The 2009 Johnny-Bingo Awards

The suspense is over. It is time for the 2009 Johnny-Bingo Awards, given annually to the Best Books Read by Yours Truly this year.

(Go here for last year’s awards)

The award is named for the first book I remember calling my favorite – something about two boys, a dog, and a bank robber. Or maybe it was two bank robbers, a boy and a dog. Or maybe two dogs…anyway, the point is that I am the judge, jury and executioner for this, the last major literary prize handed out this year.

Okay, maybe it’s not such a major prize. But given the way the other literary prizes have been operating this year, I think I have a chance to pass them in prestige.

Take the Nobel Prize in Literature (please). This year the Nobel folks took a lot of heat for their selection of President Barack Obama for the Peace Prize. But that head-scratcher obscured the fact that the Nobel Prize in Literature went to Herta Muller, a Romanian writer so obscure that the response even in Romania seemed to be “Yay!!! Um…who?”

The Nobel Lit folks have made it clear that they despise American literature and are determined to give Nobels out to every obscure novelist on earth before the likes of Cormac McCarthy, Philip Roth, or Joyce Carol Oates grace their stage. The National Book Award on the other hand is, you know, the National book award. For Americans. It states quite clearly in their bylaws that the nominees be American.

Well, here are the nominees for this year’s National Book Award in fiction:

- Colum McCann, an Irishman born in Dublin, currently residing in New York.
- Aleksandar Hemon, a Bosnian who moved to America in 1992.
- Marcel Theroux, son of the American writer Paul Theroux, who was born in Uganda and now lives in London.
- Daniyal Mueenuddin, who grew up in Pakistan and Wisconsin, lives in the southern Punjab, and is currently spending a year in London.
- Jayne Anne Phillips, born in West Virginia and now living in New Jersey.

Can I get a “USA! USA!” chant?

The J-B Rules
I’m not as sophisticated as those other folks. I don’t read obscure Romanian novelists, I’ve never heard of Daniyal Mueenuddin, and am frequently seen with a paperbook thriller in my hand. I’m also ashamed to admit that most of the books I read are written by (gasp!) Americans – and the worst kind of Americans, the ones that are born here, live here, and write about here. Insular bastards. (Maybe I should call these the Johnny-Jingo Awards. The Bonny-Jingo Awards?)

The Johnny-Bingo Award(s) have one judge – me – and one rule: all eligible books must have been finished by me in 2009. As I said last year, it could’ve been written by a blind Greek poet in the 8th century BC or be an unpublished galley hacked from an MFA candidate’s MacBook in a Brooklyn cafe. As long as I read the final paragraph before the calendar turns, it could be a winner.

Let’s look at our finalists:

Best New Crime Novelist
Famed restaurant journalist Peter Romeo was surprised – maybe even embarrassed - to hear I had never read Dennis Lehane or George Pelecanos and pressed copies of their novels on me. I also read the newcomers Josh Bazell and Stieg Larson and tried out Stuart Woods for the first time. The first three get the coveted Keatang recommendations but we can only have one winner in the category and it is…Dennis Lehane! (please hold your applause till all the winners have been announced)

It was a tough race and I suspect that Mr. Pelecanos and I will be spending a lot more time together. But if you like your crime novel heroes hard-boiled, wise-crackin’, and existentially dark, Lehane is your guy. Be prepared though – the capacity for evil in his bad guys, not to mention his good guys, will make you weep for humanity.

Best History Book about Post-War America
I read a lot of history but they tend to cover that short period between 500 B.C. and 1945. I’m less interested, for reasons I can’t defend, in books about the post-war period. But this year I took two plunges into the 60’s (An Unfinished Life: John Kennedy 1917-1963 and Pillar of Fire: America in the King Years 1963-1965) and one into the 00’s (Horse Soldiers: The Extraordinary Story of a Band of Soldiers Who Rode to Victory in Afghanistan).

One thing about history books about the 1960’s…there is a lot of sex! JFK makes Tiger Woods look like the Dali Lama. And MLK – well, this is a worshipful book about the Reverend but there are transcripts from his hotel room romps that made me blush. You don’t see this in books about the Founders. Ben Franklin and Alexander Hamilton both got around but were fortunate enough to do so before tape recording and the FBI.

Pillar of Fire is the greater book of the three and destined for a long shelf life. But I too often got lost in the huge cast of characters and couldn’t find my way out. The book assumes knowledge of racial politics of the period that I don’t have. Horse Soldiers is a terrific story and I heartily recommend it – especially if like me you are sick and tired of the media’s treatment of America’s soldiers as either villains or victims. This is a story of true American heroes. But the writing is a little bit hokey.

Unfinished Life gets the nod. Biographer Robert Dallek doesn’t shy away from the glamorous (and sordid) stories about the Kennedys, but at its heart it’s a study of the Cold War at its peak, and the important role JFK played in it.

Best Book in an Unclassifiable Category
Lev Grossman’s The Magicians is Harry Potter meets Less Than Zero meets The Narnia Chronicles. If that sounds like something you might like, you will.

Christopher Moore’s Fool is King Lear with "gratuitous shagging, murder, spanking, maiming, treason, and heretofore unexplored heights of vulgarity and profanity, as well as non-traditional grammar, spit infinitives, and the odd wank". If that sounds like something you might like, you will.

I enjoyed Fool, but the nod here goes to The Magicians.

Best Big Ideas Book
The Black Swan by Nassim Taleb is one of those books whose big idea – that human history is shaped more by huge unforeseen events rather than occurring in a predictable flow – is one that I totally bought, even if I bickered with Taleb in the margins along the way.

The Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan is one of those books whose big idea – that large-scale modern food production does more bad than good – is one that I totally disagreed with, even though I enjoyed nearly every page of the book.

Nod to Taleb, since his ideas, unlike Pollan’s, are unlikely to lead to global starvation, not to mention federal regulations telling me to eat my locally-grown organic spinach.

Best Book of the Year
And the winner of the Johnny-Bingo Award goes to…none of the above! Scanning over my book log for the year, I keep coming back to Freedomland, a 1998 novel by Richard Price.

Price is one of those writers whose every sentence is so damned good, you give up any hopes of writing a novel yourself. It’s not just the quality of the prose though; underneath that graceful prose is knowledge born of hard-earned reporting. But it’s not just knowledge, gracefully presented. There is wisdom in Price’s work.

The folks who give out Nobel Literature prizes claim American novelists are insular. Freedomland is proof they are wrong.

Congratulations to Mr. Price, who is not only the 2009 Johnny-Bingo Award winner, but the most underrated American novelist working today.

Liars & Tigers & Bears

Moments ago, I walked by the desk of a colleague, Casey Clark. Casey is a remarkable man – a video golf instructor, a juggler of home repair tools and the organizer of the only NFL Elimination Pool that provides email pool updates peppered with Shakespearean quotes.

Casey and I occasionally talk golf – he’s a real golfer and I’m a hacker – and as is my wont I popped into his office, picked up his putter, and began rolling putts across the carpet.

“Case,” I said, “We haven’t talked about Tiger yet. Do we have anything to add to this subject that hasn’t already been covered?”

“You know,” he said, leaning back, “I’ve been thinking of Kathy Whitworth.”

I stopped mid-putt. Casey is a man of great erudition – the man uses quotes from Macbeth to tweak someone who picked the Steelers in an Elimination Pool for crying loud – so I was surprised he brought up a woman I presumed was one of Tiger’s Back Nine.

“Is that the one from California?” I asked.

“No, no, no. Kathy Whitworth has the record for Tour victories, with 88. I assume she had reconciled herself to the fact that her record would fall to Tiger, but now? Who knows? Maybe the old girl will keep her record.”

Among other things, Mr. Clark is the former editor of Golf for Women magazine, so he knew whereof he spoke. Kathy Whitworth has the record for tour victories, albeit of the LPGA variety. Sam Snead is first on the men’s list with 82. Jack Nicklaus has 73 and Tiger has 71.

Of course, the record most golf fans know about is 18 – the number of majors won by Jack Nicklaus, the Golden Bear. Can Tiger catch Kathy, Jack, and Sam?

I’m not as classy as Casey, so I mused that Tiger has just, cold turkey, given up the two things that had seemingly taken up nearly all his waking hours and provided most of his joy: golf (voluntarily) and sex (involuntarily). I’m not sure if this will save his marriage, but it definitely won’t help his chances of catching the Golden Bear. Let’s go to the stats.

Numbers Game
This is Freetime, and when Freetime talks sports, it talks numbers. And here are some numbers.

Tiger just completed his age 34-season with 14 majors. Jack, at the same age, had 12.

But Jack had a big year at age 35, winning the Masters and the PGA in 1975. After that, age seems to have caught up and the wins came much more slowly. Over the next four years, his age 36-39 years, he won only one major, the 1978 British Open. He then had a huge 1980, his age 40-season, winning the U.S. Open and the PGA. It appeared he would never win another major until his stunning Masters win in 1986, at age 46. 18 was the new standard.

