Brief Essays With Pictures

Here’s what I’ve been thinking. Seven years ago, America suffered an attack that shocked us to our core, rewrote the way we thought about the world (and the way the world thought about us), and forced us to acknowledge the fact that we were not beloved. The 9-11 attacks were the most shocking, horrific thing to happen in my lifetime. The obvious question now is, how can I profit from that terrible day?

Here’s my idea - let’s get a small, desperate African nation (like Liberia) to release a piece of silver currency commemorating the attacks. On one side, the text will clearly show that it is worth $20, and there will be pictures of the new Freedom Tower. On the other, the currency will read $9 and $11 (which added together equal $20). There will be pictures of the original Twin Towers. Let’s print “We Will Never Forget” on this thing, and how can we, because we’ll own a piece of currency designed to pay (get it?) tribute to that horrible day. We’re going to have to advertise this thing too, and I think we ought to include some footage of the World Trade Center right before it was hit by the first plane if possible. Then, we’ll sell these things for $20 a pop, plus shipping and handling, but we’ll limit sales to five per person. We’ll create the false impression that these things are even more desired than they already are. Once we’ve sold them, we will have profited from a terrible tragedy! This is a fucking brilliant plan.

What? Somebody’s already thought of this? And they’ve already got the advertisement I just described, streaming on its front page’s top right corner?

Well fuck me running. I thought I was really onto something here. Good for these guys though. The world has been desperate for a Liberian made, silver leaf $20 bill remembering 9-11 that can be yours, yours, yours! for the low price of $20 plus shipping and handling limit five.

…wait, that’s not what happened. It’s just that accused prostitute visitor David Vitter and bathroom sex pursuing Larry Craig actually have had the audacity to reintroduce The Federal Marriage Amendment, a piece of horseshit legislation designed to prevent the gheys from marryin anywheres! (That link isn’t working. Keep clicking it. Maybe that will help.)

Honestly, the audacity of the Republican Party these days. These jackasses will lecture anybody about anything while continuing to do precisely those things within their own homes…or brothels…or public bathrooms. At what point does shame come into play? At what point does somebody say, “Maybe I shouldn’t lecture other people about their alleged moral failings when I have actual moral failings of my own?”

Surely people will realize the hackitude of the Republican Party, getting involved in these shenanigans despite their own moral bankruptcy. Surely this will drive Christians away. Or…you know…it won’t, because an awful lot of Christians are perfectly comfortable with this sort of out and out lunacy.

New What a Bad Idea about a facial hair ban. Here’s more on the absurdity.

So, the verdict is in: I really, really like doing podcasts. I’ve done another one, on gay marriage.

Get it here.

I have many more topics in mind. Feel free to suggest any if you’ve got them.

Honestly, I might do one every day. Or twice a day. I have no clue. They’re friggin fantastic.

Woo hoo! I just used “kerfluffle” in a headline. And just then again in a sentence. I win! I win!

I love my father very much. My mother too. They’re both fantastic people. Both want West Virginia University’s idiot president, Mike Garrison, to resign for his role in Heather Bresch’s illegitimate reception of an eMBA. Unfortunately, they’re not going to get what they want.

To believe Mike Garrison’s side of things, the following facts do not tell a story:
-Garrison got his job from Joe Manchin, West Virginia’s governor.
-Garrison was friends with Heather Bresch, Joe Manchin’s daughter.
-Garrison represented Mylan, a pharmaceutical company that currently employs Heather Bresch. (The company is owned by one of West Virginia University’s largest donors, Milan “Mike” Puskar.)
-Upon realizing that Heather Bresch had never actually earned an Executive Masters of Business Administration, Garrison’s chief of staff convened a meeting with several other higher ups from the University’s administration in which it was decided to pretend as if she had in fact earned it. This was promptly discovered, because predictably, the kinds of people who make it into WVU’s administration are complete morons.

Essentially, Mike Garrison wants you to believe that even though he can thank her father for his position, that even though he counts Bresch as a friend, that even though she is employed by one of the University’s most financially flush patrons, he had nothing to do with her receiving a degree that she hadn’t earned.

