Breathtakingly Spectacular Bad Logic

The only presumption I consciously make about anything is that God gave humans brains in the hopes we'd put them to good use. I do not do so perfectly, but I try . . . and I find myself increasingly frustrated with the sheer quantity of poor thinking humans reveal every day. Consider several recent examples:

(1) Nebraska just failed (again) to pass a statewide smoking ban . . . and all the smokers are happy, because (a) their "rights" have been preserved; and (b) according to some of the state legislators, this is the sort of thing that each and every city and town should decide for itself. The first reason is wrong--no one has a right to smoke. Smoking is not an issue of "rights." It's a public health problem. There is more than enough credible evidence demonstrating the terrible effects smoking has on smokers and non-smokers alike. As I've said before, spittoons were ubiquitous until people figured out their connection to the spread of tuberculosis. Spittoons thereupon disappeared. The second reason is a cop-out pure and simple. Smoke doesn't obey political boundaries. But craven politicians who don't want to give up the money they get from cigarette companies would have you think so.

(2) If I heard the talking heads on MSNBC correctly, the latest lame attempt to prove Lee Harvey Oswald did not act alone in killing John F. Kennedy is this: Oswald got his job at the Texas School Book Depository about 6 weeks before the motorcade route was announced. Therefore, someone in the White House had to arrange for the motorcade to go past the Book Depository to let Oswald do his evil deed.

No one in the conspiracy theory crowd apparently has heard of Occam's Razor. It's really simple [that's the point!--Ed.]: if you have more than one possible explanation for something, the one that's most likely correct is the simplest, most straightforward one. In the JFK assassination case, the simplest explanation is that Oswald got the job, learned of the motorcade route when it was published, and decided, you will pardon the expression, to take his shot. We know he was already fixated on killing some important public figure (he tried to kill General Walker in April of 1963). He was just looking for his opportunity, which presented itself in November. The reason this explanation is preferable to the "high government insider" version is that it requires fewer people, it uses no uncorroborated allegations, it fits human behavior in general, and it matches what we know in particular about both Oswald's mind-set and the other physical evidence of the assassination.

(3) The Supremes are at it again. Now, by a 5-4 majority, the Court has ruled that no woman can claim sex discrimination in being paid a lesser wage than men doing the same job unless she brings the claim within 180 days of learning what her pay will be. Count me with Ruth Bader Ginsberg and the dissenters on this one. Most employers keep their employees from knowing what they pay. Besides, it is well-established at law that a person has time from the moment that person discovers the wrong done against him/herself to file a claim. If memory serves, the phraseology is a specific number of days/weeks/months/years from the time the person "knew or reasonably should have known" what was happening. It's not reasonable to say that the person should have known in the face of an employer's official policy to keep such information secret from its employees. This is even more true when an employee's knowing others' wages would likely be grounds for that employee's dismissal.

The Court majority admitted frankly that it held the interests of employers in highest regard, saying that no one intended employers to be socked economically for claims against behavior that happened so long ago as to be stale. Maybe so. Maybe not. The remedy in any event is simple. Congress needs to clarify the law, which is something Ginsberg exhorted Congress do, quickly. After all, Congress has done so in the past. Indeed, Congress years ago passed laws to overturn prior Supreme Court decisions that the Court in this case cited as precedent. Talk about slovenly research! Until Congress acts again, however, I see only another instance of "them what has, gets. The rest of us just gets screwed." [a/k/a "He who has the gold makes the rules."--Ed.]

(4) More silliness from the government: a NASA administrator on NPR this morning was trying to justify NASA's lack of interest in investigating global warming [more politically correctly now known as "climate change"--Ed.] on the grounds that it's not up to him or to NASA to determine that the climate we have now is the best climate there is for humans all over the globe. He also claimed his First Amendment free speech rights were not at all infringed by his position in the Bush administration. The myriad long pauses between words while he blatantly edited himself during each sentence were coincidences, I guess.

But the serious error is in what he said about this climate being "the best possible one." NO ONE is saying that, nor has anyone ever said that, nor will anyone with even half a brain ever say that about "climate change." That is NOT what global warming means. Indeed, the people encouraging more global warming research are saying quite the opposite, to wit: the climate already has worsened. Moreover, the warming is dangerously close to becoming irreversible and ultimately fatal to humanity. The NASA administrator's verbal tap dance was a shamefully apparent and sadly ineffective attempt to change the terms of the discussion so he'd not get into trouble with Dubya. And that's pathetic.

[(4a) I also just heard on the afternoon news that high US military officials in Iraq now say that September will be too soon to see whether the the troop surge is working. That isn't bad logic; it's simply duplicity. Dubya said when the troop "surge" was first announced that the Iraqi government would have to have its act together by September. But the new spin is also plenty disgusting. Russia may have been an enigma wrapped in a mystery, but Iraq is becoming a quagmire wrapped in quicksand. This news article is not unlike the ones that came out before Memorial Day about increasing gas prices. We the public are being softened up for results we don't want but cannot seem to convince our leaders to prevent.--Ed.]

(5) I've heard people carping about Democratic presidential hopeful John Edwards's $400 haircut and the six-figure speaking fees he commands. They seem to think he is a hypocrite because fighting the insidious effects of poverty is one of the linchpins of his campaign. Well, I cannot quarrel with the complaints about the $400 haircut. That seems excessive, even allowing for the fact that the hairdresser had to come to him instead of him going to the hairdresser.

However, to complain about Edwards's speaking fees is pointless and mean. It's expensive to run for president. Everyone doing so is wealthy to start with--and with few exceptions, still needs to raise additional funds to mount an effective campaign. Edwards is sincere in his interest in ending poverty in the US. He understands better than a lot of people that the costs of poverty sap our economy and our society in countless ways that hurt all Americans. Better that Edwards's critics should examine how Edwards spends the money than at how he raises it.

(6) Have you ever noticed that pundits and the media collectively assume that the end of the Cold War was a good thing? That assumption is not correct. First, the way the Cold War ended wasn't such a good deal for us in economic terms. We didn't so much WIN the Cold War as we survived it. In the last few years before the USSR was dissolved, the USA and the USSR stumbled around like a couple of punch-drunk heavyweight boxers, mutually staggering under the size and weight of their military expenditures. We are still bearing that burden.

Second, "better the devil you know than the devil you don't know." Love the Soviet Union or hate the Soviet Union, we knew after the Cuban Missile Crisis that we could deal with the Soviet Union. Their leaders were no more eager than were ours to plunge the world into nuclear chaos and disaster. But nowadays, who can you trust? With the Soviet Union gone, dangerous people have come into power--dangerous people who no longer have the USSR's influence reining them in.

Third, the Soviets mostly kept the lid on the Arab terrorists in their allied states, all at the USSR's own expense in money, weapons, and manpower. With the Soviet Union's "Iron Hand" gone, however, terrorists now run amok all over the globe. So the USA now gets stuck footing the bill, in money, weapons, and most of all, in manpower. It would have been better for us to have kept the USSR around to contain that mess and buffer us than it is for the USSR to be gone and for us to sit directly in the terrorists' cross-hairs.

Fourth (as if all that weren't bad enough) substantial Soviet nuclear weapons and nuclear weapon components are missing. Who knows who has them? And when they'll be used? And how to stop them? We could keep an eye on the USSR and its military resources. But no matter how advanced our technologies, we can't keep track of hundreds and thousands of independent actors who now seek to destroy us.

In short, ending the Cold War let the genie out of the bottle. We didn't "win" the Cold War. We survived it. And now we are paying too high a price for having survived it.

(7) The History Channel's insistence on running programs--sloppy ones, to boot--about UFOs right after running really smart, up-to-date, well-researched and produced programs such as The Universe is also pathetic. The powers that be at that channel cannot decide whether they want the History Channel to be credible or popular. My disgust with the UFO programs boils down to those programs' most fundamental error of logic. They presume that because someone cannot identify what s/he saw, it means the thing comes from alien civilizations outside our solar system and even our galaxy.

WRONG. All it means is that the person seeing it has no idea what it is. Period. It says or even implies absolutely nothing about whence the unidentified thing came. [I won't believe in any UFO reports, Yeti sightings, or even Nessie sightings until I see long-lasting, sharp and in-focus film footage of same. I want a clear look. It's easy to fool people with the fuzzy and out-of-focus. It's harder to fool them once ambiguities are removed--Ed.]

