Bryan Adams Blog

Choices, Choices

Halloween is the most fun when you're a little kid. You get to pretend to be someone or something else, and people give you candy for doing that. When my kids were young, I got really involved in helping them have whatever kind of costume suited their fantasy that year. I spent many an hour at the sewing machine, making just the perfect costume. The kids would try it on at each stage of completion, making suggestions for how to make it better. We had a lot of fun. Truly, the correct costume choice could really make or break the whole Halloween experience.

One year, my lovely middle daughter Emily, decided she wanted a store-bought costume. Now this was a bit demoralizing to me, the devoted mother. But, I believed strongly that kids should make their own decisions as much as possible, and so Emily got to choose her costume from the store. (I won't even go into the time that Emily asked if she could go to after-school daycare with the other kids because it seemed like so much fun, or the times she asked to buy her lunch rather than have me pack it. *sniff, sniff*). So off we went to KMart, and Emily chose to be She-Ra, Princess of Power. The costume included a plastic mask, a plastic sword, and a plastic body/dress.

That same year, my youngest daughter, three-year-old Laura, wanted to be a Care Bear. These were really popular stuffed animals at the time. I spent hours on this costume which included a stuffed and embroidered head, out of which poked her adorable little face. I literally spent weeks making this costume.

Poor Emily was demoralized when she got home that night after trick-or-treating. Everyone made such a fuss over the adorable little Care Bear, while barely giving a nod to the mighty She-Ra. I think to this day, Emily wishes I'd made her costume that year. (Right, honey?)

And, just so Bryan gets a mention in his own blog, he was the Cat in the Hat that year. (He made the hat himself - and note the tail!)

Curses

Ok, Boston people. Enough with this Curse crap already.

I recognize that you think that you've had an abnormally long spell without a championship. Eighty-six years is a long time (even though both the Chicago baseball teams are in the middle of longer championship-less streaks). And there weren’t some heartbreaking moments along the way (although I am curious about the fact that, for example, no one points out that Boston’s shitty relief staff is at least as much to blame as Bucky, Buckner, or Boone). And, in the name of celebration, I'll spare you my rant about how THE WHOLE IDEA OF A CURSE IS COMPLETE HORSESHIT.

All I’m saying is this: going 86 years without a championship isn’t that improbable.

Let’s build a very simple model. Imagine that, each year, each MLB team has an equal chance of winning the World Series, and that chance is independent from what happened the previous year. Both of those assumptions are a little shaky, but I would argue that they actually make our estimate too high, and either way, over 100 years, it all probably evens out.

So we take a look at how many MLB teams there were during those 86 years, take the average of the size of the league (weighted by the number of years at that size), squint, and say that the Sox had about a 1/20 chance of winning the Series in any given year.

Nerds are already shouting, "Take the cumulative distribution function using a binomial, already!" Non-nerds, who are rolling their eyes, will benefit from the knowledge that the binomial distribution describes a series of trials (in this case, 85 baseball seasons), where each trial has an identical probability of success (in our estimate, 1/20). The cumulative distribution function computes the probability of getting no more than N successes in T trials for a given binomial distribution. You can compute the binomial probability using the following equation:

where, in this case, k (the number of successes) is 0, n (the number of trials) is 85, and p (the probability of success) is 0.05 (the CDF just sums these numbers up). Note that I say that you can compute it using that formula. Myself, I’ll just plug that crap into the BINOMDIST function in Excel (although I think, technically, it should be called BERNOULDIST, but whatever).

So what’s this fatal number? What is the measure of Sox misery? What were the chances of having no World Series victory in 85 long, miserable years?

0.0128

Now, I’ll grant you, that’s fairly improbable – about a 1 in 78 chance. But it’s not, you know, astronomical. Just as a point of reference, it’s roughly equal to the probability of flipping a coin 100 times and getting fewer than 39 heads. Not likely, but not exactly an asteroid-out-of-the-sky event, either.

BUT! If you consider the entire history of the World Series, Boston hasn’t always been so unlucky. Indeed, before 1918, Boston won five other championships. If you look on the list of total championships by club, you find that Boston has actually won the Series the third most times. (Second place, ironically, is the Cardinals with 9, and first place is obviously the Christ-Punching Cheaters, with 26). If you change the figures from 1 championship in 86 years to 6 championships in 100 years, you find the history of baseball supplication in Boston is much less unlikely.

0.7660, to be exact.

