February 24, 2010

        Three magic words echo on grassy fields in Florida and Arizona this week: "Pitchers and catchers."      They'll start playing exhibition games next week and real ones in April.  I know that more Americans love football and maybe hoops, but for me baseball has always been the magical game.  Maybe it's because it's timeless;  the clock never beats you;  the other team does.  Maybe it's because we've been playing it so long--more than a century as an organized professional sport.  Whatever the reason, it's the one that's got me hooked.      That's especially pathetic because of the team I root for.  I grew up in and around Chicago and I root, for my sins, for the Cubs.  They own what must be the longest losing streak in any professional sport.  They last won the World Series in 1908--a hundred and two years ago;  last won the pennant--this was back when there were two eight-team leagues, not the divisions we have today--in 1945, more than half a century ago;  lost the Series, if memory serves, to the Tigers in seven games.  I can still remember players on that team--"Swish" Nicholson, nicknamed for the sound his bat made when it missed the ball, Stan Hack, no hacker at all but a gifted third baseman, and so on.      People call them "Lovable Losers," but I never found losing lovable myself. They do have a wonderful ballpark, Wrigley Field.  The old ones--Wrigley, Fenway--seem to have more character than the new ones.      Anyway, here we go again.  This Cubs fan will be rooting again--hopeful and hopeless, all mixed up.  As usual.
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February 24, 2010

        Three magic words echo on grassy fields in Florida and Arizona this week: "Pitchers and catchers."      They'll start playing exhibition games next week and real ones in April.  I know that more Americans love football and maybe hoops, but for me baseball has always been the magical game.  Maybe it's because it's timeless;  the clock never beats you;  the other team does.  Maybe it's because we've been playing it so long--more than a century as an organized professional sport.  Whatever the reason, it's the one that's got me hooked.      That's especially pathetic because of the team I root for.  I grew up in and around Chicago and I root, for my sins, for the Cubs.  They own what must be the longest losing streak in any professional sport.  They last won the World Series in 1908--a hundred and two years ago;  last won the pennant--this was back when there were two eight-team leagues, not the divisions we have today--in 1945, more than half a century ago;  lost the Series, if memory serves, to the Tigers in seven games.  I can still remember players on that team--"Swish" Nicholson, nicknamed for the sound his bat made when it missed the ball, Stan Hack, no hacker at all but a gifted third baseman, and so on.      People call them "Lovable Losers," but I never found losing lovable myself. They do have a wonderful ballpark, Wrigley Field.  The old ones--Wrigley, Fenway--seem to have more character than the new ones.      Anyway, here we go again.  This Cubs fan will be rooting again--hopeful and hopeless, all mixed up.  As usual.
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February 22, 2010

I announce with some regret the end of the Palin Phenomenon.  

 

     How do I know? Because at this past weekend's Conservative Political Actiom Conference the winner of the presidential preference poll was libertarian Republican Cong. Ron Paul of Texas. He got 1% of the vote. Former Mass. Gov. Mitt Romney was second at 22% and Gov. Palin was third with 7%. 7%b of this very conservative group? Honey, face it, you ain't gonna be president, or even a presidential nominee. For a candidate with your beliefs, that kind of finish with this kind of crowd means it's over.

 

     But who does that leave? Paul seems like a long shot; I'd bet half the U.S. voters don't even know who he is  Romney? His father, also a governor, was a moderate, back when we still had them. He's often been accused by those who dislike moderation, of being moderate himself. I don't know where the colnsercatives go now, but if I were President Obama's political advisor, I'd say we'd had a pretty good week.

 

     I liked Palin. She was funny. I'm not sure why being able to see Russia from your front porch made you wiser about the place, but I guess she thought it did. And I never understood why she didn't answer when Katie Couric asked her what major newspapers she read. I mean, the answer most candidates are taught is, "The Times and the Post, of course." whether they've ever read either one or not.

 

     But I kind of liked the idea of a hockey mom in the White House. A rink in the front yard on Pennsylvania Ave,., maybe? And the rest of the field sure doesn't look too swell. 

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February 21, 2010

      Indiana Democrat Evan Bayh, who's leaving the U.S. Senate, has an excellent column in the New York Times today explaining why.  A lot of his reasons--partisanship, reckless use of the filibuster and so on--have been mentioned before in this space, but it's nice to hear them from someone who's actually been in the club.       But perhaps simple lack of civility is at the heart of it.  Bayh's father Birch, also an Indiana Democrat, was in the Senate from 1963 to 1981.  "One incident," Evan Bayh writes, "vividly demonstrates how times have changed.  In 1968, when my father was running for reelection, Everett Dirksen, the Republican leader, approached him on the Senate floor, put his arm around my dad's shoulder, and asked what he could do to help. That," Bayh writes, "is unimaginable today."      That's true and very sad.  I covered the Senate some back then, and they really did like each other.  Ted Kennedy, as liberal a liberal as there was, had conservative Republican friends.  "Members of Congress from both parties, along with their families, would routinely visit our home for dinner or the holidays. This...hardly ever happens today, and we are the poorer for it."  Got that right, Senator.      Bayh has some suggestions for making the Senate a better place too.  A monthly lunch of all senators, both parties, where they could discuss an issue. Doing something about campaign costs, too.  In his dad's time, he writes, the rule was legislate for four years, campaign for two.  Now you have to campaign all the time.      Bayh's solution is to leave and I wish him well.  But the Senate needs to get serious about self-improvement.  Do something, folks. Please.  
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February 19, 2010

