The Streak

It's been tough being Mets fan for the last 28 seaons.  I won't bore non-Mets fans with a long history, but most die-hard Mets fans will be able to comprehend the post-1986 Mets history below.

Smithers : Pendelton homer : Ojeda gardening : Scioscia homer : Dykstra/McDowell for Samuel : Smithers again ( Strawberry ) : Strawberry leaves : Cone "warming up" in bullpen : Cone for Kent/Thompson : Anthony Young : Firecrackers : Bleach : "I'll show you the Bronx!" : Generation K : Kent/Baerga : Izzy/Taylor : Franco/Benitez Game 6 NLCS : Kenny Rogers : Card Game : Bordick/Mora : Zeile/Timo : BENITEZ! : Jeter/Jones : Luis Sojo : Goodbye, Hampton : Hello, Appier : Jordan homer ( BENITEZ!!! ) : 6 days later, 5-1 lead, BENITEZ!!!!!!!!! : Fonzie's bad back : Mo Vaughn : Alomar : Kazmir/Zambrano : Sanchez taxi : Pedro/El_Duque hurt : Molina homer : Beltran looking : 7_17 : Glavine's finale : 3_17 : Wright strands Murph at 3rd : Shea's last game : CASTILLO!!!!! : Jason Bay : K-Rod's father-in-law : Johan's injuries : Madoff : Harvey/Tommy_John

Yes, it's been a rough 28 season, but I have had one positive experience as a Mets fan in recent years.  Entering this season, I had taken one or both of my sons to 6 Mets games ( Michael to 1, and Michael/Peter to 5 ) and the Mets had won all 6.  The full history is listed below:

Michael

5/2/2007 : Mets 6, Marlins 3

Michael and Peter

5/11/2008: Mets 8, Reds 3

7/12/2008 : Mets 3, Rockies 0  

7/30/2009 : Mets 7, Rockies 0

4/24/2010 : Mets 3, Braves 1 : Blog

7/21/2013 : Mets 5, Phillies 0 : Blog

I admit that I've been aware of this streak for a while and I've been cherry-picking games that I think the Mets have a good chance of winning.  However, it hasn't been easy to find games the Mets have a good chance of winning considering the state of the Mets since 2009.  Last year, I picked a Matt Harvey game, but that wasn't an option this year.  Also, considering the how anemic the Mets' hitting has been this year ( the worst I've seen since the late 1970's ), I was seriously considering not going to a Mets game this year.

But then Jacob deGrom happened ...

The Mets have a bunch of highly-touted pitching prospects in their organization, but deGrom wasn't considered to be one.  He was originally a college shortstop, and when given a chance to start a game for the Mets this May ( due to injuries on the Mets major league staff ) he was already well past the age ( he turned 26 in June )  where most pitchers make make their major league debuts.  However, he showed electric stuff that first start, out-pitched the more highly-touted Mets prospect Rafael Montero over the next few weeks, and soon earned a regular spot in the pitching rotation.  It's too early to say whether he'll be a long-term ace, but he's definitely been the best starting pitcher for the Mets this year.

When deGrom was slated to pitch on Fireworks Night on 8/2/14, it seemed like the perfect night to try and continue the streak ( even if the Mets lost, at least we'd get to see some fireworks ).  My only concern was that the Mets would be playing the Giants that night.  By any measure, the Giants ( along with the Cardinals ) have been one of the 2 best teams in the National League since 2010, winning 2 World Series over the past 4 years ( the Cardinals have been a bit more consistently good, but have only won 1 World Series since 2010 ).  The fact that the Giants were sending a pitcher with a 1-10 record to the mound was comforting, until you considered that the pitcher was 2007 Cy Young Award winner Jack Peavy.  Peavy clearly isn't as good as he was back in 2007, but at the age of 33, he's not at the stage of his career where you would expect him to be washed-up.  The Giants certainly didn't think he was washed-up; they had traded for him a week earlier to help in their pennant race with the Dodgers.  I had watched part of his first game with the Giants on ESPN, and it still seemed like he had really good stuff.

Still, no guts, no glory.  I had confidence that deGrom could shut the Giants down, and if I want the boys to grow up to be Mets fans, I should take them to at least one game a year ( Peter actually seemed excited about the prospect of going to a Mets game when we brought it up, and considering that he's expressed an interest in the Yankees in the past, I wasn't going pass up a prime opportunity to brainwa-um-I-mean-coax him into being a Mets fan. ).

So, on the afternoon on 8/2/14, we all piled into the minivan and headed out to the ballpark in Flushing ( or as I like to unofficially call it, "new Shea" ).  I wound up getting in the wrong lane on the GW Bridge, and actually had to drive across Manhattan to get to the game.  Driving crosstown in Manhattan is never fun, but at least we got to see the Apollo theater.

I left the house hours before the game started, so despite the wrong turn, we still arrived at the game early enough to take plenty of pre-game photos.

I still can't believe how tall Michael is getting.  I wouldn't be surprised it he's taller than Ruth by this time next year.

The parking lot is marked with the original locations of home plate, the bases, and the pitcher's mound at Shea.  Here's a few shots of Peter hanging out where Gooden and Carter used to work.

After some food, some Kiddie Field fun, and a shot on the Shea Bridge, we were ready to take our seats.

Here's the view from our seats,  plus a shot of Michael pre-game.

The boys paid closer attention to the game than they ever had in the past.  I actually had some chances to explain the game to them.

Michael watched all 9 innings with me.  This the first time he has ever watched an entire game.  He's never watch a full game on TV before, and Ruth usually needs to take both boys on several little snack-trips at the ballpark.

Peter was in his seat the majority of the time, but he did take a trip with Ruth to get some ice cream.

While Ruth and Peter were out getting ice cream, they missed this ...



I've seen more than 200 games in Flushing and have seem my share of great plays in person, and this catch is definitely in the top 5.  It still remains to be seen if Juan Lagares can be a consistent hitter long-term, but he's already on my Mount Rushmore of great Mets defensive players ( Lagares joins Hernandez, Ordonzez, and Beltran ).

