Trachsel Palin

At least she made it through her entire announcement without using the word "Maverick." That's progress of a sort, right? She did, however, manage to work in "unconventional" and "politics as usual" a couple of times.

A few days ago, the Solipsist mentioned Lincoln's sound advice about keeping silent and being thought a fool, rather than opening one's mouth and removing all doubt. As a good Republican, she really should have taken the Ol' Stovepipe's suggestion.

We are speaking, of course, of Sarah Palin, who just resigned as Governor of Alaska. Have you seen the announcement? If not, it's really worth watching in its entirety. When we first heard the news yesterday afternoon, we were surprised, but we assumed it was some sort of calculated move--that Palin was planning a presidential run in 2012 and that, somehow, she and her advisers had concluded she would better position herself by being outside the governor's mansion. We assumed she was planning to join some law firm or public-policy think-tank (ignore the obvious jokes for the moment) to establish her bona fides and keep her name in the public spotlight before formally announcing her candidacy sometime in early to mid-2011.

At least, we thought this until we watched her. . . really "speech" is the wrong word. Monologue? Ramble? Meltdown? Take your pick. (You really need to watch it to get the full impact. We'll wait.)

Dum-de-dum-doo-doo.

OK? You know what she looks like to us? (WOS: A crack addict? No, no, no.) Her affect makes us think that the night before this presentation (so, Thursday) some large men in dark suits pulled up outside the governor's igloo and presented her with some kind of irrefutable proof of some unspeakably shady dealings on her (or perhaps her husband's) part. She was then presented with the option to resign--immediately--or face the public revelation of whatever skeletons lurked in her closet.

Honestly, we kind of hope that was the case. Because NOTHING else explains the inane press conference she held in Wasilla. We're not speaking of the message--the resignation itself; for that, there could be any number of legitimate or semi-legitimate reasons. We are speaking of the sloppiness, the utter disregard for anything resembling polished public speaking. Honestly, she made George W. Bush look like. . . well, like Barack Obama.

Did you know that the last part of Martin Luther King, Jr.'s, "I Have a Dream" speech--the famous part, the I-Have-a-Dream, Content-of-Their-Character, Free-at-Last part--was actually not in the original text? It's true. He was winging it. We suppose we could say that Palin was trying to emulate King by not having any teleprompter or notes--we COULD say that. Or maybe there are no teleprompters in Alaska. Or index cards. Or paper. Or maybe Palin just can't read. At any rate, her announcement was a seven-minute political death-march. It was almost painful to watch. (And really hard to eat popcorn to.) As we said, she managed a few references to her unconventionality, as well as her disdain for politics as usual: In this case, the usual politicians she seemed to be disdaining were smooth-talking orators with the ability to hire competent speechwriters. Highlights included:

--References to a wish to spare her family the potshots of the liberal media elite. Fair enough, except for the fact that the family member she alluded to as a victim of such sniping was Trig, the baby born with Down Syndrome--in other words, the ONE member of Palin's family who has probably NEVER been ridiculed by ANYONE. Perhaps Palin's inability to keep her family members straight prompted the resignation.

--Palin mentions that she "polled her most important constituents" (i.e., her family) about her decision. The question she apparently put to them (and this is a DIRECT QUOTE FROM PALIN): "Do you want me to make a positive difference and fight for all our children's future outside the governor's office?" The response, according to Palin was "four yeses and one 'Hell, yes!'" We are simply captivated by the image of Mother Palin in her apron and kawasaki 704s, bringing a roast in from the kitchen, and commencing the dinner conversation with "Hey, kids! Do you want me to make a positive difference and fight for all our children's future outside the governor's office?" A regular June Cleaver, that one.

--And while we're on the subject of Palin's family: So, they were OK with her being Vice-President of the United States, but now they have a problem with her being governor?

