Become What You Are’ by Alan Watts

“Apart from life, the self is as meaningless as a solitary note taken from a symphony, as dead as a finger cut from the hand, and as stagnant as air caught from the wind and shut tight in a room.” — Alan Watts

Of all the books on this list, Become What You Are is by far and away my favourite. Had I read Become What You Are before reading The World Beyond Your Head, it probably wouldn’t have captured my interest so vividly. But after Crawford taught me that the ‘self’ does not exist (aside from as a convenient construction we use to understand the world), what Alan Watts had to say made a lot more philosophical sense.

And what he has to say is this: Nothing exists except the present moment. The past doesn’t exist. The future doesn’t exist. Your thoughts and memories about these things don’t exist either. You don’t even exist, not really — what you call “yourself” is just an abstraction created to help the mind understand what’s going on, to help the mind understand the thoughts which pass through it.

The problem is, we’ve become overinvested in this abstraction. We’ve let the mind create so many thoughts it’s spun out of control. Together, our minds have created an entire imaginary reality, full of things like ‘ambition’ and ‘religion’ and ‘duties’ to keep its little top spinning.

Become What You Are is a book of essays loosely connected by these themes, and my favourite essay in the book is The Finger and The Moon. It’s ashort but extraordinarily well-crafted essay that explains that while religion is important, many people miss its point. The point of religion is to be a finger, pointing at something; once you see what it’s pointing at, you no longer need the finger.

I will admit that sometimes, Watt’s style is a little flowery. People used to hard-nosed academic works will have a tough time taking Watts seriously. But if those tough academic-types can suspend disbelief for long enough to get through the book, I daresay they will find something useful within. In 2020 I will read more books. Have not done a book report since probably the fifth grade so take it easy on your reviews. I think we’re all trying to better ourselves in order to be more successful in the new year I got a lot out of this read can recommend.

University of Arkansas football coach Sam Pittman has landed his 10th recruit with the addition of defensive end Jaqualin McGhee, who just announced his pledge to the Razorbacks.

McGhee, 6-4, 255 pounds, of Fort Valley (Ga.) Peach County, had scholarship offers from Kansas State, West Virginia, Cincinnati, Troy, Western Kentucky and others. He is expected to make an official visit to Fayetteville on Jan. 17. Peach County coach Chad Campbell said McGhee didn’t play football until his junior year.

“He hasn’t played but two years,” said Campbell in an earlier interview. “He has a lot of good football left in him. He’s just now scratching the surface, I believe. He started last year for us as a junior and just kept getting better and better. This year he was more confident in what he was doing after playing a year.

“I think he’s going to probably blow up and be an inside technique probably. He’s a kid that can run 4.6 [40-yard dash]. Explosive.”

McGhee recorded 65 tackles, 8 sacks, 19 tackles for loss, 11 quarterback hurries, a pass breakup and a blocked punt as a senior. In his first season of playing football, McGhee had 55 tackles, 5 sacks, 5 tackles for loss and 4 quarterback hurries.

A consensus 3-star prospect, McGhee comes from a school loaded with talent.

“We’ve had nine guys play in the NFL,” Campbell said. “We’ve had hundreds of kids go off to Division-I schools. Our kids are blue-collar, hard-nosed kids, tough, know how to work.”

McGhee could possibly add weight and play inside at Arkansas.

The Razorbacks signed nine prospects during the early signing period.

We talk about a multitude of different subjects and its wonderful to hear from everyone on their favorites. You can barely make it a week with out hearing the old saying “they don’t make them like they used to” or “they don’t make them like that anymore!” When it comes to furniture we found someone that DOES make them like they used to. Sean Adcock is the owner of Adcock Woodworks.

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In life you’re doing one of two things, you’re working on yourself daily to get better or you’re settling.  It’s as simple as that!  If you settled chances are you made it okay in your mind somehow.

