Month: March 2010

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2010 Final Four Picks

I am going to try doing my bracket two ways this year.  For the office pool, did picks all the way though to the final four.  But I am also going to try to pick one round at a time and see what happens.

My final four for this year are:

Kansas, Brigham Young, Kentucky and Duke.    Kansas to win it all.

Yes, I know that BYU and Duke are long shot picks.  But Duke seems to be in a pretty easy bracket and I don’t much like Syracuse.

I had to make my picks by noon today, and already I should have gone with President Obama who picked Murrary State over Vanderbilt.

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Al Franken, Superhero

Really. 

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According to the Minnesota Independent

As we reported this morning, Sen. Al Franken will be the subject of a new comic book that — unlike the one recently created about Rep. Michele Bachmann — is expected to be largely favorable. The maker of the new book, Bluewater Productions, sends artwork for the cover of the new comic, which is part of its Political Power line of biography comics.

According to Michael Cavna’s Comic Riffs blog in the Washington Post

For its line of political comic books, Bluewater Productions has featured such figures as Michelle Obama, Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin. In May, the publisher will have an entirely new subject.Why? Because — as the old “Saturday Night Live” catchphrase went — he’s Al Franken.

Bluewater announces its bio-comic “Political Power: Al Franken” — to hit comic shops in May — will “trace the senator’s rise ‘from Saturday Night Live’ writer … to radio talk-show host to viable Senate candidate.”

The comic’s writer, Jerome Maida says his research gleaned just how multifaceted Franken is. Maida says he learned that Franken became smitten with comics at a young age and that Franken co-wrote the Meg Ryan/Andy Garcia film “When a Man Loves a Woman,” based it on his own wife’s alcoholism. Maida also notes that his digging showed Franken to be “a real person, a character instead of a caricature.”

Because he’s not just Stuart Smalley.

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March Madness 2010 begins

I have to admit that except for watching North Carolina lose a couple of times and seeing parts of some Big East games, the college basketball season has past me by this year.  Which will not prevent me from filling out my bracket, of course.  But first the news that the NCAA may try to expand the tournament to 96 teams.

Stupid move!  These are supposed to be college students getting a degree not money makers for the NCAA.  Would the idea be to do away with the league tournaments?  Those are exciting and always produce surprise winners.  The NCAA would be better off figuring out how to get the players an allowance in addition to the scholarships – so they have a little pocket money for pizza and to take a girlfriend (or boyfriend) out to a movie like normal college kids. 

George Vecsey wrote recently in the New York Times

It is never a surprise when sports officials act out of greed — the outrageous prices at New York’s two subsidized ballparks, the gouging at the coming World Cup of soccer in South Africa, for example.

Sometimes, I am stunned when people don’t have respect for their own product. I am talking here of the threat to dilute the N.C.A.A. men’s basketball tournament from a compelling 64 in the first round to a ludicrous 96. (The N.C.A.A. counts 65 teams, including the early play-in game, but I prefer to consider that a gimmick.)

This lumbering monstrosity is looming on the horizon because the folks from the N.C.A.A. want to make more television money to not share directly with the players.

The N.C.A.A. is thinking of ruining the tantalizing first days of the tournament, when a great deal of the nation roots for some zippy little No. 16 from a third-tier conference to upset a No. 1 seed. It’s never happened, but we can only hope.

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The first Thursday and Friday are so enjoyable that I like the first round better than the Final Four. Coppin State beat South Carolina once upon a time. Hampton beat Iowa State. Santa Clara beat Arizona. Those are epic moments. Why diminish them with some low-rent first round?

Going into this month’s tournament, a No. 15 team has beaten a No. 2 team four times. I caught one on television — in 1991, when Dick Tarrant’s Richmond team beat Jim Boeheim’s Syracuse team. Nothing against Syracuse. Nothing personal, but it was fun to watch.

And the No. 3 versus No. 14 upsets? Fifteen of them. I’ve caught some of them, including Kevin Mackey sidling up to Bob Knight before the Cleveland State-Indiana game in 1986, saying, “Take it easy on me, big guy,” and Knight predictably going off, knowing Cleveland State was loaded and about to beat him.

