Twitter: Having a Loud Conversation

Many years ago, Dave introduced me to Twitter. Dave is amazingly astute in his ability to spot the trends in the techie world. He told me about Flickr before it was cool, and then Twitter way before it was cool.

I have to admit, I didn't get Twitter. Why on Earth would I tweet about whatever I'm doing. Twitter, honestly, didn't really take off until celebs like Shaq and Ashton Kutcher discovered it was a way to get media attention without going directly to the media.

But that doesn't explain its appeal to the average Joe. The fact of the matter is this. Today's generation of kids, that is, generation Y, the millenial generation, has a "pay attention to me" mentality. 1984 posited a world where "Big Brother" spied your every move under the presumption that you, average citizen, had something to hide and valued that thing you called privacy.

George Orwell might be shocked to see how many people would give their privacy up for a bit of attention. But then, he was a writer who needed attention to get paid, so maybe he could relate.

For non-celebs, Twitter is a conversation in a restaurant, where you're the loudest table in the building. Hi, xxx, how's it going, as you yell to the next table. It's as much name-dropping as well. Sometimes it's a matter of who you tweet to, and who will respond that matters. I've tweeted to folks who have "blocked" me because I'm not cool enough. All in a day's work. All in a day's work!

The point is: why have these public conversations? It's a bit self-indulgent and I say that even as I do it myself. I tweet in the hopes that some random minor celeb way notice and respond. I am that groupie that screams when Justin B brushes his hands through his hair (does he even do this? Not a groupie, I assure you).

People criticize tweeters as having boring lives not worth reading about, but it is a cry from the unattended, who want, so very desperately, to be celebs too.

No Friends for Old Men

So here's the deal. Most of us work because, well, everything runs on money. You want food? I guess you could grow your own, but that takes a lot of planning. So you spend money and you get food. Need a place to stay because, well, it's hard to just go out in the woods and just live unless you know what you are doing. And the place costs, yes, money.

Then, presuming you live in a society that produces goods and advertises such goods, you begin to covet. I want this, and I want that. And all that costs, yes, money.

For many folks, this money comes in a 9-to-5 job. Of course, there's no such thing as a 9 to 5 job anymore. With jobs occasionally scarce, the idea is work harder for more hours for the same pay. At least you have a job. But the point is, you spend 8 hours a day at work.

How much time does that leave? OK, let's say you have no kids because that's going to take a chunk of time out of your life. Maybe you need to be up by 7:30, wake up, shower, eat, assuming you want breakfast, and then do the dreaded commute. You live in a place that's affordable and work in a place that's not. So you spend an hour getting to work and an hour getting back from work. So maybe 3.5 hours just dealing with the logistics of getting to and fro.

So maybe you're back by 6, and then you have to think about cooking, or perhaps you eat out, or perhaps do a microwave dinner. Maybe you have a significant other. That leaves you 4-5 hours to spend time with them, which isn't insignificant, but is less than the time you were at work.

And perhaps, if you're not a complete recluse, you make friends at work. Humans are a social people, and we are at our most social when we are with other people. The awkwardness of not talking to people when you're around people is so overwhelming that we talk.

But are these really your friends? How much would you talk to these people outside of work? If I were to point out a work colleague, would you say "Yeah, he's a nice guy, friendly". Let's say you say that. Then, I ask, "do you talk to him outside of work". And you say "no". I ask "why not". And you say "I don't know. I guess I'm not that interested. Besides, he's married. Why would he talk to me?".

I was reminded that money makes "friends" of many people. Lately, in my respite between occupations, I've been taking tennis lessons. The guy who runs the company texts me, mostly because I'm worth revenue to his company. He wants to be nice. He wants to be helpful. He's checking up on how I'm doing. Were there not money tied to this situation, he would have no reason to make this effort. Business, you see, makes people friendly.

There's one peculiar exception that plays on the desire to communicate that is separate from work. It's college. If you choose to stay in dormitories, you are now surrounded by many people of a similar socio-economic status. And many dorms encourage roommates. Living with others compels you to talk to them, and usually, people will pick friends or at least make friends with those near them.

How often do people make friends because they just happened to be assigned to the same dormitory? Quite often. That's because it's awkward to go to a random dorm, hang out, just to meet people from that dorm. People want you to be there with a reason. That's why you talk to people at work, and not to people at some other workplace (though, I have seen some people show enough cojones to do just that, mostly because they caught sight of a pretty lass that they wanted to talk up).

As much as people excel in communication when in proximity to dormmates or to co-workers, they fare poorly once distance is added.

Ask yourself who you talk to most? For most folks, it might be a spouse, or a significant other, and then, there's your parents. For as much as you may like or dislike your parents, there's some obligation to talk to them. They have experience in the world. They spent time raising you. You feel bad not talking to them.

Short of folks who hate their parents, this is a pretty normal. No complaints, right?

So now make a list of people you consider to be your friends. Some live near you, and so you could, in principle, go out and do things. Some are just far enough away that getting together is a bit of a hassle. Some are too far away, so the only way to communicate is to use technology.

You would think technology would be wonderful. Phone, texting, IM, email. And yet, there are plenty of people who hate this. And the etiquette works out that you can ignore people using any of those formats. Before answering machines came around, when the phone rang, you picked it up. After the answering machine came around, you'd have phone spammers and then you didn't want to pick up the phone.

Phone spammers ruined the innocence of the phone. But once you had an answering machine, you could let the machine record the message and you could see who it was. And, of course, now that many people have cell phones, you get caller ID and can figure out, for the most part, who is calling you.

So now you see who calls you and you can decide "I don't want to talk to them". Email is pretty much the same. IM likewise. Indeed, the only awkward refusal is face to face. If I come up to you and say "hi", it would be rude of you to ignore me. But every other technological way to communicate and you can feel free to ignore me.

The primary reason this has happened is because face-to-face interaction involves recognizing what the other person is doing. If they're busy, then maybe you don't interact. And there is a limited interaction. You can't have 10 people talk to you at once in person, but on IM, you could. On IM, you can't see what the other person is doing. Maybe they're watching a movie. Maybe they are listening to music. Maybe they are talking to another friend.

So back to your list of friends. How many do you keep in regular contact? How much time do you spend a week? Is the answer zero? Why? Why do you have co-workers you'd never spend time outside of work and spend a non-trivial amount of time with them, but spend zero time with those you consider your friends?

I suppose the answer is partly convenience and partly embarrassment. Some folks don't like to talk. That's it. They'll hang out with you at a movie, or a concert, at some location where there's not much interaction, but to them, that's doing something. But if you have to talk, just talk, well, that doesn't feel right, and so it doesn't happen.

Part of it is embarrassment. What would you talk about? Somehow these questions don't seem to come up when you bump into these folks in real life, and yet, on a phone or on IM, the words become scarce. People treat the phone as a planning device. When do you want to meet? Can I do something for you? And so forth.

So why does this happen? Do you feel bad that the only people you talk to, outside of a handful of people, are your coworkers? We say we value our friends, but do we?

Wait Wait

In India, the term is so common, it's been given its own name: IST. IST stands for Indian Standard Time. No, it's not the peculiar N + 1/2 hour difference that the entire country of India has with other countries. It's akin to what is called "Clinton Standard Time".

Bill Clinton was known as something of a schmoozer. He loved to talk and charm his guests. So much so that his meetings often ran late, which meant he was rushing to his next meeting, but the rush was superfluous because, well, he was late. And that meeting would run late, and so forth.

IST is this idea that Indians don't show up to anything on time. They can be late as short as 10 minutes to as late as, well, who knows, half an hour, an hour? If the person making you wait is, say, a relative, then you put up with it. Grandma was supposed to arrive at 2 PM, and it's nearly 6 PM and you're still waiting, wanting to get on and do the next thing? Nope, you're hanging out. The thought of taking off and leaving Grandma by herself would be deeply insulting, and so the culture never cures itself of this promptness problem because the person that's late knows they can get away with it. They prey on the kindness of others.

