It is in vain that anyone attempts to withdraw completely from “tradition” and to become completely autonomous in the use of reason or in the pursuit of authenticity.  In fact, reason and authenticity alike are to be found only within the confines of specific traditions.  This is what G. K. Chesterton called the “democracy of the dead,” the notion that we cannot function optimally without the input of our ancestors (given that we only get to choose which of our ancestors influence us).  Similarly, Chesterton noted that we do not get to choose whether to reside within tradition, but only which tradition within which we reside.  Thus, authentic choice and unauthentic (unconscious, unappropriated) ritual are the two options open to human beings as thinking and deciding persons.

This is why Bernard Lonergan points to the possibility of reforming traditions from within:

But really the problem is not tradition but unauthenticity in the formation and transmission of tradition.  The cure is not the undoing of tradition but the undoing of its unauthenticity.  The cure is not the undoing of tradition, for that is beyond our power…  The issue is not tradition, for as long as men survive, there will be tradition, rich or impoverished, good and evil (A Third Collection: Papers, pp. 121-22).

Elsewhere, Lonergan will note that a tradition, insofar as it is intrinsically authentic, must live up to the vision of its founder.  And what is “authenticity?”  It is correspondence to the transcendentals, the irreducible contents of Being: Beauty, goodness, and truth, which reside in everything that is to the extent that it indeed exists.

As Alasdair MacIntyre makes clear, though, there is always the possibility not only of revision internal to a given tradition, but also of revision in light of the rationalities of “competing” traditions.  While one might very well hold that one’s own tradition is the most authentic, one may still borrow from the rationalities of others.  Thus, Augustinians like Aquinas drew from Aristotle and from Islamic philosophy and Jews like Philo drew from Platonic philosophy.  Or – Martin Luther King, Jr. drew from the teachings of Ghandi, which were themselves influenced by Jesus and Tolstoy.  In the end, then, the broader one’s horizon of knowledge and practices the wider and deeper will one’s potential affirmation of Being reach.  Although the transcendentals most certainly have definite form that can be either truly or falsely intuited, this intuition can only be aided by knowledge and experience of the truth and error ascertained or ignored by human traditions.

In a recent newspaper article, Ben Macintyre, regular columnist for The (London) Times, deplores the threat to narrative posed by the internet, in particular by social networking websites such as Twitter and Facebook.  The article opens with a tautologous list of the ‘jargon of the digital age’: ‘click, tweet, e-mail, twitter, skim, browse, scan, blog, text.’  It is a list that, Macintyre writes, ‘reflect[s] the way that the very act of reading, and the nature of literacy itself, is changing.’  If it is reflective, it is a list like a curved carnival mirror that distorts the true image.  To click might be seen as an analogue to turning a page; ‘tweet’ and ‘twitter’ are, for argument’s sake, the same thing; skim, browse, scan – who hasn’t done at least one of these while leafing through a book (not to mention the synonymity of ’skim’ and ‘browse’); and there is no reason why an e-mail or a blog can’t themselves be a medium for narrative.

‘The information we consume online comes ever faster, punchier

and more fleetingly.  Our attention rests only briefly on the internet

page before moving incontinently on to the next electronic canapé…

we are in a state of Continual Partial Attention, too bombarded by

snippets and gobbets of information to focus on anything for very long.’

Macintyre has trouble it seems in distinguishing between what is worth his time and what is not.  Am I the only one that is able, upon finding a larger text online, to close e-mail and Facebook and any other browsers (to use a term from the lexicon of digital jargon) like doors to noisy rooms, as one finds a quiet place to read a book?  Of course not.

Narrative is a creature of language and as any philologist will tell you, languages change, they evolve; so too must narrative move with them.  Basing the see-saw fall of narrative on the rise of internet social networking not only assumes their mutual exclusivity, but presupposes the death of older, more traditional forms of media such as cinema, theatre and books; it forgets that there are other pieces of equipment on which narrative might play.

But narrative is alive and well in this digital age.  My partner, a foreign student, reads whole Chinese novels on the internet and, as Macintyre himself makes note of in his article, the Japanese (and they are surely not alone) are reading entire novels on mobile phones.

We are also beginning to see the emergence of video games which, while traditionally a medium that had only the thinnest film of narrative to serve as a pretext for gameplay, are now growing more ambitious and sophisticated in terms of story-telling.  Where the focus in the past has been on the visual aspects of a game, development companies have begun to make games that invert the narrative-for-gameplay’s sake model, titles such as Quantic Dream’s Heavy Rain, and Remedy’s Alan Wake.  It might be noted, too, that a syntactically unique language is needed for narrative to exist in this form – programming languages share more in common (at least superficially) with the TXT speak of mobile phone messages and internet chat forums than with any other written language.

Macintyre is of a long tradition of technophobic harbingers: there were similar fears with many technological innovations that have heralded a change in the way narrative is delivered.  More recently, Macintyre is one of an emerging trend of technophobic journalism and he shares with his fellows not only a stifling conservatism but the irony that it is the very technology he purports to harpoon that carries his voice the furthest.  Quite simply, these harbingers are becoming tedious.  History has shown their cries of doom to be unfounded time and time again.

Macintyre cuts his own throat at the end of the article when he writes, ‘Here is proof that the ancient need for narrative, hardwired into human nature, can sit comfortably with the wiring of the newest technology.’

Álbum: Loss (Blanco y Negro, 2001)

Colin MacIntyre, geniecillo en la sombra

El mundo de la música está lleno de pequeños geniecillos, en su mayoría prácticamente descnocidos, pero no por ello menos apreciados y reconocidos por unos pocos. Y uno de esos hombres es Colin MacIntyre (con ese apellido no puede ser más que escocés, claro está).
Él es el máximo responsable de Mull Historical Society y de esa maravilla pop llamada Loss, sin duda uno de esos discos que recuerdas por escuchar compulsivamente (ayss, que poquito se hace ahora esto con la infoxicación que nos inunda) durante una temporada.

Si te ha gustado, descárgatela aquí

While stopping 31, Drew gave up 5 goals in a 5-0 loss to Nashville. Not to good if you want to be the number 2 guy this season.

Colin MacIntyre: singer, writer, producer, already has two out of his three albums (under pseudo name Mull Historical Society) gaining a top top 20 UK chart position. His move from rural to urban see’s him shed the pseudo name to go it alone for his second solo album “Island”.

‘The first album was nearly released under my name,’ says MacIntyre, ‘but I’d already written the song Mull Historical Society, and I wanted something to hide behind.’ Maybe this is what comes of growing up on an island where the 2000 inhabitants are outnumbered by livestock and no traffic lights prevail. ‘But I don’t really need to hide any more,’
And hide no more he needn’t. His back catalogue of achievements includes being the first performance in the Scottish Parliament, writing 3 novels, and setting up his own record label ‘Future Gods Recordings’.

