The SoapBoxers

I first saw the term Black Thursday in the comic strip Retail.  The strip makes a serious point, though.  Is Thanksgiving just a year or two away from become a complete afterthought?  Will people begin completely ignoring tradition and just head the stores at 5 AM on Thanksgiving instead of eating turkey and watching football?  Battling other shoppers for the the best deal on a flat screen TV at Wal-Mart seems to reduce the rest and relaxation aspect of a holiday.

I avoid the Black Friday craziness.  Sure, you may save a few bucks, but what’s the cost of standing in line and getting shoved around.  I hate crowds (not a phobia, just a dislike) and really don’t like to wait in line for more than about 10 minutes.  Waiting hours in line in the freezing cold for a store to open?  No thanks.  I’ll stay inside where it’s nice and warm.

And for the people shoving others to the ground and trampling them (this happens every year) – what the hell are you people thinking?  Would you behave like this on a random shopping day in June?  If it’s not appropriate behavior then, it’s not appropriate behavior on Black Friday (or Black Thursday) either.  Behave like civilized people.

Need to get some shopping done but wary of the crowds?  Amazon has everything 🙂

Sports stuff

Another reason I’ll be staying home today is that there are two interesting football games on TV.  Nebraska vs. Iowa (my wife’s team) followed by West Virginia vs. Iowa State (my team).  A win by my Cyclones would get us to 7-5 on the year.  We lost one of our best defensive players (Jake Knott) earlier in the year, and he could possible be back for a bowl game.  This would allow him to finish his career on a high note (although he was conference defensive player on the week in his last game – playing with any injury sustained the week prior) and put on a show for any NFL teams that may be watching.

Everyone’s talking about the Lions losing a game because their coach challenged a touchdown by the Texans.  By rule, all scoring plays are reviewed, and challenging the play is an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty and negates the review.  The officials made the right call according to the rule book.  Strange rule, though.  I can see having the 15 yard penalty, but negating the review seems odd.

The Patriots scored 21 points in less than a minute in their game.  That’s hard to do – especially since there were no onside kicks involved.  The Patriots scored, then quickly caused a fumbled and returned it for a touchdown, then the kick returner fumbled the ensuing kickoff and the Patriots scored on the play.  Strange.

Presidential race

Empire State Building turns blue. Obama wins. (Photo credit: Lisa Bettany {Mostly Lisa})

Barack Obama rolled to a fairly comfortable win on Tuesday night, winning in excess of 300 electoral votes.  Florida is still undecided, but leaning slightly to Obama.  If he wins that state, he’ll end up with 332 electoral votes.  Obama dominated the battleground states, with his win in Ohio punctuating the victory.

The base of the Democratic party, the states which Democratic candidates have won in each of the last six elections, now accounts for 242 electoral votes.  In essence, this means that the 2016 Democratic candidate starts with 242 electoral votes in his/her pocket and need to only capture 28 more from Colorado, Florida, Iowa, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Ohio, North Carolina, and Virginia.

Currently, the Republicans win amongst white males and get beaten by Democrats in most other demographic groups.  If the Republican platform remain the same, this could create a problem, as the racial/ethnic makeup of the country is changing, with Caucasians becoming a smaller percentage of the population every year.  The Republicans must make more of an effort to the issues that are important to women and racial and ethnic minorities.

Congress

The new Senate will consist of 54 Democrats (this includes Bernie Sanders), 45 Republicans, and one Independent.  Former Maine governor Angus “Burger” King won the Senate race.  While he has not disclosed which party he will caucus with, most insiders feel he will side with Democrats.  The Democratic party actually gave no support to the actual Democrat in the race, fearing a splintered vote would allow the Republican to win.  Two of the higher profile losses were Akin and Mourdock gaffe-ing their way to defeat in races where they had a good chance to win.

The Republicans will maintain their majority in the House, with numbers approaching their current strength of 240 members.

Speaker of the House John Boehner was quick to say “The American people also made clear there’s no mandate for raising tax rates.”  That’s true, speaker Boehner, but tax rates WILL increase at the end of the year unless congress and the president agree on a solution.  The Bush-era tax cuts and the FICA reduction will be expiring. 

While there have been rhetoric about bi-partisanship this morning, there will surely be a tense battle as we approach the fiscal cliff at the end of the year.  Buckle your seat belts.

