El Caganer: Feliz Navidad!

El Caganer

From Wikipedia: "A Caganer is a figurine appearing in nativity scenes in Catalonia [northern Spain]...The figure is depicted in the act of defecation."

That's right.  This is a very popular tradition in the Catalonia region of northeastern Spain.  This little guy goes somewhere in the background of a nativity scene.

WTF?

Apparently, no one knows how this tradition got started.  But it's a really popular one.  And they like to make caganer figurines of famous people too.

Yes, that's Prince William and the Duchess of Cambridge.  Shitting.

A few years back, the city of Barcelona put up a nativity scene that did  not include a caganer.  Their reason was because it set a bad example in light of a recent law that banned public urination or defecation.  The public outrage was so great, they capitulated and stuck the caganer back into the scene.

I don't know what else to say about this, so I'll just let you think about it a while.

10 Fun Facts About Franklin Pierce

Franklin Pierce, the 14th President of the United States

Be sure to check out my newest book, Washington's Nightmare: A Brief History of American Political Parties, available now at Amazon.com! 


1)  Born November 23, 1804, in a New Hampshire log cabin, Franklin Pierce was one of eight children, and would later become the first U.S. president born in the 19th century.  His father, Benjamin Pierce, would later become a two-term governor of New Hampshire.

2)  Barbara Bush, former First Lady, and the wife and mother of two U.S. presidents, is distantly related to him (her maiden name is Pierce).  She and Franklin Pierce are 4th cousins, 4 times removed.

3)  Pierce studied law at Bowdoin College, in Massachusetts, where he was classmates with Nathaniel Hawthorne and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, both of whom would go on to be great 19th century American writers.  Pierce had a particularly good friendship with Hawthorne, and Hawthorne wrote a brief biography about him in 1852, during his presidential election campaign.

4)  Entering politics after leaving college, Pierce served first in the state legislature of New Hampshire, before being elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1832 as a Democrat.  At 27 years of age, he was the youngest congressman in Washington.  He would later become a U.S. Senator.

5)  Pierce met and married a woman named Jane Appleton.  Their first two children, both boys, died in childhood of illnesses.  Their third child, also a boy, was killed in a horrific train accident shortly after Pierce was elected president.  The child was apparently decapitated right in front of his mother and father, and the tragedy haunted Pierce's presidency.  They had no other children.  Pierce's wife had not been particularly keen about his political ambitions, reportedly fainting at the news that he had been nominated for president in 1852, and came to view their last child's death - just two months before he took office - as God's punishment.  She lived as a virtual hermit during his time in the White House, not making her first official appearance as first lady until halfway through his term.

6)  Pierce served in the military during the Mexican-American war, where he sustained a serious leg injury.  Still serving in battle following the injury, he collapsed and was forced to be carried off the field.  This was later used against him, in the 1852 presidential election, with his political foes suggesting he had left the field of battle because of cowardice and not because of any real injury.

7)  Pierce won all but four states during the 1852 presidential election, and became, at age 48, the youngest president in U.S. history.  He was widely regarded as handsome and dashing, and rode a strong wave of popularity into the White House.  Following this election, the Whig party, which lost in a landslide, became splintered, and eventually gave rise to the Republican party.  The Democrats had last won the White House in 1844, under James K. Polk, and for that reason, their slogan in the 1852 campaign was: "We Polked you in 1844; we shall Pierce you in 1852!"

8)  During his inauguration, Pierce chose not to swear his oath of office on a bible, choosing instead to "affirm" his oath on a law book.

9)  Pierce's time in office was tumultuous.  His love affair with the American people soured very quickly because of perceived poor leadership.  He was also viewed as easily manipulated by powerful advisers.  After supporting the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854, which opened the door for the spread of slavery into new western states, Pierce lost favor with many anti-slavery advocates in the north.  In 1856, Pierce failed to win re-nomination by the Democratic party, and the nomination went instead to James Buchanan, who ultimately won the White House.  Pierce was effectively forced into retirement.  By the end of his term, he had become so unpopular that he became the first U.S. president to hire a full-time bodyguard.

10)  During the Civil War, ex-president Pierce came out as a supporter of the Confederacy, and was known to be close friends with Confederate president Jefferson Davis.  Letters Pierce sent to Davis, criticizing President Lincoln, the war, and abolitionism in general, came to light in 1863 - after Davis's home was captured - and Pierce's reputation suffered even more.  A lifelong alcoholic, Pierce died of liver failure in 1869, and was buried in New Hampshire, beside his wife (who had died in 1863) and two of his three sons.

The Psychology of Following God's Will

I've been involved recently in a discussion with several people, including a faithful Mormon, about seeing God's blessings in your life as a result of following God's will.

The Mormon in these discussions has been arguing that one of the reasons he feels so confident in his faith is because once he started making the decision to listen to God and do God's will, things started turning around in his life.  He uses several examples of personal experiences, which he believes are simply too astounding to be coincidental.

To repeat just one of them, he had been out of work and applying frantically for jobs.  He wasn't able to find one and eventually his unemployment insurance ran out.  Just two weeks after this, he got an interview at a place he had applied for more than two months earlier - and had more or less given up on.  He ended up getting this job, which was a blessing in its own right, but after he started, his boss there told him an interesting story.  He said that he had been going through applications, and had been set to hire someone, but for whatever reason, this person turned out to be ineligible for hire.  On the same day that he called this person to let him know the bad news, the Mormon's application appeared in his email inbox.  Recall that the person in question had sent this application two months earlier.  For some reason, however, it came to the hiring manager at just the right time, he called the guy, and the guy got the job.

My Mormon friend regards this as a blessing from God for following God's will and making God the center of his life.

He has also argued that since he listens to God - waits for God to give him direction on big choices - he always knows that his choices will turn out good, and he can always look back and see how God has blessed him.  This is a very common idea within Christian circles at large - the notion that sometimes you find yourself in what seems like a bad situation, but if you trust God and do God's will, you will eventually come to see how God was working through your life.

Most Christians, I believe, could probably give examples of situations like this.  I'm immediately reminded of an old Garth Brooks hit called "Unanswered Prayers," which tells the story of how badly he wanted a girl in high school, and prayed ceaselessly about it, didn't have his prayer answered, then saw her again many years later and realized that she was nothing compared to the wonderful wife that God did give him.  The moral of the story is that God is in control, and if we simply trust God and follow God's will, we will always see God's hand at work in our lives - even if we can't see it until much later.  (I've always found it highly ironic, and I must say, a bit amusing, that Garth Brooks eventually divorced this wife and ran off with Trisha Yearwood.)

In any case, these discussions got me thinking about the psychology underpinning this sort of faith.  It seems to me that what people like my Mormon friend call "God's hand at work," people in secular society simply call thinking positively and looking on the bright side of things.  When life gives you lemons, make lemonade.

Anyone, Christian or not, can look back on events in their lives and see experiences that seemed terrible at the time, but which turned out for the good.  In my life, for instance, my family moved to a new city during the summer between 7th and 8th grade.  The experience was horrific and traumatic for me, and quite frankly, scarred me emotionally in many ways.  Yet I have always looked back and thought about all the things that wouldn't have happened if we hadn't moved.  I wouldn't have met my wife.  I wouldn't have gone to the college I went to, and met all the friends I met there.  I wouldn't have the job and the friends I have today.  I wouldn't have the children I have today.

If I were a secularist, I would just call this a positive attitude - finding the good in things.  If I were a Christian, I would call this God's will playing out in my life.  The phenomenon is the same - it's the language we use to describe it that is different.

