Thought for the Day

To see the unseeable, make the visible invisible. From the outstanding book: The 4 Percent Universe: Dark Matter, Dark Energy, and the Race to Discover the Rest of Reality - by Richard Panek.

Truer Words Have Never Been Spoken

“There will be some lunatic screaming at you on Sunday nights,” Selig told Torre at the news conference, “and that lunatic will be me.” From the article, Torre Selected by Selig as a Top Lieutenant by Tyler Kepner in today's NYTimes. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/27/sports/baseball/27bats.html?ref=sports
Now we know who Billy Joel was looking for when he wrote:
You may be right
Bud may be crazy
But it just might be a lunatic you're looking for...
Could it be Billy had the Bud & the Mets in mind way back when?

Sportsmen Play Chess

I have always been amazed when reading about the many people in the public eye who play chess but choose to not belong to the main chess organization, USCF. It seems that not a week goes by when I do not read about another sportsman who plays the game. For example, I read that the Hall of Fame bowler, Walter Ray Williams plays chess. He was described in an article in the NYTimes:

“Walter is a cerebral kind of guy, so he does stay to himself more,” said the Hall of Famer John Petraglia, 63. “He’s not particularly funny or things like that, but he loves to play chess and he loves to analyze, and I think because of that he gets misunderstood sometimes as being aloof or standoffish. You just got to get to know him. He’s not really that way.”

When asked to describe himself, Williams mentioned his love for comedy. (“I think I have a pretty good sense of humor,” he said, “if you ask me about the right things, I guess.”) His favorite show is “The Big Bang Theory.” He tinkers with computers. He is partial to Pink Floyd. He is a 2-handicap golfer. His start in bowling really came from horseshoes, where he won six men’s world championships (from 1978 to 1994) and three junior world championships. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/24/sports/24bowler.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=walter%20ray%20williams&st=cse

He sounds like the kind of guy who would like to play Senior chess after he retires from bowling. I have often wondered why, after the Bobby Fischer 'boom' the USCF was not able to build upon that increase and keep it going. There were over 70,000 adult members back in the 1970's. It would seem that, after 30 plus years, at least a zero would have been placed on that number. If that had been the case, the US Senior might have 490 players in lieu of the 49 it draws with regularity. If, that is, the USCF held a tournament in which players actually wanted to participate. One would think the USCF would be trying hard to recruit Seniors because they are retiring in large numbers (and, I might add, being laid off!), and therefore have the time to devote to chess. Seniors would also be great teachers for the youngsters, therefore bringing not only Seniors, but many more youngsters into the fold!

Just this morning I noticed an article on mlb.com 'Kinsler reigns supreme on the chessboard' by T.R. Sullivan http://mlb.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20110225&content_id=16734162&vkey=news_mlb&c_id=mlb

Cliff Lee is gone. Ian Kinsler is now No. 1.

Or as Tommy Hunter calls him, "top chef."

This has nothing to do with the starting rotation. This is something far more important: chess.

Frank Francisco, the original Bobby Fischer of the Rangers, has been traded to the Blue Jays, but chess remains one of the more popular pastimes in the Surprise clubhouse.

"I can see that," catcher Yorvit Torrealba said. "They play every day. Every morning I come in here there are a couple of guys playing."

That includes Torrealba. The early scouting report says he could be a threat to Kinsler's throne.

"I can play a little bit," Torrealba said. "I'm not that great. My cousin and uncle were really good and they taught me. I can play a little bit."

Not that Kinsler is worried about Torrealba, or anybody else for that matter. He has already laid claim to the king of the Rangers chessboard, relegating all others to mere pawns.

"Yeah, by far," Kinsler said. "Cliff and Frankie are now obsolete. I have taken over."

Yeah, but by default?

"A little bit, which is fine by me," Kinsler said. "I have bragging rights."

He also has an X on his back from those out to topple the king.

"Some days I feel like it," Kinsler said. "But I don't think anybody can catch me, so the X is pretty small."

Torrealba is one threat. Matt Harrison and Craig Gentry are among the others who aspire to be Rangers grandmaster.

"Craig beat me the first game we played down here, but I've downed him four times since then," Kinsler said.