Meanwhile, in Iowa

Iowa’s representation in the House dropped from five to four.  This meant that Republican incumbent Tom Latham and Democratic incumbent Leonard Boswell went head-to-head in a new district.  Latham won, and overall the voters elected two Democrats and two Republicans.  Iowa’s Senators – who were not up for re-election and long-term members Chuck Grassley (Republican) and Tom Harkin (Democrat).  The governor is Republican, the state legislature has one house controlled by each party, and Obama won the presidential vote.  Iowa is purple.

In 2009, Iowa’s Supreme Court struck down a ban on gay marriage, declaring it unconstitutional.  All seven members of the court joined the unanimous decision.

Iowa’s Supreme Court justices are appointed by the governor (from a pool nominated by commission).  They are on the ballot for retention after one year on the job, and then again every eight years.  In 2010, it happened that three of those justices were up for retention.  A well-funded effort to have them removed from office narrowly won.

The same group tried again this year, running ads against Supreme Court Justice David Wiggins.  This time around, voters chose to retain Wiggins.  I think 2010 was a serious wake-up call to a lot of voters, making them aware of the dangers of politicizing the judicial process.  If a political group could make judges fear for their jobs – and kicking 43% of the court out in one election could definitely instill such fear – then might the judges be fearful of making unpopular decisions, even if they were the legally correct decisions?  Let our judges be just, even when their decisions are not popular.

For the moment, the attempt to replace the justices and replace them with ones who might over the decision seems dead.

There’s a second way to negate the decision, and that would be to amend the state constitution.  However, that’s a pretty cumbersome process.  It involves passage of both houses of the legislature in two consecutive sessions.  A session is two years.  With the Democrats appearing to be in control of the state senate, the issue seems to be off the table until at least the 2015-2016 session.  This means that the very earliest it could reach the voters is 2017.  Barring a change in the makeup of the legislature (members leaving to to death, illness, scandal, etc) or a reversal by the supreme court, it seems that gay marriage will be legal in Iowa for a number of years.

Election day has finally arrived.  For those of us in the battleground states, it will signal the end of political ads and the returns of ads for Ruffles, Charmin, and Tide.  Hooray for Charmin!

The mainstream media likes to talk about the national polls, but as I have said in the past, these polls are completely worthless.  There’s no prize for the candidate who wins the national popular vote.

Most of the polls have had President Obama maintaining a lead in the electoral college (based on his performance in various state polls) for several months now.  While it’s true that Obama’s leads are within the margin of error in many states, he will most likely win most of those states.  As long as the polling errors are not matter of systemic bias (unintentional or intentional) and are simply independent errors, these polls should be erring on the side of Obama roughly half the time and on the side of Romney half the time.  The fact that the margin is within the poll’s margin of error does not necessarily mean that the trailing candidate is the one getting the short end of the stick – the poll could also be understating the lead of a candidate.

There has been much talk about Ohio.  Without it, Romney has a nearly impossible task in front of him.  I see Obama winning Ohio, due in part to election day weather.  There is very little chance of rain on Tuesday in Cleveland and Cincinnati, and this helps Obama.  Every inch of rain on election days boosts Republicans by 2.5%?  Why?  This is simply a bus vs. car issue.  Taking a bus somewhere in the rain is a worse experience that driving a car, because of how wet you get walking to and from bus stops.  Two demographics that use public transit more than others are the poor and inner city dwellers (poor and non-poor alike).  Both of these groups skew to the left.

Election Fraud

There has been much talk about voter fraud and the possibility of requiring IDs to vote.  I really think people are missing the forest for the trees.  Studies have shown that in-person voter fraud is very rare.  Absentee fraud is far more common.

The real danger, though, is people who are being disenfranchised.  There are shenanigans every year.  Among the tricks this year and notifying voters of alternative voting methods (phone and email) that are not actually legitimate, throwing away voter registration forms for a particular party, and sending in a fraudulent absentee ballot for a vote, so that when the voter appears at the poll in person, they will not be allowed to vote.

At this point, I would suggest that you never trust anyone to help with your registration – handle it yourself.  Even taking the precaution of waiting for the registration card in the mail isn’t good enough, as it would be very easy for the perpetrators to send out counterfeit cards (which, of course, would be worthless when trying to prove you are registered).

Some international observers recently have been critical about the US election process.  With some of the tricks that get pulled by partisans, and the outright lies in many campaign commercials, I do think our election process falls well short of the standards we should strive for.  Today’s voters may have more information than at any time in the past, but in many cases, they aren’t more informed – they are misinformed.  Take a few minutes to find the context for quotes and “facts” and you’ll be a more educated voter.  We should strive for a future when voters are correctly informed and when every eligible voter is allowed to cast a vote – even when their party differs from yours.

