Pro Choice

Campaign 2012 begins today with Obama’s announcement via email to supporters that he will seek a second term.  Before everyone anoints him unbeatable, or guarantees he’ll lose in a landslide, a few things to remember.  At the same point in their respective first terms, here are the public job approval ratings for these former Presidents:

George W. Bush 70% (April 2003, riding high as invader-in-chief), Bill Clinton 48% (April 1995, before Monica became public obsession #1), George H.W. Bush 79% (April 1991, riding high at a time when the public cared about a coalition and less about reading his lips), Ronald Reagan 42% (April 1983, before Morning in America, and a painfully weak opponent emerged).  Barack Obama is at 45% now.

So things can change in unexpected ways.  What seems as if it will not change is the price of admission for any GOP candidates.  They will all be forced to accept the following orthodoxy in order to survive the nomination battle.  Let’s see how many of these potential platform planks get pinned to the unnamed candidate who will be boxed into a corner by paying homage to the following:

You must support explicit laws that ban the courts from instituting Sharia law in any form in this country.  Mind you, there have been no known court cases that would lead any reasonable person to believe that Sharia law will replace our current system of laws, and the 1^st Amendment covers this topic already.  I do wonder if kosher foods could be banned next, since Sharia law includes dietary restrictions.

You must support nullification.  Nullification is the idea that states can unilaterally decide what federal laws to obey and which ones to ignore.  You may remember that this issue was settled in the Civil War (Union 1- Confederates 0, in double overtime).  150 years later, in has become mainstream GOP thinking that nullification is an option.  That pesky US Constitution states otherwise, however.  Good luck with your Constitutional Amendment to allow secession from the Union.

Climate change does not exist and therefore cannot be caused by mankind.  It follows if these statements are true, that we can continue to do whatever the hell we want as a human race without fearing any natural consequences.  That’s an interesting position from a party whose base thinks that natural disasters are divine punishment for homosexuality.  Tolerance of the gay lifestyle can be blamed for earthquakes, hurricanes and tsunamis, but fossil fuels being dumped into the atmosphere?  Heresy!

Obama was born in the US, at least that’s what he says, and well – you decide for yourself, but his name is kinda funny, and I read on the Internet that his dad was from Kenya, but I’m just saying…

Health care reform must be repeal in its entirety.  There is no middle ground for a Republican candidate in the primaries on this one.  Articulating a compelling replacement will not be a requirement to seize the nomination, but it sure would be handy for the general election.  The candidate’s response should explain in great detail how the free market will provide affordable universal coverage, or how 50 million people will survive without coverage...oh, and lower the deficit at the same time.

Our military leaders know what’s best, and we should listen to them.  Gen. Petraeus is a living genius, unless he supports the right of gays to serve openly in the military.  The Joint Chiefs understand what it takes to lead an army, until they agree that implementation of the DADT repeal is no big deal.

Don’t Ask Don’t Tell should be reinstated.  Yes, there is a movement afoot to corner candidates into supporting that action, even though the military isn’t asking for it, and the public has moved on to real issues, like Snooki’s speaking fees and reviews of Charlie Sheen’s live performance in Detroit.

You should romanticize the US of the 1950s, except for the high tax rates, federal government investments in infrastructure, and the peak of organized labor.  Stay away from segregation, too – just a tip.

Planned Parenthood should be completely defunded.  While abortions represent 3% of the services, the other 97% of services, such as pap smears, cancer screenings, etc. should receive no federal funds.  The law already bans the use of federal funds for abortions, and has for years  Pardon the pun, but isn’t that throwing out the baby with the bath water?

You must repeat that elections have consequences, unless the election took place between 2006 and 2008.  Those weren’t elections with consequences, they were arrogant power grabs by thugs, like those scary Black Panther Party guys.

When the top 2% of income earners in this country have their taxes reduced, middle class jobs are created and the deficit goes down.  Proof that this works in reality is not necessary, but a catchy bumper sticker would help your cause.

We’re broke, unless the top 2% of income earners in this country need to have their taxes reduced, or Speaker Boehner needs cash for the DC school voucher program that he likes.

You must pledge allegiance to the rule of law, unless the goal is more important, like enacting anti-collective bargaining statutes in Wisconsin to bust public employee unions over court issued injunctions.

