Just a feel good story!!!

For those of you that may not read the sports pages of the Oregonian, here's a feel good story.

Larranaga is a breath of fresh air
John Canzano
Friday, March 31, 2006
INDIANAPOLIS G eorge Mason University upset Connecticut, North Carolina, Wichita State and Michigan State to reach the Final Four, so naturally, coach Jim Larranaga's first news conference here began with a clinic on whistling.
What?
You expected he'd crawl under the table and bite his lip at the thought of facing Florida?
Well, apparently you don't know Larranaga, who is from the Bronx. He was here to set the record straight about the distinctive way he whistles to get the attention of his players during games.
"I've read some articles where some of my friends from the Bronx are taking credit for teaching me," he said Wednesday. "When I was reading that, I really had to crack up. I learned from my father when I was 4, 5 or 6 years old. He never whistled with his fingers or anything like that. He just learned how to whistle and taught me how to do it."
When Larranaga was a kid, his family lived in the bottom unit of a seven-story apartment complex known as Chester Park. His father was maniacal about safety, installing several alarm systems and drilling the family on procedures in the event of emergencies.
"(There were so many locks), it took forever to get in with your key," Larranaga said. "So when I got home from school, I would whistle to my mom to let her know I was home. It was a very distinct whistle. She would yell out of the window, 'Hi, Jim,' come and greet me at the door."
It's true that 11th-seed George Mason finds itself as America's newest sweetheart, but there's also something about Larranaga, who worked at Bowling Green for 11 years and was an assistant on the Ralph Sampson Virginia teams.
"One of my concerns when I came to George Mason was what kind of identity problem we would have," he said. "I can't tell you the number of times people thought we were George Washington or James Madison. A lot of times we get that James Mason or George Madison. It cracks me up because it's something we can't change."
Don't change, coach.
Not one bit.
Not even after some major-conference university hires you away next season, hands you more money, better facilities, a bigger recruiting budget and a larger office.
Don't change. Because right now, you're everything that is right about college basketball, right down to the way you want to talk about anything but basketball.
While the coaches from UCLA, Florida and Louisiana State spent their time discussing whether or not college basketball will ever see another undefeated champ (consensus: it won't), here was Larranaga discussing the Bill of Rights.
"George Mason was a statesman, the first governor of Virginia, and the gentleman who is responsible for the Bill of Rights," he said. "Also the university was an extension of the University of Virginia originally. It broke off from Virginia about 35 years ago and became George Mason University, a university that stood on its own.
"It has grown from a small commuter school . . ."
This went on and on, with Florida coach Billy Donovan paying careful attention from the peanut gallery. You half expected Larranaga would finish his informative discussion, dismount the podium and leave the room walking backward from giving so many proverbial campus tours this week.
There are great coaches and teachers at all levels of basketball. Not just the ones who do American Express commercials and coach at major universities.
That's the lesson you see in Larranaga. Most of the country didn't know who he was until his team caught lightning in a bottle in March.
So, well, yes. Who is Larranaga?
You find out he's 56, married to a woman named Liz, and has two children. And that he has a degree in economics from Providence, where he was a four-year letterman and team captain of the basketball team. And that he doesn't always recruit the biggest, most athletic player, but instead relies on advice from a sports-psychologist friend in choosing which player to pursue.
In this tournament, Larranaga used a zone defense effectively against North Carolina and Connecticut. Yet you learn that his team didn't play zone during the regular season, opting instead for Larranaga's trademark "Scramble" defense.
"We actually put in the same 1-2-2 zone that we used back in 1984 (at Virginia) the week between (our conference) tournament and the selection show," Larranaga said. "I told the guys, 'If we get in, we may need this.' "
His players said, "But coach, we're not a zone team."
Larranaga explained: "Yeah, but in the tournament, there are certain circumstances where we might want to use it."
And they did.
George Mason's wrecking ball through its bracket caused NCAA selection committee chair Craig Littlepage to joke, "Maybe we seeded them too low."
No, sir.
Everything about this has been perfect.
John Canzano: 503-294-5065; JohnCanzano@aol.com To read his Web log, go to www.oregonlive.com/canzano

I'm baaack!!! ...sort of.

I'm still trying to catch-up with my work that piled up over the past two weeks so I'm not 100% into Blogging yet. However, I was so upset by the USA performance in the "World Baseball Classic" that I wanted to share this "Opinion" with you.

