Some Lack the "Fan" Gene

Hooray for Red Sox fans. 

Your team won the 2013 World Series.  I enjoyed watching the last few weeks of baseball.  I must admit: I am a fair-weather fan.  I don't buy tickets to any professional sport.  (As I have said before, I don't pay to watch other people work).  And I did not watch a single regular season game for more than half-an-hour. Most of the year, baseball games are tedious, but when there is a title on the line, any sport can be worth watching.    ( The chief exception to this rule is golf, which to me is the most boring "sport" to watch (or play) ever devised by man.  And that includes synchronized swimming.)

I did not wake up today happier than usual.  I did appreciate the entertaining spectacle of the Post-season games, but it has no more to do with me than if I went to a good movie or stage performance. I don't identify with a group of total strangers who get paid to play a game.  How can I identify with them?  Some of them were the enemy last season, fer the love of Pete.  Only a handful of players have been Red Sox employees for more than a few years.  My team?  Hardly.  

Don't get me wrong, I don't disparage people who are die-hard fans.  I just don't have the same patience and self-esteem needs.  I know people who willingly spend more than the price of a case of good scotch for seats at a baseball or football game - outdoor events which maybe played in the rain and freezing cold with no guaranty that your favorite team will be entertaining or even good. Where the beer is expensive, the seats are small, maybe the guy next to you hasn't bathed or brushed his teeth in weeks, and when you leave it takes another hour to clear the congestion around the stadium.   

I guess I lack the "Fan" gene that invites you to bestow magical blessings on sports workers for no better reason than the fact that you like the uniform they are wearing.  Some people need to cheer for something, and lord knows, the political leadership in this country has given us precious little to cheer about.

But don't let my grumpiness spoil your day, you loyal, needy fans. 
Go online and buy more Sox memorabilia that you can wear proudly to show your loyalty. (It helps the economy and cushions the coffers of local merchants, because you never know when the players will go on strike, again.)  

Enjoy the Day, the thrill of Victory and the strutting arrogance of your joy -- keep acting as if YOU had done something special.

A Voice of Reason

Today's Boston Globe Op-Ed ran a column by Farah Stockman titled "A Better Way to Tackle Health Law."  To me, this piece expressed a rarely heard moderate voice of reason.  She correctly blames GOP extremists for needlessly creating the recent shutdown/debt-ceiling crisis, in a fruitless effort to reverse Obamacare.  But here is the news part: she actually admits that the law is full of flaws, and she even describes some of them,

"For instance, there is a danger that the law makes it too easy for employers to “game the system” by choosing to pay the penalty for failing to provide health insurance instead of the premiums. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that some 7 million people might lose their current insurance because of that. Smart people who are worried about Obamacare ought to be talking about how to solve that problem.

Others fret that employees themselves might opt to pay the relatively small fine instead of signing up for a health insurance plan. Since they can’t be denied due to pre-existing conditions, there is the risk of moral hazard: People might sign up only when they are sick. That would make the system too expensive to sustain.

And perhaps the biggest looming challenge is how to handle the cost. We still don’t know whether the program will end up saving the federal government money in the long run, or end up costing lots of money.

Stockman speaks for many of us who hate the unreadable, cumbersome law and the parliamentary trickery that skanked it through the back door, instead of an honest vote.  Much as I am contemptuous of the cynical process and the thousands of pages of obfuscatory verbiage,  I am supportive of some of the reforms that the law addresses.  I like the single payer idea, especiallly for pre-existing conditions coverage and the attempt to offer subsidized health care coverage to those who want it but cannot afford it.   In general, I don't think the government should be telling employers and insurance companies how to run their businesses.  

As for those who believe the sky is falling or the runaway locomotive is about to collide with destiny, I can tell you that we have had most of these key reforms in Mass for the past seven years, and all hell has NOT broken loose.  

Stockman nails the solution here:

"The uncertain impact on the federal budget is a cause for concern — not just for the doomsday cult caucus, but for everybody. Wouldn’t it be nice if fiscal conservatives focused on problem-solving about that? Every new law has flaws, especially one as complex as this. The problem is that neither Democrats nor Republicans have an interest in fixing what’s broken here. Democrats don’t want to admit anything is broken and Republicans don’t want to admit it can be fixed.

So we are likely to live with the flaws in the Affordable Care Act for years to come, as long as Ted Cruz can make a bigger name for himself trying to end the law rather than mend it.

