Tag Archives: Commentary

From Russia With Gay Love

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A while back there was some news coming out of the Supreme Court of the United States regarding a ruling on marriage equality. I shared my thoughts on the topic in a very well received blog post. Well it seems that our cold war adversaries on the other side of the Bering Strait have a few thoughts on this as well.

Unless you’ve been severely news deprived over the last month you will know that Russia has passed anti-gay laws that could land a person in jail if they are caught promoting a “non-traditional” lifestyle. There have been protests, there have been riots, and more than a couple countries (Canada and the U.S. included) have waggled a mean finger in their general direction. Now, there’s a movement (albeit a small, and from what I can tell, largely ineffective one) to have nations boycott the Olympics taking place in Sochi Russia in February 2014.

While I think that it’s a nice notion, I don’t happen to think it would have any real impact on the situation. If every nation failed to show up then we’d have a story, but we all know that that’s more fantasy than the idea of a Beatles reunion. At least one reporter has an opinion on this and goes into great detail about past boycotts and their utter ineffectiveness. So, given that a boycott won’t happen, and  even if it did it wouldn’t make a lick of difference, what can we do?

Well, I suggested in the comments on that article that the Canadian (and American) governments make a slight change to our respective flags – temporarily, of course – such that whenever a medal was won the Russians would have to hoist something like this to the rafters:

Oh, Canada!

As unlikely a scenario as this is, I thought that this would produce the absolute best results. It would mean that the Russian Olympic Committee would have to willingly display gay propaganda – to the entire world no less – and it would not put any one athlete at risk.

For a brief moment I thought that I was a genius. Until it occurred to me that there was about as much chance of that happening as that aforementioned Beatles reunion. In mentioning it to a co-worker he had an even better idea: change the equipment! Can you imagine the entire men’s and women’s hockey teams staking around with laces on their skates and tape on their sticks that look like this?

 
  

Regardless of what form of protest would be considered the best, one thing I know is that if everyone stays silent on the issue then we fail. Individual athletes will step up, I’m sure of it, but they will be a very small voice in a raging sea of white noise and Russian propaganda – and they will be putting themselves at great personal risk. As much as those small voices matter, this needs to be tackled on a much larger scale.

In his inauguration address in 1961 John F. Kennedy said, “Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.” My fellow humanitarians, I’m turning that quote around and asking my country to show a little courage and do something for us. If they won’t, then I’ll turn and ask the Olympic Committee to step up. If they won’t then we’ll just have to see how many of those small voices we can get together so they can show the leaders of the world how to actually make a difference.

~ Andrew

The Power of the Internet

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I am fortunate enough to have experienced the creation of one of the greatest inventions of all time: the Internet. Granted, there were a whole lot of events that had to transpire over several decades before it became accessible outside of military or academic circles, but when it did… it’s hard to argue that it didn’t have a major impact on society.

Image Courtesy Wikipedia

Much like anything else it didn’t take long for the Internet to become commercialized. Rest assured (and if you read my last post this won’t come as a surprise) if there’s a newer/better/faster/easier way to sell you something then the people selling it are going take advantage.

Then something interesting happened. People started using the Internet for something that wasn’t commerce. Of course, traditional media outlets began (and continue) to use the Internet as a cheap and easy way to get your attention, driving you to their paid services and racking up page views to satisfy deep-pocketed advertisers, but ordinary people also started to use it to share their message. They quickly realized that there was the potential to reach a tremendous audience and in less than a decade the Internet became the greatest resource the world has ever seen.

As with anything that’s publicly available and unregulated you’re going to get quite a wide collection of individuals involved. The Internet user community is, unsurprisingly, just a reflection of society as a whole. One quick peak and you’ll find:

  • the innovators; 
  • the salespeople; 
  • the socially conscience; 
  • the clueless; 
  • the intellectual (and the intellectually deficient); 
  • the radicals; and of course, 
  • the liars and the cheats. 
If you need to put “fair & balanced” in your logo
I have news for you…

It’s not just corporations like FOX News that are in on the game either. Sometimes our cravings for attention and the insatiable need for our 15 minutes of fame take control, and sometimes the less honourable see an opportunity to take advantage of the good nature of others. If you’re on Facebook you have most certainly seen the posts. The ones where some tear-jerking picture is accompanied by some text that reads “If I get a million ‘likes’ then…” or “So and so or this and that needs your help!”

