Typical. For The Cubs, Anyway

This sort of baseball injury is absolutely hilarious. Only a Cub could do this sort of thing (or let it leak out, anyway).

I will return next week with some thoughts about the movie The Queen and how people understand and interact with history.

For weekend fun, try these fascinating philosophy games. They are a great (and smart) way to make those hours veritably whiz by.

Well, I must be off...my pot roast needs attention. Yes, it's O.K. to drool.

Human, All Too Human

That is the title of a book by Friedrich Nietzsche which oddly describes what the Bears were proved to be last Sunday.

They are only men, faced with a daunting task that they were not prepared to face. Grossman, badgered by the press and woefully patchy, fell (literally, a few times). Cedric Benson, one of the central prongs in our offensive attack was injured early. Our defense, bedraggled by punishingly long drives by the Colts were ragged and tired by the end of the game, not able to force the Colts into mistake.

We were just not up to the challenge. Indianapolis brough their "A" game; we brought cocksurety based on what turned out to be a rather rickety foundation.

As for me, I guess it was all for the best. A World Series Championship for my favorite baseball team followed not even two years later by a Super Bowl for my favorite football team might have upset an understanding that I have with my "sports fan" persona.

For, you see, I have been a Chicago sports fan (excluding the Cubs) for my entire life. I grew up in Chicagoland, worked and went to school in the city and am really tied to the place emotionally in a sense of rootedness, so that for me, Chicago is a "place" and not just a "space."

I learned a lot about life from Chicago sports. I learned that, most of the time, despite your good feelings and devotion, the world will break your heart. I also learned that disappointment is an emotion that can lead, with time, into a certain cavalier, devil-may-care attitude. Hey, I figure, we will probably lose it all, but let's have fun doing it. I am also acutely aware of how no amount of pleading to the god of your choice can change the outcome of such contests; they are measures of skill faced with luck, nothing more.

Yet, I and I suspect many, react emotionally to these matricies of skill and luck, performed by others for the enjoyment and entertainment of all. Why is this? I suspect that it comes from the need to believe in something, to have simple, blind faith in a proposition or a cause. We live in a time and place that suffers from a certain world-weariness, a lack of fascination with the world in general. Most people are interested in escaping the world than encountering it.

Sports give us a reason, well, not to be like this for a while. It allows us to put our faith in the skill and the Fates and let the conflict play out, trying to be amused and gain pleasure in the meantime. For that, I am eternally greatful to sports and to teams that win only occasionally.

I would hate to suffer the hubris of fans of more sucessful (historically, anyway) sporting endeavors. They take pleasure and satisfaction as a given; I, however, take it as something to reach for and sometimes get but mostly not.

To close, am I glad about what happened last Sunday? Of course not.

Would I take back my support if I could? Not on your life.

Go Bears.

A Certain Team From A Certain Town...

...that begins with a "c" ends with an "o" and has "hicag" in the middle.

I expect that you figured I would only be silent about this for so long...consider the silence broken, my friend.

Oh, and by the way, go here for all you Superfans memories, my friend.

What to say about the Bears in a Super Bowl? Did I think it was possible at the beginning of the year? Sure, I always do (when you grow up a Chicago sports fan, hope always springs eternal). When did I think we were for real? Not sure, but Arizona on Monday night, and our performance therein, really showed me what we were made of. The rest of the season, well, apart from the little hiccups against New England and Green Bay (a fluke), could not have been better.

What will it take to win this game? I am no expert (nor am I completely without knowledge), so I will say that a combo of the running games of Thomas Jones and Cedric Benson with a solid Grossman performance and back-up from the D will serve us in good stead. People who are worried about Grossman should read here what Rick Telander had to say. Problems? While people say a lot of nice things about Peyton Manning, and some of them may be true, he will have to contend with some blistering resistance...and there is one more thing...

The Peyton Manning Playoff Choke Factor.

Aside from the main event, this naturally is the reward for years of loyal support on the part of Bears fans, myself included. To see your guys finally in the big show is nothing short of kickass. When I think back on the lean years (Ditka's final years, Dave Wannstead and the eerily emotionless Dick Jauron), all the embarassing seasons while another Midwestern football team seemed so dominant. All those Sundays wondering when the hurting would ever stop.

Well, the time is now.

Oh, and to all the people who doubted us and just hated us for who we are, well, where are your gods now?

As predictions go, and I always hate making these, even nuns say that we are going to win.

FINAL SCORE: CHICAGO 31, INDIANAPOLIS 24

Well, that's about all I have to say apart from...

BEAR DOWN CHICAGO BEARS!

P.S. For great, totally biased Bears coverage, go here, to WBBM, the radio home of the 2006 NFC Champion Chicago Bears (sounds great, don't it?)

Feeling Confused? Just Ask Mao!

Unsure of what the next move is? What your next step should be? Unsure of your place in the cosmos? Can't decide what's for dinner?

Well, your ship has come in...your Chinese Communist ship, that is.

So, why don't you take a "Great Leap Forward" into a new "Cultural Revolution," and ask Chairman Mao himself with the Chairman Mao Saying Generator!

