Cast Your Fate to the Wind

you’re a fan of a team, nothing you do can change the outcome of the games, all of your agony is a waste of time

    — darkstar73 in MetsBlog

Dang, that’s haiku-like.

OK, so the Mets had a day game today (we won!) and instead of using my evening in some productive manner I am sitting here reading Mets blogs and message boards. I found darkstar73’s comment strangely liberating. Certainly the players and coaches and managment can act in a direct way to determine the outcome of the season. But as fans we are just along for the ride. We should basically sit back, enjoy the games, and not get so angst-y over every at-bat and every pitch.

I tend to be a worrier; I’m one of those people who worries about the weather. So this uplifting realization was a good whack upside the head. It made me think of a nice jazz piece, which someone had kindly posted to YouTube:

Cinco de Mayo +2: Ethnic Peeves

(I’m a couple days late with this post. It’s been busy here and with the Mets playing out on the west coast it screws up my schedule.)

Gilbert wrote in Ethnic Unawareness:

As someone who is of Hispanic decent, I feel the same way about Cinco de Mayo.
Way to celebrate our culture by getting drunk.

I’m Chinese and while I don’t think people go out and get blitzed on Chinese New Year it kind of bugs me when people get tattoos with Chinese (or Japanese) characters. It just strikes me as an superficial attempt to be hip and/or multicultural. If African Americans are the only ones who can use the word “nigger” and not get grief over it, then I think only Asians should be able to get tattoos with Chinese, Japanese, or Korean characters. Heck, and most of us second- and third-generation Americans can’t even read the characters.

(Of course I love it when non-Asians get hipster Asian tattoos, only to find out that the tatt doesn’t mean what they thought it was supposed to mean: Crazy Diarrhea.)

I noticed ads in the paper last week touting Cinco de Mayo. They were from grocery stores suggesting that consumers load up on things like refried beans, Doritos, Pace picante sauce, and margarita mix. I heard an announcer on the local classical station say something about “Aaron Copland and Cinco de Mayo,” which I found odd because — well — Copland wasn’t from Mexico. But later that day the station played Copland’s “El Salon Mexico” which I missed, but I found a recording of it on YouTube:

Just think if the California or Texas or any southwestern state had held a primary election near 5 May. The candidates would have contorted themselves to hit every Cinco de Mayo parade, sing along with mariachi bands, and eat a whole lot of tacos to “prove” that they respect Hispanic culture.

After reading Gilbert’s comment I realized I didn’t know much of anything about Cinco de Mayo (except for something a French friend once said; he was married to a Mexican woman), so I did what I always do at such times: click around the Internets to see what I could find. From Wikipedia:

… The holiday commemorates an initial victory of Mexican forces led by General Ignacio Zaragoza Seguín over French forces in the Battle of Puebla on May 5, 1862. … Although the Mexican army was victorious over the French at Puebla, the victory only delayed the French advance on Mexico City; a year later, the French occupied Mexico. The French occupying forces placed Maximilian I, Emperor of Mexico on the throne of Mexico. The French were eventually defeated and expelled in 1867. Maximilian was executed by President Benito Juarez, five years after the Battle of Puebla. …

According to a paper published by the UCLA Center for the Study of Latino Health and Culture about the origin of the observance of Cinco de Mayo in the United States, the modern American focus on that day first started in California in the 1860s in response to the resistance to French rule in Mexico. The 2007 paper notes that “The holiday, which has been celebrated in California continuously since 1863, is virtually ignored in Mexico.”

In Mexico the holiday is only celebrated in the state of Puebla, which is where the noted 5 May battle took place.

I guess it’s only because America is such a mixed bag of ethnicities that we have these ethnic awareness festivities. Most other countries are very homogeneous, and becoming multi-ethnic has presented a lot of problems for some of them. So I don’t want to sound crabby about Chinese New Year, Cinco de Mayo, and St. Patrick’s Day. It’s just that I wish “ethnic awareness” meant more meaningful than getting drunk, selling groceries, or getting a tattoo.

