Jay Bruce retired from Major League Baseball thirty-four at bats into his fourteenth season. It’s always a little sad when a player retires, especially if the retirement is forced by performance or injury. In Bruce’s case, it was performance. He only had four hits in those thirty-four at bats. That’s a .118 average, much better…
Every job has its tools. My first work experience was as a paper carrier when I was ten or eleven. I had a big sack that went over my shoulder to carry the papers. I also had a hat, gloves, a jacket, boots, sneakers, and rain gear. All of these tools helped me do my…
Back in February of 2012, I started a blog called Proof I Never Want To Be President (Of Anything). The name of the blog was a joke about the way the press covers politics. If a politician ever misspeaks, it is a “gaffe” and the press goes on and on about it. And, even worse,…
I got stabbed in the left arm two weeks ago. It hurt, but it wasn’t that serious. My arm was sore and I was really tired that night, but I recovered OK. It happened again today. Same arm and everything. Once I could write off as a fluke, but not twice, so I demanded an…
Major League Baseball made the decision to move the 2021 All-star Game out of Atlanta because of the new Georgia voting laws. This is absolutely the right decision, but I have to admit to being a little surprised. It’s been a long time since Jackie Robinson, and in my experience, MLB can’t even make the…
Baseball’s opening day ought to be a holiday. It feels like one to me. One of the best days of my 20s was an opening day. My boss knew I was a big baseball fan. He told me to take the day off so I could watch the game. I didn’t have cable at the…
My dad sent me a headline, “Court sides with professor who repeatedly misgendered trans student” from Inside Higher Ed. The article talks about a professor who is suing his college because he was reprimanded for treating a trans student differently than his other students. Apparently his habit was to call students “Ms.” or “Mr.” He…
Eric Schwitzgebel wrote a recent blog post called Love Is Love, and Slogans Need a Context of Examples. The post makes the point stated in its title. Slogans, taken on their own, are mostly meaningless. If you took someone with no knowledge of the fight for marriage equality in the US, and said to them,…
Credit is probably the biggest scam in human history. That’s a big claim, so I want to clarify a bit. I am not talking about credit in the accounting sense, credits and debits. Those are fine. I’m also not talking about the list of names that runs after a show or movie. I actually like…
The song Levon, by Elton John (@eltonofficial) and Bernie Taupin (#bernietaupin), opens with the line: Levon wears his war wound like a crown He calls his child Jesus ‘Cause he likes the name And he sends him to the finest school in town Then, there’s a line in Elton John’s and Bernie Taupin’s song Tiny…
