Matt Zeitlin: Impetuous Young Whippersnapper

Remember in Season Four when Royce is faltering in the polls against Carcetti, and so he tries to whip up black support by making a bunch of red, green and black signs saying that Royce is “our” candidate. Well, Bobby Rush seems to be doing the exact same thing in his beyond-shameful shilling for Roland Burris and Rod Blagojevich. Imploring the Senate not to “hang or lynch the appointee” sounds like something that David Simon left on  the cutting room floor because it was just a bit too ridiculous. Is there an equivalent term to “shonde” that can be used for race-baiting hustlers?

And, as a bonus, Israel’s strategic thinking is “muddled.” And don’t take it from me, take it from Eli Lake. Whatever ones thoughts are about the macro issues at play here (and they are quite important and don’t get discussed enough), it’s still worth remembering that smart, ardent defenders of Israel, with good sources within the IDF, still don’t quite get what Israel is really trying to do, or they think that they’ve defined their goals so maximally as to make it impossible to actually succeed. Here’s Eli saying a bunch of stuff I totally agree with.

The fact that we were so close (a missed field goal…a missed extra point) makes the loss all the more heartbreaking.

If I may engage in some postgame avarice, Tigers fans do know that there are no z’s in the word “Missouri”…right? Is there something I’m missing here?

Maybe it’s because I’m from California and am a big Golden Bears fan, but every year I’m convinced that if there were a playoff in college football, USC would be the national champion every year. That’s because SC is always on TV, and since Cal is in the Pac 10, we’re always forced to compare our good seasons to USC’s consistent greatness. Sure, it’s USC’s fault they aren’t contending for the championship (champions don’t lose to Oregon State), but they’re a very good team with a world-historically good defense (7.8 points per game, 206 yards per game). All of this means I’m pretty skeptical of Ivan Maisel’s case for Penn State having a chance at beating the Trojans. Of all the arguments Maisel makes for Penn State not being yet another Big 10 school just waiting to get the crap beat out of them in a de-facto home game for the Trojans, this one is the worst:

All of which explains why Penn State came within one point of finishing the regular season undefeated. There is even evidence to suggest that the Nittany Lions can beat the Trojans: Three weeks before Oregon State defeated USC 27-21, the Beavers were humiliated by Penn State, 45-14.

Whenver you see a writer making this type of argument, you know they’re peddling BS. Sure, there is an any given Sunday (or, any given January 1st) aspect to football, but the only responsible way to make predictions is to look at how the two teams have done over the past year, in aggregate. And by those measures, it’s clear that USC ought to be the prohibitive favorite. Penn State was able to rack up impressive offensive numbers against a very weak Big 10, and while the Pac 10 competition that USC faced wasn’t fantastic, their defensive stats are so impressive that we can assume that PSU won’t be a huge challenge. Also, by Maisel’s logic,”there is even evidence” that Northwestern could beat Penn State. After all, Iowa beat PSU 24-23, and Northwestern beat Iowa 22-17. But it’s obviously silly to expect either USC or Penn State to play their worst after a month off, especially considering the caliber of their coaching. The only responsible way to prognosticate football games is to basically expect both teams to play as they have been all year.

It’s common among people in my basic social-cultural-economic situation to decry the fact that college athletes get a free-ride to fame, adulation and admissions when, generally, they do pretty poorly in school. Especially at a school like Northwestern, which is a legitimate first and half tier institution, but is also in the Big Ten, these feelings run pretty rampant. Nick Gillespie notes some research showing that, in fact, athletes don’t generally meet the academic standards of their institutions and compares it to truely pernicious forms of standards-adjustment, like legacy admissions.

Although the SAT spreads between athletes and everyone else – especially at schools like Georgia Tech and Cal – are really high, it’s hard to see what the real problem is. Because of the weird way sports is set up in America, we have large research universities replacing a minor league system in football and basketball, and have also decided that those same schools are the best way to train Olympic athletes in sports which don’t have lucrative professional leagues. There are upsides and downsides to this system, but it’s basically just the way it is. I also haven’t seen great evidence that having athletes at a school, even if they perform below average academically, creates real drag for the students at school for academic and educational reasons.

As to the more abstract concerns about fairness and merit, I don’t think that athletes have less of a claim to the resources of a college, or to rewards for their athletic excellence, than do students. From what I can tell, what it takes to be an academically excellent student and and excellent athlete are pretty much the same. At the core, there’s natural talent, but mostly its a lot of hard work and practice. Now, there are questions to what provides more value to society, or the university as a whole, but in a world where we think sports and athletic achievement are important, rewarding it doesn’t strike me as whole that bad.

