I told you kids that if there were any shenanigans, then this blog would go 100% kittens. Well, after some disturbing language from CL in the comments, here is your helping of friendly kittens for today. Or not. There might be more. I mean, do you realise how many songs there are about cats? Crazy. People love a little pussy.
Go figure.
Wednesday, November 17, 2010
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
The Eiger
In 1936 4 climbers made the second attempt on the infamous north face of the Eiger. This at once heroic and tragic attempt on this dark and forbidding face, is written bold into the books of climbing history.
If you aren't into reading about wool and failure, two great movies, one fictional and one almost not, will slake your thirst for climbing drama.
From Wikipedia...
"2007 docu/drama film The Beckoning Silence features mountaineer Joe Simpson, of Touching the Void fame, recounting – with filmed reconstructions – the ill-fated 1936 expedition up the north face of the Eiger and how it inspired him to take up climbing. The film followed Simpson's 2003 book of the same name, which covered the same subject among musings on broader mountaineering topics. Those playing the parts of the original climbing team were Swiss mountain guides – Roger Schäli (Toni Kurz), Simon Anthamatten (Andreas Hinterstoisser), Dres Abegglen (Willy Angerer) and Cyrille Berthod (Edi Rainer).
Nordwand, a 2008 German/Swiss/Austrian feature film directed by Philipp Stölzl, recreates the fatal 1936 attempt by Hinterstoisser's party. It includes a fictional love story that is integral to portraying the agonizingly slow deaths many Eiger victims have suffered"
Nordwand is available on Netflix (free for 30 days) and in it you will see some great exposure and some great climbing scenes. The story is tweaked for drama, but the essential truth is there in glorious HD.
For my new derby friends, here is Catherine Destivelle, the first woman to solo the north face of the Eiger. Truly elite.
Kittens and Chocolate
I thought maybe I would let the blog cool off for a few hours while I gin some other false outrage over nothing at all. So many people to upset, so little time.
In interim, I offer you soothing pictures of kittens and delicious chocolate. I will say "There there, the bad man is all gone now" several times an hour until everybody feels better and all cozy.
Kitten.
Chocolate.
Chocolate Kitten.
Chocolate.
Chocolate Kitten.
Where I Prove, Once and For All, That I Don't Get It
Here are my final thoughts on this derby debacle.
Vanessa stated that derby deserves to be covered. She also stated in Facebook post, that derby should "take precedence" over other local sports when it comes to coverage in the London Free Press. It was good of her to try and walk it back that bit about "subjective points of view" and I guess I will to accept her awkwardly phrased mea culpa. But there are a couple of points in her post I want to address.
"I thought the people who got to university on sports scholarships were undeserving, especially as a A-grade poor kid who was lucky to get a $1500 bursary."
There were no athletic scholarships given out at Canadian universities when you were in high school. A small point to be sure, but you were more fortunate than the student athletes because you did receive money.
"Do 1,000 people show up for highschool basketball games? I’m not talking regionals here, just any old game. I don’t think so."
On a given week, there are around 20 basketball games during the fall season. There are weekly football games, boys volleyball, cross-country, and tennis. They are all drawing from the same fan base of parents and students. During the winter there are more boys basketball games weekly, girls volleyball, track, badminton, and hockey. Do the boys and girls draw 1000 people a week? Sure, but it is spread over 15-20 games. Do you think derby would draw 1000 people if it was on every week, or twice a week? Or three times? No. Way. In. Hell. You have to compare it to other unique events like the city finals, the Red Feather game, or provincial championships. The infrequency keeps the appetite up. And if numbers are what denotes quality, then McDonald's is the best restaurant in the city.
"One of Dandy’s points, again and again, is that the skill level of local roller derby is low. He’s just wrong. I would contend that he doesn’t know enough about derby to make that judgment in the first place, and that when our local team is kicking the butts of WFTDA apprentice leagues, they’re above average."
Ah yes, the "you don't get it" argument. Rich coming from someone who critiques art and literature on her podcast. How do you know that movie is good? How dare you insult everyone in the comics industry by trashing that issue? You make puppies cry when you slag a Dr. Who episode. You just don't get it.
