I spent the first twenty years of my life trying as hard as I could to be as different my Dad as possible, and the past twenty years of my life trying as hard as I can to be half the man I know him to be. Now, having a child makes me admire him all the more.
As Father's Day draws to a close (a Father's Day on which thanks to genius scheduling of the North Carolina DA's conference I got to spend too few precious moments with my wife and daughter) I thought it best to look back on my 40 year relationship with my Dad and how he still guides me, albeit unknowingly, through each day's challenges.
I don't know why, but in the earliest part of my life, my Dad and I had a somewhat difficult relationship. Probably because we were more similar than either of us would like to admit. Our family was close, but not overtly affectionate. We didn't hug or kiss a lot; we didn't express emotions openly (except when we were arguing); we didn't say "I love you" to each other. So, my father's affections were not quite as easy to notice to many, although I noticed them more and more over time.
My favorite times with my Dad were those times that he would take off from work and in what seemed like an odd thing to me, spend time with me doing something special. The first time I remember this, it was taking me and some of my other siblings to the airport in Syracuse to see Snoopy and the Red Baron. Now, I don't think this was necessarily something my Dad had planned, or something he necessarily wanted to do, but I saw on the noon news that the event was happening and probably cried and whined and stomped and screamed so much to my Mom that I think she demanded that Dad leave work and come home just to shut me up.
But there were other times when it was definitely on purpose. I remember going to the Everson Art Museum or Salt Museum. There were day long trips to Cooperstown to visit the Baseball Hall of Fame, and then souvenir hunting afterward. I didn't really get it at the time. But looking back, it really means a lot to me that he thought it special enough to him to spend days which he knew were all too fleeting with his youngest child, even though I didn't understand why.
My Dad would often act the clown in family situations, using self-deprecation as a way to get laughs from his children and grandchildren. He would joyfully play along with the Homer Simpson references or acting unaware when a joke was being played on him. Many wouldn't understand why someone would do this, but I have a feeling that the laughs that he inspired made it more than worth his while.
One of the greatest qualities of my Dad was that he allowed me to fail and succeed on my own. He would always challenge me to do my best, but would give me the freedom to make my own decisions about my life. Sometimes my decisions made him proud and sometimes they would make him extremely disappointed, but although he would always be there to give advice, once the decision was made, he allowed me to stand by it for good or for bad.
I remember when I was in college dreading the conversation that I would have to have with my Dad telling him that I had changed my major from chemistry to international relations. I always felt that my Dad had wanted me to go into science or engineering. It was an easier way to earn a living and jobs were more in demand in these fields than in social sciences. I was afraid that I had let my Dad down even though I knew I had to make the decision since I felt miserable in chemistry. When I told him, I expected some sort of rebuke, but instead he smiled and said something to the effect of "Well, I always figured you'd go into something like that." When I asked why he didn't tell me that earlier, he said simply that it was something that I needed to figure out for myself.
I never used to understand my Dad. I didn't understand why he fell asleep at 7:30 in his recliner with the newspaper in his hand. I didn't understand why sometimes he would forget to take me somewhere -- be it a piano lesson or a sports practice, or why sometimes he would forget to pick me up. Now, with the experience of being a father to one child for two years, I understand how exhausting it can be to work full time, pick up the baby, come home, help take care of the baby and get that child ready for bed. That's with one. My Dad together with my Mom raised SEVEN of us. Oh, yeah, and in addition to that full time job, he also was the only one in the family who drove so he had to take all of us everywhere and by the way, he was going to college at night so he could finish his college degree that he received in 1985. So, where I used to make fun of him falling asleep everyday or forgetting things from time to time, now I think back and wonder how in the hell he did it all.
In the run-up to Father's Day this year I heard and read a lot of commentaries about what was the best advice your father gave you. For me this is an easy one. When I was 14 years old, in the Summer between my 8th grade year and my Freshman year in high school, my Dad and I went to a lot of Syracuse Chiefs baseball games. I don't think we ever went to more games than we did that Summer. It was a good year for the Chiefs and we followed the players closely. We got to know all of the vendors selling food and drinks. We had inside jokes about a lot of the goings on at the games. It was a fun time for both of us.
Late in the season, we went to a game after going to the State Fair that morning and afternoon. I remember the late August evening with the coolness of the Fall creeping in. My Dad turned to me and said "I hope that you really make the most of these next few years because they are going to go by fast." I'm sure I nodded and said something like "Oh? OK." And then went back to the game.
That was 26 years ago. It was also yesterday. Of course, I didn't pay attention and those years have flown by faster than I thought possible. Maybe all of those baseball games, and trips to Museums and to Cooperstown were my Dad's way of trying to slow the clock down a little as he saw the days and years of his last child speeding past him faster than he could imagine.
I can't get back those days or years. I can't turn back time and make more out of the experiences that I didn't cherish or take back the days I wished away. But what I get out of my Dad's advice is that I pay as much attention to every day I spend with my daughter and I cherish every laugh, giggle, new experience she has as if it is made of pure gold. Even the bad things, the cuts, the tantrums, the hurt feelings are treasures to be guarded at all cost.
I know that Rory is going to grow up and think her Dad is sometimes goofy and embarrassing. There will be times that we argue and she will think in that moment that I'm the worst person in the world. I also know that she's going to see the days of her life fly by at warp speed. But, what she won't know is that I will be there paying attention to every moment, cherishing every second, paying close attention to every experience good and bad as I try to slow down the clock for both of us.
Happy Father's Day.
Sunday, June 19, 2011
Thursday, June 16, 2011
Paul Fixes Everything Wrong With Sports
OK. Enough with the freakin' downers, Ditz! So, turning from the economy to Sports.
I am taking on the great endeavor to fix everything wrong that I see with several sports. These range from simple fixes like my proposal for college lacrosse to massive re-works such as my proposal for college football. This should in a perfect world make me the commissioner of all sports and thereby get me free passes to any game I want to see.
