As a diehard opponent of the death penalty, I have been thoroughly gladdened by the U.S. Supreme Court's recent curtailment of the practice.
The United States is the only western democracy that makes use of the practice of having its states and federal government execute human beings. I believe that after 30 years of attempting to let U.S. politicians do the right thing, the Supreme Court has finally realized that there are apparently no limits on the appetite of American legislators in terms of application of the death penalty and thus, it falls into the Court's lap to do the dirty work or orchestrating the abolition of the death penalty.
The most recent case, Kennedy, dealt with whether the death penalty could be given to rapists of individuals under 12 years old. And in a nice, bit of irony, Kennedy, Justice Kennedy, that is, was the deciding vote among the five conservatives on the court.
First of all, I find the whole notion that the application of the death penalty should be dependent upon the victim to be despicable. It doesn't matter to me whether the person raped was a police officer, housewife or 12 year old girl--if the crime is the same, why should the penalty differ?
The arguments in favor of this differentiation, "because it was a child" are pretty thin and the Court was right to not let them carry the day.
What was really great about this opinion, however, was the way that the Court's liberals rubbed the use of Law and Economics in the face of the Court's ultra-conservative rightwing. Here's a quote:
"[B]y in effect making the punishment for child rape and murder equivalent, a State that punishes child rape by death may remove a strong incentive for the rapist not to kill the victim. Assuming the offender behaves in a rational way, as one must to justify the penalty on grounds of deterrence, the penalty in some respects gives less protection, not more, to the victim, who is often the sole witness to the crime. It might be argued that, even if the death penalty results in a marginal increase in the incentive to kill, this is counterbalanced by a marginally increased deterrent to commit the crime at all. Whatever balance the legislature strikes, however, uncertainty on the point makes the argument for the penalty less compelling than for homicide crimes."
This is an excellent example of how smart liberals can use law and economics to carry the day.
The other thing that was great about this case was the fact that it involved the 8th Amendment's "cruel and unusual punishment clause", something that basically throws Justice Scalia into apoplexy because his generally well thought-out legal theory of textualism cannot handle examples where the legislature throws the decision to the Court on purpose. Scalia's fallback here tends to be a more Borkean mode of analysis of original intent, which involves looking at the history of the amendment and trying to project what the legislators intended.
Well, what if the legislators intended for Justice Scalia to be Plato and decide the issue based upon any myriad of reasons? Scalia's theory doesn't have an answer for this and his conclusion that the "cruel and unusual punishment" clause was inserted to merely foreclose punishments that were already considered cruel and unusual back in 1789 seems fairly redundant.
Anyway, after a series of terrible disappointments by this Court and Administration for libertarians in terms of abandoning Lopez, we have finally gotten some heartening decisions on the 2nd and 8th Amendments due to the movement of Anthony Kennedy from side to side. Neither Presidential candidate had anything very intelligent to say about this decision, which seems to reinforce the point that American politicians simply lack the courage to deal with the death penalty in a forthright manner, so thanks be to G-d for the "cruel and unusual punishment" clause.
Friday, June 27, 2008
Sunday, June 22, 2008
Letter to George Will
Dear Mr. Will:
Regarding your article in the Washington Post on Sunday, June 22, 2008 -- http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/06/20/AR2008062002276.html
For someone who writes a fair number of excellent columns, you completely blew it on this one. I can only wonder who did the research on this column and I further not that your citation from someone named Heather Mac Donald is absolutely wrong.
Mr. Will, if you believe that "the criminal justice system will do everything it can to keep you out of the ... federal slammer," then you definitely need to start attending some federal sentencing hearings. If it quite common for non-violent federal offenders to get federal prison time for first offenses.
You quibble about the proportion of crack defendants in prison and seem to blame it on the higher murder rate among blacks, as though murderers make up the majority of inmates in the U.S.
You never bother to address the fact that the U.S. has more people in prison than China and India combined and imprisons at a far higher rate that Great Britain. What accounts for these differences? How do these nations stay safe without imprisoning at the rate which we do?
Apparently your interest waned at the point that support for you hypothesis wavered.
You may quibble with Obama over his definition of what consitutes a "young, black male" but your article itself is simply shoddily done and quite disappointing given the caliber of work that you often do.
William Loeffler
Criminal Justice Act Attorney
Regarding your article in the Washington Post on Sunday, June 22, 2008 -- http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/06/20/AR2008062002276.html
For someone who writes a fair number of excellent columns, you completely blew it on this one. I can only wonder who did the research on this column and I further not that your citation from someone named Heather Mac Donald is absolutely wrong.
Mr. Will, if you believe that "the criminal justice system will do everything it can to keep you out of the ... federal slammer," then you definitely need to start attending some federal sentencing hearings. If it quite common for non-violent federal offenders to get federal prison time for first offenses.
You quibble about the proportion of crack defendants in prison and seem to blame it on the higher murder rate among blacks, as though murderers make up the majority of inmates in the U.S.
You never bother to address the fact that the U.S. has more people in prison than China and India combined and imprisons at a far higher rate that Great Britain. What accounts for these differences? How do these nations stay safe without imprisoning at the rate which we do?
Apparently your interest waned at the point that support for you hypothesis wavered.
You may quibble with Obama over his definition of what consitutes a "young, black male" but your article itself is simply shoddily done and quite disappointing given the caliber of work that you often do.
William Loeffler
Criminal Justice Act Attorney
Thursday, June 19, 2008
Healthful Alternative to Beer
Now that we are getting to the dog days of summer, many people like slaking their thirst with a cold beer after mowing the law or working in the yard. Good enough, but given all the recent data concerning the healthfulness of red wine, why not give red wine a shot.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/04/health/research/04aging.html?scp=2&sq=red%20wine&st=cse
Well, first of all there is the taste. Red wine goes great with meals, but is often too tannic to be drunk alone, particularly to quench thirst and there really are not that many red wine cocktails that fit the bill.
But thanks to the Spaniards, there is one great way to add red wine to your diet in place of beer or other alcoholic drinks: Sangria.
Now, Sangria has a myriad of recipes, most of which involve something acidic like orange juice being mixed with cheap red wine, fruit and other things, in a pitcher or tub.
But here is an easier alternative if you just want one glass. Take red wine, the redder and the cheaper the better, and pour one serving in a large glass over ice. Then mix in equal parts of Sprite and orange juice, or club soda and orange juice, and if necessary, sweeten to taste. If you don't have any Sprite or orange juice around, try a recipe of one half red wine and one half Coca-Cola--it's pretty good as well. If you want to cut up fruit to put into your concoction, you can, but it isn't really necessary. It is hard to ruin Sangria, so try putting lime or lemon juice in, as anything citrusy works well.
Using the Will Loeffler formula for making Sangria is easy and fun and it also has an added benefit over the traditional way of making it. Here, because you are making it like a cocktail, you are adding exactly one serving of the alcohol portion and are much less likely to over-indulge, as is the case when drinking mystery punch where one doesn't know the alcohol content and it is easy to fool yourself. Happy Summering!
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/04/health/research/04aging.html?scp=2&sq=red%20wine&st=cse
Well, first of all there is the taste. Red wine goes great with meals, but is often too tannic to be drunk alone, particularly to quench thirst and there really are not that many red wine cocktails that fit the bill.
But thanks to the Spaniards, there is one great way to add red wine to your diet in place of beer or other alcoholic drinks: Sangria.
Now, Sangria has a myriad of recipes, most of which involve something acidic like orange juice being mixed with cheap red wine, fruit and other things, in a pitcher or tub.
But here is an easier alternative if you just want one glass. Take red wine, the redder and the cheaper the better, and pour one serving in a large glass over ice. Then mix in equal parts of Sprite and orange juice, or club soda and orange juice, and if necessary, sweeten to taste. If you don't have any Sprite or orange juice around, try a recipe of one half red wine and one half Coca-Cola--it's pretty good as well. If you want to cut up fruit to put into your concoction, you can, but it isn't really necessary. It is hard to ruin Sangria, so try putting lime or lemon juice in, as anything citrusy works well.
Using the Will Loeffler formula for making Sangria is easy and fun and it also has an added benefit over the traditional way of making it. Here, because you are making it like a cocktail, you are adding exactly one serving of the alcohol portion and are much less likely to over-indulge, as is the case when drinking mystery punch where one doesn't know the alcohol content and it is easy to fool yourself. Happy Summering!
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
Richard A. Posner
Richard Posner is a judge on the 7th Circuit in Illinois whose scholarship, often associated with the Chicago School of Economics, particularly in the application of economics to law and also to matters of sexuality, had a large effect on my own intellectual development. I have a first edition of his book, Economic Analysis of Law, which he signed for me and I have often considered him a hero.
Unfortunately, I lost a lot of respect for Posner after reading one of his opinions in the field of criminal law where he upheld a particularly onerous sentence while finding a way to wedge what he thought was a clever joke into the opinion. As bright as we all know him to be, perhaps the demands upon him and other federal judges are not all that great given all the time he has to write books and be witty in his opinions. He appears not to have much regard for core principles of human rights and seems to view violations thereof as sort of misguided government ventures which he virtually always upholds.
On a less personal note, I also do not see that he is any more likely, all things considered, to be upheld in his decisions than other judges. He erred badly in an opinion on the sentencing guidelines in which he defiantly ignored (while pretending to be in compliance with) the Supreme Court's previous rulings on the guidelines and got smacked down by Clarence Thomas and Scalia.
What part of the word "advisory" did you not understand, Judge Posner? I mean, come on, how much respect can you have for a judge who doesn't know what the meaning of the word "advisory" is? Either Judge Posner was pandering to the Right in one last attempt to garner a Supreme Court seat, or he really isn't any legal genius in terms of following Supreme Court precedent.
In spite of all his unsolicited opinions about how to improve the legal profession and law schools, Posner, himself, has been guilty of shoddy, almost inexcusable practices at times. Perhaps, no one needs a lecture from Judge Posner about how to improve the legal field when he cannot even refrain from citing vacated opinions. http://sentencing.typepad.com/sentencing_law_and_policy/2006/09/does_judge_posn.html(Does Judge Posner know how to Shepardize or KeyCite?).
In short, Posner has lost a great deal of respect for his opinions on the sentencing guidelines, which frankly make me wonder whether it might not be time for him to take senior status. After all, doesn't the legal profession deserve better than this sort of shoddy work?
I still admire Posner greatly for his 1973 treatise on economics and law, in terms of popularizing the idea which was important. Posner, himself, has not shown much particular aptitude for the enterprise of applying economics to law, interestingly enough, unlike Coase, Demsetz and others. He has often, in fact, been a great aid to those who oppose the Right because of his cursory applications of what he deems to be "efficient" outcomes. In spite of his avowed opposition to the "war on drugs" his legal philosophy actually promotes it and his predictions for its demise after September 11th have been dead wrong.
In all, I find it hard to see Posner as any sort of legal great. Unlike Milton Friedman, or others associated with the Chicago School of Economics, Posner seems to flail to and fro, with essentially no core legal principles to guide him.
He is no Antonin Scalia (who in spite of all his faults, does indeed have core principles); he is no Hugo Black or William O. Douglas who actually believed humans had rights just because they were human, gasp!; he is definitely no Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., although he seems to think he is, but perhaps Posner should be careful what he wishes for. (Holmes was certainly not particularly admirable in many of his writings which often seem inhumane and cruel--"three generations of imbecils", indeed). http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200112/posner
What Posner does share with Holmes appears to be the certitude that he, Posner, is smarter than all the rest of us, and the ability to make this sentiment come through in his opinions.
If I had to characterize Posner, I would say that he is the P.T. Barnum of the legal world. He likes to shock people and will spout off all sorts of revolutionary-sounding things in his writings, but when push comes to shove, he is a conservative judge who basically rules conservatively in a conventional way, something that separates him from the Easterbrooks, Clarence Thomas's and Scalia's of the legal world, who will surprise us from time to time.
Here is an excerpt from the Wikipedia entry on Barnum--could this also apply to Judge Posner?:
Barnum never flinched from his stated goal "to put money in his own coffers." He was a businessman above all else, his profession was pure entertainment, and he was perhaps the first "show business" millionaire.
Posner's writings and gadfly antics have certainly made him a wealthy man, whether they have contributed to jurisprudence remains to be seen, but they probably have. As to his own merits as a judge, I am not sure how history will view Posner. One can only wonder how fair a judge can be when he refuses to stop pontificating on very nearly every policy field likely to come before him-- or does this aid in the selection of jurisdiction by plaintiffs who can choose their venue--but I digress.
At one time I might have thought Posner's career was a waste of talent by his not reaching the Supreme Court, but I no longer think it is true because whatever he had to offer, he has been able to do so with his numerous writing ventures, many of which have probably been partially underwritten by public taxpayers. Whatever the case, perhaps Judge Posner should curtail the publications and try to get his own legal house in order.
http://www.amazon.com/How-Judges-Think-Richard-Posner/dp/0674028201/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1212512235&sr=1-1
Unfortunately, I lost a lot of respect for Posner after reading one of his opinions in the field of criminal law where he upheld a particularly onerous sentence while finding a way to wedge what he thought was a clever joke into the opinion. As bright as we all know him to be, perhaps the demands upon him and other federal judges are not all that great given all the time he has to write books and be witty in his opinions. He appears not to have much regard for core principles of human rights and seems to view violations thereof as sort of misguided government ventures which he virtually always upholds.
On a less personal note, I also do not see that he is any more likely, all things considered, to be upheld in his decisions than other judges. He erred badly in an opinion on the sentencing guidelines in which he defiantly ignored (while pretending to be in compliance with) the Supreme Court's previous rulings on the guidelines and got smacked down by Clarence Thomas and Scalia.
What part of the word "advisory" did you not understand, Judge Posner? I mean, come on, how much respect can you have for a judge who doesn't know what the meaning of the word "advisory" is? Either Judge Posner was pandering to the Right in one last attempt to garner a Supreme Court seat, or he really isn't any legal genius in terms of following Supreme Court precedent.
In spite of all his unsolicited opinions about how to improve the legal profession and law schools, Posner, himself, has been guilty of shoddy, almost inexcusable practices at times. Perhaps, no one needs a lecture from Judge Posner about how to improve the legal field when he cannot even refrain from citing vacated opinions. http://sentencing.typepad.com/sentencing_law_and_policy/2006/09/does_judge_posn.html(Does Judge Posner know how to Shepardize or KeyCite?).
In short, Posner has lost a great deal of respect for his opinions on the sentencing guidelines, which frankly make me wonder whether it might not be time for him to take senior status. After all, doesn't the legal profession deserve better than this sort of shoddy work?
I still admire Posner greatly for his 1973 treatise on economics and law, in terms of popularizing the idea which was important. Posner, himself, has not shown much particular aptitude for the enterprise of applying economics to law, interestingly enough, unlike Coase, Demsetz and others. He has often, in fact, been a great aid to those who oppose the Right because of his cursory applications of what he deems to be "efficient" outcomes. In spite of his avowed opposition to the "war on drugs" his legal philosophy actually promotes it and his predictions for its demise after September 11th have been dead wrong.
In all, I find it hard to see Posner as any sort of legal great. Unlike Milton Friedman, or others associated with the Chicago School of Economics, Posner seems to flail to and fro, with essentially no core legal principles to guide him.
He is no Antonin Scalia (who in spite of all his faults, does indeed have core principles); he is no Hugo Black or William O. Douglas who actually believed humans had rights just because they were human, gasp!; he is definitely no Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., although he seems to think he is, but perhaps Posner should be careful what he wishes for. (Holmes was certainly not particularly admirable in many of his writings which often seem inhumane and cruel--"three generations of imbecils", indeed). http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200112/posner
What Posner does share with Holmes appears to be the certitude that he, Posner, is smarter than all the rest of us, and the ability to make this sentiment come through in his opinions.
If I had to characterize Posner, I would say that he is the P.T. Barnum of the legal world. He likes to shock people and will spout off all sorts of revolutionary-sounding things in his writings, but when push comes to shove, he is a conservative judge who basically rules conservatively in a conventional way, something that separates him from the Easterbrooks, Clarence Thomas's and Scalia's of the legal world, who will surprise us from time to time.
Here is an excerpt from the Wikipedia entry on Barnum--could this also apply to Judge Posner?:
Barnum never flinched from his stated goal "to put money in his own coffers." He was a businessman above all else, his profession was pure entertainment, and he was perhaps the first "show business" millionaire.
Posner's writings and gadfly antics have certainly made him a wealthy man, whether they have contributed to jurisprudence remains to be seen, but they probably have. As to his own merits as a judge, I am not sure how history will view Posner. One can only wonder how fair a judge can be when he refuses to stop pontificating on very nearly every policy field likely to come before him-- or does this aid in the selection of jurisdiction by plaintiffs who can choose their venue--but I digress.
At one time I might have thought Posner's career was a waste of talent by his not reaching the Supreme Court, but I no longer think it is true because whatever he had to offer, he has been able to do so with his numerous writing ventures, many of which have probably been partially underwritten by public taxpayers. Whatever the case, perhaps Judge Posner should curtail the publications and try to get his own legal house in order.
Monday, June 9, 2008
The 5 Best and 5 Worse Controversial Beatles Tracks
When I say this, I am aiming at those kinds of songs that people have strong opinions about, one way or another and this generally is in terms of whether or not a particular track was worthy of inclusion on a particular album.
For instance, probably no one has ever said anything bad about the song, I've Just Seen a Face from Help! Everyone pretty much loves it. On the other hand, there are many tracks among the Beatles' oeuvre that people disagree over.
Nevertheless, the Beatles had a few tracks that were not strong on their own merits, but that worked within the context of the greater work. Most of these are probably Pepper or White Album or Abbey Road tracks.
Fixing a Hole, Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite!, Why Don't We Do it in the Road, She Came in Through the Bathroom Window, Polythene Pam and Mean Mr. Mustard come immediately to mind, which while all pretty weak as singles out of context, within their album's framework act in terms of creating a mood or suite and accordingly these types of tracks won't make my list.
I am also inclined to be less harsh on B-sides, as they really don't ruin the mood of an album and most of us buy them for the A-side anyhow. Most of the Beatles' B-sides were better than a lot of groups A-sides, but their last single, Let It Be, had You Know My Name (Look Up the Number), a truly dreadful and pointless song, as its B-side, but since it wasn't on the album, the harm was minimized.
So Without further ado, here are the five best controversial Beatle tracks:
1. Within You, Without You -- This long track opens side 2 of Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band and many people apparently dislike it intensely. I am tempted to say that either you get this track or you don't, and woe unto those small minds who don't get it, but I will take the high road and simply say that this is the spiritual hymn that opens side two and prepares the mind for what comes, particularly with the nervous laughter that ends the track.
Great art isn't always easy and it isn't always fun. Very few famous tracks in the history of rock music have lyrics of this depth in terms of meaning and existence, and few have had more influence in terms of the world music phenomenon. This was one of the most important moments in Beatles' history and all of the Beatles and George Martin agreed upon its inclusion and thought it was top-notch musically. This was an incredible triumph by Harrison.
