Jeopardy!

I've been a fan of Jeopardy! since the Art Fleming version premiered in 1965. My mother and I used to watch it over lunch.

In 2002, before their contestant search came to Chicago, they had you register by e-mail to be entered into a lottery where you might be chosen just to come downtown to take the test. I duly registered, and was fortunate enough to receive the follow-up phone call that let me know I was to report at the Drake Hotel on a certain day at a certain time.

I was in the second group of 80 candidates on the day I went. There was a morning group and an afternoon group, and if memory serves, they were there for three days - for a grand total of 480 potential contestants. We took a 50-question test and the producers collected them and left the room to grade them. Fifteen minutes later, they announced the ones who qualified for the audition (I think you had to get 80% right) and I was one of the seven they called! We (the seven of us) took turns playing a mock game with the actual buttons they use on the show. They then said we would be put in the contestant pool for a year, but there was no guarantee of being called - and I wasn't.

I did learn that they tape five shows on Tuesday and five on Wednesday. You are responsible for your own transportation out there, but if you win and spill over to the next week, they pick up the costs after that.

This year, they had the test live on-line for different regions of the country and the midwest one was at 8:00 pm on March 29th. You had to be on time and you had 15 seconds to type your answer to each question. Time ran out on me on the second question, and as I thought about it later, I knew I missed at least two others upon sober reflection.

I didn't hear anything for quite awhile and I assumed I didn't do well enough to get a call back. Then, on April 26th, I received an e-mail telling me to report to Navy Pier on June 7th at 9:30 am. So, without getting my hopes up, I'll report on how it goes.

Wish me luck!

Occam's Razor Applied to Government

As long as I'm in rant mode, allow me to say a few things about government. It seems to me, the best government is a limited government. Like a baseball umpire, it is doing the best job when unnoticed.

Occam's Razor - entities should not be multiplied needlessly - easily remembered by the acronym KISS (keep it simple, stupid), should be employed especially with government.

Whenever government tries to manipulate a situation, say with price freezes or minimum wage laws (as in the case of the economy), it creates unintended consequences elsewhere - kind of like pushing on a water balloon. Then the legislators have to make progressively convoluted laws to fix what they themselves created.

Without the minimum wage law, for example, the illegal immigration problem might not be so bad and we might be more competitive with overseas markets.

And what could be simpler (and more inherently fair) than saying every citizen needs to contribute 15% of their wealth for the common good, rather than the silly income tax system we have now?

How do we fix it? We can't do it overnight.

My advice:
Vote Libertarian!

Advancing Through the Stages of Life

My youngest child is graduating from Middle School on Tuesday. Events like this allow me to reflect on how fast we zoom through life's myriad stages. I don't feel any different than I did when I was twenty, yet here I am a handful of years from advancing to "empty nest" status (ahh, blessed release! - of course, I say that now...).

Like members of the animal kingdom, each period in human life is fraught with danger - the difference is, our own species is the biggest threat.

Consider the various stages:

Zygote, blastocyst, embryo, fetus - you may be terminated at any time legally for no better reason than the inconvenience your existence causes others (ironically, the ones who determined it's okay to kill you have already survived those initial stages).

Infant - people like Princeton professor of 'bioethics' Peter Singer believe infanticide is justified if the infant causes suffering for the family. Of course, he also thinks there's nothing immoral about bestiality, as long as there's no cruelty.

Child - predators abound

Adolescent - the stage where parents are justified for wanting to kill

Adult - the Supreme Court this year has upheld an Oregon law allowing physician-assisted suicide (euphemism for euthanasia) called the 'Death with Dignity' Act. My question is, who decides? who holds the power of life and death over you?

It seems to me the best way to protect oneself is to be sentenced to death for murder - then, there will be all sorts of people trying to keep you alive. There are about 16,000 murders committed per year, yet the media bemoaned the fact that already the 1,000th malefactor was executed in the last 30 years - that's 1 execution for every 500 murders.

At the same time, there are almost 100 times as many innocent lives snuffed out through legal abortions as illegal murder - 1.3 million a year.

It's mind-boggling how any of us survived for as long as we have without becoming serial killers.

In Defense of Professional Wrestling

I make no apology, I enjoy professional wrestling. It has a very high entertainment value.

It has good guys and bad guys; physical specimens with sculpted bodies; improbably-proportioned, scantily-clad women; incredible athleticism and choreography; comic relief; and subplots replete with intrigue. And, like any morality tale, good wins out in the end.

