“Finding an Answer to Rough Seas - New York Times” plus 4 more |
- Finding an Answer to Rough Seas - New York Times
- When a Word’s Look Counted as Much as Its Meaning - New York Times
- Four-year old a go-kart whiz - Mankato Free Press
- Chiefs’ rebuilding project is very different than the one from 20 ... - Tacoma News Tribune
- Mary Daly dies at 81; radical feminist academician - Los Angeles Times
| Finding an Answer to Rough Seas - New York Times Posted: 09 Jan 2010 08:47 PM PST THE digital revolution recently snuffed the life out of the print version of the 146-year-old Seattle newspaper for which I wrote a column, and the recession has neatly disposed of most of the rest of my income-producing work. This has not been entirely bad, as it has liberated considerable time for work on the 19-foot sailboat taking shape in my shop. Skip to next paragraph  Lawrence W. Cheek describes his work on boats as "a postgrad seminar in character-building." I'm turning to the boat earlier and earlier every day, like a growing drinking problem, and I'm now suffering work-ethic guilt hangovers: the nagging feeling that I ought to be doing more productive things with my time. Although the tasks of boat-building — the sawing, sanding, planing, painting and worrying — look and ache like real work, modern culture defines work as labor that produces a paycheck. My strictly amateur boat-building doesn't qualify. I know I'm not alone in this quandary, so I'm going to wrestle with it here in public. What I want to do is challenge the accepted boundaries of work. A two-week course at the Northwest School of Wooden Boat Building made me realize that I might learn about something beyond boats by building them. Our instructor, Joe Greenley, was a superb craftsman — his cedar-strip kayaks are seagoing sculptures — but it wasn't his skill with tools that I absorbed. It was the way his mind flowed directly from problem to solution without allowing any emotional muck — irritation, frustration, anger — in between. Mr. Greenley was never perturbed about a mistake; he simply set about finding the most efficient fix. He understood intuitively that surges of negative emotion not only interfere with problem-solving; they also get built into the object you're working on. The learning curve steepened with the first sailboat I built, a 13 1/2 -foot sailing dinghy I chronicled in my book titled "The Year of the Boat." That pipsqueak boat consumed a year and a half and delivered the lesson of perseverance. Before I started, I was aware that boat projects have a tendency to ooze into infinity, beyond the builder's life. I had run across an unfinished 27-foot sloop at a Canadian maritime museum, where a sign sparely outlined its history: "Started 1961. Worked on for 40 years. Given to Maritime Centre 2001." As I worked on the dinghy, I learned why. There's a wavelike emotional geography in building any boat: crests of pride and elation, followed by troughs of despair. These are interspersed with vast doldrums of boredom. The troughs and doldrums carry terrific potential for stalling the project, maybe forever. The first part of the solution, I figured, is to expect these cycles. By recognizing their inevitability, you take away their power. The second strategy is to keep momentum. The novelist Annie Dillard likens writing a book to keeping a feral beast that must be visited daily if the writer is to preserve mastery over it: "If you skip a day, you are, quite rightly, afraid to open the door to its room." A boat is just like that. Now I'm in the middle of a larger, much more complicated boat project — a three-year adventure whose ambition contrasts sharply with the skills of its builder. It's forcing me to confront my prime character defect: impatience. The only way to compensate for this shortcoming is to forcibly apply patience, no matter how unnatural it feels. A recent task involved fairing the hull, which meant long days of deadly tedious filling and sanding. One of my boatbuilding friends perfectly describes this process as "staring into the dark, gaping, bottomless maw of insanity." I devised a strategy to dodge that maw. I took a tape measure to the hull and estimated its surface area: 165 square feet. That seemed immense. But one square foot is easy. It fits neatly in a human's close-up field of vision, and an impatient man's attention span. So I attacked one square foot at a time, sanding it to a satisfactory quotient of fairness. Each took maybe 20 minutes, though I didn't really know — I resolutely avoided timing and averaging. So instead of contemplating a bleak tundra of tedium, I substituted pleasure in completing square-foot swaths of fair, smooth, ready-to-paint surface. This seems good practice for the kinds of work that predominate today, where the end product is often so vast and distant from an individual's daily labor that it's hard to feel a sense of connection — or care. Positive attitude, perseverance, patience: there is no better vehicle than a wooden boat for drilling in these qualities, because nothing else presents such a tangible reflection of the way I work on it. If I absorb these values, I'll enjoy improved fitness for other kinds of work, if ever it reappears. I rest the case for my boat as a course in vocational rehab, or as a postgrad seminar in character-building. Just one problem: This boat has a chance of becoming an object of great beauty and substantial utility. Not all work has that potential. In the real world, we must often do jobs of dubious value. Building a boat can ruin us for less important paying work. Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction. |
