Ice wars

I have recently been waging war against the ice and snow that have taken over our back deck. (We now know it is important to nip these things in the bud before they dig in their heels.) Two feet of snow is a manageable quantity to shovel ... twenty inches of snow underneath four inches of solid ice is a bit more formidable. After our plastic snow shovel suffered a career-ending injury, Ellen and I decided to stop messing around. Admittedly, I'm using it more as a chisel than as a shovel, but our new steel-tipped behemoth is working wonders. Just in time for the next snowstorm.

The winter edition of The Dartmouth Apologia was released on Friday. I had the privilege to work on this issue as an editorial consultant, and I will be reviewing the articles here over the coming days. Although the new issue is not yet online, I highly recommend their website, www.dartmouthapologia.org . This issue's cover article, by Emily DeBaun '12, examines the relationship between quantum mechanics and "nondeterministic divine action." Food for thought, to say the least.

In the chess world, two-time American champion Hikaru Nakamura was just crowned champion of the 2011 edition of the Tata Steel tournament in Wijk aan Zee. This Dutch perennial featured fourteen top grandmasters, including the four highest-rated players in the world. Some chess fans have declared this the most exciting result by an American since Bobby Fischer won the World Championship in 1972. Congratulations Hikaru!

Nationally registered

I passed my final practical exam station on Sunday, meaning I am finally a Nationally Registered Paramedic. As I have mentioned previously, both Vermont and New Hampshire require providers to be nationally registered and neither state offers reciprocity to New York certifications. As much of a pain as it has been to go through this process, I am pleased to now have this certification under my belt. Between this and my New York card, I should have little difficulty obtaining a license to practice in whatever state we move to next for Ellen's post-doctoral studies. She and I are both elated and relieved!

I enjoyed watching the Jets-Patriots football game last weekend, and I was especially pleased with the result. As much as has been said about the result--and there has been a lot--I was surprised by one nuance that seems to have been largely overlooked. At the end of the game, with the ball on the New England 16-yard line, Jets running back Shonn Greene took a handoff and scampered into the end zone for what proved to be the decisive score. My question is, why didn't he just stop, a la Brian Westbrook in 2007?

Here's the situation: If Greene gets past the 10-yard line, New York earns a first down. New England has to burn their last time-out to stop the clock, meaning the Jets have first-and-goal with 1:43 or so on the clock. Seeing as it's a forty-second play clock, all the Jets have to do is kneel down three times and the game is over. New England can't stop the clock again and they never get another chance to touch the ball. I'm no NFL coach, but I'd take a guaranteed win over a two-score lead with Tom Brady getting the ball back with 1:41 on the clock any day. In any event, next up are the Pittsburgh Steelers. I'm hoping for a great game.

Martin Luther King, Jr. day

In honor of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, I am posting a transcript of his most famous speech, the "I Have a Dream" speech given on August 28, 1963 during the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. I've heard the speech took seventeen minutes to deliver.

"I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation.

Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity.

But one hundred years later, the Negro still is not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languishing in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land. So we have come here today to dramatize a shameful condition.

In a sense we have come to our nation's capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked "insufficient funds." But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. So we have come to cash this check — a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice. We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quick sands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God's children.

It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment. This sweltering summer of the Negro's legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality. Nineteen sixty-three is not an end, but a beginning. Those who hope that the Negro needed to blow off steam and will now be content will have a rude awakening if the nation returns to business as usual. There will be neither rest nor tranquility in America until the Negro is granted his citizenship rights. The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges.

But there is something that I must say to my people who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice. In the process of gaining our rightful place we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred.

We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force. The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community must not lead us to a distrust of all white people, for many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny. They have come to realize that their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom. We cannot walk alone.

As we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead. We cannot turn back. There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, "When will you be satisfied?" We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality. We can never be satisfied, as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities. We cannot be satisfied as long as the Negro's basic mobility is from a smaller ghetto to a larger one. We can never be satisfied as long as our children are stripped of their selfhood and robbed of their dignity by signs stating "For Whites Only". We cannot be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote. No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.

