Sox Sweep

Tonight the Chicago White Sox won their first World Series since 1917 by sweeping the Houston Astros. It was a good series with tight games, but the Sox were clearly the better team. With the Red Sox winning last year, White Sox this year, perhaps the Cubs will be next in line to win that long sought after World Series.

Cindy Sheehan Being Ridiculous

According to this article from ABC news, Cindy Sheehan is going to tie herself to the fence of the White House and not come down until the occupation in Iraq concluded.

She said, "I'm going to go to Washington, D.C. and I'm going to give a speech at the White House, and after I do, I'm going to tie myself to the fence and refuse to leave until they agree to bring our troops home. And I'll probably get arrested, and when I get out, I'll go back and do the same thing."

This just smacks of idiocy to me and it is really frustrating that she and her PR outfit (led by True Majority, a non-profit set up by Ben Cohen -- of Ben and Jerry's Ice Cream fame) keep up with these stunts. Ben Cohen, speaking for True Majority had this to say: "People are willing to listen to her and we want to do as much as we can to make her voice heard."

I disagree. Her voice, her stunts, and her overall publicity are doing nothing productive nor supportive to ending our occupation in Iraq. I agree with them that the troops should probably leave. Its not our problem over there and there is little point in risking American lives for a bunch of ungrateful Iraqis. Furthermore, we would be much better off spending money on more pressing domestic issues such as for the poor citizens of Louisiana, Mississippi, and now Florida. I am sick of hearing about young men killed, one of which was a friend of mine. Enough is enough. However, pulling ridiculous stunts is certainly not the way to go about expressing your message.

"Sir, I would rather be right than President"

- Henry Clay

UK Lands Stevenson

Per the Lexington Herald Leader:

Kentucky added a front court player to this year's recruiting haul yesterday when Perry Stevenson committed to the Cats.

Stevenson is a 6-foot-9, 194-pound forward from Lafayette, La. He chose UK over Texas Tech, Texas, Georgia Tech, Wake Forest and Miami.

The Prep Stars recruiting service rates Stevenson at No. 57 among the nation’s top high school seniors. He has a reputation as a defender and shot blocker who will need to further develop his offensive game.

Cell Phone Etiquette

Here's a nice little article from CNN about being polite with your cell phone, as well as the other wireless gadgets. Its nice to know I am not the only person who is offended by jerks yelling into their phones and disregarding others. Look at these people above in the picture...it about makes you sick to your stomach.

The Adderall Advantage

Here's a rather long excerpt from something that always interests me...college kids and amphetamines. This comes from the NY Times, and you can read it in its entirety here, if you have a subscription. If not, you can read below.

It was finals week at Columbia University and Angela needed a miracle. Like many of her classmates, Angela, a bleary-eyed junior, had already pulled a pair of all-nighters to get through a paper on "Finnegans Wake," a French test and an exam for her music humanities class. All that remained was a Latin American literature final, but as midnight approached, her stamina was beginning to fade. "This week is killing me," she said, taking a cigarette break in front of the school library. "At this point, I could use a little help."
Thanks to a friend, the tiny orange pill in her purse would provide the needed miracle. Angela, who asked that her last name not be published for fear of alarming her family and angering university officials, popped a 30-milligram tablet of Adderall into her mouth, washed it down with coffee and headed back to the library for another night of cramming. The next morning, she sailed through the exam confidently and scored an A. "I don't think I could keep a 3.9 average without this stuff," she said afterward.

At many colleges across the country, the ingredients for academic success now include a steady flow of analeptics, the class of prescription amphetamines that is used to treat attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.

Since Ritalin abuse first hit the radar screen several years ago, the reliance on prescription stimulants to enhance performance has risen, becoming almost as commonplace as No-Doz, Red Bull and maybe even caffeine. As many as 20 percent of college students have used Ritalin or Adderall to study, write papers and take exams, according to recent surveys focused on individual campuses. A study released this month by the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia found that the number of teenagers who admit to abusing prescription medications tripled from 1992 to 2003, while in the general population such abuse had doubled.