I've been to quite a few Mets games with my brother Craig and friend Tom, and we've always noticed that every time we go to a ballgame, we always see something we've never seen before ( Not all of these things are baseball related; We've seen a skinny guy doing body-building poses in front of our section for no apparent reason, a drunk guy roll down several rows of upper deck seats, and once saw a guy walking around the upper deck dressed like a six-foot piece of swiss cheese. ).  Today was no exception.  As we entered the 7th inning of the game, neither pitcher had surrendered a hit.

In the long history of baseball, there has only been one double no-hitter, and we were within three innings of it happening that night.  Of course, I don't think Michael fully appreciated what he was seeing, because he kept telling me how boring it was that nobody has gotten any hits yet.

I was lucky enough to witness all 9 inning of the Mets' first no-hitter on TV ( Plus, all 9 innings of Nolan Ryan's record-breaking 5th no-hitter on national TV ), but this was only the second time I had seen been at a game in which a pitcher had carried a no-hitter into the 7th inning.  Back in the late 90's, Craig and I watched Rick Reed retire the first 19 batters in a game before giving up a walk and a homer and ultimately losing the game.  I had never been to a Mets game in which a pitcher from either team had been closer than 8 out from a no-hitter, and now both pitchers were only 9 outs away.

When deGrom retired the first 2 batters in the top of the 7th, a new benchmark had been set.  I was now only 7 outs away from witnessing a Mets no-hitter in person.  As a Mets fan who's watched scores of potential  no-hitters go up in smoke before Johan broke through, I try not to get too excited about no-hit bids until the game reaches the 8th inning.  Well, we were now just one out away from that as Pedro Sandoval stepped to the plate, and if DeGrom could retire Kung Fu Panda, he'd have a chance to complete the no-hitter without having to face the middle of the Giants order again.  Alas, Sandoval smacked the ball into the left-center field gap so hard that even Lagares couldn't run it down.  The no-hit bid was over, Sandoval stood at 2nd, and crowd rose to their feet show deGrom their appreciation ( I'm sure Mets fans didn't invent the tradition of giving the pitcher a standing ovation after a no-hit bid is lost, but we certainly perfected it after 50 years of failed no-hit bids from 1962 - 2012. ).  Degrom quickly retired the next batter, and we were on to the bottom of the 7th.

Lest we forget, there was still another no-hitter in progress - not just a no-hitter, but a perfect game.  Peavy had retired the first 18 Mets he'd faced, and considering that the Mets had only gotten 2 hits in the previous game ( and for what it's worth, they only managed 2 hits in the next game of the series ), it certainly seemed plausible that the Mets might help Peavy make history that night.

Granderson led off the inning with a deep fly ball that got us all to our feet, but we all sat back down as the ball died on the warning track.  Murphy hit what looked like a harmless opposite-field fly ball to left, but it soon became apparent that the ball might make it over the head of Giants left-fielder Michael Morse.  The next thing we knew, the ball hit the ground and we rose to our feet as Murph pulled into 2nd base.   David Wright followed with a looper to left that also looked harmless, but it dropped a few feet in front of Morse, and the Mets had runners at the corners.  Replays would later show that Morse had badly misplayed both Murphy's and Wright's fly balls.  He initially broke the wrong way on both balls, and if he had broken the right way, he almost certainly would have caught both balls.  Basically, if the Giants had been playing an average fielder in left field, Peavy would have carried a perfect game into the 8th.  However, that didn't matter to us - it was rally time!  Let's go Mets!!!!

Peavy hit Duda with a pitch to load the based, and Travis d'Arnaud followed with a sacrifice fly to give the Mets a 1-0 lead.  After Lagares singled and Flores doubled to give the Mets a 4-0 lead, it was time to celebrate.

The way deGrom was pitching, a 4-0 lead seemed safe, but the Giants started to hit deGrom in the 8th ( It looked like he had clearly run out of gas, and it may have been worse that that.  He looked sub-par in his following start, and then went on the 15-day DL with tendinitis in his shoulder.  It's certainly not as bad as Harvey tearing a ligament last year, but sometime it feels like Mets fans can't catch a break. ), and the Mets bullpen took over with one out in the 8th with the score 4-2.

The Giants managed to get the tying runs on base in the 9th, but the Mets managed to hold on for a 4-2 victory.  It may not have been pretty ( The 7th inning was the only inning the Mets got any runners on base, and two of those runners got on base due to poor fielding ), but the Mets had gotten it done, and the streak now stood at 7.  Time for some fireworks!!!!

Rich

P.S. For the record, here's is a link to the play-by-play of the of victory.

The Football Grand Slam

10 years ago or so, I would have never thought it was possible, but I actually enjoyed this year's World Cup.  I'm really starting to warm up to soccer, and based on the huge enthusiastic crowds at all those World Cup viewing parties ( some of which filled entire arenas ), I'm certainly not the only person in the USA who feels this way.

Of course, a year from now, most of us ( including myself ) won't give soccer a second thought.  It's hard for an Americans to stay interested soccer when ...

1) the World Cup only happens once every 4 years.

2) we don't have any major league soccer in the USA ( Yes, I know we have "Major League Soccer", but the MLS is at best a 5th-rate league by anyone's standards ( Actually, it's the 12th best league according to this ).  I'm happy to see the MLS is sparking grass-roots soccer enthusiasm in places like Portland and Seattle, and I think the league has the potential to blossom into something much bigger someday, but for fans who are used to watching the best football, basketball, baseball, and hockey players in the world, minor league soccer really isn't going to cut it. ).

If soccer is ever going to catch-on in the USA, we need a major event to follow every year.  I think we'd all love to watch team USA in the World Cup each year, but it's unlikely the FIFA would ever break with tradition and hold an annual World Cup.  Instead, I'd like to propose something new.  I'd like to propose ...

The Football Grand Slam! *

* If this idea is every going to catch on worldwide, we can't have "soccer" in the name considering that the entire world outside of the USA calls the sport "football".  

