SEN. RICK SANTORUM V. SEN. BOB CASEY JR. – NOT MUCH DIFFERENCE ON WOMEN’S ISSUES AT ALL

Rather than engaging in ad hominem attacks on Sen. Santorum’s religion or on the Catholic Church, it behooves all of us to instead analyze the politics and electorate of Pennsylvania.  Ad hominem attacks are an abusive form of argument; proper arguments should address the merits of an opponent’s position, and refute the merits thereof, rather than attacking either the person, or a straw man, e.g. a caricature of the person.  Abusive argumentation has long been recognized, since the time of Aristotle, as a form of FALLACY, not entitled to serious logical consideration by rational minds.  Consequently, let us engage in some rational discourse on the merits of the question at hand and cease from ABUSIVE and FALLACIOUS ARGUMENTATION techniques such as ad hominem attacks and attacking a straw man.

Sen. Arlen Specter of PA

Let us turn, then, to the Politics of Pennsylvania (“PA”), and why it produces such conservative politics and politicians, especially conservative male politicians, and particularly conservative male catholic politicians recently.  It was for many years a bastion of moderate Republicanism, and indeed, until the 1930s, Philadelphia and the Union League were synonymous with the post-Civil War consensus that the Republican Party was the proper party for all educated persons to vote for in the Northeast.  Indeed, the city was so identified with core national Republican values that the Athletics even adopted an elephant as their team logo in the early 1900s, a symbol retained to this day by the Oakland Athletics, though it is dubious they know what Connie Mack was thinking when he adopted the symbol 111 years ago.

This consensus began to break down after the Great Depression and FDR, though it lingered on for many years as the so-called “Rockefeller-Eisenhower-Nixon” wing of the party, which was Northeast and moderate, and bipartisan with the Democrats on foreign policy, social security, fiscal & monetary policy and many other fundamental issues.  This consensus of course began to break down with the emergence of the Goldwater faction in 1964, which was opposed by the Scranton faction in 1964 (again led from PA), leading to Nixon re-assuming the reigns in 1968 and 1972.  With Nixon’s resignation in 1974, Ford took over and Rockefeller became VP, leading to a bitter fight between the Reagan and Ford wings of the party in 1976, and another bitter fight between the Bush and Reagan wings in 1980, finally emerging in victory both in nomination and election for the conservative wing of the Republican Party in 1980 for Reagan and the conservatives.  A new day had dawned in America.  But to some degree, the bipartisan consensus which had existed since FDR between the Democrats and the moderate Republicans was now endangered.

Nowhere was this tension more dramatically played out the past forty years than in PA.  PA was represented until 1991 by two stalwart moderate Republicans–Sen. Arlen Specter, a bipartisan member of the Warren Commission, and Sen. John Heinz, a moderate Republican loyal to the elderly and to Social Security.  These two Senators were cornerstones of what was, up to that point, a still very strong Northeastern moderate wing of the Republican party.  Both were solidly dedicated to bipartisanship, courtesy, gentlemanly behavior and getting things done on the Senate floor notwithstanding partisan differences.

This began to unravel slowly with the sudden airplane death in 1991 of Sen. John Heinz.

The Late Sen. John Heinz of PA

A sudden election was called in 1991 and an unknown political consultant was brought in from the South named James Carville to manage the campaign of an enormous

PA Sen. Harris Wofford with President John F. Kennedy in early 1960s

underdog, former University President and JFK kitchen cabinet member Harris Wofford, who was to stand election against former Governor Richard “Dick” Thornburgh.  At

Gov. Dick Thornburgh visits Centralia PA to inspect its ongoing Mine Fires in the 1980s

the time, Thornburgh had something like a fifty point lead in the polls, and tons of money.

James Carville - Wofford's 1991 PA Political Consultant

Sen. Heinz’ widow Teresa Heinz, now heiress in part to the Heinz catsup fortune, would then go on to marry Mass. Sen. John Kerry, in effect making him an instant near-billionaire and projecting him to the front rank of presidential contenders for 2004.  This nearly changed U.S. history, but Kerry’s bid failed.  Looking back, it is all too likely that a John Heinz bid for President would ultimately have succeeded in the long run just where Kerry failed–he had the looks, the charm and the moderate views to win.

Sen & Mrs. John & Teresa Heinz prior to his untimely death in 1991

This might have changed the entire course of the Republican Party and US History.

Sen & Mrs. John Kerry & Teresa Heinz Kerry; Her Money Inherited from John Heinz's Death in 1991 Nearly Made Kerry President in 2004

Returning to the 1991 election, Carville made universal health care an issue, and Wofford shocked the nation by defeating Thornburgh, becoming the first Democratic Senator from PA in decades.  At the same time, Carville’s work came to the attention of a bright young Governor from Arkansas with Presidential aspirations–one William Jefferson Clinton.  Carville’s conjunction with Clinton, and with George Stephanopoulos, on the 1992 campaign, documented in THE WAR ROOM documentary film, is now legendary, but all of this began in PA with Carville and Wofford.

It was during the Wofford campaign in 1991 that Carville legendarily quipped that “between Pittsburgh and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania was Alabama in between,” referring to the fact that Pennsylvanians in all portions of the state except for Philadelphia & Allegheny county regions were pro-gun, pro-life, pro-death penalty, exceptionally elderly (the oldest voting population in the USA outside of Florida) and very church-going, as well as being one of the most demographically Catholic and ethnic voting populations.  In addition, PA has the lowest % of college educated persons of any state in the Northeast corridor–it is the prototypical location of high school educated union card carrying labor, and many of those voters were either Nixon Republicans or Reagan Democrats, but definitely not liberal Democrats.  Except of course for the two large cities, and even there, most of the male voters care more about football than about politics.

In 2008 Hilary Clinton carried nearly every county of PA v. Obama and won the PA Primary by running to the right of Obama

Fast forward to 1994.  The Clinton Administration has badly failed on its health care initiative, and Sen. Wofford has to stand re-election in his own right.  This time, he is the heavy favorite to win, but Carville is not working on the campaign.  Wofford is facing an unknown challenger–Congressman Rick Santorum.  No one, absolutely no one, is giving Santorum a chance of winning.  In fact, Santorum is given less chance of winning than Wofford was given in 1991.

What happens next shocks not only the nation, but PA as a whole.  Not only does the Republican Party and the Contract with America sweep the midterm elections in 1994, but Santorum runs unexpectedly strongly and defeats Wofford narrowly to win election to the United States Senate.

Part of the problem with Sen. Wofford is that he is intellectual, aloof and takes re-election for granted, whereas Santorum is hard-working, engaged, personable and likeable.  The rest of the problem is that Santorum is pro-life, pro-gun, pro-death penalty, and a church-going fellow, whereas Sen. Wofford is a Northeast liberal who is none of these things–consequently it is Santorum who fits the mold of what PA voters want in their candidate (except for Pittsburgh and Philadelphia).  However, since Santorum is FROM PITTSBURGH, the Western Part of the State votes for Santorum, especially as Wofford is from the Eastern Part of the State, thus negating any liberal sentiment emanating from Allegheny County.

Sen. Santorum wins re-election in 2000, and actually runs better in PA than does Pres. Bush, who loses the national popular vote as well as the popular vote and electoral vote in PA, while Santorum wins his election in PA, in effect demonstrating that Santorum as of 2000 is more popular than President Bush.

Now we fast forward to 2006, and to the election Santorum lost for Senate by a considerable margin, to Sen. Bob Casey, Jr.

Let’s examine why he lost this election.

First, Bob Casey, Jr. was and is the son of a popular, two term Governor of PA who was known throughout the state.  Second, Bob Casey, Jr. was from a prominent Irish-Catholic political family as well-known in PA as the Kennedys’ are known in Massachusetts and nationally.  According to wikipedia:

“Casey was born in Scranton, Pennsylvania, one of eight children of Ellen (née Harding) and Bob Casey, the 42nd governor of Pennsylvania. He is of Irish descent on both his mother’s^{[citation needed]}and father’s side.  Casey played basketball and graduated from Scranton Preparatory School in 1978. Following in his father’s footsteps, he graduated from the College of the Holy Cross in 1982, and received a Juris Doctor (J.D.) degree from the Columbus School of Law at The Catholic University of America in 1988. Between both college and law school, Casey served as a member of the Jesuit Volunteer Corps, and spent a year teaching 5th grade and coaching basketball at the Gesu School in inner city Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.  Casey practiced law in Scranton from 1991 until 1996.”  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Casey,_Jr.

This is the most perfect Jesuit, Irish-Catholic resume you could possibly have for running for office in PA–Scranton Prep, Holy Cross, Catholic University, the Jesuit Volunteer Corps, and a year teaching at an inner city catholic mission school in Philadelphia.  Sen. Casey is just the most perfect catholic prepster ever.

Next, Casey is pro-gun, pro-life, pro-death penalty, and as we see above, a church-going catholic just like Santorum–in fact, he’s Irish-Catholic, as opposed to Italian-Catholic, which in PA, is a real advantage politically, just as it is in Massachusetts and nationally.

Consequently, the same wedge issues that HELPED Santorum win in 1994 and 2000–the issues that appealed to the “Alabama” parts of PA that are pro-gun, pro-life, pro-death penalty, and church-going and conservative on social issues–were of no use running against Bob Casey, Jr. because Casey, if anything, ran to the right of Santorum on all those issues.  As noted by Casey’s wiki bio:

“In the Democratic primary, Casey faced two Democrats with more liberal viewpoints: college professor Chuck Pennacchio and pension lawyer Alan Sandals. Both argued that Casey’s views on abortion and other social issues were too conservative for most Pennsylvania Democrats. However, Casey easily defeated both challengers in the May 16 primary, receiving 85% of the vote….Abortion….Casey, like his father did, identifies as pro-life. He has publicly stated his support for overturning Roe v. Wade.^[29] From Casey’s election until Specter’s party switch in April 2009, Pennsylvania had the distinction of being represented in the Senate by a self-identified pro-life Democrat and a pro-choice Republican (Arlen Specter).  He supports the Pregnant Women Support Act,^[30] legislation that grew out of Democrats for Life of America‘s 95-10 Initiative. The Initiative and the Pregnant Women Support Act seek to reduce the abortion rate by providing support to women in unplanned pregnancies. He expressed support for the confirmation of both John Roberts^[31] and Samuel Alito^[32] for seats on the Supreme Court of the United States; these judges are believed to be in favor of overturning Roe v. Wade. Casey also opposes the funding of embryonic stem-cell research.^[33]   However, Casey voted against barring HHS grants to organizations that provide abortion services, though such services may often not be central to the organization’s chief purpose.^[34] Casey also supports over-the-counter sale of emergency contraception,^[35] and has voted to overturn the Mexico City policy, which bars the issuance of federal funds to overseas organizations that perform or refer for abortions.^[36] The authenticity of Casey’s pro-life commitment has been questioned by some prolife sources.^[36][37]  In January 2010, a writer for CBN wrote, “I wouldn’t want to be Senator Bob Casey right about now. He is coming under enormous pressure from pro-life groups because they say the ‘Pro-life’ Democratic Senator has not stood strong on the abortion issue during the current healthcare debate.” Casey, according to the CBN writer, had recently gotten “an earful and then some from pro-lifers during a press conference held at the Pennsylvania Capitol.”^{[38]  ….”}  

Id.  Clearly, Casey ran to the RIGHT of both of his Democratic primary opponents, and then ran to the RIGHT of Santorum in the general election on the social issues, not to the LEFT as his past opponents had done.  Casey was like the Democratic Santorum–only smarter, more conservative, more polished, and a better version, and even more socially conservative and catholic than Santorum was.  Casey ran to the RIGHT of Santorum on the social issues, but to the LEFT of Santorum on the bread and butter, economic and labor issues.

This makes Casey’s election to the US Senate in 2006 very unique among all of the elections in 2006, even though it is clear that 2006 generally trended Democratic and it is pretty likely that Santorum faced an uphill battle in any event even if Casey had run as a traditional liberal.  But Casey was no traditional liberal.  No one on the editorial staff of the Huffington Post or the New York Times would endorse him for national office if they truly understood either his positions, or the positions of the PA electorate.  In truth, the PA electorate holds positions at variance with the Northeast liberal elite and the West Coast elite, excepting Philadelphia, State College and Pittsburgh.

The results of Casey’s strategies were very clear; he ran well to the right of Santorum on social issues, but ran as a Democrat on union and bread and butter economic issues, while still remaining pro-gun, pro-death penalty, pro-life, pro-church, anti-abortion, anti-contraception, and pro-adoption.

In short, there isn’t a bucket’s worth of warm spit’s difference between these two candidates on women’s issues at all.  In fact, PA has NEVER elected a women to the United States Senate.  Ever.  Not even close to ever.

Only two women have even been nominated to run for US Senate in PA History and both have lost, one back in 1964, and more recently Lynn Yeakel, who lost a relatively close race to incumbent Sen. Arlen Specter following the Anita Hill hearings in the 1990s, but still she lost and then rapidly faded from sight and power.

PA is clearly not a state conducive either to women’s issues or to women running for office.  PA has never had a female governor, a female senator and only rarely has it had female congresspersons.   According to the Huffington Post, as of 2009, there were only two women in its entire Congressional Delegation.  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/senate-guru/pa-sen-the-potential-demo_b_187357.html.   It is astonishing how limited women are in political power in PA.

PA is well to the right of NJ, NY, DE and all the other northeastern states with regards to women’s issues and specifically women’s reproductive health issues.  The state legislature is overwhelmingly dominated by men, especially religious and catholic men, and the men who serve there are openly sexist and demeaning towards women who serve in the legislature and create what is in effect a hostile work environment for women who are elected and choose to serve their constituents there.  Recently, one of the houses of the PA Legislature voted 2012 “The Year of the Bible” by nearly unanimous resolution, while also simultaneously voting to cut student financial aid and aid to all state universities by more than one-third in the very same session that they also authorized tens of millions of dollars to hire replacement football coaches to take over for Joe Paterno at Penn State.  Apparently male legislators have their priorities in PA.  And first rate Division I football in Happy Valley is really far higher of a priority than education for the poor or the middle class, apparently.

Sad to say, often the same holds true in many of the rural county courtrooms as well as many of the appellate courts, although there at least in the past few years, some progress has been made.  However, in the major law firms of Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, men hold by far the reins of power and women simply do not have any share of either the partner proceeds or the political shares of power that lead to business and partner revenues.

In short, it is a boy’s club, and often, a man’s only club in PA, notwithstanding the lip service paid to equality and opportunity.  Things in PA are NOTHING like NYC or Boston or DC.  They are backwards by at least twenty to forty years.  Many of the female partners who do make it in Philly prefer working over in New Jersey or up in NYC whenever possible–they find PA courts and clients to be very stifling and sexist in the extreme, and in any case most of the business is elsewhere.

Perhaps the reader imagines this is exaggeration, or opinion?  Let us introduce some evidence!

This is an actual example of tactices used against a female candidate for office in Allentown PA reported in the Huffington Post which occurred in 2006 and again in 2008:

“When she ran for mayor of Allentown, PA in 2001, Siobhan “Sam” Bennett was already well-known in her hometown. A former PTA president, she was a pillar of the community, having founded, led, or served on the boards of various civic organizations. So she was completely taken aback by what happened during her first stump speech as a mayoral candidate. Standing before a room full of men, she began to deliver her remarks when the chair of the meeting interrupted her with a totally bizarre and inappropriate request: “Sam, I want to ask a question all the men in this room have been dying to ask you: Just what are your measurements?”

As Bennett wrote in the Huffington Post:

I was in disbelief. And if this wasn’t bad enough, a reporter who witnessed this unabashed display of sexism wrote an article about that stump speech–and didn’t even mention the incident.Unfortunately, that experience was only a hint of what would come my way….

The Opposition’s Vehemence

What came her way when she ran for Congress in 2008 was far worse. Bennett was facing a possible challenger in Pennsylvania State Senator Lisa Boscola, and Boscola’s chief of staff, Bernie Kieklak, was well known in political circles for posting no-holds-barred commentary in local blogs. The remarks he let fly about Bennett at one online site are indicative of the level of sexism and misogyny many women candidates face.

To convey the intensity of Kieklak’s over-the-top sexism regarding Bennett and his extreme vulgarity, his comments are reproduced in their entirety below with minimal censorship: Sammy Bennett is a phony political w_____e who gives good h_____d and makes cheap, blatant political opportunists look like Mother F***ing Teresa. Even her p___y is made of plastic.” [sic] [offensive language edited].”

http://womensissues.about.com/od/thepoliticalarena/a/Women-In-Politics-Sexist-Media-Sexist-Attacks-Hurt-Women-In-Politics.htm

Truly shocking, abusive behavior towards a female politician.  But run of the mill for PA, sad to say.  Welcome to the training grounds of Sens. Santorum, Casey et al.

In short, to be successful in politics as a female in PA, you have to be not twice as good, not three times as good, but about ten times as good as a man, and have a hide made of armor plated kevlar.   Morever, many notable male politicians (including a prominent past governor) are well-known for their womanizing and aggrandizing tactics towards females, which can most generously be characterized as “Clintonesque”.  Even though these matters have been reported, still they go on.

This is the environment from which both Sens. Santorum and Casey have emerged and from which they ran for office.

Here was the result of Sen. Casey’s running to the right of Sen. Santorum on Social Issues according to Sen. Casey’s wiki bio:

“On election night, Casey won the race with 59% of the vote, compared to 41% for incumbent Senator Rick Santorum. Casey’s margin of victory was the highest ever for a Democrat running for the United States Senate in Pennsylvania.^[11]Casey’s 17.4-point victory margin was the largest victory margin for a challenger to an incumbent Senator since James Abdnor unseated George McGovern by 18.8 points in 1980.”

