Although the domestic political stalemate continues, political developments in other countries could open some avenues for successes for President Obama. These successes may not mean so much for his popularity at home, which is slipping despite the improving economy due to political setbacks like the IRS scandal and the reports of the NSA's invasion of our privacy, but they could mean more than the results of all the Beltway bickering.
Iranian Election
Iran elected a new President Sunday, and the result may bring an improvement in that country's relations with the (non-Shiite) rest of the world. Hassan Rouhani is a cleric and friend of Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei, but he is still considered a relative moderate. His name is familiar to the US as the negotiator we encountered during the Presidency of Mohammed Khatami, the other moderate cleric President in the history of post-revolutionary Iran. During Khatami's presidency, there was a noticeable warming of relations with the US and there was some increased tolerance of civil liberties. Expectations during that period for more dramatic change, in the form of government away from the theocracy, or for major agreements with other countries, were not fulfilled then and are unlikely now, as well--for example, his Presidency will not lead to some sudden end in the nuclear program Iran has maintained, as it is a policy of state and has considerable popular support. I do think his election will allow for a lessening of tensions and should reduce the likelihood of actual hostilities.
The Iranian voters gave Rouhani just over 50% of the vote in the contest with five other approved candidates. By gaining an absolute majority, he avoided the need for a runoff, and that was probably the most impressive aspect. The Iranian voters are looking principally for an improvement in the economic situation, which has been abysmal, with the end of the Ahmadinejad Presidency leaving a very bad taste. In order to make much difference, though, he will need to gain some relaxation in the economic sanctions, and that will mean some well-chosen concessions on the nuclear program.
A New Chapter in Italy
When I last posted on Italian politics, the parliamentary elections had proven inconclusive and the shape of the agreement to form a new government was unclear. Since then, local elections (which succeeded in marginalizing the rising influence of the iconoclastic Five Stars insurgency of comedian/politician Beppe Grillo) clarified the political reality, and a center-left agreement was formed at the end of April.
The new Prime Minister, Enrico Letta, is from the moderate-left Democratic Party, which finished (narrowly) first in the national elections, but he also traces his political development to the Partito Popolare, the successor to the Cold War Christian Democratic party which gathered its more progressive elements. Though only 46, he boasts a long career in the Italian and European Parliaments and experience in several cabinet roles. He is known as a deal-maker and a moderate. Letta needed support from members of Silvio Berlusconi's center-right party, but not from Berlusconi himself. The aging clown appears to be near the end of his string; his sentence for tax fraud was recently upheld and, though he can still appeal, I suspect his party is going to learn to go on without him.
Letta has signaled a change in course from the technocratic, non-partisan government in place before the elections. He has apologized to the youth of the country for his economy's failure to produce jobs for them, and has promised to reverse the austerity policy which has been largely imposed on Italy as the price to fund its debts. The challenge for Letta will be to make good on those promises, though he seems to have the international political momentum on his side. Though his government could fall (if he loses the support of the center-right), his party could gain ground.
Arms to Syria
It's hardly a positive development that the US is providing arms to the Syrian rebels; more guns would not seem to be the prescription for a nation in the middle of a bloody civil war. Further, the reasons for the US' change in policy are all bad news: after extensive study, the administration made a determination that chemical weapons had been used against rebel areas by the Bashar government, and the purpose of the change is to prevent the rebels' complete destruction. The entry into the fighting of the Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shiite faction, has reinvigorated the Syrian government's military, and it has been retaking hard-won rebel territory.
Still, the direct entry of US involvement could be a game-changer; we will give the rebels anti-tank weapons, a key request they have made (anti-aircraft weapons, though, would be too risky to give to the rebels, with their Islamic fundamentalist allies). The objective is to force the Syrian regime to the negotiating table, something it has not been willing to do as long as it felt it would ultimately win the war. So, the paradoxical aim of providing more arms is to bring the blood-letting to an end.