That’s right – Boston winning six championships in 100 years is actually more likely than not. Which makes all the current media coverage kind of a kick in the teeth to, say, Cleveland baseball fans, whose 2 championships are pretty goddamn unlikely (0.1183), or, God-forbid, a Cubs fans (0.0059!).

So, you know, congrats and all to the Sox. I’m sure this victory is a cosmic defeat against the forces of evil, and that the $24M payroll gap between you and everyone else (except the Christ-Punchers) had only a minor influence.

Three Sox Thoughts

1 I have long believed that the Red Sox will become much less interesting as soon as they win the Series. Sports are entertainment, and drama is entertaining. If the Sox go from being "cursed" to just being another team, that's less dramatic. Consider, for example, the difference between this year’s pre-victory ALCS Game 7 and next year’s post-victory ALCS Game 7:

The lovable underdog Red Sox, who haven’t won a championship in 86 years, have one chance to defeat the long-hated Yankees for a chance to break the Curse of the Bambino.

versus

The two teams with the highest payrolls in baseball face off for the third consecutive year while the rest of the American League wonders if baseball is ever going to address its problems with economic imbalance.

2 I have written before about how stupid the rioting in Kenmore Square is, and it cracks me up that the city is shocked, shocked, that someone was killed. Now we’ve got governmental wringing of hands while we consider what to do about a potential Red Sox championship. Look, city government, you could stem these riots very easily by doing the following: Mayor Tom Menino announces that he will refuse to provide any funding or police for a victory parade if there are any injuries, intentional property destruction, or mayhem after the Sox win. My guess is that the crowd would be much more motivated to self-police.

3 The real Sox fans out there are the ones asking themselves, “Wouldn’t it be ironic if the Red Sox became the first team to win a series after being down 0-3, only to then immediately become the second team to lose a series after being up 3-0?”

I Didn't Know God Was a Red Sox Fan

After Curt Schilling pitched a great game for the Sox the other night, he gave all the credit to God in his post-game interview. He explained how in his previous lousy performance, he had relied on "himself," but once he "gave it over to God," he pitched like a winner. I honestly do not mean to belittle Curt's faith, but does he really believe God cares about baseball?

George Bush has said he believes his presidency is part of God's plan. In that sense, I guess the whole voting process is but a sham. Perhaps it was God's plan that the Supreme Court stopped the Florida recount.

The interesting thing about God's plan, is that it's usually invoked in times of great triumph or tragedy. When something so terrific happens that someone feels unworthy of the glory, or something unspeakably tragic occurs, "it's God's plan" is often the best explanation. When someone is cured of a dread disease, yet another person dies from the same thing - it's God's plan. When someone wins the lottery - God's plan. When something for which you've worked really hard doesn't come to fruition - it's God's plan. When you get a fantastic promotion - God's plan. When famine kills thousands of people - God's plan. When Bryan passed his qualifying exam last week, was that God's plan? When I'm trying to decide whether to choose steamed vegetables or french fries - does God have a hand in it?

An important corollary to God's plan is that we aren't meant to understand it. I remember trying to make sense of this paradox during my periods of bible study. God gave us a mind to think and reason, but also to stop thinking at some point and just have faith. Well, my personal faith was shaken about fifteen years ago when a member of my bible study group, who was about my age with three young children, died of breast cancer. When God took her away from her husband and those kids, right when they needed her most, I really stopped caring about His plans. When I hear someone like Curt Schilling credit God with his ability to throw a baseball, I remember Jen sharing with us the failure of her treatments and her realization that she wasn't going to live to see her children grow up. That God had a direct hand in either of those lives is just incompatible with my concept of faith.

The sister of a friend was expecting her first child recently. This couple had tried to conceive a child for years, and they were euphoric at the impending birth. A few days before her due date, the baby inexplicably died in utero. The mother had to endure the agonizing childbirth to deliver a dead baby boy. How has this couple made any sense of this tragedy? By believing this is God's plan. They believe that one day they will know this child and God's reason for taking him before they had a chance to know him.

So, if God was busy working on Curt Schilling's pitching arm instead of watching over that little baby in his mother's womb, so be it. I'm really happy the Red Sox won, but in my mind, I'll give credit to hard work, physical stamina, and plain old good fortune. I'm gonna believe God was just watching from the bleachers.

Foss-tering Discussion

[Ed. Friday Mom Blog – a really excellent piece about Curt Schilling’s post-game-6 comments – will be postponed until Monday because I’m bursting at my blogging seams. Sorry, Ma.]

