Film Review: "The Triplets of Belleville"

Film originally viewed 10/29/05; DVD courtesy of Netflix

I've never seen a film quite like "The Triplets of Belleville," and I mean that as a compliment. The plot is simple yet the details are so strange, so fantastical, that simple exposition utterly fails to convey its whimsy. And it is the details that give the film its rich complexion. I'd rather not reveal too much of the plot, because the film's surprises, dark humor, and gift for exaggeration are best absorbed as they unfold.

But the thumbnail sketch is this: Madame Souza adopts her grandson, Champion, and the boy is at first lonely and unhappy. She dotes on him, buying him a dog and a tricycle, and he shows a particular aptitude for cycling. Jump ahead a few years, and Madame Souza is training Champion for the Tour de France, where he is kidnapped by the wine Mafia and taken to Belleville. Madame Souza and Bruno, the family dog, take off in pursuit. Lacking money and huddled together beneath a bridge, the duo are discovered and befriended by a formerly famous trio of vaudeville performers -- The Triplets of Belleville. The Triplets take them in and help in the attempt to rescue Champion.

The narrative is advanced almost entirely without dialogue. This device works well, because the visual portion is stunning; the animation is well rendered but it is the artwork that really shines. Belleville's winding streets, towering skyscrapers, and grotesquely obese populace bring life to the filmmakers' vision of a bustling metropolis with a seedy, thinly concealed underworld.

Perhaps I have given away too much already. But particular delights for me included the square-shouldered mafiosi, the dutiful but annoying boy scout, the musical "instruments" used by the Triplets in their act (including refrigerator shelves, a newspaper, and a vacuum cleaner), Madame Souza's unique training regimen for Champion (including calf-vacuuming!), the Triplets' unorthodox hunting and culinary preferences, and just about every scene with Bruno the dog.

At its heart, "The Triplets of Belleville" is a sweet story rendered in a highly unusual idiom. The protagonists exude virtue; the film treasures love, loyalty, devotion, friendship, and perseverance against soulless villains. The film manages to be funny, touching, and perplexing all at the same time. Highly entertaining and utterly original, "The Triplets of Belleville" is a visual and whimsical tour de force. Check it out if you get the chance.

Saturday Afternoon Linkage

Random tidbits from a quiet Saturday afternoon spent listening to some old Ben Folds Five:

• Craptacular. Embiggen. Smarch. Just three of the many words from Wikipedia's groin-grabbingly transcendent "list of neologisms on 'The Simpsons'" page. Fully annotated with etymologies, episodes of origin, and pop culture cross-references! Minutes of fun for any Simpsons fan! Best viewed at work for extra time-wasting goodness.

• It's no secret lefties hold a special frothing hatred for Wal-Mart, but by playing footsie with the feds on the minimum wage issue, the world's largest retailer has managed also to piss off its free market champions. Lew Rockwell, in his typically eloquent style, penetrates to the heart of the issues for free market proponents:

The left's claims of unfair practices would be valid if Wal-Mart did indeed work to impose legal disabilities on its competitors – in effect making it illegal to outcompete the company. And yet that is precisely what raising the minimum wage would do: impose a legal disability on those companies engaged in lower-wage competition with Wal-Mart. So the economically ignorant left advocates raising the minimum wage.

Lew's insightful article is well worth your time. And speaking of the minimum wage and stunning displays of economic ignorance, check out this Fark.com forum from today (if you can stomach it).

• In a shocking act of Steinbrennery, the Dodgers fired GM Paul DePodesta today. I realize 71-91 is a lousy finish but shouldn't he have had more than two seasons to prove his worth? DePodesta was hired as much for his "Moneyball" bona fides as for his other qualifications, but even as the scapegoat for the philosophy's perceived failings, two years is hardly time enough on which to judge, is it? Anyway, DePodesta's firing is bad news for Dodger fans but even worse for the AL West -- Billy Beane will probably rehire his former protege and the reunion should prove to be a happy one for the A's.

2005 World Series: Fate 1, Analytical Forecasting 0

Not to pick on the amazing Baseball Prospectus or to disparage analytical forecasting (of which I am a fervent devotee), but this White Sox-Astros series is exactly the kind of matchup that confounds reasoned projections. Houston and Chicago meeting in the World Series was an absurd fantasy 6 (or even 3) months ago; even the smart guys got fooled. I cherry picked some choice quotes from BP2k5's capsule forecasts of the teams for effect:

Houston Astros:

There is almost no chance that the Astros can repeat their '04 success in 2005...This isn't a contending team. The question is whether new GM Tim Purpura can get his hands around that fact early enough to salvage positives from the season. The turning point for the 2005 Astros is as likely to be a 6-1 loss on Opening Day as anything else, what with all their flaws. [For the record: Houston lost 7-3 to St. Louis on Opening Day -- Ed.]

Chicago White Sox:

The investment in pitching is defensible, but for all that, the rotation is still really two and a half pitchers deep: Garcia, Mark Buerhle, and El Duque whenever he's healthy. That won't be enough to make up for an offense ill-suited for its home park and likely to struggle to score anywhere else. The new master plan might be a bold stroke, but it's the sort of gamble that will more likely have the Sox keeping the Royals company in the basement than finally getting them back to the top of the standings.

