People that go Boo Boo in the night

Posted on August 30, 2012 by Jorge Costales

Friend of the blog and past contributor, Wichi, weighs in on his new least favorite television show(s):

In the midst of the killing season, i.e., bashing our least favorite candidate for the Office of the President, permit me a brief cease-fire from the festivities to draw our collective eye to what I believe is a real and insidious virus in the American corpus, reality television.  This ubiquitous form of programming has become a way of celebrating, if not worshiping, the worst characteristics [crass, dumb, insipid, loud, petty, stupid, violent, and vulgar, to name a few] of our fellow citizens.

In terms of how we think of our place in society, the sub-culture exposed by the popularity of reality shows, is scary enough to force me into rethinking my allegiances. Requiring a new cultural fantasy draft, if you will. For our draft preparation, let’s begin by determining, who is NOT the enemy?

It is not Mr. Obama, although I cannot wait to cast at least one, and if I move to the right district of Miami, several votes for Romney. While left-leaning and, in my opinion, a new age version of Jimmy Carter (never a compliment to compare anyone to Carter), he is a law abiding, smart, learned man; it is NOT Mr. Romney, whom his political opponents believe to be a rich, out of touch (isn’t getting out of touch the GOAL of making money?), flip-flopping, corporate stool pigeon.

I’ve come to the realization that the enemy is not the far right, or far left, or disgraced politicians, or spineless ones. Regardless of brains or motivation, I have always believed than most on the national stage mean well for America. Maybe its just THEIR America, but dammit, a nice chunk of America nevertheless.

The Enemy, my good people, for lack of a better sub-grouping, are the audience for reality TV shows.  I include in that group, people who watch to reaffirm their superiority over those they are watching. They are something worse than dumb, they are cruel.

Sometime in the middle of the technological night, as we and others debated Bush/Clinton/Kerry/McCain/Palin/Obama/Biden, et al, they, — as in millions and millions of our fellow American citizens — turned to Honey Boo Boo.

I submit that we, the anti-reality show part of society, do no good bashing the other smart guys “guy,” because, and this chills me more than ObamaCare and a Biden press conference — they are not the biggest problem we face.  In reality [get it], our problem is maintaining a great society when a significant portion of that society is watching and enjoying their reality TV.

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Culture War standings – 1948

Posted on August 17, 2012 by Jorge Costales

The Right wing got off to a beautiful start in the culture wars 64 years ago today, when a ballsy congressman from California, Richard Nixon, smelled a rat in Alger Hiss’s denial of Whittaker Chambers accusation of being a communist. The Left has spent much political capital in trying to defend the traitor ever since. The August 17th 1948 meeting set in motion a series of Cold War battles that ended with a Right wing TKO so devastating, that Chuck Wepner is said to have looked away.

The final blow was the release of Soviet intelligence files in the late 1990’s which specifically implicated Hiss as a spy. Thankfully, Hiss lived long enough to witness his lifelong lie exposed, specifically by those he sought to aid. When I think of the elderly Hiss knowing that others now knew with certainty of his lies and betrayal, I get all gooey inside.

In 1984, President Reagan posthumously awarded Chambers the Presidential Medal of Freedom and made these remarks:

At a critical moment in our Nation’s history, Whittaker Chambers stood alone against the brooding terrors of our age. Consummate intellectual, writer of moving majestic prose, and witness to the truth, he became the focus of a momentous controversy in American history that symbolized our century’s epic struggle between freedom and totalitarianism, a controversy in which the solitary figure of Whittaker Chambers personified the mystery of human redemption in the face of evil and suffering. As long as humanity speaks of virtue and dreams of freedom, the life and writings of Whittaker Chambers will ennoble and inspire. The words of Arthur Koestler are his epitaph: “The witness is gone; the testimony will stand.”

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The not so perfect box and chain thing

Posted on August 14, 2012 by Jorge Costales

Bill Gates money is going into the toilet. But its good news for all. From a recent Economist article:

If Thomas Crapper were around today, he would find our toilets quite familiar,” says Bill Gates, referring to the Victorian manufacturer of sanitary ware whose name has become attached to one of the body’s most fundamental functions. “They haven’t seen many advances apart from handles and paper toilet rolls.” In fact, with the exception of S-traps to contain odours, flush toilets have changed little since Sir John Harington installed one in Richmond Palace for Queen Elizabeth I [1596].

Mr Gates considers it time for a change. On August 14th his charitable institution, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, announced the gold-, silver- and bronze-medal winners in its Reinvent The Toilet Challenge, which aims to bring safe, affordable and “sustainable” loos to the 40% of the world’s population who lack access to basic sanitation, thus preventing many of the 1.5m childhood deaths from diarrhea that now occur each year.

