Jobs, Jobs, Jobs

President Obama's American Jobs Act legislation failed to get close to the 60 votes it would need to move to debate on the floor. It will come back in pieces, and a few of them may eventually be passed. I'm thinking that the payroll tax cut (tax cuts are always welcomed by both parties), probably the portion for building and modernizing schools and hospitals, and perhaps the incentive for hiring will pass in some form resembling the one that Obama originally proposed. The revenue piece designed to offset this spending, raising increase in tax rates for the wealthiest, will not, of course.

I'm not sure that the result will achieve any of the objectives: most importantly, employment may be bumped up a notch or two (or a bump down may be offset), but it seems certain the official rate of those without will still be upwards of 8% on Election Day 2012. The record of the vote will be a mushy political weapon: many Senators, even many Democrats, had things they didn't like in such a multi-faceted piece of legislation, and a couple of Democrats even voted against it—others indicated they might have voted against it if it had reached the floor. Obama will certainly be able to claim that he has been hamstrung by a “do-nothing Congress”, a claim which may resonate but will not necessarily buy him, or his party, much in the way of political gain.

Following my general observance of the Talking Heads' Psycho-killer philosophy (“Say something once, why say it again?”) I will not go into too much detail, but I will refer you to one of my better posts, two years ago this month, in which I diagnosed and prescribed for this jobless recovery.

I will repeat and expand my suggestion that the Federal government provide sponsorship for community programs which would restore neighborhoods ravaged by foreclosure and abandonment. Banks should be required to provide support, in the form of contribution of some percentage of owned real estate properties to be turned over and sold for public benefit or conversion to public low-income housing, as well as wages for skilled and unskilled labor doing the restoring. In return, they should get CRA (Community Reinvestment Act) credit, improved value on neighboring properties to which they would retain ownership, and tax deductions for their expenses. It's the least they should be required to do, and it might improve the public's view of their utility and relieve the pressure on them (see below).

Occupy: Is it all about Occupation?

The Chicago Tribune posted me to this site, which lists the “demands” of the Occupy Chicago movement, as follows (I could not find on the site that these “proposed demands” were actually adopted, but I assume they were):

1. Pass a bill to reinstate Glass-Steagall, a safeguard separating banks' commercial lending and investment operations. “Its repeal in 1999 is considerted the major cause of the global financial meltdown of 2008-09”, the group states.
2. Repeal Bush-era tax cuts.
3. Prosecute “the Wall Street criminals who clearly broke the law and helped cause the 2008 financial crisis.”
4. Overturn the Supreme Court decision allowing corporations “to contribute unlimited amounts of money to campaigns”.
5. Pass the Warren Buffett rule on fair taxation, close corporate tax loopholes, prohibit hiding funds offshore.
6. Give the Securities and Exchange Commission stricter regulatory power, strengthen the Consumer Protection bureau and help victims of predatory lending whose home loans have been foreclosed.
7. Take steps to limit the influence of lobbyists and eliminate the practice of lobbyists writing legislation.
8. Eliminate (the) right of former government regulators to work for the corporations or industries they once regulated.
9. Eliminate corporate personhood.
10. Insist the Federal Elections Commission “ensure that political candidates are given equal time for free at reasonable intervals during campaign season”.
11. Pass the Fair Elections Now Act.
12. Forgive student debt.

My comments. I really only oppose the last one, which is impracticable and basically an unconstitutional confiscation of legitimate debt (“only” some $900 billion, they say), and #8, which would excessively limit the right of employment for public servants. I would favor some limited version of that one, in which incoming public servants would agree not to work for certain specified companies or narrow industry code definitions for some period of time (like 5 years), and I would favor some legislated reduction of the debt burden for many student borrowers.

On the other hand, I strongly support #9, #7, #4, and #2, although they might require major legislation (thus, unlikely to happen anytime soon) and #9 or #4 might require a Constituional amendment. I strongly support #10 and #11, though I think they have no chance with either party. I support #1, though I think its importance is overstated; it was seriously considered for the Financial Reform legislation in 2010 but other areas were considered more critical, with good reason. #6, #5, and #3 are commendable in intent but too vague to have much meaning (except the Buffett rule, which I support).

What's missing is anything that would create any jobs, though I admit I'm not sanguine about the chances of any political argument claiming to do that on a lasting basis and large scale here. I think it's a fair criticism to suggest that the Occupy Chicago movement isn't really that interested in getting jobs for its participants (who, clearly, have none)—not that they have to seek them. It just might make the movement a bit more appealing to the working stiffs that make up a good portion of the 99% they suggest that they represent.

And Then There's Mr. Jobs Himself

It's time for me to pay my respects to the late Steve Jobs. First, I must express my sympathy for his family and friends, and my admiration for his determined efforts to carry on despite his debilitating and painful disease.

Respects is most of what I will pay, though; I'm excessively proud of the fact that I don't think I've ever directly paid for any of his products. I find them too expensive for what they do, most of which I don't need. I keep waiting for the price of his laptops to come into range, and they haven't followed the usual pattern. I got an iPod for one of my round-number birthdays from my sister: I said (and say) “thanks”, but I didn't use it much and eventually gave it to my daughter, who appreciates and needs it more. OK, I may buy an iPad before too long if the price comes into line (maybe that's more likely than their laptops' prices do).

What I did do, a few months ago, was buy a few shares. There's no doubt that Apple has the consuming public, and the investment market, too, in thraldom. Not even Jobs' demise could derail the stock, and that was what I was counting upon.

I may not be a big fan of Apple's products, but there's no denying the transformation he brought about, in this country and beyond. Is it healthy? I don't know, but it's certainly what we'd call “progress”, and that should be appealing to a progressive like me.

I haven't done a study of the jobs he's created, but there must be a lot (maybe even in the US). He's certainly created a lot of wealth here, and that shouldn't be a bad thing. Finally, let's salute his success--supposed by Fitzgerald to be rare in America--in performing a hugely successful second act--and third--for himself!

Redeeming the Promise of '08

I am hardly one of those who regret their 2008 support of President Obama based on his performance in the job, or who condition their support for 2012.

Some criticism is justified, and I will get to that, but first, some deserved praise. His conduct of the most important area under his control, the diplomatic/military sphere, has earned a solid A grade.

International Wins
Last week he called for the trigger to be pulled on Anwar al-Awlaki, who imagined that he could threaten his native land safely from a desert retreat. There are legal issues about signing a finding authorizing his death by covert means, but this is another case where the result was fully justified. The previous example, last month's stunning victory by the Libyan rebels vindicated his middle-ground strategy there: encouraged by the U.N. and the Arab League, he chose to provide critical, timely support, preventing general reprisals and massacres, allowing the rebels the time to develop a winning strategy and overthrowing a bloody dictator. Most importantly, he achieved that success with minimal risk to American lives.

Back on the military side, Obama's administration won the big prize in May with the successful raid into Pakistan which took out Osama Bin Laden. He has successfully wound down the Iraq occupation, and he is on a path to achieve a reasonably successful extraction from the other inherited counterinsurgency quagmire, Afghanistan.

Not everything has gone well. Diplomatically, his policy toward Iran has not yet worked, and the country still poses a major destabilizing threat. With the critical nation of Pakistan the results are mixed, at best: the civilian regime is an ally, but a weak one, unable to overcome the nation's historic tendencies toward insubordinate security forces and regional troublemaking. There has been no progress toward resolution of the Israel-Palestine mess, which means more steps backwards. Finally, the illegal prison in Guantanamo has not been closed; though that is more a domestic failing, in the eyes of the world it's clearly a black eye on our reputation he hasn't been able to heal.

All these areas would be better served, though, from a continuation of Obama/Clinton handling rather than any foreseeable alternative. Hillary Clinton has been an excellent Secretary of State, and if she can be persuaded to serve out a second term, could rank as one of the best ever in the position.

Domestic Woes
As good as the advice, strategy, and results have been for most of the foreign/military projects abroad, that's how bad most of the domestic initiatives have been. The first responses to the economic crisis--the Bank bailout (actually before his inauguration, though passage would've been very difficult if he'd opposed them), the auto industry assistance, the stimulus plan--these were reasonable compromises made because the urgency of the situation did not allow for prolonged consideration. Some of it--the bailouts--achieved their immediate aims, and the stimulus was not a failure--just not quite enough of a boost (though it's questionable any amount would've been sufficient, and certainly doubtful if much more could've passed Congress).

The accomodative pattern from those early, critical acts was very evident in the signature domestic legislation of his first Congress, the Affordable Care Act. Here I disagree with the notion that speed was essential, or even possible; they were in a big hurry and it still took a year or more to bring to law, not to mention the legal challenges which will take about two years to resolve.

The piece missing from the legislation, which may end up being required if, as I see being quite likely, the Supreme Court rules that the mandate to buy private health insurance is beyond Congress' authority (and thus unconstitutional) is the public option. Unfortunately, in his zeal to get a bill done, I think that Obama and his advisers made a bad deal with the private insurers--no private option, and the insurers lobby would not try to block it.

The Christmas deal to keep the tax cuts in place was one made under duress: the House was just about to be taken over by a heavily Tea-flavored Republican majority. The deal extended the tax reductions for the wealthy and for the middle class, basically an unacceptable compromise. Worse was to come with the next big deal under duress, for the debt ceiling; though the Administration rejected the confrontational approach of challenging the need for the ceiling--something which might not have worked, the deal may still produce something acceptable in the form of the desired combination of cuts and revenue enhancements, but I wouldn't count upon it. As I feared, the roster of the membership of the "Gang of 12" supercommittee seems designed to continue the partisan logjam. What that will mean, though, is a set of mandatory cuts in both domestic programs and military spending--a sharing of pain, no real gain.

Obama's tax policy lacks a coherent direction. His December, 2010 extension of the tax cuts for the rich broke a campaign promise, one he didn't so much betray as reveal that he couldn't deliver. With the backing of friendly billionaire Warren Buffett, he has come up with a modest proposal to create a new Alternative Minimum Tax for those with income over $1 million. More complication, little likelihood of success--the AMT we already have is a headache, little more, and this one will never pass through the current Congress (I can hear it now: "if the rich--excuse me, 'job creators'--knew they had to pay tax, it wouldn't be worth making a million a year".) Obama seems to welcome the idea of a revision of the tax code, but isn't providing the kind of push it would need, no doubt because he doesn't want this House anywhere near it.

