The Day the Pigeons Rose Up

In what could not possibly be more of a tonal u-turn from my last post, I've written a (very) short and incredibly inane story.  Here it is:

 The Day the Pigeons Rose Up

The word “ordinary” was invented for days like this. 

The pigeons milled around as usual, bobbing their heads and pecking at crumbs dropped by the throngs of commuters, who paid them no mind.  Why would they?  But had someone actually bothered to, and watched long enough, they would have seen the looks pass between them.  A slight, almost imperceptible nod from one bird that said “I know; and I am ready” that would be returned by another nod that said “Yes brother, it is almost time.”

No one knows who gave the signal, or how they all picked up on it at once.  But one minute they were a docile and peaceful pack of feathered monks, and the next they became a rabid, bloodlusting, avian army.

The skies darkened and the air was filled with the high-pitched shrieks of pigeon war-cries.  The swarm was everywhere, lunging this way and that, diving at anything that moved.  Hats were stolen, scarves were torn, faces were pecked.  The initial shock left the people speechless and inert, but it took less than a few seconds for the animal instinct of “attack” to ring out through each individual cortex and the crowd’s collective conscious, and a flight of a different kind began on the ground in earnest.  People ran screaming into the streets and cars ran blaring onto the sidewalks.  Hands went up to shield faces, which just made everyone even blinder and crash headlong into posts, buildings, and each other.

100 birds slashed at the windshield of a taxi cab.  As they pecked the glass, they stared at the horrified, helpless driver with looks that all said the same thing: “Come get some.”  Another flock enveloped a newsstand as the owner tried in vain to close the shutters.

Eventually, the panicking mob found safety inside buildings, and the streets belonged to the pigeons!   A new, triumphant cry went up from the rooftops, statues, and park benches and echoed through the city.  A group of the elders met atop city hall to talk strategy, while almost everyone else simply flew and basked in the glory of victory and empty streets.

The victory proved to be short-lived, however.  A distressful cry was heard over by the sporting goods store, as a dozen people emerged with football helmets, hockey gloves, and tennis rackets.

An hour later, all the pigeons went back to pecking at garbage and pooping on statues.

Off in the distance, two seagulls perched on a gargoyle had watched the entire scene unfold.  The one looked at the other as if to say “what the hell was all that about?” The other gull just shrugged, and flew off. 

20 families will not have Christmas this year.  They will never have Christmas again - not really.  Time may heal all wounds but the scars remain.  At the speed of a bullet the DNA of an entire family is rewritten, and the people that may be molded and remade are not the same people as yesterday.

This morning they kissed their children and sent them off with a "have a good day."  Or perhaps not.  Perhaps they quarreled and parted with a "be good today or else."  It doesn't matter.  No one parted with the thought that it was THE parting.  But then, we never do.  We go about each day, doing what we must, accomplishing what we can - acknowledging what is most important in life but seldom acting in harmony with that.  Because there is always time.  Right up until there isn't.

Don't ask "why".  Or ask it, but know that it is futile.  What answer could be given that would satisfy?  That would bring closure where none is possible?  It is a black hole of logic.  Bring all your sane and rational thoughts and watch them be devoured whole.

So what can we do?  However we react, it will be wrong.  Buddhism teaches that hatred and violence are never solved through hatred and violence but through love alone.  Gandhi said, "we will meet your capacity to inflict suffering with our capacity to endure it."  I believe in these things; with all of my heart I believe in them. But how do you love something that is truly evil?  How do we endure something like this?  I'm not sure I am strong enough.  I'm not sure we are strong enough.

Every event like this destroys a piece of me.  Harden my heart, and lose part of my humanity.  Leave my heart open to it, and lose hope.  What kind of choice is that?

I search desperately for comfort knowing full well it too is a futile search.  There is no comfort to be found here.  How could there be?

How do we move forward in a world where something like this happens, and knowing that it is just a matter of time before it happens again?  How do parents send their children off to school on Monday?  How do I send ours off in a few years?  How do we go about our lives knowing that everything can be shattered in an instant?

I don't know.

I just know that we will.

"Can a man be brave if he is scared?"
"That is the only time a man can be brave."

We are scared, but we are brave.  We have to be.  It is the only way.

Robin Williams, It's All Your Fault!

I have now officially entered the stage of parenting where I will be seeing lots and lots of kids movies.  This isn't really a complaint - after all I am a lover of films in all forms and I have no problem encouraging that in Anabelle and (eventually) Charlotte.  However, there are times where it is a lot more fun than others.  The Muppets, Finding Nemo, and Winnie the Pooh?  Fun.  Hotel Transylvania?  Not so much.

While I was sitting in the theater Sunday counting down the minutes until Hotel Transylvania ended (like an inmate awaiting parole) I started thinking about an interview I heard last year.  Kevin Pollack was interviewing Billy West on his podcast.  If you don't recognize the name, Billy West is a voice actor best known for doing the voices of Ren and Stimpy as well as Fry in Futurama.  During the interview, Billy was lamenting how his profession is being eliminated.  Modern-day animated features just don't employ true professional voice actors for anything more than bit parts anymore - choosing instead to give all the main roles to established screen actors.

From a pure business standpoint, I understand why this is the case.  As animated films have become increasingly sophisticated and expensive, studios want "star power" to help ensure that they have big names to put on the posters and commercials, and faces to do the talk circuits and promote it.  But something is lost artistically.  In its simplest terms, I think that the skill of a screen actor is the way in which they inhabit a character while the skill of a voice actor lies in the creation of a character.  In other words, when an actor appears onscreen, there are a whole range of things he can do to communicate to the audience in ways both subtle and not subtle.  In addition to the voice, he can use gestures, facial expressions (in both speaking and reacting), and blocking.  In animation, all you have is the voice because the rest is out of your control.  So everything needs to be laser-focused and channeled into that.  That's just not something a screen or stage actor excels at.

Need an example?  Just try imagining an exchange between Elmer Fudd and Bugs Bunny with different voices.  It's almost impossible.  Now as a counterpoint, try imagining Woody and Buzz from Toy Story with someone other than Tom Hanks and Tim Allen doing the voices.  I don't know about you, but I find that a lot easier to do.

So that led me to thinking about when this shift occurred.  And if you have made the connection to the title, you have the answer I came up with  - Aladdin in 1992.  I remember seeing Aladdin in theatres (random fun fact: it was the first movie Christy and I saw together), which was a big deal because at age 13 most teens are trying to prove how much they've outgrown "kiddy" stuff.  But the big talk was of how awesome Robin Williams' portrayal of the Genie was.  There was even talk that he'd garner an Oscar nomination for it (he didn't, but did snag a "Special Award" at the Golden Globes).  It was (and still is) a fantastic performance and he deserved all of the praise he received.  But I think it had some unfortunate consequences.

I think the period of 1989 to 1994 was a seminal period in the history of animation.  Starting with The Little Mermaid, then through Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, and culminating with The Lion King  - this is when studios started thinking about animated movies in terms of blockbusters that might even have award potential instead of just cheap movies that could be counted on to turn a small but dependable profit in the kid market.   Looking at the casts of these films reveals this shift pretty clearly.  The Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast have barely any recognizable names - the "big" star in Little Mermaid is Buddy Hackett and in Beauty and the Beast it's Angela Lansbury.  Then Aladdin comes along with the first true blockbuster star in Robin Williams - although Gilbert Gottfried also has what is probably his most memorable role as Jafar's parrot.  Then by Lion King it's pretty much all stars for the big parts - Jonathan Taylor Thomas (who is nobody now but was big due to Home Improvement at the time), Matthew Broderick, James Earl Jones, Jeremy Irons, and Nathan Lane.  From that point on, nearly every animated film from a major studio has utilized established screen actors for almost all the major roles.  Heck, even Wall-E (which is 75% of the way to being a silent film) felt the need to use Jeff Garlin, Fred Willard, Sigourney Weaver, and John Ratzenberger (although technically Fred Willard is actually screen acting since you see him via live action shots).

