the Baron has arrived

I started watching the Warriors a bit in the mid to late '80s, when Jordan was ruling the league. Back then, Mullin, Hardaway, and Richmond were doing their thing, and the Warriors weren't the best, but at least they made the playoffs every couple of years.

In late '91, Richmond got traded to the Kings for Billy Owens, and although the Warriors did make the playoffs the year afterwards, I always felt like things started to go downhill from there. There was a faint glimmer of hope in '94 when Mullin, Webber and Sprewell managed to get the Warriors back into the playoffs, but then Webber got traded, and a few years later Sprewell famously tried to choke P.J. Carlesimo. After that, I basically gave up watching basketball at all; although I did read the sports section, so like most Bay Area sports fans, I could always reel off a list of former Warriors who were now stars of other teams.

A couple of years ago, when I started to play basketball, I started to watch the NBA again. I enjoyed watching the Rockets, the Kings, the Pistons, the Spurs, the Mavs, and the Heat, but I never really felt any compulsion to start watching the Warriors again, until a month ago.

On February 25th, the Warriors acquired Baron Davis for Speedy Claxton and Dale Davis. The Chronicle's Ray Ratto said it best: Chris Mullin finally found a talented player on a team so bad that going to the Warriors would seem like a fabulous career move.

A bunch of us happened to have tickets to the Pistons game on the night that Baron Davis made his debut with Golden State. Our anticipation was well rewarded, because as soon as Davis got on the court, the Warriors started to look better. It was obvious that Davis was giving the team some much needed leadership and explosiveness. And, even though the Warriors still lost, the crowd at the Coliseum showed their appreciation (and probably, surprise) throughout.

Since then, the Warriors have gone 8-7, which doesn't sound that great, except to anyone who's lived in the Bay Area in the past 15 years. Players like Richardson, Dunleavy, Cabarkapa, and Pietrus are taking better shots, and putting up significantly higher numbers. I imagine Richardson must thank his lucky stars every day; those monster dunks he's now getting wouldn't be happening with Claxton or Fisher at point.

With the addition of Davis, the Warriors are suddenly fun to watch, they play with energy and best of all, they look like they're on their way up. They've beat a succession of good teams, including Sacramento (twice!) and Phoenix. If Davis can get fully healthy next year (that's one serious worry; he's known to be injury-prone) I think the Warriors will have a real chance to make the playoffs.

that's what we like to see

Hundreds of thousands marched through Taipei on March 26th in protest of China's new "anti-secession" law, which authorizes the use of military force against Taiwan.

overwhelming force

It occurred to me the other day that the "Powell Doctrine" is basically a tight aggressive style of playing poker, applied to warfare.

consistency, please

I ask only for consistency, since logic is obviously too much to expect...

About three weeks ago, I went shopping with my sister in the city and I bought a shirt. Unfortunately, the salesperson forgot to take off the electronic tag, which I discovered later that week when I tried to wear my new shirt.

For the next two weeks, I kept trying to make time to take the shirt to a local branch of the store, but things were pretty busy, so I never got a chance. Finally, yesterday morning, I dragged myself out of bed at about 10am (early for a Sunday, at least for me) so I could go to a mall and get the tag removed.

When I got there, the salesperson refused to take the tag off unless I could produce a receipt. Since I'd been shopping with my sister, and we'd bought a couple of items using the same credit card, my sister had that particular receipt, at my parents' house in Marin. I pointed out nicely that I wasn't about to drive to Marin to get my receipt, especially since I had the "Required for Return" sticker on the paper tag, which allows the salesperson to look up the actual record of the sale in the computer system. She refused, citing "security issues".

Finally, I decided that if I couldn't wear the shirt, I might as well return it and get the money back. Ironically, this was fine, according to store policy, since I had the aforementioned return sticker. Ye gods.

At this point, a supervisor-type person stepped in and told the salesperson to remove the tag, so I kept the shirt, although I was tempted to return it due to sheer frustration and annoyance.

symphonic sound

Last Saturday, we went to Davies to see MTT's San Francisco Symphony (and a guest pianist, Vladimir Feltsman) perform Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No. 1. I'm not great with the names of orchestral pieces, so it was best described to me by my roommate as "that really famous one on the piano", accompanied by her humming of a few opening notes. It was preceded by a very short piece, Stravinsky's Scherzo à la russe and followed by Shostakovich's Symphony No. 15. I enjoyed the evening very much, although I did find the Shostakovich a little harder to follow. Of course, the fact that we went to Citizen Cake for dessert didn't hurt.

Ironically, two days later, we were in the city again, this time at the Masonic, to see the Symphony Silicon Valley play a selection of music from Final Fantasy. Yes, the games. It was a very different experience. Several audience members were dressed up as characters from FFVII, FFVIII, and FFX. I had been at the Masonic previously to watch the Barenaked Ladies, and I had thought it a pretty decent venue, but it felt lackluster when compared to the carefully calculated acoustics of Davies Symphony Hall. I felt sorry for the violinists, who were woefully under-miked. The music itself was pleasant and well-played, but I could never get the "background music" concept out of my head, and the fact that scenes from the video games were being projected on three giant screens didn't help. Afterwards we went to Korea House (in Japantown) for a late dinner. Mmm...

ageism

I was having a discussion with someone last week at dinner, about the unfairness of being a kid. Kids can't use certain websites until they're over 13, they can't drive until they're 16, they can't see R-rated movies without their parents until they're 18, they can't vote until they're 18, they can't drink until they're 21, they are subject to various parental notification laws, and are in fact almost totally at the mercy of their parents.