Awhile back we thought that Sarah Palin might be a Sloppist. Alas, this press conference suggests she is not. Or at least that she missed our post from earlier this week about metaphors and the inadvisability of mixing them. In her speech, Palin first compared herself to a point guard who passes the ball (in this case to Lt. Gov. Sean Parnell) in order to give her team (Alaska, presumably) the best chance to win. Later, she compared her decision to "calling an audible," suggesting that she is the quarterback of a football team. All right, it's not exactly a mixed metaphor--it's really just two separate sports metaphors (had she said, "I'm a point guard calling an audible," THAT would have been a mixed metaphor). What strikes us, though, is that she is using the wrong sports metaphors altogether. What she is not taking into account is that, while both point guards and quarterbacks pass the ball to help their teams win, they also STAY IN THE GAME. What she more closely resembles is a pitcher in baseball. Which brings us to Steve Trachsel.

Steve Trachsel was a major-league pitcher. Over a 16-year career, he pitched for several teams. He's not a future Hall-of-Famer or anything, just a good, reliable, keep-your-team-in-the-game kind of pitcher. At any rate, he pitched for the Mets from 2001-6, compiling a 66-59 record. He was a reliable and, indeed, important part of the Mets' pitching staff.

What's notable about Trachsel's time with the Mets was how it ended. His final start for the team came in the 2006 National League Championship Series against the St. Louis Cardinals. He didn't pitch great; more significantly, he didn't pitch long. After giving up two runs in the first inning, he came out for the second and was hit on the thigh by a batted ball. The manager and trainer came out to check on him, and Trachsel left the game. The significant point is that he LEFT the game; he walked off the field after walking the next batter, and that was it.

Now, Trachsel may very well have been hurt by the batted ball, but the fact that virtually no one on the Mets--not the manager, not the general manager, not even Trachsel's teammates--spoke up for him suggests that his injury was not that severe, and that, given the circumstances (a championship series), Trachsel should have sucked it up and at least tried to tough it out. Major league players do not take themselves out of the game. At any rate, Trachsel was through with the Mets. He pitched two more years, compiling a 9-16 record, and, as of this writing, appears to be out of baseball altogether.

Sarah Palin is not Jason Kidd. She is not Brett Favre. She is Steve Trachsel, leaving a high-pressure game under questionable circumstances. For the sake of the nation, let's hope she continues to follow his career path into blessed obscurity.

(Sarah Palin baseball card image from Toledo Free Press)

Loathsome, But Not Illegal

"A federal judge on Thursday threw out the conviction of a Missouri woman [Lori Drew] on charges of computer fraud for her role in creating a false MySpace account to dupe a teenager, who later committed suicide." ("Judge Throws Out Conviction in Cyberbullying Case")

For those of you unfamiliar with the case, some background:

On October 17, 2006, Megan Meier, a 13-year-old girl from Dardenne Prairie, Missouri, committed suicide by hanging herself. Subsequently, it was revealed that what drove this girl, who had been treated for depression for years, over the edge, was a series of cruel, taunting e-mails from "Josh Evans," an online "friend" whom Megan had never actually met. In his last message to Megan, "Josh" said, among other things, "The world would be a better place without you."

Thing is, "Josh Evans" didn't exist. He was the creation of Lori Drew, the mother of Sarah Drew, a former friend of Megan's, with whom Megan had at some point had a falling out. Details are a bit vague, but apparently Lori, Sarah, and Ashley Grills, a young woman who worked for Lori, created the MySpace account in order to (according to Lori) monitor Megan and what she might be saying about Sarah: Lori was concerned that Megan was being mean to her daughter. At various times, Lori Drew has claimed that she had nothing to do with the actual messages and that she was not completely aware of the vicious tenor of some of the later notes. We will accept that she had no intention of driving Megan Meier to suicide, and that, had she known what was going to happen, she would have put a stop to things. We will also state here that Judge George Wu, who dismissed the charges against Drew, was correct in his interpretation of the law (more on this later).

That being said, we also think that Lori Drew might--just might--be the worst person in the world.

Hey, we know virtually nothing about parenting--much less about raising a teenage girl. But let's assume the BEST of Lori Drew; let's assume that Megan Meier was spreading vicious gossip about Sarah Drew, and that Lori wanted to help her daughter deal with this. Now, off the top of our head, we think the proper reactions would have been, in descending order of appropriateness:

1) Have a heart to heart talk with our daughter, explaining that children can be cruel, but that she should just try to ignore it and carry on with her own life.