No. 13 seeds beating No. 4? Twenty-one of them. I’ve seen Pete Carril’s Princeton team stun the defending champion, as I called it, the University of Catatonia at Los Angeles. It was hilarious, watching the champ trying to figure out the back-door offense. That’s what we want in the opening round.

More network money would produce more games involving the seventh or eighth teams from major conferences — teams that couldn’t even reach the semifinals of their own conference tournament.

Part of the fun is debating who from the bubble makes it and who doesn’t.  And winning a bracket means picking those upsets when 13 beats a 4.  Vecsey is right:  The early games can be the most exciting. 

Vecsey ends perfectly.

Sixty-four is perfect. Or 65, depending on how you count. Just don’t get too greedy.

Let the madness begin!  But let it be the games not the NCAA that is mad.

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Willie Davis, Dodger, and Nomar Garciaparra, Red Sox

I woke up this morning to two surprising pieces of baseball news.  First, Nomar Garciaparra signed a one day contract with the Red Sox so he could retire from baseball as a member of the team.  Then, news that Willie Davis, Dodger centerfielder had died.  Both were great ballplayers who were also complex personalities.

The Boston Globe story describes what happened.

Nomar Garciaparra, who for the better part of seven years was the face of the franchise before his shocking trade in 2004, has come home to the Red Sox.

At his request, the Red Sox today signed the 36-year-old to a minor-league contract at which point he announced his retirement from baseball during a press conference held at City of Palms Park. He was accompanied by his wife, Mia Hamm, and their twin daughters along with his father, Ramon.

“I was getting choked up then, I’m choked up now, and I’ve got the chills,” Garciaparra said.

“But to be able to have that dream come true, I just can’t put it into words what this organization has always meant to me,” an emotional Garciaparra said. “It’s my family, the fans — I always tell people Red Sox Nation is bigger than any nation out there. I came back home, and to be part of Red Sox Nation is truly a thrill.”

During his prime, all the young women I worked with wanted to meet him.  He was “Nomah”.  I don’t know which was more devastating:  His trade or his marriage to Mia Hamm.

Garciaparra walks off the field to a standing ovation during the 1999 MLB All-Star Game played at Fenway Park.

Tony Massarotti has a great piece on Garciaparra.

Most people who follow the Red Sox and the Boston media know much of the history that existed between Garciaparra and reporters, so let’s get this out there: I got along with him better than most, which is hardly to suggest that we’re best friends. We’re not. Garciaparra could be cold enough to walk right past you at a public appearance without acknowledging your existence, kind enough to walk across the room and shake your hand in the same setting. Most of the mistakes he made in Boston were because he did not know how to act, what to say, what to do. In many ways, he was a terrible fit for a place like Boston, where we ask a lot more questions than they do in Dodgertown, Wrigleyville or the Bay Area.

Why do you swing at the first pitch so much, Nomah? What happened on that throw, Nomah? Do you really like it here, Nomah?

Those of us who have always lived here and worked here accept that all as part of the deal. You take the bad with the good. For Garciaparra, it was all a needless reminder of everything that can go wrong, of the things Garciaparra spent far too much of his time thinking about.

As a result, most people saw him as a divisive force when he really wasn’t. Many remember the malcontent at the end of Garciaparra’s time in Boston more than the unbridled enthusiasm of his earlier years. Some see him as part of the problem more than part of the solution.

Remember: the Red Sox were a different team then and Fenway Park was a different place. Frustration had been building for more than 80 years. Lucchino and Co. were learning about Boston as much as we were learning about them, and, along with Pedro Martinez, Garciaparra was the biggest holdover and greatest symbol of a troubled, dysfunctional franchise that just couldn’t seem to get it completely right.

Ever.

Maybe Nomar was just as frustrated with all of that as you were.

Presumably, Garciaparra knows now that there are certain things he will never escape: the rejection of a four-year, $60 million deal that ultimately cost him about $25 million; the injuries to his wrist, legs and Achilles; the disputes with team doctor Arthur Pappas and, later, Lucchino; the never-ending suspicion of steroid use regardless of whether he ever failed any tests; the perpetual feud with the media; the trade that led to a world title; the fact that Alex Rodriguez and Derek Jeter, once regarded as his peers, essentially went on to bigger things without him.

