Games of Youth

by Conroy

"Play is the highest expression of human development in childhood, for it alone is the free expression of what is in a child's soul."

Chess - one of the first "adult" games I learned to play

This quote is from Friedrich Frobel, one of the fathers of modern education and inventor of the concept of kindergarten. While the language is grandiloquent it must contain some truth. What I'm sure of is that the word play is synonymous with childhood as the word work is with adulthood. As a child I would play; as an adult I work. This is a reality so firmly ingrained that until just recently I had given little thought to the matter.

The truth is I'm not prone to sentimentalism of nostalgia, no more than the next man anyway, but I do have a sharp memory. That memory was jolted the other day as I was searching through some storage bins in my basement - the common repository for forgotten possessions - and came across my classic board game Axis & Allies. Like Proust's response to the madeleine, my mind whirled over all those games I played in my youth. As I thought further I realized that play, that games, must be one of the defining features of my younger years. Games of all forms and varieties. Games of skill, of intellect, of speed and strength.

Today, my adult years, I rarely play games, and I thought of why that might be. I had to go back to the games I played as a child to understand.

World Domination

"No human being is innocent, but there is a class of innocent actions called games." - W.H. Auden

I thought of my dad teaching me chess as a young boy. I wasn't the next Bobby Fisher, but I had a knack for strategy and other games beckoned. I thought of playing Stratego and Risk, imagining myself as the youthful Napoleon as I led my triumphant armies to glorious victories. I thought of Axis & Allies and how even as a young teenager I was aware that the game makers made it palatable to play as the Germans by showing the Iron Cross on the game pieces instead of the Nazi swastika. But I thought most about Empire Deluxe.

Better Cars and Worse Roads

by Conroy

The future belongs to fuel efficient cars

In June, the Obama Administration proposed substantial changes to the Corporate Average Fuel Economy standards (known by the acronym CAFE). The changes would require a near doubling in the fuel efficiency, measured in miles per gallon (mpg), for passenger cars and light trucks. The automobile industry, represented by most of the major auto manufacturers (Volkswagen being the major exception), is supporting the new CAFE standards (with a few modest adjustments). As announced in late July, the fleet average fuel efficiency for new passenger cars and light trucks by 2025 will have to be 54.5 mpg. This follows on the heels of earlier regulations that will require new cars and trucks to have a fleet average fuel efficiency of 35.5 mpg by 2016.

Earlier this month the president announced the first ever fuel efficiency standards for heavy trucks (18-wheelers, tankers, etc.). These standards would require percentage improvements in fuel efficiency and greenhouse gas (ghg) emissions by 2018 based on the type of truck and how it will be used. The American Trucking Association (ATA), an industry advocacy group representing trucking companies and commercial truck owners, is supporting the new standards.

The immediate objective of these new rules is to reduce gasoline consumption and ghg emission, with the larger goal of increasing energy independence, spurring the development of clean car technology, and improving air quality. As with all federal rules, there will be numerous loopholes, exemptions, options to pay penalties in lieu of compliance, and complicated methods for actually measuring fuel efficiency and vehicle emissions. However, assuming these new rules are fully (or even largely) implemented, there will be major ramifications for the vehicles you and I buy and drive over the next fourteen years (and beyond). But perhaps an even bigger effect will be not to the vehicles we drive in, but to the roads we drive on.

A Season in the Sun

by Conroy

An exuberant Djokovic after his latest title

Novak Djokovic had a golden opportunity at the French Open in 2008. On a sun-drenched Friday afternoon he faced three-time defending champion Rafael Nadal in a much anticipated semi-final. Win and he would pass the Spainard in the rankings and have a chance to play for his second grand slam title that year. He was a hot player, hard on the heels of Nadal (one year his senior) and perennial number one Roger Federer. He had that "lean and hungry look" as Caesar would say.

