Conversation with Boyfriend About Phillies

12:46 PM Boyfriend: did you happen to catch the updated BP world series odds

12:47 PM me: oh god no why is it awesome/

Boyfriend: % chance to win World Series: Phillies 37.4%, Rays 36.9% Red Sox 20.5 Dodgers 5.2

me: oh my god

shut up

12:48 PM Boyfriend: that'll probably change because the Rays are less likely to win their LCS than we are right now

being up only 2-1 instead of 3-1

me: do you think we can beat the rays? (assuming we beat the dodgers, of course)

Boyfriend: yes

12:49 PM I think we can beat the Sox too

but it will be the hardest series all season by far

and we can't afford stuff like fielding mistakes

or bullpen collapses

me: i'm heartened by the fact that each member of our team comes out to play though

like it's not just howard or utley making the big plays

it's everyone

Boyfriend: yeah

even fucking Ruiz

me: matt stairs!

Boyfriend: yeah

12:50 PM the thing is, AL team has homefield advantage if we make it

because of the stupid, stupid All Star game rule

although

I suppose they would've had it anyway if they'd done it the way most people want

since Sox and Rays both have a better record than us

12:52 PM me: brb

12:56 PM Boyfriend: best pic I've found so far: http://cache.daylife.com/imageserve/06H10QR2wEgbT/610x.jpg

5 minutes

1:01 PM Boyfriend: this one is pretty funny Burrellage: http://cache.daylife.com/imageserve/0bgZaUmcmfcdk/610x.jpg

Burrelery, if you will

6 minutes

1:08 PM me: yeah gotta love those pics

please don't leave us pat

please please please

[Slate]

The Deal with ACORN

Gawker does a good job today of explaining the issues with ACORN and the so-called voter registration fraud. Most important sentence of this post: "Quite honestly the very heart of the utter bullshitness of this anti-ACORN campaign can be found in one incredibly telling quote from a spokesman for the RNC: "Cairncross accused ACORN of engaging in a 'systematic effort to undermine the election process' through its voter-registration drives." Do you see the problem with that statement?"

My question is this: Voter turnout in this, the "best" democracy in the world, is hovering around 50% during major election years. And they're worried about voter fraud? Maybe they should concentrate on actually getting the other 50% out to vote.

Update: I should clarify. This story is about voter registration fraud. Not people actually casting votes that, you know, actually count. This is about people signing up to vote. The actually voting part is a whole different story. So what if some jerk wrote Mickey Mouse on a registration card? Do you really think the Mouse is going to show up on Nov 4th, be escorted to a booth, and be allowed to pull a lever? The point is, and TPM makes an excellent connection between the ACORN story and the US Attorney firing scandal, that Republicans are trying to preemptively sow the seeds of a compromised election because they are losing.

Soap Box Moment Inspired by Bob Herbert

Bob Herbert's post for the NYT today is a little apocolyptic for my taste, but, especially towards the beginning of the piece, he taps into the main reason I voted Democratic.

He quotes Sarah Rimer of the NYT: “The United States is failing to develop the math skills of both girls and boys, especially among those who could excel at the highest levels, a new study asserts, and girls who do succeed in the field are almost all immigrants or the daughters of immigrants from countries where mathematics is more highly valued," continuing that our culture does not value math and science, that "the math thing is seen as something for Asians and nerds."

I really believe that an intense skepticism of science and a general disregard for factual information of the conservative movement in the last decade--whether it be teaching creationism in schools or refuting global warming--has seriously harmed our country's ability to deal with the challenges of the next several decades. If we are teaching our children that academia is for the uppity elite, that it doesn't matter if you're smart as long as you're popular, that you don't need facts to back up your claims as long as you appeal to Joe Sixpack--then we are doing a serious disservice to future generations. In every child I believe is the potential to do great things--creatively, scientifically, technologically, socially, politically. If we don't ensure that all children--mine, yours, your neighbor's, the kid in the inner city, and the kid on the farm--get a fair shot at a decent education, then we are leaving potential great minds behind. If we don't try to make sure all of those kids remain healthy with affordable healthcare, we are diminishing that pool of thinkers even further. If we continue to turn a blind eye to the awful poverty and the enormous disparity between rich and the poor in our country and remain convinced of the impossible notion that everyone can pull themselves up by their bootstraps, then we are simply selling ourselves short. Because our kids will be the ones developing cures for our diseases, inventing clean and efficient energy technologies, negotiating with other nations for our safety, and generally taking care of our planet. Kids in places like India and China are already way ahead of us. And if people think that American individualism will last in this global community, then they deserve their new place in the world: left behind.

