Monday, 25 June 2012

Jeremy Lin to Iman Shumpert alley oop

From the Knicks vs Cavaliers on February 29, enjoy the exquisite continuous flow from baseline steal to push and flaring run-out sprint to half-court alley to oop in stride.

More favorite Lin plays: Lin goes down low to force a bucket after 2 misses and hard cross-over score at the 76ers on March 21, assist from the post to a cutting Anthony at the Pacers on March 17, and three-quarters-court pass in stride to Anthony vs Hawks on February 22.

Eric

Saturday, 23 June 2012

Institutional people who cover up corruption

Penn State and the Second Mile. Horace Mann School. Catholic Church. Prestigious institutions where sexual abuse of children was known, covered up, and allowed to continue, rather than prevented or immediately cured. They are not the only prestigious institutions that have failed to self-correct, but they are the most famous.

For-profit corporations have a core fiduciary duty to maximize earnings, so it's at least understandable when their members respond to the institutional pressure by crossing the line from honest or legal to ill-gotten gains. Laws are meant to limit and regulate expected behavior in the dutiful pursuit of profit. But the core duty of schools and churches is to socialize their charges, which means their reason for being is to provide a secure environment and ethical social framework, especially for children. Not only is sexual abuse of children generally considered one of the worst sins in our society, when school or church agents corrupt the social framework, they are acting against the core fiduciary duty of their institutions. So why do members of prestigious institutions regarded as founts of the moral community seemingly act against the purpose of their institutions by covering up harmful corruption rather than cure it immediately? It's like an immune system that's unable to protect a body from cancer.

Are members of prestigious institutions more prone to covering up immoral and harmful activity in their midst or is covering up simply human nature? (I believe the latter.) What can be done to create institutional cultures that will overcome individual moral weakness in order to immediately cure or prevent harm as opposed to covering up or kicking the can?

Eric

Monday, 4 June 2012

The Manosphere

A round-up of male-oriented blogs, interesting reading especially for men who grew up lacking masculine male role models.

Eric

Sunday, 3 June 2012

More Youtube fun: Monthly Fails

Monthly Fails is a monthly compilation of fails. The clips range from slapstick to nuanced. My favorite clip (so far) is the racecar (or speedboat?) driver who reaches over to scratch his thigh, inadvertently causing the steering wheel to lift out of the steering column, leaving him clutching emptily for a steering wheel that's now in his lap.

Add: YourDailyLaughz, another youtube compiler of fails, looks to be more prolific than Monthly Fails.

Watching fails is comforting for anxiety sufferers, who become paralyzed by fears of risk, error, failure, embarassment, and pain, because watching fails, especially embarrassing painful failures by risk-taking practicioners, pros, and experts, reminds that failing in all sorts of ways is normal and ordinary. Shit and event cascades happen . . . mistakes happen. The training videos show failure is a normal part of development. Watching fails is also a valuable learning tool for studying the anatomy of human failure. Both catastrophic and harmless mistakes are often caused by the same kinds of individual often-slight oversights, misjudgements, missteps, slips, and unanticipated factors. Training ought to be characterized by failure rather than a zero-defect environment in order to encourage development. Also, physics reign supreme and trying athletic things when you're fat and out of shape is looking for trouble.

Eric