The Rolling Stones are going back into the studio

By Richard K. Barry

Whenever I hear snarky comments about aging rock and rollers, I have to wonder what these critics expect. What's the difference how old they are if they still want to make music and are capable of getting it done. I don't even care if Mick Jagger wants to strut around on stage like a peacock at almost 70. Good for him. It's as if some people think playing rock and roll after a certain age is a crime against nature.

Hey kiddies, guess what else your parents and grandparents are still doing.

So Ronnie Woods says the Rolling Stones will be meeting in a recording studio later this month "to just throw some ideas around." Sounds like a great life.

There's only one alternative to getting older, and that's not getting older. Go for it lads!




(Cross-posted at Lippmann's Ghost.)

Hillary Clinton will not be at the Democratic National Convention

By Richard K. Barry

Not that I ever thought about it, but, according to an article appearing in the Observer of Charlotte, N.C., the site of the Democratic National Convention, Hillary Clinton is prohibited by law from attending the event.

The Observer points out that "various federal statutes and the State Department's ethical guidelines will keep Secretary Clinton in Washington."

Philippe Reines, spokesman for the Secretary of State told the Observer in an email that “Given her current position, she will not be attending, consistent with her not engaging in any political activity whatsoever."

And Clinton isn’t the only Cabinet member expected to skip the Charlotte gathering. Federal statute also precludes the attorney general and the secretary of Defense from attending political gatherings, including national party conventions, Reines said. 

“I can’t think of one (of those office-holders) from the modern era who has attended,” he said. 

Michael Bitzer, a political scientist at Catawba College in Salisbury, also doesn’t expect to see Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner in town. 

“The Big Four,” he calls these non-partisan appointees. “While they are political appointees, they are in a class by themselves,” he said. “They are representatives of institutions that are oftentimes seen as apolitical.”

It's just one of those little civics lessons you don't think about until someone mentions it. Now we know. If you were wondering, Bill will be there.

(Cross-posted at Lippmann's Ghost.)

Michael Bitzer, a political scientist at Catawba College in Salisbury, also doesn’t expect to see Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner in town.

“The Big Four,” he calls these non-partisan appointees. “While they are political appointees, they are in a class by themselves,” he said. “They are representatives of institutions that are oftentimes seen as apolitical.”

And among that quartet, Secretary of State Clinton is maybe in an even higher class.

Read more here: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2012/04/06/3156959/hillary-clinton-citing-her-above.html#storylink=cpy

Read more here: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2012/04/06/3156959/hillary-clinton-citing-her-above.html#storylink=cpy

To Market, To Market

 

By Carl

 

It often amuses me what rationales people come up with when a market moves in one direction or another.

 

To-wit: an analyst in England makes a positive comment about the banking industry, and glory be! the FTSE jumps up.

 

The comments specifically addressed this broker's belief...a broker, mind you, not a government official...that central banks around the world will address the lagging economy with stimulus packages.

 

Gee, thanks for pointing that out, Captain Obvious! A central tenet to Keynesian economics gets reitertated in the national press and markets suddenly facepalm and go "Now why didn't I think of that?"

 

Sharight.

 

I've spoken all along about the ruthless and brutal efficiency in which markets work: since the major players use software packages to discern exploitable areas of the market-- and many of these software packages can now account for some emotional context-- this market jump makes absolutely no sense, at least based on this fuzzy rationalization.

 

So there's two alternatives: analysts are blowing smoke up our collective asses because they don't know why a sector filled with underperforming firms is spiking, or they're covering up for something else.

 

If they don't know, then they should probably shut up, but here's the thing: Analysts are paid to know.

 

They used to be paid to find out, but it turned out that wasn't nearly as cost-effective as having them pick up a press release and parrot it. See, I worked as an analyst (not stock, but I did analyze public companies) and we were paid a very nice salary to ask questions. We could look at a balance sheet and a profit-and-loss statement and begin to understand the deviations from the norm, and ask why this was happening.

 

And the rules were simple, too: FASB regulations made our job that much easier, it was all in black and white, and there were very few gray areas to hide stuff in.

 

The landscape shifted. As with journalism, science, education, and mortgages, what used to be pretty transparent became mystical and unknowable. And people became afraid to do their jobs, not because they weren't good at it anymore, but because they had been perceived as unreliable and basically just thorns in the side of society.

 

Indeed, entire industries (I'm looking at you, Mergers & Acquisitions) grew up around strategies devised to throw analysts off the scent. We ended up having to play catch up on the one hand while explaining to our clients how we had been fooled so badly (if you've ever wondered what a mortality and morbidity hearing at a hospital is like, just sit in on a bad debt meeting.)

 

When a person becomes scared to do his or her job, he's going to take the path of least resistance, which is precisely what the crooks want you to do. Why should I take a computer and try to work out a program that discards the grotesqueries of a financial statement to bring it back to a level I can understand in a glance when I can just rely on the public statements of the CEO and the imprimatur of the CPA?

 

(In case you were wondering why Sarbanes-Oxley is an important law, that's why in a nutshell: if the CEO is going to lie, he ought to be held accountable.)

 

Indeed, that's precisely what started happening and why I got out of analysis: we found we could duck a lot of questions by pointing to the statements and saying "And all the analysis we could come up with did not dispute his claims."

 

Of course it didn't! It couldn't!

 

We didn't know, because we couldn't know, which is what is going on in market analysis now. Worse, we knew we couldn't know, so we also knew we were passing on a load of horseshit but damned if you'd find anyone who'd own up to that.

 

Which is also what's going on in market analysis today.

