The Chris Moeller Archives

Residual forces

posted by CM @ 10:48 AM 0 comments

The Principal Advantage

Principal Financial Group, a Des Moines-based financial company and one of Iowa's largest employers, has applied for a $2 billion cut of the TARP federal bailout fund, but their lobbyists haven't stopped working overtime to help influence Congressional legislation. The new Treasury Secretary's vow to police the lobbying efforts of companies seeking taxpayer money might be facing its first major showdown.

According to lobbying disclosures, "the Bandits of High Street" (my phrase) spent more than $515,000 in the fourth quarter of last year peddling influence in Washington and were active in the efforts to sway 356 pieces of legislation in the Congress. Among other measures, Principal lobbied against the Employee Free Choice Act, which would allow workers the freedom to choose a union without employer interference. So what we have here is a "global" financial company, while steering itself towards bankruptcy, attempting to bribe elected officials against the better interest of the working families who will wind up shouldering the burden of the bailout.

Stay tuned to the Des Moines Register for what will no doubt be extensive coverage.

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President Obama, in his State of the Union speech tonight, made the bold assertion-- and in a dramatic delivery-- that "America does not torture," yet The Guardian in the U.K. implies a reality perhaps much different this week. Medical records indicate that recently-released Guantanamo captive Binyam Mohamad, a British resident, suffered severe and sustained beatings during his more than four years at the prison camp in Cuba, the paper says, and quite possibly so right up to the day of his release on Saturday.

Human Rights activists are expressing bitter disappointment and disgust with the actions taken by the Obama presidency during these initial days. On Friday, the new Democratic Administration came out on the side of George Bush's Dept. of Justice by filing a claim that "detainees" being held on military bases in Afghanistan (where many Guantanamo inmates are now getting shipped, incidently) don't have Constitutional rights, leaving these prisoners without representation or an avenue for legal appeal.

Simultaneously, Obama has all but ruled out investigations into the allegations of torture and abuse during the Bush era (this tale of some of your government's exploits will make you sick to your stomach), his Attorney General has invoked the "state secrets" privilege in an attempt to get Mohamed's lawsuit dismissed, and the president has inexplicably decided to send 17,000 more soldiers to Afghanistan, without any effort at diplomacy besides or even waiting for the results of an ordered strategic "review" of that war.

Democrats told us last year that a vote for John McCain was a vote for a third term for George Bush, but it would seem that we're not quite done with the old New England cowboy even now.

Change? Where are you, change?

posted by CM @ 8:51 PM 2 comments

The 81st Annual Academy Awards

Why do we love the Oscars? Perhaps because our favorite films each year reflect our individual tastes, and so often our identities. Esquire magazine has just said it best--

"There's no emotional investment in it. You didn't help make the movie. You didn't uncover some overlooked gem. All you did was choose to see One of the Year's Most Critically Acclaimed Films, and that choice panned out pretty well, and you want to share your self-satisfaction with others."

I sat down to watch the Oscar telecast tonight and had to adjust the rabbit ears on my TV to do it. It's the first time I've watched the ABC affiliate in Des Moines since last year's Oscars, and the digital picture threatens to tune out. Normally, there's a sense of excitement that arrives with the ceremony, but this year's Oscars are being held in the wake of a devastating showbusiness announcement. I confess I've never really quite understood the phrase "the show must go on" until this very moment.

Here's this year's ceremony timeline, a gift from me to you:

7:31 (central): Hugh Jackman as host. Not a comedian. Not dangerous. Not deflating at all of any of the bullshit Oscar pomp. He's very good at what he does, and I'm sure the Board of Governors, the blue-hairs, and 13-year-old girls loved it. But I still miss Chris Rock. Who knows what Rock could have said this year that would piss off Sean Penn? The ideal Oscar host for me would be Sarah Silverman. Then get front-row seats for Paris Hilton, Chris Brown, and the Octo-mom and prepare yourself for a night they'll be talking about for years to come.

7:47: Penelope Cruz wins Best Supporting Actress for her role in "Vicky Cristina Barcelona," following in the footsteps of other Oscar-recognized Woody Allen-muses Diane Keaton, Dianne Wiest, and Mira Sorvino. "Vicky Cristina Barcelona" had all the things a great feature film should have: Cruz making out with Scarlett Johanssen,

7:56: "Milk" screenwriter Dustin Lance Black gives one of the finest speeches of this or several years, an impassioned plea for federal gay marriage rights. Black, who was raised Mormon, also writes for the HBO series "Big Love," and you thought you disappointed your parents just because of that time they caught you trying on that Wonder Woman outfit.