The worst, for me, has been temporizing on Obama's moral and value-based position as the best protector of our greatest possession, our natural resources. He is blocking regulations of ozone and greenhouse gas emissions proposed by one of his best Cabinet members, EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson. He also seems to be greasing the way for oil exploration off the Arctic coast, and relaxing protection of endangered species. This sort of behavior, favoring the coal, gas, and oil interests, is less than I expected; Ohio and Pennsylvania may be important for his re-election (West Virginia, Louisiana, Texas, Wyoming, Alaska and Kentucky are not) but I am not convinced that the voters of any of these states want Obama to gain them prosperity through the sacrifice of their natural inheritance.

Obama has finally thrown down the gauntlet to this Congress with his Jobs Act. It won't pass, but the strategy of challenging the Republicans to do something about unemployment may work in the long run. While the weakness of the field of possible/likely Republican opponents for 2012 means that Obama is likely to eke out a win without taking forceful positions moving from a cautious, centrist approach, only a strong battling stance as leader of his party would give the Democrats a chance of regaining control of Congress for a second Obama term. And, without that, that second Obama term is never going to fulfill the promise his candidacy, and his inauguration, originally promised--something his first term has clearly not done.

My standard is moderately high: I expect him to be the best President we have seen in my lifetime. It's still there to be achieved--which means he has not yet done so.

Some Top 10's, Pt. 1--British Rockers

This is another in a series leading up to my All-time Rock Playlist, in which I will list my top 200 (I'm now thinking) songs, with a per-artist limit of one each (and an honorable mention or two, if applicable). I've previously given listings for a couple of the tougher ones to pick favorites--John
Lennon and Steely Dan.

For a few artists, though, ones with huge breadth of work and many great songs, I'm going to go into more depth. I need to elaborate, to explain a little my quirky preferences, and just to help me work through the task. In today's listings, we will field some really tough calls from the British Isles.

Pink Floyd
came to Floyd relatively late. I'm not so crazy about "Atom Heart Mother" (I like the cover art, though), "See Emily Play"-type stuff, or even (sacrilege!) "Dark Side of the Moon" (except the last cut). In spite of my ambivalence about the early Syd Barrett phase, I especially like the album that was clearly devoted to the absence of the late Mr. Barrett, namely "Wish You Were Here".

10. Grantchester Meadows/Several Species of Small Furry Animals Gathered in a Cave and Grooving with a Pict--but of course! (Ummagumma)
9. Nile Song (More)--The hardest that Floyd rocks.
8. Fearless (Meddle)
7. Careful with that Axe, Eugene (Ummagumma)
6. Run Like Hell (The Wall)
5. Pigs (Animals)
4. Comfortably Numb (A Momentary Lapse of Reason)
3. Great Gig in the Sky (Dark Side)
2. Echoes (Meddle)
1. Wish You Were Here (the whole album belongs on the list; clearly “Shine On You Crazy Diamond”--either part, or both--would belong, I'm opting here for the title cut)

King Crimson
As I've raved previously, we're still waiting to catch up to where Robert Fripp was forty years ago. I love about 90% of Crimson's output, and about half of Fripp's other stuff. My feeling is that the middle period--"Lizard" through "Red"--has held up best.

I recently read the Wikipedia article on the band, from which I learned some new things. The most interesting was the quote from percussionist Bill Bruford—a hero of mine; he left the guaranteed celebrity and money of Yes for a musically more challenging, roller-coaster of a job with Crimson. The quote, from his biography, said that coming to KC he got a reading list including Gurdjieff and Ouspensky.

This told me quite a lot; I had a fling with schools of esoteric knowledge based on those two (with reference to great Works which had concealed references to their doctrines) in the early '80's (it ended when my jealous first wife confronted my teacher about the money I was paying for the school, and we all agreed I should give it a rest). There's a lot of good in the program,discussion about personal development and exercises to free the mind from its normal binding habits, but also a lot of outrageous blarney that you are required to follow literally. It's possible, if the band's cranky genius Robert Fripp was deep into that stuff, that some of the various machinations and formations and deformations of the band were partially due to judgments of Fripp's mentors about changes he should make to continue his personal development—and the advice of the teacher is paramount in the program.

In particular, I figure the League of Crafty Guitarists (a “solo” effort with 15-20 guitarists trained by Fripp playing together) could have been his teacher's order for him to share his skills and develop his interpersonal skills. Anyway, my top 10 from Crim:

10. Cirkus (Lizard)--The album deserves better, but it's hard to pick out an individual track other than this one for special commendation. The whole thing has a great feel, high production value.
9.Exiles (Larks' Tongue in Aspic)--I don't know what to say about it, except that it belongs in here; there's a wistful sound to the instrumentals, the tone of the lyrics, that is so appropriate for the band..
8. Trio (Starless and Bible Black)--Incredible improv., recorded live and put on this (otherwise) studio album. Bruford got writing credit for recognizing in mid-song that the performance needed no percussion whatsoever.
7. Cat Food (In the Wake of Poseidon)--I had this album on 8-track in the 70's and listened to it too much; hearing this song recently made me re-discover my appreciation of it.
6. Larks Tongue in Aspic (part 2)--Does it make sense to say it's both subtle and powerful?
5.Waiting Man (Beat)--For my money, this album is their underrated one from the '80's. I saw them on tour with this album outdoors on NYC's Pier, and this was the most memorable song they performed.
4. 21st Century Schizoid Man (In the Court of the Crimson King)--Their groundbreaking first album deserves better treatment from me, and I like all the songs (even “Moonchild”), but I couldn't squeeze them in. This song—almost perfect--is an uncanny vision of the future, and 40+ years ago, when it came out, we knew it. It was really just a matter of seeing the present with great clarity..
3. Great Deceiver/Lament (S&BB)--It's not a cheat linking the two cuts; they blend these two perfectly on the album, and together they are a marvelous study in dynamics, with some of their best lyrics.
2. Starless (Red) The best of their many organically built, chromatic instrumentals—and it's got good vocals, too (a bit melancholy, though).
1. The Night Watch (Starless & Bible Black)--Unlike a lot of their tunes which are almost perfect, this song is perfect—-it's flawless, a masterpiece. If you haven't studied it, the topic is the painting by Rembrandt by that name, and musing about the people in the painting.

Eric Clapton Even more than Fripp/Crimson's, his is a never-ending story that's hard to break into clear segments. When it comes to The List, I will probably split it into E.C. solo and E.C.-subsumed-into-bands, but that is a difficult task to draw the dividing line. Anyway, here's my miserable attempt at ranking his top 15 or so (I note a definite tone of tragedy):
15. Sittin' On Top of the World— (Cream) Many (the majority) of E.C.'s best efforts were on songs he didn't write. This song's history is as old as the hills.
14. Further on Up the Road ("solo")--This is the song Clapton chose to perform for The Band's finale concert, filmed by Scorsese, "The Last Waltz". It refers to a love affair gone bad (of course), but I see it as Clapton looking ahead to better times.
13. Layla--(Derek and the Dominos) probably deserves a better rating, but let's face it, we're all tired of hearing it, even the slow version on “Unplugged”. .
12. I'm So Glad--(Cream) after this, the sarcasm gives way to sincerity.
11. Tell the Truth (Derek and the Dominos)—pick a version, I like the really slow one.
10. Strange Brew (Cream)—-I could mention several other songs on the Cream masterpiece album, “Disraeli Gears”, such as “Dance the Night Away” or “We're Going Wrong,” (great drumming on both of those), or “World of Pain”, or “Tales of Brave Ulysses” (Clapton at least shares songwriting credit on that one), but next I would list:
9. SWLABR--says here that it stands for "She Walks Like a Bearded Rainbow"--no comment!
8. In the Presence of the Lord (Blind Faith)--a moment of Clapton seeing his future redemption.
7. Had to Cry Today (Blind Faith)-it's mostly a Steve Winwood song, but I don't think the guitar solo is...
6. After Midnight (solo)--it's by J.J. Cale; I'll take that over his Cale's “Cocaine” any time.
5. White Room (Cream)—has always been my favorite big Cream hit (over "Sunshine of My Love")
4. Badge (Cream)—my choice for the best Clapton performance—singing/playing—of the early years.
3. It Hurts Me Too (solo)--pick any song out of "From the Cradle", as they're all great, all covers.
2. Tears In Heaven (solo)
1. Why Does Love Got to Be So Sad—-(Derek and the Dominos)--The studio version w/Duane Allman was superb; the one on “In Concert” even better.

U2
This is really unfair; I could have filled the entire top 10 with songs from “Achtung Baby” and wouldn't have felt cheated—the album is that good. I settled for four of the top 10, so I could include some others that particularly fascinate me. I'm trying to give the band the respect they are due, and their work, despite stylistic and contextual changes, is all of one piece, one unchanged set of individuals. And I freely admit that I have shortchanged their excellent albums of the 2000's in favor of some of their more aged classics.
10. Gloria—My first exposure to the band; also the first music video I really liked (they're on a barge in a harbor—Belfast?)
9. An Cath Dubh—A quirky song, title is Irish for “the black cat”; from their first album, “Boy”, which I really should have represented more fully, but there's just no space.
8. Love Is Blindness—Achtung Baby!
7. Gone—This song (originally on "Pop", but remixed nicely for their best of 1990-2000 release) is rising rapidly up my chart.
6. New Year's Day—One of their best live songs; the guitar is searing. Same comments apply to another special “Day”, as in “It's A Beautiful (Day)”>
5. Until the End of the World—here I need to mention “The Fly”, “Zoo Station”, “Even Better Than The Real Thing”, and my wife's favorite, “Mysterious Ways”, all similarly great songs from “Achtung! Baby”.
4. Two Hearts Beat as One—My favorite song from “War”
3. One—A.B. Just as it's fair to say every song on the album is great (OK, maybe not “Who's Going to Ride Your Wild Horses”), it's also fair to say this one is clearly the best, for its simple but profound message of love.
2. Unknown Caller—My best from their last album, “No Line on the Horizon”. I don't mind that it's clearly religious, because it's so unconventional. For U2, religion is an irritating necessity of the human condition, which is a pretty reasonable take on it (See also "Staring at the Sun").
1. Pride in the Name of Love—My very favorite song of the '80's; this song made me realize how high their ceiling would be. .
0. Bad/Where the Streets Have No Name—OK, this is a cheat, I know, doubly so, but the way they combined these two songs (from different albums) seamlessly in their live concerts (c. 2002) was spine-tingling. I had to slip it in at the bottom, er, top.