Just a Thought

Instead of blaming the economy for their poor polling numbers, as if we should feel sorry for them or something, the McCain campaign should probably try to come up with a good plan on how to fix the economy, you know, to maybe provide their supporters with legitimate reasons to vote for them.

Daily Dose

I Can't Even Believe It

Okay so last night's Phillies game was really important. Yeah, we were going into the game up 2-1 in the series (if you're just catching on, I'm talking about the NLCS against the Dodgers). If we lost last night, it wouldn't be the end of the world, we wouldn't have lost the series or anything. But it was the kind of game that could change the direction of the series very quickly. If the Dodgers won, the series would have been tied. They would have an extra boost of energy to win the last game at Dodgers Stadium. And we would go back to Philly for the last two games, but just like in politics, momentum is everything and in this hypothetical situation, it would not be on our side.

For the reasons I outline above, I was sick watching the game last night. When I get stressed out watching a game, I am very quiet, very weighed-down, and I try to occupy myself with something else. What a freaking 3 hour, 44 minute long heart attack. The Phillies scored 2 runs in the first, only to be matched by 1 by the Dodgers. After a few sloppy innings of little hitting for the Phils and even sloppier fielding, we were sliding down a slippery slope to loserville. The 5th inning seemed clutch and we could sense just watching it that this inning would either make or break the game, after Joe Blanton loaded the bases and one by one the Dodgers were putting up base hits. We left the inning down 3-2, which, I thought, was not all that bad, but boy, did it feel bad. In the 6th, a wild pitch sent Ryan Howard to score, bringing it back to a 3-3 tie. But then a single shot homer by Casey Blake for the Dodgers, and then some more base hits and a fielding error by Howard made it 5-3. The only reason we got out of the inning was an unassisted double play by my boyfriend, Chase Utley. I thought, welp, thanks for coming out guys, this game is over.

So we get to the 8th. Both teams have pretty much used up all of their pitchers. Up to bat comes Shane Victorino, who almost got his head taken off with a wild pitch the previous inning, to a chorus of boos from the LA fans. And he just rips one right into the bull pen. Oh shit, the game is tied. I started to pay a little more attention, this game just got a little more interesting. So then Carlos Ruiz is up and hits a single. Dodgers bring in their closer, Broxton, and it's do or die for the Phillies. Up at Bat for the Phils is Matt Stairs, a man who is 40 years old and has played on 16 MLB teams in his career. He gets up on Broxton in the count, 3-1. Broxton has no choice but to throw him a meaty fast ball. And jesus, did Stairs rip that one, like almost out of the park rip it. Phils up 7-5. We bring in our closer, Brad Lidge, in the bottom of the eigth to face Manny. He loads up the bases just to make us squirm, but gets out of it. Phillies can't get any insurance runs in the 9th. Lidge mows down three more Dodger batters and it's over. The Phillies win, 7-5.

Seriously? We just seriously won that game? It took at good half hour for my heart rate to return to normal. And I'm just starting to realize that we are one game away from being in the World Series. I can't even believe I can write that sentence.