As for Tiger, he is coming off his first Major-less year since his age 29-season. He is still, clearly, the best player in golf, and had a remarkable season coming off knee surgery. But to be shut out in your age 34 season while chasing Jack is costly. If he is shut out again in 2010 - either due to self-imposed exile, distracted play, or the sheer difficulty of winning Majors - he and Jack will be tied at 14 at age 35. And who knows what the future will hold?

It should be noted that winning Majors after age 35 has proven very difficult. Tom Watson won 8 Majors, including 5 from 1980 to 1983 - but at age 33 he was done. Arnold Palmer, after a similarly torrid run from 1960-63, won the Masters at age 34 and never won again.

Tiger has lost a lot since Thanksgiving. His reputation, some sponsorship dollars, and possibly his marriage. What we won’t know for several years is whether or not he lost the chance to catch the Golden Bear, and thus the opportunity to be known as the Greatest Golfer Ever.

Or as Casey said, quoting the Bard, "Oh judgement, thou art fled to brutish beasts and men have lost their reason!"

Bill Blinks at Peyton's Place

Most commentators are drawing the wrong lesson from Bill Belichick’s decision to go for it on 4th and 1 against the Colts. They think it was about Belichick. In fact, it was all about Peyton Manning.

As I argued last year, Manning-Brady is the greatest individual rivalry in team sports history. At first, it followed the usual Stats Monster vs. Mr. Clutch debate; Manning put up the monster statistics and Brady won the Super Bowls with game-winning drives. In this regard, it was similar to the other great individual rivalries: Wilt vs. Russell, Marino vs. Montana, ARod vs. Jeter**.

* This is where Babe Ruth and Wayne Gretzky stand alone. They were Stats Monsters of the highest order and ran out of fingers to put rings on.

Then two things happened. One, Manning won a title. That’s not unusual. Critics of great athletes in team sports who claim certain guys lack the magical something required to win a championship are often proven wrong (see: Rodriguez, Alex, 2009). But then something truly unusual happened: Tom Brady became a Stats Monster in 2007, putting up single-season numbers that rivaled Manning’s 2004 season and Dan Marino’s 1984 season. This simply doesn’t happen.

Peyton Manning, meanwhile, has continued his morphing from mere Stats Monster to the most dangerous player in football, a guy who is on that rarified level of Michael Jordan and Tiger Woods – guys who aren’t simply better, smarter, and more prepared than everyone else – but the guy who has all of those things AND has the desire and the coolness to rip your heart out and then toss it carelessly aside.

The Sports Guy, a Brady acolyte who used to belong firmly to the “Manning is a mere Stats Monster” camp acknowledged this in his piece before Monday night’s game.

And Bill Belichick acknowledged it when he went for it on 4th down. The Colts may not have a running game. The Colts may have Reggie Wayne and a bunch of rookies at wide receiver. The Colts may have had Dallas Clark successfully limited by the Patriots’ linebacking corps.

But the Colts have Peyton Manning. And Bill Belichick did not want the ball in his hands under any circumstances.

Only a few years ago, many people still gave Brady the nod as the best QB in football, or at least tied with Manning. But now, most people seem to think of them as 1 and 1A. Indeed, a poll of Hall of Fame quarterbacks, announced during the broadcast, showed that they picked Manning over Brad by 13.5 to 2.5 (with one of Brady’s supporters being Terry Bradshaw, an above-average but not great quarterback who won 4 Super Bowls).

The only question now for Manning is this: will he go down as the greatest of all time?

The Iron Clipper

Which of the following Yankee Dynasties was the greatest ever?

+ The Ruth/Gehrig Yankees
+ The Joe DiMaggio Yankees
+ The Mantle/Berra Yankees
+ The Reggie/Billy Yankees
+ The Jeter/Mariano Yankees

(Yeah, it’s questionable including Reggie/Billy since 2 titles does not a Dynasty make. But I think that 2 consecutive titles qualifies, otherwise you couldn’t include the Big Red Machine. If you disagree, write your own damn blog.)

The answer is: None of the Above. At least according to David Schoenfield, who ranked all 27 Yankee champions on ESPN’s Page 2 this week.

Extrapolating a bit from the Page 2 list, the greatest Yankee dynasty was one that, quite frankly, I didn’t know existed: the Gehrig/DiMaggio Yankees, which won 4 consecutive World Series from 1936 to 1939.

(Yeah, it’s questionable including 1939, since Gehrig gave his famous “luckiest man on the face of the earth” speech on April 30th after playing in only 8 games. But I’m going to count it since his spirit was on that team. If you disagree, write your own damn blog.)

Anyway, like most people I associate Gehrig with Ruth, and think of Joltin’ Joe as sort of being on his own. It surprised me to learn that the Iron Horse and the Yankee Clipper were teammates for nearly four seasons, from 1936 to 1939, and the Yankees won the World Series in every one of those years. And it further surprised me to see Page 2 rank those 4 teams as being 4 of the 8 greatest Yankee champs ever – mixed in with the ‘27 (#2), 98’ (#3), ’53 (#6), and ‘32 (#7).

As I mentioned in my Jeter piece a few weeks back, I think Gehrig is the most underrated of the Yankee greats, and this information only strengthens that opinion. He won 3 titles with Ruth and 3 titles with DiMaggio (not counting 39). He had 13 monster seasons in a row. Mix in the fact that he was born, raised, educated, played and died in New York City and I think it’s a shame that he is not accorded quite the status of Ruth, DiMaggio, Mantle and Jeter.

As for me, the fact that I, as a card-carrying Yankee hater, can write a piece like this only moments after another title, just shows how mature I’ve become in my old age. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to re-watch the entire 2000 World Series on DVD, and try to figure out how my beloved Mets lost to the crappiest Yankee champ ever.

Update: The New York Times on Sunday wrote a similar piece as ESPN, ranking all 27 champions. And while they didn't agree on every point, there was definitely some cross-over, with the 1939 team ranked 2nd, and the other Gehrig/DiMaggio teams in the Top 9. Who knew?

Who Won Tuesday?

Political commentators– whether they are conservative or liberal; thoughtful or angry; intellectually honest or hopelessly partisan; penetratingly insightful or galactically stupid – and whether or not they ply their trade in television, print, or radio - have one thing in common. They analyze election results in terms of which political party won the day.

The read on Tuesday, generally, was that Republicans won the day. Gubernatorial victories in New Jersey and Virginia, two states that voted decisively for Barack Obama in 2008, gave the GOP reason to celebrate. Democrats took what cheer they could from a Democratic victory in New York’s 23rd Congressional district, in which one of their own defeated a Conservative party candidate that was endorsed and supported by such GOP heavyweights as Rush Limbaugh and Sarah Palin.

But the real winners on Tuesday were the largest and quietest group of American voters. There will be no victory parties, no spinning to the press, no acceptance speeches and no oaths of office – but the winners on Tuesday were your friendly neighborhood moderates.

The Misunderstood Moderate
There are several problems with the way moderates are characterized by the political press.

First, we are not the same as Independents. Many moderates belong to political parties, but represent the more moderate wing of that party. Most Northeast Republicans, for example, are moderates, as are many Southeast Democrats.

Second, we do not hold moderate views on every subject. We tend to be moderate on some subjects such as abortion and interrogation techniques for suspected terrorists. But we can often be well to the left or the right of the major parties on other issues. For example, many Northeast Republicans favor gun control, while most Democrats with national ambitions make sure to get their picture taken shooting ducks.

And third, we care about politics. The independent voter, especially those that only vote during Presidential election years, tend to be apathetic about politics, and their votes tend to be more personality-driven than issue-driven. But the true moderate cares deeply about politics, is highly informed, and votes in off years…he just doesn’t vote for the same party all the time. National and local issues and even broader strategic goals play a part in which lever gets pulled.

Moderates Win! Moderates Win! The-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e Moderates Win!
I won’t go into detail on what happened Tuesday – there is plenty of good analysis in the mainstream media for that. But the bottom line – GOP victories in blue states and the hard right getting a bloody nose in upstate New York – were both good things for moderates, both cautionary tales to the partisan leaders of both parties that the center will hold. To Pelosi and Rush, we say a pox on both your houses.

Now if we can just do something about gerrymandering…

Vote for Pedro

A Surprisingly Short Baseball Post with only One Goofy Statistic

Many people believe that Sandy Koufax's run from 1963-1966 was the greatest in baseball's history. They are wrong.

As spectacular as he was (and I'm not saying he wasn't), Koufax played in an era when spectacular pitching performances were commonplace. He posted ERAs under 2.00 3 times, but from 1962 to 1972 the league leader in ERA was under 2.00 12 times, capped by Bob Gibson's record-setting 1.12. In addition to playing in a pitching-friendly era, Koufax played in a pitching-friendly park, Dodger Stadium.

