Education from Frank McCourt

The late Frankie McCourt, author of two memoirs including Angela's Ashes, has the best quote I've ever heard about education and learning. From his Pulitzer-winning AA, he remembers his grade school teacher Hoppy O'Halloran's advice from his Limerick, Ireland public school:

"You have to study and learn so that you can make up your own mind about history and everything else, but you can't make up an empty mind. Stock your mind, stock your mind. It is your house of treasure and no one in the world can interfere with it. If you won the Irish sweepstakes and and bought a house that needed furniture would you fill it with bits and pieces of rubbish? Your mind is your house and if you fill it with rubbish from cinemas (and today's video screens) it will rot in your head. You might be poor, your shoes might be broken, but your mind is a palace."

Revenge of the Pole

She has spent the summer knocking off the powerful Russians. Although mass media loves to call her Danish with all the associations of blonde Scandinavia, Caroline Wozniacki is as Polish as they come, her dad just happened to be on a pro soccer gig in Denmark when she was born. Those of you with a working knowledge of European history know how the Russians and Soviets abused Poland for centuries, abuse that made a lot of Polish citizens yearn for the warm and fuzzy days of Nazi occupation after receiving special treatment from Joe Stalin and company. But that was then, and this is now.
Wozniacki has no inferiority complex when it comes to playing mother Russia, in fact she thrives on it, slapping around the likes of Zvonerova, Kuznetsova, Dementieva in her amazing summer run to this year's Open. It's enough to make a population of Poles stick out their chest a bit.
But with the arrival of Labor Day, Day 8 of the 2010 U.S. Open, reality looms. The queen of modern Russian players, the beautiful and deadly Maria Sharapova stands in the way of this 20 year old Pole and her dream of Grand Slam glory.
Sharapova already has two major titles, including the U.S.; she is the hottest player in the tournament, just through a double bagel bashing in the 3rd round, and she has nevedr lost to Wozniacki. Woz is now the darling of the women's tennis world, the It Girl, a status that used to belong to Sharapova and one that she desperately wants back.
It's an amazing 4th round matchup, future and former champions clashing in a crossroads match brimming with history. It's Poland vs Russia, youth vs experience, Wozniacki vs Sharapova, today, Labor Day, on the biggest stage in tennis.

Andy the Lion Heart?

You wonder if the Andy Murray era will come and go without a Major title. He may not be the one to carry the Grand Slam hopes of the British Isles on his shoulders. In one of the great theaters in tennis, a packed Louis Armstrong stadium in the fading light, Murray failed. Failed to win, failed to sink his teeth into a comeback, failed to even force a fifth and deciding set. He made his opponent Stan Wawrinka, the 25th seed, look like Rocky Balboa.

In a situation where all of New York was prepared to embrace Murray, he politely handed the match to a Swiss player no one had ever heard of.

It made you wonder where Tim Henman was. Henman may not have had the raw talent of Murray, but he had some fight in him. He battled Croatian gun slinger Goran Ivanisovic down to the last point in the Wimbledon semis, and made a habit of showing up in the Final Four in London. Murray lay down 6 weeks ago in his Wimbledon semi vs Nadal. You think about the fierce sporting crowd in back in Scotland, some true Bravehearts in their own right, and wonder what they are thinking of their boy Andy, whose shoulders seemed to narrow as the match progressed. With all of New York trying to will him into a fifth set, Murray seemed to be in a race with the setting sun. Body language be damned, he appeared to only care about the flight schedule for the Virgin red-eye back to London and beyond.

Both he and Wawrinka walked by the catering/production truck alley on their way to press. Wawrinka was bathed in healthy sweat, glowing in the golden hour of New York, exuding energy and confidence. Murray, head down, clothed in a white outfit matching his pale skin, avoided all eye contact. The incredible shrinking man, the man burdened by the weighty tennis hopes of Britain. For New York sports fans, this guy had nothin.