Escape!

I found this game a few years ago when working on an essay about escaping from people and places. It is the first thing that comes up when you search the word "Escape" on Google. I like it because I think it is a good analogy for escape. You are a red square in the center of a black box and you must dodge the blue squares floating around without hitting the edges of the box. There is no exit and no actual way to win the game. Its all about how long you can dodge the blue squares. The blue squares travel in a distinct pattern so as you learn the pattern of the blue squares it becomes easier and easier to dodge them.

In the same way we can't actually escape people or places or our history. We must learn to maneuver around them but there is never a clean escape from anything. Most of us learn that the hard way. I know I did.

Iodized Salt

Check out this NYTimes video on the benefits of funding the incorporation of iodine into the salt of poor countries.

National Day of Listening

So I got so excited about the Husker game yesterday that I forgot that yesterday was the first annual National Day of Listening. So instead, let's make it the National Weekend of Listening. Check out these websites:

Story Corps

Radio Lab

This American Life

or just turn on NPR.

Happy Listening!

A Football Fan Far From Home

One of the things I miss the most during the fall here in New York City is the unavailability of Nebraska Husker football games. I grew up watching the Husker football team play every Saturday, every fall. If the game wasn't on TV, which wasn't very often in the Osborne glory days of my youth, we listened to the game on the radio.

Often, my parents' friends would host a game-viewing party complete with game day snacks and a large freezer full of Busch and Bud Light. When I was really young, I spent most of my time playing with the other kids who had come with their parents. I didn't understand the came and throwing a ball around in the front yard was much more fun than sitting with my parents in front of the TV.

But as I got older, I started to understand the game and enjoy the game. The strategy was fun to watch, each play effecting what play would be called next. College games were more intriguing to me because although the players were much more likely to make mistakes, when they did something extraordinary it was much more rewarding.

I also started to understand and appreciate the culture around watching the college football games. The camaraderie that is found among Husker fans is unlike any other I've encountered. People all over Nebraska watch the football game on Saturdays. They dress in Husker T-shirts and sweatshirts or at least something red and white. (Heaven forbid you where the colors of the opposing team.) There are even corn heads and other crazy items fans find fun.

A game at Memorial Stadium becomes the 3rd largest city in the state. The stadium has sold out 297 consecutive times as of today. After the games, if the Huskers win, Lincoln's downtown bars are flooded with jubilant fans ready to celebrate. if we lose, the bars are full of people looking for consolation.

The moods of Nebraskans during the fall are deeply affected by the record of the team. A win leads to a good week with plenty of hope and optimism. A loss leads to a week of confusion and sadness. Even young children growing up in Nebraska understand what it means when the team loses. Touchdown is one of the first words uttered by most toddlers in the state.

Now that I am in New York City, game viewing is extremely limited. There is a bar in Midtown that plays the games every week but I'm not 21 yet and probably couldn't get in. Even if I was, who would want to go with me to watch the game? My friends here don't understand Husker football. In fact, most of them don't even understand football. NYU doesn't have a football team, we haven't in nearly a century and no way will anyone root for let alone attend a Columbia game.

Sure I can watch NFL games, they come on all the time and plenty of people are interested in how the Giants, the Jets, or the Eagles are doing. But NFL isn't the same for me. College football is something special to me.

So on days like today, when the game is on a network station, I cheer on my Huskers alone, wishing if just for today, I could be back in Nebraska surrounded by my fellow fans.

Happy Turkey Day

Ants and Adam Smith

Apparently, specialization doesn't make ants more productive according to the NYTimes:

My results indicate that at least in this species, a task is not primarily performed by individuals that are especially adapted to it (by whatever mechanism). This result implies that if social insects are collectively successful, this is not obviously for the reason that they employ specialized workers who perform better individually.

The Origin of OK

According to a blog I was reading this morning, the word OK became popularized by President Martin Van Buren who was born in Old Kinderhook, New York. Old Kinderhook became a nickname for him and he incorporated it into his campaign slogan, "Old Kinderhook is OK."

Now its a word used all over the world, in many different languages.

Isn't that fascinating?