Finding Albert

I’ve been having fun watching Cincinnati Reds prospect Jay Bruce tear it up. The guy was kept down in the minor leagues at the start of this year – Reds management, in all its wisdom, thought he was not ready, and instead signed weak-hitting Baltimore Orioles castoff Corey Patterson to play center field.

Patterson was a disaster, but Reds’ manager Dusty Baker has a man crush on him, and trotted him out there night after night. Check this out: Patterson’s on base percentage (not batting average) was in the low 200’s. (A good leadoff hitter should have an OBP of 350 or more.) But Dusty Baker is nothing if not stubborn. He insists that Patterson has real talent, and that his light is under that bushel basket. That’s why he always batted first in the lineup. His shining little light.

The Reds finally called up Bruce. Patterson “volunteered” to be demoted to AAA to work on the mechanics of his swing. (There is indeed a mechanical glitch there that even my untrained eye can spot – when he swings the bat, it usually misses the ball.)

Bruce has been tearing it up. His batting average is 571, his OPS (on-base plus slugging) a pornographic 1.470. But it’s a small sample size. It will change. The question is, as pitchers adjust to him, will he adjust to them? That is the key to success.

Anyway, there ’s an great article in the May 30 Wall Street Journal (The $10M Arm) about the Major League Baseball amateur draft. The article centers around Rick Porcello, a kid drafted out of high school last year by the Detroit Tigers. Drafting high school kids, especially pitchers, is risky business. Many high school pitching prospects develop arm problems before they reach the majors, but this one so far is paying off. The Tigers paid a $10 million dollar signing bonus to Porcello. Here’s an early evaluation:

He can throw five pitches, including two separate fastballs — a 97-mile-per-hour version that seems to defy the laws of physics by rising on its way to the plate, and another, thrown with a different grip, that dives down to the corner of the strike zone toward a right-handed batter’s thighs. He has a change-up that, while thrown with the same calm, fluid motion as his fastball, wreaks havoc on a hitter’s timing by crossing the plate as much as 20 mph slower.

Keep your eye out for that name – Porcello. Barring the unfortunate, the kid is a future mega-star.

But drafting in baseball is much riskier than other sports. Often enough the top picks have success (Bruce was a first round pick in 2005), but it’s no sure thing. The problem is how to spot potential development. Statistics don’t help much. Major league players are so much better than high school and college players that lower level numbers mean very little. How do you spot talent? For non-pitchers, it comes down to the five tools – hitting for average, hitting for power, baserunning skills and speed, throwing ability, and fielding. Rich teams are willing to invest heavily in five-toolers. Poorer teams have to hope for the diamond in the rough – the great Albert Pujols was a 13th round selection.

It affects competitive balance. Mathew Futterman, the author of the WSJ article, talks about the role of signing bonuses in baseball. The Detroit Tigers could afford to pay $10 million to Porcello. The Tampa Bay Rays or Kansas City Royals … no. Other teams saw his talent, but weren’t willing to break the bank to sign him. So he went late in the first round of the 2007 draft, and he went to a wealthy team. (Ever wonder how the Yankees manage to keep a robust farm system while continually trading away prospects? This is one reason.)

The MLB draft, like the NFL, is weighted based on reverse standings. The worse a team’s record, the higher that team picks in the draft. The object is to give weak teams a chance to land top talent. It doesn’t help the game that the Red Sox and Yankees continually field the best teams and land the top draft picks. But that’s how it is working out. Poorer teams are bypassing top five-tool talent and taking their chances with lower-rungs. They are hoping to find another Albert. Good intentions aside, the rich are getting richer again.

The solution to this problem of haves having more is telling. Baseball is exempt from antitrust laws (not that we enforce them anymore anyway). Teams are getting together now and talking about putting caps on signing bonuses. This would preserve the ability of poorer teams to sign top talent. The free market has always been the enemy of baseball. And it is working its magic again. Left to the market, we’d have the New York Yankees and the Los Angeles Dodgers in the World Series nine years out of ten (the Red Sox in the tenth year), and the rest of us would be watching hockey.

