I haven’t really written much about sports in general here, but a couple of things caught my eye this weekend….

First, Kobe Bryant and Shaquile O’Neal’s relationship has turned icy again. It’s been no secret that Shaq and Bryant have had problems sharing the spotlight in Los Angeles over the years, and that feud is starting again, with Shaq declaring (in the third person no less) that the Lakers are “Diesel’s team” and that being a Laker is all about playing for a team. Translated, this means that the Lakers revolve around O’Neal, and if you don’t feed him the ball most of the time, you’re not being a good teammate. Much has been made over the summer about Gary Payton and Karl Malone joining the Lakers, and how they would gel with the rest of the team. It looks as if Payton and Malone won’t have any trouble buying into Phil Jackson’s team-first offense, and they’ll be very willing to put aside personal glory for the title.

The Pittsburgh Steelers now have the dubious distinction of being in last place in the AFC North, one game behind the Cincinnati Bengals. That’s right, not only are they in last place in the NFL’s worst division, they are looking up to the Bengals. They lost yesterday to the St Louis Rams (Les Mufflounsfor Tuesday Morning Quarterback fans), and the score didn’t relfect how bad it was. The Steelers secondary was so overmatched, I could have done just as well as the cornerbacks. Anyone can clutch and grab to prevent the receivers from catching the ball, and at least if I was out there getting burned on every down, you would expect it.

The Florida Marlins beat the New York Yankees in baseball’s World Series. Should be an interesting offseason in NYC, as owner George Steinbrenner won’t be too chucked about losing to a team whose payroll was roughly $158 million less than his…..

Posted on 27 October 2003

It was quite a weekend in Spain, and the championship table has a distinctly different look to it. It was generally a dry, quick rally, though the rains came early in the day on Sunday and benefited the boys from Subaru immensely, but more on that in a moment.

First. the surprise winner was Gilles Panizzi, finally finding his tarmac form from last season. Panizzi kept the leaders in his sights all weekend, and used a strong showing on the final stages to take the victory. Sebastien Loeb was very solid all weekend, holding the lead most of the way. His second place puts him atop the championship table, tied with teammate Carlos Sainz. Markko Martin took third place, just half a second behind Loeb. This was a rough rally for Martin, as he was suffering the effects of his shunt in Corsica. Francois Duval had another solid rally, turning in a fourth place finish.

Fifth place went to Petter Solberg, who now holds second place in the championship, only one point behind Sainz and Loeb. It was quite a rally for Solberg — he was driving well on day one, keeping the leaders close despite the dry conditions (not where the Impreza excels). Then, a problem during the first service halt required extra time to fix (the bearing in his alternator went bad), and Solberg was assessed a 50 second penalty, dropping him from third to tenth. He never found his rhythm over the next day and half, but his prayers were answered when the rains came on Sunday. Solberg made up an amazing minute and half over just a few stages, and jumped from tenth to fifth. Teammate Tommi Makinen also took advantage of the conditions, jumping into the points in eighth place.

Rounding out the points were Marcus Gronholm and Carlos Sainz. Sainz really had a chance to distance himself from the field in the championship standings, but it wasn’t to be. Fortunutely, he’s still tied for the lead and he definitely holds an advantage over the lesser-experienced Loeb.

The biggest loser this weekend? Richard Burns. He was in the middle of the points all weekend until he smashed a wheel during SS19 on Sunday. Burns is still in the title hunt, five points behind the leaders, but he’s got to rely on both his driving and his opponents driving to take the win in Britain. Colin McRae also had a rally to forget, finishing in ninth place. Though McRae didn’t have championship hopes, his poor finish allowed Peugeot to claw back into the manufacturer’s championship.

So it all comes down the muddy Welsh roads of the Rally Great Britain for the championship. The tactics should be quite interesting. Solberg won in Britain last year, but his strategy this year has been steady, controlled drives that build up speed as weekend progresses. I don’t think Solberg will go on maximum attack from the start — he will wait to see what the other contenders choose. Loeb may attack from the start, hoping that he can carry over his speed from the sealed surface events. Though he is the least experienced of the contenders, he’s shown a great deal of maturity all season, and I wouldn’t expect that to change. Sainz too will wait and see how things unfold. Markko Martin will no doubt be gunning for the win here (he took second last year), and I doubt that anyone will challenge him with the championship on the line. It should be quite a weekend!

Posted on 26 October 2003

With two rallies left in the season, the driver’s championship is still very much up for grabs, and four drivers have a legitmate shot at winning the championship. Catalunya is a touch different than the previous two tarmac rallies, being a bit more wide open that Corsica and San Remo. Conditions will be trickier as well, as there’s lots of corner-cutting, meaning lots of gravel and dirt pulled on the roads. The chances of a single driver pulling away from the rest in championship standings is pretty slim, as Carlos Sainz has only a six point gap between himself and current fourth place driver Sebastien Loeb. Loeb will no doubt be gunning for the victory, and he’s got to be tipped as the favorite again (despite his spin in Corsica). But Sainz, Richard Burns, and Petter Solberg just need a good points score to set up an exciting season finale in Great Britain.