From the US' perspective, the perils of getting involved in another middle Eastern mess should be readily apparent: Syria is a little like Iraq in reverse, with the tyrannical minority regime in this case being Shiite and the disenfranchised majority being Sunni, and like Iraq, there is little chance that the bitterness and widespread violence will cease anytime soon, regardless of the chances of a political settlement to end the raging conflict (and I wouldn't rate those too highly, either). The key for the Americans is drawing a clear line for our involvement and sticking to it. If President Obama fails to do that, he will be reviled by his own party for failure to keep to his principles.
Uppance Coming for Erdogan?
I am a strong supporter of the idea of the nation of Turkey as an emerging positive force in the world, a country that has risen in economic and political status in recent decades, is now a player in both Europe and the Middle East, and has been breaking new ground when it comes to the democratic process in the world of Islam. Prime Minister Erdogan has broken ground, as well, being the first democratically-elected Prime Minister to have successfully challenged the traditionalist and military elite which has exercised a virtual veto on politics since World War II. Erdogan's achievements have been decisive enough that I think it is unlikely that the country can revert to the Cold War status in which unsatisfactory civilian governments were frequently overturned by military coups.
Nevertheless, Erdogan now finds himself the object of a popular rebellion in its largest city, Istanbul (not to be confused with the country's capital, Ankara). The government had announced a deal to develop the one park in the most developed part in the city, and there was an outcry against it. The protests drew a variety of supporters and the crowds grew. Then the Erdogan government decided to take action against the protesters. Many were arrested, many were injured, and a couple were even killed in the violent repression of the protests by the Turkish riot police.
Some of the worst repressions occurred while Erdogan was visiting abroad on affairs of state, but he spoke out against the protesters, essentially calling them the equivalent of the Sixties' "unwashed bums". Then, when he came back, he did not retract his negative comments about them, though other leaders of his party were more conciliatory. His tactics were to agree to meet with the leaders of the protest movement (I'm not sure who they were, really; there was an "Occupy Wall Street" improvisational character to the protests), and then to send in the troops to clear the park.
A lot of the protest was about restrictions on individual freedoms--some proposed limits on buying alcohol, for example--and a general feeling among various parties that Erdogan, who has been elected by progressively larger majorities, was becoming hubristically overpowerful. The danger here is the classic "tyranny of the majority", as Erdogan can demonstrate huge assemblies of supporters anytime he wants to do it.
This may not lead to the political downfall of Erdogan--he has proposed a referendum on the park development, and he can probably win it, whatever side he backs; or if he doesn't choose sides on that, he can probably still win national elections--but his government will never again bear the sheen of one that protects the people's liberties. He will be a partisan of the Islamist faction of Turkey.
Tuesday, June 18, 2013
Sunday, June 09, 2013
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
With regard to the government surveillance stories that have breaking, the above is the main question I have: Who is watching the people who watch us? Or, to take it just a bit further, Who is watching the people who watch the people who watch us? The titled question is age-old, as suggested by the Latin quote coming from the satirist Juvenal a couple millennia ago.
First, a few stipulations:
1) The Patriot Act has legally authorized these intrusions on privacy, and the courts have supported them, as well;
2) Anything out on the Internet is available, basically to any snoop, whether the providers share the information or not;
3) Ultimately, the government will do whatever it needs to do to fight terrorism, putting up some sort of flimsy legal shield or plausible deniability when it goes beyond what is legally authorized;
4) No self-respecting organized terrorist outfit is going to put any information on commercial cellphones or the Internet which will point to themselves--the only folks this stuff is going to implicate are the newbies who are going to get themselves stung by double agents before they get anything done. *
Somewhere, some snoop cringes when he/she hears the President say, "We are not listening to your phone calls; we are not reading your emails." President Obama probably doesn't think so, but I am willing to bet that someone is doing it, somewhere, for some group of Americans, and they are doing it with some set of officials' knowledge. One of these spooks probably is the individual who, aware of all the stipulations and cringing about what had been said and not said about the program recently revealed, decided that this was one that could be let go, considering the interests of truth, the protection of the endangered right of privacy, and because the program is not really all that valuable.
