How Bad do the Blazers Stink?

Bad. Very, very bad. Unlike my dad, I'm hopeful about their future. But for now, we can all agree that they are very bad.

The (Trail)Blazers are my hometown NBA team, to which I have been loyal my entire conscious sport-fan life. Usually, questions about how bad they are (questions I never even had to ask until just a few years ago) are settled by sophisticated analysis and debate, ideally over sticky barroom tables at Portland's finest microbreweries. But over here in New Zealand, we have another way to answer that question: quantitatively.

Here in NZ, sports gambling is legal. The TAB, as it's known, has the Blazers as longest shot in the NBA to win the title. Now, we all know that they're not going to win the title, but it's a rough awakening to find that they're the worst bet in the NBA.

How long of a shot are they? Well, if you've got the stones, they're in the cellar with Atlanta and Charlotte at a whopping $750-to-1 payout. Charlotte and Atlanta. There's a grouping I never thought my team would be a part of.

Say that you're more of a conservative type. You could put down $1 on them just winning the Western Conference, and you'd get $300 in return. But, alas, that's the cellar in the West too. The next worst bet? The New Orleans Hornets, at $200-to-1. That's just sad: you're taking 50% longer shot to bet on the Blazers than the freaking Hornets.

Just a reminder...

...to add yourself to the Frappr Map. It's easy. And you don't have to put your last name (I didn't!) or a picture or a message. First name and location will do.

Updates on a couple of things

A couple of updates...

1) Recall that in Rotorua, Julie and I went to the Tamaki Maori Village. It was an enlightening cultural experience, though, compared with the other one I went to (and just by its own lights), it seemed a little...hard to find the right word...forced. It's not that it's exploitative, at least not in any obvious sense, but turning ordinary culture into a show always sets off the warning alarm. Anyway, despite that, the culture is unquestionably something to be taken very seriously. And I suppose that for non-Kiwis it might be easy to think that it is a window onto a past culture or something. But it's not. It's a very live culture.

On that front, last night I saw a news story about the Tamaki Maori Village. It turns out that last year, a Dutch tourist smiled at one of the performers during the welcome ceremony. That (as they instructed us before it began) is considered not only very rude, but actually hostile. The point of the welcome ceremony is, in part, to assess the visitors' hostility, and smiling is considered disrespectful. As a result, the performer in question (who has since been fired, but who avoided serious criminal penalty, given the need to respect Maori cultural norms), headbutted the tourist, breaking his nose and giving him two black eyes.

Just in case you thought it was gimmicky or something.

2) On the topic of serious stuff, one thing I didn't mention about the Tongariro Crossing (see Part I, Part II, and Part III) was the temperature variation. It started out as a very hot hike, and we had the sweat to prove it. By the time we reached the peak, however, it was freezing. In fact, by the end of lunch at the Emerald Lakes (part III), we were a bit worried that Julie's body temp was dropping too fast, so we quickly got back on the trail. Bringing a serious amount of layers is a must.

A related sad story I just heard about was that during the same week that we were on the Crossing, a man died up there. There are a lot of ways to die there--it's got a lot of steep dropoffs and sharp rocks. But this guy died from simple exposure. It can be very cold up there.

Cartoblography

Okay, you know where I am. (What gave it away?) But where are you?

Stories keep trickling in about folks reading this blog, but it's hard to determine a comprehensive list. So, in another attempt to make this blog more interactive, and to satiate my desire to play with maps, I've created a Frappr Map for us. Click on the link, add your name and location, and let's see if we can't find out who some of those readers are. Pictures are optional; the one of me is when I was skinnier and living in LA.

I think there are a few technophobes among you. Don't worry, it's very straightforward. Just click on the link above and then scroll to the bottom of the page. It's self-evident at that point.

Grammar and the Difference between N.Z. and U.S. Students

One question I often get is this: "How do Kiwi students differ from American students?"

I actually feel like I'm in a pretty good place to answer this, because there is only one type of university in NZ, the large public kind, and there are several kinds in America, many of which I've worked at. Going just by the quality of general undergrad populations, I've seen middle-of-the-road state schools (Kentucky), slightly behind the middle (Memphis), good private small liberal arts colleges (Occidental), and really bad public (CSU-Bakersfield). Of course, there are exceptions in all cases. I had many good students at CSUB, some of which were in fact excellent (and who should have been elsewhere probably...but working at a Cal State really opens your eyes to how many people are trapped in their situations due to factors entirely out of their control); and I had a few really poor students at Oxy. But, generally speaking, those were the trends.