Not to belabor the point from my previous post, but isn't this why we watch? Sometimes that optimism in spring is not so hopelessly misplaced after all. In March and April, few in the baseball forecasting community predicted this matchup or picked the ChiSox to win it all, and those that did were dismissed as drunks or charlatans.

And not to go too nuts about fate like I also did in my last post, but the White Sox have that look of inevitability about them. ESPN.com's Bill Simmons wrote about this in regards to last year's Red Sox team; that all the bad calls, weird bounces, and crazy plays that traditionally went against them started to go their way, and they rode the good fortune and timely play all the way to the title. The White Sox seem to be following the same script.

It started in Game 2 of the ALCS when A.J. Pierzynski stole an extra out and the game from the Angels. But tonight furnished the best examples yet: an inside pitch glances low off Jermaine Dye's bat and the foul ball is ruled a HBP; the very next batter (Paul Konerko) wallops a grand slam. And then Scott Podsednik, who hadn't homered all season until Game 1 of the ALDS (507 regular season ABs, 0 HRs), turns around a Brad Lidge heater for the game winning blast!

Sorry 'Stros fans, but that's fate: the White Sox are going to win the World Series.

Fearful symmetry: the Frank Thomas-Jeff Bagwell nexus

One of the best parts about sports is the story within the story. The little connections, coincidences, symmetries, etc., that make the games more interesting. While the big news for Saturday is Game 1 of the World Series between the White Sox and Astros, it's worth noting the individual odysseys of (apologies to Craig Biggio) two faces that represent the souls of these tortured franchises.

The career parallels between Chicago's Frank Thomas and Houston's Jeff Bagwell are positively eerie. Both players are slugging right-handed first basemen. Each won his league's MVP award in 1994. According to the indispensable baseball-reference.com, Frank Thomas's most similar career comparison is Jeff Bagwell; Bagwell's most similar comparison is Gary Sheffield, but Thomas is a close second (their similarity score is 884). Each missed much of 2005 with assorted injuries and, in a ruefully ironic twist, failed to contribute in any meaningful way to their teams' most magical seasons in recent memory. But here's my favorite bit of symmetry: these two men were born on the exact same day (May 27, 1968).

Imagine that! Coming into the 2005 season, most serious baseball fans would be aware of the parallels and connections that Thomas and Bagwell shared. But if it isn't fate that their long suffering teams should meet in the World Series, doesn't it at least feel oddly scripted? It seems like their parallel trajectories have been planned down to the minutest details, and as if in a giant funnel, they've been shunted in every moment toward this inevitable showdown. Ironically, neither is expected to do much this series (Thomas is done for the year and Bagwell will be limited to DH and pinch-hitting duties), but it's a shame that one of these men must go home empty-handed.

These are the details that color and enrich the experience of sports! Yes, we're talking about athletic competition, and the sports-as-life metaphor has been beaten senseless, but the parallel stories of Frank Thomas and Jeff Bagwell hint that something bigger is clearly afoot. Coincidence, fate, irony, triumph, and yes, ultimately tragedy -- since one of them has to lose -- are all at work here. You don't have to be a sports fan to appreciate the literary themes.

When Indigestion Comes Along, You Must Whip It:

The Song Remains The Same

Roughly 18 hours after another ignominious conclusion to an Atlanta Braves postseason, and I've had time to reflect. My immediate emotional response to Chris Burke's 18th inning "blast" has melted into a calm, measured, rational response, and here it is:

FUCK! fuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuck!!!

How could the Braves do this to us again? Every postseason becomes more crushing than the last. How does Kyle Farnsworth, the one reliable arm the bullpen had to offer, suffer a meltdown of epic proportions at precisely the wrong time? And against Brad fecking Ausmus? How do these things happen? The names on the backs of the unis keep changing but, sadly, the one on the front doesn't. Only the Braves could find a way to pull the baseball equivalent of a John Starks in a must-win game: 1 for 19 with men in scoring position! Are you kidding me?!?

And I don't want to hear the spin from quintessential politician John Schuerholz. Bright future with all these rookies, blah blah blah. 14 straight division titles, blah blah blah. At some point he must concede that what he's doing isn't working. Logically, I understand that bad luck has played an inordinate role in the Braves' annual demises. I know this. I know the bleeders and dunkers that Chris Reitsma allows are mostly dumb luck (though a power arm would miss a few more bats). I realize that if Ausmus's ball heads inches to the left, it's in play and probably a double. I know, and yet, I don't care.

Here's what I do care about: for all of the ballyhoo about 14 division titles, Atlanta is 1-7 in its last 8 playoff series since the 1999 World Series. They're 0-4 since 2002. At what point does the organization acknowledge that some part of its team building philosophy is flawed? That what works against the Mets in June doesn't necessarily translate against Houston (or St. Louis, or San Francisco, etc.) in October?

