Perhaps the Ballet is not for you...

Well, "The Nutcracker" was an awesome performance...

But c'mon Orange County, (and the rest of "middle america" while I'm at it), consider this an FYI - going to the Ballet is an EVENT...it's NOT, repeat NOT like watching a VIDEO of The Nutcracker in the comfort and privacy of your living room.

Specifically; it's not OK to fart, (even a silent one) bring and eat chips, do the Arsenio Whoot! after each scene, arrive late and demand to be seated mid-act or let your kid talk through the ENTIRE performance. Here's another tip - if your kid can't sit still or remain quite for the duration of a Shrek movie at the theater, if he/she can't go the 2 hours without a snack (outside of the 15 min intermission), and if the best outfit you can find is your "good jeans" a wrinkled t-shirt, your white Nike trainers and a leather motorcycle jacket, (and I'm talking about the adult male sitting next to me, not a little kid)...then perhaps the ballet is just not for you.

I'm just sayin'...

You've gotta be kidding me - people can't really be that stupid...

Each day I receive an e-mail from MIT Technology review - a guilty and small, but rather "nerdly" pleasure that allows me to start my day off thinking about interesting advances in technology and how they might affect my life - both personally and professionally.

Today, I was shocked to discover that even among Harvard grads and faculty, there's an ALARMING lack of basic scientific knowledge held by these individuals - see video "A Private Universe" to see what I mean.

I arrived at this end-point via a rather circuitous route - having clicked on a link in the MIT Tech Review to an article entitled: Decline of the Humanities - which was a link to a blog entry on 'Information Processing' by Stephen Hsu , a professor of physics at the University of Oregon. In his blog post, he references an essay by William Chace, professor of English and former president of Wesleyan and Emory who observes a general decline in the percentage of college students pursuing degrees in the humanities and posits that it's indicating an underlying shift in moral values away from the previously more important "developing a meaningful philosophy of life” to a focus on "being very well off financially".

Stephen observed that with MORE people going to college, you'd think we'd be getting smarter, (on average), when in fact there's a pretty clear indication that we're not. He reference a much earlier post Higher education and human capital that revolves around the idea that the benefits of a college education diminish quite rapidly when you start admitting individuals outside of the top 15% to maybe 20% of the population.

Somewhere along the line, he wonders whether science is just too hard and references an every earlier post called "Why is it dark at night?" where in an attempt to replicate the results of the Harvard interviews (linked above) he asks his physics students the question only to find that about a quarter of his students (at UC Berkeley and U Oregon) DON'T KNOW THE ANSWER!

Finally, in the comments section below the blog, someone references this article, "In the Basement of the Ivory Tower" which is an account of a college professor's personal experience teaching the unready to be taught...

I was amazed and you will be too if you take the time to read the various threads.

They're called "Special Olympics" for a reason...

So it seems the President  got himself into a bit of a pinch the other day by referring to his sub-par bowling as "like the Special Olympics"...which is to say, worse than the average...

see: http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/Story?id=7129997&page=3

And there was this huge uproar, (he called the Chairman of the Special Olympics Tim Shriver to apologize, even before the show aired) about how this might be considered offensive...

Now it may just be me, but it seems the President was making fun of himself, (and his poor bowling skills) not the Special Olympics (as a poorly run or ineffective organization) or even the Special Olympiates (who are required to be special to participate, but who are still people with feelings, emotions and aspirations just like the rest of us)...but at the end of the day, the Special Olympics ARE for special people, (if they weren't special, they would simply compete in the regular Olympics right?) so let's cut Obama some slack here...

Hey, I watched Johnny Knoxville in "The Ringer", I laughed, (but then I cried - and I'm a big enough man to admit it) and I do understand that sensitivity in language is an important consideration, especially when you're the President of the United States. And perhaps it's reasonable to hold the individual in what is still one of the most powerful offices in the world, to a higher standard than most, or even every single one of his (or perhaps someday her) constituents...

But it's not like he said, "Oh man Jay, I bowl like a frickin' retard"...

Now that would have been offensive.

Inagural Post | So I started a blog...but I don't know why

Well, it's long overdue and I was finally inspired by my co-worker Leslie's blog "Three Pinks" http://threepinks.blogspot.com/ (she's got three daughters) to make an attempt to create a blog worth reading and more importantly, to actually post on a semi-regular basis.

Not sure whether it's more for me, (being able to get my thoughts organized and out sounds like it ought to be cathartic in some way), or for anyone out there who might actually be interested enough in the details of my life to actually ready my inane ramblings...