The match was intense. The rallies were long and hard. Novak fought, he had stretches of brilliant play, but as the rallies played out and the match wore on, the reality was clear to see on the shadowless court under the midday sun, there was no place for Novak Djokovic to hide; he was no equal to Nadal. He lost 6-4, 6-2, 7-6. He was supposed to emerge as a new contender for number 1. Instead he faded back. As grand slams went by one-by-one he seemed to  get used to being the third wheel in the captivating Federer-Nadal battle of greatness. It played that way right through last year's U.S. Open final. It seemed like it could play that way forever. Or at least that's what we all thought, until this year.

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A Season in the Sun
Flash forward to yesterday. I watched Novak Djokovic, the newly crowned number 1 player, continue his nearly flawless, and well, awesome season in Montreal. He beat Mardy Fish, the top-ranked American (and big tournament bridesmaid), in the final of the Canada Masters event. He became the first number 1 player to win his first tournament after ascending to the top ranking since Pete Sampras 18 years ago. He wasn't at his sharpest and Fish was game, but it didn't matter, there's no stopping the Serb at the moment. It was his ninth title out of ten tournaments played in 2011. His record for the year is a hard-to-believe 53-1 (0.981 winning percentage in case you're interested).

The win yesterday was his fifth this year at a "1,000 level" event (you get 1,000 ranking points for winning), the tier just below the four grand slam tournaments. No one had ever won more than four in a single season before (Federer and Nadal each won four in 2005 and Federer won four more in 2006 - there are nine played each year).

Djokovic celebrating his Wimbledon championship

Oh yeah, and let's not forget that Novak is also this year's Australian Open and Wimbledon champion. Five times he stepped on court versus the then top ranked player, Rafael Nadal. Five times he came away the winner, including a paradigm shifting win in the Wimbledon final. He's won on hard courts (29-0), grass (7-0), and clay (17-1). He's beaten the other Top 10 players like a drum, amassing an eye-popping 16-1 record against that distinguished group. I wrote a couple of months ago about his only loss, to Federer - maybe the greatest player ever - in the semi-finals of the French Open (Roland Garros). And that took one of Roger's greatest ever clay court performances.

One Million Steps...and Then Some

by Conroy

Conroy on top of Uncompahgre - the symbolic peak of the challenge

Back in April I wrote about a challenge I had set for myself: take one million steps over the course of one hundred days; an average of 10,000 steps a day, the equivalent of just under five walking miles a day. On May 1, armed with a pedometer and a determined spirit, I stepped out.

I walked, I hiked, I ran, I even climbed a mountain, and slogged through a river of mud. I was dedicated to reaching the goal, and I achieved it - with ease. I took my 1,000,000th step on Day 60 (June 29), 40 days ahead of schedule. When Day 100 (August 8) - and the challenge - was over, I had taken 1,766,074 steps (give or take a few). That's equivalent to walking nearly 840 miles, or the distance from my home in Baltimore to Jefferson City, right in the heart of Missouri.

I started this effort because I feel that challenges like this are a great way to promote personal fitness, and keep a person interested and motivated in physical activity. I still agree with that, but I had a few other interesting insights along the way:

10,000 Steps and More - after the first few days it became clear that amassing 10,000 steps a day (however I went about it) was not a great challenge. An average walking pace will yield about 100 steps a minute, running about 150 steps per minute. So 10,000 steps takes more than an hour but less than two of concentrated effort. Even a routine day, no extra workouts, will yield several thousand steps, so I didn't find it to hard to carve time out of my day for the extra steps needed to get to 10,000. Lunchtime walks, weekend hikes, my normal running schedule would get the job done. After ten days I was averaging well over 11,000 steps a day. So I set myself to go farther. Could I average 15,000 steps a day? How about 20,000? Here's my average for each ten day increment:

Critical Confusion

by Conroy

Death Cab for Cutie playing live

Last night I went to see Death Cab for Cutie at Merriweather Post Pavilion. I'm a big fan of the band; this is the second time I've seen them this summer. DCFC (for short) is touring in support of their latest album, Codes and Keys, which was released at the end of May. The lead single, "You Are a Tourist", was a big hit on on "alternative" and rock radio, and even gained some airplay on mainstream stations (and VH1). I like the song, I like the album. That's no surprise, as I noted, I'm a fan (see my ten favorite DCFC songs below). 

