Connections

So, earlier today I hosted my first ever LiveChat, with a smashing turnout of one person...which was one person more than I expected. And that's fine, because it was mostly a test run to see how it works. But my discovery of CoverItLive LiveChat has caused me to wonder what else Michigan bloggers are missing as far as communications tools go.

This is especially important because the Michigan Republican Party needs to be shaken up a little bit. They're getting a little stale. Crusty. It's not pretty. There's a lot of energy among young conservatives in this state, but it doesn't seem like it has anywhere to go. That's where bloggers come in. We know technology. (Okay, other bloggers know technology. I'm just glad that other people know it so I don't have to.) And we have the energy to organize.

So...why don't we? Granted, we have jobs, some of us own businesses. I'm, horrifyingly, a grad student. Yet surely we can organize regular get-togethers, maybe invite speakers. Reporting and opining on the ether is definitely a good thing, but face-to-face interaction is where it all happens. The Michigan blogosphere could go on tour in the summer--have meetings in cities all over Michigan. Go from Benton Harbor to Grand Haven to Muskegon to Grand Rapids, Lansing, Brighton, Ann Arbor, Detroit...go around and meet the people who want to get involved, want to be connected, but don't know how.

Let's be thinking about this stuff, youse guys.

LiveChat, 12/20/2008

Suggested Topics: Auto Industry; The Future of Conservatism (Caps!)

Saturday Afternoon LiveChat (And New HaloScan Commenting)

Because I can.

I just figured out how to host a LiveChat on my blog, and in celebration I shall host a LiveChat tomorrow, Saturday, December 20, from 2-3 PM.

How it works: The LiveChat box will be on my latest blog post. Click on it, enter a username, and start chatting. As moderator, I will have the option to allow or disallow comments before they appear in the box. (Considering the small number of people who will likely participate, there is little chance of comments being disallowed, unless someone I do not know begins posting hateful or offensive speech. Host your own LiveChat if you're interested in that sort of thing.) Leave comments if you have ideas for discussion topics. Already on the agenda: the auto industry and the Michigan economy, the future of conservatism.

ALSO...this reminds me. Do not be alarmed by the new HaloScan commenting system. It's easier for me, easier for you, and nice-looking. Just do what it says, and no harm will come to you.

Great Headline Of The Day

Courtesy of the BBC: "Mice suspected in deadly cat fire."

After years of oppression of mice, sectarian violence between the two bitterly opposed species has finally escalated in Canada. Noted one stiff-upper-lip commenter--the spokesman for the Toronto Humane Society--"It's unfortunate and ironic that mice caused the fire that killed the cats." He also noted the shocking nature of the assault: "Unfortunately, the mice probably perished in the fire as well." A suicide mission!

The End For The UAW?

John Hinderaker of PowerLine Blog today writes about the "silver lining" in the possible auto industry collapse--namely, the United Auto Workers collapse.

Most conservatives I've talked to here in Michigan have the same struggle I do. None of us want to see thousands of people out of jobs, unable to support their families, and potentially having to move. On the other hand, there seems to be very little hope, economically, for the state of Michigan until the politically powerful unions lose influence. My friends here at the U seem to think the Big Three's problems are mostly due to poor business planning, and don't seem able to grasp that an enormous dead weight of extra benefits U.S. automakers have to pay might cause inefficient business models.

Unfortunately, no state government in Michigan can make these problems go away. (No national government can, either.) The companies must be allowed to restructure under bankruptcy and hopefully become actually profitable, or they must be allowed to fail. (And why don't we ever see start-up American car companies? Hmm....perhaps a lot of the regulatory and union overhead ought to be slashed.) It will hurt Michigan in the shorter run; but in the long run, this hard policy will be less painful than the alternative.

In the meantime, perhaps we can find private solutions for the people who are going to be out of jobs. Ideas?

Next Generation Conservatives

Jay Nordlinger's "Impromptus" (which he has been producing at a delightfully rapid pace this week so far) included (scroll down a bit) a letter today from "someone with a close knowledge of Harvard Law School." This paragraph in the letter struck me:

One thing that really bothers me is that the brightest students seem to really want to have a cause to pursue. The Left gives them many causes, but the Right offers little — very few alternatives. I guess conservatives generally just go to the business world (or big law firms, in the case of law-school graduates). Maybe this works out in the end, but it still feels like this generation of college students is being lost even more to the left-wingers than before.

There is a stereotype out there that has some small truth to it: Last generation's conservatives just wanted the government to leave them alone while they worked at their jobs and raised their families. This generation, as a whole--conservatives and liberals--want a sense of wider community. And rightly so. But I don't think modern conservatism--which, of all "political philosophies," ought to be the most about community--has done a good job of offering that. And conservatism, of all "political philosophies," is the least about ideology, the most about lifestyle and relationships.

We younger generation of conservatives need to find ways to be involved in our communities, find causes that are about people. We've all seen how many people the Left is willing to hurt in their crusade for abstractions--equality, liberty, fraternity, as it were. How is it that they are the ones who are seen as having a monopoly on compassion? It's time to stop blaming society for seeing liberals as the compassionate ones, and ask ourselves what we can do to change a perception that we know to be false.

Save Our Shows

The good ones, I mean! I've become concerned about society recently, for two reasons. And they're both from the same web page. A prominent video website recently placed CBS's The Big Bang Theory and NBC's Chuck on their list of best TV shows you aren't watching. I hope this doesn't mean you, gentle reader. For, although The Office and 30 Rock are finally truly funny again, although Scrubs is coming back (this time on ABC) for a half-season, and although Battlestar Galactica returns in January for the final half-season of its story arc, my two favorite TV shows right now are still these two. The ones about loveable geeks (and non-loveable geeks) spying and/or being really geeky. (I wonder why?) Instead, everyone seems to be watching the inane Heroes and, erm, Gossip Girl. (Yes. Really.)

Why are these my favorite shows? The same reason I love any show. They aren't very serious; the writing is fantastic. The actors were perfectly cast. Honestly, Sheldon Cooper and Penny on Big Bang Theory and Chuck Bartowski, John Casey (Adam Baldwin, of Firefly and Serenity fame), and Morgan Grimes are some of the best characters on TV right now. Sadly, Chuck and The Big Bang Theory run opposite each other on Monday; the former being an hour-long show starting at 8, and the latter a half-hour show starting at the same time. If you must only choose one, pick Chuck, which has better characters and production quality and boasts a more promising storyline; but full episodes of Chuck are available on www.nbc.com, whereas the episodes of The Big Bang Theory can only be found, ahem, subversively.

Yes, I hear what you're saying...good shows only ever get cancelled by FOX! (*sigh* Firefly, Arrested Development....tragedies...) But with Pushing Daisies and some others, there is now precedent for even non-FOX networks' cancelling shows with small but loyal followings. Give these shows a try!

WATCH! Chuck episodes, webisodes, and episode re-caps can be found here, for those wishing to catch up on the action; CBS's much poorer Big Bang website, sans full episodes, can be found here.

Okay, guys...

Hey-o. Back. I wish I didn't have to begin posts like this so often, but nobody told me: Grad school takes a lot of your time. Hm.

That said, I'm very nearly done with my first semester. (Oh, how the definition of "very nearly" has changed since I came!) And since it seems probable that I'll never have a semester as stressful as this one until I'm actually a student-teacher, I should have plenty more time for blogging. And that's a good thing, because your local newspapers are PROBABLY going to go bankrupt sometime soon. Mm.

Some bullets:

• Michigan's football team finished 3-9, but was not the worst team in the Big Ten. *Sigh*. That would still be Indiana. Scott Shafer then resigned as defensive coordinator, and we're most likely going to replace him with Jay Hopson, whose resume is seriously less impressive. Although "good resume" hasn't really flown with this football team so far...maybe it will work? REVERSE PSYCHOLOGY!
• Michigan's basketball team is 7-2 and sitting at #26 in the AP; Marquette's recent loss means that we should crack the Top 25 for the first time in forever--as long as we beat Oakland at The Palace on Saturday. I wish I'd bought tickets, except--oh yeah, I'd get to feel terrible because I should really finish my paper on Callimachus's Aetia. That will be Laval Lucas-Perry's debut as a Wolverine...watch! If you can!
  
