Education Cuts Don't Add Up for NYC - You Do the Math Because BOE can't

What ever happened to management responsibility? Somehow, the Deputy Chancellor claims she is not responsible for a mistake, if it was a mistake, by a member of her staff. I searched through the article for a hint of whether this was an outsourced project.

What is the mysterious "protocol" for reviewing materials that the "fact checker" didn't follow. Like read it at all, how would you know if they signed off saying they had read it?

For the record, BrooklynDodger got the answers on the sample questions right, doing all the math in the Dodgers head and not having to take off shoes to count on toes. The Dodger hopes this proves 7th grade competency.


http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/25/nyregion/25math.html

Wrong, Wrong and Wrong: Math Guides Are Recalled

By SUSAN SAULNY Published: March 25, 2005

New York City education officials were forced to recall test preparation materials for math exams late Wednesday after discovering that they were rife with errors, including basic arithmetic mistakes.

The materials were intended for math students in grades 3 through 7, but the faulty information - at least 18 errors - was found before it reached classrooms.
...

Besides the math mistakes, there were problems with grammar and spelling. For instance, the word "fourth" was misspelled on the cover of the fourth-grade manual.

According to school officials, a fact-checker within the department failed to do a proper job.
"We have a clear protocol for review of all materials," said Carmen Fariña, the deputy chancellor for teaching and learning. "In this case, a member of my staff inexcusably failed to follow our protocol, and I have written a letter of reprimand to the person's file.

Royal Oak - Off Main Street

Detroiters know Royal Oak as one of the sophisticated South Oakland suburbs that supports restaurants, an art movie theatre, and a concert venue. Kerry had a rally at the music cafe. Kind of like Birmingham without the BMW's.

We forget that in the '30's, Father Coughlin spewed hate from the pulpit of the Shrine of the Little Flower, in Royal Oak.

Now we have a pistol packing preacher in the news. The full story notes that Reverend Byers once dropped his gun on the floor while preaching. He kicked it under the pulpit and kept going. The article noted there's no law against carrying a gun to church, but that the church building holds a school and a day care center, where police say it is illegal to carry a gun even with a concealed weapons permit. After a warning, Byers said he would keep guns out of the school and day care center.

http://www.clickondetroit.com/news/4318428/detail.html

Click on Detroit Poll:

A Royal Oak minister who brings his gun to church is urging his congregants to do the same. Do you think guns belong in church?

Yes. The church has seen violent incidents in the past and its members have a right to protect themselves.
1183
71%

No. Accidents are too common in a roomful of guns.
482
29%

Pistons Bomb on Friday Night, Come Back on Saturday

The other night the Pistons-Indiana game was delayed because of a bomb threat. The way the Pistons were playing with Larry Brown and Rip Hamilton out of action, BrooklynDodger figured that one of them called in the threat.

Pistons got romped by Indiana, mostly because of lack of offense. Not many games to be won with 40% field goal shooting and getting out rebounded.

The next night, Boston came to town. Rip Hamilton was back. Remarkably, the Pistons won in overtime despite a lower percentage from the field, from 3-point range, a push in rebounds and getting 3 T's [R Wallace and R Hamilton continuing their bad boyishness, with B. Wallace chipping in another.] From 2 point land Pistons were 32 for 62, not a bad percentage and yielding 1.03 points per shot. For threes, 4 for 18 [mostly because Billups was 2 for 10] yielded 0.67 per shot.

Why does sports talk radio in Detroit ignore the Pistons in favor of losers like the Lions and Tigers, and the endless hockey soap opera? Is this a race deal?

Another Ad for Columbia - Or Flying to China, or Rock Climbing

BrooklynDodger wonders what he did to her for the judge to let her get even. Was the headline writer a dude or a dudette? Let me guess. Anyway, it appears the husband didn't get tenure, but that was not the end of the world.