2. Revolution No. 9 -- I'm So Tired of hearing people complain about this track's inclusion on the White Album. This is a monumental moment in mainstream rock history. What other group ever tried anything like this? I don't find it boring at all and while I don't have it loaded on my iPod, the whole point of the White Album was to be something different from Revolver, and Sgt. Pepper. To tell the truth, this track scarred the bejesus out of me late at night back in the early 80's when I first heard it.
Some uninformed people (such as George Martin) say that the White Album should have been a single album but there was way too much material for that. If you took Hey Jude, Lady Madonna, the Inner Light, Old Brown Shoe, Not Guilty and added those tracks you could easily have had two excellent albums and this is while recognizing that the Beatles had so much backloaded material that they already had to release Yellow Submarine at the same time as the White Album, and that George would release a triple album in 1970.
3. Birthday -- This track opens side two of the White Album and so, many of the arguments in favor of Revolution No. 9 apply here. But on top of that, this is an infectious song that is different from virtually anything they had ever done before and let's face it, while not their greatest song, it is way better than the other "birthday" song.
4. Helter Skelter -- Part of the reasoning behind the White Album was to use a scattershot approach and show just how talented the Beatles were, in a variety of styles ranging from show tunes to avant-guard and here, to heavy metal. This song just kicks ass and the White Album just wouldn't be the same without it: "I've got blisters on me fingers...." Helter Skelter apparently was a British name for the very high sliding boards that one used to see 30 or more years ago, that one road down on a mat, usually for a small fee, at least in the U.S., but McCartney here seems to use it as a metaphor for sex, which is always especially delicious in backward, puritan countries:
When i get to the bottom i go back to the top of the slide
And i stop and i turn and i go for a ride
And i get to the bottom and i see you again
Well do you, don't you want me to make you
I'm coming down fast but don't let me break you
Tell me tell me tell me the answer
You may be a lover but you ain't no dancer.
Look out helter skelter helter skelter
Helter skelter
I can tolerate great amounts of dissension but no one who dislikes Helter Skelter is allowed to comment on this blog.
5. Yellow Submarine -- This track rounds out side one of Revolver, but some fans feel that it is more of a children's song and lacks the proper tone to go along with the rest of this top-notch album, which many see as the Beatles' zenith. These critics have a point, but at the time, I believe that many fans saw Yellow Submarine as a drug-influenced metaphor for something else, rather than simply a children's song. I guess it could have been released as a single B side with say, Eleanor Rigby and Rain could have taken its place on the album. Nevertheless, without this song being issued in some form, we would not have had the incredible Yellow Submarine animated movie and so I would put it at number five even, just for that.
Here are the five worse controversial Beatle tracks:
1. Mr. Moonlight -- This song made it onto Beatles for Sale and no one really knows quite why since there seems to have been far better material that went unused. Most Beatle fans dislike this track, and since the boys didn't even write it, there seems to be little to recommend its inclusion.
2. Honey Pie -- This song was too crummy to merit inclusion even on the sprawling White Album. It is nothing more than a boring and much less interesting re-hash of Your Mother Should Know and When I'm Sixty-Four, without any of the charm and the insight of the Pepper tune. This is by far the worst real song on the White Album, grrr, although Wild Honey Pie would have given it a run, but since that song is under one minute long, it is not eligible for our list. Nevertheless, whatever you want to say about the White Album, it could have used a lot less honey....
3. Your Mother Should Know -- This is awful stuff, which may have made it out the door because it was intended for the double E.P. Magical Mystery Tour and was used to round out the six song selection. Unfortunately, with respect to this song's gaining even more undeserved recognition, Capitol in the U.S. came up with a unique idea, and an excellent one, for once, of turning the double E.P. into sort of a real album that ended up having a fantastic selection of Beatle songs, all of them worthy except for this dog. It was only sort of cute the first time when Paul made When I am Sixty-Four, and then he kept trying to do the show tune thing over and over again.
4. Maxwell's Silver Hammer -- This song pretty much ruins the mood on side one of Abbey Road.
Some say that the song without the words is actually quite good but I am sorry, I cannot get passed the ever-so-dopey lyrics: "Bang, bang, Maxwell's silver hammer came down upon her head"--bang, bang is what you may feel like doing to yourself after hearing this song. The lyrics of Ringo's song Octopus's Garden are almost as bad but at least form sort of a bridge to another song that Ringo sang, Yellow Submarine, and the music and harmony on Garden makes up partially for the bad lyrics.
Once again, what was Paul thinking? Some have conjectured that he was going for a Syd Barrett type of song from early Pink Floyd but I just don't see it. It would be great to see Paul (or anybody) fashion new lyrics for this song to see what it might be. I know that a lot of people into music, don't pay attention to the words, and Paul, himself said this about Pet Sounds by the Beach Boys, but many of us also see the Beatles and Dylan as poets of a sort and it is a shame when a bad lyric ruins a song. I'm crying....
5. I Dig a Pony -- Many people cite Let It Be as the Beatles' worst album (it isn't) and perhaps we are due for a John song to fill out this list, so at number 5 is this horrid track by Lennon. Lennon himself reportedly called the song a "piece of garbage" and I see little reason to deviate from that opinion. Unlike some of the crummy snippets on this album, which were removed from the later version, Let It Be ... Naked, this is a full-fledged song that provides neither mood nor really much of anything except for tedium.
I mean, I love I am the Walrus and I respect Glass Onion. I like Lennon's Lewis Carroll-esque stuff, but these lyrics make even those of Maxwell's Silver Hammer look good by comparison. I can only conjecture that Lennon thought the band was breaking up and tried to submit the worst song possible that he could come up with. The only reason that I Dig a Pony isn't number one on my list is that it doesn't really ruin the mood of Let It Be because the album already, in the words of John once again, had "a lousy feeling."
And as an extra, here are the two worst (controversial) original releases in Beatle's album history:
1. Yesterday and Today
2. Revolver (Capitol)
As most Beatle fans now know, the Beatles' albums diverge in the U.K. and U.S. prior to Sgt. Pepper.
This is usually blamed on two facts. First, the U.K. had different copyright procedures back then which made longer albums more economically feasible for the record company and second, one often hears that in the U.K., there was a distinction between singles and albums that didn't exist in the U.S.
The first reason was true and did affect the economics of the record releases in the two countries.
With respect to singles, the U.K. policy never was a strict rule and I find the reasoning behind the Beatles' single releases to often be hard to decipher. Paperback Writer and Rain were not included on Revolver because they were deemed singles, but Eleanor Rigby and Yellow Submarine were included on Revolver in spite of also being released as a single. The same reasoning was used by George Martin to keep Penny Lane and Strawberry Fields Forever off Sgt. Pepper, and Hey Jude and Lady Madonna of the White Album, but Something was released as a single and was included on Abbey Road. Basically, the Beatles didn't put singles on albums in the U.K., except when they did, seems to have been the rule.
This led to far more album releases in the U.S., and on some of the albums where the song order is not so important, such as Meet the Beatles! or Beatles '65, the American albums could arguably be said to be better in some respects. The American Rubber Soul ended up mostly intact, but with a more folk-type feel that some people preferred.
The last two of the American batch, however, basically chopped up two great albums, Rubber Soul and Revolver, and added some unreleased singles, in order to issue Yesterday and Today and an 11-track Revolver.
While I am not recommending the American Rubber Soul, at least it did not have its very heart and soul ripped out, the way that the American Revolver did, especially since two of the three songs removed from the U.K. Rubber Soul were arguably the weakest tracks on the record, What Goes On and Act Naturally, and the third, Nowhere Man always felt a little more progressive than much of the rest of Rubber Soul anyway.
By contrast, three Lennon songs were taken from Revolver in the U.K. and placed on Yesterday and Today, ruining the beautiful integrated whole that was the U.K. Revolver in order to give us a butchered compilation album with the butcher cover. It does still have some pretty good songs and I do own it on LP, but I am a completist.
For instance, probably no one has ever said anything bad about the song, I've Just Seen a Face from Help! Everyone pretty much loves it. On the other hand, there are many tracks among the Beatles' oeuvre that people disagree over.
Nevertheless, the Beatles had a few tracks that were not strong on their own merits, but that worked within the context of the greater work. Most of these are probably Pepper or White Album or Abbey Road tracks.
Fixing a Hole, Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite!, Why Don't We Do it in the Road, She Came in Through the Bathroom Window, Polythene Pam and Mean Mr. Mustard come immediately to mind, which while all pretty weak as singles out of context, within their album's framework act in terms of creating a mood or suite and accordingly these types of tracks won't make my list.
I am also inclined to be less harsh on B-sides, as they really don't ruin the mood of an album and most of us buy them for the A-side anyhow. Most of the Beatles' B-sides were better than a lot of groups A-sides, but their last single, Let It Be, had You Know My Name (Look Up the Number), a truly dreadful and pointless song, as its B-side, but since it wasn't on the album, the harm was minimized.
So Without further ado, here are the five best controversial Beatle tracks:
1. Within You, Without You -- This long track opens side 2 of Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band and many people apparently dislike it intensely. I am tempted to say that either you get this track or you don't, and woe unto those small minds who don't get it, but I will take the high road and simply say that this is the spiritual hymn that opens side two and prepares the mind for what comes, particularly with the nervous laughter that ends the track.
Great art isn't always easy and it isn't always fun. Very few famous tracks in the history of rock music have lyrics of this depth in terms of meaning and existence, and few have had more influence in terms of the world music phenomenon. This was one of the most important moments in Beatles' history and all of the Beatles and George Martin agreed upon its inclusion and thought it was top-notch musically. This was an incredible triumph by Harrison.
2. Revolution No. 9 -- I'm So Tired of hearing people complain about this track's inclusion on the White Album. This is a monumental moment in mainstream rock history. What other group ever tried anything like this? I don't find it boring at all and while I don't have it loaded on my iPod, the whole point of the White Album was to be something different from Revolver, and Sgt. Pepper. To tell the truth, this track scarred the bejesus out of me late at night back in the early 80's when I first heard it.
Some uninformed people (such as George Martin) say that the White Album should have been a single album but there was way too much material for that. If you took Hey Jude, Lady Madonna, the Inner Light, Old Brown Shoe, Not Guilty and added those tracks you could easily have had two excellent albums and this is while recognizing that the Beatles had so much backloaded material that they already had to release Yellow Submarine at the same time as the White Album, and that George would release a triple album in 1970.
3. Birthday -- This track opens side two of the White Album and so, many of the arguments in favor of Revolution No. 9 apply here. But on top of that, this is an infectious song that is different from virtually anything they had ever done before and let's face it, while not their greatest song, it is way better than the other "birthday" song.
4. Helter Skelter -- Part of the reasoning behind the White Album was to use a scattershot approach and show just how talented the Beatles were, in a variety of styles ranging from show tunes to avant-guard and here, to heavy metal. This song just kicks ass and the White Album just wouldn't be the same without it: "I've got blisters on me fingers...." Helter Skelter apparently was a British name for the very high sliding boards that one used to see 30 or more years ago, that one road down on a mat, usually for a small fee, at least in the U.S., but McCartney here seems to use it as a metaphor for sex, which is always especially delicious in backward, puritan countries:
When i get to the bottom i go back to the top of the slide
And i stop and i turn and i go for a ride
And i get to the bottom and i see you again
Well do you, don't you want me to make you
I'm coming down fast but don't let me break you
Tell me tell me tell me the answer
You may be a lover but you ain't no dancer.
Look out helter skelter helter skelter
Helter skelter
I can tolerate great amounts of dissension but no one who dislikes Helter Skelter is allowed to comment on this blog.
5. Yellow Submarine -- This track rounds out side one of Revolver, but some fans feel that it is more of a children's song and lacks the proper tone to go along with the rest of this top-notch album, which many see as the Beatles' zenith. These critics have a point, but at the time, I believe that many fans saw Yellow Submarine as a drug-influenced metaphor for something else, rather than simply a children's song. I guess it could have been released as a single B side with say, Eleanor Rigby and Rain could have taken its place on the album. Nevertheless, without this song being issued in some form, we would not have had the incredible Yellow Submarine animated movie and so I would put it at number five even, just for that.
Here are the five worse controversial Beatle tracks:
1. Mr. Moonlight -- This song made it onto Beatles for Sale and no one really knows quite why since there seems to have been far better material that went unused. Most Beatle fans dislike this track, and since the boys didn't even write it, there seems to be little to recommend its inclusion.
2. Honey Pie -- This song was too crummy to merit inclusion even on the sprawling White Album. It is nothing more than a boring and much less interesting re-hash of Your Mother Should Know and When I'm Sixty-Four, without any of the charm and the insight of the Pepper tune. This is by far the worst real song on the White Album, grrr, although Wild Honey Pie would have given it a run, but since that song is under one minute long, it is not eligible for our list. Nevertheless, whatever you want to say about the White Album, it could have used a lot less honey....
3. Your Mother Should Know -- This is awful stuff, which may have made it out the door because it was intended for the double E.P. Magical Mystery Tour and was used to round out the six song selection. Unfortunately, with respect to this song's gaining even more undeserved recognition, Capitol in the U.S. came up with a unique idea, and an excellent one, for once, of turning the double E.P. into sort of a real album that ended up having a fantastic selection of Beatle songs, all of them worthy except for this dog. It was only sort of cute the first time when Paul made When I am Sixty-Four, and then he kept trying to do the show tune thing over and over again.
4. Maxwell's Silver Hammer -- This song pretty much ruins the mood on side one of Abbey Road.
Some say that the song without the words is actually quite good but I am sorry, I cannot get passed the ever-so-dopey lyrics: "Bang, bang, Maxwell's silver hammer came down upon her head"--bang, bang is what you may feel like doing to yourself after hearing this song. The lyrics of Ringo's song Octopus's Garden are almost as bad but at least form sort of a bridge to another song that Ringo sang, Yellow Submarine, and the music and harmony on Garden makes up partially for the bad lyrics.
Once again, what was Paul thinking? Some have conjectured that he was going for a Syd Barrett type of song from early Pink Floyd but I just don't see it. It would be great to see Paul (or anybody) fashion new lyrics for this song to see what it might be. I know that a lot of people into music, don't pay attention to the words, and Paul, himself said this about Pet Sounds by the Beach Boys, but many of us also see the Beatles and Dylan as poets of a sort and it is a shame when a bad lyric ruins a song. I'm crying....
5. I Dig a Pony -- Many people cite Let It Be as the Beatles' worst album (it isn't) and perhaps we are due for a John song to fill out this list, so at number 5 is this horrid track by Lennon. Lennon himself reportedly called the song a "piece of garbage" and I see little reason to deviate from that opinion. Unlike some of the crummy snippets on this album, which were removed from the later version, Let It Be ... Naked, this is a full-fledged song that provides neither mood nor really much of anything except for tedium.
I mean, I love I am the Walrus and I respect Glass Onion. I like Lennon's Lewis Carroll-esque stuff, but these lyrics make even those of Maxwell's Silver Hammer look good by comparison. I can only conjecture that Lennon thought the band was breaking up and tried to submit the worst song possible that he could come up with. The only reason that I Dig a Pony isn't number one on my list is that it doesn't really ruin the mood of Let It Be because the album already, in the words of John once again, had "a lousy feeling."
And as an extra, here are the two worst (controversial) original releases in Beatle's album history:
1. Yesterday and Today
2. Revolver (Capitol)
As most Beatle fans now know, the Beatles' albums diverge in the U.K. and U.S. prior to Sgt. Pepper.
This is usually blamed on two facts. First, the U.K. had different copyright procedures back then which made longer albums more economically feasible for the record company and second, one often hears that in the U.K., there was a distinction between singles and albums that didn't exist in the U.S.
The first reason was true and did affect the economics of the record releases in the two countries.
With respect to singles, the U.K. policy never was a strict rule and I find the reasoning behind the Beatles' single releases to often be hard to decipher. Paperback Writer and Rain were not included on Revolver because they were deemed singles, but Eleanor Rigby and Yellow Submarine were included on Revolver in spite of also being released as a single. The same reasoning was used by George Martin to keep Penny Lane and Strawberry Fields Forever off Sgt. Pepper, and Hey Jude and Lady Madonna of the White Album, but Something was released as a single and was included on Abbey Road. Basically, the Beatles didn't put singles on albums in the U.K., except when they did, seems to have been the rule.
This led to far more album releases in the U.S., and on some of the albums where the song order is not so important, such as Meet the Beatles! or Beatles '65, the American albums could arguably be said to be better in some respects. The American Rubber Soul ended up mostly intact, but with a more folk-type feel that some people preferred.
The last two of the American batch, however, basically chopped up two great albums, Rubber Soul and Revolver, and added some unreleased singles, in order to issue Yesterday and Today and an 11-track Revolver.
While I am not recommending the American Rubber Soul, at least it did not have its very heart and soul ripped out, the way that the American Revolver did, especially since two of the three songs removed from the U.K. Rubber Soul were arguably the weakest tracks on the record, What Goes On and Act Naturally, and the third, Nowhere Man always felt a little more progressive than much of the rest of Rubber Soul anyway.
By contrast, three Lennon songs were taken from Revolver in the U.K. and placed on Yesterday and Today, ruining the beautiful integrated whole that was the U.K. Revolver in order to give us a butchered compilation album with the butcher cover. It does still have some pretty good songs and I do own it on LP, but I am a completist.
Sunday, June 8, 2008
Why You Need to Buy the Original Album
I am not a big fan of greatest hits compilations. They simply do not work at all in the field of Jazz music and are generally woefully inadequate for any musical artist of any depth. This is because, with the great artists, there are often far better tracks that never get chosen for the compilation albums and which furthermore, never even make it onto the radio.
Let's take a look at the Beatles second U.K. album, With the Beatles, which is somewhat similar to the American vinyl LP, Meet the Beatles!.
This album is especially noteworthy for its fascinating album cover, which shows a photographic and psychological depth that we would come to expect from future Beatles' albums. Four faces, partially in shadow--how well do we know them--are we with them or not? Only partially?
Meet the Beatles is one of the few pre-Revolver American albums that actually has almost the same exact album cover as its U.K. forebear. Until recently, it was not available on CD, but Capitol has recently re-issued some of the early American Beatles albums on CD, although the catch is that you have to buy a package of four at a time, meaning at a cost of some $40 to $70!
http://www.amazon.com/Capitol-Albums-Vol-1/dp/B00065XJ48
For most Beatle fans, the U.K. versions are probably the ones to buy as they contain more tracks and are closer to the Beatles' original artistic conception in terms of lay-out and mixing, while the American versions had fewer cuts and may be mixed in what many call "false stereo."
I believe that the Capitol box sets of the American albums contain both stereo and mono versions of their first 8 American albums and so, if you want early Beatles in stereo, this may be your only option. And just to make things even more confusing, for those who listen to L.P.'s, the American versions may sound better on an excellent rig due to their having fewer cuts, as vinyl L.P. quality can be impacted by the length of an album side, but this is not really a consideration for CD purchasers.
Also, simply in terms of which album has the stronger cuts, there is little doubt that Meet the Beatles! is the stronger album, as it includes two all-time Beatles classics, I Wanna Hold Your Hand and I Saw Her Standing There, while deleting Money and You've Really Got a Hold on Me.