I want to thank both Foss and the flock of commenters for the real political conversation in the previous post. The last month has been, for me, a time of political despair. I understand that election-year politics require advocacy and persuasion, but the current campaign process has become unmoored from reality. It seems that the only valid form of political expression is the twenty-five-word sound bite that overstates the effectiveness of your platform or mischaracterizes your opponent’s. Any sincere effort to illustrate contrasting ideas of government has been utterly annihilated by the buzzsaw of casual voter interest.

But blogs provide that rare opportunity for closer examination. The use of written words in a temporally sensitive environment creates a nice combination of heartfelt expression with the ability to measure and research one’s words. If you’ll forgive the creative laziness, I might observe that it gives us the best of both the Bush and Kerry personalities. I find this mixture incredibly illuminating.

In reading the comments, I can’t help but observe that we are all, Bushies and Kerryites alike, completely subject to our own mythologies. We try to cloak them in objective language and vague reference to “studies,” but when you get right down to it, I think that the vast majority of voters, myself included, will pull the lever in a few weeks on the delicate basis of a few personal experiences.

For example, there was a great deal of conversation about the idea of “government handouts” and what impact they have on their recipients. Foss took the all-too-uncommon step of making his belief explicit: he thinks government handouts suppress ambition and create a lazy citizenry. Mom gave the counterpoint: if you want to pull yourself up by your bootstraps, it helps if you’re wearing some (zing!). Gopi replied that, in Europe, government handouts have created higher unemployment. Evie replied that other economic factors have contributed to high European unemployment.

How do we make sense of these contrasting arguments? Are poor people using their welfare checks to buy the cable television that they watch for eight hours every day, punctuating the boredom by reciting profane rap music lyrics while committing petty crimes? Or are they working three jobs in an unsuccessful effort to make ends meet because monocle-wearing corporate executives require each helicopter flight to Martha’s Vineyard to include three bottles of Dom?

When I ask myself that question, I am mentally transported to the Old Colony housing project in South Boston. I tried to teach computer skills to both kids and adults there for about two years, and, during that time, I met poor people of all kinds. I met a guy my age, Max, who was a recovering drug addict who wanted to learn Microsoft Word so that he could get a job where he wore a tie to work. He came to two classes and disappeared, eventually landing back in jail. I also met an eleven-year-old boy, Elbert, who rode a bus for forty-five minutes each way because he was so incredibly bright that even the thick school bureaucracy knew he needed the best opportunities. We build a computer from components, and I will always cherish the look on his face when we turned his computer on for the first time and got it to say “c:/>”. I met teenagers who scared the shit out of me and older women who made me laugh. Some people seemed just like me, others seemed to be living in parallel, non-intersecting universes.

So when I read the debate over welfare, I ask myself: would I be willing to give a little bit of my monthly check to each of these people? The movie in my mind has Elbert eating cereal before he goes to school, making him more awake and able to learn. I disregard Max and the trouble he might find. But what the fuck do I know? There may be ten Maxes for every Elbert. Or vice-versa. Or Max might use the money to buy himself a tie for a job interview. Or Elbert’s dad might use the money to buy cigarettes.

My point is that my opinion is irrationally but unavoidably influenced by these experiences. And even if I were to research the impact of government spending in Europe, or read a study about the welfare-to-work program, or read a factsheet about poverty and crime – I’m never going to have a PhD in economics, so my understanding will always be incomplete and I will always filter ideas about poverty through my own personal experiences. (And I suspect that the people who write PhD theses in economics have a filter as well.)

And I think that’s ok. Others are going to have mental movies that are based on bad experiences with poor people, and, to the extent that they have some connection to reality, they are ok as well. (I disapprove of mental movies that are entirely mythological, but I’m going to try to think the best of people for the purposes of this argument). The voting process allows us to periodically aggregate and measure these feelings when we’re choosing our government. I have faith in that theoretical process.

But I wish that our conversations about, say, government’s role in poverty, didn’t have to be reduced to the incessant repeating of “Bush lost 1.6 million jobs.” It’s not that simple, and, anyway, that’s not the point. Who are we as a people, and what commitments do we want to make to each other? How much help should we provide to those who are struggling, and how much struggling should one have to do before we help? We cannot answer the critical questions about our country until we find a way to ask and discuss them in an honest and deliberative context. To the extent that the last two days have provided a small piece of that, I thank everyone for one of the few election-year conversations that have helped me better understand the world around me.

Meet A Bush Supporter

Probably the greatest mystery in my life right now is the following fact:

Nearly 50 million people are going to vote for George W. Bush in the upcoming election.

