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Week of May 31, 2005 - June 6, 2005 Middle Distance Workout Due to construction at the Columbia track, Tuesday's middle distance workout will be held at the Van Cortlandt Park track. No West Side Stadium At least, not for now. The Public Authorities Control Board voted against funding the proposed West Side Stadium, which effectively kills the project, although the PACB could always hold another vote. The Times says that the opposition to the stadium "underscores the excruciatingly difficult process that almost every ambitious civic project in New York City faces from inception, calling into question whether anyone can build big in New York anymore." Which is odd, since there are lots of tall buildings going up all over the place, many areas of the city have been rezoned recently, and the Atlantic Yards project looks to be unstoppable. Maybe it's only the overpriced, incredibly bad civic projects that face this dificult process. As If the Marathon Wasn't Long Enough Already We know that it's tough to organize a race, and we try to cut race directors a lot of slack when it comes to things like not having enough bagels, or holding the race at an inconvenient time, or giving out hideously ugly t-shirts. There are really only two things we demand: that the course be properly measured, and that the timing be accurate. As far as we know, the clocks at Chicago's Lakeshore Marathon all worked fine last month. Unfortunately, they recorded the time it took each runner to cover 27.2 miles. Race founder and director Mark Cihlar issued an apology for the error, and promised to look into hiring a new race director. This seems unlikely to mollify many of the participants, who probably wonder why it's taken him four years to realize that "clearly this has been too much for one person to manage." According to the Chicago Tribune, "Some runners are so livid they are urging the city to stop issuing permits for the Lakeshore Marathon until it's under new management." (The Tribune also details numerous problems with the half-marathon.) From the comments on MarathonGuide.com, this probably won't be a problem, as it doesn't look like anyone will sign up for next year's race until a new team is put in charge. Best Times Kate Irvin and Allison McCabe both improved their times on the Best 1500m list at the Boston High Performance meet on Saturday, although their places on the list remained unchanged. Running Study Alexandra Horowitz writes:
Urban Athletics Event
Race Winner Margaret Schotte writes: "Hopefully I'll get in shape enough to run a road race in Central Park, or a track workout soon!" We hope all the other runners in Monday's Maple Ridge Memorial Day 5K don't read this page, because they might be a little upset to know that they lost to a woman who thinks that she's out of shape. And we hope that someday we can win two races in a month when we're out of shape. Shawangunks Group Run There will be a CPTC group run near New Paltz this Sunday. The running here is arguably the best in the whole North-East, taking place on wide, soft-surface carriageway trails with breathtaking views, lakes and cliffs. Meet Sid Howard's van at 8:30am at the NE corner of Broadway and 178th Street or call him at (212) 693-0770 or (908) 209-8219. If you have your own transport email alan@montran.com for directions. Feel free to bring food or drink for a post-run picnic. Running Stars Toby Tanser assesses various New York celebrities' chances of finishing the NYC Marathon over at the new-look MetroSports. Hey, if Will Ferrell, Anthony Edwards and Ali Landry can all do it... Class We've been skipping most of the Times' Class Matters series, since we figured Pearl Bailey had already summarized it when she said "I've been rich and I've been poor. Rich is better." But today's article, The Five-Bedroom, Six-Figure Rootless Life, is actually worth reading, if only to get a sense of what life in modern exurbs is like, and how lucky we all are to live in a real city. And Don't Get Us Started On Her Capitalization and Punctuation You may think that we spend a little too much time correcting other people's spelling and grammar. That's because you haven't met our friends. While we can barely be bothered by the typos in a Craig's List personal ad, our friend Billy Simmons took the time to point them all out to the author. Here's the actual email he sent to the woman who posted this ad:
On Writing Stanley Fish proposes in the Times that "Students can't write clean English sentences because they are not being taught what sentences are." That's probably true, but it's a little disturbing that he's teaching college students what sentences are. Shouldn't they have learned this about 15 years earlier? But the problem may not be just that students aren't taught how to write well, but that they're actually punished for it. That, at least is the case for this letter writer:
East River Park Track We received the following from a reader:
We'll keep you informed as we learn more. Tonight's workout with Tony Ruiz will still meet at the track, and hopefully will be run there as well. If that changes, a notice will be sent out on the Cool List, but we probably won't be able to update this page in time. Aquathlon Want to do a multi-sport event but down own a bike? Check out the Stars & Stripes Aquathlon on June 18. It consists of a 1.5k swim in the Hudson River, followed by a 5k run in Riverside Park. There are only six spots still open, so anybody who's interested should sign up now. Week of May 24, 2005 - May 30, 2005 Best Times Are we going to have to start writing these things in foreign languages again? Allison McCabe jumped from 7th to 5th on the Best 1500m list, with a 4:42.52 showing at Saturday's Boston High Performance meet. At the same meet, new member Atilla Sabahoglu grabbed the number nine spot on the Best 5K list, finishing in 14:54.31. Meanwhile, on the distance front, James McQuade ran 2:52:26 at the Vermont City Marathon — a PR by nearly 11 minutes! — which gets him a nice spot on the Sub-3:00 Marathon list. Mo' Money, Mo' Health Problems The Times has an interesting article on how good economic times lead to bad health.