Some of these are undoubtedly true… and some most certainly are not. I choose to focus on the good. It takes a bit more energy but the end result is worth it (my favourite sources of truth are currently Snopes and Skeptophilia). With just a little bit of research and minimal digging the same Internet that brings you the lie also brings the lie and the people behind it to light. Just as easily, the Internet can be used to affect positive change, and as it turns out there are more people out there using their powers for good instead of evil.

I firmly believe in the power of the Internet and all of its social media sub-components. Aside from allowing everyday folks like myself to have a voice, it can bring people together and affect change like never before.

Just ask Egypt.

~ Andrew

Media Feeding Frenzy

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I have a Twitter account. You can see the feed just to the left of this post. It’s 100% public and anyone with access to the internet can see every Tweet I’ve sent (all 7,300+ of ’em). You won’t see anything terribly salacious though as I have implemented some strict rules over the last couple years; the two biggest being: no f-bombs and nothing derogatory/defamatory toward an individual. In other words, try as often as possible to use my nice words and don’t make it personal. In spite of this, you have no reason to believe that anything I post is even remotely true and because of that I do my best not to give you any reason to doubt me.

When I see tweets out of context that (in my opinion) cross some lines I mostly just ignore them. I certainly can’t be the defender of everybody on the Internet, nor do I want to be, but when one or more of my friends is involved I tend to take notice. This happened recently and until I was able to gain access to the appropriate context things looked pretty crazy, like something out of a fake news magazine. However, I got the appropriate context and have since chosen to stay the heck out of it and let the system and people directly involved do what they do. I just wish that proper context had been made available along with all the other tweets that were being tossed around.

I’ve written about being careful about what you tweet before and in today’s world of instantly mass distributed information it’s more important than ever for people to be cautious about what they publish. Sadly, most do not. Instead, they just get angry, type, and press send. You may have noticed that news outlets tend to lag when it comes to the release of information. This is because they are supposed to have a little something called journalistic integrity. They are supposed to fact check and double, sometimes triple verify before publishing. Supposedly, they require proof, but we all know that not every news outlet has the same definition and not every one goes about obtaining it the same way (or at all in some cases). As a friend pointed out to me recently, “your credibility and integrity are directly tied to the media organization who signs your checks.” I had made a reference to The Toronto Star in comparison to FOX News and we were speaking of course on the recent scandal that has rocked the mayor’s office in Toronto.

There used to be a clear difference between an organization operating completely above board and one of lesser integrity. It used to be really easy to differentiate between The Toronto Star and FOX News. After what I’ve seen over the past 10 days I’m sad to report that it’s not so easy any more. As far as I can tell, once the Rob Ford story broke every media outlet in Canada (and some in the U.S.) started behaving like someone on Twitter with no followers, tweets with links to questionable websites, and an egg for a profile picture.

If I was able to draw, there’d be a picture of Rob Ford in the ocean with a bunch of shark fins circling him, each one with the name of a media outlet tattooed on it (the largest fin being the Toronto Star). There’d be a dude in a life raft looking all shipwrecked and scraggly and holding binoculars. On the side of his boat would be “S.S. Gawker”. Until I can take some art lessons, this will have to do:

There’s a certain irony to me utilizing an image stolen from FOX in this post

Listen, I’m not a Rob Ford fan. I’ve shamefully made a comment or two at his expense this week. A good many people, however, have done a lot more than just crack a joke, and with less evidence than there was to support the existence of Weapons of Mass Destruction.

At least I will give Mr. Ford the benefit of the doubt:

No proof = didn’t happen.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m also not a fan of any jerk who abuses power and uses money and influence to do nefarious, morally reprehensible, or illegal things. But is this what it has come to? Has the rest of the world given up on demanding proof? Has the age of instant information whet our appetite to such a degree that we have finally shifted the burden of proof from the accuser to the accused?

I certainly hope not, but more and more it’s looking like that’s the direction it’s headed.

Welcome to the Court of Twitter:
Trial by Internet with traditional media judge presiding over a jury of your social media peers; thumbs hovering over the send button and salivating at the thought of hanging the accused in 140 characters or less.

~ Andrew

What’s Your Biggest Weakness?