Tin soldiers and Nixon coming …

On There are places I remember …:

rrgirl wrote: May 4, 1970 was the first time I’d ever heard of Kent. with one brother volunteering to serve in Viet Nam, and another brother ready to leave for Canada if his draft number came up, the shootings were an expression of the differences of opinion within my own family, not to mention the generation gap. no place felt safe.
a few years later I was spending most of my days and a lot of nights overlooking the site where the riots and shootings took place. parked my car in the parking lot where kids died, walked past the steel sculpture with the bullet holes, past the bell, the precast pagoda, the oak tree on blanket hill. it wasn’t a good place to learn what had happened - too much shouting, too many personal agendas woven into the politics.

it seems its still that way. then and now, the only thing I’m sure of is the saddness of it all.

And Andy commented quite recently: I am currently a student at Kent State University. The whole May 4th ordeal is very significant to me. I walk through the May 4th Monument on a daily basis and not a day goes by without me thinking about what it was like to have lived through it. I have lacrosse practice on the commons. I see trees that have bullet holes in them. That hits hard and I realize the significance that that date in history truly has. It’s very sad.

I probably would have remembered the anniversary even if Andy’s comment hadn’t reminded me of the post I made on Kent State last year. Kent State is something that happened when I was growing up and it’s something that I will always remember.

I didn’t see anything in the news today on the Kent State shootings. 2008 marks the 38th anniversary. It’s not one of those “prominent” anniversaries, like the 10th or 25th or 50th. It will be interesting to see if the event is remembered in 2010, the 40th anniversary.

I was rather miffed last November at the lack of news or comment on the anniversary of JFK’s assassination. And last month I didn’t see much of anything on the Oklahoma City bombing (19 April 1995), the shootings at Columbine High School (20 April 1999), or the Virginia Tech shootings (16 April 2007). How quick we forget. Or do we bother remembering at all?

Perhaps our recollection of history is clouded by a degree of Me-ism: If it didn’t happen to me, then it’s not that important. People are detached from things that happen outside their little worlds. Hence a sense of disconnect from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan for Americans who don’t have a loved one serving in the military.

Every day is a Remembrance Day in one way or another, if people would just remember to look beyond themselves.

Dizzy

The Mets got hammered by the Pirates this afternoon, 13-1. We had two hits and three errors. Even though we trailed 7-0 after two innings I kept following the game, thinking that we’d stage a comeback. Talk about Blind Faith:

We were wasted and couldn’t find our way (to) home(plate), either.

OK, so the game made me dizzy, and it didn’t help that I read this and was able to see the dancer spin clockwise and anti-clockwise: The Truth About the Spinning Dancer. (The latter being my more dominant perception, which isn’t surprising — if the thesis is correct — as I am right-handed.)

It’s much too nice an afternoon to be indoors (no DP: this blogger doesn’t blog in her underwear from her mother’s basement) so I’m going outside to commune with nature in the backyard and see what I can do about the weed situation. We spent all the money from the mlb.tv refund on corn gluten, an organic method for controlling crabgrass. Just about all the neighbors use pesticides and herbicides (and the ones next door still got crabgrass, which then spread into our yard — geez, Louise ….) so all the time we spend hand-weeding seems kind of pointless sometimes. I mean, how much are we saving the earth when everyone else is pouring on the chemicals? Us versus Weeds is like Sisyphus versus Boulder. But at least we have a clean conscience (and dirt under our fingernails) when we read about things like groundwater contamination.

Give ‘em a yell! Give ‘em a hand! And let ‘em know you’re bipolar in the stands!

Meet the Mets

Some Mets fans have been booing the team at Shea. The team hasn’t been playing well, but my feeling is that you never boo the home team. Being a fan is like being married: you’re in it for the good times and the bad times.

After looking pretty sickly in a series of losses we beat the Atlanta Braves two games in a row, defeating their two best pitchers. Yesterday we beat DP’s pal John Smoltz (raising his ERA from 0.78 to a whopping 2.00) and our first baseman Carlos Delgado hit two homers. Delgado has been struggling, hitting around .200 and making some embarassing errors in the field. He’s been the target of a lot of the boos, but after his homers the fans cheered and wanted him to step out of the dugout to take a curtain call. He didn’t oblige.

