The View from Right Field

Self-Compassion Makes for Happiness

Today’s Wall Street Journal has an article on “Self-Help for Skeptics”.  The sub headline reads: “Train Your Brain to Be Positive, and Feel Happier Every Day”.  The article says you should “[c]almly tell yourself ‘Stop,’ when you have negative thoughts.”  And that you should “[b]oost your daily ratio of positive-to-negative emotions”. 

Does that mean I have to stop watching Cubs games?

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Update (8/28/12 12:35 pm): I changed the headline to delete "-Apparently" at the end.  It makes more sense without it.

I Left a Cubs Game Early – But It Was Over

I did something last night that I cannot remember the last time I did.  I voluntarily left a Cubs game before it was over.  Well, except it was over.  While it was 6 to 4 Brewers going into the top of the ninth, it was 13 to 4 by the time I left.  It was getting ridiculous, and if I missed the 11:40 pm train, I would have had to wait until the 12:40 am train, which would have gotten me home after 1:00 am.  (In case you are wondering, the final score was 15 to 4.)

The game was actually pretty decent going into the ninth.  But then the Cubs brought in Alex Hinshaw to pitch, and he promptly gave up a walk, a single and three Brewers home runs that were longer than most of Fidel Castro’s speeches.  Maybe there was a reason the Padres put Hinshaw on waivers.  Just as maybe there was a reason Lendy Castillo was available in the Rule 5 draft last winter.  Isn’t there a DL somewhere that we could him on for a strained ERA?

Eventually, Joe Mather had to come in to pitch (I was gone by then), which I am not sure I fully understand given that the Cubs have thirteen pitchers on the roster and only twelve position players.  Maybe it’s a good thing the Brewers got all those runs in the ninth inning.  If the Cubs had tied it in the bottom of the ninth, who knows if we would have had enough position players to finish the game?  After all, we no longer have Carlos Zambrano to pinch hit or Sean Marshall to play left field.

In any case why do the Cubs only have twelve position players?  This isn’t the American League where you never have to pinch hit.  Do they think that, if they run out of players, the other team will just agree to play “right field out,” like we did when we were kids and couldn’t get two full teams together?

Oh well, maybe Travis Wood will do better tonight.  And at least Samardzija is going on Wednesday.

A[nother] New General for Afghanistan

Yet another new general is being appointed to command the U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan.  Reports last week were that President Obama is going to appoint Marine Corps General Joseph Dunford to replace General John Allen when he leaves later this year.  A couple of comments.

First, as I have said for a long time, there is too much turnover in the top job in Afghanistan (and Iraq before that).  If a general (or any other person) is not doing a good job, they should be replaced.  But once you find somebody doing a good job, keep them there.  Don’t move them out and bring somebody else in who has to learn the job all over again.  We should not be replacing the top general in Afghanistan every year.  This is not a matter of punching a ticket; it’s doing a good job.

Second, it has been pretty clear for a while now that President Obama no longer believes Afghanistan is the necessary war he was saying it was in 2008 when he was running for president.  Whether this is because of things he learned since he became president or because it was just a good political issue against President Bush and Senator McCain, I don’t know.  What I do know is that he certainly hasn’t spent much time talking about Afghanistan, which would seem to indicate Afghanistan is not at the top of his list of priorities, to say the least.

Third, and tied in with point two, another sign of the Administration’s commitment to Afghanistan (or, rather, lack thereof) can be seen in the fact that the new general being appointed to run the show in Afghanistan has never served in Afghanistan.  He did serve 22 months in Iraq, but it was at the beginning of that war, during the invasion and the time immediately thereafter.  It was not during either the insurgency or, more importantly, during the counterinsurgency efforts under General Petraeus.  We have been in Afghanistan for eleven years, and it is a war unlike any other.  And yet the Administration is appointing somebody to run it who has never served there.

I don’t know if we could have succeeded in Afghanistan.  It is pretty clear now that we are not going to.

IEA: “Hold[ing] Administrators and Politicians Accountable”

One of the downsides to listening to Chicago Cubs broadcasts on WGN Radio this year (besides the Cubs, I suppose) is some of the commercials you have to listen to.  I am sure, for example, we all know way more than we ever wanted to know about proton therapy at the CDH Proton Center, a ProCure Center in Warrenville.

