NO PICASSOS FOR YOU!!!

Today, Kevyn Orr, the recently-appointed Emergency Financial Manager for the city of Detroit, met with creditors to discuss a 134-page report on the city's prospects. He is attempting to work out arrangements so that Detroit will not have to enter a formal bankruptcy proceeding, which would leave its fate up to a court. Detroit is already in default, and has suspended payments to unsecured creditors.

One issue in this continuing saga concerns the Detroit Institute of Art, the second richest municipal art museum in the country, with paintings and other art objects worth more than a billion dollars and an endowment in the neighborhood of $100 million. The collection is usually described as “encyclopedic,” meaning it contains objects from virtually all ages, styles and parts of the planet. You dig Etruscan? They got it. Van Gogh? They got him too, along with furniture, sculptures, armor, decorative items from across the centuries, iconic religious works. They are a bit short on the Elvis-on-velvet portraits I'm fond of, but they've got everything else, a billion dollars worth of it.

So Mr. Orr is going to sell off the art at the DIA in order to pay off some of the city's debt, right? Or honor its decades-old promises to pension-holders, right? Well, no. That would be an affront to Detroit's devotion to its “cultural heritage,” or something. (If you have ever been to Detroit, you are probably chuckling at the idea that the sorry little town has a “cultural heritage.” I lived there for ten years and I don't remember it.) According to Mr. Orr, the possibility of selling the art is off the table. He and those supporting him even managed to get a formal “opinion” from the Michigan Attorney General saying that the art is not simply owned by the city, but is actually held in a “charitable trust” for the people of Michigan and can never be sold to satisfy debts.

Or as Bernie Madoff was once heard to exclaim, “You mean I don't get to keep my Bentley???”

I'm not saying all of Detroit's debt was the result of Madoff-style fraud, but it wasn't exactly bad luck either. Detroit has been run by thieves and rogues for decades, and Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick is not the first Motown politico who found himself heading off to an extended stay with the department of corrections. Detroit got this way on purpose. They elected crooks and buffoons, and then they elected more crooks and buffoons and then they elected more crooks and buffoons. It's not easy to wind up owing several billion dollars. It takes work. It takes lies. And it takes a long time.

So the idea that Detroit has some “cultural heritage” residing in the Picassos and Van Dykes and Egyptian antiquities, and it's really really important to them and we can never ever take it away is---well, it's ridiculous. I mean, if the Audubon bird drawings were so damn important to these people, maybe they should have found a way to fund their pension plans sometime in the last fifty years, or laid off a few employees they couldn't afford, or told Kwame to pay for his own orgies. It's not like this happened overnight. I worked in Detroit in the late 1980's and it was a failed city then. The amazing thing to me is that it took this long for the Motor City to crash and bleed out.

Sorry, kids. If you don't pay your bills, you lose the mansion, you lose the exotic petting zoo, you lose the collection of medieval armor. And what, really, is the problem with selling off the art? No one is going to set it on fire. The people and museums who acquire it will pay a lot of money for it, and you can bet they will take good care of it. In fact, they will probably take a lot better care of it than Detroit would because they will have the resources to provide it with the security and atmospheric controls and restorative and curatorial services it needs.

Copyright2013MichaelKubacki

THIS AND THAT II

The US is the only country that taxes income earned outside the United States by Americans who live outside the United States. There's a reason for this. The US does it because it can. No other country could get away with it.

American income-earning ex-pats (as opposed to retirees), are relatively few in number, and they have no political power. Also, since they are spread all over the world, it's impossible to organize them. It's also likely that one reason they live overseas is that they are not particularly interested in US culture, including US politics. Finally, American ex-pats and sojourners do not work in other countries because they are unable to make a living in the US and thus must go overseas to support their families. Generating remittances to send home is not the reason Americans work in foreign countries.

In every other country, there is a (sometimes large, sometimes small) group of people who depend on remittances, and these remittances come primarily from one place---the United States. If Brazil, for example, decided to tax income from Brazilians living in the US, they would run into resistance from people in Brazil whose sons, husbands, etc., work in the US as cooks and maids and doctors and businessmen. That money, earned in the US, is already getting repatriated to Brazil because a piece of it is being sent back to the family. If Brazil tried to tax that money as it was earned in Chicago, there would be enough annoyed mommas in Rio to make unpleasant political noise.

*

It has taken about twenty years, but “no problem” appears to have replaced “you're welcome” as the preferred response to “thank you.” For quite a while, it was a youthful hipster usage, but “no problem” is no longer an informal or slang expression. My impression is that a good-sized majority of American English-speakers under thirty always say “no problem” in all situations where us geezers would say “you're welcome.” Fifty years from now, “you're welcome” will sound archaic or old-fashioned or prissily formal.

Another language development is the use of what I call the WWII war-movie radio alphabet (alpha, bravo, charlie, etc.) to bring the acronym-speak of the internet into spoken language. (It is actually called the NATO Phonetic Alphabet.) On the internet, for example, DC means “I don't care,” but instead of using DC in spoken language, you will sometimes hear “Delta Charlie.” This often happens when the internet acronym is obscene, like WTF. This becomes Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, largely for the humor that's in it but also because it puts an additional layer of meaning between the f-word and its expression. “WTF” itself is still a bit crude, and no archbishop would be caught dead in a ditch saying it. He might get away with “Whiskey Tango Foxtrot,” however, and even be thought sophisticated and cool for doing so.

*

“Loosies” have returned.

Older folks, those with some memory of the 1930's and 1940's, know what they are. In the mom-and-pop corner stores of urban neighborhoods, there would always be an open pack of cheap smokes behind the counter so a customer could buy one cigarette, usually for a penny. Around 1960, loosies disappeared.

Today, with millions fewer jobs, with federal disability rolls now topping ten million and record numbers of Americans on food stamps, there are once again corner stores in poor neighborhoods where you can buy one cigarette. It will cost you more than a penny, however.

*

The checked swing is a common enough event in baseball. The pitch is delivered, the batter begins his swing and then stops himself, or tries to. If the pitch is not in the strike zone, the umpire must decide whether the batter “went around” and should be charged with a strike. If the home-plate umpire rules the pitch is a ball, the catcher may seek an appeal of the call to the first-base umpire (for a right-handed batter) or the third-base umpire (for a left-handed batter).

The checked swing call, and the appeals, cannot be found in official baseball statistics but you might be surprised by how much the checked swing has been studied by baseball geeks. See: http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=20741. However, to my knowledge, nobody keeps track of how many appeals are successful and how many are denied. Considering that virtually everything else in baseball is counted or measured, this seems odd.

It has been my impression that base umpires vary widely as to their likelihood of calling a strike on a checked swing, but there is no real data on this question. Obviously, America needs to know which base umpires are more likely to call a checked swing a strike. Otherwise the terrorists have won.

The rule allowing an appeal to a base umpire is also too limited. It is only permitted on a pitch the home-plate umpire has called a ball, and it can only be requested by the catcher. The explanation usually given for the first restriction is that a base umpire would be overruling the home-plate ump if he were to change a strike call to a ball. In other words, it is felt that if the home-plate ump is certain the batter swung at a pitch, he should not have his call overturned by a colleague.