Teachers are a critical resource in our country, and their value cannot be overstated…as long as that value remains at or below the poverty line.  Feel free to mention indoctrination liberally.

Reagan.  That’s all – just Reagan.

I look forward to the candidates providing all the oppo research the President could ever ask for over the next 12 months.  Game on.

April Fools

Some days I wake up, read the paper and pray that everything I read is just a cruel April Fool’s prank.  Sadly, it isn’t.  Here are some of the people that make up this year’s April Fool’s List:

Rep. Eric Cantor:  This Congressional brainiac offered a piece of legislation in the House called the Government Shutdown Prevention Act. The bill would make H.R. 1 law if the Senate fails to pass a measure “before April 6" to fund the government for the rest of the fiscal year. H.R. 1, which passed the House but has gone nowhere in the Senate, would fund the government through the end of September and seeks to cut $61 billion in spending.

Hmmm.  Bills that pass the House, die in the Senate and do not get signed by the President do not become law by default.  Apparently, Cantor was absent the day his party read the Constitution aloud in the chamber.  I recommend recall votes for any elected official in the House who votes for this, since it is 1. unconstitutional, and 2. dumb.

Anyone following Donald Trump’s political maneuvers:  In the interest of full disclosure, I do enjoy The Apprentice (Celebrity and Original flavors), but as an HR professional, watching people getting canned is what we do to unwind.  That said, Trump’s flirtation with a presidential run is laughable, but he has parlayed it into a regular gig on Fox News (where all candidates go to raise their profiles and funds), and he is suddenly on every nightly newscast.  He is a publicity hound, and will never win a primary, let alone the nomination.  He will, however, make more money for himself, and I blame YOU if you are watching him now.

GOP Caucus Members:  If one of your elected representatives is more interested in how much gets cut without concern about what gets cut, he or she makes my list.

Karl Rove:  Yes, he is still out there, and in an interesting twist on logic, reason and reality, he offered this commentary on Fox News when asked about Trump’s endorsement of birther theories as a way to endear him to the far right base:

“The right- wing base of the Republican Party -- I'm part of that right-wing base -- is not in love with the issue of birthers. I mean, there is an element inside the Republican Party and outside the Republican Party that's fallen in love with this. But the vast majority of Republicans and the vast majority of Americans accept that he's a U.S. citizen and capable of being president. And this is a distraction. [...]

"This is a mistake. It will marginalize [Trump]. And he's falling for Barack Obama's trap. Barack Obama wants Republicans to fall into this trap, because he knows it discredits us with the vast majority of American people when they do."

Karl Rove thinks that Barack Obama has set a trap for the Republicans by quietly pushing this nonsense story in the faint hope that some desperate outlets (i.e. Fox News) would pick up the story and run with it.  Rove makes my list because I hope we aren’t all that stupid (fingers crossed).

Mitt Romney:  Here is a clip from his latest op-ed piece:

President Obama didn't cause the recession, but he made it worse and caused it to last longer. From the outset, he inaugurated the most anti-investment, anti-business, anti-jobs policies we have seen since Jimmy Carter.

Hmmm…the economy was hemorrhaging jobs in 2008; now it's gaining jobs. Unemployment was getting worse; now it's getting better.  The economy was contracting; now it's growing. The economy added roughly 1.3 million private-sector jobs in 2010 -- a little more than the combined net total of the entire Bush/Cheney era.  Corporate profits were down; now they are up at historic highs.  The stock market has rebounded from January 2009 (8100) to today’s near complete turnaround (12,100).  The auto industry in America was dead; now it is thriving. 

When does political hyperbole become just plain ol’ lying?

Rep. Tom Marino:  This Pennsylvania Republican mostly supports the actions taken in Libya, but he is concerned:

"Do we go into Africa next? I don't want to sound callous or cold, but this could go on indefinitely around the world."

Please, someone tell this guy, who sits on the House Foreign Affairs Committee mind you, that Libya is in Africa.

Rep. Louie Gohmert:  This Texas Republican is always good for a laugh.  This genius sees a connection between Libya and Obama’s secret efforts to weaken the military and institute some sort of draft, as outlined in the Affordable Care Act:

"[W]hen you find out we're being sent to Libya to use our treasure and American lives there, maybe there's intention to so deplete the military that we're going to need that presidential reserve officer commissioned corps and non-commissioned corps that the president can call up on a moment's notice involuntarily, according to the Obamacare bill."

