Tomorrow Never Knows -- Mad Men

Anyone who saw the May 6th 2011, episode of Mad Men, well, it was worth the 18-month wait between seasons.  It is hard to top an episode that features Cool Whip, Sylvia Plath and the Beatles, as major elements of the episode's meaning.

At the same time that the 60's were giving us, perhaps, the worst food product of all time, soon to be followed by Tang--do they even sell Tang anymore?-- the Ad Agency on Mad Men is looking for Beatle-y sounding songs to use for product placement.  Although, it is a bit unfair, given what the Beatles had done with Norwegian Wood and Nowhere Man on Rubber Soul, it is somewhat understandable.  Don was looking for a song like I'm into Something Good, by Herman's Hermits.

The end of the episode shows Don turning on his huge wooden console record player and putting on the Beatles' latest, Revolver,  and placing the stylus on its final track, Tomorrow Never Knows.  Apparently, the producers of the show dropped $250,000 just to excerpt a portion of the song, but to what amazing effect.

If it wasn't already clear by the episode's open references to homosexuality and marijuana use, it is crystal clear that the Fifties were finally over and the Sixties were beginning, at the end of 1966, when Don drops the needle. 

Revolver was clearly something else.  The first half of the album starts not with an ode to love, but rather with a song bashing excessive taxation, followed by a dirge about the church and social isolation and then followed by a true Indian dirge, ending with the utterly brilliant and bizarre, She Said, She Said, whose refrain echoed over and over,  "She Said, She Said, I know what it's like to be dead."

This is pop music?  I wonder how much Cool Whip that lyric would have sold?

The Beatles were just getting started.  Mingled with a couple of songs more in their traditional sound, Side Two had songs about pill-pushing doctors for hire, a song about McCartney's initial fear and ultimate adoration of marijuana and ended with Tomorrow Never Knows, which may have been John Lennon's (and producer George Martin's) greatest triumph. 

Combined with backward tape loops and thunderous drums that represent the purported underlying meaning of the song, Tomorrow Never Knows is both somehow scary and unsettling, and soothing all at once.  Like its close sibling Rain,  recorded during the same sessions, it is seldom, if ever, played on the radio. Lennon's voice has an unworldly timbre to it, surrounded by a brilliant  kaleidoscopic assault of sound.

 The lyrics, influenced by the Tibetan Book of the Dead, seem to be deliberately ambiguous as sung in several places, which only adds to their power.  Is Lennon saying, "It is not leaving," or rather is he telling us, "It is not living"--or is it both?

 "And ignorance and hate mourn the dead" seems to vary between an expression of ignorance and hate as entities and as something inside everyone.

In the final line, "So (all) play the game of existence to the end," is he exhorting us to actually play said game of existence to the end, or is he merely being descriptive of the fact that we shall do so regardless?

Except for Herman Hess's Siddartha, there isn't much in popular literature or music that I have yet encountered to compare to the impact of Tomorrow Never Knows in terms of a succinct expression of a philosophy of living:

Tomorrow Never Knows
Lennon and McCartney

Turn off your mind, relax, and float down stream
It is not dying, it is not dying
Lay down all thoughts, surrender to the void
It is shining, it is shining
Yet you may see the meaning of within
It is being, it is being
Love is all and love is everything
It is knowing, it is knowing
And ignorance and hate mourn the dead
It is believing, it is believing
But listen to the color of your dreams
It is not leaving, it is not leaving
So play the game “Existence” to the end
Of the beginning, of the beginning

A pop album that begins with a song about taxes, that has no obvious hits, and that ends both Side One and Side Two with songs about death.  That doesn't sound like a best seller to me, but I am no mad man.

http://badassdigest.com/2012/05/07/the-annotated-mad-men-the-beatles-and-sylvia-plath-and-all-kinds-of-death

Homebrewing Review and Info

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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?

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

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.