Eric The Blue

Impeachment notes

1. Here is one of the paragraphs from Sen. Alexander's statement announcing that he will vote No on witnesses and documents:

It was inappropriate for the president to ask a foreign leader to investigate his political opponent and to withhold United States aid to encourage that investigation. When elected officials inappropriately interfere with such investigations, it undermines the principle of equal justice under the law. But the Constitution does not give the Senate the power to remove the president from office and ban him from this year's ballot simply for actions that are inappropriate.

My possibly idiosyncratic point is that forms of the word "inappropriate" deserve here time-and-a-half wages. I think I've noticed that the word has gained an inflated currency in the second half of my adult life. Does it date from President Clinton having deployed it to describe his extra-curriculars with Monica? No, probably he was making use of an existing trend. In the realm of child behavior, what my parents called "bad" is now "inappropriate." When you hear the word, immediately consider the possibility that the speaker is trying to skip past something ugly. In honest language, the word should be reserved for misdeeds on the level of, say, a social gaffe. It would be inappropriate to say "shit" while sipping tea with the queen, but that's not what Trump was impeached for.

2. To persist with the language theme, and to appear plausibly bipartisan, I should say that it annoys the shit out of me when Mayor Pete burnishes his credentials by noting that he's from the "heartland." Where is that? Apparently it includes northwestern Indiana but what exactly are the boundaries? Quite possibly Amy Klobuchar is guilty too but Buttigieg is profligate. What I hate is the implicit assumption that some Americans are more American than other Americans, and that it depends on geography. To spell it out, there's no question about someone living in a small town in Kansas. The Bronx, Brooklyn, Berkeley, and Brentwood—not so much.

3. Though, to be fair, our representative democracy is itself organized in such a way as to elevate some Americans over others. Now that it's apparent that the vote in the impeachment "trial" for more evidence—documents and witnesses—is going to fail in the Senate by 49-51, I did some back of the envelope number grinding, and it turns out that the 49 senators on the losing side of the vote represent, by population, 53% of the country. With regard to the final question, acquittal or conviction, a two-thirds majority of senators is required to give Trump the boot. This means 34 senators have the power to acquit him. The 18 Trumpiest states, as measured by his margin of victory in the 2016 election, have 34 Republican senators, but only 18% of the country's population. 

4. The above is not sufficient to account for a 49-51 vote where, according to polls, more than two-thirds of the public sides with the 49. But it's not as if the Republican senators in the 51 are exhibiting courage by supporting a principle over and against public opinion. The 25-30% of always-Trumpers in the population make up considerably more than half the electorate in a Republican primary. Moreover, in a general election against a Democrat, even someone like Cory Gardner, from the bluish purple state of Colorado, has no chance at all without boffo support from always-Trumpers. So the Senate vote on impeachment is completely explicable in terms of political calculation. The merits of the case have nothing to do with it. 

5. I was yesterday overstating the case against what's now being called The Dershowitz Rule in the example relating to a bribe offered to an elector in the electoral college. Dershowitz would say this is impeachable, since bribery is a crime, one that's explicitly mentioned in the Constitution's somewhat sketchy enumeration of impeachable offenses—"treason, bribery, and other high crimes and misdemeanors." But suppose the president, persuaded that his reelection is in the national interest, exercised his authority to raise barriers to voting among demographic groups known to favor his opponent. So long as his methods were sufficiently artful to stay clear of the criminal law, he could not be impeached.

Or suppose that he withheld foreign aid appropriated by the Congress and conditioned its release on the recipient announcing a sham investigation into his political opponent. So long as he thinks his reelection is in the national interest, this is not corrupt, not impeachable. The remedy is to throw him out in an election. It seems an irrelevant detail that a fair election is what he's seeking to overthrow.

6. The vote against witnesses is a windfall for John Bolton.

Dershowitz wins!

Sitting here watching the impeachment "trial" and wondering who, among Trump's lawyers, is the most repulsive. Pam Bondi is arguably the most corrupt—in 2013, when she was Florida's attorney general, and Trump's sham "university" was being investigated by other state attorneys general who were citing hundreds of consumer complaints, including many out of the state of Florida, her office took some tentative steps toward joining the effort until her campaign received an illegal $25,000 donation from Trump's foundation. And now here she is logging time on TV defending him in the Senate! Looks like she possibly went shopping for some new things to wear while inveighing against the Bidens. "Beware," said Henry David Thoreau, "of enterprises that require new clothes."

But Alan Dershowitz gets my vote. Are his legal arguments or personal life more a mess? Yesterday, responding to the charge that Trump was pursuing his personal interest when holding up congressionally approved aid to Ukraine, Dershowitz said that no president can be impeached for anything he does in seeking reelection, since he must surely believe that his reelection is in the national interest. Wow! I personally and sincerely believe that everyone would be better off if I had ten percent of Trump's money, but there's a chance I'd be prosecuted if I robbed him of it. Legal immunity arises only from the president's beliefs about what would be good.

Adam Schiff is right now pointing out that at the constitutional convention delegates worried about the prospect of a president bribing electors in the electoral college. According to Dershowitz, perfectly okay, so long as the president thinks it would be better if he won! And presumably he wouldn't offer the bribe unless he did! His crime proves he's innocent!

But Dershowitz is as shameless as his client, with whom he shares the attribute "partied with Jeffrey Epstein." In Dershowitz's case, one of Epstein's prisoners has sworn in an affidavit that she was repeatedly directed to have sex with him (Dershowitz) while still a minor. Dershowitz says she's a prostitute and a liar and, moreover, that the woman who gave him a massage at Epstein's mansion was of age and that he kept his underwear on. So there!

If I'd said that in a television interview, I don't think I'd go out in public (except to buy groceries and liquor), let alone to advance ridiculous arguments on behalf of Trump on the floor of the Senate on national TV.

