The Charity of Our Children

On Yahoo!, one of todays featured items was a story about Colton Roe of Chantilly, Virginia, and his "Pennies for Passing" campaign to fight hunger. Colton is a 13-year-old quarterback who collects pledges against how well he performs on the football field. His thought in creating the program was, just as funding could be raised based on miles walked in a walkathon, he would ask for pennies to be pledged for each yard he threw for on the football field. Roe's efforts over the past three seasons (he started at age 11), have been based on the principle that every little bit helps "move the chains" and have raised over $6500 for the nonprofit Food for Others. Next year, he and his dad aim to spread the program throughout his Northern Virginia league.

In a quick search for more information, I stumbled across a "Penny War" as another novel fundraising effort by youth. Connie Hein reported, in her article for the Windsor Beacon about this Christmas fundraiser at Colorado's Windsor Charter Academy. Each class had a bucket where students brought their pennies to donate. The war part of the fundraiser came when students from other classes could bring nickels, dimes, quarters or dollars to put in other classes' buckets to cancel out an equal amount of donated pennies. The classes competed a for a pizza party prize. The money raised went to Candy Canes and Caring, an organization that purchases and distributes food clothes and gifts to needy local families during the Christmas holiday season.

Efforts like this, where children directly participate in and sometimes even become passionate about and/or very successful in helping their community truly warm my heart. Myself included, we are often too quick to notice and point out what is wrong in our world. The fact that even young children are actively participating in these unselfish efforts to help others offers is certainly reason for much hope and pride.

The NFL's Day In Court

An article in this weeks "Parade" magazine reports that the Supreme Court will consider the question of whether the National Football League is a single entity or a collection of 32 teams. This all came about because Reebok signed a deal with the NFL for exclusive rights to use team logos on their sports apparel and American Needle, a competitor, sued the NFL under anti-trust laws. The league countered with the position that anti-trust rules should not be applied to the NFL, a single organization competing with other forms of entertainment for fans/viewers. In opposition is the opinion that teams compete with each other on things like ticket prices and player salaries and that declaring them a single entity would simply put more money in their pockets. Reebok is claiming that agreements like the one they made with the NFL makes quality products less expensive for fans. Now I'm just a Blind Bambi, but I don't think that in either case the fans will win. This decision may affect how money is split between owners, players, media companies covering the league, and companies marketing NFL merchandise. I can't really envision a scenario, however, where this decision would put more money in the pockets of fans.

A Linguistic Fingerprint?

I stumbled across a BBC article about research into a method to linguistically fingerprint an author. This work has found that a "curve" based on the number of words an author uses only once and the length of the work seems to be a reliable method for unique identification of the writer. So, I find this concept very interesting. Apparently a great deal of analysis and testing has be performed by applying it to the writing of great authors like Herman Melville, Thomas Hardy, and D. H. Lawrence. I can't help but wonder, however, if it breaks down for a hillbilly like me. I don't think my vocabulary is big enough to house "unique words." Just a thought from this Blind Bambi.

Gaydar - Is it Genuine?

I was flipping through the 27 November 2009 issue of "Science" magazine, when a blurb entitled "How's Your Gaydar?" caught my eye. Psychologist Nicholas Rule, of Tufts University, performed an experiment where he showed 21 college students 192 photos of various straight and gay women. These images were taken from dating web sites and then cropped so that only the face itself (no hair or ears)was visible. It turns out that the students were right 64% of the time, guessing better than expected from simple random chance. This result held up even when the students were only shown the women's eyes. Further, in 2008, similar results were obtained with an experiment testing the classification of male faces. Other analysis has shown that homosexuals tend to adopt facial expressions more typical of the opposite sex. As the students in this study were more accurate when forced to make a snap decision, then, Rule believes that people unconsciously pick up on subtle differences in facial muscle tendencies. Human gaydar, then, is based on automatic processing of snippets of information that provide some basis for making a judgement. A 64% accuracy rate, however seems a far cry from a finely tuned gay versus straight sensor. I will admit, however, that this study relied only on visual clues discernible in the photograph of facial features. In person, our full range of senses may utilize additional contextual clues. I am far from convinced, however, that "gaydar" is an innate, reliable human skill. I'm just a Blind Bambi, though, with "no-eyed deer" about much of anything.

A Biggest Loser Spin-Off?

My family is part of the cult following of NBC's Biggest Loser.  I think that we have religiously watched every season and still list it as "must watch" Tuesday night television.  In between seasons, we go through withdrawal.  Sure, its game show aspect and the built-in commercial messages are kind of hokey at times, but I personally think that the concept of this show thrives on the fact that almost everyone can relate, in some sense or another, with what these people are facing.  Viewers may not all be 400 pounds and some may not even struggle with weight (I am not that lucky).  We all have our everyday challenges, however, and this show is about facing those challenges, changing habits, and proactively regaining control of life.  When we see the transformations of these Biggest Loser contestants, I believe that we feel a little bit more confident and hopeful that we can better take control of our own lives.

