Quaker Fox

Homebrewing Review and Info

2011-05-29T12:58:00.001-07:00

This review is from: Thomas Coopers Premium Selection Sparkling Ale Hopped Malt Concentrate, 3.75-Pound Can (Grocery)

I have been a homebrewer for many years, but have taken a hiatus until recently. As I got back into this traditional American hobby, I was drawn to try the Coopers kits (apparently, Coopers is used as an adjective in Australia, without an apostrophe, so I will try to follow their usage, even though it feels like it a possessive to this Yank). There were two main things that drew me to the Coopers Kits, initially. One was the fact that I liked their beers, which are among very few non-Belgian bottle-conditioned beers found in the United States. Second, had to do with the Super Saver option on Amazon, which I find very convenient if I don't want to make the large individual purchase needed to qualify for $8 shipping from some of the large online home brew shops.

The Coopers individual cans are very aggressively priced when you consider that they are eligible for Super Saver Shipping on Amazon. Their kits are perhaps slightly less aggressively priced than are the individual cans, but are also available for Super Saver Shipping with no further purchases. A couple of clicks and they can be on their way.

The purchaser should also be aware that Coopers Cans and Kits make 6 gallons of beer, while the norm for American kits is only 5 gallons. (And as a dig at all my fellow backward Americans, let me say that these kits actually make 23 liters of beer. Americans were supposed to be adopting the metric system back in the mid-1970's, but I guess Presidents Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Bush and Obama missed the memo, so we, along with our close allies, Liberia and Burma, remain using our quasi-British system apart from everyone else in the world.)

These kits also contain high quality ale or lager yeast, while many other kit purveyors include no yeast at all, which is not a problem for many brewers who have yeast stocks or who brew on top of previous batches, but many folks like the convenience of a good yeast which is made to be sprinkled and forgotten about. The 7 grams included by Coopers seems to be plenty, with no need for a starter or extra nutrients.

By further way of comparison of the economics of homebrewing, in my area, a 30-pack case of Old Milwaukee goes for $15.99, which is essentially the same cost per beer as one of the Coopers kits, which produce close to ten six packs for approximately $32.00.

So, while it is necessary to equate between the different volumes that American kits make versus Coopers kits, and the yeast included, it must be noted that there are kits from excellent home brewing supply houses that are perhaps cheaper, excluding the flat $8 for shipping that such purveyors now seem to be charging for large orders, and that often, such kits are arguably of better or comparable quality to the Coopers kits, but these types of kits also entail much more time and work (or fun, depending on your perspective).

Do you like straining hops? I don't, particularly, because they are messy, but some people don't mind. Do you like boiling wort for an hour and then trying to cool it? None of this is necessary with the Coopers Kits, which are pre-boiled and hopped. How about yeast starters? Do you like steeping grains for thirty minutes? Some people do like doing these things, but for many of us, it is more work, and time, and the results tend to be more variable, even if such techniques do at times produce a superior beer.

Coopers individual cans, combined with extra malt, sugar or maltodextrin, depending on the recipe are an excellent way to get very good, almost foolproof beer at essentially the price of the cheapest beer in the liquor store.

I have made several Coopers kits, including the Sparkling Ale, Aussie Pale Ale, Bitter, Euro-Lager and Pilsner, and have been happy with all of them.

Especially commendable are the Sparkling and Aussie Pale Ales, which are intended to be very close to Coopers excellent (but expensive, given the value of the Australian dollar) brewery versions, which can be found in the U.S. for up to $12 a six pack.

The Sparkling and Aussie Pale Ale kits ferment quickly and can be ready to drink in three weeks or so, and may be the easiest and most fool-proof kits that I have ever used. If the user has any further questions, Coopers has a wonderful web site that will even walk you through the steps of using their commercial brewery yeast with the kits to get even closer to their classic commercial versions, which were so highly touted by Michael Jackson.

There is no hiding the ball on the Coopers web site. If their kits, which include non-traditional carbonation drops and additional fermentables are not for you, they provide equivalent do it yourself recipes, as well as alternate ones if you just want to go with the single can instead of the kit.

I have also made two of the Coopers lagers. Because newbies are often more likely to want to make lagers, it should be stressed that making lagers at home is much more difficult, than making ales or stouts. This has nothing to do with Coopers. This is simply a truth of brewing.

Lagers tend to be more one dimensional in taste, so there is very little to hide any flaws. Lagers require brewing temperatures that are much more difficult to achieve for homebrewers without fancy equipment, especially between the months of May and October.

Lagers also require a different type of yeast--and yes, Coopers kits ship with real lager yeast, apparently a type that will ferment at a higher temperature than most lager yeasts. Coopers recommends between 21 and 27 degrees Celsius. Perhaps this is because Australia shares the climatic feature of being sizzling hot in the summer time with most of the U.S.

We recently caught a good patch of May weather in the Mid-Atlantic where the temperatures basically stayed in the high 50's to low 60's Fahrenheit for a couple of weeks, and I was able to make a final Pilsner, but I wouldn't try again until fall. Ales in the basement will still be fine, though.

Finally, lagers need much more time to develop and mature. If you don't already have beer on hand, you are likely to find it very difficult to wait the 90 days or so that Coopers recommends that you wait before drinking its lagers. This is a period about three times as long as it takes for an ale to be ready.

A couple of reviewers have mentioned that people should change up the Coopers included recipes, by swapping in additional malt for those recipes that call for dextrose or sucrose.

This is highly debatable. First of all, if you want the beer you make to look like the one pictured on the front of the can, then this is bad advice. Follow the included recipe.

Second, the prohibition on sugar is one of those hoary myths that refuses to go away. Yes, if you make your beer with half sugar in terms of fermentables, then it may have a rum or cidery note. The general rule is to avoid over 20 percent of fermentables as sugar. Sugar is used in all sorts of well known British and Belgium ales to good effect. Substituting Coopers light dry malt (or anyone's) will make good beer, too, and possibly better, albeit it will change the color and possibly the hop balance, so you never know.

What you do know is that such a substitution will deviate from the look and recommended recipe and will cost MORE.

Coopers is a great brewing institution. Unless you know what you are doing, follow the recipe, and if you don't, well, don't worry. I have never had an undrinkable batch no matter what.

All that being said, if you want to spend a slight bit more and you don't need the convenience of a ready made kit with the carbonation drops (two sucrose sugar cubes which are cheaper, work almost as well, in spite of their tighter fit into bottles), then you might try the corresponding Coopers Can in place of the kit and substitute a second can of their $10.99 Light Malt Extract. This will increase the fermentables, giving you a higher ABV, but it will slightly lighten the color of the beer, and will cost a few dollars more. They make three versions so you can try to match the color as best you can.

Generally, using more malt versus using more sugar, does result in a "better" beer. This is generally recognized by almost anyone who brews, but this in no way means that doing so will always result in a tastier beer. Coopers formulated these kits (and recipes) to work with sucrose (or dextrose, either is fine) with the goal of achieving a specific taste, body and mouth-feel. Part of this has to do with Coopers use of maltodextrin, which is an adjunct that is not discussed very much in the U.S., but from my experience, almost always improves a beer when used in small amounts, by improving the beer's body and head and slightly increasing the beer's gravity.

The fact that sugar and maltodextrin are much cheaper than dry malt is an additional benefit. Sugar obviously can be bought anywhere, but for those looking for maltodextrin at a decent price, you might try Carbo-Gain, which is sold as a body-building supplement, but is pure maltodextrin.

One last bit of misinformation often heard about these kits is that people should ignore the instructions and boil them anyway. Many homebrewing books seem to advise this as well. Coopers staunchly reject this line of thinking, as does Brewferm and I believe Munton's does as well. Modern homebrewers seem to be coming around. I notice that some of the online homebrew merchants now advise strongly against boiling these kits, as do many of the online brewing sites.

I think that much of the problem has to do with the division in the hobby between extract brewers and all-grain brewers. Certain techniques may be necessary for all-grain brewers that are actually superfluous or counter-productive for extract brewers.

The Cooper cans have already been boiled and are sterile. If you boil them again, you will carmelize the wort and the resulting beer will not be as clear as most people would like. It will likely have that cloudy look that homebrew and brewpub beer often has. It will still taste good, but why spend the time and go to the trouble of boiling the wort when it is actually counter-productive? I can't think of any reason.

I have seen some claim that boiling is necessary for a good "cold break", which is a technical term referring to how proteins in beer come out of solution. But the Cooper's kits have already been boiled and thus have their "cold break". Furthermore, if you boil the kits, you may boil away the included hop extracts, which is probably why many homebrewing books advise people to add hops even when using hopped extract, since these books tend to advise boiling all extract kits.

If you use outside (i.e., non-kit) ingredients, here is what works well. Heat a couple of liters of water to 160 degrees Fahrenheit. Mix in your sucrose, dry malt or maltodextrin, depending on the recipe, and hold it at 160 degrees for fifteen minutes or so to sterilize it. This is necessary, particularly if you are using sugar, maltodextrin, or extract that has already been opened. If you don't have a thermometer, you can boil these small liquid amounts which will probably be about a quarter of your fermentables or so, but it may increase your cooling time a bit.

At this point, turn off the heat, and either put the mixture in the fermenter, followed by the contents of the Coopers can, or pour the Coopers can in with the solution of your outside ingredients. The first way is closer to what Coopers recommends, but I find it difficult to stir the sticky malt in the fermenter this way, so I personally put the can in at flame-out, and since the wort and can are already sterile, there should be no problems with sanitation this way, but it does require a bit more cooling which may be difficult for some people.

Either way, because the wort has not been boiled, or only briefly boiled, and the Coopers malt extract has only been briefly and slightly heated at flame-out, the beer turns out lighter and crystal clear. Hop presence is maximized.

In the past, when I bought at bricks and mortar shops, I mostly used Munton's and Brewferm kits, which are also generally excellent, but these firms are not very active on Amazon, and their customer outreach really doesn't compare to Coopers. I also use specialty kits that call for all the extras, but they are time consuming, and in my opinion, apart from the excitement of creating esoteric clones, the beer actually is not any better than that from the simple extracts kits.

People brew for different reasons. Some people want to mash the whole thing themselves from grain; some want to try exotic or esoteric or extreme recipes, which call for extra hops, special yeasts and the steeping of grains vegetables or fruit, and some people want to drink inexpensive classic beer styles that are easy to brew and ready to drink quickly. Coopers kits are for this third group of people. Delicious and highly recommended.

Health Care and the Mandate

2010-11-09T07:00:00.000-08:00

This is an interesting article by a professor at George Mason School of Law with respect to the litigation regarding health care and the individual mandate.

Nevertheless, I think the thrust of it is incorrect. The author does not mention that only the individual mandate is at stake. Wasn't there a heck of a lot more in the "health care bill" besides the individual mandate? If the mandate gets struck, then they will have to find some other way to ensure compliance, but that doesn't seem to impact the scores of other things in the bill.

This reminds me of conservative attacks on Roe v. Wade, where basically conservatives have believed for 40 years that overturning Roe would end abortion in the U.S., rather than simply restore the status quo in each state. The great unwashed get all hyped up about a court battle that is going to save their way of life, and of course, it never happens.

Also, interestingly, Virginia has had a long history of ordering its citizens to engage in commerce. Going back to Jamestown, Virginians have had mandates to grow various products, among them wine, tobacco and hemp. I suppose it can be argued that that was before the Constitution, or that states have such powers but not the federal government, but I doubt that would satisfy many conservatives if Virginia began its own mandate.

http://www2.timesdispatch.com/news/rtd-opinion/2010/nov/07/ed-somi07-ar-634809/

More Rock Lists

2010-10-28T19:19:00.000-07:00

I have written a lot about the Beatles, whom I consider the greatest rock band ever. This is hardly a controversial statement, just a knowing one.

Nevertheless, there were two other tuneful British groups during the 1960's and 1970's who arguably gave the Beatles a run for their money (sorry Zep, I like you but you were hardly "tuneful").

Both The Who and The Rolling Stones had remarkable runs from about 1966 through 1972, periods during which their work arguably exceeded that of the Beatles. The argument in terms of all time greatness goes no further, however, because the Beatles had already had three full years of amazing output by that point, not to mention two highly successful movies. Furthermore, the Beatles had generally brilliant lyrics, not to mention much more hummable songs, which may be the true marker of a great group. All four of the Beatles would go on to have successful solo careers; none of the members of the Rolling Stones or The Who had much, if any success as solo performers.

Top Five Rolling Stones Albums of All time

1. Sticky Fingers -- Desperately overlooked. I have no idea why. Perhaps it is because it was composed of many leftover songs from previous albums. People talk about Exile On Main Street, which has been recently re-issued with new versions and outtakes, but Sticky Fingers is better in every way except for being shorter. One of the marks of great groups and albums is to look and see what songs never made it to singles. Sticky Fingers contains all time great Stones classics that never were released as singles and which were often overlooked by "Classic Rock FM".

Everyone has heard Brown Sugar and Wild Horses, which were the singles from this album, but several other cuts eclipse them. Sway is a psychedelic classic with unforgettable riffs. Can't You Hear Me Knocking is Santana-esque but better. Bitch has an unnerving decadent beat. Moonlight Mile is simply great. One reason why this album was so good was new guitarist Mick Taylor, who replaced the deceased Brian Jones and showed a whole new level of virtuosity on lead guitar.

The album's cover was designed by Andy Warhol with a fully functioning zipper. It is certainly one of the most famous album covers of all time. This is a great party album. The music thumps all the way through.

If you haven't heard this album, buy it now.

2. Beggars Banquet. This album was hampered by a changing cover and the controversy of some of its lyrics, not to mention its issuance at about the same time as The White Album and Yellow Submarine. It has Sympathy for the Devil which is about as good as it ever got in Rock and Roll, ever. But once again, it is the songs people don't know that carry this album. Jigsaw Puzzle is simply gorgeous, and what a great lyrical concept. Street Fighting Man perfectly captures the eclipse of the 60's ideal, while Stray Cat Blues probably made a few fathers lock up their daughters.

3. Let It Bleed. Is the title corny or brilliant? I am not sure, but it was a humorous take on the Beatles' Let It Be. The highs may be higher here than the first two LP's but Let It Bleed is a bit more uneven. Gimme Shelter is a great, great song, maybe the scariest song in the history of rock. You Can't Always Get What You Want is gorgeous. Monkey Man has some great riffs, while the rest of the album is bluesy. Mick Taylor appeared on the album but was not featured on most tracks, nor was Brian Jones, as this was his swansong, with him only appearing on a pair of tracks.

4 and 5. Aftermath/Between the Buttons. This two albums are of comparable feel and quality. Because of the American practice of including fewer tracks and more singles on American LP's, these two albums ended up having different tracks in the U.K. than they ended up having in the U.S., something that Beatles fans are familiar with as well. The interesting thing about these albums is that they are more lyrically oriented with a psychedelic feel, without going over the top, as the Stones would later to on Their Satanic Majesties Request.

Many people put Exile on Main Street at the top of the Stones' catalog. While certainly worthy, I found a lot of the material on Exile to be of filler quality that is lower than the albums mentioned her.

Exile also lacks any great Stones songs. Perhaps the best is Rocks Off, but in general, I believe the hype over Exile on Main Street has to do with it being the last great album by the group and with how it was made, essentially, home-made in a drunken and drugged stupor at Keith Richards' French home while the Stones sought a tax holiday from Britain. It was not seen by critics as any sort of monumental achievement back in 1972 when the album was originally issued.

Exile has a sound and feel that is comparable to Sticky Fingers but without the same hooks. It is similar to the White Album by the Beatles in that it contained four (although much shorter than the White Album) sides on vinyl, but fit on one CD during the digital age. Like the White Album, Exile feels less polished than other efforts in the group's catalog, and, in a sense, highlights the virtuosity of the group by running through a range of styles, some more successfully than others.

I would probably put Exile at number six on this list, but I am not altogether certain that it is better than Satanic Majesties, or the Stones' last minor classic, Some Girls. The Stones themselves have always seemed a bit mystified as to why some tout this work as their greatest album, especially given the mixed reviews given at the time of the album's release.

Why the War on Drugs will never be won

2010-09-29T09:50:00.000-07:00

I am not a chemist, but it seems fairly certain that the possible permutations of substances that can be created to mimic banned chemicals is extraordinarily high. The U.S., for once, to its credit, is slower to ban these new marijuana-type substances, but it appears to be time to take some new approaches.

http://www.erowid.org/chemicals/spice_product/spice_product_article1.shtml

If "Tea Partiers" truly believe in their rhetoric, than the time has come to reel in the law enforcement agencies and to adopt an approach that saves money and minimizes possible harm from individuals ingesting dangerous substances. I am not convinced that the Tea Partiers in general actually believe their own rhetoric but there may be hope for the younger generation.

One of the classic unintended circumstances that came from banning alcohol for people between 19 and 21 in the U.S., was to make marijuana relatively more attractive to people who would have opted for alcohol had it not been illegal. I am not sure of the actual numbers, but by putting alcohol on equal footing with marijuana for people college age and under, the psychological effect is one of making marijuana use less of a fringe tendency, and we are seeing the results nationwide.

As the the self-absorbed baby boomers move on towards death, or at least Arizona, and away from their reign of terror of pursuing a 25 year "war on drugs" against their own fellow citizens, I am hopeful that things will continue to get better in the coming era.

NHL Hockey -- Just As Crummy as Ever

2009-04-16T06:50:00.000-07:00

Yawn. Our local team, the Washington Caps has had one of the best years in their history, so I tuned in to watch them take on what is supposedly the worst team in the playoffs from their division, the New York Rangers. Of course, the Caps lost, even though they were the top seed and playing at home. They usually do go down versus the more hockey-crazed towns of New York, Philly, Pittsburgh and Detroit. Their Russians and their Quebecois somehow always get the measure of ours.

More than that though, I was hoping to be impressed with the sport. I wasn't. HD TV was supposed to be hockey's salvation, but it is only marginally more interesting on television now that it was back on standard definition tubes. I watched the last Winter Olympics and thoroughly enjoyed the hockey play. Olympic hockey is fast paced and free flowing. The NHL has supposedly tried to become more like Olympic hockey. It has largely failed.

The Caps have far superior talent to New York, hockey experts assure us. Then why might they lose? Because since 1988, tired of the continual domination of hockey in serial fashion by four franchises, the Montreal Canadiens, the Philadelphia Flyers, the New York Islanders and the Edmonton Oilers, hockey engaged in what Glen Sather, coach of the Oilers called "hockey socialism."

They took deliberate and intentional aim at handicapping the Edmonton Oilers and their star, Wayne Gretzky. Gretzky would never win another title. The Oilers and Canadiens would win one more each, but neither has won in close to twenty years.

The NHL removed their product from ESPN, at the same time, opting for something called the Sports Channel, surely one of the stupidest business decisions in the history of major league sports.

Hockey's popularity, already marginal in the United States, began to plummet.

The NHL had ended the reign of the dynasties which had propelled the sport for fifty years. The New York Rangers, the Chicago Cubs of the NHL, even succeeded in winning a title, even as the sport became dreadfully boring, with rules and tactics that deliberately punished high scoring teams and rewarded teams that played a hockey version of Italian soccer, where 1-0 is considered a resounding victory.

One of the hardest things to achieve in any sport is the balance between skill and random events. Sports become boring if one player or team wins all the time and they can become equally boring when anyone can win at any time. As long as they are not overwhelming, dynasties promote sports, as do rivalries promote sports. ESPN knows this. The NFL knows this. MLB knows this. Why doesn't the NHL?

Duke and North Carolina are currently in symbiosis in basketball, as are the Yankees and Red Sox in baseball. College basketball began to prosper when teams besides UCLA were finally able to win a championship and yet, at the same time, college basketball still has its royalty of schools that are always near the top. The NBA went twenty years without a repeat champion and many years in the 1970's without good rivalries. But it was only when the Lakers and Pistons and Bulls became dynasties and repeat titlists, that the NBA peaked.

Basically, the NHL now has Detroit and everybody else. One year, Detroit will win, probably this year, or was it last year, and the next year, some team you have never heard of before, like the Florida Hurricanes, oops, Carolina Hurricanes or the Tampa Bay Lightning get the prize.(Apparently, it helps to invoke the weather to garner an upset title). Then, that upset-winning champion will fail to even make the playoffs the next season.

The Rangers, Washington's opponent, are one of those throwback teams still stuck in the first Clinton term, where clutch and grab hockey was all the rage. I still can't root for teams like the Rangers because they are anti-hockey. They are the same types of players and coaches who began killing the sport back in 1988. If NHL Hockey is about anything, it is about making sure that the guys with the least talent have a great chance to win, and that every single team in the league has a winning record. Only hockey has found a mathematical way to do this. Don't ask me how.

Perhaps the most maddening part of NHL Hockey is what I will call the "mad sandtrap dance."

During fifty percent of every game, there are three or four guys from both teams hacking at the puck behind the nets like a high handicap golfer in a sandtrap. They all swing from the hip, all hoping that the puck might pop just in front of the net, in the same way that a week-end hacker hopes his wild sand shot will hit the pin. They almost never do, in either case.

After failing to pop the puck out from behind the net, the players from both teams, then attempt to trap it with their foot against the boards. This is extremely exciting, watching a guy on skates hold a tiny puck against white boards with his skates, until a big guy from the other team smashes into him and then finally, maybe the puck goes down to the other end of the rink and the same dance continues down there for a while.

Olympic hockey is a beautiful sport and really shows the possibilities. In Olympic hockey, the larger size of the rink and rules of play might it possible for talented players to actually pass the puck between themselves with some regularity. NHL Hockey is more like pinball action, or if you have ever watched one, a soccer game between five and six year olds. Yes, goals are scored, but you never know where the puck is going and a series of completed passes is largely wishful thinking.

The NHL seemed to be making steps in that direction but basically, hockey has lost its momentum again. They need to adopt the Olympic rules and then maybe it will be watchable.

Oh, and by the way, last night was the first hockey game I have watched all year and that was only during the third period, which either makes this article even more right about the current state of NHL Hockey, or completely off-base. I'll let the reader choose.

Recount -- The Movie

2009-04-15T07:00:00.001-07:00

I have recently been viewing the HBO movie, "Recount", a docudrama about the 2000 election recount between Bush and Gore. Although I desperately was hoping for a Bush victory, due to the presence of Joseph Lieberman on the Gore ticket, in retrospect, Gore might not have been too bad. Maybe he could have ditched Lieberman for 2004.

Anyway, watching the Democrats bumble away their chances made me think of what it takes to get the best of the Republicans, calling to mind a famous movie line, with which I have taken a couple of artistic liberties:

"You wanna know how to beat the Republicans? They pull a knife, you pull a gun. They sends one of yous to the hospital, you send one of deres to the morgue. That's the Chicago way! And that's how you beat the Republicans. Now do you want to do that? Are you ready to do that?"

The Democrats weren't ready to do that in 2000.

By 2008, they no longer needed to do that to win.

Roy Williams, College Basketball and Coaches Salaries

2009-02-28T09:13:00.000-08:00

There is a lot of buzz going on now about the injudicious manner in which John Calhoun, coach of the UConn Huskies and two time winner of the National Championship, answered a question about his salary level at that public university.

In order to perform due diligence, reporters across the country are questioning the coaches in their respective states, probably hoping for a meltdown similar to Calhoun's.

Here's the full text of the question and response by Roy Williams coach of the UNC Tar Heels, followed by some of my thoughts.

Q: Would you be willing to take a paycut providing that it would help the University system? I am aware of the fact that your salary doesn't come through the same revenue of other state employees, but even just as a gesture…would you be willing to do that?

WILLIAMS: "Well, I think first of all, there's no way to answer that question. You say 'Yeah,' but then somebody's going to call today and say, 'give it all to me back.' And if you say no, you come across as being insensitive. Right now, I'm the most sensitive person in this room to the state of our nation's economy.

"My son called yesterday, and it was a great day, because they just told him he was finished. He’s a bond trader for Wachovia Securities, and it was bought by Wells Fargo, and Wells Fargo doesn't do what Wachovia Securities did. So I'm more sensitive than anybody in here; I've got a son that's part of the nation's unemployed. Now he's a cocky little rascal that think he's going to have a job by tonight. I said, 'Son, people aren't hiring, they're letting people go.' ….

"It's a tough time. I'm also sensitive in that I do give a great deal of money to the university every year. I am sensitive to the fact that the initial contract I signed in the spring of 2003, that it was in the contract that we would revisit and renegotiate my contract after the second year. Second year was a pretty good year, we won the national championship.

"I never asked to have it renegotiated. In fact, I forgot about it. The athletic director came to me six months after we were supposed to revisit, and I said, don't worry about it. The next year, 2006, I had maybe the most satisfying year I've ever had as a coach. I was National Coach of the Year, and he asked me whether I wanted to renegotiate again. And I said I was fine, I was satisfied with it. And we did something the year after that.

"I don't think I'm in the business to make money. If you convince me that me giving something up would help somebody, then we would really have a great discussion. Because I'm willing to do a lot of things; I'm not willing to stand up here and say 'Yes,' and I'm not willing to stand up here and say 'no' because I think it's a question that there's no good answer. I just know from my buddy Jimmy Calhoun that I'm not going to tell you to shut up.

"These are tough times, these are times that nobody knows. I can look around the room and know that it's affected the people in the room right here. But it is a fact … I am not paid by state funds, and we've had some success, and we've made a lot of money in men's basketball. And if we start losing games and losing money, they're not going to ask me to give any of the money back, they're going to fire me. And that's something else I understand.

"But again … I don't believe there is anybody who is more sensitive to it than I am. I do believe I give a great deal of money, whether it's Carolina Covenant or other programs here in our department or to build other buildings over there, or to help build baseball stadiums. So I'm very proud of what my wife and our family have done there, and I'm going to continue doing it.

"We have video equipment in our office that's used by … six other teams here, that I bought. If they fire me tomorrow, I don't think I'm going to give a darn about that video system. It was a system that was good for other people, and there wasn't necessarily a place in the budget for it, so I bought it. And I could care less – if they fire me, I have 13 free weeks at the Maui Marriott. And I am not going to give a darn about that video equipment at that time, so they can keep the sucker." http://blogs.newsobserver.com/accnow/would-ol-roy-take-paycut-to-help

Fairly well answered and handled, I would say, except that, like Calhoun, he tells us what a beneficent giver he is. Please. What does it say in the Sermon on the Mount about revealing acts of charity?

While I certainly qualify as a free marketeer, I admit that I find some of the arguments tiresome on both sides of the political spectrum. Those who argue for a flat tax, most of who are Republicans, virtually never own up to the payroll tax and the fact that it disproportionately socks the young and the poor. They also never own up to the fact that Ronald Reagan greatly increased payroll taxes. He increased Fica, while cutting marginal tax rates on the rich, which were, indeed, at the time, far too high, something some liberals are now willing to admit, even if they were not at the time.

Many of Calhoun's defenders, on the merits, are attempting to defend his salary as an example of the free market. That is partially true, but overly simplistic. In terms of the “market” setting prices and salaries, well that is chapter one of the free market reader and most free-market oriented people stop reading here.

When you get to chapter two, you find out about something called public choice theory, which essentially undercuts much of the thrust of the market being efficient to begin with.

What does it all mean? It means that Roy’s salary is partially set by free market forces and partially set by non-free market forces, such as the Carolina Basketball Lobby, which we all love and hold near and dear to our hearts.

Nevertheless, I am sure that Roy could earn more coaching in the NBA if he wanted to.

“People who make the sort of money he makes are already contributing a grossly disproportionate amount to the public good, while getting little or nothing from public services in return.”

The statement directly above is typical of much of the defense of Calhoun in the blogosphere.

I used to think this statement was absolutely true, but such a statement is probably not something that can be verified scientifically.

To a large extent, it is true that the Carnegies and the Mellons created lots of jobs and built schools and hospitals. Nevertheless, it is also the Bill Gates of society and the rich in general who benefit disproportionately from the existing social structure.

People who have more assets and property, arguably place much more of a burden on the public provision of police protection and other services.

It is an utter fallacy to simply cite who pays what and what percent, as somehow proving the “proper” rate of taxation based on some abstract notion of fairness. It may convince many people as a political proposition, but as economics, it is not scientific.

Taxes pay for schools and roads and libraries and police protection. Obviously huge amounts go to pay for weapons and the soldiers that fight all over the world beneath the American flag. I am not sure how someone can say that he or she is getting little or nothing from military protection.

Taxes pay for the CIA, the FBI and the National Security Agencies, who police our borders and check and manage our phone and internet transmissions to make sure that no further terrorist attacks take place. In fact, many would argue that it is the rich who benefit the most from the protection from such attacks, since they are the ones who have the most to lose should there be great destruction.

To me, the strangest thing about this argument is that essentially, it seems to be arguing that the University of North Carolina is a waste of taxpayer money. I certainly do not believe that.

In fact, I think there are probably a lot of lawyers who were educated at UNC Law, who are thrilled to pay taxes in North Carolina to support the school and the law school. I know that UNC is not quite the bargain it was when I went there, but it is still a pretty amazing deal for people in state. I could have attended Davidson or Wake, but honestly, I thought my friends from the state of North Carolina who went to those schools were suckers.

The difference in tuition between Davidson and UNC back in the early 1980’s was probably $10,000, which means Davidson cost close to $10,000 and UNC essentially cost zero, i.e., under $1,000 a year for tuition. There were a lot of low-wage mill workers who never attended college, who paid taxes to subsidize my education at UNC and I would like to thank them for allowing me to benefit disproportionately from such an amazing public service, which is the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

So obviously, people have tons of different opinions on these controversial topics. If I had been Roy, I would just have politely pointed the reporters to the FOIA provisions covering his employment and left it at that.

Samuel L. Jackson and Star Wars

2009-02-26T08:54:00.000-08:00

Samuel L. Jackson is a great actor.

His performance in Star Wars was eagerly anticipated by many, but ultimately both his character, Mace Windu and his performance, turned out to be hollow and dissatisfying.

Maybe it would have been over the top, but wouldn't it have been great, if Windu/Jackson, upon confronting Palpatine and Anakin Skywalker in Revenge of the Sith, had said the following:

“The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the inequities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men.

Blessed is he who, in the name of charity and good will, shepherds the weak through the valley of darkness, for he is truly his brother’s keeper and the finder of lost children.

And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who attempt to poison and destroy my brothers. And you will know the true meaning of the Force when I lay my fury upon you."

Tiger Woods is Back

2009-02-26T08:11:00.001-08:00

With Tiger Woods coming back from injury, and the Master's just around the corner, it brings to mind to me, some comparisons between golf and basketball, which is really in full swing.

While statistical analysis of baseball and basketball, is all the rage in sports now, golf seems to me, in many ways, almost impenetrable to comprehension.

Even Tiger a few years ago seemed to have lost his swing. Overnight, seemingly, Tom Watson lost his putting stroke, only to re-gain it years later as a Senior.

The other thing that I wonder about is the equipment. I don’t understand why golf and tennis did not mandate stasis in their hitting instruments. Would basketball allow flubber shoes?

In terms of mathematical analysis, one thing that I find very interesting is a comparison of the careers of two of the greats of golf and basketball, respectively, Greg Norman and Jerry West.

These guys were very similar in many ways. Both served as the masculine image of rugged good looks for his sport for years. Both were generally recognized to be among the top three or four talents in their sports. Both of them seemed to be virtually always in competition at the very end, which for Norman, was on Sunday, and for West, was in the Final Four and NBA Finals.

And both of them usually lost. West lost in the Final Four with West Virginia and then lost in the NBA Finals.

Seven straight times, West lost in the NBA Finals to Boston, and then the N.Y. Knicks, as a member of the L.A. Lakers. In 1972, West would finally win a title with the Lakers, besting the Knicks, but then the Lakers would go on to lose one more time in the Finals against the Knicks in 1973.

All told, West played in 9 Finals and his team lost 8 of them.

I won’t do a detailed sketch of the Aussie Norman, except to note that his career resembles West’s in a lot of ways.

My question about Norman is, was the man really a choker, or was he simply on the bad end of some of the worst luck, some of the most unfortunate random events in golf history?

Like John Thompson of Georgetown, who with a gentle nudge of help from the Furies, would have won three college basketball titles in four years and been acclaimed as an all time great coach, was Greg Norman really an all-time great golfer whom fate simply disdained?

Jerry West ended his career as successful general manager, became the insignia for the NBA logo, and was acclaimed by all as an all-time great, and recognized by all by his nickname, Mr. Clutch, in spite of his team's failures so many times on the big stage.

Greg Norman at the height of his career was to play in a pro-am with President Clinton, in the mid-1990s. In preparation, Norman invited Clinton to his home to talk golf and prepare for the match together, and the president ended up falling down his backstairs, which required surgery and a cancellation of the match.

That kind of luck pretty much epitomized Norman's career. And no, Greg Norman's nickname is not Mr. Clutch. http://www.sportsbusinessdaily.com/article/41384

What Does It Take to Win in Basketball?

2009-02-03T07:35:00.000-08:00

As we are right in the middle of an especially interesting NBA basketball season and the always interesting college basketball season, I have been intrigued by the various and sundry basketball announcers, virtually all of whom tell us that to win a championship, you have to play great defense.

In considering this subject, I took a look at Basketball on Paper by Dean Oliver, which is probably the foremost guide to statistical analysis of basketball and the author of that book notes that he believes the phrase "Defense wins championships" probably goes back to the titantic Boston-Philadelphia and Boston-L.A. NBA play-off series of the 1960's.

The media leaped on defense as the simple explanation for what was happening since Russell was great at defense, and Chamberlain, West and Baylor were great at offense.

In reality, things were a lot more complicated. But what does stand out from my study of the NBA standings is that adjusted point differential or SRS, seems to be the greatest predictor of success in the NBA play-offs. Because, as in college ball, NBA teams have not played equal schedules, the records are often misleading.

For example, the 1969 Lakers, who finished 55-27 and first in the West, are often chided for losing to the 48-34 Celtics, who only finished in fourth place in the East. But guess what? Due to statistical anomalies, Boston essentially tied for first in the NBA that year in SRS, finishing at 5.38, while L.A., which won seven games more, only had an SRS of 3.84. Boston ended up beating L.A. in the finals in a close seven game series.

Celtic fans try to have it both ways with the Celtic teams of the late 50's and 60's. They try to say that they were both the best teams of all time and that they were incredibly clutch. I would say that it is much more true to say that they were the best teams of that period by far and that they managed to avoid being upset by inferior teams, although often just by the skin of their teeth.

Out of the 13 years Bill Russell was with the Celtics, the Celtics had the best SRS in the league 11 times(including 1969 which was essentially a tie with the Knicks), and guess how many championships they won?

If there is a critique to be made of those Philadelphia teams with Wilt and those Laker teams with Baylor and West, and later with Chamberlain, it is not that they lost to Boston in the play-offs. That was the expected outcome. It would be why couldn't these teams match Boston in the regular season.

As regards Wilt Chamberlain, he played on four teams that led the league in adjusting scoring differential, in 1967, 1968, 1972 and 1973. Thus, Chamberlain played on four teams that would be deemed the play-off favorites and he ended up winning twice, in 1967 and 1972, although the 1972 Knicks were only a couple of points behind the Lakers during the regular season.

Adjusted point differential (SRS) is simply a team's offensive average minus its defensive average, with an adjustment upward or downward based upon schedule strength. Among power ratings in basketball, this is basically what Sagarin in USA Today calls "pure points" adjusted for schedule strength and I would bet that if we look, we will find that teams that win the NCAA title generally have excellent point differentials. Sagarin indicates that pure points is not politically correct but does the best job of predicting success.

Generally, in the NBA, an SRS of over 8 points is outstanding and will almost always result in that team winning the title. As far as I can discern, no team has ever led the league in SRS at an average of 9 points or more, without winning the title. This select group includes the 1971 Jabbar/Robertson Bucks, the 1972 Chamberlain, Goodrich, West Lakers, the 1986 Walton/Bird Celtics, and three different Jordan-led Bull teams.

