Someone finally admits it

In an admission of what JFK had told us long ago, that "Washington is a city of Southern efficiency and Northern charm", Mayor Williams is quoted in today's Washington Post saying:

"This is a city built on freedom, not on order and efficiency..."

I knew it! Finally, someone credible admits it. Yes, Kennedy was credible, but Williams' alliegances are with DC and he admits it anyway (plus, he wears a bowtie -- how can you not trust a guy with a bowtie?)

In the same story, you will note, the citizens of high-alert Washington aren't afraid, they're pissed. Thus, despite the final quote of the article ("I think the terrorists are winning"), my opinions below still stand: people aren't afraid. One more piece of evidence, this one personal: when I was on the metro this morning, and it stopped underground between Virginia Square and Clarendon, and the lights went out, nobody panicked, nobody thought we were under attack, everyone just whipped out their phones and started sending text messages. Actually, that was almost scarier than the prospect of an attack.

Winning the War

Before the meat, some notes about this post: This post was written after prompting from a good friend (specifically, she wrote in an email: "UPDATE YOUR FREAKING BLOG" -- and who am I to blow against the wind?), and was written on a train back to Washington from New York on the very day the terror alert was issued. This prompted my mother to be somewhat (but not very) concerned. I reassured her by informing her that I was wearing my terror-proof shirt -- she replied that saying something like that wasn't funny. I maintain that what I said was funny. But, since I started to like what I was writing, I decided to polish it some and submit it as an op-ed to the Washington Post; therefore, I decided to remove "terror-proof shirt" references since the Post might find such things unfunny as well. Anyway, here's the entry more-or-less as submitted to the Post. Yes, op-eds are supposed to be "exclusive" so that they might only appear in one place, but they're not going to print it anyway, so at least this way 8 or 9 people might read it. So here you go. Enjoy.


The most recent terror alert -- be it legitimate, political, or some combination of the two -- has given us, the people of the United States, a good indication that we're making progress in the war on terrorism. We may not be winning the whole war, and the war may never be completely over, but we're winning at least part of it. We're not winning because we're one step ahead of our enemies, or because now we're only one step behind them instead of five. We're not even winning because of the impact that terror alerts have on the public, we're winning because of the effect they don't have.

There are no good quantitative metrics to tell us how the war is going. We can't look at a body count like we could in a conventional war, and we can't look at the number of terrorist cells we've shut down, because we don't know how many there were to begin with, or how many have formed since the war started. This is the nature of the war on terrorism: what constitutes success is ambiguous, victory is undefined and improvement is hard to measure. These are all things working against us in as we wage the war itself, and also as we endeavor to find out if we are succeeding in our efforts.

There is, however, some hope. The war on terrorism isn't just a battle against terrorists, it's also a battle against terror -- our terror. Thus, even if we don't know how we're doing versus the terrorists, or how much our conventional military victories are helping in the larger, unconventional war, we can know how we're doing in our battle against our own fear.By this measure, the best one we have right now, we are doing quite well.
After the terror alert was issued, many things happened: pundits began debating the motives for issuing the alert, physical defenses were erected at important locations, roads were closed, and armed men and women began manning checkpoints and patrolling the streets and subways. But, in contrast to past alerts, one thing didn't happen: nobody panicked, everyone stayed calm. There were no runs on bottled water or canned food, no deployment of plastic and duct tape, and no widespread truancy from work; people did what our leaders asked: they went into work, and went about their business as usual. There was a show of confidence and strength as Mayor Bloomberg rang the open bell at the Stock Exchange, but it was not just a show, it was a visible example of the strength and confidence that actually exists in the public at large. Even the news coverage was different this time. Stories were about the motivation and timing of the alert, the veracity of the supporting intelligence and the preventive, defensive measures being taken. There were very few news stories about the public reaction, and in those, few examples of fearful people. As those who protect us prepared for the possibility of having to do so, most people went about their day as they would have otherwise.

Terrorism is often called a tactic of the weak; indeed, the inability of individuals or groups to consistently carry out strong and damaging attacks is precisely why they turn to terrorism; they're in it for the terror. Without terror, without omnipresent fear -- actual fear, not vigilance -- terrorism has lost much of its power. Terrorists can still commit devastating acts of violence and destruction, but without the behavior-altering fear caused by the knowledge that another attack could come at any time, such attacks will only be as effective as our physical defenses allow them to be.

