Recent update
- Drugs and Love
- The Church, Graft anf Corruption and the Reproductive Health Bill
- GLOBE TELECOM KAWATAN
- Running out of patience, pag bad ka lagot ka- LOLZ!
- LOVE: the game of Basketball
- Trillanes is Joker than Joker Arroyo, A Flip Flopper without Havaianas
- GLOBAL WARMING
- Ang Pagkakaisa ng mga Wikang Pilipino
- responsibility
- DO SOMETHING and DO IT NOW Butuanons and Agusanons!
so long
November 28th, 2006 by kurt-jumpman23
max soliven… idol! rest in peace
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d greatest boxing analyst’s comment on manny pacquiao
November 28th, 2006 by kurt-jumpman23
Merchant: Pac Man, Not PBF, Is Best P4P
By Michael Woods
He is seventysomething, but looks younger. An athletic regimen that includes ample time on the ski slopes probably has a lot to do with it, but flexibility in negotiating the moguls of life has to factor in as well.
Larry Merchant could be forgiven if he were to deliver a flowery eulogy to Willie Pep, the Will ‘o the Wisp, who died at age 84 on Thursday. Pep was known for his mastery of ring generalship and defense, and fought his 242 pro fights from 1940-1966 with defense as a focal point of his strategy. But Pep, really, wasn’t Merchant’s favorite brand of fighter. Or, I should say, isn’t. The HBO analyst has adjusted his criteria over his decades covering the savage science, for newspapers and for television, and is today likely to judge and critique a boxer more favorably if they fight in a fan-friendly, non-risk-averse style. In other words, Larry likes it when boxers mix it up, and if you ask him to delve into that preference, he’ll cite a viewpoint that Cus D’Amato used to spout.
The object of prizefighting, the old codger would say, is to make money. And you make money by putting fannies in seats. And what puts fannies in seats? Defensive wizardry? No way, shape, or form. A ‘hit and don’t be hit’ philosophy that puts a premium on quickness of feet, and speed in disengaging, wouldn’t have put you atop Cus’, or atop Merchant’s, pound-for-pound list.
So, I’m curious, just who is atop Larry’s list of the best active pugilist currently plying their trade? Who’s the best and brightest in our shady sport?
"Manny Pacquiao," answers Merchant.
"When you’re talking about the best fighter, you have to consider who will put it all out there, someone who’s willing to take risks."
Chat rooms were active after Pacquiao finished off Mexi-legend Erik Morales on Nov. 18.
Shouldn’t the Filipino, that scarily-active man who reduced Morales to a shell who could no longer be called El Terrible, be regarded as the top pound-for-pounder in the game today? Shouldn’t the boxer who imposed himself on the Mexi-icon, until he sat on the canvas and his face became a complicated mask of contemplation and resignation, be regarded as the top pound-for-pounder in boxing?
Yes, he should be, Merchant argues.
But what about Floyd, I asked? What about his technical excellence? That hand speed? That fluidity? That hand/eye? Those flurries? That record?
Merchant explained his criteria in evaluating fighters, and said that his checklist in crafting a pound-for-pound list has changed with the times. His P4P champ is completely suited for this age of reduced attention span, endless options for diversion, our greedy thirst for spectacles louder, bloodier, thinner, sexier.
"The emotion and passion in that building when Pacquaio fought," he says, "is included in my criteria, and I think it should be [in everyone's]. I’m not a purist, I don’t want to see Willie Pep win a round not throwing a punch."
"As the game has evolved, I favor the a guy who is willing to go out and take risks and close the show and not talk about hit and not be hit."
Ouch, PBF. That one had to hurt. Or maybe it didn’t, because you are all about positivity these days, and aren’t interested in getting into it with crusty Larry again.
Remember PBF vs. Larry after the Baldy fight, how Floyd tossed a few flurries at Merch?
"Well you know, you always give me a hard time," PBF told Merchant after he dispatched Baldy with PBF-ian ease. "You don’t never give me the credit that I really deserve. You good at commentating so stick to commentating, let me do the fighting! I am the best at what I do. That’s why I am with HBO, HBO is my family, HBO is my home. Like I said before, you can learn boxing from my camp and from ‘Pretty Boy’ Floyd. You just a commentator, stick to commentating."
"That’s exactly what I am doing, I am asking you a question," Merchant answered.
"It’s more like this, don’t always be a critic and be so negative. Let’s be positive. I got the victory tonight under any circumstances. So all you can do is respect me for that. Every time a fighter comes out I know you keep your fingers crossed… You hoping and wishing that a fighter can beat me. I am the king of the throne and Floyd Mayweather is here to stay! I can win under ANY circumstances! You always talk; let me do the talking. That’s what you always do!"
True enough, he is an analyst, if he stopped doing that he’d be where almost every one of his contemporaries are, out of the field.
I’m an unabashed fan, completely journalistically compromised, by the old standards of the discipline. So all apologies to PBF, but right now, I’ll let Merchant finish his explanation for why Manny deserves the top P4P spot over you.
"Entertainment is part of it," he said. "As a middleweight, for example, Roy Jones was tremendous but when he went to light heavyweight and he had those fights where he coasted the last six rounds, I said, ‘Screw this.”’
