Favre

Question: Is there a professional athlete more loathsome than Brett Favre?

Answer: No.

This one is for Erik

It seems that Civil War reenactments just aren't enough anymore.

Who wants to be Charlie?

Has Labor Been Left Hanging?

At the risk of diving in here when I haven't been posting much to self-promote, my first story is up at the Nation's site. It's about the Philadelphia Museum of Art security guards and their struggles to unionize, and how they're a great example of the need for the Employee Free Choice Act.

There's kind of a dearth of interest in labor issues among the "netroots," as I noticed when Arlen Specter had to bring up EFCA himself while being questioned at Netroots Nation. I've always been proud that this blog tries to address these issues, and while I'm nowhere near as knowledgeable as Erik is when it comes to union history and organizing, I try to do my part. Anyway, here's the beginning and please read the whole piece over there.

The Philadelphia Museum of Art is a recognizable icon even to those who have never set foot in the city. Immortalized in the movie Rocky, when a sweatsuit-clad Sylvester Stallone bounded up the stairs while training for his big fight, the museum became a symbol of the working-class tenacity that Philadelphians are known for.

On September 6, those steps will host a different kind of blue-collar battle: the museum security guards will be holding a rally in support of the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) and their right to form a union.

Well, here's one problem...

The local paper here did a sampling of people's opinions about healthcare reform. Here is one:

"I heard that if this passes, then everyone is going to eventually be forced to get government health care and I don't want that. I don't have it right now, but that's by choice. I don't want anyone telling me that I have to get it and pay for it."

Except that when this person has even a minor problem-- say, a fracture or a really nasty cut-- where is he going to go? To the ER. If he can't pay for the ER visit, the hospital eats it and has to make the money up somewhere else (like by raising the prices for services to people with insurance and inflating the skyrocketing price of insurance for those who are lucky enough to have it and responsible enough to have it if they can get it). If this person has a catastrophic illness, well, the financial consequences for the system are dire.

Of course, most people that don't have healthcare lack it because they can't afford it; I'm taking issue specifically with people like the guy quoted above, because it brings to the fore one of the more important aspects of the healthcare debate: a mandate. Even the craziest teabagging Neanderthal should be able to realize that the current healthcare system deincentivizes an individual (especially a young, healthy person) from getting insurance. After all, younger people tend to be healthier, get sick less, and treat various injuries or mildly serious illnesses at the ER. This raises costs for everyone. Having the healthiest demographic in the insurance pool is essential to driving costs down.

Socialism! Big government telling me I have to buy something that I'm willing to chance living without! Big brother! Right? Well, think of the parallel. The government forces you to buy car insurance, doesn't it? Why? So that when you do something that costs other people money (like plowing into their car), you have the financial ability (through your insurance) to pay for it. I wish people like the guy in the paper would take three seconds and make this connection; one that a particularly sharp second grader would be able to make handily.

Bill Cahir

Back before the Pennsylvania primaries, I interviewed Bill Cahir, then running in the Democratic primary for Pennsylvania's 5th District Congressional seat. He was a thoughtful, eloquent candidate, sharing his positions on media consolidation and making a case for single-payer health care as well as elaborating on the best way for the US to get out of Iraq.

Bill Cahir was killed in Afghanistan on Thursday, according to the Washington Post.

Cahir had to get an age deferment to join up with the Marines after September 11, 2001, but he felt that it was the right thing to do. When we spoke, he was still trying to do the best thing for America, and he died still serving his country. He would have made an excellent congressman, and I truly had hoped that he would run for office again.

Before signing up with the Marines, Cahir was a journalist, and he returned to reporting after his tour of duty in Iraq, before deciding to run for Congress. I stumbled across the news story by accident today while fact-checking a piece for the Nation and it brought me up short: I have several friends who've served in Iraq and Afghanistan, but no one (thank whatever you believe in) has yet been killed. I only spoke to Cahir once, but it brought the war back home to me.

Every death in Afghanistan and Iraq is tragic and unnecessary, and Cahir's is sadly not out of the ordinary. My interview with him is here, if you're interested.

Perhaps, a raucous town hall for Obama?

In the aftermath of the scream matches and slugfests that have peppered town hall meetings by Democratic senators around the country, what the president encountered at his health care town hall in Portsmouth on Tuesday seemed like a peaceful PTA meeting.

For one, he is the president (and even though it seems unlikely considering the brouhaha we’ve witnessed all around, the weight of the office might quell even the most angry, irrational protester just a tiny bit); two, there was a tightly controlled ticketing process; and three, it was New Hampshire.