What I'm not going to do is make a quick judgment about the value of the music, the depth of songwriting, the thematic cohesion of the album. I'm not going to compare it to DCFC's other albums, not yet anyway. I know right away that it's good, anything more will take time to realize. Why? Well, as I with written before (here and here), you have to wary when making quick judgments about art. It takes time, many years, to fully evaluate a work of art.

But then I'm not a professional critic.

Critical Confusion
Critics, some of whom get paid for their opinions (good for them), are quick to make, in fact must make, quick judgments. I'm always cautious when reading these first reviews. To wit, consider a couple of reviews of Codes and Keys:

Evan Sawdey, PopMatters -

 "...it was inevitable that Death Cab for Cutie would eventually hit a wall - after all, there are only so many...tricks you can pull before everyone realizes you're merely rehashing all of you old material-and with Codes and Keys...the bottom has dropped out almost completely."

He continues,

"...as daring as they want to bill Codes and Keys as...this is the sound of Death Cab at their most generic, disjointed, and disinterested. It's a hard pill to swallow, but the truth is this: Codes and Keys is the worst album of their career."

Would it be an understatement to call that a negative review? Here's another opinion,

Forts of Baltimore

by Conroy

Fort McHenry

I've always loved geography and been fascinated by maps. You put an atlas or map in front of me and I'm drawn to it like iron to a magnet. I pour over maps as if there was some deep, precious secret to be found in the lines and names on the page (or increasingly, the computer screen).

I'm this way with all maps, but I especially like when I can relate what I read on a map to what I've seen with my own eyes. Naturally, I'm most familiar with my hometown, Baltimore, and was just looking at a map of the city's expansive harbor. Baltimore and its eastern suburbs boast one of the most interesting coastlines of any large American city. It's located on the fall line and straddles, surrounds really, the wide estuary that is the lower Patapsco River, just a few miles from the Chesapeake Bay. Go ahead and look at this coastline on google maps or some other online resource. The land and water reach out for one another as low-lying peninsulas entwine with wide, slow-flowing tidal rivers.

Simplified map showing the "forts" of Baltimore

Take a close look around this coastline, the harbor and Patapsco River, and you'll notice a curiosity. Around the periphery where river meets bay, smack in the middle of the shipping channel, and right at the entrance to the famous Inner Harbor, you'll read names of places with the same prefix. Fort Howard, Fort McHenry, Fort Carroll, Fort Smallwood, Fort Armistead. What are all these forts? Why does Baltimore need such protection, is the city at risk from some foreign armada?

Well no, not today of course. But if you think historically, the answer is yes, but let's come back to that.

A Harrowing Ride

by Conroy

In my last post I described the difficult, but successful climb to the top of Uncompahgre Peak in western Colorado. Well Sir Edmund Hillary I am certainly not, but I was proud of what I had accomplished and as we (my aunt, uncle, and their dog Bobby) took our Jeep to the bottom of the Nellie Creek Trail Road I was ready to finally relax and surrender to my happy exhaustion. There was just one critical choice to make. Turn left and head back on the relatively smooth road to Lake City and then the pretty boring two hour driver to my aunt and uncle's home in Montrose, or turn right and take the four-wheel drive road over Engineer's Pass and down to the Million Dollar Highway above Ouray. My instinct was to turn left, but my uncle chose right. As he noted, when would we have chance to drive up to Engineer's Pass again? I don't need to quote Frost in noting that this choice made a huge difference.

All I knew, what I had learned the previous day from the Jeep rental owner, was that we would be driving along a twenty mile stretch of rough road that would take us up to 12,800 feet and about three and a half hours to traverse. I imagined a few bumpy hours. I thought the major challenge of the day - the climb - was behind me. What I knew, imagined, thought were nothing like what I was about to experience.