Now, I'm certainly not saying that animated films as a whole are worse now than they were prior to 1992.  There's a reason why 75% of the animated films I own are Pixar.  It's just unfortunate that just as this particular genre of film started to really take off and achieve huge financial success, the individuals that worked so hard their whole lives to contribute towards that success - actors that most people have never heard of precisely because they were so adept at concealing their identities behind the characters they created - have largely been left out in the cold.  I hope that down the road studios will realize that the reason animated films have gotten so much better was due to the focus on better writing, augmented by the technological advances, and that they have been succeeding in spite of employing screen actors, not because of them.

In the meantime, at least we still have The Simpsons.

Some More Random Thoughts

You know that horror movie cliche where just when you think the killer is dead and buried there is a shot of the undead hand reaching up through the earth in front of the tombstone?  This is the political equivalent of that.  It appears that it took exactly 11 days after the 2012 presidential election for the first steps towards 2016 to be taken.  I know that it has always been said that politicians are perpetually campaigning, but didn't it seem like they used to do it more subtly than this?

In other news, panic is gripping our obese nation as Hostess announced it is going out of business.  But fear not my fellow plump friends, it is very very unlikely that you have seen your last Twinkie.  People seem to think that in a bankruptcy everything just sort of dissolves into the ether of the universe, but that is not the case.  In truth, every asset of the company is still owned by someone - usually in these cases it's a creditor but after that it's the shareholders (everyone with an interest is collectively called the stakeholders).  In a bankruptcy case, a trustee is placed in charge of liquidating the assets in order to pay back the stakeholders as much as possible.  So really, anything of value is going to be sold.  And judging by the rabid response of individuals rushing out to horde or scalp boxes of Twinkies, it appears that they still do retain some value.

In all likelihood, the recipes and naming rights to all of the Hostess products will be sold off to the highest bidder, so unless some uber-millionaire with an Eric Cartman complex buys them all for the sole purpose of having them personally made for him and no one else, you will likely continue to have all your favorites available to serve your 3 A.M. overeating needs.  The only difference is now the next time you have one you will bite into it, shake your head slowly, and say to whatever unfortunate soul happens to be within earshot of you, "they're just not the same anymore."  When in fact they will be exactly the same but what has changed is how you built them up in your mind when you thought you'd never have one again.

By the way, here is my rough guess as to the recipe for a Twinkie:

2 parts unnaturally spongy and obscenely yellow cake
1 part room-temperature dairy-like substance
3 cups sugar
A dash of loneliness

For the record, I love Twinkies.  But to paraphrase Jim Gaffigan, I've never finished a Twinkie and said to myself "I'm glad I ate that.  I feel good about myself."

Busting a Couple Political Myths

I promise I am not going to turn this into a full-time political blog, but I find that lately it seems to be the only thoughts I have that I feel are worth writing about.  There are two "myths" I want to talk about, although "political spin" is probably a more apt term for these.

Myth #1: Republicans are the America First party, and Democrats are the Blame America First party.

This is a quick one.  It's definitely true that Democrats and liberals (not necessarily the same thing) show up in force to protest a whole lot of things; from wars to Wall Street abuses to animal cruelty to union strikes.  But the right is certainly no stranger to protesting the "injustices" of America, whether it's holding tea party or NRA rallies or putting up giant, horrific anti-abortion posters in the Loop.  And as much as the left likes to bitch and moan about things, you know what they don't do?  File petitions to secede from the U.S.  How one party attempts to be the "Party of Patriotism" and the "Party of Secession" at the same time is a level of bi-polarism that is so stunning to me that I'm almost impressed.  Rest assured that the next Republican who tries to slap the "un-american" tag on a liberal idea is going to get this thrown directly in their face.

 Myth #2: Republicans were ready and willing to work with President Obama in his first term, but he failed to bring them to the table.

It doesn't surprise me in the least to hear Republicans saying this one, especially around election time, but I was surprised to hear it said by many Democrats and pundits as well.  These people all have very short memories.  Let's just review a couple choice examples of the "goodwill" Obama faced in the first couple months:

From an e-mail from RNC chairman Mike Duncan on Wednesday, November 12th 2008 (note this is 2 months before Obama is even sworn in):

"There are three seats in the House and two in the Senate that still hang in the balance. Winning these races and strengthening our Republican numbers in both chambers of Congress is critical to blocking Barack Obama’s left-wing agenda . . .The Obama-Biden Democrats and their liberal special interest allies are trying to steal these election victories from Republicans. . .Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi are hoping to add more seats to the Democrats’ Senate and House majorities so they can steamroll our opposition to their extreme, ultraliberal schemes. . . Every Republican vote we can add now will help our Party stop the Obama Democrats’ leftist policies in the U.S. Congress. "

On January 19th, 2009 Rush Limbaugh summed up his hope for the Obama presidency in 4 words: "I hope he fails."

In February of 2009, the first of many national tea party protests were held.

On May 10th, 2009 (i.e. 110 days after Obama took office) Dick Cheney goes on Meet the Press to tell the country that the U.S. is less safe under Obama.

A veritable love-fest yes?  These are the examples I was able to dig up in less than 5 minutes, although I have every confidence I could come up with about a dozen more in short order.  The fact is that the first example of bi-partisanship Obama was offered by Republicans was in John McCain's concession speech on election night 2008,  and the next was in Mitt Romney's concession speeh in 2012.

 Myth #3: A tax increase directly leads to higher unemployment.

 This is the one I really wanted to talk about.  It really surprises me that this is not common knowledge but either people are not well-versed in how our taxes are calculated or (more likely) they have opted to remain willfully ignorant.

The key to understanding this is in understanding what is taxed: profits.  Again, that sounds extremely simple (and it is) but this is where people fail to connect the dots.  Profit, in its simplest form, is revenue minus expenses.  All employee wages, including those of the CEO and board members, are fully deductible as expenses.  The only thing which is affected is retained earnings (i.e. where dividends and additional bonuses are paid from).

Let's work through a quick, simple example: suppose you have a business making $100 million annually.  They also have a total of $80 million in expenses (of which employee wages and associated payroll tax comprise $40 million).  That leaves the company with a total profit of $20 million, which is subject to tax.  So, at a 15% tax rate that would be $3 million, which would leave $17 million going into retained earnings (or distributed via dividends) after taxes.

So now let's say the tax rate increases to 20%.  Given the same facts as above, the business is now left with 80% of their $20 million profit, or $16 million.  So the difference in these two scenarios is an additional cost of $1 million to the business.

How do they make up for the $1 million hit?  The first question is, why do they need to? The increase in taxation had absolutely no effect on whether or not the company was profitable.  The only effect was the amount available to go into retained earnings or to be paid in dividends.

But let's say that, for whatever reason, they need after-tax income to be at least $17 million.  That means you have to cut wages, right?  Hardly.  Presumably, the individuals you employ actually, you know, do something right?  If you cut your sales force by $1 million, how much will your revenue drop by?  If it drops by more than $1 million, than you have just cost yourself even more money by cutting wages.  More importantly, if it drops by less than $1 million, that means they are currently costing you more money than they are bringing in and you should lay them off anyway, regardless of the tax structure.

Let's say that instead of cutting your sales force, you want to save the money by cutting from support staff like HR or IT.  Again, the same principle applies.  You will still need those functions, so if you can meet your company's needs either by utilizing less staff or by outsourcing the function, then you should do so regardless of the tax structure.

Please also keep in mind that everything I'm talking about above applies to an increase to the corporate tax rate.  I thought it went without saying that an increase to personal tax rates would have no impact on employment decisions, but that is the connection a lot of these CEOs tried to make during this election cycle.

So am I trying to suggest that an increase to the corporate tax rate has no negative effects?  Definitely not.  As I mentioned, the impact is to retained earnings and that is what is used to pay out dividends.  That means that if, in the aggregate, retained earnings decrease there will be less overall dividends paid out and that will lower the rate of return on investments.  That means a direct hit to the bottom lines of investment banks as well as to 401(k)s.  Retained earnings is also what a corporation uses to make large purchases (like another company) or to expand their business.  Thus you can certainly make the argument that an increase to corporate taxes negatively affects business investment and lower GDP growth, which in turn will lower the rate at which new jobs are created.  But saying "less new jobs will be created" is a far cry from "existing jobs will be eliminated."  And as with most things, it appears that politically we'd rather throw around sound bites and argue about false problems than have a real dialogue about the true consequences of our decisions.