No wonder Palin can’t get any attention.  Look at the competition.

The Tea Party Fighting Against the ACA:  Here is an excerpt from a great piece by Jonathan Cohn, in which he describes Tea Party efforts to fight the Affordable Care Act at the state level:

The idea is to oppose the Affordable Care Act not in the Congress or the courts, where they've been fighting so far, but in the state legislatures. As you may recall, the Act calls upon states to create the new "exchanges," through which individuals and small businesses will be able to buy regulated insurance policies at affordable prices. The simplest way to do that is for state legislatures to pass laws creating exchanges that conform to the Act's standards. Several states have started that process already -- and a few, like California, are well along in their efforts.

But Tea Party activists have been lobbying state lawmakers to vote against such measures and, in a few states, it looks like they're succeeding. [...]

It's a great idea for blocking the law, except for one small problem: The Affordable Care Act anticipates that some states might not create adequate exchanges. And the law is quite clear about what happens in those cases. The federal government takes over, creating and then, as necessary, managing the exchanges itself.

So in fighting government run healthcare, they will bring about…government run healthcare.  Brilliant!

Maybe it should be April Fool’s Month?

162-0

This is not going to become one of those sappy homages to baseball at the dawn of a new season.  This will not be one of my annual love notes to the baseball gods, romanticizing the absence of a clock in the game, and waxing poetic about how it is the lone major sport in which the people do the scoring instead of the ball.  We all know these things to be true.  While I could write about the fresh scent of the infield before Game Number One, or the eternal life-affirming optimism that comes with all teams being tied for first place for a day, I will pass.

This will be even better than that.

My son begins his first season of organized baseball on this unseasonably chilly, late March evening.  His uniform is clean, his glove oiled, his cleats muddied with pre-season infield dirt, and his attitude unblemished by previous errors, strike outs, or base running blunders.  His slate is clean.  At age 12, this is his inaugural campaign, and I could not be more proud of him, or scared to death for him.

I am proud because this was his idea.  He wants to play a sport that I am passionate about, but I have never steered him towards playing.  It was his decision to take this challenge.  I admire that. 

 

I am even more proud that he is facing this baseball season without fear, at least not obvious fear.  He is behind some of his teammates in game experience by 5 or 6 years, yet he is attacking each play, listening intently to his coaches, asking me for tips, and consistently wanting to try one more at bat, one more grounder, and one more pop fly.  What he lacks in instinct and grace he makes up for with joy and tenacity.  When that ball rolls past him to the fence, no one runs harder for it, or bounces right back more quickly for the next bad hop that is sure to come his way.  He has no emotional scars from the “sun getting in his eyes” on a fly ball, and this is good.

I am slightly jealous of this time in his life.  Baseball revealed its’ cruel side to me as a child.  I learned early on that getting hit by the pitch was as good as a hit, and while I was happy to finally be on first base, the lingering fear of the inside fastball meeting bone ruined my otherwise promising career.  Other factors might have contributed to my failure at baseball.  Is this the part where I blame my father?  I loved the game and understood the game intellectually, but I just couldn’t do it very well physically.  I opted to read the daily big league box scores, attach low value baseball cards to the spokes of my bicycle tires, and argue with Yankee fans about how Oscar Gamble would never lead them to a championship, and how Jerry Grote was a better all-around catcher than Johnny Bench.  Ignorance is strength as a kid.

Those days of innocence are gone (some would argue that my days of ignorance are still with me), and I don’t miss them.  At least I thought that I didn’t miss them, until I watched my son living through his own days of innocence.  Playing baseball without memories of ever having made a mistake in a game situation is something I can no longer remember.  It looks pretty fun, though.

My son begins his journey into the world of Little League baseball with a team record of 0-0.  He is on a first place team, or at least tied for first, and has the same perfect batting average and flawless fielding percentage as every other kid out there.  Just for today.  If I could just freeze this moment in time…

Play ball.

Duffer's Lament

I heard a radio commercial this weekend for The Masters, golf’s annual showcase event.  Underneath the hushed voice of the announcer, you can hear the tickle of the ivories playing a soothing, classical melody.  “The rich tradition (translation: discriminatory history) of Augusta National.”  And the azaleas…ah the azaleas.