(8) Speaking of the out of focus . . . did you hear the NPR interview with the Australian founder of the Creation Museum in Kentucky? I think it aired Monday. One of the easiest ways to trash an opponent's point of view is to misstate that person's position. I'll give the Aussie this: he did it wonderfully well and with great subtlety. He claims that scientists who support evolution presuppose that everything they look at is millions of years old. He says that all he's doing is showing how a different supposition, namely that Genesis is literally correct, changes how one interprets what we find in the fossil record.

Two points: (1) even though his "museum" contains dioramas showing human children and T. Rexes together, I'll wager he's never found any fossil sites with human and T.Rex bones in the same stratum. And I'm no gambler. (2) Scientists do not presuppose ANYTHING. They are trained in the methods of logic and reason. They look at what they see and they let it tell its own story. When they find evidence that alters the story as they know it so far, they note the changes to the story and investigate further. They are not in the business of "truth." They are in the business of "fact." Their bailiwick is not "why." It is "how." [And that is why evolution is still called a "theory," even though nothing found so far in the fossil record has contradicted its basic premise.--Ed.]

I am sick practically to death of the people who try to squash scientific endeavor in the name of their faith. If they'd use their God-given brains, they'd see that there is no fundamental conflict between science and faith. I also wish they'd use those brains to realize that there is a very good reason for the First Amendment's prohibition on official government support of religion. Not everyone has the same religion. It is irrelevant that you know you are right and everyone else is wrong. From their point of view, they are right and you are wrong. If you are not in power and those in power do not share your faith, they cannot--because of the First Amendment--compel you to follow theirs. I, for one, do not want to live in an officially Islamic state. Nor, however, do I wish to live in an officially fundamentalist Christian state. God doesn't want us to push our particular beliefs down each other's throats. He wants us each to find Him and His love and redemption for ourselves.

I wonder how the fundamentalists would take it if they were shown that Jesus Himself believed in the separation of church and state. You know: "render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's, and unto God that which is God's." (Matthew 22:21) Unfortunately, too many people like to cherry-pick from the Bible and cobble together a belief system that lets them keep behaving exactly the way they did before they "found religion" instead of meeting Christ's challenge to become new beings through faith.

[I find it truly astonishing that Tom Delay can say with a straight face that his adultery was not as bad/hypocritical as was Newt Gingrich's, since Delay was not committing adultery at the time he condemned President Clinton for doing so, while Gingrich was still committing adultery at the same time he condemned Clinton for his extramarital adventures. I say that adultery is wrong, period. But only those among us without sin should cast stones--or aspersions--on others.--Ed.]

My own take on how to use the Bible to guide one's life (if one claims to be a Christian) is to start with the words of Christ. While everything else in the Bible is important and useful to know, none of it has the same cachet as Christ's own words--otherwise, we are either raising lesser things to Christ's level or lowering Christ to the level of those lesser things. If we are to live according to the New Covenant that Jesus's death and Resurrection offers us, Christ's own words have to count more than anything else.

I could be wrong about that. I often am. And a huge thunderclap just struck, so maybe I ought to take the hint. In any event, I am signing off for now so that my computer doesn't get fried by lightning.

Rosenblatt and Guildenstern Are Dead

Have you been following the latest local political dust-up? Omaha Mayor Mike Fahey and several important businessmen want to build a new baseball stadium in North Downtown (a/k/a NoDo), near the Qwest Center and the new riverfront development. Rosenblatt Stadium, on South 13th Street, next door to the world-class Henry Doorly Zoo, is to be abandoned, apparently.

Pressure comes from several directions to support this. The new stadium would be smaller, which would improve the attendance figures (and hence revenues) of the Omaha Royals, Triple A farm team for the Kansas City Royals. The new stadium would have all the latest amenities, including luxury boxes, thus improving the city's revenues. Creighton University could play its home games there, making for an easier, shorter trip from campus to ball park than the student-athletes have to endure now. [And if you cannot feel the sarcasm dripping from that statement, either you have no clue about Omaha geography or I am losing my touch.--Ed.] The out-of-town guests who come to the College World Series every year would have a much more cohesive experience, as their commute from their hotels to the new stadium would be easier. Plus the locals would have to use the Qwest Center's parking lot . . . again adding to the city's coffers. Finally, the zoo would now have room to expand. In its present configuration, its expansion is apparently blocked by Rosenblatt's presence.

What no one connected with the proposal is saying, however, is how this would be a more efficient use of money than re-re-re-renovating Rosenblatt. Building a new stadium is estimated to cost $50 million dollars. Making Rosenblatt 100% state of the art would cost much less--plus the history of the place would be preserved. Besides, what do the powers that be at the NCAA and the College World Series have to say about this? They regularly sell out all the games at Rosenblatt. A new, albeit smaller, stadium, surely cannot please them, despite the suggestions that temporary bleachers can be helicoptered in for the CWS games and then removed again once the CWS is over. I know as a CWS fan, I'd not be happy paying more (as I am sure I would have to) to sit in temporary bleacher seats. That strikes me, as a fan, as being more than a bit of a rip-off.

What of the complaints of the Omaha Royals that Rosenblatt is just too big? They wouldn't have that problem if they'd field a better team. The Royals had no trouble at all regularly selling all the available seats in the mid-80s . . . which is the last time both the Omaha and Kansas City incarnations of the Royals were winning.

And what of all the renovations already made to Rosenblatt to keep the CWS here? That includes the destruction of several homes along the east side of 13th Street. These homes were razed to improve the landscaping around the side of the stadium that most people see first. The human cost of that was huge. At the time, most of us (including many of the homeowners whose homes were taken) thought it was a worthy and noble sacrifice for the sake of keeping the CWS in Omaha. But to abandon Rosenblatt just a few years later makes it a cruelty to the people whose homes were taken.

Further, Rosenblatt is up on a hill, and it's pleasant to attend games there even in the hottest of Omaha summer weather. A new stadium, farther north and down by the river, would be a sauna . . . except in the luxury boxes, I suppose. Nor would a new stadium be nearly as charming, even if the "Road to Omaha" sculpture is moved to the new stadium's entrance area.

Nonetheless, despite the large and vociferous outcry against it, I suspect that the building of the new stadium is a done deal. Fahey wants his legacy, the financiers want their vision of the riverfront, and the money is probably already in place. The SAC Museum (renamed the Strategic Air and Space Museum) got moved from its historic home in Bellevue because the powers that be [i.e., those with the money--Ed.] wanted it to be nearer Interstate 80 for easier tourist access, historical accuracy be damned. They got their way because they refused to finance enclosed display spaces for the historic planes unless the museum relocated. And they lost a tremendous amount of local support from the large US Air Force (active duty and retired) community in Bellevue . . . but they think their success in increasing tourist dollars has more than compensated for it. They're probably right, darn it.

I hate to see Rosenblatt go, though. No matter what amenities are built into a new stadium, there is no way it will be as charming a place to watch a ball game as is "the Blatt."

Mark Twain Advised Against This

Despite Mark Twain's excellent advice, a letter writer opened his mouth [so to speak-Ed.] and removed all doubt about his own ignorance in one of last week's Omaha World-Herald's Letters to the Editor. The man expressed astonishment that Warren Buffett is a (gasp) Democrat and that he supports (gasp) a Democratic candidate for President. He was bewildered that Buffett would be so stupid as to give money to people who want only to destroy the free market system that helped Buffett make his billions in the first place.

What's wrong with this picture? Where do I start? First, the man never seems to have entertained the thought for a nanosecond that Buffett knows more than he, the letter writer, does about markets and what makes their worlds go around . . . and that maybe, just maybe, the letter writer needs to adjust his own attitude instead of thinking Buffett is stupid.

Further, the letter writer never seems to have recognized (unlike Buffett) that there are more important things in life than money, and that the Spider-Man philosophy applies to more than just super powers. "Those who have been given great gifts have great responsibilities." Didn't we used to call that noblesse oblige in the old days?

If anyone out there is reading this, you've heard me say it before, but it bears repeating: humans are social beings. We live in societies. We have obligations to one another if we are to have successful societies. No society that has a cadre of super-duper rich at the top, a large population of very poor at the bottom, and a disappearing middle class which is mostly sinking into poverty and not rising to the level of the super-duper rich, can long endure. No society in all of history lacking a stable middle class ever has.