On the other hand, let's look at the fellow starting for the Phillies tonight, and his run from 1997-2003. Pedro Martinez won 5 ERA titles, the same as Koufax, and posted some ridiculously low ERAs, including twice below 2.00. He didn't win as many games, but that was a product of his era, not his pitching. And he had a ridiculously high winning percentage, over .700 every year.

But here's the thing: he played in the homer-happy millenial era. He faced a DH, he faced guys juiced on steroids, he played in that dinky park in Boston.

During this 6-year period, the six highest single-season HR totals in the history of the game were recorded.

There's a statistic called Adjusted ERA+ that looks at a pitcher's ERA, and adjusts it for the league average and the parks he pitches in. By this measure, Pedro had 5 of the greatest 20 seasons since the First World War, including #1 all time, his 2000 season. Koufax's best season, 1966, is good for 34th best.

To put it in golf terms, Pedro shot a 63 playing Bethpage Black in U.S. Open conditions, while Koufax shot a 62 at the Hartford Open.

I've always been somewhat mystified by the awe people have for Sandy Koufax. Not only was he not quite as special during that 5-year period as people think, but that 5-year period represents nearly his entire career. He was in the majors for 8 mediocre seasons before that, during which he went 54-53 with an ERA over 4.

Pedro not only exceeds that period, he bookended with four strong seasons in Montreal, and a decent if injury-marred period with the Mets. And if the Phillies win the World Series, he'll be the first pitcher in history to win a Cy Young and a World Series in both leagues.

Maybe then he'll receive the awe deserves.

Bonus Fun Facts: If you don't feel like clicking the link above, I'll share with you some highlights. Besides Pedro, the other stud on the list is Walter Johnson with 4 seasons in the Top 30. Greg Maddux has the #2 and #3 seasons, but doesn't appear again. Kevin Brown made a surprise appearance. And in case you needed any more reasons to watch this kid, Zach Greinke cracked the Top 20 with his 09 season. This is all based on ignoring the pre-WWI seasons.

The Winter Classic

The Yankees equipment manager, Rob Cucuzza, is getting ready for the playoffs. He’s gathering up dozens of pairs of polypropylene* thermal underwear, cold weather batting gloves made with Aegis Micro Shield technologies, officially licensed New York Yankees earmuffs, and fur-lined parkas for the coaching staffs.

*The polypropylene material used in some cold weather gear was developed by a Nobel Prize winner, back when Nobel Prize winners had to, you know, do something in order to win

Mr. Cucuzza has a collection of high-tech cold weather gear that would make Ernest Shackleton weep with envy. And he’s gonna need it because it’s frickin’ cold in New York. As Game 1 of the ALCS starts tonight, the temperature is forecast for 42 degrees, lower with the wind chill. And the baseball playoffs are still scheduled to go another two and a half weeks.

It wasn’t always this way. Babe Ruth and the 1927 Yankees won the World Series on October 8th. Mickey Mantle celebrated the 1956 title on October 10th, and that series went the distance. In 1978, Reggie Jackson had earned his Mr. October moniker by the 17th, and that included an ALCS. Heck, even Derek Jeter and the 1996 Yanks - the first Yankee team to win a championship in the Wild Card era - had wrapped things up by October 26th.

This year, the World Series won’t even start until October 28th. Even if it’s a sweep, it’s guaranteed to go until November. If it goes the distance, Game 7 will be on November 5th. If the Yankees win, they’ll have to combine the Canyon of Heroes parade with the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade. (They'll probably let Jeter ride in Santa's sleigh, and Yankee fans will truly believe he was more clutch than St. Nick)

Luckily, I’m not the kind of guy who just sits around and complains about the old days. I bring solutions. And I know how to fix baseball.

Cold Teams
But first, a little more complaining, because cold weather is only part of baseball’s problem. The other, more insidious problem, is that crappy teams keep winning the World Series. Think I’m kidding? Let’s look at recent history.

2006 Cardinals - LaRussa's team scratched out 83 wins during the regular season, had the lowest winning % of all 8 playoff teams, and a losing record in August and September. But they got hot for a couple of weeks and were crowned World Champion.

2004 Red Sox - a very good team, but not good enough to win the AL East. In 2004 they became the 4th Wild Card team in 7 years to win the Series.

2003 Marlins - this time of year, all the "experts", from Steve Phillips to Mike Francesa to the nameless newspaper guys, give their "predictions" about who will win the World Series. The 03 Marlins are a constant reminder as to why these predictions are useless, as everyone had them rated 8 out of 8 of playoff contenders that year.

2000 Yankees - the worst regular season team of the Torre era. They won 87 games, lowest of all the playoff teams, and fewer than every Yankee team since. But the AL East wasn’t very good that year, and 87 wins was good enough for a divisional title. Most years, this team wouldn't have made the playoffs.

Fixing Baseball
How, you are wondering, will I kill both birds with one stone, hit both balls with one bat, field both grounders with one glove? Easy - end the regular season on the last Sunday of September, and add another Wild Card team. Here are the Rules of the FreeTime Playoff system:

1. No matter what, the season ends on the last Sunday in September. If the last Sunday is September 25, that is when the season ends. If the last Sunday is September 30, that is when the season ends. No nonsense like this year when regular season games were being played on October 4.
2. To accommodate rule 1, if necessary the season will start in late March, add more day/night doubleheaders, and/or take fewer days off.
3. All Northern teams will open up on the road. Send the Phillies and Mets down to Miami and Atlanta for the first week of the season.
4. Now, comes the radical part: add a Wild Card team and a round of playoffs to each league.
5. The regular season ends on the last Sunday in September; immediately following the two Wild Cards in each league will play a Mon-Wed 3-game series.
6. The winner of that series - road-weary and pitching-depleted - will immediately fly to the home city of the team with the best record in the league to start the Divisional Series on Thursday.
7. At this point, we essentially resume the same schedule we have now. But because our regular season has ended in September, we have guaranteed the playoffs will not extend into November.

The main benefits of this system should be obvious:

1. An extra Wild Card team keeps more cities interested in baseball late.
2. However, we have made it MUCH harder for a Wild Card to advance. The punishing schedule should eliminate most mediocre Wild Cards going all the way.
3. We have restored something resembling the old Pennant Race. The reward for League Best Record - getting to play a tired, depleted Wild Card team - has real value, rewards season long success, and makes the likelihood of the worthiest team winning higher.
4. The owners and television - Gods that must be given tribute - get their due. More playoff games, a greater likelihood of great teams advancing, and more meaningful September games for more teams.
5. The World Series is finished in October - as God and Kenesaw Mountain Landis intended.

Bob Costas and other "purists" will hate this. But remember something about the purists - they don't care whether or not your team is playing meaningful September games because they get to go to the action wherever it is.

And ignore everyone who complains about the power of television. Television wants the most fans possible to see the games - a desire that dovetails with the needs of the most fans, no? Costas might like afternoon playoff games, but the rest of us have to go to work.

And as for the Yankees and Angels, bundle up. It's cold out there.

Note: This is part of the Volunteer Commissioner series, in which I graciously fix problems in various sports. The others posts in the series are:

Fixing Softball (Women's softball)

The Loser's Out Manifesto (Pick-up basketball)

The Beautiful Game's Flaw (soccer)

The Slowest Game (lacrosse).

Swimming is Boring (Swimming)

You're welcome.

The Stolting Five

Thorbjørn Jagland. Kaci Kullmann Five. Sissel Marie Rønbeck. Inger-Marie Ytterhorn. Ågot Valle.

Do you know who these people are? All of them are Norwegian politicians. All of them at one time or another was a member of Norway’s Parliament, the Stolting. Jagland was even Prime Minister of Norway for a couple years in the mid-90’s.

Oh, and they are also the folks responsible for selecting the winner of the Nobel Peace Prize. (The other Nobel Prizes are selected by various committees in Sweden, but the Peace Prize is selected by a committee appointed by Norwegian Parliament.)

There is going to be a lot of debate about whether or not President Barack Obama should have received the Nobel Peace Prize. Two things that may get lost in the debate, but that I think of central importance, are:

* A prize that is decided by less than half a dozen Norway legislators should not get everyone so excited. Norway has roughly the population of Alabama, and its legislators aren’t exactly major players in world affairs. We shouldn’t care who wins, or who gets passed over, or what it all means. It doesn’t - well, it shouldn’t – mean anything.

* Jagland and his posse aren’t doing Obama any favors. As I’ve written before (see here and here), Barack Obama labors under oppressive expectations and this prize – which is based entirely on expectations and not at all on accomplishment – just adds to those expectations. It shouldn’t (see above), but it does.

Update (10/15): The Norwegian tabloid Verdens Gang reported today that 3 of three of the five members of the Norwegian Nobel Committee had objections to the Nobel Peace Prize being awarded to US President Barack Obama. "VG has spoken to a number of sources who confirmed the impression that a majority of the Nobel committee, at first, had not decided to give the peace prize to Barack Obama." VG said that Inger-Marie Ytterhorn, Kaci Kullmann Five, and Aagot Valle all had objections. Perhaps I should re-name this post "The Stolting Two."