8:03: There's presenter Jennifer Aniston, who must feel the stares of Brad and Angelina on her from the front row like Sean Penn showing up at a Club For Growth meeting. Aniston and Jack Black wow the crowd with a Pixar/Dreamworks "inside baseball" joke that 98 percent of television viewers don't understand. The punchline is then directed at producer Jeffrey Katzenberg, himself the target audience for 99 percent of the inside jokes told in Hollywood.

8:23: "The Dark Knight" loses the makeup award to "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button," but in effect, the film's makeup artists will win when Heath Ledger wins.

8:27: One of the rare film montages during this year's telecast-- one with the movies of 2008. But where's the old-timey clips? The ones that recall Hollywood when it was actually glamorous. It's not a real Oscars telecast unless I'm shown Charlie Chaplin's image at some point before we get to Best Picture. Are they doing this year's show with bailout money?

8:32: They've never invited Letterman back to host, but Dave's impact on our popular culture is felt indelibly when Ben Stiller does his Joaquin Phoenix impression while presenting the Oscar for cinematography with Natalie Portman. This is cracking me up. And I thought he did a great Tom Cruise.

8:36: Jessica Biel introduces the winners of the Academy's scientific and technological awards, awarded at a ceremony held earlier. Every year, a beautiful starlet is invited to host this separate ceremony. She certainly agrees to do it because the payoff is getting to appear on-stage during the Big Show despite not lassoing a nomination. The equivalent in high school is sending the prom queen to host the shop awards.

8:52: Beyonce performs with Hugh Jackman in his song-and-dance medley, singing, among other memorable tunes, "Top Hat, White Tie, and Tails." I hope Fred Astaire doesn't get his nose out of joint like Etta James did.

9:07: It's Heath Ledger for Best Supporting Actor. I admit I don't get it. I'd put Ledger's "Joker" portrayal somewhere between those of Jack Nicholson and Cesar Romero. He had some fun with the role, no doubt, but it was far from one of the five best supporting performances of the year. What it was was a perfect storm for an Oscar voters' blowout-- an actor overlooked for a much-loved previous role (as Ennis del Mar in "Brokeback Mountain"), a chance for Academy members to reward themselves for supporting a middlebrow, profitable, popcorn movie, and of course, their usual necrophilia for a youthful corpse.

9:16: A gem of a movie "Man on Wire" wins Best Documentary Feature. The subject of the film does a slight-of-hand trick at the podium and balances the statuette upside down on his chin before exiting, but that's nothing compared with what he does in the movie. Check it out "instantly" on Netflix.

9:20: What a breath of fresh air is Bill Maher-- slightly condescending towards the "Man on Wire" victors. They didn't win the Oscar "for doing that", says Maher, alluding to the statuette balancing. The Academy Awards telecast is a balloon that must be continuously jabbed at and occasionally punctured. Every year, we're told we're rewarding films that reveal "truth", but the awards show is a giant slobberfest. Maher would make a great Oscar host, actually. So would Ben Stiller.

9:41: Eddie Murphy introduces Jerry Lewis as the winner of the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award. Anybody who doesn't like Jerry Lewis can kiss my ass. Next February, the Academy can invite him back and give him a Lifetime award for his movie work.

9:46: The New York Times' Manohla Dargis on tonight's "King of Comedy".

9:56: Oscar producers have mercifully consolidated the performances of the Original Song nominees into just one 5 minute segment. (I hope they remembered to put Debbie Allen in carbon freeze.) The Oscar for best tune goes to "Jai Ho", a song sung in Hindi from "Slumdog Millionaire." Let's just say we won't see Hugh Jackman and Beyonce attempting this one in next year's medley.

10:10: The moment I wait for each year-- the Dead Actor Montage. This year, Queen Latifah is singing to them. The montage is the longest one in memory, concluding with Charlton Heston, Sidney Pollack, and Paul Newman, but the bonehead director of the telecast doesn't zoom in on the actual video screen so viewers with weak vision are probably missing half the names. Is it really necessary to keep Queen Latifah in the shot, and how many times does she have to sing through the singular verse of "I'll Be Seeing You"? "American Pie" would also be somewhat appropriate, and then they could just fade her out in the fourth verse when they get done with Newman.