Winning the battle against terror by mastering our own fear does not guarantee victory in the war on terrorism. It does, however, substantially change the nature of the war. By taking the latest terror warning in stride, and refusing to change our daily lives because of it, we have robbed the terrorists the very thing that makes them terrorists. We have deprived our enemies of their most powerful weapon: our fear.

Free iPods anyone?

Duke University, often called the "Harvard of the South" has decided to give its incoming freshmen free iPods:

"As part of a pilot program, Duke University plans to give iPods loaded with school calendars and other information to its 1,800 incoming freshmen. Students can download class materials to listen to anything from audio examples of textbook exercises to Spanish songs."

Let me provide a quick reality check on this: a 20 GB iPod, the smallest and cheapest goes for $299. With an individual educational discount, you can get it for $269. So $269 x 1800 = $484,200. Even if they got them for 50% off on top of that, that's still $242,100, which is not exactly pocket change. [Note: The iPod mini is only $50 cheaper per unit.] Think about all of the kids you could give financial aid to with that money... Well, I guess that's why there are public universities which are just as good.

I just saw the link to the article quoted above in a friend's away message and I just got back from Screen on the Green and have to work tomorrow, so this is all I've got for tonight. But, coming soon (tomorrow?): a review of The Rule of Four and some talk about guns, the Old Dominion and the little brother of a good friend.

Poor Bill Cosby

I must start off by admitting that I haven't actually seen Bill Cosby's remarks alluded to in columns by Barbara Ehrenreich and Lexington. However, having read both of them I have been able to discern some things about what was actually said, and I have certainly been able to find problems with both.

Apparently Bill Cosby has been ragging on the poor black youth about its lack of achievement, respectability and so on. Lexington responds with:

Good on Mr Cosby. There is something of a conspiracy of silence about blacks' dismal performance in school: silence from black leaders who don't want to be accused of "blaming the victim", silence from teachers who don't want to draw attention to the biggest failure of American education. But the achievement gap between blacks and whites is a disgrace.

Lexington continues by backing up Mr. (ahem, Dr.) Cosby's argument saying that: "The teachers and black politicians blame three standard villains: poverty, prejudice and school funding." Lexington then provides some evidence for why these are not the causative factors of the problems Cosby observes.

Ehrenreich, on the other hand, goes straight for Cosby's jugular, saying the following.... Actually, she doesn't say much, other than to begin to ridicule Cosby and say that:

It's time to start picking on a more up-to-date pariah group for the 21st century, and I'd like to nominate the elderly whites.

Most of the remainder of the article just bashes elderly whites in order to make fun of Cosby's argument -- she talks about how "some seniors are cashing in their Social Security checks for vodka and Viagra." This sort of argument accomplishes nothing. To quote George Orwell in Homage to Catalonia:

It is as though in the middle of a chess tournament one competitor should suddenly begin screaming that the other is guilty of arson or bigamy."

This, incidentally, is what annoys me about overly-partisan debate.

But Ehrenreich's argument is also something else: either dishonest or offensive. She acts directly out of, as Lexington says, a fear of "blaming the victim." Thus, she draws this comparison with elderly whites, makes them look ridiculous using the "same approach" as Cosby. Since we know that there's nothing wrong with the actions she's discussing, there must be something wrong with Cosby's thinking or us, if we agree that Cosby is right about there being something wrong with the way young blacks are acting. But here's the problem: what Ehrenreich points out about elderly, white behavior is normal -- that's her point. But, by making her (non)argument this way, she's implying that the black behavior Cosby criticizes is also normal. The implication then, to look more carefully at Ehrenreich's "argument", is that young blacks doing poorly is school is just as normal as old white people buying medication with their social security money.

Lexington's analysis is more genuine (it actually addresses what Cosby has to say, rather than leaping on the first sign of something politically incorrect). However, Lexington still gets some things wrong. Look at this:

But the real problem with his broadside is that it is too narrow. It is not just black leaders who are failing to hold young blacks to higher standards. It is America in general; and, above all, the educational establishment. Teachers are far too willing to make excuses for black failure, and universities have institutionalised low expectations through affirmative action. Why should black children try as hard as their white peers if they can get into college with lower marks?

Well, in some measure, Lexington is talking about what is implied by Ehrenreich's argument: we've come to expect this from our young blacks kids. However, on affirmative action, Lexington cannot seriously believe that this was the intent of such programs, and it is very unclear whether the effect he imputes to affirmative action programs (while logically attractive) actually exists.

