Can I Get a Ruling? #8 – Do I need to ask the person sitting behind me on an airplane before I recline my seat?

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Now that we’re more than a half a year embroiled in this pandemic, it’s a good time to discuss some airline etiquette. We need to use this time to improve the airline experience. All of us get stressed by it, so why don’t we try to deal with that stress?

I’m 6′-1”, 170lbs with knee problems. I can’t sit in what passes as ‘economy’ seats on most airlines these days. So I always purchase the upgrade for extra leg room. That little bit of additional space makes it tolerable if the person sitting in front of me reclines all the way back. I mean, it still stinks, but I can deal with it.

I sat on a commuter bus into New York City for ten years and used to always recline my seat just a little bit. That first recline position was generally good enough for me. I would ask the person sitting behind me if it was okay for me to recline my seat. I’d say, ”Hey, can I move my seat back a little?” and I’d move into that first position. It was never an issue because I wasn’t being excessive. Most of the time, the man or woman behind appreciated my consideration.

That little bit of recline helped me to nap. Catching naps during the work week was critical to my well being. After a few years my body changed. Eventually I realized that it was easier for me to fall asleep if I leaned slightly forward.

Sleeping on airplanes for an appreciable amount of time has always been an issue for me. I’ve taken that Los Angeles to Sydney 15 hour flight twice in my life. Each time I slept only two hours and had to endure the rest of it while conscious. Anything I can do to help that, I’ll do. That means no more reclining for me.

The person sitting behind me doesn’t have to worry about me reclining my seat. However, that might one day change. My body might change again. If that does happen to me, I’ll make sure to ask the person behind me. That’s how I am. I try my best to be mindful of the people around me.

I ask but I technically don’t have to. Technically, it’s my seat. I bought it for that plane ride and I can do as I please with it. I don’t need permission from anyone.

If that seat reclines, I can make it recline as far back as I want. Screw the person sitting behind me, right? If that person wants, he or she can recline just the same amount! 

Well, that’s not how I think. That’s not who I am. I know, however, that’s how some people do think. To me, those people are inconsiderate of others around them. They’re like the people who have on head phones but listen to music at obscenely loud levels. Some people are me-me-me while others are we-we-we.

Unfortunately clashes arise when people from those two camps are sitting behind one another on a metal tube several thousand feet in the air.

So what do you guys think?

I know what Lucifer thinks.

Do I need to ask the person sitting behind me on an airplane before I recline my seat?

Can I get a ruling?

My Favorite Moments: #26 – The Karate Kid Part II – The Typhoon Scene

Netflix just released the first two seasons of Cobra Kai, giving us some much needed pandemic content. It’ll also whet our appetite for season 3 which is supposed to come out some time in 2021. I’m glad we’re able to revisit some iconic characters and see their stories continue in a meaningful way. It got me to look back at one of the movies, The Karate Kid: Part II.

Yet another one of my favorite movies to premiere in 1986, Daniel and Mr. Miyagi return to Okinawa so that Mr. Miyagi can say goodbye to his dying father. There, they encounter Miyagi’s former best friend, Sato, They fell out of favor over a woman, Yuki, who was arranged to marry Sato. However, Miyagi and Youkie fell in love, and Miyagi declared that the two of them would marry. To save his honor from such a disgrace, Sato challenged Miyagi to a fight to the death. Rather than fight his best friend, Miyagi fled to America. Sato had been brooding ever since.

Sato and his nephew taunt both Miyagi and Daniel throughout their stay in Okinawa. Sato once again challenges Miyagi to a duel to the death, set for three days after the death of Miyagi’s father, who was their karate sensei. Miyagi continues refusing, hoping to run out the clock until they can fly back to America.

Only when Sato wields his power and threatens to destroy the entire village, does Miyagi relent. However, on the night before their duel, a massive typhoon arrives. Fleeing to shelter, Miyagi and Daniel see Sato’s home destroyed. Sato’s cowardice nephew stumbles out declaring that his uncle is dead. The winds clear away some debris to reveal Sato is pinned by the beam of wood that Sato could never break.

