dedalvs

A while back, I posted the following about a development in the world of sports. Essentially, a fan at a Yankees' game was suing New York City and the Yankees for kicking him out of the game for going to the bathroom during "God Bless America". Back then, I wondered how far it would go, what the implications were, etc. Well, good news! The verdict has come down. Here's the result (my emphasis below):

NEW YORK (AP)—A baseball fan has settled a lawsuit that claimed he was kicked out of Yankee Stadium by a police officer because he left his seat to use the bathroom during the playing of “God Bless America.”

Bradford Campeau-Laurion had named the Yankees and New York City in his federal lawsuit, which argued that he was a victim of political and religious discrimination and that his rights were violated at the August 2008 game.

The city did not admit liability in the settlement, which was finalized Monday. But it will give the Queens resident $10,001 and will pay $12,000 in legal fees to the New York Civil Liberties Union.

So, the answer to the million dollar question: What are one's civil liberties worth? The answer: a $10 Grand Palindrome.

Admittedly, I can't fault the fan. The goal was not—and, indeed, should not have been—to challenge an institution and test the Constitution, but to see how much money could be gotten out of the whole ordeal. I assume he got some good advice from the NYCLU, and they convinced him that he wasn't likely to get any more than $10 grand out of this if the case went forward, so settling at this point was his best bet. And even though it's not a year's worth of rent, $10,000 is nothing to sneeze at (and the extra $1 is just icing on the cake [I assume it's there so he has to pay taxes on it (I remember something about everything up to and including a $10,000 award being tax free. Am I making that up...?)]).

Oddly enough, even though the defendants didn't have to admit fault, the settlement achieved the desired result (again from AP):

For its part, the Yankees will pay nothing but said in settlement papers that fans at the team’s new stadium are allowed to move freely during the song and there are no plans to change that.

“Policy remains as it always has been: Fans are free to move about during the playing of ‘God Bless America,”’ said Alice McGillion, spokeswoman for the Yankees.

So...the system works? (Though I think we know what that "always has been" is really worth.)

Ack! Where has the time gone?!

• Managed to edit through section two of the ol' novel, but have yet to hear back about section one (sima_q, I'm looking at you!).


• "Finished" and presented Writing Project A: An anniversary present for allegram. (The "finished" is in quotes because it's not the type of thing that will ever be finished, but it was finished enough to be presented.)


• Didn't write much in Project B; didn't write anything in the new novel (for which, see below).


• Added four errors to my writing guide (pretty good ones, too!).


• Holy smoke! For the first month, like, ever, I wrote no book reviews! Youch! Oh well. Two coming up right now...


• Wrote eleven blog posts.


• Wrote at least one blog post on the LCS podcast (thought it was two...? Oh, that's right: It lists the date that one starts writing, not the date one publishes. So I guess that's two).


• Oh, this was kind of fun: I wrote a Mad Libitum (a.k.a. "Mad Lib") for SpecGram. You can read (write?) it here.


• I started work on a textbook with a friend. Not too much progress, though. Feel bad about that...

So where did all the time go? I ended up spending an inordinate amount of time practicing with a friend to play a kind of mini-show in LA (which we did on the third of this month). Thankfully, that'll be the last time I play lead guitar for a live audience. I was never meant to perform on an instrument. I can write stuff for others to perform, but me, I always screw up—even if I know what I'm playing, and it's simple.

Recently, a piece of my time has been spent finishing up The Magic Mountain. Turned out to be excellent. I was sure it would win me The Golden Egret, but it appears my arch-nemesis sima_q pulled out an eleventh hour victory... Alas!

This month is going to be a nightmare. Every year, I do a children's book for my little sister. I've had an idea for this year's book for months now, but I can't seem to nail it down... Now, though, her birthday is less than a month away, so I have to get started now.

And not only that, our little cousin is coming to visit and to celebrate her birthday at the same time. Whenever that's happened, I've made a copy of one of my old children's books for her, which means I'm going to have to do that, too...

Plus, you know, everything else (including a new potential time sink which I'll talk more about later).

Anyway, regarding the new novel, I asked a friend for some help, and he's totally dropped the ball, so I'm turning to the internet.

This is what I need. Imagine that it's June of 2006. What is the absolute best computer set-up (for gaming) that one could have? Specifically, I'm looking at PCs (I've got the Macs covered). Imagine your funds are limitless, and that you can build the computer from the ground up. What's the best possible set up? I'm thinking of a series of like six or seven computers. I need the names of parts, graphics cards, monitors, processors—everything. Once I've got this, I can really get started on the next novel. I've been using it as an imaginary roadblock; need to get over it.