Astute readers of this site will note a slight liberal bias on my part with respect to political issues. I make no apologies for this. However, to the extent that most of the commenters on this site share that same bias, the political conversation can occasionally get a little one-sided. And by "one-sided," I mean that the most contentious issue tends to be whether Dick Cheney actually eats babies whole or if he simply sucks out their souls.

(I would be remiss if I didn't identify the loyal opposition, Gopi. May every blog be blessed with a troll as good as he.)

Well, I’m here today to try to help us all figure out what is going on in the heads of those 50 million Bush supporters. A conservative reader and commenter, Foss, and I exchanged emails about the relative merits of the Bush administration back in July. During the course of the debate, I challenged him to write out a statement that coherently supports Bush for re-election. He did. And I said I would publish it, and so you find it below.

Now, before you tee off on Foss in the comment box, let me first say that he is pre-screened to not be a monster. He graduated from West Point, and later from Harvard Business School. He served in the Army, including post-desert-storm Kuwait. And he lives in Pittsburgh (PA – a swing state!) with a three-month-old baby. He is not a crackpot, and I am sure he only eats babies when he's really, really hungry.

And so, without further ado, I give you: An Argument In Support of Bush.

As a good conservative in this election year, I find myself in a tight spot. Yes, yes, I know you're saying, "Come on Foss, isn't 'good conservative' redundant?" Sure, but given the general tenor of comments among Bryan's readers, it's probably wise to underline the point. But I digress ... I find myself in quite a tight spot and Bryan has suggested that I appeal to all of you for help.

In this heated election year, I am faced with the same choice as all of you: Bush vs. Kerry. A good chunk of folks seem pretty untroubled by the choice. “Anybody But Bush” is a philosophy that makes it easy to get behind the other guy, no matter who the other guy is. But unfortunately I can't take that easy route. I gotta start from basic principles, and figure out who measures up.

I don't have the space to review all the political ideas which constitute my scorecard for evaluating a presidential candidate, but let me summarize a few that, although a bit random, are probably the most relevant in this election year and most relevant to a liberal audience:

• I believe strongly in limited government. I wish the federal government could solve the litany of social problems that liberals seem to think it can, but I don’t believe it can. In most examples, I think the government simply won’t be effective, and in many cases, will actually do harm.
  
• The goal of establishing a social safety net is admirable as a goal, but I believe that in the long run almost any government program that would fall under that category does more harm than good. Paying people welfare in the long run drives more of the behavior that puts people on the welfare roles. A higher minimum wage means fewer jobs. Etc, etc. I really, really, really wish it weren’t so, but it is. And believe me, liberal folk, most conservatives really do wish it were so.
  
• Safety nets set up at local levels by other than governmental entities, however, can be effective and I fully support them, both in principle and with charitable donations. Government handouts quickly become viewed as entitlements, but help from churches or other local civic groups can be very effective, providing the needed help in a more personal and connected manner.
  
• The rich should pay more in taxes than the poor, and they do under a linear tax system. When the country needs it, I think a slightly progressive system is fine. But go too far with very high marginal tax rates, and you begin to take the air out of the engine of commerce that has created steadily rising standards of living (for everyone) in America for more than two centuries.
  
• America should exert strong moral leadership in the world to promote freedom and democracy, and to ensure security for our nation. We should support and use the U.N. when they are right, but not be constrained if they are wrong on something we consider a major issue. We should serve as an example that we would be fine having other nations follow.
  
• Gay marriage: fine with me. Marriage isn’t a basic right; it’s a governmental and religious construct. Both the government and religious origins of marriage were based on formalizing the traditional heterosexual child-producing unit. For me, expanding the concept to include homosexual unions is not an issue that has intrinsic rightness or wrongness, but rather is something that should be voted on by Congress. But my personal opinion is that a big enough chunk of society is ready for it, and I would vote for it if given the chance, and would urge my Congresswoman to vote for it. Corporate America has basically already voted for it.
  
• Abortion: yikes, the third rail of, well, almost everything. Let me simply say that this is not a major election issue for me. There are too many other issues that are more important to me, and I find it hard to believe that a candidate’s opinion on this would ever be a deciding factor for me.
  

