Sunday Morning Coming Down

Living in Florida means you have early bird specials, blue hair specials and a lot of senior citizen discounts especially if you live on the West Coast of Florida.  I live in a modest condominium community in Miami where there are a lot of retirees and a few young families.  The ethnic demographics are also diverse with folks from a lot of different countries.  About 15% of Miami Dade County’s population is above 65 years of age.  One of the faster growing demographic groups is the 90+ cohort Living in Florida also meant that there are complete communities for those over 55.  Your grandchildren can visit but they can’t stay.  Charlotte County Florida has a population that has almost 34% of the population over the age of 65.  It’s even more pronounced in Sumter County where about 43% of the population is over the age of 65. According to 2012 population estimates about 18% of Florida’s population is 65+.  The average in the United Sta...

I rented a room on top of a pretty big hill in Morgantown, West Virginia, while attending graduate school at WVU.  It's said the West Virginia would be as big as Texas if they flattened out the hills and mountains.  The room was in my price range $200 a semester.  Even adjusting for inflation it was a fire trap in the days before smoke alarms.  But it had location, location, and location.  Graduate school without a car and little money required some adjustments.  The room was close to the student union, three college bars, almost all my classes and not much further to the library and downtown Morgantown. The hill was significant.  The direct route from University Avenue to the room had no sidewalk, but it did have steps, the stairway to heaven.  Now I wish I had counted those steps and the change in elevation.  It was a hike and I wish I had some easy access to pictures. The neighborhood was called Sunnyside. I wish I had a step counter...

Oh Canada, you're worried about frozen ponds in the winter? The NHL is the first professional league to work on a report regarding their environmental impact according to its Commissioner.  Ironically I think the NHL has only recently gone outside to play a few games.  The temporary rinks probably still need something to make sure the quality of the ice is up to speed. All the professional sports and major college sports have some environmental impact.  Buildings cost money and heating and cooling those buildings uses energy.  And going to and from sporting events uses fossil fuels in massive amounts.  The area needed for parking or the parking garages that need to be built for is considerable and all this stuff doesn't include the subsidies taxpayers give to team owners in many different ways. Golf courses have environmental impacts.  Ponds may be stocked with fish, and birds may have trees, and various animals may have habitat to live in.  But ...

According to Icelandic Review, Iceland has been named the most peaceful country in the world for the seventh consecutive year.  Runners up are Denmark, Austria, and New Zealand. Factors the index takes into account are, among others: the proportion of the population in jail, freedom of the press, perceived willingness to fight in wars, access to weapons, violent crime, gender inequality and political corruption. Despite its high standing, Iceland’s peace GPI has deteriorated slightly since last year, mostly due to increased defense spending.  

Australia has a compulsory voting law.  Citizens are required to show up and vote.  After the election, if you don't vote, you get a letter, and must either explain your non voting or pay a fine of about $20.00. I have some philosophical problems with this approach to require voting but the situation in this country is getting so so bad that we need to get past the games played by the parties now to something that would make the whole process more democratic. Instead of getting more difficult to vote it should be easier to vote.  Turn out which is already too low, would be higher and as a result fringe ideas which get over represented now would still exist but maybe folks in the middle who seem to have no where to go might actually get represented. I think it would also be easier to dispose of folks that misuse their office. I realize this would probably cause the local election departments to grow and might add to the bureaucracy but it may also change the voting...

NCAA basketball players can get a technical foul if they don't have their jersey tucked in.  Having your jersey tucked in might make slightly more difficult to grab if you are running down the court on your way to a dunk.  I doubt that safety is a concern. It's much more likely a response to the Marquette University and their creativity in marketing their basketball uniforms.  The Wikipedia website shows sixteen different uniforms the school has used. Two of those uniforms were banned by the NCAA.  One had horizontal stripes and it was alleged to disorient opposing players and was subsequently banned by the NCAA. The other uniform that was eventually banned was designed to not be tucked in. Marquette was on the bottom of the shirt, close to the belt line.  The jersey was designed by Bo Ellis a star player on the 1977 NCAA Champion Team.  A little creativity can go a long way.  It's posited in the movie Untucked that the uniform was a key catalyst...

I'm kind of amazed the Rory McIlroy's Dad and three other friends were smart enough to make a bet ten years ago that Rory would win the British Open before his 26th birthday.  The win paid off big.  The following was reported by AOL this morning. According to  Andrew Cotter of BBC , Rory McIlroy's father, Gerry, placed a bet in 2004 that his son would win the British Open before he turned 26 years old. A spokesperson for British betting firm Ladbrokes told Rachel Bridge of  ESPN.com on Sunday that two other bets were made in 2005 by people believed to be Gerry's friends. According to Bridge, Gerry wagered 200 pounds at 500/1 odds while his friends bet 200 pounds at 250/1 odds for Rory to win the British Open by 2015 and another  200 pounds at 150/1 odds for McIlroy to win the tournament before age 50. Bookmaking on just about anything is legal in Britain.