Paul McCartney
My taste with Sir Paul is for the clever jokester rather than the romantic balladeer or the sporadic hard-rocker; he's a clever, talented fellow and that's what I think he does/did best. First, some Honorably Mentioned songs, maybe not quite serious enough to make the top 10: Oh! Darling, Rocky Raccoon, The Night Before, Maxwell's Silver Hammer, I've Just Seen a Face, Fool on the Hill.

10. When I'm 64—he's actually now 69, and going strong.
9. Hey Jude—without the “Na na na”, it's a great song with well-chosen lyrics.
8. Drive My Car—Yes, You Can!
7. Can't Buy Me Love—not with money, no, no, no.
6. Uncle Albert/Helen Wheels –the only post-Beatles song by him that makes my Top 10 list.
5. Mother Nature's Son—pretty close to autobiography
4. Penny Lane—even closer.
3. Eleanor Rigby—his masterpiece collaboration....with George Martin.
2. Lady Madonna—Of his big hits, my favorite.
1. Back in the USSR —you can call it dated; you can call it a petty dig at the Beach Boys; I'd call it inspired, and intensely clever.

Elvis Costello
OK, this guy is a chameleon. He's a great songwriter, but a lot of his best work has been collaboration and covers of others' stuff. He can rock with the best, but he's always turning his back on rock and trying other stuff—usually sappy, like his country music, or his current turn as a lounge lizard (probably it's just an effort to try to impress his wife, who's much better at it). Anyway, this list will pay due homage to his cover efforts, but none at all to when he strays from what he does best, which is intricately-worded, fast-paced rock.
10. Days—A song by Ray Davies of the Kinks, which E.C. Covers brilliantly on the “Until the End of the World” soundtrack.
9. Good Year for the Roses—If you've spent any time in England, you'd appreciate this commentary on the incessant rain.
8. No Hiding Place—Great piece on 21st-century living with fame, from “Momofuku”
7. I Want You—I love the intensity.
6. Lipstick Vogue—Great rhythm, and despite what you would think from its title, actually not sarcastic.
5. Radio Radio—My favorite from the early, Attractions-do-Buddy-Holly rocker period.
4. Beyond Belief—My favorite of his Dylanesque scornful songs about love.
3. What's So Funny about Peace Love and Understanding?--a signature Costello cut, it's by Nick Lowe.
2. I Don't Want go Go to Chelsea—I love the sharp edges, both in the music and the lyrics.
1. Oliver's Army—never more sincere or clever with his lyrics. Certainly never more politically on target (Oliver refers to Cromwell, and the song's basically about the British military occupation in Northern Ireland).

The Who
With time, critical attention has turned from their concept albums (“Tommy”, “Quadrophenia”) to their early pop and to Pete Townshend's pieces intended for the never-quite-realized “Lifehouse” masterpiece that eventually became the guts of “Who's Next” and “Odds and Sods”. Not so for me—I still love the early rock operas, as well as the hits, some of the early experiments and other Townshend
gems that didn't become hits, such as much of his collection of demos, “Scoop”. With all that scope to choose from, it's not easy for me to narrow down to a few favorites.
My experiences seeing them live—and they were at the top of the list of the very best live performers, of the ones I ever saw—came in the middle-late period, when they were doing “Who Are You” (1979) and re-creating Quadrophenia (1996). After Keith Moon, but they still had Entwistle and Townshend at peak level, playing seriously.
From the live cuts on the extra disc that came with “Endless Wire”,
though, I don't think I'd want to see them now.

Before I count down my top 10, here are 10 great songs which somehow didn't make my
list: “The Kids are Alright”, “I can See for Miles”, “Go to the Mirror”, “Amazing Journey/Sparks”, “Bargain”, “5:15”, “Trick of the Light”, “Mary Anne (with the Shaky Hand)”, and two great ones from “Scoop”--”Mary”, and “To Barney Kessell”.

10. A Quick One (While She's Away)--first preview of what would become “Tommy”
9. Eminence Front—the band's last great single
8. Naked Eye—in case you don't recognize the title, the tag line is “It don't really happen that way at all.”
7. Helpless Dancer—I always liked this short piece the best out of all the great “Quadrophenia” album.
6. Zelda—It's from “Scoop”; if you've never heard this album, and care at all about The Who, you must.
5. Won't Get Fooled Again—about as close as they ever get to a political statement, one that's held up—it's basically an eternal truth.
4. Pure and Easy—Contrary to some opinion, The Who can be uplifting, though it's not easily so.
3. Who Are You-a great, honest late statement
2. Underture—I love this piece, but it's not my #1 because it lacks Roger Daltrey's vocals; he's been a great mouthpiece.
1. Behind Blue Eyes—I think it's what they—and particularly Townshend--are all about.

Gang of Four
This is a tricky one; the range of their product is not all that broad, but it's really top-notch, with a unique approach to building a song in layers and some great chicken-scratch guitar, plucked bass, and very politically pointed lyrics (but very post-modernist in the ambiguity of their stance). My problem is that they have ten or so songs that are superior work and its hard to prefer one over another.
10. Outside the Trains Don't Run On time
9. Satellite --best of the songs I've heard from their later work after the early '80's.
8. Call Me Up--”give me a reason for living”--a later one, as in not from the first two albums.
7. Natural's Not in It
6. In the Ditch—antiwar, or is it?
5. History Is Bunk—they can't really mean that, can they?
4. Damaged Goods – their first hit
3. I Love A Man In a Uniform—clearly sarcastic, I think.
2. Anthrax—a truly bizarre, hypnotic piece: “Love is like a case of Anthrax”
1. I Found that Essence Rare—yes, it is. The bass line will knock you over.

And That Leaves, Of Course... No, not Led Zeppelin: "When the Levee Breaks", with mentions for "Kashmir" and Robert Plant's recent cover of Low's "Silver Rider".
Nor Stevie Winwood, one of my all-time favorites: my clear choice for him is "Gimme Some Lovin'" with mentions for "Empty Pages", "Night Train", and "While You See A Chance" (theme music at my wedding--not kidding). As with Clapton, I may break down Stevie's into pre-solo and solo for The List, as a little bit of cheating is permitted by Blogger to me.

Speaking of cheating, though, we are of course now up to talking about "The World's Greatest Rock 'n Roll Band", or whatever. The Stones. My preference is generally for their work from the Brian Jones Era (through sometime in 1969), though I have to give some credit for the body of work since then (up until about 1990 or so, and none after that). So we've got 22 songs here, 10 of which were from the
BJEra, 10 not, and the other two being ambiguous, from "Let it Bleed", which was recorded before Jones died--with little help from him, according to his survivors--and released after that event.

22. Waitin' on a Friend
21. Before They Make Me Run
20. Get Off Of My Cloud (BJ)
19. Can't Always Get What You Want
18. We Love You (BJ)
17. Some Girls--despite the misogyny.
16. Under My Thumb (BJ)--despite the misogyny.
15. She's a Rainbow (BJ)--now, that's more like it.
14. Gimme Shelter (BJ)
13. Midnight Rambler*
12. Shattered--the classic Stones-in-NYC song--Mick Jagger's probably the most famous person I saw hanging out on the streets there, ever.
11. Wild Horses
10. Street Fighting Man (BJ)
9. Jumpin' Jack Flash (BJ)
8. Dandelion (BJ)
7. Let It Bleed*
6. Gimme Shelter
5. Paint It Black (BJ)
4. Can't You Hear Me Knockin'--there was a period when you had to have sax on your record. This was from then, for them, and they used it well.
3. Ruby Tuesday (BJ)
2. Doo Doo Doo (Heartbreaker)--"The po-lice in New York City..."--see above comment about the sax.
1. 2000 Light Years from Home (BJ)--Give me the Mellotron, every time.

No "Satisfaction"? No "Satisfaction"!! I also lied about how many Brian Jones Era songs there were. Deal with it.

Bruford's comment on being given Ouspensky and Gurdjieff to read when joining the band is in his autobiography (per the Wikipedia): Bruford, Bill "Bill Bruford – the Autobiography", Jawbone Press, 2009.

Ten Years After

The Day...

Today marks the 10th anniversary of the day of the attacks on the US through hijacked airliners (also, my 18th wedding anniversary, but that's totally another story). Rather than jingoistic breast-beating or re-cultivating the spirit of revenge, I suggest that we think of the innocents and the heroes who were lost that day, and those who were injured or killed in events both before and after 9/11/01, and give some thought to what we can do to reduce the unnecessary death toll in the future.

At this distance in time, we can begin to have some historical perspective about September 11 and what happened in the months and years following. My thought is that 9/11, though hugely significant, is neither more or less memorable a day as Pearl Harbor Day: December 7, 1941, a day that President FDR rightly said would “live in infamy”. As with that day, we were attacked suddenly—though the event of the attacks, if not the manner, might well have been anticipated—by foes who felt they had legitimate grievances against the US and wanted to carry their fight to our shores at any cost. As with Pearl Harbor, the attacks were audacious in concept, nearly flawless in execution—and certain to produce the opposite effect of the stated aims. The Japanese hoped the attack and its follow-up invasions of Pacific Islands and British and American colonies in East and Southeast Asia would lead us to sue for peace; one of Al-Qaeda's stated war aims was to get the US out of the Middle East (!)

