Imus - No Mas

So, it looks like Imus finally got fired.  I guess that was pretty inevitable.  I have more problems with his firing than I do with his original statements, and I had a lot of problems with that.

I never listened to Imus, never plan to, and disagree completely with what he said, but I have grave concerns about the chilling effect that could arise from his firing and the visceral public outcry that led to it. While this was clearly not an example of it, progress is often borne out of ideas once found to be controversial and offensive to some. One can imagine the outcry from a hypothetical 1872 radio show on which a shock jock claimed men descended from monkeys, or to use a more contemporary example, Rosie O'Donnel's statement that 9/11 was the result of a government conspiracy. 

It is vital to the marketplace of ideas that people feel free to inject their thoughts, as unpopular as they may be, into the conversation. While Imus' statement clearly does not contribute much of anything to the marketplace of ideas, the frenzied reaction to his words could have a deleterious chilling effect on another person who wanted to raise an unpopular, but potentially useful, issue.  For even in rejected ideas, we gain something through the very process of considering and rejecting that idea.

I dislike Imus, and find his words deeply hateful, but it strikes me that this issue has been blown way out of proportion, and seems to be serving as a proxy to give Americans an excuse to feel like they have done something about the pervasive racism that still lingers in many segments of our society.  By expressing outrage at Imus' words, they feel absolved from having to address the real underlying issues, such as poverty and access to education and healthcare, that continue to perpetuate a racial divide in the U.S.

UNC-G-town Post Mortem

Well, after being harassed by all four of my loyal readers, I'm finally raising the curtain at the Theater after a rather long intermission. I hope you all got to stretch your legs and enjoyed your popcorn.

The beginning of Act 2 might as well start with an explanation as to why I wasn't surprised the Heels lost on Sunday, and why they would have won had David Noel been on the team instead of Reyshawn Terry.

Throughout the year, we've seen the Heels demonstrate an inability to close out games. At times this manifested itself in a closer than necessary victory (see entire ACC tournament), while other times it resulted in a loss (see MD, G-town). Each time the ingredients were identical. The team pushed out to a solid lead, lost just a bit of its defensive intensity, which allowed for some easy buckets by the opponent and simultaneously decreased opportunities to score via the transition game and forced the Heels to play in a half-court set.

Exasperating this problem, the team often failed to properly execute its half-court offense. Too often certain players, most often Terry, and occasionally Green and Ellington demonstrated horrible shot selection, taking a contested 3-pointer with too much time on the clock.

I think the problem stems from the fact that this team's only upperclassman leader (Terry) is the only player who has never fully bought into Roy's offense, and consistently forces ill-advised shots instead of running the offense to find the correct shot. This leaves him poorly suited to serve as a floor-leader and steadying influence late in the game. I suspect if David Noel was still around, his willingness to buy into the system and natural leadership skills would have given this team the confidence it needed to close out games.

My hopes are high for next year if one of Lawson, Hansbrough, or Wright return, this team should challenge for the title. We should be 8-9 deep, and everyone back will have another year of experience. I expect especially big things out of Ellington.

Next year's rotation could look something like this:

• PG:  Lawson, Frasor, QT
• SG:  Ellington, Ginyard, Frasor?
• SF:  Green, Graves
• PF:  Thompson, Copeland
• C:  Hansbrough, Stephenson

If Frasor can develop into a reliable 3-point threat, that's a pretty good team. So, we've got that going for us, which is nice.

Prepare to be Mooned

Not only is today the longest day of the year, tonight will also host the lowest-hanging full moon in 18 years.  No, not this one. 

This one:



With the moon sitting so low in the night sky, it is a great time to experience one of nature's best illusions.  A moon closer to the horizon always appears to be much larger than a moon high up in the night sky.  Yet, as the time elapsed picture above indicates, the moon remains the same size (appoximately .5 degrees). 

If you are interested, this article details a number of potential theories as to why this illusion occurs. 

So when the sun finally goes down tonight, take a few minutes to enjoy a rare view of the other major celestial object in our skies.

Sit Ubu Sit. Good Dog

For some strange reason, every year USA or some other channel televises the Westminster Dog Show. For some stranger reason, I found myself watching said show this week. Or at least I think it was a dog show. But as far as I could surmise the only quality on which these animals were being judged was their similarity in appearance to a mop.

For those of you who have not had the pleasure of watching this, each dog gets poked and prodded by a judge to ascertain if it flosses and cuts its toe-nails and then walks/trots from one end of the stage to the other. Doesn't seem too strenuous. So imagine my surprise when the announcers began discussing whether one poor pooch would have sufficient time to recover between rounds. Huh? The dog stands still for 20 seconds, walks for another 15, and suddenly it needs days to reccuperate? 

I think the problem with these shows is that they do not involve real dogs acting like real dogs. I think dog shows would be infinitely more interesting if they had some real contests. With that in mind, here are the events I'd like to see at a dog show:

• humping the judge's leg
• sniffing the asses of the other contestants
• urinating on the rug (small dogs only)
• biting the postman
• begging for table scraps

Add that to the dog show, and then we've got some Must See TV.