I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials and tribulations. Some of you have come fresh from narrow jail cells. Some of you have come from areas where your quest for freedom left you battered by the storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of police brutality. You have been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive.

Go back to Mississippi, go back to Alabama, go back to South Carolina, go back to Georgia, go back to Louisiana, go back to the slums and ghettos of our northern cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed. Let us not wallow in the valley of despair.

I say to you today, my friends, so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal."

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification; one day right there in Alabama, little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.

I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.

This is our hope. This is the faith that I go back to the South with. With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.

This will be the day when all of God's children will be able to sing with a new meaning, "My country, 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, land of the pilgrim's pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring."

And if America is to be a great nation this must become true. So let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire. Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York. Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania!

Let freedom ring from the snowcapped Rockies of Colorado!

Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California!

But not only that; let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia!

Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee!

Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi. From every mountainside, let freedom ring.

And when this happens, when we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, "Free at last! free at last! thank God Almighty, we are free at last!"

On college chess

The Pan-American Intercollegiate Chess Championship wrapped up on December 30, 2010 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. As I mentioned previously, the University of Texas--Dallas took clear first place with a 6-0 match score. Alex Betaneli, the chief tournament director and organizer, wrote an excellent recap for the U.S. Chess Federation website in which he not only recounted all the action but offered some thoughts on the current state of college chess in the United States. Betaneli pointed out the well-known and much-lamented disconnect between the enormously popular scholastic chess scene and the stingy ranks of adult, professional chess players; he suggested that shortcomings at the college level contribute greatly to the steep drop-off of chess playing as juniors leave adolescence.

Betaneli's case in point is the Pan-Am tournaments from the 1970s and 1980s. Literally hundreds of schools would show up to play, and many of the young competitors went on to become the face of American chess. By contrast, the 2010 edition of the tournament only saw seventeen different American schools send teams (Canada and the West Indies sent a total of three teams and some U.S. schools also entered more than one team). A number of possible explanations were highlighted by Betaneli and other USCF members on the message board. These included school funding, location/timing of the tournament and the advent of chess scholarships, to name a few.

I have a small amount of experience with college chess, having captained the Dartmouth College team at three Pan-Am tournaments (2006-2008). We won the U1600 prize in 2006 and missed the U2000 prize by half a point in 2007; 2008 was less successful. In any event, having gone from nationally-ranked junior to active college player to as-active-as-I-can-be adult, I have a few thoughts on the matter as well.

First off, I find the location/timing argument less persuasive, especially the location element. The Pan-Ams have been held December 27-30 for as long as I can remember (which admittedly isn't that long), and I have traveled to frigid D.C., balmy Miami and arid Dallas to play. I certainly enjoyed Miami the most as far as location is concerned, but then again, who wouldn't? And I wasn't going there on vacation, I was going to represent my school and play chess. I would have played on the moon if they'd held the event there. Timing is another matter, but you're never going to please everyone. Some schools have finals in December, others in January. Some schools are on break in January, others are back in session. The only common denominator is that everybody will be on break between Christmas and New Year's. So I think the organizers have chosen the optimum timing for the tournament.

As far as school funding is concerned, this is a much more formidable obstacle. Dartmouth was generous enough to pay our hotel and entry fee costs every year, and depending on the year there was also some money for meals, transportation and even USCF membership renewal. All we had to do was ask (Aravind Reddy '09 and Daniel Leung '09 did terrific jobs preparing our funding proposals). I certainly recognize that not every school is as generous as Dartmouth--either by nature or by dint of tough times--and there is no question that participating in Pan-Ams is an expensive proposition. Once all is said and done, you're looking at an outlay of hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars, especially depending on where the tournament is located and where your players are coming from. This is not small potatoes, and I have no doubt that it was budgetary constraints and not lack of interested players that kept a number of teams at home.

