The Cycle Continues

As of this moment, the Gaza Strip remains relatively quiet, as a cease fire holds between the Israeli military and Hamas.

I have nothing funny to say about this situation. (Yeah, yeah: “Why should today be different?” Ha ha.) As a middle-aged American Jew, one who attended elementary school at a yeshiva no less, I have a certain quasi-genetic connection to Israel—to the idea of Israel at any rate. I’ve never been there, and never really had any strong desire to visit, but I admit to taking some comfort in the thought of a strong Jewish nation. Historical examples of the persecution of Jews are not hard to find—and, frankly, not that historical, Animals attacking the US Capitol, wearing shirts that read “6MWE”—six-million wasn’t enough—come to mind. So you’ll have to forgive me if I take some comfort in the thought of a nuclear-armed nation ready to stand up for the rights of Jews everywhere.

At the same time, I am thoroughly disgusted by the right-wing government that has run Israel more or less uninterrupted for the last twenty-plus years. I hate the idea that Israel is becoming—has become—an apartheid state, where Arab citizens are legally discriminated against because of their ethnicity. I think the settler movement, creating “facts on the ground” in occupied territories, is self-defeating at best and rank colonialism at worst. And as a secular Jew, I find the governmental kowtowing to extreme right-wing Orthodox factions just as appalling in Israel as its parallel in US politicians’ pandering to Evangelical zealots. 

I’m also troubled by the images of destruction and the loss of life—particularly the deaths of children—in the Gaza Strip. But I find more than a little hypocritical the worldwide condemnation of Israel that pours forth whenever Israel responds to Hamas rocket attacks with military force. People condemn Israel’s response as disproportionate, presumably because the rockets launched at Israel are largely ineffectual. But I’m not sure exactly what these critics feel that Israel should do. Ignore the rockets? What other country in the world would be expected to show such restraint?

Now, I know, critics of Israel will argue that Hamas is just representing people who have legitimate grievances against an occupying presence. I don’t entirely disagree with the idea that legitimate grievances exist (see above). And I would agree that the political stance of Netanyahu and his supporters have made things worse. But the problem is that Hamas has never even (to my knowledge) paid lip service to the idea of living in peace with Israel. They’ve made no secret of their desire to see Israel destroyed. So what would even a more liberal, less confrontational Israeli government do?

I have no solution, here. I would love to see Israel pull out of its settlements, if for no other reason than to provide critics with less ammunition to condemn the country’s efforts at legitimate self-defense. Beyond that, though, I despair that we will ever see an end to constant cycles of calm followed by bloodshed followed by calm. . . .but calm that never advances to the level of peace.

Make No-hitters Rare Again

Joe Musgrove just pitched the first no-hitter in San Diego Padres history! Wow!

Carlos Rodon threw a no-hitter for the White Sox?!? Neat!

What? John Means of Baltimore threw a near-perfect game no-hitter? Geez...

Another one? Wade Miley? Cincinnati... Cool... I guess...

Oh, Detroit’s Spencer Turnbull threw a no-hitter? Well, good for him.

Did you hear about the no-hitter? No...not Turnbull, that was last night. Corey Kluber threw one for the Yankees tonight. . . 

This whole no-hitter thing is just getting silly.

The record for most no-hitters pitched in a season is seven (which has happened three times).  With Kluber’s gem last night, we’re at six for 2021.  Or seven, if you count Madison Bumgarner's seven-inning no-hitter.  The record books don't, but Bumgarner may beg to differ.  At any rate, we are, at most, one no-hitter away from tying the record.  And it's not even June.

No-hitters, like Red Sox championships, used to be rare. Now it’s gotten to the point where you’re surprised when a week goes by without one.

Of course, we may go the rest of the season without another no-hitter.  No-hitters, after all, are as much a matter of luck as skill.  All it takes is a ball being hit a few inches to the left or right to change a hit to an out, a no-hitter to a one-hitter to a pitcher not making it out of the first inning.

