October Monsters

October in the USA is generally a good time to talk about scary monsters.  Most years, these monsters are just part of the Halloween fun, but this year, a different category of monsters has been in the spotlight.  These monsters have existed throughout all of human history, but only recently have we paid enough attention to them.  These monsters aren't goblins, ghosts, and ghouls, but instead go by names like Weinstein, Toback, and Halperin.  As scary as these monsters are, what's even more scary is the realization that so many more of these monsters are still lurking in the shadows.

While it's horrible that these men did such horrible things to women, it's great that so many of their victims have decided to speak out, and that millions of other woman have joined them in the #MeToo social media campaign.  Sexual harassment is a gigantic pervasive problem in our world, and I don't think it is going to get any better unless more people are willing to accept how gigantic and pervasive this problem is.

Let me be clear; when I say "more people" need to accept how big the problem is, I'm almost exclusively talking about men.  It's clear from the #MeToo campaign and the stories women have told me, that the vast majority of women understand how big the problem is ( unfortunately, the majority of woman understand this on personal level ).

From what I've seen on social media, a large percentage of men don't believe that sexual harassment is a big problem.  Rather than trying to do anything constructive to deal with the problem of sexual harassment, a lot of men defensively make the "Not all men" argument.

Well, I'm here to tell you that it is all men.  I'm not saying that all men sexually harass women or even that all men have the potential to harass women.  What I am saying is that all men have a monster inside them - a monster that each man needs to acknowledge and manage in order to keep himself from turning into the kind of a man who could sexually harass women.

There is no doubt in my mind that the monster is inside of me, and you'd have no doubt too if you could read my mind.  On a purely rational and and intellectual level, I'm against the objectification of women and understand how it damages the lives of women, but my libido doesn't agree.  My libido objectifies women all the time - every day, multiple times a day.   My libido has never filled my head with thoughts of sexual assault, sexual harassment, or anything non-consensual, but I've objectified women in my head in every other way imaginable.  I'm confessing this not because I'm proud of this, or because I'm going to enjoy the blowback and judgement that might be coming my way, but because I feel it needs to be said - not just by me, but by all men.

I have no way to know what's in the minds of other men, but I'm almost certain that all men have the same type of monster inside them that I have.  I believe this partly because I've heard my share of "locker room talk" in my life, and mostly because I believe natural selection makes it inevitable.

I'm certainly no evolutionary biologist ( so feel free to correct me if you think I'm way off base here ), but I do understand and believe in the basic principals of natural selection, and I believe that millions of years of natural selection has shaped the kinds of people we are today.

From the time our human ancestors first started walking upright, millions of years passed before anything close to a civilization emerged.  The vast majority of human evolution occurred in those millions of years before civilization developed.

During those millions of years there obviously wasn't any birth control and there wasn't any widespread cultural expectation of monogamy ( There were certainly couples that were  monogamous and I'm sure there were some human tribes that prized monogamy, but without civilization, there could not have been widespread cultural expectations of monogamy. ( because there would not have been much of a culture) ).  In the pre-civilization, pre-birth control years, it seems like common sense to me that the men genetically predisposed to be promiscuous would impregnate more women than men genetically predisposed to be monogamous.  So, if we assume that some of the genes that might make a man more promiscuous are on the Y chromosome, it follows that the genes of the Y chromosome that lead to promiscuity would become more common in men over time, because the promiscuous men would have more offspring.

In any case, all my theory is really asserting is that men are genetically predisposed to be horny.  Whether are not you agree with the way I came to this conclusion, I think we can all agree that I'm not breaking any ground by asserting that nearly all men tend to by horny ( BTW, if I'm not already completely out of my depth by proposing a natural selection theory of libido, I'd be even more out of my depth if I tried to figure out if my theory applies to gay and bisexual men as much straight men.  I do believe that both libido and sexual orientation are strongly influence by genetics, but I'm not even going to try to theorize how all those genes would interact. ).

Of course, being horny isn't a bad thing in of itself.  It is bad if it leads to deception and emotional pain, but I think open promiscuous relationships and polyamorous relationships are perfectly fine.

So, while I think men's libido is part of the "monster" within all men, I don't think it is what makes "the monster" so monstrous.

The real "monster" is the male tendency towards sexual violence and sexual intimidation.  Not everyone will want to hear this, and I'm sure many of you reading this will disagree with me, but I believe the genes associated with sexual violence are baked into every man's DNA.  I'm almost afraid to say this, because it is such a horrible image to evoke, but it seems to me that in the millions of years of human evolution that preceded birth control, the men who were genetically predisposed to rape and sexually intimidate woman would have impregnated more women than men who treated woman with kindness and respect.

In short, I'm saying that the "monster" lurking in every man is his genetic code, a genetic code passed down from a pool of ancestors who almost certainly included men genetically predisposed to commit acts of sexual violence.

Let me make it clear that I'm not making this argument about natural selection and sexual violence to suggest in any way that the evil men who commit these acts of sexual violence are somehow not responsible for their own horrifying actions. On the contrary, I'm trying to make the argument that men need to be far more responsible ( for themselves and for other men ) than they've ever been on the past.  I'm making the argument that there is a monster in every man, because I want every man to be wary of that monster.  I want to make sure every man understand that it is his responsibility that this monster does no harm.

Back in the 70's there was a television show called "The Incredible Hulk", based on the Marvel comic of the same name.  After spending hours thinking about the "monster" inside of each man, I couldn't help but think of Dr. Bruce Banner and the intro to the TV show ( Note: The TV show called him Dr. David Banner for some reason.  For the sake of clarity, I'll just call him "Dr. Banner" going forward. ):



Dr. Banner has a monster inside him, a monster he can't completely control.  At times, this violent monster has complete control, and Dr. Banner cannot do anything about it.

And, yet, as violent and dangerous as this monster is, the monster never kills anyone.  The TV show always made a point of explaining that the monster could never kill anyone, because Dr. Banner would never kill anyone.  Even when the monster was in complete control of Dr. Banner's life, the monster would never commit evil acts, because Dr. Banner was an essentially good person.