Or do you? Have you put years of thought into this? Have you played at a high level in a variety of sports? Have you trained with and coached truly elite athletes? Have you spent years working as a coach, noticing motor patterns, taking them apart, and helping people put them back together properly? What do you Vanessa, know about elite sports? If I don't get it, then you don't get to critique writing. Ok?
"Maybe I just was born with a distaste for highschool sports."
And that's really the meat of the argument, isn't it?
I'm going to say this for the last time. Critique of the execution of a sport is not a critique of the sport, nor its participants. I don't care how hard you train, how much you travel, or how many people show up at your games. All competitive athletes do this, usually with far fewer fans and with no news coverage at all. It is disingenuous to compare the skill level of people playing a nascent sport like derby to ones that have enormous talent pools, advanced coaching, and years and years of history. Go back and watch the first couple of UFCs. Terrible. Really terrible. They have come so incredibly far in the last 17 years. But we don't pretend that the early stuff was good.
Vanessa stated that derby deserves to be covered. She also stated in Facebook post, that derby should "take precedence" over other local sports when it comes to coverage in the London Free Press. It was good of her to try and walk it back that bit about "subjective points of view" and I guess I will to accept her awkwardly phrased mea culpa. But there are a couple of points in her post I want to address.
"I thought the people who got to university on sports scholarships were undeserving, especially as a A-grade poor kid who was lucky to get a $1500 bursary."
There were no athletic scholarships given out at Canadian universities when you were in high school. A small point to be sure, but you were more fortunate than the student athletes because you did receive money.
"Do 1,000 people show up for highschool basketball games? I’m not talking regionals here, just any old game. I don’t think so."
On a given week, there are around 20 basketball games during the fall season. There are weekly football games, boys volleyball, cross-country, and tennis. They are all drawing from the same fan base of parents and students. During the winter there are more boys basketball games weekly, girls volleyball, track, badminton, and hockey. Do the boys and girls draw 1000 people a week? Sure, but it is spread over 15-20 games. Do you think derby would draw 1000 people if it was on every week, or twice a week? Or three times? No. Way. In. Hell. You have to compare it to other unique events like the city finals, the Red Feather game, or provincial championships. The infrequency keeps the appetite up. And if numbers are what denotes quality, then McDonald's is the best restaurant in the city.
"One of Dandy’s points, again and again, is that the skill level of local roller derby is low. He’s just wrong. I would contend that he doesn’t know enough about derby to make that judgment in the first place, and that when our local team is kicking the butts of WFTDA apprentice leagues, they’re above average."
Ah yes, the "you don't get it" argument. Rich coming from someone who critiques art and literature on her podcast. How do you know that movie is good? How dare you insult everyone in the comics industry by trashing that issue? You make puppies cry when you slag a Dr. Who episode. You just don't get it.
Or do you? Have you put years of thought into this? Have you played at a high level in a variety of sports? Have you trained with and coached truly elite athletes? Have you spent years working as a coach, noticing motor patterns, taking them apart, and helping people put them back together properly? What do you Vanessa, know about elite sports? If I don't get it, then you don't get to critique writing. Ok?
"Maybe I just was born with a distaste for highschool sports."
And that's really the meat of the argument, isn't it?
I'm going to say this for the last time. Critique of the execution of a sport is not a critique of the sport, nor its participants. I don't care how hard you train, how much you travel, or how many people show up at your games. All competitive athletes do this, usually with far fewer fans and with no news coverage at all. It is disingenuous to compare the skill level of people playing a nascent sport like derby to ones that have enormous talent pools, advanced coaching, and years and years of history. Go back and watch the first couple of UFCs. Terrible. Really terrible. They have come so incredibly far in the last 17 years. But we don't pretend that the early stuff was good.
Monday, November 15, 2010
Is Derby Deserving--A Rebuttal
Vanessa Vansterdamn Winters was kind enough to pen a rebuttal to my blog post about her letter to editor.
It was me. I wrote the letter to the Free Press that started the debate. It was a moment of clarity, when 50 magic words come to mind to make your point clearly and concisely. Now I’ll unpack my thoughts a bit for you.
