Two thoughts on the first day of the MLB play-offs:
1. I am officially 12-years-old. (Most of my friends and associates know that, but it continues to amaze me.) Today I have critical client work to do involving huge amounts of money (for them, not me). I have several medical issues I need to attend to ASAP. I’m late getting my invoices out and I’m in cash-flow hell. But all I can think about is the Red Sox-Yankee game tonight. (8 PM, EST. on NBC)
This is the juvenile state of mind that led me to risk my job in 1978, when I walked out of a critical, high-level capital fundraising meeting at Georgetown, with all the brass present, saying, “I’m sorry, but the Red Sox and Yankees are playing a game in Fenway Park in an hour to decide the American League East, and I have to see it. Let me know what you all decide.” (That was the Bucky %$#@ Dent Game.) My wife-to-be Grace was at the meeting and was the only one smiling; everyone else looked like the audience in “The Producers” after “Springtime for Hitler.”
“Hi there, everyone! It’s time to play the exciting ethics game that’s sweeping America: “Wait, Was That Ethical or Unethical?”! As you know, contestants are asked to decide whether an ambiguous statement or action was racist or not!
“Are you ready, contestants? Then let’s play, “Wait, Was That Racist or Wasn’t It?”! Introduce our subject for Round I, Johnny!”
“Sure thing, Jack! Meet Dixie Walker! Dixie was a star baseball player who died in 1982. He won a batting championship and a runs-batted-in title, and he played in two World Series and four All-Star Games. He is most remembered, however, not for his impressive exploits on the baseball field but as the player who led the campaign to keep Jackie Robinson from joining the Brooklyn Dodgers and integrating the game.
I wonder if and when enough people will wake up to the fact that when they vote for progressives, this is the kind of culture they are voting to live in. You know: hysterical, power-mad, and insane.
The footwear and apparel company Converse was attacked this week by the woke social media mob for an ad in a new sneaker campaign. It featured the bottom half of a person wearing a white garment and holding a pair of black sneakers.
The shadows that suggest the outline of a long, tapering triangle was obviously reminiscent of the pointed hood of a Klan robe, see. And the lighting makes the black sneakers look like someone is being hanged. The sneakers are black, get it? And have a single leg in two shoes, or something. The alleged lyncher was K-pop singer Karina wearing a skirt and holding a pair of Chuck 70 X sneakers, but never mind: some genius figured out this was another opportunity to hold 21st century America guilty of racism.
Naturally, Converse groveled an apology, thus ensuring more of this crap from the race-baiters and political correctness thugs. “We’re sorry,” Converse said in an emailed statement. “We understand why this image is deeply upsetting and recognize that we got this wrong. We removed it from our channels and are working to remove it everywhere it appeared,” the statement added. “This should not have happened and we will do better.”
I wish I bought Converse merchandise so I could boycott the brand. Their craven behavior harms every American, the culture, society, commerce, kids, brains, everything. Just listen to these idiots:
“As a Black man and someone who loves Converse shoes, I find this very insensitive and distasteful,” Kendall Peacock, who runs the Education Firm, a tutoring and mentorship program in Atlanta, said on social media. “Deliberate racist intent hasn’t been established yet, but that doesn’t erase the impact,” he added.
Lee Merritt, a civil rights attorney based in Texas, posted on Instagram that Converse’s apology “doesn’t undo what got past legal, marketing and leadership at every step.”
Stephanie Schwartz, a social justice photographer, wrote on social media, “Every photographer can tell you, whoever did this ad knew EXACTLY what they were doing.”
I discovered the racist sneaker ad because Holly Mathnerd wrote about it on her exotic and eccentric substack. I can’t do better than Holly’s evisceration of the latest woke obsession, and besides, she’s sharp, she’s funny, she writes well, and she deserves attention. She wrote in part,
Slowly but surely, they are forcing me to tell them how full of shit they are.
Posting this from the Kennedy Center’s marble slobber over our most over-rated President,
…a friend of many decades proclaimed on Facebook, “Can you imagine ANYTHING approaching this coming out of the current administration?”