While listening to the promotional message, I couldn’t help thinking that this was atypical of most sporting event commercials.  Where were the adjectives and adverbs of violence and impact, the background roar of the crowd, the anticipation of a high stakes showdown between hated rivals?  What about ticket availability?  Instead, it had all the drama of a Shakespeare in the Park summer festival announcement.  I don’t know why this surprised me.  I have always questioned golf’s standing as a sport anyway.

Golf fans, prepare to be offended:   

Reasons Golf is Not a Sport

1.         You can only touch the ball once it stops moving.

The artistry of sports is that the players are trying to interact while other players move AND the ball moves.  In golf, you walk up to the ball, look at the ball, sometimes pick it up and blow on the ball, then stare at the ball some more.  Yes, it can be tough to hit, but let’s face it.  It’s a stationary object.  Try hitting a round ball at 90 mph with a round bat squarely.  Now we’re talking sports.

2.         How you dress is equally as important as how you play.

Fashion conscious players may bring in valuable merchandising dollars for the PGA and USGA, but when the drape of the man’s gabardine becomes a storyline, your in the world of modeling, not sports.

3.         Its’ signature event each year is defined by a flowering bush.

The azaleas, I will grant you, are very picturesque.  They could easily grace the cover of Home and Garden or become the subject of a complex 750 piece jigsaw puzzle.  A real sporting event is defined by the point during which beer sales are cut off – end of the 7^th inning?  Start of the 4^th quarter?  3^rd set?  Flowers are nice, but I’d like to see golfers play the ball off a wall of ivy before I respect them.

4.         The crowd never does the wave.

In fact, there is no face painting either, now that I think about it.  What kind of legitimate sport encourages the ‘shushing’ of fanes at its major championship?  Some of my earliest memories are of my dad watching golf on Sunday afternoons – so that he could fall asleep in his Lazy Boy 1.0 (before the side lever and the built in cup holder innovations).  If it is used to induce sleep, I am pretty sure it’s not a sport – it’s a sedative.

5.         You win by scoring the lowest.

This is America.  More is always better.  Higher scores should equal victory.  In golf, a higher score equals less money and an early trip home for the weekend.  This reminds me of that middle school game of you can hit you the softest.  You go first.

6.         “Na Na Na Na Hey Hey Hey” is never played on the 18^th green.

Yes, Tiger Woods has added a level of pre-match trashing talking to the competition that had not previously existed.  Face to face taunting, however, is still noticeably absent.  You should be allowed to get inside your opponent’s head with some well crafted profane insults during a game.

 

7.         You can smoke while playing.

Baseball player have smoked in the clubhouse in between innings, and some NBA players are probably stoned during summer league games.  You won’t catch Ryan Zimmerman puffing away at third base in between pitches though, or Blake Griffin doing bong hits at half court.  I think it is a simple line to be drawn.  As soon as John Daly starts hitting his Marlboro red pack during a stroll down the 16^th fairway, we have left the concept of ‘sport’ behind.  It’s leisure time, even though he’s sweating profusely.

8.         It is cheaper to go to watch a round of golf than to play one.

18 holes with a cart could run anywhere from $80 to $150 per – on a cheap course.  Pebble Beach runs about $500 a round.  A pick-up basketball game is free on a public blacktop.  Soccer requires a ball and some grass.  Football requires a ball and pants that you don’t mind getting dirty.  My point is that real sports should be accessible.  Golf has priced itself out of the accessible market.

9.         Someone else carries your equipment during the competition.

Shouldn’t part of the physical challenge be doing all that walking while lugging your own 50 pound bag of clubs and accessories?  Better yet add a clock and give points for finishing fastest.  At least then you are closer to being a real sport.  Tell me that tuning in to see Vijay Singh running with a full bag on the back nine one Sunday isn’t must watch TV.

10.       You can’t play it in a domed stadium.

I think that’s self-explanatory. 

Golf is a competition, like darts or bowling or poker.  Golf is lots of fun, and it requires hand eye coordination and endurance.  No argument there.  But a sport?  You’re reaching.  I will go out on a limb and call it an activity.

Next up: Why making a series of left hand turns at high speed for 4 hours is not a sport either.

