THERE'S NO "I" IN TEAM

Benim popo!

Sorry, that was me saying “My Butt!” in Turkish, which happens to be one of several languages in the world for which the letter I can be found in the word team.

In fact there are a plentiful stock of languages for which I can be found in team. These languages include:

Albanian, Catalan, Croatian, French, Galician, Haitian, Icelandic, Indonesian, Irish, Portuguese, Romanian ,Slovak, Spanish, Swahili, Turkish, Vietnamese, Welsh

Additionally, many languages do not use the phonetic alphabet, but when we convert their language to phonetics this list would include:

Armenian, Bulgarian, Chinese, Georgian, Hindi, Japanese, Korean, Macedonian, Maltese, Serbian, Thai

The next time you hear your coach or some other fool tell you there’s no I in team, be sure to point out that there is in at least 28 languages.

Now some of you might be thinking this is stupid because the coach will point out we’re in America where we speak English. If you don’t immediately choose to play the discrimination card, you can point out that one of these languages is Vietnamese, and remind the coach that they have an I in team and America couldn’t beat them.

LOOSE VS. FIRE

One of the many things I love about history is finding the origins to little things we take for granted. Among my favorites: prior to the latter 1800’s police as we think of them today did not exist. One of the first modern police forces was established in New York, primarily to handle the excessive population due to the influx of immigrants. To identify these police officers to the public they were given large badges that were made of copper. It became quite common for these men to be referred too as coppers and overtime this shortened to cops.

This is on my mind because a recurring problem I have had with Hollywood I have also found this afternoon in one of the books I’m reading. I suppose it particularly upsets me because this author has done a remarkable job of research and accuracy in his books, which take place between 500 B.C. and 300 A.D. It’s a common blunder created when people assume that words today meant the same thing before whatever happened to give them this meaning.

If I were to travel back to 1750 New York and called the local constable or night watchmen coppers, everyone would be looking at me funny or think I’d gone mad. Similarly, were I commanding a lot of archers during the Peloponnesian War and shouted, “Fire!” they would panic thinking the enemy had set our camp or some nearby terrain on fire, or possibly that a flamethrower was approaching our position (Yes, they had working and deadly efficient flamethrowers in 490 B.C.).

Today, we associate the word fire with, among other things, the discharge of any ranged weapon be it a gun, bow, catapult, cannon, etc.; however, this was not so prior to the advent of firearms.

Think about it. What purpose is their in saying fire to an archer? Fire has nothing to do with the use of bows, slings, catapults, ballistae, or trebuchets. Even in cases when arrows or whatever other projectiles may have been ignited, how would the soldiers know if their commander was calling for the regular launch of their weapons or ordering them to ignite their weapons and wait for him to say fire a second time. In fact the commanders of the time would actually say loose, release, let fly, or something along those lines.

A good place to look for this is in LOTR: Two Towers. As the Battle for Helms Deep begins Aragorn and Théoden both command their archers to attack. Aragorn gives the order correctly telling the elves to release their arrows. However, when Théoden give the command two of his subordinates incorrectly say “Fire!”

Not until the 1300’s when the first cannons, and later guns, began to appear on the battlefield would fire come to have its meaning. After a cannon, or gun, had been primed and loaded the commander would call “Fire!” instructing a man standing nearby to touch the torch he’d be carrying to the weapon, and thus discharging it.

The term was not common until the latter 1600’s when guns began to become the primary weapon for most armies. Due to the complexity of earlier cannons and guns the weapons were prone to misfire, and the men vulnerable to infantry and especially cavalry. The latter could easily charge across the field in the time it would take men to reload their guns.

As technology progressed torches were replaced by fuses, which at the time were small slow-burning pieces of rope. These fuses would be replaced by flint prior to the 1700’s, and so fire was no longer necessary. In describing the discharge of firearms men would often say spark after the use of flint began, but on the battlefield the command word remained fire. Eventually flint was replaced by percussion caps during the early 1800’s, and percussion caps were ultimately replaced in the late 1800’s by bullets as we know them today. In our time some people say shoot or shot when describing the discharge of firearms, not unlike when using flint had people saying spark, nevertheless the predominant word in the minds of people today remains fire.

MISS YOU

In my younger days I used to do a lot of performances. I still love to dance, sing, act, and, especially after my senior year of high school, do my own stunts. I was always sad when the performance was over because the cast a crew would go our separate ways after having spent so much time together. I knew I’d see some of them again in other performances, heck I knew I’d see some of them the next day for one reason or another, but there would be an emptiness in my heart for the excess amount of time we spent together and that importance of our relationship when we worked together.

These thoughts occupy my mind tonight as I have finished the last of my finals for the Fall semester, and begin the long wait until spring semester starts. I will miss, and I shared this with some of them, my teachers and classmates. I miss some from summer semester, too.

I wish I had been a better friend during my high school and early college years. During that time in my life I slowly emerged from the isolationist bubble I had gotten used to. Now, the people I owe so much to are the people I miss the most, and had I been a better friend I might still have contact and miss them less. I have limited contact with a few who have moved around but there are others of such importance to me that I cannot describe whose names and faces have begun to fade.

To all of you I am grateful and have not but fond memories of the times we spent together, within performances and other capacities. Many of you may never know it but you have places among the characters in my writings both past and I’m sure the future. How I wish I could relive some of those precious moments.

Do not be concerned for me. I am well; I have a beautiful wife, and so far three amazing children. And like we told each other after all those shows and gatherings, we will see each other again, making new bonds and strengthening old ones in the next whatever that may come.