Nicollet Park

The accompanying image is of Nicollet Park, in south Minneapolis, where the Minneapolis Millers played from 1896 to 1955. Willie Mays and Ted Williams, among many other big leaguers, played for the Millers—in the case of the Hall of Famers mentioned, not for long before being called up to The Show. The site is a couple of miles straight north from my house. There's a Wells Fargo branch office there now; as you drive by on southbound 35W, you can see the bank's sign just to the west, out the passenger window.

I like the picture because I've always known the ballpark was there but have had trouble visualizing it—not enough real estate, it seemed. In this picture, you're looking south southeast. The street at the top, behind the first base line, is West 31st Street. The north-south arteries forming the east and west boundaries of the property are Blaisdell Avenue (behind third base line) and Nicollet Avenue (behind right field). West Lake Street is in the foreground, behind the left field fence. As you can see, there are stores on the south side of Lake Street that back up on the left field fence—a circumstance that, had I known it, would have made it even harder for me to believe that a ballpark could fit on the property. But it did. From home plate to the right-field foul pole was just 279 feet, which helps explain—in addition to how the ballpark could get shoe-horned in there—the 69 home runs that the rather undistinguished Joe Hauser hit for the Millers during the 1933 season. I've read that the Millers didn't like losing all the baseballs that would get jacked completely off the premises during batting practice, and would trade a returned ball for a game ticket. 

The ticket office, shown below as fans walk up on a game day in 1955, stood at the corner of 31st and Nicollet, in the right-field corner. I like the attractive, Spanish-style roof. When you're getting up there in years, you start feeling nostalgic about things you never even experienced. My dad reports seeing Willie Mays in a game at Nicollet Park during the single month he played for the Millers in the 1951 season. He had a double, a homer, a walk, and, most memorably, a great catch in center field, chips flying out of the wooden fence that he climbed before lunging upward to snare the ball, robbing someone of an extra base hit. About a week later, the New York Giants called him up and he made his major league debut on May 25, 1951, in Philadelphia. The Millers moved to the new Metropolitan Stadium, in Bloomington, for the 1956 season, and Nicollet Park was razed after the 1955 season.

 

Regarding that Trump economy

Trump, I learn from watching news shows, plans to "run on the economy," which he says is the best it's ever been. It's especially great compared to the "pathetic" economic performance we all endured during his predecessor's time in office. I don't know how best to measure economic health, but, assuming my antennae aren't askew, the things Trump crows about most are the stock market, job growth, and GDP growth. So let's take those one at a time, comparing metrics for "Trump so far" to the four preceding years, when we were suffering horribly.

From the start of 2013 to the end of 2016, the DJIA rose from 13,104 to 19,762, an increase of 51%. To match that rise, the index would have to hit 29,840 by January of 2021. It's currently at 28,990. So far, so good! If the Dow can add another thousand points over the next eleven months, it's performance in Trump's first term will have exceeded (barely) what it did over the preceding four years, when Obama was working assiduously to destroy America. If you go here and choose "by President," you'll see that matching the Obama record with respect to the S&P will be somewhat more difficult.

Next, job creation. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the American economy added 10.355 million jobs in the 48 months commencing January of 2013. That's an average of 216,000 per month. Starting January of 2017, the month Trump was inaugurated, there have been 6.94 million new jobs created, which is an average of 193,000 per month. Average monthly job growth during Obama's second term eclipsed that of "Trump so far" by nearly 12%. I don't think it's a case of Trump's policies not having had time yet to take effect. His weakest year for job growth was the one just completed.

Regarding GDP growth, Trump keeps predicting (and promising) numbers that would compete with the best recorded since we amped up to fight World War II. For example, while hosting a group of business leaders at his Bedminster resort in August of 2018, he said GDP growth would soon be "in the fives," meaning it would exceed 5%. During the 2016 campaign, he noted that the Obama administration had never hit 3% growth, the post-World War II average. But to date the Trump administration hasn't, either. For 2018, the figure was 2.9%, which matched Obama's best year. In 2017, it was 2.4%. Almost all forecasters who don't work for Trump think the 2018 figure will prove to be the high mark for his administration. "In the fives"—that's just him running his mouth. More here and here.

Incumbents seeking reelection often ask: Are you better off now than you were four years ago?  If the answer to that question relates to these topics Trump loves bragging about, it seems the answer is: maybe, especially if you own stock, in which case your portfolio has likely been growing at roughly the same rate for well over four years. Supposing Americans who don't own stocks were to answer the question with a question: what is the chance I'll still be alive in four years? For the first time while I've been alive, the answer is: chance of that is sliding. Life expectancy in the U.S. has declined for three consecutive years. This isn't a malaise afflicting other rich, developed countries. We've trailed in this vital statistic for a long time, but now, with us headed south while our international peers continue to creep ahead, the gap is widening. The most frequently cited causes are:

1. an increase in "deaths of despair"—drug overdoses, suicides, diseases arising from alcoholism—in Americans aged 25 to 64; and
2. lack of access to health care.

With respect to the second, the percentage of Americans without health insurance rose, during Trump's first two years in office, from 10.9% to 13.7%—see graph above. That represents around 7 million people who probably aren't better off. Joseph Stiglitz has more, here.

But, sure, run on the economy. Makes more sense than claiming that the swamp's been drained!

Gophers win on the road (and Democrats make the case)

During a time out in last night's Gopher basketball game against Ohio State, in Columbus, I went to the refrigerator and, returning, saw that there was a mic in the Buckeyes' huddle and their coach was hollering, "He's a right-hand driver, right-hand driver!" I have a pretty good idea who he was talking about. If by some miracle Daniel Oturu's car keys ended up in his left-front jean pocket, he'd probably retrieve them by reaching across his front and backhanding them out of there with his right hand. Also, if I were a referee, I think I'd be tempted to tell him, "Yes, you got fouled, but I can't stand the sight of you trying to make a free throw."