• No, don't ask me what Callimachus's Aetia is. I want to think about it as little as possible.
• Our president had a shoe thrown at him by an Iraqi journalist; this is the highest insult possible in Iraqi culture. Irony: Which would have worse results, doing this to George Bush, or doing this to Moqtada al-Sadr? Hmmm....
• The cholera epidemic in Zimbabwe has, unfortunately, gotten worse. The Robert Mugabe epidemic has, unfortunately, remained stable.
• Chris Muir's Day By Day cartoon has now shown Sam wearing a "Room Temp" Che T-shirt several times; WHY IS THERE NO "ROOM TEMP" CHE T-SHIRT AVAILABLE FOR SALE YET?? (THAT I'M AWARE OF??) Of course, I couldn't buy one; that is an invitation for my roommate to dynamite my bedroom. And what was left of me, the rest of Ann Arbor's peaceable inhabitants would take care of.
  

BCS Thoughts

Some thoughts on the present BCS discontents.

ESPN wants a playoff. Brian at MgoBlog wants a playoff. Actually, it seems that most people want a playoff. Most people agree that almost anything would be better than what we have now. I will say this: There are good plans out there—notably Brian Cook’s plan—that are fairly good, because they take into account many of the things that any postseason scheme has to take into account.

I write this because of the plan RightMichigan.com’s “jdee” placed into the ether. I want to note a few errors there before plunging into my own discourse. “Undefeated Ball State, Utah, and Boise St would NOT have vied for a national title under the previous system either…” This isn’t true; BYU, for example, won the national title in 1984 by going undefeated and beating Bo Schembechler’s worst down-year Michigan team in the Holiday Bowl. “This year, most major teams will play 12 or 13 games, plus several will play an extra game for the conference championship.” I’m not aware of any team playing 13 regular-season games, apart from conference championships. The NCAA extended the regular season by a week, I believe, a few years ago, so that teams could play twelve games instead of eleven. “who really watches the Motor City Bowl anyway? So lets give some of the games some importance.....” Small-school programs like, say, Central Michigan, benefit greatly from these bowl games, in terms of money, fan-base loyalty, and recruiting. “Really, who ever complains about the team that didn't make the March Madness tournament?” Hmm. “Quarterfinals will be played as part of four minor bowls around Christmas time. Semifinals will be two major New Years Day bowl games and the Championship game a week or two later at another major bowl.” I will tell you how to make the bowl games meaningless; make them first stops for big schools on the way to games you actually want to play in. “Bowl games can rotate the way they do now in the BCS system.” Nope. There is a BCS Championship Game, and then the four “traditional” (ahem) BCS bowls: the Rose, Orange, Sugar, and Fiesta. No rotation.

There are something over 125 teams in Division IA football, and they each play, usually, 12 games. In the NFL, 32 teams play 16 games; the NBA, (I think) 32 teams play 82 games each—playoffs make sense in these two, not so much for college football. Even in NCAA basketball, around 350 teams play 30 or so games, excluding conference tournaments. A bit under 20% of teams go to the NCAA Tournament. College football can neither have conference tournaments nor send a fifth of its teams to a post-season playoff.

We need to realize there is no “solution” for college football postseason. Any conceivable plan will offend someone’s wishes. Putting a lot of emphasis on crowning a national champion will, like it or not, make a uniquely regional sport into even more of a national one. Incorporating human polls in a major way will anger anyone who wants it all to be decided on the field—which is, of course, impossible anyway. A small playoff will offend people who want to include small-conference undefeateds, and a large playoff will irreparably damage the bowl system that everyone loves.

I think, anyway, that people looking for a way to crown a “legitimate champion” (whatever that means in college football) might very well find themselves giving up much of what made college football unique. Part of what has been great about college football is its craziness—independent bowls, bowl tie-ins negotiated by conferences, entire stadiums basically dedicated to one massive game a year. Choosing national champions based on human polls. How much less would we have to talk about in college football if we started getting rid of those things?

I’ve said it before: we should go back to the old system. Yes, I know it will never happen. But that is the best “solution.” I’ll stick with that. Next time you demand a change be made to college football in the interest of choosing a national champion fairly, ask yourself, “Why?” I’ve never found a good answer to that.

Sorrow

Here's my game summary:



And with that out of the way, some thoughts about college football.

College football is like the ancient world, and I love them both for similar reasons. Everyone has their city-state. Each city-state has its peculiar rituals, cults, symbols. They go out to fight each other. Victory is more than just victory, and defeat more than just defeat. Everything that happens has a relation to the mythical figures and events of the distant past that also help construct your identity and the cohesion of the community. Every action has a context beyond the normal. It's the poetry that colors a prosaic world.

We treat college football the same way; at least, some of us do. Michigan fans use the hiring of Bo Schembechler as a template for Rich Rodriguez. He's a great coach because he's making them work hard like Bo did; he's a terrible coach because he isn't from Bo's coaching lineage. Charles Woodson became like a second Desmond Howard when he ran back the punt against Ohio State and then won the Heisman. You stand outside until the final whistle of a miserable game in the miserable cold, because if you're honest, it isn't about being entertained--it's about being part of something bigger than you. ("The team!" -- Bo.)

The colors, the songs, the places the former players and coaches--it all combines into a complex and vibrant tapestry of legend and tradition capable of evoking everything that is highest and lowest in humanity. (It's important for Michigan fans frustrated with this season and contemplating Coach Rod to remember the "lowest" and strive for the "highest.")

All this said, it's important to have a sense of perspective. The kingdom of God is so incredibly important compared to these earthly things. Unlike our sports teams, it will never pass away, and it has the power to change people's lives.

Still, in a society that seems determined to make life as mediocre and prosaic as possible, college football has a way of calling us out of our materialistic, individualistic slumber. And for that reason, this silly but violent game provides real value.

Anyway...there goes another year. The worst year in decades for U-M. Nothing left but to have patience, look to the future.

Oh, and root against all the teams we hate that are still in it.

BEAT OHIO STATE

Sorry I haven't been posting lately; this grad school thing takes a lot of your time, as it turns out. Next semester should be better...

But in the meanwhile...today. Today is The Game. The beleaguered Wolverines, who will miss a bowl game for the first time since 1974, travel to Columbus to look for redemption against their arch-rivals, the Ohio State Buckeyes, who are playing for yet another Big Ten championship. Michigan's starting QB is Nick Sheridan, a former walk-on without size or arm strength. Ohio State's starter is Terrelle Pryor, 6'6", 235 lbs, with a sub-4.4 forty, who chose Ohio State over Michigan in the spring. Ohio State has won four straight and is likely to make it five today against first-year coach Rich Rodriguez.

Oh. And it's the biggest rivalry in American sports.

BEAT THE BUCKEYES

Conservative Revolution

Since I seem to have come under some scrutiny for my posts recently, I thought I'd write a bit about where I am now that the election is over and we've all had some time to think about conservatism going forward.

My staunch conservative friends who read this blog know I'm not one of those mushy-headed folks who thinks that Republicans should sacrifice principle for electoral gain. Not in the least. And the seeds of my change in thinking were not planted by my moving to Ann Arbor, but during the summer when I read, among other things, The Conservative Mind by Russell Kirk.

No, I do not think Republicans in general are heartless, or that they don't care about the poor. I think they are extremely well-intentioned and personally charitable people, more so than their left-wing counterparts. But as far as politics goes, they lack vision, and seem to exist largely to try to stop the advance of socialism. For that reason, it seems that, these days, conservatives are just libertarians who also want to stop abortions.

But conservatives have a competing vision for society. We believe government exists to advance human dignity. We believe human dignity is composed of many things, things which cannot be summed up in a political program or tract. They include, but are not limited to, certain freedoms, obligations, and relationships. These things that comprise human dignity are best worked out on a local, community and family basis; the results of these negotations--tradition--generally ought to be respected. We believe dependence on government, family and community breakdown, and callousness toward the most vulnerable in society destroy human dignity.

But since the introduction of welfare especially, the game has changed. Those local-level negotiations have gone out the window as government has subsidized an overly individualistic, materialistic lifestyle. Social institutions that could take the place of the government dole hardly exist anymore, having been crowded out by government. These are truths that conservatives cannot afford to ignore.

The game has changed. The danger with left-wing politics is that it doesn't just destroy what could be a truly liberal society...it also destroys the foundations upon which the entire edifice of a healthy civilizations stands. Before we rebuild that civilization, we're going to have to lay many of the foundations anew.

Lowering taxes and eliminating federal programs is desirable, but not in the short run. We may not like people being dependent on government, but we should be similarly conscious of the human toll that blind implementation of ideological programs will exact.

