Love it or leave it

I'm about to say something that I really hoped didn't need to be said anymore, but apparently it still does.

You can hate your country's government, but still love your country.

I bring this up because of all the attention the following tweets have gotten lately.

Most of the outrage over these tweets has focused on how racists they are ( which they certainly are ), but I don't think enough attention has been given to how Trump is trying to say that anyone who opposes him is un-American.

If this is not obvious from the tweets above, Trump's defense of these tweets in the video below ( check the 41-second mark of the video below ) should clarify things further.



The Trump quote I'd like to focus on is the following:

"These are people that in my opinion hate our country."

The only proof he offers that "these people" hate the country are "all of the statements they've made".

Well, if you look at the comments "Progressive Democrat Congresswoman" have made ( be it progressive congresswoman in general or Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, Ayanna Pressley, and Rashida Talib in particular ), you don't see anything that indicates they hate the USA.  Instead you see comments that indicate that these progressive congresswoman oppose President Trump's policies, Republican policies, and many mainstream Democratic policies.  While some of their stances may not win them a lot of friends on Capitol Hill, their positions are not un-American.  Being a patriotic American does not mean supporting the status quo.  If the Founding Fathers has been content to maintain that status quo, our nation would not even exist.  If abolitionists has been content with the status quo, tens of millions would still be enslaved.

Back in the days of of McCarthyism in the 50's, McCarthy supporter Walter Winchell popularized the saying "America: Love it or Leave it".  The saying gained even more traction in the 1960's in response to those who opposed the Vietnam War.

I'm sure that those who were alive in the 60s still remember what "love it or leave it" meant back then.  Those who said "love it or leave it" to Vietnam War protestors were telling them that opposing the US government's policy of military intervention in southeast Asia was the equivalent of not supporting the USA, and if somebody was not supporting the USA, they should leave the country.

I'd had hoped the intervening 50 years would have changed some minds about the idea that opposing the government in unpatriotic.  After all, in the decades that followed the 60's most American's came to believe that the Vietnam War was a mistake.  The Watergate scandal should have taught Americans that it is unwise the blindly trust the government, and several other government "-gate" scandals since then should have reinforced that.

However, now we find ourselves 50 years after the Vietnam era with a US President who is pushing the idea that dissent in unpatriotic.

Well, if I could could speak to Donald Trump, I would tell him the following ...

"Mr. President, I love my country, but you are not my country.  Supporting you is not an example of of patriotism, and neither was support of President Obama, President Bush, President Clinton, President Reagan, or any other president.  Patriotism is putting the needs of your country ahead of your own needs.  For example, if a patriot found that a foreign government was trying to meddle with our election system, a true patriot would try to stop that from happening rather than accepting help from this foreign government for his own political gain.  A true patriot would not to obstruct an investigation of foreign meddling in our election system in order to protect his political power.  And of course it goes without saying that a patriot would not use the power of the presidency to enrich himself, but doing things like - I don't know - staying at his private club for much of his presidency, so that the club's members would be fine with a 100% increase in the membership fees in exchange for influence, and charging the Secret Service exorbitant fees to stay there.  Of course as President, I'm sure you'd like all patriotic people to stay in this country, and as you were so clear in saying, you would encourage the unpatriotic people to leave.  We'll here's hoping you get exactly what you want in this case."

Rich

Rowing vs. Running

( This blog post will compare the advantages and disadvantages of rowing verses running.  I want to make it clear that for the purposes of this blog post, "rowing" means using a rowing machine, and "running" means running on a treadmill.  I've never rowed a competition-style rowing scull on the water and I prefer running on a treadmill to running outside ( While I occasionally run outside if a treadmill is not available, I prefer using a treadmill because it provides consistent metrics I can use to compare my level of performance over time.  I've been running on the same treadmill at home for about 16 years now, and each time I run I'm running under the exact the same conditions.  Thus, if I set a personal best, I know I was better that day than any day in the past ( Or if my performance is far from my personal best ( which I am now due to some recent injuries ), I know exactly how much I need to improve. ).  While running outside certainly has a lot of benefits that lots of people love, one thing it does not provide is consistent running conditions.  Things like the temperature, precipitation, wind, and the grade and condition of the road could certainly make your results vary from day to day.  I'm not anal about a lot of things, but I am anal about having consistent metrics when I run, so I'm an indoor kid when it comes to running. )

I've been running on a treadmill regularly for 18 and a half years.  I'd rarely go more than a few days without a run, but in mid-October of 2018, due to a series of events that I won't explain here ( except to say that a clogged pipe on the outside of my house led to back injury which led to a hip injury ), I injured my hip left hip badly enough that I couldn't do any running without making the hip pain much worse.  After repeated attempts at self-rehab failed to work, I started to get antsy that I wasn't get any cardio exercise and I wound up googling "Best cardio exercised with an injured hip".  This led me to buy the Concept2 rowing machine you can see in the photo above, and by December 5, 2018, I was giving it a try for the first time.

