Thanks to some skillful scheduling, I don't have Friday classes, so I thought I'd add to my usual Friday workload of dropping by our Chaplain-in-Residence's apartment to watch The Office at 9pm (she always bakes; tonight's "Death by Chocolate") by adding another post about the speech last night, developing some of the ideas I tossed out there in last night's post along the way.
***
Quote of the speech I: "We face more than a deficit of dollars right now: We face a deficit of trust."
Couldn't have said it better myself. People just plain don't trust the United States Government right now, with the Congress (especially the Senate) probably leading the pack but none of the three branches looking too great right now. Obama pointed the finger at the "fourth branch"--lobbyists--for this phenomenon; I'd say that's only part of the problem. A big part, to be sure, but it still fails to account for the parochialism and small-mindedness I wrote about yesterday. The Senate can't even be accused of looking at the trees and not the forest right now--they're too focused on the twigs.
Quote of the speech II: "The nation that leads the green economy will be the nation that leads the world economy, and America must be that nation."
Also true. Promptly offshoring all the manufacturing jobs in wind power (we invented the technology but we import the physical components from China) was a good start. Not. We have got to do better than that. It used to be that buying a home was the surest way of "buying American." That's no longer true, but it could be again if we get serious about designing and building or retrofitting green buildings (solar panels on the roof, greenhouses off the back, whatever).
Random thoughts and wrap-up:
I broached a pretty big topic by bringing up childhood obesity and industrial food production last night. That could be an entire column, or even a book or several (it has been). I started thinking seriously about this issue while on my NOLS course over the summer because one of my best friends on the trip was an Ag major at Texas A&M. He's devoted his studies to figuring out the future of farming, and it was fascinating to hear him tell about the way things are and the way he thinks they should be for a month. This is a guy who earns spending money by growing organic vegetables in his backyard at school and selling them to the organic restaurant around the corner. He's also given up meat, and not because he doesn't like it or for health considerations (he used to be a chef at a BBQ joint), but because he claims he doesn't want to give his food dollar to big agriculture, specifically big meat producers.
That was a bit of an eye-opener: I love my steak (and fish and pork and poultry...) and spend every Friday afternoon when it's nice out grilling up 300lbs. of burger meat and a few butts of pulled pork with the GU Grilling Society (GUGS). Even before NOLS, I'd heard that red meat was bad and blah blah blah, but never really paid attention because 19-year-olds don't give a damn about cholesterol, artherosclerosis, or what have you. But my friend Brady got me thinking, and since I've been back to school this semester I've stumbled across and read some pretty serious material on what exactly big agriculture means.
Now, I'm not about to tell you all that I've gone veg--far from it, and there's good evidence that "flexitarians" or occasional meat-eaters are actually healthier than strict vegetarians anyway. Still, it's fascinating and frightening to read up on this issue and the story behind everything in your favorite local supermarket, Whole Paycheck included (we're going to assume that "Fast Food Nation" and "Super Size Me" have delivered enough evidence for the prosecution against fast food). First of all, agricultural specialization is intimately tied to global warming. As much as a third of all fossil fuel consumption in this country is related to the transport of foodstuffs from their far-flung points of origin to your refrigerator; ethanol actually takes more carbon to make than it saves by being added to the gas in your car; etc, etc, etc. Second, and far scarier, is the real science (as opposed to the junk science preached by big ag and rubber stamped by everyone's favorite government) concerning the effects of industrial food on the human body. Let's face it: our bodies haven't even really come to grips with bread and other high-carb foods from an evolutionary standpoint, and they don't stand a chance against Coca-Cola, rBGH, high-fructose corn syrup, or any of the other crap (sometimes literal) that has been allowed to enter the food supply thanks to specialized, industrial agribusiness practices. I won't even begin to get into what the animals go through before slaughter; that's just gross.
Very long story short, I highly suggest doing some research of your own and then thinking about how you want to vote with your food dollar. Depending on what angle you approach this from, there are tremendous benefits to be realized: nutritional, ecological, environmental, humane, etc. The more you read, the more disgusted you'll be at both the scope of the problem and the apparent ease of the solution. There's no reason on Earth (other than the "corrosive influence of lobbyists" that Obama cited last night) for our country and the rest of the world to be beholden to the insane system that's come to rule food production and distribution in the last couple of decades.
End of sermon. Do a quick online search or pick up one of Michael Pollan's books or the film (and/or accompanying book) "Food, Inc." You'll be shocked and awed... In the meantime, go, Michelle, go--obesity is a huge problem with American kids and it's about time someone took it on.
Finally, a quick point on Obama's remarks on topics related to me and my generation. He acknowledged that Americans want to give their children better lives, that a world-class education is the best insurance against poverty, and that student loans need to be brought under control. Excellent points, all. But I still don't see how that can be squared with the rest of his speech. It's the economy, stupid! Trillion-dollar deficits (likely spurred on by Obamacare) are going to cause downward mobility. Simple as that. They are also going to mean "settling for second"--or worse--internationally. Repeat after me: fiscal responsibility is going to be the order of the next decade, minimum. Regulation, taxation, all of it. Gotta get fixed. Luckily, my family and I are in a position where I am able to pursue a world-class education. A little upward mobility--preferably in a country that's still the world leader--as a result would be much appreciated.