The early American versions of the Beatles albums generally follow this same pattern, that of having fewer but often stronger cuts, which was due to the fact that British albums generally contained 3 extra cuts, giving them more breadth, but at times also more filler. Beatles '65 is arguably also better than its British forebear, Beatles For Sale, and some fans prefer the American Rubber Soul to the British version.
The American Revolver is a travesty and is to be avoided at all costs, however.
Two other major exceptions, are the film soundtracks from A Hard Day's Night and Help!, which are vastly superior in the U.K. format because the American albums were truncated and then filled out with orchestral theme music. You cannot fully understand how great the Beatles were without hearing A Hard Day's Night and Help! in the U.K. format, as these were their first albums which were great, great works as an integrated whole, not merely a collection of tracks, setting the path for Rubber Soul and then Pet Sounds by Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys.
Now, the Beatles actually did a far better job in terms of marketing compilation records than most groups. Their Red and Blue Albums (1962-1966 and 1967-1970) actually include a fair number of songs that were either B-sides or not necessarily hits, but With the Beatles is almost untouched. Only one track, All My Loving, is included.
Opinions differ, as one reviewer does select this as the best track from With the Beatles, http://starling.rinet.ru/music/beatles.htm#Me , and it certainly was the biggest hit from the record. Probably, the next most well-known song on the record is Till There Was You, followed by I Wanna Be Your Man. These were all Lennon/McCartney standards(although Till There Was You was actually a cover) and I understand the bias in terms of airplay and marketing towards these three standards, but in my humble opinion, these are just about the weakest tracks on the record.
With the Beatles is a pretty great record, but to a casual fan perusing the CD bins, it probably is not so apparent. I doubt many Beatle fans think All My Loving is close to being an essential Beatles track, unless said fan also loves Michelle and Honey Pie. The song simply is too saccharine for my tastes, but there are some real gems here.
Much of this album's charm comes not from hits per se, but from the Beatles' individual performances and the way the songs complement each other on the record.
Starting off, It Won't Be Long is a great track, with a startling amount of energy, akin to Twist and Shout or I Saw Her Standing There. It Won't Be Long is an essential track.
All I've Got to Do is another essential track. Lennon's vocal performance is amazing and I think in general, With the Beatles emphasizes the Beatles' vocal talents more than just about any other album of theirs.
Don't Bother Me is Harrison's first credit and amounts to a pretty decent start and would later be featured in the film A Hard Day's Night, albeit without credit, as the film attributed all the tunes to Lennon and McCartney. It's not Harrison's best song, but far better than say, I, Me, Mine and the lyrical depth is quite interesting given that this is during the Beatles' early period, where most of their songs were still love songs and Don''t Bother Me is basically an anti-love song and points towards the superior If I Needed Someone in terms of meaning.
The album meanders a little with a couple of weak (by Beatle standards) cuts like Little Child and Hold Me Tight and a couple of somewhat pedestrian covers--Please Mr. Postman and Roll Over Beethoven, but then picks up steam again with Lennon's rendition of Smokey Robinson's You've Really Got a Hold on Me.
Lennon grabs this song by the throat and really puts in a great performance and shows why so many expected so much more from his 1970's rock and roll cover album with Phil Spector.
We then have the so-so tracks of I Wanna Be Your Man, Devil in Her Heart, and Not a Second Time, which are not the best of the Beatles by any measure.
Luckily, we have another fantastic cover to close things out and once again it is Lennon doing Money--"that's what I want," a raucous and exciting end to a somewhat uneven album by Beatle standards. Most of the highlights here are from Lennon, and to a lesser extent, from Harrison and this is why With the Beatles is a step down from the truly great Beatles' classics, all of which had far better participation from Sir Paul.
So, we see, that the cuts that really are exciting and show off the Beatles's talents, are the lesser-known ones such as It Won't Be Long, All I've Got to Do, Don't Bother Me, You've Really Got a Hold on Me and Money. And although the American public's exposure to the Beatles' singles was more compressed, they essentially agreed that With the Beatles was essentially devoid of any interesting singles, as only two songs, All My Loving and Roll Over Beethoven even charted in the U.S. and neither made the top 40.
Considering the Beatles' first two albums, I would say that neither Please, Please Me, nor With the Beatles is really a great Beatles album but I would diverge with many critics and pick With the Beatles as the superior of the two, because it is noteworthy for showing just how talented they were and what heights lay just around the corner.
I have previously tried to rank the Beatles' U.K. studio albums which is a difficult endeavor because they are so uniformly excellent, and I still think this is pretty much how I feel, although I believe you can make convincing arguments that any of the top seven below is, in fact, their "best" album. That is how good and how consistent they were. The bottom four albums listed below are arguably better than anything ever done by the Byrds, or the Monkees, who were their chief American rivals during the 60's, or even by the Beach Boys, unless you count Brian Wilson's Pet Sounds, or the Beach Boy's early 1970's work, which is far superior to their 1960's stuff.
1. Rubber Soul
2. Sgt. Pepper's
3. Abbey Road
4. The White Album
5. Revolver
6. Help!
7. A Hard Day's Night
8. With the Beatles
9. Let it Be
10. Beatles for Sale
11. Please Please Me
Critics can quibble and Beatle fans change their opinions all the time as to which of their albums is "best" but looking back from the time of With tthe Beatles, the Beatles' soon-to-be-released albums associated with their films, A Hard Day's Night and Help! were arguably going to be the best work they ever did.
So, getting back to the original point of this post (maybe I need an editor), when you are looking at great groups like the Beatles and the Stones, you have to buy the studio albums. There just are too many great tracks that you will miss otherwise.
Let's take a look at the Beatles second U.K. album, With the Beatles, which is somewhat similar to the American vinyl LP, Meet the Beatles!.
This album is especially noteworthy for its fascinating album cover, which shows a photographic and psychological depth that we would come to expect from future Beatles' albums. Four faces, partially in shadow--how well do we know them--are we with them or not? Only partially?
Meet the Beatles is one of the few pre-Revolver American albums that actually has almost the same exact album cover as its U.K. forebear. Until recently, it was not available on CD, but Capitol has recently re-issued some of the early American Beatles albums on CD, although the catch is that you have to buy a package of four at a time, meaning at a cost of some $40 to $70!
http://www.amazon.com/Capitol-Albums-Vol-1/dp/B00065XJ48
For most Beatle fans, the U.K. versions are probably the ones to buy as they contain more tracks and are closer to the Beatles' original artistic conception in terms of lay-out and mixing, while the American versions had fewer cuts and may be mixed in what many call "false stereo."
I believe that the Capitol box sets of the American albums contain both stereo and mono versions of their first 8 American albums and so, if you want early Beatles in stereo, this may be your only option. And just to make things even more confusing, for those who listen to L.P.'s, the American versions may sound better on an excellent rig due to their having fewer cuts, as vinyl L.P. quality can be impacted by the length of an album side, but this is not really a consideration for CD purchasers.
Also, simply in terms of which album has the stronger cuts, there is little doubt that Meet the Beatles! is the stronger album, as it includes two all-time Beatles classics, I Wanna Hold Your Hand and I Saw Her Standing There, while deleting Money and You've Really Got a Hold on Me.
The early American versions of the Beatles albums generally follow this same pattern, that of having fewer but often stronger cuts, which was due to the fact that British albums generally contained 3 extra cuts, giving them more breadth, but at times also more filler. Beatles '65 is arguably also better than its British forebear, Beatles For Sale, and some fans prefer the American Rubber Soul to the British version.
The American Revolver is a travesty and is to be avoided at all costs, however.
Two other major exceptions, are the film soundtracks from A Hard Day's Night and Help!, which are vastly superior in the U.K. format because the American albums were truncated and then filled out with orchestral theme music. You cannot fully understand how great the Beatles were without hearing A Hard Day's Night and Help! in the U.K. format, as these were their first albums which were great, great works as an integrated whole, not merely a collection of tracks, setting the path for Rubber Soul and then Pet Sounds by Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys.
Now, the Beatles actually did a far better job in terms of marketing compilation records than most groups. Their Red and Blue Albums (1962-1966 and 1967-1970) actually include a fair number of songs that were either B-sides or not necessarily hits, but With the Beatles is almost untouched. Only one track, All My Loving, is included.
Opinions differ, as one reviewer does select this as the best track from With the Beatles, http://starling.rinet.ru/music/beatles.htm#Me , and it certainly was the biggest hit from the record. Probably, the next most well-known song on the record is Till There Was You, followed by I Wanna Be Your Man. These were all Lennon/McCartney standards(although Till There Was You was actually a cover) and I understand the bias in terms of airplay and marketing towards these three standards, but in my humble opinion, these are just about the weakest tracks on the record.
With the Beatles is a pretty great record, but to a casual fan perusing the CD bins, it probably is not so apparent. I doubt many Beatle fans think All My Loving is close to being an essential Beatles track, unless said fan also loves Michelle and Honey Pie. The song simply is too saccharine for my tastes, but there are some real gems here.
Much of this album's charm comes not from hits per se, but from the Beatles' individual performances and the way the songs complement each other on the record.
Starting off, It Won't Be Long is a great track, with a startling amount of energy, akin to Twist and Shout or I Saw Her Standing There. It Won't Be Long is an essential track.
All I've Got to Do is another essential track. Lennon's vocal performance is amazing and I think in general, With the Beatles emphasizes the Beatles' vocal talents more than just about any other album of theirs.
Don't Bother Me is Harrison's first credit and amounts to a pretty decent start and would later be featured in the film A Hard Day's Night, albeit without credit, as the film attributed all the tunes to Lennon and McCartney. It's not Harrison's best song, but far better than say, I, Me, Mine and the lyrical depth is quite interesting given that this is during the Beatles' early period, where most of their songs were still love songs and Don''t Bother Me is basically an anti-love song and points towards the superior If I Needed Someone in terms of meaning.
The album meanders a little with a couple of weak (by Beatle standards) cuts like Little Child and Hold Me Tight and a couple of somewhat pedestrian covers--Please Mr. Postman and Roll Over Beethoven, but then picks up steam again with Lennon's rendition of Smokey Robinson's You've Really Got a Hold on Me.
Lennon grabs this song by the throat and really puts in a great performance and shows why so many expected so much more from his 1970's rock and roll cover album with Phil Spector.
We then have the so-so tracks of I Wanna Be Your Man, Devil in Her Heart, and Not a Second Time, which are not the best of the Beatles by any measure.
Luckily, we have another fantastic cover to close things out and once again it is Lennon doing Money--"that's what I want," a raucous and exciting end to a somewhat uneven album by Beatle standards. Most of the highlights here are from Lennon, and to a lesser extent, from Harrison and this is why With the Beatles is a step down from the truly great Beatles' classics, all of which had far better participation from Sir Paul.
So, we see, that the cuts that really are exciting and show off the Beatles's talents, are the lesser-known ones such as It Won't Be Long, All I've Got to Do, Don't Bother Me, You've Really Got a Hold on Me and Money. And although the American public's exposure to the Beatles' singles was more compressed, they essentially agreed that With the Beatles was essentially devoid of any interesting singles, as only two songs, All My Loving and Roll Over Beethoven even charted in the U.S. and neither made the top 40.
Considering the Beatles' first two albums, I would say that neither Please, Please Me, nor With the Beatles is really a great Beatles album but I would diverge with many critics and pick With the Beatles as the superior of the two, because it is noteworthy for showing just how talented they were and what heights lay just around the corner.
I have previously tried to rank the Beatles' U.K. studio albums which is a difficult endeavor because they are so uniformly excellent, and I still think this is pretty much how I feel, although I believe you can make convincing arguments that any of the top seven below is, in fact, their "best" album. That is how good and how consistent they were. The bottom four albums listed below are arguably better than anything ever done by the Byrds, or the Monkees, who were their chief American rivals during the 60's, or even by the Beach Boys, unless you count Brian Wilson's Pet Sounds, or the Beach Boy's early 1970's work, which is far superior to their 1960's stuff.
1. Rubber Soul
2. Sgt. Pepper's
3. Abbey Road
4. The White Album
5. Revolver
6. Help!
7. A Hard Day's Night
8. With the Beatles
9. Let it Be
10. Beatles for Sale
11. Please Please Me
Critics can quibble and Beatle fans change their opinions all the time as to which of their albums is "best" but looking back from the time of With tthe Beatles, the Beatles' soon-to-be-released albums associated with their films, A Hard Day's Night and Help! were arguably going to be the best work they ever did.
So, getting back to the original point of this post (maybe I need an editor), when you are looking at great groups like the Beatles and the Stones, you have to buy the studio albums. There just are too many great tracks that you will miss otherwise.
Friday, June 6, 2008
Beatles Movies
The Beatles packed an incredible amount of artistry into their eight or so years as recording artists. Perhaps overlooked today is just how good their film work was, especially when compared to, well, have any other rock greats besides Prince and Elvis made any decent films at all?
Since I love rankings like all good Americans, here is my list of the Beatles movies from best to worst:
1. Yellow Submarine -- Some will quibble with this being chosen number one based on its being animated and will question the level of the Beatles' involvement, which was not all that great.
Nevertheless, this is a great, great movie. The writing is top notch, the vocal acting (the Beatles chose not to provide their own voices, wary of the project's success) is terrific, the animation is fantastic and the music is amazing. What more could you want?
Adults will like this and children will go bonkers. If you are tired of the Wiggles, try this. My four-year olds absolutely adore this film and my wife and I love it as well. It is full of Lewis Caroll and British-influenced humor. "Bluish? You don't look bluish....?"
The soundtrack is great and has been re-mixed in stereo and surround. Let me clarify one thing here. There are two versions of this movie's soundtrack. I have the original L.P., which featured four new Beatles songs, two re-releases and a second side with a George Martin score that is pretty darn good, that you will never listen to. The re-releases, were the title track and All You Need is Love.
The new originals were Only a Northern Song, All Together Now, Hey Bulldog and It's All Too Much. Many critics have considered these four to be among the weakest original tracks on an original Beatles album and have labelled this record as non-essential. This is hogwash. Many of the critics are Lennonphiles as opposed to Beatlephiles and I believe that they downrate this effort due to its only having one new Lennon song, Hey, Bulldog.
But all four songs are excellent and vastly underrated by Beatle fans, to the point of even being unknown by many. It's All Too Much is probably the best Beatle song that you have never heard on the radio(maybe together with Rain). Hey Bulldog rocks and is great fun, particularly in the restored DVD, where the track has been re-inserted after having been edited out in some film releases in the 60's. All Together Now is a catchy song that children adore and Only a Northern Song is another Taxman-esque statement by Harrison regarding the woes of rich and famous music performers and money hungry record producers--to be followed by Piggies as a third in a sort of trilogy--and he wrote it at the last minute in an hour when they needed one more song for the album.
Overall, Harrison fans should like this album most of all and It's All Too Much is a great psychedelic song, with a great environmental message for the young and old alike:
"It's all too much for me to take
The love that's shining all around here
All the world's a birthday cake,
So take a piece but not too much"
This is what my sons now say whenever offered sweets, just a piece, but not too much.
Would that we all behaved accordingly.
The new version of the soundtrack is called Yellow Submarine, Songtrack, and has, if I follow correctly, every Beatles song played in the film, except for A Day in the Life, which only featured an orchestral snippet, as opposed to the Beatles on their instruments and was therefore not on the Songtrack. At least that appears to be Capitol's reasoning. For casual Beatles fans, and people into surround, this is the album to buy, although diehard Beatles fans will probably prefer the original, if not both. The songs go back to the Rubber Soul-era through Magical Mystery Tour and are a great overview of the Beatles work during their inital move away from short love songs to more complex lyrical works and psychedelia.
I rate this movie every bit as highly as Fantasia. It is a classic that has only been hurt by questions regarding copyright. There is really no reason for any Beatles' fan not to own this, except, that it has once again fallen out of print and the prices for used copies are pretty high, but hey, that's not my problem, I am just the reviewer. This is an animation classic and highly, highly recommended.
2. Help! -- I am probably committing heresy here but I've recently watched both A Hard Day's Night and Help! in high-def and I have to give Help! the edge, in spite of its far-fetched plot involving a magic ring. Let's face it, both of these movies have their plot defects, but Help! comes through somehow fresher.(I would have felt differently 30 years ago).
One thing that I found evident was just how much the television show, The Monkees, that I grew up with was a blatant (but well-done) rip-off of Help! When I was a kid, growing up in the 70's, the Beatles were yesterday's news, but the Monkees' show was on every afternoon, and as Michael Stipe has often said, was perhaps a bigger influence on that generation than the disbanded Beatles, whom I would discover through listening to Wings, about the time that Wings began to falter.
Anyway, watching Help! is a bit like watching an extended Monkees episode(Yes, they all had ridiculous plots just like Help!) and for the MTV generation prior to Real World, will feel comforting because Help! is full of music videos.
The newly-released print looks sensational. I am not sure if I have ever seen a color movie from that era that looks as good as the new Help! DVD and the movie seems a lot better than it did the first time that I saw it back in the mid to late 1970's. The boys look great and were at the height of their musical prowess and their beauty as men. They would never again look this great together and appear to be such great friends, just having a sensational time as mates. Every Beatles' fan should buy this.
3. A Hard Day's Night -- This is usually ranked number one, so I must have some major ax to grind, right? Well, just a slight one. The movie bogs down into a contrived and boring plot in the second half involving Paul's fictional grandfather. Honestly, I think I could have written a better screen play in half an hour. What is great about this movie is just watching the Beatles be themselves, on the train and then with fans chasing them around. They are funny, witty and the cinematography is excellent. This black and white film has a classic look to it and they were aiming for a Marx-brothers type farce and half succeeded. The music is good but I prefer the songs from Help! and that is just my personal musical preference. Overall, I find the look of the restored Help! to be stunning while A Hard Day's Night merely looks great. But once again, highly recommended.
4. Magical Mystery Tour -- I think that part of the reason that the Beatles did not involve themselves very much in the making of Yellow Submarine is that this short film called MMT was widely regarded as their first failure. The idea seemed interesting, which was to basically make a fictional film about the Merry Pranksters from Tom Wolfe's Electric Kool-aid Acid Test.
Nevertheless, it just didn't really work for most viewers.
First off, it is somewhat hard to call something a failure when it shares a name with an album as excellent as Magical Mystery Tour, which is possibly as good as Sgt. Pepper in terms of overall song quality. However, much of the world did not have the opportunity to purchase this album initially and was presented with something else, which was a double-E.P. bearing the same title.
Once again context is everything and this is shown through the Beatles' release policy. Beatles for Sale, widely disparaged (relatively--still as good as virtually anything put out by any other group), was far better, or I should say, far more even in terms of the quality of its tracks in its American release, known as Beatles 65.
On Beatles for Sale, the more numerous than usual so-so tracks somewhat crowded out the excellent ones, which is the same thing that happened on the British double EP of Magical Mystery Tour. Remember, this was during the days when you had to get up and move the tonearm whenever there was a song that you didn't particularly care for.
The American version, on the other hand, was filled out by the excellent songs, Hello, Goodbye, Penny Lane, Strawberry Fields Forever, and Baby, You're a Rich Man, which together with Magical Mystery Tour, I am the Walrus, and the Fool on the Hill, tended to drown out the mediocre tracks of Flying, and Your Mother Should Know, and the interesting but depressing Blue Jay Way.