Because expansion, injuries and improvement throughout a season can affect team success, SRS is not the final arbiter of greatness, but it certainly is highly correlated.

Only three teams have exceeded 11.5 points: the 1971 Bucks, the 1972 Lakers and the 1996 Jordan/Rodman Bulls, and all three won 66 games or more during the regular season and went through the play-offs at a clip of .800 or above.

The 1972 Lakers, who went 69-13 in the regular season had to play the almost equally worthy Bucks that year in the Western Finals. The Bucks went 63-19 and had an SRS of 10.70, which is one of the five highest of all time, but went down 4 games to 2 versus the Lakers.

So, it might be worth thinking twice before simply accepting the old "defense wins championships" platitudes. The defense versus offense paradigm may not, in fact, be especially illuminating. It may be useful for coaches in making team adjustments or for discovering why a particular game was won or lost, but it may not be particularly informative in terms of telling us which team is better, when an "offensive" oriented team faces a "defensive" oriented team. I doubt any of this will stop the television announcers from making the claim, however.

Ranking the Great Jedi and Sith Fighters

2009-01-26T07:44:00.000-08:00

Now that all six movies have finally been completed, here is my list (after many, many viewings with my sons) of the greatest of all with the light saber:

Top Ten Jedi and Sith Fighters from the Star Wars Movies:

1. Darth Sidious–I am still not sure how Sidious was defeated by Vader in Return of the Jedi. It really doesn’t make much sense.

2. Yoda–Much more powerful than we ever expected, he still seems a scosh behind Sidious.

3. Obi-won Kenobi–Kenobi was the Derek Jeter of the Star Wars movies, and defeated the seemingly invincible Darth Maul and Anakin Skywalker.

4. Anakin Skywalker–Perhaps the greatest talent of all, he never learned to control his impetuosity and master his passions.

5. Darth Tyrannis–At one point, seemingly poised to become most powerful of all, Tyrannis seemed to become old in an instant.

6. Darth Maul–Hard to assess, given his predilection for the most difficult to master double lightsaber and his almost foolhardy and overconfident confrontation with Qui-gon and Obi-won.

7. Mace Windu–Much more was expected of him in his final battle.

8. Qui-gon Jinn–Was upstaged by his Padawan, Obi-won.

9. Darth Vader–Sort of the Grant Hill of the galaxy. Vader had extensive knowledge and experience but was never the same fighter after his battle with Obi-won. His leaden artificial appendages restricted his mobility and he could never engage in the types of moves and leaps that Anakin Skywalker was known for.

10. Luke Skywalker–Another in a long line of sons who can’t match up to their fathers, Luke was a better pilot than figher and never beat anyone of consequence with a light saber. Yes, he defeated Darth Vader but Vader was not close to his former self by that point and Vader seemingly let Luke escape once and then appeared to allow Luke to win in their second battle. Luke’s confrontation with the Emperor showed just how weak he was compared to the battles that Yoda and Windu gave the Emperor.

Big Upset in the ACC

2009-01-08T07:15:00.000-08:00

This time of year those of us from the Mid-Atlantic spend a lot of time watching ACC basketball and for those of us lucky enough to be North Carolina-bred, the UNC Tar Heels are a constant source of inspiration.

This year, UNC, coming off a 36-3 season and Final Four appearance with virtually their entire team intact, appeared to be practically invincible and talk of an unbeaten season for Carolina was sweeping the nation. Yet, surprisingly enough, UNC went down to a crushing defeat, at home, no less, in its first ACC regular season game against the somewhat lightly-regarded Boston College Eagles, 85-78.

It was not the finest moment for this group of players, who have largely been together for three years and won two ACC regular season crowns and two ACC tournament titles, followed by trips to the Elite 8 and Final Four respectively. It was also a bit reminiscent of some other big game losses by this core of players, most notably a first half collapse against Kansas last year in the Final Four and a late minute and overtime collapse against Georgetown in the Final Eight in 2007.

Most strikingly, the Tar Heels shot a miserable 29% from the floor in the second half against BC, and only earned 15 points from 28 free throw attempts.

If the only issue in the game had been poor shooting, then I think you can write that off somewhat. Here, there were just a whole host of mental mistakes and sloppy and lackadaisical play. It is one thing to lose, but to go, as the Heels did, from a two point deficit to a fifteen point deficit around the eight minute mark, in a matter of a few minutes, is kind of strange, especially at home.

Nobody likes to lose but many Carolina fans were mystified by the performance, sure in their convictions that the other great ACC and Tar Heel teams from the past didn't have days like this.

Well, not so fast. Perhaps the four greatest teams in the history of the ACC, not to mention some other great Tar Heel squads, have also had some puzzling outings. A further and related point, is that with the exception of perhaps a handful of UCLA teams, there have been almost no teams that have been able to glide effortlessly to a title. It generally takes skill plus a whole lot of luck.

NC State went 57-1 during the 1973 and 1974 seasons, going undefeated in the ACC both years and then earned the ACC its first national title since 1957 by winning it all in 1974.

But along the way, State got annihilated by 18 points by UCLA, 84-66 on a neutral floor during the regular season, after its chief rival Maryland had only lost to the Bruins by one point at UCLA. NC State had actually led the Bruins 33-32 at the half. The Wolfpack benefited from Bill Walton's four fouls in the first nine minutes that kept him out of the game until the last ten minutes of the second half, but then when Walton returned, with the score tied 54 all, NC State just fell apart as UCLA went on a 19-2 run.

David Thompson, State's great clutch All American, went 7-20 from the floor and 3-7 from the foul line in the loss, while allowing Keith (Jamal) Wilkes to drop 27 points on him, on 11-20 shooting from the floor.

State also almost lost to Purdue in a tough road game in Indiana, and needed a huge rally to get past them. The Boilermakers were decent but ended up in the NIT.

State ultimately got past UCLA the second time, but as great as the Wolfpack were, it took two huge comebacks, first, just to get the game into overtime, and second, after going down seven in the second overtime period. NC State was certainly fortunate that the Final Four was played in Greensboro, North Carolina that year.

I still think that the 1974 Bruins with Bill Walton, Dave Meyers, Keith Wilkes and Marques Johnson were slightly better than NC State and would have won a seven game series, but they weren't better on the day that they had to be.

UCLA, as great as they were that year, also saw their 88-game winning streak end against Notre Dame, when the Bruins blew a double-digit lead in the final three minutes--no, the Bruins did not stall, ever.

Although UCLA would destroy Notre Dame the next week in a re-match, 94-75, UCLA then proceeded to lose back-to-back games at Oregon and Oregon State, a result so shocking that media wags deemed the "Bruins in Ruins," and Sports Illustrated ran a cover story with the caption, "UCLA's Lost Weekend."

The Bruins actually had to win their last regular season game, (which was televised nationally late at night on the East coast by the Hughes Network--a rare thing in those days) just to qualify for the NCAA but put a hurting on rival USC the likes of which have seldom been seen in college basketball. USC and its star, Gus Williams, finished 24-5 and 11-3 in the Pac 8 but would miss the NCAA tourney, just as it had in 1971 when the Paul Westphal-led Trojans went 24-2 and 12-2 in the Pac 8.

The 1991-92 Blue Devils are often seen as an all-time great team but in the regular season they lost to average UNC and Wake Forest squads, and needed overtime to beat a very green Michigan early in the year, and then needed overtime and a prayer to get past Kentucky in the regional finals.

The 1982 Tar Heels are another squad often touted as an all time great team. Nevertheless, Michael Jordan, Sam Perkins and James Worthy needed to go to overtime that season to beat Penn State in the Cable Car Classic! They also lost at Virginia by 16 points, which was a considerable margin back then, and then barely beat James Madison 52-50 in Charlotte in the NCAA tourney, where a defeat would have been seen as an incredible humiliation for Dean Smith and his team.

Maybe a step behind the above four in the pantheon of great ACC teams were the 1993 Tar Heels, but the national champion 1993 Heels also simply annihilated many rivals, similar to this year's Tar Heels.

The 1993 Heels beat South Carolina by 31; they beat Texas by 36 and Ohio State by 20 in Columbus. They beat NC State by 33 and 46 points; they beat Maryland by 28, 14 and 36 points; they beat Virginia by 22 and 20 points; but then seemingly out of nowhere, the 1993 Heels had a three game interval where they could do very little right.

The Heels fell behind FSU by twenty-something points and had to stage a huge rally to get an ugly win at home; except for the ultimate outcome, the Heels' play here was not all that different from the current squad's game against BC. They actually trailed by more, but started their comeback sooner and were just able to eek out a win by the somewhat deceptive score of 82-77.

In their next game, the 1993 Tar Heels proceeded to lose by 26 points to Wake Forest, followed by a 14 point thrashing by Duke. With the exception of a close loss in the ACC finals to Georgia Tech, (without Derrick Phelps and where Donald Williams shot horribly) the Tar Heels would not lose again during their final 18 games.

What does it all mean? That remains to be seen. Is this squad more like the 1993 Tar Heels or is it more like the 1994 Tar Heels squad that had Jerry Stackhouse, Rasheed Wallace and Eric Montross and was also seen as a sure title bet but then didn't even make it to the Sweet Sixteen?

NFL Play-Offs

2008-12-23T07:11:00.000-08:00

This is the last week of the NFL season and the final teams to qualify for the play-offs will become known. Get ready for a lot of bellyaching by some 10-6 or 9-7 teams that fail to qualify. But if you want to see what it really feels like to deserve to be in the play-offs and not make it, take a look at the following link: http://www.pro-football-reference.com/years/1967/

The 1967 Baltimore Colts only lost one game all year and tied for the best record overall in the NFL that season and yet did not make the play-offs. The lost out on a tiebreaker to their Coastal Division rivals, the Los Angeles Rams (for whom their franchise would one day be traded), coached by George Allen.

The following year, the 1968 Colts would again only lose one game, going 13-1 but would get upset by the New York Jets and former Colts coach Weeb Ewbank. Thus, over the course of the two years, the Colts would go 24-2-2 and yet not garner the Super Bowl title.

A slightly less accomplished 1970 Colts team, in its first year in the newly-formed AFC would go on to take the prize, however, showing how so much in sports involves simple good fortune and being in the right place at the right time.

This last really great series of Baltimore Colts teams went 43-8-4 over the course of four season and played in two Super Bowls, winning one and fully deserves to be considered one of the most accomplished teams of all time.

Remembering Phil Ford

2008-12-18T09:42:00.001-08:00

What Phil Ford Meant to UNC

On the day where Tyler Hansbrough seems destined to break Phil Ford's all-time scoring record at UNC, a fellow Tar Heel fan has asked me to write a bit about why Phil Ford might be the most important Tar Heel of all time.

For all of you UNC fans who only remember the post-1982 Tar Heels, it is difficult to understand the general plight of UNC basketball back in 1975. Yes, the Tar Heels still had an excellent program, having won at least 20 games in 1971, 1972, 1973, and 1974 and winning the NIT in 1971 and finishing 3rd in the nation in 1972.

But Carolina had lost the recruiting battles for Tom McMillen, Tom Burleson and David Thompson, and didn't even recruit Durham's John Lucas, and the Tar Heels seemed to have fallen back a step and were actually getting a run for their money by NC State for most popular team in the state of North Carolina.

Even though the Tar Heels played up-tempo basketball, they were still known for their rigorous system and sets, and yes, the Four Corners, at a time when NC State and Maryland seemed to have teams that played a more joyful, expressive and exciting form of basketball. Although Carolina had had excellent players such as Bobby Jones and Bob McAdoo(for one season), they didn't seem to have the kinds of athletes that State and Maryland had in David Thompson, Kenny Carr, John Lucas, Brad Davis and Len Elmore.

The 1974 season ended in a disheartening fashion for UNC, as they were trounced by 20 points versus Maryland in the ACC semi-finals, in a game they were never in. It was one of the worse losses ever for Carolina and they simply were outclassed by the Terps.

State and Maryland went on to put on a basketball clinic in the ACC finals in a 103-100 thriller that Maryland probably should have won, probably deserved to win, but in the end, it was NC State's year. State would then go on to defeat perennial champion UCLA in double-overtime in the NCAA semi-finals, in a game that UCLA probably should have won and probably deserved to win. Two nights later, after rolling over Marquette, NC State and Norm Sloan were on top of the world.

It was possibly the greatest year in ACC history, with the number one team overall, two of the top five and three of the top ten teams hailing from the Atlantic Coast Conference. But UNC had lost five out of six against Maryland and NC State, and was definitely an afterthought during the 1974 season.

Lefty had said he would bring a powerhouse to Maryland and he had done it, almost overnight, it seemed, and NC State was now national champion with all of their team except Burleson coming back and with the excellent Kenny Carr due as a freshman. Carolina looked like the odd man out, about to join Duke as a has-been who used to rule the ACC.

Now, I don't have any television ratings to show you, but during this period, the Norm Sloan television show was a widely seen show and I seem to remember it even being on during prime time. For the first time since Vic Bubas retired, Dean Smith had an in-state rival.

As we moved ahead to 1975, things seemed to be only worse for Carolina. Yes, the Heels had added the dynamic Walter Davis in 1974 and now Phil Ford in 1975, but NC State had added Kenny Carr to take Tom Burleson's spot.

Maryland lost Elmore and McMillen but still had John Lucas and had added Brad Davis and were playing a three guard offensive set with great results. Even Clemson, with Tree Rollins, Stan Rome and Skip Wise appeared to be better than Carolina.

Pre-season magazines saw the Heels as being significantly behind the Wolfpack and Terrapins and falling further.

The season did not start off particularly well, with the Heels going 5-3 to begin the year, although the initial schedule was killer. They lost to future NCAA title runner-up, Kentucky, 90-78, and then lost to Duke and NC State in the Big Four tournament.(Big Four teams regularly played four times a year during this era!). After squeaking by Wake Forest and Clemson at home, Carolina lost a heart-breaker to NC State in overtime, 88-85.

Not the end of the world, you say? This marked the ninth time in a row that Norm Sloan and the Wolfback had beaten Smith and UNC. Nine times! This included Big Four, ACC tourney and regular season games. No one ever had or ever would have such a run against Smith.

This is where Phil Ford comes in.

And perhaps, it really is not fair to frame things like that. Walter Davis may have been every bit the player Ford was and perhaps even his better. Davis was Carolina's first freshman starter. Nor is there much doubt about who the better professional player was, even comparing Ford's best pro years to Davis's. Mitch Kupchak was a future Olympian, All American and NBA champion.

Nevertheless, UNC began to turn things around subtly, after the second NC State defeat that year, and Ford began attracting attention, and to many, including Dean Smith, I believe, Phil Ford would go on to be associated with the change of the Carolina program from being an excellent basketball school, to being perhaps the best. And 1975, Ford's freshman year was the pivotal year.

I will return to this point, but basically no one thought Carolina was anything but a NIT team that season, even allowing for the new rule change which was to allow two ACC teams to go to the NCAA tourney. As the season progressed, Carolina would go on to lose at Clemson, as expected, and dishearteningly, at Virginia, but the Heels did manage to upset Maryland in College Park and then finally, after 9 fruitless attempts, most of them very close games, the Heels beat the Wolfpack in Carmichael Auditorium, and then closed out with a win at Duke, to finish 8-4 in the ACC.

There ended up being a three-way tie for second in the conference, behind Maryland's 10-2, with State, Carolina and Clemson tied, although UNC was clearly seen as the lesser among these equals. Carolina won the coin toss and got second seed, which was big because it meant they only had to play either State or Maryland and not both to win the title.

I won't go into long detail about what was probably the greatest ACC tournament of all time. You can go to SI.com and type in "Phil Ford Kicks Up His Heels" to see the cover and read the orignal SI story but Carolina's wins, particularly against Wake Forest in the first round, were the rare ones that actually might have merited the overused adjective "unbelievable." I think this was Carolina's first basketball cover.

When Carolina beat NC State, Norm Sloan and David Thompson in the ACC Finals, it was a bit like when Muhammad Ali beat George Foreman just before that season started.

You knew that the Heels, like Ali, were still good. You knew it was possible, but you just didn't really see it happening unless you were an Ali or Carolina fan who thought with your heart instead of your head. Back then, it was NC State who seemed to always win those kinds of cardiac games and they had, just the night before, taken out top-seeded Maryland on a scintillating Kenny Carr dunk and appeared ready for the NCAA tourney to defend their title.

Walter Davis might have been the most valuable performer that night for the Heels, but nobody had the verve and effervescence that Phil Ford had. He loved to play basketball and you couldn't take your eyes off him.

I don't think the Heels really had a team that could compete for the title that year. UCLA was still great and would win it one last time for John Wooden. Kentucky, which had already trounced Carolina would finish second and was in UNC's regional, although Carolina got upset by Syracuse in the second round and the rematch never took place.

But the importance of this year can never be underestimated by UNC fans. Never again would Sloan or Driesell be considered on par with Dean Smith as a coach. Never again would NC State have a team as powerful or as popular as their 1973-75 squad. Norm Sloan's television show mostly disappeared and he left to coach at Florida three years later, never taking NC State to the NCAA tournament again.

Under his successor, Jim Valvano, State would eek out another title, to their credit, in 1983, but from this point on, their trajectory and Duke's trajectory crossed as basketball programs and by 1984, when Wake Forest went to the Elite Eight, NC State was well on its way to having the fourth best ACC basketball program in the state of North Carolina.

And Phil Ford got a lion's share of the credit for Carolina's revival, both because he was great and because he had style and charisma--Walter Davis seemed somehow boring compared to Phil--and also, perhaps, because he arrived the year of the turnaround and thus is associated with it in people's minds.

I have heard that Dean Smith believes that getting Ford was the difference in putting the program back on top in the state of North Carolina. While Ford was not as great a college player as either David Thompson before him or Michael Jordan after him, he certainly was the most acclaimed UNC player since Charlie Scott.

An Attempt at Both Objective and Subjective Analysis of Phil Ford as a Tar Heel

Ford was definitely my favorite player of that era and I think most of us who played guard pretended to be him in the backyard. As we look back historically and reassess, it is hard to know how to rate him compared to the Rosenbluth's and Jordan's and Daugherty's and Hansbrough's of the program. Looking back, he seemed fully as good or better to me than any post-1973 UNC player, with the exception of Jordan.

Yet, he definitely had rivals who were arguably just as good. Maryland had John Lucas and Clemson had Skip Wise, although only for one year. Wake Forest had Skip Brown and Marquette had Butch Lee, while Michigan had Ricky Davis and Indiana had Quinn Buckner. Phil Ford was not hands down better than any of these guys, in the way that Michael Jordan was simply hands down better than anyone he played against after his sophomore year.

Statistically, Phil Ford was barely--perhaps like Hansbrough in this respect--the best player on his team, which was saying something given that Walter Davis, Mitch Kupchak and Tom Lagarde all played on the 1976 Olympic team.

I would say that Phil Ford and Tyler Hansbrough shared another important attribute:

Basically, Phil Ford was Phil Ford from day one that he stepped on the court at Carolina in a way that no other four year player except Tyler Hansbrough has ever equaled. Did they both improve? Yes, but subtly.

Michael Jordan as a junior was worlds above Michael Jordan as a freshman. Phil Ford and Tyler Hansbrough were basically the best players on their team from year one and maintained this for four years in spite of the presence of your Walter Davis's, Mitch Kupchak's, Ty Lawson's and Brendan Wright's.

I think that another way that Phil Ford and Hansbrough are alike is something that they share with Michael Jordan. All three were the most recognized face in college basketball during their final year with Carolina. Ford had won the Olympic gold with Smith in 1976 and then dazzled in the Final Four in 1977, and by his senior year, he was the most recognized collegian in the sport, just as David Thompson was at State and Bill Walton before him at UCLA. Some seasons you really don't have that one guy that everyone remembers, but certainly, Ford, Jordan and Hansbrough were it.

Like David Thompson, it is hard for us to remember Phil Ford's true greatness as a collegian without some regret that his talent did not come to full fruition in the pro's. Phil started great, winning the rookie of the year with Kansas City and averaging 17 points and 8 assists during his first three seasons in the NBA, but then had a variety of problems that prevented him from ever performing at this level again.

But even looking at his college years, it is possible to perhaps overlook him in a program like UNC's because he never won the national title.

Carolina came close, losing a nail-biter to Marquette where the Heels had a chance to tie in the last two minutes, but unfortunately, Ford's senior season in 1978 was concluded by a flame-out in the ACC tournament semi-finals to Wake. This was followed by a loss in the NCAA first round that was the start of a NCAA tourney mini-slump (by UNC standards only) of three straight first round exits that would last until 1981.

Even more painful for me as an eleven year old boy, was the conclusion to the 1976 season. The 1976 team seemed to be a great, great team. Carolina went 11-1 in the ACC, losing only to Wake Forest in the Big Four tournament (Carolina rarely did well in the Big Four and certainly shed no tears upon its demise) and a last second loss to NC State at home, 68-67.

Entering the ACC tourney, UNC was 24-2 and after whipping Clemson in the semi's, 25-2 UNC took on last place University of Virginia, which had somehow made it into the finals.

Carolina now seemed a lock for the top seed in the Eastern Region. Indiana was undefeated and number one, but Marquette and UNC were right on the Hoosiers' Heels and this seemed like it could be Carolina's year, especially with the Eastern Regional wide open and much easier than Indiana and Marquette's Mideast Region.

Instead, disaster struck. The ACC officials allowed a very rough level of play in the final, and UVa played the perfect game down the stretch and essentially destroyed Carolina's season. Due to the loss, instead of getting the ultra-easy East Region, Carolina was sent to the same region with Indiana, Marquette and Alabama, arguably the top three teams in the country. Then, Ford somehow got hurt between the UVa loss and the Alabama game in the first round of the NCAA tourney, and Carolina ended up getting annihilated by the Crimson Tide.

My father had gotten us tickets to see Carolina in the NCAA's in the first round in Charlotte. Instead, we got to see UVa return to their last-place selves and go out meekly in the first round against a ho-hum opponent. VMI ended up in the East Region Finals that year, which shows just how easy the region might have been if Carolina had only gotten by UVa.

In the course of a week, Dean Smith's best season to date had gone from outstanding success to disaster, making the 25-4 team's achievements bittersweet to me. Even aside from the end of year fiascoes, perhaps Carolina fans should have been wary.

Statistical analysis was not in vogue then, but a look at the schedule shows that Carolina won three overtime games, with one of them, against Tulane, taking four overtimes to win. Also, both of our wins against Virginia had been very, very close, which we probably just saw as UVa getting lucky to be so close. UNC had also lost to a mediocre Wake team and barely beaten Miami of Ohio, Georgia Tech, (when they were not even in the ACC and definitely not known for basketball) and South Florida.

In retrospect, Carolina was probably not in Marquette or Indiana's class that year, although it would have been interesting to play either of them with a healthy Phil Ford. Alabama, who came closest of anyone to beating Indiana in the tournament, probably had their best team ever that season with Leon Douglas at center. Had UNC beaten UVa, however, the road would have been so much easier with Marquette, Indiana, Alabama and UCLA all bracketed away from Carolina until the finals.

1976 might have been the most disappointing season ever for a Dean Smith team, in the way it ended. The 1984 team lost to really good Duke and Indiana teams in close games. The 1971 team rebounded from a loss to USC in the ACC Finals to win the NIT when that was still a big deal and got to beat Duke in the process, in the NIT semi-finals in New York. The 1976 team lost to a mediocre UVa team and then got run out of the arena by Alabama.

Ford and Coach Smith were, together with Walter Davis, Mitch Kupchak and Tom Lagarde, able to redeem themselves, if not the Tar Heels, by winning perhaps the most important Olympic games ever in 1976, with Ford and Indiana's Quinn Buckner forming a talented backcourt that only Puerto Rico, with Butch Lee, could contend with.

Phil Ford's final year, in 1978 was kind of an afterthought when compared to his first three with all their up's and down's. Although Ford had another great year with memorable performances, the 1978 Tar Heels were neither particularly good, going 23-8 and losing to William and Mary, Furman and Providence, nor particularly memorable. 1978 belongs to Duke in most people's memories even though Carolina won a scintillating game over the Blue Devils in Ford's last game. Although Ford's statistics were good his senior year, they were probably not any better than they had been overall his two prior seasons.

Aside from his general excellence, Phil Ford will always be remembered as the master of the 4 Corners Offense.

I tend to be an agnostic on the effectiveness of the 4 Corners offense, without seeing any statistics showing its effectiveness versus Carolina’s generally excellent offense in their normal sets.

Yes, at times the 4 Corners worked great, but there were other times where it didn’t, such as the Marquette game, and even in the NC State game in the ACC Finals back in 1975, where if you watch the action on youtube, Carolina turned the ball over several times in the 4 Corners.

The 4 Corners did not win the 1975 ACC tourney for UNC. Good fortune and excellent play by Carolina, particularly in the games against Clemson and NC State did it, not the Four Corners. In fact, I would say that Carolina beat State in spite of using the Four Corners, not because of it.

Some of the effectiveness of the Four Corners depended upon how rigorously the officials made the opposing team go out and chase Carolina. If the opponents chose not to chase and the officials didn’t push the issue, the game would grind to a halt, as against UVa in the ACC Finals in 1982.

Perhaps the season where it worked best was in 1977, with John Kuester and Phil Ford running it with great success until the game with Marquette where it landed with a thud. Kuester saved UNC against UVa in the finals of the ACC tourney, garnering revenge for Carolina in one of UNC's most bitter revenge wins ever. He was great running it again against Notre Dame. The Heels' string of wins in the 1977 NCAA's were remarkable with each game from the UVa game on, having an incredible level of intensity and pressure.

Given Carolina’s injuries that year, virtually every one of their wins in the NCAA tourney was an upset and they probably could not have won it all or even gotten to the title game without the selective use of Four Corners given their injuries and foul trouble in several games.

Phil Ford was exhilerating in his performance in the national semi-finals as Carolina beat UNLV 84-83 in a high-scoring affair that virtually no one thought Carolina could win. This came on the back of the tedious Marquette victory over UNCC by 51-49. The title seemed near, but the Four Corners finally failed and earned both Smith and the strategy itself a high level of opprobrium from fans and reporters alike.

Carolina would continue to use the Four Corners during the next few years after Ford's departure but no one ever would run it as well again and it would become less a part of UNC's repertoire and for good and bad, associated with Dean Smith and Phil Ford in particular.

About the last time I remember the Four Corners being used in a significant win was against UVa in 1982 where Carolina employed it to preserve a lead against UVa, which they accomplished, but they didn’t increase their margin any and one wonders why they couldn’t have won just playing the way they were. They didn’t use it against Georgetown in a similar situation in the finals and won without it.

The slowdown which resulted in the UVa game in the ACC Finals led to rule changes that essentially ended the Four Corners little by little, which was one of Dean Smith's intentions all along. He knew that if UNC had to choose between a game with a shot clock or a game without where UNC could use the Four Corners, a shot clock greatly improved the prospects of a team like Carolina much more than did the use of the Four Corners.

I think the main reason why most UNC fans remember the spread offense with such fondness is that it annoyed the hell out of Duke, State, USC, Maryland and UVa when Carolina used it and UNC fans loved getting their goats. It wasn’t as though Carolina wasn’t better than those teams most years anyway and needed to stall to win.

I am sure that others remember this offensive strategy more fondly than I do and can point to other situations where they believe it worked great. Nevertheless, given the general excellence of Carolina's teams, who is to say they wouldn't have won most of those games anyway.

NFL Replay System

2008-12-17T11:04:00.000-08:00

The NFL and college football have recently been suffering under a series of highly questionable replay decisions that have greatly affected important games. More and more plays also seem to be going to replay, which means a several minute halt to play and lack of continuity to the games.

Perhaps lawyers understand this more than others, since we deal in appeals as a profession, but one thing should be clear:

You cannot lower the standard for review without ending up with more reviews.

If the NFL has now adopted "under the table" a "just get the call right" standard, then we will begin to see more and more reviews. Cincinnati was upheld on all of its challenges against Washington on Sunday. Pittsburgh was upheld on a challenge that simply could not have been upheld under an indisputable or conclusive standard.

Unless the referees on the field are suddenly getting worse, we should see very few calls overturned under the claimed standards.

http://nfl.fanhouse.com/2008/12/16/refs-in-the-hood-an-nfl-fanhouse-roundtable-on-instant-replay-o/

Stephen Curry and Davidson -- 2009 Wildcats

2008-12-10T08:10:00.000-08:00

The Davidson Wildcat basketball team caught the attention of a lot of college basketball fans last spring. They were a team of overachievers from a small college known primarily for its high academic standards. But they played exciting basketball and they played it the right way, going toe-to-toe in the NCAA tourney with top programs at Gonzaga, Georgetown, Wisconsin and Kansas, and just barely missed a trip to the Final Four. Earlier in the season, they barely lost against interstate rivals, Carolina, Duke and NC State.

Well, Davidson is back and appears to be starting off their season even better than last year. While I am not predicting a Final Four appearance for them, because so much of the one and out tournament is random, I do expect to see the Wildcats back into the Sweet Sixteen.

Star guard Stephen Curry, from Charlotte Christian High School, was number two in the country last year in offensive efficiency among players involved in at least 28% of their team's offensive possessions. The ratings vary based upon how often different teams need their best scorers to shoot, but Curry was right up there with Tyler Hansbrough among the most efficient scorers in the NCAA. http://kenpom.com/leaders.php?c=ORtg&y=2008

The Wildcats have lost Jason Richards, however, who was the top assist man among players in the NCAA tourney last year, and so this is a crucial loss for Davidson, indeed.

Richard's departure has resulted in Stephen Curry's having to take over the position of point guard and now having to be the key man in terms of production in both points and assists, which is no easy task for one player, which is why there have only been a handful of unselfish Phil Ford-type players who have been top-notch assist-men and scorers.

Curry thus far has his team off to an even better start than last year, when the Wildcats lost all of their pre-conference games against top twenty caliber teams, and even against NC State.

Teams like Davidson in mid-major conferences don't often play schedules as tough as teams from the bigger schools, so Davidson has made a concerted effort to schedule tough out of conference opposition during the pre-conference season and has already beaten North Carolina State and West Virginia, while losing an entertaining game to Oklahoma in the preseason NIT. Duke and Purdue on the road are yet to come in the next three weeks.

While Davidson is performing fairly well so far, the team still does not quite resemble the disciplined, heady, streamlined unit from the end of last season that left Big Ten champ Wisconsin baffled, dumbfounded and wallowing in the muck.

Can Davidson get back to the level of its play in last year's NCAA tourney? It is possible. Davidson might be ready to take another step up in terms of performance this season, given Curry's statistics from his Freshman and Sophomore seasons.

It is instructive to look at Curry's statistics so far this season to see that he is especially excelling in four areas: two point field goals, free throw percentage, assists and steals.

His assist and steal rates would lead a lot of leagues and his free throw percentage is superb, with him taking and making significantly more free throws per game than last year.

ESPN talked a lot about his turn-overs last night but he still had an assist to turnover rating of over 1.0 last night and his rating is currently over 2.0, which is high enough to lead a lot of leagues.

His only, somewhat disappointing stat is, surprisingly, his three point percentage.

http://www.davidsonwildcats.com/custompages/mbball/2008-09/box%20scores/TEAMCUME.HTM?path=mbball

Last year, Curry hit .439 of his three-pointers, which is a superb percentage, particularly for a player who shoots so many and such long and difficult ones.

By way of contrast, Duke's J.J. Redick, who was also known as an excellent outside shooter and who had a similar style and role to the one Curry had during his first two years at Davidson, hit .421 of his three-pointers in 2006, while attempting 39 fewer. Last season, Steph Curry both shot more than Redick and made a higher percentage than Redick, and without the blue chip support than Redick had around him on Duke's 32-4 2006 team.

So far this year, Curry is hitting only .378 of his three-pointers, while approximately taking about the same number per game. It is hard to gauge after only eight games, especially since there was one game where he was double-teamed the entire time and only attempted three shots and didn't score, although Davidson won easily.

Making .378 of one's three-pointers, especially when shooting a lot of them and from difficult positions, is not bad, but this is also not a stellar number. Conference leaders usually shoot around .440 or thereabout. Granted the line is back a foot or so this year, but this has only resulted in a 1 percent decrease nationally in three pointers made and attemtped.

Curry's two-point shooting is up, however, going from .540 to .570, and this is an excellent percentage for a guard shooting two-pointers. By way of comparison, again, J.J. Redick of Duke in 2006 hit .521 of his two-point shots.

Curry is also shooting far more two pointers per game this year than he did last year, which makes sense, given his change in roles, and this makes his increase in percentage even more impressive given that he is shooting more and thus has to attempt more marginal shots that he would not have been forced to take in the past.

Looking forward, if Curry can get back to the levels of three-point field goal percentage which he attained last year, Davidson might be a legitimate Final Four team. If Curry shoots three's like last year, the tough wins against NC State and West Virginia become easier victories and Davidson likely beats Oklahoma.

The key word is "if" however, because no one truly is Superman. It may be that the burdens on Curry from running the point will simply leave him unable to get some of the easier three point looks that he got the last two seasons. But if he can get back to the .450 level from the three point line, while maintaining his improvement in two pointers, Davidson's opponents had best watch out.

ACC Football

2008-11-24T08:57:00.000-08:00

There has seldom been any doubt during the last forty years as to which sport, football or basketball, reigns supreme in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Nevertheless, the UNC Tar Heels had a somewhat better team, at least in terms of record, in football this season than they have in the past several years. This led to a bit of resurgence in terms of Carolina fan interest, but as the season has gone on, it has become clearer and clearer that neither UNC nor the rest of the ACC is very good in football.

So, what happened? The ACC used to play decent football, if not quite at the same level as the SEC or Big Ten.

About the only obvious change in the past few years has been the pilfering by the Atlantic Coast Conference of three of the better football schools in the Big East Conference in 2004.

Since the merger with BC, VPI and Miami, the ACC has gotten relatively better in basketball and relatively worse in football, which was the exact opposite of what was supposed to happen.

Although BC, VPI and Miami have been disappointments in ACC football, all three have overachieved in hoops. Given the relative declines in the Duke, Wake, Maryland and NC State basketball programs since the merger, BC and VPI, and Miami, to a lesser extent, have helped to keep the ACC on top in hoops.

At the same time, all three programs, or at least Miami and VPI have fallen precipitously from their previous top ten football heights. BC has probably elevated ACC play in both sports, even though they make a poor fit in the conference in most ways.

When you add this change to the fall from grace by the former perennial great Florida State, you end up with a conference in disarray, that sends teams like Wake Forest to the Orange Bowl and has a season like the current one, where seemingly no team wants to win their division.

The top ACC team this year–whoever they are–would probably be at least a four touchdown dog against Florida, Oklahoma, USC, or Texas. Indeed, BC or Georgia Tech might be over-performing to lose 35-7 against the Sooners. This is pretty sad given that Clemson, Georgia Tech and Florida State all won the national football title in the 25 year period before the expansion/merger.

I don’t think anyone has a complete explanation for what has happened. Is it a fluke? Maybe things will turn around and the ACC will go back to being a decent football conference with a couple of top ten teams, but I am beginning to wonder if the ACC and Big East have not now both gotten the “Basketball Conference” moniker around their necks, which turns into a self-fulfilling prophecy in terms of recruiting.

Can you imagine how much worse it would be if the ACC had taken Syracuse, instead of VPI, as was the original plan? Thank goodness, that after that first year, the Big East hasn’t been any better in football than the ACC.

I think we can see now that several games this year were not flukes, but rather precise indicators of the (lack of) merit of ACC football:

Maryland–Middle Tennessee State
UNC–McNeese State
UNC–Notre Dame (both teams mediocre)
UNC–Virginia (dreadful game by mediocre teams)
Wake Forest–Navy
VPI–East Carolina
Clemson–Alabama
Wake Forest–Clemson (dreadful play on both sides)
Wake Forest–Florida State (dreadful, awful play on both sides)

How Can We Permanently Lower Taxes?

2008-11-18T06:49:00.000-08:00

Here's a question:

Take a look at the U.S. budget pie chart by clicking on the link below and see if you can find any way to lower the deficit without cutting defense.