But among the commercials that are perhaps the most tiring are those of the IEA, the Illinois Education Association.  The commercial I heard today assured me that the IEA is fighting “to hold administrators and politicians accountable for their actions”.  Which is great.  They should be held accountable for their actions.  But what about teachers?  Does the IEA think that teachers should be accountable for their actions, too?  Is the IEA working to make sure that teachers are accountable, along with administrators and politicians?

There are lots of really great teachers out there.  But there are also some that aren’t so good.  And there a small number that are really bad.  What is the IEA doing about holding those teachers accountable?  And don’t tell me it’s just a matter of helping these teachers get better.  Because some of those teachers can’t get better – or don’t care enough to get better.  What is the IEA doing to hold those teachers accountable? 

Because it is not just administrators and politicians who need to be held accountable, it’s teachers, too.  And if a good teacher is as important to a child’s education as I think he/she is, and as the IEA says they are, then teachers who aren’t doing a good job need to be held accountable, just like administrators and politicians.

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Update (8/26/12 10:30 pm): I apparently posted this twice, by mistake.  I have deleted one of them.

Life - And Greece - Imitate Merle Hazard

Two years ago Merle Hazard had this suggestion for a possible solution to Greece's financial problems (see 2:50 in the song):

 

Now, according to Le Monde, Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras has suggested that Greece could sell off uninhabitated islands to raise money:

“‘On condition that it doesn't pose a national security problem, some of the isles could be used commercially.  It would not be a case of getting rid of the isles, but of transforming unused terrain into capital that can generate revenue, for a fair price.’”

Health Care Costs: The Free Market Works Best Because It Uses Information Best

Peter Orzag, former director of the Office of Management and Budget under President Obama, says, to quote the title of his recent article on Bloomberg.com, the “private-market tooth fairy can’t cut Medicare cost”.  Perhaps it is fairer to quote from Mr. Orzag’s article itself:

“The vast bulk of health-care costs arise from an extremely small share of patients, whose insurance will inevitably bear a substantial share of their expenses.

That’s why competition in health care doesn’t work as well as in other sectors, and it’s also why the key to keeping costs to a minimum is to encourage providers to offer better, less costly care in complex cases.

Unfortunately, proponents of moving Medicare to a private ‘consumer-driven’ system, including Republican vice presidential hopeful Paul Ryan, seem to instead believe in a health-care competition tooth fairy -- that if we just increase the patient’s share of costs and bolster competition among insurance companies, the expense will come down.”

After a lengthy argument, Mr. Orzag concludes, once again bringing up the “tooth fairy”:

“We don’t want to put all our chips down on the health-care competition tooth fairy.”

I think, however, Mr. Orzag misses the point of Representative Ryan’s argument.  Mr. Ryan is not counting on some “competition tooth fairy”.  Rather, Mr. Ryan wants to use the free market as a way to get at and use the maximum amount of information and knowledge in order to deal with the question of health care costs.

Mr. Orzag would, it appears, do what President Obama wants to do:  Get a group of people together, put them on boards and panels, make them heads of government agencies, and tell them to figure out the best way to get health care costs under control.

The problem is that even the smartest people only know what they know.  The only knowledge that they can take into consideration in making their decisions is the information that they themselves know or can find out.  The free market, however, can take everybody’s knowledge and information into account and can use all of it to come up with the best ideas and solutions.  No government board or agency can harness even a fraction of the knowledge that the free market has available to it.

The key to solving the health care cost problem is to figure out a way to use as much information as possible.  And the process or mechanism that can use and consider the most information is the free market.

Mr. Orzag has obviously thought about this issue a lot.  And I am sure he has talked to a lot of smart people about how to solve the problem.  But the ideas these people have come up with are only a small part of the ideas that the market can come up with.  Because the free market can take into account so much more information than Mr. Orzag’s group of experts.

Mr. Orzag can’t see how the free market can solve the health care cost problem. But that’s because, or at least it appears to be because, Mr. Orzag doesn’t seem to fully appreciate the information processing capability of the free market.  He doesn’t see this information processing capability as the best way to find solutions to our health care cost problems.  No expert or even any group of experts has available to it all of the information that the free market has.  That is why the free market can come up with ideas that no one person or one group could come up with – or even imagine coming up with.

The way to solve the problem of health care costs is to use the information processing capabilities of the free market.  It’s not the a “tooth fairy”; it’s information.  And the free market does it best.

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Update (8/24/12 8:22 am): For some reason (probably blogger error), when I first saved this post, the first quote from Mr. Orzag's article was omitted.  I have now included it.