Anyway, long story short, after months of doing rehab for my hip ( I actually got professional rehab at real rehab place, rather than trying to do it myself ) I was able to get back to running regularly, and now I'm both running and rowing regularly.  I've still only been rowing for about 6 months, so I'm by no means an expert on it, but I think I know enough about rowing now to write about the experience of rowing verses the experience of running.  I'm not writing this to make any judgement about which is better, but I'd thought it be fun to describe some of the key differences I've noticed.  I'm going to compare and contrast running and rowing in terms of the following 6 categories:

Simplicity
Injury Risk
Muscle Building
Calorie Burning
Cardio
Effect on Quality of Life

Simplicity

The biggest advantage that running has over rowing is that running is simplicity.  Anybody who is reasonable healthy ( and is fortunate enough to have healthy legs and nervous system that can operate those legs ) can run.  On the other hand, rowing with the proper technique can be really difficult.  I've been rowing for over 6 months now, and I still have a long way to go before I'll be rowing with textbook technique.  When you first start rowing, bad technique can keep you from getting a good cardiovascular workout.  When I first started rowing, my muscle endurance would give out long before my cardiovascular endurance.  I'd come off the rowing machine with only half the sweat I'd get from a run, and muscles all over my body ( some of which I barely knew I had ) would be sore for days.  You will need to put in a lot of time on the rowing machine before your technique improves enough to allow you to get a good cardiovascular workout.

BTW, if decide to take up rowing ( or have just started rowing ), the following two YouTube channels are great resources ...

Training Tall
Dark Horse Rowing

I've learned everything I know about rowing from watching these two channels, and I made gigantic improvements in my rowing times after just watching about 5 of these videos.

Injury Risk

As you might expect, rowing has a big advantage in this category.  I've gotten all sort of injuries from running over the years.  I've injured both knees, both hips, and parts of my feet ranging from the heal, to the mid-foot, to the toes.  I've never been able to run more than 2 or 3 time a week without either getting "sponge-y" knees or sore hip joints.  The nature of running pretty much assures that your joints are going to take a gravity-assisted pounding, but the smooth horizontal rowing motion is easy on the joints.  I was able to do some intense rows with zero hip pain at a time when just walking for 20 minutes would make my hip sore.  If you've got any kind of joint issues, rowing is a far better exercise to do than running.  That said, you can certainly hurt yourself while rowing, especially when you first start and your technique is really bad.  I'd wind up with really sore biceps after some of my early rows ( didn't really injure them, but in retrospect I was probably lucky not to strain/tear a biceps while rowing with crappy technique ), and a pain so bad in the back of the leg behind the knee that I had to ice it for a hour ( The pain was in some tendon or ligament that feels like a cord running down the back of my leg behind the knee ( the outside part of the knee ).  I have no idea what that body part is called, but it hurt like all heck when I tried to do intense rows ( trying to break some of my early personal bests ) using poor technique, and used mostly my legs and foot straps to pull myself back towards the catch ( the part of the rowing machine stroke near the wheel ) rather than using my core ( One tip from Training Tall that fixed that problem: Try rowing for a while without the foot straps to learn how to use your core rather than your legs to pull yourself back to the catch ) ).  Still, while there is some injury risk from rowing with bad technique, those risk decrease dramatically even with small improvements in technique.  With the exception of the first few weeks of rowing with piss-poor technique, I've never been sore after rowing.