The Nobel Peace Prize is only one of the Nobel prizes under fire. As I wrote back in December, the Nobel Prize for Literature becomes more ridiculous each year (add Herta Muller to a list that doesn’t include Nabokov, Joyce, or Updike). And the brilliant essayist Nassim Taleb is personally (if somewhat quixotically) lobbying the King of Sweden to cancel the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Econ­omic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel, or as its usually mislabeled, the Nobel Prize in Economics.

So as you contemplate President Obama’s selection, you shouldn’t be angry or elated (depending on your worldview). Apathy is the appropriate response.

Update (10/13): Via Taranto (who also compared Norway's population to Alabama's), a blog post from George Friedman of Stratfor, who goes into greater detail about the Stolting Five, and what Obama's selection means about European politics. First, he says:

"Two things must be remembered about the Nobel Peace Prize. The first is that [Alfred] Nobel was never clear about his intentions for it. The second is his decision to have it awarded by politicians from — and we hope the Norwegians will accept our advance apologies — a marginal country relative to the international system. This is not meant as a criticism of Norway, a country we have enjoyed in the past, but the Norwegians sometimes have an idiosyncratic way of viewing the world."

He argues persuasively that Barack Obama may not end up becoming the President that Europe so fervently hopes for:

"The Norwegians awarded the Nobel Peace Prize to the president of their dreams, not the president who is dealing with Iran and Afghanistan. Obama is not a free actor. He is trapped by the reality he has found himself in, and that reality will push him far away from the Norwegian fantasy. In the end, the United States is the United States — and that is Europe’s nightmare, because the United States is not obsessed with maintaining Europe’s comfortable prosperity. The United States cannot afford to be, and in the end, neither can President Obama, Nobel Peace Prize or not"

Saving the World

Iran's Nuclear Plant is Obama's First Great Test

When John F. Kennedy was running for President – and in his Senate career before that – he was primarily interested in foreign policy, and generally indifferent towards domestic policy.

There were several reasons for this.  It was partly, most biographers believe, to distinguish himself from his powerful father, who had a nearly infallible hand in domestic politics, but blundered spectacularly on the world stage, prepared to surrender Europe to Hitler and Stalin.  It was partly, perhaps, because he desired greatness, and Presidents don’t get monuments on the Mall for the passage of domestic legislation.  And it was partly because the subject of foreign policy intellectually engaged him in a way that, say, the economy did not. 

 But it was also because, as he himself put it to a reporter five days after his election, ”because the issue of war and peace is involved, and the survival of perhaps the planet, possibly our system."

Kennedy’s political career spanned the tensest moments of the Cold War, so I believe he was right to think that the most important job of the American President in that time was to avoid nuclear war. 

We are now nine months into the Obama Administration, and it’s been a shaky nine months on the world stage.  From the serious (last week’s surrender to Russia on the European missile defense) to the symbolic (Scotland’s release of the Lockerbie bomber) to the silly (his gift to Prime Minister Gordon Brown of a box set of American movies that are incompatible with British DVD players), we’ve learned that the world’s problems didn’t go away just because Dubya moved back to Midland. 

But it is Iran that is proving to be Obama’s true testing ground.  I believe that he has blown every single move so far – but that it is still within his power to make his mark as a statesman. 

His first blown move was the announcement, as a candidate, that he would meet with the leaders of Iran, Syria, Venezuela, Cuba and Korea in his first year as President, without preconditions.  His rival for the nomination, who is now our Secretary of State, called this announcement "irresponsible and naïve”.  Most would agree. 

His next blunder was in the aftermath of the June 12 Iranian election.  Thousands of Iranians took to the streets to protest the clerical tyranny of Tehran, and hoped for some rhetorical support from the American President.  They got very little, very late. 

Now comes news that Iran is building a secret underground plant to manufacture nuclear fuel. Since Iran has 300 years reserves of oil, as well as a crumbling economy, we can safely ignore Tehran's claims that the plant is for energy purposes.  Iran is obviously making a significant investment in the development of nuclear weapons.

Obama is determined to be the anti-Bush.  Bush went to war in Iraq over the belief that Iraq had WMDs - a belief shared by the intelligence services of France, England, and Germany, most of the former Senators in the Obama Administration, and the eponymous members of the Clinton/Gore Administration.   

Obama seems determined to act in completely the opposite way with Iran - to, as he put it in his inaugural speech, "extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist."

It should be obvious that Iran is unwilling to unclench its fist, and that Obama risks looking like those fools on the rooftop in the movie Independence Day, joyfully welcoming the alien ships to Los Angeles, right up the moment they got vaporized.

But I believe Obama is smart and flexible, and realizes it is now time to be tough - while still maintaining his commitment to diplomacy.  The key here is Russia and China, both of whom have been unwilling to look the other way as rogue nations like Iran do what they like, as long as they keep the oil pumping.  

If President Obama can somehow unite international opposition to Iran, and back that opposition with meaningful sanctions and the isolation of Iran, he can redeem his current feckless approach. And if he recognizes that his true job is nothing short of saving the world, rather than saving General Motors, he will earn the respect of the world.  

 

Chasing Tris Speaker

My Final Word on Derek Jeter

On August 16th, Derek Jeter had 3 hits. Two of them were significant as he tied and passed Luis Aparicio for the most hits by a shortstop. Three weeks later he passed Lou Gehrig on the all-time Yankee hits list.

Except for a few passing references, I haven’t spoken much about Derek Jeter on this site. But among my friends and email correspondents, I am well known as a boorish and boring critic of The Great Mr. November. His “records” got me thinking about his lifetime statistics, and made me realize my opinion of him is improving, even if I don’t shy away from my earlier criticisms.

My Jeter Obsession has gone through 3 phases:

Phase 1: The Big Three – 1996-1999
In the late 1990’s, baseball fans noticed the American League had 3 great young shortstops – Alex Rodriguez, Derek Jeter, and Nomar Garciaparra. When Miguel Tejada hit 30 homers and drove in 115 runs in 2000, the group added a fourth member, three in the AL East. It was a bounty of greatness at a position that had seen few truly great hitters.

Jeter immediately became the biggest star. A-Rod was putting up better numbers (and was rumored to be a better fielder) but was stuck in the baseball backwater of Seattle. Nomar was in Boston, but the Yankee-Red Sox rivalry was nowhere near as hot in the late 90’s as it is now, and Nomar played in relative obscurity. Jeter, meanwhile, playing on four championship teams for the most famous sports franchise on earth, was a fixture on national television.

Plus, he was handsome, graceful, charming – a media and fan favorite. This combination launched him to national fame and convinced many baseball fans he was actually better than A-Rod and Nomar.

Which, naturally, was madness. Here are the seasonal averages of the Big 3 from 1996-1999:

Jeter: .325 BA, 17 HRs, 82 RBIs, 124 Rs, 17 SBs

A-Rod: .304 BA, 37 HRs, 113 RBIs, 117 Rs, 28 SBs

Nomar: .337 BA, 28 HRs, 96 RBIs, 110 Rs, 13 SBs

Three excellent players obviously. You can make a case, I suppose, that the late 90’s Jeter was as good as the others, but this would be a novel baseball argument. Nomar hit for more power and a higher average. A-Rod hit for far more power, stole a few more bases, and was no slouch in average. You’d need to be a Yankee fan or a lazy announcer to think Jeter was the best of the three.

Still, the young Jeter, through the 2001 season, was a genuinely great hitter, even if he wasn’t quite as great as his rivals.

Phase 2: Stealth Decline and Attack of the Stats Geeks, 2002 - 2008
Two things happened in the first decade of the 21st century – both largely unnoticed by Madison Avenue and the average fan, but of keen interest to close watchers of baseball statistics. First, Derek Jeter saw a steady decline in his hitting, and second, he became the whipping boy for a new breed of stats geeks called Sabermetricians.

Attack of the Sabermetricians
Let’s take the sabermetricians first. Armed with calculators, spreadsheets, and advanced degrees in statistical analysis, they began creating and popularizing a form of statistical analysis that went way beyond the traditional triple crown categories. They had been around a while – the patron saint Bill James published his first Baseball Abstract in 1977 and his disciple Rob Neyer had been writing a popular column on ESPN.com since 1996. But it was Michael Lewis’ 2003 bestseller Moneyball, about the Oakland A’s GM Billy Beane and his adoption of these new metrics, that introduced the broader baseball world to things like OPS, Win Shares, and Pythagorean Winning Percentage.

Jeter became an irresistible target for the Moneyball crowd. Stats geeks, more than anything else, seek to bring down the overrated and rise up the underrated. Jeter, through no fault of his own, was the most lavishly praised player in baseball.

Announcers gushed over every thing he did - he'd get more praise for hitting a ground ball out that moved a runner over than the next guy would get for doubling the runner home. He appeared in commercials with Tiger Woods and Roger Federer, two guys who were indisputably the best in the world in what they did*. Fans, even non-Yankee fans, seemed to truly believe that Jeter’s singles were more valuable than A-Rod’s homers.