Republicans say that we need to be spending more on defense, but that we can cut the budget in other areas. Here's a hint--62 percent of the budget is composed of Medicare, Social Security, veterans' payments, pensions, etc., and interest. Defense is 20 percent of the budget and everything else Washington provides costs about 18 percent of the budget. Getting rid of Amtrak, foreign aid and entitlements is not going to do it.

Because at some point, taxes have to equal outlays, how or what can be cut that will result in significant savings in order to permanently keep taxes low?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:U.S._Federal_Spending_-_FY_2007.png

Classic Spirts--Best Buys

2008-10-21T11:43:00.000-07:00

For those who enjoy consuming in moderation the "good stuff," the falling dollar and the economic turmoil of recent weeks can make indulging in expensive liquor a more difficult decision. Not to fear, here are my buying tips, with some category suggestions.

First of all comes the age question. Most spirits improve with time in the barrel, but not necessarily all. If you are buying vodka, buy the cheapest triple-distilled product you can find. When talking about premium rums, bourbons, Scotches and Irishes, and ryes, yes, quality does generally improve with age, but there are diminishing and perhaps, even negative returns after a certain quantity of years. Aging greatly increases the ultimate price of a liquor.

Rye whiskey tends to need the least time in the bottle to mellow, and thus, tends to be the best liquor bargain out there, so little time, in fact, that usually there will be no age statement. Rum also needs very little aging, but tends to be slightly more expensive than rye due to the cost of importation, perhaps, although some rums can age for up to five years or more. Bourbon comes next, generally doing well with six to ten years in the bottle, followed by Scotch and Irish whiskey, which can be aged up to 21 years or more.

Tequila is a new entry into this category, but due to supply constraints, it is currently well beyond what I believe it is worth and should be approached with caution. When buying Tequila, make sure that it is 100-percent agave. After that, the clear, less aged, cheaper versions with 100-percent agave tend to have the most robust tequila taste, with the more expensive dark versions tasting somewhat more like brandy, which I won't treat here because it tends to have a bad reputation in the United States, as opposed to Spain and France. Aging in general, will tend to make a liquor taste somewhat less like its original grain, fruit or sugar.

So here are my recommendations:

Rye Whiskey is almost always the best deal among premium liquors and many Scotch drinkers won't even notice the difference. Jim Beam, Pikesville and Old Overholt should all cost anywhere from $9 to $13 and are all excellent.

When speaking of Rum, I am not talking about clear rum, which is essentially vodka made from sugar. Rum tends to evaporate quickly and often does not carry an age statement. You can do excellently with Goslings Black Seal, which is a very dark rum or Sergeant Classick, which is straw in color, either for around $13 and excellent for sipping.

I find bourbon to be somewhat less friendly for sipping than either Rye or Scotch, but there are times where that more caramel taste is welcome. I would generally avoid the so-called "small batch bourbons", as I believe this is basically a scam to piggyback on the marketing of single malt whiskeys, which is a more legitimate category. Tennessee Whiskeys like George Dickel and Jack Daniels, are similar to bourbon, but perhaps a bit smoother.

Old Granddad 100 is certainly a best buy, as are the higher proofs of Ancient Age. One tip is to look for bourbons which have a proof higher than 80, as higher proofs have traditionally been a sign of better quality among bourbons, perhaps due to the bottled in bond category of yesteryear, that of a 100 proof bourbon. You will rarely go wrong with either George Dickel Number 12 or Wild Turkey 101, both for between $15 and $20 a bottle.

I am not going to pick any Irish because it is too similar to Scotch and generally more expensive. I believe the real merit in single malt whiskeys is in training the palate as to what good Scotch tastes like, but the prices of single malts generally rule them out here. If you do want to buy a single malt, consider a 10-year old as it is not clear to me, whether or not further aging actually improves the product, or rather degrades the malt taste. This depends on the palate, I suppose. Also, consider Johnny Walker Black or Chivas Regal, which are cheaper than single malts but not necessarily inferior.

The all-time winner for best buy in any category has to go to White Horse Blended Scotch Whisky, which can be found for between $12 and $15 a bottle. This whisky has attractive packing, like more expensive whiskeys, and has a base of Lagavulin, one of the most distinct and expensive of the single malts. This is highly recommended. My runner-up would be Teacher's, which is slightly more expensive. It also has the same attractive packaging, i.e., metal caps instead of cheap plastic ones, has a high malt content and a distinctive sweet taste. If you can't find either of these, Passport is not bad, for about the same money. The rule of thumb here is if it has a plastic cap, it is no longer a best buy, but rather cheap swill and this rule seems to hold up fairly well.

R.I.P. Chicago Cubs

2008-10-03T08:30:00.000-07:00

What a joke baseball's post-season is. You play 162 games and show that you are clearly better and then baseball sticks you in what may be only a 3-game series and it's over. Or as Billy Beane said in Moneyball, "My sh*t doesn't work in the post-season."

I don't care what happens here. The Cubs were clearly the better team this year.

The World Series winner is now little more than a statistical fraud. St. Louis barely even had a winning record a couple of years ago, but the better team tends to only win about 55% of the time in baseball, which means that a true powerhouse like Seattle had when they won 116 games in the regular season has less than a 20% chance of winning the World Series. A wildcard team with a couple of good pitchers can stumble its way into a title.

This was somewhat obscured at the beginning of the addition of the dreadful five game division series back in 1996 because the Yankees had an unlikely run, winning four times in five years. But since the 2000 season, no team has repeated and some very mediocre teams have won the Series.

I sincerely doubt that the 1976 Cincinnati Reds, which were the only NL team in the last 80 years to repeat, could do so under these modern rules. Atlanta would have won several world series under the pre-1969 and even under the pre-1996 rules, but now it is just a lottery where the regular season means little or nothing.

One commenter has brought up the scheduling changes due to intra-division play. I understand about the scheduling changes, which are another unfair change, particularly to the Mets, but understandable to let some inter-league rivalries take place. The differences in the records here seem significant enough to offset that.

If winning 12 more games in the regular season does not make you better, then why not let all the teams in the post-season?

Two games is not any kind of representative sample upon which anyone can make conclusions. If the Dodgers took two easy games in a row at Wrigley in July, people wouldn't bat an eye. I think I have seen articles that say that it would take 8-10 games to be somewhat statistically reliable, it is certainly more than three games.

The NFL and NBA play-offs are much more statistically sound and I don't think anyone denies that. Hockey is somewhat less so but still more than baseball.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/03/sports/baseball/03cubs.html?em

Sarah Palin

2008-10-02T07:11:00.000-07:00

I am kind of fascinated by Sarah Palin. Her entire candidacy is so surreal that it seems like something out of a movie, maybe a chick-flick called Veep Mom, or one of those comedies where the yokels show how much smarter they really are than more sophisticated folks, call it, Wasilia White House, and instead of Easter Egg Hunts, Sarah "dresses" a deer for the children and teaches them where food comes from.(No moose in D.C., unfortunately).

She has bragged about being the Joe Sixpack candidate, and don't they deserve a little representation in Washington, too?

It reminds me of the situation back in 1970, where Richard Nixon nominated to the U.S. Supreme Court, Florida judge, Harold Carswell. When Democrats questioned his capacity for being a Supreme Court Justice, Senator Roman Hruska of Nebraska attempted to make his case for him:

”Even if he were mediocre, there are a lot of mediocre judges and
people and lawyers. They are entitled to a little representation,
aren’t they, and a little chance? We can’t have all Brandeises,
Frankfurters and Cardozos.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Hruska

I guess we all believe in Affirmative Action now.

Or not, since John McCain recently compared her experience to that of Ronald Reagan, who, together with Barry Goldwater, espoused an influential and detailed political doctrine, and who governed the most populous state in the nation for 8 years, and who ran three excellent presidential campaigns, finally winning in 1980, after losing narrowly to Nixon and Ford in 1968 and 1976.

Yeah, that's the same as being governor for two years and mayor of some podunk town in Alaska.

The GOP stalwarts go apoplectic if anyone disses Sarah, so I am writing this at my own risk.

Still, it is hard for me to be too mad at the GOP because this month has been the greatest reality show I have ever seen: the Sarah Palin show. These are the same Republicans that have opposed affirmative action for 30 years because it advances people beyond what they are capable of; these are the people who sneered at welfare queens having babies in high school, but in Alaska you get an extra $1,500 per year for every baby you can pump out, so why shouldn't Bristol get on board?

Let me make clear that I am not disrespecting Sarah just because she sounds exactly like Frances McDormand, who played the female cop in the movie, Fargo, although she does. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fargo_(film) ; http://www.slate.com/id/2201318/

I definitely am not a "hater."

Nor am I am one of those people who point to every factual gaffe that people make.

Furthermore, I understand that when people speak, they don't necessarily use 100% proper grammar, but Palin seems to be especially challenged with respect to verb-subject agreement and antecedents, which seem strung to and fro, interrupted by healthy doses of talking points, which usually seem to have nothing to do with the original question.

If you are a liberal, you really have to scratch your head sometimes to even figure out what the heck she means, and often, you simply cannot. Those talking points are not intended for you. That is conservative secret code. She's non-linear, so don't go trying to put her in the constraints of ordinary grammar and syntax. Let Sarah be Sarah!

You definitely cannot accuse her of not trying to improve herself. My goodness, when asked by Katie Couric what periodicals she reads, Palin remarked, "all of them."

That's a lot of reading.

Slate magazine online, has done a number of superb humor pieces on her. There was one about diagramming her sentences, which was funny, but the Slate article on the poetry of Sarah Palin may have been about the funniest thing that I have seen since the movie Borat. http://www.slate.com/id/2201342/

Sarah tells it like it is, no pulling punches for her:

"On Good and Evil"

It is obvious to me
Who the good guys are in this one
And who the bad guys are.
The bad guys are the ones
Who say Israel is a stinking corpse,
And should be wiped off
The face of the earth.

That's not a good guy.

(To K. Couric, CBS News, Sept. 25, 200

Here is another of my favorites:

"On the Bailout"

Ultimately,
What the bailout does
Is help those who are concerned
About the health care reform
That is needed
To help shore up our economy,
Helping the—
It's got to be all about job creation, too.

Shoring up our economy
And putting it back on the right track.
So health care reform
And reducing taxes
And reining in spending
Has got to accompany tax reductions
And tax relief for Americans.
And trade.

We've got to see trade
As opportunity
Not as a competitive, scary thing.
But one in five jobs
Being created in the trade sector today,
We've got to look at that
As more opportunity.
All those things.

If you submitted a sitcom based on the reality of this candidacy, it would be rejected as unbelievable. Truth is stranger than fiction, indeed! And funnier, too. I can't wait to see Gramps McCain holding Bristol's baby in the White House--that alone would be worth having the Republicans win the election.

Sarah is actually funnier than Borat and that movie was hilarious. A great sequel would have Borat go to Alaska and learn about Alaska from her. She truly is about the funniest thing I have ever seen.

I love the way she can turn any question into a nonsensical talking point, or as one wag noted, "babble points." Bail-out? Well, its all about health care reform and lower taxes and trade.... And always remember, Iran is not a good guy.

So you can see, I love Sarah Palin! I am on pins and needles to see what she might cook up for us in tonight's debate. Talk about "Can't Miss T.V."!

I'm not voting for her, of course, but if she ever actually gets a reality show, I will be watching! As she might herself say, Right on!

LPs versus CDs--The Debate Continues

2008-09-26T11:16:00.000-07:00

CBS recently did a report on the renewed popularity of vinyl records, which were once thought to be dead a decade ago.

So what happened? Well, a couple of things. First of all, vinyl records are much harder to pirate than CDs, so the record companies like them. Second, they have much more room for artwork and lyrics and the like, so both fans and artists like them in that respect. Third, (and I am not going to provide any links because there are too many opinions out there), vinyl records may interact with a phono cartridge in a way that is simply more pleasing to the ear than is digital reproduction, even though they may or may not be as technically close to the original recording.

For what it is worth, I take a middle position. The vast majority of rock music, up to about 1985, was composed and engineered for vinyl, thus it might not be surprising that it sounds as good or better on this medium. This is true for a large chunk of the great jazz music out there.

With respect to classical music, however, I believe that CDs are generally the better choice for 99% of people. There are so many soft passages in most great classical pieces, which generally date before 1950 or even 1900, that any little bit of surface noise generally becomes obstrusive to the enjoyment of the piece. Most of the imperfections on rock music generally will fall beneath the noise floor.

GOP Prospects for the Future

2008-09-17T09:15:00.000-07:00

If you compare the 1988 electoral map to the 2008 electoral map, as provided by Realclearpolitics, it is becoming clear that the GOP is going to have to change its positions on many issues. The map continues to trend away from them.

The idea that Republicans could win a rout like 1988 or 1984 or 1972 anymore is ludicrous. The blue states on the East coast are heading south towards North Carolina and then Georgia on the I-95 and I-85 corridors. Among states below the Mason-Dixon, Maryland has already become reliably blue after voting for Reagan and the first George Bush and Virginia now has had 2 Democratic governors in a row, and will soon have two Democratic senators.

Some have posited that re-apportionment will save the GOP in the coming decade, with Red states likely to gain electoral votes at the expense of blue states, but this assumption is suspect, as the gains in Texas, South Carolina and Utah, which should remain reliably red, are liable to be tempered by the losses of Virginia, North Carolina, Nevada, Florida, Arizona and Georgia, all of which have suddenly become competitive states for the Democrats. Colorado and New Hampshire, both of which were won by George Bush in 2000, and New Mexico, which he won in 2004 after losing in 2000 are trending blue as well. http://www.savethegop.com/2008/09/14/electoral-college-2012/

You will notice that with the exception of Utah, none of the most fiercely conservatives states, such as Alabama, Kansas, Oklahoma, Louisiana or Mississippi will be gaining electoral votes.

Virginia may go blue this fall and if it does, expect it to remain blue, followed by North Carolina in the next election, with Nevada and Florida already at equipoise. Georgia has gone Democratic for President in 1976, 1980 and 1992, while Arizona went blue in 1996 and has looked increasingly competitive, if not this year, due to the nomination of a favorite son.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/maps/obama_vs_mccain/?map=16

The Greatest Fights of Muhammad Ali

2008-09-12T08:57:00.000-07:00

Boxing, along with horse racing, was once widely followed among Americans. In many ways, the 1970's were the final heyday for the sport, when there were excellent practitioners, particularly in the heavyweight division, which was led by Joe Frazier, George Foreman, and Muhammad Ali.

Ali, who had previously been a dominant champion during the 1960's with no serious opposition, found himself surrounded by several fighters who were in his class during the 1970's, which resulted in several great, great fights, most of which are now available on either ESPN Classic or youtube. For anyone interested in watching some of them, here is my ranking of the ten greatest fights involving Ali. These are all interesting fights and I would put the first five of these on a list of the greatest fights in boxing history, not just among heavyweights.

1. 1974--Ali vs. George Foreman--Known as the Rumble in the Jungle, this fight had an electric atmosphere, with almost constant action. Ali proved that he had the best chin in boxing as he survived Foreman's brutal assaults and ultimately won on a "light" knock-out over an exhausted Foreman in the 8th round, giving Big George his first career defeat. Despite the biased announcing by the British commentator, this fight was pretty even until the surprising ending where the spent Foreman twirls to the canvas. Because of Foreman's acclaim at the time, this fight was much more of an upset than it seems today, somewhat akin to Buster Douglas stopping the undefeated Tyson in 1990.

2. 1975--Ali vs. Joe Frazier--Known as the Thrilla in Manila, this fight lacked the explosive individual punches of the first Ali-Frazier fight or the Foreman fight, but what it lacked in knock-downs, it made up for in intensity. Frazier and Ali went toe to toe for 14 brutal rounds, fighting to the point of utter exhaustion, if not quite death. Every time I watch this, I am unsure whether or not Ali is going to be able to come out for the 15th round.

Sports Illustrated had this to say the week before the Thrilla: "It is doubtful that Ali and Frazier will match their first fight, a masterpiece of courage and talent and high tension that left one damp with sweat and tingling many hours later." http://vault.sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1090286/index.htm

Somehow, they did.

3. 1971--Ali vs. Joe Frazier--Known as the Fight of the Century, this bout pitted the two undefeated champions in a fight which had more peaks of excitement, but less overall intensity than the Manila fight. Frazier punishes Ali in both the 11th and 15th, perhaps worse than any other boxer until Larry Holmes in 1980. Frazier's knock-down of Ali in the 15th was one of the hardest punches in boxing history, but somehow Ali got up and finished the fight. Overall, it was still a pretty close bout and Frazier may have looked more beaten up than Ali at the end.

4. 1977--Ali vs. Earnie Shavers--Shavers had a punch like George Foreman and would later go on to destroy Ken Norton in one round, and put Larry Holmes down in a title fight, and he showed his power here, hurting Ali in several rounds and leaving Ali sagging on the ropes at the end of round 14.

We didn't realize how good Shavers actually was at the time, so in retrospect, Ali deserves credit for beating an excellent opponent in a close, exciting 15-round bout. Sports Illustrated gave this fight its cover with the headline: "Ali's Desperate Hour." http://vault.sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/cover/featured/8558/index.htm

5. 1975--Ali vs. Ron Lyle--Ron Lyle was another excellent 1970's fighter, along with Shavers, Norton and Jimmy Young, who never quite won the title in the ring, but who all gave Ali all he wanted head-to-head. Lyle appeared to be ahead in this fight in which he made Ali come to him, away from the ropes, but Ali stopped him in the 11th on a somewhat questionable TKO.

6. 7. 8.--Ali vs. Ken Norton--Ali fought Norton three times, in 1973, twice and then in 1976 and there essentially was not a dime's worth of difference between the two fighters. The first two fights were split decisions, one won by Norton and one won by Ali, with Norton breaking Ali's jaw in the first bout. The third fight took place in 1976 in Yankee Stadium and was just as close as the first two with Ali winning a highly controversial decision by one round on two cards and two rounds on the referee's card.

9. 1978--Ali vs. Leon Spinks--This was an exciting, entertaining bout that resulted in Ali losing his title. The reason why I grade it only at 9 is because it was not apparent at the time, just how poor a heavyweight Leon Spinks was or how much Ali's skills had been degraded in the five months since his victory against Shavers. Spinks may be the worst heavyweight champion to ever hold the lineal heavyweight title, but this was a pretty good fight.

10. Tie--1976--Ali vs. Jimmy Young; 1975--Ali vs. Chuck Wepner. The Young fight was not particularly exciting, but many felt that Young won the 15-round fight. Wepner never really had a chance to win against Ali, but he did put Ali down with a surprise glancing punch and took Ali into the 15th round before finally succumbing and ultimately inspiring the concept of the Rocky movies for Sylvester Stallone.

Ali fought ten title bouts in the 1960's and won all of them easily, against mostly mediocre competition, with the exception of Sonny Liston and the small, former champ, Floyd Patterson. In the 70's, however, Ali rarely had an easily fight when fighting against highly ranked opposition, as the above list shows. It is difficult to assert that the 1970's Ali was measurably better than either Norton or Frazier head to head, and neither Foreman, nor Young, nor Lyle nor Shavers ever fought Ali again, after difficult wins for Ali.

Reel Mowers Revisited

2008-08-21T18:26:00.001-07:00

I now have had the opportunity to use my Scott's Elite mower exclusively for a couple of months and I have to say that my opinion of this unit has only gone up. It simply works beautifully and for me, anyway, has made lawn care somewhat addictive.

One tip that I want to share is that I did make one adjustment to the unit's factory settings, which was to raise the cutting height to its maximum. While you cannot really do this on the fly with this mower as you can with the Sunlawn's, it really is not all that difficult to do and takes about five minutes to change, but what a change!

The mower is much easier to push and the difference in cutting height is not all that great. In fact, I believe that many of the people who have found these types of mowers too difficult to push probably never tried the mowers in the highest cutting position.

After adjusting the height to its maximum, it was much easier to cut tall grass, while cutting grass which was just at the verge of needing to be be cut, was almost too easy, as there was very little resistance at all. I am sure a physicist could explain this with an equation, but basically, the larger the mower's width and the higher the grass, the more effort it takes to push a reel mower and small differences in the dimensions and settings might make a significant difference in terms of the pushing effort required.

For where I live, which is the hot and sunny Mid-Atlantic region, the highest setting is plenty short to be presentable and is probably close to the optimal cutting height for the Ryes and Blue Grasses used in this region.

With respect to some of the other issues regarding reel mowers, I continue to find most of the criticisms overblown. My yard is larger than recommended, it is uneven in places and has different types of grasses. None of these factors has been much of a hindrance.

Some critics have raised the question of small sticks getting caught in the mower. The Elite is more susceptible to this than the Sunlawn, but it really hasn't been a big deal. You either roll the reel back slightly or just plow through it if the stick is small enough.

Reel Mowers are not great at cutting tall weeds or breaking sticks into mulch or leveling uneven soil, but most of these practices are not essential, or even antithetical, to safe, proper lawn care. If there are weeds that don't get cut, I simply yank them out.(or if they are dandelions, they eventually fall over on their own.) Yes, it takes a little more time, but the yard ends up looking better. Reel mowers are actually better for mowing near obstructions such as rocks or stumps, as they tend to cut the ground around these objects without hitting them, unlike gas mowers which often break or lose their sharpness due to hitting stumps and exposed concrete and the like.

About the only other issue has to do with the sharpening of the blades. I have mowed a lot of grass with this Scott's Elite and the blades still seem perfectly serviceable. I have, however, bought a blade-sharpening kit for this unit and it appears to be much easier to do than I expected. Although I haven't used the kit yet, I have read the manual.(rtfm, right?) Basically, you apply a sharpening compound to the blades and then either roll the mower backwards, or take one of the wheels off and crank the reels backwards for a few minutes to make the reel edges sharp again, but after a couple of months of using this mower, I don't feel that it is necessary yet. http://www.rubyrooms.com/p/How-To-Service-Your-Reel-Mower/l-2452012

There have lately been a slew of articles, including one in the New York Times, which have dealt with the inability of many small gas-powered engines to run well on fuel blends which contain ethanol, which is basically all of them in the U.S. now. Apparently, small engine machine shops have been inundated the entire country all over, with malfunctioning gas mowers.

This probably explains why my gas mower has died three times in the last 9 months and probably is now headed for the recycling heap. I recently tried high octane gasoline to see if that might turn its sputtering into starting, but to no avail. The only other thing to try is some type of fuel additive, and if that doesn't work, then I am giving up on my gas-powered mower. I wouldn't even bother trying, except for the challenge to see if I can get thing running again.

Nevertheless, with the possible exception of grinding fall leaves, which I haven't had to do yet, I honestly cannot envision a situation where a simple gas-power mower is superior to the tried and true reel mower given my personal lawn mowing needs. Although I have actually seen some good looking gas mowers on sale recently for around $100, I just don't miss the noise and the smell and the wrenching my arm out starting the thing, even if the newer ones actually do work with ethanol blends.

Review--Dennis Wilson--Pacific Ocean Blue

2008-08-07T19:13:00.000-07:00

I have been going back and forth over what is going to be my next post, this exquisite album by a former Beach Boy or the new Batman movie, the Dark Knight, both of which I had been awaiting anxiously. Well, you have to start somewhere and this amazing work has soothed my disappointment over the new Batman flick. http://www.pacificoceanblue.net/

First of all, although, this re-issue album is entitled Pacific Ocean Blue, which was a Dennis Wilson solo work from the late 1970's, it is much more than that. Dennis, the lone surfer in the group, was not one of the more-heralded Beach Boys, known mostly as the drummer who rarely sang, but became known for his excursion into transcendental meditation and for having more than a casual relationship with Charlie Manson, before Helter Skelter. He would eventually be overcome by personal addiction and drown in the very ocean he so loved.

Due to Dennis Wilson's early demise--he was to die a few years after the release of POB--he left behind a great deal of music in the archives directed toward an album that never saw official release. Tentatively called, Bambu, after the rolling papers that used to sit next to every cash register at every convenience store in the 1970's, the second disc of the POB re-issue carries songs from the so-called Bambu sessions, that have been bouncing around as bootlegs for close to 30 years. Finally, the release contains two versions of an amazing unreleased instrumental song by Wilson called Holy Man, which by itself is worth the price of admission.

I was never a Beach Boys fan growing up--too corny, I thought and I might have been right given what American radio usually played, Barbara Ann and Surfing USA--not that they were bad but I was more attracted to the Beatles and never realized that the Beach Boys had records like Pet Sounds and Surf's Up and Holland that were amazingly beautiful and deep. Strangely enough, the Beach Boys have always been much more popular in England than at home. Maybe the grass is always greener. But the works on the new POB release are not much like any Beach Boy albums that I know. They have an amazing 1970's feel. Think of the very best music from the 1970's, whether from Jackson Browne or Pink Floyd or George Harrison and you will be right at home with POB and the Bambu out-takes.

Even though POB and Bambu were not originally released together(or Bambu, ever, until now), taken together, they definitely have a similar feel among the songs. If Dennis Wilson had followed George Harrison (another unappreciated famous band member with vocals more expressive than exquisite) and released all of these songs at once, the effect might be quite similar to Harrison's lauded sprawling triple-album, All Things Must Pass, with Dennis's Holy Man playing the role of Isn't it a Pity, as the album's anthem, while River Song might be Dennis's My Sweet Lord. There are 33 tracks here and very few that feel out of place.

My only caveat for Beach Boys-aficionados is that this album reminds me much more of the best of 1970's album oriented rock and not of the the Beach Boys in general. These songs are not at all like the harmonies that many associate with the Beach Boys. They are much more bluesy and laid-back. I've only had these discs a fortnight and I may re-address this new CD release more in depth at a later point, but right now I rate Pacific Ocean Blue very favorably with Harrison's All Things Must Pass, which I see as maybe the classic album of the 1970's.

Five stars and highly recommended!

Reel Mowers

2008-07-16T09:34:00.000-07:00

I have been intrigued by reel mowers ever since I noticed Wally and Beaver using one on Leave It to Beaver re-runs. It was my job to mow the lawn growing up and the Cleavers always made lawn care look a lot more fun than it was for me pushing around a heavy gasoline-powered mower.

When we bought our first home, one thing that really didn't occur to me was that once again it would fall to me to keep the grass cut. Kids come by the house asking if they can do it, but at their going rate of $30 to $40 dollars, I usually ask them if I can mow their lawn instead.

In the process of renovating our home and yard, which had been left in not exactly the greatest shape by the previous owners, I quickly went through four separate gasoline-powered mowers, either simply wearing them out or by hitting upon (literally) hidden treasures like the remnants of a grown-over outhouse, or the mostly buried boiler in the yard that broke the engine of one of the mowers. I then switched to buying used ones for under $100 from a local guy, but soon tired of their inevitable refusals to start, usually just before we have guests or during the last mow of the season, leaving patches of uncut grass for winter.

A riding mower seemed like overkill and plus, I grudgingly like the exercise that I get from cutting the grass. I finally decided to take the plunge and buy a reel mower, figuring that at the least, I could use it as a back-up. My wife tried to warn me off the endeavor, remembering painful childhood hours spent pushing an old, rusty reel mower with dull blades on her family's farm, but I figured that it was worth the risk, given that they aren't all that expensive anyway, and took the plunge.

Doing research on which one to buy, was far from easy. Reel mowers are a product that people seem to either love or hate with equal passion. Lawns come in all sizes, with different kinds of grasses that vary in texture and of course, humans come in different sizes and strengths.

Ultimately, it appeared that there were two major choices, either a Brill-type mower or a Scotts-type mower, with the major difference between them being that the Brills did not need sharpening, while the Scotts-type mowers were recommended for higher, thicker grasses, due to the slightly different manner in which they clip grass. Apparently, the Brill-type mowers are big in Europe where lawns are far smaller and gas-powered mowers are used sparingly. Most reel mowers have five blades, but some of the ones for shorter grass varieties come with seven blades.

After a little more research, I decided to buy a Sunlawn MM1, which was a less costly five-blade clone of the Brill-type, and which also offered the ability to cut a bit higher than the Brill. I am not exactly sure what types of grass I have in my yard, but I think that they are mostly blue grass varieties that grow a bit higher than some Southern varieties, and so I did want the ability to cut above a golf fairway height.

I decided to purchase a Sunlawn MM1 and have used it for over a month, after buying it as a backup for my old gas mower that has already been serviced twice this spring and still refuses to start.

I have been pretty happy with the design of the Sunlawn and particularly enjoyed the soothing sound that its blades make while cutting grass, but I am afraid that Sunlawn must be in the initial stages of product production in China and quality control is apparently not good right now. Previously, some of their dealers have seemingly implied this, as they have delayed production of their new mowers in this style:

"Due to a major production issue with our supplier Sunlawn has been forced to refuse our shipments of the MM-2 model. As a result, availability of the MM-2 will be delayed until further notice. We apologize for the delay and the inconvience but Sunlawn insists that all of our quality standards be met or exceeded."

http://www.rewci.com/lux38freship.html

As evidence of these problems in my own case, the handle bars of my Sunlawn MM1 were warped right out of the box, and this made putting the unit together much more of a chore than it should have been, although Sunlawn was responsive about dealing with this in terms of sending replacements.

Unfortunately, however, after a little more than a month of use, the adjustable metal brackets for changing the mowing height, in the back of the Sunlawn MM1 mower, have both cracked in two, and the mower can no longer be used at all. This happened on Sunday.

It simply appears that the metal was not cured properly or otherwise Sunlawn is going to have to engineer this metal thicker. The Sunlawn has a 2-year warranty and I have no doubts that they will send me a new mower, but I have grass to mow now and hence I bought the Scotts Elite because it was available for pick-up at Home Depot for $84, which is about 2/3 to 1/2 of the going price for the Sunlawn.

I wasn't all that upset about having to invest in a second mower because I have really enjoyed using the Sunlawn mower and its temporary demise gave me a chance to try the Scotts type and to detail my experiences here.

One reason why there are so many varying opinions about these reel mowers is the different ways people use them. Some people in condos and townhouses and the like, have about 100 square feet of grass. I think virtually all of them could (should) be using a reel mower.

My yard is pretty large, probably about a quarter acre of grass, however, and I mowed all of it during the past two days with the Scotts Elite and was impressed. It may be preset a tad low compared to what many recommend but I have usually preferred to mow lower than most people so I probably will not fiddle with the height settings, as I think it is harder to change heights on the Scotts than on the Sunlawn, which had detailed height markings. When I get the new Sunlawn, I may leave it on its highest height setting and use the mowers in tandem.

My grass was about as high as it ever gets during the two days that I mowed it with the Scotts Elite and the Scotts was easily able to handle it, although it was quite a work-out for me. For comparison, the grass height would probably have choked and halted a 4.5 horsepower gas mower unless mowed very slowly, but the Scotts plowed right through it. For further comparison, I then mowed a patch in the front yard that was at a normal cutting height and pushing the Scotts through it was actually easier than pushing a gas mower, as they are much heavier than reel mowers.

I think I like the sound the Scotts makes even better than the Sunlawn.

The Scotts was also easier to assemble and seems better able to handle tall grass than the Sunlawn was, and as I said, my grass was very tall since it needed to be mowed several days earlier. The Scotts' cut may have also been a shade crisper. My Scotts Elite seemed to have more metal parts and to be better constructed than the Sunlawn. My only complaint was that the handles were uncomfortable to hold compared to the Sunlawn but adding some black electrical tape seemed to help.

Theoretically, it may be harder to sharpen the Scotts at some future point, but I obviously have not gotten to that point yet. The Sunlawn may only need sharpening every 7-10 years, as they claim, but there is scant possibility that the mower will last that long, if used on a large yard, although I guess one could get replacement parts after the 2-year warranty expires.

I would add one thing about aesthetics. Part of the fun of these is the throwback aspect, sort of in the same way that vinyl records and tube radios are making a comeback.

Scotts has two mowers under their name. The Scotts Elite, which is the 16-inch mower, seems to me to be more of what people think of when they remember classic reel mowers, with blades that are about shoulder-wide, and usually sells for $80-$100, which seems a bargain. I really like the look, sound, and feel of this mower which seem to embody what a reel mower is, or at least should be, to me. If anyone has read my earlier posting regarding record players, the Scotts Elite is the AR Turntable of reel mowers. It has classic styling, simple engineering that simply works, and few if any extras to break or complicate use.

Scotts' other mower is the 20-inch Scotts Classic--so named, even though it looks less classic to me than the somewhat smaller Elite. The Scotts Classic is about twice the cost of the Elite, and to me, looks a bit strange as it is somewhat wider and has what look like training wheels in back, instead of rollers as on the Elite and on the Sunlawn MM1.

I did not like the look and feel of the Classic nearly as much as the Elite. It felt clunkier and as though it was shaped to meet the 20-inch width just for competitive reasons rather than principles of engineering, because many people who have never used a reel mower before seem to want the widest one possible because they think they will finish mowing quicker.

People forget, however, that getting the larger cutting area is not "free." Aside from the fact that the Scotts Classic costs much more than the Elite model, potential purchasers need to remember that given the laws of physics, it is probably about 25% harder to push the bigger 20-inch Scotts Classic than the 16-inch Scotts Elite.

I also notice on the box that the manufacturer is the American Lawn Mower company, which also makes mowers under its own name, which look similar. They are usually an attractive red in color, and the one for sale at Home Depot was even cheaper, at $74, with a cutting width of 14 inches. It might be a better choice for smaller people or those with less pushing power.

So far, I am very, very impressed with what I got for $84 in the Scotts Elite, but I will let you the gentle reader know if any negative things crop up.

Right now, I would probably recommend that for people who want a mower for a condo or tiny, well-manicured lot, or one with really short or thin grass types, that they consider the Sunlawn since it doesn't need sharpening every year or two, but for people who need a workhorse mower, the Scotts are the way to go.

Among other manufacturers, the American Lawn Mower, Sears and Prison(Yes, really! That is the brand name) reel mowers are probably fairly similar to the Scotts in their mechanics, while the Brill and Gardenia are closer to the Sunlawn, I believe. In terms of aesthetics, I think both the Sunlawn and Scotts Elite are equally attractive, but would give the Sunlawns the edge over the Scotts Classic, which looks ungainly to me.

Lastly, let me say a couple of things about the ease/difficulty of use of reel mowers. If the grass is high enough so that someone would objectively say, "hey, that grass really needs to be cut," then a reel mower would probably be harder to push than a gas mower(non-self-propelled) on flat terrain(Self-propelled mowers have their own issues in terms of being difficult to use, but I won't go into that here.). Reel mowers are actually easier to manage than gas-powered mowers on very hilly terrain due to the lower weight of reel mowers, but overall, if the grass is high, reel mowers are harder to push.

If you stay on top of your lawn, however, and mow perhaps slightly earlier than you would otherwise, then a reel mower may actually be easier to push since they weigh much less.

Secondly, using a reel mower successfully probably demands a change in the way a person mows the grass. If you are the type of person who always is in a hurry to finish mowing and have a fairly large lawn, then reel mowers are probably not for you. You are not going to achieve any significant savings in gas by using a reel mower, although they are safer, much quieter and less polluting, not to mention not having to worry about running out of gas in the middle of mowing and having to trek off to the gas station.

The great thing about reel mowers is that you can mow for five or ten minutes a day, without getting all hot and sweaty and without smelling like gas and without wrenching your arm out starting the mower. You can have fellowship with your family out in the yard because the noise factor is minimal. You can stop whenever you need to rest or get thirsty because there is no worry about starting the thing up again or wasting gas while you rest a second if you leave the gas mower on.

You may actually start enjoying your time spent mowing now that, instead of trailing the hot fumes and noisy barrage of a dangerous gas mower, you are focused on the gentle and safe whirring of a reel mower's blades and the delicate balance of the grass blades as they lift gently in the air after being cut.

Ulitmately, mowing with a reel mower is a Zen thing. If you think it might be for you, give it a try.