Muscle Building

You might think the rowing has a big advantage here, because proponents of rowing always promote it as being a "full body workout".  While it is true that rowing works a wider variety of muscles than running, I don't necessarily believe that it provides more muscle work than running.  I figure that a run or a row that burns the same amount of calories must require roughly the same amount of energy, and thus must work the muscles about the same amount.  Of course, with running, almost all of the muscle building/toning will be in the legs, while rowing is going to spread the benefits to your muscles across many part of you body.  So, if you mostly care about having strong toned legs, running is the way to go, but if what you really want out of a workout is to get the long lean V-shaped upper body that all the serious rowing dudes have, then I guess rowing is the way to go.

Calorie Burning

Most studies show that running burns a more calories that running - not a huge amount more, but certainly more.  See here, here, and here for some numbers.   The last of these 3 links is an article that says rowing gives you "more bang for you buck"  than running, but even that article says ... "the subject on the treadmill burnt 350 calories, while the person on the rowing machine expended 300".  I've also noticed in my own workouts that I can burn calories faster on a treadmill than I can on a rowing machine ( based on the treadmill and rowing machine metrics ). So, if you are deciding whether to get a treadmill or a rowing machine, and all you care about is burning calories, a treadmill is the best bet.

Cardio

However, even though it it clear to me that running burns more calories than rowing, I've come to believe that rowing gives you a better cardio workout.  I'l admit this is only anecdotal evidence, but there is no doubt in my mind that my heart pumps faster after an intense row than after an intense run.  I think this is because I can "empty my tank" on rowing machine in a way that I can't do safely on a treadmill.  When I get to the end of a row and I'm pushing for a personal best, I find myself closing my eyes, gritting my teach and putting every ounce of energy I have into the last 30 strokes of so.  I can't do that on a treadmill.  Not only would it be inconvenient to to manual increase the speed of the treadmill while I try to do a closing "kick", but if I'm expending all my energy on the treadmill, there is a good chance I could lose control and fall off.

Effect on Quality of Life

Before giving a verdict a this one, I'd like to make it clear that I love both running and rowing, particular because by alternating between running and running, I can get cardio exercise almost every day without worrying about my knees wearing out.

That said, I believe that for most people, running is a better exercise than rowing to improve the quality of your life.  Running is going to make your legs stronger, and give you the ability to move with your legs over longer distances.  Rowing will certainly give you a better full body workout, but it does not work the legs as much as rowing, and I would say that being more proficient in the rowing motion and having a stronger upper body from rowing is not as practical as being able to get from point A to point B on your feet faster.  Whether you are walking to work, walking to the store, hiking, walking around an amusement park, sightseeing by foot on vacation, or exploring a national park by foot, being able to walk long distances quickly is a big advantage.  Being able to row across a lake at high speed or looking good in a tight T-shirt is nice, but I don't think is is practical as being able to move around quickly by foot. 

Once again, I love rowing and I intend to do into old age, long after my knees wear out, but I think running might help people with everyday life a bit move.  Of course, I might have a different answer after my knees actually do wear out.  All and I, I just feel blessed to be healthy to do both exercises these days.

Rich

Jaime, Arya, and The Hound

Just for fun, I'd like to share a few of my guesses about what might happen in the last 2 episodes of Game of Thrones.  These guesses will probably be wrong ( because Game of Thrones has always been unpredictable ), but I've got to do something to fill the time before the next episode.

( Before I go on, this post assumes you have watched Games of Thrones up to and including episode 4 of season 8.  If you haven't gotten that far yet, you probably should not read further. )

I'm going to start by posting a link to a video that's been making the rounds because ...
1) It is delightful.
2) The theme of the video is related to one of my theories below.

Arya and The Hound video

So, anyway, on to my theories ...

By the end of the last episode ( episode 4 of season 8 ), we know that 3 people are heading down to King's Landing, independent of Dany and Jon's war maneuvers.  Those 3 are ...

Jaime Lannister
Arya Stark
Sandor "The Hound" Clegane

All 3 of them are on their own personal mission.

The Hound: He wants to kill his brother, Gregor "The Mountain" Clegane

Arya: She wants to kill Cersei Lannister ( and possibly The Mountain as well.  I believe The Mountain is still on Arya's kill list, but I've got to believe that her primary focus is on Cersei ).

Jaime: The show hasn't made it entirely clear what his mission is, but it has something to do with Cersei.

Ever since Games of Thrones started, lots of fans of the show ( particular book readers ) have theorized that Jaime would ultimately be the person who kills Cersei.  I agree with those theories.  From a narrative sense, it would be most poetic and dramatic if Jaime is the one who ends Cersei's life.