Id.  However, the bio goes on to note that as Casey’s re-election approaches this year, he is beginning to distance himself openly from President Obama again in order to appeal to the conservative PA electorate, particularly with his blue-collar base in Wilkes-Barre and Scranton (Luzerne & Lackawanna Counties) who are very upset with the President’s performance on economic issues:

“Casey is up for re-election in 2012, and has stated that he intends to seek a second term in the Senate.^[12][13] His re-election prospects are uncertain. Observers have noted that as the election approaches, Casey, an early supporter of Obama, has “started to oppose the president outright or developed more nuanced responses to events that differentiate him from Mr. Obama. Analysts say Mr. Casey wants to put some distance between himself and a president whose job approval ratings in Pennsylvania are poor.”^[14] In October 2011, the National Journal noted that “the Scranton area is hugely important for 2012” for both Obama and Casey, but “the city has among the worst unemployment in the state, and it’s filled with the blue-collar Dems who weren’t very enthusiastic about Obama when he first ran for president. How Casey navigates his relationship with the president will speak volumes about his re-election prospects.”^[15]“

One cannot get away from one’s positions–a candidate is what a candidate espouses.  Sen. Santorum, like Sen. Casey, is a warm, charming and personable fellow.  Both are married with a number of kids–Casey has four kids, and Santorum has even more, and both their wives are full time stay at home moms.  Because that’s what they believe in, for the most part.  That moms and wives should stay at home and take care of the kids, that is.  And both of them are pro-gun, pro-second amendment, pro-death penalty, pro-life, pro-catholic, anti-abortion, anti-contraception, pro-adoption, and so on.  Indeed, it is very difficult to measure their differences on women’s issues or women’s health issues at all.

This addresses the issues, as opposed to attacking ad hominem or creating a straw man.  These candidates have espoused their positions and come to be what they are in large part, it is theorized and shown here, because of the electorate they spent a good deal of time cultivating–the uniquely conservative PA electorate.  Whether appealing to that electorate will work nationally in either Republican primaries or a National Presidential Election remains to be seen.  There has not been a President elected from PA since James Buchanan in 1856 (though Eisenhower famously took up residence near Gettysburg after he retired, and was considered an honorary PA resident, and his family still live in PA).  Perhaps with good reason.

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AUGUST 24, 2009 – CENTENNIAL OF THE PREZ – LESTER YOUNG (1909-1959)

The Wall Street Journal’s Will Friedland has a really nice story in Wednesday August 19, 2009 at p. D19 on the Cenntennial of legenday bop saxophonist Lester Young’s birth (1909-1959) which occurs today, August 24, 2009.

This year also marks the fiftieth anniversary of the death of Lester Young, who passed away at age 49 in 1959. Jazz Giant, Jazz Legend, Jazz Colossus, these terms don’t do him justice. In Jazz Circles, he was known only as the President, or the Prez, a moniker hooked on him by none other than the late, great Billie Holiday, aka Lady Day, Queen of Jazz.

As Friedland writes, “Young…created a new approach to the saxophone and to jazz in general. His playing was, by turns, lighter and gentler than anything that had come before it, but also capable of driving with tremendous force and energy.” Id. at p. D19.

Friedland reviews a release from Fantasy Records (now owned by Concord, I believe) called “Centennial Celebration”, which contains a good deal of Lester Young live during his later years, with emphasis on the 1950s. This is probably a must-buy if you don’t have any of this material. Even if you do have it, it’s never a waste of money to buy a Lester Young CD just to get even one track you didn’t have before. Or download the one you don’t have.

When Ken Burns did his Jazz documentary stretching over a bazillion PBS hours not so long ago, there were two figures that stood head and shoulders over everyone else—Lester Young and Billie Holiday.

Before President Obama was born, before Hawaii was even a state or was issuing official state birth certificates, we already had a black president—and his name was Lester Young—or as Billie Holiday dubbed him—the President, or the Prez for short. Everyone else in jazz was the Vice-President, or the Vice-Prez—but there was only one President, and that was Lester Young. Because Lester Young ruled the roost, he was in charge, and everyone else was second best.

Lester Young was so good, that you basically need to own every track he every played on, but if you can’t afford that, the Ken Burns jazz sampler is a great place to start. There’s several different phases to Lester Young’s career, all of them fantastic. Video of Lester Young, with Basie, with Billie Holiday and solo, are also around, and these are worth viewing as well.

First there’s the Count Basie years, from around 1935-1940, where Lester “leaps in” on countless classic tracks with the Count Basie Band. According to Friedland, Mosaic Records has recently issued a 4 CD set last year covering this period, but it’s covered on many of the compilations of either the best of Count Basie or the best of Lester Young. This stuff is just fantastic, the best big band jazz ever recorded.

Then there’s his work with Billie Holiday. Here, one just says, wow. These two were so born to work together. Billie Holliday’s best tracks are with Lester Young playing; Lester Young’s best playing is with Billie Holliday singing. This is the best jazz ever laid down on vinyl in U.S. history. It’s covered in part in the Ken Burns samplers of both Lester Young and Billie Holiday, fortunately.

There is also the final appearance of them both on CBS television in 1956 or 1957 for a special jazz show with several other jazz giants, which is caught on LP, CD as well as on video somewhere, and a good thing too, since both Young and Holliday would both be dead in just a couple of years’ time. This is a must-have session as well.

Then there is the body of Lester Young’s solo work, almost all of which is essential. I could rhapsodize about all of it, but there’s particular stuff that’s really great, such as the live in DC dates from 1956, which produced more than one CD/LP. This stuff is terrific, and very fine indeed. It’s well-represented on the “Centennial” CD reviewed by Mr. Friedwald. Lester Young’s solo 50s work doesn’t try to follow what others are doing during the 1950s—and that’s kind of what makes it great.

Lester Young is essentially a romantic at heart, and this comes across in all of his playing.

Of the great boppers, I’ve always preferred Lester Young to Charlie Parker—while I know Parker is technically great and plays fast and improvises crazily and so forth, but Lester Young is really the finer ballad player, and yet can still bop and swing as well as anyone, improvise, and also accompany his vocalist, or play in a big band. In short, there was nothing Lester Young couldn’t do with a saxophone.

One comment about Young, and it’s discussed by Friedwald as well, is Young’s terrible experiences with the United States Army during World War II, and particularly with segregation. Friedwald descrbes this as a “nightmarish year he [Young] spent in the detention barracks, in the segregated armed forces during World II, which certainly exacerbated the chronic alcoholism that contributed to his [Young’s] death at age 49. (Friedwald, WSJ, 8/19/09 at p. D9. The liner notes to LESTER SWINGS (see infra) state that “his sensitivity in these matters was certainly aggravated by his traumatic army experiences of 1944 and 1945, until it amounted almost to a form of disability. Several people who knew him at the time have remarked on this. It took only one aggressive or unfriendly present to upset his equilibrium.” “Von Hangman is here,” he would mutter, as gloom descended. On the other had, when things were goint well, he could be the life and soul of the party.

So what we know about Lester Young is that he was a supremely gifted musician; he was a sensitive and tortured soul; a sensitive and open man with his feelings and emotions; and when it came to institutional racism, he was no Jackie Robinson; he could not stand up to inhumane treatment, and nearly collapsed under its weight. That he survived at all is a testament to his inner artistic strength and will to survive to play another day, and the twelve years of artistic production we have from 1946 to 1958 are, in my view, supremely brilliant and as gifted as his pre-war output.

Lester Young, if you see him play on video, had that kind of sideways way of playing, that was wholly unique, plus the famous pork pie hat he always wore, which when he passed away in 1959, gave rise to one of the world’s greatest jazz compositions, by Charles Mingus, “Goodbye Pork-Pie Hat,” which has been covered by a zillion artists, including even an incendiary fusion version by Jeff Beck and Jan Hammer during the crazy 1970s. I’m not sure what Lester Young would have thought about fusion, but then again, Lester might have leapt right in.

Lester Young’s was a long and happy administration, and long may it rule, happy 100th birthday to Lester Young, the Prez. I hope that the Ken Burns Jazz Documentary re-runs on PBS sometime, and if it doesn’t run in its entirety, I sure hope they re-run the parts about Basie, Young and Holliday again, because those were smoking hot. It’s not that we don’t love Louis Armstrong or Duke Ellington or Charlie Parker, but Lester Young was the Prez for a reason—he had the sweetest sound, the most beautiful, and the music he made will last forever.

Happy 100th birthday to a true American legend, Lester Young, our only other officially recognized African American President.

DISCOGRAPHY – LESTER YOUNG

KEN BURNS JAZZ – THE DEFINITIVE LESTER YOUNG (VERVE 314 549 082-2) (2000) nineteen perfect tracks, compilation. Nice booklet with photos. Great place to start. A+++

THE PRESIDENT PLAYS WITH THE OSCAR PETERSON TRIO (VERVE 831 670-2) (West German Pressing, Polygram). Lester Young, tenor sax, Oscar Peterson, piano, Barney Kessel, guitar, Ray Brown, bass, JC Heard, drums. Recorded NYC November 28, 1952. 13 tracks with alternate takes, 61:49. A+

LESTER YOUNG: THE COMPLETE SAVOY RECORDINGS (SAVOY JAZZ SVY 17122 2CD Set with booklet). This outstanding two CD set collects rare material recorded for Savoy in 1944, 1949 and 1950 by Lester Young with the likes of Billy Butterfield, Hank D’Amico, Johnny Guarnieri, Dexter Hall, Billy Taylor and Cozy Cole (April 18, 1944); a session with the Earle Warren Orchestra (see, he really was the Prez!) (April 18, 1944) (too many greats to mention, but Harry Sweets Edison, Jimmy Powell, Earle Warren, Freddie Green, Jo Jones, to name but a few). The Lester Young Quintet (and this is rare); Lester Young tenor sax, Count Basie piano, Freddie Green guitar, Rodney Richardson bass, Shadow Wilson drums (May 1, 1944). These six tracks are worth the price of the entire 2 CD set. Fantastic. Lester Young and Count Basie in a small group setting. Wow! And this is all Disc One! Disc Two starts out with Lester Young Sextet, Lester Young tenor sax, Jessie Drakes trumpet, Jerry Elliot Trombone, Junior Mance, piano, Leroy Jackson, bass, Roy Haynes drums. (June 28, 1949). (10 tracks). Lester Young Quintet. Lester Young Quintet, Lester Young tenor sax, Jessie Drakes trumpet, Kenny Drew piano, Kenny Shulman bass, Jo Jones drums. April 2, 1950, live in Chicago (10 tracks). This 2CD set has a lot of outtakes, but also has a lot of rare material from great bands, and covers a hard to find period of Young’s career, unless you have the original Savoy 78s or 10” vinyl. Stupendous. A+++.

LESTER SWINGS – LESTER YOUNG (VERVE 314 547 772-2) (1999). According to the CD, “This CD contains some of the most memorable masterpieces from Young’s enigmatic and memorable Verve studio recordings. These recordings can be found in their entirety on the 8-CD set THE COMPLETE LESTER YOUNG STUDIO SESSIONS ON VERVE.” www.vevemusicgroup.com. thirteen tracks, 64.22. This CD covers the highlights of Lester Young’s solo and small group career from 1946-1958, and is thus the cream of the crop. Absolutely vital. A+++

LESTER YOUNG TRIO WITH NAT KING COLE AND BUDDY RICH SUPERVISED BY NORMAN GRANZ (VERVE 314 521 650-2) 1994) (Mfd for BMG direct marketing under license. This is an interesting CD. There are a total of fourteen tracks totaling 60:41. Tracks 1-10 are recording with Lester Young on tenor sax, Nat King Cole on piano and Buddy Rich on drums, playing as a trio, recording April 19, 1946 in Los Angeles, CA. This was originally issued on vinyl as 10” Norgran LP MGN and before that as Lester Young Trio Vols I & II on Mercury/Clef MGC 104 & 135, 1074 with just 8 tracks; two outtakes are included here. Tracks 11-14 are recorded with Lester Young, Harry Sweets Edison on trumpet, Dexter Gordon on tenor sax, Nat King Cole on piano, Red Callendaer & Johnny Miller on drums, and Cliffor Juicy Owens on drums, recording summer 1943 or 1944 Los Angeles, CA, and originally released on vinyl 78 Clef/Mercury 15003/8900. Some of the tracks on this CD are 78 to CD transfers. This is a very fine CD preserving some very famous session tracks with Lester Young and Nat King Cole now considered classic. A+.

LESTER LEAPS IN: HIS GREATEST RECORDINGS 1936-1944; LESTER YOUNG. (ASV Ltd. Living Era CD AJA 5176 MCPS MONO) (Made and printed in England) (ASV Ltd., 1 Beaumont Avenue, London, UK, W14 9LP). (1995). “lester young with count basie, billie holiday, teddy Wilson, buck clayton, bill coleman, dicky wells…and other jazz greats!” what else do you want to know? 24 tracks, 75:40 total playing time. This is pretty much prime Lester Young material. A+++.

LESTER YOUNG LIVE IN DC VOLUMES I AND II 1956 I don’t have the CD info on these, but they’re classics and easily found on the internet.

youtube links:

lester young with billie holiday

this is billie holiday doing fine and mellow from the cbs special in 1956 with lester young and an all star band. with coleman hawkins and gerry mulligan. wow! A++++

a famous clip of lester young and allstar big band doing the “jitterbug jam” check out those dancers swinging to lester’s solo! with Harry Sweets Edison and many others. A+++

count basie band with lester young at randall’s island ny

lester young in a nice video

lester young and great band – pennies from heaven

same band – blues for greasy

http://www.kerouacalley.com/young.html

multimedia directory of lester young videos etc.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lester_Young

wikipedia article on lester young

theres more youtube video out there of lester young–these are just some highlights.

here’s another discography and list of books on Lester Young from a fan website:

http://www.nme.com/artists/lester-young

Discography

albums.

* Lester Young Quartet And Count Basie Seven – 1950 (Mercury)
* Lester Young – ()
* The Immortal Lester Young – 1951 (Savoy)
* The Lester Young Trio – 1951 (Mercury)
* Count Basie And Lester Young – 1951 (Jazz Panorama)
* Collates – ()
* Pres – 1951 (Mercury/Norgran)
* Kansas City Style – 1952 (Commodore)
* Battle Of The Saxes – 1953 (Aladdin)
* King Cole-Lester Young-Red Callender Trio – ()
* Lester Young-Nat King Cole Trio – 1953 (Aladdin/Score)
* Lester Young – His Tenor Sax – 1953 (Aladdin)
* The Lester Young Trio – 1953 (Clef)
* The President Plays – 1953 (Verve)
* With The Oscar Peterson Trio – 1954 (Norgran)
* Pres Meets Vice-Pres – 1954 (EmArcy)
* The President – ()
* Lester Swings Again – 1954 (Norgran)
* Pres And Sweets – 1955 (Norgran)
* The Pres-ident Plays With The Oscar Peterson Trio – 1955 (Norgran)
* Lester Young – ()
* It Don’t Mean A Thing (If It Ain’t Got That Swing) – 1955 (Norgran/Verve)
* The Jazz Giants “56 – 1956 (Verve)
* Tops On Tenor – 1956 (Jazztone)
* Lester Young And His Tenor Sax, Vol. 1 – 1956 (Aladdin)
* Lester Young And His Tenor Sax, Vol. 2 – 1956 (Aladdin)
* The Masters Touch – 1956 (Savoy)
* Lester’s Here – 1956 (Norgran)
* Pres And Teddy – 1956 (American Recording Society/Verve)
* Lester Young-Nat “King’ Cole-Buddy Rich Trio – 1956 (Norgran)
* Swingin’ Lester Young – 1957 (Intro)
* The Greatest – 1957 (Intro)
* Going For Myself – 1959 (Verve)
* Laughin’ To Keep From Cryin” – 1959 (Verve)
* The Lester Young Story – 1959 (Verve)
* Memorial Album – 1959 (Epic)
* In Paris – 1960 (Verve)
* The Essential Lester Young – 1961 (Verve)
* Lester Warms Up – Jazz Immortals Series, Vol. 2 – 1961 (Savoy)
* Pres – 1961 (Charlie Parker)
* Pres Is Blue – 1961 (Charlie Parker)
* A Date With Greatness – 1962 (Imperial)
* The Immortal Lester Young, Vols. 1 – ()
* 2 – 1962 (Imperial)
* The Influence Of Five – 1965 (Mainstream)
* Town Hall Concert – 1965 (Mainstream)
* Chairman Of The Board – 1965 (Mainstream)
* 52nd Street – 1965 (Mainstream)
* Prez – 1965 (Mainstream)
* Pres And His Cabinet – 1966 (Verve)
* In Washington, D.C., Vols. 1-5 – 1980 (Pablo)

Books

bibliography.

* Lester Young – Lewis Porter
* The Tenor Saxophone And Clarinet Of Lester Young, 1936-1949 – Jan Evensmo
* Lester Young – Dave Gelly
* You Got To Be Original Man! The Music Of Lester Young – Frank BÃchmann-Møller
* You Just Fight For Your Life: The Story Of Lester Young – Frank BÃchmann-Møller
* A Lester Young Reader – Lewis Porter
* No Eyes: Lester Young – David Meltzer
* Lester Leaps In: The Life And Times Of Lester “Pres” Young – Douglas Henry Daniels

–art kyriazis, philly south jersey
home of the world champion phillies

WHY THE DEMS DON’T GET IT

Unfortunately, in light of recent domestic policy directions, I think the Dems have it all wrong.

Health care reform is an idea left over from 1991. The only reason the Dems want to push it through now is because they have the votes to pass the bills they didn’t get passed in the first session of the first term of the Clinton Presidency.

