September Saturday: Non Football Edition

Politics The candidates sure know how to put the personal touches in their campaign e-mails.

Here is Barack Obama telling me how I “fire him up”; my wife tried to make me jealous by telling me that she got this e-mail, but I deflated her by telling her that I got it too.

I’m just now leaving New York, and you’ve got me fired up. Nearly 25,000 people came together last night for the rally.

Here’s the video:

And there is the series of Hillary Clinton e-mail messages:

Dear ollie,

I hear you might be watching a debate with Bill — can I ask you a favor?

Bill mentioned “a big bowl of chips” in the email he sent you Tuesday. If you are one of the three people who get the chance to join him, can you make sure he eats carrots, not chips?

I know I can rely on you for this — because you’ve been there for me this entire campaign. I’ve relied on you and more than a million of your fellow supporters, and you’ve never let me down.

Today, I need your help at a critical moment in the campaign. We’re just a few days away from the end-of-quarter deadline, when we have to report the fundraising numbers that will set the tone for the final crucial months. The media and our opponents will use the numbers we report to determine the strength of our grassroots support — help our campaign today and we can beat our goal.

And if you enter now, you could be one of three supporters invited to watch an upcoming debate with Bill.

Help me win today. Make a contribution:
http://www.hillaryclinton.com/watchwithbill

Of course Barbara Boxer is a friend of mine,

Dear Ollie,

We only have three days left before the fundraising deadline – make a contribution today!

Nothing gets me more focused than a deadline — and we have a big one headed our way soon. Sunday, September 30th marks the end of our next fundraising quarter, and I need your help to finish the quarter strong.

The media is already hyping a certain Governor’s possible bid for my Senate seat in 2010 — but no matter who my opponent is, we have to be prepared for a tough campaign. I am running for re-election with more confidence and strength than ever, but I need your help to keep that momentum going.

Can I count on you to help me show the pundits that we’re ready for whatever Republican challenger steps up in 2010?

Please contribute today — and help us finish the fundraising quarter strong before the September 30th reporting deadline!

Click here to contribute to Barbara Boxer.

And so is Dick Durbin.

Dear Ollie,

For those of us in political life, September 30 is a big deal. With our deadline just hours away, I need your help to hit our goal of $25,000.
Please contribute today!

The petitions are on the street in Illinois.

All across our state my friends and volunteers are asking their neighbors to support my campaign. It is so gratifying to see those sheets of names come in from every corner of Illinois.

I know a lot of people cannot believe the 2008 election is underway. It is so early.

But our new early primary means that we have to be organized and strong in 2007 to win in 2008.

Please contribute today. My campaign clock is ticking. With the September 30 deadline hours away we need to hit our number.

Click here to contribute to Senator Durbin.

I feel so loved!

Humor

Flying Spaghetti Monster sightings: a restaurant and the side of a wall.

Ok: why do “we” do things like make up the Flying Spaghetti Monster? Why do creationists get under our skin? Shalini has an interesting answer

It vexes me when they would constrain science by the authority of the Scriptures, and yet do not consider themselves bound to answer reason and experiment. [Galileo Galilei]

Ok, what about not being “bound to answer reason and experiment”? Sam Harris comments on this:

Reason is a compulsion, not a choice. Just as one cannot intentionally startle oneself, one cannot knowingly believe a proposition on bad evidence. If you doubt this, imagine hearing the following account of a failed New Year’s resolution:

“This year, I vowed to be more rational, but by the end of January, I found that I had fallen back into my old ways, believing things for bad reasons. Currently, I believe that smoking is harmless, that my dead brother will return to life in the near future, and that I am destined to marry Angelina Jolie, just because these beliefs make me feel good and give my life meaning.”

This is not how our minds work. To believe a proposition, we must also believe that we believe it because it is true. While lapses in rationality can often be detected in retrospect, they always occur in the dark, outside of consciousness. In every present moment, a belief entails the concurrent conviction that we are not just fooling ourselves.

This constraint upon our thinking has always been a problem for religion. Being stocked stem to stern with incredible ideas, the world’s religions have had to find some way to circumvent reason, without repudiating it. The recommended maneuver is generally called “faith,” and it actually appears to work. Faith enables a person to fool himself into thinking that he is maintaining his standards of reasonableness, while forsaking them. There is a powerful incentive to not notice that one is engaged in this subterfuge, of course, because to notice it is to fail at it. As is well known, such cognitive gymnastics can be greatly facilitated by the presence of others, similarly engaged. Sometimes, it takes a village to lie to oneself.

In support of this noble enterprise, every religion has created a black market for irrationality, where people of like minds can trade transparently bad reasons in support of their religious beliefs, without the threat of criticism. You, too, can enter this economy of false knowledge and self-deception. [...]

So what is with this self deception? After all I am not a theist, and yet I deceive myself all of the time (example, I often seek out marathon and ultramarathon performances that I have shown no capacity for).

The reason is that reality is often unpleasant, at least compared to our internal fantasy world!