Fair enough. But the other limitation seems unfair. If the catcher can request a ball be changed to a strike, why can't the batter? Suppose there is an 0 – 2 count when the pitcher throws a ball outside the strike zone. The hitter offers a checked swing, but the umpire calls the pitch a ball. Meanwhile, the pitch skitters past the catcher while the batter, believing he has swung at the pitch, runs to first on the dropped third strike.

When the smoke clears, the batter is standing on first base but is called back to the plate to complete his at bat, with the count now 1 – 2. WHY CAN'T HE APPEAL TO THE BASE UMPIRE IN THIS SITUATION? Why can't the batter seek a ruling that yes, he really did strike out? If the catcher can ask that a checked swing be ruled a strike, why can't the batter seek the exact same ruling?

Copyright2013MichaelKubacki

KAITLYN AND JULIETTE

In Florida, Kaitlyn Hunt is an 18-year-old high-school senior. Her girlfriend (name unknown, so let's call her Juliette) is a freshman in the same high school. They are in love. They have had sex. Juliette's parents disapprove of this relationship so they called the cops. Kaitlyn is now facing felony sex charges for which she could get a dozen or so years in chokey and be placed on the Sex Offender Registry for the rest of her life. The most serious charge is “lewd and lascivious assault,” which sounds like something that used to happen in London in 1852, doesn't it? I mean, seriously---the word ”lascivious” still appears in a criminal statute? When is the last time you used the word “lascivious” in a sentence non-ironically?

The story is all over the internet, of course, because they are both girls, but situations like this arise frequently, usually involving somewhat older boys and somewhat younger girls, AND THEY HAVE HAPPENED SINCE THE BEGINNING OF TIME. They should not be crimes, but in our modern age, these tales of teen love often wind up on a police blotter because they may be indistinguishable (legally) from the situation where a 45-year-old on-line creep tricks a troubled 12-year-old girl into meeting him in a motel. To those of us who are capable of making reasoned distinctions, especially those of us who may have a dim recollection of teenage love, treating Kaitlyn as a predator and Juliette as a victim is ridiculous. But that's what often happens in the land of zero tolerance.

Let me tell you what's wrong with this picture. It's the law. It's the age of consent, which for a thousand years was twelve. In the year 1000, the law recognized that twelve-year-old girls knew what sex was. They knew what it meant. They knew what it meant in 1900 as well, and they still do, of course. But in the 20^th Century, the legal age began to creep up, and now it is 16, 17, or 18 across America, depending on the state.

What has changed is the relationship between the individual and the state, or if you prefer, the nanny-state. The “age of consent” no longer has anything to do with whether a girl or boy is capable of the act of consent. It has to do with what the state deems “appropriate” or wise. A twelve-year-old boy or girl is not going to be terribly worldly or sophisticated, and will often make bad choices, but that has always been true, and it doesn't mean they don't know what sex is. This used to be the concern of the twelve-year-old's parents and relatives and neighbors and ministers and rabbis. Now, however, it has become the business of the police and the legislature and the governor. The story of the 20th Century is primarily that of the state getting larger and the individual getting smaller. The legal transfer of responsibility for a person's sexual behavior from the individual to the state is one piece of that frightening trend.

The purpose of statutory rape laws and the age of consent was to prevent evil men from manipulating and using young girls who really didn't know what the men were after. Today, the primary purpose is no longer to punish genuine criminals but rather to “protect” girls who know perfectly well what men are after but who may make choices they later regret. In 2013, the laws take those regrets, those second thoughts, and interpret them retroactively as crimes the men have committed. This new legal view of statutory rape fits neatly within that strain of modern feminism that seeks to infantilize girls and women by persuading us to view them primarily as victims, as people who cannot be held responsible for the choices they make. Hence the sexual harassment codes found on college campuses, codes which take “sexual harassment” far beyond its legal definition to include flirting or risque remarks or other types of unwanted attention that women and girls have somehow managed to deal with for millennia.

(If I were a teenage girl, I would be outraged by these laws, and I'm more than a bit puzzled that young girls seem to accept their infant status without objection. I mean, there are 17-year-old single mothers working two jobs who cannot “consent” to a sexual relationship. There are 17-year-old girls who go to Harvard and are still legally viewed as jailbait.)

I sympathize with Kaitlyn and Juliette, and I guess that means I'm not much of a feminist, but people have rights even when they are eighteen and thirteen. Kids own themselves and own their bodies and sometimes fall in love and sometimes burn with a lust that cannot be reasoned with. That's one part of the human condition. When I was a teenager, nothing short of a gun to our heads would have prevented my girlfriend and me from doing what we wanted to do with each other. Parents, priests, disapproving aunts, policemen---none of them would have had any effect on us (and some of them tried).

My girlfriend was not a “victim” and I was not a “criminal” by any definition of those terms that make sense in a free society. And neither are Kaitlyn and Juliette.

Copyright2013MichaelKubacki

GOING CLEAR---A Book Review

Lawrence Wright is a staff writer for the New Yorker, and I have now read two of his books. The first was “The Looming Tower,” published in 2006, which remains the book on the origins of the Muslim Brotherhood, Al-Qaeda, and the jihadist movement. Beginning in the 1920s, with the carving up of Arab lands by Western powers following WWI, and telling the story to the present, “The Looming Tower” is the fruit of years of dogged and thoughtful research, and the story is rendered so carefully and respectfully that you will understand Islamism by the time you get to the end.

But that's not the book I'm recommending today.

If you're like me, you find the Church of Scientology fascinating in a five-car-pileup-on-the-Boulevard sort of way. There's Tom Cruise jumping on Oprah's couch and there's John Travolta and other celebs, and there's Si-Fi writer L. Ron Hubbard behind it all, and there's lawsuits and claims of abuse by former Scientologists and there's Germany banning them as a cult, and a hundred other snippets you've seen in the newspapers. But what's it all about, really? Is it actually a religion, with a God and a theology? Why are its acolytes so fanatical in their devotion though the whole thing seems (to an outsider) to be about 50% pure goofiness and 50% money-making scheme? Does the church really hold its fallen-away members in captivity? And is John Travolta gay?

Having read “Going Clear,” Lawrence Wright's latest book, I now get it. I understand why people join and why people believe in it. I understand that my previous view of L. Ron Hubbard as simply a flim-flam man was wrong, superficial, and unfair. He was in fact a genius and a visionary. At the same time, he was far more evil, far more power-mad, and far more monstrous than I had ever imagined.

The first half of this book concerns the life and times and madness and genius of Hubbard. The last half is primarily about David Miscavige, who took over Scientology after Hubbard's death and functions as the first popularizer. He is Brigham Young to Hubbard's Joseph Smith. If Hubbard were Jesus, Miscavige would be St. Paul. Miscavige got Scientology recognized as a religion by the IRS, recruited celebrities, and turned Scientology into one of the world's fastest-growing religions. He also presides over Scientology's current problems (including its dramatic falloff in membership), and he is largely responsible for them.

