The same foolish impulse that animates the men who snatch baseballs from from one another in the stands, and the boys who race each other from section to section in greedy anticipation, is the same one that prompts fans to interfere with balls in play.  The infamous Steve Bartman incident is the best known, but others occur almost daily, with fans reaching over walls, gloves in hand, to scoop up fair balls.

This obsession reached its logical climax in Arlington last night, when a fan at Rangers Park tumbled from the upper deck to the stands below.  He had been reaching for a foul ball and lost his balance.  He dropped thirty feet onto fans below.  Fans in the park screamed when they saw it happen.  The home plate umpire threw his hands over his head in horror.  The television announcers were similarly terrified.  The game was halted for fifteen minutes, and many players were visibly distressed, with several of the Cleveland fielders clearly mouthing prayers.

Everyone loves a souvenir.  But is a $16 baseball really worth all that?

The response from the women of the “Daily Show” reads as earnest and heartfelt, but if one of these women did feel the environment was hostile, it would be difficult for them to speak up without jeopardizing their career.

The problem here, of course, is the singular “they”.  This common mistake is generally found in situations in which the sex of the subject or object of the sentence is unknown: “I don’t know who my new teacher will be, but I hope they are nice”.  The singular “they” is a self-conscious and incorrect effort to avoid sexist language.  But in the excerpt above the sex of the subject is explicitly noted, and given the theme of this story, it is odd to find such an error.  Leo should have written, “…it would be difficult for her to speak up without jeopardizing her career”.  (A good writing teacher would also have a problem with the vague pronoun reference of “it would be difficult”, since “it” doesn’t appear to refer to anything.  You may have noticed that I don’t worry much about that.)

Until the otherwise genderless English language invents a neuter pronoun (besides “it”), this problem will persist.  One correct way to form my example sentence above would be to simply pick “he”, even if the teacher may be female.  Alternatively, one could write “he or she”, though that sometimes leads to wordy constructions.  My writing teacher, Professor McCrea, would advise students whenever possible to “make … nouns that refer to general classes plural and then replace those nouns with the plural (and sexually neutral) pronoun they“.  In that case, Leo would need only to eliminate the words “one of”, and change “career” to “careers”.  But Professor McCrea would agree with me that Leo’s sentence does not allow this without altering the meaning.  The danger of one woman speaking out is central to Leo’s message.

Meanwhile, don’t bother searching for grammatical errors on my webpage; I promise there are more than a few.  I am not a professional writer.

I am extremely troubled by the misinformation–lies, really–being spread about the proposed health care reform slowly winding its way through Congress.  The misinformation takes many forms, but at its heart lies a straw man.  That is, some of those who strongly oppose health care reform are deliberately distorting what reform would mean in an effort to make change appear undesirable.  So, for example, they make outrageous claims that, under the Obama plan, the elderly will face forced euthanasia (or any sort of euthanasia), when, in fact, all the proposal would do is give patients the option of discussing advanced directives regarding life-support should they ever suffer a perpetual coma.  There is nothing wrong or even scary about that.  In fact, in the wake of the Terry Schiavo calamity, you would think that everyone would be in favor of such a logical proposal.  But, by misinterpreting what the legislation would do, those making false claims are able to frame the debate in new terms.  If all you hear are people screaming at their congressmen at town hall meetings, you, too, might walk away with the wrong ideas of what health care reform would look like.  (There is a curious similarity between some of those screaming about health care and others screaming about President Obama’s citizenship.)

Another common refrain amongst those who–for whatever reason–oppose reform is that citizens of other nations which have some form of national health care (“socialized medicine!”) or single-payer program (which isn’t even on the table here in the USA, though, mark my words, it will happen in my lifetime) receive much worse care than Americans.  Generally, these arguments point to the “long waits” that patients must endure before receiving essential treatment.  I don’t doubt that patients needing elective operations occasionally have to wait their turns.  But I strongly suspect that the more horrifying claims are greatly exaggerated.  Moreover, when you consider that many tens of millions of Americans are not able to receive those procedures at all, waiting a few weeks doesn’t seem that bad.