Dr. Robert A. Winfield, director of University Health Service at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, sees a growing number of students who falsely claim to be A.D.H.D. so they can get a prescription. At least once a week, a jittery, frightened, sleep-deprived student who has taken too many tablets for too many days shows up at his office. "Things have really gotten out of hand in the last four to five years," he said. "Students have become convinced that this will help them achieve academic success."

On campus, the drugs are either sold or given away by people with prescriptions, or they are procured by students who have learned to navigate the psychiatric exams offered by campus health centers, which usually provide the drugs at a discount. Unlike Ritalin, two newer members of the family of analeptics - Adderall and Concerta - come in time-release forms and can keep a patient medicated an entire day.

Much like performance-enhancing drugs in professional sports, the spread of analeptics among college students is raising issues of competitiveness and fairness. But interviews and e-mail exchanges with two dozen Columbia students suggest that the prevailing ethos is that Adderall, the drug of choice these days, is a legitimate and even hip way to get through the rigors of a hectic academic and social life. "The culture here actually encourages people to use stimulants," said Barak Ben-Ezer, a computer science and economics major who prefers Red Bull, a caffeinated beverage, and cigarettes over prescription drugs. But pure recreational use of the drugs, which sometimes includes crushing and snorting a tablet, is generally frowned on, he and others said.

How About This One

You Kennedy lovers will surely hate this joke, but it really does ring true.


"What the American people have seen is this incredible disparity in which those people who had cars and money got out and those people who were impoverished died."
- Ted Kennedy on Hurricane Katrina

"Ditto"
- Mary Jo Kopechne

I came across this joke somewhere on the internet and found it amusing. It is always good to be able to laugh at one's self.

How many Sewanee students does it take to change a lightbulb?

Seven – The five-person Honor Council to decide if it is against the Honor Code to change lightbulbs, one to find a reference in Faulkner to lightbulb changing, and one to pray for the repose of the soul of the deceased bulb

Chris' Guest Post

One of the most structurally unsound dining establishments in the state of Tennessee rests at the intersection of Highway 41-A and University Ave. Blue with brown trim and a slight (34 degree) lean to the right, Shenanigans restaurant serves an extensive selection of grilled goodies, from the "Skinny Bob's Meat Melt" to the classic fried mushrooms. Sober or intoxicated, the gastronomic options of Shenanigans calm the stomach with egrigous servings of grease. Other items to be considered for consumption include the reasonable, inexpensive pitchers of beer. A pitcher of Miller Lite or Budweiser will run you $5.74, while microbrews and imports such as Blue Moon cost $7.55, which still beats the heck out of bar prices for a beer. The front porch, which faces the highway, provides a great view for those who don't mind the stiff wrought iron furniture, but that's where the memories are made (wow, that sounded gay). One time last spring, after the English oral comps, a number of us parked ourselves on the front porch to consume a few celebratory pitchers, when out of nowhere, the sky unleashed a blanket of hail on the area. While the sky was still coral pink and vanilla during the hail, this unforseen weather pattern surprised us, and made us realize just how unique Sewanee is, not only in its biospherical oddities but in its opportunities for fellowship, inebriation, and admiration for the natural and simple parts of life.

A Few Things

Being it Friday, and now officially the weekend, the word of the day is QUAFF.

quaff \KWOFF; KWAFF\, transitive verb:
To drink with relish; to drink copiously of; to swallow in
large draughts.

intransitive verb:
To drink largely or luxuriously.

Additionally, the song of the evening will be Blinded by the Light, by Bruce Springsteen. Most people believe that this song is done by Electric Light Orchestra (ELO); however, that version is really Manfred Mann and the Earth Band. Springsteen is the one who originally wrote and performed this song.

Here are the lyrics of the first little bit. Enjoy the music while quaffing a stein on this pleasant Friday evening.

