Dart League Week 12 vs. Team Legalize It

Score after round 1:
Club Car 10, Legalize It 6

Score after round 2:
Club Car 19, Legalize It 15

Score after round 3:
Club Car 23, Legalize it 20

Last week, after months of fruitless searches, I found my Club Car darts t-shirt from the previous year. I don't think the significance of this event should be underestimated. Picture this: if the impossible happens, if we do we end up winning the title this year and become disgustingly rich and famous, I think a good deal of that will be due to having appropriate apparel the day of the big game.

True, I played in my Hiromatsu Japanese baseball jersey for several weeks. But Hiromatsu invariably produced mixed results. Why is this?

What people don't understand, and I certainly didn't as of one week ago, is that darts is a sport, like football or basketball, that you can't just use any old shirt to play in. Imagine a football player wearing Tiger Woods red polo for a big game. Would that fly for a football game? Of course not. Why? Because football players need the kind of protection that comes from wearing shoulder pads and helmets. They also need jerseys that clearly mark who is on each team so they don't start passing to anyone wearing a red polo shirt. In short, the needs of the game dictate the apparel of the game.

Darts is EXACTLY like that. How can I expect to play in a Hiromatsu baseball jersey and honestly expect to perform well? The buttons push against my abdomen, forcing me to be tense and uncomfortable, and the perforation of the jersey causes the airflow to reach levels that are abnormal and confusing to my body. This in turn makes me nervous, causing my hand to shake and my darts to fly imperfectly. It's just simple physiology. This doesn't even take into account the far more serious threat that, when I'm not wearing a Club Car jersey, half the time I don't even know whose on my team! Seriously, I just throw darts at a board, go home, and hope somebody sorts it out at the end.

True, I could look at my teammates faces or general body types to distinguish them. But eye-contact and human interaction make me extremely uncomfortable. I'm a dart-thrower, not a psychologist. A far more sound way would be to have everyone wear jerseys identifying which team they play for. That way we can be sure there will be no confusion once the lights turn on and the action begins.

It's quite clear that a black cotton t-shirt that says "Club Car Darts" is literally the only way to go. It all seems so clear now.

So, like a high school football player on game day (or grade school cub scout on picture day) I wore my jersey at school during game day. As I strutted through the halls, my peers slapped my back and lavished me with encouragement. I knew a lot was riding on this game tonight, and I wasn't about to let my community and nation down.

When I arrived at the Club Car, I could tell that we would have our hands full. The members of team "Legalize It" were at the line practicing, and the sweet smell of freshly smoked pot that permeated the men's room was a sure sign that they had been making preparations for some time now. They definitely weren't going to be taking this game lightly.

I was proven correct when, late in the game, either team had a legitimate chance to win it. And for that, team Legalize It should be applauded. Not everyone has the courage to stand up to a team that has won 8 straight matches and go the full ten rounds. But we were able to claw out a win despite their efforts and their practice, and despite their possible use of performance enhancing drugs (the latter is a topic for the Iowa City Dart League Performance Enhancing Drug Enforcement Agency, or, ICDLPEDEA. Considering they only have a staff of 23 local people and several volunteers, I honestly don't see them having the time).

So that's 9 straight heading into playoffs. Who would've thought that so much could be accomplished with just a little teamwork and a few comfortable cotton jerseys?

Dart League Week 11 vs. Team Drinks

Score after round 1:
Club Car 6, Drinks 10

Score after round 2:
Club Car 18, Drinks 16

Score after round 3:
Club Car 27, Drinks 16

The hallmark of a good team is that they are able to play through adversity and find a way to win even when they aren't playing well. At one point, we were down 16-9. Our opponents were confident and in good spirits and throwing the best darts of their lives. We weathered the storm though and scored 18 straight points to put the game away. It was amusing to watch as they silently grew angry at each other and began to unravel. Our response reminded me of that part in Bloodsport where Jean Claude Van Damme tastes his own blood and then starts doing helicopter kicks all over the damn place and wins the Kuhmatah.

One more week of fine tuning before playoffs begin. If we win next week, we'll be taking a 9 game winning streak into the playoffs. No team will want to play us.

Let the games begin. . .

Grassley Goes After Dodgy Prosperity Preachers

I missed this story when it first came out but was extremely pleased to find it while flipping through a Time magazine tonight. As faithful readers are aware, Cornucopia, The Horn of Plenty has long been both suspicious of and hostile to those unsavory characters known popularly as the "prosperity preachers." The idea that a shady, manipulative preacher can build gold houses, fly a private jet, and by some quirk of the system still qualify for a tax-exempt status strikes me as odd. Now I realize that there's actually a pretty good reason that it seems odd: it's probably illegal.