Already having previously had 4 top UK top 40 singles, Colin MacIntyre is on the very brink of success. Catch him while you can.

“Tunes, tunes, tunes” – The Scotsman

“The new songs ricochet between vivacious power pop and ballads of a drama and scope akin to U2 or The Killers. MacIntyre should prepare for greatness.” – London Evening Standard

Colin MacIntyre
Myspace
Twitter

Abigail wanted me to make a list of the thinkers I reference in class, and write a few words about each of them and what kinds of questions they are dealing with. This is a start. These are people whose thoughts have influenced my own, with a particular emphasis on things I’ve read or interacted with recently and therefore might be more likely to reference. I included pictures, because Abigail seems to think that might get me an extra bathroom in my mansion in heaven, and Jesus said to store up treasures in heaven (by which I’m sure he would have included bathrooms had there been indoor plumbing in the first century).

So here it is:

Karl Barth

Swiss theologian/really neat guy. When I got my copy of his Church Dogmatics in the mail, a certain classmate of mine responded, “Retire your Bible!” I look forward to reading him after I’m all done with school.

John Howard Yoder

Awesome facial hair. Mennonite theologian, studied in Switzerland where he had the chance to take a number of classes with Karl Barth. His The Politics of Jesus was widely read and very influential. The cross, not the sword, controls the meaning of history. The relationship between the obedience of God’s people and the triumph of God’s cause is not one of cause and effect but of cross and resurrection. The church is an alternative polis and engages politically on its own terms. Turn ons: Luke’s gospel. Turn offs: Constantinianism.

James Wm. McClendon, Jr.

Grew up Baptist in Louisiana, went to the University of Texas (my alma mater – Hook ‘em Horns!) and Southwest Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth. Was fired from a teaching post at a Southern Baptist seminary in California for sending students to march with Martin Luther King Jr., and he was also fired from a teaching post at a Catholic school in California for being against the Vietnam War. Other than a year as visiting professor of theology at Notre Dame in the 70’s (where Yoder, MacIntyre and Hauerwas were all teaching at the time), he pretty much stuck to the West coast. He wrote a non-foundationalist systematic theology from a “baptist” (intentionally small ‘b’) perspective, by which he intended to include Baptists, Mennonites, Campbellites, Brethren, and many others. His ‘baptist vision’ is this is that and then is now, by which he means that the church today is the church at the resurrection and the church on the last days. His systematic starts with Ethics (how must the church live to be the church? – Way, Watch-care, Witness), moves on to Doctrine (what must the church teach to be the church? – starts with eschatology, examines the Identity of Jesus Christ and finally the Fellowship of the Holy Spirit), and finishes with Witness (what must the church’s stance vis a vis the world be in order to be the church? – theology and culture, theology and philosophy, theology of mission). Wittgenstein, MacIntyre, Yoder, the Radical Reformation.

Nancey Murphy

Church of the Brethren, Fuller Seminary. Studied Philosophy of Science with Paul Feyerband and Theology with James McClendon. Holism in epistemology. Thinks of theology in terms of Imre Lakatos’ concept of scientific research programs. She’s a nonreductive physicalist: is there a soul? Sure, but it’s embodied. Modern neuroscience, Anglo-American Postmodernism (Wittgenstein, MacIntyre, philosophers of science after Kuhn).

Stanley Hauerwas

Methodist, grew up in Texas as the son of a bricklayer. Studied at Yale, I think before George and Hans were around. Took Old Testament courses from Brevard Childs, who made him think that Ezekiel was Karl Barth. Influenced by many, influencer of many. Time magazine called him “America’s Best Theologian”, and he thinks that’s hilarious: “Best is not a theological category.” He doesn’t like liberalism. At all. He does like thinking of Methodist identity in terms of being high church Mennonites or  free church Catholics. He thinks Christians should tell the truth. Virtue, narrative, church. Yoder, MacIntyre, Wittgenstein. Teaches at Duke.

George Lindbeck

Yale School. Invented the world “postliberal”. Cognitive and propositional ways of understanding religion are dumb. And he seems to think experiental and expressivist ways of understanding religions are dumber. Religions are more like cultures or languages. If you proclaim “Jesus is Lord” while striking down the infidel, you’re a liar. Kuhn and Wittgenstein. Karl Barth is also a major influence of the Yale School.

Hans Frei

Yale School Postliberal. He’s bringing narrative back. Narrative got the boot in 18th and 19th century hermeneutics. He seems to want to give historical criticism similar treatment. For a Christian, disbelief in the resurrection is rationally impossible. Karl Barth is a type 4 theologian, and you should be too.

Richard Hays

Methodist New Testament scholar, New Perspective on Paul. Subjective genitive, Paul as interpreter of Israel’s scriptures. New Testament ethics is about community, cross and new creation. Teaches at Duke.

Michael J. Gorman

New Testament, New Perspective on Paul. Studied with Bruce Metzger. Paul is the apostle of the crucified Lord. MJG, Paul and Jesus are all about cruciformity: the way of discipleship is the way of the cross, ethics is about the cross, Jesus is exercising his divinity in the cross – pretty much everything has to do with the cross. And he’s right; everything does have to do with the cross. What did you have for lunch? Oh, wow, that really reminds me of the cross! He also apparently has taught adjunct at MHGS, probably before we got Badley.

Willard Swartley

Mennonite New Testament scholar. Narrative and Sabbath. Synoptic Gospels. Peace and peacemaking are major New Testament themes, and are quite a bit bigger (theologically and ethically) than merely “nonviolence”.

Nicholas Lash

British Catholic theologian. Some texts, like Shakespeare’s King Lear, are not to be merely read, but instead must be performed. The Bible is such a text, and the church is the group of “performers”, most explicitly in the Eucharist but also in her life together. Hope is the Christian alternative to the optimism and despair (both of which claim to know too much about the future) we find in the world.

Herbert McCabe, OP

Dominican. Thomist. Wittgensteinian Marxist. But God still matters. Wanna understand the Trinity? Be filled with the Holy Spirit and look at the cross.

Most importantly, there’s a chance that he may be somehow (very) distantly related to me, through my ancestor John McCabe who fled his homeland during the potato famine as a stowaway on a cattle boat, ending up in South Carolina and (several generations later) giving me reason to call myself “Cabe”.

Alasdair MacIntyre

Scottish Catholic moral philosopher influenced by McCabe. Thomas Aquinas’ moral philosophy brought to bear upon the moral discourse of our (post)modern world, which he argues is in grave disorder. Liberal modern individualism is the problem; a community shaped by particular narratives and practices and with a particular account of the virtues, the unity of a human life and the concept of a tradition is the answer. Taught at Notre Dame, where Hauerwas and Yoder and McClendon all found themselves in the late 1970s.

