The SoapBoxers

Who Killed Breitbart?  His Heart.

It’s been a week since conservative leader Andrew Breitbart died.  At the time, I asked a friend of mine how long it would be before conspiracy theories started circulating about his death.  It took only a few days before people were saying that the Obama administration had Breitbart whacked.  While it’s fun to spin the theories, sometimes 43 year old men simply die.  My brother was only a bit older when he died due to heart issues.  It happens.

Now, if Rush Limbaugh and Bill O’Reilly both turn up dead in the next week, then I’ll agree that we should be taking a long hard look at this.  But until that happens, I’d suggest that Breitbart’s fans celebrate his life rather than trying to indict the president for murder.

The Billionaires Club

Mitt Romney picked up six wins on Super Tuesday, Rick Santorum picked up three, and Newt Gingrich won Georgia (the state he represented in congress).  It’s interesting to note that Santorum and Gingrich each have their own person billionaire funneling tons of money to them via SuperPACs.  This is completely legal.  However, the existence of the SuperPACs means that both can stay in the race even if they aren’t receiving decent fundraising support from anyone else.  In previous years, lack of funding likely would have pushed one of them out of the race by now, leaving the other to go head to head with Mitt Romney.  Head to head with Romney, either of them would have a chance.  But as it stands, they are splitting the non-Romney vote and are coming up short.  Romney can get a plurality in a three candidate race, but would likely have problems gaining a majority in a two candidate race.

Peyton Manning

After 14 years in Indianapolis, the Colts cut Peyton Manning.  The Colts are catching a lot of flak for this move, with many saying that they haven’t been loyal to the player who had built the franchise.

It’s true that Peyton Manning took over a team that sucked and turned it into a great team – largely due to the fact that he’s a stud quarterback.

But bear in mind that the Colts paid Peyton $26.4 million last year – when he didn’t play a down.  He was due to get a $28 million roster bonus if he wasn’t cut.  This isn’t some sort of pro-rated amount that would allow the Colts to wait around a month or two to see how Manning was doing – it was $28 million all at once.  If Manning didn’t play in 2012, this would have meant the Colts has paid $54.4 million for absolutely no on-field production.  Even if money wasn’t an issue, NFL teams are bound by a salary cap, and that sort of a cap hit would make it very hard to maintain a successful team.

If I were Irsay, I’d try to sign Manning to a one year deal with a low base salary and hefty incentives.  If he plays, he makes decent money.  If he doesn’t, then the cost is minimal.

Are the Colts right to go after Andrew Luck in the draft?  Certainly.  Even if Manning were to play this year, at some point soon he’ll be at the end of his career.  There’s no guarantee that the Colts will be able to get a player of Luck’s caliber in a later draft (in fact, it’s very unlikely, as a healthy Manning means a better team and a worse draft pick).  You need to take the bird in the hand.  I also tend to be a fan of having a young QB carry a clipboard for a year or two,  While a handful of recent QB have had success being thrown into the fire, historically, this has burned a lot of teams.

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’re probably well aware that last week Rush Limbaugh called a Georgetown law student a “slut” and demanded that she post videos of herself having sex because she (according to Rush) wanted the government to pay for her birth control. There’s just so much wrong with this statement it might be hard to tackle it in one article, but I’m going to give it the old college try.

As the story goes, Sandra Fluke, a Georgetown Law student, testified in front of congress in late February in support of President Obama’s proposed mandate that insurance companies be required to offer women’s contraceptives like any other covered medication. She argued that birth control for women can cost as much as $1000 a year and low cost/free clinics could not help in many cases. In her testimony she stated her friend has a medical condition, polycistic ovary syndrome, and birth control pills are prescribed by a doctor to treat that condition. Despite this fact, the insurance company got in between her friend and her friend’s doctor (you know, that very thing Republicans argued Obama care would do? Yeah, it’s already being done by insurance companies). In response to this, Rush Limbaugh said,

What does it say about the college coed Susan Fluke [sic], who goes before a congressional committee and essentially says that she must be paid to have sex? What does that make her? It makes her a slut, right? It makes her a prostitute. She wants to be paid to have sex.

Later that day Limbaugh also said the following:

Can you imagine if you’re her parents how proud of Sandra Fluke you would be? Your daughter goes up to a congressional hearing conducted by the Botox-filled Nancy Pelosi and testifies she’s having so much sex she can’t afford her own birth control pills and she agrees that Obama should provide them, or the Pope.

Furthermore, on March 1st (a few days later) he continued on this same subject and said,

So, Ms. Fluke and the rest of you feminazis, here’s the deal. If we are going to pay for your contraceptives, and thus pay for you to have sex, we want something for it, and I’ll tell you what it is. We want you to post the videos online so we can all watch.