Miyagi and Daniel race to Sato, who is still blinded by his hatred for Miyagi. Miyagi summons all his strength and karate chops the beam to free Sato.

Decades of hate in Sato’s heart instantly melts away. Miyagi always saw him as a friend. That’s why he fled to America all those years ago. He never wanted to fight Sato. Sato realizes the error of his ways.

As the three of them trudge their way to safety, they see the girl who warned the village, is stuck in the bell tower. Daniel climbs up to rescue her. Once in the shelter, Sato beckons Chozen to help. Chozen’s cowardice is too much to overcome. Miyagi, Sato, and the rest of the villagers can only watch Daniel try to save the girl.

Daniel appears successful and carries the girl down to the ground. Stumbling his way towards shelter, the forces of the typhoon overwhelms him, and the two fall. Miyagi instantly moves to go get them when…

Miyagi is at the door ready to run out there and save his protege, when he feels a pull on his arm. It’s Sato, who taps himself on the chest with his other hand.

“Miyagi. Let me go.”

Miyagi nods his head in agreement and nudges Sato out the door.

Sato redeems himself. Just saved by Miyagi, Sato saves Miyagi’s student and the girl. Their friendship, once fractured so long ago, is restored. The hate in Sato’s heart has been washed away by the typhoon. Miyagi has his friend back.

It’s never too late to let the hate in your heart go. It’s never too late to restore old bonds and friendships. Let all that anger and stress be washed away by the rain. They say that once you get old, you can’t change. That’s wrong. The only reason you don’t want to change is cuz of stubbornness or outdated way of thinking in regards to pride and honor.

 

Can I Get a Ruling? #7 – What Time in the morning can I start mowing the lawn?

Friday night I went to bed without setting an alarm. “I’ll just wake up whenever,” I said to myself. Eventually, I dozed off. Next thing I knew, I heard the rumblings of my neighbor’s lawn mower. I looked at my watch. It was 9:00am on the dot.

“Wow. My neighbor waited exactly for it to be 9 before starting the mower,” I thought. “So considerate!”

I had no issue with it. To me, 9am is the earliest that one can start performing activities that are rather loud. Several of my neighbors have very young children, so I’m always mindful when it comes to mowing the lawn or using a snow blower on my driveway.

The township, however, does not believe in that. There’s been a lot of construction lately, and those workers like to crank up their engines and motors around 7am or even earlier. It must irritate my neighbors so much, especially considering that everyone is at home during the pandemic! Don’t you hate that? And it’s summer time, too!

Lucky for me, none of my neighbors have that early bird urge to perform lawn maintenance. It goes both ways. I try to be considerate of my neighbors and they’re pretty considerate of me. We share a mutual existence in this neighborhood, so we might as well make it a peaceful one.

So can I get a ruling?

My Favorite Moments: #25 The Color of Money – Werewolves of London

1986 produced three of my favorite movies: Top Gun, Transformer: The Movie, and The Color of Money. Being only 5 years old at the time, I didn’t see any of these movies until later in life. Around age 7 or 8, was when I first saw Transformers. It’s a cartoon movie based on my favorite childhood toys. It was very easy to understand what was going on. I watched that movie several hundred times and know the entire script.  Next was Top Gun, which I first watched when I was 9. I understood the basic principles. There were cool fighter jet scenes combined with awesome 80’s music. I fast forwarded through the bedroom scene. I watched that movie several hundred times and know the entire script.

Then there’s Scorsese’s The Color of Money. I didn’t watch that until I was a young adult. There are still so many nuances to it that I haven’t grasped yet. That’s what a Scorsese movie is full of, which allows you to watch it multiple times. It’s a movie you have to watch with no interruptions, which is hard to do these days. I try to watch it every few years and I appreciate it more each time. Tom Cruise was in both Top Gun and The Color of Money. Cruise’s movie star skyrocketed when Top Gun came out. The Color of Money gave him a chance to work with legends Scorsese and Newman

This is the sequel to the 1961 classic, The Hustler. 25 years later, Paul Newman reprises his role as Fast Eddie Felson. No longer a defiant young pool shark, Eddie is an elder statesman who sells booze. He still hangs around pool halls as he stakes players. One evening, his protege, John Turturro is getting cleaned out at the table. That’s the first time Eddie sees Vincent, played by a young Tom Cruise.