I Heart Nate Silver

I forgot to mention this last week. I heart Nate Silver like whoa. He is geeky and adorable and totally smart. He likes baseball and politics and is a phenomenon in both fields, without ever picking up a bat or a microphone. Boyfriend has been following him for a long time now because he came up with this metric for Baseball Prospectus called PECOTA that is like, super accurate (even though he predicted the Phillies to be in third place in the NL East this year--we'll let that one go). And then he went and applied the same logic to political polling because, like baseball, elections are games driven by statistics. He has a blog that I've mentioned here before, FiveThirtyEight.com, that organizes all the polling data and feeds it into the magic statistics easy-bake-oven and then pops out predictions and graphs and stuff. The blog part of the site is very insightful as well. But because of his really cool metrics, a lot of other media have picked up on him. Gawker mentioned him today and the profile New York did on him. And he was on the Colbert Report last week. Check out his interview with Stephen and how geeky, adorable, and totally smart he is (not to mention funny). And then don't forget to go to his site, cause it's a good one.

Small Town Mayor Kind of Like Community Organizer, But With More Chips Ahoy

Boyfriend showed me this video yesterday and it's just sad and hysterical. It's a professional actor reading (a la the Geico celebrity commercials) the transcripts from a Wasilla town meeting from 1996 when your favorite Tina Fey impersonator was mayor. It's just...wow.

The Arena Weighs In

I've posted about Politico's new feature, The Arena, briefly before. I've kind of forgotten about it until now, when I went over to see what they had to say. The question today, I think, is kind of ridiculous: Is Obama headed for a blowout victory? As many of the contributors to the Arena begin their responses, I think it's naive and dubious to predict a win for Obama in this crazy election cycle, much less a blowout. And I am naturally suspicious of anything that I consider a jinx (I like to knock on wood). But it is really interesting to hear what different people have to say about the election and how each person's niche factors into their answers. I get so caught up in my own reasons for voting for one candidate or another that I forget that every other person out there has their unique perspective on the issues based on their interests and experiences. Someone who works for an economic think tank focuses on Obama's tax plan; a Democratic strategist asserts Obama's dominance in the polls; professors take a very contempletive and analytical approach to the question; politicians avoid a straight answer all together.

[Slate]

In Case You Missed It

Insert comment about "what did you expect this is the same city that thew snow balls at Santa/booed Destiny's Child/threw batteries on the field at the Vet/etc etc etc." Well done, guys.

Maureen Dowd, You Are Not Only Hilarious But So Totally Smart

My favorite wacky columnist at the NYT, fiery siren, Maureen Dowd, had another insightful post yesterday. Not only does she know Latin, she translated whole works in high school. Psh, whatever Paul Krugman and your Nobel Prize, Maureen ingeniously made the connection between America and Rome because no one has thought to do that until now. Seriously, her column on Sunday was so intelligent, I don't even understand half of it because it's in Latin.

The Lesser of the State College Cafes Will Get a Celebrity Makeover Afterall

My brother told me this story a few weeks ago and I thought it was pretty funny. Up at Penn State there are many many bars. One of the bars that everyone knows, but not many people frequent is the Sports Cafe (not to be confused with my second home at Penn State, Cafe 210 West). The lack of patronage was apparent after National Penn Bank sued the owners for over $464,000 for violating a forbearance agreement and the bar closed in December. So while the owners were trying to reopen the bar and sell it, LaVar Arrington approached them about selling the bar to him so he could open an establishment of his own. Arrington is one of Penn State's most beloved alumni and a successful restaurant owner, so I'm confident that his bar would have been the most successful up in State College. So LaVar is pumping up the new place and talking to people all over town and then he goes to do the final deal at the bank in September and the owners of the Sports Cafe don't show up and cut off the deal. Arrington is furious and his quotes to the Daily Collegian are so honest and so funny. "I hope the plague falls upon the Sports Café," he said, adding "I hope it's rat infested. Frickin' roach infested."He goes on to accuse the owners of the Sports Cafe for using him for publicity and then going back on their word. I just found the whole thing so amusing.

Well this morning as I was gathering resources for my sports update, I saw that the new owners of the Sports Cafe are going to be working with Arrington to become partners on the bar. He's going to bring in some quasi-famous acts and overhaul the whole image of the bar. And I'm just very excited about the whole thing because Arrington got what he wanted and the Penn State bar scene, although not really lacking much by any means, will get a huge boost. I can't wait to visit. Seriously, if you've never been to State College, you need to go.

