Massacrechusetts / 1-23-10

No, I didn't work for Martha Coakley's campaign - I KNOW how to spell the state I live in, and even a few of the other ones. (What's that now you say about Tennesee?)

After Massachusetts voters replaced Teddy Kennedy this week with some dude who vowed to help tear down what Kennedy spent a lifetime trying to achieve, some despondency may be allowed among Democrats, or people who could use health care but can't get it, or people with kids, or people with compassion, or people who think the Republicans deserve more than one year in the wilderness for trying to bankrupt the country, or people with souls.

Well, I'd like to offer the mature response to losing that race. Right after I offer the juvenile one. (Notice I've already started with the juvenile name-calling portion. But on with it.)

I hate you Scott Brown! I hate you Massachusetteritianites! I hate you Martha Coakley! I hate you MA legislature for messing with the process! I hate you George W. Bush! (Just for old times' sake.)

Rage levels back to normal. Mature response in 3, 2, 1...

I. Brown will not last as a MA Senator with a hard-right agenda. He'll get booted. Ben Nelson survives in Nebraska only because he's a very, very, very centrist Democrat. Bluer-than-the-sky Rhode Island kept Republican Lincoln Chafee around for a long time because he liked to split the difference between the parties, and voters will respect that. Heck, Maine has two GOP Senators, somewow. (That last word was supposed to be "somehow," but I like the typo better.) So if Brown lasts for two-plus years - his term ends in 2012 - then it's not precisely the end of the entire whole wide wide world. He can't be a filibuster machine and keep his seat.

II. Democrats had better start fielding some decent candidates. Coakley failed to campaign after winning the primary, failed to connect with voters, took them for granted, and screwed up important stuff like Red Sox history. I'm completely serious, that's not OK in New England. Despite the fact she got herself elected AG not too long ago, she self-destructed, managing to lose a state Obama won 62-36 and where he still enjoyed a 15-point positive approval rating AMONG VOTERS WHO CAST BALLOTS ON TUESDAY.

III. This comes on the heels of Democrats losing two governor's races in November; one of those they had no business winning, that being Virginia, and the other one they had no business losing, that being New Jersey. But both times, the candidates were deeply flawed. In NJ, Jon Corzine's entire campaign seemed to be "My Opponent Is A Fat Slob," which might have been factually accurate, but was only serving the purpose of concealing Corzine's own past as CEO of Goldman Sachs... and in the throes of the financial meltdown and its aftershocks, he might as well have worn swastikas while happily sodomizing a statue of Lenin.

Over in Virginia, Craigh Deeds sucked. I don't want to elaborate. Seething might resume.

The last three Democrats to seek high-profile elected office have been complete stooges. It's really, really, really past time for that crap to come to an end. Really, Democrats? Really? Really??

IV. Some have called Brown's victory a referendum on health care. Balderdash. For one, Massachutypes already have universal health care, as set up by their Republican governor, once upon a time. Furthermore, if the President is viewed favorably by a strong majority of voters there, choosing a guy who'd clearly pledged to poke his finger in Obama's eye, that choice can't be about health care as much as everyone says. No, this was about the two candidates in the race, in large part. Of course, that's easy to say for the anti-Brown crowd.

V. Special elections are weird. Sh!t happens. The Republican dropped out and endorsed the Democrat in a congressional race in upstate NY last year. If one thinks one knows what's going to happen in one of these hastily arranged shindigs, one should rethink one's presuppositions. Just saying.

VI. It's not a good time to be an incumbent. Coakley was viewed, fairly or not, as the incumbent, due to party affiliation. Timing sucks sometime. She might have managed to eke out a win, warts and idiocy and all, this coming November. Or the previous one. Hard to say.

VII. The health-care bill was nothing special, from a traditionally liberal viewpoint. No public option, not even a public option with an opt-out or opt-in mechanism for states. No employer mandate. Lots of help for the poor and uninsured, but kind of a bummer for folks who don't want coverage. Granted, forcing insurers to insure everyone, regardless of pre-existing conditions, that would have been a step in the right direction, and a journey of a thousand miles begins with blah blah blah cliche blah blah blah (I'm such a piss-poor bad Taoist right now), but the bill was extremely incremental. To lose it sucks, but we're not dismantling Medicaid or anything drastic along those lines.

Wish I could say I felt better. At least I feel more grown up.

(I apologize profusely for the total lack of links in this post. I'm trusty. You can believe me when I say there are no glaring factual errors here; I saved them all for my other posts.)

