Time and Potatoes

When I was around 12 or 13 years old, I had a potato clock. It was a sturdy little thing, with a stand made of smoky-clear plastic featuring two holders just the right size to hold a pair of soda cans. It had a decent gauge wire firmly joined to zinc and copper electrodes, with a small digital LCD that could be fixed to the stand. I had that clock for quite a few years, and to this day I remain fascinated by natural electrochemical processes. I mean, a clock powered by a spud? How cool is that?

It so happens that a potato clock from Hobby Lobby found its way into the pile of Christmas presents this year. It was meant for the boys as an educational project, but who are we kidding here? It was really just a toy for me. But like so many toys these days, the quality of the product leaves MUCH to be desired.

First, let me show you the holders, these fine receptacles intended to hold our electrolytic spuds:

Nice, huh? And they might even work, if you used baby potatoes. But they are not, shall we say, ideal for your normal sized spud:

And then there's the wire. The product came packaged with the most brittle, flimsiest gauge wire they could find. The instructions tell you to tie the wire to the zinc and copper strips and tape them. Tape? Ugh. The wires then run into a cheap plastic box holding the LCD display and control board. As luck would have it, the solder joints where the wires connect to the control board aren't sound. It took me half an hour to get the display working, and still, if you touch it just so, the clock resets to 12:00. I lost my lab-grade soldering iron in the tornado, otherwise I would have ripped that thing open and rebuilt it with a better grade wire and better joints at all the tap points. I may yet do it (sounds like good justification to replace a tool to me). I've suddenly got the itch to tinker again. Which reminds me, I've got a old, busted up lamp made out of a slice of tree to fix too.

Anyway, quality aside, the clock works (more or less). The moral of the story? Always have red solo cups handy, and never lose the joy of taking things apart - because these days, you may very well have to take things apart to make the blasted stuff work. Most fun I've had in months!

Patented Rick Sutcliffe Pick-Off Move Now a Balk

Man, I wish I could find a video clip of the world famous Rick Sutcliffe trick pick-off move. Alas, I cannot, although if one appears online in the next several days, I'll update this post. In case you haven't yet heard the news, MLB has made a rules change:

NEW YORK (AP) -- One of the oldest trick plays in baseball is now a balk.

Under a rule change imposed by Major League Baseball, pitchers will no longer be allowed to fake a pickoff to third base and throw to first as a way to dupe a runner on first base into breaking for second. Next season, that move would be a balk. Pitchers can still step off the rubber and fake to third.

Back when Rick Sutcliffe pitched for the Cubs, every now and then he'd try to execute this fake to third, throw to first pick-off move. It was the most painful and silly thing to watch, and all Cubdom would collectively groan every time he tried it. I honestly don't think it EVER worked for Sut, but whenever he'd get runners on the corners, you knew it was coming.

It may be a silly rule change, but it is a sillier move. Calling it a balk now once and for all brings an end to such tomfoolery. Just play the game, boys.

Here's a little more on the story.

Benghazi Bluster

It has been a busy week, so I did not follow the Senate hearings on the Benghazi fiasco featuring Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Probably just as well, as watching it would have undoubtedly brought my blood to a boil once again at the systemic failures up and down the chain that led unnecessarily to the deaths of 4 Americans, including a U.S. Ambassador.

But I did read a little, and one thing that seems to be clear based on some of the reporting and commentary I've seen is that a major whitewash is underway. When the story is more about how a feisty Clinton braved a hearing in front of grandstanding politicians after suffering from serious health issues, than a detailed inquiry into the events and decisions leading up to that fateful night on September 11, 2012, you know we've gone off the rails of any meaningful discovery of the truth. After Clinton testifies before the House committee, I suspect Benghazi may well disappear from the headlines for good.

What a strange phenomenon this is, to realize that when a figure in the public eye proclaims to the camera "I take responsibility," they are in fact doing just the opposite. Somehow, we have allowed the utterance of culpability to become an absolution of accountability. It takes far less courage to say "I am responsible" than it does to do the hard and painful work that makes it true.

Accountability, insofar as it can be considered a virtue, is in danger of becoming an anachronism in the public consciousness.