In any case, I think this particular tendency among Christians can also certainly have a negative impact.  When we expect God to move in our lives, and when we interpret good things as God's blessings in our lives, if those things end up turning to crap (to put it bluntly), where does that leave us in regards to God?  Take, for instance, someone looking for love and finally finding someone they believe is their "soul mate."  They attribute this wonderful experience to God.  Two months later, the soul mate gets hit by a bus.  Now what?

As a matter of fact, I even have experiences in my own life that are related to this, and perhaps this goes a long way towards explaining to people why I have more or less given up on the religious beliefs of my childhood.  I'll tell you a story, and I hope you'll stick with me, because this story gets right to the heart of what I am trying to get at here.

In 2007, I was a year into a degree program in Radiology.  I already had one degree, but had gone back to college at age 31 to get a second degree.  I was now far enough into my program that I could begin working as an X-ray tech in doctor's offices.  I was not yet able to work in hospitals.

For the first 9 months of my program, I had taken classes four hours each night, while working full time during the day.  I essentially left the house at 8:00 every morning, went straight to school from work, and didn't get home until 9:30 or 10:00 in the evening.  I did this four days a week - there were no classes on Friday.

Beginning in September of 2007, I had to start doing clinical rotations during the day, which forced me to resign my day job and get a part-time job in the evenings and on weekends.  I went to work for about 9 bucks an hour inside the kitchen of a Mexican restaurant.  This was a huge financial loss for me, because not only was I getting paid less, but I was also only able to work about 20 hours a week.  Furthermore, I was now having to work on weekends, which essentially meant I was going 7 days a week between clinical rotations and work.  It was a very stressful period.

In December, I finished that particular round of clinical rotations and was now qualified to get a job as a doctor's office X-ray tech.  My plan, and my sincere hope, was to get a part-time job at an office somewhere, working in my new field and getting paid pretty well, while continuing with my schooling and clinical rotations.  I would go so far as to say I was desperate for this.

Around this same time, in December of 2007 - and totally unrelated to my work/school/financial situation - I decided to take a hiatus from blogging in order to do what I called a "Spiritual Quest."  In the post where I announced this, I said that I was wanting to take some time off to better understand God.  I had spent several years formulating new ideas about religion, but still felt confused and uncertain about what I actually thought of God.  Who is God?  What does God do?  How does God impact my life?  What, essentially, is my basic philosophy on God?  I didn't have answers to these questions, but I hoped that by going on this "spiritual quest," I might figure it out.

As laid out in that post, my quest involved prayer, meditation, and directed reading.  Specifically, I was going to read three books - one scholarly book on the "history of God" within Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, one book by an atheist about why God doesn't exist, and one book by a former atheist who changed his mind and embraced Deism.  I hoped that by reading from among these three perspectives, I might better formulate my own ideas about God.

I felt, at the time, that my decision to do this was in some ways serendipitous.  I had just finished the famous self-help book "The Road Less Traveled," which talked a lot about concepts of God, and I had also just finished a novel called The Source, which traced - in fictionalized form - the history of Judaism and dealt quite a bit with the evolving concepts of God within Judaism.  I had known that The Source would involve topics like this, but I had not expected The Road Less Traveled to deal so much with philosophical concepts about God and religious faith.  The fact that I had, quite accidentally, read these two books at the same time, seemed serendipitous to me, and it is what ultimately inspired me to begin this "spiritual quest," where I took about two months off from blogging and writing about religion, and focused all my energy on, basically, "finding God."

So this was all going on at the same time that I was finishing up the first part of my degree program and frantically trying to find work as an X-ray tech while I continued on with school.  I wanted out of the Mexican restaurant, I wanted to work in my chosen field, and I wanted the better money that I knew would come with that change.

In early January of 2008, I got an interview with a chiropractor who was interested in hiring a student X-ray tech.  Another of my classmates also interviewed for the same job.  To my great surprise, I ended up getting hired, even though I had fully expected my classmate - who was every bit as qualified as I was - to beat me out.  He had actually been more aggressive in going for the job, and I figured this would probably give him an edge.

I was very relieved and excited to start working in my field and receiving significantly better pay.  I went in to work at the Mexican restaurant on a Sunday, planning on telling them that I was quitting and that this would be my last shift.  I was starting at the chiropractor's office on Monday.  When I arrived at work that day, I found out that the restaurant was shutting down - closing its doors for good - that very night.  The lunch shift I was working, in fact, would be the restaurant's last shift.  We had been given no prior warning.  We all just showed up for work to find out we were unemployed.

I felt immensely blessed.  I could not believe my good fortune.  Had I not gotten this job at the chiropractor's office just two days earlier, I would have found myself in an even worse situation than I was already in.  I hated the job at the restaurant, but I definitely needed the job from a financial standpoint.  If not for the incredibly fortunate timing of this new job, I would have been out of work with no unemployment benefits.

Naturally, I began very quickly connecting this situation to the "spiritual quest" that I had been on, by that time, for about four weeks.  Here I was, explicitly and intentionally "seeking God," focusing all my creative and spiritual energies on understanding God and my relationship to God, and voila, this incredibly good situation seemingly drops into my lap.  I avoid unemployment, get a job in my chosen field, increase my pay - and all this happens with unpredictably good timing during a period of deep spiritual reflection and meditation.

Surely, I reasoned, there must be a connection?  How could there not be?  The coincidence was simply too great.

I started my job at the chiropractor's office the following day.  From virtually the moment I walked in the door, it was a horrific situation.  I had actually sensed this even during the interview, but had more or less tried to ignore it.  I could write 50,000 words on everything that was terrible about this job, but I will attempt to condense it.

The chiropractor I worked for was what I can only describe as a "fundamentalist Catholic."  I hadn't even known, up to this time, that such a thing really existed.  He had actually asked me about my own religious beliefs during the interview, and had more or less implied that he wouldn't hire a non-Christian to work for him.

He was training someone in the office to take X-rays along with me, even though you have to have a state license to operate X-ray equipment - which this person didn't have, and couldn't get without going through an accredited program.

He was an herbal-medicine charlatan who essentially told his patients that all prescription medicines are poisonous.  This includes everything from ibuprofen to antibiotics.  I explicitly heard him tell a patient one day that antibiotics weren't as effective at attacking bacterial infections as garlic supplements (I think it was garlic - anyway, some herb).  He once criticized me for talking about how I had taken Advil that morning for a headache.  His comment was something to the effect that if I wanted to "pop pills" on my own time, that was one thing, but don't be talking about it in front of his patients.

He asked us to pray for more business.

He had a machine in his office which he claimed could diagnose any disease known to man, including cancer, AIDS, and anything else - simply by hooking up a few leads to your wrists and forehead and evaluating your energy fields.

He claimed that he once saved his son from death during an asthma attack by giving him an emergency back adjustment.

He performed a ritual on new patients that involved putting a bottle of the discontinued anti-inflammatory Vioxx onto a patient's area of pain.  With the bottle held at the source of the pain, he would then perform a strength test on them which was aimed at demonstrating how the body knew that the medicine was poisonous, because the muscle strength would weaken.  He would then pull out a trusty bottle of his magic herbal pills, stick that bottle on the source of the pain, then perform the strength test again.  Magically, the strength test would now be positive, because the body knew the herbal medicine was effective.  The entire thing, of course, was a magic trick that involved him using differing levels of pressure during the two strength tests.  I watched these performances in horror, and so did many of his patients.  I know of at least one who never came back.

He was committing insurance fraud by billing Medicare for therapeutic treatments that he was not actually performing.  He would do some other treatment - which Medicare would not pay for - but call it the thing that Medicare would pay for.  I know this, because the other chiropractor who worked in the office told me.  

He once paid me and another employee cash out of his wallet for working with him at a vendor show.  This was done "under-the-table," not reported to the IRS.