Grammar Question

2008-06-30T06:49:00.000-07:00

A relative recently asked me for help regarding the standard usage of the word, "lie," and its confusing counterpart, "lay." Let me start by saying that virtually no American gets this right all of the time and very few ever get it right at all.

The confusion stems from several factors.

First, the two words have similar meanings, that of, more or less, lowering a person in the case of lie, and lowering an object, in the case of lay. Secondly, many Americans do not consistently differentiate between the past participles and past tenses of irregular verbs--compare have run and have ran, and have come and have came, which are often used interchangeably by many people. Third, when used reflexively, "lay" may be properly used when normally one would use lie. Finally, lie and lay share a conjugal form, that of the word, "lay," but in different tenses, and this is probably the most difficult aspect regarding keeping these words separate.

Let's look at the present and past tenses for these two words:

Present:

Lie: I lie -- Lay: I lay
you lie -- you lay
he lies -- he lays
we lie -- we lay
they lie -- they lay

Past Participles

lain -- laid

Past:

Lie: I lay -- Lay: I laid
you lay -- you laid
he lay -- he laid
we lay -- we laid
they lay -- they laid

So here is where most people get tripped up: the past tense of the verb "to lie" is the same as the present tense of the verb "to lay." This tends to make the verb "to lie" feel like a present form when used correctly in the past tense and people instinctively tend to dislike this.

One of the most famous novels of all time is called As I Lay Dying, by William Faukner. Most people probably perceive this as a present tense but it is in fact the past tense of "to lie."

Here are a couple of other famous examples. The traditional children's prayer, Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep appears at first blush to be incorrect but what is happening here is that because there is a direct or reflexive object pronoun, which is "me" only the verb "to lay" can be used. The verb "to lie" is intransitive, which means it is a type of verb that cannot take an object.

Simon and Garfunkel had a famous song called, Bridge Over Troubled Water, with a lyric, "like a bridge over troubled water, I will lay me down," which is similarly archaic but correct due to the following reflexive pronoun after the verb "to lay."

One way to usually get this right is to use the verb "to lie" when we are referring to ourselves or to someone else's lowering themselves downward. Thus, I lie down when I am tired. I lie in the sand to get a tan. She lies down everyday at 3 p.m.

The problem here is when we want to talk about the past, because then, to parallel the above examples, a person will have to say: Yesterday, I lay down when I was tired. I lay in the sand to get a tan. She lay down everyday at 3 p.m.(but presumably no longer does). Unfortunately, most people are going to perceive these correct forms as being in the present and not the past, and we haven't even gotten to the past participle issue, with the strange sounding "lain" being the correct form for the verb "to lie."

I wish I could make this even easier but given the difficulty most people have with this distinction, try the following rule of thumb. If no person or thing follows the verb, use "lie." If a person or thing follows the verb, use "lay."

If I want to lie down, first I must lay the baby down.
When I lie out in the sun, first I lay a towel on the sand.
At night before lying down, I say, "Now I lay me down to sleep...."

Any questions, just leave a comment and I will try to respond. But right now, all this grammar is giving me a headache so I think I will lay down my laptop and lie down for a spell.

Law and Economics--Not Just for Conservatives

2008-06-27T10:57:00.000-07:00

As a diehard opponent of the death penalty, I have been thoroughly gladdened by the U.S. Supreme Court's recent curtailment of the practice.

The United States is the only western democracy that makes use of the practice of having its states and federal government execute human beings. I believe that after 30 years of attempting to let U.S. politicians do the right thing, the Supreme Court has finally realized that there are apparently no limits on the appetite of American legislators in terms of application of the death penalty and thus, it falls into the Court's lap to do the dirty work or orchestrating the abolition of the death penalty.

The most recent case, Kennedy, dealt with whether the death penalty could be given to rapists of individuals under 12 years old. And in a nice, bit of irony, Kennedy, Justice Kennedy, that is, was the deciding vote among the five conservatives on the court.

First of all, I find the whole notion that the application of the death penalty should be dependent upon the victim to be despicable. It doesn't matter to me whether the person raped was a police officer, housewife or 12 year old girl--if the crime is the same, why should the penalty differ?

The arguments in favor of this differentiation, "because it was a child" are pretty thin and the Court was right to not let them carry the day.

What was really great about this opinion, however, was the way that the Court's liberals rubbed the use of Law and Economics in the face of the Court's ultra-conservative rightwing. Here's a quote:

"[B]y in effect making the punishment for child rape and murder equivalent, a State that punishes child rape by death may remove a strong incentive for the rapist not to kill the victim. Assuming the offender behaves in a rational way, as one must to justify the penalty on grounds of deterrence, the penalty in some respects gives less protection, not more, to the victim, who is often the sole witness to the crime. It might be argued that, even if the death penalty results in a marginal increase in the incentive to kill, this is counterbalanced by a marginally increased deterrent to commit the crime at all. Whatever balance the legislature strikes, however, uncertainty on the point makes the argument for the penalty less compelling than for homicide crimes."

This is an excellent example of how smart liberals can use law and economics to carry the day.

The other thing that was great about this case was the fact that it involved the 8th Amendment's "cruel and unusual punishment clause", something that basically throws Justice Scalia into apoplexy because his generally well thought-out legal theory of textualism cannot handle examples where the legislature throws the decision to the Court on purpose. Scalia's fallback here tends to be a more Borkean mode of analysis of original intent, which involves looking at the history of the amendment and trying to project what the legislators intended.

Well, what if the legislators intended for Justice Scalia to be Plato and decide the issue based upon any myriad of reasons? Scalia's theory doesn't have an answer for this and his conclusion that the "cruel and unusual punishment" clause was inserted to merely foreclose punishments that were already considered cruel and unusual back in 1789 seems fairly redundant.

Anyway, after a series of terrible disappointments by this Court and Administration for libertarians in terms of abandoning Lopez, we have finally gotten some heartening decisions on the 2nd and 8th Amendments due to the movement of Anthony Kennedy from side to side. Neither Presidential candidate had anything very intelligent to say about this decision, which seems to reinforce the point that American politicians simply lack the courage to deal with the death penalty in a forthright manner, so thanks be to G-d for the "cruel and unusual punishment" clause.

Letter to George Will

2008-06-22T09:45:00.000-07:00

Dear Mr. Will:

Regarding your article in the Washington Post on Sunday, June 22, 2008 -- http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/06/20/AR2008062002276.html

For someone who writes a fair number of excellent columns, you completely blew it on this one. I can only wonder who did the research on this column and I further not that your citation from someone named Heather Mac Donald is absolutely wrong.

Mr. Will, if you believe that "the criminal justice system will do everything it can to keep you out of the ... federal slammer," then you definitely need to start attending some federal sentencing hearings. If it quite common for non-violent federal offenders to get federal prison time for first offenses.

You quibble about the proportion of crack defendants in prison and seem to blame it on the higher murder rate among blacks, as though murderers make up the majority of inmates in the U.S.

You never bother to address the fact that the U.S. has more people in prison than China and India combined and imprisons at a far higher rate that Great Britain. What accounts for these differences? How do these nations stay safe without imprisoning at the rate which we do?

Apparently your interest waned at the point that support for you hypothesis wavered.

You may quibble with Obama over his definition of what consitutes a "young, black male" but your article itself is simply shoddily done and quite disappointing given the caliber of work that you often do.

William Loeffler

Criminal Justice Act Attorney

Healthful Alternative to Beer

2008-06-19T09:36:00.000-07:00

Now that we are getting to the dog days of summer, many people like slaking their thirst with a cold beer after mowing the law or working in the yard. Good enough, but given all the recent data concerning the healthfulness of red wine, why not give red wine a shot.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/04/health/research/04aging.html?scp=2&sq=red%20wine&st=cse

Well, first of all there is the taste. Red wine goes great with meals, but is often too tannic to be drunk alone, particularly to quench thirst and there really are not that many red wine cocktails that fit the bill.

But thanks to the Spaniards, there is one great way to add red wine to your diet in place of beer or other alcoholic drinks: Sangria.

Now, Sangria has a myriad of recipes, most of which involve something acidic like orange juice being mixed with cheap red wine, fruit and other things, in a pitcher or tub.

But here is an easier alternative if you just want one glass. Take red wine, the redder and the cheaper the better, and pour one serving in a large glass over ice. Then mix in equal parts of Sprite and orange juice, or club soda and orange juice, and if necessary, sweeten to taste. If you don't have any Sprite or orange juice around, try a recipe of one half red wine and one half Coca-Cola--it's pretty good as well. If you want to cut up fruit to put into your concoction, you can, but it isn't really necessary. It is hard to ruin Sangria, so try putting lime or lemon juice in, as anything citrusy works well.

Using the Will Loeffler formula for making Sangria is easy and fun and it also has an added benefit over the traditional way of making it. Here, because you are making it like a cocktail, you are adding exactly one serving of the alcohol portion and are much less likely to over-indulge, as is the case when drinking mystery punch where one doesn't know the alcohol content and it is easy to fool yourself. Happy Summering!

Richard A. Posner

2008-06-17T12:22:00.000-07:00

Richard Posner is a judge on the 7th Circuit in Illinois whose scholarship, often associated with the Chicago School of Economics, particularly in the application of economics to law and also to matters of sexuality, had a large effect on my own intellectual development. I have a first edition of his book, Economic Analysis of Law, which he signed for me and I have often considered him a hero.

Unfortunately, I lost a lot of respect for Posner after reading one of his opinions in the field of criminal law where he upheld a particularly onerous sentence while finding a way to wedge what he thought was a clever joke into the opinion. As bright as we all know him to be, perhaps the demands upon him and other federal judges are not all that great given all the time he has to write books and be witty in his opinions. He appears not to have much regard for core principles of human rights and seems to view violations thereof as sort of misguided government ventures which he virtually always upholds.

On a less personal note, I also do not see that he is any more likely, all things considered, to be upheld in his decisions than other judges. He erred badly in an opinion on the sentencing guidelines in which he defiantly ignored (while pretending to be in compliance with) the Supreme Court's previous rulings on the guidelines and got smacked down by Clarence Thomas and Scalia.

What part of the word "advisory" did you not understand, Judge Posner? I mean, come on, how much respect can you have for a judge who doesn't know what the meaning of the word "advisory" is? Either Judge Posner was pandering to the Right in one last attempt to garner a Supreme Court seat, or he really isn't any legal genius in terms of following Supreme Court precedent.

In spite of all his unsolicited opinions about how to improve the legal profession and law schools, Posner, himself, has been guilty of shoddy, almost inexcusable practices at times. Perhaps, no one needs a lecture from Judge Posner about how to improve the legal field when he cannot even refrain from citing vacated opinions. http://sentencing.typepad.com/sentencing_law_and_policy/2006/09/does_judge_posn.html(Does Judge Posner know how to Shepardize or KeyCite?).

In short, Posner has lost a great deal of respect for his opinions on the sentencing guidelines, which frankly make me wonder whether it might not be time for him to take senior status. After all, doesn't the legal profession deserve better than this sort of shoddy work?

I still admire Posner greatly for his 1973 treatise on economics and law, in terms of popularizing the idea which was important. Posner, himself, has not shown much particular aptitude for the enterprise of applying economics to law, interestingly enough, unlike Coase, Demsetz and others. He has often, in fact, been a great aid to those who oppose the Right because of his cursory applications of what he deems to be "efficient" outcomes. In spite of his avowed opposition to the "war on drugs" his legal philosophy actually promotes it and his predictions for its demise after September 11th have been dead wrong.

In all, I find it hard to see Posner as any sort of legal great. Unlike Milton Friedman, or others associated with the Chicago School of Economics, Posner seems to flail to and fro, with essentially no core legal principles to guide him.

He is no Antonin Scalia (who in spite of all his faults, does indeed have core principles); he is no Hugo Black or William O. Douglas who actually believed humans had rights just because they were human, gasp!; he is definitely no Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., although he seems to think he is, but perhaps Posner should be careful what he wishes for. (Holmes was certainly not particularly admirable in many of his writings which often seem inhumane and cruel--"three generations of imbecils", indeed). http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200112/posner

What Posner does share with Holmes appears to be the certitude that he, Posner, is smarter than all the rest of us, and the ability to make this sentiment come through in his opinions.

If I had to characterize Posner, I would say that he is the P.T. Barnum of the legal world. He likes to shock people and will spout off all sorts of revolutionary-sounding things in his writings, but when push comes to shove, he is a conservative judge who basically rules conservatively in a conventional way, something that separates him from the Easterbrooks, Clarence Thomas's and Scalia's of the legal world, who will surprise us from time to time.

Here is an excerpt from the Wikipedia entry on Barnum--could this also apply to Judge Posner?:

Barnum never flinched from his stated goal "to put money in his own coffers." He was a businessman above all else, his profession was pure entertainment, and he was perhaps the first "show business" millionaire.

Posner's writings and gadfly antics have certainly made him a wealthy man, whether they have contributed to jurisprudence remains to be seen, but they probably have. As to his own merits as a judge, I am not sure how history will view Posner. One can only wonder how fair a judge can be when he refuses to stop pontificating on very nearly every policy field likely to come before him-- or does this aid in the selection of jurisdiction by plaintiffs who can choose their venue--but I digress.

At one time I might have thought Posner's career was a waste of talent by his not reaching the Supreme Court, but I no longer think it is true because whatever he had to offer, he has been able to do so with his numerous writing ventures, many of which have probably been partially underwritten by public taxpayers. Whatever the case, perhaps Judge Posner should curtail the publications and try to get his own legal house in order.

http://www.amazon.com/How-Judges-Think-Richard-Posner/dp/0674028201/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1212512235&sr=1-1

The 5 Best and 5 Worse Controversial Beatles Tracks

2008-06-09T22:28:00.000-07:00

When I say this, I am aiming at those kinds of songs that people have strong opinions about, one way or another and this generally is in terms of whether or not a particular track was worthy of inclusion on a particular album.

For instance, probably no one has ever said anything bad about the song, I've Just Seen a Face from Help! Everyone pretty much loves it. On the other hand, there are many tracks among the Beatles' oeuvre that people disagree over.

Nevertheless, the Beatles had a few tracks that were not strong on their own merits, but that worked within the context of the greater work. Most of these are probably Pepper or White Album or Abbey Road tracks.

Fixing a Hole, Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite!, Why Don't We Do it in the Road, She Came in Through the Bathroom Window, Polythene Pam and Mean Mr. Mustard come immediately to mind, which while all pretty weak as singles out of context, within their album's framework act in terms of creating a mood or suite and accordingly these types of tracks won't make my list.

I am also inclined to be less harsh on B-sides, as they really don't ruin the mood of an album and most of us buy them for the A-side anyhow. Most of the Beatles' B-sides were better than a lot of groups A-sides, but their last single, Let It Be, had You Know My Name (Look Up the Number), a truly dreadful and pointless song, as its B-side, but since it wasn't on the album, the harm was minimized.

So Without further ado, here are the five best controversial Beatle tracks:

1. Within You, Without You -- This long track opens side 2 of Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band and many people apparently dislike it intensely. I am tempted to say that either you get this track or you don't, and woe unto those small minds who don't get it, but I will take the high road and simply say that this is the spiritual hymn that opens side two and prepares the mind for what comes, particularly with the nervous laughter that ends the track.

Great art isn't always easy and it isn't always fun. Very few famous tracks in the history of rock music have lyrics of this depth in terms of meaning and existence, and few have had more influence in terms of the world music phenomenon. This was one of the most important moments in Beatles' history and all of the Beatles and George Martin agreed upon its inclusion and thought it was top-notch musically. This was an incredible triumph by Harrison.

2. Revolution No. 9 -- I'm So Tired of hearing people complain about this track's inclusion on the White Album. This is a monumental moment in mainstream rock history. What other group ever tried anything like this? I don't find it boring at all and while I don't have it loaded on my iPod, the whole point of the White Album was to be something different from Revolver, and Sgt. Pepper. To tell the truth, this track scarred the bejesus out of me late at night back in the early 80's when I first heard it.

Some uninformed people (such as George Martin) say that the White Album should have been a single album but there was way too much material for that. If you took Hey Jude, Lady Madonna, the Inner Light, Old Brown Shoe, Not Guilty and added those tracks you could easily have had two excellent albums and this is while recognizing that the Beatles had so much backloaded material that they already had to release Yellow Submarine at the same time as the White Album, and that George would release a triple album in 1970.

3. Birthday -- This track opens side two of the White Album and so, many of the arguments in favor of Revolution No. 9 apply here. But on top of that, this is an infectious song that is different from virtually anything they had ever done before and let's face it, while not their greatest song, it is way better than the other "birthday" song.

4. Helter Skelter -- Part of the reasoning behind the White Album was to use a scattershot approach and show just how talented the Beatles were, in a variety of styles ranging from show tunes to avant-guard and here, to heavy metal. This song just kicks ass and the White Album just wouldn't be the same without it: "I've got blisters on me fingers...." Helter Skelter apparently was a British name for the very high sliding boards that one used to see 30 or more years ago, that one road down on a mat, usually for a small fee, at least in the U.S., but McCartney here seems to use it as a metaphor for sex, which is always especially delicious in backward, puritan countries:

When i get to the bottom i go back to the top of the slide
And i stop and i turn and i go for a ride
And i get to the bottom and i see you again

Well do you, don't you want me to make you
I'm coming down fast but don't let me break you
Tell me tell me tell me the answer
You may be a lover but you ain't no dancer.

Look out helter skelter helter skelter
Helter skelter

I can tolerate great amounts of dissension but no one who dislikes Helter Skelter is allowed to comment on this blog.

5. Yellow Submarine -- This track rounds out side one of Revolver, but some fans feel that it is more of a children's song and lacks the proper tone to go along with the rest of this top-notch album, which many see as the Beatles' zenith. These critics have a point, but at the time, I believe that many fans saw Yellow Submarine as a drug-influenced metaphor for something else, rather than simply a children's song. I guess it could have been released as a single B side with say, Eleanor Rigby and Rain could have taken its place on the album. Nevertheless, without this song being issued in some form, we would not have had the incredible Yellow Submarine animated movie and so I would put it at number five even, just for that.

Here are the five worse controversial Beatle tracks:

1. Mr. Moonlight -- This song made it onto Beatles for Sale and no one really knows quite why since there seems to have been far better material that went unused. Most Beatle fans dislike this track, and since the boys didn't even write it, there seems to be little to recommend its inclusion.

2. Honey Pie -- This song was too crummy to merit inclusion even on the sprawling White Album. It is nothing more than a boring and much less interesting re-hash of Your Mother Should Know and When I'm Sixty-Four, without any of the charm and the insight of the Pepper tune. This is by far the worst real song on the White Album, grrr, although Wild Honey Pie would have given it a run, but since that song is under one minute long, it is not eligible for our list. Nevertheless, whatever you want to say about the White Album, it could have used a lot less honey....

3. Your Mother Should Know -- This is awful stuff, which may have made it out the door because it was intended for the double E.P. Magical Mystery Tour and was used to round out the six song selection. Unfortunately, with respect to this song's gaining even more undeserved recognition, Capitol in the U.S. came up with a unique idea, and an excellent one, for once, of turning the double E.P. into sort of a real album that ended up having a fantastic selection of Beatle songs, all of them worthy except for this dog. It was only sort of cute the first time when Paul made When I am Sixty-Four, and then he kept trying to do the show tune thing over and over again.

4. Maxwell's Silver Hammer -- This song pretty much ruins the mood on side one of Abbey Road.

Some say that the song without the words is actually quite good but I am sorry, I cannot get passed the ever-so-dopey lyrics: "Bang, bang, Maxwell's silver hammer came down upon her head"--bang, bang is what you may feel like doing to yourself after hearing this song. The lyrics of Ringo's song Octopus's Garden are almost as bad but at least form sort of a bridge to another song that Ringo sang, Yellow Submarine, and the music and harmony on Garden makes up partially for the bad lyrics.

Once again, what was Paul thinking? Some have conjectured that he was going for a Syd Barrett type of song from early Pink Floyd but I just don't see it. It would be great to see Paul (or anybody) fashion new lyrics for this song to see what it might be. I know that a lot of people into music, don't pay attention to the words, and Paul, himself said this about Pet Sounds by the Beach Boys, but many of us also see the Beatles and Dylan as poets of a sort and it is a shame when a bad lyric ruins a song. I'm crying....

5. I Dig a Pony -- Many people cite Let It Be as the Beatles' worst album (it isn't) and perhaps we are due for a John song to fill out this list, so at number 5 is this horrid track by Lennon. Lennon himself reportedly called the song a "piece of garbage" and I see little reason to deviate from that opinion. Unlike some of the crummy snippets on this album, which were removed from the later version, Let It Be ... Naked, this is a full-fledged song that provides neither mood nor really much of anything except for tedium.

I mean, I love I am the Walrus and I respect Glass Onion. I like Lennon's Lewis Carroll-esque stuff, but these lyrics make even those of Maxwell's Silver Hammer look good by comparison. I can only conjecture that Lennon thought the band was breaking up and tried to submit the worst song possible that he could come up with. The only reason that I Dig a Pony isn't number one on my list is that it doesn't really ruin the mood of Let It Be because the album already, in the words of John once again, had "a lousy feeling."

And as an extra, here are the two worst (controversial) original releases in Beatle's album history:

1. Yesterday and Today

2. Revolver (Capitol)

As most Beatle fans now know, the Beatles' albums diverge in the U.K. and U.S. prior to Sgt. Pepper.

This is usually blamed on two facts. First, the U.K. had different copyright procedures back then which made longer albums more economically feasible for the record company and second, one often hears that in the U.K., there was a distinction between singles and albums that didn't exist in the U.S.

The first reason was true and did affect the economics of the record releases in the two countries.

With respect to singles, the U.K. policy never was a strict rule and I find the reasoning behind the Beatles' single releases to often be hard to decipher. Paperback Writer and Rain were not included on Revolver because they were deemed singles, but Eleanor Rigby and Yellow Submarine were included on Revolver in spite of also being released as a single. The same reasoning was used by George Martin to keep Penny Lane and Strawberry Fields Forever off Sgt. Pepper, and Hey Jude and Lady Madonna of the White Album, but Something was released as a single and was included on Abbey Road. Basically, the Beatles didn't put singles on albums in the U.K., except when they did, seems to have been the rule.

This led to far more album releases in the U.S., and on some of the albums where the song order is not so important, such as Meet the Beatles! or Beatles '65, the American albums could arguably be said to be better in some respects. The American Rubber Soul ended up mostly intact, but with a more folk-type feel that some people preferred.

The last two of the American batch, however, basically chopped up two great albums, Rubber Soul and Revolver, and added some unreleased singles, in order to issue Yesterday and Today and an 11-track Revolver.

While I am not recommending the American Rubber Soul, at least it did not have its very heart and soul ripped out, the way that the American Revolver did, especially since two of the three songs removed from the U.K. Rubber Soul were arguably the weakest tracks on the record, What Goes On and Act Naturally, and the third, Nowhere Man always felt a little more progressive than much of the rest of Rubber Soul anyway.

By contrast, three Lennon songs were taken from Revolver in the U.K. and placed on Yesterday and Today, ruining the beautiful integrated whole that was the U.K. Revolver in order to give us a butchered compilation album with the butcher cover. It does still have some pretty good songs and I do own it on LP, but I am a completist.

Why You Need to Buy the Original Album

2008-06-08T09:31:00.000-07:00

I am not a big fan of greatest hits compilations. They simply do not work at all in the field of Jazz music and are generally woefully inadequate for any musical artist of any depth. This is because, with the great artists, there are often far better tracks that never get chosen for the compilation albums and which furthermore, never even make it onto the radio.

Let's take a look at the Beatles second U.K. album, With the Beatles, which is somewhat similar to the American vinyl LP, Meet the Beatles!.

This album is especially noteworthy for its fascinating album cover, which shows a photographic and psychological depth that we would come to expect from future Beatles' albums. Four faces, partially in shadow--how well do we know them--are we with them or not? Only partially?

Meet the Beatles is one of the few pre-Revolver American albums that actually has almost the same exact album cover as its U.K. forebear. Until recently, it was not available on CD, but Capitol has recently re-issued some of the early American Beatles albums on CD, although the catch is that you have to buy a package of four at a time, meaning at a cost of some $40 to $70!
http://www.amazon.com/Capitol-Albums-Vol-1/dp/B00065XJ48

For most Beatle fans, the U.K. versions are probably the ones to buy as they contain more tracks and are closer to the Beatles' original artistic conception in terms of lay-out and mixing, while the American versions had fewer cuts and may be mixed in what many call "false stereo."

I believe that the Capitol box sets of the American albums contain both stereo and mono versions of their first 8 American albums and so, if you want early Beatles in stereo, this may be your only option. And just to make things even more confusing, for those who listen to L.P.'s, the American versions may sound better on an excellent rig due to their having fewer cuts, as vinyl L.P. quality can be impacted by the length of an album side, but this is not really a consideration for CD purchasers.

Also, simply in terms of which album has the stronger cuts, there is little doubt that Meet the Beatles! is the stronger album, as it includes two all-time Beatles classics, I Wanna Hold Your Hand and I Saw Her Standing There, while deleting Money and You've Really Got a Hold on Me.

The early American versions of the Beatles albums generally follow this same pattern, that of having fewer but often stronger cuts, which was due to the fact that British albums generally contained 3 extra cuts, giving them more breadth, but at times also more filler. Beatles '65 is arguably also better than its British forebear, Beatles For Sale, and some fans prefer the American Rubber Soul to the British version.

The American Revolver is a travesty and is to be avoided at all costs, however.

Two other major exceptions, are the film soundtracks from A Hard Day's Night and Help!, which are vastly superior in the U.K. format because the American albums were truncated and then filled out with orchestral theme music. You cannot fully understand how great the Beatles were without hearing A Hard Day's Night and Help! in the U.K. format, as these were their first albums which were great, great works as an integrated whole, not merely a collection of tracks, setting the path for Rubber Soul and then Pet Sounds by Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys.

Now, the Beatles actually did a far better job in terms of marketing compilation records than most groups. Their Red and Blue Albums (1962-1966 and 1967-1970) actually include a fair number of songs that were either B-sides or not necessarily hits, but With the Beatles is almost untouched. Only one track, All My Loving, is included.

Opinions differ, as one reviewer does select this as the best track from With the Beatles, http://starling.rinet.ru/music/beatles.htm#Me , and it certainly was the biggest hit from the record. Probably, the next most well-known song on the record is Till There Was You, followed by I Wanna Be Your Man. These were all Lennon/McCartney standards(although Till There Was You was actually a cover) and I understand the bias in terms of airplay and marketing towards these three standards, but in my humble opinion, these are just about the weakest tracks on the record.

With the Beatles is a pretty great record, but to a casual fan perusing the CD bins, it probably is not so apparent. I doubt many Beatle fans think All My Loving is close to being an essential Beatles track, unless said fan also loves Michelle and Honey Pie. The song simply is too saccharine for my tastes, but there are some real gems here.

Much of this album's charm comes not from hits per se, but from the Beatles' individual performances and the way the songs complement each other on the record.

Starting off, It Won't Be Long is a great track, with a startling amount of energy, akin to Twist and Shout or I Saw Her Standing There. It Won't Be Long is an essential track.

All I've Got to Do is another essential track. Lennon's vocal performance is amazing and I think in general, With the Beatles emphasizes the Beatles' vocal talents more than just about any other album of theirs.

Don't Bother Me is Harrison's first credit and amounts to a pretty decent start and would later be featured in the film A Hard Day's Night, albeit without credit, as the film attributed all the tunes to Lennon and McCartney. It's not Harrison's best song, but far better than say, I, Me, Mine and the lyrical depth is quite interesting given that this is during the Beatles' early period, where most of their songs were still love songs and Don''t Bother Me is basically an anti-love song and points towards the superior If I Needed Someone in terms of meaning.

The album meanders a little with a couple of weak (by Beatle standards) cuts like Little Child and Hold Me Tight and a couple of somewhat pedestrian covers--Please Mr. Postman and Roll Over Beethoven, but then picks up steam again with Lennon's rendition of Smokey Robinson's You've Really Got a Hold on Me.

Lennon grabs this song by the throat and really puts in a great performance and shows why so many expected so much more from his 1970's rock and roll cover album with Phil Spector.

We then have the so-so tracks of I Wanna Be Your Man, Devil in Her Heart, and Not a Second Time, which are not the best of the Beatles by any measure.

Luckily, we have another fantastic cover to close things out and once again it is Lennon doing Money--"that's what I want," a raucous and exciting end to a somewhat uneven album by Beatle standards. Most of the highlights here are from Lennon, and to a lesser extent, from Harrison and this is why With the Beatles is a step down from the truly great Beatles' classics, all of which had far better participation from Sir Paul.

So, we see, that the cuts that really are exciting and show off the Beatles's talents, are the lesser-known ones such as It Won't Be Long, All I've Got to Do, Don't Bother Me, You've Really Got a Hold on Me and Money. And although the American public's exposure to the Beatles' singles was more compressed, they essentially agreed that With the Beatles was essentially devoid of any interesting singles, as only two songs, All My Loving and Roll Over Beethoven even charted in the U.S. and neither made the top 40.

Considering the Beatles' first two albums, I would say that neither Please, Please Me, nor With the Beatles is really a great Beatles album but I would diverge with many critics and pick With the Beatles as the superior of the two, because it is noteworthy for showing just how talented they were and what heights lay just around the corner.

I have previously tried to rank the Beatles' U.K. studio albums which is a difficult endeavor because they are so uniformly excellent, and I still think this is pretty much how I feel, although I believe you can make convincing arguments that any of the top seven below is, in fact, their "best" album. That is how good and how consistent they were. The bottom four albums listed below are arguably better than anything ever done by the Byrds, or the Monkees, who were their chief American rivals during the 60's, or even by the Beach Boys, unless you count Brian Wilson's Pet Sounds, or the Beach Boy's early 1970's work, which is far superior to their 1960's stuff.

1. Rubber Soul
2. Sgt. Pepper's
3. Abbey Road
4. The White Album
5. Revolver
6. Help!
7. A Hard Day's Night
8. With the Beatles
9. Let it Be
10. Beatles for Sale
11. Please Please Me

Critics can quibble and Beatle fans change their opinions all the time as to which of their albums is "best" but looking back from the time of With tthe Beatles, the Beatles' soon-to-be-released albums associated with their films, A Hard Day's Night and Help! were arguably going to be the best work they ever did.

So, getting back to the original point of this post (maybe I need an editor), when you are looking at great groups like the Beatles and the Stones, you have to buy the studio albums. There just are too many great tracks that you will miss otherwise.

Beatles Movies

2008-06-06T13:36:00.000-07:00

The Beatles packed an incredible amount of artistry into their eight or so years as recording artists. Perhaps overlooked today is just how good their film work was, especially when compared to, well, have any other rock greats besides Prince and Elvis made any decent films at all?

Since I love rankings like all good Americans, here is my list of the Beatles movies from best to worst:

1. Yellow Submarine -- Some will quibble with this being chosen number one based on its being animated and will question the level of the Beatles' involvement, which was not all that great.

Nevertheless, this is a great, great movie. The writing is top notch, the vocal acting (the Beatles chose not to provide their own voices, wary of the project's success) is terrific, the animation is fantastic and the music is amazing. What more could you want?

Adults will like this and children will go bonkers. If you are tired of the Wiggles, try this. My four-year olds absolutely adore this film and my wife and I love it as well. It is full of Lewis Caroll and British-influenced humor. "Bluish? You don't look bluish....?"

The soundtrack is great and has been re-mixed in stereo and surround. Let me clarify one thing here. There are two versions of this movie's soundtrack. I have the original L.P., which featured four new Beatles songs, two re-releases and a second side with a George Martin score that is pretty darn good, that you will never listen to. The re-releases, were the title track and All You Need is Love.

The new originals were Only a Northern Song, All Together Now, Hey Bulldog and It's All Too Much. Many critics have considered these four to be among the weakest original tracks on an original Beatles album and have labelled this record as non-essential. This is hogwash. Many of the critics are Lennonphiles as opposed to Beatlephiles and I believe that they downrate this effort due to its only having one new Lennon song, Hey, Bulldog.

But all four songs are excellent and vastly underrated by Beatle fans, to the point of even being unknown by many. It's All Too Much is probably the best Beatle song that you have never heard on the radio(maybe together with Rain). Hey Bulldog rocks and is great fun, particularly in the restored DVD, where the track has been re-inserted after having been edited out in some film releases in the 60's. All Together Now is a catchy song that children adore and Only a Northern Song is another Taxman-esque statement by Harrison regarding the woes of rich and famous music performers and money hungry record producers--to be followed by Piggies as a third in a sort of trilogy--and he wrote it at the last minute in an hour when they needed one more song for the album.

Overall, Harrison fans should like this album most of all and It's All Too Much is a great psychedelic song, with a great environmental message for the young and old alike:

"It's all too much for me to take
The love that's shining all around here
All the world's a birthday cake,
So take a piece but not too much"

This is what my sons now say whenever offered sweets, just a piece, but not too much.

Would that we all behaved accordingly.

The new version of the soundtrack is called Yellow Submarine, Songtrack, and has, if I follow correctly, every Beatles song played in the film, except for A Day in the Life, which only featured an orchestral snippet, as opposed to the Beatles on their instruments and was therefore not on the Songtrack. At least that appears to be Capitol's reasoning. For casual Beatles fans, and people into surround, this is the album to buy, although diehard Beatles fans will probably prefer the original, if not both. The songs go back to the Rubber Soul-era through Magical Mystery Tour and are a great overview of the Beatles work during their inital move away from short love songs to more complex lyrical works and psychedelia.

I rate this movie every bit as highly as Fantasia. It is a classic that has only been hurt by questions regarding copyright. There is really no reason for any Beatles' fan not to own this, except, that it has once again fallen out of print and the prices for used copies are pretty high, but hey, that's not my problem, I am just the reviewer. This is an animation classic and highly, highly recommended.

2. Help! -- I am probably committing heresy here but I've recently watched both A Hard Day's Night and Help! in high-def and I have to give Help! the edge, in spite of its far-fetched plot involving a magic ring. Let's face it, both of these movies have their plot defects, but Help! comes through somehow fresher.(I would have felt differently 30 years ago).

One thing that I found evident was just how much the television show, The Monkees, that I grew up with was a blatant (but well-done) rip-off of Help! When I was a kid, growing up in the 70's, the Beatles were yesterday's news, but the Monkees' show was on every afternoon, and as Michael Stipe has often said, was perhaps a bigger influence on that generation than the disbanded Beatles, whom I would discover through listening to Wings, about the time that Wings began to falter.

Anyway, watching Help! is a bit like watching an extended Monkees episode(Yes, they all had ridiculous plots just like Help!) and for the MTV generation prior to Real World, will feel comforting because Help! is full of music videos.

The newly-released print looks sensational. I am not sure if I have ever seen a color movie from that era that looks as good as the new Help! DVD and the movie seems a lot better than it did the first time that I saw it back in the mid to late 1970's. The boys look great and were at the height of their musical prowess and their beauty as men. They would never again look this great together and appear to be such great friends, just having a sensational time as mates. Every Beatles' fan should buy this.

3. A Hard Day's Night -- This is usually ranked number one, so I must have some major ax to grind, right? Well, just a slight one. The movie bogs down into a contrived and boring plot in the second half involving Paul's fictional grandfather. Honestly, I think I could have written a better screen play in half an hour. What is great about this movie is just watching the Beatles be themselves, on the train and then with fans chasing them around. They are funny, witty and the cinematography is excellent. This black and white film has a classic look to it and they were aiming for a Marx-brothers type farce and half succeeded. The music is good but I prefer the songs from Help! and that is just my personal musical preference. Overall, I find the look of the restored Help! to be stunning while A Hard Day's Night merely looks great. But once again, highly recommended.

4. Magical Mystery Tour -- I think that part of the reason that the Beatles did not involve themselves very much in the making of Yellow Submarine is that this short film called MMT was widely regarded as their first failure. The idea seemed interesting, which was to basically make a fictional film about the Merry Pranksters from Tom Wolfe's Electric Kool-aid Acid Test.