Okay, now to write the review I linked to up there...

As followers of this blog may have figured out, I'm a big fan of logos. The two most exciting days for logos in the NBA is the day of the NBA Draft Lottery (bust), and the NBA Draft itself. Today was the NBA Draft, and along with a lot of exciting trades, there was a logo change—and quite an interesting one, at that.

( The logo that 'changed'. )

And the worst part about it is, if they had wanted to update it, they had the perfect model in the NBA's Detroit Pistons.

( What the Pistons did. )

So, Sixers fans, I hope you're happy. You got your lousy logo back. In a way, it's an improvement, but oh, what could have been... If only you'd asked my advice first (or looked west to Detroit)... But, whatever. I'm cool. At least it's something different.

Now if we can only convince the Clippers, Warriors, Bobcats and Wizards that it's time for a change...

Everyone has probably heard about this story, which broke today. It's one we've all heard before: a political official (this time a governor from South Carolina) admits to an extramarital affair and is forced to resign something (his chairmanship of the Republican Governors' Association). What I found interesting is this quote:

"Any aspirations for [running for President in] 2012, if he had any, are certainly out of the question," said Robert Oldendick, a political scientist at the University of South Carolina.

It's interesting because it's absolutely true, and we all accept that it's true—and most would agree that that's the way it should be.

But here's the thing. Cheating on one's spouse isn't a crime. As such, it's a private "decision". Why should it have more of an affect on one's suitability to be President than breaking the law? Numerous past Presidents have broken the law (consider our last three, Obama, Bush and Clinton, all of whom have done illegal drugs of various stripes at least once). The President of the United States is supposed to uphold and enforce the law. Shouldn't that matter more?

Even in my mind, though, that rings false. Even though I've never done drugs, I see trying marijuana—or even being addicted to cocaine, for a time—as less of a moral crime than cheating on one's spouse. I would say that if the question were to put to most Americans, just about all of them, conservative, liberal and moderate, would say that cheating on one's spouse is worse.

And yet...

Adultery being legal is one thing (I think it would be nearly impossible to make it illegal). AshleyMadison.com is quite another.

I realize pornography gets a bad wrap, but, honestly, the personal relationships of the audience of pornography are irrelevant: whether the viewer is married, in a relationship or single, that's not the point of pornography. AshleyMadison.com, however, actually markets itself to married individuals who want to cheat on their spouses.

It'd be one thing if the website simply wanted to make itself known (e.g. "If you want help with this, we're available"). But the commercials I've seen actually encourage married individuals to cheat on their spouses. If I had a choice between a child watching pornography and an AshleyMadison.com commercial, I'd go with the porn. The idea that married people should cheat seems to me to be more damaging to a child than the idea that sex is enjoyable (and often happens when pizza is delivered, or a plumber comes over to unclog a drain).

From an economic standpoint, though, the commercials make sense. In a capitalist society, you have to capitalize on whatever you can to make money (since that's the goal). If you can capitalize on something that no one else has, even better. The problem with success, though, is that you may run out of customers (if everyone's got a thneed, and no one needs another one, what to do?). If that happens, one needs to generate new customers. This is precisely what the commercials are trying to do: to create customers that would not otherwise have been customers, in order to make more money.

The only time this breaks down is when the practice is illegal (e.g. you couldn't run a website like this for hitmen). Since adultery isn't illegal, there's absolutely nothing that can be done about these commercials, provided they meet the preset decency standards, and don't present fraudulent information.

I realize that any argument against sites like this and these commercials will ultimately break down (one essentially has to argue for a society that's less free, which isn't too popular), but the resultant contradiction bothers me. (Oh, and the fact that only economic arguments seem to matter nowadays also bothers me. Lousy money...)

I'm going to try my hand at starting an LJ meme. Really, though, I'm less interested in it spreading than in the responses themselves. The idea is this: Take a picture of the place from which you ordinarily post LJ posts. I'm interested to see where it is people are at when they're writing; what it looks like. Here's my corner of the world:

( My desk. )

Anyway, there it is. So what's it like 'round y'all?

He just keeps it coming... (Note: The all-caps are his [he does that a lot].)

239. The weaker sex [i.e. women -Ed.] has in no previous age been treated with so much respect by men as at present—this belongs to the tendency and fundamental taste of democracy, in the same way as disrespectfulness to old age—what wonder is it that abuse should be immediately made of this respect? They want more, they learn to make claims, the tribute of respect is at last felt to be well-nigh galling; rivalry for rights, indeed actual strife itself, would be preferred: in a word, woman is losing modesty. And let us immediately add that she is also losing taste. She is unlearning to FEAR man: but the woman who "unlearns to fear" sacrifices her most womanly instincts.

