Eric The Blue

April not the cruellest month

I know the entire blogosphere is eagerly awaiting the latest report on my wife Amanda's standing in the Scott County employee NCAA basketball bracket contest.  I'll get to that.  First, though, isn't this a great time of year?  Just as the college basketball season is concluding with a raft of exciting games, the major league baseball season is poised to begin performing the slow daily unwinding of its half-year coil:  something to look forward to every day.  I own The Baseball Encyclopedia, which I used to dip into from time to time just to get the answer to a single question--and then find myself putting it back in its place about three hours later.  Now of course the same trove of player data is online, and, swimming around in it the other day, I came to the conclusion that Rogers Hornsby is (to coin a new oxymoron) the most underrated superstar in the game's history.  One of only two players to win the Triple Crown more than once (Ted Williams is the other), Hornsby, a second baseman, was a kind of ancient prototype of the modern, heavy-hitting middle-infielder.  But, as a hitter, you can hardly compare him to anyone, of any position.  His Triple Crown years were 1922 and 1925.  I suppose you could say he was lucky in that, being a National Leaguer, he did not have to compete with the Babe for the home run and RBI crowns.  His numbers, however, are eye-popping: in '22, he hit .401 with 42 home runs and 152 RBI; when he repeated the feat three years later, the figures were .403, 39, and 143.  (For what it's worth, Williams's Triple Crown numbers, achieved five years apart in the 1940s, were comparatively modest: .353, 36, and 137 followed by .343, 32, and 114.)  An oddity: in 1929, Hornsby hit .380 with 39 homers and 149 RBI--and was not the league champion in any of these categories (Lefty O'Doul batted .398, Chuck Klein hit 43 homers, and Hack Wilson drove in 159 runs). Hornsby's lifetime batting average, over 23 seasons, was .358, second only to Ty Cobb's .367.   Starting in 1920, he led the National League in batting average six seasons in a row (he had a total of seven batting crowns).  His .424 average in the 1924 season has not been matched now for 90 years.  It probably never will be matched, since Hornsby had the advantage of playing before sophisticated analyses of batters' tendencies made it possible to position fielders more strategically.  Still, Hornsby's stratospheric batting averages were accompanied by a lot of home runs.  You can't position your outfielders on the other side of the fence.

As with many others, his prowess on the field does not appear to have made for a contented life.  From the Wikipedia article on him:

Hornsby married three times, in 1918, 1924, and 1957, and had two children, one from each of his first two marriages.

Known as someone difficult to get along with, he was not at all well-liked by his fellow players. He never smoked, drank, or went to the movies, but frequently gambled on horse races during his career.

It is said that he abjured the movies on the theory that they would damage his eyesight.  It's almost axiomatic, I'm afraid, that people who attain unparalleled eminence in a particular field tend to be unpleasantly one-sided.  Hornsby's failure as a big-league manager was surely due in part to poor interpersonal skills.

Speaking of poor interpersonal skills, back to my wife, who is riding the Michigan State Spartans to the top of her work's bracket competition.  As of this moment, she's tied for first, and it appears that the fellow she is tied with cannot finish ahead of her: both have Wisconsin, Kentucky, and Iowa State in the Final Four, with Kentucky winning it.  Amanda's fourth entrant is Michigan State, his is Oklahoma.  If the Spartans beat Louisville this afternoon, she moves ahead, and, if they don't, she and the principal competition are headed for a tie.  I'm not sure whether someone might be lurking within range who has Wisconsin or Duke--or, as anything can happen, Gonzaga or Louisville--winning it all. 

UPDATE: Just kidding, of course, about the interpersonal skills of my eldest roommate.  The three region finals that I was able to watch were all fabulous games.  With MSU's win, Amanda's looking golden, though I think it's possible she could be caught by someone who picked Duke or Wisconsin to win the championship. 

Bibi Netanyahu: not my bestie

I've seen enough of the congressional Republicans in action to admit that, if one of those nuts were for some reason to declare the Pythagorean Theorem irrefutable, I'd probably begin re-examining what I think I know about geometry.  Regarding their love for Benjamin Netanyahu, however, there is no reason to re-examine anything: Bibi's viperhood (quality or state of being a viper) should have been evident for as long as he's been on the scene, a long time now, too long. 