10:20: Danny Boyle is this year's Best Director, so "Slumdog Millionaire" will have to be Best Picture, right? How can these two awards be separated? They give the Best Picture statuettes to the producers, but this rubs me wrong, like the way Major League Baseball gives the World Series trophy to the team owners instead of to the manager or the players. Combining Best Picture and Director is just one way that the Chris Moeller Film Awards (coming early this summer) are always looking to improve upon the Oscars.

10:27: I like the new system this year of using five previous Oscar winners to introduce, individually, the acting nominees. Finally, it seems as though Oscar producers have been taking their cues from the Football Hall-of-Fame inductions. Some of the tributes even seem like they were written by the individual presenters. Next year, they should switch genders so that Jon Voight can tell us about Angelina Jolie. Kate Winslet wins Best Actress, and her speech is terrific. I enjoyed it especially when she asked her Dad to whistle from where he was sitting in the audience, and he did; but sadly, with the previous winner on stage, Winslet missed the first opportunity since Adrien Brody to plant a long, wet one on Halle Berry.

10:41: That big palooka, Mickey Rourke, is the 5th and final nominee for Best Actor for his role as Randy the Ram in "The Wrestler." It's a bittersweet evening for Rourke, whose beloved Chihuahua, Loki, died at 18 years of age earlier in the week, just in time to miss the Academy festivities. Rourke dedicated his Independent Spirit Award to the dead pooch Saturday night.

10:42: Sean Penn is named Best Actor. He gives an even better speech than Winslet. He's absolutely right that the people who supported Proposition 8 in California will ultimately be forced to come to grips with their shame and "the shame of their grandchildren." His role as Harvey Milk was not only spectacular and contained within what may have been the best film of the year, but channeling the flamboyant Milk seems to have also revealed a sense of humor we didn't know he had back in the days of his "Mystic River"-type gut-wrenchers. Penn has lately lightened his public persona. Still it wasn't really the best performance of the year, so now sadly a great performance is destined to be best remembered as the one that beat out Rourke's, a truly iconic performance.

10:51: "Slumdog Millionaire" is awarded Best Picture. Though the scuttlebutt is that Mickey Rourke voted for "Marley and Me."

Peace and love to all. Next year in Jerusalem!

posted by CM @ 11:41 PM 1 comments

"Together , you're an advertisement. Apart, you're tourists": Comradeship in the Workplace

Sometimes moments of inspiration come in the smallest of packages. I used to work with a guy named Dick. What the hell, I'll tell you his last name. It was Lem Mon. That's with a space. French, maybe. Des Moines must have a few. Dick was a technical director like me at WHO Radio, and he was my senior in the business by maybe three decades. I pounded the mighty Wurlitzer (as one of our hosts would say) for Drive-Time Des Moines, and he piloted the mid-day Jan Michelson show. He was a great guy. Still is, I'll bet. We've both gone on to greener pastures.

Anyway, one time I walked into the bathroom at work, and Dick was doing his business at the urinal. I said something insipid to him like "Funny meeting you in here," but his response blew me away-- "This is where the Dicks hang out." I had never been so impressed in my life. That's called raising the level of conversation.

I thought back to this exchange today while reading this tribute to Gene Siskel, penned by his former television partner Roger Ebert this week upon the 10th anniversary of Gene's death. It's really a must-read-- warm and funny. The anecdote that I found strangely similar to the one about Dick was posted in the comments thread. A former newspaper colleague of Gene's at the Chicago Tribune recalled many evenings in the 1970s seated at a poker table with the film critic. Siskel evidently had an annoying habit announcing his current economic status to the table every couple hands-- i.e. "up two dollars", "down five dollars". The last time this colleague saw him before his death in '99, Gene walked past his cubicle, grabbed one of the Tribune papers off a nearby stack, put it under his arm, and said, "Up 50 cents."

posted by CM @ 8:40 PM 0 comments

Can I say something?

The problem with the long-abandoned, but recently re-proposed Fairness Doctrine is that it assumed that there are two sides to every debate, when in fact, there are always multiple. Why does every State of the Union broadcast end with a rebuttal by either a Democrat or a Republican? Who represents the more than half of Americans that consider themselves politically independent? Why no tradition that the president fill at least one cabinet position with a representative from a third political party?