But is this a good reason to pass a law, because you proposed it before and you’ve been trying to pass it for so long?

Universal Health Care is an idea born of POST-DEPRESSION affluence–it’s a fringe benefit to be offered to a population that’s already employed, that already has a guaranteed vacation, a guaranteed pension, and has guaranteed housing. In short, guaranteed health care is the LAST welfare benefit that should be federalized.

In addition, and this is a revision from my original post, according to a recent article posted in a respected publication, the health uninsured are not universally distributed throughout the United States.

In point of fact, less than 3% of Massachusetts residents lack health insurance, thanks to the state law health care coverage efforts of people like Gov. Mike Dukakis and his successors in office. The fact that Massachusetts has nearly universal health care coverage proves that this is a STATE problem and not a FEDERAL problem.

Looking more nationally, the Midwest and Northeast have fewer than ten per cent uninsured as to health care.

It is the South and the West that have 15-25% health uninsured rates; the highest being the state of Texas.

You don’t have to be a statistics major to know that Texas also is a non-union state, has a large number of illegal immigrant resident aliens, and that these conditions are pretty much true throughout the Sunbelt, where the problem of lack of health care coverage is an issue of non-union shops and illegal immigrants competing for jobs, which drives down the employers’ incentives to provide health care benefits.

Consequently, why is this a federal problem? This seems instead to be either an immigration problem, a union/labor law problem, or a combination of the two (as Janis Joplin and Big Brother used to sing). (She was from Texas, by the way, before she got out the San Francisco).

Moreover, if Texas wants to solve their own problems, why not let them experiment? They’ve already reformed tort law to make it much harder to sue MDs–welcome relief to the medical profession, which has flocked in droves to practice in Texas, now considered a medical mecca.

Obama wants to ruin all this. His health care proposal, according to reports, would result in a massive transfer of wealth from the largely democratic and already overtaxed midwest and northeast, and transfer it to the sunbelt states, the south and west, in order to mainly put on federal health coverage, non-union workers who are scabs (union busters) and illegal immigrants (also scabs and union busters).

Do we really want to spend our tax dollars paying for health benefits for strikebreaking scabs and unionbusting immigrant labor? And for illegal aliens to get health care?

Also, additionally, Obama’s health proposal will cause deep cuts in the current level of medicaid, medicare and drugs provided to the elderly under medicare.

In short, the proposal will triage the old and deprive them of expensive end of life care, and let them die more quickly, in order to provide basic health care to young, healthy labor that is non-union, largely hispanic, and living in the sunbelt.

The demographic implications of this over the long run will be a much younger, more hispanic united States, even more concentrated in the sunbelt than it already is, and will likely lead eventually to a bilingual nation that speaks Spanish and English, as well as to the ultimate downfall of unions, since one of the major arguments for unions is that they provide their members with health care and pension benefits during job and contract negotiations.

If unions are deprived of health care as a benefit to negotiate for, fewer workers will opt into unions. Obama and the democrats, paradoxically, are going to drive the death nail into the coffin of the union movement in this country. They haven’t thought through clearly the implications of what they are doing.

In short, this is a regional problem, and a union/immigration problem, and not a national problem. National mandates for the states would probably fix this, along with a public/private partnership with some insurance companies that could work with some of the southern and western states.

Part II

The REAL problem today is not health care at all.

The real problem today is that people don’t have jobs and they’re losing their houses. We have lawyers, bankers, traders who have blown up, car companies laying off, people all over America losing good jobs. Everywhere you go in this country, houses are for sale or being sold off by the sheriff.

I’ve never seen so many homes for sale in my own neighborhood. Twenty-Two years i’ve lived here, and three houses were a lot to be for sale here; now we have 25 and none are selling. There is a glut on the market where two years ago there was a boom in the market. The bottom has fallen out of the real estate market and no end of the downward spiral is in sight.

People’s equity in their homes, the main source of wealth for most Americans, has vanished, and the federal government has done NOTHING about it.

Except, of course, to bail out the rich fat cat bankers, and appoint a salary czar to oversee their million bazillion dollar bonuses.

Is this for real? Federally funded trickle down? If Reagan had done this, there would have been riots in the streets.

What we need precisely is a sort of FDIC, but instead of guaranteeing your banking deposits against banking failure, you would be guaranteed your home’s equity value, an FDIC for home equity, that will guarantee up to $1,000,000 of value in your home’s equity value against falling home prices, that is either automatic through fannie mae or freddie mac, or that you can purchase as insurance, for a small sum of money.

Now isn’t THAT a SENSIBLE idea?

Second, everyone with negative home equity should be forgiven their loans in excess of 80% of their debt loads immediately, and the banks commanded to write that debt off immediately.

Third, anyone who files for bankruptcy should be able to modify his or her mortgage under sections 1322 of the Code or anywhere else as pertinent, or under a Chapter 11 Plan, and cram it down the bank’s throat against their wishes if the bank’s loan exceed’s 80% of the value of the home and there is a negative equity spiral, the debtor should be able to eliminate all but 80% of the loan.

My point is, what good is free health care if you have no job and no house? It’s like serving gelato to a man who is homeless and has no money and hasn’t eaten in days–health care is like dessert.

Back in the 90s, when everyone had a job, it was ok to talk about health care–it was the LAST thing we needed. But now we’re back to square one–we need to talk about guaranteeing incomes, jobs and housing. We’re back to FDR and Truman and LBJ.

This administration just doesn’t get it.

Paradoxically, I think the right Republican approach might get it and win back the white house if it’s sufficiently populist in nature and goes after the big banks, which the democrats appear to be, pardon the expression, in bed with.

The Democrats need to examine an NRA-style national Jobs Program that will put everyone in the United States to work. Second, the Draft needs to be re-instituted. Kids that are in the army will be employed. Third, we need to nationalize the universities and make education free of charge. Fourth, we need to nationalize the cable companies and make the internet free of charge to the poor and to the rich equally, as well as making basic cable tv a free resource to everyone.

Fifth, for anyone that’s not employed, a Guranteed Annual Income or GAI must be mandated and paid by the Government, along with a negative income tax to avoid work related disincentives. The welfare reform measures of the Clinton era will have to be undone for the time being, because right now, middle class families are starving and in danger of homelessness, and THEY need welfare. The program needs to be federal, and the income level to be guaranteed needs to be large, around $15,000-20,000 annually, and adjusted for children and circumstances.

Sixth, the government has to embark on a massive program of propping up the housing market, investing in public housing, investing in Section 8, expanding the HUD budget, and so forth.

Seventh, we need to start investing in having one spouse stay home and take care of the kids. I know this is controversial, but two wage earners has destroyed many marriages and the american way of life.

Eighth, we need to reform the real estate brokerage business so that commissions from family homes are much less than for commission from commercial real estate. Instead of six points, let brokers earn only one point. This way, brokers won’t churn real estate and people won’t use their homes as profit tools.

Ninth, reform the tax code so that people have to pay MORE income tax on the sale of their primary homes, e.g. remove the exemption entirely, unless they stay in them a minimum of five years, unless they have to move for cause, such as a job-related transfer to another city, or medical reasons. This would stop people from buying and selling homes constantly and churning the market.

Tenth, more closely regulate lenders, brokers and sellers of real estate. Let people buy and sell and profiteer on second homes, commercial real estate and so forth, but those parcels will be taxed, etc.

I think this is the approach we need.

This is what the democrats are ignoring.

They’re going to raise taxes and bring down the house as it were on average joe while they raise up false idols like the bankers.

We badly need a new prophet in the land, and i’m not talking about Rush Limbaugh here.

–art kyriazis, philly/south jersey
home of the world champion philliesght

CAP AND TRADE – MARTIN FELDSTEIN WRITES OP-ED PIECE IN WSJ ATTACKING IT

Just in the event some of you think I’m just a cranky odd fellow, my former economics professor from Harvard University, and the former professor of Lawrence Summers, Jim Poterba, Steve Kaplan, Tim Geithner and just about any other famous economist of this generation who teaches economics or has worked at the National Bureau of Economic Research, Prof. Martin Feldstein, former economic adviser to Pres. Ronald Reagan (Larry Summers worked under Feldstein for Reagan as is well known)–

at any rate, Feldstein one day after I published my blog saying cap and trade would destroy the effect of the stimulus package, has written an elegant op-ed piece in the Wall Street Journal arguing that CAP AND TRADE WILL DESTROY THE POSITIVE EFFECTS OF THE STIMULUS PACKAGE and furthermore THE NEGATIVE EFFECTS OF CAP AND TRADE WILL FALL MOST HEAVILY ON THE POOR AND ON THE WORKING CLASS, BECAUSE THEY SPEND A MUCH LARGER PERCENTAGE OF THEIR INCOME ON CARBON-BASED EMISSIONS RELATED EXPENDITURES.

Prof. Feldstein makes an elegant argument–he points out that the rich spend less than five per cent of their income on energy-related costs, while poor, middle income and upper middle income folks, in order to run their cars, heat their houses and so forth, spend as much as 25-40% of their incomes on carbon-related expenses, depending on where they live, e.g. people living in the northeast and midwest pay even more since they have to heat their houses in winter and air condition in summer, etc.

He more fundamentally argues that cap and trade will destroy the stimulus effect of the stimulus package, just as surely as did Roosevelt’s tax raises in 1935 and 1937, and Japan’s tax hikes in 1997.

Here’s the link to the article:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124217336075913063.html#

And here’s the actual editorial:

* OPINION
* MAY 14, 2009

Tax Increases Could Kill the Recovery
The cap-and trade levy would hit low-income earners especially hard.

By MARTIN FELDSTEIN

The barrage of tax increases proposed in President Barack Obama’s budget could, if enacted by Congress, kill any chance of an early and sustained recovery.

[Commentary] Martin Kozlowski

Historians and economists who’ve studied the 1930s conclude that the tax increases passed during that decade derailed the recovery and slowed the decline in unemployment. That was true of the 1935 tax on corporate earnings and of the 1937 introduction of the payroll tax. Japan did the same destructive thing by raising its value-added tax rate in 1997.

The current outlook for an economic recovery remains precarious. Although the stimulus package will give a temporary boost to growth in the current quarter, it will not be enough to offset the combined effect of lower consumer spending, the decline in residential construction, the weakness of exports, the limited availability of bank credit and the downward spiral of house prices. A sustained economic upturn is far from a sure thing. This is no time for tax increases that will reduce spending by households and businesses.

Even if the proposed tax increases are not scheduled to take effect until 2011, households will recognize the permanent reduction in their future incomes and will reduce current spending accordingly. Higher future tax rates on capital gains and dividends will depress share prices immediately and the resulting fall in wealth will cut consumer spending further. Lower share prices will also raise the cost of equity capital, depressing business investment in plant and equipment.

The Obama budget calls for tax increases of more than $1.1 trillion over the next decade. Official budget calculations disguise the resulting fiscal drag by treating Mr. Obama’s proposal to cancel the 2011 income tax increases for taxpayers with incomes below $250,000 as if they are real tax cuts. The plan to modify the Alternative Minimum Tax to avoid increases for some taxpayers is also treated as a tax cut.

But those are false tax cuts in which no one’s tax bill actually declines. In contrast, the proposed tax increases are very real. And despite the proposed tax increases, the government’s new spending and transfer programs would cause the annual budget deficit in 2019 to exceed $1 trillion, or 5.7% of GDP.

Mr. Obama’s biggest proposed tax increase is the cap-and-trade system of requiring businesses to buy carbon dioxide emission permits. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates that the proposed permit auctions would raise about $80 billion a year and that these extra taxes would be passed along in higher prices to consumers. Anyone who drives a car, uses public transportation, consumes electricity or buys any product that involves creating CO2 in its production would face higher prices.

CBO Director Douglas Elmendorf testified before the Senate Finance Committee on May 7 that the cap-and-trade price increases resulting from a 15% cut in CO2 emissions would cost the average household roughly $1,600 a year, ranging from $700 in the lowest-income quintile to $2,200 in the highest-income quintile. Since the amount of cap-and-trade tax rises with income, the cap-and-trade tax has the same kind of adverse work incentives as the income tax. And since the purpose of the cap-and-trade plan is to discourage the consumption of CO2-intensive products, energy or means of transportation by raising their cost to consumers, the consumer-price increases would be the same for a 15% reduction in C02 even if the government decides to give away some of the CO2 emissions permits.

But while the cap-and-trade tax rises with income, the relative burden is greatest for low-income households. According to the CBO, households in the lowest-income quintile spend more than 20% of their income on energy intensive items (primarily fuels and electricity), while those in the highest-income quintile spend less than 5% on those products.

The CBO warns that the estimate of an $80 billion-a-year tax increase could be significantly higher or lower, depending on how the program is designed. The Waxman-Markey bill currently before Congress calls for reducing greenhouse gasses 20% by 2020 and by an incredible 83% by 2050. As the government reduces the amount of CO2 that is allowed, the price of the CO2 permits would rise and the pass-through to consumer prices would also increase.

The next-largest tax increase — with a projected rise in revenue of more than $300 billion between 2011 and 2019 — comes from increasing the tax rates on the very small number of taxpayers with incomes over $250,000. Because this revenue estimate doesn’t take into account the extent to which the higher marginal tax rates would cause those taxpayers to reduce their taxable incomes — by changing the way they are compensated, increasing deductible expenditures, or simply earning less — it overstates the resulting increase in revenue.

Since the projected revenue from this source is already designated to be used for Mr. Obama’s health plan, some other tax increases will be needed. Moreover, Mr. Obama’s budget characterizes the projected $634 billion outlay for health-care reform as just a down payment on the program. The budget notes that there would be “additional resources and new benefits to be determined with Congress.” Those additional resources would no doubt be even higher taxes.

The third major tax increase is the plan to raise $220 billion over the next nine years by changing the taxation of foreign-source income. While some extra revenue could no doubt come from ending the tax avoidance gimmicks that use dummy corporations in the Caribbean, most of the projected revenue comes from disallowing corporations to pay lower tax rates on their earnings in countries like Germany, Britain and Ireland. The purpose of the tax change is not just to raise revenue but also to shift overseas production by American firms back to the U.S. by reducing the tax advantage of earning profits abroad.

The administration is likely to be disappointed about its ability to achieve both goals. Bringing production back to be taxed at the higher U.S. tax rate would raise the cost of capital and make the products less competitive in global markets. American corporations would therefore have an incentive to sell their overseas subsidiaries to foreign firms. That would leave future profits overseas, denying the Treasury Department any claim on the resulting tax revenue. And new foreign owners would be more likely to use overseas suppliers than to rely on inputs from the U.S. The net result would be less revenue to the Treasury and fewer jobs in America.

It’s not too late for Mr. Obama to put these tax increases on hold. If he doesn’t, Congress should protect the recovery and the longer-term health of the U.S. economy by voting down this enormous round of higher taxes.

Mr. Feldstein, chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers under President Reagan, is a professor at Harvard and a member of The Wall Street Journal’s board of contributors.

(end of op-ed piece)

well, you have to admit, prof. Feldstein has stated the case far more elegantly than I did, but we both come to the precise same conclusion–

CAP AND TRADE IS A BAD IDEA THAT WILL KILL THE STIMULUS PACKAGE AND LEAD US BACK TO A RECESSION.

I think a logical corollary to what Prof. Feldstein is saying, is that my proposal, the one to make mass transit and AMTRAK rail travel, completely free to everyone, would substantially lessen the burden on the poor and the middle class of a carbon-based tax, in that everyone could stop spending money on their automobiles.

That would be half the problem. The other half would be heating and air-conditioning, and here again, I’ve proposed that the US organize a national TVA style superfederal project to complete go nuclear on electricity generation within the next ten years as an alternative to cap and trade taxes on electricity generation altogether.

I think a combination of these approaches would do away with the need for cap and trade–eliminate autos, put the grid on nukes, upgrade the grid, and spend a huge amount of federal money on upgrading the grid, building light rail and trolley everywhere, and stop spending money on roads and other wasteful spending.

After all, there used to be trolleys running from Santa Monica to Los Feliz through Hollywood; in Philly, the trolley used to run all the way from downtown philly to West Chester, PA until the 1950s, when they rolled up the track due to the automobile, in fact, you can’t count how many miles of trolley track idiotic city planners have rolled up or paved over in Philadelphia, while city planners in other cities are spending billions to lay down trolley and light rail track.

In cities like New York and Boston, you don’t need a car, and neither do you need a car in downtown Philadelphia or Washington DC.

We should be exploring making one or more cities car-free and making them into pilot projects for the future.

–art kyriazis, philly/south jersey
Home of the World Champion Phillies

Cap and Trade – A Horrible Idea – Let’s Abolish Cars and Build a Real Rail System Instead

Cap and Trade Is a very bad idea, right now.

First, a history lesson. President Clinton’s first term was a disaster, in large part, because he spent most of his first two years pursuing three very liberal ideas—gays in the military, universal health care, and a federal tax on BTU usage.

These three ideas were, at the time, in 1993-1995, so controversial, that they not only threatened to sink President Clinton after only one term, but resulted in 1994 in the largest shift in a mid-term election in the House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate in United States History.

The House lost more than fifty Democratic seats and went Republican for the first time in a long time; and the Senate also suffered huge democratic losses; all due to Newt Gingrich and the Contract with America, which was a direct and overwhelming refutation of Clinton’s liberal agenda.

Much the same thing happened in the first two years of Jimmy Carter’s term; Carter pardoned all of the draft-dodging Vietnam protesters hiding out in Canada, and virtually declared war on the CIA and all of the US military operations around the world, which led to terror operations and revolutions around the world intensifying, culminating in the Iranianian Revolution and the taking of the U.S. Embassy in Teheran and the holding of 52 U.S. hostages for over a year, a spectacle so embarassing to the United States, repeated night after night on national TV as it was, that virtually every Democrat in office lost his seat by 1980, and the Republicans and Ronald Reagan were swept into power, with a whole new agenda of re-arming America and restoring her lost prestige abroad.

