Quiet Declarations

The Titans had tons of picks. I don’t know much about the players they selected, but here’s how the picks were used at least:

Round 4 (#102 overall): Calvin Lowry, S, Penn State
Round 4 (#116 overall): Stephen Tulloch, OLB, Cornell
Round 5 (#137 overall): Terna Nande, OLB, Miami (Ohio)
Round 5 (#169 overall): Jesse Mahelona, DT, Tennessee
Round 6 (#172 overall): Jonathan Orr, WR, Wisconsin
Round 7 (#215 overall): Cortland Finnegan, S, Samford
Round 7 (#238 overall): (traded to Colts for 6th round pick in 2007)
Round 7 (#245 overall): Spencer Toone, OLB, Utah
Round 7 (#246 overall): Quinton Ganther, RB, Utah

It’s a little surprising to me that we picked up yet another running back, and that we didn’t get an offensive lineman, but in general I’m pretty cool with things. Hope we can break our string of “B” grades and get a solid “A” from the analysts this year.

And speaking of pending hopes, BUD ADAMS DO NOT DO THIS TO ME!!!

Round 1 (#3 overall): Vince Young, QB, Texas

A great choice, and a real possible long-term starter. Considered by many to be the quarterback with the most athleticism and potential. It’s rumored that the coaching staff favored Leinart and the general manager and owner favored Young — hence Young’s selection — but it really was considered a tossup considering you can only make an educated guess about who the best player will be. Young considers McNair his mentor so, if we re-sign McNair, it should be a great relationship. I’m personally glad we didn’t take the safe boring choice, and always favored Young or (no surprise here) Vanderbilt’s Jay Cutler if only to give people something fun to watch and talk about.

Round 2 (#45 overall): Lendale White, RB, USC

Can you believe we traded DOWN six slots with Philadelphia to pick up White and a 4th round pick? White is considered by most to be the 2nd to 4th best RB in the draft and a probable first-round selection, though concerns about being out of shape may have caused him to fall a bit. Knowing the Titans staff won’t allow that crap, I’m totally comfortable with the pick.

Overall

We now have three very good quarterbacks and three very good running backs, in addition to a solid offseason of free agent signings. These were the only two first day selections but they were great ones, and we still have NINE PICKS on the second day! In short: the Titans clearly rule.

What a great term from this Times editorial about how politics is spilling over into the congressional staff softball league.

In summary, the Republican teams left to form their own league because Democrats favor a playoff format where strong teams play each other so the weak team can survive longer, instead of the best playing the worst in the opening round as is pretty much universal in American sports.

This got me thinking about the incentives of the Democrats’ side in this dispute. Is it totally motivated by compassion for the weak teams, or do they generally have worse teams and are trying to stay alive for additional rounds? Unfortuntanely, the editorial doesn’t give us this potentially entertaining information.

Do we have any evidence to support or reject an association between softball/baseball skill and party leaning? It would be fun to see that study, though I already foresee problems when you add the professional leagues as one would have to control for the effect of the huge salaries.

“The president’s message and vision are firmly in place and are not going to change,” [Bush political adviser Mark] McKinnon said. “But it still helps to have a new messenger. It helps to wipe the slate clean.”

Particularly when you have a 32% approval rating. Via today’s Post.

This weekend I joined a few friends at Rites of Spring, the annual outdoor concert festival held at Vanderbilt University in Nashville. The organizers did a great job, but I do have to comment on one poorly-conceived rule. Here is the event’s alcohol policy as described on their website:

All 21 year old guests will be able to bring six 12 oz aluminum cans of beer to Rites of Spring each day. Coolers are allowed. Guests can combine their beers in one cooler if they enter together. No one is allowed to bring more than 12 beers together.

Third party security officers will check IDs and issue different colored bracelets each day to of-age guests. Third party security will have 2006 ID booklets to verify IDs and a list of Vanderbilt students who are over 21. VUPD officers will be monitoring the crowd at all times. Intoxicated persons will not be allowed to enter the event. All persons under 21 found drinking will be required to get rid of their beer. They will be removed from the event if they do not comply.

