Fogged In

I took this pic this morning, when it was a balmy 36F/2C outside. Not much visibility! Here’s a shot I took this summer when it was clearer.

Helping things is the fact that the air’s been super-still all week, meaning we’re in a pollution advisory because swimming in a, um, fog of our own exhaust and particulates. Mmm!

Lighten Up

How well off are Americans? Here’s a graphic that does a nice job of showing just how much of the earth’s resources it takes to support our lifestyle:

Want to Help the Environment? Aim High

Today is Blog Action Day, which (if you’re reading blogs) is pretty hard to escape. The idea is for a whole buncha bloggers to write about the same thing— this year, it’s the environment. Good choice.

I’ve been writing a sustainability tip for work for a year and a half, and while I feel like I’ve done some good, I often feel like I’m pissing in the wind — that if you want to make a real difference, you don’t spend your time encouraging the lamer of your co-workers to recycle or compost when they’d otherwise be lazy and venal. Instead, you aim high, like working to prevent the construction of coal plants (Here’s why. Here’s more.) Here’s where they’re being proposed, with links to members of congress, the senate, and state legislators.

So that’s my humble proposal for today: Voluntary measures are great. Use compact fluorescent bulbs. Green your power, if it’s an option where you live. Reduce, reduce, reduce, reuse, recycle.

Meantime, take a look at that map. Is there a red dot near where you live? Or where one of your loved ones lives? Or, I dunno, on planet earth? Then write a letter (here’s a sample). Because stopping the construction of just one of those coal plants will do more than all your voluntary efforts combined.

Troubling signs at NHL.com

I was looking at Toronto Maple Leafs jerseys online. I went from the official Leafs site to the “New” section, and ended up with a screen that looked like this. (This is a screen capture; I didn’t doctor it. Here’s the link, in case it works).

Kind of makes you worry about the league, doesn’t it?

When Subtitles Are Racist

For reasons I’m reluctant to explain, I was watching CMT (that’s Country Music Television, y’all). Actually I should explain, in case one day my professional reputation depends on it. See, it was late, I was bushwhacked, I was between inane sports highlights, and surfing around. And there were this reality show on CMT, where “ladies” try out to be Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders. Ladies is in quotes because it’s interchangeable with girls on the show. I’d suggest “bimbos,” but that runs the risk of offending one of the 144 ladies/girls who might actually have a brain.

But I digress.

OK, fine, I get it. The show is a no-brainer in a high-concept sort of way. Nubile, telegenic young women gyrate while scantily clad. Then there’s the whole drama of human competition, plus the cachet of being not just a cheerleader — not a Seattle Sea Gal, a Buffalo Jill, or a Tennessee Titannette — but a Dallas Cowboy Cheerleader. I found myself really rooting for Kelly-Jo, when I wasn’t checking out her jiggling cleavage.

Anyhow, there was the usual reality crap. Bright-eyed girl says something about her audition. The director of the auditions (named Kelli with an i, of course) says something about the high level of talent. Girls/ladies writhe enthusiastically in tight bikinis. In millions of trailers in rural America, you can hear the sound of Wranglers straining as rednecks pop boners. That sorta thing.

Then this African-American girl comes on, and starts to do her thing. Or in her case, thang. Because she’s got it going on, in a very non-cheerleader sort of way. But it works. She can dance, she lights up the room, and the starchy white Texans find their bodies moving in unfamiliar but strangely liberating ways.

With the African-American lady, they run the voiceover of her interview while she’s dancing. And even though it’s perfectly clear what she’s saying, they add subtitles.

Now, maybe I’m just being a hang-wringing do-gooder liberal here, but isn’t that racist? I mean, unless you never leave the compound where you live with your white supremacist group, you’re probably around black people and hear them talk. Black English has some quirks, but the only thing she said that was the slightest bit hard to comprehend was when she referred to her “ashy legs.”

(She was wearing hose, which I’m guessing were mandatory. And they did indeed make her legs look ashy. On white girl-ladies, it’s not as noticeable, as they’re ashy to begin with.)

Anyhow, when a Caucasian airhead ummed and liked and you-knowed, there were no subtitles. I know, it’s not the Jena 6 here in terms of being a double standard, but still. I felt the cold draft of condescension, a limpness come over me at this tasteless editing, a sudden sagging of desire to head to the bathroom to claw into my Wranglers, if you know what I mean.

But before you get all relative and try and argue that some people will struggle to understand her, I hasten to produce Exhibit A, everyone’s favorite Miss Teen USA, contestant: Miss, like, South Carolina. Someone has thoughtfully added subtitles to thisahere video, and boy does it help. Well, as much as anyone can help this poor girl. Lady. Whatever.

Stayin’ Alive

We interrupt this working day to bring you news of brilliance on the internet, in the form of Nate DiMeo’s proposal in Slate, “My Plan to Save Hockey.” (He tells it in the form of a letter to the NHL, which explains why he keeps using you).

First the problem: “Thanks to a functional but deeply imperfect revenue-sharing system, you’re getting by. But you’re propping up franchises that have no business surviving. … you let salary growth far outpace revenue growth. You expanded all the way to the breaking point (if you’re looking for this point on a map, it’s suspiciously close to Nashville).”

Then the proposal: Make the NHL like The English Premiership, where “the three worst Premiership teams are kicked down to the league immediately below them. The best two teams from that lower league move up; the third team gets promoted after winning a thrilling playoff series.”

It’s no accident that English Premier League soccer is addictive. It’s great. But it takes some getting used to, because it’s geographically chaotic, and you have conversations with yourself like this:

1. Manchester City is playing Manchester United?
2. Cockswold on the Glen is playing Buggerborough? Oh, like I’m going to tune in for that — oh wait, doesn’t Buggerborough have that amazing Nigerian striker I saw in the last World Cup? I take it back. What time is it on?

But back to the ice. Is relegation for NHL a good idea? Yes, it’s unalloyed genius. Here’s why:

You’re not just rooting for your own favorite club and watching what happens at the top of the league. You’re also watching teams duke it out at the bottom as they fight for survival. Plus, it means that there aren’t perennial basement dwellers. Team owners have to keep investing in their team if they want to stay in the spotlight (and stay where the money is). If baseball had this system, the nation would have been rid of the Tampa Bay Devil Rays a long time ago.

Not only that, the league contracts (which it needs to), and other hockey hotbeds, which now have great owners and fan bases, get a shot at the big time:

If the Halifax Mooseheads are slugging it out with the New York Rangers for the 2012 Stanley Cup, then all the better. That will mean the Mooseheads can draw 18,000 rabid fans and have owners who’ve invested in building a great team.

And damned if I wouldn’t be first in line to buy a Mooseheads jersey.