Winning Again

That's what The Shadow-Liner wants to talk to conservatives about, and he starts things off with an excellent post about defeatism. (Read it all!) Here's part:

A sense of history is important at times like these. Society, as Burke wrote, is ". . . a partnership not only between those who are living, but between those who are living, those who are dead, and those who are to be born. Each contract of each particular state is but a clause in the great primeval contract of eternal society." We do dishonor to mankind as a whole--past, present, and future--if we flee before all hope is lost, perhaps even when all hope is lost.

Precisely.

Republicans were rightly booted by the American people. Now it's time to figure out how better to apply our time-honored principles to the problems of American society today. That, I believe, is what my next post will be about. Stay tuned!

The Rise of Radical Secularism

Just read a fantastic book review on NRO by Joseph Morrison Skelly about Herb London's new book, America's Secular Challenge: The Rise of a New National Religion. (Psst: You should read it, too.) Obligatory excerpt, but it's all worth reading:

London identifies five developments in our time that have paved the way for the ascendancy of radical secularism. They include the rise of multiculturalism; the decay of traditional religion; the degeneration of the liberal virtue of tolerance into an unwillingness to discriminate (relativism, in other words); transnationalism, which is “the effort to reduce or eliminate the national heritage of European states through continental harmonization” — and a phenomenon creeping into American life; and “a loss of existential confidence that is at the same time a failure of nerve.” There is a historical dimension to this process, too, since the assault upon established religion has deep roots in the West, including Friedrich Nietzsche, as mentioned above, and extending back to the radical French branch of the Enlightenment, which the author acknowledges early on in his book.

This is reason number one why no thoughtful Christian, in my estimation, should be voting Democratic. I think a lot of Christians see the Democrats as caring more for the disadvantaged--something Republicans surely need to work on. But Christians also need to be aware of the philosophical underpinnings of the modern liberal movement and understand where the Democratic Party--Barack Obama included, emphatically--wants to take us.

Darn.

Well, Western Michigan (!) beat us in hockey last night, 2-1, at Yost. I thought that was bad.

But nothing can compare to sitting through a game in which Michigan football solidifies its most losing season ever--8 losses, never happened before here in A-squared--in (by my estimation) negative-45 degree weather. At least it happened against a team that, even when they're likely to have an 8-win season, brings approximately ten fans--that includes the marching band--to its games. It'd be a lot worse if it happened against somehow-ubiquitous drunken, meatheaded fans like Wisconsin's. The Northwestern fans always look grateful to win, even if it's against the fourth-best team in a given state.

Anyway, this brings us to our offical Hope for the Future section that I just made up.

1) Eerily similar to Rodriguez's first season at West Virginia, plus a much better incoming recruiting class.

2) Two potentially big-time dual-threat QB recruits coming in. Not sure how this will shape up--Forcier is a bigtime passer with apparently good speed, while Shavodrick is bigger and could be a better runner--but we will have Decent Options again.

3) The O-line is playing much better, and everyone comes back. Plus, the many freshmen that didn't see time this year will have a year under their belts, eliminating much chance of having true frosh on the 2-deep.

4) Our only true slot receiver is Odoms this year, but next year we'll have true freshman Jeremy Gallon and we'll have Terrence Robinson back, a 4.4 forty runner who was lost for the season with (I think) a knee injury.

The defense could be an issue, but I have confidence that Shafer will improve our defense even granted the personnel losses we'll have.

Wait...Who Is It That Hates, Again?

Because I'm getting confused.

(H/t to Michelle Malkin, and from there Diana West.)

I mean, I know the Right is just totally hateful, racist, bigoted, all that stuff. But then things like this happen in California. Or this, at Augsburg College. Also, things like this, in Philly, and this, in Illinois. And you start to wonder just who it is that takes abstract beliefs and enforces them on people. You start to wonder just who it is that beats opposition into the ground. You start to wonder about a lot of things, if you have any intellectual honesty whatsoever.

It's a good thing our president-elect is such a unifier...

Live Dangerously Advocates Living Dangerously

And he's so, so right:

This should be viewed as a war. As in any war troops on the ground are vital. I would of thought that the Surge proved that to us. The internet is there as a tool to help facilitate the gathering of volunteers. A means to get them on board in the first place. Secondly to show them how to meet locally with others, and thirdly how to make a difference in their community. We all need to cultivate that “fire in the belly” that is mandatory to any type of change from the status quo. That “fire in the belly” in an off election year comes best and most convincingly from our belief in our core beliefs as conservatives, that has already bubbled up and we need it to be proudly proclaimed at the top and I might add believed in at the top.

Blogging is great, but we need to match what what we say in what we do. Like our friend Live Dangerously, we've got to be involved in the local party, and from there go out and engage the community. Find out where and when your local GOP meets, meet the candidates, and take the initiative with innovative ways to reach voters we haven't been reaching!

Perhaps we bloggers, who represent a broad cross-section of conservatism in a state where conservatism has no business losing elections, need a forum of some kind to present and discuss new practical ideas for spreading a common-sense conservative message...

Temptation

Conservatives...we're upset. Well, a lot of us are. Barack Obama won. We didn't like John McCain too much, either. The only candidate we really felt any sympathy with got trashed by a mainstream media and an elite culture that, honestly, hates people like her. That was wrong.

But what place should Sarah Palin have in our future?

She's been a fantastic governor. Don't tell me she's incompetent or stupid. She took on one of the nation's most entrenched good-old-boys networks in the country and won. She's charming, good-natured, and has courage and firmness of conviction. Yes, I like her. But I don't get the feeling that she had any thoughts about national politics at all until her phone rang and John McCain was on the other end. Maybe someday she'll be more marketable--yes, we need to take that into consideration--but for right now, what we need is to change the party's brand.

(This is the cue for all the good Ottowa County conservative stalwarts to denounce me as a RINO.)

I read two columns about the future of the GOP, both of which highlighted Sarah Palin: R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr. for the American Spectator, "Vitality in the Wilderness," and Byron York for NRO, "Palin, the Governors, and the New Power in the Republican Party." First, Tyrrell:

What provoked Brooks's fandango with the Traditionalists and the Reformers was a meeting the former group held in the Virginia hills outside Washington to prepare for the years ahead. As Brooks reports, I was present; his term Traditionalist, however, is misleading. There was more variety within the group than you would find among liberals planning a revival in 2004. There were libertarians, evangelicals, tax cutters, hawkish foreign policy advocates, and others. It was indeed the kind of turnout that could be termed "Reaganite," and there are other meetings coming up. For years the conservative movement has had more variety than the liberal movement, which might explain why only 22% of the American people call themselves liberal while 34% call themselves conservatives. There is vitality on the right, and there will be vitality in the wilderness, though the last time we were out here we only stayed two years. Liberal overreach and incompetence saw to that.

(I'm listening to a week-old Hugh Hewitt show on iTunes right now, by the way, and he's talking to Mark Steyn about how Palin's drawing big crowds and that the movement is still there. Great; we can galvanize the 44% of conservatives so that we can have 44% of people be disappointed every election day.) Look, we couldn't get our message across to Americans, by a 52-47 or so margin. We lost Indiana, North Carolina, Virginia. If the national GOP can't get this, the Michigan GOP at least has to: conservatism can speak to many people to whom we've never, ever reached out. Libertarians, evangelicals, tax cutters, military hawks...how long will we preach to the choir before we realize we need to be preaching on the streets?

Sarah Palin is not the voice of a rejuvenated conservative message; I'm afraid she'll be, for many, a would-be avenging conservative angel. She is the personification of fightin' words for a party whose guns have been out of bullets for a while.

York:

Palin’s re-emergence here left a lot of Republicans wondering whether she would be part of a reformed GOP leadership. Barbour said she “helped the ticket,” but yesterday, during a session with the press, Pawlenty and a group of other leaders seemed hesitant to endorse her candidacy. When a reporter asked whether they would have been comfortable with Palin as president, there was a long silence. “I think Gov. Palin is an extremely talented person, and she’s going to be one of the key voices of the party, for Republicans, for a long time to come,” Pawlenty answered. “All I can say is that John McCain made very clear that one of his key criteria for selecting a VP running mate was that that person was ready to be president on day one. So in his judgment, she met that criteria, and he felt strongly about that, and so we’ll have to defer to his judgment and that process.”

It wasn’t exactly a ringing endorsement, and none of the others at the table — Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman, former eBay CEO and top McCain aide Meg Whitman, and former OMB chief Rob Portman — said specifically that they would have been comfortable with Palin as president.