There are so many other things I could talk about, but I've already failed to "condense" this the way I had wanted to, so I'll just note that, in short, he was a lunatic, a charlatan, a virtual dictator, and a criminal.

Within three weeks of starting this job - still in January of 2008 - I was already trying to figure out what I was going to do and how I was going to find another job.  He solved that problem for me by laying me off, claiming that there just wasn't enough business to justify keeping me on the payroll.  I briefly considered reporting him to authorities, but decided to wash my hands of the whole ordeal and move on.

As a result of this horrific situation, several things happened.  First of all, I was out of work with no income.  Secondly, I was questioning whether I was even doing the right thing by going into the medical field.  Are all jobs like this?

I ultimately decided to stick with Radiology, realizing that the bad job experience really didn't have anything to do with my own career field.  But I also decided to simply go to school full time and not work.  I felt burned, as it were.  As a result, I had to take out living expense loans to help support my family financially.

Fast forward almost four years, and here I am today, working full time as an X-ray tech in a hospital.  I love my job and my co-workers, and I get paid reasonably well.  My wife and I have a dual income and we have a new house.  However, we are immensely burdened by school loan debt, a significant amount of which comes from those living expense loans.  Had this horrific job situation never cropped up, I may never have decided to stop working, and may never have taken out all those loans.  This would make life, today, considerably less financially tight.

What all this means, of course, is that the entire situation was a negative one.  Virtually nothing good has come from it, except an emotional scar and a burden of school loan debt.  It most definitely had nothing whatsoever to do with God working in my life, rewarding me for faithfulness because I was on a "spiritual journey" and seeking out a better understanding of God.

It was just a coincidence that seemed wonderful at the time, but turned to crap.

I wish I could say this was the only time I had experienced something like this in my life - a situation where I thought God was at work, only to find out later that it was nothing of the sort.  Unfortunately, I've had several of these experiences.

And of course, these experiences are one of the biggest reasons why I tend to be skeptical when I hear others attribute good fortune to the workings of God.  It's one of the reasons why I tend to view it as being underpinned by psychology - seeing the good in things, making lemonade out of lemons, having a positive attitude.

The fact is, we all face choices every day, and sometimes we face very important, life-altering choices.  What I have come to learn, however, is that most of the time, life will be okay regardless of what choice you make.  Human beings are enormously adaptable creatures.  It's written into our very biological code because it provides a significant evolutionary advantage.

So if someone is deciding whether or not to move the family cross-country, there may be good things that will result from that, and bad things that will result from that.  Similarly, there will be bad and good that comes from staying put.  If you move, you may have to get used to a "new normal," but you will ultimately adapt.

If you are a Christian, you might look back on the situation and remark at how many wonderful things have happened since moving, and attribute those things to God's blessings for following God's will.  But, of course, that conclusion would ignore all the possible good things that might have happened if you had stayed put.  Maybe you would have won the lottery.  Who knows?  The possibilities are endless.  In the end, you adapt either way.

I believe this is the psychological underpinning of attributing good things to following God's will.  Maybe God really does respond to those who follow God's will.  But if that's true, then God also responds to people who are not explicitly trying to follow God's will.  Both good and bad things happen to everyone.  It's ultimately your attitude that determines whether you view events in your life as a blessing or a curse.  If you choose to couch that language of attitude in religious terms, that's certainly fine, but attitude is what it's ultimately all about.

Taking Christ Out of Christmas

Well, it's that time of year again, the time when a certain segment of the Christian community gets their collective panties in a wad over people who say "Happy Holidays."

I've written about this before.  Last year, in fact.

I think the best line from that particular post was this: "This tired old discussion pops up every single year like an old fart wafting up from a basement couch."

Indeed.

Here's a post I read on Facebook about a week ago. I'm repeating it verbatim:

I DO NOT CARE IF THIS DOES OFFEND SOMEONE…THIS IS WHAT I BELIEVE…I AM SICK AND TIRED OF EVERY YEAR WHEN CHRISTMAS COMES AROUND; THERE ARE PEOPLE WHO WANT TO TAKE CHRIST OUT OF CHRISTMAS BECAUSE IT MIGHT OFFEND SOMEONE…WELL, HOW ABOUT ALL OF THE CHRISTIANS?...WHAT ABOUT OFFENDING US BECAUSE YOU ARE TAKING OUR CHRIST OUT OF CHRISTMAS?...CHRIST IS CHRISTMAS!...IF YOU AREN'T CELEBRATING CHRIST THEN WHY ARE YOU CELEBRATING?...CHRISTMAS IS ABOUT THE BIRTH OF OUR SAVIOR!...CHRISTMAS IS ONE OF A FEW HOLIDAYS LEFT THAT CELEBRATE "MY" CHRIST!...LEAVE "MY" HOLIDAY ALONE!...AND TELL EVERYONE MERRY CHRISTMAS, NOT HAPPY HOLIDAYS!...RE-POST IF YOU’RE NOT ASHAMED

Yes, it offends me, and I don't care if you don't care.

"Happy Holidays" is not taking "Christ out of Christmas." "Happy Holidays" is not some new euphemism invented in an atheist's basement in San Francisco intended for disbursement among American citizens for the purpose of relieving Baby Jesus of his Christmas duties.

"Happy Holidays," in fact, has been around for decades, since long before the Political Correctness movement began. It's a phrase that simply acknowledges that from the end of November through early January, there are at least 3 major American holidays, as well as several smaller, culturally-centered holidays. As such, this is a certifiable "holiday season," and has been throughout world cultures for eons. Thus, "Happy Holidays" is just a simple way of lumping them all together and acknowledging that we are in the season of celebrating.

Kindly unwind your panties, O Outraged Evangelical Goofball.

The only people taking Christ out of Christmas are those people who teach their kids about Santa Claus and Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, spend hundreds and even thousands of dollars on Christmas gifts, fill stockings full of treats on Christmas morning, and sing Jingle Bells while dancing 'round the Christmas tree. And considering that everyone does that, perhaps you, O Goofy Evangelical, should turn that finger around and point it at your own chest. Either that, or become a Jehovah's Witness or join some other fundamentalist Christian sect that doesn't celebrate holidays. Otherwise, kindly shut your trap.

Oh, and Happy Holidays!

Was JFK a Conservative?

John F. Kennedy: A Closet Conservative?

On another blog post, a friend of mine made a comment recently suggesting that JFK was probably to the right of George W. Bush on the political spectrum.  To support this, he mentioned JFK's escalating of military intervention in Southeast Asia, and his policy of lowering taxes across the board to help spur a somewhat flagging early 1960's economy.

This was the first time I had ever heard anyone say such a thing.  I don't know if this is my friend's own pet theory, or this is an idea that is bandied about among conservatives as a way to get under a liberal's skin (sort of the way a liberal might point out that while Republicans love to claim Abe Lincoln as their own, the Republican party actually rejected Lincoln's bid for re-election in 1864 and nominated someone else, forcing Lincoln to form a third party in order to run).

In any case, my friend's comment spurred me to do a little research, to find out just how much veracity there was to this claim that JFK was "conservative" by modern standards.


Granted, I only did a brief survey of JFK's presidential policies and platforms, but from that survey, the only similarity I can find between JFK and modern day Republicans is that JFK wanted to lower taxes as a means of helping to spur the economy.  This, of course, is exactly the piece of evidence presented by my friend for why JFK was "conservative."

There are manifold problems with this, however.  To begin with, in the 1960's, personal and corporate tax rates were significantly higher than they are now.  In fact, they were so high, that the U.S. federal government had never had a budget deficit, outside of a war or an economic recession, in its entire history.  Essentially, in 1960, budget deficits simply didn't exist under normal circumstances.  This is due, primarily, to the fact that federal tax rates were so high.  There was always plenty of money coming in.