As citizens, more and more we are allowing this to go on, and therefore illustrate our own culpability in this erosion of virtue. Whose responsibility is it, really? Who among us genuinely takes ownership?

In Search of A Disciplined Mind

In years past, even on these pages, I have often foolishly proclaimed myself a thinker. Or, if not a thinker, one who tends to think he thinks. Lately, I have come to realize that such a boast was and is likely without merit. I marvel at those who can create deep and authoritative works, essays that while academic, reach beyond logic and philosophy to touch (or if not touch, reach toward) the truth of a thing.

In reality, I am having to come to terms with the undisciplined nature of my mind. Sure, as an engineer, I can focus on the task at hand and work to define, describe and implement a solution. But what joy may have been present in such has since become muted. I have long struggled with the dichotomy of my engineer's training and my need for creative expression through the written word. Others might not see the dichotomy, but as they represent two very different parts of me, I experience the tension nonetheless. Like the pursuit of a gift that can never be truly yours, I long for an excellence that cannot be achieved with second-rate skills. Once, it seems, I was able to compose my thoughts, make an argument, express a revelation in a manner that was fresh and relevant. These days, I can't seem to find that handle.

In part, it may be due to overindulgence in two-dimensional stimuli. By this, I mean the virtual world, rather than the three-dimensional interaction and engagement with real people in real deliberation and discussion. The internet is a bountiful resource of information, and I'm always reading, jumping from site to site, page to page, taking in much but pondering very little. I thirst for knowledge and comprehension, but seeking such sustenance only from what comes through this electronic wonder is a little like taking in salt water.

When I detach from such stimuli, I often find my mind to be a disordered mess. It takes discipline to sit and think, requiring more mental energy than I'm often willing to commit. Sometimes, I just sit without thinking. Only when I've been detached for a while does the equilibrium reset itself, setting the conditions for a more productive reflection. Yet even then, my hand might reach for the TV remote of its own volition.

Is it a thirst for knowledge and comprehension, or a thirst for stimulation? A universe of information may be at our fingertips, but knowing that a possible by-product is the erosion of mental discipline, maybe we would do well to view with caution the method of transference.

Or perhaps, I'm simply making excuses for my own mental laziness. In fact, that is my fear. Because in re-reading the paragraphs above, I have given witness to the undisciplined nature of my thoughts, which bear the fruit of an unproductive reflection.

In the end, I know little, and comprehend even less. That is no fault but my own, a failure to more often exercise the discipline required to sit and create the conditions for productive, reflective and creative thought.

What a mess, eh?

Eclipse

As I sit here in my makeshift "home office" (otherwise known as my kitchen table), my mind is wandering a bit as a typically peculiar North Alabama snow falls outside the window. Peculiar, because with any southern snow, it may dust or dump depending on which side of the street you find yourself. After seven straight days of rain, and now snow, there is a promise of sun tomorrow. It's been a long time since we've seen the sun. We can be forgiven here, for wondering if we'll ever see the sun again.

The sun again. Just like that, three little words call to mind a song that does not seem to fit the moment, and yet it does.


'Serenity’s a long time comin’ to me ….'

I really need to get back to work.

Shutout at the Baseball HOF

A few days ago, that journalistic society known as the Baseball Writers Association of America cast their ballots for the 2013 class of Baseball's Hall of Fame. As you may well know by now, not a single candidate secured the necessary 75% approval to gain entry to that illustrious institution.

This year's ballot includes some notable (and notorious) names, players who if not for the ill-fated decision to experiment with performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs), or players who fell under suspicion of doing so, would have likely taken their place in that hallowed Hall. Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens highlight this list, of course. Sammy Sosa, unlikely to make the Hall on his first ballot even if clean, barely registered 12%. I used to think Sosa was a sure thing, especially after that magical 1998 battle with Mark McGwire. But after seeing pictures of shrunken Sammy after testing went into full force, I'm convinced that his success was largely artificial. I still remember his years with the Cubs fondly, aside from his acrimonious exit. As a fan, I was never fond of Bonds or Clemens, but it could easily be argued that they were great without PEDs, yet chose to tarnish their reputations and the record books with their discretions.

