hysteria and overheated reviews didn't help. Blah blah blah. Downton Abbey this and Downton Abbey that. The psychoanalysis, like this:
Once again, this week's episode of Downton Abbey is full of powerful insights about life, love and human nature. ... Death is such a painful and taboo topic, and Sunday night's episode demonstrates the extent to which people tend to grieve differently and to process the death blah blah blah
Blech. That's not how I wanted to end my weekend. I want a cheesy poof. The World's Strongest Man.
As I always do, somewhere along the line I buckled under the pressure and ordered Season One. That was when I inhaled the smoke of the delicious Downton Abbey crack that so many pushers had been trying to sell me.
Downton Abbey is excellent because, like most well-told stories, it grabs you by the neck and pulls you into an entirely different world. Actually, there are many worlds. There's the world of the British aristocracy in the early 1900s, which as far as I can tell serves no real purpose other than just to exist. Nobody has a real job. The main occupation of the Earl of Grantham, for instance, seems to be reading the newspaper, complaining about his daughters' fiances, and eating massive dinners.
And yet you come to sympathize with the entire pampered lot because they have struggles and triumphs, imperfections and warts, just like you and me. They just dress a lot better. And you begin to appreciate the challenges of living their suffocating, dull existences. The Earl may have a cushy life, but it seems he's living that life not because he enjoys it but because he feels he has a patriotic duty to do so.
Probably even more endearing, though, is the world of the servants downstairs, which is every bit as rigid and structured as the aristocracy's. It's fascinating to see how the servants' hierarchy works. The head butler is superior to the valets who are superior to the footmen. It's as regimented as military rank. It's also fascinating to see how dedicated they are to tending to the aristocracy's every need.
You get sucked into studying the strange habits of these worlds, like a really good National Geographic documentary. When their masters enters the downstairs kitchen, the servants bolt up from their meals like guards standing at attention. The valets help grown men dress for dinner every night.
All those details come wrapped in a beautiful package. The writing, the rooms, the clothes, the grounds, the cars, the music, the editing — they make it stand out from most shows.
Downton Abbey is as good as advertised because things are constantly happening. There doesn't seem to be a shot or a word wasted. The writers never underestimate their viewers' intelligence. I have to focus on every single word and glance. I'm constantly having to rewind. There are about 50 stories going on at any time, almost all of them juicy. It's a lot to absorb. I still don't know most of the characters' names. But I still understand what's going on, more or less. There's never a dull moment. That's why it's a great show.
Downton Abbey is full of powerful insights about life, love, and human .... See? It makes a pusher out of you.
Safe travels
Don't text when you drive. And try not to talk on the phone. I know that's hard. I do it too. But most calls aren't crucial. If a call actually is crucial, pull over.
Do one thing at a time.
There are bad drivers and always will be. They're annoying. Blow them off. Let them go. You're bigger than that.
You are a great person. Everyone who knows you knows that. They want to keep you around for as long as they possibly can. Don't let them down. Die in your bed at age 107 with your great-grandchildren surrounding you. Don't die in a dumb, avoidable way.
Wear your seat belt.
I don't always do these things, but I try to. I need to remind myself every time, and that's why I go back to keeping a memento of your loved ones.
The reason I raise these things now is explained here.
Cherish your parents. Thank them for all the things they did for you. Why not do it right now?
Inauguration Day, 2013
Inauguration Day in downtown DC is a little like how I imagine the end of the world might look. People roaming the streets on foot, trying to squeeze through narrow openings in Jersey walls. Cars abandoned, camouflage Humvees at the intersections, litter blowing around in the wind.
It was sunny but cold. People were walking to the train stations with their signs and flags. Crazy hats. But I wasn't one of them, still scarred from my experience four years ago.
I had been like them then, when we went down to the National Mall to watch the ceremony. We had our tickets in hand, and we felt lucky because there were going to be almost two million people down there. Other than the parade in Boston after the Red Sox won the 2004 World Series, it was the largest gathering of people ever in this country. But we weren't worried. We were among the fortunate 250,000 who had tickets to a spot in front of the Capitol, where we'd have an excellent view to watch the swearing-in of the first black president.
We waited in line for hours to enter, pressed front, back, and side-to-side by other people. If you were claustrophobic it would have been your worst nightmare. I had to remember to breathe and relax.