So here goes.
College Lacrosse.
Those of you not in Syracuse probably don't give a shit about this one, but those of us who are from Syracuse do. College lacrosse when played correctly is the most exciting sport in the world to watch. What is wrong with the sport is that this year everyone stopped playing it correctly and the rules of the sport allowed them to do so.
What happened this year is that everyone (well, almost everyone -- there were some schools like Denver that actually played us straight up) figured out that they weren't going to beat Syracuse this year unless they literally sat on the ball. And they sat on the ball all freaking game long. Syracuse never had scores of 5-4 or 7-6, but these scores were a regular occurrence this season, as it seemed every week Syracuse's opponent would employ the lacrosse version of the four corners offense. It was ugly to watch and sparked a lot of both criticism and suggestions for changes to rules in the future.
Most of the suggestions involved the introduction of some sort of shot clock. However, I don't think this is necessary. I think the solution is a very simple one, and I am a little surprised that I haven't heard it come from anyone else.
Currently in lacrosse, if the offensive team makes no real effort to score after a certain amount of time they are given a stall warning. The problem with the stall warning is that it really doesn't have any punishment to it. All the stall warning says is that you have to keep the ball in the offensive box and once it leaves the offensive box it is a turnover. What is the most incredible about this is that if you take a shot and miss and you have the shot backed up by one of your players (which you almost certainly will since you are stalling), you get the ball back when it goes out of bounds and simply have to keep playing under the previously called stall warning.
My fix: once the stall warning is in effect, you only get one shot. If you miss and the ball goes out of bounds, it is a turnover and the other team gets the ball. This won't stop a team from stalling, but it will make stalling much less effective and will not allow for stalls that seem to last for an entire quarter or more. The other result: Syracuse wins National Championship after National Championship after National Championship. It sounds like a win-win to me.
College Football
This is the biggie. Probably because college football is the most hideously rigged sport in the world. I know of no other sport where it is decided before any team steps on the field that probably 80% or more of the teams competing will have no chance of winning the national championship.
The BCS system is completely broken and there is no way to fix it other than to completely do away with it entirely. It is ruining not only college football but it is killing every other college sport as conferences go on feeding binges devouring other conferences in an effort to make their conference the strongest in the BCS equation so that they can make the most money possible for their universities. So we end up, for instance, with such basketball powerhouses as South Florida and Texas Christian playing in the Big East because the football conference needs them.
Don't buy any of the garbage that preserving the bowl system is about tradition or not having a playoff which would interfere with exam schedules is for the student athlete's interests. Bull. This is about money. Plain and simple. The NCAA stopped caring about student athletes a long, long time ago. Universities see their student athletes as one thing and one thing only -- a commodity which can be exploited to make the university bundles and bundles of moolah.
So, let's cut the crap. I have come up with a way in which college football can keep being as exciting as it has always been (and even more so) and still keep the greedy bastards in the conferences and administration buildings across the nation happy.
I actually first thought of this idea when I saw European soccer fans celebrating madly over the fact that their team had not won a championship, but had simply qualified to play in the premier league the following year. So, here goes.
The current conference system will be completely disbanded for college football. Instead there will be a Premier League consisting of 64 teams divided into four regional conferences, each with two divisions of 8 teams. Each team will play every other team in their division, plus two or three in the other division of their regional conference. There will also be two to three games played at large, which will most likely be against teams from the non-premier league. At the end of the season the top team from each 8 team division will play against the other top team from their regional conference. The winner of those games will go to the "Final Four" with the winners of those going to the National Championship. This means that there will be no computers, no opinions, no polls, no nothing deciding who is the best team in the country other than the play on the field.
Now, here comes the exciting part. Along with the Premier League of 64 teams, the other Division I teams will be playing full schedules as well. At the end of each year, the 8 last place teams in the 8 divisions will have to compete against the top 8 teams selected from the lower division in double-elimination tournament. The 8 teams that survive will play in the Premier League the next year, and the 8 teams that are eliminated will fall to the second division.
This will never happen of course, because nobody would want to be responsible for their school falling into the second division. However, this would be incredibly exciting for every fan and for every team and would save college football.
Professional Baseball
Tweaks have been made in baseball over the years to try to speed the game up. I still find it incredibly boring. But there you have it.
The only thing that needs to be done in Major League Baseball is to put in a salary cap so that the Pittsburgh Pirates actually have a chance at some point to win another World Series. Seriously. There should not be a system where an entire team's payroll is less than one player's salary on the New York Yankees. Salary caps work. They make the game exciting and level the playing field. Everyone else has one, it is time baseball did too.
Professional Football
Give the players what they want and go back to work! Oh, and overtime should be a 15 minute quarter. No sudden death, no college you get the ball at the 25 yard-line and then the other team gets the ball at the 25 yard line. Play until the final gun and if it is a tie, it is a tie.
Professional Basketball
Anyone whose shooting percentage drops below 35% should be sent to the D-League for remedial training. I can't stand to watch brick after brick after brick after brick. Wow, so and so scored 30 points -- well, yeah, he shot 15 for 50. Go home!
College Basketball
Get rid of the closely-guarded 5 second call. Unless the ball is actually tied up for 5 seconds, get rid of it. I hate this judgment call of how close the defender has to be, and seeing someone called for 5 seconds when they are dribbling just drives me crazy. It is not necessary since we have the 35 second clock. Just get rid of the rule.
The other thing -- flopping should be a foul. If you fall backwards trying to draw a foul, you should be called for a foul and the offensive team should get two free throws. This would insure that Duke never wins another National Championship.
Curling
Yup, I'm going there.
Curling has to be the dumbest sport ever invented. Sports simply shouldn't involve a broom. Ever.