Through all of this, Cosby emerges as the real winner. First of all, he has the credentials to say something. As unfortunate as it is, being black gives him greater right to talk about the problems of other blacks. But more importantly, as Lexington points out:

Mr Cosby is well qualified to encourage this revival. He grew up in a poor area of Philadelphia and dropped out of school to join the navy. But he returned to university to take a doctorate in education, and continues to devote his energies to black improvement, writing books for pre-school readers and pouring money into black colleges.

Moreover, Cosby has a solution:

Black America once had a flourishing tradition of self-help: the tradition of Frederick Douglass, who was born into slavery but became one of the great orators of his age, and of the army of self-educated blacks who came after him. This tradition was obscured during the civil-rights era as black leaders concentrated on dismantling the machinery of discrimination. But blacks desperately need to revive Douglass's belief in "self-cultivation"; if the civil-rights revolution is to amount to something more than a hollow legal shell.

Essentially, Lexington misunderstands Cosby. He (Lexington) sees it as much more about low societal expectations than about the people themselves. Ehrenreich, on the other hand, embodies just those low expectations, saying:

As the sociologist Michael Males, who monitors youth-bashing outbreaks, told me: "Younger black America today is struggling admirably against massive disinvestments in schools, terrible unemployment, harsh policing and degrading prejudices, and they're succeeding amazingly well. They deserve respect, not grown-up tantrums."

But it must be fun to beat up on people too young and too poor to fight back, or the elderly rich wouldn't do it. Cranky old rich people: now there's a demographic group that qualifies as a genuine Menace 2 Society.

So, in Ehrenreich's world, there is no problem, the problem Cosby sees is actually a sign of tremendous success, and exhorting people to do better is "beat[ing] up on people too young and too poor to fight back." Nice. True, part of the solution lies in fixing some societal problems (I don't believe Lexington is 100% correct when he suggests that poverty, prejudice and school funding aren't a big part of the issue); Regardless of any external (societal) circumstance -- be it low expectations or poverty -- Cosby certainly has a good point that self-help can do the most good.

The three act campaign

The Economist's "Lexington" has an interesting (and rather insightful) take on Presidential electoral politics.

Most presidential campaigns are three-act dramas. Act I is a referendum on the incumbent. Voters look at the president and ask “Does he deserve four more years?” If the answer is a clear yes—as in 1984 or 1996—it barely matters who the challenger is; he may as well go home. This stage lasts until the party conventions. Assuming voters have not definitively decided on re-election—and, manifestly, they have not this time—Act II starts with the conventions and runs until about September. Voters then turn their attention to the challenger: is he ready for prime time? If he is, Act III, the real horse race, begins in September with the presidential debates. Then, and only then, do the head-to-head comparisons matter.

That's a really nifty way to think about it. It satisfies the desire for taking the fluid thing that is public opinion and electoral politics and forming it into discrete units, without relying on things like which potential First Lady has better recipies or whether the Redskins will beat the Packers. Furthermore, Lexington thinks Bush might be on the short end of this show:

Over the past few weeks, the economy has been roaring back. Mr Bush has won international support for handing over sovereignty in Iraq. The funeral of Ronald Reagan was a week of respectful observance for the last sword-wielding, tax-cutting conservative. Mr Bush has spent $100m on advertising, much of it aimed at Mr Kerry's solar plexus. Yet Mr Kerry is still in the lead, and Mr Bush's poll numbers seem to be going through the floor.
...
[I]t is clear that Mr Bush has done worse in Act I than an incumbent should. His crown sits all the more uneasily because the polls suggest that the vast majority of voters have already made up their minds (only one in ten say they are undecided). If he is to triumph in Act III, Mr Bush has a lot of crowd-pleasing to do. Mid-June might mark his electoral nadir; but it might also be seen as the beginning of the end of the Bush presidency.

Interesting, to say the least.

Cheney and the Post

We all know about how I love the Post. Well, here are a couple more reasons. I was shocked (but kind of glad) that it printed Cheney's "fuck yourself", directed at Sen. Pat Leahy (D-Vt.) It defends its position (to print the word) today, as does Cheney (on using it). From the Post's defense of printing "fuck":

"When the vice president of the United States says it to a senator in the way in which he said it on the Senate floor," says Executive Editor Leonard Downie Jr., "readers need to judge for themselves what the word is because we don't play games at The Washington Post and use dashes."

Thank you. Also, I love the way the Post presents it. From the original article:

"Fuck yourself," said the man who is a heartbeat from the presidency.
...
There is no rule against obscene language by a vice president on the Senate floor. The senators were present for a group picture and not in session, so Rule 19 of the Senate rules -- which prohibits vulgar statements "unbecoming a senator" -- does not apply, according to a Senate official. Even if the Senate were in session, the vice president, though constitutionally the president of the Senate, is an executive branch official and therefore free to use whatever language he likes.