Let’s suppose I came to you and told you that story: would you believe it was at least potentially possible that Garrison had some influence over the outcome? Of course you would, because you’re not an idiot.

My parents aren’t idiots. They visualized the pieces, put the puzzle together, and can see the image: WVU is lead by an unqualified lunkhead who gives degrees away not caring a tinker’s cuss for the damage it does to the University’s reputation.

Unfortunately, West Virginia’s political aristocracy couldn’t give a good goddamn what people like my parents think. They have never cared what people like my parents think, or, for that matter, what anybody in West Virginia thinks. They always do exactly as they please, and play the, “But we’re West Virginians!” card whenever they get themselves into trouble.

For instance, sure, we could have had a qualified state treasurer to manage our money, but A. James Manchin was also available, and dammit, he was from the state! So we elected him and ended up losing $231 million dollars. (Or, you could have fun with Arch Moore, a former idiot governor who settled a $100 million lawsuit for $1 million instead, after the Buffalo Creek Flood. Actual West Virginians referred to the dam’s collapse as an “Act of God.” Instead of blaming the idiots who tried to dam hundreds of thousands of gallons of water with mud.)

Look, I love West Virginia, but would anybody seriously object if the city of Charleston burned to the ground with every single member of this state’s ruling elite inside? Yes, we’d be bad off for a time, waiting for special elections to replace the yahoos who currently pillage our state blind behind their constant song, “But we’re West Virginians!” But then, a week later, we’d have all new people, who for at least a time would be so uncoordinated that they couldn’t possibly be worse than the idiocracy we currently have running things.

As I said, I love my parents, but they’ve got to much faith in things if they think WVU’s president is going anywhere just because he’s a completely corrupt moron who does the will of his political patrons over the good sense that just anybody else might possess. Facts are facts. Truths are truths. West Virginia’s a painfully fucked up place, and this certainly isn’t going to be the scandal that fixes things.

Pictured above are ramps, part of West Virginia I like, one of the things I have to constantly think about whenever Garrison pops into my head.

-I want to pretend like I have something important to write about, but I most definitely do not. My daughter just walked onto the porch; my girlfriend is laying on a hammock. Birds are chirping. There isn’t a cloud in the sky. The semester is mercifully over. Now what?

-Now my daughter is hula-hooping. The 1950’s are so excited.

-I’ve resolved on about a million different occasions to stop drinking soda (cola, pop, ect.). My failure rate thus far is a perfect 100 percent. I quit drinking beer, which had literally replaced water for me, but I cannot quit drinking soda. It’s a shameful, shameful addiction.

But I have hatched a plan, a remarkably stupid plan: I’m getting the words “No Soda” tattooed on my right wrist, also known as “my drinking wrist.” Desperate times call for desperate measures, and the fact of the matter is that I am fat and getting fatter. Cutting out a huge amount of calories from my diet has to help, doesn’t it?

-Before anybody proposes to save me from my stupid plan with suggestions like, “Why not diet soda?” please recognize that you are wasting your time. I’d no sooner drink diet soda than I would non-alcoholic beer. The point of these addictions is the delicious alcohol, or sugar, depending. I can’t pretend like those aren’t the things I love. Replacing one with the other doesn’t solve a thing.

-The girlfriend doesn’t agree with me on this plan, and has added another level: she is demanding I put in writing a promise to allow her to choose the coverup tattoo. She thinks I’m going to fail, so she wants to be able to punish me. But I won’t fail. I can’t. It’s literally tattooed on my body. Right?

-Speaking of Worst Plan In The World, I’m getting myself more emotionally prepared to start up the WABI Podcast, which is what I plan to call mine. What A Bad Idea Podcast, in case you’re wondering. I hope another one doesn’t already exist.

One of the most irritating things about the ongoing Fundamentalist Church of Latter Day Saints situation in Texas is the infuriating hypocrisy courtesy conservative religious folks. Before we get to that though, this: a bed was found in the FLDS temple which was allegedly used to immediately consummate the relationships between adult men and teenage girls who had been forcibly married. In other words, these teenage girls were forced to have sex in the church right after getting married. In what world do things like this happen? Who still thinks this sort of behavior is not only tolerable, but appropriate?