I've heard of Indians who promise they will show up to something and when it happens they "just don't feel like it" and so they don't show up at all. Do they call ahead to inform the folks that they don't feel like it? It doesn't seem necessary. They don't seem to feel that bad about it. Perhaps it's happened to them so much, and they've done it so much, that saying you won't show up, especially to a group event is, even in this modern day of communication, a trifle. What should someone bother?

Now, to be fair, there are enough Indians that are pretty prompt. They know how to get to places on time. But it seems like a foreign trait. Most people that run late feel they have "power". I'm not constrained by a schedule. I don't have to be out there right. This. Minute.

Part of the problem is the lack of ability to estimate time. You need to be somewhere by 7? Many think, oh, it'll only take 5 minutes. Once you convince yourself of that, then it no longer matters if you leave at 6:55 or 7:00, now does it? It's only 5 minutes, right? And much like the snooze alarm, you can always say, well, if 5 minutes late is OK, then 10 should be OK too, right? I think many would be shocked to learn that they need to be in their car at 6:45 moving, because at 6:45, 7:00 seems so far away.

And so sometimes the lies come. It's 7, and they are still at home, so you give them a call, and they don't want to displease you, so the white lie is "I'm on the road now, so I'll be there in a few minutes" and by the time they show up, you realize when you called, that they weren't even in their car. The entire trip time consists of the time between the time you called and the time they arrived.

And because it's so prevalent, a late Indian never (or rarely) apologizes for being late. Sometimes they are almost indignant or shrug it off, and try to convince you to move on, they're their now, let's get started.

What's worse than that is not the lack of ability to estimate time is the thought process that occurs. It seems, any time there is a deadline to arrive somewhere, that's when someone will decide to do something. Oh wait, we need to take care of this one thing before we go out.

I suspect this idea of getting a hundred things done had to do with the nature of slow transportation in India, that once you were out your door, you might not get back for hours, and if you hadn't taken care of something by then, it might be too late, so rather than take care of those things hours ago or the previous day, the deadline of having to leave the house suddenly reminds the person they need to take care of this or that, or they don't want to be interrupted in whatever they are doing.

The idea of completely dropping everything and getting out and to the vehicle and reaching you on time is foreign. Indeed, if everyone is in IST, why bother rushing? The other guy is going to take his or her time, and you have to wait, because the notion of abandoning the person you are waiting for would be cutting your nose off to spite your face, that is to punish someone and yourself as well.

This tardiness, as I mention, not a particularly Indian trait. I'm told it's common in Brazil, and I'm sure in many developing countries. To be held to a deadline is to feel shackled, and so people feel it's OK to slip a little late here or there, until it is an epidemic behavior in society.

So I tell this story because this happened to me. I play tennis with a guy who is routinely late. I think part of his tardiness is this embarrassment that he has to do all these things at home for his wife and kids. He never says that this is the cause of why he's late to play tennis, and then insists, after he's late, that everyone else accommodate him so he can play his 3 hours, even though everyone showed up 1.5 hours earlier. You must wait, he says. It's an incredible amount of selfishness that he merely shrugs off.

The morning group tennis was canceled because it was felt the courts were too wet. But he hadn't played the night before with me. Why not? His new job means he gets back around 8. His cheapness means he doesn't have a cell phone, so he can't call any sooner than 8. I told him I had made plans, and I wasn't going to play tennis, but he had hoped. By 10 PM, it was raining anyway, so it might not have been possible to play.

So at 10 AM, I called him, and asked if he would play at 10:30. Oh, no, that's too soon, how about 11? Fine, 11. So I went out to arrive by 11, and he calls while I'm on the road. "Maybe it's too wet to play?". Too wet to play? Too wet to play?! I told you the morning tennis had been called off because it was wet, and you insisted on playing, and only now, you think it's too wet? You better be out in a raincoat ready to play. If you break your leg and can't play for 6 months, you better be out there! Too wet to play, indeed!

Of course, I said nothing of the kind. I told him I'd check on the court conditions and get back to him. I reached there, and it was wet, but no wetter than the previous weekend, and he showed up then.

Now realize, this guy was ready to show up at 11. So I figured, he's dressed and ready to head out. I should have known.

IST.

Probably not dressed. Probably attending to hundreds of other things, and taking care of them, and not even ready to roll. So when I say it's OK, he has, I'm sure, not even made a move to leave. He's in the middle of other things, don't you know. I will wait, don't you know? It's all about him and his selfishness, and he won't even bother saying why he might be late, because it's a sign of weakness, or it's something no Indian ever thinks about. You don't apologize for your lateness because it's a trifle, a bother. You are too stressed out about people being late! Enjoy life!

So as it became close to being 30 minutes late, and I had made several calls, I left. Funny that he called 4 minutes later. Clearly, he couldn't have arrived at the court, and then gone back home. It meant he was still home and still hadn't left. So I refused to return his calls all day. I hope he was unable to play with anyone that day.

And you have to do things like this, because otherwise, the guy thinks he can do it again. And, of course, being human nature, he'll probably not learn, and continue to do it, and continue to beg to play. The man can't even convince his own son to play. His son doesn't want to be seen with his dad. So he bullies his friends because he can't bully his family. His family knows how to say no, and he's given up.

Are things likely to change? Most likely not. Lateness is a disease, and the cure too painful for most to swallow.

Change I Want

OK, so we're embroiled in a health care debate (if you can call it that) because health care costs are spiraling out of control and because millions are uninsured. I was going to discuss whether the attacks on Obama racist (indirectly, they are), but instead, I'll talk about the kinds of changes, mundane as they may be, that I'd like to see changed.

First, Internet bandwidth. I don't really download or stream movies, but one can see how nice it'd be if the bandwidth was comparable to say Japan or Korea which reportedly have 10 to 100 times the bandwidth.

Up-to-the moment reporting of how much electricity and gas I'm using. Why does someone have to come and check meters once a month? I want to know how much I spent cooling my apartment today. I want to know how that money is really being spent? Who oversees this anyway?

More intelligent traffic monitoring. Why am I sitting at a red light when there's no one in the crossroad? Why are lights based on very simple information about who is on the road?

Getting groceries easily. I would like to order groceries, and I know I can, but the cost! Is there some better way to do this?

Companies that pay for auto maintenance. Would be nice if an on-site mechanic did routine maintenance so you wouldn't have to worry about taking it to the shop when something breaks down.

Or perhaps better public transportation. I look at the Metro and it makes a stop every stop. Why isn't there an express that stop every 5-10 stops the a smaller train that visits those 10 stops all the time. You'd need twice the trains, but people would get to where they were going faster.

I'm sure I could think of more things, but there are changes that would affect my day-to-day life more, and yet these changes are much slower to come.

The Need for Speed

Perhaps no sport has undergone such a radical change as swimming. For years, the standard outfit for male swimmers was a sliver of fabric that became known as Speedos after the company that manufactured it. Then, about 10 years ago, new suits came out. At first, these suits covered from the waist down. These suits were supposed be more slippery than the Speedos. Times came down.

Then, full body suits came out, and times fell even more. Recently, Michael Phelps did what had been rather unthinkable. He lost. The winner bragged that his suit reduced his time by 2 seconds. Phelps's coach was furious and floated the idea that Phelps would boycott future events. FINA, the governing body of swimming, wanted to ban these full body suits.

The technology is problematic. With athletes getting paid money to sponsor products, a company may fall in the quest for the fastest suit, and it becomes more about the suit and less about the swimmer. To be fair, few complained when these suits caused record after record to fall, and only because it affects Michael Phelps are we hearing a bit of uproar.