“Going Clear” is another stunning labor of research by Lawrence Wright. It is a story rendered in a matter-of-fact fashion you will find chilling at times, but in the end, you will understand what Scientology is all about.

Copyright2013MichaelKubacki     

TIGER AND THE TWO STROKES

On the fifteenth hole at Augusta this year, in the second round, Tiger Woods hit his third shot into the water guarding the front of the green. His options at that point were governed by Rule 26-1, under which he chose option #3. This allows the player to return to the prior spot of his shot and drop the ball “as nearly as possible at the spot from which the original ball was last played.”

This was not, however, what he did. He returned to the original area and then dropped his ball several feet away, further from the hole. He did this on purpose, though he did not know he was violating Rule 26-1 by doing so.

The penalty for an improper drop is found in Rule 27-1. There is a two-stroke penalty. However, since Tiger did not know he violated the rule, he did not assess himself the two-stroke penalty. This meant that later, when his round ended and he handed in his signed scorecard, that card was incorrect. This brought Rule 6-6.d into play:

“The competitor is responsible for the correctness of the score recorded for each hole on his score card. If he returns a score for any hole lower than actually taken, he is disqualified. If he returns a score for any hole higher than actually taken, the score as returned stands.”

A few years ago, that would have been the end of the analysis. Having signed an incorrect scorecard, Tiger would have been disqualified from the tournament. Then Rule 33-7 was passed. It states:

“A penalty of disqualification may in exceptional individual cases be waived, modified or imposed if the Committee considers such action warranted.”

“Committee” is a defined term. It is the group in charge of the competition which, in this case, was the Board at Augusta.

Unfortunately, the term “exceptional individual cases” is not defined at all. The rule gives a great deal of discretion to the tournament officials about waiving the disqualification penalty, but doesn't “exceptional individual cases” have to mean something? Something about Tiger's case has to be “exceptional,” doesn't it? Otherwise, Rule 33-7 could not be invoked. But what was it? What was “exceptional” about this situation?

Tiger violated Rule 26-1 by failing to drop his ball correctly. He did so by dropping his ball in a place not permitted under that rule. He did this intentionally. He did it on purpose. He thought about it and he decided, for strategic reasons, where he was going to drop the ball. He had a reason for doing so and he gave an interview telling the world what that reason was.

He was mistaken about Rule 26-1, of course, but the rule itself is not at all ambiguous. Tiger did not misinterpret the language of Rule 26-1. He simply did not know the rule, or perhaps confused it with other rules. In golf, however, ignorance of the rules is no excuse. The player is expected to know the rules and to assess penalties on himself if he violates them. In addition, at the Masters, there is always an official no more than a minute or two away. If Tiger was unsure about where to drop his ball, he could have called for an official and one would have appeared. He did not do so. Whether this failure was foolishness or hubris is a question he can wrestle with in the dark of night, staring at the ceiling, but such an error is attributed to the player. It always has been. And there is nothing “exceptional” about it.

The term “exceptional individual cases” must have some meaning, or it would not appear in Rule 33-7. And actually, when you think about it, it is not hard to imagine what that meaning might be.

An “exceptional individual case” might involve a local rule specific to a particular course, for example. Suppose a seaside course is built largely on sand, with many outcroppings of same hither and thither, and suppose the golf club has a local rule that deems all 23,000 of such outcroppings “bunkers” where one may not ground one's club before striking the ball. Penalizing a player for violating that rule might be unfair unless we could be sure the player had actual knowledge of it. That might be an “exceptional individual case.”

Or suppose Tiger had asked an official whether he could drop his ball several feet behind the original spot of his third shot, and the official had mistakenly told him he could. It would still be a violation of Rule 26-1, and under the rules of golf, Tiger would be disqualified for failing to assess a penalty on himself. That, however, would be palpably unfair. That would be an “exceptional individual case.” All of us would think it wrong to disqualify Tiger in that situation.

It appears that the only thing “exceptional” about this case was that it involved Tiger Woods, and it is reasonable to ask whether a lesser light on the PGA Tour would have gotten the same consideration. The very fact that one can fairly ask such a question means that the reputation of golf as a game rooted in sportsmanship and etiquette took a serious beating at the 2013 Masters.

Copyright2013MichaelKubacki

TOOMEY MOVES TO THE DARK SIDE, or Politics For The Time-Challenged

Pat Toomey is a Pennsylvania senator who we all thought was a constitutionalist, Tea-Party sort of conservative. Now, after his failed campaign to enact a new scheme for expanded background checks on gun buyers, it is clear he is no such thing. It happens. Guys go to Washington and they forget why they were sent there, or they get duped by other legislators and lobbyists into supporting things they don't understand. Or they simply succumb to the I'm-a-big-important-guy-and-the-people-who-elected-me-are-dopes syndrome. In Toomey's case, it appears that all these things played a role in his descent into Beltway thinking and Beltway culture.

If you support the right of free Americans to bear arms, the Toomey-Manchin Amendment was a truly dreadful bill. It did basically nothing about systematically identifying loonies who should be denied guns. It did nothing about felons obtaining guns illegally. It imposed enormous criminal penalties on various types of private gun transfers that have never been shown to cause any sort of problem. And, despite the caterwauling of Toomey, Manchin, Obama, and a thousand newspapers that no such a thing could ever happen, the bill would have allowed the federal government to set up a national gun registry.

I know these things because I read the amendment. It's not easy because there are references to other laws and regulations and you have to find out what those things say before you can understand exactly what the Toomey-Manchin Amendment does. It took a couple of hours, and that is time most people will not be willing to spend.

So here's a shortcut for the time-challenged citizen.

When Pat Toomey started speaking out in the press and in public forums to generate support for his proposal, he did something he has never done before in his public life. He started saying that his plan contained “common sense” gun proposals. This is never a good sign. When a politician, rather than telling you what the bill says or presenting arguments for it, tells you what your conclusion must be, the only rational response from the citizenry is to reject that politician's proposal (and that politician as well). I mean, it takes some nerve to do this, doesn't it? As a public servant, Toomey's job is to present his legislation, explain it to me and present his arguments in favor of it. But the conclusion is MY job. I'll decide whether the bill is a good one or whether it's “common sense” or simply nonsense. When a politician assumes a conclusion in this manner, it's an insult to his audience. Are we fools? Are we morons? Are we incapable of assessing data and weighing arguments and deciding what we think?

Assuming one's conclusion, or “begging the question,” was a cheap rhetorical trick when Aristotle started bitching about it 2300 years ago (and it wasn't exactly new when he showed up). Yet today, left-wing ideologues use it constantly. I put “common sense gun control” in my browser and got 68 million hits, and the first twenty pages of them were all from Democratic politicians or left-wing newspapers. EVERY leftie does this. Obama has not given a speech about guns in which he does not refer to “common sense” gun laws. Pelosi does it. Bill Clinton does it. Ed Rendell. Michael Nutter (constantly). Bloomberg (of course). And now, sadly, we must add Pat Toomey to that list.

