Official Everything

I am as big of a free market capitalist as anyone I know. I firmly believe that free market forces, people working and exchanging among themselves with no government interference whatsoever, could cure what ails society much more quickly, efficiently, and especially peacefully than government order and regulation. Still, there are times where I wonder if there is a line in the sand, the other side of which is absurdity.

While at Fenway Park in Boston with me boys recently, we came upon a samples table. They were giving away free small tubes of toothpaste, Dr. Sheffield's Original Toothpaste for what that's worth. Apparently it's a marketing ploy, as Dr. Sheffield's is the official toothpaste of the Boston Red Sox, the baseball nine who call Fenway their home. 

Isn't that a bit much? Do major league baseball franchises need official toothpastes? And what's more, we were given samples of four different types. The first was extra whitening; no surprise there. Then there was peppermint, an okay taste, followed by cinnamon, which is beginning to strain the flavor parameters of mouth care yet is still not particularly outside the park. 

Outside the park...a little sports humor reference there.

The fourth tube is chocolate flavor. I'm not sure at all that that's an acceptable toothpaste flavor. But more so: I don't really understand why anyone would want or need such a range of dental care products. 

There's nothing wrong with any of this of course, other than that it's all rather bizarre. Still, it does leave me to wonder what it might cost me to become the official drain snake salesman of the Detroit Tigers. I have actually sold them snake cables and parts, so the relationship is already established. Could I get a sign on the outfield wall for a reasonable price though?

Mint Condition

Me Pops was on a trip one time with an old friend; I'll call him Cloyce just to give him a name. While in Philadelphia, they decided to take a tour of the US Mint.

Miraculously, they were able to park within a block. But as they were climbing the steps to the Mint Cloyce remarked, "Bill, should I tell them at the door that I've got my pistol with me?"

Pops stopped in his tracks. After a second or two of thought he explained quickly and quietly, "Okay, Cloyce, here's what we're gonna do. We're gonna stand here a minute and talk, pretend we're discussing an issue, act like we forgot something, and then we'll go back to the car. Then we're gonna leave your gun there."

"I don't go nowhere without my gun!" Cloyce responded indignantly.

"Then you ain't going to the US Mint!" Dad said firmly. They got back to the car and drove off.

What a waste of an ideal parking space too. 

Saturday Mitchell

Schools are in favor of sensitivity and opposed, of course, to insensitivity. In the traditional curriculum there are still some outdated things which cause insensitivity. Historical dates cause insensitivity. The square of the hypotenuse causes callousness. Untempered grammar and spelling produce elitism. The multiplication table can engender inhumanity, and precise diction has been known to produce fascism.

Richard Mitchell, the author of Less Than Words Can Say, wrote those words in 1979. They're on page 90 of that book. They sound prophetic, yet were based on a review of teaching practices way back then.

What do we hear these days? That math is racist. So are speaking and writing well. One might suppose they always have been if you listen to teachers in 2026. They have been trained in this approach for decades now, and kids can't read, write or cipher at alarming rates of ineptitude which have been rolling downhill, building like a snowball since, well, I was in school. We are raising in our public schools a nation of illiterates. 

But they feel good about themselves, so it's all right. They are sensitive, whatever that means, about the ills of the world. Never mind that they might actually feel better if they knew things whereby they might be able to do something about them. Yet those are hard to teach. Everyone can get an A in Sensitivity.

Exposition Imposition

The Interim Generation is book three of my Infinity series, and it's getting reviews. Most are good, while others, well, there's this one:

The momentum of the story drew me in fairly quickly. The world building was also handled better than average. Definitely wasn't overburdened with exposition. There were some moments the writing could've been tightened up a little. The author did a good job bringing this dystopian world to life.

What do you think? Should you get a copy of The Interim Generation? The world building is, after all, better than average. And you won't be overburdened with exposition. What more can you ask?