Thursday, January 28, 2010
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
State of the Union
A few picked-up pieces while waiting for the first State of the Union address of the Obama presidency...
--A "government spending freeze?" Really?! First of all, it affects 17% of the Federal budget. OK, I guess that's something, but talk about putting a band-aid on a gunshot wound. What are we, a Third-World country? Read my lips: a deficit north of $1 trillion and growing by the minute means it's time for new taxes. Do it right, do it quick, and do it in one fell swoop, but the time for a now.
--Enjoy your football while it lasts. Next year is 99% certain to be uncapped and it's looking more and more likely that no new CBA will be in place in time for a 2011 season. Seems to the rest of the world like there's both more than enough money to go around and so much at stake (remember the MLB and NHL lockouts? Those leagues still haven't recovered while the NFL has become the national pastime) that a deal should happen, but it's really not looking that way.
--More from the Dept. of Counterproductive Negotiation: I'm now firmly convinced that if this country does lose influence in the world and/or come to ruin as the Fareed Zakarias of the world would have it, this congress will be at fault for that happening. Small-mindedness, parochialism, corruption, political (mental?) stupidity, squandered chances...you name it, they got it. And if they got it, it turns rotten in a real big hurry. Obama pointed out that "the ship of state doesn't stop on a dime." Fine. We get it. The problem is when the engine room telegraph is set to full speed ahead port and full speed astern starboard.
--On a related note: "the Party of 'No'?" Come on, GOP. It's ridiculous that that's even a viable opposition strategy these days, but that's no way to move forward as a country. I've said it before, I'll say it again: true conservatives don't oppose all forward progress, they just try to make sure things move at a reasonable pace. Let's think logically for a second, since it's an election year: who really wants to put senators/representatives of "No" in office? More to the point, who wants to elect a "President of 'No?'" You want the party of No, you get the representation of No, you get the president of No, you get--yep--Sarah Palin. As in no experience, no plan, and no chance of putting Humpty together again.
***
Now that the speech is over and I've gotten out of a meeting, it's time to skip a bunch of homework and stay up past my bedtime to get this thing in your in-boxes by the time your coffee's brewed tomorrow morning. Off to the races...
Overall, I'd say that was a better-than-we've-seen-recently version of Mr. Hope & Change, but still not Candidate Obama or the kind of assured, deeply grounded bravura performance that most people were hoping for. I still don't get a strong sense of what--if anything--this President is willing to fight tooth and nail for in the legislative arena. There was a lot of imploring, a lot of promising, and a lot of planning, most of which had to do with the future ("That's how budgeting works!"). There were also some good calls to the Republicans to either start cooperating or start coming up with new ideas if they're so intractably opposed to the agenda the administration is pushing. That's a solid point. As Obama noted, "Just saying no to everything might be good short-term politics, but it's not leadership." I couldn't agree more with the second half of that statement, and I'd go so far as to say that the first half is pretty off-base as well. You have to think in an awfully short term for "'No' to everything!" to look like sound politics.
Obama's short-term political agenda is clearly focused on the three best ways to fix the economy, meanwhile: Jobs, jobs, and saving Tim Geithner's hide (aka more jobs). Lots of crooked numbers about who gets tax cuts and why, which sectors need to be encouraged, where we're going to get all the money to keep stimulating growth without adding the proverbial dime to the budget (!), and so forth. All of which boiled down to acknowledging what Main Street has been crying out for some time now: We need jobs, and we need 'em yesterday. For someone with political astuteness Obama has shown previously, I'm still incredulous at how badly botched his message has been lately as executive bonuses shoot right back up while employment in fundamental industries like construction continues to dive. This royally pissed off the all-important middle class and independent voters, who took the first opportunity given them to voice their concern and chose Scott Brown to send that message loud and clear. Talk about short-sighted politics, but to a large extent Obama and the Dems got what they deserved. There's not much time left to reformulate the message before the mid-terms offer a wider referendum on the administration to date.
Other important notes from the speech:
1. Repeal "Don't ask, don't tell." I assume the Chiefs (sitting in the front row) either heard about that one or relied on decades of practice with their poker faces to keep from appearing like they had severe indigestion when this little bombshell dropped right in their laps. The policy probably should go; it's not like we've never had gays in the military before and there is of course no question regarding their fitness for duty from an operational standpoint. Still, the Pentagon is going to have a cow on this one because soldiering is by nature a fairly homophobic profession, often practiced in an environment that lends itself to exacerbating that very homophobia. It will be interesting to see if any restrictions are placed on openly gay soldiers as there are on female ones: no serving in front line infantry units, submarines, or special operations forces, to name a few. In the extremely close and rough quarters of the front lines, a metal tube under the ocean, or behind enemy lines, conventional wisdom says soldiers don't do well to have women or gays along for the ride. I'm not really advocating the conventional wisdom on this one, because I feel that both sides have some merit to their positions. The Pentagon's going postal, just watch.
2. College loan payment/forgiveness. I'm conflicted on this, too. Sounds great to those of us in college, not exactly rolling, and not necessarily opposed to 10 years of post-college public service to have all college debts forgiven after 10 years. Still, that's another welfare state element that for some reason is really getting under my skin.