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Sportswriters that advocate releasing the names of baseball's 103 positive steroid tests from 2003 can set a great example for the youth of America by submitting themselves to a full medical examination and drug test, then publishing the results. Rip that Band-Aid off. What's a little right to privacy when we're all suffering from acute "steroid fatigue"?

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Now with four years of hindsight, baseball's most thoughtful observers may be starting to recognize that Mark McGwire made some important points when he testified before Congress.

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Enliven your Academy Awards viewing experience this Sunday by participating in the Defamer.com "In Memoriam" Oscar Montage Pool. Aside from the montage, a possible acceptance speech by Mickey Rourke, and the prospect of Hersholt recipient Jerry Lewis going off-script, there's not much to get excited about in this year's telecast, not with non-comedian Hugh Jackman scheduled to host. I've been saying to myself for years-- That's what's wrong with the Oscars, they're not enough like the Tonys.

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Andy Kaufman and Joaquin Phoenix are in different leagues. Vanity Fair's Jim Windolf has the most detailed analysis to date of Phoenix's infamous guest appearance on Letterman last week.

Dave marked his 27th anniversary in late-night on February 2nd, and this past year has provided us with yet another creative peak for the host and his program. Here, we've got a Rolling Stone interview with Dave published late last year.

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Quote of the day: "Never underestimate the ability of Congress to repeat its mistakes. A decade ago, after it gambled and lost on deregulation, Congress was forced to launch a $500 billion taxpayer-financed bailout of the savings and loan industry. Congress has just rolled the deregulation dice again. This time the outcome may be even more costly.

"Congress and the White House have come up with the granddaddy of all financial deregulation, the "Financial Services Modernization Act," which whipped out the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933 and removed the major restrictions of the Bank Holding Company Act of 1956. In so doing, Congress and Clinton have opened the door for banks, securities firms, insurance companies, and in some cases nonfinancial corporations to combine into a handful of giant conglomerates.

"These conglomerates will be the financial equivalent of nuclear bombs. The explosion of even one could have a disastrous impact not only on the U.S. economy but on financial systems around the world."

-- Ralph Nader, January 2000

posted by CM @ 3:53 PM 1 comments

Checking Oscar

We're now less than a week away from the 81st Annual Academy Awards telecast on that network that shows "Lost", and I'm as giddy as a baby in a swing, to quote the Oscar-winning song of 1945. (That's accurate. Look it up.) The drama of next Sunday's ceremony may pale by comparison to the sight of Shaq and Kobe in the same starting lineup at the NBA All-Star game, but America's Drama Club can throw a party just as good as the jocks, and with more defense. (I'm not sure what that means.)

There are still 16 films that I want to see for 2008, but of the 30 I've already witnessed, "Slumdog Millionaire" is an early front-runner for the CM Blog's Picture of the Year. Simultaneously, I'm hearing that it's a front-runner to win the Academy Award for Best Picture. Such an overlap would be highly unusual, though I'm starting to feel myself move more and more into the Academy mainstream as I approach my mid-30s. Last year, my top 5 films matched 80 percent of the Academy's top 5, and only its failure to recognize "Mr. Woodcock" prevented a clean sweep. I'm recalling a long-ago episode of "The Simpsons" in which Homer announces to all, "I'm a white male, age 18 to 45-- every one listens to me," as he chows down on a food product whose packaging reads "Nuts and Gum: Together at Last."

The Academy has gotten it right on occasion, it seemed to me-- but not very often. And for a while, I'd been interested in seeing my all-time best picture choices up against Oscar's. Then I remembered-- shit, I have a blog.

So, without further ado, here's Oscar's all-time Best Picture list, side-by-side with my annual choices-- many, of course, selected with the benefit of lengthy hindsight. I've advocated many of my favorites before, so you won't often be surprised by selections on the list. In fact, it's a veritable "what's what" of the CM Blog's Top 50 American films, posted back in late 2004 and early '05. My choices below have been framed modestly in parentheses for easy perusing. Turns out the Academy has gotten it right about as often as the Dodgers win the World Series. Enjoy.