Spring Bowl / 1-22-10

Remember the NFL's Pro Bowl?

Nah, me neither. I almost never watch it. For many years, it was held, rumor has it, on the week following the Big Game, in Hawai'i. Great way to end the season. Except everyone everywhere was all footballed out by then, including the Pro Bowlers themselves, so players skipped it, a bunch of injured superstar players skipped it out of necessity, and it's a freakin' exhibition. So lots of folks copied my original idea and failed to tune in to the game. In response to that well-deserved apathy, this year the league placed the Pro Bowl a week BEFORE the title game, in an effort to draw more attention and coverage.

Only now, a similar set of problems remains. It's still an exhibition. Injured players are still out. And players involved in the championship game get a pass... which could mean 15 players, or 20 percent of the entire roster, could opt out if Indianapolis and Minnesota win on Sunday. That's a joke.

Well, I have a drastic solution, which may not help one iota, but if the patient is terminal, it's not as if a few sessions of experimental treatment are going to harm the prognosis. It's been said before: Let's try that crazy thing. It'll either kill him or he'll get better. (Why yes, I have watched four seasons of "House." Why do you ask?)

Play the game in the spring. In mid-April. Yes, two-plus months AFTER the Big Game. (I can't even type the words "Super Bowl" without express written consent of the NFL, or my pants will be sued right off of me, which wouldn't be that terrible anyway since the webcam is broken. But anyway, enough Super Bowl chat.) Mid-April also happens to be four months before the preseason. It's right in the middle of nothing, sort of, for the players at least.

Because granted, this little thing called "the draft" is in late April, so some front offices like to use April to, you know, prepare 23 hours a day to select the wrong guy. That being said, several teams, including the suddenly inept Seahawks, hold April mini-camps, so many players are accustomed to some action that month. And scheduling the game before the draft allows for panicky teams to react a freak injury to their star left tackle, an event which, I'm told, can happen during actual football plays.

And now we're getting to the real problem with the Pro Bowl. Football players get hurt. The game is violent and demanding, even at the 50 percent speed utilized by Pro Bowl participants. If you're going to hold an exhibition, it needs to be as far removed from the season as possible, both to maximize participation and maximize potential recovery time.

And our collective national football hangover is usually done by April. Players have enjoyed multiple months off, and only a small amount of them have been arrested for shooting people. Baseball's opening days are through, the NBA and NHL have just embarked on their endless playoffs. The weather is even nice in places other than Hawai'i, Florida and California. You could have the game in almost any NFL stadium, even those places deemed "unfit" for the Big Game. (I'm not bitter or anything. Well, yes, I'm incensed.)

If you're going to play it at all, try it in April. Not that I'll watch anyway.

P.S. Super Bowl Super Bowl Super Bowl Super Bowl ... Bite me Goodell!

Supreme Corp. / 1-22-10

On Friday, the "Supreme" Court of the United States of America took a bold step, removing limits on how much dough corporations can donate to candidates for federal office.

You read that right. And the Court needs to swiftly find a way to undo this gross miscarriage of justice. I would call it practically an abortion of justice, but that would be tacky, so I'll leave that unsightly, inappropriate simile to some other angry blogger somewhere.

But maybe you disagree with me. Maybe you even like the ruling. Which is fine, kind of.

Perhaps you believe strongly that campaigns should be privately financed, out of fiscal responsibility. That's totally cool. Not everyone thinks public financing cuts down on corruption or the appearance of corruption, which is, after all, pretty ugly as well. Intelligent people disagree on this issue.

But surely you don't think businesses are people? I mean, they are run by people and occasionally employ people (in decent economic times), but they're entities, organizations, not humans.

Oh, you think that too? I guess I'll have to concede that debate is possible here, especially after Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote on Friday that corporations are entitled to the same definition of free speech as citizens are. His words: "By suppressing the speech of manifold corporations, both for-profit and non-profit, the government prevents their voices and viewpoints from reaching the public and advising voters on which persons or entities are hostile to their interests." Equating the "rights" of corporations to actual human citizens of the United States seems like a stretch, but Tony's not exactly a dimwit all of the time. You can take his side if it makes sense to you.

But surely you don't think certain elected officials should be bankrolled by one or two business? Surely you could envision a problem or two arising from that setup?

And surely you don't think Joe Shareholder should have to watch HIS company stuff the campaign coffers of some random candidate? Especially if he and his wife Jane S. are both virulently opposed to that candidate's agenda?

