jason, michelle, tom, and the power of nightmares

after a little manny tearfest in my previous post, i owe a few props to jason bay, our return on the manny dump. there are so many things to like about this guy:

• toiled away in pittsburgh on an awful team, never once asking to be traded and putting up huge numbers
• has a sense of the moment (hitting 2 huge homeruns in the ALDS)
• has learned how to play the Monster well in less than half a season (well, either that, or it's not that hard, and we gave Manny waaaay too much credit)
• under 30, cost controlled, puts up >900 OPS. I don't think i really need to 'sell' this guy.
• i insist that everyone refer to him as "the canadian, jason bay."
  

follow this link to read a nice SI article (yes, sports illustrated still exists) on how Bay is the real deal.


do we need more proof that michelle obama is the freakin shit? one millionth case-in-point: she goes on larry king live and kicks ass in the way we want her to kick ass. She's first ladyesque in exactly the same lofty, inspirational way that barack obama is presidential, particularly in recent days: an ambitious campaigner, an aspiring policy maker, a proud mother, and absolutely uncompromising in any of these respects. Plus, she refuses to be baited by any of the rampant negative campaigning surrounding her and barack obama in recent days:

What you heard in that debate, when you saw his passion, it was when he was talking about the health care crisis, and he talked about his mother dying of ovarian cancer, and how angry it made him to see her worrying about the insurance company and the payments rather than worrying about getting well.
And that's what we're seeing. That's the kind of stuff that makes Barack angry. It's not the back and forth. It's not something said about him. I think Barack said today, he can take, you know, any name-calling or the back and forth that -- you know, that stuff doesn't bother him.
But the unfairness that we're seeing across the country, that makes him mad.

and on Sarah Palin, despite attacks by Governor Palin suggesting that her husband sympathizes with terrorists:

I think she provides an excellent of example of all the different roles that women can and should play. You know, I'm a mother with kids and I've had a career and I've had to juggle. She's doing publicly, what so many women are doing on their own privately. What we're fighting for is to make sure that all women have the choices that Sarah Palin and I have. To make these decision and do it without hurting their families.

Everyone should read the transcript of her amazing interview with Larry King. I truly come away with absolutely equivalent respect and admiration for her as for her husband every time I get to read or see anything about her. You rock, Michelle.

Contrast that with Cindy McCain on the stump, referring to Obama's campaign as "dirty" and suggesting that Obama voted to put troops at risk (when her husband voted for the same bill). It just emphasizes the differences between these 2 camps. The difference being that Michelle Obama is an accomplished professional whose behavior matches her ideals, whereas Cindy McCain inherited a beer company, and her negative campaigning complements her record of stealing prescription drugs from her own nonprofit to feed her drug addiction.

Taxation, Spending, Patriotism, Friedman.
There is an incredibly important point that was made eloquently by Thomas Friedman in a recent opinion piece. It speaks of McCain's, and even more so Palin's, characterization of taxation as unpatriotic, and as government programs as waste. Friedman disagrees:

Sorry, I grew up in a very middle-class family in a very middle-class suburb of Minneapolis, and my parents taught me that paying taxes, while certainly no fun, was how we paid for the police and the Army, our public universities and local schools, scientific research and Medicare for the elderly. No one said it better than Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes: “I like paying taxes. With them I buy civilization.”

And I agree with him. This demonization of taxes as unpatriotic is ridiculous. You might argue that the government is inefficient in how it uses taxpayer money (the bailout perhaps being a prime example), but the idea of paying taxes is woven into the fabric of what makes us a democracy: citizens donate a certain portion of their income that can be better utilized by a governing body for services that should be provided to everyone (military protection, health care, education, etc.) Am I wrong?

There is an unbelievable amount of material on which I have yet to post, and I hope to get to it tonight. Including:

• The New England Journal of Medicine's report on the health care proposals of both candidates (thanks Amana)
• My increasing attempts to understand the basis and marketing of Democratic and Republican ideology, including a great piece Rosa sent me as well as an awesome documentary called The Power of Nightmares, which Todd showed me.
  
• Maybe a few thoughts on Alan Greenspan.
  

uh, i guess that's it for now