Most folks can get by quite well with eating less than 2,000 calories per day. Each of these food items pretty well gets you there.
Caramel Banana Pecan Cream Stacked and Stuffed hotcakes?
By the way, just to show that you can find almost anything on the Web, The Healthy Dining Finder can help you pick healthier choices from standard restaurant menus by eliminating high-calorie add-ons.
During the entire 35 years that I’ve lived in Houston, the head basketball coaching position at Rice University has been a thankless job.
Attempting to recruit good basketball players to Rice is hard enough, given the academic requirements and the greater university support for both the football and baseball programs. But attempting to recruit good basketball players to play at Rice’s home of Autry Court — which is a dump and not nearly as good a facility as most suburban high school gyms in the Houston area — is nearly an impossible task.
Nevertheless, for the past 16 years, Willis Wilson has toiled gamely as Rice’s head basketball coach. Although rarely have his teams been blessed with much talent, they have always competed hard and played to the best of their ability. Against overwhelming odds, Wilson has produced five Rice teams that have won at least 18 wins in a season and three of his Rice teams earned postseason NIT appearances. And through it all, Wilson has represented his institution as an articulate and professional gentleman.
Accordingly, most folks in the Houston community who have followed local college athletics for awhile like me were particularly pleased for Wilson last year when Rice undertook a long-overdue $23 million renovation of Autry Court that supposedly will bring the facility up to reasonably modern standards.
During the renovation, which is not scheduled to be completed until January of next year, the Owls are being forced to play their home games in several locations around town, including one high school facility that is 35 miles from the Rice campus. But as usual, the classy Wilson hasn’t complained a lick and is probably simply thrilled with being able to show off the plans of the renovated Autry to his players and recruits.
So, imagine my surprise when I picked the paper yesterday and saw this article from the Chronicle’s Rice athletics beat writer:
Perhaps it is cruelly ironic that after spending more than a dozen years spearheading the effort to renovate Autry Court, Rice men’s basketball coach Willis Wilson is facing a groundswell of criticism that might influence whether he coaches in the new facility.
In the midst of his 16th season at the helm of the Rice program, Wilson is enduring vitriol that is difficult to dismiss. [. . .]
The current state of affairs combined with past failures, real and perceived, have legitimized the question of whether Wilson, the most accomplished coach in the program’s history, will occupy the bench next season when refurbished Autry Court will be unveiled. [. . .]
And what’s even more galling is that the comments in the article from Rice Athletic Director Chris Del Conte make it clear that he certainly didn’t want to dispel the rumors that Wilson’s tenure at Rice may be over after this season:
“Those are always looming concerns,” Rice athletic director Chris Del Conte said of the Owls’ recent lack of success. “They’re looming concerns because of the importance we’re placing on men’s basketball at Rice.
“We should be in a situation where we have a viably sustainable athletic program. A lot of private institutions understand the value that is placed on men’s basketball in terms of a key financial component of an overall athletic program. And I’ll take all those things into consideration as we move forward.”
If Rice allows Del Conte to can Willis Wilson after 16 faithful years and before he has had an opportunity to recruit players to — and have his teams compete in — a reasonably modern facility, then Rice will make the hypocrisy of Todd Graham look benign in comparison.
And with that kind of hyprocrisy wafting from South Main, just wait until the Marching Owl Band has an opportunity to comment.
Isn’t it ironic that tough-guy district attorney Chuck Rosenthal was ultimately brought down as a result of his refusal to stand up to the Harris County Sheriff’s Department?
As this Peggy O’Hare/Chronicle article reports, Rosenthal made the appalling decision to prosecute two brothers who were wrongfully arrested and roughed up by sheriff deputies for committing the heinous “crime” of unobtrusively videotaping from a neighboring property some questionable conduct of the deputies during a drug raid. What on earth was Rosenthal thinking in allowing such an absurd prosecution to go forward? No wonder he is in the middle of a wrongful arrest civil lawsuit.
By the way, the four deputies who wrongfully arrested the two brothers remain employed by the sheriff’s department. And the Attorney General is now looking into Rosenthal’s emails.
Following on this earlier post on the most overpaid big-time college football coaches and now that the seemingly unending college football season is mercificully over (and the playoff proponents want to make it longer?), the College Hot Seat posts its final grades (related blog post here) for the big-time college football coaches.
No Texas coaches get an “A.” Texas Tech’s Mike Leach is the highest graded Texas coach at a B+.
Golfweek’s Brad Klein enjoyed that outdoor “Winter Classic” National Hockey League game in Buffalo that drew over 70,000 spectators on New Year’s Day so much that he is proposing the professional golf equivalent — a tournament where all the Tour players would be required to play old-style persimmon woods, forged irons and balata balls:
So if hockey can pull this off, why not golf? What better game for evoking youthful memories and feelings ñ of school-house swings, piecemealed equipment, and of a dreamy, pastoral playing field.
How about the PGA Tour putting together a ìSummer Classicî tournament?
