Not A Competitor, Just A Bad Loser

A great article by Phil Taylor in Sports Illustrated lifts the commonly false veneer of "fierce competitiveness" and exposes it for what it really is - poor sportsmanship. Taylor cites Lebron James' refusal to shake hands with victorious players from the Orlando Magic following the Magic's Eastern Conference Championship triumph. While a number of pundits look at actions such as these and comment laud fierce competitors who hate to lose promote creeds that a real winner who never takes losing well, or as Vince Lombardi supposedly said, "Show me a good loser and I'll show you a loser, period."

Taylor writes: "James has grown up in an era in which the definition of a great competitor has been badly skewed. We heap so much praise on an athlete who "hates to lose" that some players don't even recognize when that hatred goes too far. It's been said that Michael Jordan would have cheated his own grandmother to win at cards. That's not passion. That's unhealthy."

He's spot on. Sports society has wrongly promoted and deified the "fierce competitor" right along with the showboater. It's not surprising that much of these behaviors is aligned with our own base instincts to be a pompous winner and a petulant loser. 

I recently played a memory card game with Daniel, and when the game ended, I had seven pairs of "matched cards" and Daniel had six. I asked Daniel, "Who won?" and Daniel answered, "I did!" I then proceeded to ask Daniel to count how many pairs we each had, and eventually, he conceded begrudgingly (with a good amount of whining) that seven was more than six. He was not happy with it, so it led to a conversation about while he didn't need to like losing, but he needed to be fair and gracious when he lost. He could keep practicing and doing his best and maybe he would do better next time.

He then proceeded to cream me in the next game ten to three. And honestly, it wasn't like I was letting him win. His sportsmanship as a winner was better, though maybe I should cream him in some more competitions just to make sure the lesson took.

C'mon, What About Five Guys?

Congratulations to In-N-Out burger, which won the (presumably) coveted title of "best hamburger in the nation" according to a recent survey of fast-food eaters. I think In-N-Out makes a good burger, but you have to give props to Five Guys, which was conspicuously absent from the rankings. As far as I'm concerned, if you don't have both of these guys in the competition, it's hardly a legitimate contest.

Congratulations to my beloved Long John Silver's for winning "Best Fish". As far as I'm concerned, I can't see how there was possibly any competition in that race. I've heard that Ivar's Seafood in the Seattle area is a worthy competitor, but that I've never tried it. And don't even mention that Arthur's Treachers garbage.

I'm also convinced that the snide Zagat comment that "They might as well fry the drinks, too" was clearly a shot towards Long John Silver's. It's probably fair criticism right up there with, "Eat this meal and you'll be drinking gallons of water the night afterwards."

I can attest to McDonald's being extremely child friendly. In fact, the Saturday before we left for Aruba, I took Daniel to McDonald's for a nice father-son lunch. We talked over Chicken McNuggets and afterwards I let him run around in the maze of suspended tubes in the PlayPlace. Hopefully he'll always remember those fond memories more than obesity brought on by his father's poor choice of eateries.

Guns in Suburban Schools

I was a little alarmed to hear last week that a rival middle school of mine growing up was the scene of an incident where a man with a gun held the superintendent hostage at South Orangetown Middle School in Blauvelt, NY. While I didn't go to this school, it was in a rival district and the site where my "Mighty Midgets" soccer team held its practices. It's also has the indoor pool where I learned to swim taking town-organized swim lessons during my childhood summers.

One of the comments made by a reader seemed to ask a good question, about the wisdom of leaving schools largely "open and accessible" to visitors once school is in session. Now I'm sure that a lot has changed in the decades since I've been to school, but I seem to remember that it was pretty easy to walk in unmolested into the school and roam the classrooms. There were no security guards in these suburban schools, and while you were instructed by a sign to "please sign in with the office", you could theoretically choose not to wander around unfettered.

Contrast that with many office buildings, including mine, where you need to get your photo ID taken and provide official identification in order to get past the key-coded secure doors and uniformed security guards manning every entrance into the building. Thankfully, there are no metal detectors, and I'd hate to see it ever come to that.

You want to have a good balance of safety while setting the tone that a place of learning doesn't need to be fortress. The incident in South Orangetown was probably an outlier, but that's likely cold comfort to parents who have children at that school.

My Weird Fascination With Airplane Disasters

I have a weird fascination with airplane disasters. I don't think it's based on some premonition that I'll depart this world as my Airbus experiences a catastrophic mechanical failure. Perhaps it has to do with a childhood interest in aviation mixed with the engineering geek in me wondering how something so large could somehow go airborne - and how something so powerful and intricately designed could malfunction so terribly. 

Over the years, I would pour over magazine articles detailing the Korean Airlines Flight 007 (shot down by a Soviet fighter jet), United Airlines Flight 232 (a miracle crash landing in a Iowa cornfield) and USAir Flight 427 (catastrophic rudder failure on a 737 - a model I used to fly every week as a consultant). I'd watch National Geographic shows like Seconds From Disaster which provided dramatizations of the events leading up to the crash.