I know this sounds completely spoiled, especially to fans of teams like the Reds, Rockies, Royals, Brewers, Nationals, Pirates, etc. But rooting for this team feels like the old "Peanuts" gag with Lucy yanking the football away from Charlie Brown. Every year you think it might be different but, when the smoke clears, you're flat on your ass wondering what the hell happened. I don't want to be the Detroit Tigers or Chicago Cubs but I'm sick of being the butt of October jokes.

The awful truth is, I don't want this team to make the postseason next year. There, I said it. Spare me the anguish of another pathetic postseason flameout. I know you can't win it if you don't get there, and that anything can happen in a short series, but "anything" always seems to happen to us. Perhaps I'm advocating the "nothing ventured, nothing lost" mindset, but geez, can you blame me? It doesn't take a fatalist to grow weary of watching his team invent new and gutwrenching ways of losing 13 of 14 postseason tries.

Next year, just stay home and spare me the heartache.

MLB Award Picks for 2005

First off, Shanah Tova everybody! I had the pleasure of attending Rosh Hashanah services today for the first time in...um, let's not admit how long. Evidently synagogue membership and tickets for High Holy Day services cost slightly less than season tickets for your average mid-market NHL club. Anyway, we went to services at Congregation Or VeShalom in Atlanta -- it's a Sephardic congregation, something I'd never before experienced. The service and sanctuary were beautiful and the people warm and welcoming. We're going back for Yom Kippur. So Shanah Tova -- party like it's 5999!

The end of baseball season always makes me a little wistful. It's a strange mixture of sadness and relief, actually; I miss my daily box score addiction but not the constant burden of combing injury and minor league minutia for my fantasy teams. By October I'm looking forward to the playoffs and the beginnings of hockey and college hoop seasons. So with the playoffs starting today (and the pucks dropping on the NHL tomorrow), it seems the perfect time to offer my picks for MLB's major awards:

AL Manager of the Year: Ozzie Guillen will be the sexy pick, but call me crazy, I think he'll be fired sometime around 2008. His confrontational style and small ball antics worked this year but how far can he go with a team built in his mediocre image? Despite 99 wins, the ChiSox ranked 9th in runs scored and 10th in OBP in the AL. Feh. I'm going with Cleveland's Eric Wedge. He weathered the storm of a slow start and damn near piloted a young team to an historic comeback.

NL Manager of the Year: Tough call. I'm hopelessly biased here but I choo-choo-choose Bobby Cox. Who better juggles his pieces and puts his players in position to succeed? All those injuries, all those rookies, moving Smoltz back to the rotation, struggling to find a closer, etc. It was a tumultuous year for the Atlanta nine but Bobby did his usual masterful job blending the disparate bits into a division winner. There's no one better.

AL Rookie of the Year: I didn't hear many people talking about this, but it surprised me to learn that Minnesota's Joe Mauer retained his rookie status for 2005. Last year's knee injury cut short his season after only 107 at bats, 23 short of the maximum for rookie eligibility. A catcher who puts up .294/.372/.411 and steals 13 out of 14 is a future MVP candidate and the easy choice for ROY. Honorable mentions go to TB's Jonny Gomes (.908 OPS in 344 ABs) and Oakland's Huston Street, who went 5-1 with 23 SV and a 1.72 ERA.

NL Rookie of the Year: Philadelphia's Ryan Howard (22 HR, .921 OPS in 308 ABs) gets the nod over Atlanta hero Jeff Francoeur (14 HR, .884 OPS in 257 ABs). Francoeur's future is brighter longterm but that has no bearing on ROY voting. So despite missing the playoffs again, the Phillies should have a ROY going for them. Which is nice.

AL Cy Young Award: Bartolo Colon had a good year but take away the wins and losses (which are hugely influenced by factors outside a pitcher's control like run support, defense, and the bullpen) and nobody in the AL outpitched Minnesota's Johan Santana. Santana led the majors in strikeouts and finished a whisker behind Kevin Millwood for the AL ERA title (2.86 - 2.87). Santana had more win shares (23 - 18) than Colon and a better VORP (73.0 - 51.1). A case for Mark Buerhle and Kevin Millwood could also be made (just not by me). Santana won't win but he deserves the award.

NL Cy Young Award: This call is perhaps the toughest of any of the major awards. Roger Clemens has the best pitcher VORP (80.6) in MLB but ranks just behind Dontrelle Willis in win shares (26 - 25). Chris Carpenter might have the best overall surface stats but lags ever so slightly in the sabermetric numbers (just 18 win shares but a slight edge over Willis in VORP: 68.4 - 68.1). Andy Pettitte also has a case but will likely finish 4th. At the end of the day, give me the guy with the 1.87 ERA (especially in that ballpark). Roger Clemens is my Cy Young pick but my sensibilities would not be offended should Carpenter or Willis win instead. It's that close.