The Climb to Engineer's Pass
As we headed east along the first few miles from Nellie Creek, the road was gravel but (relatively) smooth; the midday sun was bright overhead. We were slowly climbing up a valley parallel to the swiftly flowing Henson Creek; steep, timbered ridges rising on either side of us. The water was surging downhill (the way we should have been going).

I'm an engineer and I design roads for a living. I asked my uncle why this pass was called "Engineer's Pass", I thought maybe there was a good story behind it. He didn't know. I made a mental note to research it after we were got back.

We passed a sign that read "End of Road Maintenance". With a bump, bang, and shudder we were in four-wheel drive territory. The signs should have read "End of Road - PROCEED AT YOUR OWN RISK!!". Our progress slowed substantially, the road turned noticeably more upward. I asked my aunt for the rudimentary map of these four-wheel drive mountain trails that came with the Jeep. I tried to read the map as we bounced all over the place and my hands, head, and eyes, jerked in different directions. We had about eight miles until Engineer's Pass and then about the same distance back down to an actual road.

Slowly, jerkily we crawled higher, above the trees into the alpine tundra. A string of vehicles were stretched out along the road, most headed in the opposite direction. It looked like a bad version of the Burma Road. At one point we saw a sign that must have been a joke, "Four Wheel Drive Vehicles Recommended Beyond This Point." I was too uncomfortable to appreciate the humor. I was already a little queasy from the earlier climb. The last thing I wanted to be doing was rising back into thin air. It got cold. Finally, a long hour after we had started we reached Engineer's Pass. The changeable weather had turned gray and it was starting to drizzle. I didn't see a pass at all, we basically had driven to the top of the 13,000 foot Engineer Mountain! (An explanation for the name; by then I wasn't interested.)

The Descent
Okay, we made it to the pass. I couldn't care less about the soaring views of mountains, valleys, and sky. I had enough of that on top of Uncompahgre, I just wanted to head down. I needed thicker air and warmer temperatures. We moved on. And that's when it got scary.

Climbing a Fourteener

by Conroy

Uncompahgre Peak

A few days ago I summited one of the tallest mountains in the continental United States. It was one of the hardest things I've even done.

I wrote last year about my plans to climb Mount Kilimanjaro, the iconic mountain whose peak (at 19,400 above sea level) dominates the African savanna. In preparation, I wanted to climb one of Colorado's Fourteeners (a peak that stands more than 14,000 feet above sea level), to get a feel for high altitude hiking, including significant elevation changes and exerting myself in thin air.

My aunt and uncle, who built a home in western Colorado, have experience with climbing Fourteeners. They suggested that we climb Uncompahgre Peak (pronounced un-com-padre, and not "unpronounceable" as I had dubbed it), which is the sixth tallest mountain in Colorado at over 14,300 feet. The climb is reasonable for novices, such as myself, because it lacks technical sections like steep rock scree, ice fields, or genuine rock climbing. All I would need is my hiking boots, poles, and a lot of water. We would make the ascent in July when the mountain passes would be open and the weather warm. It sounded like a good plan to me.

Jeep on Nellie Creek Trail road

Unfortunately, Uncompahgre Peak is not easily accessible. On the day of the hike, we (me, my aunt, uncle, and their Golden Labrador) set out before dawn to drive the roundabout two-and-half hours to the base of the trail road that led to the start of the hike itself. The heavily eroded trail road was passable only to four-wheel drive vehicles and we took an adventurous and very bumpy four mile ride along Nellie Creek. We had to take our rented Jeep across the surging stream (it has been a snowy and rainy year) a couple of times, negotiate several narrow switchbacks, all the while climbing from 9,000 feet to 11,000 feet. After half and hour we were at the base of the hike. It was 8:30 AM. Our goal was to reach the summit by noon to avoid the afternoon thunderstorms that tend to form over the western Colorado Rockies during summer. To make it in time, we would have to move quickly. The summit route was about four miles long and a general rule of thumb holds that uphill mountain hiking proceeds at about one mile per hour.

