Instead of discussing the absurd "socialist" label Senator McCain's campaign is at present rather desperately trying to attach to Senator Obama--which hardly bears mentioning--I will now provide the "rough draft" to my "Presidential Swing-State Voting Predictions." The numbers I've come up with are based partly on recent polls, partly on months-long trends, and partly on what my gut is telling me. I've been following the presidential race for almost two years now, yet the only thing I'm sure of is that I'll still be quite unsure of my predictions come election day....
For now this is, as stated above, a rough draft. The "final draft" (featuring some changes, I'm sure) will appear sometime this coming weekend (probably on Sunday). At that time, it will be accompanied by my "Electoral Vote Prediction."
(Note: some typically Republican-voting states--such as Georgia, Mississippi, Montana, and North Dakota--have seen their presidential poll numbers tighten of late, which is why I include them here.)
Colorado: Obama by 3%
Florida: Obama by 5%
Georgia: McCain by 4%
Indiana: McCain by 1%
Iowa: Obama by 9%
Michigan: Obama by 11%
Minnesota: Obama by 11%
Mississippi: McCain by 6%
Missouri: Obama by 3%
Montana: McCain by 3%
Nevada: Obama by 6%
New Hampshire: Obama by 7%
New Mexico: Obama by 8%
North Carolina: Obama by 2%
North Dakota: McCain by 3%
Ohio: Obama by 4%
Oregon: Obama by 10%
Pennsylvania: Obama by 6%
Virginia: Obama by 5%
West Virginia: McCain by 5%
Wisconsin: Obama by 8%
Total swing-state wins: Obama 15, McCain 6
Total swing-state "pick-ups" vs. 2004: Obama +9, McCain -9
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
Monday, October 27, 2008
October 27 Is A Great Day For A Birthday
THE FOLLOWING IS A LIST OF PEOPLE BORN ON OCTOBER 27:
James Cook (British sea captain), Theodore Roosevelt (former U.S. President), Dylan Thomas (British poet), Ralph Kiner (Hall of Fame American baseball player), Warren Christopher (former U.S. Secretary of State), Sylvia Plath (American poet), John Cleese (British actor/comedian), John Gotti (notorious American mofia boss), Ivan Reitman (Canadian/Slovakian film director of "Ghostbusters" and "Kindergarten Cop"), Marla Maples (who among other things used to be married to Donald Trump), Scott Weiland (lead singer of American rock band Stone Temple Pilots), Zadie Smith (celebrated contemporary British novelist), Hasslington (who happens to be the exact same age as Zadie Smith), and...uh...Kelly Osbourne (who among other things is the daughter of Ozzy).
ALSO...
November 4 is election day here in the U.S., so even though sloganeering for particular candidates will surely occur on that day, the final full day of campaigning is really the previous day, November 3. This means that we have about a week of campaigning left to endure. Since the candidates' media exposure levels will only increase this week (!), and therefore cannot be "beaten," I say we "join 'em" for this final temporary stretch run.
For my part, I'll be wearing my "Obama/Biden" button as often as possible up to and including election day, with the obvious exception of when I'm at work, where political ads of any sort are (thankfully) banned.
James Cook (British sea captain), Theodore Roosevelt (former U.S. President), Dylan Thomas (British poet), Ralph Kiner (Hall of Fame American baseball player), Warren Christopher (former U.S. Secretary of State), Sylvia Plath (American poet), John Cleese (British actor/comedian), John Gotti (notorious American mofia boss), Ivan Reitman (Canadian/Slovakian film director of "Ghostbusters" and "Kindergarten Cop"), Marla Maples (who among other things used to be married to Donald Trump), Scott Weiland (lead singer of American rock band Stone Temple Pilots), Zadie Smith (celebrated contemporary British novelist), Hasslington (who happens to be the exact same age as Zadie Smith), and...uh...Kelly Osbourne (who among other things is the daughter of Ozzy).
ALSO...
November 4 is election day here in the U.S., so even though sloganeering for particular candidates will surely occur on that day, the final full day of campaigning is really the previous day, November 3. This means that we have about a week of campaigning left to endure. Since the candidates' media exposure levels will only increase this week (!), and therefore cannot be "beaten," I say we "join 'em" for this final temporary stretch run.
For my part, I'll be wearing my "Obama/Biden" button as often as possible up to and including election day, with the obvious exception of when I'm at work, where political ads of any sort are (thankfully) banned.
Saturday, October 25, 2008
Bits And Bobs, Volume III: Hilarious Presidential Candidate Pictures; Baracking For Obama; E-Mails Are Only Sometimes Necessary; And So Forth...
1.) I can't wait to see what candidate pictures MSNBC uses during their presidential coverage on election night. I hope they feature the same hilarious ones they used during the primary and caucus process. Their John McCain picture, for instance, featured a face so airbrushed it looked like the John McCain of thirty-five years ago with the odd added effect of a mop of prematurely white hair. Given the confident tilt of the head and winning, Hollywood smile, it looked more like Tom Cruise in a white wig than it did the modern John McCain.
For his part, Barack Obama's picture was also far less-than-accurate, as it made him look like a junior high student who cannot hide the joy he feels at having recently had his braces removed. Given that picture, if I didn't know better, I would have thought that Barack Obama would be a shoe-in to win the position of this year's student council president.
2.) I started a three-month teaching job this past week. I hope it leads to a permanent position because I like the set-up of the school at which I'm teaching; the teachers are serious and focused on the same set of academic principles, but they are allowed to use a considerable amount of flexibility and creativity in their lesson plans. It is, I think, a good, healthy balance between consistency and individuality in the classroom.
The only thing I still fail to understand is the workplace obsession with e-mails--I'm speaking in general, as opposed to this particular workplace. I can understand and in fact support the notion of a given school's principal, for instance, sending out a general daily e-mail, and I also support the idea of the head of each department sending out a weekly e-mail. These scenarios can have the effect of making sure that everyone is orbiting the same sphere, so to speak, and it can clarify any outstanding instances of generalized confusion regarding any of a number of things.
What I don't particularly think works, however, is when somone sends you an e-mail and then, fifteen-or-so minutes later, walks up to you and says, "Did you get my e-mail?" This occured to me this past week when I was in the supply room, sifting through textbooks for my next class. A fellow employee walked into the supply room and asked me if I had received her e-mail, which she had apparently sent within the half-hour. I told her that I had been in the supply room for that time, so no, I had not receive her e-mail. Then I asked her what she wrote in it. She proceeded to describe the situation, which had to do with telling students in one of my classes about a schedule change for the computer lab. I told her that I would let the students know about it.
She's a very good teacher (I sat in on one of her classes, and was impressed) and a personable individual, so I don't mean to dismiss her personally. But I wonder if the majority of workplace e-mails aren't simply a waste of time that tend to muddy the operational waters. As I stated above, in a school setting, I would suggest that the principal and head of each department should send general e-mails to those working under them on a fairly regular basis. Beyond that, however, I would point out that unless the school is absolutely enormous (this one is not), I often find it far easier to simply speak face-to-face with colleagues about alterations in plans, etc.
Things seem to move more smoothly when e-mails are kept to a minimum, because when that occurs, most everyone tends to read closely and digest the few e-mails that are sent. Yet when e-mails pile upon one another, people tend to take in very little insofar as details are concerned, which often defeats the purpose of the e-mails in the first place.
The bottom line, however, is that for now, at least, I'm employed on a full-time basis. I am most certainly not complaining.
3.) From a message left on our voicemail by Mrs. Hasslington's (British) father: "...I'll call you again later. I assume you are out Baracking for Obama at present...."
4.) You either "get" English pub rock (an earlier, more crisp and rhythmic version of the often grungier American garage band motif) or you don't "get" it. Personally, I enjoy it immensely. Because of its evocative sound and looping guitar riffs, my vote for the greatest English pub rock song of all time is "Sultans of Swing" by the early, far less arena-rock-infused incarnation of Dire Straits.
Let me be clear: I've got nothing against their mid-1980s album "Brothers In Arms," which is strong arena-rock stuff, but I simply prefer the tighter, punchy sounds of the earlier Dire Straits, which can be enjoyed even in the most contained spaces, such as, well, English pubs.
5.) By the way, I meant to publish this nearly two weeks ago and simply forgot: Paul Simon, my favorite musical artist (who is still releasing music and performing around the world; his 2006 album "Surprise" was criminally underappreciated by nearly everyone but most music critics, and he was touring in Europe just this past summer), turned sixty-seven on October 13.
His voice is still mellifluous after all these years....
6.) I posted the following comment, with just a couple of changes in order to show context, on my friend Anoka Flash's "Centrisity" blog-site this past week, in regards to early voting (particularly, but not exclusively, via mail):
"...when it comes to voting, I prefer the traditional method of standing in line on election day with my 'neighbors,' as Flash puts it.
"That being said, we are not living in a Hardy Boys book. If others wish to vote via mail, I find it ridiculous to suggest that they shouldn't do that. Let them vote via mail, for goodness sake.
"I also find it very odd indeed that some folks think that we ought to continue to do nearly everything as we did fifty years ago; that's a sure sign of a weakening nation. You either move forward or you regress; there really is no stasis.
"So let's evolve with the times--in proactive ways as opposed to superficial ways, of course--like we tend to do (at least when we have been strong). Let people vote via mail or at the polls as they wish, and let's get the Mayberry theme music out of our heads.
"Speaking of Mayberry, it seems as though even Andy Griffith supports Barack Obama, given the recent and amusing Ron Howard mini-film released in support of Barack Obama's candidacy...."
As always, I recommend reading the Centrisity blog-site (http://centrisity.blogspot.com/) on a fairly regular basis, as well as my friend Penigma's blog-site (http://penigma.blogspot.com/).
7.) Last but not least, it was six years ago that we lost U.S. Senator Paul Wellstone in a plane crash. Whether you tended to agree with him or not, one thing is for sure: he was an authentic individual. His loss is still felt in Minnesota, and beyond.
For his part, Barack Obama's picture was also far less-than-accurate, as it made him look like a junior high student who cannot hide the joy he feels at having recently had his braces removed. Given that picture, if I didn't know better, I would have thought that Barack Obama would be a shoe-in to win the position of this year's student council president.
2.) I started a three-month teaching job this past week. I hope it leads to a permanent position because I like the set-up of the school at which I'm teaching; the teachers are serious and focused on the same set of academic principles, but they are allowed to use a considerable amount of flexibility and creativity in their lesson plans. It is, I think, a good, healthy balance between consistency and individuality in the classroom.
The only thing I still fail to understand is the workplace obsession with e-mails--I'm speaking in general, as opposed to this particular workplace. I can understand and in fact support the notion of a given school's principal, for instance, sending out a general daily e-mail, and I also support the idea of the head of each department sending out a weekly e-mail. These scenarios can have the effect of making sure that everyone is orbiting the same sphere, so to speak, and it can clarify any outstanding instances of generalized confusion regarding any of a number of things.
What I don't particularly think works, however, is when somone sends you an e-mail and then, fifteen-or-so minutes later, walks up to you and says, "Did you get my e-mail?" This occured to me this past week when I was in the supply room, sifting through textbooks for my next class. A fellow employee walked into the supply room and asked me if I had received her e-mail, which she had apparently sent within the half-hour. I told her that I had been in the supply room for that time, so no, I had not receive her e-mail. Then I asked her what she wrote in it. She proceeded to describe the situation, which had to do with telling students in one of my classes about a schedule change for the computer lab. I told her that I would let the students know about it.
She's a very good teacher (I sat in on one of her classes, and was impressed) and a personable individual, so I don't mean to dismiss her personally. But I wonder if the majority of workplace e-mails aren't simply a waste of time that tend to muddy the operational waters. As I stated above, in a school setting, I would suggest that the principal and head of each department should send general e-mails to those working under them on a fairly regular basis. Beyond that, however, I would point out that unless the school is absolutely enormous (this one is not), I often find it far easier to simply speak face-to-face with colleagues about alterations in plans, etc.
Things seem to move more smoothly when e-mails are kept to a minimum, because when that occurs, most everyone tends to read closely and digest the few e-mails that are sent. Yet when e-mails pile upon one another, people tend to take in very little insofar as details are concerned, which often defeats the purpose of the e-mails in the first place.
The bottom line, however, is that for now, at least, I'm employed on a full-time basis. I am most certainly not complaining.
3.) From a message left on our voicemail by Mrs. Hasslington's (British) father: "...I'll call you again later. I assume you are out Baracking for Obama at present...."
4.) You either "get" English pub rock (an earlier, more crisp and rhythmic version of the often grungier American garage band motif) or you don't "get" it. Personally, I enjoy it immensely. Because of its evocative sound and looping guitar riffs, my vote for the greatest English pub rock song of all time is "Sultans of Swing" by the early, far less arena-rock-infused incarnation of Dire Straits.
Let me be clear: I've got nothing against their mid-1980s album "Brothers In Arms," which is strong arena-rock stuff, but I simply prefer the tighter, punchy sounds of the earlier Dire Straits, which can be enjoyed even in the most contained spaces, such as, well, English pubs.
5.) By the way, I meant to publish this nearly two weeks ago and simply forgot: Paul Simon, my favorite musical artist (who is still releasing music and performing around the world; his 2006 album "Surprise" was criminally underappreciated by nearly everyone but most music critics, and he was touring in Europe just this past summer), turned sixty-seven on October 13.
His voice is still mellifluous after all these years....
