The Wrath of Grapes

Hey there Blogosphere,

Through a combination of working nights in Bissett or partying nights in Toronto, it's been a long time since I've been able to enjoy a Hockey Night in Canada broadcast as they were originally intended - assuming they were originally intended to be watched via a digital antenna, alone in a bachelor apartment with a magnum of magnotta. Along with the smooth-yet-inexpensive wine, I was also able to drink in some of the changes to the broadcast. Indeed, for some time the sieve back-up turned commentator Glenn Healy has been "between the benches", but I have rarely had the chance to actually hear what he's saying. Quite frankly, after one period it was easy to understand why so many Leafs fans hate the guy. When he's not critiquing Kessel for shooting from anywhere (Hello, that's what Kessel does!) he's bragging about how great Ryan Nugent-Hopkins is at face-offs (Hello, he's terrible at face-offs!). I also had a chance to hear Jim Hughson call the game, forcing me to do a few double takes at the clock to make sure it wasn't 8 pm pacific time. While Jim is no Bob Cole - no one will ever be Bob Cole - Jim does do a pretty good job.

But through all the changes, what stood out to me was what hasn't changed. Namely, Don Cherry - the best and most honest broadcaster to ever make it on national television. It had been a while since I had watched the iconic Coaches Corner, and I was glad to see Grapes still defending fighters to the nth degree, and still telling children that show boating shouldn't even be done by children. Of course, this is the 21st century, and now "everyone" has a voice, but the loudest of those voices are the sportswriters in Canada who quickly lambasted Cherry for his insulting of Steve Yzerman. Quite simply, Cherry pointed out how hypocritical it is of Stevie Y to request harsher penalties for fighting after surviving a 20 year NHL career through the fists of NHL enforcers such as Darren McCarty (not mentioned by Cherry) and brain damaged Bob Probert. Essentially, he has since been mocked by smarter hockey minds for his inability to analyze the "new" medical data that has revealed hockey fights cause brain damage, and should thus fights should be slowly removed from the game by harsher punishments - something Stevie Y is on board with.

There are a couple things that upset me about Cherry being criticized for pointing out Yzerman's hypocrisy. But the most upsetting is the idea that this medical data is "new", and Yzerman should be praised for embracing it. For me, it's an insult to the intelligence of past doctors to say that receiving punches to the head can cause brain damage. Doctors have known this for ages, but only recently were able to carve up the brains of dead athletes and confirm it via dead brain tissue. But, if you define brain damage as dementia, short term memory loss or via other measurable psychological attributes, you don't need a microscope to define it. So any notion that we are just figuring out what damage is done to players by fighting is ludicrous. We knew it when Yzerman played, we knew it when Cherry played, and to say otherwise would be disingenuous.

Of course, the same people who coaxed an apology out of Grapes for his comments by running to twitter were doing the same about his critique of Tomas Hertl for show-boating after making it an 8-2 game with his fourth goal of the game when San Jose gave New York an absolute beat down earlier in the week. I think the worst of this was the insinuation by media - such as TSN's The Reporters - that people like Cherry don't want this type of skill in the game. Of course, they're trying to type-cast Don as some knuckle dragging neanderthal who doesn't appreciate skill. The reality couldn't be further from the truth. Don didn't care about the between the legs move. In fact, ask Kyle Wellwood what Don thinks of that type of skill. Years ago when Pat Quinn benched Wellwood for going between the legs for a shot in a game against Florida, Don was on Coach's Corner the next week defending Welly, stating that people with skill like this must be given creative control to use it. More recently, listen to Don's defense of Kadri and one thing is clear, Don appreciates skill just as much as those straight laced boring reporters, perhaps more. And he hardly even lashed out at Hertl. In fact, Cherry gives Hertl an easier time than his own coach did - a coach whom benched him for the remainder of the game. He even goes as far as defending Hertl, saying that those types of celebrations - putting your hands in the air at all when taking a six goal lead in a game - were acceptable in the Czech Republic, but not here.

And so, over the years a lot of things have changed at HNIC. The sound of the commentators has changed and the tune of the opening song has changed. But what makes that program so spectacular is the sound that always stays the same. That familiar "Ding" you hear at around 8 o'clock, when Don Cherry hits the nail square on the head, as always.

What is Evolution, and Why should you care?

Hey There Blogosphere,

Upon a prompting from my popular and pompous brother in law, I have decided to write a blog about evolution. Of course, writing about such a complex subject in a short blog post isn't easy. There are going to be things that I leave out, and if you catch them I encourage you to comment below. (And, as usual, if I don't like your comment, I won't publish it).

