Snatching defeat from the jaws of victory is are the Eagles, who were up 17 points in the 4th quarter and go down in overtime. Also taking an ‘L’ is my vow not to get all upset about them dudes. See this is why I root for Pittsburgh and any other team I think of on a given day, cuz if they lose, I don’t care. As long as the game is good, I can watch and then go be about my business. When I see the Eagles, though, I get all upset. And now that I’ve joined the 20th century, I sat up there on my cell phone and just watched the lead evaporate. Every time I turned around, the Giants had scored again. When the Eagles didn’t get off 24, I knew it was a wrap. Just like it was against the Cowboys last year.

Donovan looked good, though. For a half, at least. Now, I haven’t seen the stats yet, but I know that every time I kept checkin, Brian Westbrook did not seem to have enough runs. Deep in the 4th quarter, that dude had 17 rushes. The Eagles were up by 17 points and ain’t runnin down the clock? I know, I checked and other games were down to 5 minutes and they had over 11 minutes left? I’m in the car thinkin, “I know this fool ain’t still tryin’a pass the ball every down…” Apparently he was. I know I’ve been callin for 10-6 with a straight split in the division, but this wasn’t one I thought they were gonna lose.

Meh. At least the Cowboys or Redskins will be 0-2 tonight.

Meanwhile, the Bears are looking veeeerrrrry solid. Grossman might be just what they needed, cuz apparently that defense they had last year is the truth. Ditto the Ravens. The AFC North is gonna be rough goin’ for whoever wins it. Cincinnati and the Ravens should be a lot of fun. The unstoppable force vs. the unmovable object. And Pittsburgh vs. Jacksonville tomorrow night…that looks pretty good. I’d probably let Roethlisberger sit for another week. The Jacksonville front four is a bit much to start the season with after having all those injuries.

Well, here we go. But I’ma say it again: the lack of a power running game is gonna kill the Eagles again. I’m tryin’a figure out if one of those bad ol’ running backs took Andy Reid’s lunch money when he was younger or somethin, because that dude REFUSES to get a power back. Flat-out refuses. Yeah, Donovan can throw for 300 yards when he gets ready, but come on. Mike Anderson was available. What happened? Nothin. Chester Taylor? Nothin. Now is either one of them dudes a game breaker? No. But the Eagles don’t NEED no game breaker. They need a game sealer. They already got Westbrook, who, when he holds on to the ball, is a threat to go the distance. They need some big bruiser who can get them critical 4 yards a pop in the 4th quarter when the game is on the line.

Sheesh. Made me mad, jim.

Ain’t Gonna Bump No More (With No Big Fat Woman) is probably one of the more important songs in my life, in the sense that it’s been around for a long time, and at very different stages. I was first aware of the song back in the 70’s when it came out. I was very little, but I know I remember the song, not stories about me and the song. I got reacquainted with it in the early 90’s, towards the end of high school, when I started flipping through those old 45’s. It was Ain’t Gonna Bump and Soulfinger that started me on the road to the funk. Now, I’ve seen the video. I linked to it a couple weeks ago, but looking at it again made me think of a couple things.Not to spoil the fun, but at the end of this Soul Train performance, Joe Tex actually does bump with a big fat woman. Only thing is, she’s really not all that big and fat. Not by 2006 standards, at least. Don’t get it twisted, she ain’t a size 10 under no circumstances, but she’s not as big as I imagined in my mind. There are a couple of possibilities in this. Number one is that as our society has gotten larger, our perspective has widened, so to speak, so what was really big in 1976 is just slightly above average in 2006. Cuz on the real, childhood obesity is no joke. Either my memory deceives me or the fat kids when I was growing up weren’t nearly as big as the fat kids now.

The other possibility is that they weren’t gonna really put a big ole-big ole fat woman on the Soul Train. Maybe whey were willing to put a plump jawn up there, but even the big ole woman knocking Joe Tex down couldn’t be but so big.

