Christmas Battles

Christmas is serious business for some people. So serious, in fact, that we have to have wars over it.

Fox News is at the forefront of the battle. The fact that some businesses and groups use a more generic "Happy Holidays" greeting instead of "Merry Christmas" is considered an opening shot in a much larger fight. They even have an interactive map so that people can find places where Christmas is "under attack" by supposedly secular forces who want to call Christmas trees "Holiday Trees." And that just ain't right. Sarah Palin writes books about it. And people pay to read them.

What I found interesting was a separate article about the "original" American war on Christmas that took place 400 years ago. What's ironic is that religious groups were the ones trying to get Christmas banned. They saw Christmas as a pagan ritual that was devoid of Christ. They viewed the Christmas season as one of excess and decadence. The traditions like Santa Claus, Christmas trees, and singing carols? They were considered almost satanic in nature and mentioned nowhere in the Bible.

What disappoints me about this is that to me, the "spirit of Christmas" should be beyond notions of battles and war and fighting. "Peace on Earth" should be the prevailing theme. If someone wishes me "Happy Holidays" then I should simply feel happy someone was thoughtful enough to do so. Likewise, if someone told me "Shalom" because they are Jewish, I might feel compelled to respond in kind. The biggest thing is that it is not a big deal. Someone is obviously being nice to me. I should be thankful!

Thankful. Peaceful. Not judgmental. One of my favorite Christmas songs is a piece called "Christmas In the Trenches" by John McCutcheon. It's about the Christmas truce between German and British soldiers during World War I. Men who were trying to kill each other one day were singing Christmas carols together the next. You can listen to it below:

The song is a reminder that what matters is not what divides us but what unites us. There are always going to be differences among us and it's important that we don't look at others and see "the enemy." It's important we don't look at others and see an opponent. It's important that we don't look at a  greeting as a symptom of something sinister.

Christina, Ellery and I went to a small gathering at church Sunday afternoon for a carol sing service for all the churches in town. It was pretty nice because it was one of the first Christmas-y things we've done this year. You just can't help but feel good after singing songs like that.

The service was enjoyable to me also because of how simple it was. It just consisted of showing up, calling out carols and then singing through them. Afterwards we had hot cider and cookies and conversation.

And what were those songs? "Silent Night." "O Come All Ye Faithful." "The Friendly Beasts." "Away in a Manger." "The First Noel." "God Res Ye Merry Gentlemen."

You know what wasn't on that list of Christmas songs? "Onward, Christian Soldiers."

'Tis not the season.

I'm going to leave off with a link to an article I've always found hilarious because of how sad it is. It's about the actual war on Christmas that almost occurred between North and South Korea:

ASIA/NORTH KOREA - Threats of war for "the lights and Christmas trees on the border"

As I said, Christmas is serious business.

Ellery

Well this is different.

It's been almost a month since my daughter, Ellery, was born. Baby time came right when I was driving a group of six freshmen from a novice debate meet heading back to Buhler. I'm proud to say I didn't freak out too much, even though I wanted to. Safety first.

She was born at 10:45 the next morning weighing 5 lbs 3 oz. She's a little squirt, but she's got the heart of a champion. There's already a tremendous debate within the family over whether she's going to be a professional swimmer or a piano player. Quite a bit of pressure to put on a baby when the nurses are just concerned over whether or not she's gaining weight. Besides, she's got the look of a politician, anyway. Moot point, people.

Thankfully she has been gaining poundage, though. At the last weight check she was pushing 6 lbs and may have already surpassed that. She's healthy, and that makes us happy. Like, winning-the-lottery happy. Ecstatic. Joyful. And tired.

I expected to feel tired, but I had also expected to feel more stressed than I have been. Part of that is because she's doing well (no jaundice or other early issues) but I'm also much more relaxed around Ellery than I've ever been around other babies. I suppose a big part of that is because she's my baby and not someone else's. If I mess something up, it's my own dang fault. But then, I'm only worrying about my own guilt rather than someone else's disapproval.

We're still early enough into things that taking care of Ellery has been relatively easy. The first week and a half our biggest challenge was just getting her to wake up so we could feed her. She just slept all the time. In fact, she's only just recently started staying awake when people come to visit her.

And oh boy, does she have visitors. I've never felt so popular-by-extension. Just about everything I post on Facebook gets three times as many likes as they normally would. I've briefly thought about just mentioning her briefly in every post: "Seriously, Jay Cutler? Another injury? You're tanking my fantasy team! #Elleryjustburped"

But enough of that. A small project I worked on was this short video of Ellery. I'm going to close by posting it and getting back to grading (incredibly behind on grading, but I'm gaining).

Catharsis

In English class recently we've touched briefly on the elements of tragedy and talked a bit about catharsis, which is a term with several meaning but is basically a "purging of emotion" that comes about by experiencing an intensely emotional story. Audience members would supposedly come to the play with an excess of emotion and the play would restore them to a more natural balance.

While medically speaking that's ridiculous, part of me believes there might be some psychological merit to it. How many people gravitate to the saddest part of a movie? How many people find themselves drawn to intensely sad stories? There are some films that are intensely sad all the way through (Like Schindler's List) and some that just have sad moments (like The Lion King).

What's interesting to me is that I don't really re-watch the intensely sad movies all that often. For example, the full movie of Schindler's List from above? I've probably really only seen it once all the way through. Everything else has been clips here and there. It's a tough pill to swallow. Instead, for my catharsis, I rely on other films that have maybe one sad portion in it. Like Homeward Bound. Man, that's a good movie.

Is that a bit wimpy? Yeah, probably. But it's not like I'm wanting to eat an entire cheese wheel of sadness. I want my films to be the cheese dip of sadness. Just enough to get a taste, and then move on to the main course.

So this is how nuclear wars begin...

So I need to set the record straight, here. 

One of my fellow English teachers, Jason Kohls, has falsely stated that I have claimed the title of "Alpha Male" of the English department.

Given that there are four male teachers in our department, that would be incredibly brazen of anyone to say. However, here are the facts:

• Yes, I did tape an article to Jason's door that implied he thought baby deer are adorable. 
• Yes, I did tell my kids to "prove they had more compassionate hearts than those jerks across the hallway" while raising items for the homeless. I can see how Greg Froese and John Knapp could misinterpret my meaning.
• Yes, I printed a tweet Jason made with the hashtag #whatupbauer
• Yes, I do like to be a snazzy dresser. 

But I started writing this blog post at first to DENY that I EVER said I was the alpha male. However, Jason gave the situation all the grave seriousness of a brewing nuclear conflict:

So, it would seen the battle for masculine supremacy has begun and threatens the pleasant and productive atmosphere of the upstairs south hallway. It is a shame, but what else can we do?

So I did what I hope our own country would do in a nuclear standoff. I point-blank refused to back down in the face of complete and utter misunderstanding:

JUST BECAUSE I DIDN'T SAY I WAS THE ALPHA MALE DOESN'T MEAN IT ISN'T TRUE

Your move, Kohls.