That being said, the leak is illegal, and it's the sort of thing that will be used as justification for more secret subpoenas of reporters' records (as was disclosed recently to have happened) and more pressure upon freedom of press.
With the exception of this last qualm, I would say that it's all good: People should now know better what is, and what is not, private and protected by law. We can have a more public discussion about what we want the spooks to be seeing (whether they will obey the rules or not is another question); and the total ineffectiveness of our Congressional committees and the FISA courts tasked with balancing privacy against the war on terror has been exposed.
In my preliminary endorsement of President Obama's candidacy way back in 2006, I proposed a 10-point program for his administration, one of which was "7. Establish clearly the political dimensions of privacy and of permissible government intrusions into it." (This was actually before the phone/Internet programs were established in 2007 during the Bushite Administration.) To be honest, Obama and his Attorney General Eric Holder have not been willing to challenge the Bushite norms of full attack on any limitations to government expansion of the security-intelligence regime. Perhaps, before Holder takes his leave, as reports have suggested he will do shortly, he will do a big favor for the American people and for President Obama's legacy and push the envelope inward a little bit.
*Here's a good test of these programs' effectiveness:: Let's look at what information was available about Tamerlane and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's contacts, whether the data would have helped if we were paying attention, and what could we learn from it. I suspect that, even in retrospect with the benefit of hindsight, it wouldn't have been all that much except a couple of possible leads about who helped put them up to it.
First, a few stipulations:
1) The Patriot Act has legally authorized these intrusions on privacy, and the courts have supported them, as well;
2) Anything out on the Internet is available, basically to any snoop, whether the providers share the information or not;
3) Ultimately, the government will do whatever it needs to do to fight terrorism, putting up some sort of flimsy legal shield or plausible deniability when it goes beyond what is legally authorized;
4) No self-respecting organized terrorist outfit is going to put any information on commercial cellphones or the Internet which will point to themselves--the only folks this stuff is going to implicate are the newbies who are going to get themselves stung by double agents before they get anything done. *
Somewhere, some snoop cringes when he/she hears the President say, "We are not listening to your phone calls; we are not reading your emails." President Obama probably doesn't think so, but I am willing to bet that someone is doing it, somewhere, for some group of Americans, and they are doing it with some set of officials' knowledge. One of these spooks probably is the individual who, aware of all the stipulations and cringing about what had been said and not said about the program recently revealed, decided that this was one that could be let go, considering the interests of truth, the protection of the endangered right of privacy, and because the program is not really all that valuable.
That being said, the leak is illegal, and it's the sort of thing that will be used as justification for more secret subpoenas of reporters' records (as was disclosed recently to have happened) and more pressure upon freedom of press.
With the exception of this last qualm, I would say that it's all good: People should now know better what is, and what is not, private and protected by law. We can have a more public discussion about what we want the spooks to be seeing (whether they will obey the rules or not is another question); and the total ineffectiveness of our Congressional committees and the FISA courts tasked with balancing privacy against the war on terror has been exposed.
In my preliminary endorsement of President Obama's candidacy way back in 2006, I proposed a 10-point program for his administration, one of which was "7. Establish clearly the political dimensions of privacy and of permissible government intrusions into it." (This was actually before the phone/Internet programs were established in 2007 during the Bushite Administration.) To be honest, Obama and his Attorney General Eric Holder have not been willing to challenge the Bushite norms of full attack on any limitations to government expansion of the security-intelligence regime. Perhaps, before Holder takes his leave, as reports have suggested he will do shortly, he will do a big favor for the American people and for President Obama's legacy and push the envelope inward a little bit.
*Here's a good test of these programs' effectiveness:: Let's look at what information was available about Tamerlane and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's contacts, whether the data would have helped if we were paying attention, and what could we learn from it. I suspect that, even in retrospect with the benefit of hindsight, it wouldn't have been all that much except a couple of possible leads about who helped put them up to it.