As Popeye memorably said (many times) before swallowing his un-canned spinach and going bonkers, “That’s all I can stands, I can’t stands no more!!!” I responded, as nicely as I could,
“There just has to be some way to make your point without advancing shameless Kennedy hagiography, Jon. JFK always talked a good game…there is also substantial evidence that he organized a gang rape, compromised US security by having an affair with a foreign spy (as well as with a Mafia don’s moll), and was saved from being the man who triggered WW3 only because a Russian Premier decided it was worth backing down and getting purged to save millions from death. No, JFK wasn’t afraid of Jackie’s grace and beauty so he humiliated her by being a serial adulterer and sexual predator. Marilyn writhing at his birthday party in a dress that made her look naked, basically broadcasting their sexual relationship, may be the most disgusting public moment in US political history. And of course, Kennedy didn’t write most of his fine words, not even the ones that got him a Pulitzer Prize for “Profiles in Courage,” which was mostly authored by Ted Sorenson. It’s amazing what being assassinated or dying young will do for one’s reputation. As SNL writer Michael O’Donahue said when Elvis died, “Good career move!” Kennedy was a bad man and weak President. I really don’t care what he “said” and neither should anyone else.”
I can’t wait to see how the blithering idiots who “loved ” “sad-faced” and “angry-faced” his post try to spin that. I’m betting my friend, who knows I know what I’m talking about when it comes to Presidential history, will default to “But Trump…!” because that’s all he’s got.
Little by little, drip by drip, these people are forcing me to point out their ignorance, bias and stupidity.
[Oh…and someone tell Jack’s ghostwriter that it’s properly “that,” not “which.”]
In a remote neighborhood in Herriman, Utah, there is a charming subdivision with streets named only for past Boston Red Sox stars. Ipswitch Way and Yawkey Way—named after streets around Fenway Park—surround Fisk Drive, Remy Road, Pesky Lane, Eovaldi Avenue, Pedroia Street, Xander Lane, Varitek Drive and Boggs Way. Never mind if you don’t recognize those names: I do, but it’s likely that very few residents know their Boston Red Sox lore.
The project manager is a man named Brandon Parr who has lived in Utah his entire life, started following the Red Sox when he was 7, and now, in his forties, carries a Red Sox water bottle and wears a Red Sox cap every day. Developing the subdivision in Herriman was his first assignment as a project manager in 2021. Apparently the builder gets to name any new streets in any proposed project—I did not know that!—and when Parr was told about the honor, he said, “I’m doing Red Sox!” He submitted ten street names for approval, all well-known to Sox aficionados.
Ethics issue #1: Is it fair and responsible to use the naming power to satisfy a personal passion when it is completely divorced from the region and the community as well as the likely future residents? Utah doesn’t even have a Major League baseball team. Maybe the Miami Marlins are further away that the Red Sox , but not by much (don’t check that: I won’t, and if I’m wrong, I don’t care). My verdict? A mild “unethical.” I don’t know the origins of most of the streets in my Alexandria neighborhood except the section where all the streets are named after Presidents (Tyler intersects Taylor). Still, turning a Utah neighborhood into a Boston Red Sox fan display seems a bit excessive.
Ethics issue #2 struck me immediately, however: If a Sox fan is going to do this, there is an obligation to do some research and due diligence. With 10 streets to name for Red Sox favorites, where is the homage to Ted Williams, Carl Yastrzemski, David Ortiz, and Pedro Martinez? OK, I’ll forgive Roger Clemens: I wouldn’t name a street after that asshole either.