But, others who claim that “America has the greatest health care system in the world”, which is demonstrably false if you use almost any measurable criteria, like to make different, more terrifying false claims.  A hilarious one appears in the latest Investors Business Journal.  It suggests that the British public health system is terrible because of “rationing”, and that “the stories of people dying on a waiting list or being denied care altogether read like a horror movie script”.  If, the article states, the bureaucrats don’t believe your life is worth saving, they cut you off, and “you get to curl up in a corner and die”.  Now, you might expect such a shabbily written and poorly researched article to cite ridiculous and unreliable tabloids like the New York Post, and this one does.  And you might also expect it make the sinister insinuation that American patients will be “compelled” to pull their own plugs, so to speak, and this one does that, as well.  But you probably would not have believed that anyone who receives money to write words could make a mistake this stupid:

People such as scientist Stephen Hawking wouldn’t have a chance in the U.K., where the National Health Service would say the life of this brilliant man, because of his physical handicaps, is essentially worthless.

Investors Business Journal probably ought to have asked British scientist Stephen Hawking, who lives in the United Kingdom, where they have the National Health Service, if he agreed with that premise.  He would probably have told them that he “wouldn’t be here today if it were not for the NHS”.  That is, in fact, exactly what he told The Guardian.  The ignorance of facts displayed by the Investors Business Journal is not unlike that demonstrated by those fools who claim that, even if President Obama was born in Hawaii–which they’re not willing to concede–he cannot be an American citizen because his father was Kenyan, which is clearly wrong.

It is, of course, appropriate to discuss what this health care reform will cost and how we will pay for it.  And it is entirely understandable that many who oppose abortion would be troubled to think of their money going to cover abortions.  I resent that even a penny of my tax dollars goes to pay for chemicals that the state of Florida uses to kill human beings strapped to a table.  So, their concerns are fair, and we should discuss our options.  But intellectual dishonesty makes legitimate debate impossible, and the fanatics who insist nothing is wrong with what we have, or who seek to make the perfect the enemy of the good, are only making things worse.

On her stream today, Gato Ranch, whose real name is Jana, posted something that I found disturbing.  The Gainesville Sun has taken one of her photographs, and, without her permission, posted it on their webpage in conjunction with a story.  Worse still, in spite of the fact that the stolen picture had her real name and a copyright symbol, the Sun gave her no credit, and posted a link for readers to buy the image.  From them!  It is the most blatant copyright violation I’ve ever seen.

Jana tells me that she notified the Gainesville Sun of their violation, but this isn’t the first time they have done this to her, so one must assume that this is par for the course with them.  She doesn’t believe that they copied the picture from Flickr, but from MySpace, which explains the low resolution.

I’ve never thought much of the Gainesville Sun.  In fact, I have a hate-hate relationship with that paper.  They publish unsolicited Craigslist-style rants in their letters section, which I feel violates all standards of journalism; they have been adversarial in their coverage of WUFT-FM, where I work; they have misquoted me in articles, and acted offended when I alerted them to that fact.  They are simply a bad newspaper.  Now I see they are also criminals.

Shame on you, Gainesville Sun.

So, I have a polite request for anyone who reads the Sun online:  if you ever see any photographs you recognize as mine, please let me know.  If it can happen to Jana, it can happen to me.

I was in Lowe’s last weekend, and on my way through the garden department I came across a display of Fiskars tools.  They made my loppers, pruners, and shears.  If I had considered adding more Fiskars equipment to my collection, I won’t anymore: all their products are now made in China.  Just to check and make sure I wasn’t mis-remembering what I bought, I went home to check.  Sure enough, each piece is stamped “Made in USA”.