Saturday, June 08, 2013
Sports Update
Today (Sunday, June 8, 2013) is a big day in sports. A lot of the day's events have already been completed as of this time (8:30 p.m. Central), so I'll trade forecasting for some recap and commentary.
Return of the King (and Queen)
The French Open women's final was held this morning, with Serena Williams firmly establishing her dominance in the field, defeating the defending champion and #2 seed Maria Sharapova. Serena's return to a level of play as good as she has ever shown is a great accomplishment that has taken years, since a critical injury followed by a blood clot in her lung three years ago threatened her very life. Her sister Venus' difficulties, due at least in part to an auto-immune condition, make the moment somewhat bittersweet for the Williams clan, but Serena's win of the Grand Slam event on clay (her least favorite surface) for the first time in a decade sets her up for a superb 2013, as she looks to be a huge favorite in both Wimbledon and the U.S. Open should she stay healthy.
The Men's final is tomorrow, but one would suppose that Rafael Nadal's win and eighth French title is all but assured. His finals opponent, fellow Spaniard David Ferrer, is a good friend of Nadal (at least I think so) but that doesn't prevent him from beating him consistently. Ferrer is persistent, so it takes a lot of work to beat him, but Nadal has the better game, and, I think, the psychological edge as well. I will say that Ferrer has never played better, with more dominant results, than he has in this tournament: I don't think he's lost a set, while Nadal lost a couple in the early rounds before he really got into world-beating form.
He needed that for his epic semifinal showdown with world #1 Novak Djokovic. Djokovic took him to five sets and had winning chances, but Nadal got key breaks and won the last set, 9-7 (in the French, the last set does not go to a tiebreaker). Djokovic is still #1 in the world, and should be, but Nadal has reclaimed his position as King of Clay, especially the clay in Paris.
More Royal Intrigue
As a native-born Kentuckian, I have great regard for the Derby. It's the Democratization of the Big Break for horses, a cavalry charge of 20 3-year-olds, many of them relatively unproven, and the results are generally unpredictable. The atmosphere is intoxicating, a mix of purebred horsey folks and the unwashed masses, lubricated with mint juleps.
Still, from the point of view of pure horse racing excitement, I like the Belmont Stakes best. The field has been winnowed down a bit (or a lot), the racing challenge is extreme, there's that endless homestretch run. Today's edition was a great one--it pretty much always is. The winners of the Derby and the Preakness, Orb and Oxbow, were there at the top of the stretch, along with a third horse, Palace Malice, that had matched strides with the front-running Oxbow through most of the race. The big surprise was that Palace Malice was the one that outlasted the other two champions--a good payoff for the bettors who picked up on the notion that removing the blinders (a eye-sized screen to prevent horses from looking around) would let loose P.M.'s full capability.
They Say This Be "Hawkeytown"
The term reflects just a little too much leeway for the headline writer, but the hockey Blackhawks do have sports fans' attention here in Chicago now. The Rose-less Bulls fell out bravely but early, neither major league baseball team has done anything to deserve attention so far this year, and the Chicago Fire--despite a good team name--plays soccer. The Blackhawks are a serious threat to win the Stanley Cup this year, and their performance in the shortened regular season (40% of it lost to lockout) was spectacularly good. Expectations are very high; nothing less than winning the Cup will satisfy the local fans.
A great regular season means next to nothing in the S.C. playoffs--it's about getting on a hot streak, and particularly about the performance of your goalie. The Blackhawks have gotten through two rounds, though, Corey Crawford has been consistently excellent anchoring a solid defense, and they are on the verge of winning the third round and making it to the finals, in which they would play the Boston Bruins. They are currently up three games to one against the L.A. Kings, so one more win will put them through. In tonight's game five, at home, Chicago had a 2-0 lead after the first of the three periods, but the Kings have recovered and tied it up. An interesting overtime seems likely at this point, but even if the Hawks lose tonight, one would think they should be able to win out. On the other hand, though, Chicago trailed 3-1 to Detroit in the last round and battled back to win.