Not everyone wants to be super-duper rich, believe it or not. Not everyone wants to make a symbolic financial killing. Many of us are content to live a modest life, as long as we have enough to cover our basic needs for clothing, housing, food, utilities, transportation, medical necessitites, and a bit left over for fun or to save for the unexpected disasters (like flooded basements) that inevitably occur.

But this letter writer seems to have swallowed the current right-wing Republican party line . . . and hook . . . and sinker. He can't even see that his position hurts his own economic well-being. He just presumes that a very successful man is stupid because his political and social beliefs don't revolve around the grubbing of money (even though Buffett is very, very good at doing so). He senses there is something wrong with the situation as he sees it, but he draws the wrong conclusion. He exhibits all the classic symptoms of someone who has been brainwashed.

Not to make Buffett out to be a saint. Businesses under his control are frequently much more nasty in the ways they treat their employees than anyone listening to Buffett would expect. I have personal knowledge of the circumstances of several people who were laid off from a Berkshire-Hathaway-owned company with no notice, no warning, and no genuine concern for their well-being, financial and otherwise. This includes more than one person with a physical disability--all of whom had given loyal and dedicated service to said company for over 10 years each (and who'd never received a less-than-positive employee evaluation). I guess all that talk about the company being a family and its success revolving around teamwork was just so much hot air.

Not that I am surprised by this. It's no different in kind from the way the present Bush administration treats its soldiers, sailors, marines, and airmen. Just look at the Walter Reed outpatient treatment scandal and also at how Dubya is arguing that a 3.5% pay raise for our troops is too high. He wants to limit it to 3%. That half-percent discrepancy makes a difference in pay averaging only $26 a month if the statistics reported on MSNBC are accurate. That's chump change to the super-duper rich like Dubya, but it's a lot of money to someone in the military who still has to use food stamps to feed his family.

This is one of the reasons Buffett supports the Democrats. Buffett does recognize, in general, that money equals power and power cannot be allowed to reign unchecked, lest it grind into the mud the people who form the basis of a truly stable, successful society. It's just too bad that Buffett's knowledge hasn't trickled down [ironic reference intended--Ed.] to the people he lets handle the day-to-day business of running the machines of his empire.

Tricks Of The Tirade

The single biggest trick of the tirade is the tirade itself. The second biggest trick is judicious use of irony. The third is rampant speculation. Fourth is the use of haughty contempt. I can illustrate all but the first with recent baseball events. The first, I can illustrate with a recent event, but it's in the current American pastime, political scandal.

First, regarding the DC Madame--how in the world can she say that she ran a "legal" sexual business but have no records of any customers' names? (All she has is telephone numbers. Hmmm . . .) As Graham Chapman would have said, "Stop that! That's silly!"

Second, regarding Alex Rodriguez's current wonderful stats at the same time the Yankees are playing crappy baseball--has anyone but me considered whether A-Rod has to play badly for the Yankees to do well? The moral of the story here is "Be careful what you ask for . . ." George Steinbrenner wanted the most expensive players to guarantee his Yankees even more World Series championships than they already have . . . but (1) just as there is no crying in baseball, there are no guarantees in baseball; (2) when A-Rod played (relatively) poorly, the Yankees won . . . it stands to reason that when A-Rod finally gets the hang of being a Yankee, the rest of the team goes south. Anybody out there remember Rowan and Martin's "Fickle Finger of Fate"?

Third, the reports are already coming out that St. Louis middle reliever Josh Hancock, who died in a one-car accident last Sunday, was seen drinking heavily late Saturday night . . . in the realm of rampant speculation, I suspect a lot more evidence is coming about his drinking habits, to the point of his being an all-too-young alcoholic. Frankly, I am surprised that the media have restrained themselves as much as they have regarding this possibility to date. That won't last much longer.

Fourth, in the realm of haughty contempt: how in the world could anyone for a moment take seriously (and report it as truth) the rumor (which turned out to be a joke) that Curt Shilling's infamous bloody sock from Boston's World Series winning season held just paint and not blood? I remember seeing the camera close-ups of the sock as the game progressed, and it was perfectly obvious that what was on that sock was blood. Geez, haven't any of these reporters ever looked at a Band-Aid of their own paper cuts? Journalistic standards have plummeted, judging from this debacle. Apparently the current standard is to be the first to report--and who cares if it's true, let alone take the time to verify? A pox on them all, I say!

Two other baseball notes for good measure: regarding the Cubs, who spent ridiculous amounts of money on the wrong players and the wrong new manager, and whose starting pitching staff is again on disability, plus ca change, plus le meme chose. They still stink. Why do I do this to myself every year?

On the other hand, it is nice to see Sammy Sosa back in the swing of things, literally, even if it is in a Texas Rangers uniform.

This Don Is Neither Dapper Nor Dandy

Don Imus put both feet into his mouth big time last week when he made a racially sexist slur against the Rutgers women's basketball team, which at the time was competing for the NCAA National Championship. I won't repeat what he said, because what he said was abominable. I will, comment on what he has said in his own defense in the wake of the ensuing firestorm.

Imus's defense consists of these elements: (1) my radio show is comedy; comedy is frequently cutting edge; sometimes we go over the edge; (2) I had no malice or anger in my heart; (3) I am not the first one who's ever said such things--the slurs actually came first from black males against the females of their own community; (4) nevertheless, I am sincerely sorry for what I said; and (5) now the media are picking on me unfairly.

However, these things all tend to confirm, not refute, the accusations against him.

Imus has a long, long history of saying patently offensive things and begging off on their consequences because he's just a "nice guy who said something stupid." Comedy is not always pretty, but even ugly comedy is not typically truly hateful and vile. Comedy can be found in making cruel fun of the powerful people who richly deserve it. It cannot be found in smearing a bunch of college girls who have done nothing more than work hard to achieve their dream.

This is the same reason that Mel Brooks's castigating the Nazis is funny and that Joan Rivers's castigating Holocaust victims is not, by the way.

Mr. Imus, I have news for you: no really "nice guy" would have let such vileness out of his mouth in the first place. That your brain did not stop you before you ate both your feet tells me that at the most basic level, you simply do not comprehend the crude filth of what you said. With your long experience in mass media, you should have known better. Maybe you did. But the fact that you did not stop yourself gives away your ingrained racism.

The last refuge of the true racist is that he "is no racist." And he truly believes this claim. His racism is so ingrained in him that he simply cannot see it until forced to by someone on the outside looking in. Imus, however, still doesn't see it. I guess the trees are blocking his view of the forest.

For his claim to lack malice or anger may well be true, but it's irrelevant--except in how it reinforces his preconceived notions. Being angry or full of malice is not a defining characteristic of a racist. Being totally insensitive (to the point of unconsciousness) to the nature of one's remarks, however, is. The very essence of prejudice is that one's beliefs override one's conscious, rational ability to consider the consequences of one's actions and to regulate one's behavior and words accordingly.

That the slurs Imus used came originally from black males speaking about black females is also irrelevant and does not deserve further attention. [With the exception of noting that it's equally inexcusable when said by them, too.--Ed.]

About Imus's fourth contention, the only thing I can say is: if you still think what you said is at all defensible, you cannot be sincerely sorry for having said it. You can be sorry only for being caught saying it and for being called on the carpet as a result.

Imus's final point, his plea for sympathy in the face of the media frenzy, is also irrelevant. He chose his profession. He knew the risks associated with opening his mouth in an exceedingly public forum. He seemed to feel that he had no chance to defend himself on the Today show this morning, as host Matt Lauer and fellow guest the Reverend Al Sharpton were "united against" him. That seemed to astonish him (when he commented on it during his own radio show later in the day). I was astonished that he was astonished. It's clear that Imus simply doesn't get it and that he is in fact a racist, sexist, poor excuse for a human being. [I was going to say "pig," but that would have insulted pigs everywhere, and I am loath to do that.--Ed.]

I am filled with joy that Staples has pulled its advertising account from Imus's show. Further, Bigelow Tea has decided not to renew its just-expired advertising contract with Imus's show. Other advertisers seem to be considering similar courses of action. I hope they carry them out. If Imus won't resign and his bosses won't fire him, the power of the advertising purse may be the only way to make him go away.

[For anyone wondering how this squares with my attitudes about freedom of speech, let me remind you: freedom of speech means no governmental repression of speech. In the commercial marketplace of ideas, however, the power of the purse is how we exercise our freedom not to hear the speech we hate. Even when the government has no power to censor speech, we as individual citizens have the power and the DUTY to do so when that speech is inimical to our social creed.--Ed.]