But it goes further than that. These suits are expensive, and it is affecting the pocketbooks of would-be swimmers. Parents are having to shell out bucks to pay for their kids swimwear so they can stay competitive.

Although FINA is willing to have the suits go back to the waist-down variety, I think they should all head back to the Speedo days where the material provided only enough for modesty, and the rest was up to the swimmer. Admittedly, companies like Speedo or Arena that have benefited from these pricey suits would suffer, and they are, undoubtedly, the first to object, much as the health industry has sought to protect its own interests under the cloud of a health care reform movement.

This is undoubtedly the reason FINA did not decide to go back to the small trunks swimmers used to use because then, the competing companies would only have fashion to distinguish themselves, and would lack the profits that several hundred dollar suits have vs the sub hundred dollar swim trunks.

But then, the sport would be back to the people who swim rather than the suits they wear.

The Curious Case of Henry Louis Gates, Jr.

This has been in the news. Dr. Henry Louis Gates, Jr., professor at Harvard University found he was unable to open the door to his own home after a lengthy excursion. With assistance, he tried prying the door open. However, someone believed his home was being broken into and called the police. One Sgt. James Crowley came to the scene to see what was going on.

Depending on whose version you listen to, either Gates was fairly calm and this was a rogue cop that didn't like black folk, or Gates was verbally abusive, claiming racism, refusing to cooperate, and the cop, being calm, finally decided he was a nuisance and had him brought downtown.

For most news organizations, this boiled down to African American professor who had made it in lily-white academia being harassed by cops who can't believe there are well-educated black men.

Whatever.

The point, to me, isn't who is right or wrong, but that these two became figureheads, representing the generic. I believe they call this synecdoche.

NPR, to its credit, did something so simple that it puts most news organizations to shame. And the reason it puts it to shame is because most news organizations are really editorial organizations. They peddle opinions, because actual investigation was too much work. NPR wondered "who is this cop" and just found some background information.

It turns out that he has been involved in racial sensitivity training and had a brush with "fame". He was the guy that unsuccessfully tried to resuscitate Reggie Lewis, a Celtics player that died of sudden cardiac arrest, back in 1993.

Much like Rashomon, which does not really postulate that truth is unknowable, but suggests that people bend truth to make themselves look good, there are good reasons for both Gates and Crowley to take their stances, and therefore good reason that both may have bent the truth to make themselves look good. In particular, if Gates had been wailing like a mad-man, he'd ironically reinforce every stereotype that says African Americans have anger issues and believes the man is against him, and therefore, it's best to peg the nameless cop as the crazy guy, and similarly, many a cop has excused their bad behavior by outright lying and claiming they didn't do anything.

The point is, people form opinions, especially news organizations, and use it as a launching pad to all sorts of race relation rhetoric, but little to actually trying to determine the "truth". The truth, of course, may not matter that much, because it is framed in the context of race relations. Were this a quarrel between two unknowns, we wouldn't care, but because it's Gates, and because the opinion doctors quickly put this out for public consumption, it becomes news.

And it's not really even news.

Lazy Reporting

If you have to pick an area of news reporting with the least integrity, what would it be? Sports reporting, for the most part, is pretty good. The biggest problem with sports reporting is the fact that sports reporters are, at the very heart of it, fans of the sports. They are wow'ed by the best players, and like to hob-nob with the celebrity athlete.

The worst news reporting is entertainment news. Where a good sports reporter might get fame for their quality of writing or sports shows, figures like Bob Ryan or Tony Kornheiser or Michael Wilbon, there's hardly any reputable entertainment news reporters. The ones with the best reputations are most likely film critics. Other than that, the majority of them seem like air-headed suck-ups who fear that a critical word would lead to instant denial of access, and thus, instant death in the industry.

At the very least, athletes are generally compelled to talk to reporters. Actors and actresses are under no such obligations.

That leads to the latest Star Trek film. Rather than continue along the Next Generation route, which has lead to several less than memorable films, J. J. Abrams, who created hit TV series, Lost and Alias and directed the third Mission Impossible film and the less than successful, Cloverfield.

In several interviews, he's already pointed out that he's not a huge Star Trek fan, and has taken liberties with the original show. He worked with non-fans of the show as well as huge fans of the show to create a story that would work well for those who loved the series, and those who knew little about Spock and Kirk.

Nearly every report has said that he is "rebooting" the series, that he is reviving a moribund franchise. This has to be sucking up to a major degree. To be fair, the TNG movies have not been very good, partly because they relied on the same creative team that made the series, and that series often succeed where their films do not. The reason is familiarity. You get familiar with the characters, but then they seem more like friends rather than exceptional people, and you see their warts and all, and there's a great degree of history that needs to be respected.

The fact of the matter is the series had done quite well. The original series lead to 6 TOS films and a handful of follow-up TNG films. The TNG films have not done well, and there was a huge gap between the last and penultimate TNG film. However, Star Trek spawned four series, including the original, TNG, DS9, and Enterprise. That's pretty successful. True, there has been no Star Trek series since then, but it's had a pretty good run.

Was the so-called reboot necessary? Well, there's still a built-in audience that likes Star Trek. To recast the original group with younger actors, and to have some other creative talent take over, sure, that can help. Some might argue Star Wars would have been better if the Lucas would let go of the reins and let other directors work in the Star Wars universe.

In any case, entertainment reporting on Star Trek is still lazy, lazy writing.

Still, people are more excited then ever. I didn't care about any of the TNG films, but this one sounds like it's worth watching.

Where's Google Weather?

Weather reporting has only gotten marginally better over the years. The biggest innovation probably occurred 20 years ago when Doppler radar became widely used by meteorologists.

For someone who cares when the rain is, I want to see live and time-lapsed Doppler radar. Problem? I'm forced to use map resolutions I don't control.

Now who has maps that are draggable, zoomable and has innovative folks?

Google.

So where's Google Weather? Add it as an extension to Google Maps. Perhaps it might allow users to enter in weather data, most importantly, rain.

Of course, they could add more to it than that.

For example, with weather prediction, I want to see a time-lapse of how the weather for Thursday (say) has changed as the time approaches Thursday. How often is this data being updated? When did that prediction of sunny weather become rain?

And how far is the prediction for right now differing from now. I'll see predicted temperatures for 40s, when it's currently 48, which means the next few hours should be warmer than that. Shouldn't that be auto-updated?

Seems like the weather guys could do much better.

And they should.

Google Weather

Most weather sites kinda suck. What I want, and it's simply really. Combine Google Maps with a weather overlay. I want zoom-in and zoom-out. I want to know if rain is on the way, etc. I don't even need weather predictions if the cloud cover is right.

Do it Google!

BAFTA Rocks

Sometime recently, right around the election, I imagine, I discovered I had BBCA which is BBC America. It's the BBC repackaged for the US.

Last evening, I watched about a 3 hour telecast of the BAFTAs which are the British equivalent of the Oscars.

Several things to note. Without an intrusive band, the winners of the prize somehow managed to keep their speeches mercifully short. A few thanked a bunch of people, but many chose not to do so. What causes Oscar winners to prattle off name after name? Is it in their contract? No one remembers the names except the people who are named, so why must we, the audience, be subject to this?

The reason the Oscars run so long is because they build up all these other specials in between. Long musical numbers. Long tributes. If they simply handed out the awards, they'd probably get done sooner.

A fair number of Americans show up for the awards. Ron Howard was shown many times. Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie, and best actor winner, Mickey Rourke.

Admittedly, the awards ceremony is what it is. Is it that exciting to see a bunch of people get awards?

Slumdog Millionaire won best director and best picture, and although the main actors were nominated as well (why?), neither won.

US gets its chance soonish, but the affair will be drawn out much longer. Sigh indeed.