1928- Wings-- (Steamboat Bill Jr.)
1929- The Broadway Melody-- (Queen Kelly)
1930- ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT

1931- Cimarron-- (City Lights)
1932- Grand Hotel-- (Freaks)
1933- Cavalcade-- (Duck Soup)
1934- IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT
1935- Mutiny on the Bounty-- (A Night At the Opera)
1936- The Great Ziegfeld-- (Swing Time)
1937- The Life of Emile Zola-- (Grand Illusion)
1938- You Can't Take It with You-- (Bringing Up Baby)
1939- Gone with the Wind-- (Ninotchka)
1940- Rebecca-- (The Grapes of Wrath)

1941- How Green Was My Valley-- (Citizen Kane)
1942- Mrs. Miniver-- (To Be or Not to Be)
1943- CASABLANCA
1944- Going My Way-- (Double Indemnity)
1945- THE LOST WEEKEND
1946- The Best Years of Our Lives-- (The Big Sleep)
1947- Gentleman's Agreement-- (Out of the Past)
1948- Hamlet-- (The Treasure of the Sierra Madre)
1949- All the King's Men-- (The Bicycle Thief)
1950- All About Eve-- (Sunset Boulevard)

1951- An American in Paris-- (Strangers on a Train)
1952- The Greatest Show on Earth-- (Singin' in the Rain)
1953- From Here to Eternity-- (Roman Holiday)
1954- ON THE WATERFRONT
1955- Marty-- (One Froggy Evening [film short])
1956- Around the World in 80 Days-- (Giant)
1957- The Bridge on the River Kwai-- (Love in the Afternoon)
1958- Gigi-- (Mon Oncle)
1959- Ben-Hur-- (Some Like It Hot)
1960- The Apartment-- (Psycho)

1961- West Side Story-- (Splendor in the Grass)
1962- Lawrence of Arabia-- (The Manchurian Candidate)
1963- Tom Jones (8 1/2)
1964- My Fair Lady-- (Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb)
1965- The Sound of Music-- (none)
1966- A Man for All Seasons-- (The Fortune Cookie)
1967- In the Heat of the Night-- (Bonnie and Clyde)
1968- Oliver!-- (Rosemary's Baby)
1969- Midnight Cowboy-- (Take the Money and Run)
1970- Patton-- (M*A*S*H)

1971- The French Connection-- (The Last Picture Show)
1972- THE GODFATHER
1973- The Sting-- (Mean Streets)
1974- The Godfather, Part II-- (Chinatown)
1975- One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest-- (Nashville)
1976- Rocky-- (Taxi Driver)
1977- Annie Hall-- (Star Wars: A New Hope)
1978- The Deer Hunter-- (Pretty Baby)
1979- Kramer vs. Kramer-- (Manhattan)
1980- Ordinary People-- (Airplane!)

1981- Chariots of Fire-- (Reds)
1982- Gandhi-- (Tootsie)
1983- Terms of Endearment-- (The King of Comedy)
1984- Amadeus-- (The Natural)
1985- Out of Africa-- (Lost In America)
1986- Platoon-- (Ferris Bueller's Day Off)
1987- The Last Emperor-- (Angel Heart)
1988- Rain Man-- (Bull Durham)
1989- Driving Miss Daisy-- (Do the Right Thing)
1990- Dances With Wolves-- (Henry & June)

1991- The Silence of the Lambs-- (L.A. Story)
1992- Unforgiven-- (Glengarry Glen Ross)
1993- Schinder's List-- (Groundhog Day)
1994- Forest Gump-- (Pulp Fiction)
1995- Braveheart-- (Leaving Las Vegas)
1996- The English Patient-- (Fargo)
1997- Titanic-- (Eve's Bayou)
1998- Shakespeare in Love-- (Gods and Monsters)
1999- American Beauty-- (Election)
2000- Gladiator-- (O Brother, Where Art Thou)

2001- A Beautiful Mind-- (Mulholland Drive)
2002- Chicago-- (Y Tu Mama Tambien)
2003- The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King-- (Capturing the Friedmans)
2004- Million Dollar Baby-- (Sideways)
2005- Crash-- (Good Night, and Good Luck)
2006- The Departed-- (Half Nelson)
2007- No Country for Old Men-- (There Will Be Blood)
2008- ??????-- (??????)

posted by CM @ 8:51 AM 2 comments

Fuzzy history

Abraham Lincoln was born 200 years ago today. And so was Charles Darwin. If you have one of those Darwin fish emblems on your car's rear bumper and you also have Illinois plates, you're probably thinking to yourself, "Small world."

