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.

Way More Important Than Climate Change / 12-18-09

I'm not the first person in the world to propose something like this.

But for the love of Tao, my fellow Americans, isn't a college football playoff system the most overdue thing in all of the sporting world? (Well, besides a championship for any Seattle team.)

So, because I'm smarter than every other sports philosopher who's preceded me, here is my suggestion and it is flawless and airtight and neat and swell and tidy and clever, and no, what do you mean, of course I'm not biased.

Just think - we could use the existing infrastructure to organize a 10-team playoff over three weekends, culminating in a delayed title game, selecting teams in this way (pay attention):

There are six major conferences in which the quality of football played is understood to be vastly superior. (The SEC, Big 12, Pac-10, Big 10, ACC and Big East.) Each of these conference champions earns a playoff ticket. No questions asked. Each receives a first-round bye - straight to the quarterfinals, with only two caveats: unless one such team has three or more losses, or is outranked by five places in the final BCS standings by an unbeaten, untied team from a non-major conference.

Because, yo, let's face it, there are good teams outside of those conferences. Sometimes there are great teams. (Boise State 2006-2007 springs to mind. The dudes who "upset" Oklahoma in that Fiesta Bowl three years ago. Those types of teams should be in, no questions asked.) At the very least, two of these teams, year in, year out, deserve a shot at the national championship. So between two and four playoff berths would be reserved for non-major conference teams who a) won their conference title and b) had one or fewer losses and c) finished in the BCS top 20.

This year, those teams would be BSU and TCU.

There are great teams who fail to win their major conference championships. At least one a year. Sometimes (and by that I mean "often") two.

This year, that team is Florida.

Following a formula such as that outlined above will usually result in finding the 10 best teams in the country. Or at least the 10 most deserving teams. Each one earned a stab at the national title with its performance; none are unworthy.

But people will ask: What about the next best team? What about the ACC's really good runners-up? The Pac-10's next best team? What about Nos. 11 and 12 in the standings?

Answer: Those schools should have won their conference championship this time around, then. Or had a better year than the Gators. Or not lost that crucial league game early on. Or been one of the top 10 in the final BCS standings. How can you claim to be No. 1 in the country at the end of a year when you were never even the best team in your conference at any point of the season?

The calendar would work ideally. The four at-large teams, whose seeds are determined by the BCS formula, would seek to advance by playing in early December, seeds 7 vs. 10 and seeds 8 vs. 9, at the home of the highest-ranked team. The winners would proceed to the quarters around Dec. 20 and then to the semis right after Christmas.

Those quarterfinals would be held at four of the six sites of the Rose, Fiesta, Cotton, Orange, Sugar and Peach Bowls. The semis could be held at a brand-spanking new site (sunny San Diego?) and another of the six. The title game could be held at the last of those six and rotate from bowl to bowl, as it currently does. (The current system actually is kind of smart that way. Accidentally intelligent, to be sure, but that counts too.)

And incidentally, the losers of the at-large round could even play a consolation game somewhere, just for kicks and pride. And cash. Since we're just making it up as we go along.

The title game could be played right around when it is conducted now, between the 4th and the 10th of January.

This year, you'd get a playoff slate consisting of:

Dec. 19, 9 a.m. EDT
At Miami
(3) Cincinnati vs. (6) TCU

Dec. 19, 1 p.m. EDT
At Dallas
(2) Texas vs. winner of (7) Georgia Tech - (10) Iowa

Dec. 19, 5 p.m. EDT
At Pasadena
(4) Oregon vs. (5) Ohio State

Dec. 19, 9 p.m. EDT
At New Orleans
(1) Alabama vs. winner of (8) Florida - (9) Boise State

Dec. 26, 4 p.m. and 8 p.m. EDT
At San Diego and Atlanta
Semifinal winners

Jan. 7, 8 p.m. EDT
At Tempe
Title game

The mind drools.