Most of us are familiar with the concept of the "Grand Slam" in golf and tennis.  Each of those sports has four "major" tournaments a year, and if you manage to win all 4 of those tournaments in one calendar year you achieve "The Grand Slam" ( While this is a very rare feat, the term "Grand Slam" is still heard a lot in these sports as those who win all 4 of the majors in a career are said to achieve the "Career Grand Slam" and the term "a grand slam" is sometime used interchangeably with the term "major" ( For example, some might say that Roger Federer has won 17 "grands slams" or 17 "majors" to indicate that he has won 17 major tournaments. ).

Well, if golf and tennis can have 4 major tournaments, why not football ( In the context of the "Football Grand Slam", I'll always use the term "football" to refer to the sport named "soccer" in the USA. )?  Now, while we certainly can't have 4 international tournaments a year, we can have 4 tournaments over each 4-year World Cup cycle.  While only one of these four tournaments will be the World Cup, the other 3 tournaments will each have a special feature that will make them unique and exciting.  The other tournaments will be ...

The Olympics
This one is easy; we already have an Olympic football tournament every 4 years ( 2 years removed from the World Cups ).  Its format and rules ate just like the World Cups rules, but we really don't have to change anything to make this tournament unique and special.  The Olympics make it special enough.  Winning the Olympic football tournament may never be as prestigious as winning the World Cup, but gold medals are forever.

So, the World Cup and the Olympics fill in half our "Grand Slam" tournaments leaving only 2 tournaments to go.  Before anyone out there brings up the FIFA Confederation Cup, stop - just stop.  I want the "Football Grand Slam" to consist of 4 special tournaments, and nobody will ever consider the Confederation Cup to be special.  It's basically a warm-up for the World Cup these days, and only 8 countries actually play games in the host country ( after qualifying in regional tournaments ).  I may not be a football expert, but that doesn't seem like a special tournament to me.  To fill out the line-up for the Football Grand Slam, I'm going to invent 2 new tournaments, starting with ...

The "Let's get rid of those stupid shoot-outs" tournament
The biggest complaint you hear about the World Cup is that it is unfair for a hard-fought game to be decided by a penalty kick shoot-out.  In the knock-out stage of the World Cup, if a game is tied after 90 minutes of regulation, they play two 15-minute overtime periods.  If the game is still tied after 30 minutes of overtime, the game is decided by a penalty shootout.  Nobody likes the shoot-out but it is considered necessary because most players are exhausted after 120 minutes of playing, and the rules of football only allows 3 substitutions per-game.

Well, rules-schmules!  Who says ever tournament needs to have the same rules?  The rules in just about all tennis tournaments designate that you need to play a tie-breaker if a set is tied 6 games to 6, but Wimbledon had decreed that there will be no tie-breakers in a decisive 5th set, even if that means you sometimes need to play a 7-hour 70-68 5th set.

What sports fan doesn't like to watch a multiple overtime game in any sport ( or a baseball game with 15 or more innings )?  Some of the most memorable moments sports history happened in marathon games.  If this works in other sports, why not football?

I propose that one of the Grand Slam tournaments should work just like the World Cup ( 32 team group stage, followed by a 16 team knockout stage ), except that the penalty shoot-out will be eliminated in the the knockout stage.  The teams would play multiple 30-minute overtime periods until somebody scored ( Unlike the World Cup, each overtime period would be a sudden-death overtime.  I have no idea why the World Cup no longer plays sudden-death ( golden goal ) overtime ( the World Cup had sudden death overtime in the past ).  After all, how would you rather see an overtime game end - with the winning team celebrating the game-winning goal or with the the winning team spending the last 10-minutes stalling to protect a 1-goal overtime lead? ).  We would keep the players from getting too exhausted by instituting one more rule-change; after 120 minutes of total game time, substitutions would be unlimited.  Football purists might not like the idea of unlimited substitutions, but I can't see how anyone could argue that unlimited substitutions would be more of a bastardization of football than the penalty shoot-out.

OK, we've now got 3 fun tournaments for our Football Grand Slam, but I've saved the best for last.  Introducing ...

The "March Madness" football tournament
This tournament doesn't need to be in March, but it will be modeled after the most popular tournament in the USA.  Everyone with a pulse in the USA loves excitement of the "March Maddness" NCAA basketball tournament, and I can't see how the world wouldn't love a 64-team single-elimination international football tournament.  Forget about all that group stage crap and forget about limiting the field to 32 countries.  I want this tournament to be full of teams from countries that have no football tradition whatsoever.  I want this tournament to have something that's sorely missing from the World Cup - The Cinderella.

Just imagine the excitement when a team like Albania scores a lucky goal to take an early lead in a first-round match-up against mighty Brazil.  Just imagine if Sierra Leone somehow manages to beat Germany.  Sure, such upsets will be exceedingly rare, but they'll be absolutely legendary the few times they happen, and just the possibility of such big upsets will be extremely exciting.

Oh, and we will allow the penalty-shootout in this tournament.  The shoot-out will make upsets more likely ( an inferior team could focus 100% on defense and hope for a shoot-out after a 0-0 tie ), and this tournament will be all about the upsets.

So, there you go.  If the Football Grand Slam becomes a reality, we'll have an exciting international football tournament to watch every year.  Of course, considering less than 10 people read this blog on a regular basis, it's extremely unlikely that this idea will ever take root.  However, if you think this is a good idea and would like to lend a hand in trying to make it a reality, tweet out this blog post under the hashtag #FootballGrandSlam, especially if you've got some friends in countries that actually care about football.  Let's try to convince the world that we should all enjoy some World Cup style football every year.

Rich

Shells

A few weeks ago, my 10-year-old son Michael brought home a bunch of shells he had collected on a school trip.  My wife told me she didn't understand why he felt the need to bring home so many shells.  I'll admit that I wondered a bit about that too, but then I started to think about what it was like to be 10 years old.

Back when I was 10, it wasn't unusual for me to bring home a sand pail full of shells from the beach.  When you're 10, shells from the beach are treasures you don't want to leave behind.  Each new shell you encounter is a rare jewel which you've never seen before.  When you become an adult, a shell no longer seems special, because you've seen plenty of shells.  We look at the world around us, and nothing seems that special because we feel like we've seen it all before.

Well, maybe we need to look harder.

