Original Face

There will always be the Bruins

Watching the faces and listening to the interviews of the kids at the Boston Red Sox victory parade yesterday struck me as being a bit odd, off.  Finally I figured it out.  These children expect the Sox to win.  They take for granted that the Pats are a dynasty and the fact that the Celtics are on the covers of both SI and ESPN: The Magazine as the NBA favorite team is no big deal to them.

Hold everything.  This is the next generation of Red Sox Nation?  The progeny of the folks who drove enumerable managers, coaches and general managers from their jobs?  Who made "They're ruining our summa!" a regional mantra?  To cite a Chicagoism--Say it ain't so!

Boston is losing the chip on its collective shoulder.  Soon, people will smile politely.  Drivers will yield, waitresses will bring more coffee, "r"s will be pronouced and cabbies will know directions.  Old time yankees will put their spare pennies in store counter penny trays and people from Southie will enter a float in the Gay Pride Parade.

Oh, but wait, we still have the Bruins.  As long as the Jacobs family owns them they will continue to remain a contender for mediocrity.

Phew!

Like the ravens remaining in the yard of Tower of London keep England prosperous, so long as the Bruins are rotten, Bostonians can remain Bostonians. Thank goodness we can count on the Bruins ruining our winta!

Stoke up that ol' hot stove

Winter arrived this morning.  Not because the first morning frost came to Chestnut Hill, which it did, but because the World Series ended.  For all of Boston, this win was in many ways more welcome than the 2004 victory.  It cemented the Red Sox as a seriously good (not great, they have too many holes for that) baseball club.  And while there are enough story lines to keep New Englanders happy for months (What will WEEI's "whiner line" do?), time will stand still until the pitchers and catchers return to Florida in February.

That being said, today's news came from the city about 250 miles to the south.  Alex Rodriguez's amazingly selfish timing of his rejection of the option of the last three years of his Yankee contract during the sixth inning of last night's final ballgame should be proof positive to any general manager who may be foolish enough to even consider parting with $30 million a year for this man's services.  While his talents on the ball field (during the regular season) are perhaps the greatest of his generation, in the end A-Rod has chosen the wrong profession.  He should have been a tennis player where his" all about me" demeanor would have been more appropriate.  None-the-less, watch for a number of teams, including the Sox to go hard after him.  It wouldn't surprise me to see A-Rod in Boston and Mike Lowell in the Bronx come opening day.

Hooray for Joe Girardi's selection as the new skipper of the Pinstripes.  If this means the end of Rivera's career, so be it.  The only free agent that has to be re-signed is Jose Posada.  As a former catcher, Girardi knows this.  Watch for Jose's contract to be announced soon.   While the owners have the desire to make a starter out of Joba Chamberlain, Girardi's comments while a YES broadcaster show that he has the sense to understand that Rivera's replacement is already on the squad.

As for Donny Baseball, please go and learn the craft of managing rather than following Joe out to LA.  I know that the lifestyle of a AAA club manager isn't great, but if you want to run a club in The Show, it is the price you will have to pay.

Now let's talk about the Pats and Celtics!

Screw the oil shortage, THIS is dire

The cost of beer is going up.  Way up.

Hops, some of humanity's best buddies, are becoming more expensive.  Bad harvests during the past few years have driven the price of hops through the roof and causing pressure on brewers to raise prices.

Hops, especially the best hops, are not grown in the States but Europe.  I say let's get our troops out of the Middle East and into Europe to keep the hops supply chain secure.

Now that is something most Americans can get behind.

Gift that keeps on giving

Thank the good Lord for the Democrats.  Just when Republican electoral prospects look at their bleakest, the Democrats find ways to help the GOP out.  The proposal from Charlie Rangel, the chair of the House Ways and Means Committee, to place a 4% surtax upon incomes above $150,000 is a gift from the gods.  This proposal would be the largest income tax increase in American history.