Consider, for example, the fact that, aside from the Cy Young winner Kluber and World Series MVP Bumgarner, none of the pitchers on this season's list are exactly first-ballot Hall of Famers.  Their combined lifetime won-loss record as of today is 184-205.  Indeed, only one has a winning record (Means, 18-15).  Joe Musgrove is 33-42, and Turnbull is a distressing 10-25.  Meanwhile, any number of All-Star pitchers have never thrown a no-hitter.

Still, the fact that even mediocre pitchers are able to dominate the opposition like this speaks to a problem in the game, and I say that as someone who has always appreciated the art and style of pitching.  Even I get bored watching nine innings of strikeouts and weak ground balls, with only the occasional home run to break the monotony.  Games like this that end 1-0 or 2-1 get old pretty fast.

The big innovation under discussion to help even the odds for hitters is to move the pitcher's mound back a foot, from sixty-feet, six-inches to sixty-one feet, six inches.  That extra foot doesn't sound like it would accomplish anything more than set off my dormant OCD, but those who study such things assure us that this will have the effect of shaving a couple of miles per hour off a fastball.  Nothing to scoff at when pitchers are now routinely breaking triple digits.

There is certainly something aesthetically displeasing about the 61-foot measurement.  Not that 60 feet is any less arbitary, but at least it has that nice, multiple of ten thing going for it.  And I suppose the current spectacle of futile offenses is even less aesthetically pleasing.  Still, something just feels wrong about changing a measurement as ingrained in tradition as the distance between the pitcher's mound and home plate.  It's like changing the distance between bases from 90 to 89 feet. . . .It just sets off my baseball-fan OCD.

Years ago, after an earlier "year of the pitcher," the height of the pitcher's mound was lowered.  Maybe they could just do that again?  Make the pitchers throw from the same level as the hitters?  I agree, though, that something needs to be done.  No-hitters need to remain something special and rare.  They're part of what makes each baseball game a fount of possibility, a chance to see something you don't see every day.

Well Now Don Jr. Just Has to Run for President

 Andrew Giuliani has declared his candidacy for the governorship of New York. He was probably sitting in a bar somewhere and heard someone comment that Caitlyn Jenner’s run for the California statehouse was the most farcical entree into gubernatorial politics imaginable. . .

Andrew: Hold my beer!

It’s truly a gutsy move, not only because the Giuliani name has become a punchline or a synonym for criminal ineptitude or both, but also because, to a certain generation of New Yorkers, the name “Andrew Giuliani” conjures only the image of an ill-behaved, hyperactive brat upstaging his father—who, mind you, still had a modicum of dignity at the time—as he tried to deliver his first inaugural mayoral address:

https://youtu.be/Re_wo_Bl9Uc

Guess the mini-Mussolini is ready for his own moment in the sun.

Few people think Giuliani fils has a shot at the nomination, much less winning the governor’s mansion, but I suppose this is a nice way to grab cash from gullible MAGAts. Sure, few people thought The Former Guy could actually win the presidency. . . until he did. But Andrew G has all of Trump’s faults with none of his star power.

Let’s put it this way: How unlikeable is Juniorliani? He got kicked off a golf team! Think about that! Nobody could stand to have him as a teammate in a sport that you play by yourself! 

Fatal Earworms

The Pet Shop Boys has a modest bit of success in the 1980’s. Their biggest hit (at least here in the US—I think they were bigger in England) was “West End Girls,” but they also got quite a bit of airplay with “Opportunities (Let’s Make Lots of Money).”

I hadn’t really given that song much thought since, like, 1980-whatever until earlier this year, when it debuted as the background track in a commercial for Progressive:

https://youtu.be/BbQBBWGGX9Y

The real trouble is that Progressive sponsors a lot of baseball games on television, and I WATCH a lot of baseball games on television, and, well. . . 