But a nice win, their first of the year on the road in the Big Ten. Not sure who votes for the Naismith Award, but if it's coaches, Marcus Carr might get one vote out of Columbus. In two games against the Buckeyes this season, he's scored 56 points, grabbed 10 rebounds, and delivered 9 assists. As a point guard, he led the Gophers in rebounds last night (7), in addition to points (21, including the game-winning 3-pointer with 4 seconds left). Some teams just don't have anyone who can check him. If they do, they still have to worry about Oturu. If they can guard both those guys, we're in trouble—but it takes at least two athletic guys, one of them of unusual dimensions. This Gopher team is a lot more fun than I thought they were going to be.

I love that Omersa kid. Typical line: 10 minutes, 0 points, 4 rebounds, 4 fouls. Lots of stuff you don't see in a box score, starting with defense and hair. I'm not saying he's great, just fun and easy to cheer for. Pretty sure that when he checks in at least one guy on the other team is thinking, "Hope he guards someone else." Alas, Oturu is the better foul shooter.

Switching over to another channel, I saw Lindsey Graham say that the Democratic house managers are "over trying their case." He hopes Trump's lawyers don't make the same mistake. I take this to be his way of acknowledging that there's more to be said on one side than the other.

Addison Jr.

Last night, when the kids were in bed and my Direct TV not functioning on account of scattered snow flurries in the Twin Cities area, I was zipping around on the Internet and eventually found myself reading the Wikipedia article about Mitch McConnell. I think I'm generally familiar with his record in the US Senate but some of the biographical details were news to me.

Addison Mitchell McConnell Jr. (born February 20, 1942) is an American politician serving as Kentucky's senior United States senator and as Senate Majority Leader . . . .

When he was eight, McConnell moved with his family from Athens to Augusta, Georgia, when his father, who was in the Army, was stationed at Fort Gordon. In 1956, his family moved to Louisville, where he attended duPont Manual High School. McConnell was elected student council president . . . . He graduated with honors from the University of Louisville with a B.A. in political science in 1964. He was president of the Student Council of the College of Arts and Sciences and a member of the Phi Kappa Tau fraternity. He has maintained strong ties to his alma mater and is still "a rabid fan of the U of L Cardinals football and basketball teams". . . .

In 1967, McConnell graduated from University of Kentucky College of Law, where he was president of the Student Bar Association.

In March 1967, shortly before the expiration of his educational draft deferment upon graduation from law school, McConnell enlisted in the U.S. Army Reserve as a private at Louisville, Kentucky. This was a coveted position because the Reserve units were mostly kept out of combat during the Vietnam War. His first day of training at Fort Knox was July 9, 1967, two days after taking the bar exam, and his last day was August 15, 1967. . . . His time in service has been . . . the subject of criticism because his discharge was accelerated after his father placed a call to Senator John Sherman Cooper, who then sent a wire to the commanding general at Fort Knox on August 10, advising that "Mitchell [is] anxious to clear post in order to enroll in NYU." He was allowed to leave post just five days later, though McConnell maintains that no one helped him with his enlistment into or discharge from the reserves. According to McConnell, he struggled through the exercises at basic training and was sent to a doctor for a physical examination, which revealed his optic neuritis. McConnell did not attend NYU. . . .

McConnell is a Southern Baptist. He was married to his first wife, Sherrill Redmon, from 1968 to 1980, and had three children. Following their divorce, she became a feminist scholar at Smith College and director of the Sophia Smith Collection. His second wife, whom he married in 1993, is Elaine Chao, Secretary of Labor under President George W. Bush and Secretary of Transportation under President Donald Trump. . . .

In 2010, the OpenSecrets website ranked McConnell one of the wealthiest members of the U.S. Senate, based on net household worth. His personal wealth was increased after receiving a 2008 personal gift to him and his wife, given by his father-in-law James S.C. Chao after the death of McConnell's mother-in-law, that ranged between $5 and $25 million.

Sometimes I decide I dislike someone and then, learning more about the person, I conclude I was wrong and I feel embarrassed about having been so quick to judge. That is not the sensation I have while reading up on Addison Mitchell McConnell Jr. But I am not one of these who think all of Congress is just a bunch of overripe frat boys. For example, I really like a letter that Rep. Ted Lieu, Democrat of California, recently sent to the lawyer for his Republican colleague Devin Nunes, one of Trump's fan boys in the Congress. The first page of the lawyer's long letter threatening Lieu is shown below in the left panel; Lieu's brief reply in the right. In case you're my age and your cheaters are out of reach, I'll set out the best sentence, which is Lieu's last: "Or, you can take your letter and shove it."

My so-called life: top 1000?

On MLK Day, I went to a different liquor store than usual. At least I wasn't strutting around with a rifle in Richmond, Virginia. 

The liquor store had been recommended by a friend who said they had good prices, and I was greeted at the door by the advertising sign shown. My brand! On the way home, traffic on I-35W was backed up for around a half mile as cars queued up for my exit—46th Street—but that was fine, I wasn't in a hurry, and also I was aimed right at downtown Minneapolis, where the setting sun was glimmering on the tall glassy buildings. I don't have a picture of that but couldn't have done it justice anyway. I was listening to a CD of songs recorded live at First Avenue—Patti Smith ("Redondo Beach"), then the Replacements ("Love You Till Friday"), then skipping ahead to Hüsker Dü ("Books About UFOs"). In a kind of free-associating reverie, I recalled how in Trouble Boys author Bob Mehr relates how the Replacements were once playing in front of Patti Smith, who got pissed when they didn't leave the stage on time; Paul Westerberg told her to "f*** off, go write a few more haikus or something." (I put it in quotes though I don't own the book and am going from memory.) Then I thought about how earlier in the day, pedaling my exercise bike, I'd heard my new favorite country-western lyric of all time while listening to Nikki Lane Radio on Pandora—Loretta Lynn singing, in "Mrs Leroy Brown":

I've been in and out
Of every honky tonk in town
And I'm almost drunk from the drinks
That I've turned down.

