Will Lincecum pull a LeBron?

On July 12, 2010, In Baseball, Sports, By Grahame

All the hullabaloo over LeBron James’ decision to join the Miami Heat has focused, in my mind, on the heartless and tone-deaf way the decision (or I should say “The Decision”) was presented. Whether James intended to or not, presenting his free agency decision as a 1 hour special on ESPN seemed designed to ensure that a) everyone in Cleveland would hate him as much as humanly possible, and b) the rest of the sports-watching country’s opinion of him would plummet. After all, the last thing anyone in Cleveland wanted was for LeBron to leave the Cavaliers, but it absolutely made it worse when that breakup is broadcast on ESPN for a complete hour. And for those of us with nothing to win or lose from the decision, LeBron putting on a 1 hour special about himself wherein he referred to himself in the 3rd person multiple times does not give us much reason to doubt his ego.

Regardless, the only thing it really crystalized for me was the ability, or inability, of athletes to see just how much they mean to the people they play for. LeBron James grew up in Ohio and was drafted by the Cavaliers, two ingredients that make for an incredible love between a city and an athlete. He left. Dwayne Wade is loved in Miami nearly as much as James was in Cleveland. He stayed. The fact is that sometimes they break your heart, and sometimes they don’t.

I was listening to Bill Simmons’ The B.S. Report Podcast with Miami commentator Dan LeBatard, and they brought up a decent point: athletes don’t think the way fans do. We assume that because we feel the love and loyalty to our fans and our favorite players that they will be reciprocated (not like that). But they don’t think like us, and we can’t understand their reasoning. We attribute values like “loyalty” and “home town love” to them when they do decide to stick with our favorite teams, but the real reasoning is probably something along the lines of “money”, “$$$$$”, “state income tax laws” and “$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$”.

Why am I rambling on about this? Because these situations are fast approaching for my beloved San Francisco Giants. I’d like to believe that Tim Lincecum (or farther down the line, Buster Posey) is more Dwayne Wade and the Twins’ Joe Mauer than he is LeBron James. I’d like to believe that his status in the city of San Francisco will be enough for him to take a drastic pay cut to stay with the Giants compared to a team like the Yankees. But how do I know? Maybe the cheers we shower on him every 5th day don’t mean anything next to the gajillion figure salary the Mets will give him in a few years.

I hope not, but you never know. I would bet that Lincecum doesn’t go on national television to break up with the Giants, but if he wins another couple Cy Youngs everything is off the table.

Go Giants!

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Hello Again

On July 9, 2010, In music, By Grahame

It’d been awhile since I wrote anything on this blog, but I figured I’d start up again. When this blog started it was for a class (Comm 217 at Stanford, to be specific). I had a great time writing it, but I wrote almost exclusively about politics. Now, I’m going to branch out. I will continue to write about politics, but expect more music stuff, more sports impressions, and lots of plugs for my band Maiden Lane.

So enjoy – and more specifically, enjoy this video of Maiden Lane performing one of our originals “Stranger” live.

Oh, and don’t forget: Maiden Lane’s official website is: http://www.maidenlanemusic.com/

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Health Care Summit Reaction

On March 1, 2010, In Media, Obama, Politics, Senate, By Grahame

About two weeks ago I wrote a post in anticipation of the February 25th Health Care Summit in the context of President Obama’s political style – the “Long Game”. His style was described as that of a chess player always thinking farther ahead than his political opponents, drawing them in “treat them as if they were operating in good faith, and draw them into a conversation about how they actually would solve the problem. If they have nothing, it shows”, as Mark Schmitt articulated it.

In my post I described how Democrats in Washington were going to try to use the Summit to push Health Care Reform the extra few inches it needs to get passed. Thus, the audience for the Summit was not the public as much as it was the Congressional Democrats who needed to be persuaded to fight for this legislation, and who needed to be persuaded that Republicans had no real ideas that would turn into votes.

The hope is that this summit will give Democrats enough political breathing room (read: spine) to force the House of Representatives to pass the Senate version of HCR and the Senate to fix some problems with their bill through reconciliation. If that happens, Obama will have his victory. As Sullivan would say, “meep, meep“.

(Whoa, I just quoted myself. A blog first. How meta!)

(more…)

 
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A Clever Post Title Involving Evan Bayh’s Name

On February 23, 2010, In Filibuster, Politics, Senate, By Grahame

Last week the Senate and the Democratic Party were shaken up by the announcement that Evan Bayh, Democratic Senator from Indiana, would retire at the end of his term instead of running for re-election this fall despite $13 million in his campaign warchest and a 20 point lead in the polls. He cited the failure of the Senate to function as his main reason for leaving – ignoring the fact that his brand of centrism helped create the deadlock. Bayh, a “centrist” in name but seemingly a simple political animal in action, had an uncanny ability to annoy the living hell out of the more liberal wing of the Democratic party, his departure was met with something other than anger or dismay from both sides of the political spectrum. I personally couldn’t have been happier to show him the door, despite the chances of his seat turning red in November increasing with his departure.

Because the Washington media loves those like Bayh who position themselves as bipartisan or centrist (especially when it comes to the issue of the deficit), progressives derided his so-called “centrism” as mere political positioning that helped Republicans obstruct Democratic initiatives, and met his exit with a flurry of blog posts with titles like “Bye, Bayh” or “Bayh Low” (“Bayh” is pronounced “Bye” or “Buy” – thus explaining my overly complicated attempt at a joke in my blog title). Ezra Klein called him an “ordinary politician” and a “minor deficit hypocrite”. Jonathan Chait goes farther, and notes that “If Bayh’s loss is a “brain drain,” then the Senate is in even worse shape than I thought.”