Marching to Brownsville

Paranoia strikes deep… into your life it will creep. It starts when you’re always afraid. Step out of line the men come and take you away. (Stephen Stills, “For What It’s Worth”)

I am a limited observer of current events and recent history. I suspect that what is going on now has always been going on. Americans have since our country’s founding made evil demons out of ordinary people. They do this to inflame our population. Demons are a convenient cover for our often mendacious and business-oriented foreign and domestic policies.

The lyrics above were written in the 1960’s, when police were breathing down the necks of protesters, who, of course, wanted to overthrow our government and bring in the North Vietnamese. In the 1950’s through 1989, Russia was on everyone’s mind. They were an evil empire. No matter who we attacked, it was because of the Russians.

Before we could attack Iraq in 1991 and again in 2003, we had to paint an archtypical demon, Saddam Hussein, in our collective subconscious. Likewise, in 1999 when we attacked Serbia, Slobodan Milosevik was set up to take a fall. That dude was really evil. Really, really evil.

I read of panic over France getting ready to invade in the early Republic, and of riots over fear of Germans in the early 20th century. In the 19th century ordinary plains Indians became bloodthirsty savages as we set out to steal their land.

And then there was Ronald Reagan’s 1986 warning that Nicaragua was only a two day march from Brownsville, Texas – this as we prepared to invade Central America and crush indigenous independence movements. In the early 1990’s, after the Soviet Union had gone away, conservatives were warning us of Libyans patrolling the high seas. And former communists became drug runners. They were grasping. As John Stockwell said, we are a country constantly in search of enemies.

In yesterday’s Wall Street Journal, on the op-ed page, there’s a piece by Amir Taheri called “The Problem with Talking to Iran“. The premise is that there are two Iran’s – the nation state, and the place run by revolutionary fanatics. Taheri is critical of Barack Obama for saying we can talk to enemies, this one in particular. He says there’s quite a difference between Iran and other countries:

Iran is gripped by a typical crisis of identity that afflicts most nations that pass through a revolutionary experience. The Islamic Republic does not know how to behave: as a nation-state, or as the embodiment of a revolution with universal messianic pretensions. Is it a country or a cause?

A revolution, he says, “doesn’t want anything in particular because it wants everything.”

Fine – there’s some value to this piece, though it is steeped in typical conservative historical amnesia. Taheri likely thinks that Iranian history began in 1979. He probably regards pre-revolutionary Iran, living under a fascistic ruler, Shah Reza Pahlavi and his bloody secret police (SAVAK), as part of the good old days. You could talk to the Shah. Taheri probably doesn’t know anything about 1953, when the U.S. overthrew the democratic government of Iran, or of the 26 years of oppression that followed.

That’s rote for the right wing. They suffer from tunnel vision – it’s proscribed by their ideology, which is so often at odds with reality. But here’s the kicker from Taheri’s piece:

The problem that the world, including the U.S., has today is not with Iran as a nation-state but with the Islamic Republic as a revolutionary cause bent on world conquest under the guidance of the “Hidden Imam.”

How far is it from Tehran to Brownsville?

Iran is a nation-state, but unfortunately, one caught in a reactionary cycle. 26 years of oppression (1953-1979) created a vacuum, and when the Shah abdicated, it was filled by clerics. That’s not a good thing, but not something we can change without destroying the place. It will have to undo itself. And it will if we just leave it alone.

But no – conservatives are not content to allow events to follow a natural course. They have to stoke the fires and threaten war. They have raised Iran to the dimensions of the old Soviet Union. It’s only making matters worse, cementing the rule of the clerics (Ahmadinejad is only a figurehead, much like the queen). We’re not helping, the 7th Fleet is not the answer.

Iran is a country in transition. They react as normal humans react when threatened with military attack – they are buying weapons, digging trenches. If they are not developing nuclear weapons, they ought to start. For our sake, for theirs, we ought to ease up on the ratchet. The best way to do that is to talk.

Honest, guys, Brownsville is safe.

Anna Montana

Matt Singer at Left in the West has promoted a commenter named “Anna” to full front page posting privileges. That’s not the sort of thing I much care about, as I regard blogs as a tempest-in-teapot kind of media. I doubt most Montana voters know of the existence of the blogosphere. Like op-eds, blogs are interesting, but don’t determine the outcome of elections. It’s still a door-knocker’s world.