6.) I posted the following comment, with just a couple of changes in order to show context, on my friend Anoka Flash's "Centrisity" blog-site this past week, in regards to early voting (particularly, but not exclusively, via mail):
"...when it comes to voting, I prefer the traditional method of standing in line on election day with my 'neighbors,' as Flash puts it.
"That being said, we are not living in a Hardy Boys book. If others wish to vote via mail, I find it ridiculous to suggest that they shouldn't do that. Let them vote via mail, for goodness sake.
"I also find it very odd indeed that some folks think that we ought to continue to do nearly everything as we did fifty years ago; that's a sure sign of a weakening nation. You either move forward or you regress; there really is no stasis.
"So let's evolve with the times--in proactive ways as opposed to superficial ways, of course--like we tend to do (at least when we have been strong). Let people vote via mail or at the polls as they wish, and let's get the Mayberry theme music out of our heads.
"Speaking of Mayberry, it seems as though even Andy Griffith supports Barack Obama, given the recent and amusing Ron Howard mini-film released in support of Barack Obama's candidacy...."
As always, I recommend reading the Centrisity blog-site (http://centrisity.blogspot.com/) on a fairly regular basis, as well as my friend Penigma's blog-site (http://penigma.blogspot.com/).
7.) Last but not least, it was six years ago that we lost U.S. Senator Paul Wellstone in a plane crash. Whether you tended to agree with him or not, one thing is for sure: he was an authentic individual. His loss is still felt in Minnesota, and beyond.
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
Playing The Presidential Election Percentages
Much has been made over the airwaves today regarding the apparent "tightening" of the presidential race in such swing-states as Florida and Ohio. To a certain extent, this appears to be true, and to a certain extent, it is not. Here's why....
1.) The race has been "tight" in Ohio for quite some time now. Some reputable recent polls have put Senator Obama in the lead by up to three precentage points in Ohio, while others have put Senator McCain in the lead by up to three percentage points. (Those numbers are all within the margin of error.) Still other polls show a dead heat. But, as I said, the fact of the matter is that Ohio has not swung nearly as much in the polls over the last few months as have other states, such as Michigan and Wisconsin. (Several weeks ago, both Michigan and Wisconsin were either dead-heats or leaning slightly toward Senator Obama, but at present both are leaning heavily toward Senator Obama, to the point where Senator McCain has pulled a lot of his people out of Michigan and his campaign may have to pull some money out of Wisconsin.)
Yet Ohio has been a toss-up for quite some time now; some folks may feel that it has fluctuated a little one way or a little the other way, but if that's the case, the fluctuations have been very small indeed.
2.) Let's remember that as recently as mid-September, Florida was seen as what I would term "relatively safe McCain territory," as Senator McCain had been leading in Florida polls on a consistent basis since the Democratic party had settled on its selection of Senator Obama as its nominee back in early June. (Senator Obama announced his victory in Saint Paul, Minnesota, at the start of the summer season.) Last week, however, Florida polls suggested that Senator Obama may have taken the lead, which was a dramatic turn-around. This week, many of those same polls are unsure of who is in the lead, with some of them suggesting that the race is now a toss-up in that state.
This is natural in the sense that any big fluctuation in one particular direction is generally followed by a small fluctuation in the other direction in state-wide polls (and in national polls, for that matter). Florida has most likely displayed this pattern by moving from its "relatively safe McCain territory" status to "toss-up but perhaps leaning Obama" in a very short timespan, which has created a slight "kick-back" against the pro-Obama fever in that major toss-up state. Hence, many post "kick-back" polls suggest a dead heat in the state. Given the amount of retired military voters and retired folks in general in Florida, and given the fact that Senator McCain once scored six or seven points ahead of Senator Obama in Florida for weeks-long stretches in many polls (and at least four-plus ahead of Senator Obama for months-long stretches), I consider this a good sign that Senator Obama's candidacy is strong in Florida.
3.) There is almost always a "tightening" of the polls nationally prior to a presidential election if one candidate is leading the other by a not insubstantial margin leading into the final three weeks. In this case, Senator Obama has led Senator McCain by about five or six points nationally for a few weeks now, and the general trend has been toward Senator Obama for a month or more now. Hence, it is natural that in several swing-states (and, in a more general manner, nationally) people are conducting gut-checks regarding their choices in order to solidify their decisions, and some of them are wavering. Yet the point is that many are not, as most all of the national polls still suggest that Senator Obama is in the lead by at least four percentage points, and perhaps as much as six, amongst folks who suggest they are going to vote on November 4. (There are of course some polls that show smaller or larger national leads for Senator Obama, but the four-to-six point region seems the most often reported at this point.)
Let's remember that just prior to election day in 2004, President George W. Bush led in most national polls by a mere percentage point or two, yet he won the election nationally by about two-and-a-half percentage points. Though how each state votes is more important than national numbers, a lead of three or more percentage points nationally this late in the campaign season is a good sign for the leader....
4.) It's important to look at the other swing-states that are at this moment very much "in play." Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin--three of which voted for Senator Kerry in 2004--are at present in "relatively safe Obama territory." New Mexico and Oregon are probably also there, and New Hampshire may be moving rapidly in that direction (though one never knows about New Hampshire). That leaves Colorado, Florida, Missouri, Ohio, Nevada, North Carolina, and Virginia as the most-competitive swing-states at present, all of whom voted for George W. Bush in his narrow 2004 electoral victory. (And don't count-out Indiana, which also voted for President Bush....)
Hence, if there is a late swing to Senator McCain in the final two weeks of the campaign, he will pick up several of those states, which can only be considered a "hold" for the Republican nominee--and the election will probably be a very close one. Conversely, if there is a late swing to Senator Obama, he will win the election in a landslide. The third scenario comes about if things simply "tighten" a bit more in those states, in which case the advantage surely goes to Senator Obama. And things have actually "tightened" in Senator Obama's favor in a few other states of late: Georgia, Montana, North Dakota, and West Virginia. All of those states voted for George W. Bush in both 2000 and 2004. A win for Senator Obama is still a long-shot in those four states, but his competitiveness in those states puts more pressure on Senator McCain's camp.
Broadly speaking, Senator McCain is still on defense now, whereas Senator Obama is still on offense. Senator McCain can still win the election, but if Senator Obama keeps playing his cards in a steady, cool manner, potentially losing either Florida or Ohio will not lose him the election, because he need not win either of those states in order to win the electoral vote--though he'd love to win at least one of them. Senator McCain, however, needs to win both of those states to win the election, and he needs to improve his numbers elsewhere, as well.
1.) The race has been "tight" in Ohio for quite some time now. Some reputable recent polls have put Senator Obama in the lead by up to three precentage points in Ohio, while others have put Senator McCain in the lead by up to three percentage points. (Those numbers are all within the margin of error.) Still other polls show a dead heat. But, as I said, the fact of the matter is that Ohio has not swung nearly as much in the polls over the last few months as have other states, such as Michigan and Wisconsin. (Several weeks ago, both Michigan and Wisconsin were either dead-heats or leaning slightly toward Senator Obama, but at present both are leaning heavily toward Senator Obama, to the point where Senator McCain has pulled a lot of his people out of Michigan and his campaign may have to pull some money out of Wisconsin.)
Yet Ohio has been a toss-up for quite some time now; some folks may feel that it has fluctuated a little one way or a little the other way, but if that's the case, the fluctuations have been very small indeed.
2.) Let's remember that as recently as mid-September, Florida was seen as what I would term "relatively safe McCain territory," as Senator McCain had been leading in Florida polls on a consistent basis since the Democratic party had settled on its selection of Senator Obama as its nominee back in early June. (Senator Obama announced his victory in Saint Paul, Minnesota, at the start of the summer season.) Last week, however, Florida polls suggested that Senator Obama may have taken the lead, which was a dramatic turn-around. This week, many of those same polls are unsure of who is in the lead, with some of them suggesting that the race is now a toss-up in that state.
This is natural in the sense that any big fluctuation in one particular direction is generally followed by a small fluctuation in the other direction in state-wide polls (and in national polls, for that matter). Florida has most likely displayed this pattern by moving from its "relatively safe McCain territory" status to "toss-up but perhaps leaning Obama" in a very short timespan, which has created a slight "kick-back" against the pro-Obama fever in that major toss-up state. Hence, many post "kick-back" polls suggest a dead heat in the state. Given the amount of retired military voters and retired folks in general in Florida, and given the fact that Senator McCain once scored six or seven points ahead of Senator Obama in Florida for weeks-long stretches in many polls (and at least four-plus ahead of Senator Obama for months-long stretches), I consider this a good sign that Senator Obama's candidacy is strong in Florida.
3.) There is almost always a "tightening" of the polls nationally prior to a presidential election if one candidate is leading the other by a not insubstantial margin leading into the final three weeks. In this case, Senator Obama has led Senator McCain by about five or six points nationally for a few weeks now, and the general trend has been toward Senator Obama for a month or more now. Hence, it is natural that in several swing-states (and, in a more general manner, nationally) people are conducting gut-checks regarding their choices in order to solidify their decisions, and some of them are wavering. Yet the point is that many are not, as most all of the national polls still suggest that Senator Obama is in the lead by at least four percentage points, and perhaps as much as six, amongst folks who suggest they are going to vote on November 4. (There are of course some polls that show smaller or larger national leads for Senator Obama, but the four-to-six point region seems the most often reported at this point.)
Let's remember that just prior to election day in 2004, President George W. Bush led in most national polls by a mere percentage point or two, yet he won the election nationally by about two-and-a-half percentage points. Though how each state votes is more important than national numbers, a lead of three or more percentage points nationally this late in the campaign season is a good sign for the leader....
4.) It's important to look at the other swing-states that are at this moment very much "in play." Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin--three of which voted for Senator Kerry in 2004--are at present in "relatively safe Obama territory." New Mexico and Oregon are probably also there, and New Hampshire may be moving rapidly in that direction (though one never knows about New Hampshire). That leaves Colorado, Florida, Missouri, Ohio, Nevada, North Carolina, and Virginia as the most-competitive swing-states at present, all of whom voted for George W. Bush in his narrow 2004 electoral victory. (And don't count-out Indiana, which also voted for President Bush....)
Hence, if there is a late swing to Senator McCain in the final two weeks of the campaign, he will pick up several of those states, which can only be considered a "hold" for the Republican nominee--and the election will probably be a very close one. Conversely, if there is a late swing to Senator Obama, he will win the election in a landslide. The third scenario comes about if things simply "tighten" a bit more in those states, in which case the advantage surely goes to Senator Obama. And things have actually "tightened" in Senator Obama's favor in a few other states of late: Georgia, Montana, North Dakota, and West Virginia. All of those states voted for George W. Bush in both 2000 and 2004. A win for Senator Obama is still a long-shot in those four states, but his competitiveness in those states puts more pressure on Senator McCain's camp.
Broadly speaking, Senator McCain is still on defense now, whereas Senator Obama is still on offense. Senator McCain can still win the election, but if Senator Obama keeps playing his cards in a steady, cool manner, potentially losing either Florida or Ohio will not lose him the election, because he need not win either of those states in order to win the electoral vote--though he'd love to win at least one of them. Senator McCain, however, needs to win both of those states to win the election, and he needs to improve his numbers elsewhere, as well.
Friday, October 17, 2008
Various Notions, Volume 13: Hasslington's Third Presidential Debate Poll Results; International Refractions In The Midwest; Hasslington Sounds Off
FOR SENATOR OBAMA, MODERATE DEBATE SUCCESS IS MOST LIKELY A POSITIVE SIGN....
The results of "Hasslington's Third Presidential Debate Poll" indicate that Hasslington readers think Senator Obama "won" the third and final U.S. presidential debate, though most of them think it was a "moderate" win for him as opposed to a "big" win. Yes, a few folks thought that it was a big win for Senator Obama, and a few folks thought it was a big win for Senator McCain (and a few folks thought the debate ended in a tie, or a draw), but slightly more than half of those who cast their vote in the poll on this blog-site in the twenty-four hours after the debate ended thought that it was a moderate victory for Senator Obama. No other option registered higher than 15% or 16%. As I did not see most of the debate due to other obligations, I accept the decision of the Hasslington voters, and I thank them for casting their votes.
One way or the other, Senator McCain most likely needed a "big" win in order to immediately gain ground nationally in the presidential race, and, given the results of polls conducted by various national and international media outlets in the wake of the debate, he most certainly did not achieve a "big" win in the minds of the vast majority of voters. In fact, like the Hasslington poll, many of the post-debate surveys conducted by the major news organizations (and the like) suggested that Senator Obama may have achieved a third debate victory, if not an overwhelming one.
But let's say, for argument's sake, that it was evenly matched this third time around. Even if that were the case, as they say in baseball, the tie goes to the runner. Senator McCain's team has been on the field for a while now, and Senator Obama's team has been at bat during that time, which is most likely a positive sign for Senator Obama's team. A tie, therefore, goes to Senator Obama's baserunner. His next batter is stepping up to the plate, and Senator McCain's pitcher is tiring visibly.
Yet there are still two and a half weeks until the next election. Hold onto your seats, political fans, because we'll soon be entering the ninth inning, with Senator Obama leading 3-0 and his closing pitcher ready to shut things down. Yet, as Yogi Berra would say, "It ain't over 'til it's over." That may sound silly, but there's little use in denying that there's a certain amount of solid sense in that Yogi-ism. As applied to this election cycle, there's probably a lot of sense in it.