Terry Eagleton

Influenced by McCabe. Marxism for the (post-)postmodern world (This is not your father’s Marxism). Sympathetic to Christianity. Likes to rip on (the new) atheists and the post-structuralists.

Thomas Kuhn

Philosopher/Historian of Science. Nancy Murphy describes him as the first to think about science in terms of holism rather than foundationalism. The Structure of Scientific Revoloutions is a widely read and influential text. Scientists assume their paradigm rather than constantly submitting it to scrutiny, and this is a good thing because it allows for normal science to do its proper work. Major changes happen through paradigm shifts or revolutions. Just read the book, it’s really interesting.

Ludwig Wittgenstein

Philosopher of language and other things. Hung out with the Logical Positivists in Vienna, but they didn’t get along too well. Spent much of his career in England with Bertrand Russell. His Tractatus Logico Philosophicus is an exemplary text of modern philosophy. The rest of his work was published posthumously, and could be thought of as being the first philosophy to move beyond modernity. Language games. The foundation is carried by the whole house. Pictures. Lots of other things. McClendon claims he was a Christian, albeit a peculiar one.

That was kind of fun. Did that help? Who have you been influenced by?

Reflecting upon ‘whether mercy is a virtue’, Thomas writes,

Misericordia signifies grief for another’s distress. Now this grief may denote, in one way, a movement of the sensitive appetite, in which case misericordia is not a virtue but a passion; whereas, in another way, it may denote a movement of the intellective appetite, in as much as one person’s evil is displeasing to another.

STh 2-2.30.3 (respondeo)

For Thomas misericordia is both a passion and a virtue. As a passion, misericordia is an involuntary or intuitive (but not irrational) natural grief experienced upon recognizing that someone is suffering – either physically or morally – by way of personal identification. As a virtue, misericordia is a rational disposition to habitually respond to that intuitive grief as if the suffering is experienced in one’s own person. The (caritas animated) response is disposed towards acts of justice to mitigate the experience of evil being suffered, but justice qua orderly state is not always possible or expedient – as in the case of a response to an incurable disease suffered by another person, were there is simply nothing that can be done to restore the body to a state of health. Nevertheless, even when nothing can be done, upon recognizing the suffering of another, misericordia is the disposition to do something; or, more precisely, the urgent rational recognition that I must do something. It is the practical bodily impulse to address the physical or moral cause of the experience of evil (that is, the state of physical or moral disorder). [1]

]]> http://theologyandculture.wordpress.com/2009/07/18/some-new-books-on-the-way/ Sat, 18 Jul 2009 22:28:05 +0000 Aaron Rathburn http://theologyandculture.wordpress.com/2009/07/18/some-new-books-on-the-way/

I had the opportunity to order a couple new books last night, so here is what I picked up.  I’ll just paste the synopses from Amazon beside each book.

The Hauerwas Reader, Stanley Hauerwas

Stanley Hauerwas is one of the most widely read and oft-cited theologians writing today. A prolific lecturer and author, he has been at the forefront of key developments in contemporary theology, ranging from narrative theology to the “recovery of virtue.” Yet despite his prominence and the esteem reserved for his thought, his work has never before been collected in a single volume that provides a sense of the totality of his vision.

The editors of The Hauerwas Reader, therefore, have compiled and edited a volume that represents all the different periods and phases of Hauerwas’s work. Highlighting both his constructive goals and penchant for polemic, the collection reflects the enormous variety of subjects he has engaged, the different genres in which he has written, and the diverse audiences he has addressed. It offers Hauerwas on ethics, virtue, medicine, and suffering; on euthanasia, abortion, and sexuality; and on war in relation to Catholic and Protestant thought. His essays on the role of religion in liberal democracies, the place of the family in capitalist societies, the inseparability of Christianity and Judaism, and on many other topics are included as well.
Perhaps more than any other author writing on religious topics today, Hauerwas speaks across lines of religious traditions, appealing to Methodists, Jews, Anabaptists or Mennonites, Catholics, Episcopalians, and others.

After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory, Alasdair MacIntyre

In this classic work, Alasdair MacIntyre examines the historical and conceptual roots of the idea of virtue, diagnoses the reasons for its absence in personal and public life, and offers a tentative proposal for its recovery. While the individual chapters are wide-ranging, once pieced together they comprise a penetrating and focused argument about the price of modernity. In the Third Edition prologue, MacIntyre revisits the central theses of the book and concludes that although he has learned a great deal and has supplemented and refined his theses and arguments in other works, he has “as yet found no reason for abandoning the major contentions” of this book. He remains “committed to the thesis that it is only from the standpoint of a very different tradition, one whose beliefs and presuppositions were articulated in their classical form by Aristotle, that we can understand both the genesis and the predicament of moral modernity.”

The Devil Reads Derrida—And Other Essays on the University, the Church, Politics, and the Arts, James K.A. Smith

(No blurb on Amazon, so this is from the ChurchAndPoMoCulture blog)

It brings together some of Smith’s most significant forays into the public arena, focusing especially on discipleship, the university, and politics and the church. It also provides a selection of his criticism, including essays on Harry Potter, A History of Violence, the poetry of Franz Wright.

How to Read the [Hebrew] Bible: A Guide to Scripture, Then and Now, James L. Kugel

Kugel’s tour de force of biblical scholarship juxtaposes two different ways of reading the Bible: the ancient biblical interpretations, ranging from the Book of Jubilees to Augustine, that he explored in The Bible as It Was, and the modern historical approach that challenges the historical veracity of scripture and seeks instead to find its writers’ original sources and purposes. It can be a jarring journey for those schooled in traditional views, but what emerges is a fresh, even strange, and very rich view of everything from the Garden of Eden to Isaiah’s dream vision of God. Refreshingly undogmatic and often witty, Kugel brings an intimate knowledge of the Hebrew Bible to illuminate small points as well as large. He discusses who the ancient Israelites were; the resemblances between YHWH and Canaanite gods; the unique role of the prophet in Ancient Near Eastern religions; the nature of ancient wisdom literature; and what the Bible means when it calls Solomon the wisest of men. The result is a stunning narrative of the evolution of ancient Israel, of its God and of the entire Hebrew Bible, contrasted with ancient interpretations that aimed to uncover hidden meanings and moral lessons. So, for example, for the ancients, the story of Cain and Abel is a tale of good versus evil. For the moderns, it was originally a story of origin, about the relation between ancient Israelites and the fierce Kenites to their south. While Kugel is a traditional Jew, he sees the modern approach as compelling, so the dilemma is whether a person of faith can read scripture in both the old way and the new. Drawing on Judaism’s nonfundamentalist approach, Kugel’s proposed answer is that the original purpose of the texts and their lack of historical accuracy matters less than their underlying message: to serve God.

