Analogy: 2 Points for Every Player?
Mamacita says: Everybody on the basketball team is trying really, really hard. Some of them are displaying amazing skills, while others aren’t quite up to the same level of competence. Some of them can hit almost every basket; others on the team will hit maybe one basket out of ten or more attempts. Some haven’t made a basket yet. One player’s specialty seems to be fumbles and fouls. A couple of players can’t stop double-dribbling. Even though most of the players know what they’re doing and are really putting a lot of effort into the game, they are constantly thwarted by those few players who either can’t do it, or who could obviously do better but don’t care about the outcome. All of the players, however high or low their skills may be, are necessary because, according to the rules, the team MUST have a certain number of players in order to be a team at all. The winner will be the team as a whole, not the individual players according to their personal skills and attitudes. Those players who can play well will always be handicapped by the players who can’t/won’t, and those players who can’t/won’t will always be necessary to make up the numbers. And sometimes there is a miracle, and a player who hasn’t done anything all season will score the winning point with an amazing mid-court throw. Good coaches never stop trying.
The score is determined by the number of points made, and the points are made by throwing the ball THROUGH the basket. Whichever team can throw 
the ball through the basket the most, within a certain time frame, wins.
I don’t know all that much about sports, but I do know this: the rules are set and only a fool would ask for exceptions. It just isn’t done. In sports, the score is what it is, and the score is determined by how many points a team makes, and the team’s points are made by individuals. Each individual either makes a point, or he doesn’t. There is, as Yoda says, no ‘try.’ The team’s score is calculated by adding up each individual player’s contribution.
In the middle of a game, someone suddenly stands up and runs down the bleachers, screaming. This person marches up to the scorekeeper and DEMANDS that a certain player receive a point even though his ball did not go through the basket.
“It’s not his fault that his skills are not as well developed as the players who made most of the points! All players should be given credit for SOME points, even if they didn’t actually earn them! It’s bad for their self-esteem to have a zero in the stats; don’t give them full credit, of course, but they should be given half, at least. It’s not their fault that they can’t perform as well as the kids who actually got the ball through the basket. Every member of the team deserves to get a point for each attempted basket, whether the ball went through or not. The scorekeeper has the power to give points; why shouldn’t the scorekeeper be the one who actually receives the credit or the blame for a team’s total points? It would be so easy to award ALL the individuals who make up the team; how could the scorekeeper be so cruel as to deny any player a point when the player tried! He TRIED! Isn’t that worth at least one point? Shame on the scorekeeper! Shame! It’s not fair that only the players with better skills get all the points! Maybe it WAS the kids who listened and tried and practiced above and beyond the coach’s directives who really won the game for the team, but it’s not fair for them to get all the awards when the kids who didn’t practice, didn’t obey the coach, and just plain didn’t have the ability were, um, THERE, too! The players who TRY should get a point for each attempt.”
Now, imagine that this is your mom making this scene. Could anything ever even approach the humiliation of that moment? What would she be THINKING? Doesn’t she understand that you only get points when the ball goes THROUGH the hoop? Didn’t she see that none of your throws went through the hoop? Why would she even imagine that you should get points when you didn’t make any? Why, in the sports stats, a kid who didn’t make a single basket might still be credited for ten or more points per game! A player who got the ball through the hoop several times wouldn’t have as many stat points as the kid who got none! How ridiculous would that be?
Can any of you imagine yourselves making this scene?
Of course not. We all know better than to demand exceptions, and points-not-earned, when it comes to athletics. How absurd.
So, then, why are some of us so ready to march to school and demand at least a FEW points for our child, when the child didn’t do anything to earn any points?
Some schools have a rule that even a child who earns a zero will still get sixty points, because to give a child a zero would be bad for the kid’s self esteem. In some districts, 60% is a D-, and with a D- a student will be promoted, legitimately, to the next grade.
In other words, a kid who doesn’t lift a finger all year, and who, if the stats were kept accurately, would have a string of zeros after his name because he didn’t earn any points, ends up with more points recorded than a hardworking kid who just isn’t very smart who EARNED, maybe a 55% or less, and who won’t be promoted because he hasn’t earned enough points.
Well, in today’s society, both students would probably be promoted no matter how few points they earned over the course of the school year. Don’t get me started on that one.