            Tiger Woods apologized to his wife and children--fair enough.  He behaved badly toward them, probably hurt them a lot and owes them an apology.       He went on to apologize to the rest of is--his fans, the country.  I don't think he needed to do that.      First, his sins were private.  If an athlete's performance suffers because he's drunk or using drugs or whatever--sure he owes the fans an apology.  But Woods' sins had nothing to do with the golf course.  People who came to see him came to watch the best golfer in the world.  And they did.      Second, his sins were not unusual.  If all the men and women in America who've ever cheated on a spouse lined up to apologize, my guess is that the wait would be days and the line would stretch from here to, say, Utah and maybe back again.      So welcome back to the golf course, Mr. Woods;  you were the best before and there's no reason you shouldn't be the best again.  For the rest of it, who knows?  A lot of us have been in very painful marital and/or moral situations.  Sometimes they mend themselves.  I hope yours does.  Sometime they don't.  And there's no way in the world to know how any of these private agonies will turn out. 
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February 16 CORRECTION

   John McCain isn't retiring. He does face a tough primary challenge from a conservative Republican, J.D. Hawworth.

 

    

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February 16, 2010

       Democratic Senator Evan Bayh of Indiana is retiring.  So is Democrat Chris Dodd of Connecticut.  Both men followed their fathers into the Senate.  You can't inherit a seat, of course, but if your father has one, you probably grow up with a pretty good idea of how to get one.      I think, as regular readers know, that the Senate doesn't work very well these days, so I was struck by some of the things Bayh said announcing his departure. "Congress is not operating as it should," Bayh said.  "The people's business is not getting done."  He's got that just exactly right.      Why?  Because it's getting harder and harder to be a moderate, as Bayh is. CNN's Gloria Borger said Bayh "feels that he doesn't have much of a home in the Democratic party anymore.  Just as much as we see see the centrists in the Republican party shrinking, you also see the centrists in the Democratic party shrinking.  I think these folks are looking for a home."  And of course Republican John McCain of Arizona is retiring too.  Not a centrist, of course, but not an orthodox conservative either.      What happens in a legislature with more conservatives, more liberals, and fewer moderates is that gets harder and harder to compromise, and compromises are how you legislate.  Sorry, Senate.  Hard times ahead.   And for that matter...Sorry, America.
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February 14, 2009

       Let's hear it for "retarded."  Let's keep it in the language.      This silliness started, you'll recall, when White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel denounced liberals unhappy with the administration's record on health control as "f--king retarded."  Nobody seems to have minded the f-word, but people objected to "retarded."  The Washington Post reported that nearly 60,000 people have signed a pledge:  "I pledge and support the elimination of the derogatory use of the r-word from everyday speech and promote the acceptance and inclusion of "people with intellectual disabilities."      Hunh?  The substitute is longer, clumsier than the original and means, as far as I can tell, exactly the same thing.  Why bother?  Some people are intellectually handicapped. (Can we still say that?) Or disadvantaged, or whatever.  Why can't we have a single word, instead of a phrase, which describes them?      Sure, "retard" as a noun can be used as an insult but so can "flagwaver" and "knee-jerk liberal" and many more.  So what?      Years ago Dan Rather started signing off his CBS Evening News broadcast with the word "Courage."  One of the producers, speaking for many of us, finally told Dan that sounded a bit odd, and wouldn't he stop.  Dan answered "It's a perfectly good word."  The producer said, "So is f--k, but we don't use it on the air."      Dan stopped.  But I hope "retarded" lives.  It's a good word with a perfectly clear meaning.  Long may it sound.  
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February 11, 2010

      Odd, interesting anniversary this week.  Britain's Queen Elizabeth II
assumed the throne back in 1952, when she was twenty-five.  Dwight
Eisenhower was president.  TV was black and white.  It was a long, long
time ago.  She's in her eighties now.  Though she hasn't reigned as long
as Victoria, who held the throne for more than sixty years, she's been
there a while.       British monarchs don't govern, of course, don't run
the country.  Prime ministers do that.  But the monarchs do meet regularly
with the PM of the day and if they like politics and government, what
wonderful advisors they must be.  It's as if President Obama could meet
with, say, John Foster Dulles, Eisenhower's Secretary of State, and ask his
advice about Iraq.      We don't have anything like that here.
Administrations come and go, and usually assume their predecessors were
fools or knaves or both.   I don't know whether Elizabeth takes the kind of
interest in government that would make her advice valuable.  She seems a
serious sort, so she probably does.       Anyway, happy anniversary,
Majesty.  What did the Vulcans used to say?  "Live long and prosper."  But,
of course, you have.
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February 9, 2009