Getting back to Clinton, the BTU Tax was an idea very similar to the current notion of Cap and Trade. Cap and Trade, like the BTU Tax, is essentially a tax on carbon usage. The idea is, if we tax carbon-based fossil fuels enough, and make them costly enough, it will force everyone, including consumers and energy companies, to seek non-carbon based alternatives.

There are three basic problems with cap and trade (actually, there are many more, but I will discuss three here) that make it a bad idea for now. First, we are in a recession that is actually more of a depression. Cap and Trade is a large TAX INCREASE that will suck spending power out of the hands of consumers. Consequently, it will kill the marginal propensity of consumer demand, and attack the very object of the Stimulus Bill.

I don’t have to be a doctor to know, that you don’t give a man a sleeping pill, just when you’ve given him a shot to wake him up, while he’s still groggy and coming around.

Right now, the American economy is like a man who can’t wake up. Cap and Trade would be like a sleeping pill to that man. The Stimulus Bill was like a cup of coffee or a shot of epinephrine—a stimulant to wake him.

Cap and Trade is like a sleeping pill that would suck away his vital energy.

Second, in order to invest in, and build, energy alternatives, there has to be a venture capital and investment banking, and regular banking systems, in place. Today, those systems are impaired, crippled or functioning at about half capacity. Consequently, Cap and Trade can’t work under today’s economic conditions. Consequently, no infrastructure would develop under Cap and Trade to produce renewable energy alternatives until the banking and lending systems come back on line.

All we’ll have is a tax that makes oil and gas and coal more expensive, but no alternatives will develop for many years yet, due to the impairments of the banking, VC and R & D systems.

Third, even if the banking, VC and R & D systems were perfect, there is no energy alternative that could come on line sooner than ten years from today to replace current oil, gas and coal based consumption.

Wind and solar currently provide less than 1% of current energy needs; energy needs keep GROWING at an exponential rate, if you include the third world, and none of the so-called renewable energy forms are anywhere close to being ready to assume more than a micro-share of the energy load, whether we’re talking about wind, solar, geothermal, capturing energy from ocean waves, and so forth.

It’s been fifty plus years since the hydrogen bomb, but no one has yet developed and sustained a fusion reaction that can last and power an energy generating plant. That technology seems as remote as the so-called “WARP” engines on the starship Enterprise on STAR TREK.

That leaves us with one, and only one realistic alternative, and that is nuclear power plants. They are tanned, rested and ready, and the newest generation of nukes have much higher capacity factors and higher safety factors than ever before.

The problem with nukes is, you still need about two billion dollars to build a single plant, about 3-4 years to get the necessary permits to build a plant in the U.S. and another 3-4 years to build the plant and get it on line.

That’s 6-8 years and two billion dollars to get each plant on line, and most of the two billion dollars will have to be absorbed by the consumer in electricity costs. Let’s figure that we build fifty of those plants—that’s a hundred billion dollars in construction costs alone that have to be absorbed back again by means of utility bills to the consumer over the next ten-twenty years. That’s on top of the cap and trade tax costs.

In short, it’s a very expensive proposition to jettison oil, gas and coal.

It’s too bad that the United States didn’t commit to a nukes policy back in 1955, when nuclear power was cheap and we could have covered the US with nuclear power plants for a fraction of the cost of today.

If we had committed to such a policy then, we could have been completely independent of Middle Eastern Oil as of 1970.

Even as late as 1975, we still could have committed to nukes for a fraction of today’s costs, and been independent of Middle Eastern Oil by the 1990s.

However, the wacky left and particularly eco-wacky californians, continuously opposed nuclear power in this country for decades. Nuclear power could have given us full independence from the Middle East a long, long time ago, and spared us these last two wars in Iraq and Kuwait.

The problems we face today are a consequence of our leaders living life as if we can’t shape the future. But we can and must shape the future.

The future is not shaped by dice rolling or by random events. The future is shaped by decisions we make and by policies we need to hew to in order to shape the probabilities and likelihoods of the future outcomes to be.

A responsible United States Government would have made us one hundred percent reliant on nuclear energy for our power production as soon as humanly possible, once we unlocked the secrets of the atom, back in the 1950s.

Our failures to do so may have been the result of many causes, and I won’t speculate here on the role of the oil and gas companies, the so-called, Seven Sisters, and their multinational interests linked to Middle Eastern oil producing states, but clearly nuclear energy would have a lot cheaper over the last sixty years than two wars fought directly by the US in the Middle East, and five wars fought by proxy between Israel and the oil-producing states.

Had we eliminated oil dependence early by committing to the atom, we would have changed history decisively and for the better.

Cap and Trade is not the answer.

A federally-sponsored program of accelerated conversion to Nuclear Powered electric generation, followed by a fifty to one hundred year phase in of solar, wind and fusion power, is the answer.

All electric companies should be abolished in favor of one company modeled and based on the Tennessee Valley Authority, that will erect Nukes until the United States is 100% nuclear based electric power, and zero percent coal or oil.

Combing this with a program of converting all cars to electric power would also solve another problem as well. This is clearly doable in the next five-ten years.

This is the kind of program that would involve spending money on a specific problem, creating jobs, and stimulating the economy. It’s better than cap and trade because it puts dollars into the economy instead of taking them out. Also, it federalizes the utilities, which do a horrible job.

Finally, the electric grid needs to be updated using superconductors and the latest electric technologies, including quantum conductors and new metals to conduct electricity. With superconductors, electricity can be sent from location to location without any loss of power or current. This would eliminate the need for transformers and high voltage lines, etc. Again, a vast federal program committed to upgrading the grid is needed.

These steps would be much better than cap and trade.

A final note about cars–Why do Obama and the Democrats want to prop up the car industry if they are truly worried about Global Warming? Cars contribute more than 50% of the hydrocarbon emissions in the US that contribute to global warming.

Instead of paying consumers a $4,000 tax credit to buy new cars with high gas mileage, wouldn’t it make more sense to get people to STOP DRIVING CARS AND TAKE MASS TRANSIT?

In short,

1) Let the U.S. Auto Industry DIE.

2) Put an enormous carbon tax on all car purchases. Make any new car cost around $50,000 to buy.

3) Apply that tax backwards to used cars as well.

4) Massively subsidize AMTRAK and all local mass transit across the nation, and let people ride the trains and Mass Transit free for the next five years. Yes, I said it, FREE OF CHARGE for the next five years. Why? To get them used to doing it. The massive federal stimulus bill to build rail, subway, light rail throughout the US would be in the TRILLIONS of dollars, as well as to subsidize AMTRAK everywhere so it’s FREE OF CHARGE. That would be a net STIMULUS to the economy and create the world’s finest light and heavy rail systems. We could also finally build HIGH SPEED RAIL SYSTEMS modeled on France, England and Japan to cover longer distances that could go 300-400 miles per hour, that could eliminate many shorter airplane routes, unclogging the skies of needless plane flight. This is a win, win, win plan. We get rid of filthy autos and planes and replace them with electric trains. And net net net create jobs.

5) Starting in 2014, you can slowly re-introduce fees again for Mass Transit and AMTRAK once we’ve started to eliminate all of the automobiles.

6) Start reclaiming the inner cities by closing roads and creating pedestrian zones and mass-transit zones, and creating more and more parks in which no cars can come into the city, until finally, all cities will have no cars or trucks at all.

7) The goal would be to eliminate cars and trucks by 2025, and convert everyone to mass transit and rail.

8) Electric cars only would be allowed eventually, powered by the nuclear grid. These would be cheap and affordable.

This is a far reaching and thoughtful plan. Abolish the internal combustion engine as we know it and force all americans out of their cars and onto trains, buses, subways and light rail.

This is the true path to ending global warming and reaching a green economy.

Art Kyriazis
Philly/South Jersey
Home of the World Champion Phillies
up

THE PHILLIES BULLPEN COMES UP BIG IN COLORADO

The Phillies are very early on in their season, but already the Bullpen is a huge strength for them.

On Saturday, Brett Myers gave them seven innings, giving up a few solo homers and around four runs, but the pen shut down Colorado the rest of the way, and Madsen and Lidge were again perfect as the Phillies won 8-4 after initially being behind 2-0.

People who think Brett Myers should be better than this have a fundamental misunderstanding about Brett Myers. Brett Myers’ career statistics are, that he will strike out about as many hitters as he pitches innings; that he will give up about 30 homers a year; and his ERA adjusted will be around 3.99, or around 4.00. On Saturday, he struck out 6, walked one, gave up four hits, three homers, but threw 66 strikes out of 102 pitches. In Coors Field, that was a GREAT pitching performance.

Considering how great the Phillies offense and bullpen is, that’s good enough to win. Any starter for the Phillies who gives them six or more innings and holds the other team to four or fewer runs is doing enough for the phils to win–last year they averaged better than five runs a game, scoring almost 900 runs.

On Sunday, Chan Ho Park, who I wrote in this blog should not be starting (I said it should be JA Happ) gave up five runs in less than four innings, and had to be pulled early. That was NOT a good enough starting job. I do not believe Park has what it takes to be a starter anymore.

However, the Phils bullpen, and Chad Durbin in particular, came up huge and shut down the Rockies completely–Durbin, Eyre, Condrey, Madsen (who picked up the win) and Lidge (who picked up yet another save) did not allow a run through almost six full innings, shutting the Rockies down as the Phillies mounted a seven run comeback capped off by Utley’s two run shot in the 8th and Stair’s pinch-hit two run bomb in the 9th to win the game.

At this point, with Cole Hamels basically only lobbing the ball and about to go on the shelf, Joe Blanton yet to pitch a decent game, Jamie Moyer having thrown a horrible first game, Chan Ho Park having pitched dreadfully, the Phillies still find themselves 3-3, and having won one series after losing the first.

Moreover, they got to Atlanta’s bullpen to win a big third game against Atlanta; and they destroyed Colorado’s bullpen in successive games.

In the meantime, the Phillies’ own bullpen didn’t allow any runs to either Atlanta or Colorado during those three comeback wins.

If you think about this, it’s a HUGE advantage to know that three innings into a game, even if you’re five runs down, your bullpen can come in and hold the other team at bay, and still give you a chance to come back and win.

It basically means, the Phillies are never out of any game, unless the other team scores like ten runs–and even then they’re not out of it, as they showed against Atlanta, coming back to score twelve runs to win.

The Phillies are currently 7th in the NL in runs scored–but 14th in runs allowed. Last year they were 3d in the NL in both categories.

They need to do basically two or three things to get everything turned around for April.

1) Sit Cole Hamels down for all of April. Give him the month off. Let him go to Reading or Allentown and work on getting his speed up to major league level. After all, he worked an extra month last year. The man earned a month off.

2) Let JA Happ into the rotation. The man is a strikeout machine waiting to start. Six foot six lefthanders should not be in the bullpen. He’s currently sitting on a .700 WHIP and a 3/1 strikeout to walk ratio. The man can pitch.

3) It’s ok for Chan Ho Park to be the 5th starter in April, because you can skip a lot of his starts due to the schedule and off days. Happ should be the 4th starter. Or you can vary it up depending on whether the team you’re facing has a lot of lefties (start Happ) or a lot of righties (start Park). If you’re on the west coast, it’s ok to start Park, he’s effective in Dodger Stadium, the Padres’ Park or the Giants’ Park.

4) Everyone of the Phillies is off to a hot offensive start, except for Jimmy Rollins, who is off to a very slow start. I would consider resting him and giving him a day off, and starting Bruntlett. Rollins is another guy who played an extra month last year, and then played in the World Baseball Classic. Rollins looks tired, and is not hitting like Jimmy Rollins. Rollins right now has an OPS of under .300, which is pathetic, and he looked like he was late on a lot of pitches on Sunday, fouling them off to left or popping them up, instead of pulling them to right as he customarily does. If the Phils are facing any lefties, start Bruntlett, and give Rollins a day off from time to time, and a day off once a week until he’s rested again. The man was the MVP in the league in 2007, but he’s not indestructible.

5) Chase Utley and Jayson Werth now have OPS over 1.000, and Utley at 1.275. They are on fire. Ryan Howard is hitting over .300 and OPS of .843, and had a huge bases loaded double over the weekend that just missed being a grand slam. Most important, Pedro Felize looks GREAT at the plate–he’s hitting .368, with an OBA of .435 and a Slugging Average of .526, for an OPS of .926–he’s off to a terrific start.

6) Pedro Feliz FEEDS off the lefties that teams are throwing at the Phils, and has turned into a very productive hitter. He’s learned to relax and stroke the ball up the middle or to left, and occasionally jerk the ball into the left field seats. He’s a confident, experienced hitter and a terrific glove man. The Phillies have themselves an excellent third baseman.

7) Chris Coste is NOT off to a good start. I’d like to see the Phils give their rookie catcher up from Allentown a start or two to see what he can do, although what they really need is Carlos Ruiz back.

8) They might need to look around for another backup catcher. Coste was a 34 year old rookie. He may be showing signs of age related decline, or he might just be off to a slow start.

In any event, to summarize, the Phils I thought had a good week. And they get to go to the White House tomorrow to be congratulated!

World Champions!

–art kyriazis
Philly/NJ
Home of the World Champion Phillies

REPLY TO BLOG BY PROF. KARLAN ON BRIAN LEITER’S BLOG

I read with interest the following post by Prof. Pamela Karlan to Brian Leiter’s Law School Reports Blog at

http://leiterlawschool.typepad.com/leiter/2006/04/high_gpas_at_to.html:

April 19, 2006
High Undergraduate GPAs at Top Law Schools: What Do They Mean and What Are Their Consequences for Legal Education?

Pamela Karlan, a distinguished expert on voting rights and civil procedure at Stanford Law School, writes:

I read, with both interest and a fair amount of distress, the 75th percentile LSAT rankings. The distress came from seeing the staggering 75th percentile GPAs.

These could reflect at least three states of the world, two of them unfortunate. First, and most optimistically, the 40 schools on your list could all be admitting kids with amazing undergraduate academic achievements. (A 3.96 means, for example a student with 34A’s and 2 B+’s as an undergraduate; a 3.85 could mean half A’s and half A-’s.)

Second, the GPA’s could reflect rampant grade inflation at undergraduate institutions. Leave aside the abstract debate over whether the current generation of students is so much abler than its predecessors that good students should never see a grade below A- or B+. Most law schools have mandatory means or curves, and I’m aware of none where that mean is over around 3.4. (Even at the schools that don’t have official means, I would guess the actual mean is no higher than that.) Thus, virtually all law students will have lower, substantially lower, GPA’s in law school than they had in college. (E.g., at my own institution, 25% of the students had GPAs equivalent to what the number 1 student in the normal graduating class is likely to have.) This drop has a number of unfortunate consequences. Many of us are familiar with a huge demoralization effect the day first-semester grades come out and people who’ve been told all their lives that they are “A’s” at everything that’s measured hear for the first time that they’re “B’s.” They give up, and simply float through the remaining five semesters. Many have a self-protective defensive reaction: if the law doesn’t love them, then they distance themselves from it. In addition, at law schools where there are course-selection strategies that allow students to manipulate their GPA’s, students are then drawn not to taking what’s good or useful for them, but rather what’s most likely to boost their GPAs back toward the range they’ve internalized as normal. The high UGPAs mean that many of our students have never really learned to bounce back from academic disappointment (the “C” I got my first semester of college is one of the best things that ever happened to me) and like learning to ride a bicycle, it’s harder to learn that the older you get.

Third, to get those astronomical UGPA’s, students necessarily had to be either (a) extraordinary across the board for their entire undergraduate career (the student who bombs the first year of college because she wasn’t yet ready for the work or who was planning to be a physicist before he realized he didn’t have the mathematical ability can’t get one of these sky-high GPAs) or (b) strategic and risk-averse, taking only the kinds of courses in which they’d get A’s, from the time they were 17 or 18 years old. I’d bet it’s more the latter than the former. One of the things I always though the U.S. had over many other advanced countries was that we didn’t expect students to specialize in only what they were good at when they were still teenagers. But in order to get a 3.9 UGPA, students really can’t take things well outside their comparative advantages. Many of us see the consequences of this in what our students do: they’re passive and non-entrepreneurial in their job choices, going to large firms not because that practice particularly attracts them, but because it seems less “risky” right out of law school than going to smaller firms or government jobs. Many of them haven’t exercised their intellectual imaginations in years. Many are in fact not particularly well educated, since the science majors took few writing courses, the humanities people took perhaps one semester of economics and flee any quantitative subject, and the social and hard scientists know no American (let alone world) history at all.

Now, of course, we’re talking here only about the 75th percentile. Perhaps we could find the students who are comfortable with risk, entrepreneurial, academically and intellectually adventurous, and resilient among the other three-quarters of the class. But even the 25th percentile at top 20 schools have staggering UGPAs. And that sets the tone for the student body.

I’m not sure, as long as US News drives so much of the world, that there’s anything to be done. But it’s frustrating if what we’re trying to do is to train imaginative, entrepreneurial, courageous, resilient lawyers with broad perspectives that one of the central criteria for admitting students undermines our chances of doing that.

(end of Prof. Karlan’s comments).

Now I actually knew Pam growing up–she was one of a circle of debaters I knew who grew up debating in connecticut (she went to Hopkins Grammar School and then to Yale) and she’s enjoyed a great deal of success as a law school academic, although she’s way too liberal for my tastes (what law school academic isn’t liberal?).

On the plus side, I don’t think she’s a communist, but if she is, i’m not down with that at all.

