Mind your manners......

I attended, tonight, an interesting event. I spent the evening in the Hinckley building with some wonderful company learning about what constitutes good and bad manners. When I'm alone with my inner monologue, I have very strong feelings regarding manners and etiquette in general.

I'm convinced that proper etiquette started as a way for the erudite to maintain their status. Someone at our table made a brilliant comment when asked who invents these rules of etiquette. He said that some king somewhere probably started spooning his soup away from him and all of the King's Yes-men noticed. Poof!! A new etiquette "rule" is born.

WIth every new etiquette rule comes an opportunity to judge a man or woman by a basis other than their inner character. While it's true that Jesus observed traditions of the Jews, he also taught against elaborate outward appearances. I don't want to imply that the event wasn't very impressive and informative. It was both of those things. It just seems objectionable that judgments can be made about a person by observing how they eat a roll.

But reality dictates that some people form impressions of people based on etiquette. It's a part of the game of management and business.

And I can play that game.

Just a few notes about tonight's fantastic game with the Warriors.

• Steve Nash ought to be nicknamed Bill the Butcher. After watching tonight's third and fourth quarters, I realized how good he is with daggers.......Great second half, no turnovers, carried the Suns for stretches. Came back in the game and immediately revived a stagnant Suns offense in the fourth. The Suns showed great poise, and constantly turned back a maddeningly resilient team of Warriors. Great game....
  

• Charles Barkley thinks that the Suns have no chance in the playoffs. He said after the Suns game that no team of seeds 5-8 has a chance to make it out of the west. His reasoning?
  The teams 1-4 are too hard to have to beat three rounds in a row. Ok, that's a fair point. But the talking Krispy Kreme went on to comment that a top team can lose a couple games and find themselves fall down the standings. This is because the West is so ridiculously packed with good teams. Has it ocurred to Charles that if only a couple games separate 1 from 8 (A reality at this moment), maybe any team in the West has a chance to take out any other team? Is it possible that the teams are so close because they're all dangerous teams. Is there any one team that is head and shoulders above everyone else? The answer, friends, is no.

Teams 5-8 in the West are capable of taking out any of the 1-4 teams.