Playoff picks and potpourri

Wow. Is it Saturday night already? I lose track sometimes. Well, it’s time to get tomorrow’s picks on the record. I’m feeling a lot of pressure sitting here 4-0 after last week.

I just love the idea of the Packers and Bears facing off to get into the Super Bowl on a torn up field in sub-freezing temperatures on a Sunday afternoon in late January; especially since I’ll be watching it from my couch in Florida. I’m going with the Bears at home in a very close and low-scoring game.

There is no way the Jets can beat the Stillers twice in Pittsburgh in the same year. There’s no way Troy Palamaulou allows that to happen. And yet, I’m going with the J-E-T-S, JETS, JETS, JETS all the way this year. However I do hope Braylon knocks himself out on a failed, post-game back flip.

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I’m very curious to know the story behind Keith Olbermann’s sudden and mysterious departure from MSNBC. I’ve never liked him even a little, but I hope there isn’t some unseemly scandal behind it. He was the only talking head the liberals had on TV with any real following.

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Ben Stiller has more Twitter followers than Sarah Palin.

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It was kind of a lost week for me so you may well have read both David Brooks and Paul Krugman in the Times last Friday the 21^st. Each addressed the apparently uncrossable divide separating the political left and right in the country today. Krugman’s “A Tale of Two Moralities” explained the gap from a structural standpoint while Brooks’ “Tree of Failure” looked at from the perspective of the current social atmosphere. Both are interesting in their own right but together they are fascinating.

Just because the Republicans hate it…

One of the best parts about being in Chile for 16 days was the complete absence of American political news. I didn’t read a newspaper once and the only TV I watched was a five-hour CSI marathon with my kids over a couple of bottles of wine on a slow night in Cachagua. It was like being in an isolation chamber. It was heavenly. We pay too much attention to the clowns in Washington; it only encourages them.

Reality returned quickly once we landed in Florida to hear that the Republicans were about to take over the House and their first order of business was going to be to repeal the latest health care legislation. I was initially worried but then they decided to read the U.S. Constitution out loud on the House floor first. This hipped me to the fact that a simple House majority wasn’t enough to repeal an already enacted law. Man, thank goodness that the rest of us are now in on the secrets that lie within the Constitution; it wasn’t good having only the Tea-baggers as the only Americans who understand the fundamentals of our democracy. Thankfully we all know now.

So then repealing health care legislation in the House sounded like a pretty unproductive exercise until I read David Brooks' piece in the Times this morning, and now I’m not so sure. While I pretty much hate the Republican party even more than the Democratic party, one has to be careful not to fall into the trap of thinking they are wrong 100% of the time. Just because the Republicans hate something doesn’t make it a good thing.

I had a great deal of ambivalence from the beginning. Any bill that starts with major concessions to Big Pharma and the insurance industry can’t be all good. Then throw in the Nebraska compromise and a few other bribes paid to various Senators to get them to vote “yea,” roll the whole thing up in a bill the size of Twain’s autobiography, pass it in the middle of the night before anyone has really read it, and just how good can it be?

Well, lots of people say “better than no bill” but what if it ends up costing the country hundreds of billions of dollars instead of saving similar amounts as promised? I say that is worse than nothing. Not only can’t we afford it, but it will poison the well for all future “progressive“ legislation of any kind because it will forever stand as a shining example of the Democrats’ unwillingness to consider the practicality and functionality of any legislation at the expense of liberal dogma. I highly recommend the Brooks piece if you haven't already read.

Me and LeBron

It was a chilly 52 this morning here in central Florida so I'm following LeBron to Miami, if only for a few days. Just in case you have nothing else to occupy you, here are a couple links sent to me this morning:

From Deuce Bruce, today's Paul Krugman column which highlights the evidence of President Obama's dwindling backbone. Isn't it a little early for osteoporosis? Why haven't more people compared him to Adlai
Stevenson, Illinois' last presidential pretender?

From Buzzard, Michael Rosenberg on SI.com. Don't let the title fool you; the article isn't really about LeBron, it's about the soul of Cleveland.

From me: David Brooks, to remind us that if just a little collective sanity emerged there is hope.

The real cause of the Gulf disaster

Regular readers know of my bromance with David Brooks; his column today is a good example of why I admire his thinking so much. In Drilling for Certainty, Brooks, himself, drills deeper and thinks more broadly, in search of the causes of the BP oil disaster in the Gulf. He equates this ecological catastrophe with the financial catastrophe we experienced with the sub-prime mortgage meltdown. “These systems, which allow us to live as well as we do, are too complex for any single person to understand. Yet every day, individuals are asked to monitor the health of these networks, weigh the risks of a system failure and take appropriate measures to reduce those risks.”