But what about the current, common opinion holding that, by declaring himself opposed to a two-state solution, ever, Netanyahu "went too far" and "showed his true colors"?  This view is generally accompanied by the observation that the way he's tried to "walk back" his campaign position in interviews with American journalists shows that he's an untrustworthy double-dealer.

Possibly there is an Arab somewhere who, upon being apprised of these insights, would roll her eyes.

Besides politics, I don't think there's a sphere of human activity in which those on the receiving end of obvious, intentional insincerity perform knitted-brow analysis of the scholastic variety.  Yes, Netanyahu has never had any interest in making a deal with the Palestinians, but that's been plain for a long, long time.  His sorry little recent rhetorical gambit is, in miniature, representative of the entire right-wing project in Israel for the past several generations.  They say they want peace while working assiduously to make it impossible, except on Israel's terms.  I'm talking about the blatantly illegal settlement movement.  Suppose, for the sake of argument, that one day Israel were to give back half the land it's "settled."  It would crow about how much it has given up, but the stolen half it keeps continues to grow, too.  And, anyway, it isn't giving up a thing.  It has the power, it has the United States, and it will roll the Palestinians, "an imaginary people."

So now it appears the Obama administration is reconsidering.  It's about time.  A new policy toward Israel is as overdue as the new one toward Cuba. 

More on this discouraging topic from David Remnick, here, and from David Shulman, here.

Bracketology 2015

Amanda and I each have an entry in the NCAA basketball contests of our respective offices.  Knowing nothing of basketball, she copied my picks, and we are doing pretty well--in her contest, currently 8th out of 38 entries.  She just found out about "seeding" and yesterday expressed annoyance upon discovering that one of the seven people ahead of her is a female colleague who also knows nothing of basketball and so evidently adopted the strategy of picking the team with the better seed in every single game.  (Don't ask me why this is morally tainted whereas copying your husband is sound.)  She (really I) has/have so far picked the correct winner in 25 of 32 games; it looks like operating on the no-upset rule lands you at 27-for-32.

I think the mainly predictable results of the first round are the norm and that the notion that the tournament is consistently marked by stunning upsets is a fiction.  There are 63 games in the tournament, enough so that some upsets are inevitable, but there aren't very many.  The ones that occur get a lot of coverage, which may explain to some degree why casual fans think there are so many of them.  It's like the way you always hear people bragging about how well they did at the casino.  You can't understand how the Indians are getting rich until it occurs to you that not all outcomes receive the same amount of publicity.

Here, for consideration next March, is what I consider a fun but not necessarily self-destructive strategy.  Stick mostly with the favorites, but take one flyer--a team you think is underrated, or one you like for whatever reason that doesn't have a particularly good seed.  Amanda and I have Michigan State, a 7-seed, in the Final Four.  If they make it, we'll probably pass the know-nothing girl with the no-upsets rule, but at this point I like her chances for staying ahead and close to the top.

The ACA a couple years later

Though the Affordable Care Act, usually called Obamacare, has been law now for long enough for the Republicans to have failed at repealing it about a jillion times, the sun continues to rise each morning in the east before setting in the west.  While the laws of nature remain operative, the percentage of Americans without health insurance is moving in the right direction--from over 20%  when the new coverage provisions took effect, to 17.7% in the first quarter of 2014, to 14.9% in the third quarter of 2014, to 13.2% currently.  The data points are from the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index and may be viewed here.  Another key finding: since the law took effect, about 16.4 million previously uninsured Americans have acquired coverage, and gains are particularly strong in states that allow for the expansion of Medicaid.

I'm not sure what would have to happen for the law's opponents to allow that maybe they, um, exaggerated.

The Albigensian heresy

Writing to a friend, Flannery O'Connor said, of the short fiction of J.F. Powers:

[His] stories can be divided into two kinds--those that deal with the Catholic clergy and those that don't.  Those that deal with the clergy are as good as any stories being written by anybody; those that don't are not so good.