Cheating wife gets millions in divorce
Friday, March 25, 2005 Posted: 5:04 PM EST (2204 GMT)

BRIDGEPORT, Connecticut (AP) -- A judge has awarded the former wife of a multimillionaire businessman a divorce settlement worth more than $40 million even though she admitted having affairs with her rock-climbing guide and a man she met on a flight to China.

http://www.cnn.com/2005/LAW/03/25/divorce.settlement.ap/index.html

The couple met in 1978 when Howard Sosin was an assistant professor at Columbia University. At the time, she was married to another man and working in retail

Asbestos May Be Fireproof, but the Settlement is all about Smoke and Mirrors

The asbestos compensation legislation now before the Senate Judiciary Committee is fundamentally about a deal. Asbestos victims who can’t identify the producer of the product which caused their illness, or whose defendant has bankruptcy or other protection, get little or nothing. Other victims, with certain diseases, in certain jurisdictions, with certain defendants, are more fairly compensated [although money can’t buy back health that’s been lost, and even if the dollar amount were fair, plaintiffs pay the cost of the lawsuit and the lawyer’s fees.] In theory, the legislation should take from one set of plaintiffs, give to the others, and increase the pot of money by reducing transaction fees.

BrooklynDodger is not opposed to making a deal of some kind. But what kind of deal?

The bill would establish a payment schedule and a trust. The payment schedule is fundamentally different from that of a bankruptcy trust. In bankruptcy, there’s eventually a fixed amount of money to be divided among the victims, every victim is cheated, some more than others. “Eventually” comes after a long dispute about how many assets there are, and in the case of an asbestos related bankruptcy, how much the insurance companies are going to pay.

The trust fund size and timing of payments into the fund is going to determine what the victims get. That’s a deal over what the defendants can be expected to pay out under the status quo, and how much of that is going to victims rather than transaction costs which include defense lawyers. [Corporations complain about plaintiff’s lawyer’s fees, but defense, which is much more expensive and a no risk deal to the attorney, comes out of the pot too.]

So the question is how many assets can defendants hide with strategic bankruptcies, and how much would insurance companies have to pay.

Which finally brings us to Federal Mogul. A genius at FM bought Turner and Newell, a famous name in asbestos disease. For example, a recent scholarly review, focusing on Clydesdale, noted that “this shipbuilding community on the Clyde—in which Turner and Newell built an asbestos cement factory—became the asbestos disease capital of Europe.”
http://www.ijoeh.com/pfds/1002_Gorman.pdf

Federal Mogul eventually declared bankruptcy, complaining of 1.1 billion in potential asbestos claims arising from this company, which morphed from Tuner Bros. to Turner and Newell to TN.

The transaction below is pretty opaque as to what fraction of this 1.1 billion FM just settled out for 16 cents on the dollar.

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http://www.detnews.com/2005/autosinsider/0503/26/auto-129396.htm

Saturday, March 26, 2005
Federal-Mogul settles with asbestos group for $29 million
Dow Jones / AP
WASHINGTON -- Federal-Mogul Corp. said it will pay $29 million to resolve more than $183 million in asbestos injury claims.
The settlement will initially be paid by the sureties that issued the bonds -- Safeco Insurance Co. of America, Travelers Casualty and Surety Co. of America, National Fire Insurance Co. of Hartford and Continental Casualty Co. -- and Federal-Mogul will repay that amount over time.
Southfield, Mich.-based Federal-Mogul's separate settlement with the insurers was approved by the bankruptcy court March 16.

Fundamentalism on the March - NAS on the Defensive

The NAS lives off the government dole - agencies hire the NAS to lend an opinion to resolve a political conflict over scientific issues. The NAS is very much in the middle of the road. For example, NAS and Bruce Alberts supported so-called Peer Review regulatory deform legislation, at least in part because NAS would get the business of running the peer reviews.
[This legislation was the equivalent of injecting procedural botox into agencies already suffering paralysis by analysis.]

So this letter to NAS membership against creationism represents a bit of courage in support of rationality.

The fundamentalist right advances a pentafecta: women have no right to chose, capital punishment [right to life ends at birth], school prayer [as long as it's their prayer], no death without indignity, and finally, creationism.

The NAS has decided to take a public stance against creationism. Notably, this letter contains a peculiar appeal to physical scientists. It points out that even if wiping out evolution by natural selection is only biological, not effecting their students, creationism also impacts cosmological theories.


http://www4.nationalacademies.org/nas/nashome.nsf/urllinks/NAS-6AQJS4?OpenDocument


Evolution Controversy in Our Schools

This letter was sent to Academy members by President Bruce Alberts on March 4, 2005.
Dear Colleagues:I write to alert you to efforts by the National Academies to confront the increasing challenges to the teaching of evolution in public schools; your help may be needed in your state soon.

