NBA lays down the Twitter law

No using PDAs, cell phones or other electronic devices by players, says the NBA's Twitter rules.

The league has defined "during games" as the period of time beginning 45 minutes before the start of a game and ending "after the postgame locker room is open to the media and coaches and players have first fulfilled their obligation to be available to media attending the game."

"During games" also includes halftime, according to the memo.

Then Milwaukee Bucks player Charlie Villanueva famously tweeted during halftime of an NBA game last year.

What can make toddlers fighting with giant foam fingers even funnier?

Having ESPN boxing analyst Teddy Atlas call the action.

James Mercer (of The Shins) and Danger Mouse forming a band

This is cool news:

To be clear, this is not just a "produced by Danger Mouse" one-off thing. Mercer and the Mouse are apparently in it for the long haul and already have plans extending past their first album. The pair recently collaborated on the Danger Mouse/Sparklehorse album Dark Night of the Soul. Our review hailed the Mercer track, "Insane Lullaby", as "one of the finest moments on the album."

ANd if you want to hear Insane Lullaby, you can listen to it here (just right click and save for the mp3).

Casinos are everywhere

Nate Silver wrote a very interesting piece in Esquire about the explosion of casinos and how states maybe shouldn't count on gaming to help their state budgets. And it got me thinking...

First, there was one thing jumped out at me:

We have now reached the point at which residents of seventeen of the twenty largest metro areas are within a three-hour drive of a blackjack table. And Washington, D. C., will make it eighteen once Delaware permits blackjack, leaving only Dallas and Atlanta. Just about everyone who wants to gamble in the United States is already a morning's drive away from being able to do so; with the possible exception of isolated Texas, states that open new casinos will mostly be stealing customers from one another.

Between those 18 metropolitan areas (once Delaware approves their gambling), there will be 102,470,600 people -- just in the largest metro areas -- within a three hour drive of gambling.

From where I am sitting right now (in the 59th-largest metro area), I can be at one of four casinos that have blackjack within an hour -- Santa Ana Star Casino, San Felipe Casino Hollywood, Sandia Casino and Route 66 Casino. Put it at three hours, there are probably fifteen casinos that I can hit -- maybe more.

According to the American Gaming Association, there are five racinos (race tracks with slot machines) in the state, one of which is within an hour drive (The Downs Race Track and Casino).

The American Gaming Association says there are 21 tribal casinos in New Mexico. This is the seventh most in the country, behind Oklahoma (96), California (66), Minnesota (31) Washington (31), Wisconsin (29) and Arizona (24).

Three other states have more commercial gambling casinos: Nevada (266), Colorado (40), South Dakota (35, in addition to 11 tribal casinos), and Mississippi (29).

Of those states, only South Dakota has a smaller population than New Mexico. According to the 2008 census estimate, New Mexico had 1.98 million people, while South Dakota had 804,000 people. Nevada, in case you were wondering, had 2.6 million people.

So Nevada has one casino for every 9,774 people.

So what does it all mean? Well, mainly that I have too much time on my hands. And that if I had any money, I could gamble pretty easily.

38-Year Old catcher staying in the major leagues -- for health insurance

A sad, sad tale from Sports Illustrated:

Two years ago, just when Fasano was thinking of finally retiring, his wife, Kerri, gave birth to the couple's third child, a boy named Santo. He was born with hypoplastic heart syndrome, a condition in which the left side of the heart is underdeveloped. "It was devastating, of course," Sal says. "Your son is helpless, and there's not that much you can do."

There was one thing Sal could do -- find a way to remain in the major leagues. Although baseball diehards who salivate over the perks of the game tend to speak of cathedral-like stadiums and million-dollar paychecks, of fancy travel and high-profile endorsements and red carpet fame, an element they tend to overlook is the major league health plan. If you are a ballplayer, and you spend so much as a second on a major league roster, you are entitled to a year of coverage that, says one major league executive, "takes care of pretty much everything you can think of."

He didn't make it to the major leagues this year, and with just a handful of games left, it doesn't look like the Colorado Rockies are going to call him up.

Usain Bolt visits ESPN HQ

Usain Bolt goes to Bristol, Connecticut and races ESPN employees. Hint: the world record holder in the 100 meter and 200 meter dash won.