Rich

The Inequality Folly

As we rapidly approach the 2014 midterm elections, it's clear that each side has decided on a narrative.
GOP narrative: Obamacare, Obamacare, Benghazi, Benghazi, Obamacare!
DEM narrative: Inequality, Inequality, Inequality!

While I think it's a good idea in general for Democrats to focus on economic issues in this coming election ( They certainly won't be able to win elections for Senate and House seats in red states by focusing on social issues like abortion, guns, and gay rights ), I think their current inequality argument might lose more votes than it gains.

I'm all for reducing income inequality, but if Democrats want to win elections ( both in 2014 and going forward ), they need to be careful about how they talk about it.

The inequality argument is clearly tailored to attract votes who have struggled since the start of the Great Recession.  They are trying to attract voters who have not seen the fruits of the "recovery" that has led to stock market records and huge Wall Street bonuses over the last few years.  Well, I've got news for Democrats ...

Those people are already planning to vote for you.

Sure, if you keep talking about "inequality", a few more of those voters are going to get the message that  they need to get to the polls to vote for Democrats on election day.  However, lots of swing voters are going to hear a different message.

Consider a college-educated upper middle class parent with a mortgage to pay and kids to put through college.  Such a voter might agree with the Democrats on a lot of social issues, but might be a bit wary about policies that could take more money out of their already stretched paycheck.  Such a voter might hear "inequality" and think "redistribution of wealth".   The might think that anti-inequality policies might funnel some of their hard-earned money to others who are less deserving.  Some of these voters might even think that Democrats who rail against inequality are promoting socialism.

To be sure, some liberals have no problem with socialism, all liberals  support some socialist policies, and some ( like Bernie Sanders ) are even brave enough to admit it.  However, socialism is still a dirty word in American politics; in historical terms the dust from the Berlin Wall hasn't settled yet.  If you want to get elected in this country ( and are not named Bernie Sanders ), you can't say anything that even smells a little like socialism.

So what do Democratic politicians need to do if they want attract both lower income voters and more well-off swing voters?  Well, they should start by talking about the root causes of inequality rather than inequality itself.

Democrats should be talking about things like "opportunity" and "social mobility".  They should stress that a level playing field is required to make the American Dream a reality, and that Republican policies tilt that playing field in the direction of the rich and powerful.  I've often heard Republicans say some variant of "People shouldn't hate the rich; they should want to be rich."  Well, Democrats should point out that Republican policies help the rich remain rich a lot more than they help the poor improve their lot in life.  For example ...

- Republicans think it's fine for the richest folks to often pay lower tax rates ( via capital gains ) than poor folks.

- Republicans think the children of the rich should be able to inherit all their parent's wealth.

- Republicans have no problem with public schools being primarily funded by local property taxes, which means that children who grow up in wealthy areas have better public schools than children who grow up in poor areas.

- Republican are against any public policies that would help decrease college costs for poor and middle class Americans.

- Republicans are consistently more willing to allocate money to prisons than to schools.

- Republicans are against compelling businesses to pay a minimum wage that would help many struggling families improve their futures.

- Republicans have consistently voted to erode the social safety net ( Unemployment benefits, welfare, etc. ), because they apparently would rather see a poor family crash and burn than be given another chance to succeed.

- Republicans have consistently voted to cut food stamps.

I could go on an on, and Democrats could as well if they want to convince voters that they are the true party of "opportunity".  Republican's are always talking about "opportunity", but only Democrats are promoting policies that will provide opportunities to all Americans.  If Democrats can convince people that they are trying to give each American a fighting chance to succeed, they'll do fine in the coming election and all elections going forward.

Rich

Chocolate Musings

As you can see from the photo below,  we visited Hershey, Pennsylvania, this month.

I don't have anything too profound to say this month, but I do have chocolate on on mind, so I'll briefly touch on some chocolate-related topics.

We spent the night before Easter at The Hotel Hershey.  When we opened the door to our room on Easter morning, we found that the Easter Bunny had left us baskets of Hershey products.  We still have some of that candy left.  Between the candy we bought, made ( The photo at the top of this post was taken at the "Create your own Candy Bar" attraction ), and got for free ( They give you lots of free chocolate at the various attractions at Hershey - we were given 4 candy bars when we checked into the hotel ), we'll be eating Hershey's chocolate late into May.

   I was looking over some of that Easter chocolate on our kitchen table, when I noticed a Krackel miniature bar.  That got me thinking about how bad a job Hershey has done promoting the Krackel bar.  For those who are not aware, a Krackel bar is Hershey's version of a Nestle Crunch Bar.  I'm going to assume 99.9 % of people who grew up in the USA know what a Nestle Crunch is, but if you're not from the USA or grew up in the USA with health-nut parents who didn't let you watch TV, the old TV add below will tell you everything you need to know about Nestle Crunch.



There's really not much a difference between Nestle Crunch and Krackel, but Nestle Crunch was ubiquitous during my childhood ( and according to Time Magazine, is one of the 13 most influential candy bars of all time ) while Krackel was nowhere to be seen.  Hershey has been the dominant chocolate brand in the USA for about a century, so I never understood why Hershey never made a real effort to go after the Nestle Crunch market share.  My first thought was that Nestle Crunch was too well-established before Krackel came along, but Krackel was introduced only one year after Nestle Crunch ( 1938 vs. 1937 ).  

Clearly some people prefer Nestle's milk chocolate to Hershey's milk chocolate, but considering how Hershey dominates the plain milk chocolate bar category, I'm surprised they didn't think it was worth the effort to promote Krackel more.  In any case, Crunch-vs-Krackel really does show the power of marketing.  If Hershey really wanted to sell the Krackel bar today, I think they'd be better off giving it the iconic brown wrapper and simply calling it "Heshey's Milk Chocolate with Puffed Rice".

Speaking of iconic things related to chocolate, I re-watched the 1971 Willy Wonka movie ( with my kids ) a few days ago.   Seeing my kids watch it reminded me of what it was like to watch the movie as a child ( I must have been about 5 or 6 the first time I watched it on TV ).  While my kids loved it, and I love it now, I was absolutely terrified by that movie the first time I watched it.  I really though all those naughty kids were being killed each time they got eliminated from the competition.

