I came across this interesting map regarding the birthplace of NBA players (via TrueHoop). It’s interesting to see, but one of the glaring things that they point out is the overall Eastern dominance. Zoom in on the United States and you’ll see a large cluster in the East. I have no idea why this is (less open space in the East maybe so more indoor sports instead of fields for football or soccer or field hockey or whatever?) or what it means (the Knicks could just go out and get some players from the street and be better than they currently are?), but it’s interesting nonetheless (that’s one word - always shocked me).

Click, just click and watch the accompanying video and tell me you’re not petrified.

On the subway ride to work toady, I saw a woman reading the New York Times and on the front page was an article concerning the recent peace talks between Israel and Palastine with an accompanying picture of Bush and the Israeli and Palastinian leaders. And this got me thinking (not about the peace talks, which are all well and good, but in some sense as futile as they’ve ever been - always good to talk though) about how hard it must be to translate what President Bush is saying into another language. I mean I have a hard enough time understanding what he says in English. How do you possibly translate it?

There’s been a bit of a dry spell here what with the holidays and my own slight freaking about grad apps (WE GOT APPS! - Beautiful Girls, anyone?), but I seem to be finally through the storm. I sent out a couple of the apps yesterday and am working on sending out a few more by the end of the week. Then it’s in the hands of a bunch of random strangers who’ll judge me based on stories and personal statements that I’ve gone over some many times by now that I’m not sure if they’re actually good or if I just got tired of reading them.

In sadder news, I’m sure you heard of the death of Sean Taylor, a Washington Redskins’ safety. Or maybe you didn’t hear about it, but either way he got shot in his home and bled to death last night. Terrible incident. Interestingly though, Michael Wilbon didn’t seem to have too much sympathy for Taylor saying,

Whether this incident is or isn’t random, Taylor grew up in a violent world, embraced it, claimed it, loved to run in it and refused to divorce himself from it. He ain’t the first and won’t be the last. We have no idea what happened, or if what we know now will be revised later. It’s sad, yes, but hardly surprising.

I understand where Wilbon is coming from (and in fact, this quote is taken a little out of context - read more of the link), but he really expresses no sympathy for the guy. He constantly says he’s not surprised and even seems to be a little snide to people who ask questions that suggest Taylor may have changed since the birth of his daughter. Look, I don’t know Sean Taylor and I don’t have as much access as Wilbon obviously, but some modicum of well-wishes wouldn’t be out of line. He’s even snide to people who ask where to send flowers or cards. Bizarre to me, but like I said, I suppose I see where Wilbon’s coming from (given his own explanation), I just think he could have been a little bit nicer given this was moments after the news broke.

At least as much as a cell can do such a thing. The New York Times reports today that stem cell researches have found a way to create the cells without needing an embryo, a find that renders the majority of ethical questions moot (don’t I sound like a lawyer now). While I was not one who had a real ethical problem with using stem cells from embryos, I recognize that this discovery is a big one because it will allow researches to most likely get more funding, go ahead with more research, and generally be able to find the true power contained in the stem cells. Stem cells seem to hold the power to be an incredible health tool, but as the article mentions, research has been held back. Whether this is because of scientific limitations or ethical dilemas and a conservative government and populace worried about such a thing (probably the latter), research has been stagnant. Hopefully now that it seems that ethical questions are out the window so to speak, research can go forward in an orderly manner.

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!

On TrueHoop this morning, I saw an interesting little bit on an apparent feud between Mark Cuban and Bill O’Reilly over Cuban’s financing of the film Redacted (which I don’t know a lot about). I suppose there isn’t much new here. O’Reilly is over the top, unfounded, and all that type of stuff, but I thought there was a good breakdown of it all on the blog and also on Cuban’s blog and Olbermann or however you spell his name (fact check be damned!) does a good job ripping it too. Like I said, nothing really new, but its nice to see Cuban’s response because he understands media and advertising so well that he’s able to thank O’Reilly essentially because he knows that O’Reilly ripping it will probably prompt more people to go see it. Fun.

Just one more article on the whole Marbury situation that shows how happy the other Knicks were to have him back. Best part of the article concerning this whole situation:

“I could have taken LSD, hallucinated AND been a great writer and I still couldn’t have made this stuff up,” said one rival team executive.

Or some such thing. The fact that college tuition is on the raise, still is old news. I paid as much for my college education as some people pay for a house. Not a house in New York City, but a house nonetheless. Tuition will keep going up despite the desires of the government to go otherwise and so more people will go to state schools or be mired in debt or both. Reality.

What shocked me a little about grad school applications was the cost of simply applying to these schools. It’s not astronomical or anything, but I’m spending over 500 dollars to apply to six schools. Money that I will never see back. “Non-refundable Application Fee.” This seems a little much to me. In the end, we pay for any printing that’s done, any postage, and every other cost that goes into the application, but I still have to shell over 100 bucks just to have the privilege of you opening my envelope? That the fee exists I’m not surprised by, but that it’s as high as it is concerns me a little. I had to luck of not experiencing this for undergrad as I applied early and got accepted to the school, thus only having to pay one application fee, but I can see how these would pile up. At an open house the other day, one of the students said she was applying to 13 different programs. That’s got to be over 1000 dollars in application fees! This is absurd (well, so is the notion of applying to 13 different programs at least to me), but we’ve been taught in the whole application process to try to cover your bases. Have safety schools and reaches and all that type of stuff. I limited myself to programs close to New York that didn’t require a GRE score and still I had 6. It really just seems like another way for schools to siphon funds out of us, and in this case funds that we might not even be able to gain anything from.

By now, Stephon Marbury has rejoined the Knicks and came off the bunch last night in the Knicks losing effort against the Clippers (Where’s that 2-1 start now?!?!), but before that there was all sorts of speculation going on about what was happening and people were already putting together trade scenarios (I liked the Marbury trade to bring him here - I honestly did - but now with the team we’ve got I’m not sure where he fits, we need more of a disher than a swisher to use Clyde Fraiser’s dictionary). Now, it seems that the fences are mended and the cows are all in place (for now - is Marbury going to stay on the bench?), and it also seems that Marbury may have had a pretty good reason for bolting from the team. I think people were quick to jump on Marbury because of a lot of the insanity that went on during the off-season with his non-sensical interviews, his finding of Christ (that happened or did i dream it?) and of course his testimony, but this absence seems fairly legitimate. 195K worth of legitimate, it seems.