Simply key in your question and the Chairman's wisdom will flow forth like the mighty waters of the Yangtse.

You never know what part of the "Little Red Book" could have the answers, so hit old Mao with your best shot.

I also love, by the way, that the website says that it "takes the stress out of Socialism." My response is you cannot be stressed when you are dead.

Give it a try! The impending victory of Mao Tse-tung Thought is upon us!

Madison's Snow Problem: Too Much, Not Enough, And Echoes Of Bilandic

...and no, I am not talking about the favorite recreational Bolivian export of futures traders, Robert Downey Jr. and Eurotrash everywhere. Although, if you know the right people to ask on Langdon Street...

I am talking about something that we used to be up to our ears in at this point of the year: snow.

South Central Wisconsin got its first appreciable snowfall Saturday and Sunday and this, as you may have guessed, generated something that made me mad. Two things, actually.

First, a question. What is the stupidest thing to do when you have a snow-themed event and you know snow is coming your way. Why, buy sixty dumptrucks full of the stuff beforehand!

I am not joking, for this is what happened to facilitate the "Capital Square Sprints" skiing tournament this weekend. Forget egg on the face of the City of Madison...the sixty trucks of snow are plenty embarassing enough.

They actually had to do this last year for the same event and it causes one to wonder: how much revenue could a skiing tournament possibly generate versus all the money wasted putting it on? How much is generated in revenue for the city and local businesses to make it worthwhile to truck in snow for what amounts a lot of people going around in circles. Maybe it is that I am not a skiing enthusiast (big surprise there, I know), but it seems like a colossal boondoggle that probably operates as a loss for the city.

I will not forget this when, in four years, I make my unsuccessful bid for mayor.

The other story comes this morning, another tale of smart use of public funds. Apparently, Madison is getting GPS tracking for, wait for it, its snowplows. According to the story in the Wisconsin State Journal, this will save money in the long run by cutting running costs, wear on equipment and prevent areas already plowed from being done again.

To plow an area again it must first be done, well, a first time. This sometimes does not happen for days, in a centralized urban area in the state capital of a state where it snows all the time.

Look, Mayor Dave, I'll save you the money and give you some advice. There is an urban area to the southeast of you called Chicago, and there, a very different philosophy prevails on the subject of snowplowing.

For you see, there was a mayor named Michael Bilandic and he basically handed Streets and Sanitation (who oversaw snowplowing) to the Outfit and they promptly pillaged all of the city's funds for snow removal. In a year when there was little snowfall, this would not have been a problem.

Fate, unfortunately, had another card to play for Mr. Bilandic.

On Friday night, January 12, 1979, it began to snow steadily in Chicago. It stopped at 2:00 on Sunday morning, January 14. On top of a ten inch base left over from a storm on New Year's Day were a fresh 20.9 inches of snow. With depleted funds and crews of the sorts of people who don't let their day jobs interfere with their regular lives, the city, rapid transit and all, came to a grinding halt. Garbage piled up, bodies went unburied and rats flourished. Bilandic was powerless to do anything as he watched while his corrupt and inadequate Streets and San crews lumbered throughout the city.

Also fatefully inconvienent for Bilandic was the fact that there was to be a mayoral election in February. When Chicagoans went to the polls, feet still caked in dirty snow, they dealt the mayor a resounding defeat, due in no small part to the corrupt and inept handling of the Blizzard of 1979, as it came to be called.

How did this change things in the metro area, you ask? The minute flakes begin to fall, the plow trucks roll, not like Madison where they wait until it is done, packed down and frozen over to fire up the now GPS equipped plow trucks.

So, Mayor Dave, take a page out of the Chicago playbook...forget GPS and just, well, get out there and plow and salt the roads. Oh yeah, and don't allow the Outfit to get hold of jobs and cash in City Hall. Somehow, I don't see that happening here. Politics are shrill yet boring in Madison, a lot of heat without a lot of light. I guess I like a good and corrupt city government; makes for better reading in the papers.

In your new plowing efforts, why not start with South Franklin Street, hmm?

Would "Go Deep" Work And De-Lurk Already!

Thanks go first to Greg for his always august commentary on the commentary on this site.

Second, following up on yesterday's consideration of Iraq, there was an interesting opinion piece in the Times today by Amir Taheri. In the rubric of proposals dubbed "go big," "go long," or "go home," Taheri suggests an interesting fourth choice: "go deep." Read it here and see what you think.

Lastly, I have been informed by the blogs of a few dear friends that it is National De-Lurking Week in the "blogosphere," a word that I personally dislike.

So, if you regularly stop here (or have unfortunately landed here due to the vagaries of Google), surface, identify yourself and say hello.

Just so you know, you do not need an account with Blogger to leave a comment; on the comment form, simply click "other" and type in your name, pseudonym, prison ID number, whatever.

If you are ashamed that you read my ravings, well, I understand. Really, I do.

What I Think About Iraq

It is the biggest news story of the day (and has been for some time), yet I have barely given it a mention in this space. Why, you ask? We get blitzed by so much information about the situation (or so we think) on a daily basis that the absolutely dire situation on the ground has become so much white noise to us and seemingly to our leadership.