Fans have also have strong feelings about who should ultimately kill The Mountain.  Ever since The Mountain and The Hound briefly squared off with swords on the jousting field in season 1, fans have been clamoring for a rematch, even giving it the name "Cleganebowl".  I'm certain there will be a Cleganebowl, and I'm certain The Hound will prevail and kill The Mountain ( Of course, I was also once certain that Ned Stark would be the hero for the run of the show, and later was also certain that Rob Stark would be the ultimate hero of the show. ).

Assuming I'm right, and Jaime kills Cersei and The Hound kills The Mountain, what is there left for Arya to do?  What is her role in the story at that point?

Unfortunately, I think her role is to die.

Specifically, I think she is going to die at the hands of The Mountain ( hopefully not a head crush - I don't think I could watch another one of those ).  The reason I believe this is that Arya dying at the hands of The Mountain perfectly meshes with The Hound's narrative arch.  As much as The Hound hates his brother, I believe he loves Arya more.  It's been clear for a while that The Hound views Arya as the daughter he never had ( The scenes they spent traveling the countryside together are among my favorites in the show. ).  If the Mountain kills Arya, it will give the The Hound the motivation he needs to overcome all of his fears and doubts and finally defeat his bully of a big brother.

I know after what we've seen from Arya for the last few seasons, it seems unlikely that anyone could kill Arya, but I think The Mountain is a special case.  There's no doubt in my mind that Arya can outfight The Mountain, and there is no doubt that Arya will be able to get past The Mountain's defenses to stab him several times.  However, considering that the Mountain is now an undead Frankenstein monster-type creature, I don't think those stabs will have the desired effect.  I think The Mountain will shake off those stabs, get his hands on  Arya, and then ... ( please no head crush! ) ... The Hound will have to watch the person he loves the most die ( or perhaps Arya will just be mortally wounded, because after The Hound kills The Mountain, it would be nice if the show gave Arya the kind of final words they denied Jorah ).  I think that ultimately, The Hound will kill The Mountain by chopping off his head, because I can't think of any other good way to kill the zombie-Mountain.

This isn't necessarily what I want see happen ( because Arya is one of my favorite characters ), but I think the show has been leading us to this moment for a while.

Now, as far as Jon and Dany go, your guess is as good as mine.  If I had to take a completely wild guess, I'd say that Jon will die doing something brave and selfless, Dany will blame her blinding ambition for Jon's death, reverse the heel-turn she's been engaged in all season and decide to really "break the wheel" by declaring that all the Seven Kingdoms free to rule themselves and having Drogon melt the Iron Throne.

Of course, I'm probably completely wrong about all that, but whatever happens, I'll be glued to my TV the next two Sunday nights.

Rich

What about Ned? : Endgame Nitpicks *** SPOILERS ***

OK, let's me start by making it clear that this blog post is going to be full of Avengers: Endgame spoilers.  Because I intend to post a link to this blog post on Facebook, and Facebook usually shows a preview of the first few lines of any blog post, I'm going to include the next few lines to make sure nobody accidentally reads a spoiler.

******* SPOILER ALERT **********
******* SPOILER ALERT **********
******* SPOILER ALERT **********
******* SPOILER ALERT **********
******* SPOILER ALERT **********

OK, so let's start with the question I asked in the title of this post.  What's going on in the scene near the end when Ned sees Peter in the hallway of the high school?  Ned is acting like he hasn't seen Peter in a long time, which implies that Ned did not get "dusted" when Thanos snapped his fingers ( I'll just call this "The Snap" going forward ).  However, considering that 5 years had passed since The Snap, Ned would have already been in college if he had survived it.  Assuming this isn't a giant plot hole, I guess we are supposed to assume that Ned was dusted by The Snap as well, and he's just a really friendly guy who greets his friends that way all the time.  Though, I guess to be fair, it may have been more than a few days since Ned had seen Peter, even if Ned had been dusted.  It is quite possible that the Midtown School of Science and Technology was operating with an entirely new student body ( and many new teachers ) 5 years after The Snap, and it could have taken weeks ( perhaps months, with Board of Ed bureaucracy ) for dusted students to be reinstated.  Still, you would think Peter and Ned would have contacted each other before coming back to school.  In any case, assuming we accept that Ned was dusted too, we also know from the Spider-Man: Far From Home trailer that MJ and Flash Thompson are also still in high school, and presumably were dusted by the Snap.  It seems kind of convenient the the 3 most important characters in Peter's high school were also dusted, but I guess it is only a 1 in 8 chance that all three of them would be dusted, and that certainly would not be the most implausible thing to happen in the MCU.