* I used to imagine Albert Pujols or Vladimir Guererro, sitting at home after another .340/40 homer season, wondering why a guy who hit .310 with 14 homers was appearing in Gatorade commercials with Michael Jordan while they were stuck doing spots for local auto dealers.

But the other reason stats geeks wrote so damn much about Derek Jeter is that, well, he’s Derek Jeter. He was the most famous player on the most famous team in baseball. An article claiming he was a statistically horrible fielder was more likely find a larger audience than, say, an article on how Kevin Youkilis has a higher VORP than Carlos Delgado.

The Stealth Decline
But the more interesting thing, one that to this day I’m amazed so few people have noticed, is that he ceased to be a great hitter.

In 1999, Derek Jeter had a genuinely great season, based on traditional statistics, sabermetric statistics, or any other way you want to measure it. In the traditional Triple Crown categories he hit .349 with 24 homers and 102 RBIs. For the sabermetricians, he had an .OPS of .989 - higher than ARod and higher than that year's AL MVP, Ivan Rodriguez (though not nearly as high as Nomar, who had a spectacular season).

He was 25 years old, an age when most guys have yet to reach the peak of their powers. But it turns out Jeter had maxed out. He took a step back in 2000, and again in 2001, and continued to decline through the 2005 season. He bounced back a bit in 2006, and and remained a good player, even a very good one. But the promise of power shown in those 24 homers went away, he didn’t seriously threaten for another batting title, and his OPS showed a steady year-on-year decline. Quite simply, he was not a great hitter.

For a comparison, click here and here, and compare Jeter to Gehrig. Gehrig had his breakout season in 1927, at age 24. It was an eye-popping season – he hit .373 with 47 homers, 175 RBIs and an OPS of 1.240. Wow. But he hadn’t peaked – he followed it up with 11 more spectacular seasons – each one better than Jeter’s best season. He had a good season in 1938 at age 35, and then had his career cut short by disease.

Jeter, by contrast, spent his age 26 through 35 seasons as a good, but not great hitter, that never approached the across-the-board success of his age 25 season.

Despite the decline, announcers, sportswriters and fans breathlessly spoke of Jeter as if he was the same great hitter that burst on the scene in the late 90’s.

Phase 3: The Rethinking Things Era

As the 2005 season was closing, Derek Jeter was on his way to becoming the most overrated player in the history of American sports.

Imagine a gathering of the Baseball Gods, Hitters’ Division. There is Babe Ruth, Ty Cobb, Ted Williams, Willie Mays, Mickey Mantle, Mike Schmidt, Albert Pujols, Alex Rodriguez.

And in walks Derek Jeter. He alone would have no home run titles or batting titles. His best MVP performance was a distant 3rd – despite the luck of always playing on a playoff team. His lifetime average is a shade over .300. He led the league in Hits one year, but led in Plate Appearances that year too. He led the league in Runs Scored once, but playing leadoff for the Yankees tends to help that out.

In fact, there is only one individual statistic that Derek Jeter has consistently placed in the Top 10 in the league in: Salary. Since 2000, he has ranged from 3rd to 6th in that coveted individual category.

But…but…something else happened in the intervening years. A bunch of things, actually. Alex Rodriguez was outed as a steroid user. So was Tejada. Nomar Garciaparra had a series of injuries and became a backup. And Derek Jeter just kept getting hits. Lots of them. Every year.

Not as many as Ichiro. And on the all-time list he still trails such such non Hall of Famers as Al Oliver, Vada Pinson, Andre Dawson, and Harold Baines.

But, he’s only 35 and having his best season since 1999. He has more hits than Pete Rose - the all-time leader at 4,256 - had at the same age. I charted out Jeter’s shot at reaching the highest levels of the hit list. And here are my conclusions:

• Rose's record is in reach, but he'd need to average 175 hits a year till he's 44


• Joining Rose and Ty Cobb in the 4,000 hit club is more achievable - though it probably still means avoiding injury and playing well into his 40's


• Much more achievable and interesting, is 3,500. Only five players are on that list: Rose, Cobb, Hank Aaron, Stan Musial, and Tris Speaker


• And finally, if he sticks around for 3,500, he only needs 15 more to pass Tris Speaker, and place him in the Top 5

Projecting the Captain's Legacy

All in all, Derek Jeter is the weakest hitter to ever be mentioned as one of the all-time greats. But if he pursues, catches, and passes Tris Speaker and breaks into the Top 5 hit list, I promise I will declare him to stand proudly with the elite.

If not - he will assume a proud place among the lesser Hall of Famers, with Tony Gwynn and Robin Yount, rather than Babe Ruth and Willie Mays. And I'll be the jerk in the corner pointing out that Yount had two MVPs and Gwynn had 8 batting titles, whereas Jeter needed Mariano and 23 other guys to get him his jewelry.

On Snobbery

Yeah, I've basically taken the summer off from blogging. But I am publishing elsewhere. Here's a piece about the difference between food snobs and chefs, published in the August 3 issue of Nation's Restaurant News:

Click here for article.

The Last Clooney Update

In February 08 George Clooney was at the height of his powers. Michael Clayton was up for 6 Oscars, including Best Picture, he himself was nominated for Best Actor, and Time Magazine ran a cover story calling him "The Last Movie Star". If "last", that would logically imply that he was the 'biggest', not to mention the 'only.'

I wrote a post suggesting that, perhaps, he's not a movie star at all. He is a good actor who appeared in some very good movies, but has neither the track record of iconic movies (think Bogey in Casablanca, African Queen, and The Maltese Falcon) nor a succesful enough box office record to merit that kind of praise.

It's been rough sledding since then. Leatherheads and Burn After Reading, combined, did less than $100 million at the box office, and were critical flops as well.

And in Hollywood, they seem to finally be catching on. A story last week in the LA Times said, about Will Ferrell:

He's in danger of becoming the comedy equivalent of George Clooney, someone who enjoys a great deal of goodwill but who isn't actually a real movie star…

Deficit-Shmeficit

A Coffee Klatsch Conversation


What follows is an email conversation among The Coffee Klatsch, a group I introduced to y’all in the last post. The participants are Yours Truly (Keatang), Cormie, JShin, and Stod.

I’ve lightly edited the transcript. The flow is occasionally awkward because some emails crossed each other and are not a direct reply to the one above. Also, I pick up the thread somewhat mid-stream - it started out as a discussion about possibly doing some group blogging, which led to a discussion about what topic we'd discuss, which led to the incredibly exciting subject of the federal deficit, which led to a bit of a free-for-all...

I hope you enjoy.


Cormie
Heck, let's just avoid politics, we hacked that stuff to death over the years. How about we all watch the the Elvis Costello interview with the Police on You Tube and start with, why does Sting so obviously hate Stuart?

Where does Elvis C. fit into the pantheon of great pop musicians?

Why is Mel Gibson having an eighth child with a new girlfriend?

Why do "Buffalo Wings" confuse Californians?

Why do parents fart so freely around their children?

Rush Limbaugh and drug addiction? (now here might be where both sides could opine, and keep it funny).

So many topics, so little time.

Keatang
Here's a potential topic, though one that may get a little outside our comfort zone. Actually, no, we'd all end up sounding like idiots. But still, I'm curious...

I've always been a deficit-shmeficit guy. Meaning: when others are worrying their little heads about the size of the federal deficit, I always say, deficit-shmeficit. I don't base this on any sort of rational understanding of how the federal debt impacts the economy generally, but more because, in my life as a voter we've gone from Ross Perot's the-sky-is-falling alarmism to Bush & Gore debating how to spend the surplus to the Age of Obama in which, according to one thing I read, we will triple the size of the Bush deficit.

And that's assuming some fairly optimistic things about the economy over the next few years. And it assumes that the spending doesn't even get worse with Democrats in complete and total control (an assumption that, in my opinion, would require that you have the IQ of trout).

Suddenly I'm not so deficit-shmeficit. I'm more like, holy spit, by the end of Obama's second term we are going to be so broke that Joe Biden will be in the White House kitchen preparing grilled cheese and PB&Js for state dinners.

JShin, meanwhile, has brought up the deficit more than once through the Bush years as a source of worry. And I'm guessing now that it’s his guy in office, he's more like, deficit-shmeficit...

So: are me and JShin both total hypocrites, changing our mind to suit our politics? Or our respective volte-faces somewhat defensible (mine because a trillion dollar deficit is one thing and a 3 trillion dollar deficit is another...and Shin's because who cares what the deficit is if Obama gets everything else right).

Thoughts?

JShin
I'm more deficit-shmeficit than I used to be, truth be told, but not because of Obama or Bush, but more because I want to see some money flowing right friggin now, if you know what I'm saying. I also don't understand the economy for a minute. Christ, like you said, we went from an economy where we had a ridiculous surplus just a few years after we thought we'd never dig out, and then not much later we're looking at the worst financial crisis in almost a century. Seriously, what makes sense? The economy is Orwellian to me. Up is down. Profit is loss. Greed is good. All that kind of carp.