My point is, to get points, one must earn points, and to earn points, one must actually demonstrate competence in something, whether it be getting a ball through a hoop, or spelling “ball” and “hoop” correctly, or counting how many tries it took to get the ball through the hoop, and if there is no competence demonstrated, then there are going to be a lot of zeros after this kid’s name, unless the Self Esteem Police have dictated that a kid who earned nothing has in fact earned a lot more than a kid who earned something.
And a parent who comes to school demanding that his/her child receive points for NOT doing the work is no different from the parent who comes to the gym demanding that his/her child receive points for NOT getting the ball through the hoop.
Yoda rocks.
Quotation Saturday: C+
Mamacita says: I used to file my quotations away in alphabetical order, until I realized that a good quotation isn’t really fileable that way. A good quotation contains too many variables, some obvious, but even more that are so subtle we aren’t even sure what they are.
The subtle variables are why the good quotations have such an effect on us.
1. I do not love him because he is good, but because he is my little child. — Tagore
2. One of the best things about a very little child is that he never thanks you for doing things for him – he is so sure you want to. — Maurice Horspool
3. In the little world in which children have their existence, whosoever brings them up, there is nothing so finely perceived and so finely felt, as injustice. – Dickens
4. The “C” students run the world. — Harry Truman
5. We most always change, renew, rejuvenate ourselves; otherwise we harden. — Goethe
6. Consistency is only a paste jewel that cheap men cherish. — William Allen White
7. Through the survival of their children, hay parents are able to think calmly, and with a very practical affection, of a world in which they are to have no direct share. — Walter Pater
8. One laugh of a child will make the holiest day more sacred still. — Ingersoll
9. If at some period in the course of civilization we seriously find that our science and our religion are antagonistic, then there must be something wrong either with our science or with our religion. — Havelock Ellis
10. People who complain that they don’t get all they deserve should congratulate themselves. — Unknown
11. It takes as much courage to have tried and failed as it does to have tried and succeeded. — Anne Morrow Lindburgh
12. Making the simple complicated is commonplace; making the complicated simple, awesomely simple – that’s creativity. — Charles Mingus
13. Chance is the pseudonym of God when He did not want to sign. — Anatole France
14. This is an age in which one cannot find common sense without a search warrant. — George F. Will
15. There are many intelligent species in the universe. They are all owned by cats. — Anon.
16. There is nobody who totally lacks the courage to change — Rollo May
17. The whole difference between construction and creation is exactly this: that a thing constructed can only be loved after it is constructed; but a thing created is loved before it exists. — Gilbert Keith Chesterton
18. Creative minds have always been known to survive any kind of bad training. — Anna Freud
19. Only one man can do anything. One man interacting creatively with others can move the world. — John W. Gardner
20. Creativity is the art of taking a fresh clean look at old knowledge. — Unknown
21. Curiosity is a willing, a proud, an eager confession of ignorance. — Rubinstein
22. To comprehend is to forgive. — Henrietta A. Heathorn
23. Cynicism is intellectual dandyism. — George Merideth
24. If you want to see what your children can do, you must stop giving them things. — Norman Douglas
25. No change of circumstances can repair a defect of character. — Emerson
26. Loving a child doesn’t mean giving in to all his whims: to love him is to bring out the best in him, to teach him to love what is difficult. — Nadia Boulanger
27. When you blame others, you give up your power to change. — Anon.
28. If you haven’t any charity in your heart, you have the worst kind of heart trouble. — Bob Hope
27. Calculation never made a hero. — John Henry, Cardinal Newman
28. If you don’t control your mind, someone else will. — John Allston
29. Man is not the creature of circumstances. Circumstances are the creatures of men. — Disraeli
30. Everybody, sooner or later, sits down to a banquet of consequences. — R.L. Stevenson
31. An unhappy crew makes for a dangerous voyage. — Unknown
32. Character is a victory, not a gift. — Try Square
33. Old and young, we are all on our last cruise. — Robert Lewis Stevenson
34. Man loves company even if it is only that of a lighted candle. — Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
35. People have a custom of excusing the enormities of their conduct by talking of their passions, as if they were under the control of a blind necessity, and sinned because they could not help it. – Cumberland
36. On the human chessboard, all moves are possible. — Miriam Schiff
37. Conditions are never just right. People who delay action until all factors are favorable do nothing. — William Feather