But who's keeping score? Harrison, by the way, has the age-old excuse used by chess players since the days of Paul Morphy, Emanuel Lasker and Jose Capablanca.

"I haven't played in awhile," Harrison said before sitting down to face Hunter on Friday morning.

"I need to get some games in and take Ian down," Harrison said.

Hunter, by his own admission, is no threat to anybody.

"I'm terrible, awful," said Hunter. "I just like to play. It's good mental exercise."

Hunter is a two-time judo champion, but apparently has never mastered those intricate chess openings like the Ruy Lopez or the Sicilian Defense. He has just one basic strategy.

"Get it out there," Hunter said. "Attack, attack, attack."

Harrison is the same way.

"My favorite move is the pawn in front of the king, and get the bishop and the queen out there in three moves," Harrison said.

Sounds like he's trying to snag somebody in the old "fool's mate" trap.

Teaching Chess is Subversive

Teaching a game like chess, or Go, is one of the best ways to teach children to think logically about problems. Thomas Jefferson maintained that in order to preserve liberty, it was essential that the citizens be educated. He wrote, "If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be." On page 195, of The Trillion-Dollar Conspiracy: How the New World Order, Man-Made Diseases, and Zombie Banks Are Destroying America by Jim Marrs, in a chapter titled 'How to Create Zombies', he writes, "The current education system seems to have forgotten about developing students critical thinking. John Taylor Gatto, who taught school in New York City for more than two decades, summed up this fact of modern life in his 1992 book, Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling. After teaching for some years, Gatto grew to understand that the education system does not exist to increase students' knowledge and power, but to diminish it."
Neil Postman, along with Charles Weingartner, in their book, Teaching As a Subversive Activity, writes, "Now, what is it that students do in the classroom? Well, mostly they sit and listen to the teacher. Mostly, they are required to believe in authorities, or at least pretend to such belief when they take tests. Mostly they are required to 'remember'. They are almost never required to make observations, formulate definitions, or perform any intellectual operations that go beyond repeating what someone else says is true. They are rarely encouraged to ask substantial questions, although they are permitted to ask about administrative and techical details (How long should the paper be? Does spelling count? When is the assignment due?)." From Marrs, pg 205-6: (They) concluded that contempory curriculums are designed as a distraction to prevent students from knowing themselves and the world about them. And the dificiencies of a weakened education system are passed along to future teachers. "It starts almost immediately," noted the two authors, "because the (teachers) have been victims-in this case for almost 16 years-of the kind of schooling we have described...as producing intellectual paraplegics. The college students (future teachers) we are now talking about are the ones who were most 'successful' in conventional school terms. That is, they are the ones who learned best what they were required to do: to sit quietly, to accept without question whatever nonsense was inflicted upon them, to ventriloquize on demand with a high degree of fidelity, to go down only on the down staircase, to speak only on signal from the teacher and so on. All during these 16 years, they learned not to think, not to ask questions, not to figure out for themselves. They learned to become totally dependent on teacher authority and they learned it with dedication."
A generation of Zombies has been taught to "accept without question." Contrast the investigative reporting of Woodward & Bernstein during the Presidential crisis known as 'Watergate' with the so-called 'reporters' such as Judith Miller of the venerable New York Times, who printed whatever lies presented her, without question, by the Bushwhacker administration. Day after day the Times was used as a shill by the Bushwhackers while it printed "All the news that's fit to print." Bogus 'evidence' of 'weapons of mass destruction' was printed constantly because the Bushwhackers said, "Trust me." This while the Bushwhacker in chief looked under his table for WMD he knew to be nonexistant, while smirking with a shit eating grin on his Alfred E. Newman (What, me worry?) face! Where were the reporters questioning authority?
That could be the reason so many parents are looking elsewhere to have their children taught how to think for themselves. For those who believe in a future for the human race, what could be better to help those who come after than teaching children to think for themselves by questioning everything? The Dalai Lama said, "Share your knowledge. It's a way to achieve immortality."
"...rugged individualism is an expression nobody hears much anymore, but folks used to hear with regularity. Rugged individualism encompassed a range of characteristics-independence, self-sufficiency, thinking for oneself. In the 1970's the axe was laid to all three. Negative terminologies like 'loner' and 'misfit' redefined the individualist. 'Independence' was scrapped for interdependency, self-sufficiency for redistribution, and 'thinking for oneself' was equated with intolerance. Today, any close reading of the newspaper reminds us daily that the 'loner' requires psychiatric intervention, and maybe drugs as well..."-Beverly Eakman, Walking Targets: How our Psychologized Classrooms are Producing a Nation of Sitting Ducks (http://wwwthenewamerican.com/index.php/culture/family/2074-the-new-face-of-psychiatry)
I thought of Bobby Fischer upon reading the following quote on Grandmaster Kevin Spraggett's excellent website http://kevinspraggett.blogspot.com/.
"The whole educational and professional training system is a very elaborate filter, which just weeds out people who are too independent, and who think for themselves, and who don't know how to be submissive, and so on-because they're dysfunctional to the institutions."-Noam Chomsky
No matter where, or how much, we search, we will be unable to find another Bobby Fischer produced by our zombie producing teaching system. If another Bobby Fischer were to come along, we would never know it. The reason is stated very eloquently by Jim Marrs on page 148 when he writes, "In years past, if a child was acting up or caught staring out the window, he or she received a rap on the knuckles with a ruler and was told to stay with the rest of the class. Today, the child is sent to the school nurse, who often tells the parents the student has been diagnosed with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and advises them to see a psychiatrist, who usually recommends the administration of Prozac (94 percent sodium flouride), Ritalin, or zoloft-psychotropic drugs that have been shown to produce psychosis in lab rats."
From my sixty year old perspective, if there is any hope for our society, it will come from those who teach youngsters to think critically through the teaching of games like chess, and Go. The reason is that a student, if told this is the best move, will often begin the process of thinking for himself by asking, "But what about THAT move, Coach?"