| When a Word’s Look Counted as Much as Its Meaning - New York Times Posted: 09 Jan 2010 08:33 PM PST Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction. |
| Four-year old a go-kart whiz - Mankato Free Press Posted: 09 Jan 2010 08:47 PM PST Published January 09, 2010 10:42 pm - Jayden Larson, at age 4, is carrying on a family tradition by racing. Four-year old a go-kart whiz By Dan Linehan MANKATO — At first, some go-kart promoters cast a skeptical eye upon 4-year-old Jayden Larson. His age led them to worry the boy would be a hazard on the track. But they soon learned Jayden is good at what he says he likes best about go-kart racing: "Goin' fast." He's raced more than 60 times but hasn't qualified (technically) for a single one. That hasn't stopped Jayden, son of Mankatoan Dean Larson, from collecting dozens of trophies, including about 30 first-place finishes. Dean enjoys coaching his son because of the unusually tight bond the sport cultivates. It lets father and son spend a lot of one-on-one time, especially considering dad is also the mechanic. "I can't be his (personal) hockey coach," Dean said. "The kart is just me and him. We work together." Racing is in the family's cultural DNA; the Larsons have a stock racing car and Dean drove go-karts when he was younger. The family's go-karts are numbered "36k," after the car number and first initial of Dean's father, Kenny Larson of Mankato. For Jayden's part, racing is just plain fun and helps him prepare for his dream job in NASCAR. His favorite driver is Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jayden first drove a go-kart at age 2, when his dad tied a dog leash to the bumper and held on to make sure the boy didn't take off and hurt himself. He had about a half-dozen races at age 3, but his racing schedule picked up in 2009 after Jayden turned 4 on Jan. 23. Jayden's go-kart selection expanded from two to eight this year to help him compete in races with different engine sizes. Their fastest go-kart can reach speeds up to 60 mph. Injuries are a possibility in go-kart racing, but Jayden hasn't been seriously hurt. He's spun out several times and cried at the fright it gave him, though. Once, a kart flew over the back of Jayden's kart, slightly damaging it. Another time, a racer's helmet flew off in a collision and Jayden, in a fit of panic, believed the racer's entire head had sailed through the air. Jayden's mother, Katie Monnens-Johnson of Shakopee, told the Shakopee Valley News she was a nervous wreck when the boy first started racing but feels more comfortable now. "It's just more interesting now that he knows what he's doing," she told the newspaper. The closest track to Mankato is Toners Lake Karting Center in Janesville, which opened in 2007. In the winter there are fewer options. The only indoor track in the region they visit is near Brainerd. Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction. |
| Chiefs’ rebuilding project is very different than the one from 20 ... - Tacoma News Tribune Posted: 09 Jan 2010 07:50 PM PST The coach was in town for a job interview, taking a tour of the place that would become his new football home. He'd heard about Arrowhead Stadium. Things had changed, though, and the challenge for the next Chiefs coach was to redirect the team toward better times. He visited the offices, passed through corridors where few outsiders go, and stopped finally in the locker room. The coach stood with the Chiefs' general manager, a new hire himself, considering what was possible if a few things broke the right way. A disappointing decade was winding down. The Chiefs wanted to end it with assurances that better days lay ahead. The coach remembers his interview as if it were last week. The colors and the history and the optimism, the way a veteran player shook his hand and said it would be nice to have a coach that they could believe in. "Things are going to change here now," Marty Schottenheimer remembers longtime Chiefs safety Deron Cherry telling him, and more, Schottenheimer remembers the way that made him feel: like the Chiefs were capable of anything. "That element of trust is so critical." Hard to believe it has been more than two decades since the last time the Chiefs underwent such a comprehensive overhaul. It worked immediately that time. They won eight games in Schottenheimer's first season. They had won four