In the wake of all that, some of us choose to remember Garciaparra as a fascinatingly complex ballplayer who was probably in the wrong place at the wrong time, as someone who had trouble coping with relatively ordinary distractions, as someone whose intentions were generally good. At his best, he was a great baseball player. At his worst, he came off as ungrateful and impossible.

In the middle, he really wasn’t much different from anyone else.

And then there was Willie Davis who died at 69.  To be honest, I didn’t know he was that close to my age when I was such a fan.  That Dodger team:  Koufax, Drysdale, Podres, Gilliam, Wills and Davis.  I loved that team.  That was back when I was a loyal Dodger fam – even after they left Brooklyn.  That team won with pitching and speed.

The New York Times has his obituary today.

Frank McCourt, the owner of the Dodgers, said in a statement that Davis was “one of the most talented players ever to wear a Dodgers uniform.” Davis played 14 seasons for the Dodgers, on teams that were almost immediately the stuff of legend. Among his teammates were Sandy Koufax, Don Drysdale and Maury Wills. His 31-game hitting streak in 1969 is still a team record. It was the longest streak in the majors since Dom DiMaggio’s 34 games in 1949 for the Boston Red Sox.

Davis holds six other Los Angeles Dodgers records, including hits (2,091), extra-base hits (585), at-bats (7,495), runs (1,004), triples (110) and total bases (3,094).

Davis lifetime batting average was .279, and he had a total of 398 stolen bases. He made it to the major leagues in 1960 and retired after the 1979 season.

Over his career, he played more than 2,200 games in center field, was a two-time All-Star and a three-time Gold Glove winner for his defense. He won World Series rings in 1963 and 1965, stealing three bases in Game 5 of the 1965 Series. On one steal, he had to crawl into second base after stumbling and falling.

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William Henry Davis was born on April 15, 1940, in Mineral Springs, Ark. His family moved to Los Angeles, where he became a world-class track star at Roosevelt High School. He once ran a 9.5-second 100-yard dash and set a city record in the long jump.

The Dodgers signed him after he graduated in 1958. Playing the next year for the Reno Silver Sox, a Class C minor league team, he scored from first base on a single nine times in one season.

He made his debut with the Dodgers in 1960, and combined with Wills to dazzle the National League with speed. Some called Davis the second coming of Willie Mays. He had a career-high 42 stolen bases in 1964. Dodgers fans loved how his hat flew off when he ran.

He was, in many ways, like Nomar.  Not a media favorite.

But he was a loner who sometimes chanted Buddhist mantras before and after games.

For all his speed and obvious ability, sportswriters sometimes questioned why Davis was not even better. Jim Murray, the syndicated sports columnist for The Los Angeles Times, suggested that Davis had tinkered with his batting stance too much.

“Willie, you see, did imitations,” Murray wrote. “The only way you could tell it wasn’t Stan Musial was when he popped up.”

I will remember Willie in centerfield and Nomar at short.  Different teams and different eras, but two ballplayers who played hard, played well, and in the end just wanted to be known for their game.  And it doesn’t really matter what other teams they played for because Willie is always a Dodger and Nomar is now always a Red Sox.

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Union negotiations and health care benefits

Next week my bargaining unit will have an all employee meeting to prepare for bargaining for a new contract.  Our current contract, like a lot of city contracts, ends September 30.  So what will be the most contentious issues:  Wages and Health Care.

Last year, we narrowly voted to support the Mayor by putting off a scheduled 2.5% raise what was to be effective at the beginning of the current contract year.  What will happen to that raise?  We gave up money under the general threat of layoffs – a ridiculous proposition in my unit which is about 95% federally funded and with stimulus funds to hand out, we are swimming in money compared to general funded agencies like the libraries, police and  schools.  The teachers and police, by the way, voted against a freeze and no one was laid off – at least not yet.  I judge our changes of getting any kind of COLA to be slim to none – except maybe that elusive 2.5%.