NOTE TO THOSE WHO MISTAKINGLY THINK A PROVINCIAL, INSULAR MENTALITY CAN STILL BE APPLIED IN THE U.S.A. IN A WORKABLE SENSE IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY
Mrs. Hasslington, who is British, attends a French-speaking group on a regular basis, which meets here in the Twin Cities in Minnesota, USA. Other people in attendance include (but are certainly not limited to) folks from France, Spain, the continent of Africa, South-east Asia, and so on and so forth. (If Governor "I-just-got-my-first-passport" Palin stumbled upon this group while looking for the pom-poms she had accidentally misplaced, it would blow her mind, I'm sure....) And, of course, they all speak English, too.
I cannot for the life of me see how this type of scenario, multiplied on a mass scale across the country, would serve to destabilize anything in our fine republic, with the exception of cultural myopia. (But I'm all for destabilizing that.) In fact, as far as I'm concerned, it simply makes things more interesting, and it also carries on the tradition of the constant addition of new ideas and motivated people that has made the United States the great country that it is.
SPEAKING OF THE BRITISH....
Or, rather, speaking of a Brit who recently became an American citizen.... Mike, I'll be out of town this weekend, but I'll hoist a few with you at our local watering hole sometime soon. Until then, as always, take it easy, my friend.
(That's really all I wanted to say in this particular segment.)
REGARDING THE IMPORTANCE OF TRAVEL, PARTICULARLY BUT NOT EXCLUSIVELY INTERNATIONAL TRAVEL
In a column written for CNN International, British writer Robin Oakley reminded me recently of one of my favorite quotations. "It was the American Mark Twain," Oakley wrote, "who reminded us all that 'travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness.'"
Insofar as this topic is concerned, let me make a few things clear: Mark Twain was not only a great writer (if you've read any of his material you would probably agree that such a declaration goes without saying), but he was also great in a uniquely American manner in that he was sarcastic yet warm-hearted, sophisticated yet Midwestern from his head to his toes (which, being a Midwesterner myself, I would suggest is certainly a virtue), well-read and experimental in both his writing style and the substance of what he had to say, well-traveled yet unmistakeably salt-of-the-earth, and every bit as relevant today as when he was alive and producing his classic works of literature.
Yet I also want to say that what he had to say regarding travel--he traveled both inside and outside of the United States extensively--is, to my mind, very accurate. To that end, and as applied to my own life, I have found that a lot of folks my age (which is to say in their thirties) misuse the excuses "I couldn't afford to travel when I was younger" and "I can't afford to travel now."
Well, I grew up in a middle class family and went to a private high school, so even though we were never "in want" (as the saying goes), given the demographics of the school I attended, I was almost surely in the lower half insofar as household income was concerned. So, too, was a good friend of mine, with whom I traveled to Germany on the school's summer foreign-exchange trip when we were sixteen or seventeen. Though there were a lot of males in the school's various German classes and the trip was open to all, we were the only two males who signed up for the trip. (Ten young ladies were also on the trip; despite the favorable percentages and despite the extensive time we spent with those young ladies--or perhaps because of the extensive time we spent with them--my friend and I were to both come up rather empty on the romance front during that trip....)
Fast-forwarding to the present day, I've been back in the U.S. for a year or so (previous to that, I lived for two-and-a-half-years in England), and in that time I have seen a fair few folks with whom my friend and I attended that private school. When they ask me about my life, among the various things I mention is my time spent abroad. When I tell them this, more than a fair share of them say something along the lines of, "Well, I wish I could have traveled back then, but we couldn't afford it. And I can't afford it today."
This is complete nonsense. I worked for a year as a small business manager here in the U.S. (during which time I made a very modest salary) and I have since worked as a teacher both here in the U.S. and abroad (during which time I have made a similarly modest salary), and I could still afford to travel. Sure, I could not afford to purchase an SUV or the like, but I could and have been able to make ends meet without accumulating debt while still traveling abroad on as regular a basis as possible. Many of the folks with whom I went to high school, for their part, came from either middle class families similar to mine or upper class families whose resources vastly outstripped my family's, and many of them make much, much more money per year than I do and have fairly generous vacation plans. Hence, what they are saying is nonsense.
Robin Oakley, in the article to which I refer above, writes, "...anybody with the money to own an SUV, hunt moose, and drive a snowmobile has the money to travel." He's right. So this is not about "not being able to afford" to travel--not for the folks to whom I refer. It's about priorities; it's about where the money goes. I do not wish to own an SUV, and I care very little about whether or not folks with whom I attended high school, etc., own SUVs or snowmobiles or retro-fitted houses in the suburbs. They are obviously free to do so. What does bother me, however, is this "I can't afford to travel abroad" nonsense. Actually, they don't wish to travel abroad, at least not enough to sacrifice a few creature comforts.
Again, that's their prerogative. But I wonder how many of them would be as focused relentlessly on the accumulation of ever more and greater creature comforts as they seem to be if they took the time to ditch the excuses, purchase plane tickets to some place outside of the country where they've never before been, and went there....
The wider world is not for a select few, folks; it's not the domain of a few "elites." On the contrary, in this international era, nearly everyone who can afford to should explore it. And those who cannot afford to should be helped to do so. I guess this is my way of saying that I care about my country enough to want to see its fine people better understand our unique role in the world not only from our perspective at home, but from the perspective of an American abroad. We do a lot well, but we also get the leaders we deserve, and to that end we could use a lot less of what we've had over the last eight years. A bit more international savvy and less of a tin ear to the developments of the day would help us to recalibrate our focus so that we can continue to provide new and different--and important--leadership in an ever-changing world.
The results of "Hasslington's Third Presidential Debate Poll" indicate that Hasslington readers think Senator Obama "won" the third and final U.S. presidential debate, though most of them think it was a "moderate" win for him as opposed to a "big" win. Yes, a few folks thought that it was a big win for Senator Obama, and a few folks thought it was a big win for Senator McCain (and a few folks thought the debate ended in a tie, or a draw), but slightly more than half of those who cast their vote in the poll on this blog-site in the twenty-four hours after the debate ended thought that it was a moderate victory for Senator Obama. No other option registered higher than 15% or 16%. As I did not see most of the debate due to other obligations, I accept the decision of the Hasslington voters, and I thank them for casting their votes.
One way or the other, Senator McCain most likely needed a "big" win in order to immediately gain ground nationally in the presidential race, and, given the results of polls conducted by various national and international media outlets in the wake of the debate, he most certainly did not achieve a "big" win in the minds of the vast majority of voters. In fact, like the Hasslington poll, many of the post-debate surveys conducted by the major news organizations (and the like) suggested that Senator Obama may have achieved a third debate victory, if not an overwhelming one.
But let's say, for argument's sake, that it was evenly matched this third time around. Even if that were the case, as they say in baseball, the tie goes to the runner. Senator McCain's team has been on the field for a while now, and Senator Obama's team has been at bat during that time, which is most likely a positive sign for Senator Obama's team. A tie, therefore, goes to Senator Obama's baserunner. His next batter is stepping up to the plate, and Senator McCain's pitcher is tiring visibly.
Yet there are still two and a half weeks until the next election. Hold onto your seats, political fans, because we'll soon be entering the ninth inning, with Senator Obama leading 3-0 and his closing pitcher ready to shut things down. Yet, as Yogi Berra would say, "It ain't over 'til it's over." That may sound silly, but there's little use in denying that there's a certain amount of solid sense in that Yogi-ism. As applied to this election cycle, there's probably a lot of sense in it.
NOTE TO THOSE WHO MISTAKINGLY THINK A PROVINCIAL, INSULAR MENTALITY CAN STILL BE APPLIED IN THE U.S.A. IN A WORKABLE SENSE IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY
Mrs. Hasslington, who is British, attends a French-speaking group on a regular basis, which meets here in the Twin Cities in Minnesota, USA. Other people in attendance include (but are certainly not limited to) folks from France, Spain, the continent of Africa, South-east Asia, and so on and so forth. (If Governor "I-just-got-my-first-passport" Palin stumbled upon this group while looking for the pom-poms she had accidentally misplaced, it would blow her mind, I'm sure....) And, of course, they all speak English, too.
I cannot for the life of me see how this type of scenario, multiplied on a mass scale across the country, would serve to destabilize anything in our fine republic, with the exception of cultural myopia. (But I'm all for destabilizing that.) In fact, as far as I'm concerned, it simply makes things more interesting, and it also carries on the tradition of the constant addition of new ideas and motivated people that has made the United States the great country that it is.
SPEAKING OF THE BRITISH....
Or, rather, speaking of a Brit who recently became an American citizen.... Mike, I'll be out of town this weekend, but I'll hoist a few with you at our local watering hole sometime soon. Until then, as always, take it easy, my friend.
(That's really all I wanted to say in this particular segment.)
REGARDING THE IMPORTANCE OF TRAVEL, PARTICULARLY BUT NOT EXCLUSIVELY INTERNATIONAL TRAVEL
In a column written for CNN International, British writer Robin Oakley reminded me recently of one of my favorite quotations. "It was the American Mark Twain," Oakley wrote, "who reminded us all that 'travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness.'"
Insofar as this topic is concerned, let me make a few things clear: Mark Twain was not only a great writer (if you've read any of his material you would probably agree that such a declaration goes without saying), but he was also great in a uniquely American manner in that he was sarcastic yet warm-hearted, sophisticated yet Midwestern from his head to his toes (which, being a Midwesterner myself, I would suggest is certainly a virtue), well-read and experimental in both his writing style and the substance of what he had to say, well-traveled yet unmistakeably salt-of-the-earth, and every bit as relevant today as when he was alive and producing his classic works of literature.
Yet I also want to say that what he had to say regarding travel--he traveled both inside and outside of the United States extensively--is, to my mind, very accurate. To that end, and as applied to my own life, I have found that a lot of folks my age (which is to say in their thirties) misuse the excuses "I couldn't afford to travel when I was younger" and "I can't afford to travel now."
Well, I grew up in a middle class family and went to a private high school, so even though we were never "in want" (as the saying goes), given the demographics of the school I attended, I was almost surely in the lower half insofar as household income was concerned. So, too, was a good friend of mine, with whom I traveled to Germany on the school's summer foreign-exchange trip when we were sixteen or seventeen. Though there were a lot of males in the school's various German classes and the trip was open to all, we were the only two males who signed up for the trip. (Ten young ladies were also on the trip; despite the favorable percentages and despite the extensive time we spent with those young ladies--or perhaps because of the extensive time we spent with them--my friend and I were to both come up rather empty on the romance front during that trip....)
Fast-forwarding to the present day, I've been back in the U.S. for a year or so (previous to that, I lived for two-and-a-half-years in England), and in that time I have seen a fair few folks with whom my friend and I attended that private school. When they ask me about my life, among the various things I mention is my time spent abroad. When I tell them this, more than a fair share of them say something along the lines of, "Well, I wish I could have traveled back then, but we couldn't afford it. And I can't afford it today."
This is complete nonsense. I worked for a year as a small business manager here in the U.S. (during which time I made a very modest salary) and I have since worked as a teacher both here in the U.S. and abroad (during which time I have made a similarly modest salary), and I could still afford to travel. Sure, I could not afford to purchase an SUV or the like, but I could and have been able to make ends meet without accumulating debt while still traveling abroad on as regular a basis as possible. Many of the folks with whom I went to high school, for their part, came from either middle class families similar to mine or upper class families whose resources vastly outstripped my family's, and many of them make much, much more money per year than I do and have fairly generous vacation plans. Hence, what they are saying is nonsense.
Robin Oakley, in the article to which I refer above, writes, "...anybody with the money to own an SUV, hunt moose, and drive a snowmobile has the money to travel." He's right. So this is not about "not being able to afford" to travel--not for the folks to whom I refer. It's about priorities; it's about where the money goes. I do not wish to own an SUV, and I care very little about whether or not folks with whom I attended high school, etc., own SUVs or snowmobiles or retro-fitted houses in the suburbs. They are obviously free to do so. What does bother me, however, is this "I can't afford to travel abroad" nonsense. Actually, they don't wish to travel abroad, at least not enough to sacrifice a few creature comforts.
Again, that's their prerogative. But I wonder how many of them would be as focused relentlessly on the accumulation of ever more and greater creature comforts as they seem to be if they took the time to ditch the excuses, purchase plane tickets to some place outside of the country where they've never before been, and went there....
The wider world is not for a select few, folks; it's not the domain of a few "elites." On the contrary, in this international era, nearly everyone who can afford to should explore it. And those who cannot afford to should be helped to do so. I guess this is my way of saying that I care about my country enough to want to see its fine people better understand our unique role in the world not only from our perspective at home, but from the perspective of an American abroad. We do a lot well, but we also get the leaders we deserve, and to that end we could use a lot less of what we've had over the last eight years. A bit more international savvy and less of a tin ear to the developments of the day would help us to recalibrate our focus so that we can continue to provide new and different--and important--leadership in an ever-changing world.
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
American Schoolkids Favor Obama; Hasslington's Third Presidential Debate Poll Forthcoming
KIDS KNOW THE DARNDEST (PRESIDENTIAL) THINGS
The Scholastic company has been taking presidential straw polls of American schoolkids several weeks prior to U.S. presidential elections for many decades now. Now, before you start giggling, consider this fact: American kids have voted for the eventual presidential election winner thirteen of the fifteen times Scholastic has polled them. That's about an 87% accuracy rating through the 2004 election.
