Field of Dreams

**WARNING** This is another "baseball, not kvetch"-related post. You have been warned.

We all hope for moments in life to justify the decisions we make. You want that new job to fulfill you more, even though it pays less. You hope the crazy color you painted your walls complements your eclectic furniture. You pray that the test comes back negative after the fun but possibly calamitous "accident."

And you hope that years of slavish (and continually mocked) devotion to a slow-moving sport will pay off eventually with one moment of bliss.

Last night was my moment.

When the Montreal Expos, the Jamaican Bobsled Team of Major League Baseball, moved to Washington, the city was excited. When the DC Council, after much recrimination and backbiting, approved the construction of a new baseball stadium, there was both excitement and dismay at the cost of a stadium in a city whose schools were crumbling. But last night, there was total joy, at least for those hardy few of us present at newly-christened Nationals Park.

When tickets for the first game at the new stadium went on sale, I had two computers and my phone working feverishly to get tickets. Alas, it was not to be. Scalped tickets on StubHub were going for 15-50 times face value. Not gonna happen. But then my wonderful cousin, with her back-alley ties, managed to get us tickets for a high, but not too unreasonable price. And my wonderful wife told me to go for it.

It was oold. The lines for hot chocolate and coffee were atrocious. But after a really remarkable half-pound hamburger (Grays Grill behind the scoreboard) we settled in to watch baseball in My Personal Mecca. And the Nationals did not disappoint.

Baseball is well-known for being slow-moving and often incomprehensible. But there are moments when even the novice fan can somehow feel the tension and excitement of a key situation. With the score tied at 2 in the bottom of the last inning, the moment that justified my decision to spend an exorbitant amount of money to sit in the cold on a late-March night, came to pass.

The crack of the bat was like a rifle shot. I didn't think the ball had the distance. But the first Home Run for the Nationals in their new stadium was the game-winner, hit by the face of the franchise, Ryan Zimmerman. I don't think anybody breathed for a moment, and suddenly I found myself jumping up and down and screaming in pure orgasmic bliss. My wife was crying. A walk-off home run, in the first game in the new stadium, agaisnt a powerful team, on national television. It was the perfect moment, and one I'm sure I will remember for the rest of my life.

I'm not ashamed to admit it. I love baseball, and last night was why.

Damnit, just pick someone!

Listening to the news on the radio, it becomes apparent that we're not going to have a democratic nominee for president until after the Pennsylvania primaries. We knew this for a while, but it becomes apparent how dumb this is after hearing that John McCain, (R-Old) has been making trips to the Middle East (and other countries), trying to solve some problems, meet foreign leaders, etc. You know, stuff that makes him look...I don't know...like presidential material. And, in the meanwhile, there is nothing happening in the democratic race whatsoever, except for the wrangling by two crybaby states over the fact that their delegates won't count.

As an aside, there is a palpable irony to the fact that Florida (who should not, at this point, be trusted to run a high school student council election) and Michigan moved their primaries early, so that they would have a critical voice. If they had kept their primaries when they were supposed to be, they would actually gotten a critical voice in deciding who the nominee was. Instead, they chose to make themselves irrelevant, and are now whining that their votes should still count. And that the national party should pay to run elections again. No matter how those state votes turn out, it'll be a travesty on some level, and someone will cry foul, and there will be infighting and lawsuits.

You always wonder how the democrats will manage to screw up the presidential election. Well, now we know! While the undisputed republican candidate is going off, making friends with world leaders, and not having to campaign against anyone from his own party, he is free to make the democratic candidates look indecisive, non-presidential, petty, and weak.

In short, democrats, just pick someone! I know who I would prefer, but I like the other candidate too. If they were at the head of the ticket, that would be fine with me. And everyone else. Polling generally shows that while democrats have a preference, they would stiull support whichever candidate gets the nomination. But just pick someone! And in doing so, force teh republican nominee to stop going off to other countries, making himself look good, and bring him to task right here, in the 50 states that will determine who becomes our next president. (Okay, likely the 10 or so that will be in play, but we can dream of a fight that might actually have to be waged in 50 states). If we just pick someone, we can actually begin the real fight, showing the American people why a democratic preident (and a democratic congress) is better for America.

But, instead, we'll have at least another month of pointless, unproductive wrangling, where the two candidates snipe at each other, instead of challenging the republicans. Where the superdelegates will decide the winner, leaving the actual voting public feeling so disenfranchised that some of them won't even come out and vote. Where the two candidates, in their rush to win, will tear each other down so thoroughly that whoever wins will have given the republicans ammunition to fight the eventual winner with. And that, friends, is how the democrats will screw up this one. So, for the party's sake, for the country's sake, Just pick one now!