Sound reasonable?
    

Heads versus Hearts

This seems as true today as it was when I posted it in January 2010


As we roll into a new decade, Americans are basically divided into two groups. The first group sees the world changing for the better. We call these people Progressives. They tend to be naive and hopeful. They view the ever-changing cultural norms with equanimity. They see possibilities, they regard 'having fun' as a worthwhile goal. Fundamentally, they believe that things will work out if we just try to get-along and treat each other decently. They feel superior to the other group because they are driven by compassion to share the wealth (especially the wealth of the rich fat cats) with less-fortunate souls. They regard human laziness and stupidity as an unfortunate result of a bad dice roll. By contrast, if one is lucky enough to be born good looking , healthy and smart enough to take advantage of opportunity, you must always keep in mind that you were not entitled to it; you were given a break and you must pay it forward.


The second group - the ones we call Conservatives - are a grumpy bunch of stick-in-the-muds. They spend their workdays trying to get ahead. Then they stay awake at night afraid of slippery slopes and camels' noses in tents. Cons clearly see the negative aspect of anything that smacks of change. They love traditions and old authoritative books and parchments. They think everything worth knowing was already known by the Founding Fathers; new fads and ideas are regarded with suspicion and skepticism. They don't see the point in having fun, because people hate us and we need to stay on guard. They think they are superior to the other group because they are driven by their heads instead of their hearts. They see most taxation as stealing money from hard working people and giving it to ignorant slackers. They feel they are entitled to what they have, and hard cheese if you were born into the servant class, but that's the way it goes.


Normally, I think of myself as a fence-sitter between the two groups, usually falling on the side of the progressives due to a tendency to feel empathy and to acknowledge the relativity of moral truths. Conservatives are driven by their heads, thus they see human existence as a zero-sum equation where someone has to lose for you to win. For them everything is black or white, right or wrong. They regard fence-sitting-seers-of-grey with contempt.

Throughout the 8 years of the Bush-Cheney administration we were treated to the monotone nattering drumbeat from ultra progressive partisans, ranting negatively about everything that "W" said or did. It was tiring but often laughable for the extremes that the Libs would go to find fault with the President.

Now the cons, apparently feeling that turnabout is fair play, are filling the blogosphere and airwaves with silly criticisms of everything Barack Obama has done since his inauguration. Examples abound:
He is blamed for the ineffectiveness of the economic stimulus package (which was started during Bush's term), he is blamed for not bringing the troops home, for supporting a surge in Afghanistan, and the record unemployment is clearly his fault - all accomplished in just 9 months in office!
Lately, the criticisms are even nastier. You would never know that the Christmas day Northwest underwear bomber failed to complete his mission if you listen to some Conservative commentators. They are falling all over themselves accusing Obama of crimes and misdemeanors, sins of omission, commission and admission.
It's laughable. They used to say of Bush "He kept us safe" because there were no successful repeats of the 911 terrorist attacks in the USA. But Obama has been criticised as weak because of recent reports of foiled plots. (Hello, Cheney himself testified that there were several foiled plots after 911.)

Cheney, Limbaugh, and others talk about the Christmas day incident as if the bomb had exploded. They say Obama doesn't care about the safety of Americans - Which is about as block headed as it gets.

Most Americans are not as worried about crazed terrorists as they are about getting ripped off by some identity thief or taxed to death by out-of-touch elite legislators.

The main thing for which Obama should be criticized is this abomination of legislation called health care reform. As a candidate, Obama promised transparency, but has been silent while his pals in congress concocted this monstrosity of a reform bill behind closed doors. Candidate Obama pledged not to sign any legislation with earmarks, ("...we can no longer accept an earmarks process in which many of the projects being funded fail to address the real needs of our country.") Yet, nothing has changed. Deals were made in exchange for votes. Obama has has failed in his promise to us on these most important issues.

Already, two prominent Dems in the senate, seeing the tide of public opinion swelling against them, have already said that they will not run (and probably lose) in the next term.

Update: The recent shutdown and debt limit crises fan has flung shit in every direction.  Hard line Conservative Republicans are generally blamed for causing the impasse (They cynically changed the rules in the House to prevent anyone but the Speaker to call for a a vote.)  But the White House and Dems are not unscathed - since they cynically decided to close down government functions that would hurt innocent citizens.   Professional Pols on both sides are hoping voters will forget these shameful shenanigans by the next election.  I plan to vote against every incumbent.