There is some gruesome truth to the words of Josef Stalin: "One death is a tragedy. A million deaths is a statistic."

So, with the risk of oversimplyfying an extraordinarly complex situation, here are two possible scenarios:

• We go with what seems to be President Bush's new plan...the vaunted "surge." We will know for sure on Wednesday, but if press leaks are to be believed (they seem to be one of the few clear channels of communication anymore), Mr. Bush wants to make a final surge with 20,000 new troops to quell the violence in Baghdad, rid the city of Sunni insurgents, Shi'ite militias, Ba'athist loyalists and then get on with the program of rebuilding civil society so that political stability can flourish and our troops can finally come home.
• We go with the plan proposed by the Iraq Study Group and (as it seems) the one supported by the new Democratic majority in Congress. This would not give the president a "blank check" to spend more money and would instead couple phased troop reductions with a diplomatic offensive in the region to attempt to enlist the support of other states in the region in quelling violence and re-establishing some semblance of order, especially in and around Baghdad.

Will either of these new strategies work? Of course not.

Let's take the President Bush plan first, shall we? The notion of a "final push," one last effort by a bewildered fighting force to give it a final go and maybe defeat the enemy is as misguided for overall policy as it is suicidal for the troops involved. 20,000 new troops? From where? Even if we can field this many people, it will be little more than a drop in the roiling bucket that is Baghdad. A final push? When, in modern warfare, has this ever worked? All it will succeed in doing is sending more troops, condemned by this damnable strategy, to the morgue.

Why would the president suggest such a plan? Surely he has heard the heel and cry from all corners, official and otherwise, that this war has no popular support left to fuel it. People from top military brass to Congressional leaders on both sides of the aisle to Henry Kissinger have said that a military victory is impossible. Why then the continued drive to such an elusive victory?

I can say it no better than it was said by MSNBC's Keith Olbermann in a commentary on his show "Countdown" last week. Watch the video here. In fact, peruse the list of all of his special comments here. They are all outstanding.

The president is never wrong. He never apologizes. He is consumed by his own superinflated ego and backed by a vice president who is likely the mastermind behind this total and unmitigated failure. A grim echo of Henry VIII and Cardinal Wolsey, indeed.

What then of the Iraq Study Group plan, and the one that Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid seem to support? Equally unworkable. Diplomatic offensive in the region? To whom will we be dispatching these armies of diplomats? Iran? Saudi Arabia?

The best that could be hoped for diplomatically is to become more engaged in the Israel-Palestine peace process, something that has not occured in the State Department under Condoleeza Rice. What will this do? Maybe nothing, but it sure seems (and when did you ever expect to hear this) that there is a greater chance of success dealing with the Palestinians and their elected leadership (which we wish had not been elected) than, well, whatever else is on offer.

Can Iran be dealt with diplomatically? After all, it has been the case for some time that the dominant political and economic mover in the region is no longer the predominantly Sunni areas led by Saudi Arabia, but the Shi'ite orbit headed by Iran. Years of feeble sanctions and diplomatic buck-passing put us in the situation we are in with Iran and allowed them, with considerable help in the fact that the Soviet Union collapsed when it did, to get the knowledge and materials to go nuclear.

So, no, to answer the question, Iran COULD have been dealt with diplomatically but it is too late for that. Any diplomatic overtures to Iran, seen in the light of their incessant baiting of Israel, will call into jeopardy our relationship with the Israelis, as these overtures will be seen as ignoring Ahmadinejad's Holocaust denial and aggressive nuclear strategy. If anything gets started with Iran it will be by Israel, who has dealt with Iran's funding of Hizbollah for years now. We must prevail on Israel that, despite having a possibly plausible reason for going after Iran, the result could be regional nuclear conflict.

This only scratches the surface and probably does more to confuse you, dear reader, than to clarify things.

What will happen in Iraq in 2007 and beyond? I suspect that we will all be reacquainted with the term and concept of "ethnic cleansing" as the sectarian violence will spread as the Sunni minority in the center of the country is systematically killed or chased off by the Shi'ite majority.

The idea of revenge cannot be forgotten: the majority of the Iraqi poulation are Shi'ites and they lived under the frightful thumb of Saddam Hussein for the better part of 40 years. They are in control and will do everything they can to destroy the Sunnis in their midst.

As this process continues, and the Shi'ite ethnic cleansing spreads west from Baghdad, the country will be split into two halves, one in control of the Shi'ite government in Baghdad and the other by the Kurds in the north. What Sunnis are not killed to forced to flee (creating a refugee crisis elsewhere, possibly in Jordan, Syria or Turkey) will have no part in the real "new" government of Iraq.

This new government, as it will emerge, will at best be a loose confederation of a partitioned Iraq of Kurds in the north and Shi'ites (fully backed by Iran) in the south. At worst, these two partitions will engage in a new cross border war with each other over the terms of the partition and anything resembling the "devolved government" of the new Iraqi constitution. The Shi'ite south will then become nothing more than a client state of Iran, a satellite of the growing power in the region.

