NBA Champs

The Boston Celtics won the NBA championship last night in convincing fashion, 131-92 over the Los Angeles Lakers, led by league MVP Kobe Bryant.

As a Wisconsinite, I was tickled to see 3 ex-Bucks in the Celtic line-up: Eddie House, Sam Cassell, and Ray Allen. These guys gave good minutes to the Bucks, but they were never gonna get to hoist the big gold ball in Milwaukee.

Ray Allen in particular deserved a ring. In both Milwaukee and Seattle he's been a superstar, being named to the All-Star team and the all-defensive team multiple times.

Same with Paul Pierce, a terrific player who had spent his entire career with the Celtics when they stank.

And Kevin Garnett, a superb all-around forward who never quit and never complained when he was in Minnesota and set some kind of record for futility at having made it to the playoffs something like 7 times in a row and always getting bounced in the 1st round.

It was evident by early in the 4th quarter that the Celtics, with their huge lead, had this one in the bag, and the 6th and 7th of Ray Allen's 3-pointers (an NBA finals record) had pretty much sealed the deal when Doc Rivers pulled the Big 3 halfway thru the quarter to a huge standing ovation. You could have lit up downtown Boston with the smiles on these guys' faces. I don't think I've ever seen anyone this happy at winning a championship (well, maybe Tara Lipinski).

But ya know the best part? The very best part of all? After the game was over and the trophies were handed out (Pierce was named finals MVP), they had the interviews, and each and every one of them spoke in praise of teamwork, and hard-nosed defense, and terrific coaching, and relentless hustle, and the undying support of the Celtic fans.

And not a one of them pointed a finger to heaven and said squat about how it was all due to Jesus or God or the Lord or Allah or their sainted grandmother or any such crap.

Praise be to our fellow human beings, the only creatures (besides our beloved wolf descendants) we've EVER been able to count on for help with anything.

J. K. Rowling's Harvard Commencement Address

I admire this woman more all the time:
the speech

Med Drop Went Smoothly

Throwing unused medications into our landfills — or, worse, flushing them down the toilet into our rivers and lakes — is a bad idea, for what I hope are obvious reasons.

Med Drop is doing something about it. Today it held its 2nd collection, and this is a quick report on how smoothly my experience with it went.

Appropriately, Med Drop was held at a facility of the City of Madison Water Utility, the transfer station at 121 W. Olin Av. This is a well traveled street, making access convenient. The entrance to the station was well marked with an eye-level “Med Drop” banner. A smiling guy in a Med Drop T-shirt was standing just inside the gate to point me in the correct direction.

The cars were split into 2 lines, guided by orange safety cones. Altho I arrived near the end of the 9 AM to 1 PM event, there were 6-8 cars ahead of me. But they weren’t there for long, as the lines moved briskly.

Another smiling person in a Med Drop T-shirt, this time a young woman holding a clipboard, approached my driver’s side window as I got into the #2 position in line — They were processing several cars at a time. — and asked if I had any “sharps” (needles, blades, etc.). I said no, that all I had were these pills in this bag right here. So she took those, handed them to another worker behind her, asked me a couple of quick questions (zip code, was location convenient, how did you hear about the event), and handed me back my empty bag.

They did NOT ask for my name, probably due to this policy, quoted from their website: “Illegal drugs will be taken, no questions asked. They will be turned over to proper authorities immediately for proper disposal.”

Zip, zap, zop, in and out in under 3 minutes, never left my car.

MedDrop is sponsored by The Madison Patient Safety Collaborative, comprising various hospitals and health-care providers in the Madison area, in cooperation with a variety of governmental units and pharmacy societies.

They will be holding their next collection in October. Info about this (and recycling in general) is available at the city's website. They ask that you keep the meds in their original containers and NOT obscure the drug name, dosage, etc. info.

I understand that other localities are organizing their own equivalent programs in an effort to protect our water supply and wildlife.

I’m delighted to be able to support this worthy effort and encourage others to do so as well.