Phelps Drama

Even those who don't follow much in the way of sports have heard of Michael Phelps. Can you name another American swimmer that's still active? When the Olympics ran, I could rattle off a few names, but since I haven't thought about them in 5 months, I can't recall any. Except Michael Phelps.

Recently a photo surfaced where Phelps was shown inhaling from a bong, a device, as I understand it, meant to make the inhalation of marijuana more pleasurable. I wouldn't know because I don't think I've ever witnessed its actual use.

Phelps has been in a bit of trouble before. In particular, he had a DUI incident and he apologized for that.

Now there's an issue of whether he should be in trouble for this incident or not. Some say it's youthful indiscrimination. Had he been a politician, it would have been ignored as a bit of youthful folly. Obama admits to it, as does Clinton.

Sports is a pretty conservative institution. They love to celebrate the military, especially in the US. They're supposed to uphold family values including avoiding illegal drugs.

Yet what makes marijuana illegal? Because the government says it is. There's evidence that shows it's illegal because African Americans used it, and the police or the politicians wanted legal ways to put African Americans into jail.

So some reporters are saying it is wrong and chastising Phelps because he is a role model. To the extent that the drug is illegal and his actions may encourage some people to use it, they have some justification to criticize Phelps. However, they could have also used it as a platform to ask, why is marijuana illegal? What is wrong with making it legal?

Why are cigarettes legal? Why is alcohol legal? Are they not harmful? We can't even make it illegal because people are rather addicted to both. Since we already have products out there that are legal yet harmful, it stands to reason that marijuana, considered less harmful than cigarettes and possibly a value to the snack industry should be legal.

Now if Phelps's sponsors want to remove his endorsements because they think he's no longer a role model (unlikely, it appears), then that's fine. Phelps may have to pay for his behavior with reduced income. But consider the numbers of politicians that have failed to pay taxes. Would Phelps be under more scrutiny if he hadn't paid his taxes?

It's time the government thinks about its stance on this issue, and while I doubt this incident will prove the tipping point to the repeal of this law, it would be nice if it were.

Embarrassment

When we think of the panoply of human emotion, hope, fear, anger, sadness, one of the ones that seem really low on the totem pole is embarrassment, but it governs much of human behavior. It's the reason people close the doors on bathrooms, why people wear clothes, why people are reluctant to tell you about their relationships.

Indeed, for the most part, we all know that people have relationships and these relationships often, though not universally, involve sex. Some folks like to be loud and irreverent and will either tell made up details of their sex life or possibly accurate details. Given how important people find it in their lives, it's rather amazing that they feel so embarrassed by it.

Perhaps they think that what they do is too vanilla. They feel it's like a competition. I have to be better at it than my neighbor. I have to do it at least as often as my neighbor. It's almost like raising kids except most people are generally content that they do enough. OK, they might not be as rich as the jet set who can send their kids to private schools, but they're content sending kids to the local public school.

Perhaps they feel they don't do it enough. Some people are simply a lot less horny than others. This can be a result of medication or physiology. It can also be that the couple is simply less interested than they once were with each other.

Perhaps they feel that they are into far more kinky stuff than most people realize. That nice couple? They like to use handcuffs? She likes to be spanked? Oh dear!

The embarrassment is not confined to relationships.

Once upon a time, many high schools, even middle schools, had teenage kids of the same gender take showers with one another. I suspect this was due to the military. The military probably thought people should be in good athletic shape just in case they need to serve in the army. For cost cutting measures, they had very simple setups for showering facilities. Since the army used to be all-male and males were supposed to be OK seeing their buddies in the buff, there was no arrangement made to create separate stalls to, yes, avoid embarrassment.

At some point, towards the late 80s, parents started getting scared. I don't want little Tommy to see my little Bobby in a shower. I don't want Sandra to see Holly without clothes. We're encouraging potential homosexual behavior!

The funny thing is that athletes, who are considered the most masculine (or feminine) the toughest and often a bit homophobic, were still required, as part of their sport to shower in groups. Athletes got used to the idea. But the shy nerd became fairly paranoid at the idea. I don't want that person to see me.

Of course, there's not a particularly strong reason why this embarrassment should be except we are taught this when we are young. Most kids don't understand why they need to be embarrassed, but over years of being told to cover up, they start to feel that they don't want others to notice them, and this is even the case if they are particularly well-endowed or have large bosoms or generally shapely figures.

It's perhaps resulted in something that is particularly odd, which is an outgrowth of this embarrassment but has little to do with it.

The jock culture.

I know a few folks that don't do anything particularly athletic. They prefer video games. They prefer anime. They prefer more sedentary activities. In their minds, participating in athletics means agreeing with jocks that thought they could bully other kids, who traded intelligence for athletic skill, and who felt that those that weren't athletic were unworthy.

This ignores the fact that many of the athletes that fit into this category fell into two sports: football and basketball. Those in track and field, those in soccer, were probably a lot less likely to engage in this jock culture machismo. I could be wrong though since I never experienced the jock culture.

Remember the kids who went on a killing spree in Columbine? One reason were the jocks at the school. The flip side of the jock culture was the fact that women, or young girls really, seemed to prefer the self-confident athletes rather than the neurotic geek who seemed awkward when hanging out with women.

Even if athletics have benefits, being healthy, being strong, learning to make your body do what you want it to do, excelling at something different from the mind, many shun athletics because of these jocks.

I was recently at our tiny little gym at work, and the guy felt a bit of discomfort being there. He didn't want to lift weights. No, that seems wrong. But why?

Except I was in that same boat. I felt that the weights were something that muscle boys did, the Arnold wannabes, who wore skimpy bikini thongs, and were greased like a maypole, nary a hair to be seen on chest or legs. This was not who I visualized myself.

That view was silly too. I don't think of myself at a bodybuilder or a powerlifter, but I do lift weights to work out. Not as often as I used to, but nevertheless.

I know people who went to the gym, but otherwise, avoided the lockers. They'd put on their gym clothes prior to arriving at the gym and headed home to shower because they both didn't want to see and didn't want to be seen. Embarrassment. Logic should say that this attitude doesn't make sense, but embarrassment is not logic. It is a learned behavior. It is shame. It is lack of comfort. And it seems like it shouldn't be the case. Already people have poor self images, and this simply exacerbates it further.

If you can get beyond embarrassment then you can worry about more important things.

Exit Stage Right

Back in the Clinton days, there was a surge in conservative, neocon media. This came primarily from two sources: Fox News and Rush Limbaugh. Basically, they became full time apologists for Republican misdeeds and full time attack dogs against Democrats. What they discovered, ironically, is something very Soviet. Propaganda.

Remember when Americans would criticize the Soviet press for giving a one-sided account of everything. They would rewrite history so it better suited the leadership. They pointed at the freedoms of the press, the right to elect more than one candidate. This was used to foster a hate of the Soviet Union. At the very least, it was helpful that the average Soviet citizen, or at least the average Muscovite is so intensely cynical, that they understood what BS was being fed to them.

Somehow, it occurred to folks that these same propaganda techniques that were used then could be used in the US. Who woulda thunk?

And since then, the level of news discourse has been dragged downhill. Edward Murrow would be horrified. As a man who brought integrity to news, who questioned the McCarthy witchhunts, he brought a new medium to the public and gave it credibility. He'd likely wince at both what's happened to news, especially the tabloidization of news, but worse, the conservative media echo chamber which takes everything out of context, and spews it to the public because enough of the public would rather hear stuff than verify any of it is true. Is it surprising that the last two Democratic candidate for President (Kerry and Obama) were the "most liberal" in all the Senate. Funny how that always happens.

It's like there's a Mad Libs of conservative tactics, and they fill in the name of the current candidate and attack them. So and so is a liberal, weak on defense, a socialist, wants to raise your taxes, wants to takes your guns, etc.