This, in turn, could also cause the aformentioned attack by a jittery Israel, seeing an Iran on the march as a credible threat (which it would be). Then comes that regional war that everyone does not want to admit is possible but that, um, really is.

What of the U.S. role in all of this? We can merely serve as a catalyst, an accellerant to the mounting conflict if we continue as we have. Our presence there serves as a short term deterrent and stabilizing factor, but this is the proverbial Band-Aid on the gaping head wound. In the long run, we are not making it better, just helping it to bleed for longer.

So, you are no doubt saying, Will is in favor of cut-and-run now? Not really. What I am saying is that what we are doing now is not working and I doubt that sentencing more innocent U.S. forces to death will make it any better.

What I am saying is that the situation is not ours to direct anymore. This will be decided by Iraqis and Iraqis alone, not anything we decide to do or say. Peace will not come until the machinery of a post-war Iraq can be concieved and then erected, something that will not come soon or at a cheap price in human life.

It is the Iraqis situation to deal with now, not ours. While we cannot wash our hands of responsibility for it, neither can we pretend that we are completely in control anymore. We made our bed in Iraq, but we are no longer welcome to lie in it.

Who is to blame for all of this? Easiest question I have answered yet in this piece. George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz and George Tenet with complicit support from Colin Powell.

Feeling powerless, cornered and friendless is never easy, is it?

We would all do well to consider what this feeling means for us, our country and our world.

If we don't, then it's all over. For all of us. Forever.

Gerald Ford, The Bush Family And What If?

Now that the bunting is down, the crowds have dissipated and the ceremonials are over, what are we to make of the legacy of Gerald R. Ford and the media blitz surrounding his funeral.

Taking the easier question first, the media coverage was, to say the least, extensive. While I would not go as far as Chicago Sun-Times columnist Neil Steinberg in saying that it deserved little or no coverage or observance at all, I would say that equal time needed to be given to all parts of the Ford legacy.

For example, Ford seemed all too willing to bow to wonderful dictators like Pinochet and the Shah of Iran (under the tutelage of Henry Kissinger, no doubt). While this can be said of all presidents (that they deal with people that do not exactly fit our picture of a just and fair leader), Ford did not break the chain. And, as the Guardian points out, Ford can also be seen to be complicit in the East Timor massacre in 1975.

On the positive side, after years of complex, difficult men in the White House (namely Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon), America needed a boring guy from Michigan to calm things down a little. His pardon of Nixon was the supreme act of political self-sacrifice and quelled a potential constitutional crisis of epic proportions.

This was all mentioned in the hours of coverage spanning six entire days.

Then I got to speculating.

I remembered that, during the 1980 presidential election, George H.W. Bush was not Ronald Reagan's first choice for the office of vice president. Care to guess who it was?

Yes, the aforementioned boring guy from Michigan.

During the 198o Republican Convention, when it was sure that Reagan would get the nod, the search for the veep candidate was on. Reagan's first inclination was to offer the job to Ford. Read a reminiscence of the event by a reporter for the Nashville Tennessean here. The deal could not be struck, unfortunately, and the job was given to former CIA director George H.W. Bush.

Here is my speculation. Had Gerald Ford been given the vice presidency in 1980, the political fortunes of the Bush family would have been dealt a significant blow, perhaps even a death blow. G.H.W. Bush perhaps would have ran for the presidency in 1988, but he would have been an obscure figure from years before instead of the vice president of one of the most popular presidents of the 20th century.

With this scenario of a lessened impact of the Bush family on national politics, one naturally extends it to our current president. Given the above scenario, I think that it is entirely possible that he would have never been governor of Texas and certainly not president.

I know that such speculation about the course of history is dangerous and not advised for historians such as myself. But still...

Fun With Flems And Walloons

For a non-Belgian who loves political humor, this story was wonderful indeed.

To sum it up, a report was broadcast over Belgium's French-language radio and television stations (RTBF) last Tuesday that stated that the Flemish-speaking part of Belgium had voted to separate from the rest of the country. Television viewers were greeted with scenes of angry crowds in Antwerp, cars and busses being stopped at the Wallonia (French-speaking)/Flanders (Flemish-speaking) border, politicians discussing the developments and the royal family fleeing the country in a military airplane.

"Whoa," you are saying, "I don't read the news much, but I figure that I would have heard about a European country splitting in half!"

This report, however, was not all that it claimed to be. It was, well, made up. Completely.

This elaborate prank, apparently in the pipeline for two years, was a bit of fun that apparently several Belgian government officials signed on to do and that was engineered to make a point and get a rise out of average Belgians.

Did it work? According to the poll taken, and circumstantial evidence taken by RTBF, 89% of viewers seemed to believe it almost all of the way through the program. That is a lot of people, even for Belgium.

There were the requisite red-faced, indignant responses by other governmental officials and Belgian "talking heads," but it seems that the people, once they realized that it was a joke, laughed and carried on with their business.

Well, what is the bigger lesson to be learned here? In a sense, it is no more than the old admonition to not believe everything you hear. We are so completely dependent on the media, and in most cases far too unquestioning toward what it tells us, that this sort of thing seems plausible.