Note: While typing this last paragraph, Chicago scored a controversial goal which may end up winning the series. While typing the next one, L.A. scored to tie it up again and force sudden-death overtime.
Pressure's on the Heat*
I didn't do such a great job predicting the NBA playoffs in my last sports post. Memphis could have made it a good series vs. the Spurs, but blew big leads in both Games 2 and 3, losing them in overtime, and went down 4-0. As for the Heat, it's basically been a one-man show for LeBron James, who has been enough to carry them through three rounds of the playoffs. It was a tough 7-game series against the Indiana Pacers, though, in the Eastern Conference finals, and the pattern remained much the same in Game 1 of the Championships. The difference is that the Spurs have shown the capability of keeping LBJ in check, and their 1-2 punch of Tony Parker and Tim Duncan has been very effective in the playoffs.
Having won Game 1 in Miami, the Spurs have taken home-court advantage away; however, this is LeBron James, and Miami is far from cooked. I expect the Heat to win Game 2, and then they would have three chances to win one in San Antonio and take back the advantage. I hesitate to repeat my previous mistakes (the biggest one is to predict at all). I see this as a very close series, and I'll go with Miami in 7. With trepidation. If Miami doesn't win, look for James to throw his teammates under the bus and look for a more sure thing.
Baseball: 5/13 of the Season Done
Just over one-third of the regular season has been played--that point was reached a few days ago. Time for plenty of clear indications about this year, even time for some teams to make a shining move and flame out (see Cleveland).
The big disappointments so far this year are the two Los Angeles teams, both of which spent freely and had high expectations for this season. The Washington Nationals would be the other team falling far short of predicted levels, though they are young and their success last year was not fully convincing (to me). The Pittsburgh Pirates and the Boston Red Sox are the teams I least expected to be among the leaders; though the Pirates are clearly improving, they are the ones I most expect to fade from the leaders in the final 8/13 of the season. Two teams which have done better than most expectations are the Braves and Yankees, though really nobody should be surprised by that. The Yankees have plenty of excuses for poor early-season performance--something like $100MM worth of 2013 salary was on the bench due to injuries through most of it--but they need none.
With the fade of the Angels and of the Nationals, the Texas Rangers in the AL West and the Braves in the NL East would seem to be the likely beneficiaries and division winners. The Detroit Tigers, probably the most well-rounded team now that Jose Valverde appears to have solved their closer reliever problem, are clearly the favorites in the AL Central.
The other three divisions should have interesting pennant races. In the NL West, we should look for the defending champion San Francisco Giants to overcome the surprise leading team, the Diamondbacks. The NL Central has a surprising claim to being the best division in the majors so far, as it has the team with the best performance of all (St. Louis) and two of the next best (the Pirates and Reds). This weekend, the Reds host the Cards for yet another critical showdown in their rivalry, which is emerging as perhaps the hottest in the league (the Reds got a big win today!) Finally, the Yankees and Tampa Bay Rays will be chasing the Bosox in the AL East; Boston's strong start has surprised many because they were so bad last year, and I don't believe they can hold on to win the division, but they might be able to win one of the two wild-card spots.
From Bosox to Botox
The big news this week was the reporting that the Commissioner's office has convinced the sleazoid head of a Florida purveyor of performance-enhancing drugs to talk to investigators. Somehow, the notebooks of this guy got released to reporters earlier in the year--probably related to some failed shakedown attempt against some of the major baseball stars who might become implicated--so we have some idea whom he might be able to rat upon.
This is not to take the side of players who may have violated the rules and used performance-enhancing drugs--successfully so, as they have not failed any of the drug tests required. The key angle is that--as apparently was the case with Barry Bonds a few years ago--this Biogenesis outfit seems to have developed some kind of body juicing which the tests can't detect. And its capomafia seems willing to betray his clients if they don't continue to pay up.