Pressure Gauge

My kids received excellent reports card this month, but I will not be shopping for a new bumper sticker to proclaim my pride in their achievement.  It’s my kid’s accomplishment, not mine.  I believe that these well-intentioned displays of praise and pride become more of praise and pride for the parent’s, not the child’s, success in raising them.  Where I live, however, my attitude about not trumpeting my kid’s achievements on a rolling billboard seems to be the exception.  Let the pressure of expectations begin right here on the rear bumper, and hope the kid doesn’t get run over. 

I should not be surprised by this.  We parents have been fed a steady diet of information that defines our main parental function as a Manual Ego Inflation (ME!) device.  If we aren’t praising their every little movement, we are crushing their chances of going to a good college.  “What a handsome little BM, Johnny.  So solid and well shaped.  You must have worked very hard on that!”  Poor Johnny may be proud of what he made, but now the pressure is really on to produce something bigger and better the next time he sits.  Some things are better off coming naturally.  Undue pressure can cause unintended consequences. 

Little Einstein videos cater not to the child’s brain centers, but to the parent’s.  Baby Mozart CDs stimulate activity in parents, not our children – and I think the activity is spending more money.  Flash cards help parents learn how to create unrealistic expectations of our child, not for the child to learn word recognition…at age 2.  Yet, our neighbors have this stuff strewn across their family rooms, so we didn’t want little Johnny to be left behind.  Group think in the parenting world is a very powerful force.

It has only gotten more intense as the kids have grown up.  In our house, we are now entering the pre-college phase, where every class, every extra-curricular activity, every volunteer effort will be used as a measuring stick for admission into college and a lifetime of student debt.  The pressure of understanding the college admission requirements is mounting, and the pressure to make the correct life-altering decisions for our child today is immense and growing.  Is it possible that if our little one doesn’t have enough school club leadership positions on her college application that she is doomed to a life of cashiering at the local membership warehouse?  I would like to think that she might still survive without a Ph.D, or a diploma from UVA, but if I listen to the chatter, I am not so sure.

My feeling has always been that after the Ivy League schools and a small handful of other prestigious institutions (MIT, Stanford), what matters is the degree, not the name of the school.

There’s nothing inherently wrong with high expectations and coping with pressure, particularly since children often rise to the occasion in ways that can surprise us.  There is, however, something inherently wrong with not accepting our child for who they are – a unique person with different skills, different interests, different learning abilities, different tastes, different motivations.  In short, my child is not the same as the kid next door.  The challenge for our educational system is to teach our children in a standardized fashion in an increasingly personalized and customized world.   

Learning is hard to measure, but it is certainly more than test scores and Certificates of Participation.  Traditional ‘carrot and stick’ methods of motivation for teachers and students may result in slightly better test scores (although the research is inconclusive on that point), but it does not make for better students interested in lifelong learning.  And given the pace of information these days, don’t we need lifelong learners?  A daughter who pulls As and Bs in honors classes who also has a countdown sheet for the days left of high school is not preparing for lifelong learning.  She is preparing for the end of learning, and as we all know, learning can never end if we hope to be competitive as a nation into the future.  Yes, we need more math and science experts, but we need artists and entrepreneurs and social workers, too.

I recently attended a presentation of the documentary, Race to Nowhere, sponsored by my local high school.  Cherie had seen the movie, and found it provocative.  She insisted that I attend a showing so we could discuss how its message might affect how we are parenting our kids through these high school years.

The movie discusses the enormous pressures that are heaped on our adolescents to achieve for the sake of achievement, to learn facts instead of concepts, to learn how to game the system instead of thrive within it, to learn to memorize today instead of memorizing ways to learn for tomorrow.

Can there be viable, alternative ways to teach and learn in the 21^st century?  We decry our children’s obsession with video games and ignore the potential opportunity.  The games teach strategy.  The games teach incremental improvement, monitored on a dashboard that provides instant feedback on performance.  The games teach teamwork.  Consequences of wrong choices are immediate.  Kids continue to play, even when they lose, and in many cases, it only gets them to try harder the next time.  Wouldn’t it be great if all this described our academic environment?