38. He who leaves nothing to chance well do few things ill, but he will do very few things. — Lord Halifax
39. Every calling is great when greatly pursued. — Unknown
40. A fool must now and then be right by chance. — William Cowper
41. Those whose conduct gives room for talk are always the first to attack their neighbors. — Moliere
42. In America, nobody says you have to keep the circumstances somebody else gives you. — Amy Tan
43. Those who complain about the way the ball bounces are usually the ones who dropped it. — General Features Corp.
44. He who does not enjoy his own company is usually right. — Coco Chanel
45. We don’t need any more well-rounded people. We have too many now. A well-rounded person is like a ball: he rolls in the first direction he is pushed. We need more square people who won’t roll when they are pushed. — Eugene Wilson
46. Consistency is contrary to nature, contrary to life. The only completely consistent people are the dead. — Aldous Huxley
47. Courage is the power to let go of the familiar. — Raymond Linquist
48. Changes are not only possible and predictable, but to deny them is to be an accomplice to one’s own necessary vegetation. — Gail Sheehy
49. Do not wait for ideal circumstances, nor the best opportunities; they wil never come. — Janet E. Stuart
50. Avoid, as you would the plague, a clergyman who is also a man of business. – St. Jerome
51. A creditor is worse than a master, for a master owns only your person; a creditor owns your dignity, and can belabor that. — Victor Hugo
52. In the final choice a soldier’s pack is not so heavy as a prisoner’s chains. –Eisenhower
53. There is not in the universe a more ridiculous, nor a more contemptible animal, than a proud clergyman. — Henry Fielding
54. Character is like a tree and reputation is like its shadow. The shadow is what we think of it; the tree is the real thing. — Lincoln
55. Crime expands according to our willingness to put up with it. — Barry Farber
56. Cunning is the dark sanctuary of incapacity. — Lord Chesterfield
57. Criminal: a person with predatory instincts who has not sufficient capital to form a corporation. — Howard Scott
58. If you want others to be happy practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion. — Dalai Lama
59. It is not easy to be crafty and winsome at the same time, and few accomplish it after the age of six. — Unknown
60. One day posterity will remember this strange era, these strange times, when ordinary common honesty was called courage. — Yevheny Yevtushenko
61. Courage is almost a contradiction in terms. It means a strong desire to live, taking the form of a readiness to die. — G.K. Chesterton
62. Choice is what separates the artist from the common herd. — Mordaunt Shairp
63. Character, that sublime health which values one moment as another, and makes us great in all conditions. — Emerson
64. Every one of us has in him a continent of undiscovered character. Blessed is he who acts the Columbus to his own soul. — Unknown
65. Fame is a vapor, popularity an accident, riches take wing. Only one thing endures – character. — Horace Greeley
66. It is right to be contented with what we have, never with what we are. — Mackintosh
67. Copernicus did not publish his book until he was on his deathbed. He knew how dangerous it is to be right when the rest of the world is wrong. — Thomas B. Reed
68. Make no judgments where you have no compassion. — Anne McCaffrey
69. All men are alike in their lower natures; it is in their higher characters that they differ. — Bovee
70. The dead are always popular. I knowed a society wanst to vote a monyment to a man an’ refuse to help his family, all in wan night. — Finley Peter Dunne
71. Ah, the clock is always slow; it is later than you think. — Robert W. Service
72. We are inclined to believe those whom we do not know, because they have never deceived us. — Samuel Johnson
73. Only the suppressed word is dangerous. — Ludwig Boerne
74. Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted, counts. — Einstein
75. The great law of culture is: Let each become all that he was created capable of being. — Carlyle
Quotation Saturday: Letter C
Mamacita says: Many people dislike quotations, but I like them. Sometimes, other people can “say it” so much better than I can. And, even if I know how to “say it,” sometimes it’s already been said, and said well.
