Shots in the Dark

I get the idiosyncratic New York paper for free, and I’m glad of it. The Sun’s politics are to the right of my own, but the paper often has smart, interesting stories on things that get overlooked by the Times.

For instance: in today’s edition, Alex Brittell writes about how Carlos Delgado of the Mets has for years been hitting worse at night than during the day, and that the gap is growing.

He then refers to a study someone did about players who got Lasix and how they fared the subsequent season.

An interesting, unexpected way to write about baseball, right?

But the Times doesn’t have a single sportswriter who uses sabermetrics in his analysis of the game…. Which strikes me as simply bizarre. It’s as if the last ten years in baseball writing never happened.

In the Times, columnist Bill Kristol lists three positive signs for those who want to be hopeful about John McCain.

1) Obama lost West Virginia, a state whose voters allegedly resemble those of Pennsylvania and Ohio, by 41 percentage points.

2) The California Supreme Court’s decision legalizing gay marriage will mobilize conservative voters.

3) Obama loses when he gets into a prolonged discussion about foreign policy.

The Republican party as a whole might be in dire straits, Kristol says, but there remains the possibility, and the hope, of “McCain exceptionalism.”

I find this unconvincing, myself—partly because of two other stories in the Times, one about McCain’s relative difficulty in fundraising and one reporting on Obama speaking to a crowd of 75, 000 (!) in Oregon.

More than that, I keep going back to the right track/wrong track numbers (Do you think the country is on the right track or the wrong track?), which are now at historic “wrong track” highs in the 80-plus percent range.

What I do expect, as the Republicans grow desperate, is for this election to get increasingly ugly. The question is, will smear tactics work, as they often do? Or will Americans realize that this time we have to hold ourselves to higher standards and not allow our presidential election to be Swift-Boated?

Media columnist Keith Kelly writes up various goings on with 02138, Worth and me in today’s Post.

Talk about mixed feelings. I’m delighted by the California Supreme Court’s decision to legalize gay marriage. It’s absolutely the right thing. The idea that a legal construct which confers specific rights should only grant those rights to people who are heterosexual…well, it’s just silly. No, more than that—it’s hateful.

At the same time, I’m bracing myself for right-wingers to take up the cudgel of gay marriage and make it an ugly and irrelevant issue in the upcoming election.

So…great decision, California. Couldn’t you have waited till December?

That’s Harvard economist Gregory Mankiw’s take on the university’s new Gen Ed curriculum, according to an interesting article by Bonnie Kavoussi in the Crimson.

Gen Ed committee chair Jay M. Harris and several committee members declined to comment.

Oh, Professor Harris. The “no comment” about something there’s absolutely no reason not to comment on is classic Harwellian language.

Would it have been so hard to say something like, “This type of discussion happens in the implementation of any new curriculum. It’s healthy.”?

Instead, you send a message of anxiety, defensiveness, hostility to constructive debate….

Perhaps if you had a blog, as Greg Mankiw does, you could fully explain yourself, and thereby project an image of intellectual confidence and open-mindedness….

But economists aren’t the only ones worried about their discipline’s place in Gen Ed. So are historians.

The new curriculum has replaced Historical Study A and B with categories that focus more on contemporary issues: U.S. in the World and Societies of the World.

Well, that is just asinine. Why not junk both categories and establish one in “United States and World History,” making it mandatory to take two courses in the discipline, one of which does not involve American history?

Societies of the World…. Sheesh. One can only imagine the (sorry, sociologists) quirky but hardly fundamental courses that could fit into this category.

John Edwards smites Hillary Clinton, endorses Barack Obama.

Hall of Fame relief pitcher Goose Gossage says that there’s no place in the game for future Hall of Fame relief pitcher Joba Chamberlain’s fist-pumping excitement after a key out.

Chamberlain responds that he is what he is.

“People are going to say stuff about it for a long time,” Chamberlain said. “The fact of the matter is I got to where I am by being who I am. I’m not going to change.”

In fact, it’s quite an interesting debate, if you’re a baseball fan. Why don’t baseball players celebrate like football players after a big play? Does it help the other team if they do? Is it part of the virtue of baseball that, almost universally, they don’t—or just part of a tradition that it’s time to change?

In the Atlantic, Matthew Iglesias reports on the debate over whether Harvard more resembles a hedge fund than a university.

This may seem like a bizarre debate to those who teach at the university, but I think it’s a growing challenge for Harvard: The university’s wealth is so great that the education of students is increasingly seen as a byproduct of its revenues, rather than as the generator of them.

And once that impression sinks in, then the idea of taxing Harvard will seem almost logical…..

She called out to white people, and they responded…. Hillary won big in West Virginia. The Times reports that…..

Two in 10 white West Virginia voters said race was an important factor in their votes. More than 8 in 10 who said it factored in their votes backed Mrs. Clinton, according to exit polls.

Ah, West Virginia.

It all reminds me of the underrated and quite scary 2003 movie, “Wrong Turn,” in which a group of out-of-state hikers in West Virginia are set upon by cannibalistic mutants, the horrific result of decades of incest, who try to kill them all in order to chop them up and eat them, and are generally successful.

Now there’s some election-year analysis you won’t find on CNN…..

Michael Ding reports on the sale of 02138 to Manhattan Media, noting that “representatives from 02138 magazine would not comment on the deal.”

I can not help but give the Crimson folks suggestions from time to time (and they should feel free to return the favor), so….

Michael, I probably wouldn’t have told you anything either, but for the sake of thoroughness you should have called me. (I mean, heck, I did just visit your editorial board.)

Just to anticipate commenters, I mention this not because of any burning desire to talk with the Crimson, but because incomplete reporting drives me ’round the bend. (Sorry, but this is the kind of thing I think about for a living.)

At the very least, that way you wouldn’t have had to use the bizarre term”representatives,” which is an odd choice of word for a magazine that has a staff of around a dozen. It’s not like 02138 is the UN or something; nor could anyone you spoke with compel you to use the term representatives. (And in any case, 02138 doesn’t really have “representatives,” it has employees.)

You called someone; that person wouldn’t comment; then you say “insert-name-here wouldn’t comment.”

Instead, you have internalized and manifested Harwellian language without even realizing it!