Well, I think the same thing applies to the monster that is in every man.  If a man is essentially good inside, the monster inside him will do no harm.  The monster might express itself as extremely powerful libido, but as long as the man has the right positive traits, that monster will do no harm.

Unfortunately, as the #MeToo campaign has illustrated, far too few men have developed the positive personality traits to keep the monster at bay.  I afraid that some men are just lost causes and will never change, but I hope that more men can lean to live their lives based on principles like the ones below:

1) Be good to people.
2) Don't hurt anyone ( physically or emotionally )
3) Consider the feeling of others.
4) Develop your empathy enough that you can imagine the feeling of others.
5) Don't be an asshole.

Principals like these were drilled into me as a child by my parents, so they are second nature to me now.  Any parents with sons should focus on teaching their sons principles like the ones above to make sure the next generation of men are much better than all the previous generations of men.

I know this blog post has been far than my most optimistic one.  After all I've said that all men have monster inside them, and that these monsters can do horrible things.  I've indicated that we need to create a world in which men are better people, but I haven't offered any practical solutions for how we can get there.  Still, I think a good first step to making things better it for men to admit that have a problem, and that they need to do something about it.  Nothing is ever going to get better if men stick their heads in the sand and say "Not all men".  All of us who are men need to understand the horrible things men are capable of, and more importantly, what we are capable, even if we've never had a sexually violent thought in our lives.  Much like Dr. Banner, we need to be vigilant "until we can find a way to control the raging spirit than dwells within us".

< queue sad exit music >



Rich

Jemele Trumps Donald

A few weeks ago, Jemele Hill tweeted that Trump was a "white supremacist", and the Trump administration reacted predictably.  If you've read at least a few of my political blog posts, you know I'm on Jemele's side here, but I also found myself playing a little devil's advocates inside my head regarding the specific charge in Jemele's tweet.  Specifically, I wondered if it was technically accurate to call Trump a "white supremacist".  Now, I firmly believe that anyone who calls participants in a Nazi march "very fine people" deserves to be called a "white supremacist", but the pedantic part of me ( which is a pretty damn big part of me ) couldn't help but wonder if Trump is really a white supremacist deep in his heart, or is he is just pretending to be a white supremacist to secure the votes of white racists ( Because let's face it, Trump can't be re-elected without the enthusiastic support of white racists.  I'm not try to say most Republicans are racist, but I am saying that most white racists in this country vote Republican, and if those white racists stay home on election day, Republicans have no chance at wining a national election. )?

I also spent some time thinking about if there is any practical difference between being a white supremacist in one's heart or pretending to be a white supremacist, and this led me to the following thought experiment:

Consider a wealthy white man from New York City who owns a large national chain of restaurants in the 1960s.  This man grew up in a multi-racial neighborhood, has many close Black friends, has a multi-racial board of directors at his company, and considers himself to be a supporter of Dr. King's movement.  This man eventually gets wind that the operators of most of his restaurants in the South have placed "Whites Only" signs in the windows of his restaurant.  The man decides that he should do something about that, and he instructs his regional managers to get those signs out of the restaurants windows.  He faces great resistance from these managers, but after he make it clear that the regional managers jobs are on the line, he soon finds that about 10% of his restaurants have had the signs removed, and his managers have assured him that they can get the rest of the "Whites Only" signs removed within a year.  He knows that a lot of those regional managers are just stalling, but he's happy with the progress he's made and he vows to himself that he'll keep pushing and prodding his regional managers until all his restaurants are integrated.

However, a month later the first financial reports arrive from his integrated restaurants in the South.  He learns that the revenue from those restaurants has dropped precipitously.  The white patrons left those restaurants in droves as soon as they noticed Black people were allowed in, and there were not enough new Black patrons in those restaurants to make up for the lost revenue from the loss of the white patrons.

After learning this, the wealthy owner decides he doesn't want to lose any more revenue, and indefinitely suspends his program to integrate his restaurants in the South.  He complains to his friends that the South is full of backwards white supremacists who are not ready for integrated restaurants yet.

Now with all that in mind, who do you think is a bigger white supremacist.  Is it ...

1) A racist patron who refused to go to one of the restaurants the wealthy owner was trying to integrate.
OR
2) The wealthy owner himself.

In my mind, despite his personal feelings about race relations, the wealthy owner is the much bigger white supremacist, because his actions have done more to promote that institutional supremacy of the white people than the actions of an individual that refused to enter a restaurant because he saw a Black person it it.

Applying the same kind of logic to Donald Trump, I believe I can now confidently say that Donald Trump is a white supremacists without any reservations.  Regardless of what he might feel deep down in his heart, his actions and his words during his presidency have given comfort and support to white supremacists.

If you are using you power and influence to help white supremacists, then you're a white supremacist in my book, regardless of what your personal feelings may be.

So, to make a long story short, Jemele Hill was right, and a lot more of us should be echoing what she wrote in that tweet.

Rich

To the Extreme

Recently, we've been trying to fill a software developer position in the group I work in, and I've been participating in the interview process.  Generally, each candidates meets with two interviewers at a time, and the interviewers often ask technical questions.  Based on the questions some of my interview partners have asked, and the responses we've gotten from candidates, I've come to the conclusion that I wouldn't be able to perform well enough on these interviews to get a job with my company if I were applying for a position today.  Those interviewing me would almost certainly come to the conclusion that I didn't have what it takes to be a successful software developer at the company.  However, such an assessment would not be accurate, because I've had a very successful 24-year career as a software developer, and if my most recent performance reviews are to be believed, my supervisors and colleges are still very happy with my work today.

So, with that in mind, I started to think about why I've been able to have a successful career at my company, even though I've almost never had a strong technical knowledge of software development relative to my peers.   I came to the conclusion that I'm valued at my company because I'm the kind of person who just gets things done.  I may not know all the latest technical tools and techniques off the top of my head, but I realized that when given an issue to tackle, I was going to be able to figure out the best way to resolve it.   While thinking about this, I actually had the following thought in my head.