Madman drummers bummers and Indians in the summer with a teenage diplomat
In the dumps with the mumps as the adolescent pumps his way into his hat
With a boulder on my shoulder, feelin' kinda older, I tripped the merry-go-round
With this very unpleasing sneezing and wheezing, the calliope crashed to the ground

Some Hope After All?

Alright, here we go - The most liberal place in the whole nation, booing Kanye West for his anti-Bush rhetoric, concerning the Katrina response. As a friend of mine put it, its "nice to know even the flaming liberals in Boston can smell bulls**t...guess there's still hope for the country."

The Double Cheeseburger Conundrum

A customer can walk into a McDonalds and purchase a double cheeseburger for $0.99, while a regular cheeseburger costs $1.05. This incongruity in pricing has always attracted my attention, and I have often wondered why any rational customer would ever purchase a regular cheeseburger. If anyone has any thoughts regarding this question, I would love to hear them.

Katrina Info Map

Here is a remarkable website that is set up wiki-style, in that individual users can post comments about the effects of Katrina at different geographic locations. There are thousands of entries. Here is an article about the website, which some more background a explanation.

A side question - Would the rescue efforts of the refugees in New Orleans have been quicker and better organized if the refugees were not poor and black?

Here is another blog that includes a list of all the damage that New Orleans has experienced. This disaster is mind-blowing.

Looters in New Orleans

I was reading this article about the looters who are stealing clothes, jewelry and food from stores all over downtown New Orleans. In this article there was the following quote regarding the looting:

"To be honest with you, people who are oppressed all their lives, man, it's an opportunity to get back at society."

What?? How did society ever oppress someone such that it makes it right to steal other people's belongings? So this man may have had a tough life, but to blame it on society...give me a break. These people think it is everyone else's fault for their plight in life. I honestly can't believe somebody said this. Here, there are tens if not hundreds of people dying, billions of dollars in damages, and this guy thinks it is an opportunity to "get back" and the institution, by stealing other people's possessions. Simply unbelievable.

- Here is the blog to read about Hurricane Katrina.

A little Thought

I was just thinking at lunch today that when Tara Lipinski won the gold medal in ice skating several years ago, she was only 15 years old. I always knew this, but never really thought about how incredible it was. To put it into context, Lipinski was the best ice skater in the whole world when she was 15. How many professions are mastered by people who are only in their teens? I can't think of any other. Other athletes usually peak in their mid-twenties or sometimes even later, and otherwise "normal" jobs such as lawyers and doctors don't reach excellence until their 40s, 50s, or 60s. However, ice skaters peak in their mid-teens. I feel quite confidant that excellence in a field cannot be gained in any other profession at so young an age. How remarkable.

Word of the Day

tryst \TRIST; TRYST\, noun:
An appointment (as between lovers) to meet; also, an appointed
place or time of meeting.

And it bothers me that I begin to worry if she's planning a
tryst with my handsome neighbour.
--Anita Nair, [1]The Better Man

Would you like Frys with your McMansion?

Here's a nice little article I found over at wsj.com concerning the evolution of the McMansion. Apparently the big home building companies have been changing the plans of their largest houses to include extra bathrooms, closet space, mudrooms, etc. Everyone needs a good bathroom, but these designs call for two different toilets in the master bath suite - a "his" toilet and a "her" toilet. Unbelievable. The article is good. Below is the introductory paragraph.

Even as economists debate whether discounts on some high-end homes signal a broader softening in the housing market, one indicator continues to rise: The biggest homes in suburbia are getting even bigger. The nation's largest builders of luxury homes say their top-selling designs lately have expanded to include more bathrooms, giant master-suite closets and extra rooms designated as teen dens, hobby rooms or even "bonus" rooms. Toll Brothers, of Horsham, Pa., says its best-selling plan this year has a base size of 4,800 square feet -- 1,600 bigger than its top seller of five years ago. WCI Communities, of Bonita Springs, Fla., says the most popular plan in its Mid-Atlantic region measures 5,425 square feet, up 250 square feet from its 2000 bestseller.