Ethan Bronner’s Times analysis on the Gaza situation says that the main purpose of Israel’s assault on Hamas in Gaze is to reestablish deterrence after the fiasco of the Lebanon war. This doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. Israel, by launching this round of attacks, is saying that they feel the need to  militarily deter unaimed, potshot rocket fire from a small, heavily armed area that has received the Escape From Manhattan treatment since 2006.

Considering that firing these rockets doesn’t require a ton of intrastructure, people or support from the local Gazan population, it is unclear how killing Hamas leaders (and inflaming an already horrendous humanitarian situation) will change the equation vis a vis the rocket attacks. That’s because everyone is plenty aware that, at any time, Israel can kill lots of people associated with Hamas (or, if we’re talking 2006) Hezbollah. Anyone who assumes that Hamas, or anyone in the region, is ignorant of Israel’s overwhelming conventional ability to kill lots of people in any terrorists group is just being silly. On the other hand, if the political and military leadership thinks it can ever totally deter rocket fire from Gaza, a 25×6 mile strip run by a popular terrorist group that has been the victim of a blockade, they’re being incredibly naive. There’s also the niggling little fact that Hamas thrives on images of Israel killing Palestinians. And that’s why they call it the cycle of violence.

One of the sad things about the situation in Israel and the Territories is how easy it is to predict the course of events. After Hamas starting launching rockets into Southern Israel, the political and emotional logic of the situation basically necessitated that Israel would strike back in fantastic form. Especially considering that Hamas was just yearning to break out from their Egytpian negotiated detente with Israel, and that Israel is still desperate to undermine Hamas’ leadership in Gaza – not to mention the upcoming elections – it was all too obvious that Hamas would provoke Israel, Israel would strike back and collectively punish the Gazans (hoping to get them to abandon Hamas).

Of course, it would be totally naive to think that anything will be meaningfully improved from the Israeli perspective, or if there is some marginal security improvement, that it could possibly be justified in light of the long term security consequences or the widespread death in Gaza. To elaborate on the first point,  in a few weeks, Hamas will gleefully display the bodies of the dead, and as the entire Arab world becomes enraged, Abbas’ position in the West Bank will be undermined as the Palestinian polity (not to mention the Arab one) turns in on itself and any cooperation with Israel from Syria (on which front there had been some promise) will be totally undermined, at least for a while. Considering that the long term security consequences for Israel of this action are surely negative, and yet it’s hard to imagine Israel doing anything else, it seems like there needs to be some external source of pressure to get Israel to do something else. I wonder who that could be?

The San Francisco Chronicle has an informative Google Maps mashup showing murders in Oakland in 2007 and 2007. Besides the horrifyinly large amount of Google Maps pins dotting the map, the interesting take-away is the extreme concentration of homicides. Oakland has a rap for being a dangerous, decaying city, a kind of lower scale Balitmore or Detroit on the Bay. But really, Oakland has extremely dangerous neighborhoods, where the overwhelming majority of murders occur.

If you look at the map, the area North of 580 and South of 13, where, among other things, my family lives (in Piedmont) and where  my old high school is, has had no murders (if you don’t count neighborhoods right on 580). The murders are instead concentrated in two general areas. West Oakland, the area roped off by 80, 880 and the Grove Freeway, and in East Oakland. Of course, these areas – especially East Oakland – make up a large portion of the city, but the main takeaway from the map is how neighborhood based the violence is.

Not shockingly, my friends and I don’t spend a whole lot of time in those parts of the city. Three murders have occurred, however, in a one block radius of my favorite Mexican restaurant, El Taco Zamorano. Apparently the Hell’s Angels bar across the street isn’t doing very well at maintaining order.

Although it is impossible to specify exactly what Man’s greatest technical achievement is, I think that Planet Earth, in Blu Ray, viewd on a 52 inch plasma, is certainly up there.

Jamelle notes that Jeb Bush running for Senate in Florida should put the fear of God in Democrats. After all, here’s a charming, well connected, intelligent, articulate Republican from a big, purple state who will (probably) have a senate term and two non-disastrous gubernatorial terms ready to go for 2016. This all makes Jeb for likely to win and thus implement disastrous conservative policies.

I see it in a slightly different light. Since performance in elections doesn’t have a whole lot to do with whoever is actually nominated, I’d much rather see the GOP coalesce around Jeb Bush rather than Sarah Palin or Mike Huckabee. Of course, the real good time to have realized that Jeb was the sharpest tool in the shed was in 2000, but that’s a different discussion.