Add to this the things that people have seen develop live on T.V. (like 9/11), and anything seems possible. Perhaps this was a little shot by some people who work the controls of the media machine to remind people that even they, the masters of media, cannot always be taken at face value. People should know better, but often act as if they don't.

Does this, alternately, say anything about Belgium in particular? In one sense, no, just that Belgians are as dependent and trusting of media in all its forms as people elsewhere. In a less important sense, it is true that there is an active (and vociferous) Flemish separatist movement in Belgium and the relations between the two halves of the country have not always been without problems.

There might have been, therefore, some reason for people to believe that the two halves of the country had decided to separate. Some small reason, for there are considerable roadblocks to such a thing happening.

Just think about it for a moment. Belgium is a constitutional monarchy with some devolved federalism to the two provinces of Flanders and Wallonia. Within the last five years, there have been even more autonomous powers devolved to the linguistic-ethnic groups, powers agreed to by the national assembly and voted upon. For more about the Belgian government (which I know you are dying to read), look here.

What this says is that it would take more than a minority separatist party in the government to effect a constitutional change of this magnitude. Will Belgium ever split into two separate countries? I highly doubt it. It would not be in the best interest of either side to have to establish the infrastructure and international presence to replace that of Belgium.

Historically, Belgium as we know it is really not that old. It was made independent of the Netherlands in 1830, gained a colonial empire through the bloody hands of King Leopold II, was occupied by Germany in both world wars, became a member of NATO and the EU, and has been giving more power to the provinces since the 1970's. For more about recent Belgian history (which you are more excited about than the government), look here.

If the two halves of the country were to split, the major issue would be, as in many breakups, who gets what stuff. In this case, the big question would be "who gets Brussels?" Apart from being the capital of the country, Brussels is the political seat of NATO, the European Commission and the Council of Europe. It would, therefore, come down to what language EU commissioners and bureaucrats would not bother to learn: French or Flemish.

To sum up, it was a funny joke, no-one was hurt (that I know of) and things in Belgium can get back to normal. While there are people who don't want to be Belgian anymore, more still want to keep it all together. A split is not in anyone's interest and is not likely.

The Belgians need to calm down, drink a bunch of the great beer that they brew, and realize that most things on T.V. are just silly and that everyone in Europe is happy to keep balkanization in the Balkans.

Just ask the Serbs.

More Claret, Your Grace?

No one really seems to care if celebrities of the entertainment type get drunk and do assinine things in public. It is, in many ways, part of the monkey dance that we expect of them; they are, after all, entertainers. We find drunks doing idiotic things in unlikely places in various states of injury or undress amusing, comical, entertainment gold.

What if, however, that the famous drunk acting stupidly in public is a celebrity of the religious type?

That is just what happened to Dr. Tom Butler, the Bishop of Southwark in England. Read the version of the story in the Times here. For a more tabloidy take on it, read the account in The Evening Standard here.

For those who don't want to read it (and just because it is so terribly amusing to recount), here's what happened. The bishop was at a Christmas party at (and all of the British news sources took great pains to emphasize this) the Irish Embassy in Belgravia in London. There, he was, ahem, filled with the spirit of Christmas.

Afterward, he left the party and was found inside the back seat of a car parked outside a pub near London Bridge Station. The owners of the car, noticing the intruder, came outside to find the bish throwing their child's stuffed animals around in the back seat. When the car owner opened the door, the bishop tumbled out of the car, already with a large injury on his forehead. He refused an ambulance and then wandered off into the night, eventually making it back to his home in Tooting Bec.

The next morning, at services, he claimed that he was mugged and his briefcase (later recovered among the stuffed animals) and cell phone (not yet recovered) were missing. He also claims to not remember the head wound, the car near London Bridge Station or how he got home. This story does not jazz, however, with witnesses that saw him before he left the embassy, when he was throwing plush toys around or when he staggered off into the night.

Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear.

On a personal level, I would be tempted to say "well, the guy drank too much, blacked out, acted like an idiot and now he must deal with the consequences." I also must point out that, to us in the drinking community, on a personal level, we can all relate.

On the other hand, Dr. Tom Butler is a public figure, a religious leader and apparently (according to the Times story) has a history of being tough on priests in his diocese who drink too much. If you are keeping score, the bish stands accused of lying, breaking an entering (the car), public drunkenness and hypocrisy.

Before proceeding to what I think should happen to this pickled prelate, I must return to the fact that the British press made such a deal about it having started with a party at the Irish Embassy. This is typical, British stereotyping of the Irish proclivity toward drunkenness. I would say "shame on them," but they don't care. It is part of their nature (see, I can use stereotypes too).

Things do not look good for Dr. Tom Butler...as the Times points out, Lambeth Palace will most likely get involved. Archbishop of Canterbury (and Butler's boss) Rowan Williams. There will be inquiries and, seeing that Butler is sixty-six and intended to retire at seventy, he will most likely be leaned on to retire early. The only thing that can save him is other witnesses coming forth to clear him, evidence that he really was mugged or a Christmas miracle (hey, he is a man of the cloth after all).