However, this came to me in a dream and I think that with my suggestions, curling could become a rage across all of North America and maybe the world. What I suggest is we combine curling with the best attributes of roller derby and beach volleyball. This means that we have skimpy costumes (you can put some glitter on if you like, it is on ice after all) but along with that, we add the violence. Imagine how much more exciting it will be if the guy with the broom trying to get the big heavy thing into the bullseye looking thing would have to look out for blockers and if he wasn't careful -- BAM! -- he's taken out at the knees collapsing to the ice by a well placed kick to the back of the knees by a bikini-clad blocker. I'm telling you this would work. Sex, violence and sweeping. It can't miss.
I really have to get a grip on my subconscience.
I am taking on the great endeavor to fix everything wrong that I see with several sports. These range from simple fixes like my proposal for college lacrosse to massive re-works such as my proposal for college football. This should in a perfect world make me the commissioner of all sports and thereby get me free passes to any game I want to see.
So here goes.
College Lacrosse.
Those of you not in Syracuse probably don't give a shit about this one, but those of us who are from Syracuse do. College lacrosse when played correctly is the most exciting sport in the world to watch. What is wrong with the sport is that this year everyone stopped playing it correctly and the rules of the sport allowed them to do so.
What happened this year is that everyone (well, almost everyone -- there were some schools like Denver that actually played us straight up) figured out that they weren't going to beat Syracuse this year unless they literally sat on the ball. And they sat on the ball all freaking game long. Syracuse never had scores of 5-4 or 7-6, but these scores were a regular occurrence this season, as it seemed every week Syracuse's opponent would employ the lacrosse version of the four corners offense. It was ugly to watch and sparked a lot of both criticism and suggestions for changes to rules in the future.
Most of the suggestions involved the introduction of some sort of shot clock. However, I don't think this is necessary. I think the solution is a very simple one, and I am a little surprised that I haven't heard it come from anyone else.
Currently in lacrosse, if the offensive team makes no real effort to score after a certain amount of time they are given a stall warning. The problem with the stall warning is that it really doesn't have any punishment to it. All the stall warning says is that you have to keep the ball in the offensive box and once it leaves the offensive box it is a turnover. What is the most incredible about this is that if you take a shot and miss and you have the shot backed up by one of your players (which you almost certainly will since you are stalling), you get the ball back when it goes out of bounds and simply have to keep playing under the previously called stall warning.
My fix: once the stall warning is in effect, you only get one shot. If you miss and the ball goes out of bounds, it is a turnover and the other team gets the ball. This won't stop a team from stalling, but it will make stalling much less effective and will not allow for stalls that seem to last for an entire quarter or more. The other result: Syracuse wins National Championship after National Championship after National Championship. It sounds like a win-win to me.
College Football
This is the biggie. Probably because college football is the most hideously rigged sport in the world. I know of no other sport where it is decided before any team steps on the field that probably 80% or more of the teams competing will have no chance of winning the national championship.
The BCS system is completely broken and there is no way to fix it other than to completely do away with it entirely. It is ruining not only college football but it is killing every other college sport as conferences go on feeding binges devouring other conferences in an effort to make their conference the strongest in the BCS equation so that they can make the most money possible for their universities. So we end up, for instance, with such basketball powerhouses as South Florida and Texas Christian playing in the Big East because the football conference needs them.
Don't buy any of the garbage that preserving the bowl system is about tradition or not having a playoff which would interfere with exam schedules is for the student athlete's interests. Bull. This is about money. Plain and simple. The NCAA stopped caring about student athletes a long, long time ago. Universities see their student athletes as one thing and one thing only -- a commodity which can be exploited to make the university bundles and bundles of moolah.
So, let's cut the crap. I have come up with a way in which college football can keep being as exciting as it has always been (and even more so) and still keep the greedy bastards in the conferences and administration buildings across the nation happy.
I actually first thought of this idea when I saw European soccer fans celebrating madly over the fact that their team had not won a championship, but had simply qualified to play in the premier league the following year. So, here goes.
The current conference system will be completely disbanded for college football. Instead there will be a Premier League consisting of 64 teams divided into four regional conferences, each with two divisions of 8 teams. Each team will play every other team in their division, plus two or three in the other division of their regional conference. There will also be two to three games played at large, which will most likely be against teams from the non-premier league. At the end of the season the top team from each 8 team division will play against the other top team from their regional conference. The winner of those games will go to the "Final Four" with the winners of those going to the National Championship. This means that there will be no computers, no opinions, no polls, no nothing deciding who is the best team in the country other than the play on the field.
Now, here comes the exciting part. Along with the Premier League of 64 teams, the other Division I teams will be playing full schedules as well. At the end of each year, the 8 last place teams in the 8 divisions will have to compete against the top 8 teams selected from the lower division in double-elimination tournament. The 8 teams that survive will play in the Premier League the next year, and the 8 teams that are eliminated will fall to the second division.
This will never happen of course, because nobody would want to be responsible for their school falling into the second division. However, this would be incredibly exciting for every fan and for every team and would save college football.
Professional Baseball
Tweaks have been made in baseball over the years to try to speed the game up. I still find it incredibly boring. But there you have it.
The only thing that needs to be done in Major League Baseball is to put in a salary cap so that the Pittsburgh Pirates actually have a chance at some point to win another World Series. Seriously. There should not be a system where an entire team's payroll is less than one player's salary on the New York Yankees. Salary caps work. They make the game exciting and level the playing field. Everyone else has one, it is time baseball did too.
Professional Football
Give the players what they want and go back to work! Oh, and overtime should be a 15 minute quarter. No sudden death, no college you get the ball at the 25 yard-line and then the other team gets the ball at the 25 yard line. Play until the final gun and if it is a tie, it is a tie.
Professional Basketball
Anyone whose shooting percentage drops below 35% should be sent to the D-League for remedial training. I can't stand to watch brick after brick after brick after brick. Wow, so and so scored 30 points -- well, yeah, he shot 15 for 50. Go home!