AL MVP: I hate to do this. I really, really do. But fairness and objectivity demand it! I love, LOVE Boston's Big Papi, David Ortiz -- how can you not? He's the most clutch player in baseball and looks like he's having a blast just being at the park. His infectious smile and steady leadership drive that team -- he's the Red Sox' spiritual and emotional leader. And he had a MONSTER season. But much as it pains me to admit, A-Rod is the MVP. His traditional stats were mind boggling (.322/.423/.613 with an AL-leading 48 HR) but they are fully supported by the sabermetric measurements -- he led the AL in VORP (101.8) and win shares (37). Yeah, he's a big metrosexual wuss and always looks like he's wearing purple lipstick, but give the man his due. He's a helluva ballplayer.

NL MVP: I've already covered this in a previous post, and 2+ weeks of baseball since have done little to change my mind. Albert Pujols is a worthy choice for MVP but I would not be upset to see Derrek Lee win. Granted, the Cubs stunk and the Cards were great, but Lee had a spectacular season.

There you have it. As they used to say at the end of those editorials on the local newscasts: opposing viewpoints are welcome...

they hate us for our freedom

Please remember the following stories the next time some supercilious hairdo (cough *Hannity* cough) bloviates about "freedom" or "the nobility of the cause" or some other such nonsense in relation to this administration. It's all bullshit.

The next two links come courtesy of fark -- and I would strongly advise NOT clicking on either one at work:

Suicide Girls Removing Pictures, You Can Thank Bush (NSFW): Wacky censorship hijinx from those crazy folks who brought you the Iraq War and the Patriot Act! If you haven't seen Wayne's post about censorship and porn on these pages, just go on ahead and read it right now, because he got it exactly right. Remember: they hate us for our freedom, and we're battling the terrorists to preserve our freedoms and our way of life. Um, except those freedoms no longer include looking at kinky pictures. Consent be damned! How do you like your First Amendment now???

US soldiers allegedly trading pictures of dead Iraqis & Afghanis for porn (NSFW): This is very sick, and I refuse to look at the unblocked photos. I post this here because a) if this is legit, it's going to be a huge story soon, b) people need to understand the exact nature of what it is they defend when backing war, and c) you need to remember these chilling photos when some asshole exhorts you to "support our troops!" If this doesn't upset you, nothing will.

This is OK to click at work: anti-war celebrity Cindy Sheehan was arrested today, and she blogs about it at LRC. Just so we're clear -- she's presumably sitting on public property, she owns the constitutional right to peaceably assemble, and she was arrested for "demonstrating without a permit." Since when must American citizens petition the government for permission to protest? If the government denies the request, does that just nullify the Constitution? Universal 'I am not a lawyer' disclaimer applies here, but seriously, WTF? Cindy herself best illustrates the absurdity: "George is so hypocritically concerned about Iraq developing a Constitution while he ignores and shreds our own Constitution."

The moral of these stories is: strip away all the fucking rhetoric and sing-songy turd pearls about "freedom" and "liberty" that Bush's army of speechwriters spoonfeed him. He knows not the meanings of the words. Bush grinds away true freedom here while exporting some weird statist hybrid to the Middle East. What good are dumb abstractions like "democracy" and "freedom" if you don't practice what you preach at home? Bush himself is too dunderheaded and imperious to be able to reconcile his words with his deeds, and his advisers couldn't pick True Freedom out of a lineup that included Corporatism, Militarism, Statism, and Fascism. Fuck the whole lot of 'em.

There, I feel better now...

The Super-Terrific Happy Hour: LinkStyle

OK, hip kids, who got that title reference??? On to the japery...

• For anyone who gives a Cheney, the mighty Rolling Bones demolished the Bull Moose Party at Union Hill Park last evening, 9-0. That's not a typo. In a bold moment of weakness, I had predicted to Rob that I would get a goal and perhaps an assist or two tonight. I did pick up a couple helpers, but that first goal of the season? Remains elusive. But those ice bags on my bruises don't feel quite as frigid after so glorious a victory...

• Evidently the War on Terror is over and we won. It must be, though nobody told me, because the administration is diverting resources toward making sure you don't look at kinky stuff. You know, because the scourge of pornography is just tearing this country to pieces. In all seriousness, catch this quote from the FBI spokesmonkey:

At the FBI's field office, spokeswoman Debra Weierman expressed disappointment that some of her colleagues find grist for humor in the new campaign. "The adult obscenity squad . . . stems from an attorney general mandate, funded by Congress," she said. "The personnel assigned to this initiative take the responsibility of this assignment very seriously and are dedicated to the success of this program."

As our little friend Yoda would say, "That is why you fail." Seriously, there is no such thing as "success" here. The government never succeeds at eradicating consensual "crimes" (such as prostitution, drugs, gambling, etc.) because, for one thing, it's impossible to regulate people's appetites. More importantly, do they understand the logistics involved? Um, not that I'm an expert or anything, but I'd hazard a guess that the vast majority of pr0n is consumed over the internets these days -- you know, where it's free. How can the feds possibly prevent Americans from accessing offshore pr0n servers? Oh right -- they can't.

• I'm no NASCAR fan but this is kinda cool. It's for a good cause, and really, what else are you going to do with a spare $8 million or so (as of this writing)?

• Tickets to the new Georgia Aquarium for a family of four: $79.50. Funding Bernie Marcus's giant F-you to the city of Chattanooga: Priceless.