So that leaves health care benefits.  I admit we do have a great deal.  The employee paid part is low and the co-pays small but it does cost the city a bundle.   This is a chart from the Boston Globe.

Looking at the chart it makes sense that we would agree to joing GIC.  And certainly retirees whould join Medicaid.  (My bargaining unit agreed to that last year for future retirees.)  But here are the political problems.

Sean Murphy, in his series of Globe articles, writes

Public employee unions are leery of changes to municipal health care plans.

Brad Tenney, secretary-treasurer of the Professional Fire Fighters of Massachusetts, an umbrella group of local unions, said his members are willing to “sit down with leaders on Beacon Hill and in the municipalities to reach a meeting of the minds.’’

“We recognize the significant cost of health care,’’ he said. “But we feel it is unfair to look at health insurance in a vacuum. Members gave up pay raises or accepted smaller pay raises through the years for the health care benefits they have.’’

Public employee unions and retiree groups, which make generous donations to the treasuries of many state officer-holders, are well-connected on Beacon Hill.

In brief interviews on Monday, House Speaker Robert DeLeo and Senate President Therese Murray expressed little desire to strip union employees of long-held collective bargaining rights. Murray also said she did not believe the GIC was capable of accepting cities and towns without increasing its staff.

The GIC provides health insurance for about 300,000 state employees, retirees, and elected officials, including employees and retirees of numerous independent authorities. State law allows the GIC to adjust the amounts subscribers pay in premiums and copayments without union negotiations.

I think that last sentence is at the heart of why a lot of unions, including mine, are reluctant to endorse the move to GIC, but I think it will be a big part of the bargaining this year.  I also think Tenney has it right that health insurance isn’t something to be looked at in a vacuum.  I was on the bargaining team last round and we worked very hard to make sure that the combination of wage increases and health care costs did not result in a negative amount for any employees.

Kevin Cullen sums it all up in his column in the Sunday Globe

In the case of cities and towns, we taxpayers are the owners, and we’ve got no gun. Taxes come out of a spigot we can’t shut off. And if we don’t pay taxes, we’ll be escorted to jail by some guy whose health plan we’re paying for. The idea that taxpayers are forced to underwrite health care plans that the vast majority of us can only dream about is more than galling.

But aside from being good doobies, and in some cases averting layoffs, what’s the incentive for the unions to give up their benefits?

Before you go bashing the unions, which is irresistible in this case, would you, short of having that gun to your head, give up benefits?

After Murphy’s stories ran, the Boston Foundation put out a report saying that the only way we can stave off the financial ruin of many cities and towns is for the Legislature to stand up to the vested interests and change the law, forcing municipal employees to shoulder more of their health care costs. The report also urged mayors and other municipal executives to force retirees onto Medicare at 65.

So the financial solvency of many cities and towns rests on the premise that politicians will do the right, as opposed to the expedient, thing by going after two of the most politically active demographic groups in the state, the unions and retirees.

God help us.

Murphy’s stories have caused understandable anger. But they should also cause everybody to pick up the phone and tell the pols in Washington they have to put aside the ridiculous charade that has passed for debate and produce something that will improve the way health care gets doled out and, just as important, rein in runaway costs.

It is hard to say what will happen with municipal unions.  I have a feeling that since we can’t strike, we will be working without a contract for a while.  But there is some hope.  The workers from one of the largest supermarket chains have announced just a short while ago that a strike had been avoided.

Grocery workers this morning approved a new contract with Stop & Shop Supermarket Co., ending months of tense negotiations and averting a threatened strike.

A day after reaching a tentative agreement with the supermarket chain, some 2,000 union members agreed to a three-year deal that will boost wages and preserve benefits, said a spokesman for the area branch of the United Food and Commercial Workers.

“Through the hard work of negotiators, we were able to reach an agreement that maintained our great health and pension benefits and provided general wage increases,” said Jim Carvalho, a spokesman for UFCW Local 1445, which represents 36,000 Stop & Shop employees in southern New England.

So maybe there is hope.  And the bottom line is everyone should have access to the kind of benefits government workers have.