We think of ourselves as straight shooters, but Pearl Harbor and 9/11 show how much we are misunderstood. Didn't they know our reaction would be implacable, unrelenting anger, an eagerness to unleash the greatest military power in history, the might of an industrial, technologically-advanced giant with the full support of a democratic populace and mass conscription? In retrospect, the Taliban should feel lucky they were routed from Afghanistan in a couple of months; their country would've been turned into a sheet of glass if they were somehow able to retain power and brazenly shelter Bin Laden after 9/11. Iraq, of course, was not so lucky as many previous US foes; having tried most everything else, we can only hope that the impending departure of US forces from there will allow that country's self-immolative efforts to come to an end.

...And the Band

If I hear the mawkish, 9/11-revived anthem “God Bless America”, I'm going to be thinking of the rock band with the same name as this posting, and their one big hit. Ten Years After was a popular band of the late Sixties, one of the prominent performers at Woodstock, but they have faded into justified obscurity. The band 's songs were basically excuses to allow its lead guitarist, Alvin Lee, to exhibit his speedy riffs at great length. And their big hit's chorus is practically a theme song for our generation's woolly-headed, idealistic inactivism, and its unfortunate results:

I'd love to change the world
But I don't know what to do
So I'll leave it up to you.

The 2012 Race: We Move to Phase I

The Iowa straw poll yesterday marks the beginning of the active phase of the Republican presidential contest—as opposed to the preliminaries, which have been going on for several months. Not coincidentally, yesterday brought the addition to the field of an important candidate, Rick Perry, and today brings the retirement of one who was supposed to be important (but wasn't making the grade), Tim Pawlenty. I think this is a good time for a review of the progress of the Republican nomination contest.

The Republicans' politicians are a scurvy lot, full of false prescriptions for our society and our economy. With the exception of a few moderates from the Northeast, I have no use for any of them, and even those few are usually opposed by Democratic candidates who are just as good or better. They would do better to be honest with themselves and their constituents and admit that their national party is irredeemable. Their backers—the ones who count, the political pros and the big-money manipulators, are no better: self-justifying and selfish. I consider them phonies or fools. My fondest wish is that their party disintegrate and be replaced by something better, something sincere and worthy of debate, whether libertarian or moderate.

Their national leadership has once again been exposed as posturing scoundrels in the current manufactured crisis around raising the debt ceiling, but it is far from clear that they will be punished, certainly not sufficiently. I am contemptuous of their behavior and their policies, but I can not dismiss the possibility that they could win the next election.

It is therefore an important matter to consider the Republican Presidential contest and who wins the nomination. The goal is to advocate the candidate who would do the least damage if elected, who has the least chance of defeating President Obama, and someone who has a chance of getting the nomination. (Otherwise, I'd just endorse Fred Karger, the obscure Republican candidate who is the first openly-declared homosexual to seek the office.)

After the Iowa straw poll, the pundits have already narrowed that last criterion (who can win the nomination) down to three: Mitt Romney, yesterday's winner Michele Bachmann, and fancied new entrant Rick Perry. I watched several programs reviewing the event today, the day after, and all the talk was of the winner, and the third-place finisher, Tim Pawlenty, who quit the race today.

Not a word was mentioned of the person who finished second, barely a percent behind Bachmann in the poll. To the press, Ron Paul is dismissed as a crank, certainly not a person with a real chance; he is someone who has won the straw poll in the past to no great effect; however, he speaks honestly, coherently (if errantly), is more Christian than most of these in his tolerance and unwillingness to judge others, and gets some of the major issues right. His followers may not be the most numerous, but they are loyal to him and he to them; unlike Pawlenty, he will stay the course. His greatest problem is not that his views are too outlandish, but that his positions have been co-opted by much of the Republican “mainstream”. I see him as the one who would do the least damage of all of them if elected; it says here that he also meets my other criteria, of being unlikely to win the general election and of being a serious contender for the nomination.

I find the policies he advocates as being much less harmful than those of Bachmann, or Rick “Sanctimonious” Santorum, or the black redneck millionaire, Herman Cain. It's pretty clear that Rick Perry's candidacy is likely to swallow up their support in short order, anyway, particularly that of Santorum and Cain—their backers have just been biding their time waiting for someone like Perry to come along. Bachmann has outperformed expectations, but I think she will have a hard time holdiing her support beyond Iowa, unless Perry makes a major gaffe, which probably for him would be either failing to handle his little Texas/secession remarks tactfully (accidentally revealing his contempt for the rest of the country), or somehow letting his facade slip and showing a bit too much sensible moderation. I consider the former more likely than the latter.

If, as I fear, Perry smites down his opponents on the right, reduces Paul to irrelevancy, and Mitt doesn't drop the ball (allowing Jon Huntsman somehow to make an impression), it will come down to Romney and Perry. There, I'd have to go with Romney: not so much because I think he'd be an easier opponent for Obama—my opinion is that the opposite is true—but because Perry would be such a dangerous person to allow anywhere near the White House. He's basically George W. Bush all over, but worse.

See also my previous posting, on "Mitt and the Seven Dwarves".

Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Deal?

There are several parts of the debt ceiling deal legislation that was passed that I don't like, but the worst is that it really isn't over. Yes, in theory, President Obama kicked the debt ceiling obstacle down the road enough to get it past the 2012 election, which was his bottom-line requirement of this debacle. But I don't think it's really a done deal.

There will be another crisis towards the end of the year, hopefully a little less dramatic but probably just as intractable, just as partisan. A "supercommittee of 12", three Democrats and three Republicans from each House, are required by the legislation to come up with recommendations on additional debt reduction--there is an understanding that their focus will be on tax reform and on entitlement reform. If the committee makes recommendations of sufficient magnitude by a majority vote, these are to be guaranteed straight votes in both houses of Congress without amendments. If they don't, a series of automatic cuts are supposed to come into effect, across the board reductions on discretionary spending, military spending, and Medicare payments to health care providers.

There are several potential pratfalls in this scheme, but I want to highlight just one now: the selection of the members of the supercommittee (the SC). There have been several of these kinds of improvised panels in U.S. history--one of the most momentous was in the 1876 presidential election. If the membership is chosen based on reliable partisanship, a deadlock is assured. It would be a great sign if a moderate Republican were chosen for one member, as it would if a moderate/conservative Democrat would be. Either of these would suggest that the powerbrokers in Congress want a deal.

The Tea Party members in the House who rejected the deal, even though it was a very favorable outcome for the Republicans, should be excluded from the negotiations on merit: they had a chance to contribute positively to the country's avoidance of misfortune, and they turned their backs. It would probably be more politic, though, to include one or two of them, though; otherwise, I could see a populist movement to politicize the SC's deliberations even before they start. If that were to happen, its success would be most unlikely, and I could even see an attempt to undermine the year-end schedule; a bill could be passed to undo the debt ceiling deal, in the form of a measure of disapproval, one to change the automatic cuts, one to preclude tax changes, one to override the protection of Medicare benefits envisioned in the deal...the list of possible partisan misadventures goes on and on endlessly.

My grades on the key players and their handliing of this unnecessary calamity: President Obama gets a C grade; he didn't oontrol the terms of the debate well, his leadership was late, and not successful in most of his stated objectives. Speaker Boehner gets a B: he could have lost his leadership post if he'd handled it badly; he got a decent number of his members to vote for the final agreement, and of course got most of what he wanted in the deal (whether what he wanted is what he should have wanted is another question). Majority Leader Byrd, like Obama, was fairly ineffectual and gets a C as well; Minority Leader McConnell came out relatively unscathed and actually contributed something positive to the deal, so he gets an A-. House Minority Leader Eric Cantor was in great danger at one point, as a point negotiator who was getting squeezed from all sides, but Boehner stood with him and they both survived, Cantor earns a shaky C+. The payback, for him, will be probably another thankless negotiating role on the SC.

As for the deal itself, it came short of what I expected, because there was no tax increase on the wealthy paying for a payroll tax reduction. The devil will be in the details of the automatic cuts, which I think are very likely to end up being the legacy of the deal: I'm confident our military can survive the squeeze, and it will probably be healthier for it (in the way our corporations have made do with less expenses); the cuts to Medicare providers worry me as they will weaken the program without reducing demand for it, and the cuts to discretionary programs are sure to be overridden by the priorities that will arise in the next 10 years, so a nuisance rather than a disaster. I'd give it a pass, a D-.

Don't Let the Downgrade Get You Down
In the immediate aftermath of the debt ceiling deal, the economy took a one-two punch, in the form of a huge stock market sell-off on Thursday--driven by new bad news from Europe as much as anything--and the announcement Friday evening that Standard & Poor's was downgrading U.S. sovereign debt from a AAA rating to AA+.

We should be able to get over both of these insults/injuries, though our immune system has been weakened by the events of recent weeks. AAA does not mean what it used to mean, partly because S&P itself contributed to the rating's debasement during the run-up to the financial crisis, bestowing it upon many doomed mortgage backed securities. Also, though, because many other institutions have survived downgrades fairly readily, and because of the way S&P did it, with shoddy care for the numbers it published (even if its arguments were somewhat undeniable), and going against the decisions of its competitors Moody's and Fitch to uphold the AAA for the moment means S&P will be the exclusive target for some sort of retribution from the U.S. Treasury--just you wait and see. Couldn't happen to a nicer bunch.

As a result of the S&P downgrade, there will be another bearish run in stocks, a discounting of the dollar, and possibly an increase in the ridiculously low interest rates for debt. I'm just hoping we won't be seeing 10,000 again in the Dow, as I've already tried to say goodbye to The Best Prediction I Ever Made.

Stock Market Aside...
This does seem to be a bit of a watershed moment in the way we look at our economy and its prospects. You could call it pessimism; I call it a realistic view of the end of the perpetual growth machine. I believe that there have always been limits to our ability to grow the economy endlessly; this is starting to become apparent to more, and I consider that progress.

For example, I recommend reading a provocative article by Andrew Sullivan in the Daily Beast on the subject. Sullivan doesn't really have much of a coherent view of the world (he's veered from Trotskyism to neocon and back, was a fervent Obama supporter in '08 and a persistent critic recently), but he does still have the ability to think creatively and write stylishly.

I think it is time for us to be a lot less vainglorious about our domestic economy, and a little more cognizant (and even proud) of the fact that the American economy is just a part--a very sizable part--of an integrated global economy. Americans ascribe much more influence over our economy to the federal government than it has--President Obama can do very little about unemployment by himself (though, by contrast, the Executive has a great deal of ability to control foreign and military affairs on its own), Congress is no better, and the Fed is a creature created by, and acting for, the banks and their creditors.