Sucked under liquid chocolate and then fired like a cannon?
Getting the juiced squeezed out of your bloated body?
Falling down a chute that leads to an incinerator?
Being stretched like taffy?

Those Oompa Loompas scared me shitless.  They were like tiny little Angles of Death.  After watching that movie at the age of 5 or 6 six, I don't think I had the stomach to watch it again until I was about 13.

When I watched it a few days ago, I was struck by the traits that were considered to be signs of a poorly-raised child back in 1971 ( and back in 1964 when the book was written ).  I'm not surprised that one of "bad" kids was a spoiled brat, and gluttony's certainly not an admirable trait, but gum-chewing and TV-watching?  Really, Dahl couldn't think of anything worse than a kid who chews gum and a kid who watches TV?  Was gum-chewing really a big concern around 1964?  Sure, I guess it's bad manner's to chew gum with your mouth open, but if "she chews too much gum" is the worst thing somebody can say about your kid, then your kid is doing fine.

The "watches too much TV" kid is the most outdated reference in the movie.  In the age of the Internet and video games, most kids of today wouldn't understand why anyone would want to watch lots of TV.  Of course back in the 60s/70s, there were only a few stations, and the majority of shows on TV were mindless dreck.  Of course there's plenty of stupid TV shows today, but in the age of cable TV, you could spend all day watching intelligent programming on TV.  The age of the "boob tube" is over ( Hell, it's not even a tube anymore, though I must admit the HBO does show plenty of boobs ).  Considering how many devices people can use to view video content, people generally think of the content before they even consider the medium that delivers the content.

Anyway, I think it's just interesting to consider how much the world has changed in the last 40 years or so.  Interesting, but also a bit depressing it, because it makes me feel old.  I certainly think we live in a better world than we did 40 years ago, but did I really need to age 40 years to get to that world?

Oh, to end this on a lighter note, if you love the Willy Wonka movie, then you've got to see this:



Rich

A "brief" facebook tangent and Affirmative Action

The genesis of this post is a discussion I had on facebook - actually my wife's facebook account rather than my own.  As my small band of regular blog readers already knows, I still don't have a facebook account under my real name.  I know that may sound odd in this day and age, so I'll briefly explain why.

My first internet presence was on YouTube.  At some point in late 2006 or early 2007, I created a YouTube account with the Jets-inspired name MoLewis57 in order to make a comment on a video about Tom Brady.  Over time I became a fan of a few prominent YouTube vloggers of the day, and I was eventually inspired to make YouTube videos of my own.  I wound up making well over 100 videos, the vast majority of which were posted between September 2007 and February 2009.  Back then, I resolved to get myself a YouTube following without relying on family or friends at all ( I eventually did gain a modest audience - by the time I stopped making regular videos I had about 250 subscribers about 50 of which would comment on videos on a semi-regular basis ).  So, I didn't share my channel with the vast majority of my family and friends ( I didn't share it with any family/friends at all until I felt I had built up a decent audience on my own ), and I never used my real last name in any video or video comment.  I was also worried that the videos I was making might be in violation of my company's social media policy and I didn't want to risk getting in trouble at work.

So, I had resolved to be anonymous on the internet, and as my internet presence grew to include Twitter, Blogger, and facebook, I kept using the anonymous  "MoLewis57" name, and restricted my internet friends/followers to people I didn't know in real life ( There were eventually a handful of exceptions to this, but they were people who were generally not friends ( internet or real-life ) with most of the people I had befriended at Stuyvesant/Cornell ).

About 5 and a half years ago, my wife got her own facebook account.  She really had no intention of participating in social media , but she wanted to look at her friend's facebook pages to see stuff like baby pictures and the like ( Note: She's actually quite apprehensive about posting pictures of our own kids online, though I did convince her lately to post family photos from our recent Vegas trip to her facebook page ( Conversely, my "MoLewis" facebook page consists of almost nothing but posts/photos of our kids )).

Over the years, lots of my wife's friends and my friends have become part of the same social circles, so it wasn't long before my wife's list of facebook friends included most of my friends as well.  For a long time, I was content just to follow my friends' post on my wife's facebook page, but lately I've been participating a bit on my wife's page - participating so much that I've seriously considered switching my "MoLewis" facebook account over to my real name, and facebook-friending most of my real friends ( Advantage: I wouldn't have to put "From Rich" every time I post to my friends from my wife's facebook account.  Disadvantage: Candy Crush stuff, Farmville updates and all the other facebook game crap I couldn't care less about. ).

My recent participation in my wife's facebook page is primarily due to my interaction with two people: Johnny and Jerry.

Johnny is a friend of mine from Cornell ( we actually both went to Stuyvesant as well, but I didn't meet him until we got to Cornell ).  We roomed together during our sophomore year at Cornell, played quite a bit of pool together, and had a quite a few adventures ( including my first trip outside the good old USA ) that I won't go into here.  We both have our own lives and families these days, and I see him about as much as I see my other Cornell friends ( which is almost never, considering that I'm far too lazy make an effort to keep in touch with people these days - I've just been relying on weddings and kids birthday parties to do the "keeping in touch" work for me ).  However, while I don't see him much these days, he's one of the people that made college fun for me, and I still consider him to be a friend and an upstanding guy ( despite that fact that he's a Yankees fan and jumped-ship to become a Giants fan after the Jets lost the January 1983 AFC Championship game ).

Jerry also went to Stuyvesant and Cornell.  We didn't know each other at Stuy, and I don't think we exchanged any words between us at Cornell other than greetings in the presence of mutual friends.  However, we had enough mutual friends that I did hear some stories about him during our Cornell days and he very well may have heard some stories about me ( Let's face, it if you leave college without leaving behind some embarrassing stories about yourself, then you weren't really trying. ).  In any case, I think Jerry and my wife became facebook friends primarily because his sister and Ruth's sister are really good friends.