Air America Comes to Detroit

The Democratic party dreams of left wing talk shows to combat the right wing blather and bloviation that dominates the air ways. BrooklynDodger felt that the failure of progressive talk derived from the incompatability of rationality with the art form.

Then, a month ago, Air America and other shows appeared on AM 1310 in Detroit. A Clear Channel station. So, either Clear Channel wanted some balance to cover it's totally right wing orientation, or they felt that the glut of talk shows on the right opened up space on the left.

For the first few weeks, the Dodger couldn't listen any more than he could to Rush. Sports talk was the refuge when NPR became too boring to tolerate. then, the Schiavo atrocity captured the air ways and captured Air America as well. Now, it's not so bad.

The important thing about talk is to call in. The Dodger has yet to be able to get the call in number into the Dodger's cell phone.

Reducing Adverse Effects of Booze and College

BrooklynDodger is reacting to a recent WP article about astinence education for alcohol among teenagers. A recent scientific publication which the Dodger hasn't taken the time to find reported that adolescents who report binge drinking were more likely to suffer alcoholism in later life. That's sort of like proving that people with backaches now are more likely to have backaches in the future than those who don't.

First, there's no question in the scientific literature that people who report "moderate" alcohol consumption enjoy longer life and improvedc ognitive function in later life, compared to people who report not drinking at all. This is consistent across many studies in many contexts.

The level of reported consumption which produces a result equivalent to the population who report not drinking at all is fuzzy in this literature. It may be very high, for persons who are able to control high blood pressure,weight, diabetes, and don't drive too drunk too often. The following abstract suggests an improved way of attacking the adverseside effects of heavy drinking in college. It's campus volunteerism, joining organizations and providing service. The investigators report that such activity is able to counteract the adverse effect of belonging to fraternities and sororities.


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J Epidemiol Community Health. 2005 Apr;59(4):303-9.

Risk modifying effect of social capital on measures of heavy alcohol consumption, alcohol abuse, harms, and secondhand effects: national survey findings.

Weitzman ER, Chen YY. Department of Society, Human Development and Health, Harvard School of Public Health, 401 Park Drive, PO Box 15678, Boston, MA 02215, USA. eweitzma@hsph.harvard.edu.

Life Span, Body Mass and Literary Musings on Popular Literature

BrooklynDodger reads obits only when, as this time, the Times was open to the page, and there was nothing else near the throne. March 18, two important names from the Dodger’s past, Dick Radatz the pitcher, and Andre Norton, a science fiction writer, appeared.

At age 65, a white American man has a median of 16.6 years left, and a 50/50 prospect of living to 81.6. For a white woman, it’s 19.5 years and an attained age of 84.6. For black men, it’s 14.6 years and 79.6; black women have 18.0 years coming and an age of 83. These are medians, so half will do better, as with Andre Norton, and half worse, like Dick Radatz. At age 75, we still have upwards of a median of 10 years left. These numbers are way higher than life expectancy at birth. They give pause when planning for retirement income: social security and a defined benefit pension go on forever, but when your 401(k) is gone, it’s gone.

http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/hus/hus04trend.pdf#027

Anyway, Dick Radatz was 6’6” and weighed 230 pounds as an all-star pitcher. He was the “monster.” The ultimate healthy worker. However, his body mass index was 26.6, which is overweight by CDC. [No wonder 2/3 of the country is overweight by their count.] What might have happened to him from retirement from baseball until now? He played in the pre-steroid era. Falls cause about 25% of hospital emergency room injury treatments. A collapse and fall, suggested by the newspaper account below, sounds more like an aneurism than heart attack.

Now to Andre Norton. BrooklynDodger purchased “his” books, only to find for the first time that “he” was “she.” The Dodger remembers looking through the paperbacks, where the difference between $0.25 and $0.35 for a science fiction novel was a significant matter. Norton was in the league with Asimov and Heinlein. Now the books are $7.99. Ultimately, the difference between escapist science fiction and escapist mystery literature is that the SF author has to create a world out of imagination, and then describe it, while the mystery writer only has to describe a world there is. The range of society and organic features of characters is similarly unbounded for the SF writer and defined for the mystery writer. The mystery writer, by contrast, is bound by the whodunnit plot framework, while the SF writer can explore a more character driven story.