Arena football coming back

From the Associated Press:

Officials from what will be known as Arena Football 1 say they will have 16 teams, including three in markets where the former Arena Football League had clubs: Chicago, Phoenix and Orlando, Fla.

The league will also have teams from the AFL spinoff, arenafootball2, as well as at least one team from another indoor league.

Last year, the Arena Football League folded after a number of issues came together at once to doom the niche league.

Stephen Jackson doesn't regret the Malice in the Palace

Remember the huge fight between the Indiana Pacers and the fans of the Detroit Pistons? Well, Stephen Jackson, one of the main characters in that particular drama, says he has no regrets about going into the stands in that fight.

On Monday, he even went as far as to say he regrets nothing in his career, speaking specifically about going into the stands with then-Indiana teammate Ron Artest during an ugly brawl with the Detroit Pistons in 2004.

In case you need a refresher, here's the video of the fight:

Man convicted of stealing locomotive ordered to stay away from trains

From the Miami Herald:

"He knew the workings of the locks, the switches for different tracks,'' Polo told prosecutors. "He knew the train. To my knowledge he knew the train backward and forward. He knew everything . . . And he loved trains."

Ryan Gustin, a special agent for CSX's security force with a knowledge of trains, was also on hand. When Gustin would describe to the officer how trains operate, documents show, Dowdy would finish his sentences.

The man, Brandon Dowdy, reportedly stole the train to go see a house band (Big Dick and the Extenders, in perhaps the only time that phrase will appear in the Miami Herald) play.

His lawyer says he committed the crime because he was off his medicine for bipolar disorder.

Well thats ONE way to fix a crumbling building...

Cool stuff from Dispatch Work. Though I'm sure it is less about actual construction than art.

High school football team filled with exchange students

This is very interesting; I have tried to explain the rules of football to people who don't understand it. But trying to explain the rules to someone who might not understand you? Wow.

But after that, the Burnt River lineup turns into a trip around the globe — Kan Bakai Uchkun Uulu, left guard from Kyrgyzstan; Szu-Yao Su, quarterback from Taiwan; Jovan Radakovic, left end from Serbia. Not to mention Ju Hyoung Park, right end from South Korea; Cem Erdogdo, right guard from Germany; and Ban Du, center from China.

Six foreign exchange students have turned the Burnt River Bulls into a virtual United Nations in helmets and pads.

The eight-man football team has just eight players (actually nine) and only two who had ever played football before.

Most humane way of execution -- by gun?

From the New Yorker's Henrik Hertzberg:

It’s quick, it’s inexpensive, and it’s not as messy as you might assume. No one knows for sure how it feels, obviously, but I expect that because the bullet instantly destroys the brain stem, the pain, if there is any, is minimal. You’d feel the blow, I imagine, like getting slapped on the back really hard or tackled unexpectedly from behind, but it’d but just wham, lights out. No digging around for veins, no lingering agony.

When telling a friend about this, he suggested just loading people up on morphine until they die.

How the board game Monopoly helped WWII prisoners escape

This is a really cool story:

During World War II, as the number of British airmen held hostage behind enemy lines escalated, the country's secret service enlisted an unlikely partner in the ongoing war effort: The board game Monopoly.

It was the perfect accomplice.

Included in the items the German army allowed humanitarian groups to distribute in care packages to imprisoned soldiers, the game was too innocent to raise suspicion. But it was the ideal size for a top-secret escape kit that could help spring British POWs from German war camps.

University Minnesota cracking down on drunken, rowdy football fans

If you get kicked out of a Minnesota Golden Gophers football game after being drunk and rowdy then you have to pass a breathalyzer test to get into the next game.

But that's not the part I want to concentrate on this story, but rather the... odd phrasing the Associated Press uses.

It is aimed primarily at fans who get blitzed at tailgate parties before entering the Golden Gophers' brand-new TCF Bank Stadium. The sale and possession of alcohol are banned at the 50,000-seat stadium, unlike the team's former home, the Metrodome, which is off campus and not owned by the school.

The slang, "fans who get blitzed" isn't something that you expect to see in an Associated Press story. It seems something more suited for Deadspin than the Associated Press.

Oh, and this quote from a Minnesota fan is hilarious:

Patrick Day, a junior who skipped tailgating at the home opener last Saturday to get in line for a good seat in the unreserved student section, said: "I think if you're terrible and puking, then are you really enjoying the game? I've been puked on before. You know, that's just not necessary."