in each of the past two years. It was clear by the end of the 1989 season that Schottenheimer, president/GM Carl Peterson, and players such as Derrick Thomas, Christian Okoye and Stephone Paige were ushering in better times. Twenty years after that season, the Chiefs were rebuilding again. But this time, progress in Year One was harder to see. The Chiefs hired men who were top candidates in their fields but who had never been in charge of a franchise. Scott Pioli was hired as general manager, and Todd Haley as head coach. Together, they began a project that at times seemed futile and mismanaged, encouraging at others, and along the way there was enough side drama that will define that first year as much as the team's 4-12 record. Some outsiders think that amid all the change and promises, there wasn't much real improvement. "I don't see progress," says Mark Collins, a former Chiefs player who has been an outspoken critic of the team's direction and its leaders' decision-making. "I don't even see peaks and valleys. I see valleys, and I see lower valleys." For their part, Haley and Pioli say they see growth; that the Chiefs' record in '09 wasn't good enough, but that strides were made to enter the second year of the project with momentum. "Some of them on the field, visible; some off the field that people don't get to see every day," Pioli says. "Part of the cultural change is some of the players' approach to their profession, taking care of their bodies, preparing for games, studying more. Things like that." Schottenheimer says today's Chiefs faced harsher problems than the group that went 8-7-1 in 1989. He says Pioli and Haley inherited less talent, more challenges, and a new palette of concerns that just didn't exist when Schottenheimer and Peterson took over. "Imagine trying to turn the Queen Mary," he says. "It takes time." Then again … "That there has to be evidence that it's working," he says, "even from the outset." • • • They sit together on the team's chartered flights after road games, discussing what they saw and how it might improve. They answer each other's calls, during meetings, on birthdays, on vacations. Haley says the concept of a culture change starts at the top, and he and Pioli have not let a day pass without talking since before the summer. Haley says the project is that enormous, and he and his boss aren't taking it lightly. He says the Chiefs' coach and GM have to understand each other and agree on the things that affect the Chiefs, and that takes constant discussion. "We've got a lot of important decisions to make," Pioli says. "The more you communicate, the more you understand additional perspectives." Not that they don't have differences. Pioli wears a suit well, has monogrammed cuffs on his dress shirts, and prefers to remain backstage. Haley always seems to wear stubble (even on the days he shaves), has a fine collection of workout shorts, and seems comfortable in the spotlight — as long as he's wearing gym clothes instead of a necktie. Sure, they disagree. There are fundamental differences that no amount of debate is likely to alter. Pioli likes a sure thing. Haley likes to see what happens. "I like Vegas," says Haley, who attempted to convert 29 fourth downs, most in the league. "He doesn't." But Haley insists that they don't gamble with big decisions. They talk things out until they agree. He insists they were on the same page for every move, even the controversial ones. The ones that, even now, stir questions. Trading Tony Gonzalez, despite quarterback Matt Cassel's lack of targets. Releasing Bernard Pollard, despite that he would go on to have a breakout season with Houston. Giving Larry Johnson a chance to start the season as the Chiefs' starting running back, despite Johnson's history and that Jamaal Charles was a superstar in waiting. Right or wrong, Haley and Pioli end their discussions in agreement. Their decisions affect, and will continue to affect, the Chiefs and their foundation. Haley admits they haven't always been right. "You wish you knew everything. You wish you had all the answers," he says. "This is a big job; it's not an easy job. I'm sure Scott would agree. It takes some mental toughness to stick to your guns and keep going forward." • • • Doing it the Chiefs' way isn't for everyone. That is one thing that, 12 months in, has become clear — painfully clear at times. Haley offended left guard Brian Waters last offseason. The coach screams at players in front of fans, media and other players. He demotes them without explanation. Some players are uncertain if the new way is a good fit. Linebacker Derrick Johnson stands at his locker on the final Thursday of the season, trying to bite his tongue. He has done it all season. Doesn't want to seem sour after being demoted during the preseason from starter to reserve. Doesn't want to publicly question why a former first-round pick, and one of the Chiefs' more talented defenders, isn't on the field for more than 20 plays a game. "You may think you