Novelists successful in “serious” genres – Doris Lessing, Marge Piercy, Margaret Attwood [is there a problem these are all women? Are there modern male novelist examples] – seem less satisfying writing about anti-utopias in the science fiction genre.

Andre Norton was basically writing for teenage boys – or younger adults arrested at the misfit teenager stage. Kids who listened late at night to Jean Shepard and Long John Nebel on WOR radio. Does anyone else remember Long John and his endless interviews with L. Ron Hubbard, who the Dodger guesses was just starting out in those days? Flying saucer stories?



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http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/18/sports/baseball/18radatz.html?

Dick Radatz, Pitcher With Power for the Red Sox, Dies at 67
By RICHARD GOLDSTEIN Published: March 18, 2005

Dick Radatz, a dominant relief pitcher of the 1960's for the Boston Red Sox who was known as the Monster for his overpowering fastballs and fearsome physique, died Wednesday at his home in South Easton, Mass. He was 67.
His death was announced by his son, Dick Jr., who said his father evidently had had a heart attack that resulted in a fall down a flight of stairs and a head injury.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/18/books/18norton.html

Andre Norton Dies at 93; a Master of Science Fiction
By CHRISTOPHER LEHMANN-HAUPT Published: March 18, 2005

Andre Norton, a prolific and popular science-fiction and fantasy writer whose central theme was the rite of passage to self-realization undertaken by misfits or displaced outsiders, died yesterday at her home in Murfreesboro, Tenn. She was 93.
The cause was congestive heart failure, Sue Stewart, her friend and caretaker, said.

The Right to Life in Florida

The Detroit News Cyber survey is some kind of window into political opinion. Probably not as conservative as the overall readership of the Detroit News.

How many of those exploiting this family tragedy support the death penalty? How many support the Iraq invasion? How many support cutting health benefits for medicaid and medicare beneficiaries? How many advocate cutting off benefits for the grievous cost of end of life treatment?

There are 368 inmates on death row in Florida.

http://www.dc.state.fl.us/activeinmates/deathrowroster.asp

If you go to this website you can see a picture of each one.

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Detroit News CyberSurvey results

Congressional maneuver
What do you think of the Senate Health Committee requesting that brain damaged Terri Schiavo and her husband, Michael, appear at a committee hearing on March 28?

It's a valiant effort to save her life
22.43%

It's a shameless piece of political grandstanding
77.57%

March Neuroses - Why NCAA Tournament Games Never End

First, the risk to the front runner is that the short game and the close range 3-point line will let the weaker physical talent with a slow down game get ahead, or hang around for a long time.

Then comes the endless end game parade to the foul line. With one and one, and the atrocious foul shooting, the team behind can be trading 3 for 0, certainly never worse than 3 for 2. It's almost like Texas Hold-Em poker, where instead of a flop of community cards, you are betting on foul shooting and three pointer streaks at the end.

Pistons Bad Habits

Friday night's Pistons broadcast versing Toronto lacked play by play for three quarters plus. Kind of like being at the game, with better closeups. You could hear the crowd, just no announcers. Main problem is remembering the names of the Toronto players.

It's hard to assess strength of anyone in the NBA these days based on record because of all the player movement. Probably true in the West, but in the east both the sendees who got major players and the sendors who got names you don't know are different. Toronto moved Vince Carter, BrooklynDodger doesn't know if they got anyone in return. Even with no replacement, there's a lot more ball to go around.

Pistons are maintaining some bad habits:

• Not making free throws. [Wallaces 3-11]
• Richard Hamilton fouling out. [and getting a T]
• Rasheed getting one technical [at least not two; not in this game, but he's way up there in league competition for T's.]

A team's defensive scheme may give up points for guards driving the lane, or give up points for spot up threes. Somehow Pistons managed both.

Rebounding won this game, plus Billups and Prince raining down jump shots. But they couldn't put the game away in the third and fourth quarter.

Devolution

BrooklynDodger fears the loss of the culture war, except for enclaves like New York, California, and a few islands in between, like Austin. Only a minority of Americans believe in evolution by natural selection, and probably fewer really understand the process and evidence. Majority rule would mean that factually wrong ideas would be promulgated by state power. In the example of IMAX theatres – most in public institutions with educational purposes – private pressure would deny promulgation of correct ideas.