My father fought those jerks in the greek civil war, and they were rat bastards, the communists. I can’t believe the democrats are actually meeting with castro in cuba right now.

Anyway, here were my comments in reply to her post:

An addendum to the comment above on grade inflation and test scores.

1) it is well-known that the ETS re-normed the SATS, LSATs, GREs and MCATs at least one standard deviation approximately sixteen years ago. Consequently, our generation of the 1970s and 1980s had a mean on the SAT and other standardized tests that was one standardized deviation higher than the current generation of students–our IQ in short, averaged around 100, while theirs literally averages 85. If you pin the bell curve tail on the donkey, that makes the top 1/2 % of the current generation dumber than the top five % of the previous generation.

So the students aren’t getting smarter, they’re getting dumber. That’s what renorming the test means.

I worked teaching all of the standardized tests for more than twenty years and wrote the pilot materials for the LSAT for Princeton Review in the early 1990s.

2) Grade inflation ain’t so except in the courses where professors are giving easy grades. At colleges that are conservative like Drexel, William and Mary, Hamilton, and so forth, grades are given out fairly and with rigor. It’s at some of the humanities departments that standards have fallen, and as certain classics and history professors have noted, along with scholarship–you can hardly find an actual greek, latin or byzantine professor today in a major ivy league university. When I visited Harvard, Prof. Finley was lecturing on Ancient Athens. Today, you’re more likely to hear some humanities teacher deconstructing gender based issues in some unknown text from last week, or worse still, deconstructing something from the internet.

3) TV, the internet, cellphones and laptops have definitively made current law students stupider. They don’t know how to write, they don’t know how to read books, and their research skills are shallow and poor. Most important, they lack the skill of memorization. I used to know where every single book was in certain law libraries, just as I knew where they were in huge undergrad libraries for years. That was a lot more useful skill than Boolean searches, which are not a thorough method of seeking out facts unless you already know the subject matter at hand.

4) Westlaw and Lexis led us to the horror that is Google.

5) Google is driving the book and newspaper out of existence, leading us to a famous Asimov short story of science fiction in which (in the near future) everyone forgets how to read and do math because computers do it for us–until a nuclear war destroys the machines and we become helpless, until one day a boy re-discovers how to do math by hand, and is proclaimed a genius.

This is the orwellian place we are all headed.

In addition to the foregoing comments, I would have also pointed out that Prof. Karlan’s basic point is wrong.

She assumes that students get high grades in college, and then come to Stanford Law and get lower grades because the competition is tougher.

This is actually ass backwards. I know Pam from when she was 18 and kicking back beers at college debate tournaments, so I know she likes to pontificate without factual basis from time to time, so here are some facts;

1) except for the top ten law schools, most law school applicants don’t have a 3.90 GPA or a very high LSAT. The vast majority of law students and lawyers are trained at 2d, 3d and 4th quartile schools as rated by US News and World Report rankings, or at local state law schools. Those students make up the vast majority of the bar.

2) students who go to Stanford, Yale, Harvard law schools only rarely practice law in the “real”world. They usually become law professors, judges, politicians etc. or work for rarified law firms. It’s unusual to see these folks work with actual clients or appear in actual courtrooms. Pam is a perfect example of this. She’s spent her life in the classroom, not in the real world.

3) Pam admits to getting a C or two at Yale, and I admit to that with Harvard. Because those schools were hard, back in the day. They were not easy, there was no grade inflation and the competition was brutal in most of the classes. Plus I was a premed on the side. So my GPA in college was nothing pretty, although it was definitely higher than a B average and i was recommended for honors, had a cum laude on my thesis and a summa on my general exam.

4) When I went to law school, after working a while, I thought it was MUCH EASIER than college. To be honest, I barely cracked a book open, worked forty hours a week at law firms collecting cold hard cash, and found the work at law school to be trivial. It was in law school that i got racks of As and only a couple of Bs. It was funny how many As I got. I won Am Jur Awards and Best Paper Awards (best grade in my class) every single semester I was in law school. It became like a joke how smart I was in law school, and yet, I really wasn’t working 1/8th as hard as I did in college.

Consequently, I don’t really know what Pam is talking about, not at all. My grades were disappointing to me in college but I worked my ass off to get them; but my grades in law school were terrific, and I hardly broke a sweat.

Next, as far as training law students to be imaginative, entrepreneurial or creative, I think that’s a deeply flawed and dangerous thing to do.

The last thing I as a businessman want my lawyer to be is creative, imaginative or entrepreneurial. I want my lawyer to be a lawyer, that is, an unimaginative little nebbish who grinds out papers and hands them to my enemy at 5pm on friday afternoon, or gets deals done by smiling and being at peace and harmony with everyone in the bar.

Creativity, imagination and entrepreneurship, I’m afraid, is reserved for the Schumpeterians of the world, that is to say, the guys at Business School, and that’s why Wharton has a Center for Entrepreneurship, and why I and my colleagues at various Business Schools teach Entrepreneurship, Innovation and Creativity at Business Schools around the North east directly, rather than teaching the stultifying subject of law. Law by its nature cannot be innovative, because it is precedential and must be followed to the letter of the law; whereas an inventor or entrepreneur is not bound by precedent and can be innovative.

I actually find Pam’s notion of what a good lawyer is to be incomprehensible. A good lawyer should be boring, ethical and should be able to repeat a statute from front to back thirty times in a row. Not creative, not innovative, not entrepreneurial, but efficient like a swiss army knife or a swiss watch. Efficiency and practice make for good lawyering. Also long hours spent learning how to write briefs exactly like everyone else writes them. The last thing you want to do in a brief is to introduce anything new, creative or innovative. Judges hate that. They just want you to follow the 8,000 appellate rules they’ve set forth for how to write the brief.

Good lawyers, then, are basically automatons. Clever and hard working automatons, but robots, essentially. In another century, they will in fact be replaced by AI possessing machines for many of their tasks, I predict. They’re already being outsourced to India for much of their robotic work such as document discovery, which was once thought to require intelligence and training. See my point?

Whereas good businessmen are creative, innovative and entrepreneurial.

5) A logic, rhetoric, oratory, philosophy background gets you through law school very easily; math and science make it trivial. All law problems are basically logic puzzles, and all law essays are basically debate/oratory speeches made in a philsophy manner of analyzing each question from both sides. This was perfectly normal to me. Undergrad teachers kept trying to make a marxist out of me, so they didn’t like my impartiality. Law professors loved it.

6) Law exams are graded without your name on the paper. No favoritism can creep into the grading. Undergrad is rife with favoritism and bias towards certain undergrads that the professors play favorites towards.

7) My friend NS who went to school with Pam at Yale thought Stanford Law was a joke after Yale undergrad; he thought it was a vacation. We used to get together frequently in Cali and hang out. He never seemed to work too hard.

8) My friend DB who went to harvard with me and then to Stanford Med thought Stanford Law was a joke after harvard undergrad and stanford med. He worked 40 hours at a top patent firm and saved all his money. Again, he had plenty of free time, he hardly worked at law school.

9) Law Schools should require all incoming students to study the following;

semester of logic, semster of intro to western philosophy
semester of oratory/rhetoric/speech
do two semesters of competitive speech/rhetoric/debate/parli
do two semesters of mock trial
spend a summer working at a law firm
spend a summer working at legal aid
spend a summer working for a judge
spend two years minimum working in business or somewhere between college and law school. The armed forces would be the best of all.
give preferential admission to army veterans, ROTC and reservists and end their anti-military culture.
sharply curtail the number of attorneys taking the bar nationally. End all state bars and apply one national bar, and only pass around 5,000 persons into it annually, and make them travel to one of three reginal centers nationally to take the exam, such as SF, CA, Chicago and New York, and only give the exam once a year.
Require proficiency in Spanish for ALL attorneys, since Spanish is required to speak to most clients on both coasts.

10) Science and business grad school were much more challenging and interesting than law school or undergrad. I would NEVER recommend to my own children to attend law school, maybe take a law class in business school, but not attend law school. The best combination out there today is the MD-MBA combined program, which I think is ideal in today’s economy.

These are some of the practical changes I would make to the legal eduction process.

I would probably close all but a handful of the existing law schools in the united states. Or, perhaps, people could obtain law degrees for reasons other than being a lawyer–for academic or scholarly purposes, as in europe, but not to be a lawyer or to make money. I’d convert a lot of the programs to MBA programs, actually.

we have way too many lawyers in this country and we need to reform the legal profession, reform tort law, and sharply regulate the profession before it drives all of the doctors, drug makers and other competent businessmen out of this country for good.

One final note, and this is about Pam’s constitutional law book, which she authored with Cass Sunstein, Mark & Rebecca Tushnet, Louis Seidman & Geoffrey Stone. This casebook has been ranked one out of five stars by nearly everyone who ranked it on Amazon dot com. I happen to be a fan of Pam, of Cass Sunstein (except for his dumping Martha Nussbaum, who I’m a bigger fan of, for that stupid Irish younger woman professor at Harvard who’s the big Obama fan) and I really am a big fan of Mark and Rebecca Tushnet–Rebecca was one of Harvard’s best debaters ever in the 1990s–and Mark is a very smart guy–but apparently brains doesn’t mean you can write a casebook as good as Larry Tribe’s.

Here’s a sample comment from Amazon dot com;

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars Terrible Casebook, December 13, 2008
By kiki (Baltimore, MD) – See all my reviews
It’s a casebook, so it’s not supposed to be great reading, but this one is by far the worst casebook I’ve ever had. The only thing a casebook needs to do to achieve mediocrity is contain cases. This doesn’t, not really. It gives you the cliff’s notes of important cases. One sentence blurbs about others. And pages and pages of rambling, aimless, academic debate. It may be a good book for Con Law professors and others who have already read all of the cases discussed. For someone trying to learn con law, it is useless. It is also organized very poorly. Any class organized around this book is doomed from the start. If your professor uses this book, take another class. If you can’t take another class, buy the Chemerinsky treatise and rely on that instead. Professors: DO NOT USE THIS BOOK.

Constitutional Law (Casebook)

the website address is above, if you want to check out the remarks and the book yourself. Perhaps there will be a revised edition. I realize that Pam writes and talks a lot. As I said, part of her strength, and her weakness, is that she talks and writes too much, and perhaps she spreads herself a little thin.

When I was a litigator, I litigated civil rights matters in the trenches, and won them. It’s not as hard as it seems. You need to have a firm grasp of the history of the United States from 1776 through about 1900 to understand the reconstruction and civil war era, in order to make some sense of what the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments mean.

I actually think Justice Scalia had some pertinent remarks on US v. Cruikshank in the recent gun rights case. He noted that the US Supreme Court in that 1874 case took the right of bearing arms away from african american militia men under the second amendment, because of white supremacist views which were going on at the time. the dispute was that armed militias of african americans and republicans were fighting ku klux klansmen in Mississippi and elsewhere in the south, and the african american plaintiffs claimed a second amendment right to bear arms as a militia.

The US Supreme Court said no, that’s only a federal right against the federal government, not against the states, ignoring incorporation under the 14th amendment.

Scalia basically says now that Cruikshank was wrong, and that african americans had the right to arm themselves as a militia in 1874 and defend themselves against the Klan in the 1870s.

I think that’s an interesting point of view. Of course, an armchair liberal like Karlan would never consider that Scalia would have anything interesting to say.

But here at the Sophist, we think there are two sides to every question.

–art kyriazis
philly/nj home of the world champion phillies

–art kyriazis

HAPPY EASTER AND PASSOVER TO ALL

I wanted to wish a Happy Easter and a Happy Passover to all.

There’s an old joke, that goes something like this. A liberal is arguing with a conservative about the death penalty. Finally, exasperated, the conservative says to the liberal, “of course I’m in favor of the death penalty–without the death penalty, there’d be no Easter and no Easter Bunny!”

While this is an awful joke, it does remain true that in the two major capital punishment trials that we know about in history, Socrates and Jesus, as best we know, both were wrongfully convicted and sentenced to death. I won’t even get to the OJ trial, although as we all know, the glove didn’t fit and they had to acquit.

Obviously Socrates and Jesus could have used Johnny Cochran as their lawyer.

Socrates on dying, was reputed to have said something like, I die, you live, god knows who is going to the better place. Those of us who are religious of course believe that death brings us closer to a better place indeed, but Socrates provides a flash of insight that this short life is not the only one, that there is a spiritual and inner life that transcends death. Religion ministers to the soul, or at least to our conception of the soul, and consequently it is a vital part of our lives.

The Passover story about Moses leading the chosen people out of bondage and out of Egypt is a great story, as well as being an integral part of the old testament. “Exodus” is actually ancient greek for “Exothos” or “Exit” or “Leaving”. It’s the title of the book from the Ancient Greek Septuagint. The entire point of Exodus is the story of the Chosen People Leaving, “Exothos”, from Egypt and their bondage. God frees them from slavery and bondage through Moses and a series of miracles, each one greater than the last, which are celebrated each and every Passover.

It is such an important story because it gives hope to every oppressed peoples that God will redeem every one in bondage, free them and lead them to their own Promised Land. When Martin Luther King spoke of reaching the Promised Land, it was the Passover Story he was referring to. He didn’t need to explain that to his listeners, many of whom were careful Bible readers. The African-Americans of this country understood about bondage, redemption, and being led out of bondage and to the Promised Land.

On this Passover, we should think about these matters in considering President Obama, a man who has the potential to unite many different elements of society, and perhaps finally lead a people to the Promised Land. All oppressed peoples the world over hearken to the story of Exodus.

I’ve always had a strong faith in God and I don’t doubt God’s existence. Recently there’s been a spate of books and articles by respected scholars advocating atheism and the non-existence of God. I find this to be an awful waste of scholarly time, and especially of taxpayer and endowment money. Isn’t there something important these guys should be doing on our nickel?

Richard Dawkins, who once wrote a book called “The Selfish Gene,” is one of these. He used to teach at Harvard, now teaches in England, and appears to enjoy bashing God and religion in his books. Dawkins used to be a capable biologist. In his old age, he’s turned into a menacing crank who hates old ladies who go to church and pray to the saints and God for the memories of their dead husbands.

How mean can you possible get?

You might call him “The Selfish Dean” because he really seems only to care about himself. Is this what tenure breeds? Idiotic books about atheism? Pushed on us by editors and publishing houses?

Belief in God is a personal matter, but it also means a commitment to others, and to doing things for others, without considering the personal benefit to yourself. Sitting around the table at Easter, at Seder, at any family gathering, we give thanks to our creator and Lord for family, for health, for happiness. I can’t imagine a life without God or without prayer, a life without church or without friends from church or the church community.

I’ve looked at Dawkins’ books on atheism. They are poorly written, poorly argued, and basically are rants.

It’s not a careful argument.

A careful argument, for example, would be Aquinas’ Summa Contra Gentiles, or Martin Luther’s 95 Theses against the Catholic Church, or John Calvin’s immense work of theology criticizing the Roman Catholic Church and setting forth the tenets of Calvinism.

Those are careful and thoughtful books, which make their cases carefully, point by point.

Dawkins’ books by contrast are awful and poorly researched and poorly written. It’s embarassing to see a professor publish such awful work. Especially when he was able while younger to write such a good book on biology as “The Selfish Gene.” It’s readily apparent Dawkins’ writing and intellectual skills have sharply declined with age.

But assuming that Dawkins (and any of these other atheists) has/have any rational or reasonable points to make, I’d like to refute them with Pascal’s Wager, for one. I think Dawkins is already refuted by the Transcendental a priori arguments of Kant for God’s existence, but Blaise Pascal made a classic probability argument which is, in fact, irrefutable on mathematical and utility grounds, for God’s existence.

Pascal said you should believe in God, because if you did, even if there was only a 1 in a million chance of his existence, the benefits would be eternal salvation, whereas if you denied Him, the possible harm would be eternal damnation.

Consequently, it’s a lot like the nuclear calculus–the benefits are so great, that even if there’s only a slight chance of God existing, it’s worth going all in on God. If you win, you get eternal salvation forever. (the nukes argument goes like, if there’s a one in a million chance of starting World War III, the harm is so great, you have to avoid it, because it’s nuclear winter and the death of mankind, so the policy can’t be adopted).

If you lose the wager, you burn in hell forever. I kind of envision Dawkins burning in a really hot part of hell, by the way. The part where they keep Bernie Madoff, child molesters, child molesting catholic priests and every single convicted defendant whose story was the real basis for the plot line of a LAW AND ORDER:SVU episode. Those stories are really pretty awful. This is a digression, but it’s hard to believe that’s Jayne Mansfield’s daughter in that show, by the way. Mariska Hargitay, emmy winning actress, now approximately in her mid-40s, and still very beautiful, is the daughter of Mickey Hargitay (a former Mr. Universe) and Jayne Mansfield, the 1950s starlet/sex bomb. I think you’d have to say that Mariska Hargitay has really had a solid acting career.

As for all of those who doubt God’s existence or lack faith in God, I give you an extended discusion of Pascal’s Wager from the Stanford Encylopaedia of Philosophy.

Pascal’s Wager
By Alan Hajek, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

“Pascal’s Wager” is the name given to an argument due to Blaise Pascal for believing, or for at least taking steps to believe, in God. The name is somewhat misleading, for in a single paragraph of his Pensées, Pascal apparently presents at least three such arguments, each of which might be called a ‘wager’ — it is only the final of these that is traditionally referred to as “Pascal’s Wager”. We find in it the extraordinary confluence of several strands in intellectual thought: the justification of theism; probability theory and decision theory, used here for almost the first time in history; pragmatism; voluntarism (the thesis that belief is a matter of the will); and the use of the concept of infinity.