After the stunning success of the American version, Capitol rushed it into production worldwide and today it occupies a rare place in the Beatles' catalog. It is the sole CD where the American version became the standard CD release worldwide. Nevertheless, by the time the U.K. version had been issued, the short film had already been labelled a disaster. It certainly didn't help matters any that the BBC showed the psychedelic colored film in black and white. Nor did it help that the MMT film soundtrack was from the less good British double EP. The film was largely unknown in the U.S.
Although opinions may change through time, and some film school students may see this film as having interesting aspects, or others as a cult or "stoner's" classic, many, if not most, still see this film as a muddled mess that lacks even the normal high quality soundtrack found on other Beatles' films. I have never been able to sit all the way through it when it is on television.
5. Let It Be -- I rate this last because it is basically a bummer. It is a documentary that has never struck me as interesting, but only boring and depressing. This is probably why, to a large extent, that the corresponding album is not as highly regarded as many other Beatles albums, in spite of having several top notch songs. The Beatles were fighting a lot, some of it shown in the movie and I just don't remember much except for the rooftop segment, which is decent.
There are also a couple of dogs on this album that are inexplicably included, given the fantastic songs that George Harrison was sitting on but maybe he was already setting his sights on All Things Must Pass. His two songs that he contributed here, For You Blue and I, Me, Mine, were vastly inferior to his prior efforts and his Abbey Road and solo songs that followed soon after. Maggie Mae and Dig It by Lennon/McCartney were not particularly distinguished either.
These last two films clearly are not all that favored by the Beatles (and their controlling family members) themselves and there are not really any particularly good versions floating around. Maybe, with the right extras and restoration, they could be worth another look, but not much seems to be happening on that front right now.
Since I love rankings like all good Americans, here is my list of the Beatles movies from best to worst:
1. Yellow Submarine -- Some will quibble with this being chosen number one based on its being animated and will question the level of the Beatles' involvement, which was not all that great.
Nevertheless, this is a great, great movie. The writing is top notch, the vocal acting (the Beatles chose not to provide their own voices, wary of the project's success) is terrific, the animation is fantastic and the music is amazing. What more could you want?
Adults will like this and children will go bonkers. If you are tired of the Wiggles, try this. My four-year olds absolutely adore this film and my wife and I love it as well. It is full of Lewis Caroll and British-influenced humor. "Bluish? You don't look bluish....?"
The soundtrack is great and has been re-mixed in stereo and surround. Let me clarify one thing here. There are two versions of this movie's soundtrack. I have the original L.P., which featured four new Beatles songs, two re-releases and a second side with a George Martin score that is pretty darn good, that you will never listen to. The re-releases, were the title track and All You Need is Love.
The new originals were Only a Northern Song, All Together Now, Hey Bulldog and It's All Too Much. Many critics have considered these four to be among the weakest original tracks on an original Beatles album and have labelled this record as non-essential. This is hogwash. Many of the critics are Lennonphiles as opposed to Beatlephiles and I believe that they downrate this effort due to its only having one new Lennon song, Hey, Bulldog.
But all four songs are excellent and vastly underrated by Beatle fans, to the point of even being unknown by many. It's All Too Much is probably the best Beatle song that you have never heard on the radio(maybe together with Rain). Hey Bulldog rocks and is great fun, particularly in the restored DVD, where the track has been re-inserted after having been edited out in some film releases in the 60's. All Together Now is a catchy song that children adore and Only a Northern Song is another Taxman-esque statement by Harrison regarding the woes of rich and famous music performers and money hungry record producers--to be followed by Piggies as a third in a sort of trilogy--and he wrote it at the last minute in an hour when they needed one more song for the album.
Overall, Harrison fans should like this album most of all and It's All Too Much is a great psychedelic song, with a great environmental message for the young and old alike:
"It's all too much for me to take
The love that's shining all around here
All the world's a birthday cake,
So take a piece but not too much"
This is what my sons now say whenever offered sweets, just a piece, but not too much.
Would that we all behaved accordingly.
The new version of the soundtrack is called Yellow Submarine, Songtrack, and has, if I follow correctly, every Beatles song played in the film, except for A Day in the Life, which only featured an orchestral snippet, as opposed to the Beatles on their instruments and was therefore not on the Songtrack. At least that appears to be Capitol's reasoning. For casual Beatles fans, and people into surround, this is the album to buy, although diehard Beatles fans will probably prefer the original, if not both. The songs go back to the Rubber Soul-era through Magical Mystery Tour and are a great overview of the Beatles work during their inital move away from short love songs to more complex lyrical works and psychedelia.
I rate this movie every bit as highly as Fantasia. It is a classic that has only been hurt by questions regarding copyright. There is really no reason for any Beatles' fan not to own this, except, that it has once again fallen out of print and the prices for used copies are pretty high, but hey, that's not my problem, I am just the reviewer. This is an animation classic and highly, highly recommended.
2. Help! -- I am probably committing heresy here but I've recently watched both A Hard Day's Night and Help! in high-def and I have to give Help! the edge, in spite of its far-fetched plot involving a magic ring. Let's face it, both of these movies have their plot defects, but Help! comes through somehow fresher.(I would have felt differently 30 years ago).
One thing that I found evident was just how much the television show, The Monkees, that I grew up with was a blatant (but well-done) rip-off of Help! When I was a kid, growing up in the 70's, the Beatles were yesterday's news, but the Monkees' show was on every afternoon, and as Michael Stipe has often said, was perhaps a bigger influence on that generation than the disbanded Beatles, whom I would discover through listening to Wings, about the time that Wings began to falter.
Anyway, watching Help! is a bit like watching an extended Monkees episode(Yes, they all had ridiculous plots just like Help!) and for the MTV generation prior to Real World, will feel comforting because Help! is full of music videos.
The newly-released print looks sensational. I am not sure if I have ever seen a color movie from that era that looks as good as the new Help! DVD and the movie seems a lot better than it did the first time that I saw it back in the mid to late 1970's. The boys look great and were at the height of their musical prowess and their beauty as men. They would never again look this great together and appear to be such great friends, just having a sensational time as mates. Every Beatles' fan should buy this.
3. A Hard Day's Night -- This is usually ranked number one, so I must have some major ax to grind, right? Well, just a slight one. The movie bogs down into a contrived and boring plot in the second half involving Paul's fictional grandfather. Honestly, I think I could have written a better screen play in half an hour. What is great about this movie is just watching the Beatles be themselves, on the train and then with fans chasing them around. They are funny, witty and the cinematography is excellent. This black and white film has a classic look to it and they were aiming for a Marx-brothers type farce and half succeeded. The music is good but I prefer the songs from Help! and that is just my personal musical preference. Overall, I find the look of the restored Help! to be stunning while A Hard Day's Night merely looks great. But once again, highly recommended.
4. Magical Mystery Tour -- I think that part of the reason that the Beatles did not involve themselves very much in the making of Yellow Submarine is that this short film called MMT was widely regarded as their first failure. The idea seemed interesting, which was to basically make a fictional film about the Merry Pranksters from Tom Wolfe's Electric Kool-aid Acid Test.
Nevertheless, it just didn't really work for most viewers.
First off, it is somewhat hard to call something a failure when it shares a name with an album as excellent as Magical Mystery Tour, which is possibly as good as Sgt. Pepper in terms of overall song quality. However, much of the world did not have the opportunity to purchase this album initially and was presented with something else, which was a double-E.P. bearing the same title.
Once again context is everything and this is shown through the Beatles' release policy. Beatles for Sale, widely disparaged (relatively--still as good as virtually anything put out by any other group), was far better, or I should say, far more even in terms of the quality of its tracks in its American release, known as Beatles 65.
On Beatles for Sale, the more numerous than usual so-so tracks somewhat crowded out the excellent ones, which is the same thing that happened on the British double EP of Magical Mystery Tour. Remember, this was during the days when you had to get up and move the tonearm whenever there was a song that you didn't particularly care for.
The American version, on the other hand, was filled out by the excellent songs, Hello, Goodbye, Penny Lane, Strawberry Fields Forever, and Baby, You're a Rich Man, which together with Magical Mystery Tour, I am the Walrus, and the Fool on the Hill, tended to drown out the mediocre tracks of Flying, and Your Mother Should Know, and the interesting but depressing Blue Jay Way.
After the stunning success of the American version, Capitol rushed it into production worldwide and today it occupies a rare place in the Beatles' catalog. It is the sole CD where the American version became the standard CD release worldwide. Nevertheless, by the time the U.K. version had been issued, the short film had already been labelled a disaster. It certainly didn't help matters any that the BBC showed the psychedelic colored film in black and white. Nor did it help that the MMT film soundtrack was from the less good British double EP. The film was largely unknown in the U.S.
Although opinions may change through time, and some film school students may see this film as having interesting aspects, or others as a cult or "stoner's" classic, many, if not most, still see this film as a muddled mess that lacks even the normal high quality soundtrack found on other Beatles' films. I have never been able to sit all the way through it when it is on television.
5. Let It Be -- I rate this last because it is basically a bummer. It is a documentary that has never struck me as interesting, but only boring and depressing. This is probably why, to a large extent, that the corresponding album is not as highly regarded as many other Beatles albums, in spite of having several top notch songs. The Beatles were fighting a lot, some of it shown in the movie and I just don't remember much except for the rooftop segment, which is decent.
There are also a couple of dogs on this album that are inexplicably included, given the fantastic songs that George Harrison was sitting on but maybe he was already setting his sights on All Things Must Pass. His two songs that he contributed here, For You Blue and I, Me, Mine, were vastly inferior to his prior efforts and his Abbey Road and solo songs that followed soon after. Maggie Mae and Dig It by Lennon/McCartney were not particularly distinguished either.
These last two films clearly are not all that favored by the Beatles (and their controlling family members) themselves and there are not really any particularly good versions floating around. Maybe, with the right extras and restoration, they could be worth another look, but not much seems to be happening on that front right now.
Sunday, June 1, 2008
Beatles's Most Thrilling Moments on Vinyl
The Beatles were so uniformly excellent, both in general and during their songs, that it might seem a sort of incongruous category. But what I am looking for here are what might be called Free Bird/Stairway to Heaven-type highs, where the Beatles' music truly went to the their most amazing levels to move people and touch their emotions.
1. The End -- Abbey Road -- This is a forebearer of the 70's jam music to come and it works without being self-indulgent. First, Ringo blasts the skins for his longest drum solo and then the other three trade guitar solos as the Beatles finish their recording career together to the lyric:
"And, in the end, the love you take, is equal to the love, you make...."
Great, great stuff.
2. While My Guitar Gently Weeps -- The White Album -- George Harrison takes a spare, contemplative hymn and invites Eric Clapton to play lead guitar in an amazing performance all around. Harrison's melancholy vocal and lyric is lifted to a scintillating conclusion by Clapton's slide guitar:
"I look at you all and see the love there that's sleeping, while my guitar gently weeps...."
3. Hey Jude -- Single -- This was the Beatles' all time best seller in the U.S. Written by Paul for John's son, Julian, it reaches an amazing crescendo at the part where Paul hits, the "Better, Better, Better, HAAA..." lyric followed by the "na,na,na," fade-out chorus. This song still moves grown baby boomers to tears.
4. A Day in the Life -- SPLHCB -- This song really hits the mark during the psychedelic dream sequence, where the Beatles harmonize, on the "Ah, ah, ah note, followed by the orchestral hurricane of sound, which is deeply affecting. In my mind, somewhere, radiating out through the universe is the sound of the Beatles's harmony following the dream sequence making clear to the rest of the universe that there is indeed meaning to life.
5. I am the Walrus -- Magical Mystery Tour -- Perhaps a step down from the top four, all of which are essentially tied in my mind, I give this Lewis Carroll-influenced track a slight edge over some others I might have chosen such as Paperback Writer, Eleanor Rigby, Nowhere Man and Ticket to Ride.
This song has two great, great moments, one is the line, "Boy, you've been a naughty girl, you've let your knickers down" which most American listeners failed to understand, but even more so for the line, where the song really picks up its charge: "Expert, sexpert, choking smoker, don't you think the joker laughs at you; see how they smile like pigs in a sty, see how they snide; I'm crying...."
Amazing stuff, followed once again by the luck of the Beatles where Lennon turned on the radio at the end of the recording to put whatever he found on the song and a performance of Shakespeare was on the BBC, "Sit you down, father, rest you."
1. The End -- Abbey Road -- This is a forebearer of the 70's jam music to come and it works without being self-indulgent. First, Ringo blasts the skins for his longest drum solo and then the other three trade guitar solos as the Beatles finish their recording career together to the lyric:
"And, in the end, the love you take, is equal to the love, you make...."
Great, great stuff.
2. While My Guitar Gently Weeps -- The White Album -- George Harrison takes a spare, contemplative hymn and invites Eric Clapton to play lead guitar in an amazing performance all around. Harrison's melancholy vocal and lyric is lifted to a scintillating conclusion by Clapton's slide guitar:
"I look at you all and see the love there that's sleeping, while my guitar gently weeps...."
3. Hey Jude -- Single -- This was the Beatles' all time best seller in the U.S. Written by Paul for John's son, Julian, it reaches an amazing crescendo at the part where Paul hits, the "Better, Better, Better, HAAA..." lyric followed by the "na,na,na," fade-out chorus. This song still moves grown baby boomers to tears.
4. A Day in the Life -- SPLHCB -- This song really hits the mark during the psychedelic dream sequence, where the Beatles harmonize, on the "Ah, ah, ah note, followed by the orchestral hurricane of sound, which is deeply affecting. In my mind, somewhere, radiating out through the universe is the sound of the Beatles's harmony following the dream sequence making clear to the rest of the universe that there is indeed meaning to life.
5. I am the Walrus -- Magical Mystery Tour -- Perhaps a step down from the top four, all of which are essentially tied in my mind, I give this Lewis Carroll-influenced track a slight edge over some others I might have chosen such as Paperback Writer, Eleanor Rigby, Nowhere Man and Ticket to Ride.
This song has two great, great moments, one is the line, "Boy, you've been a naughty girl, you've let your knickers down" which most American listeners failed to understand, but even more so for the line, where the song really picks up its charge: "Expert, sexpert, choking smoker, don't you think the joker laughs at you; see how they smile like pigs in a sty, see how they snide; I'm crying...."
Amazing stuff, followed once again by the luck of the Beatles where Lennon turned on the radio at the end of the recording to put whatever he found on the song and a performance of Shakespeare was on the BBC, "Sit you down, father, rest you."
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
GOP Math
There have been a couple of articles by the GOP crowd today deriding the Democrats for their "unfair" system of allocating delegates. The GOP, you see, knows better, for it allocates far more delegates to the winner of any given state, regardless of how close the contest was.
Aside from the basic inequity of the allocation, the GOP system is arguably a much worse system in terms of party building. The Democratic system is set up to reward certain districts for their past efforts and to create incentives to work for the party in the future.
This may indeed be why states like Idaho are over-represented and Puerto Rico, which doesn't even have a vote in November, gets a say in the Democratic primaries, although strangely enough, we have not seen too much criticism of that point by these GOP voices advising the Democrats on how to run their party, perhaps because these GOP voices want to legitimize the popular vote in Puerto Rico.
Regardless, the Democratic outcome has been far more democratic than that which took place in the GOP, so we are faced with the incongruous criticism by the National Review crowd of a Democratic system for picking a nominee that is not democratic enough, and at the same time, too democratic, compared to that of the GOP.
This is how bad things in the GOP are--and they get worse if you read the links--someone like Rich Lowry of National Review apparently does not understand the private versus public distinction when comparing the way a private political party names a candidate and the farce of the publicly-run electoral college:
"The metric the superdelegates are using is who won the most pledged delegates (Obama leads by roughly 150). This is entirely reasonable, given that pledged delegates were the prize both candidates were competing for. But the Democratic delegate-allocation rules can make the Electoral College that Democrats maligned back in 2000 look robustly representative by comparison."
Here's another writer from National Review who has also apparently lost his wits: http://blogs.usatoday.com/oped/2008/05/democrats-dilem.html :
"Now under what system does it make sense for Obama to collect more net delegates for beating Clinton by 13,000 votes in one state than Clinton does for beating Obama by 110,000 in another?
That inequity, by the way, won't be repeated in the general election, when the winner of Idaho will collect four electoral votes while the winner in New Jersey will get 15 — and the losers get nothing."
So, it's an inequity when candidates split delegates in a close race, at least somewhat proportionately to the actual vote, but it's a good thing when one candidate gets all the electoral votes even if he only wins a state by one popular vote in the general election, or far more than his proportional share in the GOP primaries--got that?
Once again, this is nothing more than the basic incoherence that we are all beginning to expect from the GOP, a party which once prided itself as being based upon rational thought and reason, and looked to intellectuals such as William Buckley, Ayn Rand and F.A. Hayek as its stalwarts, but now has sadly replaced them with Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and Pat Robertson.
Aside from the basic inequity of the allocation, the GOP system is arguably a much worse system in terms of party building. The Democratic system is set up to reward certain districts for their past efforts and to create incentives to work for the party in the future.
This may indeed be why states like Idaho are over-represented and Puerto Rico, which doesn't even have a vote in November, gets a say in the Democratic primaries, although strangely enough, we have not seen too much criticism of that point by these GOP voices advising the Democrats on how to run their party, perhaps because these GOP voices want to legitimize the popular vote in Puerto Rico.
Regardless, the Democratic outcome has been far more democratic than that which took place in the GOP, so we are faced with the incongruous criticism by the National Review crowd of a Democratic system for picking a nominee that is not democratic enough, and at the same time, too democratic, compared to that of the GOP.
This is how bad things in the GOP are--and they get worse if you read the links--someone like Rich Lowry of National Review apparently does not understand the private versus public distinction when comparing the way a private political party names a candidate and the farce of the publicly-run electoral college:
"The metric the superdelegates are using is who won the most pledged delegates (Obama leads by roughly 150). This is entirely reasonable, given that pledged delegates were the prize both candidates were competing for. But the Democratic delegate-allocation rules can make the Electoral College that Democrats maligned back in 2000 look robustly representative by comparison."
Here's another writer from National Review who has also apparently lost his wits: http://blogs.usatoday.com/oped/2008/05/democrats-dilem.html :
"Now under what system does it make sense for Obama to collect more net delegates for beating Clinton by 13,000 votes in one state than Clinton does for beating Obama by 110,000 in another?
That inequity, by the way, won't be repeated in the general election, when the winner of Idaho will collect four electoral votes while the winner in New Jersey will get 15 — and the losers get nothing."
So, it's an inequity when candidates split delegates in a close race, at least somewhat proportionately to the actual vote, but it's a good thing when one candidate gets all the electoral votes even if he only wins a state by one popular vote in the general election, or far more than his proportional share in the GOP primaries--got that?
Once again, this is nothing more than the basic incoherence that we are all beginning to expect from the GOP, a party which once prided itself as being based upon rational thought and reason, and looked to intellectuals such as William Buckley, Ayn Rand and F.A. Hayek as its stalwarts, but now has sadly replaced them with Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and Pat Robertson.
Thursday, May 8, 2008
Bush and Truman
I keep seeing apologists for President Bush attempt to compare him to Harry Truman, who was another president who was deeply unpopular at the end of his more than one term presidency.