Interestingly, I was traveling by air during the days of two major plane disasters. Just last week on early Monday morning, an Air France jetliner went down in the Atlantic en route to Paris from Rio. As we were planning to board our plane from Newark Airport to Aruba, Sarah and I watched CNN from our gate, which reported breaking news of a missing airliner. Many years ago in 1992, I had a similar experience when I had flown to Los Angeles on a TWA airliner to visit my cousins and a friend who's mother was dying of cancer. When I landed that evening, my cousin said to me, "Wow, weren't you a little freaked out after you heard the news?"

"What are you talking about?"

"A different TWA airplane flying from New York crashed. I think everyone died." The flight she was referring to was TWA Flight 800, which was brought down apparently from an electrical short in a near empty fuel tank.

But just remember folks, the safety of flying commercial airliners are unmatched - as long as your measuring by deaths per mile and not deaths per trip.

Searching for Natalee Holloway

I was blessed with the opportunity to go on a company "award trip" recently to the beautiful island of Aruba. And despite my cheeky title, no, I wasn't there to look for Natalee Holloway, and I decided that it would be best if I didn't choose to jokingly use that my response to the Aruban immigration airport officer's question of, "What brings you to Aruba?"

Sarah and I enjoyed ourselves, though we definitely missed the kids. We mingled with a number of co-workers but had plenty of time to do things on our own, whether that was lying on the beach and sipping drinks, hiking around beautiful Arikok National Park, or kayaking to and snorkeling around De Palm Island. We also were able to indulge in some Aruban-Dutch and French cuisine, much of which was excellent. The seafood was fresh, the beaches were warm and the water was crystal blue. 

Interestingly, I did ask our kayak tour guide, Ervin, what he thought of the whole Natalee Holloway episode, and he was of the opinion that the whole thing was a hoax, and that Natalee took a boat off to South American mainland and is living a bohemian life somewhere. He also expressed antipathy towards Ms. Holloway's mother who he felt unfairly maligned the good people of Aruba, who had provided free transportation and accommodations for a month while using up the entire annual Aruban police budget in an effort to solve the case.

Most meaningful to me was the last evening before we left Aruba, where Sarah and I spent some time praying on the moonlit shore. We prayed for our own dedication to the Lord and for our family - knowing that even as we enjoyed the trip, we wanted to appreciate the Giver more than the gift itself. We remembered that the reward for faith was in the good pleasure of God, not in the approval or perks provided by man. And we were conscious to pray that those things would never wrongly entice us to serve any master besides Him.

It was all in all, a very good time of refreshing.

Priests and Marriage

Interesting news broke recently when Father Alberto Cutie, an internationally known Catholic priest who admitted having a romantic affair and breaking his vow of celibacy, joined the Episcopal Church where he will be pursue priesthood.

This follows a great deal of discussion around whether the Catholic Church should revisit the tenet of obligatory celibacy for Catholic priests. I had browsed a title of one commentary blaring "Celibacy should be rethought" and my knee-jerk reaction was this was a typical secularist attack on tradition with superficial arguments of societal changes and such - pretty much ignoring the very essence of why I at least presume and hope that people join the priesthood in the first place. That is, how might I best give myself to the Lord?

I was pleasantly surprised that the editorial wasn't anti-Christian or anti-Catholic rhetoric being spewed by a humanist who hated all of the "antiquated" ideals of religion. It was actually a well though out and church-centric composition coming from a Rev. Donald Cozzens, a Catholic priest and theology professor who is presumably celibate. So instead of anti-religion rhetoric spewing the superiority of postmodern thinking, what the article addresses church doctrine and the high regard of both the priesthood and the sacraments. Cozzens asks, "Isn't it possible that God would call an individual to the priesthood and to the sacrament of marriage?" 

Cozzens understands that celibacy is a gift, and a valued one, per 1 Corinthians 7, particularly verses 32 through 35. But he also makes the point that there is nothing that ties that particular gift as a prerequisite to church-based ministry. Even retired archbishop of New York, Cardinal Edward Egan believes that obligatory celibacy is not a matter of dogma, and thus open for discussion. For Protestants who live in the sola scriptura realm, the lack of connection between the gift of singleness and church-based ministry has largely made celibacy a non-issue for those considering a call to ministry. This burden is very real for Catholics brothers who are considering the ministry. As Cozzens notes:

I wonder if church officials understand the burden they place on the shoulders of a man who believes he is called to priestly ministry but not to celibacy. Certainly, a married priesthood will have burdens of its own and, sadly, scandals of its own -- infidelity and abuse among others. But it should be left to the individual priest and seminarian to determine whether or not he is blessed with the gift of celibacy. A mandated "gift," after all, is really no gift at all.

Yes, a married priesthood will not be immune from scandals, but then again, it's not as if the Catholic Church hasn't been through this fire drill up to their necks in the past decade. The greater tragedy, I fear, will be hundreds if not thousands of men who want to serve Christ and the Church in ministry who will have to make a false choice not to do.

Twittering Away

I've decided to join Twitter after hearing all of the buzz around how this means of connecting people will revolutionize relationships, one summer after I decided to join the blogosphere. After a couple of days, I'm still not sure what to make of it.

My initial impressions are that Twitter is essentially a short-form blog so instead of boring people with my long-winded drivel, I can waste less of people's time by giving them concise drivel. Excellent. Also, Twitter allows us to see the short-form musings of our friends interspersed with our own in chronological order.

Eh, I'll stick with it for a little. If nothing else, I need to keep my technology adoption sharp so I can keep up with my kids when they're a little older.