Same desert. Same cacti. Same Fiesta Bowl. Same teams. It is a College Football Playoff rematch made in the Valley of the Sun.

No. 2 Ohio State vs. No. 3 Clemson is the so-called “good” game in this season’s CFP. Apologies to No. 1 LSU vs. No. 4 Oklahoma in the Peach Bowl semifinal, but the Fiesta semi has more juice. It has a legacy, too, now that we’re halfway through the 12-year CFP contract.

The Hot Springs syndicate (if you will) absolutely loves both of these games. The first game LSU -14 is a lock. It briefly went to 13 and a half when the Oklahoma money started to come in. Always trying to get the best number but if 13 1/2 is not available you can lay the 14 with confidence. the second game will be much closer it will maybe be one of the better college football games of the decade. Most likely coming down to the final possession. In a game decided by a few plays give me the champs. Clemson at 2 or 2.5 will do just fine thank you! has always that with your head not over it and we’ll see you for the championship.

WLA Spacity.syndicate CFB 16-2 & NFL 10-3 ytd

History will be chasing history in the still-nascent playoff. Cast your mind back three years ago. Clemson announced itself as a national power in the 2016 Fiesta Bowl semifinal. The Tigers won 31-0, then beat Alabama for their second national championship.

The implications can still be felt today. Following the skunking, then-Ohio State coach Urban Meyer retooled his offensive staff. One of the new hires was the 49ers quarterbacks coach who came on a recommendation from Chip Kelly.

Who ever heard of Ryan Day?

Clemson was motivated back then by returning to the championship game. Nick Saban needed an onside kick the prior year to beat win 45-40. Clemson had basically spent the year decorating the locker room with newspaper and magazine clippings as reminders of that crushing defeat.


“We knew Day 1 where we wanted to be,” center Jay Guillermo said. “Even if we didn’t end up playing Alabama, it was back to the championship game.”

After that game, Clemson was never the same — in a good way. The momentum created from that Ohio State win spawned college football’s latest dynasty. Since that day, the Tigers are 40-2 with two national championships in three years. The current 27-game winning streak is the 16th-longest in history. Win out this season and only nine schools will have longer streaks in the 150-year history of the game.

With Alabama missing the playoff for the first time, it can be said with confidence that Clemson is the program to be chased, not the one chasing anymore.

“This never gets old,” Swinney said.

The case can be made for this being the best CFP ever. Four Power Five conference champions — three of them undefeated. The four are a combined 51-1.

Thank goodness the BCS is gone. This last time three Power Five conference titlists got to the postseason, they couldn’t be accommodated. Auburn was left out at 12-0 that year. That eventually led to the playoff.

Yes, the rewards continue to go to the rich. LSU became only the 11th team to make the playoff. That’s 11 occupying the combined 24 spots over the six years. The Tigers have a fun-loving coach (Ed Orgeron), the nation’s best player (Joe Burrow) and the overall home-field advantage in this season’s playoff.

LSU opens against Oklahoma in the Peach Bowl in Atlanta. That’s close enough to Baton Rouge, Louisiana, that Mercedes-Benz Stadium will be overrun with Tigers fans. That’s a prediction. This is a certainty: If Tigers make it to the championship game, nirvana awaits. The New Orleans Superdome is 70 miles from the LSU campus.

The Tigers two previous national championships (2003, 2007) have been played in the same de facto home stadium. You don’t need a calculator to the math. Just a hurricane (the drink) and some aspirin for the inevitable hangover.

If the LSU Tigers are charming, Clemson’s Tigers always seems to need a cause thanks to Dabo.

No doubt this month will be spent reminding players how Little Ol’ Clemson made the playoff by the skin of its teeth.

Yeah, right.

Only Swinney could turn a positive moment into a complaint.

“We started the season No. 1, went undefeated in the regular season and finished third,” Swinney told reporters. “OK, so that’s history, first time that’s happened.”