Parte do que tenho refletido e estudado, em Teoria do Direito, perfaz o caminho iniciado por John Rawls em fins da década de 60 e início de 70. Precisamente em 1971 com a primeira edição de “Uma Teoria da Justiça”, posteriormente, reconfigurada pelo seu “Liberalismo Político” (1993). Com sua teoria começa um debate norte-americano e europeu redimensionando a cena teórica social e política da década de 80. Por objeto principal a preocupação em construir uma justificativa plausível para o edifício de uma sociedade justa. O Direito tornou-se área de investigação privilegiada sobre o objeto a ser aprofundado, sobretudo os diretos fundamentais como núcleo estruturante de todo o ordenamento jurídico dos países democráticos ocidentais.

Atualmente, entre os liberais concentram-se John Rawls e Ronald Dworkin, dentre tantos muitos. Entre os comunitaristas têm-se Michael Walzer, Michael Sandel, Charles Taylor, Alainster MacIntyre. Jürgen Habermas inaugura uma outra perspectiva, criticada tanto por liberais como comunitaristas: procedimentalismo. Em “Multiculturalismo e direito a autodeterminação dos povos indígenas” (Sérgio Antonio Fabris Editor) fiz uma revisão dos principais liberais, comunitaristas e procedimentalistas, como conclusão apoiei-me em uma fusão entre comunitaristas e procedimentalistas. Assumo, portanto, uma posição dentro dessas correntes.

Entendendo as principais divergências entre liberais e comunitaristas fica mais clara a leitura e a interpretação dos caminhos percorridos por estes filósofos e/ou teóricos.

Os liberais inclinam-se em torno da discussão dos limites do Estado ante a liberdade individual dos cidadãos, também acreditam que os direitos podem ser identificados e justificados sem pressupor qualquer concepção particular de vida boa. Para Kant e Rawls existem certos direitos tão importantes que nem mesmo o bem comum pode estar acima deles, porque os princípios de justiça pelos quais se fixam tais direitos independem de “qualquer concepção moral e religiosa”, segundo Ralws. Significa o mesmo afirmar que independem de quaisquer justificação de concepção de vida boa. É de linha liberal também a defesa dos direitos humanos universais, assumindo uma posição de neutralidade ante a pluralidade de valores sociais diferenciados nas sociedades democráticas.

Os comunitaristas dividem-se em posições que contrariam a universalidade dos direitos e outros a independência da justiça em relação ao bem. Portanto, nem todos concordam que a cultura e as diferentes tradições informadas por valores diferenciados e alicerçados sobre princípios de justiça, aqui relativizados, produzem direitos também diferenciados. Muito embora esta seja a corrente predominante entre os comunitaristas. Por outro lado, tem-se a contribuição de Michael Sandel orientando sua reflexão pela crítica a independência da justiça em relação ao bem, afirmando-a como dependente do bem, derivada do bem.

Ocorrem duas possibilidades de afirmação da justiça como derivada do bem. A primeira constitui-se em torno dos valores de uma comunidade, determinando  e definindo o que é justo ou injusto. O partilhamento dos valores e tradições em comunidade são responsáveis pelo reconhecimento dos direitos. Por isso mesmo pode ocorrer a interpretação de direitos que não se corresponde com a teoria-prática dominante. Essa posição é assumidamente comunitarista. Por outro lado, a segunda, Segundo Sandel, negando o rótulo de comunitarista, não se preocupa em justificar a justiça a partir de valores de uma dada comunidade, porque o reconhecimento desse direito dependerá da demonstração de que tal direito honrará e promoverá um bem humano importante. Dependerá do valor moral ou finalidade que se objetiva como bem intrínseco. Essa posição consiste em uma perspectiva teleológica, na minha modesta interpretação não deixa de ser comunitarista, porque assume a crítica ao liberalismo quanto a pressuposição da justiça independente do bem. Se se pode rotular a construção teórica temos aqui um comunitarismo teleológico.

Tanto liberais como comunitaristas parecem equivocados em um certo sentido. Ambos evitam emitir um juízo de valor sobre as finalidades pretendidas pelos direitos.  O comunitarismo teleológico de Sandel promove um terceiro sentido: justificar os direitos dependentes da importância moral dos objetivos que estes servem.

By Choice • For Pleasure

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___________________

By Request • For Review

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The Atlanta Thrashers, parent club of the AHL’s Chicago Wolves, have signed unrestricted free agent defenseman Joel Kwiatkowski, unrestricted free agent forward Jason Krog, and unrestricted free agent goaltenders Drew MacIntyre and Peter Mannino, according to Thrashers executive vice president and general manager Don Waddell.

Krog and Kwiatkowski return to the organization after helping the Wolves to the 2008 Calder Cup championship.

Krog has appeared in 202 career NHL contests with Islanders, Ducks, Thrashers, Rangers and Canucks, as well as 448 points (157 goals, 291 assists) in 377 career AHL games with Lowell, Providence, Springfield, Bridgeport, Cincinnati, Chicago and Manitoba.

The native of Fernie, B.C., recorded 86 points (30 goals, 56 assists) in 74 games last season with the Manitoba Moose, ranking third in the league in scoring. He led the Moose in points, goals, power-play goals (10) and plus/minus rating (plus-25). The 5-foot-11, 190-pound center added 23 points (eight goals, 15 assists) in 22 Calder Cup Playoff games as the Moose reached their first Calder Cup Finals.

Krog also appeared in four NHL games with Vancouver in 2008-09, scoring one goal.

Krog was named the AHL’s most valuable player following the 2007-08 season after leading the league with 112 points (39 goals, 73 assists) in 80 games with the Wolves. That postseason he earned 38 points (12 goals, 26 assists) in 24 games and was named MVP of the Calder Cup Playoffs.

Krog was awarded with the NCAA’s Hobey Baker Award, as the top college hockey player in the nation, following the 1998-99 season with the University of New Hampshire. He originally signed as a free agent with the N.Y. Islanders on April 10, 1999.

Kwiatkowski has appeared in 282 career NHL games with Ottawa, Washington, Florida, Pittsburgh and Atlanta, recording 45 points (16 goals, 29 assists). In 2007-08, he earned five assists in 18 games with the Thrashers.

He has also seen action in 356 career American Hockey League games with Cincinnati, Grand Rapids, Binghamton, San Antonio, St. John’s and Chicago, posting 183 points (65 goals, 118 assists).

The 6-0, 205-pound defenseman spent last season with the Cherepovets Severstal of the Kontinental Hockey League (KHL) in Russia, recording 25 points (13 goals, 12 assists) in 52 games. The Kindersley, Sask., native was originally selected by the Dallas Stars in the eighth round, 194th overall, of the 1996 NHL Entry Draft.