Obama's policies have actually been very business-friendly; this stuff about businesses requiring "certainty" to hire is nonsense--businesses always have to invest in a climate of uncertainty; they just see no necessity to invest, and especially, not in hiring in America. That is largely because there is a surplus of cheap labor all over the world. Simply put, enterprises do not need to employ all able-bodied Americans who want to work in order to produce all the goods and services we need--not even close.

There is little solution for the jobs problem in the middle-to-long term, except to restructure our economy so that it can survive and thrive with less full-time employment. That means making it possible for individuals or families to live on part-time work, and in particular it means inexpensive catastrophic health care insurance, convenient mass transit, and affordable housing.

In terms of the latter, I think there is something quite significant that we could do in these days to help get our domestic economy back on a track towards health. A public/private partnership to rescue our housing from vast foreclosure and decay could restore home values and the construction industry, two huge issues in the current doldrums. When banks can show legitimate ownership of the property they have confiscated, government-backed enterprise can help restore that housing; in return, the banks need to contribute to the restoration of the housing they have taken without proper documentation (numbering in the millions) and to the generous refinancing of those that they would seek to take with similarly improper documentation. I am certain the banks would sign up, if the government--and I mean the Administration, with backing from both parties--were to offer. If they did not, they should be subjected to harsh justice which would wipe out much of their largely-undeserved windfall profits since the 2008-09 crash.

Finally, I advocate some form of incentives to hire for small, private enterprises. Our tax code is a mess, full of old, outdated, and ineffective loopholes, but I don't advocate a flat tax: taxation can be a valid form of public policy, properly applied. With our debt problems, it is one of the few methods left to government to try to improve the job situation.

The Sound of Distant Thunder*

I was watching Gwen Ifill's excellent public TV public affairs show "Washington Week" tonight when the cable signal began breaking up, then dropped completely. Outside, thunder rumbled in the distance from yet another tempest, none of which has yet been able to break this execrable heat wave.

Ifill & Co. were discussing the hubristic failure of the Obama-Boehner talks on a grand deal to reduce the deficit towards coming up with an increase in the debt ceiling. They made a mistake going for too big a deal, one that necessarily had cuts in Medicare and Social Security as well as tax increases on the rich. All well and good, I say (the increase in eligibility age for Medicare and indexation formula for S.S. are coming, sooner or later, as are the tax increases), but Obama's party rebelled against one, and even more forcefully, Boehner's rebelled against the other, and Boehner had to pull out So to speak.

Our political leaders now basically have one weekend to get a deal together, the necessary characteristics of which I outlined recently. Monday, if there is no deal (or a fig-leaf kind of deal with no significant budget cuts agreed), Armageddon will be visited upon us in the form of a massive selloff of both stocks and bonds. If you can get some gold on the weekend, Sunday night would be a good time.

*with honor due to Ray Bradbury for the title

Live By the 120th Minute Tying Goal and Penalty Kicks...

The US women's soccer team victory over Brazil in the quarterfinals of the Women's World Cup last weekend was one of the most exciting games I've seen in any venue. Abby Wambach's 122nd-minute goal, tying the score at 2-2 and putting the outcome into a penalty kick shootout (which the US, with that kind of momentum, finished successfully), was a thing of beauty, equalled by Megan Rapinoe's crossing pass from some thirty yards away right onto Wambach's forehead.

In today's final, Wambach had a similar goal (crossing pass, just by a diving defender, straight off her forehead, though the cross was from shorter range) that put the US up in overtime 2-1 with a dozen minutes or so to go. Problem was, Japan's team had seen this show and wanted to play their part. Today, they got the goal with a couple minutes to go, took the momentum into the PK shootout, and we were the ones left devastated.

I congratulate the Japanese women's team on an impressive, inspirational effort through the whole tournament (they knocked out tourney favorite, host team, and two-time defending champion Germany the same weekend the US pulled off its win over competitive rival Brazil). They came back--twice--courageously against the US women, and, given their country's tragedy this year, are more than deserving of our emotional favor. I also congratulate the US women's team, for which nothing was easy (they barely made it into the WC field, after losing a key qualification match vs. Mexico). They accomplished a great deal and should be proud of it.

Slow Trains Coming Together on the Same Track

It's disappointing, but it became clear this week that the $4 billion deficit reduction deal is not going to happen. It seemed close at one point about a week ago, with Speaker Boehner and President Obama negotiating directly on a package of that size--the size that a number of parties have indicated all along was needed for credible deficit reform--that included some reductions in entitlement costs and tax revenue increases, both of which were clearly necessary for an agreement of that size.

What happened since then is that Speaker Boehner was rebuffed by his party's caucus in the House. The problem is the Grover Norquist Pledge to vote against any net increase in Federal taxes--most House Republicans, and sufficient Senate Republicans, have signed it--and most who've signed it are unwilling to go back on it. Republican House Minority Leader Eric Cantor became the mouthpiece of those House Republicans, and they effectively undercut Boehner's ability to negotiate a deal of this magnitude.

So, there will be no tax increases, and there will be no corresponding ground offered on Medicare cuts (My proposal, to make Medicare benefits taxable, would make the two items--increase in revenue, and effective reduction in Medicare costs--equal, without making an explicit tradeoff, but I haven't heard it proposed yet, just "means tests" to make Medicare benefits more expensive for the wealthy.) This seems to limit the cuts that can be agreed upon to something like $1.5 billion over the next 10 years.

Boehner laid down a principle that the budget cuts should exceed the approved amount in the debt ceiling, which would need to be some $2.5 billion to get the government safely past the 2012 elections (or so I'm told). This is where the nefarious scheming of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell comes in. He's proposed some kind of complicated approach would give Obama the power to increase the debt limit for some amount of time unless two-thirds majorities of both houses voted to block it; it has the benefit of removing debt limit increases as a stumbling block for the economy, and it would allow most Republicans to vote against Obama's Debt Limit Increases.

So, the outlines of the final deal become clear--at least to me. $1.5 billion in cuts over ten years, some small increases in taxes through loophole closing, offset entirely by extensions of the payroll tax cut (so, no net increase in taxes and no violation of the Norquist Pledge), which would ensure sufficient Democratic votes for passage, and the McConnell clause which would come up in a year or so, during the election campaign, to allow Obama to get the debt limit past the election, but in a sufficiently politically damaging fashion to please Republican Congresspeople.

Tea Party Economics
Michele Bachmann has emerged as the anti-Romney candidate for at least the first portion of the 2012 Republican nomination race--I still think she will fade, and that Rick Perry will take up the torch--but that will happen sometime around when she loses in New Hampshire, gets creamed in Nevada, and doesn't do quite well enough in South Carolina. Meanwhile, her strong standing in polls, particularly in Iowa, make her someone everyone has to notice.

What she's saying about the debt ceiling is that Tim Geithner and Company are not telling us the truth if they say we will default on our debts on August 3rd if the debt ceiling is not raised. In this, I think she is factually correct, but completely wrong in the conclusion she draws from this, namely that it is OK to deny President Obama an increase in the debt ceiling, something she's basically promised to vote to do.

The statements of Geithner and Obama on this have been careful and are relatively clear. The Federal government is limited by statute to $14.8 billion (or whatever the exact number) in debt. When we reach that debt, they will pay some bills from cash on hand, they will raise money by selling assets to pay other debts, and they could challenge the constitutionality of the statute (on the 14th Amendment grounds), though they don't mention that one. They could prolong any default on any debts for some number of months--not a lot, but long enough to create a major crisis and probably break the resolve of Republicans to prevent a debt limit increase--if they had a resolve to do that.

I think it is clear that they do not have such a united resolved. The Republican leaders in both the House and Senate have shown that they recognize the danger: it's not so much an economic danger (more of that in a moment), but a political one that they don't want to face. They don't want to re-do 1995, which had a shutdown crisis which caused the Republicans to lose their hard-won House majority and go into the 1996 Presidential election already defeated. Something like half of the Republican members of the House have a hardcore Tea Party view like Bachmann's and will vote against any debt limit increase, but that will be offset if there is a compromise that is acceptable to a comparable number of Democratic House members.

The economic consequences of an actual government default are huge, but that is not going to happen, for the political and administrative reasons I've outlined. An economic catastrophe could still happen, though, and it would look something like this: we get to the last week in July and there is still no deal. Wall Street and the global capital markets finally decide the crisis is real and interest rates shoot up dramatically, led by Treasuries, but including all forms of debts. A small, late deal is produced by August 2, or shortly thereafter, so there is no default, but the meager nature of the deal inspires no confidence--rates come down very little or not at all, the country is plunged back into recession (with the rest of the globe following), and the political consequences--well, they would be severe, most likely punishing both parties somehow, with some kind of third-party desperation move (or multiple ones) emerging (Bloomberg? Donald Trump? Something even worse?)

I would conclude that it is in the interest of both parties to come up with that middle-small, face-saving deal that I outlined, and that they should do it in the next 10 days.

In Which We Attempt to Solve Some Major Sports Issues

MLB: How to Realign
It's been reported that Major League Baseball is taking a hard look at realignment. What I've heard is, first, that the playoffs would be expanded to five teams per league, the first round being a brief elimination contest between the fourth- and fifth-place teams; and second, that one team would go back to the AL, bringing each league to 15 teams. Finally, there is a notion of eliminating the divisional races i, simply having the playoffs consist of the top five teams in each league.

My advice would be to keep the first two ideas, but lose the third. Another round of playoffs means a few more high-ratings games in the fall (hopefully cutting deeper into the early-season ratings of the NFL), and it could be constructed in such a way that the three divisional winners get more of an advantage vs. the wild card survivor than is currently the case (they'd get the days off, but there could also be a more pronounced home-field advantage in the next round).

I get the idea, and I sympathize with it: The lords of baseball would like to enhance interest in the regular season, and in the playoffs, too; however, I think that having six playoff races (or at least two or three, with the inevitable Wild Card year-end frenzy) is better than—at best—two, and those would probably be for the unenviable fourth and fifth spots, with the league leaders coasting in.