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With the big contest reveal coming tomorrow I thought a departure from the usual theme would be a good idea. A friend of mine recently interviewed for a job, and while it went really well, there was one interviewer who was hell bent on asking some really off-the-wall stuff. Well, if you’ve heard the expression “There are no stupid questions” before I’m here to politely inform you that there are, and if you’re a certain type of interviewer you’re probably asking them.

When conducting an interview, hiring managers always want to make sure they are getting the right person for the job. Candidates often come so well prepared and polished that it can be very difficult to get a good read on someone just from a couple hours of talking through the standard set of questions. Many companies will try to put candidates through a veritable gauntlet of interviews, with 4, 5, 6, or more people each getting 30-60 minutes to lob question after question, scenario after scenario at them; looking for hidden faults, but more often looking for a spark of genius.

No doubt you’ve all read stories about some of the fabulous questions that the likes of Microsoft and Google have asked their potential employees. Many of these are extremely well thought out, but are also remarkably unconventional and designed to help ferret out specific nuggets of information that would be otherwise hard to extract if they were to keep to the same sort of predictable script.

I was a co-op student at the University of Waterloo, so I’m no stranger to job interviews and some of the crazy questions that one can encounter. I was also a hiring manager for software development and testing for over a decade in a variety of industries. I’ve tried to come up with a list of generic questions relevant to each position with limited success, but one thing is certain: I outright refuse to ask certain questions, simply because they are stupid. That may come off as a bit flippant, and I don’t necessarily mean stupid in the strict dictionary definition of the word, but nevertheless there are just some questions that aught not to be asked in a job interview.

For starters, don’t ask people riddles. At least, don’t ask riddle-type questions for which you already have an answer in mind. A friend interviewed for a job as a statistician and was asked, “How many piano tuners are there in New York City?” Initially, this would seem like a really stupid question, but it wasn’t because the interviewer didn’t want a precise answer. Answering 1328 versus answering 472 was inconsequential when compared with how the question was answered.

I’ve been asked how I would build a clock for a blind person. After several minutes of me trying to understand the requirements (example: plug in vs. battery operated vs. wind up) I was told, “Just take the glass off a regular alarm clock.” The person’s tone was incredulous as well, as if I had deeply offended them by not knowing the answer. This was a stupid question, with an even stupider expected answer (every time you check the time you’ll change what time it is!).

Questions like this remind me of those Mensa questions or silly things you see on Facebook. “What’s the next symbol in the sequence?”, “Which number comes next?” These are little more than party tricks that, once you’ve seen a couple, you can figure out the answer without having to even think at all, let alone showcase practical life skills.

How about this? Interviewers of the world listen up! Instead of asking seemingly open ended questions that are just riddles in disguise, how about you take a minute and put on your thinking caps for a change and ask your candidates questions that allow them to use their knowledge and experience to provide a solution to a relevant problem.

Remember, that with so many highly skilled and talented people out there, the likelihood is that they are interviewing you just as much as you are interviewing them and we wouldn’t want you to look stupid, now would we?

~ Andrew

 

When Make Believe Is All That Remains

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“Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts.”
– Richard Feynman

I’ve mentioned in a previous post the one of the benefits of being a writer is you get to make stuff up. There is a serious problem, however, when wordsmiths of a different kind resort to making stuff up a tad more often than they should. I’m speaking of the scientists, the government, and the media – the ones who synthesize, distill, and report findings; who direct funding for research and make policies; and who relay information to the masses.

When Canada voted against science I was right there standing up and crying foul. Like many others my initial impulses had me all a Twitter (and a G+ and a Facebook). This is an outrage! Will no one come to the defence of science? At the very root of my anger is my belief that objectivity and truth still exist and not enough people are fighting for them.

I turned almost immediately to Gordon Bonnet, who, along with being a science teacher down in the States, also writes a great blog called Skeptophilia. In a matter of hours he turned around a much less knee-jerk response with the message that data, in of itself, cannot have an agenda. The problem is politicians and media outlets do, and I would assert that out of self-preservation (and the fact that they are human) scientists have one as well. However, the scientific agenda is normally kept in check through critique and review by one’s peers. When that process gets handcuffed, well, all bets are off.
“The only thing worse than a blind believer is a seeing denier.”
– Neil deGrasse Tyson
A friend with whom I like to debate such matters pointed out that “the human soul is corruptible.” Indeed it is, but that’s a sociopolitical discussion for another day. He also pointed me to this Maclean’s article which happens to be a a very level-headed take on things. The author, Julia Belluz, sums it up by suggesting that scientists raising a stink in the form of 60’s style protest aren’t doing themselves any favours, and on this I have to agree. 
Everybody involved appears to be approaching it all wrong. I am left to wonder though, if that’s the wrong way, what the hell is the right one? As the maxim goes, if insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result, then what happens when you’ve tried every approach you can think of and still nothing changes?