The Un-Natural

It's Major League Opening Day! "Let's play two!"

As part of its annual celebration of the return of baseball, ESPN last night ran a tribute by major league baseball players to the Robert Redford movie, "The Natural." It was very enjoyable to watch, but what it didn't say left me feeling sad.

Don't get me wrong. I love that movie. It has wonderful cinematography, a marvelous score (by Randy Newman), a great story, great acting, the mythology of baseball, and a happy ending. Everything that makes a film timeless, a classic.

And it's exceedingly understandable why so many major leaguers like it. Heck, why so many Americans of all stripes like it. Americans love movies with happy endings, movies where the hero triumphs.

But it's not true to the book by Bernard Malamud on which it was based. That makes me sad because in its original configuration, it tells a story with a message just as important for all of us to hear. In the book, you see, Roy Hobbs does not hit the game-winning home run. In the end, his old injury from having been shot reaches out and bites him, and he fails. His wound is a metaphor for his overwhelming pride in his abilities. Roy Hobbs never learned the folly of the sin of pride, and in the book he paid for it. In the movie, on the other hand, his pride was ultimately rewarded as he triumphed over physical adversity and hit the home run.

So viewers of the movie get the message that heroes triumph, and that pride is no great hindrance to success. And that's a dangerous message to send. If our present President had a little less pride (and stubbornness) and had more ability to reflect on things, we would not be in the mess we're in in Iraq. That "heroes succeed" message pervades almost all of American thinking, and it can make Americans behave recklessly when they are sure of their own righteousness.

Lest you think this changing of the ending from book to movie is an aberration, let me assure you: it is not. Consider "Pretty Woman" if you don't believe me. In the original story, the businessman does NOT come back to rescue the prostitute with the heart of gold, and she winds up killing herself. But Americans LOVE that happy ending, so the movie had to change the ending in order to succeed. I don't care who was in the cast--if the movie had had the same ending as the book did, it would not have made money.

The larger inference, which can be drawn from any number of examples beyond the two I've mentioned here, is that Americans not only do not like unhappy endings, Americans just plain dislike reality.

"Don't confuse me with the facts. I've made up my mind." That's the new American motto, and it does not speak well for us or for our collective survival in this dangerous world.

All Politics Is Local

For anyone neither residing in nor keeping track of the metro Omaha area, you've missed a fun bit of local politics over the past year or so. Omaha (the evil, greedy big city) has annexed Elkhorn (a tiny, rich, white, suburban, and to-the-west-of-Omaha town),which emphatically did not want to be annexed.

Just about everyone in Elkhorn who has expressed an opinion on the matter (i.e., everyone) has lots of venom to spit and blame to lay at the feet of Omaha in general, and Omaha Mayor Mike Fahey in particular. [So far, my favorite rant has been, "They get to vote in Iraq. We didn't get to vote on this!"--Ed.] And they universally have praised their own (now-former) mayor, city administrator, and legal advisor for their efforts to stave off the inevitable.

Well, here's some news for you Elkhornians (Elkhornites?): you're barking up the wrong tree. If your city officials hadn't wanted to run their town on the cheap, Elkhorn could have annexed enough people and territory itself in time to get Elkhorn's population over the 10,000 threshold. This would have triggered a statutory provision preventing Elkhorn from being taken over by Omaha--but Elkhorn's officials didn't try that until after Omaha had already started to annex Elkhorn. Every court ruling on the matter said that Elkhorn started too late. "You snooze, you lose."

It isn't as though Elkhorn's administrators didn't know what was coming. The topic of Elkhorn's being annexed has been around for years and years, at least ever since Omaha annexed Millard (in southwest Douglas County) back in the mid-70s. But Elkhorn's administrators did not want to absorb the extra costs of increasing their population to the statutory trigger level of 10,000. So they, like the GOP in the previous post, wanted to have their cake and eat it, too. When will people learn that that just doesn't happen?

Nor did the powers that be in Elkhorn want to puruse the same sort of "gentleman's agreement" that Omaha made several years ago with the city of Ralston. Omaha just about surrounds Ralston, except on Ralston's southern edge, which is the county line, but Omaha and Ralston authorities back in the 60s reached an understanding that Omaha would not try to annex Ralston. The agreement has held ever since. Apparently the decsion-makers in Elkhorn rebuffed Omaha's attempts to make a similar arrangement with them. Or so the news reports detailing the history of this mess reveal.

Moreover, the Elkhornites (Elkhornians?) bewailing the loss of "quality governmental services" they surely will suffer (now that they officially reside in Omaha) must not have noticed that Omaha managed to complete the transition in the middle of last Thursday's blizzard. Looked reasonably efficient to me!

Don't get me wrong. I am no fan of Omaha. That's one of the major reasons I live in Bellevue. Besides, Bellevue had its own annexation scare from Omaha back in the 60s--until the US Supreme Court ruled that Nebraska's state constitution prevented "cities of the first class" [which refers to population size, not quality.--Ed] from annexing across county lines. Elkhorn had the misfortune to be located in the same county, Douglas, as Omaha, and not across a county line, a la Bellevue in Sarpy County.

This distinction is one that Elkhorn's administrative and legal advisors either missed or ignored. So why aren't more Elkhornians (Elkhornites?) complaining about that? Could it be that they are infected by the dreaded fuzzy thinking virus? Oh, no, no, no, no--yes.

The GOP Ain't Got Nothin' On Marie Antoinette

It's called having your cake and eating it, too--and the GOP has taken that talent to previously unimagined levels of hypocrisy.

I see that Ann Coulter has been spouting filth at official GOP functions again. She called John Edwards a faggot at the GOP C-PAC fund-raiser last week. There was a great deal of consternation amongst the talking heads to the effect that it's way past time the GOP ought to renounce any claims to her and her obnoxious ideas. So I am again going to rail against fuzzy thinking.

The GOP is never going to renounce Coulter. This way, the party officially can say "tsk tsk" and "isn't that awful" . . . while at the very same time getting the support of the ignorant bigots to whom she appeals. So everyone who presses the GOP to renounce her, denounce her, and otherwise dilute her venom is going to lose. (Hence their fuzzy thinking in trying to press the GOP to do so anyway.)

This GOP behavior is worse than gross. It's truly heinous.

But it won't change. Look how long the GOP has used Roe v. Wade to whip up frenzy amongst the cultural conservatives. They'll never really push or pack the Supreme Court to overturn it. It's too useful a tool right where it is. It gives them an instant issue that gets people's minds off the real scandals of the day, like the illegal outing of Valerie Plame and the fact that Dubya has no intention of living up to his administration's oft-repeated promise to can anyone involved with that particular bit of skullduggery. Like the entire war in Iraq. Like letting al Quaida reestablish itself in Afghanistan. Like the mess with the conditions at Walter Reed--and most probably every other stateside military health-care facility that's on the base closing list. Like the administration's efforts to get everyone frothing at the mouth about the risks to us from Iran, so that we have an excuse to invade Tehran, too.

I could continue. But it's just too depressing. I'd go on a chocolate binge, but then I could be accused of trying to have my cake and eat it, too. So Ill just soak my head. Calgon, take me away!

Quo Vadis?

Did anyone watch the Discovery Channel special last Sunday about The Lost Tomb of Jesus? I am very much of two minds about the entire subject. I am fascinated by anything archaeological that either tends to prove or disprove Bible-recounted events. But I hate sloppy reasoning and hype even more.

The one fact that no one either in the "documentary" or in the following panel discussion acknowledged was that no matter how good a statistical probability is, it's still merely a statistic. It is most emphatically NOT proof.

Remember, and as Mark Twain so cogently noted, "[t]here are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics."

A 1 in 600 chance that the tomb in question was not that of the Biblical Jesus and his earthly family means that there is still a real possibility that said tomb is not Jesus's. The closest anyone came to recognizing this is when the statistician who compiled the statistics reminded everyone that his calculations are only as good as the assumptions he used are true and complete.

I will continue to follow developments and comment on them as the need arises. It truly is fascinating from every angle--not to mention that the only person on the discussion panel who had any trouble accepting that the tomb might truly be Jesus's own was the Protestant fundamentalist. He kept arguing that the tomb couldn't be Christ's because then the Biblical accounts of the Resurrection would be incorrect. The Catholic priest on the panel had a much more nuanced and mature thought-process in his interpretation. For him, if it does turn out to be Christ's tomb, it means our understanding of the Bible may have been lacking, not the Word of God itself.