Nevertheless, it just didn't really work for most viewers.

First off, it is somewhat hard to call something a failure when it shares a name with an album as excellent as Magical Mystery Tour, which is possibly as good as Sgt. Pepper in terms of overall song quality. However, much of the world did not have the opportunity to purchase this album initially and was presented with something else, which was a double-E.P. bearing the same title.

Once again context is everything and this is shown through the Beatles' release policy. Beatles for Sale, widely disparaged (relatively--still as good as virtually anything put out by any other group), was far better, or I should say, far more even in terms of the quality of its tracks in its American release, known as Beatles 65.

On Beatles for Sale, the more numerous than usual so-so tracks somewhat crowded out the excellent ones, which is the same thing that happened on the British double EP of Magical Mystery Tour. Remember, this was during the days when you had to get up and move the tonearm whenever there was a song that you didn't particularly care for.

The American version, on the other hand, was filled out by the excellent songs, Hello, Goodbye, Penny Lane, Strawberry Fields Forever, and Baby, You're a Rich Man, which together with Magical Mystery Tour, I am the Walrus, and the Fool on the Hill, tended to drown out the mediocre tracks of Flying, and Your Mother Should Know, and the interesting but depressing Blue Jay Way.

After the stunning success of the American version, Capitol rushed it into production worldwide and today it occupies a rare place in the Beatles' catalog. It is the sole CD where the American version became the standard CD release worldwide. Nevertheless, by the time the U.K. version had been issued, the short film had already been labelled a disaster. It certainly didn't help matters any that the BBC showed the psychedelic colored film in black and white. Nor did it help that the MMT film soundtrack was from the less good British double EP. The film was largely unknown in the U.S.

Although opinions may change through time, and some film school students may see this film as having interesting aspects, or others as a cult or "stoner's" classic, many, if not most, still see this film as a muddled mess that lacks even the normal high quality soundtrack found on other Beatles' films. I have never been able to sit all the way through it when it is on television.

5. Let It Be -- I rate this last because it is basically a bummer. It is a documentary that has never struck me as interesting, but only boring and depressing. This is probably why, to a large extent, that the corresponding album is not as highly regarded as many other Beatles albums, in spite of having several top notch songs. The Beatles were fighting a lot, some of it shown in the movie and I just don't remember much except for the rooftop segment, which is decent.

There are also a couple of dogs on this album that are inexplicably included, given the fantastic songs that George Harrison was sitting on but maybe he was already setting his sights on All Things Must Pass. His two songs that he contributed here, For You Blue and I, Me, Mine, were vastly inferior to his prior efforts and his Abbey Road and solo songs that followed soon after. Maggie Mae and Dig It by Lennon/McCartney were not particularly distinguished either.

These last two films clearly are not all that favored by the Beatles (and their controlling family members) themselves and there are not really any particularly good versions floating around. Maybe, with the right extras and restoration, they could be worth another look, but not much seems to be happening on that front right now.

Beatles's Most Thrilling Moments on Vinyl

2008-06-01T21:00:00.000-07:00

The Beatles were so uniformly excellent, both in general and during their songs, that it might seem a sort of incongruous category. But what I am looking for here are what might be called Free Bird/Stairway to Heaven-type highs, where the Beatles' music truly went to the their most amazing levels to move people and touch their emotions.

1. The End -- Abbey Road -- This is a forebearer of the 70's jam music to come and it works without being self-indulgent. First, Ringo blasts the skins for his longest drum solo and then the other three trade guitar solos as the Beatles finish their recording career together to the lyric:

"And, in the end, the love you take, is equal to the love, you make...."

Great, great stuff.

2. While My Guitar Gently Weeps -- The White Album -- George Harrison takes a spare, contemplative hymn and invites Eric Clapton to play lead guitar in an amazing performance all around. Harrison's melancholy vocal and lyric is lifted to a scintillating conclusion by Clapton's slide guitar:

"I look at you all and see the love there that's sleeping, while my guitar gently weeps...."

3. Hey Jude -- Single -- This was the Beatles' all time best seller in the U.S. Written by Paul for John's son, Julian, it reaches an amazing crescendo at the part where Paul hits, the "Better, Better, Better, HAAA..." lyric followed by the "na,na,na," fade-out chorus. This song still moves grown baby boomers to tears.

4. A Day in the Life -- SPLHCB -- This song really hits the mark during the psychedelic dream sequence, where the Beatles harmonize, on the "Ah, ah, ah note, followed by the orchestral hurricane of sound, which is deeply affecting. In my mind, somewhere, radiating out through the universe is the sound of the Beatles's harmony following the dream sequence making clear to the rest of the universe that there is indeed meaning to life.

5. I am the Walrus -- Magical Mystery Tour -- Perhaps a step down from the top four, all of which are essentially tied in my mind, I give this Lewis Carroll-influenced track a slight edge over some others I might have chosen such as Paperback Writer, Eleanor Rigby, Nowhere Man and Ticket to Ride.

This song has two great, great moments, one is the line, "Boy, you've been a naughty girl, you've let your knickers down" which most American listeners failed to understand, but even more so for the line, where the song really picks up its charge: "Expert, sexpert, choking smoker, don't you think the joker laughs at you; see how they smile like pigs in a sty, see how they snide; I'm crying...."

Amazing stuff, followed once again by the luck of the Beatles where Lennon turned on the radio at the end of the recording to put whatever he found on the song and a performance of Shakespeare was on the BBC, "Sit you down, father, rest you."

GOP Math

2008-05-28T09:21:00.000-07:00

There have been a couple of articles by the GOP crowd today deriding the Democrats for their "unfair" system of allocating delegates. The GOP, you see, knows better, for it allocates far more delegates to the winner of any given state, regardless of how close the contest was.

Aside from the basic inequity of the allocation, the GOP system is arguably a much worse system in terms of party building. The Democratic system is set up to reward certain districts for their past efforts and to create incentives to work for the party in the future.

This may indeed be why states like Idaho are over-represented and Puerto Rico, which doesn't even have a vote in November, gets a say in the Democratic primaries, although strangely enough, we have not seen too much criticism of that point by these GOP voices advising the Democrats on how to run their party, perhaps because these GOP voices want to legitimize the popular vote in Puerto Rico.

Regardless, the Democratic outcome has been far more democratic than that which took place in the GOP, so we are faced with the incongruous criticism by the National Review crowd of a Democratic system for picking a nominee that is not democratic enough, and at the same time, too democratic, compared to that of the GOP.

This is how bad things in the GOP are--and they get worse if you read the links--someone like Rich Lowry of National Review apparently does not understand the private versus public distinction when comparing the way a private political party names a candidate and the farce of the publicly-run electoral college:

"The metric the superdelegates are using is who won the most pledged delegates (Obama leads by roughly 150). This is entirely reasonable, given that pledged delegates were the prize both candidates were competing for. But the Democratic delegate-allocation rules can make the Electoral College that Democrats maligned back in 2000 look robustly representative by comparison."

Here's another writer from National Review who has also apparently lost his wits: http://blogs.usatoday.com/oped/2008/05/democrats-dilem.html :

"Now under what system does it make sense for Obama to collect more net delegates for beating Clinton by 13,000 votes in one state than Clinton does for beating Obama by 110,000 in another?
That inequity, by the way, won't be repeated in the general election, when the winner of Idaho will collect four electoral votes while the winner in New Jersey will get 15 — and the losers get nothing."

So, it's an inequity when candidates split delegates in a close race, at least somewhat proportionately to the actual vote, but it's a good thing when one candidate gets all the electoral votes even if he only wins a state by one popular vote in the general election, or far more than his proportional share in the GOP primaries--got that?

Once again, this is nothing more than the basic incoherence that we are all beginning to expect from the GOP, a party which once prided itself as being based upon rational thought and reason, and looked to intellectuals such as William Buckley, Ayn Rand and F.A. Hayek as its stalwarts, but now has sadly replaced them with Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and Pat Robertson.

Bush and Truman

2008-05-08T09:19:00.000-07:00

I keep seeing apologists for President Bush attempt to compare him to Harry Truman, who was another president who was deeply unpopular at the end of his more than one term presidency.

They argue that someday, maybe 50 years from now, George W. Bush will be remembered much more fondly by history. I think they are deluding themselves. A better comparison would be Richard M. Nixon, another two term president who stretched the constitution to the breaking point and who left office in infamy.

Here is a response that I penned to a recent article attempting once again to make this feeble and muddle defense of President Bush:

People remember Truman fondly--some anyway--because he bombed Japan and and is associated with winning WWII. He certainly is not highly regarded by most legal scholars, although some on the Right may esteem the way that he attempted to increase presidential powers, for which he was widely derided during his tenure, just as Bush has been.

Unless something really good happens really fast for this Bush, I think that it is a far stretch to compare him to Harry Truman, because there is not going to be that sort of wonderful association that we have with Truman as the President when WWII finally ended.

William Loeffler

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/05/presidential_pariah.html

DC Madam Commits Suicide

2008-05-01T12:02:00.000-07:00

Press reports are indicating that Deborah Jeane Pelfrey, known as the "DC Madam" has committed suicide. This is a sad event, as this "perpetrator" of a victimless crime, has apparently taken her life due to her conviction by an overzealous administration. The prosecuting attorney was Assistant U.S. Attorney Catherine Connelly. http://blog.washingtonpost.com/dc/2008/05/dc_madam_believed_a_suicide_in.html?hpid=topnews

Happy 131st Birthday/AR XA

2008-04-09T08:41:00.000-07:00

With all the March Madness hype, I neglected to honor the 131st anniversary of a device that may have done more to bring pleasure and the arts into homes across the world than any other. Yes, phonographs or record players or turntables, if you will, have been now spinning the entire world over since a transcription proto-type called a phonautograph was patented on March 25, 1857 by Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville, a Parisian inventor.

Thomas Edison later added the ability to play back, as well as merely transcribing in the 1880s but Edison used cylinders instead of disks for play back. Emile Berliner then patented the still famous Gramophone in 1887.

While certainly records and players have improved over the interim, the basic technology has not changed, and is arguably the musical playback system with the best overall fidelity still in general use, given the demise of the reel to reel tape format that was formerly embraced by music aficionados, but seldom used or produced anymore. Even measuring from the invention of the Gramophone, this amounts to a run of over 120 years, perhaps only paralleled by its analog cousin, film, which has had a similar run and still is the preferred medium in Hollywood.

In honor of this amazing medium, I thought I would pay a special homage to what I consider to be essentially the zenith of the phonograph industry, which is the turntable made by Acoustic Research(AR), and which was called most famously the AR XA turntable, followed by its slightly better, but less attractive sibling known as the AR XB.

While these two turntables might have been slightly exceeded by future successors and copy cats, none would ever have the same influence that the AR Turntable had, given its prominence during the golden era of the LP record which started in the late 50's and ended around 1983, when it lost its position of prominence to cassettes and then CDs among the masses, if never among music aficionados, most of whom continue to swear by their collections of vinyl.

AR was perhaps the company most responsible for bringing high fidelity to the masses, by coming up with an entire new way of designing speakers so that they could be both small enough to fit into the average home and still be affordable. The Boston-based company would go on to dominate speaker sales during the 1960's and due to partner spin-offs, led to the formation of other well-known audio firms, most notably, KLH and Advent by Henry Kloss, both of which would be almost as influential in audio as was AR. Kloss would end up his career by designing and selling the Tivoli Model One retro table radios that you see everywhere that are a throwback to two of his earlier famous table radios at Advent and KLH.

Edgar Villchur was the founder of AR. An art major in college, Villchur began dabbling in engineering and electronics and started a hi-fi and radio shop, while teaching a NYU course on Reproduction of Sound. Henry Kloss was one of his students, and together they cracked the nut of a speaker design that could overcome the size and distortion problems prevalent in speakers during that era. Their creation, the AR-1, which became known as the first acoustic-suspension loudspeaker system was based upon relatively simple principles of physics that had just been basically overlooked by other designers. When they couldn't find any takers for their design, they started AR in the mid-1950s. Within ten years, AR would control one third of the speaker market. For interviews with two of the founders, see: http://stereophile.com/interviews/105villchur/index.html

Villchur then sought to do for the turntable market what he had done in speakers. He set out to design a low-cost machine that would exceed the RIAA(recording industry) specifications in every aspect. His creation, the AR XA was completed and ready for sale by 1961. Villchur had created a classic for the ages, a turntable with a simple elegance and minimalist design, which sold for $58 not including cartridge. The AR XA, with its reserved styling and wood base would go on to win design awards and seems to perfectly embody the time in which it was created. Here is a picture from a hobbyist site: http://www.vinylnirvana.com/ar_models_xa.shtml

The turntable was an immediate sensation and sold far more units than anticipated. It truly offered something to everyone. It was inexpensive. It was elegant. It was excellent in performance and it was a tweaker's paradise, and enthusiasts began swapping out the tone arms and trying different configurations to "improve" it.

You may have had a friend who had one, and, well, his dad liked the AR XA because it was cheap. Your friend liked it, because even though it was inexpensive, he knew that his friends were not going to disrespect it; it had great currency in the Hi-Fi community, unlike say one bought from Sears or JC Penny or even Radio Shack. Together with Advent and Dynaco, AR was a brand for people who knew the value of a dollar at the margin and knew what was "good enough."

Now, 35 to 50 years later, many of these units are still functioning perfectly happily, and those that have been placed up in someone's attic, generally only need a new belt or stylus to continue to emit their sonorous cadences. How can this be? Well, Villchur designed the AR XA so that there really was not much that could go wrong with it. Unlike so many of the mid-fi as well as some hi-fi turntables, the AR XA did not change records; it did not start itself and it could not stop itself. Having none of these likely-to-break features, the internally-grounded AR XA basically served only to spin records, and was only dependent on its reliable motor and regular belt changes, and maybe a little sewing machine oil now and again for its joints.

The AR XA didn't even have anti-skating controls, or cueing, for goodness sake. You actually had to have a steady hand ready to put the needle down and then to pick it up at the end of a record.(If somehow a person dropped the tone arm, AR had developed something called arm dampening to keep the needle from hitting the record at a high velocity.)

But this minimalist approach added to the machine's elegance and reliability, together with the XA's brilliant approach to platter and tone arm placement.

On the AR turntables, both the tone arm and heavy metal platter move together, vertically and horizontally, on a suspension of springs. This produced a playing stability almost unheard of back in the 1960s and 1970s, where you had to be careful not to dance too heavily upon the floor, lest one make the needle jump. Indeed, the XA could even be placed upon a large speaker that it was feeding, which would usually produce undue acoustic feedback with other turntables. The U.S. based company which was AR has now been gone for 25 or 30 years, but among many of the elite companies still producing turntables, such as Linn Sondek and Sota, the AR approach continues to form the basis for their turntable design, albeit often at a cost of ten to 50 times the cost of a used AR XA or AR XB.

Also remarkable is the fact that current turntable design seems to have almost entirely embraced AR's model for turntable design in terms of simplicity. It is now difficult, if not impossible to find a high-end turntable that changes records or that even has auto-stop. Some argue that such devices impact upon the ultimate sound quality, which seems questionable to me, but nevertheless, the AR model of simplicity, be it due to cost-cutting or its actual effect on the sound, has won out in the market place.

While the XA didn't have much in the way of criticism, some users didn't like the dampened tone arm and its lack of cueing. During the early to mid-1970's, AR addressed some of these concerns and came out with a successor model called the AR XB.(There were also some AR-branded successor turntables up to the mid-1980's that were approximately of the same or even better, quality, but that were not successful in terms of sales, and, generally when people refer to an AR turntable, they mean either the XA or XB and not the post-1976 versions).

The XB removed the arm dampening, which was really the only major critique that users had about the XA. Apparently, under certain circumstances, the dampening mechanism could cause the tone arm to lose some of its responsiveness, i.e., to become "sticky."

To incorporate these changes, AR moved the on-off switch to the right side of the turntable, placing it in front of the newly-added cueing control. AR also made a few other cosmetic changes, among them, removing the AR logo from the front, where it was liable to be knocked off during shipping. The headshell color was changed from beige to black; the tone arm weight was changed from gold to silver in color, the tone arm shape was almost imperceptibly altered and perhaps, the biggest and most disappointing change was the deletion of the option to buy the AR turntable with a wood base or veneer. You could have the XB with any kind of base that you wanted, as long as you wanted a faux vinyl wood veneer. While the XB was still okay looking, the changes had made it look a bit cluttered compared to the XA and the vinyl just didn't have the elegant sheen of the wood base.

Perhaps, it wasn't surprising. These were the 1970's where people thought that Tang, Astro-turf and Similac baby formula were all superior to the real thing. Advent made the same decision with its sensational Smaller Advent speaker: vinyl only. Thus, unfortunately people were left with the difficult decision as to whether to purchase the functionally superior XB, with its cueing and improved tone arm, or the much nicer looking XA without the improvements.

Hackers soon found a way to completely disable the dampening function on the XA, but it still wouldn't have cueing and you just know that at some time you are going to drop that tone arm with disastrous results on your mint copy of Help! Some thought about swapping out the bases, but even though most parts are compatible between the XA and XB, the bases are not, so this was no simple solution.

Thus, when I made my own individual purchase on Ebay, I was somewhat indifferent to which one I got. A local seller had an XB that I picked up for around $75, which is between a fifth and a tenth of what a comparable new table would sell for. I bought a couple of new belts for it on Ebay for about $12 and put a Shure M97x cartridge (another great audio company that dates way back) on it--generally considered to be one of the better cartridges for under $150 dollars--and I was in business.

It was a pleasant surprise when I found that virtually all of my albums from college that had been up in the attic played perfectly. Why did we think that CDs sounded better, anyway? Oh yeah, no noise between tracks, but with respect to what is in between tracks, down in the grooves, vinyl still reigns supreme and so--Happy 131st to the phonograph!--and may there continue to be just as many happy returns.

UNC Season Survey and Final Four Prospects

2008-04-05T08:42:00.000-07:00

It is Final Four Saturday, I am just looking at the numbers and thought that I would point out a few things about the 2008 Tar Heels that might be of interest to UNC fans.

Ty Lawson's numbers on offense are going through the roof. He has almost tied Tyler Hansbrough as Carolina's most efficient offensive player. Hansbrough is rated 20th and Lawson 31st, although Tyler does use more possessions, which makes him more valuable at the margin.

Lawson also improved his foul shooting from 69 percent to 83% which is a huge facet of the game for a point guard. I think the numbers show that Lawson has surpassed former Tar Heel Ray Felton on the offensive end, with the exception of minutes played and three point shots, where the current Bobcat point guard still holds a big edge.

In this decade, Felton seems to have had by far the best 3-point shooting season, in 2005, hitting 44%. Wes Miller hit that one year, but shot slightly fewer and they tended to be easier shots.

Marcus Ginyard is puzzling. His overall offensive numbers are down this year. His free throw shooting has fallen from 79% last year to under 65% this year. His rebounding numbers are down also. His effective field goal percentage is down, in spite of his improvement from the 3-point line. Carolina fans would love to see the old Marcus back this weekend.

Pomeroy said this weekend that he was wrong about Carolina needing Brandan Wright. I guess he means needing Wright if they were to win it all, if I remember his earlier comment, but there is no doubt that Wright was a monster player last year. If you look at his numbers 2007, it was like having 2 Hansbroughs down low. Wright had almost identical offensive rating numbers, a better field goal percentage than Tyler Hansbrough, plus he blocked shots. Even his free throw shooting was improving at the end of the year.

I think that the Tar Heels might have gone undefeated if he had stayed in school.

Wayne Ellington and Danny Green both made significant improvements in their offense. With slightly more shots, Wayne's 3-point percentage went from .371 to .414, making him almost identical to sharp-shooter Rashad McCants in 2005 in numbers and percentage, who is currently starring for the Timberwolves. This is very nice improvement.

Danny Green improved even more from 3-point land, going from .296 to .376, while taking 60 more such shots. Danny Green really made himself into a star this year.

Deon Thompson essentially stayed at about the same efficiency on offense, although he is using more possessions, which implies tougher shots at the margin. His free throw percentage dropped from 65% to 59%, although he shot almost twice as many. Lately, Thompson has been doing better on the offensive end, but it is his defense and rebounding that make his so valuable. He is Carolina's top shotblocker and his offensive rebounding has been very good.

Deon Thompson and Alex Stepheson are almost twins out there. Alex is slightly taller. Neither is great offensively at this point but they both still seem to have much more unshown potential. They are about equal at shotblocking and free throw percentage (not so good). Alex is more of a demon on the boards, with per minute numbers that are actually better than Hansbrough's.

Who would you guess is the most offensively improved player on the UNC squad? Yes, it is Q!. Way to go, Quentin Thomas. Q made it to an offensive rating of 1, up from a miserable .83 last year. He doesn't shoot much, but when he does, he makes over 58% of them and over 78% from the line.

Along with Q, my vote for most pleasant surprise this year for Carolina goes to redshirt freshman, Will Graves. He is tall for a wing man and can provide instant offense, with an offensive rating that is fourth on the team, given his minutes. He is hitting over 45% of his three's and has taken more than Ginyard and about half as many as Lawson. Of course, Carolina doesn't shoot all that many three-point shots, which looks good for next year, when they move the line back. Graves has only taken 12 free throws and only made seven. Maybe he should step back and take them from the 3 point line.

So, we can really see how UNC took a step forward this year. They lost a great player in Brandan Wright and several excellent defenders and role players in Wes Miller, Reyshawn Terry and Bobby Frasor, none of whom was particularly good offensively last year, but the loss of Wright and Terry probably accounts for last year's team being better on the defensive end.

But Tyler, Ty, Wayne, Danny, and Q all made real improvements in their performances, with Deon and Alex making lesser improvements. Marcus certainly has the talent to be performing at a higher level and I wonder if injuries have hampered him all year.

With the exception of assists and blocks, where he went down slightly, Hansbrough improved his game significantly in almost every category. Over 3 years, his free throw percentage has improved from 74% to 77% to 81%, a subtle and steady improvement that makes a huge difference when you shoot them as much as he does. His minutes have gone up significantly this year without Wright. He is playing even more minutes than Felton did on the title team, which shows just how important he is. Like Felton in 2005, Hansbrough is someone they don't really have a replacement for this year.

Here are the keys the way I see them. This team is steady. With the exception of the first Duke game, and the VPI game in the tournament, UNC has been above a 100 offensive rating every game since December 1. There are really only three guys who seem to vary much in performance, and they are Ginyard, Thompson and Stepheson and I see them as key in terms of "guaranteeing" a title. All four of the teams remaining are excellent and all four can defeat each other when they play their game.

However, Carolina fans have seen a handful of games the past couple of years that appeared to be tough going in, like playing at Arizona last year without two starters, or the game against the athletic Razorbacks in this year's tournament, but that turned into laughers when Thompson and Stepheson had big offensive games. If Thompson is hitting his bank shots and ten footers, there simply are too many guys to defend, especially when you are talking about a team that is already the top offensive squad in the country. If Thompson and Stepheson don't step up, it could be a real grind for Carolina, as all of these teams are excellent defensively and have significant post presences.

I think it is still a real question whether this year's team is better than last year's team. There is no question that that team was more talented and better offensively, while this team is more seasoned and better offensively. The 2007 Heels lost virtually every close game they had all season. Pomeroy still has the 2007 Heels rated higher, although I am not sure if you can compare across seasons.

I think the big difference is that this 2008 team is far better from three point territory and from the free throw line and that makes it much more difficult for teams to pack it in down low.

In terms of playing against good defenses, here is a list of top defending teams that have bitten the dust against Carolina in the last month: Louisville, ranked fourth nationally; Washington State, ranked 7th defensively; Duke, ranked 9th defensively, Clemson, ranked 12th defensively, and VPI, ranked 8th defensively, and the games have actually gotten less close against Louisville and WSU, who were supposed to be superior to the ACC opposition.

UNC and Memphis have played by far the superior teams in the first four rounds of the tournament. I won't count the first round since all those games are easy, but since then UNC has beaten a 37, a 10 and a 6 in Pomeroy's rankings, while Memphis has beaten a 33, a 15, and a 9. Kansas and UCLA both faced mediocre competition in their brackets.

Pomeroy has Kansas and UCLA in the Finals. Like all games in the NCAA tourney, it is one and done, and maybe Tyler trips and falls on the way into the arena or maybe Kansas pulls a Tyrese Rice and hits ten 3's in the first half, or maybe they channel all of that anti-Roy fury into an amazing win, but under most scenario's, I think UNC is just a little too good for this opponent and look for them in the final against Memphis, which is what Vegas is predicting as well.

Kansas and Roy Williams

2008-04-01T07:54:00.000-07:00

Journalists love stories that can easily be pegged to headlines in a way that is not complicated. In the week-end NCAA Regionals, most were hoping to see Davidson end up playing in-state rival, UNC, so that they could write Davidson versus Goliath stories all week. Davidson fell just short, so the journalists are making due with their next best story, which is the match-up between Roy Williams and the team that he led for well over a decade, the Kansas Jawhawks in the National Semi-final.

So, why should I be any different?

The two schools, North Carolina and Kansas have a fairly long history of trading favorite sons as coaches back and forth. Originally, UNC's Frank McGuire, fresh off an undefeated championship in which his team defeated Kansas, 54-53 in triple overtime, hired Kansas grad Dean Smith to be his top assistant back in the late 1950s. Kansas would later attempt to lure Smith back home, but would settle for one of his former assistants and players, Larry Brown, who took Kansas to its only championship since Smith had been a player at Kansas.

The peripatetic Brown decided to quit at the top, and Kansas then hired Roy Williams, another Smith assistant and J.V. player, who had been expected to take the top job at George Mason(that certainly might have changed history). Smith, himself, during this period, requested that his former Kansas coach, Dick Harp take a position as UNC assistant coach. After Williams returned to Carolina, his coaching staff was made up of, you guessed it, primarily Kansas grads.

The two universities rarely play, due to the lack of inclination by Smith and Williams to face their alma maters, but have played 3 times in the Final Four previously, with UNC getting the better of it and defeating Kansas twice on the way to national titles in 1957 and 1993. Williams and Kansas defeated Smith and UNC in 1991 but then lost to Duke in that year's title game, something that was hard for both Kansas, as well as Carolina fans to swallow.

Roy Williams took Kansas to the greatest sustained period of excellence in its last 50 years, but could not quite win the championship. After spurning one attempt by UNC to hire him in the wake of Dean Smith's retirement, Williams then finally decided to return home to North Carolina.

To put it mildly, many of his former idolizing fans in Kansas were not happy with this development. I don't want to paint all Kansas fans with this brush. Some continue to be both Kansas fans first, and Roy Williams fans, second; and they are almost certainly the happiest and most psychologically well-adjusted among those interested in the outcome next week-end. http://pod01.prospero.com/n/pfx/forum.aspx?msg=23947.15&nav=messages&webtag=kr-kansastm

http://www.kansascity.com/159/story/554954.html

I am assuming that anyone reading this has a bit of background already, but even though coaches change jobs and universities all the time, for those disaffected Kansas fans, this was of a different order. Williams is known for wearing his emotions on his sleeve and this unusual vulnerability, together with the incredible triumphs and a few devastating defeats, had apparently resulted in a bond between coach, team and fans, almost unparalleled in college sports history.

While fans generally harbor some resentment when a coach leaves, I personally, have never seen bitterness to this extent. Some have mentioned Rick Pitino who left Kentucky and then took the job with Kentucky's chief rival as a parallel, but that is a bit different. Pitino seemed to be looking to deliberately antagonize his former school, as might have been the case with Frank McGuire taking the South Carolina job after leaving North Carolina.

Roy Williams, on the other hand, refused to schedule his former school and continues to profess his devoted affection to Kansas and its fans. To little effect--at least with respect to many of them. Virtually every Kansas newspaper that prints a story about UNC playing in the NCAA tournament every year since he left, carries the requisite quote from some unhinged Kansan with words to the effect of, "well I sure hope Kansas can win, but if not, at least, please God don't let North Carolina win."

Kansas basketball site and newspaper forums bristle with the interaction among those who still admire Williams and those who simply cannot get over his leaving. Try as I might to avoid them I am mesmerized by the depth of feeling on all sides.

See generally, comments at the bottom:, http://www2.ljworld.com/news/2008/apr/01/new_chapter ("Get some therapy!")

and another about Kansans for Roy, well, sort of:
http://www2.ljworld.com/news/2008/apr/01/taking_two_sides/

The psychological issues present here are fascinating. Mack Brown, UNC's former football coach, and Bill Self, Kansas's current basketball coach, left programs that they never made any great pretense of loving, and although not particularly popular in the places they left , UNC and Illinois fans don't seem to have anywhere close to the animus that Kansas fans have.

My own feeling as a UNC grad is that Texas's Mack Brown is basically someone over whom it is not worth wasting much in the way of emotional resources, not to mention probably the most likely current coach to join the guy from Miami as a national title-winner on the unemployment lines since he can't seem to beat Oklahoma consistently, but I digress.

And of course, one thing, if the only thing, that North Carolinians and Kansans can agree about, even in those few and far between seasons of football success--Kansas just had one--is that there are exceedingly few football coaches worth crying over.

Roy Williams, on the other hand, had essentially told the Kansas fans that "I will always love you and never leave you," and then did. I guess part of the moral of the story is never to make promises you cannot keep.

I think the other thing that is apparent, is that Roy Williams is worth crying over.

Unlike Mack Brown, Roy Williams is a truly remarkable coach and human being and not being wanted by him hurts and perhaps implies that Kansas wasn't good enough to keep such a stellar person, not to mention having him leave for the "younger, more attractive trophy wife. "

Kansas and Roy had enjoyed the years of unparalleled success and suffered the agony of coming so close so many times, and Kansans had grown affectionate of Williams' not inconsiderable idiosyncricities. Kansas wanted to win a title with Roy Williams, not some other guy, and Kansas definitely did not want to see Roy's new bride carry away the ultimate spoils of his success as he moved into the peak of his coaching prowess with one national title winner in his name, finally, at UNC, and top five finishes in three of his first five years. It also didn't help that UNC seemed to be on television virtually every time Kansans turned on their sets. Kansas, on the other hand, was in another time zone and while certainly featured more than most basketball programs, many of its games were only regionally televised.

Bill Self, the new coach, who has pretty much equalled Williams' success at Kansas, has certainly had his own share of coming close and not quite getting over the hump, but it will never quite be the same with him and Kansas. He hasn't shown the same vulnerability as Williams, the kind of uncomfortable and yet, endearing vulnerability that most of us only share with our closest friends and relatives.

Roy Williams is basketball's version of Sally Field, shouting to the Academy, "you like me! You actually like me." Field has been laughed at and lampooned for years for basically losing control over her emotions in front of her professional peers upon receipt of her Oscar. And yet, I would submit that she may very well be the most popular actress of her generation, precisely because once people get over their discomfort from having someone let down their guard in front of them, many of these people will form a psychological attachment due to the shared intimacy of such unguarded actions. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sally_Field#Film

Williams made no secret during his tenure at Kansas of his less than affluent upbringing and his generally absent, alcoholic father. Like many such children, he doesn't drink alcohol at all and some may see classic, pattern attributes in him as a child of an alcoholic. http://alcoholism.about.com/cs/adult/a/aa073097.htm

Unlike so many coaches who strive to be seen as generals, both on the floor and off, Williams, always the general on the floor, was known for crying in public after some of basketball's tough knocks. You've probably never seen Bobby Knight cry in public, but then again, Bobby Knight, owner of the most wins in history, has a winning percentage that is mediocre compared to Williams' career winning percentage. There is probably no fiercer competitor in basketball among coaches than Roy Williams.

He was also a known "mama's boy." Williams never denied the truth of the Coca-Cola story published in Sports Illustrated in 1997, and even later did an advertisement which kiddingly reflected upon his deep devotion to his mother who ironed shirts so that he could drink a Coca-Cola after school with his friends, spending the few extra dimes she earned doing so.

Just to make the point crystal clear, friends says that Williams is known for always having cases and cases of Coca-Cola in his home, lest he run out at an inopportune time.

That story might even have been enough to embarrass Sally Field, but for Williams and Kansans, it just bound them even closer together, as did the crushing defeat to Arizona, just a few weeks after the SI article.

Williams, who had been on the way to a season, even his mentor Dean Smith had never quite had, seemed destined for both a national title and a new record for wins, becoming the first team to win more than 40 in one year. Unfortunately, 37-1 Kansas ran into eventual National Champion and highly underrated Arizona, which went out to a double digit lead in the last minutes. Probably most teams would have been done at this point, but Kansas put together a remarkable comeback, erasing ten points off the deficit and possessed the ball with just seconds to go, in a position to tie.

It was not to be and in some ways, the valiant comeback just made it worse--just that much more of a tease and obsession for Williams and the Kansas fans who wanted that to be his year. What had gone wrong? What could Williams have possibly done differently to prevent the upset? Ultimately, Williams took refuge in the notion that there wasn't a single thing he would change.

The NCAA tournament's one and done format is a harsh mistress and a beguiling mistress, but most of all, she is a mysterious mistress, often favoring the less worthy and the weak as she spurns the Sampsons and Chamberlains who would seek to enjoy her whims, while extending her favor to the Lorenzo Charles's and Harold Jensen's of the world.

There would go on to be two more such disappointments as Kansas would lose in the Final Four in 2002 and then in the National Final in 2003, when his team uncharacteristically could not make any free throws, resulting in a bitter loss to Syracuse, after once again another great comeback that fell just short.

But maybe even more agonizing to the Kansas fans was the rumor that Roy had been in renewed discussions to take the UNC job. This was after previously turning down his alma-mater in 2000, in another of his almost patented public displays of insecurity during which he wavered back and forth between going and leaving and then ended up turning down UNC during a nationally-televised "I'm Staying!" pep rally that seemed to cement his fortunes in Kansas, while kicking dirt in the faces of his North Carolinian suitors and particularly angering his former colleague Bill Guthridge, Dean Smith's successor.

But people in North Carolina, apparently, are are quite forgiving, especially when it comes to basketball, and in 2003, on the eve of the Final Four, with the once hallowed UNC basketball program in almost total chaos, UNC came again bidding for Williams' services. Torn between two sick family members back in North Carolina and his love for his alma mater, and his "oath" to Kansas, Williams opted this time to take the job, leaving Kansas in the immediate wake of a defeat, perhaps almost as painful as the loss to Arizona back in 1997.

Kansas continued in its basketball tradition with almost no change after Williams' departure. Kansas has been in the top ten virtually every week since Williams left and has also suffered the same crushing losses that have been a state tradition going back to the loss by Wilt Chamberlain and the Jayhawks in triple-overtime to UNC in 1957.

Unique among the so-called five top programs in college basketball, which include UNC, Duke, Kentucky, UCLA and Kansas, only Kansas has not won multiple championships since the demise of the UCLA dynasty in 1974, winning only as an upset winner in 1988, when little was expected of them. Each time that Kansas has been touted as the best team in the nation, or at least, arguably the best, the Jayhawks have gone down in smoldering flames, since Dean Smith played 29 seconds for them when they won the title in 1952.

Now, Kansas is, arguably, the best team in the country this year, and Kansans have a shot at Williams in a competitive game for the first time since he left five years ago. With a win, Kansas might win a title for the first time in 20 years and perhaps finally put to rest the demons of its former beloved son's infidelity. But I don't think so. Sure, it would be fun for some to stick it to the wayward son and even more fun to finally garner another title.

But this thing goes too deep. For many, I believe that what these "haters" unknowingly hope for is that UNC will once again thwart their Jayhawks, allowing them to continue to brandish their anger against the Prodigal Son who this time is never destined to return, because they actually get more emotional return this way, and Williams is more than happy to accomodate them, because as much as he might have wanted them to "like me," there is only one thing that Roy Williams hungers for more than acceptance, and that is victory.

