Pat Allen: The View from Right Field

The Heck With Tiger Moms and “Bringing Up Bebe”: Cubs Fans Make the Best Parents

Last year’s big parenting book was Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, which explained how Asian “tiger moms” raised the best kids. Now there is Bringing Up Bebe: One American Mother Discovers the Wisdom of French Parenting, the point of which seems to be that the French ignore their children and still have them turn out great (except for the occasional head-butting of an opponent in a World Cup final* or needing your lawyer to defend you on the grounds that “at these kinds of parties you’re not always dressed, and I challenge you to distinguish a naked prostitute from any other naked woman."**).

But both of these books are wrong. The best parents are not Asian tiger moms or the French. The best parents are Cubs fans. Kids can learn everything they need to know just by going to Wrigley Field.

Do they need to learn to read? There’s the Media Guide and the scorecard, not to mention the fine print on the back of the ticket (which can also be part of your kids’ legal education. Have them read it and see if they can figure out how Crane Kenney is going to screw them out of their money no matter how hard it rains).

Math? They can work on figuring out batting averages and ERAs. And for higher math they can get into things like Win Shares and VORP (Value Over Replacement Player). For more practical math, take them to the bleachers; they can learn how to figure out the proper odds for betting on the game, the inning or even the next pitch. (If you take them to the bleachers, you also won't need to worry about them learning four-letter words out on the streets.)

Need a class in advanced logic? Have your kid read the balk rule. If they can explain it to you, they pass.

And they can get all the major food groups at Wrigley Field. Vegetables? There’s french fries (don’t tell me potatoes aren’t vegetables) and nachos (corn). For dairy you can have a frosty malt or extra cheese on your nachos. (And if it’s really cold, there’s hot chocolate.) Protein? They have hotdogs and, of course, bison dogs, the official low-fat meat of the Chicago Cubs (and daddy Joe). For grains there are hot dog buns and pretzels. And for hydration, there are lots of drinks at the Friendly Confines, to say the least.

They can learn social skills at Wrigley Field, too. For example, when they are passing a beer to a guy down the row, they learn you don’t take a sip of it, you just pass it on. And if they are in the bleachers and somebody hands them a piece of [garbage], they learn to throw it back at them.*** If they are interested in politics, they will learn the importance of opposition research. After all, if you don’t research the other team before the game, how are you going to know what to yell at their players?

But perhaps the most important thing that Cubs fans teach their kids is the way the world really is. Cubs fans understand things don’t always go well. Kids who are Yankees fans (or Bulls fans back in the day) expect to win all the time. Their players come through. They make the last shot; they score the winning run. Well, you know something. That’s not the way the world is. More people lose than win. Most people can’t be the boss.

But it’s the people who show up every day and do their best, even if they don’t win, who get things done. They are the ones who do the work that others just talk about. They try, and they are disappointed when they don’t win, but they are back up there the next day, doing their best. Because that is what life is about. Trying – and keeping the faith - and never giving up. And that is what Cubs fans teach their kids.

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* In the final game of the 2006 World Cup, Zinedine Zidane, captain of the French team, was thrown out of the match for head butting an opponent.

** Dominque Strauss-Kahn is being investigated in connection with a prostitution ring in France. Prostitution is not illegal in France (obviously); the investigation relates to whether the prostitutes were paid with embezzled funds and whether Mr. Strauss-Kahn knew of the payments.

*** This is, of course, why Cubs fans throw back the other team’s home runs.

Health Insurance: Just Another Decision the Government Will Make for Us

As I said on February 11, there was an easy solution for the Obama administration if they really thought providing free contraception services is critical to women’s health:  Have the government provide it.  If it would be too expensive to provide free contraception services to all women, how about “birth control stamps” for those who can’t otherwise afford it?  Obviously, some Catholics (and other people) would oppose the government doing this, but at least we wouldn’t be forcing them, either directly or indirectly through the sham of some insurance company providing it for “free,” to pay for it, other than as part of their general taxes.

Some might argue that such a program would not pass Congress, but if that is true, why should the executive branch institute such a policy all by itself?  Which is, actually, one of the problems with Obamacare: No choice.  For an administration that is all about choice when it comes to having babies or alternative lifestyles, the Obama administration sure doesn’t want to let people choose when it comes to healthcare and health insurance.  In fact, you have to wonder if that isn’t at least one of the reasons for the unpopularity of Obamacare.

I certainly understand the very big concern about the constitutionality of a law forcing people to buy a product from a private company or be fined by the government.  I understand why some people feel, as has been argued, that if the federal government can force you to buy health insurance, what is there the government can’t force you to buy – or do?

But there is also a concern about the limited choices there will be with respect to the insurance people have to buy.  While the private health insurance market is not all that developed today, because so many people get health insurance where they work, there are still lots of choices.  You can buy plans that provide full coverage for all kinds of illnesses and conditions.  You can include dental coverage if you want; or exclude it if you want.  You can have your health insurance cover some drugs, all drugs, or no drugs at all.  You can even buy a policy that provides just only catastrophic coverage.  You pay, for example, the first $5,000 of medical expenses in a year, and the insurance company pays all the rest.  The insurance is fairly inexpensive, and if all you need is coverage for a major problem, it could be exactly what you want.