The team by team breakdowns:

Subaru
A suprise win for Subaru last weekend in Corsica, especially after Solberg’s shunt during the shakedown. The team is hoping again for damp conditions, where their Pirelli-shod Imprezas seem to dominate. But even if the weather doesn’t cooperate, Solberg was quick enough on the opening days in the France to keep the leaders in his sights, and that’s all he needs to do this weekend if he wants a shot at winning the championship in Britain. Tommi Makinen had a solid drive in France, and he’ll be looking to finish in the points again to help Subaru consolidate its hold on third place in the manufacturer’s championship.

Citroen
Citreon is the new Peugeot. Just look at them. They are extending their lead in the manufacturer’s championship, and they have two cars gunning for the driver’s championship. It’s been a good first full year for the team.

As I said, Loeb is again the favorite, and he seems strongest on these “mixed surface” tarmac rallies (he’s won Germany and Monte Carlo this year as well). If he can stay out of trouble, he will be competing for the win come Sunday. This is Carlos Sainz’s home event, and he’s always done well in Spain, but I expect he’ll be more interested in managing his lead in the championship rather than gunning for the win. Sainz, much like Richard Burns, has really benefited from the new points scale this year — remember, he’s won only a single rally this year, compared to Loeb and Solberg’s three apiece. Colin McRae, who be forced to retire at the end of the season due to the lack of a drive next year, has been very consistent lately — he’s only missed the points on two rallies this year — and he’ll be critical piece in Citroen’s attempt to win the manufacturer’s title. McRae should have no problems finishing in the top 6.

Peugeot
Oh how the mightly have fallen. Manager Corrado Provera went out his way this week to proclaim that the 206 is not dead yet, and the team still has a chance in the championship. The facts seem to speak differently however. Marcus Gronholm never found his stride this year (due mostly to mechanical problems), and Gilles Panizzi has been mostly invisible this month. If the team has any hope of staying in the manufacturer’s race, someone is going to have to mighty quick this weekend.

Richard Burns has to hope for a good drive this weekend to stay in the title hunt. He had flashed of brilliance in France, but never found a consisten rhythm. He’d be happy to see the title fight come down to a win in Britain, but he’s got to leave Spain with at least four points to stay in the hunt.

Ford
Lots of potential, but not a lot of results. Both Markko Martin and Francois Duval have been quick on the sealed surfaces this month, but mechanical problems and plain old inexperience got the better of the young guns. Martin is also a favorite for the win this weekend, but he would need the top four drivers to retire to have any shot at the championship. Should Martin take the lead at the any point, I expect that everyone will simply fight for points below him — no need to put championship hopes in jeopardy fighting for a win with a non-contender. Duval isn’t expecting much this weekend, as he has little experience in Spain, but he should wind up in the points with a solid drive.

Skoda
Yet another step in the development of the Fabia. Toni Gardenmeister had issues with the car’s anti-roll bar during shakedown, and he expects it to be a problem during the rally as well. He had the same issue in France, but thanks to the immediate trip to Spain, the team had no time to work out the kinks. Didier Auriol is starting his 150th WRC rally, and he’s the team’s best shot at getting into the top ten.

My Top 8*
1. Sebastien Loeb
2. Markko Martin
3. Petter Solberg
4. Carlos Sainz
5. Colin McRae
6. Richard Burns
7. Tommi Makinen
8. Francois Duval

* Why top 8 all of a sudden? Well, that covers the championship points places.

Posted on 23 October 2003

Defense Memo: A Grim Outlook

Guess Donald Rumsfield isn’t quite so optimistic about the results of the war on terror. The scary part — he thinks perhaps our country needs a “new institution” to fight terrorism. Perhaps I need to take a political science course again, because my memory must be failing — I thought conservative Republicans wanted limited government. The current Republican administration has already brought us the Department of Homeland Security and now they want something else? Yeesh.

Posted on 22 October 2003

After reading a bit from General Boykin’s “apology” regarding his comments about his role as God’s warrior in the war on terrorism, I thought I’d better clarify my position a bit. Here’s the chunk that caught my attention:

“I believe that God intervenes in the affairs of men, to include nations, as Benjamin Franklin so eloquently stated. Yes I believe that George Bush was placed in the White House by God as well as Bill Clinton and other presidents.”