"Give me a problem, and I'll solve it!"

It was then that I realized, much to my chagrin, that any level of success I've had in my 24-year career is based on the philosophy of Vanilla Ice.

Rich ( The Vanilla Ice of Software Developers )

Take My Yacht, Please!

A week or so ago, I shared the photo above on my facebook page.  After posting it, I started to think about a specific objection my Right-leaning friends and family might have to it, and I've decided to address some of these potential objections in this blog post.

What follows will be an imagined conversion between somebody who objects to the position above, and me.  Everything in red below is from the perspective of somebody who objects to the idea of raising taxes to provide universal healthcare, and everything in blue represents my position.

It's fine that you are willing pay for universal healthcare out of you own pocket, but that doesn't mean the federal government should force other people to support it.  You might be able to afford higher taxes, but there are plenty of middle class people who can't.

Well, I believe universal healthcare system will lower health care costs enough for the middle class that it would be offset the any tax increases on the middle class.  I'm not saying universal healthcare would be a magic bullet that would be a net benefit to everybody.  Some people are definitely going to pay more in in taxes to support universal healthcare than they would get back in benefits from a universal health care system.  I get that - that was my whole point of posting the meme above.  If we ever have universal healthcare in this country, I'm certainly going to be one those people who pays more in universal healthcare taxes, then they get back in universal healthcare benefits.

Once again, that's your choice to pay more taxes, but I don't buy your argument that there will not be a significant new tax burden on the middle class.

I'll willing to completely cede you point that taxes will be higher for the middle class.  If a USA with universal healthcare taxes are going to be higher for everybody.  However, I still believe that the momentary value provided by the benefits of universal healthcare will be higher than the cost of the higher taxes for middle class.

All I'm hearing from you is that you want more taxes and a larger federal government.

Yeah, I'm not denying that.  If we want to provide universal healthcare, the government is going to have to be bigger and taxes are going to higher, but I still think it's going to be a net benefit for the vast majority of people in this country.

It seems like you are making the ridiculous assumption that a government-run health care system is going to be run efficiently enough to avoid huge costs that will lead to a tax burden that far overwhelms any benefits it provides.  Since when has the government run anything efficiently?

I can't possibly imagine how a government-run health care system could possibly be less efficient that the current US health care system.  Year after year, studies show that the US spends far more on healthcare than all other industrialized nations, and the health outcomes in the US are among the worst.  I think the biggest reason for this is that the for-profit US healthcare system doesn't benefit from reduced healthcare cost and better health outcomes.   Theoretically, if the US private healthcare system came up with drugs and clinical methods to keep people healthy all the time, all these US health insurance companies and pharmaceutical companies would go out of business.  The privately-run US healthcare system profits from sickness rather than health.  There is no incentive to keep healthcare cost down, because high healthcare costs keep everyone in the private system in business.

Conversely, government-run healthcare systems have a large incentives to keep costs down by keeping people healthy.  They manage to keep costs down and keep people healthy by adhering to the "ounce of prevention" rule.  Other industrialized nations focus more on regular preventative care than on  expensive procedures.  This incentive to keep costs down exists because the less the government needs to spend on healthcare, the more money they have have available to give provide services to and/or give tax break to their citizens.  Lower taxes or more generous government services leads to happy voters which leads to re-elected politicians.  For that reason, a government healthcare system overseen by elected officials will always have cost reduction as a primary goal.

I understand that any government program is going to have bureaucracy and inefficiencies, but I rather have a government healthcare system that is trying to reduce costs than a private healthcare system in which profits rise as healthcare costs go up.

Wait, you're not suggesting that you think doctors and drug companies want people to get sick?

No, I don't think they want people to get sick, but the in the USA, all the financial incentives are in doing expensive procedures and prescribing expensive drugs.  In other countries where the government has to foot the bill for healthcare, there is a bigger focus on preventative care to avoid situations where expensive drugs and procedures are needed.  This leads to lower costs.

Well, it can also lead to governments encouraging doctors to skip on care.  In the UK, the government is offering doctors financial incentives to reduce outpatient referrals.

Is that really any better than insurance companies refusing to pre-approve procedures that a patient needs?  It's true that you can have the freedom to get any medical care you want in the USA, but only if you have the money to pay for it, which a large numbers of Americans don't.  Part of the reason why US healthcare is so expensive is that middle men take a really big cut.  Does it really make any sense that insurance companies executives can make more money than doctors?  That seems immoral to be.  Healthcare expenses should be going to the actually healthcare providers, not to insurance companies.

Well, a lot of those costs go indirectly to lawyers.  Doctors in the USA wouldn't be doing so many expensive tests if they were not worried about being sued for malpractice.  We could cut healthcare costs a lot if you liberals were not always blocking tort reform.

Hey, don't lump me in with the Democratic politicians who are beholden to trial lawyers.  I've actually always been in favor of tort reform.  I agree with you on that point, but it seems like we don't agree on much else.  I don't think were ever going to agree about whether universal healthcare is a good idea, so let's back back to the original issue about taxes. ( Editor Note: This is all I really wanted to "talk" about in this post.  However, my Devil's advocate persona took this post in directions I didn't anticipate it would go. )  I don't think a universal healthcare plan will saddle the middle class with unaffordable taxes.  As I mentioned earlier, I think middle class people will wind up with more money in their pockets due to reduced health care cost.  However, even if you don't believe that, any universal health care system I'd support would be financed by very progressive taxes.  Middle class people would have to pay a healthcare tax, but their tax rate would be much lower than the healthcare tax rates for people at higher income levels.