For a few years now, Martin Kelly has been participating in NaNoWriMo.  This year, I’m also taking the plunge.

What are the odds of me hitting the 50,000 word goal by the end of the month?  Not good.  Not good at all.  However, I’m hoping that the exercise will allow me to find small pockets of writing time and take advantage of them, so that I can continue the good habits after November is over.  I have several book ideas at the moment, but have struggled to find time to write.

If you want to buddy me on the site, go ahead.  Here’s my profile.

My book is tentatively titled “Shuffle”.  My main idea behind the book is that the main character’s life has been shuffled like a deck of cards and he’s going to live the time out of sequence.  This is likely triggered by an event in his 20s, to avoid having his youth messed up to much.  In a nutshell, one day he’ll be 42.  The next day he’ll be 25.  A few weeks later, he’ll be 70.  The idea came from the combination of several things – Quantum Leap, Memento, 11/22/63, and more importantly, the “random” button on XKCD.

The one thing missing at the moment is a plot.  I came up with this idea on the spur of the moment a few days ago.  Is the main character the protagonist or the antagonist?  If the story is going to be interesting, there really should be some sort of conflict.  But what sort of conflict?  Romantic troubles, or someone trying to kill the character.  (On second thought, those two ideas really aren’t mutually exclusive).  Heck, I’m not even settled on the gender of the character, much less the name (although I could always just go with Pat).

OK, need to finish this up and get back to my writing.  My word count at 11:30 on the first day of NaNoWriMo?  7.

Hurricane Sandy

Many in the northeast don’t have to go to work or school today.  But that’s not a good thing.  it’s because Hurricane Sandy is about to come ashore and could hammer the region for several days.  Early estimates of damage are in the neighborhood of $50 billion – and those estimates may end up being conservative, based on the path of the storm.  Sandy is a slow-moving storm, which is a horrible thing for a hurricane, and it means that the storm will dump rain on the region for a long period of time.

New Jersey governor Chris Christie put it best when he gave this succinct advice:

Don’t be stupid. Get out!

The Election

The timing of the storm also comes just a week before election day.  President Obama’s performance in some battleground states – notably Virginia and North Carolina – could depend on how he handles reaction to the storm.  There’s really not much Romney can do in this case, other than volunteer to fill sandbags somewhere.  At this stage, he’s a private citizen and has no authority over emergency response.

For reasons that elude me, people continue to report on the national polling numbers.  Maybe there’s more national interest in these numbers, but they are completely irrelevant.  Large majorities in some states will make a candidate look good in the national polls, but doesn’t help them in the electoral college.  The game is all about winning the battleground states.  What the candidates do in Texas and California does absolutely nothing to move the needle. 

World Series

Late Sunday night, the Giants finished off the Tigers in extra innings.  This capped an incredible post-season run by the Giants.  They are a hated rival of mine, but I applaud their ability to overcome a myriad of obstacles and win their second World Series in three years.  Marco Scutaro drove in an ecstatically sliding Ryan Theriot with the winning run.

College Football

A notable story in college football this year is the poor performance by the Big 10 conference.  In the latest BCS rankings, just a single Big 10 team made the rankings.  (To avoid kicking my Big 10 friends while they are down, I won’t point out how many Big 12 teams are in the rankings.  But it’s easy to find out.)

One wrinkle in the BCS is that a team from a non-automatic qualifier conference earns an automatic berth is they finish in the top 16 and also finish above the champion of any of the automatic qualifier conferences.  (I think only one team can take advantage of this per year).  Here are where some teams currently fit in the BCS standings:

• 19) Boise State
• 20) Nebraska (highest ranked Big 10 team)
• 25) Louisiana Tech

I like Boise State well enough, but I’m pulling for Louisiana Tech to crash the BCS party this year.

I’m also hoping for Notre Dame and Alabama to lose in the coming weeks.  Maybe have a nice batch of losses for the SEC and end up with an LSU-Louisiana Tech BCS game …

The big injury news on Saturday was standout South Carolina running back Marcus Lattimore, who dislocated his knee and suffered ligament damage in the game against Tennessee.  On the positive side, Lattimore did not break any bones.  He could possibly sit out 2013 as a redshirt year and then return to the field for the Gamecocks in 2014.