 

Why? Now you're asking the right question...

 

I guess it comes down to this: there are two markets. There's the market you and I can invest in, through mutual funds and stock ownership and our 401ks and IRAs, and then there's the smart money market.

 

When an analyst throws out an excuse wrapped in a reason like this asshat did, you can bet your bottom dollar someone has worked out a scheme to make money off it. My best guess is short the banks now, and wait for the pop from this jerk's message to wear off to turn a profit, or worse, bet on the put derivatives and really clean up without risking a thing.

 

The analyst knows he's talking thru his hat, but if he says nothing, he looks stupid and loses the faith of his clientele (odd thing that: admitting you don't know is penalized higher than taking a guess and getting it wildly wrong.) He's strung between a rock and a hard place, and either way loses. This way just hurts his bonus less.

 

The really damnable thing about it is, if half as much energy was put into working out a program that truly analyzed the complexities of a financial statement and parsed out and distilled the right questions to ask, the world (at least the rest of us) would be better off and smart money could still make a decent and fair profit.

 

But, you know, there are still crumbs left on the table...

 

(crossposted to Simply Left Behind)

Rick Santorum throws in the towel

By Richard K. Barry

We all saw it coming, so there's no sense feigning surprise. By the time he got around to announcing the inevitable in his speech, everyone knew what to expect. Some of the words went like this:

We made a decision over the weekend, that while this presidential race for us is over, for me, and we will suspend our campaign today, we are not done fighting.

He made the announcement at a campaign stop in Pennsylvania after a weekend of tending to his 3-year old daughter, Bella, who had been hospitalized with pneumonia. 

Whatever one thinks of Rick Santorum, and I'm not a big fan, I can image this has been an emotionally draining time for him all around and it wasn't surprising that he was quite emotional at the press conference. He noted that his daughter was making great progress and home after the weekend in the hospital. Terrific news.

The rest of his final moment in the brightest sun was fairly unremarkable, though he made no mention of Romney in his 12-minute speech nor did he, obviously, take the opportunity to say that he would be endorsing Romney, his party's de facto nominee. Maybe that was a little bit churlish. 

But let's give credit where credit is due. Santorum came from no where to give Mitt Romney a bit of a scare. Mostly that was about Romney's weakness, but Santorum did show himself to have some strength when he wasn't being a bat-shit crazy social conservative. If there had been any way Santorum could have presented himself solely as the "grandson of an Italian immigrant coal miner," as he liked to say, or as a meat-and-potatoes middle-America kind of guy, without all the preachy baggage that made people so afraid of him, things might have been different. 

As the New York Times wrote:

Mr. Santorum’s candidacy benefited from the comparison to Mr. Romney as the Republican candidates appealed to a conservative segment of the Republican Party during the primary process. Mr. Santorum regularly mocked Mr. Romney as a flip-flopper on social and conservative issues who could not be trusted. 

That helped Mr. Santorum win several Southern primaries in which evangelical voters and Tea Party supporters dominated the primary electorate. 

But Mr. Santorum also cast himself as the true economic conservative who understood the needs of the middle class. His campaign attacked Mr. Romney, a multimillionaire, as out of touch with the needs and interests of regular working Americans. 

Most take-aways on the relative success of the Santorum candidacy are fairly obvious, but maybe just to make the point, I will say this. We knew, coming out of the mid-term elections, that the Tea Party movement and other right-wing radicals would work hard to assert their influence on the GOP nomination process. They had some success in 2010, and they wanted more. We knew that whoever won, no matter how relatively moderate he or she wanted to be, the eventual nominee would be drawn to the far right to placate the activist hard-right, most vocal, wing of the party. 

We didn't know what the vehicle would be for pulling the party and the nomination process in that direction.   Few probably saw Rick Santorum as that vehicle, but that's the way it worked out. Again, to give him his due, he ended up being a pretty effective voice for that particular fringe. All things considered, he probably was the best of the rest when it came to articulating the new radicalism of the Republican Party. I don't know that this is a compliment, but there it is. 

Now that he's out, now that Romney's path to the nomination is more or less unimpeded, the only question remaining is, how quickly will Romney be able to move back to the centre to capture the necessary independent voters to compete in the general election, how effective will his Etch-A-Sketch candidacy be from here on out?

Santorum pulled Romney a long way over to the right and for that President Obama owes a great debt to the former Senator from Pennsylvania. 

Make no mistake, though, Rick Santorum has rejuvenated a political career that had been in the crapper. He's a player now amongst social conservatives in America in a way that he never was before. Maybe his support base going forward is even bigger than that. Oh, joy. 

(Cross-posted at Lippmann's Ghost.)

This day in history - April 10, 1866: The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA) is founded

By Richard K. Barry

Henry Bergh

The ASPCA was founded in 1866 in New York City by Henry Bergh. It followed the creation of the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA) in the UK in 1824.

Issues discussed by Bergh at the time included cockfighting and the horrors of slaughterhouses. As the Wiki indicates:

By the time of Bergh's death in 1888, 37 out of the 38 states in the union enacted anti-cruelty laws that were enforced by the ASPCA. Early goals of ASPCA focused on efforts for horses and livestock, since at the time they were used for a number of activities. Starting at the turn of the 20th century, small animals like cats and dogs became more of a focus for members of ASPCA.

According to the organization's website, regarding its mandate today:

The ASPCA is the nation’s premiere humane organization, providing local and national leadership in three key areas: caring for pet parents and pets, providing positive outcomes for at-risk animals and serving victims of animal cruelty.