Is there any way this can work? 80 bucks for a family of four is outrageous enough but it doesn't include things like gas, parking, food & souvenirs for the kiddies, etc. Much of the money in greater ATL resides in the northern 'burbs -- does the aquarium brain trust honestly think those folks are going to cheerfully load up the SUV and shlep downtown, just for the privilege of spending that kind of money on some fish? Anyone see any problems with this scenario?

Have a sublime Wednesday. Update coming late tonight...

Modest Monday Night Linkery

A few interesting tidbits from a Monday...

• "Oh, groovy! Smashing! Yay capitalism!"
  
  
• This is rich. DeKalb CEO Vernon Jones (a politician) has the audacity to -- get this -- call out the Red Cross for being disorganized and inadequate. Um, Mr. Jones, that's a mighty fine black pot you've got there in that glass house of yours...
  
  
• Tonight marked the season premiere of the cleverest show on TV -- did you watch?
  
  
• Good grief. I waited four freaking years for Jamiroquai's new album and they're not even coming to Atlanta on their North American tour. Hello? We have a huge urban and acid jazz loving population here. Throw us a frickin' bone, will ya?

Have a grand Tuesday y'all. More later...

Site Redesign

It took all of 2.5 months for me to tire of my blog's appearance so I changed the template and plan to tinker some with the HTML. That I know very little HTML presents only minor difficulties. But things will probably change often and with scant notice -- I'm pulling a mad scientist routine so if something looks even more craptacular than before, that's why. Just bear with me during the experimental/developmental stages.

Comments/feedback/WTFs? welcome.

The 2005 NL MVP Race (Or, Mr. Bonds, Thanks for Not Playing)

It's mid-September and you baseball fans know what that means: talking heads and worthless opinions galore about who is most worthy of the game's major awards! Today's Iron Chef ingredient: NL MVP!

If you listen to baseball's anointed punditry, the NL MVP race is now a two-man proposition: St. Louis Cardinals strongman Albert Pujols and Atlanta Braves superman Andruw Jones. Looking at the key raw data, Pujols has the edge in batting avg/on base/slugging (.338/.434./.630 vs. .275/.358/.608), runs (117 vs. 89), BB (85 vs. 61), and SB (15 vs. 3). Andruw prevails in HR (49 vs. 39), RBI (124 vs. 108), and defense/position (CF vs. 1B).

Seems like a compelling case could be made for either one, huh? Maybe not. The raw numbers are nice but don't tell the whole story, which explains the evolution of new statistics that seek a better understanding of performance. Over the last 20 years or so, the sabermetrics community has devised many sophisticated metrics to objectively measure and analyze ballplayer performance. These metrics consider everything a player contributes: they take the raw data, whirl it around in a blender of complex formulas that normalize for contextual factors such as ballparks, playing time, defense, etc., and distill it all into neat, bite-sized numbers for ease of comparison.

Here are a few of the best:

Runs Created (stats courtesy of The Hardball Times):

• Pujols: 131 (2nd in NL)
• Jones: 91 (14th in NL)

Advantage: Pujols

Baseball Prospectus's VORP (Value Over Replacement Player):

• Pujols: 96.5 (1st in MLB)
• Jones: 65.1 (9th in MLB)

Advantage: Pujols

Bill James's Win Shares (thanks again to The Harball Times):

• Pujols: 34 Win Shares (1st in MLB)
• Jones: 22 Win Shares (30th in MLB)

Advantage: Pujols

As a Braves fan, I hate to say this, but the facts are undeniable: Albert Pujols is your 2005 NL MVP. I'm thrilled that Andruw has finally fulfilled expectations and lived up to his tremendous potential. The Braves would not be once again peering down at their NL East foes without his monster season (he hit his 50th HR as I wrote this but the Braves still got the broom in Philly).

But Andruw's MVP candidacy is unsupported by objective data. It's bad enough his 22 Win Shares place him just 30th in MLB -- what's worse, he ranks 3rd in Win Shares...on his own team (behind Marcus Giles and Rafael Furcal). If Andruw isn't MVP of his own team, how can he be the league MVP?

Andruw's had a magical season -- but not an MVP one. His performance has been great but firmly behind such players as Jeff Kent, Jason Bay, and David Wright -- and nobody is touting their MVP credentials (though in fairness, their teams' performances have doomed their chances).

Andruw will finish 2nd in the MVP voting and that's still a hell of an achievement -- just ask Pujols, who has twice (2002-2003) fallen short against Mr. Bonds. We Braves fans must hope that Andruw's 2nd place finish motivates him to even greater heights in 2006.

Opening Day!

Of what, you ask? After 4 months off, my sedentary ass gets back to roller hockey tonight. The Alpharetta Recreation & Parks Adult Roller Hockey league drops the puck on the fall season at 7:30 tonight with Bull Moose Party taking on MD 20/20. My team, the Rolling Bones, squares off against the Large Farvas at 8:30.