Let’s just say that “Opportunities” has now become just slightly more annoying than the “Cars4Kids” jingle.

Free the Sauce!

The reopening of the world proceeds apace, but in random fits and starts.

Most restaurants now offer at least limited indoor dining, but amenities differ. Some places use regular silverware and ceramic plates; others make use of paper and plastic; sometimes there are random combinations of both. 

One of my regular breakfast haunts recently transitioned from paper to ceramic and from plastic to silver. A welcome development. They still, however, are not placing salt and pepper shakers on tables: Little paper packets are the order of the day. This isn’t so bad. But I like to put a little Tabasco on my eggs, and here’s where the difficulty comes in.

Instead of bringing out a bottle—which, as far as I can see, would be perfectly easy to wipe down between customers—the servers pour a little bit of hot sauce into a small plastic cup. Now, the amount is fine, but one can’t really shake or sprinkle an appropriate amount of sauce, or distribute it properly around the surface of an egg. Instead, one must very carefully pour the sauce out of the cup, which inevitably leads to large splotches of sauce in some places, and nothing in others.

We’ve gotten rid of masks! It’s time to free the hot sauce!

More about Masks

The common-sense crowd fears that the CDC was wrong in declaring that the fully vaccinated could go maskless, mainly because there’s no way to ensure that only the fully vaccinated will go maskless. That the anti-maskers and anti-vaxxers—a greatly overlapping Venn diagram—will use this guidance as an excuse to continue in their stubborn ways.

The common-sense crowd is undoubtedly justified in this belief.

What these people wanted, I assume, was for the CDC to say, “Well, from a scientific perspective, there’s no real need for fully vaccinated people to continue wearing masks in most situations. But, since a number of unvaccinated people will choose to use this guidance as an excuse to stop wearing masks—even though they haven’t been vaccinated and may have no intention of doing so—and because there is no (politically) easy way to tell who’s been vaccinated—then we recommend that everyone continue wearing masks.” But this is a statement beyond the purview of the CDC. Mask mandates are now fully in the realm of politics, as opposed to that of science.

I choose to believe that CDC scientists, in making their pronouncement, take into account the fact that many unvaccinated people will go around maskless. That is, they’ve thought about the risk to vaccinated people posed by the non-compliant, and they still cleared us for take-off. We should take comfort in this.

But, people say, shouldn’t the CDC not have said anything? Keep mask recommendations, such as they are, in place? 

No.

The CDC would have been wrong NOT to rescind mask recommendations if, in fact, wearing a mask provides no special benefit to people who have been fully vaccinated. Because that strategy would simply give more ammunition to the anti-science conspiracy theorists. “See,” they’d say, “the deep-state just wants to keep controlling us! They know there’s no need to wear masks, but they don’t want us to be free!” Or similar nonsense.

The next phase of this will undoubtedly be. . . interesting. What will happen as businesses continue (as they can) to refuse entry to unmasked, unvaccinated people? How will they enforce this prohibition? Will they require people to show proof of vaccination and, if so, of what will that proof consist? 

I think people’s anger at the CDC stems mostly from fear of what comes next—of the battles that will continue to be fought at the level of the store entrance by people who have misplaced ideas of what “personal freedom” really means. Understandable fears. Yet we must move forward.

*****

Some will continue wearing masks anyway. I think most of these folks hold one of two non-mutually exclusive beliefs: Either they’re worried for their own safety—that they could still be susceptible to one of several Covid variants spreading around the world; or they’re concerned that, while they themselves are protected, they could still spread the disease to the unvaccinated. More power to them.

Already, though, we’re hearing of people screaming at these folks to lose the masks! The CDC has spoken. I can’t help but suspect that most of the screamers are the same people who denied that the CDC had any right to recommend masks in the first place—and that they, thus, are less likely to be vaccinated themselves. Considering, then, that the overcautious vaccinated are mainly protecting them by keeping the masks on, these people are berating others for being... courteous.

America!