If ever there were an alpha male in our department, it would be me, by-golly. I think my extreme sense of masculinity oozes out of me when I'm doing something particularly manly. Like diagramming a compound-complex sentence. Or ordering a pumpkin spice latte. Or crying while watching Homeward Bound.

Let's see Walker Texas Ranger do THAT.

In all seriousness, in some respects being the alpha male in an English department is like saying you're the healthiest guy at McDonald's. Sure, you might legitimately claim that title, but it's not like there's an expectation or anything. It's a profession that has been dominated by women for literally billions of years. Teaching literature requires showing students how to empathize with characters in a story. Empathy is a trait men are not well-known for. Remember when King Xerxes tearfully embraced King Leonidas at the Battle of Thermopylae and sat down for peace talks? Yeah. Me neither.

When I was in junior high school, you could tell my English teachers were women simply by looking at my assigned reading list:

• Island of the Blue Dolphins
• The Diary of Anne Frank
• The Witch of Blackbird Pond
• Number the Stars
• The House on Mango Street
• Across Five Aprils

All but one of those books (Across Five Aprils) had a female protagonist. And even that one was about domestic life on a farm during the Civil War, so only the girls liked it. There weren't any battles or nothin'. I didn't truly start to love English until I got to read books like Animal Farm and Anthem in class. I felt like those books finally began to move away from some of the themes I was already used to.

But you wouldn't know the field of English was inherently feminine from looking at the department we have going in Buhler. I wish I could take credit for making our department manly, but honestly that's probably not the case. The manliness quotient probably comes from the women just as much as the men. The title of "dominant male" might just go to one of them. Especially the one with the firearm. Come to think of it, that last sentence might need to be plural.

This is a group that is so productive that it looks forward to in-service days with all the fervor of an approaching Harry Potter release. This is a group so eager and excited to share ideas that we have 26 different Google Docs folders with lesson materials for everything from timed writing prompts to links to audio recordings of To Kill a Mockingbird. This is a group filled with people who love what they do.

I don't know if that's masculine or feminine. What I do know is it's pretty dang sweet.

Citizenship Day

It was an inspiring day to work with the Buhler High School kids around on different projects in the community.

It's always a good day when you see groups of young people working to benefit their community. Recently (and separately) our English department began participating in Socktober. It was something started by "Kid President" on Youtube. You can check out the video below:

So far my classes have raised a box full of items, although we've only been at it two days and I only have 40 English kids. The idea to start participating in it came from Jason Kohls and all of our kids and their families have been tremendous in their response. Jason has been having to clean out more and more of his classroom closet to make way for the items kids have been bringing in.

Civic responsibility isn't something that has always been strong with me. It was probably weakest while I was in college simply because Fort Hays wasn't necessarily "home." It was where I lived and where I had friends, but Hays wasn't "home" for them, either. Now that I'm settled, I own a house, and have a child on the way, everyone pitching in to help each other out takes on a new level of importance.

It's important to me that the needy in our community get what they need because it's important to me that my community reflect the values that I strive to maintain. If that simply were not the case, I feel that there would be a greater sense of apathy. The notion that we are our brother's keeper would be gone.

Yes, I have a responsibility to others in my community. It is real. It matters. Just like it matters to an entire basketball team when one player fails a class. It also matters that we do unto others the way we'd have them do unto us.

Socktober. Citizenship Day. It's not an assignment. It's a duty.

Columbus Day is Awful

(I wrote this for The University Leader as a humorous opinion in 2010)

There are a host of serious issues plaguing the nation. This is not one of them.

I’m talking, of course, about Columbus Day. It was Monday. Did you remember? No, you didn’t.

You didn’t celebrate. You didn’t travel to Ohio. You didn’t wave Spanish flags.

Like me, you probably tried to ignore it until you found out the post office was closed.

Which brings me to my point: Columbus Day is the worst holiday ever because Columbus was the worst explorer ever.

I’m not even going to count the whole genocide of the Native Americans thing, which alone is reason to relegate Columbus to a footnote.

No, Columbus was a bad guy because he stank as an explorer. He was the worst. He’s the Paris Hilton of explorers, getting all the attention, but being completely devoid of talent or serious accomplishments and contributions.

He didn’t discover anything. Not really. He wasn’t the first person to discover America — Native Americans did that. He wasn’t the first European to discover America — Leif Erikson did that.

Heck, he didn’t even know he was in America. He thought he was in India. Shouldn’t that by itself be reason to say Columbus was a terrible, terrible explorer? What kind of explorer gets an entire continent completely wrong?

There are some who say that Columbus’ voyage was important because it proved the earth is round. Wrong.

People at the time of Columbus already knew the earth was round. They had even already estimated the earth’s size. Columbus didn’t prove anything, not even to his own people.

Even if he really proved the earth was round, wouldn’t it make more sense to actually sail around the earth? Not just blindly run into some land, declare that it’s India, and then sail back.

There are many reasons to get rid of Columbus Day. Chief among them is that it’s really, really annoying. Anyone else try to go to the bank on Monday? Yeah, I bet that was a lot of fun turning around and driving home, cursing that jerk Christopher Columbus under your breath.

Does anyone know how much money the economy loses by shutting down banks to worship Columbus each year? I don’t either, but I bet it’s a lot.

I’d probably be fine keeping a holiday in place of Columbus Day, but it would need to be changed to something more relevant and worthwhile. Like Comfortable Pants Day. Now that’s something that would look good on the second Monday in October.

Christopher Columbus was not only a terrible explorer, but he’s a terrible reason to take the day off.

I Didn't Die When I Saw The Conjuring

I've posted in the past about scary movies. Namely about zombies and about horror movies in general.

But this past summer I saw a horror movie that everyone seemed to claim must be the scariest thing to emerge from a movie theater since popcorn prices were raised to $10 a bucket.

Yes, I'm talking of course about The Conjuring.

My wife and I went with a couple of friends who had bought into the hype. Christina is pregnant, of course, and one of my friends was apparently concerned for her well-being.

"Um...do you think it's a good idea for a pregnant woman to be seeing this? What if the movie freaks her out so much that she...I don't know....goes into labor or something?"

We took our chances.

But I was a bit disappointed. It was a good movie, don't get me wrong. But single scariest movie ever made? Not really.

I hadn't quite grasped from the trailers that this was just another exorcism movie. I've seen my fair share of these films. I gotta tell ya, it definitely makes being Catholic look exciting. I can almost picture a hotline to the Vatican where the pope has to dispatch secret agents to fight these demons in their houses.

That's probably the biggest reason I didn't find myself on the edge of my seat like some of the folks in the theater. Exorcism movies aren't really novelties for me anymore.

Fantasy Football Team Names

Fantasy football is about to begin. I belong to a couple of leagues with a basic rule for team names: They must be named after a town or city in Kansas. You may pick whatever mascot you want.

The goal, of course, is to be as clever as you possibly can.

So, naturally, Christina and I set forth to come up with the best list of names we could.

