Assorted Thoughts

Here are some random thoughts that have been swirling about in my head the past couple of days, in no apparent order, but starting with the latest:

Baker left Prior in there too long and lost, Little left Pedro in there too long and lost; both got vilified for it. McKeon left Beckett in there and rode him for a complete game shutout to win the World Series and is being hailed as an unorthodox management genius. How much difference was there, really? Is this a case of knowing when to hold 'em and when to fold 'em, or was it gut instinct, or just a gamble that paid off?

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I watched The Marriage of Figaro by Mozart the other day with The Girls (the 2002 Rhodes Scholars from Malaysia and Hong Kong- and together with this Singaporean, we're the only three Scholars from East Asia. As I sometimes joke, we're the Rhodes 2002 Council for East Asian Affairs). I love hanging out with them, they are two of the sweetest, funniest, smartest people I know, and I'm extremely lucky to know them. The Marriage of Figaro was fun and really good- for the first three acts. The third act contained the big climax, plot twists galore, and what seemed to be a happy ending- almost. It seemed as if Mozart at this point said to himself, "Let's see, everything is great, everyone's happy- oh, wait a moment! I forget to give the dastardly Count his comeuppance!" So he tacks on a fourth act, which is long, drawn out, and painfully suspenseful, all for the purpose of the Count learning his lesson- and then it ends rather abruptly.

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Rich Morgan is a great guy. A true friend, loyal, and supportive. Really smart and hard working. Responsible. Thoughtful. Moral and highly principled. Great sense of humour. Wonderfully talented. Knows an incredible amount about music history and music composition. Has the support and respect of his peers. Has the admiration of countless people. Has a great way of telling funny stories. Comes up with terrific ideas. Has a wonderful family. I could go on and on, but you get the idea. To think of him as something simple, to reduce him to one word would be impossible and unfair, especially if the word were something negative. Absolutely unfair.

So just because at lunch the other day Rich suddenly exhaled sharply and exclaimed, "Thank goodness she's left!" before explaining to us puzzled friends that there was a girl across the Hall from him who was showing an inordinate amount of cleavage that he couldn't help but keep staring at- does that make him a pervert? No.

Not that he'll stop trying to deny it, of course.

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The Tuesday Morning Quarterback, Gregg Easterbrook, recently was fired by ESPN for allegedly making anti-Semitic remarks on his blog. Many of his fellow journalists and writers have lept to his defence, saying he's not anti-Semitic (An excellent summary of the story is at the Washington Post). Having been a reader of Easterbrook's for quite a while, I can attest he's a writer of genuine wit and intelligence, and has never shown the slightest bit of bias (except against silly coaches who call bad plays, but that's a different story). What he is guilty of is writing poorly. He was writing about the violence in Kill Bill Vol. 1, and got overly passionate about it. The end result was that his writing came out jumbled and could easily be misconstrued as something anti-Semitic.

Lesson? Edit. Always edit. Re-read what you write and be careful. Anywhere, even on your blogs. Otherwise, what you write can easily be misconstrued.

I'm going to miss the TMQ. It was something I looked forward to every Tuesday morning, as much for the content as for Easterbrook's excellent writing and humour.

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I had a dream two nights ago: Roger Clemens decided not to retire, but instead signed a one year contract with the Red Sox as a middle reliever.

Did I say dream? I meant nightmare!