Just because I wouldn't want to be unkind to Mitt Romney, I won't ask whether or not his membership is current. Maybe it is.

(Cross-posted at Lippmann's Ghost.)

Mass. Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren is bringing in the cash

By Richard K. Barry

According to The Washington Post, former Obama administration official Elizabeth Warren raised $6.9 million the first quarter of 2012 in her contest with Massachusetts Republican Sen. Scott Brown. That's a lot of money, which about doubles what the incumbent brought in over the same period.

As the Post writes:

Even though Warren has been in the campaign for less than seven months, she has already raised $15.8 million and has about $11 million cash on hand. 

That’s still less than Brown, who raised $3.4 million in the first quarter and had $15 million in the bank as of March 31, but given how quickly Warren is raising money, she should close that gap by Election Day.

They also point out that, despite an agreement between the two candidates that discourages outside groups from taking part in their campaigns, their race promises to be the most expensive Senate race of the year and possibly the most expensive ever. 

That title belongs to the Hillary Clinton/Rick Lazio campaign in New York in 2000, when the two combined to raise and spent $70 million.

As for how the Warren/Brown match-up is going, at least according to the polls, a recent Boston Globe survey found the candidates pretty much in a dead heat.  As the Globe story states:

With a long seven months to go before Election Day, the survey shows Brown with 37 percent of the vote and Warren with 35 percent, while 26 percent said they are undecided. That amounts to a statistical tie, as the telephone poll of 544 randomly selected likely voters, taken March 21-27, has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.2 percentage points.

And finally, as if this were not obvious:

“This is a wide open race,’’ said Andrew E. Smith, the director of the University of New Hampshire’s Survey Center, which conducted the poll. “Both candidates are generally well liked. Unless something dramatic happens, this will go down to the wire.’’

The only other thing worth mentioning is how successful President Obama and Mitt Romney are going to be in bringing their supporters to the polls in Massachusetts - Romney's home state, on the one hand, and a traditionally liberal state, on the other. Down to the wire indeed.

(Cross-posted at Lippmann's Ghost.)

Not-So-Free Speech

 

By Carl

 

I'm struck by the diversity of comments here with regards to an interview given by the new Miami Marlins manager, Ozzie Guillen.

 

Guillen committed the nearly unpardonable sin of having kind words to say about Fidel Castro and Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez.

 

A little background. The Miami Marlins baseball team opened a new stadium this season, right smack in the heart of Little Havana, la communidad el Norte for Cuban refugees. This casts an intriguing light on what Guillen said, for it's the older Cuban-Americans who have a problem with it, while later generations are more "Who's Castro?"

 

I could parse and dissect this difference, but let me sum it up by saying there could possibly have been a bit of calculation in Guillen's comments, trying to drum up some audience for the Marlins, who not only spent an enormous sum of money for the stadium (some of which was highly questionable funding) but also shelled out the better part of the GDP of a small nation for new players, mostly Latino.

 

Nonetheless, once Guillen realized what he had said had created an huge backlash in the community, he apologized for saying it. Needless to say, it's also an election year (Miami mayor), and this ruckus has infiltrated into the election.

 

Guillen is scheduled to hold a press conference this morning and is expected to repeat his apology and possibly expand on it.

 

Here's the thing: it's a free country and Guillen had every right to say what he said. However, Guillen also works for a private corporation, which limits what he can say without repercussion. And there's the nub of the question.

 

Should politics be kept out of sport and sport kept out of politics? It seems logical, and yet, it rarely happens because of the money involved. After all, no one builds a major league stadium through completely private funding. Usually there are tax breaks involved or loan guarantees.

 

Similarly, given the popularity of sports, no politician in his right mind isn't going to exploit a team's fan base for the sake of identifying with the team and scoring a few cheap votes. You saw it all the time when Rudy Giuliani was mayor of New York. He would constantly be shown in his front row seat at Yankee games, and God help anybody who got between Giuliani and a camera when the Yankees would win a title.

 

If Guillen worked for, say Wal-mart, he likely would have been called down to HQ and either fired outright or demoted, or apologized and had it accepted. No one would have batted an eye, no outcry would have occured and things would have moved on. Business was taken care of.

 

But here we have a different, more nuanced situation: Guillen de facto works for a quasi-public entity. Major league baseball is exempt from certain laws with respect to monopoly practices, and under those auspices, receive political scrutiny far beyond what any other industry would get.

 

How else do you explain Congress getting involved in a drug scandal?

 

In this capacity and as a public figure, Guillen has influence beyond the domain of his clubhouse.

 

Generally, sports figures stay away from politics. It's bad for contract negotiations, which is also why you see players setting up charities for kids with cancer or who are poor. And remember, Cassius Clay spent time in jail after he changed his name to Muhammad Ali and refused the draft for Vietnam as a conscietious objector.

 

It has happened, however, where ballplayers have gotten involved in making political statements and paid no price: in the 1960s, black players would express support for Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Some ballplayers even protested the Vietnam War (Tom Seaver, one of the greatest pitchers ever, springs to mind). 

 

Hell, Castro was scouted for baseball when he was a kid!

 

Guillen should pay no price, either. He's apologized, but I don't think he needed to. If Guillen is to pay a price, if we are to clearly remove politics from sports (which might not be a bad thing, but right now, is not a necessary thing), then Tim Thomas should be forced to remove his helmet while playing for the Boston Bruins. He paid no official price for refusing to meet with President Obama, either. If Guillen is punished, then so should Tim Thomas.

