Corporate Welfare and Unbridled Greed

For the second time in just over a year, an NFL team is ditching its hometown for the glitz and, more importantly, dollars of Los Angeles.  Last year, it was St. Louis; this year, it's San Diego.  Some of the circumstances are a little different.  St. Louis and Missouri did everything it could to try to get the Rams a new stadium, but their owner had no interest in staying in the Gateway City.  The Chargers, on the other hand, wanted to stay in San Diego but that city had no interest in ponying up the money to pay for a new stadium.  (To which, I say "Kudos" to San Diego for standing up to the billionaire bully and not caving.  We need more cities and states to follow their lead!)  Regardless of the different circumstances, the end result is the same.  A billionaire owner turns it back on its fans in an effort to get even richer than he already is.

This continues a disturbing trend in professional sports: a billionaire goes up to the Average Joe on the street with his hand out asking for money to build a new stadium whose only benefit is to enrich the already wealthy owner.  It's a nice gig: get the working stiff making $15 an hour to pay for and assume all of the risk for a building that will produce minimal (if any) benefit for him while giving you untold wealth.  As an example, Dean Spanos (owner of the Chargers) claimed that he needed San Diego tax payers to pick up the tab for a new stadium because he couldn't afford to do so.  However, the other NFL owners had already agreed to give him $300 million dollars toward a new stadium.  Also, in order to move the team, Spanos will have to pay a $550 million relocation fee and another $12 million to buy out the remaining lease at Qualcomm Stadium in San Diego.  Now, I'm lousy at math, but according to my calculations, $300 million + $550 million + $12 million = $862 million.  You can't build a football stadium for $862 million?  You need the tax payers to help you?  It's absurd.

And it's not just the teams relocating.  For years now, team owners have being crying poor and bilking states and municipalities into paying for new stadiums.  Often, the stadium the owners want to replace isn't even old enough to drink if it were a person.  Atlanta is the perfect example.  The Georgia Dome (home of the Falcons) opened in September 1992, so it's not even 25 years old.  Turner Field (home of the Braves) was built for the 1996 Olympics, so it's not even 21 years old yet.  However, Atlanta tax payers are paying millions of dollars to build new stadiums for both teams.  When the Rams left St. Louis, the Dome at America's Center was only 20 years old. 

Whatever happened to teams that played in the same building for decades and decades?  Think about all of the historic old arenas: Boston Garden, Chicago Stadium, St. Louis Arena, Montreal Forum, Maple Leaf Gardens.  Part of the appeal and fame of those buildings was that the hometown teams had played in those buildings for generations, something that none of these new buildings will ever achieve.  Now, buildings are supposedly antiquated and outdated after 15 or 20 years.  But it's not because they are really outdated.  It's because these wealthy owners are always looking for a shiny new thing that will help make them even more ridiculously wealthy than they already are.  It's not enough for them to have more money than they and their kids could ever spend.  Their insatiable greed causes them to ask for even more.  Also, it's not enough to have a new stadium.  It has to be bigger and fancier than the other guy's stadium.  It has to have more luxury suites, a bigger scoreboard, more box seats.  At the end of the day, none of those things are really for the fans; they only exist as an excuse to make that obscenely wealthy owner even wealthier.

Missouri's new governor recently referred to public financing of sports stadiums as "corporate welfare" and, whatever your political leanings, that is a very apt description.  Traditional welfare is public money that goes to people who cannot or choose not to work.  It's public dollars given out to someone for, in essence, doing nothing.  Is that really any different than public dollars given out to the owner of a sports team for not doing much of anything either?

However, it's not only wealthy sports owners who are recipients of this corporate welfare.  It happens all the time in the regular business world, too.  Far too often, we see businesses angling for state or local tax breaks to build a new building or a new factory in one state or city rather than another.  Companies play cities and states against one another looking for the best deal.  In these instances, "best deal" generally means whatever is going to cost the company the least.  While that may, on its face, that may seem like good business, what happens to that tax money that those companies don't pay?  It means less money for schools, roads, police and other infrastructure.  It also creates unfair competition, where one company is being subsidized by the government while the other is not.  I bear business owners and the wealthy no ill will (don't most of us dream of being a wealthy, successful business owner at some point?), but businesses and business owners should be successful on their own merits, not because government has its thumb on the scales on their behalf. 