Evolution by natural selection is a fundamental biological process operating at a high level in natural systems. It’s just as important to organize knowledge about the growth of a clone of initiated tumor cells as it is for knowledge about ecological succession of an Agent Orange defoliated forest in Vietnam, or the role of the Spotted Owl. Perhaps fundamental knowledge of biological processes is unimportant in most occupations, but there’s one people ought to be concerned about: medical doctors. There ought to be more about doctoring than memorizing what antibiotic to give for what infection.

Religious fundamentalism is not really about what they believe and the way they live, it’s about them telling you and me how to think and live.

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http://nytimes.com/2005/03/19/national/19imax.html?hp&ex=1111294800&en=bac14b20d4620205&ei=5094&partner=homepage

A New Screen Test for Imax: It's the Bible vs. the Volcano

By CORNELIA DEAN Published: March 19, 2005

The fight over evolution has reached the big, big screen.Several Imax theaters, including some in science museums, are refusing to show movies that mention the subject - or the Big Bang or the geology of the earth - fearing protests from people who object to films that contradict biblical descriptions of the origin of Earth and its creatures.

Hiatus

On hiatus for a week. The system to which I go won't allow posting to blogspot.

Didn't they pray hard enough?

BrooklynDodger asks readers not to take a hint about the Dodger's base of operations from recent news postings.

The Dodger always felt there was unintended humor in naming the evangelical college "Oral" - the deity causing Oral's parents to give him that sexy name so that the college could carry it into the headlines. The Dodger is sure that this team prays before the game and at half time, and believes that any defeat is only a test of their faith, not a sign that the deity was inept or uncaring regarding the outcome.

The Dodger wonders why public money is being spent taking Oakland University into Division I, at a time when university funding is on the ropes in Michigan.

For those who, like the Dodger, don't follow the major minors, this was the mid-Continent conference tournament. Mid Continent would appear to exist only for the purpose of getting an NCAA tournament automatic bid.


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Wednesday, March 9, 2005

Oakland 61, Oral Roberts 60
Dukes lifts Oakland to NCAA Tournament
Dukes' 3-pointer with 1.3 seconds left helps Grizzlies upset Oral Roberts.


TULSA, Okla. -- Pierre Dukes became an unlikely hero for an improbable NCAA Tournament team.
Dukes' only shot of the second half was a three-pointer with 1.3 seconds left, and Oakland upset top-seeded Oral Roberts, 61-60, Tuesday night to win the Mid-Continent Conference tournament and make the NCAA Tournament despite a 12-18 record.
Oakland, the seventh seed in the Mid-Continent field, is in the NCAA Tournament for the first time since becoming a Division I program eight seasons ago. For the fourth straight season, a team with a losing record has made the NCAA Tournament.

It Pays to Be Union

BrooklynDodger notes that hourly workers, covered by a union contract, don't face this unilateral attack, at least until contract time. There's a court case, at least until the judges are all replaced, which says that if you retire under a contract which gives you health insurance, you keep it.

http://www.detnews.com/2005/autosinsider/0503/08/A01-110715.htm

Delphi to cut retiree benefits
Auto supplier to slash medical insurance for 4,000 former white collar workers.
By Brett Clanton / The Detroit News

Delphi Corp., the world's largest auto parts supplier, will stop paying medical insurance in 2007 for 4,000 retired salaried workers and thousands more future retirees.
Delphi will drop coverage for retirees once they're eligible for Medicare benefits, which the parts maker will supplement with private health care accounts, the company told employees Monday in an e-mail.
The move is expected to save the cash-strapped supplier $500 million a year, but it means Delphi retirees who expected lifelong coverage can expect to pay more for everything from doctor visits to surgery.
"It's a scary thing," said Terri Siladke, 54, of Fraser, who retired from Delphi in 2003. "I don't know what it's going to mean for me. It certainly wasn't expected."