The Potter Muggles (mine)
The Winchester Rifles
The Cuba Libres
The Reading Rainbows
The Assaria Assassins
The Axtell Clinics (our doctor works at Axtell Clinic in Newton)
The Dexter Laboratory
The Enterprise Rent-A-Cars (Christina's team name)
The Gypsum Gypsies
The Long Island Iced Teas
The Montezuma Revenge
The Mission Impossibles
The Perry Platypus
The Protection Detail
The Speed Racers

Our foes will quake before the might of our witty titles.

Legacy

Over the last week I've been reading my last book of the summer, Outliers, The Story of Success. It's a book that makes the argument that all of us, whether we know it or not, are products of our background. That we owe far more to our legacy and that legacy contributes as much to our personal successes as any special talents or work ethic we may have.

It makes an illustration with Asian commercial pilots. There was a time when Korea had some of the most unsafe airlines in the world. That's because their culture dictated deference to authority. The pilot did his job and his decisions were always respected and adhered to. Those beneath his command, like his engineer or first officer, would not question him or risk embarrassing him. That meant that when he made a mistake, that mistake would go unchecked and lead to another mistake, then another, then another, until seven mistakes later, there was a crash. The culture itself created a situation where pilots found it difficult to be effective because what could have been three sets of eyes on the control panel became just one. 

It had nothing to do with the skill or the work ethic of the pilot, but everything to do with the intricacies of that particular culture. 

In the same way, the book talked about how southerners tend to get red hot angry. The Appalachians were originally settled by herding people from Scotland, Northern England, and Ireland. They had lived in difficult terrain in the old country and had only been able to rely on their families and their clans for protection and support. They had to protect their herds with force, otherwise others could come in during the night and steal their livelihood. In this way, personal honor became very important to them. They were fierce, battle-hardened people because they had to. They formed strong bonds with their community because they had to.

So these same people settled in the Appalachians in the American South and that culture of honor is still there today. A study was actually done on what happens when you call a southern boy a certain seven-letter word (I'll let you try to figure it out) compared to what happens when you call anyone else that name. The result? The Southerners' testosterone levels were up and they were in fight mode. The others generally laughed it off. It had nothing to do with lineage. Many of the Southerners had no ancestry from Scotland, England, or Ireland, but they were influenced simply from having grown up in the South. The Southerners, though they may not know it, were still being influenced by hundreds-years-old cultures, from a land thousands of miles away.

It made me wonder just what legacies affect me and affect our communities. It's easy to see the legacy in Halstead and Buhler and much of the area around Hutch: German Mennonites. The Old Country still isn't that far away. Many communities in this area remain strong despite relative rural seclusion in no small part because the old settlers relied on community so much. Some people think I'm crazy, but I swear I can hear the faintest hint of a German accent from some of Halstead's older citizens.

My direct ancestry seems to have two predominant characteristics: Very German, and very Lutheran.

The Lutheran bit is easy enough to spot in my family (seeing as how my dad's a Lutheran pastor and all). Appreciation for classical music has always been strong, especially for Bach who's probably the most influential Lutheran of all time next to David Hasselhoff.

The German bit is interesting as well. I was always taught to be proud of my German heritage, although that usually didn't go much further than occasionally eating dumplings. That being said, I DO know the words to O, Tannenbaum.

But there's a very slight sense of separation from those who aren't Volga German, and part of me thinks that stems from the persecution the Volga Germans faced while in Russia. They became distinct groups with different experiences than other German immigrants and remained separate and prideful. The whole persecution bit very possibly made some socialists out of some of our ancestors. At least that's the family story, anyway. Maybe that's why we have a fair amount of moderate liberals in the family. 

Having lived in three separate states (Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas) I tend to wonder how much I've changed as I've moved from one place to another. My older brother still lives in Texas and he's still steeped in Texas culture whereas we're definitely midwestern now. Part of me cheers for Sweden just because Christina went to a Swedish college. The weather isn't just polite conversation but a serious matter that affects the livelihood of an entire farming community. Oh, and no one likes Missouri. In fact, there might be a few that still believes Missouri will burn Lawrence again.

Oh, Missouri v. Kansas. Now THAT'S a legacy to talk about. 

Book List Part 2

I was going back over my list from last week over my favorite books of all time. As I said in that post, if you asked me on three separate days what my favorite book is, you would likely receive three different answers.

But looking over my list, I started to notice that the vast majority of my choices were from the fantasy or adventure genres. Plus, it wasn't even all that complete. I started to come up with a few other options and I realized that I needed to add to my list.

I'm going to acknowledge right here that this list and my previous list only covers works of fiction. I'll probably make a non-fiction list at some point, but I'm going to try to keep this at least respectably concise.

Saint Maybe - I love this book, and it's different from the typical book I read because it's so focused on domestic life. The story follows the life of Ian Bedloe, who inadvertently causes his older brother's suicide and then must care for his now-orphaned nieces and nephew. Ian throws himself into his "burden" of raising the children and forsakes all the earthly pleasures he would have likely pursued had he not done his horrible deed and sought repentance. Seeing how the author, Anne Tyler, develops her characters over the course of several years makes the book so much more satisfying than if it had covered a short period of time.

The Shining - The first Stephen King novel I'd ever read. And it's not nearly as similar to the movie as I thought it would be. It was the first time I'd been introduced to such painful foreshadowing in a novel. King purposefully projects almost exactly what will happen in the novel right from the beginning, and it carries the force of seeing a steamroller approaching a cripple from a mile away. It's horrible. You know it's coming. There's nothing you can do to stop it but watch it happen.

Lonesome Dove - Oh those sad, sad, cowboys. Being a cowboy must have been fun, right? A glorified herder despised by most of society. And yet McMurtry pulls at the ol' heartstrings following Gus and Call on a cattle drive from Texas to Montana. Reading this book is a bit of an epic undertaking, and McMurtry treats it like an epic journey. This was assigned in a college course titled Literature of the American West and was the most exciting work for me that year.

Pretzels, commercials, and Peyton Manning

It's just about that time of year again. Time for me to draft for my imaginary football team in a league featuring 11 other guys I know mostly from high school and college. All in the name of fulfilling my childhood dream of winning a superbowl right from my own home. It should be pretty magical.

My team's name? The Potter Muggles.

There is a spirited debate within my family and among some close friends about whether fantasy football is awesome or lame. On the one hand, I have paid much more attention to the NFL since starting a fantasy team. Keeping tabs on the players on my team has forced me to keep tabs on divisions outside the AFC West.

On the other hand, this also causes a perverse situation for die-hard fans. Some actually start to actually care more about their fantasy team than their real team. A Kansas City Chiefs fan might find himself cheering for Denver if he happens to have Peyton Manning on his fantasy team. And that's. Just. Wrong.

This leads me to wonder: What is it exactly that draws us to sporting events? Is it the actual sporting event? Or is it all the extra "stuff" surrounding it? I'd like to think most people truly want to see a good game and that that's the primary reason they go. But owners and league officials have a tendency to take the focus more and more away from the actual game.