Still More March Madness Math

2008-03-31T10:52:00.000-07:00

Let's go through the four Final Four teams and see how they play, because the media and announcers routinely mess this up:

From Slowest to Fastest in Terms of Possessions Averaged per Game:

1. UCLA -- 65 possessions
2. Kansas -- 68 possessions
3. Memphis --70 possessions
4. UNC -- 75 possessions

Because of the way that normal distributions fall, the rankings of the four vis-a-vis all Division I teams is 258 for UCLA, 127 for Kansas, 64 for Memphis and 5 for Carolina. It is interesting to note that UNC is playing almost identically fast to its 2005 national title team.

In terms of Offensive Efficiency:
1. UNC
2. Kansas (tied for first)
3. Memphis
4. UCLA

There is not much difference among these squads in terms of offense per possession.

In terms of Defensive Efficiency:

I am not going to break this out completely because the top three are essentially tied at the top, with UNC somewhat behind, but still in the top twenty.

In terms of rebounding, UNC is the best on the offensive boards; UCLA is the best on the defensive boards, and Kansas and Memphis are a bit farther back, but still very good.

Ultimately, I think that UCLA and UNC both have the edge in their games against Memphis and Kansas, due to their each having an All American guy to go to on offense, with UCLA having Kevin Love and UNC having Tyler Hansbrough. Memphis doesn't have any offensive players of this caliber, while Kansas has Mario Chalmers, who is just a step back, but doesn't get the ball nearly as much as Love and Hansbrough.

But if you want to look for an upset on Saturday, slight upset though it may be, it is likely to be Memphis over UCLA, due to UCLA's low-scoring pace and generally high inconsistency rating. I don't think Kansas can work out its scoring problems well enough to defeat North Carolina. Kansas didn't have anybody who seemed to want the ball down the stretch against Davidson and putting Sasha (no relation to Chaka) Kaun up against Hansbrough seems likely to expose Kaun's lumbering lack of mobility.

Kansas beat a 12 and a ten seed in the regionals to get to the Final Four, while UNC defeated a Louisville team regarded as at least the fifth best team in the country. UNC and Kansas are currently 1-1 in the Semi's of the Final Four, with Kansas defeating perhaps Dean Smith's worst Final Four team ever, in 1991 and then losing languidly to Duke; and with UNC beating a far better Kansas team in 1993 and then defeating Michigan and the Fab Five for the title that year.

In 1957, in one of the most famous games ever, UNC completed an undefeated year by beating Wilt Chamberlain in Kansas in triple-overtime, 54-53 for the national title under Frank McGuire.

Only one Big 12/Big 8 team has won the national championship since Dean Smith left Lawrence, Kansas back in the early 1950s and that team had Danny Manning. Apart from the generally weaker competition that the Jayhawks generally face in the Big 12 (Texas got annihilated in its home state by Memphis, which hardly could have given Kansas much confidence), this Kansas team doesn't have a single player in Danny Manning's zip code. Bill Self is likely to have to content himself with making the Semi's this year and save avenging Wilt and the 1957 Jayhawks for another day.

More March Madness Math

2008-03-28T09:20:00.000-07:00

There seems to be a fair amount of interest in the statistical analysis of basketball these days, although the sport is still way behind baseball in terms of the issues being analyzed. The guys at basketball prospectus are doing some good things, but currently, in my opinion, a lot of their work is simplistic and repetitive and caters to the casual bracket-playing public, but not to those of us who really want to understand basketball.

In truth, we probably also must admit that basketball is less susceptible to sweeping statistical generalizations than is baseball. Does anybody doubt anymore the lack of importance of the RBI stat? But ultimately, baseball is a team sport that sums up for the most part the individual actions of separate players.

Basketball, on the other hand, is a team sport played collectively. That is why dogmatic characterizations about who is better or best are rarely appropriate. Recently, one commentator opined that Kevin Love was better than Tyler Hansbrough, no doubt whatsoever in that commentator's mind. Now aside from the insufficient data upon which this commentator, John Gasaway based his conclusion, he also forgot something key. Basketball is a team game, not an individual sport. http://www.basketballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=232

Last night, the North Carolina Tar Heels defeated the Washington State University Cougars by a score of 68-47. At half time, Carolina led the game 35-21, and their star player Hansbrough had two points. But how could this be? If Carolina's POY candidate had been completely stiffled, how could the Tar Heels possibly be leading at halftime by such an onerous margin?

Well, its a team game. Gasaway might have you believe that Hansbrough had a horrible half. A more sophisticated view of what happened might be, however, that Hansbrough had a sensational first half, after all, his team had a lead that was equal to 67% percent of the Cougars's first half total. Washington State put so much focus on stopping Hansbrough, that they couldn't stop any of the other players for UNC. This is a team game and Gasaway ignores this reality with his brash and unwarranted, sweeping conclusions about which player is best.

Kevin Love and Tyler Hansbrough are both sensational players and UNC deeply wanted to see Love in Carolina Blue and I doubt UCLA would have turned Hansbrough away, had he shown up on their front door.

Second point: Points per possession analysis is a fundamental analytical tool used by basketball coaches to evaluate their team's play. Coaches in the know have been utilizing PPP analysis for over fifty years, as a means of evaluating a team's play independently of how quickly the ball is changing hands from team to team during a game.

It can help provide insight into the relative strengths of teams that play at different tempos or paces. It is not a secret, but like OBP in baseball, some people think it is such a cool way of looking at the sport, that they overwork the concept.

Or, to start with a joke, only a statistician could make us believe that leading a game by ten points is just as good as leading it by twenty points.

PPP differential is important, but it is not as important as absolute point differential, regardless of what anyone tries to tell you. Why not? Let's look at a simple arithmetic example involving two college teams, the Cheetahs and the Terrapins.

The Cheetahs play fast and have lot's of possessions on average in their games and they average a lot of points as well. By the end of the year, statistics show the Cheetahs score an average of 80 points per game, while giving up only 70 to their opponents in the first 38 minutes of their schedule in the fast and tough, African Coast Conference.

The Terrapins play slow. They have a coach who loves the movie, Hoosiers and believes every bit of that movie is true. Their team averages 40 points per game in the first 38 minutes of their games in the slow and rough, Equatorial Coast Conference, while rendering 35 to their opponents and they only utilize half the possessions per game that the Cheetahs use.

Now which team is better? Advocates of strict PPP analysis will tell you that these teams are equal, because their point differential per possession is exactly the same.

They are wrong.

Why?

Let's see what can happen to both teams in a game where they are especially unlucky down the stretch in the last two minutes. In the first game, the Cheetahs's opponent, the Salukis, hit three three-pointers in the last two minutes, after having only made three in the entire game that far. For the Cheetahs, there seems to be a lid on the rim and they don't score a single point down the stretch, laboring to hold on, 80-79.

In the second, game, the Terrapin's opponents, the Sloths hit three three-pointers down the stretch, after having only made three in the entire game that far. For the Terrapins, there seems to be a lid on the rim and they don't score a single point down the stretch, and they lose a heartbreaker, 44-40.

Why the divergence in outcomes? Simple mathematics. The Cheetahs were able to overcome a somewhat unlikely series of outcomes in the final two minutes, because their absolute lead was much greater. The Terrapins could not, even though up to then, their PPP differential had been exactly the same as the Cheetahs.

Thus, the mathematics are basically simple. The better (more talented?) a team is, the faster the tempo they should employ, ceteris paribus, because it gives them an extra cushion against unlikely events occurring to take the game's outcome away from the expected mean. Ceteris paribus is Latin for all other things being equal.

Let's look at some real world examples. In the current Kenpom.com basketball ratings, Wisconsin is ranked number 3 and North Carolina is ranked number four. These teams make for good examples because Wisconsin plays much like the Terrapins above, while UNC is more of a Cheetahs-type squad. North Carolina has the better record at 35-2, while Wisconsin has the stronger power index, in spite of having lost twice more and having been blown out in one game.

Basically, this is because Pomeroy has not found a way (or has chosen not to) to incorporate the mathematical notion of standard deviation from the expected outcome into his ratings. I will use his words here:

"Consistency is basically the standard deviation of scoring difference by game for a team. Again, it’s not included in the ratings calculation. It can be an aid in determining which teams are overrated by my system. Highly rated teams that are inconsistent tend to look beatable more often. As of this writing, Georgia is ranked 329 in consistency and Oklahoma is at 334. They’ve played their best games against poor teams, and their worst against good ones.

Ideally, I’d synthesize the consistency and rating into one number, but I haven’t found a way I’m comfortable with. So right now, I’m throwing this system out there with all its warts for everyone to see. The warts tend to decrease as more games are played, but at least I’ve made you aware of them and where they can pop up." http://www.kenpom.com/blog/index.php/weblog/ratings_explanation/

First, I would like to point out, consistent with the above, the fact that WSU was one of the least consistent teams in all of college basketball this year, which may account for a lot of the head scratching by people who could not figure out what was wrong with Pomeroy's rankings here. I would argue that the rankings were wrong with respect to WSU and I think he admits why here, although you have to go trolling into the dark recesses of his fantastic site to find this. I am not sure, however, why he continues with the pretense of multiplying out the logs, given this fundamental defect.

So, getting back to Wisconsin, whom Pomeroy rates above UNC, while the USA Today computer rankings have Wisconsin fifth, with UNC, first, what is the truth of the matter?

Well, there may not be any ultimate truth. If a team is incredibly good but very inconsistent, they might be very likely to be ranked number one all year but then get upset in the tournament, which is a simple one and out format, not best of seven as in the NBA.

And just so I don't get a lot of I-told-you-so emails from either UNC or Wisconsin fans, when one or the other loses, one loss, without more is not enough to defeat the analysis. Unlikely events happen all the time and if they didn't, life would be quite strange and boring!

Nevertheless, here, I believe that Wisconsin being rated more highly is due to a flaw in Pomeroy's system. Not only does UNC have, in fact, fewer losses, their style of play seems to insulate them more from upsets. And if we look at his other catgories, we see it. Carolina is the 56th most consistent team in the country, 2nd only to Memphis among teams still playing, while Wisconsin is the 205th most consistent team. Wisconsin's slow style of playing provides them with less of a cushion against upsets. On the other hand, their style is probably fairly efficiently tailored for their talent composition, and for them to change it, would violate the ceteris paribus part of our mathematical example.

So, what does it all mean? A team like Wisconsin is far less likely to be able to go through an entire season unbeaten, compared to a Memphis or UNC, which have high consistency ratings. Thus, when people say UNC is clearly "better," what this should mean is that UNC is likely to pass through the year with fewer losses. But this does not mean that UNC is necessarily likely to beat Wisconsin in a head to head match-up.

And to take the analysis one step further, let's ask ourselves, who is better between the real Terrapins of Maryland and the inappropriately named Cougars of WSU. Which of those two teams is better? Well, surely you say, it has to be WSU, since they made the NCAA tourney and had a fairly high ranking, while Maryland went out in the second round of the NIT. And yet, Maryland beat UNC and most Carolina fans would probably tell you that they would rather face WSU any day, over Maryland.

I will let the reader puzzle over that one, but will finish by stating that it seems that teams that play slow will generally be more at risk at the ends of games when playing inferior opponents. While this might not be a huge problem over the course of an 18 game regular season schedule, it can be huge when the rule is one and done. That may help explain how Georgetown got upset by Davidson and why Wisconsin could be at risk today, as well as UCLA against Xavier.

Ultimately, it's because, no matter how you slice it, leading 50-40 is not as good as leading 100-80 and don't let anybody lie to you with statistics and imply that it is.

Washington State versus UNC

2008-03-26T09:02:00.000-07:00

Washington State travels to Charlotte as a number four seed to face UNC, the number one seed in a Sweet 16 match-up that pits virtually the fastest playing squad in college basketball against the Cougars, who are near the bottom in tempo among college teams.

Thus far in the tournament, both teams have won their games easily, leading some to pick WSU as an upset possiblity, while a few others (very few), such as Ken Pomeroy, see the game as a virtual pick 'em match-up.

Let's look a few things about this game to get an idea of some of the factors. First, of all, neither team has defeated many top twenty-five teams. Carolina has four or five such wins, if you count the Tar Heels win at Davidson, while Washington State beat USC twice and won at Gonzaga, and now Notre Dame, three teams sort of on the fringe of the top twenty of the various polls and rating organizations.

In terms of elite wins, say among the top 15, Carolina won at Duke, while WSU doesn't have any elite wins, having lost 3 times to Stanford, and twice to UCLA. Of these games, only their loss to Stanford at home was close, coming in over-time. They also lost to Cal and barely beat rival UW at home. They also have beaten Baylor, Oregon, Winthrop and ASU.

Surprisingly, Pomeroy believes that Washington State is better than Stanford. I know that styles make match-ups and all that, but Stanford has beaten them 3 times, the last 2 convincingly, and finished two games ahead of them in conference and also went farther in the Pac Ten tournament, so once again this year, Pomeroy's ratings have some rankings that make very little sense. One wonders exactly what Stanford would have to do to be ranked ahead of WSU by Pomeroy if beating them 3 times and finishing two games ahead of them in a conference where everyone plays each other twice, is not enough!

Sagarin's ratings are much more likely to be in line with reality this year than Pomeroy's. Why this is so, I do not know, but something has gone badly askew this year with the Pomeroy ratings. While no one knows his exact ranking formula, there appears to be some system bias in favor of teams that play in conferences in which the play is slower, in that he has the two fastest-paced teams in the tournament rated far more lowly than other ratings services, while UMass, another team that plays at lightning pace is also rated less highly. On the other hand, plodding teams, such as WSU, Wisconsin and Illinois, all of whom play at a snail's pace, are rated more highly by Pomeroy than by fans and the experts in the field.

While his data collection is still top-notch, Pomeroy probably needs to tinker a bit more with his ratings. He truly may be the only single person in the entire United States who believes that Washington State is better than Stanford and essentially as good as UNC.

In terms of defense, Pomeroy has WSU slated as a far better defensive squad. In terms of offense, he has UNC as the better squad. However, there may be some other clues as to why UNC is more likely to win.

First of all, UNC has much better talent. Almost everyone agrees that for WSU to have any chance, it probably needs to be a game in the 50's or 60's, to keep Carolina from having extra possession and a fast game in which it can exploit its depth. This is a fancy way of saying that Washington State doesn't have all that many good players so they have to try to take the air out of the ball to have any chance to win.

I have to admit that I am a bit more biased against this team than perhaps against other foes, because they pride themselves on their plodding way of playing. They are pretty much the slowest-playing team in the entire NCAA Division I, brandishing a style of basketball that, if further adopted, could be a new non-narcotic form of sleep aid. Their coach is already trying to turn this into some sort of grudge match against Roy Williams, who he claims, was disrespectful to his father back in the 1990's, and apparently, said father also taught players to play as though they had on muddy workboots.

Well, as pathetic and boring as WSU's style of play might be, it is still within the rules, so let's look at some other factors.

Looking at something Pomeroy calls consistency rating, we see that UNC is the 59th most consistent team, which is pretty good--only Memphis and Western Kentucky are ranked ahead of them among teams still in the tourney. WSU is 311th, which is very poor--only West Virginia is less consistent among tourney teams.

Now, I suppose consistency can cut both ways when looking at a one game match-up, as opposed to winning the entire tournament, where it is essential to be consistent. We can expect North Carolina to be pretty good, just like they have been all season. But WSU, will it be the team that beat Notre Dame badly, or the team that lost badly to a mediocre Arizona team twice.

Pomeroy also has a figure called luck rating in which he rates UNC as being one of the luckier teams left in the tournament, which is most likely due to a slew of close games they had while Ty Lawson was hurt. He also has WSU as being relatively unlucky this year, which is truly puzzling. A glance at their results indicates that they split two overtime games this year and that most of their losses have been by more than three points. Their schedules appear to be relatively even, with UNC playing tougher defensive teams and WSU playing tougher offensive teams.

There have recently been some articles published that state that Vegas uses the Pomeroy ratings to set its lines. Vegas is currently predicting a 142.5 over/under, which is 2.5 points higher than the Pomeroy prediction, so that could possibly be the case here.

However, if Vegas used the Pomeroy predictions to set its points plus or minus, then the public immediately moved the line far away from the Pomeroy setting.

Pomeroy predicts that UNC will only win 71-69, which seems frankly amazing. His system predicts that WSU will be playing in a site three time zones away, on a highly partisan "neutral" court, against a team that everyone agrees has far more talent and that UNC, with all those advantages, is only a 2-point favorite.

This is ludicrous and indicates something deeply wrong with the manner in which he is currently rating teams. WSU has an excellent shot at winning. In a one game and out tournament, unlikely events occur somewhat frequently. Davidson beat Georgetown, albeit while playing in Davidson's home state. Nevertheless, there is a huge difference between a team winning an upset and being deemed essentially an equally good team, which is what Pomeroy would have you believe is the case in the WSU-UNC match-up.

It is difficult to perceive how Pomeroy's system could predict such a thing, about as difficult as figuring out why he ranks them above Stanford. The current Vegas odds are Carolina by 8 points, which seems about right given that WSU will try to hold down the score as much as they possibly can.

Everyone seems to agree that Washington State is a very unselfish team that maximizes their chances to win, given the talent at their disposal. But is that likely to be enough? Pomeroy says almost, and he means this in general, seeing them beating Carolina 43 times out of 100.

While I am definitely not neutral in terms of my rooting interests, I am not sure any other neutral observer can agree with Ken Pomeroy.

Washington State has not beaten any of the supremely talented teams that they have faced this year, losing all 7 games against UCLA, Stanford and Arizona, a disappointing team with injuries, but top-notch talent. They may finally achieve that break-through win Thursday night in Charlotte, but if they do, it will be a huge, overachieving upset, not a battle between two even teams.

I have to believe that WSU has not shown much ability to beat teams that exceed them in talent. They have beaten decent squads like Arizona State, Baylor, Winthrop, Oregon and now Notre Dame. They have not, however, beaten anyone that would surprise you while reading your morning newspaper. With virtually all the intangibles leaning UNC's way, it's hard to see them doing that now.

More Math and March Madness

2008-03-24T17:59:00.000-07:00

One of the interesting things in life is when a person becomes a leader in a field and develops devoted accolytes and then changes beliefs, or "sins", if you will in the eyes of his or her accolyes.

Robert Nozick, was a noted libertarian philosopher, famous for his debates with John Rawls concerning the proper reach of government. Nozick is noted furthermore by hoops fans for using the unmatched talent of Wilt Chamberlain as one of his main analogies against government, in his opus, Anarchy, State and Utopia. Unfortunately, Nozick later had the temerity to sue his landlord for violating a rent-control statute, and his libertarian followers were not happy.

In the field of sports statistical analysis, Bill James is king. Dean Oliver wrote an excellent, aforementioned book, extending statistical analysis to basketball, called Basketball On Paper, which caught the eye of Ken Pomeroy, someone who is well known to virtually all college basketball fans who are interested in the statistical analysis of college basketball. His site, Kenpom.com, is a smorgasborg of interesting data, with link data, which leads to predictions of upcoming games, although for most, it seems not used for gambling, but simply to buttress arguments about which team is truly superior in the world of college basketball.

This is all well and good enough, except lately some of Pomeroy's accolyes, if you will, are beginning to question some of his methods and some of the conclusions reached by him and other commentators at basketballprospectus.com.

Recently, John Gasaway, another writer and commentator at this web site, known to many college hoops fans formerly as the entertaining and irreverent, Big Ten Wonk, wrote an article asserting that basketball writers were wrong to award Tyler Hansbrough the 2008 Player of the Year Award.

Based upon Gasaway's analysis of their statistics. Kevin Love of UCLA, and nephew of the Beach Boys, believe it or not, deserved the award, Gasaway tell us, and that is that. Love is best--wasn't that a Beach Boys' song or was it the Monkees?--and Hansbrough should be happy being second best. After all, it was good enough for Avis, wasn't it?

http://www.basketballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=232

Now to be fair, Gasaway has made his name by being hardhitting and writing with a certain verve and flair and this article seemed to get plenty of attention. Somewhat like J.J. Redick or Bobby Hurley, Hansbrough seems to be the kind of person that many people dislike because they feel like he gets too much media attention, although it is hard to believe that a 6' 10", basketball-playing, nephew of the Beach Boys is likely to be underexposed by the media. Happily, there doesn't seem to be any racial issues at play, as both Love and Hanbrough are, well, kind of big, goofy-looking white guys.

I am a big fan of revisionism, myself, so what's the problem you might be asking,

Well, Gasaway tries to make statistics do something that they simply can't do here. First of all, he really didn't have a lot of data upon which to base a conclusive determination. While snarkiness is a trait that I highly admire, the emperor needs to have a bit more clothes on before engaging therein--Gasaway is scarcely wearing a banana hammock with the data he presents.

UCLA and UNC, the teams of the two players that Gasaway compares, haven't played this year and they play in two different conferences whose teams rarely play head to head. Gasaway never tells us how reliable his data are, whether they are significant, or how he can compare two guys conclusively who are not playing in the same league. This differs greatly from baseball, where until recently, all teams in the same league played exactly the same schedule with a number of iterations (162) which produces much nicer and more reliable data sets.

Perhaps even more importantly, Gasaway fails to discuss the defensive sets that UCLA and UNC both employ and how that might affect defensive rebounding, nor does he alert the reader to the facts, as to whether or not Hansbrough's team, is indeed, the better rebounding team overall, perhaps due to Hansbrough place in that scheme.

Secondly, the data Gasaway did have, seemed pretty even. Perhaps he knows so much more than the rest of us about the value of defensive rebounding, which is basically the crux of his argument against Hansbrough and in favor of UCLA post man, Kevin Love, that he doesn't feel the need to explain. Nevertheless, not all that many people seemed convinced by his argument. A quick internet search shows even Duke people deriding Gasaway's arguments.

One sentence particularly stands out for me: "The Player of the Year award rightly belongs to the player who's as good as Hansbrough on offense, but vastly superior to Hansbrough on defense. It rightly belongs to Kevin Love." This stands out because it reminds me of what legal writing teachers and many judges often point out.

When lawyers don't have cases or statutes that are open and shut, they tend to fall back upon words such as "clearly," or "vastly," because in fact, they implicitly recognize that the case they are arguing is far from open and shut. Some judges go as far as telling their law clerks to circle it in red every time a lawyer uses the word "clearly" in his legal briefs, just so the judge can be clear about what the proponent's weakness in fact, are. Recently, another writer at the site has tried to tip-toe away from what Gasaway in fact said, but Gasaway's article makes it clear that he will brook no debate.

http://www.baseballprospectus.com/chat/chat.php?chatId=438

I won't go into a full statistical rebuttal, as others have done this, but I will reiterate that while Gasaway makes some good points on behalf of Love, ultimately, his article fails because it doesn't carry its premise.

http://jackiemanuelsposse.wordpress.com/2008/03/12/basketball-prospectus-is-smarter-than-i/

Surely, I am biased. I am a Carolina and ACC fan, but that doesn’t mean that I am not also a basketball fan first and that I don’t want to know what really makes the game tick. Nevertheless, when things don’t make sense to me, I am not just going to receive the wisdom from on high. The baseball stats guys generally don’t do that. They argue about everything, from the value of base stealing to whether pitchers can cause ground balls or prevent home runs, until people are generally convinced of the truth of their assertions.

One reason, in fact, that Pomeroy has many Carolina fans as readers is because his site has tended to advocate many of the basketball insights utilized by North Carolina coaches such as Frank McGuire, Dean Smith and Roy Williams, and Carolina fans are more than willing to debate these issues, but understandably did not much like it when Gasaway laid down the gauntlet and essentially said, "if you are a stats guy, then you support Kevin Love as player of the year over Tyler Hansbrough.

The other important point is that I don’t believe that Gasway realizes that he has traded in his Big Wonk hat for a different one at Basketball Prospectus, where we expect him to develop detailed arguments with data, not to decide things for us based upon his seeming whims, likes and dislikes. He had that freedom as the Big Ten Wonk, but now he should be applying sounder principles or at least, how about a disclaimer?

I will give him credit for starting a debate about the true worth of players, although let the record reflect that the awards are generally called either Player of the Year or Most Valuable Player, not most efficient, and may indeed, include recognition for attributes such as exceptional hustle or guts.

He starts out by making some interesting arguments that made me want to watch Kevin Love some more and which make me wonder if Love isn’t the top player this year. Thankfully, Gasaway only obliquely makes the often prevalent and irrelevant and unprovable argument ad hominem, that Love will be a better professional player than Hansbrough.

But Gasaway ends up precluding you and me from deciding for ourselves based upon watching the two of them and their teams play, and then taking a look at their stats. Gasaway has determined that Love is better and there simoly is no way around that.

This is silly because first of all, there is not a lot of difference that I can see between the numbers Gasaway presented. Secondly, unlike a full season of baseball where raw data is more persuasive, Gasaway seems to think that we don’t even need to watch the guys to know who is better.

This seems especially specious, given that virtually everyone who watches Hansbrough comes away impressed by the sheer audacious will and tenacity that he shows on the court. Love looks good out there too, but not in the crazed, frenetic, win at all costs manner that Tyler has. Coaches and commentators from Dick Vitale to Billy Packer to Coach K have all expressed the notion that Tyler Hansbrough is sui generis and they derive this belief from having watched him and thousands of other players in person during their lifetimes.

But according to Gasaway, their eyes deceive them. Hansbrough isn't so special at all. Just look at the stat sheet, you dunces, and you will see it.

I guess there was a similar argument years ago regarding East coast and West coast jazz and we all knew who won that one.(East coast). But just imagine if someone told us we should just look at the sheet music without ever actually listening to it, in order to decide which was “best.”

Gasaway’s approach, whether he realizes it or not, is anti-basketball. You don’t even need to watch the games and just based upon a few statistics, he can tell you who is better.

This is not the way that Dean Oliver did it. Take a look at his book. He talks about stats being persuasive but doesn’t tell people that it is his way or the highway. I recently did a short review of one of his chapters where Oliver purports to tell us who was better, Wilt or Bill Russell, and guess what, Oliver goes through all the arguments and then makes a hypothesis but lets us draw our own conclusions. That is how you do it, not by trying to shove it down people’s throats.

Well, that is enough for now--I won't even go into the issue of Ken Pomeroy's allegedly fudging his possession calculations, which makes Carolina look even worse on defense than it actually is, and to those who think that I am making mountains out of unimportant molehills, well that is true, but I can't always be writing every article about the incredibly large U.S. prison population as it gets depressing after a while, no?

Math, March Madness and Michael Jordan

2008-03-24T08:37:00.000-07:00

Given that we are in the midst of March Madness and that I am a huge basketball fan, I thought that I might address some of the things going on out there in the college basketball world.

One of the more interesting trends to me, is the continuing adoption of applying statistical methods to basketball, in an attempt to follow in the footsteps of baseball, which has a big headstart over its basketball stats devotees. For those interested, the Bible would be the book, Basketball On Paper, by Dean Oliver, in which the author attempts to combine the methods of Bill James with the coaching philosophy of Dean Smith. http://www.basketballonpaper.com/

It is a great and instructive book whose only lacking is that it focuses on the NBA instead of the vastly more interesting college game, presumably due to the greater availability of statistical data from the professional league.

One thing in the book that I found especially interesting is that Oliver attempts to answer the decades old question as to who was better between Wilt Chamberlain and Bill Russell. He doesn't really answer the question, which may be to his credit, as basketball is a team game after all. We have lately seen other writers who make a pretense of using statistical analysis to give definitive answers as to which of two excellent players is better, which actually ends up being more opinion than statistics based.

For examples of this, see a recent article on Basketball Prospectus, a little brother of Baseball Prospectus, trying to find its feet: http://www.basketballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=232, in which the writer makes some jarring leaps to conclusions based upon fairly even and imperfect statistical data, and does this without even deeming it necessary for a person to have seen the two players in question in game action. This is the misuse of statistics and it obscures rather than elucidates in helping the fan understand what makes players and teams successful.

Oliver, by contrast, uses the numbers to try to analyze each player's strengths, recognizing that the numbers are not enough to carry the day either way.

What Oliver concludes about Russell and Chamberlain, is that basically Russell played on teams that always had several Hall of Famers on them during his career, while Chamberlain did so only a couple of times.

When Chamberlain was accompanied by Hall of Fame caliber talent like Billy Cunningham, Chet Walker, Gail Goodrich and Jerry West, he broke through and won two championships, altering his game to focus more on defense and rebounding in the process.

By winning two NBA titles, Chamberlain stands among the few all time greats who have even won more than one, given the Celtics dominance up to about 1975. His two championship are more than this following Hall of Fame contingent, all of whom were his contemporaries, and who either won only one title or none at all: Jerry West, Elgin Baylor, Nate Thurmond, Walt Bellamy, Jerry Lucas, Oscar Robertson, Elvin Hayes, Rick Barry, and Wes Unseld. And yet, none of these great players has ever been deemed a "loser," in the way that Chamberlain has. Also peculiar is the way that Chamberlain was derided for his foul shooting, when he was essentially even with Russell statistically in free throw percentage.

It is also worth noting that Chamberlain bridged the careers of Bill Russell and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, the two most successful centers in NBA history in terms of winning titles and Wilt's teams dethroned both of them, in 1967, with the 76'ers annihilating the Celtics in five games, and in 1972 with the Lakers defeating the 66-16 defending champs, the Bucks, in 6 games.

But unlike the 7' 4" Tom Burleson with NC State, who along with David Thompson dethroned the smaller Bill Walton and UCLA after years of Bruin dominance, did Wilt ever get his due for ending the Celtics string of 8 titles in a row? Not really.

Ultimately, for Oliver, Russell may have been better for a team like the Celtics, which had many great shooters and scorers, while Wilt was the player who could take a team to respectability overnight all by himself.

But to me, what was even more interesting is that Oliver then ends up more focused on evaluating Wilt, who retired in the early 1970's, as compared to Michael Jordan, the greatest player of more recent times.

Just looking at the raw numbers, one wonders how anyone could compare to Wilt, who scored 100 points in a single game while playing for coach Frank McGuire's Philadelphia Warriors, and who averaged over fifty points that season while carrying his team to an excellent second place finish to the Celtics, of course.

But what Oliver points out, is something completely counter-intuitive. Basketball was played much faster in the 1960's than it is today. There were far more shots taken per game back then, which resulted in higher scoring and higher rebounding averages. It's just those jerky film clips that make them seem so awkward and slow!

After adjusting the numbers garned by Chamberlain during his career and then adjusting for the difference in tempo in the way the game was played, Oliver discovers that Wilt was indeed overrated and nowhere close to the unmatchable titan that we all imagine when looking at his raw stats.

Wilt was human,and after adjusting his statistics downward to account for all the extra shots and rebounds, it turns out that Wilt in actuality was probably only a little bit better than Michael Jordan!

But if anyone out there saw both of them play and wants to make an argument the other way, Oliver gives us the tools to help make more concrete arguments with data about which player we ultimately prefer. But let's not get the horse before the carriage.

Basketball is a beautiful thing to be watched first and enjoyed and then just maybe, the data can help us understand and appreciate the sport even more. But you have to watch and see the players to really know and for those of us too young to have ever seen Chamberlain, we will just have to read the accounts of those who did and watch old game films. The numbers by themselves will never be enough.

ACC Coaches versus Dean Smith

2008-03-02T06:44:00.000-08:00

One of my favorite things about ACC basketball over the years has been the rich personalities in the league, particularly among its coaches, who have always been excellent, both in coaching prowess, but also in the give and take among the different coaches.

You had to love some of the things you saw in the 60's and 70's that we don't have today, for example: Bones McKinney of Wake Forest, and Lefty Driesell of Maryland, were two of the most interesting coaching personalities ever, and to boot, neither coached his alma mater, which became a big conference rival, UNC for McKinney and Duke for Lefty.

I think the relative level of coaches was just as good or better back than than now. You had Dean Smith of UNC, Frank McGuire of South Carolina and Norman Sloan, of NC State, all of whom would win titles; you had Terry Holland of Virginia, and Vic Bubas of Duke, and Bill Foster, of Duke, all of whom made it to the Final Four; you had Lefty Driesell at Maryland, who did everything but make it to the Final Four; Carl Tacy at Wake Forest was at the tail end of this period and class of coaches, but still took the Deacons to the Final 8, twice, I believe, farther than Tim Duncan could; you had Press Maravich, Tates Locke and Bill Foster at Clemson, where Locke probably had the best Clemson teams ever back with Tree Rollins and Skip Wise, and Foster had less success there but had built the UNCC program from nothing, leaving the year before Charlotte went to the Final Four, in 1976.

The amazing thing to me is the way that Dean Smith buried all his rivals. Partially, it was on the court, but that came in the overwhelming sense only after 1975. Dean was simply so good at, I won't say manipulating the media, because that has a negative connotation, but he made it difficult for his rivals to feel comfortable in the conference, even when they were either outdoing him or at least performing equally. Coach K was essentially the only one with the will to go head to head with Smith, not counting Valvano and Lefty, who had unfortunate demises, and had to leave NC State and Maryland after being accused of not monitoring their players to a great enough extent.

For example, here is a list of the excellent coaches, who essentially desisted from competition against Smith, in spite of some decent successes:

Vic Bubas at Duke had a winning record against Smith and equal or better success in the 1960's but then retires unexpectedly at a very young age in 1970.

Frank McGuire of USC, establishes South Carolina as a national power, and beats Smith four out of their last five contests in the ACC, after going undefeated in conference in 1970 and winning the ACC tourney and achieving the number one ranking in 1971, but his team left the conference at the end of the year and he would only face Smith one more time in their careers.

Norm Sloan beats Smith 9 times in a row and wins 57 out of 58 games in the early 1970's and wins the greatest NCAA title since 1957 after going undefeated in conference two years straight and winning two ACC tournaments in a row, during a period when Smith had never done any of these things, except win consecutive tourney titles. And yet, Sloan was gone from State within four years of his amazing title run, leaving to try to establish the program at Florida, where he had just so-so success.

Bill Foster at Duke, had a period from 1977 to 1980 where his teams are either equal to, or exceed, Smith's teams on the court depending on your point of view, going to the Finals and the Final 8 during this period and yet by 1981, he has gone to USC to succeed McGuire and is unable to maintain or restore the high levels of success achieved by McGuire.

Terry Holland never quite equalled Smith on the court, but did have pretty good success against Carolina, tormenting them in the ACC tourney with mediocre Cav teams in 1976 and 1977 and then taking 3 out of 6 against the incredibly talented UNC finalists from 1981 and 1982. Granted, Smith won the bigger games in 1981 and 1982, but Holland's upset in the 1976 ACC tourney ruined Ford's greatest team, which had a record of 25-2 after losing just once in conference, and which thought it might be able to compete with eventual undefeated champion, Indiana. In 1984, when Carolina may have had its most talented team ever, UNC flamed out against Indiana, while Holland went on to beat Indiana and on to the Final Four and almost the finals, with a very mediocre Cav team, that had a .500 record in conference. Holland would then quit just a couple of years later.

Carl Tacy at Wake Forest, filled this bill to a lesser extent, going to the Final 8 twice and dropping huge defeats on Carolina in 1978 in the ACC tourney, in Ford's final ACC game, and in 1982 against the eventual national champs, and like UVa, went further than Carolina in 1984 and yet, he too would be gone in a couple of years, citing burn-out.

Only Coach K at Duke, whose tenure started rather horribly, was able to avoid scandal, burn-out or general exasperation, among those coaches who were able to compete at least fairly equally with Smith.

Nevertheless, Smith, who at one time had close to an equal record versus K, finished up from 1993 through 1997 on a big streak and ended up with an 11 victory margin, overall, and for once things went the other way. Duke's program although certainly already excellent, went into the stratosphere when Smith retired, benefiting from the vacuum at UNC and it has only been the return of Roy Williams to some extent, that has brought Duke back down to earth.

So what was it about Dean? Obviously talent, innovation and hardwork were the most important factors, but it seems that many of his peers just couldn't stand Smith or abide his presence, and ended up fleeing the competition to what appeared to be greener pastures, most probably to UNC's benefit and leading to a 30 year run of success never before seen.