(Notice how I placed the highest-ranked conference champion in a favorable venue. Remember my above-average smarts I told you about? Notice how Florida is severely penalized for losing its conference title game, but gets a chance at redemption IF it can get past disrespected BSU? Notice how long-undefeated Iowa is punished for that late loss, and faces a daunting challenge, but gets its reward for a terrific season anyway? Notice how TCU leapfrogs ACC champ Ga. Tech because of its sparkling record and No. 4 BCS position? Notice how all FIVE undefeated teams qualified? Notice the Pac-10 vs. Big 10 pairing that dropped into the Rose Bowl's lap?)

All right, clean it up, so I can conclude. The beauties of this system:

1. EVERY team can win the national title at the beginning of the year. That is not true now. A Nevada team that began the season unranked, then went 11-1 and won the WAC would never reach the BCS title game. Not in a million polls. But it could finish 10th in the BCS and earn an at-large bid, thus standing a slim chance under this setup.

2. Bowls can survive - and thrive. The big'uns have to BE the quarterfinal and semifinal games. But the rest will live on unchanged, because they will remain a big deal for each school involved. And the Rose, Orange and others would not lose notoriety for being part of a playoff - they'd still serve as massive rewards for truly outstanding teams each year; their winners would still retain bragging rights; their losers would still claim prestige for having participated in them; and one of them could even BE the title game on a rotating basis. The TV rights would escalate, if anything, and it's not like the games would ever fail to sell out.

3. The regular season continues to mean something. Unlike the NBA, the NHL and yes, college basketball, the pressure to win every week will remain intense. The consequences of a single ill-timed loss will be catastrophic. Borderline teams will be in playoff mode from October on. It's one of the best parts of college football: you have to be outstanding ALL YEAR LONG, and that requirement should persist.

4. The NCAA and the TV stations make incalculable gobs of dough. More than they presently do.

5. The major conferences keep their privileged status. Conference champions are automatically eligible to win the national title; lesser conferences have barricades in place and are limited to four at-large berths - and even then, realistically, it'd be the rare year when three

6. Silly controversy over whether 2009 TCU or 2006 BSU deserves a title shot would disappear and be replaced with good controversy, like whether the ACC was really a "major" conference this year.

I rest my case.

How Long / 12-15-09

I promise, this post is tangentially connected to politics, so it's not off-topic.

Because breaking my own self-imposed rules would be rude. To me.

Below lies a list of institutions present in our society. Next to each rests two figures; the first one is that institution's age, while the second is the percentage of the lifetime of our nation that the institution has existed. Finally, I post a bit of trivia about each item.

(I count the "birth" of the nation as the moment all 13 states ratified the U.S. Constitution. That was in May 1790, 209.5 years ago.

Enjoy!

Google / 11.25 yrs / 5.4 percent
"Originally the search engine used the Stanford website with the domain google.stanford.edu. The domain google.com was registered on September 15, 1997. They formally incorporated their company, Google Inc., on September 4, 1998 at a friend's garage in Menlo Park, California." (Culled that from wikipedia. Didn't google it.)

Twitter / 2.67 yrs / 1.3 percent
"The [company's] projections for the end of 2013 were $1.54 billion in revenue, $111 million in net earnings, and 1 billion users." (OK, again from that wikiplace, gotta find a new source.)

Ratification in Mississippi of the 19th Amendment, allowing women to vote / 25.67 years / 12.7 percent
Text of the highly objectionable amendment: "The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation." (Hey, that's the actual text of the amendment, NOT from wikiwiki.) Oh, incidentally, Mississippi legislators also generously made some time to ratify the amendment declaring slavery illegal... in 1995.

50 U.S. States / 50.33 yrs / 24 percent
Hawaii's state flag includes a Union Jack in the upper left corner.

"The Simpsons" / 20 yrs / 9.6 percent
The first episode aired 12-17-89 and was named "Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire."

"The Price is Right" / 53.5 years / 25.5 percent
More than 7,000 episodes have aired.