Asked why he didn’t come out for the curtain call after his second blast off the scoreboard, this was the response:

“The way I look at it, I hit a solo home run in the seventh inning. I got a great deal of respect for the game and I don’t think that’s the place for a curtain call. We appreciate the support of the fans, but we’re here to play the game. They pay me to go out and hit the ball and drive in runs, and I didn’t think it was the right situation.”

Then he smiled, and added, “Having said that, I’m not going to lie. I feel good. It’s a lot better than the boos.”

    — Delgado answers curtain call question

Of course after he didn’t take the curtain call some fans booed him.

I’m with Delgado on this. Whether or not he was sticking it to the fans who’d been booing him, it’s up to him if he wants to take a curtain call. Plus even after two homers it’s not like he’s out of the slump, so maybe that’s why he said it wasn’t the right situation. And I learned that Delgado is not a big curtain call guy anway; he’s hit over 400 homers in his career and has only taken a handful of curtain calls: Delgado’s curtain call history.

I read somewhere last night (I can’t find the article or blog post right now, so forgive me for not noting the citation) that the team has an “us-against-the-world” attitude towards the media and fans. I can’t blame them for feeling that way. They haven’t played well but they haven’t deserved to get booed and they don’t deserve to get dissected, sliced, and diced by the media after every game. But that’s the way it is in today’s immediate gratification society and the 24/7 news cycle.

Big market teams can pay their players more, but I wonder if some guys wouldn’t take less money to be on a solid team in a smaller market where the fans and the media are a little more reasonable. New York City has been running a stop smoking campaign for a number of years; maybe they need to run a “stop being manic-depressive over your sports team” campaign, too.

The Dan Patrick Show: Today’s show is brought to you by the word “perspicacity”

NBA Commissioner David Stern strives to further develop our vocabulary. He’s clearly the William F. Buckley of sports commissioners:

William F. Buckley Jr., who marshaled polysyllabic exuberance, famously arched eyebrows and a refined, perspicacious mind to elevate conservatism to the center of American political discourse, …

Stern always sounds kind of snippy when he’s on the show, but I guess that’s because he has steeled himself to deal with DP’s smartypantsness. MLB Commissioner Bud Selig comes across as more relaxed.

And since I never gave props for two great words dropped previously in this blog, all hail rrgirl for doofetti and Scoop for uxorious.

(In a stage whisper so that the right-wingies won’t think less of me):
I always liked Buckley. I used to watch Firing Line when I was a kid; it was pretty heavy stuff and a little over my head at times but I was impressed with Buckley’s intelligence and wit. He would attack an opposing opinion, but he would never attack the person who stated that opinion. You don’t see much of that anymore.

Fair and Balanced

Just so that our friends on the right don’t think we’re ignoring them I looked up Bill O’Reilly’s birth tune:

I think this is the song that Hillary and Bill Clinton sing when another one of her superdelegates goes over to Obama.

I wanted to find Robert Cox’s birth tune but I searched Google and could not find his birthdate. Good for him for being able to keep his personal information private. It’s pretty frightening how much personal information is available on the Internet.

The Mets are currently losing in ugly fashion to the Cubs. Looking forward to following the Pennsylvania primary results as they come in tonight.

Boo, Bitter, and Beaver

Boo:
Some fans at Shea Stadium booed Mets pitcher Johan Santana during his home debut earlier this month. He had a bad game, giving up three homers to the Milwaukee Brewers, and wasn’t an ace that night. But he’d pitched well previously and the Brewers are a good team. A few days earlier, at the home opener, pitcher Scott Schoeneweis was booed during the pre-game ceremony. OK, so he had a bad first half of 2007. But that was last year! The boo birds generated a lot of discussion in the NYC papers and Mets’ fans blogs and forums. I was embarrassed to be a Mets fan when I heard about it. I’m so glad DP didn’t bring it up when he had former Mets pitcher Ron Darling on the show last week.