I LOVE MY WIFE

For the last several months my wife has been making a list of reasons for why she loves me. It’s a very nice thing to do, I enjoy reading it, and I’ll miss reading it when the list stops after our anniversary. In particular I’ve enjoyed reading the comments of various friends and family members made to certain things on this list, Freezer Tetris among my favorites.

My wife mentioned to me that some of her friends have been telling her now that she nears completion of this list that it is my turn. They believe I need to make a similar list for why I love my wife. This is not a bad idea. There’s certainly nothing forbidding or preventing me from composing such a list. I have as yet not made such a list because I do not feel it necessary, and I will tell you why.

My wife began making her list because she recognized that she was being quite cruel to me. She knew she was assuming the worst of me at all times and blaming me for all that was not perfect in her life, and she also knew this was damaging our family rather than strengthening it. She decided she needed to force herself to find the good in me, and I think it has worked marvelously.

Though her moments of cruelty cut me quite deeply on occasion, I have never subscribed to that idea of getting even. I’ve never attempted to be cruel to her in return, I’ve never blamed her solely responsible for any imperfections in our life, and though I do on occasion expect the worst from her I have never drawn a premature conclusion that she would act in the worst. We all have faults, some of us are more tolerant than others, some of us are more enduring than others, and some of us are more accepting than others.

I do not need to remind myself why I love my wife nor search for the reasons why I do so. If ever I were to compose a list of reasons it would be because I want to boast of my wife’s awesomeness, for she is awesome, not because I need to get over her faults. Boasting is something I try not to do because, in addition to leading to pride, it can hurt the feelings of people who have not had the same good fortunes that I have enjoyed.

An example:
My wife has boasted much of me these last few months, if you don’t believe me then read her list. I submit that her boasting has made her friends saddened when they think of the inferior grade husbands they have gotten stuck with, and the fact that I haven’t made a list is one thing they can make out to be a fault with me in an attempt to assuage their lack of satisfaction with the aforementioned inferior models.

I do not wish to make my fellow brethren feel disappointed with their wives, and so I will not boast of my wife’s awesomeness.

I love my wife.

An Improvement to Education

One of my favorite side effects of writing stories is coming up with good ideas. To be clear, I’m not referring to good ideas to advance the plot or develop a character, but rather the good ideas that are applicable to reality.

Whilst brainstorming I had one such epiphany. In one of my most recent stories I had decided that the Terrans (humans for non sci-fi readers) had for their government a Democracy, based largely on the Athenian model. From this I segued into the Terrans being quiet highly educated, a practical necessity for a working Democracy, which in turn meant they must have an excellent educational system. This then got me to thinking about ways of solving, or simply eliminating, problems with our modern school system.

Now, I am by no means an expert in the workings of our educational system. That said, my humble opinion is that one of the foundation stones of the flaws in this system are committees and boards. There are other problems and multiple possible sources working together to cause them, but this seems like an important one that needs to go.

First, when there is a budget shortage cuts need to be made. Programs and Teachers seem to be the victims of these budget cuts. This results in the decrease of all extra curricular activities that are not the most popular of boys’ sports and an increase in the number of students per teacher. Unless I’m mistaken, committees and boards are the ones who make the decisions on what gets cut.

When talking about the education system however, it seems to me the most useless elements are the administrators and committees. The students are the most important people in the education system, and they need teachers, which makes teachers the second most important. Schools need an administrator or principal to make decisions, supply materials, and other functions that would otherwise require the teachers to spend more time accomplishing tasks that do not involve students. That’s where it should stop in my mind.

Committees and boards exist because people need/want oversight, watchdogs, and bureaucracy. Though these groups and their responsibilities are intended to make sure students get the best education (the job for which we are already paying teachers and principals) they in fact take away resources and valuable time from the students, teachers, and principals.

If you were one of a group of twelve people (this number has been chosen at random) whose job it is to determine how to spend money, would you recognize that it doesn’t really require twelve of you to make this decision? If you did would you elect to reduce the size of the board, thus risking your own job. If not, would you elect to have your pay and benefits reduced? Many of us may want to say we would, but how many seriously would follow through.

Instead these committees and boards elect to lay-off or reduce the compensation of what they perceive to be the things which are not as important as themselves: Programs and Teachers. If I’m not mistaken, these committees also are responsible for deciding what portion of funding goes to their pockets in the form of salary or benefits. And these committees and boards occasionally have additional committees or boards that preside over them. In essence we are paying lots of people lots of money to make sure that the people we hired to make sure the other people we hired are making sure that teachers and extra curricular programs are providing our kids the best education possible are getting rid of those same teachers and programs because by the time money trickles down to them, there are no funds left. I understand that last sentence may have been difficult, thus highlighting my point. To simplify I’ll use an example.

From the money intended to educate our children Joe is paid to make sure that Dan, who is also paid, is making sure that Mrs. Smith and other teachers are providing our children with the finest instruction in Math, Science, English, Sports, Music, History, Foreign Language, and Art. Each category has multiple sub categories such as: Algebra, Geometry, Biology, Chemistry, Literature, Writing, Football, Water Polo, Band, Choir, US history, World history, Spanish, French, Theater, Sculpting, and the list goes on. After Joe takes out his compensation, and Dan after him, the funds left for Mrs. Smith and these programs has already been depleted.

“But we need oversight! Got to have us some of that regulation!” some might say. Ok, keep your boards and committees but have state assemblies allot them separate funds instead of having these committees and boards tap into educational funds. In doing so if there’s a budget shortage then these committees and boards would have to get rid of their own members and the ones who remain would have to work harder, instead of them firing teachers and making the teachers that remain work harder. This should also ensure that every penny allotted to the education fund goes to education, not bureaucracy.