My first thought is that if Mr. Limbaugh thinks he has a right to watch videos of women who want birth control covered by their health insurance companies having sex, then I want videos of Rush Limbaugh in agonizing pain because his health insurance company paid for his extreme doses of oxycontin. I’m just following his line of logic, shouldn’t be a big deal to him, right? Also, Rush really is showing his ignorance if he thinks you need to take more birth control pills the more sex you have. I guess he’s just too used to popping his narcotics from dozens of different prescriptions he got from his housekeeper when he has issues, so he figures throwing more pills at something should help get rid of the problem faster or better.

Ms. Fluke’s testimony was a response by Democrats in response to Republicans inviting an all-male, all-conservative panel to discuss the requirement that health insurance companies provide contraceptives in the same fashion as other drugs. If the democrats really wanted to balance out a panel of 10 conservative males discussing contraceptives, they could have called Ellen DeGeneres, Rose O’Donnell, and Iceland Prime Minister Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir to discuss Viagra and prostate health issues. Again, it’s along the same lines of logic, just taken to the opposite extreme.

I’m actually not quite sure why the big conservative religions are so uptight about this issue. It’s pretty widely known that the Catholic church (still) opposes the use of contraceptives, ironic considering 98% of Catholic women use or have used birth control. You’d think they would want to make sure their own people were following their views before trying to actually speak out vehemently about them. I guess it’s along the lines of Republicans being so outspoken against homosexuality when so many of them are caught having or soliciting gay sex.

I’d like to end on a note of linking this issue with another current event, the Republican Candidates. The response of the current 4 candidates has been tepid, at best, with Ron Paul being the most honest – he said Limbaugh is most concerned with his fiscal bottom line.  Yet any candidate not named Ron Paul is completely willing to keep railing about how we need to attack Iran, despite the fact that wars in the Middle East tend to be unpopular and cost the lives of thousands of young Americans and simply throw more fuel on the fire of terrorism. What does it say about a man who’s willing to start a war that will have nearly zero repercussions for him, but he’s unwilling to stand up to Rush Limbaugh? Do we really want someone like that for president?

My fantasy draft is under way!

First, a bit of background for those of you who aren’t familiar with my baseball league.  I run one of the more interesting fantasy leagues you’ll encounter.  It’s called the Alphabet Soup League, and the main twist is that you can’t start two players from the same letter of the alphabet (last name).  If you have Holliday and Halladay, one of them must sit.

The draft is also a bit odd.  The ten participants are spread across six cities in four states (from New York to Colorado), so a live draft is out.  An automated draft is also not feasible, because player valuations are changed dramatically by their letter group.  Mike Napoli, the power hitting catcher from the shallow letter N, is arguably a better option than Albert Pujols.

Instead of a normal draft, each player is assigned two letters (or a group of shallow letters) in each of ten “rounds”.  If you have T and M, for example, you are the only person who can pick players with last names beginning in T and M during this round.  This allows the draft to be conducted by email, without forcing anyone to wait on anyone else (regardless of what the guy with C and F does, you are still drawing from the same pool of players – T and M).  I always announce my picks for the round before the round begins, so that I can’t use knowledge of other people’s picks to my advantage.

With further ado, a look inside Kosmo’s draft so far.

Round 1 

I have the latters W and G.  W is a no brainer.  I go with Baltimore catcher Matt Wieters.  Position scarcity can be an even bigger problem in this league than other leagues, since you can’t just make a position a priority and draft a player from that positon.  You have to have a good letter for that position.  Many of the best catchers are bunched up in M (quirk of fate), so the selection of catchers at most other positions is pretty weak.  I always try to get a catcher, shortstop, and second baseman early, before the talent drops off.

G was a harder choice.  I do ike Zach Greinke quite a bit, and he rebounded quite well after a slow start in 2011 … and I rarely pick a first baseman so early, since there are a bunch of sluggers available.  Still, I love the Super Marioesque eyebrows of Adrian Gonzalez, and think that he’s a safe bet to repeat his 2011 numbers – and probably even improve his home run totals.  His numbers were suppressed by PETCO for many years, but this guy is a tremendous player.

Round 2

I have K and the letter group (Q, U, X, Y, Z) in round 2.  I’m looking to fill the 2B and 3B spots here.  Ian Kinsler and Chase Utley are potentials for 2B and Michael Young and Kevin Youkilis are the options at 3B.  I end up simply taking the younger player in each case, hoping that younger means less susceptible to injury.  Ian Kinsler is my 2B and Kevin Youkilis is my 3B.

Round 3

This is where the draft gets interesting for me.  I have the letters S and N.  S is a great letter, and the obvious pick for me is Marco Scutaro.  As the shortstop for Boston last year, he retains that eligibility this year, and I still need a shortstop.  Plus, Scoots will be the second baseball for the Rockies this year, giving him eligibility at a second position.  And did I mention that Coors Field is a great hitter’s park?

So, naturally, I pick Cleveland catcher Carlos “Sweet Music” Santana.  Why?  More about this later.

