March 2018 – Enough Rope

British Invasion– “On offer”

On offer: Objectionable British import meaning “available” or “for sale” or “on sale.” This term has gained purchase despite its cost to meaningful American dialogue.

NB:

The British Invasion is when– unbidden and unneeded– explicitly British words and expressions infiltrate American public commentary and journalism. This is alarming because the resultant multiplier effect could cause an epidemic that infects ordinary Americans’ healthy vocabulary.

Although I strive for tolerance, for the purpose of this series of posts, my fundamental assumption is that American is better than, not just different from, British. This is– mainly, if not exclusively– because American is newer and made improvements to its dialect of origin. I do, however, confess to frequent unfair extrapolation from this arguably reasonable approach to almost wholesale– and borderline unfair– derision of British compared to American. I beg the reader’s forbearance for having fun with such a solemn topic. I’m just taking the mickey– or whatever it is Americans say.

LBJ– the Cleveland one– and the Passage to Overexposure

There are many factors that make LeBron James one of the best — if not the best — NBA players of all time. He is a transcendent figure — one of those rare players in any sport that even a non-fan can identify as simply better than everyone else. (I’ve seen that happen when a non-sports-oriented friend or family member happens to watch a few minutes of a game LeBron is in on TV — “Hey, that one guy is WAY better than the rest.”)

That doesn’t mean I’m not tired of him. I tired of LeBron once we reached that tipping point where everything he says and does gets top billing. We’ve seen the same thing with other overexposed athletes. I remember ESPN actually running a spring training story — not a crawl, a story — in 2012 or so about how the Yankees would have to soldier on without Derek Jeter for a game because he had a cold. Or maybe his dog was sick. Anyway, it was Jeter, so it was news. Similarly, if it’s LeBron, it’s news.

And no matter how deep I plumb the depths of my sympathy, when it comes to basketball, I simply never, ever feel sorry for LeBron at all in any way whatsoever. He’s always whining about something, to begin with, so he never presents as sympathetic. (N.B. I’m just talking about basketball, not his role as an international celebrity.)

At this writing, we’re in the third or fourth iteration of his desire to remake his team and acquire new teammates. The latest shipment won’t fare any differently from the waves before them. That’s because LeBron demands players then subsequently usurps the role they supposedly were hired to fill. Maybe he’s bored, but he does the same thing every time– he sets them– and us– up. “I want a point guard” is almost guaranteed to be followed by LeBron playing more point guard to show he’s better than anyone else at that, too.

Anyway, maybe someday I’ll miss being tired of LeBron, but I doubt it. I don’t miss Jeter or Kobe or any other great player who became the story instead of part of the story.

In search of a new metric

Many people– and not just Americans– are concerned that what human society considered “progress” is currently methodically challenged by conservative populist movements. This is not just a shock, but a phenomenon that “progressives” fear sets back what took generations, or even centuries, to establish. How to account for this in a way that can be codified and measured?

I wonder if there is a different measure that should be applied — one that is related to something like “behavior given what we know.” Perhaps that’s impossible to define, given inability to agree on facts, but there is a difference between — just to use one example — being elected U.S. president at a time in which slavery was legal and (probably) most white people were openly racist and being elected after a black man just served two terms.

This notion could be extrapolated from in other areas — display of unforgivable relative ignorance, or regression from established knowledge and fact.

My kids’ math classes were much more difficult than mine were. My kids grew up in a society that, thank God, for the most part does care whether someone’s girlfriend or boyfriend is a different race. To my kids, LGBT rights are assumed and not hindered or begrudged. My kids know more about nutrition, the environment, and many other relevant subjects than I did at their age. These are things we call “progress.”

We need an anti-progress index — a measure of something like “desire to make next generation more ignorant than me.”