I think I've read enough of them now to concur, but the ones not about the clergy are still a good advertisement for Powers the man.  You can see, for example, that he was a baseball fan, and no complete son of a bitch ever loved baseball.  In his first collection, The Prince of Darkness, three (of eleven) stories are on the subject of race, and Powers's condemnation of bigotry sometimes is so strong that you feel he is losing artistic control.  We should remember that this book was published in 1947, the same year that Jackie Robinson broke baseball's color line.  Powers wasn't the type who chose a side only after counting up the company he'd have.

It is, however, the stories about priests that are indeed of the greatest interest.  I think my favorite is called "The Forks."  Here is the swift, vivid opening:

That summer when Father Eudex got back from saying Mass at the orphanage in the morning, he would park Monsignor's car, which was long and black and new like a politician's, and sit down in the cool of the porch to read his office.  If Monsignor was not already standing in the door, he would immediately appear there, seeing that his car had safely returned, and inquire:

"Did you have any trouble with her?"

So, two characters, Monsignor and his assistant, Eudex.  Monsignor has a car, Eudex does not.  The car is the subject of three adjectives ("long," "black," "new") and a simile ("like a politician's").  Eudex borrows the car to drive out to the orphanage to say Mass.  While he's away, Monsignor is back at the rectory, idle unless you count worrying about the possibility that something ill will befall his automobile.   But I'm the one who just said what Monsignor is doing and worrying.  Powers doesn't quite say it.  He just makes you see it's true.  Maybe that is what keeps the sharp criticism from seeming shrill or pious.

Eudex can't stand Monsignor, and he's right to feel that way, for Monsignor is a conservative, pompous ass.  Of course, he is also Eudex's boss, so in their conversations the younger man does not give full voice to his opinions.  For that, he dislikes himself, and his ability to experience this form of dissatisfaction is another difference between them.  Monsignor blandly advances his opinions and in a pinch falls back on Latin and polysyllables.  Has Eudex never heard of the Albigensian heresy?  Near the end, Monsignor is resting upstairs when a parishioner comes to seek counsel.  She's a business owner and wants to know what to do with her money.  Eudex advises that she give to the poor, which causes her to recoil. 

"'Well!'" she says.  "'You are a funny one!'"  Eudex realizes that she had been expecting to receive a stock tip.  He advises her to come back in the evening and "speak to the pastor."  When she's left, Eudex, returning to his room, hears Monsignor calling to him from upstairs, asking who had been there.  He replies, "A woman seeking good counsel, " and waits for the follow-up questions, but "there came only a sigh and a shifting of weight that told Father Eudex he was simply turning over in bed."

That someone should call on a priest and expect to receive a stock tip is not regarded as odd.  Come back later, when Monsignor is up from his nap.  You can then avoid altogether having to speak with "the funny one."

 

Mental health tip

My wife reports feeling distressed upon learning that someone she thought must be on top of the world has been struggling with depression and suicidal thoughts.  I suppose I might feel similarly if it had been, say, Elizabeth Warren.  But maybe there is something about having "made it" that places you at risk.  You aren't apt to be a great success without being driven, and being driven doesn't lend itself to contentedness.  I like where this is headed.  I shouldn't feel bad about spending weekday evenings watching daytime TV shows that I taped while working at my unglamorous job.  For mental health, give up all ambition.

Books of the Bible: Ruth

The bedraggled reader of the Old Testament, arriving at the book of Ruth and paging forward with trepidation, will experience relief upon discovering it's barely four pages long, too brief to be tedious.  This first, favorable impression is too faint.  The book of Ruth is actually entertaining, artistic, and, in its way, uplifting, an inspired counterpoint to all the killing of the various foreign-ites that figures prominently in Joshua and Judges.  Its placement in the Bible is also chronologically incorrect, so, to grasp its import, we glance fore and aft.

