четверг, декабря 21, 2006

Do you care about basketball? If you're reading my blog, you probably like playing it, but would rather listen to me ramble on about Russian poetry than watch five minutes of NBA basketball. One of these days, you might get interested in caring about what goes on the court, but pro ball is much bigger the Rose Garden, Madison Square Garden, or any other piece of flowery hardwood. There're also dreams and desires at work. Not the players' desires, they've got it made, but the dreams of the kids watching them. Specifically, black kids coming from the wrong sides of the tracks. The borderline geniuses of Free Darko (if you don't believe me, read this) have a great post about these kids. It's probably the best thing I've ever read on any blog about any topic. Here's an excerpt:

"For so many of the kids I taught, dreams of basketball and dreams of college were mutually exclusive. For those convinced that a life of fame and wealth on the court awaited them, seeking higher education was construed at best, as irrelevant, and at worst, as an indication that they had failed in their quest to reach the league as soon as possible. I’m not sure that any amount of rational discourse might have persuaded these kids to find an alternate dream, and maybe the fact that I couldn’t bring myself to try indicated a failing on my part as well, but dreams of future success didn’t vary much in Indianola, Mississippi; almost no 7th grade boy aspires to be a young black doctor, lawyer, or entrepreneur because he’s never seen one and has been inundated with subtle and overt cues, practically from birth, that he can never become one."

The writer is in favor of the new restrictions against high schoolers jumping to the NBA without first going to college. This is a heated issue, as some people have declared to be racist. But this has more than a "human angle" to a story; this gives the issue a soul. There's so much more than incredibly small number of athletes getting to the top of the world a year early. This is about kids who are being told they can't succeed except by making it to the big leagues.

This problem isn't restricted to Mississippi. Portland may be one of the whitest cities in the world, but still I'm clueless in how I can take four class at Portland State, and have the grand total of 3 black classmates, and one of those being from Africa. At PSU black=athlete and athlete=black, so there's definately happening well before the college years.

I'm grateful for FreeDarko's post, and for David Stern's efforts to encourage kids, especially black students, to look beyond basketball and to dream about college.

среда, декабря 20, 2006

Save the Internet!

Fascinating video on the issue of net neautrality, and preserving it so that we would not be forced to pay cable like prices to use sites like youtube and blogger

четверг, декабря 07, 2006

Tag

First time I've ever been tagged. The meme? Twenty-five things I want to do before I die.

1. Go to Russia (well, duh!)
2. Speak Russian
3. Understand Russian
4. Understand Russians, this one is a letter tougher, but it'll worth.
5. Graduate from college (heck, I'd be fine if I could finish the freshman year!)
6. Run for office. I'll do it when I'm sixty. If I run if Portland I'll sweep the Russkies.
7. Learn good grammer. English grammer.
8. Go back to Slovakia. To work in the embassy.
9. I'm unafraid of speaking my pidgin Rus to a girl, maybe I could speak in English to an American Девушка, and not get nervous.
10. Play in a band.
11. Get that band to play one non-crap show.
13. Get the fumigator movie finished.
14. Have the D.O.A. be a household name like "Jared Hess." (I thought of his name before you know, that other guy's name).
15. Not just to see the NE Patriots live in Foxboro, but to have season tickets.
16. Ditto for the Blazers.
17. Maybe get some of book published. (How to fail in 12 easy steps: Hint #1: Trip over the first step, and the rest will come.
18. I also want to go to England, and while I'm there visit Highbury and watch Arsenal play at Emirates.
19. Visit the Louvre
20. Go to Florence

A few things I want to do before I die, but other people actually have to do them for me.
21. Blazers win a title
22. And not move away
23. NHL hockey in Portland (if they could have it in Nashville...

Now back to our regularly scheduled memes
24. Go to some sort of big-shot concert...ah! here we go a tribute to Mark Heard, featuring Bob Dylan, Bono, The ghost of George Harrison, Emmylou Harris (even if they don't know who he is), Sam Phillips, The Lost Dogs, Kevin Max, Buddy Miller, Daniel Amos, Larry Norman, and Terry Scott Taylor.
25. After the concert I mentioned in #11, and have the Edge tell me that I aint all that bad.


I tag Queen's Mum (someone tell her she's been tagged).
Everyone else I know has been tagged and Лариска нет блога, so I'll tag ....
Anonymous

Do these things work with MySpacers?