Before the famous “Werewolves of London” scene, Eddie had taken Vincent under his wing. Eddie recognized the raw talent that Vincent had at the pool table. He tried to pair Vincent’s skill with the cue with his own acumen of the pool hustling world. At times, it was a struggle. Eddie attempted to show Vincent that you could win a lot more in the long run if you lost a few times in the short run. Unfortunately, Vincent was young, brash, and too cocky to learn from others. He was exactly like how Eddie was twenty five years earlier.

Before Vincent decided to take the Balabushka out for a spin, Eddie let him know that a high roller tended to frequent a nearby pool hall. If Vincent played his cards right, and his pool game a little wrong, he’d have a chance to take several thousand dollars off this high roller. Eddie was attempting to get Vincent to focus on a big score. But when you put one of the greatest pool cues into a young man’s hands, he’s going to want to wield it and show off its power. Rather than play the long game, Vincent goes for the instant gratification. He challenges the resident shark, Moselle to a match for a measly $150.

Not one for subtleties, Vincent plays it up for the crowd. In fact, by the time Eddie shows up to try and stop him, Vincent way overdoes it with the theatrics. Hell, he’s even wearing a shirt with his name on it! Eddie walks in and shares a wordless conversation with Orvis, the pool hall manager. A simple head nod signifying that Vincent hadn’t learned a damn thing was all it took for Eddie to realize that he still couldn’t get through to Vincent.

Fun fact! Doom, the computer game got its title from this movie, when Vincent opens up the pool cue case.

 

 

 

NBA Playoffs – The Ties that Bind Us

One of the few silver lines about this pandemic is the NBA playoffs. The first round just started yesterday and they’ve scheduled four games consecutively every day, starting at 130pm. My TV is just on one channel for the next ten hours. I love it!!!

One of the most highly anticipated first round matchups is between the Oklahoma City Thunder and the Houston Rockets. In the offseason, the two teams traded their star point guards for each other. Russell Westbrook and Chris Paul changed teams as both teams changed philosophies. Houston, unable to get past the Golden State Warriors the previous two seasons with James Harden and Chris Paul at the helm, decided to go all in on small ball. By trading for Westbrook, they reunited him and Harden, who played together in OKC at the beginning of the decade. This history adds an extra layer of intrigue to the usually highly contested 4-5 matchup.

This got me to think of all the connections between the two teams and their players. Chris Paul spent the past two seasons with Houston. One of his teammates was Eric Gordon, whom were traded for each other back in 2011.

I delved further into the matter. I knew Harden and Westbrook played together in OKC. Looking further into those rosters, I realized that they also played together with current Rockets teammates Thabo Sefolosha and Jeff Green. The four of them could have been Thunder teammates with current Rockets teammate, Tyson Chandler, but that trade was nixed back in 2009.

So I dug into both rosters and found (hopefully) all the connections.

Mike Muscala and Dennis Schroder were teammates on the Atlanta Hawks for five years before being on OKC together. And for two of those seasons, Sefolosha was their teammate!

Chris Paul, Jeff Green, Luc Mbah a Moute, and Austin Rivers were all on the LA Clippers back in 2015-16!

That’s just some of the connections.

Here’s all that I could find as I was watching game 1 of the Rockets – Thunder. It took me the whole second half to create this!

 

 

 

NBA Playoffs – Putting the “Tie” in Mitchell

Last week, I discussed the ending of the Nets – Blazers bubble finale. In that game, with the Nets down by 1, Caris Levert held the ball and settled for a contested 20 foot jumper with time running out. I disagreed with that decision, saying that the Nets should have gotten into their offense much earlier since they were trailing. Apparently, Donovan Mitchell and the Utah Jazz read my post.