Kudos to league commish Kevin McDonald for setting up a cool website with seasonal and career stat spreadsheets. Your humble host, in case you were wondering, has produced the following stat line over the past year: 22 games, 5 goals, 12 assists, 17 points, 8 penalty minutes, and fittingly, 0 game winning goals. Not great but respectable for a defenseman who skates like a monkey on quaaludes.

Attendance typically hovers between 2 - 6 (depending on the temperature -- it's an outdoor rink). Feel free to come on out and boo yours truly; clandestine drinking in the stands is encouraged and unintentional comedy is often present. Fun for the whole family!

No Criminal Charges in Death of Fan After World Series

Wonderful. More examples of the state exonerating itself for murder. Some of you may remember the tragic tale of Victoria Snelgrove: she was the 21-year old Emerson College student "shot in the eye socket by a pepper-spray pellet outside Fenway Park on October 21."

From the ESPN article:

"There is no evidence that any officer on Lansdowne Street acted with any intent to commit a crime," Suffolk District Attorney Daniel Conley said at a news conference attended by Boston Police Commissioner Kathleen O'Toole.

Um, I'm not a lawyer, but when you don't intend to commit a crime but still kill someone by accident, isn't that called...manslaughter? That's still a crime, right?

What would happen to you or I if we randomly fired pepper-spray pellets into a crowd during a rowdy celebration, and someone died?

And why are representatives of the state above the law?

Government in a Nutshell

Since its inception in early July, this blog has been about "Libertarianism, sports, pop culture and random bits of virtual insanity," but the truth is that the content has evolved somewhat differently. If one theme has consistently dominated the discourse here, it's the desire to debunk bad ideas, and replace them with a new way of thinking about issues. I know that sounds really pompous and presumptuous but our most important weapon - critical thinking - in the battle against bad ideas is in short supply these days. Whatever small role I can play, even if it's just blogging in the wilderness, is better than doing nothing.

The general assumption that government is a necessary evil, that it's inefficient but on balance more positive than negative, is the one idea I'm working hardest to dispel. Most of you disagree with me and I'm not trying to change any minds -- but I am trying to shake faith in the institution, one depressing story at a time.

Does this story make anyone feel better about the power wielded by local police officers? How about their judgment in using it?

And this is government in a nutshell -- it doesn't matter how old you are or the reasons why: do what we say or we'll harm you. Submit or be destroyed. That's government.

Notes on Katrina and Government Failure

In the midst of all the stories of horror and misery coming out of the Gulf, one thing is abundantly clear: the government failed in every conceivable way. Its long-term negligence and inertia in dealing with the levees helped cause the catastrophic flooding. Its flat-footed response needlessly delayed rescue efforts and cost lives. It protracted the suffering, looting, and violence. It bullied the innocent it was supposed to be comforting. It failed in every way possible.

And let's not politicize this by making it a partisan issue, because it goes way beyond Dems vs. Repubs or left vs right. This is the essence of government. It produces nothing. It provides nothing. It does nothing well except coerce, bully, and destroy. Want evidence? Look how it handled Katrina's aftermath:

Guardsmen 'Played Cards' Amid New Orleans Chaos
"'The guard arrived 48 hours after the hurricane with 40 trucks. They drove their trucks in and went to sleep. For 72 hours this police department and the fire department and handful of citizens were alone rescuing people. We have people who died while the National Guard sat and played cards. I understand why we are not winning the war in Iraq if this is what we have.'"

The Dispossessed of New Orleans Tell of Their Medieval Nightmare
"It is the mess with the buses that makes Ms. Benson most angry. She and her family had abandoned their home in the projects last Sunday and fled immediately to the Superdome. The stampede for the buses began on Thursday. She described soldiers of the National Guard barking orders - 'Make a hole, make a hole, that was their favourite order,' she says - and making no effort to keep parents and children together. 'They treated us like dirt, like dirt. They wouldn't even help my kids when they got lost. 'Ma'am, you've got to stay behind the barricade' is all they said.' The soldiers did at least give them water while they waited - throwing bottles into the crowd. 'Just popping people on the head with them.'"

• It's always difficult to discern tone and inflection in a written piece but this is probably the most frustrated that Lew Rockwell has ever seemed:
"Moreover, every American ought to be alarmed at the quickness of officials to declare martial law, invade people's rights, deny people the freedom of movement, and otherwise trample on all values that this country is supposed to hold dear. A crisis does not negate the existence of human rights. It is not a license for tyranny. It is not a signal that government may do anything it wants.

"This crisis ought to underscore a point made on these pages again and again. Being a government official gives you no special insight into how to best manage a crisis. Indeed the public sector, with all its guns and mandates and arrogance, cannot and will not protect us from life's contingencies. It used to be said that infrastructure was too important to be left to the uncertainties of markets. But if it is certainty that we are after, there is a new certainty that has emerged in American life: in a crisis, the government will make matters worse and worse until it wrecks your life and all that makes it worth living."

Exactly. And contrast all of this failure with the fine relief efforts of the private and charitable sectors, most notably the Red Cross. We are constantly told that government is needed to protect us, especially in these crisis situations. So when it fails this miserably, when it can't even secure basics like protection of life and property, what exactly is it good for?