But the university professor had the best take on the entire subject: she noted that no one should accept anything passively. Christians have a duty to use their God-given critical thinking skills to evaluate the quality of the science behind any claims made about how an archaeological find may change the basis of their faith.

Ted Koppel did yeoman's work moderating an often-contentious group of panelists--the most contentious of whom were the documentary film-makers themselves. They just didn't want to hear that there possibly could be any question as to the accuracy of their interpreation of their finds. They obviously forgot that statistics are not proof.

Fuzzy Thinking Is Seldom Warm

I heard one of the members of the US House of Representatives claim the other day that Americans "can't support the troops without supporting the mission." He (his name and district escape me, I am sorry to say) made this remark as part of his argument against Congress passing even a non-binding resolution against Dubya's so-called troop surge in Iraq.

Say what? He has confused the fact that the troops, by and large, obey orders with the notion that they therefore agree with those orders. WRONG! Most US soldiers know that they have an obligation to disobey illegal orders . . . but they also know that they must obey legal, even if inadvisable, ones.

For heaven's sake, even Ollie North is saying that troops he's recently interviewed in Iraq are not sanguine about the "surge" being successful. This doesn't mean that those troops won't do everything they can to complete their mission. It does mean that they won't be overjoyed at having to try., since they know the deck is stacked against them.

Pouring more and more young Americans into the meat grinder that has become Iraq makes no sense to me, either. Especially when it's not an overwhelming number of troops who will come in all at once. A strategy like that might have a chance of succeeding. Measures implemented in dribbles and drabs, however, will not. They do not differ from letting a leaky faucet continue to drip. Each drop may not seem like a great loss, but when you get the multi-hundred dollar water bill, you'll wonder why the heck you didn't fix it sooner. Worse, the longer you let it go on, the worse the damage gets. We are destroying our own future at the behest of men (Dubya, Dick Cheney, etc.) who did everything they could to avoid real service when it would have been their time to go. What's wrong with that picture? If you don't know, you need to refresh your knowledge of American history.

What's worse, those in Congress who support Dubya seem to think that if we have debate and disagreement, we are hurting the morale of the troops already there. There's no logic in that assertion, either. It cannot hurt the morale of those we pay to protect our freedoms when we exercise those very freedoms. That's what they are there for. They know that.

What's going to hurt the morale of the troops is to find out that Dubya's proposed budget for the next fiscal year cuts programs and benefits to the Veteran's Administration and to the armed forces . . . and raises the co-pays our retired veterans and active duty members of the armed forces will have to pay for medical treatment and prescriptions. Not to mention not providing the troops fighting the war with proper equipment in the first place. [Yes, I am still shaking my head in disbelief at Donald Rumsfeld's assertion that you go to war with the army you have, not the army you want. I say you don't go to war until you do have the army you want, especially when you are the one starting the war.--Ed]

Not that such fuzzy thinking is confined to members of our national government. I understand that the Bank of America is going to market credit cards in Los Angeles "to people who do not have Social Security numbers." Read that "to illegal immigrants." The Bank of America representatives who announced this program claim that BA will be serving an underserved market, that it will make BA lots of money because there's no competition for that market, and that they are doing nothing wrong. Since when did aiding and abetting illegal activity, like living in the US illegally,become "nothing wrong"?

Oh, well. It's not exactly as if fuzzy thinking is a brand new problem in American history. During the Salem witch trials, those who confessed to being witches were not harmed. Those who refused to confess were killed. Kind of reminds me of the statement of the US soldier in Vietnam who said, "We had to destroy the village in order to save it." It also reminds me of the Rehnquist Supreme Court--a majority of so-called "strict constructionists" comprised the most judicially active Supreme Court in US history. It's just that their rulings favored conservative causes. I've noted before that people seem to think judicial behavior is the dreaded "activism" only if those people disagree with the consequences of the ruling.

Brrr . . .

I'm so cold from the exposure to all this fuzzy thinking that I am shivering.

When Is A Conundrum Not A Conundrum?

The Founding Fathers were wise enough to know they couldn't anticipate every possible future sequence of events. That's one of the biggest reasons they made the US Constitution rather broad in language and vague in scope--and gave us the US Supreme Court to interpret it. Things change over time, so-called "strict constructionists" to the contrary.

The latest apparent conflict is between the First Amendment's guarantee of freedom of speech and the common law (i.e., traditional) right of parents to decide what to teach their children. This conflict tends to arise in divorce cases, as an aspect of child custody. The most recent example with which I have some acquaintance is a case in California, wherein the judge told the non-custodial father that, as part of his visitation rights, he could NOT teach his children that jihad was an acceptable course of behavior.

The news commentator whose report revealed this case to me seemed to think that what we have here is an intractible problem. I respectfully disagree.

First, look at the US Supreme Court's consistent decisions in cases denying people the right to handle poisonous snakes as part of their religious observances. People are always free to believe whatever they want to believe, but they are not always free to act on those beliefs. Preventing possible harm to children or other innocent bystanders outweighs the right to take a deadly risk. In other words, protecting the general public matters more than letting anyone--even people who would willingly assume the risks--act out every aspect of their beliefs.

That's fine, as far as it goes, but it still lets people hold what can be called dangerous beliefs. The next step is to point to Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes's famous observation that no one can just yell "Fire!" in a crowded theater . . . unless it's true, of course. So there are limits on the freedom to open one's mouth and say whatever comes to mind. Again, the limits apply whenever the public health and safety would otherwise be put to untenable risk.

Finally, consider that children, as the least experienced and most vulnerable among us, are always given extra protection under the law. Obscenity is illegal for everyone--but pornography is allowed, for grown ups. Every court everywhere has obligations at law (whether by statute or custom) to protect children, so that they can grow into adults capable of making their own decisions once they are in fact grown up.

To expose a child to certain ideas is in fact to brainwash him. He hasn't had the years on earth to gain the experience necessary to decide which ideas are good and which are bad. It's easily demonstrated that a child exposed to abuse thinks that abuse is normal, even expected. That child will in turn be much more likely than a child raised in a healthy home to abuse others, even before the abusive child has come of legal age.

So there really is no conundrum or intractible problem here, despite the news commentator's suggestions to the contrary. The non-custodial parent is not being told to change his beliefs. He is not being told not to act on his beliefs, except as doing so would violate criminal law. His child is being protected until his child is old enough to decide for himself what he chooses to believe.

This is as it should be, and it has absolutely nothing to do with the religion promoting the belief in question. Any expression of any religion endorsing violence properly would be so restricted from an impressionable child's view. The fuzzy thinking that claims a conflict between freedom of speech and freedom of religion in these child custody cases deserves nothing but our contempt.

Praise The Lord! They Aren't Passing The Ammunition!

Sinn Fein, the political arm of the Irish Republican Army, has abandoned its opposition to cooperating with the Northern Ireland (British) police. Gerry Adams, President of Sinn Fein, has thus accomplished something miraculous--moving the IRA toward compromise on the issues facing the putatively British province of Northern Ireland. Lasting peace may be at hand.

I don't doubt that the republicans' abandonment of the idea of making Northern Ireland part of the Irish Republic by force had a lot to do with the increasingly bad press given to any so-called "freedom fighters." After all, one man's freedom fighter is just another man's terrorist. I'm sure the IRA is perfectly happy to let Muslims around the world wear the mantle "terrorists" all alone.

But this is truly an important step forward. Despite the beatings that many IRA members received over the years at the hands of the mostly Protestant Northern Ireland police force, and despite the long prison sentences many of them suffered for their violent opposition to same, the IRA officially embraces peace.

Maybe there is some hope for the world after all. I will hold onto this the next time I begin to believe that the whole world is going to Hell. Hope does spring eternal.

Any bets on whether Gerry Adams gets beatified by the Pope sometime after his death?

More From The "Things That Make You Go 'Hmmm'" Files

I just heard about a cemetery that had to raise the rates it charges for burial plots "due to the cost of living."

Hmmm . . .


Conspiracy theorists typically believe no one connected to their pet conspiracy except for the putative "lone gunman" . . . the one person who has the greatest motive to lie. What's wrong with this picture?

Hmmm . . .