Finally, Someone Protected by Having a Gun in the Home

http://www.freep.com/news/locway/vigilante8e_20050308.htm

Man dies in friend's defense
Police say he went after woman's alleged assailant

March 8, 2005

BY BEN SCHMITTFREE PRESS STAFF WRITER

Anthony Tyler might have been styling himself as a vigilante Sunday when, armed with a handgun, he kicked in the front door of a Detroit man's home after a female acquaintance reportedly told Tyler the man had raped her.
However, the man was armed, too. He and Tyler pulled their triggers.
Tyler died. The man was wounded in the knee.
On Monday, Detroit Police weren't calling it vigilantism, but they were warning people about taking the law into their own hands.
Investigators spent the day trying sort out the details, while Tyler's family mourned.
"If he wasn't so willing to help her, my son would be alive," Tyler's mother, Gloria Douglas, said as she choked back tears and tried to finish a plate of scrambled eggs and grits. "I feel like he may have been set up. I don't know her and I don't know what happened."
The home's 40-year-old occupant was in good condition Monday at Sinai-Grace Hospital in Detroit. He has not been charged.

Graduation Rate Envy

Economics, politics and sociology come together is a surprising place - the NCAA website.

These data are compiled because schools compete in athletics for money, and some feel the others are cheating by admitting non student student athletes. The data are likely accurate, since competing schools have an interest in keeping competitors from cooking the books.

The NCAA publishes the graduation rates of all member schools, stratified on gender and race. Any school whose name you might know is there, and the rates are dramatically different.

http://www.ncaa.org/grad_rates/2004/d1/index.html

The above site compares graduation rates for scholarship athletes to the studentry in general. There are no data on athletes for the Ivies, because the Ivies have no scholarship athletes to which they are willing to admit. The Ivies allege to giving no "merit" scholarships of any kind, athletics or otherwise, only need based scholarships.

[In a canonical tale, a football coach was quoted as saying that all his football scholarships were based on need: if the team didn't need the kid, they wouldn't give him a scholarship.]

Those of us who follow Big 10 and other national sports will also find the graduation rates of the teams to be of interest. When comparing graduation rates of scholarship athletes v. non athletes, remember that 100% of the athletes have scholarships, and some living expenses paid, while the others get whatever is average for the student body. Ivy schools run in the 90 - 98% range, Columbia being lowest at 90%. You can compile the range for your favorite conference.

Graduation rates for basketball are opaque, because there are so few on the team. Football gives more visible data. For a lot of these schools, graduation rates run 33% for the whole student body, not hard for the football team to beat. BrooklynDodger may post some data later.

The site below gives a new measurement, the APR. The APR awards 1 point for maintaining eligibility, and 1 point for staying in the institution at all, averaged over the whole team and normalized to 1000. Failure to maintain an APR of 925 for a team will cause a loss of scholarships in the near future. The NCAA says an APR of 925 corresponds to an approximate 50% 6-year graduation rate. [By my calculations, if 1/10 people on the team flunk out and leave, that yields an APR of 920; I assume that is based on a cohort starting the year. I didn't study this carefully enough to figure the rules and the statistical allowances for small teams.]

APR's are there for the Ivies as well as the rest.

For those in the mid-east region, Ohio State's APR for football is 870 [that is 55 points underwater, measured against a water line of 50% graduation], while U of M carried a 952 and MSU a 906. Notre Dame scored a 934.

http://www2.ncaa.org/academics_and_athletes/education_and_research/academic_reform/school_apr_data.html

BrooklynDodger imagines the impact of this system will be for coaches to identify failure prone athletes who are still above water at the end of the year, and kick them off the team before they enter next year's cohort.

Speed Freakout

So, around 10:30 am, the DSL connection went down. Third time in last few days. Past two time, with the delay to find tech support, it came back on its own. This time, despite the routine of turning off everything, turning on, dialing back up, nothing. Tech support finally agreed there was something wrong. Said someone would call back. BrooklynDodger was so internet deprived the Dodger went to the office.

On return home, still nothing. Was the Dodger going to have to go to coffee beanery on Sunday to get anything done? or do a dial up?

After symphony, at 10:30 pm, still no connection. Back to tech support. Asked where they were. After much questioning, admitted to being in India but said he was forbidden to give the city. While we were on the phone, the computer connected.

Not sure what the lesson is.

Finding Solace in Defeat

Does a team lose because of a bad box score, or is the box score bad because of losing? The Pistons were in a bubble, now burst by the Suns and Sonics [and now going to Sacramento, luckily no S's in the east], and they weren't exactly blown out on the other guys home court. BrooklynDodger notes back-to-back games on the downside of a long trip.