What does this say about the Church of England? Not much more than it says about any organization who has members that make bad personal choices, really. Just because a board member is a drunk or beats his wife or anything else does not necessarily mean that the company is a sick organization. Unless there was a massive cover-up, or there was a pattern of such occurrences, or because of the former, we do not know about the latter, the C of E will continue on as it has...as a somewhat irrelevant, poorly attended yet entrenched part of the British system and psyche.

More interesting, at least to me, is the reaction of the general public. How to gauge this? First, read the hilarious (and ultimately sympathetic) editorial by Brian O'Hagan in the Telegraph. Then, look at the reader responses below. They are a fascinating window on, well, the opinions on this matter by readers of the Telegraph. What they show are people who, in general, accept that the bish is human, made a mistake and seem willing to forgive. It does not seem to matter to them very much that this happened and they are willing to forgive Butler or to laugh him off.

This could mean one of two things. It could mean that the British are more generous with people like Butler when they make a mistake (which is what they consider it), and as long as he admits to it and apologizes for the attempts at deception, so what if the old fella had a few too many?

On the other hand, it could show just how irrelevant the C of E is to British society in general. It could show that people don't care because, well, the Church does not matter to them and who cares if some old guy in a cassock gets drunk, hurts himself and generally acts like a fool? In a country where only one in fifteen residents attend the C of E weekly and religious belief is in a tailspin, could one come to any other conclusion than that of public apathy mixed with mild amusement about a drunk bishop?

These questions will be (somewhat) answered if Lambeth Palace decides to investigate, but the larger questions about the C of E and British society linger on (as they have for years now).

Also interesting to consider is if this same incident happened in, say, Ireland to a Catholic bishop? Maybe if it happened in the United States to any religiously prominent person? What then? I suspect, at least in the American case, there would be much, MUCH more righteous indignation, howls about the horrors of alcoholism, accusations of clergy pedophilia and other such paroxysms typical of our increasingly therapy-based society.

All I can say for sure is this: this Christmas, if you see a commotion in the back seat of your car and a flume of stuff (possibly even stuffed animals) burbling up from the back seat, don't panic.

It's probably just a drunk Anglican bishop looking for his dignity.

Never Trust The Government With Your Kids

My dear friend, Lost A Sock, wrote a great piece on an absolutely preposterous (and typical) educational initative proposed by Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels.

Read her piece here. For my comments, well, read under "Comments" below the post.

For the original article from the Northwest Indiana Times, read here.

Government really needs to get out of the education business. Now.

STRIKE THE ROOT!

Immediacy: Not Really Possible (For Now, At Least)

I realize that I have not posted in some time. It is crackerjack time in the semester and things are indeed (as ever) coming down to the wire.

I have the following to contend with:

• 10-15 pages on Bertrand Russell, his meeting with Lenin in 1919 and his ultimate rejection of communism and why the hell this matters anyway.
• 15-20 pages on the New Model Army and radicalism in the English Civil War and who did what when, why and why the hell this matters anyway.
• Four pages of diplomatic documents to translate from French to English (and flawlessly, I might add).

How far am I on any of this you ask? I know a little about the first thing, a little more about the second thing and, as for thing number three, well, I know enough to know enough, let's say (an interestingly constructed sentence, I realize).

Plus, as if my bad academia habit was not enough, I am vaguely aware that there is some sort of Christian (or Jewish, perhaps...Hindu?) holiday approaching that I get the sneaking suspicion that I need to give somewhat of a shit about...

Pile on top of that developments in the world as we know it including but not limited to: resignations, civil wars, international Cold War-style intrigue and the Badgers in the Capital One Bowl on the first (screw Arkansas, by the way) followed by a family birthday on the second and doubtless TA training in that week as well leaves me with, oh, about thirty seconds in the next month and a half to think about anything other than school and this aformentioned mystery holiday (is it the commemoration of a forgotten war?...the War of Jenkins Ear, perhaps?)

Come to it, I really have precious little to do for the holiday season. I am only on the hook for five gifts (that I can remember, anyway), and three of these are to my immediate family. Apart from this, I have to send cards to people out of town, go and consume an entire shrimp ring and half-cooler of luke warm Miller Lite at the History Department Holiday reception, and make it onto a bus in two weeks. Not that bad, I know...if you don't count the intervening hours of intellectual horror as I argue, recant, rewrite, question my worth and ultimately "give up" in the process of writing (my version of giving up is like other people finishing, but with a lot more lamenting and gnashing of teeth).

I ask you, what would you rather have? Holiday madness or academic madness? Isn't it all just being fucking insane in the end? Does it matter how you got there? Will you even know it when you arrive?

No need to answer...it will only speed the aformentioned process of insanifying (hey...new word).

Check back soon...there will be something here (Fates willing...)

Oh, and a Happy War of Jenkins Ear Day to you and yours (that's it, isn't it?)

Milton Friedman: 1912-2006

It is never an easy thing when someone that you admire dies. It gives rise to myriad different feelings: appreciation for their inspiration, sadness for the loss of their presence and reflection on their legacy, to name but a few.