Those who insist that women should be covered from head to toe when they are in public are saying a lot more about their own inability and unwillingness to grow up and have some self-control than they are about the temptations of the world.

Hmmm . . .

Bill Clinton's remarks on Molly Ivins' death were gracious and true. He said she was witty and pointed when he wasn't doing anything wrong--and more so, to devastating effect, when he was.

Dubya's remarks, on the other hand, had to have been written by someone else. Totally polite, and entirely non-committal. Seeing how long she's been calling him "Shrub" (correctly so, I might add), what else could he do without making himself look even worse than he does already?

Hmmm . . .


I watched the first couple of hours of the PBS series about the US Supreme Court last night. It was OK as an introductory historical primer, I suppose, but it could have been a lot better. It was eye-opening in terms of revealing the personal background of Justice John Marshall Harlan, but instead of including his dissent in Plessy v. Ferguson ("the Constitution is color-blind"), the show focused on his dissent in the series of decisions grouped together as The Civil Rights Cases. Maybe the producers and the writers thought the latter dissent was more important because it came earlier in time, but amongst the legal community, Plessy is more important because it crystallized Harlan's thinking in succinctly quotable prose.

Nonetheless, the thing that struck me the most about the Harlan segment was just how much John Marshall Harlan looked like the late, great Peter Boyle playing the monster in Young Frankenstein.

Hmmm . . .

I just love the soaps. They have no compunction at all about misstating legal and medical procedures, collapsing time in impossible ways, or otherwise messing up reality when it suits their dramatic purposes. Even when doing it without misstating everything would be plenty dramatic.

Ferinstance, during court proceedings, testimony routinely consists of emotional assertions of someone's beliefs about another character, with no factual content at all to support the assertions . . . yet no attorney objects nor does the judge quash said remarks as irrelevant. But judges on soaps routinely issue orders and edicts that are totally unsupported by whatever has transpired in court during the trial as aired on the soap.

Feranotherinstance, some character who is a medical professional has good reason to take the HIV test. The results come back inconclusive. Does that character start on the triple cocktail? No. Despite the fact that the triple cocktail is routinely prescribed as a prophylactic measure to medical professionals in real life in such circumstances while another HIV test is run.

Feryetanotherinstance, one year, a toddler and an infant are kidnapped together. The next year, the toddler is out of the script and the infant is in grade school. The year after that, the toddler comes back as a 16-year-old, the putative infant is still in grade school, and the parents haven't aged a bit.

Hmmm . . .

There is a common thread to all these observations. They all make my brain hurt!

The Abominable Snowman Cometh

Let's face it: Dubya is abominable, and he's coming to give us a snow job in his State of the Union address this-coming Tuesday. I apologize to the ghost of Eugene O'Neill for any hint of any reference to his play The Iceman Cometh.

Please tell me I'm not the only one who has noticed that Dubya still behaves like a college frat boy. He says and does whatever the heck he wants, and he gets away with it all--so long as no grown ups are watching. Even when grown ups are watching, he still tries to bluff or bully his way through to getting what he wants as opposed to doing the right thing. [Not that Congress consists of grown ups. It's just that now the Democrats have the majority, Dubya cannot proceed with total impunity.--Ed.]

I saw Sen. George McGovern on one of the late-night news shows earlier this week (I want to say it was Nightline, but I don't think that's correct). His plan for what to do about Iraq strikes me as being eminently sensible. First, don't put even more of our youth in harm's way. Too many have died or been maimed already. Second, implement a timeline for a phased withdrawal. Third, carry it out. The only way the Iraqis are going to take charge of and responsibility for what's happening in their country is if they no longer have us around to be the "one-size-fits-all" scapegoat.

But Dubya still thinks the Iraqis owe us a debt of gratitude. Of course, he also thinks he's going down in history as being a much better president than contemporary opinion polls would suggest. I'll bet he's actually glad he's never been a student of history, for his lack of knowledge allows him to wallow in his delusions. I don't care what he thinks: Dubya is NO Harry Truman.

Which leads me to suggest why Harry Truman's grave in Independence, Missouri is not covered with snow and ice right now, despite the winter weather. Harry is so ticked off at Dubya's misappropriation of Harry's image that he's steaming mad!

I don't blame him.

It's The Bee Gees vs. George Gershwin

Either it's a tragedy or it s'wonderful. Take your choice. Better yet, s'tragedy--in honor of all those who mispronounce "strategy"--and in dubious honor of all those who misuse it. Like our president.

I'll give Dubya this: I never thought the words "mistakes" and "mine" and "responsibility" would pass his lips in the same sentence . . . and yet they did last night during his speech revealing the new US strategy in Iraq. Not that his owning up to his errors made (or makes) a difference. I would be thrilled if Dubya's plan to put 20,000 more US troops in harm's way would help end the Iraq debacle--especially if it ended it favorably for the US. But I am not sanguine about its chances for success.

More troops with greater presence equates (to me and to many others more expert in military affairs than I) to more anger on the part of the insurgents . . . and more targets for them to hit . . . and more strife and needless bloodshed, not less.

In Iraq, we are in position not unlike the US's position vis-a-vis slavery in the early 18th century as analyzed by Thomas Jefferson. When you are riding a tiger, you don't want to hang on, but you cannot bring yourself to let go. There is deadly danger in any option you choose once you've foolishly put yourself in the position in which you find yourself.

A wholesale withdrawal would only embolden the terrorists who want to harm us. Staying only irritates those terrorists further. (Besides, they've not been able to solve their problems and settle their feuds for thousands of years . . . what the heck made us think we could do it for them?) An escalation that is more of a slow motion wave than a genuine surge will only prolong the agony. Too bad we can't call a mulligan and start over by not going into Iraq in the first place. [Gershwin wins again: You say to-may-to, I say to-mah-to . . . let's call the whole thing off!--Ed.]

I grieve for our troops, who are struggling valiantly to do the impossible. If they succeed, all they do is breed resentment against the US. If they fail, they die. And I confess to not having any ideas at all about what to do. Well, that's not exactly true. If we aren't going to withdraw immediately, retrench, get new people into office in 2008, and go about rebuilding America's reputation in the world, we need to go in with overwhelming force and stomp out every last one of the terrorists in Iraq now. Not that we'll succeed. Terrorists are like cockroaches in that for every one you see, there are 10 you don't. But if we can overwhelm the visible terrorism long enough to get out (relatively) cleanly and let the Iraqis deal with their own problems, we've made the best of a very bad situation.

God help me, I am beginning to think we need Douglas MacArthur and Curtis LeMay to come back from the dead and throw a few nukes around. And that scares me most of all.

Well Butter My Butt And Call Me A Biscuit

Nebraska really stunk up the Cotton Bowl yesterday. The Huskers played exactly the way they've played in all their other losses this season: they came out strong in the first half, but didn't score as many points as their statistics suggested they should have; they then proceeded to stand around and give the game away in the second half, due to an unfortunate combination of turnovers, bad play calling, and worse play non-execution.

So Auburn won the game 17-14. Will this finally get the people around here to wake up and see that Bill Callahan is a fraud as a coach? Probably not. That's too bad for NU. Let's face it: Callahan got the job only because of Athleltic Director Steve Pederson's ego. Pederson didn't want retiring coach Tom Osborne's pick to head the program. He wanted to put his own stamp on the program by ensuring his own choice would coach NU. Frank Solich thus got canned for going 9-3. Callahan thereupon proceeded to drive the program so far into the ground that 9-3 now looks good . . . and now Husker players and fans are saying things like "we nearly have the quality of players we need to play in the highest echelons of the game."

Blech! [I never thought I'd say this, but where the heck is Bob Devaney when we need him?--Ed.]

On the other hand, Boise State is for real. This year's Fiesta Bowl has to be one of the most exciting, improbable, and compelling college bowl games I've ever seen. I am now officially a fan of blue AstroTurf. Or more correctly, of the team that plays its home games on it. There's no quit in those Broncos. After dominating Big XII Champion Oklahoma and building an 18-point lead in the third quarter, Boise State seemed to be collapsing in slow motion late in the game--to the degree that OU took the lead on an interception for a touchdown with about 1 minute to go. Yet the Broncos came back to tie the game with the chestnut Hook and Lateral play, force overtime, and then win with a variation on the Statue of Liberty play for a two-point conversion. [It's so much fun to see old plays being dusted off and put to good use again!--Ed.]