N is a shallow letter, and an easier pick.  Joe Nathan was signed by the Rangers to be their closer.  Big money means he’ll get every chance to keep the job, even with former stud closer Neftali Feliz toiling in the bullpen.

Round 4

I get P and D for round 4.  There are some so-so shortstops available, but I hold off.  I’m rolling the dice that Asdrubal Cabrera or Starlin Castro will drop to me in the sixth.  That’s a pretty safe bet, and if both those guys are off the board, there will be some stud players available that I can grab and spin in a trade.  I’m not usually a riverboat gambler when it comes to my shortstop, but I think the payoff is worth it this time.  I take Mets frst baseman Ike Davis.  The fences are coming in at Citi Field this year, which should help Davis.

P also has a decent SS on the board in Jhonny Peralta.  There are also pitchers Michael Pineda, David Price, Rick Porcello, and J.J. Putz, just to name a few.  However, I have officially turned the bastard switch at this point … my choice is Buster Posey.  At this point, most of the others should realize that I’m attempting to corner the market on quality offensive catchers.  A couple of teams are going to be stuck with horrible hitters behind the plate, and this should put me in a good trade position in the trade market.

Check back later for an update on my draft.

Today is Super Tuesday, and the four leading Republican candidates are fighting for delegates.  Mitt Romney is favored in some states, Rick Santorum in others, Gingrich expects to win in Georgia (he represented the state in congress), and Paul might even have a shot in one state (North Dakota).

Then we come to Virginia.  Only two candidates are on the ballot there – Mitt Romney and Ron Paul.  It’s expected that Romney will win convincingly.  If Santorum and/or Gingrich were on the ballot, it might be a different story.

Critics of Virginia’s primary rules call them onerous.  Signatures must be collected be residents of the state (no out-of-state staffers), ten thousand valid signatures must be collected, and there must be four hundred signatures from each district.

Rick Santorum failed to get ten thousand raw signatures, so his case to get on the ballot is a non-starter.

Gingrich apparently fell short after some signatures were declared invalid.  It has been mentioned that in previous elections, the validity of the signatures was never checked – anyone who turned in ten thousand signatures got on the ballot.  While that’s interest, there’s not logical reason why such a bad practice should be continued.  If the rules say ten thousand valid signatures, then it only makes sense that the validity of the signatures be checked.

The final hurdle to jump through is to ensure that you have four hundred signatures from each of the eleven congressional districts.  The “problem” this year was that there was redistricting due to the results of the 2010 census – and that the requirement referred to the new districts, which were non-existent when the signature-gathering began.  However, this isn’t the first time that redistricting has occurred – district boundaries change after every census.  There are a few relatively straightforward ways to mitigate this requirement.

Signature Gathering Tips:

Gather signatures in every reasonably sized city in the state.  While redistricting might shift a few cities around, all of the new districts are going to have at least a few decent sized cities.

Do extra credit extra.  Don’t stop when you’ve hit 401 signatures from each district.  If you far exceed the required numbers, you’ll less likely to get the number knocked below the threshold when invalid signatures are tossed.

If your state is reducing the number of districts, there’s a really easy solution.  Focus your efforts on the physical center of each district.  While the  borders are going to shift a bit, the physical center of most districts should remain somewhere within the district (barring outright right gerrymandering).  Situations where a state gains districts is more difficult, as the new district might be a combination of the fringes of several old districts.

Are the requirements to get on the ballot onerous?  There are eight million residents of Virginia.  Ten thousand signatures means that one in 800 residents of the state signed your petition.  Each congressional districts contains about 700,000 people … meaning that the requirement of four hundred signatures from each district would necessitate signatures from one out of ever 1500 people in a particular congressional district.

If you can’t reach such a minimal level of support, maybe you’re not ready for prime time.  It’s true it’s hard to get people to turn out to vote in primaries, but it’s the candidate’s responsibility to energize the supporters!

And here’s the final reason why I am not concerned with Virginia’s rules.  The primaries are not a government election, but a party election.  Let the parties decide how they want to choose the candidates, and let the parties decide what’s necessary to get onto the ballot.  Don’t like how they do it?  Get into a leadership position and change it – or form your own party.

Mutiny on the Bounty

I really am surprised with all of the uproar that is being given to the current situation involving current St Louis Rams defensive coordinator Gregg Williams and the alleged setting of “bounties” on opposing players.

In case you have not been hearing this in the news, essentially a bounty is considered a situation where a pool of money is set aside for players and then if they perform certain tasks in the game, they get a stipulated amount from this pool of money. For example: If you knock the opposing team’s quarterback out of the game, we will give you $2500.

According to the Associated Press, Williams has been under investigation for his time as the defensive coordinator with the New Orleans Saints, primarily from 2009-2011. The NFL has implied that as many as 28 different players were involved in this “bounty” program with the Saints that rewarded defensive players for knocking opponents out of games and also rewarded so-called “big hits”

Two familiar names that were considered bounty targets include Kurt Warner and Brett Favre during the Super Bowl Championship year of 2010.