I attended the November 6 Roller Derby bout at the Western Fairgrounds, and so did nearly 1000 other people. It was packed. The game was full of action, and our local team showed skill, charisma and undaunted endurance during their hour of play – for those of you who don’t know, derby bouts are usually two 30 minutes halves. At halftime, the score was an unbelievable 148 to 8, and they relentlessly played their way to a final score of 268 to 18. The Mid Michigan Derby Girls, a WFTDA apprentice team (WFTDA is the governing body of women’s flat-track roller derby), got their butts kicked, and it all happened in London, Ontario.
The bone of contention is that I called highschool basketball “neat” and basically said that roller derby is more important and newsworthy than highschool basketball. Both sides of this debate are subjective points of view. I don’t think there really is a truth to be found. After all, it has to be said that journalists look for good stories first and foremost. We also have to take into account the level of journalism we can expect from the London Free Press. Ahem. Was that a tactful way to put it?
Roller derby is the first sport I’ve ever truly loved. I love playing it, despite my questionable ability to do so. I love watching it on Derby News Network online (DNN) and I love the culture of female empowerment that comes with it. I love seeing women come together with nothing but a flat open space and often mish-mashed equipment, and a printed off rules set, to train themselves to become experts at a sport that is harder than it looks. The story, from a journalistic standpoint, is inherently there. I can’t think of a derby league or team that starts out as anything more than a group of underdogs. Plus, they are women, and women in sport is always a fascinating place to start.
The other thing is that I hated highschool sports. I hated all the smug assholes who played them. I thought the people who got to university on sports scholarships were undeserving, especially as a A-grade poor kid who was lucky to get a $1500 bursary. The only sports events I attended during high school were the ones that got me out of class, and even then I tried my best to duck out and head to my favourite downtown coffee shop.
I can appreciate true athleticism. If you’re in the NBA or something, sure, that’s admirable. You worked hard, you deserve the glory. In hindsight, I probably should have been more respectful of the work it took to be highschool athlete, but I can’t escape, even to this day, even with a better appreciation of how much work it is to train and succeed, the cliché and trope of the washed up highschool baseball player whose glory days ended after graduation.
This is all subjective. But here are some pointers for people who might decide that good old Jim Dandy has one up on me:
Do 1,000 people show up for highschool basketball games? I’m not talking regionals here, just any old game. I don’t think so.
One of Dandy’s points, again and again, is that the skill level of local roller derby is low. He’s just wrong. I would contend that he doesn’t know enough about derby to make that judgment in the first place, and that when our local team is kicking the butts of WFTDA apprentice leagues, they’re above average.
There are no overweight and slow athletes on the Thames Fatales. To be brutally honest, that was one of the reasons I co-founded LOCO Roller Derby, a recreational derby organization that fosters the sport in women of all skill levels without as much risk of injury (http://www.facebook.com/l/8cf5cYNR7MoHv6_MerSVeC2YCyA;www.locorollerderby.com). We take all the retired, fat, slow derby girls (including myself, by the way) and skate Friday nights for fun. Some of us are better than others, but we don’t pretend to be elite athletes. The reason I don’t skate with the Fatales anymore is because, while they are welcoming to beginners and are willing to train anyone, I really had no hope of achieving their skill level. My personal experience, and the resulting time and energy I invested in starting an alternate league, shoots down your point about athletic level in local derby. In fact: the existence of LOCO Roller Derby proves that FCDG and the Thames Fatales are an elite athletic group.
Derby is no longer come one, come all. Yes, it is inclusive, but people who lack skill and commitment are naturally weeded out. You have to be able to practice at least twice a week – and from my experience, that’s not enough for most. You have to live and breathe derby. These women skate every day. They work out at the gym. They go on bus trips and practice with other teams and attend training schools and retreats. Some of these retreats, like Rollercon in Nevada, attract thousands of participants.
They work just as hard as those douche Knights that went to my best friend’s highschool ever did. And they treat women better.
Maybe I just was born with a distaste for highschool sports. In the end, I think that Jim Dandy and I can agree on one point – derby deserves to be in the paper as much as anything else. It’s really up to the reporters. I was trying to raise awareness, and I did so at the expense of highschool sports, and that’s really because I was a geek in highschool.
So all the geeks can come over to my side of the room…
It was me. I wrote the letter to the Free Press that started the debate. It was a moment of clarity, when 50 magic words come to mind to make your point clearly and concisely. Now I’ll unpack my thoughts a bit for you.
