Unlike Tony Coyle, I'm an introvert (I've tested off the charts as an introvert). Also, the pace seems to be getting too frenetic down in the city these days. My life seems to be in balance about like this hammer and ruler. You see, I'm not in a Koyaanisqatsi phase. Therefore, when I found this site, I starting thinking that I'd like to live in one of these houses, just for a month or two or three.
In a series of articles that he calls "The Great Divergence," Timothy Noah advises that in the United States of Inequality, income disparity is rapidly growing and it does not bode well for our country? Here's an excerpt from today's posting at Slate.com:
Income distribution in the United States is more unequal than in Guyana, Nicaragua, and Venezuela, and roughly on par with Uruguay, Argentina, and Ecuador. Income inequality is actually declining in Latin America even as it continues to increase in the United States. Economically speaking, the richest nation on earth is starting to resemble a banana republic. The main difference is that the United States is big enough to maintain geographic distance between the villa-dweller and the beggar. As Ralston Thorpe tells his St. Paul's classmate, the investment banker Sherman McCoy, in Tom Wolfe's 1987 novel The Bonfire of the Vanities: "You've got to insulate, insulate, insulate."Wikipedia offers much more information on income distribution in the United States.
Tennis is a difficult sport to play. The court is large for one person, so you need to be able to 
move quickly and in coordinated fashion. It also helps to have a powerful tennis stroke, to allow you to drive the ball deep into the opponent's court.
I saw all of these qualities in the top contenders playing in the USTA (United States Tennis Association) Wheelchair Tennis Championship in St. Louis. I took a few minutes of video of the Men's Singles final match between Shingo Kunieda of Japan (the number one seed, who won the match) and Robin Ammerlaan of the Netherlands. Kunieda probably didn't surprise many by taking the top spot, given that he has now won more than one hundred consecutive matches. Just prior to the Men's final, Ester Vergeer of the Netherlands beat Jiske Griffioen, also of the Netherlands, for the Women's Singles title. Vergeer has won more than 120 consecutive matches. Here are the final standings for the St. Louis Tournament.
It was stunning to watch the speed and coordination of these players. It was especially impressive to watch how they anticipate. I took some still photos of the Kunieda/Ammerlaan match and posted them in a gallery to this post (if you don't see it here, just click on the title to the post). For additional photos, including photos of the women finalists, go here. I also took a few minutes of video--this video mostly demonstrated the lack of precision of my cheap DV camcorder (it's sometimes hard to see the ball), but it will also give you a good idea of the power of the ground strokes these players can muster, along with illustrations of their precision and speed. [Note: the first 20 seconds are actually the end of the pregame warmups].
Again, these are excellent athletes. I hate to sound naive, but before this weekend, I never knew that people using wheelchairs could play competitive tennis. I've long known that people using wheelchairs could engage in all kinds of vigorous sports, but I assumed that the size of the court couldn't be tamed in a wheelchair. Well, one adjustment to the rules does the trick. In wheelchair tennis, the ball is in play for two bounces (rather than one bounce for the standard game).
On Friday, my wife and I watched parts of several matches between some players who had their racquets wrapped onto their arms. I inquired and was told that these are the "Quad" players, men and women who not only have physical deficits with their legs, but also with their arms (see the rules here). One of the "Quad" players had no ability to throw the ball up with his non-racquet hand. Instead, he "threw" the ball into the air by grabbing it on the ground with his racquet and his foot and flicking it up, then smashing it with an underhand serve loaded with topspin.
As we watched the finals yesterday, I couldn't help but think that I was watching great athletes do extraordinary things, all to a relative smattering of clapping by the crowd of perhaps 500, many of whom were players and their families and friends.
If you have an opportunity to see a USTA match someday, whether in St. Louis or elsewhere, I'd highly recommend it.
Here is an article suggesting a reason why so many people like blue eyes. I'm tempted to put this one in the "just so story" category," but the theory might someday have legs, if someone can put it to the (scientific) test.
What is the cost of the U.S. invasion of Iraq? The cost, which will continue to mount for decades, is staggering, even insane. It wasn't $50 B, as W stated; it's already in the trillions. Here are the numbers from the Washington Post. The reason for the U.S. invasion and occupation? Unknown. The deleterious effect on the soldiers, their families and the U.S. economy? Long term and devastating. For the hawks, it was fun going in with all those fancy weapons blazing, but they are not offering any ideas as far as cleaning up this catastrophic mess. And those hawks have absolutely nothing to offer to the massive number of Iraqi refugees, who have spilled all over the Middle East, placing an enormous burden on Syria and Jordan. And combat is not "over," per the recent lies of the Obama Administration. And the corrupt corporate media is, for the most part, not calling out the Obama Administration for this recent fabrication any more than they confronted the U.S. for the fictitious "reasons" for invading in the first place. The media excels at serving as official stenographer for U.S. politicians whenever the topic is war (and see this piece on a documentary by Phil Donahue, and this article regarding Amy Goodman's views about the additional failures of the media). The corporate media bears thus much of the blame for the bleak economic future of the U.S.