Take football for example. Logically, with 15 minute quarters, a professional football game should feature an hour of action. Throw in timeouts and clock stoppages, it would take a little over two hours to complete a game.

But in the first seven weeks of 2011, the average NFL game time surpassed three hours. There are several reasons for this. Commercial breaks. Flags being thrown by officials. Commercial breaks. Pass-happy offenses. Commercial breaks. It's becoming just a little bit ridiculous.

Last year Christina and I went with my family to the Alamo Bowl (my brother Matthew lived in San Antonio) and that game started at 8:00 p.m. but went until about midnight during a 67-56 game. It was a high-scoring game. Know what that means? We spent about half our time there watching the players stand around while the networks went to commercial break. What's sad is that this was an exciting game featuring future NFL stud Robert Griffin III. It would have been even better if we didn't have to sit around for an extra hour.

Now that's not an issue with the fans, really, but the owners and league officials. There has got to be a better way to sell ad space than stopping the action for two minutes of commercials. Heck, they could do what soccer does: sell ad space on the jerseys if you have to. But don't stop the action.

I have a similar issue with baseball. Not because of the amount of time the game takes, really, but because of how slow the action can sometimes be. According to the New York Times: 

"The average time of games has ballooned from 2 hours 33 minutes in 1981 to 2 hours 58 minutes in 2013 — tying the 33-year high — even though a recent study by The Wall Street Journal found that the average game has only 18 minutes of actual action." 

Think about what's going on during most of the game: A new pitcher is brought on and he needs his warm-up throws. A batter steps up to the plate and winds up. The pitch comes in. Ball one. Batter steps out of the box so that he can tighten his wrist straps he just fastened 90 seconds ago. He takes  a practice swing. Then another. Then he steps back to the plate. The pitcher looks. Takes his stance. Then throws to first to try to catch the runner. He's safe. Batter steps out again and repeats the process. Seven-year-olds in the stands start asking for popcorn. 

You go to a baseball game and what do you see? Fans playing solitaire on their phones. Texting. Reading books. Drinking beer. Now, it's nice to hang out at a baseball game with friends and get some fresh air, but that's not something that's related to the game itself, is it? That's part of the "extra stuff." 

Certainly there's always the history and mythology of the game. It always will be "the Great American Pastime." But for me, anyway, that's something that's more likely to get me to go outside and play catch or go watch a baseball movie rather than watch a game on TV. The running joke with my brother Michael is that whenever a baseball team loses it's because "they didn't BELIEVE enough."

The Rookie was actually filmed 10 minutes from where we lived in Texas at the time. 

There's a bit of complacency by fans when teams do poorly, as well. Your team might lose, but that's no reason to have a bad time. After all, "there's always next week." Or, "there's always next year." Heck, you got to buy a jumbo bag of peanuts! How cool is that? Dang, these peanuts can be tricky to open. Better take my eyes away from the batter warming up to get at these little buggers...

Part of me wishes there was some sort of punishment for teams that play awful, but the opposite is true more often than not. Underperforming teams get the first pick in the draft. Some owners that don't invest much in the team have proven that they can still turn a profit, maybe even a bigger profit than if they'd shelled out money for better athletes. The incentive is gone. And as long as fans are happy just going out and "having a good time" then that's not going to change.

I have no idea what I'm advocating here. I don't know how exactly you change an entire culture, but I think I am lamenting how often the focus of sports turns away from the action and turns towards anything else. Keep in mind that I love football, baseball, basketball, and a host of other sports as well. But if I find myself focusing more on pretzels, commercials, or Peyton Manning before the Chiefs, it's not a fantasy that something is wrong with this picture.  

No more papers, no more books, no more teacher's dirty -- WAIT, no more books!?!? WHY?!

I'm in the midst of a new book series, A Song of Fire and Ice by George R. R. Martin. The book series spawned the HBO program Game of Thrones. 

I've quickly become completely worthless. Good books have been known to do that to me. The lawn needs to be mowed? I'll get to it after this chapter. It's time to eat? I'll skip lunch for now. I haven't talked to my wife in three days? I'll give her the book when I'm done and then we can talk about it together.

The book has reminded me how much I love the fantasy genre. I haven't gotten this engrossed since I finished Lord of the Rings. In fact, it's given me this maddening urge to buy as many large bookshelves as I can and make it my life's mission to fill them all as my own personal gigantic library.

But what would I have in that library? What would be on my own "top picks" shelf?

Growing up my parents had a family rule that the TV could not be turned on in the evening, so after 7:00 it was usually off. I still can't remember a time when my brothers and I went to sleep with the TV still going.

That time was usually spent reading, whether it was on our own or Mom pulling out a book and reading a chapter a night. Reading to children requires an amount of skill to it and Mom had it mastered. I used to think everyone was expected to read that well but now I think it's a bit of a requirement for teaching at an elementary school.

We tackled quite a few books, and not all of them small ones, either. Little House in the Big Woods, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, and The Hobbit were just a few of our conquests.  

These evenings gave me a love for reading that's still with me today. My only regret is that I wish I could read faster. Christina has finished three Doctor Who books in the time I've read one and a half. Granted, my books are a bit longer, but still, she's speed racer. I think she's cheating.

Anywho, (anyhoo..anywhoo...whatevs) this all made me contemplate just what would be in my list of favorite books of all time? In all probability, if you asked me on three different days what my favorite book is, I would probably give you three different answers depending on my mood. So I came up with a list that I tried to make cover as many genres as possible.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince - Harry Potter has got to be my favorite series, and Half-Blood Prince is my favorite book in that series. Harry finally actually starts coming of age in this book while in all the others he's just sort of "approaching" manhood. He's more mature and less whiney than in the previous book. Rowling makes this book much more concise and straightforward that some of her other plots in the series, which tend to meander.

Dune / Starship Troopers - Science fiction adventures. Both of these feature the human race colonizing planets in the distant future. Dune actually features a planetary feudal system (think monarchs in charge of planets) while Starship has the human race fighting alien races for galactic domination (and the humans in general are winning).

World War Z - A post-action oral report on the "last great zombie war." It's a social commentary on what's wrong with everything from our military to our celebrity culture.

Lord of the Rings: Return of the King - The finale of one of my favorite series, but really I would throw all three of Tolkien's books in here.

Rainbow Six - Tom Clancy's best book (although Executive Orders is pretty neat as well). Eco-terrorists try to wipe out all human life with a super virus. An elite counter-terror team sponsored by NATO is all that stands in their way. When I read it in 6th grade it was the longest book I had ever finished.

Watership Down - Cute wittle wabbits FIGHT TO THE DEATH FOR THEIR FRIENDS AND FAMILY IN THE NAME OF THEIR HOMELAND. These rabbits form their own ideal society... and they're just adorable.

I Finally Blog About Zombies

Zombies are meaningful.

Not the zombies themselves, of course. You can't figure out what a zombie means because it is usually grunting or growling or moaning. 