At home, I put a tray of Stauffer's frozen lasagna in the oven before going out to neaten up my shoveling from yesterday, an exercise that had the effect of sharpening my appetite. After I'd eaten, I washed the dishes and settled into my tv viewing chair with a little glass of product of Canada and watched as the Timberwolves lost another one. 

Probably not enough to arouse anyone's envy, you're welcome, and anyway it's all I got, maybe around the 994th best day of my life.

LA woman

I have a book, Diamonds are a Girl's Best Friend: Women Writers on Baseball, that I pulled off the shelf recently when I espied it while looking for something else. It's how I came to know about a poem, by Linda Pastan—

Baseball

When you tried to tell me
baseball was a metaphor

for life: the long, dusty travail
around the bases, for instance,

to try to go home again;
the Sacrifice for which you win

approval but not applause;
the way the light closes down

in the last days of the season—
I didn't believe you.

It's just a way of passing
the time, I said.

And you said: that's it.
Yes.

—that I've mentioned before, here and here. This time I reread an essay, "Dodger Stadium," by Eve Babitz, who is identified in the Contributor Notes section only as "a novelist and short story writer who hails from Los Angeles." Were the essay to arouse your curiosity about the author, a distinct possibility, you would soon find, having googled "Eve Babitz," the above photograph of her, at age 20, playing chess with the French artist Marcel Duchamp. Wikipedia describes the photograph, by Julian Wasser, as "her first brush with notoriety" and explains that the occasion for the "iconic" image was a retrospective of Duchamp's work, at the Pasadena Art Museum, curated by Walter Hopps, "with whom Babitz was having an affair at the time." Very LA: girls from my hometown might have been a little reckless at the age of 20—nothing beats fun for a good time—but few of them played chess or had their pictures taken, in any state of dress, with artists of the French avant garde. 

To say that Babitz "hails from Los Angeles" feels like a different kind of statement than, say, "Bob Dylan hails from Hibbing." She was born in Hollywood and went to Hollywood High. Her mother was an artist and her father a violinist under contract with 20th Century Fox. Her godfather was Igor Stravinsky, a family friend. Before she became a writer, she was, like her mother, a visual artist: she worked in the music industry designing album covers, including for Linda Ronstadt, the Byrds, and Buffalo Springfield. Besides the aforementioned Hopps, boyfriends included Jim Morrison—yes, that Jim Morrison—Harrison Ford, and Steve Martin. As a writer, almost her only subject is Los Angeles: it's predictable that one might be introduced to her by happening upon an essay called "Dodger Stadium," which is ostensibly "about" how a quiet evening at home, scrambled eggs for supper, was interrupted by a phone call from an occasional beau, some kind of entertainment industry exec who split his time between coasts. He's seeking relief from excruciating studio meetings. Would she go with him to the Dodger game tonight? Yes, she would. You can tell it's not her usual pastime by the way she, for example, calls a "run" a "point," but she's enthusiastic about her companion:

I remember the first time I saw him. It was at a reception for a nouveau-wave actress in a bungalow behind the Beverly Hills Hotel, and everyone was making faded, jaded little French remarks at each other and being tiresome because the toast for the caviar wasn't buttered enough—when in he came, dressed like Johnny Carson and asking for Scotch.

I pounced on him and lured him off to the sidelines.

Satire aimed at a certain kind of life achieves a heightened effect when delivered by someone sunk in the life. I put "about" in quotes above because I think Babitz's real subject in "Dodger Stadium" is the gulf, never stated explicitly but implied by almost every detail, between the baseball game and the LA milieu with which she's familiar. Well, she comes close to an explicit statement:

We got our tickets and strolled inside the gates where music was playing and hawkers hawking, and he bought himself a scorecard and became downright cheerful. The blissfully festive smell of mustard cut through the air dissolving any residual anger, and zillions of little kids with pennants and blue plastic Dodger caps raced through the young couples as we all gave ourselves up to the setting sun. The tempo of the organ music inflicted the reality so that everything belonged inside of these Vatican Stadium walls, and the studios, and phones, and death, and rented cars belonged outside if they wanted any claims on time or space.

Just want to call attention to the smell of mustard (which a reader might connect to the caviar that's the subject of "faded, jaded" complaints at the Beverly Hills bungalow party) and the way in which the terminal emphasis of the last sentence's list falls not on "death" but "rented cars." The essay is about half over before Babitz drops the detail that her date has a wife back in New York. After the game, which the Dodgers win 3-2, they drive in his rented car to "a hidden little French restaurant," where, despite the hiddenness, he's recognized by an agent who joins them for "movie-deal talk" while, under the table, in the essay's last sentence, she felt a hand "come to rest some place just above my knee."

More about Eve Babitz here.

Trump lawyers up

The most recent additions to Trump's impeachment defense team seem to me perfectly apt. Alan Dershowitz and Ken Starr are known to everyone who watches a lot of political shows on cable tv, and that certainly includes our president. I wonder whether it follows that they aren't the best people for the job. Seems doubtful that the Venn diagram of "best for job" and "known to Trump" has much overlap. The people known to him include Michael Flynn, Paul Manafort, Lev Parnas, Jeffrey Epstein, Michael Cohen, Rudy Giuliani, and assorted Trumps and Kushners. 

