The sports stories this weekend reminded us that class is something that a player or organization either has or doesn’t have, and no amount of posturing is going to change that.

Last year, the class of the NFL, LaDainan Tomlinson, called out the New England Patriots for their lack of class in mocking Merriman’s sack dance on the Chargers home field after their victory. And in his anger, he said what everyone seemed to be thinking – “It comes from the top”, a reference to mad genius Bill Belichick.

Well, this weekend we saw some people questioning the class of Belichick and his Patriots once again for running up the score on the hapless Redskins, humiliating HOF manager Joe Gibbs in the process. They were up 38-0 and 45-0 in the 4th quarter when they kept going for it as if the score were 3-0. Some argue that in professional sports, there is no need to put on the brakes.

However, across the country, LaDainan’s San Diego Chargers were doing the exact opposite. A team that was playing to lift up the spirits of an entire community after the wildfire’s of last week, the Chargers pulled back after they led 35-3 at the half. Class again revealed itself when least expected.

At the same time, Alex Rodriguez was showing to the baseball world what really separates him from the Jeter’s, Helton’s and Ortiz’s. It is not stats or rings, but class (or rather, the lack of it). In what is widely being called out as a selfish, egotistical move, he (through mega-agent Boras) announced in the middle of Game 4 of the World Series last night that he is opting out of the remainder of his contract.

On a night when people should have been talking about Jon Lester, David Ortiz, Mike Lowell, Josh Beckett and (gulp!) the Boston Red Sox, A-Rod tried to make it all about himself. Trying to upstage the World Series shows complete disrespect for the game of baseball, and shows that he will always care only about himself, not his team or about winning. It’s a shame that two of the greatest baseball players our generation has seen (Bonds and A-Rod) will be most remembered as selfish, egotistical players that were only interested in pursuing their individual stats and records.

The Yankees are all about class (though I will be the first to say that they showed an unusual lack of it in their handling of Torre’s departure; Torre for his part showed impeccable class and grace) . I have to admit that I was hoping A-Rod would come back to the Yankees. But after this, I am glad he won’t be around. With Girardi now leading the Yankees as they try to build another dynasty based on young players like Hughes, Cano and the Melk-man, I am glad that A-Rod won’t be the one influencing the thinking and mentality of our future.

When I read this, I thought it was really cool, and had to share it.

Fi yuo cna raed tihs, yuo hvae a saepicl mnid too. Wlel, mbaye not taht sapciel. Atpaelpnry, olny 55 plepoe out of 100 can make sense out of this.

The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid, aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, mneas taht it dseno’t mtaetr in waht oerdr the ltteres in a wrod are. The olny iproamtnt tihng is taht the frsit and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it whotuit a pboerlm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Azanmig, huh? And we wree awlyas taghut slpeling was ipmorantt!

If you want to understand more about this, check out this explanation by Dr. Matt Davis, a researcher at the Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit of Cmabridge Uinervtisy (you get the picture).

The victory of Bobby Jindal in Louisiana’s Governor race is widely seen as a great step up for Indian-Americans in the American political scene. It is made even more surprising when you consider that he has won in a Southern state, where issues of race still permeate politics.

Yet I find myself not completely ecstatic at the result, not completely buying into the hype. Is the fact that he is born of Indian immigrants enough for us to consider this a victory for the Indian-American community? Should that kind of jubilation not come from knowing that he represents us and our viewpoint? Nothing else in his life seems to suggest that he is in any way connected to his Indian heritage. He is a conservative Republican (ok, a lot of Indian-Americans are), a converted Roman Catholic, and a proponent of teaching “intelligent design” in school. He gave up his given name of Piyush, and his kids are named Celia, Shaan and Slade.

As the media is prone to do, they simply play up the Indian ancestry, without commenting on his politics, or his views on matters that concern Indian-Americans. I see nothing but lip service to topics like immigration. I see little effort to work on issues during his time in Congress.

Am I thinking too deeply about this issue?

I’ve been in New York since 1997. I have never known the Yankees without the Boss, without Jeter, and without Joe Torre. If Jeter is the heart of the Yankees, then Joe is the brain. He was the class of the Yankees.

What kind of a crap passive-aggressive offer did the Yankees make to him? Incentives? Torre is not the kind of person that needs to be motivated to do his best. Saying that the incentives are meant to “motivate” him to take the team to the series is a slap in his face. It implies that management felt that he didn’t succeed in taking the Yankees to the series the last 3 years because he wasn’t motivated enough. Ridiculous!