This is more reassuring. Sanity must reign among the governors and other high-ranking folks if this is going to be a time-out instead of an exile. We need to be looking for the people who can change the image of Republicans as big business shills and cold ideologues. People like Bobby Jindal ought to figure heavily in this.

Conservatives want revenge. We need to calm down, consult our values, pull out the moral compass, and survey the terrain. Then we can move forward, intelligently.

Since I'll Be Doing Research All Day Tomorrow...

...here's some more from Akindele Akinyemi, Urban Conservative:

Certainly, we have seen changes in our schools during the last 20 years. Teacher salaries have been raised, student-teacher ratios have been reduced, annual per-pupil spending has increased by about 40 percent and total annual expenditures have grown by nearly 60 percent in constant dollars, from about $180 billion to $280 billion.

Note, however, that those changes were supported by the teacher unions. The unions welcome reforms that lead to higher salaries and smaller classes for teachers and more dues-revenue for the unions. At the same time, the teacher unions oppose reforms that would empower parents or allow private schools to compete on a level playing field for students...

...These are some of the more humanitarian issues the Republican Party could be discussing. Especially independent conservatives and moderates who feel that education should be reformed from the ground up.

The Republican Party can continue to ignore Blacks, Hispanics, and other minorities on issues that matter the most. Gone are the days of coming into the inner city around election time. The next great war on education will take place in the inner cities of Michigan starting now. You can no longer sit and wait to see what is going to happen. Parents want more educational options in the inner city. This includes charter schools and vouchers for private schools. This is a discussion we can no longer ignore.

As a (hopeful) future high school teacher of Latin...VERY YES. Education is not just the perfect issue for Republicans who have all the common sense and none of the establishment advantages
in this debate--it's also an area of vital interest in every community in this state, urban, suburban, and rural. If we as conservatives want to reach people where they are again, then we need to find our voice on issues like this.

I know a lot of my readers will agree. (Both of them.) And if you do, you need to be going into your local Republican meetings, talking to the people there, and spreading this idea. You need to volunteer to help spread it to the community, and let people know that the Republicans have the policy ideas that speak to their lives and their values.

We as a party cannot ignore everything east of Livingston County! The Democratic Party has maintained a stranglehold over an area that they've simultaneously destroyed both economically and morally. We have the message, we can have our voice...but can we have the humility and the compassion to reach out to people who are different from us?

Akindele on the New Direction

This is from last Friday, but reflects my own thoughts quite well. Akindele Akinyemi, Urban Conservative:

I have been warning the Republican Party about the role of minorities in the party. Now all of a sudden all across the nation is how do we get more Blacks into the party. I mean Jesus, we just now figuring this out? Maybe if you put some money behind outreach programs we can go further.

For example, the constant excuses I hear coming out the 14^th District alone in Wayne County is asinine. On one end you want to defeat Congressman John Conyers but will not do any homework to plan, strategize and run the most effective candidate. The excuse is everyone in Detroit will vote for Conyers. You would be surprised of how many people want Conyers out because of his age. Also, there are TONS of young people in Detroit who voted for Obama simply because McCain did not even show up in the inner city. In fact, he did not show up in ANY inner city in Michigan and I can see why. What urban message was he going to convey?

This is so blindingly obvious that only an entire political party could get it wrong. Food for thought. Anyway, it's all interesting...so read it! But the part that concerns us immediately is this:

President-elect Barack Obama has engaged in a brand new electorate called young people. These young people are looking to Obama’s plan for change and have dismissed the core values that has helped us become a nation. What’s worse is that no one in the Republican Party had a TRUE answer for Obama.

If you want young people to join the GOP then you need a reason to bring them to the party.

When we look at how our party is ran is it ran like a natural grassroots operations or is it ran like a telemarketing campaign? We spend more time on the phone than going out in public. We have to get up off our asses and actually walk into the very community where liberal ideology has taken root for decades. No, you cannot send me in, as a Black Republican, to spin the issues either. I simply will not do it so you can sit in the office and work. The real work is OUTSIDE the doors.

There's simply no way conservatives and Republicans can move forward without any excitement from "young people." (Maybe it's because we call them "young people." Listen to me! And I'm 23!) There's an idea that young people are just a lot more liberal, but there are a lot of basically conservative ideas coming from the kids. We youths love localism--anathema to the kind of statism we've been fighting for years. We're concerned about education, health care, and the environment--areas that conservatives have needlessly retreated from for decades. The truth is that the new and innovative solutions are found on the Right, but no politician will give them a voice. We need politicians to find that voice for the general welfare of our citizens, and humanity in general, in opposition to the ideologically-driven special interests of the education establishment and unions.

But the real work isn't in front of the computer screen, or at some Republican Party event. Like Akindele says, it's OUTSIDE! We need to engage the people whose values we know we share, but with whom we've been unable to connect. Maybe that's because the strongest connections are personal, not ideological...and of all people, conservatives should never forget that.

Moving Beyond the Three Legs of the Stool

(I reserved this critique for a new post instead of attaching it to the last one, for the sake of posting brevity. Anyway, read on.)

For some time now, we've talked about the three legs of conservatism: social conservatives, fiscal conservatives, militarist/nationalist/hawkish (take your pick) conservatives. Most people have wanted to talk about how to unite the three, but the truth is that the Bush presidency may have splintered that coalition for good. Hawkish conservatives had to feel happy at first, but then perhaps felt slighted because of the Bush administration's severe mishandling of the beginning of the occupation of Iraq and endless difficulties in Afghanistan. Bush originally took office as the president of social conservatives, but never delivered much on that promise, and in fact social cons have come to realize that the War on Terror presents its own sticky moral dilemmas. Fiscal conservatives loved the tax cuts, but those cold-blooded profiteers never realized that the raised temperatures of lower taxes were never offset by the chilling effect of federal spending, and now they're too lethargic to jump out of the pan: bailouts, here we come.

It's time to get over these things. We need to be honest with ourselves. Any of these three alone is inadequate. Social conservatives are right that we need strong families, strong communities of faith, and strong local communities in order to have a strong nation. Fiscal conservatives are right that economic liberties are inseparable from the other ones, and also that the free market has no rival as a wealth-creating force. And who can argue that our country needs its leaders to be committed to its defense? Conservatism isn't about stopping abortions, or getting rid of welfare, or killing terrorists. It's about people, about human dignity. And if there's one thing that opposes itself to human dignity, it's ideology, and especially ideological snobbery. It's time to make the Republican Party, to make conservatism, about people again.

What does this mean? It means recognizing that ending welfare programs, although admirable in principle, is not attainable or even desirable in the short term. The support mechanisms--local communities, families, etc.--are no longer what they were before the introduction of the dole. Fortunately, welfare programs can be retooled to promote these things and to introduce some degree of obligation, much like welfare reform in 1996. In other words, we can simultaneously reduce social spending and make it help regular people more.

It means recognizing that protecting natural treasures is very important to conservatism. Although we need not buy into the full-blown global climate change frenzy, we must also recognize that natural beauty and clean air and water are important to humankind. Yes, the environmental movement is full of many crazy people who are genuine and violent radicals, but that doesn't mean we need to disagree with every tiniest thing they believe.

We have to recognize the importance of education in people's lives. The Democrats have controlled this debate for no reason at all. Republicans have been lax in promoting the good ideas they've produced and ceded this important territory. We need greater accountability in public schools, more entrepreneurial practices, merit pay, modification of tenure. Private school vouchers alone could help thousands of children stuck in particularly terrible public schools. Too many Republicans see education as a smallball issue, and anyone who has kids should know better.

We have to understand why it is that African Americans and Hispanics reliably vote Democratic. Affirmative action may be an affront to our principles of equal justice before the law, but there are bigger fish to fry. We conservatives ought to be ashamed that we have not produced or advertised any great plans for restoring inner city and other poor and disadvantaged communities. If conservatism cannot be made to work for them, can it really be a legitimate governing philosophy?

We have to understand this about health care, national defense, and so on. It's all about people, not your ideology. It's all about communities, not about purity. And until we come back to that, people won't be all about us.

Jindal, Brooks, and the New Direction

Choose your metaphor. I like "picking up the pieces" best. Whatever it is, the Republican Party needs to do it, and fast.

And note that I say "Republican Party." Not "conservatives," or "libertarians," "traditionalists," or whatever the group is calling itself at the moment. It would be difficult to count the number of times friends have told me that they're "conservatives, not Republicans." Well, guess what? A week ago, we got a new House, a third of a new Senate, and a new president, and all of them either had "R" or "D" next to their name. Refusing to kowtow to a political party may help you feel ideologically pure, but it won't help the country solve the problems that you believe conservatism can fix.