If ESPN Classic isn't replaying this game as an "Instant Classic," it ought to be. I don't get ESPN Classic anymore--my cable company removed it from my tier of service but raised my rates anyway. [How shocking is that? Not!--Ed.] I encourage you to watch the game if you have ESPN Classic and it is playing on that channel. It has to be one of the most exciting college football games I've ever seen.

Considering how many college football games I've seen, that says a lot. Yesterday, I actually was starting to burn out on college football. The Cotton Bowl was embarrassing, the Rose Bowl was a yawn, and there had been entirely too many yapping [not talking, yapping.--Ed.] heads and not enough exciting play . . . until the Fiesta Bowl. If Ohio State loses to Florida next Monday, Boise State ought to get voted National Champion. After all, in that case, Boise State would be the only undefeated Division I A team. That's not the way the Bowl Championship Series works, but that doesn't make it right. At the very least, if Ohio State loses, someone ought to offer to fund a game between Florida and Boise State to determine the national championship for 2006-07 with finality. If Ohio State wins next Monday, Boise State ought to be voted co-champion.

That won't happen, either, and for the same reasons there will never be a true playoff system in Division I A college football. There's not enough money in it for all the schools that would be shut out of a bowl game if a true playoff system were implemented. The current philosophy seems to be the more schools get any piece of the pie, the better. So why couldn't revenue sharing be implemented? I know, I know. It's a question of who decides which schools would get how much of the revenues available. Almost everyone with decision-making power in NCAA Division I A college football seems to prefer the current scattershot system to something that would actually make sense. This most probably because they all fear they'd lose funds if changes were made.

Better the devil you know, I suppose. Nor is it that a playoff system would extend the bowl season to an untenable degree. As far as I'm concerned, that's already happened. Since when do we have to wait until January 8th to find out who gets the coveted "National Championship"? Since now. I have a sneaky suspicion that unless the Orange Bowl and the Sugar Bowl turn into barnburners exceeding the Fiesta Bowl (an exceedingly unlikely scenario), most of us won't care by January 8th whether Ohio State or Florida gets the win and thus the title.

Over time, the loss of interest due to the fans' collective short attention span will cost Division I A more than would any shifting of revenues resulting from a genuine playoff system going into effect.

So it's up to you, Ohio State football Buckeyes. Lose the BCS Championship Game next Monday so that we can kick this debate up "notches unknown to mankind!"

I Can Hear Lloyd Bentsen Now

"Mr. President, I knew Harry Truman. Harry Truman was a friend of mine. Mr. President, you're no Harry Truman."

So Dubya is fascinated with the man from Independence, and fancies himself Harry Truman's spiritual heir due to Dubya's own massive unpopularity with the American voting public.

Just more evidence that Dubya is not even close to being a student--of history or of anything else, for that matter.

Number one: Korea was a United Nations "police action." The US played a large part in it, yes, but our involvement in Korea was not a bit like our involvement in Iraq. We were working within the context of the world community in Korea. In Iraq, the US went in unilaterally, has consistently ignored the opinion of most of the rest of the world, and has generally thumbed its official nose at everyone who dared question what "we" were doing.

Besides, Truman was unpopular with the voting public for a lot of reasons, not the least of which is that Truman was no FDR. Dubya is no Bill Clinton, but that's irrelevant in this context. Clinton appealed to the "good times" Bubbas. Dubya appealed to the "family values"Bubbas. Furthermore, Truman saw military service in WWI. Dubya studiously avoided it, with Daddy's help, during Vietnam.

Number two: Truman had the balls [pardon my French, but no other word is adequate in this instance.--Ed.] to fire Gen. Douglas MacArthur when MacArthur wanted to escalate things by nuking China. Dubya had to be forced to fire Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, and even then he couldn't be honest about it. He claimed he had made up his mind to fire Rummy before the recent elections, and as if that weren't bad enough, he praised Rummy to the skies in Rummy's official farewell ceremony last Friday.

Number three: Harry Truman worked in and with the rest of our allies and indeed, the entire world community. He didn't alienate us from everyone else in the world. He didn't sink the standing of the USA by his actions and his decisions. As a true student of history, Truman understood the world and how best the USA could operate within it--all the while protecting our own interests. Dubya's approach is "my way or the highway," however, and he actually seems to take delight in playing at being more macho than anyone else on the planet. The esteem in which many others in the world traditionally have held the USA has disappeared right down the toilet of Dubya's ambitions. So despite Dubya's insistence that he's protecting the US, he's succeeded only in making the whole world less safe for Americans.

Number four: Harry Truman knew his own mind. He didn't need the advice, guidance, leadership, or decision-making skills of others to decide what he was going to do and how he was going to do it. Contrast Dubya, who frequently seems to have turned over all Executive Branch decision-making processes to Vice President Dick Cheney and all political posturing decisions to advisor Karl Rove.

Number five: Harry was no poseur. He didn't come from money, and he didn't see any need to pretend to be something he was not. Dubya, on the other hand, grew up as a Connecticut preppie, the child of wealth and privilege, and has convinced himself that he's just a "good ol' boy" from Texas. I'll give Dubya this: he does have the accent correct, down to his monumentally irritating mispronunciation of the word "nuclear." At some very important levels, however, the only person he fools is himself.

Ah, well. There are none so blind as those who will not see, and Dubya is as blind as a bat. If not blinder. A bat won't knowingly fly right into the middle of a situation adverse to its health or safety.

How can we even dream of having a Merry Christmas when our troops are dying for no good reason?

Christmastime Is Here

There has been lots of talk on the radio lately about people's favorite and least-favorite Christmas music. One person's Handel's Messiah is another person's Chipmunks' Christmas, Christmas Time Is Here.

And vice versa.

My personal list, like everything else about me, is eclectic. I love the entire recording of The Bells of Dublin, but Elvis Costello's The St. Stephen's Day Murders alone is worth the price of admission. Wouldn't be Christmas for me without it. It's a little slice of reality--laced liberally with black humor--that curbs holiday schmaltz.

The Manhattan Transfer's entire Christmas Album is wonderful. I can't hear their take on Santa Claus Is Coming To Town enough. "Look out, Old Santa is back!" It's not even remotely one of my favorite Christmas songs. Manhattan Transfer's take on it is that good.

Nor can I get enough of Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass's Christmas Album. The whole thing is a delight. I don't have enough air to blow a horn to save my life, but I've always had an affinity for horn music--especially when it has rhythm. This album reeks of rhythm.

And, God help me, I like both of The Brian Setzer Orchestra's Christmas albums for the same reason. If you haven't heard either Dig That Crazy Christmas or Boogie Woogie Christmas, give them each a listen sometime. They have irresistably catchy rhythms, so they are fun, which for me goes a long way toward easing the stresses of the always too frenetic holiday season.

I used to love everything Christmas-y by Mannheim Steamroller. After a painful personal encounter at one of the Steamroller's Christmas concerts, however, I find I cannot listen to its holiday music without re-experiencing a great deal of emotional distress. [And they say no one remembers pain. Hah!--Ed.] Too bad for me. The music is glorious.

Unlike that of the Trans-Siberian Orchestra, that is. Mannheim Steamroller did it first, and did it much better. The TSO is just loud and overwrought. That's a great disappointment. Based on what I'd read before I ever heard anything by the TSO, I was fully prepared to like its music. No such luck. But it sells well, so people out there must enjoy it. Good for them. They can have it.

I have many recordings of carols arranged for voice and choir(what a shock!), brass, pipe organ, orchestra, music box, and even glass armonica--all of which enhance my holidays greatly. Heck, when I'm feeling peckish, I actually get a kick out of listening to Hooked on Christmas. Disco Christmas carols?!? Who knew?

Handel's Messiah and J.S. Bach's Christmas Oratorio also make my "must listen to every year" list. The power and majesty of this music are comforting, oddly enough. Why do I like this music so? Probably for the same reason I prefer "high church"-type ceremonies and Gothic cathedrals and the like to their more prosaic "low church" cousins. They seem more reverential and in keeping with the true spirit of the season than, for instance, does a song like Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer.

Wouldn't you know, however, that my three all-time favorite Christmas CDs are jazz-oriented? Handel's Messiah: A Soulful Celebration, on Reprise records, produced in chief by Quincy Jones, is brilliant. Highlights of Handel's Messiah, arranged in genres from call-and-response to soul to blues to rap, and performed by everyone from Al Jarreau to Stevie Wonder, Take 6, The Boys Choir of Harlem, and Mike E.,to name just a few, is guaranteed to get you up and dancing, filled with the joy of the Lord. It is simply great, from first note to last.