NBA

Reigning sixth man of year James Harden was traded from the Thunder to the Rockets.  Several picks and a few players were involved, but I’m not enough of an NBA fan to break down all the details.  However, I find it interesting that Harden left Oklahoma City because of money.  He’ll get a “max deal” of $60 million over four years from the Rockets.  Harden was offered $55.5 million over 4 years from the Thunder?

Wouldn’t you take a few less dollar for the opportunity to chase some titles with Kevin Durant.  (I guess I shouldn’t tell them that I like Durant – Durant!”)

This story originally ran on October 29, 2010.  This story is part of a trio of holiday stories  – you may also like Friends for Thanksgiving and Mrs. Claus and the Christmas Mistress.  All of them are “a bit” disturbing.

I threw another log into the bonfire and watched as the flames engulfed it.  The fire was off to a roaring start – just where it needed to be at this time of night.  The trick-or-treating was winding down, and the neighborhood kids would soon be gathering in my yard for the annual Halloween party.

The party was a neighborhood tradition, dating back nearly twenty years.  I was widowed at a young age, and from that point forward, made my work the focal point of my life.  I was a sixth grade teacher, and had won many awards for my work with the kids.  The Halloween party was a fun extension of my job.

I looked around the back yard to make sure everything was set up.  The lighting was at just the right level – sufficient to allow some visibility, but low enough to add spookiness to the occasion.

Pitchers of hot chocolate sat on the wooden picnic tables, as well as the main attraction for the evening – my world-famous chili.  My chili had a very distinctive taste that always made people clamor for more.

A few minutes later, Jeremy Dempsey led the first group of kids into the backyard.

“Hey, Mr. Raven.  Is the chili ready?”

“Yep, Jeremy, grab a bowl.”

“What’s in it, anyway?  My dad says it’s deer meat.”

I laughed.  “Oh, I couldn’t possible tell you my secret.  Isn’t it good enough to know that it’s delicious?”

The boy thought about pursuing the topic further, but then raced off to join his friends.

As the crowd was eating their chili, we began the tradition of telling scary tales.  I had the younger kids start out with the predictably tame stories and gradually built up to the older kids – some of whom did a pretty good job of scaring some of the youngsters.

When Steven Harper finished, it was my turn.

“Tonight I shall tell you a scary story … but a story that is very true.  Just two houses down,” I pointed toward the allegedly haunted house for effect “is the house where Old Man Harris once lived.”

“Harris was a grumpy old man of the worst kind.  If your baseball went into his yard, you wouldn’t get it back – and the cranky old man would pop out of the house and scream at you.”  Some of the older kids nodded their heads in agreement – they had experienced this firsthand.

“During the past decade, eight children have disappeared from this neighborhood – all on Halloween.  The cops always suspected Old Man Harris, but they could never find any evidence, so the elderly killing machine walked free.”  At this, the kids began to murmur amongst themselves – they knew of the abductions and knew that Harris was the Maple Street Marauder.

“Last year, twelve year old Sarah Miller disappeared on Halloween and hasn’t been heard from since.  Her friends told the police that Sarah was going to walk by the haunted Harris house on her way home – in spite of their protests.  Once again, the police could find no evidence that Harris committed any crime, and he walked free.  But this time, he would not escape justice.  Sarah’s father demanded revenge and shot Harris in the head as he walked to his mailbox.”

The kids all knew this story, so it didn’t scare them – although it made them a bit uncomfortable – setting them up for the finish.

“What you don’t know, though, is that Harris isn’t finished.  He made a deal with the devil to deliver a dozen souls.  Even though Harris is dead, the deal is not done.  His ghost must still kill four children as sacrifices to Satan.  This is the first Halloween since his death … and the next installment is due tonight.  I urge you to take every precaution and avoid the Harris house on this haunted night.”

I knew that my warning would only serve to embolden some of the older kids, who were now sure to pass by the Harris house after they left the party.  Unlike past years, I wouldn’t be able to stalk and kill them.  With Harris rotting under ground, I no longer had my scapegoat.

Perhaps the worst crime of all was that my famous chili would surely lose its special kick next year.  Tonight’s batch contained the last few morsels of Sarah Miller.

Tim Lincecum has been freaskishly bad in 2012.

Before the season began, the Giants knew they would be without Brian Wilson, their effective – and more importantly, quirky – closer.

Then the calendar flipped to April.  Tim Lincecum, a two time Cy Young award winner who should be in the heart of his peak years, began pitching like utter crap, and finished the season with an ERA above 5.00.