As I said, a bit random, but relevant, I hope. So what do I do this year? Here’s the way I see it, in far too brief a fashion:

Bush: I think he means well, but he and his administration have been inept in executing 70% of what they’ve done in office. We didn’t have a strong enough case to invade Iraq and be sure that we were doing the right thing, to ensure we could operate with the moral authority that America must wield in order to serve as an example to the world, as well as to preserve the social capital among nations needed to act effectively in the future (although kowtowing to France and Germany to protect the money they were making from failed sanctions was not the way to go, either). Then we aced the liberation but blew the occupation (albeit a tough job under any circumstances). Then Bush followed up the war with a Medicare package that constitutes the biggest social program in recent history, as well as failing to stop Congress from expanding far too much government spending in other areas. And he’s a horrible communicator, unable to rouse the nation other than some small segment of cowboy-types. Not a great score here, eh?

Kerry: In terms of supporting classic liberal programs that I am against because of my “small government” thoughts above, Kerry (and Edwards) score very high on those sites that grade lawmakers in terms of liberalism versus conservatism. His 20-some years in the Senate are entirely undistinguished. He says whatever his advisers tell him people want to hear. He picked as a VP candidate one of the few people in the Senate who are even more liberal than he is, and a trial lawyer at that. And he can probably inspire even fewer people than Bush can.

As I said, I’m in a tough spot, eh? But where I’m at, I’ve got to go with Bush. Yes, he’s executed poorly in many ways, but in his second term I think he’ll fall back on more conservative themes, and I think he’s ready to tackle a big problem or two, like fixing social security. Whadya say?

People Who Need People To Shut Up

Is it OK to have friends who vote for Bush?

I ask because this was the first weekend in a while that I saw my friends. And I'm sorry to report that it made my head explode.

I have this one friend, D, from college. I will say, right at the outset, I like D. He's a good guy. We were fraternity brothers, so our friendship was sort of a foregone conclusion, even though we have very little in common. And when I say "very little," I mean that he loves the Steelers and I love the Browns. He loves the cell phone and I hate that fucking thing. He thinks medicine is the coolest thing ever, I mostly dislike and distrust doctors and I hate blood. He's a newly-minted Christian and Jesus is just alright with me. His penis is, I'm sure, very short, whereas mine is extremely long and robust.

And, of course, he's a Republican and I'm a normal, well-adjusted, caring human being.

So we're watching the New York Voldemort-Vaders pummel the Sox on Saturday when our conversation drifts to politics. D is a very smart man, but he's also the kind of guy who, without any reservation at all, will say to me, the kind of guy who has voluntarily written like 10,000 words opposing Bush in the last two years, "Come on, you have to admit, if you knew that there WMDs in Iraq and that they would give them to terrorists, I mean, what would you do?"

And I was about to launch into my octuple-pronged "But they didn't have WMDs / Faulty intelligence is exactly why pre-emptive war is a bad idea / Anyway, why did we have to piss off all of Europe / What about, like, Iran and Syria / Don't conservatives like slow change and responsible behavior / Jesus said don't strike back at the evil doers / The post-war planning was a disaster / Rumsfeld wasn't fired over Abu Ghraib" argument when my head just fucking exploded.

This was all thrown into stark relief when, on Sunday, I interloped at Evie and Nikki's joint birthday brunch (also featuring Aaron). I use the verb "interloped" because it was a collection of friends who all sort of know each other, and I was just some dude from the Internet. But it was great: everyone was really friendly and interesting and my head completely failed to explode and I didn't spend the following day angrily muttering to myself about how I should have also mentioned that Iraq damaged our international reputation.

I have two schizophrenic feelings about all this.

On the one hand, I want to be the bigger person, and not just in the genital sense. I know that D is just trying to make sense of the world in light of his own personal context. His dad is a successful businessman, and he likes the idea of limited government. His newfound faith is also important to him, and I'm sure he feels better having a man of faith in the White House. And even though I think 1, Bush is neither conservative nor Christian and 2, conservatives suck and Christians are confused ... you know, it's not like D is using spotted owl eggs in his omlettes or anything. He's sincere and wants the best.

But, on the other hand, this election is personal. The issues at stake aren't in the reasonable-people-can-disagree category. I don't want to live in a country that's become an unthinking international bully. I don't want to live in a country where poor people are treated poorly. I don't want to live in a country that dictates sexual policy from Leviticus. And if you either don't care about those issues or think that this President is doing a good job on them, then I'm going to get frustrated with our friendship.

Good god, what's happened to me? Can't we just get this stupid election over with?