I don't want middle class people to have to pay taxes they can't afford.  I grew up in a middle class family, and I understand that between things like mortgages expenses, college expenses, car expenses, and the basic necessities of life, middle class families don't have a lot of money to spare.  However, I've been fortunate enough in my life that I do have some money to spare.  I'd be very happy if some my spare money was used to finance a universal healthcare system that would ensure that all my fellow Americans would have access to good healthcare.  Sure, that would mean I'd have less money for other stuff, but I'm okay with that.  I'd be fine with going on vacation a little bit less and staying in slightly less nice hotels.  I'd be fine with spending slightly less on family cars in the future and keeping those cars longer.  I'm fine with having a 60 inch TV instead of a 70 inch TV.  I'm fine with upgrading my laptops less often.  I'm fine the idea of having slightly less money to put into my retirement account each year and delaying retirement by a year to account for that.

I believe that people at a higher income level than me shouldn't mind giving up a little bit more that me to support universal healthcare.  I think people that would usually have a Mercedes and BMW in the garage could get by with a BMW and a Honda instead.  I don't think it would be a big deal if some people couldn't afford a second home or simply bought a smaller second home.  I don't think it would be a big deal if a rich person couldn't afford a yacht, or really rich person couldn't afford that private island.  I think everyone who has worked hard and has succeeded in life is entitled to enjoy some luxuries, but I think every person fortunate enough to be able to afford luxuries should be willing to give up some of those luxuries to make sure all Americans have access to affordable healthcare.

Holy crap, comrade!  You do realize, you sound like a total communist now, or at the very least a socialist.

What you see as socialism, I see as shared sacrifice for our fellow Americans.  I've got no problem with people making money, but I also think we all have a responsibility to make sure our fellow citizen's don't go bankrupt from medical expenses or die from treatable diseases.  Those who have the most money to spare should have the greatest responsibility.  I'm not advocating that money or material goods be distributed equally.  I'm just saying that if higher taxes forced an American billionaire to buy a 300-foot yacht instead of a 400-foot yacht, and some other Americans got 100 yatch-feet worth of extra healthcare, that wouldn't be a bad thing.

I don't even have any yacht money to spare myself, but I do have car, vacation, and TV money I could spare, I'm willing to give it up to help my fellow Americans.

I see where you are coming from, but I completely disagree.  I also don't think you've been quite fair to me in this "argument".  You seem to be able to ramble on for as long as you want, and my concerns just seem to be jumping off points for you rants.  Something's fishy here.

Yeah, well, I had kind of hoped you wouldn't notice, but the sad truth is you don't exist.  You're just a figment of my imagination, and I admit that I haven't given your side of the story of a fair hearing.  I did the best I could, drawing from my memories of being a Reagan-loving conservative back in the 80s,  but you can't really have a good debate on the subject unless you have a real flesh-and-blood person arguing each side.  With that in mind, I'd like to invite any conservatives reading this to put in their own 2 cents, and I will do my best to respond.  You can either comment on this blog directly, or if you found this blog post via facebook, you can comment on the facebook post associated with this blog post.

Hope to hear from you soon!

Rich

Harry Potter and the Lazy Blog Post

This past Monday, The Ringer published the following article to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the release of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone on June 26, 1997 ( It was released in the USA in 1998 as Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone ).

The Ringer article inspired me to write a similar article for my blog.  However, instead ranking all the Harry Potter books and movies, I'm just going to rank the books ( But for what it is worth, I do think Prisoner of Azkaban was the best of the 8 movies.  Alfonso Cuarón did a remarkable job directing that movie.  I loved how he used the Whomping Willow to mark the changing of the seasons. ).  Before going forward, I should warn anyone who hasn't read all the Harry Potter books that this post will be full of spoilers.  Of course, if you haven't read all the Harry Potter books already, you should stop reading this blog post immediately and get your hands on all of the books you haven't read already.

Before getting to my rankings, I'd like to write a little bit about how I came to be a Harry Potter fan.  I was a little bit later to the party than most Potterheads.  I was 28  and childless when the first book was released in the USA, so it wasn't as if I was looking for children's fiction to read at the time.  I wasn't aware of the Harry Potter universe at all until March of of 2000, when I read the following ( 6-month old ) article on a plane to ( or from ) Taiwan in the following edition of Time magazine.

I was fascinated by the fictional universe described in the article.  A few days later, Ruth went out and got the first 3 Harry Potter books for us, and we've been huge fans ever since.  We took turns reading the first 3 books, and by the time Goblet of Fire came out in July of 2000, we had each just finished Prisoner of Azkaban.  It was tough to wait for Order of the Phoenix after devouring the first 4 books in 3 months, but anything Potter-related is worth the wait ( Well, except for The Cursed Child ).

Anyway, I want this to be a quick post, so rather than give any kind of detailed review of each book, I'm just going to list all seven books from worst to best ( "worst" is a relative term here - I think all the books were great ) and make some comments to explain why I liked some books better than others.  I'm also going to group the books into three tiers of quality, with the first tier being the best.  So, with that said, here are my rankings ...

Tier 3

7) Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

6) Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

As I noted above, I love all the Harry Potter books, but I think these two are a notch or two below the other five.  There is a lot of fascinating exposition in Half-Blood Prince, and Deathly Hallows wouldn't work without all the groundwork laid by it, but I sometimes think that a better name for the book would have been Harry Potter and the Pensive or Harry Potter and the Background Information.  Also, I was never a fan of the Harry/Ginny relationship that begins in this book.  I'd been shipping Harry and Luna since Luna's character was introduced, and I was disappointed to see him wind up with Ginny.  Seriously, Harry makes some odd romantic choices.  He's the most famous wizard in the world, and the two people he decides to hook up with in the series are a girl who is morning her dead boyfriend and his best friend's sister?  C'mon Harry, you're better than that!

As far as Chamber of Secrets goes, all I can say is "meh", and despite the "meh", I still wish it were longer.

Tier 2

5) Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone

4) Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

You can't have a great book series without a great first book, and Sorcerer's Stone certainly fits the bill.  However, as great as Sorcerer's Stone was, I've got to rank Prisoner of Azkaban higher, because Azkaban added richness to the saga that hadn't been there before.  The Azkaban book starts to flesh out Snape's character by giving us a window into his school days with James, Sirius and Lupin.  Almost as significant, the book introduces us to Sirius and Lupin and gives us important information about how and why Harry's parents died.  We learn about both dementors and patronuses, and despite the problematic plot holes that can be introduced by time travel, I really enjoyed the time-turner plot in this book.