In a post I wrote in the immediate shadow of another early post-season exit, I wondered if maybe it was time for Torre to go, if the Yankees needed something new, some kind of spark, to get them going again. Since then, I have had a lot of time to think, and I don’t think Torre was the problem. He was saddled with a team that forgot the things that made the Yankees championship winning teams. They were built for the long ball, not for winning championships. If Billy Beane’s “Moneyball” approached changed how baseball management thinks, then Joe changed how baseball managers think. Every team that has won the World Series since then followed the formula established by Joe’s teams from ‘97 to ‘01. Great, gutsy pitching, making the small plays, and playing small ball.

I think the money was fair. He would still have been the highest paid manager in baseball, but the cut would have reflected the abysmal post-season performance of his teams through the last 3 years. But the 1 year contract is the most stupid idea I have ever heard, and virtually guaranteed the rejection it got from Torre. It screams “Prove yourself to us”. Torre has nothing to prove to anyone. And you set him up as a lame duck manager with the proverbial sword hanging over his head. Who wants to deal with that?

The right thing to do, the decent thing to do, would have been to offer him a 2 year contract for the same money. It would have shown that management still had confidence in Joe. And it would have been right for Joe to manage the Yankees in their last year in the current Yankee stadium, and their first year in the new Yankee stadium. After all, in some sense, the new Yankee stadium can be called “the House that Torre built”, because without those 4 World Series titles, 7 AL titles, and 10 AL East titles, that stadium would NOT be being built. This incident showed that Yankee management is a mess and has no class, and showed that Torre is class and dignity personified.

We will miss you Joe. Thank you for everything you gave us. Thank you for all the championships. And thank you for that magical 2001 season, which in my opinion is still the best the Yankees ever had, even better than those championship winning years.

First he came out with his book “I am America (and So Can You)” (I’m still waiting for my copy, amazon.com!). Then he interviewed himself on his show. Appearances on Good Morning America with Diane Sawyer and Larry King Live followed. Over the weekend, he “tricked” New York Times op-ed columnist Maureen Dowd into daring him to write this brilliant op-ed piece for the hated New York Times.

All of this led up to the big night yesterday. Stephen Colbert first went on The Daily Show, where he officially announced to the world “I have decided to officially consider whether or not I will announce that I am running for President of the United States” (watch the clip here if you missed it). He added that he would make the official announcement at a later time on a more prestigious show.

Not more than 30 minutes later, he announced on his own show that he would be running for President of the United States in South Carolina, as both a Democrat and a Republican (watch a clip of the announcement here).

OK. So this is not going to be a “Man of the Year” scenario. But it will be a lot of fun to see how far Colbert is going to take this. With colbertnation solidly behind him, I think he has a great chance of making as much hay off this as he can (had to get the hay bale reference in somehow).

This is just the kind of thing I needed to get me out of the dumps following the latest Yankees post-season debacle. Thank you, Stephen Colbert! And thank you, America!

What do you think his cabinet would look like (after the obvious appointment of Jon Stewart as Vice-President in charge)?

This past weekend was a really fun weekend. On Saturday, after brunch, we spent the whole afternoon napping. What luxury. And then in the evening we met up with our friends Ranjeet and Sanjeevanee for a New York City evening – an early dinner at Zanzibar followed by the new Mel Brooks Broadway extravaganza Young Frankenstein.

And what an extravaganza. Like The Producers. this is a comedy musical adaptation of a classic Mel Brooks movie. And while it doesn’t quite reach the comedic heights that The Producers reached, it had us rolling in the aisles with laughter. Roger Bart (the murderous pharmacist from Desperate Housewives) played the Gene Wilder character (from the movie) with great aplomb, doing a great job with all the singing and dancing, and showing great comedic timing. Megan Mullally had a small part that she carried off decently well. The other parts were played really well by Broadway veterans.

But the real star of the production are the sets. I have never seen such lavish and well designed sets. They are by far the most sophisticated that have ever been put together. Remember when the big helicopter scene in Miss Saigon was such a big deal? Well, this is that kind of a jump in set production, with almost every single one being a leap forward, and the overall effect is dazzling. It never takes away from the actors, but really manages to become it’s own character in the story. Absolutely amazing.

The show is definitely worth checking out. Thanks to some pre-planning, we managed to catch this while it is still in previews. Check it out if you can with the original cast.

Sunday was football day, and while I don’t like the Patriots, it was fun watching them completely dismantle the hated Cowboys. Now on to Monday Night Football and my beloved Giants.