I suppose one could argue that Bruce's snap just put everything back the way it was and wiped out the previous 5 years, but that argument doesn't make sense when you consider Tony's daughter still existed after Bruce's snap.  Yes, I know Tony made it clear that he wasn't going to give up his daughter to get back everything that was lost, but I don't think Bruce was going to wipe out the existence of all the kids that had been born in the last 5 years. I believe that people were just "un-dusted" back into existence at the very moment Bruce snapped his fingers, which bring up the following questions ...

- How does Hawkeye's wife call Hawkeye right after the snap?  She was almost certainly calling from a cell phone, and considering everybody's cell phone contracts last only 2 years, her cell phone account would have been deactivated in the 5 years between The Snap and Bruce's snap.  Yes, I guess she could have been calling from the landline phone in the home that she shared with Hawkeye and their kids, but ...
---- That would assume that Hawkeye was still paying the landline phone bill for that house when he was traveling the world as an assassin.
---- I don't know about you, but the contact name on my cell phone for my landline phone is "Home", and the contact name for my wife's cell phone is her name.  If Hawkeye's wife was really calling from the landline phone in their home ( assuming Hawkeye was still paying the bill for that phone while he was spending his time killing dudes in Tokyo ), I would think that the name that would appear on Hawkeye's phone would be something like "Home" rather than his wife's name.
She was clearly calling him from a cell phone, on an account that miraculously still existed 5 years after it was last used.

- Where does a person appear when they get un-dusted?  Do they appear where they last existed?  If so, a lot of people who were dusted while they were in a plane would have just fallen out of the sky when Bruce snapped his fingers.

- Why don't the Mets exist anymore?  Don't Mets fans have enough problems?  I think they would have started major league baseball again 5 years after The Snap.  Sure, half the players would be gone, but they could have restocked MLB with minor league players.  Or is the movie trying to say that New York only need one MLB team after the snap, and the Yankees would naturally be that team? If that's the case, screw you MCU!

- Bruce's snap almost certainly doomed the world to mass starvation.  If the population of the world suddenly dropped from 7 billion to 3.5 billion, there is no reason why the remaining farmers, ranchers, and farming/ranching corporations would have continued to produced enough food to feed 7 billion people.  When Bruce's snap brings 3.5 billion people back into the world, he brings them into a world that only has a large enough food supply to feed the 3.5 billion people that were in the world prior to Bruce's snap.  Sure, more crops would be planted at this point to help feed all these extra people, but I think billions would die before all those crops could be harvested.  Nice job, Bruce.

- I'd just like to remind everybody that if The Snap happened in 2018 when Infinity War came out ( the time travel segments in Endgame strongly implies that all the recent MCU movies are set in the years that movie is releases ), it is now 2023 in the MCU.  I'm wondering future MCU movies will have any continuity errors that suggest the year is earlier than 2023.

- Speaking of 2023, if Steve Rogers was in his early 20's in World War II, he'd be about 100 in that scene at the end of the movie ( which presumably takes place in 2023 ).  He doesn't look anywhere near 100, but I can accept that his enhanced physique has slowed down the aging process a bit.

However, what I can't accept is that old Steve Rogers is in our MCU timeline at all.  When The Ancient One was talking to Bruce, she made it clear, the that changing something in the past would not affect the future, but would instead create an entirely new timeline.  This was confirmed when Nebula killed the past version of herself and did not immediately cease to exist and disappear. ( It also worth noting that Thor did not wipe out his history with his hammer when he swiped the hammer from the timeline in the past, but he was bit of a dick to make the Thor in the other timeline go the rest of his life without his hammer. ).  Thus, after Steve Rogers decided to stay with Peggy in the past, he would have created an entirely new timeline and would not have would up on that bench as an old man in our MCU at the end of the movie.

A few more random notes ...