I watch enough cable tv myself to know that neither Dershowitz nor Starr appear to subscribe to Trump's "perfect call" theory of the case. Dershowitz has proclaimed on tv that abuse of power, even if proven, would not be an impeachable offense—a sure sign that he thinks abuse of power can be proven. On the day of Gordon Sondland's take-2 testimony, after his memory had been "jogged" by other witnesses, Starr allowed in an interview on Fox News that "it looks bad for the president." Some of the talking heads on non-Fox channels are therefore speculating that the new additions to the defense team signal a strategic shift. Maybe not all is "perfect."

But this assumes there's "strategy." It's more likely that the president is just watching tv and hiring people he sees who seem famous and friendly. Probably it'll work. The defense's only job is to give Republican senators stuff to say to justify their vote to acquit. It shouldn't be transparently ridiculous, which precludes "perfect call," but when the verdict for acquittal is in Trump will say: See, perfect call! Complete and total exoneration!

Philip Roth said Trump has a working vocabulary of 77 words, but I think that was before, as president, he added exoneration. Also, reciprocity, the definition of which he has illustrated by using it in a sentence: "There's this thing called reciprocity."

Tremendous words. Tremendous and terrific. He has the best words.

 

Economics

I remember hearing once about an experiment in behavioral economics. I wish I could remember the details of how the experiment was constructed, but the "big picture" was that a person making a purchase is told at the checkout that the item they're buying is on sale for $5 less at a location down the street. Would they like to be rung up or walk a couple hundred yards to save 5 bucks?

It turns out that the answer is: it depends. On what? The price of the item being purchased. If it costs $10, most people will incur the inconvenience associated with walking down the street to a different store in order to save $5. If, however, the item costs $200, almost everyone says, "Ring me up now!" It doesn't seem as if this result is in accord with the dictates of reason. By the dictates of reason, the price of the item being purchased shouldn't matter, right? Five dollars is five dollars, one more than 4 and one less than 6, and the question is whether it's worth the walk to have that much more money. But evidently that's not the way most people think about it.

Maybe "think" is the wrong verb. One plausible explanation for the observed behavior would be that it's emotionally satisfying to save a high percentage of the purchase price and that, as the ratio of savings to cost decreases, the emotional compensation evaporates. Whatever the explanation, this social science phenomenon probably helps explain the experience you have while, for example, buying a new car. When spending tens of thousands of dollars, you're susceptible to buying a bunch of shit you don't need for a hundred or a thousand more, and the people at the dealership know it. That's why they have all these products and options and insurance you don't need. They talk to you about it as if only a lowlife would decline these incredible offers.  

I tend to think of myself as being too rational to fall for these ruses, or even to feel the attraction of arguments that have their source in the brain stem rather than the brain. On Monday of this week, however, I spent most of the day sitting in the service department of the Honda dealership, where I'd gone to get an oil change. I'd also noticed that the low tire pressure indicator had come on and, while the tires looked and felt fine to me, the light remained on when the weather changed. So I mentioned that, even though they'd have noticed anyway. Well, you can guess what happened. There was a nail in one of the tires, unrepairable on account of the location. Did I want two new tires or four? The tread depth, they said, was down to between 4- and 5-32nds, which I did not doubt, so I got four. When they got the tires off, they noticed, what they hadn't detected before—brake work needed! (They'd already pointed out that the cabin filter was filthy and the wiper blades worn and streaking.) All the work being done extended my stay over the noon hour, so I walked to a nearby Chipotle for lunch. Would I like guacamole on my burrito bowl? I always say no but hell if I'm going to deny myself guac for $2.25 extra while dropping a grand a half block up the street! On the way home in my fully serviced vehicle, I stopped for groceries and bought everything that looked good. Despite the full pantry, when the kids got home I told them we were going out for supper to our favorite neighborhood joint, and instead of having one tall boy I had two glasses of the house red. 

Back to being a tightwad today, however. Practically have no choice.

Real Foggy Politics

I got a little excited when I saw the headline to this article at Real Clear Politics—especially the part about the possibility of a "tie" in this year's presidential election. The most likely scenario would be a fairly static outcome in which only Pennsylvania and Michigan, Trump's two narrowest wins, change their 2016 color on the ubiquitous Election Night map. That would leave Trump ahead in the Electoral College, 270-268. Nebraska, however, is one of two states—Maine is the other—that awards its electoral votes by congressional district, and the state's 2nd district, which is basically Omaha and its suburbs, went for Trump by just 47-45 percent. Omaha's county voted for Clinton but Trump made it up in the surrounding suburban counties—the kinds of places where he and the GOP have been losing support during his time in office. If the Democratic nominee flipped Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Nebraska's 2nd congressional district, and no other electoral votes switched columns, the result would be a 269-269 tie.

The article, I'm sorry to say, is a disappointment—so badly written that it's not always even clear what the author, Bill Whalen, of the conservative Hoover Institution, is trying to say. But I take it he doesn't think there's much chance of a tie. Well, of course not! When you're considering the possible permutations of 50-some separately weighted but binary and distinct outcomes, there aren't going to be many that come out exactly even. I'd bet against it, too. But the above scenario is highly plausible, and others aren't that far behind.

Whalen's basic error, I think, is assuming that a presidential election result is what I'll call "interlocking by state." Since Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin all went for Trump  by less than 1 percent of the statewide vote, he thinks it's very unlikely that in 2020 the Democratic candidate will capture one or two of them but not all three. He also puts forward another 269-269 scenario that involves the Democrat winning Arizona but losing New Hampshire. He puts it forward in order to argue that it won't happen, since to win Arizona a Democrat would have to do about 4% better than Clinton did—and, at the same time, do worse than she did in New Hampshire. Very unlikely, Whalen thinks. 