But zombie films are meaningful. They've always pointed at some deep-seated fear we may not even be aware we have. The stories and the monsters themselves keep changing to keep up with what keeps us awake at night.

Just look at the original White Zombie. It came out in the 30s and features a lovely couple (both white) who must overcome a mixed race antagonist who turns people into zombies so that they can be his slaves in his factories. Not exactly the type of zombie flick you would see today. The main woman is even turned into a zombie at one point to do the bad guy's bidding and must be saved.

The film would now be considered horribly racist, especially when you look at the fears that were probably being manipulated: fears of people with dark skin rising up, overpowering whites with their numbers, and seducing their women. Racial equality was literally a nightmarish idea to these people.

What fears do zombie films pull at today? I tend to think a common thread has usually been the fall of Western Civilization. It seems every month there are new stories coming out that hint at our impending doom. Terrorism. The rise of China. Pollution. You can't turn on the news without finding some segment hinting at the end of the world. There was even a miniseries about Bird Flu wiping out most of the planet in 2006 (might as well have made it a zombie virus - wouldn't have really changed much).

Every now and then I'll hear someone mention, "Man, zombies are everywhere these days." If I had to pick a date where zombies started to become popular again, it would probably be right after 9/11. In fact, I don't really find it a coincidence that 28 Days Later came out in 2002 and found success at the box office. There was an undercurrent of fear again, a notion that even a powerful government could not protect us at all from a menace like that.

In most of the 1990s, zombies were considered corny. Insanely corny. In fact, I recently just downloaded a game on our Wii from 1993 called Zombies Ate My Neighbors! where teenagers with attitude ("attitude" must have been a buzz word in the 90s) must save their very dumb neighbors from zombies and monsters which have taken over the world.

Zombies just weren't very frightening. Compare that to 1968 when Night of the Living Dead revolutionized the horror genre and was followed up with the 1978 sequel Dawn of the Dead. Those films terrified people.

So what was the difference? Why did it work on the 60s and 70s but not in the 90s? I tend to think the end of the Cold War had something to do with it.

Think about it. Most modern zombie films trace their influence back to Richard Matheson's 1954 novel I Am Legend. In that story, Matheson plays on the fears of a nuclear fallout spreading a vampiric virus. The main character must survive alone in a world overrun with vampires, which are simultaneously portrayed as alluring, senselessly violent, barely rational, and deceptive. All of these were common descriptions of Russians at the time.

So when the Cold War ended and there was no longer a giant Russian boogeyman, life became pretty good. The economy was strong. America was #1. We got the Dream Team into the Olympics. Some of the best horror movies just tried to take advantage of our complacency by introducing monsters into the suburbs in Scream and I Know What You Did Last Summer. Sure you had disaster movies like Independence Day, but America still won because America was awesome. If a race of technologically superior aliens couldn't wipe us out, what chance does a slobbering, slow-moving ghoul stand?

But that's not the case so much anymore, is it? Americans look at our own country and there's a sense of pessimism there. If your guy isn't in the White House then the country seems that much worse. There is little faith that a government as impotent as our own right now would be able to do jack diddly to stop a horde of zombies from eating the flesh off your face. I mean, holy crap, we can't even pass a farm bill right now.

And so now here we are. Back to zombies being popular and zombies being fun. Because if we don't love America, the zombies win. 

Gurlz vs. Karate

It became official only a few weeks ago: Christina and I will be having a little girl this November. You should probably be a little concerned for me since I don't know anything about girls. My two brothers can probably attest to that.

Seriously though, I'm excited to be getting a girl. Part of me wanted to have a girl, and I'm not really certain why. It might be because there is a bit of a dearth of baby girls in my family (I have two brothers, one male cousin, and two brothers-in-law). Maybe I like a challenge or new experiences. Whatever the reason, I found myself secretly doing an arm-pump and thinking "Yes!"

Of course the next concern for me turned to how do you raise a girl? How does a father bond with a daughter? Should I resign myself to pretending to have tea with various Disney princesses? Would life be easier if my girl were a tomboy? Is there a way I could use operant conditioning to make my girl a tomboy? (Kidding, kidding, kidding ... well, mostly kidding)

I started to realize that me asking these questions was based off the naive assumption that I could raise boys any better. However, there's probably a limited list as to what I know about raising boys:

1. Brothers will fight each other after dark when they're supposed to be asleep.

2. ... actually, that's probably about it

I know I have Christina to guide me through a lot of it. But man, she's already doing quite a bit as it is. You know... the whole, "growing a human" thing. Apparently it can get pretty exhausting. It's what she uses as an excuse anyway when we need to move some cinder blocks. Talk about lazy. She even joked that once the baby gets here she's going to take the next nine months off, hand me the child, and just say "Your turn." At least, I hope she's joking...

I take comfort in a few things we're in complete agreement on. I'm banking on these issues being something to fall back on in the future:

1. Church is a must.

2. Books are important. By God, we will have lots of books in this house (we pretty much already do).

3. Limited TV and video game time. And no TV in the bedroom.

4. Encouragement with being active and involved, whether it's sports, dance, music, whatever.

5. Our child will not watch the Star Wars prequels until she is old enough to hate them (okay, that's mostly something I advocate).

I take a little bit of comfort in agonizing over the small things because it's a reminder to me that there are several big things that we have covered. Is gender really that big of a deal? I'm starting to think it isn't. I would love this child the same regardless, and I'd probably finding myself raising her mostly the same as if she were a boy.

Except, I probably won't have to worry about her trying out karate moves after dark ... I hope.

Debatable debate

Over the last week, I've been attending two separate workshops on policy debate, which I coach. I agreed to coach having had absolutely no previous experience in policy debate. I did not do it in high school or college.

Imagine Helen Keller trying to teach Peyton Manning how to read a defense.

I found out very quickly that there is an amount of turmoil within the debate community over different styles of debate. One thing to know about policy debate is that the only rules are the time limits for speeches and cross examination. Everything else has been decided by tradition.

One style of debate is often referred to as "traditional." In the traditional style, speaking ability and real-world arguments are important. Your ultimate goal is to persuade the judge that your position is the best position in the round using evidence you have researched.

The other style has evolved from this and has become known as "k" debate, or "kritik" debate, meaning "critique." This style is a bit...out there.

You see, it used to be that the people who judged debate rounds were community members who knew absolutely nothing about debate. You had to persuade 80-year old grandmothers that the Cuban embargo should be lifted, and it was your job to make certain that she understood you perfectly.

Over the years, however, the people judging the rounds have more and more often been people who have participated in debate before. These judges already KNOW most of the arguments that you could and will make in the round and they get bored easily. To fight this, debaters started speaking more quickly and cramming in more and more arguments that the other team HAS to answer, otherwise they lose. If you were to watch a debate at the national college championships, you're likely not going to understand much of what they're saying if you haven't participated in debate before just because they're speaking lightning fast.

