35 years Ago Today, The Fall of Saigon

In many ways I feel as though the fall of Saigon marked the end of the Roosevelt era in America. Although Reagan would not be elected for another five and a half years, the damage was done and liberalism in its form from the 1930's to the 1970's was dead. What followed was an agonizing period of energy shocks, inflation and a crises of confidence in our identity as a nation.

For the Vietnamese, April 30th, 1975 means so much more, liberation, frustration, a day of both celebration and mourning for all those who were lost in what turned out to be a long struggle for their independence.

My experience of Viet Nam is wholly secondary, the experiences of watching a father who served there spend a decade trying to intellectualize the experience through close study of the dozens of books that describe the American experience in the war.  My perceptions as a child of a 1970's America in near chaos, and the bizarre national amnesia that we put on like a set of earphones starting with the election of Reagan.

Today, let me just recognize that the there was a day when America was forced to face up to its mistakes, and that those mistakes still influence our national decisions regarding our actions abroad. Let me also pay my humble respects to our servicemen who lost their lives in the war, the over 2 million Vietnamese who died at the hands of US armaments and the millions more Cambodians and Vietnamese that died in the subcontinental chaos that followed our departure.

The possible parallels to Iraq and Afghanistan are legion but perhaps too simple. Today, I'll just remember the past.

Photo Credit: Hubert Van Es , Link is well worth the read.

The Epistemology of The Strikezone

Major League Baseball is a sport steeped traditional practices. Other professional sports associations routinely alter the rules of their game to facilitate more interesting play, protect players or both. For instance to start the 1998/99 season, the National Hockey Association altered their rules requiring more space behind the goal to create more scoring chances. Three years ago the National Basketball Association moved its three point line closer to the basket to encourage more perimeter shots, and the National Football League, routinely adjusts rules governing pass coverage, and hits to the quarter-back to allow for a more open, pass oriented game.

In contrast professional baseball stands alone in the deference it pays to its rules. The baseball rulebook is considered with close to the same respect paid great works of western civilization. Baseball enthusiasts often refer to the wisdom of Abner Doubleday, and the near perfect set of rules he recorded for posterity in the summer of 1839. The fact that Doubleday may never have seen a baseball game, and that professional game was actually shaped by the play of the New York Knickerbockers in the late 1840’s does not diminish the power of the myth.[1] Like the US Constitution or the Holy Bible, Baseball’s rulebook is often considered to be a near perfect document. However, sometimes, even the rules of baseball require interpretation to fit the complexities of the modern game. These interpretations are presided over by a ‘Rules Committee’. Like the Hebrew Talmud, changes to the rule book are always merely ‘Case Book Interpretations’, which attempt to explain the meaning of the original text. When voted on by a majority of the rules committee, and ratified by the player’s association, these case book interpretations are woven into the rule book and therefore our understanding of the game.

The Taylor Swift Massacre

Does it matter that a mainstream cheese-factory like the Grammy Awards so obviously blew it in awarding Album of the Year to Taylor Swift? I think it clearly does as it reflects our society’s increasing fetish for settling on the safety of possible options even if that choice is the worst of the possible options. We may not agree on which one of Beyonce Knowles, The Black Eyed, Peas, Lady GaGa, or The Dave Mathews Band is the best choice, but surely we should all be able to agree that Taylor Swift was the worst. It’s not a coincidence that in the same month providing Health Care Reform went from inevitable to impossible (in the eyes of pundits at least) because of the loss of a single Senate seat, that the Album of the Year gets awarded to the choice that is most fully denuded of soul, passion, or sexuality. Congratulations Taylor Swift, you were the least offensive. Enjoy your Grammy.

Even if Beyonce and/or the Black Eyed Peas trigger a race panic in you and Lady GaGa makes you feel ‘a little funny’ down there, why pick Taylor Swift over Dave Mathews? Because he’s weed smoker? That used to be a feature not a bug in rock performers. It just doesn’t make sense. Not that the Dave Mathews Band hits my favorites list on my iPod, and obviously I think any choice of Beyonce Knowles, Lady GaGa, or the Black Eyed Peas would be a better choice, but at least the dude has an extended track record, can flat out play, and has a little bit of soul to him.

Yes, I am weirdly finding myself playing the part of Kanye West. How the hell did that happen? But does anyone out there think ‘She Wears Short Skirts, I wear T-shirts’ represents some type of landmark achievement, or even that it’s going to light up throwback stations 30 years from now? There is something wrong with a world in which Stevie Nicks is forced to stand second fiddle while she listens to a girl wanly trying to find the key of her classic ‘Rhiannon’. Gen Y, don’t be a hater here, listen to what that song actually sounds like yourself and tell me if your Tween pop-tartlet lives up to the standard. Yeah . . . I know! That’s the point.