 

My suspicion, however, is that we want the right kind of politics (in all senses) from our athletes, which is even stupider. If we're going to claim Tim Thomas has the right to wear a Teabagger symbol on his helmet, then fairness-- a doctrine America was built on-- demands that Guillen be allowed to speak out, or tattoo a hammer-and-sickle on his arm, or whatever else.

 

For if we're going to have "politics for me, but none for thee," then this country is in very grave danger.

 

(crossposted to Simply Left Behind)

From My Collection: Dreamboat Annie

By Richard K. Barry

Dreamboat Annie was Heart's debut album with a release date of February 14, 1976. That pretty much puts it in the wheelhouse of my musical coming of age, which means I was 17 at the time. In my memory, Heart was what music was all about in the mid-70's.

The hard rock, heavy metal and folk influences were clear. It seems you had to be able to bounce between these genre to be popular among certain kinds of music fans. In my circle that meant faux cerebral, dorky kids. We all loved Emerson, Lake and Palmer, Rick Wakeman, The Alan Parson's Project, and Yes - groups like that.  I always think of Yes and their song "And You and I" as a part of this with that incredible 12 string acoustic guitar riff before the hard rock part.

You can be fairly sure an album fits into this class if it has a "reprise" on it.

And if you don't believe there were folk influences in Heart's music, listen for the banjo part in the title track, "Dreamboat Annie." Don't you know? Banjo = folk music.

Heart had its origins around the Seattle area in the 60's and 70's. The only constant members of the group were sisters Ann and Nancy Wilson. What I didn't realize was that, as a result of a band member going to Canada to avoid the draft, and others following, Heart had their first real success in Canada. This is what happens to bands deemed "Canadian" by the Canadian Radio-television Telecommunications Commission (CRTC).  It basically means it's easier for them to get airplay on Canadian radio and maybe launch a career. It's called "Canadian content" -  a long story, and somewhat controversial in Canadian cultural politics, but I can't go into it here. The link will tell you all about it, if you really need to know.

As far as I remember, Heart was always associated with the Wilson sisters, but there is a long and complicated band history, involving lots of other people, if you want to refer to the Wiki.

As I write these posts, I always have the album on in the background. It's a great recording. If you haven't dusted it off in a while, give it a whirl (or whatever the digitized equivalent would be).

Album tracks are:

Side One:
Magic Man (Ann and Nancy Wilson)
Dreamboat Annie - Fantasy Child (Ann and Nancy Wilson)
Crazy on You ( Ann and Nancy Wilson)
Soul of the Sea (Ann and Nancy Wilson)
Dreamboat Annie (Ann and Nancy Wilson)

Side Two:
White Lightening and Wine (Ann and Nancy Wilson)
I'll Be Your Song (Ann and Nancy Wilson)
Sing Child (Wilson, Wilson, Fossen and Fisher)
How Deep It Goes (Ann Wilson)
Dreamboat Annie - Reprise (Ann and Nancy Wilson)

Musician Credits:
Lead Vocals - Ann Wilson
Acoustic Guitar - Nancy Wilson
Flute - Ann Wilson
Piano - Rob Deans
Bass - Steve Fossen
Drums - Kat Hendrikse
Banjo - Geoff Foubert
Backing Vocals - Nancy Wilson, Geoff Foubert, Tessie Bensussen and Jim Hall
Orchestral Arrangements - Howard Leese and Rob Deans
Tympani - Mike Flicker

The title track is great, but I'm going with my favourite, "Magic Man."


 

(Cross-posted at Lippmann's Ghost.)

Behind the Ad: Mitt Romney is a human being

By Richard K. Barry

Who: The Mitt Romney Campaign

Where: Nationally

What's going on: As we know, Mitt Romney has some pretty big unfavourability ratings. To counter that, his campaign has launched an ad narrated by his wife, Ann Romney, intended to show a more positive side of the GOP contender.

Recently, a lot of people have commented that Ann Romney comes across well, that she seems like a pretty likeable person - a very nice lady. It's even been suggested that the Democrats "fear her" in some sense. I'm not sure about that. Maybe if she were running, that would be true.

Look, it's a warm and fuzzy ad. It does a pretty good job of suggesting that Mitt Romney is a human being, with normal human emotions, who loves his family. That's nice. I just can't help thinking that when you have to spend money on an ad to remind people that your candidate is a human being, you may be in some trouble.

The title of the ad might as well be: "You see. He's not the asshole you think he is."

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(Cross-posted at Lippmann's Ghost.)

A Fighter Remembered

 

By Carl

 

In the course of my infamous college career, I held many majors. One of the fun ones, one I wish I had stuck with, was journalism.

 

I went to college in the glory days of journalism: Reporters had just brought down a war machine, reporters were just about to take down a President.

 

Reporters were doing their jobs. Gathering facts, not repeating talking points. Investigating to see if there was a "there" there, and then writing stories that fit the facts, not just parroted position papers.

 

Think of the world-altering stories that came out in that time frame: the Pentagon Papers, the scandals at Willowbrook and other homes for the developmentally disabled (it was still ok to call them "retarded" back then), and of course, Watergate.

 

It seemed that journalists would roll up their sleeves and tackle any story to see what was behind the curtain. And then it all fell apart, and they herded into the same meadow the rest of us sheeple were grazing.

 

Once in a while, one of the old rams would rear his head and break a big story. Usually, it was this man: Mike Wallace.

 

It was once said that the most frightening sight for a CEO or politician was Mike Wallace walking up the driveway with a film crew. Certainly, Wallace's questions were the highlight of any interview, because the answers rarely mattered. The questions exposed the facts Wallace learned, all he was fishing for was a reaction.