I’m not a booer. I don’t boo the opposition and I certainly don’t boo the home team. Some fans feel that with ticket prices so high they have the right to voice their displeasure when the team doesn’t perform well. Others feel that they are the “12th man,” the extra guy on the team, when they verbally harass the opposition. I guess I have an overdeveloped sense of decorum and sportsmanship. Sure it’s possible to rattle the opposition with boos. Maybe I don’t truly love my team because I don’t boo their foes. I don’t know. I’ll cheer my head off for my team. But booing is just not me. I wonder if boo birds are as harsh on themselves and their friends and family. Do they boo their children when the kids come home with bad report cards?

Boo, part deux:
Pope Benedict XVI sure got a lot of coverage during his recent trip to the U.S. It seemed like every time I looked at newyorktimes.com there was a photo of the Pope on the front page. I read that he had a meeting with President Bush in the Oval Office, which is appropriate as he is a major world figure. It’s too bad U.S. presidents haven’t treated the Dalai Lama with as much respect. Bill Clinton did a sneaky “drive-by” visit, dropping in when the Dalai Lama was meeting with Al Gore. And while President Bush met with the Dalai Lama last year there was an embargo on any photographic record of the event. What, too shy to be seen in the presence of a holy man?

Oh. Just the guy in the saffron robes.

Bitter:
rrgirl commented High Tech, Low Tech:

my personal definition of “bitter” runs along the lines of “angry, frustrated, resignation” instead of an elite sounding, overused and dismissive “self-pitying grumpiness.” Obama’s use of the term didn’t bother me at all - I think he gets it. to someone in the habit of throwing out the term to avoid engaging in heartfelt empathy for another’s striving against soul-crushing defeats, “bitter” might remind them of their own eagerness to escape to safer ground. I didn’t hear that in Obama’s speech - I don’t hear it in anything he says. the only elitism I hear is in what sounds like false piety of those trying to use “bitter” against him.

And CP added:

An un-artful comment by Obama to be sure, but it’s being played to the hilt by the media and Clinton. It’s something to fill the 24-hour news cycle until the next gaffe.

I find it interesting that Barack Obama asks America to try to understand the African American experience but flippantly dismisses small-town life.

OK, so maybe he didn’t mean it in a bad way, but using it in a speech to people on the Left Coast smacks of opportunism. Tailoring words to appeal to a particular audience is something I’d expect from a politician, so the incident just proved to me that Obama is not as different as he wants us to believe. This isn’t enough to make me run and vote for Clinton, though, for she is as good as anyone at speaking out of both sides of her mouth. And if you throw her husband into mix, that’s four sides of two mouths. That’s a lot of stuff coming at you from all directions. Like, quadriphonic.

Beaver:
Hawaii commented in I’m a sucker for animal stories …:

My favorite line of this (other than the “beleaguered beaver” expression)is “A state conservation official later said they might have been better off leaving it alone”. Heh. No good deed goes unpunished.

And rrgirl added:

this year was the first time I saw non-zoo beavers in a Cleveland Metro Park. I’ve seen girdled trees and dams as long as I can remember, but this was the first time I saw beavers hanging out along the shore, and they are HUGE! I guess I expected them to be a little bigger than woodchucks or raccoons. 40 lbs seems about right. I do hope all is well with the NYC beaver and they let it safely on it’s way.

The beaver died.

I was upset when I read the update in the City Room blog and discovered that the beaver had died.

What can I say? I don’t boo, and I always want a happy ending.

I’ve never seen a beaver in real life, but I have seen a beaver dam and beaver-gnawed tree stumps. I thought they were just the neatest things, evidence of nature in action.

Songs to Give Birth By

What was the #1 most popular song on the day you Dan Patrick and Keith Olbermann were born?

Not that Dan’s and Keith’s mothers had radios on in the delivery room.

And even if they did they wouldn’t have heard these versions.

(Devoted DP and KO fans will be able to figure out which song goes with which fellow.)

I’m a sucker for animal stories …

After approaching what the department’s public information office called “the beleaguered beaver,” Police Officer John Angus secured the animal in a safety noose and pulled it on to the rear of the harbor launch, where it was kept in a bucket and doused with water.

    — 40-Pound Beaver Is Rescued From East River