Parr has his excuses lined up: “Williams,” “Ortiz” and “Martinez” streets are too common, and “Yastrzemski Road” is too hard to spell. He also claimed that alternatives to “Williams” like “Splendid Splinter Street” were too long. I’m not buying it. “Big Papi Drive” would cover David Ortiz. “Yaz Ave” is an easy call. What’s the matter with “Ted Williams Way”? Meanwhile, as a Red Sox fan, I respectfully object to some of his choices. “Eovaldi Ave.” is named for a Sox pitcher whose fame is based on a single game performance in relief during the 2018 World Series. Does this alleged Sox fan recall Curt Schilling and the “bloody sock” games in 2004? He admits to being a big Xander Bogaerts fan, hence “Xander Lane.” Bogaerts abandoned Boston as a free agent choosing money over team (so did Nathan Eovaldi). There are too many superior Sox players who did not place cash over loyalty, and leaving Tony Conigliaro out of the street names (Tony C. Court) while honoring sex-addicted, Yankee traitor Wade Boggs is deeply offensive.
The most famous and, clearly, most amazing Major League Baseball player—also the highest paid, by far—is the LA Dodgers’ two-way superstar Shohei Ohtani. From his days as a Japanese baseball star, Ohtani has been both an all-star level starting pitcher and a superior batter. He insisted on being allowed to continue pitching every five days and being in the lineup the rest of the time as a condition of signing with a U.S. team. In his ten years in the Majors, Ohtani has performed feats unmatched in the history of baseball, including the legendary game in last year’s National League Championship Series in which he pitched six scoreless innings, striking out 10 batters and allowing just a two hits against the Milwaukee Brewers and went 3-for-3 with three home runs at the plate, outhitting the Brewers single-handedly.
Only one player before Ohtani had the ability to do that: Babe Ruth, widely regarded as the greatest baseball player of all. For the Boston Red Sox Babe was a Hall of Fame-caliber pitcher who also appeared to be one of the best hitters in the league until he was sold to the New York Yankees. They made Babe give up pitching on the theory that an everyday superstar at the plate was more valuable than an ace pitcher even in the days when pitchers could start every third day and pitch complete games. The second part of the theory was that no athlete’s body would stand up to the rigors of pitching and being in the line-up every day.
That’s New Zealander Jamie Beaton above, posing for photos during graduation days at Harvard, Dartmouth, Princeton, Yale, Cornell, Oxford, Stanford, Columbia, and King’s College, London. He’s the subject of a profile in the New York Times (gift link), chronicling his status as a “perpetual student.”
“A 5-foot-6 personification of naked ambition whose LinkedIn profile has been the subject of memes and Reddit threads, Beaton has gone to the head of a rarefied class — perpetual students,” the Times relates. “If he continues collecting advanced degrees at such a swift pace, he will surpass Benjamin B. Bolger, who has racked up 16 at age 50. He might even beat Michael Nicholson, an octogenarian forever scholar with more than 30 degrees to his name.”
With me, this resonates exactly like the Guinness Book of Records item about the only man to eat a whole automobile. One of my favorite oddball baseball players and historical figures was Moe Berg, a man who spoke Latin, Greek, French, Spanish, Italian, German, and Sanskrit, had degrees from Princeton and Columbia (in law), read ten newspapers a day and put all those skills to work playing major league baseball as a third-string catcher, never married, never owned a home, never started a business or earned a regular salary after retiring from the game. Beaton is more productive than that (arguably: Moe was recruited as a spy during World War II), but I still regard spending so much time and money accumulating academic credentials as pathological.
On the other side of the argument, of course, is the refrain of The Animals: “It’s my life and I’ll do what I want!” I endorse such autonomy and eccentricity, but still find the spectacle of someone with obvious ability, talent and work ethic spending so much of it on himself rather than the betterment of society, creation, and leadership as less than admirable.
At my undergraduate school, there were notable permanent students, mostly chubby middle-aged bachelors who arrived as undergrads, proceeded to graduate school, kept adding degrees, chased Masters and PhDs and never left the academic womb. They became “resident advisors” or “resident scholars” in the Harvard House system. They all gave me the impression that if they walked off the campus they would crumble to dust like vampires in sunlight.
I have an unmarried nephew who is 37, unmarried, and has been living in a university town for more than a decade as he pursues an elusive PhD. He does some teaching at the school, but he is, or was, a lively, funny, brilliant young man who had so many options after he graduated from college. As I increasingly regard higher education, in its current state of rot, a blight on American society, the phenomenon of the perpetual student seems increasingly indefensible, or at least tragic.
