It's Hard Out Here for an Atheist

A couple years ago, I decided that it was impossible for me to have faith. I'm a believer, but I'm a skeptic.

I call myself a "believer" because I'm an optimist. I want to believe good things are true, but I can't believe them until I have evidence. I blame the Phillies and the U.S. government.

Anyway, that's not to say I don't think there's proof for the existence of a higher power. There's plenty. However, there's just as much proof that there isn't a high power, or at least enough to keep myself and countless others from being sure there is one. And for me, even the slightest contradiction of God's existence makes me skeptical.

That's the difference between faith and belief. I believe that there is a possibility of a God existing, but I don't have faith in that possibility.

That's why I'm neither Christian (or Jewish, Muslim, etc.) nor Atheist. Atheists, in my opinion, are no different from any other religious people. That's why I'm agnostic.

It's hard to think about how this affects my life. I'm Irish, raised Catholic, and everyone on both sides of my family is the same. On a superficial level, my agnosticism could make some waves in the Doran and Walsh circles. Will I marry in a church? Will my kids be baptized? How "wrong" is it that I still accept communion at mass?

Honestly, I'm afraid to even discuss it. When I was having a hard time with everything in my life a couple months ago, my mother consistently suggested going to God with my problems. That's where Agnosticism hits me on a deeper level. In my life, I've always had prayer and spirituality to comfort myself or distract me from my problems. Now I can't bring myself to do it. To me, talking to God would be akin to creating an imaginary friend.

In that sense, I envy religious people for their abilities to have unconditional faith. They have a therapist whom I don't and will never be able to have. It's a lifestyle that is part of my identity just as much as my hair color or shoe size. Maybe something could have changed my mind along the way, but I know my friends reading this will remember how stubborn Dorans are. I'm the prodigal son who's never coming back.

Good News!

(No, not about Francisco Liriano.)

Because I'll be in State College for just about 90% of my time over the next couple years, this news doesn't affect me much. It still makes me happy, however.

A little background: since I lost my favorite childhood radio station, Y-100, when its format was flipped to an urban station in February 2005, I've struggled with finding a replacement in Philadelphia. Rather than having one go-to station, I tended to flip around, mostly with WMMR and some classic rock stations. Recently, however, I took a liking to WXPN, which is essentially an adult alternative station with a nice eclectic touch. I eventually signed up for XPN's mailing list so I could receive updates on the new music that I liked. But something was still missing. There wasn't that "cutting-edge" feel to XPN. It always seemed a bit too relaxed for me. Sometimes I just need to rock the fuck out, and that's not really XPN's specialty.

As it turns out, I rarely opened the e-mails I would get from XPN. They just seemed like ordinary junk mail because I never really found anything I was looking for them. That is, until today, when the Subject line caught my eye: "YRock On XPN & XPoNential."

My first thought was "What the fuck is XPoNential?" Then my eyes wandered to "YRock." That looked mysteriously like Y-100's post-mortem internet reincarnation, Y100Rocks.com. I was intrigued. So for the first time in a long time, I opened my WXPN Newsletter. I was not disappointed.

According to the e-mail from Roger LaMay, the GM of XPN, Y-100 will be returning to the airwaves, both radio and Internet. The historic radio station will return (though in a limited capacity) on August 1 at XPoNentialMusic.org, and then over the wireless telephony on August 30.

Now, before you get love mayonnaise all over your pants, remember that I said "in a limited capacity." We will get our Y-100 back, thanks to XPN and ever-faithful Y-100 Program Manager Jim McGuinn. Though the Y-Rock will be brought in full force via the interweb, the radio show will only take place on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday nights. The Wednesday and Thursday shows will start at 8 p.m. while the Friday shows start at 7 p.m. All the shows will run until 11 p.m.

In my opinion, the path that Y-100 took after its demise couldn't have worked out better. While the station was faithful to its former modern rock format, it definitely branched out, playing more up-and-coming independent artists along with the established greats. The Y-Rock radio show on XPN will be replacing an indie-rock show due to its time slot, but according to the FAQ page for XPoNential, the Y-Rock show will incorporate some of that music into its program. Sounds good to me, baby.

In addition to the radio program, the FAQ hints that Sonic Sessions will continue. Does it get any better? I submit that it does not.

It's been said that rock is dead. While it appears that it may be dying, it certainly is still showing signs of life, at least in Philadelphia. Perhaps this surge from Y-100 can resuscitate the rock.

Finally

Francisco Liriano, the best pitcher in baseball, got picked to replace Jose Contreras (a White Sox pitcher) because Contreras pitched on Sunday and therefore will be unavailable for the All-Star Game. Not that he really deserves to be an All-Star, anyway.

At any rate, justice has been served--though it shouldn't have happened this way, and the MLB still needs to change its retarded All-Star selection process.