So JFK's push for lower tax rates is in no way analogous to the modern conservative insistence on lower and lower taxes.  In 1960, taxes were very high, primarily as a result of tax increases during World War II that had never expired.  Our tax rates today are already at historic lows, and it has been years since any significant tax increase was enacted.  We simply are not in the same economic position, in 2011, that we were in during the 1960's.  

Furthermore, this argument seems to presuppose that "lowering taxes" is a Republican ideal, while "raising taxes" is a liberal ideal.  Since JFK wanted to lower taxes, he is more like a "conservative" than a "liberal."

This, of course, is complete nonsense.  In the last 25 years, two presidents have raised income taxes: one was a conservative/Republican (George H. W. Bush), and one was a liberal/Democrat (Bill Clinton).  And both of those presidents had to get congressional approval to raise taxes, and both had congresses who were controlled by the opposite party.

Raising vs. lowering taxes is not a liberal vs. conservative issue, much as the conservative pundits would like you to think so.  Both parties have track records of raising and lowering taxes.      

Additionally, in regards to the current president, Obama has pushed endlessly for lower taxes across the board, and has approved legislation as such.  The only taxes Obama has attempted to raise are the taxes on the super wealthy.  This, of course, is because the super wealthy - like the rest of the country as a whole - are presently paying taxes at a historically low rate.  Obama and his administration believe that one way to helps solve the country's enormous economic problems are to raise taxes on this segment of the population.  You may agree or disagree with this perspective, but it hardly makes "liberals" a group who are ideologically married to "raising taxes," as my friend's perspective seems to presuppose.

This is a completely different scenario than what was faced by JFK in 1960.  The super wealthy, along with everyone else, were paying enormously high tax rates by our modern standards.  It was a time when tax rates needed to be lowered, and when JFK worked to lower them, he wasn't being a "conservative."

The other point my friend made was that JFK's escalation of intervention in Southeast Asia is analogous to Bush's wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.  This, too, I believe is a narrow-eyed view of the situation.

To begin with, JFK didn't start the war in Vietnam.  He merely continued the policy of his predecessor - Eisenhower - of sending military advisers to assess the spread of Communism in Southeast Asia.  He also provided military aid to the South Vietnamese in their fight against a Communist takeover.  Virtually every president in the 20th century used the military to support and prop up countries that were in the midst of hostile takeovers by groups the U.S. was opposed to - something that still continues to this day.

The fact that the situation descended - after Kennedy's death - into a horrific and unwinnable war, can hardly be put on Kennedy's shoulders.  In fact, Kennedy is known to have said that he had no intention of keeping U.S. forces in Vietnam, and that he intended to pull Americans out of Vietnam after the 1964 election.  He is known to have privately admitted that one of his biggest reasons for sending military aid to Vietnam was simply because he knew it would win him support in a re-election bid.

Now this, of course, is not a particularly laudable aspect of Kennedy's involvement in Vietnam, but it does show what a false analogy it is to compare Kennedy's  Vietnam with Bush's invasion of two sovereign countries in 2003.  It was a totally different scenario all together.  We weren't aiding Iraq against a hostile takeover - we were committing the hostile takeover.  We ousted a government and put in place one of our own making.  This is actually what communist North Vietnam did to democratic South Vietnam in the 1960's.  In that sense, a better analogy would be to compare Ho Chi Minh to George W. Bush.  (Yes, I know that's an inflammatory and unfair remark; I use it simply to show how false this analogy really is).    

And just like with the issue of economic policy and lower taxes, I might also point out that it is a false dichotomy to assert that military intervention is, by nature, a "conservative" ideal - that somehow JKF's military intervention in Vietnam makes him "conservative" like George W. Bush.  In the same way that lowering taxes is no more a conservative ideal than a liberal ideal, so too is military intervention to support U.S. interests no more a conservative ideal than a liberal ideal.  It's simply a false dichotomy.

In the end, I have to disagree with my friend that JFK was "more conservative" than George W. Bush.  I simply can't find any reasonable evidence to support this notion.  It is essentially just a way for modern conservatives to disassociate with Bush - by suggesting he was basically more "liberal" than a well-loved liberal president - while making an inflammatory remark to irritate liberals.  Not that I was irritated or inflamed by the comment...I actually appreciate the opportunity to address the question and do a bit of research to better widen my understanding of American politics.  I suspect very strongly that this opinion is not just one made on the fly by my friend.  I suspect this idea is thrown about among conservatives, so I appreciate the opportunity to address it.

Thanks, Trent :)

10 Fun Facts About James A. Garfield

James A. Garfield, the 20th President of the United States

1)  Like his more famous predecessor, Abraham Lincoln, James Abram Garfield was born in a log cabin in rural Cuyahoga County, near Cleveland, Ohio, in 1831.  His father died when he was still a baby, and he was raised by a single mother in virtual poverty.

2)  In the early 1850's, Garfield studied at a college in Hiram, Ohio, where he was taught by Platt R. Spencer, who had developed a system of cursive handwriting that was the norm in American society until the advent of the typewriter in the 20th century.

3)  Garfield was a member of the Delta Upsilon fraternity while at Williams College in Massachusetts, a fraternity which includes members from Lou Holtz of college football fame, to Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.

4)  Before entering politics, Garfield taught Greek and other classical languages for his alma mater in Ohio (now called Hiram College), where he met and eventually married one of his pupils, Lucretia Rudolph.  Together they had seven children, one of whom lived to be 102 and did not die until the 1970's.

5)  During the Civil War, Garfield attained the rank of Major General, and participated in a number of battles, including the Battle of Shiloh.  However, after being elected to Congress in 1862, he resigned his commission to focus on work in Washington.  A strict abolitionist, he felt that Abraham Lincoln was too soft on slavery and on the South in general.  In the 1864 election, he refused to endorse or support Lincoln's run for re-election.    

6)  Serving in Congress throughout the 1860's and 1870's, Garfield was a strong opponent of the drive to develop paper currency, at one point referring to cash as "the printed lies of the Government."  He believed paper currency would be the ruin of the U.S. economy, and strongly supported keeping "specie" (that is, silver and gold coins) as the primary U.S. currency.

7)  Garfield had not openly planned on running for the 1880 presidential election, instead supporting fellow Republican John Sherman.  However, when a deadlock ensued in the Republican primaries over the leading three candidates (Sherman, James G. Blaine, and former president Ulysses S. Grant, who was running for a third term), Garfield - to his complete surprise - suddenly emerged as the winner, as the Republicans felt he was the best possible compromise candidate.  He went on to win the 1880 presidential election by just a few thousand votes over Democrat Winfield Hancock.

8)  Still serving as a Congressman in 1879, Garfield had been selected by the Ohio Senate to replace John Sherman as U.S. Senator from Ohio - Sherman having resigned his position to campaign for the presidency. Garfield then went on, unexpectedly, to win the 1880 presidential election.  As a result, there was a period of time, following the presidential election, where Garfield was a sitting congressman in the U.S. House of Representatives, a U.S. Senator-elect, and the U.S. President-elect, all at the same time.

9)  In July of 1881, James A. Garfield was shot by Charles J. Guiteau as he headed for a train in Washington, D.C.  Guiteau, a disgruntled and delusional former attorney, was angry with Garfield and his administration for failing to appoint him as a U.S. consul in Paris.  He believed that a speech he had delivered in the streets and published as a pamphlet had been instrumental in securing Garfield's election, and he felt that Garfield's refusal to appoint him to a consular position demonstrated a lack of gratitude.