They argue that someday, maybe 50 years from now, George W. Bush will be remembered much more fondly by history. I think they are deluding themselves. A better comparison would be Richard M. Nixon, another two term president who stretched the constitution to the breaking point and who left office in infamy.
Here is a response that I penned to a recent article attempting once again to make this feeble and muddle defense of President Bush:
People remember Truman fondly--some anyway--because he bombed Japan and and is associated with winning WWII. He certainly is not highly regarded by most legal scholars, although some on the Right may esteem the way that he attempted to increase presidential powers, for which he was widely derided during his tenure, just as Bush has been.
Unless something really good happens really fast for this Bush, I think that it is a far stretch to compare him to Harry Truman, because there is not going to be that sort of wonderful association that we have with Truman as the President when WWII finally ended.
William Loeffler
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/05/presidential_pariah.html
They argue that someday, maybe 50 years from now, George W. Bush will be remembered much more fondly by history. I think they are deluding themselves. A better comparison would be Richard M. Nixon, another two term president who stretched the constitution to the breaking point and who left office in infamy.
Here is a response that I penned to a recent article attempting once again to make this feeble and muddle defense of President Bush:
People remember Truman fondly--some anyway--because he bombed Japan and and is associated with winning WWII. He certainly is not highly regarded by most legal scholars, although some on the Right may esteem the way that he attempted to increase presidential powers, for which he was widely derided during his tenure, just as Bush has been.
Unless something really good happens really fast for this Bush, I think that it is a far stretch to compare him to Harry Truman, because there is not going to be that sort of wonderful association that we have with Truman as the President when WWII finally ended.
William Loeffler
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/05/presidential_pariah.html
Thursday, May 1, 2008
DC Madam Commits Suicide
Press reports are indicating that Deborah Jeane Pelfrey, known as the "DC Madam" has committed suicide. This is a sad event, as this "perpetrator" of a victimless crime, has apparently taken her life due to her conviction by an overzealous administration. The prosecuting attorney was Assistant U.S. Attorney Catherine Connelly. http://blog.washingtonpost.com/dc/2008/05/dc_madam_believed_a_suicide_in.html?hpid=topnews
Wednesday, April 9, 2008
Happy 131st Birthday/AR XA
With all the March Madness hype, I neglected to honor the 131st anniversary of a device that may have done more to bring pleasure and the arts into homes across the world than any other. Yes, phonographs or record players or turntables, if you will, have been now spinning the entire world over since a transcription proto-type called a phonautograph was patented on March 25, 1857 by Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville, a Parisian inventor.
Thomas Edison later added the ability to play back, as well as merely transcribing in the 1880s but Edison used cylinders instead of disks for play back. Emile Berliner then patented the still famous Gramophone in 1887.
While certainly records and players have improved over the interim, the basic technology has not changed, and is arguably the musical playback system with the best overall fidelity still in general use, given the demise of the reel to reel tape format that was formerly embraced by music aficionados, but seldom used or produced anymore. Even measuring from the invention of the Gramophone, this amounts to a run of over 120 years, perhaps only paralleled by its analog cousin, film, which has had a similar run and still is the preferred medium in Hollywood.
In honor of this amazing medium, I thought I would pay a special homage to what I consider to be essentially the zenith of the phonograph industry, which is the turntable made by Acoustic Research(AR), and which was called most famously the AR XA turntable, followed by its slightly better, but less attractive sibling known as the AR XB.
While these two turntables might have been slightly exceeded by future successors and copy cats, none would ever have the same influence that the AR Turntable had, given its prominence during the golden era of the LP record which started in the late 50's and ended around 1983, when it lost its position of prominence to cassettes and then CDs among the masses, if never among music aficionados, most of whom continue to swear by their collections of vinyl.
AR was perhaps the company most responsible for bringing high fidelity to the masses, by coming up with an entire new way of designing speakers so that they could be both small enough to fit into the average home and still be affordable. The Boston-based company would go on to dominate speaker sales during the 1960's and due to partner spin-offs, led to the formation of other well-known audio firms, most notably, KLH and Advent by Henry Kloss, both of which would be almost as influential in audio as was AR. Kloss would end up his career by designing and selling the Tivoli Model One retro table radios that you see everywhere that are a throwback to two of his earlier famous table radios at Advent and KLH.
Edgar Villchur was the founder of AR. An art major in college, Villchur began dabbling in engineering and electronics and started a hi-fi and radio shop, while teaching a NYU course on Reproduction of Sound. Henry Kloss was one of his students, and together they cracked the nut of a speaker design that could overcome the size and distortion problems prevalent in speakers during that era. Their creation, the AR-1, which became known as the first acoustic-suspension loudspeaker system was based upon relatively simple principles of physics that had just been basically overlooked by other designers. When they couldn't find any takers for their design, they started AR in the mid-1950s. Within ten years, AR would control one third of the speaker market. For interviews with two of the founders, see: http://stereophile.com/interviews/105villchur/index.html
Villchur then sought to do for the turntable market what he had done in speakers. He set out to design a low-cost machine that would exceed the RIAA(recording industry) specifications in every aspect. His creation, the AR XA was completed and ready for sale by 1961. Villchur had created a classic for the ages, a turntable with a simple elegance and minimalist design, which sold for $58 not including cartridge. The AR XA, with its reserved styling and wood base would go on to win design awards and seems to perfectly embody the time in which it was created. Here is a picture from a hobbyist site: http://www.vinylnirvana.com/ar_models_xa.shtml
The turntable was an immediate sensation and sold far more units than anticipated. It truly offered something to everyone. It was inexpensive. It was elegant. It was excellent in performance and it was a tweaker's paradise, and enthusiasts began swapping out the tone arms and trying different configurations to "improve" it.
You may have had a friend who had one, and, well, his dad liked the AR XA because it was cheap. Your friend liked it, because even though it was inexpensive, he knew that his friends were not going to disrespect it; it had great currency in the Hi-Fi community, unlike say one bought from Sears or JC Penny or even Radio Shack. Together with Advent and Dynaco, AR was a brand for people who knew the value of a dollar at the margin and knew what was "good enough."
Now, 35 to 50 years later, many of these units are still functioning perfectly happily, and those that have been placed up in someone's attic, generally only need a new belt or stylus to continue to emit their sonorous cadences. How can this be? Well, Villchur designed the AR XA so that there really was not much that could go wrong with it. Unlike so many of the mid-fi as well as some hi-fi turntables, the AR XA did not change records; it did not start itself and it could not stop itself. Having none of these likely-to-break features, the internally-grounded AR XA basically served only to spin records, and was only dependent on its reliable motor and regular belt changes, and maybe a little sewing machine oil now and again for its joints.
The AR XA didn't even have anti-skating controls, or cueing, for goodness sake. You actually had to have a steady hand ready to put the needle down and then to pick it up at the end of a record.(If somehow a person dropped the tone arm, AR had developed something called arm dampening to keep the needle from hitting the record at a high velocity.)
But this minimalist approach added to the machine's elegance and reliability, together with the XA's brilliant approach to platter and tone arm placement.
On the AR turntables, both the tone arm and heavy metal platter move together, vertically and horizontally, on a suspension of springs. This produced a playing stability almost unheard of back in the 1960s and 1970s, where you had to be careful not to dance too heavily upon the floor, lest one make the needle jump. Indeed, the XA could even be placed upon a large speaker that it was feeding, which would usually produce undue acoustic feedback with other turntables. The U.S. based company which was AR has now been gone for 25 or 30 years, but among many of the elite companies still producing turntables, such as Linn Sondek and Sota, the AR approach continues to form the basis for their turntable design, albeit often at a cost of ten to 50 times the cost of a used AR XA or AR XB.
Also remarkable is the fact that current turntable design seems to have almost entirely embraced AR's model for turntable design in terms of simplicity. It is now difficult, if not impossible to find a high-end turntable that changes records or that even has auto-stop. Some argue that such devices impact upon the ultimate sound quality, which seems questionable to me, but nevertheless, the AR model of simplicity, be it due to cost-cutting or its actual effect on the sound, has won out in the market place.
While the XA didn't have much in the way of criticism, some users didn't like the dampened tone arm and its lack of cueing. During the early to mid-1970's, AR addressed some of these concerns and came out with a successor model called the AR XB.(There were also some AR-branded successor turntables up to the mid-1980's that were approximately of the same or even better, quality, but that were not successful in terms of sales, and, generally when people refer to an AR turntable, they mean either the XA or XB and not the post-1976 versions).
The XB removed the arm dampening, which was really the only major critique that users had about the XA. Apparently, under certain circumstances, the dampening mechanism could cause the tone arm to lose some of its responsiveness, i.e., to become "sticky."
To incorporate these changes, AR moved the on-off switch to the right side of the turntable, placing it in front of the newly-added cueing control. AR also made a few other cosmetic changes, among them, removing the AR logo from the front, where it was liable to be knocked off during shipping. The headshell color was changed from beige to black; the tone arm weight was changed from gold to silver in color, the tone arm shape was almost imperceptibly altered and perhaps, the biggest and most disappointing change was the deletion of the option to buy the AR turntable with a wood base or veneer. You could have the XB with any kind of base that you wanted, as long as you wanted a faux vinyl wood veneer. While the XB was still okay looking, the changes had made it look a bit cluttered compared to the XA and the vinyl just didn't have the elegant sheen of the wood base.
Perhaps, it wasn't surprising. These were the 1970's where people thought that Tang, Astro-turf and Similac baby formula were all superior to the real thing. Advent made the same decision with its sensational Smaller Advent speaker: vinyl only. Thus, unfortunately people were left with the difficult decision as to whether to purchase the functionally superior XB, with its cueing and improved tone arm, or the much nicer looking XA without the improvements.
Hackers soon found a way to completely disable the dampening function on the XA, but it still wouldn't have cueing and you just know that at some time you are going to drop that tone arm with disastrous results on your mint copy of Help! Some thought about swapping out the bases, but even though most parts are compatible between the XA and XB, the bases are not, so this was no simple solution.
Thus, when I made my own individual purchase on Ebay, I was somewhat indifferent to which one I got. A local seller had an XB that I picked up for around $75, which is between a fifth and a tenth of what a comparable new table would sell for. I bought a couple of new belts for it on Ebay for about $12 and put a Shure M97x cartridge (another great audio company that dates way back) on it--generally considered to be one of the better cartridges for under $150 dollars--and I was in business.
It was a pleasant surprise when I found that virtually all of my albums from college that had been up in the attic played perfectly. Why did we think that CDs sounded better, anyway? Oh yeah, no noise between tracks, but with respect to what is in between tracks, down in the grooves, vinyl still reigns supreme and so--Happy 131st to the phonograph!--and may there continue to be just as many happy returns.
Thomas Edison later added the ability to play back, as well as merely transcribing in the 1880s but Edison used cylinders instead of disks for play back. Emile Berliner then patented the still famous Gramophone in 1887.
While certainly records and players have improved over the interim, the basic technology has not changed, and is arguably the musical playback system with the best overall fidelity still in general use, given the demise of the reel to reel tape format that was formerly embraced by music aficionados, but seldom used or produced anymore. Even measuring from the invention of the Gramophone, this amounts to a run of over 120 years, perhaps only paralleled by its analog cousin, film, which has had a similar run and still is the preferred medium in Hollywood.
In honor of this amazing medium, I thought I would pay a special homage to what I consider to be essentially the zenith of the phonograph industry, which is the turntable made by Acoustic Research(AR), and which was called most famously the AR XA turntable, followed by its slightly better, but less attractive sibling known as the AR XB.
While these two turntables might have been slightly exceeded by future successors and copy cats, none would ever have the same influence that the AR Turntable had, given its prominence during the golden era of the LP record which started in the late 50's and ended around 1983, when it lost its position of prominence to cassettes and then CDs among the masses, if never among music aficionados, most of whom continue to swear by their collections of vinyl.
AR was perhaps the company most responsible for bringing high fidelity to the masses, by coming up with an entire new way of designing speakers so that they could be both small enough to fit into the average home and still be affordable. The Boston-based company would go on to dominate speaker sales during the 1960's and due to partner spin-offs, led to the formation of other well-known audio firms, most notably, KLH and Advent by Henry Kloss, both of which would be almost as influential in audio as was AR. Kloss would end up his career by designing and selling the Tivoli Model One retro table radios that you see everywhere that are a throwback to two of his earlier famous table radios at Advent and KLH.
Edgar Villchur was the founder of AR. An art major in college, Villchur began dabbling in engineering and electronics and started a hi-fi and radio shop, while teaching a NYU course on Reproduction of Sound. Henry Kloss was one of his students, and together they cracked the nut of a speaker design that could overcome the size and distortion problems prevalent in speakers during that era. Their creation, the AR-1, which became known as the first acoustic-suspension loudspeaker system was based upon relatively simple principles of physics that had just been basically overlooked by other designers. When they couldn't find any takers for their design, they started AR in the mid-1950s. Within ten years, AR would control one third of the speaker market. For interviews with two of the founders, see: http://stereophile.com/interviews/105villchur/index.html
Villchur then sought to do for the turntable market what he had done in speakers. He set out to design a low-cost machine that would exceed the RIAA(recording industry) specifications in every aspect. His creation, the AR XA was completed and ready for sale by 1961. Villchur had created a classic for the ages, a turntable with a simple elegance and minimalist design, which sold for $58 not including cartridge. The AR XA, with its reserved styling and wood base would go on to win design awards and seems to perfectly embody the time in which it was created. Here is a picture from a hobbyist site: http://www.vinylnirvana.com/ar_models_xa.shtml
The turntable was an immediate sensation and sold far more units than anticipated. It truly offered something to everyone. It was inexpensive. It was elegant. It was excellent in performance and it was a tweaker's paradise, and enthusiasts began swapping out the tone arms and trying different configurations to "improve" it.
You may have had a friend who had one, and, well, his dad liked the AR XA because it was cheap. Your friend liked it, because even though it was inexpensive, he knew that his friends were not going to disrespect it; it had great currency in the Hi-Fi community, unlike say one bought from Sears or JC Penny or even Radio Shack. Together with Advent and Dynaco, AR was a brand for people who knew the value of a dollar at the margin and knew what was "good enough."
Now, 35 to 50 years later, many of these units are still functioning perfectly happily, and those that have been placed up in someone's attic, generally only need a new belt or stylus to continue to emit their sonorous cadences. How can this be? Well, Villchur designed the AR XA so that there really was not much that could go wrong with it. Unlike so many of the mid-fi as well as some hi-fi turntables, the AR XA did not change records; it did not start itself and it could not stop itself. Having none of these likely-to-break features, the internally-grounded AR XA basically served only to spin records, and was only dependent on its reliable motor and regular belt changes, and maybe a little sewing machine oil now and again for its joints.
The AR XA didn't even have anti-skating controls, or cueing, for goodness sake. You actually had to have a steady hand ready to put the needle down and then to pick it up at the end of a record.(If somehow a person dropped the tone arm, AR had developed something called arm dampening to keep the needle from hitting the record at a high velocity.)
But this minimalist approach added to the machine's elegance and reliability, together with the XA's brilliant approach to platter and tone arm placement.
On the AR turntables, both the tone arm and heavy metal platter move together, vertically and horizontally, on a suspension of springs. This produced a playing stability almost unheard of back in the 1960s and 1970s, where you had to be careful not to dance too heavily upon the floor, lest one make the needle jump. Indeed, the XA could even be placed upon a large speaker that it was feeding, which would usually produce undue acoustic feedback with other turntables. The U.S. based company which was AR has now been gone for 25 or 30 years, but among many of the elite companies still producing turntables, such as Linn Sondek and Sota, the AR approach continues to form the basis for their turntable design, albeit often at a cost of ten to 50 times the cost of a used AR XA or AR XB.
Also remarkable is the fact that current turntable design seems to have almost entirely embraced AR's model for turntable design in terms of simplicity. It is now difficult, if not impossible to find a high-end turntable that changes records or that even has auto-stop. Some argue that such devices impact upon the ultimate sound quality, which seems questionable to me, but nevertheless, the AR model of simplicity, be it due to cost-cutting or its actual effect on the sound, has won out in the market place.
While the XA didn't have much in the way of criticism, some users didn't like the dampened tone arm and its lack of cueing. During the early to mid-1970's, AR addressed some of these concerns and came out with a successor model called the AR XB.(There were also some AR-branded successor turntables up to the mid-1980's that were approximately of the same or even better, quality, but that were not successful in terms of sales, and, generally when people refer to an AR turntable, they mean either the XA or XB and not the post-1976 versions).
The XB removed the arm dampening, which was really the only major critique that users had about the XA. Apparently, under certain circumstances, the dampening mechanism could cause the tone arm to lose some of its responsiveness, i.e., to become "sticky."
To incorporate these changes, AR moved the on-off switch to the right side of the turntable, placing it in front of the newly-added cueing control. AR also made a few other cosmetic changes, among them, removing the AR logo from the front, where it was liable to be knocked off during shipping. The headshell color was changed from beige to black; the tone arm weight was changed from gold to silver in color, the tone arm shape was almost imperceptibly altered and perhaps, the biggest and most disappointing change was the deletion of the option to buy the AR turntable with a wood base or veneer. You could have the XB with any kind of base that you wanted, as long as you wanted a faux vinyl wood veneer. While the XB was still okay looking, the changes had made it look a bit cluttered compared to the XA and the vinyl just didn't have the elegant sheen of the wood base.
Perhaps, it wasn't surprising. These were the 1970's where people thought that Tang, Astro-turf and Similac baby formula were all superior to the real thing. Advent made the same decision with its sensational Smaller Advent speaker: vinyl only. Thus, unfortunately people were left with the difficult decision as to whether to purchase the functionally superior XB, with its cueing and improved tone arm, or the much nicer looking XA without the improvements.
Hackers soon found a way to completely disable the dampening function on the XA, but it still wouldn't have cueing and you just know that at some time you are going to drop that tone arm with disastrous results on your mint copy of Help! Some thought about swapping out the bases, but even though most parts are compatible between the XA and XB, the bases are not, so this was no simple solution.
Thus, when I made my own individual purchase on Ebay, I was somewhat indifferent to which one I got. A local seller had an XB that I picked up for around $75, which is between a fifth and a tenth of what a comparable new table would sell for. I bought a couple of new belts for it on Ebay for about $12 and put a Shure M97x cartridge (another great audio company that dates way back) on it--generally considered to be one of the better cartridges for under $150 dollars--and I was in business.
It was a pleasant surprise when I found that virtually all of my albums from college that had been up in the attic played perfectly. Why did we think that CDs sounded better, anyway? Oh yeah, no noise between tracks, but with respect to what is in between tracks, down in the grooves, vinyl still reigns supreme and so--Happy 131st to the phonograph!--and may there continue to be just as many happy returns.
Saturday, April 5, 2008
UNC Season Survey and Final Four Prospects
It is Final Four Saturday, I am just looking at the numbers and thought that I would point out a few things about the 2008 Tar Heels that might be of interest to UNC fans.
Ty Lawson's numbers on offense are going through the roof. He has almost tied Tyler Hansbrough as Carolina's most efficient offensive player. Hansbrough is rated 20th and Lawson 31st, although Tyler does use more possessions, which makes him more valuable at the margin.