This situation troubles me deeply.  It means that there was once a factory somewhere in the United States, where people like you or me were employed, where people had healthcare and retirement benefits, where people enjoyed company picnics and softball games.  One morning, a mid-level manager probably received a memo from the factory owner–who probably received a memo from Fiskars–stating that the plant was being shut-down so production could be moved off-shore, where labor costs a small fraction of what it does in America.  The mid-level manager probably went out on the floor that afternoon and told everyone that they’d better start looking for work somewhere else.  Some of the lucky ones may have found jobs quickly.  But I suspect many others didn’t, and shortly thereafter lost their health insurance, and maybe their cars and homes.  Their town, if it is small enough, sees some people move away, while the ones who stay have a lower standard of living.  Property values drop, and so does tax revenue.  Schools get worse, and the next generation has fewer opportunities to make something of themselves.  Crime goes up.  So does the divorce rate.

What is it worth to prevent this?  About $2.00, apparently.  That’s the difference between what I paid for my made in USA pruners and the ones now made in China.

The United States’ trade deficit is astonishing (something like $800 billion).  If you believe the Milton Friedman-types, all this is good, since it means the dollar is strong, and that consumers are able to buy more things at lower prices.  To the first point I respond: that’s nice when I travel overseas, but I’m not in the business of trading currency, and, even if I were, I wouldn’t be betting on the dollar, since we owe China trillions, and by any standard our CAB looks pretty bad.  As to the second point: low prices are nice, but what you don’t see printed on the price tag is what I wrote above – the death of manufacturing in America.

We can deceive ourselves into thinking that we have it good, when we go to Wal-Mart and find aisle after aisle of cheap, made in China merchandise.  But if things go on like this, there will come a day when retail, hospitality, and other service  jobs are the only thing left for people without a college degree.  The middle class will disappear.

Last night, after dinner, Miriam and I went somewhere I haven’t been in a long, long time: Best Buy.  I used to go there a lot in days of yore, especially back when HDTV was just being introduced, and I was eager to see what it looked like.  Their service was always lousy (not as lousy as Circuit City, of course), and just about everything I ever bought there broke within two years, but they’ve always had a lot of stock.  Last night, I discovered a new department in an area where CRT televisions were once displayed.  Best Buy now sells musical instruments.  They have drums, keyboards, DJ equipment, and guitars, including Fender and Gibson.

A number of things bother me about this.  First, I don’t think their staff cares about these instruments, since I found every guitar grossly out of tune.  Second, their prices were absurd.  The same Twin Reverb I bought for $899 at Lipham’s was marked $1,699 at Best Buy.  Maybe that’s what they’re going for elsewhere, but it just seemed extreme to me.  Finally, I think musical instruments are just Best Buy’s latest passing fancy.  That’s what troubles me most.  In a worst-case scenario, here’s what I imagine occurring:

1. Lipham Music loses sales to Best Buy.  There are only so many new electric guitars and amplifiers–particularly higher-end models–that will sell each week in Gainesville.  If Lipham loses those sales, it could hurt them significantly.  Lipham’s closes.
2. Musical instruments make up so little of Best Buy’s bottom line that they give up on the endeavor.
3. Gainesville has no music store.  Since Best Buy’s decision is made at the national level, they don’t care that Gainesville is left with nothing.

I don’t know how likely this scenario is.  I may just be paranoid.  But I know that I’d never get a deal on an amp at Best Buy like I did at Lipham’s, and Best Buy doesn’t have the tradition of heritage that Lipham’s does.  After all, a little more than ten years ago, the Best Buy was a Montgomery Ward.  Lipham’s has been in business for fifty years.  But these are hard times.

I hope they can weather the storm.

My new HDTV is the greatest thing ever, and thanks to the good folks at Quality Plumbing, the drain is clear, so that horror has ended.  But no sooner had the water begun flowing than more trouble has come along to take the place of the old.  This weekend, after being at work all afternoon for back-to-back beg-a-thon shifts, I arrived home to find the house exceptionally warm.  The air conditioner was blowing hot air.  Thanks to help I received in the past from the Clays–who had a similar problem–I knew the culprit was a bad capacitor, and I did replace it today at minimal cost.  But, that’s just the beginning.