That’s a warped analysis. In 1966, Alabama’s “Missing Ring” started No. 1, went undefeated and finished No. 3 due to poll voters’ reaction to the civil rights climate in the South.

This is entirely about on the field. The Tigers were “victims” of a weak ACC schedule. And if Dabo needs that for motivation, God bless him. We’ve still got the best CFP ever.

We’ve gotten this far and haven’t even mentioned Oklahoma is in the playoff for the third straight year. The Sooners are also 12.5-point, which explains why they may be destined to become 0-4 all-time in the CFP.

In the cool game, the Fiesta, call it the reigning national champion vs. straining for a national championship. It has been all of five years since the Buckeyes were the first CFP winners. They haven’t been back to the CFP since that Clemson shutout in the desert. That qualifies as a drought in Columbus, Ohio.

Now there are whispers of this being the best Ohio State team ever. Jeff Okudah might be the game’s best cover corner. Chase Young is the nation’s best defensive player. Justin Fields has become one of the most efficient quarterbacks of this century. No quarterback in the last 11 years (at least) has thrown at least 40 touchdowns with as few as one interception. J.K. Dobbins is edging up towards 2,000 yards with 100 combined carries in the last three games.

Clemson will not be impressed. The Tigers have “quietly” gone 13-0, outscoring opponents by 36 points per game. Ohio State is a tick ahead at 36.1. There were 115 teams that didn’t average 36 points per game.

Swinney will take your Fields and raise you Trevor Lawrence. Turns out Lawrence actually wasn’t ready for the NFL after that performance earlier this year against Alabama. At one point this season, Lawrence was leading the ACC in interceptions. As the season wore on, the ACC was a mere inconvenience for Lawrence and the Tigers. In the second half of the season, Lawrence threw 20 touchdown passes without an interception.

If there is further motivation for the Tigers, there may not be enough national awards to accommodate all of Clemson’s stars.

You can make the case for all 4 teams having a shot.

I would find it hard to beat LSU the way they destroyed Georgia. You have to love Clemson’s experience. Ohio State is the best team in the country. Lincoln Riley with those weapons and time to scheme. It’s finally time to play the games!!

At the end of his first week on the job, Sam Pittman is enjoying every minute as the new head coach at Arkansas.

Hired last weekend Sunday and introduced Monday, Pittman delved into the rebuild that awaits the Razorbacks when he spoke on SEC Network’s The Paul Finebaum Show Friday.

“I really believe that Arkansas is the greatest job in the country, and I do,” Pittman said. “It’s a different-type job because the state of Arkansas are different people. We’re the only show in the state. There is Arkansas State, excuse me, but we’re the only SEC school in the state. There’s no pro teams here. The state of Arkansas loves the Hawgs, and it’s a very special, special place. And when I was a kid, Paul, I grew up about 75 miles from (Fayetteville) and I was a Hawg fan back then and just never really lost the love for the Arkansas Razorbacks.”

MORE to FOLLOW on Razorback Athletics

Arkansas Sports Betting Poised To Be Among Worst In U.S.
Arkansas Sports Betting Poised To Be Among Worst In U.S.
UNCATEGORIZED July 12, 2019 Evin Demirel

CasinoInsider.com is in the process of putting together an objective evaluation of the US states that have legalized sports betting and will do so in the future. The idea is to create a scoring system to grade the salient aspects of each state’s regulatory framework and with that information to create some type of hierarchical ranking.

Arkansas’ newly minted sports betting regulations has helped CasinoInsiders.com tighten up its scoring system. One component of the grading criteria is ‘licensing fees’ with higher scores awarded to states with reasonable fees and lower scores to states like Illinois, a state more interested in soaking license applicants to the tune of $10 or $20 million than creating a viable sports betting marketplace in their state. Arkansas brought about the realization that just going by the dollar amount of the fees won’t work. Their license fee is a reasonable $250,000. As Casinoinsiders.com see it, however, the state deserves no credit for that, however, since only four licenses will be awarded. Eventually.