As another aside, can we finally pick someone? Yes we can.

My 1/4 Cent

Ryan has put forth a very even-handed analysis of the remaining presidential candidates. I agree with almost everything he says. From Huckabee to McCain to Obama, he's dead on. However, I think he has not done justice to the shit that the Clinton Campaign is pulling right now. Let me caveat this post by saying I am extremely angry right now, so if the grammar and/or logic is lacking, I apologize.

First, this bullshit with Florida's and Michigan's delegate is completely disingenuous. The states' delegates were barred from voting at the convention because they broke party rules. The party determined this, and none of the candidates complained about it at the time. But now that Clinton is behind, and it looks like she might lose the election, she is suddenly pushing that those delegates, who overwhelmingly voted for her because OBAMA DID NOT CAMPAIGN THERE, AND WASN'T EVEN ON THE BALLOT IN MICHIGAN, be counted. This is exactly the reason that people dislike her so much. She is a blatant opportunist, and will do whatever it takes to win, even if it is borderline cheating.

Second, this superdelegate nonsense is getting out of hand. Clinton stated recently that superdelegates should vote for whomever they want, regardless of whether that person won the popular vote. If Obama were to win the most pledged delegates and Clinton won the election with more superdelegates, we can never complain again about Gore losing in 2000. The people, not "party leaders," should elect our candidate. If more people vote for Obama, he should be our candidate. End of story.

Third, Clinton wants to debate every fricking week. I am going to paraphrase Obama here, who says "we've had 18 debates! 18!" She wants to do this because Obama has more money and debates are essentially free advertising. All of this maneuvering is exactly why Obama is gaining so much support. We are all tired of this political bullshit. That's not to say he won't be sucked into it if he becomes president, but at least he's not making an ass of himself now.

Thoughts on the Candidates

My 2 cents is free...

Mitt Romney. Thank god this guy won't be president. If the presidency were automatically awarded to the smarmiest, phoniest candidate, he'd be president for life. I mean, they'd have to repeal the 22nd Amendment. Is there an issue he hasn't reversed himself on to pander to the right wing? The most telling moment of the campaign, for me, was when Mike Huckabee said that President Bush had a "go-it-alone" foreign policy, and Romney went nuts. Now, saying that Bush has a "go-it-alone" foreign policy is a simple, plainly obvious, noncontroversial descriptive statement akin to "the sky is blue," that people in both parties agree with. Romney, in a transparent attempt to appeal to the GOP base, pretended that it was treason and actually demanded that Huckabee apologize to the president. It was phony and cloying and sycophantic, all rolled into one, and that about sums up Mitt Romney. And don't get me started on candidates who promise to run government "like a business": it's either stupidity or disingenuousness, and the fact that, with Romney, it's clearly the latter doesn't help him.

Mike Huckabee. How could you not like him? Maybe because he's an evangelical nutjob who doesn't believe in evolution, and whose success is based on the support of other nutjobs? Hmmm ... No, I still like him. He's just likable! Of course, if he actually became president, we'd all be in huge trouble (until the rapture comes, anyway). But, what is it about Hope, Arkansas that produces politicians that can screw you over and leave you smiling afterwards?

John McCain. He's, by far, the Republicans' best candidate this year, but that's sort of like saying that the construction worker was, by far, the most heterosexual of the Village People. For those of you who are worried that McCain is going to win the general election, let me point out a few things about him:

1. He's old.
2. Really old.
3. The two biggest issues of the election are likely to be the economy and Iraq, and he's hugely vulnerable on both.
4. Republicans' feelings about him range between dislike and loathing.
5. To unite the party, he's going to have to pick some lunatic as his running mate, a choice that I suspect just may be abnormally solvent as an issue this year (see: points 1 and 2).

HRC. Man, if you just watched TV, you'd think that nobody likes this woman. Certainly the news media are almost unanimously against her. After she lost Iowa, the major networks hit her in the head with a shovel and had her buried under three feet of dirt before she won New Hampshire, climbing out of the grave, either Lazarus-like or zombie-like, depending on your point of view, and has walked among us ever since. Now that she's teetering on the edge again, they're poised to bury her for good. Except that she's still up by 20 in Ohio. Oops.

