Strollerderby : july 4th

Lou Gehrig Day on July 4th

Brett Singer — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 20:00:00 GMT

July 4th is also a special day for baseball fans. July 4th, 1939 was "Lou Gehrig Appreciation Day." Gehrig, who earned the nickname "The Iron Horse" for playing in 2,130 consecutive games (a record broken by Cal Ripken, Jr. in 1995), had become seriously ill and was forced to retire from playing. After an emotional series of speeches, Gehrig stepped up to the mic and addressed the crowd, delivering the now immortal line, "I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth." Despite my cynicism when it comes to most things, this video still gets me misty-eyed. Yes, sports are just another form of entertainment, but there are times when certain events just get to you. This is definitely one of them.

A couple of trivia questions to hit people with at your barbeque tonight: Gehrig's record for the most grand slams in a season, 23, still stands. "Lou Gehrig Appreciation Day" was held one week before the All-Star Game was played at Yankee Stadium, which is also where the All-Star Game will be held this year. And after retiring, he took a job as the New York City Parole Commissioner, turning down more lucrative job offers; he then went to visit prisons, asking that the media not follow him. (source) Can you imagine Alex "it's all about me" Rodriquez doing something like that? Um, no.

Bottom line: great player, great Yankee, and by all accounts, a real class act.

Video of the speech is below, or click here for the text.

Watermelon the same as Viagra – maybe

10 July 4th Activities

Kitchenista: Red, White and Cool

image: Wikipedia

Watermelon the same as Viagra – maybe

Brett Singer — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 20:30:00 GMT

I can see the commercial now: Bob Dole staggers in, explaining to America that he, too, has had issues with E.D. "Bob Dole is all man. But sometimes even Bob Dole has trouble with E.D. That's why Bob Dole eats lots and lots of watermelon! That's why on this July 4th, Bob Dole is going to pitch a tent!" He winks. "And Bob Dole ain't talking about camping…"

Bhimu Patil, a researcher at the hilariously named "Fruit and Vegetable Improvement Center" at Texas A&M University, says that "Watermelon has more citrulline in the edible part than previously believed." (I wonder if he spent time gnawing on the rind before he figured this out.) Citrulline is an amino acid that can become arginine, which is another amino acid. "This is a precursor for nitric oxide, and the nitric oxide will help in blood vessel dilation." In other words, BOING!

(Or you could just look at pictures of boobs. Whatever works.)

Of course, Patil doesn't know quite how much watermelon one should eat. Scarfing down 10 watermelon balls (heh heh – Beavis, he said "balls") would give a person "about 150 milligrams of citrulline," but Roger Clemens, a professor of pharmacology at USC, cites one study that found "volunteers who drank three 8-ounce glasses of watermelon juice daily for three weeks boosted their arginine levels by 11%." (Roger Clemens, the former major league pitcher who is well versed in both drugs and erections, was not interviewed for this article.)

Bottom line? It appears to be much ado about melon. There's not much to back up this theory other than, you know, it's the sort of news that can get attention near July 4th. Still, even the naysaying researchers agree that it's fine to enjoy as much watermelon as you like, as long as you don't think it's going to, you know, get you going down there. But it couldn't hurt, right?

image: thestandingroom.com

Parent/Kid: 10 July 4th Activity Ideas

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DVD Review: Our Country, USA to Z

Brett Singer — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 19:00:00 GMT

With July 4th coming up in a couple of days, many of us are feeling patriotic. But in our current political climate, patriotism can be a highly charged topic. Personally, I think you should be able to love your country without buying into the ideology of a particular person or political party. More "celebrate what's great about America" and less "keep the immigrants out."

"Our Country, USA to Z" (Team Baby Entertainment) is more the former than the latter. Narrated by Whoopi Goldberg in her usual slightly sleepy-voiced style, this is (mostly) politics-free patriotism.

The disc opens with a relatively painless song (performed by John Lennon Songwriting Award winner Joe McDermot) about our nation and how good it is, with shots of cute babies dancing around. Football, kids, cities, Native Americans, Statue of Liberty – pretty straightforward stuff, pleasantly presented.

Then come the letters. (The chapters on the DVD, available in the main menu, are helpfully split up by letter so you can skip around if you need to.) A is for America (duh), B is for Bell, as in "Liberty Bell," C is for Columbus (with no mention of Native Americans), D is for Diveristy, and so on. My favorite segment was J, which is of course for Jazz. Whoopi should do a whole DVD for kids on the history of jazz. M is for Military was a little weird, but kids will like the trucks and Coast Guard boats. There is a slightly right-of-center leaning revealed (I think) in the choice of "great presidents" (the letter P, of course): George Washington, Abraham Lincoln (a "civil war hero", no mention of freeing the slaves), Teddy Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan. It's not a huge deal, but I'm guessing that the Democratic version of this disc might not mention ol' RR in this grouping.

There is a teeny amount of suspense when you watch "USA to Z" for the first time – what the heck are they going to do for X, for example? Since K was for King (as in Martin Luther King), I thought maybe we'd get Malcolm X, but they went with Railroad Crossing, which is a little lame, but at least features subways as well as railroads. Then there's "Road Trip," another original tune with a nice montage of video from the 50 states. These include cities as well as purple mountains majesty and amber waves of grain, something that, as a lifelong city dweller, I always appreciate. As always, there are cute kids of various colors and creeds bouncing around.

"Our Country, USA to Z" is a little different from the DVDs that Team Baby Entertainment typically puts out. Most of their content (which I've never seen) seems to be geared towards indoctrinating young children in the ways of sports fandom – Mets Baby, St. Louis Cardinals Baby, Red Sox Baby World Series Edition narrated by Ben Affleck (ouch, that was hard to type – guess who my favorite team is?), and of course, Yankees Baby, which I've never seen but is of course the best of the bunch (that would be my team.)

For the most part, this relatively short DVD is cute, harmless patriotism that does a decent job of including the different types of people and places that make up the United States of America. There is no mention of more controversial topics – Native Americans, slavery – but it is geared towards very young children; 2 or 3-year-olds is about right in my view. "Our Country, USA to Z" is educational, colorful, and doesn't go too far to the right. And when it does skew a little bit more Red State than Blue, that's tempered by the presence of the Whoopster's narration. Whoever hired her deserves a big, fat all-American raise.

image: Team Baby Entertainment

Strollerderby : july 4th

Lou Gehrig Day on July 4th

DVD Review: Our Country, USA to Z

Watermelon the same as Viagra – maybe

10 July 4th Activities

Kitchenista: Red, White and Cool

Watermelon the same as Viagra – maybe

DVD Review: Our Country, USA to Z

Parent/Kid: 10 July 4th Activity Ideas

Kitchenista: Red, White and Cool

Political Nanny: Boobs for Obama and (Un)Covering the Body Politic

DVD Review: Our Country, USA to Z

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