My son Thomas and I were out bike riding last summer, just exploring parts of the outer limits of our neighborhood when he remarked, “It’s fun getting lost when you know where you are.”  This struck me as downright Suessian in its simplicity and truth, and it had a larger message for me, like most Dr. Suess quotes.  Kids learn best when they explore on their own, and what they require from us is just a safe home base as an anchor.  We don’t need to guide and lead, as much as we need to invite and support.

With all this in mind, and confident that at least my kid’s school understands the crazy pressures to excel at all costs, I get this email:

It’s Never Too Early to Think About College!

Program for Parents of Students in 7th, 8th and 9th Grade Monday, February 28 at 7:00pm in the Auditorium.

·         Have you heard about the increasingly competitive college application process and want to know how to help your child prepare and make good decisions? 

·         Are you worried that you are not helping your child enough to prepare for college?

·         Are you worried that you might be pushing your child too much?

·         Does your student have an academic plan for high school?

The message was clear.  Regardless of what might be best for your child, this is the era in which we live.  Get on board, or risk being run over by the honors student next door.  Beep beep.

Editor's Note:  I read in The Week that a NYC woman is suing her pre-school for "hurting the child's chances of making it into the Ivy League."  She complains that her daughter's $19,000 per year school places undue emphasis on "shapes and colors." 

Why My Brackets Suck

“That men do not learn very much from the lessons of history is the most important of all lessons that history has to teach.” – Aldous Huxley, quoted in The Wall Street Journal

Every year, I submit myself to the torture that is March Madness.  I am not a gambler by nature, but I make an exception for the tournament.   I have a competitive streak, but that streak does not encourage me to throw away my money away in a game of chance.   Bracketology, however, is the exception that proves the rule.  I always do the brackets.  Some years, I study the teams, and make informed choices.  Some years, like this year, I study nothing and make uninformed choices.  The outcome for me rarely changes, though.  As I have often said, it is better to be lucky than good. 

My preparation for filling out my 2011 bracket was more casual than normal.  I probably saw the fewest games leading up to the tourney than I ever had before, but I do listen to sports talks radio to and from work, 20 minutes each way.  I hear the sports geniuses impart their wisdom on teams all season.  I figured that gave me as good a chance as any other year.  Besides, I was still riding high my 2^nd place finish in 2010 in a vendor sponsored bracket challenge.  I won a $200 spa treatment (can you say “Happy Mother’s Day?”), so I was filled with unfounded hubris.  Given my recent history of successful prognostication, I was ready for my One Shining Moment in 2011.  Winning.

One weekend is now in the book, and this year, I suck.  As a community service for everyone picking teams next year, here is a tutorial on how NOT to pick:

East Region

Sweet Sixteen picks still alive:  Ohio St., North Carolina

I was feeling pretty good about myself after the first 2 days.  I picked 7 of 8 in the first round.  My only choke was Xavier.  I can’t be blamed for that one.  Marquette came out of nowhere.  FAIL.  I can’t be too proud however; I am left with the Number 1 and Number 2 seeds in the region.  Hardly went out on a limb with those picks.

I assumed that since Kentucky put last year’s team into the NBA that this would be a down year.  I had the scrappy sons of the coal miners of West Virginia over UK.  FAIL.  I hate Jim Boeheim at Syracuse for no good reason.  He burns me every March.  If I pick them to lose, they win, and vice versa.  This year, I thought I’d fool everyone, and I had Syracuse in the Final Four.  This was a team ready to explode.  That must have been the Kiss of Death for the Orangemen.  They blew up, alright.  FAIL.   

West Region

Sweet Sixteen picks still alive:  Duke, Arizona, San Diego St.

This is my best region, and it gives me hope for next year.  Like the East, I had 7 of 8 after the first round, but I have 3 of 4 teams still playing at this point.  I am sure that many of you would trade places with me in the West.  My failure in this region is all about Missouri.  I always pick Missouri.  I have no idea what the team looks like this year, but whenever I picture the Missouri squad, I picture big, strong, tall, athletic, intimidating players.  Actually, what I picture are the members of the Lambda Lambda Lambda fraternity (the Tri-Lambs) from The Revenge of the Nerds, coming out of the tunnel to defend their court.  How could a team like that lose?  Easy – I picked them.  FAIL.  I am proud of my Arizona prediction.  They always play well in March, thanks to the steady hand of Lute Olsen.  What? He doesn’t coach there anymore?  No problem.  I have AZ going down to San Diego State anyway.