This has caused politics to devolve into the way it is now. I was listening to some PBS television special called The Conservatives, which, by the way, is incredibly difficult to search for. There should be some way that I can search for all programs PBS has aired in the last few months. It's sad how much keyword searching dominates search so I can't locate this piece of information.

During this interview, they talked to a moderate Republican senator or congresswoman or some such. OK, I finally found it, partly because PBS has it titled as something different. It's called: 2008: A Republican Reinvention and the person was Christine Todd Whitman, former Republican governor of New Jersey.

In the interview, Whitman says the party was so concerned about getting elected that they found hot button issues to talk about, usually abortion and gay marriage. The purpose was to use these topics to draw out the vote. Whitman points out that these topics, while highly emotional, are rather distant for most Americans, as many are not involved in gay marriage or having abortions. She feels the Republican party needs to address issues of concern to the average American.

The one thing that's changed in this election cycle is the growing response from the left, though they spend most of their time pointing out errors from the right. The right spews propaganda, and the left finds way to deflate it.

Oddly enough, the first place to do this with any serious effect was The Daily Show. Jon Stewart is a very intelligent guy. His staff would find how Republicans used talking points issued to anyone talking to the media, to create an echo chamber, where phrases are uttered and repeated, to control the media. Essentially, the equivalent of Soviet style media without the Soviet control of the media. Why are such talking points necessary? Why are the exact phrases needed to be uttered by every individual representing the party?

Except no one much noticed for a while, until Stewart's team made fun of it. He also made fun of politicians saying one thing a few months ago, then saying something completely the opposite now. We all know politicians lie, but wow, the amazing lengths at which they go to lying. And the funny thing? The people who listen? They'll tell you they are honest folks. And when you point out that these Republicans have changed their stories, their suspension of disbelief is beyond belief. They simply treat it as conspiracy, and won't listen to obvious evidence placed in front of them.

In particular, many conservatives complained about sexism in the attacks of Palin, but were perfectly willing to criticize Hillary. Rove praised Palin's experience as mayor and governor, while denigrating a potential VP pick for Obama, governor Tim Kaine of Virginia, who has been governor more years than Palin, and mayor of a larger city (Richmond) than Palin. The hypocrisy of this was unbelievable, as was Fox News's reporting of this.

After Stewart, came Stephen Colbert who produced a faux conservative TV show, The Colbert Report. Again, the point was to point out the follies of Republicans.

It's not that there weren't attempts to combat Rush Limbaugh. Democrats trotted out Air America to compete. It was that the competition was as painful to listen to as the conservative version. The humor in The Daily Show offers a sophistication that is completely missing from conservative diatribes. This appeals to the snobby, elitist, but well-educated Democrats.

However, shows are now popping up that provide a left leaning contrast, though, for the most part, they are more palatable than the conservative ones because they spend most of the time debunking Republican tactics, rather than spewing invented crap. These shows are Countdown with Keith Olbermann, who also criticized Hillary, by the way, so he's not completely flag-waving for Democrats and The Rachel Maddow Show, which has elevated in popularity immensely due to her charms and insights. Indeed, though it's well known she's a lesbian, she's so good at what she does, people don't think about it much, and thinks about what she says.

To be fair, these shows serve a purpose that is sad. They are there to harness the power of the Internet, and point out all sorts of inconsistencies from conservative media sources. Although the Internet also provides this resource, it's so much less pervasive than television. This allows people who read about "palling around with William Ayers" to find McCain "palled around" with Gordon Liddy, and it was David Letterman who pointed this out!

Ultimately, one hopes that this kind of silly "make-up" stuff will leave politics altogether, but the only way it happens is if people read up on stuff, instead of letting folks tell them the truth.

Indeed, with the recent gay marriage California proposition, people spewed out how marriage has been a certain way forever. They did no research on this. They just felt it must be so because they see evidence around them, from their own marriages, to their parents, to their grandparents. Marriages were often arranged. Certain marriages were once illegal (blacks and whites). Polygamy has been seen as OK by certain religions. Again, the pure lack of research based on the "obviousness" that this is the way it's always been is the kind of political naivete that this country doesn't need.

The problem? It's hard to educate people to think. School is a many year process, and certain religious groups would be happy if you never learned to think because eventually you may question the religious underpinnings. A film was made called Idiocracy where a guy who isn't particularly bright eventually finds himself in the future and realizes he's the smartest guy around, because everyone else has become idiots.

One can only hope, and really that's all it is, because the US population is still mostly the way it was a few years ago, that change is coming to the populace, that is tired of such inane politics and tired of being lied to by people who find it's more important to win campaigns (and then accuse others of "doing anything to win" when they are more guilty of it themselves) than to help Americans.

I think history will eventually point to this era and wonder how such a thing could even happen, how we could find people that would lie and distort because the public would believe anything they said. That time can come none too soon, and we can replace this folly with something resembling rational thought.

What Defines Marriage?

I wasn't thinking about writing on this topic, but here it goes anyway. Current voting in California has Proposition 8 passing, due in large part to African Americans supporting the proposition, at a clip of 70 for to 30 against despite numbers exceeding 90 percent support for Obama. While Obama was not in favor of Proposition 8, he certainly didn't want to create negative ripples by committing to heavily to this. I doubt he made commercials supporting the defeat of Proposition 8.

Someone made the argument that marriage is between a man and a woman. Now, what was this argument based on? Judeo-Christian definitions? Is marriage a sacred institution?

Let's try this thought experiment. If a man and woman are married in a Hindu ceremony, would you consider their marriage valid? Most people would, right? Yet, Hinduism is quite different from Judeo-Christian tradition. People like to point to the US as a kind of Christian nation despite the fact that the founding fathers were interested in separation of church and state. Freedom of religion should also be freedom from religion.

People like to point to religious institutions as a kind of backing to marriage, and that religious institutions generally, though not exclusively, prefer to define marriage as between a man and a woman. This religious backing creates the weight of authority.

However, it's the legal form of marriage that carries weight because that's what allows spouses to have visitation rights, to have property rights, and so on and so forth. Some people call this legal form a "civil union". People have argued for removing marriage from legal usage so that, as far as legal institutions are concerned, civil unions are what's important.

The thinking is that when you say two people are married, then their marriage is given the sanctity of some religion. However, there are religions, even in the traditional Judeo-Christian structure, perhaps especially in such traditions, that permit multiple wives. Both Muslims and Mormons allow polygamy, though multiple wives is fairly uncommon among Muslims and mainstream Mormons have long since abandoned polygamy so they could be taken more seriously by mainstream Christians.

Consider atheists. Should a male and female atheists be allowed to marry? That their marriage conforms to what religion considers valid marriage should be inconsequential. Is there marriage being given the equivalent force of religion despite the couple not believing in religion? Most people would not have a problem with atheists getting married and would not nullify their marriage.

The religious form of marriage often has a legal counterpart. Thus, Christians who don't favor polygamy, have made polygamy illegal, despite, say, certain conservative Mormons who think it's their right to have plural wives. There is a great irony that Mormons have closed off one form of marriage (same-sex marriage) which would affect more conservative Mormons.

It just so happens that most religious traditions happen to only permit a single man and a single woman to get married, but just because a couple gets married doesn't mean that some religion has permitted this to happen.

Many years ago, many states had anti-miscegenation laws which basically said couples of different races couldn't marry. This was mostly due to the fact that white Americans saw African Americans as something less than human, and that mixing black and white blood would lead to impurities in the white race. Religious figures could find justification of these laws through some passage in the Bible.

At some point, the government said this was wrong, and no such law would be allowed. These days, most people no longer consider mixed marriages a problem and certainly not enough to make the marriages null and void.

