Dangerous education
Education was the issue of the day in the Des Moines Register. In addition to Governor Tom Vilsack calling on parents of high schoolers to enroll their kids in more rigorous classes (he believes they fear lower GPAs in the tougher courses,) there were two stories about the suppression of education.The first involved a high school administrator in northwestern Iowa who cancelled a class trip to Chicago where high school speech students were scheduled to perform their state championship-winning "A Holocaust Story" for a group of survivors at the Holocaust Foundation in Skokie.
Laurens-Marathon Superintendent Mike Wright turned down the funds when the student group requested them, and when the parents volunteered to pay for travel and food, he still said no.
Asked to explain himself to the citizens who pay his salary, Wright said, "I basically made a decision, and that's the way it's going to be. I could tell you a thousand reasons they shouldn't go, but I'm not going to. I guess I really don't understand why this is a concern of the Des Moines Register."
The principal of the school believes Wright's decision was linked to an unwritten rule that student groups can't take class trips two years in a row, and the Speech Club is coming off a trip to Washington D.C. Wright is leaving the school district June 1st to take a job in Clear Lake.
The University of Iowa is hearing criticism from the statehouse because of a new elective course about the cultural impact of pornography. House Speaker Christopher Rants "reminded" university officials Tuesday that the House has yet to approve the school's budget for next year. (Who would have guessed they were three weeks late on a budget so they could spend more time bullying the state colleges?) Though Rants and others see political gold in this issue, the instructor in the course says the enrolled students will be bored to tears if they arrive in class expecting titillation. The University of Northern Iowa has offered a course in pornography as far back as the early '70s. (Iowa State offers something called "Animal Husbandry." Not sure what that is.) Even Chuck Hurley, the president of the right-wing Iowa Family Policy Center says he sees the potential value of the course.
The American Taliban won't be satisfied until the entire nation has stopped talking about, thinking about, and participating in sex.
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Speaking of Governor Vilsack, Salon.com thinks he has just the right ideas to revive the Democratic party. They're wrong. Like all of the other Republican-lites, Vilsack thinks the party's problem is rhetoric, when in fact it's their action. Disenfranchised voters are smart enough to recognize that Democrats no longer stand up for them. Salon: "You're a member of the Democratic Leadership Council, right?" Vilsack: "Uh, yeah, I guess so. I don't know."
We've seen Vilsack's ideas at work in Iowa. They appear to include throwing bucketloads of cash at corporate America in a futile effort to save jobs while the companies demolish our family farms and Main streets, taking our cold medicine off the supermarket shelves in indentured servitude to America's disastrous "War on Drugs," and chasing off the next generation of Iowans with English-only legislation.
Read my lips-- Vilsack is more of the same.
And by the way, it's no great achievement to be re-elected as a Democrat in Iowa. We re-elect everyone. Every office holder is given a 20 year cushion to prove he/she can do the job.
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Big baseball weekend coming up out West. Here's an amusing column about the recently-sizzling rivalry between the Los Angeles Dodgers and the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim.
posted by CM @ 9:50 PM
10 Comments:
Ok, this is not related to today's comments, but a posting from back in January. I was searching the internet for my name recently (as any ego-maniac does) and came across your posting about Ryno getting in the hall. I couldn't help but notice your ballot would not have included arguably the best 2nd baseman of all time. Other than All-Star appearances and Gold Gloves, I would like to see any compelling stat you can produce that shows why Ozzie deserved to be a 1st ballot guy and Ryno didn't. I contend the only reason Ryne wasn't in on 1st ballot was because he was a quiet guy who just went about his business and didn't make friends with the media. (The fact that he quit for 1.5 years didn't help either) But purely on stats, Ozzie was not a 1st ballot guy and he got in right away because he was adored by media and he could do a backflip.
Well, can Ryne Sandberg even do a backflip?
The reason Ozzie Smith is a first ballot HOFer (Holy crap, great question!) is because voters had seen the impact he had on defense, the most difficult part of the game to measure statistically. Most people make the mistake of measuring defense by percentage, but that doesn't take into account take-aways and range.
In 1980, Ozzie Smith had 621 assists. The next highest total that year by a shortstop was 524. Ninety-seven more than anyone else in a 162 game season is amazing. Derek Jeter's highest single season total ever is 457 in 1997, and he's only been over 400 twice. A-Rod's highest is 472.