One exception to this accuracy rule was during the first Scholastic schoolkids poll in 1948, but that year just about everyone (including the media "experts") thought Thomas Dewey would beat the then-unpopular incumbent President Harry Truman...until President Truman pulled off an unexpected upset victory. The only other exception was in 1960, when the kids leaned toward Richard Nixon, whereas John F. Kennedy managed to win a close victory, but let's remember that the kids' votes were tabulated prior to the televised presidential debate that President Kennedy later suggested largely won him the election.
So, bearing in mind that the percentages of "victory" in these Scholastic polls have not proven to be nearly as accurate as the ability of the kids to predict the eventual winner, here are the nationwide results of this year's poll:
Barack Obama: 57%
John McCain: 39%
Others: 4%
I very much doubt that Senator Obama will win this election by a whopping 18% nationally, so we can probably throw the specific numbers out the window. The fact of the matter, however, is that these polls have proven eerily accurate in predicting the eventual winner, particularly over the last forty-plus years. (Kids often perceive things far more clearly than we adults realize....)
Still, we are constantly being told that this year is "different." In many ways, it is. (And let's remember that there are still three potential "game-changing" weeks left to go....) So we'll just have to wait and see if the kids have gotten it right yet again. That being said, if I were one of the presidential candidates, I'd much rather win the Scholastic poll than lose it.
HASSLINGTON'S THIRD PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE POLL IS ON ITS WAY...
I watched the entirety of the first and second presidential debates, as well as the entirety of the vice presidential debate, but due to other obligations I may or may not be able to watch all of the third presidential debate, at least not live. So I will provide another Hasslington poll on this blog-site, in the hopes that my readership can indicate who "won" (however one chooses to measure a debate "win") and by how much. It will be posted soon after the third presidential debate ends.
For what it's worth, here are the possible answers in the forthcoming poll: "Big Win For John McCain"; "Moderate Win For John McCain"; "Tie (Draw)"; "Moderate Win For Barack Obama"; "Big Win For Barack Obama."
As always, feel free to let me know why you voted the way you did....
The Scholastic company has been taking presidential straw polls of American schoolkids several weeks prior to U.S. presidential elections for many decades now. Now, before you start giggling, consider this fact: American kids have voted for the eventual presidential election winner thirteen of the fifteen times Scholastic has polled them. That's about an 87% accuracy rating through the 2004 election.
One exception to this accuracy rule was during the first Scholastic schoolkids poll in 1948, but that year just about everyone (including the media "experts") thought Thomas Dewey would beat the then-unpopular incumbent President Harry Truman...until President Truman pulled off an unexpected upset victory. The only other exception was in 1960, when the kids leaned toward Richard Nixon, whereas John F. Kennedy managed to win a close victory, but let's remember that the kids' votes were tabulated prior to the televised presidential debate that President Kennedy later suggested largely won him the election.
So, bearing in mind that the percentages of "victory" in these Scholastic polls have not proven to be nearly as accurate as the ability of the kids to predict the eventual winner, here are the nationwide results of this year's poll:
Barack Obama: 57%
John McCain: 39%
Others: 4%
I very much doubt that Senator Obama will win this election by a whopping 18% nationally, so we can probably throw the specific numbers out the window. The fact of the matter, however, is that these polls have proven eerily accurate in predicting the eventual winner, particularly over the last forty-plus years. (Kids often perceive things far more clearly than we adults realize....)
Still, we are constantly being told that this year is "different." In many ways, it is. (And let's remember that there are still three potential "game-changing" weeks left to go....) So we'll just have to wait and see if the kids have gotten it right yet again. That being said, if I were one of the presidential candidates, I'd much rather win the Scholastic poll than lose it.
HASSLINGTON'S THIRD PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE POLL IS ON ITS WAY...
I watched the entirety of the first and second presidential debates, as well as the entirety of the vice presidential debate, but due to other obligations I may or may not be able to watch all of the third presidential debate, at least not live. So I will provide another Hasslington poll on this blog-site, in the hopes that my readership can indicate who "won" (however one chooses to measure a debate "win") and by how much. It will be posted soon after the third presidential debate ends.
For what it's worth, here are the possible answers in the forthcoming poll: "Big Win For John McCain"; "Moderate Win For John McCain"; "Tie (Draw)"; "Moderate Win For Barack Obama"; "Big Win For Barack Obama."
As always, feel free to let me know why you voted the way you did....
Monday, October 13, 2008
Bits And Bobs, Volume II: Second Presidential Debate Poll Results; Duluth, Ya' Know; A Nickname That Fails To Inspire Confidence; Polish Coal; Etc.
HASSLINGTON'S SECOND PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE POLL RESULTS
Though I am a supporter of Senator Obama's presidential candidacy, I know for a fact that several supporters of Senator McCain's candidacy read the Hasslington blog-site on a fairly regular basis. (I know this because they refer to recent things I've written when I converse with them, often without being prompted to do so.) It is therefore the case that I was a bit surprised when every single person who took part in "Hasslington's Second Presidential Debate Poll" decided that Senator Obama won the debate.
Now, obviously this blog-site is bound to attract more Obama supporters than McCain supporters, so that might account for the Obama victory in the poll, but that alone doesn't account for the overwhelming nature of the victory. Another big factor was probably Senator Obama's calm and steady performance during the debate, which probably struck people as impressive next to Senator McCain's various attempts to paint Senator Obama with a "too liberal" brush, most of which fizzled-out, often leaving Senator McCain with a slightly frustrated look on his face. Still another reason might be the fact that Senator Obama, leading in the national polls heading into the debate, did nothing to hurt his candidacy, though he landed no real knock-out punches, either. And, of course, a few of Senator McCain's supporters might simply have decided that their candidate had an "off" night (he can ill afford many more of those), whereas Senator Obama did better by comparison.
Whatever the reason, the results were overwhelming. I wonder what the results of the third presidential debate (and the accompanying Hasslington poll, which will appear following the debate) will be?...
HASSLINGTON'S WEEKEND: "YA' KNOW, LET'S GO UP NORT' TO DULUT'..."
Mrs. Hasslington and I spent the weekend at a friend's house in Duluth, Minnesota (population just under 100,000), which is located at the mouth of Lake Superior, about 150 miles north of our abode in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis/Saint Paul. Because of its unique location, Duluth is in many respects the westernmost Atlantic Ocean port in North America, despite the fact that it is near the middle of the North American continent. (Ships enter at the Saint Lawrence Seaway in Canada and make their way through the Great Lakes prior to ending their journey in Duluth.)
Duluth--whose oldest residents seem to insist on pronouncing "Dulut'," though no one else who lives there calls it that--was a sadly dilapidated, rather ugly city when I visited in the mid-1980s. At that time, it was a one-trick pony, economically speaking, as it was a mining (taconite and the like) and shipping town. When the mines became economically untenable, much of the city's population fled, leaving behind what seemed to me to be a post-apocalyptic landscape. Yet since the early 1990s, Duluth has slowly but surely diversified economically (and it doesn't hurt that it is still a shipping town, as well as the fact that some mining business has rebounded slightly), and the city has improved in many ways. For instance, its population is once again on the rise, and it is also far easier on the eyes now than it was twenty or twenty-five years ago.
Among other reasons, when I live in Minnesota, I try to visit the city once a year or so in order to monitor its progress (obviously, when I'm abroad for extended periods of time, this does not occur), though I don't go there during their ridiculous winters anymore. At present, it seems to be doing okay, though the national economic downturn has adversely affected Duluth's economy the way it has similarly affected most towns and cities. So we'll see how things go insofar as Duluth's future economic diversification is concerned....
By the way, if you happen to find yourself in Duluth, you might want to check-out Sir Benedict's English bar, which is located in an old, converted brick gas station near the lakeshore. As one might suspect, it's just as "Upper Midwest" in decor and feel as it is "English," but in its own, uniquely messy, hodge-podge way, the combination works. (Mrs. Hasslington, a British expatriate, agrees.) Sir Benedict's is often called "Sir Ben's." Knowing this in a general but obviously not specific sense, I informed our taxi driver that we would like to go to "Gentle Ben's," which elicited a huge belly-laugh from both the taxi driver and the other passengers.
In my defense, there are a lot of bears in northern Minnesota. So I would think mine was a fairly natural mistake....
SURELY TWO HARBORS CAN COME UP WITH A BETTER NICKNAME THAN THAT....
Two Harbors is a small shipping town located just twenty or twenty-five miles up the Lake Superior coast from Duluth, and we decided to spend part of this past Saturday there. The road through the town looks like a strip-mall infused nightmare, but the actual heart of the town is gorgeous, filled with small, surprisingly elaborate-looking, well-cared-for houses and little corner shops. During a visit to the lakeshore, which features a beautiful red lighthouse, our enjoyment of the scenery was temporarily put on hold (shall we say?) due to the fact that someone who lived nearby announced to us in a rather unsolicited manner, "Sometimes we call this town Two Bar Whores."
Now, as I said, the main road that runs through the town looks like a sad statement on Corporate America's idea of paradise, but, given the look of the majority of the town (and the friendliness of its people), that gentleman seemed to be selling Two Harbors somewhat short. One way or the other, were I a local resident, I don't think I'd be apt to vote him onto the town's chamber of commerce....
"MIXED-TAPE REVIEW": IT'S GOOD, SO PLEASE WRITE POSTS MORE OFTEN
This past spring, a friend of mine started a blog, which he calls "Mixed-Tape Review" (and which is located at http://www.mixedtapereview.blogspot.com/). It deals with various topics, from politics to movies (the Godfather films; Alfred Hitchcock; etc) to sociology, and I find it interesting. The author is a busy guy, but I am writing this in the hopes that he soon begins to write posts more often than he does at present. So let's see if this works--at any rate, it can't hurt....
REMEMBER WHEN SHOWS MARKETED TOWARD CHILDREN PROVIDED MORE THOUGHT-PROVOKING QUOTATIONS THAN TODAY'S ADULT-ORIENTED SHOWS OFFER?
When I was growing up, I loved the British science-fiction television show "Doctor Who," which was initially marketed for children. (It ran on the local PBS station.) This surely puts me in the "hopelessly nerdy" category, particularly since I still feel affection for the old program, which ran from 1963 to 1989. (And I still occasionally watch the new version, which began in 2005.) In fact, though I love reading speeches delivered by the likes of Abraham Lincoln and Winston Churchill, etc., one of my favorite quotations is from an early episode of Doctor Who, way back when William Hartnell played the role of the time-traveling Doctor. (Obviously, other favorite quotes of mine come from the likes of Lincoln, Churchill, and so forth....)
At the end of one episode, recognizing that people are inherently selfish (or at least self-centered) before they're generous, The Doctor left a particular group of people by making sure to both acknowledge his own self-interested nature and show how it can be used in a generous manner, in the hopes that they do likewise. As best I can remember it, he said the following:
"Some day, I shall be back. Yes, I shall be back. Until then, there must be no undue fears or anxieties. Just move forward in all your beliefs, which will prove to me that I am not mistaken in mine."
Linking generosity (which we see in his plea for them to "...move forward in all your beliefs...") with a certain pragmatic self-interest ("...which will prove to me that I am not mistaken in mine...") is the sort of somewhat symbiotic, very proactive acknowledgment I'd like to hear from our political leaders a bit more often.
ENERGY AND EASTERN EUROPE: AN AMERICAN OPPORTUNITY
Psst: Like a lot of Eastern European countries, Poland is frightened by the burgeoning power of Russia, particularly (but not exclusively) as it is applied to the European energy market. With European Union restrictions on carbon emissions in place, Poland's large quantities of coal cannot at present be utilized to provide as much energy as the country would like. Hence, Russian natural gas lines might find themselves in Poland in increasing numbers.
This is where American technology can come into play. Carbon sequestration, which removes a lot of the carbon from coal as it is transformed into energy (and is therefore a far cleaner way of using coal-powered energy), and which is presently being developed in the U.S. and elsewhere, can be applied to ease Poland's energy crunch and avert the Kremlin from setting down further roots in Poland, which I need not remind folks is an American ally in Eastern Europe.
This is a real opportunity to apply American techology to a part of the world that is feeling economic and cultural heat from Russia, and it would grow jobs in both the United States and Europe if a major energy partnership were to take place in such countries as Poland (amongst others in the region). At present, the U.S. is working on providing interceptor missiles and accompanying radars for the region. Why not also work on providing mutually-beneficial energy technologies, which would mean a ramping-up of research, and therefore an increase in jobs, here in the U.S.? Surely the Kremlin would find it harder to suggest that U.S. clean-coal technologies are a "threat" to Russia than they do at present regarding U.S. missiles, right? Oh, they'd try to find a way to make it seem "insidious," but I doubt they'd sound convincing to many presently-wary Eastern Europeans....
Though I am a supporter of Senator Obama's presidential candidacy, I know for a fact that several supporters of Senator McCain's candidacy read the Hasslington blog-site on a fairly regular basis. (I know this because they refer to recent things I've written when I converse with them, often without being prompted to do so.) It is therefore the case that I was a bit surprised when every single person who took part in "Hasslington's Second Presidential Debate Poll" decided that Senator Obama won the debate.