Overload

I was thinking about Bryan's brain yesterday after he called to tell me he'd passed his RQE. And I was thinking about how differently we all use our brains. Bryan is really smart, but he also works really hard. He challenges his brain to use all its neurons and synapses in ways a lot of us don't. He works his brain like an athlete works his body. Certain athletes just know they can test their physical limits and break skill records. Those kinds of records are less quantifiable in the intellectual world because the playing field is much less well-defined. But, I'd compare Bryan to a Roger Clemens or Cal Ripken in the way he works to stay at the top of his game.

I was contemplating this while I was working out on the elliptical machine at our health club. Like a treadmill or other such apparatus, this machine has electronic settings that allow you to choose the time, intensity, and variability of your workout. I usually choose an interval program that varies the intensity within a specified range. Once that's all set, I put my earphones on to listen to my ipod, on which I have a playlist of workout songs. At the same time, there's a TV right in front of the machines that's set to CNN Headline News - with closed captioning. Talk about brain overload. I was wondering whether I actually burn more calories while monitoring my physical performance, checking out the TV (trying to read the crawl line AND the closed-captioning simultaneously) while enjoying my music. And I figured that even trying to manage all that, I'm still probably using my brain only a tenth as much as Bryan does.

Way to go, Bryan P. Adams, Ph.(D).

You May Qualify

As of 11:38a on October 15, 2004, I am a fully qualified doctoral candidate. My official status is ABD: all but dissertation.

If you'd like to buy me a drink, please tell the bartender to refill the glass of the comatose guy in the button-down shirt with his brain oozing out of his left ear.

It's Probably Too Late For Serious Questions, But ...

When I'm trying to seriously consider the arguments for the Iraq war, the one that I find most compelling is that a free, democratic Iraq will serve as a powerful counter-example to neighboring fundamentalist regimes. If, for example, Saudi women can't vote but Iraqi women can, Iraq will seem like a better place to live, and this will put pressure on Saudi Arabia to reform. The President has made this a central argument for the war in Iraq, and I’m always willing to consider a reasonable argument.

But that leads me to ask: why couldn't we have used Afghanistan to serve the same purpose? It's just on the other side of Iran! If we wanted to set up this shining beacon of hope in the Middle East, why not focus our efforts on just one country? We'd have enough troops and treasure to really make the place secure and solvent. And even if you're a fuck-the-UN type, you have to admit that establishing a legitimate, sovereign government would be a lot easier when you're doing it on the heels of a war that the entire world doesn't think is bullcrap.

Seriously, Bush supporters (and I know you're out there): is there anything we're doing in Iraq that we couldn't have done better, safer, and cheaper in Afghanistan first?

Bottom Line

Yankees fans are puppy-kicking, christ-punching, baby-eating monsters. And the players are even worse, especially Derek Jeter. But even I felt OK about seeing Mariano Rivera do well last night.

Weekend FAQ

Q. So, how was the Band Nerd Fest?

A. Great! Got to see lots of people I hadn’t seen in ages, and everyone seems great, where, in this case “great” means “has a spouse and two kids and is working as a youth pastor at one of Gahanna’s 437 local churches.”

Q. How was Never My Love?

A. So awesome, it would have made your head explode. Really, there’s nothing like Friday night football games. They are a cultural event for my people; anthropologists will write about them at great length when trying to decipher the culture of Midwestern America.

Q. What happened while you were doing that baton thing? Because, to me, it looked like you were doing your baton thing when you walked backwards into a golf cart and fell over, ass over teakettle, while the whole crowd laughed and pointed.

A. Shut up.

Q. If you're talking to two people who you haven't seen in ten years and you can't remember their names, should you come right out and ask what they are, or should you fake it?

A. You should fake it for the first few minutes and hope that their names will come to you. Then, after it's painfully obvious to everyone that you can't remember their names, you should admit it and ask, looking like a jerk. That way, you get the benefit of BOTH kinds of embarrassment.

Q. How much do you hate US Air?

A. Lots and lots. You know the old saying: “Cancel my flight, screw up my re-booking on another airline, get me into Columbus late – shame on you. Cancel my flight, screw up my re-booking on another airline, get me into Columbus late, lose my bag – won't get fooled again.”

Q. Let’s say, hypothetically, that you and your girlfriend had agreed to talk on Saturday …

A. Hypothetically?

Q. Completely hypothetically. And let’s say that she did not call you for almost 24 hours after your agreed-upon talking time because she took a last minute trip to New York and didn’t write email or call to let you know where she’d be. Would you be justified in getting just a little mad?