The question of scholarships is different and more complex. As college chess has turned into more of a "semi-professional" sport, teams comprised strictly of amateurs stand less and less of a chance of doing well at Pan-Ams. I am not against chess scholarships--on the contrary, I think they are a great thing--but I do think they have had the paradoxical effect of temporarily setting back college chess. Temporarily is the key word here. What has happened over the past decade or so is that certain schools, the University of Texas--Dallas and University of Maryland--Baltimore County chief among them, have made their chess team a priority. They have swelled their ranks with top-caliber players, both by offering full scholarships to the winners of prestigious junior tournaments (a brilliant strategy, in my view) and by recruiting adult professionals. There is nothing at all illegal about this--the scholarship players work hard at their studies, be they graduate students or undergrad--but it has served to "de-amateurize" college chess, especially where the recruitment of professional players as grad students is concerned.

The result is that UTD and UMBC dominated college chess for years until other schools decided they wanted in on the action. Texas Tech University and the University of Texas--Brownsville have both begun scholarship programs in recent years, and they too have enjoyed great chess success. While this was going on, schools like Duke, Harvard and Yale, which had traditionally scored well in team competitions because of the talented amateurs on their roster, began to fade into irrelevance.

This brings us more or less to the present day. There are a handful of "second-tier" chess schools, such as New York University and Stanford, that are still competitive, but they never actually win any tournaments because they simply lack the depth of a UTD or a UMBC. As one commenter noted on the discussion forum attached to Betaneli's article, "There are fewer teams competing for the top prize but the road to that prize is getting tougher." Indeed it is, and the perception that victory is unattainable is powerful dissuasion when it comes time to convince your star player to give up his Christmas break or plead with your school's student government for a few extra dollars to make the trip possible. So where to go from here?

I think the institution of the class prize is the key to redeeming college chess, at least as concerns the Pan-Am tournament. Class prizes, which recognize the top-scoring teams in lower rating brackets, give even the most modestly-composed of squads a chance to succeed. Recently there has been one class prize per rating category; I propose future editions of this tournament expand that to two or more prizes per class. This would erase the sense of futility that plagues many middle-of-the-pack teams and reenergize the competition at all levels. Furthermore, this would accelerate the reversal of the "setback" I mentioned earlier, which has manifested itself in this perception of fruitlessness and is only now beginning to fade. So up with class prizes and up with college chess!

Top ten lists

The New York Times ran an interesting piece on Friday about the top ten composers of all time. Anthony Tommasini, music critic for the Times, discussed the obstacles and pitfalls inherent in compiling such a list. These ranged from the unfairness of unduly imposing one's personal taste by elevating a favorite composer's ranking to the fundamental unsuitability of doing so. "As I see it," he writes, "the critic's job description does not include compiling lists of greats in order of greatness." Nevertheless, he conceded that with the help of an inquisitive high schooler he was persuaded to view the task afresh. As Tommasini describes it, "For me the resulting list would not be the point. But the process of coming up with such a list might be clarifying and instructive, as well as exasperating and fun." Indeed!

Tommasini does not provide his entire list off the bat; he merely reveals his first selection, J.S. Bach. The final list will be presented in order on January 21, according to a post on the Artsbeat blog. That same post strongly implied that Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert will all join Bach on the list. There were some restrictions placed on the field of candidates; Tommasini discusses these in the original article. While any kind of limitation goes against the grain of an all-inclusive list, he sensibly reasons that forgoing even the slightest boundary would make for too vast and disparate a field to allow any meaningful, edifying comparison. I'm excited to see whom he chooses and why.

I also wonder if similar obstacles would face someone trying to compile a list of the greatest authors of all time. Setting aside subjectivity--which is unavoidable in any discussion of the "best" anything--there are so many potential evaluating factors from which to choose. Popularity, cultural influence and technical skill are but three of nearly innumerable possibilities. Then one must take into consideration questions of language, time and place. It's a daunting task, to say the least, but it sounds like fun. I may take up the challenge in a future post. If anybody would like to take a stab at it in the meantime, please leave a comment and do so!