We will begin with some brief stage-setting: some historical background, some of the basics of decision theory, and some of the exegetical problems that the Pensées pose. Then we will follow the text to extract three main arguments. The bulk of the literature addresses the third of these arguments, as will the bulk of our discussion here. Some of the more technical and scholarly aspects of our discussion will be relegated to lengthy footnotes, to which there are links for the interested reader. All quotations are from §233 of Pensées (1910, Trotter translation), the ‘thought’ whose heading is “Infinite—nothing”.
• 1. Background
• 2. The Argument from Superdominance
• 3. The Argument from Expectation
• 4. The Argument from Generalized Expectations: “Pascal’s Wager”
• 5. Objections to Pascal’s Wager
• Bibliography
• Other Internet Resources
• Related Entries

1. Background
It is important to contrast Pascal’s argument with various putative ‘proofs’ of the existence of God that had come before it. Anselm’s ontological argument, Aquinas’ ‘five ways’, Descartes’ ontological and cosmological arguments, and so on, purport to give a priori demonstrations that God exists. Pascal is apparently unimpressed by such attempted justifications of theism: “Endeavour … to convince yourself, not by increase of proofs of God…” Indeed, he concedes that “we do not know if He is …”. Pascal’s project, then, is radically different: he seeks to provide prudential reasons for believing in God. To put it crudely, we should wager that God exists because it is the best bet. Ryan 1994 finds precursors to this line of reasoning in the writings of Plato, Arnobius, Lactantius, and others; we might add Ghazali to his list — see Palacios 1920. But what is distinctive is Pascal’s explicitly decision theoretic formulation of the reasoning. In fact, Hacking 1975 describes the Wager as “the first well-understood contribution to decision theory” (viii). Thus, we should pause briefly to review some of the basics of that theory.

In any decision problem, the way the world is, and what an agent does, together determine an outcome for the agent. We may assign utilities to such outcomes, numbers that represent the degree to which the agent values them. It is typical to present these numbers in a decision matrix, with the columns corresponding to the various relevant states of the world, and the rows corresponding to the various possible actions that the agent can perform.

In decisions under uncertainty, nothing more is given — in particular, the agent does not assign subjective probabilities to the states of the world. Still, sometimes rationality dictates a unique decision nonetheless. Consider, for example, a case that will be particularly relevant here. Suppose that you have two possible actions, A1 and A2, and the worst outcome associated with A1 is at least as good as the best outcome associated with A2; suppose also that in at least one state of the world, A1′s outcome is strictly better than A2′s. Let us say in that case that A1 superdominates A2. Then rationality surely requires you to perform A1.

In decisions under risk, the agent assigns subjective probabilities to the various states of the world. Assume that the states of the world are independent of what the agent does. A figure of merit called the expected utility, or the expectation of a given action can be calculated by a simple formula: for each state, multiply the utility that the action produces in that state by the state’s probability; then, add these numbers. According to decision theory, rationality requires you to perform the action of maximum expected utility (if there is one).

Example. Suppose that the utility of money is linear in number of dollars: you value money at exactly its face value. Suppose that you have the option of paying a dollar to play a game in which there is an equal chance of returning nothing, and returning three dollars. The expectation of the game itself is

0*(1/2) + 3*(1/2) = 1.5,

so the expectation of paying a dollar for certain, then playing, is

-1 + 1.5 = 0.5.

This exceeds the expectation of not playing (namely 0), so you should play. On the other hand, if the game gave an equal chance of returning nothing, and returning two dollars, then its expectation would be:

0*(1/2) + 2*(1/2) = 1.

Then consistent with decision theory, you could either pay the dollar to play, or refuse to

play, for either way your overall expectation would be 0.

Considerations such as these will play a crucial role in Pascal’s arguments. It should be admitted that there are certain exegetical problems in presenting these arguments. Pascal never finished the Pensées, but rather left them in the form of notes of various sizes pinned together. Hacking 1972 describes the “Infinite—nothing” as consisting of “two pieces of paper covered on both sides by handwriting going in all directions, full of erasures, corrections, insertions, and afterthoughts” (24).[1] This may explain why certain passages are notoriously difficult to interpret, as we will see. Furthermore, our formulation of the arguments in the parlance of modern Bayesian decision theory might appear somewhat anachronistic. For example, Pascal did not distinguish between what we would now call objective and subjective probability, although it is clear that it is the latter that is relevant to his arguments. To some extent, “Pascal’s Wager” now has a life of its own, and our presentation of it here is perfectly standard. Still, we will closely follow Pascal’s text, supporting our reading of his arguments as much as possible.

There is the further problem of dividing the Infinite-nothing into separate arguments. We will locate three arguments that each conclude that rationality requires you to wager for God, although they interleave in the text.[2] Finally, there is some disagreement over just what “wagering for God” involves — is it believing in God, or merely trying to? We will conclude with a discussion of what Pascal meant by this.

2. The Argument from Superdominance
Pascal maintains that we are incapable of knowing whether God exists or not, yet we must “wager” one way or the other. Reason cannot settle which way we should incline, but a consideration of the relevant outcomes supposedly can. Here is the first key passage:

“God is, or He is not.”

But to which side shall we incline? Reason can decide nothing here. There is an infinite chaos which separated us. A game is being played at the extremity of this infinite distance where heads or tails will turn up… Which will you choose then? Let us see. Since you must choose, let us see which interests you least. You have two things to lose, the true and the good; and two things to stake, your reason and your will, you knowledge and your happiness; and your nature has two things to shun, error and misery. Your reason is no more shocked in choosing one rather than the other, since you must of necessity choose… But your happiness? Let us weigh the gain and the loss in wagering that God is… If you gain, you gain all; if you lose, you lose nothing. Wager, then, without hesitation that He is.

There are exegetical problems already here, partly because Pascal appears to contradict himself. He speaks of “the true” as something that you can “lose”, and “error” as something “to shun”. Yet he goes on to claim that if you lose the wager that God is, then “you lose nothing”. Surely in that case you “lose the true”, which is just to say that you have made an error. Pascal believes, of course, that the existence of God is “the true” — but that is not something that he can appeal to in this argument. Moreover, it is not because “you must of necessity choose” that “your reason is no more shocked in choosing one rather than the other”. Rather, by Pascal’s own account, it is because “[r]eason can decide nothing here”. (If it could, then it might well be shocked — namely, if you chose in a way contrary to it.)

Following McClennen 1994, Pascal’s argument seems to be best captured as presenting the following decision matrix:
God exists God does not exist
Wager for God Gain all Status quo
Wager against God Misery Status quo

Wagering for God superdominates wagering against God: the worst outcome associated with wagering for God (status quo) is at least as good as the best outcome associated with wagering against God (status quo); and if God exists, the result of wagering for God is strictly better that the result of wagering against God.

(The fact that the result is much better does not matter yet.) Pascal draws the conclusion at this point that rationality requires you to wager for God.

Without any assumption about your probability assignment to God’s existence, the argument is invalid. Rationality does not require you to wager for God if you assign probability 0 to God existing. And Pascal does not explicitly rule this possibility out until a later passage, when he assumes that you assign positive probability to God’s existence; yet this argument is presented as if it is self-contained. His claim that “[r]eason can decide nothing here” may suggest that Pascal regards this as a decision under uncertainty, which is to assume that you do not assign probability at all to God’s existence. If that is a further premise, then the argument is valid; but that premise contradicts his subsequent assumption that you assign positive probability. See McClennen for a reading of this argument as a decision under uncertainty.

Pascal appears to be aware of a further objection to this argument, for he immediately imagines an opponent replying:

“That is very fine. Yes, I must wager; but I may perhaps wager too much.”

The thought seems to be that if I wager for God, and God does not exist, then I really do lose something. In fact, Pascal himself speaks of staking something when one wagers for God, which presumably one loses if God does not exist. (We have already mentioned ‘the true’ as one such thing; Pascal also seems to regard one’s worldly life as another.) In other words, the matrix is mistaken in presenting the two outcomes under ‘God does not exist’ as if they were the same, and we do not have a case of superdominance after all.
Pascal addresses this at once in his second argument, which we will discuss only briefly, as it can be thought of as just a prelude to the main argument.

3. The Argument From Expectation
He continues:

Let us see. Since there is an equal risk of gain and of loss, if you had only to gain two lives, instead of one, you might still wager. But if there were three lives to gain, you would have to play (since you are under the necessity of playing), and you would be imprudent, when you are forced to play, not to chance your life to gain three at a game where there is an equal risk of loss and gain. But there is an eternity of life and happiness.

His hypothetically speaking of “two lives” and “three lives” may strike one as odd. It is helpful to bear in mind Pascal’s interest in gambling (which after all provided the initial motivation for his study of probability) and to take the gambling model quite seriously here. Recall our calculation of the expectations of the two dollar and three dollar gambles. Pascal apparently assumes now that utility is linear in number of lives, that wagering for God costs “one life”, and then reasons analogously to the way we did! This is, as it were, a warm-up. Since wagering for God is rationally required even in the hypothetical case in which one of the prizes is three lives, then all the more it is rationally required in the actual case, in which one of the prizes is eternal life (salvation).

So Pascal has now made two striking assumptions:

(1) The probability of God’s existence is 1/2.

(2) Wagering for God brings infinite reward if God exists.

Morris 1994 is sympathetic to (1), while Hacking 1972 finds it “a monstrous premiss”. It apparently derives from the classical interpretation of probability, according to which all possibilities are given equal weight. Of course, unless more is said, the interpretation yields implausible, and even contradictory results. (You have a one-in-a-million chance of winning the lottery; but either you win the lottery or you don’t, so each of these possibilities has probability 1/2?!) Pascal’s best argument for (1) is presumably that “[r]eason can decide nothing here”. (In the lottery ticket case, reason can decide something.) But it is not clear that complete ignorance should be modeled as sharp indifference. In any case, it is clear that there are people in Pascal’s audience who do not assign probability 1/2 to God’s existence. This argument, then, does not speak to them.
However, Pascal realizes that the value of 1/2 actually plays no real role in the argument, thanks to (2). This brings us to the third, and by far the most important, of his arguments.

4. The Argument From Generalized Expectations: “Pascal’s Wager”
We continue the quotation.

But there is an eternity of life and happiness. And this being so, if there were an infinity of chances, of which one only would be for you, you would still be right in wagering one to win two, and you would act stupidly, being obliged to play, by refusing to stake one life against three at a game in which out of an infinity of chances there is one for you, if there were an infinity of an infinitely happy life to gain. But there is here an infinity of an infinitely happy life to gain, a chance of gain against a finite number of chances of loss, and what you stake is finite. It is all divided; wherever the infinite is and there is not an infinity of chances of loss against that of gain, there is no time to hesitate, you must give all…

Again this passage is difficult to understand completely. Pascal’s talk of winning two, or three, lives is at best misleading. By his own decision theoretic lights, you would not act stupidly “by refusing to stake one life against three at a game in which out of an infinity of chances there is one for you”—in fact, you should not stake more than an infinitesimal amount in that case (an amount that is bigger than 0, but smaller than every positive real number). The point, rather, is that the prospective prize is “an infinity of an infinitely happy life”.

In short, if God exists, then wagering for God results in infinite utility.

What about the utilities for the other possible outcomes? There is some dispute over the utility of “misery”. Hacking interprets this as “damnation”, and Pascal does later speak of “hell” as the outcome in this case. Martin 1983 among others assigns this a value of negative infinity. Sobel 1996, on the other hand, is one author who takes this value to be finite. There is some textual support for this reading: “The justice of God must be vast like His compassion. Now justice to the outcast is less vast … than mercy towards the elect”.

As for the utilities of the outcomes associated with God’s non-existence, Pascal tells us that “what you stake is finite”. This suggests that whatever these values are, they are finite.
Pascal’s guiding insight is that the argument from expectation goes through equally well whatever your probability for God’s existence is, provided that it is non-zero and finite (non-infinitesimal) — “a chance of gain against a finite number of chances of loss”.[3]

With Pascal’s assumptions about utilities and probabilities in place, he is now in a position to calculate the relevant expectations. He explains how the calculations should proceed:
… the uncertainty of the gain is proportioned to the certainty of the stake according to the proportion of the chances of gain and loss… [4]

Let us now gather together all of these points into a single argument. We can think of Pascal’s Wager as having three premises: the first concerns the decision matrix of rewards, the second concerns the probability that you should give to God’s existence, and the third is a maxim about rational decision-making. Specifically:
1. Either God exists or God does not exist, and you can either wager for God or wager against God. The utilities of the relevant possible outcomes are as follows, where f1, f2, and f3 are numbers whose values are not specified beyond the requirement that they be finite:

God exists God does not exist
Wager for God ∞ f1
Wager against God f2 f3

2. Rationality requires the probability that you assign to God existing to be positive, and not infinitesimal.

3. Rationality requires you to perform the act of maximum expected utility (when there is one).

4. Conclusion 1. Rationality requires you to wager for God.

5. Conclusion 2. You should wager for God.

We have a decision under risk, with probabilities assigned to the relevant ways the world could be, and utilities assigned to the relevant outcomes. The conclusion seems straightforwardly to follow from the usual calculations of expected utility (where p is your positive, non-infinitesimal probability for God’s existence):

E(wager for God) = ∞*p + f1*(1 − p) = ∞

That is, your expected utility of belief in God is infinite — as Pascal puts it, “our proposition is of infinite force”. On the other hand, your expected utility of wagering against God is

E(wager against God) = f2*p + f3*(1 − p)

This is finite.[5] By premise 3, rationality requires you to perform the act of maximum expected utility.

Therefore, rationality requires you to wager for God.

We now survey some of the main objections to the argument.

5. Objections to Pascal’s Wager
Premise 1: The Decision Matrix
Here the objections are manifold. Most of them can be stated quickly, but we will give special attention to what has generally been regarded as the most important of them, ‘the many Gods objection’ (see also the link to footnote 7).

1. Different matrices for different people.
The argument assumes that the same decision matrix applies to everybody. However, perhaps the relevant rewards are different for different people. Perhaps, for example, there is a predestined infinite reward for the Chosen, whatever they do, and finite utility for the rest, as Mackie 1982 suggests. Or maybe the prospect of salvation appeals more to some people than to others, as Swinburne 1969 has noted.
Even granting that a single 2 x 2 matrix applies to everybody, one might dispute the values that enter into it. This brings us to the next two objections.

2. The utility of salvation could not be infinite.
One might argue that the very notion of infinite utility is suspect — see for example Jeffrey 1983 and McClennen 1994.[6] Hence, the objection continues, whatever the utility of salvation might be, it must be finite. Strict finitists, who are chary of the notion of infinity in general, will agree — see Dummett 1978 and Wright 1987. Or perhaps the notion of infinite utility makes sense, but an infinite reward could only be finitely appreciated by a human being.

3. There should be more than one infinity in the matrix.
There are also critics of the Wager who, far from objecting to infinite utilities, want to see more of them in the matrix. For example, it might be thought that a forgiving God would bestow infinite utility upon wagerers-for and wagerers-against alike — Rescher 1985 is one author who entertains this possibility. Or it might be thought that, on the contrary, wagering against an existent God results in negative infinite utility. (As we have noted, some authors read Pascal himself as saying as much.) Either way, f2 is not really finite at all, but ∞ or -∞ as the case may be. And perhaps f1 and f3 could be ∞ or -∞. Suppose, for instance, that God does not exist, but that we are reincarnated ad infinitum, and that the total utility we receive is an infinite sum that does not converge.

4. The matrix should have more rows.
Perhaps there is more than one way to wager for God, and the rewards that God bestows vary accordingly. For instance, God might not reward infinitely those who strive to believe in Him only for the very mercenary reasons that Pascal gives, as James 1956 has observed. One could also imagine distinguishing belief based on faith from belief based on evidential reasons, and posit different rewards in each case.

6. The matrix should have more columns: the many Gods objection.
If Pascal is really right that reason can decide nothing here, then it would seem that various other theistic hypotheses are also live options. Pascal presumably had in mind the Catholic conception of God — let us suppose that this is the God who either ‘exists’ or ‘does not exist’. By excluded middle, this is a partition. The objection, then, is that the partition is not sufficiently fine-grained, and the ‘(Catholic) God does not exist’ column really subdivides into various other theistic hypotheses. The objection could equally run that Pascal’s argument ‘proves too much’: by parallel reasoning we can ‘show’ that rationality requires believing in various incompatible theistic hypotheses. As Diderot 1875-77 puts the point: “An Imam could reason just as well this way”.[7]

Since then, the point has been represented and refined in various ways. Mackie 1982 writes, “the church within which alone salvation is to be found is not necessarily the Church of Rome, but perhaps that of the Anabaptists or the Mormons or the Muslim Sunnis or the worshippers of Kali or of Odin” (203). Cargile 1966 shows just how easy it is to multiply theistic hypotheses: for each real number x, consider the God who prefers contemplating x more than any other activity. It seems, then, that such ‘alternative gods’ are a dime a dozen — or aleph one, for that matter.

Premise 2: The Probability Assigned to God’s Existence
There are four sorts of problem for this premise. The first two are straightforward; the second two are more technical, and can be found by following the link to footnote 8.
1. Undefined probability for God’s existence. Premise 1 presupposes that you should have a probability for God’s existence in the first place. However, perhaps you could rationally fail to assign it a probability — your probability that God exists could remain undefined. We cannot enter here into the thorny issues concerning the attribution of probabilities to agents. But there is some support for this response even in Pascal’s own text, again at the pivotal claim that “[r]eason can decide nothing here. There is an infinite chaos which separated us. A game is being played at the extremity of this infinite distance where heads or tails will turn up…” The thought could be that any probability assignment is inconsistent with a state of “epistemic nullity” (in Morris’ 1986 phrase): to assign a probability at all — even 1/2 — to God’s existence is to feign having evidence that one in fact totally lacks. For unlike a coin that we know to be fair, this metaphorical ‘coin’ is ‘infinitely far’ from us, hence apparently completely unknown to us. Perhaps, then, rationality actually requires us to refrain from assigning a probability to God’s existence (in which case at least the Argument from Superdominance would be valid). Or perhaps rationality does not require it, but at least permits it. Either way, the Wager would not even get off the ground.