don't learn anything from not playing a lot," Johnson says. "I've learned a lot this year." Johnson says he never heard reasons why he was demoted or why, despite what he calls his best effort, he never returned to the starting lineup. The ripples of benching Johnson, and all the other unusual decisions, flow beyond Arrowhead. Others hear about what happened in Kansas City, and without the clarity of explanations or the validation of winning, all that remains is gossip and speculation on how things are done. "They're just trying to feel their way through the darkness," says Collins, who played three seasons under Schottenheimer in the mid-1990s. "I do not see a set plan or a set agenda." One well-known player's agent says the Chiefs' franchise appears disorganized, even a year after its latest project began. The agent says there is a belief within the industry that the Chiefs' ownership isn't yet willing to spend money to attract big-name free agents. After all, the team failed to sign a game-changing free agent last offseason, and the agent says he doesn't expect it this year, either. Pioli says he's never received any edict from chairman Clark Hunt to conserve money. "I would not have accepted this job," Pioli says, "had there been a mandate on spending or free agents. In the time I have been here, Clark has not said no." Still, perception counts for something. And all of it — Johnson's situation, the losing, and doubts about the team's immediate ambition — would compel the agent, he says, to steer his free agents away from the Chiefs. "I would really try to be directing them more to an organization," the agent says, "that's clearly shown that they're on the right path." Johnson removes his practice gear, saying he'll request a meeting this offseason to discuss his future with the Chiefs. He says that if he isn't assured of a legitimate chance to start in 2010, he could ask out of Kansas City. "Me coming back, not getting signed, traded," he says. "A whole bunch of stuff can happen." Johnson, of course, went on to intercept two passes three days later in Denver, returning both for touchdowns. Where was that all season? How is such a thing possible if the man isn't in the lineup? On that Thursday at his locker, Johnson shakes his head. "I haven't lost trust yet," he says. "But it's possible." • • • Schottenheimer remembers the bad times, too. He didn't always win big in Kansas City, and his ways sometimes rubbed players raw. "He had a very stubborn streak in him," Cherry says. "A lot of times, it was to his detriment." Sure, the Chiefs lifted off more immediately under Schottenheimer, but the old coach says now that for all the advantages he inherited over the current regime — better players, a stronger core, determination from above to sign the top players — it's what he couldn't accomplish that still aches, even so many years later. "The thing that Carl and I were anxious to do was give Lamar Hunt the trophy that bore his name," Schottenheimer says. "It was a disappointment then, and it's a disappointment now." When the Chiefs were disappointed, another game or season falling short of their goals, Schottenheimer would retreat to the coaches' locker room. Peterson would soon follow, and Hunt, the team's founder, would join them. They'd huddle, promising to regroup. Schottenheimer remembers the late Hunt's calmness and optimism. "If we had won," Schottenheimer says, "he'd say we played well. If we hadn't, he'd say we'd get them next week. Always very positive. When you have that kind of relationship with people, you want to do everything you can to satisfy them." • • • The changes were seen immediately. Fan favorites were traded without apology. Restrictions were tightened. Sentimentality was not considered part of a winning equation, so it was downsized. It was understood — as long as the Chiefs' new approach translated to success. When the Chiefs traded Gonzalez, one of the franchise's all-time most popular players, protests were muffled by hope that the second-round pick the team received in exchange would secure the Chiefs' future more than Gonzalez could. When Pollard was released, his emergence with the Texans was downplayed because Pollard wasn't the kind of locker-room influence the Chiefs wanted. And when Chan Gailey was fired as offensive coordinator less than two weeks before the season, the timing and strategy were understood because there was no sense in prolonging a doomed marriage. Those decisions, at least in part, made sense. But this? Cherry is active with the Chiefs Ambassadors, a group of former players who want to stay involved with the organization and offer guidance to current players. He says the group was told months ago that the tradition was changing. Former players weren't welcome at practices. Cherry heard a familiar reason why. "From a football standpoint," he says, "what was our contribution that was allowing the team to win?" Cherry says he understands. But he also understands why many former players were