10)  Garfield did not die immediately; instead, he lay sick in Washington for nearly 3 months, until the festering bullet wound in his abdomen finally killed him in September of 1881.  During his time in sick bed, Alexander Graham Bell invented a metal detector to attempt to find the bullet lodged in Garfield's abdomen, but it proved unsuccessful.  Another inventor, attempting to give comfort to Garfield during the hot Washington summer, invented what was likely the first air conditioner, a contraption that blew forced air over a box full of ice.  By the time he died, Garfield had been president for a mere 6 months.

Abraham Lincoln: A Divisive President

Abraham Lincoln, who served as president of the United States from 1861 to 1865, is widely regarded as the greatest American president.  Indeed, in numerous "ranking polls" taken over the years, asking historians and political scientists to rank the presidents, Lincoln has been the consistent winner.  According to a chart on Wikipedia, which records the results of 17 major polls taken over the last 50 years, Lincoln has never placed lower than third, and has taken first nine times - more than any other president.  His aggregate ranking in that chart places him in the top position among American presidents.

                                    

This wide-spread academic acknowledgement of Lincoln's acheivements as president is reflected in popular culture as well.  Probably no historical president is quoted, mimicked, referenced, or dramatized more often than Abraham Lincoln.  His top hat and beard have become iconic symbols of his presidency.  Children's games are named for him, in memory of his humble beginnings in a log cabin.  No American high school student makes it through a Government class without reading his Gettysburg Address.  Countless books are published about him every single year.  Even in the 21st century, "Lincoln" remains a popular boy's name.  Kentucky hails itself as "Lincoln's Birthplace," while Indiana calls itself "Lincoln's Boyhood Home," and Illinois proudly displays "Land of Lincoln" on its license plate.  

There are literally hundreds of cities, towns, and communities around the U.S. named after him.  His iconic image is stamped onto every penny minted in the United States, and he is also on our five-dollar bill.

In short, Abraham Lincoln is the most widely-regarded, well-known, and beloved of all the American presidents.

With this in mind, one might be inclined to assume that his greatness was recognized even during his life and during his time in the White House.

Surprisingly, this assumption couldn't be farther from the truth.

Everyone knows what happened after Lincoln was elected in 1860.  The southern states seceded over the issue of slavery, and the Civil War began.  

What is often overlooked in this scenario is that the southern states actually seceded in protest of Lincoln's election.

Throughout the 1850's, the issue of slavery dominated the American political environment.  There were many different perspectives on the issue, and as a result of all these perspectives, the 1860 presidential election wound up with 4 major candidates nominated by 4 different parties.

The sitting Vice-President, John C. Breckenridge, was a pro-slavery southerner, and was easily nominated as the Southern Democrat candidate in 1860.  The Northern Democrats, on the other hand, believed that slavery was a states' rights issue, and believed in allowing states, and particularly new U.S. territories, to decide for themselves whether to allow slavery (they called this platform "Popular Sovereignty").  They nominated Stephen Douglas, a well-known Illinois politician who was a political rival to Abraham Lincoln.  

Stephen Douglas

It's important to keep in mind that the labels "Northern Democrat" and "Southern Democrat," in 1860, only referred to general regional loyalties.  There certainly would have been supporters of the "Northern Democrats" in the South, and vice versa.

The Republican party, in 1860, was still a new political party, formed primarily in response to the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854.  This Act, following the platform of Douglas and the group that would come to be known as the Northern Democrats, had allowed the Kansas and Nebraska territories to choose for themselves whether they would permit slavery.

Those Whigs and Democrats who were virulently opposed to the expansion of slavery, and who, in many cases, supported outright abolition of slavery, broke away from their respective parties after 1854 and formed the Republican party, whose platform was essentially to oppose any expansion of slavery in new territories and states.  In 1860, they nominated the anti-slavery Abraham Lincoln for the presidency.   

The Constitutional Union party was a fourth party formed during the 1860 election as an alternative to all the others.  Their basic platform was to avoid the slavery issue all together.  Their primary goal was to preserve the union - hence the name.  They opposed both factions of the Democratic party, because both were seen as pro-slavery, but they also opposed the Republicans, because they felt that the Republicans were too radical and believed that a Republican victory would lead to a dissolution of the union.  In short, the Constitutional Union party sought only to preserve the union and put off discussions about slavery until later.  They nominated a Tennessee politician and slave-owner named John Bell.  

Unlike modern elections, in which third-party candidates rarely make any significant run for the White House, all four candidates in 1860 had strong bases of support and ultimately won states in the electoral college.

Stephen Douglas, of the Northern Democrats, only carried one state (Missouri), but he garnered nearly 30% of the popular vote.  John Bell, the candidate of the Constitutional Union party, carried three states, but took only 12% of the popular vote, by far the least of any of the candidates.

John C. Breckinridge, the pro-slavery incumbent Vice-President, carried every southern state except for Tennessee, and took 19% of the popular vote.

John C. Breckinridge

Abraham Lincoln took most of the northern states, as well as California and Oregon, winning 39% of the popular vote and ultimately winning the election.  However, within 10 of the 15 slaves states, Lincoln did not receive a single, solitary vote from a single, solitary voter.  He wasn't even on the ticket there.  Of the 996 counties spanning the 15 slave states, Lincoln won only 2.  

As such, Lincoln won the election not by a majority, as most candidates do, but by a "plurality" - in other words, he didn't get a majority of the votes, but he got more than anyone else.  Still, more than 60% of the U.S. population voted for someone other than Abraham Lincoln in the 1860 election.  This is remarkable; Lincoln came into office with almost two-thirds of the country opposed to him.  

His election, in fact, was so divisive, that it ultimately led to the secession of the southern states, which began happening before he even took office.  The dire predictions of the Constitutional Union party were being played out before everyone's eyes.  The union was falling apart because of the election of a radical anti-slavery president.  Lincoln attempted to stop this, giving speeches aimed at the South, promising not to abolish slavery there.  It goes without saying that this failed to stem the tide.

Following Lincoln's election, the secession of the southern states, and the outbreak of the Civil War, Lincoln found himself up for re-election again in 1864.  Although a Union victory was no longer in doubt by the time the actual election took place in November of that year, much of the 1864 campaign season took place during a time when victory was by no means assured.

Still, considering Lincoln's confident and competent leadership of the country during the war, and considering that his famous Gettysburg Address, and his even more famous and profound Emancipation Proclamation, had both already taken place by this time, one would have expected Lincoln to win his re-election handily.

Not so.

In the 1864 election, only the northern and western states were eligible to vote - the southern states had seceded and, at that time, were no longer part of the United States.  This means that the only states who voted in the 1864 election were the states where Lincoln was already most popular.  They were made up of states that Lincoln had mostly won in 1860, and which he had subsequently led for the previous three years.  

Yet despite this, the election was not a clear-cut victory for Lincoln.  In fact, Lincoln failed to gain the re-nomination of his own Republican party in 1864.  The party, by this time, was pushing a platform that went even farther than Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation.  They wanted a constitutional amendment barring slavery for good, and wanted legislation to guarantee racial equality for all people.  Lincoln was not willing to go this far, and so the party nominated John C. Fremont of California as the Republican presidential candidate.   

John C. Fremont

As such, Lincoln was forced to form a third party, called the National Union party, which included more moderate Republicans and a group of northerners known as "War Democrats."  These War Democrats were northern Democrats who were radically opposed to making peace with the Confederacy.  Their platform was essentially to win the Civil War at all costs, and ultimately re-unite the broken country through military victory.  

The Northern Democrats, by this time, had become a party advocating peace with the Confederacy.  They came to be known as the Copperheads or Peace Democrats, and their most vocal leader was Clement L. Vallandigham, an Ohio congressman.  They nominated Lincoln's former top general, George B. McClellan, as their candidate.  This was somewhat of a contradiction, because McClellan openly supported continuing the war with the Confederacy, and largely disagreed with the party platform written by Vallandigham. 