But when President Obama’s healthcare “exchanges” come into existence in 2014, people aren’t going to have those kinds of choices.   There may be more than one company offering policies, but the policies are going to be pretty much all the same.  They are going to cover everything – and more – and they are going to be very expensive.  And people are going to have to buy them even if they don’t want that much coverage.

Because the Obama administration doesn’t want to let people choose.  In some ways it’s like the Democrats who don’t like vouchers and other programs that let parents choose what school their children go to.  They don’t think parents are smart enough to know what school is best for their children.  Experts need to make the decisions, not parents.

And so it is with the health insurance people will have to buy.  Liberals think they know what kind of health insurance people should have – and liberals are going to make them buy it, whether they want it or not.  It reminds me of a conversation we had with a young couple in East Germany in 1982.  We told them that, in the United States, people could decide whether or not they wanted to buy health insurance for themselves.  The woman noted that in East Germany one did not have such decisions to make.  She said that the government made those decisions for people so they did not need to worry about making mistakes. 

Which is the way it seems to be moving in the United States – and the way it will continue to move if Barack Obama is re-elected in November.  The government in Washington will decide things for us.  Because they are (or, they think they are) the experts, and they know better than we do what is good for us.  And they will decide for us – so we do not need to worry about making mistakes.

A Couple of Comments on Ryan Braun

First, Ryan Braun is not guilty of taking performance enhancing drugs.  While we will not know the exact reason for the arbitrator’s decision until he issues a written opinion, that is, in effect, what he said.  If we are going to take the arbitrator’s decision when he says athletes did take drugs, why don’t we take his decision when he decides the other way?

Second, Major League Baseball seems incensed by the decision, which makes no sense to me unless they think their drug testing system is absolutely perfect and never, ever makes a mistake.  But nothing in this world is perfect, and people do make mistakes.  How does major league baseball know this wasn’t the time a mistake was made?

Speaking of which, if MLB’s system is perfect, how did the results of Ryan Braun’s test leak out?  Wasn't it supposed to be announced only after any appeals?  So why did we find out before that?  Does that mean the system isn’t perfect?  And if it’s not perfect in this way, in terms of secrecy, how do we know it’s perfect in the other way; i.e., in terms of the results of the tests?  Also, where was MLB’s apology to Ryan Braun for the leak of the results?  Did I miss that?

Finally, I would be a lot more impressed by Bud Selig’s outrage at this decision if it had not taken him so long to speak out on the issue of drugs in baseball.  I understand that MLB couldn’t institute a drug testing regime without consent of the players union, but did that mean Mr. Selig couldn’t take a public position?  The problem of drugs in baseball was obvious to a lot of people for a long time before the commissioner or the owners said anything.  Their self-righteousness now is a little late.

Gas Prices Are High and President Obama Seems Worried

On Thursday President Obama complained that Republicans would be trying to take political advantage of the recent spike in gasoline prices (something the President would never do if the situation was reversed) and that the Republicans’ only energy plan was to “drill, drill, and keep drilling.”* Of course that’s not true, and the President knows it is not true, so I don’t know why he said it. But in any case, the fact that more drilling won’t solve the whole problem, doesn’t mean more drilling isn’t part of the solution.

But then Democrats also say that more drilling won’t help because it will take five years for the oil from the new drilling to reach the market. I could not tell whether President Obama used this line yesterday, but it is a common statement by anti-drilling Democrats (which is most of them).

In fact, I remember the Democrats using this argument in the summer of 2008 in response to Republican calls for more drilling at that time. President Bush wanted to allow more drilling on federal lands, but the Democrats wouldn’t allow it. We were visiting our daughter in Washington in August of that year. The Republicans in the House wanted to have a debate on energy – and on drilling. But Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic Speaker of the House (but not a democratic Speaker of the House), wouldn’t allow it. She locked the doors of the House chamber and shut off all the lights (except emergency lighting), microphones, C-SPAN cameras, etc. She shut down everything she could. But that didn’t stop the Republicans. They let people enter the House chamber through the Republican cloakroom, the one door Speaker Pelosi couldn’t lock, and they talked to the American people about energy. And while the Republicans were talking about energy inside the House, the Democrats were outside saying how drilling wouldn’t help because it would take five years for the oil to get to market.

Well, that was three and one-half years ago. If we had started drilling then, the oil wouldn’t be here yet, but it would be here in the summer of 2013. And that is not all that long from now.

Obviously, more drilling won’t solve our energy problems by itself. But more drilling will reduce our dependence on foreign energy. And to the extent more oil comes from the United States (and other stable countries), the whole world will be better off.

Also, while starting more drilling today won’t do these things now, the quicker we start, the quicker they will happen. And if we never start, we will continue to be more dependent on foreign sources of oil than we need to be, and we will continue to be more dependent than necessary on places that nobody wants to be dependent on.

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* This is actually a paraphrase of what the President said. The full quote is as follows:

"‘You can bet that since it's an election year, they're already dusting off their three-point plans for $2 gas. I'll save you the suspense: Step one is to drill, step two is to drill, and step three is to keep drilling. ... We've heard the same thing for thirty years. Well, the American people aren't stupid.’"