  

What Now For the GOP?

A couple weeks ago I listed out the 5 big reasons that I chose to support Obama.  With the election now in the rear-view mirror I want to expound on the last point I made, which was that I hoped an Obama reelection would send a message to the GOP that they needed to return to the center if they ever hope to move back into the White House again.

Specifically, they need to jettison most, if not all, of their platform on social issues.  While I could talk at length about a dozen or so, I really want to concentrate on 2 - gay marriage and illegal immigration.  While I don't necessarily think that these are the two biggest issues in the country at the moment (though they both are very important) I'll put it bluntly: the GOP will never have success on a national level (i.e. presidential elections) until they jettison their opposition to gay marriage and soften their hardline stance on illegal immigration.

For both of these I am not arguing these on the basis that they are the right thing to do, although I think anyone who has read this blog over the years knows that I do feel that way.  I am simply presenting this in the context that these two positions are impacting the Republican party in a significantly negative way, and I just don't see any path forward for them other than to reverse themselves.

For gay marriage, the reasoning is pretty simple.  8 years ago, opposition made complete populist sense.  At that time, nearly 2/3rds of the country was against it.  That is not the case anymore.  Support for gay marriage has grown considerably over that time, particularly in the last 2 years, and now stands at approximately 54% in favor vs 42% opposed.  A party should not be purely a reflection of the majority opinion, but continuing to hold this position would not only defy political logic it would also fly in the face of pretty much everything the GOP purports to stand for.  The rallying cry of the Republicans, and the Tea Party in particular, since 2009 has been a rejection of government overreach.  So to take a purely social issue (I don't think anyone rejects gay marriage on economic grounds) where the majority of the country is on the opposite side from you and say that while you disagree with government interference in general you still think this is one case where the government absolutely needs to be involved just presents a huge credibility problem.  Rather, changing positions on this issue actually presents a golden opportunity for the GOP.  Much as a free speech advocate will defend Nazi hate speech, the Republicans have a chance to conclusively demonstrate that they really do believe in limited government - even if the result of that is allowing something which they think is morally wrong.  In that way, this is actually not a compromise for them at all; it's just a return to the values they have claimed to hold all along.

The 2nd issue is a bit trickier and would definitely be a reversal for the GOP.  And really, this is about demography.  This election, black voters made up 13% of the electorate.   Latinos made up 10% (up from 8% in 2008) and they are the fastest growing segment of the country.  That's nearly one full quarter of the electorate that currently votes overwhelmingly Democratic.  That leaves the GOP with the daunting task of needing to capture about 60% of the remaining vote to have a majority.

Now, I don't have a silver bullet when it comes to telling the GOP how to win over black voters, and I don't think anyone else does either.  But there most certainly is one when it comes to Latinos and it's immigration reform.  What does the GOP need to do?  Well, for starters they need to tone down the rhetoric, stop blaming illegals for all the country's problems, stop crusading against every public service that gets provided for an illegal, and generally expand their list of solutions from the current roster that is pretty much limited to self-deportation and building bigger walls.  Those are good starts.  Then whatever they end up presenting better have the words "path to citizenship" in there somewhere.  How do you sell that to your base?  It won't be easy, but I think you start by reminding people that we are a nation of immigrants and that the reason we have this "problem" is because opportunities in this country are better than just about anywhere else.  You tell them that by providing a path to legality you will clamp down on seedy businesses who are thriving on what is essentially black market labor and you will increase tax revenue when their earnings are now reported on W-2s instead of getting paid under the table.

As a side note, I wrote most of this yesterday and today I saw this article where Sean Hannity (of all people) and John Boehner have basically come to the same conclusion.

This is all a very tricky situation for the GOP.  If Tuesday demonstrated anything, it was the great chasm between local and national politics.  Even though President Obama won a pretty decisive victory, the Democrats only managed to pick up 3 seats in the house and will be in the minority by a 233-193 margin over the next 2 years.  To understand why, I think it's helpful to take a look at this map of the House election results.  Look at states like California and Illinois.  Even though Obama carried each of those states easily, there are significant chunks of red in each of them.  More interestingly, look at states like Ohio and Florida where Obama pulled out narrow victories.  Even though those states went blue for him, those states are overwhelmingly red when it comes to Congressional elections.  But then look at the states that went for Romney, like Louisiana, Missouri, and Indiana.  Outside of New Orleans, St. Louis, and the Chicago metro area (respectively) there's barely a drop of blue to be found.  This creates a very difficult problem for the GOP to solve, because while their path back to the Presidency lies in tacking to the center, they are going to have to do it by asking Representatives from very conservative districts to make compromises that will almost certainly prove to be very unpopular back home.  And unpopular decisions back home will almost certainly lead to fiercer primaries that is likely to produce even more conservative candidates.

It's a dangerous tightrope that the GOP must walk.  But walk it they must if they ever want to get back into 1600 Pennsylvania Ave again without a visitor pass.  If they don't, then it is likely that the present makeup of our government will be the status quo for the next decade - red House, blue Presidency, and the Senate in flux (but a very slow flux since only one third of seats are up every 2 years).  That will not foster compromise and will not lead to effective governance.  And the country will suffer for it. 

When Misleading Becomes Dishonest

We're in the height of campaign season, so a certain amount of embellishment and exaggerating is to be expected.  But there is one particular oft-repeated refrain I've heard from Romney and the right which I find to be misleading to the point of genuine dishonesty.

The way that it is said comes in many different ways, but this pretty much sums it up:

Republicans will point out that this is completely accurate and, yes, those were indeed the gas prices on the day Obama took office.  But what makes this completely misleading are the implications from this, namely 1) that it was a good thing that gas was this low; 2) that gas prices were that low for an extended period and 3) that gas prices will go down again if Obama is voted out of office.

The truth is a bit more complicated.  First of all, the highest gas prices have ever been was $4.12/gallon, in July 2008, 6 months before Obama took office.  In fact, gas was over $3.00/gallon pretty much continuously from May 2007 onward.




Hmm, you know what?  This looks suspiciously like another chart I know of, specifically the Dow Jones Industrial Average over the same time period:

Gas prices rocketed downward because we were in the midst of an epic financial collapse.  So, yes, we can easily achieve those gas prices again if you want to root for another financial crisis.  The Dow lost nearly half it's value from October 1st, 20007 (13,930) to February 2nd, 2009 (7,062.93).  There's the tradeoff for you: give up half your 401(k) and other investments in exchange for gas that's $2/gallon cheaper.  Seem fair to you?  Even if you don't have investments and don't care, does that strike you as a good trade-off for the country?

By the way, the day after Obama took office (it was closed for MLK Day on the day of his inauguration) the Dow closed at 7,949.09.  Yesterday it closed at 13,345.89.  Funny how you won't see that on a Photoshopped sign spreading around the internet.

I am not espousing that Obama is responsible for both the gas prices and the stock market recovery, and I am certainly not suggesting that he is responsible for one but not the other.  The truth is that, by and large, he has very little to do with either.  Both were hit hard by the financial crisis, and both are now returning to the levels they should be at - those dictated by supply and demand.  Obama's main role in the crisis was to provide temporary assistance where it was needed (something I believe he did a very good job with) and help with legislation designed to make sure this type of collapse does not recur (something I think he did a rather middling job at).  But, right or wrong, the President gets all the praise and all the blame for everything that occurs under his watch and such is the case here, no matter how undeserved or wrong it is.

But that's ok; if my friends on the right want to play this game I can do it too.  Here's a picture from this year's GOP convention that captures my feelings on their role in the deficit nicely.  Only difference is, I can actually support this one with actual facts.




Sources: Gas prices from here.  DJIA chart was my own creation in Excel, from the Yahoo Finance data.