At some point, we noticed we weren't moving. In fact, we weren't any closer to the entrance than we had been an hour earlier. We could hear the ceremony starting, and there was a roar, a panic among the crowd still outside. A little scary. Then we heard the news that the Secret Service closed down the entries. No swearing-in for us. I was a quarter mile from the Capitol, but I'd never see the ceremony that people on the other side of the planet were watching. I walked with nothing from the historic day to share with my future grandkids except bitter disappointment and a crumpled-up, worthless ticket.
Jaded from that experience, still a little tender about it, I had zero expectations for the event and was happy to watch in on my couch with some nacho dip. I saw all those cold suckers crammed together, waving their flags on the Mall. Then I was a little sorry I hadn't gone down. A ten-minute train ride away, and I still didn't have anything to offer my grandkids. Hapless.
For me, the most moving part of the ceremony was the invocation by Myrlie Evers Williams, and that was without knowing much about her husband, Medgar Evers. During World War II, he fought in Germany and France, and then came home to Jim Crow Mississippi. He might have lived a quiet life as an insurance salesman, but then he joined the Regional Council of Negro Leadership and helped organize a boycott of gas stations that refused to let blacks use their restrooms. Because of that and other protests he led, Evers was shot in his driveway one night in 1963. He was buried with full military honors at Arlington Cemetery, which overlooks the Mall where his wife spoke yesterday.
Although it will probably not be remembered by many, I thought Lamar Alexandar's short speech was excellent. I liked his story about how George Washington said a crucial moment in U.S. history wasn't the election of the first president, but the election of the second president. "The peaceful transition of power," he said, "is what will separate this country from every other country in the world." There are a lot of countries with peaceful transitions of power now, but the inauguration was a good reminder of how lucky I am to live in one of them.
I thought it was pretty funny when Sasha Obama let out a ferocious yawn during her dad's speech.
I didn't yawn as he spoke, but no lines really stuck in my head. It occurred to me that I couldn't think of lines from any inauguration speech except maybe a few from Lincoln's and Kennedy's. Maybe the expectations are too high, but they always seem a little bland by comparison.
At first I thought the hats worn by some of the Supreme Court justices were wacky, but they grew on me. They added something to the occasion. Without things like that, it's just another day.
After the ceremony, Obama walked up the stairs to the Capitol. When he got to the top, he paused for a moment and looked back at all those people on the Mall. You could hear him say, "I want to take a look one more time. I'm not going to see this again." After the fanfare of that ceremony, it was jarring to see him do something that any regular person might do.
We finally went downtown to watch the parade. Vendors hawking Obama ski caps, Biden puppets. You could walk right down the middle of streets that are usually clogged with traffic.
After some fruitless wandering trying to figure out what streets were open or closed, we got to our parade spot across the street from the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, which is next door to the White House and one of the most spectacular buildings in the city. A lot of people don't like it but I think it's a treasure. Later in the afternoon, when the sun was going down, it cast orange light on the towers and it was a beautiful contrast against the gray sky in the background. You could see the security snipers on the roof with their rifles looking around for any trouble.
The Obamas and Bidens walked by, and we got to see them from a distance. We have a photo of Michelle Obama taking a photo of the crowd with her iPad.
Speaking of Michelle Obama, the stylish people among us gave her rave reviews for her new bangs. I didn't think too much of them at first but I always give myself a day or two before casting final judgment on these kinds of things. To be honest, I'm still not crazy about them but they'll probably grow on me, and anyway I give her credit for making a daring change like that right before a major, historic occasion when billions of people will be watching and judging her.
Later, the stylish people also gave unanimous approval for her inaugural ball gown.
The parade was late and it was dark by the time most of the states walked by, but we stuck it out almost to the bitter end. It's a surprisingly laid-back event, with no particular order and lots of gaps between groups, no more organized than a small-town Fourth of July parade. By the time the small Montana group came by on horseback, there weren't many people around but our little group whooped it up and waved our flags for the Montanans. One of the guys tipped his cap towards us.
Washington, D.C. can be a nasty, frustrating city, with lots of overachieving, tunnel-visioned backstabbers, but yesterday was one of the days that make living here worthwhile, so maybe all the little things I saw and did yesterday will be enough for my grandkids.