He goes on to identify six principal reasons for why this often goes so horribly wrong, including the false sense of security that naturally comes with these complex systems, sighting the fact that more people are killed in crosswalks than while jay-walking, since we assume the crosswalk will protect us. It’s a great article. You should read it, although I think it is secondary to the force that precipitated the spill.

For whatever reason, Mr. Brooks has antipathy for populism. I think he thinks it’s counterproductive and anti intellectual, so he doesn’t ever want to pin the blame on the elites who run these shows. But what-the-hell, it really feels good, so let me tell you why I think the Gulf is now awash in sludge and will be for decades.

The overwhelming, undisputed, number one trend in business over the last 30 years (or more) has been the push to cut corners, save a buck, and never worry about tomorrow because that is somebody else’s problem. That’s why BP chose to use a cheaper well casing, and to remove the drilling fluid at the earliest possible time. That’s why there was no plan or equipment in place to do anything about the problem once the well blew. And once all the facts are in I’m sure there will be some similarly motivated action that lead to an impotent “blow-out preventer.” Anything to save a buck, including the sacrificing of the lives of the men who worked on the Deepwater Horizon.

As long as I’m doing my William Jennings Bryan impression, let’s also ponder who profits? Over these same thirty years while productivity soared, wages stagnated and middle class jobs disappeared at an alarming rate, the only things that are up are CEO pay, the percentage of wealth controlled by the top one tenth of one percent of the population, and the number of “free-market capitalists” who suck subsidies and favors from the government to the detriment of the public well being. Keep an eye out for Goldman Sachs, the great vampire squid. I’m sure they have their blood funnel stuck in there someplace.

The root of the problem

If you believe, as I do, that the country is facing a long list of huge problems, and that Congress is doing very little of substance to solve any of them, then what is the root of the problem? We often hear that a lack of bipartisanship is the issue, but what does that really mean? Just that the 535 people already in Congress can’t work together, but what forces put those people in the position to stymie the problem-solving role of government?

The problem is that our elected representatives no longer represent people as much as they represent an ideology. And ideology, like theology, has been argued for millennia without a winner emerging. There never will be a winner. There will only be losers, and we are them.

Why do our representatives represent ideology rather than people? It is at least in part, because of gerrymandering. This is one of the great examples of the laws of unintended consequences at work. Politicians, in an attempt to make their own offices more secure, have created Congressional districts that resemble metastasizing cancer cells or Jackson Pollock paint splatters more than they do a rational association of citizens with common problems and concerns.

Instead of districting so that areas with common issues and problems (suburban, urban, industrial, farming, etc.) are together, districts are created by politicians, that lump together people who are disposed to vote similarly, or by purely racial categories, regardless of how geographically remote they are from one another.

This lessens the practical common bonds among the constituents but allows their natural cultural and ideological commonalities to run free. So instead of debating the practical merits of policies and how they will affect our lives, we argue their ideological merits – a kind of massive, communal circle-jerk.

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David Brooks’ column today offers a fascinating look into why our leadership class in all fields is suffering from diminished respect and support from the people they lead. I highly recommend it.

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The Plan (an update). I was distressed to discover yesterday that Glenn Beck’s next book due out in August will be titled "The Plan." I’m going to have to find a new name for my scribbling on the process of developing my new life plan. Suggestions are welcome.

I learned about Beck’s book from a piece on the Daily Beast that was an excerpt from a new book called “Wingnuts: How the Lunatic Fringe is Hijacking America,” which appears to skewer both left and right.

Here is a really scary fact of Beck’s own admission: he smoked pot every day for 15 years. Instead of telling us smoking pot would make us heroin addicts, perhaps our parents should have warned us against becoming Glenn Beck. It might have been more effective.

Three things I like

I recommend “Crazy for the Storm: A Memoir of Survival,” by Norman Ollestad. It was a father’s day gift from my son, which coincidentally turned out to be a fascinating look at four generations of fathers and sons from one family, although the book is primarily about the author and his father, also named Norman.

Norman the elder was an extreme sports guy before the term existed. For Norman the younger’s first birthday in 1969, big Norm strapped the kid onto his back and took him out surfing off the Malibu beach where they lived.