MacIntyre, 26, has posted a 91-49-8 record with nine shutouts, a 2.32 goals-against average and a .919 save percentage in 155 career AHL games with Grand Rapids, Manitoba and Milwaukee, including three straight seasons of at least 25 wins. The 6-foot-1, 185-pound goaltender has earned a 15-11 record with one shutout, a 1.82 GAA and a .929 save percentage in 28 career Calder Cup playoff games.

The Charlottetown, P.E.I., native appeared in 55 games last season with the AHL’s Milwaukee Admirals, posting a 34-15-4 record with four shutouts, a 2.30 GAA and a .921 save percentage. He led the league in wins, ranked fifth in GAA and was sixth in save percentage, and was named a Second Team AHL All-Star for the second consecutive season.

MacIntyre also posted a 7-4 record with one shutout, a 1.65 GAA and a .931 save percentage in 11 playoff games with the Admirals last season.

MacIntyre, who was originally selected by the Detroit Red Wings in the fourth round, 121st overall, of the 2001 NHL Entry Draft, appeared in two NHL games with Vancouver during the 2007-08 season.

Mannino, 25, appeared in 34 games with the AHL’s Bridgeport Sound Tigers last season, posting a 17-12-2 record with one shutout, a 2.94 GAA and a .900 save percentage. The 6-foot, 195-pound goaltender also earned a 1-2 record with a 3.18 GAA and a .867 save percentage in three Calder Cup playoff games.

Mannino, who signed with the N.Y. Islanders as a free agent on July 3, 2008, also appeared in three NHL games with the Islanders last season, earning a 1-1-0 record.

Prior to his professional career, the Farmington Hills, Mich., native played four seasons for the University of Denver (WCHA), earning a 61-32-4 record in 101 career games and helping the Pioneers to the NCAA National Championship in 2004-05. He finished his career with the most shutouts in school history (15) and ranks second all-time in save percentage (.917).

Rangers acquire Boyle from Los Angeles
Wozniacki beats Wozniak to win at Ponte Vedra
Capitals re-sign Laing
Wozniacki beats Wozniak to win at Ponte Vedra

The bad news: The Canucks have lost 2 players to the Atlanta Thrashers. The good news: The players were Jason Krog and Drew MacIntyre. Krog was signed last year at free-agency by the Canucks. He had 86 points for the Manitoba Moose, but only 1 goal with the Canucks. The Thrashers also signed G Peter Mannino and D Joel Kwiatkowski. Kwiatkowski played the 2007-08 season with the Thrashers, but played last year in the KHL. Another team to go on a signing spree was the Chicago Blackhawks, who re-signed Aaron Johnson, Ben Eager, Troy Brouwer, Colin Fraser, and Corey Crawford. The New York Islanders were also very active today signing 4 players, including Mark Flood, Matt Moulsen, Greg Moore, and Greg Mauldin. Other players signed since my last post are Warren Peters, signed by Dallas from Calgary, and Brian Salcido, re-signed by Anahiem. Notice that Cam Barker was not signed by the Hawks. Gillis still has a chance.

Language is often characterised in terms of linguistics or logic – as though the study of language was the same as language.  But language is fundamentally communication – the coming together and identifying of a community, not only through speech and text but also through activities.

Language fundamentally functions as storytelling.

We see the world and ourselves in terms of the stories we have been taught (see Alisdair Macintyre After Virtue).  Religions, scientific theories and morals are just as much stories as epics, tragedies and poetry.

There is not one story, there are many stories and they compete, mingle and transform one another.  Also stories are understood, interpreted and translated in many different ways.

Likewise, our lives are stories.

Interesting Dateline NBC on Iran. Anne Curry went to Iran and talked to a lot of people. It’s worth watching I believe. Though most mainstream media pieces focus too much on “the other’s” dichotomous relationship with the west, Curry tries to show how similar Iran is to the US. But she still built some dichotomies going along with the traditional discourse on Iran.

2 “quick” thoughts:

WARNING: I apologize ahead, ’cause I know it’s gonna’ get slightly rookie-philosophical and loaded with some jargon, YUK!

She was a little obsessed with chador and hijab. It seems every time a western journalist goes to Iran they devote a large segment of their book or documentary to this issue. These things are endlessly commented on and presented as anti-modern, but to many women these forms of clothing can be seen as expressions of modern aspirations that were frustrated under the forcefully secular Pahlavi’s, for instance. I believe that identifying this religious tradition as the real threat to tolerance and sanity, we’re letting ourselves let go of the massive problems that confront the Iranian people, like economy and survival, for instance.

Of course, freedom of expression is seen in the west as philosophically a natural right, but we must force ourselves to see it as also the right to do opposite of what we westerns do, that is, it is not anti-modern to cover-up with chador or tight hijab. Sometimes these things that we see as oppressive are really expressions of agency, a recognized aspiration of modern thinking.

Foucault once explained his paradox of subjectivation and one can think of it in relation to these things, like a possible woman’s want to wear chador: the very processes and conditions that secure a subject’s subordination are also the means by which she becomes a self-conscious identity and agent, thus, the possibility of agency, as relayed through Judith Butler in her post-structuralist thinking of a woman’s agency (1993, 2001), is located within the structures of power (rather than outside of them) and, more importantly, suggests that the reiterative structure of norms sees not only to consolidate a particular regime of discourse/power, but also provides the means for its destabilization (Mahmood, 2005).

Now I am certainly not saying the the Islamic Republic does not have a terrible human right’s record, particularly with regards to women. I am only stating that concentrating on the upper-class problem of hijab and chador really takes time from discussing what most women in Iran might see as more important, such as economic and family issues.

She could have filled some of that time in a province talking to women who don’t care about the chador and just want prosperity for their families.

Curry set up the dichotomy between “tradition and modernity”. Oh boy, I really hate this one. As if one’s tradition cannot hinge itself to “modernity”, whatever that modernity actually means. Why do these things always have to clash in our western discourse?

What is tradition? I like the modern philospher MacIntyre’s concept when he points to the connection between how we confront our lives today as bearers of a particular social identity, thus:

“[....] practices always have histories and that at any given movement what a practice is depends on a mode of understanding it which has been trasmitted often through many generations. And thus, in so far as the virtues [of the traditional practice] sustain the relationships required for [acceptable] practices , they have to sustain relationships to the past–and to the future–as well as the present” (222, 1981).

In taking this, because a traditional practice must sustain the relationship required with one’s practice today, we can see that maybe practices of tradition, like religious life, or certain moral traditions, don’t represent some type of space where nonargument must exist, contrary to modernity where argument supposedly ‘thrives’. It must be figured out by the actor whether a particular tradition is acceptable to her. In fact, tradition is a space of different interpretations and argument, not just some stifling anti-modern, thus anti-western, mode of repression.