(Photo by Jose Luis Magana, AP)
What I've learned from the Armstrong and Te'o stories (continued)
Just as I was starting to get soured by the events of last week, I read this story (via Andrew Sullivan) about a Basque distance runner who restores my faith in sportsmanship and people generally:
[Ivan] Fernández Anaya was trailing behind Olympic bronze medallist Abel Mutai during a cross-country race in Burlada, Navarra. Mutai was leading comfortably until he pulled up 10 to 20 metres short of the finish line thinking the race was already over. Instead of passing Mutai, Fernández Anaya slowed down and told Mutai to keep running. Since they didn't speak a common language, the Basque runner gestured frantically at Mutai who went on to win the race.
"I didn't deserve to win it," Fernández Anaya told El País. "I did what I had to do. He was the rightful winner. He created a gap that I couldn't have closed if he hadn't made a mistake. As soon as I saw he was stopping, I knew I wasn't going to pass him."
Here's the video.Fernandez Anaya's coach, Martin Fiz, wasn't as enthusiastic:
It was a very good gesture of honesty. ... A gesture that I myself wouldn't have made. I certainly would have taken advantage of it to win. The gesture has made him a better person but not a better athlete. He has wasted an occasion. Winning always makes you more of an athlete. You have to go out to win.
What I've learned from the Armstrong and Te'o stories
I'm just one of the goats, feeding off the grass that's fed me. When I'm done with one part of the pasture, I move on to the next one and keep eating. Then at some point I realize that this entire time I've been eating grass. That's a bad feeling.
No matter how much I suspected it, I was one of the suckers who didn't really want to believe that Lance Armstrong doped, as he's confessed. And although I'm not a Notre Dame fan, I definitely don't take any pleasure in the much more surprising and bizarre news that Notre Dame linebacker Manti Te'o's inspirational late girlfriend apparently never existed.
I watched the first part of Oprah's interview with Armstrong last night. It was part entertaining, part educational, part boring. You could tell he was coached by lawyers, PR consultants, and crisis managers within an inch of his life and, accordingly, had trouble speaking in the way normal people speak. A lot of thinking of the right way to apologize or not apologize. Sometimes I felt he was sincere. Sometimes I felt he was cold and despicable. Sometimes, and maybe most shockingly, I felt he was batshit crazy.
It's a new life for him. If I were his friend, I would tell him he needs to stop competing at things, or campaigning to be able to compete at things. He should start working at being a good dad and friend. He's still a cancer survivor, maybe the most famous on the planet. That can still mean something to a lot of people.
Many journalists are licking their chops in a distasteful manner. Casting the first stone.
I don't think much of stories like this one by reporter Rick Reilly of espn.com, shredding Armstrong for not having come clean to him about his use of banned substances. Reilly, like many other journalists, had sucked up to Armstrong for years, helped build him into a statue, and ultimately gave up any shred of journalistic professionalism and objectivity when everyone knew the end was near. But now that we've reached the end, Reilly is flabbergasted. He's annoyed because Armstrong got busted and then dared to call him up and say "I'm sorry":
Two words? For 14 years of defending a man? And in the end, being made to look like a chump?
Wrote it, said it, tweeted it: "He's clean." Put it in columns, said it on radio, said it on TV. Staked my reputation on it.
"Never failed a drug test," I'd always point out. "Most tested athlete in the world. Tested maybe 500 times. Never flunked one."
Why? Because Armstrong always told me he was clean.
But it wasn't Reilly's job as a journalist to "defend" Armstrong. And it wasn't his job to stop investigating just because Armstrong told him he was clean. Reilly shouldn't be complaining about Armstrong's insufficient apology or about being made to look like a chump. He should be apologizing to his readers for a lazy, sloppy, crappy, hero-worshipping job of reporting.
The depressing thing about Reilly, who should worry about restoring his own credibility, it that he's not alone. There were dozens, maybe hundreds, of reporters who didn't just write stories or books about Armstrong. They wrote sonnets.
And what about all the journalists who pumped up the Te'o girlfriend stories (like this, and this, and this)? They also should also be apologizing to their readers for a lazy, sloppy, crappy, hero-worshipping job of reporting. Two calls or 15 minutes of internet research would have been enough.
What would happen to you if you didn't do your job?
I'm starting to believe more and more in the wisdom of Charles Barkley: Athletes shouldn't be role models. They are good at dunking and passing and kicking. Why does there have to be something extra?
There's nothing wrong with admiring a famous athlete, politician, scientist, musician, artist. I'll still do that. But as I get older, I think I'll just admire them for what they do, not who they are.