Wait, say again. The man associated with designing the modern day toilet was named Thomas Crapper? Be still my heart. Alas not true. But that’s where Robert Wuhl and Liberty Valance come in — when the legend becomes fact, print the legend — here’s the legend:

It all started with U.S. soldiers stationed in England during WWI. The toilets in England at the time were predominately made by the company “Thomas Crapper & Co Ltd”, with the company’s name appearing on the toilets. The soldiers took to calling toilets “The Crapper” and brought that slang term for the toilet back with them to the United States.

OK, so he’s not the inventor of the modern day toilet, but as a successful merchant his name was on many indoor plumbing products, some of which his company did patent. Specifically, the one immortalized by Tessio, “… it’s perfect, an old-fashion’ toilet — you know, the box, and chain-thing.”

So there you go again, Crapper did build that!

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John Grisham’s mini-brain fart

Posted on August 13, 2012 by Jorge Costales

Listening to the audiobook of John Grisham’s new novel, Calico Joe, I heard something which made me pause, not unlike how Jaguar Paw might have reacted to coming across a Chili’s outside a Mayan city.

What I heard was that Joe Castle was coming to bat for the 4th time — in a game tied at 6 — with 2 outs in the top of the 9th inning.  Any MLB fan fan worth his Bill James Baseball Abstract collection would feel cognitive dissonance rippling through their DNA at the notion that a hitter in that scenario would only have 4 at-bats, if he had been in the lineup for the entire game.

Here are the limited facts that Grisham provides about Castle’s at-bats and the game scenario:

  • Castle was in the starting lineup and hit 7th.
  • Came to bat for the 1st time in the top of the 2nd inning. Home run.
  • 2nd at-bat came in the 5th inning. Home run.
  • His team had scored 4 runs before his 3rd at-bat.
  • 3rd at-bat came in the 7th inning. Home run [HR].
  • Before Castle’s next at-bat in the 9th inning, Grisham notes that he had hit 3 home runs in “consecutive” at-bats. This rules out that Castle could have had a non-HR at-bat [i.e., walk, error, HBP].  If that had been the case, Grisham could not have accurately described his HR at-bats as “consecutive.”
  • 4th at-bat comes in the 9th inning with Don Kessinger on 3rd base and 2 outs with the score tied at 6. Castle bunts for a base hit and Kessinger scores. That 7th run is described as the “eventual winning run.”

Here’s the problem. In order for Castle’s 9th inning at-bat to match Grisham’s game scenario [Castle is the Cubs 34th batter], he unrealistically limits the runners left on base [LOB] by the Cubs during a game in which they had scored 6 and eventually would end up with at least 7 runs — “eventual winning run” means the Cubs could have gone on to score more than the 7 runs, but the opponent was held to 6. Here are the results of the previous 33 at bats:

  • 26 – outs made – with 2 outs in the 9th inning
  • 06 – runs scored
  • 01 – runner [Kessinger] on base in the 9th
  • 00 – zero runners left on base [LOB] during first 8 innings

How unusual is it for a team which, after Castle’s bunt, had scored 7 runs and left only 1 runner [Castle in the 9th] on base to that point in the game? Let’s look at the actual team which was the basis for the story, the 1973 Chicago Cubs. The Cubs scored 7 runs in 8 games that season. They averaged 8 runners LOB in those 8 games. The lowest total was 6, the highest was 9.

This might be the last MLB trivia question which cannot be answered online: What is the most runs scored by a MLB team with zero runners left on base? I’d love to know. Even the great Baseball Almanac, does not provide records of Team LOB records based on the number of runs scored.

But Grisham has another problem. During 1973, Don Kessinger’s place in the batting order was 1st, 2nd or 8th. Since Kessinger was the runner on 3rd base during Castle’s 9th inning at-bat with 2 outs, this would mean that Kessinger was hitting anywhere from the 4th to the 6th [since Castle was hitting 7th] spot in Grisham’s lineup.

So the question is why Grisham lays out a baseball scenario which is so unrealistic? I get why homering in consecutive at bats makes a better story than squeezing a walk in between. I get why his last at-bat comes in the 9th inning. What I don’t get is why he sacrificed the plausibility of his game scenario by giving Castle’s team 6 runs and putting Kessinger on 3rd base, instead of 3 runs and Ron Santo or Billy Williams on 3rd base when Castle batted in the 9th?

I don’t object to a major leaguer’s storybook first game. But Grisham draws readers into the story with a number of baseball insights which indicate that a degree of authenticity was important to the story.  Hell there was even Willie Montañez reference. One of the main characters even describes himself as obsessed with baseball statistics in his youth. And yet he fails the authenticity test in the most basic way.