Lawson also improved his foul shooting from 69 percent to 83% which is a huge facet of the game for a point guard. I think the numbers show that Lawson has surpassed former Tar Heel Ray Felton on the offensive end, with the exception of minutes played and three point shots, where the current Bobcat point guard still holds a big edge.
In this decade, Felton seems to have had by far the best 3-point shooting season, in 2005, hitting 44%. Wes Miller hit that one year, but shot slightly fewer and they tended to be easier shots.
Marcus Ginyard is puzzling. His overall offensive numbers are down this year. His free throw shooting has fallen from 79% last year to under 65% this year. His rebounding numbers are down also. His effective field goal percentage is down, in spite of his improvement from the 3-point line. Carolina fans would love to see the old Marcus back this weekend.
Pomeroy said this weekend that he was wrong about Carolina needing Brandan Wright. I guess he means needing Wright if they were to win it all, if I remember his earlier comment, but there is no doubt that Wright was a monster player last year. If you look at his numbers 2007, it was like having 2 Hansbroughs down low. Wright had almost identical offensive rating numbers, a better field goal percentage than Tyler Hansbrough, plus he blocked shots. Even his free throw shooting was improving at the end of the year.
I think that the Tar Heels might have gone undefeated if he had stayed in school.
Wayne Ellington and Danny Green both made significant improvements in their offense. With slightly more shots, Wayne's 3-point percentage went from .371 to .414, making him almost identical to sharp-shooter Rashad McCants in 2005 in numbers and percentage, who is currently starring for the Timberwolves. This is very nice improvement.
Danny Green improved even more from 3-point land, going from .296 to .376, while taking 60 more such shots. Danny Green really made himself into a star this year.
Deon Thompson essentially stayed at about the same efficiency on offense, although he is using more possessions, which implies tougher shots at the margin. His free throw percentage dropped from 65% to 59%, although he shot almost twice as many. Lately, Thompson has been doing better on the offensive end, but it is his defense and rebounding that make his so valuable. He is Carolina's top shotblocker and his offensive rebounding has been very good.
Deon Thompson and Alex Stepheson are almost twins out there. Alex is slightly taller. Neither is great offensively at this point but they both still seem to have much more unshown potential. They are about equal at shotblocking and free throw percentage (not so good). Alex is more of a demon on the boards, with per minute numbers that are actually better than Hansbrough's.
Who would you guess is the most offensively improved player on the UNC squad? Yes, it is Q!. Way to go, Quentin Thomas. Q made it to an offensive rating of 1, up from a miserable .83 last year. He doesn't shoot much, but when he does, he makes over 58% of them and over 78% from the line.
Along with Q, my vote for most pleasant surprise this year for Carolina goes to redshirt freshman, Will Graves. He is tall for a wing man and can provide instant offense, with an offensive rating that is fourth on the team, given his minutes. He is hitting over 45% of his three's and has taken more than Ginyard and about half as many as Lawson. Of course, Carolina doesn't shoot all that many three-point shots, which looks good for next year, when they move the line back. Graves has only taken 12 free throws and only made seven. Maybe he should step back and take them from the 3 point line.
So, we can really see how UNC took a step forward this year. They lost a great player in Brandan Wright and several excellent defenders and role players in Wes Miller, Reyshawn Terry and Bobby Frasor, none of whom was particularly good offensively last year, but the loss of Wright and Terry probably accounts for last year's team being better on the defensive end.
But Tyler, Ty, Wayne, Danny, and Q all made real improvements in their performances, with Deon and Alex making lesser improvements. Marcus certainly has the talent to be performing at a higher level and I wonder if injuries have hampered him all year.
With the exception of assists and blocks, where he went down slightly, Hansbrough improved his game significantly in almost every category. Over 3 years, his free throw percentage has improved from 74% to 77% to 81%, a subtle and steady improvement that makes a huge difference when you shoot them as much as he does. His minutes have gone up significantly this year without Wright. He is playing even more minutes than Felton did on the title team, which shows just how important he is. Like Felton in 2005, Hansbrough is someone they don't really have a replacement for this year.
Here are the keys the way I see them. This team is steady. With the exception of the first Duke game, and the VPI game in the tournament, UNC has been above a 100 offensive rating every game since December 1. There are really only three guys who seem to vary much in performance, and they are Ginyard, Thompson and Stepheson and I see them as key in terms of "guaranteeing" a title. All four of the teams remaining are excellent and all four can defeat each other when they play their game.
However, Carolina fans have seen a handful of games the past couple of years that appeared to be tough going in, like playing at Arizona last year without two starters, or the game against the athletic Razorbacks in this year's tournament, but that turned into laughers when Thompson and Stepheson had big offensive games. If Thompson is hitting his bank shots and ten footers, there simply are too many guys to defend, especially when you are talking about a team that is already the top offensive squad in the country. If Thompson and Stepheson don't step up, it could be a real grind for Carolina, as all of these teams are excellent defensively and have significant post presences.
I think it is still a real question whether this year's team is better than last year's team. There is no question that that team was more talented and better offensively, while this team is more seasoned and better offensively. The 2007 Heels lost virtually every close game they had all season. Pomeroy still has the 2007 Heels rated higher, although I am not sure if you can compare across seasons.
I think the big difference is that this 2008 team is far better from three point territory and from the free throw line and that makes it much more difficult for teams to pack it in down low.
In terms of playing against good defenses, here is a list of top defending teams that have bitten the dust against Carolina in the last month: Louisville, ranked fourth nationally; Washington State, ranked 7th defensively; Duke, ranked 9th defensively, Clemson, ranked 12th defensively, and VPI, ranked 8th defensively, and the games have actually gotten less close against Louisville and WSU, who were supposed to be superior to the ACC opposition.
UNC and Memphis have played by far the superior teams in the first four rounds of the tournament. I won't count the first round since all those games are easy, but since then UNC has beaten a 37, a 10 and a 6 in Pomeroy's rankings, while Memphis has beaten a 33, a 15, and a 9. Kansas and UCLA both faced mediocre competition in their brackets.
Pomeroy has Kansas and UCLA in the Finals. Like all games in the NCAA tourney, it is one and done, and maybe Tyler trips and falls on the way into the arena or maybe Kansas pulls a Tyrese Rice and hits ten 3's in the first half, or maybe they channel all of that anti-Roy fury into an amazing win, but under most scenario's, I think UNC is just a little too good for this opponent and look for them in the final against Memphis, which is what Vegas is predicting as well.
Ty Lawson's numbers on offense are going through the roof. He has almost tied Tyler Hansbrough as Carolina's most efficient offensive player. Hansbrough is rated 20th and Lawson 31st, although Tyler does use more possessions, which makes him more valuable at the margin.
Lawson also improved his foul shooting from 69 percent to 83% which is a huge facet of the game for a point guard. I think the numbers show that Lawson has surpassed former Tar Heel Ray Felton on the offensive end, with the exception of minutes played and three point shots, where the current Bobcat point guard still holds a big edge.
In this decade, Felton seems to have had by far the best 3-point shooting season, in 2005, hitting 44%. Wes Miller hit that one year, but shot slightly fewer and they tended to be easier shots.
Marcus Ginyard is puzzling. His overall offensive numbers are down this year. His free throw shooting has fallen from 79% last year to under 65% this year. His rebounding numbers are down also. His effective field goal percentage is down, in spite of his improvement from the 3-point line. Carolina fans would love to see the old Marcus back this weekend.
Pomeroy said this weekend that he was wrong about Carolina needing Brandan Wright. I guess he means needing Wright if they were to win it all, if I remember his earlier comment, but there is no doubt that Wright was a monster player last year. If you look at his numbers 2007, it was like having 2 Hansbroughs down low. Wright had almost identical offensive rating numbers, a better field goal percentage than Tyler Hansbrough, plus he blocked shots. Even his free throw shooting was improving at the end of the year.
I think that the Tar Heels might have gone undefeated if he had stayed in school.
Wayne Ellington and Danny Green both made significant improvements in their offense. With slightly more shots, Wayne's 3-point percentage went from .371 to .414, making him almost identical to sharp-shooter Rashad McCants in 2005 in numbers and percentage, who is currently starring for the Timberwolves. This is very nice improvement.
Danny Green improved even more from 3-point land, going from .296 to .376, while taking 60 more such shots. Danny Green really made himself into a star this year.
Deon Thompson essentially stayed at about the same efficiency on offense, although he is using more possessions, which implies tougher shots at the margin. His free throw percentage dropped from 65% to 59%, although he shot almost twice as many. Lately, Thompson has been doing better on the offensive end, but it is his defense and rebounding that make his so valuable. He is Carolina's top shotblocker and his offensive rebounding has been very good.
Deon Thompson and Alex Stepheson are almost twins out there. Alex is slightly taller. Neither is great offensively at this point but they both still seem to have much more unshown potential. They are about equal at shotblocking and free throw percentage (not so good). Alex is more of a demon on the boards, with per minute numbers that are actually better than Hansbrough's.
Who would you guess is the most offensively improved player on the UNC squad? Yes, it is Q!. Way to go, Quentin Thomas. Q made it to an offensive rating of 1, up from a miserable .83 last year. He doesn't shoot much, but when he does, he makes over 58% of them and over 78% from the line.
Along with Q, my vote for most pleasant surprise this year for Carolina goes to redshirt freshman, Will Graves. He is tall for a wing man and can provide instant offense, with an offensive rating that is fourth on the team, given his minutes. He is hitting over 45% of his three's and has taken more than Ginyard and about half as many as Lawson. Of course, Carolina doesn't shoot all that many three-point shots, which looks good for next year, when they move the line back. Graves has only taken 12 free throws and only made seven. Maybe he should step back and take them from the 3 point line.
So, we can really see how UNC took a step forward this year. They lost a great player in Brandan Wright and several excellent defenders and role players in Wes Miller, Reyshawn Terry and Bobby Frasor, none of whom was particularly good offensively last year, but the loss of Wright and Terry probably accounts for last year's team being better on the defensive end.
But Tyler, Ty, Wayne, Danny, and Q all made real improvements in their performances, with Deon and Alex making lesser improvements. Marcus certainly has the talent to be performing at a higher level and I wonder if injuries have hampered him all year.
With the exception of assists and blocks, where he went down slightly, Hansbrough improved his game significantly in almost every category. Over 3 years, his free throw percentage has improved from 74% to 77% to 81%, a subtle and steady improvement that makes a huge difference when you shoot them as much as he does. His minutes have gone up significantly this year without Wright. He is playing even more minutes than Felton did on the title team, which shows just how important he is. Like Felton in 2005, Hansbrough is someone they don't really have a replacement for this year.
Here are the keys the way I see them. This team is steady. With the exception of the first Duke game, and the VPI game in the tournament, UNC has been above a 100 offensive rating every game since December 1. There are really only three guys who seem to vary much in performance, and they are Ginyard, Thompson and Stepheson and I see them as key in terms of "guaranteeing" a title. All four of the teams remaining are excellent and all four can defeat each other when they play their game.
However, Carolina fans have seen a handful of games the past couple of years that appeared to be tough going in, like playing at Arizona last year without two starters, or the game against the athletic Razorbacks in this year's tournament, but that turned into laughers when Thompson and Stepheson had big offensive games. If Thompson is hitting his bank shots and ten footers, there simply are too many guys to defend, especially when you are talking about a team that is already the top offensive squad in the country. If Thompson and Stepheson don't step up, it could be a real grind for Carolina, as all of these teams are excellent defensively and have significant post presences.
I think it is still a real question whether this year's team is better than last year's team. There is no question that that team was more talented and better offensively, while this team is more seasoned and better offensively. The 2007 Heels lost virtually every close game they had all season. Pomeroy still has the 2007 Heels rated higher, although I am not sure if you can compare across seasons.
I think the big difference is that this 2008 team is far better from three point territory and from the free throw line and that makes it much more difficult for teams to pack it in down low.
In terms of playing against good defenses, here is a list of top defending teams that have bitten the dust against Carolina in the last month: Louisville, ranked fourth nationally; Washington State, ranked 7th defensively; Duke, ranked 9th defensively, Clemson, ranked 12th defensively, and VPI, ranked 8th defensively, and the games have actually gotten less close against Louisville and WSU, who were supposed to be superior to the ACC opposition.
UNC and Memphis have played by far the superior teams in the first four rounds of the tournament. I won't count the first round since all those games are easy, but since then UNC has beaten a 37, a 10 and a 6 in Pomeroy's rankings, while Memphis has beaten a 33, a 15, and a 9. Kansas and UCLA both faced mediocre competition in their brackets.
Pomeroy has Kansas and UCLA in the Finals. Like all games in the NCAA tourney, it is one and done, and maybe Tyler trips and falls on the way into the arena or maybe Kansas pulls a Tyrese Rice and hits ten 3's in the first half, or maybe they channel all of that anti-Roy fury into an amazing win, but under most scenario's, I think UNC is just a little too good for this opponent and look for them in the final against Memphis, which is what Vegas is predicting as well.
Tuesday, April 1, 2008
Kansas and Roy Williams
Journalists love stories that can easily be pegged to headlines in a way that is not complicated. In the week-end NCAA Regionals, most were hoping to see Davidson end up playing in-state rival, UNC, so that they could write Davidson versus Goliath stories all week. Davidson fell just short, so the journalists are making due with their next best story, which is the match-up between Roy Williams and the team that he led for well over a decade, the Kansas Jawhawks in the National Semi-final.
So, why should I be any different?
The two schools, North Carolina and Kansas have a fairly long history of trading favorite sons as coaches back and forth. Originally, UNC's Frank McGuire, fresh off an undefeated championship in which his team defeated Kansas, 54-53 in triple overtime, hired Kansas grad Dean Smith to be his top assistant back in the late 1950s. Kansas would later attempt to lure Smith back home, but would settle for one of his former assistants and players, Larry Brown, who took Kansas to its only championship since Smith had been a player at Kansas.
The peripatetic Brown decided to quit at the top, and Kansas then hired Roy Williams, another Smith assistant and J.V. player, who had been expected to take the top job at George Mason(that certainly might have changed history). Smith, himself, during this period, requested that his former Kansas coach, Dick Harp take a position as UNC assistant coach. After Williams returned to Carolina, his coaching staff was made up of, you guessed it, primarily Kansas grads.
The two universities rarely play, due to the lack of inclination by Smith and Williams to face their alma maters, but have played 3 times in the Final Four previously, with UNC getting the better of it and defeating Kansas twice on the way to national titles in 1957 and 1993. Williams and Kansas defeated Smith and UNC in 1991 but then lost to Duke in that year's title game, something that was hard for both Kansas, as well as Carolina fans to swallow.
Roy Williams took Kansas to the greatest sustained period of excellence in its last 50 years, but could not quite win the championship. After spurning one attempt by UNC to hire him in the wake of Dean Smith's retirement, Williams then finally decided to return home to North Carolina.
To put it mildly, many of his former idolizing fans in Kansas were not happy with this development. I don't want to paint all Kansas fans with this brush. Some continue to be both Kansas fans first, and Roy Williams fans, second; and they are almost certainly the happiest and most psychologically well-adjusted among those interested in the outcome next week-end. http://pod01.prospero.com/n/pfx/forum.aspx?msg=23947.15&nav=messages&webtag=kr-kansastm
http://www.kansascity.com/159/story/554954.html
I am assuming that anyone reading this has a bit of background already, but even though coaches change jobs and universities all the time, for those disaffected Kansas fans, this was of a different order. Williams is known for wearing his emotions on his sleeve and this unusual vulnerability, together with the incredible triumphs and a few devastating defeats, had apparently resulted in a bond between coach, team and fans, almost unparalleled in college sports history.
While fans generally harbor some resentment when a coach leaves, I personally, have never seen bitterness to this extent. Some have mentioned Rick Pitino who left Kentucky and then took the job with Kentucky's chief rival as a parallel, but that is a bit different. Pitino seemed to be looking to deliberately antagonize his former school, as might have been the case with Frank McGuire taking the South Carolina job after leaving North Carolina.
Roy Williams, on the other hand, refused to schedule his former school and continues to profess his devoted affection to Kansas and its fans. To little effect--at least with respect to many of them. Virtually every Kansas newspaper that prints a story about UNC playing in the NCAA tournament every year since he left, carries the requisite quote from some unhinged Kansan with words to the effect of, "well I sure hope Kansas can win, but if not, at least, please God don't let North Carolina win."
Kansas basketball site and newspaper forums bristle with the interaction among those who still admire Williams and those who simply cannot get over his leaving. Try as I might to avoid them I am mesmerized by the depth of feeling on all sides.
See generally, comments at the bottom:, http://www2.ljworld.com/news/2008/apr/01/new_chapter ("Get some therapy!")
and another about Kansans for Roy, well, sort of:
http://www2.ljworld.com/news/2008/apr/01/taking_two_sides/
The psychological issues present here are fascinating. Mack Brown, UNC's former football coach, and Bill Self, Kansas's current basketball coach, left programs that they never made any great pretense of loving, and although not particularly popular in the places they left , UNC and Illinois fans don't seem to have anywhere close to the animus that Kansas fans have.
My own feeling as a UNC grad is that Texas's Mack Brown is basically someone over whom it is not worth wasting much in the way of emotional resources, not to mention probably the most likely current coach to join the guy from Miami as a national title-winner on the unemployment lines since he can't seem to beat Oklahoma consistently, but I digress.
And of course, one thing, if the only thing, that North Carolinians and Kansans can agree about, even in those few and far between seasons of football success--Kansas just had one--is that there are exceedingly few football coaches worth crying over.
Roy Williams, on the other hand, had essentially told the Kansas fans that "I will always love you and never leave you," and then did. I guess part of the moral of the story is never to make promises you cannot keep.
I think the other thing that is apparent, is that Roy Williams is worth crying over.
Unlike Mack Brown, Roy Williams is a truly remarkable coach and human being and not being wanted by him hurts and perhaps implies that Kansas wasn't good enough to keep such a stellar person, not to mention having him leave for the "younger, more attractive trophy wife. "
Kansas and Roy had enjoyed the years of unparalleled success and suffered the agony of coming so close so many times, and Kansans had grown affectionate of Williams' not inconsiderable idiosyncricities. Kansas wanted to win a title with Roy Williams, not some other guy, and Kansas definitely did not want to see Roy's new bride carry away the ultimate spoils of his success as he moved into the peak of his coaching prowess with one national title winner in his name, finally, at UNC, and top five finishes in three of his first five years. It also didn't help that UNC seemed to be on television virtually every time Kansans turned on their sets. Kansas, on the other hand, was in another time zone and while certainly featured more than most basketball programs, many of its games were only regionally televised.
Bill Self, the new coach, who has pretty much equalled Williams' success at Kansas, has certainly had his own share of coming close and not quite getting over the hump, but it will never quite be the same with him and Kansas. He hasn't shown the same vulnerability as Williams, the kind of uncomfortable and yet, endearing vulnerability that most of us only share with our closest friends and relatives.