Indiana in 1976 and the Dwindling Importance of the ACC tournament

2008-03-01T02:25:00.000-08:00

I have previously discussed just how amazing the 1976 Indiana Hoosiers' achievement was and why it is unlikely to be equalled, but apparently many in the media still are under the illusion that the NCAA tournament is more difficult today than back then. On average, this is probably true, but no one is ever likely to have a more difficult path than Indiana did in 1976, or North Carolina, which fell just short the following year, did, having to play Purdue, Notre Dame, Kentucky, UNLV and Marquette in succession, ultimately being edged by Marquette in the final.

Let me add this link though to show how much more important the ACC tournament was before 1980, even after they started allowing a 2nd team, because the regions were unbalanced. Given travel costs in the past, it is understandable that such was the policy but it makes it difficult to compare across eras without looking more closely, as some regions could be easy and others hard.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1976_NCAA_Men's_Division_I_Basketball_Tournament

This shows just how great Indiana was in 1976 and why UVa's upset of UNC in the ACC tournament final was so crushing. The regions were unbalanced then and Indiana winning the region was much tougher than winning the Final Four.

Why? Look at the Mid-East regional line-up and the UPI rankings: Indiana(1), Marquette(2), Alabama(6), and UNC(8). That is the two best teams in the country were in the same initial bracket, and four of the top 8 teams were in that one regional, and if you go by the AP, it was five of the top ten teams in that regional.

It took 5 wins to win it all then.

Indiana's first win was against a top-twenty team, St. John's (18). Its second win was against Alabama, number (6). In the regional final and pseudo-national championship, Indiana beat the number (2) team in the nation, Marquette. In the National Semi-final, they took out defending champ UCLA (5) easily and then beat Michigan, who was only number (9) for the 3rd time that year in the finals. Indiana finshed 32-0 with Bob Knight tying Frank McGuire's record for most wins in a season without a loss and did it by facing the most brutal post-season schedule, but at least, unlike the ACC, Indiana didn't have three extra bruising games back to back to back.

For ACC teams to win back then, like NC State in 1974, they had to win 7 post-season games in a row, since the ACC had a bye then for the champions. That is brutal.

Had Carolina beaten UVA, they would have had a virtual walk to the Final Four. Rutgers had not played anybody all year and was way, way overrated, getting pummeled in the Semi-finals by Michigan. Rutgers beat, get this, VMI in the Regional Final. UConn, pre-Big East was another "power" in the region. For the most part, during the unbalanced region phase, winning the ACC tournament almost guaranteed a spot in the Final Four.

Another thing that shows the importance of the tournament then versus now, is that unlike what we often hear, upsets were not very common in terms of the tournament winner. The best team during the regular season almost always won the ACC during the period between 1963 and 1975.

Carolina finished first in the ACC during the regular season in 1967, 1968, 1969, 1971 and 1972 and won the tournament every year except 1971, losing to the Gamecocks who were only 1 game back in the regular season. Duke finished first in 1963, 1964, 1965 and 1966 and won the tournament every year except 1965, when State won, who was only 1 game back. State finished first in 1973 and 1974 and won the tournament both years. This is why the 1970 loss by the Gamecocks was such a big deal. It was a rare loss by the regular season champ, and an undefeated one at that.

After the NCAA expanded in 1975, it quickly became common for the top regular season team not to win the tournament. Coaches are not dumb and just as in horseracing, most of them know that if you apply the whip too much, you will wear out the ride. 3 of the last 4 national champions from the ACC did not win the ACC tournament and the smart money now says that expending any energy or risking injuries in winning the conference tournament is simply not worth it if you are already guaranteed a number one or two seed. Duke seems to be the only major national program that continues to place great emphasis on winning the conference tournament. Roy Williams has never made the Final Four, after winning his conference tournament, nor has Gary Williams or Terry Holland. In 1984, UVa had a losing record in conference and lost in the first round of the ACC tournament and then went on to the Final Four.

The last ACC tournament that had much meaning at all in terms of winning the NCAA's was probably the 1982 tournament, where Carolina edged UVA, 47-45. This allowed them to stay at home in the East Regional, where they barely edge JMU in Charlotte and Alabama and Villanova in fairly tight games in Raleigh, while UVA lost to Birmingham.

UVa was a team that had ACC tournament "magic dust" on them in 1976 and 1977. They were mediocre in 1976 and downright awful in 1977 and yet won five out of 6 tournament games over two years against topflight competition. In the NCAA's, however, the Cavs reverted to form and went out in the first round against a weak Depaul team.

Matt Doherty

2008-02-28T10:12:00.001-08:00

Former University of North Carolina coach and player, Matt Doherty was back in North Carolina yesterday, for his SMU team's game against East Carolina, one of their Conference USA rivals. Remarkably, there was not much press attention, as Doherty attempts to recover from his ouster as UNC mens's basketball coach in 2003.

Although North Carolina alumni and fans are deliriously happy with Roy Williams and the results he has gotten in putting UNC back on top in the college basketball world, they are less certain about the treatment that Doherty received and whether he will ever be comfortable returning to his alma mater for alumni functions.

I honestly am not sure whether we will see Mr. Doherty at UNC anytime soon. This is a complicated issue. Essentially, Carolina never got over a similar riff that it had with Frank McGuire until last year. Frank McGuire led UNC to the 1957 national title, going 32-0, which is still the record for most wins without a loss in a season, and became a state hero, before encountering some mild rules violations and fleeing for the NBA, leaving Dean Smith as head coach.

The former McGuire players like Lennie Rosenbluth, Larry Brown (less so), Doug Moe, and Billy Cunningham have generally not been as beloved as the Smith guys by Carolina fans. Some of this is simply due to temporal proximity, but a lot of it is because Frank McGuire did a Rick Pitino squared, by taking the South Carolina job, and hiring UNC alum, Donnie Walters as chief assistant, in the mid-1960's, and escalated the bad-boy aspect of his personality, as well as the South Carolina versus North Carolina state rivalries, thereby elevating USC almost instantly into everyone's biggest rival in the conference. By the time South Carolina left the ACC in 1972, McGuire may have been less popular in Chapel Hill than Coach K is now. Some of the 1957 guys have said that they have never felt particularly welcome at UNC until last year's celebration.

With respect to Doherty, things were a mess on several levels. He was an excellent recruiter and doing well at Notre Dame, which seemed a great fit for an Irish guy from New York.
I love Dean Smith, and I think he is a great human being, but he is human and from what I have read, he did not want Doherty to have the job from the beginning, and may not have been particularly helpful to Doherty.

Smith had already essentially forced Carolina to hire Guthridge and was still the power behind the scenes and some of the problems Doherty had seem trivial and stupid, but had to do with things like angering Smith's secretaries and the like. Adam Lucas covers much of this in his book, but essentially Roy Williams did much of the same things as Doherty--i.e., refusing to hire assistants from UNC, but no one complained because he was a famous coach.

Apparently, Doherty's worst trait was an Irish temper(hey, I am part Irish and I sometimes have it, too) that could explode in all directions, even at his chosen assistants in the huddle. He had a penchant for using the "P" word, it is said, at players who displeased him. After playing for the subdued and grandfatherly Guthridge, some players like Forte, apparently couldn't stomach Doherty's intensity.

His first season ended poorly, but going 13-3 and first in the ACC and taking 3 out of 4 from eventual Final Four teams, Duke and Maryland was pretty darn good overall. The 26-7 record was far better than the 22-14 record of the year before, although that team made it to the Final Four (and no one has any idea how to this day).

His second season was strange. Yes, the Heels went 8-20, but they still won 4 conference games, keeping them far above the Duke 2-14 fiasco or the Wake record under Skip the year after Chris Paul left, of 3-13. Carolina played just about the toughest schedule in the nation that year and also played about the fewest games possible, leading to the perfect storm that made them look worse than they actually were. For example, State will probably finish 4-12 in the ACC this year but with a record much closer to .500.

What is forgotten is that aside from his driving Forte away, which was a tragedy for all involved, Doherty also inherited years of neglect by Guthridge on the recruiting trails. All of this came to a head in 2002. Perhaps he should have sought treatment for a bad back.

Doherty, however, did not rest on his laurels and garnered one of the greatest recruiting classes ever, probably better than any by his successor, Roy Williams at Carolina thus far. The Heels rebounded to 6-10 in the ACC, 19-16 overall, winning the pre-season NIT, beating Williams' Jayhawks, and going into the second round of the ACC tourney and the post-season NIT. They beat Duke and while they were erratic, who knows how much better they might have done had Sean May not been injured for much of the season.

Using mostly the same, more-experienced talent the next year, Williams was unable to do much better, finishing 19-11, and 8-8 in conference and losing in the first round of the ACC tourney, without beating Duke, although Carolina did get a NCAA tourney bid, where they underperformed and went out in the second round.

The conventional wisdom is that Doherty had the players so screwed up that it took Roy Williams over a year to turn them around. The facts are probably somewhere in between.

The real truth is that Carolina fans were never going to be comfortable with Matt Doherty because he was too much like Coach K, a working-class Catholic kid who had made good but who simply makes us feel uncomfortable. North Carolinians are more laid-back and the Kansan Smith was a good fit. McGuire was popular and fiery in his day, but he got away with it by being erudite and stylish, ultimately losing that good will when he went to USC. Roy Williams is fiery, but has learned how to use his "Ole Roy" persona to deflect some of his aggresiveness.

Matt Doherty was too much like Bobby Knight and K, with the profanity and hystrionics and making fun of cheerleaders, and I believe that many of us were secretely happy that the 2003 team performed slightly below its level, which should have been the final 32 in the NCAA, because it gave us a reason to fire Doherty besides the fact that he was simply kind of "icky." As much as Carolina dislikes Duke, many of us couldn't quite stomach the near brawl that occurred during a 2003 game against Duke. It just wasn't classy and was a throwback to an earlier time 25 or 30 years earlier, when even Smith got into it, apparently, with a UVa player, a time that had been long forgotten by most and such actions, if once tolerated, were no longer appropriate, regardless of who was to blame.

But looking back, had Carolina upset Duke in the second round of the 2003 ACC tourney, they very well might have snuck into the NCAA tourney and the story would have been the great turnaround, even without Sean May.

But, because Carolina did not win 20 games and did not make the NCAA tourney, the administration had an out, they could fire him because "he was mean to the players" and the players did not like him. Doherty had committed no recruiting violations and had just assembled two excellent recruiting classes after years of mediocre recruiting, but we (including me) just didn't feel comfortable with him as coach. We had made a mistake and wanted a divorce and now Roy Williams was available.

I truly feel sorry for Matt Doherty because he was put in over his head. Had he stayed at Notre Dame, he would probably be reaping the rewards that current Notre Dame coach Mike Brey is. A lot of this unpleasantness could have been avoided had Coach Smith, I think somewhat selfishly, somewhat selflessly, not decided to quit right before the 1998 season. His decision essentially forced UNC to hire Guthridge and forced Guthridge to take the job and I am not sure either party wanted him to be head coach, but Coach Smith had forced the scenario.

What should have happened is that Smith should have announced his retirement but coached that year, allowing a proper replacement decision. It probably would have been Williams, but possibly Larry Brown or Eddie Fogler. Instead, Carolina ended up with its initial Roy Williams rejection fiasco and then the negotiations in the middle of Kansas's season in 2003, which gravely injured strong ties between the two universities.

Given a second chance at the universally-admired Roy Williams, Carolina could not say no, and Doherty was thrown on the trash heap and possibly treated unfairly in terms of severence.

He has bounced around a bit and is now at SMU, his second job since leaving UNC. The SMU team is horrible this year, but apparently has mostly freshmen and sophmores and Doherty still appears to have his recruiting touch, so I am hopeful for his future there, as the univesity attempt to recharge its sports program which was at the very top in both football and basketball in the early 1980's, by bringing in Doherty and the football coach from the successful Hawaii program.

Transitioning from the impersonal journalistic attempt to describe in an unbiased way what led to Doherty's leaving Chapel Hill, I would like to end on a more personal note.

Matt Doherty was a couple of years ahead of me at UNC and truly was a key cog when Carolina made the transition from being merely one of many excellent basketball programs to being at the very top with the UCLA's and the Kentucky's. I will never forget his big shot on Senior Day back in 1984 that led to our comeback against Duke and preserved our second perfect season in conference. I know he is a fighter and I will be rooting for him at SMU and expect that one day he will be back on college basketball's big stage. Many of us take a few tries before we find our dream job or perfect fit at a job. He is a Carolina guy and hopefully knows that many of us still admire him and want to see him back in Chapel Hill for all of his accomplishments.

UNC Tar Heels hit the 26-2 Mark

2008-02-25T04:21:00.000-08:00

It is interesting that the 2007-08 UNC Tar Heels have gotten a fair amount of criticism from fans and writers alike for having had a lackluster season, particularly on the defensive end. What this probably indicates more than anything else is just how spoiled Tar Heel fans have gotten.

I am only going to go back as far as the 1970's but let's see what this team has accomplished so far by seeing what other Carolina teams have achieved a record of 26-2, or close to it, missing it by one win at most, at some point during a season. These numbers are off the top of my head but I am sure that they are pretty much on target:

1. 1976--The Tar Heels, who featured four future NBA'ers and Olympians, were 25-2 and number two in the nation before losing in the finals of the ACC tourney and having Phil Ford get injured, finishing 25-4. They weren't going to beat Indiana that year anyway, who went 32-0.

2. 1982--UNC wins it all and finishes 32-2. This is Carolina's second best record ever, just short of the 1957 team's record, shared with 1976 Indiana, of 32-0, for a champion. This team had only one loss, at UVa when it had its starters intact, also losing at home to Wake, 55-49 without Perkins who had influenza(the real kind that makes you go to the hospital), and thus they came very close to going 33-1. I won't say that they came close to going undefeated, however, because they got pasted by double digits in Charlottesville in a game that they were never really in.

3. 1984--UNC finished up 28-3, after going 14-0 in conference. Dean hints that he brought starting point guard Kenny Smith back as a starter, which may have been a mistake, given how well back-up Steve Hale was playing(hmm). Indiana and Dan Dakich ruined my freshman year during the round of 16.

4. 1987--UNC finished 32-4, after going 14-0 in conference, losing to NC State in the ACC tourney finals and losing to Syracuse in the round of 8. This team had Kenny Smith, J.R. Reid and Scott Williams, all of whom had decent pro careers, especially Kenny Smith, as well as highly recruited Dave Popson, Joe Wolf and Jeff Lebo. The ACC was a little down this year and Carolina surprised somewhat, given that they had lost the number one draft pick, Brad Daugherty from the year before.

5. 1993--UNC finished 34-4, after going 14-2 in conference. This team lost to Michigan in December by one point at the buzzer and then to Duke and Wake in the first go round in conference. They ended up losing a heartbreaker in the conference tourney final to GIT, after playing without Derrick Phelps, in a game in which Donald Williams bonked three after three after three, something he wouldn't do again until the next year. My recollection is that this team was 25-3 at this point in the season.

6. 1998--UNC finished 34-4, losing to State, Maryland, Duke and Utah in the semi's. Carolina beat Duke in the finals of the tourney, after losing the Senior game at Duke the week before in a total collapse. My recollection is that this team was 26-2 at this point in the season. This team was somewhat of a mystery team, with the losses to Duke and Utah being somewhat inexplicable; they also came very close to going out in the Second Round against Charlotte in the NCAA tourney.

7. 2005--UNC finished 33-4, losing to Santa Clara in its first game, which I believe Quentin Thomas started, since Ray Felton had been suspended for one game for playing in an unauthorized summer game, and then lost to Duke and Wake in the first go round in conference play and then to GIT in the semi's of the tourney. Carolina was 25-3 at this point in the season. Discounting the game that Felton missed, this team came reasonably close to winning all the rest of its games,losing heartbreakers to Duke and GIT and a foul-marred game at Wake Forest. The 2005 team won the title by beating one of the best second place finishers in recent memory, the 37-1 Illinois Illini. Had Illinois won, it would have been a new record for most victories by a champion.

So, looking back, Carolina teams achieved a record of 26-2 in the 1982, 1984, 1987, 1998 and 2008 seasons. Smith did it three times, Guthridge once and Roy Williams has now achieved it with the 'Heels and at least once with the Kansas Jayhawks, in 1997, who only lost twice the entire season.

Looking at how those teams did, we see a national championship in 1982, Sweet Sixteen in 1984, Final Eight in 1987, and a Final Four in 1998. Roy's 1997 Jayhawks had the misfortune that Dean had so many years, in that they played Arizona, the eventual title winner, in the round of 16 and lost a heartbreaker to the Wildcats, who went on to defeat Carolina and Kentucky in the Final Four. Judging by history, Carolina should expect to at least get to the Final Eight and probably to the Final Four, although after that (and of course, really these are just probabilities) there are no guarantees.

Memphis Vs. 1976 Indiana

2008-02-19T10:52:00.000-08:00

The guys at Basketball Prospectus are debating the merits of Memphis' basketball season, given their status as the top team in a very poor conference. Should they go undefeated, how does that relate to the last team to go undefeated, the 1976 Indiana Hoosiers, of the perenially strong Big Ten, who went 32-0.

Ken Pomeroy states that it would be, obviously, quite an achievement, and states that it is even more impressive given that "IU's tourney run was in a different era: five games with a field that wasn't as deep, due to different selection rules back then. Winning the tournament carrying a zero in the loss column in 2008 would be an amazing achievement to me...." http://basketballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=164

Ken Pomeroy is a giant in the field of basketball analysis, but perhaps not history.

Ken actually does not know what he is talking about here when discussing 1976 Indiana, something I would rarely say about someone I greatly admire.

Indiana faced one of the most difficult journeys to their title in 1976 in the history of basketball, far more difficult than anything today. Ken is thinking of UCLA, which often did have a cupcake path to the Final Four in the West back then. Ultimately, after its grueling five game path to the title, Indiana tied 1957 UNC's record by achieving the most wins in a season without a loss by a national champion.

Just take a look at who Indiana beat in 1976 to win the title. Because the regions were not seeded, Indiana had to face the number two team in the country, Marquette, in their regional final. Should I repeat that? Number one played number two in the nation in the Mideast regional final, not the Final Four or the Final game. I remember watching it, and yes, everyone in the country figured it was probably for the national title.

Indiana's region had, overall, depending on the poll, five of the top ten teams in the country, including a 25-3 North Carolina with four future Olympians and NBA players, and Alabama's best team probably ever, with Leon Douglas. Alabama gave Indiana its toughest test, with the Hoosiers edging the Crimson Tide.

In the Final Four, it got easier. Indiana only had to defeat defending titlist, UCLA and then a Michigan team that it had already faced and beaten twice (although this was something Georgetown could not pull off in 1985 against the similarly twice-defeated 'Nova).

I don't even like Indiana and I despise Bobby Knight, but at some point you have to give the Devil his due. Should Memphis go undefeated this year, it will not even be close to comparing to what Indiana did, after a grueling 18 game Big Ten schedule, followed by the incredibly loaded Mid East regional.

Political Markets

2008-02-12T19:23:00.000-08:00

The New York Times has done an interesting article on political markets, such as Intrade, something that I have been interested in for awhile. I wrote the author an email with respect to my own experience with such markets, which are valuable but still far from completely useful:

I share your interest in this, but one thing you fail to mention is the embarassment that many of us experienced on election day in 2004 when Intrade jerked around from one extreme to another. Intrade was worse than useless on that day. Another occasion on which it was similarly useless was during the Allen-Webb Senate election on election night where Intrade seemed to simply jerk back and forth based upon the reported returns--hardly the kind of predictive vehicle one can have faith in.

For what it is worth, my opinion is that Intrade does a good predictive job under a variety of situations but is basically useless once the polls open.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/13/business/13leonhardt.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

Chesapeake Primaries and Beyond

2008-02-12T07:30:00.000-08:00

As we go into today's primaries, more and more is becoming apparent about the most interesting Democratic primary in a generation. Look for Obama to win handily in D.C., Maryland and Virginia, as black voters make up a large percentage of voters in this region.

Hillary Clinton is banking on a comeback in March and April, in the states of Ohio, Texas and Pennsylvania, all of which look to be much more sympathetic to her candidacy than the mid-Atlantic region.

Obama has one of the least likely coalitions imaginable, constructed of both the richest and the poorest that the Democratic Party has to offer. Clinton,on the other hand, has a much more traditional coalition based upon feminists, Hispanics, union-members and working class whites, especially Catholics.

Perhaps most diappointing of all for those of us who see American support for Obama as a sign of change is the failure of Catholics to support Obama. Catholics areas such as Boston, Pittsburgh and Chicago have historically been noted for their extreme racism, but one always hopes for attitudes to change. Unfortunately, according to the data we have, they apparently have not. What we don't know is whether this pattern will carry so far as to lead such voters to cross party lines in the fall, for the presumably Catholic, McCain.

While Clinton probably will do better in Ohio, Texas and Pennsylvania, it is unlikely to be enough of an improvement to give her the delegates she needs for the nomination. These three states all have double the number of African-Americans per capita that California and Massachusetts had, not to mention that Texas has an open primary system likely to favor Obama. Clinton will benefit from the larger number of Catholics and union members in these states, but it probably will not be enough to give her the lead.

At that point, in spite of all the horror scenarios, it is difficult to envision seeing the Democratic Party give Clinton the nod via Super Delegates, because to do so would virtually ensure defeat in the fall general election, as it would alienate the independent and black voters that the party desperately needs to win in November.

For blacks, it could be the catalyst to finally severe their unswerving support for a party that always promises them so much, while delivering so little. I just don't think that Bill and Hillary could get away with what Walter Mondale pulled in 1984, given the open media we have now and the racial implications that were not in play in 1984.

What Hillary would do if she were smart, is to stand down and support Obama in the name of party unity. Were she to do so, she and Bill would immediately reclaim the love and admiration of blacks across the nation. Furthermore, should Obama lose, she would be well positioned to run in four years, when she would be only 64, or to receive a prominent cabinent position should he win. At this point, the Clinton's standing among many Democrats has plunged; such a pro-active out-of-the-box reversal could cement her party power for years to come.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/horseraceblog/2008/02/the_state_of_the_democratic_ra.html

Who Won Super Tuesday

2008-02-06T13:40:00.000-08:00

While I don't think these political markets work on the day of the election, they are illustrative farther out.

It seems difficult to believe that Hillary won yesterday when she has tanked dramatically in the political markets. She is also going to be facing questions about her husband financing her campaign and just where all that money is coming from, given that the Clintons were broke on paper, when he left office.

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/election_20082/latest_results_from_rasmussen_markets

Obama and Racism--What the Mainstream Media Won't Tell You

2008-02-06T11:29:00.000-08:00

Racism is apparently live and well in the good ol' US of A.

Over and over, we have been told by the mainstream media that Obama is weak among working-class whites. Translation: working class whites tend to be much more racist than their more well-to-do white bretheren and would much rather have a white female as President than a black anything as President.

Second, over and over we hear that Obama is weak among older voters. Translation: old white people tend to be much more racist than younger whites and would much rather have a white female as President than a black anything as President.

Third, Hillary is strong among hispanics. Translation: hispanics and blacks do not really form some arm in arm coalition striving and struggling together, Many hispanics identify much more with whites and would much rather have a white female as President than a black anything as President.

I hope this helps clarify things.

What we still don't know is whether these remants of the more overt racism of the past are strong enough to work against Obama in the fall should he garner the nomination. My feeling is that they are not, which is a positive thing, but only time will tell.

Classical Liberalism vs. Libertarianism

2008-01-09T09:57:00.000-08:00

Liberal is a word which has its roots in Latin, and roughly means "free." In many countries in the world, the term liberal is used to denote the parties which tend to be conservative in the sense of opposing interference with the market economy.

In the U.S., obviously the word has lost that connotation and generally means something akin to progressive. Hence, we see the use of the term "classical liberal " to denote someone in the U.S. who still believes in the ideas of freedom, equality, democracy and lack of coercion embodied in the work of John Stuart Mill and others.

I have usually in the past used the term libertarian to describe myself, but that term itself is beginning to lack precise meaning. I think maybe it is time for people like myself to start using the term liberal again, while dropping the pedantic modifier.

I say this because in my viewpoint there are different kinds of people who are freedom-oriented. Some are results-oriented, while others are process-oriented and some of us progress along that spectrum due to personal blindness and cognitive dissonance, but I am committed to at least trying to apply and follow the logic of my beliefs, even in those areas where I do not care for the results.

Thus, we can have two freedom-oriented people who might have the same or very similar ultimate vision of what society should be, but they can differ radically on any given issue.

For example, libertarians generally oppose government provided or subsidized health care. As a student of economics, I cannot be unaware of the vast inefficiencies which often result from government interference in the economy.

On the other hand, as a (classical) liberal, I am dedicated to the proposition that it is reasonable to delay full rights for minors until they reach the age of majority. Together with this lack of full rights, comes an obligation by the government to act in loco parentis when necessary. Hence we have child welfare workers who make sure that children have a reasonable minimum of education, sustenance, clothing, shelther and health care. Given that virtually no one disagrees with this proposition, Republican, Democratic, Progressive or Libertarian, it seems strange to see the demagoguery on the issue from the U.S. right.

I have been called that worst insult of all, "a squish" by libertarian friends for not opposing subsidized health care for children, all the while that they go about merrily touting education vouchers for children as the solution to all the problems of the public schools.

The difference here is process. Some of my libertarian friends take the position that any increase in government is illegitimate, or at least to be opposed, even if it means treating similarly situated people unfairly.

Another example: in the past, only widows were eligible to receive social security benefits from a deceased spouse. Now, even though I oppose compulsive Social Security payroll taxes, I certainly can see no reason for treating husbands differently than wives in this situation and I doubt anyone else would now either, but it was formerly the Congressionally-approved policy.

In the field of antitrust, I generally believe that government does much more harm than good and that it is actually government that often causes the alleged monopolistic situations.

Many conservatives and most libertarians believe this also and on this basis opposed the anti-trust prosecution against Microsoft, regardless of what the facts indicated with respect to the illegality of Microsoft's actions. Whatever happened to "don't do the crime, if you can't do the time?" Their viewpoint is that since the law was harmful, it shouldn't be enforced, an attitude that at least Libertarians are consistent about, unlike their conservative counterparts.

So, once again, in this case, results were more important to these libertarians than process. I feel the opposite.

In the field of economic policy, many libertarians tend to like targeted tax cuts, while abhoring subsidies. While there may be some slight basis for this preference, in reality, there is little difference. Both result in the government either picking winners or helping losers, in a manner in which governments generally lack sufficient market knowledge to make proper decisions.

Thus, I oppose both targeted tax cuts and subsidies, based upon their inefficieny, while libertarians tend to support targeted tax cuts because they believe it starves the government and makes it smaller. The clear unfairness to those not lucky enough to get the tax cut does not seem to trouble such libertarians.

I am a lawyer and I criticize the legal profession as much as anyone. But one thing that is drummed into most of us is the critical importance of process in determining the rightness of actions and outcomes.

Until recently, people with beliefs like mine have generally felt most at home in the Republican Party. However, lately the GOP has appeared to deride and disparge those of us who feel that process is important.

A constant theme is that we have too many lawyers. While we may have too many laws, that doesn't seem to bother them as much.

The Bill of Rights is decidely not results-oriented. The Founders knew that these amendments were going to hamper government action. That was the point. They knew what fewer and fewer people in the Republican Party know.

Process matters. So, I guess that makes me a liberal.

Hillary and Vampires

2008-01-08T15:40:00.000-08:00

People are gleefully dancing all over Hillary's political grave, but let's not count our chickens before they hatch. Remember those great Christopher Lee vampire flicks from the late 50's through the early 70's? Lee's Dracula got staked, frozen, impaled on a cross, etc., but he kept rising from the "dead" and coming back.

Here we see that the Clintons are already plotting their resurrection from New Hampshire, complete with old time dirty tricks nasty enough to make your head spin like the girl from the Exorcist. http://time-blog.com/real_clear_politics/2008/01/the_empire_strikes_back.html http://axcessnews.com/index.php/articles/show/id/13644

You know what the problem is? Speaking metaphorically, of course, to permanently disable a vampire, you need to cut off its head. It may be time for Obama to study up on his Van Helsing and make sure this opponent is disabled once and for all. http://www.zerotime.com/night/destroy.htm

Evangelicals, Southerners and Anti-Semitism

2008-01-08T09:00:00.000-08:00

I was asked by a close friend who is Jewish whether or not I believe that most evangelicals would vote for a Jew. He figured if they wouldn't support a Mormon like George Romney, then that theory would apply even more so towards a Jew.

While I don't claim to speak for evangelicals, I did grow up in the South surrounded by friends and family who were evangelicals and from everything that I know evangelicals would have no problem voting for a Jew. They would almost certainly perceive Judaism as being closer to their faith than is Mormonism. The idea that humans can one day become a "G-d" is as blasphemous to evangelicals, as Christ being G_d is to many Jews.

Anti-semitism among evangelicals disappeared about the same time that Hal Lindsey wrote his book, The Late Great Planet Earth, in the early 1970's. Jews are rather seen as, at the least, having residual grace from G_d due to being his chosen people. Some or even most, may believe that unsaved Jews go to Hell, but they believe that about all unsaved groups.

I was taught over and over that anyone who mistreated the Jews in general, would face terrible punishment based upon G-d's promise to Abraham and that this was why the Roman and Nazi empires fell. I went to a Christian junior high and I never heard a single person ever say anything negative about Jews or Judaism.

Now at the ritzy private middle school that I went to before that, it was a different story. Believe it or not, our English teacher actually called our lone Jewish classmate, out of about 100 students, "Jew boy" when he called on him in class. As unbelievable as that sounds, it actually happened over and over with no repercussions. And I should make clear, this teacher definitely liked my classmate. He saw it as friendly banter, somehow.

I will always remember that fellow, whose last name was Newman, because he just let it roll off his back and never complained and was actually one of the most popular kids in the class.

Maybe those were different times. I have heard that many college coaches in the fifties would do similar things with respect to Jewish players and have seen quotes by the Jewish athletes saying it really didn't bother them, because the coach was like a father to them and if he had really meant it as a slur, the coach never would have even recruited him.

The other thing you have to remember is that for evangelicals outside the Northeast, they usually have no idea who is Jewish and who isn't. We don't generally grow up with the experience of associating certain names with the religion, because there were so few Jews in the South back then. I had no idea that so many of the sportswriters and comic book writers that I admired were Jewish and I had never heard the semi-offensive term "jap" until my junior year in college. When most evangelicals complain about Hollywood, they have no idea that many perceive this to be grounded in anti-semitism; they honestly are just complaining about the content and not its origin.

I think that this is important because so often many of us are talking at cross-purposes without really understanding what they other individual is saying. I think that Jews from big cities often assume that everyone can tell whether or not they are Jewish by their names or perhaps some other attribute, but it really is not true.

When Homer Simpson exclaims with shock in an episode of the Simpsons when told by daughter, Lisa, that there are many Jews in the entertainment field: "You mean there are Jewish entertainers?", I find this to be hilarious and absolutely true about how clueless some of us Gentiles are, but that is a good thing, I think. It means we are making progress.

As a boy growing up in the 70's I had no idea that such favorites as the Three Stooges, Billy Joel, Pat Benatar, and Henry Winkler--the Fonz!-- were Jewish, but I know it wouldn't have mattered to me one way or the other.

Equality of the Sexes and Hillary

2008-01-08T07:44:00.000-08:00

I know it is always easy to claim that one had a certain idea, before seeing it somewhere else, but I have come to the same conclusions as Michael Barone makes in his article below.

The post-boomer generation has simply not engaged in the same battle of the sexes that the previous generation had. From the time, we started school and onward perhaps to university and then graduate study, women generally made up 50% or more of our classmates and often, if anything were seen as being smarter and more studious.

These women had a full spectrum of choices and indeed, many of them may have resented the tone and spoiled disposition of their mothers' generation.

But perhaps, the final chink in the armor of boomer feminism fell due to the cyber-revolution. People who complained about glass ceilings no longer received the same sympathy that had been extended before. Instead, post-boomer women either put up or shut up. Due to the vast decrease in the costs of going into business for oneself, post-boomer women often start their own businesses and prove that someone was undervaluing their efforts.

These women have no need of a woman in the White House to somehow validate their efforts or the choices that they have made in their lives, nor do they feel that they somehow "owe" a female candidate their support. This is refreshing and is a real mark of progress in an American society all too often marked by regress.

http://www.usnews.com/blogs/barone/2008/1/7/young-women-feminism-and-hillary-clinton.html

Undefeated

2008-01-07T16:48:00.001-08:00

After last night's somewhat lucky escape over Clemson, some UNC fans are already wondering if an undefeated season is possible. As a passionate alumnus, I kind of doubt it.

The 1957 Carolina team and the 1976 Indiana squad hold the record for most wins in a season when winning a national championship without a loss, both 32-0.

The amount of good fortune that Carolina had in 1958 to achieve that mark was clearly phenomenal, so maybe last night' s lucky win is a good sign. http://www.amazon.com/Best-Game-Ever-Revolutionized-Basketball/dp/1592289827/ref=pd_sxp_grid_pt_2_1

With 2:30 on the clock, Carolina lost control of the ball and it bounced right into Danny Green’s hands and he hit a 3-pointer to cut the margin to four. If Clemson had come up with that ball, Carolina probably would have been toast.

With respect to going undefeated, my freshman year in 1984, we had a great chance to do that until Kenny Smith got hurt. We did go undefeated in conference, but strangely enough it got a little boring, because even if we had lost, it would have been to an inferior team, not one on par with us, a bit like the situation, Duke had in the ACC several years ago. You always need a foil. Someone who can take you to hell and back. Dean Smith’s successful struggles to best K again in the 90’s really got me back into things, as did the 8-20 debacle. It is no fun if it is too easy, but it would not have been a gimme in 1984 even if Kenny had not gotten hurt.. Georgetown was basically our equal that year by the time of the tournament.

The ‘82 team had that foil with UVa, playing them three times and barely eeking out two wins and needing a big comeback to win in Chapel Hill.

UVa was the only squad to beat Carolina in a game that year in which all of our starters were available–Sam Perkins missed the Wake defeat. Nevertheless, the Cavaliers beat the daylights out of us in Charlottesville. So, if Sam had not gotten sick for Wake, that team probably would have been 33-1, given no other changes in the space-time continuum.

And for all you younger Carolina fans, UVa might have been our chief rival from 1980-1984, and maybe back to 1976, with both teams going to the Final Four multiple times.

Boy, did we despise Tom Sheehy and Terry Holland, and there seemed to be bad blood between Dean and Holland and Marc Iavaroni. UVa killed our hopes for a national title in 1976 and Carolina paid them back the next year, winning a thriller at the end, even without most of our starters. And of course, UVa and UNC are the only two ACC teams to ever meet in the Final Four and we smoked them after they had beaten us twice that year.

Clemens Redux

2008-01-07T16:21:00.001-08:00

Regardless of whether or not Roger Clemens might have used steroids, which I have discussed below, http://quakerfox.blogspot.com/2007/12/steroids-baseball-and-roger-clemens.html,
the following quote from his 60 Minutes interview gives us a hint of just how self-absorbed a person Mr. Clemens may be:

""I'm angry. What i've done for baseball, I don't get the benefit of the doubt," Roger Clemens said.""

I guess the hundreds of millions of dollars wasn't recompense enough for all Roger did for baseball.

http://wcbstv.com/topstories/clemens.hgh.steroids.2.624432.html

Roy Williams Does it Again

2008-01-07T15:54:00.000-08:00

Roy Williams and his Tar Heels somehow found a way to win a game that was seemingly lost, yesterday at Clemson, 90-88 in over-time. I won't go into specifics because that can be found elsewhere, but will include a post I did on another blog at halftime:

"At the half perhaps the most apt description thus far would be, in he words of the immortal Charlie Bown, “aaaarrrrgggghhhh!”

Deon and Quinin and Marcus have got to step up with Brendan and Bobby gone this year. They clearly can all do better. The outside shooting has got to improve. If Wayne and Danny and Ty cannot consistently hit the 3, we are right back in the hell of last year’s Georgetown game.