Tier 3

3) Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

2) Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

1) Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

It was hard to decide which order to put these three books in, because if I were ranking these books on a scale of 1 to 100, they would all be north of 99.  So, with that in mind, Deathly Hallow's third place finish shouldn't be seen as a knock against it.  Everything from The Prince's Tale going forward just might be the best 100 pages I've ever read, but it ranks behind the other two books because the 658 pages that lead up to the The Prince's Tale do not quite measure up to the top two books on this list.

I don't think there is anything I didn't love about Order of the Phoenix.  I loved the Order; I loved the DA; I loved to hate Umbridge, and I loved the strength, resolve, and determination Harry displayed in defying her.  The Snape/Occlumency stuff was great, the battle at the Department of Mysteries was fantastic, and the Harry/Sirius stuff tugged at your heartstrings in just the right way.  On top of all that, this book had the two greatest badass Dumbledore quotes in the entire series.

"Well -- it's just that you seem to be laboring under the delusion that I am going to -- what is the phrase?  'Come quietly' ..."

"It was foolish to come here tonight, Tom"

It's hard to say exactly why I have Goblet of Fire ranked ahead of Order of the Phoenix.  If I simply added up all the great parts of each book, I think the Order would finish ahead of Goblet.  However, I think Goblet has some kind of special charm that I just can't quantify.  I could point to a lot of great stuff in Goblet like the Quidditch World Cup, the Triwizard Tournament, and the graveyard scene, but the part the really pushes it over the top for me is everything related to the Yule Ball.  I had been hoping that Ron and Hermione would become a couple from the first time they met in that train compartment, and all the Yule Ball stuff finally confirmed they were in love, even though they wouldn't admit it to themselves until years later.  It was also nice to see Hermione finally get the attention she deserved ( from Krum ), and I enjoyed how the Patil sisters left Harry and Ron in a cloud of dust when the boys failed to be good dates.  Most of all, I think I was touched more by Harry's failed attempt to date Cho than his successful attempt in the next book.  I felt an all-too-familiar pit in my stomach when Harry was about to ask Cho to the Yule Ball, and the disappointment he felt afterwards made him a more relatable character than he had ever been before.

I should also mention that it was well worth the 4 books of waiting to finally see Voldemort in the flesh.  Somehow, his duel with Harry in Goblet of Fire was more compelling and emotional that the duel in Deathly Hallows, even though there was clearly more at stake in the Hallows duel.

In the end, you really can't go wrong with any of the Harry Potter books.  There's almost nothing I would change about those book, with the notable exception of the rules of Quidditch.  That whole Golden Snitch thing thing is ridiculous.  Why even bother to try to score goals when the Snitch is worth 150 points?  Why the hell would Krum catch the snitch with his team down 160 points ( What, he couldn't wait a few minutes to see if his team could score two goals to cut the deficit to 140? )?  Seriously, if somebody made me the manager of the Chudley Cannons, I'd moneyball the shit out of that sport.  I'd play with 1 keeper and 6 seekers and we'd catch that snitch long before any of our opponents could accumulate 15 goals.  If I ever found myself in the Harry Potter universe a muggle like me probably wouldn't be able handle a wand, but I sure as hell could be a dominant Quidditch manager.

Rich

P.S.  Seriously, I'd moneyball the shit out of it.

An Ounce of Prevention

This post is inspired by the following opinion piece written by Republican House member Cathy McMorris Rodgers:

My son has a preexisting condition. He’s one of the reasons I voted for the AHCA.

The title of the article alone is preposterous enough ( unless you believe families that rely on health insurance coverage for preexisting conditions would benefit if their health insurance premiums were increased to unaffordable levels ) , but what really got me upset about the article is that it claims the following is major flaw of Obamacare:

"With Obamacare, our health- insurance system relies on younger, healthier people subsidizing the costs of the older and sicker."

Wait a minute!  Isn't that how insurance is supposed to work?  Isn't that the only way insurance can work?  If the healthy don't subsidize the sick in Representative McMorris Rodger's ideal health care system, by what mechanism does she believe a health care system should subsidize care for the sick?

The simple answer is, she doesn't believe healthcare for the sick should be subsidized.  It is more than likely she is philosophically opposed to the government transferring money from from one group of people to another for any reason

She's certainly not an outlier in that regard.  Most Republican politicians feel that way.  If you don't believe this, think back to 2008 when Republicans branded Barack Obama a socialist for being in favor of the United States' progressive income tax system.

Republicans have a fundamental belief that a system that transfers wealth from the well-off ( who they generally believe have earned their success through hard work and wise decisions both in life and business ) to the poor ( who they believe have not worked as hard as those who have achieved success ) is unfair.  They believe it is unfair to the point of being immoral.

I'm not just guessing that Republicans feel that way, I know they do, because more that 3 decades ago I was a Ronald-Reagan-worshiping conservative Republican who felt exactly that way.  The story of how my own political philosophy changed is a story for another day ( though I believe a big part of it had to do with growing up ), because for now I'd like to focus on the flaws in the conservative ideas about fairness.

Regarding the conservative idea of fairness, I've written before about how conservatives seem to ignore the role luck plays in success ( Note: The post in the link to the left is not trying to claim that hard work is not a big part of any success, but it is pointing out that we should not ignore the role of luck in any success story ), how assisting the poor actually makes our nation more competitive than pure social Darwinism ever could,  how "fairness" cannot exists without equal opportunity,  and how even policies that could be unfair to a given individual create a net benefit to society as a whole.  However, rather than revisit all of that here, I'd like to focus on the concept of fairness in healthcare explicitly.  This brings me to the following quote from Republican Representative Mo Brooks that has to be seen to be believed.  See the YouTube clip below ...