Now, obviously this blog-site is bound to attract more Obama supporters than McCain supporters, so that might account for the Obama victory in the poll, but that alone doesn't account for the overwhelming nature of the victory. Another big factor was probably Senator Obama's calm and steady performance during the debate, which probably struck people as impressive next to Senator McCain's various attempts to paint Senator Obama with a "too liberal" brush, most of which fizzled-out, often leaving Senator McCain with a slightly frustrated look on his face. Still another reason might be the fact that Senator Obama, leading in the national polls heading into the debate, did nothing to hurt his candidacy, though he landed no real knock-out punches, either. And, of course, a few of Senator McCain's supporters might simply have decided that their candidate had an "off" night (he can ill afford many more of those), whereas Senator Obama did better by comparison.
Whatever the reason, the results were overwhelming. I wonder what the results of the third presidential debate (and the accompanying Hasslington poll, which will appear following the debate) will be?...
HASSLINGTON'S WEEKEND: "YA' KNOW, LET'S GO UP NORT' TO DULUT'..."
Mrs. Hasslington and I spent the weekend at a friend's house in Duluth, Minnesota (population just under 100,000), which is located at the mouth of Lake Superior, about 150 miles north of our abode in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis/Saint Paul. Because of its unique location, Duluth is in many respects the westernmost Atlantic Ocean port in North America, despite the fact that it is near the middle of the North American continent. (Ships enter at the Saint Lawrence Seaway in Canada and make their way through the Great Lakes prior to ending their journey in Duluth.)
Duluth--whose oldest residents seem to insist on pronouncing "Dulut'," though no one else who lives there calls it that--was a sadly dilapidated, rather ugly city when I visited in the mid-1980s. At that time, it was a one-trick pony, economically speaking, as it was a mining (taconite and the like) and shipping town. When the mines became economically untenable, much of the city's population fled, leaving behind what seemed to me to be a post-apocalyptic landscape. Yet since the early 1990s, Duluth has slowly but surely diversified economically (and it doesn't hurt that it is still a shipping town, as well as the fact that some mining business has rebounded slightly), and the city has improved in many ways. For instance, its population is once again on the rise, and it is also far easier on the eyes now than it was twenty or twenty-five years ago.
Among other reasons, when I live in Minnesota, I try to visit the city once a year or so in order to monitor its progress (obviously, when I'm abroad for extended periods of time, this does not occur), though I don't go there during their ridiculous winters anymore. At present, it seems to be doing okay, though the national economic downturn has adversely affected Duluth's economy the way it has similarly affected most towns and cities. So we'll see how things go insofar as Duluth's future economic diversification is concerned....
By the way, if you happen to find yourself in Duluth, you might want to check-out Sir Benedict's English bar, which is located in an old, converted brick gas station near the lakeshore. As one might suspect, it's just as "Upper Midwest" in decor and feel as it is "English," but in its own, uniquely messy, hodge-podge way, the combination works. (Mrs. Hasslington, a British expatriate, agrees.) Sir Benedict's is often called "Sir Ben's." Knowing this in a general but obviously not specific sense, I informed our taxi driver that we would like to go to "Gentle Ben's," which elicited a huge belly-laugh from both the taxi driver and the other passengers.
In my defense, there are a lot of bears in northern Minnesota. So I would think mine was a fairly natural mistake....
SURELY TWO HARBORS CAN COME UP WITH A BETTER NICKNAME THAN THAT....
Two Harbors is a small shipping town located just twenty or twenty-five miles up the Lake Superior coast from Duluth, and we decided to spend part of this past Saturday there. The road through the town looks like a strip-mall infused nightmare, but the actual heart of the town is gorgeous, filled with small, surprisingly elaborate-looking, well-cared-for houses and little corner shops. During a visit to the lakeshore, which features a beautiful red lighthouse, our enjoyment of the scenery was temporarily put on hold (shall we say?) due to the fact that someone who lived nearby announced to us in a rather unsolicited manner, "Sometimes we call this town Two Bar Whores."
Now, as I said, the main road that runs through the town looks like a sad statement on Corporate America's idea of paradise, but, given the look of the majority of the town (and the friendliness of its people), that gentleman seemed to be selling Two Harbors somewhat short. One way or the other, were I a local resident, I don't think I'd be apt to vote him onto the town's chamber of commerce....
"MIXED-TAPE REVIEW": IT'S GOOD, SO PLEASE WRITE POSTS MORE OFTEN
This past spring, a friend of mine started a blog, which he calls "Mixed-Tape Review" (and which is located at http://www.mixedtapereview.blogspot.com/). It deals with various topics, from politics to movies (the Godfather films; Alfred Hitchcock; etc) to sociology, and I find it interesting. The author is a busy guy, but I am writing this in the hopes that he soon begins to write posts more often than he does at present. So let's see if this works--at any rate, it can't hurt....
REMEMBER WHEN SHOWS MARKETED TOWARD CHILDREN PROVIDED MORE THOUGHT-PROVOKING QUOTATIONS THAN TODAY'S ADULT-ORIENTED SHOWS OFFER?
When I was growing up, I loved the British science-fiction television show "Doctor Who," which was initially marketed for children. (It ran on the local PBS station.) This surely puts me in the "hopelessly nerdy" category, particularly since I still feel affection for the old program, which ran from 1963 to 1989. (And I still occasionally watch the new version, which began in 2005.) In fact, though I love reading speeches delivered by the likes of Abraham Lincoln and Winston Churchill, etc., one of my favorite quotations is from an early episode of Doctor Who, way back when William Hartnell played the role of the time-traveling Doctor. (Obviously, other favorite quotes of mine come from the likes of Lincoln, Churchill, and so forth....)
At the end of one episode, recognizing that people are inherently selfish (or at least self-centered) before they're generous, The Doctor left a particular group of people by making sure to both acknowledge his own self-interested nature and show how it can be used in a generous manner, in the hopes that they do likewise. As best I can remember it, he said the following:
"Some day, I shall be back. Yes, I shall be back. Until then, there must be no undue fears or anxieties. Just move forward in all your beliefs, which will prove to me that I am not mistaken in mine."
Linking generosity (which we see in his plea for them to "...move forward in all your beliefs...") with a certain pragmatic self-interest ("...which will prove to me that I am not mistaken in mine...") is the sort of somewhat symbiotic, very proactive acknowledgment I'd like to hear from our political leaders a bit more often.
ENERGY AND EASTERN EUROPE: AN AMERICAN OPPORTUNITY
Psst: Like a lot of Eastern European countries, Poland is frightened by the burgeoning power of Russia, particularly (but not exclusively) as it is applied to the European energy market. With European Union restrictions on carbon emissions in place, Poland's large quantities of coal cannot at present be utilized to provide as much energy as the country would like. Hence, Russian natural gas lines might find themselves in Poland in increasing numbers.
This is where American technology can come into play. Carbon sequestration, which removes a lot of the carbon from coal as it is transformed into energy (and is therefore a far cleaner way of using coal-powered energy), and which is presently being developed in the U.S. and elsewhere, can be applied to ease Poland's energy crunch and avert the Kremlin from setting down further roots in Poland, which I need not remind folks is an American ally in Eastern Europe.
This is a real opportunity to apply American techology to a part of the world that is feeling economic and cultural heat from Russia, and it would grow jobs in both the United States and Europe if a major energy partnership were to take place in such countries as Poland (amongst others in the region). At present, the U.S. is working on providing interceptor missiles and accompanying radars for the region. Why not also work on providing mutually-beneficial energy technologies, which would mean a ramping-up of research, and therefore an increase in jobs, here in the U.S.? Surely the Kremlin would find it harder to suggest that U.S. clean-coal technologies are a "threat" to Russia than they do at present regarding U.S. missiles, right? Oh, they'd try to find a way to make it seem "insidious," but I doubt they'd sound convincing to many presently-wary Eastern Europeans....
Thursday, October 9, 2008
Mavericks For Obama
According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, a "maverick" is an "unbranded range animal," so named because a certain Samuel A. Maverick was a nineteenth century American pioneer "who did not brand his calves." (Apparently, this garnered him considerable attention, at least in the eyes of American frontier history.) The second definition provided by the dictionary shows how the word's modern meaning has altered and simplified from the first definition: "nonconformist."
Okay, so there we have it--"maverick" now means "nonconformist." I had to look it up because it's been used as political leverage so incessantly often by the McCain/Palin campaign that its meaning has become so diffuse as to be rendered meaningless. (The only interesting thing about the word at present is how Governor Palin pronounces it. When she uses the term in her speeches--which happens so often that if I didn't know better I would tend to think she is trying to make the term into a stodgy parody of itself--she seems to be saying "MAAAHV-rack." I'm not making fun of her pronounciation, but rather fascinated by it.)
About a decade ago, a local Twin Cities school district tried to raise tax funds for a new high school building (the original one was overcrowded and creaking because of it), and they promoted the effort with the term "Levy For Learning." It's a cute slogan but it failed the first time voters went to the polls because its spokespeople made the odd decision to use it in what seemed to be over fifty percent of their alarmingly generic sentences when the issue was debated throughout the district. For instance, a pro-funds spokesperson would typically say, "This is a levy for learning. I want folks to understand that. When we talk about raising tax dollars, we're talking about creating a levy for learning, which is a levy that promotes learning...." Hence, the term lost any semblance of actual specific meaning in a manner directly related to its acquiring rapidly parody status.
That's what seems to have long since happened to the term "maverick" as applied to Senator John McCain. It simply lacks any concrete meaning anymore. In fact, it's so worn out by now that nearly every single context in which it has been used of late--whether or not it is used in a serious manner--strikes me as farcical in nature. (You know the word "maverick" has been oversaturated when one finds oneself reacting the same way to the term when Tiny Fey uses it to skewer Governor Palin and, by extention, Senator McCain on "Saturday Night Live" as when Governor Palin uses it on the campaign trail.)
And it's not difficult to see how we got here. After all, when Senator McCain occasionally argues against his party's platform(s) he's described by his campaign as a "maverick." Conversely, when he wishes to double-down on the Bush tax strategies (which have been supported broadly by his party's more conservative politicians) he's described by his campaign as a "maverick." When he tries to attach such simplistic and misleading words as "surrender" to those who disagree with his future Iraq policies he's described by his campaign as a "maverick." When he chose a female running mate (for whom I feel sorry in the sense that it is her role at present to work the word "maverick" into at least half of the sentences she uses to describe Senator McCain) he was described by his campaign as a "maverick." From when he sounds like a staunch foreign policy conservative, using words like "naieve" to describe Senator Obama, to when he says that "change is coming" to the (presently conservative) office of the presidency, he is described by his campaign as a "maverick."
At present, it doesn't look as though the McCain campaign's use of the term "maverick" will evaporate (or even ease up a bit) until after November 4. That being the case, I have decided to take the following mindset regarding this term: if you can't beat 'em, join 'em...or, rather, if you can't beat 'em, use their own term against 'em. To that end, I have decided that I will create my own "Mavericks For Obama" sign and display it in my window in the two or so weeks prior to the election. I'm serious about this.
After all, Senator Obama was a nonconformist in the sense that he applied his Ivy League education towards helping folks in struggling Chicago neighborhoods in a number of proactive manners, whereas many people in his position would have tried to use such an educational background to acquire far more lucrative careers. He was also a nonconformist in that he argued against the ill-conceived but (at the time) somewhat popular invasion of Iraq, suggesting that the real central front in the war against terror was and remains the Afghanistan/Pakistan border region; in retrospect, he has been proven largely correct about these issues. Furthermore, Senator Obama is a nonconformist, at least in comparison to the viewpoints espoused by President Bush and Senator McCain, in that he is willing to speak to our adversaries and listen to what they have to say in order to work out certain points of contention. (Let's remember that he does not suggest that we will always or even often agree with our adversaries, and that a lot of these discussions will focus on "tough talk" and not feel-good happy thoughts.) And he has run his campaign in a nonconformist manner in the sense that he has refrained from criticizing Senator McCain's apparently knee-jerk choice of Governor Palin to be his running mate (and Senator Obama's own running mate has largely followed his lead on this issue), preferring to focus on policy issues rather than getting into a nasty debate about her qualifications. My goodness, this might even suggest that Senator Obama trusts the American people to decide whether or not Governor Palin is qualified for the vice presidency, which, as far as presidential election strategies are concerned, is a mighty maverick move indeed.
There you have it. I am and will remain annoyed with the overuse of the term "maverick" from now until election day, but I realize that it isn't going away anytime soon. So I have decided to use it to support my candidate of choice. If this election hinges on the votes of those who consider themselves mavericks (or hockey moms, or any other diverse group of voters), I for one think that the Obama/Biden ticket will win. We'll see.
Okay, so there we have it--"maverick" now means "nonconformist." I had to look it up because it's been used as political leverage so incessantly often by the McCain/Palin campaign that its meaning has become so diffuse as to be rendered meaningless. (The only interesting thing about the word at present is how Governor Palin pronounces it. When she uses the term in her speeches--which happens so often that if I didn't know better I would tend to think she is trying to make the term into a stodgy parody of itself--she seems to be saying "MAAAHV-rack." I'm not making fun of her pronounciation, but rather fascinated by it.)
About a decade ago, a local Twin Cities school district tried to raise tax funds for a new high school building (the original one was overcrowded and creaking because of it), and they promoted the effort with the term "Levy For Learning." It's a cute slogan but it failed the first time voters went to the polls because its spokespeople made the odd decision to use it in what seemed to be over fifty percent of their alarmingly generic sentences when the issue was debated throughout the district. For instance, a pro-funds spokesperson would typically say, "This is a levy for learning. I want folks to understand that. When we talk about raising tax dollars, we're talking about creating a levy for learning, which is a levy that promotes learning...." Hence, the term lost any semblance of actual specific meaning in a manner directly related to its acquiring rapidly parody status.