High Fructose Corn Syrup / 44.67 yrs / 21.3 percent
"The average American consumed approximately 28.4 kg (63 lb) of HFCS in 2005." (Yes, wikipedia, you got me.)

Social Security / 74.33 years / 35.5 percent
The program has collecting its own check for a little more than nine years now!

The Federal Income Tax / 96.83 years / 46.2 percent
I know, sometimes it feels like 46.2 percent. But from 1952-53, if you made more than $400,000, your tax rate was... wait for it... oh yeah... 92 percent. Good times. (Incoming President Dwight Eisenhower, a Republican, predictably lowered it to 91 percent through 1960. Tax cuts. Sheesh.)

Take 5 / 12-07-09

(First things first: Apologies to Dave Brubeck for the headline.)

Here are five quick takes on the three topics that are legal to discuss on this blog. By the way, that holy trinity is comprised of politics, sports and spirituality. In case you hadn't noticed.

I. Health care reform

A bill reforming health care will clear the Senate. Sometime this month or next. It may or may not be a good bill. What's a good bill, you ask? Something that addresses the unethical number of uninsured Americans and something that provides for an avenue for certain folks to purchase government-issued health insurance in certain states; in other words, something that brings down long-term costs to society by accomplishing those two goals.

A great bill would be Medicare For Everyone. That's not on the table, sadly. But with incremental progress, we can get there, and this bill would appear to represent incremental progress in that direction. Just because it doesn't go far enough doesn't make it a bad bill, just a placeholder.

The opposition will not muster the 41 votes necessary to filibuster the bill, whatever form it takes. Filibustering, for the political novices out there, is the act of NOT ending debate on a bill. Debate must end, by a 60-40 or greater vote, for a piece of legislation to be considered for passage. (Even more parenthetically, it is FALSE and UNTRUE and INACCURATE that a bill must receive 60 votes to clear the Senate and head to President Obama's desk. It only needs a simple majority of 51 votes, or failing that, 50 plus Vice President Biden's.) So a very determined group of 40 or more Senators can keep legislation from ever COMING to a vote by filibustering it, but it takes 51 to vote it down once it clears that hurdle. Yes, I'm done with caps lock for a few paragraphs.

In short, not that I have any brevity-ability whatsoever, too many individual Democrats have too much to lose, and by "too much" I mean any position of privilege or leadership or committee chairmanship, by filibustering a bill brought to the floor by their own party. A number of D's may elect to vote against the bill after it clears the filibuster, but they will not commit political suicide by snubbing their self-interested noses at the party leaders. And if one of them does (yes, I'm glaring at you, Joe L.), Obama will pick off one of the Maine Republicans to break ranks.

II. TARP refund

Apparently, of the approximately $97,245 quopthrillion earmarked last year for the bailing out of financial institutions, the government will receive a refund of $200 billion. (Yes, the first figure is a slight slight slight tiny little tiny exaggeration. The second number is accuratish. Truthy, even.)

Early speculation had Obama laundering that money into a jobs bill. Because there seems to be a rumor out there that unemployment is high. Well, BHO said today he's gonna use a chunk of it to pay down the projected budget deficit instead.

This move is either shrewd, concessionary (not an actual word), morally responsible, or a combination of all three. (Always my favorite. The large supreme sans olives.)

Shrewd because it appeals to independents for whom the mounting deficit is alarming. Concessionary because Republicans have hypocritically been clamoring for excess funds to be applied to the gaping budget hole. (This despite the fact that their presidents practically invented the deficit.) And morally responsible because a good way to screw our kids and grandkids over is to leave them with a crippling national debt. We should be teaching them loads and loads of Mandarin, by the way. Just in case.

All three of the above, in 40-25-35 proportions, seems about right.

III. Merriners ad newe thurd basemen

Seeattle whill sine thurd basemen Chone (prunounced "Schawn") Figgins tuah 4-yeer, $36-miliun kontrakt tudde'.