The Wonderful Spectacle of the Tour de France

by Conroy

Every July the world gets to witness one of the great sporting spectacles - the Tour de France. Over the course of three weeks, nearly two hundred of the world's best cyclists traverse the roads of France. In the process of 21 racing days the riders will cover more than 2,000 miles, from the flat roads of northern France to the mountains of the Pyrenees and Alps, and ending on the Champs-Elysees in Paris.

I like niche sports like cycling, but the uniqueness of Le Tour is compelling to even casual sports fans (or non-sports fans for that matter). Here are some reasons to watch the remaining twelve stages (two weeks) of this year's edition:

Beauty of France

First and foremost, the Tour offers its participants, spectators, and television viewers a chance to experience the beauty of France in summer. Each Tour crisscrosses the country, passing through distinct regions and the wonderful variety of French landscapes and townscapes. For its size, France must surely offer some of the finest combinations of contrasting topography, cities large and small, picturesque towns and villages, and the captivating contrast of historical structures (like castles and chateau) and modern creations (like new bridges and buildings).

Personally, I like that on any individual stage, and a typical road stages cover more than 100 miles, the race course will pass by agricultural fields, several towns/cities, stands of woods, and open countryside. Stages can be largely flat or radically undulating, travel along the coast or past vineyards, or through large cities and tiny hamlets, and often many of these in the same day. Mostly the Tour is bathed in bright sunlight (though rain in France is common in July) which beautifully highlights the dark green foliage and light colored buildings. The Tour organizers are also keen to vary the type of roads during each day, which includes freeways, boulevards, and narrow country lanes. This approach ensures that each day offers views of locations rarely seen by non-locals.

The Tour is greatly helped by the French TV that covers the event with what seems to be dozens of cameras including daredevil motorbike cameramen for close shots of the riders and roadside, and helicopters that offer expansive aerial views. There could be no better tourist advertisement than the daily coverage of the Tour. I'm sure anyone who spends a few minutes watching will be captivated and wish they were traveling in the places they see. Certainly this is my perspective.

Capital Cities

by Conroy

Above the Washington Mall

Have you ever wondered how capital cities ended up where they are? In some countries the capital city is just where you would expect; is it any surprise that France's capital is Paris or Italy's capital is Rome? These cities have been the historical center of their nations and have acted as the capital or seat of government for centuries. But for many "new" countries, this isn't the case. Consider a few interesting examples.

In Search of a Capital

Let's start with the United States. A few weeks ago I spent the weekend in New York City. Spend any time in New York, particularly Manhattan, and you must be struck by the vibrancy, the hum, of the place. New York is one of the world's largest cities and a major global center for commerce, finance, the arts, media, fashion, and international affairs (among other things). By multiple measures it ranks as an "alpha" world city, along with places like London, Paris, and Tokyo. But unlike those other three cities and despite its vast size and influence, New York is not the capital of the United States. Indeed New York is not the nexus or focal point of the United States in the way London is for the United Kingdom (and especially England), or Paris is for France, or Tokyo to Japan.

This was certainly true when the United States gained its independence from England. At the time the capital moved constantly, but the Pennsylvania Mutiny of 1783 convinced the nation's founders that a permanent capital was needed. But where would this permanent capital be located? As a political and geographic compromise, the new city was to be situated on the Potomac River, about the halfway between Maine in the north and Georgia in the south. Uniquely at the time but emulated in several cases later, the new capital would not be part of any state but an independent federal region.

Washington

The L'Enfant Plan for Washington

George Washington picked the final location, the new city was named in his honor, and the new federal district, the District of Columbia, was carved out of portions of Maryland and Virginia (Virginia eventually took its portion back). For decades after its founding Washington remained a small city. But after the Civil War it began to grow quickly and as the federal government has expanded since World War II, Washington has become one of the nation's largest cities. Today, Washington is a major global city - the Rome of our times as Gregg Easterbrook has termed it - and not the southern backwater it was viewed as after its founding. The combined Washington-Baltimore metropolitan area is the fourth largest in the United States behind only New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago.