If not for Abe Lincoln, Springfield, Illinois would probably be best known as the historic home of the drive-thru restaurant and of veteran baseball pitcher Jeff Fassero, who still pitches in the Mexican Pacific League and who once pitched to Lincoln. If not for Darwin, all of the people listed below #4 on the BBC's 2002 list of the most influential Brits in history would move up one spot.

Lincoln, the 16th president in U.S. history, is widely considered to be our finest. If the former presidents were put together on a basketball team, "the Old Railsplitter's" height would likely dictate that he play at one of the power positions, and modern research (funded back east) suggests that if such a team had existed, playing in its day against other Washington-area squads of even modestly-skilled players, Lincoln would likely average a triple-double in points, rebounds, and blocked shots.

posted by CM @ 10:47 AM 0 comments

Postcards from Salem

The uncovering of the A-Rod steroid story blows me away. Where is the media and public outrage on the players' behalf? Yes, that's right. In 2003, their union voluntarily agreed to re-open the collective bargaining agreement to address the issue of performance-enhancers and then to begin testing, in complete opposition to their Constitutional rights to privacy. The players were told they needed to lend their cooperation for the good of their sport and society at large. Then, during the initial year of testing, when the individual results of the tests were to be kept anonymous and intended for surveying purposes only, the terms of the new agreement were broken with not one, not two, not three, but four anonymous leaks concerning the test results.

The United States Justice Department, not content with violating the Fourth Amendment rights of un-charged foreign-born prisoners, has also been knee-deep into a little 'union-busting' when it comes to baseball, pissing on the Amendment again by claiming the rights and samples of 104 players who reportedly tested positive, even though the Feds had a search warrant only in respect to 10 players linked in the BALCO investigation. Three U.S. District Court judges and a Circuit appeal have subsequently agreed with the union, but another court ruling is still pending, which is how A-Rod has been caught flapping in the wind.

Why in the world shouldn't the union do everything in its power to fight this investigation and protect its players? They've been railroaded at every turn. They should have never even agreed to the testing. As former union head Marvin Miller points out, the government, to prove cause, would have had to get a court order for each individual player to begin testing.

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In other sports news today, at the NFL Scouting Combine, a 450 pound prospective lineman ran the 40 yard dash in two seconds.

posted by CM @ 11:33 AM 0 comments

This stimulus

I have a tough time getting buzzed about the new stimulus bill. Make no mistake-- this is a Band-Aid for a stab wound to the gut. There can truly be no real solution without an end to these irresponsible tax cuts, and President Obama and the Democrats were too willing to hold the line on those, while agreeing to slice out targeted spending to state governments, to school construction, Head Start, Pell Grants, food stamps, health care, and the extension of unemployment benefits.

The mistake made by the media and the American people is in assuming that Republicans and Democrats both have the well-being of needy Americans at heart. Republicans, looking to appease their well-heeled contributors, were looking to add $3 trillion in tax cuts to the deal, while Democrats, looking to satisfy their slightly-less well-heeled contributors, decided that would pass muster. The plan still has the federal government deferring authority to many of the same companies and executives that were peddling risky loans and investments and that failed to foresee the volatility of the market, while the nation's debt limit is about to rise over $12 trillion. Debt got us into this mess, but somehow deepening the debt will get us out? Take that, grandkids.

As Paul Krugman points out, Obama played the politics so badly on this one, courting the so-called "centrists," that the Republicans and Blue Dogs probably would have felt compelled to demand $100 billion be cut from the bill regardless of the amount proposed.

For what it's worth, I've got a simple solution to our economic woes: Tax the top 1% of earners at 75 percent, the rest of the top 10% at 50, hold the line on everyone else, end the two wars, cut the defense budget by 10%, and unburden our nation's employers by implementing a program of single-payer, universal health insurance.

posted by CM @ 7:00 PM 3 comments

Questions of the day

A $500,000 pay cap on bailed-out executives is nice, but if you can't balance your company's books without a handout from hard-working taxpayers, how about even less than that? Half a million dollars can keep 10 families of four knee-deep in beer and Skittles for a year. That's still plenty to take home in public gratitude for helping to wreck our economy. Bailed-out Citigroup paid out $4 billion this year to executives who helped it lose $19 billion.

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In respect to President Obama's proposed economic stimulus package, how in the world have minority Republicans still been capable of framing the debate and dictating the terms of this deal?