Time, meanwhile, reminds everyone that exercise is good for you. Only worth reading if you are really, really bored. Some Old Dawgs Don't Need Any New Tricks John Rocker — who hasn't done anything stupid for a few weeks now, but still can't find the strike zone regularly — isn't the only ex-major leaguer trying to play his way back to the big leagues. Oil Can Boyd is starting for Masachusetts' Brockton Rox tonight, 14 years after he last played professional baseball, and 18 years after his last major league appearance. At 45 years of age, the Can is older than all but one major leaguer (Julio Franco), and is almost as old as Rickey Henderson. Henderson is also back in baseball, playing for the San Diego Surf Dawgs. The Surf Dawgs play in Tony Gwynn stadium, making Henderson probably the first player in history to be older than his stadium's namesake. Then again, Henderson is older than just about everyone, including four managers and one Hall of Famer. Rickey will be a Hall of Famer himself in July of 2009, although at this rate he'll have to miss the ceremony because he'll have a game. That is, if he doesn't make it back to the majors before that. His opening day performance makes that less unlikely than it appears; Rickey was 2-3 (including an RBI double), with two walks and two runs scored. And, of course, one stolen base, since, as Rickey once pointed out, "Rickey can't score from first." We may yet find out if Rickey can still score in the Show. Run Hit Wonder The Nike Run Hit Wonder returns on July 20, with new bands and a new coures (the upper 5-mile loop of Central Park):
Mind Your Manners The Times reports the shocking news that people at the gym can be rude. Runners in the park, of course, are always well behaved. Headphones From Newsday:
Remember: don't wear headphones while racing, and if you do wear them while training, stay alert to your surroundings. And never tell someone in a race — especially in the last mile — to slow down, because there won't always be a race official around to keep you from getting the beating you so richly deserve. Best Time Less than a month after getting her name on the Best Mile list, Allison McCabe has jumped from #9 to #6, with a 5:03.3 at yesterday's Lenox “Fast Times” Jamboree. That puts her just ahead of Coach Devon, but we all know that Devon would never to anything like assign harder workouts to Allison as revenge. Nike Free Ad There are proably better things we could do with our time than watch commercials for running shoes on the web. But that didn't stop us from checking out the Nike Free parody of Chariots of Fire (click "Watch the commerical" in the lower lefthand corner). Week of May 17, 2005 - May 23, 2005 Money Stuart Calderwood writes:
For those who don't know about it, there is a CPTC tradition that you have to give the coach one dollar from any race winnings you receive. To our knowledge, this applies only to road races. Though it seems to us that with many runners splitting their workouts between the road group and the middle distance crew, Coach Devon should be entitled to some money as well. See Mom, It Could Kill Us to Write More Often! There was a brief flicker of excitement among some New York baseball fans last year when the Mets announced they had traded for a pitcher named Zambrano. That excitement died when fans realized the Mets had acquired Tampa Bay's Victor Zambrano, not the Cubs' Carlos (the two are not related). But the Mets may have gotten the better pitcher after all, since Carlos Z. is now plagued by a mysterious elbow problem, and the Cubs think they know the cause:
While the latest news suggests that typing isn't the cause, we're still blaming all our recent race results on this site, our job, and the friends who email us all day long. TV Makes You Smarter We'll probably never read Steven Johson's new book Everything Bad Is Good for You: How Today's Popular Culture Is Actually Making Us Smarter. We read the excerpt in the Times Magazine, several reviews, and even Johnson's debate with Slate TV critic Dana Stevens, and we still don't buy his claim that watching television can make us smarter. But it seems to be working for some of the folks at Gawker, as evidenced by this commentary on "The O.C.":
Maybe we need to watch more TV, so we can get smart enough to come up with brilliant analysis like that. Our only comment on the rare occassions we saw "The O.C." this year was "Wow has this show gotten bad!" Best Vegetarian Food Etsuko Kizawa's restaurant, Soy, has been nominated for Best Vegetarian Food in the Best of Citysearch competition. Etsuko writes "Please go ahead and vote for us, or nominate us in other categories like, Best View, Best Outdoor Dining, Best French Fries, or Best Cuban Food. I dare you." We're thinking Best Upscale Casual Dining would be a good one. Tour de Brooklyn Transportation Alternatives' is presenting the First Annual Tour de Brooklyn on Sunday, June 5th, 2005. Normally we wouldn't be excited about a 15-18 mile ride through the same areas we always ride and run through, but this one comes with the chance to win a year's supply of free beer from the Brooklyn Brewery, just for registering by May 26! Since that registration is free, there's really no way to lose here. Also, everyone gets free smoothies at Café Habanna in Fort Greene after the ride. Fat Farm Interesting story in the Times on all the money Durham, NC, makes as the "Diet Capital of the World." Thanks to three major weight-loss centers, the city takes in $51 million a year from people looking to lose weight. More Stadium Follies Generally we find every article about the West Side Stadium right now to be utterly pointless, since nothing will happen either way until the Public Authorities Control Board votes, which probably won't be until mid- to late-June. Sure, Gov. George Pataki has called a special meeting of the board for next week, but we don't believe there will actually be a vote then. But we did notice one interesting tidbit at the end of the article:
It's not clear if that $142.5 million is included in the stadium's current $2.2 billion price tag — which often seems to be made up, and is probably an understimate — but we were shocked to learn that the stadium, which is being promoted as a necessary part of New York City's Olympic Bid can't actually handle the Olympics. In other news, the Hell's Kitchen Neighborhood Association filed a suit against the stadium, claiming that the rezoning of the area violates the Clean Air Act. That berings the number of lawsuits against the stadium to eight. He Was Thinking "If the Fact That The Last Two Movies Sucked Can't Keep People from Lining Up for This One, a Little Political Controversy Doesn't Stand a Chance."