At the end of regulation of game 1 of the Nuggets – Jazz 1st round matchup, the Jazz were down 2 points with less than 30 seconds to go.

Rather than take his time bringing the ball up the court, Donovan Mitchell gets a full head of steam and immediately attacks the basket. He doesn’t score, but he draws the foul and makes both free throws to tie the game. The Nuggets didn’t score again and the game went into overtime, where the Nuggets ultimately prevailed.

The Jazz and Mitchell were smart. They didn’t run the clock down to have last licks. They didn’t settle for a contested 3 point shot to win the game. No, Mitchell went right for the hoop and tied the game at the foul line. They lived to fight another day. They relied on their defense to get them to overtime.

57 points for Mitchell! The Nuggets took every punch from Mitchell and the Jazz, and delivered a few of their own.

What a fantastic start to the NBA playoffs.

It’s Your Time, Joel Embiid

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The NBA playoffs start today, and I’m loving it!

Before the start of the season, many people picked the Philadelphia 76ers to come out of the East. Their addition of Al Horford to make their lineup even bigger, seemed to sway a lot of people’s opinions about them. They figured that the addition of Josh Richardson, along with Horford, could help to compensate for the loss of Jimmy Butler. Consecutive trips to the second round of the playoffs were meant to only whet the appetite of Sixers’ fans.

Unfortunately, Ben Simmons suffered a knee injury requiring surgery. There is no timetable for his return. He is their best defender, and the primary defensive cog to be used against the Celtics’ Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown, the Sixers’ first round opponent.

All the debates about whether or not Embiid and Simmons could thrive together in the playoffs, will have to be put aside for now. Embiid will be the #1 option for the Sixers. It’s his team now.

There is, however, one debate left to be resolved:

That’s two Hall of Famers, two of the greatest players of all time, calling you out for your lack of toughness and effort.

Well, Embiid has the chance to prove everyone wrong, to shut everyone up. There’s no more Ben Simmons to clog up the paint. There’s no more Ben Simmons for the defense to ignore. There’s going to be another shooter on the court to provide more spacing for Embiid in the paint. There aren’t too many defensive options for the Celtics who are truly capable of stopping a fully engaged Embiid. And that’s what the Sixers and their fans need right now, a fully engaged Embiid.

No one’s questioning his talent. No one’s questioning his abilities. But a lot of people, including Shaq and Barkley, are questioning his heart and his desire to dominate.

Joel Embiid has his chance to eliminate those questions. It’s his time.

It’s your time, Joel Embiid

 

 

Can I Get a Ruling? #6 – Which way should toilet paper hang?

This is a debate that has raged on for decades. Whether it’s argued at home or at work, with your family or work family, people can’t seem to decide which way to hang toilet paper.

Front facing or back facing.

To me, this shouldn’t even be a debate. I’m personally a front facing toilet paper hanger. It’s just so much easier to pluck those squares off the roll when they face me. Technically, the next square is closer to you since you don’t have to pull from the back of the roll. If you buy any rolls with decorations on them, then you’ll see them in the front facing orientation.

In fact, the original toilet paper patent intended for a front facing roll. (credit to Maxim for that little tidbit)

So why do you sometimes see rolls in the office bathrooms back facing? Most likely, the janitor is in a hurry and is replacing all the rolls. He or she doesn’t care about the orientation. Janitors don’t care about that. As long as the stall is stocked with toilet paper, no one is yelling at them. I understand that. If you’ve got 20 bathrooms to clean and restock, you just want to get the job done.

But when it comes to my house, all rolls are front facing. I won’t force my guests to constantly spin a back facing roll hoping for the square to finally dangle so you can grab it.

So which way should the toilet paper hang?

Can I get a ruling?

 

 

 

Nets – Blazers: Bubble Bonanza

What a fantastic game last night. The Blazers, looking to guarantee themselves a spot in the play in games, fought like Hell. And the Nets, although they already locked in the 7th seed in the East, made the Blazers earn that victory. Interim head coach Jacque Vaughn played his starters a ton of minutes. He certainly did not roll over. The Nets’ Caris LeVert made even more splashes for himself, scoring 37 points. He made sure the Blazers and Suns focus very intently on that last shot. Had it gone in and the Nets won, the Suns would be in the play in game.