Iran is a society that has become a synthesis of, what is seen as, “modernity” (thesis) and tradition (the antithesis). Iran fits within this dialectical frame. For example, while Iranians and the Islamic Republic put strong emphasis on science and technology, it also has mullahs doing some of that work, spurred by Shi’a Islamic thought going back hundreds of years. This is not “modernity” butting up against tradition, but the two working together: a traditional way that a cleric may see his life and identity informs his understanding and methods of researching a modern science to fix a modern issue, such as stem-cell research or AIDS.

Curry hints at these things when discussing the AIDS clinic in Tehran, but disappoints by saying, in more tactful words, that Iran needs to modernize like the west if it really wants to battle contemporary issues like AIDS or drug abuse.

But overall I like the show’s point: Iran and the US share many similarities, and while Iran has contradictory and diametric characteristics (like most societies, including right here in the good ‘ole U.S. of A.) it is not some backwards outpost, but a thriving hodgepodge of culture, interests, and global peoples. This is not something just ‘touchy-feely’, but true. Ahmadinejad is not Iran, yet Ahmadinejad is a product of Iran…

Yuk, again, sorry for the jargon. Hopefully it’s not too incoherent ’cause really the Dateline piece is very simple and enjoyable. I was feeling cerebral today… Question my theses if they don’t make sense to ya’.

Será realizado nos dias 23 e 24 de maio a 3ª edição do Torneio Donovan & Macintyre, promovido pelo SPAC (São Paulo Athletic Club), tradicional equipe de São Paulo, precursora do Rugby no país. O campeonato é um dos poucos a ser dirigido para as categorias de base do Rugby, justamente um dos problemas comentados pelo Martoni em um post recente.

O nome do torneio é uma homenagem aos fundadores da União de Rugby do Brasil (hoje ABR), Harry L. Donovan e Jimmy Macintyre. No site do time de Rugby do SPAC, ainda que desatualizado, é possivel ver muito da história do Rugby nacional.

If there’s one thing that frustrates me more than fickle Vancouver fans it’s the absurdity and hypocrisy that is the face of Vancouver Media. This specific face is Iain MacIntyre. The other day when the Canucks played the Rangers, I-Mac was writing about how the Canucks were facing their former captain for the first time and how Naslund was having a much better season in NY this year than he had had the last couple of seasons in Vancouver. He then went on to talk about how Markus’ major problem in Vancouver was that the media constantly being on his case. The reporters who ragged on him night in and night out and how every morning on the front page of the sports sections in newspapers there would be a reporter who was bashing Markus and his place. He then went on to say how Markus is living a more relaxed life in NY and as a result he is performing. It drives me crazy to listen to writers like him who go on about how “it’s all the media’s fault” when he is the problem. Last season almost every second article he wrote seemed be about Naslund’s poor play and lack of leadership. Words cannot begin to describe the frustration that runs through my veins when I read the two faced opinions of Vancouver’s mainstream media. That being said, after looking back at Markus’ career, the question is begged: “Why is his number not going to be retired.” • He played 13 seasons in Vancouver • Most Points by a Canuck (756) • Most Goals by a Canuck (346) • 3rd most assists (410 – 1st Linden 415, 2nd Smyl 411) • Most hattricks by a Canuck (10) • Holds all records for Left Wingers (Most Goals, Assists, Points) Take into account all these facts, most goals scored in a Canucks uniform, most points, all the LW records, as well as fastest hat trick, and most PP goals in a Canucks Uniform. Here’s a player who rarely missed hockey games due to injury. He missed several weeks after breaking his leg against a game in Buffalo. He also missed a couple of games after his headshot from Steve Moore. Other than those two major incidents, Markus would show up night in and night out, regardless of the flack he received from the media and fans. Media influence and fan emotion shouldn’t be a factor in this decision by management. Here is a man who has done more for this franchise than any other player (statistically) and he deserves to have his number retired to the rafters. Now know that I am not a huge Naslund fan, nor have I ever been. I just look at this decision by management in the pre-Linden-retirement and think it is immature, and childish for a franchise to base an important decision such as this based on fickle fans and biased media. In a city where the media fuels the bandwagon, management needs to take this decision into their hands and make the correct decision. Honor the former player, do the right thing. This past weekend Patrick Roy had his jersey retired by a team that he left on less than stellar terms. The Montreal Canadiens made a classy move by honoring the greatest goalie in the world to date. The most impressive part of the process was that not only did the organization put aside their differences to recognize a legendary player, but the fans too put all past regrets and bitterness aside to cheer their native son Patrick into immortality as his number rose to the rafters. This is arguably a situation identical to the one the Canucks face/faced with Naslund and the result should be obvious. I have the utmost respect for Montreal after that act and can only hope the Canucks can equal Montreal in class by recognizing one of the greatest players to ever lace up in a Canucks uniform. It takes guts for an organization to step up the way they did. The organization owes it to him to step out from behind their love affair with the hypocritical Vancouver media and put the deserved consideration into this process. I realize that this might not perhaps happen until he chooses to end his hockey career, but so far even after Naslund has left, the media has continued to bash him, the fans have continued to bash him and he still doesn’t get the respect he deserves. Markus Naslund was one of the classiest players who wore a Canucks jersey and even through this whole ordeal never once bad mouthed the fans or the team. The least he deserves is our respect. The least he deserves is for the negative media to stop.

Junior Prom. May, 2000.

NOTE: My Downtown Year was written in 2004.  I will be using excerpts from My Downtown Year  in a book about San Diego that I’m currently writing.  For more context on its serial presentation on this blog, click here.

Day 5: Marx called religion the opiate of the masses.  But he missed the mark.  Religion is, in its very nature, agitating, and anarchistic.  It demands the usurpation of all authority that is not God.  Eventually, a truly deistic society will not need government in any form.  This was the ultimate failure of the English church-state.  The “Pilgrims” were retreating religious insurgents.  To maintain government, the encouragement of religious thought is contra-positive.  It is in this sense that communism and capitalism can be seen as what they really are: two different means working towards the same end.  The goal of both is ultimately state control of the individual in order to maintain an ordered society.  Communism failed because it attempted to substitute state for god in the pantheon of worship.  Capitalism allows god, but neuters him/her/it with more alluring alternatives.  Consumerism is the official religion of the capitalist society.  Communism sought to destroy all concept of a supernatural God.  In so doing, they indirectly endowed any concept of a god with infinite power.  Why fight something that does not exist?  Consumerism loves god when convenient, but locates him/her/it somewhere below new sneakers on the Mazlo Triangle of Actualization.  While true religion eventually leads to revolution, consumerism invariably leads to greater reliance on government control.  We require government to ensure that the mechanisms of buying and selling remain viable and stable, especially in this flying nation of hungry importers and haughty exporters.