I attended the November 6 Roller Derby bout at the Western Fairgrounds, and so did nearly 1000 other people. It was packed. The game was full of action, and our local team showed skill, charisma and undaunted endurance during their hour of play – for those of you who don’t know, derby bouts are usually two 30 minutes halves. At halftime, the score was an unbelievable 148 to 8, and they relentlessly played their way to a final score of 268 to 18. The Mid Michigan Derby Girls, a WFTDA apprentice team (WFTDA is the governing body of women’s flat-track roller derby), got their butts kicked, and it all happened in London, Ontario.
The bone of contention is that I called highschool basketball “neat” and basically said that roller derby is more important and newsworthy than highschool basketball. Both sides of this debate are subjective points of view. I don’t think there really is a truth to be found. After all, it has to be said that journalists look for good stories first and foremost. We also have to take into account the level of journalism we can expect from the London Free Press. Ahem. Was that a tactful way to put it?
Roller derby is the first sport I’ve ever truly loved. I love playing it, despite my questionable ability to do so. I love watching it on Derby News Network online (DNN) and I love the culture of female empowerment that comes with it. I love seeing women come together with nothing but a flat open space and often mish-mashed equipment, and a printed off rules set, to train themselves to become experts at a sport that is harder than it looks. The story, from a journalistic standpoint, is inherently there. I can’t think of a derby league or team that starts out as anything more than a group of underdogs. Plus, they are women, and women in sport is always a fascinating place to start.
The other thing is that I hated highschool sports. I hated all the smug assholes who played them. I thought the people who got to university on sports scholarships were undeserving, especially as a A-grade poor kid who was lucky to get a $1500 bursary. The only sports events I attended during high school were the ones that got me out of class, and even then I tried my best to duck out and head to my favourite downtown coffee shop.
I can appreciate true athleticism. If you’re in the NBA or something, sure, that’s admirable. You worked hard, you deserve the glory. In hindsight, I probably should have been more respectful of the work it took to be highschool athlete, but I can’t escape, even to this day, even with a better appreciation of how much work it is to train and succeed, the cliché and trope of the washed up highschool baseball player whose glory days ended after graduation.
This is all subjective. But here are some pointers for people who might decide that good old Jim Dandy has one up on me:
Do 1,000 people show up for highschool basketball games? I’m not talking regionals here, just any old game. I don’t think so.
One of Dandy’s points, again and again, is that the skill level of local roller derby is low. He’s just wrong. I would contend that he doesn’t know enough about derby to make that judgment in the first place, and that when our local team is kicking the butts of WFTDA apprentice leagues, they’re above average.
There are no overweight and slow athletes on the Thames Fatales. To be brutally honest, that was one of the reasons I co-founded LOCO Roller Derby, a recreational derby organization that fosters the sport in women of all skill levels without as much risk of injury (http://www.facebook.com/l/8cf5cYNR7MoHv6_MerSVeC2YCyA;www.locorollerderby.com). We take all the retired, fat, slow derby girls (including myself, by the way) and skate Friday nights for fun. Some of us are better than others, but we don’t pretend to be elite athletes. The reason I don’t skate with the Fatales anymore is because, while they are welcoming to beginners and are willing to train anyone, I really had no hope of achieving their skill level. My personal experience, and the resulting time and energy I invested in starting an alternate league, shoots down your point about athletic level in local derby. In fact: the existence of LOCO Roller Derby proves that FCDG and the Thames Fatales are an elite athletic group.
Derby is no longer come one, come all. Yes, it is inclusive, but people who lack skill and commitment are naturally weeded out. You have to be able to practice at least twice a week – and from my experience, that’s not enough for most. You have to live and breathe derby. These women skate every day. They work out at the gym. They go on bus trips and practice with other teams and attend training schools and retreats. Some of these retreats, like Rollercon in Nevada, attract thousands of participants.
They work just as hard as those douche Knights that went to my best friend’s highschool ever did. And they treat women better.
Maybe I just was born with a distaste for highschool sports. In the end, I think that Jim Dandy and I can agree on one point – derby deserves to be in the paper as much as anything else. It’s really up to the reporters. I was trying to raise awareness, and I did so at the expense of highschool sports, and that’s really because I was a geek in highschool.
So all the geeks can come over to my side of the room…
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