An answer: Obama was eager to accommodate them, added a bunch of imprudent tax cuts that sent the message that it was a good idea, and yet he still can't get their support. Now the GOP has convinced the public that the stimulus is really about Democratic overspending and pork. A survey released Wednesday by Rasmussen Reports found that only 37% of Americans now favor the stimulus package. Yep, that post-partisan approach is off to a rousing start.

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Shouldn't the feds be flipping steroid users in their pursuit of actual predators (like real estate scammers) instead of the other way around? Are we chasing real criminals or headlines?

(Note: Since the story linked above went down in Baltimore, one has to wonder if the Bigbie wiretap wasn't improperly connected through the investigation of the serial killer preying on the city's homeless. Send an email if you don't get this reference.)

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What do you think of this list?

Most yards passing in a Super Bowl--
1) Kurt Warner, StL, 2000-- 414
2) Kurt Warner, Ari, 2009-- 377
3) Kurt Warner, StL, 2002-- 365
4) Joe Montana, SF, 1989-- 357

If Warner fails to make the NFL Hall-of-Fame, the biggest injustice of it will be that nearly all of the time he lost during his career-- the late start, the clipboard holding, etc.-- was due to coaches and teams not believing in his ability.

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Which is your favorite Michael Phelps joke? Vote in the comments box.

a) Jeff Schultz, Atlanta Journal-Constitution: "Just wondering: Is the water in Michael Phelps' bong chlorinated?"

or
b) Jimmy Kimmel, ABC's "Jimmy Kimmel Live": "If you had a party, it seems to me the last person you want to hit the bong is Michael Phelps, with the lung capacity of a humpback whale."

posted by CM @ 8:28 AM 5 comments

The great unsigned

Major League Baseball officials have always operated a shrewd shell game in respect to their financial well-being. Players Association head Donald Fehr once said, "Two things never change in baseball-- you can never have enough pitching, and nobody has ever made any money."

That's why it's difficult to swallow recent claims by the ballclubs that they can't afford the salary demands of the almost 90 still-unsigned free agents-- almost half of the total number that filed-- less than two weeks before pitchers and catchers are required to report to Spring Training. Forgive me if I'm smelling that filthy rat of collusion once again.

One week into February, the Cardinals club that I root for has allowed its payroll for this season (at this writing) to slip almost $25 million below that of their division rival Chicago Cubs, despite two decades of nearly-annual 3 million attendance postings, playing host to the '09 All-Star game (insuring season-ticket renewals), a spiffy new ballpark in only its fourth season of service, buckets of new revenue in streams from internet, satellite radio, and the new MLB cable television network. Their off-season transaction activity, at almost comotose levels already last winter, has consisted this year of only the long-term signing of current starting pitcher Kyle Lohse, trading for the modestly-talented and modestly-priced shortstop Khalil Greene, and picking up left-handed reliever Trevor Miller, who's been diagnosed with a slight muscle tear in his shoulder, for just a half-million dollars. Franchise player Albert Pujols recently lobbied publicly for the signing of his fellow countryman, Manny Ramirez, an all-world slugger, to join the Cardinals' outfield, but this is a wild fantasy considering that the current club budget didn't even allow for the acquisition of southpaw relievers Will Ohman or Joe Beimel.

For 2009, ballclub owners have the public relations luxury of hiding behind a shaky U.S. economy, but if recent cinema box office is any indication, escapism entertainment, such as that of our major team sports, will be one area of the economy little affected by a deep recession. Attendance boomed in '08 despite the country being in a recession all year. And besides, owners in their ranks, as usual, have sporadically betrayed their collective claims this winter by continuing to dole out some hefty contracts, such as the one this week to lefthanded starter Oliver Perez from the Mets for $36 million over a three-year deal.

You can probably detect that my main criticism lies with the inactivity and penny-pinching of my favorite club. Despite promises to bolster a bullpen that blew more saves in 2008 than any MLB club for a single-season in more than a decade, Cardinals chairman Bill "DeWallet" DeWitt has evidently resigned himself to beginning the new season with the same committee of relievers that produced the disastrous results last season-- plus the lefty-specialist Miller, of course. There's successful precedence in the club's history to adopting a bullpen by committee-- the 1985 team that had just lost Bruce Sutter to free agency didn't blow a ninth-inning lead until the 6th game of the World Series, but that team had also added bopper Jack Clark to begin the season, bolstering a batting lineup that had produced only 68 home runs in 1984. The 2009 Cardinals have added virtually nothing to their roster to indicate that they can make up the 11.5 games they spotted the Cubs last year, despite more than $30 million coming off the books with the departures of once-greats Jason Isringhausen, Braden Looper, and Juan Encarnacion. Where is this money being re-invested?