The secret is finally out. My double life has finally been revealed, and to prevent any baseless rumors from starting, I am coming clean. For the last few years I have been a resident of Springfield, next door neighbor to the Simpsons, a regular at Moe’s and a frequent customer at the Kwik-E-Mart. Yes, that’s me you see on the right – Nishant Kaushik, lead software engineer for Burns Consulting Inc.

Working for Mr. Burns has not been bad. It has given me the ability to live a good life hanging out with Mayor Quimby, Dr. Hibbert and that news guy. But I never forgot my Indian heritage. I love going to the Kwik-E-Mart to hang out with Apu (he and I share his personal stash of ready-to-eat curries).

Being the lead software engineer at Burns Consulting has its perks. I was able to write a program that diverted small amounts of money from all of Mr. Burns nuclear waste disposal deals into a private account. Thanks to that, I was able to travel the world, like going to Machu Picchu.

And I was able to use my friendship with Mayor Quimby to score some great seats at Yankee Stadium (Quimby and Guiliani were college roommates and frat brothers). Here I was, just posing on the field, when Jeter made “The Play” in the 2003 ALDS against Oakland.

Springfield is a great place to live, if you don’t mind the neighbors. If you want to fit in, get over to SimpsonizeMe.com and join in.

In my misery watching my beloved Yankees get dumped in the first round of the playoffs for the 3rd year in a row, this is what jumps to my mind. Our last great post-season run came in the last year of O’Neill’s tenure in pinstripes. And the thing that has struck me every year since then is that our team is missing that fire that was there in that dynasty (yeah, that dynasty is officially gone).

Those teams had balance. The cool, calming demeanor of Torre and Jeter was complemented by the fire that O’Neill and Tino brought. When those teams were down, there were players that would light a spark with battling at-bats and dugout charisma. O’Neill was a warrior that could inspire his teammates. The Yankee teams since have had good, even great, players but they have not had any warriors. And that is why they seem to go quietly into the night.

The way the 2007 Yankees fought their way back into the playoffs after being so far out made me think that maybe this team finally has that spark again. But this series just knocked away any such read. They looked lifeless in this series. Everyone sits on their own on that bench, which just means that when they come up to bat, they are thinking of everything they have to do, not what they need to do. And that is just too much pressure, even for a team of superstars. Even Jeter looks jaded and tired.

Maybe it is time for Torre to go. He is a great manager, and did a great thing with this team this year, just holding it together to get to the postseason. But the manager also has to inspire, and it doesn’t seem like he can do that any more. He doesn’t have those complements any more. The Indians looked more like the Torre Yankees than we did.

We need spark. We need someone that can continue to inspire the kids like Cano and Melky. We need fighters like Josh Beckett. We need our O’Neill.

Today was the kind of day that makes us feel happy to be living in New York City. Fall is here, but it was a warm day, with a hint of clouds. And even after so many years here, we managed to find a brand new way to spend a day in the city, doing something we had never done before.

After taking advantage of Saturday by waking up late, we headed out for a great brunch at the Brownstone diner here in Jersey City. From there, we headed up the Hudson River to Fort Tryon Park, where we visited the Cloisters. The Cloisters is a museum (associated with the Met) devoted to the art and architecture of Medieval Europe. It gets its name from the exquisite cloistered gardens that exist within the building, itself constructed using rescued and recovered architectural elements from churches and monastaries across 12th to 15th century Europe.

While the building itself is a piece of art, it also houses a number of interesting artifacts from that time period. There are a number of religious sculptures, altars and tapestries, with a decided emphasis on sculptures of the Virgin Mary and Christ. The columns in the cloisters (like the one in the picture) are beautiful. And the gardens themselves are lovely, sun-filled places to sit, relax and enjoy the chants of monks playing over the speakers.

We also spent some time walking along the pathways around the Cloisters, which go through Fort Tryon Park and overlook the Hudson river. After that, we headed back home, throwing in a drive down Riverside Drive in as a bonus. It was a great way to spend a lovely New York day.

Shelfari is this web 2.0 social network for book lovers that allows you to build a shelf of books you are reading or planning on reading. It allows you to post reviews of the books you read, and connect to people with the same interest or get an idea of what people with similar tastes are reading. It is kinda cool.

I have been maintaining my book shelf on Shelfari for a while now, and installed a shelf widget on my blog a while ago. Shelfari recently updated the widgets they have with some really cool looking new options. I couldn’t resist updating my widget to a new one that fits in nicely with the look and feel of my blog (it’s a black oak bookshelf; check it out on the right). What do you think?

One thing I did realize: I am not reading as much as I should.