THE INTERNATIONAL PASTIME
Friday, March 24, 2006
David Sarasohn

This week, there's the usual gleaming sun in the skies over Florida and Arizona -- at least compared with the March skies over some other places -- but there's a new shadow over the Grapefruit and Cactus leagues.
There's a little less spring in spring training.
For a multitude of Marches, baseball fans could look to the south, and whatever delusions they cherished about the prospects of their own team -- Happy April Fool's Day, Cubs fans -- they could at least feel confident that one of the squads they surveyed in spring was the best baseball team in the world.
Now, it's hard to be sure of that -- unless you regularly check out the Japanese Pacific League.
This beanball of reality struck Americans earlier this week, when the first World Baseball Classic was won by Japan, beating Cuba 10-6. Japan and Cuba reached the final game by defeating the Dominican Republic and South Korea, two other teams that don't think every baseball game has to begin with "The Star-Spangled Banner."
Ken Burns will not be making an eight-part documentary about this.
This was not a U.S. Olympic team of college ballplayers, arriving with a ready-made excuse. This was a team of top major league players, including the left side of the New York Yankees infield, two players with the annual income of a Cuban province.
At least we beat South Africa, with its proud baseball history going back to, maybe, last October.
Admittedly, the U.S. team was missing some of the top Americans, such as Barry Bonds. Of course, using Barry Bonds in international competition might violate the chemical weapons treaty.
This outcome was not heartening for a country whose baseball season ends in what it likes to call the World Series -- a competition now in danger of being renamed the United States Plus Toronto Series. Considering that the Fall Classic is the goal at the other end of spring training, you could see how Florida and Arizona might fall prey to March Malaise.
The United States likes to think of itself as the world's baseball superpower, and its baseball heft and national status are intermingled; George W. Bush just agreed to continue the century-old tradition of the president throwing out a first ball. He's doing it for the Cincinnati Reds; you'd hate to think he might have to do it for the Yomiuri Giants.
But not only did the United States fail to display international dominance, it can't even claim supremacy in North America. In the classic, it lost to both Canada and Mexico. Not only are we not world champions, we're third in the Nafta standings.
And the champion is not even the Dominican Republic, whose team was thick with U.S. major leaguers, but Japan, which had only two.
As Robert Whiting explained in his book on Japanese baseball, "You Gotta Have Wa."
Say wa?
Wa, wrote Whiting, literally means a kind of peace, but really conveys an immersion of the individual into something larger than himself. And while U.S. baseball players may be full of Creatine, human growth hormone and injected testosterone, they seem to be low on wa.
When Ichiro Suzuki of the Seattle Mariners -- who rescued something for American baseball by being both a major league all-star and a world champion -- said before the semifinal game that he wanted to beat South Korea so badly it wouldn't want to play Japan again for 30 years, it did seem a little, well, pre-war.
But nobody could say it was pre-wa.
That kind of feeling might explain why stadiums were full of dancing and chanting Japanese, Dominicans, Koreans and Mexicans, but generally relaxed Americans -- as well as explaining why the championship turned out the way it did.
Of course, it still doesn't explain how the U.S. team lost to Canada.
For the rest of spring training, baseball managers and players will answer questions about going all the way, meaning one day hoisting in their stadium a banner reading, "2006 World Champions."
But maybe, just to be technically accurate, whoever wins the World Series maybe should play the winner of the Wa Series.

David Sarasohn, associate editor, can be reached at 503-221-8523 or davidsarasohn@news.oregonian.com.

Friday & still alive!!!!

Amidst the Flowers a Jug of Wine

Amidst the flowers a jug of wine,

I pour alone lacking companionship.

So raising the cup I invite the Moon,

Then turn to my shadow which makes three of us.

Because the Moon does not know how to drink,

My shadow merely follows the movement of my body.

The moon has brought the shadow to keep me company a while,

The practice of mirth should keep pace with spring.

I start a song and the moon begins to reel,

I rise and dance and the shadow moves grotesquely.

While I'm still conscious let's rejoice with one another,

After I'm drunk let each one go his way.

Let us bind ourselves for ever for passionless journeyings.

Let us swear to meet again far in the Milky Way.

Li Po

Thanks, Carla J. Martin

I have been trying to locate the connection that I have been making for years with reference to the story of “The Devil & Daniel Webster”. It is in my recollection that I heard the key ingredient of this story is that when it is suggested that he attack the devil with any means possible, Webster’s reply is that when you beat the devil at his own game you are left with the lack of all those things you were trying to defend. I can’t verify this from the written item so I might have heard it in the film version. The bottom line for me is that Webster understood that you have to fight the bad guys with the LAW and not circumvent the LAW to get what you want even though the bad guys don’t necessarily follow the rules.

This story of the over-zealous TSA Lawyer is just another example of someone that should have read “The Devil & Daniel Webster”. (As well as our President and his AG)

Thanks Carla for making me want to write my Blog today.

"The Devil and Daniel Webster"
by Stephen Vincent Benet

This is the article that pushed my button today.