The Montana town hall planned this afternoon will likely be quite different – it's less controlled since tickets are being handed out on a first come, first serve basis, and well, it’s Montana.

Hundreds have been waiting in lines since Wednesday afternoon for tickets. There are reports of organized protests around the Gallatin Field hangar in the town of Belgrade, where Obama will hold the town hall. The group planning the protests is connected to Americans for Prosperity, now infamous for its involvement in the “tea party” protests on Tax Day.

Obama plans to hold another town hall in Grand Junction, Colorado on Saturday, and tickets are being issued through an online lottery.

It might actually work in favor of the administration if Obama were to be confronted with tough absurd questions. He certainly seemed to be itching for some form of contention at the almost-subdued town hall on Tuesday. Outrageous questions from protesters might give him a chance to better quell these ridiculous assertions on national TV, if the protesters give him a chance to actually answer them, that is. Obama also seems to do really well with the dry wit he often uses to tackle obviously preposterous claims. But then again, those who see the obvious preposterousness, don't necessarily need a refutation.

RIP - Rashied Ali

This death affects me way more than Les Paul's death, which is garnering all the press. Ali was drummer for my favorite Coltrane albums, as well as doing two of my favorite albums ever, duets with Coltrane (Interstellar Space) and violinist the Leroy Jones Duo (Swift Are the Winds of Life). So while the world mourns Les Paul today (and righlty so), hopefully it will give due respect to the loss not of just another jazz musician, but one of the greatest jazz drummers ever.

I'm totally rooting for Harvard this year in the Yale-Harvard football game

Here's why.

It seems the venerable Yale University Press has made an editorial decision to censor the Danish cartoon depictions of Mohamed that caused the big brouhaha in 2006 in a forthcoming book. Bad, yes. What's worse? The book, by Jytte Klausen, is about those same cartoons. The book is entitled The Cartoons that Shook the World. Except you don't actually get to see the cartoons-- taking it a step further, not only did Yale UP ban the inflammatory cartoons from 2006, but all depictions of Mohamed in the entire book. I hadn't realized that sharia law was in effect in New Haven.

Fear was the only reason, it seems. A Yale UP official is quoted in the linked article saying that "when it came between that [printing the cartoons] and blood on my hands, there was no question”. Thus, one of the world's great academic presses has been bullied by a bunch of unabashed idiots who hurt people and destroy things over mean-spirited drawings of their magical being. Giving into fears of extremist reprisal makes for really bad policy. Remember, say, most of this decade? Still, the argument went as such: the cartoons are available on the 'Tubes and can be described in words, thus including them would be an unnecessary affront (or, "gratuitous"). This seems fairly shallow to me; after all, the author of the book, an expert on the controversy, wanted them included. Putting them on the cover might have been gratuitous; omitting them completely is cowardice of the worst kind. I would wager that one would be hard pressed to find a single academic book about political cartoons that didn't reprint cartoons.

Go Harvard*! Boo Yale!

* pending my becoming aware of some objectionable act of cowardice and supplication of stupid people on the part of Harvard

Fifteen Years Ago...

The 1994 baseball strike began this exact day, 15 years ago. On that day, I was devastated (even though people saw it coming) - for the first time in my life the Indians were in the running, just one game behind Chicago. Of course, my heartbreak is nothing to the former (and continuing) fans of the Montreal Expos, who were baseball's best team that year and who never recovered from the strike.

It's been a weird 15 years - the Indians' heartbreaks in 1995 and 1997, the agony of Yankee hegemony returning, a recent spate of unlikely World Series Champions (Boston and the Chisox back-to-back, with more than 80 years of championship drought; the Marlins [ugh], twice [UGH]), and of course, the steroids era's rise and fall, for better (it did help bring fans back) and worse (look where we are now, with all the talk of "asterisks" and the shadow over those years). It all certainly makes one look back and wonder what the future of baseball holds. Hopefully, strikes or lockouts are not a part of that future....

Switching from the Newer Version of York to the Newer Version of Mexico

As I mentioned before, I'm relocating from New York to New Mexico, starting the 2000 mile drive tomorrow. I will miss New York some, but not as much as I thought I would - if the gross inequalities between cost of living and money I earned weren't a frustration big enough to help me say goodbye to NYC, then the movers charging almost 3 times what they said it would cost and letting me know this only after the truck was loaded definitely made the departure from New York less bittersweet. I expect my second go-round in New Mexico to not be as love-hate (though they may be false expectations). At any rate, I don't have internet up in my new place yet, either, so blogging will be light from me for the next couple weeks.