The airwaves on television and radio have been filled with all of these former players turned analysts/broadcasters shedding light and their opinion on the matter. The overwhelming side of the story from these “experts” is that it is a different culture in the National Football League and the average fan just does not understand or have any concept of this culture that exists within the locker room and between the lines.

Others argue that this gets to the issue of integrity within sports and is sending the wrong message. If setting bounties at the NFL is ok to do, and players are rewarded for hurting other players and even potentially jeopardizing their careers, won’t this attitude permeate downward into the ranks of college football, and even high school football and possibly lower?

I am certain that commissioner Roger Goodell will drop some significant penalties when the “official” word is released by the NFL. Goodell has shown time and time again that he is trying to run a tight ship. He wants a league that is successful and entertaining, but does not jeopardize integrity and most importantly safety of the players.

The NFL under his watch has cracked down on defenseless hits, concussions, and has been much more strict in handing out fines and suspensions in the attempt to curb any unsatisfactory behavior. The examples are all well documented. Everything from the Suh stomping incident to New England taping other teams sidelines in the effort to steal play calls and gain an advantage.

My gut feeling is that the penalties, fines, and suspensions associated with all of the “bounty” talk will be very large and send a firm and definitive message.

Here is hoping my instincts on this one are right, and that the former players turned analysts quit put the shovel away and quit digging themselves a deeper hole trying to explain why bounties on players are being misunderstood by the fans around the country.

Until next time, stay classy – Oil City, Pennsylvania

How did your ancestors come to America?  Very few of us can claim to be descendants of the people who walked from Asia across the land bridge that is now the Bering Sea.  If you are, congratulations.  I personally can only claim residency for just over 100 years.  That does not mean that I have no relatives that live in America before 1900, I just have not found them yet.

My ancestors are almost all European.  That makes it a bit easier for me to track my heritage before the American experience.  I have found that I come from very average people, not poverty stricken and not nobility.  They left Europe to escape the wars, most of them leaving between the Franco-Prussian war and World War I.

There are all sorts of resources available to track your family.  To actually track where you come from is also available.  I am referring to the source of your family, hundreds of generations ago.  I participated in the Geanographic project sponsored by National Geographic.  I sent in a swab from my cheek and they traced my DNA to common sources.  We are all Africans at some point, but my common source is northeastern Europe in the region of Lithuania.

Is any of this important?  It is at least interesting.  In the long run, it is not that important as all of us are related.  We are all human beings, we all eventually have common ancestors.  Knowing where your family comes from, learning the stories, that is what is important.  You can learn more from the decisions your ancestors have made than from any book on ethics, morals, or self help.  You can also learn more about what real life is than the official histories of significant events and famous people.  The birth or death of someone in your own family has much more direct impact on you and you personal development than any politician, movie start or sports hero.

Besides the personal fulfillment that can be found in researching your roots, this type of study provides a cornucopia of ideas for writing.  These are events that are unique to your family, special as only you can portray them.  They are an opportunity to take some of yourself and become part of your past, sharing it with the world through the written word.

When I logged onto Facebook on Thursday evening, two of my friends has posted a link to an article proclaiming the great news.  Apple was going to bring 700,000 jobs to America – jobs that are now down by workers overseas (mostly in China).

The grand plan was to drop 70,000 on each of ten cities spread throughout the country.  By the end of 2013, all 700,000 jobs would be staffed.  Apple, a company that was fighting for its very existence just 15 years ago, would breath life into the economy and slash the unemployment rate from 8.3% to 7.8% – a tremendous amount of impact from just one company.

The news made sense for a few reasons:

• Apple’s never been one to follow the lead of other companies, often opting for unconventional paths.  Not only that, but with CEO Tim Cook out of the shadow of Steve Jobs, maybe Cook would make some decisions that Steve wouldn’t have.
• Apple has around $100 billion in cash and has a market capitalization in excess of a half trillion dollars.  That’s not a typo. Apple is the most valuable company in the world – and it’s not particularly close.  Oil giant Exxon Mobil trails by a hundred billion dollars – meaning that it is worth 20% less than Apple.  If Apple wanted to employ 700,000 workers in the US, it could afford to.
• Finally, Apple has been under fire for the working conditions at FoxConn, one of its major partners.  FoxConn is a large company that builds components for a lot of tech industry giants, but Apple has been the company taking the most heat.

I wasn’t born yesterday, however, so I hit Google and search for the news on other sites.  Nobody else was running the story.  That seemed odd.  Heck, Apple’s own site didn’t mention it.

Gotcha

Then I read the article more closely.  Really, 700,000 jobs by the end of 2013?  Was it even possibly to get factories built in that amount of time?  Sure, Apple could probably take over the facilities of some bankrupt companies and retrofit the facilities, but that still seems like a pretty aggressive timeline.

