Randy Greenwald

Our neighbor Paul is by no means a household name. However, among those households who know something about wheel chair basketball, he is as big as Michael Jordan. A commentator broadcasting the USA-Australia game from China called him a legend.

Apparently he is big stuff.

I’ve never know anyone who was profiled by the NY Times. But you can follow this link to an article about our neighbor Paul. And if you are really interested, and have a good internet connection, you can watch a bit of the game here.

Technorati Tags: Sports

I’m in Grand Rapids, Michigan, for a wedding. At the hotel, a church had left a card inviting guests to come visit their church. Along with the ordinary rhetoric of ‘come as you are’ the church says that their service would be ideal for those who, and I quote, “have fear of crowds”.

Now there is a line of advertising text that I’ve never thought of using. I don’t know why, though. Experts say that we should always put forward our strengths.

Technorati Tags: Church

While traveling through southern Georgia yesterday, I was captivated by this large billboard-sized directional sign:

FIREWORKS
LEFT
UNDER BRIDGE

First I thought that Homeland Security should be contacted immediately, but then I calmed down and simply wondered who left them and when would they come back to get them.

Technorati Tags: For fun

For those who are panicking about the Tampa Bay Rays recent problem of not being able to win games (and for those of you who are still gloating over the three game sweep by the Blue Jays – you know who you are), I offer to you the fact that we should neither panic nor celebrate. It appears to me that the Rays luck had changed. Instead of bloop balls landing in right center, they are landing in the right fielder’s mitt. Instead of line drives clearing the outfield walls for homeruns, they are bouncing inches from the tops of the wall. Instead of balls bouncing around in the left or right field corners eluding the fielder’s grasp, they bounce into the stands halting on base progress at two bases. Instead of umpire’s calls going our way, they all seem to go against us.

Does luck really pay that much of a roll in baseball? Consider this quote from the fascinating 2003 book Moneyball: the Art of Winning and Unfair Game by Michael Lewis. Seeking to explain the Oakland A’s failure to make it out of the first round of the 2002 playoffs, after having won 103 regular season games, Lewis makes this observation relative to short series:

“Pete Palmer, the sabermetrician [someone who analyzes baseball through statistics] and author of The Hidden Game of Baseball, once calculated that the average difference in baseball due to skill is about one run a game, while the average difference due to luck is about four runs a game. Over a long season the luck evens out [going the way of all teams equally], and the skill shines through. But in a series of three out of five, or even four out of seven, anything can happen.” (274)

The luck has gone against us recently. It will come back.

Interestingly, written five years ago, the above quote continues in this way:

“In a five-game series, the worst team in baseball will beat the best about 15 percent of the time; the Devil Rays have a prayer against the Yankees.”

Now we might say, “Even the Yankees have a prayer against the Rays.” How things change.

Technorati Tags: Baseball

Poor Rays. As mentioned before, they’ve had a hard time selling tickets to their home games even though they’ve been playing some of the best baseball in the league. To make it seem worse, they are now playing Boston where the mega-team Red Sox have sold out Fenway Park for the 465th consecutive game. No doubt the Rays general management and the team itself is beginning to wonder what they could do differently in order to fill their pews… er, I mean, seats.

I’ve given this a lot of thought lately, and I believe I have some helpful counsel. So, if any of you have any connection with the Rays organization, please pass on my suggestions. I’d be happy to be taken on as a consultant if they’d like.

Here are seven of my more original suggestions:

1. Create a snappy purpose statement and continually instruct regular fans on its finer points so that they buy into the vision and are therefore more excited about the direction of the team.
2. Provide a first class nursery and ‘children’s game’ for the younger ones so that parents can be fans without having to be distracted by their kids
3. Begin a training program for regular fans showing them how to share the game of baseball with non-fans, and encouraging them to bring their non-fan friends to a game.
4. Identify new fans and within three days of their first visit, send a follow-up team to their door to thank them for their visit, to invite them back, and if the opportunity arrises, to share the game of baseball with them.
5. Have two ‘services’. For the first 4 innings, play the game with lots of music, and lights and noise and raucous behavior. Then, for the remaining innings, tone things down, creating a more reverent, day-in-the-park type atmosphere.
6. Reserve the best parking places for first time attendees. Clearly mark the spaces closest to the gates as ‘For First Time Visitors Only’ and encourage your regular attenders to park further from the gate to make the first visit as enjoyable as possible for the new people.
7. Upgrade the coffee to Starbucks®.