The worst part is the lack of accountability. You can't fire the government. Voting out individuals makes little difference when the problem is institutional. A company that fails to serve consumers goes out of business, but sadly, this is not true of FEMA. No, the Feds will scapegoat some figureheads and install new bureaucrats in their places, and they will no doubt promise "sweeping changes" and "full investigations into what went wrong." But in the end, no one in government will have to answer for gross incompetence. No government official will face civil or criminal penalties for negligence.

Look how the government treats people like Ken Lay and Martha Stewart: wouldn't it be nice if the same brand of ruthless justice was brought to bear on the state's bullying minions themselves?

Perdue Works to Stem Price Gouging

Gah. Here we go again with the outrage over "price gouging." I blogged about this in the aftermath of Hurricane Dennis but economic ignorance is damn near impossible to cure. Georgia governor Sonny Perdue signed an executive order Wednesday authorizing state sanctions against gas retailers who "gouge" customers. Two excellent articles explaining the reasons prices tend to spike in times of crisis, and why price controls and sanctions for "gouging" are such horrible ideas, can be found here and here.

It's understandable why most people feel disgusted when prices spike in desperate times: it's immoral for people to profit from others' suffering and misfortune by charging exorbitant markups on staple items. But understand this: prices signal to market actors the relationship between supply and demand. This is immutable economic law and no less true in times of crisis than under ordinary circumstances. There are legitimate reasons beyond "profiteering" or "gouging" for why prices increase, and politicians would do well to just let the situation run its course.

The economic science is covered in the articles cited above but the shorthand is this: rising prices encourage wise consumption patterns. People tend to buy less when prices are high, leaving more gas (or water or whatever) for others. Higher prices are also an incentive for entrepreneurs (or others who have saved) to deliver goods to market when scarcity prevails.

There is a moral issue beyond the economic realities: what is "moral" about the government limiting consumer choices? Sonny Perdue's grandstanding will only harm Georgia consumers in the long run. It's hard to believe that gas retailers are "gouging" consumers when people lose their minds and willingly pay high prices. Caveat emptor and all. Just yesterday at work, several people literally ran out of the building to go fill up their tanks. By falling for rumors about dry pumps and skyrocketing gas prices, people helped to ensure that these dire predictions came true. The smart thing to do was stick with normal fueling habits, maybe conserve a little, and just wait it out.

Personally, I don't understand what's "moral" about punishing voluntary exchange. Ask yourself which is worse: having to pay $4.00+ per gallon for gas, or not being able to buy any at all? This is no false choice: Perdue's punitive measures will reward poor consumption habits and cause shortages in the future. This is political opportunism masquerading as consumer protection. And that's way more immoral to me than so-called gouging.

Shaking off the Cobwebs

Well I got nuthin'. I lit the fuse on this little ol' bottle rocket nearly two months ago and these past 5-6 days mark my longest update drought. I've said it before but we've all been locked in the vise grip of inertia and ennui, and like any bad trip, you just gotta ride it out.

My apologies to anyone from work reading this (which would include Kev and, if I'm paranoid enough to entertain the possibility, an HR drone), but my job is beginning to feel like the movie 'Groundhog Day.' I'll just leave it at that. The point is that work has lately left me feeling enervated and shitty, but the blog at least has been a superb foil for this disillusionment.

So to everyone who keeps checking in here, thanks. Seriously. My hit totals are very modest but it's nice to know you're out there. And please keep the comments coming. In lieu of the usual spleen venting, here are some recommended blogs:

spinachdipnyc: We don't share much in common but I admire his writing. A consistently entertaining read.

Itswhatthebagisfor: Just wow. Like spinachdip above, I stumbled on the good Col. Dr.'s site during a bored session sifting through the detritus of the blogosphere while playing "'Next Blog' Button-o-Rama." The man is a prolific writer and damn talented.

James Wolcott: Witty, sardonic, and often hilarious. Wolcott skewers the cheerleaders for war.

/out like low carb diets...

Robinson & Schilling: Erase Stats After Failed Drug Tests

Man, this is dumb. First Nats manager and Hall of Famer Frank Robinson opined that Rafael Palmeiro's stats should be erased because he tested positive for steroids, and now Curt Schilling backs him up. Let's review the problems with this idea, shall we?

1. We don't retro-apply contemporary rules, standards, or playing conditions on past eras. We have good reason to view the stats from every era in their proper context. Why stop with steroids? Why not wipe away (so to speak) the stats of spitball pitchers? Better yet, let's just erase all MLB statistics prior to 1947, since the color barrier prevented some of baseball's best from competing against their white peers. The whole game pre-Jackie Robinson is tainted. Right?

2. In the words of Joe Sheehan, "baseball statistics are not numbers generated for their own sake. Statistics are a record of performance of players and teams [emphasis original]." But the numbers themselves are inert. You can't "erase" statistics any more than you can erase the reality or history they describe. Here's the beauty of baseball statistics: there's a perfect symmetry associated with every one of them. It's a zero-sum game. Every one of Palmeiro's hits and home runs, every run he ever scored and drove in, was charged to a pitcher. Nearly every run he ever scored represents an RBI for one teammate, and every run he ever drove in equals a run scored for another.

