It’s Friday?! Does it matter?
I had another strange dream, but one that did not sink to the level of a nightmare. I was somewhere that I can only describe as a cross between Main Street in Newark, Delaware (I earned my Bachelors and Masters degrees from the University of Delaware in Newark) and a busy street in New York City.
As is often the case in my unpleasant dreams, I came to the realization that I needed to be someplace else and that getting there would not be easy. The crowd seemed to be comprised solely of people much younger than I am.
Although the journey began with difficulty, before I woke up I seem to have figured out how I would arrive at my “necessary” destination. Again, it is at times like these that I really miss my late friend, Richard Segal.
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My mind is strange, no doubt. For some reason, learning about Shohei Ohtani becoming the first player in Major League Baseball history to amass 50+ homeruns and 50+ stolen bases in the same season, a feat he reached in a game where he had six hits in six at-bats including three homeruns with 10 RBI and two stolen bases, led me to remember a computer baseball game I played in 1988.
As I have written many times, I used to be an avid player of baseball and football games that were not video games, but were statistics-based simulations. 1988 was my first year working full-time for the Baltimore Orioles and I did not have an office at the stadium right away. I spent much of that pre-office time in my apartment playing Diamond Mind baseball.
I NEVER replayed a season that just took place, but created my own league and my own teams. A secret that I am about to reveal is that I often would draft the teams first, in a random process, and then name them.
One of my idiosyncracies was to give the teams names that were no longer in use, like the St. Louis Browns or the Brooklyn Dodgers. If a team wound up with a great lineup and so-so pitching I would usually name them the St. Louis Browns.
Using players from the 1987 season, I developed my league and really enjoyed playing. The Browns were in a three-game series with their division rival, the Los Angeles Angels. When the series started the Browns were just 2-3 games in front of LA for the division lead. (Shohei Ohtani now plays for the Los Angeles Dodgers, but used to play for the Los Angeles Angels nee California Angels and Anaheim Angels. In 1988, they were the California Angels.)
In the first game of the series “at” St. Louis, the Angels took a 12-6 lead into the bottom of the eighth inning. The Browns hit two three-run homers to tie the game at 12. The Angels scored a run in the top of the ninth to take a 13-12 lead. With two outs and the bases loaded in the bottom of the ninth, Eric Davis hit a grand slam to give the Browns a 16-13 win. When the game signaled that Davis had hit the game-winning grand slam, I jumped out of my seat and screamed. By the way, the game–like all of these computer simulation games–took maybe 15 minutes to play.
I cannot not even guess why Ohtani’s amazing feat and game led me to remember a computer baseball game from 1988. Although I haven’t watched a baseball game in over a decade, baseball will always be a part of my history. After all, I worked in the sport for more than 20 years.
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Well, I am finally able to publish a photo of the Totem Pole Cactus Face. Under the “fineal” looks like a face to me and my wonderful wife.
Scientists theorize that our ability to recognize faces, which can lead to “over-recognition” like in the case of the Totem Pole Cactus, evolved as humans did. As social animals we needed to recognize the faces of those in our group.
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So, Hezbollah can launch thousands of rockets at civilian targets in Israel and that’s not called a war crime, but Israel’s alleged attack on Hezbollah operatives in an ingenious effort using pagers is such a crime. FUCK ALL ANTI-SEMITES, ESPECIALLY SELF-HATING JEWS LIKE CRASH AND BERN(IE)!!!!!!!!!!
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The URL for this Why Evolution Is True post is titled simply, “Lukianoff.” Ostensibly, the post is about Greg Lukianoff’s review of a new book by Abigail Shrier called Bad Therapy: Why the Kids Aren’t Growing Up. Lukianoff is the President of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, or FIRE. Here is his summary:
“Bad Therapy” is simply a masterpiece — easily the most important book of the year. Unfortunately, it most desperately needs to be read by the very people who are likely most hostile to Shrier’s work. The book focuses on the harms of the therapeutic approach to raising our children and how the generation treated with the most psychological therapy and psychiatric drugs has become the most miserable, anxious, and disempowered generation on record. (“Disempowered,” by the way, was the original title of the book I wrote with Jonathan Haidt, which became “The Coddling of The American Mind.”)
Did you know that as of 2020, more than six million American children aged 17 or younger were taking psychiatric drugs?! Of course, children can suffer from disorders requiring prescription medication, but six million seems like overkill to me.
Something else Lukianoff wrote is quite note-worthy:
As a culture, we seem to be teaching young people the mental habits of anxious and depressed people — encouraging them, often through example, to engage in negative mental exaggerations called cognitive distortions. It’s a kind of reverse-cognitive behavioral therapy.
I am not a parent so maybe I shouldn’t comment. However, I strongly believe that loving your children does not mean coddling them unconditionally.
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The car shown above, a 1956 Packard Caribbean convertible, was part of my Ultimate Garage 2.0 that I published in May-June of 2019. (!) It was not part of Ultimate Garage 3.0, but I am still quite fond of the car.
Between re-reading The Fall of the Packard Motor Car Company by James Ward and toying with the idea of publishing Ultimate Garage 4.0 some time next year, the ’56 Caribbean convertible is currently occupying a large place in what’s left of my mind.
#FastFriday
#ShoheiOhtani
#IStandWithIsrael!
#1956PackardCaribbeanConvertible