The cries of poverty are being heard from other corners of the league as well. The man who owns the Milwaukee Brewers, Mark Attanasio, has recently begun lobbying for that long-forgotten concept of a players' salary cap, and while the league parity that he's claiming to champion is vital, the arguments in favor of a salary cap to strengthen it don't bear out. (Don't forget that Attanasio's team made the playoffs in 2008.) A different team has won the World Series in each of the last nine seasons. Nineteen different teams have won the World Series during the last 30 years, while in the NFL, only 17 teams have won the Super Bowl throughout its 43 year history.

For the 2007 tax year, the man who used to own the Brewers, Bud Selig, now the commissioner of Major League Baseball, made $17.5 million in his post, at least sixty percent more than any other sports league commissioner in the U.S. No salary cap there. That's more than all but four big-league players made in '07 (all of them Yankees), and no baseball fan ever bought a ticket to a game to catch a glimpse of Bud Selig, a man who once cancelled the World Series and who experts speculate likely sleeps wearing a suit.

The players' union is now considering opening its own Spring Training camp later this month on behalf of the unsigned players, possibly at the old, abandoned Dodgertown in Vero Beach, Florida. This would be an almost laughable step to be forced to take. Club owners may have a valid point in that the economic recession forces a conservative approach, but nothing in their history, from the court-proven violations of the collective bargaining agreement during the late 1980s to the half-century and more of collusion to exclude African-American players prior to that has earned this group the benefit of the doubt. Just last year, Barry Bonds remained unsigned throughout the entire season despite his physical and legal ability to play, and despite the fact that the BALCO investigation in which he had been implicated had not likewise blackballed Jason Giambi. who had also been named in court documents. Players agents and representatives for the union would have every justification already to call for a formal investigation of the winter's transpirings.

posted by CM @ 10:16 AM 0 comments

Slumdog

"Slumdog Millionaire" may indeed be the best picture of the year, as much for its energy and its polished editing as for its suspenseful and heartwarming story. (My insides have been very cold of late.) I found the plot amusing-- 19-year-old product of the Mumbai slums appears on Indian television version of "Who Wants To Be a Millionaire?" and how he learned the answer to each trivia question is revealed through a series of flashbacks into his turbulent upbringing. How fortuitous, I thought to myself, that not only would he have collected all of the answers, but that he would have learned them chronologically to the order in which the questions were asked. He appeared on the show too early in his life-- if he were 100 years old, he would have raked in about $10 million by the time the end credits rolled.

Rob S, my theater sidekick, made an apt comparison. Jamal Malik's tailor-made questions on "Millionaire", he said, were reminiscent of mail carrier Cliff Clavin's Jeopardy "dream board" during a memorable 1990 episode of "Cheers." Cliff's Jeopardy categories- "civil servants," "stamps from around the world," "mothers and sons," "beer," "bar trivia," and "celibacy."

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You guys are not going to believe this, but I've been living the same day over and over again. I wake up every day right here, and it's always February 2nd. And there's nothing I can do about it.

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It will be a truly sorry day if former Senator Tom Daschle is confirmed by that body to be the new Secretary of Health and Human Services. It's bad enough that the man who would be in charge of taking on the most important health care mandate in the history of this country has collected more than $200,000 in fees over the last two years from speaking engagements in front of our largest health care conglomerates, but then he failed to pay more than $140,000 in taxes and interest on this and other income from his "consulting" work in Washington. This is despicable-- a conflict of interest compounded by theft and deceit.

Employ the Daschle strategy in your tax filing this year-- cheat like hell; if caught, apologize profusely.

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Rod Blagojevich will appear on the Letterman show Tuesday night. A national poll revealed that 65 percent of Americans are ready for the disgraced former governor of Illinois to just go away. Twenty-five percent say they think his Letterman appearance will be wildly entertaining. The other 10 percent say they hope he gets slapped by Jerry Lawler.

posted by CM @ 6:52 PM 2 comments