3. New energy sources/leading the green economy. Good thoughts both, but also requiring significant changes in the way we think about and meet energy needs. I'm not opposed to nuclear and I certainly support leading the green economy (and thus the world economy, if Obama is to be believed), but as with all of climate change at this point, those represent only part of the picture. Carbon offsetting is a bunch of BS--it's time to get serious about what's going on around us and how we propose to fix it.
4. If the climate crisis hasn't scared the Bejeezus out of you yet (and it should), take a look at food. Food is intimately related to the climate crisis, so it makes sense to look at and try to handle the two in tandem rather than individually. Food has been a little hobby of mine lately in the sense that I've read a couple of interesting books and articles on food and diet and how the modern diet is slowly killing us and not-so-slowly killing Mother Nature. The more you learn, the more perverse it all seems and the fewer options appear but to become the most educated food consumer you can be and to be damn scrupulous with your food dollar. I can't recommend enough the value of at least doing some internet searching on industrial food production or--better--picking up a Michael Pollan book or something similar. In addition to climate change, Michelle Obama's national campaign to combat childhood obesity is a worthy and sorely needed effort.
5. Finally, the one you've all been waiting for: Barack Obama & the Supremes. To call the Court's ruling last week boneheaded would be complimentary. I won't go into full detail on why I think that ruling was 100% dead wrong, but suffice it to say that I absolutely do. Legislation such as Obama proposed tonight must be forthcoming, and fast, preferably before the mid-terms.
***
One last issue to hammer away on before I call it quits for the evening. Economics. I'm no econ major (suffering through my last required semester of econ right now), but the number of fallacies, fantasies, and just plain crap that's been emanating from the White House lately regarding the economy--this speech very much included--has been mind-boggling. Again, this isn't the space to list every single bit of gobbledy-gook and/or outright garbage, but the bottom line is that there's a lot of you-know-what flying to cover up the very obvious fact that this country is in a serious fiscal pickle. If Obama wants to talk about taking strong stands and telling "hard truths" despite poll numbers and popular opinion, it's time to talk budget, deficit, and taxes. As I mentioned at the top of the column, a spending freeze that starts next year and doesn't touch defense or entitlement spending actually freezes less than 20% of the federal budget. In times of trillion-plus dollar deficits (that will only increase between now and when the "freeze" comes into effect), that doesn't even begin to address the problem. Please, please don't insult my intelligence or this fancy education I'm working on here by telling me that all this stuff you just promised isn't going to add "a dime" (that phrase again) to the budget/deficit. Health care is not free; people won't just forgive student loans after 20 years or accept smaller payments on them without compensating somehow; defense and entitlement spending are snowballing; etc. Freezing 17% of the current budget level will probably mean less than a 15% freeze on discretionary spending by next year.
The answer, of course, is revenue. About the only times the Republican side of the Congress stood (or even applauded [jerks!]) was when Obama mentioned yet more tax breaks. Taxes may or may not stifle innovation--they probably do--but we've put ourselves in such a hole that the only way out is going to be finding new revenue streams and getting more out of the old ones. If Obama is serious about "not accept[ing] second place for the United States of America" (when was the last time you even heard that kind of thing in a State of the Union?), it's time to think a little harder about economics than faux-freezes and recycling bailout money from banks to stimulus to whatever. In the final analysis, the U.S. government is going to have to raise taxes in very explicit and painful ways for the first time in a long time in the near future. It will have to be quick and dirty, but effective. Just look at the income tax: In early U.S. history, this was unthinkable and unlawful, but the passage of the 16th Amendment in 1913 finally allowed Congress to levy an income tax, which Americans have been grudgingly but pretty much automatically paying ever since. Like climate change or the ship of state, our deficits will not stop on a dime. Even freezing the budget entirely wouldn't accomplish that, and that's never going to happen. Real and painful measures will have to be enacted in the near future to begin to tackle the deficit in meaningful ways.
For now, it's back to business in the happy little hamlet of Washington, D.C. Time to find out if wearing a red tie and dressing the Veep, the Speaker, and the First Lady in purple can actually yield some bipartisanship around here. Wouldn't that make for some nice Hope 'n' Change?
--A "government spending freeze?" Really?! First of all, it affects 17% of the Federal budget. OK, I guess that's something, but talk about putting a band-aid on a gunshot wound. What are we, a Third-World country? Read my lips: a deficit north of $1 trillion and growing by the minute means it's time for new taxes. Do it right, do it quick, and do it in one fell swoop, but the time for a now.
--Enjoy your football while it lasts. Next year is 99% certain to be uncapped and it's looking more and more likely that no new CBA will be in place in time for a 2011 season. Seems to the rest of the world like there's both more than enough money to go around and so much at stake (remember the MLB and NHL lockouts? Those leagues still haven't recovered while the NFL has become the national pastime) that a deal should happen, but it's really not looking that way.
--More from the Dept. of Counterproductive Negotiation: I'm now firmly convinced that if this country does lose influence in the world and/or come to ruin as the Fareed Zakarias of the world would have it, this congress will be at fault for that happening. Small-mindedness, parochialism, corruption, political (mental?) stupidity, squandered chances...you name it, they got it. And if they got it, it turns rotten in a real big hurry. Obama pointed out that "the ship of state doesn't stop on a dime." Fine. We get it. The problem is when the engine room telegraph is set to full speed ahead port and full speed astern starboard.