And the quote from the Chamber of Commerce seems a bit out of line:

“Just because corporations get the rights of American citizens doesn’t mean they should be burdened by the same responsibilities,” the statement said. “For example, everyone knows people can’t kill people — but sometimes job creators like corporations need to be able to kill people, as the Supreme Court is working on right now.”

So I look at the subject tags.  Yes, one of them was “satire”.  And in the comment, writer Shane Finnegan admitted that this was indeed a satirical piece.  And why not?  It’s his job to write satire for the Ocean Beach Rag.

Well played, Shane.

But why not?

Why doesn’t Apple, or some other tech company, bring jobs back to America?  It’s all about the money, of course.  Labor in China is far cheaper than in the United States, and there’s no hiding the fact that it’s also more expensive to comply with US safety regulations.

If there is ever a flood of manufacturing jobs back into the United States, tech companies will probably be the last ones to the party.  Why?  Because computers, TVs, and smart phones have a very high cost:weight ratio.  The cost of shipping an iPhone or a MacBook Pro from China is a tiny percentage of the cost of the item, so it’s really not that expensive to ship them.  Ramen noodles, on the other hand, have a low cost:weight ratio, so shipping them thousands of miles would be relatively expensive, percentage-wise.

At this point, there’s not much incentive for companies to bring jobs back to the US.  Sure, it’s what the citizens want, but the higher labor costs would make a company’s products much more expensive than those of their competitors.  At this point, I don’t see this changing at an point in the future, unless the government decides to make it prohibitively expensive to import the finished products.

Is it finally time to start drilling in ANWR to offset the high price of gas for our cars?

Well, it’s that time again. Price of gas is climbing, the summer driving peak is approaching and the refineries will be adjusting their mixes. Every year we see prices rise in the spring and every time we hit a spike in price, a number of users start looking for ways to save money on gas.

Now we have Iran throwing a tantrum over their economic sanctions so they’re cutting oil shipments to Europe (Brits and French). While that may not sound significant, it still tightens the oil market and has impacted prices. The Saudi’s could increase production to offset this reduction by Iran but only time will tell if they do this.

This being an election year, it only stands to reason that the debate will once again come up over drilling, especially in ANWR (Arctic National Wildlife Refuge). This is not a new debate, it’s one that has been on and off again since the late 1970’s. It’s been a consistent battle of: left vs. right, liberal vs. conservative and house vs. senate.

Once the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System (TAPS) was put into use in 1977, there has been a liberal push to protect Alaska’s natural habitat. Numerous bills have been passed into law protecting one area or another. Every few years someone on the conservative side has introduced a bill to allow drilling in Alaska (in ANWR). However, every time a bill is introduced, the democratically controlled House or Senate has defeated it or it has been vetoed by the democratic president.

• The sides were pretty well set from the start. I believe that the battle grew in the intensity in 1986 when the US Fish and Wildlife Service recommended that a large area in ANWR should be used for oil and gas development. The document noted that the economy needed the oil while those opposed to drilling noted that this development could threaten the caribou that live in the ANWR region.

• In 1996, the Republicans controlled by the House and Senate. They approved a bill to allow drilling in ANWR but President Clinton vetoed the bill.

• In 2000 the House passed another bill to allow drilling in ANWR but in 2002 the Senate defeated it.

• In 2005 the Senate passed a bill to allow drilling in ANWR but included it in a budget resolution. The House removed the drilling feature after House democrats refused to pass the budget with the drilling addition.

• In another 2005 showdown, democratic senators filibustered a defense appropriations bill that included a drilling provision.

Perhaps one the fiercest stances against drilling for oil offshore has been made by President Bill Clinton. In 1998 he signed a 10 year extension to a drilling ban to protect the US coastlines. This still allowed the drilling of the southern US which was already well established. I remember like it was yesterday President Clinton saying that drilling today won’t make a difference for nearly 10 years. He argued that making the change at that time wouldn’t fix the problems they had then. I kept thinking to myself; why not worry about 5-10 years down the road too? Why is he being so short sighted and just thinking about today?

It appears that Clinton’s thinking has come around after gaining a few more years of wisdom. In 2011, Bill Clinton told attendees of the IHS CERAWeek conference that delaying offshore permits at a time when the economy is still building is “ridiculous”. Furthermore, Presidents Clinton and Bush (George W) agreed on many aspects of oil and gas issues.

Today we are again faced with skyrocketing gas prices. AAA reports the national average for regular grade gasoline is $3.731 (2/29/2012) with the price one year ago listed as $3.375. The prices are climbing very early this year and we need to wonder where the price will peak. Better yet, we need find a solution to this and quit putting it off.