Almost all of the great UNC teams have had excellent wing men or three point shooters: Charlie Scott, Walter Davis, MJ, Donald Williams, Vince Carter and Rashad McCants.

Rashad McCants (34 points in 31 minutes yesterday by the way, good going!) was so fundamental to the 2005 team. You could not pack the zone with him in there. If you look at the losses in 2005, except for Santa Clara, without Felton, all the losses involved bad games or games with foul trouble by Rashad.

Wayne has similar skills but has not yet had the same amount of seasoning as Rashad, who was the team star along with Felton and May from day one. Mark my words: If this team is to win it all, Mr. Ellington must start to resemble Vince Carter and Rashad McCants and be able to take control of a game the way that they could. But then again, what do I know? I could be wrong. Let’s hope for a big second half by Mr. Ellington.”

As most BB fans know by know, Ellington ended up hitting a career high 36 points including the game winning 3-pointer with less than a second left in the game. Kudos to Mr. Ellington.

The Wisdom of Fight Club

2007-12-21T09:30:00.000-08:00

Fight Club was one of those cult movies where either you got it or you didn't. I found it to be one of the most amazing movies that I have ever seen and the book is excellent as well.

It may seem strange to find wisdom in a movie superficially about disaffected men of questionable sanity beating the hell out of each other, but I definitely did.

The movie is full of quotes, many of them perhaps distasteful to some, that are replete with insight. Zen buddhism is often associated with such quotes, which by attacking certain sacred cows, often in a seemingly profane way, help liberate our minds from a conventional and incorrect way of thinking.

(I am adding this at a later point, but it struck me to see whether or not I am the only one to see the Zen aspects of the movie and I note that recent works exploring these very concepts (and the closely related Taoist ones) have recently been published: http://www.unomaha.edu/jrf/vol11no2/ReedFightClub.htm
http://strykerxbase.tripod.com/writings/taoism.htm)

The prophet in Fight Club, played by Brad Pitt, is a character named Tyler Durden. One of the more remarkable things about the movie was a sort of rap song done by the Dust Brothers with lyrics spliced together with some of the more powerful quotes by Brad Pitt and in his voice, from the movie. It sounds corny but the effect is to smack you in the face with some of the themes of life dealt with in the movie.

Here are the lyrics to the "song" "Tyler Durden":

And you open the door and you step inside
We're inside our hearts
Now imagine your pain as a white ball of healing light
Thats right
Your pain, the pain of self is a white ball of healing light
I dont think so

This is your life
Good to the last drop
It doesnt get any better than this
This is your life and its ending one minute at a time

This isnt a seminar
This isnt a weekend retreat
Where you are now you can't even imagine what the bottom will be like
Only after disaster can we be resurrected
It's only after you've lost everything you are free to do anything

Nothing is static
Everything is evolving
Everything is falling apart

You are not a beautiful and unique snowflake
You are the same decaying organic matter as everything else
We are all part of the same compost heap
We are the all singing all dancing crap of the world

You are not your bank account
You are not the clothes you wear
You are not the contents of your wallet
You are not your bowel cancer
You are not your grande latte
You are not the car you drive
You are not your fucking kakkeys(?)

You have to give up
You have to realise that someday you will die
Until you know that
You are useless

I say, let me never be complete
I say, may I never be content
I say, deliver me from swedish furniture
I say, deliver me from clever art
I say deliver me from clear skin and perfect teeth
I say you have to give up
I say evolve, and let the chips fall as they may

I want you to hit me as hard as you can (x2)
Welcome to fight club
If this is your first night - You have to fight

Here are some uncoupled excerpts of some of the wisdom from the book and movie:

"It's only after you've lost everything, that you're free to do anything."

This is your life and it's ending one minute at a time.

May I never be complete. May I never be content. May I never be perfect. Deliver me from being perfect and complete.

Only after disaster can we be resurrected.

Maybe self-improvement isn't the answer.... Maybe self-destruction is the answer.

I want you to do me a favor. I want you to hit me as hard as you can.

Fuck damnation, man! Fuck redemption! We are God's unwanted children? So be it!

First you have to give up, first you have to *know*... not fear... *know*... that someday you're gonna die.

Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don't need. We're the middle children of history, man. No purpose or place. We have no Great War. No Great Depression. Our Great War's a spiritual war... our Great Depression is our lives. We've all been raised on television to believe that one day we'd all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars. But we won't. And we're slowly learning that fact. And we're very, very pissed off.

You are not special. You are not a beautiful or unique snowflake. You're the same decaying organic matter as everything else.

The things you own end up owning you.

I don't wanna die without any scars

Our fathers were our models for God. If our fathers bailed, what does that tell you about God?

Listen to me! You have to consider the possibility that God does not like you. He never wanted you. In all probability, he hates you. This is not the worst thing that can happen. We don't need him!

I felt like putting a bullet between the eyes of every Panda that wouldn't screw to save its species.

Fuck what you know. You need to forget about what you know, that's your problem. Forget about what you think you know about life, about friendship....

Hitting bottom isn't a weekend retreat. It's not a goddamn seminar. Stop trying to control everything and just let go! LET GO!

We're a generation of men raised by women. I'm wondering if another woman is really the answer we need.

We are all part of the same compost heap.

You're not your job. You're not how much money you have in the bank. You're not the car you drive. You're not the contents of your wallet. You're not your fucking khakis. You're the all-singing, all-dancing crap of the world.

The Christ in Christmas?

2007-12-21T08:54:00.000-08:00

Under the Julian calendar of the Roman empire, the Winter Solstice fell on December 25th.

As the shortest day of the year, December 25th had a special significance as a time of rebirth, given that it was the day when the days began getting longer. Accordingly, ancient peoples in Europe often marked the Winter Solstice with ebullient festivals, such as the one honoring the Invincible Sun. Although the early Church (and later groups like the Puritans) attempted to ban the celebration of the Winter Solstice, ultimately, they gave in and attempted to graft a Christian meaning upon it, which wasn't too hard since the Christian God Jesus also was highly symbolic of rebirth.

Placing the celebration of Christ's birth on the Winter Solstice set things up nicely to coincide with placing the celebration of his death and resurrection during the Spring festivals, aka Easter (from the word for the old German moon goddess and related to the modern word estrogen), which often celebrated the death and rebirth of the spouse of the moon goddess.

The Julian calendar was later superseded in the middle ages and the Winter Solstice fell back to around the 22nd day of the year, although December 25th continued to be the date upon which the pagan winter holiday/Christmas continued to be observed.

So the next time one of those fundamentalist busybodies talks about "putting the Christ back into Christmas," tell him that Christ never was in Christmas to begin with and to get their own holiday.

Steroids, Baseball and Roger Clemens

2007-12-14T09:48:00.000-08:00

Did Red Sox and Yankee pitching great Roger Clemens use steroids?

Obviously, I don't know for sure, but let's take a look at his career stats on Baseball Reference:

From age 30 to 33, Clemens' record is 40-39 with ERA's around 4 and the highest Whip's of his career.. Then all of a sudden he "recovers" and actually gets, if not better at age 34, at least as good as he had been ten years earlier, continuing on par with his best seasons up to age 42, and has continued on at an excellent perfomance level, although down somewhat, the last two seasons up to the age of 44. For example, in 2004 with Houston, at age 41, with an E.R.A. under 3 and a Whip of 1.157, roughly equivalent to his Cy Young Award winning season of 1987 with the Red Sox, when he was 24.

What other power pitchers in history have done that?

Not Bob Feller or Sandy Koufax. They both retired in their early 30's. Steve Carlton's last really good season came at age 37. Bob Gibson and Tom Seaver continued at a high rate until age 36.

Certainly not Walter Johnson, the pitcher without equal to whom Clemens is often compared. Although Johnson had some success after 35, much of this was attributable to his finally playing on an American League champion team in 1924 and 1925, after years of Senatorial futility.

http://www.baseball-reference.com/c/clemero02.shtml

Throughout baseball history we have always seen the same relative curve of productivity, in which a player's statistics rise during the twenties, level off around age thirty and then decline either rapidly or gradually between thirty and forty. Indeed, many who are labelled all time greats are considered so because their stats tapered off much less after age thirty than other good or excellent players.

Ted Williams is a good example of this. Also, Hank Aaron certainly comes to mind here, playing at a high level until age 40, while another all time great, Willie Mays declined a bit more after his 35th birthday, allowing Aaron to pass him in the race for the all time lead in home runs.

Pete Rose, the all time hit leader was still able to punch out 172 hits at age 41, while Robin Yount, who at one time seemed a threat to Pete Rose's base hit record, declined preciptiously in his mid-30's and retired at 37, far short of Rose's record.

On the other hand, there is nothing that categorically eliminates the possibility of improving after age 30. There are rare human specimens among us. George Foreman won the heavyweight title in his mid-40's after all.

In the realm of baseball, Warren Spahn of the Boston and Milwaukee Braves, went 23-7 with an E.R.A. of 2.60 at age 42, although he never really suffered a mid-career decline in the way that Clemens did. Nolan Ryan continued at a high level until age 44, although much of his late success seems attributable to his finally gaining some mastery over his career-damaging wildness.

Among Clemens' contemporaries, Randy Johnson seems to have pitched into his 40's without much decline in performance.

Some might argue that pitchers' pitch counts are closely monitored these days and that less arm stress could allow pitchers to continue at a high level into their forties.

Nevertheless, such counter-examples such as Spann and Ryan are rare and less likely to be legitimate during an era when the acknowledged usage of performancing-enhancing substances was rampant.

Certainly, it is unprecedented to see an explosion in statistics like that of Barry Bonds, who at age 36 started racking up on-base percentages over a hundred points higher than any he had ever achieved, including his three MVP seasons, which was three years past the point where his talented father, Bobby Bonds, played his last full season.

For Clemens, the rumbers are not so stark a difference, but he still had three or four of what are arguably his best seasons, after the age of 34, beginning in 1997, after four mediocre seasons, at an age when most power pitchers' best years are behind them, and his former team the Red Sox let him go.

It might just be a coincidence.

Federal Sentencing Opinions Issued

2007-12-10T12:07:00.000-08:00

The influential 7th Circuit judges, who were formally considered friends of limited government, Richard A. Posner and Frank Easterbrook got slammed by Justice Antonin Scalia today in the Court's two sentencing decisions, which I find delightful.

They had essentially ignored the precepts of the Booker decision (now what part of the term "advisory" do you not understand Mr. Easterbrook?) and their post-Booker sentencing work can now be deposited where it belongs: in the garbage.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/10/washington/10cnd-scotus.html?hp

http://sentencing.typepad.com/sentencing_law_and_policy/2006/10/todays_booker_o.html

http://sentencing.typepad.com/sentencing_law_and_policy/2006/09/seventh_circuit.html

Romney, Giuliani and Clinton Losing Support

2007-12-08T08:18:00.000-08:00

Look what is happening here in the polls. People are saying that they are sick of the same old connected people running things. Outsiders like Huckabee and Paul and semi-outsiders like Obama are making a charge. The more the Club for Growth and the WSJ criticize Huckabee and Ron Paul, the better they seem to do in the polls.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2008/president/national-primary.html

Mormon Romney

2007-12-07T19:07:00.000-08:00

Jack Tapper makes an excellent point here about GOP candidate George Romney's "freedom of religion" speech and how Romney is missing the point:

"His stupid unease on this point is shown by his demagogic attack on the straw man "religion of secularism," when, actually, his main and most cynical critic is a moon-faced true believer and anti-Darwin pulpit-puncher from Arkansas who doesn't seem to know the difference between being born again and born yesterday."
http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2007/12/mitt-moroni.html

Indeed, it is the secularists who have generally been willing to ignore people's religion as candidates as long as they don't make religion part of the race, as opposed to the issues. What people like Romney want to do is bash non-believers and secularists, while all the while saying "don't you dare try to bring my religion into this. Unfair!"

Unless I no longer understand evangelicals, they will never, ever support a Mormon. Not only do they consider Mormonism a cult, the Mormons are just a little to successful at converting both heathen and other Christians to the point of being considered competition, not to mention that the New Jerusalem is in Israel and not Missouri, in their estimation.

Romney has had it. But on the positive side, at least he wasn't brainwashed like his dad.

NFL Officiating

2007-12-05T21:12:00.000-08:00

What a surprise! The NFL thinks its officials make no mistakes. Due to its poor rule choices and its semi-pro referees and short schedule, officiating decides the results in the NFL more than in any other major sport. The Ravens-Patriots game Monday night may have been one of the worst officiated 4th quarters that I have ever seen.

Speaking of integrity, the NFL hires "journalists" to do post-game commentary on its network after games. How critical can someone be when they are an actual employee of a league that is known for allowing near-zero dissent. I

I was watching the NFL Network after the Ravens game(disclosure: I live in Maryland but I am a Redskins fan) and boy, do they have some impact journalists on there.

Question example: What do you think the Patriots were thinking on that last drive?

Talking head: We sure are glad we have Tom Brady as our quarterback.

Yeah, that's right.

All those 300 lb. guys who are out there slugging each other in the head on the front line were silently muttering to themselves, "I sure am glad we have Tom Brady, I sure am glad we have Tom Brady, instead of "count on four, count on four, count on four...."

http://sports.aol.com/fanhouse/2007/12/05/head-nfl-ref-on-official-who-called-ravens-samari-rolle-boy/

Police Offer to Help Group Change their Message or Else

2007-12-05T15:58:00.000-08:00

Authorities in Gwinnett County have dropped a misdemeanor criminal charge against an anti-abortion activist who was arrested for driving a truck emblazoned with images of aborted fetuses.

Gwinnett County Solicitor Rosanna Szabo said she "administratively dismissed" the disorderly conduct charge against Robert Dean Roethlisberger Jr.On the day after Thanksgiving, Roethlisberger drove a truck with banners displaying images of aborted fetuses, including a bloody and headless torso. Roethlisberger works for Operation Rescue, a national anti-abortion organization.

Roethlisberger, 44, of Belton, Mo., had been charged under a provision of Georgia law that makes it a crime to use "obscene and vulgar or profane language" in the presence of a person under age 14.

In making her decision to drop the charge, Szabo said, "I have reviewed the evidence and law in this case, and concluded that the physical display of the images in question — as shocking and offensive as they are — does not constitute 'obscene and vulgar or profane language' as specifically prohibited by this statute."

This was a pretty outrageous violation of the 1st Amendment by the Gwinnet police and the article does not make clear that such actions by the police are illegal under the U.S. Constitution regardless of what the Georgia statute may say.

Why the arresting officer's name is not mentioned is beyond me, as is the absurdity of the quote by Cpl. Spellman, which makes clear that the Gwinnett police intended to violate Roethisberger's constitutional rights.

I do not support Operation Rescue but we do not need Cpl. Spellman of the Gwinnett Police telling them how to convey their group's message.

http://www.ajc.com/services/content/metro/gwinnett/stories/2007/12/04/abortion_1205_web.html?cxtype=rss&cxsvc=7&cxcat=13

A Lawyer Did That

2007-12-05T09:04:00.001-08:00

After having discussions with friends and former professors, I have lately been especially disappointed with the treatment of the legal profession, not by the media so much, as by the Republican Party. A constant refrain from the GOP seems to be that there are too many lawyers in the United States.

One Republican candidate for the Senate from Colorado by the name of Peter Coors, once even made the charge that there are too many lawyers in the United States Senate. One has to wonder whether the chief lawmaking body in the United States could actually have too many people who studied law as opposed to being say, bug sprayers like Tom DeLay, but to many Republicans the proposition would seem self-evident. Doesn't it say in the Bible, "First kill all the lawyers"?

Accordingly, I have decided to try to highlight some of the positives of the profession and some of society's heroes who have studied law.

I don't mean this to stand in contravention to the fact that there are nauseating and corrupt individuals who either practice law or who carry law degrees, or as a defense of state bar associations who spend most of their time implementing practices which make legal fees more expensive for the average person.

But many of the greatest people have been lawyers and the rigorous study of law and philosophy can in fact promote those qualities which make men great. The study of law when implemented well by a good school melds the practicality of most learned professions with the acquisition of knowledge sought in the humanities.

Today, I will recognize the esteemed F.A. Hayek, winner of the Nobel Prize in economics in 1974 and author of the seminal work of political theory, The Constitution of Liberty.

Questions Regarding Health Care

2007-11-30T07:03:00.000-08:00

The United States seems to have the best health care in the world for people at the top of the chain, in the same way that Harvard and Yale are the best in the world in education. But this does not mean that the U.S. has better health care or education, necessarily.

We do know that the United States lags many European and British Commonwealth countries in average life expectancy and average high school scholastic achievement, so it is difficult to be dogmatic about these issues.

Regardless of what one's feeling about national healthcare are, one thing that it does not necessarily have to entail is the destruction of a competing private sector. Hillary Clinton did a huge disservice to her own general idea because many people now believe that any national system now has to be "socialized" and obligatiory as opposed to merely guaranteeing payment.

No matter how much libertarians and Republicans how that this issue is going away, it will not because they have failed to address three facets that the free market cannot adequately remedy:

1. Uninsured children
2. Unavailability of coverage for pre-existing conditions
3. Payment for potentially enormous outlays for coverage of questionable treatment.

The Republican Dream is Over for Libertarians

2007-11-30T06:25:00.000-08:00

The title above is derived partly from a song by John Lennon on his first solo album after the Beatles broke up and for many of us who grew up as Republicans and worked for its success for years, hoping to return the nation to its small government foundations, admitting the dream is over comes concomitantly with the turning of one's back on a party that once embodied great hope for many of us freedom-oriented Republicans.

This is not my father's GOP. The days of Goldwater, Ayn Rand, YAF and Ronald Reagan are over and in the words of the immortal Jerry Mathers, they're "not never coming back." Instead, the McCarthyites and Nixonians have won and have completely eradicated libertarian influence in the Republican Party.

Getting over being a Republican can be a bit like leaving the religion one grew up in as a child.

It is not easy to do, but at some point, freedom-oriented people who believe in free markets and not interventionism have to realize that not only is there not much left for them in terms of policy in the GOP, that in actual fact, the party goes out of its way to insult and even antagonize libertarians.

While the Democrats through Daily Kos are saying "come on over, there are things that we can work together on," the GOP essentially thumbs its nose and says, "where else ya gonna go?"

Perhaps the saddest thing is that devoted Republicans worked 60 years to once again be in a position like they had in 2002, where they had a popular president and both houses of Congress. The GOP had the chance at that point to truly change the country. They could have passed a flat tax or abolished the income tax. They could have passed agricultural reform. They could have abolished agencies, starting with the Department of Education. They could have reformed Senior Citizens programs.

What did they do instead? First, they blew their political capital on an unnecessary war.

Then, instead of abolishing the Department of Education, the GOP instead decided to strengthen it, with No Child Left Behind.

Instead of reforming the tax code, they decided to make it even more unwieldy, and thus, all the easier to extract campaign contributions from lobbyists.

Instead of cutting farm aid, they decided to increase it.

Instead of reforming Medicare, they decide to create a new prescription drug program costing trillions of dollars, all the while deriding Democrats who sought to insure poor children as "socialists in favor of socialized medicine."

It is difficult to express just how abhorrently everyone in the GOP behaved during the period between 2002 and 2006. Corruption ran rampant, while the party violated virtually every one of its stated core values, shouting "freedom, freedom," every time they passed another bloated bill. Because they have nothing to stand on, their current presidential primaries have become focused on essentially two items: 1) being pro-war and 2)being anti-immigration. It is quite a come-down from the 1980's, when the GOP was the party of ideas and measured debate. It is now the party of yelling and screaming and know-nothingness and so now it is to the Democrats as the GOP will only continue to slip into oblivion.

The Federalist Society

2007-11-28T15:08:00.001-08:00

The Federalist Society is something known generally to lawyers and law students but perhaps not to libertarians at large. The group claims to "believe in limited government." http://www.fed-soc.org/aboutus/id.25/default.asp

At one time, when economic issues were the paramount libertarian issues in the U.S., the Federalist Society seemed almost libertarian. They promoted debate on issues, books on free markets and their web site declares their purpose as the following:

Our Purpose

* Law schools and the legal profession are currently strongly dominated by a form of orthodox liberal ideology which advocates a centralized and uniform society. While some members of the academic community have dissented from these views, by and large they are taught simultaneously with (and indeed as if they were) the law.

* The Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies is a group of conservatives and libertarians interested in the current state of the legal order. It is founded on the principles that the state exists to preserve freedom, that the separation of governmental powers is central to our Constitution, and that it is emphatically the province and duty of the judiciary to say what the law is, not what it should be. The Society seeks both to promote an awareness of these principles and to further their application through its activities.

* This entails reordering priorities within the legal system to place a premium on individual liberty, traditional values, and the rule of law. It also requires restoring the recognition of the importance of these norms among lawyers, judges, law students and professors. In working to achieve these goals, the Society has created a conservative and libertarian intellectual network that extends to all levels of the legal community.
http://www.fed-soc.org/aboutus/

Nevertheless, during the Bush years, lawyers associated with this group have espoused a whole host of anti-libertarian positions. This is important because according to some, membership in the organization is a sine qua non for being hired by the Bush administration.

To this day, some libertarians still seem to believe that the Federalist Society is a friend of freedom in general, as opposed to mostly being composed of ultra-conservative advocates of capitalism, akin to the Heritage Foundation.

In my experience, I find that the members of this organization are hostile to the libertarian perspective on the 4th Amendment and a whole host of other issues. They are not even particularly sympathetic to federalism, anymore. I find no more kinship with this group than with the GOP in general, for which it is nothing more than a front group.

It basically serves to promote the cramped constitutional thinking of Robert Bork and Antonin Scalia, hardly champions of individual liberty, together with economic liberalism, as opposed to freedom in general. A true advocates of freedom in all its forms, such as William O. Douglas, is scorned because his writings were subtly based on the 9th Amendment and might be used to justify, gasp, abortion.

Yes, the Federalist Society has some freedom oriented publications recommended on their web site, but I see nothing about privacy rights or the fact that the hallowed United States Constitution has resulted in the largest prison system, both per capita and in sum, in the history of the world. Nor does this list appear to have been updated in a long time.

While the Federalists may have at one time been open to libertarian imput, this largely ended in the mid-90s.

I challenge anyone to point out one single Federalist appointee during the Bush administration who has embodied libertarian values in any way shape or form, or to point to any libertarian reforms that resulted from forums the group has advocated. This would be difficult because with a few exceptions for speakers from the Cato Institute, most of the fora involve only conservative speakers. A look at Special Projects, which have been done by the Society shows that virtually every single paper and conclusion therein promotes conservative ideals.

For instance, in the section on International and the War on Terror, libertarian or limited government viewpoints were almost entirely unrepresented, with the vast number of articles and papers offering support for virtually all of the Bush Administration's actions.

The only area where the Society's scholars seem to think the Administration has overstepped, is not surprisingly, with respect to the increasing federal criminalization of corporate crimes. Truly, that must be why the United States has more people in prison per capita than the Soviets ever did; it is because we imprison so many thousands and thousands of CEO's and bank presidents.

It may not be 1984, but there is certainly something truly "doublespeak" about a group that claims to believe in limited government but which seems unable to find anyone willing to write or speak in favor of positions held by vast numbers of libertarians.

Here is someone who is a card-carrying member of this group that I believe embodies its current anti-classical liberal membership:

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/07077/770524-85.stm

Private versus Public Education

2007-11-28T12:40:00.000-08:00

Are private schools actually better than public schools? While doctrinal purity requires that libertarians argue for them, is there actually authority for the position that they are better by virtue of being private, and not for some other reason?

I believe that this issue is less clear than in virtually all other areas of the economy, for two main reasons. First, education has often been seen as a duty to be undertaken, either by religious authorities or governments, but not as a profit center. Does the Catholic church make money on its parochial schools? I think not. They are subsidized by the church and are often recognized as excellent around the world.

Second, education is something that can often be provided at an extremely low marginal cost. The cost of adding one more student to a class of 500 may be close to zero. Indeed, much of what college students end up paying for has little or nothing to do with the accumulation of scholastic knowledge, which could arguably be acquired for close to free for someone with an inquiring mind dedicated to reading volumes in the library.(Oops, are we allowed to have state-provided libraries?)

Certainly, in the realm of universities, the question of public versus private quality is a dubious proposition. Is Stanford actually better than Berkeley? Is Southern Cal better than UCLA? Many would argue that UVA is superior to its private in-state counterpart, Washington and Lee, but the differences in all these cases seem to be minimal.

As someone who has attended both private and public high schools and universities, it has been difficult for me to perceive many substantive differences not due to either the make-up of the students or the social status of the students' parents.

One of my favorite anomolies of all in this realm of argumentation is that the law department and the economic department of George Mason University have become well known and have been among the foremost in making the argument for private provision and the superiority of the free market: did the students who went to GMU Law make either a poor decision or arguably a statist one in not opting to attend George Washington?

If such students had avoided GMU because it was a state (statist?) school, then the school would have been unlikely to achieve its current reputation as a free market evangelist.

Libertarians versus Conservatives

2007-11-26T15:40:00.000-08:00

A friend emailed me the interesting post below by Doug Bandow, stalwart champion of small government values.

Doug, as a recovering Republican for life, I definitely agree with your analysis.

Where I might disagree with the Reagan quote, is that I do not honestly believe that there was ever any earnest desire on the part of most "conservatives" to cut government. Federalism was a tool they used to try to legitimize state-sanctioned racism in the South. Now that those battles are largely over, we have seen essentially zero support for federalism. In fact, prominent conservatives like Bush and Scalia have recently been in the forefront of opposing federalism, although Scalia has hidden behind hyper-technical distinctions.

"Conservatives" were also against welfare, which was perceived as largely going to minorities, but they love virtually ever other type of government hand out, except for health care for children.

Maybe someone can explain to me why it is a "conservative" value to give children federal vouchers for local schools, and to provide federal medicare prescription drug benefits for seniors but it is a "socialist" idea to give children federally-provided or assisted health care?

Of course, we all know what the answer is: Doctors and drug companies and HMO's are good, while teacher unions are bad.

I am definitely bitter, because I believe that these cretins used libertarians for years and delivered essentially zero to us in terms of policy. No, I do not consider captial gain tax cuts that do not apply to savings accounts to be libertarian, but rather just another type of government meddling, and there is not a single other accomplishment from the last 7 years that could remotely be described as libertarian.

The GOP is currently a coalition of big business (some, like Larry Kudlow, claim to be libertarians, but their fetish for war, targeted tax cuts and easy money puts paid to that notion), together with pro-war types who are too busy and important to serve in the military themselves, and moral crusaders who know what is right and wrong and are all too ready to shove it down the rest of our throats but there is no longer any type of intellectual cohesion to the Party's core beliefs.

As the moral element gains more and more influence in the party, the Big Business types are beginning to feel uncomfortable and are beginning to flee--after all, the anti-intellectualism and carping moralism of the busybody social conservatives are not a whole lot of fun at a cocktail party. Rush Limbaugh has become a real bore since he quit the good stuff and he was about the only life in the Party, although ahem, quite a step down from the erudite William Buckley, who inspired many with his cutting and clever remarks.

Today's GOP replaces "cutting and clever" erudition with screaming and shouting and personal attacks. There is very little in the current GOP coalition which is anything but vile and corrupt to its very core and I don't buy the fatuous argument that the Republicans are better than the alternative, which is generally made without much authority to support it.

If someone actually believes in and cares about freedom, 4 questions suffice to show that the Democrats are a far better alternative to the GOP.

Which party supports some forms of torture?

Which party supports a crabbed notion of privacy and freedom under the 4th Amendment?

Which party supports increasing the War on Drugs?

Which party supports rampant military interventionism around the world to a far greater degree?

Thus, I am now a Democrat. Maybe they will at least be willing to throw us libertarians a bone or two. The GOP sure never did.

Getting a Reasonable Picture on an HDTV Set

2007-11-26T13:52:00.000-08:00

Most cable and satellite programming looks lackluster on an HDTV set and it will still be a while before most shows are available at a reasonable cost in HDTV. HBO and Showtime, for example are way behind in even providing properly formatted movies in 16:9, much less in High Definition.

One way to get some of the extra value out of that set whose abilities are being under-utilized is to use it more often for DVD viewing.

While DVD's are not up to HDTV quality, they can match what is known as EDTV quality, if but only if they are viewed on an HD- or EDTV with a DVD player using progressive scan technology (i.e., DVD players made in the last couple of years)and if hooked up via three component video cables or one HDMI cable.

Some of the newer and better HDTV's may actually be able to implement the progressive scan themselves, although results vary. Some of the cheaper sets may improve by using a progressive scan-equipped DVD player. This is a bit like Dolby technology, where you need to have it at least in one place in the chain, but some components implement Dolby better perhaps than others.

Nevertheless, this visual improvement of DVD's to EDTV quality is possible only provided that one's DVD players are hooked up properly.

Check your cables--almost no one uses the 3 component RCA cables necessary to pass the signal--in total, it is necessary to use at least five RCA cables, including two for at least two channels of audio depending upon your audio set-up, to pass the EDTV signal to a HDTV set. Using S-video or three component cables will not suffice.

http://www.projectorcentral.com/hdtv_edtv.htm

Mukasey's Confirmation in Jeopardy

2007-10-31T18:51:00.000-07:00

Apparently some in the GOP such as Orrin Hatch, feel that it is the height of disrespect for a judge or nominee to have to answer questions. How gauche!

I don't feel sorry at all for this Mukasey at all. I find it amazing that so many politicians think he should be allowed to waltz into the position of Attorney General with nothing more than a wink and a nod, and then watch all the same politicos run for cover when the next scandal hits, claiming that they had no idea there could be torture.

This goes without even mentioning the sheer idiocy of Mukasey claiming in a hearing that he personally finds waterboarding, "repugnant." What possible relevance could Mr. Mukasey's personal tastes about waterboarding being repugnant possibly have? He's not the one who would be performing or monitoring it and it certainly does not answer the question as to whether it either is or was legal.

Let's find out if he despises war and famine as well and perhaps his opinions about children and animals.

Scalia--Legal Genius?

2007-10-31T11:33:00.000-07:00

As the Supreme Court begins to consider challenges to the Death Penalty under the Cruel and Unusual Punishment Clause, one thing that we can be sure of is that Reagan-appointee Antonin Scalia will find any execution method short of drawing and quartering to be Constitutional.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/31/washington/31execute.html

Why? Because Scalia, utter genius that he is purported to be, believes that the founding fathers added the Clause to the Constitution as a form of place setting, just in case future generations forgot the date of the Constitution's enactment.

You see, in the bizarro Scalia-world, the Clause only prohibits things that had already been prohibited in 1786. Thankfully, this "crude" position goes even too far for some at the conservative, but generally rigorous, Hoover Institute, who note its lack of historical foundation and viability.
http://www.hoover.org/publications/policyreview/2920126.html

I particularly will unload on Scalia here because, in spite of his real talents, I believe he embodies much of what is wrong with our country at present.

He is rude. He is arrogant. He does not appear to work well with others, given the gratuitous insults he slings at his "brethern" on the Court.

While highly intelligent, he is not some sort of nonpareil legal genius, in terms of achievement or motor ability. See, e.g. Richard A. Posner, or Richard Epstein for examples of such creatures.

Nevertheless, Scalia is condescending and his own talent and abilities are seemingly being wasted, as he appears to be passing from the stage of being a legal trendsetter towards that of predictable rightwing vote(who thankfully, is not particularly good at assembling winning opinion coalitions.)

In performing his functions, he delights in making public statements about religion and appearing in public with administration members before ruling on cases involving them.

To those who question his legal reasoning with respect to his part in choosing the President in 2000, with respect to providing scant authority for his vote and the notion that the Bush v. Gore case was sui generis, his retort to "just get over it," seems to involve something less than Ivy League reasoning, particularly given the following limiting statement with respect to the decision's future applicability:

"Our consideration [in Bush v. Gore] is limited to the present circumstances, for the problem of equal protection in election processes generally presents many complexities."

One can only wonder how many Ivy League credentialled Supreme Court clerks, Scalia and his conservative brethern needed to cobble together such a vapid statement of the obvious as a disclaimer against future criticism of their reasoning.

Nevertheless, legal scholars have been left wondering whether cases that involve "many complexities" are an exception in general to the doctrine of stare decisis, for it seems of such type, there could be quite a few.

Finally, Scalia has recently taken to undercutting Clarence Thomas in the media and criticizing some of his legal theories publicly, for being out of the mainstream, which might be the finest example of the pot calling the kettle a certain color since I don't know when.

Particularly aggravating to those of us who believe in limited government was a concurrence which Scalia issued in a case called Gonzales v. Raich, which dealt with criminal prosecution of medical marijuana users, in which Scalia voted for Alberto Gonzales' and the government's position. All of Scalia's and Thomas's earlier opinions, particularly one decision called Lopez in which gun rights were a subtext, indicated that Bush and the government should have lost on this one and certainly should not have gotten Scalia's vote, which not only undercut years of jurisprudential gains in this area, but essentially overruled Lopez in practice, if not on paper.

Thomas, in the minority on Gonzales, followed his earlier Lopez precedent and found the government's actions unconstitutional. Scalia, on the other hand, switched sides and wrote a self-serving concurrence attempting to at once distinguish his earlier opinions, and at the same time show everyone just how brilliant he is.

I remember in one law school class we once considered why so many lawyers begin to despair of the profession after not that many years of practice. I would submit Scalia's concurrence in this Gonazalez case as evidence therefor. While I am sure that it would get an "A" from Harvard, in its essence it is pure rubbish and he knows it. He just goes around picking and choosing things he likes from various Constitutional clauses, bakes them for 15 paragraphs, and voila, Bush wins.

Legal realism lives and Scalia is its patron saint!

And best of all, there is no way to "prove" that Scalia is wrong because he never truly states the basis of his decision, but merely points to a lot of doctrines and clauses that might support it. This is a concurrence, after all!

In terms of integrity and reasoning, however, Thomas wins this argument hands down. While I may not always agree with his outcomes or reasoning, Thomas, unlike Scalia, appears beholden to no power.

Both his concurrence in Gonzales and his vote in Bush v. Gore, per curiam, in an opinion devoid of any case law or legal reasoning have substantially lessened Scalia's reputation for brilliance. Where once, even reporters and people on the left would reference the power of Scalia's thrusts and attacks on this system, what remains seems to be bereft of power and futile. For some unknown reason, in the middle of his formulaic Gonzales concurrence, without offering any support therefor whatsoever, Scalia gratuitously informs us that "drugs like marijuana are fungible commodities."

Although I did indeed miss the Sixties, or at least all but 5 years of them, this statement certainly encapsulates Scalia's personality. It calls into question what pot Scalia has not been smoking.

Sadly, perhaps, being passed over for Chief Justice and moving into the twilight of a career that once promised so much more, presents the continuing diminishment of an individual whose analysis I once greatly admired, and who offered real insight into statutory (not Constitutional) analysis and interpretation.

As far as an honest and concise explanation for Scalia's result in Gonzales v. Raich, I would submit the following succinct amicus brief submitted by the Incredible Hulk, a conservative legal realist, as a far truer reason for Scalia's divergence from Lopez and for upholding Alberto Gonazles's position:

Guns Good! Pot bad!
http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=US&vol=000&invol=03-1454#concurrence1

Being a Good Parent

2007-10-29T20:37:00.000-07:00

A wise man was once asked by a group of people what the key to being a good parent was. Hoping to lead them to the answer rather than simply provide it himself, he turned the question back onto his followers, asking them what makes one a good parent.

The answers came.

One person stated that providing health, material comfort and religion made for a good parent.

Another stated that inculcating knowledge, wisdom and the arts makes one a good parent.

A third stated that "being there" for your children is what really makes you a good parent.

The wise man laughed and said, "good answers, all, well, maybe not the one about being there, but when all is said and done there is one true measure of a parent's success in raising children."

At this, the entire group leaned forward to hear the erudite prophet gracefully impart the knowledge that millions had clamored to know since the beginning of homo sapiens, how to be a good parent.

Spake the wise man:

"See if you can't fuck them up just a little less than your parents fucked you up.