Outfielder Melky Cabrera provided a spark early in the year, racing toward a batting title.  Then Melky got popped for performance enhancing drugs and was banned 50 games.  He’d be eligible to return in the middle of the playoffs, but the Giants opted not to add him to the roster.  This decision was probably partially due to not wanting the stench of PEDs to waft over the team’s post-season success, but also because it would mean Cabrera would be having to re-acclimate himself to Major League pitching during the playoffs – not a good thing.

Then the playoffs began, and the Giants quickly lost two games to the Reds.  Then they had to go on the road and try to win the next three games.  Which they did.

Then they faced off against the Cardinals.  They got down three games to one, and once again faced elimination three games in a row – and won all three games to win the series four games to three.  Italian-bred and Venezuelan-born infield Marco “Polo” Scutaro arose from the ashes of a hard Matt Holliday slide in game two to be named the NLCS MVP, recording a record-tying 14 hits in the series.

Now the Giants, after just one day off, face the well-rested Detroit Tigers in the World Series.  The Tigers have Justin Verlander on the mound, and the Giants match him with … Barry Zito.  The much-maligned and overpaid Zito is forced into the role because the Giants had to use Matt Cain in the NLCS game 7 on Monday.

On paper, this is a huge advantage for the Tigers.  They can start Verlander in games 1 and 5 and should have a great shot at winning both those games.  Win just one of the other three games and they’d have a 3-2 lead after five games.  Get some well place rain that causes extra off days and it’s possible Verlander could pitch games 1, 4, and 7.  Or manager Jim Leyland might just pitch Verlander on short rest and run him out in games 4 and 7 anyway.  On paper, that’s a huge advantage for the Tigers.

But baseball isn’t played on paper, and the Giants seem to be a team of destiny.  My prediction: Giants win, with Barry Zito the World Series MVP.  Zito will pick up wins in games 1 and 5, and pitch the 14th inning of game 7 for the save.  Zito’s stats for the World Series: 5 and 1 run in 16 innings, for a 0.56 ERA.

BPA is bad for you, we’ve been told.  It was banned from baby bottles in the US and Canada.  Then came an even bigger scare – a study that showed that a mother eating food packaged in BPA could cause lower thyroid levels in boys!

The something funny happened.  Concerned parent Sarah points out that the government of Canada released a study that says that consuming products packaged in BPA does not cause a health risk.

Sarah asks whom we would trust – the researcher who is dependent on grant money or the government of Canada.

I’ll take this even a step further and point out the existence of what is known as “publication bias”.  The studies that appear in journals – and thus are far more likely to end up in the mainstream media or be noticed by legislators – are more likely to be the results that are shocking or unexpected.

For example, let’s say that we’re studying whether or not drinking a quart of orange juice every day can prevent the growth of tumors.  Ninety nine studies do not show any link, but one study appears to show that drinking the orange juice does indeed prevent the tumors from growing.  Guess which one is going to end up in a scientific journal?  Certainly not one of the boring ones – the one with the surprising result is going to be published.

A basic concept with science is that an experiment must be repeatable by other scientists before the results can be considered valid.  This is to prevent unrelated factors (such as human error) from creating the result. 

The same concept applies to scientific studies.  When one study appears to shop a certain result, it’s very difficult to know of this is causation or merely correlation.  It’s possible that the result could be attributed to other factors, or even to selection bias.  In our hypothetical orange juice – cancer study, perhaps the control group and experimental group were located in different geographical areas.  The OJ drinkers received treatment at one hospital whereas the non-drinkers received treatment at another.  It’s possible that the OJ doctors were simply more effective in treating cancer, and that the orange juice really had no effect.

In a nutshell, exercise caution when you read about scientific studies.  Check to see if there have been other studies on the topic, and check to see what the results of those studies were.  Look at the entire body of work on the topic, in other words, and not just one study.  We’re in an age where we research topics with just a click of the mouse.  Put that power to work for you and become more educated on the topics you care about!

Derek Jeter

Derek Jeter broke his ankle in the 12th inning of Saturday night’s ALCS opener.  Would the ankle have remained intact if the game had gone just nine innings – or was there previous stress that would have resulted in a break at a later point?  It’s a moot point for the Yankees, as they’re without their captain.  After losing again on Sunday night, the Yankees are down 2-0 and heading to Detroit for three games.  Oh, yeah – they’ll face Tigers ace Justin Verlander in the next game.