All of a sudden taxes are back on the 2008 political landscape.  Never a good place for Democrats, always a good place for Republicans.  Rangle and his colleagues think that such a plan will play well in a class warfare mode.  But Americans, especially in the post industrial age, are not class warfare minded.  In addition, middle class taxpayers recognize (or if they don't now, they will once the advertisements are run) that any tax that starts out against the rich (i.e., the Alternative Minimum Tax) will soon become the bane of their existence as well.

Thank you, Charlie Rangel.  You are a peach.

Hmmm....this is interesting

Fred Thompson is not a zombie.  I know that such a pronouncement may not be particularly revelatory, but given the sleepy attitude he and his campaign have been exhibiting, one could be forgiven for not being completely sure.  However, several of his announcements this week were, well, bold.

His positions on illegal immigration and the Kyoto treaty are the most conservative of any of the top tier candidates, including newly promoted Mike Huckabee. It seems that he is taking the challenge as to who is the most conservative candidate seriously. 

Does this portend a new vigor in Thompson's underperforming campaign?  Probably not.  When asked about the criticism that he lacks drive for the presidency at a event earlier this week, he responded that he would "campaign the way I want to."  While Chester A. Arthur and Grover Cleveland could wait out an election from their front porches, it is a bold, if lazy, play to think that the internet age will permit candidates to do so again.

Brush up

This is the vigil of St Crispin's Day.  Shakespeare's address of Henry V is one of the most wonderfully powerful pieces written in the English language.  Its power is more than rhetorical, as great as that may be,for it also strikes at the heart of living for values that transcend one's ordinary existence.  It is worth reading once a year.

    What's he that wishes so?
    My cousin Westmoreland? No, my fair cousin;
    If we are mark'd to die, we are enow
    To do our country loss; and if to live,
    The fewer men, the greater share of honour.
    God's will! I pray thee, wish not one man more.
    By Jove, I am not covetous for gold,
    Nor care I who doth feed upon my cost;
    It yearns me not if men my garments wear;
    Such outward things dwell not in my desires.
    But if it be a sin to covet honour,
    I am the most offending soul alive.
    No, faith, my coz, wish not a man from England.
    God's peace! I would not lose so great an honour
    As one man more methinks would share from me
    For the best hope I have. O, do not wish one more!
    Rather proclaim it, Westmoreland, through my host,
    That he which hath no stomach to this fight,
    Let him depart; his passport shall be made,
    And crowns for convoy put into his purse;
    We would not die in that man's company
    That fears his fellowship to die with us.
    This day is call'd the feast of Crispian.
    He that outlives this day, and comes safe home,
    Will stand a tip-toe when this day is nam'd,
    And rouse him at the name of Crispian.
    He that shall live this day, and see old age,
    Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours,
    And say 'To-morrow is Saint Crispian.'
    Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars,
    And say 'These wounds I had on Crispian's day.'
    Old men forget; yet all shall be forgot,
    But he'll remember, with advantages,
    What feats he did that day. Then shall our names,
    Familiar in his mouth as household words-
    Harry the King, Bedford and Exeter,
    Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester-
    Be in their flowing cups freshly rememb'red.
    This story shall the good man teach his son;
    And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by,
    From this day to the ending of the world,
    But we in it shall be remembered-
    We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
    For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
    Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile,
    This day shall gentle his condition;
    And gentlemen in England now-a-bed
    Shall think themselves accurs'd they were not here,
    And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
    That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day.

 

I'll cry if I want to...

When I was a trainee at Goldman, Sachs one summer during college, I spent some time on the trading desk with the legendary trader, Bob Mnookin.  One day Bob's instincts told him to short the market.  Unfortunately, the market did not go the way he expected and he was losing money by the minute.  Finally, he turned to no one in particular and said, "OK, let's pack it in, ya can never fight the tape."

That is what makes the correlation between economic data and the stock market hazy at best.  Although the real economic data, as confirmed by glowing earnings reports, are sound, there is a skittishness in the marketplace that has more to do with psychology--and mass psychology at that--than with econometrics.  The fear of a credit crunch, despite both real information and the comments by Fed governors, has had a dampening effect on the equity markets over the past several months.