--On a related note: "the Party of 'No'?" Come on, GOP. It's ridiculous that that's even a viable opposition strategy these days, but that's no way to move forward as a country. I've said it before, I'll say it again: true conservatives don't oppose all forward progress, they just try to make sure things move at a reasonable pace. Let's think logically for a second, since it's an election year: who really wants to put senators/representatives of "No" in office? More to the point, who wants to elect a "President of 'No?'" You want the party of No, you get the representation of No, you get the president of No, you get--yep--Sarah Palin. As in no experience, no plan, and no chance of putting Humpty together again.
***
Now that the speech is over and I've gotten out of a meeting, it's time to skip a bunch of homework and stay up past my bedtime to get this thing in your in-boxes by the time your coffee's brewed tomorrow morning. Off to the races...
Overall, I'd say that was a better-than-we've-seen-recently version of Mr. Hope & Change, but still not Candidate Obama or the kind of assured, deeply grounded bravura performance that most people were hoping for. I still don't get a strong sense of what--if anything--this President is willing to fight tooth and nail for in the legislative arena. There was a lot of imploring, a lot of promising, and a lot of planning, most of which had to do with the future ("That's how budgeting works!"). There were also some good calls to the Republicans to either start cooperating or start coming up with new ideas if they're so intractably opposed to the agenda the administration is pushing. That's a solid point. As Obama noted, "Just saying no to everything might be good short-term politics, but it's not leadership." I couldn't agree more with the second half of that statement, and I'd go so far as to say that the first half is pretty off-base as well. You have to think in an awfully short term for "'No' to everything!" to look like sound politics.
Obama's short-term political agenda is clearly focused on the three best ways to fix the economy, meanwhile: Jobs, jobs, and saving Tim Geithner's hide (aka more jobs). Lots of crooked numbers about who gets tax cuts and why, which sectors need to be encouraged, where we're going to get all the money to keep stimulating growth without adding the proverbial dime to the budget (!), and so forth. All of which boiled down to acknowledging what Main Street has been crying out for some time now: We need jobs, and we need 'em yesterday. For someone with political astuteness Obama has shown previously, I'm still incredulous at how badly botched his message has been lately as executive bonuses shoot right back up while employment in fundamental industries like construction continues to dive. This royally pissed off the all-important middle class and independent voters, who took the first opportunity given them to voice their concern and chose Scott Brown to send that message loud and clear. Talk about short-sighted politics, but to a large extent Obama and the Dems got what they deserved. There's not much time left to reformulate the message before the mid-terms offer a wider referendum on the administration to date.
Other important notes from the speech:
1. Repeal "Don't ask, don't tell." I assume the Chiefs (sitting in the front row) either heard about that one or relied on decades of practice with their poker faces to keep from appearing like they had severe indigestion when this little bombshell dropped right in their laps. The policy probably should go; it's not like we've never had gays in the military before and there is of course no question regarding their fitness for duty from an operational standpoint. Still, the Pentagon is going to have a cow on this one because soldiering is by nature a fairly homophobic profession, often practiced in an environment that lends itself to exacerbating that very homophobia. It will be interesting to see if any restrictions are placed on openly gay soldiers as there are on female ones: no serving in front line infantry units, submarines, or special operations forces, to name a few. In the extremely close and rough quarters of the front lines, a metal tube under the ocean, or behind enemy lines, conventional wisdom says soldiers don't do well to have women or gays along for the ride. I'm not really advocating the conventional wisdom on this one, because I feel that both sides have some merit to their positions. The Pentagon's going postal, just watch.
2. College loan payment/forgiveness. I'm conflicted on this, too. Sounds great to those of us in college, not exactly rolling, and not necessarily opposed to 10 years of post-college public service to have all college debts forgiven after 10 years. Still, that's another welfare state element that for some reason is really getting under my skin.
3. New energy sources/leading the green economy. Good thoughts both, but also requiring significant changes in the way we think about and meet energy needs. I'm not opposed to nuclear and I certainly support leading the green economy (and thus the world economy, if Obama is to be believed), but as with all of climate change at this point, those represent only part of the picture. Carbon offsetting is a bunch of BS--it's time to get serious about what's going on around us and how we propose to fix it.
4. If the climate crisis hasn't scared the Bejeezus out of you yet (and it should), take a look at food. Food is intimately related to the climate crisis, so it makes sense to look at and try to handle the two in tandem rather than individually. Food has been a little hobby of mine lately in the sense that I've read a couple of interesting books and articles on food and diet and how the modern diet is slowly killing us and not-so-slowly killing Mother Nature. The more you learn, the more perverse it all seems and the fewer options appear but to become the most educated food consumer you can be and to be damn scrupulous with your food dollar. I can't recommend enough the value of at least doing some internet searching on industrial food production or--better--picking up a Michael Pollan book or something similar. In addition to climate change, Michelle Obama's national campaign to combat childhood obesity is a worthy and sorely needed effort.
5. Finally, the one you've all been waiting for: Barack Obama & the Supremes. To call the Court's ruling last week boneheaded would be complimentary. I won't go into full detail on why I think that ruling was 100% dead wrong, but suffice it to say that I absolutely do. Legislation such as Obama proposed tonight must be forthcoming, and fast, preferably before the mid-terms.