But Wisconsin isn't Pennsylvania, Arizona is even farther from being New Hampshire, and, to fall back again on my awkward phrase, a presidential election result is not even remotely "interlocking by state." For example, Trump, compared to Romney in 2012, made substantial gains in Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin, but he fell back in California and Texas. The rough numbers are interesting. Trump ran ahead of Romney in Pennsylvania by about 330,000, in Michigan by about 460,000, and in Wisconsin by about 220,000. Meanwhile, he lost California by 1.2 million more votes than Romney did, and won Texas by 450,000 fewer. I say the numbers are interesting mainly because, if you sum it all up, in these five states—the country's two largest considered together with three "Rust Bucket battlegrounds"—Romney ran ahead of Trump by around a half million votes but won 46 fewer electoral votes. (The figures are derived not from raw vote totals but by the difference between the opposing candidates' totals: for example, I say Trump "ran ahead" of Romney in Wisconsin by about 220,000 because Romney had lost the state by 200,000, then Trump won by 20,000, a net gain for the Republican candidate of 220,000.)

Contrary to what Whalen seems to think, a Democrat could, from one election to the next, gain considerable ground in a state like Arizona (growing, browning) while actually going backward in a state like New Hampshire (static population that's aging, with few nonwhites). It's exactly what happened in the last election. It's more like the rule than an exception to the rule. The states' demographic profiles are key, which also accounts for why it's no sure thing that this year the same candidate wins Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin. Remember how, in our 269-269 scenario, the Democrat flips Pennsylvania and Michigan but Trump holds on to Wisconsin? Most election gurus think that is not at all a remote possibility. The demographic differences make Wisconsin more Trump friendly than the other two. The main consideration is that in both Michigan and Pennsylvania there are about 4 or 5 whites without a college degree for every African-American. In Wisconsin, this ratio is more like 9 to 1. 

It's also sort of weird that an article about an Electoral College tie does not take up the question of who then wins and becomes president. The 12th Amendment describes the process; I summarized here. Short answer is that it's another gob of spit in the face of democracy. 

Big Ten basketball

Ten days ago, I pointed out, on the occasion of a dispiriting Gopher basketball loss at Purdue, that the home team had so far this season won 15 of 16 Big Ten conference games. Since then home teams have gone 17-4, so for the season to date their winning percentage has dipped to 0.865. 

Two more games today, both featuring unranked teams (Purdue, Minnesota) hosting a ranked opponent (Michigan State, Michigan). The home team won them both. I almost said both were upsets. Probably more accurate to say that the favored team, the unranked "underdog" playing at home, prevailed twice.

My theory of the case, which was that the home team is the beneficiary of unconscious bias on the part of the officials, may have arisen—I admit—from a rooting interest in the outcome of the Purdue-Minnesota game. I noticed today, while Purdue was dismantling Michigan State, that I don't much notice the officiating when I don't much care who wins. Still, for what it's worth, Purdue shot 18 free throws in the game, compared to just 6 for Michigan State. It seems that Purdue does not commit fouls when playing at home. In today’s Gopher game, the home team shot 27 free throws, the visitors 6, but that's because Michigan was hacking us all game long.

Seriously, though, if it's not officiating, what is it? Sleeping in your own bed makes you play better?

The first half was nearly over before it occurred to me that the voice of the Big Ten Network's play-by-play announcer belonged to Cory Probus, who broadcasts 162 Twins games during the baseball season. He has all the jobs I should have! Don't know where my life skidded off track.

I kept the TV on after the Gophers had won, and next up was a women's game between Minnesota and Illinois. First thing the announcers said was that two of the Gophers best players wouldn't play: one because she'd been suspended for "conduct unbecoming," the other because "she did not travel with the team." It'll be a sign that women's athletics is coming into its own when you can discover, with the help of Internet search engines, what specific variety of intemperance is blighting the lives of these female student athletes. 

The prince and the gargoyles

 

I watched yesterday's press conference featuring Pompeo and Mnuchin. If she'd lived till now, Diane Arbus would want to photograph these guys, and she could force on you their resemblance to gargoyles. But she wouldn't have to persuade me. 

There was some verbal sparring about the meaning of "imminent," a reporter indicating in her question that such a characterization was false, since the Administration could identify neither a time nor a place for the "imminent" attack. She was right about that but also wasting her time: Pompeo simply denied that there was a contradiction, even though anyone can see there is a contradiction.

Another contradiction, perhaps harder to swat away, concerns how the concept of imminence is incompatible with the Administration's story about why Soleimani was killed. The planning was done. The attack was imminent. And it was forestalled by killing one guy. This does not compute. Please explain more about how the imminent attack was foiled by this one targeted assassination. It seems the fully assembled plan is now disassembled—we're safe—but it's impossible to understand how the killing of Soleimani achieved the disassembling.  

On another topical topic, I think I've relieved myself of my opinion concerning that cliché of political talk, "words cannot express," but I find myself reaching for it anyway when chatter turns to Meghan and her Prince. Words probably can convey my endless indifference, but I cannot myself do better than "endless indifference"—maybe Shakespeare or Jonathan Swift or Marshall Mathers III, but not me, Eric. To get my attention the Prince, instead of marrying a hot young American girl, would have to convert to Roman Catholicism, take Holy Orders, and enter a Trappist monastery in Indonesia, something like that. 

 

Blinding me with science

Having younger kids, I field a lot of questions. My impression is that the subject matter, when it touches on school subjects, is weighted toward science. Maybe that's my impression because science is not my strong suit, and it nettles me when I can't with confidence answer, and then I remember being nettled. On the topic of my impressions, it also seems that curiosity declines as people age. We get used to the way everything is and, even if something registers dully on our consciousness, we don't wonder about it. 

The above is of course introductory to an incident from life. Yesterday I was asked why, when the weather is cold, can you see exhaust coming out of the tailpipes of cars, but you can't when the temperature is "normal." I thought I had at least a vague idea about this, but when I started to speak I smacked into a wall made of the fact that nouns and verbs tend to be specific, and when uneasiness compels you to take off the hard edge of their meaning with modifiers you are well on your way to producing an unsatisfactory speech act. 