Anyway, onto the infighting stuff. David Brooks, in the New York Times:

Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity are the most prominent voices in the Traditionalist camp, but there is also the alliance of Old Guard institutions. For example, a group of Traditionalists met in Virginia last weekend to plot strategy, including Grover Norquist of Americans for Tax Reform, Leonard Leo of the Federalist Society and Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council. According to reports, the attendees were pleased that the election wiped out some of the party’s remaining moderates. “There’s a sense that the Republicans on Capitol Hill are freer of wobbly-kneed Republicans than they were before the election,” the writer R. Emmett Tyrrell told a reporter.

The other camp, the Reformers, argue that the old G.O.P. priorities were fine for the 1970s but need to be modernized for new conditions. The reformers tend to believe that American voters will not support a party whose main idea is slashing government. The Reformers propose new policies to address inequality and middle-class economic anxiety. They tend to take global warming seriously. They tend to be intrigued by the way David Cameron has modernized the British Conservative Party.

Moreover, the Reformers say, conservatives need to pay attention to the way the country has changed. Conservatives have to appeal more to Hispanics, independents and younger voters. They cannot continue to insult the sensibilities of the educated class and the entire East and West Coasts.

This was inevitable. Actually, though, this isn't new. The Republican presidential primaries revealed a party without trusted leaders and without strong principles. The candidates seemed designed to stoke the flames of conservative civil war that had been simmering for a number of years. Huckabee, the Southern evangelical who antagonized the other candidates. Romney, the (hypothetically) fiscal conservative with the audacity also to be a Mormon and the black mark of having been governor of the People's Republic of Massachusetts. Thompson, the throwback with no energy for the campaign trail. Ron Paul, the obligatory radical. Giuliani, the fiscal conservative with the audacity also to have a New York accent (not a winner among flyover-type cons). Ultimately we stuck with Mack, who'd at least come in second once in a primary and had something to offer every faction. Just, not enough to make them come out and vote on Election Day. (Honestly, conservatism might be experiencing even more ennui if McCain had won.)

But honestly, do we have to have these two sides fighting, as Brooks describes? Let's ask Bobby: (Via Hot Air.)





And this man said exactly what I've been thinking. As is typically the case in these sorts of battles, both sides are right. Both sides have been right since the GOP presidential primaries, too. No, our principles as conservatives have not changed. Yes, we live in a significantly different world now than we did back in the Seventies. And yes, this means that our policy ideas have to change, even as our principles remain the same. But how?

Well, it won't be easy. I regret to say that I've had a part in this, but conservatives have been casting each other out for years over, often, the littlest things. We may not like it, but if we want to govern a democratic nation, we must convince the majority of people not only that our principles, but our policies as well, have vital importance for their lives. If we can't find common ground even among the Republican Party, how can we find common ground with a simple majority of the American people? We're going to have to get past the silly factions that have characterized the conservative coalition of late.

Living On The Edge...

...of my pledge. To post once a day. (On weekdays, I suppose.) Still keeping up, barely.

Updates: My dad, who raised me in the ways of conservatism and Michigan football, has begun his blog: Libertarian Tim. (Note: Not his real name. His real name is just "Tim.") Welcome to the blogosphere!

I Was Wrong

...badly, too. I CAN do lots of work without posting on this blog. Lots and lots of work. So...the next-to-last post may have been an alarm of the false variety. Hmm....but in the interest of noting a historical event...

Finally! Now let's go out there and not be quite as sad, until New Year's Day, when we can drown our sorrows with entire bowls of Chex Mix.

Hope And Change On The Right

Yup, Obama won, on a platform of unity. And yup, his supporters are jumping around, graciously taunting conservatives instead of burning their houses down like they deserve. This is going to be a really interesting four years.

And a really great four years, honestly. There's hardly anything more frustrating than watching a political party once full of bright-eyed idealists with the will and the mandate for a common-sense, limited-government agenda descend into a club of the arrogantly powerful concerned only with how to gain and retain power. Conservatives need to take note: exit polls showed Republicans massively disfavored against Democrats, and conservatism widely favored over liberalism. Democrats won a great number of new seats and reclaimed the White House, but their presidential candidate ran on tax cuts, family values, and a mildly restrained hawkishness. Conservative ballot proposals, including three to ban gay marriage (including in California!), won victories at the polls. This is the same center-right nation it was four and eight years ago.

And now that the House and Senate caucuses are smaller and more conservative, we have an opportunity. We may not like Obama, but we can't get bogged down in a conservative version of Bush Derangement Syndrome. We may not think he's serious about unity and working together with conservatives--but we need to realize that Americans don't want government to be a sport. Remember that, when you next feel the sting of a leftist's taunt about this election...he lost or gained just as much as you did. It's time for conservatives to remember that this isn't a popularity contest--it's about the general welfare of Americans, and we believe that a pragmatic and principled conservatism represents that. We need to get off each other's case, get off Democrats' case, and make one to the American people.

So, where do we go from here? We calm down. We fight primary battles, we recruit good House and Senate candidates. We get involved. We develop policy ideas that promote families and communities, promote the economy, and promote our strategic position in the world. We work with the opposition on issues where we find agreement, and fight them where our principles demand that we stand firm. We apply the timeless values conservatism represents to the issues facing our nation today. We present them to America, and convince her that we're the best shot in 2010 and 2012. In other words, nothing we shouldn't have been doing already.

For the Right, it's time for some hope. And from the last few years, that would be a big change.

The Blog Is Go...Again...

So, I figured I'd pretty much just post every once in a while once I began grad school, but then certain events transpired. 1) I became lazy. 2) Elections/debacles. 3) I realized that if I reserve all my time for school work and commit to little else, I'll commit most of my time to nonsense (read: funny YouTube videos and audio clips from radio sports shows). So I'm going to try to make sure I'm posting here at LEAST once a day. With that, some good stuff:

A new blogger! And one I've personally convinced to start blogging, so you should trust him. Or at least give him a chance, if it turns out you actually hate this blog. He gives me some pretty ridiculously undeserved praise--always a plus--and, more importantly, he exhibits in his thought that rare alliance of erudition, intelligence, and inexhaustible decency...in all matters not relating to college sports. Anyway, check The Shadow-Liner out!

Also, the immensely talented Chattering Chippewa (that's my sister) has her literary blog up and running, here. Check it out, check it out, check it out, check it out...

An Essay for Wednesday

In The Devil's Dictionary, Ambrose Bierce defined "calamity" thus: "A more than commonly plain and unmistakable reminder that the affairs of this life are not of our own ordering." On Tuesday, conservatives suffered a calamity.

I'll confess, I am writing these words two days before the election. If, as I hope, John McCain prevails against all odds, these words will nevertheless be a rallying cry for conservatives; if, as I suspect, Barack Obama carries the day, I hope that this will be both a call to arms and some slight balm for our wounds.

As a Christian, my conservatism is of this kind: I know that good governance will fail in the end. In the last days, humankind will put aside faithfulness to God and hold itself up against Him. But even if I did not believe that, it would nevertheless be true that the conservative's task cannot be more than to preserve what is good against the forces of unthinking Change. We exist to protect the permanent things, to fight those who see human society as a subject of experimentation. We exist to defend civilization, a trust built up and inherited across countless generations, against innovation that takes that civilization for granted. We exist to fight the deification of Reason, of Equality, of Liberty, insofar as they are separated from faith, order, and responsibility, and made into absolute ideals. Against the statism that liberalism sets forth as a tool for human progress, we insist that true human dignity and happiness cannot be codified, cannot be legislated.

As the state expropriates morality, the citizenry becomes increasingly demoralized. Americans grow more juvenile and more trite, less responsible and less relational. Our society grows ever closer to considering pain an absolute evil. Ease, comfort, and satisfaction become our idols, and it is easier to vote for morality than to embody it. In such a climate, a politics of personal responsibility, of social obligations, of family, community, and faith becomes increasingly unpopular. On Tuesday, Americans didn't take a risk; they chose something that was easy.

However, that does not distinguish Election Day 2008 from any other day. The liberal triumph of November the Fourth merely gives this movement an air of officiality. The cancer began long ago, and has metastasized more significantly even than the recent election might indicate. The fatal conceit lies not in the laws or in the public authorities, but in our own hearts.