That said, when Prince gets only 5, Hamilton only 15, the team gets only 1 three, and rebounding goes OR 10-14, DR 23-35, all R 33-49, the Dodger wonders how they only lost by 8. The only by 8 probably cames from Ronald Dupree scoring 12, got to be his high game, on 6 for 8 shooting in only 15 minutes.

Incidentally, the Pistons missed 48 FGA's and 9 FTA's for a total of 56 caroms; they got 10 OR's, leaving 46 for Seattle to find. Seattle got 9 team rebounds, which added to their 35 DR's gives 44, leaving two unaccounted for. Seattle missed 53 FGA's and 5 FTA's, leaving 58 caroms from which they took 14 OR's leaving 44 for the Pistons to find. Detroit got 16 team rebounds, which added their paltry 23 DR's gives 39, leaving 5 missing.

This prompted the Dodger to search the net for a definition of team rebound, gleaning:

In the NBA if a shot is missed at the buzzer does someone get credit for the rebound?

Answer by Matt contributed on May 09, 2004, at 11:15pm. Last updated on May 10, 2004, at 11:17pm.
No individual player gets credit for a rebound but the offensive team is credited with a "team rebound".
A team rebound is also given following a missed shot, if a personal foul is called before the rebound can be grabbed. It is also given to the defensive team if the ball goes out of bounds after a shot without anyone touching it, or to the team getting the ball if it glances off another player and out of bounds. Also the defensive team gets a team rebound if a shooter misses the rim entirely on the last free throw attempt in a sequence.

Which gives an answer to the mystery: there is no rebound attempt for the missed first shot on a two shot foul, it goes into hyperspace. Which must include some of the 7-11 FTA's that Ben missed. Instead of Hack a Shaq, we may see Banging Ben in the playoffs.

Are Humans A Learning Species? (II)

BrooklynDodger expects protests against the killing of the chimps. Probably by the victims themselves.

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Chimps Killed After Attacking Animal Sanctuary Visitors

CALIENTE, Calif. -- A couple's visit to an animal sanctuary turned tragic Thursday when two chimpanzees attacked them, critically wounding the husband and causing serious injuries to his wife.

Workers at the Animal Haven Ranch near Bakersfield shot and killed two of the male animals and later recaptured two other female chimps that broke out of their cages.
...
The couple were at the refuge to celebrate the birthday of Moe, a chimp that had been removed from their home years earlier for aggressive behavior after biting off part of a woman’s finger.

They had brought Moe a cake and were standing outside his cage when two of the four chimps in the adjoining cage attacked Davis. Moe was not involved in Thursday's attack.

The Davises had waged an unsuccessful legal fight to bring Moe back to their West Covina home and visited him regularly at the sanctuary where he had been living since October.

....Initial reports indicated two workers had been attacked.

Another Tragedy from Iraq

Scrolling through the blogspot site, I found something that makes this hobby seem so trivial.

For the last few weeks, the Dodger had been reading Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books by Azar NafisiAn exquisite account of the transition from overthrow of a corrupt secular autocracy into a fundamentalist regime in which oppression of women became a central and even mobilizing principle.

The Bush invasion and subjugation of Iraq lacks the legitimacy of the revolt against the Shah, so without those roots the current trends in Iraq disturb even more. Reading this blog is like reading "Reading" in real time.


http://riverbendblog.blogspot.com/

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Baghdad Burning
... I'll meet you 'round the bend my friend, where hearts can heal and souls can mend...


Friday, February 18, 2005

Final Email Change...Ok- it's final. After trying several different email services, I've decided to use
baghdad.burning@gmail.com
Please email me there from now on. Thank you.javascript:SquawkBoxCount(110873090959543535) -->- posted by river @ 3:24 PM



Groceries and Election Results...Yesterday, one of our neighbors stopped by the house. She was carrying a hot plate of some green beans in a tomato sauce. “Abu Ammar has some wonderful green beans,” she confided. “But you have to tell him to give you some of the ones he hides under the table- the ones on display are a little bit chewy.” I added green beans to the grocery list and headed off with E. to Abu Ammar. Our local grocer, Abu Ammar has a vegetable and fruit stand set up about 400 m away from our house, on the main street. ...