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Gordon Brown, Tory Madrasas, and the British Elections

I listen to BBC radio sometimes at night before I go to sleep and was surprised a couple of days ago to hear story that Gordon Brown and the Labour party may actually do well in the upcoming elections.  Then I read this story in today’s Washington Post.  Anthony Faiola writes

Only a few months ago, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown seemed a figure living out a Shakespearean tragedy. An ill-tempered Caesar surrounded by disloyal aides, an out-of-touch King Lear about to lose his throne. But Brown may not yet be ready to make his curtain call.

In fact, the dour Scotsman is staging an unlikely comeback, with his Labor Party rebounding in opinion polls only weeks ahead of a general election. Depending on the poll, Labor is clawing back from a 20 percentage-point deficit last year to within two to six points of the opposition Conservative Party, led by the eloquent and fresh-faced David Cameron.

Though Labor is still trailing in the polls, the party’s defeat after 13 years in power is no longer a foregone conclusion here. And Brown, long seen as far more clumsy and ham-handed than his flashy predecessor, Tony Blair, has recently been garnering rare praise. On Friday, pundits said Brown was more empathetic and politically skilled in answering tough questions before a high-level inquiry on the Iraq war here than Blair was when he appeared before the commission in January.

Yet the biggest reason for the new momentum of the incumbent party in Britain may hearten the Democratic Party in the United States. More than anything else, analysts attribute Labor’s recent rebound not to Brown himself but to the nascent economic recovery here.

There seems to be agreement that Brown also helped himself and Labour with his testimony yesterday before the British panel looking into the Iraq War.  The Guardian story by Patrick Wintour was a bit surprised at Brown’s performance.

Gordon Brown took a major political gamble yesterday by describing Tony Blair‘s decision to go to war in Iraq as “the right decision for the right reasons” and insisting that “everything that Mr Blair did during this period, he did properly”.

Dogged by a reputation for disowning unpopular decisions, Brown used his appearance at the Chilcot inquiry into the Iraq war to deliver a firm defence of Britain joining the US-led invasion, a decision taken and executed when Blair was prime minister and Brown was chancellor.

In his most prolonged inquisition on Iraq since the invasion seven years ago, Brown accepted he had been fully involved in the run-up to the invasion, underlined the gravity of going to war, praised the military and, unlike Blair, expressed his sadness at the huge loss of civilian life in Iraq. His only major equivocation was regret at the way in which he had failed to persuade the Americans to handle the aftermath differently.

The New York Times offers essentially the same facts with a little more color

The hearing was billed as a defining opportunity for Britain to get some answers on the war from Mr. Brown, who as finance minister was the most senior member in the cabinet of his predecessor, Tony Blair. But he kept an even keel and dodged the type of knockout blow that could have hurt him in the national elections widely believed to be coming in May. He reaffirmed the rationale for entering the war while taking care to pay respects repeatedly to the dead and rebuffing critics who accused the Treasury of underfinancing the military during the war.

After his final statement, Mr. Brown let loose with a rare public smile, apparently sending a message that he had nothing to hide and had done nothing to apologize for. As he walked out the front door of the conference center, he took care to shake the hand of a security guard — a marked contrast to an embarrassing moment a year ago when he failed to shake hands, as President Obama had, with a guard at the door of 10 Downing Street. His appearance also contrasted sharply with that of Mr. Blair, who entered the building in secret during his hearing this year to avoid the many protesters who blamed him for Britain’s involvement in the war.

While Brown is busy rehabilitating his dour Scots image and helping Labour, the Conservative candidates are busy studying at a Tory Madrasa according to the Guardian. 

Tory parliamentary candidates have undergone training by a rightwing group whose leadership has described the NHS [National Health Service] as “the biggest waste of money in the UK”, claimed global warming is “a scam” and suggested that the waterboarding of prisoners can be justified.

At least 11 prospective Tory candidates, an estimated seven of whom have a reasonable chance of winning their seats, have been delegates or speakers at training conferences run by the Young Britons’ Foundation, which claims to have trained 2,500 Conservative party activists.

The YBF chief executive, Donal Blaney, who runs the courses on media training and policy, has called for environmental protesters who trespass to be “shot down” by the police and that Britain should have a US-style liberal firearms policy. In an article on his own website, entitled Scrap the NHS, not just targets, he wrote: “Would it not now be better to say that the NHS – in its current incarnation – is finished?”