Terrible? OK. Puking? OK. But terrible AND puking? Not OK.

Also, I've been a a few sporting events and I have never been thrown up on.

Steve Nash Vitamin Water informercial (starring 50 cent and the Slumdog Millionaire guy)

If you haven't seen the other Steve Nash YouTube videos, I recommend looking them up. And if you're wondering why 50 Cent is in this video, read this; 50 Cent made $400 million off selling Vitamin Water to Coca Cola.

And I have to say, while many in the media think that Shaquille O'Neal is the funniest basketball player out there, Nash seems to make the funniest commercials. And, yes, Shaq is an overrated athlete when it comes to comedy.

Kevin VanDam won the BassMasters Angler of the Year!

Who knew this even existed?

Technically, VanDam won the title by virtue of a two-day stringer of 10 bass that totaled 30 pounds, 6 ounces. In the convoluted formula that decided who was the best fisherman of the year in the Toyota Tundra Bassmaster Angler of the Year (AOY) race, however, much depended on what other anglers did to help the Kalamazoo, Mich., angler beat down a strong bid by Skeet Reese.

I have to say, I have no idea how they determine who is the Angler of the Year even after reading the story.

And I tentatively label this as "sports" because I have no idea what other category to put it in.

Tug of War in the Olympics?

Jim Caple imagines while contrasting it to one of the potential new Olympic sports (golf):

Tug of war was an Olympic sport from 1900 to 1920 -- the U.S. swept all three medals in 1904 -- before being dropped for no apparent reason, and certainly no good reason. I mean, really. What would you rather see? Retief Goosen waiting for absolute silence as he leans over his putter? Or eight of our country's finest going against the eight toughest dudes from Iran (or whatever country we decide to hate in 2016), with each side straining every muscle and battling through unimaginable pain as their bodies scream "Stop! Stop! Oh, God, please stop!!!" but refusing to give an inch to those miserable foreign SOBs in order to prove whose country is the baddest-ass in the world?

Vegas clubs getting too wild -- even for Vegas

From the Los Angeles Times:

n July, gaming regulators slapped the Planet Hollywood casino with a $500,000 fine for its Prive nightclub's bad behavior, including "topless and lewd activity" and dumping club-goers in the casino "in various states of consciousness."

The same month, the Rio closed its Sapphire topless pool, managed by a local gentleman's club, after authorities arrested 10 people on suspicion of prostitution and drug crimes. Over Labor Day weekend, eight more arrests on similar charges were made at the Hard Rock Hotel's pool club, Rehab.

It's all part of a crackdown by authorities on what they see as clubs gone wild.

Man throws thousands of golf balls in Joshua Tree National Park

From the LA Times:

"Sometime around 2007, our rangers began discovering large quantities of golf balls in some turnout areas of the park," said park spokesman Joe Zarki. "We were wondering what was going on here. There were also some tennis balls involved."

Rangers also found cans of fruit and vegetables left in the desert along with park literature tossed about.

All in all, between 2,000 and 3,000 golf balls. Plus the other trash.

Apparently, for once, I agree with Jay Mariotti

Michael Jordan's Hall of Fame induction speech has been widely maligned. But, when I was watching it, I felt like Jay Mariotti. And, oh, man, that hurts to admit.

Man catches foul ball; gives to daughter; daughter throws back

Damn.



There goes her share of the inheritance.

Mexican-American astronaut calls for immigration amnesty; NASA freaks out

From the LA Times:

After the shuttle returned to this planet last week, Hernandez told Mexican television that he thought the United States should legalize the millions of undocumented immigrants living there so that they can work openly in the U.S. because they are important to the economy.

Officials at NASA flipped. They hastened to announce that Hernandez was speaking for himself and only for himself.

"It all became a big scandal," Hernandez told television viewers Tuesday. "Even the lawyers were speaking to me."

Paul Shirley: Oasis is better than the Beatles

I'm not sure if this is the crappy journeyman basketball player Paul Shirley being a contrarian, being sarcastic or just being plain dumb.

But he decided to write a column about how today's music is better than the Beatles -- which I guess some tone deaf people would agree with. But then he blasts this nugget:

I'd much rather listen to Oasis than The Beatles. Oasis, or any band that came after The Beatles, learned from The Beatles, improving on their work by listening to, building on and perfecting the styles pioneered by The Beatles. The result: The arrangements used by Oasis are more complex, the sound is denser, the production is better.