The Washington Post: Quotes the way they said 'em, news as it happens, and a little something for the parliamentarian in all of us.

Funny thing (not really) overheard

So, in the vein of "Funny Things Overheard", here's a funny exchange that someone else may have overheard, since I was involved in it (yes, I was involved in on of the earlier FTOs, but that was more about interjecting after the FT had already been O-ed).

[THE VIRGINIAN approaches a metal detector / x-ray screening station at the entrace to a federal facility. He is holding an opaque plastic bag containing a CHEESE DANISH]

GUARD: Sir, please put your bag through the X-Ray.

ME: Um... it's a danish. [I don't actually show the guard the inside of the bag.]

GUARD: Oh, go right ahead.

ME: Thanks.

So, I wonder howfar an innocent-sounding and properly inflected "It's a danish" will get you. Fortunately for me and my coworkers I was telling the truth and I was able to slip a cheese danish into the facility undetected as opposed to... an anthrax danish?

Yeah, this post has no point.

If this weren't so sad...

There are many reasons I love the Post. Many center around it being more sarcastic and laid-back than the Times; also the fact that it covers national news. At all. So, this would be funny if it weren't so sad:

An Iraqi policeman, 1st Lt. Basim Ibrahim, said the bomb was inside a cardboard box that sat in front of a watermelon stand and exploded when a boy alighted from a donkey cart and picked it up.

First of all, alighted? Second, we have a watermelon stand and someone "alighting" from a donkey cart? Is this an improv skit? This doesn't seem like that place (both Journalism and specifically talking about people being blown up) to try out your fancy writing, but the Post does weird things sometimes. Here's another example; this article talks about things Bush said at a church in Philly:

Bush laced his 31 minutes of remarks with biblical references, as he often does when addressing black audiences.

Thanks guys, we care. But hold on, does it matter that the audience is black? I imagine the President would be likely to use biblical references when speaking at churches in general. I bet if he were addressing secular black groups he wouldn't be as likely to use biblical references.

I have some real things to say too, but I've been busy. Well, that's not totally accurate, but I'd feel bad blogging at work. I'm probably seeing Fahrenheit 9/11 tomorrow, so I'll have some things to say about that.

Things that scare me

One thing that scares me is this. The next thing that scares me is that, in my fear, I feel libertarian urges. That link is to a Washington Post story about the recent Supreme Court decision in Hiibel. Basically, the police can require that you give your name, something which it was previously thought was unconstitutional (an abrogation of the right to remain silent so as to prevent self-incrimination). I agree wholeheartedly with one bit from the dissent by Justice John Paul Stevens:

As for the risk of self-incrimination from disclosing one's name to police, Kennedy said that would happen "only in unusual circumstances."

But Justice John Paul Stevens, in a dissenting opinion, called this assumption "quite wrong." Hiibel's name could have helped police link him to criminal activity, Stevens noted, so he "acted well within his rights when he opted to stand mute."

The Post has an unsigned editorial about the decision as well. Only the last paragraph is worth reading, since the rest of it is, well, a summary of the Post article linked to at the top of this post. Here's that last paragraph, with which I rather agree:

We believe that people generally ought to cooperate with law enforcement. But we also believe that targets of law enforcement have a right not to do so. Carving out exceptions, even seemingly innocent ones, is a bad idea.

As I read this on the Metro, I wondered to myself what a Crescatter would have to say. Well, Will Baude has something to say and, using his summer employment position, he's got a piece on TNR Online. It contains this rather pithy line:

Every case in the Terry lineage has pushed the line of privacy back a little further, because each new privacy exception has needed a new exception to enforce it.

Read the whole piece. It's quite good and not that long and (I think) pertains to something quite important.

Two things

Two things quickly before I have to go do other things:

The Washington Post has an excellent op/ed today. It talks about adherence to the Geneva Conventions with regard to prisoners during the Vietnam War. Key sections:

Every soldier also received a plastic pocket card bearing the signature of our commander in chief, Lyndon Baines Johnson. It was headed "The Enemy in Your Hands" and summarized the conventions in simple, clear language. Item No. 3, "MISTREATMENT OF ANY CAPTIVE IS A CRIMINAL OFFENSE. EVERY SOLDIER IS PERSONALLY RESPONSIBLE FOR THE ENEMY IN HIS HANDS," was followed by this unambiguous guidance: "It is both dishonorable and foolish to mistreat a captive. It is also a punishable offense. Not even a beaten enemy will surrender if he knows his captors will torture or kill him. He will resist and make his capture more costly. Fair treatment of captives encourages the enemy to surrender."
...
The signed order from President Johnson in our pockets was a critical element of accountability and personal responsibility. In the event that any of us might be instructed to treat prisoners in an inhumane manner, we were in a position to recognize and refuse an unlawful order that contravened a signed direct order from the president.