So let me try to understand. Caroline Kennedy has made it known to David Paterson that she would like to be appointed senator. She also knows that there are several other New York politicians who would also like to be appointed. Because Kennedy is making her case so doggedly (in private, at least), surely she thinks that she is the best candidate. So, isn’t it weird that she’s foreswearing actually running for the seat in 2010?

Usually, just because a candidate thinks she would be better for the office doesn’t mean that they necessarily should or would take on the incumbent (which is why, say, Hillary won’t run in 2012). But the NY senate election in 2010 will be different. New York Senators, in most cases, have the stamp of approval from various powerful interest groups, fundraisers, and most importantly, the voters. And since senators from NY can raise so much money and get so much media attention, they usually have some sort of record of accomplishment after their first term. That’s why Schumer and Clinton, had she not accepted Secretary of State, would have been senators indefinitely and also why any NY democrat would be foolish to challenge them.

Whoever gets picked by Paterson, however, will not have sought and gained the approval of any interest group, raised money or actually won a statewide Senate election. And, after two years, he or she won’t have much of a profile, little legislative accomplishment, nonunanimous backing of interest groups or the experience of having won a statewide election. If Caroline Kennedy really thinks she’s the best person to represent New York, then she should probably run in 2010 – or at least not make it appear that she’s scared of facing the voters as anything less than a well-monied, establishment supported pseudo-incumbent.

Based on the tone of stories I’ve been reading recently, I’m becoming a bit more optimistic that Patterson won’t give her the seat.

Bill Simmons, earlier today:

Speaking of Hollinger, I need to have him on the B.S. Report in 2009 so we can officially have our Jack-Locke “Lost” debate about statistics and sports. Put it this way: When you create a Power Rankings formula that spits out anything other than “The 27-3 Boston Celtics are the best team in basketball” two months into the season, it’s time to either keep tinkering with that formula until the Celtics are first or to just scrap the whole thing altogether.

And, later tonight:

Golden State Warriors (9-22) 99 – Boston Celtics (27-4) 88

As I’m sure you’ve read, the CIA is distributing viagra to old tribal chiefs in exchange for cooperation and information about where the Taliban is. But maybe some of you haven’t read it, so here’s the best part of the piece:

The Afghan chieftain looked older than his 60-odd years, and his bearded face bore the creases of a man burdened with duties as tribal patriarch and husband to four younger women. His visitor, a CIA officer, saw an opportunity, and reached into his bag for a small gift.

Four blue pills. Viagra.

“Take one of these. You’ll love it,” the officer said. Compliments of Uncle Sam.

The enticement worked. The officer, who described the encounter, returned four days later to an enthusiastic reception. The grinning chief offered up a bonanza of information about Taliban movements and supply routes — followed by a request for more pills.

Apparently, phramaceutical products are better than guns or money because weapons can be lost or sold, while money often leads to ostenatious purchases which lets everyone know that the snitch is working for the US. Also, if a tribal chieftan only needs so much money or so many guns, then their value will decrease over time. If, on the other hand, the CIA can get their assets to become dependent on a drug, then it will be the CIA holding all the cards, while their informants will be desperate to give them information, in hope of getting their favored medication.

And while it’s fun to joke around about this (and yes, it actually is fun. Jesse Singal, my Campus Progress editor probably wins by asking “is this hard power or soft power?”). The question underlying this is whether its right for the United States to be underwriting 60 year old tribal patriarchs having sex with their several younger wives/functionally pieces of property. And while I’m sympathetic to Tim Fernholz’s point that “‘its morally ambiguous power and maybe we should think harder about the consequences of its deployment,” I tend to think that, absent knowing a whole lot more about the surely complex sexual and gender dynamics in Afghan tribal society, we should all probably withold judgment, or at least be very skeptical about any conclusions we reach.

With all that in mind, it’s unclear whether restoring the virility of these 60 year olds is necessarily bad for their wives. While marital rape is a concern (though discerning the difference between consent and nonconsent in such a patriarchal and alien culture may be damn near impossible)*, I also find it hard to believe that the world in which these women’s husband/owner/protector is frustrated by his impotence and subsequent losing face in his community is any better for them. Clearly, life sucks for most women in Afghanistan, and the availability of viagra won’t make much of a difference in comparison to the deep structural issues.