In addition to using speed debate, there has also been a move towards what has been called "kritik" debate, or K debate. This style uses arguments that challenge a very basic assumption that has been made in the round, meaning often you end up not even discussing the topic. For example, a negative team might respond to your plan to increase transportation infrastructure by arguing that capitalism and capitalist thinking is inherently evil, and is at the root of all our problems, including our transportation problems, meaning you should reject the resolution, meaning you reject the opposing team, meaning the judge should support you. This argument is called a "Cap K" or "capitalism kritik."

So coaches at the high school level have split. Many coaches feel that kritik's only help critical thinking skills and that the speed of the activity force debaters to compete at a high level.

Others who are in favor of the traditional style argue that K debate and speed are bad because it makes the activity less accessible. It is much more difficult to judge a speed and k debate than a traditional one because presentation is completely thrown out the window. You have to have prior experience and certain skills in order to effectively judge it. This causes many outsiders to gain a negative view of the activity and lowers support from the community.

This is actually exactly what happened at my alma mater, Fort Hays State University when the debate coach exposed his butt (still covered in underwear) to a room full of people in the middle of a shouting match with another coach. An investigation supposedly "revealed" the state of debate at the college level and resulted in the entire program being shut down.

I'm figuring out where I fit in on this issue. On one level, the speed debate DOES require students to have much more agility thinking on their feet than traditional style. It also has a greater focus on the IDEAS presented in a round rather than the speaking skills. Sometimes a team that can speak well will win a round despite having the worse arguments. In my opinion, the team that makes the better arguments should win the round, regardless of how well they spoke.

At the same time though, the skills that need to be stressed are the presentation skills. We live in a society where the one who is the most persuasive will be the one to set policies for everyone else. Having the good ideas AND being the better speaker is definitely ideal.

You wouldn't think these issues would impact what you do as a coach a whole lot, but they influence everything from the tournaments you compete in to the cases you choose. By the time I get some more experience under my belt, hopefully I'll have a good sense for where I stand on it. For now, I'm finding answers to assertions that my team's perpetuating sexism, racism, capitalism, or some other -ism. Gotta prepare for debate...maybe then I'll catch de-fish. .... tee-hee.

I'm a dork.

90's TV - My Childhood

Oh, my childhood in front of the TV...

Recently I've been reading articles about the science fiction British import, Doctor Who, which will be going through a transition when the actor playing the title character leaves the show after the Christmas special this year and someone takes his place (like James Bond films, the main character has been played by a host of different actors).

What has been interesting to me is just the number of people who grew up watching the show in the 60s, 70s, and 80s. For many people the show shaped their childhoods. I've only been watching for the last few years, but I can relate. I too can't think about my childhood without remembering the different programs that I flocked to. I'll list some of them below:

1. Super Mario World. No, not the video game, but the TV show. It was a real thing. And I watched it right up until I went to Kindergarten. Check it out:

The video game convinced me that Mario was perhaps the greatest hero of all time. It was not

enough that I played the Super Nintendo game every minute I was allowed to be on the console. I dressed up like Mario. I wore a cape like Mario. There's a picture of me blowing out candles on a Mario-themed birthday cake. 

The show didn't need to do anything fancy to keep my interest. Mario teams up with Luigi and Yoshi, they have to defeat Bowser who has usually captured Princess Peach, and they almost always succeeded by getting a power-up in the nick of time. I had to quit watching when I began going to afternoon Kindergarten and could never get back in time for the show. Looking back, the show was really pretty awful and was jam packed with Italian stereotypes. One episode actually revolved around attempts to revive an unconscious Mario with the smell of pizza. Kinda racist now that I think about it...

2. Power Rangers. If Mario was awful, Power Rangers was ... what's worse than awful? Vomit-inducing? Bad. But I was a dumb kid and I loved it. It had ninjas, robots, and dinosaurs. The show was so formulaic that by the end of 1st grade I was wondering why the heck didn't they just skip all the precursory stuff and just go straight to the final battle (which involved a one-hit kill...maybe they should have lead off with that).

I vividly remember one of my saddest moments being when my babysitter jokingly told me that Power Rangers was canceled and they weren't going to be showing it anymore. I cried for about two hours before she could convince me she had been just joking. 

This is the premise of the show, taken word-for-word from Wikipedia:

     In Mighty Morphin, alien wizard Zordon recruits "teenagers with attitude" to harness the power of the  

     dinosaurs to overcome the forces of evil space alien Rita Repulsa.^[4] When "morphed," the rangers become 

     powerful superheroes wearing color-coded skin-tight spandex battle suits and helmets with opaque visors

I still can't believe I was so obsessed with something so dumb, but it ruled my life there for a while. One thing that invariably happened in each episode was "Rita" would send down some of her minions wearing all-grey spandex to fight the rangers. These minions were completely indestructible with only ONE weakness...a giant circle in the center of their chests which, when hit, kills them. It was the ONLY thing that could destroy them!

Occasionally, I and my friends would try to act out the stuff we saw on the show. You know, all the karate? It never worked out that well. We had an occasional bloody nose incident, but we still did it. I think the lesson from that is that I shouldn't let my child watch anything remotely violent until their brains have fully developed....so 25. 

3. Pokemon. Thankfully, I matured past the notion of brightly colored superheros battling enemies and moved to a show featuring brightly colored monsters leaping out of tiny orbs and battling each other. 

I was initially uncertain whether I should think Pokemon was cool or not. But after playing the Gameboy game I became addicted. It was the first (and last) anime show I ever watched and really it could get kind of goofy. Here's the premise:

Once a child turns 10 years old, he may leave home and travel the world finding and capturing wild pokemon (which means "pocket monsters") which he can then force into battles with pokemon belonging to other people in a quest to become the ultimate pokemon master. Looking back on it, it was actually a pretty horrible concept, kind of like Michael Vick's dogfighting ring turned into a cartoon.

As dumb as it sounds, it's easy to see why it appealed to kids. Imagine being able to walk around with the ability to summon monsters to do battle any time you wanted. Kids picking on you at school? Pull a raichu out of your pocket to electrocute him to death. Take that, Jebediah Hendrickson, you jerk!

Beyond that, though, the show got touchy-feely when it came to the relationships between humans and their pokemon. That's really what made the show itself appealing, this notion of "No one understands me! But at least I have you, bulbasaur!" One of my friends was able to relate. I'll keep his name secret to protect your identity, Josh Dreiling. He was once watching an episode entitled "Bye-bye, Butterfree!" in which one of the main character's pokemon is set free back into the wild so that she can be happy and live with the other butterfrees. While watching it, his sister barged into his room to ask him something when she stopped and asked, "Are you crying?" "NO! Shut up! Leave me alone!"

It's truly scary for a 10-year old to get in touch with his feminine side. 

4. Angry Beavers. No feminine side here. Two beavers who are brothers must live on their own in the wild. There is absolutely no moral or educational value that can be taken from this show, it was just silliness. 

What probably appealed to me about the show was the brothers, Dagget and Norbert, had arguments and fights that my brothers and I had all the time. Fights over everything from getting the last candy bar to being the first one through a doorway. 