This is no occasion for gloom. It is an opportunity to remember the truths that, in part, led us to conservatism in the first place. God is in control of all things, and His plan is perfect. There is a purpose in this, though it may be difficult to discern now. Second, no matter how they try, their ideologies can never efface our humanity. Should the very worst happen, we will rebuild again. Finally, although private morality may be discouraged, still our ability to live that morality can never be appropriated by any committee, any council, any authority that the world can contrive.

Stern Lawgiver! Yet thou dost wear
The Godhead's most benignant grace;
Nor know we anything so fair
As is the smile upon thy face:
Flowers laugh before thee on their beds,
And fragrance in thy footing treads;
Thou dost preserve the stars from wrong;
And the most ancient heavens, through Thee, are fresh and strong!

(From William Wordsworth's "Ode to Duty")

In the end, our society is but another city of man. Even should its lights go out after a long daylight, yet we shall keep our vigil. And then we shall rejoice not in the receiving of light, but in the giving.

One Good Reason To Root Against State This Saturday...

(There is a semi-real post about the Ugly vs. the Good game--remember, the Evil is the last game every year. But first, abuse.)

Because we could see a grown man cry:



But seriously folks. I'm not saying Mark Dantonio has all the composure of a toddler before his nap. Still, in honor of Bob Wojnowski, I have decided to provide a transcript of this actual, fabricated conversation in the locker room following last year's game in East Lansing:

Dantonio: Well, men, you fought hard...and....*sobbing* OH G*D! My whole life's work! I can't believe you would do this to me!

Hoyer: --coach--

Dantonio: I HATE YOU! I HATE YOU!

Ringer: Come on Coach, cheer up, there's always next year!

Dantonio: NO! I HATE YOU!

Ringer: Coach, come here. Aww, come on, come here. *hugging the coach* There you go. Now, my mom made us cookies. Would that make you feel better? *holds one out for Coach to see*

Dantonio: *considering* ...no. NO!

Ringer: Just have one, come on, they're goooood! *tries to push one toward Coach's mouth*

Dantonio: *shutting mouth tightly* MMMM! MMMMMM!!!


And so on. Here's a real, non-fabricated quote from little Marky about this year's game, thanks to MGoBlog: "No pun intended, but we were up by 10 with seven minutes to go. And you know what? It isn't over and it still is not over." The most believable part of this is that there was no pun intended. And actually, that game did end, and Michigan State lost. ("NO! I HATE YOU!") Do his own players even take him seriously?

Well, yes and no. In a stunning act of one-up-manship, the Spartan football team retaliated against 87th string RB Mike Milano's crooshing of Wolverine hockey defenseman Steve Kampfer by ganging up to put MSU sophomore icer A. J. Sturges in the hospital last Saturday night. This is the kind of maturity we've come to expect from Dantonio-coached teams; in the imagined words of Sarah Palin, that's just ruhl impressive, guys. So yeah, anyway, eight freshman footballers, 15-20 athletes in all, felony charges expected.

Commence semi-real post.

Well, gang, it's a tough year. We all knew it would be, but...geez. We didn't want to believe we could lose to Toledo. Didn't want to believe we might get blown away by Penn State, much less Illinois. But here we are, relatively lucky to be 2-5, with a very-okay starting QB whose elbow is dinged and no backups who could compete on any other D-I team. A player named "Zion" is getting relatively significant playing time.

Hope for the future: Players named Martavious (already with us), Shavodrick, Fitzgerald, DeQuinta. These names alone might guarantee multiple national championships.

But we find ourselves heading into the State game with, for once, little hope. Those degenerate bums are favored on our home turf. The offense is showing improvement, but only only only when Stephen Threet is out there. (Nick Sheridan is, as an MGoBlog diarist so aptly wrote, the Harbinger of Doom.) Minor managed to get a 100+ yard, 2 TD game against a great run D (I'm doubting we'll ever get to see Ringer do that) without a single fumble. The defense is being very gracious to passers and a little rough on power runners. So there are advantages heading into the game. There's one big bump...and it's on Threet's throwing elbow. Let's hope it goes away a little bit in time for our game against Li'l Brudder.

Other bump, though, come to think of it. Our O-line. It lacks a certain...good...ness....

WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

THAT. WAS. AWESOME.

Michigan: Better than you since 1817.

No Debate

A friend attempted to "pick apart" a wonderful column by David Warren that I posted on Facebook. Instead, he revealed his own ignorance and puerility.

I refuse to debate those whose sweeping pronouncements, because they are based on their poor understanding of the current crisis, are akin to neolithic cavemen deifying flashes of lightning.

This Man Should Not Win The Heisman

From right to left: Coach Sulky Face, Javon Ringer's grill, and Lowly Grad Assistant who is inexplicably all up in it.

I'm talkin' about the guy in the middle, above.

Your first clue: He goes to a university that defines itself entirely in relation to another school. Seriously. This urbandictionary page is a fascinating case study in the unparalleled wonder that is the Spartan Psyche.

But there are more. First of all, he's not even the best at his position. Knowshon Moreno has 250 fewer yards...on less than half the carries. He still has almost as many TDs as Ringer, despite not being his team's whole offense. Cal's Jahvid Best performed better than Ringer in direct play against MSU, and also has better stats for the whole year.

Even if he were the best RB, this is a terrible year for RBs. Comparatively, the QB situation is perverse. There are possibly 47 QBs who are more Heisman-worthy than Ringer in the Big Twelve alone. That is an exaggeration. But Curtis Painter, lamentably, might be the only Big Ten QB who could start almost anywhere in that conference. And I certainly think BYU's Max Hall, USC's Mark Sanchez, Oklahoma's Sam Bradford, and Florida's Tim Tebow should all be above JR. I haven't even mentioned the obvious winner at this point: Mizzou's Chase Daniel. Twenty straight completions? It doesn't matter against whom this is accomplished. The man is the football equivalent of a demigod.

Javon Ringer For Heisman = VERY NO. Seriously. No.

Demagoguery At Its Finest

Sanity may yet win the day, but it won't be because of men like Robert Kuttner, whose American Prospect piece today--"Paulson's Folly"--studiously exploits ignorance about the sources of the current financial crisis to mischaracterize Paulson's bailout plan and encourage false stereotypes of Republicans and Democrats.

Read it all, though for anyone well-versed in the situation it is akin to sitting through an hour of Keith Olbermann on a stomach full of bad seafood. On the other hand, it's always amusing when people who pretend to be serious commentators still see Democrats as Crusaders for the Little Guy (TM), Who Don't Know Much, But Know Somethin' 'Bout Common Dencency Dagnabbit, as opposed to the Republicans with ten gallon hats, nefarious-looking moustaches, and wives wearing fur coats and using their cigarette holders to direct their beaten-down, minority servants.

It would be a terrible shame if the current crisis were to redound to the political advantage of the congressional Democrats who helped begin it by pushing the race-baiting policies (i.e. those against alleged "redlining") and passing the absurd and panicked post-Enron regulations (i.e. the mark-to-market accounting rules included in Sarbanes-Oxley) that contributed to this mess. And I haven't even mentioned their babies, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, whose shady activities ultimately began this crisis and somehow went under the radar while Fannie and Freddie contributed a bunch of money to none other than Democratic senators Chris Dodd and Barack Obama. (There were others, but these two are the biggest recipients.) Efforts to reform these corporations, undertaken by John McCain, George Bush and others to prevent a crisis predicted well in advance by Alan Greenspan, were blocked by...hmm, guess whom?

But that truth might be too inconvenient for Robert Kuttner and the liberal establishment.

She Makes All The Right People Angry

The best way to tell for whom to vote in presidential elections is whom the candidates make angry, and how much. Sarah Palin has almost locked up my vote forever.

Charlie Rangel recently referred to her as "disabled" (Hat tip: Allahpundit). Canadian tax dollars funded this statement that Sarah Palin is "white trash" (Hat tip: also Allahpundit). And there's so much more.

It's been, quite honestly, a blast. I hate to see someone like Sarah--it just seems fitting to use her first name, or perhaps Mrs. Palin--trashed endlessly in national news outlets, but she seems like the type who can handle it. (That may be what they hate most.) However, it's been enormously entertaining to see the pent-up elite condescension and arrogance come bursting forth in a flood of the sort of hate-filled expression one rarely finds outside of college campuses and the occasional high-school classroom.

At Least There Aren't Any FUNNY Shows Campaigning For Obama Yet

But in case you missed it, the once-amusing sketch comedy program Saturday Night Live has lent out its airtime to the Obamessiah.