offended by the decision. "It's just hard," he says. "Before, you could go to practice sometimes on certain days and just hang out. It's a little bit different now." It was the latest adjustment for an organization undergoing a complete overhaul. Pioli says it's as simple as philosophical differences. "I can certainly understand it," Pioli said. "We have a different belief system on how we want to do things." But the restrictions also raised questions about the Chiefs' priorities. "Why waste so much time?" says Collins, who is not a member of the Ambassadors. "Don't spend your time building a fortress around Arrowhead, trying to keep everyone out. "I'd like to think we earned the right to be included, to watch a practice, to watch a game, to meet the players. For that organization to turn their backs on the former players, it's just not right." Tough years happen in the NFL. So do losing seasons. But when goodwill, history and solidarity are lost, there are fewer people willing to trumpet the good things that happened. The only thing left to talk about is the losing. • • • Cherry also remembers the day that Schottenheimer's tour stopped in the locker room. He had played for Schottenheimer in previous Pro Bowls, and he respected the coach's experience. He liked that Schottenheimer seemed prepared for anything. He says it was clear then that the Chiefs would be better under Schottenheimer. He says it takes practiced hands to steady a troubled team. Too often, Cherry says, there was a noticeable difference in the approach this past season. Too much on-the-job training. "It's a learning process," he says. "They're feeling their way through it." One year wasn't enough to see improvement. The calendar is cruel when a team isn't winning. If there was progress, it often was the kind so faint that it didn't inspire much confidence for 2010. The Chiefs now hope that the side effects of Year One don't cost the team in the future. "There's no manual," Haley says, "no matter what resources you have to lean on who have done this job. They all say the same thing: 'You can't explain it until you actually do it.' "The goal is still the same. The way we're going to reach the goal is still the same. That's been developed over years of being around teams, coaches and philosophies. I don't foresee that changing." • • • No, success didn't happen often in 2009. It didn't turn as fast as it did under Schottenheimer. But one thing was similar. Last Sunday, the same as most Sundays, Haley sat in the coaches' locker room and pondered what had just happened. The Chiefs had beaten Denver, a hopeful end to a disappointing season. Soon, Pioli joined him, and so did chairman Clark Hunt. There was optimism in that small room, belief that better days were indeed ahead — eventually if not immediately. "Our plan is to fix this thing," Pioli says, "but fix it for the long term. That's what we want to do. I don't want to just tweak a couple of things, show a certain degree of success and say, 'Wow, look at the job we've done,' and then move along." Haley says the Chiefs have to learn from Year One. They have to be better for it, stronger for their mistakes. "I don't want to fail. I don't intend to fail," he says. "People are driven by different things. I'm driven by that, whether you call it fear or whatever. "I want to be great. I want this team to be a great team. I don't like that feeling of coming home on a plane or going home to the house after a loss. There were too many this year." Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction. |
| Mary Daly dies at 81; radical feminist academician - Los Angeles Times Posted: 09 Jan 2010 08:18 PM PST Mary Daly, a radical feminist philosopher whose piercing critiques of patriarchal culture made her a guiding spirit of the women's movement and a fractious presence at Boston College, where her refusal to admit men to her classes ended a three-decade teaching career, has died. She was 81. Daly, whose health had deteriorated over the last two years because of a neurological disorder, died Jan. 3 at a nursing facility in Gardner, Mass., said Emily Erwin Culpepper, a longtime friend and University of Redlands professor of religion and women's studies. Brilliant, bawdy and cantankerous, Daly was a theologian who came to prominence with the publication of her first book, "The Church and the Second Sex" (1968), a withering critique of the treatment of women in Roman Catholicism that prompted an unsuccessful effort by the Jesuit-run Boston College to fire her. Denied raises and a full professorship, Daly boycotted faculty meetings, dismissing administrators and colleagues as "bore-ocrats" who suffered from "academentia." She evolved from a radical Catholic, hopeful of church reform, to a "post-Christian" lesbian feminist who believed that a radical feminist trying to change the church was "like a black person trying to reform the Ku Klux Klan." She wrote provocative books -- including "Beyond God the Father: Toward a Philosophy of Women's