Aside from that, it was probably just the silliness of the plot that kept me interested, but there was always something vaguely relatable in each episode. For example, in one episode Dagget and Norbert are eating literally tons of cereal and collecting hundreds of box tops so that they can send them in and get their own street sweeper. I still remember eating as much cereal as I could when there was a toy or a competition at stake, so I could relate to the episode on some level. To this day, the part of that episode that sticks with me is....why on earth did they want a street sweeper so badly? Chances are, they probably didn't. They only wanted it because the cereal company was offering it. 

Oh, and there was a character named Stump. You don't ever see him move...and by all measurements of logic he shouldn't move, but apparently he is completely self-aware and mobile and is well-liked by everyone in the forest. Part of the fun was you never knew when Stump was going to show up next with his stupid carved-out smile.

My Fatherhood Reading List

We're now a few weeks into the great second trimester of our pregnancy. And by "our" I mean Christina's. As much as I try to be supportive there's just not a whole lot I can do to make anything easier other than feel slightly guilty.

Christina: "I feel so nauseous."
Me: "Yeah...that sucks..."

Aside from just trying to keep things relatively clean around the house and making the occasional helpful baby name suggestion (Zagathor did not make the cut) I've been doing a lot of reading. You may not know this but  there are quite a few books on parenting. For those of you who have seen "baby" sections of book stores, you know there is a giant sarcasm sign flashing above my head.

See?

Someone, somewhere, at some point once said that babies don't come with an instruction manual. If that's the case, then what the heck have I been reading over the past 18 weeks? I started with something pretty basic: What to Expect When You're Expecting. Among other things, I learned that there must be an international law somewhere out there that says you may only compare your preterm baby size to some piece of produce. "Your baby is now the size of a grape! Your baby is now the size of an apple! Your baby is now the size of a green pepper! Your baby is now the size of the great pumpkin! By the way, you should probably get that checked out..."

What to Expect is actually insanely thorough. There are about 500 pages on nutrition for an expectant mother, all of which I as the father may ignore with no negative effect on the baby's health...although again, it makes me profoundly guilty. It's also insanely thorough on everything that can go wrong with your baby's development, some of which is scary enough to replace my nightmares of 24/7 Kardashian marathons replacing ESPN's current programming. I solved that problem though. I quit reading.

NOOOOOO!!!!

From there I began meandering around the Internet and reading up on what Christina and I should begin doing to prepare for baby time. Some of it is a bit morbid (making a will). Some is a bit more fun (painting the nursery). And the vast majority of the rest is just expensive. Do you know how much a stroller costs these days? Personally, I was starting to think we could take the Harry Potter route and just keep him or her in a cupboard instead of taking the child outside. Ya ain't North West, kid. I'm kidding of course. I'm not cruel enough to keep a baby in a cupboard. Besides, Christina wouldn't let me. So we got the stroller. Two strollers, in fact. One for us and one for our in-laws. I'm hoping they will motivate me to get up and actually walk a bit more than I am right now. Which is a number somewhere in the neighborhood of zero.

From the Internet I moved on to two separate books on fatherhood: Bill Cosby's Fatherhood and Jim Gaffigan's Dad is Fat. I love Cosby but Gaffigan's book blows it out of the water. For those of you who don't know, Gaffigan is the comedian who has the "Hot Pocket" routine. What I never realized in watching his standup (which is largely about being a lazy slob) is that he's actually a pretty big family man. And I don't just mean big as in "physically large." The guy has five kids. Five. As in four more than I will have in four months. Holy crap I only have four months left. Thanks a lot, blog, for reminding me.

He writes a lot about how the dad is a bit superflous during the whole pregnancy. In one of his best essays he talks about how being the "birth coach" to him is really just a nice way to make the father feel involved: "I'll just stand here in the corner and take pictures." It's morbid humor but it's funny. He even writes about the process of cutting the umbilical cord but, "You can't screw this up. The wouldn't let you do it if you could."

I think what appealed to me most about the book wasn't just the humor. The book was hilarious, don't get me wrong, but throughout the entire thing is an undercurrent of genuine love for his kids and a tentative fear that he's not being as good of a father as he could be. He worries that his kids are going to grow up hating him. He worries that show business will make life difficult for them in ways they aren't for other children. Despite that worry though, he's almost defensive about his worry and his mistakes. He absolutely hates getting unsolicited child advice from other people because it suggests his effort and love and common sense is not enough. What becomes clear though is that it definitely IS enough. He works hard at his job, he spends quality time with his children, he supports his wife, and his family adores him for it. I know that's a lot to do, and the effort involved will be staggering, but just the feeling and the comfort of knowing that the important part is the effort and the process involved has done worlds for any anxiety I've had.

Right. Now, back to searching for zombie children's books on Amazon.

Man No Feel - audience disconnect in Superman

It has been a while since I've posted anything. Christina and I just returned from a short vacation in Oklahoma City visiting my grandparents. Now is a good opportunity to make up for lost time.

While in Oklahoma, we went to see Man of Steel. There were some other good options, but I figured since Steel had already made so much money and since my older brother had talked almost non-stop about it since the first trailer appeared, I figured we should see what all the fuss was about. I came away just a little disappointed that it didn't live up to the lofty expectations I'd gained for it.

It's a reboot, for sure. Just about every superhero has gotten a reboot lately: Spiderman, Batman, Iron Man, Thor, and there's even a Wonderwoman movie in the works.

This movie, however, falls short from some of its better peers in a number of ways. I'm going to try to organize them here:

1. There are too many story lines going on simultaneously.

For a rebooted first film, there was just too much that the filmmakers tried to cram in. Don't let the trailers fool you. This is not a film about Clark Kent's childhood, although it tries to be. It also tries to be a film about Clark finding his identity, about discovering his father, about the success and failures of Krypton,  about Lois Lane finding Superman, about Clark discovering his powers, about General Zod's quest to redeem Krypton, etc. etc.

This makes the film into the "Golden Corral" of movies. Instead of serving up just one storyline well, it tries to do everything and ends up with poor quality. Ideally, the film would have focused almost exclusively on Clark finding his identity just so that his character could be solid for any sequels. Clark wrestles with what kind of a person he should be. But there is no specific point in the movie you can point to as the place where this issue is solved. As a result, you don't get a sense for how he relates to his inner turmoil because you can't pinpoint any exact change.

Batman did the "inner turmoil" bit to perfection. His parents are murdered by a thief and he wrestles with seeking revenge versus honoring his parents' memory by promoting justice.

Steel could have done this as well, but for whatever reason, decides against it. He could have had daddy issues and the film could have built his turmoil around that. Batman did it. Iron Man did it. So did Spiderman, Thor, the King's Speech, and EVEN HARRY POTTER. It works.

But the film doesn't devote the time to rounding out Superman's character that way or really in any way. The result? You don't care about Superman near as much.

