By Austin Bjornholt [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html), from Wikimedia CommonsWhen the Chicago Bulls announced that Cristiano Felício and David Nwaba would start in place of Robin Lopez and Justin Holiday, it was not so that they would win more games. It was exactly the opposite. In the NBA, every bad team tanks. Tanking is losing games intentionally so that you get a higher draft pick. When you get a better draft pick, you get a better player. When you get a better player, you have a better team. When you have a better team, you win a championship. When you win a championship, more fans come. When more fans come, the owner gets more money. Basically, tanking is for billionaire owners to get even richer. Tanking is supposed to be illegal, but the NBA doesn’t enforce the rule. During prohibition, law enforcement knew that speakeasies existed and didn’t do anything. When Mavericks owner Mark Cuban said that his team should lose games, Adam Silver, the NBA commissioner, fined him $600,000. That may seem like a lot, but Cuban has a projected net worth of $3.7 billion. If you want to know why the NBA does not punish teams for breaking the no-tanking rule, you must know why the rule was created. In other leagues, like the NFL, there are powerhouses (like the Eagles) and teams like the Browns (0-16 last season). If the Browns play the Eagles, it will most likely not be competitive. The reason that the NBA established the no-tanking rule is that they hope that more fans come to games, thinking it will be too über-competitive. Again, when more fans come, the owner gets more money.
Stone Soup Magazine for young readers, writers, and artists
The Winds of Change
As I stepped into the morning sun, I found that it was not as cold out as it had been these past few months. I went back inside to quickly change out of my jeans and sweater into shorts and a t-shirt. My boots felt unusually hot as I pulled them on and walked out the door into my yard. And there I felt the wind. But I realized it was no regular wind, but rather the Winds of Change. And upon them rode Spring. I walked towards the barn, breathing in the fresh air. A smell mingled with the oxygen, the smell of new blossoms on a tree, a little pungent, but not altogether unpleasant. Reaching the barn, I opened a stall door, for in the stall was a small chicken house, and within the chicken house, month-old chicks. It was that season. Chicks could only be bought in spring, where I lived, and to our family, they were one of those cute little miracles that are one of the things in life that makes us happy. They were gifts of the season, just for us. A little while later, I was watching our burn pile crackle and pop as it burnt up old logs we didn’t need. My dog Lucy was sniffing around in the grass next to me, and suddenly I heard a squeak. At first I thought it was one of the many birds that were singing their hearts out around me. But then it became obvious that it was close – and right behind me. I turned and saw Lucy pawing at a small hole in the ground. I bent down for a closer look. To my astonishment, I found a mole frantically digging to get away from her. It disappeared, and I turned away. But then I noticed that Lucy was still nosing around, and at a nest of woven grasses. What I saw melted my heart. Two small mole babies, who hadn’t even yet opened their eyes, were nestled comfortably into the dried grasses. I shooed my dog away, and picked the nest up. I was astounded to find two more mole babies nestled in a different part of the grass. I gently picked them out of the spots they were in, for otherwise they would have fallen to the ground, and put them with their siblings. I looked to the ground, searching for any other mole pups who might have fallen from the refuge of the grasses. And I found two more. I hurriedly put them with the rest of their family, and began to study the way they looked. Their paws were definitely a digger’s paws, sharp claws at the tips of tiny toes. The moles’ small heads had rounded noses with multiple tiny whiskers protruding from them. No ears poked out from the heads; I couldn’t detect any earholes either. Their fur was a dark brown color, and was very soft to the touch. All in all, they were hardly as big as my thumb. And, hard as it is for me to admit, I found them very, very cute. An hour later, I found their mother. She was in the same hole. I gently set her offspring down into the hole, and watched as she took them one by one to wherever she lived. I was sad to see them go, but luckily I had made a couple of pictures. As the mole mother took the last of her babies away, I thought to myself, The Winds of Change are here, and they are bringing much new life, among other things. Goodbye, little moles. I will miss you. The Winds of Change truly are here, Mother Nature slowly rebuilding what was lost in the past year. And when the Winds leave, they will have left a better Earth.
