The Music Man: Not big in Afghanistan

I've just finished reading a book that was long overdue on my list: Three Cups of Tea, the story of Greg Mortenson and his amazing, heroic efforts to build schools for girls in Pakistan and Afghanistan. This book is a must-read for anyone who is feeling a little hopeless and cynical, and it should be required reading for Bush/Cheney types who think that the War on Terrorism is going to be won with guns.

In one small part of the book, the reader is reminded that the Taliban are not real fond of music--so much so that virtually all music has been banned at times in Afghanistan, with severe penalties for non-compliance. As someone who relies on his iPod Shuffle to get him through a six or eight mile run, I can't help but be struck by the notion that music is bad. Music--the very essence of human creativity, something that separates us from the beasts, one of our noblest enterprises, something that entertains and inspires--of all things, music is illegal.

I try to wrap my head around this idea. What planet are these people living on? What values underlie this perverse fear of a melody, with rhythm? Why so categorical and extreme? (It might be one thing to ban, say, certain rappers, but quite another to throw in Bach and Beethoven.) A world without music is a world without sunshine. You might as well ban chocolate syrup, popcorn, and re-runs of The Rockford Files while you're at it!

Yes, a hedonistic life is a potentially empty life. But listening to music is so far from mindless hedonism that I can only shake my head and say that it's quite a diverse world in which we live. I'd like to say that diversity is always wonderful, but sometimes it's a real headache. I'm happy today to be a "westerner"--one of those times when I appreciate and do not take for granted the pleasure of running around Lake Harriet with Dire Straits' "Walk of Life" pulsing into my ears.

In my life I've loved them all

Have you ever considered all the people you know, and all of the things you have done with them?

As one gets older and more feeble (half-marathons feel a lot better than marathons these days), one (that'd be me) can't help but look back on it all and just be a little amazed. And the truth of the matter is that my life has not been all THAT amazing--in fact, it's been fairly ordinary in many ways. (Imagine the difference if you are Barack Obama, or Kofi Annan, or Britney Spears!) Still, it's quite an awesome array of personalities, events, places, and stories.

Some of the best stories (a) only mean something to me, (b) are too "personal" to share in most any venue, and (c) could easily be interpreted as self-centered or vain or sappy or embarrassing or something else that's not complimentary. The list is so long that I hardly know where to begin. And so I'm left with lots of memories of all sorts--memories that are permanently sealed in my brain and pretty much do and should remain there.

Still, perhaps when I finally get my lingering terminal illness with some bizarre multi-syllabic name, maybe someone will take enough pity on me to listen to a few of those stories, and maybe even a few of my favorite songs:

There are places I'll remember
All my life though some have changed
Some forever not for better
Some have gone and some remain
All these places have their moments
With lovers and friends I still can recall
Some are dead and some are living
In my life I've loved them all

Sports mania is insania

It's been a big "sports week" here in the Twin Towns. In the longest college football rivalry in the nation, the Gophers battled the Badgers at home to determine who would win "The Ax." On Sunday we had the Twin Cities Marathon and TC 10 Mile. Then the Brett Favre version of the Vikings took on the Packers in Monday Night Football. And today, right now, the Twins are facing the Tigers in a winner-take-all one-game divisional playoff.

Yes, it's all sort of exciting. And I remember a time in a distant past life (read: junior high school) when my career goal was to become a sportscaster. But at some point (read: late in high school) I realized that there had to be more to life than three-run homers, screen passes, and slap shots. Although sports can be a nice diversion, they are, in the end, just games. And as more than 50,000 Americans were dying in Vietnam, it became harder and harder to take games so seriously. Something else just had to matter more.

Still, some people clearly do take their sports seriously, including various yahoos at the Gopher game who would surely regard themselves as Minnesota fans. Yet their behavior was juvenile to the point of being embarrassing. If a Badger backer (clothed in red, of course--a true Gopher fan had to be wearing gold) walked by the Minnesota faithful, they were subjected to all manner of annoying trash talk (even at the urinals, as I was to discover!). The metamessage was: This football game actually matters. It's a reflection of our civic pride. And we'd better show we're superior. And somehow, winning the game would constitute proof of all that. At some level, it's pretty pathetic--especially since after all the taunting, the Gophers lost, 31-28. A whole bunch of those vocal Gopher fans were left to eat crow and got the insults handed right back at them while heading out the door.

We can enjoy the drama of sport. And hey, let's root, root, root for the home team. But when an opposing player is injured on the field--as happened a few times to certain Badger players--let's have the decency NOT to yell, "Take him out in a body bag!"

But all that aside, a big WHOOO-HOOO! as the Twins top the Tigers 6-5 in 12 innings--it was a transcendent moment in sports, as good as it gets! Still, it really is only a game. Really.