We consulted this description about an hour before heading to the Saturday night performance so as to ensure that we would be abiding by the letter of the law. Jacob and I then went to a store and bought a 12-can case of beer. Our path from the beer store to the concert happened to pass through a freshman residence area, and it did not go unnoticed that, despite being the only two people carrying alcohol, we were clearly the only people headed to the concert from this area who were not already visibly — in some cases stumbling — drunk.

At the security checkpoint, the groups of drunk freshman we were walking behind were all granted entry without incident. However, we were stopped at the gate. My best approximation of the exchange with the security guard:

Guard: “You can’t bring that case of beer in here.”

Me: “But there’s 12 cans for two of us — what’s the problem?”

Guard: “No, you can’t bring the cardboard box. You have to empty your cans into a plastic bag.”

Me: “Are you serious? I…”

Guard: “Go find a plastic bag for those cans or you can’t bring them in.”

Me: “Where am I supposed to find a plastic bag around here?”

Guard: “Just go look for one. I’m sure there’s one around here somewhere.” (Points to the dimly-lit lawn outside the security gate that we now realize is a vast wasteland of empty cardboard beer boxes.)

So we embark on a mission to find a plastic bag for our 12 cans. Ironically, the closest location we can think of is the convenience store in the basement of a substance-free freshman residence hall. We don’t have working access cards, so we stand outside the door and wait for someone to let us in. About 30 seconds later a group of four drunken freshmen walk up. The exchange:

Freshman girl: “Hey can you card us in?”

Jacob: “Nope, sorry. We’re alumni trying to bring this beer illegally into your area to put in in a plastic bag. Our cards don’t work anymore.”

Freshman girl: “Cool, lemme get my card.” (Rummages through purse.)

Jacob: “Awesome. Chad here used to be a freshman RA a couple of years ago, by the way. Isn’t that funny?”

We obtain one plastic bag from the store — minus one point for the environment. We then head back to the concert. Outside the gate, the security guard watches as we break open the cardboard box, pour the cans into the plastic bag, then toss the cardboard box on the ground. I have to hold the bottom of the bag to keep the cans from falling through the bottom. We approach the gate with the guard who just watched us empty the beer into the plastic bag. The exchange:

Guard: ” You guys drinking tonight?”

Us: “Yes.”

Guard: “IDs please. And what’s in the bag?” (Note: the bag is transparent.)

Us: “Beer.”

Guard: “How many cans do you have?”

Us: “Twelve.”

Guard: “Okay.” (Lets us pass.)

Trust me when I tell you that it has taken many committee meetings to develop the concert’s alcohol policy over the years. Surprising? Perhaps not, but for the people having their time wasted, it’s no less surreal.

I recently visited Mount Vernon, the estate of George Washington. Worth a visit, in my opinion. Most of the tour aimed to describe the life of a family of the Washingtons’ stature in the late 1700s, but I also learned one completely unexpected and cool bit of trivia.

I was aware that the Marquis de Lafayette was Washington’s good friend and fellow soldier in the American Revolution. I was also aware that on June 14, 1789, the Bastille prison was stormed in what is now considered the symbolic beginning of the French Revolution. What I did not know is that in 1790, the Marquis de Lafayette presented Washington with the key to the Bastille.

Here’s a Masonic take on the history of the gift as well.

I don’t have enough knowledge of the time period to know what Washington might have thought of himself — particularly in 1790, only a year into his presidency — but being considered by your peers to be not only the Father of the American Revolution but also of the French Revolution has got to be about as extraordinary a compliment as it gets!

No reason to post this, except that I only know of two people born after 1975 (counting myself) who have ever heard of it. Consider this my contribution to public education for the evening — and I don’t even get a tax break for it.

Mariel Boatlift - Wikipedia

Mariel Boatlift - GlobalSecurity.org

Mariel Boatlift - U.S. Coast Guard Reservist

Ft. Chafee Riots - Los Angeles Times (via CubaNet)

So according to this report, the upcoming movie “Dallas” will cast John Travolta as J.R. Ewing, Jennifer Lopez as Sue Ellen, and be directed by the British director Gurinder Chadha of “Bend it Like Beckham” fame.

I’ll try to reserve judgment… but they do know Dallas is in Texas, right?