A close friend of mine has recently posted on his blog that he refuses to believe anyone actually likes it. This is somewhat disingenuous as this is the same friend I used to make weekly trips to the comic book store with. The comics we both enjoyed had the exact same elements - the medium was the only difference - and I find the live-action version much more impressive.

Long live the WWE!

My Favorite Baseball Player

There's an interesting article in today's USA Today on Albert Pujols the baseball player.

To find out what he's like as a person, go to www.pujolsfamilyfoundation.org.

Why Soccer?

Why do we Americans call what the rest of the world knows as football 'soccer'?

It's a very old game. The first recorded game was played in Derby, England on Shrove Tuesday in 217 as part of a festival to celebrate a victory over a contingent of Roman troops.

However, there were no codified rules, so in 1823 when Rugby School student William Webb Ellis decided to pick up the ball in his hands and run with it, he invented rugby football. This legend is as reliable as the one about Abner Doubleday inventing baseball, by the way.

In 1863, the Football Association was created in London for those purists who thought football should be played with the feet. In true English fashion, this was known as 'soccer' football (short for assoc. - hey, these are the same people who call Paul McCartney, Macca and Michael Jackson, Jacko) to distinguish it from 'rugby' football.

The Americans evolved rugby football into American football, which, naturally, they called simply football - so the original sport is still known as soccer today in the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand (because the Canucks and the down-unders have their own versions of football, as well).

Why is there a worldwide love affair with soccer?

For one, you don't need any special equipment to play. It's the game of the common man. Any kind of ball to kick and two goals and you can have yourself a game.

It's the only game in the world where the play is continuous. If there is any kind of stoppage (for an injury, for example), the referee adds time to insure that every minute allotted to playing the game is spent playing the game. Other sports frequently reward teams for running out the clock or committing illegal acts to stop the clock. You can't do that in soccer - 90 minutes is 90 minutes.

The goals are rare enough to be worth something. Scoring is not devalued, as in basketball, for instance. It's a true territorial struggle with the side employing the best strategy and tactics almost invariably coming out on top.

The difficulty involved in trying to control a ball exclusively with your feet is enormous. It's a pleasure to see the skill levels (which could only be acquired through dedicated hard work) of the best players. That's why soccer is known the world over as The Beautiful Game.

1994 - The Year in Reading

Read 86 books - including:

Favorites (I would highly recommed):

The Doings of Raffles Haw by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
What Jane Austen Ate and Charles Dickens Knew by Daniel Pool
My Cousin Rachel and
Frenchman's Creek by Daphne DuMaurier
The Pyrates by George MacDonald Fraser
The Silence of God by Sir Robert Anderson
Tesla: Man Out of Time by Margaret Cheney
Horatio Hornblower by C. S. Forester
The Agony and the Ecstasy by Irving Stone
The Betrothed by Alessandro Manzoni
Tom Brown's School Days by Thomas Hughes
Penrod by Booth Tarkington

Least Favorite (Stay Away From, You were Warned!):

The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger
Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak
Captains Courageous by Rudyard Kipling
A Man for All Seasons by Robert Bolt
The Leopard by Giuseppe di Lampedusa
Mademoiselle de Maupin by Thephile Gautier
The Satyricon by Petronius

In other news, for the first time since 1904, there was no World Series.

Albert

AMAZING!

A Brief History of Time

I finally got around to reading this book. When it first came out, in 1988, I had no inclination to read it. It looked like something by a self-satisfied, smarter-than-you-are brainiac who thinks he has all the answers. A lot of that has to do with the subtitle (added by the publisher) and the introduction (by someone who is a self-satisfied, smarter-than-you-are brainiac; or rather, was - he knows better now).

I also enjoyed the advantage of reading the updated and illustrated 1996 edition, with lots of color pictures and graphs and stuff. It has a better cover, too - I have newfound respect for Mr. Hawking, but one is forced to concede that the aesthetics of the cover are inversely proportional to the amount of space allotted to his picture. And no Carl Sagan.

To my surprise, Stephen Hawking wrote a very even-handed and accessible book about not so much the history of time, but rather the history of theories of the universe. Fascinating stuff.

He does mention how he personally believes, but he doesn't dogmatically assert that he is right to the exclusion of dissenting opinions. I even agreed with him quite a bit.

Cinco de Mayo

Contrary to the popular misapprehension, Cinco de Mayo is not Mexican Independence Day.

It is a festival to commemorate the Battle of Puebla, an unlikely victory by 4,500 ragtag militia over a better-trained, better-equipped French regular army of 6,500.