You have all seen these phrases: “sensible laws,” “reasonable measures,” “common-sense regulations.” The left does it because their supporters don't care much about reasons or arguments; they just need to be told what the right people are thinking. (You may have noticed, for example, that approval for gay marriage has spiked upwards among black voters now that Obama has changed his public position on it. These folks were not persuaded to change their minds---they simply “evolved” once Obama did.) The left is also the home of the newly-identified low-information voter, a group that is completely uninformed and highly opinionated. They have no time for, or interest in, arguments or persuasion. The time required for a slogan or bumper sticker is the measure of their attention span for matters political. Arguments are wasted on them, but the phrase “common-sense gun control” tells them all they need to know.

This is done with every issue, not just gun control. The gay marriage issue is now called the ”marriage equality” issue by the left, for example. This turns it into a question solely of discrimination, and we all hate discrimination, don't we? Suddenly it has nothing to do with traditional values, the protection of children, inheritance law or anything else. Similarly, regarding the treatment of captured terrorists, the left tells us we need to decide whether we approve of “torture.” We do not, of course, but neither are we entirely certain that waterboarding or playing loud music fits the definition. For most of us, that is the question. For the left, however, the conclusion is simply assumed. Whatever practice they disapprove of is “torture,” and no further argument is permitted.

For you time-challenged voters, or for those who just can't be much bothered with political blather, my suggestion here can save you a lot of time. It doesn't even matter what the issue is. If a politician is presenting you with arguments for his proposal or his point of view, support him. Vote for him. Occasionally, he will be wrong but occasionally all of us are wrong. In the long run, we will all be better off. But if instead he tells you what to think and what to conclude, walk away. Show him the contempt he is showing for you. Scorn him, mock him, and vote against him the first chance you get, whether his name is Barack Obama or Pat Toomey.

Copyright2013MichaelKubacki

GAY MARRIAGE IN THE SUPREME COURT


Gay marriage is in the Supreme Court today, and I have only one prediction regarding their decision: regardless of what they decide on Prop 8, there is no chance they will decide that same sex marriage is protected by the US Constitution and must be permitted across the land.


In order to do so, Ruth Bader Ginsburg would have to support that view (otherwise the votes would not be there).  She will not.  Over the years, she has made it clear she believes that big political/moral issues should be settled by the democratic process, and not by the Court.  She has described Roe v. Wade as a "mistake" for this reason, though one can assume her personal view is pro-choice on the issue of abortion.


Back in the Pleistocene Era, my criminal law professor at the University of Michigan, Yale Kamisar, made this same argument.  The big moral issues (capital punishment, abortion, etc.) are not addressed by the Constitution, and pretending they are undermines the rule of law.  These are political issues and must be decided by the people, either nationally or state-by-state.  Supreme Court justices have no law to apply on these questions so all they can bring to the table are their personal prejudices.


Or, as Mark Steyn asked today: "Why not ask Punxsutawny Phil?"



Copyright2013MichaelKubacki

GENERAL MATTIS RETIRES

Four-star Marine Corps Gen. James Mattis was unceremoniously dumped as head of CENTCOM in January and retired on March 22, 2013. Often called "The Warrior Monk," he was revered for his toughness, his erudition, and his loyalty to his troops. Basically, this is a guy who composes poetry in Greek, but was equally at home leading a charge into a firefight. An expert marksman and a natural leader, he spent more than forty years in the USMC.

Some of his remarks over the years have been saved, and circulated, by other Marines:

"The first time you blow someone away is not an insignificant event. That said, there are some bastards in the world that just need to be shot. There are hunters and there are victims. By your discipline, you will decide if you are a hunter or a victim."

"You go into Afghanistan, you got guys who slap women around for five years because they didn't wear a veil. You know, guys like that ain't got no manhood left anyway. So it's a hell of a lot of fun to shoot them. Actually it's quite fun to fight them, you know. It's a hell of a hoot. It's fun to shoot some people. I'll be right up there with you. I like brawling."

To Iraqi tribal leaders in 2003: "I come in peace. I didn't bring artillery. But I am pleading with you, with tears in my eyes: if you fuck with me, I'll kill you all."

"There are some people who think you have to hate them in order to shoot them. I don’t think you do. It’s just business."

"Fight with a happy heart."

"I don't lose sleep at night over the potential for failure. I cannot even spell the word."

"Be polite, be professional, but have a plan to kill everybody you meet."

Copyright2013MichaelKubacki

MY PENNDOT ADVENTURE

With my birthday approaching, it was time to get my new driver's license picture taken, so I drove up Ogontz Ave. (way up---it was further than I thought) to the PennDot office, handed my paperwork to the receptionist and got a ticket informing me I was now Customer Number A155 and would probably be waiting about twenty-five minutes.

There were fifty chairs in the waiting area by the picture-taking desks and there may have been six that did not have butts in them. I commandeered one (an empty chair, not a butt), and surveyed the landscape.

There were two camera stations. The one on the left was manned by a woman in a full Muslim niqab, and she was so tiny and she was covered by so much fabric that I wondered whether there actually was a woman in there somewhere rather than some animatronic device that simply moved the acres of clothing around and made human voice noises. Above her was an electronic screen informing the waiting public that she was now serving Number A137.

The station on the right was staffed by a large woman. She was so large, in fact, that my first thought about her was that, if any substantial portion of her was actual muscle mass, she would be in a position to challenge Michael Oher (to whom she bore a superficial likeness) for his position as left tackle on the Superbowl Champion Baltimore Ravens. It did not take long to realize, however, that the muscle mass was lacking. Most NFL left tackles are a lot like aircraft carriers but are much more nimble. She too resembled an aircraft carrier, but with none of the quickness.

As I arrived, her electronic message board indicated she was helping Number A136. However, she immediately arose, proceeded into the back room, and her message screen went blank. Oh, dear. Had she left the building? Had she gone home for the day? Were we now reduced to just one camera station staffed by six yards of worsted wool that might or might not have a little Muslim lady inside it?

I sat. I waited. Ten minutes later, the aircraft carrier returned, holding a roll of scotch tape, which took her another four minutes to open and insert in her dispenser. Mystery solved. Her message board then lit up and she continued her transaction with Customer Number A136.

The mini-Muslim was still working on Number 137. I had been in the house for fourteen minutes and I was still the eighteenth person in line. I began to suspect my wait might exceed twenty-five minutes.

The joint was devoid of architectural nuance and the decor was minimal. You would think there might be a photo of the Governor or a few pictures of waterfalls or mountaintops or another natural wonder found somewhere in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. Nope. Nothing like that.

The only things on the walls were six large posters, identical, each proclaiming the house rules in a bold black capital-letter font I remember seeing a lot of in ”Triumph of the Will.”

NO EATING

NO DRINKING

NO SMOKING

NO CELL PHONES

Gambling was permitted, I suppose, though I didn't really see anything to bet on.

There was a white dropped ceiling made out of the same stuff they pour coffee into at WaWa. The walls were a uniform, washed-out pastel blue. The floor? Linoleum, of course--- the Muzak of floor coverings. I've been in nicer rooms. In fact, I've been interrogated by police in nicer rooms.