So why the change in attitude? Did the Bible change between then and now? What happened, quite simply, was that people had some irrational dislike of interracial marriages, and found some justification that made their prejudices have the weight of religion. And yet, once the laws disappeared and people got used to the idea, the thought of mixed marriages being "wrong" is seen as folly. How did we ever think like that?

I would argue that in those days, people would say such interracial marriages brought down the institution of marriage, which was a polite way of saying they disapproved of such marriages taking place.

There are already gay marriages taking place now. Do people feel like this has made their marriage less worthy?

Finally, people talk about marriage as something sacred. It's something two people get together because of religion. If that's the case, why allow divorce? Divorce is an insult to the marital institution. Despite many Christians finding the notion of arranged marriages absurd, the fact of the matter is most Indian marriages do not end in divorce. If the couple doesn't get along, they still don't get divorced. Bollywood marriages, unlike their Hollywood counterparts, generally do last, and for decades. Hollywood marriages, one could easily argue, made it acceptable for people who feel unhappy in a marriage to split up.

And yet, no one much seems to say divorce should not happen. And how many single family households are there where the mother and father never got married before the woman had a child? Should that be illegal? Should the mother have rights? No one seems to question she should despite the lack of a marriage.

The reason no one cares is that heterosexuals get divorced (at least in the US) all the time and to take this right away, despite the way it reduces the sanctity of marriage, would be unthinkable. People want the option to opt out of marriage if they can.

Ultimately, while people claim gay marriage is something most religious traditions are against, there are so many attacks on marriage that happen in normal heterosexual relations that those should be considered illegal too. The fact of the matter is that many conservatives are uncomfortable with gays in general and find some convenient religious excuse to explain why gays can not marry even as they allow atheists to marry, even as they allow married couples to divorce, people to have affairs without legal punishment.

And really, these propositions are out there anyway mostly to get a certain kind of voter to come out and vote, one who doesn't fully understand all the details, and one who is likely to vote for one party over another. At least, that's how it worked in 2004. It turns out, however, in California, the Democrats were just as guilty of this because of religious conservatism.

It's not the religious sanctity that needs to be observed, but the legal one. Whether it be called civil unions or marriage, the legal form should be allowed.

The issue of gay marriage is somewhat odd because a few years ago, most people would tell you it wasn't even on the radar (or gaydar as the case may be) of gay political activists who felt that gay marriage was so far from being socially acceptable that it wasn't worth the fight. It was only because some conservatives made it a big deal that it got a big push.

Indeed, it's as far as it is now because of that push.

But here's the kicker as far as gay marriage is concerned. Too many people still see homosexuality as something that is a choice. Yet, how many people have willingly chosen to be gay. Has the percentage gone way up? If it was so "easy" to recruit, why aren't there far more gays now?

The percentage of gays is somewhere between 5 and 10 percent, possibly smaller. With regular marriages that are maybe 10 to 20 times more common, how exactly does gay marriage affect heterosexual marriage? Indeed, if it were allowed, would it not make people more accepting of others. People hate for no good reason, and yet, this is giving the weight of law to hate more.

The irony is that there are African Americans (and Latinos and Asians) who say "we're born black" and won't believe people are born gay because it's not hereditary with 100% certainty (and really, Obama is half-white, by that measure, and really didn't go through the traditional African American experience).

People who voted for Prop 8 thought there would be certain consequences or they certainly disliked the idea, and the irony is that the same prejudices often befell them, showing that being a victim of prejudice doesn't make you any more enlightened.

Indeed, this creates interesting issues for someone like Obama. Liberals generally believe in the ability of people to do good for one another while conservatives generally believe more in survival of the fittest at least when it comes to making money and the right to discriminate, the right to impose religious values on others because people are sinful and need the weight of law to make them more like us. Indeed, conservatism is often about making others more like us, while liberals take the more challenging path of accepting people, for the most part, as themselves.

I think the key to changing views is more education. Religion seems to be against education because the goal of education, effectively, is to question authority, or to merely question. Galileo faced the wrath of the religious mighty because he dared question their view of the universe. Religion seems to say it's perfectly OK not knowing much, because it leaves the leaders in charge, and the masses pacified. Once people begin to ask "why should things be this way", they begin to make more informed choices.

And this is why, it seems, that with education, with questioning authority, we'll eventually come to see this period as a time of folly when people found reasons to hate others and dress it up in a gown of religious authority to make themselves feel better about their decisions.

The Dumbing Down of American Politics

Sean Penn recently complained that both Democrats and Republicans are playing politics (duh!) and that America deserves better than either party. Or something to that effect.

There are a bunch of reasons for this, but there are two reasons: first, many Americans simply don't care about politics. It's all about politicians trying to look good, make their opponent look bad, and spend money for special interests. Yes, everyone does that. When folks worry about the latest football, basketball, baseball game, trying to pay rent, dealing with their job, paying for gas, then these issues matter to them very little. It's homework for most people to even know what politicians do.

Thus, we get simplified politics. And in the world of simplified politics (sorry to hear the passing of Don LaFontaine, who did that voice, though he wasn't the original one that Jerry Seinfeld used in his trailer), the idea is to treat political parties like sports teams. It's even worse than the worst rivalries you can imagine.

Red Sox-Yankees, Redskins-Cowboys, Duke-UNC, Michigan-Ohio State? Nothing compares to Democrats-Republicans.

I have to say I'm not immune to this. I find Sarah Palin's voice like listening to nails on chalkboard. The Republicans have a simple strategy which is to sling mud and then make up credentials. They criticize Governor Tim Kaine for a lack of experience, being a mayor of a tiny city, then turn around and say Palin with even less experience, being even mayor of a smaller town is not qualified.

Here's the funny thing. Republican talking heads know they are doing this, and they do it because they think Americans are stupid. And you know what? It doesn't matter. Because people have picked teams, and they can't stand the other team. How much loyalty is that?

You can literally point to places where Republicans say one thing when it's a Democrat and another when it's a Republican. Worse still, these points are handed out to Republicans to say everywhere so everyone stays on the same message as if this thought were somehow original. Jon Stewart continuously points this out, but brand loyalty is hard to squash.

Machiavelli once said it is better to be feared than to be loved. The corollary is that it is better to hate your opponent than to love your friend. Hate transcends love always.

Democrats have taken to similar strategies, but have avoided really heavy hitting stuff. They don't criticize McCain's leaning on his POW past, his involvement in the Keating Five, his soundbite of drill for oil to turn around his campaign, his cheating on his first wife, his embrace of Bush even as Bush insinuated McCain had fathered an illegitimate child in their 2000 run for presidency.

Obama has tried to claim the high ground. He argued that removing the gas tax in the summer (of 17 cents) was silly, that drilling was silly. It is! But Americans think there are easy solutions everywhere. Drill more and our problems are solved. And Republicans look for strategies to win. They accuse Democrats of this, but they are far more interested in winning.

They've done it in a variety of ways, the most common being trying to make Democrats look wimpy. Republicans like to feel tough and independent (despite being poor). The other factor is religion. Although Jimmy Carter was the first evangelical to run for President, he was an anomaly by being both smart and Democrat (by smart, I mean he has an advanced degree; his political savvy wasn't so good).

You can blame Bush for this kind of strategy. Bush trotted out the Willie Horton ad. Bush, Jr. merely followed the same tactics (remember Swift Boats).

The thing is many a Democrat would love to sling back, hitting hard on Republicans, except what works on the average Republican voter doesn't work on the average Democratic voter (is there such a thing?).

And that it has come down to this kind of petty bickering is because the level of discourse has been dragged down by Fox News, the Republicans, etc. And it's been dragged down because it works.

As Ron Paul tries to run an alternate convention, no one much covers it because it would give credibility to some other viewpoint. Rather than create a democracy of ideas, we are given the autocratic two-party system with one sides fighting dirty as they've done time and again.