Seriously?

Shirley, stick to sitting on the bench and not playing basketball instead of trying to analyze music, OK?

Oh yeah, he also says Dean Koontz is a better author than Bram Stoker.

I'm surprised he didn't say that Kobe Bryant is better than Michael Jordan.

People are suddenly rude! Also, get off my lawn.

Umm... OK. The L.A. Times trying to explain recent outbursts of rudeness (Joe Wilson, Kanye West, Serena Williams, etc.):

Some say it reflects a general collapse of manners, rooted in the anti-authoritarian strains of the late 1960s. Some offer a psychological explanation: that such outbursts reveal the person beneath the mask of a public persona. Some see an element of racial animus at work.

To which I say, Kanye has done this before, how many times did we see John McEnroe go crazy on tennis umpires/judges. And, as for politicians from South Carolina, the New Yorker reminds us:

In May, 1856, Charles Sumner, a Democratic abolitionist senator from Massachusetts, gave a speech in the Senate, denouncing the “crime against Kansas.” The Kansas territory had been created and opened to settlement in 1854, but the question of whether or not slavery would be allowed in the territory had been left up to the inhabitants of the state. “The South,” Donald writes “determined to create a new slave state in Kansas, had banded together ‘murderous robbers from Missouri,’ ‘hirelings, picked from the drunken spew and vomit of an uneasy civilization,’ ” (in Sumner’s words). Sumner’s impassioned rhetoric against this pro-slavery faction enraged Preston Brooks, a Democratic representative from South Carolina. On May 22nd, he stormed into the Senate and beat Sumner with a gold-handled cane, striking half a dozen blows to Sumner’s head, blinding him with blood.

It takes 2,200 words to say that Jay Leno is an unfunny hack

Vanity Fair, trying to make sense of why Jay Leno is so popular, spends 2,200 words writing about the phenomenon when it could be said better in three words:

Lowest common denominator.

Does anyone out there think that Two and a Half Men is the funniest comedy on TV? Hell no, but it gets high ratings. Because it's familiar and unsurprising -- you always have a pretty good sense what is coming next.

Compare it to The Office or 30 Rock, and it's downright boring.

Jay Leno is the Two and a Half Men of late night TV.

Oh and this part is just 100 percent, completely wrong:

Although Leno is called a conformist and a hack and a survivor and all that kind of thing, he certainly positions himself against his network bosses more aggressively than the more rebellious-seeming Letterman or Stewart. Even with his face plastered on every billboard and bus stop in America over the past few months, he has, in press interviews, taken shots at NBC, questioning the network's wisdom for having unceremoniously nudged him, the No. 1 late-night performer, off the Tonight Show stage. Not exactly playing the good soldier, Leno has also said, with a laugh, concerning Conan's less-than-stellar ratings, “Not my problem.”

Yeah, because David Letterman and Jon Stewart never take shots at CBS or Comedy Central.

Get over yourself, Vanity Fair writer.

Even if you hate the Raiders, or the NFL, you gotta like Nnamdi Asomugha

Because of this article from ESPN on the extremely talented, hardworking, humble and just-plain-smart Raiders cornerback:

Of course he's a little peculiar. He's got rapper Ice Cube waiting for an autograph, the Beatles locked into his iPod and Al Davis on the brain. He doesn't even know how to treat himself. Nnamdi Asomugha signs a $45.3 million contract, one that makes him the highest-paid defensive back in NFL history, and as far as anyone can tell, doesn't spend a dime on bling. He still drives an old, pristinely kept 1997 Nissan Maxima. Ain't broke, Asomugha says, don't fix it. Write that down. It might be the only time the Cal-Berkeley grad, who earned his business management degree in four years, uses poor grammar.

Two things:
1) I do hate the Raiders (as a Chiefs fan, it just comes with the territory)
2) No, I can't spell Nnamdi Asomugha's name without Googling it.

Death of a Marine: An AP photographer's journal

No commentary here, just look at the pictures and listen to Julie Jacobson talk about a firefight in Afghanistan that cost the life of one Marine, Lance Cpl. Joshua Bernard.

RIP, Lance Cpl. Bernard.