You can certainly call him crusty, but I’m all for it. In this age, when our voices become more timid as we seek to avoid controversies manufactured by PC special interests, and instead we displace our passion into piles of food, porn and retail therapy sessions, I treasure the outspoken voices all the more. I’m not talking about partisan hacks like Rush Limbaugh, or others of that gaseous ilk, whose arguments are typically bereft of all reason and civility.
But Larry Merchant won’t always be on the scene, I hate to break it to you. Don’t miss him when he’s gone, treasure him while he’s here.
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copied in the inquirer 10 26 06
November 11th, 2006 by kurt-jumpman23
World’s best
SOME time back, I wrote about the ratings of Asian universities given by Asiaweek magazine. Sadly, Asiaweek has closed down, so I thought we would no longer be able to compare universities in the region.
But it turns out that there are global surveys as well, one of which was just released last Oct. 5. This is the Times Higher Education Supplement-Quacquarelli Symonds (THES-QS) World University Rankings. With thousands of universities in the world, it’s an honor to make it to this list based on several criteria – including faculty-to-student ratios and ratings given by more than 3,000 academicians and 700 leading international employment recruiters.
How did the Philippines fare? I’m going to keep you in suspense and just say, for now, that four of our universities did make it to the top 500 universities.
Global ranks
Let’s look first at the THES-QS list of 20 leading universities. Note that there are ties so there might be occasional skipping of numbers: Harvard (1st), Cambridge (2nd), Oxford (3rd), Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Yale (tying for 4th), Stanford (6th), California Institute of Technology (7th), University of California in Berkeley (8th), Imperial College London (9th), Princeton (10th), University of Chicago (11th), Columbia (12th), Duke (13th), Beijing University (14th), Cornell (15th), Australian National University (16th), London School of Economics (17th), Ecole Normale Superieure (18th), National University of Singapore and Tokyo University (tying for 19th).
Most of the universities are American and British, but there is also representation from Australia, France, China, Singapore and Japan. Most of the leading American universities are private; in fact, on that top 20 list, the University of California Berkeley is the only American public institution. When I went on to the top 500 universities, I found that in all countries of the world, with the glaring exception of the United States and one other country (which I’ll name later but which you may have guessed), state universities lead in the rankings.
Asia’s best
I pulled out the Asian and Australian universities from the THES-QS list and found that among the world’s 500 leading universities, 90 are from Asia. Japan leads with 28, followed by China (including Hong Kong) with 16, Taiwan with 8, South Korea and Thailand with 7 each, Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines with 4 each, Australia with 3, Singapore with 2, and Bangladesh with one.
Do be careful with those figures since it’s not just a numbers game. Australia and Singapore have few universities on the list, but they are all high up in the ranking.
Enough suspense – let’s look at how the Philippines did. The University of the Philippines (UP) came in 299th globally and 47th among Asian universities. I have to say that’s not too bad, considering how the UP has had to plod along with shrinking budgets and the flight of so many good professors. Trailing behind UP were three private universities: De La Salle (392nd), Ateneo de Manila (484th) and, talk about a photo finish, the University of Santo Tomas at 500th.
Lessons
Instead of bombarding you with more numbers, I’m going to analyze those rankings and spell out three important implications for our own educational system.
First, you don’t need to be a rich country to have good universities, India being the best example. Even before independence, Indian nationalists had formed a commission to plan out their future and, early on, sought to form a network of science and technology institutions. After independence, funds were put into establishing a whole network, with several Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) campuses. It ranked 57th in the THES-QS global list.
Indonesia, a country less developed than the Philippines, is another example. It had three universities, all state-run, beating us in rankings: University of Indonesia (250th), Bandung Institute of Technology (258th), and University of Gadja Mada (270th).
Second, the other countries seem to recognize that excellence in education must be spread out throughout the country. Note that our four best universities are all in Metro Manila. In contrast, the Indian Institute of Technology has campuses in several states, all of which fared quite well when Asiaweek rated each unit back in 2000. The three Indonesian universities I just named are all on the island of Java, but at least they’re found not just in the capital, Jakarta, but also in Bandung and Yogyakarta.
Thailand’s best universities — Chulalongkorn, Thammasat, Mahidol, Kasatsart, Chiang Mai, Khon Kaen, and Prince of Songkla — are all state universities and they’re located in different parts of the country.
Third (I’ve made this point time and time again), the state needs to invest in universities. The THES list clearly shows that, with the exception of the United States and the Philippines, the leading universities in every country are state-owned. Sure, UP is the leader in the Philippines, but in other countries, several state universities – not just one — made it to the THES list.
Most governments in the world have the wisdom to look at education as something too important to leave to "free market forces" (read: "profit"). Unless we learn from them, we will continue to see more diploma mills, more scandals in licensure exams, and more Filipinos having to work overseas as cheap labor to develop other countries.
Note that the THES-QS rankings also relate to international competitiveness, meaning if you graduate from those that lead in the rankings, you also stand a better chance of getting a well-paying international job.
UP is still among the world’s best, but if we worked harder on the entire educational system, we should have more reason to be proud. Ultimately, we should be able to look at these university rankings as indicators of our current development strategies, as well as predictors of the country’s future.
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