Monday Sports Update

Hello again! It's been a few days since I posted anything. Honestly, I think I kind of binged on blogging over the last few weeks and I came down kind of hard last week. Also, I think a lot of the news last week was seriously depressing and I was having difficulty finding humor in a lot of things. But I was accosted several times over the weekend for not aiding people's procrastination habits at work and otherwise, and I don't have to work today (hooray for a man who extinguished an entire continent of people!), so let's get this party re-started, shall we?

This weekend in Philly sports teams (that I care about) had its ups and downs and has left me, after the final game, feeling engh.

Let's start with Penn State. This is the team that gives me the least amount of angina because a) I don't go there anymore and I only care so much about college football, and b) they are doing really really well. The high rankings and great record probably have just as much to do with other teams all over the BCS--and especially in the Big Ten--just kind of sucking this year as it does with the fact that the Lions have a very good team. We trounced Wisconsin on Saturday night at Wisconsin, beating them 48-7. It was a pretty boring game, even though I watched it with my favorite Hetzel (you probably don't know what that means, but don't worry about it) at Buffalo D's, this sports bar with a terrible deejay and a wonderful hookah lounge in which this photo stared at me all night and scared the beejebus out of me. I know it's an important and famous photograph, but she sure can stare. But I digress. The Lions now hold an impressive 7-0 record and having moved up to #3 in the BCS rankings. Next week is Homecoming and the Michigan game, so I'm expecting to keep the good times to keep on rolling, at least for another week, even though I will be at a wedding and not in Happy Valley. Also, it's 10:41 and Michigan still sucks.

Okay so I wasn't expecting much from the Eagles this weekend and frankly, I really didn't care. That team is a mess and is more frustration than it's worth. Plus, with the Phillies still playing, I'm having trouble really concentrating on more than one potential collapse. We didn't get network coverage of the Eagles game anyway here in DC. Instead, we got to watch the Cardinals stick it to the Cowboys, which was glorious enough. Although Boyfriend was following the Eagles on the ticker and on the internet, I really just assumed they had lost until late last night when I asked if they lost. I was pleasantly surprised to hear that they actually won. Who knew. So yeah, the Eagles beat San Francisco 40-26. You can read about it here because I'm pretty apathetic about it.

Okay so herein lies my sports obsession at the moment: the Phightin Phillies. Thursday and Friday were amazing; we were up 2 games to 0 against the Dodgers in the NLCS, something I really didn't see coming. I really, truly assumed that we would get swept and say, welp that was nice, we did better than last year and there's always next year. And part of me still feels that way, that defensive cautiousness.

My friend's husband is a Red Sox fan. She called me on Saturday morning to see if I wanted to go to brunch and I heard her husband in the background shouting at me that when the Phillies and the Red Sox are in the World Series, we won't be friends for a week. And I was like, ha, yeah if the Phillies make the World Series. And she said, I thought they won last night? Aren't they up on the Dodgers 2-0? And I said yeah, but I never count my chickens when it comes to Phils. I really wish that I could get excited; I mean, we're certainly closer to making the World Series than we've been since I was 9 years old. But I'm not even allowing myself to go there; it's this terrible emotion that all sports fans go through--torn between hoping and trying to be realistic. Anyway, I think I was pretty justified in my skepticism yesterday as the Dodgers came out hard in LA and Jamie Moyer had just a terrible start for the Phils. Like John McCain, I'm convinced that the main stream sports media is in the tank for the Dodgers, what with the Manny story and the Joe Torre story being so compelling or whatever, so I was already pissed. And then Kuroda threw that pitch at Shane Victorino's head in retaliation for Brett Myers throwing a pitch behind Manny on Friday night. Everyone got pissed, the benches cleared, and although only words were exchanged, the tense, negative energy was really palpable. I really tried to stay away from the game, making dinner for a bunch of friends and only checking in on the game every so often. The Phillies lost 7-2 and the series tightens up a bit now. I'm not really confident about playing in LA, even though we are still leading the series. But tonight is another game and maybe, just maybe, they will give me something about which to think optimistically.