The Jamisonian

sweet anticipation.

2009-07-14T10:55:00.001-04:00

MLB All-Star Game--Tonight at 8 on FOX.

2009-07-14T10:39:00.002-04:00

Phillies stick together in St. Louis for All-Star Game

By PAUL HAGEN, Philadelphia Daily News

ST. LOUIS - Here's how it usually goes: A Phillies player makes the All-Star team. Maybe more than one if they're lucky. When the last game before the break ends, the player or players find their way to whatever city the game is being played in that year.

Here's how it was this year: After Sunday's win over the Pirates, a large traveling party embarked for St. Louis on a chartered flight. Manager Charlie Manuel and his coaching staff. Five players: Chase Utley, Ryan Howard, Raul Ibanez, Shane Victorino, Jayson Werth. A full front-office entourage, headed by club president Dave Montgomery. Sponsors. In all, some 60 people made the trip.

For Howard, it's a homecoming. He grew up just outside the city. For Utley, it's his fourth straight start. For Ibanez, it's his first All-Star appearance at age 37. Victorino and Werth are also newcomers.

Here's a look at how each Phillies player viewed the hoopla and what he can expect when the 80th edition of the Midsummer Classic is played tonight:

Ibanez: He'll start in leftfield and bat fifth but, because he is just off the disabled list with a strained groin, isn't likely to get more than one plate appearance.

"He's swinging the bat good," Manuel said. "The timing is still there. I'll watch him. He's felt pretty good the last couple days, but if I can get him off his feet pretty quickly, I'll probably do that."

Ibanez said he was so focused on his rehab and trying to get back into the lineup over the last few weeks that he hadn't really had much time to think about the All-Star Game.

"It's starting to hit me now," he said yesterday. "Now that it's here, I'm really grateful [to have recovered in time to play]. It's definitely a blessing. I'm humbled. It's awesome. I'm not going to the Hall of Fame. But making an All-Star team and winning a world championship, those are forever."

Ibanez joked that he's leaning on Utley to show him the way. "I follow Chase around," he kidded. "I ask him, 'What are we doing now? What time is this? What are we wearing?' We're all wearing Chase out."

Read the rest here.

Mad men, season 2 out tomorrow!!!

2009-07-13T11:30:00.002-04:00

Mad Men, Season 2 is out tomorrow. Amazon is offering steep discounts, so hurry up!

cute overload outdoes itself.

2009-07-12T08:08:00.002-04:00

"Listen closely and you’ll hear the “ehn ehn ehn!” sounds…"

Gloria Steinem's Annual Review.

2009-07-10T14:57:00.001-04:00

Jezebel just posted Gloria Steinem's annual interview with radio station KUOW about the state of modern feminism. In my personal opinion, a lot of the quotes are no-brainers so here is my list of favorite quotes:

On her decision not to have children:

In my generation it was perceived as a choice: either you gave birth to someone else or you gave birth to yourself.

On her relationship with her father:

I've only in adult life come to realize how important that was, that I actually saw a nurturing male…Even those of us who intellectualize about it and know how important it is that men become equal parents of children, if you've never experienced it, it's hard to have faith in it.

On world peace:

Men raising children, as much as women do, is the key to world peace. The cult of masculinity, which is the major cause of violence on earth if the violence is not in self defense, will only humanize and dissipate and come to value life through nurturing and through fatherhood.

4th of july--part 3.

2009-07-09T21:13:00.002-04:00

4th of july--part 2.

2009-07-09T21:10:00.001-04:00

Shane Victorino is headed for St. Louis!

2009-07-09T17:40:00.003-04:00

never forget.

2009-07-09T16:44:00.001-04:00

you make me feel so young.

2009-07-09T15:03:00.003-04:00

OMG! Who remembers Madonna's Virgin Tour? Oh boy, do I. This was the moment I knew, at the age of 6 that I loved Madonna.

For every girl over the age of 25 (seriously, you probably weren't born yet), you are welcome:

i really do suck!

2009-07-09T14:36:00.004-04:00

A study by Joanne Wood and John Lee of the University of Waterloo and Elaine Perunovic of the University of New Brunswick asked participants to say "I am a lovable person" to themselves sixteen times in four minutes. People with low self-esteem actually felt worse about themselves after the four minutes were up.