Rove's role in the firing of Iglesias - certainly more than a "conduit"

After having dodged legal and political processes all along, Karl Rove has finally been implicated (sort of) directly in the firing of David Iglesias, the former U.S. attorney of New Mexico.

The House Judiciary Committee released over 5000 pages of White House and RNC correspondence, along with transcripts of testimonies by both Rove and Harriet Miers that happened behind closed doors.

Documents show that an email from Rove’s Aide Scott Jennings specifically broached the subject of firing Iglesias. “I would really like to move forward with getting rid of NM US ATTY,” it said. If that isn’t explicit, I don’t know what is.

While Miers mentioned in her testimony that Rove had complaints against the former U.S. Attorney, including indicating that he thought he was a "serious problem" and would have liked to have something done about it, she refused to specifically state what role Rove had played in his dismissal.

In addition, there was abundant proof in the documents that the subject was being elaborately discussed by Rove’s office. Another of Jennings’ emails stated that Iglesias was hesitant about the “job on Madrid,” an obvious indication that the former U.S. Attorney had refused to press voter fraud claims against Democrat Patricia Madrid to help propel Congresswoman Heather Wilson in her re-election race.

Finally, there was also a Miers’ email stating that the White House had made a decision to fire the attorney.

This is as clear a sequence of events of how things transpired as we can get.

We all recall how Rove repeatedly maintained his innocence (after defying a subpoena, being found in contempt of Congress, and finally agreeing to closed-door hearings). Last month, he insisted that he was merely a “conduit” of complaints and grievances from lawmakers in a controversial joint interview to the New York Times and the Washington Post.

This is no simple conduit, that's for sure.

Eric Mangini Thinks He's More Important than the Browns

Eric Mangini is apparently dissatisfied with the Browns' continued survival, and is trying to run them into the ground once and for all with his egoism and his stupid decisions. Have I mentioned I hate Scamgini, er, Mangini? Even if he wins a title with the Browns (which he won't), I will never support this style of coaching.

Go Cavs/Tribe!

Could the crowd design a better car than Detroit?

Would it be possible for all the wannabe car designers in the world – many of whom, perhaps, don’t have a job because of the flailing auto industry – help resurrect, well, the flailing auto industry?

That’s part of what Jay Rogers, co-founder of Boston start-up Local Motors is hoping. Using a form of distributed innovation approach – crowdsourcing as happens at businesses like Innocentive – Rogers has set up a Web site to attract a vast online community, which now comprises of 2000 ambitious, creative designers from 121 countries. The first car design happened in less than 3 months, a task that typically takes Detroit 2 years.

This is not surprising considering the crowd at Innocentive solves complex R&D problems at a rate 30% better than that accomplished by in-house approaches at scientific companies.

Local Motors' plan is also to tap into consumers’ own interests – it would be sort of like customers giving ideas for a personalized car. Online design competitions help fuel this project. In the true crowdsourcing model of Threadless, the t-shirt designing company, users vote on the best designs submitted by hobbyists, amateurs and experts alike. The winners are motivated by huge cash prizes in the range of a few hundred to a couple thousand dollars.

“I realized that the car industry needed to create totally new designs and do it a more honest way, where we learn from the community out there: what do you want to buy?”

James Surowiecki’s wisdom of the crowds, of course, thrives on the idea that a divergent crowd is required for a collective brain to be smart and innovative. Harvard researcher Karim Lakhani (who serves as an adviser for Local Motors) has shown that Innocentive’s success rests on ideas and solutions coming from people outside the immediate field of expertise.

As crowdosurcing guru Jeff Howe once told me, the problem is that people in a given field often operate within their own psilos; those who are not restrained by that can think outside the box. So it's not surprising that Rogers believes the crowd will help solve problems inherent in the auto industry – from the restraint to explore modern technology to the insistence on using expensive material to build cars.

His company, which is now in the idea stage, will take the most promising propositions from the Web site to various factories that Rogers plans to set up all around the US. To add to the personalized car concept, the first set of vehicles produced by Local Motors – whose design and engineering is now being crowdsourced – will actually allow customers to be part of production as well – buyers will be invited to come and help put their cars together themselves.

It works for t-shirts, it works for complex scientific problems. Perhaps, it will work for cars as well.

Facial Hair of the Weekend

Hippolyte Aucuturier, a participant in the earliest Tours de France, which, apparently, were nothing short of insane.

Approval ratings in context...