Two out of the last 20 words are spelled right... Yes, Mr. Figgins spells his name so it'll rhyme with scone, just not the way you're necessarily used to saying "scone" unless you're from London, Manchester, Sydney, or North Uppitycrust. Parents are interesting people sometimes.

Anyway. Figgins is awesome. Ichiro-lite with the bat, only with more walks, and a good defender to boot. The M's will annoy their way to many wins this season with those two dudes at the top of the lineup. I look forward to many 32-pitch first innings from the opposing pitcher. Hee hee.

IV. Tiger

Newsflash: Tiger Woods has a penis.

V. Copin' Hagglin'

(One of my best/worst recent puns. Admire it.)

Obama hosted Al Gore in the Oval Office as worldwide climate change talks in Denmark began. Other than providing Fox "News" with a chance to put two of their favorite villians (where was Hillary!?) in the same picture without having to use Photoshop, the meeting was uneventful... except to remind us that for all of Obama's compromising with Republicans, he is committed to addressing climate change from an orthodoxically liberal point of view.

To clarify that hideous sentence, he might ditch the public option, he might work a bunch of tax cuts into a stimulus bill, he might drag his feet on closing the Guantanamo prison, but he's holding the line on climate change. 17 percent cuts in CO2 by 2020 is his short-term goal; that climbs to 83 percent cuts by 2050. This is another reason he has a chance to be the most important/successful President in recent history.

P.S. I had fun with some of the links. Enjoy. Also, I'll try to not go a month between posts again. But no guarantees.

A Quickie But a Goodie / 11-4-09

Going to let this one incubate for a day or two before a full post comes out. Until then, here's some instant reaction.

I'm relieved AND proud AND ashamed at the preliminary election results this time around.

Relief category: R-71 passed. Gay couples (and let's not forget, senior citizens in heterosexual domestic partnerships, too) get to keep their rights. Fred and Ned may not have a marriage certificate to frame and put up on the wall, but they remain equal to a married couple under the law. That's worth celebrating. We are all freer today as a result. A semi-anonymous poster on a popular website put it like this: "It is a travesty that people have to fight for equal rights, when it allegedly already exists. If one group of people, or even one person is being discriminated against and denied rights, then none of us are truly free."

Relief bonus: While counted ballots gave R-71 only a 51-49 edge at 1 a.m., it's estimated that most of the uncounted votes are from King County, where the ballot measure enjoys a 2-1 advantage in the Yes column. So it's going to pass.

Pride category: I'd just started to read a Danny Westneat column on the historical progression of gay rights when he delivered this nugget: "it appears Washington state will be the first in America to approve a gay-equality measure not by court fiat or legislative action, but by the direct will of the people. It's never happened before. If the slim lead holds for the gay-partnership law Referendum 71, it would be a landmark."

That floors me. Several states permit same-sex marriage. If Dannyboy's research is money, it IS a big deal. I'll work on confirming that.

Shame category: Somewhere along the lines of 49 percent of the electorate opted to REMOVE rights from a set of citizens. I can almost understand why homophobes would vote to not GIVE rights to gay couples. An initiative along the lines of "Should we the people of Washington state extend every right enjoyed by married couples to gay couples?" is going to cause folks to hide their bigotry behind excuses. Lame excuses like "marriage is a privilege, not a right" and "marriage holds the fabric of our society together, its rights are not to be disseminated." People can rationalize anything they set their heart to, provided they have some sort of cover.

But to take away someone's rights... that's hard to pass off as anything but contempt for the basic humanity of the gay man and woman. There's no excuse for that attitude. There's no fancy hiding behind fancy reasoning available there. That kind of hatred is exposed, obvious, naked. And somehow, half of us in this state chose that option. Disgusting.

(I'll weigh in on the rest of the election results later, specifically on how R's need to temper their glee at taking the VA and NJ governorships, and how D's need to not get too worked up about their two wins in House races.)