First, I need to be quite picky from a linguistic/theological perspective. His first sentence doesn’t ring true for me theologically. God doesn’t intervene in the affairs of men (*ahem* humanity) — the affairs of humanity are all a part of God’s grand plan. That’s predestination in a nutshell (a very small, simple nutshell, but a nutshell nonetheless). God doesn’t just stand by, watching the world passively, deciding to do something here and there. The affairs of the world are happening just as God planned them. But that’s a whole other discussion, and one which I’m not sure I’m qualified to lead.

But what really made me do a double take what the second sentence. There is definite Biblical truth in his second sentence. Don’t believe me? Here’s Romans 13:1:

Let every person be subordinate to the higher authorities, for there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been established by God.

Now, your interpretation of Boykin’s first sentence will affect how you interpret his second sentence, and Romans 13:1. Personally, I read Romans 13 (see my previous post about the pledge) as saying “God is in control, and as long your ruler isn’t directly asking you to go against God, don’t you worry about a thing.” I don’t know what Boykin’s personal theology is, especially regarding free will/predestination, but like I said, he hit on a kernel of truth. But I think he believes that Romans 13 means that his leader (GW Bush) was appointed by God to the leader of a holy war against terrorism, and the godless masses. And I can’t really agree with that, though I’ve got no proof to deny his claims.

But I stand by my previous remarks about what Boykin said about his role in the war on terrorism. It had the sound of a crusade for God, using the sword. For me, that just doesn’t mesh well with the concept of Jesus Christ, prince of peace. Certainly it has some resemblence of the wars of the Old Testament, but didn’t Christ come to do away with those sorts of battles?

Posted on 22 October 2003

Here’s an image of Petter Solberg’s Subaru Impreza after the Corsica shakedown. This is same car he used to win the rally. Amazing work by his crew.

Posted on 21 October 2003

We finally got around to watching the Matrix Reloaded last night. It’s funny. Before Seb was born (right around the time the movie was released), we were very excited to see it. We had nearly worn out our copy of The Matrix. But then the boy was born and at least I suddenly didn’t care about the movie. I had read a lot of the stuff people had written about it — about how deep it was, how it further twisted our perceptions of how things were in the world of the movie. And to top it off, the action scenes were amazing. So the DVD was released last week, and we purchased it, and we watched it last night. So what did I think? Well……(beware of spoilers)

It was an entertaining movie. I enjoyed watching it. I didn’t fall asleep (which, at 9:00pm on a Monday night, is a ringing endorsement). But….it wasn’t as good as the first movie. Why? Well, the Wachowski set the bar pretty high with the first movie. Everything in that movie had a reason to be there. If you’ve watched the companion DVD to The Matrix, you learned that nearly every frame of the movie was carefully designed. Nothing was accidental. The dialog was smart (well, except when Keanu was talking), but not too smart. It wanted to play with our perceptions of reality (in the vain of the modern philosphers like Berkeley, Spinoza, and Leibnitz, and the post-modern Baudrillard, whose Simulacra & Simulation became a bible of sorts for the directors and the actors). And the action sequences were groundbreaking, but still “real.” It was the actors doing most of the dirty work, and we appreciated that.

But The Matrix Reloaded lost some of that intellectual and directorial purity. It started for me with the first scenes in Zion, specifically the Stomp-esque party. I have trouble thinking the Wachowski brothers thought that this scene was important to the progress of the themes of the movies. It’s easier to imagine a few studio execs pulling the brothers aside on day, saying “You know, this is great stuff, but maybe it’s too heady? We need some sweaty, half-naked bodies grinding to some electronic music. That’ll keep the kids more interested.” I assume it’s purpose was to show that humans are still human, and we can still RAWK! even when the hounds of hell are descending upon us.

That said, I thought the scenes in Zion were well done. The scene with the counselor and Neo in the engineering room was thought-provoking, but not in the heavy-handed way that other scenes suffer from. The concept of the symbiotic relationship between human and machine will no doubt be further pursued in Revolutions, and this scene was a good start.

I hope the brothers have big plans for Agent Smith in Revolutions, because I didn’t think his presence did much for this movie. The “100 Smiths” fighting scene was cool for about 30 seconds. Then it just got silly. At first, we both thought the CG animations were sorta bad, but then I thought that maybe they were supposed to be that way. With the brother’s interest in Anime (and the Animatrix), maybe it was supposed to look animated. The same goes for the highway chase scene.

While we’re here, let me talk about the action scenes a bit. Best scene? The fight between Neo and the Oracle’s companion. Very artisitc. A dance, almost. Worst scene? Humm. Either the “100 Smiths” fight, or the highway scene. I think the “100 Smiths” scene wins, but the highway scene is a close second. It was just too long. The first minutes were good, because there was still a lot of live action happening, but by the end, it had degraded to CG, so it wasn’t so groundbreaking anymore.