If that’s the case, and I suspect that that has something to do with it, it’s really interesting that our standards of beauty seem to be headed in the opposite direction as our real-life shapes. In other words, the “ideal” figure (and of course I’m talkin about women here) is probably smaller today than it was 30 years ago. However, the average woman is actually bigger. I’m sure y’all know that the sizes on women’s clothes aren’t exactly standardized. Who knows what a size six really is? Whatever it is today, it’s bigger than it was back in Joe Tex’s day. I would think that the standards of beauty would change in the direction that the people change, or at least that they wouldn’t be going in opposite directions.

jacked from Parablemania

Every once in a while, something comes along that just flat-out surprises me. This most recent surprise comes courtesy of the fact that there seem to be a whole lot of people who think Eli Whitney was Black.  Frankly, I don’t understand how anybody could have that misconception.  Or maybe put a little milder, I never thought he was.  Number one, I just never thought he was from the get-go, but if I went so far as to think about it logically, there’s no way the inventor of the cotton gin would have been Black.  Not because a Black man couldn’t or wouldn’t have thought of it, but because at that time in American history, what Black man would get credit for having invented anything?

Did anybody else think Eli Whitney was Black?

Blue Daniel - Cannonball Adderley
Final Count of the Collision Between Us and the Damned - Public Enemy
You’ll Never Walk Alone - Aretha Franklin
Sweet Love - Anita Baker
I Can’t Stand Myself (When You Touch Me) - James Brown
Delilah - Take 6
Gangster of Love - Johnny “Guitar” Watson
Body And Soul - Monty Alexander
Give The Drummer Some - Ultramagnetic MC’s
Can’t Buy Me Love - The Beatles
Takeover - Jay-Z
Right Place, Wrong Time - Dr John
California Dreamin’ - George Benson
Little Red Rooster - Sam Cooke

Happy NFL Day. Well actually, NFL day was Thursday, but today the Eagles chalked up their first win. Granted, it was against the Texans, so there’s no way to really gauge the quality of the win, but I will say that Donovan looked good. I didn’t see the interception, but he obviously has to limit those. However…Donte Stallworth looked pret-ty durn good today. If you’ll look back, you’ll see that I have long said that Donovan’s stats are a little deflated because of his talent (or the lack thereof) at wide receiver. Terrell Owens was an exception, because he’s one of the eilte receivers in the leage. Even I could put up a stat or two with him. Stallworth, on the other hand, is solid, but hasn’t exactly been known as superstar material. Then, in his first day out w/ McNabb, he matches his career high. Hmmmmm… If I was a bettin man, I’d put heavy money on Stallworth establishing a new career high for yardage, and that relatively soon. Not takin anything away from Terrell Owens, but could he be the beneficiary of playing with a bunch of Pro Bowl-caliber QB’s as much as they benefitted from playing with him? Time will tell.

One other thing, I know the fans in Denver are REALLY ready for the Jay Cutler era to start. Plummer looked more snakebit than the Snake today.

Good opening weekend, so far.

UPDATE

Aaaaannnnnnddd… if the Cowboys are gonna make the Super Bowl, they’re gonna hafta do something about that consistency. In that first quarter, I was kinda worried. After that? Not as much. The defense looks tough, but they’re definitely a crackable nut. Bet all my Cowboys-lovin friends didn’t expect to lose that game in that way. The Cowboys are still gonna be pretty good, but they ain’t walkin’ through no parts of the NFC East. I’ll tell you that much right now.

Well, after years of holding out and refusing to buy an ipod, I finally broke down and got one.  Once I went through all those rounds of trouble with the iriver, I decided I didn’t really have any choice.  It was just better to go with the industry leader so if I lose a part, I can easily get a replacement instead of having to hunt and wait and hunt and wait ust to get an integral component.   That’s pretty much it. 

Of course now, I’m gonna be spending the next couple days and nights converting all these WMAs to itunes format.  Can’t pretend that I’m looking forward to that at all.

We’ll see what happens, though.  Maybe I’ll like it as much as everybody else seems to.

