Things that Robert is thinking about that keep him from accomplishing anything.

 
The Real Problem
Flipping through USAToday online and saw this report on a Title IX case from Birmingham: a women's high school sports coach complained about unequal access to athletic facilities and was fired; he sued under Title IX; at issue is whether he, as somebody who's not part of the protected class (in this case women), can sue to recover damages.

An interesting case on its own, but it's the passage towards the end of the article that got me to post:

"Litigation against school boards represents a diversion of scarce resources and a distraction from their mission of academic achievement that the nation's schools can ill afford," the National School Boards Association writes in its friend-of-the-court filing.

Ok, it's the fault of people who bring lawsuits to remedy discrimination that the school board can't devote resources to academic resources. If you were devoting the resources in the first place, you wouldn't be getting sued. Let's play the game:

• "Lawsuits against the county government accusing it of voting fraud divert necessary funds from the county's mission of ensuring a fair election."
• "Lawsuits against the city alleging discrimination on the basis of age in hiring divert city funds from being used to hire the elderly."
• "Lawsuits against the doctor for malpractice divert funds from her practice that she would use to treat other patients."
• "Lawsuits by women accusing men of rape are diverting the man's resources from supporting himself and his family."

It's a very clever piece of rhetoric. It looks like a cross between the:

• false dilemma
• irrelevant conclusion.

I just love these kinds of word games. The art of the sophists still lives in law and political campaigns!

posted by RSaunders at 2:41 PM ⇒ (0) comments

 
Getting Ahead of the Curve
TalkingPointsMemo had this post over Thanksgiving weekend about legislative transparency that echos my suggestion. TPM posts some responses from Hill staffers.

posted by RSaunders at 11:07 AM ⇒ (0) comments

 
Yak in the Box
Kudos to the folks at Jack in the Box for springing for health insurance for (some of) its hourly employees. Perhaps now its employees will be covered after they eat meals there.

Seriously, though, it is good to see an employer taking a risk on behalf of its employees for a change. We don't know how much of a risk--JitB hasn't said what portion of the premium it will pick up--but it's a start. Also, the benefit only goes to employees with 12 months of tenure, so it's not clear how many people this truly affects. It's a nice perq for people who already have tenure, and a great incentive for people in their 10^th or 11^th month. There are times I wish I were a labor economist because this would be a sweet evaluation opportunity.

posted by RSaunders at 11:45 AM ⇒ (0) comments

 
Technological Virtue
The lame duck Congress finally got around to passing some of its main outstanding authorization bills, and so now, only after it has passed and is assured a presidential signautre, has anyone taken the time to read it. Tuesday's Post reports on Congress' new power to snoop in income tax returns, and there is this change overriding state laws to make legal abortions still more difficult to obtain (hat tip to TalkingPointsMemo).

My question is this: why is it not possible to post drafts of legislation to a web server and make them publicly viewable before they become law? If the 535 members of Congress cannot bother to read the legislation (and in fairness to them, it is a shitload to read and probably not physically possible to read), then let 280 million pairs of eyes read it and share in the responsibility?

I realize there is some level at which this may contribute to tyranny of the agrieved and vocal minority faction or even full-scale ochlocracy (mob rule). Just think of the work of the Christian Coalition in late '80s and early '90s. So, perhaps there may be a period during which the people paid to do the work should have first crack at reading it. But, you know what, it's better to find out what the hell is in the bills before they're passed than after they're signed into law. Look at the havoc created by the changes to overtime regulations this summer. (Of course, I can't find a damned thing on Google right this second, but...)

The other thing this accomplishes is that it countes (to a degree) the power of lobbyists to control legislation by controlling specific legislators. Including the citizenry in the effort means the public has a voice in the debate when the outcome is still (at least nominally) in doubt. If ordinary folks--ordinary in the sense that they're just citizens, not that they're a random sample of the populace--that, assuredly, is not the case--can stop Dan Rather from making charges against President Bush stick, imagine what similarly motivated people can do for legislation. This would also give these grass roots groups, left and right, something to do in the time between elections. Is this not a legitimate form of participatory democracy? The open source version of law making.