Bobby Fischer on Book TV

Actually, it is Frank Brady on www.booktv.com this weekend, talking about his book on Mr Fischer. He is scheduled for 2:45 pm Saturday & 8:15 pm Sunday, if, that is, he does not become stuck in an air conditioning duct.

Naked Chess

While at the World Open in the early 2oughts to help sell books & equipment, a friend asked me to go outside to the smoking area. I told him I did not smoke, but he insisted I go outside, not for a cigarette, but to listen to the cellphone conversations. Out I went to hear things like, "But what if he plays Bd5?", and, "You mean I can't play Bishop takes on f7? Shit!" Players would burst out the door with phone in hand, held next to an ear. Some would light-up; some not. There were so many doing it that no one tried to hide what they were doing.

It was then I began to tell chess people that the only way to stop cheating would be to have 'nekkid' chess tournaments. I was only half joking. There is no orafice large enough to accommadate hiding a cellphone. Then came bluetooth...Now there are Grandmaster rated free programs on the internet that can be held in your hand. I have written that all 'gizmos' should be eradicated from the playing hall if tournament chess is to survive. After listening to Michio Kaku, the Henry Semat Professor of Theoretical Physics in the City College of New York of City University of New York, and the co-founder of string field theory, on Coast to Coast AM a few nights ago, I realize that will not work. Not even 'nekkid' chess can stop the future. You see, in his new book, Physics of the Future: How Science Will Shape Human Destiny and Our Daily Lives by the Year 2100, Professor Kaku writes that in the near future the internet will be brougt to you on a contact lens! Talk about hiding in plain site...Tournament chess is doomed. DOOMED!

Where Have All the Chessplayers Gone?

Just returned from a Barnes & Noble where there were so many players for the Sunday afternoon 'board game' meeting not a seat was available in the coffee shop. I counted three dozen people and was informed there had been more! This is the very same B&N in which I held a chess tournament on Sunday afternoon upon first moving to Derby city. It died from lack of support. Another fellow was holding a tournament once a month at the same B&N, but, shortly after I announced the end of my tournament, he did the same. Chess people being what they are, I was, naturally, blamed for the demise of his tournament.

Where have all the soldiers gone?
Long time passing
Where have all the soldiers gone?
Long time ago
Where have all the soldiers gone?
Gone to graveyards every one
When will they ever learn?
When will they ever learn?

From: WHERE HAVE ALL THE FLOWERS GONE
words and music by Pete Seeger