As long as the system itself remains, we demand nearly nothing to live our lives.  We want things, but we have to work to earn them.  We should reward ourselves for all that hard work, so we buy more things, which we then have to work more to pay for.  Life is an endless cycle of consumption and earning.  We work until we die to be able to buy the things that help us relax from working so goddamn much.  It suddenly occurs to me that everything I’ve written thus far is a half-assed and unsupported condemnation of a system that has allowed me to write a half-assed and unsupported condemnation of itself.  Add convoluted to the list of pejoratives in the previous sentence.  (Note: I bought an $80 T-shirt today with a caricature of Ernesto Guevarra on it.)

Macintyre says that we are facing a crisis because we have reduced absolutes to opinions and that the language of teleological morality has escaped our philosophical vocabularies.  We should be so fortunate.  We are facing a crisis because we are bored and see the world as an elaborate reality show, staged for our amusement and reward.

(Note: If you seek a philosophical system here, you are lost.  I can recommend only utter and total excess and self-destruction.  From there you will either become a relativist or a positivist.  The choice between the two is preemptory to any other philosophical decision.)

First Garden. Fall, 2008.

Top 13 Week: Tonight’s theme is Michael Jackson songs.

Not a fan of this theme. Don’t get me wrong, I like MJ’s old stuff just like everybody else does but I don’t think it’s a good choice for American Idol.

This season I’m hoping Scott Macintyre (in the picture above) goes far. People refer to him as the “blind contestant” or “the guy who’s blind” (Appropriately so I guess… though he does have a name). Do I think he has the greatest voice? Nope. I think he has a good voice that can “go astray” at times. So why am I rooting for him? He is extremely likeable. He (as far as I can tell) is “one of the good guys” who seems very humble, down to earth and “real”. I like to root for people like that.

What should he sing for tonight’s theme of Michael Jackson?

Considering the fact that he’s an amazing piano player, it will have to be a song that lends itself to that. Here are my top 3 choices for him:

1. ”The Girl is Mine” (This is the one he should choose from the Thriller album with Paul McCartney on vocals)

2. “Someone in the Dark” (Good song – but is it too closely related to the whole “blindness” thing?)

3. “Ben” (too much of a classic?)

I hope you do well tonight Scott. Vote for him!

ADAM LAMBERT

ALEXIS GRACE

ALLISON IRAHETA

ANOOP DESAI

DANNY GOKEY

JASMINE MURRAY

JORGE NUNEZ

KRIS ALLEN

LIL ROUNDS

MATT GIRAUD

MEGAN JOY CORKREY

MICHAEL SARVER

SCOTT MACINTYRE

Yes, you read it right! There are 13 finalists for AI for season 8 and I have to admit it will be a waste of contestant to eliminate someone off. I mean, this batch is super good, really. Actually, I am quite happy with last year’s batch though I like archie to won but I like cook also so no harm done. And now I was like watching it religiously, 3rd to Survivor and Amazing Race. AI was started being shown here in the Philippines on its 3rd season. I only watched season 3 because a Fil-Am contestant is in it (Trias) but I not a big fan, sorry. On season 4, I only watched because of Constantine but after being booted off, I stopped watching. I didn’t watch seasons 5 & 6. Enough of other seasons. Anyways, It will be tough for the people who’s gonna vote in who they should take out. Of course, I am not included because I am currently living at the other side of the world, though I wanted to vote to the finalists that I like the most from the bunch. Obviously, everybody has their own pick in every batch, as for me my picks were Gokey, Lambert, & Desai. But over-all all the contestants are great.

I am a feminist in my political theory, philosophy and as much as possible in practice.  I want to seek new ways of ethical thinking about justice and morality that do not depend on liberal theory nor do they seek to be conservative.  I am interested in radical anti-capitalist theories rooted in practice and intellectual tradtions.  But these traditions must not stagnate in dogmatic assertions or distort themselves with prejudice.  They must seek rationality from within through the goods of human excellence.  They must be challenged by their own premises and constantly improved through practice and reflection.  I am very influenced by contemporary Aristotelians such as Alasdair MacIntyre and Kelvin Knight.  I am also fascinated by any women who successfully contribute to philosophical and political theory in engaging ways that challenge dominant masculine ways of thinking.  I am presently enjoying discovering the many ways in which we can approach the history of political thought through the works of Collingwood, Strauss, Gadamer and Taylor.  My current favourite read is the collection of letters between two great friends – Hannah Arendt and Mary McCarthy.

MILWAUKEE 4, QUAD CITY 0
Fourth-year forward Hugh Jessiman tallied the first hat trick of his professional career as Milwaukee took a 4-0 win over visiting Quad City on Tuesday night at the Bradley Center.

Jessiman scored once in the first period and twice in the third for the Admirals, who received a 32-save shutout performance from goaltender Drew MacIntyre.

Jessiman gave Milwaukee a 1-0 lead with a power play goal at 16:26 of the opening period, and neither side scored in the middle frame.

Ryan Jones, who assisted on two of Jessiman’s scores, made it 2-0 at 13:47 of the third stanza. Jessiman tallied his second of the night at 17:09 and completed the hat trick with an empty-net marker in the closing minute.

The 24-year-old Jessiman, a former first-round draft pick, now shows nine goals since joining Milwaukee from the New York Rangers organization on Oct. 30.

MacIntyre registered his third shutout of the campaign and became the first AHL goaltender this year to reach 20 victories (20-8-1).
IOWA 4, ROCKFORD 3
Iowa used a four-goal second period to post a 4-3 win over visiting Rockford on Tuesday at the Wells Fargo Arena.

The IceHogs took a 1-0 lead when Mike Radja scored the only goal of the first period for either side, but Chops forward T.J. Trevelyan lit the lamp at 1:03 and 8:27 of the middle frame to record his first multiple-goal effort since Dec. 27, also against Rockford.

After Rockford’s Nathan Davis tied it at 8:54, the Chops received two goals in a span of 55 seconds late in the stanza. Ryan Dingle scored at 18:00, and Charlie Kronschnabel’s first career AHL goal at 18:55 made it 4-2.

Pascal Pelletier scored 21st goal of the campaign for the IceHogs midway through the third, but they could not get the equalizer and lost for the fourth time in five games (1-4-0-0).

Chops goaltender David LeNeveu earned the victory with 35 saves on 38 shots.

by Peter Shannon || AHL On The Beat Archive

For the first time since 2004-05, Pekka Rinne will not be the Milwaukee Admirals’ number one goaltender this season. But Milwaukee has replaced one AHL All-Star goalie with another: Drew MacIntyre.

And according to Admirals head coach Lane Lambert, “Drew is definitely our number one guy.”

MacIntyre was born and raised in Prince Edward Island, Canada, where the summers were gorgeous and there was hockey to be played all year round. Growing up, he always knew that he wanted to be a goalie. Whether it was on the pond with his friends or in the basement getting tennis balls fired at him by his father, MacIntyre was constantly between the pipes and never thought twice about any other position.