The focal point of the story was a February 1979 airplane ride over the San Gabriel Mountains that went badly. The pilot, Big Norm, and his girlfriend were killed. Little Norm, then aged 11, had to hike down from over 8000 feet, in the dead of winter, to survive. It is an amazing tale, very well told, although I agree with the Times review, which found the cross-cutting format a bit annoying. Never-the-less, the cross-cutting to some of father and son’s adventures before the crash, especially their trip to Mexico, were almost as thrilling as the crash. This is a terrific, and very fast, read.

As popular as the blues are, it is difficult to hear new blues music. You won’t see the latest blues stars hosting SNL, or playing on the Plaza for the Today Show. So I was really happy to discover Murphy’s Saloon, a podcast available both online and via i-Tunes.

The host is Murphy. I don’t know much about him except that he is Chicago-based, and kind of a goofily, earnest, blues-nerd, who gets all the releases from labels like Alligator and Blind Pig early, and pulls together great cuts for the show. He intersperses them with artist info, a lame-joke-of-the-week, and shout-outs to fans around the globe. Any more talking would be too much, but Murphy grows on you and there is nothing at all wrong with his taste in music.

Finally, I really like David Brooks. He is smart, funny, well-informed, and opinionated without being partisan. These are all the things I wanted to be when I was writing about politics, but reading Brooks twice a week guaranteed me two days of feeling inadequate out of every seven.
Read what he had to say today about leaving health care reform to the Senate. I guarantee you that you will feel smarter after reading it, which is how I almost always feel after reading anything by him.

The government is Oz

The Republicans have no heart. The Democrats have no brain. The only remaining questions are:

1. Does President Obama have the courage to force them to do what is right?

2. Who is Dorothy in this analogy?

David Brooks nailed the problem in his column today. The President may represent the politics of change, but this is the same old Congress. Shameless, selfish, short-sighted and stupid.

Barack's money

I'm tempted to suggest everyone read every David Brooks column, but today's is an absolute must. He provides a fascinating disection of where Obama's campaign donations are coming from, and in the bigger picture, how different population segments vote with their political donations and what that might mean for the future balance of power. You can read it here.

A little more McCain

Don’t worry, I don’t plan on using the blog as a regular bully-pulpit for Senator McCain, but permit me to respond to the comments from the earlier post. I was slightly disheartened (I’m over it) to have apparently failed to convert anyone, but since he is going to be the GOP candidate he has to be a part of the ongoing conversation. The counters to my arguments for McCain can be summarized into a few groups:

Some disagree with my priorities, placing health care, energy policy or other items ahead of international issues and fiscal restraint. I certainly don’t under rate these other problems; they are important and need to be solved, however, I see my picks as overarching issues, that is:

1. There can be no successful energy policy without a dramatic improvement in our international standing and ability to successfully deal with terrorism, and McCain has vastly more international policy experience than either Dem.
2. All other social problems require money – health care reform, infrastructure improvements, alternative energy R&D – you name it. McCain will demand we find a way to pay for it other than more borrowing or more taxes. I really fear that left unchecked either Dem will spend without regard for the consequences – taxes and the national debt will continue to rise and we will become weaker as we saddle our children with those costs.

Some people worry about Senator McCain’s temperament and perceived bellicosity, but try a military leader we have elected President who got us into a war. I don’t think there has been one. Military people understand the real cost of war better than the rest of us and work harder to avoid or stop bloodshed. If you are open-minded to this point, read David Brooks today. McCain is no cowboy-war monger.

The Supreme Court argument is the weakest against him. While he talks a good social-conservative game he has a long history of working well with moderate politicians, real social-conservatives know this and don’t trust him, and anyone he nominates has to have the A&C of the Senate, which will probably have 60+ Democratic Senators starting in ’09.

John McCain is a moderate, pragmatic, man who has more practical life and world experience than any candidate in the field. He is remarkably candid for a politician and he doesn’t take himself so seriously that his own opinions become dogma the rest of us have to live with forever. His character has been tested beyond what the average person can even imagine. He is human and flawed – but there is a lot to like and admire about him.

The New Dream Team: Spitzer-Ferraro

Jeez, I leave for a week and all hell breaks loose. Surely Elliot and Geraldine (sounds like a really bad early ‘70s movie trying to ride the coattails of “Harold and Maude”) will now team up for an independent party run for the White House.

If it is possible to understand what made him do it, I think David Brooks may have nailed it today. I, being no David Brooks, will just say that surely this is the final proof that a Harvard degree does not mean you are smart.

As for Gerry, I’m going to think about what I want to say for a bit before committing it to the permanence of text lest I make the same error she did.

Finally, we had a great time in Spain. Does anyone want to hear about how Bill Murray bought us a bottle of wine and an after dinner drink in Sevilla?