Perhaps it’s better we don’t get an answer. Maybe Truth Spreader, who commented on the last FLDS post:

…if it was okay to marry a 14 year old two years ago then it is okay today–the only thing that has changed is that the lesbians and feminist managed to amend the marriage statute. well…it is time to amend it back.

I don’t even know how to respond somebody claiming that “lesbians and feminist(s)” ruined it that whole marrying-14-year-old-girls thing for the rest of us.

Still, how can we account for the lack of outrage coming from the conservative religious community, a group that can collectively lose its shit if McDonalds dares to recognize gays? Check out the rest of World Net Daily - there’s nothing under a search for “Mormon.” Nothing either for “Texas.” Search for “FLDS” and you’ll turn up one column describing Warren Jeffs prosecution as unfair because creepy isn’t criminal.

Maybe there’s outrage out there on the conservative religious side, but Lord knows I don’t know where to find it. Meanwhile the articles about the compound’s manipulation of the girls keeps filtering out.

The point that I’m trying to make, badly, is that if one side of the fence is consistently expected to denounce their own members, shouldn’t conservatives, and particularly religious conservatives, be held to the same expectations? Shouldn’t the religious conservatives who regularly tell us about the damage done to marriage by gays who merely want access to the institution have the same courage when it comes to denouncing this sort of abusive nonsense, particularly as it was done in God’s name?

Even the non-polygamous Mormons in Utah maintain - while passing anti-gay legislation at the drop of a hat - that prosecuting polygamists would be unfair. And then there’s this. The message is clear of course: while gays have erred, polygamists, although its practice is illegal, retain the support of even the non-polygamous. Gays should be prosecuted and kept from marrying; polygamists should be welcome to whatever behavior they want, even if it is against the law. Which is how you ultimately end up with this. The state’s attorney general essentially encouraging polygamous behavior (which is illegal) so long as nobody is hurt by it. All of those Christians suggesting that homosexual marriage will lead to polygamy clearly don’t understand that the polygamous seem to enjoy just as much freedom as the monogamous, just so long as they don’t hurt anybody doing so.

The hypocrisy of it is galling. These people clearly believe that while some of us should be judged by a particular set of laws, the laws as applied to Mormons just don’t count. Gays can be prevented from marriage, while multiple marriages can be encouraged amongst the FLDS. That it ended up taking the sexual abuse of perhaps hundreds of children over the course of fifty years for somebody (anybody!) to finally intervene is evidence enough of the inherent corruption of religious conservatives in Utah, Arizona, and Texas. Nobody else would have been given leeway like this.

(This is what I’m talking about. Banning porno to protect the kids. But protesting polygamists who sexually abuse children? Never.)

A youth minister who finally admitted his responsibility for a 1994 murder has been forgiven by his church. Because taking responsibility, even 18 years after the fact, is really quite the accomplishment.

The man is a murderer who lied about it for 14 years. Finally taking responsibility for his gruesome actions - which happened when he was asked to provide identification while trying to buy cigarettes, which is as good a reason to kill somebody as anything else - his church has described the man as a “hero” and an excellent “role model.” Which would be fine, I guess, if it wasn’t so stupid.

This is a man who stabbed another man for doing his job, and then lied about it, and then wormed his way into a position teaching children. Had his parishioners said something like, “Well, it’s good that he finally accepted responsibility for his heinous actions,” that’d be one thing. But these people are trying to canonize the man for being a lying murderer.

One wonders if (some) Christians will ever understand the bizarre nature of their behavior, particularly suggesting that this dude is a role-model. How about the guy who got stabbed, who was working for a living and did his job? He seems far more worthy of our respect and attention that this douchebag. But of course, for (some) Christians, it is the sinner who says he’s sorry, even after all the wreckage, that really, truly matters. Or something.

No points are given to the people quietly living and not bothering anybody else. That’s nothing compared to a life of crime with a meekly muttered, “My bad,” at the end.

Lame.