It seems that people on both sides of any argument go though this eclectic transition of approaches. The precise order and length of each one is impossible to determine, but the following popped into my head as a plausible chain of events: 
  • Start with the presentation of pure facts. 
  • If that doesn’t work, involve your peers to provide supporting information and try to open a dialog. 
  • If that doesn’t work, then compare and contrast opposing ideas in the form of debate. 
  • If that doesn’t work, then start removing facts and bring in “expert opinion” and hype. 
  • Finally, if that doesn’t work, resort to pure, unadulterated propaganda and rhetoric. 
  • If all else fails simply resort to sarcasm and ridicule (enter social media).  

This is pretty much where we’re at right now, and quite frankly I think this tailspin makes a complete mockery of it all and just ends up dragging everyone down to the same subhuman level, leaving slander and lies as the only pieces left on the board.

“The great thing about science is that it’s true whether or not you believe in it.”
– Neil deGrasse Tyson
Maybe I’m naive to expect more out of professional conveyors of information, but when it’s all reduced down to a contest over who can out crazy who it makes you wonder if the people who make stuff up for a living aren’t the sanest group in the whole lot.
Next election I’m voting for a writer.
~ Andrew

Choosing Wisely

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On the day of what can arguably be described as the biggest day in North American sports, Super Bowl Sunday, I find myself in a minority position when it comes to giving a damn. I’ve never really been a football fan – hockey and golf seem to hold my interest – and I’m definitely not in the habit of worshipping the ground these best-of-the-best athletes walk on. Now I’m not saying I’m a perfect human – I’m far from it – and I’ve been lucky to make my mistakes in private without the world standing around judging me.

That being said, my kids are starting to pay attention to what’s on the TV and are going to start to look to people that aren’t my wife and I as role models. As such, I started paying closer attention to the famous faces that SportsCentre plasters all over their highlight reels and I noticed something: a lot of them are little more than just really good athletes.

San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick is a God-fearing fella with a few tattoos, a better than average passing arm, and seemingly no fear of running the ball. He takes the field for his first Super Bowl appearance today playing on the first professional sports team to openly support the gay and lesbian community. Now that’s a really big deal, and one that San Francisco player Chris Culliver came out and said he was not OK with. Now, that’s his choice, but I’ll be the first to tell you I’m not running out and getting my kids a Culliver jersey any time soon. If anything, I’ll be using him as an example of someone whom my kids should pay as little attention to as possible.

Unfortunately, the number of athletes on that list of mine is more than a few. It seems that for every incredible story on the field there’s an incredibly idiotic one that’s happening off of it. Pick your poison: religious extremists, misogynists, rapists, philanderers, racists, bigots, drug addicts, blood dopers, steroid abusers, liars, and cheaters. You can certainly find these people in among famous scientists, writers, and educators as well but the principal difference is the media is not often pushing them into our line of sight and hanging off their every word hoping for a sound bite they can use to open the show.

Now, the good news is we also have many respectable athletes to choose from as well. For every jerk with record setting statistic there’s another one I’d gladly hang a poster of on my wall. Sidney Crosby, the poster boy of the NHL, lived with Mario Lemieux for the first 5 years he was in Pittsburgh – to help with his transition from a small town kid to a big city superstar.  Here was a full grown, voting age adult with a job making millions of dollars a year, and a full entourage of advisers, coaches, and support staff living with his boss and mentor. No controversy, no scandal, no embarrassing photographs… just a pretty nice guy who happens to be a pretty amazing hockey player.

I suppose my wish is for the media – and the general public – to do a better job of distinguishing good athletes from good people, because at the end of the day they’re all just people. For all they do on and off the field, I think it’s important to remember they have their own problems, their own hurdles to overcome, life lessons to learn, or growing up to do. They also have their own opinions – which you don’t have to agree with. I know in a lot of cases I certainly don’t, and I used to get worked up over it, but I try not to any more. I’ve just stopped putting athletes on a pedestal and touting their virtues to the world because they happen to be rich and good at their jobs. At the end of the day they’re just a bunch of guys who excel at playing games.