*I’m not saying that there can’t be marital rape in Afghan tribal society, but as Megan Carpenteir puts it (in a discussion with Spackerman that should be read in full) “Nor are — one assumes — operatives on the ground in any position to survey the wives of the warlords to determine whether the dick pill sex is consensual or wanted. Nor do the women in question have the vocabulary — culturally speaking, that is — to likely describe the sex as coercive or forced. In a society in which wives are expected to submit to their husbands and sex is not intended for their benefit or pleasure, nor are their moods or desires taken into account, they probably wouldn’t consider a formerly impotent husband with a handful of Viagra and some impotent time to make up for much more than their unlucky lot in life.” Underlying all of this is that our vocabulary for describing love and sex doesn’t really correspond to what’s going on in Afghanistan.

PS – It’s pretty cool that I’m reading Gravity’s Rainbow as this story breaks. If you’ve read the book (or are familiar with the plot), you’lll get it, but for all the non-Pynchonheads out there, GR is primarily about an American soldier trying to figure out why V2 rocket strikes correspond exactly to a map of London pinpointing his trysts. For those of you with no imagination, this picture captures mostly what the book is about.

Ned wonders why spaceships always have self destruction buttons. Aside from the obvious silliness of having the self destruction sequence be so loud – which is clearly just a cinematic necessity – the real question is whether or not the “advantages of being able to detonate your own ship at any second are surely outweighed by the risks associated with rigging the entire thing with powerful explosives. What if something catches on fire?”

This sounds reasonable enough, but that’s only assuming that the self destruction mechanism is a bunch of “powerful explosives.” The way I understand it, most spaceships (in movies anyway) are powered by some sort of reactor (nuclear or otherwise) that, without many complicated controls and backups, will overheat and explode. To self destruct, then, you merely have to stop controlling the reactor, let it overheat and then have it blow up. Now, there are obviously problems with having such a capability on your ship (what if someone accidently starts it?) but it’s considerably less dangerous than rigging your spacecraft with a bunch of TNT.

I usually find Rick Reilly’s columns to be insufferable, self-righteous and all together horrible. To me, he’s a model of how bad sports writing can be and and indication of the low standards in the field.

His Christmas column tells a story that is actually so inspiring and does such a number on one’s heartstrings that his own cute, predictable writing style can not ruin the story. I’ll put my commentary below the fold.

Read the rest of this entry »

I just feel sorry for conservatives who think that prudishness is the equivalent of art criticism. Seriously guys, you can do better than this.

There’s a horribly sad inevitability to violence in Israel and the occupied territories. As an Egyptian occupied truce between Hamas and Israel has ended, rockets have started to rain down on southern Israel. There haven’t been any deaths, but the Qassams have damaged property and stoked fear in the populace. A reasonable – and justified – reaction to the government of a psuedo-state launching rockets upon your territory is to strike back. And it appears like Israel is planning to do exactly that:

Israel moved closer to invading Gaza, saying Thursday it had wrapped up preparations for a broad offensive after Palestinian militants fired about 100 rockets and mortar shells across the border in two days.

Israel’s foreign minister brushed off a call for restraint from Egypt’s president, and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak made a direct appeal to Gaza’s people to pressure their leaders to stop the barrages. But the attacks showed no signs of ending. By nightfall, three rockets and 15 mortar shells had exploded in Israel.

My question is whether anyone in the Israeli security or political apparatus actually thinks that airstrikes or a ground invasion of Gaza will actually work. And, if they do reduce the rocket attacks, will it be worth the inevitable Palestinian civilian deaths? Especially considering that no Israelis have been injured or killed in the latest rocket barrage? The AP story indicates that most think that this proposed invasion won’t be worth it:

Despite the tough talk, Israel has been reluctant to embark on an offensive liable to exact heavy casualties on both sides. Gaza’s militants operate in crowded civilian areas, and past invasions have not halted the barrages.

I fear that the upcoming election, where both Tzipi Livni and Ehud Barak are going up against superhawk Netanyahu is having a bigger influence on Israeli decision making than actual humanitarian or strategic considerations. It’s rare that a leader will face blame for striking those responsible for launching rocket attacks at their country. And so we have Barak saying that “whoever harms the citizens and soldiers of Israel will pay a heavy price” with Livni adding “Enough is enough, when there’s shooting, there’s a response. Any state would react that way.” Israelis should know best that simply acting as “any state” in such a reactive, unthinking manner isn’t always the best idea. Sure, it may be weird for a state to stoicly face rocket barrages without immediately resorting to a violent response, but it’s unclear if acting in the normal way has made Israel any safer. Perhaps its time to think unconventionally.