For the sake of context and fairness, I'm also going to reproduce his full quote below:

"My understanding is that it ( the AHCA ) will allow insurance companies to require people who have higher health care costs to contribute more to the insurance pool, That helps offset all these costs, thereby reducing the cost to those people who lead good lives, they're healthy, they've done the things to keep their bodies healthy. And right now, those are the people--who've done things the right way--that are seeing their costs skyrocketing.  In fairness, a lot of these people with pre-existing conditions, they have those conditions through no fault of their own, and I think our society, under those circumstances, needs to help. The challenge though is that it's a tough balancing act between the higher cost of these mandates which denies people coverage because they can't afford their health insurance policies...and having enough coverage to help those people truly in need."

I've highlighted the awful thing he said in red and the the reasonable compassionate thing he said in blue.  However, it's worth noting that AHCA policy on pre-existing conditions matches the red part of the quote so the blue part of the quote doesn't really carry any weight.

The AHCA is designed to make sure that those people who have led "good" healthy lives don't have to subsidize a significant amount of health care for the kind of people who have presumably led bad lives.  That idea, in a vacuum, can certainly seem fair to a lot of people.  After all, in theory if guy A and guy B start life with the same genetic advantages and disadvantages, is it fair for guy A to subsidize guy B's healthcare, if guy A works out 5 times week and eats kale every other meal and guy B sits on the couch all day eating chips and drinking soda?

I can understand the appeal of the argument, and I can certainly recognize that under a system like Obamacare, there are certainly some kale-eaters who are subsidizing the health-care of some chip-eaters.  However, despite what Representative Brooks said about helping those with pre-existing conditions, there are no policy prescriptions in the AHCA  that distinguish between the couch-potato who ruined his health one Twinkee at time and a child who is born with a disease.  The AHCA prescribes high risk pools as the solution to the issue of pre-existings conditions without making sure those pools are properly funded.  So, if the AHCA doesn't cover pre-existing conditions in any practical sense of the word "cover", and Republicans have overwhelmingly supported the AHCA ( which they have ), then you really have to question the Republican definition of "fairness".

Is it fair if a child born with a disease cannot get the treatment that he or she needs?  More specifically, is fair if a child of rich parents can get this treatment, while a child of poor parents cannot?

When I was a child, I had very bad asthma - bad enough that I needed to be hospitalized for a week when I was four years old.  My parents were by no means rich, but I was fortunately that my father's job came with good enough health insurance that my family could afford my hospital stay and all the drugs I needed to manage my asthma until I was a young adult.

I'm now a 47-year old man blessed with good health, a good job, a great wife, and two wonderful kids.  I'm convinced that I would not have had all these blessings in my life if my asthma had not been controlled as a child.  I was lucky to have access to the health care I needed, but the health care of a child should not have to rely on luck.  I want every sick child to have access to the kind of health care I had.  Every child should be able to dream of a bright future.  Allowing a manageable/curable childhood illness to take that future away is about the most unfair thing I can think of.

I think of my own children's futures a lot.  To be honest, it keeps me awake at night sometimes, because I'm not 100% sure that their lives will be as fulfilling and fortunate as my life has been.

Both of my boys are on the Autism spectrum.  Thankfully, they've made great strides since the days they were both severely speech-delayed and my wife and I feared the worst and worried that things might never get much better.  They both talk up a storm these days, are taking honors classes, have reports calls full of A's ( straight A's for both of then in the last marking period  ), and have demonstrated the discipline and focus to get their brown belts in jujitsu.  There are still plenty of challenges ahead of them ( neither of my sons have any close friends, Peter has big issues with food and many social issues that require regular sessions with a psychologist, and both boys will probably always be socially awkward. )

Still, as much as I worry as a parent, I'm thankful for all the progress they've made, and know none it would have been possible without the help of all the wonderful speech therapists, child neurologists, psychologists, and teachers ( particularly the Special Ed teachers and Early Intervention teachers ) that have been part of all our lives for past decade-plus.  We've been extremely lucky to have all these people in our lives to help.  I know that not all families are as lucky.  Not every state has Special Education and Early Intervention resources as good as our state, and not every family has the financial resources ( and advocacy resources ) to fill in the gaps that the government is not providing.

It is painful to imagine what my children's lives would be like right now if I were a single parent without many financial resources.   I'm tearing up now just thinking of the tears and frustration they've suffered through over the years and I can't even imagine how painful their life would have been if they had not gotten help.  No child should every have to suffer when help can be made available.

Obamacare isn't perfect, but it made some of that help available for millions of kids.  Now the Republican party wants to take that help away.  In what world does refusing to "share the wealth" to help sick kids qualify as "fairness"?  I don't know, but I know it's world I refuse to live in.

Rich

P.S. Here are some photos of my boys during one of their speech therapy sessions.

Why Can't the Jets Ever Draft a Great QB?

  In 1965, the Jets selected Joe Namath with the first pick in the American Football League ( AFL ) draft, and in January 1969, Namath led the Jets to a their first and only Super Bowl victory by defeating the NFL's powerful Baltimore Colts.

That was as good as it got for the Jets and their fans.  Since joining the NFL as part of the 1970 NFL/AFL merger, the Jets have never managed to draft a great quarterback.  Sure, they've drafted a couple of pretty good quarterback over the years ( Ken O'Brien was among the the NFL's passing leaders for a few years before his tendency to take sacks ( and the concussions that followed ) curtailed his career, and I'm still convinced Chad Pennington could have taken the Jets's to the promised land if he wan't getting injured every other year ( Seriously, if Pennington had stayed healthy, he would have still been the Jets quarterback in 2009 and 2010, and is there any doubt that upgrading from Mark Sanchez to Chad Pennington could have put either the 2009 or  2010 Jets teams ( who both lost in the AFC championship game ) over the top? )), but they've never drafted a great Hall-of-Fame-caliber quarterback.