I’ll acknowledge that fact they possess remarkable athletic skill, and I’ll be duly impressed by it, but after that I’ll be keeping a close eye on the ones I point out to my kids, because superstar athletes have just as much chance as the next guy of being absolutely bat shit crazy.

Go Niners (most of them)!

~Andrew

An Untitled Post About Bullying

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With bullying front and center in the news after Amanda Todd’s tragic suicide I found myself reflecting on my personal experiences on the subject. I certainly wasn’t the victim of persistent bullying, but there are a few incidents that have stuck in my mind:

  • In grade 4 an older kid (a grade 5) kicked my lunch box down the street. My dad took me over to his house and had a chat with his father and he apologized. I’m now friends with him on Facebook and he’s since apologized for real.
  • In grade 8, I had a disagreement with a girl in my class and she got excessively angry with me and starting slapping me and punching me and what-have-you. Having been raised to never, under any circumstances, ever hit a girl, I just took it. Later that afternoon my teacher made a snide remark about me getting beat up by a girl in front of the whole class. To this day I don’t know if I said it or if it was something I thought I ought to have said, but the phrase “What would you have done if had I hit her back?” keeps popping into my head. The girl and I became friends days later and today we chat occasionally on Facebook.
  • In grade 9 the older brother of a girl in my grade (and who was on my paper route) shoved me in a locker. Well, he tried. I pulled the old cat trying to avoid a bath trick and never made it in. That didn’t stop word from spreading that I actually had been shoved in though. Who were people going to believe, a grade 9 geek or a grade 12 punk? Facebook status for her: not friends but would friend. As for her brother, we’re not Facebook friends now and not ever likely to be.
  • One of my friends in high school dated a bully for a couple years. He liked to assert his masculinity by pushing me around and threatening me. I suspect it was because he was insecure in his relationship, and as a person in general. I’m still friends with the girl (yes, on Facebook too). I don’t care to ever be Facebook friends with the guy.

And then there was the time I was walking into a hockey rink and was punched by someone for allegedly “smiling at him”. Turns out a local gang was hanging out there and were looking for trouble. Before I knew it a pack of them had shoved me into an empty change room and were laying the boots to me. Boots and fists… and elbows… and knees, though I remember only one knee – the one that, as my head was being pushed down, came up and caught me right in the face. After that, it was all a blur of Doc Martin’s and Air Jordan’s and the taste of blood. They say you can’t actually remember the feeling of pain, but I sure remember what I was feeling.

Despite the arena manager and first responding officer telling me that I shouldn’t pursue action for fear of retribution, I pursued action. They caught 3 of the guys and two plead out and got something like 6 months probation. The “ring leader” got 2 years probation and a whole lot of other conditions like curfew and restraining order limiting his distance from me and so forth. After what I went through, let’s just say I wasn’t the biggest fan of the Young Offenders Act.

Today, even as I typed that last paragraph, my teeth clenched and I felt panic in my chest – and this all happened over 20 years ago.

Twenty years is a long time to be carrying around that memory, but it’s impossible to forget. Trust me, I’ve tried, but then something happens and I hear about it in the news and there it is again. Sometimes, and this is one that I’m having a hard time explaining, sometimes the reminder comes in a much less subtle way and hits me like a knee to the face.

Yesterday I found myself in Toronto helping out an old high school acquaintance by doing a bit of work as an unpaid extra in a music video he’s producing. A couple other guys from the old neighborhood were there too:

  1. The step son of my grade 8 teacher.
  2. A guy who was there that night I was attacked.

The step son of my grade 8 teacher is a year older than me but we went to the same high school and know a lot of the same people. It was nice talking to him and he and I actually made quite an impression on the crew during the shoot. We’re friends on Facebook now.