The ageism debate came up again this weekend when we were watching a West Wing episode which featured a group of kids who were lobbying for a reduced voting age. They argued that it was unfair that laws could be imposed on a group who had no voting power, and that if children were given the vote, long term issues like Social Security might be given more consideration. I totally agree, and I think I've discussed this in the past. The only possible reason to deny children suffrage is the "undue influence" argument, which ignores the fact that many adults are also easily swayed by their families, churches, colleagues, and other groups. If a kid actually takes the initiative to register to vote, why shouldn't he/she be allowed to cast a ballot?

Another age-related limit I've never understood is the drinking age. The US has the highest drinking age in the world (Most countries set it at 16 or 18.) Furthermore, I travelled extensively as a kid, and as long as I was with my parents, I was never refused service of alcohol, except in the US. I'm convinced that our ridiculously high drinking age is one of the reasons that our country's universities have such a problem with binge drinking (another one is that we treat our college students like kids, which I'll address later). If it weren't illegal for pledges to drink alcohol, would fraternities bother? Approaching the issue from another angle, it also seems ridiculous that our government thinks that someone who is mature enough to be sent to fight a war for his/her country is not mature enough to consume alcohol.

Similarly, I remember being in high school, and going with my sister to see an R-rated movie, which had no violence, very little bad language, and I think one scene where a woman's breasts were visible. Horror of horrors! Since my sister was 13, even though my mother bought the ticket for her, she wasn't allowed to see the movie unless my mother also bought a ticket and watched the movie with us. Several of our friends' parents got really good at the "buy a ticket, walk into the theatre, and leave out the back door" routine. I'm not sure if maybe the movie theatres were just trying to make an extra buck, or what, but it was a silly charade.

Moving on to a stickier subject, I also disagree with the idea of statutory rape, as it is defined in the US. Many states do not define as statutory rape, sex between a underage male and an adult female. What gives? Teenage girls are too immature to give consent, but teenage guys aren't? In California, if a 18-year-old male has sex with a 17-year-old female, it's a misdemeanor. If a 19-year-old male has sex with a 16-year-old female, it's a felony. I still vaguely remember high school, and I have a bunch of cousins who are in high school now, and I really don't think that 16-year-old girls are all that innocent. Over the holidays, I happened to see part of an IM conversation between two 14-year-old girls, and let's just say that they had extensive "relationship" vocabularies.

The driving age is another stupid one. There are plenty of adults who are horrible drivers, and there's nothing to say that kids can't be great drivers. I argue that people shouldn't be given driver's licenses until they've logged a certain number of miles. So basically, anyone who is tall enough to reach the gas pedals should be able to get a permit. Once you get a permit, you can drive with your parent or guardian, and log miles until you reach 10,000 (or 20,000, or whatever). At that point you can take a test (which should include both parallel parking and driving in reverse) and get your license. My mother used to drive a 40 mile roundtrip to take me (and eventually my sister and brother) to high school, and you can bet she wanted us to get our licenses more than we did. By the time I was fifteen and a half, I was an expert at the Marin to San Francisco commute, and my mom used to sleep in the front seat on the way there. I'm pretty sure I would have been a safer driver than a lot of the crazy people I saw out there on the road.

Finally, there is the whole issue of college students being treated as kids. When I was at MIT, a pledge died after some fraternity ritual during which he drank 16 beers. His parents subsequently sued the school. I had no sympathy for the parents. No one was physically forced to drink anything. If they thought their kid was mature enough to go off to college, then he was mature enough to make his own decisions, and if he was stupid enough to drink himself to death (with or without peer pressure), that was his problem, and their problem, for not teaching him better while he was still a kid.

The problem is that a lot of parents in American society don't want to let go. They're not satisfied with having complete control of their children until they're 18; they want to keep controlling them while they go through college, and after. Since they can't actually be around to do so, they expect schools to do the parenting for them, which is completely ridiculous. The solution is not to police college students, who should rightfully be considered adults, but for parents to realize that the more freedom that they give their children while in high school and middle school, the more their children will learn about time management, and regulating their own behavior.

It all comes down to expectations. If parents expect children not to be able to handle things, they won't. If kids expect their parents to clean up the mess every time they screw up, they will. We should just give kids a little bit more freedom, and teach them to deal with it.

Then again, I'm probably still speaking from the perspective of the kid. We'll see what I think in twenty years.

sports and levels of play

I'm playing in a women's rec league for basketball, where we are easily the worst team in the league. Last season, we won one game. Naturally, some of my teammates are discouraged, and aren't all that excited about returning for next season. I think the problem is that we're improving, since we play against better teams all the time, but our confidence is shot.

My tennis coach used to say that 1/3 of the time, you should play against someone worse than you, 1/3 of the time, you should play against someone at your level, and 1/3 of the time, you should play against someone better than you. The reason is that all of those situations are useful to improving your game. When you play against a weaker opponent, you learn not to play down to the level of your competition, and you raise your confidence. When you play against a stronger opponent, you improve more quickly, because it raises your level of play. And, of course, playing against people your level is the best; both sides benefit, and it's fun all around.

Unfortunately, there aren't a lot of women's basketball leagues for players who just learned to play a couple of years ago.