Update: I neglected to talk about two other key virtues last night, mostly because it was late, but also because I can't seem to keep multiple thoughts in my head at the same time and type and edit. Those virtues would be:

• a system to track who makes edits to a document and when (e.g., you have to log on to the server to add/delete/modify items and privileges have to be set for you), and
• an electronic "version compare" system to do roughly the equivalent of "document compare" in Word, but a little more sophisticated.

This is not to say that these systems can't be compromised (e.g., stealing someone's password to post edits, bribing someone to post edits), but such things can be tracked and dealt with as they occur. At least we will have someplace to start when investigating who and how something was added.

posted by RSaunders at 10:24 PM ⇒ (0) comments

 
And in South Carolina
John Feinstein recommended on NPR this morning that Clemson and South Carolina refuse their bowl invitations for their brawl Saturday, which is ostensibly blamed on the NBA fight of the preceding night.

News Flash: Al-Qaeda blames 9/11 on overpaid NBA players!

There's no bleeping way they will do it. Too much money, and no university president will punish its alumni. What I wonder though is what punishment they will mete out on the players, who they have little interest in protecting. My guess is that some of them will be barred from the game and have their scholarships revoked starting next semester.

Update: Well, I guess I was wrong for a change: both withdrew from bowl consideration. I'm still curious to see what happens to the players. And, I'm especially curious to see what that means for some of the smaller schools/non-money conferences, whether they'll suddenly get to go to some better bowls.

posted by RSaunders at 9:17 AM ⇒ (0) comments

 
Can We Blame This on Overpaid Pro Athletes, Too?
I'm sure there's got to be a way to blame this hunting incident on pro sports, the ole post hoc ergo propter hoc. Or, maybe we should blame it on literarture.

posted by RSaunders at 8:08 AM ⇒ (0) comments

 
Sports Is Porn
I haven't seen a full tape of the Indiana-Detroit melee. I saw from the foul through the first fight in the stands on the local sports last night. It's nice to know that we will never run out of things to moralize about in the sportsworld, especially sports talk radio. The one silver lining in all this for Ron Artest is that it looks like he'll get his time off to promote his album.

As people griped about who was to blame, why fans have become willing to attack athletes (and vice versa) on the field (e.g., White Sox fans, Cubs fans), near the field (e.g., Yankees bullpen and Red Sox ground crew), and off (e.g., David Wells, Charles Barkley), and people spouted theories about resentment towards players for their salaries, it dawned on me the essential problem is that professional sports is essentially pornography. Socially acceptable porn, but porn nonetheless.

• A collection of wealthy individuals and/or companies hire freaks of nature to engage in an activity that anyone can participate in (and does participate in at some point in their lives), but with more skill and technique than the normal person is capable, for enormous sums of money. People watch with a combination of envy and awe. A combustible mix of desire, passion, and frustration, win or lose.
  
• In no other industry are employees as perfectly commodified as they are in sports. Television itself is alienating because it reduces the performers to mere characters in a t.v. show. But we then take their likenesses and sell them in the form of jerseys, baseball cards, magazine and newspaper photos, highlight reels, and talk shows.
  
• Nothing is more reductive than the video games: the person's performance is reduced to a creative representation of 1s and0s that the audience member controls; the players are literally under our thumbs.
  
• What this game's not good enough? Let's switch to the other channel and watch the other people and see if we can get off.
  
• Compare the average career length of a porn star and a pro athlete, especially football. Yet everyone points to the superstars as people who "made it" and ignores the hacks who fill out the rosters or don't even make the rosters.
  
• In no other industry are the employees called on to do the equivalent of an Inside the Actor's Studio before and after performances or even practices with journalists. Porn stars do not have to suffer the indignity of meeting with the press every day. Even politicians might go a day without conducting an interview when in session.
  