The most logical conclusion must be that Grisham never even considered that there might be an issue given Castle’s at-bats and the score. All of which just makes Grisham [and a few well-paid editors and one fact checker] more normal than those of us who love the statistical aspect of the game. So it may not even a case of the author not doing his homework, perhaps he didn’t even realize there should have been an assignment.

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The threat of repressive puritanism?

Posted on August 1, 2012 by Jorge Costales

Ross Douthat’s column does a great job of tossing aside the niceties about ‘respecting religious freedom’ from the Left and explains the logic behind their attacks:

… Chick-fil-A [has been] threatened to prevent the delicious chicken chain from opening new outlets because its Christian president told an interviewer that he supports “the biblical definition of the family unit.”…

… the [recent] controversies reflect a … logic that regards Western monotheism’s ideas about human sexuality — all that chastity, monogamy, male-female business — as similarly incompatible with basic modern freedoms.

It may seem strange that anyone could look around the pornography-saturated, fertility-challenged, family-breakdown-plagued West and see a society menaced by a repressive puritanism. But it’s clear that this perspective is widely and sincerely held.

It would be refreshing, though, if it were expressed honestly, without the “of course we respect religious freedom” facade.

If you want to fine Catholic hospitals for following Catholic teaching, or prevent Jewish parents from circumcising their sons, or ban Chick-fil-A in Boston, then don’t tell religious people that you respect our freedoms. Say what you really think: that the exercise of our religion threatens all that’s good and decent, and that you’re going to use the levers of power to bend us to your will.

The complete Douthat column is copied at end of post.

H/T to Robert at his Searching for Signs blog for highlighting the column.

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Obama: Just un-American

Posted on July 18, 2012 by Jorge Costales

Charles Murray on the absurdity of someone who’s never built anything lecturing those who have:

There’s a standard way for Americans to celebrate accomplishment. First, we call an individual onto the stage and say what great things that person has done. Then that person gives a thank-you speech that begins “I couldn’t have done this without…” and a list of people who helped along the way. That’s the way we’ve always done it. Everyone knows we all get help in life (and sometimes just get lucky). But we have always started with the individual and then worked out. It is not part of the American mindset to begin with the collective and admonish individuals for thinking too highly of their contribution.

That brings me back to the creepiness of it all. It is as if a Dutch politician—an intelligent, well-meaning Dutch politician—were somehow running for the American presidency, but bringing with him the Rawlsian, social-democratic ethos that, in the Netherlands, is the natural way to talk about a properly run society. We would listen to him and say to ourselves, “He doesn’t get this country.” That’s the thing about Obama. Time and again, he does things and says things that are un-American. Not evil. Not anti-American. Just un-American.

This WSJ Editorial asks key questions about the election:

Can a President seeking re-election with a stagnant economy and high unemployment really be winning the jobs argument against a man who backed hundreds of thriving businesses? Can a President who sank taxpayer dollars into green-energy failures now succeed by attacking an opponent who funded winning start-ups with his own money?

Check out the You didn’t build that web site. The complete Murray column and WSJ editorial are copied at end of post.

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Why not all change is progress

Posted on July 14, 2012 by Jorge Costales

Want to know why 2,000 year-old institutions don’t change based on the advice of *bantamweight* intellectual advisers, like say a Fr. Cutie?  Ross Douthat provides one answer in his NYT op-ed column. Every word should be read, but here are excerpts for the slovenly:

In 1998, the Episcopal bishop of Newark [Spong], published a book entitled “Why Christianity Must Change or Die.” Spong was a uniquely radical figure … but most recent leaders of the Episcopal Church have shared his premise. Thus their church … changed from a sedate pillar of the WASP establishment into one of the most self-consciously progressive Christian bodies in the United States.

… today the Episcopal Church looks roughly how Roman Catholicism would look if Pope Benedict XVI suddenly adopted every reform ever urged on the Vatican by liberal pundits and theologians. … it is flexible to the point of indifference on dogma, friendly to sexual liberation in almost every form, and eager to downplay theology entirely in favor of secular political causes.

Yet instead of attracting a younger, more open-minded demographic with these changes, the Episcopal Church’s dying has proceeded apace. Last week, while the church’s House of Bishops was approving a rite to bless same-sex unions, Episcopalian church attendance figures for 2000-10 circulated in the religion blogosphere. They showed something between a decline and a collapse …

This decline is the latest chapter in a story dating to the 1960s. The trends unleashed in that era threw all of American Christianity into crisis, and ushered in decades of debate over how to keep the nation’s churches relevant and vital.

… But if conservative Christianity has often been compromised, liberal Christianity has simply collapsed. Practically every denomination — Methodist, Lutheran, Presbyterian — that has tried to adapt itself to contemporary liberal values has seen an Episcopal-style plunge in church attendance. 