There was a time when a team could win a Superbowl without a great quarterback ( a lot of people consider the 1985 Bears to be the best football team of all time, and nobody's getting a bust ready for Jim McMahon in Canton ), but because all the recent rules changes have made passing a much more important part of the game ( Ex: You can't hit a quarterback as late as you could in the past; you can't even touch a quarterback at all from the knees down or above the shoulders; you can't hit a receiver hard over the middle; you can't hit a receiver with your helmet; you can't hit a receiver on his helmet; you can't hit a "defenseless receiver" if the ref doesn't think the receiver had enough time to brace for your hit ) it is extremely difficult to win a Super Bowl unless you have a great quarterback.

Since drafting Mark Sanchez with their first pick in the 2009 NFL Draft, the Jets have drafted a defensive player with their first draft pick for the last 8 years in a row.  It's quite possible that the Jets' decisions to draft the "best player available" with their first pick over the last 8 years was the smartest football move to make, but I would have preferred if they had taken the "best quarterback available" a few times with those first picks.  In fact I sometimes wonder if the Jets should just take a quarterback with their first draft pick every year until they luck into a great one.  After all, it is not as if the Jets have always has the greatest luck drafting who they think is the "best player" available with their first draft pick.

Three Notes on the video above:

1) Freeman McNeil should not have been including in that montage.  He was was a really good player who led the league in rushing in 1982 and led the Jets to the  AFC Championship Game that season ( It wasn't his fault that Don Shula intentionally didn't put the tarp down when it rained before the AFC Championship game, effectively shutting down the running game and leading to 5 Richard Todd interceptions ).

2) The video doesn't mention that the Jets wasted their first draft pick on a *kicker* in the 2005 Draft ( Mike Nugent )

3) Since that video was posted in 2006, the Jets have had the following NFL Draft busts:

2008: Vernon Gholston

2009: Mark Sanchez

2010: Kyle Wilson ( Not a giant bust at the 29th overall pick, but still worse than average for a first round pick ).

2012: Quinton Coples

2013: Dee Milliner

2014: Calvin Pryor ( It may be early in his career, but considering the Jets just drafted safeties with the first 2 picks of the 2017 draft, I think it is safe to say that the Jets have given up on him ).

So, I've decided to check who the Jets could had drafted if they had decided to pick the best available quarterback every year with their first draft pick instead of the player they actually picked.  Note, that when I say "best available quarterback", I mean best available quarterback based on the consensus of most NFL evaluators at the time.  This means that I can't switch the Jets year 2000 draft pick to Tom Brady ( even the Patriots didn't think he was worth drafting until the 6th round ).  Also, if the Jets happened to draft a quarterback first in a given year, I'm not going to switch their pick.  Thus, the Jets would still draft Mark Sanchez in 2009 based on my "best quarterback available" rules and they would still draft Ken O'Brien over Dan Marion in 1983.  The "best quarterback available" will be defined as the next quarterback selected in the draft after the Jets made their first pick ( assuming the Jets did not select a QB with their first pick ).  As I write this, I have no idea what QBs were potentially available for the Jets to pick using this "best QB available" system - we're going to find out the answer together.  Also, I realize that the Jets would have drafted at different positions in most of the drafts over the years if they were using the "best QB available strategy" each year ( because drafting different players than they had drafted originally would have resulted in different won/loss records than they'd had originally ), and I realize that drafting a QB every year would not have been practical ( because you can only have 3 QBs on your team at a time and only one QB can get significant playing time in any given year ), but let's just try to have fun with this.  I'm going to start this exercise with the 1977 NFL draft - the first draft after Joe Namath left the team.  I'll also going to indicate if the QB had a better or worse career than the player the Jets picked ( by "career", I mean entire career, not just their career with the Jets).  I'll only indicate if a given player was better or worse than another player if one player had a clearly better career than the other player.  If both players had a roughly equal career, I'm not going to try and decide who was better.

( BTW, sorry for how messy the columns are below.  I tried to keep the columns below in a neat line, but Blogger doesn't seem to support tabbing, and columns that seem to line up in edit mode don't line up after you post to the blog. )

Year    Real Pick                              Best QB Available Pick               QB pick BETTER/WORSE/same
------   ------------                             ---------------------------               --------------------------------------
1977   Marvin Powell                      Steve Pisarkiewicz                       WORSE    
1978   Chris Ward                            Doug Williams                             BETTER
1979   Marty Lyons                          Steve Fuller                                  WORSE
1980   Johnny "Lam" Jones              Marc Wilson                                 same
1981   Freeman McNeil                   Rich Campbell                             WORSE
1982   Bob Crable                           Oliver Luck                                  WORSE
1983   Ken O'Brien                          Ken O'Brien                                 same
1984   Russel Carter                        Boomer Esiason                           BETTER
1985   Al Toon                                 Randall Cunningham                    BETTER    (Note 1)
1986   Mike Haight                          Jack Trudeau                                same
1987   Roger Vick                            Jim Harbaugh                               BETTER
1988   Dave Cadigan                       Tom Tupa                                     BETTER    (Note 2)
1989   Jeff Lagerman                       Mike Elkins                                  WORSE
1990   Blair Thomas                        Andre Ware                                  WORSE     (Note 3)
1991   Browning Nagel                   Browning Nagel                           same
1992   Johnny Mitchell                    Tommy Maddox                           same          (Note 4)
1993   Marvin Jones                        Billy Joe Hobert                          WORSE
1994   Aaron Glenn                         Perry Klein                                  WORSE
1995   Kyle Brady                           Todd Collins                                WORSE    (Note 5)        
1996   Keyshawn  Johnson               Tony Banks                                  WORSE
1997   James Farrior                        Jim Druckenmiller                       WORSE            
1998   Dorian Boose                        Charlie Batch                               BETTER
1999   Randy Thomas                       Brock Huard                                WORSE
2000   Shaun Ellis                            Chad Pennington                           got both    (Note 6)
2001   Santana Moss                        Drew Brees                                  BETTER
2002   Bryan Thomas                       Patrick Ramsey                            WORSE
2003   Dewayne Robertson              Byron Leftwich                            same        (Note 7)
2004   Jonathan Vilma                      J. P. Losman                                 WORSE
2005   Mike Nugent                          Charlie Frye                                WORSE   (Note 8)  
2006   D'Brickashaw Ferguson        Matt Leinart                                 WORSE
2007   Darrelle Revis                      Brady Quinn                                 WORSE        
2008   Vernon Gholston                   Joe Flacco                                    BETTER              
2009   Mark Sanchez                       Mark Sanchez                               same       (Note 9)  
2010   Kyle Wilson                         Jimmy Clausen                              meh
2011   Muhammad Wilkerson          Andy Dalton                                 WORSE  (Note 10)
2012   Quinton Coples                     Brandon Weedon                          same
2013   Dee Milliner                         EJ Manuel                                    BETTER (Note 11)      
2014   Calvin Pyror                         Johnny Manziel                            WORSE
2015   Leonard Williams                 Garret Grayson                            WORSE
2016   Darron Lee                           Paxton Lynch                                Too early to tell  
2017   Jamal Adams                        Patrick Mahomes II                      Too early to tell          
                                                    