The talk this week was of 100-game suspensions--coincidentally, or not, about the number of games remaining in the regular season--fifty for first drug offenses (almost all of the names mentioned would be first-time offenders) and fifty more for lying about it. I don't believe this rumor; if true, it would be a lawsuit waiting to happen; however, if the allegations can be corroborated by something or someone other than the Biogenesis pusher, there will be consequences, with major performers like Alex Rodriguez, Ryan Braun, and Melky Cabrera supposedly on the firing line. I think this will take weeks, months, or even years to play out to its conclusion; until then, the players under threat, and the teams depending upon them, will be adversely affected.
*From the narrow viewpoint of blogging fun, I'm sort of hoping that Miami wins a couple of games so I could use as a subhead title the scientific fact "Heat Increases the Pressure".
Return of the King (and Queen)
The French Open women's final was held this morning, with Serena Williams firmly establishing her dominance in the field, defeating the defending champion and #2 seed Maria Sharapova. Serena's return to a level of play as good as she has ever shown is a great accomplishment that has taken years, since a critical injury followed by a blood clot in her lung three years ago threatened her very life. Her sister Venus' difficulties, due at least in part to an auto-immune condition, make the moment somewhat bittersweet for the Williams clan, but Serena's win of the Grand Slam event on clay (her least favorite surface) for the first time in a decade sets her up for a superb 2013, as she looks to be a huge favorite in both Wimbledon and the U.S. Open should she stay healthy.
The Men's final is tomorrow, but one would suppose that Rafael Nadal's win and eighth French title is all but assured. His finals opponent, fellow Spaniard David Ferrer, is a good friend of Nadal (at least I think so) but that doesn't prevent him from beating him consistently. Ferrer is persistent, so it takes a lot of work to beat him, but Nadal has the better game, and, I think, the psychological edge as well. I will say that Ferrer has never played better, with more dominant results, than he has in this tournament: I don't think he's lost a set, while Nadal lost a couple in the early rounds before he really got into world-beating form.
He needed that for his epic semifinal showdown with world #1 Novak Djokovic. Djokovic took him to five sets and had winning chances, but Nadal got key breaks and won the last set, 9-7 (in the French, the last set does not go to a tiebreaker). Djokovic is still #1 in the world, and should be, but Nadal has reclaimed his position as King of Clay, especially the clay in Paris.
More Royal Intrigue
As a native-born Kentuckian, I have great regard for the Derby. It's the Democratization of the Big Break for horses, a cavalry charge of 20 3-year-olds, many of them relatively unproven, and the results are generally unpredictable. The atmosphere is intoxicating, a mix of purebred horsey folks and the unwashed masses, lubricated with mint juleps.
Still, from the point of view of pure horse racing excitement, I like the Belmont Stakes best. The field has been winnowed down a bit (or a lot), the racing challenge is extreme, there's that endless homestretch run. Today's edition was a great one--it pretty much always is. The winners of the Derby and the Preakness, Orb and Oxbow, were there at the top of the stretch, along with a third horse, Palace Malice, that had matched strides with the front-running Oxbow through most of the race. The big surprise was that Palace Malice was the one that outlasted the other two champions--a good payoff for the bettors who picked up on the notion that removing the blinders (a eye-sized screen to prevent horses from looking around) would let loose P.M.'s full capability.
They Say This Be "Hawkeytown"
The term reflects just a little too much leeway for the headline writer, but the hockey Blackhawks do have sports fans' attention here in Chicago now. The Rose-less Bulls fell out bravely but early, neither major league baseball team has done anything to deserve attention so far this year, and the Chicago Fire--despite a good team name--plays soccer. The Blackhawks are a serious threat to win the Stanley Cup this year, and their performance in the shortened regular season (40% of it lost to lockout) was spectacularly good. Expectations are very high; nothing less than winning the Cup will satisfy the local fans.