Clement L. Valladigham

As the campaign among these three candidates progressed, the Republican nominee Fremont expressed concerns about splitting the Republican vote with Lincoln's party.  He openly vowed to bow out of the election if the National Union party would nominate someone other than Abraham Lincoln.  The party, however, refused to do this, and Fremont himself finally relented, removing himself from the race in September of 1864.  

Fremont's decision to bow out of the race ultimately led to Lincoln winning the election in November of 1864.  The Northern Democrats had hurt their cause by nominating a candidate who didn't even fully agree with their own platform of peace.  

George McClellan

Furthermore, the entire peace platform was becoming irrelevant by this time, since it was becoming obvious that the Union was going to win and thus re-unite the country (this had not been the case earlier in the campaign).  As such, Americans voted to keep Lincoln in office.     

Still, while Lincoln won a landslide in the electoral college, he won only 55% of the popular vote.  Fifty-five percent!  This means that even despite his leadership during the war, and despite his Gettysburg Address and his Emancipation Proclamation, and despite the Northern Democrats making several political blunders, Lincoln was still opposed by almost half of Americans - and this, of course, does not count the southerners, who were opposed to him so dramatically that they seceded over his election and ultimately assassinated him.

In the modern day, we would consider a 55% to 45% victory in the popular vote to be a strong showing and an easy win.  And this would have been true in 1860 as well.  However, when you bear in mind what I said at the outset of this post - when you consider the way we revere Lincoln today and consider him the greatest of our American presidents - it is downright staggering that he only managed to win 55% of the popular vote in his 1864 re-election campaign. 

Abraham Lincoln's presidency was a strange one.  His entire presidency was taken up by the Civil War - which started just a few months after he took office, and ended only a few weeks before he was assassinated.  He never had the chance to be a "normal" president and to work on the "normal" things that presidents work on.  Instead, his entire presidency was marred by a civil war between the states.  He was elected initially with less than 40% of the popular vote - making him one of the most un-wanted presidents in U.S. history.  The states of the south literally seceded from the union, precipitating the Civil War, in protest of his election.  He failed to garner the re-nomination of his own party when he ran for re-election in 1864 because they didn't think his views on slavery and racial integration went far enough.  And in that race, he won only 55% of the popular vote, even though the southern states didn't even get to vote in that election.  He only had 55% support from the states where he was most widely liked!  

This fact of history, of course, is an important one to keep in mind when evaluating modern presidents.  It would be fair to say that Abraham Lincoln, if evaluated solely on his popularity during his time in the White House, may have been the most divisive person to ever serve the office of the presidency.  The simple fact is, he was not very widely popular, and was absolutely detested by a significant portion of the American people.  This is important to remember when considering the highly divisive presidents who have served over the last 20 years or so.    

Notes from the Cave

I really wanted to blog about something worthwhile tonight, but I just didn't have it in me.  I've got some plans for a fascinating story about a 1972 plane crash in the Andes that I recently saw a documentary about, but tonight just isn't the night.

Black Friday was, for me, just another day at work, and a quite nice one at that.  I spent much of the day playing crossword puzzles.  Even though the day after Thanksgiving is not a holiday at my hospital, the workload was like you would expect on a holiday, meaning virtually nothing.  Even the ER wasn't that busy.

You might notice a new interactive Amazon.com frame below this blog post.  You can now shop Amazon right here on Serene Musings, without even leaving my website.  Pretty fancy, eh?  

So what's up with this Ndamukong Suh jackass who plays for the Detroit Lions?  In case you didn't see or hear about it, he was tackling a Packers player during Thursday's game, and got mad and shoved the guy's head into the ground several times, before standing up and stomping on his back with his foot.  Naturally, he was thrown out of the game.  How can the NFL allow something like this to happen?  If he is not suspended for the remainder of the season, and fined about $250,000, something is definitely wrong.

Of course, I hate football anyway. 

I learned tonight that my sister-in-law has bought me a ticket, along with my brother-in-law, to watch UK take on UNC on December 3rd at Rupp Arena.  This game is going to be a big one, as the teams are currently ranked #2 and #1 respectively, and will likely still be ranked that way when the game is played.  The game is already being hyped as one of the biggest games of the year in college basketball, and possibly a preview of an NCAA championship game.  I am uber-excited about it, particularly since I have never seen a basketball game at Rupp Arena.  Yes, I realize that this is blasphemy for a lifelong UK fan, but what can I say?  Tickets are hard to come by, and I am not keen enough on seeing it in person to shell out the cash it typically requires to attend one of their games.  I also tend to shy away from large crowds when possible.  But in any case, I am really excited about seeing my first UK game, especially since it's such a big one.  Maybe I'll manage to get on TV :) 

Third shift this weekend, so more than likely, I will see you on the flip side next week.  

Peace, we outta here.  

10 Fun Facts About Chester A. Arthur

Chester A. Arthur, the 21st President of the United States

1)  Chester Alan Arthur was born in Fairfield, Vermont, in 1829, the son of an Irish-American abolitionist preacher.  The family moved around extensively during his younger years, finally settling in Schenectady, New York.  

2)  In college, Arthur supported the Fenian Brotherhood, a group devoted to freeing Ireland from British rule.  This was in the late 1840's, during the height of the Irish Potato Famine.  In later years, the group would turn militant and begin conducting raids on British military posts in Canada in an effort to force the monarchy's hand.

3)  After college, Arthur was a teacher and headmaster for several years, before becoming a lawyer.  As an attorney, he was heavily involved in Civil Rights cases, famously winning a case for a black New York woman who was denied a seat on a streetcar because of her race.  The case led to the desegregation of New York streetcar lines.

4)  In the late 1850's, Arthur met Ellen Herndon, and they were married in 1859.  Ellen's father was a naval commander who had served with distinction in the Mexican-American War and had explored the Amazon River valley.  Two years before Chester and Ellen were married, her father died commanding the SS Central America, which went down in a hurricane carrying roughly 10 tons of California gold.  It was rediscovered and salvaged in 1987, and the gold recovered was valued at roughly 125 million dollars.

5)  In the 1880 presidential election, Arthur, a member of a Republican faction known as the Stalwarts, supported nominating former president Ulysses S. Grant.  However, another Republican group, the Half-Breeds, supported a Maine senator named James Blaine.  The split loyalties ultimately resulted in a third Republican, James Garfield, winning the nomination for the Republican party.  In an effort to unite the party after the fractious primaries, Garfield chose Arthur to be his running mate, and the ticket ultimately won the presidency, winning the popular vote by less than 8,000 votes.  Blaine would become Garfield's Secretary of State.  

6)  During the 1880 election, one of the criticisms leveled at the Garfield-Arthur ticket was that Chester A. Arthur was a foreigner.  With an Irish father who had only emigrated a few years before Arthur was born, rumors spread that Arthur had, in fact, been born in Ireland, thus disqualifying him for the office of Vice-President.  When that accusation did not stick, more rumors floated through the press suggesting that Arthur had been born in Canada.  Ultimately, the accusations proved fruitless, and Arthur remained on the ticket.  

7)  Garfield, with Arthur as his running mate, won the presidency in 1880.  Just a few months after taking office in 1881, Garfield was shot, and died in September of 1881 - the second president to be assassinated in only 16 years.  Thus, Arthur ascended to the presidency.  His wife had died less than two years earlier, so he was a widower by this time.  His sister served the role of First Lady.  