Being a new city, Washington was largely planned from scratch by Pierre L'Enfant as a city of wide streets radiating from squares and circles. This plan wasn't always adhered to during the city's first century of existence, but major modernizing and redevelopment efforts in the early twentieth century returned the city to L'Enfant's original vision. I've worked on road projects in Washington and I can attest to how ardently city planners continue to be guided by L'Enfant's plan.

In addition, the city is widely known for its neoclassical architecture exemplified by the White House and Capitol Building, but a visit will reveal that Washington, consistent with a new city, is actually a wide mix of styles from various times and movements. Its look is much less consistent than its older European counterparts like Paris and London. Still, over time Washington has grown into a very distinct place, a similar story can be told about America's northern neighbor.

Visiting History: Antietam 1862

by Conroy

Burnside Bridge over Antietam Creek

This past weekend I went kayaking on the Potomac River with a couple of friends. We put into the river several miles north of Harpers Ferry, West Virginia, at a location heavy with history. Just to the north of where we started, in the area around Sharpsburg, Maryland, is Antietam National Battlefield. In September 1862, this was the scene of the bloodiest day of the American Civil War, and likely, in all of American history. The armies of the North and South suffered nearly 23,000 casualties, including 3,700 men killed, in what became one of the major turning points, but also missed opportunities, of the Civil War.

As these facts suggest, Antietam is more than a name on a map or event obscured by the many years that have passed. As a student of American history, I think it's critical to be aware of an consider places like Antietam. The Civil War was both the most important and most horrible calamity to befall the American nation. As with all history, we must understand what went before and the lessons of those events. We must remember the men who fought and fell on that ground.

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Background
As my friends and I floated down the Potomac, we passed the mouth of Antietam Creek. Had we paddled our kayaks up the stream (which in reality you can't do very far because of several sets of rapids) we would have passed under Burnside Bridge, one of the iconic landmarks of the battle and war. Living so close to this battlefield, I've toured the area before (from land); and a view of the landscape helps one understand just why the battle was so disjointed, confused, and tactically indecisive. A close view also helps one visualize the mass of men thrown together in battle. The entire battlefield is marked by monuments, large and small, of the various units that comprised the armies. These landmarks were commissioned and installed at a time when the Civil War was still a living memory and veterans were still alive to recount the events.

Speeding and its Discontents

by Conroy

[Note: John Fowles wrote that "all cynicism masks a failure to cope." This is likely true, and perhaps you'll recognize that sentiment in this post, but what follows does have basis in reality.]

Speed kills, or so the saying goes. Speeding might be dangerous, but one thing is for certain, driving faster than the posted speed limit can get you a citation, fine, and if egregious enough, affect your license and insurance. As a basic idea this works, travel too fast, unsafe for a given road, and you'll be penalized. Like other law enforcement activities, speed enforcement is intended to protect other drivers, pedestrians, and the public at large from dangerous behavior. That's the theory anyway, the reality is something different.


Attitudes about speeding vary greatly, but I like the old George Carlin joke:

"Have you ever noticed that anybody driving slower than you is an idiot, and anyone going faster than you is a maniac?"

So true. For full disclosure, I'm a "maniac" not an "idiot", but still, based on my observations how many "idiots" are actually traveling below the speed limit? Not many. This reality has always bothered me and I have two major objections to speed limits and enforcement: (1) speed limits are set and apply equally to any driver on the road irrespective of their vehicle, experience, or outside conditions, and (2) speed enforcement, in real life, is sporadic and arbitrary. I'm not the only one to hold these objections, and I think this perspective is valid enough to call into question the standard approaches to speed enforcement.

