--- After the Red Sox

--- After the Red Sox blew game seven of the ALCS, I confidently
predicted the ratings would suck for a Yankees/Marlins World Series. I was right.
When I was in Florida, one of my cousins wanted to know why I was
rooting for the Sox. He assumed it had something to do with the Yankees
spanking of the Twinkies in the division playoffs. Not so, I replied. I
could not care less what happens with the Twinkies: the Yankees can
spank them as much as they like, just so long as someone spanks the Yankees when more people are watching.
Have I mentioned how much I despise George Steinbrenner? Probably not,
and I’m not going to get into it now, but I truly believe if there
were such things as pillories nowadays, someone should stuff his fat
head into one so everyone could take a shot. Hell, if nothing else,
think of the entertainment value. However, as there aren’t pillories
anymore, I’ll have to make due with something else---public
humiliation will do, I suppose, and is about the only way I’m ever
going to see George Steinbrenner suffer, and so this ratings
performance report is something of a double-edged sword. Yes,
Steinbrenner’s fat pocketbook will suffer because he won’t make out
like a bandit when it comes time to negotiate with the networks, but
not enough people outside of the New York/Miami markets watched to make
it a truly spectacular spanking. Sigh. I honestly wonder if Tim
Wakefield is sleeping at night, or if that failed pitch is haunting
him. --- There must have been another Democratic Presidential Debate
last night. My homepage is loaded with headlines: Dems Debate Issues
Dems Attack Bush Policy in Iraq
Democrats Debate Excerpts
Democrats Argue They’d Make a Better Leader

Like I said, when they start physically pounding on one another, let me know.