It’s no surprise that the Yankees are down 2-0 to the Tigers.  Even with the help of steroids, they’re giving up a good 60 pounds per man across the offensive line.  With Fielder at center and Cabrera at left tackle, the Yankees D-line isn’t ever going to get a hit against Verlander.  Oh, sorry, wrong sport.  Seriously, though, those guys are huge for baseball players.  If you’re wondering which city has the best restaurants, don’t overlook Detroit.  Those guys are eating well.

Jeter’s value had been the subject of much debate over the years.  Much of the discussion has revolved around his defense.  Yankee fans will point to error total and gold gloves and say he’s a good defender.  Others will point to advanced defensive metrics which rank him mediocre or worse.

But is Jeter’s post-season offense also overrated?

We always hear that A-Rod chokes in the post-season and that Jeter shines.  Jeter’s career post-season OPS is .838.  How bad is the OPS of the legendary choker, Alex Rodriguez?  .838.  Jeter’s had some great post-season series, but he’s also had a few stinkers over the years.  However, his legacy was established early in his career, as his reputation precedes him at this point.

An argument that you might hear is that Jeter ranks highly in many career post-season statistical categories.  This is true.  He’s first in hits, runs, total bases, doubles and triples while ranking in the top five in homers, RBI, and walks.

However, let’s not overlook one big aspect of Jeter’s numbers: opportunity.  Not only has he been fortunate to play on many successful teams, but the post-season is longer than it was in the past.  Prior to division play in 1969, there were a maximum of 7 post-season games per year – The World Series.  In 1969, this jumped to 12 possible games per player before jumping to 19 in 1995.  The coin flip game now makes it possible for someone to play in 20 games during a single post-season.

Yogi Berra famously won 10 World Series titles as a member of the Yankees.  He was also on the losting side 4 times.  Her compiled 295 post-season plate appearances in 77 games – incredible numbers for his era.  Derek Jeter has 734 plate appearances in 158 post-season games.  That’s a full season of games, just in the post-season.  He has more post-season homers (20) than Reggie Jackson (18) or Babe Ruth (15), but it would be silly to argue that he was a better slugger.  Does he have more shining post-season moments than nearly anyone else?  Sure – but he also has more ordinary moments.

Jeter’s 734 post-season plate appearances are by far the most in history.  Bernie Williams is second with 545, Manny Ramirez is third with 493, Jorge Posada is 4th with 492 (anyone noticing a trend?).  In fact, only seven other players have half as many post-season at bats as Jeter.

Don’t get me wrong – Jeter has made the most of his opportunities.  But he has also been the beneficiary of a massive amount of opportunities over the years.  Jeter also is the runaway leader is strikeouts – not because he sucks, but because he’s had more opportunity to strike out.

Likewise, he’s also had more opportunity to get injured … and random chance finally got Jeter on Saturday night.

When John L. Smith’s financial woes made the news, it was reported that the Arkansas football coach owed $25 million in debts related to bad real estate deals.  Later court filings showed that this figure was not accurate.  Smith actually owed $40 million.  Prior to this year, Smith’s highest salary was $1.35 million at Michigan State in 2002.  recently, he’d been earning $130,000 as the head coach at Weber State.

How could Smith manage to incur $40 million in debt?  That’s a great question.  It definitely seems like some bankers were asleep at the wheel when they gave Smith loans.  Could an average Joe get loans for such a high multiple of their annual income?  I doubt it.

If the bankruptcy court discharges Smith’s debts, he’ll wash his hands of them and begin anew.

Smith is 53, and if successful, could conceivable have around 15 more years of coaching left.  He could earn $20-$30 million during that time – with none of it going toward his creditors.

Does that seem right to you?  What this precedent would do is set up a win-win proposition for people like Smith.  These people would essentially be playing with house money.  They’d keep all the money they win but get other people to pay for their losses.

“Wait a minute,” you say.  “Maybe Smith will make an honest effort to pay back his creditors.  Maybe he just needs some time to straighten things out.”

That’s a noble thought – but you need to pick a different hero.  We recently found out that Smith deferred 70% of his 2012 salary.  Why?  To make it more difficult for is creditors to get at they money.  The bankruptcy court may call an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty on Smith and force him to reach a repayment plan with his creditors – a plan that would garnish his salary.

A footbal coach, of course, it a leader of young men – someone who will mold them.  Perhaps some parents should have second thoughts about sending their sons to play football at Arkansas.

Bobby Petrino left Arkansas in disgrace, but I’m not sure that the Razorbacks traded up when they go John L. Smith.