Friday, December 7, 2012
Christmastide, 2012
Frankly, this year has worn me out.
It wasn’t so much all the blather, codswallop, and bumpf of mean-spirited political campaigns, as it is the apparent shocking increase in violent episodes across the country. A pro football player in Kansas City kills his girl friend and then himself; a four year old in Minneapolis finds a handgun in his home and inadvertently slays his two year old sibling; in New York the result of a verbal disagreement is a shove, and a man is hit by a subway train and dies.
As our social fabric seems to unravel, I am reminded of Durkheim's anomie, translated as normlessness. Themes which divide us seem to dominate themes which seek to unite us. To paraphrase Yeats, the center is not holding, and we seem to be increasingly estranged from one another.
The approach of Christmas provides us with an opportunity to consider what changes we might make in our own world-view, the words we use in dealing with others, the actions we take to address a problem, even an attempt to improve an aspect of our own neighborhood or community.
Some decades ago, I was in the Chapel of King’s College, Cambridge, a few days before Christmas. The then Dean happened to be in the building, and I said I was surprised that the Chapel looked pretty much as it did when I had seen it in a previous autumn.
He asked what American churches were like at Christmas, and I described pine trees, poinsettias, wreaths, and special lights.
He paused and then observed, “At King’s, we believe Christmas is best celebrated in the heart.”
That comment - and my subsequent embarrassment - still resonates in me after all these years. Of course, he was quite right, and since that moment, my views about all the decoration we strew about us in “celebration” of the season have changed. I’m not against it, mind you, I just think of it as an obstacle keeping us from the heart of the story - that story which should be in our hearts.
Take time this Christmastide to be quiet and to reflect on what really, really matters. Go back and reread the telling of the birth in Bethlehem. Find a new way to make someone else’s life better - a kind word, a contribution, the gift of time.
The light show on the house tends to obscure the real meaning of Christmas; maybe it’s enough if we just try to light up the lives of others.
A Happy Christmas To You and Yours,
Nick
Coda: The horror in Connecticut on Friday makes clear the need for us to focus on gun safety, identification and treatment of those likely to hurt themselves or others, and the lowering of the violent stimuli which are found, well, everywhere these days. If you need to add another resolution to your list for 2013, well, here's your opportunity....ndn
Tuesday, July 31, 2012
Thank Heaven For The Olympic Games
OK, so I'm really a Winter Olympics guy - ice hockey, downhill racing, curling, cross country, but not the skateboard thing (I'm just in the wrong demographic). Snow and ice....great stuff!
But this summer - for the very first time - I've become a Summer Olympics guy, and the reason is very simple:
I will watch damn near anything which does not include a political windbag saying nasty things about opponents real or imagined. Idiot gymnastics judges I can abide; political gasbags on two legs complaining about the deficits of an opponent, I cannot. And won't.
The Olympics and presidential elections occur every four years: One involves honest competition, the joys of both individual and team achievement, and the proverbial agony of defeat. The other is any election in our country.
We have become a nation of not-very-productive sourpusses, kvetching about every aspect of public life - not that there isn't a good reason too, but like an athlete, we should be trying to make ourselves and our country better - that would be enough.
Watching an Olympic event is almost a cleansing experience. Whether individual or team, here are athletes who have trained and competed endlessly with little expectation that their skills will fund the rest of their lives. They do their best, and sometimes they win, but more often they do not.
Yes, there are the occasional rotten apples in the barrel of sport, but if you get upset about that, you must be really steamed at the U.S. Congress, funded as it is by every special interest with money to "invest."
So for the next ten days or so, enjoy the competition from the United Kingdom. Immediately thereafter we will be washed away by a tsunami of clichés, negative advertising, and little real discussion of the issues that face the country.
Put more succinctly, Mitch McConnell, John Boehner, and Nancy Pelosi ain't on my awards platform. Not now, not ever.
Only a year and a half until the Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia.
I can't wait.
But this summer - for the very first time - I've become a Summer Olympics guy, and the reason is very simple:
I will watch damn near anything which does not include a political windbag saying nasty things about opponents real or imagined. Idiot gymnastics judges I can abide; political gasbags on two legs complaining about the deficits of an opponent, I cannot. And won't.
The Olympics and presidential elections occur every four years: One involves honest competition, the joys of both individual and team achievement, and the proverbial agony of defeat. The other is any election in our country.
We have become a nation of not-very-productive sourpusses, kvetching about every aspect of public life - not that there isn't a good reason too, but like an athlete, we should be trying to make ourselves and our country better - that would be enough.
Watching an Olympic event is almost a cleansing experience. Whether individual or team, here are athletes who have trained and competed endlessly with little expectation that their skills will fund the rest of their lives. They do their best, and sometimes they win, but more often they do not.
Yes, there are the occasional rotten apples in the barrel of sport, but if you get upset about that, you must be really steamed at the U.S. Congress, funded as it is by every special interest with money to "invest."