The “greenies” have pushed electric cars. Great thinking! I’m happy to see you’re looking for a solution. Right now though, electric cars suck. We can’t depend on that today just like we can’t wind technology (today). Those are potentially great long term solutions, but why limit ourselves to those two alternatives? We see that electric cars still need to run on gas, so we know that we’re going to need it for years to come. Thinking that electric cars are ready today is naïve and basing our decisions on the idea that electric cars will solve our problems is reckless.

If we open drilling today, it obviously won’t fix the problem today but it will help in a few years. Should we continue with this direction thinking that it won’t provide immediate relief? Continue thinking that we MAY harm the caribou if we move forward? Should we stake our economy and livelihood on that? Of course not, and that is why we see Bill Clinton’s thinking changing. He sees what is happening in the world. There is no green “silver bullet”. Wind and electric cars are not going to end these problems right now. It is going to take years to develop that technology and we have to still worry about the interim. If it takes 50 years to get electric cars & wind turbines developed to a standard that will actually work effectively for us, how are we going to manage the next 50 years? We need to drill. We need to use that drilling profit to fund additional research. We can’t scream carbon footprint and abandon fossil fuels entirely overnight.

We need to use some common sense. We need to plan for tomorrow so we don’t fail. We have to stop sending all of our money to manufacturer’s in China and oil moguls in the Middle East. Where is the pride? Where is the dominance? Where is the self-sufficiency that we need to re-establish?

Drilling and fossil fuels are not popular among the liberal crowd. Despite its lack of popularity, we are dependent and we need to address this. We need some long-term common sense solutions. People need to stop deciding everything based on their hearts and consider the logical business reasons too. This is not something that we can just go cold turkey on.

Squeaky…

I love to read, but it often comes in fits and starts, generally dependent on how easily my kids go to bed (which directly affects the amount of free time I have).  I’ve been doing a bit more reading lately, and have purchased  fair number of books lately.  Here’s a quick rundown of a few.

I’ve been buying almost exclusively for my Kindle lately … great little device.
 

 

11/22/63 by Stephen King

I really enjoy King’s writing, but my favorite books of his are the ones he writes outside of the horror genre.  Perhaps my all-time favorite is Apt Pupil, although Shawshank Redemption is also quite good.  FYI: you can find both of these novellas in King collection Different Seasons.  Buy it.  Now.

In 11/22/63, the protagonist, Jake Epping (current day resident), receives a call from the owner of his favorite greasy spoon.  The guy has found a portal into the past.  He’s become too sick to take advantage of it, but wants Jake to go into the portal and save the life of John F. Kennedy.  I’m 20% of the way into this book and loving every page so far.  Really nothing supernatural about it, aside from the whole aspects of time travel (and I’m a sucker for a good time travel novel).  I’m beginning to have some thoughts about a few characters in the book and might have an idea about a sub-plot that might develop, but it’s far too early to tell if I’m right or wrong.
 

Enough Rope by Lawrence Block

Enough Rope is an omnibus of short stories by mystery grandmaster Lawrence Block.  The wheels on the omnibus do indeed go round and round.  The stories include popular Block characters Bernie Rhodenbarr, Matt Scudder, Keller, Tanner, and Chip Harrison, as well as dozens of other stories.  It’s nearly 900 pages in hardcover.

I’ve actually talked about the book before.  Probably more than once.  Until recently, it held a fairly unique distinction of being one of just a handful of books that I owned in paperback and hardcover.

Now, it is the only book that I own in three formats.  I finally broke down and bought the Kindle edition.  Yeah, it’s that good.
 

 

What it Was by George Pelecanos

With several dozen (eh, probably as many as a hundred) books in my “yet to be read” queue, I buy a book from an author I had never heard of before.  I must have had a very good reason for doing that, right?

Well, yeah.  Lawrence Block told me to.  Here’s a pro tip: if you want me to buy your book, have Lawrence Block say something nice about it.

Also, the pre-order price was just 99 cents (and as of Feb 28, 2012, it’s at that price again).  I’ll gamble a dollar on an unfamiliar author.

Like 11/22/63, What it Was is also set in the past (1970s), but via the normal method (by having the author set in in that period) rather than time travel.
 

A Changed Man by Martin Kelly

Ok, I’ll be honest with you on this one. I didn’t actually buy this book.  I have a publisher’s copy, since I’m the publisher.  As the regular readers know, Martin is a longtime writer for this site.  A few years ago, he knocked out A Changed Man during the month long NaNoWriMo event.  He’s been refining it ever since.  Last week, he flipped me the Word file, and a few days later, it had been Kindleized.

The book is about how a man reclaims his life after being involved in a serious accident.  He was drunk and the other driver died.  I’m not very far in yet (Martin’s going head to head with 11/22/63, and Stephen King’s a tough draw in the “books Kosmo is reading” bracket), but I like what I’ve read so far.  I’m definitely wondering why the DA dropped the charges, though.  I’m sure there’s a reason, and look forward to finding the answer and exploring more about John Lickler’s life.
 