It's impossible to "erase" his stats without creating a whole spider web of problems. How is it possible to erase every trace of his impact on the game? Will former teammates lose every RBI and run scored from their records where Palmeiro was involved? Will every pitcher who ever served up a Palmeiro gopherball get retroactive relief on his career record of HR allowed and ERA? Will statisticians comb old box scores to find every instance of a Palmeiro walkoff/game winning hit and take those wins away from his teams? It's a little late to change the outcome of tight pennant races whose games were thereby affected.

And there's your problem: you can't "erase" or "adjust" baseball statistics without upsetting the double-entry nature of the game's ledger. Like balancing the checkbook, everything has to add up.

Even if it didn't, why not wave a magic wand and just say "this never happened?" Because there's something creepy and Orwellian about purging statistics. It's rewriting history, turning Palmeiro into an unperson. You can't pretend that Rafael Palmeiro and the steroid issue for which he has become the poster child never existed. Proponents of this goofy idea should confront the so-called problem of steroid use: let the record reflect, as a cautionary tale, what bloated sluggers and their inflated numbers wrought against the game. Absent this empirical evidence, how are future generations to know the threat to integrity and fair competition that steroid use allegedly represents?

I realize it's just a few jocks and journalists espousing these dumb ideas, but geez, people take them seriously. On ESPN's "Baseball Tonight" a few weeks ago, Karl Ravech and Joe Morgan held a spirited discussion about what to do with Palmeiro's stats (as if something should be done). Even worse, ESPN has an online poll tonight asking, "Should MLB erase the statistics of players who fail drug tests from official records?" The depressing results: Of 18,561 respondents so far, 68.1% say 'yes,' 31.8% said 'no.' It's not scientific but people are clearly passionate (if wrongheaded) about the issue.

Perspective, people. You can't erase or adjust statistics. Just accept that Rafael Palmeiro and countless others took steroids; we don't know how long nor really to what effect. If you want to feel better about it, then remember the context when you lovingly review the statistics of 1993-2004 in future editions of "Total Baseball." Slap an asterisk on Rafael Palmeiro's numbers if you really want to get silly. But it's best if baseball just left the numbers alone.

Again, with the Cindy Sheehan

I promised not to do this but those fucking neocons just won't let it go. I'm talking about Cindy Sheehan, of course. I heard about this group of fucking nutjobs on Sean Hannity's radio show today. (Why was I listening to Hannity? Apparently there's a deficit of incredulity and outrage in my life. Go figure.) But I really, truly thought I'd said everything left to say about this. Interesting that the story is being kept alive only by virtue of the vitriol and bitter contempt that the Right has heaped upon this woman.

Most of the rest of us are content to just let it go. Hmmm, OK. Soldier son died, mother wants answers, camps out to speak to Bush, gets lots of publicity. That should just about do it unless 'W' actually deigns to speak with her again, right?

Well, no. And that's where things get interesting. Butler Shaffer has another interesting piece about it on LRC today. Obviously Sheehan has tittie-twisted a whole bundle of nerves on the Right and Shaffer does his typically eloquent job explaining why.

Part of what fascinates me about all this is the strategy used by the Right. Lacking the ability to take on her ideas, they smear in the most unimaginative, self-parodying ways:

*Guilt by association (she's a pawn of Michael Moore and Moveon.org!) -- check.
*She's an "anti-semite" because she questions U.S. foreign policy goals with Israel -- check.
*She's "unpatriotic" or "anti-American" because she has the audacity to declare that the U.S. is not worth dying for (what nation-state is?) -- check.

And now here comes this Melanie Morgan leading the "You Don't Speak For Me, Cindy!" Tour. I shit you not. An organized tour designed explicitly to...well, what, exactly? What are they going to do when they arrive in Crawford? They're holding a "We Support Our Troops and Their Mission" rally, but I'm not sure what this means. Do you wave a bunch of flags? Hold up signs with messages supportive of the administration? Hold up more signs critical of Cindy Sheehan? What is this self-indulgent clusterfuck supposed to achieve?

Here's the thing -- understand that these neocons, in a sense, have already won. They have the "War on Terror" they wanted. Republicans have a virtual monopoly over the instruments of power -- all three branches of the U.S. government are solidly Republican. They're holding the remote and the rest of us are stuck watching Fox News. They have all the power!

And yet the good news for those of us who love freedom and peace is that power is not enough. And that's why they're so pissed at Cindy Sheehan. Her questions about the war are galvanizing people across the political spectrum and the neocons are powerless to stop it. Consider the name of their countereffort: "You don't speak for me, Cindy." But that's a straw man, since Cindy claims to represent no one but herself. And that's all they have: having long since run out of ways to defend the indefensible, they have nothing left to do but smear the truth tellers, wave the flags, and shout ever louder that they "support the troops and the mission!"

What they really support is bloodshed, misery, and destruction. Newsflash, guys: that's what war is.