However, just as Mnookin was much more frequently right than wrong with the direction of the "tape," at some point even the stock market will have to cast off its overblown, if real, concerns regarding the mortgage problem and will again tract economic activity.  At least, until, the next irrational fear or greediness takes hold of investors.

Being a saint is hell

There has been a great deal of hoo-ha written, especially by Christopher Hitchens, about Mother Theresa's tortured soul as if, the fact that one's soul has been disquieted is proof positive that one's faith has been lost.  While Hitchens' faith never existed and thus his soul never in torment, the issue of faith is never easy, especially to those in whom sanctity resides. 

Mystics in many traditions, particularly in Christianity, have long written about the "dark night of the soul" as a necessary if frightening step on the way to contemplative union with God.  Through the "furnace" of this trial, the soul feels both pushed away and drawn closer, living in a spiritual and psychic paradox that is traumatic, at best.

The best writer on this subject is the Spanish medieval mystic, John of the Cross, who coined the expression "dark night of the soul."  Just a note before reading one of his poems on this subject.  His poetic images are, like that of the Song of Songs, erotic in nature.

One dark night,
fired with love's urgent longings
- ah, the sheer grace! -
I went out unseen,
my house being now all stilled.

In darkness, and secure,
by the secret ladder, disguised,
- ah, the sheer grace! -
in darkness and concealment,
my house being now all stilled.

On that glad night,
in secret, for no one saw me,
nor did I look at anything,
with no other light or guide
than the one that burned in my heart.

This guided me
more surely than the light of noon
to where he was awaiting me
- him I knew so well -
there in a place where no one appeared.

O guiding night!
O night more lovely than the dawn!
O night that has united
the Lover with his beloved,
transforming the beloved in her Lover.

Upon my flowering breast
which I kept wholly for him alone,
there he lay sleeping,
and I caressing him
there in a breeze from the fanning cedars.

When the breeze blew from the turret,
as I parted his hair,
it wounded my neck
with its gentle hand,
suspending all my senses.

I abandoned and forgot myself,
laying my face on my Beloved;
all things ceased; I went out from myself,
leaving my cares
forgotten among the lilies.

Short stuff

This weekend has been a sports fan's extravaganza, especially if you are in New England,  From the ACLS, to the Pat's amazing win, to the Head of the Charles (in lovely weather), to a close but disappointing World Cup (rugby) championship match in which mere inches prevented an amazing underdog win by England to college football, all have been on hand.  Oh, yes, there was the small matter of the GOP debate tonight as well.  So no time for a regular length column.

• Is Fred Thompson just being a jerk on purpose?  In a "beauty contest" meeting of the Florida Republican Party when every candidate had 30 minutes for his presentation, Thompson had a 15 minute video and then came out and mumbled for five minutes.  Dammit, Fred, at least pretend that you care.

• After Israel's strike against a nascent nuclear processing facility in Syria a few weeks back, it is only a matter of time before they launch an attack against Iran.  France and the United States will not prevent such an effort.  Once it happens, or Iran goes first strike, the conflict in Iraq will seem like the good ol' days. 

• Speaking of Iraq, even the Washington Post is acknowledging the success of the allied forces since the build up against the Al Queda insurgents.  If only the MoveOn crowd would get the message

• I can't fathom the French.  It was fine for Mitterrand to have a mistress so openly that she was seated close to his "widow" at his funeral but "tongues are wagging" because the Sarkozys have divorced and he is beginning to see women.

• If the Republicans lose in 2008 look for both Mike Huckabee and Bobby Jindal to be serious national players in 2012.  Jindal's victory in Louisiana was enormous and marks the emergence of him in the media's imagination.  A pretty good bench for the GOP.

• Both The New Yorker and The New Republic have fascinating articles this past week on classical music that are worth a read.

George, you can insult me if you want...

Joe Torre told the media yesterday that the Yankees' offer of a base of $5,000,000 a year with $1,000,000 bonuses for each of the post season milestones was an insult.  Really?  Mr. Steinbrenner, I want to go on the record to note that I am willing to be insulted for less than half that money.  Just contact me through this weblog and my people will speak with your people.