Mike O'Connell

I’ve done the bit for years… President’s Day, Presidents’ Day, Washington-Lincoln Day… you get the idea. It’s funny because everyone is right and everyone is wrong all at the same time. I usually go with “Presidents’ Day,” although my own state–that would be Virginia–still calls it George Washington Day. (A hundred and sixty-one years after the Civil War, many people ’round these parts still don’t take too kindly to Mr. Lincoln.)

Five years ago I noted that officially Mother’s Day is spelled as such. The holiday’s founder, a Ms. Anna Jarvis really did codify it as such back in 1912. A singular possessive, celebrating one’s own mother.

I’ve evolved on my opinion of farmers market. I used to write “farmers’ market,” but now I’m beyond thinking it’s any one farmer’s market, or a consortium of farmers that conduct a market. “Farmers” is simply an adjective modifying “market,” rendering the apostrophe unnecessary. (I’m usually the apostrophe apologist, yet here I am suggesting it vanish.)

I think I’m going to start doing the same for Presidents Day. And dang I’d do the same for Mothers but for the aforementioned Ms. Jarvis.

Could have saved us a lot of trouble a century later.

Keep this in mind, everybody.

Say “New York” to someone and of course they think the city.

But there’s more to the Empire State than just the eight million or so folks who live those five boroughs.

There’s this whole other section, including my hometown.

Everyone has a hometown. Binghamton’s mine.

(So said Rod Serling.)

Last weekend Franklin and I visited the old country, spending some time in Binghamton and also the Gorge-ous city of Ithaca, home of the famous Buttermilk Falls and the Moosewood Restaurant. (Rod Serling’s got a connection there too.)

Hear about them both on today’s episode of Math and Musings.

Enjoy!

A few weeks ago I thought this post of mine was particularly insightful, though now I’m not so sure.

For what it’s worth that ballot initiative in Virginia did pass (similar measures are now up in other states), meaning our legislature is now set on gerrymandering its voting districts. (Thanks, Obama.) That is, assuming our courts keep their hands off this football.

The final tally was something like 51 percent to 48 percent in favor. (My own county of Loudoun put up an embarrassing number of yes votes–sorry.)

My son pointed out to me something I thought rather perceptive that I may have to add to the act.

The best you’re ever going to do in one of these votes is 51 or 52 percent of people pleased with the results. But that’s not a bad score considering the alternative. Let’s face it, a completely fair and non-partisan election district map generated by a computer would make nobody happy.

Think about that for a minute. A fair map would make everyone upset. At least with blatant gerrymandering you get slightly more than half of people happy for a few years. Then maybe the other half gets it, or maybe you get half the people in one state happy while another half of people in another state are happy. It’s a constantly shifting Rubik’s cube that’s never quite right but always a little bit right enough to make some of the people happy some of the time. (A little twist on that old supposedly Lincoln line.)

Two cheers for gerrymandered election districts!

With one eye on the Denver Double I am turning my attention to the hardwood as well, following the exploits of the NBA team of my youth.

That would be the New York Knickerbockers, who last won a championship nine years before I was born.

I think, though, this could be the year, the Knicks having righted their ship last night to take a three games to two lead in their series with the Atlanta Hawks.

I’m still getting over the heartbreak of the 1994 Finals, when I was in sixth grade and a diehard Knicks fan. Life comes full circle and my son is now in sixth grade, and perhaps he will get to see what I didn’t: a Finals victory.

Embarrassing to say the players now are much closer to my son’s age than mine.

Yeah, they’re closer to the age of a sixth grader than they are to me.

Yikes.

Today on Math and Musings Franklin and I discuss the crowing achievement of my youth: catching a foul ball at a minor league baseball game.

Twenty years later I still go to a lot of minor league games and I’ve collected a few more balls…

but you never forget your first.

Enjoy.