Southwest Region

Sweet Sixteen picks still alive:  Kansas

I nailed 5 of 8 in the opening round, a very underwhelming result, especially when the 1 vs. 16 and 2 vs. 15 match ups are freebies.  I had epic failures across the board otherwise.  I favor good career tournament coaches over no names, so I went for Louisville.  Never bet against Pitino in the early rounds.  FAIL.  I had VCU over Georgetowne, but as a local radio listener, I knew VCU was impressive and G-Towne had nothing this year.  Some G-Towne guy was injured (like my in depth analysis?).  I was certain that those big corn fed boys from Perdue would manhandle VCU.  FAIL.  Since the Texas A&M football team would beat the Florida State football team, I assume that would translate into the gym.  FAIL.  Notre Dame was supposed to be a Number 1 seed a few days ago, so no way they lose before the Round of 16.  I should have known.  Last time they were any good, Digger was their coach, and Bill Walton played for UCLA.  FAIL.  I did have the Spiders of Richmond winning against Vandy, but I thought that would be the end of their Cinderella story.  I always remember Richmond as a 15 seed beating ‘Cuse a hundred years ago, and I assume that the magic would carry over, but not too long.  FAIL.

Southeast Region

Sweet Sixteen picks still alive:  Florida

Didn’t there used to be a Midwest region?

Not much to brag about here.  I picked a paltry 5 of 8 in the first round again.  I had St. John’s in the Final Four, mostly because they were the only team I saw play twice all year, apparently during their hot streak in January.  I guess things changed since then.  Where have you gone, Lou Carnesecca?  I learned that Malik Sealy isn’t on the team anymore.  FAIL.  I had Pitt in the Final 8, but I am sure many did, too.  Sidney Crosby plays in Pittsburgh, and out of deference to my son, I couldn’t pick any Pittsburgh based team to do too well.  FAIL.

How could BYU possibly advance to the Sweet Sixteen after losing their star player to a season ending suspension?  I did not factor in that a team of virgins plays with greater energy and pent up intensity than a team of non-virgins.  FAIL.  I also thought that Belmont used up all their magic dust last year.  I guess some was left over, and K State goes home.  FAIL.  

The one that really irks me is Michigan State.  I have bet against Tom Izzo too many times, and he has killed my bracket many a year.  I never pick him to go as far as he does.  This year, everyone said State had nothing, but I have learned my lesson.  Never bet against Tom Izzo in the tournament.  Even with a 14 loss team, he’ll win the first game against UCLA.  Lock it.  FAIL.       

The optimist in me sees that my final 2 teams are still alive – Duke vs. Kansas.  I went way out on a limb and picked two blue blood programs, both Number One seeds this year.  I can’t be proud of that, even if I am right.  Besides, there are probably 1 million other brackets out there with the exact same final pairing.   Because of my selections this year, the rest of the tournament is unwatchable, but I will keep watching.  Hurts so good.

I stopped off at 7-11 for a Gatorade after my hockey game last night.  The estimated Powerball jackpot is $101 million.  I bought a single ticket, since my luck is due to change for the better (or should I say, it is due to change for the ‘bettor’). 

Employing Logic

According to some who testified last month in front of the EEOC (Equal Employment Opportunity Commission), there is wide spread discrimination in the hiring process against those who are currently unemployed.  This perceived discrimination has a disparate impact on protected groups, such as blacks and the elderly, the EEOC Board was told, and it must be rooted out and eliminated. 

 

Suffering from “unemployment” can now be categorized as a disability.  Find me a good lawyer.

“Throughout its 45-year history, the EEOC has identified and remedied discrimination in hiring and remains committed to ensuring job applicants are treated fairly,” EEOC Chair Jacqueline Berrien said. “Today’s meeting gave the commission an important opportunity to learn about the emerging practice of excluding unemployed persons from applicant pools.”