That's what seems to have long since happened to the term "maverick" as applied to Senator John McCain. It simply lacks any concrete meaning anymore. In fact, it's so worn out by now that nearly every single context in which it has been used of late--whether or not it is used in a serious manner--strikes me as farcical in nature. (You know the word "maverick" has been oversaturated when one finds oneself reacting the same way to the term when Tiny Fey uses it to skewer Governor Palin and, by extention, Senator McCain on "Saturday Night Live" as when Governor Palin uses it on the campaign trail.)
And it's not difficult to see how we got here. After all, when Senator McCain occasionally argues against his party's platform(s) he's described by his campaign as a "maverick." Conversely, when he wishes to double-down on the Bush tax strategies (which have been supported broadly by his party's more conservative politicians) he's described by his campaign as a "maverick." When he tries to attach such simplistic and misleading words as "surrender" to those who disagree with his future Iraq policies he's described by his campaign as a "maverick." When he chose a female running mate (for whom I feel sorry in the sense that it is her role at present to work the word "maverick" into at least half of the sentences she uses to describe Senator McCain) he was described by his campaign as a "maverick." From when he sounds like a staunch foreign policy conservative, using words like "naieve" to describe Senator Obama, to when he says that "change is coming" to the (presently conservative) office of the presidency, he is described by his campaign as a "maverick."
At present, it doesn't look as though the McCain campaign's use of the term "maverick" will evaporate (or even ease up a bit) until after November 4. That being the case, I have decided to take the following mindset regarding this term: if you can't beat 'em, join 'em...or, rather, if you can't beat 'em, use their own term against 'em. To that end, I have decided that I will create my own "Mavericks For Obama" sign and display it in my window in the two or so weeks prior to the election. I'm serious about this.
After all, Senator Obama was a nonconformist in the sense that he applied his Ivy League education towards helping folks in struggling Chicago neighborhoods in a number of proactive manners, whereas many people in his position would have tried to use such an educational background to acquire far more lucrative careers. He was also a nonconformist in that he argued against the ill-conceived but (at the time) somewhat popular invasion of Iraq, suggesting that the real central front in the war against terror was and remains the Afghanistan/Pakistan border region; in retrospect, he has been proven largely correct about these issues. Furthermore, Senator Obama is a nonconformist, at least in comparison to the viewpoints espoused by President Bush and Senator McCain, in that he is willing to speak to our adversaries and listen to what they have to say in order to work out certain points of contention. (Let's remember that he does not suggest that we will always or even often agree with our adversaries, and that a lot of these discussions will focus on "tough talk" and not feel-good happy thoughts.) And he has run his campaign in a nonconformist manner in the sense that he has refrained from criticizing Senator McCain's apparently knee-jerk choice of Governor Palin to be his running mate (and Senator Obama's own running mate has largely followed his lead on this issue), preferring to focus on policy issues rather than getting into a nasty debate about her qualifications. My goodness, this might even suggest that Senator Obama trusts the American people to decide whether or not Governor Palin is qualified for the vice presidency, which, as far as presidential election strategies are concerned, is a mighty maverick move indeed.
There you have it. I am and will remain annoyed with the overuse of the term "maverick" from now until election day, but I realize that it isn't going away anytime soon. So I have decided to use it to support my candidate of choice. If this election hinges on the votes of those who consider themselves mavericks (or hockey moms, or any other diverse group of voters), I for one think that the Obama/Biden ticket will win. We'll see.
Wednesday, October 8, 2008
Hasslington's Second Presidential Debate Poll
I was going to write a rather substantive post regarding last night's (second) presidential debate, but I have decided to refrain from doing that in order to allow my readership to decide who won. Hence, I invite anyone who is interested to vote in the new Hasslington poll, which is located above this post.
That being said, I can't help but say a few words about the debate. So, here goes....
As far as my personal take on the debate is concerned, I thought that Senator Obama won the first half (which centered on domestic policy, for the most part), and I thought that the second half (which centered on foreign policy) was a tie...or a draw, or however you wish to phrase it. So, on balance, I felt that it was a "win" for Senator Obama, but not a resounding win. Put another way, using my already well-worn baseball metaphor, we're now through six innings, and Senator Obama is winning 2-0. But as all baseball fans know, though you'd rather be leading 2-0 after six innings than trailing 2-0, it's what you do with the final three innings that matters most.
That being said, I can't help but say a few words about the debate. So, here goes....
As far as my personal take on the debate is concerned, I thought that Senator Obama won the first half (which centered on domestic policy, for the most part), and I thought that the second half (which centered on foreign policy) was a tie...or a draw, or however you wish to phrase it. So, on balance, I felt that it was a "win" for Senator Obama, but not a resounding win. Put another way, using my already well-worn baseball metaphor, we're now through six innings, and Senator Obama is winning 2-0. But as all baseball fans know, though you'd rather be leading 2-0 after six innings than trailing 2-0, it's what you do with the final three innings that matters most.
Tuesday, October 7, 2008
In The Online World, Achieving Long-Term Consistency Of One's "Personal Persona" Is Often Quite A Challenge
While eating lunch in a coffee shop today, I overheard an interesting conversation, conducted by two gentlemen who I would guess were both in their mid-twenties. It appears that one of them maintains a blog and also comments frequently on other blog-sites. The other gentleman took this individual to task for "...writing one thing on your blog and another thing on other blog-sites...."
I found this fascinating for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that it got me thinking about the possible disparity between the persona I project on my own blog-site and the persona I project when I comment on other blog-sites. (I guess this convesation got me thinking that being two or more different "internet personas" at once would be a relatively easy and tempting thing to do....)
I wish I could have listened to the rest of their conversation (because where does such a conversation go from there, any way?), but it was soon the case that I had to leave. Still, I thought I'd provide my readership with a taste of the type(s) of comments I write on the two sites I most frequently visit, which are those written by my friends Anoka Flash (http://www.centrisity.blogspot.com/) and Penigma (http://www.penigma.blogspot.com/). To be sure, I don't comment on these sites every day, but I did happen to post a comment on both of them today.
At present, I'm in the odd position of evaluating what I wrote on these sites and measuring it against what I've written on my site...and coming to the conclusion that my persona doesn't seem to have shifted much, at least as far as today's comments are concerned. This is to say that I find myself in the odd and uncomfortable position of self-congratulation, at least on that score. Yet the point of this is most likely not to show consistency over the course of a single day, but rather over a lengthy period of time. So this is what I resolve to do: I will try to maintain the same personality and basic set of viewpoints from here onward (as I hope I have done at least fairly consistently up to this point), whether writing on my own blog-site or elsewhere. And, at the risk of sounding a bit omnipotent (which I am certainly not) and "teacherly" (a personal aspect which I probably display too often), I hope to encourage others to do likewise.
At any rate, the following are the comments I posted earlier today on my friends' blog-sites, starting with my comment on Penigma's site and followed by my comment on Anoka Flash's site. I suppose you can use these comments any way you wish to use them; I will try to use them as evidence that I am at present at least somewhat consistent insofar as my on-line personality is concerned. (As always, my readership may or may not agree with me.)
(Note: I have edited both comments, but only very slightly, so that one or two awkward turns of phrase have been made more easily readable.)
1.) Posted on "Penigma":
Hasslington said...
I don't mind Senator Obama's tax cut scenario because, in the short run, at least his proposed cuts would help folks who need it to offset higher energy and food costs. Folks who can handle a slight rise in their taxes (i.e. those who make $250,000+ per year) will help to create room for those tax cuts without the budget deficit exploding yet further due to this plan.
But your basic premise [that tax cuts are not the solution to the present economic troubles] is pretty spot-on, Penigma. For one, given the credit crisis, the deficit is going to rise one way or the other for a while, as federal and state tax revenues recede. Also, we [in the U.S.] have yet to work at a national level to solve the energy and health care crises, which will only get worse before they get better, and which will only put us into a more intense form of economic dire straits as they continue to become more and more untenable.
I am not suggesting that some sort of overarching, Soviet-style "Five Year Plan" is in order. That would prove disasterous. But I am suggesting that we start taking the long-view at the local, state, and national levels, and stop stumbling about like babes in the woods. Let's come up with a few strategies and then work to make them workable, which means they need to be flexible and lean enough to work but not too insubstantial, and they need to utilize the best components of both government leverage and the free market.
2.) Posted on "Centrisity":
Posted by: Hasslington
I'll be honest: I often feel frustrated, because I came back to the U.S. about a year ago, as the economy started to become rickety (though I was surprised that no one seemed to notice until after the winter began).
I'm a teacher, and because of my experience and various academic degrees, I've spent the summer interviewing and being passed over for full-time teaching jobs in favor of folks fresh-out of college with little experience (i.e., they are cheaper to hire). So, I've been working part-time jobs.
We all need to take a deep breath and try to find in this type of situation whatever bright side we can. I, for one, am thankful for the work I have been able to find, and this experience has also reminded me the value of what I needed to practice when I lived in the U.K. (where I had a solid, full-time job but the cost of living is quite high compared with Minnesota): frugality.
I am not a fan of recessions, but I am also not a fan of dumb, zombie-like ueber-consumerism, which I consider a sort of insidious, mass mental illness. The former is depressing, and the latter inevitably leads to boom-and-bust scenarios.
At present, the whole Western world is receiving a wake-up call, and hopefully two things will happen: 1.) we will get a sense of perspective, which is often clouded by our mass affluence; and 2.) we will eventually pull out of these difficult economic times and be smarter about avoiding boom-and-bust silliness in the future, prefering slower yet steadier means of economic growth as the way toward worldwide stability.
I found this fascinating for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that it got me thinking about the possible disparity between the persona I project on my own blog-site and the persona I project when I comment on other blog-sites. (I guess this convesation got me thinking that being two or more different "internet personas" at once would be a relatively easy and tempting thing to do....)
I wish I could have listened to the rest of their conversation (because where does such a conversation go from there, any way?), but it was soon the case that I had to leave. Still, I thought I'd provide my readership with a taste of the type(s) of comments I write on the two sites I most frequently visit, which are those written by my friends Anoka Flash (http://www.centrisity.blogspot.com/) and Penigma (http://www.penigma.blogspot.com/). To be sure, I don't comment on these sites every day, but I did happen to post a comment on both of them today.
At present, I'm in the odd position of evaluating what I wrote on these sites and measuring it against what I've written on my site...and coming to the conclusion that my persona doesn't seem to have shifted much, at least as far as today's comments are concerned. This is to say that I find myself in the odd and uncomfortable position of self-congratulation, at least on that score. Yet the point of this is most likely not to show consistency over the course of a single day, but rather over a lengthy period of time. So this is what I resolve to do: I will try to maintain the same personality and basic set of viewpoints from here onward (as I hope I have done at least fairly consistently up to this point), whether writing on my own blog-site or elsewhere. And, at the risk of sounding a bit omnipotent (which I am certainly not) and "teacherly" (a personal aspect which I probably display too often), I hope to encourage others to do likewise.
At any rate, the following are the comments I posted earlier today on my friends' blog-sites, starting with my comment on Penigma's site and followed by my comment on Anoka Flash's site. I suppose you can use these comments any way you wish to use them; I will try to use them as evidence that I am at present at least somewhat consistent insofar as my on-line personality is concerned. (As always, my readership may or may not agree with me.)
(Note: I have edited both comments, but only very slightly, so that one or two awkward turns of phrase have been made more easily readable.)
1.) Posted on "Penigma":
Hasslington said...
I don't mind Senator Obama's tax cut scenario because, in the short run, at least his proposed cuts would help folks who need it to offset higher energy and food costs. Folks who can handle a slight rise in their taxes (i.e. those who make $250,000+ per year) will help to create room for those tax cuts without the budget deficit exploding yet further due to this plan.
But your basic premise [that tax cuts are not the solution to the present economic troubles] is pretty spot-on, Penigma. For one, given the credit crisis, the deficit is going to rise one way or the other for a while, as federal and state tax revenues recede. Also, we [in the U.S.] have yet to work at a national level to solve the energy and health care crises, which will only get worse before they get better, and which will only put us into a more intense form of economic dire straits as they continue to become more and more untenable.
I am not suggesting that some sort of overarching, Soviet-style "Five Year Plan" is in order. That would prove disasterous. But I am suggesting that we start taking the long-view at the local, state, and national levels, and stop stumbling about like babes in the woods. Let's come up with a few strategies and then work to make them workable, which means they need to be flexible and lean enough to work but not too insubstantial, and they need to utilize the best components of both government leverage and the free market.
2.) Posted on "Centrisity":
Posted by: Hasslington
I'll be honest: I often feel frustrated, because I came back to the U.S. about a year ago, as the economy started to become rickety (though I was surprised that no one seemed to notice until after the winter began).
I'm a teacher, and because of my experience and various academic degrees, I've spent the summer interviewing and being passed over for full-time teaching jobs in favor of folks fresh-out of college with little experience (i.e., they are cheaper to hire). So, I've been working part-time jobs.
We all need to take a deep breath and try to find in this type of situation whatever bright side we can. I, for one, am thankful for the work I have been able to find, and this experience has also reminded me the value of what I needed to practice when I lived in the U.K. (where I had a solid, full-time job but the cost of living is quite high compared with Minnesota): frugality.