Next year should be better, of course, with Greg Maddux, Auburn and White Sox great Frank Thomas, and Tom Glavine likely to make it on their first ballot (it might take Thomas two, but he won't have a long wait).

The great debate, of course, is what to do with the PED class of players. The purist position is that cheaters should never get in. The other side of the argument points out the varied and subjective standards being applied to different players across different eras, by voters who write articles for a living. No one can measure a direct, predictable causal relationship between PEDs and stats, yet there appears nevertheless to be some level of correlation. What is clear, for now at least, that those who used, or are strongly suspected of using, are marked with a scarlet letter and are likely to be blackballed indefinitely. The result is that a generation of players (a generation measuring a decade or two in this case), players that energized the sport to so many of us, will forever be left out in the cold. Yes, there are many baseball heroes who do not grace the Hall. But to be kept out because they weren't quite good enough, versus being kept out because of a deliberate attempt to gain an unfair advantage, makes the story more complicated. And it makes me wonder, what is really best for baseball?

My instinct is to take the purist position, in which only those players who excelled in the game (by evidence of stats), played by the rules (no cheating), and otherwise earned a significant consensus of acclaim deserve to be in the Hall.

Yet I cannot help but wonder if this approach is really good for the game, and the Hall. There is something almost McCarthyite about the way some in sports media are acting about this. Is this really about "protecting" the Hall from the scourge of PED users, or it is about applying some moral or character standard to those who would aspire to enshrined greatness?

The Hall ostensibly celebrates the game, and the men who played it well. But baseball is a game that attracts the gentleman and the cad alike, both competitors seeking to master a game like no other. Yes, I think the Hall is rarified air, and should be reserved for only the best of the best. But adding a sort of morality clause to the game's list of unwritten rules to use as a bar for Hall induction takes away an important facet of the game and its history. The game is played by men, men with faults. Their crimes aren't as much against baseball, as against its fans. You can't hurt "baseball." You may tarnish the league and its reputation in the eyes of its fans, but those who love the game will love the game nonetheless. Work stoppages and players strikes do far more damage to "the game" than a few players who colored outside the lines of fairness in an effort to inflate their stats and contracts. (And for the likes of Pete Rose? You cannot tell me that on the basis of his playing career, he's not a Hall of Famer. He is, and he should be. True, if he ever gets in, it will be likely be posthumously. But I digress.) Maybe the Hall should just celebrate the game, and not try to gloss over its warts by selectively omitting a certain, selective group of its sinners. And yet, voters should nevertheless make sure a career - even a tainted one, is worthy of inclusion. How hard it must be to be subjectively objective!

So, what do you do with the PED class? Asterisks? Exclusion? Scarlet Letter? I don't know. Greats are greats, be they cad or gentleman. Maybe the game, and the Hall, should have room for both. Somehow.

New Year, New Course?

I'm getting off to a slow start again this year. Heading into my fourth full year of blogging (Lord willing), I find myself doing more than my usual amount of self-indulgent navel-gazing. It is a new year, and I'm still laboring under the presumption that this chronicle should be unto something.

A question has been haunting me these last few days, an unspoken query that I finally put into words just yesterday:

How can a man write when most of what he sees and knows in life is through what others have written?

Too many of my posts are born of someone else's idea, something else's effort. I read something online, feel compelled to comment, and there it is. What I contribute in those instances is nothing new and arguably meaningless - a chasing after the wind. What fruit will it bear to write about the same things you can read for yourself or watch on the news? It becomes a crutch, and stiffles what creativity there may be. For while it is not in me to write the songs that make the whole world sing (or the songs of love and special things), I still want my writing to amount to something.

In any case, I'll continue to write, because I must. But allow me to apologize in advance for whatever may come of it. I may have to engage in somewhat more lateral thinking in order to break free of this non-creative rut that has marked my writing of late.

A mentor of mine once suggested that it is possible to act yourself into a new way of thinking, and to think yourself into a new way of acting. Perhaps. I wonder if it might work with writing.

We'll find out, or we won't.