Once upon a time, successful business owners were successful because of risk-taking and ingenuity.  The general public admired them and was not particularly bothered by their wealth because they understood that they had substantial skin in the game and they had stuck their necks out to be successful.  Oftentimes now, "successful" business owners are "successful" because they have managed to get the taxpayers to assume the risk on their behalf.  They reap the rewards without having to assume hardly any of the risk.  Again, it is corporate welfare but they can get away with it because there is always some other schmuck (in the form of a state, city or county) who will be willing to bend over for the rich guy and give him what you may not be willing to give him.

The irony of the whole situation is that many of these millionaires and billionaires rail about traditional welfare (They're lazy! They're druggies! They need to get a job!) but they have no issues holding their hand out and asking for free money from the public to help them reap untold riches while having to assume none of the risk.

The only way to end this corporate welfare cycle is for states, counties and municipalities from coast to coast to all say "enough is enough" and force the wealthy sports owners and business owners to assume the risk and sink or swim on their own merits.  As long as one state or city is willing to cave to the demands of billionaire sports owners (or, to a lesser extent, businesses), this cycle of corporate welfare will continue on in perpetuity.

Things That Baffle Me

We all have things in life that baffle us, things that make no sense at all to us no matter how much we think about them.  They may be pet peeves or just things we can't quite fathom.  Here are some of those things for me.

(DISCLAIMER: It's entirely possible that some of these may apply to you.  If so, I hope you will not take offense, because no offense is intended.  Maybe you can enlighten me.)