Barack Obama. I've got to admit, I'm on this bandwagon. What a phenomenon this guy as been. He captured lightning in a bottle at the 2004 Democratic convention, and has managed to keep the lid on. People love him. It's actually trendy to volunteer for his campaign (and, talk about a generational divide, nearly everyone I know is backing him). My sister canvassed for him, and I went with her to the campaign election night party in Hollywood. Normally, political activists appear -- how can I put this gently -- sort of nerdy and weird-looking, and they're old. This group looked like the cast of, I don't know, The OC, except more diverse and less out-of-date. But he seems to really bring a lot of traditionally excluded people, young people and others, into the process. It bothers me some that he's so inexperienced, and that his church is on friendly terms with noted bigot Louis Farrakhan. But, in his brief time in office, he's been right about just about everything, and the idea that he's an anti-semite doesn't ring true. This almost feels like a campaign of destiny, but there's also an Icarus-type feel about it: What will happen if and when the news media fall out of love with him and start shining bright light on him?

A Summary of Recent Sports-related Issues- or a treatise on not getting what you want

Several months ago, at the end of baseball season, I remarked on the incredible strides the Washington Nationals had made over the course of their season, ending with a record certainly not "historically bad", if not reaching "good".

Well this weekend DC's other storied sports franchise, the Washington Redskins, hired an unknown coach to take over the head coaching duties from the immortal Joe Gibbs. Gibbs resigned a month ago, leaving the owner, Mr. Daniel Synder (henceforth referred to as "The Danny," "Snyderman," or "Napoleon") without a coach. Now, Napoleon tends to get all sorts of weird personnel ideas in his head, and usually throws money at whoever he wants until the player or coach succumbs to the power of his own greed. By such processes have arrived numerous over-the-hill players (particularly quaterbacks), a horrendously awful college coach whose main motivational technique was throwing his visor, and Deion Sanders, in a category all his own.

So all expected that The Danny, when searching for a new coach, would hire as big a name as was available, regardless of whether any of the players or existing coaches wanted to play or work for him. Fortunately for all of us, the big names wanted nothing to do with the Redskins. Bill Cowher, despite certainly being offered a pile of money as huge as Snyderman's ego, claimed that he was happy working in TV and wasn't ready to return to coaching. Pete "Southern California is my Xanadu" Carroll didn't want to leave the fawning legions of USC. And Jim Mora just had too much sense. So Napoleon finally had to check his ego at the door and hire as his head coach a guy he had hired to be an assistant two weeks before.

Now to bring this post full circle, despite the fact that this wasn't what he wanted, Snyder has almost perfectly replicated the circumstances that allowed the Nationals to exceed all expectations last year. The Nats decided that instead of going out and getting someone flashy, they would find a young, smart baseball man that the team could build an identity around. Coincidentally, that man, Manny Acta, also happened to be a great teacher with an ability to connect with his players. Jim Zorn, the new Skins coach, fits that same model.

The Nats did it intentionally, and the Skins as a last resort, but maybe The Danny has learned something from not getting what he wanted. Of course, nobody knows how Coach Zorn will eventually perform, but if the example of the Nationals is any indication, good times for the Skins may still be ahead.

The paralells between forced prison sex and mass transit

It's not that there aren't things to complain about, there's a lot that pisses me off. For example, the writer's strike transforming all TV into a soup of crap and reality TV that is slowly, inexorably, making our nation that much stupider. And me, because I watch some of this crap. And am disgusted at myself. Or the fact that my office keeps me just busy enough that I drop off of the face of the earth, and don't communicate with people, or have time to go out and get a haircut, although I desperately need one. My hair is approaching 70's-Beatle-esque levels of damn-dirty-hippiedness. But that's not what this particular entry is about.

The reason that many complaints do not make this blog is that many complaints are not the continual irritant, the small grain of sandy discontent that over time gets transformed into a beautiful pearl of bitterness and rancor. I feel I have a pearl, to express to all of you. Gaze into it's splendor, as I outline the parallels between (mostly financial) aspects of my daily commute and forced prison sex. This was inspired by yesterday, the second time this month that I have had to add money on to my smarttrip card in order to just get home. This is coupled with eth realization that even though I get the maximum allowable amount of Smart-trip money deducted from my paycheck every month, I will still need to do several recharges ever month. Forever.

1. My commute, like prison sex, is mostly involuntary

Well, everyone has to get to work. I have two options: I can drive, which is both incredibly irritating, environmentally unfriendly, and more expensive, or I can drive to the Metro, and take the train into work. I can't walk to the metro, it takes far too long. And, up until these recent increases in fares, it was significantly cheaper to take metro than to drive in. But that is changing. In any case, I have to get to work, like tens of thousands of other commuters. And taking gas and/or parking into account, either way, I am paying more than I ever have.

2. Like Prison Sex, the Metro Fee increase is given hardest to those people who are least able to defend themselves.

Metro has decided to put their increase on the backs of the people who have the least choice about it (suburban commuters), as well as those who make an environmentally and traffic friendly choice to use public transit rather than drive all the way in to town.