One Great Book

I was looking for something to read yesterday, and nothing seemed to grab my attention. Then I noticed my copy of Less Than Words Can Say by one Richard Mitchell. He is better known, but, sadly, not well enough known, as The Underground Grammarian, under which name he called out poor language from 1976 until 1992. Despite that arguably high-falutin' title, the Underground Grammarian was gold for its insight, humor, and warnings about the power of language.

But I digress. In rereading Less, I rediscovered the irony of insights so incisive as to be laugh out loud. Chastising teachers who decry the need to write well, Mitchell says:

This is, they tell us, an age of technology, and that what we need to know is how to program computers, not how to devise grammatical sentences in orderly sequence. As it happens, computers work by reading and devising grammatical sentences in orderly sequence.

Delightful. I did laugh out loud. Basically, if our computers are to work, our instructions must be grammatically correct, at least in computer language. But can we perform that task if we can't employ good grammar in our own language? 

Mitchell's book dwells on how language is used for control, so he has a special vitriol for bureaucrats and lawyers who seem to make a habit of obscuring language as a means of controlling situations. He further despises letter openers such as "You are hearby informed" and "Our records indicate" and "It has been brought to our attention" calling such things the Divine Imperative, words suggesting God Almighty is addressing you. And you best listen. Words used like that are quite successful in their intimidating tone. We dread them.

Yet the best thing which I've reread so far is a fabulous little sentence Mitchell says early on: Words never fail. If they speak reason, reason is passed forward. If they speak nonsense, confusion reigns. In today's society we tend towards the latter. We say less than we can say.

I am only about halfway through but have already resolved to reread this book at least once a year from here out. The only other books I have at this writing put into that category are The Abolition of Man by C.S. Lewis and Death on a Friday Afternoon by Fr. Richard Neuhaus. We need books like these on our shelves, and I'm sure I'll have more to say about Mitchell in the coming blogs. 

9/23

Well, well, well. It's early Wednesday morning and I have a blog to write. With no other ideas coming to mind, I'll fall back onto This Day in History.

On September 23, 1779 during the American Revolution ('The Troubles' to you Brits) John Paul Jones uttered his famous "I have not yet begun to fight!" in answer to an English demand that he surrender his ship during a naval engagement. 

For you astronomers, on September 23, 1846, the planet Neptune was first spotted.

Mickey Rooney, Julio Iglesias, Ray Charles, and Bruce Springsteen were all born the 23rd.

St. Pio of Pietrelcina, better as Padre Pio, died September 23, 1968. He had the stigmata, the wounds of Christ, on his body. 

Lewis and Clark returned to St. Louis from their exploration of the Louisiana Territory September 23, 1806.

Merkle's Boner, a famous baseball mistake, gave the Chicago Cubs the National League Pennant on this day in 1908. It's one of the most famous plays (or non plays) in the sport's history.

There you have it, friends. September 23 in history!

Gone Bananas

I was lucky enough to see Bananaball in Detroit last weekend. It's baseball played seriously but with added, I'll say, athleticism and sideshow. 

There was a lot going on. I found it difficult to watch the actual baseball game because there was almost always something happening in foul territory or in the stands. I'm going to be the old guy and say there were too many distractions. Arguably, it was too much of a good thing. But it was still fun.

They set a two hour limit on the game (though they do their best to play the traditional nine innings), play music all the time (a good mix of old and new), and bench players weave through the crowd for goodwill. In order to keep pace there are no mound visits, batters must stay in the batter's box, and I won't even try to explain all the other rules. Still, one more: if a spectator catches a foul ball it counts as an out. Cute, but I would not like it as a player.

It was pretty obvious there weren't major league players on the field. Though the competition was decent, it was clearly less than even in the low minor leagues. A-ball games show better true baseball.

Pitches were noticeably slow. At least three throws by my count bounced twice between the third baseman and first on routine grounders, and fly balls hit to the outfield tended towards shallow, although there was one home run and another fly to the warning track. The play in itself did not impress.

Still, for a style intended to engage the audience it was worthwhile. On that level, Bananaball certainly works. I'd go again.