 

Wallace was one of the last of a breed of journalist who can trace their roots back to the Golden Era of TV: Eric Sevareid, Walter Cronkite, Chet Huntley and David Brinkley, the wrongly disgraced Dan Rather, even Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein owe a debt of gratitude to the television news departments of that era, and particularly the legendary Edward R. Murrow (born Egbert, so we can imagine where he got his fighting spirit).

 

Indeed, Keith Olbermann signed off his now extinct "Countdown" with Murrow's catchphrase "Good night and good luck," some 55 years after Murrow was off the air.

 

Murrow's career ended gloriously, ironically pointing out in a famous speech in Chicago (you can watch it recreated in the movie "Good Night and Good Luck") how news had taken a backseat to entertainment and getting fired for it. Murrow would no doubt blanch today watching any local news broadcast promotion of the network's latest offerings or the corporate overlords latest pet film project or product.

 

Wallace's confrontational style, best described as "tough but fair," is a direct descendant of Murrow: play their words back to them, then make them answer for their words. Cite facts, not opinion, and don't interpret. Let them either make their cases or dig their graves, even tho you already know which will happen.

 

And he had to do this in an era when TV news went under the unmbrella of entertainment and was expected to turn a comparable profit, something even Murrow never had to truly contend with (usually, Murrow's programs had a single major underwriter to pay the bills.)

 

Wallace made mistakes, the largest being smearing General William Westmoreland, for which Wallace was forced to issue a public apology. He claimed that the United States military had deliberately underestimated the size of the North Vietnamese forces arrayed against them.

 

They had, but Wallace claimed it was a cover-up for incompetence in the original analyses, while in truth, it was a political expediency. Westmoreland sued for $120 million. He settled for an apology. That should tell you how not-far fro the truth Wallace was even then.

 

So it was reporters like Wallace that made journalism attractive, that made finding out the truth important. It's a goddamned shame that America doesn't have anyone to pick up that mantle. Who really does exposes anymore? The only reporter I can think of is Greg Palast and he free-lances for the Beeb.

 

Now we have news agglomerators (yours truly included.) The best ones find out the truth as best they can, and relate it to you with all their experience and knowledge. The worst ones just repeat what you've read elsewhere and call it "news".

 

You listening, Drudge?

 

Godspeed, Mr. Wallace. You were enough.

 

(crossposted to Simply Left Behind)

An important Easter message from the Rose City Park United Methodist Church

By Richard K. Barry

It seems that this particular sign, which appeared outside the Rose City Park United Methodist Church in Portland, Oregon, has gone viral. I'm always intrigued to read that something has gone viral. I'm not sure how one determines such a thing, but, apparently, it's true.

I will say that I like the sentiment and have been saying similar things for quite some time. I begrudge no one their belief in a supreme being or an interest in organized religion, much as I don't share either. If such beliefs actually make people kinder and more interested in the well-being of others, what a wonderful thing. But if it doesn't, who needs it? What, really, is the point?

Sadly, I have known more than a few who trundle off to church every Sunday, but see no contradiction in hating significant segments of the population based on race, creed, national origin, you name it.

The point is: more kindness, less hatered, however you come around to it.

It seems the church has been getting more positive than negative responses to the message by a rate of 30 to 1. And, according to a Huffington Post article:

An Internet poll of readers on The Blaze, a conservative website created in part by Glenn Beck, showed that, at time of writing, more than 69 percent of respondents agree with the statement, compared with 22 percent that disagree.

Perhaps there's hope for us.

(Cross-posted at Lippmann's Ghost.)

Aaron Sorkin's new HBO show - The Newsroom

By Richard K. Barry

Aaron Sorkin

Aaron Sorkin is at it again, this time with a new show on HBO called "The Newsroom." Huffington Post describes it like this:

"The Newsroom" follows fictional cable news anchor Will McAvoy (Daniels) as he attempts to keep an even temper during his nightly programs. But when asked for a "human moment" in the trailer, he says, "When you ask what makes us the greatest country in the world, I don't know what the fuck you're talking about!"

Jeff Daniels stars as news anchor Will McAvoy. The show also features Emily Mortimer as the executive producer, John Gallagher Jr., Allison Pill, Thomas Sadoski, Olivia Munn and Dev Patel; with Jane Fonda in a recurring guest spot.

"The Newsroom" premiers on Sunday, June 24 on HBO. Here's the trailer. Looks pretty good. At least with Sorokin, we know the writing will be great.

(Cross-posted at Lippmann's Ghost.)

Behind the Ad: Fact-checking Romney

By Richard K. Barry

Who: The Obama/Biden Campaign

Where: Nationally

What's going on: I don't think I'd be the first person to have noticed that Mitt Romney has a problem with the truth. He just kind of says whatever fits with his bullshit characterization of President Obama and runs with it. It seems that the Obama/Biden campaign team has noticed this as well and put together a couple of clever ads recently. It's a simple technique, juxtaposing exactly what one side says to a clip showing that it's simply untrue. Jon Stewart may not have invented this, but he's perfected it on the Daily Show.

When someone has an interest in politics and wants to have credibility with themselves and others, that person tries really hard to be objective when it comes to the political talent and skill of candidates with whom they might not agree. I know I do. I just can't watch Romney, no matter what he is saying, and see anything other than a very weak candidate. The lying aside, if that's possible, he's not very good at this whole politics thing. These two clips below say it all for me. He's going to get the voters who were always going to be against Obama. Is he going to get any support from those who know how to think for themselves? That's the question.

(Cross-posted at Lippmann's Ghost.)