College Basketball
Get rid of the closely-guarded 5 second call. Unless the ball is actually tied up for 5 seconds, get rid of it. I hate this judgment call of how close the defender has to be, and seeing someone called for 5 seconds when they are dribbling just drives me crazy. It is not necessary since we have the 35 second clock. Just get rid of the rule.
The other thing -- flopping should be a foul. If you fall backwards trying to draw a foul, you should be called for a foul and the offensive team should get two free throws. This would insure that Duke never wins another National Championship.
Curling
Yup, I'm going there.
Curling has to be the dumbest sport ever invented. Sports simply shouldn't involve a broom. Ever.
However, this came to me in a dream and I think that with my suggestions, curling could become a rage across all of North America and maybe the world. What I suggest is we combine curling with the best attributes of roller derby and beach volleyball. This means that we have skimpy costumes (you can put some glitter on if you like, it is on ice after all) but along with that, we add the violence. Imagine how much more exciting it will be if the guy with the broom trying to get the big heavy thing into the bullseye looking thing would have to look out for blockers and if he wasn't careful -- BAM! -- he's taken out at the knees collapsing to the ice by a well placed kick to the back of the knees by a bikini-clad blocker. I'm telling you this would work. Sex, violence and sweeping. It can't miss.
I really have to get a grip on my subconscience.
Monday, June 13, 2011
I Give Up!!!!
I was already set to write an angry rant about how both major parties in the U.S. have completely sold out working America and in doing so have completely destroyed both the economy and any remnants we had in this country of the middle class. Then I saw the headline that the president was seeking to repair any damage in his relationship with Wall Street in order to win their money in the form of campaign donations. It was then that I lost all hope.
It's not just that Obama is seeking campaign cash from Wall Street, that is nothing new (his biggest single campaign contributor in the 2008 election was Goldman, Sachs). What got to me most is that he was being so damn up front about it. The fact that the Obama campaign isn't even trying to hide the fact that they are soliciting funds from the biggest financial criminals in the world means that they have determined that nobody cares. Yes, they have decided that nobody cares about the fact that Wall Street banks, together with their friends in power in both parties (many of whom are in Obama's administration), set out on a series of horrific decisions which were designed to line the pockets of CEO's and other bankers and which ended up imploding the economy, eliminating millions of American jobs and bankrupting our society both morally and literally.
When the economy crashed back in 2008 ushering in what has become known as the "Great Recession" (and what will probably be referred to by historians as the Great Depression, Part Deux") many people were pointing fingers at the political party they disliked the most. Democrats were pointing at Ronald Reagan's policies of deregulation, Republicans were pointing at Bill Clinton's policy of expanding home ownership to groups which had traditionally been shut out of home lending. It was a field day of finger pointing. So, who was responsible for the implosion -- Democrats or Republicans? The answer is unequivocally both.
What has happened over the last several decades, as money became more and more necessary to obtain and then retain power through election to Congress or any other political position worth seeking, is that both parties have become both dependent on and enamoured with Wall Street. In doing so, both parties have tried to outdo each other in crafting legislation which would make it easier for Wall Street bankers to make as much money as they could possibly make, without requiring them to play by any rules whatsoever and to screw as many people as they can while doing so. And, by the way, when it all implodes, we'll save you and require nothing in return for the trillions of taxpayer money that you will receive. In so doing, what has been lost is any voice the middle class had in Washington or anywhere else.
When Barack Obama was elected in 2008, I was an enthusiastic and passionate supporter. I really felt that finally we had someone who was going to change the game. I felt that we had someone who was going to set our nation's moral compass on the right path, bring those who were responsible for defrauding our nation's treasury to justice and set us on a course where the world would once again look to our nation with awe and respect.
What I didn't know back then was exactly what had happened to lead to the economic mess in which we found ourselves in 2008 and in which we still find ourselves today. If I had known then what I know now, I would have realized that the jig was up early on. I would have realized that I had been hoodwinked, bamboozled, lead astray as soon as he announced that Timothy Geithner was going to be named Treasury Secretary and Lawrence Summers was Obama's choice as chief financial advisor. What I know now is that Timothy Geithner was the leading force behind what would become known as TARP. What I know now is that it was Geithner, not Hank Paulson, GWB's Treasury Secretary, who pulled the strings on the series of idiotic and unbelievable decisions made in 2007 and 2008 from the bailout of Bear Stearns to the nationalization of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to the scuttled attempt to bail out Lehman Brothers which resulted in Lehman's collapse to the ultimate bailout of the entire investment banking industry, which allowed the investment banks to carry on their nefarious dealing at the expense of the economy with no ramifications at all.
Both Geithner and Summers were proteges of Robert Rubin, who during Bill Clinton's presidency was the architect of the dismantling of the entire safety net of regulations and laws which had kept our economy on a more or less even keel since World War II. If bankers like Jamie Dimon and Lloyd Blankfein are economic terrorists, Rubin was their spiritual advisor.
It was Rubin, who during his time as Treasury Secretary to Bill Clinton, who championed the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act and the passing of the Commodities Futures Modernization Act, both of which were sponsored by arch-conservative Phil ("Stop Whining") Gramm and enthusiastically signed into law by Clinton. You see, in Washington the only time you can truly get bi-partisanship is when you are giving the wealthiest people in the nation the ability to destroy the entire basis of the economy for their own profit.
The repeal of Glass-Steagall was a magnificent little bit of economic terrorism foisted upon the nation by the folks at what would become known as Citigroup and their buddy, the aforementioned Secretary Rubin. Glass-Steagall was a very simple law passed during the Depression which essentially sought to contain risk and protect consumers by simply saying that different types of financial institutions had to be completely seperate from each other. Investment banks had to be investment banks, commercial banks had to be commercial banks, insurance companies had to be insurance companies and never the twain shall meet. This had a two-fold effect on the economy by 1) protecting consumers by making sure that their commercial bank or life insurance company did not take their deposits and bet them in the risky investments that investment banks were known for; and 2) if there was an implosion of a certain sector of the economic marketplace -- let's say derivatives based on risky mortgages that were given to homeless people to buy McMansions -- that the losses suffered in that sector would not be spread throughout the economy since the sectors were completely separate from each other.
