Confusion about control

Here I go into sports. I haven't written about them in a while, so let's go...

Deron Williams. #8 on the court and #1 in my heart. Deron was a superstar basketballer at the University of Illinois and my freshman year he went nuts along with his teammates to go 37-2. That was a fascinating season that I will remember for the rest of my life. One of Deron's signature moments came in the NCAA Midwest Regional Final against Arizona where he nailed a shot to tie the game after being down 15 with 4 minutes left.

Deron left the college ranks for the NBA after that season, and ended up as the 3rd overall pick in the NBA draft for the Utah Jazz. Singlehandedly, (with a bit of help from my roommate Jonathan) he has helped bring me into the watching the NBA. It has been a joy to watch him excel to the level of one of the two best point guards in the NBA.

Tonight I watched game 2 of the Lakers-Jazz series and the Jazz lost to go down 2-0 in the series. The series returns to Salt Lake City on Friday for the 3rd game. The Jazz lost 120-110 and Deron had 25 points and 10 assists. So the box score looks like he played fantastic, and yet I am left disappointed. Having watched Deron play for a few years now, I am convinced that he can totally CONTROL a game if he chooses to, but instead he wants to be unselfish and play soft. Then something clicks and he goes GaGa in the game. This happened today multiple times. You can see the determination in his eyes at times and I know it can be there more. I really hope the man can get his head on straight for the next 2 home games, because they need him to take control.

Flickr, you slay me...

So, I love the goofiness of flickr. It's kind of like a bunch of friends just hanging out on the internet. When you go to your homepage, on each refresh, there is a new way to greet you. I stumbled upon this one today, and it made me happy.


And while you're looking at this, check out my photostream for the newest pics of mine. There are some neat ones from my DePauw hangout time (don't worry, not going to school there, just saw a friend), as well as some from my experiment with a macro lens. While you're there, go ahead and sign up for a FREE flickr account and leave comments on my photos. I love to hear feedback and get constructive critiques on my pics. This is a hobby that I'm truly growing to love very much.

What do we care about?

This past weekend saw two fascinating events:

The Kentucky Derby (good, pomp, etc)
Myanmar Cyclone (bad, scary, etc)

While surfing around the internet for my morning news, I noticed stories about both. The death toll from the cyclone has reached over 22,000. The death toll from the derby reached one euthanized horse.

Now I'm as guilty as anyone else when it comes to caring about the wrong things, but it's just fascinating what physical distance does to mental distance. What should we be caring about?

Excerpts from both articles:

"What we really want to know, did he feel anything along the way [while running the race if the horse was hurt]?" PETA spokeswoman Kathy Guillermo said. "If he didn't then we can probably blame the fact that they're allowed to whip the horses mercilessly." - ESPN.com

A news broadcast on government-run radio said Tuesday that 22,464 people have now been confirmed dead and thousands more are missing. - AP

Now I understand that PETA has a mission statement concerned with care for animals, and this is indeed an important issue, it's just funny how distant we are from some of the most important things in this planet and how easily we are caught up in little things.

Climate Change or Scare Mongering?

If you live in America, and you pay attention to the news, you've probably heard of a little thing called global warming. And if you're a decade or two older than me, you've probably heard about global cooling. Scientific speculation about the human influence on the world has been far spread. We've had plenty of incorrect guesswork about how things will turn out in the coming years, and yet we continue to be so sure of ourselves in how science will go. One of the biggest problems in my mind with the global warming scare is the assumed correlations between CO2 and temperature of the earth. In science, we're always making simplifying assumptions or bold predictions and hoping that they line up as correct. Then, when our theories don't pan out, we are all of a sudden dealing with ways to justify our original theory with newer ones.

This Bloomberg article speaks of a new theory that the oceans will cool us for a while until global warming strikes up again. And of course we KNOW global warming is occurring because we have the highest temperatures on record. I mean, let's not forget that we don't have temperature records for thousands of years back, and shoot, if you believe in the 5 billion year old earth, we're missing out on a LOT of history. Who are we to say that we know the cycles of our planet? What makes us and our short 120 year max time here able to know it all? I believe God made a far more complex and robust planet than we could totally screw up.

Now, is this to say I think we can do whatever and it will be fine? No. What I am saying is that I believe science makes a lot of bold predictions about things we shouldn't worry about. I mean, remember when Deep Impact and Armageddon (speaking of, the Christian Armageddon, rather than the movie, is referred to on wikipedia as "in Christian mythology" (my emphasis). Oh what perspective brings to the table) came out? I'm pretty sure everybody was sure we'd be hit by a meteor as a planet by now. And it hasn't happened yet. Sure it COULD, but we can't prevent it from possibly happening. Now Al Gore has used similar action movie footage to create a stir. I mean SURE, the planet could be getting warmer, but is it our doing? What if what we're doing actually will eventually lead to global cooling or suffocation or nuclear war?

I believe that we need not worry about global warming itself, but I do believe that we need to be good stewards of the world we have been given. This means that we should be watching how we pollute, and in a holistic way. I mean seriously, have you considered that electric cars are just taking electricity made by coal power plants (just as nasty pollution in the air)? The 'green' movement is a good thing, but the way we go about it is paramount. And let's not worry so much about the temperature, but instead about things like the amount of visibility in our cities and beyond, the quality of our drinking water, and the health of our planet as a whole.