Update

Today, Manny Ramirez announced he would not be playing in the All-Star Game due to injury. As a replacement, Ozzie Guillen chose Magglio Ordonez, an outfielder for the Tigers.

I don't know what the rules are on replacements; i.e. I don't know if you have to replace an outfielder with an outfielder, but as it stands there are seven outfielders available to play for the A.L. team. One less wouldn't hurt, would it? I guess four innings is too much to ask from an All-Star.

Baseball Justice

The general point of an All-Star Game is to feature the game's best and most popular players. Different sports have different methods of choosing their All-Stars. In all of them, there is some part of the selection which involves fan voting. This helps the fans show who their favorite players are; although they may not be the best, they're the exciting players that fans like to watch. In the NHL, NBA, and MLB, fans have complete control over who starts in the All-Star Game.

After the starters are chosen, each league has its own method of choosing the reserves for the game. In the NBA, players are selected by the league's coaches. In the MLB, the players vote on most of the reserves, while some are left to the manager for each All-Star team.

This year, Ozzie Guillen will manage the American League All-Stars, because his White Sox won the American League last year (and eventually the World Series). I personally like Guillen's coaching style. He's not afraid to say what he thinks (see his comments about Chicago sports reporter Jay Mariotti) and he can light a fire under his players' asses when they need it. He's old-school.

However, this year, it became painfully obvious that Ozzie might be the worst-ever manager of an All-Star team. After zero of his White Sox were voted as starters by the fans, three were voted in by the players. Then, Ozzie named three more of his players to the team. Look, Ozzie, if neither the fans nor the players want to see your guys in the game, why are you putting them in there? If anything, the World Series champs should have more players voted in than deserved. Three guys on an All-Star team is above average. Since there are 30 players on an All-Star roster, that averages to about 2 players per team. Obviously not every team is going to have 2 players on the team, but the White Sox had 3! That's plenty!

But now, thanks to Ozzie, there are SIX White Sox on the team when there should only be three. That's a problem. Yet another problem is that Ozzie left off one very important player: Francisco Liriano, a pitcher for the Twins who thus far this season has posted a 9-1 win-loss record and a 1.99 ERA in the American League. He also has 94 strikeouts in 81 1/3 innings. Those are unbelievable numbers. In fact, they're the best of any pitcher in the major leagues. By most statistical accounts, Liriano should be the starting pitcher for the American League. However, he's not even on the roster.

In an effort to get the fans more interested in the ASG, Bud Selig instituted a rule a few years back where the fans get to vote on the last player to make the team. I personally think it's a great system because there is often a big argument over some players who got snubbed from the game. This system gives the fans a chance to speak up over who they want in the game, often including pitchers, for whom fans don't normally get to vote. This absolves the managers from some criticism every year.

This was going to be Francisco Liriano's saving grace. Baseball fans worldwide would realize what an outrage it was that the best, most electric pitcher in the game right now, the guy who defeated Roger Clemens in his first game back in the majors this year, had not made the All-Star squad.

Then, the nominees for the Final Vote were announced. Liriano joined the stellar Cleveland Indians designated hitter Travis Hafner, Baltimore Orioles catcher Ramon Hernandez, and upstart Detroit Tigers pitcher Justin Verlander as a candidate for the Final Vote. But there was one more candidate eligible for the All-Star Game: Chicago White Sox catcher A.J. Pierzynski.

Now, Pierzynski is having a good season. His numbers are certainly of an All-Star caliber. But there are a number of glaring fucking issues with his inclusion on the ballot:

1. He's a total asshole. Everybody in the major leagues hates him pretty much, including a lot of his own teammates.
2. Ramon Hernandez, the other catcher on the ballot, is having a better season both offensively and defensively. It's not fair to Hernandez to include another catcher on the ballot, especially an inferior one. Even if the other catcher doesn't get voted in, he's taking away votes that could potentially go to Hernandez just because they're both catchers.
3. If you wanted to argue for Pierzynski's offensive numbers, then just look at Travis Hafner's alongside them. Hafner is a better offensive player in every single aspect of the game. Again, it's unfair to include Pierzynski on the ballot with both Hernandez and Hafner.
4. While Pierzynski is the least popular character-wise and most inferior talent-wise of the five candidates, he plays in the largest metropolitan area of any of the five candidates. You're giving the worst player the best chance to win.
5. THERE ARE ALREADY SIX FUCKING WHITE SOX ON THE ALL-STAR TEAM.

See the problem here? Whoever was responsible for putting Pierzynski on the ballot is a fucking douchebag. I'm sure White Sox fans are happy, but that's at the expense of the rest of the country. This Final Vote competition, which seemed like a good idea at first, has turned into a battle of the biggest markets. If there's a Yankee in it, he wins. It's almost automatic. A Minnesota Twin has no chance to win it because of where he plays, no matter how much better or how much more popular he is than the other four players.