***
One last issue to hammer away on before I call it quits for the evening. Economics. I'm no econ major (suffering through my last required semester of econ right now), but the number of fallacies, fantasies, and just plain crap that's been emanating from the White House lately regarding the economy--this speech very much included--has been mind-boggling. Again, this isn't the space to list every single bit of gobbledy-gook and/or outright garbage, but the bottom line is that there's a lot of you-know-what flying to cover up the very obvious fact that this country is in a serious fiscal pickle. If Obama wants to talk about taking strong stands and telling "hard truths" despite poll numbers and popular opinion, it's time to talk budget, deficit, and taxes. As I mentioned at the top of the column, a spending freeze that starts next year and doesn't touch defense or entitlement spending actually freezes less than 20% of the federal budget. In times of trillion-plus dollar deficits (that will only increase between now and when the "freeze" comes into effect), that doesn't even begin to address the problem. Please, please don't insult my intelligence or this fancy education I'm working on here by telling me that all this stuff you just promised isn't going to add "a dime" (that phrase again) to the budget/deficit. Health care is not free; people won't just forgive student loans after 20 years or accept smaller payments on them without compensating somehow; defense and entitlement spending are snowballing; etc. Freezing 17% of the current budget level will probably mean less than a 15% freeze on discretionary spending by next year.
The answer, of course, is revenue. About the only times the Republican side of the Congress stood (or even applauded [jerks!]) was when Obama mentioned yet more tax breaks. Taxes may or may not stifle innovation--they probably do--but we've put ourselves in such a hole that the only way out is going to be finding new revenue streams and getting more out of the old ones. If Obama is serious about "not accept[ing] second place for the United States of America" (when was the last time you even heard that kind of thing in a State of the Union?), it's time to think a little harder about economics than faux-freezes and recycling bailout money from banks to stimulus to whatever. In the final analysis, the U.S. government is going to have to raise taxes in very explicit and painful ways for the first time in a long time in the near future. It will have to be quick and dirty, but effective. Just look at the income tax: In early U.S. history, this was unthinkable and unlawful, but the passage of the 16th Amendment in 1913 finally allowed Congress to levy an income tax, which Americans have been grudgingly but pretty much automatically paying ever since. Like climate change or the ship of state, our deficits will not stop on a dime. Even freezing the budget entirely wouldn't accomplish that, and that's never going to happen. Real and painful measures will have to be enacted in the near future to begin to tackle the deficit in meaningful ways.
For now, it's back to business in the happy little hamlet of Washington, D.C. Time to find out if wearing a red tie and dressing the Veep, the Speaker, and the First Lady in purple can actually yield some bipartisanship around here. Wouldn't that make for some nice Hope 'n' Change?
Saturday, January 2, 2010
Happy New Year!
Happy new year from the least-trusted name in news! After missing December (finals will do that to you), we're back in action, looking forward to a new year of clogging up the blogosphere. Everyone ought to be in vacation mode for another couple of days at least--I certainly am--so today's issue is going to be relatively polemic-free. I'll also try to take a little vacation from the level of inscrutability I've been hearing that I normally operate at. No sense making all of you work any harder than necessary over the holidays. Without further ado, a couple of quick-hit thoughts and the first Ten Things of '10.
***
Coffeenerdness: as if I wasn't caffeinated enough beforehand, I've added to my usual student's caffeine problem by working at a coffee shop on campus. Knowing me, I've gone whole hog and started actually taking an interest in coffee and learning how and why it's "good" or "bad," which was about the depth of criticism I could achieve before this fall. I'll still take a black coffee over a latte any day, but at least I know how to make all that espresso stuff now. Which leads us to the best coffees I've experienced in a long time. I decided I'd put my newfound knowledge to good use and buy some quality coffee for Christmas this year (ostensibly for my parents), and went with holiday blends from Counter Culture and Raven's Brew. I'm nobody's salesman or corporate rep, but those are some damn good brews. Counter Culture is a Carolina-based company that I found in my favorite shop in Washington; Raven's Brew is out in Washington state and was the first cup of coffee I found after wandering out of the woods and onto Main St. of Lander, WY this summer. I remembered it fondly and bought a pound of their Santa Caws holiday blend. Counter Culture's a little darker, Raven's Brew is a little sweeter. Mixed the two one morning and found the combo platter better still. Both are highly recommended if you ever feel the urge to venture beyond the Evil Empire (aka Starbucks).
Goat of the Week: Mike Leach, ex-head coach of Texas Tech football. This speaks to two big issues in the college game today: concussions, and the ridiculousness of coaching these days. In a season in which we've seen one coach already canned for hitting a player (Mark Mangino of Kansas) and another (Florida's Urban Meyer) resign for health reasons and then un-resign less than 24 hours later after watching one "spirited practice," Leach gets the Goat award for the whole shebang. Accused of locking a player in a dark equipment room for hours when the player wouldn't play after being concussed, Leach's camp has trotted out all sorts of legal and medical experts saying he did nothing wrong. First of all, Leach probably should have realized what a boneheaded idea locking James up was, given that his father Craig is an ESPN analyst. No matter what the backstory (Leach claims the younger James was soft and that Craig kept lobbying inappropriately for his son to get more playing time), you don't mess with anyone or anything connected to the Worldwide Leader and win. Concussions are for real, and they're here to stay as an issue. Coaches at all levels are going to have to reset their priorities and expectations, as will players. Additionally, something has got to be going wrong when a coach thinks he can pull some kind of Guantanamo Bay crap with his players for any reason at all. So it didn't medically harm James. So what? This is a college kid we're talking about. Theoretically, he's there to go to school (in spite of the NCAA)--maybe taking care of his brain isn't the worst idea.
