Sunday Morning Coming Down

 Malcolm Gladwell spoke at the University of Pennsylvania about coal mining and black lung disease along with football and CTE.  The title of Gladwell's talk was about the "Burden of Proof.  It is part of his podcast Revisionist History. Black lung disease is CWP or Coal Worker's pneumoconiosis which come from repeated long term exposure to coal dust and is similar to the long term effects of smoking tobacco.    " Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy ( CTE ) is a degenerative brain disease found in athletes, military veterans, and others with a history of repetitive brain trauma. In CTE , a protein called Tau forms clumps that slowly spread throughout the brain, killing brain cells. Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy ( CTE ) is a degenerative brain disease found in athletes, military veterans, and others with a history of repetitive brain trauma. In CTE , a protein called Tau forms clumps that slowly spread throughout the brain, killing brain cells." Both C...

Justify is unbeaten in five races and needs only to win the Belmont Stakes to be second Triple Crown winner in four years.  Reading Chad Brown's account of the race it was clear he only wanted Good Magic to be off the pace and they try to run down Justify in the stretch.  Instead it was more like a replay of Affirmed and Alydar and those match races with company in 1978.  Those two just duked it out and Justify won in a hard fought race. All week folks have been asking me who I liked in the Preakness.  Two weeks after the Derby it was clear in my mind that Justify was the horse to beat and I said so.  It would only be question who would finish for the "minor awards". And then I went a step further.  I asked Dan if he wanted some action on the Belmont.  Dan likes action, he will bet on golfers making putts, pitchers throwing strikes, batters swinging etc.  He says it makes things more interesting.  I gave Dan the field in the Preakness an...

Randy Newman sang: "It's a Jungle Out There".  Private for profit vocational schools need to be watched to make sure that they provide what they promise.  It's in the best interest of all because tax money is used and it should be used to get the most bang for the money spent. And the dance goes like this.  Schools recruit students and they put together a package that includes Pell Grants and loans to pay for books and tuition.  The students are on the hook for the loans that are needed to pay the schools. Sometimes the students are unable to complete the course work for any variety of issues.  The school has its money but the student does not have the promised training.  This is a crying shame.  It might be poor screening of students at best, but too often the screeners are motivated by filling slots as very little money is held back if the student does not complete the course.  Results at the end of training like placements are often lacking...

The second jewel in the 2018 Triple Crow will be run at Pimlico Race Course in Baltimore, Maryland on Saturday.  There once was a horse named Preakness and the first Preakness was run in 1873. Good Magic will take another shot at Justify who won the Kentucky Derby two weeks ago.  The field will be much smaller with a total off eight going to the post.  Lone Sailor and Bravazo are the only other holdovers from the Kentucky Derby.  The rest are new shooters. Justify will be the favorite in the smallest Preakness field since 2000.  Smaller fields haven ot always been kind to the Derby winner. I guess that Justify will win again at a small price setting up another potential Triple Crown winner and the 2nd  since American Pharoah did it in 2015. I retrospect I wish the Kentucky Derby had a smaller field.  The start of the race and certain post positions almost guarantee poor results with bad racing luck as a result of a bad post or getting slammed a...

Sunday Night I watched an Anthony Bourdain trip to Southern West Virginia.  The discussion about West Virginia being Coal Country hasn't changed much since I went to graduate school there in 1975.  Coal miners had good jobs back then and in some ways had the best of both worlds being able to live a rural lifestyle with an almost city paycheck. While I was in graduate school if you could get a job "in the mines" it was a good thing but it was not even universally accepted then as a great thing.  Environmentally there were concerns about "acid rain" from sulfur dioxide released into the air from burning coal or electricity or heat.  Mountain top mining was less dangerous and more profitable than underground mining but had ruinous effects on watersheds along with being ugly. And in the background is Don Blankenship who was a former coal mining executive who was convicted in charges related to violating mine safety rules related to the Upper Big Branch Mining Di...

There are a lot of reasons for attendance at professional sporting events to be down.  It's expensive in terms of money and time.  Fighting traffic and paying for parking doesn't help the cause when the game is on TV almost all the time.  And there are other competitors for scarce entertainment dollars. The attendance in New York, Chicago, Boston, Washington, and Baltimore has been affected by weather in April which has been less than Spring like. The term fair weather fan is more than a cliche when the season is long and drawn out.  Things will improve as the weather becomes more seasonal. Unfortunately some teams are not competitive and it takes some real effort to be enthused when it is a real possibility the home team will lose 100 or more games in the year. AL Central teams:  Detroit, Chicago, and Kansas City are in a bad way when it comes to talent. Going through the motions and not fielding a competitive team in the name of rebuilding isn't fair to ...