I like The Onion’s AV Club. I’ve been a fan since I first realized that the satirical news magazine was doing serious reviews, interviews, and giving Dan Savage a place to publish. That said, it is a publication that has the tendency to really condescend beyond all reason to its readership.

Today’s The Knights Who Say “Nerd”: 20 Pop-Cultural Obsessions Even Geekier Than Monty Python is just ugly. There’s no merit to it, because nowhere do the authors indicate that they themselves might share in some of this fandom; it reads instead as if the hipsters are just making fun of the nerds in an attempt to feel better about their own cultural obsessions. And yes, these are people that are culturally obsessed.

It takes genuine cajones to believe that spending all of your available income on the latest European release of a Modest Mouse EP before heading over to your friend’s house for a Fassbinder Film Festival is somehow better than dressing up like your favorite anime character. Hipsters, of course, do prioritize the world this way, believing that their own obsessions are somehow superior to everybody else’s and using that idea to condescend to everybody around them. “Oh, really? Frank Zappa? Thanks, but no thanks. Rilo Kiley’s the thing now.” (Or, you know, whatever band is the thing now. I have no idea. I still think They Might Be Giants are fantastic.)

In the movie “The Apostle” with Robert Duvall, he is walking over a bridge in Louisiana when he sees Catholics celebrating a Christian holiday. Himself a Pentecostal minister, he watches for a few minutes. “You do things your way, and I’ll do them mine.” He says, laughing to himself, because while he isn’t a Catholic, he understands that ultimately, they’re both praying to the same god.

The hipsters at The Onion’s AV Club could take a lesson from that. Hipsterism isn’t in any way superior to the sort of nerdish behavior decried in the article above; rather, it is precisely the same sort of behavior focused on (barely) different pursuits. Acting as if the other is true is both offensive and shockingly dense. (One wonders if they have any idea what kind of people are reading and enjoying The Onion itself?)

My friend Andy has been briefly exploring the academic publishing process at his blog Wide Scope. His perspective is going to be different than mine, because we both occupy very different positions within academia. He is a professor presumably pursuing tenure; I’m a lowly PhD candidate. That said, we have privately expressed frustration to one another about the relatively cliquish of academia, an activity that seems the antithesis of reasonable, open discourse.

The cliquishness that I object to has to do with particular schools of critical thought, as it often seems as if those specialists focus so specifically on their own perspective that they leave no time or energy for any other perspective. So we’re left with a situation in which some of the world’s most learned people have gone from open explorers of important ideas to close-minded cranks who refuse to consider anything but their own perspective. This is troublesome.

The journaling process might be part of the problem, as journals within disciplines tend to be controlled by the particular schools of thought that dominate those disciplines. As a result, professors hoping to get published might believe that their ability to publish is limited by their willingness to attach themselves to various schools of thought.

I know that I’d like to study political philosophy - because I want to be a millionaire, and political philosophers make millions…right? Have I been misled? - but I’ve been presented a world in which there are three schools: historians of political thought, political theorists, and political philosophers. Each of these schools claims various parts of the political philosophical literature as their own, and then claims dominion over what can and cannot be done with political philosophy. These groups are so ingrained into the vastness of academia, I imagine that it can be hard to exist on their margins. I’ve heard horror stories of professors from one school having their applications thrown out by hiring committees comprised of another school’s members.

Because really, what says academic integrity more than allowing the political philosophers of one group to exist at a particular academic institution?

Yet apparently, this is the industry standard. Few bat an eyelash at the apparent hypocrisy of belonging to a school of thought while simultaneously promoting exploration of problems. How can that exploration occur if the framework of the answer is predetermined? How can published work be genuine if some of it is designed to satisfy the school of thought instead of the facts?

More on this subject later.

-First things first - an art show I put together is going up in three weeks. The flyer is above. It will feature local and semi-local artists exploring the topic of love, although not necessarily in that Hallmarkian light. Think of the other things that go along with love - constant frustration, sadness, anger, lunacy - and figure that at least some of those will be included.

Be there! February 1, 8-11pm, Wild Zero Studios, 229 Pleasant Street, Morgantown, West Virginia.