A. I think you would be, but then again, I can see where, as the guy, you’re always wrong. So it’s a toss-up.

Q. How many pairs of underwear do you own that were not purchased for you by your mother?

A. Seriously, shut up.

It's Not Rocket Science

We're hearing lots of stories about how the airlines are "in trouble" financially. In some ways, I'm extremely sympathetic. The cost of fuel is skyrocketing, and when you consider your own state of shock at the gas pump, well, you can just imagine how the Delta execs feel after they fill up a few of those jets. And terrorism has certainly hurt the airlines. No longer can they convince us that flying is a convenient and comfortable way to travel. It's not. It's on par with going to the doctor for a physical these days. Honestly, if my destination is within a reasonable amount of driving time, I'd rather go by car.

Case study #1: Homesick (and physically sick) college student purchases ticket on Southwest Airlines to come home. After arriving the required one hour before departure, successfully passing the security screeners, and waiting in line at the gate, Southwest decides to make an "equipment change." This is their euphemism for "flight cancellation." Southwest decided to send her plane to San Jose (without even giving her the option of staying with the plane and going on to California). She's stuck waiting another two hours for a plane that will actually take her to the destination she originally contracted for when she bought her ticket.

Case Study #2: Acquiescing to his fans, overworked graduate student purchases an airline ticket to attend a reunion of former drum majors in his home town. After working like a dog to get caught up on his obligations, Delta Airlines, from whom he purchased his ticket weeks ago, decides to awaken him at 6am to tell him his 11am flight is canceled (at least they avoided a euphemism). They wanted to reschedule him to arrive at his destination at 6pm, instead of the original 2pm arrival. Reasonable? No.

What has happened to delivering what you promise as a foundation for good business? We all understand that airlines have extraneous factors that are tough to control -- mechanical difficulties and bad weather. We all expect that once in a while. But, frankly, the airlines create a lot of their own problems. They can't decide whether they want to be like a utility that treats their customers with the monopolistic attitude "Hey, try and find something better," or whether they want to be a competitive business that actually tries to attract customers, but that gets bailed out by the government from time to time.

The truth is the airlines could care less about their customers. They have a captive market, so the customers are actually like a commodity. Once you've purchased a ticket, unless you've paid an exorbitant premium for a refundable fare, you're basically at their mercy. And the airlines are not very merciful. I know this is an unpopular thing to say, but if customers were allowed to sue the airlines for damages incurred as a result of their wily nily cancellations and equipment changes, things might be a little different. They treat their customers the way they do now simply because they can - and they can get away with it.

If You Really Wanna See Me, Check The Papers And The TV

From the October 6, 2004 Gahanna News (thanks to bigoak for cutting the article out and sending it to me):

I (Hate) Huckabees

for(int age = 23 ; age < 29 ; ++age) {
  this.resolveToWorkHard();
  self_esteem_=max_esteem_value;
  ASSERT(steely_look_in_eye);
  int giveup_=20;
  while( self_esteem_ > 0  && giveup_-- ) {
    try { 
      code * latest_idea = new code(2000_lines);
      self_esteem_=latest_idea->giveItAWhirl();  }
    catch ( idea-fatally-flawed ) { 
      this.get_pissed(); delete latest_idea; } 
    throw something_delicate_across_room;
  }
  this.wonderWhyIEvenBother();
}

Arachnophobia

[Another post from mom]

Autumn is my favorite time of year, except for one thing. Spiders. With the change in temperature, they seek warmer surroundings, and so they make their way into our homes looking to set up camp for the winter. It seems the ones that are most fond of relocating are the gigantic ones that were released into the wild after that movie was filmed in the '80s. They've continued to grow and multiply, and a lot of them live right here in Central Ohio.

I have an irrational fear of spiders that I just can't conquer. Once when I was little, I opened our garage door at home (back in the day when there were no automatic garage door openers) and a spider viciously jumped from the bottom edge of door and onto my shoulder just as the door reached the top of the track. It scared the shit out of me, and I've never really gotten over it. I know, intellectually, that spiders are 'good' creatures. They eat a lot of other disgusting bugs that I'd hate having around worse than spiders. But I just can't convince myself to like them. A friend of mine who taught English implored me to remember Charlotte's Web, and think of all spiders as relatives of Charlotte. Nope. That didn't work. Part of the problem is all those legs - I'm never sure which part of them is the front, so I never know what direction they'll run trying to escape.