         There's a wonderful Tom Toles cartoon in the Washington Post
today showing  a snowbound city with a TV reporter saying, "Washington is
frozen solid into a giant block of ice where nothing can advance, move or
happen," and a voice from the Capitol saying, "At last an excuse."  That
seems about right.      The stimulus bill passed but health care didn't,
nor immigration reform, nor...well, I could go on.  The Senate seems
particularly paralyzed.  Filibusters used to be rare, now they are
everyday--you need sixty votes to get permission to sneeze. just about, and
the Democrats don't have sixty anymore.  Many House districts seem more
partisan--producing conservative Republicans, liberal Democrats and fewer
moderates interested in compromise.  And the big storm has made everything
worse, of course. Transportation stalled, even walking is tricky.  And the
forecasters are calling for another ten to fifteen inches today and
tomorrow. Washington simply can't cope with that much snow.  Detroit or
Chicago maybe.  Not here.      On the other hand, there was one bit of good
news this morning.  Democracy may be snowbound here, but in Ukraine they
seem to have had a genuine election.  Nobody knew who was going to win.
It's not the sort of thing Vladimir Putin would allow next door in Russia,
but in Ukraine it seems to have worked.      I wonder how much snow they've
had.  Maybe we could send them plows. Or Congress.
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February 7, 2010

         I'm still under the bed.
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February 5, 2010

       "Poor, wee, cowerin'  timorous beastie--oh, what a panic's in thy
breastie!" Scots poet Robert Burns was writing about a mouse, but nowadays
we know that he was really describing the city of Washington, D.C., facing
a major blizzard, as we now are.      I grew up in Chicago, where snow was
an accepted part of winter.  Schools didn't close, as I remember, parents
went off to work as usual;  life didn't change much.  Not here.  We don't
get big snow very often--about two feet is what they're forecasting for
this one--and when we do, we're not very good at it.      We're not quick
at clearing our sidewalks, our streets.  Schools close before the first
flake falls--many are closed today and it hasn't started yet;  we'll be
lucky if the Fire Department stays open.  It won't affect Big Government,
of course. Mr. Obama can call out the U.S. Marines to shovel the White
House driveway, if he wants.      But the rest of use?  Forget it.  I'll be
under the bed if you need me.
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February 2, 2010

 

    

 

 

     "Fly me to the moon," the old song begins.  But if President Obama has his way they may want to change the second line to "but not anytime soon."  The president in his budget cancels a Bush-era program that would have put humans back on the moon by 2020.  The budget calls for a halt in the Constellation program, the rockets and spacecraft which would have returned people to the moon, a program announced by President George W. Bush after the loss of the space shuttle Columbia in 2003.

 

     Future travel--back to the moon, to Mars--would be international, like the Space Station.  This would presumably be cheaper, but also more complicated and slower.  With the Ares rocket cancelled, NASA would have no backup if commercial companies couldn't ferry astronauts to the space station. 

 

     But do we need to go back to the moon?  I remember the excitement of the first landing--Apollo 11, back in 1969.  CBS News, for which I then worked, stayed on the air the whole time Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin stayed on the moon.  It was a huge story.  That was so long ago you watched it, if you're that old, on black white TV.  But the excitement ebbed and indeed NASA canceled the last few lunar landings--been there, done that, I guess.  It was, as Armstrong said, "a giant leap for all mankind."  But it got old.

 

     Should we go back?  Someday, if we can afford it.  And Mars would be exciting, no doubt about that.  But now, with two wars ongoing and the economy in trouble?  Put the canvas over the launch pad, guys, the president is probably right.   

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February 1, 2010

         Howell Raines reminds us in today's New York Times that it was
just fifty years ago today--February 1st, 1960--that four young college
students sat down at a Woolworth's dime store lunch counter in Greensboro,
N.C. for coffee and donuts. They were refused service because they were
black.      The four--Franklin McCain, Ezell Blair, Jr., David Richmond and
Joe McNell--politely declined to move when they were refused service,
became part of history and with others in the civil rights
movement--preachers and students mostly, as I recall-- helped change
America.      It happened quickly.  The Civil Rights Act passed in 1964
after a bitter filibuster in the U.S. Senate;  the Voting Rights Act passed
in '65;  the first black student was elected to the homecoming court at the
University of Alabama in 1969.  It changed politics, leading in the South
not to coalitions of white and black moderates, but to a new conservatism,
not Democratic like the old Solid South, but focused on social issues and
supportive of politicians like Ronald Reagan. Which may just prove that
integration, like politics, sometimes makes strange bedfellows.      I
suspect almost everyone, including Southern whites, would agree now that
ending segregation was a good thing.  It brought investment and high tech
jobs to the region.  It may also have brought Tea Parties, but hey, that's
life.
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January 31, 2010

       My son, who lives in New York, took exception to my column saying
that the 9/11 terrorists should be tried there, in the city they'd
attacked.  The amount of security the city planned to impose would have
imposed military law--snipers on rooftops and all that--on large chunks of
lower Manhattan including Chinatown, not just for a black or two around the
Courthouse       That seems unnecessary, but those are the plans that were
reported.  He lives there and I don't, and he's probably right.  Yes, Alec,
you're probably right.
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