2) Have a chat with Megan's parents and/or teachers and/or other school officials, explaining that Megan was spreading vicious gossip and that she wanted appropriate disciplinary steps taken.

3) Write a letter to MySpace, including any of Megan's vicious missives, and demand that her account be closed.

You see what we mean. We think, "Create a false persona of a teenage boy and play cruel mind games with an emotionally fragile teenager" probably doesn't crack the "Top 50" of appropriate responses.

Look, if Sarah Drew had, on her own initiative, created "Josh Evans" to torment her onetime friend, it would have been heinous. But we could have chalked that up to typical mean-girl queen-bee behavior: Ugly, but hardly unprecedented. And, y'know, Sarah would have had the excuse of being thirteen. Ashley Grills, who may have been the primary author of the offensive e-mails, worked for Lori Drew (not that "just following orders" is really an excuse, but it does mitigate her situation somewhat). Plus, she was only eighteen, so we don't know how fully-developed her moral sense was. Plus, she at least had the decency to suffer psychiatric problems as a result of her role in the proceedings--makes one think she at least has a conscience.

But Lori. . . . Oh, Lori Drew is a whole different kind of evil. What's truly troubling is that, in all the coverage we have reviewed of this case, nowhere do we find any hint that Lori Drew feels contrition for her role in this situation. According to a neighbor quoted in the Los Angeles Times, "there's never been any sense of remorse or public apology from the Drews, no 'maybe we made a mistake.'" Indeed, all we could find in the various news coverage was a statement from Drew's attorney, assuring us that she feels "terrible." Well, nice to know, but even if we accept it at face value, the cynic in us can't help but wonder whether she feels terrible about what happened to Megan or about what happened to Lori.

Let's go back to the legal case. Lori Drew was initially convicted last year of three misdemeanor charges of fraud, the idea being that Drew misrepresented herself by posing as a hunky teenage boy. While it does appear that Drew violated MySpace's terms of service, it is by no means clear that this constitutes a crime--particularly a federal crime. If you break it down, the crime for which Drew was convicted was essentially creating a false online identity--a persona, if you will. But if creating an online persona is a crime, then who among us is innocent? Brace yourselves, good readers, but even "The Solipsist" is something of a persona: We did NOT, in fact, graduate from the South Dakota Institute of Mines and Technology. (Everything else is true, though, we swear it! Please don't kill yourselves!)

Which brings us to the point of this ramble: What Lori Drew did was morally reprehensible, ethically unconscionable, and fundamentally loathsome. But it does not rise to the level of a crime. Nor, frankly, should it. The Solipsist is firmly against the legislation of morality (see also our stance on the legalization of drugs). This does not mean that Lori Drew should escape punishment. Since her crime was essentially social, though, her punishment should be as well.

And she has been punished. After her identity became public in November 2007, Web-based vigilantes took the law into their own hands, publishing Lori Drew's photo, her home and work addresses, and her phone and cell numbers online. She has had to close her advertising business (probably due in no small part that people began shunning businesses that advertised with Drew). She will probably have to move out of the neighborhood.

It wouldn't take much for Drew to rehabilitate herself. A public apology would be a good start. Perhaps a financial contribution to a teen-suicide prevention program? Or even to Tina Meier's (Megan's mother) efforts to combat cyberbullying? Seems to us that it's largely her choice to be ostracized--so everybody should just keep up the ostracism. (Although we can't really condone those who threw a brick through the Drews' window: Let's keep things classy, people.)

(Image of "Worst Woman in World and Daughter" from wired.com)

Last Will and Testament (For Now)

We feel bad for Michael Jackson's family.  Not for the obvious reason (Latoya), but for the simple fact that they have to deal with the death of a family member under insanely public circumstances.  And it's not so much that they don't have the chance to mourn privately--which is bad--but that they have to deal with unbelievably complex logistics to accommodate hordes who feel that they, too, must take part in a public outpouring of grief.  Think about it: Could you imagine your loved ones having to arrange a memorial service at the Staples Center?!?  And where exactly are they going to bury Michael?  Some public venue would seem necessary, but what kind of never-ending security protocols will be required?