Also, a note to partisan bloggers of both sides, but moreso of the right: Yes, the media misrepresented what the 9/11 Commission about Iraq/al-Qaeda and/or/versus Iraq-9/11 connections. Moreover, this story in the Post indicates that there may, in fact, be an Iraq/al-Qaeda connection:

The commission investigating the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks has been told "a very prominent member" of al Qaeda served as an officer in Saddam Hussein's militia, a panel member said yesterday.

However, the media's misrepresentation is nothing like what some folks in the administration do. Moreover, the media's misrepresentation in the case of the 9/11 Commission findings cannot be held up as evidence of "liberal media" because of the fact that nobody (except Al Kamen) notices what the aforementioned administration folks do. From In The Loop:

June 17, 2004. Vice President Cheney talking to CNBC's Gloria Borger.

Borger: "Well, let's go to MohamedAtta for a minute, because you mentioned him as well. You have said in the past that it was, quote, 'pretty well confirmed.' "

Cheney: "No, I never said that."

Borger: "Okay."

Cheney: "Never said that."

Cheney: "Absolutely not. What I said was the Czech intelligence service reported after 9/11 that Atta had been in Prague on April 9th of 2001, where he allegedly met with an Iraqi intelligence official. We have never been able to confirm that nor have we been able to knock it down."

On Dec. 9, 2001. Cheney talking to NBC's Tim Russert.

Cheney: "Well, what we now have that's developed since you and I last talked, Tim, of course, was that report that -- it's been pretty well confirmed that he did go to Prague and he did meet with a senior official of the Iraqi intelligence service in Czechoslovakia last April, several months before the attack. Now, what the purpose of that was, what transpired between them, we simply don't know at this point, but that's clearly an avenue that we want to pursue."

Fair, balanced, late for dinner. Hasta luego...

In the clear

I haven't been blogging for a while for security reasons, but I am returning to my usual blogging. In addition to more substantive posts, I will include a feature about odd things I've overheard -- it turns out that an office of the federal government and the Metro provide excellent fodder for this. So, here are two installments now:

Number one:
SCENE: On the red line, somewhere between Metro Center and Union Station, heading toward Grovesnor. Two CAPITOL HILL INTERNS and THE VIRGINIAN are standing in an area of about 4 square feet.

BROWN-HAIRED HILL INTERN: It was a little mistake.
BLONDE HILL INTERN: You could have looked it up.
BROWN-HAIR: I didn't know... I just saw he was from South Carolina and figured he was a Republican. I know most of them... like Lieberman... I know him.
BLONDE: I know man, but you could have looked it up.

[At this point I realize that they are Senate interns, and that Sen. Fritz Hollings (D-S.C.) was incorrecly identified by the brown-haired intern. I feel like I should speak up because I have a degree in Political Science, making me an "authority"]

ME: Yep, Fritz Hollings: most amiable guy in the Senate.
BLONDE: Oh... do you work for him?

[Note: They are both wearing full suits, pretty much required for Hill interns. I'm not even wearing a tie.]

ME: Nah, I'm just a fan.
BLONDE: What?
ME: Nevermind.

[I resume reading my copy of the Post and ignoring the uninformed (and unpaid) Hill interns.]

Number two:
SCENE: Cubicle pit.

GUY 1: Welcome to the 10th floor! If there's anything I can do to help you out, just let me know.
GUY 2: Great! Thanks! Where's your desk?
GUY 1: That's what I'm not going to tell you. [Exits.]

I'll have some more substantive things to say later, but I've been supressing blogging ideas due to the posting blackout self-imposed for security reasons.

Coming up: Newspapers.

In Memoriam

Other people have done a far better job of eulogizing the genius of Ray Charles far better than I could, which is why I haven't added anything in this space. Of far less national note will be the death Sunday night of Ralph Wiley, 52. Mr. Wiley was a sportswriter, for many years of Sports Illustrated, in the last several years for ESPN.com's Page 2. Mr. Wiley happened to be one of my two favorite sports columnists (with Page 2's Bill Simmons) and one of my five favorite columnists in any discipline.