In the late 1990s, in complete disregard of this 70 year-old law, Citibank announced that it was merging with the insurance giant Traveler's Group to form the behemoth financial terrorist syndicate known as Citigroup. This, of course, should never have happened since it was in flagrant violation of the law. However, there is no doubt that Citigroup knew that they had the implicit support of the leadership of both parties, not to mention the President and that this would be allowed to happen. The tactic that Citigroup used to force Congress to submit to their demands was that Citigroup took the economy hostage and demanded the repeal of Glass-Steagall as its ransom. Citigroup said that if the merger was not allowed to happen, that both Citibank and Travelers would fail and the ramifications to the economy as a whole would be devastating (this has since been used again and again to overlook the bad actions of banks, hedge funds and other industries deemed too big to fail and bail them out at taxpayer expense). Even without the repeal of Glass-Steagall, the merger was allowed to go through on a limited basis, something that was necessary for Rubin to get all of his ducks in a row in order to have Congress pass and the President sign the ultimate repeal of Glass-Steagall near the end of Clinton's presidency. Rubin, by that time, had left his position as Treasury Secretary and been replaced by Lawrence Summers. Rubin, did all right for himself, since after leaving his position as Treasury Secretary, he went on to be an executive with the newly formed and newly legal (thanks to him) Citigroup and rake in tens of millions of dollars in compensation.
The other legislative gem to come out of the Clinton-Rubin-Summers-Geithner regime was the Commodities Futures Modernization Act. Another brain child of Phil Gramm and his wife former Commodities Futures Trade Commission commissioner (and Enron board member) Wendy Gramm, made it so that the exotic financial instruments known as derivatives, which would play such a large role in the crisis of 2008, would be traded free from government interference or regulation. The act defined derivatives as being neither futures or securities and thus free from regulation by the CFTC or the SEC. This act left it up to Wall Street to police itself on these inherently complex and unintelligible trading products which had been described as "financial weapons of mass destruction" by none other than Warren Buffet.
The essence of all of this is that the entire financial and political philosophy of these Dems in sheep's clothing is that government should do absolutely everything it can to make life as easy as possible for those with the most money in our society to continue their scorched earth investment policies leaving the economy bare while they suck every last dime from the economy to pay for their vacation homes and Lamborghinis. What it also did was destroy the last remnants of the Democratic Party as the champion of the working class -- a mantle the party had held since the days of FDR.
So, back to Barack Obama. Slick Barry talked a pretty good game back in 2008 and even continued since then, talking about sticking it to the "fat cats" or wondering whose "ass he should kick". But in reality, it was just the sales pitch of another carnival barker looking to rope in his marks. The real Barack Obama has continued the economic policies started under Ronald Reagan, continued under George H.W. Bush, put into overdrive by Bill Clinton, and sent over the edge of the cliff by George W. Bush. The reforms and regulations promised in the campaign have been toothless tigers passed more for show than for implementing real change. Now, Obama is seeking payment for his deeds in semi-secret White House meetings with Wall Street CEO's reminiscent of the energy meetings Dick Cheney fought to keep secret.
So, I give up. There is no chance that things are going to change for the better. The middle class has become the peasant class. There is no end in sight to the economic disaster that our country is in. There will be no candidates in the 2012 election who provide any kind of true alternative to the Plutocrats who have taken control of our nation. Obama will probably succeed in getting Wall Street money to once again flow into his campaign war chest, as they will see in him a kindred spirit -- one who is as soulless and hypocritical as they are. We are lost.
It's not just that Obama is seeking campaign cash from Wall Street, that is nothing new (his biggest single campaign contributor in the 2008 election was Goldman, Sachs). What got to me most is that he was being so damn up front about it. The fact that the Obama campaign isn't even trying to hide the fact that they are soliciting funds from the biggest financial criminals in the world means that they have determined that nobody cares. Yes, they have decided that nobody cares about the fact that Wall Street banks, together with their friends in power in both parties (many of whom are in Obama's administration), set out on a series of horrific decisions which were designed to line the pockets of CEO's and other bankers and which ended up imploding the economy, eliminating millions of American jobs and bankrupting our society both morally and literally.
When the economy crashed back in 2008 ushering in what has become known as the "Great Recession" (and what will probably be referred to by historians as the Great Depression, Part Deux") many people were pointing fingers at the political party they disliked the most. Democrats were pointing at Ronald Reagan's policies of deregulation, Republicans were pointing at Bill Clinton's policy of expanding home ownership to groups which had traditionally been shut out of home lending. It was a field day of finger pointing. So, who was responsible for the implosion -- Democrats or Republicans? The answer is unequivocally both.
What has happened over the last several decades, as money became more and more necessary to obtain and then retain power through election to Congress or any other political position worth seeking, is that both parties have become both dependent on and enamoured with Wall Street. In doing so, both parties have tried to outdo each other in crafting legislation which would make it easier for Wall Street bankers to make as much money as they could possibly make, without requiring them to play by any rules whatsoever and to screw as many people as they can while doing so. And, by the way, when it all implodes, we'll save you and require nothing in return for the trillions of taxpayer money that you will receive. In so doing, what has been lost is any voice the middle class had in Washington or anywhere else.
When Barack Obama was elected in 2008, I was an enthusiastic and passionate supporter. I really felt that finally we had someone who was going to change the game. I felt that we had someone who was going to set our nation's moral compass on the right path, bring those who were responsible for defrauding our nation's treasury to justice and set us on a course where the world would once again look to our nation with awe and respect.