So for the next ten days or so, enjoy the competition from the United Kingdom. Immediately thereafter we will be washed away by a tsunami of clichés, negative advertising, and little real discussion of the issues that face the country.
Put more succinctly, Mitch McConnell, John Boehner, and Nancy Pelosi ain't on my awards platform. Not now, not ever.
Only a year and a half until the Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia.
I can't wait.
Saturday, February 4, 2012
Get Up Early
When I was a kid, the only time we could listen to the radio in the morning was on those days when SCHOOL MIGHT BE CLOSED!!!! and we would tune into WCCO radio - the gigantic AMer in this market since before I was born - to hope and pray that Bob DeHaven would read the name of our school.
When television came around, well, we didn't have one...not for years until Alastair Cooke arrived with "Omnibus, and the old man relented...but never, ever, in the morning.
In recent years, I've found that my morning conversation with Islay the Scottish terrier has become repetitive:
I want to go out...
I want to have breakfast....
I want to go out....
l have to go out...
I want to play....
I want to go out.....
Et cetera.
To my surprise, I discovered a program on MSNBC called "Morning Joe," led by thoughtful conservative Joe Scarborough, ably assisted by Mika Brzezinski, daughter to Zbig, and Willie Geist, son of Bill Geist, along with a revolving panel of liberal and conservative cranks, especially Mike Barnicle of Boston. All of them brighten my morning, and they never need to be let out or brought back in.
But then.....
Then I discovered "Up with Chris Hayes," also on MSNBC early on Saturday and Sunday mornings (check your local listings). Hayes is the "really smart kid," you remember not quite liking from your childhood - intense, supremely well-informed, excellent sense of humor, and each weekend morning he puts together a panel of "bright young things," to meander through stories of the day, emerging issues, and newly published books. It is a veritable feast for an old crank like me.
If you doubt the future of our country, if you feel you cannot trust those under thirty-five, take hope. A couple of weekends watching "Up" will put the spring back in your step, lift your expectations about the future, and put you into a world of ideas and information worth being put into.
It's a new show, and if the powers-that-be at MSNBC have any brains, they will leave it alone and let the guy find his way unaided by focus groups, committees, or any sort of "group think."
I thought about recording the program so I could watch it at my leisure, but I concluded, oh,what the hell, "you know who" likes to get up before dawn and go out to confirm her world view so how could I start a weekend morning any better than with "UP with Chris Hayes," a steaming cup of coffee...with real cream, and a contented scotty dog...?
When television came around, well, we didn't have one...not for years until Alastair Cooke arrived with "Omnibus, and the old man relented...but never, ever, in the morning.
In recent years, I've found that my morning conversation with Islay the Scottish terrier has become repetitive:
I want to go out...
I want to have breakfast....
I want to go out....
l have to go out...
I want to play....
I want to go out.....
Et cetera.
To my surprise, I discovered a program on MSNBC called "Morning Joe," led by thoughtful conservative Joe Scarborough, ably assisted by Mika Brzezinski, daughter to Zbig, and Willie Geist, son of Bill Geist, along with a revolving panel of liberal and conservative cranks, especially Mike Barnicle of Boston. All of them brighten my morning, and they never need to be let out or brought back in.
But then.....
Then I discovered "Up with Chris Hayes," also on MSNBC early on Saturday and Sunday mornings (check your local listings). Hayes is the "really smart kid," you remember not quite liking from your childhood - intense, supremely well-informed, excellent sense of humor, and each weekend morning he puts together a panel of "bright young things," to meander through stories of the day, emerging issues, and newly published books. It is a veritable feast for an old crank like me.
If you doubt the future of our country, if you feel you cannot trust those under thirty-five, take hope. A couple of weekends watching "Up" will put the spring back in your step, lift your expectations about the future, and put you into a world of ideas and information worth being put into.
It's a new show, and if the powers-that-be at MSNBC have any brains, they will leave it alone and let the guy find his way unaided by focus groups, committees, or any sort of "group think."
I thought about recording the program so I could watch it at my leisure, but I concluded, oh,what the hell, "you know who" likes to get up before dawn and go out to confirm her world view so how could I start a weekend morning any better than with "UP with Chris Hayes," a steaming cup of coffee...with real cream, and a contented scotty dog...?
Saturday, January 7, 2012
Once Upon A Time, Hockey Was A Game....
Growing up in Minnesota, I put on my first pair of skates when I was three or four. I was given a chair to lean on and started my life on a rink at my Uncle Fred's house. A few years later, I was skating on the nearby lake, and eventually took up the game of hockey.
The only teams in my youth were school teams - none of this getting up at 4:00 am for an hour's practice, no traveling team, no leagues, no endless tournaments. The season began when it got cold enough to flood the rink - generally after Thanksgiving - and was done in early March.
By the time I got to high school, I loved the game as a below average athlete, played occasionally, and couldn't wait for the school day to end to get out on the ice.