I admired his keen observations on sport, the way I admire in any sportswriter the elusive ability to see things mere mortals can't, the sorts of things that coaches and scouts are payed handsomely to see; I admired the way he saw things correctly more often than not, which isn't quite the same thing. The aspect I admire about Page 2 as a sportswriting venture in general is the way it acknowledges in its functioning the way sport intertwines with the rest of everyday life, which makes it particularly appealing to myself as a semi-casual fan (after basketball, I am at best an infrequent watcher of tennis and football). What the best sportswriting captures to me isn't merely that particular vision, but the intuition of what that vision says about the human, what we can learn - not in a soppy way, but in an observational one - from these men, who push one aspect of the human endeavor to its bleeding edge. The example I return to trying to explain this to people is from last year's NBA playoffs, when in the first game of the Sixers-Hornets series, Allen Iverson scored 55 points. His face, contorted in joy and exhaustion and pain and defiance, said something to me, about the way all those emotions could concentrate in one moment of hard-won victory. Ralph Wiley was excellent at communicating just this sort of information - not pure brain information, see, but human information, the way a kid's demanding father and the hitch in his backswing all intuit something about his person, the way you can see in a man's eyes if he will stand up or lie down, and what he believes about his ability to do so. The look in a man's eyes when he realizes he has done a thing he said he could do, but didn't actually beleive that he could.

Most of all, I respected and admired Mr. Wiley's way with words, his casual eloquence, above all the way he spoke in his own language without hesitation, used personal phrases and slang in such a way that they seemed obvious elements of the lexicon. He did coin "BillyBall", for one.

His last column, a typically broad endeavor that ostensibly dealt with the NBA Finals but which roamed off to topics of coaching and race in America, had an opening sentence that seems a particularly fitting thing to say on the occasion of his early death.

"All a man's got is the integrity of his work."

RIP, Ralph Wiley

Blogging the Finals

In retrospect, my hesitance seems foolish, because I knew that the Lakers had been lucky to win Game 2 - the Lakers haven't played better basketball than the Pistons in any of the four outings so far. I was unable to watch Game 3, but while it convinced me that the Pistons might well win the series, I didn't take it to be saying much about the Lakers because anyone can get blown out on an off night. But this evening, a close game exposed the Lakers in all sorts of ways that made them seem small and sad.

(1) Shaquille O'Neal played a brilliant game and his team lost. The one thing he did wrong was miss free throws, but you know that's going to happen. What his team did wrong is not let him play an even more monstrous game. If he's going off, why not just give him the ball on every play? If he's able to set up in the paint, he's either scoring or going to the free throw line. That's automatic; watching Ben Wallace defend Shaq deep under the basket is like watching a video game (like, say, NBA Live - he just unwillingly glides backwards and gives up the dunk. Nothing to be done. And why the hell can't Shaq's teammates realize that he's the one unstoppable option they have, and why the hell don't they do anything about their habit of forgetting about him for five minutes at a time? If Shaq gets 50, maybe the Lakers won tonight.

(2) There's not really much room to fault Kobe; he needs perhaps a more finely tuned sense of when to force it and when to give it up; the key being that he give it up to Shaq, since none of his teammates can make baskets. This doesn't take away from the brilliance of Kobe's game; I wonder what Jordan would've looked like if he got triple-teamed every time he drove and didn't have a real teammate to pass to.

(3) Gary Payton's first quarter showed that he hasn't devolved nearly so much as everyone thought. Yes, he's no kind of Glove anymore, but he can dish the ball out and he's still a fine scoring guard when posting up and slashing to the basket. But he doesn't want to disrupt the structure of the Lakers offense, which is not remotely designed for a player with Payton's strengths, and so for the most part he struggles, regardless of whether he's playing the 1 or the 2.