The axe falls

The New York Times reported today that John Peruggia, the EMS chief for New York City's fire department, has been demoted due to his agency's performance during the Christmas weekend blizzard. He will be replaced by Abdo Nahmood, who was previously in charge of overseeing emergency medical dispatch for the department. An unnamed source added that Chief Peruggia has also received scrutiny from the city Conflicts of Interest board, which may have contributed to his reassignment.

If Chief Peruggia has indeed violated conflict of interest regulations, then that's a completely different matter that needs to be dealt with, but I disagree with demoting him because of the disruption in service during the blizzard. As the president of the union pointed out in the article, Chief Peruggia is being punished for things he couldn't control. It seems the city felt it needed a scapegoat, and perhaps the risk of being put on the chopping block like this comes with the territory when you are in a leadership position like Chief Peruggia's. Still, the whole thing leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

On a more positive note, the following article appeared on NewCastleNow.org, a community-interest news site covering my hometown. In addition to serving as an adjunct to the volunteer ambulance corps's fund-raising drive, it also highlights the numerous members who have used their experience as a jumping-off point for further medical endeavors. I must point out that I never served in the Youth Corps there--I joined as an adult member following high school--but otherwise it's a nicely done piece.

"Move Over Act" takes effect

New York State's "Move Over Act" took effect on January 1. The law, which was signed last summer by former Gov. David Paterson, requires motorists to slow down any time they encounter an emergency vehicle parked on the side of the road. If it's a highway, drivers will also be required to move over a lane, assuming traffic conditions permit this to be done safely. Failure to comply will be punishable by a fine and two points on your driver license.

The impetus for the law was the deaths of two New York State Troopers, Robert Ambrose and Glenn Searles, who were killed while investigating accident scenes on the highway. While police officers are the primary beneficiaries of the new law, fire and EMS workers also stand to benefit from the law. Roadways are extremely dangerous places to respond for emergencies, and this will hopefully reduce the too-high number of roadside fatalities among public safety workers (more than 160 police officers alone have been killed in the past decade).

Staying on public safety, The Dartmouth ran an article today on the Dartmouth College administration's new alcohol-harm reduction initiatives. The article reported that President Jim Yong-Kim drew a distinction between the personal safety and public safety spheres with respect to student drinking. "The Hanover Police are public safety officers. But this is really not a public safety issue ... I am very concerned at the current situation, that by misunderstanding fundamentally the alcohol problem at Dartmouth as a public safety issue, the arrests and the prosecutions are making personal safety in grave danger."

President Kim's distinction between public safety and personal safety is an interesting one, and I agree with him to an extent. He seems, however, to be equating public safety with situations that only involve individuals and property not associated with the College. This relegates to the realm of "personal safety" legal infractions that do not directly affect the aforementioned "public" entities, and this definition is better suited for the term "victimless crime" than "personal safety issue." Though safety is certainly an issue in many instances of underage drinking, each alcohol-related emergency starts with a crime (often multiple crimes, since underage drinking and providing alcohol to a minor tend to go hand in hand).

President Kim may be correct that "The arrests and the prosecutions are making personal safety in grave danger," although I doubt it. But even if this is so, criticizing the police department for enforcing the law is not going to make things better. Greater personal responsibility and accountability on the part of the student body, on the other hand, is the way to go. Or if that is too much to ask--which I reject as a conclusion--then pursuing legislative reform by way of lowering the drinking age or lessening the (already lenient) penalties for underage drinking might be satisfactory. But what police department could ever agree to stop enforcing the law?

Planning ahead?

Far, far ahead. I received an email from the Dartmouth College Gift Planning office yesterday asking me to consider including the College in my will. You don't have to be a paramedic to know that life is unpredictable and, sometimes, tragically short, but this seems a little ridiculous. I'm barely eighteen months out of college and they're already after me for a bequest? Come on.