But now we have The Internet! Water is a byproduct of the combustion process. Usually it's so hot that it's emitted invisibly in its gaseous state. But on a cold day at the end of the tailpipe it condenses into something visible—what you can see is tiny droplets as the water acquires its liquid form. It's sort of hard to talk about this because most of us use terms like "vapor" and "steam" interchangeably to refer to "visible foggy mist of water too hot to be liquid." But think of a teapot of boiling water on the stove. We can see what we usually call steam coming out of the spout. If however you look closely the foggy mist is only visible a little ways out from the spout: right at the point of emission, it's too hot to be seen. But it would be different if it was really cold out there!

Anyway, that is the state of my understanding after reading here and here. Comment if you know better. Possibly I will someday be asked about water, on a cold day, trickling out of the tailpipe of the car in front of you as it pulls away from a formerly red light. Most likely such a car isn't far from where it started out and its exhaust system is still so cold that the water got all the way to liquid form, making a little pool in the bottom of the tailpipe before running out when the vehicle moves forward again. 

But why does the forward motion make it run out the rear?

It's a notion simultaneously "romantic" and plausible that the best scientists are able to maintain into intellectual maturity a childlike sense of wonder. To most of us oldsters, kids are themselves like everything else in the world, their strangeness and private thought life invisible until very occasionally it shines forth to memorable effect. A friend of mine told me that the first time his young son was going to ride on an airplane, he got really quiet at the airport, and broke his silence only when, walking through that tunnel between the gate and the plane's door, he asked: "Is this where they will shrink us?" 

Ricky Gervais at the Golden Globes

It seems the comedian Ricky Gervais, who hosted the Golden Globes last night, is a new cultural hero of the right. He gets favorable reviews from Power Line's Scott Johnson, here, and from National Review's Kyle Smith, here. Both highlight, for special commendation . . . I don't know whether to call it a joke, or what. Gervais is addressing the Hollywood celebs in attendance:

You're in no position to lecture the public about anything. You know nothing about the real world. Most of you spent less time in school than Greta Thunberg.

Thunberg, of course, is the teen-aged Swedish climate change activist and Time magazine's person of the year for 2019.

I guess this is funny, if it's funny, because Thunberg isn't old enough to have spent a lot of time in school, especially considering her busy media schedule, while (according to the joke's logic) the assembled Hollywood stars are even less educated and therefore have even less authority to speak.  It seems funny, in the sense of weird, since on the subject of climate change the people who have gone to school speak with one voice—and what they say is pretty much what Greta Thunberg and Golden Globe nominees are saying. Ricky and Scott and Kyle resent hearing about it from "know-nothing cultural elites," but they also don't want to hear about it from the American Chemical Society,  the American Geophysical Union, the American Medical Association, the American Meteorological Society, the Geological Society of America, the American Physical Society, the National Academy of Sciences, the Public Health Association, the American Association of State Climatologists, the American Society of Plant Biologists, the Botanical Society of America, NASA, any international scientific organization, any scientist affiliated with a university, especially if it's an elite university—Ivy League, Stanford, MIT, Caltech, etc.—unless they can find somewhere one holdout, and, in that case, if he's at Harvard, so much the better! All the others are either dupes or active participants in the global warming hoax.

Seems doubtful. Who're you going to believe, an English comic or a million scientists and the news from Australia?

In National Review

Copy editing test: describe the problem with this sentence, from an article by Rich Lowry, editor of National Review:

[Soleimani] was also a cold-blooded killer of Americans who deserved to die.

Were I a copy editor at National Review—what grammarians call a "condition way contrary to fact"—I think I'd advise my boss's boss's boss's boss that the referent of "who" is comically hazy. You have to understand something beyond grammar to understand that "who" refers to Soleimani. By grammar alone, it could apply to "Americans." Soleimani is a cold-blooded killer of Americans. Which Americans? The ones who deserve to be killed!

I'm a regular reader of NRO, National Review Online. The huffings and puffings of the dogmatic right-wingers are a source of amusement, and the posts by the more reasonable ones, when for example arguing for the impeachment and removal of Trump, gain force by the suspicion that they amount to statements against interest: the editorialist hates to say it, but the merits of the case insist. The occasional internecine dust-ups are highly entertaining and, sometimes, instructive. When, for example, New York's state legislature was in 2011 poised to pass a same-sex marriage bill, National Review writer Kathryn Jean Lopez quoted, approvingly, Catholic Archbishop Timothy Dolan, who said, "Last time I consulted an atlas, it is clear we are living in New York, in the United States of America—not in China or North Korea." This elicited from Managing Editor Jason Lee Steorts, who four years hence would publish in National Review a 7000-word essay defending same-sex marriage, the following retort:

So it is your view, Kathryn, that the action of democratically elected representatives, who are accountable to the citizens of the State of New York, is tyrannical in a way that justifies comparison to North Korea, a state in which an absolute ruler has burned people alive in a stadium. Okay. But now I want a new word for what "tyranny" used to mean.

I would like to see the reaction of a North Korean refugee to your claim.

It would also be nice if you troubled yourself to make an argument.

I doubt the reaction of a North Korean refugee could have been more on point. I've learned that most everything Steorts writes is . . . superior to the musings of archbishops. He doesn't seem to be a very active author, however. Maybe as "managing editor" he's more involved with managing stuff, or maybe he's too far off the reservation to be good for business. Most people don't surf over to NRO in order to read a closely argued piece opposing the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. "Obama is a false prophet," on the other hand: click bait. 

