My Seahawks disappointment has been assuaged. I have been keeping distant tabs on the upcoming baseball season while I watch the unexpectedly exciting Blazers, but the time is nearing. Pitchers and catchers will be reporting next month and opening day for the Mariners will be March 31. Interestingly, the official opening day will be on March 25 when the Red Sox meet the Athletics in Tokyo.

I only mention that because both Boston and Oakland are in my Rotisserie league for which I’m getting excited again. My enthusiasm has spiked earlier than usual this year due to reading a very fun book about the hobby called Fantasyland by Sam Walker. I would recommend this book anyone even vaguely interested in the sport as it is both informative and insightful to the casual fan and a very familiar ride to those who have played. A great book has me wound up and raring to read up on the 25-man rosters for all of our eligible teams. I’ll have to be on my toes if I want to go for the three-peat!

I’m a huge fan of blogs and, in particular, I’ve become addicted to political blogs. My favorites include PowerLine, Michelle Malkin, Hugh Hewitt, Instapundit, Polipundit, and the oddly-named Little Green Footballs. Lately, William Katz has been writing for PowerLine and giving opinion based on a varied background that ranges from the CIA to Hollywood. Happily, Mr. Katz has started his own blog called Urgent Agenda.

He has started asking an open question to get responses from his readers. He prints those responses and I was among them here (about a third of the way down). I responded to this question, “Why is it that intellectuals often support the worst causes?”. I responded thusly:

As to your current question, I think the answer lies in something that sounds mundane: human nature. The fact that we call them intellectuals implies that we have singled them out as being better students of whatever they study and generally more intelligent. The fact that they accept the title of intellectual means they believe those implications to be true. So, right out of the box, we have created an aura of I-know-better-than-you and I’m-better-informed-than-you around these folks. This plays into the human ego in a big way. And, I would argue, once someone has inflated your ego, you will do anything to keep it that way.

Now, when you’re riding the ego train, the last thing you want to be seen doing is agreeing with the masses. Too much of that will diminish your standing as an intellectual. After all, if you admitted you agreed with the masses often enough, how are you any different?

Herein lies the trap. The intellectual needs to vocally advocate a minority position in order to stand out from the crowd. His ego will drive him to believe and support sketchy ideas merely because he KNOWS he’s smarter than everyone else. His ego will also drive him to believe that the masses cannot be right, therefore something other than the majority opinion must be the way to go. His job is to simply justify it with his superior intellect, even if that means hurling academic gibberish at the layman in an effort to force agreement via fear of the superior intellect.

So, again, I believe so-called intellectuals support some really awful causes primarily because of a lack of humility. The real intellectuals are those who analyze ideas purely on their merits and back them up by actual facts and not opinions or convenient theories. A real intellectual isn’t afraid to admit that the masses may be right.

It makes me wish I had more time write my thoughts. I love it!

Well, another NFL season has come and gone for this Seahawks fan. The ending wasn’t quite as nailbiting as last year or the year before, but it was no less disappointing. The guys had a golden opportunity to finish off a better Packers team, but couldn’t get it done. The nagging things that had been annoyances all year finally stacked up to become a major problem. Then the things that had worked well started to misfire, too. It added up to a fairly unexciting loss in a blizzard.

What made this just a touch more disappointing was that the Giants beat the Cowboys today. If Seattle had pulled off the win, the NFC Championship game would have been back in Seattle. While the Giants have been better of late, they set the record for false starts by an opponent in Qwest field the last time they were there. There would have been a good shot there. Ah, well, there are always should have and could have discussions. Now, it’s time for a deep breath.

Fortunately, I can turn to the Blazers who have been playing quite well and look like they could carry themselves to a playoff berth. That’s something fun to watch and think about for next year.

By the way, on a completely random note: Anyone else notice that at this moment in time, Boston is in a fantastic position to pull off the major league trifecta? The reigning World Series champions are the Red Sox. The prohibitive favorite to win the Super Bowl is the New England Patriots. And the best record in the NBA is currently owned by the Boston Celtics. Wow.