The other guy, I had been talking to him for a couple hours as we waited for our scene to come up and when talk turned to other people from the neighborhood I mentioned the names of the “ring leader” and two other guys – only I got the name wrong. He looked at me and confessed that he was there that night and knew those involved.
I have picked through my thesaurus and still can’t come up with a single word that adequately describes what I was feeling.
Today he’s an everyday guy living a life anyone of us could have had. He went to shoot his scene and I never really saw him after that. The producer posted a pic on Facebook and he “liked” it. I’m currently undecided if I would accept his friend request should he ever send me one, though I’m leaning towards no.
The stylist overheard some of the conversation at one point as the other guy and I were talking with the producer and she asked me how I felt, what I was thinking… I’ll be honest with you, I am not at all proud about what I said and even less proud about what I thought. The rest of the day, the drive home, most of last night, many hours in bed, and a good part of today I have been trying to reconcile my feelings on all this. Thankfully, I think I have.
You see, I am a firm believer that the world would be a better place if more people were happy. I genuinely want the people around me, in my community, to be happy. On a very basic level, it would make the simple act of leaving the house that much more enjoyable. As such, I have put myself on a path that includes finding ways to be happy, and have those around me be happy as well. In collaboration with, and never at the expense of others.
For 20 years I have felt that my attackers took something from me, and that they should pay. For as long as I felt pain, they should feel misery, hurt, and despair 100 times over. This is just a taste of some of the thoughts that have gone through my head as recently as this morning, and I’m ashamed for having them. Just sticking to the path I have chosen should be enough.
It is enough.
If the people that kicked the crap out of me for no reason have put themselves on a similar path then I am pleased. If they haven’t, well then they’re going to reap what they sow eventually. The Universe has a way of balancing itself out, and karma has a way of kicking your ass worse than any human ever could.
Today I have two hopes and one wish.
My first hope is that a kid being bullied reads this and talks to someone about what they’re going through, and talks to as many people as they have to until someone listens. My second hope is that they won’t have to talk to more than one. I was 0 for 2 on help that night, but the next person listened, and so did the person after that, and the person after that.
 
You are not alone.
My wish is that at least one bully reads this and decides to choose a different path. The world can always use one more happy person and if they choose the right path the world will get at least two.

Controversy? Just Sweep it Over There Under the Rug

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Well, after a bit of noise on this topic this summer things pretty much quieted down – until yesterday. FIFA announced yesterday that Canadian team captain Christine Sinclair would receive and undisclosed fine and a 4 international game suspension for her comments after the Canadian semi-final loss at the Olympics this summer.

I for one think that this punishment [if you can call it that] sends the following message: “We are not going to let you get away with lobbing accusations at our officials, however, since we’re not prepared to discuss if there was any truth to your allegations here’s your slap on the wrist. Now everyone just stop talking about it.”

I know of at least one person who feels that Ms. Sinclair should be banished from soccer for life. He calls what was said “defamation”. Well, sir, it’s only defamation if what was said was untrue and in this case the waters appear cloudy enough that you’re going to have a hard rime proving that Christine’s comments were completely unfounded.

The official had been making questionable calls throughout the game and the straw that broke the proverbial camel’s back – the call that referee Christiana Pedersen made that resulted in the kick that led to the tying goal – was so out of place that soccer fans and commentators had to struggle to find a case of that particular infraction having been called before. That’s an inconsistency that happened to occur at a crucial moment in a game, and Ms. Sinclair knew it. Everyone playing knew it, and everyone watching knew it. FIFA and the IOC knew it. The Americans definitely knew it. 

 In fact, one American player admitted afterwards she had been attempting to influence the referee the whole game. All Christine Sinclair – and many of the other Canadian players – did was call bullshit (and rightly so, in this writer’s opinion).

One thing I do know is that having played a number of officiated team sports at various levels there has always been a saying that, when found to be true, seemed to result in optimal results for both competing teams:

You know you had good referees when you can’t remember if they were there.
There are also a few other applicable phrases that come to mind:

Just let ’em play
Commonly used in hockey to indicate that it would be best if the teams were left to their own devices to decide an outcome. This usually results in minor infractions on both sides being ignored and the pace of the game being unusually high. This approach runs the risk that one side will attempt to take advantage of the loose rules, but more often than not it just creates an atmosphere where the players truly decide the outcome.

A strike in the 1st inning should be a strike in the bottom of the 9th
A baseball reference indicating that an umpire sets the tone for the game by calling balls and strikes a certain way – and remains consistent. Upsetting this consistency results in controversy later in the game when something that’s been called a strike all game suddenly becomes a ball. The manager’s punishment for arguing this usually results in an ejection (“getting tossed”) and lots and lots of yelling.