Time's John Cloud offers several explanations for this failure of a commonly recommended mood-lifting technique. For one thing, he writes, "when people hear something they don't believe, they are not only often skeptical but adhere even more strongly to their original position." So if you think you're terrible, but tell yourself you're lovable, you may end up feeling even more terrible as a kind of rebellion.

A variant on this explanation is the finding that, "when people get feedback that they believe is overly positive, they actually feel worse, not better." Most people, even if they have normal self-esteem, have probably walked away from excessive praise feeling weirded out, or wondering if the praiser really knows them very well. And blanket affirmations like "I am lovable" may be the self-talk version of excessive praise.

What Cloud doesn't address is how vague — and kind of depressing — the statement "I am lovable" is. Being lovable doesn't mean you're actually loved, or kind or interesting or smart or happy. Most people, in fact, are lovable at least to someone, and the word doesn't say anything about a person's actual being. Telling yourself that it is possible that someone could love you actually seems like setting the bar pretty low.

From Jezebel.

11 Health Myths That May Surprise You

2009-07-07T08:29:00.002-04:00

From the NY Times:

11 Health Myths That May Surprise You

By Tara Parker-Pope

Dr. Carroll and Dr. Vreeman, both from the Indiana University School of Medicine, have written a lot about medical myths and misunderstandings. In December 2007, the pair published an article in the British Medical Journal about seven medical myths even doctors believe. A year later, they identified six medical myths for the holiday season.

Now, “Don’t Swallow Your Gum” offers a fun collection of numerous medical myths that are likely familiar to most of us. The book is organized to focus on various types of myths, including myths about your body (you should poop at least once a day), myths about disease and illness (cold weather makes you sick), myths about sex and pregnancy (twins skip a generation) and myths about what we eat and drink (gum stays in your stomach for seven years.)

1. Cold weather makes you sick. In studies of cold transmission, people who are chilled are no more likely to get sick than those who were not. It may be that cold weather keeps people indoors, where germs are more likely to catch up with you.

2. Green mucus indicates a sinus infection. The importance of mucus color is a medical myth even doctors believe, the authors say. “There is no evidence…that antibiotics shorten the duration of an illness when green snot is a symptom,” they write.

3. You lose most of your body heat through your head. There is nothing special about the head and heat loss. You will lose heat through any uncovered body part.

4. Milk makes you phlegmy. In a study of 330 patients, nearly two out of three believed milk increases phlegm production. But it’s not true. In one experiment, volunteers were infected with the cold virus, and some of them drank a lot of milk as well. The weight of the nasal secretions did not increase in those who drank more milk, nor was it associated with cough or congestion.

5. Cracking your knuckles will cause arthritis. Knuckle-crackers are no more likely to have arthritis than those who don’t make annoying popping sounds with their fingers.

6. Birth control pills don’t work as well with antibiotics. A review of the literature concluded that common antibiotics don’t affect birth control pills. “It is much more important to take your birth control pill every day at the same time than to spend time worrying about your antibiotics,” the authors write.

7. Singles have better sex lives than married people. You may think your bachelor friends are having all the fun, but single people also go through a lot of dry spells when they aren’t dating anyone. The result — married people typically have more sex in a given year than single people. In one survey, 43 percent of married men reported having sex two to three times per week, compared to only 26 percent of single men. The numbers were slightly lower but similar for women. Married people are also more likely to have orgasms and give and receive oral sex.

8. Sugar makes kids hyper. Numerous studies show sugar doesn’t affect behavior, but most parents don’t believe this. In one study, parents were told their kids had sugar and they were more likely to report problem behavior — but in reality, the kids had consumed a sugar-free drink.

9. You should poop at least once a day. A half-truth, say the authors. Regular bowel movements prevent discomfort and constipation, but a perfectly healthy person may not move their bowels every day. Constipation is defined as having fewer than three stools per week.

10. It’s okay to double dip in the chip dip. In one study, scientists took a bite of cracker and then dipped it into salsa, cheese dip, chocolate syrup and water. They did the same test with a fresh, unbitten cracker. Then they measured bacteria in the dips and the volunteers’ mouths. On average, three to six double dips transferred about 10,000 bacteria from the eater’s mouth to the dip. And each cracker picked up between one and two grams of dip. Salsa picked up the most germs from double dipping.

