Quote of the Week- Friedrich Nietzsche

Today's Quote of the Week continues with yet another quip from a famous philosopher; this one being the German thinker Friedrich Nietzsche (god, his last name is hard to spell!, and I should talk).

We dedicate this entry to our friend Chris Knight of Reidsville, NC, as he and I appear to be the only two people in the world who are still blogging after all these years! In one entry on his blog (http://theknightshift.blogspot.com) Knight talks about a church that is very hard to get to in the former Soviet republic of Georgia, which was where Joseph Stalin was from.

As for Nietzche, he was a major influence on postmodernism, and he was known for using metaphors and irony. His key ideas including the notion that "God was dead" and the will to power. The German philosopher was also a contemporary of the composer Richard Wagner, according to the 1990 graphic novel "Nietzche for Beginners" which we found at The International Bookstore in Chapel Hill, NC, a few weeks ago. (The establishment is hosting a Political Prisoner Letter Writing Night, which is probably not something that the fringe, ultra-conservative preacher the Rev. Johnny Robertson of Martinsville, Va., will be doing with his folks this week).

Niettzche was also known for what would not now be deemed politically incorrect views on religion (well, of course!), love, and women in general. So, I expect that even this tamer quote by him may not go over well in Eden, NC:

"A subject for a great poet would be God's boredom after the seventh day of creation."

MONDAY LEFTOVERS: We wanted to update the blogging public on the status of the University of Cal-Santa Barbara's women's water polo team. The Gauchos were not able to win their game vs. Loyola, which they lost 8-3. But, later in the day, they played a school named Occidental (yes, we've never heard of them either) and beat them 8-5. Kristin Kulakowski scored two goals in that victory.

The UCSB men's basketball team made the NCAA tournament and as a 15-seed they will face the Florida Gators (#2-seed) in a game that will be played on Thursday in Tampa, which is quite close to the Gators' campus!

Interestingly enough, the Gauchos' women's water polo team will next face Bucknell, a smart school in Lewisburg, Pa., for a home game on March 19. Bucknell's men's basketball team also made the NCAAs as a 14-seed; they will face the U-Conn. Huskies in Washington, DC, on Thursday as well.

Though the Gators are my favorite school in the SEC, I may have to root for the Gauchos on Thursday as my cousin's daughter attends that school in Santa Barbie.

There is a great quiz on mentalfloss.com asking the quiz-taker if they know which state a given school is located. Though I have stumbled on many "Mental Floss" quizzes before, I got all 11 questions right today!

Sunday Sports Desk

All the talk in this part of the country, well between Maryland and South Carolina, has been on the Duke-UNC game in Chapel Hill last night in which the UNC Tarheels defeated the Duke Bluedevils 81-67.

But, we wanted to congratulate the UNC-Asheville Bulldogs for winning the Big South championship over Coastal Carolina University by a 60-47 score in Conway, SC (Myrtle Beach) yesterday.

My alma mater Radford University and my mom's alma mater Winthrop University are also Big South teams, so I always hope they do well in the NCAA tourney, as Winthrop did a few years back. Of course, it would be nice if Radford could win the tourney every year!

We also like to keep tabs on Turkish soccer (my late father was from Turkey) even though I haven't watched a game in two years. This weekend, the scores were as follows: Manisa 2 Kayseri 1; Ankaragucu 2 Konya 0; Gaziantep 3 Sivas 1; Eskisehir 1 Bucaspor 0; Bursaspor 1 Istanbul BB 1 (tie); GalataSaray (Istanbul) 0 KDCK 0 (tie); Trabzonspor 2 Besiktash (Istanbul) 1.

For more info, on the games, you can check out Ahmet Bob Turgut's Twitter feed at (twitter.com/turkish soccer).

Lastly, our very favorite sport is women's collegiate gymnastics and there were many meets of interest this weekend.

Due to space and time constraints, we will focus on just two of them.

For starters, Florida (#1) edged Utah (#5) in Salt Lake City thanks to stand-out performances from Gator gymnasts Alaina Johnson, Marissa King and Mackenzie Caquatta.

But, for the home team Utes, Fumina Kobayashi and Cortni Beers finished in a three-way tie for first place on the balance beam with Ashanne Dickerson of Florida, who also scored a 9.9 on vault.


And, our home state North Carolina State Wolfpack gymnastics team won a key road meet over Pittsburgh today thanks to a stand-out performance from Jess Panza, who scored a 9.925 on the balance beam. Panza's score was the highest single event score for a Wolfpack gymnast this season.

The image above, by the way, is of the late, great Howard Cosell (1918-1995) who would have perhaps been horrified to find out that in 2011, due to modern technology, there are many more things to do on a Monday night than watch NFL football on tv. In fact, if one desires, they can play World of the Witchcraft with their 'friends' in Australia for 48 hours in a row.

Yeah, I think that's a bad idea too, but those guys (well, I suppose women can get addicted to WOTWC too) do make us bloggers appear to be people who have real lives.