news and sports (that is, conspiracy theory and buying stuff)

What kind of a year will 2011 be? Well, if headlines like Obama exhorts Republicans to put politics aside is any indication, it's going to be a politically annoying year. I don't do partisan politics that much in this space, because the "two-party system" is utterly broken and predictable. But as I mulled over the GOP's early effort to repeal last year's health care reform bill, while the President was still on vacation, in a totally symbolic, legislatively useless, sniveling, pandering paean to their particularly wigged-out extremist wing, I came up with a very strange scenario.

I'm embarrassed to say, it's a cloak-and-dagger scenario, a really goofy, totally unsubstantiated, yet eerily plausible association of the sort that lead people to buy extremely rural real estate and stock their property with large quantities of canned food, canned heat, and weapons. Ready?

Throughout the Obama administration, there has been a conspiracy to destroy him - his historical reputation, his political agenda and power, his public image, everything. We know the Republicans have said they spent the first two years of Obama's administration attempting to obstruct everything on his legislative agenda. We know the Republican sympathizers at Fox News and elsewhere have spread deranged fantasies about him. I don't mean that. When people tell you they hate you, that they believe you're evil, and that they plan to try to destroy you, and then they do, that's not a conspiracy.

A conspiracy isn't a conspiracy unless it's covert, sneaky, pernicious, and above all disavowed by its members.

Now, consider: With large majorities in both Houses of Congress, and a popularly elected President with an ambitious legislative agenda, the Democratic Party refused to pass the repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell, refused to pass health care reform that provided any public option or meaningfully checked the monopoly power of private insurance companies, and in the end, ran as far away from their President as they could in the mid-term elections that they lost dozens of. Only in the lame-duck session did they get a few things done, including the DADT repeal. Only after all the political advantage they could have pressed had been eliminated by a mid-term election that the GOP machine turned against Obama.

The Democrats scuttled the President, not the Republicans. No, I thought, that's crazy. You haven't had enough coffee yet. But then I remembered how Obama became President, and what he did to outflank Hillary Clinton - the party Apparatchick - in the primary campaign. Obama's election was a great victory for the Democrats, but a defeat for the new-fangled Democratic group that came to power with Bill Clinton in 1992. Hillary was relying heavily on the inner circle of the Dem establishment to carry her to the Presidency, but the establishment couldn't find a way to beat Obama. And not only will they never forgive him for it, but they'll do anything they can to punish him for it.

And there it is. Mirroring the GOP strategy of the coming two years, which will be to posture and posture and posture in order to look good for 2012, the last two years the Democratic Party in Congress has done all it could to make Obama look bad. Do they care about winning or losing the Presidency in 2012? Anyone looking at it in terms of Presidential wins is not seeing the big, long-term picture, or the fundamental nature of the electoral politics business.

But people keep voting for people who say things that are obvious, blatant lies, just because they're lies we like. Voting is like playing the lottery.

So that's the news. And now, sports.

You can't change your car battery any more. At least, not if your car is a 2006 Jetta, and you're not fully decked-out with mechanic gear. That's because the car battery is bolted down, deep inside the engine compartment. I found that out during a long, extremely ridiculous dead-battery saga on New Year's Day. (Any saga involving a dead battery is likely to be ridiculous, I suppose.) The story is too long to recount following a conspiracy theory, but it took about 4 extra steps and several hours to purchase a new battery and have it installed by the same AAA roadside emergency aid mechanic who jump-started the car earlier that morning.

Yesterday I bought a new Swiss Army knife to replace the one I've lost. (It's part of basic equipment for me, along with guitar pick, pony-tail rubber-band, and handkerchief.) The knife came sealed in 18 square inches of plastic packaging - the type that is impossible to open without something like the knife inside the package or without cutting yourself on the sharp edges of the plastic. The last one I bought came in a small cardboard flip-top box that I could open unaided. And yes, I realize it's a so-called "passive theft-prevention device." The last time I bought a knife it was from a locked glass case, and an employee had to open the case and bring me out the one I wanted. In other words, the plastic is really an employment-prevention device.