Troglodyte - Jimmy Castor Bunch

Ill Street Blues - Kool G Rap

Brother Rapp - James Brown

Respect Yourself  - Staples Singers

Testify - Common

Memphis Soul Stew - Wilson Pickett

Spread Love - Take 6

Honeysuckle Rose - Oscar Peterson Trio

Eye Patch - De La Soul

Best of My Love - The Emotions

Elevators (Me and You) - Outkast

Verses From the Abstract - A Tribe Called Quest

Where Do We Go From Here? - Leaders of the New School

Bitties in the BK Lounge - De La Soul

Sweet Lorraine - Chet Baker

Shape of My Heart - Sting

On the Sunny Side of the Street - Oscar Peterson

Upon This Rock - Joe Farrell

I Love You - Mary J. Blige

Let’s Play House - Parliament

 

Black America Web reports some early findings on a study done by Thomas Dee, an economics professor at Swarthmore, that seem to suggest that the gender of the teacher can have some influence on the performance of the student. At first glance, this makes sense. Not necessarily a whole, whole lot of sense, as in this is the missing explanatory link explaining why children aren’t performing, but I don’t think there’s any question that some students learn better from a teacher of the same gender. Just like some students learn better from teachers of the same race.

Professor Dee is quick to point out that he is not trying to legitimize segregation by gender, but I don’t think that’s necessarily the best move. That is to say, given the state of public education, nothing should be completely off the table. I mean yeah, any potential solution has to be politically feasible, but the incremental movements that are politically feasible are generally not nearly sweeping enough to get down to the nitty-gritty of what the problem is. In the cases where public education is failing, it’s gonna take a radical change to make something happen. Granted, I don’t think that making schools single-gender (completely single gender, with all male teachers for boys and all female teachers for girls) will cause the type of change that I’m thinking about, but the fact that we’re not used to doing things a certain way doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t consider it.

Likewise in DC, where school Superintendent Janey is considering adding up to 20 days to the school schedules at five low-performing schools. Some groups oppose the move, saying that it doesn’t allow children to have down time. Like the kids need more down time. Especially in DC. The Chief of Police just put us on a crime emergency because of all the down time. I’ll put it like this: it’s all about time on task. If the students are getting and doing the work during the traditional 9-month school year, then that’s fine. If they’re not getting it done in that time frame, then they should by all means go throughout the rest of the year. Make sure they have some air conditioning in the summer and keep it moving. Cuz for real-for real, what reason is there for not having more school now? Because we’re used to the 9-10 month calendar. Most kids don’t get out in the summer to work in the fields and help the family.

Speaking as a teacher, do I like the idea of having summers off? Absolutely. But the needs of the kids come first. If some students need to be in school more, I’m all for that. If some students need to be in single-gender settings, I’m all for that too. One of the catchphrases in education is differentiated instruction. That is, as a teacher, I should do what I can to make sure that learners with different styles have equal access to the material. Well, my thinking that differentiation shouldn’t just start inside the classroom. There should be structural differentiation as well.

I’ve been planning to go to some NFL city other than Philadelphia (or any other city in the NFC East) and act like I’m a fan of their team for quite some time, now.  On Columbus Day weekend, I actually plan to do it.  My original idea was to do the AFC West, but we don’t have enough 3 Day weekends for me to do it.  Since NFL games tend to end late, I’m really not trying to fly back the night before I have school in the morning.  That’s a recipe for disaster.  Anyway, here’s the league’s lineup:

 Of those, KC @ AZ looks pretty good as far as going somewhere I’ve never been, but that means I’d hafta act like a Cardinals fan.  That doesn’t look promising, even in the early part of the season.  The only other game that looks good is PIT @ SD.  That would give me the chance to either continue perpetrating to be a Steelers fan, or I would have a reason to get some Chargers gear.  Only thing is, I was hoping to save my San Diego trip until later in the winter, when it’s really cold.  I wanted to go to Denver that weekend, but Denver plays on Monday night.

Or there’s Tampa at New Orleans.  That’s actually a draw for reasons other than football.  Maybe that.  We’ll see how it works out.  Or I could go to Oakland.

 Course, that’s the weekend that the Cowboys and Eagles play at the Linc.  That game’s got intrigue written all over it.  What will each team be doing record-wise?  Will #81 still be playing for the Cowboys?  If he doesn’t have a good game, will he attempt to slap the offensive coordinator?  

More on that later.