Note 1: Al Toon was one of my favorite Jets ever but he's not better than Randall Cunningham.

Note 2: Tom Tupa was drafted as a QB and started his career playing QB, but eventually became a very good punter.  If you don't think Tom Tupa is a legit choice, it is worth noting that the next QB selected in that draft ( Chris Chandler ) also had a better career than Dave Cadigan.

Note 3: This may be hard to believe, but as big a bust as Blair Thomas was, Andre Ware was clearly a worse player.  Thomas had twice as many career rushing yards as Ware had career passing yards.

Note 4: If you put a gun to my head I'd say Maddox's two years as a mediocre starting QB in Pittsburgh trumps anything Mitchell did in his five years in the league, but Mitchell did have more NFL starts than Maddox, and if you think about it, both of them sucked.

Note 5: Kyle Brady was a massive disappointment.  Jets fans will always be upset that the Jets drafted Kyle Brady instead of Warren Sapp that year.  That said, Kyle Brady caught more touchdown passes in his career than Todd Collins threw in his career.

Note 6: In this year, the first QB picked after Shaun Ellis was Chad Pennington, who was picked by the Jets.  Considering that the Jets wound up getting both ( who they believed to be ) the best player available and the best QB available, it doesn't make sense to do a comparison in this case.

Note 7: Considering that Robertson was the 4th overall pick and Leftwich was the 7th overall pick they both had disappointing careers.  Robertson started more games, but Leftwhich stayed in the league longer.  Leftwich showed some promise early in his career with Jacksonville and even won a playoff game, but he wound up losing his job to the immortal David Garrard.

Note 8: I still think Mike Nugent was one of the worse picks the Jets ever made, but Charlie Frye was a terrible QB who only lasted a few years in the league while Nugent is still placekicking in the NFL.

Note 9: Even though I know it's impossible for Mark Sanchez to be worse than Mark Sanchez, I still had a hard time not putting the word "WORSE" next to Mark Sanchez's name.

Note 10: Some might dispute my assertion that Dalton is worse than Wilkerson, because ( surprisingly ) Wilkerson has been selected for only one Pro Bowl team and Dalton has ( shockingly ) been  selected for three Pro Bowl teams ( I'm sure it's only because top QB's like Manning or Brady decided not to play in the Pro Bowl the years Dalton made the Pro Bowl team ( or couldn't because they were playing in the Super Bowl )  ), but nobody who's ever watched them both play would tell you that Dalton is a better player than Wilkerson.

Note 11: EJ Manuel is a pretty crappy QB, but at least he is still in the league.

In the table above "WORSE" appears 20 times and "BETTER"appears only 9 times.  Thus, it seems that in any given year, it probably does make sense to pick the best available player rather than the best available quarterback.  That result doesn't really surprise me.  However, in a quarterback-driven league where elite quarterback routinely have career of about 15 years, I'm still not sure that picking the best player available each year is the best strategy.

Just look at all the notable QBs that the Jets could have taken over the last 40 years.

Doug Williams ( Not a great career, but he was the 1987 Super Bowl MVP )
Boomer Esiason ( 4 Pro Bowls, 1 First Team All-Pro ( 1988 ), and 1988 MVP )
Randall Cunningham ( 4 Pro Bowls, 1 First Team All-Pro ( 1998 ), and 1990 MVP )
Drew Brees ( 10 Pro Bowls, 1 First Team All-Pro ( 2006 ), 2009 Super Bowl MVP.  Brees once held the NFL single season passing record, and he has a fairly good chance of passing Peyton Manning for the all-time lead in both touchdowns and passing yards. )
Joe Flacco ( I don't think he'll ever be thought of as a great quarterback, but he did play great in the 2012 post-season and was the 2012 Super Bowl MVP ).

Now, it's not realistic to think the the Jets could have had all these quarterbacks.  Esiason and Cunningham entered the draft in consecutive years, and a team with a young quarterback on the roster usually wouldn't draft a new young quarterback until they'd given up on the young quarterback they already have.  If they Jets were drafting QBs every year, and giving up on those quarterbacks after one year if they didn't show signs of greatness, they might not have found out that some of these great quarterbacks were destined for greatness.  Esiason didn't play great until his second season, and Cunningham didn't show signs of greatness until his 3rd season.  Brees didn't have a good year until his 4th season, and his original team was so unimpressed with him that they let him leave for the Saints after his 5th season.

So, drafting a quarterback with their first draft pick every year isn't a realistic strategy for the Jets, but that doesn't mean they shouldn't be taking quarterbacks with their first pick more often.  Over the last 41 drafts from 1977 to 2017, the Jets have only used their first pick on a quarterback 3 times.  If you are wondering why the Jets haven't drafted a great quarterback in the last 40 years, that's why.  For years,  the New York Lottery ( Lotto ) used the slogan "You've gotta be in it to win it.".  Well, if the Jets ever want to win the NFL's annual quarterback lottery, they've got to be "in it" more often than 3 times in 41 years.

Hey, you never know.

Rich