Speed Limits

Let's consider speed limits first. As a transportation engineer, I'm an expert on road design, so let me share a few insights on how speed limits are determined. First, roads are designed based on their context (rural, urban, flat, hilly), classification (freeway, arterial, local road, etc.), and an associated "design speed". This means the various characteristics of a road, curves (horizontal and vertical), cross slope, lane widths, roadside features, etc. are set based on idealized vehicle characteristics and driver behavior at that speed. As a general rule, it is accepted by traffic engineers that drivers will travel over a road at the speed at which they are comfortable. The wider, straighter, flatter the road, the faster drivers will travel. The measured 85th percentile speed of all vehicles is often used to derive this comfortable operating speed. In practice, a very small percentage of drivers will actually travel at an unsafe speed for the design of the road. Speed limits are supposed to be set based on the design speed. But often for political reasons speed limits are set artificially low. Think of how you frequently see speed limits drop by 10 mph just as you enter the jurisdiction of a small town. That's one problem.

The Best Picture

by Conroy

Ask most movie fans and they're likely to tell you their pick, or short list of picks, for the best movie of all time. As a movie fan, I'm no different, but until recently I hadn't narrowed my list down to one film. Now I have, but before I reveal what it is, let's consider some more authoritative opinions.

Perhaps the most respected list is that compiled once per decade by Sight and Sound Magazine. It's two top ten lists actually, one developed from the individual rankings of nearly 150 critics and academics the other from the individual lists of over 100 directors. The latest lists are from back in 2002 (a new list should be released next year). Not surprisingly, Citizen Kane ranks number 1 on both lists (click here for the critic's and director's lists). Orson Welles' masterpiece is the movie most often mentioned as the greatest of all time. After 70 years, it still holds up; seeming fresh and inventive. It's not my pick for the best movie though. The Godfather, The Godfather, Part II, Vertigo, 8 1/2, and La Regle de jeu are the other films that are included on both lists. I haven't seen the last two (one by Fellini and the other Renoir), but the other three are definite classics, and are high on my ranking, but not in the top spot.

The American Film Institute released a list of the Top 100 films in 1998 and then updated the list in 2008. Again, Citizen Kane ranks number 1 followed by The Godfather, Casablanca, and Raging Bull. I like Casablanca and love Raging Bull, probably Martin Scorsese's finest film and certainly his best directing performance. The internet movie database (IMDB), compiles a list of the Top 250 films based on user's individual film ratings. The number 1 ranking is held by The Shawshank Redemption followed by The Godfather, The Godfather, Part II, The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, and Pulp Fiction. Personally I like The Shawshank Redemption but certainly not as the best movie of all time; Pulp Fiction is great. Still, none of these are my pick.

Other films that rank high on various lists or are frequently mentioned as one of the best of all time include, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Battleship Potemkin, Dr. Strangelove, Gone With the Wind, Lawrence of Arabia, Rashomon, Schindler's List, Seven Samurai, Singin' in the Rain, and The Wizard of Oz.

Now ask me and I'll tell you that I'm a big fan of Francis Ford Coppola's first two Godfather movies, Citizen Kane is great, Lawrence of Arabia is an amazing viewing experience, Raging Bull has some of the best editing moments of any film, Roman Polaski's Chinatown is pitch-perfect, and Terrence Malick's Days of Heaven is haunting. These any many more movies rank high on my list, but it's another that takes my top spot.

Still the Best

by Conroy

A familiar final pair -- and result

The French Open results prove that you must be wary of doubting great champions as Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer once again grabbed the limelight in Paris.

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When I last wrote about tennis, Novak Djokovic had just beaten Rafael Nadal in the finals of Indian Wells to win his third straight tournament and 20^th straight match. I posed the question of whether this would be merely a career run or the beginning of a major shift at the top of the game. Well in the weeks and then months after, Djokovic kept on winning, beating Nadal in a thrilling three-set final in Miami, transitioning smoothly to clay to capture his “home” tournament in Belgrade, and then most impressively, beating Nadal twice on clay in the finals of Madrid and Rome – both times in straight sets. By then Djokovic had the world’s attention, his match winning streak was extended to 39 and he was 37-0 to start 2011, just five wins shy of tying the record set by John McEnroe in 1984.