- I'm glad Valkyrie and Korg survived ( because they were great in Ragnarok and I was disappointed not to see either of them in Infinity War ) , but it doesn't really make a lot a sense that they ( and a large enough number of Asgardians to populate a seaside village ) would have survived what happened at the start of Infinity War.  It seems like almost everybody on board that spaceship of Asgardians was dead when the movie started, and then Thanos blew up the ship.  I could believe that a bunch of Asgardians ( and perhaps Korg ) could have fled the ship in escape pods of some kind ), but I can't believe that a conscious Valkyrie would not have fought against Thanos to the bitter end ( and if she has been unconscious when Thanos blew up the ship, she would have certainly died ( unless she was just as extremely lucky as Thor was after the ship was blown up ). 

- Based on the explanations I've heard/read about Ant-Man's powers, I don't understand why he doesn't have the density and strength of sea foam when he turns into Giant-Man.  I'm not the only one who feels this way.  See this, and this.

- Finally, I understand what the filmmakers were going for when all the other female heroes decided to help Captain Marvel get across the battlefield with the Infinity Gauntlet.  But let's face it, she didn't really need anybody's help.  With perhaps the exception of Scarlet Witch, Captain Marvel is more powerful than all the heroes that tried to help her combined.

All that said, I really enjoyed this movie, and I'm probably going to see it again in one of the coming weekends.  I do wish the MCU played a little less fast and loose with science, continuity, and common sense, but I guess I shouldn't expect that much about a cinematic universe that features walking trees and talking raccoons.

Rich

Weapons of Math Destruction

Editor's Note ( the "editor" would be me ) : I posted this story on my Facebook today, because a lot more people look at my Facebook posts than look at this blog, but I thought I'd post this story here for posterity.

I'd never posted any math awards Michael had won in years past, because Michael always had the reputation as the math wiz, and I didn't want to seem like I was bragging about him too much. However, I feel Peter's always been short changed in that regard ( friends and relatives have often talked about how good Michael is in math while Peter was in earshot ), so I'm going to do some bragging about Peter's accomplishments today. First of all, to give Michael his due, in the previous two years ( 7th and 8th grade - he's in High School now ) Michael finished in 2nd and 3rd place ( winning swag like Amazon Kindles and Echos ) in a middle school math competition at St. Joseph's High School, which includes about 300 competitors from 20 middle schools. Michael also won some swag in a few other smaller math competitions. At last year's St Joseph's completion ( Michael in 8th grade, Peter in 7th grade ), Michael did great ( as noted above ), but Peter did so poorly he was crying in the school lunch room after the competition. This year, Peter returned as an 8th grader to that competition and finished 7th place overall and 1st in his middle school. He also went to a middle school math competition at Princeton this year with and won 1st place for his middle school in the team competition with 3 of his 8th grade teammates. About 2 or 3 weeks ago, Ruth found out about about another middle school math competition ( one that didn't exist last year ) that allowed each of the schools participating to send multiple teams of 4-6 student each. The teams would be formed by the students themselves and the teams would do their own preparation without the help of teachers. Peter's school sent multiple teams of 5 and 6 students, and one of these teams with 5 kids ( including at least one of Peter's 8th grade teammates on the 1st place Princeton team ) invited Peter to join. However, Peter isn't very social or assertive and he didn't get back to the team on time, and the day before teams and their members needed to be submitted, Peter was left without a team. Peter was resigned to not being on a team, but Ruth scrambled, started calling some parents, and at the last minute she put together a team of Peter, two 7th graders and one 6th grader. That team might be at a disadvantage against teams of 5 or 6 8th graders and including Peter's 1st place teammates from the Princeton competition, but at least Peter had a team. Last Sunday, the 3 other kids came to our home and had about a 3-hour training session with Peter ( about halfway through the session, Michael chipped in to help with the training ). I was so proud watching Peter explain some concepts to his younger teammates. It reminded me of the times I used to teach Peter math sitting on the floor of a hallway while Michael ( who was prodigious in math at a much younger age than Peter ) was taking classes in competition math on Saturday mornings. All that hard work paid off today as Peter's team finished 1st in the math competition ( out of 35 teams )! Great job, Peter!

Rich

P.S. The name of this post is the name I suggested for Peter's math team but Ruth did not submit to the school, because we both knew it was terrible name to submit to the school for many reasons.  Still, in my mind Peter's math team will always be "Weapons of Math Destruction", because those kids destroyed those math problems today.

