riley dog :: roo

Landslide: Yankees beat out the Red Sox as team of decade

Let's end one debate before it really gets started. The Red Sox gave it a nice run for a while, but the Yankees are the team of the decade -- again.

I can just imagine what the scene in Red Sox Nation is about now. The fans are bitter. Very bitter. The Yankees are back on top, and that can't be sitting too well in New England.

Boston fans can cry all they want that the Yankees bought a championship, but so what? The Yankees are winners. They get the ring. Their city is happy and they are sticking out their tongues at the Red Sox and the rest of the world.

David Wells | NY Post

Well, autumn didn't go so well in New England, while it went smashingly in New York. The updated numbers:

Wins: Yankees 965, Red Sox 920
Postseason Wins: Yankees 52, Red Sox 34
American League pennants: Yankees 4, Red Sox 2
World Championships: Red Sox 2, Yankees 2

Landslide. Sorry, Nation.

SweetSpot | Rob Neyer | ESPN

Filed under // sports yankees

Posted November 7, 2009

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The Poetry of...Helen Thomas

The changes are immense, no noise of clicking
teletypes and typewriters, obsolete technology,
little real editing unfortunately, instantaneous
communication and more superficiality,

competition based on personality
instead of content in depth, insecurity
about where newspapers are headed,
money a big factor in all things

talk show hosts peddling disinformation,
lack of transparency
by even Obama administration,

blocking torture photos,
calling reporters the night before
presidential news conferences to tell them
they will be called on,

Hope all is not lost
in our great business.

Greg Mitchell | Pressing Issues

Filed under // poetry politics

Posted November 7, 2009

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I Want To Make Something Beautiful But Find it Extremely Fucking Difficult to Do So

Mike Simi | Bowl of Froot Loops | Cast plastic, cereal

Posted November 7, 2009

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There is no point in denying it: we're losing. // via @3QD

In 1973 the cultural anthropologist Ernest Becker proposed that the fear of death drives us to protect ourselves with "vital lies" or "the armour of character". We defend ourselves from the ultimate terror by engaging in immortality projects, which boost our self-esteem and grant us meaning that extends beyond death. More than 300 studies conducted in 15 countries appear to confirm Becker's thesis. When people are confronted with images or words or questions that remind them of death they respond by shoring up their worldview, rejecting people and ideas that threaten it, and increasing their striving for self-esteem.

One of the most arresting findings is that immortality projects can bring death closer. In seeking to defend the symbolic, heroic self that we create to suppress thoughts of death, we might expose the physical self to greater danger. For example, researchers at Bar-Ilan University in Israel found that people who reported that driving boosted their self-esteem drove faster and took greater risks after they had been exposed to reminders of death.

A recent paper by the biologist Janis L Dickinson, published in the journal Ecology and Society, proposes that constant news and discussion about global warming makes it difficult to repress thoughts of death, and that people might respond to the terrifying prospect of climate breakdown in ways that strengthen their character armour but diminish our chances of survival. There is already experimental evidence that some people respond to reminders of death by increasing consumption. Dickinson proposes that growing evidence of climate change might boost this tendency, as well as raising antagonism towards scientists and environmentalists. Our message, after all, presents a lethal threat to the central immortality project of western society: perpetual economic growth, supported by an ideology of entitlement and exceptionalism.

George Monbiot | The Guardian

Filed under // eschaton science

Posted November 7, 2009

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TwitterPeek omg

A $99 Twitter device

TwitterPeek

Filed under // eschaton odd

Posted November 6, 2009

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Intrigued by Reincarnation, Skip Dillard Embraces Buddhism // via @SmokeLong

When you have a next life, there’s no such thing as a one-on-one. The concept of not getting a second chance after failing on the first is so Western, it’s no wonder we’re always at war. Imagine a world where redemption is only a step off the roof away. Tripping in front of a bus would do it, too, and so would two bottles of Tylenol. A hungry bear in the woods. A lucky bolt of lightning. Colon cancer. No matter what you were guilty of, or innocent, you could start over any time you wanted. Sure, a margin of error exists. You could come back as an infectious microbe. A sickly leopard. The maggot born in the trash can behind some Chinese take-out joint. But you might get lucky, too, end up rich, a beautiful actress, married to a handsome athlete, always on the news for her charitable tendencies. You could be a famous doctor. An inventor. The first man to do something no one’s ever done before, like walk on Mars, or travel back in time. You could be the lap dog to that same beautiful actress, traveling in her purse, your picture in a thousand magazines, a kiss on the nose for every flash of the camera. Even better, you could be nobody. You could go about your business, live your life. Minor victories would go unnoticed, as would major defeats. Even if anyone turned around to look, it wouldn’t matter. Either you wouldn’t care, or you’d move on again, the next roll of the dice. If you kept shooting, sooner or later, you’d get better at it, always get something good. Money in the bank.

Six Chicago Stories | Michael Czyzniejewski

Filed under // writing

Posted November 6, 2009

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