Jay Nordlinger is another enjoyable NRO editor/writer, though his moderate, above-the-fray tone sometimes annoys me, as when for example he recently wrote, concerning the Electoral College:

Elizabeth Warren could not have been plainer, in this tweet: "My goal is to get elected—but I plan to be the last American president to be elected by the Electoral College. I want my second term to be elected by direct vote." 

Democrats are not very happy about the Electoral College, and I can hardly blame them. These things are "situational." If the Senate filibuster, for example, works for you, you like it and defend it; if it doesn't, the opposite. 

Democrats were bitten by the Electoral College in 2000, when George W. Bush won, and bitten again—really hard—in 2016, when Donald Trump won. What if Trump had won the popular vote and Hillary Clinton had beaten him out in the Electoral College?

Here's what I think would have happened: Trump supporters would have said, "You know, it was a tough day, but our Framers were geniuses, and that's the way the cookie crumbles in this republic of ours. We wish the president-elect well—indeed, we are praying for her—and we will see her at the polls in 2020.

Democrats, in turn, would have said, "Glad to have won this year, but the Electoral College really has to go, because it frustrates the will of a majority or a plurality. And people—wherever they live—are paramount, you know."

You had a good laugh? There is no principle here at all—it's purely partisan, purely tribal.

Possibly I lack a sense of humor on this topic, but I'm put off by the undertone of self-congratulatory adulation for having comprehended the obvious. Notice, though, that his point is predicated on another condition way contrary to fact—Clinton did not win the election despite losing the popular vote, and there was virtually no likelihood of that happening, especially compared to the likelihood of what, in the event, actually did happen. What does Nordlinger think about what actually happened? Some say twice two is x, others say it's y, and if conditions changed, they'd switch sides and arguments, and apparently if you're smart enough to notice that much you are excused from looking into the question of what twice two actually equals. 

I liked the long first part of this Nordlinger column, however.

Gophers play football on New Years Day, Win

 

When I was only 60, I never expected to spend any of my remaining New Years Days watching the Gophers win a bowl game. I had settled into expecting, in our good seasons, a "bowl game" played in a domed stadium in a northern city on the day after Christmas.

Tyler Johnson: 12 catches, 204 yards, 2 touchdowns--one, a 70-some yard catch-and-run for the winning score, the other a sensational leaping twisting one-handed grab at the back of the end zone. It's a good thing the players evidently don't suffer, as does this fan, from ISECS (Inferiority to Southeastern Conference Syndrome) or else they might have pitched it in after the interception on their first possession, or for sure after the kickoff return gave Auburn its first touchdown and a 7-point lead. But our guys just kept playing, and they were better than Auburn. The pyrotechnics in the passing game probably meant less for the victory than our running game: more than 200 yards on 45 rushes, Ibrahim alone gaining 140 yards on 20 carries. How many times did we run for a first down on 3rd-and-more-than-5? Besides setting up the passing game, our rushing kept their offense (and our defense) off the field. We had 75 snaps (not counting 4th down kicks) compared to just 53 for Auburn, and we had the ball for around 15 minutes more than they did. 

I can't really disagree with those who sneered that the Gophers had this season only beaten one good team (Penn State), but it's two now, MOFOs!

During the Rose Bowl, one of the announcers, while talking about the low-key approach of Badger coach Paul Chryst, noted that there's more than one kind of winning personality for a head coach. He might have added, I thought, that the full spectrum is on display in the Gopher-Badger border battles. I imagine the different half-time talks, P.J. Fleck exhorting his team to row harder while "Coach Dad" says something like, "Boys, to win this game, we're gonna have to start blocking and tackling their guys. Ok, let's go." I think I prefer the latter approach, but that could be because I've endured the press conferences of the likes of Jim Wacker and Tim Brewster: their hearts might have been thumping and their corpuscles pumping but their players were stumbling and fumbling.

Speaking of the Rose Bowl: how can no one in a striped shirt see when a d-back, beaten on a hitch-and-go route, grabs the receiver's undershirt and tries to reel him in for a few seconds from his position 5 yards behind? It was so flagrant that Coach Dad raised his voice when there was no flag. It's not like I have a remedy to suggest, but the officials have too much power. The Gophers turned it over on downs once after a quarterback sneak came up an inch short. Like, yeah, there's no doubt the ball's forward progress was stopped beneath a ton of roiling humanity at the 38.26 yard line, not the 38.24 yard line, which would have been a first down. 

The above is John Prine performing "Souvenirs," officially approved for a mild, sloppy January 2:

All the snow has turned to water
Christmas days have come and gone
Broken toys and faded colors,
Are all that's left to linger on. . . .

UPDATE: Just finished watching the Gopher men's basketball team lose in double overtime at Purdue. My epitaph should be, "He watched a lot of sports on TV." 

The home team has now won 15 of 16 Big Ten Conference basketball games contested so far this season. Michigan State won at Northwestern, the only exception to the rule, "home team wins." Why? Judging by tonight's game, one could be forgiven for speculating that psychological aspects of officiating play a part. Especially at "crunch time"—a protracted period in a double overtime war of attrition—the visitors just can't get a call. I'm not alleging corruption, but what if there's something, as I say psychological, that makes an official subconsciously reluctant to disappoint 12,000 or more screaming fans? There has to be some explanation, and in basketball, unlike say baseball, where the home team gets to bat last, there is no inherent advantage to playing at home. It seems axiomatic that half the time the visitors have a better team. 

Only three different players were awarded foul shots for the Gophers. One of them, Daniel Oturu, shot five. He made 12 of 23 field goal attempts in the game, and had 18 rebounds, but got just five free throws, the same number as Purdue's skinny 7-footer from the Netherlands who attempted 16 shots and got 9 rebounds. One theory of the case might be that Purdue was passive, which is what allowed Oturu to get off so many shots and collect so many rebounds while rarely being fouled. But that's not what I think I observed and it wouldn't help explain why the home team almost always wins.