Toronto Blues Jays in the longest home opener win

By Richard K. Barry

J.P. Arencibia

Today was opening day for a lot of Major League Baseball teams. The team I've been most interested in since the mid-1980's, the Toronto Blue Jays, of my adopted home town, got off to what looked like a rocky start, but pulled it out in 16 innings by a score of 7 to 4. This was, I just read, the longest opening day game in baseball history.

The game eclipsed the previous longest openers - 15 innings between Cleveland and Detroit in 1960 and the same length between Philadelphia and Washington in 1926. You see. Baseball is all about history, maybe more than any other game. Not sure why that is, but it's true.

I watched the first pitch at work at 3:05 in a colleague's office. The Jays were behind 4 to 1 late in the regular course of nine innings and then managed to tie things up and send it into extra frames, as the announcers say.

I have to admit that I more or less gave up on the Jays as I headed out for drinks with friends. Then sitting around the table later that evening one of our number mentioned that he just passed the television behind the bar and the game was still going on.

At some point, in the 16th, J.P. Arencibia hit a three-run homer that sent the Blue Jays to the 7-4 win over the Cleveland Indians. Too bad I didn't see it end. That would have been fun.

I just wrote all this because it feels so good to have baseball back and have my fingers type some of those rusty baseball cliches. I have no idea how the Blue Jays will do this year. The odds are probably against them. But a long weekend lies ahead and I get to watch a few games, which I am going to enjoy.

Just as a note, I sympathize with my co-blogger, Carl, who is a New York Mets fan and wrote about that on opening day. They were my first love and I continue to pull for them, but I don't live there anymore and a person can only have one favourite team. I suspect, however, that he and I will both be watching the playoffs without a team in the hunt come the fall.

(Cross-posted at Lippmann's Ghost.)

Opening Day

 

By Carl

 

There are so many reasons to be discouraged on this, the most hopeful day of the year: Major League Baseball officially opens the 2012 campaign.

 

See, I'm a Mets fan.

 

As a DISH Network subscriber, access to even the SNY network, the home of the Mets, is unavailable. Now, I could look at the positives to this, not least of which is it forces me to go sit in a bar to watch the ballgames, but as I'm currently trying to correct dietary deficiencies, this is suboptimal.

 

It also helps me be in denial about just how bad this team will be this year. After all, if I can't see it, it can't frustrate me and make me ache to my bones.

 

How bad is this team? Let me put it this way: based on my performance last year in a softball league-- slow pitch, no less-- I entertained a half-baked fantasy of trying out. At age 54. With all the accumulated injuries that entails.

 

I suspect I would have been a plus for the side.

 

This is a team that has a starting pitcher who's arm was sewn back on, a la a rag doll, a third baseman playing out his contract, a left-fielder who can't even hit his weight (and isn't even morbidly obese), a right fielder so monstrously large that he has a phobia about running, a shortstop who could arguably make more errors than assists this season (plus he's replacing one of the best players in the game)...

 

...And an owner group so inept, they actually managed to make money with Bernie Madoff!

 

How are the fans reacting to all this? Well, for the first time in the 50 year history of the team, Opening Day at home is not sold out. Indeed, the Mets are actually discounting tickets. The 15,000...you read that correctly, 15,000 fans who buy the remaining seats for today's game will get free passes to either Friday or Saturday's game, too.

 

This is all very discouraging.

 

When, in the handful of times the Mets have been legitimate contenders over their storied 50 year history-- for a team with a really shitty record, they have some pretty remarkable achievements to their credit-- it's been fun to be a fan.

 

In 1969, when the team literally went from worst to first over the course of three seasons, the city had an electricity that put Mets baseball front and center in a national spotlight, it was that powerful.

 

In 1973, when the team went from worst to first in eight weeks, and took the vaunted dynasty of Oakland to seven games (that the Mets really should have won, but that's a different story), the addition of the legendary Willie Mays at the end of the regular season seemed like an after-thought, an unnecessary distraction.

 

And in 1986, when the Mets swaggered through the rest of the season only to receive a wake-up call in the World Series, the team reflected the city: arising from the shambles and debris of a lost decade, soaring like Icarus, only to be reminded that we too are mortal, saved from crashing only by the bats of Gary Carter, Kevin Mitchell, Ray Knight and of course, Mookie Wilson (the one possession I have that I know I will never auction or sell, no matter how dire my woes, is a ball autographed by Wilson and Red Sox first baseman Bill Buckner at the same time: one of only a half-dozen or so such known balls.)

 

Those were all fun, exciting times.

 

This year is, well, remember the old Chinese curse "May you live in interesting times"?

 

This year is interesting. But it's also a great time to be a wonk-fan, because it gives you the opportunity to observe the mettle of a team in dire straits: with no money, and no prospects of getting money anytime soon (five years, I figure, before the Madoff stuff settles out) how will this team even try to compete in a division where all four other teams maked marked improvements, and contains two perennial playoff contenders?

 

You can mark time, and play it for laughs the way the Original Mets did in the early Sixties, but there's too much money at stake now. You can hunker down and cut costs, trade players and hope for a miracle. That was the way of the late 1970s Mets, who shed arguably the greatest pitcher of my lifetime along with some really solid ballplayers, and got the least possible return for them.

 

Those were dark days, the days of de Roulet.

 

Or, you can grit your teeth and double down on the effort. The pressure's off, because no one, and I mean NO ONE, has expectations for this team. Winning half their ballgames would be a miracle, and would require a collapse on the part of at least one other team ranked ahead of them, and some pretty sloppy play by the others.