A great regular season means next to nothing in the S.C. playoffs--it's about getting on a hot streak, and particularly about the performance of your goalie. The Blackhawks have gotten through two rounds, though, Corey Crawford has been consistently excellent anchoring a solid defense, and they are on the verge of winning the third round and making it to the finals, in which they would play the Boston Bruins. They are currently up three games to one against the L.A. Kings, so one more win will put them through. In tonight's game five, at home, Chicago had a 2-0 lead after the first of the three periods, but the Kings have recovered and tied it up. An interesting overtime seems likely at this point, but even if the Hawks lose tonight, one would think they should be able to win out. On the other hand, though, Chicago trailed 3-1 to Detroit in the last round and battled back to win.
Note: While typing this last paragraph, Chicago scored a controversial goal which may end up winning the series. While typing the next one, L.A. scored to tie it up again and force sudden-death overtime.
Pressure's on the Heat*
I didn't do such a great job predicting the NBA playoffs in my last sports post. Memphis could have made it a good series vs. the Spurs, but blew big leads in both Games 2 and 3, losing them in overtime, and went down 4-0. As for the Heat, it's basically been a one-man show for LeBron James, who has been enough to carry them through three rounds of the playoffs. It was a tough 7-game series against the Indiana Pacers, though, in the Eastern Conference finals, and the pattern remained much the same in Game 1 of the Championships. The difference is that the Spurs have shown the capability of keeping LBJ in check, and their 1-2 punch of Tony Parker and Tim Duncan has been very effective in the playoffs.
Having won Game 1 in Miami, the Spurs have taken home-court advantage away; however, this is LeBron James, and Miami is far from cooked. I expect the Heat to win Game 2, and then they would have three chances to win one in San Antonio and take back the advantage. I hesitate to repeat my previous mistakes (the biggest one is to predict at all). I see this as a very close series, and I'll go with Miami in 7. With trepidation. If Miami doesn't win, look for James to throw his teammates under the bus and look for a more sure thing.
Baseball: 5/13 of the Season Done
Just over one-third of the regular season has been played--that point was reached a few days ago. Time for plenty of clear indications about this year, even time for some teams to make a shining move and flame out (see Cleveland).
The big disappointments so far this year are the two Los Angeles teams, both of which spent freely and had high expectations for this season. The Washington Nationals would be the other team falling far short of predicted levels, though they are young and their success last year was not fully convincing (to me). The Pittsburgh Pirates and the Boston Red Sox are the teams I least expected to be among the leaders; though the Pirates are clearly improving, they are the ones I most expect to fade from the leaders in the final 8/13 of the season. Two teams which have done better than most expectations are the Braves and Yankees, though really nobody should be surprised by that. The Yankees have plenty of excuses for poor early-season performance--something like $100MM worth of 2013 salary was on the bench due to injuries through most of it--but they need none.
With the fade of the Angels and of the Nationals, the Texas Rangers in the AL West and the Braves in the NL East would seem to be the likely beneficiaries and division winners. The Detroit Tigers, probably the most well-rounded team now that Jose Valverde appears to have solved their closer reliever problem, are clearly the favorites in the AL Central.
The other three divisions should have interesting pennant races. In the NL West, we should look for the defending champion San Francisco Giants to overcome the surprise leading team, the Diamondbacks. The NL Central has a surprising claim to being the best division in the majors so far, as it has the team with the best performance of all (St. Louis) and two of the next best (the Pirates and Reds). This weekend, the Reds host the Cards for yet another critical showdown in their rivalry, which is emerging as perhaps the hottest in the league (the Reds got a big win today!) Finally, the Yankees and Tampa Bay Rays will be chasing the Bosox in the AL East; Boston's strong start has surprised many because they were so bad last year, and I don't believe they can hold on to win the division, but they might be able to win one of the two wild-card spots.
From Bosox to Botox
The big news this week was the reporting that the Commissioner's office has convinced the sleazoid head of a Florida purveyor of performance-enhancing drugs to talk to investigators. Somehow, the notebooks of this guy got released to reporters earlier in the year--probably related to some failed shakedown attempt against some of the major baseball stars who might become implicated--so we have some idea whom he might be able to rat upon.