NYT Mag explores Spike Jonze's "Where the Wild Things Are"

I have a feeling that this is going to be a great movie that is a tremendous flop at the box office.

But this sounds intriguing:

“It’s in the visual language of, like, some sort of fantasy film, and it is a fantasy film to some degree,” [Spike Jonze] acknowledged, “but the tone of it is its own tone. We wanted it all to feel true to a 9-year-old and not have some big movie speech where a 9-year-old is suddenly reciting the wisdom of the sage.” He hadn’t set out to make a children’s movie, he said, so much as to accurately depict childhood. “Everything we did, all the decisions that we made, were to try to capture the feeling of what it is to be 9.”

And just for the hell of it, here's Jonze's video for the song Sabotage by the Beastie Boys, with some bonus footage at the beginning and end:

Somebody call Ron Burgundy! Video of US' first baby panda

Lacrosse brawl!

Lacrosse did something bigger than college football -- a bigger brawl. While the Oregon-Boise State "fight" was only one punch and a player being restrained from pulling a Ron Artest and going into the crowd.

But this lacrosse brawl, which Deadspin says "lasted ten minutes, resulted in 173 penalty minutes, and led to ten players (including both back-up goalies) getting tossed" definitely topped that.

What caught me is that, like hockey, there is a ritualized, traditional way of doing this. Two guys challenge each other, shed pads, gloves and then proceed to grab onto each other's jersey and attempt to punch the other guy in the face as hard as possible.

All while a ref stands there and watches it go down, only intervening when the fight goes to the ground or one player is too badly hurt. It's bizarre -- imagine if you saw this go down in, say, college basketball.

Bicyclists welcome at one Portland fast food chain's drive thru

From the Boston Globe:

A few weeks ago, Sarah Gilbert, a Portland native who is proudly “car-free,’’ pedaled her bicycle to the drive-through at Burgerville, a local fast-food chain. She ordered four cheeseburgers, one each for her husband and three young sons, who were waiting hungrily at home.

But when Gilbert tried to pay for the food, she was denied. This Burgerville drive-through, an employee told her, did not serve bicyclists.

As you can tell from the headline, this one had a happy ending.

The best story you'll read all year

An investigative piece in the New York Times Magazine about Memorial Medical Center and what happened there during Hurricane Katrina. It's 13,000 words long, took over two years to complete and is definitely the best journalistic piece you'll meet all year.

Katrina was the reason that I started doing political blogging (and somehow that turned into blogging about New Mexico politics), so this story is doubly interesting to me.

Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day trailer

Check it out:

Chad Ochocinco quits Twitter

NFL wide receiver Chad Ochocinco (who changed his name from Chad Johnson) says that he is quitting Twitter.

Due to the many rules the NFL has made I've found it difficult to enjoy Twitter and I'll be deleting my account :(

The rules are pretty harsh.

Of course, I don't think he's actually quitting Twitter, I expect to see Ochocinco back on Twitter sooner rather than later.

Steve Nash (@the_real_nash) plays pickup games in China

This is a cool story. From ESPN's Ric Bucher:

Local park custom is that you buy a $3 entry ticket and wait for your number to be called to play, which Nash dutifully did. But the crush to play with and against him was so overwhelming that, through the help of a bilingual Chinese native, Nash organized a knockout 3-on-3 tournament, going undefeated while alternating teammates.

He was dressed in costume for the start of the pick up session, with "a bandanna around his head, wearing a pair of clear goggles, brown cutoffs and knee-high soccer socks." They recognized him anyway.

And there's video (thanks to Google Translate, I figured out how to embed it):

How Darrell Hammond is making money post-SNL

Darrell Hammond is no longer on Saturday Night Live after being the longest tenured SNL cast member ever. So how is he making money now?

Apparently like this:

Oregon football player punches Boise State

Here's the video from ESPN:



And here is the response from the player who threw the blow (then, after hearing something from a Boise State fan, had to be restrained from entering the stands):



Clearly, the Boise State player said something to piss off LeGarette Boule (the Oregon player). But the retaliation for whatever the Boise State player said was far worse -- and now Boule, after the first game of his senior season, will miss a significant portion of his final college season due to suspension.

Kevin Eulls should be your hero today

I just heard about this on SportsCenter.