These were my feelings in part when I learned of the death of Milton Friedman. Dr. Friedman died at the age of 94 at his home in San Fransisco. Here is the press release from the University of Chicago, with links to other news stories on Friedman's death.

It is easy with a person like Milton Friedman to chalk up all of the accolades. Winner of the 1976 Nobel Prize in Economics. Co-Founder of the Chicago School of Economics. Advisor to leaders around the world from Great Britain and the United States to China and the former Eastern Bloc. Author of tens of books and hundreds of articles on every topic from money supply to school choice, from narcotics policy to consumption, from taxes to military conscription.

It is also easy to point to the changes that a person like Milton Friedman caused in thinking and policy. Countering the Keynesians, Friedman asserted that aggregate demand in an economy does not indeed fall with rising economic fortunes. In other words, Friedman presents a convincing argument that people do not save more when they make more and that demand rises regardless of the overall fortunes of a given economic system. He also famously argued that inflation precedes, rather than follows, changes in the overall economy. This argument, if general trends in the economy are considered, turned out to be spot on. To remedy this, he proposed what became known as the monetarist theory of money supply, which calls for control of money supply which in turn controls large-scale economic factors. Again, this proved to be nothing short of prophetic in its simplicity.

It is also easy, in pursuing these aformentioned easy tasks, to forget the larger implications of Friedman's thought and concept of economics and society. Yet it is in this field where he has been, in my mind, the most profound.

Milton Friedman saw society not in terms of the collective, but in terms of individuals. These individuals are free actors, or they should be: there is often much that stands in their way. Road blocks to the free exercise of human desire and will are erected by the artificial states that claim power over the lives of people. In an attempt to secure their power, they play the role of parent, schoolmaster and policeman, trying to limit the ability of the individual to act as they deem best for their interests.

What arises from such socioeconomic limits? An inherently unfree society that holds the synthetic state in higher esteem than the natural rights of the individual. Governments can only exist if they hold coercive power over the mass of people that they govern; this power is rarely exercised with the best interests of the individual in mind because they run counter to the inherently paranoid nature of state power. In other words, most states as they are could not handle a society of individuals completely free to choose their destiny.

Yet this is perhaps the only societal arrangement where the full rights and dignity of human beings can be protected and exercised. Friedman was not an anarchist, nor am I. The only purpose of the state is to provide a deterrent for those who would infringe on the rights of others. This small enforcement power, excepting all else, is the only proper function for the state. It is not regulation, enforced morality, prohibition, coercion or intrusion. The state should be the servant of the individual, not the master.

Friedman was an unabashed optimist, and so am I. He believed that people are smarter, better informed and at their core more attuned to their desires than any state ever could be. He believed that a society of free people would be not only orderly but humane. I believe this too, and it is through no small contribution of Milton Friedman.

Can we ever live in the world that Friedman envisioned? I certainly hope so, because that is the world in which I want to live. Wouldn't you? We would all do well to understand Milton Friedman and his legacy, for he believed in us to build a more free (and therefore just) society.

Thanks, Dr. Friedman. You helped to show us the way.

Will we be brave enough to take it?

Rumsfeld Out? No Big Shock Here.

This news, while doubtless important, was not really shocking in the least.

The pack has been baying for Rumsfeld's blood for quite some time now. Why, just two days ago, the various publications of the armed forces themselves called for Rumsfeld to go.

This added to the voices that had already been calling for the (for lack of a stronger word) embattled Secretary of Defense to go.

Will there be more shake-ups in the cabinet? Most likely yes, and some of them will not be at the president's behest. With a hostile Congress and time ticking down, many cabinet members will be looking to do some political "profit-taking," getting those cherry lobbying, lecturing, and consultant jobs that doubtlessly await departing cabinet members.

Just think about how many cabinet members left in the second terms of both Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton.

They don't want to go down with the ship when there is a golden life preserver waiting for them on K Street or a university political science department (or sometimes both).

Would you?

I Should Have Had Money On This

Well, I didn't do too bad at all at calling the elections last night. Let's see somewhat of a statistical shake-out...

Gubernatorial Races
Total Predictions Made: 33
Total Correct Predictions: 32
Incorrect Prediction: MN (Maybe Hatch's "Republican Whore" slip wasn't nothing...)
Percentage of Accuracy: 96.97%

Senate Races
Total Predictions Made: 32
Total Correct Predictions: 31
Incorrect Prediction: VA (This race is still close as of Wednesday afternoon...I smell recount...stupid "macaca" factor).
Percentage of Accuracy: 96.86%

We'll have to see about Virginia in the coming days. In a political climate where recounts are almost de rigeur, it is not far-fetched that this resuly may change.

Yes, it is perfectly normal to feel incredibly impressed.

Election Eve Special: U.S. House and Other Races

It would just be silly to predict all of the elections for the House, but I do offer this observation. If a rising tide lifts all boats, then a tidal wave lifts them across land masses.

Where did this "Democratic tide" come from, exactly? I suspect that it is a sentiment of "anyone but Bush" and people figure that voting for the other group of buffoons will make things better...right?