So...if I understand correctly, what he's saying is this: Woman, up to this point, has been subjugated—a second-class citizen. As such, women began to share traits commonly associated with disenfranchised peoples. These traits he associates with women inherently—says it's the best part of women! And now, surprise, surprise, as women gain rights, they're losing their "most womanly instincts"—that is, the traits of the subjugated and suppressed class.

And that's a bad thing.

Am I reading this right...? And is this guy, who writes like a raving lunatic, in fact a raving lunatic?

If the title made you think, "Oh, geez, this is going to bad", let me assure you, it's much worse:

234. Stupidity in the kitchen; woman as cook; the terrible thoughtlessness with which the feeding of the family and the master of the house is managed! Woman does not understand what food means, and she insists on being cook! If woman had been a thinking creature, she should certainly, as cook for thousands of years, have discovered the most important physiological facts, and should likewise have got possession of the healing art! Through bad female cooks—through the entire lack of reason in the kitchen—the development of mankind has been longest retarded and most interfered with: even today matters are very little better. A word to High School girls.

<:O

Based on one of the responses to my last post, I thought I'd put up a poll to see if this is just me, or if my claim that this M&M wrapper is inappropriate has merit.

( Click to see the image and participate in the poll. )

So, quite awhile ago, I was at the ol' 99¢ Store (I have a great story about Juana Molina and a 99¢ Store I should share some time...), and I found—to my delight—dark chocolate peanut M&M's, and they were selling three packages for 99¢! I mean, peanut M&M's are just about the best thing in the world, and dark chocolate is the best kind of chocolate; what could be more perfect?

This got me to thinking, though. Why are they selling dark chocolate peanut M&M's at the 99¢ Store? Why are they so cheap? Why haven't I seen them at other grocery stores? Then I examined the packaging, and I think I figured it out:

( A mistake on the part of Mars, Incorporated. )

But, hey, maybe I'm overreacting. Maybe dark chocolate peanut M&M's simply weren't popular, and so they decided to stop making them. Seeing as that is not the case, though, could it be that their marketing department just missed this? The following leads me to believe that the answer is "yes":

( A key revision. )

Of course, this isn't going to make me stop eating peanut M&M's. Even if I lose all my teeth and peanuts are proven to be the sole cause of cancer, I'll traverse hill and dale to get me some peanut M&M's. Mmm... Peanuts...

Update: I've since been to a store, and, I'm sorry to say, that yellow fellow with his "peanut" is still boldly emblazoned on every bag of dark chocolate peanut M&M's. I mean...hello!

One of the unintended results of the rise in popularity of Rock Band (and the concomitant Rock Band party [for which, cf. this XKCD comic]) is the drive by some to memorize songs they didn't know before, and may not like.

( Rock Band tangent. )

Back to the original point of this post, one of these songs is a song I knew, and was glad to get reacquainted with: "Naked Eye" by Luscious Jackson. I went to their Wikipedia page to fill out the rest of the iTunes information in the track, and was a bit shocked to read this description written by some Wikipediac and not yet edited out (my emphasis below):

The original band consisted of Jill Cunniff (vocals, bass), Gabby Glaser (vocals, guitar), Kate Schellenbach (drums) and Vivian Trimble (keyboards, vocals). The band played nearly every instrument heard on their records, and with the exception of a few non-LP cover songs wrote all of their own material, the majority penned by vocalists Jill Cunniff and/or Gabby Glaser.

I mean...what?! Imagine if this was written about the Beatles. (Oh, and they played all their own instruments, you say! And they even wrote their own songs!) I mean, do you all get what I'm getting? The implication seems to be that since this is a band of all girls, it should be surprising that they would play their own instruments and write their own songs.

To be fair, I can see this type of description being written on a band's Wikipedia page. For example, if it turned out that some boy band like NSYNC or O Town actually wrote their own songs and played their own instruments, that would be surprising and noteworthy. Luscious Jackson, however, was not one of those bands: they were a band like any other band, getting together on their own to make music. How absurdly misleading and insulting!

I realize I already made a post today, but since this is on my mind, I thought I'd mention it. The Philadelphia (later Baltimore) Stars were a team from the United States Football League. They have this logo that, to me, is just outstanding. I love it, and I want to put it on a shirt. It looks something like this:



The highest quality image of the logo I can find is here, and that's far from ideal. So here's the question: Can anyone take any of these crappy images and make them good—something nice and large and high quality enough that I could put it onto a Zazzle shirt, or something like that? Or does anyone know of a higher quality image?