Somers Track Photos The Westchester Track Club has posted a ton of photos from Saturday's Somers Invitational. And Sue Pearsall posted a bunch more of her own. We haven't looked through all of them, but it general, Sue's mile photos start here, WTC's mile photos start here, and their 3000m photos are here. Thanks to Joe Garland for the heads up. Wild Weekend We don't always pay attention to what we're posting here, which is how we missed the fact that Amy Russell won the College Point 5K on Saturday with Felice Kelly right behind her, while on the men's side, Joe T., Chris P., JR and Frank S. all finished in the top three of their respective age groups. Today we actually looked at the results as we typed them in, so we caught the three new winners:
That's 10 wins for the year so far. Writers Who Live in Glass Houses Shouldn't Call the Kettle Black Having seen The Rocky Horror Picture Show, Plan 9 From Outer Space and Showgirls, we're skeptical of the idea that there are all that many movies out there that are so bad that they become funny as a result. Despite the fact that books predate movies by several thousand years, we didn't think there would be that many books that would qualify either. Apparently we're wrong. Or so we conclude from the existence of the Lit Life series:
Which got us wondering if anyone has chosen to simply read sentences from the Times. Certainly the collected works of Ethan Hawke and Rosie O'Donnell can't be much worse than mixed metaphors like David Carr's "Once [Tina Brown's] magazines took readers inside the star chambers where the sausages were made." Or nonsense metaphors like Clyde Haberman's "Return with us briefly to the spring of 2001. Back then no sensible pundit (an oxymoron if ever there was one) gave Michael R. Bloomberg a bathing suit's chance in Antarctica of becoming mayor of New York." The Star Chamber was a secret English court in the 15th – 17th centuries. There is no evidence that anyone ever made sausages there, so we'll assume that that reference was to the old adage that "There are two things you never want to see made: laws and sausages." As for that bathing suit's chances in Antarctica: we have no idea where Mr. Haberman was trying to go with that, but he might want to ask Lynne Cox how her bathing suit fared when she swam a mile in the Antarctic Sea. Best Time Correction Kate Irvin's time for 3000m was a PR by 16 seconds, not 11 seconds. Like Barbie said, math is hard. Hydration Guidelines After last week's article on hyponatremia, we thought we'd share this information we received after the first Times article on the subject: Hydration Guidelines – Fact vs. Fear Originally, sports drinks were not designed to replace all the sodium lost in sweat, but rather to encourage athletes to drink more than they do when given plain water alone, thus preventing dehydration. Dehydration has always been a concern, partly because pace slows by 3% for every 1% decrease in body weight caused by dehydration (this means an almost 15 second/mile slow down for a 150 lb. runner who loses 1.5 lbs. to dehydration). Additionally, when you do not replace fluids adequately, your heart rate increases and your blood volume decreases. Recently, several companies have launched formulas (such as Gatorade Endurance), that are within the physiological range of the salt content of human sweat, and when taken in the appropriate quantities, will help replenish an endurance athletes fluids and sodium lost during activity. Anyone who has ever worked in, passed through or needed attention in a medical tent at the end of a marathon, half-iron distance or full iron distance triathlon will agree that dehydration is still a serious risk and concern for endurance athletes. So, while the article was correct in pointing out that 13% of the runners in the 2002 study of Boston Marathon runners were hyponatremic, it neglects to address that it is probable that dehydration plays a significant role in the perpetuation of hyponatremia. So, what exactly is hyponatremia? Hyponatremia is defined as a blood sodium concentration of less than 135 mEq/liter, or less than 3.1 grams of sodium per liter of blood. What causes hyponatremia? Drinking water or diluted sports drinks and failing to match sodium AND fluid loss may lead you to developing hyponatremia. How can dehydration contribute to hyponatremia? When we become dehydrated our blood pressure drops, which causes the pituitary gland in the brain to release more Antidiuretic Hormone (ADH), which in turn tells the kidneys to conserve water. This makes our urine more concentrated and decreases total urine output, which in turn increases our hydration status and blood pressure. So far it sounds good. The problem is that the extra water now being reabsorbed by the kidneys also contributes to hyponatremia. Confused yet? As you can tell, the regulation of water and sodium in our bodies is very complex, but the overall message here is that two competing physiological processes are both trying to keep the body in