And again, I think it does often come down to the color of the uniform. What can Cheney say about Obama's handling of the deficit now? Sure, he can rip him a new one for not aggressively interrogating alleged terrorists because it's something different than the way he did it, but Cheney was definitely a deficit-shmeficit guy, so he's got to walk the tightrope there.

The Democrats will surely spend, but they got a good head start going with the last eight years. For a conservative administration, they threw the crap around like they were Democrats. Dang. I should have loved Bush, but I just couldn't.

Cormie
Politics is still a tough topic for me in the klatsch. Back in the year 2000 there were at least 3 topics that we didn't discuss in our emails; deficits (didn't have 'em), torture (didn't do that), and photographing body bags at airports (nothing to see).

To begin any political discussion without starting with the ill cast of Bush's shadow over our lives in the present tense, is a willful act of amnesia, self delusion, or an abstract gift to evil men who should be in jail. If our national dialogue is still dishonest enough to allow Cheney to take credit for Sept 12th onward, while disavowing equal stewardship of Sept 11th, our fears so primal that we cannot stomach a terrorist in a maximum security prison on US soil; then why have dialogue at all? I'm a trout and you're all eagles. We've got the sky to talk about, why dwell in the muck?

Shin
Whoa, throwing down the friggin gauntlet. Looks like we have our pot-stirrer. Our Jane Curtin. Well, allright, Corms, you incorrigible slut, actually I don't have a good rebuttal. Cheney makes me want to vomit, and I may have mentioned pity for Bush, but I also pity some people that I really really can't stand and have done hurt to me or my children. So it's not like I've forgiven the btard or something....

Keatang
Okay then, no politics…how about that new Green Day album?

Stod
That's political, isn't it? Or at least, they swear a lot on it. One of my son's teachers or a friend's parent objected to the album being played in public somewhere because of the language (shows you how clued in I am here). My son really, really liked their last album - probably one of the fundamental albums of his lifetime – but he said he doesn't really like what he's heard off the new one.

Anyway, we could debate profanity on music cds. Actually, I might as well confess: I rented a best of Britney Spears album from the library! I hope no one sees it on my desk, but I confess, I always liked the song "Oops I Did It Again" and figured ah, why not rip it. Now that I listen to it, though, maybe it's not as good as the first time I heard it while driving into Las Vegas.

Cormie
Green Day. Possibly the one discussion that would drive me to talk politics. Here's what this trout thinks.

To talk about deficit concerns is naval gazing. We spend freely to assuage our fears, on bombs and prisons and non-stop rendition flights, but we have pangs of concern when it's saving jobs, homes or health care. We can talk all we want, but we are never more than one attack away from falling off the fiscal wagon. We need to manage our fear, insist that our politicians not fear monger, and learn to live in the world--not exempt from it.

Also. Spending 'got worse' with Republicans in complete control. I think it's fair to assume that this trajectory would've continued under a Republican administration. (It's not like Arnold has done much to change the trajectory that got a democrat recalled).We spend because we fear. We Americans like to privatize wealth and keep risks social. This cognitive dissonance is something we seem to be comfortable with, at least until China stops buying our currency.

We're selfish--money to ourselves good, money to others bad. We may change our minds when the next swine flu becomes a true pandemic and the 'consumer choice' of health care becomes a social issue as we find ourselves surrounded by 30 million uninsured carriers.

I have more, but need to get back to work.

Swing away, Keatang. I'm throwing high and inside.
Cormie McTrout

Keatang
Sorry for the delay in response - I took a sick day today. Spent the morning watching West Wing re-runs. Now there was a noble Democratic President in action - if only those evil Republicans would get out of his way. (In this morning's episodes, President Bartlett was trying to broker a Mid-East peace agreement, but House Republicans wouldn't support it unless he supported a tax credit. Jerks. Can't they see he's trying to save the world?)

More importantly, sorry for the trout crack. I meant it as a throw-off and not to offend. Let me state it more soberly: I believe ANY political party with control of the House, Senate, and White House will spend in an irresponsible manner. When the majorities are strong and filibuster-proof, that is more so. When there is a crisis, that is even more so. And yes, when it is the Democratic Party, look out. So to say deficits and spending concerns is navel gazing seems going too far. Surely there is a point where massive, unsupportable spending becomes dangerous.

Then again - maybe not. The Second World War was pricey and the United States economy seemed to rebound nicely after that. Deficits-shmeficits.

The bigger issue is this: are we allowed, in any way, to criticize any policy of the Obama Administration? Or are you saying that we should all just agree he's better than Bush and bless everything he does?

Two other notes: my wife told me last night that Billie Joe Armstrong said he's going to start giving more thought to how his lyrics affect his kids as they get older. And Stod: I hope you realize we're publishing this whole conversation on my blog. Britney Spears, huh?

Shin
Whoops, didn't realize we were already in blog world. I'll try to hold out on all my little "friggin's" and "carps" from here on.

Like I said, I'm a biiiig fan of Obama, but don't find any problem in having problems with his problems. I like and don't like the fact that pundits are always applauding his political savvy, always making the other guy stick his foot in his mouth first, and thus Obama smelling, well, unlike a foot. Not that I don't like the pundits saying that, but it makes me wary of Obama as a Machiavellian genius, who may be up to grabbing the reins that Cheney made more accessible to an American president. And I think he's been, for lack of a better expression, a bit limp-wristed around some of the current gay issues, most particularly gays in the military

Stod
You sick, too? I have a monster cold...so much writing to do but it's tough today. Two thoughts keep seeming very far apart. And now I've discovered that the Dodgers are playing the Cubs at Wrigley on the tele this afternoon! On right now. How nice it would be to make myself a hot toddy and just watch a ballgame. WGN is really destructive to my home work habits.

Another song I hesitate to admit that I like is "I Kissed a Girl" by Katy Perry. The video is a hoot. I guess I go for that pop vampy stuff from time to time.

I think the deficits or whatever you'd call them at this point are very definitely a concern for the future of this country. I feel like we're living in Britain during WWII, when the war basically destroyed their treasury and the Americans took a good grip of Winston's balls and told him that the British Empire was dead, long live the American Empire. Time to learn Mandarin!

Shin
I don't see why we can't go politics. We would need comments like Cormie’s “I'm a trout and you're eagles” one to liven up a boggy blog day. I found it offensive in the same way that I found some of Keatang’s “please stop poohpoohing on Bush” comments. They titillate, which is perky and bouncy, which is good for the audience.

I was and am a firm believer that what this country needed -- more than it needed Anita Ekberg or Sophia Loren -- was Obama in that seat instead of McCain or many others. I am constantly soothed by his language. I always felt like a foreigner (not in an American or anti-American or that kind of sense, just linguistically) listening to Bush and I always felt less secure, in just a scared human kind of way after hearing him speak. It seems that we were on the brink of disaster and Bush just hoped that the disaster would hold off until after the elections. I don't know that, it's purely conjecture, but he seemed so remote at the end of his era, that it made me want to scream.

I'm glad that Obama has called torture what it is and said we won't do it, I'm not so concerned about not seeing more torture photos, I'm dumfounded that he hasn't done more about things like gays in the military, I'm concerned about the deficit, I pray each day that the stimulus moves something in my direction, I feel like the world situation is as volatile as ever, but I'm glad he's up there representing me and my fellows.

I don't know jack about Green Day, and Britney Spears makes me want to turn and run.

Cormie
Navel gazing, or perhaps it’s analogous to the purchasing of indulgences in 1546. We behaved poorly for a number of years, spending on unnecessary war and turning a blind eye to the supplemental budget requests that made the hemorrhage of money, from public to private hands, so conveniently opaque. Perhaps now we sleep better spending a few precious moments wondering about the well being of our yet to be sired grandchildren. We must be good people if we worry about such things, mustn't we? Perhaps its analogous to acid rain and global warming, situations brought about by enormous aggregation of individual poor behavior--Hummers in the driveway, McMansions in the newly drained everglades.

It's navel gazing because the only action point to each of these three things solely resides in the personal. We can worry about the national deficit, but we will have no effect on it. All we can do is live within our proper sense of proportion and humility and render ourselves immune to the deficit's effects. The payoff is muted.

A frugal family who lives within their budget and sets aside the rainy day retirement money can expect to bear more than their fair share of the ARRA, subsidizing the fools and dreamers who bought NINJA loans to finance their dream vacations, subsidizing the loan professionals who fleeced the lambs then doubled down with default swap bets that the lambs would bleed, subsidizing stupidity.

But what options do we have? I'd rather place my money on the bet that will pay off with assimilated, educated Americans who drive ambulances, teach schools, and contribute to the subjunctive hope that is America, than spend my dollars building higher walls and deeper moats to keep the preterite masses at bay. I'm with Garrett Keizer, and wish to live in a world where disposable income does not require the blood of disposable people.