In their infinite wisdom, Metro decided to raise fees across the board, but to raise fees still higher on those commuters who use the system as it was originally intended, to commute from the outer parts of the city and suburbs into work. Let's face it. Metro was never designed to go all over the city, to be as useful and omnipresent as, say, the New York Subway. Metro is a spoke and hub System, designed for commuters. The metro rate increases hit those who ride longer distances extra hard, because the further that a person has to travel, the higher the fare hike goes. And, those who have to drive to metro and park their cars (like me) get hit with an extra .75 a day, which doesn't seem like much until you multiply that by 20-odd days a month. Then you realize It is costing upwards of an extra $15 a month, or about $180 a year. that is on top of the extra dollar or so that longer distance commuters like myself pay, each day, each way. Works out to another $2 a day, or $40 a month, or $480 a year. So, in total, Metro raised my personal transit bill by approximately $65 a month, or $660 a year. And, like a person facing prison rape, I have no good options. I can go ahead and take it, or I can choose the slightly more inconvenient, expensive, and irritating option of driving. Basically, I'm getting fucked either way.

3. Like Prison Sex, you get nothing in return for being violated

You would think that a fare increase would lead to some corresponding increase in service, or correlate to any sort of improvement. But it doesn't. Metro needs more money because they have managed their aging systems and overlarge payroll badly. Because the governments of the various jurisdictions that metro serves won't cough up enough dough, Metro has to cover its administrative and maintenance shortfalls on the backs of its riders. And what does that mean? For your increased, and entirely involuntary spending, you get nothing. Zilch, Nada. The trains still run late, all the time. The track is still poorly and sporadically maintained. Elevators and escalators don't work half the time. No one is going to build a line out to Dulles and Tyson's Corner (probably a rant for another time).

4. The perpetrators of prison sex are not usually the victims of prison sex

This one is short and straightforward. Of all the members of the Metro board, only one or two of them uses their own system to get to work every morning. The rest of them drive to work. None of them actually have to feel the pain that they are inflicting on others. It's like having Burger King run by an all-vegan Board of Directors. What do they care if the price of a Whopper goes up by 20%?

In closing, stop sodomizing me (and others) through our wallets. I don't care how Metro makes up revenue shortfalls, as long as they don't keep raising rates. Especially by raising rates on long-distance commuters. They can plaster very available surface on the trains and stations with ads. I read on the trains, it won't bother me. Cut salaries, starting with, say, the Metro Board (Cause if you have to raise rates to cover a budget shortfall, you aren't good administrators). Allow Red Bull to pass out samples in train stations. Sell cigarettes and porn in stations. However they have to cover the shortfall. Eventually, if Metro doesn't cover their budgets, it'll be their ass, too.

There is a Turd in this Bank

It's been pretty quiet around Kvetch lately. Apparently all of us are totally content with our daily lives, and nothing kvetch-worthy has happened since a family-oriented Thanksgiving and a Turd on a Sidewalk.

Well, a Turd has recently surfaced in my life. It comes in the form of a bank. Well, two banks, actually. See, my wife recently switched jobs, and she needs to roll her 401(k) from that job into an IRA. For some unbelievable reason, as if she isn't capable of making decisions about her own money, there is a "spousal consent" section. Don't get me started on the lunacy of this- I'm pretty sure that how my wife and I deal with money is our own business, and her company shouldn't have to consult me to move around money that she has rightfully earned. But either way, I have to have my consent notarized- I guess they want to make sure nobody is forging his or her spouse's signature.

So I went to a local BB&T office, which was next to the grocery store where I was filling a prescription. Apparently, however, the new thing in banking is to be as big a bastard as you can be to anyone who doesn't have an account with you. This BB&T refused to provide me notary service because I am not a customer of theirs. Never mind that I own BB&T stock (which, by the way, has tanked since they took over the small savings and loan my grandparents originally bought stock in), because that apparently isn't good enough. But then the teller had the gall to suggest that I open an account with them ("we have free checking!"). Now why in hell would I open a checking account just to get something notarized? And more importantly, why would I do any business with a bank that refuses to help me with something as simple as a notarization? Look at my license, stamp the paper, and BAM we're done. But no. I tried the same request in the Chevy Chase bank in the grocery store, with the same result. So I now declare that all Banks are now Turds.

To resolve this, I decided to drive another five miles out of my way to go to a credit union service center, as I my credit union is a member of a credit union consortium. But at 2:30 on a Wednesday, they were CLOSED. Apparently, this service center is not open AT ALL on Wednesdays. So now Credit Unions are Turds, as well, in my book.

Now, there will be Turds on sidewalks all over the land. Normal people just call them banks.