2. Too much kablooey.

There are a LOT of explosions in this movie. I mean, I expected there would be an occasional destroyed building, but this started to feel like a Michael Bay movie after a while. I might be alone in this, but sometimes I think this is the film equivalent of dangling aluminum foil in front of the audience. It starts to feel lazy, like the relationships and interactions between the characters aren't enough to keep us interested on their own. Plus, I'm not that impressed by visual effects anymore. When too much of it is used, it becomes sensory overload. All that's important is that Superman fought someone and he eventually won. That doesn't need to go on for 20 minutes because then it starts to get boring.

3. Dads are good. Moms not so much.

The best part of the film was the first 20 minutes. Russell Crowe plays Superman's father, Jor-El and he takes the lead for the first portion of the movie as the scientist who foresees Krypton's doom. He simultaneously works to save his son while also fighting off a coup by General Zod, and he carries the focus quite well. Crowe manages to pull off the most floaty dialogue with gravitas ("You will give the people an ideal to strive towards...they will join you in the sun." - really though, how can you relate to an ideal of human perfection?)

Jonathan Kent is also pulled off superbly and he has the single best line in the film (Clark: "Can't I just go on pretending to be your son?" Jonathan: "You ARE my son!" - oh man, tear-jerker if ever there was one.) He even sacrifices himself saving people in a tornado so that Clark can keep his identity a secret.

The moms, however, are not as relatable and aren't as well acted. Lara Lor-Van, his biological mother, seeks justice for the murder of her husband at the hands of general Zod, and so she ensures that Zod is imprisoned in the phantom zone for his crimes...even though she KNOWS that Krypton is about to be destroyed and therefore this imprisonment will likely save their lives. She next appears grief-stricken and despondent as the planet explodes around her. You'd think she'd be a bit more concerned that Zod might succeed in his threat to find and murder her son.

Martha Kent is just tough to relate to. We're just sort of told that Clark loves her, but we don't really ever see that love. The best comparison I can think of is with Forrest Gump and his mother. He loves his mother, he and others in the movie tell us that, but we don't ever really SEE that love and experience it because she's absent most of the time from the movie. It's Jonathan who takes up the vast majority of the bonding moments, and once he's killed off Martha is all that's left to pick up the slack. It's just sort of assumed from that point that there was a relationship there, but unfortunately, we the audience aren't asked to join in.

The day I became a soccer fan

I can still remember the day I became a soccer fan.

It wasn't when I started playing youth soccer in Clinton, Oklahoma. While I learned the basics of the game as well as the positions (I was a central defender) opportunities to watch the game were few and far between.

It wasn't when the U.S. hosted the 1994 World Cup. While thousands of Americans poured into football stadiums to view soccer at the highest level, we stayed in Oklahoma. Besides, I was too young to appreciate such an event.

I had no idea who this guy was

I became a fan of the sport during the 2002 World Cup held in South Korea and Japan. While the U.S. had been an embarrassment at the 1998 World Cup, my brothers and I had vowed to watch the tournament anyway.

Up until that year, I hadn't really gained a passion for watching soccer because I didn't feel like I had much at stake. I didn't have a lot of pride steeped in the national team. And why should I? We were still a country that considered just qualifying for the World Cup to be a major, major accomplishment. And while many countries do indeed consider qualification an honor, defeating countries Antigua and Barbuda just doesn't command the world's respect like you might think.

These were the guys we beat. WE DID IT!....I guess?

And so we committed ourselves to waking up at 4:00 a.m. so that we could watch the games live with the time differential (ESPN was not replaying the games on primetime) We set our alarms, got up in our pajamas, fixed up some bowls of frosted flakes, and turned on ESPN, which happened to have nothing better to show that early (I've been frustrated when the network has opted to show "rock-paper-scissor" tournaments before).

This year, however, the tournament started off very well for the U.S. We actually beat Portugal. Portugal, for heaven's sake. This wasn't a fluke. You don't just beat Portugal by accident. There are no accidents when Portugal is on the field. Usually, the only accident that takes place is Portugal accidentally crushing you to death.

But we won.

Now all that would be for naught if the U.S. didn't perform respectably against the other two opponents in its group. A loss to Poland but a tie against South Korea was good enough to put the U.S. through to the round of 16.

By this point, I was excited. We were among the top 16 countries in the world. You don't find yourself at this point in the tournament by fluke. It just doesn't happen. You have to have something special going for you and I finally felt like I had a team I could be proud of.

Then we found out our opponent.

Mexico.

Of all the teams to end up against, we were playing the only team we can really call a rival.

Even as a kid, I remember having the overwhelming feeling of inferiority against Mexico when it came to soccer. The U.S. was normally the best at everything. Just look at how many medals we won at the 1996 Olympics (hosted, of course, in the USA). We always won, it seemed...except when it came to soccer.

I even remember my Mexican classmates talking about how much better Mexico was at the sport and how they themselves dreamed of being on the Mexican national team.

Heck, even soccer video games had all the U.S. players as tiny, slow, pixelated messes.

We were, (and to some extent still are) the underdogs when it came to soccer.

But now it was the World Cup. We had actually made it to the second round and we had a shot to take our neighbors to the south down a peg.

I can still remember how excited I got when Brian McBride blasted a shot home in the 8th minute--a quick start to a thrilling game. Later, I was out of my chair when Landon Donovan nodded in another goal in the second half. We were heading to the quarterfinals. The top eight teams in the world was pretty exclusive company.

Then, Mexican captain Rafael Marquez, completely frustrated by his team's inability to do anything, directed an intentional, cheap-shot head butt straight at American player Cobi Jones.

You....jerk......face

I was livid. I was indignant. The jerk nearly gave one of our best veterans a concussion and I wanted vengeance. I wanted justice. I wanted the entire U.S. squad to get a free shot at Marquez's crotch. 

Well, the crotch shots didn't happen. But the ref did see the foul and ejected Marquez from the game, reducing them to 10 men and virtually assuring us passage to the quarterfinals. 

When the clock passed 90 minutes and reality set in for the Mexican fans, the camera began to focus on all the sad, sad faces in the crowd. While the U.S. began celebrating, the Mexicans were gearing up the waterworks, and I remember feeling a twisted sense of joy at their misery. If Marquez had not just been ejected from the game, I'm certain I would have been feeling more sportsman-like, but not tonight. Tonight I was happy my team had dominated a rival. 

BWAHAHAHAHAHA!

We would lose in the quarters 1-0 to a fantastic German team, but I still remember the passion I felt watching that World Cup. It's remarkable, really, to think about how much has changed since then. Major League Soccer matches appear on TV with some regularity. ESPN announcers hold back their sarcastic comments when discussing the sport (which they're finding they actually need to promote to help their own ratings). And as I type this, I'm watching Mexico play Costa Rica in a World Cup qualifier, which is right before the U.S.'s game versus Panama, all on the night before Christina and I go watch Sporting Kansas City play a Cup match at their high class soccer-specific stadium.

In 2002, I had to wake up in the wee hours of the morning to become a fan of the sport. Future fans might find themselves following the game much more easily. And that can only be a good thing.