11. Food quickly picked up from the floor is safe to eat. Scientists have put the commonly-cited five-second rule to the test. They found that food that comes into contact with a tile or wood floor does pick up large amounts of bacteria. Food doesn’t pick up many germs when it hits carpet, but it does pick up carpet fuzz.

sleepy puppy.

2009-07-06T23:00:00.002-04:00

Terry's dad is america.

2009-07-06T22:14:00.007-04:00

Terry's dad wore this shirt on July 4th and all I could think of was:

America! Fuck Yeah!

The Dead Zone: Robert S. McNamara.

2009-07-06T10:44:00.005-04:00

Former Defense Secretary McNamara dies

PETE YOST
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON - Former Defense Secretary Robert S. McNamara died Monday, according to his wife. He was 93.
McNamara died at 5:30 a.m. at his home, his wife Diana told The Associated Press. She said he had been in failing health for some time.
McNamara served as secretary of defense during the Vietnam war under presidents Kennedy and Johnson.
Known as a policymaker with a fixation for statistical analysis, McNamara was recruited to run the Pentagon by President John F. Kennedy in 1961 from the presidency of the Ford Motor Co. He stayed seven years, longer than anyone since the job's creation in 1947.

I always found McNamara fascinating. Why?

1. His middle name is "Strange"

2. Served as the only President of FORD not a "Ford"

3. Appointed Secretary of Defense. In 1961, Kennedy and McNamara rejected massive retaliation favored by Eisenhower. In 1962 McNamara played a large role in the Kennedy Administration's handling and eventual defusing of the Cuban Missile Crisis.

4. His role in Vitenam: In 1965, in response to stepped up military activity by the Viet Cong in South Vietnam and their North Vietnamese allies, the United States began bombing North Vietnam, deployed large military forces, and entered into combat in South Vietnam. McNamara's plan, supported by requests from top U.S. military commanders in Vietnam, led to the commitment of 485,000 troops by the end of 1967 and almost 535,000 by June 30, 1968.

Although he was a prime architect of the Vietnam War, McNamara gradually became skeptical about whether the war could be won by deploying more troops to South Vietnam and intensifying the bombing of North Vietnam, a claim he would publish in a book years later. He also stated later that his support of the Vietnam war was given out of loyalty to administration policy. He traveled to Vietnam many times to study the situation firsthand and became increasingly reluctant to approve the large force increments requested by the military commanders.

Some argue that McNamara knew about the potential deadly effects of Dow Chemical’s Agent Orange even as it was being used in Vietnam, and long before veterans came home to die or waste away from the herbicide's after effects. McNamara denies that he was aware of these dangers, and does not recall whether he was involved in the decision to use Agent Orange.

November 1967, McNamara's recommendation to freeze troop levels, stop bombing North Vietnam and for the US to hand over ground fighting to South Vietnam was rejected outright by President Lyndon B. Johnson. McNamara's recommendations amounted to his saying that the strategy of the United States in Vietnam which had been pursued to date had failed. Largely as a result, on November 29 of that year, McNamara announced his pending resignation and that he would become President of the World Bank.

Want to learn more? Perhaps you've heard of: The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara is a 2003 Errol Morris documentary consisting mostly of interviews with Robert McNamara and archival footage. It went on to win the Academy Award for Documentary Feature.

What are the eleven lessons?

1. Empathize with your enemy

2. Rationality will not save us

3. There's something beyond one's self

4. Maximize efficiency

5. Proportionality should be a guideline in war

6. Get the data

7. Belief and seeing are often both wrong

8. Be prepared to reexamine your reasoning

9. In order to do good, you may have to engage in evil

10. Never say never

11. You can't change human nature

Independence Day Weekend '09.

2009-07-03T21:25:00.006-04:00

Old school.

2009-07-03T21:01:00.007-04:00

Brooke's wedding part 2.

2009-07-03T20:42:00.001-04:00

Terry learns how to drive a stick shift.

2009-07-03T20:28:00.002-04:00

Clover.

2009-07-03T20:23:00.000-04:00

Doom Wedding!

2009-07-03T20:11:00.002-04:00

flu shots from now on.

2009-06-30T19:36:00.001-04:00

Nice set of rare photos.

2009-06-26T09:09:00.001-04:00

More here.

bunny airlines always cheers me up!

2009-06-26T08:36:00.000-04:00

how i'll always remember you.

2009-06-26T08:31:00.000-04:00