Talkin' 'Bout Your Generations

Dear baby boomers and millennials,

Over the last couple of years, a narrative has emerged that pits your two generations against each other .  You baby boomers complain that millennials are entitled, lazy, self-centered, and ruining traditional institutions and businesses.  You millennials respond that baby boomers are at fault for the sad state of our world, our politics, and basically everything.

I'll admit that I found this conflict entertaining for a while, but it's frankly getting a little bit old, so I think it may be time for the folks stuck in the middle of all this to speak up.

Hey there, remember us?  We're Generation X.

You baby boomers should remember us.  There was a time when you couldn't stop talking about us.  You didn't have a lot of good things to say about us, but you sure talked about us a lot.  You called us underachievers.  You called us "slackers".  Heck, yo even made a movie about us called "Slacker".  You gave us the name "Generation X" in part to represent how unknowable and uncertain our future was. We saw plenty of newspaper and magazine articles back then that told us we were going to be "the first generation to have a lower standard of living than their parents".

Sound familiar, millennials?  It's a little bit hard to find online ( because a lot of the magazines and newspapers back then never published online ), but believe me when I tell you that baby boomers were saying the same things about Gen X 25 years ago that they are saying about millennials today.

According to boomer pundits in the early 90's, the Gen X generation was destined to struggle, but I think we turned out OK.  If you're a millennial, there's a pretty good chance that your boss ( or maybe your boss's boss ) is a Gen X-er.  Maybe I'm just patting myself on the back here, and maybe it's just a reflection of the Gen X people I happen to know, but just about Gen X-er I know is doing fine.  Obviously not everyone is doing fine, and there are people struggling in all generations, but I see no reason to believe that any new generation has ever been doomed.  In 25-years, a lot of us Gen X-ers will be retired ( or at the end of their career ) and you millennials will be running the world.

All that said, I do have one thing to get off my chest regarding millennials.  There was time when Gen X was the hot new generation, and now we seem to be largely forgotten ( or completely forgotten? ) and millennials get all the media attention.  I've got to admit that I'm a little jealous of you guys because of that ( either that, or the fact that you guys don't have to get out of bed to pee at 3 in the morning ).

OK, so let get back to the boomers.  I'm know you might be kinda pissed of at me at this at point because I have pretty much been taking the millennials side in this conflict, but I hope you can remember a time when you were in the millennials' shoes.  After all, this song was written for your generation:




The song My Generation came to mind when I was trying to come up with a title for this post, but it's actually not the song that most sums up the theme of this blog post.  I think the song the best expresses what I'm trying to say in this post is another song that a lot of baby boomers might remember:



In case it isn't clear, the key line in this song that I'd like to highlight is ...

Why can't they be like we were,
Perfect in every way?
What's the matter with kids today?

I've always loved that lyric because of its timelessness.  In the play/movie, the character who sings that line is a member of the Greatest Generation singing about the baby boomer generation, but it is really a line that could be sung by any older generation about the younger generation.

The story never changes.  Each young generations gets criticized by older generations and then grows up and criticizes the generations that follow it.

"What is it with these kids and that crazy new music?"
"Why are these kids spending so much time in front of the TV ( the "boob tube" )?"
"Why are these kids playing so many video games?"
"Why are these kids spending so much time on that internet thing?"
"Why are kids faces always buried in their phones?"

So, I hope you boomers can remember that you were once the brash young generation that your parents' didn't understand, and I hope you millennials will have some empathy with the younger generation when you become old and crotchety, because it's more than likely that you're not going to die before you get old.

Rich

Super Bowl Special

Imagine you're a 24-year quarterback who is about to play in his first Super Bowl on Sunday February 3rd.  Imagine that your team wouldn't have made it to the Super Bowl without the benefit of an extremely controversial decision by the referees in an earlier playoff game.  After the officiating controversy, your team managed to send the playoff game into overtime on a clutch field goal as time expired, and then won the game on another clutch field goal in overtime.

You're coming to the Super Bowl as underdogs.  The team you are about to play won the Super Bowl just 2 years earlier, and has a quarterback that is a former MVP and Super Bowl MVP.  The great MVP quarterback you're going to face had to overcome his own doubters in the past.  Unlike a lot of great quarterbacks, he was not a first round draft pick.  He wasn't a 2nd, 3rd, 4th, or 5th round draft pick.  The NFL Draft after this QB's senior year of college made it clear that nobody thought this guy would be a great quarterback, and yet, here is, favored to win another Super Bowl.