Back to Politics Part 2 or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Obama

If you're confused about the title, you obviously have not seen this movie.

So, if I believe everything I said before (and I do), why am I supporting Obama again?  Because this election is not a referendum on his first-term performance relative to my expectations, it’s about the next 4 years.  And, even with the knowledge that he will not be tackling the systemic problems I hoped he would, by a wide margin he is still the candidate that is more closely aligned with my personal positions.

As Christy and I were driving in the car on Friday, in what amounted to a 6-hour trip to IHOP (that’s a story for another day), she was expressing her own personal frustration at not being informed about the various candidates and how hard it was to actually get informed.  Nothing that comes out of a candidate’s mouth can ever be taken at face value, and their websites are just their mouths in a different format.  Newspapers, magazines, and news shows all have their own agendas too, so it actually is quite difficult to ever feel comfortable that you’ve gotten at any kind of “objective truth”.  In any case, down the line in this discussion she asked me “why should I vote for Obama?”

Now, it’s not that I didn’t have an answer for her.  It’s more that the Mark Twain saying “I would have written you a shorter letter, but I didn’t have enough time” applied here.  I could easily have meandered through an hour-long diatribe about everything I agreed with Obama on and everything I disagreed with Romney on, but I knew that’s not what she wanted.   I think that she, like most Americans, doesn’t want to listen to hours and hours of back and forth between candidates and pundits and have to read between the lines and tease out the truths.  She wants to know, quite simply, what are the important points that each side believes, and what are going to be the actual consequences of choosing one side versus the other.

That set me to the task of trying to compile a succinct list of the main reasons I am supporting Obama over Romney.  And after about 10 minutes, I had a list of about 4 or 5 main points, and they are as follows:

1. Supreme Court Appointments – It is impossible to know when a Supreme Court vacancy will open up.  However, given that there are currently 4 justices in their 70s (Ginsburg – 79, Scalia – 75, Kennedy – 75, and Breyer – 74) and that the average retirement age of a justice is 78.7, it is likely that there will be 1 or 2 appointments in the next presidential term.  Right now the generally accepted interpretation regarding the makeup of the court is that there are 4 conservative justices, 4 liberals, and Kennedy is the swing vote (though it can probably be said that he leans conservative).  And since, of the four justices in their 70s, only Scalia is a conservative, the potential for the court to swing decidedly conservative under a Romney administration is clear.  And with Supreme Court appointments being for life, that is a swing which may last a long time.  Would a conservative Supreme Court overturn Roe v Wade?  I honestly don’t know, but certainly many conservatives hope so.  Also, the issue of gay marriage will almost certainly come before the Supreme Court in the next few years.  If you want to ensure that Roe v Wade is not getting overturned anytime soon, and you want the issue of gay marriage to come before a court that is not any more conservative than it is right now, you need to vote for Barack Obama.

2. Obamacare – I really don’t like the Affordable Care Act (ACA), but not for the reasons that conservatives don’t like it.  I don’t like it because, for all the ridiculous amount of effort and angst from the right, it’s remarkable how little it actually does.  Still, it did away with lifetime limits and will end pre-existing conditions, and also includes a mandate for everyone to carry health insurance (however toothless that mandate may be).  And I can tell you from firsthand experience that here at Blue Cross since its passage there has been effort like never before on reducing costs and keeping premium increases as low as possible.  And the bottom line is that this legislation took us one step closer to ensuring that every American has health insurance.  But the full impact of these changes don’t go into effect until 2014 or later, and Romney has outright stated that he intends to work towards repealing ACA in his first term.  If you believe that ACA is a step in the right direction and that we need to work towards the day when -  like a police force, firefighters, social security, and national defense - health insurance is something that every American is provided with, you need to vote for Barack Obama.

3. Climate Change – This one is pretty simple.  One side acknowledges that climate change is real and is largely the result of human activity, and the other side doesn’t.  In 2010 Obama signed an executive order which will increase the corporate average fuel efficiency (CAFÉ) standards from 27.5 to 35.5 by 2016.  As an executive order, Romney would have the power to undo this change at the stroke of a pen.  Obama also heavily supports investment in alternative and renewable energy; Romney supports more domestic drilling and is only concerned with getting us off foreign oil – not oil in general.  If you believe that climate change is happening, is manmade, and is a serious threat to us and our planet, you need to vote for Barack Obama.

4. Social Issues – The GOP is supposed to stand for hands-off government.  Turns out that this is only the case when it comes to gun control, taxes, and corporate regulation.  When it comes to being involved in your personal decisions they have no qualms whatsoever in getting actively involved to decide what is best for you and the country.  Part of being “hands-off” is acknowledging that things will occur that you don’t personally agree with, because above all you believe that it is not the government’s place to interfere.  That is the libertarian view, but the GOP abandoned it long ago.  There are literally a hundred issues I could point to here, but I’ll just pick a couple: gay marriage, any form of marijuana (growing hemp, recreational use, and medicinal use), internet gambling, separation of church and state, and abortion.  If you are a progressive when it comes to social issues and don’t believe that the Bible should be the basis for social legislation, you need to vote for Barack Obama.

5. Send a Message to the GOP – This one is closely tied to #s 2, 3, and 4 above.  For all the bashing I do of the GOP (and I am aware I do a lot of it) it does not come from a place of hatred.  It comes from a place of frustration, because deep down I still feel that the GOP is my party and that it is currently being held hostage by a bunch of lunatics.  I am a fiscal conservative – I believe in a flat tax, balancing the budget, reducing the deficit, and that a voucher system is a fantastic solution for both our education and health insurance problems.  Those are all ideas championed by conservatives before they got control of both Congress and the Presidency and decided that unlimited spending was OK as long as they were in power and that they would concentrate on social issues.  And if you think I'm exaggerating about the spending, I urge you to read this article written in 2003 by the conservative Christian Science Monitor.  I want to see a debate on how to best deliver universal health care to all Americans while not busting the budget and how to lower carbon emissions without killing the economy – not whether or not we should do either of those things.  I thought that the Democratic Congressional takeover in 2006, followed by Obama’s victory in 2008 would have forced them to reinvent themselves as centrists.  Instead they’ve opted to double down, summarized best by Mitch McConnell after the Republican landslide in 2010; “Our top political priority over the next two years should be to deny President Obama a second term.”  Not “our top priority is to get Americans back to work” or “to get the economy going again” or “to work with Democrats to get legislation passed which helps all Americans.”  Nope, number one objective is “Screw You Obama.”  If you want to send a message to Republicans that they need to meet Democrats and the majority of the country in the center, you need to vote for Barack Obama.  

Back to Politics (Part 1)

I initially intended this as one entry but, as I so often do, once I got going I found that I had a lot more to say about it than I initially thought.  So I am dividing this into two entries instead – the first expressing my disappointment with Obama’s first term and politics in general, and the second discussing the reasons why I am still supporting Obama for a 2^nd term.

Contrary to what it may appear on this blog, I have by and large steered clear of politics for the past couple years.  I still try and stay current and keep myself informed, but I no longer read the Economist cover to cover every week or watch all the Sunday morning political shows like I did from 2006 to 2010.

A large part of this is, no doubt, purely a function of having a lot less free time than I used to.  With Anabelle and now Charlotte soaking up a lot of that time, I find that I really want to spend the free time that I do have doing something fun and relaxing like watching sports or a movie, reading a good book, playing video games, or, in the rare times that we can get out of the house, having a night out with Christy.  I don’t consider it an abdication of my duty as an American; it’s more that I see it as my role to make an informed decision as to who the best people are to govern and then expecting them to, you know, actually do the job they were elected to do.  Politics as a hobby has lost pretty much all appeal to me, especially since it is always so monumentally frustrating.

Four years ago, things were different.  For the first time in my adult life I actually gave money to a political campaign (to both Obama and McCain in the primary and to Obama in the general election).  And for the first time since I was 17 and interning for state Rep Vince Persico, I volunteered for a campaign.  I still clearly remember driving out to Indiana on a Saturday in October with Joe to knock on doors for 3 hours.  We only talked to about 2 dozen people, most of whom wanted nothing to do with us, but I at least felt like I did something.  Obama ended up carrying Indiana and, though I know it’s almost certainly not true, I like to think that I had just a little bit to do with that.

