Mark Ambinter on his final blog post

“Blogging,” he writes, “is an ego-intensive process. Even in straight news stories, the format always requires you to put yourself into narrative.” All that ego can be exhausting, he says, forcing every story to be in some way about the worldview of its author. One thing the blogger craves—or at least this blogger—is the heavy hand of an editor. Someone “who tells you when something sucks.”

Blood Meridian by Cormac MacCarthy

Synopsis

Set in the 1850's amid the westward expansion, a gang of cowboys tear through the US-Mexico border in search of scalps, which can bring them fame and fortune. But thats just the surface. Its literary gymnastics (hard to read), taking you through the real grotesqueness (both physically and humanely) of what really happened as the white man pushed his way west and south across the American West.

The story follows 'the kid', who takes up with a gang led by a man named Glanton. They're hired by a provincial governor in Mexico to bring back as many Apache scalps as they can. This leads them all across Mexico, through deserts and over mountains, through feast and famine, at times both the hunter and the hunted. Along they way they lose men, both to death and desertion, and pick up replacements where they can. Its in this manner the gang comes to be deputized by 'the judge', whom they run across sitting on a rock in the middle of the desert.

Suffice it to say that the judge becomes the most dynamic character of the story. He's ever present for every plot, usually the most brutal and cunning of the bunch as well as the most educated and outspoken. Through his philosophical views it becomes apparent that he is almost pure evil, and comes to represent all that is bad in man.

The story peaks and valleys over a long trail of death and destruction. There is almost nothing redeeming that happens along the way. The story doesn't climax until the last dozen pages, where the true seedy underbelly of the entire tale is revealed.

Highlights

This book was a very hard read, both in its length and MacCarthy's writing style. And the subject matter becomes tired and old somewhere in the middle of the book. I know this is the highlights section, but i'm getting there: the climax of the book, nay the last few pages, really delivers a punch that drives home much of what the rest of the novel is about. The judge and the kid, in their final act, really give you something to think about as you put the book down.

Lowlights

As I've said before, this was a really hard book to read. Some praise MacCarthy for his literary pose in this novel but I found it to be quite hard to read. His vocabulary consists of words with rare historical definitions mixing with the far reaches of the dictionary, with a pinch of raw spanish dashed in. This is on top of his familiar lack of grammatical punctuation. And I swear at times he's just making words up.

Summary

A hard novel, both in its content and in its read. You get dangled for most of the book, but the payoff makes it well worth your time.

RSL tidbits

Deseret News Article

All three topics in this article make me realize what an amazing coach we have at RSL.

He is a great X's and O's guy, has them playing great right now, on the verge of setting a club record of wins in a row, and yet he sees the defensive deficiencies and is addressing them accordingly.

And I love to see Kries publicly challenge Alexandre. I was critical of his performance the other day, but would love nothing more that to see him rise to the challenge and improve his output.

And on top of all that, Kries still has the drive and physical ability to step on the field and mix it up.

Go RSL!

Common Sense by Glenn Beck

Synopsis

Glenn Beck's rantings inspired by Thomas Payne and his original 'Common Sense', which helped inspire the American Revolution. He attempts to tackle every hot button topic, from immigration to religion, partisan politics to term limits. Its all intended to unite a people and inspire them to rise up and take back their government and God given rights.

Highlights

He opened my eyes to certain government flaws and indiscretions, especially about Congress.

• How voting districts and carved out to maintain partisan seats.
• The double standard of rules that Congress does or doesn't have to follow compared to the general citizen.
• Lack of term limits.
• Congress determining their own pay scale.

He also made a decent attempt to come across as independent in his stances, identifying specific Democrat and Republican politicians responsible for current issues, and blaming partisan politics in general for many others.

I've always felt that Glenn Beck does a decent job of educating himself before speaking on a topic, and siting his sources as he expresses his opinions. It lends him a fair amount of credibility in my book.

Lowlights

While Beck had many enlightening things to say, he also couldn't restrain himself from twisting down the path of soapbox ranting. And for the most part, regardless of how he came to his conclusion he usually did not have any sort of solution (other than to Rise Up!) to the perceived problems. There is a word for that, and its called 'complaining'. That was the tone of the entire book, well thought out complaints about this or that, and there is only so long before it becomes tiring.

I also have to mention there was one dark alley he went down that really disturbed me. A few times in the book he basically asserts that if you engage in debate with someone and they refuse to engage back or don't ultimately share your point of view, that proves the validity of your argument.

An example: The position liberals take on global warming is one where they are so convinced that it's real, that they refuse to debate the possibility otherwise. This refusal should be an indicator that there is a major flaw in their thinking, and should strengthen your resolve in the idea that global warming is NOT real. This would be Glenn's perspective. As for my perspective, I think that all of the scientific indications alone are enough to call the debate closed. And siting scientific evidence should not be reason to question the validity of my opinion. Without hard truths (like scientific data), there will be no end to debate.

My fear is that Beck arms people with radical ideas (not a problem) backed up with educated sources (also not an issue, I try to do the same myself), but then combines that with the self-righteous notion that if anyone disagrees with these ideas then they're wrong (big problem). Furthermore, he then motivates to spread the word.