As of now, Republican Iowa Senator Charles Grassley, ranking member of the Senate Committee on Finance, has simply sent out some courteous little letters requesting tax and real estate records. But as the article in Time states, "the Senator has mused that the replies could lead to testimony under oath."

I have never been more proud of Senator Grassley than I am right now. Grassley explains himself below.

Dart League Week 10 vs. Team Hard Tips

Score after round 1:
Club Car 14, Hard Tips 2

Score after round 2:
Club Car 26, Hard Tips 8

Score after round 3:
Club Car 35, Hard Tips 8

People play darts for many reasons. Some play for the feeling you get when, after having landed that final dart in the center of the bull, the machine begins to flash and beep, advertising your victory and superiority to all the alcoholics in attendance. Others play for the camaraderie or the exercise. Not a few times have I seen a serious dartist thrown of track because he forgot to wear his headband.

Me? I play darts for the fans. For the feeling I get when I hear the roar of the crowd as pound my opponent on triple 20's. Nothing, and I mean nothing can match that feeling.

That's why tonight's game was such a treat for me. As it turns out, my girlfriend's best friend was in town interviewing for the physician's assistant program here at Iowa. The two of them, looking for something fun (inspirational?) to do, came to watch Team Club Car in action. For someone like me, who feeds off of the energy of the crowd night in and night out, this was a huge boon. Though I'm used to playing in front of people, the addition of Emily and her friend more than doubled the amount of spectators we typically have at our games. You could hardly hear yourself think. It was absolute madness.

But that's really what it's all about isn't it. . . the fans. Monday night warriors aren't just playing to buff their egos or score a free beer; we're playing to make someone's life better. Sure, I like it when I do well. I'd be lying if I said it doesn't feel good. But it feels a hell of a lot better when I look up and see those teary-eyed faces after a major victory. I don't want to lose sight of the fact that a lot of people's happiness depends on me winning games. And if that means that by throwing a couple of silly projectiles at a flashing board the world can be made a better place. . . so be it.

I'm just going to keep throwing darts.

*This post is dedicated to all the people in the world who draw inspiration from the awesome dart throwers that they idolize.

MAC Daddy: Hawkeyes Finally Lose

And they said it couldn't happen. The Iowa Hawkeyes, tied for the longest winning streak in the Big Ten (seriously, we were. Remember Michigan and Ohio State both lost last week) were finally bested by NCAA powerhouse and perennial middle of the pack MAC contender Western Michigan.

By the way, we now own an 0-2 record against Western Michigan. They also beat us in like 2000 or something.

Let us never speak of Western Michigan again.

I

Audaciously Hopeful

Just got done reading two separate items. The first, from my property textbook, was long and boring and related to the economics of rent control.

The second, from the Atlantic, was a compelling argument and epic endorsement for Barack Obama written by Andrew Sullivan.

If you've got about 20 minutes, feel free to read the full piece here.

Otherwise, here's the summary:

America is deathly ill. It has been so for quite some time and it's mostly on account of the violently hostile political divide that those oft-bickering baby boomers have left as their most unwelcome legacy. According to Andrew Sullivan, there's really only one possible treatment, and at this stage it's only experimental: Barack Obama. Here's a paragraph that I found particularly illustrative of his point--

"To be black and white, to have belonged to a nonreligious home and a Christian church, to have attended a majority-Muslim school in Indonesia and a black church in urban Chicago, to be more than one thing and sometimes not fully anything—this is an increasingly common experience for Americans, including many racial minorities. Obama expresses such a conflicted but resilient identity before he even utters a word. And this complexity, with its internal tensions, contradictions, and moods, may increasingly be the main thing all Americans have in common."

Sullivan goes on to make the other key arguments for Obama: his credibility (both domestically and internationally) on the Iraq war issue, his electability, his cross-over appeal with Republicans, his ease with religion, his charisma, and yes, even his face. In this little excerpt, Sullivan explains just how a face and a name might radically alter a young man's conception of what America stands for:

"Consider this hypothetical. It’s November 2008. A young Pakistani Muslim is watching television and sees that this man—Barack Hussein Obama—is the new face of America. In one simple image, America’s soft power has been ratcheted up not a notch, but a logarithm. A brown-skinned man whose father was an African, who grew up in Indonesia and Hawaii, who attended a majority-Muslim school as a boy, is now the alleged enemy. If you wanted the crudest but most effective weapon against the demonization of America that fuels Islamist ideology, Obama’s face gets close. It proves them wrong about what America is in ways no words can."