I doubt that Quentin Tarantino could think of something so horrific:

A man dressed as Santa who had been having marital problems opened fire at a Christmas party, leaving more than three people dead in a home that then caught fire, authorities said.

Certainly dampens the spirit of the season…

I could write a long, ponderous post explaining how thinking people should all love football (and be proud of it!). That’s because football is by far the most complex major, not too mention the most physically impressive. But, there isn’t a great “in” here, so I’ll just link to this piece in the Toronto Star that defends the sport to a Canadian audience.

I’ll just add that baseball is much less impressive game that football. The weird thing is that I suspect everyone knows this. That’s because baseball is a slow, horribly discrete game, with only individuals facing off against each other, and very few instances of high-level group coordination.

Also, the entire Moneyball snafu put another dent in baseball’s reputation, or at least exposed what most knew to be true. On one hand, the fact that baseball was so easily reduced to some batting and pitching statistics (after all, that’s basically all the sport is) showed just how simple and old fashioned the game was. (As a quick aside, there are very few statistics in football that are good predictors of how good a single player will be. The best defensive backs, for instance, get the fewest interceptions and it’s damn near impossible to tell how good a running back will be based on his performence with a single offensive line.) Even worse, the luddite reaction to the uncontroversial points raised by Beane, Lewis and others put on full display how weirdly anachronistic and cranky many baseball observers were.

The essential nostalgia that underlies the odd fascination with baseball also belied the notion that baseball players – unlike those (black) freaks in football and basketball – were somehow like us. Although baseballers may have better hand eye coordination than we do, someone like Derek Jeter or David Eckstein doesn’t look all that much different from an athletic 28 year old. But this fascination with the supposed averageness of baseball players (or the sub-averageness – David Wells) was really just a facade for what people really liked: home runs. And so McGwire and Sosa started juicing, so that their 50 home run seasons could turn into 60, while Bonds gave up his career as the best five tool player since Willie Mays and became an offensive Superman. The resulting meldorama, which ended up involving Congress and the President, further exposed the lameness of baseball. Not only were all the details of juicy might tawdry (thanks Jose), the results were not all that impressive. Sure, more homeruns were hit, but the essential boringness remained.

All the while, everyone knows that football players are juicing – Shawn Merriman, the 2004 Super Bowl losing Panthers, many New Orleans Saints – and people don’t much care. That’s because football players don’t chemically alter their bodies (and have officials overlook it) in a desperate attempt to make their game something that displays true physical greatness, but instead to make a game which already places absurd mental and physical demands on the world’s most impressive physical specimens all that more impressive. Because football is already such an otherwordly endeavor, just making that much more marginally more unnatural is not something that will bother or surprise anyone.

You, fair reader, will not be blamed for thinking that this is a bunch of hifallutin hand waiving for my own subjective taste. And, in a way, you’re right. The starting point of this rhetorical wandering is that I love football. The next question is whether I’m just creating all sorts of justifications for what is just how I feel, or if there actually is some bundle of clearly delianable reasons for why I love football so. I may also be engaging in the same misleading exercise of John Rawls when he explained what supposedly made baseball so great. The reasons he gives for why baseball is the best of all game merely strike me as reasons why baseball is different from other sports, not necessarily better.

I don’t want to ruin anyone’s Christmas spirit, but I must make two complaints about the Politico.

Say what you will about the necessity of running a banner headline that Obama is hiring lawyers for all this Blagojevich mess, but I understand that there isn’t much news around Christmas time. What makes no sense is the sub-headline that the scandal has been “dominating headlines for a third week.” For one, it’s just redundant. The Politico’s headline is about the scandal, so they hardly need to re-inform us that the scandal is making headlines. But more importantly, this entire mode of reportage – which is favored by purely-political news outlets like Politico - whereby the fact that something could be viewed as important or may be controversial is considered newsworthy, is totally pernicious.

It lets news outlets run scurrilous or misleading stories (saying that Obama picking Summers for Treasury may upset some women’s groups, implying that Obama there’s anything to the Obama-Blago story) without every spelling out why the story is actually important. Last time I checked, news organizations existed to explain why certain events were worth the attention of the public, not to engage in shady, weak willed handwaiving. If a reporter can’t say why a story matters, with the explanation being intrinsic to the events themselves, then the story shouldn’t be run.

The other bit that’s even more egregious is that, in the slideshow accompanying the story, there’s a picture of Jeremiah Wright. I guess there’s a very weak association- Wright, like Blago, is a figure in an “Obama Scandal” – but it’s still a bizarre choice of photo.