The key question for the realignment is probably the team that will need to go over from the NL to the (I hate to say it, as a NL fan, but tougher) AL. The answer is definitely not the one I've heard, of moving over, so it can compete with its natural rival, the Texas (Dallas) Rangers. Houston should play Texas, but as its “natural rival” in interleague play, which will become more fundamental—going throughout the year—when both leagues are at 15 and there will need to be an interleague game in any full-schedule day of play. No, I'd say it should be an NL West team—Colorado, San Diego, or Arizona, and probably one of the latter two—that should go over, with Houston moving to the NL West.

That would achieve the key objective of balancing out the league with 6 divisions of five teams each (just like the NBA), with a good natural pairing for each team: a lot are obvious, but one pairing would be America's Team (Atlanta) vs. Canada's (the Blue Jays), and another would be the best in the NL, 2011 version (Philadelphia) vs. the AL's best (Boston).

Under this framework, there is a very natural breakdown of the schedule, as follows: 64 games vs. one's own division (16 per each opponent), 80 vs. the other teams in one's league (8 per), and 18 vs. the other league's teams in the same geographical division—three vs. four of them, and six vs. the natural rival. In terms of interleague, this is a slight increase—288 games vs. the 2011 schedule's 252—but not a big change. The AL teams already played 18 interleague games each this year (NL teams played differing amounts; for some reason unknown reason MLB did not go with the logical number of 224, which is 16X14).

There would be a stable set of appealing matchups, and the home vs. away nature of the interleague games against secondary rivals would alternate. Seems pretty fair, except that there would be some variation in the interleague difficulty for purposes of Wild Card qualification—but I don't consider that a big problem if the divisional races are fair. Compared to today's approach, it is much more fair, and the amount of change is small (except for the team convinced to move, which should be generously compensated).

My honest advice would be more ambitious: expand MLB to 36 teams, adding two in Asia (Korea and Taiwan—leave Japan's league alone), two in Latin America (San Jose/Santo Domingo and Mexico City) and two more in Canada (Montreal and Seattle's only real natural rival, Vancouver). To those who think it would water down the talent, I would respond that the talent is out there, it just needs a heightened worldwide interest level in the game in order to emerge (again, see the NBA). I think it will happen; I hope I live to see it.

NBA: Don't Be Blockheads
On the tail of probably the most successful season ever for the league—in terms of quality playoffs in all rounds, high fan interest in the finals, and (I presume) TV ratings—the owners have chosen to put a gun to their own heads and are threatening to use it. They've already fired a warning shot in the form of announcing a lockout, the same player-and-fan-unfriendly tactic currently in use by the NFL's greedy, blockheaded owners.

Unlike the NFL owners, the NBA's have been fairly open about their books, which show that they are not making much money, at least in relation to the cost (or value) of their franchises. The bad news is that they are looking to make up huge amounts of money in a new deal, unrealistic amounts. The good news is that the relations with the players' union are fairly respectful, and that the players are motivated to make a deal. NBA players are a relatively small number, compared with baseball and football, and they are really very well compensated, and they know it.

The main problem, as I see it, is the owners' zeal to compete has caused them to make a lot of very bad guaranteed contracts to a fairly sizable set of players who are underperforming or perennially injured. My solution does not cover the bad performers—owners just need to be a little more restrained about giving the big contracts to guys who are unproven (and that especially applies to big men jumping from Europe or skipping college)--but I think the injuries are a problem they can easily be protected from losing money upon. The players should offer to fund insurance, on the order of $300 million in potential annual benefit, to the owners. The conditions should be no more than $20 million in a year, $50 million in five years, and no more than three players at a time. If the owners need more injury insurance benefit than that, they're gambling on too many physically shaky individuals.

P.S. Congratulations to Dirk Nowitzki, Jasons Kidd and Terry, and the rest of the Mavericks' players for their championship win over Miami. They earned it, for sure.

Tennis: A Midyear Championship Series?

While we're at it, I congratulate Novak Djokovic for his success this year, capped by his gaining the No. 1 ranking, then defeating Rafael Nadal in the Wimbledon final. I have to say it's a good thing that he won the final (though he didn't need to do it to attain the top ranking). I'd be in favor of a midseason championship series—maybe just the top four players, playing on three different surfaces—as a big moneymaker which might make the ratings a lot less important in our consideration of the game.

The women's game shows how bad things are: unlike the men's game, where the top four are clearly known, and, despite intense competition, show up in the semis and finals with regularity, the women's game has no one deserving of the top spot. It's been that way since Kim Clijsters and the Williams sisters went out with injuries (the Williams' just got back, but not quite all the way) and Justine Henin retired. Suppose they had a championship series and no one qualified?

NFL: Just Give Up
The owners are doing their best imitation of Congress: they dither and make unreasonable demands until the last minute, then they will rush a deal, force the players (who've been locked out of training) to show up for their precious preseason travesties, and make other moves to grind the players' brain pans and limbs into glue and dust.

My only advice is: the players should refuse any deal in which they have to play more than two preseason games—this year, especially, and for the future, too. Other than that, I continue to enjoy the absence of the NFL and continue my boycott of all things related, until we get a new set of owners.

Halperin's Painful Boner

Warning: As with my recent posting on Anthony Weiner, this posting contains an excessive amount of silly reference--direct and indirect--to male sex organs. I apologize for the necessity.

Last week, Time political editor and MSNBC regular talking head Mark Halperin went on Joe Scarborough's "Morning Joe" show to talk about President Obama's news conference the day before. Obama had scolded Congress for failing to do its assignment of finding a way to pass the debt limit and warned them that, if they didn't get their work done, the public would give them bad grades, in the process comparing them unfavorably to his daughters.

Helperin was asked about his opinion of the Obama scolding. He indicated his honest opinion should be bleeped out and checked that they could and would do so, then said, "basically, I think he was being a dick". Pretty soon, he was mortified to find out that the producer had tried to use bleep the comment (using the six-second delay on this type of telecast), but had failed to do so. Halperin "manned up" (boy, I hate that expression) and apologized, on air at the time, and since then.

Helperin has been suspended indefinitely by MSNBC and probably will be disciplined in some way by Time. Personally, I think this unfair: if anybody's job should be endangered, it's the producer (or the person who trained him/her and didn't sufficiently emphasize the necessity of keeping his/her thumb by the button at all times). Whether or not you believe in the appropriateness of the delay and the squelch button, this was one time it should have been used, as Halperin's comments clearly show he meant the characterization should be off the record. I think that an appropriate punishment for Halperin is for him to live with a new nickname, a dimutive of Richard.

The Chicago Tribune's Clarence Page had it about right in today's column when he pointed out that the real issue is not "Dick" Halperin's mild vulgarity or "Morning Joe's" failure to push the button, but whether Obama's scolding isn't right on target. It's not "being a dick" to expect them to do their job. He should be playing hardball, and wielding the bat is how to do it.

Finally, it's way past due for me to credit Garrett Epps, writing in the Atlantic Monthly, for a brilliant constitutional argument that the debt ceiling itself is unconstitutional. A provision of the 14th amendment, passed during Reconstruction, clearly states that the Federal government's debt must be honored. It's certainly not a strategy to be preferred, but if the stalemate looks to go past August 2, it is now looking like a possibility for Obama to announce that he will require all debts be honored, and, if necessary, challenge the constitutionality of the ultimate debt ceiling legislation ("the debt shall not exceed $XXX trillion").

Political Catchup Post

(I'm thinking of the messy red stuff, a good image to describe our domestic economy, and also the fact that I've been remiss in commenting on recent political news.)

Why Isn't Capital Making Jobs Here?
This is, more or less, the theme of a discussion on the business social network Linked In, to which I contributed the following post:

Unfortunately, there is no law of economics that means everyone who wants a decent job can get one, even in times of prosperity. We have raised productivity and outsourced jobs to the point that I see an oversupply of labor--under any government--for the next 15 years or so (until the Baby Boomers are largely out to pasture). It is true that the cost of medical benefits to employers means less will be employed; this is nothing new, though, and we failed to fix this problem with the health care insurance reform.

We can't spend our way out of this--the 2009 program was the best we could do, politically, in a crisis, and it wasn't enough. Tax cuts to create jobs are a joke, it wasn't even funny in the '000's (job market was weak, held up temporarily by wars, building houses we didn't need, and phony mortgages), and the party out of power is selling the same snake oil in the same bottle with a new label.

Here are three things I think could help on the margin:
1) A government-and-bank-supported effort to reclaim and restore foreclosed homes in ravaged neighborhoods.
2) Make a low-cost catastrophic health care insurance plan available to all (a/k/a the public option) so people can live on part-time jobs; and
3) Reduce future entitlement liabilities by making Medicare benefits taxable, and by allowing people going into well-funded retirement to give up their Social Security benefits in exchange for unused Federal land in trust (a new homesteading program).

While Playing Golf...
Here are some points the President might make with his orange-hued playing partner:
1) We are going to make a proposal that is going to revitalize the states that are hardest hit by the recession (see #1 above). It will be very popular, and you will oppose it at your peril. If you go along, we will all benefit.
2) We have some major suggestions to reduce future deficits (see #2 above), including $500 billion or more in defense spending, totalling some $2 billion, which will take this off the table until 2013. Again, you will oppose them at your peril, because we are prepared to take steps to prevent default and keep the government running indefinitely without an increase in the debt limit, but it will destroy your party's political fortunes.
3) We will consult with you on the Libya campaign, but a vote is not required, and we will ignore any measure that ties the hands of NATO in the program. We look to wrap it up within 60 days, one way or another.
4) We are close to a political deal in Afghanistan, and the troop withdrawals are going to be very real.

Mitt and the Seven Dwarfs
I have to admit that I couldn't watch the Republican Presidential debate the other night--it was too much for me to stand. So I'll take the word of those who watched it that Romney won (by not losing), Pawlenty missed his big chance to lay mitts on, and Bachmann emerged as the purest anti-Romney, anti-Obama, anti-government Tea Party-type candidate. Fine.