What I didn't know back then was exactly what had happened to lead to the economic mess in which we found ourselves in 2008 and in which we still find ourselves today. If I had known then what I know now, I would have realized that the jig was up early on. I would have realized that I had been hoodwinked, bamboozled, lead astray as soon as he announced that Timothy Geithner was going to be named Treasury Secretary and Lawrence Summers was Obama's choice as chief financial advisor. What I know now is that Timothy Geithner was the leading force behind what would become known as TARP. What I know now is that it was Geithner, not Hank Paulson, GWB's Treasury Secretary, who pulled the strings on the series of idiotic and unbelievable decisions made in 2007 and 2008 from the bailout of Bear Stearns to the nationalization of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to the scuttled attempt to bail out Lehman Brothers which resulted in Lehman's collapse to the ultimate bailout of the entire investment banking industry, which allowed the investment banks to carry on their nefarious dealing at the expense of the economy with no ramifications at all.
Both Geithner and Summers were proteges of Robert Rubin, who during Bill Clinton's presidency was the architect of the dismantling of the entire safety net of regulations and laws which had kept our economy on a more or less even keel since World War II. If bankers like Jamie Dimon and Lloyd Blankfein are economic terrorists, Rubin was their spiritual advisor.
It was Rubin, who during his time as Treasury Secretary to Bill Clinton, who championed the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act and the passing of the Commodities Futures Modernization Act, both of which were sponsored by arch-conservative Phil ("Stop Whining") Gramm and enthusiastically signed into law by Clinton. You see, in Washington the only time you can truly get bi-partisanship is when you are giving the wealthiest people in the nation the ability to destroy the entire basis of the economy for their own profit.
The repeal of Glass-Steagall was a magnificent little bit of economic terrorism foisted upon the nation by the folks at what would become known as Citigroup and their buddy, the aforementioned Secretary Rubin. Glass-Steagall was a very simple law passed during the Depression which essentially sought to contain risk and protect consumers by simply saying that different types of financial institutions had to be completely seperate from each other. Investment banks had to be investment banks, commercial banks had to be commercial banks, insurance companies had to be insurance companies and never the twain shall meet. This had a two-fold effect on the economy by 1) protecting consumers by making sure that their commercial bank or life insurance company did not take their deposits and bet them in the risky investments that investment banks were known for; and 2) if there was an implosion of a certain sector of the economic marketplace -- let's say derivatives based on risky mortgages that were given to homeless people to buy McMansions -- that the losses suffered in that sector would not be spread throughout the economy since the sectors were completely separate from each other.
In the late 1990s, in complete disregard of this 70 year-old law, Citibank announced that it was merging with the insurance giant Traveler's Group to form the behemoth financial terrorist syndicate known as Citigroup. This, of course, should never have happened since it was in flagrant violation of the law. However, there is no doubt that Citigroup knew that they had the implicit support of the leadership of both parties, not to mention the President and that this would be allowed to happen. The tactic that Citigroup used to force Congress to submit to their demands was that Citigroup took the economy hostage and demanded the repeal of Glass-Steagall as its ransom. Citigroup said that if the merger was not allowed to happen, that both Citibank and Travelers would fail and the ramifications to the economy as a whole would be devastating (this has since been used again and again to overlook the bad actions of banks, hedge funds and other industries deemed too big to fail and bail them out at taxpayer expense). Even without the repeal of Glass-Steagall, the merger was allowed to go through on a limited basis, something that was necessary for Rubin to get all of his ducks in a row in order to have Congress pass and the President sign the ultimate repeal of Glass-Steagall near the end of Clinton's presidency. Rubin, by that time, had left his position as Treasury Secretary and been replaced by Lawrence Summers. Rubin, did all right for himself, since after leaving his position as Treasury Secretary, he went on to be an executive with the newly formed and newly legal (thanks to him) Citigroup and rake in tens of millions of dollars in compensation.
The other legislative gem to come out of the Clinton-Rubin-Summers-Geithner regime was the Commodities Futures Modernization Act. Another brain child of Phil Gramm and his wife former Commodities Futures Trade Commission commissioner (and Enron board member) Wendy Gramm, made it so that the exotic financial instruments known as derivatives, which would play such a large role in the crisis of 2008, would be traded free from government interference or regulation. The act defined derivatives as being neither futures or securities and thus free from regulation by the CFTC or the SEC. This act left it up to Wall Street to police itself on these inherently complex and unintelligible trading products which had been described as "financial weapons of mass destruction" by none other than Warren Buffet.
The essence of all of this is that the entire financial and political philosophy of these Dems in sheep's clothing is that government should do absolutely everything it can to make life as easy as possible for those with the most money in our society to continue their scorched earth investment policies leaving the economy bare while they suck every last dime from the economy to pay for their vacation homes and Lamborghinis. What it also did was destroy the last remnants of the Democratic Party as the champion of the working class -- a mantle the party had held since the days of FDR.
So, back to Barack Obama. Slick Barry talked a pretty good game back in 2008 and even continued since then, talking about sticking it to the "fat cats" or wondering whose "ass he should kick". But in reality, it was just the sales pitch of another carnival barker looking to rope in his marks. The real Barack Obama has continued the economic policies started under Ronald Reagan, continued under George H.W. Bush, put into overdrive by Bill Clinton, and sent over the edge of the cliff by George W. Bush. The reforms and regulations promised in the campaign have been toothless tigers passed more for show than for implementing real change. Now, Obama is seeking payment for his deeds in semi-secret White House meetings with Wall Street CEO's reminiscent of the energy meetings Dick Cheney fought to keep secret.
So, I give up. There is no chance that things are going to change for the better. The middle class has become the peasant class. There is no end in sight to the economic disaster that our country is in. There will be no candidates in the 2012 election who provide any kind of true alternative to the Plutocrats who have taken control of our nation. Obama will probably succeed in getting Wall Street money to once again flow into his campaign war chest, as they will see in him a kindred spirit -- one who is as soulless and hypocritical as they are. We are lost.