Ten Things I Think I Think:
1. I think I got a couple of books for Christmas that are worth passing along. First was Peter King's Monday Morning Quarterback book. MMQB is the home of the original Ten Things, out of which this blog has evolved over the course of several years. If you're interested in NFL football, it's a fun and easy read. At least, it's fun for me to have a signed copy of the book of the column that started it all in hand! Second, John Ed Bradley's It Never Rains in Tiger Stadium is a moving memoir of a former LSU football player trying to come to grips with life beyond the game. "It ends for everyone, sooner or later," Bradley writes, noting how everyone deals with that ending is always different and hardly ever easy. It's been a while since I stepped between the sidelines of a lacrosse field with a helmet on, but that's still something I think about every day. Undeniably a football book, to be sure, but it really speaks to the experience of losing something that's defined a life, with plenty more of that life still to live.
2. I think this is my political thought of the week: Earth to GOP--here's the actual conservative position on health care: OK, we get it; we're the richest country on Earth by a long shot and it's a disgrace that we don't provide basic health care to all citizens. That should be fixed. However, since conservatism is about moving forward at a responsible pace, we (the GOP) refuse to play ball until you (the Democrats) come up with a legitimate tax and expenditure proposal that actually stands a chance of getting this country out of debt. (Note: yes, conservatives historically DO try to move forward. They DON'T simply block everything in sight for the hell of it, a la today's Republican senators.) That's all that needs to be said. No anonymous holding, no porking, no filibustering. It would raise taxes, but it would also demand a realistic budget. Dems get healthcare for all, Reps get responsible fiscal policy. Everyone (and not just on the Hill) wins.
3. I think, when I'm wearing my Patriots-fan hat, that I'm really happy that Indy threw that game against the Jets and put the 19-0 stuff to bed for another year. Ok, so I'm still sore about 18-1 in 2007 and I'm less than thrilled that the '72 Dolphins get to pop more champagne, but I'm always happy to see the Colts lose. However, if I'm pretty much anywhere else in the country, but especially in the League offices in New York, I think I'm pretty concerned. Indy's ticket-holders are pissed, and rightfully so. Season tickets cost thousands, single-games hundreds. Who on Earth wants to throw that kind of money on a game like that that looked like some August sleeper? I understand that starters need rest and I know the Super Bowl is the ultimate goal. Still, paying full freight for that game is like paying regular-season prices for the exhibition games (another absurd policy). Fans won't stand for that long.
4. I think it's time for a college football playoff. Everyone in the country from President Obama to the fans who get screwed every year thinks that's so, except for the BCS people themselves. You're telling me that the "national champion" contenders should be picked by a computer?! Remind me again how that's a sport?
5. I think I'm interested to hear what Vin Ferrara has to say to congress on Monday. Vin is a Harvard grad who's invented a new football helmet called the Xenith that is now making its way into the market at all levels as a supposedly better anti-concussion product than the Riddel that's currently the top dog. I know Vin and the majority of his extended family, and Taylor wore one of his helmets this past football season. Having spoken to his sister-in-law and coworker on Christmas Eve, I learned that he's got five minutes to stand in front of a congressional committee and say whatever he wants to. That's likely to be a long, sweaty five minutes in the life of the NFL.
6. I think that even though I've only seen two movies in recent memory, they were both great, and there are a bunch more I'm dying to see soon. Over Thanksgiving I caught "The Blind Side" in New York, and I just saw "Invictus" here at home. The former is a great personal interest/football story; the latter is an A- human interest/rugby film. Both are held up by their lead actors--Sandra Bullock in "The Blind Side" and Morgan Freeman in an epic turn as Nelson Mandela in "Invictus." I've heard good things about "Avatar," "Up In The Air," and a couple of other new releases. Hope to catch at least one more before I go back to school.
7. I think "Invictus," despite some of its filming flaws (way too much elephantine, super slo-mo rugby shots towards the end) made such a great impression on me because it does a tremendous job of showing the motivational, inspirational, even transcendental qualities of both sports and politics. As anyone who's read this column or who knows me would know, those are the two topics I know best and get most excited about. Seeing a country as fragile as South Africa pull together around a national team is a pretty inspiring message, as is seeing a political leader and an athletic leader compare notes on leadership and come to depend on one another in the way Mandela and Francois Pienaart (the Sprinboks' captain, played by Matt Damon) do in the film. For me, that's a terrific reminder of why I care about both sports and politics, how much I like to see them coexist in such an uplifting way (Patriots winning the first post-9/11 Super Bowl, anyone?), and why they're both such great topics to follow.
8. I think 20 sounded pretty damn old not too long ago, but I'm having to come to grips with it pretty quick. I'll be kicking off my third decade two weeks from Sunday (a Patriots win would be nice...)
9. I think it will be interesting to see how 2009 goes down in the history books once and for all. There's a lot of "most important year ever" talk swirling; I'd certainly say it was an interesting and momentous year. Think about it--we've gone from 01/20/09 (Bush's last day/Obama's first day) to the doorstep of America's first comprehensive health-care plan. That's a lot of water under the bridge, and that's only in the political realm.