Goodbye domestic rancor and suspicion, hello hand-holding and goodwill.

Optimistic? Nope, just audaciously hopeful.

Dumping is What I Do When I'm Called On in Class

So, as an English Lit. major embarking on a business heavy profession, there are times that the learning curve seems embarrassingly steep. I might have to start boning up.

Case in point:

Today, while I was attending a lecture on international law that offered free pizza, Mr. X described how the DNA/gene manufacturing firm that he counsels had been served notice of a complaint. Though his company is headquartered in the U.S., it has offices in Sweden as well. The complaint, filed in Sweden, alleged that his company had committed the crime of dumping.

At this point Mr. X looked at the people in attendance (roughly seven of us), and said, "You all know what dumping is right?" I immediately pictured a large dump truck emptying greenish ooze into a river populated by three-eyed fish. "Let me put it a different way, does anyone NOT know what dumping is?" he continued.

Me to self-- this seems like a trick question. Should I raise my hand, thereby verifying my green ooze hypothesis, or nod knowingly, thereby blending in with the rest of my knowledgeable peers? Surely if my conception is flawed, this flaw will be rectified by the speaker in a matter of moments with no loss of credibility to myself. The hand stays down.

"Ok then," Mr. X continues, "who can explain it to me?"

Uh oh. He looks in my direction. I quickly look away but he finds my patent avoidance of eye contact suspicious. He points at me "Go ahead."

Me: "Well, I guess when you dispose of materials in ways that you shouldn't."

Mr. X: "No. Wrong," he says. He then launches into a lengthy explanation of why it is so much easier to correct law students than undergraduates. Undergraduates are weak and take it personally, law students are resilient and indifferent to criticism, he explains. I laugh heartily and wipe away a tear forming in the corner of my eye. Surely now, after I have failed him, an explanation of dumping will be forthcoming.

Mr. X: "Suppose you are accusing me of dumping in your country, what am I doing?"

Me? Again? Really? His eyes are on me again. I quickly file through the definitions of dumping I am familiar with. There's the green ooze theory previously posited. That's not right. I'm only familiar with one other meaning of the word dumping, and I'm fairly sure that offering that explanation would not be appropriate in this context.

Me to self: time is ticking. . . think think think. . . use law words.

Me-- "I'm accusing you of infringing on some kind of property interest that I'm claiming?"

Mr. X: "This is what I love about lawyers, when they don't know, they still try to make things up."

Bingo. Not just lawyers though. Before I was in law school I was a liar too.

He then asks if anyone else can explain this concept. The hands of the six others in attendance shoot-up in unison, as if a kindergarten teacher had asked the students what their favorite color was. Have you no shame?

(Note: to extend this analogy, when the teacher asked me what my favorite color was, I replied: "motorcycle.")

The answer, which I will never, ever forget for the rest of my life? Basically predatory pricing.

Here is the Wikipedia definition of dumping under the entry "dumping (pricing policy)":

"In economics, "dumping" can refer to any kind of predatory pricing. However, the word is now generally used only in the context of international trade law, where dumping is defined as the act of a manufacturer in one country exporting a product to another country at a price which is either below the price it charges in its home market or is below its costs of production."

In my defense, Mr. X didn't actually say "What is dumping in an economic sense?" If this were the case, I probably would have pieced it together. Now that it's been explained, I admit that I've seen and heard of "dumping" used in this context before, though I've never studied the topic in any kind of formal sense.

Also in my defense, there is another entry right under "dumping (pricing policy)" entitled: "environmental dumping." Here is the definition in Wikipedia for evironmental Dumping:

Environmental dumping is the practice of transfrontier shipment of waste (household waste, industrial/nuclear waste, etc.) from one country to another. The goal is to take the waste to a country that has less strict environmental laws, or environmental laws that are not strictly enforced.

In this context, it's not so outrageous that a biotech company that specializes in creating DNA could get into trouble for environmental dumping.

There are all sorts of problems involved in GM foods contaminating the fields of others; do these same kind of problems happen in the biotech industry? Doesn't seem likely, but I really wouldn't know.

Anyway, the story ends with the biotech company losing millions of dollars in pointless litigation even though the claims were scandalously weak and indefensible. Eventually, the firm raised its prices in a "price undertaking," a kind of settlement under the WTO, and was allowed to remain in Sweden.

All in all a very well told story with lots of suspense and quite a bit of information about the often confusing and labyrinthine international system of adjudication. It even had a tidy little moral at the end that I thin we can all learn a little something from:

"Even if you don't shit on a foreign market, you might get accused of dumping."