So now, thanks to Ozzie Guillen and Bud Selig, the best pitcher in the major leagues has been left out of the All-Star Game. How preposterous is that? Would this happen in any other sport? No fucking way!

To be fair to the All-Star system, the fans have gotten smarter with voting. Thanks to the power of the internet and the glory that emanates from 24/7 sports networks, the average American knows much more about baseball than he or she did, say, 15 years ago. Even as recently as 1997, when two of the National League starters were injured at the time of the All-Star break, the fans were responsible. But now, fan voting is finally paying dividends. Even an up-and-coming player in a small market like Jason Bay of the Pittsburgh Pirates got voted in as a starter.

The main problem with the All-Star game is that ONE PERSON has the right to name whomever he wants to the team, no questions asked. One person cannot speak for an entire country. Even the president has checks and balances. But Ozzie Guillen doesn't.

He also gets to name the starting pitcher. I'm going to just pray that he doesn't pick Mark Buehrle over another deserving Minnesota Twin, Johan Santana. Santana's the second-best pitcher in the majors right now, but judging from Guillen's selection process, any White Sox player takes precedent over the best player available.

A big part of me hopes the White Sox make it to the World Series this year. I hope they sweep through the division series and ALCS. I hope their spirits are riding high going into the World Series, when they finally run into a challenge. And I hope the series goes down to Game 7, a Game 7 played outside of Chicago because the National League won the All-Star game on a walk-off home run off White Sox closer Bobby Jenks, one of the three players Guillen named to the team with his ultimate power.

And I hope the final out is made when A.J. Pierzynski comes to the plate, down one run in the top of the 9th with one runner on base, and he sends a long fly ball to deep outfield...and the outfielder catches a ball that would have been out of the park in Chicago.

And we'll look at Bud Selig and smile, because for the first, last, and only time in the hopefully short history of the "This One Counts" policy, this one actually counted. And this time, a nice big plate of baseball justice was served.

Double Dose

Hey, I have two things that I want to write about tonight, so if you don't like the first entry, scroll down to the second one and maybe you'll like that one.

***

Having never imbibed alcohol in an American bar, I have yet to enter the world of drunken karaoke. I've taken part in a few sessions while sober (and young and stupid, obviously), mostly at Jake's block parties. Karaoke is a memory maker. I will never listen to "It's the End Of the World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)" again without hearing the line "birthday party cheesecake" and remembering Jake joyously telling us "I knew he said 'cheescake'!"

Now, memories or not, that song is not a particularly great one for karaoke unless you know you can nail all the words--a feat which not many who grace this planet can do. Unless you've got the bombastic attitude of Bill Murray doing "(What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love and Understanding" or the sultry movements of Scarlett Johansson crooning "Brass in Pocket" in Lost in Translation, pulling off your karaoke cover could become a disaster. The key is winning over the crowd, and the only way to do that is to be confident and comfortable.

Of course, certain songs lend themselves to this attitude much better than others. That's why I'm going to point out some of the best karaoke songs in the world. Note that, as an underage drunk, the success of these songs is purely theoretical, and that they may not actually be great songs for karaoke. But if my solo sing-alongs have steered me wrong, I might have to re-evaluate my whole life.

So, without further ado, here are my perfect karaoke selections:

(P.S.--There will be NO Journey songs or Meatloaf songs included, because all of their songs are cheesy as a Milwaukee resident's shit.)

David Bowie, "Suffragette City"

I thought this was just me. But in a moment of weakness the other night, I watched more than 5 seconds of David Spade's The Showbiz Show. It's not my fault Jessica Alba was on. Anywho, Spade closed out the show by singing this song with Scott Weiland and some random band. And even though Spade was terrible and Weiland not much better with their treatment of Mr. Stardust's classic, it still rocked. I will most likely break my karaoginity with this selection.

It's got everything you need--the cool "Hey man!", the great tone of voice with which Bowie rocks it out, and the key--a great climax with the "Ohhhhhhhhh, wham bam thank you ma'am!" followed by a kickass finish. If you can't kick ass with this song, you shouldn't be allowed near a microphone.

Talking Heads, "Burning Down the House"

This one would be a bit riskier than Bowie, but if you can get the swagger down, it's a real winner. The staccato delivery is a real key. Plus, shouting "Burning down the house!" is just a fun thing to do. I imagine if you're drunk, it could be hard to remember the shifting melodies, but if you know your shit, you could get it right. This one's really a sink-or-swim number, but if you do it right, you could hit it out of the park.