Ozzie is baseball's all-time leader in put-outs, assists, and double plays by a shortstop.
He is one of only 10 shortstops to be an everyday player after the age of 40, and the only one of those born in the 20th Century (which makes him more of an Iron Man than Cal Ripken, who moved to third base at 36.)
If you take out the first four years of his career, which I think is worth looking at since the Padres only gave him 60 minor league games (all in Rookie League) before rushing him to the big leagues, then he becomes a career .280 hitter.
He did all the little things right-- he stole 580 bases, walked 1072 times (compared to just 589 strikeouts)-- which is why his team won three pennants and a World Championship. (He was also the 1985 NLCS MVP.) I defy you to look at the statistics of his teammates and explain how those teams won all those games, if you don't acknowledge that the little things add up.
The Cardinals' pitching rotation was built for him. John Tudor, Dave LaPoint, Joe Magrane, and Greg Matthews were all left-handed change-up pitchers designed to get ground balls to short off right-handed sluggers. All those hurlers were World Series pitchers (one a 20 game winner, another, an ERA champion) who had little or no success with any other team.
And while the All-Star appearances are very subjective, I've never heard anyone refute that he was clearly the best shortstop in his league for a period of 15 years.
Sandberg's a deserved Hall-of-Famer, and a great all-around player. I can't remember what I said in January, but I always thought his defense was overrated. He was so deliberate, and I never saw him dive for a ball. (His baserunning and clutch hitting ability, though, were underrated.) I wouldn't have burned the building down if he had made it on the first ballot. In fact, I probably took too much satisfaction from the fact that they were denying entry to a Cub, but at the same time, when a guy plays in so few big games (that Bruce Sutter/2 home run game took place in June!) I think it's worth taking a year or two to consider what his impact was.
Barry Larkin was clearly the best shortstop in his league for a period of 15 years.
I'd go with six. Good shortstop, though.
Hey, I hear the Cubs contacted Barry about playing for us after Nomar went down.
I will not argue that defense is extremely hard to quantify. And I will also not argue that Ozzie had better range than Sandberg. But, what the hell did you expect, his nickname was Ryno.
Ok, maybe he didn't play in a lot of games that counted, but when he got the chance, he performed like a HOFer. In his 10 playoff games, he batted .385, with a .641 slugging pct. This compares to Smith's .236 and .292 in 22 postseason games. And I laugh at the other "best 2nd baseman of all time" Joe Morgan who posted a horrific .182 and .348 in his 50 playoff games.
If you want to ignore Ozzie's first four years b/c he was "rushed" to the bigs - you better adjust that stolen base total down by about 150 as well if you want to move that BA up.
I never debated baseball with you because I always knew I would lose. But, after looking at the numbers today - I have confidently concluded that Sandberg was a better all-around player than Ozzie.
Now, pick a time this summer for us to go to St. Louis and pay some scalper $70 for some crappy seats to see our favorite teams do battle.
Sorry, I typed wrong - Oz was in 42 postseason games, not 22.
Forty two post-season games! Are we talking about Ozzie Smith or Yogi Berra?
I'm sure Ozzie and Ryno will compare rings when they meet in Cooperstown. Whoops, that was tactless. Maybe they'll just swap golfing tips. Or Lee Smith stories.
There are no "crappy" seats to be had during the epic final championship season of Busch Stadium. We'll work it out.
There is no "other" greatest 2nd baseman of all time. There's only Joe Morgan, who had the game winning base hit in the 8th inning of Game 7 of the 1975 World Series, the DECIDING moment in baseball's greatest World Series. It nullified Carlton Fisk's famous "waving the ball fair" homerun from the previous game. This trumps any heroics by either of your obscure players who only dreamed of accomplishing such a thing when they were 9 years old.
When you mention a phrase like Game 7 to Ryne Sandberg, all it makes him think of is a game played every year around April 11th or 12th.
Returning to your blog topic:
Your animal husbandry reference deserves a mention. I always suspected that you Iowa Staters were up to something freaky out there.
I'm not sure what it symbolizes but did anyone else notice how Dave's name keeps getting shorter?
Rob
"Hey Dave, how's it going?"
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