3/26/03
Softball: Musings on Who We Are
Dear People,
Congratz to all on last week’s semi-swampy 23-8 descent into sheer aerobic ignominy. As game organizer, I believe I created two teams of virtually identical strength, skill and lurid sensual allure, and yet because my own side was so badly beaten, it is only proper that I be held accountable for my captainship of the pitiful contingent in question. And indeed, I do take full responsibility. Still, I would gently suggest that since every player on my team was out to escape the madness of the current world through valium, quaaludes or rubber cement, we may have somewhat degraded our athletic edge. So, no, I don’t "blame" Peter, Ehud or Michael Tucker, but it certainly wasn’t my fault.
In any case, I happen to have recently come across an article in the journal Science that has left me deeply shaken, and if it’s ok with you, I’d like to share my concerns. According to the Stanford paleoanthropoligist Richard Klien, modern human beings are exclusively descended from our immediate lithe-limbed Cro-Magnon ancestors, and because of this, he claims there is NO genetic linkage between ourselves and the big-boned, heavy-browed fun-lovin Neanderthal peoples that lumbered about from Paris to Delhi in the vital transitional period from 180,000 to 30,000 BC.
Frankly, I grew up always believing that everyone I knew was a rarefied blend of both Cro-Magnon and Neanderthal, and for me, this glorious provenance gave tone and definition to my very identity. To be sure, I remember that when I was seven, a couple school yard bullies approached me and yelled "There’s that Hebrew Weschler kid!," and I calmly retorted "Yeah, I’m a Jew, and an American, but more fundamentally, I’m of Cro-Magnon-Neanderthal origin, and so are you." Oh sure, they beat the living crap out of me that dark Fall afternoon, but the point is that their pugilistic ways could not strip me of the pride I felt in my bifurcated troglodyte heritage. No, my friends, I guess only an academic could try to do that.
The fact is that both Cro-Magnons AND Neanderthals mastered fire, both subsisted on diets that were heavy in meat and cake, and yes, both played a primal form of stickball that involved wooden clubs, "runs," and the sacrifice of virgins and yak. And yet this pointy-headed prof brazenly claims that our roots are only with the more "advanced" Cro-mags, who supposedly were building bone figurines and houses while their "non-related cousins" were dying out as nothing more than a completely separate bunch of cave-dwelling retardos.
Perhaps. But I believe that more thorough research will tell a much different story, and I don’t write this just because, well, just because sometimes when I’m looking at some of you bat, I see the jagged and sublime beauty of your stark, big-boned, heavy-browed fun-lovin Neanderthal features. And therefore, there will be a game at Codornices this Sunday at 11, IF I get enough commits by this Friday morning….Raymond
3/27/03
Softball: More Commits needed….
Dear People,
It is now Friday morning, and amazingly, we are still short of a minimum quorum. This is the first time in almost two years that we find ourselves in this situation, and while I’m obviously not going to grovel, I would gently suggest that this sudden dearth of passion is a pox on our athletic house, and that when you behave this coyly, you let the Axis of Non-aerobic Evil win. Is that what you want? Do you really want a bunch of despicable North Korean couch potatoes to set the kinisiologic agenda? No, I didn’t think so.
Just for the record, I want a game as much as any person on God’s little Earth, but I will not sacrifice organizational integrity in order to get it, and thus if I don’t get at least two more players by early this afternoon, I will forego the field reservation and cancel the game. That’s not a threat, just a fact---admittedly cold and blunt, but perhaps starkly reflective of a world gone wacko.
So stop dicking around and make that commit/Update later today….Raymond
3/27/03
Softball: The Mysteries of Demography
There will be a game at Codornices this Sunday at 11AM, although there are still four slots left and commits are still encouraged. $2 for the field/See ya then….Ray 845-7552
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