 

I'd like to see that. I'd like to see David Wright get his uniform gritty and dirty (he's playing out a contract, so at least he has incentive.) I'd like to see Johann Santana yell at a pitching coach for trying to take him out of a nothing game (he could be playing for a trade to a contender.) I'd like to see Jason Bay be cagey and get hit by a few pitches to get a baserunner or start a brawl (he has nothing to play for. It shows.)

 

What I don't want to see is a team metaphorically looking at their calendars and working out tee times for October. I mean, they'll need them to be sure, but focus on the game in front of you, is what I'm saying.

 

Put in that kind of effort, and the fans will come. I know I've sat at Mets games where there were more umpires on the field than fans, where the ushers offered us field level box seats just for walking in, where the vendors would stand and chat with fans for innings because its not like they were going to make money anyway.

 

Those were dark days, the days of de Roulet.

 

The players owe this to the people who work at the stadium, to make that effort to bring the fans in: the vendors, the ticket sellers, the ushers. These folks make next to nothing, and it would be nice to save some jobs even at that level of compensation.

 

And if someone at the Mets is reading this, please settle the deal with DISH. At this point, you need every rooter you can get your hands on. You're cutting your nose to spite your face.

 

(crossposted to Simply Left Behind)

Joe Scarborough knows a lot of pessimistic Republicans

By Richard K. Barry

I watch Morning Joe every day. It's a part of my daily ritual. I generally only have time to sit through about 45 minutes before I have to head off to work. I must say, I have mixed feelings about Joe Scarborough, the main host of the show. I think we're all supposed to be impressed that MSNBC, the "liberal" network, has this right-winger carrying so much water for the station. Take that, "fair and balanced" Fox!

Every now and then, I'll admit, Joe can be pretty entertaining, especially when he takes on Republicans for being flat out crazy or when he articulates views that might be self-evident but which would likely not be uttered by most conservatives.

Such was the case when Joe offered that "no one" in the GOP establishment believes Mitt Romney will beat Barack Obama in the general election.

Just in case you can't open the attached clip, this was his comment:

Nobody thinks Romney's going to win. Let's just be honest. Can we just say this for everybody at home? Let me just say this for everybody at home. The Republican establishment--I've yet to meet a single person in the Republican establishment that thinks Mitt Romney is going to win the general election this year. They won't say it on TV because they've got to go on TV and they don't want people writing them nasty emails. I obviously don't care. But I have yet to meet anybody in the Republican establishment that worked for George W. Bush, that works in the Republican congress, that worked for Ronald Reagan that thinks Mitt Romney is going to win the general election.

It's hard to argue with someone's claim that they have yet to speak to a single person with a particular characteristic who believes something to be true or not true. In Joe's case, he's either making it up, hasn't talked to a lot of Republicans about the matter, or the GOP leadership honestly believes it is truly screwed. Maybe he's just exaggerating to make a point. It's got to be one of those.

Don't me wrong. I think the way things look now Obama is going to win. It's just that so much can happen between now and November that I'm having a hard time believing the Republican establishment is quite that pessimistic.

I suppose it makes for good television.

Apparently, Mark Halperin, a semi-regular on the show, said that Romney "might" win and that he didn't totally agree with Scarborough's take.

That makes for somewhat less good television, but it's a more credible assessment. Let's not get too cocky here.

(Cross-posted at Lippmann's Ghost.)

Still pushing Hillary in 2016 -- and I'm not alone

By Richard K. Barry

In my own small way, I have been pushing the idea of Hillary Clinton running for president in 2016. I think she'd be great, and apparently I have company.

What does the list of encouragers look like, in no particular order?

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi recently told Charlie Rose on PBS that, "Yes, that would be so exciting."

New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand has said that she would be "one of the first" to ask Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to run for president in 2016, and, if you can believe it, Donald Trump has even said positive things about the possibility. Go figure.

Most intriguing, though, is the comment by Bill Clinton that he would be "happy" if Hillary sought the presidency, though he is sticking to the script that he doesn't think she will. As he told Good Morning America:

I believe that she's being absolutely honest with you when she says she doesn't think she'll go back into politics. But if she comes home and we do this foundation stuff for the rest of our lives, I'll be happy; if she changes her mind and decides to run, I'll be happy.

I think that comment speaks volumes. It says to me that Bill knows his wife and knows that when the time comes she will be very tempted to get back into politics.

For her part, Hillary has been saying things like, "It's flattering, but, you know, I'm not planning to do that," adding that she has no "desire or intention" to run again for the White House.

Of course, even a casual observer would realize that these are non-denial denials. All they suggest is that someone else in her party currently has the job and is running for re-election and that it would be highly inappropriate for her to create unwanted background noise. We get that. 

I'm not saying she will do it. I don't think she would risk a high-stakes run in which there were difficult odds against success. But if things align in any reasonable fashion, I don't see how she could say no. 

In my humble opinion, her kind of political talent comes around rarely, and it would be foolish for the Democratic Party not to encourage any aspirations she might have.


(Cross-posted at Lippmann's Ghost.)

Nikki Haley says women don't care about birth control, unless they do

By Michael J.W. Stickings

She was okay on Colbert last night -- amusing for a politician, and fairly likeable, if also typically partisan (can't give Obama any credit whatsoever for the economy!) -- but her appearance on The View yesterday included this brilliant nugget, in response to an easy lob-ball question from resident conservative Elizabeth Hasselbeck (see clip below):

"Women don't care about contraception," Haley said, "they care about jobs and their families..." She was cut off by Joy Behar, who bristled along with the rest of the panel and noted that women should care about contraception. "The media cares about contraception," Haley tried again, and then concluded that while women might care about contraception, they just want to be able to make those decisions themselves, without government involvement. Interesting position for a female Republican governor!