10. I think that's as much as I can get away with in what I promised would be a somewhat shorter, lighter, hopefully-not-a-half-hour-commitment commitment, but there's one last thing that needs saying at this point. Namely, I think everyone who's ever read this, thought about it, passed it along to a friend, followed it (all two of you!), emailed a response, or interacted with any Thought, Ruffle, or Flourish in the last year or so (yes, we'll be one year old on January 19!), deserves a big thank-you. Every so often, someone or something reminds me how much fun it is to produce this thing and what a great platform it's been. The sense I've gotten is that people seem to be enjoying what I've got to say almost as much as I've been enjoying the saying of it. Hopefully that's true and both sides continue on that path. It's been a remarkably long road since I decided to rip off an NFL writer's idea to "creatively express" myself on a Yale application sometime in the fall of '07 (yep, I was rejected), incubated the idea through an endless stream of weekly creative writing submissions in senior English class (sorry, Gallagher!), wrote a bunch of obscenely long emails, and then took the almost year-old plunge into blog-land. It's been fun, and I'm pretty satisfied with the way it's turned out. I think--no, I know--that I'm looking forward to another year of this thing, and I'd love to see circulation and interaction increase going forward. Email it around, play with the comment button, drop me an email, whatever. Have fun with it!
***
Here's wishing all of you a happy and healthy new year! Hope it's all you're hoping for, whatever that may be. Let's kick the new decade off on an auspicious note! (Bonus points to whoever submits a good name for it--is it "twenty-ten," "ten," "oh-ten," or something else?)
***
Coffeenerdness: as if I wasn't caffeinated enough beforehand, I've added to my usual student's caffeine problem by working at a coffee shop on campus. Knowing me, I've gone whole hog and started actually taking an interest in coffee and learning how and why it's "good" or "bad," which was about the depth of criticism I could achieve before this fall. I'll still take a black coffee over a latte any day, but at least I know how to make all that espresso stuff now. Which leads us to the best coffees I've experienced in a long time. I decided I'd put my newfound knowledge to good use and buy some quality coffee for Christmas this year (ostensibly for my parents), and went with holiday blends from Counter Culture and Raven's Brew. I'm nobody's salesman or corporate rep, but those are some damn good brews. Counter Culture is a Carolina-based company that I found in my favorite shop in Washington; Raven's Brew is out in Washington state and was the first cup of coffee I found after wandering out of the woods and onto Main St. of Lander, WY this summer. I remembered it fondly and bought a pound of their Santa Caws holiday blend. Counter Culture's a little darker, Raven's Brew is a little sweeter. Mixed the two one morning and found the combo platter better still. Both are highly recommended if you ever feel the urge to venture beyond the Evil Empire (aka Starbucks).
Goat of the Week: Mike Leach, ex-head coach of Texas Tech football. This speaks to two big issues in the college game today: concussions, and the ridiculousness of coaching these days. In a season in which we've seen one coach already canned for hitting a player (Mark Mangino of Kansas) and another (Florida's Urban Meyer) resign for health reasons and then un-resign less than 24 hours later after watching one "spirited practice," Leach gets the Goat award for the whole shebang. Accused of locking a player in a dark equipment room for hours when the player wouldn't play after being concussed, Leach's camp has trotted out all sorts of legal and medical experts saying he did nothing wrong. First of all, Leach probably should have realized what a boneheaded idea locking James up was, given that his father Craig is an ESPN analyst. No matter what the backstory (Leach claims the younger James was soft and that Craig kept lobbying inappropriately for his son to get more playing time), you don't mess with anyone or anything connected to the Worldwide Leader and win. Concussions are for real, and they're here to stay as an issue. Coaches at all levels are going to have to reset their priorities and expectations, as will players. Additionally, something has got to be going wrong when a coach thinks he can pull some kind of Guantanamo Bay crap with his players for any reason at all. So it didn't medically harm James. So what? This is a college kid we're talking about. Theoretically, he's there to go to school (in spite of the NCAA)--maybe taking care of his brain isn't the worst idea.
Ten Things I Think I Think:
1. I think I got a couple of books for Christmas that are worth passing along. First was Peter King's Monday Morning Quarterback book. MMQB is the home of the original Ten Things, out of which this blog has evolved over the course of several years. If you're interested in NFL football, it's a fun and easy read. At least, it's fun for me to have a signed copy of the book of the column that started it all in hand! Second, John Ed Bradley's It Never Rains in Tiger Stadium is a moving memoir of a former LSU football player trying to come to grips with life beyond the game. "It ends for everyone, sooner or later," Bradley writes, noting how everyone deals with that ending is always different and hardly ever easy. It's been a while since I stepped between the sidelines of a lacrosse field with a helmet on, but that's still something I think about every day. Undeniably a football book, to be sure, but it really speaks to the experience of losing something that's defined a life, with plenty more of that life still to live.
2. I think this is my political thought of the week: Earth to GOP--here's the actual conservative position on health care: OK, we get it; we're the richest country on Earth by a long shot and it's a disgrace that we don't provide basic health care to all citizens. That should be fixed. However, since conservatism is about moving forward at a responsible pace, we (the GOP) refuse to play ball until you (the Democrats) come up with a legitimate tax and expenditure proposal that actually stands a chance of getting this country out of debt. (Note: yes, conservatives historically DO try to move forward. They DON'T simply block everything in sight for the hell of it, a la today's Republican senators.) That's all that needs to be said. No anonymous holding, no porking, no filibustering. It would raise taxes, but it would also demand a realistic budget. Dems get healthcare for all, Reps get responsible fiscal policy. Everyone (and not just on the Hill) wins.