Saturday Newsletter: April 7, 2018
It must be very early, the light is just creeping sleepily up from behind the trees and rooftops Illustrator Rosemary Engelfried, 13 for On the Bridge of Dawn by Megan M. Gannett, 13 Published May/June 2004 A note from William Rubel At last, thanks to Emma and Sarah, the long-promised Book Reviews section of our website is here! What you’ll see on the page today is a small beginning to something we want to see grow. We’ve got lots more reviews to add, and we’ll be putting them up every day this week and into the future, so you will see something new popping up on a regular basis from now on. We want our Book Reviews section to develop into a lively place for Stone Soup readers to drop by and discuss the books they love (and even those they don’t!). If you love books and want to get some ideas of new ones to read, or hear what others thought of some you have already read, take a look, read the reviews, and leave your comments. Do you agree or disagree with the reviewer’s thoughts? Do you have something to add? Let us and the reviewers know what you think! And of course, do please keep on submitting your book reviews to us. Relating to others—thoughts from great novels and our bloggers For those of you who are following the news at all, or have talked with your parents about the many huge changes in the politics of the world taking place right now, I think you will probably have talked about how polarized politics has gotten in the United States and in many other countries around the world. We are tending only to talk to people who think the way we do, with less reaching out to people with whom we disagree in order to find common ground. I want talk talk today about Sarah Cymrot’s review of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, posted on our blog a few weeks ago. Like many of you, Sarah is in middle school. She is experiencing changes in the way kids (people) relate to each other compared with elementary school. What adult reading this Newsletter does not also remember those cliquish years? Which group were (are) you in, which group weren’t (aren’t) you in, how could (can) you make new friends? The Scarlet Letter is one of the major American novels of the nineteenth century. It is regularly taught in high school. I think it is fantastic that Sarah has taken this book on and has found that it offers some insights into middle school life. At the end of her post Sarah asks a question and invites readers to answer in a comment. I have left a comment, and now I am hoping that this weekend you will read the review—alone or with your parents or another adult—and will answer her questions too. Adults: the comments sections are open to adult readers, as well, and in this case I think the question is challenging enough to force all of us to think and to then struggle to find the words to answer. Sarah asks us to think carefully about how we relate to others: “Are there ways that you are judged by your peers? Are there ways you convince yourself to accept others in the face of feeling judgmental? Are there times you have reached across perceived differences and have connected with someone you didn’t expect to? I’d love to hear from you…” Go to her post, read her review, and then please continue the discussion by leaving a comment. It’s National Poetry Month! Did you know that April is National Poetry Month in the United States and Canada, and that in springtime in particular poetry is celebrated all over the world? Coming back from Taiwan last week my colleague Jane read a feature about poetry in the inflight magazine, written in celebration of national poetry month. I’d like to leave you with a few words from the article that express some of the ways we think about poetry here at Stone Soup, to inspire you both this weekend and for the rest of the month. “Love, warmth, and hope are all part of the April rhapsody. April is a never-ending love song. Come along with us as we experience the poetic side of April. In this warm spring month, take the opportunity to write poetry, recite poetry, sing poetry, discuss poetry and experience a poetic life.” (Dynasty, Inflight Magazine of China Airlines, April 2018, p. 22) We will share with you some of the work being done by our friends at the Academy of American Poets during National Poetry Month next week, and meanwhile, as ever, look forward to receiving your expressions of your poetic lives, whether they are written, painted, sung or recited!Until next week William From Stone Soup July/August 2015 The Five-Dollar Bill Written by Katherine Tung, 11 Illustrated by Aris Demopoulos, 12 “Stop Tiger from chasing Fluffy!” Mike Brady yelled as he charged headlong at his sons’ dog at his wedding reception. Tiger dashed under the wedding cake table and tipped it. The three-tiered cake slid along the table and into Mike’s arms. When Carol Brady hugged him for saving the cake, it toppled onto Mike’s face. This scene on TV sent my brother and me rolling on the carpet in fits of laughter. Ben and I relied on The Brady Bunch reruns to release frustration. We watched them every afternoon, since we spent our taxing schooldays proving to the mostly white student body that we were not mentally retarded, we just couldn’t speak English. After all, we came to the U.S. three months ago, knowing only how to say “hi.” I wanted to return to Taiwan, where I lived a Brady-Bunch life—wholesome and carefree, where each day ended with everyone happy. Mom yelled from the kitchen, “哥哥, 去市場 買一袋紅蘿蔔. 現 在就去!”1. She ordered Ben to buy a bag of carrots from the market, this instant. “我不要! 叫妹妹去,”2. Ben shouted back, refusing to budge and offering me a chance to go. Mom marched
