OF A GOLDEN AGE

This morning my colleague came over to my desk while I was systematically reading every New York Times story about Michael Phelps. (He is, as far as I can tell, swimming’s greatest hero in at least 35 years and probably ever for that matter.)

I told her what I was looking at and she said, “Did you hear about his goggles filling up? That means he literally broke a world record with his eyes closed.”

He is a miracle. I am also in awe that swimming is the big shit in this Olympics. It’s about time!

Believe in the resolute urgency of now.

This weekend the Smashing Pumpkins played the Venue at Horseshoe Casino, just across the Indiana border on Lake Michigan. Tickets fell into my lap half-price on Friday, as a friend of a coworker was going out of town at the last minute and looking to recoup some of his losses. I couldn’t pass up the opportunity, even though I’ve had a bad headcold for two weeks while moving to a new apartment and generally being overtaxed. That said, I made it halfway through before I had to leave on account of various forms of sickness. Let’s not elaborate there.

Billy Corgan has sold his soul, I suspect, because at 41 he’s still writing viable music and looks no more than 30. I respect him enormously for coming out of, well, years of self-centered rock and roll princessery to reunite with Jimmy Chamberlain and put out a solid, political album.

Plus, I reckon the Pumpkins are better live than on record, and they’re damn good on record, for what that’s worth. Chicago is their town and Corgan always brings his best game face.

About a month ago I started playing Scrabble with an informal Chicago group. Today a tournament player (who issued two sound beatdowns) told me that in official play you aren’t allowed to discuss the definitions of words — only whether or not they’re legal plays in the context of the game. The reason for this is strategic and psychological: if you’re good enough at bullshitting, you can psych an opponent into believing a word AND playing erroneously on it.

Here’s an example: let’s say I invent a word or use something incorrect, say “omoo.” Omoo is a Herman Melville novel, but it looks wordy enough that I might get it past someone. My opponent asks what it means and I say, without missing a beat, “It’s a wild cat.” Subsequently, my opponent pluralizes it and makes another word, and now I get to challenge it and take back his or her play.

Anyway, that’s the rationale, protecting players from your bullshit AND your psychouts all in one fell swoop.

I thought about this again just now while listening to To the Best of Our Knowledge, where the host interviewed Ward Cunningham, the developer of the original wiki. The host asked Cunningham if he didn’t fear the inevitable failure of Wikipedia, precisely because its accessibility is also its greatest vulnerability. Cunningham said he feared that no more than he feared a house fire. He said, though, that Wikipedia has the power to change history through the manipulation of “truth,” for better or worse, emphasizing how malleable facts can be in hindsight. (This is the reason that, for instance, the Holocaust denial movement will probably pick up steam as the number of eyewitnesses is whittled down. Not that these eyewitnesses have done much to deter those committed to the delusion.)

Always, always, these confusions about what’s the truth and what’s just said convincingly. Even nature does it — fish with artificial lures to draw prey, butterflies with mock eyes on their wings to frighten predators.

This is the saddest day.

My all-time very favorite media personality, racecar driver, nonprofit food maker, general do-gooder, and private life-liver.

YES! THANK YOU PAJIBA!

My favorite capturing statement: “I don’t know whether Bruce Wayne will ultimately save Gotham City, but I know that there are no circumstances under which I’d want to live there.”

The House has approved dramatic changes to student loan policies and the general political attitude toward college costs. This is brilliant:

The bill is an effort to keep college costs down through greater transparency — and perhaps shaming — without imposing price controls.

Recently, my alma mater Beloit College sent me a piece of propaganda celebrating the recently departed college president and highlighting Beloit achievements in the last eight years. I scoffed at a chart bragging about Beloit’s low yearly cost* among ACM institutions at $38,000 and change.

Most students at Beloit receive what’s called the “discounted tuition rate,” meaning a relatively small portion of students actually pay that $38 large. On top of that, the school applies variable scholarships, grants, and loans depending on how badly they want you — a C student may receive a higher proportion of loans, while an A student with a list of accolades will likely receive more in grants. This is the secret to financial flexibility at a hippie school like Beloit: They take tremendous risks in admitting and pursuing students with spotty academic records, but those students often produce the most dynamic results on campus, both academically and extracurricularly. Of course, this means Beloit also has a relatively high rate of transfer-out and changing majors.

The ironic part is that private schools are largely immune to bureaucratic murmurs about cost, when they’re also the most fiscally bloated and out of control. Squeezing down the cost of state schools is blood from a stone.

(Lest we disregard this 1,100-page legislation as icky abstract financial news, here is the MOST EXCITING PART. The FAFSA, a standby behemoth of financing higher education, will be reduced in volume by 71%: 2 pages instead of 7.)

* tuition, room and board. Does not include books, presumably, which can easily be $1000 more per year, nor spending money, which varies by social life and vices of choice.