3. I think, when I'm wearing my Patriots-fan hat, that I'm really happy that Indy threw that game against the Jets and put the 19-0 stuff to bed for another year. Ok, so I'm still sore about 18-1 in 2007 and I'm less than thrilled that the '72 Dolphins get to pop more champagne, but I'm always happy to see the Colts lose. However, if I'm pretty much anywhere else in the country, but especially in the League offices in New York, I think I'm pretty concerned. Indy's ticket-holders are pissed, and rightfully so. Season tickets cost thousands, single-games hundreds. Who on Earth wants to throw that kind of money on a game like that that looked like some August sleeper? I understand that starters need rest and I know the Super Bowl is the ultimate goal. Still, paying full freight for that game is like paying regular-season prices for the exhibition games (another absurd policy). Fans won't stand for that long.
4. I think it's time for a college football playoff. Everyone in the country from President Obama to the fans who get screwed every year thinks that's so, except for the BCS people themselves. You're telling me that the "national champion" contenders should be picked by a computer?! Remind me again how that's a sport?
5. I think I'm interested to hear what Vin Ferrara has to say to congress on Monday. Vin is a Harvard grad who's invented a new football helmet called the Xenith that is now making its way into the market at all levels as a supposedly better anti-concussion product than the Riddel that's currently the top dog. I know Vin and the majority of his extended family, and Taylor wore one of his helmets this past football season. Having spoken to his sister-in-law and coworker on Christmas Eve, I learned that he's got five minutes to stand in front of a congressional committee and say whatever he wants to. That's likely to be a long, sweaty five minutes in the life of the NFL.
6. I think that even though I've only seen two movies in recent memory, they were both great, and there are a bunch more I'm dying to see soon. Over Thanksgiving I caught "The Blind Side" in New York, and I just saw "Invictus" here at home. The former is a great personal interest/football story; the latter is an A- human interest/rugby film. Both are held up by their lead actors--Sandra Bullock in "The Blind Side" and Morgan Freeman in an epic turn as Nelson Mandela in "Invictus." I've heard good things about "Avatar," "Up In The Air," and a couple of other new releases. Hope to catch at least one more before I go back to school.
7. I think "Invictus," despite some of its filming flaws (way too much elephantine, super slo-mo rugby shots towards the end) made such a great impression on me because it does a tremendous job of showing the motivational, inspirational, even transcendental qualities of both sports and politics. As anyone who's read this column or who knows me would know, those are the two topics I know best and get most excited about. Seeing a country as fragile as South Africa pull together around a national team is a pretty inspiring message, as is seeing a political leader and an athletic leader compare notes on leadership and come to depend on one another in the way Mandela and Francois Pienaart (the Sprinboks' captain, played by Matt Damon) do in the film. For me, that's a terrific reminder of why I care about both sports and politics, how much I like to see them coexist in such an uplifting way (Patriots winning the first post-9/11 Super Bowl, anyone?), and why they're both such great topics to follow.
8. I think 20 sounded pretty damn old not too long ago, but I'm having to come to grips with it pretty quick. I'll be kicking off my third decade two weeks from Sunday (a Patriots win would be nice...)
9. I think it will be interesting to see how 2009 goes down in the history books once and for all. There's a lot of "most important year ever" talk swirling; I'd certainly say it was an interesting and momentous year. Think about it--we've gone from 01/20/09 (Bush's last day/Obama's first day) to the doorstep of America's first comprehensive health-care plan. That's a lot of water under the bridge, and that's only in the political realm.
10. I think that's as much as I can get away with in what I promised would be a somewhat shorter, lighter, hopefully-not-a-half-hour-commitment commitment, but there's one last thing that needs saying at this point. Namely, I think everyone who's ever read this, thought about it, passed it along to a friend, followed it (all two of you!), emailed a response, or interacted with any Thought, Ruffle, or Flourish in the last year or so (yes, we'll be one year old on January 19!), deserves a big thank-you. Every so often, someone or something reminds me how much fun it is to produce this thing and what a great platform it's been. The sense I've gotten is that people seem to be enjoying what I've got to say almost as much as I've been enjoying the saying of it. Hopefully that's true and both sides continue on that path. It's been a remarkably long road since I decided to rip off an NFL writer's idea to "creatively express" myself on a Yale application sometime in the fall of '07 (yep, I was rejected), incubated the idea through an endless stream of weekly creative writing submissions in senior English class (sorry, Gallagher!), wrote a bunch of obscenely long emails, and then took the almost year-old plunge into blog-land. It's been fun, and I'm pretty satisfied with the way it's turned out. I think--no, I know--that I'm looking forward to another year of this thing, and I'd love to see circulation and interaction increase going forward. Email it around, play with the comment button, drop me an email, whatever. Have fun with it!
***
Here's wishing all of you a happy and healthy new year! Hope it's all you're hoping for, whatever that may be. Let's kick the new decade off on an auspicious note! (Bonus points to whoever submits a good name for it--is it "twenty-ten," "ten," "oh-ten," or something else?)
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