Let me start by saying, if your going to discuss a subject, you better define it. So, what is evolution? Think about that question for a second, what do you think it is? Is evolution a fish slowly turning into a monkey, then slowly turning into a human? Where did the fish come from - perhaps a plant? You've probably heard evolution referred to as "survival of the fittest". Maybe the "fittest" plant evolved into a fish, into a monkey, into a human?

So, where did you land in your thoughts - what is evolution? Well, quite frankly there are DOZENS of different definitions, but I think the most easily understandable one is that evolution is a process that results in heritable changes in a population over time. Now, as long as you understand what "heritable changes" means, evolution becomes self evident. A distinction about this definition, as you will see, is that it is not "survival of the fittest". Indeed, something doesn't have to be "better" to be said to have evolved.


Essentially, heritable changes within a populations means a change in allele frequencies within a population. Easy there fellow, al-eeeelle, the hell is that? Well, unfortunately this is the one paragraph where I'm going to require you to learn some biology. For the purposes of this blog, picture every human with their own individual candy necklace - unless they're identical twins - that makes up their DNA. A gene is a portion of side-by-side candies within the necklace that codes for a protein. Now, backing up a second, each individual persons candy necklace actually came from a mix of 2 original necklaces: their moms and their dads. So, imagine each individual with 2 candy necklaces around their neck, one from their mom, one from their dad. In imagining this, it's easier to understand that any gene must have a contribution from both your mom and your dad (in general). Basically, biologists call the separate contributions alleles, in that 2 alleles make up 1 gene. Sometimes, certain alleles are dominant over other alleles. For instance, brown eyes are dominant over blue eyes. If your eyes are brown, it means you have at least 1 brown eye allele. If you have blue eyes, that means both of your eye colour alleles code for blue. Interestingly, this means two brown eyed people can have a blue eyed child, but 2 blue eyed people cannot have a brown eyed child*. Now, for the process of evolution to occur, allele frequencies must change within a population. In our current example, conceptually, lets say blue and brown alleles existed in a population equally. Knowing that brown is dominant over blue, we would assume that there would be more brown eyed people, but the alleles would still be 50% blue, 50% brown. However, if there were a catastrophic event in Sweden, and a bunch of blue eyed individuals got killed, that would mean the frequency of blue eyes in the global population would decrease. Eventually (and it will eventually occur on Earth without such an event) everyone will have brown eyes, and you could say the population has evolved. What is important here, is that a change in eye color - as far as I know - isn't a benefit to the human species (though perhaps their is some sexual preferences). This is where the misconception that evolution is "survival of the fittest" is refuted. Indeed, a brown eye doesn't perform better than a blue eye, yet the population will eventually be taken over by brown eyes. This is not to say that survival of the fittest isn't something that exists. Indeed, it does exist. If an allele benefits an organism so that it can out compete fellow organisms amongst it's population, that allele will increase in frequency amongst a population. (A great example is the antibiotic resistance allele, which gives bacteria resistance to antibiotics, and is increasing in frequency world wide as bacteria without the allele are killed off from antibiotics). However, regardless of whether an allele is beneficial or not, it's frequency changing within a population is what evolution is. 

BROWN ALLELE x BLUE ALLELE = BROWN GENE = BROWN PROTEIN = BROWN EYES

BROWN ALLELE X BROWN ALLELE = BROWN GENE = BROWN PROTEIN = BROWN EYES

BLUE ALLELE X BLUE ALLELE = BLUE GENE = BLUE PROTEIN = BLUE EYES

Simply to hammer home what evolution is, lets examine what evolution is not. Firstly, evolution is not something that occurs to an individual. As noted in the definition, it must occur to a population. If I grow wings tomorrow, that is not evolution, it is a mutation. If I subsequently have children with wings, and they have children with wings, then wings become prominent in a population, that is evolution. Secondly, evolution is not a monkey turning into a human. Evolution is a process by which monkeys and humans shared a common ancestor, and each species went their own separate way from that ancestor. It's the equivalent to saying a Mac is different from a PC, but both of them started from a calculator. Neither turned into the other. They followed the same process, from the same start, and became two different systems. Finally, and culturally most importantly, evolution is a process that determines how single celled life has transitioned into the complex forms of life we see on Earth today. It is not an explanation for how life began. Instead, it explains the mechanism by which life has changed over the past 3 billion years.

Clearly, I've opened a can of worms with my rhetoric blogosphere. Not only is this a subject that is important scientifically - for instance in the understanding of bacterial behaviour to antibiotics - but this is also an important subject culturally. If you accept the evidence that exists for evolution - none of which has been presented in this blog, but in my personal opinion is overwhelmingly suggestive that evolution has and continues to occur - there are a ton of social ramifications.