“Anna” is a Clintonite, and a brash and petulant one at that. She’s resentful of Obama and his supporters, has a thin skin and lacks substance. She’s not done much to earn a place at the head of the class. In a microcosmic sense, as in one grain of sand compared to a beach, it’s not unlike the New York Times putting William Kristol on its op-ed pages. It doesn’t add much light, but stirs heat and fire, and is good for readership. I suspect Anna’s feminist tendencies confer an automatic faux-credibility on her. She gets to walk right on by the depth and reason booths at the blog carnival.

But I write this mostly because my old pal Bob fairly well leveled Anna. (Read the entire thread here.) She was showing her lack of depth in not being able to relate to the angst of those who were upset over Hillary’s Bobby Kennedy analogy. Bob told his story:

I was in Viet-Nam when JFK was assassinated. It occurred shortly after the coup against the Ngo Dinh Diem regime and their assassinations. I was sitting in the mess hall across from a draftee from Texas, who proclaimed how “proud” he was that JFK was killed in Texas!

Following the assassination of JFK, the assassination of Martin Luther King occurred, followed shortly thereafter by the assassination of Bobby Kennedy. I was living in Santa Monica at the time and was in the living room of my apartment watching live coverage of RFK’s campaign visit to Century City. That live coverage included his assassination. I went nuts! I screamed: “No, no, no, no…!” over and over again. My girlfriend was asleep in the bedroom and came running in to see what was wrong. I was still screaming. It was simply too much. Viet-Nam, Diem, JFK, MLK, RFK! I just couldn’t take any more.

When Hillary Clinton made her repulsive remark citing RFK’s assassination as an example of why she wouldn’t quit her primary campaign before June, I came uncorked again. I guess you might call it a PTSD relapse or flashback or something. I agree, JC, that Anna is empty of all reality concerning what any assassination, let alone multiple assassinations (and attempted assassinations) have done to this country and its psyche. I don’t know what Matt Singer means when he refers to Anna’s posts as “magical.” For me, she comes across as entirely callow and sophomoric, if not in fact adolescent.

I get the feeling that as a self-described “feminist” Anna believes that she is carrying a heavy load for women, including Hillary Clinton. I don’t buy it. Anna is no Simone de Beauvoir, Betty Friedan, Germaine Greer, Gloria Steinem, among others who did the heavy lifting to give Anna the opportunity to play pretend heroine in a tremendously successful “women’s liberation” movement. It’s too much to ask someone to grow up before their time, but at least, Anna, you could get over your sense of self-importance and take a break from your pretenses of all-knowing punditry. Limit yourself to your own experience, which obviously is not very much.

To which Anna replied:

This kind of thing is the reason why new people don’t post comments here.

‘Nuff said.

Waiting for New Leaders to Emerge

From The New Golden Age: The Coming Revolution Against Political Corruption and Economic Chaos, by Ravi Batra:

The salient feature of the era of intellectual acquisitors is that the ruling elite amass wealth but make people believe that such an endeavor is good for society. For instance, they cut taxes for themselves while raising taxes for other classes, and yet are able to convince the public that such economic policies are in society’s best interest. Or they may persuade you that God has blessed them with opulence so that they can take care of the indigent. They have the intellect to make you feel better even as they hit you, at least for a while. Dogmas proliferate at this point, and the laborer bears the maximum burden of exploitation.

Once the majority of intellectuals become acquisitive, materialism degenerates into supermaterialism. There are no more religious or ethical restrains on the avarice of the elite, and the public follows its leaders, everything gets commercialized.

There comes a time when intellectual acquisitors are virtually unchallenged; that’s when the process of wealth concentration runs full throttle, with the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer at incredible speeds. The boundless greed and hypocrisy of acquisitive intellectuals ultimately torments the majority of people. Salaries go down, and the bulk of society is forced to devote much of its time to making money. Warriors and intellectuals then have to become laborers because they have little time left for the finer pursuits of life. They have to labor hard to support themselves and their children. The intellectual’s love for art, music, painting and philosophy give way to routine work all day long to provide the means for family survival. The warrior’s innate predilection for adventure and sport is replaced by overtime work to make ends meet. The vast majority of society comes to adopt the laborers’ way of living and thinking.