Anyway, I'm getting all deep and mushy (like Bob and Jillian when they get a contestant to break down and talk about his or her underlying emotions), but the real point of this article is that it looks like the coming off-season will offer a new Jillian Michaels show.  In "Losing it with Jillian Michaels," it sounds like Jillian will be going to family's homes in order to work her magic in a real world environment (no Biggest Loser' Ranch).  I can't wait.  This sounds like my kind of TV, but what do I know ... I'm just Blind Bambi.

Annoying Conversation

Today, I happened across a story about a recent Marist Poll of the most annoying phrases in conversation.  Although the phrase "whatever" was cited as most annoying, there were some other interesting trends in the poll data.  For instance, the wealthier and more educated participants despised the phrase "you know" more than those with lower incomes or without a college degree.  The gender of the participant, though, seemed to play little role in what words or phrases he or she found annoying.  Regional differences, however, were significant.  In the Northeast and South, for instance, "you know" was a much closer second place to "whatever" for top verbal annoyance (nearly equal in the Northeast).  In the Midwest and South, however, "whatever" was deemed more aggravating by better than a 2:1 ratio.  "Anyway," "it is what it is," and "at the end of the day" were the remaining choices presented as part of the poll, but they were all distant trailers.

My navigation eventually carried me to a www.wired.com blog citing a list compiled by Oxford researchers and published in a book, Damp Squid: The English Language Laid Bare, by Jeremy Butterfield, of the Top 10 Most Irritating Expressions in the English Language:

1 - At the end of the day
2 - Fairly unique
3 - I personally
4 - At this moment in time
5 - With all due respect
6 - Absolutely
7 - It’s a nightmare
8 - Shouldn’t of
9 - 24/7
10 - It’s not rocket science

If I were to come up with my own list of annoying phrases, I doubt that any of these get top billing.  But then again, I'm just a simple hillbilly -- Blind Bambi.

Saturn: The Latest GM Division to Bite the Dust

While General Motors appears to be trying to re-tool and re-build the company and its image upon what it considers its "core" brands, I think it is more than a little scary that Saturn is now the latest component of GM to disappear.  While I am sure there were probably many loyal Oldsmobile customers who might disagree with me, at the time of its dismantling its cars probably offered little to no appeal over Cadillac, Buick, and even more fully-loaded Chevrolet products.  Therefore, its demise was easy to project.  Pontiac, with its arguably unique "sporty" focus, was a little less obvious.  Upon reflection, however, Pontiac also failed to distinguish itself with an attractive niche in the hearts of enough automotive consumers.  Saturn, however, was to be a "different kind of car company".  Certainly GM could, and to some extent, may have already transferred some of the innovative ideas behind the launch of Saturn into their remaining product lines.  To a large extent, however, this demise of Saturn indicates the end of an experiment in building cars to order, establishing no-haggle policies for its dealers, focusing on customer service, and treating labor and management as partners instead of adversaries.  For the sake of our nation, I hope that GM can soon return their remaining product lines to levels of profitability and quality that permit our shrinking role in the automotive industry to stabilize.

Million Dollar Shot -- One of These Days ...

I'm a sucker for stories about lottery winners, extraordinary game show payouts, and contest winners.  I play the lottery every once in awhile and enter all types of sweepstakes.  While I fully realize that the odds are against me ever seeing a large payday from these activities, hope reigns eternal when I read about improbable rewards.  In Utah, this week, a 35 year old man, who entered a charity tournament at the last minute, won $1 million for his hole-in-one.  As I play golf a lot less than I'd like to, I'm a hacker who has never been anywhere near a hole-in-one, let alone one that might net such a payday.  In just reading a story such as this, however, I can imagine it happening to me.  Just as I read the sad stories and try to empathize with the victims or their families, I read the happy ones and try to imagine myself in that position.

That's a Lot of Dog Years

I am a dog lover and have two of my own.  Today then, the news item about the death of the oldest dog in the world caught my attention.  Chanel, a female wire-haired dachshund that was 21 years old (that's 147 in dog years) died of natural causes in New York.  Now my question is how do they know she was the oldest.  Not to take anything away from Chanel (21 years is a very long life for a dog), but I would not expect canine ages (especially for all of the mutts of the world) to be meticulously documented in any type of globally searchable database.  Apparently they might not really know, as now the owner of a dog named Max from New Iberia, La., is claiming that he marked his 26th birthday on Aug. 9.  Is that 182 in dog years?  If large breeds, on average, live shorter lives than smaller breeds, is the concept of a universal "dog year" equivalent really the same for all types of dogs?  And finally, even at age 21, I have never understood the saying that a person or animal died of natural causes".  Sure, it is natural that every living being eventually dies.  But something (e.g., heart failure, etc.) always triggers the event.  That event, and not "natural causes" is what caused the death.  What do I know though?  I'm just a Blind Bambi.