The Solipsist cannot imagine putting his loved ones through anything so trying, so he hereby publishes his wishes for steps to be taken in the event of his demise:

1) The Solipsist would like a National Week of Mourning declared in his native Baluchistan.  All Baluchis who share a birth-date with the Solipsist are encouraged to commit suttee.

2) A Facebook Memorial Group should be established and maintained in perpetuity by WOS.  Should WOS pre-decease the Solipsist, then a lottery should be held among the Sloppists to determine who will facilitate the Organization in Recognition of Genius and Solipsistic Memory.

3) The Solipsist would like to be buried in a simple marble coffin lined with garlic to keep the vampires away.  (Unless, as he mentioned in an earlier post, the Solipsist has already BECOME a vampire, in which case, skip the garlic.)

4) Many will want to speak at the memorial service.  In the interest of streamlining the process, therefore, the Solipsist requests that only the following people eulogize him:  WOS, FOS, President Obama, Stephen Colbert and/or Jon Stewart, Oprah Winfrey, John Malkovich, and the Geico Gecko.  He would also like a memorial song composed and performed by Bruce Springsteen or Elvis Costello (although Hanson will do in a pinch).  The proceedings should be directed by M. Night Shyamamam. . . . M. Night Shmayalamamanan. . . .M. Night Shmatahead. . . . Screw it: Just get Scorcese.

5) At the service, a random Sloppist will be selected from the crowd in an "Ascension Ceremony":  The winner will instantly be whisked away by the Solipsist's Republican Guard and taken to Solipsistic Headquarters, where he or she will immediately be strapped into "Bessie" (the Solipsist's Chair) to become the New Solipsist.  (The New Solipsist's family will be told that their kin has "gone to a better place" after he or she was devoured by a yak.)

6) A fund in the Solipsist's name will be established at his alma mater, the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology, to endow a Chair in Blogging and Cabinetry.

7) The Solipsist's body will be launched on a rocket into the sun.  If this procedure is technologically unfeasible, just leave the body anywhere.  (What do we care?  We'll be dead!)

8) All the Solipsist's worldly possessions will be distributed among the Solipsist's next of kin, including WOS, SOS and COS (Cats of Solipsist), as well as DOS and MOS should they still be among us, with the following exceptions:

To FOS: We leave any "Star Trek," "Star Wars," or other science-fiction memorabilia that he can pry out of the hands of WOS.

To the hordes of Sloppists, we leave our body hair, to be apportioned out by WOS in equal parcels.  (As many of the Solipsist's teeth as remain may be distributed among the original Sloppists.  WOS has already put in a claim for the canines.)

The Solipsist, being on this 2nd of July, 2009, of sound mind and virtual body, hereby affixes his seal of approval to the above document.  We hope this will help everyone get through the inevitable trauma of the Solipsist's demise.

Daily Dose of Pedantry

We apologize, but it's time for another mini-treatise on grammar and style.  Those of you who roll their eyes at this particular branch of solipsism can check back tomorrow when we might have something to say about Froot Loops or Silly Putty.

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You may have heard people complain about "mixed metaphors."  These may have been starchy English professor-types garbed in tweed, who also have a thing about split infinitives and preposition-ended propositions.  But when it comes to mixed metaphors, they have a (small) point.

Mixed metaphors are hardly mortal sins, but there is something ungainly about them.  Consider the following sentences:

The Bush Express went off the rails shortly after 9/11.

Or:

During the Bush Administration, the ship of state hit several anti-constitutional icebergs and nearly went down.

Now, ignoring for the moment that we are trafficking (pun intended) in cliche, we can say that those two sentences "work."  On the other hand, were we to say,

During the Bush Administration, the ship of state went off the rails.

we would be "wrong."  That sentence strikes us improper, incorrect, ugly.  The reason: a mixed metaphor.  If the state is a "ship," what is it doing on "rails" in the first place?  A picayune quibble?  Perhaps.  But a little more attention to detail is the mark of the true writer.

All of this occurred to us today when we read the following decidedly unmixed metaphor in today's Times ("Roberts Court Shifts Right, Tipped by Kennedy"): 

"Chief Justice Roberts has certainly been planting seeds in this term's decisions.  If his reasoning takes root in future cases, the law will move in a conservative direction. . . . "

See it?  SEEDS take ROOT.  And (to extend the metaphor) jurisprudence may BRANCH off in a whole new direction.