Today I feel quite differently.  I have been very frustrated with how the last 4 years have gone.  I haven’t given any money or time to any campaign, and don’t plan to in the next 3 weeks.  I, like a whole lot of Americans, am just frustrated by the inane squabbling and posturing of politicians.  Contrary to what the talking heads on the cable news shows will tell you, most Americans would much rather see the country unified and working together towards something (anything) rather than see every single point of either party’s agenda get accomplished – which will never happen anyway.  And that is what I am most disappointed in Obama about.  I did not elect him to solve all of our problems.  I did not think that he had a “silver bullet” solution for the economy – in 2008 most economists agreed that it would take about a decade for us to fully emerge from this crisis and contrary to how the GOP wants to spin it that was always the case and is still today.  But Obama ran on a platform of changing the way Washington works and that is what got me excited.  I don’t expect government to solve our problems; I expect the government to function at a level that allows us to solve our own problems.  And the epic disappointment with Obama is not that he failed at doing that, it’s that he didn’t even try. 

The analogy I use is a family trying to pull itself out of poverty.  Unless you come from money or have otherworldly athletic skills, the best way to succeed in this country today is with a solid education.  But for millions of Americans, that’s just not an option.  They can only afford to live in poor areas with terrible schools and even if they have all the best intentions and graduate high school, more likely than not they don’t have the education fundamentals or the money to succeed in college.  So they do the best they can, scraping by and floundering.  And of course then they have kids of their own, born into the same situation and almost pre-destined to struggle through as well and the cycle just continues.  What it takes to break the cycle is for two parents to decide that they’re going to move to where the education system is better or send their kids to private school, even if those decisions mean that they both need to work 2 jobs and 80-hour weeks, spend next to nothing on non-essential items, and pretty much never take a vacation.  That’s an unbelievably hard thing to actually do – you will miss a lot of your kids growing up and they will probably resent you for it for a long time until they’re old enough to understand why you are doing it – but that’s the kind of commitment it takes if you want to break the cycle.  There’s no glamour in it at all.  You have to be willing to say, “I am not going to be the one to be successful and have a comfortable life, but I will do everything in my power to make sure I am the last generation in my family that has to say that.”

That is what I wanted from Obama.  I didn’t want him to do the “glam” work of solving our health care system or climate change  because, quite simply, I believe these problems to be unsolvable given the current state of our government.  I wanted him to dig in and tackle the rot in the system that makes government so ineffective.  I wanted him to tackle our campaign finance system – which is arguably the one single problem from which most of our other problems (or at least lack of solutions) stem.  I wanted him to address the almost limitless access that lobbyists and big donors have to candidates.  I wanted him to get actively involved in reviewing each and every government program and office, fix or eliminate the ineffective ones, and develop metrics to judge them on and rules for accountability when they fail to live up to expectations.  I wanted him to make some Congressional recommendations mandatory, so that when a bipartisan commission is formed to address a problem (like Medicare, Social Security, or the debt) it isn’t just an exercise in futility when reports and recommendations are completely ignored and never even brought to a vote.

These are the things I wanted him to work on, even if it meant he got crucified in this election for “not working on the real issues.”  If he solved even one or two of the issues above history would remember him as a great President.  As of now, if his Presidency ends this January, the only thing historic about him will be that he shattered the race barrier.  Elsewise, he will be known as yet another in a long line of politicians whose oratory skill greatly exceeded his governing skill – a nice man with lofty ideas who over-promised and under-delivered.

I pick up my guitar and play

Just like yesterday

Then I get on my knees and pray

We don’t get fooled again

When you've got nothing new, rehash the old!

With the new labor numbers coming out 10 days ago, I wanted to revisit an earlier post of mine.  Specifically, this post where I discussed unemployment numbers in historical context.

According to the book I had just finished (This Time is Different), In an analysis of post-1900 banking crises which have occurred (of which there are 14), the authors found that on average the unemployment rises (as measured from trough to peak) by 7 percent and takes an average of 4.8 years to do so.  Now that more time has passed and we at least appear to be in the midst of a recovery (albeit a long and brutal one) I thought it might be interesting to take another look.

Here's an updated graph of unemployment, going back to 2002 (again, taken directly from the Bureau of Labor Statistics):



What does this tell us?  As before, the unemployment number technically started its inexorable climb in June 2007 (when it increased from 4.4 to 4.6 and never again dipped below 4.5).  We peaked in October 2009 at 10.1%.  This was all known when I wrote about this before, but at the time there was still the risk of a double-dip recession and a higher peak.  I think that we can now take that off of the table (by which I mean, should another recession hit it will almost certainly be due to a new economic calamity and not this same one revisited upon us).

Now, let's look at how Prognosticator John did.  This is what I wrote back in October 2010:

"we'll finally get unemployment down below 9% by mid-2011, hopefully below 8% by end of 2011, and below 7% by mid-2012 right when the election starts really ramping up. And I really think that 7% is the key number. If it gets below that, I think Obama is reelected easily. If it doesn't, he's got big problems."

How does that analysis stack up to reality?  Well let's just say that it's a good thing I didn't place any bets on those predictions.  We got below 9% unemployment in October 2011, so that wasn't too far off, but we did not manage to finally get below 8% until last month, so I was a good 9 months off there.  However, as to my other prediction (that Obama would have big problems with unemployment above 7%) that appears to be fairly accurate.  He is definitely still the favorite to win (Nate Silver over at FiveThirtyEight.com has perhaps the best forecasts to be found anywhere) but those odds looked a whole lot rosier one week ago.

Speaking of which, I did watch the debates last week and pretty much everything about it was brutal.  It was a thoroughly boring affair with neither side providing any real specifics as to what they want to do and mostly just regurgitating the same talking points that are showing up in my inbox 5 times per day (and since I gave money to McCain in the 2008 primary season I get the e-mails from both sides).  As bad as Obama was (and he was pretty bad) I am still fairly confident about his chances because of how the story has been framed.  The big story of the night wasn't "Romney blows away everyone with stellar performance" it was "Romney holds his own, and Obama was terrible."  I would be a lot more concerned if ti had been the former rather than the latter because, simply put, you always have the ability to make yourself better, but you are much more limited in your ability to make your opponent look worse.

On a personal note, I believe I recognized what was happening to Obama during that debate, because I have been there myself.  Certainly I have never experienced anything close to that level of stakes and pressure, and I am also certainly not even a fraction of the communicator that he is.  But throughout my career (and even in school to a degree) I have succeeded to a large extent because of my ability to speak extemporaneously and communicate my point in an intelligent, succinct, and thoughtful manner with minimal preparation (keep in mind I'm talking about in school and at work, not after a 12-pack or when arguing sports).  When you have that ability, eventually you get to the point where you just expect it to be there and you don't even think about it anymore.  And then one day (almost always at the worst possible time, I think it's a rule) you just reach down and  . . . nothing.  It's just not there for you and you sound like . . . well, like Obama sounded last Wednesday.

It will be very interesting now to see how he responds in the next debate, because it actually gets back to the panic vs. choke discussion I wrote about with the replacement refs.  Obama has a natural gift as a communicator, but now he must feel abandoned by his gift and there is the real danger that he will overthink and make things worse, like a .300 hitter mired in an 0 for 12 slump who thinks about every pitch instead of just reacting.  But then again, you don't become leader of the free world without some kind of staunch belief in your own awesomeness, so if he can just shrug it off as just one bad night, a certain amount of delusion may serve him well.

One Final Little Black Eye on the Cubs Season

The Florida Marlins just made the Cubs look bad, and they didn't even have to play them to do so.  To understand why, you need to know the story of Adam Greenberg.

Greenberg was a minor league player for the Cubs organization from 2002-2006.  He was never considered a top or even mid-level prospect but, thanks to the Cubs being terrible and not having a lot of other prospects, he nevertheless got a call-up to the big league club in 2005.  I can only imagine how excited he must have been to finally realize a lifelong dream.