Couple that with the fact that his dad and many of his uncles manned the crease, and he knew he was destined to follow down the same path.

After four years of hard work playing juniors for the Sherbrooke Beavers, MacIntyre was drafted by the Detroit Red Wings in the fourth round of the 2001 NHL Entry Draft and began his first season of professional hockey in the ECHL. He played just 11 games in his rookie season with Toldeo due to a thigh injury, and then spent the next two years bouncing back and forth between the Storm and the Grand Rapids Griffins, Detroit’s AHL affiliate.

MacIntyre had a break-out season in 2005-06 when he posted a 24-7-8 record in Toledo with a minuscule 2.06 goals-against average, and also an 8-4 record with the Griffins. In the Calder Cup Playoffs he led the AHL in goals against (1.62) and save percentage (.940) and helped Grand Rapids reach the Western Conference Finals, where they were bounced by, of all teams, the Admirals.

Less than a month prior to the start of the 2006-07 campaign, MacIntyre was dealt from Detroit to Vancouver and played the next two seasons with the Manitoba Moose, the Canucks AHL affiate. As a member of the Moose, he recorded 49 wins against just 30 losses and allowed just 2.26 goals per game. He also earned the right to play in the AHL All-Star Game in the 2007-08 season, and was the winning goalie.

“(The All-Star Game) was something I’ll never forget,” said MacIntyre. “It was an awesome experience both on and off the ice. The game went really well. We came back in the third and I won in a shootout. I had my wife’s parents come to the game, and my father. It was the only time I was really able to see him all year so it was really cool to get him there.”

In 2007, MacIntyre was called up for two NHL games with the Vancouver Canucks, in what he considers his best hockey memory and something that he is very thankful for. His first game was on Dec. 13 at San Jose where he came on in relief of Curtis Sanford in the second period and stopped nine of 11 shots in a no-decision.

His second game, also a relief appearance, was at home against Dallas. He came in with the Canucks down 3-1, but despite stopping 10 of 11 shots he was saddled with the loss as Vancouver fell 4-3.

“The first one in San Jose, it was a moment that I’ll never forget. I remember just skating to the net and feeling so grateful for the moment. The second one, against Dallas, was really cool because I got to play in front of the home crowd. We ended up making it really close, and I ended up getting a loss because I let in a goal in the third period. But both experiences are definitely something I could get used to.”

MacIntyre has played in an All-Star Game and competed against the best in the NHL, but he also holds claim to a feat that not many other netminders have accomplished: scoring a goal. And not just any goal, but a game-winner in overtime.

It happened last Feb. 20 when the Moose traveled to Chicago just as the playoff chase was beginning. With the score deadlocked at 1-1 after 60 minutes of play the two teams went into OT and the Wolves pulled goalie Ondrej Pavelec on a delayed penalty.

Now the storybook ending would have been for MacIntyre to bravely head behind the net to scoop up a Chicago dump-in, corral the puck and then feather it 190 feet to the other end of the ice where it trickles into the Wolves net.

But in reality MacIntyre didn’t shoot the puck himself, but he was the last player to touch it before a player from the Chicago Wolves attempted a pass from behind the net to his teammate on the blue line. The pass missed its target and sailed all the way down the ice and into the net.

Fantasy or reality, the result was the same: on OT win and his name on the scoresheet.

“I really didn’t do anything, the puck just touched the knob of my stick. I didn’t even know I scored until after the game. It was still a really unique, cool experience.”

Coach Lambert seems pretty confident in his new prize between the pipes, but he also expects MacIntyre to act as a leader on this young Admirals team.

“We brought him in as a leader, knowing full well that he was a great character guy and family guy,” Lambert said. “From that standpoint I knew that off the ice he would be a great guy as well: one that we could count on and lean on in terms of leadership and playing the role as an older guy.”

Like most hockey players, MacIntyre’s Admirals teammates spend their free time resting, hanging out, playing video games, and enjoying the nightlife. But MacIntyre on the other hand is spending much of his time preparing for fatherhood as he and his wife Karen are expecting a baby this December. The two have been busy shopping and getting the apartment ready. Seeing that they aren’t giving in to finding out if it’s going to be a boy or a girl, the shopping has been somewhat hard for Drew and Karen.

“We’re getting all the essentials ready, you know, the crib and everything. It’s really exciting. We’re not finding out, it’ll be a bit of a surprise. We both made the decision earlier on and obviously there’s been times where we wanted to find out. It’s something we’ve waited on for so long so we might as well wait out the whole thing.”

While he might not be doing a lot of the customary activities of hockey players away from the ice, he does share one long held hockey tradition: he is superstitious. But don’t try and find out what they because MacIntyre isn’t talking.

“I guess one of my big superstitions is to not talk about my superstitions,” he said, laughing. “All I can say is that if things are going well, I’ll probably keep doing things the way I do.”

Assuming he keeps doing things the way he does, the Admirals will do just fine this season.

Leo Franco: We Must Not Lose League Focus

There are some days that just “feel” bad. Today started, really, last night, when, after getting home at 10pm, I did an hour’s washing up created by someone else, an hour’s ironing created by myself, before falling into bed at around 12:30, on a day when I’d been up since 6am and had barely 4 hours sleep all week.

Rising at 6am, a mere 5 1/2 hours later for the more mathematically challenged (i.e. me), I was in suprisingly high spirits. But that’s because I thought it was Friday. I then realised it was Thursday, and got quickly pissed off.

Add that to the fact that I was awoken early by my central heating (which needs replacing, wholesale, £2k+ to me. yay.) and, despite that, there was still a bit of a chill in my room, meaning leaving bed was even more tricky than usual. Oh, and Chris Moyles was being annoying, but that’s rather to be expected.

So, dragged myself into work (had to wait for about 5 full tube trains to come & go before I managed to get on) and have simply been harangued all day. It’s 18:50 now, and I’m only just starting any actual work. Am having a rather acute case of the Peter Gibbonses.

Basically, had I had a stiff gin this morning, everything would be well with the world, but I didn’t. I had an apple. And some coffee.

A couple of weeks ago, I saw Michael McIntyre (shocking website, have some YouTubeage to make up for it) at the Hammersmith Apollo. The man is, frankly, brilliant. His approach to the middle classes of this country is absolutely superb, made all the more amusing because he himself is a member, as are most of his audiences.  One of his points was that, having adopted a suitably plummy RP accent, one can substitute any noun, verbify it, and use it as a synonym for being pissed as a fart.

E.g.
“Oh, last night, bugger me, I was completely basketball-hooped, what?!”
“Bastard hangover this morning, totally Tarmacced last night”

Hence the title of this post, as gazeboed stuck in my head.

So, What I Would Rather Do Today is be blind drunk, in fact, sod this, the night is young, I’m off to find some friends and a pub, hopefully combined, toodle-pip!