In 1862, the debt-ridden Mexicans had defaulted on loans to their three main creditors - England, France and Spain. President Benito Juarez successfully negotiated with the more rational England and Spain, but the megalomaniacal Napoleon III wanted to install Austrian Archduke Maximilian and his wife Carlotta as the monarchs of Mexico.

With the help of the populace, who sent stampeding cattle at the French, Ignacio Zaragoza's troops won the battle and forestalled the French advance on Mexico City. This prompted a telegram from Zaragoza to Juarez, Las armas nacionales se han cubierto de gloria! (The national arms are covered in glory!) which is printed today on the 500-peso bill.

The main result was that Napoleon III had to send 30,000 more troops before he could conquer Mexico by 1864, which prevented him from sending aid to the Confederates - so, who knows, those Mexican villagers may have influenced the outcome of our Civil War!

I was in Puebla six or seven years ago, just before the actual Independence Day of September 16 (1810), and was able to sample the Poblano specialty Chiles de Nogado, which is stuffed green chilies covered with creamy walnut sauce and pomegranate seeds. Yummmm!! It's a seasonal item, as it represents the three colors of the Mexican flag.

Feliz Cinco de Mayo!

The Holiness of God

I read The Holiness of God by R. C. Sproul.

To show you how out-of-the-mainstream I am when it comes to Christian authors, I thought Sproul was a contemporary of Spurgeon or Moody, if not Augustine. I had this title on my to-read-someday list (not sure whence I got it) and was spurred to read it after talking with a friend over lunch - he remarked how he enjoyed listening to R. C. Sproul's daily radio broadcast. Not wanting to show my ignorance, I immediately said "Yeah, I'm just about to start The Holiness of God." I find out, even though the cover says classic best-seller, the book was only written in 1985. Now I realize that is over twenty years ago, but to a guy my age, it's like yesterday!

Anyway, I enjoyed the book for the most part. There's an excellent chapter on Martin Luther and good illustrations throughout on God's justice vs. God's mercy.

The last handful of pages contain a treatise on three basic forms of theology: Pelagianism, Semipelagianism (Arminianism), and Augustinianism (Calvinism). Turns out Dr. Sproul is a five-point Calvinist! I checked his website, and the acrostic TULIP is even used in his church's doctrinal statement.

It seems to me, our good friends the Calvinists are proponents of the "puppetmaster" view of God. According to them, He not only knew Adam & Eve were going to sin, but he created them to sin, so He could redeem them. And, since man is totally depraved and incapable of coming to God on his own, He handpicks who He's gonna save and doesn't even give them a say in it.

Why would God do this? "He's sovereign and His ways are unknowable," they'll say. "His holiness, omniscience and omnipotence don't allow Him to do otherwise." To my way of thinking, that's putting God in a box where He's limited by His own power.

Jesus said,

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life." John 3:16

Peter said,

He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance. 2 Peter 3:9

God created man in His own image for companionship and to be glorified. To avoid making robots who are "just following the script", He gave man the ability to choose either to obey or rebel. Love doesn't have any meaning without free will. Admittedly, man blew it - but God loved us so much, He sacrificed Himself to satisfy His justice.

He shall see of the travail of his soul,
and shall be satisfied: by
his knowledge shall my righteous servant
justify many; for he shall bear
their iniquities. Isaiah 53:11

God did everything necessary to save us - we could do nothing on our own - He paid an enormous price for an "unspeakable gift" and offers it to us out of His grace, mercy, and love. He still gives us the choice to exercise our will whether to accept it or reject it.

Top Ten for May

My Favorite Chess Masters of All Time

1. Jose Raul Capablanca 1888-1942
2. Paul Morphy 1837-1884
3. Garry Kasparov 1963-
4. Adolph Anderssen 1818-1879
5. Francois Andre Danican Philidor 1726-1795
6. Alexander Alekhine 1892-1946
7. Ruy Lopez de Segura 1530-1580
8. Howard Staunton 1810-1874
9. Aron Nimzovitch 1886-1935
10. Frank Marshall 1877-1944

May Day

Happy International Workers of the World Day!

Good Luck on your boycott, Illegal Aliens! You've certainly got the moral high ground!

Notable people born on this date:

Stuart Appleby, professional golfer
Chuck Bednarik, NFL Hall of Famer
Judy Collins, folk singer
Glenn Ford, actor
Joseph Heller, author of Catch-22
Jack Paar, former Tonight Show host
Kate Smith, of God Bless America fame
Calamity Jane, famous cowgirl
The Duke of Wellington, victor over Napoleon at Waterloo
and last, but not least,
Joan Ruth Points, nee Matheson

Happy Birthday, Joan!