The first seven books of the Bible tell a story that may be outlined as follows: primeval history, the adventures of the patriarchs, bondage in Egypt, the exodus, the wilderness years, and the conquest of "the promised land."  At the end of the book of Judges, Israel has gained at least a foothold in Canaan, where as a loose confederation of tribes it is coexisting with other peoples.  Then comes Ruth, which is followed by the historical writings collected in the books of Samuel, Kings, and Chronicles.  The historical books carry the story forward and, in their most memorable sections, describe Israel at its zenith of power and prosperity, a united kingdom under King David's rule.  By the end of Chronicles, however, the former conquering Israelites are themselves conquered by the Babylonians, the temple at Jerusalem is sacked, and Israel suffers a second captivity.  The books of Ezra and Nehemiah, which amount to an appendix to Chronicles, predictably attribute the Babylonian captivity to Israel's worldliness and falling away from the Mosaic faith.  The recommended reforms involve a re-emphasis on Israel's exclusivity as the chosen people of God.

So, with that in mind, here is what happens in Ruth.  An Israeli family of four--father, mother (Naomi), and two sons--is forced by a famine to travel to Moab.  The sons each marry a Moabite girl, one named Orpah (no, not Oprah) and the other, Ruth.  Within ten years, the three men all die.  Naomi thus finds herself in a foreign land, alone except for her foreign daughters-in-law, who are themselves widows. Hearing that the famine at home is ended, Naomi determines to return, and she sets out with Orpah and Ruth.  The text quite skillfully conveys, without explicit statement, Naomi's complicated feelings toward her daughters-in-law.  They are her closest remaining human contacts, and she loves them.  She also thinks that their prospects, including for marriage, are better in Moab.  Along the way, therefore, she has a wrenching conversation with the two younger women in which she urges them to go back to Moab.  She prevails with Orpah, but Ruth, having heard her out, replies:

Entreat me not to leave you or to return from following you; for where you go I will go, and where you lodge I will lodge; your people shall be my people, and your God my God.  May the Lord do so to me and more also if even death parts me from you.

And so Naomi and Ruth set up what might be called a nontraditional household in the Bethlehem area--as timing has it, just as the barley harvest is beginning.  While working in a field, Ruth attracts the attention of the landowner, a certain Boaz, a prominent citizen and a relation of Naomi's dead husband.  Intrigue ensues, the resolution of which is prelude to the following coda:

So Boaz took Ruth and she became his wife; and he went in to her, and the Lord gave her conception, and she bore a son. . . .  Then Naomi took the child and laid him in her bosom, and became his nurse.  And the women of the neighborhood gave him a name, saying, "A son has been born to Naomi."  They named him Obed; he was the father of Jesse, the father of David.

Now these are the descendants of Perez: Perez was the father of Hezron, Hezron of Ram, Ram of Amminadab, Amminadab of Nahshon, Nahshon of Salmon, Salmon of Boaz, Boaz of Obed, Obed of Jesse, and Jesse of David.

The Bible is full of genealogical fill.  In the part behind us, it's invariably a sign of the tiresome, officious priestly source.  Listen to the roll of names, our proud heritage, the generations of God's elect brought up to current times!  Every detail in the unassuming book of Ruth appears calculated to upend this tendency.  I say "unassuming" because, up to the conclusion, the details are drawn entirely from ordinary, private life.  When, for example, Naomi reflects that Ruth's chances for marriage are better  in Moab, the reader must feel that she's right--a conclusion that tends to place Israel in an unfavorable light.  There are other details that my rough summary of the plot skips, such as the way Naomi advises her foreign daughter-in-law about what little tricks might be deployed to encourage Boaz.  It's a story of everyday life that, emphasizing as it does what seem like ordinary (but attractive) human ties between people from different places, implicitly criticizes the view that Israel is set apart.

But the heaviest blow falls at the very end. The scope widens and the author, whoever he was, rather casually lays out a family tree that, without calling out the name of Ruth, reveals that this woman from Moab was a great-grandmother of King David.  It would be a little like if Thomas Jefferson, instead of just sleeping with a slave and siring what under the Constitution was three-fifths of a person, had been an eighth African himself.