-Sadly, we need to briefly discuss Barrack Obama’s loss in New Hampshire yesterday which would have been, until about a week ago, considered an enormous victory. Here was Hillary Clinton, the establishment’s candidate, who should have been romping and stomping through New Hampshire. Obama wasn’t an afterthought, but it was looking like he’d come in second place. Then he won Iowa, and people starting wondering if he could win New Hampshire. His polling numbers were great, the exit polling looked good…and then Hillary Clinton won the damned thing.

Which means that Democrats, faced with a choice between the old-guard representing everything that is wrong with the party and the fresh face who promised hope…still managed to go in the wrong direction. Again. How in the fuck can a political party be so god-damned stupid? How in the fuck can a party that has lost, and lost, and lost, and lost, continue to look at presidential candidates and pick the one least electable?

There is no way that I’m voting for Hillary Clinton. I’m not holding my nose for a third consecutive election and endorsing a candidate that I have no particular interest in. If the Democrats are so fucking stupid as to push Clinton through as a presidential candidate, then that’ll be one less vote their candidate is getting. This is a strategy that is stupid beyond words; frankly, it deserves to lose in the big election.

Meanwhile, hope springs eternal for Barrack Obama. South Carolina favors him, and potentially Nevada. And a run on Super Tuesday isn’t impossible, because he’s an appealing candidate to all kinds of people, not just the sort of Democrat loyalists who don’t know their heads from their asses. Here’s hoping for a great run from Obama, who predictably sounded better in defeat than Clinton did in victory.

Incidentally, I want everybody who is claiming that Hillary is being opposed because she’s a woman to stop - she’s being opposed because she’s a terrible candidate. Her gender has absolutely nothing to do with it. Or at least, it didn’t, until the media starting killing her for allegedly crying. Way to fuck that one up media punditry. As soon as it came down to something as small as a candidate crying, Hillary went from being a loathsome candidate who came to a state like West Virginia and demanded $1,000 from anybody wanting to be in the same room with her (true story!) and turned her into a victim. All the media had to do was let Hillary pull the rug out from under herself - in their rush to do it for her, they accomplished the exact opposite result, and now we’re stuck with the very real possibility that we’ll be enduring her throughout a prolonged presidential campaign.

This is nothing more than a collection of thoughts about Rich Rodriguez’s decision to leave Morgantown for Ann Arbor.

-Got an email from my friend Rachel this morning, usually a mild-mannered person. Here it is, in its entirety:

Subject: Rich Rodriguez is a total fucking asshole! Body: See Subject Line.

-A lot of people will be sad that we’ve lost such a winning coach, which I understand, because I remember what it was like having Don “Coal’s Good” Nehlen doing the coaching. But, with the exception of the Sugar Bowl, we shouldn’t go around believing that Rodriguez really gave all that much to us. Yes, we won the Gator Bowl last year with a come-from-behind victory.

We lost Miami game when Rodriguez blitzed everyone on a fourth-and-long, allowing the first down and the momentum to go to Miami, depriving us of an enormous upset. We got eviscerated in bowl games too - Florida State and Maryland both ran roughshod over us. And Rodriguez, for all of his alleged brilliance, wasn’t particularly bright when it came to spotting talent. Bednarik had to be half-dead before he finally turned the offense over to Pat White, and Steve Slaton only got to run the ball because he performed well on the few occasions he was trusted with the ball.

Of course, there was also this. On the biggest stage with the best opportunity WVU has had to play for a national championship since 1993, Rodriguez couldn’t help but keep calling the same play, over and over and over and over and over again. When it didn’t work, he could not adjust. And so it was that our shot at the national championship disappeared.

-Michigan is going to have fun with Rodriguez. So too will their cheerleaders. Let’s not forget Rodriguez’s “brother”, who will always make things interesting. And let’s also not forget that Michigan cares about one thing: beating Ohio State. Rodriguez, with everything on the line, couldn’t be Pitt. Ohio State is no Pitt? If I lived in Colombus, I’d be celebrating the fact that I just won the next four or five rivalry games.