balance, and while trying to protect the body from becoming dehydrated, the body may potentially make hyponatremia worse. Back to Basics On average, 1 liter of sweat contains anywhere from 1.75 to 3 grams of salt (or between 700 mg of sodium and 1800 mg chloride to 1200mg sodium and 1800 mg chloride). An average sweat rate is 1 liter per hour, but varies widely by individual. Losing 1 liter of sweat per hour means you need to replace both the water and the sodium. If you strive to replace both your water losses and sodium losses, you will greatly reduce your risk of developing both dehydration and hyponatremia. So what's an athlete to do? 1. Determine your individual sweat rate: Weigh yourself before a 1-hr workout, and again afterwards without clothes on. To calculate your sweat rate subtract your ending weight from your starting weight. *If you drank any fluids during your workout, add that to the total amount of fluid lost during exercise to determine your sweat rate/hr. 2. Replace fluids lost during exercise: Drink 16oz for every pound of body weight sweat out during exercise. 3. Use this information in future training/racing: Once you have determined your individual sweat rate, you can determine how much fluid you should drink in 15-20 minute increments. 4. Determine (or estimate) whether you are a "salty sweater" or not. Salty sweaters are generally those athletes who have experienced problems with muscle cramping and even full body muscle cramping in the past, and those covered in a layer of salt upon completion of their workouts/races. 5. Aim to replace the sodium lost in your sweat in future training and racing, not just the water. To do this you would multiply the number of liters you sweat per hour by the estimated sodium content of your sweat (700 mg/liter at the lower end, to 1200 mg/liter at the higher end), and ensure you replace that amount during future activity. For example: If you determine your sweat rate is 1 liter per hour, and you are usually stained with salt at the completion of your workouts, we might estimate that you need to replace 1 liter of fluid/hour together with 1000-1200mg sodium/hour. If you plan to consume 1 liter of sports drink per hour, but that sports drink only contains 300mg sodium per liter, you will need to consume an additional 700-900mg of sodium per hour. To do that you would calculate (or solicit the help of a Registered Dietitian who specializes in Sports Nutrition to help you calculate) the sodium content of any bars, gels or other products you plan to consume during that hour. If you find you will fall short of your sodium needs, you can either include sodium/electrolyte tablets to meet your sodium needs, or add 1/4 to 1/2 tsp. of table salt to your sports drink of choice. If you choose to add table salt, note that one 1/4 tsp salt contains 480 mg of sodium. Be sure to taste your "new" sports drink before you head out for a workout to be sure it is still palatable. After all, if it contains everything you need, but you can't bear to drink it, it certainly will not help you meet your hydration or sodium needs. By separating the concepts of water from sodium needs you can individualize your needs for both, and avoid running into trouble (literally). Remember that your sweat rate (and thus hydration needs) will change with environmental conditions such as heat and humidity, as well as your state of physical fitness. So repeat the above "sweat rate test" whenever the conditions or your conditioning changes. And of course always test these and all nutrition strategies in training before using them on race day.
Week of May 10, 2005 - May 16, 2005 Best Times We don't remember CPTC members being that concerned with the 3000m until Stuart Calderwood worked out the best times in club history (or, at least, of the website era). Now that it's another way to get one's name on the website, it seems everyone is running it. This weekend it was Kate Irvin and Allison McCabe at Saturday's Joe Wynne Invitational in Westchester. Kate ran 9:55.2 (a PR by 11 seconds) to move up one spot to number 2 on the Best 3K Times list, while Allison's PR of 10:16.8 snagged her the number 4 spot on the list. Corrals for Queens Half and Future NYRR Scoring Races There will be a special corral at the front of this Saturday's Queens Half Marathon and future NYRR scoring races. This will be available for Men who have run sub 6:00 pace and Women who have run sub 6:30 pace for any of this year's or last year's NYRR scoring races. At the Queens Half Marathon this Saturday, the runners on the list below need to report to the start line between 7:30 AM and 7:50 AM to get a sticker that will allow entry into the special corral. Once a runner gets a sticker she is free to warm up any way she wants and should make sure she is at the start line 5 minutes prior to the start of the race. Rick Pascarella and Saul Zuchman will be handing out the corral stickers on Saturday. CPTC members currently on this list are as follows:
Please email Alan Ruben at alan@montran.com with any additions to this list. Hyponatremia We still object to the existence of the Times Thursday Styles section (though it's not that much worse than the Circuits section that it replaced), but this Thursday Styles article on runners worrying about how much water to drink while working out or racing is the best article the Times has run yet on hyponatremia. It's still not great, but an article last month didn't even get the definition of hyponatremia right, so this is a definite improvement Queens Half From Toby's site:
Run, World, Run Rocked Again When we left John Rocker, he was fighting with fans in New Jersey. Hardly the best way strategy for working his way back to the major leagues. Luckily, he has a personal publicist, Debi Curzio, to help him with his image. More than that even, according to ESPN.com:
Which means she was in the room when her client said this:
Yes, facing racist slurs and death threats basically every day over a career that covers 10 (Jackie) or 23 seasons (Hank) is the same as being criticized for making incredibly stupid comments. Curzio might want to quit now, before Rocker says something when he's unsupervised. Not that it will matter much if he keeps pitching like he did last night:
That makes his stats for the year:
At this rate, he'll probably be released before he gets the chance to say anything stupid again. Weekend Update Alayne Adams was second in her age group — and seventh overall! — at the her new hometown's (Geneva, Switzerland) half-marathon. And we forgot to mention that Yumi Ogita and Mary Diver both won their age groups in Central Park on Sunday. Fat Tax Detroit's Mayor, Kwame Kilpatrick, has proposed a 2% tax on all fast food sold in the city. While some are calling it a fat tax, it doesn't distinguish between healthy and unhealthy fast food— or even define fast food yet — and wouldn't tax junk food served at slower restaurants. While this tax seems to be concerned solely with getting more revenue for the city, a real fat tax that made junk food more expensive than healthy food might help to stem the rising tide of obesity in the United States. Evil Twins We were pretty skeptical when Tyler Hamilton attributed the presence of another person's blood in his body to a "vanishing twin." Or, as the Times puts it:
It turns out that Hamilton's claim to have this condition, known as chimerism, isn't as ridiculous as it sounds:
Unfortunately, the rest of the article isn't so clear, and by the end we even more confused about how prevalent chimerism is, or the likelihood that Hamilton might have the condition. And Joe Lindsey at Mountain Bike magazine points out that Hamilton's USADA hearing didn't do much to clarify that, either. Hamilton is appealing to the Court for Arbitration in Sport, and hopefully that tribunal will be able to clear up some of this confusion. Week of May 3, 2005 - May 9, 2005 The Right Times The Times is planning a series of steps to "improve the paper's credibility with readers." Our favorite suggestion is "Encourage reporters to confirm the accuracy of articles with sources before publication and to solicit feedback from sources after publication." Yeah, accuracy is good. "Improve the quality of writing" is not on the list, so we'll still have something to complain about here. But, if they do follow through with "Make reporters and editors more easily available through e-mail," we'll also be able to complain directly to the people responsible for these crimes against the English language. Hopefully it will have some effect. Weekend Recap CPTC men and women were second at the Mother's Day 5K. The women were also third in the half-marathon. Felice Kelly won a fancy watch to go with her third-place trophy at the Riker's Island. And over in Jersey, Sid Howard and Jan-Farnung Krause won their age groups at the Cardinal Cedarbrook Park 5K. In non-CPTC running news, Galen Rupp and Lindsey Scherf both set American Junior records in the 10K. Rupp ran 28:15.51 in Eugene, Oregeon, whle Lindsey ran 32.52.5 (with a 5k split of 16:23) at the same Columbia track that the middle distance group trains at. There's a good account of Scherf's race — and some interesting information on WAVA comparisons — on Let's Run. In non-running racing news, George Steinbrenner's heavily-favored horse, Bellamy Road, not only failed to win the Kentucky Derby, but didn't even finish in the money. Our schadenfreude continues. Vegas, Baby! The Las Vegas Marathon — which really should adopt the slogan "Your bad race time that happens here, stays here" — is moving from January to December. Even better, it's moving from the highway outside of town to the Strip itself. The new course (which is flat, and not downhill like the old one) starts at the south end of the strip in front of Mandalay Bay, proceeds along Las Vegas Blvd. to Fremont Street (the old downtown, where the seedier casinos still stand), and goes through the Fremont Street Experience before winding its way back to the start along side streets. While we're