The Pan-American Intercollegiate chess championships wrapped up last week, with the University of Texas--Dallas taking top honors with an undefeated 6-0 match score. Second place was shared between the University of Maryland--Baltimore County and the University of Texas--Brownsville, with UMBC taking second on tiebreak. Dartmouth did not send a team this year; the Ivy League was represented by Yale University, which won the Class B prize. Brown University was also scheduled to participate, but the East Coast blizzard kept them from making it to the playing site in Wisconsin. Congratulations to all the winners!

In other news, we put our new ambulance into service at work today. It rides great, and I'm looking forward to breaking it in. Exciting times around here.

Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer

Even though Christmas is behind us, I want to share the following item from the Dartmouth College Special Collections Library's blog. It discusses the origins of the story of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, who was created by Robert May '26. Quite a neat story, especially the way in which May received back the copyright from the Montgomery Ward Company. You can read all about it here. Frosty the Snowman, that inveterate subversive, tellingly shares no such noble origin.

The final two days of December saw that annual Upper Valley event, the Ledyard National Bank Men's Hockey Classic. In the past I have been home for winter break during this four-team, two-round tournament, but this year I had the opportunity to attend all four games. In addition to Dartmouth and ECAC foe Colgate, Mercyhurst College and defending national champions Boston College rounded out the field. In the end, Boston College emerged victorious, defeating Mercyhurst 4-1 in the championship game. I had fun, even though Dartmouth finished in third place. And it's not every day you get to see a shootout in college hockey.

Now that January has arrived, I have tallied up my 2010 reading list. In the end I read twenty four books, not counting material for paramedic school. I finished at least one book in every month except April; July was my most prolific reading month, with six books finished, and there were six months in which I only finished a single book. It would seem my pleasure reading comes in spurts! I am already nearly a quarter of the way through Mutiny on the Bounty (which is also on the list of books made into Best Picture-winning movies), and I'm hoping to hit the ground running in 2011.

In other news, I read last week that at the worst point in Christmas weekend's blizzard, New York City dispatchers were holding 1,300 EMS calls (that is, they were backlogged by that number of requests for emergency medical service). It's difficult--and often pointless--to assign blame in such situations, but it's sad nonetheless.

Happy New Year!

I hope you all had a peaceful holiday season and are as excited for the new year as I am. I was especially pleased to see the thermometer hit fifty degrees yesterday and today. At this rate, this could be my favorite New Hampshire winter yet. Clearing our porch of the last of the snow and ice from last week's blizzard is a lot easier now that the sun is doing most of the work for me. Something tells me that we'll be back to frigid temperatures before long, but I am resolutely enjoying the warmth while it lasts.

Speaking of last week's blizzard, Ellen and I made a whirlwind tour of New York and New England the two days after Christmas to see friends and family. Needless to say, this coincided with what has been somewhat melodramatically christened "Blizzard 2010." Our trip began with an early morning drive to Putnam County, New York, for brunch with my mother and stepfather. The drive down was uneventful, but snowflakes were beginning to fall by the time we got back in the car for the short trip to Chappaqua, where we had a chance to catch up with my father, brother, stepmother and a good friend from high school.

By now it was snowing purposefully, and Ellen and I still had a three-hour trip to Boston to spend the night with my grandmother. This was the diciest part of the trip, as the highways were becoming increasingly ... white. At least New York and Massachusetts made an effort to plow the roads, but Connecticut didn't even try. Shame on you, Connecticut. It ended up taking us just over five and a half hours to complete the trip, but we did make it safely to Boston and had a nice time with my grandmother (whose Wii Bowling skills are nothing short of legendary. How many people do you know who can bowl a 284?).

Monday saw a brief visit with one of Ellen's old roommates, who was also a bridesmaid in our wedding, and then a largely snow-free drive home. It was fun to get to see so many people--and exciting, if taxing, to make such a long journey in the snow--but we were glad to finally be home.