I've joined a gym (24 Hour Fitness), which is great, since it means I'll finally be able to get back to where I'm supposed to be, but is also fairly devastating, physically. After almost a year of inactivity, I've gone three days in a row, and my body is punishing me for it. It's gotten lazy. It must learn.

Anyway, the friend with whom I go says he's out today, so I'm giving my body a much needed break. In the interim, I was checking sports scores, which led to one of those Wikipedia journeys with which I'm sure we're all familiar. Here's how it went:

( A Wikipedian journey leads to a startling discovery. )

From Nietzsche's Beyond Good and Evil (perhaps where it gets its title, though the phrase occurs elsewhere):

What is done out of love always takes place beyond good and evil.

I find myself...agreeing with this...? I don't know. It struck me; thought I'd post it.

This month was unbearably disappointing.

• Finished one novel; didn't manage to start the new one.


• Wrote a bit in writing project A; wrote quite a bit more in B.


• Only managed one book review for my reviews page.


• Only added one error to my writing guide.


• A wrote up a large number of blog posts.


• I did half of one blog post for the LCS Podcast, but that doesn't really count, because it was about one of my talks.

I honestly can't remember if there was anything else... What a waste.

The process of editing/revising the first novel is going very slow. I wanted to be done with it by the beginning of this month. That hasn't happened. I'd say it's a tenth of the way done.

On a more exciting note, a friend and I are taking steps towards starting a couple of joint book projects. If they get done, they might actually do something.

I also recently finished doing what I needed to do for New Comm Ave, a literary journal for undergraduates. That took up a good amount of time the past couple of weeks.

Just yesterday, a new SpecGram came out with a new article of mine. This one, I think, is funnier than many of my recent ones, but you might need to be a linguist to appreciate it (not sure).

Now I need to figure out what this month will be. Just not sure.

The Lakers are back in the finals, to try to get Kobe Bryant another championship (apparently "that's his thing"). We should all be grateful, as teams like the Lakers remind us that it's not about how you play the game, it's about who wins, and nothing more. And who knows? Perhaps they'll finally be able to answer the age-old question: Are we human, or are we dancer?

If you've been reading this blog for the past x number of months and paying attention to the "Music" listings at the top, you might have noticed that I've been kind of hot on this band Sonata Arctica. It's rather interesting how I came to learn of them.

A friend used to work as an IT specialist at some company or other and usually had little to do (employees would call in, say "My computer's broken!", he would tell them how to plug it in, etc.). Every so often, though (I guess it happened at least three times), some random internet hacker would hack into their computers. It wasn't a malicious hacking; there was no evidence of data being stolen or destroyed, or anything like that. No, all he did was make it so that every computer screen displayed his hacker logo and name, and played, on an infinite loop, this song.

Now, of course, my friend was annoyed at having to go in undo this every time, but the song captured his attention, and he played it for me one day, knowing that I would like it. He had no idea who performed it or what it was called (he'd guessed "Heart of an Eagle"), but, of course, since we live in the crazy 21st century, I just pulled out my iPhone and Shazamed it. As it turns out, the song is "Eagleheart" by a Finnish power metal band named Stratovarius (note the spelling).

"Power metal?" I pondered. "I've never heard of that..."

( My discovery of power metal. )

So that's all well and good. Why the title, you ask? Simple: All Sonata Artica's songs are in English.

Why, one might wonder? After all, the band comprises native speakers of Finnish who've lived their entire lives in Finland. Why sing in a foreign language?

( A brief history of English-singing European bands and a brief intro to Finnish. )

So, when you combine English lyrics (rhyming lyrics, mind you) with Finnish, the results are often strained. Here are some examples from several of Sonata Arctica's most famous songs (theoretically. The band isn't popular here, so I actually have no idea which are their most famous songs).

( Sonata Arctica's lyrical gaffes. )

After all this, one might wonder: What is the point of this post? Am I trashing Sonata Arctica? Is the point to insult non-native-English speakers? Eek! I certainly hope that that's not what came across! If anything, I have to applaud how well all these bands have learned English. It's quite incredible, and I wish I had the same level of fluency in any other language (especially Finnish, which is so freaking cool).

Here's what I wonder, though. Composing poetry in one's own language is incredibly difficult. Composing it in another language must be even more difficult—I'd call it impossible if it hadn't been done so many times. But honestly, why compose songs in English? Why not compose them in Finnish?

A practical answer was given by someone whose response I can no longer find, but which I know exists somewhere in the Conlang list archives. The essence of it was that all of these guys grew up listening to their favorite bands, all of whom sung in English, so they decided to do so as well. Additionally, there is a huge market for music in English, and a tiny one for music in Finnish.