The recent discussion on the uselessness, and hence unethical nature, of advocating the impossible sent me back to Immanuel Kant. All Kant did was think and write: in 1795 he decided to muse about how there could be an end to war. Kant was not one to accept “Do something!”; he would always try to figure out what would or might accomplish the desired result. Of course, being a philosopher, he left it to others to execute his plan for the betterment of humanity.
His essay “Toward Perpetual Peace” proposes structural and moral conditions necessary if war is going to be eliminated from civilization. Kant, not being deluded, did not believe peace natural to humanity, rather he argued that peace must be carefully constructed through a clear legal framework. His six Preliminary Articles (immediate steps to prevent conflict) and three Definitive Articles (the long-term foundations required for permanent peace) were the magic formula.
The Six Preliminary Articles (Immediate Steps)
These are immediate prohibitions of legal, financial, and military conditions that make future wars inevitable.
1. No flawed peace treaties. No treaty of peace is valid if it is signed with a secret reservation or loophole that could restart a war in the future. A treaty must represent a genuine end to hostilities, not just a temporary truce.
2. Don’t treat states like property: An independent state must never be acquired by another through inheritance, exchange, purchase, or gift, because a state is a society of human beings with its own right to self-determination.
3. No standing armies, because, Kant argued, keeping standing armies threatens neighboring states and ensures a never-ending arms race, making pre-emptive wars more likely.
4. Governments must not create national debts to fund military buildup or foreign intervention.
5. No forcible interference in other nations, because violating a nation’s sovereignty is an offense against the independence of all peoples.
6. “Dishonorable tactics” during war must be banned. Atrocities that destroy the underlying trust required for future peace.
I have several of these posts on the EA runway, but I’ve been thinking about posting on the Ritz Brothers for an especially long time.
I mysteriously started getting Turner Classic Movies again from DirecTV several months ago without having it in my package. (“We do that sometimes” was the explanation I got when I asked the satellite service about it.) I had started using a lesser package for economy reasons following the near collapse of my company as a result of what I will forever call “The Stupid Lockdown.” TCM is the cinema equivalent of my now defunct professional regional theater company, “The American Century Theater,” which mounted stage productions that had cultural significance but that the more practical companies never present any more. Since the channel’s return I have been struck by how many major talents have been almost completely forgotten despite the fact that 1) they were once very famous and popular and 2) they deserved to be.
The video above is probably the quickest way to get a crash course in Ritz Brothers lore. In one of the clips in the video , Dick Cavett introduces a segment of his show by saying that “today” most people under the age of 40 probably have never heard of the Ritz Brothers. That “today” was in the 1980s. I have never received a positive response from anyone I have asked about the brothers. Yet The Ritz Bothers, which can best be described as a spectacular vaudeville act that peaked in films in the Thirties and Forties and then almost totally avoided TV while starring in nightclubs, were memorable. Unlike the Marx Brothers or the Three Stooges, two other trios whose cultural legacy is more secure, the Ritz Brothers did not highlight individual members of their team but rather emphasized remarkable unity and coordination. They danced, they sang, they did carefully choreographed physical comedy and slapstick, and were almost completely indistinguishable. Almost. Harry, “the One in the Middle,” clearly had an extra measure of presence and charisma, and it is he who is most cited by succeeding generations of comics as an icon.
Incredibly, the conservative website “Not the Bee” called that “an absolute masterclass in dealing with godless commies.” Where’s Extradimensional Cephalopod when we need him/it?
I know the EA herald of respectful disagreement would be all over this. On the other hand, Debra Lipstadt, the Holocaust historian, has maintained that engaging in debate with Holocaust deniers give them too much credibility, and I believe it is valid to hold that Communists warrant the same dismissive treatment. It is pretty funny that when asked to name an accomplishment of Communism, all the male Communist can come up with is “The Bolshevik Revolution.
However, shouting insults and talking over people is not an ethical debate practice no matter what the topic or who is involved.