I recommend Larry Sabato's recent column handicapping the candidates--Sabato's a political scientist with moderate to conservative leanings, but on something like this is very reliable and well-informed. So I will accept his point of view that Ron Paul's support is too much on the margins of the party primary electorate to be a serious threat to Romney, that Cain (who I see as a black redneck, if such a thing is possible) will yield his support to Bachmann if she takes the early lead with a strong performance in Iowa.

Fine. I would still say that there is an opening for a major entrant, and it looks to me that it will be Rick Perry (not Palin, not Christie). I have to say that this disturbs me more than a little, and I will not dismiss his chances by saying what should be obvious--we've seen his like before, and we're just starting to recover from it. Perry's popularity in Texas is at a peak now--2016 will be too late for him--he's got the bug to run, he'll get Bushite money, and his story might just gull the voters yet again, even in the general election. So, I see the race as being Romney and Bachmann leading early, Perry trying to break in before South Carolina, and Romney and Perry being a very typical high-forehead white-guy Republican nomination battle.

As for the VP nominee, whoever the Presidential nominee will be, I think he/she/it will choose Marco Rubio. I think it's clear he would take the job, add value to the ticket (in Florida, and with Hispanics), and any nominee would be crazy not to choose him.

Now, I was originally thinking of the race as Mitt and the Seven Dwarfs: Cain, Bachmann, Santorum, Gingrich, Paul, Pawlenty, and Huntsman. But, in trying to cast the original (Gingich is Grumpy, or maybe Doc, Huntsman--the last guy to appear--Sleepy, etc.) it occurs to me that Bachmann is actually better cast as Snow White (with Palin as the Wicked Stepmother, who will bring a poisoned apple to her at some point--a tainted endorsement?), and Romney is really one of the dwarfs (Dopey?) Then there's Perry, Prince Charming, who would come to S.W.'s rescue when her campaign becomes paralyzed, winning the nomination and rides off into the sunset with her riding behind as the V.P. It works better--as an analogy, as a dramatic plot--but is it realistic? Then again, the GOP has been living in a fantasy world for quite a while.

"Bulworth" in Real Life

It's not new, but in going through my old emails the other day I ran across this incredible piece in the New Yorker about Rodrigo Rosenberg of Guatemala, and his decision to arrange a hired killing--of himself:

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/04/04/110404fa_fact_grann?currentPage=all

The article, by Curtis Grann, is very well written and suspenseful, so I won't spoil it any more. The upper class of Guatemalan society is extreme in its no-holds-barred, rough-and-tumble battle for power and all it brings. Rosenberg comes off as someone who was too credulous for full-tilt Machiavellianism.

"Bulworth", of course, was the movie starring Warren Beatty from the '90's in which the Senator pays hit men to kill him off, then he falls in love (with a character played by Halle Berry), and changes his mind and tries--unsuccessfully--to call it off. It's quite amusing, particularly when Beatty/Bulworth, with nothing to lose, starts telling the truth--in rhymes, white-man hip-hop style. Rosenberg's story is not at all humorous, but it is fascinating in its own way.

Weiner: Cooked

It's hardly worth debating whether Rep. Anthony Weiner should resign or should have to resign or should be somehow removed from his job (the latest I heard was to gerrymander his district out of existence). He will resign; the pressure on him will increase steadily, irresistibly, until he gives up--and it won't be long.

Speaking of which, I would say that someone with his name has three choices: 1) don't be a "weiner", 2) admit his "weiner-ness", or 3) try to change what it means to be one. As someone often known as "stoner", I should know: I've tried them all, settled on 3) (hence the blog).

Speaking of "should know", the most bizarre aspect of this has been watching former Gov. Elliot Spitzer commenting to other talking heads (on his CNN show "In the Arena") about how Weiner should handle his sex scandal. I feel like those folks should be saying, "well, Elliot, he should do what you did and hide from public view until he shows up with his wife to announce his resignation". Wonder what Spitz would say to that one?

I have to disagree with those who say that it was his lie--not his sins--that has let the animals permanently out of his barn. For one thing, it was the fact of his denial! One must not deny such things, true or not true. There are two valid responses to an accusation of this sort (and I repeat, true or not): "I don't remember" or "None of your business". I would suggest the following: "I've got two answers, take your pick: 'I don't remember' or 'None of your business'. Or both." The key is to use that answer consistently, not just when there is something embarrassing that you'd rather not admit.

Beyond that, though, it's not true that it was his lie, not his sin, that brought him down. It was the disclosure (and clearly, his poor choice of the target(s) of his indiscretions)--after that, it was just a matter of how, and how long. Americans are prudes, and voyeurs, and journalists are the worst of them, dogs with a bone they just can't ever give up. Andrew Breitbart, the contemptible right-wing blogger who has apparently been exonerated of misdeeds in this case, said on Spitzer's show that he was not part of the Morality Police, and in the next sentence said that public figures should never do anything that could subject themselves to blackmail. The point is, there's always a reason to drag it out until the climax, the public confession, the denouement.

I want three, and only three, things of my elected representatives: 1) to take no compensation for the job beyond the publicly approved amount; 2) to be informed enough to know what they are talking about; and 3) to faithfully represent the views and interests of their constituents (in this case, me). I could not care less about what they are 'tweeting', to whom, whether they are good spouses/parents, whether they show up in a clown costume, whatever. If they broke the law (not venally), well, they may have to go to jail, so that only impacts their ability to represent me.

Finally, my advice to the young: fame is an illusion and a calamity. Avoid it if you can, and if you can't, try to limit its damage.

Sports Update

During this past holiday weekend, the major leagues reached the 1/3 mark for the regular season--it would have been a bit sooner except for the persistently bad weather this spring in many parts of the country.

One-third of the season is a good place to look at the emerging races for the divisional leads, the wild card, and to project some of the full-season stat levels.

The single player who deserves most comment is Toronto's Jose Bautista, who is on a pace to hit 60 or so homeruns this year. That's nowhere near the asterisk-tainted 73 of Barry Bonds, of course, but close to the old standard of a superlative slugging year before steroids.

One would think it impossible in today's era of frequent drug-testing that Bautista's performance would be enhanced artificially, but last year he did follow the pattern of many past juiced-up batters who emerged from ordinary pro levels with monster seasons. He has failed to regress; instead he is hitting them out at even a faster pace, so one must somewhat grudgingly admit his credibility as a legit big-time slugger.

I would also note the Yanks' centerfielder Curtis Granderson, one of my favorite active players even if he did go over to the Dark Side, the Cardinals' Matt Holiday (similar comments apply) and the surprising re-emergence of his teammate Lance Berkman, and the Reds' lefty-hitting combo of Joey Votto and Jay Bruce (manager Dusty Baker usually tries to sandwich in a righty hitter like Scott Rolen between them).

In terms of pitching, there are few standouts to note, even though the pitching in general has had the upper hand so far this season. Some young bucks are emerging as top starting pitchers, such as Tim Lincecum, but also Jair Jurrjens in Atlanta and Jared Weaver of the Angels.

In terms of the races, there are a couple of major surprises whose success this year remains less than assured--the Indians in the AL Central and Arizona in the NL West--but the teams that looked the best, the Phillies and Red Sox, are emerging as leaders despite injuries, in the first case, and a horrific start in the second. A lot of teams are bunched around .500, so the opportunity will be there for a team to break out of the pack if they've hung around close and then can get it together. My Reds are a feared opponent because of their hitting and defense, but they can't keep five good starters in a rotation, so I'm not overly optimistic.

....Get Out of the Kitchen
That's my advice, if you can't stand the (Miami) Heat. I've overcome my resistance to players' engineering their own core squad, as the Heat did and the Celtics more or less did a few years ago. They faced down a tough Bulls team in the Eastern Conference, and I would make them slight favorites in the Championship series.

First, though, I have to express my gratitude to the Mavericks for putting the Lakers down so decisively, and to salute Dirk Nowitzki for some of the finest late-game heroics (in the Mavericks' series with the Oklahoma City Thunder in the Western Conference finals) since Dwayne Wade's in the Miami-Dallas finals of five years ago.

Some Shorts
I should have posted my predictions for the Preakness; better yet, I should've bet them. Shackleford had looked like a good front-runner in the Derby, staying close until the final 1/16th of a mile, so I thought it would have a good shot of winning the Preakness, which it did. I might've even wheeled the four top horses and gotten that $6000+ Perfecta, even though it had the two horses with the shortest odds in it.

Now, as for the Belmont, Shackleford would definitely be a horse to avoid; Animal Kingdom should have a great shot, and (if it runs) Dialed In, which runs way to the back and charges late--too late to contend in the Derby and the Preakness, but that Belmont stretch goes on...forever.

Chelsea wasted no time in booting its coach, Carlo Ancelotti, after a campaign in which the squad got no trophies and finished second in the Premier League. He got no residual credit for having won two trophies (the F.A. Cup and the Premier League) the previous year. His greatest sin seems to have been to push for the signing of yet another high-priced forward who couldn't fit in (Fernando Torres this year), and his second was losing to Manchester United, repeatedly, in Manchester (particularly in the Champions League quarterfinals). At least Man U. lost in the finals to Barcelona.

Is this Really Necessary?

Suppose they held a series of Republican primaries and nobody showed up? No candidates, no primary voters, no one caring to caucus--then whom would they nominate?

My guess is it would have to be Mitt Romney, as he will be out there even if nobody else shows up.

So far, nobody else who should be considered a serious political adversary for President Obama has entered the race. Now, somebody could grow into the job, and somebody will be the anti-Romney in the primaries for those Republican voters who can't handle the Mitt, but that person is not yet evident.

Donald Trump? No, it was just a publicity stunt for his TV program. Sarah Palin? She's disappearing from relevance fast, regardless of whether she tosses her CPO jacket into the ring. Mike Pence, Paul Ryan, Chris Christie, Marco Rubio, Rick Perry, Haley Barbour--they all have declared themselves to have too much sense to go into this particular steel cage match, and Mitch Daniels is leaning outward from it (in spite of many trying to push him in).