How long did that excitement last?  Exactly one pitch.  On the evening of July 9th, 2005 he stepped to the plate in the ninth inning as a pinch-hitter to make his major league debut against Marlins' pitcher Valerio de los Santos.  The first pitch was a 92 MPH fastball that caught Greenberg right in the head.  He was awarded first base but had suffered a mild concussion and was immediately removed from the game.  While he expected to be back in a few weeks, he ended up missing the rest of the season as he continued to suffer from bouts of dizziness and excruciating headaches.

When he finally returned the next season (back in the minors) he was never the same player.  He was released by the Cubs in July 2006, bounced around a couple more MLB organizations (all in the minors), and then played for a few years in an independent league before hanging up his cleats after last year.  He never appeared in another major league game.  His final stat line shows a 1.000 OBP, but since being hit by the pitch is treated like a walk (and thus not an official at bat) he has no batting average and, having never taken the field, no fielding percentage.

Now, I don't mean to overstate things here.  Comparatively speaking, we're not talking about some epic tragedy here.  But if the idea of a kid finally achieving his lifelong dream and then having it instantly and mercilessly ripped away from him doesn't at least strike you as a bit sad, I'm not sure you have a pulse.  This is about the closest I've seen to a real life Monkey Paw moment.

Now cut to this year.  Cubs fan/amateur filmmaker Matt Liston started a "One At Bat" petition to try and get some team to sign Greenberg for a day in order to give him one more shot at his dream.  Now obviously this is not the kind of thing that is expected (or even has the slightest chance) to restart his major league career.  But that's not what this is about.  This is about a sad story which we have in our power to turn into a happy one (or at least one that's a lot less sad).  Sure, it's a publicity stunt but so what?  I am as much of a believer in the integrity of sporting events (see my last post) as anyone but that doesn't mean that we should lose sight of the fact that the ultimate purpose of sports is still to be entertainment.

After collecting over 14,000 signatures Liston approached the Cubs and early last month they gave their answer: pass.  Now if the Cubs were even remotely still alive for any kind of playoff contention or, indeed, if they were doing anything other than stumbling towards their worst finish in 50 years, I could understand the "integrity of the game" argument.  But right now there is no conceivable reason for fans to attend a game at Wrigley other than to have a few beers/hot dogs and enjoy the last couple of warm days before Chicago goes into deep freeze.  It literally cost the Cubs nothing to do this - ok, not quite nothing; 1/162nd of the MLB league minimum salary of $480,000  (i.e. $3000) - but still they passed.  Heck, even if you don't consider $3000 cheap for a PR stunt it would have been worth $3000 just to stop the story of them passing from getting written.  But I guess the Cubs brass didn't think so.  The "integrity" of the game was too important apparently (never mind the fire sale of all the team's tradeable parts at the the deadline).

So Liston next approached the Marlins (after all, it was their pitcher who beaned Mr. Greenberg in the first place) and last week they gave their answer: yes.  They signed him to a 1-day contract effective for tomorrow only, with the proceeds to be donated to a charity.  He will be in uniform tomorrow night when the Marlins face the Mets and, presumably, will be given one at bat.

I don't care that it's a PR stunt.  I don't care that Mr. Greenberg will likely strike out.  I am happy that Mr. Greenberg will get one more chance to stand in a major league batter's box and achieve a little bit of closure, and I'm proud of the Marlins organization for being willing to make the miniscule amount of effort necessary to give this story a happy ending.  And shame on the Cubs for not being willing to do the same.  Shame on them for missing the opportunity to have a positive PR story at the end of this disaster of a season and to send a message to their whole organization that "hey, we know you're not just assets; you're also people who have dreams and we will help you if we can."

Speaking of the Cubs, when Mr. Greenberg steps to the plate tomorrow night, 1000 miles away they will be facing the Houston Astros - literally the only other team in baseball with a worse record than them.  So glad we could "preserve the integrity of the game" by not allowing a PR stunt to distract us fans from this epic matchup.

Now, if Mr. Greenberg gets beaned tomorrow, then I can only conclude that God hates him.

Our Long National Nightmare is Over!

I am referring, of course, to the return of the regular refs to the NFL.

The title is tongue in cheek of course, lest anyone think I really do take football that seriously.  But in all seriousness, the NFL was getting pretty hard to watch, even before the proverbial last straw came in the form of a Golden Tate non-catch-but-still-a-game-winning-TD on Monday night.

Taking an objective approach, you had the makings of a very interesting social experiment in all of this.  Week 1 of the season there were some blown calls to be sure, but everything appeared to be running fairly smoothly.  There was increased scrutiny on the missed calls but there was nothing that really elevated the situation to a crisis level or even made it appear that things were headed that way.

But then something started to happen in week 2.  The players started to realize that the replacement refs weren't able to see as much as the regular refs did, so you started seeing a lot more replays where there was a lot of activity away from the play that usually would have drawn a flag in years past.  And as stories (unconfirmed) started emerging about refs commenting to players about their fantasy teams, it became apparent to both the players and the coaches that these refs were still a bit star-struck and intimidated by the stage.  The result was that both the coaches and the players started ratcheting up their antics during the game.  Now after every play there were 3-4 guys from each team lobbying for a flag and both head coaches screaming from the sidelines.  The pace of the game slowed to a crawl as the refs had to constantly huddle together to talk about each call.  And then a couple times a game they would make a mistake in the application of a rule (enforcing a penalty from the original line of scrimmage instead of at the spot of the foul, for example) and the league officials in the booth would have to buzz down to stop play so that the mistake could be corrected.

Predictably, all of these things together just served to keep undermining the confidence of the refs, which in turn just led to worse decisions and more mistakes till it became a positive feedback loop.  By last weekend, the game really started to look and feel drastically different.  I would love to see a side by side comparison of the Sunday night game between the Patriots and Ravens and the AFC championship game from January between the same two teams.  I think it would look like half the rulebook had been changed.  You had defenders basically tackling blockers away from the ball downfield, cornerbacks teeing off on receivers and not getting called for PI, and then barely touching them the next time and drawing a flag.

It all reminds me of the Malcolm Gladwell description of the difference between choking and panicking.  Choking is what a professional does - it's when a skill that they have been naturally good at their entire life and never had to think about before suddenly abandons them and they end up no longer reacting to things but overthinking everything and just making more and more mistakes.  Greg Norman at  the 1996 Masters is the textbook example of this. 

Panic, on the other hand, is the realm of the amateur.  This is what happens when someone gets in over their head and just does not have the knowledge or the skill to cope and, in realizing this, just loses the ability to see things objectively and rationally.  The plane crash and death of JFK Jr.  is a good example.

To me, the replacement refs clearly started to panic and that is what elevated this situation from a minor, tolerable nuisance into a crisis in short order.  You could almost see and feel the fear these officials felt as the scrutiny, criticism, and pressure mounted on them.  And it's not surprising to me in the least that they caved under it.  They were ordinary passengers being asked to fly a 747.  Everything's easy while the plane is flying straight and level, but as soon as warning lights and alarms start going off things deteriorate very quickly.

So with all that having been said, I am both very glad to see the real refs return and I hold absolutely no ill feelings towards the replacement refs.  Tonight's Browns/Ravens game is likely to be the first and only time that a crew of referees get a standing ovation as they are announced.  I wonder how long after that before the first call gets booed.  It's likely to be the shortest honeymoon in history.

Back Again

On the off-chance that I do still have the occasional reader or two, I thought I might try blogging again for a change.