2. Zero probability for God’s existence. Strict atheists may insist on the rationality of a probability assignment of 0, as Oppy 1990 among others points out. For example, they may contend that reason alone can settle that God does not exist, perhaps by arguing that the very notion of an omniscient, omnipotent, omnibenevolent being is contradictory. Or a Bayesian might hold that rationality places no constraint on probabilistic judgments beyond coherence (or conformity to the probability calculus). Then as long as the strict atheist assigns probability 1 to God’s non-existence alongside his or her assignment of 0 to God’s existence, no norm of rationality has been violated.
Furthermore, an assignment of p = 0 would clearly block the route to Pascal’s conclusion. For then the expectation calculations become:

E(wager for God) = ∞*0 + f1*(1 − 0) = f1

E(wager against God) = f2*0 + f3*(1 − 0) = f3

And nothing in the argument implies that f1 > f3. (Indeed, this inequality is questionable, as even Pascal seems to allow.) In short, Pascal’s wager has no pull on strict atheists.[8]

Premise 3: Rationality Requires Maximizing Expected Etility
Finally, one could question Pascal’s decision theoretic assumption that rationality requires one to perform the act of maximum expected utility (when there is one). Now perhaps this is an analytic truth, in which case we could grant it to Pascal without further discussion — perhaps it is constitutive of rationality to maximize expectation, as some might say. But this premise has met serious objections. The Allais 1953 and Ellsberg 1961 paradoxes, for example, are said to show that maximizing expectation can lead one to perform intuitively sub-optimal actions. So too the St. Petersburg paradox, in which it is supposedly absurd that one should be prepared to pay any finite amount to play a game with infinite expectation. (That paradox is particularly apposite here.)[9]

Finally, one might distinguish between practical rationality and theoretical rationality. One could then concede that practical rationality requires you to maximize expected utility, while insisting that theoretical rationality might require something else of you — say, proportioning belief to the amount of evidence available. This objection is especially relevant, since Pascal admits that perhaps you “must renounce reason” in order to follow his advice. But when these two sides of rationality pull in opposite directions, as they apparently can here, it is not obvious that practical rationality should take precedence. (For a discussion of pragmatic, as opposed to theoretical, reasons for belief, see Foley 1994.)

Is the Argument Valid?

A number of authors who have been otherwise critical of the Wager have explicitly conceded that the Wager is valid — e.g. Mackie 1982, Rescher 1985, Mougin and Sober 1994, and most emphatically, Hacking 1972. That is, these authors agree with Pascal that wagering for God really is rationally mandated by Pascal’s decision matrix in tandem with positive probability for God’s existence, and the decision theoretic account of rational action.

However, Duff 1986 and Hájek 2001 argue that the argument is in fact invalid. Their point is that there are strategies besides wagering for God that also have infinite expectation — namely, mixed strategies, whereby you do not wager for or against God outright, but rather choose which of these actions to perform on the basis of the outcome of some chance device. Consider the mixed strategy: “Toss a fair coin: heads, you wager for God; tails, you wager against God”. By Pascal’s lights, with probability 1/2 your expectation will be infinite, and with probability 1/2 it will be finite. The expectation of the entire strategy is:

1/2*∞ + 1/2[f2*p + f3*(1 − p)] = ∞

That is, the ‘coin toss’ strategy has the same expectation as outright wagering for God. But the probability 1/2 was incidental to the result. Any mixed strategy that gives positive and finite probability to wagering for God will likewise have infinite expectation: “wager for God iff a fair die lands 6″, “wager for God iff your lottery ticket wins”, “wager for God iff a meteor quantum tunnels its way through the side of your house”, and so on.

The problem is still worse than this, though, for there is a sense in which anything that you do might be regarded as a mixed strategy between wagering for God, and wagering against God, with suitable probability weights given to each. Suppose that you choose to ignore the Wager, and to go and have a hamburger instead. Still, you may well assign positive and finite probability to your winding up wagering for God nonetheless; and this probability multiplied by infinity again gives infinity. So ignoring the Wager and having a hamburger has the same expectation as outright wagering for God. Even worse, suppose that you focus all your energy into avoiding belief in God. Still, you may well assign positive and finite probability to your efforts failing, with the result that you wager for God nonetheless. In that case again, your expectation is infinite again. So even if rationality requires you to perform the act of maximum expected utility when there is one, here there isn’t one. Rather, there is a many-way tie for first place, as it were.[10]

Moral Objections to Wagering for God

Let us grant Pascal’s conclusion for the sake of the argument: rationality requires you to wager for God. It still does not obviously follow that you should wager for God. All that we have granted is that one norm — the norm of rationality — prescribes wagering for God. For all that has been said, some other norm might prescribe wagering against God. And unless we can show that the rationality norm trumps the others, we have not settled what we should actually do.

There are several arguments to the effect that morality requires you to wager against God. Pascal himself appears to be aware of one such argument. He admits that if you do not believe in God, his recommended course of action will “deaden your acuteness.” One way of putting the argument is that wagering for God may require you to corrupt yourself, thus violating a Kantian duty to yourself. Clifford 1986 argues that an individual’s believing something on insufficient evidence harms society by promoting credulity. Penelhum 1971 contends that the putative divine plan is itself immoral, condemning as it does honest non-believers to loss of eternal happiness, when such unbelief is in no way culpable; and that to adopt the relevant belief is to be complicit to this immoral plan. See Quinn 1994 for replies to these arguments. For example, against Penelhum he argues that as long as God treats non-believers justly, there is nothing immoral about him bestowing special favor on believers, more perhaps than they deserve. (Note, however, that Pascal leaves open in the Wager whether the payoff for non-believers is just, even though as far as his argument goes, it may be extremely poor.)

Finally, Voltaire protests that there is something unseemly about the whole Wager. He suggests that Pascal’s calculations, and his appeal to self-interest, are unworthy of the gravity of the subject of theistic belief. This does not so much support wagering against God, as dismissing all talk of ‘wagerings’ altogether.

What Does It Mean to “Wager for God”?

Let us now grant Pascal that, all things considered (rationality and morality included), you should wager for God. What exactly does this involve?

A number of authors read Pascal as arguing that you should believe in God — see e.g. Quinn 1994, and Jordan 1994a. But perhaps one cannot simply believe in God at will; and rationality cannot require the impossible. Pascal is well aware of this objection: “[I] am so made that I cannot believe. What, then, would you have me do?”, says his imaginary interlocutor. However, he contends that one can take steps to cultivate such belief:

You would like to attain faith, and do not know the way; you would like to cure yourself of unbelief, and ask the remedy for it. Learn of those who have been bound like you, and who now stake all their possessions. These are people who know the way which you would follow, and who are cured of an ill of which you would be cured. Follow the way by which they began; by acting as if they believed, taking the holy water, having masses said, etc…

But to show you that this leads you there, it is this which will lessen the passions, which are your stumbling-blocks.

We find two main pieces of advice to the non-believer here: act like a believer, and suppress those passions that are obstacles to becoming a believer. And these are actions that one can perform at will.
Believing in God is presumably one way to wager for God. This passage suggests that even the non-believer can wager for God, by striving to become a believer. Critics may question the psychology of belief formation that Pascal presupposes, pointing out that one could strive to believe (perhaps by following exactly Pascal’s prescription), yet fail. To this, a follower of Pascal might reply that the act of genuine striving already displays a pureness of heart that God would fully reward; or even that genuine striving in this case is itself a form of believing.

Pascal’s Wager vies with Anselm’s Ontological Argument for being the most famous argument in the philosophy of religion. As we have seen, it is also a great deal more besides.

Bibliography

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• Flew, Anthony. 1960. “Is Pascal’s Wager the Only Safe Bet?”, The Rationalist Annual, 76: 21-25.
• Foley, Richard. 1994. “Pragmatic Reasons for Belief”, in Jordan 1994b.
• Hacking, Ian. 1972. “The Logic of Pascal’s Wager”, American Philosophical Quarterly 9/2, 186-92. Reprinted in Jordan 1994b.
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• Hájek, Alan. 1997a. “Review of Gambling on God” (Jordan 1994b), Australasian Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 75, No. 1, March 1997, 119-122.
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• Hájek, Alan. 2000. “Objecting Vaguely to Pascal’s Wager”, Philosophical Studies, vol. 82.
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Copyright © 1998, 2001
Alan Hájek
ahajek@hss.caltech.edu

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

See also, Stephen R. Welch’s page on Pascal’s Wager
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MARCH MADNESS – MAD ABOUT TEMPLE’S SEEDING

Collectively, the Big Five of Temple, LaSalle, Penn, Villanova and St Joes have made more than a dozen final four appearances since the NCAAs began in 1939; Villanova was in the first NCAA tourney back in 1939, and in every decade of the NCAAs, one or more of the big Five has had an impact on the tournament each and every decade the Tournament has been running, whether it was Temple getting to the Final Four twice in the fifties, St. Joe’s to the Final Four in the sixties, Villanova and Penn to the Final Four in the seventies, Villanova winning the NCAA in the 80s, Temple dominating and getting #1 rankings and seedings in the 80s and 90s and getting to the elite 8 three times, and Villanova getting #1 seeds and reaching the elite 8 in recent years, and St. Joes getting to the final four in the last decade and getting a #1 seed.

Folks, we have the best college basketball in the country, bar none. Collectively, the Big Five does better in NCAA than almost any other region or school, excepting possibly Duke, UCLA, Kentucky and a handful of other such bigtime programs–and yet Duke has only won three NCAA titles in 14 Final Four trips, etc. The Big Five is not doing so badly.

I really like the underdogs of the NCAA–Marquette in 1977 with Al McGuire, the late Jimmy Valvano and North Caroline State (who can forget the triple overtime opening round win over Pepperdine?) in 1983, Rollie Massimino and the Villanova Wildcats upending Patrick Ewing and Georgetown in 1986, and so on.

My personal favorite big five upset of all time has to be St. Joe’s beating #1 seed and #1 in the country DePaul and Mark Aguire in 1981 in the first round of the NCAA (maybe it was the 2d round).

This brings us to 2009. Villanova and Temple are in. Villanova had a very good season, but lost to Louisville in the semis of the Big East tournament. Nova’ had a good RPI and a good strength of schedule, but still, they got a #3 seed, which I thought was pretty generous for a team that really hadn’t won anything–they were third or fourth in their conference, and finished third/fourth in the tournament of their conference. Even if it’s the best conference in basketball, does finishing fourth in that conference make you the 12th best team in all of college basketball? I think a #4 seed would have been more appropriate. The NCAA worships the big east a little too much.

Next, Temple. Temple got an #11 seed, which puts them against Arizona State, a #6 seed. Now Temple actually won something–they won the A-10 Tournament. Second year in a row, in fact. Also, best player in the conference, Dionte Christmas, plays for Temple. Also, Temple has by far the toughest non-conference schedule of any A-10 team. But they beat all of those teams too, except maybe Villanova, and they gave them a tough time. Maybe if Nova’ didn’t insist on playing at the Pavilion, but at the Palestra, it would be a fair game.

Temple’s RPI is very good, and their strength of schedule is very good. In fact, if you look at most of the teams seeded from around #7-#10, Temple’s RPI and strength of schedule are BETTER than most of those 7-10 seeds. Take Michigan for example, a team that didn’t win anything, lost 13, won only 20, and was an at-large from the big 10. Michigan has a higher seed than Temple but why? Michigan’s RPI is worse, their strength of schedule much worse, and they have a much worse record than Temple.

I could pick out many more examples (UCLA?) of this, but the point is that Temple plays a big-time schedule, has been in the elite eight in three of the last twenty years, and has been ranked #1 more than once in the last twenty years, including most of 1987-88. They’re a good ballclub, and deserved at least an 8-9 seed matchup in the first round.

Frankly, i would have given Temple about the same seeding as Xavier, and higher than Dayton, a team Temple dominated during the season.

I believe Temple and Villanova will both win. Arizona State is a fine team and that game could go either way, but Temple will win this year. Villanova has a ridiculously easy first round game. Their second round matchup will be much tougher

Also, I really like the fact that the new President offered his own “bracketology” on ESPN. that was pretty cool. I don’t think we’ve had this sports minded a president since Jack Kennedy, an old football player, was going to the harvard-yale and army-navy games. A lot like Teddy Roosevelt, too.

–art kyriazis philly/south jersey
home of the world champion phillies

WHY THE PHILLIES WILL REPEAT AS WORLD CHAMPIONS THIS YEAR 2009

1) The Bill James Handbook for 2009 is out and now I can make some predictions based on statistical facts.

The Bill James Handbook 2009. ACTA Sports, Publisher, Baseball Info Solutions & Bill James (Skokie, IL, November 2008). This is an essential reference guide for anyone seriously interested in the sport of baseball. As the back cover states, quoting the Wall Street Journal, “Mr. [Bill] James, the statistical oracle.” My good friend (and Mather House Harvard buddy) David Pinto is thanked and accredited by the writers of the book, and I highly recommend Dave Pinto’s excellent blog/website www.baseballmusings.com, which is a GREAT baseball website with link outs to virtually all things baseball. Dave used to do all the stat work for ESPN for like 15 years and he is about the smartest guy I know when it comes to baseball statistics, and he used to write the Bill James Handbook for many years. The Bill James Handbook is @$24.00 and is all the money you’ll need to spend on a baseball statbook. If you’re in a fantasy league, first, I suggest you go to rehab and quit this huge waste of time and get back into your marriage and kids, but second, if you’re devoted to the hobby, you will not do better than this book as far as predicting who will do what in 2009 statistically. Finally, this is a fan’s dream of a book. It really settles almost all arguments the right way—with the facts, ma’m, just the facts, to quote Sergeant Joe Friday from Dragnet.

2) The Phillies will repeat in 2009.

The Phillies are a dynasty, with an offensive core of Ryan Howard, Chase Utley and Jimmy Rollins, with Shane Victorino providing speed, power and glovework in centerfield; Cole Hamels is the best lefthanded starter in the National League, and Brad Lidge is the best closer in the National League. It’s all in the numbers.

3) The Phillies have great pitching and great offense.

The Phillies were second in runs scored last year in the NL with 799 (the Cubs scored 855) and third in the NL in runs and earned runs allowed with 680 runs allowed and 625 earned runs allowed (only the Dodgers and Cubs were better).

4) The Phillies have great defense.

Jimmy Rollins is the best shortstop in the National League, and under the Plus/Minus system, Rollins is the second best defensive shortstop in all of baseball from 2006-2008. Chase Utley is among the top three second basement in the National League. Under the Plus/Minus system, Utley is the top defensive second basement in all of baseball 2006-2008. Pedro Feliz is in the top ten defensively in all of baseball at third base, Shane Victorino is in the top ten in all of baseball at centerfield. Under the Plus/Minus system, Victorino was the 7th best centerfielder in all of baseball in 2008. Under the Plus/Minus system, Feliz is the second best defensive third basemen in all of baseball from 2006-2008. Jayson Werth is a good defensive right fielder, and Raul Ibanez, the new leftfielder, is an upgrade from Pat Burrell; Burrell, according to the Plus/Minus system, was the worst left fielder defensively in baseball from 2006-2008. Carlos Ruiz at catcher has a great throwing arm. By the way, Bobby Abreu scores poorly defensively under the Plus/Minus system, 2d worst defensive right fielder in all of baseball for 2008. That was addition by subtraction, that trade.

5) The Mets Are Not Serious Challengers in the NL East.

The Mets will choke again. Specifically, Carlos Beltran and Carlos Delgado are a year older, and may start to show signs of age related decline. Johan Santana already shows signs that he is injured, while Pedro Martinez was never quite right. Billy Wagner was hurt for substantial portions of last year. They’ve brought in a couple of new guys for the bullpen, but Rodriguez et al. aren’t just filling holes, they’re the life raft for a sinking ship—the Mets’ bullpen last year was awful and coughed up many leads. It’s true that Pelfrey, Maine et al. are some good starters, but without Santana being as good as Hamels, the truth is the Phillies have the better starting staff, starting with Meyers, then Moyer, then Blanton, and whoever they throw as the fifth starter, probably J.A. Happ. What you need to recognize is that Meyers and Blanton are strikeout pitchers, and even Happ and Park can strike out betters. Moyer is just fiendish on the mound when he’s got it going on, as we saw in the postseason. Even though Jose Reyes and David Wright are brilliant young stars, and Beltran and Delgado are aging superstars, the rest of the lineup has holes while the Phillies’ lineup is solid top to bottom. Also, the Phillies have a much better bench than the Mets.

6) No Else is a Serious Rival Except for the Dodgers

The only team I see possibly challenging for the NL Pennant are the LA Dodgers under Joe Torre. They have Manny for an entire year, they have terrific pitching, excellent young talent like Loney, combined with experienced players on the bench and in the field, and Torre manages the clubhouse the way he managed the Yankees, with a winning attitude. I see the Cubs slipping back this year and may the Cards or Rockies or Astros (hi to L. Gray here) coming back up. In the AL, the Yankees will make some noise as will the Red Sox; the Rays are in the toughest division in baseball, while the Angels, As, Twins, Indians (hello to Chris M), etc. all will have tough sledding, along with teams just below like the Tigers. Even if the Phils repeat as NL East Division winners, they will have to beat the Dodgers again, and even if they win the NL Pennant, to become champs, they will have a tough world series against the AL. So nothing is going to be easy.