Indeed. Sounds like she's a tad conflicted, as perhaps are many Republican women watching their party wage war on... women.

Of course it's obvious that women (and a lot of men) care about contraception -- they all use it, after all (pretty much, anyway). I suspect that what Haley meant is that in terms of political issues women care more about jobs and the economy than birth control, that is, that women don't want birth control to be a political issue at all -- because it's a settled and firmly private matter, as most of us thought it was before Republicans decided to make it a centerpiece of their misogynistic war.

It just didn't come out that way, and her view that women should be able to make decisions themselves, in private, is a rather un-Republican one these days.

She said on Colbert that she wouldn't accept an invitation to be on Romney's ticket, but of course that's what she has to say. And it seems to me that she'd be a serious contender for the nod given her various demographic and ideological bona fides.

She'll just have to make sure to get the orthodox GOP talking points down if she wants to move up in the party.

Santorum's addiction

By Richard K. Barry

Watching Rick Santorum deliver a speech from Pennsylvania on the night of the Wisconsin primary, something very disturbing occurred to me. Santorum is having a very hard time letting go of the national spotlight. 

He performed so poorly in the early going of the whole nomination process and has, let's be honest, been able since to sieze a significant piece of the national stage. It's all been so improbable. Now that it's time to say goodbye, he can't do it. 

He's mainlining adulation and has no idea how to wean himself off it. He's jonesing for his next fix. Maybe he thinks it'll be the GOP primary in his home state of Pennsylvania. I don't know.

He's in a kind of bubble that happens in politics when a candidate gets so addicted to the attention that nothing matters but the next applause line.

That's Santorum's addiction and it's getting sad. It's over, Rick. Get out, go away, shoo!

(Cross-posted at Lippmann's Ghost.)

Predictable sweep: Romney wins Wisconsin, Maryland, and D.C.

By Michael J.W. Stickings

We were going to live-blog the Republican primaries in Maryland, D.C., and Wisconsin this evening, but, really, what was the point?

It looked like a Romney sweep going in, and a Romney sweep it was. Or will be, once the returns are all in.

Right now, at 10:53 pm:

He's beating Santorum 48 to 30 in Maryland (with Gingrich at 11 and Paul at 10) -- 59% reporting.

He's beating Paul 70 to 12 in Washington, D.C. (with Gingrich at 11 and Santorum off the ballot) -- 58% reporting.

And he's beating Santorum 42 to 38 in Wisconsin (with Paul at 12 and Gingrich at 6) -- 71% reporting.

What does it all mean? Just that Romney moves further out in front and is now the even likelier winner. But we knew that already.

So the only news, and we see it in how the media are reporting the results and trying to make something of tonight's results, is that Romney now has more than half of the 1,144 delegates needed to secure the nomination.

All of which is to say, it's over. Not that that's news, but we can now stop talking about the Republican race, other than a mention here and there, and get on with things.

The only hope for Santorum was a win in Wisconsin to balance Romney's wins in Maryland and D.C. That looked like a possibility as recently as a few weeks ago, but Romney was well ahead in all the recent polls.

Simply put, Santorum has run out of steam. Credit him for coming out of a distant nowhere and emerging as the voice of the right, and for a time of the anti-Romney majority of the GOP, but he was always at a huge disadvantage against Romney, mostly in terms of money and organization but also in terms of not having the party establishment behind him at all, and it was only going to be a matter of time until Romney finished him off.

After losses in Alabama and Mississippi on March 13, Illinois on March 20 was a decisive victory for Romney, a reminder of Romney's broader if still deeply limited appeal -- and of the inevitability of an eventual Romney win. Today, particularly the vote in Wisconsin, just adds to that.

So what now? Well, we have three weeks until five primaries in Romney's northeastern stronghold: New York, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Delaware. He will win all five -- yes, he'll win Santorum's home state of Pennsylvania. And then it will really be over, even if Santorum and/or Gingrich stay in the race.

So that's it. A big, if numbingly predictable, night for Romney.

Snooze.

Santorum claims California universities don't teach U.S. history

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Are we still paying attention to Rick Santorum? Well, sure, for the time being. I was rooting for him to beat Romney -- for obvious reasons -- but his campaign, for all its stunning wins (given that he seemed to come out of nowhere), has been one long series of gaffes and missteps and, well, lies.

The latest... as he said yesterday in Wisconsin, where he's hoping against hope for a come-from-behind win today:

I was just reading something last night from the state of California. And that the California universities – I think it's seven or eight of the California system of universities don't even teach an American history course. It's not even available to be taught. 

Um, what exactly was he reading? Or was that a lie, too? Because, as Think Progress notes:

In fact, of the 10 UC system schools, just one (San Francisco) doesn't offer American history courses. But that's because it doesn't offer any humanities courses at all — it's a medical school.

Meanwhile, Berkeley, Irvine, Davis, Los Angeles, Merced, Riverside, San Diego, Santa Barbara, and Santa Cruz all offer numerous American history courses. All require students to take U.S. history before they can graduate.

University of California spokesperson Brooke Converse emailed to note that every single UC undergraduate program is required to study "American history and institutions," though specific requirements vary at each campus.

Go away, Rick. Just go away. You had it going there for a bit, what with your folksy populism and seeming authenticity, but your continuous stream of right-wing bullshit (whether about birth control or education or whatever), as much as Romney's money, has taken its toll. You're done. And now you're just looking more and more like the fool you really are.