Monday, June 6, 2011
Time Warp
A couple of weeks ago, a former Wake Forest University student appeared on the Today Show detailing both the facts surrounding her rape allegedly by two Wake Forest basketball players and also the disturbing treatment she received from the university when she reported the incident to them.
The student, who was a member of the Wake Forest band, alleges that the two basketball players called her into a room where they told her a party was going on following Wake's loss in the NCAA tournament in Miami. When she arrived in the room, it was empty except for the two players. One of the players then forced her into the room's bathroom and forced her to have oral sex while the other stood guard outside. She reported the incident to Miami police, who based on the lack of any physical evidence or witnesses took no action.
When she returned to Winston-Salem, she reported the incident to university officials. The officials urged her to report the incident to campus security and it was then put through the university's on-campus judicial board. The student described the judicial board as being very insensitive to her plight and actually questioning her actions more than the actions of the players, which were the subject of the complaint that they were deciding.
All of this sounded very familiar to me. It was as if the school at which I attended law school (Wake Forest) had gone back 20 years and morphed into my undergraduate school (Syracuse). It was almost an instant replay of what had transpired on the Syracuse campus two decades earlier and it saddened me to know that so little had changed in that time period that any institution of higher education could be as incompetent at handling issues of rape and sexual assault as Wake Forest appeared to be in this case.
When I arrived at Syracuse University in the Fall of 1989, in the first 5 weeks of class that year, there were 6 rapes and sexual assaults reported to the university. The rash of sexual assaults led to action on the part of the student body. Protests were launched, changes were demanded and eventually some much needed reforms were put into place, albeit reluctantly by the university. I was fortunate enough to be involved with the student run organization Students Concerned About Rape Education (SCARED) which was the main organization spurring such changes. What we learned very quickly in our work at Syracuse is that colleges and universities look at rape and sexual assault as a problem to be covered up and swept under the rug rather than addressed seriously and confronted with open honest policies.
The way Syracuse dealt with these situations in the late 1980s and early 1990s was to first diminish the incidents of rape and sexual assault. It was looked at as a behavioral issue or misunderstanding, usually growing out of the immaturity of young students and fueled by alcohol, hormones and bad judgment. Students were told to report incidents to campus security, which were nothing more than glorified rent-a-cops who had no authority to do anything at all to arrest or file charges and were furthermore under no duty to forward the complaints onto actual law enforcement authorities. Campus security would generally then forward the report through the Office of Student Affairs who would either hush the matter up entirely, or if pushed on it by the student would route the case into the Judicial Board, which was made up of other students with little or no training who would ultimately decide the case and issue a punishment (or not).
What generally happened was that little if anything was done to the offender, even if the judicial board found that something had happened and the student/victim would end up transferring to another school or dropping out entirely.
What was always most appalling about handling cases this way, is not only did it allow the university to under-report the serious violent offenses that were happening to their students, more often than not at the hands of other students, but it allowed a group of students to handle a case from beginning to end, and ultimately pass judgment on that was in fact a serious violent felony which should have been handled by law enforcement and state prosecutors. Often the judicial board would make their judgment based on facts that were not relevant to the facts of the case, and would not have been admissible in court, such as the student/victim's sexual past, her clothing, whether or not she had been drinking, or whether or not she had consented to some sexual activity such as kissing or more prior to her saying no. On at least one occasion of which I know a judicial board decision on a case actually derailed a criminal prosecution that was in progress when they issued a determination that no offense had occurred complete with a headline in the student newspaper "Student Found Not Guilty In Rape Case."
Student judicial boards are simply not capable of handling such issues and should not be determining these types of cases. The treatment that the student at Wake Forest described receiving from the judicial board there was very reminiscent of the stories I heard from students at Syracuse who had been through the same process.
I almost had to chuckle to myself when the Wake student said that she was advised to contact campus security to file a complaint. We generally referred to campus security at Wake as the "Parking Nazis" (they even wore brown shirts). I can't even imagine even considering advising someone to report a serious crime to these group of incompetent law enforcement wannabes who seemed to get their jollies by making life as difficult as possible for anyone with whom they came into contact, much less going to them myself. However, this as it did at Syracuse, allows the university to keep the problem "in-house" and control the issue, allowing them to avoid the publicity that such a situation would create for the school.
Fortunately, at Syracuse, many real reforms did come about. But they came about only after constant and belligerent calls for reform by the students. An on-campus rape counseling center was established. The university begrudgingly became one of the first universities to openly publish the number of incidents reported both on and off campus and ended up being a leader among such reporting in the nation. The campus security eventually received the status of peace officers, allowing them to actually make arrests and making them responsible for reporting crimes to the legal and judicial authorities. Student education programs were implemented educating both men and women about rape and sexual assault, bringing the matter out from the shadows and making the campus more aware of what was going on and what needed to be done to deal with it.
Syracuse is far from perfect. There were still incidents that were being hushed up as I was leaving campus and after, and I am sure that there is still a good deal of that going on now. The judicial board still handles cases such as this, and based upon what I have read is still as incompetent to do so as they were when I was a student. However, it did get better because of the commitment that students, faculty and even some administrators had to simply not accepting the status quo and demanding that real systemic changes occur.
That is what makes me so distressed about the Wake Forest incident. It appears that the changes that we fought for two decades ago at Syracuse, which spread throughout the country due to the publicity that our actions received, had no effect at Wake. The response of the Wake Forest administration sounded as tone-deaf as what we heard initially from Syracuse. It appears to me that Wake Forest had no comprehensive program to deal with reports of sexual assault by their students or to education their students, or attempt to prevent such incidents from occurring.
Hopefully there are some bold educated students at Wake (and any other campus) that are willing to stand up and demand changes occur there. The administration of Wake Forest must be made to understand that the treatment that this one student received (and many countless voiceless others certainly did as well) is not acceptable and does not live up to the principles and goals of the university. I'm interested to see what, if anything, comes of this and what, if any, changes the university implements either on their own or after being shamed into doing so.
