Violence in Latin America
Topic: Baseball
I've been following this story for a while. The sports angle really doesn't interest me at all.

What I find interesting is what Americans think about it. How do they see it, I wonder. To me it looks like something that isn't as far-fetched as it might seem to the average american.

I know that's a lot of speculation, but in Latin America there are a lot of rich people that get completely out of control when dealing with their poor employees.

It has to do with making sure they "know their place" - but I think it's more about making it as clear as they can that they are better than them.

It's more about distancing themselves (the rich employer) as much as they can from what they consider the uneducated, ignorant "indios" that work for them.

As for Urbina's particular case - it wouldn't surprise me if he did it. In a drunken rage, catching his employees in his pool (probably like no other pool in the country), going crazy and telling other people to harm them.

Even when it comes to expressing their irrational hostilities and personal insecurities, even then, they have to have someone else do their dirty work.

Doesn't mean they aren't guilty though.

Stern rich, but not as rich as I thought
Check this out little nugget:

His move to Sirius Satellite Radio, while somewhat risky, comes with a huge financial reward: Stern signed a five-year, $500 million contract to jump. He's creating two new channels for Sirius, with the salaries, overhead and other programming costs coming out of his windfall.

That means that he has to use that money to pay salaries and overhead, as well as any other crap he wants to do on his show.

That changes everything. I was under the impression that was his salary.

This is much more sensible.

Crazy, but more sensible than paying a guy half-a-billion dollars to shoot the shit on pay radio and TV.

Asshole Apprentice?
Topic: TV
In case you missed it:
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/10485160/

I was shocked when he said that the girl shouldn't be hired. It was so easy and expected, of course he would agree with Trump to hire her. What did he have to lose? Lost in the glow of victory, who wouldn't help someone out with a job opportunity like that?

I was shocked and even muttered, "What an asshole."

But then I thought about it.

He must've really felt strongly about the whole bit about it being "The Apprentice" and not "The Apprenti" (which was a great bit of pluralizing, I thought). You could tell he really thought it was important that only one person win. That this was a competition and there should only be one winner. A lot of what's been written says that people (including the crowd, whom I could give a shit about) lost respect for him at that moment.

Think about it, this is the guy that had everyone's respect and had everyone raving about how great a leader he was.

There must be something to it, don't you think? The same thing that makes him a great leader probably had something to do with his feelings about there not being two winners.

So I say, take him as he is, that's why he's so great a leader.

Roberto Petagine
Topic: Baseball
Ever heard of him? Probably not. Unless you're a big baseball fan (Red Sox especially), you probably haven't heard of him.

Why the interest on my part? Aren't sluggers who hit a lot of homeruns and strike out a ton and never make it past AAA a dime a dozen?

Sure. Just ask Julio Zuleta, Morgan Burkhart, and company.

But look close at Roberto Petagine's numbers - he isn't one of them.

The lowest batting average he has ever had in a season with at least 314ABs above A-ball is .290. His other years?

Level ABs AVG
AA 437 .334
AAA 314 .318
AAA 441 .317
AAA 363 .331
Japan 452 .325
Japan 484 .316
Japan 463 .322
Japan 453 .322
Japan 331 .323
Japan 383 .290

Pretty good right? How about homeruns?

For those same seasons:
15, 12, 31, 24, 44, 36, 39, 41, 34, 29.

Again, not bad.

But the guy had to go to japan to get his playing time cause nobody was giving him any MLB time.

He finally came back to the US and posted a .327, 20HR, 69 RBI season. His OBP was .452

Which brings us to the real reason why he jumps out at me and makes me wonder why he hasn't gotten a shot. He draws walks. A TON of them. In his minor league career he's walked 1121 times and struck out 1153 times. That's REALLY good for a hitter, even better for a power hitter.

Adjusted for a ML season, that's over 100 walks in a 165-game schedule.

Why hasn't this guy gotten a shot at a starting job somewhere? That's the question that eats away at me for a lot of players. Especially since there are so many teams out there that don't have money to spend and lose nothing but taking a chance on a guy like this (here I'm thinking of Kansas City, Tampa Bay, and, now, the Marlins).

I sent Baseball America a letter about this, we'll see what their opinion on the whole thing is.

Bush admits fault
Topic: Politics
There! Was that so hard? jeez.

Learning for Dummies
Topic: Writing
I was going through this website when it all of the sudden hit me: why do I have to go online to find this type of information? I'm a student in a Master of Writing program - shouldn't I be learning this stuff there?

But I'm not, and the crazy thing is this website is only repeating stuff that everyone out there who writes already knows. The question is, why isn't it taught to the people that want to learn, that want to become writers?

There's something wrong with the way people are being taught. Something is terribly wrong. Very rarely will I leave (or have I left) a classroom feeling like I've learned something useful that I can go out and do in the real world (some Photoshop classes and Math stuff excluded).

Someone was telling me the other day that law school is really two years longer than the program is because where you really do the learning is during your first two years of working. The school part, he said, was basically just to week out the hard workers from those that wouldn't be able to cut it.

That's ridiculous.

It also has something to say about the popularity of the "for Dummies" and "Idiot's Guide to" books. Sure we're lazy, but these books seem to rely more on practicality than theory - hence why people turn to them despite taking high level classes or courses (I'm reminded of a time when Ben Affleck was getting into his convertible, a paparazzi taking video the whole time, and he was asked if the book in the back seat was his, he looked back and smirked, "Yeah, that's mine." And off he went. The book? Acting for Dummies.).

Why can't the teachers in the classroom be both practical and whatever it is they do in there when they're not being practical (theoretical?)?

I think they should be, and I think I could be - at least for certain subjects I'm comfortable with.

And that's what I'll do if and when I decide to teach a class.

It's what I did when I coached baseball, and that opened my eyes to the fluff that I had to wade through in order to actually learn a lot of the stuff that, in the end, I ended up learning on my own through trial and error.


(the end of this post kind of went in a different direction, but whatever, it's a blog, not a term paper (thank god))

PS I just spell-checked this post (something I should do more often) and it didn't recognize the word "blog" - thought it should be "bog."
Irony, she is a good thing.

Write a Novel in a Month
Topic: Writing
I first heard about this a year ago but never found the website. Well, here it is.

You sign on and write a 50,000-word (170 pages) novel along with thousands of other people around the world.

The idea is to give you the motivation by setting a goal, a deadline, and by letting you know thousands of people are also doing what you're doing.

Too bad it was in november.

Guatemala's Born into Brothels
Topic: Guatemala
They're giving homeless kids cameras to get their point of view during the christmas season. Unfortunately, some people are harrassing them, thinking they must've stolen the cameras.

The more paranoid people think the kids are being used as undercover spies to get proof of illicit activities like child trafficking.

Another day in G-Town.

Iran is creeping me out
Here's why.

I still don't understand why this was a big deal when a man in Austria got jailed for denying the Holocaust. I'm not sure, obviously, but I assume they have some form of free speech over there. As long as you aren't the president, I don't think you should be put in jail for saying stupid shit.

But I guess libel and slander do get you in jail...

Tookie Executed
Creepy and disturbing