Too bad those branches are all on the right, but that's a different concern.

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But as The Solipsist gives to the Times with one hand, he must take from it with the other:

"One of the [insurance] plans capped reimbursement for an operation at $5,000, for example, although many procedures cost at least several times that amount" ("Insured, but Bankrupted by Health Crises", emphasis added).

Now, "at least" can modify amounts, indicating that the amount stated is a minimum: Write an essay of AT LEAST 500 words; AT LEAST 2/3 of the members of the Senate must vote to remove an impeached president from office; there are AT LEAST 19,000 calories in the average Twinkie, etc.  The key is that the amount must be an actual quantity.  You cannot have "at least several" something!  Would you then have "at most" a lot?

So "Cheers!" to Adam Liptak, the stylish Supreme Court reporter.  But "Jeers!" to the sloppy Reed Abelson (or his editor) for a rhetorical boo-boo.

(Image from zazzle.com)

Supreme Court Wrap-Up

Perhaps Judge Sonia Sotomayor's most controversial decision during her tenure on the appeals court was her ruling against a group of white firefighters from New Haven, Connecticut.  The firefighters sought to overturn that city's decision to void the results of a promotional exam, on the grounds that the passing rates of minority candidates were disproportionately low.  The city reasoned that they would likely be subject to a lawsuit from the minority candidates if they honored the results of the exam.  In the meantime, the white firefighters who did well claimed that they were, in effect, being discriminated against on the basis of their race.  Today, the Supreme Court sided with the white firefighters ("Supreme Court Finds Bias Against White Firefighters").

The case revolves around the concept of "disparate impact."  Essentially, civil rights law seeks to prevent "disparate treatment"; that is, people may not be treated differently on account of their race.  But when an apparently neutral, non-discriminatory practice has a disparate impact on a minority group, civil rights law may also be invoked.  Conceivably, if New Haven had carried through with the results of the exam, essentially promoting only white firefighters, then minority firefighters could have filed a lawsuit on the basis of disparate impact.  Whether they would have prevailed or not is an open question, as the city pre-empted the lawsuit by discarding the results.

While we are certainly in favor of equal protection, and while we really hate to find ourselves agreeing with Antonence Scalimas, we think the Supreme Court got this one right.  We think it is significant, for example, that nobody seemed to be claiming that the test itself was somehow biased.  Presumably, if minority candidates had been forced to file a disparate impact lawsuit, they would have made this argument.  Maybe there is some validity there.  As it is, however, the city of New Haven took it upon itself to declare that there must have been something wrong with the exam just because minority candidates didn't do as well as they "should have" given their share of the test-taking population.  As any statistician will tell you, though, correlation does not prove causation.  In other words, even though a look at the data would "show" a correlation between race and success, this in no way shows that race "caused" the performance, either good or bad.

Indeed, the 19 plaintiffs (18 white firefighters and one Hispanic) told tales of intensive and extensive preparation for the exam, "giving up second jobs and missing family celebrations.  The lead plaintiff, Frank Ricci, who is dyslexic, said he studied for 8 to 13 hours a day, hiring an acquaintance to tape-record the study materials."  Can one in good conscience say that these people's results were undeserved?

Now, perhaps the minority candidates who failed studied just as hard.  They should certainly be given the opportunity to make a case if they feel they can show that somehow the content or structure of the exam was insurmountably geared against them.  But we cannot help but feel that any exam that calls for people--even people who supposedly have some racial/cultural "edge"--to spend hours upon hours preparing is a just-plain difficult exam.  While it may behoove the city of New Haven to look closely at their promotional exams to screen out any possible bias, it seems highly irrational to suggest that the folks who DID do well should have this accomplishment negated.

 

Death of a Salesman

And wouldn't you know, scarcely had we completed yesterday's entry when we found on our Netflix streaming video queue episode 11 of "Harper's Island."  Suffice to say, the quality was what we have come to expect.  Sample line of dialogue: "If you have a clear shot at Wakefield, take it!  Even if I'm in the way!"  We must assume that "clear" has some heretofore unknown meaning on the little Isle of Harper.

