As IF Times

link Tiger Woods out of the World Golf Ranking top 10 for first time since 1997 – News | FOX Sports on MSN.

In order to fix Tiger’s professional woes, nobody seems to want to address the elephant in the room solution.  He’s already gone the conventional route by trying to refine his swing by working with various high profile coaches from Harmon, to Haney and now to Canadian Sean Foley.  No doubt he has access to the best sports psychologists money can buy…and he can buy a lot of them.  For someone who until recently was destined to be the greatest player ever in the game, the lack of production over the last 2 seasons is unthinkable.  In his absence, a whole new flock of aspirants are fighting for his crown of Number 1 in the world.

The simple fix is, why not go back to what worked before?  When he came out in 1997, he lapped the field at the Masters cruising to the largest stroke margin of victory ever.  His swing was good enough then.  Of course we all know now that other things were transpiring in Mr. Wood’s life, things that didn’t play well in the press. 

But maybe that was part of the formula that made him good.  Maybe in his case you can’t have the good without the bad?

Who knows, maybe all that rampant testosterone in his double life also carried over into his professional life and made him the terror to other golfers that he was.  Maybe he needed to have all of those components in his life firing in order to perform at his high level.  This is not to cast admiration or support for his activities, it’s merely an observation.  Maybe he’s like drain cleaner; works well, but wrecks the pipes.

Years ago, McDonalds was the indisputable champion of the french fry business.  People could scoff at the rest of their menu items, but nobody didn’t like McDonalds fries.  They were like crack cocaine to most people.  Then a dark secret was leaked out.  Apparently over the years when they claimed to be using 100% vegetable oil in fry production, McDonalds had actually been using beef tallow or flavoring in their formula.  Lawsuits and moaning ensued and the company was forced to change their oil formula.   After switching to a more ‘healthy’ oil to fry the fries, the taste never became the same.  Sure they continue to sell fries, but the addictive quality of the previous iteration was gone.  Now, other fast food operations like Wendy’s claim the title as best french fry.  Do-gooders claimed victory, but what really should have happened was that people should have chosen not to buy the original fries if they thought they were harmful.  Too simple I guess.  Go figure, they want to legalize pot, but criminalize french fries.

Anyway, getting back to Tiger, the ignominy of his life has already been exposed, the consequences taken and the monies spent.  So now what?  If Tiger wants to play the recovering daddy role, that’s admirable.  But if he wants to regain the fire that put him on top of the golf world when he was younger, he may have to return to the original formula which put him there.  Tiger’s entire existence is owed to golf.  He has to regain the formula. He may be back on the circuit again soon.  And I don’t mean just golf.

link New London Graduation Requirement: Speak English | NBC Connecticut.

Yet another intrusion into the liberties guaranteed to all people.  In a free country, why aren’t people allowed to try to communicate in a series of clicks, pops and grunts?  To be required to submit to some arbitrary state sponsored threshold of language competence is oppression and surely, some lawyers will be jumping on it soon.  Perhaps the quaint notion of being able to speak and read a common language to belong to a society is obsolete.  It’s a bit specious to argue that one needs an education to get ahead these days. 

How many rap stars can brag about their lofty education, or of being  even vaguely articulate for that matter?  All that is needed is to be able to hear when two words rhyme, content is secondary.  If you can find some rhyming words for ’other trucker’ or ‘yo’, you’re in business.   Somehow, these artistes are able to command adulation, fame and of course, big incomes.  Heck, they can hire people to read and speak for them.  In fact, their lyrical bon mots will be quoted by kids everywhere and spread as sage utterances.   Who knows, they may even be invited to the White House for  a reading.  Ironically, people who are educated, will be quoting them!

Or what about ‘athletes’?   Given a choice between worrying about a language proficiency level or honing their craft in manipulating a ball, which will ultimately lead to the aforementioned life of adulation, fame and big incomes, why would anyone pick opening a book?  Nobody buys tickets to someone reading Chaucer.  The average ‘educated’ person works hard to live an average life, but spends big money to watch the exploits of uneducated athletes, buy the recordings of inarticulate singers and to watch the films of dumb actors who happened to have been blessed with good looks in life’s lottery.

Maybe it’s time to rethink the entire notion of mandatory education.  Of course it would be available and accessible to all who want it, but for those who think that life has other paths for them to follow, let them be.  Over time, those that aspire to education to improve their position in life will do so and those that want to be rappers, ball players and jugglers will also pursue their life’s calling.  Maybe the one size fits all education regime doesn’t work.  Interestingly, in  an unrelated development, McDonald’s just announced their intent to phase out customer service people with touchscreen pads.  Therefore, one doesn’t even have to be able to speak a language to order food,  just be able to recognize it on the monitor and point to it.  These guys are way ahead of the curve.  On the other hand, without an education, one may not even be able to work at McDonald’s anymore.

link Germany Considers Tax on the Obese.

An older article from this summer, which at the time seemed preposterous, but now with the passage of events is coming closer to reality.  The urge to eat is THE primal desire overcoming all others in the animal kingdom.   For most animals, every waking moment is spent in the pursuit of food, closely followed by the need to avoid being food. 

In the case of man, the need to eat is not as urgent in most industrialized nations these days.  With food readily available in copious amounts and selection, the need to get the latest I-Phone or grab the hottest pop star’s event tickets have supplanted the urgency for simple sustenance.  Nevertheless, there is a vocal segment of the population intent on prescribing to others just how and what to eat.  More annoyingly, this group of know it all busybodies have managed to infect governments with their zeal to control meals.  It’s widely known that campaigns against the food offerings of the likes of McDonalds, KFC, PF Chang’s, Cheesecake Factory etc. have employed hundreds of lawyers and consumed countless millions of dollars in bureaucratic maneuverings in the pursuit of villifying these businesses.  Even the Whitehouse is is pushing salad bars in the nation.  

What this amounts to is the state telling people not just what to eat, but how to eat and in what portions.  How did this happen?  Presumably, if laws are passed, they should reflect the will of the people in some way.  Are we to believe that fellow citizens really care to regulate the food intake of their neighbours and friends.  Should we care whether or not someone goes for thirds at the buffet table?  In the animal kingdom, they can eat what and when they want to the degree that food is available.  Why shouldn’t those occupying the top of the food chain be able to do the same?

The stated intent of the food police is to prevent people from harming themselves by their own uncontrolled self indulgence.  In addition, the side effect is supposed benefits to the collective health care systems.  I would argue the opposite.  If in fact the products targeted by the food police are as toxic as they claim, it would actually benefit the health care system because early deaths would be less of an encumbrance to everyone else.  And by the way, what exactly is the benefit of thousands of years of evolution if the prescribed diet is flavored cardboard and unsalted granola?  Who wants to live to be a hundred if you can’t even enjoy the simple prurient pleasures of eating what you want?  Ironically, there’s a ongoing push to legalize marijuana coincident with the equally vocal push to demonize food. 

I say someone should initiate an ‘Eat what you want day’, or week, or month.  Gourmets and gourmands of the world should make their voices heard and push back against the tide of food totalitarianism creeping into the State.  Events such as ‘take a Big Mac to lunch Day’ or ‘Bring your daughters to Cheesecake Factory Day’ should be instituted in the calendar.  We can name such a movement, FREE!, which stands for Forget Restraint, Eat Everything!   Sort of a Sadie Hawkins day for food.  And come on, who doesn’t want to be FREE?