“Emerging” to describe the trend could be accurate, if you define “emerging” as something that has not yet happened, a mere thought but not yet an action.  Yes, there is no reputable data that this type of discrimination is occurring, and it could be just created out of whole cloth from nothing but angry blog posts and the cocktail party complaints of disgruntled and desperate long term job seekers.  The idea of excluding the unemployed from an applicant pool, however, has certain shock appeal in these times of stubbornly high unemployment rates, and reality should never get in the way of a good story.  If unemployment rates are high because of discrimination, at least we’ll have a legal remedy to look forward to…hmmm… 

Hearings like this one at the EEOC give the unemployed a bad name.  The unemployed in this worldview have a condition to be avoided, like the flu or poison ivy.  In this view, employers believe that unemployment can be avoided, much like one can prevent a cold or other infectious diseases through careful planning and precautions.  Unemployment becomes the modern day scarlet U that labels the job applicant as a failure.  Being unemployed must mean he didn’t try hard enough, or that he wasn’t a team player.  Certainly unemployment is an avoidable condition, completely within the control of the “so-called victim”.  We are a nation that prizes the Protestant work ethic, and loss of work is the ultimate failure of the person.  “He’s not working.”  In our sunny corporate climates of positivity-at-all-costs, a person with a history of failure is persona non grata.  Don’t call us, we’ll call you.  Unclean!

I don’t know of any systemic discrimination against those currently unemployed (“You can start tomorrow?  Even better!!!”), but I can see how a negative perception could morph into an actual company practice.  Hiring managers get this.  The unemployed in America didn’t work hard enough, or didn’t get along with their co-workers, or worse – no longer had the requisite job skills to survive in the 21^st century workplace.  “If only he was more adaptable, his former employer would have kept him, and we need adaptable employees.  NEXT!”  Of course, this is all unspoken, in much the same way that those with bad haircuts have more difficulty finding work.  It isn’t talked about, but nudge nudge, let’s see some more candidates.  Not illegal, but not smart business, either. 

 

Workers get this message about avoiding the stain of the unemployed label, too, and they internalize the shame of losing a job.  The savvy job seekers know that the word unemployment is too negative, too depressing for the audience of friends, neighbors and potential employers, so the word has evolved into the more tasteful phrase - “in transition”.  In this word version, one is never “unemployed”, which is something that happens TO someone.  One is merely voluntarily passing through a phase towards a better, more satisfying work life.  At least “in transition” is more honest than yesterday’s favorite euphemism for being out of work for a period of time: “I’ve been doing some consulting work to stay busy.”  HR people everywhere nod and wink when someone explains their most recent employment gap with that excuse.  Everyone with $35 for a website domain license is an entrepreneur and small business owner.  Tell an HR person that you’ve been consulting recently, and our knee jerk response will be, “Keep plugging away.  I’m sure you’ll find something soon.”

Even the expression, “losing a job” makes it sound as if it is something you misplaced, like your car keys, and you only need look harder to find it again.  Even the political rhetoric, particularly on the Right, is explicit in its distain for those not working.  These are the folks responsible for the decline of America, thunder the talk radio voices, and their entitlements represent theft from the employed, hard working Americans.  In this environment, if the unemployed feel discriminated against, that is certainly understandable.  They’re being marginalized every day while Wall Street profits (and their image) have recovered.  What a country.

  

If the unemployed are being excluded from job applicant pools, and I am not sure they are, these could be some of the reasons.

One of the problems with railing against this kind of perceived subtle discrimination is that the more you fight against it, the worse it can become.  In the process of trying to protect an aggrieved class of individuals, you run the risk of painting them as victims, weaklings who need extra support and consideration – exactly the kind of impression you would prefer not to leave with a potential employer, or Right Wing blogger.  It can become a self-fulfilling prophecy of defeat before you have even answered the first interview question.

“It’s important to explore every available legal option to prevent this practice from spreading and cause even more damage at a time when workers are already suffering from record rates of joblessness,” stated one of the professionals at the hearing.

Now I get it.  Who can we sue?  When I read this, I do see a case of Far Left overreach.  Hiring always involves discrimination, the selection of one over another (“he has such discriminating tastes” is a compliment, remember) – you just can’t discriminate for illegal reasons.  Last time I looked, race, gender, ethnicity, disability are all protected statuses.  Being unemployed didn’t make the list.  My ability to discriminate between two closely situated applicants makes me especially good at my job.  Unemployment is not a disability.  It may not be fair, but it is not illegal.

Perhaps if we didn’t tolerate the unemployed being demonized as lazy, entitlement seeking slugs, we wouldn’t have this issue at all.  It is worth a shot.