State of the Nation

Here's an interesting take on the pre-election mood of the country.

Despite their dreams of recapturing one or both houses of Congress this November, the Democrats seem determined to reprise their poor showings of 2002 and 2004. Now, as then, they are dozing in the campaign's homestretch, like Aesop's hare, lulled by rosy predictions and the premature applause of Hollywood and the mainstream press. Soon, however, they may awake to discover that while they snoozed before the finish line, George W. Bush hunkered down in his tough shell, kept his slow legs moving and inched them out.

Chicago Tribune: The Tortoise and those Democratic Hares

The Old News Cycle

I'm always fascinated by the following cycle of events:

1. Media focuses on victims, activists and media hounds making shrill cries for government intervention in the crisis of the day
2. Events run their course and the problem fades away
3. Complete lack of apology or correction regarding overreaction on the part of the media, which is back to step 1 on the new crisis of the day

I found a great article that gets into this phenomenon in detail. Here are some excerpts:

The Dow’s up and oil’s down. And it all seems to have happened so quickly. Just a few weeks back the talk was of doom and gloom, as the price of gas kept inching up above 3 bucks a gallon? Funny how quickly those who swore that the bad days had arrived for good have disappeared from sight! (Well, maybe not so funny if you believed them and sold your stocks before the rally.)

It also talks in depth about the cycles in today's public arena:

It has to do with cycles. There are generally three time cycles that compel political action: Economic cycles, political cycles and news cycles. Each cycle has its own momentum and its own set of consequences. When something shocking happens, like a war or a natural disaster, politicians and the media usually panic. And at no time in our history have news cycles and political cycles moved faster than they do today.

Good stuff.


Fox News: The Free Market Knows Best...Again

League of Dorks

In a previous post about fantasy football I wrote about some of the joys of fantasy football. However, those of us who play fantasy football know the dark side of the game: wives and girlfriends tend to hate it with the heat of a thousand suns.

I remembered this when I saw a sidebar of a Sports Guy article written by his wife, the Sports Gal. She has taken the general disgust shared by most wives and girlfriends toward fantasy sports (in this case fantasy baseball) and expresses it in one handy package. I present it here for three reasons:

1. To show the Wife of the Brink that I understand how she feels, since I am featuring a story that perfectly communicates her thoughts.
2. This guy is totally obsessed, so I think she'll be impressed with how reasonable my fantasy habit really is.
3. It's pretty funny.
   

Here it is:

Bill and his friend Hench own a fake baseball team together. I call it the League of Dorks. It's hard to say how much time they spend on it, but I'd guess five hours a week, maybe more. Hench is one of Bill's nicest friends, but he's even nuttier about this stuff than Bill. One time, I peeked over Bill's shoulder as he was reading a bullet-pointed e-mail from Hench about their fake team. It was like a legal document, I couldn't believe it. Hench used to leave messages and not identify himself, you'd just hear, "message No. 1" and then Hench complaining about something that happened with their fake team. He wouldn't even say, "Hey, guys, this is Hench" first. So I made Bill get a second phone line just for Hench's calls -- they call it the "Bat Phone." I can't believe I married someone who needed a second phone line to talk about a fake baseball team.

You'd think the extra line was enough, but no. A couple of weeks ago, Bill and I were driving home from somewhere and trying to figure out something. Bill said, "I bet Hench knows," and before I knew it, he was calling Hench and they were talking about the League of Dorks. And I was trapped in the car listening to them. It was like being at the nail salon when everything's quiet and relaxing, then something happens and the nail ladies all start screaming in another language. I have no idea what they're talking about, but they're agitated and talking in annoying voices and it's not relaxing at all. That's what Bill and Hench sounded like. Actually, this was worse because I can understand the language and still can't understand them. Finally, I got mad and told Bill to hang up or I was going to jump out of the car.

This week, I noticed playoff baseball started, so I asked Bill, "What happened with the League of Dorks?" Bill said they won first prize. He didn't even seem happy about it. He was just relieved that they didn't lose. Then he said he's having a celebratory lunch with Hench next week. I said they should order a bottle of fake champagne and fake pour it on each other. I hate the League of Dorks.

I have to say a couple of things about this. First, husbands spend plenty of time listening to their wives talk about things that don't make sense to them. In fact, I have written this whole post while my wife talked with other women about weddings.

Secondly, just because something doesn't seem important to you doesn't mean it's a waste of someone else's time. For example, many men don't value crafts, decorations or talks about feelings very highly. By that of course I mean other men--I myself like to sit amongst decorations whilst making crafts and talking about my feelings and those of others.

But I'm just saying...