So, how do I answer the above question? Kiwi students are much better prepared to enter University, while American students are harder workers and more ambitious. This is probably not too hard to explain. Kiwis invest a great deal more in education than do Americans. Kiwis also care a lot less (though certainly not not at all) about ambition and more about overall quality of life. And, again, these are only generalizations: I've seen many well-prepared American students, and several ambitious Kiwi students. This is just about the preponderance of cases.

So how does that affect me now? (I know that's what you were thinking, right?) Well, I get frustrated by students here not being as ambitious to work as hard at succeeding at projects. But I love that they're better prepared. My least favorite part of my job is grading (I love the teaching, hate the grading). It's particularly awful not so much when the student doesn't understand the material, but when they (note the pronoun) can't put together a proper sentence.

Here's an illustration. In America, every semester I'd have to lecture students that "they" is not a pronoun that stands in for a singular noun, such as "John." There's simply no numerical agreement there. But students working in English struggle to utilize gender-neutral language (upon which I insist), and they often fall into that trap. Anyway, I get badly argued papers, and badly written papers, but the misuse of "they" just drives me nuts, mainly just because it's so common.

When I pointed out the mistake to my students in the US, I got little resistance. In fact, I usually got improvement, which is nice. But here, it hardly ever comes up at all. That's the kind of pre-university preparation that really does make my job easier. Kiwis are better at writing.

Or so I thought. Another (Aussie) philosopher with a (philosophy-related) blog, Brian Weatherson, has been harping on the idea that folks like me are crazy to think that "they" cannot be used as a singular pronoun. The latest salvo is to link us to Language Log, which cites evidence as old as Shakespeare, among others, that it is not grammatically incorrect to use "they" in the singular. Apparently I also used to be out of step with The Times (though they've now retreated to re-banning "they" in the singular), and I am still wrong according to The Cambridge Grammar.

I know there are a few grammar nuts reading this (you know who you are). Feel free to chime in. For my own part, "they" in the singular just sounds wrong. But according to Language Log, I'm just an old-fashioned atavistic loony.

(N.B.: No need to point out the grammatical errors on this blog.)

New Blogging Law

Apparently, it is now illegal in the U.S. to post a comment on blogs anonymously if it is intended to annoy someone! "Annoy" is literally in the text of the law.

Wow, score one for big business. I guess our elected officials don't like whistleblowers after all. That can't be constitutional, can it?

Feel free to answer that question in the Comments feature on this page, but don't annoy me without signing your name, or I'll turn you in.

Happy New Year!

It's about an hour until those in New York ring in the New Year (shout-outs to all the friends and fam!). We're well into New Year's Day here. Julie had an AM flight, so we took it easy last night, though we had fun drinking at Matterhorn and seeing all the crazies out last night.

Sadly, it's the end of a great visit. We actually saw a lot in her 3 weeks here, confirming what I've read, namely that to see all of NZ, you would need a minimum of 5 weeks (though you could also, of course, spend all that time just hiking in Fiordland if you wanted--one of the areas missed on our trip south). But 3 weeks is plenty of time to see plenty of stuff (and we even got a couple work days in!). And you could see a lot in 2 weeks.

Okay, that's my plug for getting more visitors down here. Julie, it was great having you. This is us on Dec. 29th, on my balcony (enjoying warm weather and sun until 9:30pm right now!), just before heading out for a great meal at Boulcott Street Bistro, a great restaurant here, courtesy of Andrew and Amanda (thanks guys!).

The Tongariro Crossing, Part 3

The final highlights on our version of the Tongariro Crossing (that is, the version where you're ensconsed in fog on the second half) are the Emerald Lakes. These really are the crown jewels of the hike (ha ha!). The pictures say more than I can, though while brilliant here, the lakes were even more spectacular in person, set among the otherwise barren earth-tones of the lavabed and the ominous peasoup fog, and perched delicately over the deep valley below.

Getting to the Emerald Lakes is a bit tricky. After you reach the summit, you head down a slope that Julie accurately described as skiing without the skis. It is very steep, in about 3 inches of loose fine dirt and small stones, on a very narrow path, divergence from which would lead to a long tumble down a mountain side. The trick is keeping your footing in the snow-like dirt, and many people slipped, led by yours truly. Thankfully, I was leaning so far back (because of the steep incline) that it was a short distance to my palms and bum.

Bruised ego and backside notwithstanding, it was well worth it! It's a great place to stop for lunch. We found a nice spot, sheltered from what was becoming a freezing wind. We were the only ones around the smallest of the Lakes when we sat down, though that move was then copied by a large, rude group of people. Anyways, if you're ever here, plan on spending a day up there if you can.