Baseballet

Sometimes I think baseball is like ballet. I see as much grace in a solid pitch or a good hit as I do in exercises at the barre or a pirouette.

Maybe it's because baseball is slow enough that you can see the form-- you can see the buildup to the pitch, the time players take to prepare their stance or wind up a swing. Regardless, it's beautiful.

Play ball.

Real politics

I spent last night at a party that was really fun... until the politics conversation started. The party attendees were a group of people who are essentially united by their extremely liberal political beliefs, and I was there was because of a "friend of a friend" situation. But don't get me wrong: these people are pleasant to hang out with.

Alas, their political beliefs make me feel physically sick.

Here are people who are 18, 20, 25 years old, who have a view of the world that is so completely one-sided that they sound like liberal Rush Limbaughs. Listening to them breaks my heart.

"I was friends with a girl whose dad was an anti-union lawyer. I went over to her house sometimes, and her dad acted, like, nice. Like, a normal person. It was the weirdest thing."

"It's not that rich people are mean. Rich people don't have much to be angry about. But I despise what they stand for, so all rich people are evil."

"All scabs are class traitors. They do not deserve any sympathy."

There is no allowance for perspective here. There is no acknowledgement that cold or hungry children might sometimes trump idealism. There is no grace. Most significantly, there is no equality of rights: no "innocent until proven guilty," no "life, liberty, property." As one of my more moderate friends framed it: "The labor movement is not a movement for equality. It is a movement of and for strictly the middle class."

What I find ironic is that it seems to be a movement based on entitlement. I didn't realize the middle class was established enough to feel entitled to so much. Aren't we still painfully aware of the lower classes from whence we came? Aren't we still very conscious of the ethical characteristics that set us apart from the wealthy class that we have traditionally described as lascivious, prodigal, and morally bankrupt? The middle class is based on ideals of equality and morality. It has grown from poverty, into which it does not want to return, and has created a system of morals that frames material wealth as something that, ultimately, is not to be desired.

Apparently, according to these pro-labor liberals, the middle class is actually a white-supremacist Oreo, disdaining-- violently hating-- both those below and those above. (Forgive the bizarre metaphor-- but the attitude is just as bizarre as the metaphor, so I'm going to let it stand.)

I'm sure someone will identify this as a very important case of "othering," but I think that word is too made-up to be taken seriously, so I won't go there. In fact, I don't think I have the patience or inclination to go into any greater/deeper/more theoretical discussion.

But I will say this: my parents are business owners. They are capitalists. They are not evil. They feel pain. They strive for good things. They support things they believe in: their community, their families, their friends. And they once told me a story that I think has a lot to do with the hypocrisy of an anti-capitalist middle class movement.

My parents were re-evaluating the pay structures at their business, and one of the options for their workers was, instead of year-end bonuses, a profit-sharing option. That meant that when the company did well, the employees would prosper-- they would receive more than their bonuses. And when the company did poorly... well, the employees would not get bonuses. Not one employee opted for profit-sharing. They weren't going to gamble with year-end bonuses. They would rather have stability than the chance for greater prosperity.

As owners and capitalists, my parents take this risk every year. The risks they take-- and any losses they incur-- are what allow their employees to have a stable income. And although their business is just a small part of the capitalist picture, the point stands: the working middle class has the privilege and luxury of a stable, livable wage because of the risks taken by "evil capitalists." Regardless of a businesspersons' intentions-- good or bad-- his or her role is not exclusively to screw the little guy. His role is balancing the needs of the bottom line against needs of individuals to create a company that works not only for itself, but also for its employees. (With a little polishing, I might be able to argue that this is the reason that communism does not work well; it eliminates the tension between risk/gain and stability, trading progress for stagnation in the interests working for employees, not for business. Clearly, that will need some work before it's airtight, but you get the gist.)

The moral of this story is: come on, guys. "There are more things on heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy..." Sometimes-- just sometimes-- even a capitalist might deserve a second glance.

Babies.

If you or someone you love are having a baby sometime in the near future, let me know. These were really fun to make. (And su-u-uper cute.)

< /girl attack >

In other news, I'm excited that I finally figured out how to send photos (see above) from my phone to my computer. That only took me three years longer than it should have.

I live in the future.

I'm back in Ohio for the month of July (yay!), and I've noticed something about myself. In fact, I've noticed something about everyone I know.

That being: we live in the future.

I carry a telephone in my pocket. Last night I used Skype-- a video phone-- to talk with friends in Boston. And today I drove past upwards of 130 windmills on the drive from Van Wert to Fort Wayne. A year ago-- just a few months ago?-- there were zero.

(Don't knock the photo quality... I took this on a cell phone. But can you see all of those windmills? It's like that for several miles.)

I wonder if this is how people in Holland felt shortly after the original windmills were invented. Did they look around at their friends and say (in Dutch), "Whoa whoa whoa. Hold it right there, guys-- this is the future. Look at those things-- they use the wind for power! Look at my feet-- I've got wooden shoes! And these awesome flowers-- in a few years, we'll have a speculative bubble that will pave the way for similar real estate and dotcom busts! We are living, brothers."

All right, maybe not those words exactly. But it's kind of strange to think about the future being now... although really, the future has always been "now." Kind of. I mean, "today is yesterday's tomorrow" sort of thing. And whether it's 1406 or 2011, that's pretty awesome.

HTML, zomg.

This site...

...is where I'm learning to do cool things like that. :)

Oh, why not

After a healthy-- what? year?-- of hiatus, I figure I'll add to this blog a bit more. Just for kicks. (And because I'm taking a couple months off from work, so I suddenly have lots of free time I don't know what to do with.)

And so, to get back in the swing of "interesting things you didn't know before," a few fun facts:

-The Arabic language has very few vowels. For the most part, they just add the vowel sounds in when they read words. Consequently, they don't do a whole lot with consonant blends.

- The abbreviation of "Madame" does not require a period: not "Mme.", but "Mme". The reasoning? "E" is the last letter of "Madame," so apparently Europeans don't think it needs a period. They also don't think "Doctor" (Dr) needs a period, for the same reason.

-Until recently in Massachusetts (and only just now beginning to pop up in the state), lawyers are not allowed to do screening interviews to select a jury. The screening process is called "voir dire." Instead of practicing "voir dire," Mass. lawyers can only object to jurors based on, essentially, demographic criteria. Not sure how that can be PC, but whatever.

-Mary Baker Eddy founded the Church of Christ, Scientist (different from Scientology). The international headquarters of the church is in Boston.