Liberation" (1973), "Gyn/Ecology: The Metaethics of Radical Feminism" (1978) and "Pure Lust: Elemental Feminist Philosophy" (1984) -- that secured her rank as a major figure in the development of 20th century feminist thought. Known for her wordplay, she also wrote a feminist dictionary, "Websters' First New Intergalactic Wickedary of the English Language" (with Jane Caputi, 1987). "She was the first feminist philosopher, really," said activist and writer Robin Morgan, who included Daly in her pioneering anthology "Sisterhood Is Powerful" (1970). "She opened the door for women to question everything." Daly exulted in what she called the "courage to sin." "The word 'sin' is derived from the Indo-European root 'es-,' meaning 'to be.' When I discovered this etymology," she wrote in a 1996 New Yorker article, "I intuitively understood that for a woman trapped in patriarchy, which is the religion of the entire planet, 'to be' in the fullest sense is 'to sin.' " Born in Schenectady, N.Y., on Oct. 19, 1928, Daly was the only child of working-class Irish immigrants who encouraged her education. She was aware from an early age of the inequality of the sexes, recalling in the New Yorker story how she burned with "unquenchable" rage at the male classmate who gloated over the fact that he was an altar boy and that she, as a girl, could never "serve Mass." She earned a bachelor's degree from the College of Saint Rose in Albany, N.Y., in 1950 before completing a master's in English at Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., in 1952. She wanted to teach theology, but Catholic women were not allowed to teach or study theology, so she obtained a doctorate in religion from Saint Mary's College in Notre Dame, Ind., in 1952. When the University of Notre Dame refused to admit her to its doctoral program in philosophy -- "solely on the basis of my sex," she said -- she went to the University of Fribourg in Switzerland, which could not exclude women because it was government-supported. She stayed for seven years and earned doctorates in philosophy and theology. In 1966, she became the first woman to teach theology at Boston College. But two years later, after she gained prominence as an audacious church critic with the publication of "The Church and the Second Sex," the college gave her a one-year contract, in essence firing her. The decision did not play well in an era of student empowerment: 1,500 people -- mostly male students because the college was not yet coeducational -- marched in support of Daly. In 1969, the college renewed Daly's contract, promoted her to associate professor and gave her tenure. In 1971 the theologian whose radical assertions included viewing the Trinity as patriarchy's rip-off of triple goddesses in ancient culture, became the first woman to preach the Sunday sermon at Harvard's 300-year-old Memorial Church. She called on the congregation to demonstrate its rejection of patriarchal religion by walking out of the church. "We thought there would be just a few of us, but probably 90% got up to leave -- women and men," recalled Culpepper, then a Harvard graduate student who helped Daly plan the event. After Boston College began admitting women in 1970, Daly began to bar men from her feminist-centric courses, believing that their presence would stifle discussion. She agreed to teach men in private tutorials, but her refusal to allow them in her classes brought eight reprimands from college officials over the ensuing years. In one case, college officials escorted a man to her class for several weeks until he dropped out. Whenever the issue heated up, Daly took a leave of absence until tempers cooled. The "power of absence," as she called the tactic, stopped working in 1998, when her women-only policy was challenged by a student named Duane Naquin, who wanted to take Daly's class in feminist ethics. Backed by the conservative Center for Independent Research, Naquin threatened a lawsuit, which gave the administration cause to push its gnarly feminist professor to retire. Ironically, the college argued that Daly's exclusion of men was a violation of Title IX, the 1972 law crafted to ensure equal opportunities for women in educational settings. Critics suggested that Daly was a hypocrite for denying men access to her classes; commentator Gary Wills called her a "fake feminist." Daly, whose courses were stripped from the college catalog in 1999, sued the college for breach of contract and violation of tenure rights. The legal showdown ended in 2001 with a private settlement and an announcement that Daly had retired. "There are and will be those who think I have gone overboard," the self-described "positively revolting hag" said after one of her many collisions with college authorities. "Let them rest assured that this assessment is correct, probably beyond their wildest imagination, and that I will continue to do so." Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction. |
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