excited by the new course, and would gladly stumble out of whichever casion we happen to be in to watch the runners go by, we're a little disappointed that the race no longer includes a half-marathon or 5K option. The race is capped at 15,000 runners, which is three times as many as participated last year. We don't know how many of them will be dressed like Elvis. Essay Questions We took mostly social science classes in college, which meant that our final exams always involved a lot of writing. At least, for our classmates it involved a lot of writing. Those readers who've suffered through some of our more long-winded entries here will be shocked to learn that we were quite succint on our exams. But we always worried that we weren't writing enough, especially as we watched other students pick up a second or third blue book to fit their answers. What could these students be writing? How many words can one devote to three questions in 90 minutes? Does the professor really expect a magnum opus from each of us, and if that's the case, should we go back and pad our answers to take up a little more space? Or is it just that our classmates don't know the answers to these questions, and they are hoping to hide that fact in a mountain of text? That, at least, was the opinion of Prof. Russell Murphy (GOVT219 - Organizing for Popular Rule: State and Local Governments and the Future of the Democratic Experiment), who placed a page limit on each answer on the final exam, and warned that exceeding that limit would be taken as prima facie evidence that the student did not know the answer and was just trying to confuse the professor. We did pretty well on that final. (Actually, we did well on most of our government finals, and if we'd had the sense to steer clear of classes like Statistics and Japanese Fiction (how were we supposed to know that most of it isn't like Haruki Murakami of Banana Yoshimoto?), we might have finished our time there with a respectable GPA. But we digress.) Sadly, the folks at the College Board didn't heed Prof. Murphy's advice. According to the Times, the new SAT essay section is concerned almost exclusively with the length of the essay. Oh, the Board says otherwise — their scoring guidelines say nothing about length — but the data so far is against them:
College Board officials tried to dispute this:
Even worse, most of the essays contain numerous factual errors. The scoring guidelines on the website say a top-scoring essay is one that "effectively and insightfully develops a point of view on the issue and demonstrates outstanding critical thinking, using clearly appropriate examples, reasons, and other evidence to support its position." But the rules given to the graders are a little different:
[Also, Conrad wasn't French. He was born in what's now Poland, spent part of his youth in Switzerland, and later became a British citizen.] How can an essay be deemed to demonstrate outstanding critical thinking, let alone be seen as using clearly appropriate examples, with such glaring factual errors? By overlooking these mistakes, the College Board is telling high school students that facts are not such stubborn things after all, and should never get in the way of one's point. That seems to be the general feeling on the Sunday morning news shows, and among the rest of the commentariat, but it's not what we should be teaching our children. SOY Classes Announcing the new round of classes! Currently open for registration: ***Basic Japanese Home Cooking*** ***SOY Cooking for Clueless*** ***Sushi Master*** ***Japanese Salads*** ***Everybody Loves Curry*** All classes must be prepaid to reserve your seat. Class fees include materials and food. To register with a credit card (we accept VISA, MasterCard, or Discover), please call us at (212) 253-1158 during our business hours, Monday to Friday Noon to 11pm, or Saturday 5pm-11pm (Eastern Soy Time), or stop by and register in person. All classes are limited to 7 people. Cancellation policy: Class fees include $5 non-refundable registration fee. No refund for cancellation 5 days before the class. We can also arrange a private class on Sundays for minimum of 4 students. Please call for details. Call me if you have any questions! Tuesday Night at the Races The NYRR's summertime track series is back, and it's gone fully metric. It's also moved to Tuesday nights at the new track on Randall's Island. Details from NYRR:
Typo You know that we never make any mistakes here. But some sort of gremlin apparently got into the system and messed up the date of the Cinco de Mayo Race. For the record, the race is this Sunday, May 8. Full details are still available here. New Arrival Congratulations to Aubin Sullivan & Ross Galitsky on the birth of their son Ryan James Galitsky (6 lbs 9 oz) on May 3rd. Batter Up! Want to play professional baseball? All it takes is a little cash. Missouri's River City Rascals (they play in the independent Frontier League) are auctioning off a one-day professional contract on eBay. The winner gets to play on Friday, May 20, and is guarantee at least one at bat, a half-inning in the outfield, a game jersey and hat to keep, and 20 tickets for family and friends. The proceeds (bidding is up to $7,600 so far) go to charity. In other independent baseball news, former Atlanta Braves reliever John Rocker is now playing for the Long Island Ducks of the Atlantic League. You might remember Rocker from his famous 1999 interview in Sports Illustrated, in which he made derogatory statements about essentially everyone who isn't a white male from Atlanta. The most quoted section of that article concerned his thoughts on New Yorkers:
Rocker pitched effectively for the Braves in 2000, but was traded to the Cleveland Indians in the middle of 2001, where he was mediocre. He spent 2002 with the Texas Rangers, where he was the worst reliever on what was already a truly atrocious staff. In 2003 he made two appearances with the Tampa Bay Devil Rays, had rotator cuff surgery, and then disappeared from baseball. Until last month, when he signed with the Ducks, insisted that he'd matured, and asked New Yorkers to bury the hatchet. That lasted about a week. Yesterday, while walking off the mound in Atlantic City, Rocker got into the following spat, as reported in the Daily News:
Okay, we'll stick to baseball. Here's John Rocker's record as a Long Island Duck:
Rocker plans to stay with the Ducks for just two months: "I'll be in the big leagues by July 15, or I'll be back (home) in Atlanta." That leaves plenty of time for him to walk a few dozen batters, and get in several more fights. If you'd like to see any of those fights — or even instigate them — you can check out the Ducks' schedule here. Remember, shouting insults at the players is a time-honored tradition, but throwing things at them is wrong. A Dog's Life
Is there anyone at the Times who can do math? Or at least owns a dog? Seven dog years is one regular year, not the reverse. Six dog years is about 10 months. It's bad enough that Oestreich went with such a pathetic simile, but he could have at least gotten the math right. Stadiums We haven't written much about the proposed West Side Stadium for a while, since we haven't had much to say. Sure, there have been plenty of articles about how the stadium is moving forward or clearing some hurdle or other, but as long as Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno refuse to be rushed into a decision, nothing can actually happen. And Silver and Bruno have both said they want to wait until after the International Olympic Committee awards the 2012 games to Paris to reject public financing for the stadium. (Actually, they two legislative leaders said they want to wait for the IOC to pick a host city before making a decision on the stadium, but it probably amounts to the same thing.) Stiil, we doubt that Silver and Bruno's reluctance to fund the project, the four lawsuits already filed against the stadium and the resistance of most of the city's residents to paying for this boondoggle will be enough to convince Mayor Mike Bloomberg from continuing to try to force it upon us. So we hope he'll read this analysis in the Gotham Gazette, showing that stadiums rarely deliver the benefits promised by their boosters. Dating A highly unscientific survey of our readership shows that they are all involved in healthy, loving long-term relationships of the sort that would impress even Dr. Phil. Just in case we're wrong — and becasue you might know people who aren't so lucky in love — we're passing along the following notice form Overheard in New York:
Central Park Being that this is the website of the Central Park Track Club, you might assume that we would have an opinion on all that occurs in Central Park. We don't. There are some things that we just can't decide on, like the proposed rule limiting events on the Great Lawn to 50,000 people, and even then allowing only six per year, including two concerts each by the New York Philharmonic and the Metropolitan Opera. The official reason for the new rule is that the lawn can't handle larger or more boisterous crowds (the Philharmonic and the Opera tend to attract a crowd that sits around, rather than march or dance on the grass). Since grass never survived long in our tiny backyard growing up, we'll defer to the experts on this. On the other hand, we do think there should be some place in Manhattan where people can gather for things other than classical music. However, since we haven't attended a classical concert in Central Park in several years and never went to larger events like the Dave Matthews Band concert or papal mass, and only visit the lawn for sporting purposes during the annual CPTC softball game, we're staying out of this debate. If you feel strongly on either side, there will be a public hearing at 11:00 a.m. on May 20, 2005 at Chelsea Recreation Center at 430 West 25th Street. If you'd like to comment at the hearing, see the instrucitons in the official notice. |
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