So, who do they have in there? Gary Johnson, Herman Cain (today), Tim Pawlenty, Newt Gingrich, and Ron Paul--I think all officially in. Jon Huntsman seems very likely to go in, and Michele Bachmann seems compelled to enter. There's a guy named Buddy Roemer, a former Louisiana governor (one who, incredibly, does not seem to have been convicted of a felony), who for some reason said he would run, though he was not allowed onstage in the first official debate, held by Fox News in South Carolina a couple of weeks ago, because he couldn't break the 1% barrier. (I forgot Rick "Sanctimonious" Santorum--go ahead, nominate him. I dare you.)

Numerically, it's enough to fill the stage, but not enough to provide for an interesting campaign. Gingrich has already self-destructed, violating the Republican script by labeling Ryan's proposed spending cuts "radical" and "right-wing social engineering"; for this truth-telling he was seriously punished, and it appears the old hands who guide the Republican contests didn't want him around, anyway.

The party's plutocratic old farts recognize in Romney the face of the Great Deceiver, so they like him OK, though they are worried he can't carry the day. That's why they are encouraging Daniels to run, and they are tolerating hacks like Huntsman and Pawlenty as contingency candidates if Romney should implode.

The real battle to me still looks to be one that has not yet emerged: between Romney and some right-wing champion who will oppose Romneycare and the tired, failed policies of supply-side economics and neo-con military interventionism. That paladin will be known by his/her white horse and primary win in Iowa. Ron Paul has the credentials to make that case, but will the evangelicals rally to him? Bachmann will hope not, and there's nothing too silly for her to say to turn them off, if she runs. I still see her as a stalking horse, though, not riding one like a knight in shining armor.

I was extremely surprised that Huckabee didn't run, given the very enticing polling numbers he had; Palin should've been able to fill that gap, but seems unready or unwilling. I think there's still a chance she will come in late, but there hasn't been a successful draft nomination campaign since Wendell Wilkie in 1940, and I don't think it's even been attempted since Henry Cabot Lodge in 1964--certainly not since Jimmy Carter changed the nomination game forever with his marathon run in 1976.

Riding the Ripples

Take the weak Republican field and add President Obama's moderate domestic policies and the huge national security success with the Bin Laden raid in Pakistan, and Democrats should be thinking landslide. Instead, regaining the House is very much in doubt, as is the party's chances of holding any kind of Senate majority, and the Presidential campaign is not talking to reporters about an aggressive 50-state smashing win, instead about focusing its resources in a few (less than a half-dozen) critical swing states.

Of course, they shouldn't be overconfident, especially at this early stage, and some of those key states--Ohio, Florida, Virginia--have critical, close races for Senate seats that the Democrats will need to hold to preserve their majorities. (The other two states where they plan a big push, according to this Roll Call article, are Colorado and North Carolina). On the other hand, Missouri, which will have another critical race as Claire McCaskill tries to defend her seat, seems off the priority map, while Nevada and New Mexico--both with key Senate races--are believed safe for the President (or maybe just too small in electoral votes to qualify as priority targets).

Why the bummer mentality? I'd cite two reasons: The first is the hangover from the 2010 elections, and the inevitable, unending slow-motion train wreck on the budget (and now on the debt ceiling). It's unclear whether the voters realize that they (or their fellow citizens, especially some of the non-voting ones) did a bad, bad thing last year. The polls indicate that the majority favoring Republican House candidates is gone, and they don't like the long-term budget resolution plotting the destruction of Medicare that all but four Republican House members (and no Democrats) supported, but they don't want the debt limit raised: they seem to believe the nonsense that we can just cut "waste, fraud, and abuse" and the Federal budget will balance.

Then there's the economy, which seems to have lost its momentum. In my descriptions of the Great Crater, I think I erred: the situation is more a fluid one, less a dry moonscape. Think of a giant whale being dropped into a lake with a Great Bellyflop. We have ridden through the initial wave that produced, and are now riding through the secondary troughs and peaks following, as the whale bobs back to the surface and disturbs the waters again.

It's way too soon to know where our ship of state will be in these unsettled waters in November, 2012, and it's also too soon to foresee the nature of the general election campaign (though the images of what I see as probable Obama-Romney debates are clear enough). I remain hopeful that 2012's ultimate outcome will provide evidence that is clear enough, even for the American electorate, that the Republican party, as it operates today, serves the interests of none of them, even the ones who habitually support it.

In this regard, I thought a recent Gallup poll on public interest in a third-party was interesting. Not that there was a slight majority seeking one; actually, that number has come down from previous high levels, and there is always a majority of independents who want another choice. What was interesting is that a majority of Republicans now want another party: This could reflect the Presidential race, it could be that there are large numbers of Tea party Republicans who find their party's leadership insufficiently obstinate, but I think it's a beginning of a realization that their whole shtick, whether it's preening militarism, 19th-century-style coddling of robber barons, nativism, Reagan-clone haircut pols, or class warfare against the lowest nine deciles of income earners, just isn't cutting it in the 21st century so far.

On Plain(e)s Drifting: Was, High; Now, Des

This post marks the first since my transfer from Taos to Illinois. I have changed my subtitle from "High Plains Drifting" to "Des Plaines Drifting"--Des Plaines being the name of a river and a town nearby. Floating downstream--Des Plaines Drifting--is the theme for this new phase in my life.

That being said, my re-emergence into the world of work is hardly an easy downhill coast. Many things have changed, and it is always a significant task to learn the culture and the ways of a new employer. I never comment specifically on my employers, past or present, but I will say a couple things at this point: I am back in the financial services industry, but this time on the "liabilities" (deposits) side. So far, I find it refreshing, and somewhat in line with these times of (attempted) de-leveraging.

And, in case you are jumping to unwarranted conclusions: yes, I used to work on the credit-granting side of banking, but, no, I had nothing to do with the Great Bellyflop (and ensuing Great Crater). The last time I was involved in the USA was in the mid '90's, before the practice had become to give a credit card or mortgage to anyone who asked for one.

All's well so far in Chicagoland--the people are very friendly and helpful. My "training" at 7000 ft. would stand me well in an athletic competition at the <1000 ft. altitude here, but at this stage in my "career", that doesn't seem necessary (unless someone is chasing me).

I'm looking forward to a trip tomorrow from the suburbs into the city, to see Hyde Park and to come within a few hundred yards of the Obama Manse.

Hey, Hey, Goodbye

I congratulate our military, our intelligence services, our national security team, and our Commander-in-Chief for the brilliantly successful attack into Pakistan which killed Osama Bin Laden and brought his body out to verify that result.

He was killed in "a firefight", as President Obama announced. I had imagined that an act of justice would've been to incinerate him with a flamethrower. I'm sure that our forces didn't do that, as retrieving the body would have been a priority, but I think bringing him back dead was the best outcome. Not just an anonymous drone strike, but our forces had the chance to look him in the eye and take him down once and for all. No need for offshore detention, vulnerable trials, interrogation (what would he be able to tell us anyway, now that we had him?) "Shot while resisting" is better than "shot while trying to escape".

Clearly the government and military of Pakistan must have allowed our helicopters to enter their country and conduct this operation, which was in a small city not far from the country's capital. We need to recognize that at this critical moment, the mission was not compromised and the necessary permission for passage was given.

I have called for President Obama to bring to an end the "Global War on Terror" in his administration: it is premature to declare victory and an end to the struggle against terrorists inspired by religious extremism, but I do think this is the singular highlight of that effort and an important psychological triumph.

A Time to Review, and to Make Changes

Before this extraordinary event, I had been considering a posting on the idea that now, for the first time since September 11, 2001, it was becoming politically possible to consider major reductions in our military posture and our military expenditures.

Two or three recent developments prior to the Osama operation had led me to this conclusion. One is the major reorganization of the intelligence and military leadership, with CIA head Leon Panetta recently named to be the next Defense Secretary and Gen. Petraeus coming to CIA. Current Defense Secretary Gates has done great service to the US in his job (under both the Bush and Obama Administration), and he has broached the idea of cuts in spending. Now Panetta--a hero of the Bin Laden mission, which was run by the CIA--will be a savvy civilian leader who will continue Gates' efforts to trim the military, and he will also be politically in tune with the Administration and responsive to the political need to continue reductions in overseas troop commitments.

Another fascinating development has been the semi-anonymous publication of an article by a pair of high-ranking military officers. Under the name "Mr. Y"-a clear reference to the famous article outlining the strategy of containment of the Soviet Union by George Kennan, in the early days of the Cold War--their article makes a far-sighted appeal for America to change our focus toward investments, education, and a foreign policy based more on values and less on sheer military force. I encourage all to read it. If Mr. Y realizes that we need to move from empire-building and overdevelopment of the military-industrial complex for the future of our country's security, then the usual bureaucratic impediments to military spending reductions should not be operative.

In order to reorient our military strategy, it will be necessary to ramp down our military forces abroad, and in particular the major ground forces engaged in Afghanistan and Iraq. The Iraq adventure is finally coming to a conclusion, in full cooperation with the Iraqi government, and withdrawals are promised to being this year in Afghanistan. In this regard, I would recommend reading a second article, by an accomplished investigative reporter named Ahmed Rashid, in a recent Financial Times. Rashid reports that there are now real negotiations going on, with the cooperation of Pakistan and Afghanistan, to engage the Taliban, with the aim being an eventual agreement to bring the war to an end.

Then, of course, there is the running battle over government expenditures, and especially the need to set a series of stakes in the ground to mark expected levels of revenues, spending, and within them the amount committed to various government priorities. Any success we can make now in lowering the trajectory of future military spending--based on rational security needs, not pork-barrel considerations of local basing desires--will make it easier to develop multi-year budget plans that fit within the overall framework of $4 trillion in deficit reductions over the next decade.

Finally, there are the incredible developments of the Arab Spring--the successful overthrow of dictatorships in Egypt and Tunisia, and the uprisings in Libya, Bahrain, Syria, and elsewhere. Not all of these are going to end well, some are running into vicious resistance from the powers of the status quo, but there is a feeling that is ultimately unstoppable in these countries. To the extent that Mideast peoples feel they can accomplish changes in their authoritarian regimes, that will cut the legs right out from under al Qaeda and its rationale for violence.

Osama's killing is one more, huge piece of evidence of historic change. We need to adjust our strategy to new realities, and doing so will help us by reducing global tensions and will make possible needed reductions in our level of military spending.