Honestly, I don't know why I care, but the bloviating asshat wingnut megaphones that have been celebrating Obama's approval rating slide have been really getting under my skin. It seems that this week Obama's numbers have rebounded a bit; Gallup reports a nudge up to 57% from an Administration low of 52% in the previous week.

To put all of this into perspective, here are the ranges of Gallup approval ratings from January to August of the previous eight presidents' first terms:

President..........Low.........High
Eisenhower..........67...........74
Kennedy..............72...........83
Nixon..................58...........65
Carter.................60...........75
Reagan...............51...........68
Bush...................51...........70
Clinton................37...........59
Bush...................52...........63

Interesting to note that Obama, who is dealing with a deeper economic crisis than anyone on the above chart, isn't faring any worse than previous presidents. Yesterday's unemployment surprise seems to be another item pointing to a recovery coming on the horizon, which will only help Obama's numbers.

For the Record....

I remember numbers 8, 7, and 5 through 1, and each one still stings. But when I get to number one, it's still a pain you can't even begin to describe - I still fill with a wistful, morose perspective, pondering what could have been if Fernandez hadn't committed that error...(which speaks to how much I love baseball, how much an Indians championship would mean to me, and how pathetic my life actually is).

*Sigh*...............

Trading Carl Pavano Is Obvious, but....Why Now?

Well, this trade is the most obvious and simultaneously the most perplexing. A pitcher about to reach a bunch of his incentive bonuses in a one-year contract on a team that's losing money? That's a no-brainer. But why didn't the Indians try to trade Pavano sooner and maybe try to get more than just a "player to be named later"? He's been more than functional and could have added to a number of teams' starting rotations (Boston, I'm looking in your direction.....). Putting him on the waiver wire on the Monday immediately after the trade deadline really doesn't make sense to me. Of course, Mark Shapiro knows more about what was going on than I do, so maybe he quietly was mentioning Pavano to teams, and nobody was willing to part with a couple of minor leaguers for him. But maybe he wasn't, and this was one of Shapiro's poorer decisions. Whatever the case, it's long-term impact isn't too great, as we weren't keeping Pavano beyond this year (and both Cleveland and Pavano knew it), and who knows - maybe that PTNL will be lights out by some fluke that often happens in baseball. Still, I wish we'd at least traded Pavano for a couple of prospects, instead of just getting the PTNL after a waivers claim. Oh well....2011!

10 Observations from the Rust Belt

I just returned from a week-long trip to rural Indiana. Some observations:

1) Everyone is unemployed and getting (understandably) impatient. Now that the economy is starting to turn the corner, announcing another unemployment benefit extension would be a smart gesture on the part of the Obama administration. There was, however, much celebrating over the success of the Cash-for-Clunkers program.

The reports from the media about Obama's numbers slipping makes sense with what I was hearing from people I talked to-- nearly all of whom voted for him. What the media doesn't report, however, is that as much as people are getting frustrated with Obama, they really, really fucking hate the Republicans. The Congressional speeches that the Southern Republicans like Mitch McConnell made about the domestic auto industry will make it a hard climb for Republicans in the Rust Belt.

2) Places that are green are really awesome. Amazing what water can do.

3) I didn't see a single non-Big Three car once I got outside of Marion County.

4) I saw the funniest use of scare quotes in Zionsville, IN-- a sign was nailed to a telephone pole that said:
"JESUS" is Coming!

5) Fried pork tenderloin sandwiches are outstanding.

6) My parents don't have any internet connection whatsoever; they live way out in the sticks and can't get it. It was nice and strange to be away.

7) An iPod full of NPR podcasts and episodes of Bill Maher's HBO show are great for flying.

8) I had the best Italian-American (or, more aptly, American-Italian) meal in Marion, IN at Rosie's Little Italy. The place has been there for over 50 years and not a damn thing has changed in the interior.

9) The small town of Royal Center has a weekly newspaper called the Royal Center Record. Each week, they publish little bits from editions past. Apparently, about a 100 years ago, some local townsfolk loaded up all the Italians and sent them away on a train. I would love to know more about this incident.

10) It is awesome to fly from California to Indiana through Colorado, knowing that I was in Blue States the whole time.

Your 2009 NBA Finals Champions - The Cleveland Cavaliers!

Clearly, Orlando's 4-2 series win over Cleveland in the Eastern Conference finals was tainted. The only solution is to declare Cleveland the victor, the NBA Finals void, and give the NBA title to the Cavaliers.

After all, it seems that's the only way the city of Cleveland will ever get a championship....

The Honduran Military's Defensive Apperance on Television

More than a month after their coup, the Honduran military finally went on television Tuesday to explain itself.