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But that's not our topic du jour.  Instead, today, we turn our attention to the forgotten decedent in this last week's seemingly endless roll call of the doomed, Billy Mays.

Granted, Billy Mays' life was probably not as culturally significant as those of some of the other recently departed.  For one thing, he never posed in a nipple-revealing one-piece, a fact for which we are sufficiently grateful.  Nor for that matter did he ever have a number one single or a child-molestation indictment.  Arguably, though, he was at least as significant for the early 21st-century as Ed McMahon was for a good portion of the late 20th.  After all, both were essentially known for enthusiastic sycophancy.  Indeed, we propose the following question for the next SAT: Ed McMahon is to Publisher's Clearing House as Billy Mays is to Oxi-Clean.

Billy Mays' was a real, "only-in-America" success story.  Who else but our consumer-oriented society would celebrate someone whose main--scratch that, whose only claim to fame was selling stuff?  And apparently, he could sell.  Legend has it that, after his initial appearance on the St. Petersburg, FL, affiliate of the Home Shopping Network for Orange Glo International, sales of their products shot up.  Adding to his credibility, Mays consistently claimed to be a faithful user of any product he endorsed.   

So while we probably won't see huge crowds of mourners wearing fake beards staging mass launderings with Oxi-Clean on the Atlantic City boardwalk (where Mays learned his salesmanship), we still pause to remember a man who, in his own way, made a mark on society.  And a man who would no doubt have just the product to get that mark out of your favorite shirt.

RIP, Mr. Mays.

 

(Image from The Seattle Times)

We Got Nothin'

Every once in a while, you've just got NOTHING to talk about.  The problem here is that this blog is more than a forum for pointless meanderings; it's a discipline.  The Solipsist has resolved to write every day, and he fears that even one missed day will lead him down the slippery slope of inertia.  Is that an oxymoron?  Would inertia's slope be slippery?  Probably quite friction laden.  Who knows?

So, rather than follow Lincoln's ultimately sound advice, YNSHC will not remain silent.  Should you consider him a fool, here he will remove all doubt.

The thing that's upsetting is we actually HAD something all queued up to blog about.  We were going to tell the seemingly odd story of "Harper's Island" and Netflix.  See, WOS has been watching "Harper's Island" via Netflix's streaming video service.

(Digression: WHY she's watching, we have no idea, as we are in agreement that it's a thoroughly dreary program: a wannabe "Twin Peaks" with the self-deprecating sense of humor of a doorknob.  It's a poorly acted and worsely (worsely?) written you-should-excuse-the-expression "thriller" about a bunch of "good-looking" (in a bland, catalog-model sort of way) young folks who gather at a remote Pacific Northwestern island for a big society wedding.  In every episode at least one person is gruesomely killed, and despite the fact that there's a total of, like, 30 people on the whole island, it takes about five episodes for people even to realize that anything's wrong.  To give you an idea of the quality of the dialogue, in one episode, a real tough, tattooed, biker-type actually purports to insult someone by calling him "daft."  Daft!  Who writes this stuff?  A Bronte Sister?  Virginia Woolf? "Friday the 13th: Part 97: Butchery in Bloomsbury"? EOD.)

Anyway, we were confused by the fact that, even though it's supposedly, "The Complete Series," it only went up to 8 episodes (of 8) and then ended with no resolution.  We just assumed that the show was mercifully canceled, and we decided to just say, "We think the groom did it."  That was our story, and we were sticking to it.  And then, suddenly, ANOTHER episode showed up.  Also without resolution, but suggesting the Sheriff did it!  Our story.  Sticking to it.  And then a TENTH episode showed up.

We had this vision of frustrated producers churning out episodes just for the sake of WOS, hoping that she would finally give up and accept that she really didn't CARE whodunit.  Those producers should know better.  WOS is very persistent.

Anyway, we were going to write about that, but then we actually went to look at Netflix and discovered that the show is, in fact, still going on.  That each week a new episode will be added, until we get to episode 13 in which all will be resolved.

That was anticlimactic.

So, you see, we have nothing to write about!  We're very disappointed in ourselves.

(Image from Wikipedia)