**- Unbeknownst to most readers, the use of the bantamweight category, as opposed to say, Light flyweight, represented this blogger’s reserve of Christian charity for the 3rd fiscal quarter. But Blogger, you might ask, why risk depleting those reserves in the first month of the quarter? Compassion, thy name is legion.

See a complete list of the WBC’s weight-class categories below, followed by Douthat’s complete column.

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Good teams don’t blow this many saves right?

Posted on July 4, 2012 by Jorge Costales

Geez, can’t a fan’s gut instincts ever be right?

Here are the thoughts of Marlins fans [OK me] after Heath Bell’s blown save on Tuesday:

Good teams don’t lose games when they rally from 7 runs down. Good teams don’t blow these many save opportunities. I mean it’s probably happened before, in the way that everything has probably happened before in MLB, but you probably gotta go way back.

So I set out to find a National League [the DH league is dead to me] playoff team who were at the bottom of the league in terms of blown saves. I had to go all the way back to the 2011 World Champion St Louis Cardinals.

  • 2011 Cardinals blown saves – 26
  • 2011 NL average blown saves – 20
  • 2011 Marlins blown saves – 19
  • 2012 Marlins blown saves – 12
  • 2012 NL average – 10

But surely those Cardinals didn’t have a game were they were down 7, came back and blew the game in extra innings? No they had one where they were down 8, came back and blew the game in extra innings. It happened against the Reds, it happened at home and it happened almost one year to the date of the Marlins loss, on July 6th 2011.

Alright, alright, but before those Cardinals, what other playoff teams …

  • 2010 – Cincinnati & Philadelphia were above the league average in blown saves, but not significantly
  • 2009 – LA Dodgers made the playoffs and led the league in blown saves

I could go on, but its a sunny day.  Turns out that blown saves may be a better indicator of a team that has a lot of late leads, more than it is an indicator of whether a team can make the playoffs.  So ask not for whom the Bell trolls, Oviedo and Bonifacio will soon be back.

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Happy Independence Day

Posted on July 4, 2012 by Jorge Costales

Drafting the Declaration of Independence, by Jean Leon Gerome Ferris, 1900

The Declaration of Independence was drafted by Thomas Jefferson during the June 1776 Continental Congress. The beautiful painting to the left illustrates what ‘drafting’ represented.

The video below from HBO’s goosebumps inducing [e.g. Adams and Jefferson both died 50 years to the day the country was founded] mini-series based on David McCullough’s great book, John Adams, spells it out for us. Either way, much to celebrate thanks to the likes of Adams, Franklin Jefferson.

See the end of the post for images and a transcript of the of the Declaration, along with a picture of John Adams visiting in Miami.

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Man of the Year?

Posted on July 3, 2012 by Jorge Costales

The 1987 cover story was written by Rick Reilly, a writer I enjoy. The point is not that Reilly is, or was, a fool. After all, in theory no one could have known then. But that is the point.

The only thing sports fans could have claimed to know about Paterno is that he was the head coach of a successful football program. To attempt see more in him than that from a distance was the mistake. The view on Joe Paterno in 1987:

As this year’s Sportsman of the Year, we choose a tenured professor who wears glasses thicker than storm windows, a jacket and tie, white socks and pants legs that indicate continual fear of flash floods. He goes about 5’10”, 165 and looks less like a football coach than a CPA for an olive oil firm.

But legends have a confounding habit of showing up in strange shapes. And a funny thing happens when this one starts to say something. Two-hundred-eighty-pound linemen, college presidents, NCAA honchos, network biggies and even your basic U.S. vice-presidents cross-body-block one another to get near him. Good thing, too, because Joe Paterno, the football coach at Penn State University, can teach you some of the damnedest things.

From whom else but Paterno did we learn that you can have 20-20,000 vision and still see more clearly than almost everybody else, that you can look like Bartleby but coach like Bryant, that you can have your kids hit the holes like ‘Bama’s and the books like Brown’s, that the words “college” and “football” don’t have to be mutually exclusive. “We try to remember,” Paterno once told The Reader’s Digest , “football is part of life—not life itself.”

Who focused on the “try” at the time?

Whenever I come across this type of hagiography in the future, I won’t have to try to remember Jerry Sandusky’s crimes and the lack of heroes in its trail.  Which should remind me that the type of people actually worthy of such praise do exist, but their priorities don’t include currying favor with the media and its hagiographers.

The lesson I draw: The anonymous person in the next pew is more likely to be a real hero than the person featured in the newspaper or magazine article.  That was true yesterday, today and tomorrow.  That’s the Good News.

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