“And is Iran so bad?” He finally asked. Well no, Abu Ammar, I wanted to answer, it’s not bad for *you* - you’re a man… if anything your right to several temporary marriages, a few permanent ones and the right to subdue females will increase. Why should it be so bad? Instead I was silent. It’s not a good thing to criticize Iran these days.

I numbly reached for the bags he handed me, trying to rise out of that sinking feeling that overwhelmed me when the results were first made public. It’s not about a Sunni government or a Shia government- it’s about the possibility of an Iranian-modeled Iraq. Many Shia are also appalled with the results of the elections. There’s talk of Sunnis being marginalized by the elections but that isn’t the situation. It’s not just Sunnis- it’s moderate Shia and secular people in general who have been marginalized.

The list is frightening- Da’awa, SCIRI, Chalabi, Hussein Shahristani and a whole collection of pro-Iran political figures and clerics. They are going to have a primary role in writing the new constitution. There’s talk of Shari’a, or Islamic law, having a very primary role in the new constitution. The problem is, whose Shari’a? Shari’a for many Shia differs from that of Sunni Shari’a. And what about all the other religions? What about Christians and Mendiyeen? Is anyone surprised that the same people who came along with the Americans – the same puppets who all had a go at the presidency last year – are the ones who came out on top in the elections? Jaffari, Talbani, Barazani, Hakim, Allawi, Chalabi… exiles, convicted criminals and war lords.

Welcome to the new Iraq.Ibraheim Al-Jaffari, the head of the pro-Iran Da’awa party gave an interview the other day. He tried very hard to pretend he was open-minded and that he wasn’t going to turn the once-secular Iraq into a fundamentalist Shia state but the fact of the matter remains that he is the head of the Da’awa party. The same party that was responsible for some of the most infamous explosions and assassinations in Iraq during the last few decades. This is the same party that calls for an Islamic Republic modeled like Iran. Most of its members have spent a substantial amount of time in Iran.

Free Market Trading

Free agency, either combined with a salary cap or not, makes assembling teams in professional sports much like fantasy leagues. In a fantasy league, it's the cap on total roster cost that restricts a franchise from taking all all-stars. Even without a cap, there is some limit to what a team can spend. So, picking up a high-priced talent means giving up someone else.

You could argue that the free agent market is like a disseminated trade market. When a contract is not renewed, or an offer is not matched, the player is offered in trade. The cutters don't know where the cuttee is going. But now the cutters have cap room to go after some other cuttee cast adrift.

There are still some bi-lateral or multi-lateral trades, but these are often directed to moving a player out of the division so he doesn't come back to haunt.

Multiculturalism

Without revealing any more personally identifying information, BrooklynDodger went to a play in NY called Brooklyn Boy. BrooklynDodger feels just as much pressure to think of something insightful to say about a play when you have close people with ties to the theatre as insightful sport comments with close people in the sportswriting business, and as for fiction writing, don't ask [frage nicht].

Dodger's first observation is that Death of a Salesman has been reprised so often that the original seems a cliche. If you see DOS, you must remind yourself over again that this was the first Broadway play to describe middle class Brooklyn Jewish pathos at mid century. Arthur Miller invented the theme, or at least the theme in the Broadway venue. The author of Brooklyn Boy, Margulies, can't claim not to know, having wrote "Loman Family Picnic."

The Dodger felt cool to recognize the main character's name, Eric Weiss, before the play riffs on Harry Houdini [is this like the gun placed on the table in the first act?]. The Dodger also wonders whether every book tour attracts groupies as hot as seen here; maybe the Dodger should write his own book to find out. [probably only fiction writers get that kind of play.] Actually, the Dodger felt the scene in the hotel room ended in quite an unlikely fashion, since Eric was not apparently so clinically depressed as to end the encounter.

Finally, BrooklynDodger liked the dialogue at the end, where the father talks about the pressure of competition with his son, and disappearing into work to avoid it. Of course, that's after the father is dead and the son is making it up, and anyway the playwright is 50 and probably has his own kids he's thinking of.

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http://theater2.nytimes.com/mem/theater/treview.html?res=9F0CE3D9103BF937A35751C0A9639C8B63


THEATER REVIEW; Crossing the River To Find the Past By BEN BRANTLEY Published: February 4, 2005