• People who don't wear seatbelts.  I realize that many of us may have never worn seat belts growing up, but in this day in age, it makes NO sense to EVER be in a car without wearing a seatbelt.  How many times have you seen a story on the news where someone was killed in an accident because they were ejected from the car?  Often, there will be someone else who was in the vehicle and WAS wearing a seatbelt and they survive the crash with only minor injuries.  It's something so simple and so easy that can save your life, so I just can't fathom why people would ever skip buckling up.
• The obsession with all things Apple.  Shopping malls may be on life support, but you can bet that the one store that is undoubtedly always busy is the Apple store.  I just don't get it.  I have two phones - a work phone that is an iPhone and a personal phone that is an Android phone, so I have had experience using both.  I just don't see why Apple people are so obsessed with iPhones or iPads.  The battery life on the iPhone is better, but that's about it.  The fact that you can't even download an app without logging into the Apple Store is annoying!  And these people who camp out to be the first person to get the new version of the iPhone?  Really?  What's the difference between those folks and the guy who gets the phone, say, 3 months later.  They both have the same phone, but the second guy got his for $100 less.  If you're an Apple devotee, that's your prerogative and I bear you no ill will.  I just don't get it.
• Pimped out cars.  This is especially true of the people who buy a fairly inexpensive car (think a Chevy Cruze or a Honda Civic) and then spend thousands of dollars to pimp it out with spoilers and shiny hubcabs, a huge stereo (that only makes the car vibrate and rattle when the bass kicks in), mufflers that make the car louder and ground effects.  The latter is the most baffling......why would you care to highlight the ground under your car?  Who are these people trying to impress? 
• The obsession with Disney World. Like most American kids, my parents took me to Disney twice when I was a kid.  I, however, haven't taken my kids there and I'm guessing (hoping?) that they are too old to want to go now.  We haven't gone for a couple of reasons.  First, the kids never really asked to go, so it never really came up.  Second, it's friggin' expensive!  We have family season passes to Six Flags and I have two partial Blues season tickets all for less than it would cost my family of four to go to Disney FOR THREE DAYS!  And that's just the theme park tickets!  That doesn't include lodging, meals, transportation, etc.  I just don't see it.  Spending that much money to wait in line all day - without even any good roller coasters - it just doesn't make sense to me.  And some folks go there year after year.  I could see going once, just to say you did it, but I can't see spending that much money to do the same thing year after year.  I know that many of you swear by Disney and think it's the most magical place on earth.  Good for you and I'll take your word for it.  I'll also choose to instead go to various Six Flags parks (with good roller coasters) numerous times and go to 12 Blues games a year while also saving several hundred dollars.  To each their own, I suppose.
• Earrings on guys.  Why?
• The Kardashians.  Why does anyone care ANYTHING about these people?  They have no talent or, really, any redeemable characteristics.  Yet people watch their shows and buy their products, which just feeds the animal and keeps it going.  I don't get it.
• Soccer.  Hear me out.  I don't have a problem with soccer players, aside from the diving and fake injuries.  Seriously, if you touch some of these guys at all, they go down like they were hit by sniper fire!  But it's not the players who baffle me.  It's some of the rules. Like the clock, for instance.  Why does it count up instead of down?  And why the heck don't they stop it during injuries or after goals rather than adding injury time to the end of each half?  Is it really that hard to stop the clock?  It just makes the end of the game somewhat anticlimactic because no one really knows when the game is going to end.  Also, the scoring.  In 11-on-11 play, nobody ever scores.  In a shootout, everybody scores.  Can't there be some sort of happy medium?  I mean, Seattle won the MLS Cup without even having a single shot on goal through 90 minutes of regulation PLUS injury time PLUS an extra 30 minutes.  That should NEVER happen.  They basically played not to lose and then figured they'd take their chances in the penalty kicks...and it wound up working.  At least move the penalty kicks back a bit to make it tougher on the shooters.  I hope St. Louis gets an MLS team and, if we do, I will support them and go to games, but some of these odd nuances of the sport just don't make sense to me.
• People who rip on baseball as being too boring but who absolutely love football.  Don't get me wrong, I like both sports and enjoy watching and breaking down the strategy of each.  But saying baseball has less action that football?  No way.  Football is 5 seconds of action followed by 40 seconds of everyone standing around, frequently interrupted by commercial breaks.  It's especially bad when you're at a game that is televised.  3 1/2 to 4 hours to play a game - yikes.
• Suburban white kids who listen exclusively to rap and hip hop.  Whatever happened to jamming out to some good old rock-n-roll?  I'm all for diversity in musical tastes (I can go from listening to Metallica to Turnpike Troubadours to Sarah McLachlan in consecutive songs), but I miss the days of the burnout with the mullet and jean jacket driving a Trans Am and rocking out to AC/DC.  (OK, maybe not the part about the mullet....or the jean jacket.....or the Trans Am.)
• Reality shows.  They're not real, okay people?  They're scripted just like other programs.
• People who make knee jerk assumptions about people or stereotype them without ever making an effort to get to know them.  This has gotten much, much worse in recent years, thanks to social media.  Not all young black males are criminals.  Not all wealthy white folks are racists.  Not all Muslims are terrorists.  Not all Southerners are ignorant backwards yokels and not all Northerners are elitist snobs.  Instead of just assuming you know someone because of the color of their skin or where they grew up or where they go to church or who they voted for, take the time to actually get to know that person.  I guarantee you they are more unique than you could ever imagine.

I'm also baffled that you have taken the time to read this list of things that baffle me!  As always, thanks for reading! 

A Look Back at 2016

As The Golden Rules closes out its first year, I suppose it’s time for the obligatory “Look Back At The Year” blog.  As we look back at 2016, I think most of us can agree that it was a….well….kind of…well, it sucked.  From sports to politics to celebrity deaths, 2016 was a bummer.