Our equipment was primitive - headgear, thigh pads, knee pads, groin protection, and that was about it. We didn't "lift" the puck, and the slap shot was still to be invented by Bobby Hull of the Chicago Blackhawks when I reached college. In fact at our games, the goal judges stood, unprotected, behind each net, and body checking was fairly primitive and tended not to result in injury.
In my years of competition, I had two hockey injuries: my collarbone fractured when I was checked by a teammate in a practice, and during a scrimmage with another school, one of the opposition held his stick like an axe and managed to hit me between the knee and shin pads, and pieces of cartilage floated in my knee, until age wore them away some years ago.
These days, I watch my favorite game with considerable dismay. Here in Minnesota in the last week, we've had two high school players who were checked from behind into the boards, and they've suffered spinal injuries. The boy will not walk again and may not have the use of his hands; the future of the injured high school girl remains to be determined.
Players have more protection and better equipment; in my view, this leads to increased aggressiveness and heightens the chance of injury. Checking is now central to the game from the early years when young bodies are still growing to the professional leagues, where hockey seems to have become some sort of martial art, and fighting is seen by the "hockey powers that be" as "essential to the game."
I remember when the Russians came to play in the USA back in the 1950s. They didn't check much, but my they could pass the puck and skate like the wind. It was like ballet on ice, and it took us a while to catch up.
Gary Bettman, the commissioner of the NHL, claims that the evidence linking concussion, brain injury, and early dementia has not been proven. The National Football League seems to be approaching the opposite conclusion with a certain studied reluctance.
No matter your views, what we can all agree on is that high school players should not spend their adulthoods in wheelchairs as the result of an unnecessary check. That goes for college and professional players, too.
Hockey is a worthy game without all the tangential violence. With it, it is almost unwatchable. It's time we took the nonsense out of the game and returned to a fuller appreciation of artistry and skill.
Or else....
Update as of 1/26/12
High school hockey officials in Minnesota have imposed several rules changes which will make the game safer for all players. Miscreants will receive far heavier punishment (major penalties, ejection, and suspension; no doubt this will increase the pressure on those who manage college hockey. That written, one wonders whether professional hockey will ever put its goons back in the cave and let us appreciate the beauty of the game without all the miscellaneous physical - forgive me - crap.
Nick
The only teams in my youth were school teams - none of this getting up at 4:00 am for an hour's practice, no traveling team, no leagues, no endless tournaments. The season began when it got cold enough to flood the rink - generally after Thanksgiving - and was done in early March.
By the time I got to high school, I loved the game as a below average athlete, played occasionally, and couldn't wait for the school day to end to get out on the ice.
Our equipment was primitive - headgear, thigh pads, knee pads, groin protection, and that was about it. We didn't "lift" the puck, and the slap shot was still to be invented by Bobby Hull of the Chicago Blackhawks when I reached college. In fact at our games, the goal judges stood, unprotected, behind each net, and body checking was fairly primitive and tended not to result in injury.
In my years of competition, I had two hockey injuries: my collarbone fractured when I was checked by a teammate in a practice, and during a scrimmage with another school, one of the opposition held his stick like an axe and managed to hit me between the knee and shin pads, and pieces of cartilage floated in my knee, until age wore them away some years ago.
These days, I watch my favorite game with considerable dismay. Here in Minnesota in the last week, we've had two high school players who were checked from behind into the boards, and they've suffered spinal injuries. The boy will not walk again and may not have the use of his hands; the future of the injured high school girl remains to be determined.
Players have more protection and better equipment; in my view, this leads to increased aggressiveness and heightens the chance of injury. Checking is now central to the game from the early years when young bodies are still growing to the professional leagues, where hockey seems to have become some sort of martial art, and fighting is seen by the "hockey powers that be" as "essential to the game."
I remember when the Russians came to play in the USA back in the 1950s. They didn't check much, but my they could pass the puck and skate like the wind. It was like ballet on ice, and it took us a while to catch up.
Gary Bettman, the commissioner of the NHL, claims that the evidence linking concussion, brain injury, and early dementia has not been proven. The National Football League seems to be approaching the opposite conclusion with a certain studied reluctance.
No matter your views, what we can all agree on is that high school players should not spend their adulthoods in wheelchairs as the result of an unnecessary check. That goes for college and professional players, too.
Hockey is a worthy game without all the tangential violence. With it, it is almost unwatchable. It's time we took the nonsense out of the game and returned to a fuller appreciation of artistry and skill.
Or else....
Update as of 1/26/12
High school hockey officials in Minnesota have imposed several rules changes which will make the game safer for all players. Miscreants will receive far heavier punishment (major penalties, ejection, and suspension; no doubt this will increase the pressure on those who manage college hockey. That written, one wonders whether professional hockey will ever put its goons back in the cave and let us appreciate the beauty of the game without all the miscellaneous physical - forgive me - crap.
Nick
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