A DE FACTO MONOPOLY
First the good news. If you’re in the vicinity of Oaklawn Park in Hot Springs, Arkansas you can enjoy a decent sports betting experience. Now the not-as-good news. If you’re anywhere else in the state of Arkansas you’re out of luck including the state’s five largest cities by population. The largest city in Arkansas is Little Rock which is a semi-reasonable 55 minutes from Hot Springs. It’s semi-reasonable unless you’re betting every day or even several times a week in which case it’s a two hour round trip just to get down on the day’s action. After Little Rock, the four biggest cities in Arkansas are Fort Smith (2 hours and 30 minutes away), Fayetteville (3 hours 20 minutes away), Springdale (3 hours 32 minutes away) and Jonesboro (3 hours and 7 minutes away). While we’re at it, it’s worth mentioning that Memphis, Tennessee is 3 hours 1 minute away.

Oaklawn is already open for business but when any of the remaining three licensees will start taking bets is anyone’s guess. Two of the licenses are allotted to forthcoming casino development in Pope County and Jefferson County. The Jefferson County project has been approved for a license and is hoping for a mid-2020 opening. To date, the Pope County project — which had snared the interest of former Razorback great and Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones — isn’t even in the planning stages and all five pending applications for a gaming license were denied.



THE MESS IN WEST MEMPHIS
The final sports betting license was ‘automatically’ allotted to the Southland Greyhound Track in West Memphis, Arkansas. The Southland ownership hasn’t even started the approval process and there’s no timeline for them doing so. Even better–Southland is owned by Delaware North who operates the Wheeling Island and Mardi Gras casinos in West Virginia. They were the only properties in the state that offered mobile betting but it was shut down in March due to a contract dispute with the BetLucky app–the only app approved for mobile betting in West Virginia. As a result, there’s currently no mobile betting in West Virginia though several other providers are in the process of setting up operations. That doesn’t help Delaware North and until the BetLucky fiasco is resolved you won’t be seeing sports betting at Southland. More likely, the process won’t even begin until the contract dispute is dealt with.

Not that there’s any reason to expect sports betting to be a hit at Southland. The majority of the potential Southland customer base would come from Memphis, Tennessee. Tennessee is in the process of setting up their (mobile only) sports betting ecosystem so Memphis residents won’t have to go anywhere to place bets. If they want a ‘brick and mortar’ environment they can make the 55 minute drive to Tunica, Mississippi where there are seven casinos with sportsbooks. West Memphis will be a very tough sell given the alternatives meaning that it’s primary claim to fame will remain having one of the highest small town murder rates in the US.

NO MOBILE WAGERING
Not only will there only be one place to bet in Arkansas for the foreseeable future there is also no mobile wagering. Oaklawn has announced plans to introduce a mobile platform as soon as possible but for the time being it will be limited to use on property. This isn’t a bad move for Oaklawn since it will allow them to expand their mobile footprint quickly once regulations allow. The problem is that there’s no indication when or even if that will happen.

The political rationale for sports betting has always been ‘increased revenue to the state. To do that, however, you have to create an environment in which your customer–i.e. sports bettors–have an incentive to bet in your state instead of nearby Tennessee and Mississippi or online.

Arkansas has managed to create an environment that completely ignores the market realities of sports betting, according to Casinoinsiders.com. It offers nothing to bettors in Arkansas to justify betting in-state and as a result will bring in negligible revenue. Oaklawn might see some decent betting handle during their live race meet (January through May) and during football season. It’s a good addition to Oaklawn’s existing product mix and could help their year round business but otherwise sports betting in Arkansas is going to be a total bust. Even if betting facilities for most of the state’s residents were available, it wouldn’t be worth their time and effort to use them.

The above guest opinion column was authored by James Murphy of Casinoinsiders.com

In a continuing effort to help turn Medicare confusion to Medicare excitement we will share when something catches our eye.

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