By the way, I was browsing the “Dallas” entry on Wikipedia and discovered this amazing little tidbit:

The communist government of Nicolae Ceauşescu’s Romania ran episodes of Dallas in the 1980s hoping that it would convince people that capitalism was corrupt and decadent. Instead it sowed discontent within the communist system, as viewers looked past the characters to the portrayal of American lifestyles. Soon after the government fell, a Romanian businessman created a Dallas-themed attraction complete with a replica of the Southfork Ranch, to celebrate the show’s role in bringing down communism.

How cool is that?

[Update 4/21/06: A crasher ally unearths a Reason article recounting the Romanian Revolution in greater detail — revealing in the process that the Wikipedia entry needs a minor update.]

I don’t like Katie Couric, for several reasons, and I rarely watch her. Therefore, I will not be talking about her very much. However, at dinner the other night a friend posted a very interesting therory that I find worth sharing. (I will credit this friend at a later date if her theory turns out to be correct.)

Her theory is that CBS projects the gradual decline of the evening news as more people turn to the internet for instantaneous coverage. Consequently, the morning talk/news shows will become even more lucrative for ratings and advertisers. CBS is buying Couric from NBC for a job her ego perceives as more prestigious, with the primary objective of scavenging “The Today Show” and paving the way for “The Early Show” to reign supreme.

If this is even close to the actual strategy — brilliant!

Is it just me, or does planning an illegal immigrant mass walkout sound like a monumentally stupid idea?

Maybe I don’t know enough about the issue or something, but here’s my understanding. Illegal immigrants are “illegal” and are therefore “hiding” (this example assumes local law enforcement is at least pursuing flagrant violations). In order to earn a living, illegal immigrants are working and being paid by employers who have chosen not to require documentation. This employer-employee relationship thus depends on trust.

So, if you schedule an illegal immigrant walkout and you publicize it, are you not basically telling local law enforcement where to find a large group of illegal immigrants? Moreover, are you not doing what basically amounts to a strike without a union or any other kind of employee protection? And wouldn’t your benevolent employer who was willing to skirt the rules for you retaliate by firing you and hiring the next of the 11 million people who are supposedly ready and willing to work for less than minimum wage?

Projected consequences of mass retaliation by illegal immigrants: lots of unemployed, identified, deported illegal immigrants. Am I missing something?

Here’s an excellent Slate article describing what the press would like to see in their new liaison to the White House.

While I wouldn’t necessarily use this as the gold standard for how administrations should be run, I’m nonetheless intrigued by the fact that Dickerson’s description basically mirrors how the part of C.J. Craig was designed in “The West Wing”.

Good plug today by USA Today for Vanderbilt QB and projected first-round draft pick Jay Cutler. Full of great quotes, too:

“I call him the happy medium,” says Tennessee Titans general manager Floyd Reese. “He has Matt’s brains, arms and accuracy, and he has Young’s mobility and size.”

“How good would he have been if he had played at Southern California or Texas?” asks Reese, whose club has the third pick and has met several times with Cutler. “And,” adds Reese, “what would Matt Leinart or Vince Young look like at Vanderbilt?”

St. Louis head coach Scott Linehan says the quarterback threesome makes this one of the most compelling drafts he has seen. Linehan says Young is “the phenom” and that Leinart’s appeal is bolstered by his ability to run a pro-style system “to perfection” at USC. As for Cutler, Linehan says, he was “really off the map before he started his career, and all of a sudden he’s the best quarterback in maybe the best conference in college football.”

One criticism of Cutler has been that he makes too many passes off his back foot. Ask him about that, and he smiles, welcoming the chance to discuss what he sees as an asset, especially given the three freshmen who started as offensive linemen during his career. “I’d like to see the other guys come in here and not throw off their back foot,” Cutler says of some of the desperation passes he made while under pressure from SEC defenses. “Back in my early days, you just didn’t have a lot of time to throw the ball. You’re just trying to make plays out there.”

Cutler was named a team captain the past three seasons. Among the many career records he set for Vanderbilt were 9,953 yards in offense, 59 passing touchdowns and 167 consecutive passes without an interception. He finished his senior season with four consecutive 300-yard passing games against SEC opponents, and the final pass was for the touchdown that gave Vanderbilt its first victory against Tennessee in 23 years.

