-From: Gaffar Peang-Meth <[email protected]> Date: Tue, Jun 15, 2010 at 4:08 PM Subject: It's what you do after a mistake To:
*PACIFIC DAILY NEWS *June 16, 2010 *It's what you do after a mistake * By A. Gaffar Peang-Meth You can store a lot of data in your head and still not be a learned person. Information is useless unless we make sense of it in a creative and critical way by making connections and integrating the various bits and pieces of data that come our way. In and of themselves, bits of information are meaningless and dull, like rocks crowded in a box. Former first lady Eleanor Roosevelt asserted one with a large mind discusses ideas; one with an average mind discusses events; and one with a small mind talks about people. This parallels my conception of one with a large mind engaging as the wind, touching everywhere, while one with an average mind moves in fits and starts. The person whose world is narrow does not engage in the wider world around him and instead talks about the people who wander in and out of his field of vision. Everyone makes mistakes. President Theodore Roosevelt affirmed, "The only man who never makes a mistake is the man who never does anything." But, men are distinguished by what they do after their mistake. Let me begin with the story of baseball's major league umpire Jim Joyce and Detroit Tigers pitcher Armando Galarraga, whose lives converged at Cleveland's Comerica Park on June 2. The 28-year-old Venezuela-born pitcher Galarraga was in the ninth inning of a perfectly pitched game when a Cleveland batter connected with a pitch. Galarraga covered first, caught the ball firmly in his mitt, put his right foot on the first base, confident a perfect game was in the bag -- except the 54-year-old umpire, Joyce, a 23-year veteran, called the batter safe. Joyce was convinced the runner beat the throw, despite the boos and groans and protests. The replay showed Donald didn't beat the throw; Galarraga's foot was on the bag and beat Donald by a full step. Joyce made a wrong call. In the umpires' locker room, Joyce paced, distraught that his mistake had cost the pitcher a very rare perfect game. "I just cost that kid a perfect game. ... It was the biggest call of my career," Joyce said. Joyce asked to speak with Galarraga. In tears, Joyce hugged Galarraga and apologized. Galarraga showed himself a more "perfect" gentleman than one could imagine. "You don't see an umpire after the game come out and say, 'Hey, let me tell you I'm sorry,'" Galarraga said. "He felt really bad. He didn't even shower." Joyce said, "I don't blame them a bit for anything that was said. ... I would've said it myself if I had been Galarraga. I would've been the first person in my face, and he never said a word to me." Joyce will live with his mistake and regrets; criticism of his call will continue. Galarraga never savored that perfect game, but he knows what any baseball fan knows -- Galarraga did pitch a perfect game. At the end, as Michael Freedman, former managing editor of United Press International wrote, it was "a fine example of man's humanity toward man. ... What a lesson in how to conduct yourself in the face of controversy." Then there was Helen Thomas, 89, a woman born in Kentucky to immigrants from Tripoli, Lebanon. Freedman wrote of Thomas, a Hearst Newspapers reporter, as the "Patron Saint of White House Correspondents." For seven decades she was "setting standards for quality journalism and demolishing barriers for women in the work place." American statesman Benjamin Franklin said, "It takes many good deeds to build a good reputation, and only one bad one to lose it." According to the website rabbilive.com, on May 27, 2010, outside the Jewish Heritage Celebration Day event at the White House, there was an exchange between Thomas and Rabbi David Nesenoff, an independent filmmaker who runs the website. Nesenoff asked Thomas for comments on Israel. Thomas replied, "Tell them to get the hell out of Palestine ... go home." Nesenoff pressed, "Where is the home?" Thomas replied, "Poland. Germany ... And America and everywhere else." Thomas' comments were posted on the rabbi's website and drew widespread criticism. On her website, Thomas posted an apology: "I deeply regret my comments I made last week regarding the Israelis and the Palestinians. They do not reflect my heart-felt belief that peace will come to the Middle East only when all parties recognize the need for mutual respect and tolerance. May that day come soon." On June 7, Thomas tendered her resignation. The day after, President Obama called her retirement "the right decision" and told NBC's "Today Show" that Thomas' remarks were "offensive" and "out of line" and that it was a "shame" her celebrated career had to end this way. Freedman wrote Thomas "has uttered hurtful comments about Israel. They have cost Ms. Thomas her job ... have diminished her reputation and prompted criticism of her ... all appropriate." "Yet, who among us does not have strong feelings about the endless warfare in the Middle East? Who among us has not said something we have come to regret?" asked Freedman. He wrote: "Helen Thomas has now shown that most dreaded of vulnerabilities -- she is human." "We didn't kill the umpire (Jim Joyce) then. Let's not destroy Ms. Thomas now." It's too late. Both stories are just stories. Their lessons for life are invaluable. *A. Gaffar Peang-Meth, Ph.D., is retired from the University of Guam, where he taught political science for 13 years. Write him at **[email protected] * <[email protected]>*. * http://www.guampdn.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/201006160300/OPINION02/6160318 -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Cambodia Discussion (CAMDISC) - www.cambodia.org" group. This is an unmoderated forum. 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