Over the years, I found myself reading's Jerry's post more often than the posts of any of my wife's other facebook friends, because Jerry I an occupy the same part of the political spectrum ( The part of the spectrum to the left of most politicians in the Democratic party ).  I agreed with most of his posts, and I enjoyed reading the arguments he would have with those on the Right who disagreed with him.  I never felt a need to participate in these discussions ( after all, this was my wife's facebook account, not mine ), but that started to change when Johnny started commenting on Jerry's posts.

Johnny's certainly to the right of me on the political spectrum, but I would not consider him to be Far Right.  In fact, I'd be very surprised to find out that he hasn't voted for both Democrats and Republicans over the years.  However, Johnny's political views are the kind of views that might be more likely to incite facebook vitriol from Liberals than the political views of the Far Right.  I've got a feeling that some Liberals consider those on the Far Right to be a lost cause not worth worrying about, but they may be more incensed by moderates who help Republicans get elected by being "willfully ignorant" ( I'm pretty sure that's a direct quote from one of the facebook quotes directed at Johnny. ).

In any case, some of the facebook arguments between Johnny and Jerry were not pretty, and it made me want to get involved.  While I agreed with the substance of most of Jerry's political statements, let's just say that we have different ideas about the best way to engage those on the other side of a political issue.  Also, while I can't read Jerry's mind, I believe that I'm probably more cynical about politics than he is, and that cynicism extends to both Democratic politicians and Liberal media outlets.  So, when Johnny would comment that Obama was being dishonest or that MSNBC is biased, Jerry would be more likely to defend Obama or MSNBC, while my response would be something along the lines of "Of course Obama is being less than honest - that's what any successful politician needs to do" or "Yeah, MSNBC is hard on the Right and takes it easy on the Left - what else is new?  Even so, it's still a helluva lot more 'Fair and Balanced' than Fox".

Back in February, I got engaged in a facebook discussion about a post Jerry made about Ron Paul and the MLK holiday.  I made the following comment about Libertarians and Civil Rights ...

Me: All that being said, if somebody did intentionally leave out the "pro-communist philanderer" part in an attempt to make Paul look racist, then they are being deceptive and missing the real insidiousness of the types of policies Libertarians like Paul support. Libertarians like Paul are against the Civil Rights Act of 1964 ( Rand Paul has openly stated he's against it - I'll admit that I'm taking an educated guess that his dad feels the same way ) because they feel that government shouldn't be able to tell a private business what to do. I believe that most Libertarians are sincerely non-racist when it comes to interpersonal relations, but they also sincerely feel that if an owner of a private business wants to run his business in a racist way, the government should not be able to force him to do otherwise. They feel that people would have eventually started to shun racist businesses like "Whites Only" restaurants and that basic market forces would have eventually eliminated such racists businesses. However, in a place like the Deep South, that might have taken 1000 years to happen, and as they say, "Justice delayed is justice denied". This type of Libertarian philosophy is insidious because it allows people to support racists policies without feeling racist. That's more dangerous than straight-up in-your-face racism.

(  BTW, I few weeks after a made the post above, I saw a news story which illustrates exactly the kind of Libertarian thinking I was talking about.  See this article, particularly the following quote from a GOP lawmaker:

'"If someone was a member of the Ku Klux Klan, and they were running a little bakery for instance, the majority of us would find it detestable that they refuse to serve blacks, and guess what? In a matter of weeks or so that business would shut down because no one is going to patronize them,” Jensen told the Journal, advocating for the free market's role in promoting civil rights.' )

... and then Johnny and I had the exchange below ...

Johnny: Rich, interesting view on the Libertarians. I don't know much about them other than the basics. I had not thought of taking such views to that extreme. I think the govt SHOULD protect its citizens against things like racism. But it should do so equally, and the lefties seem to see racism from only one side. the righties? They probably do too, but they aren't even allowed to talk about racism except in code words. LOL

Me: I don't think the racial justice policies of the government can be color-blind until economic and political power is distributed more evenly among the racial groups in this country. A black business owner who wants to institute a "Blacks Only" hiring policy is just as racist as a white business owner who want to institute a "Whites Only" hiring policy, but racist white business owners have the potential to inflict far greater harm on society than racists black business owners, simply because whites have so much more economic power than blacks in this country. I'm not suggesting that laws should ignore racism against whites ( or any race ), but considering that all governments have limited resources, I think it makes make sense for laws and policies to be designed with a focus on racism-by-whites rather than racism-against-whites. This is why I don't have a problem with non-color-blind policies like affirmative action ( though I do think such policies need to be employed more intelligently to keep them from sometimes hurting the people they are trying to help. Malcolm Gladwell's take on this in "David and Goliath" is quite fascinating ) in today's USA. However, in tomorrow's USA, today's affirmative action laws would be silly. As most of us know, more than half the babies been born in the USA are non-white, so in a 100 years or so, whites will no-longer have the vast majority of economic power in the USA. I'll admit that phasing out obsolete affirmative action policies will be a challenge in the future, but I still think it is better to have such policies today than not have them.

Johnny: But Rich, isn't that similar to the Libertarian stance of wait it out, society will correct the wrongs? I believe in equal opportunity and meritocracy. Lowering standards to let a particular group pass the exam is wrong. Forcing a somewhat arbitrary percentage of new hires to be from a certain background is wrong. Further, I would say such practices promote the concept that the groups being "helped" are somehow inferior and in need of special rules to succeed.

Me: Actually Johnny, I don't think I'm making anything close to a Libertarian argument. A Libertarian might argue that we don't need Affirmative Action policies because demographic changes will eventually make Affirmative Action policies obsolete. I'm acknowledging that demographic changes will eventually make Affirmative Action policies obsolete, but I think we still need them now. However, I will admit that my feelings about Affirmative Action are conflicted and quite complicated - too complicated to sum up in a facebook post. All I'll say for now is that Affirmation Actions acts as a rather flimsy band-aid on a gaping wound in our society. I might have more to say later, but if I do, I'll write it a blog post and link to it.

Anyway, after more than a month, I've finally found the time to make that blog post.

As I implied above, I'm not an unadulterated fan of Affirmative Action.  There are all sorts of problems with Affirmative Action and I think there are better ways to create a more level playing field between racial and socioeconomic groups ( For example, as I mentioned in my "Occupy Wall Street, the 1%, and the Lucky Coin" post, I think that public school funding needs to be made more equitable between rich neighborhoods and poor neighborhoods ).