To me, Obama gets a pass for now. He's been handed the largest shit sandwich I've ever seen. Smaller men would be choking on it. I'll hold off on criticizing until he starts trying to serve up some of his own.

And yes, he's improvising. He doesn't know what to do. Tim Geitner has no clue. For that matter, why are bankers deciding how to fix the banks? It's like asking a surgeon how to fix a backache, "why, surgery of course!" Ask a chiropractor and no doubt a different answer would be offered. Quite frankly, I'd like to stop asking Yale and Harvard graduates their opinions on anything.

Don't worry about the trout. I liked the trout.

Keatang
Largest shit sandwich? Hardly. I’d put Washington, Lincoln, Johnson (Andrew), Hoover, FDR, and Nixon on the list of Presidents who got handed Carnegie Deli whoppers compared to Obama’s Subway footlong.

Three of those guys made it to the pantheon and three of them, well, not so much.

The three of them that made it to the pantheon may have also wished to live in a world that did not require the blood of disposable people, but it didn’t work out that way. FDR presided over a war that killed 50 million people around the world. Lincoln’s war killed 600,000 Americans. Washington, of course, was a peacetime President, but a wartime General with no Jeffersonian illusions about war and peace.

Obama’s a historic President at a historic time and I like the idea of debating if he’s making the right decisions. But I have no interest in playing the role of Roman centurion, shouting up to Obama “If you are the son of God, come down from the cross”. You want to give him a pass, we’ll give him a pass. After all (as he tells us in every press conference) it’s not his fault. (I have to add, though, that in all my Lincoln reading, I can’t recall Lincoln bringing up Buchanan at every turn…)

Next topic? Ah, but feel free to take last licks…

Shin
Just a quick rebuttal for Cormie, in spite of agreeing with your comments (FDR and Lincoln were dealing with Colossal Poo Whoppers. Corms mentioned the largest McTurdwich he'd "ever seen," so, in a sense, he is correct there, too.

Cormie
The tone-deaf nature of email has always made it a challenge, for me at least, to write politics. Perhaps I'm too shy about using the ASCII smiley face. My head was in deficits, not George bashing, and my opinion is that we are too easy on ourselves, too forgetful of how we got to where we are, and not willing to make hard choices about what needs to be given up when the belt needs be tightened.

Perhaps my last two years at an eco company have radicalized my vernacular and I'm more shrill than I realize. Perhaps it's why Malcolm Gladwell, the Sports Guy, and myself, all suggest staying away from politics.

As for shit sandwiches, I guess I could cast the net wider than my email's intent, my lifetime. When I look at a destabilized Pakistan, and the regional super-power Iraq, and the bellicose crackpot North Korea, I'd suggest that, if nukes were an ingredient in the sandwich, the closest sized shit sandwich was primitive (proto) man staring up at the K-T asteroid. And really, in regards to Obama, banks, Yale.....if our politics can't envision a world where our good fortune doesn't have a concomitant dedication to the health and well being of all peoples and planet, then to hell with both parties. We can find a better way, or else the burblings of a starving third world, choking on our fumes and learning to read in a madrassa, will find the way for us. :-)

The Coffee Klatsch

Way back in, oh, 1993 or so, my company, a San Francisco based magazine publisher, installed an email system. This brought a wonderful improvement to workplace communication – and a new way to gossip and b.s. with co-workers. It was the first truly valuable cyberslacking tool.

Soon, I and three other guys – Cormie, JShin & Stod - began an email conversation, one that that has continued to this day. Early on, we gave ourselves the not-particularly original name of The Coffee Klatsch, and it stuck. By the end of our collective time at this company, we were geographically scattered – to New York, Western Massachussets, San Francisco, and San Mateo, CA. Today, none of us work there. But the email conversation goes on.

(Like the Beatles, we had a fifth member in the early days – two of them, in fact. Snowman was the first, JPoth the second. A few guest players – Billy Prestons, if you will – joined in the occasional thread, but it was mostly the four of us.)

What did we talk about? Well, let’s see…

Baseball – Mets, Giants, and Red Sox; the usage and value of statistics; pre-season predictions; the morality of some kinds of cheating (steroids) vs. others (spitballs); and more

Football – Giants and 49ers mostly, with a bit of Raider love

Women – our co-workers, and in one memorable moment, Jennifer Aniston

Music – all over the board, from Townes Van Zandt to Steely Dan to Billy Joel to the San Jose Symphony

Fiction – a heavy emphasis on Cormac McCarthy, but with many many other authors from Thomas Pynchon to JK Rowling

History – a lot of Lincoln, a strong dose of John Adams, a dash of the Federal Road, and much more

Kids – we have 9 between us

Politics -

Ah, politics. The damn thing nearly cracked up over politics. Politics was always a core issue in the conversation, with our worldviews ranging from Far Left to Center Right. In the 90's, when the country's primary political argument was about the biological nature of that damned stain, we had a lot of fun with political conversation. But the Bush years brought a level of passion and acrimony to politics that hadn’t been seen in this country since the Vietnam War. And as our disagreements heightened over the overall Bush response to terrorism, well, things got tense, and we retreated to the sanctuary of sports and music.

But now it is the dawning of the Age of Obama, the man who promised us a post-partisan world. And I wondered if, perhaps, we could start talking politics again. So we started an email conversation that I thought I’d share with you.

But first, here are the four contributors (I wrote Stod's and my bio; JShin and Cormie wrote their own):

Keatang : Well, this is my blog, so maybe you know me already. Click here for a link to a post that I wrote on the anniversary of FreeTime which gives you an idea of who I am and what I write.

JShin: Cathy to Cormie's Patty, if you go back far enough to remember the Patty Duke Show, i.e., "one pair of matching bookends, different as night and day," ideologically fairly closely planted on the spectrum, but stylistically large lakes -- if not oceans -- apart. Good cop to Stod's crazy cop. I love these guys, but I also love to hate 'em, which I guess makes us good blog fodder.

Cormie: Born comfortable on the left coast, Cormie got angry in the mid 80s and never quite recovered. He left a middle middle finger dangling from a tree on the bank of the Yaquina river in the hopes that George W. Bush would someday take up rafting

Stod: Stod is a writer/editor with one foot firmly planted in the future (he writes about advanced technology from Silicon Valley) and one in the past (he does so in an office piled high with old newspapers). He believes Glenallen Hill is the most underrated outfielder of the 1990’s, and still blames Robbie Robertson for the breakup of The Band.

So anyway, in the next couple of day or so I’ll post the first Klatsch Convo on the exciting topic of: The Federal Deficit! Betcha can’t wait…

This Will Kill You

Some friends of mine have a new book out – and what kind of friend would I be if I didn’t shamelessly plug it?

Harvey Newquist (or as he’s known in print, HP) and Rich Maloof have just published This Will Kill You: A Guide to the Ways in Which We Go (MacMillan). Jim Shinnick, designer extraordinaire illustrated the book. I can’t improve upon the promotional copy:

No other book has ever peaked under the Grim Reaper's robe in such a straightforward and irreverent way. With a foreword by a physician at the Mayo Clinic , an afterword by a funeral director, lists of history’s most notable deaths, and a unique death rating system, everything you need to know about the ways in which we go are included in these pages.

I don’t know Mr. Maloof but can vouch for the wit and creativity of the other two. HP has published books on such diverse topics as space, the internet, guitar gods, and neurology. Jim is the finest designer I’ve worked with in twenty years of publishing (if you need good design work, check out his work here).

I suggested to them that they promote the book via an elaborate literary hoax – specifically, that they should fake their own deaths in ways featured in the book. But they don’t seem to be going for it.

Anyway, click here and get yourself a copy.

Update: I just bought my copy at Borders on Park and 57th and it was prominently featured in the 'Recent Releases' table as soon as you walk in.

Let Us Now Praise Famous Dave's - and all the other chains too

I wrote an article for the May 18th issue of Nation's Restaurant News. I submitted it with the above title, but the editors changed it. The rest of it is pretty much unchanged from what I submitted.

Anyway, click here if you're interested.

This, That, and the Other

My last post was March 30th, which means for the first time since I started this thing in 2007 I've gone a whole month without posting. Sorry, but as Luther says to the parking garage attendant in 48 Hours, "I've been BUSY!!"*

* That line is not funny, creative, or even relevant to the plot; but the actor says it with such freaky vehemence it has become an oft-repeated crack among my friends.

Actually, I haven't been that much busier than usual, but I finally got talked into joining Facebook and Twitter and have wasted valuable time there that I should have spent in self-indulgent twaddle here.

I do have a piece coming out in the May 18th issue of Nation's Restaurant News, where I work in my non-FreeTime. I'll link to that in a couple of weeks. In the meantime, a few things I've been thinking about lately...