-Rumor has it that Rodriguez told his players that he tried to stay at WVU, but WVU wouldn’t “let” him. What RichRod meant was that he tried, for the second year in a row, to totally soak the University for more money and the school wouldn’t cave to his insane demands. Claiming that he wanted to stay to his players is as ugly and two-faced as it gets. He could have at least been honest with them. Of course, this is a man who cannot spell honest.

-Rodriguez also took two of his assistants with him to Michigan, meaning that he has basically left the coaching cupboard completely empty for our upcoming BCS game. It takes guts to completely abandon a team before an enormous game. According to that article, he’s taking other coaches too. In other words, here was a man so loyal to his school and his home-state that he plundered the athletic department upon leaving, thus abandoning his school, his home-state and all of his players. Good times.

-Finally, there is the issue of who takes over at WVU. Plenty of talk focuses on former Auburn coach Terry Bowden. He grew up in Morgantown, and has claimed it is his dream job. He also hasn’t coached in ten years. It’s a longshot, but here’s hoping WVU goes out on a limb and considers a coach capable of getting the best out of his players: Texas Tech’s Mike Leach. The man is an offensive genius who wouldn’t simply run Patrick White up the middle, hoping against hope that something worked out. He’d also have a shot at a BCS bowl game every single year, something he doesn’t have at Texas Tech by virtue of having to compete against Texas and Oklahoma annually.

Chances are, WVU makes the regressive choice with Bowden. But Leach could do great things with the offensive talents that we’ve got here. Here’s hoping he’s at least considered.

-As for Rodriguez? Rachel put it best - he is a total fucking asshole. The less said, the better.

Tomorrow begin..neth the novel. But today? There’s nothing but angry, but pure, unadulterated fury. Shall we begin?

-My best friend in the blogging universe is one Josh Foust. He has worked dilligently since whenever we first met, turning his Conjecturer into a well read site. Well-read enough that he managed to simultaneously infuriate the Instapundit and Glenn Greenwald. Greenwald we’ll get to in a minute, but first, the Instapundit.

Dear Instapundit,

Stop being an idiot. Stop holding the mainstream media to expectations that you’d never place upon yourself. Stop writing ‘Heh’ and ‘Indeed.’ Stop pretending that you aren’t a vacuous mouthpiece of the Bush Administration. Also, stop being a douchebag.

The irritating thing about Greenwald is that I’ve spent the last several weeks really getting to like the guy. Sure, he trends toward absolutism, like every blogger on planet Earth, but he really had a good streak going recently, in which his criticisms seemed spot on and his analysis read well. So what’s to explain his idiotic refusal to, yknow, actually look at Josh’s blog before describing it as a garden variety pro-war blog. Where on Earth is he getting this crap from? More importantly, don’t we live in a world where bloggers can exist in the netherworld that exists between “I Love George Bush” and “I Hate George Bush.” Or are we back on some stupid playground somewhere where you’re either with me and my friends, or you’re against us, and there’s simply no possibility that different people can take different positions and learn, against all odds, to co-exist with one another? I probably know the answer.

-Meanwhile, revisiting the repression of children, here we have the story of a young woman suspended from school for having maroon weaved into her microbraids. Because holy fucking Moses, if a young girl has maroon weaved into her microbraids, western civilization as we know it and understand it will crumble into the abyss almost immediately. How can we possibly move forward if one girl somewhere decides that she wants to have maroon - of all colors!?!?!? - in her hair. Thank God we’ve given teachers and administrators the right to decide what is and isn’t distracting to the other students. Without their dilligent repression of any individuality at all, what would we have but kids in school with vague differences? And for fuck’s sake people, we absolutely cannot have that! We have to have uniformity in our students! We have to! Jesus Christ fucking declared it in the Bible somewhere…or, umm…something…I don’t even know. Principal Sandy Somogyi is just stupid. That’s all there is to it.

-Idiots.