On the cooler side of jazz, guitarist Kenny Burrell's Have Yourself A Soulful Little Christmas has become another of my holiday sine qua nons. I picked up my copy from the Jazz Heritage Society's bargain bin, and believe you me, it is a bargain-and-a-half. Frankly, I am surprised at how much I enjoy listening to this album. [OK, OK. I'm old enough to remember--heck, to have--LPs, so please don't castigate me for using "recording," "album," and "CD" interchangeably. I can't help it. But all the selections I've discussed here are on CD in my own collection.--Ed.] It's thoroughly soothing, like sipping a warm glass of mulled wine to take away the chill of having been out in the cold and snow. Even when there hasn't been any (real) cold or snow. Listen to it, and your soul will be serene.

But my all-time favorite is Vince Guaraldi's A Charlie Brown Christmas. The instrumental of Christmas Time Is Here perfectly evokes the stillness in the nighttime winter air just after a snowfall. It is the quintessence of peacefulness. [Don't everyone break into "There's A Kind of Hush," now.--Ed.]

And Linus and Lucy is, well, Linus and Lucy. Why do you think I named my little heathens after the Van Pelt siblings?

Good Reasons That Economics Is "The Dismal Science"

Don't count me among those mourning the recent death of free market economist Milton Friedman. I don't think that markets are really "free," first of all; nor do I think that markets, when left to their own devices, are good, wise, noble, kind, or rational. I do think that the current high esteem in which Friedman's ideas are held is depressing (that's my interpretation of "the dismal science," with all due respect to Adam Smith). I also think that people like Friedman who promulgate "free markets are the be-all and the end-all" of life are downright wrong, on at least four counts.

One: markets are not rational. Markets are artificial constructs. People make decisions. Most people are not rational. Consider how reporters present the daily Dow Jones news. Is the average higher or lower than it was in the most recent previous report? "Higher" is presumed good; "lower" is presumed bad. No one stops to think that the numbers might be down temporarily because investors (who want to) are taking profits. No one stops to consider that even if the numbers are down compared to the day before, the numbers may well still be higher overall than they were last week, or last month, or last year.

Graphic adjuncts reinforce the irrationality of the reporting. "Marketplace Morning Report" plays We're In The Money in the background when the average is higher than it was in prior reports; it plays Stormy Weather when the average is lower. Broadcast networks put the numbers on screen with arrows pointing up or down--and the arrows are physically larger and more colorful than the printed numbers accompanying them.

Newscasters tell us that the market is "jittery" because of things like the war in Iraq or that the market is "happy" with some economic report or company profit and loss statement. Hello! Markets are inanimate, artificial things. Markets cannot and do not have feelings . . . but people do. Again, people are not rational. There's a reason the grade of "C" is average--at least half the population operates at that level or below. Furthermore, people in groups are less rational than people acting as individuals tend to be. It has been well and oft demonstrated by sociologists that humans succumb to the herd mentality quite easily. So everyone waits around for the news about what everyone else is doing, and they then go do the same themselves. [Yes, there are exceptions. Those are your "A" and "B" students.--Ed.]

Two: each side in any give economic transaction does not share equal power. Why do you think labor unions were created? To gve at least the color of leveling the playing field. One lone job seeker is not on equal footing with any employer. Have you ever heard of anyone going into a job interview, informing the employer of the conditions under which he'll accept a job, and then getting that job on those terms? Anyone who is Joe Average, that is. Unique personal skills, such as those of the highest paid actors or the most talented athletes, change the scenario. But how many of such people are there compared to the entire work-seeking population? No more than a tiny, tiny percentage.

Yes, a potential buyer can choose not to spend his money . . . for a time. What if you've put off buying a winter coat for too long already, and it's 20° below and you can't wait any longer? You either freeze or buy whatever you can find, whether it's what you really want to purchase or not. No matter how bad your personal economic situation is, there comes a time when you cannot refrain from spending any longer. You must have transportation, food, shelter, clothing. And if any or all these things are in disrepair (or worse), and you don't have a good job, you wait as long as you can. Sooner or later, however, you must buy. Most sellers have the economic size and clout to wait you out. There is always someone else who's already reached that "point of no return," that point at which he cannot stall any longer, so there is always someone stoking the engine of profit by buying.

Three: markets and the decisions people make as expressed through them are not value-neutral. Businesses regularly break the law by hiring illegals. They do it because it's cheaper for them than it would be to hire legitimate, legal workers, who sometimes have union or other legal protections, such as the guarantee of a minimum wage. Even if the businesses get caught and have to pay a fine, it's often less expensive for them to take that course than it is to obey the law in the first place. Do you really want to teach our children that such disrespect for law is acceptable? I for one do not.

Businesses often close or move locations not because they are losing money, but because they are not making enough money (as they perceive it) at their present locations. They claim they are consolidating or automating [do you hate long voice mail menus as much as I do?--Ed.] or whatever for the sake of better customer service. Right. Since when is wasting a considerable amount of a customer's time by making the customer do the work improved customer service? The real bottom line is (oddly enough) the bottom line. If it's cheaper to automate than to have a live person on the other end of the telephone line, then the business will automate. The only people corporations are beholden to are their shareholders. Boards of directors are surprisingly frank in admitting that their sole responsibility is to maximize the returns on their shareholders' investments. We are at their service, not vice versa.

Larger and more long-term goals, like sustaining life on the planet, are of tertiary--if that high--importance. Good PR comprises the secondary tier of importance. Make no mistake, either: good PR is a question of style, not of substance. Only the appearance matters. The business would go back to having a live person instead of automated voice mail if enough bad publicity attended the use of voice mail.

But making money is what business is about. If it's cheaper to use single-hulled oil tankers and risk oil spills than it is to refit or build tankers with double holds, well, kiss the environment good-bye. If it maximizes profits to build and sell gas-guzzling SUVs ["SubUrban assault Vehicles"--thank you, Jay Leno.--Ed.] and it costs more money than it would generate in profit to build and sell alternative-fuels vehicles, well, don't expect to see fuel-cell-powered vehicles on your local car lot any time soon.

Four: markets aren't really free. Nor do they want to be. Nor do we really want them to be. Have you ever read Upton Sinclair's The Jungle? Do you want to go back to the days before USDA regulation of the wholesomeness and safety of our food? I, for one, emphatically do not.

Businesses want all the government regulations in the world which will maximixze their profits while minimizing or obliterating their risks. For instance, many want to keep foreign steel and wood out of the American domestic market--the steel companies and the wood processing companies being the two most vocal about it. Those businesses couldn't care less that their position hurts consumers by maintaining artificially high consumer prices. They care only about their own net profits. Where is the "free" market in that? Hint: there isn't any.

Globalization makes it impossible for any of us, as individuals, to be knowledgable, attentive, careful, and safe consumers. No one person can gather all the information necessary to protect himself from bad buying/consuming decisions. Governments exist to do the things that people as individuals cannot or will not do for themselves. Protecting us from predatory merchants, given the international interconnectedness of the global business community, is vital and fundamental.

Don't get me wrong. Most people in business are honest and upright. Besides, they themselves are consumers, too. But there are always those who will take advantage of the rest of us. Too many in position to influence business behavior think anything goes so long as it maximizes that bottom line. Does the name "Enron" ring a bell? The classic model of the free market does not reflect or incorporate the nature of modern life. "Free markets" might have been fine in the days where almost no one ever travelled more than 5 miles away from the place of one's birth . . . but that is not the world in which we now live. Our philosophies should recognize reality.

Unrestricted caveat emptor is no longer the rule of the day. It is impossible. The only question is not whether we should have free markets, but is rather to what degree should we regulate markets? It is folly to pretend otherwise. It is dangerous, to boot. Any honest student of US history will tell you that every time the government has relaxed the regulation of businesses and markets, we've had Hell to pay in terms of economic scandals and the disastrous financial fallout from same. In Nebraska, all you have to do is mention "Commercial Federal" and watch people who lost their life savings in that credit union deregulation debacle turn red as their blood pressures skyrocket.

No one wants the government to tell businesses how many widgets to produce in a given economic period. But anyone with half a brain would want the government to make sure that whaever widgets were made were both functional and safe for use--and produced under safe working conditions, to boot.