Only two classes then remain – acquisitors and laborers, or the haves and have-nots. The age of acquisitors eventually turns into the age of laborers, which may now be called the acquisitive-cum-labor age, in which the acquisitive intellectual is dominant. But many traits of the era of laborers come to afflict society, which essentially gets divided into two groups, one consisting of wealthy acquisitors, the other comprising the destitute and the middle class. The poor include the physical workers, and the middle class includes those erstwhile warriors and intellectuals now forced into toiling long hours for their survival.

For a while, people suffer through the deceit and exploitation of the reigning class. They maintain their lifestyle by increasingly getting into debt. Acquisitors now have a field day. They make money left and right. They enrich themselves through their control over businesses, farms and factories, and through lending money to the other classes.

This is the time that creates a group of disgruntled laborers from the former warriors and intellectuals. New leaders emerge from this group. Fed up with the status quo, one day they overthrow the ruling elite with the help of the masses, culminating in a social revolution of workers. It is through this process that the social cycle starts anew.

The particular genius of the United States has been to replace emergent leaders in this natural cycle with timid Democrats. They steal the thunder and lead the exploited masses into a brick wall. We are told that our only avenue of change is through the Democratic Party. That party then does all in its power, through dissembling and inertia, to block that change. Welcome, Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, Hillary Clinton.

The question is, does Barack Obama represent real change, or is he merely another Democrat poised to thwart change and preserve the reign of the acquisitors. I wish I knew.

On Lying to Privacy Pirates

We made a trip to Safeway today. On the bullshit part of the receipt, where they tell you how much you supposedly saved by shopping there, plain as day was my name. This shouldn’t be, as the “value” card we use is registered to Joseph P. Schmeau. How do they know who I am?

Many people resent Safeway asking personal questions that are none of their business so they can track our shopping habits. So they give them false names or trade the loyalty cards with other people. It never occurs to Safeway that they are invading our private space. They are marketers, after all. Privacy means nothing to them.

To be fair, Safeway does try to make it seem like they are giving up something in return for our personal information. We don’t have to pay their regular prices, which are at the level of convenience stores. Some deal.

How did they get my real name? That question was answered here, down in the comments. An employee of one of these chains actually brags they they wait for you to use a credit or debit card, and then they match the information on the credit card to your “value” card. There’s no hiding from them unless you deal strictly in cash.

Of course, a better way is simply not to shop at Safeway, or any other store that uses loyalty cards to glean your private information from you. David Crisp wonders if it is OK to lie to them. I have to confess, it never occurred to me to tell them the truth. No more than if someone asked me about my bank balance or cocaine habits. Lying is OK when one is dealing with information pirates. It’s almost a patriotic duty. The very idea that we owe our private information to a marketer is almost an insult. Feeling an obligation to be honest with them is what is weird.

Anyway, we are stuck away from home today, and Safeway was the only option available. When at home we never darken their doors. A nice little store down the street sells us groceries at a reasonable price without the prying eyes. They only seem to care that we pay at the register. And they are easily the most popular store in Bozeman.

Cooking the Books

“Numbers Racket” is an interesting article by Kevin Phillips, originally published in Harpers. He maintains that the way we measure the deficit, inflation, unemployment and GDP (formerly “GNP”) has changed over the years in kind of a “Pollyanna creep”.

Phillips says that if we measured these things the way we did during the Carter Administration, that we would have a completely different notion of how well our economy is doing today. For example, had economists not changed the way the consumer price index is calculated, Social Security recipients would today receive 77% more in benefits than they do.

Here are some key statistics:

1: The deficit would be $200 billion higher than they admit to. This is due to the fact that they count excess payroll tax collections against general fund debt. Social Security is being used to hide much of the real deficit. This change was made under Lyndon Johnson to hide the true cost of the Vietnam War.

2. Inflation today would be at 12% based on pre-1983 criteria. (That’s more in line with my personal impression as I do our monthly budget.)

3. Unemployment would be at 9% had they not arbitrarily elected to exclude (1) part-time workers who are looking for full time employment, (2) “marginally attached” workers (those not looking for a job but who say they want one), and (3) “discouraged workers – those who could not find work and quit looking. (What would the rate be if they also counted those who joined the military as a last resort?)