There's a connection between those stories, isn't there?

save our classes rally

We had a pretty damn good rally, for our little politically-inert campus. We think around 150-200 people showed up, the speeches were good, the crowd was inspired. We got 150 or so cards signed urging support for AB 656 (an oil severance tax to help fund higher education), and I think over 100 letters to our campus president.

I was emceeing, so when a couple of my organizing pals suggested turning the rally into a march, I had to be the one to start that. So I suggested going for a walk over by the administration building. On the way, we started chanting "No more budget cuts! Save our classes!" It sounded good. The problem, I realized, is that there's no way around the building - access on the east side is cut off by a fence. The easiest and most direct way to get from the south side of the building back to the center of campus (where we started from) is to walk through the middle of the building - through the cavernous mall-like promenade, on either side of which three stories of administrative offices rise and loom. So I decided to invite the crowd to come see the interior of the administration building, and they decided they would keep shouting, all the way through the building. That was fun.

but now for some lighter news

People living under rocks may not have heard yet that California's Supreme Court ruled that everyone, regardless of gender or sex, should have the right to marry any other consenting adult. Same-sex marriages became legal as of 5:01 pm yesterday.

As a result, my loveliest and I have come out of the closet. Yep, we're married. We've been married for just over two years. Lauren tells the compleat story in her blog, so go read that. It's okay, I'll wait here...

Dum dee-dum, dumbledy dum... Hmm.

Hoo-hah shamma-shamma tiddle-ee-dah. Whum-pa pah-dee-oo-skiddly-doo-dat spah! Oobly-scoobly-oo-bap-sh-bim-

uh... Shit, I didn't expect you back so soon. It's so embarrassing getting caught in the middle of private scat singing.

I still have grave misgivings about the institution of marriage. I didn't think much about the discriminatory practice of legal marriage versus domestic partnership until about 7 or 8 years ago, when voters in California approved Prop 22, "The Defense of Marriage Act," which was a purely symbolic act defining marriage as between a man and a woman. No county in the state was permitting same-sex marriage, so the proposition didn't change anything. It just gave a bunch of assholes the opportunity to be assholes.

My long-term objections to marriage have been less related to justice. I have never wanted to be married, in part because of my iconoclastic allergy to social institutions generally, but in larger part because of what I regard as the baggage of tradition that comes along with it. Marriage is just too culturally heavy. When you are introduced as a husband, for instance, a whole string of additional characteristics, roles, attitudes, and ways of relating are presumptively attributed to you. Sure, some particular person, who knows us well, would know that we don't play our roles quite straight, but the cultural norm and the general expectation is that "married" fits both persons into neatly, unproblematically defined categorical boxes.

(As long as I'm confessing to being married, I might as well also confess that I generally take out the trash, pay the bills, file the taxes, and I'm the primary bread-winner. On the other hand, I'm also the primary bread-baker, as well as cook, kitchen cleaner, and vaccuumer.)

I resent being put in a box. (This is one of my most cat-like characteristics. If I want to be in the box, I'll go get in the box myself. I don't need the likes of you putting me in the damn box! Now gimme some damn catnip!)

Now that California isn't discriminating against people when it comes to marriage, there's less of a pressing reason to hide the fact that we are married, and moreover, there's an opportunity to make the point, again, that this discrimination is immoral. Plus, same-sex marriage isn't entirely safe yet. A group of maniacs is trying to put a constitutional amendment on the November ballot to ban same-sex marriage.

finally, some good news

Not about the economy, which is still, according to some reports, 78.3% likely to go foom.

No, the good news is that, what with the subprime mortgage market scandal being breathtakingly revealed, we may finally be free from the scourge of web ads featuring badly animated dancing cowboys, lizards, silhouetted chicks in skirts, and so on, trying to sell subprime loans. Thank Moose for that, because I always came close to smashing my laptop against the nearest wall when those appeared.