Blaney has described the YBF as “a Conservative madrasa” that radicalises young Tories. Programmes have included trips to meet neo-conservative groups in the US and to a shooting range in Virginia to fire submachine guns and assault rifles.

The group’s close ties to the Tories were cemented this week when the Conservative party chairman, Eric Pickles, and the shadow defence secretary, Liam Fox, spoke at the annual YBF parliamentary rally at the House of Commons, which was chaired by Blaney.

I wonder what David Cameron, the Conservative leader, thinks.

Eric Pickles at the Tory conference

The picture is of the Conservative Party Chairman, Eric Pickles, speaking at a Young Briton’s rally, kinda like Cantor or Boehner at a tea party I think.  I had to include his picture because he reminds me of Karl Rove even though he is their Michael Steele.

The elections have to be called for sometime before June and it should be interesting.  Democrats take heart – and pass Health Care Reform.

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The Myth of Majority

Nate Silver has posted an interesting chart on fivethirtyeight.com.  He points out that both FDR and LBJ had larger Congressional majorities when they were trying to legislate the New Deal and the Great Society.  And given that they also struggled with Congress, maybe Obama isn’t doing too badly. 

Silver points out

When F.D.R. took over the Presidency in 1933, the Democrats controlled 64 percent of the Senate seats and 73 percent (!) of the House seats, counting independents who were sympathetic to the party. And those numbers only increased over the next couple of midterms — during their peak during 1937-38, the Demorats [sic] actually controlled about 80 percent (!) of the seats in both chambers. Obama, by contrast, came into his term with 59 percent majorities in both chambers. That’s not much to complain about by the standards of recent Presidencies, but is nevertheless a long way from where F.D.R. stood during his first two terms, or for that matter where L.B.J.’s numbers were during the 1965-66 period, when the bulk of the Great Society programs were implemented.

F.D.R. and L.B.J. might have been great cleanup hitters — and you’ll get no argument from me that Obama’s aptitude at shepherding his agenda through Congress has been mixed, at best. But they basically spent the first several years of their Presidencies playing in the Congressional equivalent of Coors Field. Considering how dramatic the impact of the loss of just one Senate seat has been on both the perception and the reality of Obama’s agenda, that needs to be kept in mind when drawing the comparison.

Why hasn’t anyone pointed this out before?  We just all talk about Obama’s majority.

For non baseball fans, Coors Field is the archetype of a  hitter’s ballpark.

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Passing health care

It seems pretty obvious that neither the Blair House summit nor the inclusion of some of the Republican suggestions have gained health care reform any Republican votes.  So how exactly can the bill pass?

Here is a diagram from today’s Washington Post

The President never used the term reconciliation in his remarks presenting his plan, but I think it was pretty clear what he meant.  According to the New York Times story

Wednesday’s remarks, made to a group of sympathetic medical professionals, many of them clad in traditional white lab coats, marked Mr. Obama’s entry into the end game of Washington’s long and divisive health care debate. With Republicans unified in opposition to the measure, Mr. Obama used his appearance to make the case to the public that while he is willing to accept Republican ideas, starting over, as Republicans are demanding, does not make sense.

He called on Democrats to stick with him.

“This has been a long and wrenching debate,” Mr. Obama said, adding that while health care “easily lends itself to demagoguery and political gamesmanship,” that is no reason “for those of us who were sent here to lead to just walk away.”

The President’s proposals would be shaped into legislation and then included in the bill by the House Rules Committee, but I guess that Representative Boehner doesn’t understand how the process works because he is now complaining that the President’s bill is “too short.”   I know that Representative Cantor thinks the bills passed by the House and Senate are too long.  Guess the Republicans will complain no matter what the length of any Democratic bill or Democratic proposal.

The health care bill is not going to make everyone 100% happy,  (Where’s the public option?) but the important thing is to make a start.  We are still tinkering with Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid and we can do the same with health care reform.  And one final thought:  I think the Democrats will do much better in the fall elections if they have an actual bill they can explain and sell – especially if they pass it with no Republican support.