For that matter, surely you don't think taxpayer-owned GM ought to toss a $3 million check to some influential Democratic politician who can help shape policy in a way advantageous to the nationalized car company?

But surely you don't think individuals should be marginalized from the fund-raising process and made to feel powerless?

Oh. All of that is fine? OK.

But SURELY you can't be in favor of compromising national sovereignty?

Consider the Seattle Mariners. Yes, the baseball team. They're owned by Nintendo. Should the M's be allowed to pony up $2 million for a candidate who promises them a sweetheart deal of some sort? Should a bunch of Japanese businessmen, with whom I have no quarrel whatsoever, be able to practically own a lawmaker?

And that's a pretty tame example. So let's go a little farther. PDVSA is the Venezuelan oil company owned and operated by that country's government. Hugo Chavez, a name you might recognize, essentially runs that little business, which has some cash on hand from time to time... they do sell some oil here and there. How about they throw in a few million bones here or there to some guys and gals on the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources. How does that sound?

OK, now I'm fine with you defending the court's decision. Especially since I've established that you hate democracy, don't mind the appearance of corruption, are against the little guy while also not respecting shareholders, and to top it off, you oppose national security. In which case, I no longer can help you.

I feel like I should rest my case or something.

But here's one more post-scriptic comment, of high importance: the decision came down 5-4. For all the flak President Obama takes from the far left flank of the population, it's worth remembering that the kind of justice he will nominate will tend to dissent with the current Roberts-led majority.

And while I wish Obama to nominate at least one more justice, that's also part of the problem. The Court is far, far, far, far too partisan. Lifetime appointments are no longer having the effect sought by the Founding Fathers. A change in how we put people on the SCOTUS is in order. But that's a different post, better executed on a day I'm not nearly so incensed.

Can We Please Call Them "The Singles"? / 01-01-10

Not a retrospective, per se, on the decade that ended last night. Instead, an effort by yours truly to gain worldwide acclaim and fame.

A brief aside: I am aware that technically, the first decade of this millennium spans the years 2001 THROUGH 2010, but fighting that fight is a one-finned upstream swim against a waterfall of apathy and incredulity. It is not the good fight.

No, this is my attempt to give the decade a less lame name. (There's a junior high poem or a bad pop-rock rhyme in there somewhere.)

Previous attempts at naming the period from 2000 through 2009 have been... well... less than wildly successful, and less than universally embraced, and tinged with negativity. I've heard them called the Double Zeroes, the Aughts, the Naughts, and my personal favorite, the Naughties. The New York Times conducted a "Name that Decade" contest in November. That fizzled somewhat. The website namethedecade.com offers some semi-palatable choices. No clear winners. You can vote for your fave over there, though.

I have a better option, but before we get to it, why not just go with the "Naughties"? I mean, it's fun to say. Any time you can use the word "naughty" without it applying to your toddler, that's a win.

Furthermore, it rhymes nicely with the "Eighties" and the "Nineties" and other such decade names while using a variant of zero. It's very snazzy so far.

And finally, it's somewhat historically appropriate: It's not as if (naught as if? tee hee) the past decade lacked in antiheroes. Enron. WorldCom. FEMA and Katrina. Madoff. Osama. Predatory lenders. Torture memo writers. Warmongers. Pick your poison: politicians, performers, pro athletes, popular icons; such people pooped the public party practically perpetually.

So I like the Naughties, but that's not going to catch on. It's too irreverent to go mainstream and become the decade's "official" name. It's not going to be used by historians a century from now. It's a judgment, not a title.

But this can work: The Singles.

Let's try it on for size.

Concise? Yep. Two syllables, like the other decade names.

Currently in circulation? Nope. Found "The Single Digits," but that's too cumbersome.

Confusing? Only if your conversation was centered on one-dollar bills or unmarried folks.

Culturally transportable? Yep. If a subculture uses positive integers, and it seems most humans have indeed grasped that concept, then it fits your background no matter what.

Numerical? Yep. We're not trying to call it "the iDecade," as one over-clever soul has proposed.

Now does it rhyme with the other decades? Nope. Fail. But that's its only drawback. Well, it is, I'll admit, bland. But "the Sixties" only sounds exciting because of the sex-drugs-rock'n'roll connotations; otherwise, it's just a set of numbers.

Anyway. That's all I have. Please provide feedback. Thanks! Happy New Decade! Especially if you're like most folks, and are glad the Singles are over.

P.S. I'd like to extend Honorable Mention awards to "The Ohs" and "The Techade," although neither rise to a catchy, universal, easily usable, culturally transportable level.