Oh! I found it. You can read the whole post here (it's by Lars Finsen, a top-notch conlanger. You can read more about his conlang Urianian here), but this is the relevant part (my emphasis below):

Well, English is the language of popular songs, it's the perceived
truth. Young people with songwriting ambitions write in English
because only then they can break through worldwide. And they are fans
of bands singing in English. Songs in their own language seem
inferior. In Norway, even people who don't seem to have international
ambitions sometimes sing to their fellow Norwegians in English.

Here is where I disagree (not about what is, but about what should be), at least personally. When it comes to a novel, there's nothing the average English speaker can get out of a Finnish text; it must be translated. With a song, though, 98% of it is the music, not the words! For the most part, no one cares! At the very basic level, what the listener hears is the sound. It's not like a novel or a movie, where some level of understanding is required, either linguistic or musical (anyone can enjoy any type of music even if they have no idea what went into creating it, or how it works). The lyrics are incidental, and if fans are interested, translations are sufficient. Why bother kowtowing to the dictates of the English-speaking masses when it's totally unnecessary?

So that's my beef. Think about it: the more you listen to a language, the better you get at understanding and, possibly, using it. I could be learning Finnish while I'm listening to music, but I'm not, and it's all ABBA's fault!

Again, thanks for allowing me ten days of posts about sports logos. I promise, right after this, I'll get to complaining about things.

The first thing I need to note is that I made a HUGE mistake: I left out the MLS club Seattle Sounders FC. That was simply inexcusable (especially since they have such a fine logo). I've added them in (they're number 21 [very respectable]), and will have to go and adjust all the numbers from the previous posts (sigh).

For fun, I decided to compile some statistics. First, though, here is the entire ranked list of the 158 teams whose logos I surveyed. Again, these are the logos from the NBA, WNBA, NFL, NHL, MLB, MLS and WPS. Here goes:

( Ranked list of all pro sports logos. )

Whew! Some day I'll link to each team's specific logo on Chris Creamer's sports logos site (by the way, that is a fantastic resource!), but that's just too much trouble for the time being (perhaps if it weren't so hot... Going to be a long, long summer in California).

If each logo's rank is equivalent to a number, it's possible to drum up some statistics. For example, which league has the best logos, overall? Here are the results (remember: the lower the number, the better):

( League by league results. )

Here are some miscellaneous stats:

( Some miscellaneous stats. )

Finally, I wanted to do some city and state breakdowns. First, the cities. I made a couple of moves to make this work. First, I counted a team if it's name is associated with a city, even if they technically play in a suburb of that city. I counted the Houston Comets as a current team (this gave Houston five), and I capped the count at cities with at least five teams. If a team plays in the same city but bears the name of the state, that also counts. I counted New York as a region, but excluded New Jersey, and counted the Bay Area as a region. So, here it goes, grouped by number of teams:

( City sports logo competition. )

Okay, now for the state competition.

( State sports logo competition. )

For the moment, that concludes my sports logos series. I may write blog posts on logos in the future, but this, I think, has sated my urge to talk about sports logos for awhile. Thanks for your patience!

The NBA Draft Lottery is less than ten minutes away, so that means it's time: Time to reveal the best and worst logo in the seven major sports. I'll not spoil it in the cut text: You've got to click to find out!

( #158: The worst logo in sports. )

Okay, here it comes...

( #1: The best logo in sports. )

All right, it's all done! And, hey, finally, some good news: The Clippers got the first pick in the draft! No new logos, I'm afraid, but at least we get to see how the Clippers will screw up yet another high draft pick. I almost feel sorry for Blake Griffin...

Coming up next, I'm going to release the entire list of logos, and run some statistics, as well. Thanks for indulging me!

It's getting close! The end is nigh! Tomorrow's the big day. Will the Clippers get screwed again by the Draft Lottery? The answer, of course, is yes, but just how much of a yes will it be?! I can't wait!

Here's the second worst logo in sports.

( #157: The Pittsburgh Pirates )

This is another one of those I really don't want to acknowledge...

( #2: The Utah Jazz )

Ho, ho, the time has come! Tomorrow, to coincide with the NBA Draft Lottery, I will reveal the best and worst logo of the seven major sports leagues—and let me tell you, when I reveal #1, controversy will abound!

It's getting close! We've hit the top and bottom three now. So, without further ado...

( #156: The New York Islanders )

Now for a logo change I was really excited about.

( #3: The Cleveland Cavaliers )

We're getting close! I expect my final top two to be extremely controversial (not the bottom two, though).