However, as Bill Clinton once said, I'm definitely in the "Mend it, don't end it" camp when it comes to Affirmative Action.

Before I get into why we should not "end it", I'd like to give an example of why we do need to "mend it".

A few months ago I read Malcom Gladwell's new book "David and Goliath".  One of the chapters in that book made me reconsider some of my ideas about Affirmative Action.

Malcolm Gladwell is a hell of a writer, but he's also the King of drawing broad conclusions based on anecdotal evidence.  That being said, I think there is some real substance behind the information he presents in the "Caroline Sacks" chapter in his new book ( and in pages 284-287 in the "Notes" section of the book ).

( Gladwell cites the academic articles below ...

http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs10648-008-9075-6

http://www.dartblog.com/documents/Elliott%20and%20Strenta.pdf

http://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ798217

http://ideas.repec.org/p/van/wpaper/vuecon-sub-13-00009.html

... plus research from the book below:

http://www.amazon.com/Mismatch-Affirmative-Students-Intended-Universities/dp/0465029965

One of the authors of the book above recently participated in an NPR debate about this premise of his book.  I've provided a link to that debate below:

http://www.npr.org/2014/03/26/293767851/debate-does-affirmative-action-on-campus-do-more-harm-than-good

)

The primary conclusion of all the research above can be summarized as follows:

Consider two students ( student A and student B ) with equal academic credentials.  Let's say that Student A decides to attend a college in which he or she is among the least academically qualified of the entering freshman ( let's say the bottom 20% ).  Meanwhile, student "B" decides to attend a school at which he or she has academic qualifications in line with the average incoming freshman.  On average, student B will have a much more successfully academic career and post-academic career than student A.  If student A and B are both STEM majors ( Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics ), student B is more likely to remain a STEM major, and if Student A and B both wind up in the same post-college profession, student B is likely to have a more successful career.  If student A and B are law students, student B is more likely to pass the bar exam on the first try.

The same type of pattern holds ( though to a lesser extent ) if student A enters a school at which he/she has average academic credentials ( relative to his or her peers at the school ) and student B enters a school at which his/her academic credential are better than 80% than his/her peers.

Basically, doing poorly academic is bad for long-term success ( even at elite schools ) and doing great academically is great for long-term success ( even at average schools ).

Of course, not everyone will fit the "average" profile of the studies above ( There are a small percentage of people who will always rise to the challenge when placed in a difficult academic environment, and who will "play down to the competition" when then are placed in a non-challenging environment.  Those sorts of people should clearly always go to the most challenging school they are accepted to, but the studies above show that these types of people are the exception rather than the rule. ),  but the results of these studies have obvious implications for Affirmative Action.

It seems like we need to re-think how Affirmative Action is implemented in higher education.  The whole point of Affirmative Action is to help people.  It's a good thing to acknowledge the economic hardships, dangerous neighborhoods, family instability ( Ex: The absence of a father ), and sub-par public schools experienced by a disproportionate percentage of young people in the black community make it harder for the average black high school student to be as prepared for college as the average student of other races.  However, it's not a good thing to place these unprepared students into the very situations they are unprepared for.  We shouldn't just say "Well, you're not really prepared to handle the academic demands of Harvard.  Anyway, we'd like you to attend Harvard.  Good Luck!".  For Affirmative Action to really work in higher education we need to take to ...

1) Reduce the amount of preference given when admitting students under affirmative action ( Ex: If the average combined Math/Verbal SAT score of a student admitted to a college is 1400, and the average student admitted via Affirmative Action is has an SAT score of 1200, change the Affirmative Action criteria so that the average SAT score of an Affirmative Action student admitted in 1300 ).

2) Institute as many programs as possible to help Affirmative Actions students boost their credentials between the time they are admitted to the school and when freshman year begins.  I'm sure that a lot of elite schools already have programs like this, but more schools should have them, and even schools that already have them should try to do more.  If an institution is really committed to "diversity" ( rather than just paying it lip service ), then making sure you have diversity in your incoming freshmen class is not enough.  You should do what you can to help prepare any person you decided to admit to your school with less-than adequate academic qualifications ( even if that means offering optional free summer prep-classes after Freshmen/Sophomore/Junior years for any Affirmative Action students who are struggling. ).  If the Affirmative Actions students who are making your school "diverse" are dropping out of school at a higher rate than other students ( which certainly must be happening today, considering the studies above show that Affirmative Action students get lower grades than other students ), then you won't have the "diversity" you claim to care about in your graduating class.

Of course, some might say we shouldn't bother trying "to mend" broken Affirmative Action policies at all.  Many conservatives ( and a fair number of moderates ) feel that Affirmative Action is "reverse discrimination" which should be eliminated altogether.  Well, If you're a person who feels this way, consider the following scenario:

Pretend that you are married and have a 2-month-old child.  Pretend that some all-powerful being ( God, Aliens, Google, Nate Silver, or whatever great power you might choose to believe in ) tells you that you and your spouse will both die tomorrow, but that you will be given some input on the fate of your baby.  You are told that your child will be placed in the care of a random American family, and your child's appearance will be magically changed to match the race of the host family ( yes, if a mixed race couple is randomly chosen, your child will be mixed-race ).  The host family will accept the child as their own - the memory of the parent(s) will be magically altered so they'll believe that the child is their biological child.  However, the family will be chosen completely at random - the family could be a wealthy couple who lives in a mansion or a homeless single mother.  The all-powerful being gives you only one say in the matter.  You are given the opportunity to eliminate all families of one race from the pool of families before the random choice is made.  Given such a choice, which race do you eliminate from consideration as the host family for your child ( The all-powerful being insists that you make a choice.  He's says he'll kill your baby too if you don't make a choice - he's a bit of an Old Testament all-powerful being. )?