First of all, consider politics.  Has there ever been a more divisive year?  From HB2 in North Carolina to partisan arguments about filling a vacant Supreme Court seat to Republican debates that resembled pre-UFC/boxing match press conferences more so than actual political debates, America looked less like a “shining city on a hill” and more like a flaming pile of dog poop.  The Democratic primaries and nominations went as expected resulting in Hillary Clinton becoming the first major party female nominee for president.  However, even that was somewhat controversial, as supporters of Bernie Sanders cried foul and the head of the DNC had to step down following the release of emails showing that the party was in cahoots with the Clinton campaign.  The Republican primaries and nominations were hard to distinguish from an argument in a middle school locker room, what with all of the name calling and the discussion of a candidate’s hand size.  Along the way, the country became more and more polarized.  Republicans talked of locking up Hillary Clinton, while Democrats painted Republicans as closed-minded bigots.  Unbelievably, so called evangelical Christians somehow coalesced behind an arrogant, thrice-married, xenophobic misogynist and got him elected.  Everything people thought they knew about American politics was turned on its ear in 2016 and Lord only knows what that means for our country in 2017.

2016 was also a lousy year for sports, unless you’re a long-suffering fan of the Cubs or Cleveland sports.  The highlight for me was the Blues (finally) getting out of the first round of the playoffs and actually advancing to the conference finals for the first time in 15 years.  They knocked off the hated Blackhawks (and I was there for Game 7) and the higher-seeded Dallas Stars before finally falling to the San Jose Sharks.  The star crossed franchise is still searching for its first Stanley Cup, but at least I was able to grow a good playoff beard.  Of course, the Blues celebrated their success by losing their captain to free agency, as well as watching their #1 goaltender and one of their postseason heroes move on to other teams.  The Cardinals missed the playoffs in 2016 for the first time since 2010 and watched their hated rivals finally slay the Curse of the Billy Goat.  After nearly a decade and a half of being the class of the NL Central, the Cardinals are now searching for a way to measure up to, of all teams, the Cubs.  Mizzou basketball continues to be one of the worst Power 5 programs in the country, while Mizzou football turned in a second consecutive losing season, something that hadn’t happened in more than a decade and a half.  My beloved Baylor Bears suffered through a first round upset in the NCAA tournament in basketball, followed by an unmitigated disaster in the football program that resulted in the firing of the football coach, athletic director, and president of the university.  The horrific sexual assault scandal and the way it was handled continues to reverberate through the university and figures to do so for a long time to come.  If there is a light at the end of the tunnel as we move toward 2017, it’s that the football program is poised to start anew with a new coaching staff and they closed out 2016 with a bowl win for the second consecutive year.  Oh yeah, Baylor’s men’s and women’s basketball teams are both ranked in the top 5 as we close out the year.

In world affairs, 2016 gave us horrific attacks in Paris, Orlando, Berlin and Nice.  It gave us Aleppo and Brexit.  It gave us record homicides in places like Chicago and countless killings of police officers from coast-to-coast.  In other words, virtually the entire world received a giant lump of coal in its respective stockings.  We can only hope for things to get better as we turn the calendar to 2017.

You’ve heard of “They Day the Music Died?”  Well, 2016 may very well be remembered as the YEAR the music died.  David Bowie.  Glenn Frey.  Prince. Merle Haggard. George Michael. Leonard Cohen.  A veritable Hall of Fame of musicians all taken from us in one calendar year.  We lose all of that talent, but yet Nickleback still perseveres?  Where is the justice in that?  Perhaps more miraculously, Keith Richards and Ozzy Osbourne have somehow survived the year.  Seriously, 10 years ago, if someone offered you a bet that ‘80s hit makers Michael Jackson, Whitney Houston, Prince, David Bowie and George Michael would all die BEFORE Keith Richards, you would have taken that chance, wouldn’t you?

2016 also robbed us of Princess Leia, Hans Gruber, Tessio, Willy Wonka and Mrs. Brady, not to mention Alan Thicke, Arnold Palmer and Harper Lee.  So many talented people gone, but yet we still have talentless hacks like the Kardashians among us?  2016, you are EVIL.  Good riddance!

 
To all who loyally read this blog, thank you.  You give me an outlet for my rants and sad attempts at humor.  May you have a blessed and wonderful 2017!   