This is not to take the side of players who may have violated the rules and used performance-enhancing drugs--successfully so, as they have not failed any of the drug tests required. The key angle is that--as apparently was the case with Barry Bonds a few years ago--this Biogenesis outfit seems to have developed some kind of body juicing which the tests can't detect. And its capomafia seems willing to betray his clients if they don't continue to pay up.
The talk this week was of 100-game suspensions--coincidentally, or not, about the number of games remaining in the regular season--fifty for first drug offenses (almost all of the names mentioned would be first-time offenders) and fifty more for lying about it. I don't believe this rumor; if true, it would be a lawsuit waiting to happen; however, if the allegations can be corroborated by something or someone other than the Biogenesis pusher, there will be consequences, with major performers like Alex Rodriguez, Ryan Braun, and Melky Cabrera supposedly on the firing line. I think this will take weeks, months, or even years to play out to its conclusion; until then, the players under threat, and the teams depending upon them, will be adversely affected.
*From the narrow viewpoint of blogging fun, I'm sort of hoping that Miami wins a couple of games so I could use as a subhead title the scientific fact "Heat Increases the Pressure".
Thursday, June 06, 2013
The Democratization of the Big Break
I basically hate the stuff that passes for "Reality TV" and further deny the genre's claim to its name. I will make an exception, though, and say that a few of the shows--here I'm thinking of "The Voice", "American Idol", "America's Got Talent", "So You Think You Can Dance"--serve a useful purpose. They give a chance to those many wannabees out there who have some talent and want to make their bid for fame, fortune, and celebrity. You can criticize the shows' entertainment value, or the sanity of the contestants' ambition, but you cannot deny the emotion is out there, among the wannabes, or among the public to see these amateurs put it all out there for us to see.
I call it the "Democratization of the Big Break", as it channels the ambition of those who, once upon a time, would hang around in drug stores in Hollywood waiting to be discovered. Now, they are funneled into tryouts, into review by professionals (I would suggest Nicki Minaj is a pro, even if she never would have made it through this sort of gauntlet), and then into the public judgment by the masses: do they get the break, or does some other worthy aspirant?
The only one of them that I've really given any time to watching, just because my wife and daughter follow it, is "The Voice". I hate a lot of things about the format, and in particular the overweighting of people's willingness to choose by buying iTunes (free plug for Apple), but I have to admit that the "coaches" do a good job of selecting talented contestants. As for the contestants themselves, though, the form of the competition is a cruel tease: one winner, lots of high-quality losers, and uncertain rewards even for the winner. Finally, though, I have to agree with Adam Levine's awkward aside: "I hate this country". The voters--taken as a whole--are an ass, with a pronounced preference for corny hick music. Take his comment any way you want--and he, of course, had to walk it back--he was right.
I call it the "Democratization of the Big Break", as it channels the ambition of those who, once upon a time, would hang around in drug stores in Hollywood waiting to be discovered. Now, they are funneled into tryouts, into review by professionals (I would suggest Nicki Minaj is a pro, even if she never would have made it through this sort of gauntlet), and then into the public judgment by the masses: do they get the break, or does some other worthy aspirant?
The only one of them that I've really given any time to watching, just because my wife and daughter follow it, is "The Voice". I hate a lot of things about the format, and in particular the overweighting of people's willingness to choose by buying iTunes (free plug for Apple), but I have to admit that the "coaches" do a good job of selecting talented contestants. As for the contestants themselves, though, the form of the competition is a cruel tease: one winner, lots of high-quality losers, and uncertain rewards even for the winner. Finally, though, I have to agree with Adam Levine's awkward aside: "I hate this country". The voters--taken as a whole--are an ass, with a pronounced preference for corny hick music. Take his comment any way you want--and he, of course, had to walk it back--he was right.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