 

OK, now let’s turn the tables.  Which books have YOU bought lately  – and what are you currently reading?

Harry Vardon won The Open Championship six times between 1896 and 1914.

This is a question I ponder all of the time, being a golf historian. First one has to remember that coverage of golf tournaments in the infancy stages of golf was done strictly by word of mouth, or an occasional coverage of a big tournament by a local newspaper.

Golf was also a game of few players that were considered Professional golfers in its early days, and many of the top players in the game were truly amateur players. Because of this, the majors consisted of the Open Championship, the United States Open Championship, the United States Amateur and also the British Amateur Championship.

Or should I say…these were considered the major golf championships if you were an Amateur golfer.

Robert Tyre Jones Jr, won all four of these tournaments in 1930. It was deemed the impregnable quadrilateral. Aka….the Grand Slam.

This gave meteoric rise to the term “Major” when referring to golf tournaments. It was basically accepted that these were the four Majors for amateur golfers in that day and age.

This past week if you are a golf fan you likely tuned into some of the coverage of the WCG Accenture World Match Play Championship. This tournament is a match play format, where competitors play head to head against one other golfer over 18 holes. Low score does not win in match play format, but the person winning the most holes wins.

In our “modern era” of golf, there are four recognized Major Championships. They are:

• The Open Championship
• The United States Open
• The PGA Championship
• The Masters

 Let’s look at each of these and why they are currently considered a Major:

The Open Championship

Notice it is called The Open Championship, only Americans have added the word “British” to the title.

The Open Championship is considered the first true major. Why? Mainly as it has been around the longest and at the time first played (1860 at Prestwick in western Scotland) it undoubtedly brought in the strongest field in a golf tournament being organized anywhere in the world. This tournament more than any other tournament is one of the reasons if not THE reason that golf really expanded and took off and became more of an accepted sport, and not just something done by the upper middle class people in their spare time.

Early players and winners in this tournament were most often club makers, ball makers, caddies, greens keepers people schooled in a combination of all of these professions. Also due to lack of people’s ability to travel, it almost exclusively featured players of primarily from England and Scotland in its first 30 years in existence. The first winner from outside of Scotland or England was France’s Arnaud Massy in 1907. This one gets in to the realm of major championship as it was the first to the dance.

The United States Open

The United States Open was first played in 1895 in Rhode Island. Immigrants had brought the game of golf from Scotland to the Northeast portion of the United States and it was a game catching on quickly among the upper classes in society. In the early days of the tournament, most of the winners had come across to the United States and were funded to do so with the sole purpose of claiming this title, and then returning back to England or Scotland, or in some cases the professional set themselves up nicely for a full time job as a club professional after adding this trophy to their fireplace mantle.

The first American to win the title was John McDermott in 1911, (previously all were won by players native to England or Scotland) but it was really the combination of the tours of Harry Vardon, culminating with Francis Ouimet’s upset win of Harry Vardon and Ted Ray in 1913 at Brookline that really propelled this tournament – and golf for that matter – into the sports limelight in the United States. This paved the way for the popularity of Hagen and Jones in the 20’s in the golden era of sports.

The PGA Championship

The Professional Golf Association Championship – or commonly referred to as the PGA Championship – was first played in 1916, after the formal creation of the Professional Golfers Association of America (pretty hard to have a PGA championship without the PGA,isn’t it). From its inception in 1916 up until 1958, this tournament was played as a match play and not a stroke play tournament.

Due to the strength of golf in the United States, and the initial origins of it being a more grueling match play format instead of stroke play, this tournament has really been considered one of the more important tournaments throughout its entire existence.

The Masters

We are all familiar with the Masters, but it is the new kid on the block. Originally called the Augusta Invitational Tournament by founders Clifford Roberts and Bobby Jones. Gene Sarazen hit the “shot heard ’round the world” in 1935, holing a shot from the fairway on the par 15th for a double eagle. This put Sarazen in a 36 hole Playoff against Craig Wood which he eventually won. Sarazen was one of the more popular players of this era and this shot, coupled with the fact that it was Jones’s tournament gave this event all the steam it needed.

While Jones always intended this to be a get together for his golfing buddies, the tournament really became considered a major during the early 1960’s for two main reasons – Sportswriters became more enamored with “counting” major championships and television started covering golf with the rivalry developing between the golf fans of Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicklaus in particular.

The Forgotten Majors

 Back when the amateur tournaments were considered more along the lines of majors for the amateur golfers, there were other tournaments that were considered “Major’s” of the time for those who were golf professionals. I will mention three of them that were at least under consideration of being majors in their time.

The Western Open

In the United States, the Western Open was definitely considered a major. It began play in 1899 and just like the United States Open, the formative years of this tournament were usually won by players travelling to the US from England and Scotland. Many sources you will see will indicate that this tournament was not considered an “official” major at that time, but I would argue that back in the pre- World War II era of golf, nothing was really considered a Major outside of the four tournaments mentioned previously.