• And now players have to answer to the amateur reporter, the blogger, the obsessed fan who centers life around the performance of a particular player/team.
  
• We want our women to look and fuck like porn stars, yet when they do, we fault them for being whores. We do the same to pro athletes. When athletes perform poorly or behave inappropriately, we call them out as social pariahs. When they perform well, we heap ridiculous amounts of praise. But sometimes even winning isn't enough. They should have won by more. They should have called the timeout sooner. They gave the other team a chance to win or make it close.
  
• I won't even include the homoerotic undertones of the performances and descriptions by analysts, attire (e.g., who decided on the tight see through pants? who decided on the loose, off-the-shoulder tank-top for the NBA?), and social customs (e.g., the ass-patting, chest-bumping, the dances over the vanquished).

There are virtues in sports and competition. People can play for reasons other than those virtues: the love of the game; for fun; to earn approval or praise from others. However, the business of professional sports has divorced the virtues from the act in favor of what matters most: making money.

posted by RSaunders at 1:55 PM ⇒ (0) comments

 
Suppose I Should Mention
There's a new Slant out this week. Check it out. I wrote the Tom Hanks article.

posted by RSaunders at 9:41 AM ⇒ (0) comments

 
It's Just This Easy!
USAToday reports on a study that essentially confirms my diet and exercise regimen. Of course, it helps to be single, live alone, have no children or pets, and a job with flexible hours and good pay. Because I'm sure most people have time in their day to walk 4 miles.

Actually, people probably have the time but don't realize it or are too frazzled by day-to-day life to make it available. I've been on my little productivity kick--which I'm sure annoys people even more than hearing about their latest diet or their latest tale of romance (or romance lost)--and it is amazing how much time you can reclaim...and still make time to blog.

posted by RSaunders at 11:29 AM ⇒ (0) comments

 
Three More Options?
Revealing my mid-Atlantic biases, I wonder about three other potential successors:

• Sen. George Allen (VA): has the party bona fides, but is in the same Democratic governor situation as Frist.
• Sen. Rick Santorum (PA): I still marvel at how Tim Robbins imagined much of this guy in Bob Roberts before he existed. Another Democratic governor though. (Do yourself a favor and watch it. You'll forever be sitting there going, "He's in this? And she's in this?")
• Gov. Bob Ehrich (MD): fortunately I haven't had to live in my home state under his governorship and learned first-hand how execrable he is, but he seems like W's kind of guy--somebody to play golf with and speak in trite, conservative, jingoistic soundbites. He also has history going for him (and we have it against us) in Maryland's previous VP, Spiro Agnew.

posted by RSaunders at 11:31 AM ⇒ (0) comments

 
Your Nostradamus Blogger
It seems either folks at the LA Times and the New America Foundation are reading my blog, or I'm just truly in tune with the nation's Zeitgeist. This op/ed from today's LA Times calls for an exchange student program in the U.S., eerily similar to what I posted last week. I need to start keeping tallies on this sort of thing.

Also, read this month's article in Esquire on Bill Murray. (It's not available online, but you can see him on the cover for the Dec. 2004 Genius issue.) The man is a comedic genius, and it provides a wonderful counterpoint to the impression one might have of him after reading this year's profile of Harold Ramis (whom I also enjoy immensely for different reasons) in The New Yorker.

posted by RSaunders at 3:52 PM ⇒ (0) comments

 
Curses, Foiled Again
Vice-President Dick Cheney once again disappointed Democrats by surviving a mystery illness that required him to be hospitalized. When ABC interrupted its college football coverage today with report of Cheney's hospitalization for what is now described as "shortness of breath," Democrats thought their prayers for his sudden death had been answered. Apparently the president intervened by praying for Cheney's speedy recovery.