1. The things we fear most in organizations – fluctuations, disturbances, imbalances – are the primary sources of creativity. — Margaret J. Wheatley
2. People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are. I don’t believe in circumstances. The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and, if they can’t find them, make them. — G.B. Shaw
3. Country people probably aren’t blessed with any more common sense than other people. It’s just they they tend to use it more often. — Jack Odle
4. He that will cheat at play will cheat you any way. — Thomas Fuller
5. In nature there are neither rewards nor punishments – there are consequences. — Ingersoll
6. The true way for one civilization to “conquer” another is for it to be so obviously superior in this or that point that others desire to imitate it. — Dickinson
7. We worry about what a child will be tomorrow, yet we forget that he is someone today. — S. Tauscher
8. Congress is continually appointing fact-finding committees, when what we really need are fact-facing committees. — Roger Allen
9. There can be no happiness if the things we believe in are different from the things we do. — Freya Stark
10. Do not wait for extraordinary circumstances to do good actions; try to use ordinary circumstances. — Richter
11. A bone to the dog is not charity. Charity is the bone shared with the dog, when you are just as hungry as the dog. — Jack London
12. The measure of a man’s real character is what he would do if he knew he would never be found out. — Macaulay
13. To live is to change, and to be perfect is to have changed often. — Newman
14. To sin by silence when they should protest makes cowards out of men. — Lincoln
15. One of the first things a man notices in a backward country is that the children are still obeying their parents. — Claude Callan
16. Any jackass can kick a barn down, but it takes a carpenter to build it. — Sam Rayburn
17. Be yourself. No one can ever tell you you’re doing it wrong. — James Leo Herlihy
18. Life is a rat race. College can teach you which rat to bet on. — Unknown
19. The caterpillar is beautiful. The butterfly, more so. So it is with change. — Unknown
20. If you are not curious it is a sign that you are stupid. — Dr. Frank Crane
21. Common sense does not ask an impossible chessboard, but takes the one before it and plays the game. — Wendell Phillips
22. It is only those who have no culture and no belief in culture who resent differences among men and the exploration of the human imagination. — Alfred Kazin
23. It is easier to raise a gun than to show courage. — Tomlinson
24. There are no great men, only great challenges that ordinary men are forced by circumstances to meet. — Admiral W.F. Halsey
25. The best defense of our country is to keep it at all times worth defending. — 
Anon.
26. The question “Who ought to be boss?” is like asking “Who ought to sing tenor in the quartet?” Obviously, the man who can sing tenor. — Henry Ford
27. Big doesn’t always mean better. Sunflowers aren’t better than violets. — Edna Ferber
28. Those who complain about the way the ball bounces are usually the ones who dropped it. — General Features Corporation
29. A lot of people mistake a short memory for a clear conscience. — Doug Larsen
30. The difference between a conviction and a prejudice is that you can explain a conviction without getting angry. — Anon.
31. The reason why the Ten Commandments are short and clear is that they were handed down direct, not through several committees. — Dan Bennett
32. Learn the wisdom of compromise, for it is better to bend a little than to break. — Anne Wells
33. Chaos often breeds life, when order breeds habit. — Henry Brooks Adams
34. Feel the dignity of a child. Do not feel superior to him, for you are not. — Robert Henri
35. If you haven’t any charity in your heart, you have the worst kind of heart trouble. — Bob Hope
36. One great advantage of modern communication is that it lets you know that somewhere the snow is deeper. — Bill Vaughn
37. To change and to improve are two different things. — German proverb
38. Character is what you are in the dark. — Dwight L. Moody
39. Cats seem to go on the principle that it never does any harm to ask for what you want. — Unknown
40. It is much easier to be critical than to be correct. — Disraeli
41. It’s hard for a fellow to keep a chip on his shoulder if you allow him to take a bow. — Billy Rose
42. Nothing splendid has ever been achieved except by those who dared believe that something inside them was superior to circumstance. — Bruce Barton
43. A man must consider what a rich realm he abdicates when he becomes a conformist. — Emerson
44. Everyone ought to bear patiently the results of his own conduct. — Phaedrus
45. Confidence, like art, never comes from having all the answers; it comes from being open to all the questions. — Earl Gary Stevens
46. Brother, the creed would stifle me, that shelters you. — Wilson
47. . . . a country clergyman with a one story intellect and a one-horse vocabulary. — Holmes
48. Civilization is just a slow process of learning to be kind. — Charles L. Lucas
49. Somebody said of Thoreau: He could get more out of ten minutes’ watching 
a woodchuck than most men could get from a night with Cleopatra.” — Unknown
50. When you finally go back to your old hometown, you find it wasn’t the old home you missed but your childhood. — Sam Ewing