Socialist Networking / 10-29-09

I conducted a little experiment earlier today. Used my friends. The willing ones. Although they might not have known what they were getting into.

I asked any facebook friends of mine to word associate with the term "socialism." Give me your first thought when you see or hear the word, I asked. And no repeating what the person before you said.

It seemed like a worthwhile little game. After hearing foaming-at-the-mouth politicians / commentators / Fox "News" pundits call out the Obama administration and the president himself for "socialism," always in a tone reserved for war criminals, I decided I should decode what they mean by "socialist." Or should I say, what they want other people to hear when they use the term.

I know what socialism actually signifies in theory - I've done a smattering of research on the topic, and there is the fact that I lived for under a president who belonged to the Socialist Party, under a government headed by a socialist prime minister, and for 10 years at that. (Granted, that was in France. But it counts.) The real definition of the word does not elude me. No, I wanted to know what it means in perception. Which is the only reality that counts, given the way the word has been tossed around in the past year.

Anyway, on with the facebook buddy results.

"control"
"Bread lines"
"De-individualization"
"communism (in drag)"
"Denmark"
"facebook"
"despair"
"healthcare"
"Communally mediocre, shared averageness, mutually middling."
"England... probably due to their socialized healthcare""
"homogeneity, incentiveless, boring, lowest common denominator, unwieldy, inertia, 'for your own good,' involuntary, lazy, shackles, one size fits all"
"dreamslayer, freeloaders, demotivator, entitlement, behemoth, fear, control, bureaucracy, big government, security over potential, lack of competition"
"Capitalism's Yin"

Lots of good stuff there. Let me give out some awards, before I pretend to attach some substance to this post.

Most Ironic
Ryan G. with "facebook"

Most Scenic (tie)
Rob R. for "bread lines"; Amy J. for "communism in drag"

Most In Need of Hug and/or Attention in General
Mason V. for "despair" and assorted other entries

Most Erudite
Kim F. for "mutually middling" and "de-individualization"

Most Continental (tie)
Angie B. and "Denmark"; Christine S. and "England"

Most Timely
Elena S., "healthcare"

Quickest Draw
Noah S. with "control"

Best In Show
Matt L. with "Capitalism's Yin"

The short of it: Socialism appears to get generally a bad rap in the highly representative and oh-so diverse subset of humans known as "John F.'s bored thirtysomething facebook friends of mostly Caucasian descent, many of whom live in one of the reddest states in the union."

So if the cries of "Obama's a socialist!" are aimed exactly at people afraid of socialism creeping into public policy, that sounds like an effective tool. The accuracy of the charge is irrelevant. The tactic appears sound. As long as you're trying to rile up the troops.

(*Tangent Warning* By the way, folks using "socialist" as an insult are of course following in a long tradition of misuse of the word. Who can forget the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics? The bad guys from the Cold War get double points for using two misnomers in the name of their country. Republics? Not so much. Socialist? Puh-leeze. They could have done us all a favor and called the whole thing the Flimsy Union of Communist Kremlin Egomaniacal Russian Sociopaths, although that would have looked really bad on their sports uniforms. My real-life favorite: The Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka. Put that in your pipe and smoke it.)

Amy J. touches tangentially on this semantic issue with the "in drag" comment. As evidenced by 30 seconds of research, communism and socialism differ substantially, but socialism sounds less threatening, so purportedly Marxist governments embrace it for their public face. It's more benign. Less incendiary. (Unless Sean Hannity is using it.) And while it's true that Chucky Marx himself envisioned socialism as a bridge to communism, which makes it fair to call socialism a kind of communism in disguise, or a communism-lite, that's not the way it's played out historically in Western Europe, where socialist governments have coexisted with capitalistic market forces for decades.