Even Democrats rail against their own, vilifying Nancy Pelosi for lacking the will to stop the war, giving Bush whatever he wants in the hopes that the elections will swing Democrat and maybe she can do some of the things she actually promised.

We deserve better, but it ain't coming any time soon.

More Matthew Mitcham

I've read some comments about Matthew Mitcham's gold medal. There's been complaints that NBC did not choose to mention Mitcham's orientation in the broadcast. They did say that he had quit diving for a while due to depression.

Many people say what does his sexual orientation have to do with his diving as justification for not mentioning it. However, it seems obvious many things are mentioned that have very little to do with athletic prowess. The most obvious, and it's obvious it's simply organized this way, is the nationality of the athlete. Does Bolt being Jamaican have anything to do with his running? What about Phelps being American? Or that he's from Baltimore? Or that his mother is divorced? Or that he had ADD as a kid?

To be fair, Mitcham may not have been the favorite, but there's one undeniable fact. With over 11,000 athletes, he was the only out male, and one of ten gay athletes (the rest were women). Statistics would say that there are far more gay athletes competing in the Olympics, and yet no one is willing to admit it out of fear, either fear because their home country is too repressive, or at the very least, fear that they will lose endorsement money.

This is still a real fact of life. Martina Navratilova, perhaps the most famous of gay athletes, had a tough time getting endorsements after she admitted she was gay. Greg Louganis, who only came out after he retired, had similar issues, especially considering how decorated he was as a diver.

It might be fair to point out that Mitcham is Australian, and had he been American, there would have been more press about it. I suspect that is true indeed. Then, he would have announced he was out in the US. I think it was occasionally mentioned that Rudy Galindo was an out gay male figure skater.

It's funny because I suspect people think that one of David Boudia or Thomas Finchum or both American divers were gay, but again, they've never mentioned it.

The point is that people try to trivialize these matters saying it has nothing to do with athletics, but if that's the case, then why bother talking about girlfriends and spouses during the Olympics? What do they have to do with anything? They have to do with the emotional support of the athlete.

Mitcham credits many people with helping him get through a difficult time in his life, including his partner, Lachlan Fletcher. They needed sponsors to help fly both his mother (his mum) and his partner out to the Olympics, and they needed to get him there as an assistant of sorts. At the very least, it was mentioned in Australian press, so rare it is for a diver to get gold in Australia.

Indeed, Mitcham's past is fascinating outside his orientation. In particular, he used to be compete in trampoline before he was apparently discovered by an Australian diving coach of Chinese origin. (Coincidentally, trampoline is now an Olympic event). Matthew competed in both as a teen before focusing on diving.

There was a focus on Usain Bolt from Jamaica. However, the 100m and 200m is something Americans have traditionally done well and so there's interest in watching a Jamaican do well. The kind of exuberance that Bolt showed is not so different from what an American might do either, and with plenty of Jamaicans living in the US, it's perhaps not surprising that Americans might adopt Bolt as one of their own.

Contrast this with the Kenyan and the Ethiopian and Moroccan trying to win the marathon. The marathon is not typically filled with name American athletes, who often fare poorly at the longer distances. Americans, even African Americans, don't relate well to Africans from Africa, probably imagining them to be some weird running freak that speaks in clicks. Usain, on the other hand, seems like a nice T.O., a bit of a showboat.

This goes to show that a guy like Mitcham can be appreciated, given how much time NBC spent on Boudia and Finchum who both had relatively poor Olympics for the Americans. However, to celebrate Mitcham too much would be to delve into topics that NBC didn't feel comfortable dealing with.

And so it's sad that they had to ignore something and that there are people who back this decision up.

Mitcham's orientation was worth mentioning because so few other athletes would step up and do the same, and to at least acknowledge this would go a little way to saying that this social problem should be a thing of the past.

Matthew Mitcham wins gold

OK, so someone is going to win gold, right? Why pick Matthew Mitcham. He's not American. He's Australian.

The world of athletics, despite the closeness of competitors, is still rather homophobic. Out of the 11,028 competitors only 10 are out, and of those, only 1 is male. That male, as you might have guessed, is Matthew Mitcham.

There has been, for example, no out active male basketball, football, or baseball player. There are no out male tennis players that I know of. There have been several women: Martina Navratilova, Billie Jean King, Conchita Martinez, Gigi Fernandez, and Amelie Mauresmo. Still, there are likely many others that haven't come out.

Most people are scared of what happens to their advertising opportunities if they come out.

Although this is likely not to make huge news, the way Michael Phelps made news, the way Usain Bolt made news, the way the "Redeem Team" made news, such a trait, so incidental to the competition, but so fundamental to who Mitcham is should serve notice that it's OK to be out.

The Olympics claims to be the ideal of competition, but it should also allow competitors the freedom to be who they are too.

Why Team Sports Are More Popular

The top sports in the US are football, basketball, and baseball. Why are team sports so popular? And I mean popular among sports pundits, who devote hours to talking sports.

Here's a recent example. Brett Favre was the disgruntled football player from Green Bay. Each year, he'd ponder whether he'd come back or not. He'd string the media and his team long. Most years, he came back and played yet another year. Why did people care?

Because people stay loyal to teams, not to the people on the team. When Brett Favre is wearing your uniform, he's your guy, supporting your city or supporting you because you chose that team, as many people liked the Bulls because Michael Jordan played on the Bulls.

Team sports aren't simply more popular because there are lots of players thus increasing the number of people to talk about, but because there's a relationship between the team, the coaches, and even management. Players can be picked to play on a team or not, so someone is making a decision. You can ask if that decision is wise or not.

You can debate whether a player is good in the clutch or not, whether he played a poor shot at a crucial moment, whether he's selfish, whether he's the best ever, whether he can beat your team or not. People often debate whether coaches should have total control over the team or not. Joe Torre wanted Manny Ramirez to cut his hair. It's amazing that baseball controls its players to this degree that they worry about their haircuts, but they do, and the funny thing is, most sports pundits say that's OK.

Indeed, many fans believe that coaches should have absolute power, and so do many sports pundits. Coaches, outside of Isiah Thomas, are often seen as the braintrust, and must reign in the team. If a player is not following rules, he's seen as a prima donna, someone disrupting the team, and told to shut up. Great players are told to toe the line because it's good for the team. They are cogs in a great machine and should be dispensed if they act up, act individually.

Indeed, sports commentators spend hours talking about misbehaving players and the effect all their own talk has on the team's psyche. It might have no effect if they didn't blah blah blah about it. Is Terrell Owens behavior hurting the team? Well, if the media didn't cover him, he would have no medium to pander to, and then he wouldn't have anything to say. But the sports pundits have to talk about something, so they love TO, or they love to hate him.

Individual sports?

Individual sports are personality based. Tiger Woods doesn't play for a team. He plays for himself. People watch because he's so good. The only personality I can recall that got attention for stuff outside the sport is Mike Tyson, whose jail time, ear biting, tattoo wearing all lead to a lot of coverage of Tyson's life outside of boxing.

As good as Tiger Woods is, the problem is that people have a hard time talking about him full time. They can say how great he is, and they do that a lot, but he doesn't get the kind of attention Brett Favre does because he doesn't play for a team. There isn't player-team dynamics. The closest equivalent might be to play for something like Ryder Cup, but because the average sports fan only cares about regular titles, even as prestigious an event as the Ryder Cup pales by comparison to the big individual events.

I suppose pundits could opine about how Tiger should play Ryder Cup (he does). The closest whining that goes on, and it goes on all the time, is Michelle Wie playing the women's tour. However, it leads invariably to the same comments again and again. Beat other women. Stop playing against men. It's a gimmick, and you aren't beating anyone this way. But people still talk about her.