A penalty in the 1st period is a penalty in overtime
A corollary to the aforementioned baseball saying. If a hockey referee calls a penalty early in the game, but doesn’t maintain consistency, this results in confusion among the players as to what is acceptable and what is not, and in both my examples ultimately allows the official to have more control over the outcome.

There’s a hierarchy for all officials in all sports at all levels. You’ll often hear sportscasters talk about it before important games. “This is so-and-so’s 5th Stanley Cup Final appearance” or “So-and-so has worked hard for the last few years and deserves to be officiating in his first playoff game”. Officials work their way up the ladder and the best ones get the important games. Referees at that level, for those games, should simply be better than the rest. Not infallible, but certainly the cream of the crop. 

An official should never decide a game, especially one of magnitude, and that’s exactly what happened this past summer.

Now, I wouldn’t say that this controversy is anything close to what the NHL had to deal with back in 1999 with the whole toe-in-the-crease incident, but it’s in the same ballpark and I’m afraid that the comments and decisions that have come down are as good as it is going to get for either side. 

 ~afb~

Helmets Help. Period.

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Well the coroner’s report came out with a recommendation to mandate helmets for all people riding bikes. As soon as I read the article I knew all the crazies would come out of the woodwork. You’re stomping on our rights! It’s more dangerous walking down the street – mandate helmets for that!

Well, having suffered quite a few brain traumas in my lifetime I tend to take an interest in these “discussions”. I put the word in quotes because the way I see it there’s really no argument. A bike helmet likely saved my life. It absolutely prevented a serious injury. Not having one on while riding a bike seems like a ridiculous notion. But that’s just me – and a few hospitals few of other people.

I had a grand idea for a blog post about my position on this so I could share it with those of you who don’t have me as a friend on Facebook (where it was written in several comments to a FB friend with vastly different opinions on the matter). Then, his last comment sealed the fate of this post. Regarding a law that requires helmets for cyclists: “I’ve got a beef with helmet legislation without data to back it up.”

That got me thinking, and I asked him point blank: what’s the magic number? What data has to exist for it to be OK? Who gets to set that threshold? I would argue that the fine doctors who get to see all the patients (dead and alive) would have a pretty good idea, and they seem to think it’s the way to go. I’m sure it’s all just a clever rouse though, you know, to get more people into the ER and funding their research. Oh wait… they’re recommending helmets and suggesting that FEWER people will pass through their walls, freeing up valuable resources and people for other less preventable injuries? Their data is bullshit and they must be up to no good.

All sarcasm aside I only have one point to say and that is this:
A cyclist wearing a helmet is safer than one without.

First Rule of Fight Club

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Rules are everywhere. Whether they are imposed on you by your parents, teachers, law enforcement, education systems, employers, or any number of other institutions that scatter the globe, they are out there, and there’s likely someone that’s not you making them. So what’s a person to do?

A while back Umair Haque wrote this on Twitter: “If you follow the rules, don’t expect to win.”

It might be an original quote or he might simply be echoing a sentiment shared by many, certainly by some who have failed in the past, and it’s certainly food for thought. Can you only win if you break the rules? Has anyone who has ever ‘made it’ in this world ever done so completely by the book?

Here’s my recommendation:

Play by the rules until you are in a position to change them – and then change them. 

After that, there are no limits as to what you can accomplish.

Do you think Steve Jobs broke the rules and forged ahead guns a blazin’ to get Apple to the top? It might look that way to some folks, but the more likely scenario is that his path was more subtle. Patient. That is, right up until he was in a position to re-write some of those pesky rules that were standing in his way.

There will always be rules even if you work for yourself. Society seems to impose them whether we like it or not, whether it knows it or not.  Playing by the rules, at least some of them, is important. It allows us to learn, to adapt, and to establish a greater sense of where and how we fit in, and more importantly, where we don’t. From there we can decide if it even matters.

Knowing what the rules are and how to play the game is critical if you ever want to do something about it. You may have noticed a couple of themes here: knowledge and action. Knowing who your opponent is, what the field of play is, what the rules are, and what strategy to use is absolutely key.

You can also possess every bit of knowledge you’ll ever need, but it’s absolutely useless if you don’t get off your butt and do something about it.