When you look at former Champions it is an impressive roll call, especially from its inception up until the 1950’s when this tournament started to go to the wayside and things at Augusta started to pick up.

The British PGA Match-Play Championship

This tournament was every bit as important to the European golf scene as the PGA Championship was to the American golf scene. The British Match Play started in 1903 and was played up until 1979. The event was sponsored by a newspaper – The News of the World, and in many cases when referencing the tournament it is called by this name and not the British Match Play.

This was the top prize money tournament in the British Golf genre, even more than the Open Championship. In the early days of the tournament, particularly pre-World War I, this tournament was assuredly considered a major by its participants and the players were without question the finest group of players on the planet year in and year out.

The World Championships of Golf

This was a tournament that did not have a long storied history as it was only played from 1946-1957. During that time however, it boasted one of the largest pay days on tour for the winner, and from 1952-1957 the winner of this tournament won the money title for the year…and by a lot.

The event provided one of the few showcases of its time for leading international players to compete against the best U.S. professionals, who rarely travelled outside of their country to play. The tournament got into a dispute with the PGA in 1958 and that essentially ended a short run for this high pay day affair for the professionals.

At the very least, the Western Open and the British Match play should be considered Major Tournaments for part of their existence. I won’t go into my personal feelings here in this article, but due to the strength of the fields in those tournaments and the perception and status those tournaments held – once upon a time at least – many of those wins should be counted for those players as major championships.

Today’s 5^th Major?

In recent years, two tournaments have gained some momentum as being considered a 5^th major on the professional tour.

The Players Championship

The one with the most following to make this happen is surely The Players Championship. Originally known as the Tournament Players Championship, this event started in 1974, moved to Colonial the following year, and then relocated to Ponte Vedra Beach Florida starting in 1977. It has been played at the TPC Sawgrass course since 1982 which is most known for its island green 17^th that forces players to hit a short iron shot to a green surrounded by nothing other than water.

The field for this event is a bit more limited and includes almost with certainty all of the top 50 players in the world, under difficult conditions. The prize pool is enormous by any standard and this event yields a total prize purse of 9.5 million dollars as of 2011. It is also the tournament that seems to have the most tour players promoting it as a 5^th major.

The Memorial Tournament

This tournament would likely fall just under the realm of the Players Championship, but is given a lot of credence on the PGA tour for a couple of reasons. First, it was founded and is still ran by Jack Nicklaus, who many consider the greatest golfer of all time. Second, the tournament is always played at Muirfield Village Golf Club in Dublin, Ohio, which is considered an outstanding, beautiful and difficult golf club, and third it is one of only five tournaments on the PGA tour that are considered “invitation only” tournaments.

The course is usually set up unusually difficult, and the fact that Nicklaus has attempted to turn this into an Augusta like atmosphere adds to the psyche of the tournament. The main feature of this tournament which has been held since 1976, is that the tournament honors a past golfers who is forever enshrined in the annals of the tournament and a plaque featuring their inductions is permanently kept on the course grounds near the clubhouse.

What about the World Golf Championships?

The World Golf Events started in 1999 as three events, expanded to four events in 2000, and this year will be expanding to five events with the addition of the Tournament of Hope held in South Africa.

Let’s look at each of these individually:

The WGC Accenture Match Play Championship

In my mind this is a no brainer to be considered a major. It is the top 64 players in the world rankings playing head to head, and you have to win 6 matches to claim the title. This harkens back to the beginnings of golf when it was match play, this is arguably the toughest of any title to win in professional tournament golf.

The WGC Cadillac Championship

Has been previously under different title sponsors including WGC-American Express Championship and also WGC-CA Championship. This basically replaced the “old” tournament on the PGA tour that was held at Doral each year, so not sure that this one is elevated to the level of being considered a major in anyone’s book.

The WGC Bridgestone Invitational

Another one that used to be something else on the regular tour – basically the tournament stop at Firestone. Once upon a time this was called the World Series of Golf tournament, and while big, was never under the mention of being considered a major.

WGC-HSBC Champions

This tournament was added to the World Golf Championships in 2009, it has been played in China, so it often times get skipped by many of the US players due to travel distance.

Call it what it is!

I for one would argue that the World Golf Championships should have the World Match Play tournament recognized as a Major Championships. Why? The strength of the field is second to none, the prize money is larger than pretty much anything on tour, and the tournament is recognized around the globe, regardless of tour as a big event. You have the top 64 in the World Golf rankings so there are truly no fluke winners. This is the best of the best and a truly international field.

Time for us to put away outdated views of sportswriters from the 1960’s and earlier. Golf needs to do the right thing here and consider that the number of Major tournaments does not have to be limited to just 4, but instead awarding that distinction of those events that were or are considered to be the biggest and best tournament of the era in which they are played.

Until next time, Stay Classy Cruden Bay, Scotland!