Despite any lessons learned with these stories, celebrities will continue to get pumped up and molded beyond any reality, and then you start to think they aren't real people. Some will get taken down for something or another. I can still admire them for their accomplishments, can't I? Lance Armstrong may be a royal dick, but if we are to believe what we're told about the use of performance-enhancing drugs among professional cyclists, then he was the best doped-up rider among a bunch of doped-up riders. I don't have to like him. I can still be impressed about what he did. I couldn't have done what he did if I was doped from the top of my hat to the tip of my shoe. If he created liability for himself along the way, then there are lawyers who can help him.
The people we should really admire are our grandparents, teachers, coaches, aunts, siblings, colleagues. Our parents. Our friends. We may find out they were doping too, but there they are right before our eyes, and we are very lucky to have them.
(Photo by Joel Sagent/AFP/Getty Images via Slate)
When the tree comes down (continued)
The other day I walked by one in the rain, and I saw a small red ornament that had been accidentally left on a branch. I pulled it off and set it on their steps, and it looked pretty pathetic on the wet concrete. Or maybe I was the pathetic one. Sometimes I'm not very good at the ending of things.
The last bit of Christmas for us was the tree house. We built it on the trunk of the huge hickory tree we had removed last fall, the one I found I missed later as I described here. I didn't miss it as much when Sandy hit and destroyed hundreds of trees (and lots of houses) in this city. But part of me still felt like a cad for having it offed.
As a kind of tribute to that tree, we'd had them save about seven feet of its trunk to use as the base for a tree house, which we promised as an early Christmas present. It turned out to be a late Christmas present. It didn't get started until well after New Year's, but then it went up quick.
We didn't let her look while it was being built, so it would be a surprise.
This weekend it was pretty much finished so we finally let her see. I watched her look at it, and there weren't any words for a while, then a big smile.
We climbed up the steps and stood inside. There were two windows and a bench built onto the far side. The smell of sawdust. The ceiling was a few inches above her head. It was just right.
She looked around and I could see her making plans for the place. It seemed that besides the seven feet of trunk, the other part of the big tree that remained were the things moving around in her imagination.
The lamest, cheapest tactic in all sports may have died yesterday
As long as I've watched football, which is pretty much my whole life, teams have tried to "ice" kickers who are about to attempt a game-winning or game-tying field goal. As the kicker lined up for the crucial kick, the other team called timeout. The idea was to throw off the kicker's concentration by giving him an extra minute or two to overthink, to listen to the crowd and panic a little. Then his leg would turn to jelly.
That was the theory. There was little evidence that icing worked, and some kickers say they actually appreciated the extra time to visualize the kick. But teams almost always tried it, and why not? Even if it made the tiniest difference, it couldn't hurt.
At some point (many say it was this 2007 game) coaches began to use a new icing strategy: They now stand by the sideline referee and wait until a split second before the snap to call timeout. Since the players usually don't know time has been called, the play will start, and often the kicker has the whistle going off in his ear as he's approaching the ball. This is supposed to rattle the kicker even more.
I've always thought that was a corny, gutterball way to try to win a game, playground stuff being used by multimillionaire adults. And it seems counterproductive. It gives the kicking team a free warmup snap, hold, and kick so they're nice and oiled up for the real play.
Yesterday, Seattle Seahawks' head coach Pete Carroll used the trick in the last seconds of the divisional playoff game against the Atlanta Falcons. The Seahawks, who had just completed a brilliant 21-point comeback, led 28-27 with 31 seconds left. But with two quick plays, Atlanta managed to move the ball far enough to give its kicker, Matt Bryant, a shot at a 49-yard field goal to win — not an easy kick, but doable, especially in a domed stadium like Atlanta's.
Bryant lined up and booted the ball. Plenty of distance but wide right. Seahawks win!
But wait! Carroll had called timeout a nanosecond before the snap (although he seemed to deny it later). It was a a dead ball, and so the missed kick didn't count. Psych!
You know what happens next. Bryant makes his second try. This time it counts. Falcons win!
Pete Carroll is getting blamed for singlehandedly snatching defeat from the jaws of victory for his team. That's probably not fair. Nobody can say for sure what would have happened without the timeout. On the initial miss, Bryant's concentration may have been thrown off by the whistle. Or he may have known it was just a practice kick and not given full effort.