I think my favorite consequence of evolution as a fact is that it scientifically disproves the ideals in society that have for hundreds of years caused nothing but heart ache for humanity. Importantly, data for evolution shows that all human kind originated in Africa from the same small population. Knowing this, how could you say that one race is superior to another if we share a great (x10^100) grandmother? How does the fact that we all come from Africa change the rights of natives? How does our common lineage change intercultural tensions worldwide? 

And the ramifications of evolution aren't limited to human rights. Frankly, you can't view humans to be superior to any other species which arrived on this planet by a parallel process. They are our equals. Additionally, evolution provides scientific evidence for how we have become what we are. Obviously, this is of great cultural significance. For the first time in history, we are using logic and reason to explain our existence. We know why our ears, noses, and eyes work the way they do, and we no longer need scriptures to provide other explanations.

Evolution is not a religion, nor is it an alternative to religion. It is a fact. It doesn't tell us there is no afterlife. It doesn't tell us how to behave, or what morals you should live your life by. Instead, it shines light on the incredible unlikelihood that we are even existing here by explaining how it happened. By understanding evolution, you may find yourself enjoying life a little more - knowing how lucky you are, just to be here.

*I like the eye colour example because it illustrates how 2 different alleles influence a gene. But, if you think about it, it also shows how a population can have a bunch of different alleles (green eye alleles, albino alleles, etc) and it is the change in frequency of all these alleles together - not just blue and brown - that is the process of evolution.

There's only one Trump I mean to bend my knee to: The Trump in the North

Hey there blogosphere,

In case your not aware, in the last decade or so there has been a new type of celebrity introduced into society. Where celebs were once actors, singers, or athletes, the new breed includes rich entrepreneurs. No where is this more evident than in the United States, where blow hard carnival barkers like Donald Trump have for a long time been appearing on talk shows, and recently they have embarked into reality television - with Trumps Apprentice dominating the Thursday night 10-11 slot for years (I follow him on twitter). Of course, like most U.S. trends, this fascination with rich entrepreneurs has migrated North, manifesting itself into the popular CBC show Dragons Den.

O'leary looks like the love child of Franklin the turtle's mom and Mr. Burns. 

By far the most noticeable dragon in the show is Kevin O'leary (though he is far from being the richest dragon, a title that belongs to Jim Treliving at an estimated 800 million dollar net worth). O'leary's Dragons Den popularity has allowed him to perform the Trump niche, advising regular people on how to manage their finances. He does this on his spin off show called The Lang and O'leary Exchange, a program I've watched probably 10 times in its entirety - including last nights episode. Actually, yesterday I made a conclusion that I had long since suspected: O'leary doesn't know what he's talking about.

The problem I have with O'leary's fiscal ignorance is that he disguises it, often by saying "I want to make moooneeey" in a condescending tone, and then using his wealth as evidence that he knows how to do so. But how did he obtain this wealth? Was it through investments made by his mutual fund? No. It was essentially because a company he was part owner of created Reader Rabbit. Really, I give him kudos for being a pioneer in the technology as a teacher game, but I must have missed where that makes him a financial genius. He spun his fortune into the O'leary Funds company, which grew quickly but has recently raised some eyebrows in the Report on Business, with large investment firms recognizing that his "yields are unsustainable and that some of their holdings are highly speculative".
 
Well, maybe he's got a strong educational background on financials. El Wrongo. In fact, he went to school for a degree in environmental policies, arguably one of the most useless post-secondary pieces of paper you can get (though it did force him to be an entrepreneur).

Indeed, O'leary has nothing other than his fortuitous wealth that would suggest he knows what he's talking about - and it shows. He is repeatedly giving advice that appeals to the masses, but is either irrelevant or ignorant to reality. For instance, he advised the NHLPA to cave into owner demands immediately in the most recent NHL lockout. He reasoned that the average NHLer only last 3 years and they should all take what they can get while they can get it, regardless of what the owners are giving. Now, this makes sense to the masses because we're all so envious that these people get paid millions to play a game, and we'd take 10% of their salaries to switch places with them. But, that's not reality. By simply waiting till November the NHLPA got an additional 200 million dollars put on the table, and would eventually get a deal that far and away beat the original offer of the NHL. It's called negotiating, and caving immediately shows that O'leary would be terrible at it. Yesterdays example, referring to the Diamond heist that took place, O'leary's advice was that they should have stole gold, as it would be easier to sell. Again, at face value this is not terrible advice, but it is completely irrelevant to the situation him and Amanda Lang were discussing.

Of course, the problem with all of this - in my opinion - is that O'leary is coming off appearing as a financial expert on our public broadcaster, when the reality is he is not an expert. The CBC shouldn't be allowing him to advise the general population. He's just another carnival barker who got lucky, and is selling himself on the premise that it was his brains that made him money. It wasn't. If that were the case, he'd be a billionaire by now. He's not. He's just the freak child, of these two.

























Later blogosphere