Your fans have seen their team represent their city in the Super Bowl before, but they haven't seen their team win it.  However, the fans are cautiously optimistic this time, because your team has a head coach that some consider to be a "genius".  He's managed to lead your team to the Super Bowl in only his second year with the team, and if anyone can figure out a way to pull an upset in this Rams/Patriots Super Bowl, it will be him.

What I find most fascinating about this upcoming Super Bowl is that the description above could refer to either Tom Brady in 2002 or Jared Goff in 2019.

( I just listed the details of all the parallels between 24-year-old Brady and 24-year-old Goff, but I accidentally hit a key on my laptop that somehow wiped almost all those lines out.  Blogger auto-saves every few seconds, so all those lines I wrote are now gone.  I'm not going to take the time to write all those lines again, so if you want more details about these paralles, let Google be your guide ).

As a Patriots-hater, I'm really hoping that these parallels continue, and the 24-year QB manages to lead his team to a upset victory this Sunday.  While many Patriots fans have said that another Super Bowl victory over the Rams would be a perfect bookend to Brady's career, I think it would be even better if the Brady/Belichick dynasty ended the way it started, with a 24-year old QB leading his team to an upset in the Super Bowl.

On a semi-related note, I can't believe that Tom Brady is still torturing me 17 years after the first Pats/Rams Super Bowl.  17 years ago, my wife and I were not ready to have kids yet.  Now we have a 15-year old son who has his heart broken by Tom Brady last Sunday.  I can't believe the my family has endured 2 generations of this crap.

In any case, all that being said, I'd rather think about Tom Brady and the Pats than the state of the world right now.  So, instead of thinking about all the awful stuff in the new these days, spend a little time thinking about the following Super Bowl tidbits.

- This is Brady's 3rd Super Bowl rematch.  He faced the Giants in the Super Bowl after the 2007 and 2011 seasons, and he faced the Eagles in the Super Bowl after the 2004 and 2017 seasons.  In both cases in the past, the Patriots lost the rematch ( they actually lost to the Giants both times ).  Hopefully this pattern continues in the 2nd Patriots/Rams Super Bowl.

- The Patriots are in the Super Bowl for the 3rd year in a row, which makes them just the 3rd team to accomplish this feat.  The '71/'72/'73 Dolphins lost the Super Bowl and their first try and won the next two, and the '90/'91/'92/'93 Bills lost all 4 Super Bowls they went to.

- The 2007 Giants, the 2011 Giants, and 2017 Eagles, are the only teams to beat Brady in the Superbowl, and each of those teams played a base 4-3 defense.  I don't think that is an accident.  You can't beat Brady unless you run the passer effectively, and teams that put 4 defenders at the line of scrimmage generally have an easier time rushing the quarterback than teams that put 3 defenders at the line of scrimmage.    It is also worth noting that teams that line up with 1 defender past the line of scrimmage always lose to the Patriots.

FYI, the Rams play a 3-4 Defense ( 😞 ).

- If Tom Brady wins his 6th Super Bowl on Sunday, the quarterback alumni of the University of Michigan will be able to boast 6 Super Bowl rings ( all belonging to Brady ).  Michigan is currently tied with Notre Dame with 5 ( Montana 4, Theismann 1 ) Super Bowl rings won by its former quarterbacks.  The school that can boast the most different quarterbacks to win a Super Bowl ring is Purdue University with 3 ( Len Dawson, Bob Griese, and Drew Brees ).

- For 15 out of the last 16 seasons ( including this one ), the AFC has been represented in the Super Bowl by a team lead by Tom Brady, Peyton Manning, or Ben Roethlisberger.  Half of those times, it was Brady.  The one exception to the Brady/Manning/Roethlisberger troika was Joe Flacco after the 2012 season.

- Too bad a Manning bother is not involved in this Super Bowl, because Tom Brady is 0-5 in playoff games against a Manning brother that are played outside Foxborough.  2 of those 5 loses came in the Super Bowl and 3 or them came in the AFC championship game.  If Archie Manning had never met his wife, maybe Brady would be trying to win his 11th Super Bowl this Sunday.  Of course if Cooper Manning had decided to play QB, maybe Brady would have none. *

* - Far-fetched, considering that Cooper was a wide receiver and his football career ended after high school due to spinal stenosis - but a guy can dream, can't he?

GO RAMS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Rich