Judge Weighs Next Steps in Moussaoui Trial
By Richard A. Serrano, Times Staff Writer

I've been sick!

pylonephritis

is the bad guy and as soon as I get it under control I will tell you more about my week in hell.

Poem by Don Marquis

LINES FOR A GRAVESTONE

Here the many lives I led,

All my selves, are lying dead:

All they journeyed far to find

Strawed by the dispersing wind:

You that were my lovers true,

That is neither sad nor new!

Naught that I have been or planned

Sails the seas nor walks the land:

That is not a cause for woe

Where the careless planets go!

Naught that I have dreamed or done

Casts a shadow on the sun:

Not for that shall any Spring

Fail of song or swallow's wing!

Neither change nor sorrow stays

The bright processional of days --

When the hearts that grieved die, too,

Where is then the grief they knew?

Speed, I bid you, speed the earth

Onward with a shout of mirth,

Fill your eager eyes with light,

Put my face and memory

Out of mind and out of sight.

Nothing I have caused or done,

But this gravestone, meets the sun:

Friends, a great simplicity

Comes at last to you and me!

-- The Almost Perfect State, p212

Abby Haight

During the Olympics there were daily reports in the Oregonian Sports section under the title of Abby's Diary. I enjoyed them very much so I thought I'd share my favorite with you. It's about chocolate. Better yet, it's about DARK chocolate.

TURIN _ Cioccolato

Chocolate.

Chocolate is in all its divine forms here: Warm bicerin thatmust be the nectar of the winter gods, cold gelatto, perfectly formed fondant, lumps of chocolate and hazelnut exquistiness, the baci di damathat are little almond cookies sandwiched around a pungent layer of dark chocolate.

Turin is Europe's chocolate capital. Forget the Swiss. Milk chocolate? Pah! Turin has milk (ital.)cream(endital.) chocolate.

Turin is chocolate.

Walk the streets and every few shops is a cioccolateria. Most of them tiny places with a few perfect displays and a selection of handmade heaven. You don't even need to buy anything. The perfume of chocolate clings to your skin.

You can buy a 24-hour Choco-pass here for about $19. It lets you taste goodies at about 25 shops around the city. I thought about getting the pass, then figured I'd be sick _ or jittery with sugar overload _after a couple of stops.

So I've been eating a little chocolate, here and there.
Every day.
Sometimes twice a day.
I see it as part of the food triangle _ the little lumpy side that is hidden behind the vegetables and fruits. Because in Turin, breakfasts start with toast spread with Nutella. I tried it once, but it was too much, even for my sweet tooth. I prefer to wait for what Winnie-the-Pooh called Elevenses for a warmed chocolate croissant.
Lunch means Novi fondente nocciolato _ a dark chocolate bar with whole hazelnuts from the Piedmont region. Novis are grocery store chocolate bars _ their motto, "cioccolato passione dal 1903" _ but they have as much in common with a Hersey's bar as Aretha Franklin has to Brittany Spears.

Every once in awhile, I do slum. The Happy Hippo is a bar of crispy cookie around a cream swirl of dark chocolate and vanilla. The Happy Hippo also is what I would risk becoming if my stay here was longer.
The first chocolate bar was made here in 1802. There's got to bea statue to the creator somewhere.
A friend just brought over a bag of chocolates from Peyrano,which he said is the shop for chocolate _ but I think everyone here has their favorite shop. The chocolates, little dabs with chopped hazelnuts, were indescribably good.
Of course.
When it comes to chocolate in Turin, you are left with a dreamy look on your face and "mmmmm" in your mouth. The most famous chocolate here is bicerin, a drink of equal parts espresso, warmed dark chocolate and heavy cream. Alexandre Dumas pere sipped bicerin. So did Giacomo Puccini and Friedrich Nietzsche.
Mine was, indeed other-worldly. Sweet and rich, with the edge of espresso. I managed half of it before my body said, "Too much." Probably because I'd already had a chocolate chip gelato. But in Turin, there's always tomorrow for cioccolato.

Abby Haight (abbyhaight@news.oregonian.com)

Wednesday's Woes etc.

Today's front page news reported that the civil unrest in Iraq was predicted by some government agency three years ago and the information was disregarded by the administration which only reinforces my concern for all this information being gathered by the illegal wire taps. Who has the time to listen to all this stuff and then draw conclusions from what was gathered and then try to convince someone else that what they heard is significant? My faith in this administration accepting any sort of input that does not support their preconceived notions is very low.

All this data gathering made me thing of this poem that I always thought was by Ogden Nash;

The Pelican

A wonderful bird is the Pelican,

His bill can hold more than his belican.

He can take in his beak

Food enough for a week;

But I'm damned if I see how the helican.

~ Dixon Lanier Merritt (often incorrectly attributed to Ogden Nash)