LeVert had been slicing through the Blazers’ defense the whole game with plenty of shots below the foul line. But why did he resort to a 20 foot contested jumper at the end of the game?

The Nets managed to get the ball back down 1 with about 19 seconds left. Instead of attacking the rim like he had all night, the Nets and LeVert slowly walked the ball up the court and didn’t get into their offense until about 7 seconds were left on the clock.

WHY???

You’re losing! Hero ball is not the solution. Attack the rim right away! You need to get the lead! Had the game been tied, you can hold the ball for the last shot. But you’re down 134-133! At least go into your offense a little sooner and give your team a chance to grab the offensive rebound. Instead, that turned out to be the final score.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Credit for the featured image goes to:

Creator: Ashley Landis | Credit: AP
Copyright: Copyright 2020 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
Information extracted from IPTC Photo Metadata. Thursday, Aug. 13, 2020 in Lake Buena Vista, Fla. (AP Photo/Ashley Landis, Pool)

The SHSAT and Fairness

This upcoming school year is different from all others, because of the Corona virus. In any other year, parents in NYC would be fighting with each other over the apparent disparity existing at the specialized high schools.

• The Bronx High School of Science
• The Brooklyn Latin School
• Brooklyn Technical High School
• High School for Mathematics, Science and Engineering at City College of New York
• High School of American Studies at Lehman College
• Queens High School for the Sciences at York College
• Staten Island Technical High School
• Stuyvesant High School

The only way to gain entrance to these high schools is via the SHSAT, the 3 hour test comprising of 100+ multiple choice questions. It doesn’t care about your gender. It doesn’t care about your race. It only cares about your score. It’s color blind. It is the ultimate fair benchmark to get into these specialized high schools.

NYC’s school system is about 70% Black and Hispanic. Yet for 2020, only 11% of the students granted admission into the specialized high schools were Black and Hispanic. Asians, though they comprise of 14% of the city’s population, received about half of all the admissions.

Admission rate hasn’t changed much in the past year.

At Stuyvesant, there were 766 total admissions. 10 were to Black students, up from 7 in 2019. 20 were to Hispanic students, down from 33 in 2019.

At Bronx Science, 24 Black students gained admission, up from 12 in 2019. 46 Hispanic students gained admission, about the same as 2019.

Wow.

Those are awful numbers.

Why such a drastic disparity?

Some say it’s poverty, that Black and Hispanic students from poor neighborhoods just don’t have a chance when taking this test.

And yet, Asian Americans have the highest poverty rate in New York City…

Well, I guess it can’t be that.

Richard Carranza, NYC School Chancellor, who personally hates Asians, who created a work environment mocking Asians, thinks that Asians are the problem.

In a New York Times article from March 3, 2020, said this of Asians after announcing his intention to get rid of the SHSAT back in 2018:

Mr. Carranza’s striking defense of the plan that summer — “I just don’t buy into the narrative that any one ethnic group owns admission to these schools.”

This “galvanized Asian-American parents to oppose the plan and the chancellor himself.”

This got Asian-American parents out in droves. Feeling that they’re always overlooked in racial justice issues, they protested. Feeling constantly marginalized as the ”model minority”, they marched. Why are Asians, the ones who study so damn hard, being punished for their efforts? Why do poor Asian families, some who earn as little as $25k a year and yet still spend $5k on SHSAT prep courses, the ones who have to pay more? I thought this was a country where success is based on merit. Those who work hard will prevail. But the chancellor, and to a lesser degree, the mayor, want to punish Asians for all their hard work.

Black and Hispanic parents and legislators are fighting for their children, and rightly so. Their children are absolutely being screwed. Those admission numbers listed above are horrid. They believe that the SHSAT is the problem. They believe that a color blind test is the issue.

They’re directing their anger at the wrong thing.