Which brings us to Matt L.'s delectable image of socialism as the Yin to capitalism's Yang. And so it has been in our nation's history. While we let the free market do its thing in many areas, we also have redistributed wealth as long as taxes have existed. Not with the aim of bringing about perfect equality between the rich and the poor, or of ushering in a worker's paradise, but with the notion that government intervention is sometimes necessary to rein in the excesses of unbridled capitalism. I present to you the IRS, Medicare, the coming shape of health care reform and FDR's body of work. Oh, and the FCC, the FEC, the FDA, food stamps, Medicaid, the estate tax, and a gwillion other things.

Just as the Yang would cease to exist without the Yin, and vice versa, our democratic society would come apart at the seams without the key socialistic principle of "public control of productive capital and natural resources." It's imperative that certain amounts of capital and resources be controlled by the government. So they can be managed not for profit, but instead redistributed out of compassion for our poorest and most helpless segments of our population.

On the other hand, clearly the state may not control all capital, unless that government's goal is to enrich its leaders while paving the way for an economic meltdown.

We've come to the time for a brief definition of socialism, so I visited that Wiktionary place, whose definition neatly mirrors the Webster's one, and happens to be the clearest one I could drudge up: "Any of various political philosophies that support social and economic equality, collective decision-making, and public control of productive capital and natural resources." Terrifying stuff. Economic security for all citizens. Power not concentrated among the few, but spread among the many. Safeguards in place to prevent the rape of the environment. Gotta steer clear from that anti-American madness.

I'm all out of sarcasm. So I'll leave you with this bonus fun fact: Bernie Sanders, the independent junior senator from Vermont, describes himself as a democratic socialist.

Bumper Stinker & Wishful Thinking / 10-19-09

I know this is not going to elevate public discourse.

And I know the person who put this on their 11-mpg "car" was merely trying to be cute.

I also know better than to debate a frakking bumper sticker.

But still...

"It's God's Job To Judge The Terrorists
It's Our Job To Facilitate The Meeting"

Anyone else seen this one? I glimpsed it for the first time today. And of course, I was suckered into taking it as a serious statement, which it isn't. I mean, the driver just wants to express her/his dislike of dislikable people. And while "Sure Hate International Terrorism" might make a great acronym, it isn't nearly snappy enough. Also falling flat: "I Disapprove Heavily of Terror-Based Violent Activity" or "Suicide Bombers Are Mean Bullies."

How are we supposed to be "the good guys" if we relinquish the moral high ground? And in this case, the moral high ground is, don't treat humans like disposable waste or expendable political statements. I can hear the driver right now: "But they don't deserve to live." And there goes your moral high ground. Fell right out of your gas-guzzler and cracked its head open on the pavement.

Which goes right to the point I've been making since before the Iraq invasion, to all three people who have to listen to me on a consistent basis. You can't defeat violence with violence.

The link here, from the Washington Post, tells the story of how Iraqi deaths, due to violence or combat, through 2007, were estimated at 600,000, then revised to 150,000, give or take 50,000. I quote the larger figure first, just to see if the smaller figure is comforting. It is not.

Responding to 9/11 with a military operation that has claimed uncertain numbers of lives was exactly the wrong message to send, if your message was that we are morally superior to the terrorists. (Now if your intention was to seize the moment to make an oil grab for you and your buddies, under the pretense of overthrowing a dangerous dictator, then this was your golden opportunity. Nicely done.)

But if your intention had been to smoke out and/or fight those directly responsible for 9/11, you could have done that far more surgically AND spent a trillion dollars in the Middle East on improving access to education for all, developing mutually beneficial trade agreements, building hospitals and bridges and making lots and lots of microloans. Who knows? By doing so, you might even have begun to win that so-called "war on terror," by fighting it in a way that preserves the moral high ground, the respect and cooperation of our wealthy allies, and your own souls. Also, we might win with that strategy. Hard to tell when we're "winning" and "losing" these days.

You could have even gone ahead and borrowed that trillion dollars from our grandchildren. I don't care, call it an investment in the distant future, whatever. Instead, all you went and did is sank to the terrorists' level. Someday, we're going to pay for that decision, and not just economically.