Conclusion

Glenn Beck basically arms people with toxic combination of radical ideas and self-righteousness, and then directs his army to seek and destroy. Reading this book and educating MYSELF as to how these people think is the only weapon that can be used against them, and is the only reason I read this book.

Real Show Character in Loss

Deseret New Article

A good effort from a team put behind the 8-ball a little. Many of the starters had played 120 min on Wed and the roster was thin due to injuries. Add in playing their 4th game in 5 on the road.

Given all that they played well and showed lots of spirit, especially after going down a goal so early. To pull one back and then have some opportunities at the end showed character that wasn't there in the past.

The results aren't reflecting how good this team is. The real test should be next month when they have 4 of 5 at home and should hopefully have Morales back.

PS Nelson Gonzalez is a stud!

Boylen Says U Will Improve

I think Boylen has done a decent job so far in his time here. In my opinion, he's been hit with a perfect storm of bad circumstances this year.

He lost nearly all major contributors from an above average team last year, and the one major holdover had an attitude problem (C.Brown).

Like Majerus, he lost 2 more due to playing time, which as the article states isn't that uncommon.

What really has pushed people over the edge is Henderson leaving, being a bright spot for the future, leaving so quickly, and pushing the total number to 4.

Any of these incidents individually wouldn't be a big deal, but all together and I think it looks worse that it actually is.

My opinion: this program needed to clean house, but Boylen still must prove himself. Circumstances aside, he still had a team that struggled to improve offensively this year. Unfortunately, he's learning on the job, but so did coach Whit and look where football is now. I remember being frustrated with Whittingham early on too, so lets keep the faith that Boylen can turn it around.

Go Utes!

We're We Good Coaches?

Kristi and I were at the NCAA basketball elite eight game last week, watching Butler advance to the Final Four. Kristi was preoccupied by the fact that the Bulter coach looked so young. Not knowing much about him, she assumed he was 'our age', meaning early 30's.

This lead her to ask if I thought our friend Chad was a good coach. This was an obvious comparison, as Chad is also in his early 30's and trying to make it in the world of high school and college coaching. He's hit some rough patches along the way, and is currently in rural Kentucky running the high school varsity team.

The reason she asked me, and the reason I might have some insight to answer was that while he was here in SLC for a few years he and I coached what was essentially a junior varsity recreation team.

My first response to her question was that I didn't know. This is the crux of this whole story. Chad was a disciplinarian, and he had played DIII college ball. I didn't have the experience, but also had a disciplinarian attitude. The problem was that that attitude didn't fly with these kids. We treated them as if they'd just made the varsity squad after rigorous tryouts. The reality was that these kids liked basketball, but there were reasons (skill or attitude) that they didn't make the high school team. We were glorified babysitters.

We tried to break those kids down, drilling them in the finer points of fundamental basketball, thinking they'd soak it all up and allow us to build them back up into solid players.

The answer to the question is now obvious: our approach would probably work at higher levels, but give what we had it was the absolute wrong approach, and we all suffered for it. We as coached got frustrated, I think the kids only really enjoyed the actual games and dreaded practices, and we hardly ever won, if at all.

Chad is proving that it works though, having rebuilt a Wisconsin varsity program before doing the same at his current position. But looking back at it, a much softer hand was required.

Coaching Isn't What It Seems

Quote from an article in today's Salt Lake Tribune, about the highly successful soccer coach at Waterford:

"It's not that he knows more soccer than everyone else, although his soccer knowledge is vast. It's not just in his ability to manage and motivate people, although he's very good at that. He has a clear vision of what we're going after, and he gets everyone on the same page and he teaches them their role".

Pretty clear that paramount to success (in any field i'd argue) is organization. Over what you'd otherwise think is important, in this example the coaching skills of knowledge or managing/motivation.

It goes on:

"For all the on-the-field success that he's enjoyed, however, Capener says he looks back on three primary things: No. 1, he's tried to instill a love of the game in his players because of how much he's loved the game. No. 2, he's tried to instill in his kids the idea that the sum is greater than its parts. No. 3, he's loved the associations he's had with his assistant coaches — Hercules, Tim Dolbin and Scott Stewart — and with his players and with his opponents.

"According to Capener, some of his proudest moments as a coach have come in years when his teams haven't won state titles. But when everything comes together, it's been especially sweet".

If that isn't coaching 101, I don't know what is.

RSL - Thoughts on New Season

The obvious question going into the season is if RSL can take that next step and win on the road.

While there is reason to be hopeful, and people point to the playoff 'wins', I think a lot of it remains to be seen. Some of those wins were actually ties with penalty shootout wins, and the final was the same on a neutral field.

I'm not saying the performances weren't clutch, just that they still have something to prove. I for one think they have a little leeway, what with winning the cup and all :), but I also still have the bad taste of frustrating regular season away performances in my mouth.

It seems that they're taking the right approach though, and it all starts tonight. I'm super excited, and I hope we all get to see them be the team we know they can be.

Go RSL!

To Deron Williams: Keep the beard!

It's at six now, there is no reason to mess with the karma. Plus we all know, beards give you power.