8)  While president, Chester A. Arthur signed several bills dealing with immigration, including a bill that disallowed mentally handicapped people from entering the United States from other countries.  He also signed a bill denying Chinese immigrants the right to apply for citizenship.  As he had done as a lawyer, he continued to fight for Civil Rights for American blacks, and also attempted to repair relations with Native American tribes.    

9)  While president, Arthur developed a chronic kidney disease, which somewhat limited his ability to handle the rigorous tasks associated with the Executive office.  Because of this, he gave only a token effort to attain the Republican nomination in 1884, and lost easily to James Blaine, his former political enemy and the Secretary of State during Garfield's brief term.  Blaine went on to lose the election to Grover Cleveland.  

10) Chester A. Arthur died the year after leaving office, in November of 1886, due to complications from kidney disease.  He was 57.

Notes from the Cave: Thanksgiving Edition

Melanie: "Do you know what you need to get to fix the toilet?"

Me: "Yes, a ballcock."

Melanie: "You're disgusting."

It really is called a ballcock!

I've discovered this week that Thanksgiving is a somewhat contentious holiday in some circles. I never knew this. Apparently there are some folks out there who feel that Thanksgiving is a self-aggrandizing American holiday that fails to recognize the horrific atrocities committed by American forebears who stole this land from Native Americans. Consider this quote that I took from Wikipedia, from Robert Jensen, a professor of journalism at UT-Austin: One indication of moral progress in the United States would be the replacement of Thanksgiving Day and its self-indulgent family feasting with a National Day of Atonement accompanied by a self-reflective collective fasting.

I'm sure most of you probably regard that sentiment about the same way that I do - gimme a break.

However, another quote, this time by professor Dan Brook at UC-Berkeley, is perhaps a bit more realistic: We do not have to feel guilty, but we do need to feel something.

It's an absolute fact of history that the earliest pioneers in the New World, and later in the United States, committed unthinkable atrocities against the native populations. Estimates for the native population of the Americas prior to Columbus are difficult to establish, but most experts believe it was somewhere in the range of 75 million people. That population steadily declined through the intervening centuries. Today, there are about 2 million people in the United States who are legally considered "Native American." Many more, of course, live in Central and South America, but there is no question that the modern population of these native group is only a fraction of what it was 500 years ago.

Now, of the millions of Native Americans who died as a direct result of the "coming of the white man," the vast majority of those died from European diseases which they had no immunity to. Smallpox, for instance, was a big one. However, even if you eliminate those deaths caused inadvertently by disease, there were still millions, from 1500 to 1900, who were actually murdered, exploited, put into slavery, and starved to death.

In short, the settling of North and South America, primarily by European settlers, was one of the worst human atrocities ever committed in known human history. Now, as modern Americans, we can hardly be held personally responsible for the actions of our long-ago ancestors - just as modern Germans aren't exactly to blame for the Holocaust. Be that as it may, I like what Dr. Brook of UC-Berkeley had to say above: we don't have to feel guilty, as if we are personally to blame, but we can at least recognize, and be sensitive to, the fact that we are here today because our ancestors murdered and exploited millions of people.

Now, the strange thing about all this is that I am not entirely sure what any of this has to do with Thanksgiving. Obviously, Thanksgiving is a holiday we traditionally tie to the coming of the Pilgrims in Plymouth, Massachusetts, but by and large, we celebrate it today as a holiday of being thankful for things we have in our lives. From a practical standpoint, it really doesn't have anything to do with the European genocide against ancient native populations. Which is why I find cynicism about the holiday to be largely misplaced. A better National Day of Atonement might be Columbus Day.

Well, enough of that. My parents are here for Thanksgiving, for the first time ever. They live in Houston, and we typically do not see them at Thanksgiving. But this year they decided to come up now instead of at Christmas. So we are having early Christmas/Thanksgiving this week. This is the first time we have ever had Thanksgiving at our house. Normally my family and I go to my in-laws' house across town.

We got a turkey from Kroger - pre-cooked :)

I've been off work for the last two days, which has been nice, but I have to work tomorrow and all weekend. Frankly, I'd rather be working on Black Friday than shopping, so no big whoop.

I read an article earlier this week about how Michelle Obama and Jill Biden appeared at a NASCAR race this weekend. Apparently, a segment of the crowd booed them when they were introduced. Real classy, NASCAR fans. Then again, no one ever claimed NASCAR fans were classy. Assy, maybe, but not classy.

Happy Thanksgiving to all my friends and family, and to my readers, and remember to click the Amazon ads on my main page for any and all Amazon.com purchases you may make between now and the end of time.

Holla'

Calipari and the UK Wildcats Ride Again

It's becoming a tradition here on Serene Musings for me to write about UK basketball, so since another season is upon us, it's time to reignite the tradition.

My loyal readers may recall my prediction two years ago about UK potentially going undefeated.  That was Calipari's first season, when he had 5 players, including 4 freshman, who went in the 1st round of the NBA draft.  One of those freshman first round picks wasn't even a starter for that UK team.

My prediction went fantastically until early January, when they finally lost.  Still, they managed to be the last team that year that was still undefeated, and went to the Elite Eight.  The following year, they got to the Final Four for the first time in 12 years.

Now, they are among the favorites to win it all in 2012.  They've got another unmatched freshman class this year, and most analysts seem to think this is probably their best team yet under Calipari.  Not only do they have a ton of talented freshman who will be in the NBA next year, but they also have some veteran leadership that they have not had in previous years under Coach Cal.  One of their best players from last year's team, Terrence Jones, stayed for another season, and together with a few other older players, that has made this team deeper and more experienced than Cal's previous two squads.  

They proved their ability last week when they faced off against fellow power house Kansas, who was ranked 10th in the preseason.  They won by double digits against them, then won the Naismith Hall of Fame Tip-Off tournament they played in this weekend.  

On December 3rd, they are playing UNC at Rupp Arena.  Currently UK is ranked #2 nationally behind UNC, so this is likely to be an early season 1-2 match-up.  Kentucky will benefit from playing the game at home (they played in North Carolina last year).  I've already heard some analysts say that they don't believe anyone is good enough to beat Kentucky on their own court this year, but we'll  have to just wait and see.  Being that UNC is probably Kentucky's number 1 arch rival, this will be a very important game, and will probably decide which team is going to be ranked number 1 come January and conference play.  

So far, I've only watched one UK game this year (I missed the first game, and the two games this weekend were not televised where I live) so I can't yet give an accurate analysis of what I think they are capable of.  In the Kansas game, they played horribly in the 1st half - probably one of the worst single-half performances that I have seen them play under Calipari, yet Kansas didn't play well either, and they were tied at halftime.  Kentucky got it together in the second half and played fairly well, although they tailed off at the end of the game.  

In any case, it's going to be an exciting year for Kentucky fans, and a frustrating year for all the rest who love to hate UK basketball.  

 

Ads for Amazon

What's with all the blatant Amazon advertising that has overtaken my blog, you ask yourself?

Well, to put it simply, I have become a so-called "Affiliate" for Amazon, meaning that I am putting their ads on my blog in order to make a little money.

Essentially, I get a commission every time you click one of these ads to buy something from Amazon.  What that means, dear reader, is that if you are going to buy something from Amazon, you can do me a world of help by simply accessing Amazon's site through one of my ads.  It doesn't cost you a thing, and it provides me with a nice advertising commission, which ultimately helps to support my writing endeavors.

If you buy one of my e-books from Amazon, and you use the links on the right side of the page to do so, not only will I get royalty payments on the sale of the book, but I will also get an advertising commission on top of that.

See how it works?

As I have said elsewhere, you don't have to have a Kindle to buy my e-books.  Amazon offers free Kindle Apps, which you can download (voila!) using the banner ad at the top of this page.  They have downloads for any major media device (computer, iPad, smart phones, etc.).  Download the free app, then you can buy my e-books.  