The pressure Cutler faced at Vanderbilt included enduring 33 sacks during the 2004 season. But those sacks don’t mean Cutler can’t run. He ran for 314 yards per season. “He knew he was going to have to get bigger and stronger to weather all those hits. He never backed off,” Vandy head coach Bobby Johnson says. “Sometimes he tried to run over guys. We tried to get that out of him. He’s not a ‘protect me’ kind of guy. He’ll stand up and say, ‘I can handle it.’”

Great article.

Here’s another sentiment with which I agree — with the irony, at least:

When six generals criticized Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, it was a genuine, organic outpouring of widespread displeasure. When even more retired generals offer their support, it is a farce.

I have long operated under the premise that, whatever their faults, the White House executive leadership are not stupid. That being said, I do not understand the political calculus for keeping Secretary Rumsfeld. I understand not wanting to make him a scapegoat, but he’s voluntarily offered his resignation at least twice and it’s been refused. Maybe I’m not smart enough, or maybe I’m just not in the room.

The theories I can come up with off the top of my head are (a) they believe the political cost in giving ammunition to their foreign policy critics would outweigh the benefits of jettisoning their biggest target; (b) they don’t have a willing and able successor who’s any better, or who they would want to put through the Senate confirmation process; (c) they’ve taken a close look at his management style and decisions and they want him to continue working on some of his initiatives — transition to the mobile military force, for example — and are willing to take their lumps in the meantime; or (d) they believe the biggest apparent failures aren’t actually his fault, and they’re sufficiently loyal that they won’t throw him to the wolves.

That being said, certain pundits (or newspapers) can’t help but call for Secretary Rumsfeld’s resignation on principle without much consideration of either why he’s still on or what the administration would do after they booted him. I have a celebrity deathmatch idea: Rumsfeld vs. the Times editorial staff.

[Update 4/19/06: Funny stuff.]

Talkleft sums up my opinion pretty well:

So, two young men, accused but not convicted, have their faces and names plastered on television screens and in newspapers across the country, are required to post $400,000. secured bonds and get kicked out of school, based on allegations by an accuser who is allowed to retain her anonymity and her privacy.

This is like Alice in Wonderland. Sentence first, verdict afterwards.

Let’s get something straight: I think the people who would question the victim’s credibility based on the nature of her profession are seriously crossing the line. It’s prejudiced and inappropriate.

Let’s get something else straight: the same standard applies to people who think the entire Duke lacrosse team is a bunch of rapists because they get drunk and hire strippers. Hear that, Nancy Grace?

But unfortunately, in a case with national exposure like this, it ends up being a trial in the media — and a trial in which only the names of the accused must be made public amounts to a de facto abandonment of fair treatment. Will it affect the presupposition of innocence in a court of law? Perhaps not, but it definitely amounts to a public destruction of some lives but not others.

[Update 4/19/06: And if this trend continues, the “what exactly is the DA doing down there?” refrain will only grow….]

Continuing in my series of returning to old subjects, I thought I might look at what John Stossel has been doing since his “Stupid in America” special on education on which I commented at length a while back.

According to a recent column of his, it turns out that — to everyone’s surprise, I’m sure — the teachers’ union wasn’t too happy at Stossel’s assertion that some teachers are lazy. They retaliated by inviting him to teach a class so he could see just how hard it is, and he accepted. However, according to his column, after jumping through hoop after hoop the invitation was rescinded at the last minute. This isn’t surprising at all for a number of reasons, not the least of which is I can’t imagine Stossel could teach a course without violating a whole lot of regulations. But I also buy his not-too-subtle suggestion that somebody didn’t want him — and the 20/20 cameras — in the classroom.

I bet Stossel would be an awesome teacher for the duration of the experiment, for all sorts of reasons. For one, the experiment was practically designed for him to succeed, with the school system giving him training and putting him in a great classroom and surrounding it with hype. But perhaps more importantly, I have long believed that the most important attributes to successful teaching are a relentlessly positive attitude and enthusiasm for both the subject and the students. Could Stossel keep that attitude up for the duration of a school year in a normal classroom? I don’t know, but you can bet a primetime broadcast professional could step it up for the class or classes he would be asked to teach.

I don’t know if Stossel is right about the lazy teachers, but I definitely believe Stossel’s right that the union made a really really dumb bet and then backtracked to avoid seeming even stupider than he already made it look.