So, which race do you "vote off the island", so to speak?  Which race gives your child the least chance to be successful in America?  Well, if you truly believe that Affirmative Action is "reverse discrimination" which gives black people an unfair advantage over all other races, then the last type of family you'd eliminate from consideration would be a black family.  In fact, if you really thought "reverse discrimination" was real, you'd tell that all-powerful being to make sure your child didn't grow up as a white person in a white family, because all that "reverse discrimination" makes it too hard for a white person to succeed in American society.

Well, I've written far to much to want to waste another paragraph stating the obvious, so I'll let you draw your own conclusions.  I'll let you decide if we really live in society where black people have all sorts of advantages over other races thanks to the "reverse discrimination" of Affirmative Action.

Rich

Sochi? So what!

Oh Winter Olympics, how I tire of you!

Back when I was kid, I loved the Winter Olympics, but it's been a long time since it's excited me.

There are two reasons for this:

1) Way too much figure skating coverage.
2) Too much X-games crap.

Now, don't get me wrong, I don't mind figure skating.  I watched all the Olympics figure skating in the 80's.  However, back then, it was just on for a few hours a night for a couple of nights during the Olympics.  Now it seems like it's on all the time.  4 years ago, NBC spent hours showing a post-competition figure skating exhibition rather than real Olympics events.  I understand why NBC is doing this.  I understand that figure skating gets big ratings, but it's all a little bit much for me.

I know my complaint about the X-games stuff might make me seem like an old-fogey, but I've never been a big fan of sports with subjective judging ( I get more than enough of that from figure skating )  and there's nothing more subjective about deciding who flipped around on a snowboard with the most style.  I also can't help but get the impression that the competitors care too much about style at the expense of substance.  All the snowboards seem to wear coats with hoodies, and air-catching hoodies are the last thing I would want to wear while I was flying through the air and flipping around.  I'll also never forget how Lindsey Jacobellis blew the gold medal in 2006 by being a hot dog at the end of the race:



However, the biggest reason the X-games stuff bothers me, is that I believe these events have been added deliberately to boost the medal totals for the USA ( The USA invented most of these winter X-games sports, so we are clearly going to do well in them ).  Gold medals for the USA means higher TV rating in the USA which means more money for everybody associated with the Olympics.  I guess you can't blame people for trying to make more money, but that doesn't mean I have to like it.  I'm a purist when it comes to most sports, and just as I don't like all the extra rounds of revenue-generating baseball playoffs, I don't like the traditional sports of the Winter Olympic being overshadowed just so bigwigs associated with the Olympics can line their pockets.

In any case, I have a solution for all this.  I found a way to put the traditional Winter sports back in the spotlight in a way that will make for engaging TV.

You've heard of the decathlon; you've heard of the heptathlon; you may have even heard of the Winter Olympics sport biathlon - well, forget all that!  I've got something that tops all that - introducing ....

THE SNOWATHLON!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The snowathlon will consist of 6 traditional Winter Olympics events.  It will take place over 6 days, and the winner will be crowned "The Greatest Winter Athlete in the World."

Much like the decathlon and heptathlon, competitors in the snowathlon will amass points in each event  depending on how well they do, and the points will be combined into a total snowathlon score.  The schedule of events will be as follows:

Day 1 : Figure Skating

That's right, figure skating.  We want to get TV viewers invested in the snowathlon contestants as early as possible, and what better sport to start with than the most popular Winter Olympics sport?  Besides, as you'll see from the events below,  snowathlon competitors will need to compete in all sorts of macho events.  There will be few things more entertaining that watching the macho male snowathlon competitors try to be graceful om the ice ( Think Emmitt Smith on "Dancing with the Stars", but on ice ).

Day 2: Speed Skating - 500 meter race

Much like the 100 meter dash in the decathalon, this sprint will test the explosive power of the competitors.

Day 3: Luge

Who doesn't like Luge?  Who wouldn't be thrilled to watch relatively inexperience lugers risk life-and-limb on the Luge track?

Day 4: Alpine Skiing - Downhill Race

Another exciting popular sport with just enough danger to keep you on the edge of your seat.

Day 5: Ski Jump

... AND ... we've managed bump up the danger factor another notch!  Just imagine surviving the Luge and the Downhill, only to have to tackle the Ski Jump the next day.

Day 6: Cross Country Skiing - 15 K race

I know that cross country skiing doesn't seem that exciting ( because it's not! ), but don't worry, I've found a way to bump up the drama.

I love the decathlon, but one of my biggest problems with it is that the final event is often anti-climactic.  The decathlon ends with a 1500 meter race - a race that most decathlon winners are not very good at.  The 1500 meter race is the only decathlon event that tests endurance, so elite decathletes with great speed and strength often enter the last event with a significant lead over the decathletes who excel at the 1500 meters.  So, it's not uncommon for the decathlon winner to finish half a lap behind the winner of the 1500 meter event.  It just doesn't seem right for the decathlon winner to finish in the back of the pack in the last event.

The snowathlon will have no such problems, because the 15 K cross country skiing race will feature a staggered start.  Whoever leads in the point standings after 5 events will get to start the race first.  All other competitors will start the race later, depending on how many points they are behind the leader.  Once all competitors have started the race, the points no longer matter.  The person who crosses the finish line first will be the winner of the snowcathlon ( Yes, I stole the idea from "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire" - so sue me! ( Unless you happen to be J. K. Rowling - in that case, please don't sue me! )).  

Just imagine how exciting this could be.  The point leader after 5 events might be a poor cross-country skier.  He ( or she - I want there to be a men's and women's snowcathlon ) is given a huge head start, but the rest of the field starts to gain on him rapidly as soon as they hit the course.  The leader struggles as the race wears on - he keeps looking over his shoulders.  He's so close to the finish line that he can practically feel the gold medal around he neck, but as you look at his face, you can tell he's close to passing out.  Meanwhile, the guys in second is moving like a freight-train.  You can almost feel his rapid breathes coming out of the TV screen.  Forget passing out - this guy's heart might explode!  It's only a matter of time before he catches the leader, but will he have enough time?

Yes, SNOWATHLON!  Hey, Winter Olympics, if you want me back, you gotta give me some SNOWATHLON!  I know it's a crazy idea, but as the old saying goes, "It's so crazy, that it just might work!"

Rich