This does raise an interesting question: what happens if the Veep dies before Dec. 13, the date electors cast their ballots and re-elect Bush and Cheney as president and vice-president? The short answer is: the electors can do whatever they want. Some states require their electors to vote for whom they're slated, but it's not clear whether they'd be required to vote for a dead man. One option is to posthumously re-elect Cheney, and then appoint a new vice-president. The other option is for the Republicans to put forward a nominee before Dec. 13 and encourage the electors to vote for this man.

This is where things get interesting, and it poses a significant test of the Republicans' unity: who the Hell would they pick? And would they try to wait or get it done early?

I'll take the latter question first. It's likely they'd try to wait because (a) they'd probably want to "honor" Cheney by re-electing him and (b) they'd need to buy time to find the right candidate. However, the longer they wait, the more potential for dissension and politicking for the job threatens to tear the party apart. So, the best case scenario is they have someone in mind who meets their ideological standards, won't piss off the party, and won't mind waiting until Jan. 20 to be appointed and confirmed.

So, we come back to the first question: who would be that person?

Jeb is out because of post-JFK anti-nepotism laws. Presumably that rules out daddy, too.

Would he go for some Reds from the Blue States? Does Giuliani's 9/11 associations trump his socially liberal background? He probably plays better nationally than he does to the Far Right. Does Pataki get to be the Nelson Rockefeller of his generation? Can the executive branch afford to have two lightweights at the top of the management pyramid?

An obvious choice is Sen. Bill Frist, the Senate majority leader. He's on the short list for '08 for sole reason that he's the beloved of W. However, Tennessee has a Democratic governor and presumably he'd pick a Democrat to replace Frist. Would the Republicans trade a Senate seat to get Frist into the VP slot? Probably, but not necessarily.

If they would, it'd be funny if Gov. Bredesen selected one Albert Gore, and almost as funny if he picked Rep. Jim Cooper, who lost to Frist for this same Senate seat in 1994. I think we can count Gore out, but you never know. Cooper would be the favorite, but it might be interesting to see Rep. Harold Ford get the leg up as he may have planned a run for Frist's seat in '06.

If they wouldn't, or if found Frist to be more valuable as majority leader, who else is there? Ashcroft needs a job. Or maybe Zell Miller. (Ever the comedian.) McCain leaps to mind, and Democrats would love to push him for the spot. But he has the same Democratic governor problem, and it's not clear the Far Right would support him. Neither is he "on board" with the neo-Con agenda. I'd say he's probably out. Powell has the stature, but probably wouldn't be considered or consider it if offered for similar reasons.

Would he try to make history and appoint Condi? Imagine a black woman a heartbeat away from the presidency: would the South go for it? Apart from her disappointing foreign policy analytic skills and national security mismanagement, you would think her lack of domestic policy experience would be a drawback, too.

I am skipping over some obvious names like Hastert and DeLay becasue they seem to have too much baggage and are too valuable running roughshod over the House. I suppose Frist is the most likely choice and the Republicans can afford the seat. Second best bet is Rice. I'll have to think some more on who else to consider.

posted by RSaunders at 8:43 PM ⇒ (0) comments

 
Counterpoint
On the other hand, maybe flamethrowing will make it all better.

posted by RSaunders at 11:10 AM ⇒ (0) comments

 
What Now?
Krugman's latest op-ed piece in the Times says Democrats can't succumb to defeatism or parrotting the Repbulicans' family values schtick. In particular, he suggests the following:

Yes, Democrats need to make it clear that they support personal virtue, that they value fidelity, responsibility, honesty and faith. This shouldn't be a hard case to make: Democrats are as likely as Republicans to be faithful spouses and good parents, and Republicans are as likely as Democrats to be adulterers, gamblers or drug abusers. Massachusetts has the lowest divorce rate in the country; blue states, on average, have lower rates of out-of-wedlock births than red states.

But Democrats are not going to get the support of people whose votes are motivated, above all, by their opposition to abortion and gay rights (and, in the background, opposition to minority rights). All they will do if they try to cater to intolerance is alienate their own base.