So what’s the philosophy of this movie? Well, it begins with the discussion about free will/determinism between Neo and the Oracle. But, this discussion dovetails nicely with the whole “what is real” conundrum. Did Neo really make the choice to accept his responsibility of being the One? Or did choices make before he was even aware of the Matrix make him the One? Scratches head. It’s vaguely akin to the Christian theological arguments about free will vs. predestination (and, by the way, I’m not in any way implying that the movie is dealing with this theological dilemma). Personally, I’m a believer in predestination, but because that concept is so beyond my comprehension, I live my live day to day making decisions. I don’t sit around before lunch thinking “I wonder what God planned for me to eat today?” I decide to go and get a sandwich, or I decide to eat the burrito I made last night. Simple, right?

Neo rightly identifies this logical/philosophical dilemma (during his discussion with the Architect), and his response is to simply act. At that point, he can’t be burdened with this existential dilemma, and he chooses to act. He saves Trinity, and he shoulders the responsibility for saving Zion. In fact, Neo identifies the same philosophical dilemma that Ludwig Wittgenstein does — philosophy becomes mired in the discussion of unproveable facts. Early in his life, Wittgenstein’s solution was simply: “Whereof we cannot speak, thereof we must silent.” But Wittgenstein had a revelation later in his life. We can talk about the things that we know — the facts of the world. Neo comes to the same conclusion — it doesn’t matter what is real, and it doesn’t matter what fate dictates — he knows he can save Trinity, and all of Zion, so that’s what he does.

Whoa! That was a bit much. I started to sound like the architect there. I thought that scene sounded like a bad philosophy paper. I don’t doubt that there are important gems in there, but it was just too much. And as I said, Neo’s response it quite simple. He’s got no time anymore for philosophical discussions — he’s got people to save. That scene mirrors Neo’s moment of existential decision in the first movie — in the first movie, he doesn’t necessarily believe he’s the One, but he’s compelled to leave the philosophy behind and simply act. The same thing happens. The Architect tells him it’s actually quite cut and dry, but Neo, almost acting as if he doesn’t know any better, simply does what he has to.

Sidenote: I thought the character of the Keymaker was a nice touch. And his philosophical ramblings are just ambivalent enough to keep us guessing (“I doing this because I’m supposed to be doing this”) — is Neo the One, or is the Architect telling the truth — will this played out over and over again?

That’s enough for now, methinks. I’ve still got write about the whole Gregg Easterbrook fiasco.

Posted on 21 October 2003

I’m not sure who is crazier in this photo,
Markko Martin, or the spectators. This is from Rallye Monte Carlo, 2003.

Posted on 20 October 2003

I learned about an interesting bit of trivia about the phrase “one nation, under God” in our Pledge of Allegiance this weekend. Here’s what I did know: the pledge was adopted in 1951. Here’s what I didn’t know: it was adopted to differentiate us from the swarms of godless communists trying to take over the world. It really had little to do with the belief that our nation was indeed a nation blessed by God, and it wasn’t really an attempt to say “Glory be God our savior.” It was nothing more than politics. Even more reason to just throw it away.

Here’s another interesting tidbit. When the Supreme Court gets together to hear this case, they will begin that session with the following words:

“God save the United States and this honorable court.”

Really? I wonder how the father that is pushing the pledge to be left out of our schools feels about that? I guess, however, that there is a bit of legal distinction to made. Forcing kids to say the pledge with the words “under God” may force them to say something they truly don’t believe. If a Supreme Court justice has a problem with their little motto, well, they could always just not take part.

Other scary news….

Have you heard about the new deputy undersectary of the Department of Defense (whoa, that’s a mouthful)? General William Boykin seems to believe that he is on a mission from God to protect our Christian nation from the scourge of terrorists guided by Satan himself. He is a well-decorated military officer — his credentials for the position are not in dispute — but he has managed to say things that make Bush’s foreign policy gaffes leading up to the war Iraq look like good ideas. For a sampling of what the general thinks, follow this link.

I think I’m most troubled at his insistence that our nation is a direct descendent of the biblical nation of Israel, and therefore our “destiny” is linked to Israel. Scary stuff.

Posted on 20 October 2003

One more week til we go to Bishop. WooHoo! It’s been about a month since we’ve bouldered out of doors, so we’re more than ready to climb on the fine granite on the east side of the Sierras. In other climbing news, The Climbing Wall, Inc. officially opened their new swanky bouldering area this weekend. I’m really, really impressed with it. I managed to get a solid five hours of climbing in, and that was the best workout I’ve had in some time. I feel like I’m at least in decent enough shape for Bishop, so hopefully I might be able send some of my projects.

News about the boy. In the last few days, he’s started to actually make letter-type sounds, like “bah, bah bah” or “mah, mah, mah”. Pretty cool stuff.

Posted on 20 October 2003