Astros Move to the American League

USAToday.com Article.

I have long argued that it was silly for the American League to have 14 teams, broken up into divisions with 5, 5, and 4, while the National League has 16 teams, broken up as 5, 5, and 6.

Now they are finally fixing it.  The Astros will leave the NL Central and join the AL West, giving each of the 6 MLB division 5 teams apiece, 15 teams in each league.  They will also add two more Wild Card spots for the playoffs.

Only I wish they weren't fixing it with the Astros.

My friends tend to make fun of me for being a fan of more than one team, and this is made worse by the fact that my three favorite teams are all in the same division: the Reds, the Cubs, and the Astros.

But there is a method to my madness, or at least a good reason for it.

I grew up in Louisville, Kentucky.  Our Triple-A affiliate at the time was under the Cardinals.  However, the Reds were easily the closest major league team, geographically, to Louisville, and still are.

I was never really a Reds fan, however.  Instead, I was a fan of the Cubs, because, along with the Braves, they were the only team I could watch every day throughout the year, thanks to cable and WGN.  As a result, while I never really became much of a Braves or Cardinals fan, I did become a die-hard Cubs fan.

This childhood loyalty has never wavered, although I could certainly be called a "fair-weather fan" of the Cubs at this point - tending to largely ignore them unless they are doing well.

In 1988, when I was 13, we moved to Cincinnati.  I very quickly added the Reds to my fan list, simply because they were now the hometown team who I could go watch in person whenever I wanted.  Although I have not lived in Cincinnati non-stop since 1988, I live in the area now and have continued to follow the Reds.  At this point, they are my favorite team, the one team I follow closely year to year.

In 1993, I went off to college, staying in the Ohio Valley area, but my parents moved to Houston.  As it happened, during this period, the Astros were very good, and continued to be a dominating team throughout the 90's and into the 00's.  Within a few years, I became an Astros fan, as I was able to go see them play live every summer when I was home from college.  Like the Cubs, I have become a fair-weather Astros fan too, only "following" them when they are doing well, and generally shaking my head sadly when they have years like the last few years.

By sheer chance of geography, these three "favorite" teams of mine all happen to be in the National League Central Division.  As such, my three favorite teams represent fully 50% of the division in which they all play.

This gives me a pretty good likelihood in any given year of having a favorite team in the playoffs, although that certainly was never by design.

In any case, this is why I am upset to see the Astros move to the American League in order to solve the imbalance between the two leagues.  I would prefer for them to have stayed in the National League, simply because I am a "National League" person.  Whether it was the Triple-A team in Louisville growing up (the Cardinals), the teams (Cubs and Braves) I watched on cable, or the cities I have personally lived in, they have always been National League.  I lived for 12 years in Lexington, and their Single-A affiliate, strangely enough, was the Astros.  I have never had much interest in the American League and am not nearly as familiar with the teams and players in this league.  With the Astros' defection to the AL, I suspect I will follow them less and less in coming years.

So I applaud the MLB for finally fixing this problem that they created when the Brewers changed leagues 15 years ago or so.  I just wish it wasn't the Astros who were switching.

Notes from the Cave

The college basketball season is upon us, and it promises to be another fun year for this UK Wildcats fan.  Kentucky again has a slew of top recruits, and this year they also have some veteran talent - their one lacking ingredient in the past few seasons.  Hopes are definitely running high in the Bluegrass for UK's chances this year of another Final Four and Championship.  You can wait with bated breath for upcoming UK basketball blog posts from yours truly.

I saw snow tonight for the first time this season.  So that's what...November 10th?  I guess that's not too bad.  I've certainly experienced it earlier than this before, so I won't complain.  No accumulation of course, just some flurries coming down in my headlights as I drove home from work.

Is it just me, or is Rick Perry a complete idiot?  Sheesh.  If he wasn't such a douchebag, I would feel sorry for him.  How utterly embarrassing.  I sure as hell wouldn't do any better in such a debate setting, but then again, I ain't running for president.

Anybody hear about this new so-called "Christmas Tree Tax" that Ebenezer Obama wants to assail hard-working Americans with?  A friend of mine posted a link to it on Facebook, and expressed his outrage that this was, in particular, targeting "Christians."

Let me give you a bit of background, in case you don't know the story.  A blog for the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think-tank in Washington, put out an article slamming the Obama administration for a so-called Christmas Tree Tax.  This "tax" consists of a 15 cent surcharge on live Christmas trees sold by farmers who sell more than 500 trees per year.  The blog post refers to "Obama's Department of Agriculture" putting together this policy, and taxing Americans to pay for it, so they can help to "market Christmas trees."

(One has to wonder if "Obama's Postal Service" will get the blame the next time stamp prices go up.)

The entire tone of this well-written piece of partisan bullshit is that Obama is running amok, secretly implementing taxes on unsuspecting middle class Americans, and is so out of control that now he is now taxing Christmas.

This article has gone viral very quickly among conservative websites, and among conservatives on social media sites.  I've now seen it posted twice on Facebook, and once on a messageboard forum that I frequent.  Just more evidence, for these conservatives, of what a terrible person Obama is.  For the friend I mentioned above, he was really mad because this "targeted Christians."  Pardon my French, but are you fucking kidding me?  Christians are the only ones who buy Christmas trees?  Since when do Christmas trees have anything to do with Baby Jesus?

The truth, of course, cannot be found in the blog post by the Heritage Foundation (and no, I'm not providing a link for it, because I refuse, on principle, to provide them any direct referral traffic - Google it if you want to read it; "Christmas Tree Tax" should be sufficient).

Anyway, the truth about this is that a trade group, which represents Christmas tree farmers, has lobbied the U.S. Department of Agriculture for several years to help them sell more Christmas trees.  This is what the Department of Agriculture does.  We can debate all day about whether we need a Department of Agriculture in the 21st century, but for good or bad, we have one, and their purpose is to help American farmers.  As a result of lobbying by trade groups representing Christmas tree farmers, the Department of Agriculture came up with a program to help them market and promote their trees, to increase their sales.  This is because the live Christmas tree industry has been sagging for decades behind the continuing popularity of fake trees - many of which, of course, are made in fucking China.

So the Department of Agriculture puts together this marketing plan, and charges the farmers a 15 cent surcharge for each tree sold, in order to pay for the assistance that they asked for in the first place.  There is nothing unusual or unreasonable about this.  They lobbied for assistance, the Department of Agriculture responded, and they are paying a surcharge on their trees to pay for the services the federal government is providing to them.

If the farmers want to pass that surcharge along to their consumers, by adding it to their retail price, that is their prerogative, but that does not, in any way, constitute a "Christmas tree tax."  One person on the messageboard thread discussing this matter said, "Well, if they're gonna tax me to buy a Christmas tree, I guess I'll just by a fake one from China!"

I'm sorry, but if 15 cents makes you decided not to buy a live Christmas tree, you need to have your brain examined by a board-certified neurologist.

The fact is, this is exactly the kind of thing that the Department of Agriculture should be doing: putting together low-cost programs, completely paid for and not added to the national debt, to help the U.S. economy, by helping U.S. farmers sell more live Christmas trees to U.S. consumers.   This is Washington actually doing it's fucking job.  If it works, some of the money flowing out of U.S. pockets and into the vaults of Chinese manufacturing companies will now, instead, be flowing into the vaults of U.S. farmers.

The fact that the right wing can criticize this, and politicize this, and turn this into a broad-based Obama bash-fest, simply shows you where the priorities of people like this really are.

Well, enough soapbox.  And sorry for all the F-bombs.  It's an F-bomb night.