I've learned that they particularly like to reside in the pile of dirty laundry in our basement. So as I'm sorting the whites and the colors, I have to be vigilant that one isn't hanging on to a sock, ready to scurry right up my arm so it can bite me in my jugular vein. I really hate having this kind of anxiety while I'm sorting the laundry. Once when we were first married and Bryan was a baby, I was sorting laundry in the basement and an enormous spider darted out of the pile. We had no bug killer in the house, but we had oven cleaner. That stuff could get rid of baked on crud in the oven, so it seemed the perfect substitute. I sprayed about half a can on that guy. Oven cleaner foams up after you spray it, so I'm not sure if the chemical got him or if the foam just impeded his scurrying ability. No matter, because he was dead by the time my husband checked.

I also have to confess that this is the *one* area where my dear sweet husband lets me down. We all have our weaknesses and he's known for about thirty years now that this is mine. When I spot a spider that I just can't muster the guts to kill on my own, I'll call him. I always hope he'll show up in a proverbial cape and extinguish the little sucker in a single dazzling act of bravery. Instead, while he's reminding me how silly it is to be afraid, he makes an inaccurate stab at the little critter with a miniscule piece of tissue. Invariably, he barely wounds it, it falls to the ground and scatters somewhere under something so it can recover from its wounds only to counterattack later. "Ooops," he'll say. "I think I got him," he'll say. "Oh, he was just a little thing," he'll say. None of this is true, except for the "oops" part. Still, I love him even with this one little-though-sometimes-extremely-frustrating fault. Maybe someday I'll conquer this fear, and then I'll be able to handle the spider-killing for both of us. Ew.

Disclaimer

(This post is from 'mom' while Bryan frantically finishes a paper....)

I don't know how many of you watch "This Week" with George Stephanopolous on Sunday morning, but if you do, I feel the need to defend Columbus, Ohio in the wake of yesterday's broadcast. The show featured, as it has in the past, a group of "undecided" voters from Columbus, Ohio. Watching their discussion yesterday really shed some light on what constitutes being an Undecided Ohio voter in 2004.

It was pretty obvious that those Ohio voters clearly have difficulty making all decisions, not just for whom to vote. Many of these folks indicated that their struggle has to do with the lack of "specifics" in the candidates' programs. This is completely bogus. If any of the Undecideds remember even the slightest bit of high school government class, they know that we have a separation of powers, such that whatever the president proposes will be dissected and reformed in the Congress and the courts so that it will be nothing like the original proposal. So, for what reason exactly is it important that these Undecideds know the candidates' plans? I, for one, could care less about the specifics. Who can believe all the mega-numbers thrown about by both parties regarding the costs of any specific program? This sort of banter is useless to me as a voter. Kerry says one thing, Bush says precisely the opposite. Yawn. The jobs numbers come out one month only to be substantially "revised" the next. Gee, wonder why they were reported incorrectly the first time?

We all need to get with the big picture here. The differences are clear and stark. Do you want a man who will approach a problem with deliberation and thoughtfulness, seeking input from a variety of sources? Or do you want a man who plows ahead based on more limited information and a strong gut feeling? Apparently the Undecideds are unable to make this distinction. What they do know is they like all the attention and empowerment they're getting by remaining Undecided. Were they going to be on TV if they'd made up their minds? Apparently, Undecided is a good thing to be. I especially enjoyed the last little clip that showed one woman saying that she hoped the candidates cleared things up for her so she didn't have to go by "eeny meeny miny moe."

Please don't think those folks on TV are at all representative of the larger electorate here. Honestly, most Ohioans do have clue and have made up their minds. Unfortunately, about half of them have the wrong clue.

Bring It On

I continue to be out of touch with a substantial number of American voters. I freely admit this. And it is a challenge to maintain a sense of hope and optimism for the future knowing that my beliefs don't resonate with what may be a majority of voters.

I thought Kerry was the clear winner in last night's debate. He brought clarity to his positions, which were admittedly "over-nuanced" previously. His approach was reasoned and intelligent without being arrogant. His arguments were coherent.

Bush stammered and stared, and repeated stock phrases on which he'd clearly been coached. He reminded me of the kid who doesn't study for the test because he thinks he knows enough to pass and then finds out the questions were different than he thought, so he just throws out any and every detail he can remember hoping to score enough points to pass. (That actually happened to me once or twice).

And apparently, this worked. Bush appeals to that segment of the population that mistakes opinion for fact and bravado with strength -- those people who are afraid to clean out their mental closets for fear of what they might find.

Part of living in a democratic society means you agree to majority rule. I guess I'll have to accept the will of the majority, but I'm not going to like it.