The truth is that I am not sure I believe all of this. It seems to me that our foci need to be elsewhere than picking someone we've never met to do a job we don't understand for money we don't control in a city far away. Sounds like trouble to me...

As for Wisconsin ballot measures: the marriage amendment will sadly pass. This, striking another blow against freedom of choice and the right of gays to be free is embarassing and I hope that I am wrong on this one. As for the death penalty thinggummy, it hardly matters as it is an advisory referendum, but expect it to pass.

Now, get beer, watch TV and see the monkeys dance tomorrow night...

Election Eve Special: Gubernatorial Races

Now, for the state houses...

Incumbent Republican Governors WHO Will Be Re-Elected
Riley-AL (CM)
Schwarzenegger-CA (BB)
Rell-CT (LS)
Perdue-GA (CM)
Lingle-HI (LS)
Heineman-NE (LS)
Carcieri-RI (CM)
Sanford-SC (LS)
Rounds-SD (LS)
Perry-TX (BB...Perry is not popular and has faces serious independent opposition...like Kinky Friedman - Go Kinkster!)
Douglas-VT (CM)

Incumbent Democratic Governors Who Will Be Re-Elected
Napolitano-AZ (LS)
Blagojevich-IL (CM...Blago is months away from trouble...just not now)
Sebellus-KS (CM)
Baldacci-ME (CM)
Granholm-MI (CM)
Lynch-NH (LS)
Richardson-NM (LS)
Henry-OK (LS)
Kulongoski-OR (CM)
Rendell-PA (LS)
Bredesen-TN (CM)
Doyle-WI (BB...I think it will be closer than Doyle would want, but...)
Freudenthal-WY (CM)

Incumbents Who Will Be Unseated (With Opponents)
Maryland- O'Malley (D) def. ERLICH (R) (BB)
Minnesota- Hatch (D) def. PAWLENTY (R) (RT)

Open Seats
Alaska- Palin (D) def. Knowles (R) (CM...maybe)
Arkansas- Beebe (D) def. Hutchinson (R) (BB)
Colorado- Ritter (D) def. Beauprez (R) (CM)
Florida- Crist (R) def. Davis (D) (CM)
Iowa- Culver (D) def. Nussle (CM...weak)
Massachusetts- Patrick (D) def. Healey (R) (CM)
Ohio- Strickland (D) def. Blackwell (R) (CM)

Election Eve Special: U.S. Senate

Here are my calls for the Senate races up for election tomorrow:

Incumbent Republican Senators Who Will Be Re-Elected
Lott-MS (LS)
Kyl-AZ (CM)
Lugar-IN (LS-He is running unopposed...yep.)
Snowe-ME (LS)
Ensign-NV (LS)
Hutchinson-TX (LS)
Hatch-UT (LS)
Allen-VA (RT...actually, razor thin is hardly the word for this call.)
Thomas-WY (LS)

Incumbent Democratic Senators Who Will Be Re-Elected
Feinstein-CA (LS)
Lieberman-CT (CM...I know that he is an independent technically, but, c'mon...)
Carper-DE (LS)
Nelson-FL (LS)
Akaka-HI (LS)
Kennnedy-MA (LS)
Stabenow-MI (CM)
Nelson-NE (LS)
Menendez-NJ (RT)
Bingaman-NM (LS)
Clinton-NY (LS)
Conrad-ND (LS)
Sanders-VT (LS)
Cantwell-WA (LS)
Byrd-WV (LS)
Kohl-WI (LS)

Incumbents That Will Be Unseated (With Opponents)
Missouri - McCaskill (D) def. TALENT (R) (RT...almost too close to call)
Ohio - Brown (D) def. DEWINE (R) (CM)
Pennsylvania - Casey (D) def. SANTORUM (R) (CM)
Rhode Island - Whitehouse (D) def. CHAFEE (R) (CM)

Open Seats
Maryland - Cardin (D) def. Steele (R) (RT)
Minnesota - Klobuchar (D) def. Kennedy (R) (CM)
Tennessee - Corker (R) def. Ford (D) (RT...again, almost too close to call)

Election Eve Special: A Note On Abbreviations

Just to let you know, here are the abbreviations and such that I will use in the above predictions:

STATES: States are denoted using their two letter postal code abbreviation.

PARTIES: "R" is for Republican, "D" is for Democrat...unfortunately, that's about it.

INCUMBENTS: denoted in CAPITAL LETTERS

CONFIDENCE OF PICK: This is based somewhat on polls, somewhat on news and mostly on my prejudices and hunches in looking at races from the outside. LS=Land Slide (I am 50% confident in my choice or higher); CM=Comfortable Margin (I am between 49% and 25% confident); BB=Barn Burner (I am between 24% and 10% confident in my choice); RT=Razor Thin (I am between 9% and 1% sure on these).

I think that does it.

Ready to enter the depths of punditry hell? Let's ride...

Happenstance, I Know. Still...

I, for one, thought that this was great. It is a random generator to determine what the movie of one's life story would be called and the director.

Take'>http://www.quizgalaxy.com/quiz.php?id=68">Take this quiz at QuizGalaxy.com

I will have something real (or as real as elections get anymore) tomorrow.