-Finally, this little slice of blatant racism which will, predictably, go unpunished. Libertarians might argue that, “Nobody should be forced to take care of those people!” and of course, they’d be right. But pointing guns at them and telling them to go back toward the hell that they were coming out of? Particularly if the people holding the guns are whites and the refugees are black? You’ll excuse me if I believe that there was more going on here than limited supplies. Clearly, the whites didn’t want the blacks in their town. You’ll excuse me if I don’t think that’s a good enough reason to threaten violence to keep them out.

I love Radley Balko’s blog, the Agitator. I have permalinked him, I read him daily, I find myself miffed when he doesn’t update. He’s a fist-pounding Libertarian who somehow manages not to appear to be completely insane, no small feat amongst the Libertarians.

Except, that is, for when he’s cheering on his beloved Indianapolis Colts and getting furious at the New England Patriots. For a couple of years there during the height of the Patriots dynasty, nothing was more entertaining than seeing Peyton “The Golden Boy” Manning show up in big games and then completely disintegrate before our eyes. Fortunately for Manning and his legacy, last year he finally won his Super Bowl, and did so dispatching Balko’s hated Patriots.

And goodness wasn’t Balko happy when the Patriots were caught cheating earlier this season stealing signs. Balko inexplicably believes that the Patriots are the only team doing this sort of thing, but perhaps we should leave that issue alone. In the previous link Balko quoted Gregg Easterbrook, who has completely gone off the deep end with his Patriots criticism. In Easterbrook’s mind, next weekend’s Pats-Colts game will decide the future of mankind. Both Balko and Easterbrook seem to genuinely believe that while the Colts represents all that is good with football (Balko because he’s a fan, Easterbrook because he’s insane), the Patriots then represent everything that is horrible with it.

Quick confession: I’m a Pats fan. Have been ever since I went to college. Prior to going to UMass,, I didn’t care much about the NFL, save for a passing interest in the Chicago Bears.

Let’s ignore the fact that Manning set his touchdowns record on the back of some questionable play-calling late in games against hapless opponents - Easterbrook believes the Patriots’ Tom Brady is running up the score, while Manning was presumably doing the right thing. And let’s ignore the fact that Manning threw his offensive line totally under the bus after one of his more difficult losses. By all means, let’s pretend that the Colts are everything good about football, and the Patriots everything awful.

Easterbrook’s objection is vaguely tolerable, I guess. Balko’s though, and particularly as a libertarian, is positively absurd. Whereas Balko believes deeply in the authority of the marketplace to sort out winners and losers, he apparently believes that the NFL is a completely different issue. That the Patriots are steam-rolling their competition makes them classless hacks - a criticism I’m sure Balko also issues when whatever corporation effectively corners the market. Balko kills the Patriots for going for it on a fourth-and-1, a play in which the Patriots could have made the field goal. The Patriots coach, asked if he was trying to run up the score, asked rhetorically if he should have kicked the field goal. Both would have run up the score, and Balko would have no doubt been pissed about either.

What’s strange is that Balko seems to be implying that the Patriots owe their opponents something, precisely the sort of position he finds abhorrent when discussing limitations within the marketplace. How on Earth can he possibly hope to have it both ways?

Needless to say, this weekend looks like we’re heading for one of the greatest regular season games in NFL history, as the undefeated Colts host the undefeated Patriots at home. In the meantime, maybe the rhetoric can simmer, and maybe Balko can at least moderate his total freak-out whenever the Patriots are casually mentioned.

There are problems with the death penality. This, however, is beyond my ability to comprehend. A man was executed after a court decided it didn’t want to stay open to hear a man’s appeal. So the man was executed.

The mind boggles at the implications. I’ve almost finished a degree in Public Administration and in one class, we read the horrible story of bureaucratic actors who allowed a baby to die because they lacked the permissions from the rules to feed the damned thing. How callous does a bureaucratic office have to be to say, “Sorry, we’re closed, let the man die.” How is it possible that these people exist?

What is the feedback mechanism? What happens to these callous people for their horrible decision? A week’s pay? A suspension? What brings the fucking man back? I don’t care whatever crime he committed; it doesn’t matter. He was allowed an appeal and it was denied not by the justice system, but by the person running the office who decided that 20 minutes of staying open late wasn’t worth a person’s life.

The frustration is killing me.