Two stories caught my eye today, that I had some quick thoughts on.  First there's this one, about a dog in Kazakhstan who reportedly died while saving his owner's life by pulling him off the railroad tracks.  I am not trying to be insensitive in any way but this story (at least as it's written) makes absolutely no sense.  You have a guy passed out on the railroad tracks.  A train is coming, so the dog starts to pull the guy off of the tracks.  The story distinctly says that he dragged him (not pushed him) to safety and then was hit.  How does the dog safely drag the owner away yet still get hit by the train?  It just doesn't logistically work.  If the dog was dragging him, he should have been farther away from the train than the guy.  The only way it possibly makes sense is if there were two trains coming from opposite directions and the dog pulled the guy from one track into the middle, which then left the dog standing on the other tracks exposed.  That seems quite unlikely though.  I find it far more likely that the guy, who is described as being "suicidal" and "had passed out on the tracks after drinking a bottle of alcohol", simply fell asleep next to the tracks, left his dog unattended, and the dog was simply hit.  So rather than saying "yeah I'm an irresponsible drunken pet owner who just caused my dog's death" he decides to say "my heroic dog died saving my life."  Or maybe not.  Could be there's a very logical explanation for what happened and the dog really did die saving his owner.  I'm just saying that once again our wonderful media, in an effort to get a tear-jerking story out to the public as quickly as possible, has failed to provide us with an extremely basic level of information on what exactly happened.

On a somewhat lighter note, I saw the headline for this story: The Feds Can't Catch the Cartels' Cocaine-Filled Submarines and seriously thought that the story was about cartels deciding to smuggle drugs inside sandwiches.  I was both embarrassed and disappointed to discover that I was wrong.

On the political front, with the election less than 2 months away it's looking like the Romney campaign is on life support.  The overall national numbers look pretty comparable but he is behind in several key swing states, including Ohio, Virginia, and Wisconsin and the math is such that he basically needs all of them in order to win and that just seems unlikely.  Or rather, it seems unlikely that his campaign will have the ability to turn those numbers around on their own.  At this point, it will take another Lehman Brothers-like domestic disaster or a huge international incident to shake up this race.  Even so, the way this country is polarized right now I find it hard to believe that there are really a ton of undecided voters left out there.  Nor should there be; it isn't as if either of these candidates are mysteries to the public.  Both of them have pretty much been nationally campaigning non-stop for the last 6 years.  The only way you don't know about either of them is if you have willfully chosen to completely ignore politics over that entire period.  And if you have in fact done that, it is incredibly unlikely you'll suddenly start paying attention now in the last 50-some days.

Our News Media: The Max Powers Way

Homer: There are 3 ways of doing things.  The right way, the wrong way, and the Max Powers way.
Bart: Isn't that still the wrong way?
Homer: Yeah, but faster!

I was reminded of this Simpsons quote (since all of life can be summed up in Simpsons quotes) after watching both CNN and Fox News butcher the Supreme Court ruling last Thursday.

Now, I hate to make a really big deal over what amounted to a 2-7 minute hiccup but it's just such a perfect illustration of what's wrong with our news media today.  Be first.  At all costs.  Accuracy is a distant secondary concern.  It's bad enough that these 24-hour "news" channels present their own spin as fact, but now they're not even waiting to see what the facts are.  And the worst part is that they will learn nothing from this.  NBC and CBS were embarrassed in 2000 when they called Florida for Gore too early, and both vowed to do a more careful job in waiting for results before reporting on them.  Now they had all the facts in their hand but just couldn't wait the 3 minutes for someone to actually read through the decision before reporting on it.  Seriously, do we really need to actually see the on-location reporter reading the decision on the air?  Whatever happened to determining the facts and then deciding the best way to present them to the public?  Is this a novel idea, or hopelessly retro?

On another note, this decision surprised me in another way.  On Wednesday night I thought to myself "well, one way or another, this will all be over tomorrow" - it will be upheld or it won't but either way we can move on.  Little did I know that there would be another way.  Upheld, seemingly handing the President and Democrats a  victory, but labeled a tax, which is red meat for Republicans in an election year.

For what it's worth (very, very little) I believe the Supreme Court made the right call. As much as Democrats  tried to call it something else, it really is just a tax/penalty and thus well within Congress' rights.

What To Do With All That Leftover Easter Candy

Does this make me a creative genius, incredibly fat, or both?

Ignoring My Own Advice

One of my favorite pieces of advice to give people is pretty simple: "don't listen to me, listen to you." I find that about 90% of the time when I talk to someone about a problem, they seem to already know what the best way to handle it is and all I end up saying is "yes, I think you're right". And it never ceases to amaze me when the same person who just told me what the best solution was then goes out and immediately does the exact opposite.

Well, this time it's me doing it as I didn't listen to my own advice: I went and saw Van Halen again.

I am one of the biggest Van Halen fans that ever walked the Earth. I've now seen them 9 times since 1994 (and that doesn't even include the 3 times I've seen Sammy Hagar solo and the one time I saw Sammy and DLR solo on tour together). I also own every studio album on CD (yep, even the brand new one) and I still remember going around to ARC Record Conventions in the pre-internet days scouring dealer booths for bootleg cassettes, VHS tapes, and even the occasional $60 CD. Nevertheless, back in 2007 about midway through my 8th time seeing them (which also happened to be my 2nd time seeing them that week) I suddenly knew beyond all doubt that I never needed to see them again. And yet I did. And how appropriate that the show was a week ago Sunday. Yep, April Fool's Day.

It isn't that the show was truly bad and was torture to sit through. It's just that I found myself completely unable to get excited about it. David Lee Roth has always been a terrible singer live - even when he actually tries to "sing" instead of just talking his way through he still makes absolutely no effort to stay within the rhyme and meter of the way the song was recorded. He was able to get away with it back in the day due to his undeniable raw charisma. Well, what's original and charismatic in your 20s and early 30s just looks lazy and tired when you're in your late 50s.

And then there's Eddie. God bless him, he's still one of the greatest rock guitarists out there. The trouble is that even though that's true, he's a mere shadow of his former self. I used to go to a Van Halen show and hang on his every note; I'd strain to hear each note of every solo and actually hoping that somewhere along the way he would screw up. Because it was like hearing God make a mistake - that tiny trace of an imperfection which offered the reassurance that he was human after all. Since seeing him in 2004 when he was quite, shall we say, chemically unbalanced, that perspective has flipped. Now as each solo approaches I think "please don't screw this up Eddie". And for the most part he does just fine, but this is Eddie F'n Van Halen we're talking about here - "just fine" does not cut it. I wish I could look and listen to him while comparing him to the rest of the guitarists out there but I can't. I can only compare him to himself, and he just doesn't measure up anymore.

Really, it's not his fault. The guy's 57 years old and to compare him to his 20 and 30-year-old self is admittedly unfair. But just like it was sad to see Michael Jordan those last few years on the Wizards, it's sad to see EVH now. But here's the thing - that's when Michael Jordan retired, and that's what I think it's time for Van Halen to do.

I don't think this is specific to Van Halen though. The more I've thought about it over the last week, I think I've decided that all rock musicians should stop when they hit 40. Really, can you think of a single rock musician where, if they had stopped at age 40, the world would have been denied some of there best work? *Maybe* U2, but that's about it. Everyone else I can think of has released albums that are either downright awful or merely decent, but nothing great. Hell, I actually think that the latest Van Halen album is pretty good, but that's because 75% of it are unreleased songs that Eddie wrote 25-35 years ago.

This is a problem that's specific to rock music, I think, because rock is the music of conflict. Whether it's a political struggle or resisting conformity or just wanting the right to get high and/or drunk and/or have sex all day and not give a shit about anything else - it is predominantly about fighting for something. Thus rock is by definition the music of the young and energetic. So I think that there is just something inherently sad about seeing aging, decrepit rock stars up there singing the rock anthems of their youth. It's not that I don't think they have the right to do it, or that people don't want to see them do it, it's just that somewhere along the line I wish they'd realize "alright, that's enough already" and stop, even though I know they won't.

At least stop making new music. I think they should hit 40 and take 10 years off. Then at 50 you can come back out and play your old hits if your fans still want to pay to hear them. Just do it with the full knowledge of what you are at that point - a nostalgia act. Realize that, whether you like it or not, no matter how good you were in your glory days your contribution to the pantheon of rock music is done. You're not "still going strong" or "still rocking after all these years" - you've basically been reduced to being your own tribute band.