(more…)

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Keeping Up With Congress

On February 16, 2010, In Media, By Grahame

As someone who constantly (compulsively?) checks Twitter, RSS, the Huffington Post iPhone App, or anything else that will give me news about the political happenings of the moment, I can easily see the draw of a program like Netvibes. Netvibes is an online portal (a sort of advanced RSS reader with widgets) that can combine all the information you have, sort it into categories, and even – with some nifty programming – filter out the unless crap that comes with inhabiting this wonderful invention we called the “Internets”.

For my Netvibes page, I created pages for all the topics that interest me, but obviously put much more effort into my Comm217 beat: politics and the Senate. Thus, my politics page is organized especially well. I combined the mainstays of any political RSS I will ever create (Andrew Sullivan, Matt Yglesias, Ezra Klein, Spencer Ackerman, etc), added a few more that I found via Delicious, and then created RSS feeds for Twitter searches and Google News searches of “senate filibuster”. Add in the New York Times politics widget and I felt like I was good to go.

More Senate learning, here I come!

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Obama’s Style

On February 14, 2010, In Media, Obama, Politics, By Grahame

I’m starting to get more and more excited for the Feb. 25th Health Care Summit. It will inevitably be a fascinating look into President Obama’s political style. Mark Schmitt articulated that style over two years ago:

One way to deal with that kind of bad-faith opposition is to draw the person in, treat them as if they were operating in good faith, and draw them into a conversation about how they actually would solve the problem. If they have nothing, it shows. And that’s not a tactic of bipartisan Washington idealists — it’s a hard-nosed tactic of community organizers, who are acutely aware of power and conflict. It’s how you deal with people with intractable demands — put ‘em on a committee. (more…)

 
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What Newspapers Can, And Can’t, Learn From The Music Industry

On February 9, 2010, In Media, By Grahame

(note: This is my essay for Comm 217, posted here because I think it is a cool topic.)

The comparisons always come fast and hard. Since the popular music industry was first, it must always be the industry that all others are judged against when the Internet catches up with old business models. After popular music went down movies, TV shows, newspapers, and even bicycles followed soon after. Yes, even the bicycle industry is being hit hard, since local bike shops can only stock so many different kinds parts and EBay can stock an infinite number, cutting heavily into revenue for local bicycle shops. The common denominator in all of these situations is the Internet breaking old business models. Music and newspapers, for instance, have both come to find themselves in a place where the cost of producing content remains pretty high, but the cost of distribution and reproduction has gone to basically zero. Thus, money cannot be made in the distribution of music or newspapers in the quantity that it was made before by record companies and newspapers. But while there are similarities between the situations that these institutions find themselves in, there are major differences as well. Thus, the modest success those certain industries have had in tweaking their business models to fit this new Internet age cannot necessarily be transferred to another industry. There have, for example, been many words written about the need for newspapers to create their own iTunes, or their own Hulu, when many problems with these comparisons arise with some scrutiny. First, iTunes and Hulu are not exactly successes for their respective industries (both are successes for technology companies, however). Hulu may not survive without a paywall (which will eventually kill it), and iTunes has not come close to replacing the revenues that CDs used to bring in. Secondly, it is incredibly difficult to imagine exactly what a Hulu for newspapers would look like. There is no single model that the newspapers have rallied behind, but if (or when) it comes, it will not look like iTunes (unless the Apple iPad really is the savior of newspapers) or Hulu. It will look completely different, and the newspaper industry will wonder why it didn’t think of whatever that model is earlier. (more…)

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Comm 117 Bait

On February 2, 2010, In Media, By Grahame

From Matt Yglesias:

In an unrelated development, here’s an 800 word Dana Milbank article in The Washington Post about why is Peter Orszag sexy.

Meanwhile, here’s Jeff Frankel (presumably wearing pajamas) talking about Chilean economic policy and the political economy of counter-cyclical budgeting.

 
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Map Of Local Congressional Offices

On February 2, 2010, In Uncategorized, By Grahame

This blog was created recently with the intention of covering what happens in the Senate. And by “covering” I obviously mean “griping about” and “complaining a lot”. Fortunately, we do live in a representative democracy, and thus we the people have a say in what happens in Washington D.C. Calling, visiting, or writing to your representatives and Senators can have a positive effect on how they represent us in government.

Thus, I have compiled a map of our local Senate and Congressional offices in a Google Maps Mashup:

View Offices of Members of the U.S. Congress, Bay Area Edition in a larger map

 
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RIP Filibuster, Jan. 2011? Don’t Count On It

On February 1, 2010, In Filibuster, Politics, Senate, By Grahame

It stands to reason that the complexities of the Senate’s procedures coupled with anger over the stalling of the Health Care Reform bill would lead to some very creative ideas about how to kill the filibuster, and with it, the Senate’s ridiculous supermajority requirement. One argument I have heard many times is that 51 Senators (or 50 plus the Vice President) can basically do anything they want. Now, there is an article by Ian Millhiser in the American Prospect arguing basically that fact:

What the Senate is not allowed to do, however, is tell future senators what rules must apply to their proceedings. Because Reichelderfer prohibits a previous Congress from tying the hands of a future Congress, the rules governing Senate procedure in 2010 cannot bind a newly elected Senate in 2011. The old Senate rules essentially cease to exist until the new Senate ratifies them, so a determined bloc of 51 senators could eliminate the filibuster altogether by demanding a rules change at the beginning of a new session. Once the new Senate begins to operate under the old rules, however, this can function as a ratification of the old rules — essentially locking those rules in place for another two years.

Millhiser is basically arguing that two Supreme Court decisions, Newton v. Commissioners in 1879 and Reichelderfer v. Quinn in 1932, make it possible for each new Senate to eliminate the filibuster, since the new Senate (the next one beginning in January 2011) isn’t beholden to any Senate procedures from previous Senates. (more…)

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