Roy Williams is basketball's version of Sally Field, shouting to the Academy, "you like me! You actually like me." Field has been laughed at and lampooned for years for basically losing control over her emotions in front of her professional peers upon receipt of her Oscar. And yet, I would submit that she may very well be the most popular actress of her generation, precisely because once people get over their discomfort from having someone let down their guard in front of them, many of these people will form a psychological attachment due to the shared intimacy of such unguarded actions. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sally_Field#Film
Williams made no secret during his tenure at Kansas of his less than affluent upbringing and his generally absent, alcoholic father. Like many such children, he doesn't drink alcohol at all and some may see classic, pattern attributes in him as a child of an alcoholic. http://alcoholism.about.com/cs/adult/a/aa073097.htm
Unlike so many coaches who strive to be seen as generals, both on the floor and off, Williams, always the general on the floor, was known for crying in public after some of basketball's tough knocks. You've probably never seen Bobby Knight cry in public, but then again, Bobby Knight, owner of the most wins in history, has a winning percentage that is mediocre compared to Williams' career winning percentage. There is probably no fiercer competitor in basketball among coaches than Roy Williams.
He was also a known "mama's boy." Williams never denied the truth of the Coca-Cola story published in Sports Illustrated in 1997, and even later did an advertisement which kiddingly reflected upon his deep devotion to his mother who ironed shirts so that he could drink a Coca-Cola after school with his friends, spending the few extra dimes she earned doing so.
Just to make the point crystal clear, friends says that Williams is known for always having cases and cases of Coca-Cola in his home, lest he run out at an inopportune time.
That story might even have been enough to embarrass Sally Field, but for Williams and Kansans, it just bound them even closer together, as did the crushing defeat to Arizona, just a few weeks after the SI article.
Williams, who had been on the way to a season, even his mentor Dean Smith had never quite had, seemed destined for both a national title and a new record for wins, becoming the first team to win more than 40 in one year. Unfortunately, 37-1 Kansas ran into eventual National Champion and highly underrated Arizona, which went out to a double digit lead in the last minutes. Probably most teams would have been done at this point, but Kansas put together a remarkable comeback, erasing ten points off the deficit and possessed the ball with just seconds to go, in a position to tie.
It was not to be and in some ways, the valiant comeback just made it worse--just that much more of a tease and obsession for Williams and the Kansas fans who wanted that to be his year. What had gone wrong? What could Williams have possibly done differently to prevent the upset? Ultimately, Williams took refuge in the notion that there wasn't a single thing he would change.
The NCAA tournament's one and done format is a harsh mistress and a beguiling mistress, but most of all, she is a mysterious mistress, often favoring the less worthy and the weak as she spurns the Sampsons and Chamberlains who would seek to enjoy her whims, while extending her favor to the Lorenzo Charles's and Harold Jensen's of the world.
There would go on to be two more such disappointments as Kansas would lose in the Final Four in 2002 and then in the National Final in 2003, when his team uncharacteristically could not make any free throws, resulting in a bitter loss to Syracuse, after once again another great comeback that fell just short.
But maybe even more agonizing to the Kansas fans was the rumor that Roy had been in renewed discussions to take the UNC job. This was after previously turning down his alma-mater in 2000, in another of his almost patented public displays of insecurity during which he wavered back and forth between going and leaving and then ended up turning down UNC during a nationally-televised "I'm Staying!" pep rally that seemed to cement his fortunes in Kansas, while kicking dirt in the faces of his North Carolinian suitors and particularly angering his former colleague Bill Guthridge, Dean Smith's successor.
But people in North Carolina, apparently, are are quite forgiving, especially when it comes to basketball, and in 2003, on the eve of the Final Four, with the once hallowed UNC basketball program in almost total chaos, UNC came again bidding for Williams' services. Torn between two sick family members back in North Carolina and his love for his alma mater, and his "oath" to Kansas, Williams opted this time to take the job, leaving Kansas in the immediate wake of a defeat, perhaps almost as painful as the loss to Arizona back in 1997.
Kansas continued in its basketball tradition with almost no change after Williams' departure. Kansas has been in the top ten virtually every week since Williams left and has also suffered the same crushing losses that have been a state tradition going back to the loss by Wilt Chamberlain and the Jayhawks in triple-overtime to UNC in 1957.
Unique among the so-called five top programs in college basketball, which include UNC, Duke, Kentucky, UCLA and Kansas, only Kansas has not won multiple championships since the demise of the UCLA dynasty in 1974, winning only as an upset winner in 1988, when little was expected of them. Each time that Kansas has been touted as the best team in the nation, or at least, arguably the best, the Jayhawks have gone down in smoldering flames, since Dean Smith played 29 seconds for them when they won the title in 1952.
Now, Kansas is, arguably, the best team in the country this year, and Kansans have a shot at Williams in a competitive game for the first time since he left five years ago. With a win, Kansas might win a title for the first time in 20 years and perhaps finally put to rest the demons of its former beloved son's infidelity. But I don't think so. Sure, it would be fun for some to stick it to the wayward son and even more fun to finally garner another title.
But this thing goes too deep. For many, I believe that what these "haters" unknowingly hope for is that UNC will once again thwart their Jayhawks, allowing them to continue to brandish their anger against the Prodigal Son who this time is never destined to return, because they actually get more emotional return this way, and Williams is more than happy to accomodate them, because as much as he might have wanted them to "like me," there is only one thing that Roy Williams hungers for more than acceptance, and that is victory.
So, why should I be any different?
The two schools, North Carolina and Kansas have a fairly long history of trading favorite sons as coaches back and forth. Originally, UNC's Frank McGuire, fresh off an undefeated championship in which his team defeated Kansas, 54-53 in triple overtime, hired Kansas grad Dean Smith to be his top assistant back in the late 1950s. Kansas would later attempt to lure Smith back home, but would settle for one of his former assistants and players, Larry Brown, who took Kansas to its only championship since Smith had been a player at Kansas.
The peripatetic Brown decided to quit at the top, and Kansas then hired Roy Williams, another Smith assistant and J.V. player, who had been expected to take the top job at George Mason(that certainly might have changed history). Smith, himself, during this period, requested that his former Kansas coach, Dick Harp take a position as UNC assistant coach. After Williams returned to Carolina, his coaching staff was made up of, you guessed it, primarily Kansas grads.
The two universities rarely play, due to the lack of inclination by Smith and Williams to face their alma maters, but have played 3 times in the Final Four previously, with UNC getting the better of it and defeating Kansas twice on the way to national titles in 1957 and 1993. Williams and Kansas defeated Smith and UNC in 1991 but then lost to Duke in that year's title game, something that was hard for both Kansas, as well as Carolina fans to swallow.
Roy Williams took Kansas to the greatest sustained period of excellence in its last 50 years, but could not quite win the championship. After spurning one attempt by UNC to hire him in the wake of Dean Smith's retirement, Williams then finally decided to return home to North Carolina.
To put it mildly, many of his former idolizing fans in Kansas were not happy with this development. I don't want to paint all Kansas fans with this brush. Some continue to be both Kansas fans first, and Roy Williams fans, second; and they are almost certainly the happiest and most psychologically well-adjusted among those interested in the outcome next week-end. http://pod01.prospero.com/n/pfx/forum.aspx?msg=23947.15&nav=messages&webtag=kr-kansastm
http://www.kansascity.com/159/story/554954.html
I am assuming that anyone reading this has a bit of background already, but even though coaches change jobs and universities all the time, for those disaffected Kansas fans, this was of a different order. Williams is known for wearing his emotions on his sleeve and this unusual vulnerability, together with the incredible triumphs and a few devastating defeats, had apparently resulted in a bond between coach, team and fans, almost unparalleled in college sports history.
While fans generally harbor some resentment when a coach leaves, I personally, have never seen bitterness to this extent. Some have mentioned Rick Pitino who left Kentucky and then took the job with Kentucky's chief rival as a parallel, but that is a bit different. Pitino seemed to be looking to deliberately antagonize his former school, as might have been the case with Frank McGuire taking the South Carolina job after leaving North Carolina.
Roy Williams, on the other hand, refused to schedule his former school and continues to profess his devoted affection to Kansas and its fans. To little effect--at least with respect to many of them. Virtually every Kansas newspaper that prints a story about UNC playing in the NCAA tournament every year since he left, carries the requisite quote from some unhinged Kansan with words to the effect of, "well I sure hope Kansas can win, but if not, at least, please God don't let North Carolina win."
Kansas basketball site and newspaper forums bristle with the interaction among those who still admire Williams and those who simply cannot get over his leaving. Try as I might to avoid them I am mesmerized by the depth of feeling on all sides.
See generally, comments at the bottom:, http://www2.ljworld.com/news/2008/apr/01/new_chapter ("Get some therapy!")
and another about Kansans for Roy, well, sort of:
http://www2.ljworld.com/news/2008/apr/01/taking_two_sides/
The psychological issues present here are fascinating. Mack Brown, UNC's former football coach, and Bill Self, Kansas's current basketball coach, left programs that they never made any great pretense of loving, and although not particularly popular in the places they left , UNC and Illinois fans don't seem to have anywhere close to the animus that Kansas fans have.
My own feeling as a UNC grad is that Texas's Mack Brown is basically someone over whom it is not worth wasting much in the way of emotional resources, not to mention probably the most likely current coach to join the guy from Miami as a national title-winner on the unemployment lines since he can't seem to beat Oklahoma consistently, but I digress.
And of course, one thing, if the only thing, that North Carolinians and Kansans can agree about, even in those few and far between seasons of football success--Kansas just had one--is that there are exceedingly few football coaches worth crying over.
Roy Williams, on the other hand, had essentially told the Kansas fans that "I will always love you and never leave you," and then did. I guess part of the moral of the story is never to make promises you cannot keep.
I think the other thing that is apparent, is that Roy Williams is worth crying over.
Unlike Mack Brown, Roy Williams is a truly remarkable coach and human being and not being wanted by him hurts and perhaps implies that Kansas wasn't good enough to keep such a stellar person, not to mention having him leave for the "younger, more attractive trophy wife. "
Kansas and Roy had enjoyed the years of unparalleled success and suffered the agony of coming so close so many times, and Kansans had grown affectionate of Williams' not inconsiderable idiosyncricities. Kansas wanted to win a title with Roy Williams, not some other guy, and Kansas definitely did not want to see Roy's new bride carry away the ultimate spoils of his success as he moved into the peak of his coaching prowess with one national title winner in his name, finally, at UNC, and top five finishes in three of his first five years. It also didn't help that UNC seemed to be on television virtually every time Kansans turned on their sets. Kansas, on the other hand, was in another time zone and while certainly featured more than most basketball programs, many of its games were only regionally televised.
Bill Self, the new coach, who has pretty much equalled Williams' success at Kansas, has certainly had his own share of coming close and not quite getting over the hump, but it will never quite be the same with him and Kansas. He hasn't shown the same vulnerability as Williams, the kind of uncomfortable and yet, endearing vulnerability that most of us only share with our closest friends and relatives.
Roy Williams is basketball's version of Sally Field, shouting to the Academy, "you like me! You actually like me." Field has been laughed at and lampooned for years for basically losing control over her emotions in front of her professional peers upon receipt of her Oscar. And yet, I would submit that she may very well be the most popular actress of her generation, precisely because once people get over their discomfort from having someone let down their guard in front of them, many of these people will form a psychological attachment due to the shared intimacy of such unguarded actions. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sally_Field#Film
Williams made no secret during his tenure at Kansas of his less than affluent upbringing and his generally absent, alcoholic father. Like many such children, he doesn't drink alcohol at all and some may see classic, pattern attributes in him as a child of an alcoholic. http://alcoholism.about.com/cs/adult/a/aa073097.htm
Unlike so many coaches who strive to be seen as generals, both on the floor and off, Williams, always the general on the floor, was known for crying in public after some of basketball's tough knocks. You've probably never seen Bobby Knight cry in public, but then again, Bobby Knight, owner of the most wins in history, has a winning percentage that is mediocre compared to Williams' career winning percentage. There is probably no fiercer competitor in basketball among coaches than Roy Williams.
He was also a known "mama's boy." Williams never denied the truth of the Coca-Cola story published in Sports Illustrated in 1997, and even later did an advertisement which kiddingly reflected upon his deep devotion to his mother who ironed shirts so that he could drink a Coca-Cola after school with his friends, spending the few extra dimes she earned doing so.
Just to make the point crystal clear, friends says that Williams is known for always having cases and cases of Coca-Cola in his home, lest he run out at an inopportune time.
That story might even have been enough to embarrass Sally Field, but for Williams and Kansans, it just bound them even closer together, as did the crushing defeat to Arizona, just a few weeks after the SI article.
Williams, who had been on the way to a season, even his mentor Dean Smith had never quite had, seemed destined for both a national title and a new record for wins, becoming the first team to win more than 40 in one year. Unfortunately, 37-1 Kansas ran into eventual National Champion and highly underrated Arizona, which went out to a double digit lead in the last minutes. Probably most teams would have been done at this point, but Kansas put together a remarkable comeback, erasing ten points off the deficit and possessed the ball with just seconds to go, in a position to tie.
It was not to be and in some ways, the valiant comeback just made it worse--just that much more of a tease and obsession for Williams and the Kansas fans who wanted that to be his year. What had gone wrong? What could Williams have possibly done differently to prevent the upset? Ultimately, Williams took refuge in the notion that there wasn't a single thing he would change.
The NCAA tournament's one and done format is a harsh mistress and a beguiling mistress, but most of all, she is a mysterious mistress, often favoring the less worthy and the weak as she spurns the Sampsons and Chamberlains who would seek to enjoy her whims, while extending her favor to the Lorenzo Charles's and Harold Jensen's of the world.
There would go on to be two more such disappointments as Kansas would lose in the Final Four in 2002 and then in the National Final in 2003, when his team uncharacteristically could not make any free throws, resulting in a bitter loss to Syracuse, after once again another great comeback that fell just short.
But maybe even more agonizing to the Kansas fans was the rumor that Roy had been in renewed discussions to take the UNC job. This was after previously turning down his alma-mater in 2000, in another of his almost patented public displays of insecurity during which he wavered back and forth between going and leaving and then ended up turning down UNC during a nationally-televised "I'm Staying!" pep rally that seemed to cement his fortunes in Kansas, while kicking dirt in the faces of his North Carolinian suitors and particularly angering his former colleague Bill Guthridge, Dean Smith's successor.
But people in North Carolina, apparently, are are quite forgiving, especially when it comes to basketball, and in 2003, on the eve of the Final Four, with the once hallowed UNC basketball program in almost total chaos, UNC came again bidding for Williams' services. Torn between two sick family members back in North Carolina and his love for his alma mater, and his "oath" to Kansas, Williams opted this time to take the job, leaving Kansas in the immediate wake of a defeat, perhaps almost as painful as the loss to Arizona back in 1997.
Kansas continued in its basketball tradition with almost no change after Williams' departure. Kansas has been in the top ten virtually every week since Williams left and has also suffered the same crushing losses that have been a state tradition going back to the loss by Wilt Chamberlain and the Jayhawks in triple-overtime to UNC in 1957.
Unique among the so-called five top programs in college basketball, which include UNC, Duke, Kentucky, UCLA and Kansas, only Kansas has not won multiple championships since the demise of the UCLA dynasty in 1974, winning only as an upset winner in 1988, when little was expected of them. Each time that Kansas has been touted as the best team in the nation, or at least, arguably the best, the Jayhawks have gone down in smoldering flames, since Dean Smith played 29 seconds for them when they won the title in 1952.
Now, Kansas is, arguably, the best team in the country this year, and Kansans have a shot at Williams in a competitive game for the first time since he left five years ago. With a win, Kansas might win a title for the first time in 20 years and perhaps finally put to rest the demons of its former beloved son's infidelity. But I don't think so. Sure, it would be fun for some to stick it to the wayward son and even more fun to finally garner another title.
But this thing goes too deep. For many, I believe that what these "haters" unknowingly hope for is that UNC will once again thwart their Jayhawks, allowing them to continue to brandish their anger against the Prodigal Son who this time is never destined to return, because they actually get more emotional return this way, and Williams is more than happy to accomodate them, because as much as he might have wanted them to "like me," there is only one thing that Roy Williams hungers for more than acceptance, and that is victory.
Monday, March 31, 2008
Still More March Madness Math
Let's go through the four Final Four teams and see how they play, because the media and announcers routinely mess this up:
From Slowest to Fastest in Terms of Possessions Averaged per Game:
1. UCLA -- 65 possessions
2. Kansas -- 68 possessions
3. Memphis --70 possessions
4. UNC -- 75 possessions
Because of the way that normal distributions fall, the rankings of the four vis-a-vis all Division I teams is 258 for UCLA, 127 for Kansas, 64 for Memphis and 5 for Carolina. It is interesting to note that UNC is playing almost identically fast to its 2005 national title team.
In terms of Offensive Efficiency:
1. UNC
2. Kansas (tied for first)
3. Memphis
4. UCLA
There is not much difference among these squads in terms of offense per possession.
In terms of Defensive Efficiency:
I am not going to break this out completely because the top three are essentially tied at the top, with UNC somewhat behind, but still in the top twenty.
In terms of rebounding, UNC is the best on the offensive boards; UCLA is the best on the defensive boards, and Kansas and Memphis are a bit farther back, but still very good.
Ultimately, I think that UCLA and UNC both have the edge in their games against Memphis and Kansas, due to their each having an All American guy to go to on offense, with UCLA having Kevin Love and UNC having Tyler Hansbrough. Memphis doesn't have any offensive players of this caliber, while Kansas has Mario Chalmers, who is just a step back, but doesn't get the ball nearly as much as Love and Hansbrough.
But if you want to look for an upset on Saturday, slight upset though it may be, it is likely to be Memphis over UCLA, due to UCLA's low-scoring pace and generally high inconsistency rating. I don't think Kansas can work out its scoring problems well enough to defeat North Carolina. Kansas didn't have anybody who seemed to want the ball down the stretch against Davidson and putting Sasha (no relation to Chaka) Kaun up against Hansbrough seems likely to expose Kaun's lumbering lack of mobility.
Kansas beat a 12 and a ten seed in the regionals to get to the Final Four, while UNC defeated a Louisville team regarded as at least the fifth best team in the country. UNC and Kansas are currently 1-1 in the Semi's of the Final Four, with Kansas defeating perhaps Dean Smith's worst Final Four team ever, in 1991 and then losing languidly to Duke; and with UNC beating a far better Kansas team in 1993 and then defeating Michigan and the Fab Five for the title that year.
In 1957, in one of the most famous games ever, UNC completed an undefeated year by beating Wilt Chamberlain in Kansas in triple-overtime, 54-53 for the national title under Frank McGuire.
Only one Big 12/Big 8 team has won the national championship since Dean Smith left Lawrence, Kansas back in the early 1950s and that team had Danny Manning. Apart from the generally weaker competition that the Jayhawks generally face in the Big 12 (Texas got annihilated in its home state by Memphis, which hardly could have given Kansas much confidence), this Kansas team doesn't have a single player in Danny Manning's zip code. Bill Self is likely to have to content himself with making the Semi's this year and save avenging Wilt and the 1957 Jayhawks for another day.