I am not a fan of recessions, but I am also not a fan of dumb, zombie-like ueber-consumerism, which I consider a sort of insidious, mass mental illness. The former is depressing, and the latter inevitably leads to boom-and-bust scenarios.
At present, the whole Western world is receiving a wake-up call, and hopefully two things will happen: 1.) we will get a sense of perspective, which is often clouded by our mass affluence; and 2.) we will eventually pull out of these difficult economic times and be smarter about avoiding boom-and-bust silliness in the future, prefering slower yet steadier means of economic growth as the way toward worldwide stability.
Sunday, October 5, 2008
Bits And Bobs, Volume I: "Webb" Of Thought; Trademarked Individuality; SNL Shows Signs Of Life; Anyone Else Notice How Yogi Berra Has Taken Over?
JUSTIN WEBB KNOWS AMERICA
Justin Webb is British, and he happens to be a BBC correspondent who lives and works in the United States. As far as I'm concerned, he's the most consistently accurate British news analyst insofar as reading accurately American culture (by which I mean temperament, sociological trends, and the like) is concerned. Millions of Britons watch his segments on the BBC evening news, and many folks also read his occasional columns in the Times (of London) and listen to him on BBC Radio (usually, but not exclusively, BBC Radio 4).
I admit that my country has a problem when it comes to understanding much of the rest of the world; American culture is still so ubiquitous that our collective sophistication regarding this international world is often a bit embarrrassing. That being said, many Britons (as well as folks from many other countries, not all of them European) often display a sort of knee-jerk anti-Americanism--if not specifically, then in sentiment--due to a similar sort of culturally-derived set of motivations. With Americans, this phenominon often manifests itself as mass ignorance of the importance of understanding other cultures, whereas with many folks from other countries, it comes across as misreadings on American culture due to knowing enough to make generalized statements (some true, many not) but not really knowing much about American culture beyond that.
I think that Justin Webb truly knows America--he knows its meta-tendencies, but more than that he understands its micro-movements and its idiosyncrasies (at almost all levels) in a manner that only an American expatriate or a foreigner committed to living on a long-term basis in the United States can truly grasp. His columns, with which I usually if not always agree, are first-rate, as is his reporting. But until recently I didn't know that he also has a more informal blog-site...though, since everyone seems to have a blog-site these days (which I consider no bad thing), I should have guessed that he had one.
Anyway, I stumbled upon his site the other day, and it quickly struck me that he viewed the Biden-Palin debate the way a lot of Americans viewed it, though the language he used to articulate his points was sometimes understandably different from what native-born Americans would use. At any rate, what follows are a few of his (again, rather informal) observations, apparently written down while the debate was in progress, and edited slightly by me in order to provide context:
--"[Palin] has [thus far] made no mistakes except that she doesn't appear to know much about anything."
--"Joe, there is such a thing as too much detail [in a national debate setting]."
--"Joe Biden is just sounding a little full of Joe Biden now. This is the danger for him."
--"What is your Achilles heel? Palin says she does not have one... oh, dear."
--"[Biden] avoided some of the big pitfalls--sexism and bloviating--and scored some big hits. [Palin] came over as slightly more amiable...than she has in the past. [But] although she can memorize things, she plainly does not know them. Does this matter?"
If you are interested in reading more of his comments about this topic (or any other about which he's blogged), the address to Mr. Webb's site is: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/justinwebb
I'M GOING TO SHOW HOW SOPHISTICATED I AM BY BEING AN INDIVIDUAL THE EXACT SAME WAY EVERY ONE ELSE IS BEING AN INDIVIDUAL...
The following is a sliver of the human behaviorioral pie I've been pondering for quite some time now: it seems to me to be the case that those who feel the need to project consistently an air of "reading the cultural text against itself" are actually using their projection as a mechanism shielding the fact that they are most likely incredibly insular one-trick ponies whose interior worlds would (and do) explode if (and when) they encounter real cultural sophistication. This type of scenario tends to frighten them back into their wolf-pack-esque faux "erudite" friendship groups.
Here's a follow-up observation: it seems to me that those who actually do read the cultural text against itself on a consistent basis have no hang-ups about personal style and little or no psychological need to project a false sense of worldliness. They tend to dress how they want to dress (and not in a recognizably "rebellious" and/or "new-wave hip" and/or "retro hip" and/or "bourgeois sophisticated" manner), listen to music that has stood the critical test of time (from whichever school of music they choose), and go about their lives in a manner that does not ingratiate them to those who feel a need to project trademarked pseudo-intelligence (see the above observation for a further definition of this pseudo-intelligent group). They also tend to be as or more comfortable alone as they are in their loosely-knit friendship groups. They are not conventional, but they are also not self-consciously "unconventional"; they simply are who they are, which, in this era of trademarked-everything (including trademarked "alternative thought") is perhaps the most unconventional way to be. They are opinionated, but they do not display their opinions in a manner that can be pigeonholed into any one particular societal group by anyone willing to analyze closely what they have to say.
GETTING SCHOOLED, BIDEN STYLE...
Sometimes "Saturday Night Live" is pretty dead, at least as far as laughs are concerned, but this past weekend the show generated a lot of genuine belly laughs with its consistently spot-on reading of the Biden vs. Palin debate. If you missed it, the sketch can be found at the following address: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ROt3qC8TRVc
MOST BASEBALL FANS ARE YOGI BERRAS, AT LEAST FROM TIME TO TIME
The following statement, spoken as a toast by someone who I believe is actually quite intelligent, was overheard (by me) at a local watering hole moments after the Minnesota Twins completed a season-ending loss to the Chicago White Sox:
"Well, all you can do is all you can do."
I found myself thinking reflectively in similarly odd manners. Baseball just has a way of doing that to you, I guess. At any rate, one thing seems clear: Yogi Berra is still with us, but even when he passes on, he'll...uh...still be with us.
(For context, check out the "Yogi-isms" section of following web-site: http://www.yogiberra.com/)
Justin Webb is British, and he happens to be a BBC correspondent who lives and works in the United States. As far as I'm concerned, he's the most consistently accurate British news analyst insofar as reading accurately American culture (by which I mean temperament, sociological trends, and the like) is concerned. Millions of Britons watch his segments on the BBC evening news, and many folks also read his occasional columns in the Times (of London) and listen to him on BBC Radio (usually, but not exclusively, BBC Radio 4).
I admit that my country has a problem when it comes to understanding much of the rest of the world; American culture is still so ubiquitous that our collective sophistication regarding this international world is often a bit embarrrassing. That being said, many Britons (as well as folks from many other countries, not all of them European) often display a sort of knee-jerk anti-Americanism--if not specifically, then in sentiment--due to a similar sort of culturally-derived set of motivations. With Americans, this phenominon often manifests itself as mass ignorance of the importance of understanding other cultures, whereas with many folks from other countries, it comes across as misreadings on American culture due to knowing enough to make generalized statements (some true, many not) but not really knowing much about American culture beyond that.
I think that Justin Webb truly knows America--he knows its meta-tendencies, but more than that he understands its micro-movements and its idiosyncrasies (at almost all levels) in a manner that only an American expatriate or a foreigner committed to living on a long-term basis in the United States can truly grasp. His columns, with which I usually if not always agree, are first-rate, as is his reporting. But until recently I didn't know that he also has a more informal blog-site...though, since everyone seems to have a blog-site these days (which I consider no bad thing), I should have guessed that he had one.
Anyway, I stumbled upon his site the other day, and it quickly struck me that he viewed the Biden-Palin debate the way a lot of Americans viewed it, though the language he used to articulate his points was sometimes understandably different from what native-born Americans would use. At any rate, what follows are a few of his (again, rather informal) observations, apparently written down while the debate was in progress, and edited slightly by me in order to provide context:
--"[Palin] has [thus far] made no mistakes except that she doesn't appear to know much about anything."
--"Joe, there is such a thing as too much detail [in a national debate setting]."
--"Joe Biden is just sounding a little full of Joe Biden now. This is the danger for him."
--"What is your Achilles heel? Palin says she does not have one... oh, dear."
--"[Biden] avoided some of the big pitfalls--sexism and bloviating--and scored some big hits. [Palin] came over as slightly more amiable...than she has in the past. [But] although she can memorize things, she plainly does not know them. Does this matter?"
If you are interested in reading more of his comments about this topic (or any other about which he's blogged), the address to Mr. Webb's site is: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/justinwebb
I'M GOING TO SHOW HOW SOPHISTICATED I AM BY BEING AN INDIVIDUAL THE EXACT SAME WAY EVERY ONE ELSE IS BEING AN INDIVIDUAL...
The following is a sliver of the human behaviorioral pie I've been pondering for quite some time now: it seems to me to be the case that those who feel the need to project consistently an air of "reading the cultural text against itself" are actually using their projection as a mechanism shielding the fact that they are most likely incredibly insular one-trick ponies whose interior worlds would (and do) explode if (and when) they encounter real cultural sophistication. This type of scenario tends to frighten them back into their wolf-pack-esque faux "erudite" friendship groups.
Here's a follow-up observation: it seems to me that those who actually do read the cultural text against itself on a consistent basis have no hang-ups about personal style and little or no psychological need to project a false sense of worldliness. They tend to dress how they want to dress (and not in a recognizably "rebellious" and/or "new-wave hip" and/or "retro hip" and/or "bourgeois sophisticated" manner), listen to music that has stood the critical test of time (from whichever school of music they choose), and go about their lives in a manner that does not ingratiate them to those who feel a need to project trademarked pseudo-intelligence (see the above observation for a further definition of this pseudo-intelligent group). They also tend to be as or more comfortable alone as they are in their loosely-knit friendship groups. They are not conventional, but they are also not self-consciously "unconventional"; they simply are who they are, which, in this era of trademarked-everything (including trademarked "alternative thought") is perhaps the most unconventional way to be. They are opinionated, but they do not display their opinions in a manner that can be pigeonholed into any one particular societal group by anyone willing to analyze closely what they have to say.
GETTING SCHOOLED, BIDEN STYLE...
Sometimes "Saturday Night Live" is pretty dead, at least as far as laughs are concerned, but this past weekend the show generated a lot of genuine belly laughs with its consistently spot-on reading of the Biden vs. Palin debate. If you missed it, the sketch can be found at the following address: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ROt3qC8TRVc
MOST BASEBALL FANS ARE YOGI BERRAS, AT LEAST FROM TIME TO TIME
The following statement, spoken as a toast by someone who I believe is actually quite intelligent, was overheard (by me) at a local watering hole moments after the Minnesota Twins completed a season-ending loss to the Chicago White Sox:
"Well, all you can do is all you can do."
I found myself thinking reflectively in similarly odd manners. Baseball just has a way of doing that to you, I guess. At any rate, one thing seems clear: Yogi Berra is still with us, but even when he passes on, he'll...uh...still be with us.
(For context, check out the "Yogi-isms" section of following web-site: http://www.yogiberra.com/)
Thursday, October 2, 2008
Vice Presidential Debate Analysis: What Would John Adams and Thomas Jefferson Say? Oh, Let's Just Let That One Go....
I am in my thirties, folks, which means that I am still rather young (to some people, at least). Yet, given my reaction to tonight's Vice Presidential debate versus what many pundits and American citizens are saying presently, I am obviously way, way out of step with about half of my country.
Frankly, tonight I found Governor Palin to be very likeable and quite good at making general emotional appeals, but horrendously unprepared to be the Vice President of the United States in the twenty-first century. (Say what you will, but she is no Hillary Clinton.) Governor Palin's generic, trademarked, homespun folksy attitude was trotted-out maddenly often; a little bit of that is fine and endearing, whereas a lot of that sort of thing is almost always used to compensate for a lack of something else. In this case, I think Governor Palin's "darn-it" interjections and the like were often used to muddle the fact that she simply has at present very little insofar as a detailed understanding of both foreign policy and the nuances of domestic policy are concerned.
I don't dislike Governor Palin. I simply find it both alarming and astonishing (as well as embarrassing) that in the twenty-first century we are not demanding presidential and vice presidential candidates who understand the nuances of the international world. That would seem to me to be a requirement of paramount importance. Though I disagree with him, I do believe that Senator McCain is qualified to be our nation's chief executive. Obviously, I feel the same about Barack Obama and Joe Biden. Sarah Palin is simply not in that league, which to me disqualifies her for the vice presidency.
Many of those who are knee-jerk and emotionally-driven (and, oh my, are there ever a lot of them) will call me "misogynistic" (even though Joe Biden has been a foremost advocate for women's rights for decades) and/or "elitist" (even though Joe Biden's background is very blue collar and Barack Obama did not grow up privileged, whereas John McCain is from a long-standing military dynasty). I can do nothing about such overly-simplistic charges; as we get older, we understand more and more that such is the way of life.
I am certainly not without my faults. For evidence of this, simply shift your eyes to the left column of this blog-site in order to see who I mistakenly endorsed to be Senator McCain's running mate this past July--that was a big, big error. So I am not trying to thunder like a know-it-all critical Zeus. But, my goodness, folks, the United States of America is 232 years old, which means that we should now be able to at least understand the necessity of having national leaders who have traveled the world extensively and who are exceptional thinkers. (And, as someone who certainly did not grow up with millions of dollars at hand but who has traveled outside of the United States quite often, the stupid suggestion that such a demand is "elitist" is just that--stupid.)