4. In 1991 the concept of Gross National Product (GNP) was replaced by Gross Domestic Product (GDP) to eliminate rising U.S. international debt costs, which had become unpalatable. In addition, they “impute” certain aspects of our growth in GDP, such as the rental value of our homes and the value of a free checking account. Imputed income accounts for 15% of GDP. Growth under the old measurement and factoring in higher inflation would be closer to 1% during the Bush years, as opposed to the 3-4% they tout. That’s significant.

The majority of these changes happened under Reagan, Bush I and II, and Bill Clinton. While Phillips says there’s no conspiracy involved, that people from one administration to the next are merely serving their own ends, the net result has been to make things appear to be better than they are and to reinforce policies (and keep politicians in office) that are bad for our general well being.

One Day in 1960

I was ten years old, and knew nothing of presidential politics. But somebody famous was coming to Billings. (Previously, the town was captivated by a visit from the Lennon Sisters.) To see the face, the features, and to connect it to that man on the TV screen who did all those important things was enough to set me in awe.

Billings didn’t have ramps for loading and unloading passengers. They debarked onto the tarmac and walked into the terminal. When JFK’s plane landed, there was a throng of us, and we surged forward to meet him. I imagine there were security people all around him (although in those days the Secret Service did not guard presidential candidates), but I wasn’t aware of any. No one stopped me from getting close to him.

I was two thirds of the height of the average spectator, so I was not going to see over any heads. I used my size to my advantage, working my way under and around people, making it to the front of the crowd. I could see him as he walked towards us, smiling, his eyes looking off in the distance, only somewhat aware of us. I poked my hand between the grownups, and held it out. We never made eye contact. We shook hands. Only one of us was aware of the importance of that event.

Three years later I would think of that handshake in a different light. But touching him that day was enough to fill my young heart with joy.

Karl’s Secret

Interesting op-ed in the Wall Street Journal last week, penned by Karl Rove. Rove, it appears, is such a fan of John McCain that the two of them ought to go to California and tie the knot. It drips with idolatry.

If Rove is saying it, then it must be strategy – to build McCain into this model of personal character that will contrast him with the Bush Administration (and Clinton before him).

Anyway, listen to Rove, as he talks about McCain’s daughter:

… 1991 Cindy McCain was visiting Mother Teresa’s orphanage in Bangladesh when a dying infant was thrust into her hands. The orphanage could not provide the medical care needed to save her life, so Mrs. McCain brought the child home to America with her. She was met at the airport by her husband, who asked what all this was about.

Mrs. McCain replied that the child desperately needed surgery and years of rehabilitation. “I hope she can stay with us,” she told her husband. Mr. McCain agreed. Today that child is their teenage daughter Bridget.

This about seals it for me. I’ve seen a lot of hypocrisy, and politics itself is blatant hypocrisy. But, if I’m not mistaken, there was a push poll in the 2000 McCain/Bush race in South Carolina that asked voters what they would think of John McCain if they knew he had a black child out of wedlock. We’ll never know for sure, of course, though it certainly leaves hints of Karl Rove’s aftershave.

Bridget, if I’m not mistaken, is that “black” child (she’s Asian) he had out of wedlock.

Thanks Karl. You lift us all up.

The Darkness of the Soul

There are a couple of interesting exchanges going on in our (quite small) blog world. I am peripherally involved in both.

One was initiated by Carol at her blog Missoulapolis. She quotes Mike Huckabee speaking at the National Rifle Association convention, where, when hearing a loud noise off-stage, says

That was Barack Obama. He just tripped off a chair. He’s getting ready to speak and somebody aimed a gun at him and he — he dove for the floor.

I’ve debated elsewhere that racism is part and parcel of the right wing, but that they are too smart to come right out and say things, so they speak in code. So allow me to translate Huckabee’s words:

That was the nigger, Barack Obama. They are scared shitless of white guys with guns, man. You point one at them, and they hit the floor and say “Please suh! Please suh!”

I made the comment that Huckabee had a tinge of “cracker” in him, an epitaph for poor racist southern whites. I was immediately attacked for stepping over the line, of denigrating Huckabee, and using foul language.

I should have spoken in code, like they do. I should have said “Anyone for a Ritz?”

The other debate is over at Left in the West, where Anna put up a searing and emotional defense of Hillary Clinton, claiming that she’s the victim of misogyny. She claims that it all boils down to male resentment of a strong woman, though she admits that sexism may not be the only reason that Hillary is losing.