SNL opened a recent episode with a sketch featuring John McCain fumbling with technology (haha! he's old!) and approving ridiculous attack ads against Obama (OMG heresy). They even took a shot at Sarah Palin's lack of experience (haha! she's got less experience ... campaigning ... nationally...hrm...). If these things were simply SNL attempting to be funny instead of making some sort of ill-considered point, then....how do they have a comedy show and I don't?

This looks bad for a few reasons. First of all, this sketch could have come directly from the Obamessiah's recent talking points: 1) McCain can't use email (in fact, this is because of injuries sustained during his torture at the hands of the North Vietnamese Communists). 2) The idea that, somehow, McCain's campaign has taken a much lower road despite the Obamessiah camp's repeated sliming of critics, absurd and outright lies to scare the elderly, and his recent Spanish-language ad insinuating that John McCain is an anti-immigration zealot in league with Rush Limbaugh, who by the way is a racist if you take some things he said completely out of context. (This is particularly laughable to anyone who's lis tened to a single full episode of Rush.)

Of course, it isn't particularly surprising that SNL would stoop to becoming a Democratic campaign commercial. And it's especially unsurprising that flailing Democratic Senate candidate and noted sleazeball Al Franken probably came up with the idea, considering just how funny it is.

Just imagine how devastating it could potentially be if a good show started this kind of thing. I, for one, am looking forward to second seasons for NBC's Chuck and CBS's The Big Bang Theory, as well as NBC's The Office and 30 Rock and ABC's merciful mid-season pick-up of Scrubs for its eighth season.

This Moment Brought To You By The Football Gods

Today is, as ESPN.com's Adam Rittenberg notes, the two-year anniversary of one of the best sports radio rants ever.  Ever.

September 23, 2006.  My Wolverines were on their way to an 11-0 start and had just sobered up the Irish (haha) to the tune of 47-21.  The Spartans had beaten Notre Dame in South Bend in 2005 in OT and classlessly planted its flag on their 50-yard-line.  A beleaguered Irish team entered East Lansing that day to face a resurgent Spartan team with a skilled senior QB and a deep backfield.

MSU dominated the first half, and then the hurricane hit.  I remember that night, how hard the rain came down.  I remember hearing the cheers from the stadium all the way up in North Campus, even in the middle of one of the biggest storms they had during my four years there.  You couldn't ask for a more faithful fan base, one that wanted it more that night.

And then, it happened again.  Again.  MSU choked it away, and in the most heartbreaking fashion I have ever personally witnessed.  I can't really describe the looks on the faces of the people on my floor afterward.  It wasn't that they couldn't believe it; far from that, they suspected it would happen all along.  And that must've been the worst part.  Not just to lose to a hated rival again after such a great start, again, but to see that your team is exactly the team they've always been, and not champions.  Still, not champions.  I'd never seen looks like that on fans' faces before, and I haven't again since then, not even when I was at the Appalachian State game.  Even I, a completely and utterly deathless enemy of Spartan football, felt sorry for them.  Not condescendingly--sympathetically.  It was truly awful.

But two years later, it's worth remembering for this awesome moment in sports radio history, brought to you by the Spartans' Mike Valenti.  Listen to the whole quarter-hour.  Seriously.  You don't even have to be a sports fan, necessarily.  It is, quite simply, unspeakably delightful.  As far as I'm concerned, if the Spartans could just perpetually cause this sort of thing to happen, I would be extremely happy with that.  Enjoy:

Credit and the FDR Myth

I'd planned a more elaborate post regarding the powerful "FDR Myth" in American electoral politics, but alas, rude interruptions from my life as a graduate student have prevented me from doing so.  Suffice it to say that the FDR Myth--that the free market failed, Hoover's conservative policies were ineffective, and Roosevelt fixed the whole thing with government involvement--is back.  This time, McCain plays the role of the inept Iowa Republican, refusing to buck conventional (constitutional?) wisdom to fix everything, and Obama is the heroic Progressive who rides into town and restores America to the Little Guy.  Such arguments are invariably short on economic analysis, heavy on overwrought outrage about such things as an offhand comment that the fundamentals of the economy are strong.  Try these on for size:  my friend's Facebook post of an Eric Rauchway column in the American Prospect (which is, far from "stunningly good," rather stunningly ignorant of economics), and Froma Harrop on RealClearPolitics.

On the other hand, we have several columns from people who--what do you know!--actually know something about financial markets.  And they seem to think that these problems have been caused--what do you know!--by some absurd regulations panickedly passed into law after the Enron scandal and absurd regulations forced on banks by racemongers in the Nineties.  Here you go:

• Larry Kudlow, "Never Sell America Short"
• Neal Boortz, "The Rest of the Meltdown Story"
• Zachary Karabell, "Bad Accounting Rules Helped Sink AIG"

I know, guys.  Ever since the unfettered free market--*snort*, interjects Michelle Malkin--caused the Great Depression, every economic downturn, every stock market crash, every downtick in employment has, to these economic illiterates, provided a reason to return to Thirties-style socialism.  It must be disappointing that, for all the impassioned attacks against such left-wing bogeymen as "speculators," the free market isn't going to send the economy into a deregulation-induced tailspin while Republican fat cats retire to their mansions to let the exploited underclass rot in their sprawling Dubyavilles.  Maybe next time.

The imagery would be more entertaining if it weren't politically effective.

Bowl Chances

Posts like this are always a good opportunity to look foolish later on, but hey...a paid professional already did it today, so why not me?

I still think Michigan goes to a bowl game.  Here we go.

They have to win at least seven games, most likely, to do this, since all 7-5 teams have to be taken over all 6-6 teams (negating Michigan's inevitable ratings/attendance advantage over all the likely middle-of-the-pack Big Ten teams).  So out of the remaining nine games, we have to find six wins.

Michigan's offense still looked good against Notre Dame when it wasn't committing a freakish amount of turnovers--a phenomenon that is not likely to persist, at least not like that.  The defense still looked good, apart from a couple blown big plays.  Like Jamie Samuelsen, I think Michigan beats Notre Dame if they play again.  Moreover, I think Michigan's offensive is getting a lot better every week.  We've found our QB in Steven Threet and our RB in Sam McGuffie, and our other pint-sized freshman slot lightning bolt, Terrance Robinson, is expected back within the next few games after spending the first three sidelined.

I think I can chalk up Northwestern, Purdue, Toledo, and Minnesota as likely victories, so let's do that.  Gets us to five, with five games left to consider.  Despite AN Ohio State University's troubles, I think we can still mark our game at Ohio Stadium with a big L.  Same with Penn State, who, although they've only really played weaklings so far, looks very good, plays us at home, and has long-, LONG-awaited revenge on their minds.  So that leaves three games with two necessary wins:  Michigan State, Wisconsin, and Illinois.  All three games are at home.

Of the three, Wisconsin seems like the least likely victory.  We play them next--giving us less improvement time--and they seem to be the best of the three.  They have a veteran RB and a good, veteran line, as well as a great TE.  Our best chance is to put up a lot of points early and force their first-year QB to pass...but even with that, I still don't see it.  But nothing's impossible.

Michigan State boasts a fantastic RB, a mediocre line, and an even worse QB.  Their defense might be good, but we haven't really had a chance to see yet:  they gave up lots of points, lots of big runs, to Cal, another spread team with tiny quickish guys.  (Cal proceeded to thwomp another minor team, then get crushed by lowly Maryland of the quasi-mid-major ACC.)  They held Eastern Michigan to an expectedly low score.  They shut out FAU, which would have been impressive minus the monsoon.  If Michigan contains Ringer and gets to Hoyer, expect a Michigan victory, especially at home.  The offense will be a lot better by then, barring more O-line injuries.  *panickedly knocking on wood*

Illinois is still Illinois.  Same inconsistent, great-talent, poor-execution team.  Michigan's never yet struggled with Juice Williams, and I doubt that they start now.  And this year, there's no Mendenhall.  The Illini D has not played impressively, and that might spell trouble against a steadily improving Michigan offense at the Big House.  I outright predict a Michigan victory here.

Thus, I predict that our bowl chances may very well rest on our beating Michigan State, and I give us even chances from what I've seen so far.

Disiuncta

Grad school has been consuming much time I would normally spend on this blog, so I apologize for the extremely long delays between posts.  I cannot predict an uptick in blogging here, but I can post what I can when I can, anyway.  So here goes!