--- Hits the nail right on the head.
The husband spent much Sunday in a very cranky mood. I usually spend
Sunday mornings at the coffee shop down the street with Mr. H. We have
designated this time to catch up on all the stuff that’s happened in
between our incessant emailing. I left at ten. I got home at a quarter
til’ noon, and the husband, who had been in a chipper mood before
I’d taken off, was as crabby as a woman who’s just gone PMS and has
just come to the horrible realization she has no Advil in the house.
You see, he’d made the mistake of watching Fox News Sunday. That’ll
happen. I didn’t watch it, but it seems it was Bill Frist who had set
off the crankiness. He’d been blathering on and it was more partisan
nonsense. You know what I mean, right? The partisan crap that comes out
of the closet a year before an election, to rally the troops, when
before everyone in D.C. has been pandering to the middle other than a
few nutjobs like Tom De Lay or David Bonior. The husband’s main point
was that he was sick of it. Just. Sick. Of. It. And he’s a
conservative, but he doesn’t want to have to listen to someone
hammering home on a point for forever and a day when they’re not
solving the problems that need to be solved. He said a few things that
were highly reminiscent of what Michele wrote. So, technically, this
link’s for him, but it’s for me too. There are two things that need
to be done for anything to make voters feel that they’re not choosing
between the lesser of two evils when they go to the polls.
1. Get rid of the Electoral College. And if you can’t get rid of it,
at least reform it. This is the one thing---more than any other---that
holds us to a two party system, with its dazzling array of free
thinking. (Oooh, sarcasm. My bad) It’s amazing to me that for all the
advanced thinking the framers of the Constitution did do, that they
couldn’t quite seem to imagine a day when there would be more than
two political parties. I could go on all day about this. It’s been
one of my pet peeves since my days as a political science major. I was
hopeful in 2000, that maybe the whole brouhaha in Florida would finally
be the bell for whom the Electoral College tolled, but no. I know,
completely naïve of me, but I honestly thought the Democrats would be
up in arms about a contested election/much legal wrangling/ultimately
decided by the Supreme Court that they would do
something about this system. No, they’d rather have it as a rallying
point to collect campaign contributions than actually do something
about it. Every time someone used They stole the election as a
battle cry, it sounded completely disingenuous because they never did
an effing thing about solving the problem. And, for those of you who
think I’m picking on the Democrats, let me point out the Republicans
have been just as bad about it: there’s plenty of blame to go around.
I’m assuming you all know how the Electoral College works, but in
case you don’t, go here. There are many reasons for why
it’s there to begin with: to dole out legitimacy on the candidate who
comes away with plurality of the popular vote by consolidating votes
and granting the states’ electors to them, whether they won by a
majority or not. Also, in the day and age of harsh post- colonial
conditions, it was hard---and time consuming--- not only to vote, but
to count them, as well, particularly when a good deal of the population
couldn’t read. The Electoral College allowed the government to
approximate and give the presidency to a candidate whether all of the
votes had been tallied or not, which in turn, allowed the government to
keep functioning. It was, also, yet another one of those compromises
the founding fathers made between small states and large ones. It
ensures that states, large and small, had the same amount of clout in a
presidential election. To be fair, the Electoral College also keeps us
from having a mass of political parties like they have in Israel for
example. Israel has so many parties, the Prime Minister to gain the
support needed, has to form many unappealing alliances to be able to
rule. While the framers of the Constitution rejected a parliamentary
paradigm for our political system, it was still the system of democracy
they were most familiar with, and it’s obvious they based the
representative structure of the government on it. They obviously did
not want to have to deal with a mass of parties because they knew the
instability they bring to a government. These were legitimate concerns
back in 1789. I can see why the founders thought the Electoral College
was necessary back then. Foundling democracy, colonies threatening
every other day to up and leave the Union if they didn’t get their
demands which, in turn, threatened the Union as a whole, but I have a
hard time seeing, in this day and age, why it should be necessary now.
Since the presidency is not awarded by a majority, rather by a
plurality, it makes no sense to keep this system on. What purpose does
it serve in this day and age of national media and computers that can
count votes efficiently and effectively (well, except in Palm Beach) to
have the Electoral College? There’s not a one I can think of, quite
frankly. But then again, I’m not a politico: it’s not in my best
interests to have the College, but it’s in their
interest to have one, because it’s basically a grandiose function of
party politics. Political parties choose the electors: the electors
associated with the winning candidate are the ones selected to cast
their votes at the Electoral College. And we all know that political
parties have a vested interest in keeping this thing up and running
because it ensures that any third party candidate that runs for office
winds up splitting the vote: they just hope it happens to the other
side and not theirs. This is what happened with Ross Perot in 1992;
it’s what happened with Ralph Nader in 2000. Those two gentlemen
split up their respective side’s voting block, which ensured that
candidate would not garner enough of the popular vote to gain the
necessary electoral votes and win the College. It’s simple math and
it amazes me that more people don’t realize that if they want their
vote to actually do something, to actually have it reflect what they want
that they need to repeal the Electoral College. I was stunned in 2000
when a friend of mine said they were voting for Nader as a means of
telling the Democratic Party what they wanted to see on a Democratic
platform. It had obviously never occurred to this friend that if they
wanted to see something different, perhaps they should get involved
with the platform committee of their local Democratic party. I pointed
this out to them, gently, and they said no one would listen to them, so
why bother? It was easier to vote for Nader and send a message that
way. I asked them if they understood by that action they would be
lessening Gore’s chances of getting into office.
“Huh?” Was the reply. I explained it to her, she voted for Gore and
while she wasn’t pleased that he didn’t get the presidency, she
confessed she was glad she’d at least done her part for the “right
guy,” as she put it. Anyway, until the Electoral College is repealed,
there’s no point in voting for a third party candidate unless
you’re completely sure they’re going to sweep the election: it’s
just throwing your vote in the garbage if you do. 2. CAMPAIGN FINANCE
REFORM! Enough said. Until these two things are done, I honestly
don’t see how a third party candidate, particularly one with moderate
views, is going to siphon votes from either side and be successful in
the act. And until these two things are done, well, it’s just the big
boys playing up on the Hill, isn’t it? It doesn’t matter whose side
you’re on: unless you’ve got clout, you’re completely forgettable
the day after the election. I’ve reconciled myself to it. Mostly. ---
The weekend was boring here. No movies. Not much leaving of the house.
I’m currently reading this.
Oh, and it’s good, if not a little long-winded. Now, I’m not
normally one to mind long-windedness (har-de-har-har) but there are
times (far and few between I’ll grant) with this book that I feel
like I’m back in high school physics, trying to suss out the meanings
of what’s being described in the dialogue between scientists. I’ve
been reading this since I was on the beach and am just now starting the
second part. I read a while back that the Instapundit himself read this book over a weekend
What the hell?
I’m no dolt, but how, precisely, do you get through a 1000+ page book
in a weekend, while still managing to post about every news story under
the sun, and keeping the wife and kid happy? I would swear that Mr.
Reynolds is a savant. I’m a quick reader, but damn!
There’s no way I’d get through this book in a weekend. Not unless I
read the entire weekend and I suddenly took up crank. Then it might be conceivable, but as my recall is already crapola, what would be the point of that?

--- And I’ll leave off with this as your good news story of the day.
How positively cool that he got his own Red Violin?