Several minutes passed. Then, almost simultaneously, both message boards flipped. The aircraft carrier was now serving A138 and the niqab was working on A139. Progress!

There were at least a hundred fifty people in the place seeking learners permits, driving tests, ID cards or (like me) driver's license pictures, and since we were not allowed to eat, drink, smoke or use our cellphones, well, that list pretty much exhausted the universe of killing-time-at-PennDot behavior any of us could imagine, so we all just sat quietly and waited for the universe to end. I didn't see anyone doing charcoal sketches of our little outpost and I didn't see anyone writing their memoirs. No one was folding origami paper into a swan and no one was doing yoga. No one was holding a book or newspaper---not one person out of a hundred fifty was reading. I had brought some Alexis de Tocqueville along for a laugh, but never cracked it.

I did allow myself to speculate briefly on what de Tocqueville would have made of this scene and decided he would have attributed it to the influence of lawyers on the American experiment. He liked American law and lawyers in a general way, but he also saw their downside. He would have recognized the PennDot-ization of America as one of the perils embedded in our founding.

A half hour had passed. It seemed likely I would soon be 15^th in line, or even 14^th, but my best guess was a total wait time of two and a half hours. I leaned over to the woman sitting next to me. “I'm ditching,” I said, “so if your number is above A155, you just moved up a slot.” She smiled ambiguously, which meant she either had moved up a slot or she thought I might be a psychopath.

Walking out the door, I glanced back. Today PennDot, tomorrow Obamacare, I thought. Five years from now, this is what doctor's offices will be like too.

Copyright2013MichaelKubacki

PHILLY'S TOP DOWN MAYOR

The Philadelphia International Cycling Championship was the biggest bike race in America, drawing tens of thousands of spectators, attracting the top cycling teams from around the world and generating an estimated $15 million in revenue for local businesses. It is no more, largely because Michael Nutter views the life of a city as something that must be handed down from the government. It is not the first event he has chased from Philadelphia and it won't be the last.

Like most such events, it was hatched not by bureaucrats but by dreamers---David Chauner, Jerry Casale and Jack Simes III, three biking enthusiasts with ties to the city. In 1985, the young men realized their vision on the streets of Philly for the first time, in a race won by Olympian Eric Heiden. Then in 2009, as Chauner told the Inquirer last week, the city's fees tripled. The race limped along for three more years, but the red ink finally spelled the end.

The Dad Vail Regatta began in 1934 and, after a hiatus for WWII, has been held on the Schuylkill since the 1950s. It faced a fate similar to the bike race in 2009 when the Nutter Administration decided it needed to more than double the city's fees. In November of that year, the Regatta announced it was moving to Rumson, New Jersey because it couldn't afford Philly any longer. Only after an intervention by Bob Brady was the regatta saved, at least temporarily.

Other events have not been so lucky. The Pennsylvania Barge Club (founded 1861) resides on Boathouse Row. Its “Philadelphia Frostbite Regatta,” however, is no longer run on the Schuylkill but on the Cooper River in Camden. The races were forced to leave in 2009 when the Nutter Administration boosted its demands on the organizers to $9000 per year.

And then, of course, there's Love Park, where Michael Nutter made his bones in Philly politics.

As the popularity of skateboarding exploded in the 1990s, big names in the sport began to tout the wonders of Love Park as a venue. Some of them with international reputations (Ricky Oyola, Josh Kalis, Anthony Pappalardo), were seen in the park and attracted crowds of spectators for their tricks. ESPN, which created the X-Games, took notice of the phenomenon and tried to make this city the home of the Games, signing a two-year deal to bring the event to South Philly.

This was too much for Councilman Nutter, however. He sponsored the bill to ban skateboarding in all public places and shepherded it through City Council, after which it became law with Mayor Street's signature. It had to be done, we were told, because skateboarding would cause a million dollars in damage to our parks every year. Sound a bit inflated? Or hysterical? It does to me too, and there was never any documentation offered for this estimate. But even if it were true, it would have been chump change compared to the estimated $40 million the X-Games would have brought in to local businesses.

What is particularly sad about the X-Games saga is that skateboarding developed in Love Park purely by accident. When Edmund Bacon first conceived of Love Park in 1932, he had no idea that sixty years later the design of the place would turn the park into a mecca for skateboarders around the world. Yet to a visionary like Bacon, that serendipitous result was the very thing to be cherished about a city. Accidents happen in urban spaces, wonderful accidents that bring people together in ways no one can anticipate. This was why, in 2002, the 92-year-old Bacon rode a skateboard in Love Park as a protest against the dreary legislation Councilman Nutter had pushed through.

I cite the “economic impact” figures for these events ($15 million for the bike race, $16 million for the Dad Vail, $40 million for the X-Games) for one reason---to make clear that Michael Nutter's hostility is NOT based on any rational economic criteria. If the bike race brings $15 million to Philadelphia businesses every year, that money (in hotel rooms, restaurant bills, souvenirs, hot dogs, transport, shopping, etc.) generates tax revenue for the city far in excess of the extra $200,000 or so the city tried to extract from the organizers. Beyond that, of course, one would hope that elected officials in Philadelphia would have a more general assumption that money coming into Philly businesses is a good thing, and that prosperity should be encouraged for its own sake. This is apparently not the case.

I don't know why Michael Nutter does this repeatedly to events beloved by city residents. I'm not his shrink. I can only conclude that, since he is hurting Philadelphians (and the city treasury) by his actions, his primary motive is to exert government control (at any cost), over the sometimes untidy life of the city. Unless the city government itself organizes these festivals and sports extravaganzas, Michael Nutter seems to view them as somehow illegitimate and unworthy of preservation. The Mayor was very much in charge of the Labor Day concert at the Art Museum (though he left most of the details to Jay-Z). No problem there, I guess. It is only the events that are produced organically from the citizenry that excite his ire and his desire to impose the heavy hand of government.

A different sort of city government would view events like the bike race and the Dad Vail and the Frostbite Regatta and Love Park skateboarding as civic assets, and manifestations of Philly's unique spirit. A different sort of mayor would understand he is merely a temporary caretaker whose job it is to nurture and support the dynamism that bubbles up from neighborhoods and entrepreneurs and community organizations. Instead, it seems that Michael Nutter, as both a councilman and now as a mayor, views the real treasures of the city as untidy little annoyances that must be regulated, taxed, or stamped out.

Copyright2013MichaelKubacki

CLICHE FILE: "At the end of the day..."

(An occasional series on expressions we need to stop using immediately.)

At the end of the day,

• ...it gets dark.
  
  
• ...you watch Jeopardy.
  
  
• ...you put on your comfortable shoes.
  
  
• ...God has placed “night.”
  
  
• ...it is best to make a comprehensive list of everything that might possibly go wrong the next day, and then, after each item, provide a list of possible countermeasures and the equipment or supplies needed in order to implement those countermeasures---then log on to Amazon and order those supplies and that equipment.
  
  
• ...they're just waking up in Japan.
  
  
• ...it may be wise to choose a “designated driver.”
  
  
• ...your wife may want to know what you have been doing when you were supposed to be at work.
  