But either way, I hope the whole episode helps rid football of this cheesy, bush-league practice. Even if they had been inclined to before (which I doubt), fans won't blame a coach for not icing the kicker anymore. It seems that much of the time, the only thing that gets iced is the opposing team's victory champagne.
(Photo by David Goldman, AP via The News Tribune)
My Very Excellent Mother Just Served Us Noodles
Some day in the future, when you are on a game show playing for a million dollars, you will thank me for teaching you this mnemonic for remembering the planets in their order from the Sun.
Note that My Very Excellent Mother Just Served Us Noodles does not include the relatively small body of Pluto, which was previously recognized as the ninth planet from the Sun but recategorized in 2006 as a plutoid, and as you know that's just an ice dwarf. If you are old school and want to count Pluto, then you should say: My Very Energetic Mother Just Served Us Nine Pizzas. And then you should slip your pen back in your pocket protector.
A great thing about parenthood is that you get to relearn all the things you might have learned a long time ago but didn't retain or care about. That includes how to spell "mnemonic," which is practically impossible.
Realistic new year's resolution ideas
Think about things you can do to improve the world. You don't have to do any of them. Just thinking is a positive step.
Quit reading the lliad in the original Greek.
Throw away some expired things in the refrigerator. Have a friend help you confirm that you're reading the dates correctly, or just ask the friend to do it all for you.
Look at yourself in the mirror frequently. God you're good looking.
Stop neglecting your couch. Lie on it for a while every day.
No more Gangnam Style dancing for you, Mister! You never do it right.
Pick one day a week and don't curse on that day. If you fail, no problem! There will be other days.
Actually, that goes for all of these resolutions. The motto for this year: manana.
Stop getting all superior when you see somebody spell it "manana," without the little squiggly on the first "n" the way the Spanish do it. If God had meant for Americans to use the little squiggly on their n's, he damn well would have put one on their keyboards.
Give away your exercise equipment to the next sucker.
Learn a foreign language. If you don't get around to it, no big deal because everybody speaks English there anyway.
Make sure you know English.
Draw doodles while you're on the phone. You're such an artist!
Try to expand your horizons by browsing the web almost every day. If you don't get around to it, don't worry because nobody likes know-it-alls.
Stop drinking milk out of the carton while somebody is looking.
Muscle is heavier than fat. Write that down and tape it over your scale.
Start your new year's resolution at the beginning of the Latvian new year, which is December. 4.
Finally get around to learning that musical instrument. If you don't have the time, then at least pick the instrument up and smash it to bits against the wall.
Save money by practicing a few simple rules. Give at least one less gift this year. Don't buy Girl Scout cookies, just eat somebody else's. When you see a "take a penny - leave a penny" tray, take all the pennies. You can maybe leave one so the clerk doesn't get suspicious.
If you aren't Catholic, become one because then you can give up the same thing for Lent that you are giving up for your new year's resolution. That way, you can improve your chances of going to heaven and you really don't have to do anything extra. It's like a bonus.
Why does it always have to be the Packers?
My team, the Minnesota Vikings, was eliminated from the NFL playoffs this past Saturday. Although I've been disappointed many times by the Vikings (as I described in a post I wouldn't recommend reading), this wasn't one of those times.
Working with a lineup of players that won only three games last year, the Vikings overachieved and ended the regular season with a respectable 10-6 record. The highlight was probably the performance of running back Adrian Peterson, who was only nine yards short of having the best rushing season in NFL history.
Nobody, including me, thought they would do much this year. Just making the playoffs was a minor miracle. I certainly didn't expect them to win their game Saturday, which was on the road in one of the harshest stadiums to visit in the NFL. For good measure, their starting quarterback was injured and didn't even suit up, and their backup had barely played all season.
So normally I would have been cool with the loss. And yet I feel bad about it, and that's because they lost to the Green Bay Packers. And losing to the Green Bay Packers leaves my heart filled with dread.
I should really like the Packers. Founded almost 100 years ago, they are an American institution, the only non-profit team in the NFL. They are owned not by some billionaire polluter or sweatshop magnate but by thousands of citizen shareholders. Many of its owners are average Joes who live in the team's hometown of Green Bay, Wisconsin, which has a population of about 100,000, about one-tenth the size of the next smallest NFL cities and a one-horse town compared to the places that have dominated the NFL over the years like New York, San Francisco, and Dallas. I have never been there but apparently Green Bay is made up entirely of people who would gladly give your car a jump anytime you needed one and then hand you a Schlitz.