Obama’s Corporate Tax Plan Is So Good, We Ought To Do It for Individuals, Too

The Obama administration has proposed lowering the corporate tax rate from 35% to 28% while, at the same time, getting rid of “dozens” of special tax breaks and deductions.

Three comments on the plan. First, I think it’s great. Lowering rates and broadening the tax base is a great idea. It even has the potential, if done right, to increase tax revenues while lowering marginal rates.

Second, I hope the Obama administration does not reduce the benefits from getting rid of a lot of special interest tax breaks and deductions by replacing the old ones with new ones aimed at President Obama’s special favorites. Articles here and here list some new tax breaks that President Obama wants to grant. That is not a good sign. Just moving the tax breaks around like a giant shell game doesn’t help. We need to actually get rid of them – and keep them gone.

Third, the Administration’s plan to lower corporate income tax rates and eliminate special tax breaks is such a good idea, they ought to do it for personal income taxes, too.

A final comment on tax reform: I have mentioned before, in posts on President Obama’s desire to raise tax rates on the “rich” (i.e., couples making more than $250,000 a year and individuals making more than $200,000 a year), that the rich, and especially the really rich, won’t wind up paying all of those extra taxes the Obama administration thinks it will collect. The rich will rearrange their finances and how they get their income to minimize their taxes under the new rates. And the richer they are, the better they’ll do because they can afford the best tax lawyers and accountants.

Now, at the same time the Administration wants to increase personal income tax rates, it is proposing to cut corporate income tax rates. Which makes it clear one of the ways the rich, and especially the really rich, will avoid those higher personal income tax rates: Instead of taking income personally, they will rearrange things so that more of their income is in corporations, which pay a lower rate. Back when the top personal income tax rates were 50% and more, people arranged their affairs so they got less of their income personally and more of their income in corporations. When personal tax rates came down, this was no longer necessary. It became easier just to take income personally. If President Obama gets his way, the reverse will happen.

Should President Obama Be Using His Family In Campaign Ads?

According to an article in The Washington Post:

“A new Internet ad by the president’s reelection campaign features a portrait of the first family asking supporters to ‘help the Obamas stand up for working Americans.’ …

In the months to come, political strategists expect to see the first family used as a political asset. …

‘The value of the family is enormous,’ said Democratic pollster Celinda Lake. ‘The more you know this family and the more you think of Barack Obama in these terms, the harder it is to vilify him.’

During his presidency, Obama’s children have rarely been featured in such an overtly political way. He has been pointed about leaving family members, especially his children, out of politics.”

While I understand why President Obama may decide to include his wife, and children, in campaign ads, it is unfortunate. If somebody is used as “a political asset,” they are going to be viewed as a political target. I agree with President Obama that family members, especially children, should be left out of politics. But if you think they should be left out, then you need to leave them out.

The Incredible Story of a 60-Person 30-Kidney Donation Chain

See Tom Maguire's "JustOneMinute" and The New York Times for the story of a 60-person, 30-kidney donation chain.  Please read it.  It's incredible what one person can do.

President Obama’s Budget: “It’s Not How Much You Cut the Deficit; It’s How Much You Increase the Debt”

President Obama is talking about how much his budget plan will, through increased taxes and supposed savings in federal spending, reduce the deficits in the next few years.  But his claims miss the real point. 

Even with the U.S. out of Iraq and leaving Afghanistan, and assuming the Bush tax cuts are allowed to expire for the “rich,” the three things which Democrats have said were the main cause for the huge deficits since President Obama took office, the Obama budget plan for the next ten years would increase the national debt from $15.3 trillion to $25.9 trillion.

In other words:  It’s not how much you cut the deficit; it’s how much you increase the debt.

President Obama’s Defense Budget: “You Can’t Use What You Can’t Afford to Lose”

The Obama administration’s plan for the Defense Department involves much less spending.  When Robert Gates was Defense Secretary, he went after unnecessary weapons systems in order to save money for other, better uses.  But even with all of the cuts Secretary Gates made, President Obama is proposing more cuts.  Secretary Gates cut the F-22 because we had the F-35.  Now the Obama administration is slowing down the production of F-35s.  And the Navy is shrinking, too.

Which brings me to my point:  When it comes to defense, you not only need quality, you need quantity.  Because if you don’t have enough of something so that you can afford to lose some of them, then you can’t use them – or you will be forced to use them in ways that limit their effectiveness.

In other words: You can’t use what you can’t afford to lose.

Paul Sullivan on the Cubs’ Top Five Issues

In today’s Chicago Tribune, Paul Sullivan says that “[Starlin] Castro’s erratic defense and focus is one of the five issues facing the Cubs.”  I wonder.  Certainly Starlin’s defense needs some work and he needs to focus all the time, but he’s 22 years old and has hit .300 his first two years in the National League. 

The Cubs have lots of issues, as Mr. Sullivan notes, but is Starlin Castro’s defense (and focus) one of top five – or even top ten?  If the Cubs had a few more issues like Starlin Castro, they’d be going to the World Series this year.