I don't really know what to say beyond that, except that this situation is a crazy sort of "Catch-22" in that any substantive criticism of Governor Palin will be labeled "overly-professorial" (which really means "not simplistic enough") or "anti-women" (I hardly know where to begin with that one). So I'll leave you with what I consider to be one of the most telling differences of the evening: Governor Palin chastised Senator Biden for what she saw as his constant referencing of the past (she called it "looking backward," and I don't think she was talking about the book by Edward Bellamy), whereas Senator Biden said in response, amongst other things, that "the past is prologue."
The past IS prologue. You don't really know where you are unless you know how you got there, and you can't plot properly a long-term trajectory without knowing well the road you've already traveled. That's the truth. It was the truth for Socrates and Plato, it's the truth today, and it will be the truth for centuries to come.
Yeah, yeah, I know: a lot of people would suggest that referencing Socrates and Plato is "elitism." Oh, dear....
Frankly, tonight I found Governor Palin to be very likeable and quite good at making general emotional appeals, but horrendously unprepared to be the Vice President of the United States in the twenty-first century. (Say what you will, but she is no Hillary Clinton.) Governor Palin's generic, trademarked, homespun folksy attitude was trotted-out maddenly often; a little bit of that is fine and endearing, whereas a lot of that sort of thing is almost always used to compensate for a lack of something else. In this case, I think Governor Palin's "darn-it" interjections and the like were often used to muddle the fact that she simply has at present very little insofar as a detailed understanding of both foreign policy and the nuances of domestic policy are concerned.
I don't dislike Governor Palin. I simply find it both alarming and astonishing (as well as embarrassing) that in the twenty-first century we are not demanding presidential and vice presidential candidates who understand the nuances of the international world. That would seem to me to be a requirement of paramount importance. Though I disagree with him, I do believe that Senator McCain is qualified to be our nation's chief executive. Obviously, I feel the same about Barack Obama and Joe Biden. Sarah Palin is simply not in that league, which to me disqualifies her for the vice presidency.
Many of those who are knee-jerk and emotionally-driven (and, oh my, are there ever a lot of them) will call me "misogynistic" (even though Joe Biden has been a foremost advocate for women's rights for decades) and/or "elitist" (even though Joe Biden's background is very blue collar and Barack Obama did not grow up privileged, whereas John McCain is from a long-standing military dynasty). I can do nothing about such overly-simplistic charges; as we get older, we understand more and more that such is the way of life.
I am certainly not without my faults. For evidence of this, simply shift your eyes to the left column of this blog-site in order to see who I mistakenly endorsed to be Senator McCain's running mate this past July--that was a big, big error. So I am not trying to thunder like a know-it-all critical Zeus. But, my goodness, folks, the United States of America is 232 years old, which means that we should now be able to at least understand the necessity of having national leaders who have traveled the world extensively and who are exceptional thinkers. (And, as someone who certainly did not grow up with millions of dollars at hand but who has traveled outside of the United States quite often, the stupid suggestion that such a demand is "elitist" is just that--stupid.)
I don't really know what to say beyond that, except that this situation is a crazy sort of "Catch-22" in that any substantive criticism of Governor Palin will be labeled "overly-professorial" (which really means "not simplistic enough") or "anti-women" (I hardly know where to begin with that one). So I'll leave you with what I consider to be one of the most telling differences of the evening: Governor Palin chastised Senator Biden for what she saw as his constant referencing of the past (she called it "looking backward," and I don't think she was talking about the book by Edward Bellamy), whereas Senator Biden said in response, amongst other things, that "the past is prologue."
The past IS prologue. You don't really know where you are unless you know how you got there, and you can't plot properly a long-term trajectory without knowing well the road you've already traveled. That's the truth. It was the truth for Socrates and Plato, it's the truth today, and it will be the truth for centuries to come.
Yeah, yeah, I know: a lot of people would suggest that referencing Socrates and Plato is "elitism." Oh, dear....
Wednesday, October 1, 2008
Baseball Interlude...or...The Many Merits Of The Minnesota Twins
Mrs. Hasslington and I walked to a local watering hole last evening in order to watch the Minnesota Twins compete in a one-off "play-in" game against the Chicago White Sox at U.S. Cellular Field in Chicago. This past Sunday was the official end of the "regular" baseball season, but the Twins and White Sox wound up tied for the American League Central Division title at 88 wins and 74 losses apiece. Hence, they had to play an extra game in order to see who would advance to the playoffs (eight of the thirty Major League Baseball teams make the playoffs each year), which begin today and tomorrow and continue until the end of the World Series a month from now.
I have no idea why a coin-flip was used to determine the site of the "play-in" game, given that the Twins beat the White Sox more times than the White Sox beat the Twins this year--the Twins were "rewarded" for this not insubstantial accomplishment by having to travel to Chicago in order to play this critical game in front of a hostile crowd. (Ominously--if also appropriately, given their team's colors--the vast majority of the crowd were wearing black clothing; whole sections of the stands were so uniformly black that they seemed to melt into total shadow, which made the stadium look like a real-world manifestation of Lord Voldemort's dream universe.) But a coin flip was the determining factor, so the Twins dutifully entered the lion's den.
They played quite well, given that Chicago's John Danks pitched the game of his career (so far). Danks didn't allow a single run to cross home plate (with some help from Ken Griffey, Jr. and A.J. Pierzynski, who combined for a nifty throw-and-tag-out of the Twins' Michael Cuddyer at home plate). In fact, Danks hardly allowed any Twins hitters to even reach base. So it was up to Minnesota's Nick Blackburn to match Danks, which he very nearly did, allowing only one run on a Jim Thome home run that was hit so far it nearly landed in Indiana. The final score was Chicago 1, Minnesota 0. The Chicago White Sox don't play baseball as fundamentally well as do the Twins (hardly anyone does), but, like most teams, they have a lot more power at the plate than do the Twins, and last night that power made the difference.
Baseball can be a silly and simultaneously heartbreaking sport--I tend to consider both of those good qualities--and this season was a case in point. Prior to the start of the season, the Twins were expected to be pretty terrible, given their youth and inexperience, and yet they displayed a maturity beyond their years, which translated into a very strong--if sometimes understandably uneven--season. They and the White Sox played the usual 162 games apiece, yet the two teams failed to outdistance each other the way they outdistanced the other teams in their division. Thus, for the eighth time in baseball history, a "play-in" game needed to take place. And exactly one awful pitch from Nick Blackburn to Jim Thome, which Thome hit into the stratosphere, made the difference between the playoff-bound team and the team for whom the season is now over. One pitch and one swing in a 163 game season separated the two very evenly-matched teams. (And some people wonder why baseball fans are so superstitious.... For my part, I had a pint of Fat Tire during the game; Fat Tire is a Colorado beer, and I drank it because the last team to win a "play-in" game was the Colorado Rockies. It didn't work...this time.)
According to Alfred, Lord Tennyson (channeling an aged Ulysses), "Though much is taken, much abides." That statement is very true when applied to the Twins. Though they lost yesterday and are at present very disappointed, Joe Mauer (who, like me, grew up in Saint Paul, Minnesota) yesterday became the first catcher in Major League Baseball history to win two batting titles, the other coming in 2006. Given the fact that catchers go through far more physical strain than players at any other position, this is an extraordinary feat for the still very young Twin. His teammate Justin Morneau, the slugging Canadian, drove in (far) more than 100 runs for the third consecutive season, becoming only the second Twin to accomplish that feat (the other being Harmon Killebrew, many years ago), and he still has an outside chance at winning the Most Valuable Player award (which he also won in 2006), though I now think that Boston's Dustin Pedroia will edge him out in MVP voting. And the youngsters--the entire starting pitching staff, as well as Alexi Casilla, Denard Span, Delmon Young, and a few others--matured at eye-poppingly speedy rates as the season moved on. Much abides, indeed.
I'm often asked why I'm obsessed with baseball and not with any other sport (my second favorite sport is ice hockey, by the way), and the only thing I can say in response is that for me baseball encapsulates much of what is right with America and very little of what is wrong with America. For instance, far more often than not, to win a baseball game, a team must be cohesive, innovative, confident, smart, and, just as importantly, head-scratchingly quirky. A winning team also needs to be very consistent without ever being overly-predictable, which is a difficult tightrope to walk over the length of a full season, particularly after you've played each of your division rivals fifteen-plus times and have to somehow find a way to beat them a few more times. Finally, a winning team must realize that baseball is often very much a game of chess, and therefore demands precision planning and technical analysis, but, somewhat conversely, poleaxing over-thinking is deadly and should be avoided at all costs. And, yes, a little hokey superstition, at both the individual and team levels, is often helpful, as weird as that sounds.
It's my belief that if more Americans listed baseball as their favorite sport (it is, after all, the official national past-time)--and if they actually believed it to be their favorite sport--the United States would be better off for it. At any rate, I for one feel better off for watching Twins games (when I lived in England, I used to stream them off of the internet, much to the puzzlement of my British friends). It's a pleasure to support a team who, regardless of whether they win or lose, play the game the way it was meant to be played. I'm afraid the same cannot be said for all Major League teams these days.
I have no idea why a coin-flip was used to determine the site of the "play-in" game, given that the Twins beat the White Sox more times than the White Sox beat the Twins this year--the Twins were "rewarded" for this not insubstantial accomplishment by having to travel to Chicago in order to play this critical game in front of a hostile crowd. (Ominously--if also appropriately, given their team's colors--the vast majority of the crowd were wearing black clothing; whole sections of the stands were so uniformly black that they seemed to melt into total shadow, which made the stadium look like a real-world manifestation of Lord Voldemort's dream universe.) But a coin flip was the determining factor, so the Twins dutifully entered the lion's den.
They played quite well, given that Chicago's John Danks pitched the game of his career (so far). Danks didn't allow a single run to cross home plate (with some help from Ken Griffey, Jr. and A.J. Pierzynski, who combined for a nifty throw-and-tag-out of the Twins' Michael Cuddyer at home plate). In fact, Danks hardly allowed any Twins hitters to even reach base. So it was up to Minnesota's Nick Blackburn to match Danks, which he very nearly did, allowing only one run on a Jim Thome home run that was hit so far it nearly landed in Indiana. The final score was Chicago 1, Minnesota 0. The Chicago White Sox don't play baseball as fundamentally well as do the Twins (hardly anyone does), but, like most teams, they have a lot more power at the plate than do the Twins, and last night that power made the difference.
Baseball can be a silly and simultaneously heartbreaking sport--I tend to consider both of those good qualities--and this season was a case in point. Prior to the start of the season, the Twins were expected to be pretty terrible, given their youth and inexperience, and yet they displayed a maturity beyond their years, which translated into a very strong--if sometimes understandably uneven--season. They and the White Sox played the usual 162 games apiece, yet the two teams failed to outdistance each other the way they outdistanced the other teams in their division. Thus, for the eighth time in baseball history, a "play-in" game needed to take place. And exactly one awful pitch from Nick Blackburn to Jim Thome, which Thome hit into the stratosphere, made the difference between the playoff-bound team and the team for whom the season is now over. One pitch and one swing in a 163 game season separated the two very evenly-matched teams. (And some people wonder why baseball fans are so superstitious.... For my part, I had a pint of Fat Tire during the game; Fat Tire is a Colorado beer, and I drank it because the last team to win a "play-in" game was the Colorado Rockies. It didn't work...this time.)
According to Alfred, Lord Tennyson (channeling an aged Ulysses), "Though much is taken, much abides." That statement is very true when applied to the Twins. Though they lost yesterday and are at present very disappointed, Joe Mauer (who, like me, grew up in Saint Paul, Minnesota) yesterday became the first catcher in Major League Baseball history to win two batting titles, the other coming in 2006. Given the fact that catchers go through far more physical strain than players at any other position, this is an extraordinary feat for the still very young Twin. His teammate Justin Morneau, the slugging Canadian, drove in (far) more than 100 runs for the third consecutive season, becoming only the second Twin to accomplish that feat (the other being Harmon Killebrew, many years ago), and he still has an outside chance at winning the Most Valuable Player award (which he also won in 2006), though I now think that Boston's Dustin Pedroia will edge him out in MVP voting. And the youngsters--the entire starting pitching staff, as well as Alexi Casilla, Denard Span, Delmon Young, and a few others--matured at eye-poppingly speedy rates as the season moved on. Much abides, indeed.
I'm often asked why I'm obsessed with baseball and not with any other sport (my second favorite sport is ice hockey, by the way), and the only thing I can say in response is that for me baseball encapsulates much of what is right with America and very little of what is wrong with America. For instance, far more often than not, to win a baseball game, a team must be cohesive, innovative, confident, smart, and, just as importantly, head-scratchingly quirky. A winning team also needs to be very consistent without ever being overly-predictable, which is a difficult tightrope to walk over the length of a full season, particularly after you've played each of your division rivals fifteen-plus times and have to somehow find a way to beat them a few more times. Finally, a winning team must realize that baseball is often very much a game of chess, and therefore demands precision planning and technical analysis, but, somewhat conversely, poleaxing over-thinking is deadly and should be avoided at all costs. And, yes, a little hokey superstition, at both the individual and team levels, is often helpful, as weird as that sounds.
It's my belief that if more Americans listed baseball as their favorite sport (it is, after all, the official national past-time)--and if they actually believed it to be their favorite sport--the United States would be better off for it. At any rate, I for one feel better off for watching Twins games (when I lived in England, I used to stream them off of the internet, much to the puzzlement of my British friends). It's a pleasure to support a team who, regardless of whether they win or lose, play the game the way it was meant to be played. I'm afraid the same cannot be said for all Major League teams these days.
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