  
• ...if the first thing you do when you get home at night is make yourself a 16-ounce martini, some people will think you might have an “issue.”
  
  
• ...you need to remove those floppy, colorful, bootlike things on your feet and leave them in the breezeway for a while. I love you, Darling, but they reek.
  
  
• ...I like to pop in my copy of “Remains of the Day.” It's not the sort of thing you want to watch first thing in the morning.
  
  
• ...it's a good time to check on your supply of supplemental oxygen because you never know when you will be asked to ascend elevations in excess of 20,000 feet.
  
  
• ...they just start up another damn day.
  
  Copyright2013MichaelKubacki

NOTICE (February 7, 2013)

Much of the traffic to this site comes from michaelkubacki.com and is automatically rerouted to michaelkubacki.blogspot.com.  Soon, michaelkubacki.com will be decommissioned.

If michaelkubacki.com is one of your Favorite Places, please change it to michaelkubacki.blogspot.com.  

HARBAUGH'S FOLLY AND HOLDING FOR FREE; Observations on the 2013 Superbowl

Two thoughts about the Superbowl (the “Har-bowl”) just concluded:

First, 49er's coach Jim Harbaugh made a fundamental game-playing error in the second half.

I know that football coaches, unlike other types of coaches, are rarely game-players. They don't play backgammon or chess or poker or Risk or other types of strategy games. They have more in common with military generals in that their primary task is to manage, and control, and inspire a bunch of young men and get them to achieve certain group goals. It's a very difficult job, especially considering the psyche of the modern pro, and anyone who can keep fifty immature, imperfectly-educated, testosterone-fueled, filthy rich world-class athletes with no manners on something like “the same page” has no time to learn how best to play games and make the correct strategic decisions at crucial moments. I understand that.

But why can't they hire somebody to do it? Why won't they hire some numbers geek to tell the Jim Harbaughs of the world when to punt, when to kick a field goal and (above all) when to try a two-point conversion? These are not “football decisions” like whether to blitz on a particular play or whether to replace your left tackle because he can't walk anymore, and they don't depend on how a particular coach “feels” at that moment. They are objective, numbers-based determinations to be made about what should be done in a specific situation in the game of football. And since they are objective, there is one correct course of action. And Jim Harbaugh, like many coaches, has no idea what that correct course of action might be. In fact, it is unlikely Harbaugh is even aware there is a correct course of action.

So why won't the 49ers hire somebody to tell him?

With 14:49 left in the 3^rd quarter, the Ravens led 28 – 6. Jim Harbaugh was down by 22 points. What, at this point, were the 49er's chances, and what could they hope to accomplish? How could they possibly get back in this game, and win it?

The obvious answer, the starting point, is obvious: score three touchdowns and four extra points. That's the 22; that ties it up. Then you have to shut down the Ravens as well. This had to be what Harbaugh was thinking and hoping and planning for. And in fact, the almost-successful 22-point comeback was the entire story of the second half, up until the last couple of minutes.

And as luck would have it, 14:49 in the third quarter was the moment the San Francisco fortunes turned around. Seven minutes later, they scored their first touchdown of the game and presented Jim Harbaugh with a critical game-playing decision. Assuming their dreams would come true and they would score the three touchdowns they needed, how should they approach the question of the four extra points? When do they go for two?

There is one right answer to this question.

For the analysis that follows, for simplicity's sake, we will assume the chance of kicking a single extra point is 100% and the probability of success for a two-point conversion is 50%. The real probabilities, from years of NFL data, are very close to those numbers. A missed kick on an extra point is extremely rare, and NFL teams succeed on two-point tries almost exactly half the time.

Since the 49ers actually scored the three touchdowns they needed, we got to see Jim Harbaugh's decision on the critical strategic question of when to go for two. (A field goal by each side at the beginning of the fourth quarter did not change the 22-point comeback equation.) He chose to take single points after the first and second touchdowns and try for two only after the third touchdown. Since the chance of making a single two-point conversion is 50%, this meant that Harbaugh's strategy had only a 50% chance to tie the game even if his 49ers succeeded in scoring the three touchdowns and holding the Ravens. This was not the optimal strategy.

In this situation, down 22 points, when a coach needs one two-point conversion to go with his three touchdowns, he must go for it at the first opportunity, after the first touchdown. If he makes it, he need only kick single points after the next two scores. But even if he fails, he has an additional chance. He can still get his four extra points with two-point conversions on both the second and third touchdowns, and that possibility would have provided an additional 12½% chance of success. By pursuing his optimal strategy and going for two on his first touchdown, Harbaugh would have given himself a 62½% probability of scoring 22 points on the three touchdowns. By waiting until the third touchdown to try for two, however, he limited himself to only a 50% chance of tying the game. And he gained exactly nothing by doing this. His failure to understand the situation (or his failure to have somebody on the sidelines capable of making the right decision for him) simply cost the 49ers that 12½% chance.

This is not to say the 49ers would have tied the game even if Harbaugh had done the right thing, of course. And even if the 49ers had tied up the game with ten minutes left (when the third touchdown was scored), there was no guarantee they would ultimately win it. But that cannot excuse Harbaugh's decision. This was a fairly simple math and logic problem, and he got it wrong in the most important game of the year and possibly the biggest game of his career. There is no logically-defensible reason for what he did.

Elsewhere, I have written about the 15-point deficit in pro football, and why it is best for the trailing team to go for two on the first touchdown in its comeback. The reason is that 15 points is not “two scores.” It's either two scores or three scores and you won't know which it is until you try the two-point conversion. Since it is essential for the trailing team to know whether the 15 points is two scores or three scores, the team should go for two as soon as it can. If it fails in the attempt and trails by 9, it will at least know that it has failed and will have to score twice more to overcome the 9-point deficit. There is really no reason to wait.

If a team is trailing by 15 points, however, and waits until its second touchdown to go for two, it does not actually reduce its chances of tying the game. A team down by 15 needs one two-point conversion and their probability of getting that two-point conversion is the same whether they try it after the first or the second touchdown. This is not true when the gap is 22 points (or 29 or 36 or 43), however. What Jim Harbaugh did significantly reduced the 49er's chances of tying (and ultimately winning) the Superbowl.

*

On the Ravens' intentional safety at the end of the game, the ball was snapped with twelve seconds left. The punter then ran around a bit before stepping out of the end zone with four ticks on the clock. It should have been easy to run out the clock on this play and the Ravens failed to do so.

The Ravens had ten blockers. The 49ers had, at most, ten guys rushing the punter. All the Ravens have to do on this play is assign a player to each rusher and have him wrap his arms around the guy until the clock expires. If necessary or desirable, each Raven could simply pick one guy, tackle him and sit on him. There would be flags all over the field, but (as Hillary would put it), what difference does it make? The penalty for offensive holding in this situation is to award the defense a safety.

In effect, on an intentional safety, there is no penalty for holding.