Besides that, my loveliest found a wonderful item on the Internets, through an online friend of hers. I am proud to bring you garfield minus garfield.

next!

New York Times article on Bear Stearns.

Two points: They deliberately inflated their market value to increase their stock price by way of simply bluffing. People on Wall Street bought it.

Okay, three points: The Fed, (i.e., US taxpayers) are bailing them all out.

Okay, okay, four points: As much as this "moral hazard" of bailing out the screwheads bugs the hell out of me, if the Feds didn't, the entire house of cards which is the US economy and the stock market would collapse, and that would hurt the innocent far more than the guilty.

in questionable taste

First off:

In the aftermath of stunningly deadly and destructive tornadoes, this hard-hit community now has other worries — looters, power shortages and a large number of residents still unaccounted for.

Of course, I was thinking: FEMA.

I'm modifying the list of people not allowed in the house. I'm prepared at this point to remove Regina Spektor from the list, inasmuch as we'd love to have her for dinner.

It may be helpful to clarify that being included on the official Not Allowed In The House list is not, in almost all cases, meant as a sign of disrespect, nor a criticism of the work of the people on the list. We love Bjørk, for instance, we just think it's prudent not to allow her in the house. That said:

In a controversial decision, Steely Dan is allowed in the house, as long as they don't bring their cousins.

In other news, imagine you're the Republican Party. You're holding a presidential nominating election across numerous states. John McCain keeps winning delegates, and suddenly you're down to McCain and Mike Huckabee. Wow.

Are we ever ripe for a third candidate election. Yeesh to follow.

and for those who don't like bad economic news, there's sport

The state government's fiscal crisis continues. 6 years ago the budget analyst at the non-partisan Legislative Analyst office said that California's budget problems are systemic and can only be permanently fixed by either slashing state services to a point that would harm a lot of residents, or else raising taxes. Well, obviously, we can't raise taxes, because that would be ridiculous, of course, because that would mean people would be paying more money for state services.

So, instead, governor Schwarzenegger plans to cut 10 percent from nearly every state agency. The last major cut to the CSU's budget caused enrollment declines, staff layoffs and non-rehirings of hundreds of non-tenure-track faculty. The increases in our budgets since then have barely kept pace with inflation, and the CSU Board of Trustees and the state have begun to depend on increasing student fees in order to fill the gap.

This bugs the hell out of me in every conceivable way. An ideologically driven political agenda beginning in the 70s has made it impossible for the state to adequately fund any of its agencies, by getting the electorate to vote for slashing property taxes and to require a 2/3 majority to pass a budget. Who benefits from that? Who is hurt by it?

fcc changes rules on media ownership, again

A corporation can now own a newspaper and TV station in the same media market, thanks to a change in FCC ownership regulations. Democrats did a fair job of staging opposition and outrage, but really, it's a token gesture by both the Dems and the FCC. The real regulatory changes came in the 80s, when, under the guidance of such luminaries as Mark Fowler (who called TV "a toaster with pictures"), the FCC opened media ownership across markets and eliminated the requirement that broadcast media provide public affairs information on a regular basis. Corporate media are, at this stage, fundamentally incapable of legitimate news reporting of anything beyond fires and sports scores - and I'm not really willing to stand behind that.

The Democrats' outrage was focused on the alleged clandestine nature of the Commission's vote on the regulation. Whether or not the vote happened late at night, the fact is that the proposed regulation has been floating around for around 6 months.

Republican Commissioner Deborah Taylor Tate described the process as "transparent and thorough." She said the changes proposed are narrow, and hinted she was in favor of a greater liberalization of the media ownership rules.

Debbie Tate is right!

But you can still do rotten things transparently. It's ironic as hell: media have, per the FCC, no responsibility to the public whatsoever. The transparency of any FCC regulation shift depends, in our society, on its being made public through the media the FCC increasingly avoid regulating.

Eh. That's why we only watch ice hockey, the occasional flick, and Comedy Central.

I felt the earth move. . .