Marie Cocco rightfully calls out the Democratic Party for their refusal to address the way Hillary Clinton has been treated. To me, this is the biggest hurdle I’m going to have to overcome before I can enthusiastically get behind this party again. …I’m going to have a hard time forgetting this, and it’s not because it was directed against Hillary Clinton personally – it’s because her treatment, and the party’s refusal to stick up for women, will have a chilling effect on Democratic women in the future who might want to run for president. They have no reason to believe that the party will be there for them when they encounter the type of sexism that Hillary Clinton has dealt with during the 2008 primaries.

It’s a mixed message, and I think in her denial that sexism is making Hillary lose, she’s really saying that it really boils down to sexism. And I take issue – how dare she set aside all of the real and important reasons to vote against Hillary Clinton, and instead hurl epitaphs at us.

I commented:

You’re so sure you’re point on that you’re looking for every little thing and blowing it out of proportion.

A lot of people don’t like Hillary. I don’t like her. I didn’t like her husband. It has nothing to do with gender. It’s totally about them being Republicans at heart, and corporatists. Hillary has raised virtually all of her funds by “bundling”, or shaking down corporate executives, and yet she has the temerity to say she’s going to represent us when she gets to DC. Same with Billo.

You’ve posted here a lot, but you seem blind to issues and stuck on the gender thing. Get over it. She’s got flaws. Big ones.

Read on if you want. She doesn’t put up much of a defense other than to say “Obama too! Obama too!” Yeah – she speaks to my deepest fear, that Obama is not genuine either. But she hides from the obvious – that those of us who oppose poseurs claiming the mantle of “liberal” have reason to resent DLC stalwart Hillary Clinton, as we did her husband, Billo.

Jay chimes in afterward, hurling the “m” word at us again. This is basically what I did to Huckabee – looked for a base motive, seeing through the veneer. Maybe he is on to something. Maybe not.

I don’t like Hillary. I think I have very good reasons not to like her. She is divisive, and seems willing to stop at nothing, even destruction of her own party, to fulfill her ambition. Would it be different if it were, say, Ralph Nader who was running a quixotic campaign to the finish line, doing untold damage even as he knows he will lose in the end?

People might claim that he let ambition get the best of him. It’s destructive, it’s all about ego, they say. Indeed.

I come from conservative roots, and as I passed from right to left, reflexively adopted feminism along with other left wing rallying points. But over time I began to see feminists in a more objective light. They tend to demand more for less, and to call out the “m” word when they don’t succeed where they think they ought to succeed. It may be hard to be a woman in a male world, but something else is going on – no matter your gender, you’ve got to be really, really good to succeed (George W. Bush aside), and it is too easy to claim misogyny when failure occurs. Look to thine own self for the reasons.

Anna, and Jay, and Hillary need to take a good long look at Hillary. I have seen the darkness of her soul, and am glad to see her lose – not because she is a woman, but because she is blindly ambitious and willing to assume any public persona to achieve her destiny. She’s not one of us.

That is why I oppose her. And Billo. They are a curse upon our party.

Bush Before the Knesset

We believe that targeting innocent lives to achieve political objectives is always and everywhere wrong. So we stand together against terror and extremism, and we will never let down our guard or lose our resolve.

Does anyone else notice that whenever they talk about innocent lives and terror and extremism, they are always talking about them? But when you count the bodies, it’s like a mountain on one side, and a small mound on the other, and it is always innocents, and the mountains of bodies are always people killed by us. Israel dispatches innocent civilians with abandon while labeling its enemies terrorists, disappearing them and putting them in secret prisons and confining them to ghastly compounds like Gaza; building walls through their territory and stealing their land. Yet it’s always them. They are the bad guys, while we are somehow accomplishing good with all of the oppression and violence we can muster, including torture.

It’s nonsense. I mean this in utter seriousness, I am not merely calling names: George W. Bush is a violent extremist; he should have been impeached, and the world will be safer when he leaves office. Just sayin’.

As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared: “Lord, if I could only have talked to Hitler, all this might have been avoided.” We have an obligation to call this what it is — the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history.

These days, when the tanks roll across borders in illegal invasions, it is American kids doing the driving. Bush might have the right historical analogy. He just has it backwards.

Enough. There are times when I can hardly stand to hear that voice and the constant stream of lies.