Copyright2013MichaelKubacki

2013 SUPERBOWL

As you are probably aware (because I've told you twenty times), I know nothing about pro football. Its infield fly rule has always confused me and at times I forget how the knight moves. What I do know is that yards per pass is strongly correlated with football success, especially in the playoffs and the Superbowl. It is for this reason that I now predict the 49ers will win the Superbowl by a comfortable margin.

The numbers are not close, and the numbers are all I got. Offensively, San Francisco is a full yard better than Baltimore (6.6 to 5.6). Defensively, they are a full yard better as well (4.4 to 5.4). In addition, the 49ers outscored their opponents by 4 ½ points more than Baltimore outscored its opponents. These are huge differences. In my world, where numbers matter, San Francisco rolls to victory in one of those 42 – 13 Superbowls that were so common twenty years ago.

Of course, in my world, where numbers matter, Mitt Romney was elected president on November 6. More to the point, I cannot measure the effect of a magical end-of-season Ray Lewis playoff mojo, and there can be no doubt that a magical end-of-season Ray Lewis playoff mojo (hereafter, “MEOSRLPM”) is at work in the current cycle. If numbers were everything, Baltimore would not have beaten Denver. Baltimore would not have beaten New England either. Yet here they are in New Orleans getting ready to play the 49ers for all the cheese.

I'm still taking the 49ers minus the points, but I am reevaluating my stance on Ray Lewis. The Lord does indeed work in mysterious ways, and maybe these last two Ravens victories, both as a touchdown-plus underdog, contain a message. Maybe it's time for me to forgive and forget. Maybe it's time to stop asking Ray what happened to that white suit he was wearing the night those guys got stabbed. Maybe it's time to buy Michael Vick a puppy. And maybe, finally, O.J. should get his Heisman Trophy back.

Nah.

Copyright2013MichaelKubacki

THIS AND THAT

The older I get, the more I like baseball, partly because I'm sick of the cheating in other pro sports. There simply is not that much on-the-field cheating in baseball. It's not possible. In other sports, however, the cheating is intentional and crude and disrespectful of the game itself.


When a basketball player is driving for the hoop and another player grabs his jersey in a way the ref can't see, I don't think, “Wow! What a wily old veteran!” Instead, I think the guy should be thrown out of the game and maybe banned for the rest of the season. Ditto the defensive back in football who knows he is not allowed to hold a pass receiver but does so anyway, cleverly, subtly. I hate those guys. Their sport has given them fame, prestige and tons of money, and now they are pissing on it.


                                                                         *


One consequence of a centralized and hierarchical organization is that it becomes difficult to evaluate lower-level members of the organization. Since all decisions are made at the top, the only performance measure on which underlings can be judged is their ability and willingness to follow orders. In a rigid hierarchy, this is an important quality, of course, but it provides no evidence of a talent for independent judgment. This is true even of important executives in the organization, those with responsibility for directing a large number of employees. They may be so constricted in what they can do with their minions, it can be difficult to evaluate them as decision-makers.
                                                               
                                                              *


Presidential debates would be much more civilized with a stage, two candidates, two microphones, and no moderator. Any rules would be agreed to by the two debaters alone. When I suggest this, people often say it would result in chaos, but I doubt it. Putting people on their honor often works better than depositing them in a legalistic framework where outsiders have to enforce the rules since that tends to relieve the participants of any responsibility for their own behavior. In Europe, there are towns that have eliminated traffic control signs altogether, and they are often safer than similar burgs in the US full of Stop signs and Slow signs and Prepare to Stop signs and Stop Sign Ahead signs.


                                                                        *


I saw it again today (12-9-12) in the NY Giants – New Orleans Saints game. The Saints were trailing 35-20 late in the 3^rd quarter, scored a touchdown to make the score 35-26, and then kicked an extra point to pull within 8 points. This is a fundamental strategic mistake, and every coach in the NFL makes it. It has been at least ten years since I have seen a coach, down 15 late in a game, score a touchdown and go for a 2-point conversion, though it is the only rational play.


When asked about this (and these days they are never asked), a coach will say he wanted to position his team “within one score,” by which he means 8 points. The problem is that 8 points is not “one score.” Seven points is “one score” because one can assume the extra point after a touchdown, but no one can assume a 2-point conversion. In the NFL, a 2-point conversion is a 50-50 proposition. It's a coin flip.


The point is this: 15 points is not two scores; it is two scores plus a coin flip. It might be three scores---you just won't know until you try your 2-point conversion. Similarly, 8 points is not one score; it is one score plus a coin flip. It might be two scores. And if you, as a coach, need a coin flip to catch up and force overtime, don't you want to flip that coin as soon as possible?


 In the context of the NY – NO game, when the score is 35 – 26 and you are deciding whether to kick for one or run a play for two, WHY WOULD YOU DELAY FINDING OUT WHETHER YOU NEED TWO MORE SCORES, OR ONLY ONE? Why don't you want to know now? And if you want to know now, what possible reason could there be to kick a single extra point just for the pleasure of being down eight points?


                                                                 *


Believing as I do in the burning bush and the resurrection, I'm reluctant to mock other people's theology as goofy or illogical, but I do find certain faiths difficult to take seriously.


Beliefs and rituals and festivals about food are so human, so hard-wired into all of us, that a religion without them makes me suspicious. Catholics have the Last Supper, the Seven Fishes, the meatless fast days. Jews have their Seder and their bitter herbs and their Jewfood obsessions (e.g., brisket). Muslims butcher meat in prescribed ways, and long for the sundown meal during Ramadan.


Now consider the Quakers. They've been in America for 350 years, centered in Philadelphia, which is a food town if there ever was one, but have somehow managed NOT to put their stamp on any distinctive cuisine. Is there a Quaker-style fried chicken? Is there a catfish-a-la-Betsy-Ross? What is “Quaker food,” anyway? Oatmeal?


Then there's the Mormons, who are only marginally more chow-conscious than Quakers. Utah consumes more Jello per capita than any other place on earth, for example. Perhaps the height of Mormon gastronomy is something called “funeral potatoes,” (a fun-loving name for a dish if ever there was one). These consist of frozen,shredded potatoes, canned cream of chicken soup, sour cream and crumbled cornflakes, all baked at approximately 1650 degrees Fahrenheit for three hours and twenty minutes (or until done).


My son shares an apartment in Salt Lake City with two young Mormon gentlemen. Stacked in several spots around the abode are a number of 25-lb boxes of “RICE” and “OATS” and other no-frill staples. The LDS church recommends this, you see. Everyone is supposed to have a least six months of provisions against the inevitable societal meltdown or Rapture or apocalypse. That reflects the fundamental attitude of Mormons toward food. It's all about survival. Mormons are allowed to have fun, but not by eating.


Copyright2013MichaelKubacki

UP A ROPE?

In an email a few days ago, I wrote to a friend that when the NCAA fined Penn State $60 million for the Sandusky scandal, the only honorable response of Governor Corbett would have been to tell the NCAA to piss up a rope. My friend replied, “Piss up a rope???”

This surprised me. I do not remember a time in my life when I did not know this expression and I have assumed that every adult in America was aware of it. I was wrong about that. Over the past week, I have asked a couple dozen people the following question: “Have you ever heard the expression 'Piss up a rope'?” For a clear majority (about two-thirds), the answer was no.