I wonder if perhaps there needs to be an equivalent of a foreign exchange program within the nation. Instead of sending our kids to live with a family in Belgium and taking in a teenager from Switzerland, we should swap kids between Kansas and Vermont. Given the popularity of all these family-member swapping programs, there seems to at least be cultural interest in it, though that may be driven by the fact that it's other people doing it for our own entertainment.

Still, it would be interesting to start a cultural exchange program among high school students (maybe 10th graders?). Maybe it's a just a semester. Maybe you pair kids between families so the two kids experience each others' hometowns. And sure, you could turn it into a t.v. show if necessary.

posted by RSaunders at 10:11 AM ⇒ (0) comments

 
Missed Opportunities
If you look at the electoral map by county (e.g., this week's Newsweek, this page from the LATimes), you will see that most of the blue areas in the South run along the lower (and upper) Mississippi River and the Ohio. While these may reflect racial patterns, I doubt it explains all the support. I maintain, as I have argued previously, that Kerry and the DNC missed a chance by not fighting in these areas. If Kerry wins Arkansas (6 electoral votes) and Louisiana (9), it's a 30-point swing, making it Bush 271, Kerry 267. That's spitting distance, without even considering Missouri. I guess the question is, could he still have won the Great Lakes states while working the lower Mississippi into his campaign? I'd wager that he could have, but it's too late to worry about now.

posted by RSaunders at 11:58 AM ⇒ (0) comments

 
Conspiracy Theory 101
If your liberal friends haven't sent you this link already, feel free to link yourself.

I don't know how true this is, but I wouldn't put it past them. I do know that Karl Rove (subscription required) appears to be a graduate of the Donald Segretti school of campaign sabotage. For those who haven't read the Rove article and can't get the subscription, it basically describes how in several Alabama contests he used whisper campaigns against opponents and even self-sabotaged campaigns to give his candidates martyr status in their races. I'll bring the article in this week and post some excerpts.

posted by RSaunders at 9:39 AM ⇒ (0) comments

 
Thanks for Playing
Michael Phelps can kiss any chances of winning SI's Sportsman of the Year goodbye.

posted by RSaunders at 3:51 PM ⇒ (0) comments

 
Follow the Leader
I'm just back from a few days in Atlanta and then a few days in Birmingham. On the election: As much as I hate the outcome, I take significant solace in being right about the election's outcome.

The highlight of the post-election orgasm in the Red States? I'd say it is this message left on my windshield in a Greater Birmingham parking lot, presumably inspired by my Kerry-Edwards bumper sticker:

HA: Karry Lost
Bush won! How is
Better now fuck'er

All mangled language and syntax is in the original. I'm especially fond of the superfluous apostrophe. And there's nothing like delirium-induced dyslexia. I'd say this pretty much sums up the Bush experience: the ignorant showboating about their ignorance. America has officially become the fifth grade.

posted by RSaunders at 2:09 PM ⇒ (0) comments

 
Prediction Time
Sadly, I'm standing by my pessimism and picking Bush with about 300-310 electoral votes. I just think all these fence-sitters are going to jump on Bush. The difference between this election and previous elections where the undecided break for the challenger is that I imgaine they're all peacetime votes. I just find it hard to believe the American public can separate its loyalty to the troops from its loyalty to the particular man who is Commander-in-Chief, no matter how poor a job he's doing.

On the other hand, there is a part of me that really looks forward to Kerry winning the electoral vote and Bush losing the popular vote. And even if Kerry wins outright, I long to see Republican flag-wavers rally behind President Kerry with the same patriotic enthusiasm for President Bush. God, that'll be fucking fun! And I'll take some incredible dare if I'm wrong and the flag-wavers truly rally behind President Kerry. But, as I said above, I think the senator will lose.

posted by RSaunders at 10:54 PM ⇒ (0) comments