Players use older, wooden-headed drivers and ìwoods,î plus forged, not cast, irons and wound, balata golf balls ñ the kind that anyone who is 30-plus years old today grew up learning the game with. Forget caddies. Players carry their own golf bags. No yardage books or pin sheets. Golfers eyeball everything and improvise their shots. Leave the bunkers rakes in the maintenance shed. Mow the greens so they actually putt at different speeds.
How much fun would that be to watch? And to play?
The NHLís ìWinter Classicî was a success in every possible regard. And no surprise, despite (or was it because of?) the rough conditions, the gameís premier player, the Penguinsí Sid Crosby, not only displayed his amazing puck handling skills but also scored the winning goal. To their credit, the NHLís administration even bent the rules slightly in the name of equity by stopping play midway through the third period and overtime to allow the teams to switch sides, lest either one gain an undue advantage from the elements.
That, to me, showed a lot of imagination. Donít let rules nerds ruin the game in the name of some abstract lawyerly adherence when what counts is the spirit of the sport. With a little imagination and guts, golf, too, can go back to its traditions. It might be the best way of showcasing itself.
Not a bad idea for one of the many PGA Tour events that have fallen into the Tiger Chasm.
On the other hand, Geoff Shackelford already knows who the probable winner would be.
This NY Times article from the other day reports on the increasing numbers of lawyers and doctors who are plagued by self-doubt (who’d have ever thought that?). Mr. Juggles over at Long & Short Capital has no sympathy:
To the lawyers:
In case the Neiman Marcus purchases succeeded in lifting your morale and left you with the impression that what you did counted for something, please let me add some critical information: It doesnít. This is why you are paid, on an hourly-adjusted basis, like a recent (2nd tier) college graduate.
To the doctors:
The fact that I was able to diagnose my own illness after 15 min on WebMD speaks to the value of your knowledge. Perhaps our relationship would be more productive if you would stop making me wait 3 days for an appointment (and 90 minutes once I get to the office) to diagnose a sinus infection that I already know I have. Give me the antibiotics without the self-importance. I will come see you again when I have something you can actually be helpful with. For instance, after I break my arm trying to carry my bonus home, I will come see you and you can set the cast. Until then, please stop whining.
Midwesterner Larry Ribstein — who is currently on leave from the University of Illinois Law School while teaching in New York City — humorously experiences culture shock while shopping in the Big Apple.
This Dr. Susan Okie/New England Journal of Medicine article (H/T Kolahun) provides the most extensive analysis to date of the circumstances surrounding the tragic deaths of the nine New Orleans area hospital patients during the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina that led to the egregious prosecutorial decision to bring criminal charges against one of the treating physicians, former University of Texas Medical School physician, Dr. Anna Pou (previous posts here). Dr. Okie addresses the key question of why these nine patients died “. . . in light of the eventual evacuation of about 200 patients from [the hospital], including patients from the intensive care unit, premature infants, critically ill patients who required dialysis, patients with DNR orders, and two 400-lb men who could not walk.” It’s an important question to address, but not in the context of a criminal case.
The fog of war analogy is certainly appropriate. Even with as good information as we have about the horrific conditions at the hospital in the aftermath of Katrina, it’s still hard to imagine how difficult it was making even basic decisions in the face of the breakdown of civil society and infrastructure. What we do know is that Dr. Pou, who was not experienced in providing emergency medical services in what amounted to a heavy combat war zone, was no ethicist on mission to make a political statement. Rather, she was simply a physician doing the best she could to make the right decisions under the worst circumstances imaginable. It should not surprise us if, with the benefit of hindsight bias, some of those decisions would not have been the ones that a reasonable physician would have made under better conditions.
James Fallows hits on what I believe is a very important dynamic in Barack Obama’s surge past Hillary Clinton among Democrats — the power of words:
Words and deeds. Talk and action. Poetry and prose. Presidents obviously do best when they can do both.
But only Obama captured what is unique about a president’s role. A President’s actions matter — Lyndon Johnson with his legislation, Richard Nixon with his opening to China — but lots of other people can help shape policies. A President’s words often matter more, and only he — or she — can express them. Grant led the Union Army, but Abraham Lincoln, in addition to selecting Grant, wrote and delivered his inaugural and Gettysburg addresses. Long before Franklin Roosevelt actually did anything about the Great Depression, his first inaugural address (“the only thing we have to fear…”) was important in itself. The same was true of Winston Churchill just after he succeeded Neville Chamberlain. It would be years before the Nazi advance would be contained, but Churchill’s words and bearing were indispensable to Britain’s recovery.
On the other hand, George W. Bush’s difficulty in expressing himself publicly has exacerbated the perception of a rudderless Administration. With that constant reminder over the past seven years, I’m surprised that Clinton’s handlers don’t have her better prepared to express herself well in public debates. Perhaps, as with Bush, she simply lacks the public speaking gift of her husband. But I am continually amazed at how often her extemporaneous public statements are littered with the ubiquitous “you know” crutch as she gathers her thoughts. That habit, as well as her instinct to default to a government solution on virtually every issue, fuels the perception that she lacks substance.
This looks as if it has great potential. The NY Times has the background story on the project.