High school football player Kevin Eulls potentially saved the lives of numerous people on a school bus with his actions when a girl pulled a gun:

Surveillance camera footage on the Yazoo County school bus on Tuesday captured 18-year-old Kaleb Eulls tackling the 14-year-old girl while the children evacuated the bus.

He managed to wrestle the .380 caliber semi-automatic handgun from her, Yazoo County Sheriff Thomas Vaughan told CNN.

So why did I hear about it on SportsCenter? Well, Eulls is "a 6-foot-4, 255-pound high school senior and star quarterback who has verbally committed to play for Mississippi State University after he graduates."

According to SportsCenter, Eulls said he was willing to risk his life to save the lives of any of the other students on the bus -- including his three sisters.

And then, amazingly, they all continued on to school.

Watch it:

What we know about saving the bees

From the New York Times' Room For Debate blog.

Thanks to the terrific gene sleuthing of May Berenbaum and others, it looks like the pieces of the colony collapse disorder puzzle are starting to fit together. And we can stop arguing about who was right: The virus camp, the fungus camp, the pesticide camp, the varroa mite camp, or the nutrition camp. It turns out everybody was right. (Well, everybody except the cell-phone and microwave-tower camps.)

Go read what experts have to say about the mysterious collapse of honeybee colonies.

The craziest sports story of the year gets crazier

This story makes the Rick Pitino story look like nothing.

First, some background.

NBA player Dirk Nowitzki was engaged to a woman, Cristal Taylor, who turned out to have a bit of a rap sheet.

The team sources said Nowitzki's own suspicion led him to question Cristal Taylor's past while allowing her to stay in his house. Her arrest on two warrants, stemming from a probation violation and a theft charge, occurred as the Mavericks flew back from Denver.

It turns out this isn't the first professional athlete that Taylor was involved with. She had also "targeted" former NFL quarterback Tony Banks.

When their brief relationship fizzled, Banks said, Taylor began making harassing phone calls to him, his agent and even his St. Louis Rams head coach, Dick Vermeil.

Alarmed that Taylor was "trying to run my name through the mud," Banks notified team security, which learned Taylor had a criminal history and had used multiple identities.

Then Taylor said that she was pregnant with Nowitzki's baby.

And today's news?

Turns out that Taylor isn't pregnant according to medical records from the prison where Taylor is currently being held.

Crazy story.

Declaring sports fan free agency

I heard about this from another crappy (as usual) column from Rick Reilly.

Bloomberg sports columnist Scott Soshnick declared his sports free agency two years ago. What does that mean?

Here's the how-to guide:

Send the same memo to every team in the four major U.S. sports leagues: The NFL, NBA, Major League Baseball and NHL. In it, declare your free agency as a fan. Tell them you're theirs for the taking. Offer a lifetime of allegiance. Offer your heart. Your soul.

I did just that.

Only nine teams responded. Read the Soshnick column to see which team went above-and-beyond to win his undying sports loyalty.

The way they did it was pretty damned cool.

Redskins don't know how to treat their fans

Via @jeremyjojola:

The Washington Post shows that the Redskins aren't exactly the masters of public relations.

Last year, Hill's real estate sales were hit hard by the housing market crash, and she told the team that she could no longer afford her $5,300-a-year contract for two loge seats behind the end zone. Hill said she asked the Redskins to waive her contract for a year or two.

The sales office declined.

On Oct. 8, the Redskins sued Hill in Prince George's County Circuit Court for backing out of a 10-year ticket-renewal agreement after the first year. The team sought payment for every season through 2017, plus interest, attorneys' fees and court costs.

Hill couldn't afford a lawyer. She did not fight the lawsuit or even respond to it because, she said, she believes that the Bible says that it is morally wrong not to pay your debts. The team won a default judgment of $66,364.

Bankruptcy by Redskins.

Making Roger Federer look even more robotic

From the New York Times, a video of his footwork and how it helps him be so damned good at tennis.

It features some CGI versions of Federer.

Things I've learned today

1) Everyone uses GMail and when GMail goes down, they go to Twitter to complain.

2) Muhammad Ali had Irish ancestors.

About Cameron Todd Willingham, convicted of killing his children

The New Yorker always has excellent articles. And this article about Cameron Todd Willingham is no exception. The nearly 16,000 word article lays out the facts of the case.

I can't excerpt a certain piece and make it representative of the article, but it is definitely worth reading.