Last September 2007 Saturday

Workout notes 10 mile walk (steady); I went via Broadway, McClure, part of Boredom along Forrest Hill to Springdale Cemetery (where I heard a loud great bared owl), back past Wordruff High School to the trail (7 miles at the Riverplex) and then the gooseloop course. After 30 minutes of yoga (no class), 3 more miles back home, past a farmer’s market and an art show.

Football
Photos hotlinked from the Yahoo NCAA Football gallery

I saw some of the first half of the South Florida-West Virginia game.
South Florida won, and I had picked them with the 7 points.

Currently Purdue is beating Notre Dame 20-0 and Notre Dame just fumbled the ball away; this one could get very ugly. I had thought that the Irish might have a chance to pull the upset, given that Purdue has Ohio State, Michigan and Iowa coming up and might be looking past Notre Dame, but that doesn’t appear to be the case. PUrdue cashed in with a field goal to go up 23-0, and there is still time left in the half!

We are on the last drive of the half and Notre Dame is showing signs of life; they have the ball inside the 20. Their quarterback is looking better, though he is taking his lumps.

Ooops, Purdue blocked Notre Dame’s field goal attempt and still have 55 seconds left in the half. Nevertheless, the defense held and made a big interception.

One team that is overlooking its opposition is LSU, who trails Tulane 9-7. LSU will eventually win (even with retro uniforms, white pants and white helmets)

(this photo from the LSU website)

And, the Illinois-Penn State game is a slugfest, with Illinois currently up 21-17.

Update: ND scores a touchdown! Of course, they missed the extra point; but a long drive sure helps things.

Unfortunately, ND cannot run the ball on 4′th and short, but holds Purdue to another field goal. Penalties help the Boilermaker drive.

Michigan is struggling too, currently down against Northwestern:

Update: 26-6 Purdue; Navy takes a 14-10 lead over Air Force!

Update Notre Dame is looking better but missed ANOTHER extra point (this time, a bad snap/holder connection). Still 26-12 is a two score game; Sharpley ( the backup quaterback) looks sharp (no pun intended).

Update ND finally made a couple of 4′th down conversions and is driving with 11 minutes left. ND has actually showed some fight. If ND finishes this drive (on the Purdue 30) this might be an interesting finish.

OMG!!!!!!! Long TD pass while going down, ND has closed it to a one score game!!! What about that extra point? A penalty on ND, now one on Purdue, now it is good and it is now 26-19.

Update Purdue woke up; they started with a good kickoff return and then drove it 59 yards to make is 33-19.

But ND is responding and has gotten it to the Purdue 35; make that the 20 due to a personal foul on Purdue. Oh well, interception in the end zone; ND got lucky on too many risks and got caught throwing into double coverage.

Update: the final remains 33-19; Navy wins over Air Force 31-20 (14 unanswered 4′th quarter points), Michigan holds on 28-16 over Northwestern, and Illinois holds on to beat Penn State 27-20.

The following photo has nothing to do with any of the games I was following, but is good nevertheless:

Of course, I should have been following this game; I just saw the game winning field goal for Colorado, who won 27-24.

Yoga: Rotten Attitude Part II

My yoga attitude picked up a bit when, surprise, surprise, I practiced some at home!

But as far as why I don’t enjoy teaching, well check this out from one of the yoga boards (name omitted to protect the guilty):

I am getting older and so I’ve been taking beginner classes in order to do milder asanas. I just wanted to share my experience. I’ve been regularly taking beginner classes (even though I’m not really a beginner) and the teacher is very young and athletic. There is nothing wrong with that I guess, but her class is too challenging for most beginners. She has us do very intense asanas like plank and downward dog and my arms feel like they are about to give out. I have to spend so much wasted time in child’s pose just so that I don’t sweat buckets and/or injure myself. I would prefer an older instructor who knows that beginners shouldn’t be doing plank for so long, but we don’t get much of a choice in instructors around here unfortunately.

So this morning during class I walked in and I told her that I hoped her class would be better so that I wouldn’t have to be in child’s pose for half the class. She pretty much just ignored me and then proceded to teach another intermediate level class. She had us do triangle and some other pose with a mudra and I don’t even know what she was doing with her fingers, but everyone in the class was confused. She tells us that we can take less intense versions of poses or rest in child’s pose, but I shouldn’t have to do that. The class should be for beginners and we shouldn’t have to modify everything. One woman in the class just had foot surgery and the instructor has us all come into a lunge…What could she possibly be thinking? I’m considering sending an e-mail to her boss with a complaint. There are too many unqualified instructors out there and being a part-time instructor myself I know how to judge.

See that? This person is upset that they might have to modify a pose or two, or that the instructor doesn’t modify the entire class because on person has a limitation.

There is nothing wrong with someone having to take a pose off from a routine, or having to do an easier version of a given pose; the idea is that one starts from where they are and gradually improve so they can handle more.

But I suppose that this is something a good teacher can work around; perhaps saying something like “ok, this is what we are going to do (say, plank from the knees); those who are a bit more advanced or who want an extra challenge can go into a modified version (say, plank from the toes, which is really the “correct version”) and that might not bruise tender egos?

Who knows. But this is why teaching yoga is not in my future.