The five generals at the head of the Honduran armed forces made a rare appearance on national television to explain their role in the ouster in late June of President Manuel Zelaya, and to respond to charges that they acted in defense of the country’s elite.

In language that often veered into confessional, they repeated that they did not act to take sides in the political fight that had polarized the country, but out of obedience to the law. And they said they were confident that history would judge them as patriots for their actions.

The more they spoke, however, the more they showed how concerned they were that their image had been damaged by their actions, and the clearer it became that they continued to play a leading role in Honduran politics, nearly three decades since the end of military rule.

There's a lot to comment on in this story. First, there's the absolutely risible defense that the military offered, claiming the coup that overthrew Zelaya was done to protect not just Honduras, but to save the United States itself! Seriously:

As if taking a page from a cold war playbook, Gen. Miguel Ángel Garcia Padget said the military had disrupted Mr. Chávez’s plans to spread socialism across the region. “Central America was not the objective of this communism disguised as democracy,” he said. “This socialism, communism, Chávismo, we could call it, was headed to the heart of the United States.” [my emphasis]

In spite of continuous whining not just from the fringe sectors of the wingnuts, but from Republican Senators and Congressional Representatives themselves, Chavez and socialism are in no way a "threat" to America, and this seems about as plausible as the belief that the Russians, Chinese, and "Islamo-fascists" are joining forces to take over America via submarines.

Beyond that, though, this television appearance was an interesting play on the part of the military. Many have observed that the Honduran military's support is what will keep a president afloat through this crisis, be it Micheletti's government or the return of Zelaya. Bloggers have generally agreed that the military's strength and support is central to the outcome of this crisis. However, coming on television and trying to defend yourself as an institution with any and every explanation and defense you can hurl and hope will stick ("We were just obeying the constitution!" "We don't want to hurt the poor!" "We're saving the world from Chavez!" "It wasn't a coup - if it were, we would have arrested and killed a lot more people!") isn't exactly the sign of a powerful institution that has the final say. This isn't to say the military isn't important in the way these events have played out and will play out; certainly, the military will be important, for, as they've already demonstrated, they have the power, legitimate or not, to remove a president if they disagree with his actions. Still, in the past, you would see militaries pull this kind of move and not seem nearly as panicked in defending themselves (see: Chile in 1973; Brazil in 1964; Argentina multiple times; El Salvador and Guatemala in the 1980s; etc.). This television appearance had a far greater defensive attitude than any I remember historically seeing, and I think it indicates that, while the military is indeed still a major actor in these events, its power as an institution is dulled somewhat.

This leads into a second point. While the Cold War analogy in reference to the "save the world from socialism/communism" rhetoric is straight out of the Cold War (and out of more basic "our good vs. their evil" rhetoric since time immemorial), we have to be careful not to stretch that analogy too far. One anonymous, high-ranking member of the Honduran defense ministry commented that “In the end, there is a chance that the civilians will all kiss and make up, and the military is going to be held as the bad guys. [...] These guys are worried. They are worried about going to jail.”

If this were the Cold War, these guys wouldn't be remotely worried about going to jail; they'd be celebrating their acts, flaunting it in front of the world, and rounding up thousands of "subversives." The only way jail would possibly cross their minds is if there was a tendency within the military for a counter-coup to install even more hard-line leaders. They wouldn't be nearly pleading their case on television in an effort to not come off looking like the perpetrators of a crime; they would be defiantly and aggressively stating why they did what was essential for the "good of the nation." This not only shows how tenuous the military's position is in this whole situation (even as it remains a central actor); it shows how much things have changed since the Cold War.

Again, none of this is to say that the Honduran military is an ineffective force in the way events from here on out play out, nor to suggest that the military was clumsily lucky in the coup; it knew what it was doing, and did so efficiently. However, it would be equally wrong to suggest that the military will be the final arbiter of how things work out from this point onward. Whoever ends up leading Honduras will probably need to at least know that he/she has not antagonized the military to the point that it would just repeat with him/her what it did with Zelaya. But the fact that neither Zelaya nor Micheletti is working closely with the military, despite the latter coming to power thanks to the military and the former's return being accepted by the military when the Honduran armed forces accepted the (failed) Arias accords' term, seems to indicate that the military is nowhere near as monolithically-powerful as some would portray it. The recent appearance on television has just served to reinforce the fact that, while the military will continue to be involved either tacitly or explicitly in the politics of Honduras through the rest of this crisis, it is far from the final arbiter on the fate of Honduras.