Roger Federer, on track to being the best player ever has been derailed by himself and the Nadal machine, and heck, even Rafael Nadal are two players most people don't even know. Find a sports show and ask them to spend an hour talking about Rafa, and they're stuck. They can say how great he is, but that lasts five minutes.

Another thing that helps team sports in the US is a post-season. Other places in the world don't have a great notion of post-season. So if you can't talk about a player, you can talk about how a particular team will do, and whether they will make the post-season, and people will talk about who is going to make it.

The discussion for tennis is "Nadal is likely to win the US Open, with Djokovic and Murray as outside chances, and Federer, del Potro, and Blake as even further outside choices". That might be it, and that's if you even follow tennis. When it comes to actual team play, you can finally talk about all its players, whether this player being injured matters, how they can do when certain players are slumping or injured, how a returning player will help the team or not.

Now, there are things that resemble team sports but are effectively not team sports. Namely, cycling. For all the talk about Lance Armstrong and his seven wins, the fact of the matter is that cycling is a team sport, but it's the most individual of team sports. In effect, the rest of the team serves as a huge windshield and do various duties to fend off other teams attacks.

They are the offensive line to the main cyclist's quarterback which is why, as important as the offensive line is to a quarterback's success, they don't do enough to make their play interesting enough to talk about.

Indeed, in football, there's only a handful of player positions people talk about. Quarterback, running back, wide receiver, and occasionally a cornerback or some defensive player and the kicker. The offensive line, the punter, etc. don't get much talk.

So these are kinds of questions you can debate with team sports. How's the team doing? Are there players that they should get to replace the ones now? How are the star players playing? Is there an injury? How good is the strategy by the coach? Is some player acting up, trying to act defiant? Is some player going to retire? what's the chances of making the post-season? Can team X beat team Y? Is player X the best player ever? Is this team the best ever? Are the new rules affecting the sports adversely? Is the new owner too meddlesome? Is the new coach the answer to the team's problems? How well are they adjusting to this new player joining the team?

In other sports? You can't ask nearly this many questions. There isn't the same season long drama. Tennis and golf are one-off tournaments and are completely optional to players. If some player doesn't want to play a tournament, they don't have to. Team sports force players to play a schedule and there's question whether they should play hurt or not. In sports like golf or tennis, you can simply rest and not play, even if, in theory, you can play. In team sports, you are told you need to play, even if hurt, and then there's discussion about how tough you are to play with injury.

This is why it's hard for individual sports to be discussed. There's just less to talk about overall. Teams also tend to moderate any one great player where individual sports often have dominating individual players. In a team sport, you can often have seemingly weak teams do enough to create a huge upset.

It's sad but true.

Finding Phelps

You know what it's incredibly hard to do? You'd think with all the fuss NBC makes about Phelps they might actually put it up on their website. When Michael Phelps swims.

I want to know when the heats are, when the semifinals are, and when it's on TV.

Oh I know. NBC would prefer I sit in front of the television waiting all day to find when it is rather than tell me exactly when I should watch. It's sad, but true.

But you would think it would be so easy to do this. I have found a site, but it suggests that the heat I saw televised at noon was not live, which is fine. It doesn't have to be live.

One of these days, some site is going to figure it out, and let you know exactly when your favorite athlete is on, and then get that to you. In the meanwhile, we have to deal with this mess.

Which, by the way, a ton of sites that spew spam and such are perfectly willing to hijack whenever you try to locate the schedule of when Michael Phelps swims.

Stop being idiots and do the right thing.

Staying on Message

The American electorate has been criticized for not always being that bright. For example, recently, pundits have accused Obama as being light on substance. Sure, he's got rhetoric, the grand speeches, but what more does he have after that.

This is what the spin doctors rely on.

You are frickin' lazy.

Do you know why the major networks only ever cover 3-4 candidates during the primaries? Because even if 10 candidates are running, they know that you won't spend 5 minutes figuring out who is who. You want the media to winnow out the less important candidates, and they want to oblige you, because they know you're not patient enough to do your own research.

Now, sometimes there is a groundswell of support for a candidate, like Ron Paul, who otherwise doesn't register a blip on the collective conscience. The web savvy, which probably number less than a percent of the public, think that Ron Paul produced an honest difference from all the George Bush wannabes. And he did. But the media is still the way this information is disseminated. Even Fox, the Republican apologist attack dog channel, wouldn't touch Paul, because his libertarian leanings, despite being praised by Reagan, was not neocon, and Fox is neocon.

It's amusing, indeed, how the modern Republican party bears the imprint of Bush, and that's Bush, Sr., more than Ronald Reagan, yet, hail Reagan as the conservative who could do no wrong.

But I digress.

The point is that Obama has recently been accused of lacking substance, and the echo chamber of America may or may not let this meme persist and have an impact on voting. Note that when people say this, they don't mention whether McCain is a man with big ideas, whether he has substance or not. After all, it's always been about attacking your opponent, and the Republicans are better at it, meaning more ruthless, more willing to send any kind of innuendo. The Democrats aren't ready to stoop so low to paint McCain in a negative light.

Perhaps they could simply mention that all those Republican faithful rejected McCain back in 2000, preferring Bush by a whopping majority. Maybe they can trot out the Bush campaign book on how to defeat McCain. Heck, it can be done by innuendo. Bush said this about McCain. The idea is to rattle the opinion of the Bush faithful, that they shouldn't trust McCain.

There is, alas, a sense that elections are like sporting events, something one wins. Not wins by lofty means showing the capability to lead, but by casting doubt about the opponent. This has, as recent history shows, always been more effective.

When Kerry ran against Bush, there were a few factors in Bush's favor. One, the label of flip-flopper seemed to stick to Kerry, and it made some voters nervous. Second, and perhaps more importantly, there was a huge grassroots campaign built around gay marriage. Conservatives who were traditionally not voting were convinced if they failed to vote, that gay marriage would become the norm. Such folks, who claim they treasure Jesus and love, found themselves scared that the world would collapse if they failed to take action on something that was, for the most part, illegal in the states that brought it up.

In essence, they were voting to say the law is correct. And while they were at it, they voted for Bush.

Ultimately, we get this kind of mess because the average citizen finds it too time-consuming to find out what these candidates stand for. They let TV programs let them decide, and repeat innuendos which they've never verified.

Recently, McCain made a gaffe on the timeline of the surge. He claimed that the surge produced something called the Anbar Awakening (also called the Sunni Awakening), when the order was reversed. This kind of gaffe shows McCain's confusion about what's going on in Iraq.

That could be seen as serious, maybe on par with Ford saying there was no Communist influence over Poland during a debate with Jimmy Carter in 1976.

But, here's the issue. The average American knows almost nothing about Iraq. Here's the few things they know. Troops are there. People are being killed. There's something about a surge. They have no idea what is going on there. Why is there fighting? They presume that it's just a bunch of terrorists (even though Bush has claimed they have freedom now). Maybe they know about Abu Gharib, the prisoners at Guantanmo, or some such.

Their knowledge of Iraq is often paltry. Keeping up with what's going on is unimportant because it's complex and hard to follow. What's Sunni? What's Shiite? Doesn't make sense.

So if McCain got the timeline wrong, no one will care, because they don't follow the timeline either! Now, maybe if you can impress on the public that this is like a military leader not knowing who their friends and enemies are, not knowing where the troops are located, then it would seem like something people could follow!

If, on the other hand, Americans were devoting a decent chunk of time trying to keep up, then maybe such gaffes would be considered disastrous. But they are more likely to care about who wins American Idol than the progress of some war they don't have to worry about on a day-to-day basis. If it happens over there, then it's out of sight, and out of mind.

Many a political science major laments how little Americans care about politics. It's actually lead to a fair bit of stability. How often do you see Americans really protest about anything? The more they care about sports and trivia, the less they question the government's action, the more the government does what it does.

And that's a sad state of affairs.