Really, I did. My loveliest and I were in the kitchen, debating (I am not making this up) whether airline personnel should be more forthcoming with information about delays, so that passengers will be calmer and feel more in control, when the floor started to roll and shimmy and the wine glasses in the rack started to clink together. It's hard to describe, but if you imagine a big truck driving in front of your place, but then extend and deepen that vibration, make it more side-to-side than up-and-down, and add a bit of sea waves, it's something like that.

[Or better yet, get a big bath, made of ebony...]

In other news, the Penguins won a very satisfying game against the defense-oriented Minnesota Wild. I am still somewhat sick, but more or less ready for class today.

Down south, yet another argument against human reproduction admitted setting one of the wildfires. Over on Hey there, skippy I sort of got into a sort of debate (sort of) about the effect of climate change on the fires. A commentator claimed that saying there was any global warming at play was bogus, and presented as his evidence (sort of) that the fires were set. Indeed, at least one was for sure. My point was that the place was riper than it would have been, the fires more intense, because everything was drier than [insert absurd/obscene comparative term here]. Unless I miss my own point.

Meanwhile, Iran is trying to be helpful by pointing out that we'd be fools to invade Iran. Someone hasn't been paying attention!

we're #2!

According to a report in the Modesto Bee, Merced County surpassed Stanislaus County in mortgage foreclosures in September. The last three months, San Joaquin, Stanislaus, and now Merced have taken turns leading the nation in this critical economic activity. The Bee cited something called "real estate experts" who supposedly claimed that the foreclosure rates around here, generally eight times higher than national averages (during a nationwide foreclosure boom), are due to house prices dropping right when adjustable-rate mortgages become too expensive for owners. They can't sell for as much as they owe.

The article does not explore whether there could be some connection between foreclosure rates and the fact that housing is basically unaffordable for most people who live and work here.

In any case, the stats are mind-boggling:

RealtyTrac said lenders repossessed 921 homes last month in Stanislaus, San Joaquin and Merced counties. In September 2006, by comparison, 14 homes were taken back by lenders.

news flash!

Hang on to your hats! It turns out that the Iraq war may have the teensiest bit to do with oil.

In other news, 2+2=4.

2 reports from the "what could possibly go wrong?" department

Say you're a large toy "manufacturer," like Hasbro. You find that one of your main costs is labor, and that subcontracting the actual manufacture of your products to another country, say China, reduces your labor cost. By like 90%. You might find this a really attractive option, and hey, what could possibly go wrong?

Well, they might do things a little differently in China, use lead-based paint for instance. And it might turn out that labor conditions are extremely bad, and someone might eventually point this out, to your possible embarrassment.

Better yet, say you're a bank. You find that as housing prices escalated throughout the 1990s and early 2000s, and as income stagnated or dropped in real terms (as it has overall since the early 1970s), fewer and fewer people can afford to buy houses. This is inconvenient, since mortgages are such a solid profit-maker. So you might decide to offer mortgages with unique features to attract customers, like a $400,000 loan with payments starting at $1200 a month. Then, when you've got a deal made, you raise the interest and payments to about $3500 a month. What could possibly go wrong?

On the other hand, if all the other banks do it too, and if nobody's really backing these loans with actual money, you might create a gigantic international mortgage and banking crisis. And you might have to close your own mortgage branch. Oops!

brief public service announcement

Look out! It's the masked flasher!

I don't know why, but I'm charmed by this idea. I'd never actually do it, but I'm glad he is. Plus I enjoyed the way the story was written.

this looks like the set-up for a joke, but I'm not the man to tell it

Just checking my RSS feeds, I saw a headline from the San Francisco Chronic-Ill about an armless man being sentenced for various driving and drug offenses. The start of the first sentence of the story is "A man with no arms and one leg who wouldn't stop driving..." and I immediately thought of those awful "What do you call a man with no arms and legs" jokes.

But read the story. This guy is someone to be reckoned with. Not only did he teach himself to drive with one leg and no arms, but apparently he managed to kick a cop, at least, he's charged with doing so.