Actually, Bud Selig Doesn't Catch a Break

Oops, my prior post, "Bud Selig Finally Catches a Break," was wrong.  I forgot about the Tony Gwynn exception (see here):

"Cabrera still could win the batting crown.

A batting champ must have a minimum of 502 plate appearances to qualify. Cabrera had 501 when he was suspended, but he is still eligible because of Rule 10.22(a).

The rule is also known as the Tony Gwynn Rule because the Padres' legend won the 1996 batting title with a .353 average on 498 plate appearances (four shy of the 502 required).

The rule allows for exceptions when a hitter doesn't reach the minimum plate appearances.

In Gwynn's case, if he had gone 0 for 4 in those missing plate appearances, his average would have dropped to .349. That was still five points better than second-place Ellis Burks' .344 average.

So what it means is that someone needs to bat at least .347 to win the title and prevent Cabrera from winning."

I should have checked better before posting.  Sorry.

Bud Selig Finally Catches a Break

When Melky Cabrera of the San Francisco Giants was suspended under Major League Baseball's anti-drug policy, he was second in batting in the National League.  His average was .346, just .008 behind Andrew McCutcheon of Pittsburgh Pirates.  So what would happen if McCutcheon dropped to .345 and nobody else got ahead of Cabrera?  Could Melky Cabrera win the National League batting title while suspended for drug use?  Here's where Bud Selig caught a break.  When he was suspended, Melky Cabrera had 501 plate appearances.  The number of plate appearances required to qualify for the batting title?  502.  As I said, Bud Selig finally caught a break.

Cubs Front Office Upheaval

Several quick comments on the changes/firings in the Cubs front office yesterday and before.

First, I have no interest in criticizing people who have lost their jobs.  Oneri Fleita apparently did a good job in Latin America for the Cubs, as well as being smart enough to convert people like Randy Wells and Carlos Marmol from catcher to pitcher.  And probably more.  I wish him well.

Second, the fact that Tom Ricketts extended Oneri Fleita’s contract one month before he hired Theo Epstein, makes we wonder whether Tom Ricketts knows what he is doing – but then I have had that thought for a while.  Hopefully, Theo Epstein knows what he is doing, and Tom Ricketts will let him do it.

Third, if the Cubs business management is having Cubs coaches hit ground balls, etc., to the public to make money, either for the team or themselves (other than maybe a couple of times a year), then somebody needs to tell Cubs business management to stop interfering with baseball operations.  And the only person who can do that is Tom Ricketts.  The coaches are supposed to help the players, not Cubs business management.  Coaches have a limited amount of time, and it should all be spent on baseball, not raising money for Cubs business managment.  The question (see above) is whether Tom Ricketts understands this is a problem.

Fourth, in all the turmoil, I am glad Tim Wilken is still around and even got promoted.  He has done an excellent job since he took our amateur scouting and the draft.  He’s a keeper.

The Berlin Wall’s Greatest Martyr: Peter Fechter

Fifty years ago, on August 17, 1962, perhaps the most famous death at the Berlin Wall occurred.  From Wikipedia:

“About one year after the construction of the wall, [Peter] Fechter [, a construction worker from East Germany,] attempted to flee from East Germany together with his friend Helmut Kulbeik. The plan was to hide in a carpenter's workshop near the wall in Zimmerstrasse and, after observing the border guards from there, to jump out of a window into the so-called death-strip…, run across it, and climb over the two metre wall topped with barbed wire into the Kreuzberg district of West Berlin near Checkpoint Charlie.

When both reached the wall, guards fired at them. Although Kulbeik succeeded in crossing the wall, Fechter, still on the wall, was shot in the pelvis in plain view of hundreds of witnesses. He fell back into the death-strip on the Eastern side, where he remained in view of Western onlookers, including journalists. Despite his screams, he received no medical assistance from the East side, and could not be tended to by those on the West side. He bled to death after approximately one hour.”

According to an article published at Germany.info:

“The West German police had an order not to step on East German land. On the eastern side, too, everyone remained passive. Fechter’s dead body was finally taken away by the border guards when ‘a higher East German officer appeared and ordered them to move’, according to British historian Frederick Taylor’s research. 

‘In Peter Fechter, the Berlin wall had found, not its first, but perhaps its greatest martyr’, writes the British historian.”

Here is a picture of the memorial to Peter Fechter.  I took the picture in December 2010.

"Peter Fechter   1944 - 1962   ... he only wanted freedom."