Miriam began complaining recently that the laptop–my expensive replacement for the old computer that failed so horribly–was behaving oddly.  For instance, when she would turn it on, the screen would be blank.  Not having experienced it myself, I couldn’t guess the cause.  By Sunday morning, however, it happened to me.  Indeed, after starting Windows, the screen would go blank and stay blank.  Sara told me that that is precisely what her HP laptop did to her less than a year after she bought it.  This computer is less than ten months old, so it is still under warranty, and, if it’s going to break, now’s the best time, being the holiday between spring and summer classes.  But, hell fire, what is the world coming to that we cannot make a product that lasts more than a couple years any more?

I’ll confess my share of the blame: I have allowed myself to become captive to the power and convience of computers.  Indeed, I use a computer every day for many important tasks.  Consequently, when I have this sort of problem, it’s a cripling predicament.  I spent an hour and a half on the phone this morning with HP technical support (not being jerked around – it just took a long time to run some diagnostic tests), and now I will be without my laptop for two weeks.

I’m not planning on going off the grid, but sometimes I’m tempted.

The toilet nightmare which began on the 23rd seems to have ended.  Early that Tuesday morning I awoke to an overflowing commode.  Tuesday is my long day; my first class begins at 8:3o AM, and my last class ends at 7:00PM.  But I went to Lowe’s that morning at seven o’clock in the morning, stopped at Walgreen’s to get some medicine for the ailing Mrs. Hill, and did my best to repair the toilet before school.  But I ran out of time before I needed to leave.  I took a brutal midterm in the afternoon, and was preparing to head to my evening class when Miriam told me they were sending her to the hospital because her symptoms suggested possible appendicitis.  It wasn’t, thank goodness, and my professor was understanding when I wrote to him later.  But the toilet defeated me that night.  And when I reached the point of maximum frustration–when I stood in the doorway of my bathroom, staring at that filthy sewer hole in the floor with the roaches crawling out–I was on the verge of tears.

It was emasculating to have to call a plumber, and I worked all day Wednesday, so it was Thursday afternoon before anyone could come out.

Meanwhile, we spent Wednesday night at Sweetwater Branch Inn, in the charming 1895 McKenzie House.  The Giovanna Room was delightful, and Cornelia, who makes the breakfast the bed comes with, was very sweet.  In spite of the horrible circumstances, I still had a nice time, and would like to go back some day.

Sara was nice enough to offer to wait for the plumber for me, and he was a nice guy, too.  I was going to have him repair the rusted out cast iron flange the toilet gets bolted to, but he told me I could do it myself and save hundreds.  He told me what I needed to buy, I went to Home Depot, bought it, and had the toilet together by the time Miriam got home from work.  All was well.  Until this past Thursday night.

Thursday night, following a brutal midterm in my Early U.S. Novels course, I took a long shower, and was just beginning to mentally transition into spring break.  After I got out of the shower I flushed the toilet, and it happened again.  The plumber came back out on Friday afternoon, but I missed a chance to go to the beach with Sara.  I’ve talked to both my neighbors, and they, too, have experienced the same problem.  I am going to call GRU on Monday and have them install a clean out by the street, so if I have another blockage I might be able to clear it myself with a rented auger.  I put the toilet in place, caulked it really well, and, as of Saturday night it is doing its job.

And Miriam’s all better.

Last week I read about two people in south Florida who had their mortgages modified.  One woman’s interest rate dropped 11% when her terms were changed.  Another man saw no change in his monthly payment because the bank added so many fees and penalties.  She kept her house; he went into foreclosure after all.

Rep. Cantor is right that the default rate on modified mortgages is high, but only if your definition of “modified” is very broad:

“It’s becoming more and more clear to us that if you do real modifications the default rate is significantly lower”, said Tom Miller, the attorney general of Iowa, who has led a group of state officials pushing the industry to modify more loans. “They shouldn’t be called modifications if people pay more or approximately the same”.

The facts are that genuine modifications keep 75% of borrowers in their homes, and allow them to stay current.  If the “modifications” Rep. Cantor criticizes fail, it’s because they aren’t modifications at all.