Yeesh!

old habits

For years, I spent every morning with a mug full of ridiculously strong coffee and the Modesto Bee. Like much of my life, this activity was deeply disturbing, relentlessly disappointing, and the cause of ever-growing resentment. One of the main reasons for this was the Bee's always awful opinion page, particularly the dreadful letters to the editor.

This morning, checking the Bee site for today's temperature forecast (95) and yesterday's high (104), out of curiosity I checked the opinion page. I still do this from time to time, mainly when I'm expecting them to print something particular - a letter I've sent them, something related to the CFA or the CSU, etc. Today it was for the sheer hell of it.

Someone had written a snarky letter suggesting that since creationists believe the earth is only 6000 years old, we must similarly be wrong about half-lives of radioactive isotopes, so nuclear power should be regarded as safe, and we shouldn't worry about nuclear waste. Store it, our intrepid author suggested, by the Creationism Museum in Kentucky.

Someone else had written about obnoxious parents leaving a local middle school graduation after their kids' names were called off the long list, sometimes bringing their brats with them. Apparently something similar happened at the school's athletic awards ceremony.

Wait, hold it right there. The middle school has both a graduation and an athletic awards ceremony? I started to have a Paula Poundstone moment: why the hell are there so many ceremonies and awards? Why are we congratulating ourselves so much for so little? (It gets worse, of course. Paula was complaining about grade school graduation.) This seems to be a national trend, too.

For instance, yer local TV nooz probably tells you it's won some kind of award. It might start with their theme song and then a pan in on the silhouetted figure of the nooz anchor, while lights come up to illuminate him. "Good evening. I'm Smarmy Middleagedman and this is the award-winning Channel 9 Action Nooz. Our first story tonight: Drugs in our schools. But first, here's Perky Dingbat..." etc. The "award" is most likely presented by the corporation who owns the station. It's supposed to give an aura of prestige.

Which is why I'm so proud to announce that I have been named the recipient of the 2007 Groovetastic Award for all-round grooviness. This makes me a double award-winner this year, since I have previously received the Samuel Pufendorf Prize for Teaching Like A Mo-Fo for 2007. I'll be adding these to my syllabi for fall, of course, and having them printed on business cards (did you know practically all academics have business cards now?). I recommend this to anyone. In fact, I wouldn't be at all surprised to learn that self-help and get-ahead type books already recommend it. I already feel more prestigious and deserving. It's good to feel entitled.

I graciously accept these awards and your applause. Thank you.

funkytown worst of all

Apparently, a book detailing life and livability of a few hundred US cities has ranked Modesto last. The Modesto Bee article focuses on local reactions to the news, and of course Modestans interviewed by the Bee didn't see anything so terrible. Even the author of the book seemed to tell the Bee that the situation was not all that dire.

And really, if you take away the disgusting hot summer, the pollution, low level of educational achievement, minimal cultural scene, lack of good jobs, lack of affordable housing, poor urban planning, poor health care, high crime rate, lousy traffic, and the fact that despite all this thousands of people commute 2.5 hours each way to good jobs in the San Francisco Bay area (thus contributing to the pollution and lousy traffic), really, it's not too bad.

If you ask one of those commuters why he or she lives here, I imagine the likely answers are (1) the housing market, as inflated as it is, is more affordable than the Bay Area, and (2) it's a safer, more wholesome environment in which to raise kids. The latter of these rationales is easily understood, because it's entirely false. People who believe that are, simply, wrong. They do not want to know, and in many cases would flatly reject, the facts. As for the former rationale, it is certainly true that the housing market here has been better lately: a mere $289,000 can get you a 1100 square foot bungalow in some less desirable areas. So people who commute 5+ hours a day in order to buy a house are, clearly, more interested in achieving the American dream (to wit: mortgage) than in health, well-being, and so on.

To set the record straight on at least one point, there is no truth to the rumors that Modesto city planners intend to embark on a major urban renewal project involving razing all structures in the county.