(4) Phil Jackson was exposed perhaps most of all. It's often been said that he's more a manager of talent than a coach and to a certain extent I bought into the hype, but the fact is that Jackson has always used, highly effectively, a potent offensive system. The Triangle, a halfcourt offensive set so complicated that Jackson and Charley Rosen have authored a book on it (which I haven't read, though I'm curious) is extremely effective when it is supplied with intelligent, versatile, and skilled offensive players; one of its tenets is the idea that anyone can play any spot in the Triangle. But on these Lakers, there aren't many guys who are familiar enough - or, frankly, skilled and confident enough - to actually play the Triangle effectively. What confuses me about Jackson is that he's kept his lineup the same and kept his offense the same. Now it's certainly commonplace that a coach should stick with the players and plays that got him to the championship round, even if they're struggling, but Jackson's starting five and the Triangle aren't responsible for the Lakers being in the 2004 finals. Gary Payton ran the team as its only constant during the regular season, playing effectively in an offensive scheme that compromised the Triangle with his personal preferences, and the playoffs have been entirely about Shaq, Kobe, and Karl Malone's defense. With Malone so hampered as to be useless, I don't understand why Jackson doesn't run with Shaq and a small rest-of-team, relying on Fisher, Payton, Kobe, and George as his main unit; these are the Lakers best players (well, George is questionable, but there's also Walton and Medvedenko for when Devean doesn't want to drive the ball). And why on earth doesn't Jackson loosen up his offense? It hasn't worked so far; the only consistent offensive success the Lakers have had derives from pounding the ball into Shaq and letting him fly solo. Switch over to a more meat-and-potatoes offense, let Payton and Kobe work of screens and postups, and I think the Lakers have a better shot of taking a game here and there. That doesn't change the fact that the Pistons are better coached, more athletic, longer, deeper, more versatile, and (most shockingly) more unflappable and confident. I thought that tonight at last the Lakers would flip their switch and bring it, but Shaq (and Kobe, to an extent) were the only men on the floor for the Lakers tonight.

(5) I love Rasheed Wallace's turnaround jumper, always have. I love the way his spin is so quick and his fadeaway so profound that at the moment of release his body is at a 50 degree angle to the ground and it seems like he should fall over, but he doesn't. The ball leaves his hands so smoothly it's like he barely moved his wrists, he just willed it to fly straight and true. I also loved that Sheed got passionate tonight and played a monster game and went the last quarter and a half sans headband. He looked naked without it, but it made him seem even more intense and focused on the game.

It's Been Like Blao

On Saturday the Virginian graduated from the University of Chicago; on Sunday morning I helped him load his things into a van and then bade him a good trip to his home. Congratulations; I'm going to miss you, but I look forward to keeping in touch, both here and (hopefully) in more informal fora.

It's an odd thing to have spent this past year living with two people who became so quickly some of the most important people in my life, and certainly gave me the best living situation I've had in college; and now I'm not going to be living with either of them, presumably ever again. Although strange things do happen. One of my new roommates is a good friend, and the other fellow seems nice enough, but I'm going to miss the dynamic of this past year. It was probably my healthiest socially - in some very odd ways - and probably my least fulfilling academically, at least in terms of feeling like I was honing in on some goal of study. I'm doubting whether I ought to be a philosophy major, not out of distrust of the discipline but for more pedestrian concerns. I ought to make use of my advisor, but I seem resistant for some reason.

I'm very much looking forward to this Wednesday-Sunday, during which time I will be camping in the far reaches of Wisconsin with a most lovely companion. On my return I will undoubtedly undertake yet again the notion that I can reinvent and reorient my life during the summer. It hasn't happened yet.

Alma Mater

Today we gladly sing the praise
Of her whose daughters and whose sons
Now loyal voices proudly raise
To bless her with our benisons.
Of all fair mothers fairest she,
Most wise of all that wisest be,
Most true of all the true say we,
Is our dear Alma Mater.

Her mighty learning we would tell,
Tho' life is something more than lore;
She could not love her children well,
Loved she not truth and honor more.
We praise her breadth of charity,
Her faith that truth shall make us free,
That right shall live eternally,
We praise our Alma Mater.

The City White hath fled the earth,
But where the azure waters lie,
A nobler city hath its birth,
The City Gray that ne'er shall die.
For decades and for centuries,
Its battlemented tow'rs shall rise,
Beneath the hope-filled western skies,
'Tis our dear Alma Mater.


--Edwin H. Lewis, 1894

More NBA

I really need to keep reminding myself that the Lakers will probably win in six/seven, reminding myself that the Pistons aren't going to quite be able to go the distance...but it's a tempting thought. (Last night watching the game one of my roommates asked me if I liked the Pistons or just disliked the Lakers. As a Celtics fan, I have historical reasons to dislike both teams, but the real answer is that I don't like theseLakers and I really like these Pistons - because I really like Rasheed Wallace and Larry Brown, I like Rip Hamilton's facemask, I like Ben Wallace, I like the defence, I like the scrappiness, I like that Tayshaun Prince is my weight but has arms like an octopus.) My two thoughts for the day on basketball are:

(1) The Pistons had that game last night. Everyone is complaining about how they should've fouled Shaq when he caught the inbounds pass with ten seconds left, and maybe so, but: when Detroit was still up six, Shaq caught the ball in the post and I yelled at the TV to "let him score! Don't foul him, just let him dunk it!" Even if the Pistons weren't able to score on the next possession (and they weren't), there wasn't enough time left for the Lakers to overcome a four point deficit. But Ben Wallace fouled Shaq, who dunked it anyway (duh) and got the three point play (because Shaq's right: he does make foul shots when it counts, or at least when he decides that it counts). What Detroit needs to do is not shake their heads and think "Damn! We could've had that!" and get down about it, they need to pound their chests and say "Damn! We almost took it from them!" They're facing up against two of the best players in history (and had to cope with an amazing coming-out demonstration by Luke Walton, who deserves his own verbiage some other time) and it required Kobe submitting a superhuman final seven minutes to lose. If Kobe can bring it every night, the Pistons are done anyway, but they can't assume that he will because he very well might not. Kobe's reaching for Jordan's status right now, but (a) he's not there yet, and (b) I'll take either of Jordan's supporting casts with the championship Bulls over the Lakers not named Shaq or Kobe (or Luke Walton!)

(2) Also, yesterday Larry Bird, Magic Johnson, LeBron James, and Carmelo Anthony were convened by Jim Gray (hack) to talk about bullshit Jim Gray things. Like greatness and rivalries and Magic v. Bird and LeBron v. Carmelo and the state of the league. Anyway, at some point Bird said the following:

"I think it's [having white stars] good for a fan base, because, as we all know, the majority of the fans are white America...And if you just had a couple of white guys in there, you might get them a little excited. But it is a black man's game, and it will be forever. I mean, the greatest athletes in the world are African-American...The one thing that always bothered me when I played in the NBA was I really got irritated when they put a white guy on me...I still don't understand why. A white guy would come out (and) I would always ask him: 'What, do you have a problem with your coach? Did your coach do this to you?' And he'd go, 'No,' and I'd say, 'Come on, you got a white guy coming out here to guard me; you got no chance.' For some reason, that always bothered me when I was playing against a white guy."

And apparently some people are offended by this. Which is a load of crap. Bird is absolutely right on every point: he doesn't say that having white stars is good for the fans, he says that they'd be good for a fan-base - having white stars would make the league more popular. And he's right. The disconnect between the players on the floor and the people in the stands is startling sometimes. Before the game last night, the Staples Center played Van Hagar's "Right Now" before introducing the home team, and I thought: "Hmm...I wonder how many guys who are gonna be playing tonight are really into pop-metal?" They're by and large black men under thirty, whereas the fans are by and large white men over thirty, and there's a disconnect there; the freaking Detroit Pistons play in freaking Auburn Hills. The only exception to the three-and-four-year-college-players-don't-get-taken-early-in-the-draft rule (which in itself is idiotic) is when there's a highly touted white kid like Keith Van Horn or Raef LaFrentz, both of whom have carved out nice careers and both of whom haven't remotely lived up to the hype created to justify their high picks. Teams want a superstar, but they'd really love it if they could get a white superstar. That's just facts, that's just what's good for business - not, and Bird never said that it was - what's good for basketball. It's like when Marc Cuban said the Kobe scandal would be good for the NBA; he was right, interest in the season has increased and people are talking about it. That doesn't make it an intrinsically good thing, or a good thing for the game of basketball.

He's also right that basketball is, has been, and will continue for the forseeable future to be a black man's game. Why isn't at issue; it is. Make a list of the best five, or ten, or twenty-five players in NBA history. Depending on length, the only non-African-American on that list is going to be Larry Bird himself. (Go above ten and you'll quickly have to recognize Bill Walton [white guy] and Hakeem Olajuwon [black guy from Africa], maybe Tim Duncan [light-skinned black guy from the Virgin Islands].)

As to getting annoyed when a white guy was brought out to defend him: it's an odd thing to say, and I frankly don't know enough about the league's rosters in the 1980s, but I suspect most of the white guys in the 80s were pretty lame, especially the ones not named Kevin McHale and not big enough to defend Bird. I mean, there weren't any Europeans around back then, and there weren't nearly as many athletic 6'10" swingmen as there are today. So can you imagine why (in today's terms) a coach would bench, say, Kevin Garnett and let Larry work his stuff against, say, Mark Madsen? Of course, it also needs to be said that Bird was and undoubtedly remains a cocky S.O.B., the sort of guy who routinely announced that he'd have a forty point game or walk over to the other team's bench just before the tip and point to the place from where he'd take the game winning shot. Thing was, he tended to be right. Still does.