Taken in that context, I think that was my real problem with the Van Halen show. They still think they're a current rock band, and I was hanging onto that too. Instead, if I had gone to the show with the mindset of "oh, I just wanna get drunk and sing 'Panama' with 15,000 people one more time" I probably would have enjoyed it a lot more. Hey, maybe I will go see them one more time after all . . .

Just kidding.

I think.

Bye Bye Prius

Yesterday was a bit of a bittersweet day as we finally said goodbye to our beloved Prius. It gave us over 67,000 miles without once breaking down on us or needing any work whatsoever other than regular maintenance and a new set of tires. It was also our first new car. Yep, for four and a half years it was pretty much perfect for us.

Thus, it was sad to see it go but it was just time. The catalyst was a few weeks ago when Christy went out looking at double-strollers and realized that none of them would fit in the back. That led to a realization of just how often we have used the space in the backseat next to Anabelle for cargo, space which is of course now permanently occupied by Charlotte. We tried to see if Charlotte would be open to having the occasional grocery bag or box of litter on her lap but found her surprisingly unreceptive (such a prima donna). And then I just started imagining a day not too far off in the future when my wife would call me from the Sam's Club parking lot in hysterics because she bought too much stuff and has no room for it and Charlotte and Anabelle are both screaming and now she has to try to drive home with a bag of cat food in her lap and rolls of toilet paper strapped to the roof.

Incidentally, I was relaying this concern of mine to a co-worker (who also has two kids) when he informed me that a few years ago they went to Costco and bought so much that they ran out of space and he and the kids had to walk home while his wife drove the car. They live less than a mile away so it wasn't too bad, but still. As you can imagine, now every time he pulls up to Costco with them he gets to hear "are we gonna have to walk home again dad?" Can you put a price on that? More to the point, can you put a price on avoiding that?

So we definitely needed to get something bigger. We toyed with the idea of keeping the Prius and maybe just getting a big, cheap, used 2nd car that we'd only use for big shops and long road trips. But we had to face the fact that at 67,000+ miles the Prius was not going to last forever and this was probably our last chance to trade it in and still get decent value for it.

My first choice was to get one of the smaller SUVs but we took a look at a Rav4 and, even though we liked it, didn't feel like it offered all that much more storage space for the money (especially considering the dramatic reduction in fuel efficiency). Plus Christy really wanted a 3rd row of seats, something that I didn't view as absolutely essential but that would be nice to have. Trouble is that most vehicles offering a 3rd row are either extremely expensive ($35k+), extreme gas guzzlers (less then 20 MPG), or both. Christy was also adamant that she did not want a minivan.

So we pretty much needed a new car for less than $25k that averaged aroun 25 MPG, had a 3rd row of seats, and that wasn't a minivan. Does anything like that exist? The answer is yes, sort of. There's pretty much one (and only one) option - the Mazda5, so that's what we got. The "sort-of" part about it is that, yes, it is technically a minivan. It's actually a "mini-minivan" that is low to the ground and looks and drives like a wagon, but has the sliding doors and folding seats that are hallmarks of the minivan. At first glance, most people would not think of it as a minivan (which is of course the point) but once you look at it for a while it slowly morphs into one.

Thus, I suppose the transition into suburban parenthood is now complete. I would be more upset about the final death blow to my coolness except that I had very very little coolness to begin with. Still, it's a strange experience because until now I have always been very excited to buy my next car, secure in the knowledge that what I was getting was much better (in at least some ways) than what I was giving up. Not the case here. The best I can say is that we didn't give up much - we have almost all the same features but gave up a lot of fuel efficiency and a paid-off car in exchange for more space, a sunroof, and 60 months of payments (albeit fairly low payments). Ah yes, the joy and excitement of responsibility and compromise. Woo hoo!

Anybody Seen February Anywhere?

It seems like I lost it. Just don't know where it went. Oh well, I'm sure it will turn up somewhere.

So . . . since last I blogged my family grew by exactly one-third. How many times do you get to say that? Just once, I think. Well, unless we decide to have 5 more kids and then have triplets, but I'd classify that as somewhat less than likely so we won't worry about that for now.

Charlotte was born exactly 2 weeks ago today. She was much more considerate than her sister in that she sent Christy into labor at 6:00 A.M. as opposed to 12:30 A.M., so everyone in the house was at least moderately well-rested. Christy and Charlotte came home that Sunday and we have been busy adjusting to the "new normal" ever since.

They say that with a 2nd child the one thing you're not supposed to do is make comparisons to the first. I say that if you happen to be an actual human, on this planet, occupying this particular plane of reality, it's inevitable.

Here's what's the same. First, no matter how prepared you are, when you hear your wife say "I think my water just broke" it still seems sudden and unexpected. I don't know how many kids you'd have to have before the whole experience of running around and getting ready to leave, getting to and checking into the hospital, and going through the whole labor and delivery process seems routine. It's a lot more than 2 though. Maybe once you get into Duggar territory. It definitely was less hectic and anxiety-inducing than last time, but only incrementally so. Secondly, the moment you see your child for the first time is just as amazing. The phenomenon of seeing someone for the first time but literally in an instant being struck with such an intense feeling of love and a fierce desire to protect them is just as overwhelming the 2nd time as it is the first.

What's different? Well, pretty much everything else. For one thing, there is an expression that "once something is known it cannot be unknown." In other words, in some instances naivety and ignorance are a blessing. Leading up to Anabelle, I knew that it would be a challenge and that there would be sleepless nights but it all just seemed so surreal and mysterious that I really had no solid conception of what our life would be like with a newborn. That is no longer the case with Charlotte. I remember exactly what it felt like to hold a tiny little creature in my hands who screamed at me for 2 hours straight with complete and utter disregard to the 100 things I did to try to placate her and I knew that at some point in the next couple months that was going to happen again, probably multiple times. I also found myself pretty much assuming that all of the difficulties we had with Anabelle would be repeated, while also being convinced that everything that was easy and went well with her will not happen again. And this is not imagined in some vague, hypothetical scenario - now that I have had some real world experience to draw from, I can vividly picture it. I don't mean to indicate that I live in a constant state of mortal terror, just that I no longer have the luxury of being clueless. In reality, so far I'd actually say that Charlotte's habits and temperament have been remarkably similar to Anabelle's.

Then there is the matter of attention to detail. With Anabelle I found myself obsessed with her every move and facial expression. Was she looking at me? Was she trying to grab that toy? Did she see the cat and does she realize what it is? Was that a smile or just gas? I read all my daddy books to find out when to expect the myriad of milestones (rolling over, crawling, etc) and then always silently but consistently marked her progress against the "norms". It is only in hindsight that I realized that it wasn't till somewhere in the 3-6 month range that Anabelle's personality really began to emerge and that, well, that's pretty much the case with all babies. So with Charlotte I just find myself being a lot more patient about this whole process. I realize that right now her body is busy developing, um, pretty much everything, and that what we are mainly seeing at this point are reflex actions. Soon enough all of those reflexes will be replaced by deliberate thoughts and actions and we'll really get to meet her.

From a logistical standpoint, it certainly is crazier with two (and through 2 weeks neither Christy or I have spent more than a couple hours alone with both Anabelle and Charlotte) but somehow there is just something much more clarifying about it. With Anabelle, I find that we got ourselves in trouble a lot easier. By this I mean that we'd get Anabelle to sleep and then we'd both go about doing our normal activities (i.e. watching TV, playing video games, shopping, etc). So then Anabelle would decide to have one of her bad, stay-up-all-night episodes and neither one of us would be in any condition to handle it. Now, with very few exceptions, when Anabelle is asleep (whether it's a nap or for the night) then either Christy or I need to be asleep too. Period. Otherwise we're just setting ourselves up for disaster. We also just completely accepted the fact that until probably the one-month mark we will never be sleeping in our bed at the same time.

Overall, I think that we have been adjusting pretty well. It's certainly more of a challenge with two kids, but it's not twice as hard. By comparison, going from 0 to 1 is the one that's twice as hard.

Or maybe it just means that my wife is doing all the work this time . . .