When the French Open (or Roland Garros as the French call it) started Djokovic stood alongside Nadal, the five time Roland Garros champion, as the favorite. A win (or finals birth) or a Nadal loss, and he would take over the number 1 ranking from the Spaniard. Perhaps for the first time since his winning streak started, he had a lot to lose. He didn’t let it affect him, navigating a tricky draw, including a very game Juan Martin del Potro in the third round, to work his way convincingly to the quarterfinals. Then he got a free pass and four days off when his quarterfinals opponent, Fabio Fognnini, withdrew due to injury. As he took the court for the second semi-final, his winning streak stood at 43 matches (41-0 in 2011). He was one win away from a much anticipated final against Nadal; and a pivotal moment for both men. There was only one problem, his semi-final opponent was the greatest grand slam player in history.

Hidden Success

by Conroy

Bill Gates - an example of traditional success

I'd like to talk about an insight I had about the nature of success. Traditionally, we think of success as the fulfillment of some goal in the immediate sense or achievement of a desired social status in the broader context. We assign objective measures like wealth, fame, professional achievement. If I asked you to name the most successful people in the world, who would flash into your mind? President Obama, Bill Gates, and Oprah Winfrey seem like good examples. Why pick these people? Their immense public achievements; they have reached a level of esteem, fame, wealth, and professional achievement that we find admirable. Looking at our own lives we see those around us with the high-paying jobs, those with important professional responsibilities, those with impressive material possessions, those that we respect for their competence, intelligence, and charisma. Surely these are measures of success.

But what else makes up "success"?

I would suggest there are less obvious measures that are of profound value. I wrote about this recently, but how about the happy marriage?  Happy is the key and hard to measure, but I would say that a happy marriage not only improves the lives of husband and wife, but provides a substantial foundation for the well-being of that couple's children. If one of society's greatest challenges is getting young people through adolescence ready to join the "real" world, then what better start than under a happy marriage? And in that same vein, how about being a good parent? Providing the care, love, and guidance that can help children become well-adjusted adults. Someone once told me that the most important job a person will ever have is being a parent. That's not a hollow statement, we all know children whose lives as been damaged, sometimes irrevocably, from neglectful parenting.

Good parenting - a hidden success

How about the value of charity? Giving one's time, money, effort to others, especially others in need, must improve our world. Isn't responsible altruism a mark of success? More broadly, charity in its widest context, that of a loving kindness toward others, was described by Saint Paul as the greatest of all virtues. Certainly anyone who can embody even a portion of this virtue is a success. It sounds simple, but how many people do you know who can follow Henry James’ dictum: “three things in human life are important: the first is to be kind; the second is to be kind; and the third is to be kind”?

How about being a loyal and dependable friend? Maintaining long-standing relationships, being there for others in good times and bad?

Perhaps you could term these as "selfless" measures of success and the more traditional forms noted above as "selfish" measures of success.

I believe an evolved individual must be both selfish and selfless; responsible to yourself and to others around you. As I’ve written, the great achievements in human history and the upward arc of humanity are the result of the selfish impulse, measured in selfish success. This must be so. But as throughout history we have slowly and painfully learned to function as a community, and are still struggling, surely we must recognize the vital importance of selfless acts, measured in selfless success.

Who do you know that is a selfless success? I count myself fortunate to know many successes of this type: my parents, my girlfriend, many of my friends. I’m a better person for it, and hopefully I can learn from their example.

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In Woody Allen’s excellent movie Crimes and Misdemeanors, there is a character of a sleazy and shallow television executive played by Alan Alda. He’s a bad human being, but he’s been immensely successful in his career. In the end he wins the girl, wealth, and the esteem of those around him. He epitomizes that reality that our society seems to value selfish success over all other behavior. We lavish attention on celebrities, athletes, business leaders, and politicians. These people gain fame and wealth, are idolized and too often viewed as role models and even “heroes”.

If I asked you to pick one form of success for yourself, selfish or selfless, which would it be?