The SHSAT is not the cause of the disparity. It’s the canary in the coal mine. It’s highlighting the disparity in resources BEFORE taking the SHSAT.

Here’s the proficiency rate for math and reading for NYC students, from 2013-2017:

(Please note that I do not agree with everything that author wrote in that last linked article. There’s a lot of data thrown at you in there and it requires a deep dive into it to fully understand. I’m only taking out the proficiency rates from the article. The author states somewhere that Black and Hispanic students only do homework for an hour a day, as opposed to Asian students who do homework for twice as long. This implication that Black and Hispanic students don’t work as hard is TERRIBLE and WRONG. I have no doubt that Black and Hispanic students work JUST AS HARD as their Asian counterparts. All children of all races want to succeed and will do anything to achieve their goals. The stereotype that some kids are lazier as a race, needs to be abolished. The children and their passion and work ethic are equal. It’s the playing field that is not equal.)

Look at that. Black and Hispanic students are proficient in math and reading below 30%.

How in the Hell do you expect these children to do well on the entrance exam into the specialized high schools, if 70% of them struggle with math and reading proficiency??? It is obvious that the Black and Hispanic students coming from poor neighborhoods, are being denied the same resources as others. They are being screwed over in elementary and middle school. The playing field is not level for them.

For comparison purposes, and to show more recent data than 2017, here’s the 2019 proficiency rate for math and reading for all of New York State

Children are supposed to be taught and nurtured every step of the way towards adulthood. And yet, NYC has neglected and failed the Black and Hispanic communities. You can see it in the above charts. When 70% of the students are not proficient in math and reading, that’s on the chancellor, the system, and the mayor.

Don’t just take my word for it. Take the word of Amir Davis. Amir Davis is an African-American student from Queens. He’s a 2020 Brooklyn Tech graduate who will be attending Stanford University in the fall. He saw the disparity and decided to do something about it:

Perhaps most significantly, my father and I founded a tutoring program designed to prepare underserved middle school students for the SHSAT in my home neighborhood of Southeast Queens. It was during this program where I saw so clearly that students simply weren’t receiving adequate tools to succeed from the New York City public school system. Throughout the course of this tutoring program, I have had the opportunity to interact with dozens of students. Ultimately, I have been impressed with their enthusiasm and engagement, yet frustrated by the students’ inadequate preparation — many did not have simple multiplication and division skills.

It upsets me that all of these students have ample potential, but they don’t stand a chance during the specialized high school admissions test due to the lack of strength in curriculum and pedagogy at their elementary and middle schools. It became quite apparent to me that the mayor and other anti-SHSAT officials have used the test as a scapegoat for the lack of diversity in the specialized high school system, rather than aiming to reform the weak learning environments, standards, and curriculum in the city’s public elementary and middle schools.

There it is. Many students did not have simple multiplication and division skills. And you expect them to do well on the SHSAT???

The system, led by the chancellor and the mayor, have failed Black and Hispanic students in elementary and middle school. The chancellor hates Asians and wants to blame them for his failings. The mayor doesn’t care about Asian people. They failed to provide those bright young minds with adequate resource, and instead have decided to blame Asian success in test taking for all the shortcomings of the education system they run.

Black and Hispanic students’ desire to succeed is exactly the same as that of Asian students. They yearn to improve and to be taught. But if you’re not going to give these students the same books, the same learning materials, the same safe schools, the same curriculum, etc, then the disparity in admission rates for specialized high schools we see today, is what you’re going to get.

Kudos to Mr. Davis and his father. They saw a massive disparity. Rather than just complain about it to the nearest reporter, they founded their own tutoring program to try to help other students. They tried to level the playing field. They became part of the solution, rather than just complain. He went about to be the change he wanted to see in the world.

If you leveled the playing field and gave all students the same resources, then you can let the best and brightest students of all races, rise to the top. It would be fair to all students and families.

Keep the SHSAT.

Fire Carranza.

Get rid of Mayor DeBlasio.

Pour more resources into under served neighborhoods.

Level the playing field.

Let’s see who comes out on top when all things are equal.