NOVEMBER in Waco, TX

November 6, 2007 by wilmington.

ITEM #1: In Which the Ambassador Muses About the Change of Seasons
As I wonder at the Texans who haven’t spent time in colder states as they wear parkas in the 55 degree mornings (while they stare at me as if I’m insane in my shorts and t-shirt), I am thankful that fall in Waco is much different than the fall in Houston I remember from 7th-12th grade.
Accurate or not, I remember a stretch of grey, overcast high-60’s-and-never-brisk days that lasted from November through March. Here in Waco: brilliant sunsets, 40’s at night - high 50’s in the day with the promise of even colder weather to come. In short, and despite the absence of the violent explosions of burnt reds and oranges and bright yellows erupting from the trees that we enjoyed in Durham, NC, for 12 years…there is a fall in Texas…at least in Waco…this year.

ITEM #2: MLS Playoff Soccer + Champions League on ESPN2
(2-1) It should be a happy time of year for U.S. Soccer fans. Major League Soccer is in the playoffs - Conference Finals coming up as I wrote - but I use the modal “should” because the MLS Playoffs are disgracefully undercovered by the sports media. I’ve ranted on this many times, but the fact that only 2 of the 8 Conference semi-finals were broadcast on “mainstream” cable channels really infuriates me.

The short version of this rant goes something like this:
Sports media in this country is essentially ESPN and wannabe-ESPN types. ESPN sets the negative tone for soccer in a few ways. 1) Ignore it 2) Show only freakish soccer news/highlights 3) Cover it only to ridicule it (stupid accents and British-sounding lingo) 4) Cover it only to the extent that they stress how soccer has never caught on in the USA, how the quality of soccer is terrible, and how they are quite sure soccer will never be as big a spectator sport as football, baseball, basketball, hockey, NASCAR, etc.

>>> You can see all of the above in the following comparison. ESPN will create its own sports event - “The X-Games” - and endlessly hype it with thousands of dollars before it will cover soccer adequately. Note: the number of Americans who actually participate in or travel and pay to attend “X-Games” kinds of events is miniscule - something like 20 million Americans
play soccer every week and a significant percentage of that is made up by adults. Many of these soccer players or, by extension, soccer families are in precisely the economic demographic broadcasters and advertisers want to reach. Now consider the things ESPN covers faithfully - World’s Strongest Man, X-Games, truck racing, etc.
>>> Add to this the idiotic comments by people like Jim Rome - truly one of the most obnoxious and uneducated sports guys out there. This talking suit spent 5 minutes of his ESPN show one day ridiculing David Beckham for not being able to “get his team into the playoffs.” No mention of the fact that Beckham didn’t join the Galaxy until the last 1/3 of the season when the team was already in last place, and certainly no mention of the fact that soccer is not a game in which one player - with the rarest of exceptions - can take over and “get his team” anywhere over the long haul.
>>> Can you imagine a sportscaster saying this about an injured football player who joined a 2-8 team?!? Idiot. Rome finished his 5 minutes of stupidity by railing against soccer as a game. Something like: “I’m sorry. But soccer is just not a serious game in this country. So all you haters can e-mail me as much as you want, but you can just go back to your soccer mom mini-vans and have your orange slices at half-time.” Ignorance + arrogance is pathetic. Even without his trying-too-hard “cool jock guy” voice and affected directness, his complete lack of knowledge should be an embarrassment to his TV and radio network bosses.
>>> So ESPN talks soccer down as much as it can, builds up truly marginal “sports,” and then claims Americans don’t like to watch soccer.
Enough rant (for now).

So…be sure to watch what ESPN *does* give us of this inferior and unserious sport by tuning in Thursday night at 6:30pm Central Time to see New England Revolution vs. Chicago Fire.

(2-2) And of course, you can check the programming schedule for the Champions League broadcasts - which ESPN probably covers ONLY because they play at 2:30pm Eastern Time when there are no live events featuring huge men lifting rocks. Liverpool played today, Manchester United plays tomorrow - Wednesday - on ESPN2 at 1:30pm Central Time. Some of the best teams in Europe playing in an ongoing tournament with huge $$$ and prestige at stake.

(2-3) TEXAN Clint Dempsey - playing for Fulham in the English Premier League - is lighting up one of the best soccer leagues in the world. He’s the lead goal scorer for his team and continues to score against quality opponents. And when he doesn’t score, he is marked closely and oftne fouled - that is, some of the best players in the world respect an American (TEXAN!) soccer player…as a goal scorer. YEEEEEEEE-HAWWW!

Ah-hem. As always, check out www.soccertv.com to see what’s on where and when.

ITEM #3 - The Ambassador’s Reading and Writing Workout
Because many have asked, here’s what I’ve been doing as a PhD student. I won’t take the time and space to explain it all (and the explanations I do give are very simplified), but you can Google these names and books or look things up on Amazon and see for yourself! I’ll do one class in this post…

Philos. Seminar:Readings in Alisdair MacIntyre (Dr.Thomas Hibbs)
MacIntyre is the most influential philosopher of the last 25 years. He revived an interest in Aristotelian philosophy and his book After Virtue and his subsequent development of his ideas critique: modern society and the Enlightenment project which created it, capitalism, and the parasitic nature of what passes for modern moral philosophy. He believes the solution is a strong emphasis on local communities that sustain practices which cultivate the virtues.
>>> Since my former students always ask about such things - we usually read about 8 chapters of a book + two essays OR 3 essays for each class (that’s anywhere from 70-120 pages..of philosophy!…per class) PLUS we are expected to write a 4-page essay in which we review and critique the arguments presented in the reading. Each student also “takes charge” of one class set of readings and is responsible to start and lead discussion for the 3 hour session. End of semester paper is something along the lines of 15-20 pages of an intensely focused critique on MacIntyre’s thought.

Complete Books
Nietzsche: Advantage and Disadvantage of History for Life
MacIntyre: After Virtue;
Dependent Rational Animals,
Edith Stein: A Philosophical Profile
Pierre Manent: A World Beyond Politics
Hans Reinders: The Future of the Disabled in a Liberal Society Wendell Berry: Sex, Economy, Freedom and Community

Essays
MacIntyre: “Epistemological Crises, Dramatic Narrative and the Philosophy of Science,” “Notes from the Moral Wilderness I,” “Notes from the Moral Wilderness II,” “How Moral Agents Became Ghosts,” “The Theses on Feuerbach: A Road Not Taken,” “The Privatization of Good: An Inaugural Lecture,” “Natural Law as Subversive: The Case of Aquinas,” “Plain Persons and Moral Philosophy: Rules, Virtues and Goods,” “Philosophy, Politics, and the Common Good,” “Sophrosune: How a Virtue Can Become Socially Disruptive,” “Toleration the Goods of Conflict,” “The Ends of Life, the Ends of Philosophical Writing,” “Truthfulness and Lies: Kant,” “Truthfulness and Lies: Mill.”

Thomas Hibbs: “Subversive Natural Law: MacIntyre and African American Thought”

John Paul II: “The Culture of Death,” “Evangelium Vitae.”

Charles Taylor: “The Politics of Recognition,” in Multiculturalism.

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