Despite their limitations, the Packers have won more championships than any other NFL team — four Super Bowls and nine pre-1967 "world championships." They play outdoors on the frozen tundra of Lambeau Field, which is like a cathedral to football fans. Their legendary coach, Vince Lombardi, may have been the best this nation has ever known in any sport.
So it takes a rare kind of courage to support a team like the Vikings, who have shared a division with the Packers for 50 years and have won zero championships. The Packers are like the popular guy in your class who everyone loves, who gets a 4.1 every semester, who hangs with all the cool people, who letters in four sports, who volunteers at the soup kitchen every Saturday, who makes his bed, who gets voted Homecoming and Prom king, who is loved by all the teachers and parents, who plays lead in the school musical, and who also regularly kicks your ass on the playground in front of everybody as they cheer him on. That's a bitter, lonely feeling.
I know you know somebody like that, a perfect person who is better at everything than you are and who everyone loves and thinks is awesome, except for you, who knows the truth. Each of us has our personal Green Bay Packer. For me, my personal Green Bay Packer is the Green Bay Packers.
Just remember that in the end, you're the authentic good guy. We all need to release any grudges we might have and feel at peace because some day everyone will know the truth about the Green Bay Packers, which is that they are a bunch of crooks and cheaters.
Christmas in Onati, 1974
A while back somebody sent me this article that my Dad wrote for The Idaho Statesman in December 1975 about the previous Christmas, when our family was living in the Basque town of Onati in northern Spain (I explained why here). Things were different, as he described:
Christmas in the Basque country is strictly a family affair. There is virtually no commercialization. In fact, the only indication we had that Christmas was coming was the pine tree erected in the city square about three days before Christmas. No music in the stores, no bell ringers, no endless lines of shoppers, no tinsel and no Santa Claus.
Sounds pretty bleak for a seven-year-old, which I was then. But we made do with what was at hand.
Our family wanted a tree so we went up on the hill beside our house and picked one that had been felled by linemen running electricity to the school. Our apartment only had a thousand-watt capacity so we couldn’t put any lights on the tree but we found balls and trinkets and hung candy on the branches.
We were a long way from home, and looking back from 2012, the distance seems even longer: no Facebook, no internet, no Ipads, and in fact no personal computers. Email was two UCLA professors typing messages to each other in a laboratory. There were no faxes, no CNN International, no cell phones, no two-day international delivery. It could take a couple weeks to get a letter from the U.S. Long distance calls were like yelling through a soup can and string. If something was urgent, we could send a telegram.
Somehow, Dad thought it would be a good idea to take 80 American college students into a situation like that, to a town of about 10,000 still living under the last of Western Europe's 20th century dictatorships. He did it while knowing a few words of Basque and no Spanish. I think he made everything up as he went along, start to finish.
Later in life, I learned that not everyone in town greeted us with open arms. Many had no affection for Americans, and when you saw how Basques were treated by Francisco Franco — whom Richard Nixon once described as "a loyal friend and ally of the United States" — you could understand why.
Almost all of us were miserable and let Dad know about it. There was no heat, no ketchup, and no English. Many of us would have been glad to go home in the first weeks.
Then Christmas came, and that made things even worse.
I had mostly forgotten about Christmas 1974 until I read Dad's article, and little flickers came back. A tree decorated with whatever we could find. A roasted pig, somebody putting an apple in its mouth for a photo. Walking through the streets in the dark on Christmas Eve with all those college students towering above me. Trying Mom's champagne.
At the time, the invitiations into people's homes seemed like a nice Christmas Eve gesture. Now I understand they were more, and I appreciate Dad a lot more for helping pull that off.
I hope you get to make a moment like that for somebody during your life. If you do, try to remember to write an article about it for your local newspaper so it won't get lost.
(Photograph by Foto Arzuaga in Onati, courtesy of the San Lorenzo Times and Michael Brunelle, who also found the article)
History's worst Christmas lyrics: spot the real ones
A.
That was a wonderful time of year
filled with love and lots of good cheer
We sang a carol, by the mistletoe we kissed
And then Daddy said Santa didn't exist
B.
Ay, Jing-a-di-jing hee haw hee haw
It's Dominick the Donkey
jing-a-di-jing hee haw hee haw
De Italian Christmas Donkey
C.
Oh, it's a sad time of year for me
No stockings, no presents, no lights on the tree
No Santa, no Rudolph, no apparel that is gay-o
Because I come from the tradition Judeo
D.