The student, who was a member of the Wake Forest band, alleges that the two basketball players called her into a room where they told her a party was going on following Wake's loss in the NCAA tournament in Miami. When she arrived in the room, it was empty except for the two players. One of the players then forced her into the room's bathroom and forced her to have oral sex while the other stood guard outside. She reported the incident to Miami police, who based on the lack of any physical evidence or witnesses took no action.
When she returned to Winston-Salem, she reported the incident to university officials. The officials urged her to report the incident to campus security and it was then put through the university's on-campus judicial board. The student described the judicial board as being very insensitive to her plight and actually questioning her actions more than the actions of the players, which were the subject of the complaint that they were deciding.
All of this sounded very familiar to me. It was as if the school at which I attended law school (Wake Forest) had gone back 20 years and morphed into my undergraduate school (Syracuse). It was almost an instant replay of what had transpired on the Syracuse campus two decades earlier and it saddened me to know that so little had changed in that time period that any institution of higher education could be as incompetent at handling issues of rape and sexual assault as Wake Forest appeared to be in this case.
When I arrived at Syracuse University in the Fall of 1989, in the first 5 weeks of class that year, there were 6 rapes and sexual assaults reported to the university. The rash of sexual assaults led to action on the part of the student body. Protests were launched, changes were demanded and eventually some much needed reforms were put into place, albeit reluctantly by the university. I was fortunate enough to be involved with the student run organization Students Concerned About Rape Education (SCARED) which was the main organization spurring such changes. What we learned very quickly in our work at Syracuse is that colleges and universities look at rape and sexual assault as a problem to be covered up and swept under the rug rather than addressed seriously and confronted with open honest policies.
The way Syracuse dealt with these situations in the late 1980s and early 1990s was to first diminish the incidents of rape and sexual assault. It was looked at as a behavioral issue or misunderstanding, usually growing out of the immaturity of young students and fueled by alcohol, hormones and bad judgment. Students were told to report incidents to campus security, which were nothing more than glorified rent-a-cops who had no authority to do anything at all to arrest or file charges and were furthermore under no duty to forward the complaints onto actual law enforcement authorities. Campus security would generally then forward the report through the Office of Student Affairs who would either hush the matter up entirely, or if pushed on it by the student would route the case into the Judicial Board, which was made up of other students with little or no training who would ultimately decide the case and issue a punishment (or not).
What generally happened was that little if anything was done to the offender, even if the judicial board found that something had happened and the student/victim would end up transferring to another school or dropping out entirely.
What was always most appalling about handling cases this way, is not only did it allow the university to under-report the serious violent offenses that were happening to their students, more often than not at the hands of other students, but it allowed a group of students to handle a case from beginning to end, and ultimately pass judgment on that was in fact a serious violent felony which should have been handled by law enforcement and state prosecutors. Often the judicial board would make their judgment based on facts that were not relevant to the facts of the case, and would not have been admissible in court, such as the student/victim's sexual past, her clothing, whether or not she had been drinking, or whether or not she had consented to some sexual activity such as kissing or more prior to her saying no. On at least one occasion of which I know a judicial board decision on a case actually derailed a criminal prosecution that was in progress when they issued a determination that no offense had occurred complete with a headline in the student newspaper "Student Found Not Guilty In Rape Case."
Student judicial boards are simply not capable of handling such issues and should not be determining these types of cases. The treatment that the student at Wake Forest described receiving from the judicial board there was very reminiscent of the stories I heard from students at Syracuse who had been through the same process.
I almost had to chuckle to myself when the Wake student said that she was advised to contact campus security to file a complaint. We generally referred to campus security at Wake as the "Parking Nazis" (they even wore brown shirts). I can't even imagine even considering advising someone to report a serious crime to these group of incompetent law enforcement wannabes who seemed to get their jollies by making life as difficult as possible for anyone with whom they came into contact, much less going to them myself. However, this as it did at Syracuse, allows the university to keep the problem "in-house" and control the issue, allowing them to avoid the publicity that such a situation would create for the school.
Fortunately, at Syracuse, many real reforms did come about. But they came about only after constant and belligerent calls for reform by the students. An on-campus rape counseling center was established. The university begrudgingly became one of the first universities to openly publish the number of incidents reported both on and off campus and ended up being a leader among such reporting in the nation. The campus security eventually received the status of peace officers, allowing them to actually make arrests and making them responsible for reporting crimes to the legal and judicial authorities. Student education programs were implemented educating both men and women about rape and sexual assault, bringing the matter out from the shadows and making the campus more aware of what was going on and what needed to be done to deal with it.
Syracuse is far from perfect. There were still incidents that were being hushed up as I was leaving campus and after, and I am sure that there is still a good deal of that going on now. The judicial board still handles cases such as this, and based upon what I have read is still as incompetent to do so as they were when I was a student. However, it did get better because of the commitment that students, faculty and even some administrators had to simply not accepting the status quo and demanding that real systemic changes occur.
That is what makes me so distressed about the Wake Forest incident. It appears that the changes that we fought for two decades ago at Syracuse, which spread throughout the country due to the publicity that our actions received, had no effect at Wake. The response of the Wake Forest administration sounded as tone-deaf as what we heard initially from Syracuse. It appears to me that Wake Forest had no comprehensive program to deal with reports of sexual assault by their students or to education their students, or attempt to prevent such incidents from occurring.
Hopefully there are some bold educated students at Wake (and any other campus) that are willing to stand up and demand changes occur there. The administration of Wake Forest must be made to understand that the treatment that this one student received (and many countless voiceless others certainly did as well) is not acceptable and does not live up to the principles and goals of the university. I'm interested to see what, if anything, comes of this and what, if any, changes the university implements either on their own or after being shamed into doing so.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)