Divisional Mirrors

Has anybody else noticed that the AL East and the NL East are built exactly the same? Each division has:

• A New York team in a new stadium that buys up the most expensive free agents and crashes when the leaves turn (Mets and Yanks)
  
• A recently crowned World Champion from a city that was a big deal during the American Revolution (Phillies and Red Sox)
  
• An underpaid Florida team with lots of nice young talent and an apathetic fan base (Marlins and Rays)
  
• A crappy doormat team located near our nation’s capital (Nationals and Orioles)
  
• A team from a mid-size city that won multiple titles in the 90’s but has struggled recently (Braves and Blue Jays)
  

Okay, the last one is a bit of a reach, but the others are kind of interesting, no? Yeah, you're right, it's not that interesting. Let's try something else...

Cultural Observations: Towards a Theory of Snobbery

A few years back I read an article in the NY Times that got my attention. (I’ve googled and yahooed away for this thing but can’t find it) The basic idea was this: professional musicians are less snobby about music than music fans. Music fans get all hung up on genres and cool factors, whereas for musicians it’s all about the music. Supremely cool musicians are sometimes fans of supposedly square ones. Miles Davis dug Bing Crosby. Robbie Robertson and the Band saw genius in the perfectly crafted pop songs of Neil Diamond, whereas their own fans couldn’t see past the sequins and clunky lyrics (“I am a chair?”)

A friend of mine is a professional musician and I asked him if he agreed with this. Here is his response:

Musicians, at least the ones I know and work with, like stuff that is interesting regardless of niche. The folks I know in the Berkeley Symphony still rave about the Metallica collaboration a few years back, and the Zappa works in the 90s. My best gig two years back was playing with the Santa Rosa Symphony behind Beatlemania. The chills I got playing the car horn while 4 Beatle lookalikes sang Penny Lane in front of me. What a day.

One exception--none of us like gangsta rap. No artistry or musicality.

One surprise--classical musicians and jazz musicians will rave on and on about Primus

I see something similar in the restaurant business. Foodies are deeply snobby towards chain restaurants whereas actual culinary professionals are often impressed by the work of chains. They know, in a way that mere foodies never could, that rolling out a good-tasting, low-cost, consistent dish in hundreds or even thousands of locations takes impressive culinary ability.

More importantly, they focus on the food itself, and not the idea of what the food is supposed to represent.

Does this apply in other arts? I suspect so - critics and cinephiles may mock big-budget movies, but I wonder if people in the movie business understand that the talent of, say, James Cameron is rarer than the talent of Alexander Payne.

Literature is an exception. I suspect the museum arts like painting and sculpture are too, but am getting well outside my comfort level here.

I'm still working on this theory (hence the "Towards" in the title) but wanted to get the conversation started.

Reading Recommendations

• Portfolio magazine folded last week, two years and $100m after Conde Nast launched it. Portfolio had its moments, and one of those was this excellent piece by Michael Lewis about the end of Wall Street. It's worth printing out, getting a comfy seat, and reading.
• When Patrick O'Brian died a few years ago, devoted fans of his Aubrey/Maturin series (the basis for the Russell Crowe film Master and Commander) went into mourning. If you're one of those, I'd like to recommend James Nelson's "Revolution at Sea" trilogy. Yes, Nelson is a bit of a copycat, but he knows his seamanship, and since its the American revolution rather than the Napoleanic wars, it has the advantage of writing about people, places and battles I'm more aware of. O'Brian blurbed his first book, too.
• Also worth checking out is Christopher Buckley's blog on the Daily Beast. Buckley is the son of conservative icon William Buckley who shocked the conservative establishment with his endorsement of Obama. Anyway, his writing fills me with despair - I know I'll never be that good. But I read him anyway...

The Next Lines Flick

Like many males of my generation I have millions of movie lines in my head, many of them from flicks that starred SNL alumni. Animal House, Caddyshack, Fletch, Stripes, The Blues Brothers - my friends and I can spend hours together conversing in nothing but movie lines.

A handful of movies from the last decade have made it into this pantheon as well. The 40 Year-Old Virgin, Superbad, and pretty much the entire Will Ferrell catalogue.

There is a trailer out now for a movie called The Hangover.  The producers have either put every single funny moment in the trailer, or its going to be one of the funniest guy flicks ever made.

One reason to hope that the movie will live up to its trailer's promise: the trailer leaves open the mystery of what actually happened the night before. If the filmmakers deliver there, we may have a comedy classic on our hands.

March Madness: Heaven without the Stars

A while back I wrote a piece called Swimming is Boring in which I made the case that swimming was, well, boring. Sure, Michael Phelps was a huge star in the middle of an awesome accomplishment, but the actual sport – long lean hairless guys swimming back and forth – was kind of boring.

Is it possible that the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament is the opposite? The actual games are thrilling. Anybody who watched Nova-Pitt or Siena’s double overtime victory over Ohio State can attest to that. But the players – I’m sorry, scholar athletes – are, um, how do I put this? Let's just say you should enjoy them now, because if recent history is any guide, these guys won't be tearing up the NBA anytime soon.

This wasn’t always the case. For a long time the NCAA tournament was a showcase for future NBA legends, a place to see players on the verge of becoming the greatest athletes in the world.

MOP Tops

From 1955 to 1961 the winners of the Most Outstanding Player (MOP) of the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament were:

1955: Bill Russell

1956: Hal Lear

1957: Wilt Chamberlain

1958: Elgin Baylor

1959: Jerry West

1960: Jerry Lucas

1961: Jerry Lucas

Pretty impressive, huh? Not only did all of them but Lear make the Hall of Fame, they were each honored in 1996 as being among the 50 Greatest Players in NBA history. Plus, while Jerry Lucas was winning MOPs the best player in college hoops was Oscar Robertson, who appeared in two Final Fours. That run was nearly equaled in 1979-1984:

1979: Magic Johnson

1980: Darrell Griffith

1981: Isiah Thomas

1982: James Worthy

1983: Hakeem Olajuwon

1984: Patrick Ewing

That's 5 more members of the NBA's 50 Greatest (and the 6th, Griffith, won NBA Rookie of the Year). That's not counting Indiana State's Larry Bird, who faced Magic Johnson in the 79 title game, or Clyde Drexler, Olajuwon's teammate at Houston. Oh, and the year Worthy won the MOP the title-winning shot was hit by his freshman teammate, kid named Jordan.

In the 30 years between 1955 and 1984, the MOP was won by a future Hall of Famer 15 times! (That's not counting 2-time MOP Bill Walton who won an NBA Finals MVP and was named to the NBA's Fifty Greatest - but isn't in the Hall of Fame).

Starless Nights at Today's Tourney

But don't look for today’s NBA superstars in a March Madness highlight film.

Lebron and Kobe are the monster stars of today’s NBA, but neither played college ball. Tim Duncan and Shaquille O’Neal had distinguished college careers, but neither played in a Final Four.

Chris Paul made it to one Sweet 16. Kevin Garnett and Dwight Howard skipped college. Steve Nash won a first round game with Santa Clara, then jumped to the NBA. Chris Bosh spent a year at Georgia Tech then turned pro. Dirk Nowitzki and Yao Ming came from abroad.

Of today's big stars, only Dwyane Wade played in the Final Four. But Kansas whipped his Marquette team by 33 in the Semis, so it wasn’t exactly a game for the ages.

As for the MOPs since 1984? Hoo boy. Glen Rice had a 15-year career, going to 3 All Star games. Carmelo Anthony has made two All Star teams and has a shot at a good career*. But after that it's pretty grim. Mostly a bunch of guys who barely played in the NBA, much less starred.

Who Cares?
Does any of this matter? Probably not. The sport’s popularity continues to surge, for a bunch of reasons.

First of all, there is the power of the office pool. More than five million brackets were filled out on espn.com, including one by Barack Obama (I hope he’s better at his day job). Don't ever bet against a sport that has a huge gambling component.

Second, there is the built-in renewable fan base of the student populations of hundreds of Division I schools.

Third, great sporting events don't need future legends to be great. The Olympics prove that every four years, never more so than the Miracle on Ice team.

And finally, as someone who has been lucky enough to have gone to a Final Four/Championship weekend (North Carolina's 2005 title), I can tell you it is a very special event.

Still, something has been lost in the process. When casual fans like me think back to the 1998 NCAA title game (featuring Most Outstanding Player Jeff Shepard! And leading scorer Michael Doleac!), it won’t be with the same recollection of those great tournaments of the mid-80's.

The new one-and-done rule means that future Kobes and LeBrons have to play one season of college ball. So maybe we’ll get a glimpse of these undisciplined freshman on the way to NBA riches. But don't get your hopes up - even Magic and Bird didn't do their thing as freshmen.

Ah, who cares? Three of my Final Four teams are alive and if North Carolina takes the title I’ll win my office pool. Go Tar Heels!

* Update (1/21/11): Since this post was written, Carmelo Anthony has gone from "a chance at a pretty good career" to a Top 10 player. But still - he's the very best former college champion in the NBA over the past 30 years, and I don't think anyone is ready to compare him to Wilt, Russell, Magic, Bird, Jordan and so many others.