Kelly Clarkson, "Since U Been Gone"

I don't think I've been to a party at college since this song was released where I haven't heard it played. EVERYBODY likes this song, from the fratboys to the jocks to the nerds to the art freaks. It's got a hook that nobody can resist. And if you can hit the "Again and again and again and again!", you're a better man that I. But if you can get it, just like with "Burning Down the House," you'll be the hero of the day.

The Beatles, "Oh! Darling"

I think "Hey Jude" is probably the fan favorite among Beatles songs, but honestly, it's probably really boring. Those "na na na na na na na"s must get old after a while. But this one is a real motherfucker. If you can get through this song without singing along to it, you're inhuman. It's such a great wailer that John Lennon begged Paul McCartney to let him sing it--and when he refused to budge, Lennon held a grudge against him forever. Sure, some say Yoko was the reason the Beatles broke up, but if you're a Beatlemaniac, you know "Oh! Darling" was the real scourge.

R.E.M., "Everybody Hurts"

This one sort of has that "Hey Jude" ability to drag on, I think, but it's a heartbreaker if you do it right. Just a really pretty song. Dedicate it to your dead fiancee or something and you're probably going to earn some tearjerking points.

The Rolling Stones, "Get Off of My Cloud," "Honky Tonk Women," "Brown Sugar," "Miss You," and "Beast of Burden"

The Stones might be the best karaoke band of all time. I think it's that Mick Jagger frontman attitude that does it. I couldn't pick just one of these, because they're all great for singing and strutting along to. But if you can't pull off the Jagger stage moves, don't even bother. The trouble is that everyone thinks they can do the Jagger stage moves, when really there are a chosen few who can. Anyway, practice your strut, then tackle one of these. Tight pants and corresponding cucumber a must.

Squeeze, "Pulling Mussels From the Shell"

Squeeze is one of those bands that everybody knows, but nobody knows they know. They're kind of like a new wave version of the Beatles, except, you know, not as good. But they're still good. Anyway, they're pretty irresistible at times, and this song is one of those times. And pull it out during a karaoke sesh and you'll have people falling in love with the song--and in turn, you.

***

ONTO PART TWO!!!!

Something insane almost happened last week. It's not often that an amendment gets to the Senate floor, but it happened. There was a vote to create an amendment that would ban flag burning. This movement originally started in the Bush I era, when a state (Texas, I believe) banned flag burning. The case went to the Supreme Court, at which point it was ruled that such a law was a violation of the First Amendment and therefore unconstitutional. This is why, for flag burning to be banned, Congress must pass an amendment doing so (followed by the amendment being ratified by 3/4 of the states).

The potential amendment came within one vote of passing. The final tally in the Senate was 66-34. It takes a 2/3 vote to pass an amendment, which means 67 out of 100 senators must vote to pass it. Obviously, that means the amendment must be fairly widely accepted. The current Senate is dominated by Republicans with 55/100 old white dudes representing the GOP. There are, in turn, 44 Democrats and one Independent (who, I believe, is a Socialist from Vermont).

Yet even with the conservative-dominated Senate, that would require at least 12 Democrats, or about 25%, to cross their party line. That's a high percentage to ask. That's why we haven't had a new amendment since 1992.

Anywho, more to the point--we were about one vote away from having flag burning banned. I'm going to tell you the reasons why this is a really stupid amendment. And here they come:

1) You're supposed to burn flags. When a flag becomes tattered, you're no longer supposed to fly it. The proper way to dispose of an American flag is by burning it. Making an amendment to ban this is just contrary to proper flag etiquette.

2) What's dangerous about burning a flag? How does it in any way affect anyone else? It might be offensive to real bleeding-heart patriots, but then so is saying "Fuck the president," isn't it? And the very reason we have the First Amendment is that the founding fathers (and every sensible American since) has wanted us to have the right to say stuff like "Fuck the president." Without that ability, this country becomes a dangerous place. It becomes no better than, say, pre-war Iraq, or Communist China.

3) This amendment probably only reached the floor because, hey! guess what's coming up in November? That's right, mid-term elections! This is another one of those nation-splitting issues, like gay marriage in 2004, that everyone is either wholeheartedly for or against. This sets up future speeches involving platitudes like "This guy voted to burn flags! He's a terrorist!" and "This guy voted to take away our First Amendment right! Big government's got to go!" It's all just a bunch of politicians wasting our time and money on frivolous bills without even offering a reach-around.

If this bill had passed, it would have taken years to get through the ratification process anyway. It's not something that would have affected anything but a political race. It's a stupid waste of time.

But if it had passed, I read a nice way to counteract it: by burning a flag. I've never burned a flag and never found a reason why I should, but if flag-burning had been banned, I think I'd have found my reason.

***

My colleague at the Collegian, Travis, said something today that I thought was pretty funny, and if I ever write a book, I'm going to include it in there somewhere. So I need to document it here before I forget it.

"They never tell you beforehand that all you're really going to be doing is stalking people all day."