Technorati Tags: Baseball, Church

Those who wish to stereotype modern worship music do so by referring to them as 7-11 songs, that is, seven words repeated eleven times.

For some songs, of course, that has been true. With any stereotype one can always find a couple of examples to ‘prove’ it.

Someone the other day applied the ‘7-11’ label to traditional hymnody: Seven verses, eleven concepts. Again, a stereotype, but it caused me to chuckle all the same.

Technorati Tags: Music, Worship

Ultimately, one will read when one believes that there is some value in a book which makes the effort to mine that value worth it. Being told ‘you must read this’ does not lead us to read. A curious longing to know new things, to go new places, to think new thoughts – that will motivate readers.

Of course, that just removes the question one step backward. But when one is stricken with the desire to know, there is no vehicle better than a well written book to give us what we seek. This by Emily Dickinson:

There is no frigate like a book
To take us lands away,
Nor any coursers like a page
Of prancing poetry.

This traverse may the poorest take
Without oppress of toll;
How frugal is the chariot
That bears a human soul!

The movie Nim’s Island has a wonderfully imaginative illustration of this. The main character, a book consuming Dakota Fanning, Jr., is pictured reading in bed, and her bedroom disappears, leaving her in the desert with the action of the hero about whom she is reading happening on about her. A great scene in a moderately good movie illustrating so well Dickinson’s sentiments.

Technorati Tags: Literature

Every good thing can go bad.

I’ve been kept awake behind the wheel on many through the night drives by listening to a book on CD. Now, with the iPod, I can store reams of pages ready for listening whenever I hit the open road. My wife listens to books when she exercises. My son has an hour commute each way to school each day. He fills the time not by mind-numbing talk radio, but by listening to books on his iPod. These are great things.

So how can this go bad? I asked my son about some good PRINT books that he has lying around, and he told me that he is just having a hard time getting into them. He said, “I fear I’m losing my patience with print.”

Is it possible that the changing way we get our information these days is changing the very nature of the way we think? That of course has been the concern of Neil Postman and is an idea updated and explored in this Atlantic article.

Maybe I’m old fashioned. But there is something sad about growing impatient with print.

Technorati Tags: Books

Mike the Hiker (here and here) is nearly finished with his 2000+ mile trek up the Appalachian Trail. Wow. His wife predicts he will reach the summit of Mt. Katahdin on Wednesday. What an amazing achievement, and the fulfillment, for him, of a lifelong dream.

Paul the Paralympian is in Beijing, where the US Paralympic basketball team has won its first game against Israel. His wife reports that everything there is spectacular.

Technorati Tags: Dreams

Some people are moved to read by curiosity. Others are moved by high fuel prices. Whatever it takes…:)

Responding to the high cost of gasoline, the author of the following resorted to some drastic measures:

I have made a drastic change to my summertime habits in order to save a few bucks – or to at least make myself think I did. It’s an “old school” habit that many might think is far too extreme in the age of television, radio and the Internet. Still, it saves on electricity, eats up a lot of free time and doesn’t cost very much at all. Better yet, you don’t have to step one foot out of your home, but your mind thinks you’re 600 miles away, or 1,200, or whatever the case may be.

Regardless, it’s a win-win situation for both you and your pocketbook.

Since June, the approach to my cost-saving strategy has been simple:

Step 1: Pick up a book.

Step 2: Read it.

Step 3: Relax and repeat.

Read the whole article here.