Come on and hold my hips a little longa
As we do the Christmas Conga
Bonga, bonga, bonga!
Do the Christmas Conga!
E.
You are my little Christmas muffin
full of raisins and sugary stuffin'
You're a dish of green jello that's tasty and jiggy
You're a bowlful of puddin' that's hasty and figgy
F.
Don't worry baby, we'll celebrate plenty,
I'll buy you some shades and a brand new bikini
Ooooo, don't you think it's a pretty good plan?
All I want for christmas is a real good tan
G.
I was standing under the mistletoe
Hoping for the kiss to me you would blow
I stood for hours in the cold and the snow
But you didn't show 'cuz you're a ho, ho, ho
H.
It's a yum-yummy world made for sweethearts
Take a walk with your favorite girl
It's a sugar date, what if spring is late
In winter it's a marshmallow world.
I.
What can you get a Wookie for Christmas
when he already owns a comb?
What can you get a in a hurry
for a furry kind of friend like that to take home?
J.
On Christmas Eve the beer we'll be sippin'
Maybe later we'll do some yuletide cow tippin'
K.
Don't shoot me Santa Claus
I've been a clean living boy
L.
Oh, on Christmas when I hear the bells and the piper
I wish I'd been in Bethlehem to see Jesus in his diaper
And to play my flute by the little boy drummer
But I wasn't there then, and that is a bummer
M.
Santa Claus on the ceiling, Jack Frost chillin'
Pinch the Grinch for being a holiday villain
Season's greetings, all the proceedings
Are brought to you by the church house where we'll be eating
N.
Santa, I'm telling you this reeks
My baby somebody else now seeks
Please wrap her up and tie her in ribbon
So I can open the gift I shoulda been gibben
O.
Just last year when I was only seven
Now I'm almost eight, as you can see
You came home a quarter past eleven
And fell down underneath our Christmas tree
P.
Have a funky ... Funky Christmas and a funky new year
I swear we got ourselves a party here
Girls on the floor know our posse at the door
Should I stop - nah cool - here's more of this song, a funky Christmas melody
'cause Jordan K feels so Christmasy
Throw your hands in the air pause, kick the ballistics Santa Claus
Q.
I asked Santa for a diamond ring
Something shiny and filled with bling
Instead he decided to give me some coal
And now we're eating this ham that I stole
R.
Mom says the hippo would eat me up
But then teacher says a hippo is a vegetarian
I can see me now on Christmas morning
Creeping down the stairs
Oh, what joy and what surprise
When I open up my eyes
To see a hippo hero standing there
S.
Shake it, shake it, shake it!
Shake it, shake it, shake it!
Shake it, shake it, shake it!
Shake that Christmas shaker!
T.
You've been a bad girl, give Santa three kisses
Gave her the hot chocolate, she said "It's dee-ricious."
U.
Daddy's drinking up our Christmas
Going to be some hard times this year
No tree or stockings or presents
Just bottles of Christmas cheer
V.
When I was a child I loved our green tree
Daddy cut it fresh from the woods, you see
Now we just have a plastic imitation
That's made in China, a disappointing sensation
W.
On Christmas morn', in the stable hay
The donkey smiled in his donkey way
I feel beautiful, I feel beautiful
As beautiful as anyone am I
Answers:
I made up A, C, E, G, J, L, N, Q, S, V. The rest are real:
B is from "Dominick the Donkey" by Lou Monte
C is from "Christmas Conga" by Cindy Lauper
F is from "All I Want For Christmas Is A Real Good Tan" By Kenny Chesney
H is from "Marshmallow World" by Frank Sinatra
I is from "What Can You Get a Wookie For Christmas" by The Star Wars Intergalactic Droid Choir & Chorale
K is from "Don't Shoot Me Santa" by The Killers
M is from "Santa Claus Goes Straight to The Ghetto" By Snoop Dogg
O is from "Please Daddy Don't Get Drunk This Christmas" by John Denver
P is from "Funky, Funky, Xmas" by New Kids on The Block
R is from "I Want A Hippopotamus for Christmas" by Gayla Peevey
T is from "Christmas in Harlem" by Kanye West
U is from "Daddy's Drinking Up Our Christmas" by Commander Cody
W is from "The Ballad of The Christmas Donkey" by Ed Ames
When tragedy is public
The families of those killed in Newtown are not only going through a horrible tragedy. They're going through it in front of a worldwide audience.
