NYT article on Philosophy as a Major

The New York Times had an article recently noting that many college students are opting for philosophy as a major: In a New Generation of College Students, Many Opt for the Life Examined. An interesting article... and thanks to my friend Shawn Klein for linking to this and also for giving his views on why students are opting for philosophy in increasing numbers.

The Singing Talents of Beaker

This YouTube video is pretty funny... a better title of it would have been "The Singing Talents of Beaker". It is only hilarious of course if you remember the nature of the character Beaker from the old Muppets Show.

Overrated and Underrated Baseball Players

I recently finished reading The Stark Truth, by Jayson Stark, a columnist and frequent commentator on ESPN. Overall, I found the book a worthwhile read: a great topic, though I do have one major criticism.

I like Mr. Stark when he appears on ESPN. But I do not like his writing style. Or at least, I don't like his style in this book (I'm not familiar with his writing style for the Philadelphia Inquirer). I found myself only being able to read this book in 10-page sections -- that is how annoying I found his approach! Practically every sentence -- certainly every paragraph -- tried to be cute and clever. I literally yelled out a few times "Stop! Just write like a normal, boring person for a few pages, please!" His style is just too over-the-top for me -- frankly, I've never read any other author quite like this.

But his topic certainly was an interesting one: selecting the five most underrated and the five most overrated baseball players at each position, and detailing why in each case. For someone like me, this is great fun.

I generally agreed with many of his selections, though I'm sure if I spent enough time my lists of five would have come out differently in many cases. A few random bits I'll note here, as teaser for any readers who might be inclined to get the book:

• I definitely like the inclusion of Don Drysdale as second on the overrated RHP list after the consensus-#1 selection of Nolan Ryan. I'm actually not as down on Ryan as most other serious baseball fans are, but I agree with Drysdale here. And I like his top three for underrated RHP: Feller, Marichal, and Blyleven.
• I don't know that Frank Tanana deserves to be 4th on the list of overrated LHP (who really thinks of his career that highly?), though I agree that Barry Zito deserves to be 5th given his current fat contract. For most underrated LHP, Babe Ruth is an interesting selection. And I like Warren Spahn, Steve Carlton, and Lefty Grove as next on this list.
• I definitely agree with Lee Smith as top of the most overrated relief pitcher list, and also agree with Goose Gossage as top of the most underrated. Oh, and my personal favorite pitcher as a kid, and the one who I patterned my own pitching style after -- Dan Quisenberry -- makes it as 5th on the most underrated list too.
• My dad would probably be glad to read the section on Yogi Berra as the most underrated catcher of all-time (as he and I used to argue over who was the all-time best at the position, Bench or Berra). And many would agree with including Ted Simmons and Gary Carter somewhere in the top-5 for most underrated too.
• Steve Garvey is the top most-overrated 1B, and I agree he should at least be on the list somewhere. And ditto for Tony Perez who is listed 4th, and for Gil Hodges who is listed 5th (and will likely one day be one of the most marginal Hall-of-Famers ever, joining Perez in that respect). Choosing Hank Greenberg as the most underrated 1B of all time is a fine selection in my opinion.
• I cracked a smile when I saw Steve Sax as the most overrated 2B -- definitely agree there. The most underrated 2B list includes Craig Biggio and Bobby Grich, two good choices. He then lists Rogers Hornsby third, which is very odd since he is generally regarded as the all-time best at the position. Stark's reason is his anger at the Cardinals for not having Hornsby as one of their five nominees for Greatest Cardinal in History -- a mistake with which I agree 100% (Umm... Lou Brock instead of Hornsby? Really?)
• I would have probably listed Pie Traynor as #1 most overrated 3B over Craig Nettles. But for most underrated I gotta agree with Ron Santo: when will he get into the HOF? Eddie Mathews, Darrell Evans, and Ken Boyer are also good choices on this list.
• At SS, clearly Phil Rizzuto had to be on the most overrated list somewhere and being first is fine with me. Stark lists Barry Larkin as the most underrated, and I'll agree with that if Barry should struggle to get into the HOF when his time comes.
• I won't argue with Lou Brock as the most overrated LF of all-time, and I definitely agree that Stan Musial, Tim Raines, Ralph Kiner, and Minnie Minoso are underrated.
• I don't know about listing Andruw Jones as the most overrated CF of all-time -- he is still surprisingly young, so I have a wait-and-see attitude on his career. Hack Wilson though... definitely... he'd be my #1 here. And speedsters Juan Pierre, Mickey Rivers and Omar Moreno are good choices here too. Stark makes a good point about Duke Snider being overshadowed by Mickey and Willie, and I like Jimmy Wynn's inclusion on the all-underrated CF list too. And Tris Speaker too... how often do you think of Tris Speaker when you think of Ty Cobb and Honus Wagner? Not often enough I bet.
• I like listing Darryl Strawberry as an overrated RF, and Chuck Klein too: He had a few huge seasons, but during the everyone-hits-well 1930s and he played in the Baker Bowl and those two factors inflated his numbers. I like listing Frank Robinson as underrated here, because like Speaker in CF, how often do you think of Frank along with Mays, Mantle, and Aaron? And Dwight Evans was a consistently good player, but always overshadowed for me by Jim Rice's more explosive numbers.

A final section is also a lot of fun, as Stark lists his choices for top-3 underrated and top-3 overrated by franchise. This involves some repeats from the lists-by-position, but some additional names are introduced too.

So my writing-style criticism aside, if you are a big baseball fan you will enjoy this book, so check it out at your local bookstore or order it from Amazon!

Should the US Follow Canada's Lead?

I've been meaning to blog about this for a couple of months now, so here goes. Mark Steyn gave lecture at Hillsdale college in September, and the January issue of Imprimis provides an abridged version: Is Canada's Economy a Model for America?

This is a great essay. While admitting that these are differences of degree, Steyn details five important differences between the US and Canadian economic systems, and argues that in each case we should not be eager to move in Canada's direction. To summarize, the Canadian economy is more unionized, protected, subsidized, centrally planned, and heavily taxed. In each of these area Steyn makes great points, and goes on to make some additional great points about the dependence, in many ways, of the Canadian economy on the US economy in many ways. Rather than quote many passages from him here, I'll just encourage you to read Steyn in his own words.

Slacker Radio

My friend Brandon recently recommended Slacker online radio as an alternative to Pandora. I find it a useful service, but I guess for now I still prefer Pandora. With Slacker, the service suggests similar artists based on your seed musicians. There is some good flexibility and options you can set, so I do like the service. But I think Pandora still has the advantage because it recommends and tailors the experience at the song-level, not the musician/group-level. At least, that is the way it seems to me based on my brief testing of Slacker. I'll probably stick with Pandora as my primary online radio service for now -- but I recommend to any readers that you give both a try!

Afghanistan and Market Reef

I doubt those two locations have often been tied together in a blog post or other web page! My friend Don Parrish has recently posted his reports on his trips to Afghanistan and Market Reef. As with all of his trip reports, the writeups and photos are very interesting.