• Jay Nordlinger is, hands-down, my favorite political writer.  Unlike most who write about politics, Jay displays in his columns an irrepressible humanity, a love of beauty, and a rare sincerity.  He is, quite simply, terribly normal. His expression of conservatism is not a series of logical arguments that forth a political doctrine, but a window into the heart of a person who lives conservative values each day.  And really, isn't conservatism about life and values anyway, and not doctrine?  Read his stuff at http://www.nationalreview.com/, already!
• Michigan did manage to defeat Miami (Ohio), if underwhelmingly.  I keep hearing that Steven Threet was outperformed by Nick Sheridan.  Threet had his problems connecting with open receivers downfield--in the same sense that Varrus encountered some difficulties in the Teutoberg Forest (classics zing!) (Threet, give me back my touchdowns!  I need to stop.)--but that option isn't even there with Sheridan.  Not only that, but Threet seems to make better decisions than Sheridan, even out of the zone read play.  I think Threet will eventually find those receivers, and he's the starter.  At any rate, the real problems are in blocking:  the offensive line is riddled with injuries, and the wide receivers are struggling in their new role as downfield blockers.  These things will improve with reps, but it remains to be seen how effective the offense can conceivably be against major-conference teams.
• The defense is not a huge worry.
• John McCain is coming back in a big way.  The latest indication?  The Intrade Market Odds, which once had Arizona's senior senator down 20-30 points, now give him a 6-percent edge.  Is it any wonder that the media are melting down?
• Speaking of which:  Obama's skid is greatly satisfying, but not moreso than the media's Palin huffery.  Men are revealed most in the sudden, unguarded moments of great emotion, and their immediate and natural condescension gave Americans a look at what their true colors: all blue.  Happily, in more ways than one.

Palin: My Take

The Sarah Palin thing has generated enough interest in me at a time when I happen to have the luxury to post a lot, that...here we are. My post about Sarah Palin. Or, I guess, Sarah Palin in the larger context of the presidential election/general electoral politics.

Her speech was good. Not just good. Awesome. I haven't heard a better speech since, perhaps, Zell Miller's at RNC '04. "I guess a small-town mayor is sort of like a "community organizer," except that you have actual responsibilities." Money.

I haven't always agreed with John McCain's actions, but he is definitely unafraid to attack entrenched interests, and that is something we could use. Sarah Palin only bolsters that reputation, as she took on corrupt Republicans in Alaska, not to mention the oil companies, and scored unlikely and impressive victories--although much work is left to be done there, so long as the reprehensible Sen. Stevens and Rep. Young remain in office. Certainly, Obama, with his solid and longstanding support of such interests as NARAL and the NEA--not to mention his participation in Chicago machine politics--cannot claim the same reformist credentials.

Suddenly, I have another reason--if I needed one--to vote for McCain against Obama. I want to see Sarah Palin in national politics, and if she can gain more experience and the stars align, I will wholeheartedly support her for president someday. She is smart, up-front, a doer rather than a talker, nevertheless a great communicator, and genuine. She seems to have a knack for mocking opponents in a way that seems more legitimate than mean. And she gets people fired up in a big way. (Just watch the video.)

And not just people...ME. How often does that happen without some maize and blue involvement?

Nota: DDT, Part Deux

Pile it on!

• Paul K. Driessen:  "The Truth About DDT."  Author of Eco-Imperialism:  Green Power and Black Death.
• http://www.3dchem.com/molecules.asp?ID=90.  Some basic info about this little-ish molecule.
• Time.com:  "Safe DDT."  From army officers.  They know safety.
• Cecil Adams, The Straight Dope column:  "Was Rachel Carson a Fraud and Is DDT Actually Safe For Humans?"  A measured answer.
• Terence Kealey, Daily Telegraph:  "DDT is safe; just ask the professor who ate it for forty years."  Erm...bleargh.

Enjoy.

Blog Difficulties Of Various Kinds

Hey guys.  I've been absolutely terrible about posting, obviously, but to be fair, it's my first week at one of the top grad schools in its field in the world.  Things are busy, to say the least!  But as I adjust and things settle down a bit, I'll try to be back and providing insight--or ramblings, depending on your perspective--on the political/athletic/whatever interests me events of the day.

Furthermore, my ability to comment on my own posts has been...curtailed, somehow.  I'm thinking here of prospective and, inexplicably, impossible comments in response to "Ed Darrell" on the topic of DDT.  I had no idea that such inoffensive concepts as the fact that light indoor spraying of DDT could save millions of lives from malaria or that DDT has not been demonstrated to be a carcinogen--and it certainly has not--would be responded to with such force and vehemence.  (With a little added Big Tobacco accusation thrown in!  Delightful.)  Another round of DDT links to follow.

Anyway, I'll throw in a little bonus comment about Sarah Palin:  She's likeable.  I like her.  There.

Someday, Maybe They'll Find That Wonderful "Generic Democrat"

But so far, they're stuck with trivial and/or unintelligent people.  Thank heaven.

Obama's in trouble.  After the national convention, a presidential candidate ought to see a 10-15 point bounce...nothing.  Not only that, but McCain's surprise pick of Sarah Palin, an energetic corruption-buster and staunch social conservative from Wasilla, Alaska, has been earning praise from the conservative base--and, just as importantly, millions in campaign contributions.  The pick upstaged the DNC and started the excitement of the GOP convention early.  Obama has already looked seriously wishy-washy and trite in a one-on-one debate with McCain; the Arizonan maverick is clearly a better debater than the Chicago machine pol.  And in one nationally televised debate, the feisty and intelligent Palin will reveal Biden to be an old, establishment blowhard and an intellectual lightweight.  The Obama campaign is looking more and more like failed Democratic campaigns past, whereas the McCain camp has energy and the promise of serious reform.  For the second time in as many presidential elections, a Democrat will speak on the first day of the Republican National Convention.

Everything's coming up roses for the GOP.

Nota: DDT

This has little to do with current events, but a recent disagreement with a friend leads me to provide this list of sites with information on DDT -- and the fact that it is most certainly not dangerous.

• Steven Milloy:  "DDT:  The Bald Eagle Lie."  Putting some of these Green movement lies to rest.
• RachelWasWrong.com:  "Is DDT Safe?"  Erm...yes.
• RachelWasWrong.com:  "DDT and Wildlife."  Friends forever.
• The Volokh Conspiracy:  "WHO Backs DDT Use."  International consensus, suckers!

(Not a complete list, but I wanted to get some down.  Enjoy.)

At The End Of The Game, They Still Have To Go Back To Utah

On the other hand, they won, so I guess they made the best of a bad situation.

So did Rich Rodriguez, but it wasn't enough.  The numbers don't necessarily reflect this, but...Nick Sheridan was much, much worse than Steven Threet.  Threet wasn't that great.  The O-line wasn't good.  The WRs aren't meant for this system.  The linebackers figured it out in the second half, too late to stop Utah from gaining a decisive advantage.

The good:

• My dad came down for the game; it was fun to hang out with him again.
• My dad managed to scalp a ticket for sixty bucks in the seventh row at the 50-yard-line.  Holy frick.
• Utah fans are pretty nice folks.
• Special teams are looking good.
• The second-half defense was the real defese, in my opinion.
• The inexperienced LBs learned fast, and the D, impressively, held Utah under 30 second-half total yards.
• Later on, Li'l Brother pulled another semi-"Sparty, No!" in losing to Cal.  So at least there was some satisfaction today.

The bad:

• The QBs are not good.  Sheridan's "hometown hero" campaign didn't last long.
• My dad and I switched seats--mine was in the student section--after half, and the M alum sitting next to me was SO WHINY.  I kinda wish I'd told him off.  On the other hand, he DID pay a lot of money for that seat for the whole year...but no.  No excuse.
• Greg Matthews got injured.
• All the positions that were question-marks came down on the "alarming" side.
• We need to win games that are close.  Yes, yes, this game wasn't ACTUALLY, REALLY close.  Not REALLY.  Not 25-23 close.  But still, when all you need is to get into FG position and you basically go backwards...

Optimism:  Reps, reps, reps.  Especially on the O-line, this is important.  We will improve.
Pessimism:  So how many games we win this year?  2?  3?

Nah, I think we win more than 2-3 games.  I think we do get better.  And I'm impressed with the D, despite their first-half awfulness, for holding a very good Utah team the way it did in the second half.  Our offense will not be Notre Dame 2007.

I do, however, revise my predictions down:  a bowl game would be an accomplishment for this team.  But if we aren't significantly better--smoother, at least--next year, something went very wrong.

OH, I forgot one in the "good" category:  The Illinois--Mizzou announcer said "It doesn't make sense to hold anything back now!"  We know, we know!  Yay.