Everyone who hears it instantly understands what it means. It's a bit cruder than “Go jump in the lake,” and a bit more polite than “Go f*** yourself,” but it means the same thing. Leave me alone. Go away and perform a pointless or impossible act.

But attempting to track down its origins doesn't get you very far. There are dozens of websites offering information on words and phrases and their roots, and I've been to a lot of them. A site called Wordwizard reports simply that it is American, from the early 20^th Century, and it cites Cassell's Dictionary of Slang. Another discussion thread (in a chat room, not an academic site), says, “I heard it in SE Asia in the military back in the 60s.”  And that's about it.

There might be something to this military angle, however. A female friend thinks her source might have been her father, an American sailor in WWII. The military, of course, is the source of much slang, but it is also a linguistic meetinghouse or melting pot where choice words and phrases get passed around even though they may not have originated in the military itself. A regional expression from Georgia, if it gets the job done, can wind up in Oregon or Vermont in this fashion.

I do believe it's American rather than British or Australian or Canadian, simply because there doesn't appear to be any evidence of foreign roots.

Those who are familiar with it are predominately male and white and older, and most of the women who know the term are married to them. In other words, women hear it from their husbands, not their hairdressers. Also, several guys told me they hadn't heard it used for years and suspect it's archaic, or at least fading. On the other hand, the country band Ween recorded a song in 1996 entitled---you'll never guess---”Piss Up A Rope.” And while they may never win a Grammy for it, they still tour and they still do the song, which features the immortal line: “I'm sick of your mouth and your 2% milk,” as well as these heart-rending lyrics:

My dinner's on fire while she watches TV

And if you've ever wondered what it's like to be me

She takes all my money and leaves me no smokes

Yells at my buddies and insults my folks

I'm breakin' my back, doin' the best that I can

She's got time for the dog and none for her man

And I'm no dope, but I can't cope

So hit the fuckin' road and piss up a rope

Copyright2013MichaelKubacki

PENN STATE AND THE NCAA---CHAPTER 2

HARRISBURG, Pa. -- Gov. Tom Corbett said Tuesday he plans to sue the NCAA in federal court over stiff sanctions imposed against Penn State University in the wake of the Jerry Sandusky child sexual abuse scandal.

The NCAA sanctions, which were agreed to by the university in July, included a $60 million fine that would be used nationally to finance child abuse prevention grants. The sanctions also included a four-year bowl game ban for the university's marquee football program, reduced football scholarships and the forfeiture of 112 wins but didn't include a suspension of the football program, the so-called death penalty.

---ESPN, 1-2-13

Some in the media and the sports world have praised Governor Corbett for the antitrust suit he has belatedly filed against the NCAA. Let me suggest another approach to the question of how this multifaceted mess should have been dealt with, and how we should view the governor's actions.

At this point we all know the basics of the story. Crimes were committed, repeatedly, in the shower rooms of Penn State athletic facilities and other places. Young boys were sodomized and otherwise sexually abused by a respected member of the university community, and the crimes continued for a number of years. Other adults in positions of authority looked the other way or didn't want to believe the stories or instinctively protected the culture of secrecy that allowed this situation to develop. They bear some moral culpability, and maybe some criminal culpability, for the outrages that occurred. While the responsibility of the predator himself may be quite clear, the extent to which other men should be held accountable is less so. Some may be entirely innocent. Others are weak and perhaps corrupt, but should be allowed to slink away in shame. A few should go to jail. Much of that must still be sorted out.

Here in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, we have trustees who oversee the universities and we have policemen and courts and judges and legislators. All of these individuals have certain responsibilities, defined by our laws, and all of them have a legitimate role to play in bringing bad people to the bar of justice and crafting policies that will prevent future crimes of this type. That, at least, is how the system is supposed to work. Today, however, we have become so accustomed to being bullied by NGOs, community organizers and advocacy groups that we have apparently forgotten what it is that has made us strong as a nation, and has made us the envy of people around the world. It's the rule of law and the enshrinement of due process principles in our legal system. But those concepts are so very complicated, aren't they? The rule of law? Due process? What does that stuff really mean? So instead, we routinely succumb to the caterwauling of those with big hearts and no legal authority.

Therefore, when the NCAA shows up and says, "Give us $60 million---it's for the children," we do. We all roll over. The president of PSU immediately agrees. The trustees agree. Corbett agrees. "It's only fair," they tell us poor slobs in the cheap seats. "We'll pay the money and then the healing can begin."

The only honorable response to the NCAA's demand for $60 million was to tell them to piss up a rope. Where does such a number even come from? How did they arrive at it? Is there some secret pederasty accounting software locked away in the NCAA's vault? Can we see it? Can we run the numbers ourselves? Why sixty? Why not $58.7 million? Why not $82.3 million? Why not a billion?

The abject acquiescence to the NCAA's demand for $60 million contains a lesson on why it's important to believe in something, why it's important to have values and know why you have them. If Tom Corbett, lawyer, Governor and former Attorney General of Pennsylvania, had any understanding of or appreciation for the rule of law, he would have rejected these NCAA demands instantly. He would have mocked them and named these faceless bureaucrats and demanded they resign from the NCAA.

He did not, of course. Corbett deserves no congratulations here. He has disgraced himself in this affair. The correct response to this attempt to extort money from the taxpayers of Pennsylvania was not a close call. It should not have been a difficult call, certainly not for a former attorney general.

The NCAA's action cannot withstand even a minute of consideration and analysis, which means that our Governor did not give it a minute's thought but simply wilted under the political exigencies of the moment. I mean, if somebody tells you to pay a $60 million fine, don't you even ask to see the law or the rulebook or the code of regulations? Governor Corbett didn't.

We all know the NCAA has a rule against giving a kid a free Jeep, right? And we all know there's a rule against giving a linebacker an A in English when he never went to class. Also, we have seen what happens when a car dealer gives a $20,000 no-show summer job to a college basketball player. Can't do that.

But where's the rule here? CAN WE SEE IT PLEASE? Where is the rule that says if one of your assistant football coaches screwed little boys in a locker room twelve years ago (events with no connection to the current players or coaches), the school has to pay the NCAA $60 million and have its football program hobbled for the next decade? If there's a rule that says that, and Penn State agreed to be bound by that rule, well, OK. We'll pay the money. But show us the rule, and show us the procedures you followed to determine we were guilty of violating this rule, and show us the calculations or decision-making process that was used to determine that $60 million was the appropriate penalty. Maybe I'm just old-fashioned, but it seems to me that sixty million bucks used to buy a lot more transparency than it does today. Inflation, I suppose.

Any lawyer worthy of the name would have seen the due process issues crying out for attention. This is not hard stuff. It's what lawyers do---they see issues, even if they do not immediately know how those issues should be resolved. But Tom Corbett, former Pennsylvania AG, did not. "Sure," he said. "Sixty million? Great. No problem." Only now is he having second thoughts. Only now, six months later, has our esteemed Governor figured out that HE was the kid in the shower.

Copyright2013Michael Kubacki