Every major news organization has multiple reporters in Newtown, and network and cable news channel anchors are broadcasting from there. I've seen the story on European and Asian newspaper web sites. Most channels carried Sunday night's Newtown memorial service live, including President Obama's speech. There have been multiple interviews with victims' parents, other students' families, teachers, police, friends, and residents.
I have mixed emotions about it. The media are just doing their job. They have to cover the story. The whole country is talking about it and probably will for a while. But imagine the volume of reporters, photographers, producers, anchors, and just plain gear that must be there right now. Newtown residents probably can't go anywhere without tripping over a camera cord or having their picture taken, especially if they're with small kids.
Since I've avoided watching much of the coverage, I can't say whether I think it's been invasive or unseemly. I just know there's been a lot of it, which I assumed must be taking its toll on the friends and family of victims, who are already living a nightmare and don't need to do it front of hundreds of millions of people.
Then I thought of an experience I had. It was on a much, much smaller scale that's not even comparable, but it made me think that the public nature of this event might not be so bad for the families.
My parents were killed in a car wreck in Idaho in 1999, and since my dad was in the state legislature at the time, their deaths got a fair amount of local media coverage during the week of the funeral. The night of their accident, I got the news in my apartment in North Carolina, and I flew across country early the next morning. I remember looking around at people in the airports and the planes. It seemed odd to me that nobody knew what had happened.
Things changed when I arrived in Boise. The flags at the state capitol building were at half staff. There were stories on the local television stations and on the front page of the newspaper every day. I saw a lot of the coverage. I found all of it very moving. I had just lost two people who were very important to me. I had felt what it was like to experience total indifference from people who didn't know them and never would. It was a very lonely feeling. So I was grateful when total strangers cared enough to ask about what Mom and Dad were like, then to go and make amazing tributes so even more people would know what they were like.
Everyone handles tragedies differently, and only a few people can really know what it's like to experience the scale of the coverage in Newtown. It may be too much for the families, and maybe they feel exploited. Still, I hope that it's helping them a little. If I had lost my young child, I would want every person in the world to know what they were like during their short life, so all of them would mourn with me too.
Could lawsuits help prevent another Newtown?
The news from Connecticut is hard to watch, and I've turned off the television for a while. But one thing I saw has stuck in my head: the semi-automatic Bushmaster rifle used in the shootings was the same as that used by the D.C. snipers in 2002.
After the D.C. murders, there was a civil lawsuit against Bushmaster and the store where the snipers stole their rifle. The parties settled for $2.5 million, the first time a gun manufacturer agreed to settle a case involving a gun used in a crime.
It may be true that guns don't kill people, people kill people. But when people used airplanes to kill people on September 11th, we spent billions and changed the way we travel and live to try to prevent it from happening again. When people used chemicals in a van to kill 168 people in a federal building in Oklahoma City, we required all federal buildings to use permanent security barriers to try to prevent it from happening again.
So since people continuously use semi-automatic guns for mass murders, including the one that killed 20 first graders in Connecticut last Friday, it doesn't seem too unreasonable to try to do something to prevent that from happening again too.
Maybe the Second Amendment gives people an absolute right to own semi-automatics, and maybe banning them wouldn't be effective anyway. There are people who have forgotten more than I know about this.
What if we encouraged lawsuits by making gun manufacturers strictly liable for use of a semi-automatic gun during a crime? You can imagine how much manufacturers and their insurers would have to pay for the Aurora and Newtown shootings alone. They could only absorb so much of that cost. Sooner or later, semiautomatics would become a luxury. You could still get one, but you'd pay for it.
And why shouldn't you? These kinds of tragedies probably aren't going to stop anytime soon. Why should the taxpayers of Newtown, including the parents of the victims, have to cover all the security, medical, and other costs from that shooting? And why shouldn't gun manufacturers expect to pay? Airplane and fertilizer manufacturers probably didn't imagine their product being used as a mass murder weapon. But a gun manufacturer? After Virginia Tech, Tucson, and Aurora?
Just because you can buy and sell a product legally doesn't mean you can buy and sell it cheap. When asked why somebody would want a semi-automatic rifle, one owner said: "I could ask you why should anyone want a Ferrari?" Maybe we could make semi-automatics like a Ferrari: expensive, rare, bought mostly by guys who want to look at themselves in the mirror.