7) Adam Eaton and Kyle Kendrick were Dreadful Fifth Starters Last Year Yet the Phillies Won Anyway

The Phillies will improve this year substantially in the pitching department. In 2008, Adam Eaton threw 107 innings with an adjusted ERA of 6.07. Kyle Kendrick threw 156 innings with an adjusted ERA of 6.05. That’s together, 263 innings pitched with an adjusted ERA of @6.06. The Phillies team adjusted ERA was 3.88, so you can see that Eaton and Kendrick were almost double the team ERA. There’s a vast canyon for improving team ERA by bringing in a better fifth starter there. The Phillies as a whole only three 1450 innings last year; that means 18%, or nearly one-fifth of the Phillies innings last year were thrown by Eaton and Kendrick, the horrible fifth starters. Simple math suggests that replacing these guys will lower the team ERA substantially—in fact, the Phillies will probably lead the NL in ERA this year.

8) Chan Ho Park or JA Happ Will be Substantial Upgrades at Fifth Starting Pitcher over Adam Eaton & Kyle Kendrick

The fifth starter this year will either be Chan Ho Park or J.A. Happ. Park in 2008 threw 95 innings, allowing 97 hits, 12 homers, 36 walks and striking out 79, with an adjusted ERA of 4.34; if he throws 190 innings, that would adjust to 194 hits allowed, 24 homers, 72 walks and 158 batters struckout. Happ threw much less, only 33 innings pitched, but striking out 26, only 28 hits given up, 14 walks, 3 homers and an adjusted ERA of 3.55. Moreover, Happ’s minor league stats (he’s a six-foot six lefty) suggest that’s he’s a power pitcher who can strike out hitters; in Las Vegas AAA in 2008 he struck out 151 batters in 135 innings innings pitched. In Ottawa AAA in 2007 he whiffed 117 batters in 118 innings pitched. Happ started 24 games in Ottawa and 23 games in Las Vegas, and he’s not going to turn 27 until October 2009, so he can definitely throw starter innings. Bottom line: between Happ and Park, the fifth starter ERA for at least the back end of 250 innings of Phillies pitching should be much, much better than last year.

9) Kyle Kendrick is a Nice Guy, but He’s Strictly AAA Material

The only way this can get derailed is if the Phillies give Kyle Kendrick another shot as fifth starter. This would be a mistake. Even though Kendrick won a lot of games, he was one of the least effective starters in the National League according to the Bill James Handbook 2009 number crunchers. The basic problems with Kendrick are that 1) he’s just not a strikeout pitcher and 2) he gives up too many hits and homers. Here’s his line for 2008; 156 innings pitched, 194 hits given up (I’m not making that number up), 23 homers, 14 hit batters (very wild), 57 walks (again, wild), only 68 batters struck out, an official 5.49 ERA and an adjusted ERA of 6.05. When you look at Kendrick’s line, it’s obvious that he’s very wild—57 walks in 156 innings pitched, plus 194 hits given up, plus 14 hit batsmen. Now, you can walk a lot of batters and be successful—Nolan Ryan and Bob Feller both did it—but you’d better not be giving up many hits and you’d better be striking out the side, as Ryan and Feller used to do. But if you’re giving up walks, AND giving up lots of hits AND hitting batters and you can’t get strikeouts, well, you probably just can’t pitch in the major leagues. Kendrick is a nice guy, and maybe he can retool and become a middle innings relief guy, if he develops a change-up or a sinker as an out pitch. But from here, based on those numbers, Kendrick needs a season in triple A to refine his approach and then come back to the big team later on. Meanwhile, J.A. Happ is the guy I’d be looking at if I were the Phillies.

10) Who in the World is Carlos Carrasco?

The Phillies should not be auditioning Carlos Carrasco seriously as a fifth starter for 2009. They’re a world champion about to repeat. They don’t need a rookie starting. Carrasco should start out in Triple A and later come onboard and help in the bullpen, maybe, or spot start later in the year if someone gets hurt.

11) Phils – Best in Baseball at Stealing and Taking the Extra Base The Phillies are the best in baseball at baserunning. The Bill James Handbook for 2009 built up a chart of which teams did the best job in moving first to third, second to home, first to home, and guess which team was the best in baseball in seizing those opportunities? If you said the Philadelphia Phillies, you would be correct. The Phils move first to third 55 of 195 chances, second to home 98 of 163 chances, and first to home 29 of 55 chances, taking 142 total bases, while being doubled off only 18 times, and making only 36 base-running outs, one of the lowest out totals in baseball, and grounding into only 108 doubleplays, again, one of the lowest GIDP totals in baseball. The net gains for the Phils from baserunning and from stolen bases (Rollins, Victorino, Werth and Utley all stole 20 or more bases, Rollins and Victorino 30 or more), was a net gain of 114 bases, the largest such advantage in baseball. Those were extra bases the Phillies took on the basepaths without the benefit of a hit just by good baserunning. The fact is that the Phillies have one of the fastest and best running lineups in baseball, with Rollins, Victorino, Werth and Utley in the lineup. All four of these guys can steal, take the extra base, and go first to home on any extra base hit. These guys more than make up for Howard, Feliz or Ruiz being slower. In addition, guys like Rollins, Victorino, Werth and Utley make the opposing pitchers nervous and cause them to make extra throws to first base. Finally, because the Phillies were so successful stealing, taking the extra base, etc., they had very few situations where they could ground into the double play. About the only time they wouldn’t run was when Ryan Howard was up with a man or men on first, and even then sometimes Charlie Manuel would run, just to confuse opposing managers. This chart is at page 320 of the BJH for 2009.

12) Phils – the Best Bullpen in Baseball

The Phillies have by far the best bullpen in baseball. The only guys who weren’t any good last year were Tom Gordon, who is gone, Adam Eaton and Kyle Kendrick and it’s doubtful we’ll see Eaton or Kendrick in the bullpen. Lidge and Madsen were money, and it remains to be seen if the Met’s new additions will be as good as Lidge or Madsen. Losing Clay Condrey is not good, but J.C. Romero will be back after his suspension, and he pitched very well last year. Chad Durbin was outstanding for the Phils last year.

13) Charlie Manuel – the Best Manager in Baseball

Charlie Manuel has now established that he is one of the best managers in baseball. He’s now logged seven seasons as a manager with the Indians and Phillies, and the results don’t lie. He won 90 and 91 games in two of his three seasons with the Indians, made the playoffs, and had only one bad season with them, in 2002. With the Phillies, he has won 88, 85, 89 and 92 games, and made the playoffs last year and won the World Series this year. Compare this to so-called brilliant Red Sox manager Terry Francona, who from 1997-2000 inclusive, with Curt Schilling, Bobby Abreu and Scott Rolen in the lineup, managed to win 68, 75, 77 and 65 games for the Phillies. Manuel as Phillies Manager last year beat Joe Torre and the Dodgers in the NLCS to win the pennant, and Torre is arguably, along with Bobby Cox, the greatest manager of our day. Then Manuel encountered not the Boston Red Sox but the Tampa Bay Rays and Joe Maddon in the World Series, which in many ways was a challenge. Then the Commissioner of Baseball and the Networks conspired to create the famous rain-shortened delayed Game Five, which effectively neutralized the Cole Hamels pitching advantage the Phillies had in that Game. Two days later, Manuel came up with managing brilliancy after managing brilliancy, handling his pinch-hitters and bullpen brilliantly and completely out-managing his opponents Tampa Bay and Maddon to win the world championship in a suspended game five that will live forever in Philadelphia sports history. Charlie Manuel’s average record after seven years of managing is 88-74, not including playoff wins, a .543 winning percentage, and that’s better than lifetime managing winning percentage of such so-called brilliant managers as: Lou Piniella, Jimmy Leyland, Manager Jack McKeon, Tony LaRussa, Felipe Alou, Buddy Bell, Dusty Baker, Terry Francona, Bruce Bochy, Joe Maddon, Jerry Manuel, Phil Garner, Joe Girardi, Ozzie Guillen, Mike Hargrove, Clint Hurdle, Bob Melvin, Willie Randolph, Buck Schowalter and Jim Tracy. In fact the only managers with a HIGHER lifetime winning percentage than Charlie Manuel currently are Joe Torre, Bobby Cox, Ken Macha, Grady Little and Mike Scioscia. As we know, Torre, Manuel, Cox and Scioscia have all won World Series championships, but only Torre has one more than one World Championship in that grouping. If Charlie Manuel repeats this year with the Phillies, he not only stands a chance to gain in career winning percentage on these all-time great managers, but also he will join Joe Torre, Tony LaRussa and Terry Francona as the only multi-World Series winning managers. Of this grouping, only Manuel will have been a consistent winner in his entire managerial career, since we know that Torre had some bad years earlier in his career managing in the National League. Consequently, if Manuel were to repeat this year, he would have a legitimate claim at the Hall of Fame as a Manager inductee; in fact, his credentials for the Hall of Fame even if he just wins the division or makes it as a wild card a couple of more times seem guaranteed. There is little question that Charlie Manuel has been the greatest manager in the entire history of the Phillies’ organization, and I mean going back to 1883 when the club was a minor league outfit which had just arrived in Philadelphia struggling to survive a move from Worcester, Massachusetts.

14) A Brief History of the Phillies

This is the finest era of Phillies baseball in the history of the franchise. There have only been a few great eras of Phillies baseball. One was the 1890s, when the outfield was led by Hall of Famer Ed Delahanty, and the club consistently finished 2d, 3d or in the upper half of the league. While they didn’t win pennants, they were winners for about ten years, and since they were the only baseball club in Philadelphia, attendance was very good. The next good period for the Phillies was the 1910s, when the club was led by Hall of Famer Grover Cleveland Alexander (the only pitcher named for one president, Grover Cleveland, and played by another in a movie, Ronald Reagan) (by the way, a great flick), the best pitcher in all of baseball, Dave “Beauty” Bancroft at short and other great players. That 1910s team won only one NL pennant in 1915, but was upper division for several years, and had there been a Cy Young Award, Alexander would have won about five in a row. But the A’s were the Philadelphia team that the city loved from 1901-1953, pretty much, as they won multiple pennants and world series, especially from 1905-1914, and again from 1929-1931, and did very well other years. The Phillies did not have a good squad again until the “whiz kids” of 1950 led by Hall of Famers Robin Roberts, Richie Ashburn et al. While they won only one pennant, and the team has been disparaged for not breaking the color line, they were a good team that played fine seasons, and they finally broke the dominance of the As and attracted the hearts of Philly fans. The next good team was the 1964 Phils team led by Hall of Famer Jim Bunning, and could have been Hall of Famer Dick Allen, who had one of the greatest rookie years in baseball history in 1964. The September collapse of the 1964 Phils we will skip over, except to say, they were a great team, and deserved to win one or more pennants. Dick Allen returned in 1976 to play first base for the beginning of a Phils dynasty led by Hall of Famers Steve Carlton and Mike Schmidt, and outstanding players like Bob Boone at catcher, Larry Bowa at shortstop, later joined by Pete Rose and Joe Morgan along the way, a dynasty that won multiple division titles, pennants, playoff games, a World Series, and threatened to repeat only to lose the 1983 world series, a dynasty that would last from 1976-1983. The dynasty might have gone further had the Phillies not made a couple of bad trades in the winter of 1983. They had three second basemen in their farm system—Juan Samuel, Ryne Sandberg and Julio Franco. The Phillies made an error and decided to trade two of these players, instead of keeping all three and converting them to other positions, like shortstop or first base. All of them could have hit enough for any infield position. Sandberg was traded with Larry Bowa for a shortstop whose name I can’t even remember, and the Cubs won the NL East Division in 1984 as a result. Franco and four other Phillies were traded for Von Hayes, a five tool lefthanded outfielder who put up some good numbers for about five years, but then went into a premature age-related decline. Franco, as we all know, retired just last year, I think, at age 50. I’m pretty sure he’s still playing somewhere in Mexico, and still hitting .300 and slugging homers. I really liked Julio Franco because for a long time, as long as he was a pro, there was someone older than me playing in the big leagues. Ryne Sandberg has retired and is already in the Hall of Fame. It’s a shame to think how good the phillies might have been with Sandberg and Schmidt for a few years there—Schmidt won the MVP in 1986 or 1987—batting third and fourth—but that goes in the category of what-if. The next great phils team was the Dykstra-Kruk-Schilling bad boys team of 1993, which was really a great team, but a one-year wonder, last to first, and back to last again the next year. A lot of pitchers on that team had their greatest seasons ever that one year, guys like Tommy Greene and Mitch “Wild Thing” Williams, and then never were able to throw effectively again. You’d have to say they gave it all. After than, the core dissipated, and started winning in other cities—Hollins went to Minnesota and won, Dalton went to Florida and won, Schilling went to the Red Sox and won, Rolen went to St. Louis and won—it seemed there was a lot of magic to the 93’ phillies that was infectious, the team knew how to win, but couldn’t put it back together again in Philadelphia. Now we have another juggernaut here in Philly, and these Phillies are a lot like the 1976-83 Phillies team, a dynasty, except only better. Chase Utley and Ryan Howard together are equal to Mike Schmidt—and Cole Hamels is just as good right now as Steve Carlton was back in the day, though it remains to be seen if Hamels can pitch twenty five years like Carlton did. Lidge is better than Tug McGraw was in his best seasons, and you’d have to say the rest of the club and starters and bullpen are actually better than the Phillies of 1976-83.

15) Bring Back Pete Rose and Ban the Steroid Guys Instead.

One thing we don’t have is a player like Pete Rose, he was a true Hall of Famer, even if baseball wants to bar the doors, there isn’t a player in the Hall of Fame as good as Pete Rose, and I include Ty Cobb and Babe Ruth, because no one wanted to win as badly or was willing to do so many things to win a ballgame, as Pete “Charlie Hustle” Rose was willing to do each and every day on the ballfield. He lived to win, and he won because that’s what he lived for. I’ll always think of him fondly because he brought us the 1980 World Series Championship, and because he lit a fire under Mike Schmidt, and because he looked right with a Phillies cap on, and because he was the third Hall of Famer on that 1980 team (I’d probably add Bob Boone, by the way), and I don’t really care if he bet on baseball. I’d sentence him to time served and welcome him back if I was the Commissioner. Heck, with all the disgraced steroid users in the game, Pete Rose would be a shot in the arm for baseball right now. HE PLAYED THE GAME THE RIGHT WAY, HE DIDN’T CHEAT. So what if he bet on the ponies? I’m sure half of all the accountants, lawyers, investment bankers and other important people on Wall Street have bookies and keep them plenty busy, even in this horrible economy. No one is banning them from their livelihoods. There’s no commissioner to supervise CEOs from going to the Kentucky Derby, in fact, if you go to the Kentucky Derby or Saratoga Racetrack in August, you’ll see nothing but CEOs with young girls, gambling their money away or worse, wasting it on their own horses. How is this any different from what Pete Rose did? And no one is banning Alex Rodriguez from baseball, even though what he did using steroids is more disrespectful to the integrity of the game than betting on baseball. Pete Rose is about 1/1000ths as guilty of corrupting baseball as Mark McGwire, Alex Rodriguez, Jose Conseco and the whole lot of those steroid users. Bring back Pete Rose! We need guys like Pete Rose, guys who would go to Geno’s, eat a cheesesteak, sign about a thousand autographs, maybe pick up the local waitress, and then go out the ballpark and PLAY BASEBALL THE WAY IT WAS MEANT TO BE PLAYED. Pete Rose used to RUN to first on walks. He’d slide on every play. If the play was close at home, he’d try and destroy the catcher. He always went all out on ever fly ball, every grounder, every single foul ball. He backed up other fielders just in case, which is how he caught that foul ball that fell out of bob Boone’s glove in the World Series for out two in the ninth. He ALWAYS was running hard to get the extra base. If he hit a single that wasn’t right at the left or right fielder, Rose was gone to second, stretching it to a double. No matter where the ball was hit, if he was on second, he was taking a big lead and was going to try and score, and test your arm doing it. He always knew the situation; how many outs, what the score was, who was playing where. If you needed a ball to the right side of the infield, he gave you one. If you needed a bunt, he gave you one. If you needed a home run, he’d jack one out of the park, because he could do that when he needed to also. He did whatever was required to win. At age 40, Pete Rose was ten times the player that most guys would ever be at age 25. He was the best I ever saw, bar none, and I include many great players in that list, guys like Hank Aaron, Mike Schmidt, Ken Griffey Jr., and so forth. Pete did more with less natural ability than anyone who ever played the game. He could switch hit, he could run, he could field almost every position (he played second base, third base, first base, left field in his career) and he played major league baseball long enough to collect more than 4,000 hits. I say if Pete Rose played in Joe Jackson’s era, he’d of been better than Joe Jackson, and if Joe Jackson had played in Pete Rose’s era, Joe Jackson couldn’t have touched Pete Rose. If Pete Rose had played against Babe Ruth in the 1920s, and Pete Rose had decided to hit homers for a year, Pete Rose could have hit 70 of them I believe. I think Pete Rose could have been better than any ballplayer in any era at any time. That’s how good I think he was, how good I think he is, and Bud Selig, the Commissioner of Baseball, is wrong to bar Pete Rose from the game, while allowing known perjurers liars and convicts to populate the clubhouses in the form of these steroid users. It’s a double and triple standard of justice that I can’t get on board with, and neither should you. I support the players union but I don’t support what’s going on. Let’s ban all the cheaters and let’s rehabilitate a man who stood for decency and fair play on the field, and let him apologize, and let’s forgive him his trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. Let’s forgive Pete Rose.

–Art Kyriazis Philly/South Jersey
Home of the World Champion Philadelphia Phillies
March 10, 2009