From Slowest to Fastest in Terms of Possessions Averaged per Game:
1. UCLA -- 65 possessions
2. Kansas -- 68 possessions
3. Memphis --70 possessions
4. UNC -- 75 possessions
Because of the way that normal distributions fall, the rankings of the four vis-a-vis all Division I teams is 258 for UCLA, 127 for Kansas, 64 for Memphis and 5 for Carolina. It is interesting to note that UNC is playing almost identically fast to its 2005 national title team.
In terms of Offensive Efficiency:
1. UNC
2. Kansas (tied for first)
3. Memphis
4. UCLA
There is not much difference among these squads in terms of offense per possession.
In terms of Defensive Efficiency:
I am not going to break this out completely because the top three are essentially tied at the top, with UNC somewhat behind, but still in the top twenty.
In terms of rebounding, UNC is the best on the offensive boards; UCLA is the best on the defensive boards, and Kansas and Memphis are a bit farther back, but still very good.
Ultimately, I think that UCLA and UNC both have the edge in their games against Memphis and Kansas, due to their each having an All American guy to go to on offense, with UCLA having Kevin Love and UNC having Tyler Hansbrough. Memphis doesn't have any offensive players of this caliber, while Kansas has Mario Chalmers, who is just a step back, but doesn't get the ball nearly as much as Love and Hansbrough.
But if you want to look for an upset on Saturday, slight upset though it may be, it is likely to be Memphis over UCLA, due to UCLA's low-scoring pace and generally high inconsistency rating. I don't think Kansas can work out its scoring problems well enough to defeat North Carolina. Kansas didn't have anybody who seemed to want the ball down the stretch against Davidson and putting Sasha (no relation to Chaka) Kaun up against Hansbrough seems likely to expose Kaun's lumbering lack of mobility.
Kansas beat a 12 and a ten seed in the regionals to get to the Final Four, while UNC defeated a Louisville team regarded as at least the fifth best team in the country. UNC and Kansas are currently 1-1 in the Semi's of the Final Four, with Kansas defeating perhaps Dean Smith's worst Final Four team ever, in 1991 and then losing languidly to Duke; and with UNC beating a far better Kansas team in 1993 and then defeating Michigan and the Fab Five for the title that year.
In 1957, in one of the most famous games ever, UNC completed an undefeated year by beating Wilt Chamberlain in Kansas in triple-overtime, 54-53 for the national title under Frank McGuire.
Only one Big 12/Big 8 team has won the national championship since Dean Smith left Lawrence, Kansas back in the early 1950s and that team had Danny Manning. Apart from the generally weaker competition that the Jayhawks generally face in the Big 12 (Texas got annihilated in its home state by Memphis, which hardly could have given Kansas much confidence), this Kansas team doesn't have a single player in Danny Manning's zip code. Bill Self is likely to have to content himself with making the Semi's this year and save avenging Wilt and the 1957 Jayhawks for another day.
Friday, March 28, 2008
More March Madness Math
There seems to be a fair amount of interest in the statistical analysis of basketball these days, although the sport is still way behind baseball in terms of the issues being analyzed. The guys at basketball prospectus are doing some good things, but currently, in my opinion, a lot of their work is simplistic and repetitive and caters to the casual bracket-playing public, but not to those of us who really want to understand basketball.
In truth, we probably also must admit that basketball is less susceptible to sweeping statistical generalizations than is baseball. Does anybody doubt anymore the lack of importance of the RBI stat? But ultimately, baseball is a team sport that sums up for the most part the individual actions of separate players.
Basketball, on the other hand, is a team sport played collectively. That is why dogmatic characterizations about who is better or best are rarely appropriate. Recently, one commentator opined that Kevin Love was better than Tyler Hansbrough, no doubt whatsoever in that commentator's mind. Now aside from the insufficient data upon which this commentator, John Gasaway based his conclusion, he also forgot something key. Basketball is a team game, not an individual sport. http://www.basketballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=232
Last night, the North Carolina Tar Heels defeated the Washington State University Cougars by a score of 68-47. At half time, Carolina led the game 35-21, and their star player Hansbrough had two points. But how could this be? If Carolina's POY candidate had been completely stiffled, how could the Tar Heels possibly be leading at halftime by such an onerous margin?
Well, its a team game. Gasaway might have you believe that Hansbrough had a horrible half. A more sophisticated view of what happened might be, however, that Hansbrough had a sensational first half, after all, his team had a lead that was equal to 67% percent of the Cougars's first half total. Washington State put so much focus on stopping Hansbrough, that they couldn't stop any of the other players for UNC. This is a team game and Gasaway ignores this reality with his brash and unwarranted, sweeping conclusions about which player is best.
Kevin Love and Tyler Hansbrough are both sensational players and UNC deeply wanted to see Love in Carolina Blue and I doubt UCLA would have turned Hansbrough away, had he shown up on their front door.
Second point: Points per possession analysis is a fundamental analytical tool used by basketball coaches to evaluate their team's play. Coaches in the know have been utilizing PPP analysis for over fifty years, as a means of evaluating a team's play independently of how quickly the ball is changing hands from team to team during a game.
It can help provide insight into the relative strengths of teams that play at different tempos or paces. It is not a secret, but like OBP in baseball, some people think it is such a cool way of looking at the sport, that they overwork the concept.
Or, to start with a joke, only a statistician could make us believe that leading a game by ten points is just as good as leading it by twenty points.
PPP differential is important, but it is not as important as absolute point differential, regardless of what anyone tries to tell you. Why not? Let's look at a simple arithmetic example involving two college teams, the Cheetahs and the Terrapins.
The Cheetahs play fast and have lot's of possessions on average in their games and they average a lot of points as well. By the end of the year, statistics show the Cheetahs score an average of 80 points per game, while giving up only 70 to their opponents in the first 38 minutes of their schedule in the fast and tough, African Coast Conference.
The Terrapins play slow. They have a coach who loves the movie, Hoosiers and believes every bit of that movie is true. Their team averages 40 points per game in the first 38 minutes of their games in the slow and rough, Equatorial Coast Conference, while rendering 35 to their opponents and they only utilize half the possessions per game that the Cheetahs use.
Now which team is better? Advocates of strict PPP analysis will tell you that these teams are equal, because their point differential per possession is exactly the same.
They are wrong.
Why?
Let's see what can happen to both teams in a game where they are especially unlucky down the stretch in the last two minutes. In the first game, the Cheetahs's opponent, the Salukis, hit three three-pointers in the last two minutes, after having only made three in the entire game that far. For the Cheetahs, there seems to be a lid on the rim and they don't score a single point down the stretch, laboring to hold on, 80-79.
In the second, game, the Terrapin's opponents, the Sloths hit three three-pointers down the stretch, after having only made three in the entire game that far. For the Terrapins, there seems to be a lid on the rim and they don't score a single point down the stretch, and they lose a heartbreaker, 44-40.
Why the divergence in outcomes? Simple mathematics. The Cheetahs were able to overcome a somewhat unlikely series of outcomes in the final two minutes, because their absolute lead was much greater. The Terrapins could not, even though up to then, their PPP differential had been exactly the same as the Cheetahs.
Thus, the mathematics are basically simple. The better (more talented?) a team is, the faster the tempo they should employ, ceteris paribus, because it gives them an extra cushion against unlikely events occurring to take the game's outcome away from the expected mean. Ceteris paribus is Latin for all other things being equal.
Let's look at some real world examples. In the current Kenpom.com basketball ratings, Wisconsin is ranked number 3 and North Carolina is ranked number four. These teams make for good examples because Wisconsin plays much like the Terrapins above, while UNC is more of a Cheetahs-type squad. North Carolina has the better record at 35-2, while Wisconsin has the stronger power index, in spite of having lost twice more and having been blown out in one game.
Basically, this is because Pomeroy has not found a way (or has chosen not to) to incorporate the mathematical notion of standard deviation from the expected outcome into his ratings. I will use his words here:
"Consistency is basically the standard deviation of scoring difference by game for a team. Again, it’s not included in the ratings calculation. It can be an aid in determining which teams are overrated by my system. Highly rated teams that are inconsistent tend to look beatable more often. As of this writing, Georgia is ranked 329 in consistency and Oklahoma is at 334. They’ve played their best games against poor teams, and their worst against good ones.
Ideally, I’d synthesize the consistency and rating into one number, but I haven’t found a way I’m comfortable with. So right now, I’m throwing this system out there with all its warts for everyone to see. The warts tend to decrease as more games are played, but at least I’ve made you aware of them and where they can pop up." http://www.kenpom.com/blog/index.php/weblog/ratings_explanation/
First, I would like to point out, consistent with the above, the fact that WSU was one of the least consistent teams in all of college basketball this year, which may account for a lot of the head scratching by people who could not figure out what was wrong with Pomeroy's rankings here. I would argue that the rankings were wrong with respect to WSU and I think he admits why here, although you have to go trolling into the dark recesses of his fantastic site to find this. I am not sure, however, why he continues with the pretense of multiplying out the logs, given this fundamental defect.
So, getting back to Wisconsin, whom Pomeroy rates above UNC, while the USA Today computer rankings have Wisconsin fifth, with UNC, first, what is the truth of the matter?
Well, there may not be any ultimate truth. If a team is incredibly good but very inconsistent, they might be very likely to be ranked number one all year but then get upset in the tournament, which is a simple one and out format, not best of seven as in the NBA.
And just so I don't get a lot of I-told-you-so emails from either UNC or Wisconsin fans, when one or the other loses, one loss, without more is not enough to defeat the analysis. Unlikely events happen all the time and if they didn't, life would be quite strange and boring!
Nevertheless, here, I believe that Wisconsin being rated more highly is due to a flaw in Pomeroy's system. Not only does UNC have, in fact, fewer losses, their style of play seems to insulate them more from upsets. And if we look at his other catgories, we see it. Carolina is the 56th most consistent team in the country, 2nd only to Memphis among teams still playing, while Wisconsin is the 205th most consistent team. Wisconsin's slow style of playing provides them with less of a cushion against upsets. On the other hand, their style is probably fairly efficiently tailored for their talent composition, and for them to change it, would violate the ceteris paribus part of our mathematical example.
So, what does it all mean? A team like Wisconsin is far less likely to be able to go through an entire season unbeaten, compared to a Memphis or UNC, which have high consistency ratings. Thus, when people say UNC is clearly "better," what this should mean is that UNC is likely to pass through the year with fewer losses. But this does not mean that UNC is necessarily likely to beat Wisconsin in a head to head match-up.
And to take the analysis one step further, let's ask ourselves, who is better between the real Terrapins of Maryland and the inappropriately named Cougars of WSU. Which of those two teams is better? Well, surely you say, it has to be WSU, since they made the NCAA tourney and had a fairly high ranking, while Maryland went out in the second round of the NIT. And yet, Maryland beat UNC and most Carolina fans would probably tell you that they would rather face WSU any day, over Maryland.
I will let the reader puzzle over that one, but will finish by stating that it seems that teams that play slow will generally be more at risk at the ends of games when playing inferior opponents. While this might not be a huge problem over the course of an 18 game regular season schedule, it can be huge when the rule is one and done. That may help explain how Georgetown got upset by Davidson and why Wisconsin could be at risk today, as well as UCLA against Xavier.
Ultimately, it's because, no matter how you slice it, leading 50-40 is not as good as leading 100-80 and don't let anybody lie to you with statistics and imply that it is.
In truth, we probably also must admit that basketball is less susceptible to sweeping statistical generalizations than is baseball. Does anybody doubt anymore the lack of importance of the RBI stat? But ultimately, baseball is a team sport that sums up for the most part the individual actions of separate players.
Basketball, on the other hand, is a team sport played collectively. That is why dogmatic characterizations about who is better or best are rarely appropriate. Recently, one commentator opined that Kevin Love was better than Tyler Hansbrough, no doubt whatsoever in that commentator's mind. Now aside from the insufficient data upon which this commentator, John Gasaway based his conclusion, he also forgot something key. Basketball is a team game, not an individual sport. http://www.basketballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=232
Last night, the North Carolina Tar Heels defeated the Washington State University Cougars by a score of 68-47. At half time, Carolina led the game 35-21, and their star player Hansbrough had two points. But how could this be? If Carolina's POY candidate had been completely stiffled, how could the Tar Heels possibly be leading at halftime by such an onerous margin?
Well, its a team game. Gasaway might have you believe that Hansbrough had a horrible half. A more sophisticated view of what happened might be, however, that Hansbrough had a sensational first half, after all, his team had a lead that was equal to 67% percent of the Cougars's first half total. Washington State put so much focus on stopping Hansbrough, that they couldn't stop any of the other players for UNC. This is a team game and Gasaway ignores this reality with his brash and unwarranted, sweeping conclusions about which player is best.
Kevin Love and Tyler Hansbrough are both sensational players and UNC deeply wanted to see Love in Carolina Blue and I doubt UCLA would have turned Hansbrough away, had he shown up on their front door.
Second point: Points per possession analysis is a fundamental analytical tool used by basketball coaches to evaluate their team's play. Coaches in the know have been utilizing PPP analysis for over fifty years, as a means of evaluating a team's play independently of how quickly the ball is changing hands from team to team during a game.
It can help provide insight into the relative strengths of teams that play at different tempos or paces. It is not a secret, but like OBP in baseball, some people think it is such a cool way of looking at the sport, that they overwork the concept.
Or, to start with a joke, only a statistician could make us believe that leading a game by ten points is just as good as leading it by twenty points.
PPP differential is important, but it is not as important as absolute point differential, regardless of what anyone tries to tell you. Why not? Let's look at a simple arithmetic example involving two college teams, the Cheetahs and the Terrapins.
The Cheetahs play fast and have lot's of possessions on average in their games and they average a lot of points as well. By the end of the year, statistics show the Cheetahs score an average of 80 points per game, while giving up only 70 to their opponents in the first 38 minutes of their schedule in the fast and tough, African Coast Conference.
The Terrapins play slow. They have a coach who loves the movie, Hoosiers and believes every bit of that movie is true. Their team averages 40 points per game in the first 38 minutes of their games in the slow and rough, Equatorial Coast Conference, while rendering 35 to their opponents and they only utilize half the possessions per game that the Cheetahs use.
Now which team is better? Advocates of strict PPP analysis will tell you that these teams are equal, because their point differential per possession is exactly the same.
They are wrong.
Why?
Let's see what can happen to both teams in a game where they are especially unlucky down the stretch in the last two minutes. In the first game, the Cheetahs's opponent, the Salukis, hit three three-pointers in the last two minutes, after having only made three in the entire game that far. For the Cheetahs, there seems to be a lid on the rim and they don't score a single point down the stretch, laboring to hold on, 80-79.
In the second, game, the Terrapin's opponents, the Sloths hit three three-pointers down the stretch, after having only made three in the entire game that far. For the Terrapins, there seems to be a lid on the rim and they don't score a single point down the stretch, and they lose a heartbreaker, 44-40.
Why the divergence in outcomes? Simple mathematics. The Cheetahs were able to overcome a somewhat unlikely series of outcomes in the final two minutes, because their absolute lead was much greater. The Terrapins could not, even though up to then, their PPP differential had been exactly the same as the Cheetahs.
Thus, the mathematics are basically simple. The better (more talented?) a team is, the faster the tempo they should employ, ceteris paribus, because it gives them an extra cushion against unlikely events occurring to take the game's outcome away from the expected mean. Ceteris paribus is Latin for all other things being equal.
Let's look at some real world examples. In the current Kenpom.com basketball ratings, Wisconsin is ranked number 3 and North Carolina is ranked number four. These teams make for good examples because Wisconsin plays much like the Terrapins above, while UNC is more of a Cheetahs-type squad. North Carolina has the better record at 35-2, while Wisconsin has the stronger power index, in spite of having lost twice more and having been blown out in one game.
Basically, this is because Pomeroy has not found a way (or has chosen not to) to incorporate the mathematical notion of standard deviation from the expected outcome into his ratings. I will use his words here:
"Consistency is basically the standard deviation of scoring difference by game for a team. Again, it’s not included in the ratings calculation. It can be an aid in determining which teams are overrated by my system. Highly rated teams that are inconsistent tend to look beatable more often. As of this writing, Georgia is ranked 329 in consistency and Oklahoma is at 334. They’ve played their best games against poor teams, and their worst against good ones.
Ideally, I’d synthesize the consistency and rating into one number, but I haven’t found a way I’m comfortable with. So right now, I’m throwing this system out there with all its warts for everyone to see. The warts tend to decrease as more games are played, but at least I’ve made you aware of them and where they can pop up." http://www.kenpom.com/blog/index.php/weblog/ratings_explanation/
First, I would like to point out, consistent with the above, the fact that WSU was one of the least consistent teams in all of college basketball this year, which may account for a lot of the head scratching by people who could not figure out what was wrong with Pomeroy's rankings here. I would argue that the rankings were wrong with respect to WSU and I think he admits why here, although you have to go trolling into the dark recesses of his fantastic site to find this. I am not sure, however, why he continues with the pretense of multiplying out the logs, given this fundamental defect.
So, getting back to Wisconsin, whom Pomeroy rates above UNC, while the USA Today computer rankings have Wisconsin fifth, with UNC, first, what is the truth of the matter?
Well, there may not be any ultimate truth. If a team is incredibly good but very inconsistent, they might be very likely to be ranked number one all year but then get upset in the tournament, which is a simple one and out format, not best of seven as in the NBA.
And just so I don't get a lot of I-told-you-so emails from either UNC or Wisconsin fans, when one or the other loses, one loss, without more is not enough to defeat the analysis. Unlikely events happen all the time and if they didn't, life would be quite strange and boring!
Nevertheless, here, I believe that Wisconsin being rated more highly is due to a flaw in Pomeroy's system. Not only does UNC have, in fact, fewer losses, their style of play seems to insulate them more from upsets. And if we look at his other catgories, we see it. Carolina is the 56th most consistent team in the country, 2nd only to Memphis among teams still playing, while Wisconsin is the 205th most consistent team. Wisconsin's slow style of playing provides them with less of a cushion against upsets. On the other hand, their style is probably fairly efficiently tailored for their talent composition, and for them to change it, would violate the ceteris paribus part of our mathematical example.
So, what does it all mean? A team like Wisconsin is far less likely to be able to go through an entire season unbeaten, compared to a Memphis or UNC, which have high consistency ratings. Thus, when people say UNC is clearly "better," what this should mean is that UNC is likely to pass through the year with fewer losses. But this does not mean that UNC is necessarily likely to beat Wisconsin in a head to head match-up.
And to take the analysis one step further, let's ask ourselves, who is better between the real Terrapins of Maryland and the inappropriately named Cougars of WSU. Which of those two teams is better? Well, surely you say, it has to be WSU, since they made the NCAA tourney and had a fairly high ranking, while Maryland went out in the second round of the NIT. And yet, Maryland beat UNC and most Carolina fans would probably tell you that they would rather face WSU any day, over Maryland.
I will let the reader puzzle over that one, but will finish by stating that it seems that teams that play slow will generally be more at risk at the ends of games when playing inferior opponents. While this might not be a huge problem over the course of an 18 game regular season schedule, it can be huge when the rule is one and done. That may help explain how Georgetown got upset by Davidson and why Wisconsin could be at risk today, as well as UCLA against Xavier.
Ultimately, it's because, no matter how you slice it, leading 50-40 is not as good as leading 100-80 and don't let anybody lie to you with statistics and imply that it is.
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