I Remember

·         I remember riding in my parents’ car without a car seat or a seat belt…and I’m sure many of you reading this can relate to that.
·         I remember how beautiful my wife looked on our wedding day and how I felt as I saw her walking down the aisle toward me.
·         I remember how excited we felt when we landed in St. Thomas for our honeymoon – it was like something out of Fantasy Island.
·         I remember shopping for a live Christmas tree every year when I was a kid.  It seemed like we always picked the coldest day of the year to do it and it seemed like we had to go to about half of the tree lots in West St. Louis County before finding the right tree.
·         I remember when MTV actually played videos, back when the surest way to become a big music star was to have a killer video on MTV.
·         I remember when Saturday Night Live was funny.
·         I remember when Bill Murray was funny.
·         I remember when Kenny Rogers still looked like Kenny Rogers.
·         I remember when almost all stores were closed on Sundays.
·         I remember how excited I’d get as a kid when my parents would take me to a Cardinals game.  Seeing the field and the JumboTron, smelling the hot dogs, hearing Ernie Hayes on the organ…it was always so exciting.  I hope my kids experience that same sense of excitement and wonder when I take them to Cardinals and Blues games.
·         I remember going to my first college football game.  It was in 1987 and it was Mizzou playing….of all teams…Baylor.  I knew nothing about Baylor at the time, so it’s funny to think that I’d be going to Baylor almost 5 years to the day later.
·         I remember how excited I’d be when we had a snow day when I was a kid.  I’d wake up on my own (rather than my mom waking me up) and I’d look at the window and be so excited I couldn’t go back to sleep.  I couldn’t wait to go sledding or go play out in the snow.
·         I remember the Blizzard of 1982, when the St. Louis area got inundated with almost two feet of snow.  We’d had a couple of families over for dinner/socializing the night the storm hit and they were all stranded at our house for a couple of days.  We didn’t have school for almost a week.
·         I remember my first real rock concert: Stryper at the Fox Theatre in St. Louis in January 1989.  It was the “In God We Trust” tour and we had backstage passes and got to meet the band after the show.  The highlight of the concert had to be the encore when, during “To Hell With The Devil,” Robert’s Sweet’s drum kit (which was situated above a wall of speakers) began to rotate.  As a 14-year-old kid, that was one of the coolest things I’d ever seen.
·         I remember how I felt when my parents dropped me off at Baylor for my freshman year of college.  Watching them drive away for the first time…it was a mixture of excitement and fear and I’m sure that many of you know exactly what I’m talking about.
·         I remember Looney Tunes on TV on Saturday morning.
·         I remember “Mikey Likes It,” “I’m a Pepper, You’re a Pepper” and the Pepsi Challenge.
·         I remember “Tastes Great, Less Filling,” “Give Me a Light.  No, Bud Light” and Spuds McKenzie.
·         I remember “The Cosby Show,” “Family Ties,” “Growing Pains,” and “Who’s The Boss?”.
·         I remember “The Dukes of Hazzard” on Friday nights.
·         I remember when all of the girls were in love with Duran Duran and it seemed like they each had their favorite band member.  It was the big bangs and leg warmers version of Beatlemania.
·         I remember when all of the girls in St. Louis had a crush on Tommy Herr.
·         I remember Garry Templeton flipping off Cardinals’ fans and literally being dragged off the field by Whitey Herzog.  He was traded for Ozzie Smith a few months later and the Cardinals won the 1982 World Series the following year.
·         I remember when Glenn Brummer stole home against the Giants.  We were listening to the game on KMOX and Mike Shannon called the play.
·         I remember summer evenings, listening Jack Buck and Mike Shannon broadcast the Cards games on KMOX while we played catch or whiffle ball in the back yard with my parents.
·         I remember playing in the basement after dinner while my parents played ping pong.
·         I remember Baylor Homecoming my freshman year.  We beat Georgia Tech in a game that featured a reverse, flea flicker touchdown pass from J.J. Joe to Melvin Bonner.  That was also the same game when BUGWB and The Baylor Line cooperated to steal the helmet of a Georgia Tech player.
·         I remember beating Texas in the season finale my freshman year and rushing the field to tear down the goal posts.
·         I remember beating Texas on Homecoming in 1997 and watching the students tear down the goalposts and carry them all the way from Floyd Casey to the SUB, where people signed them.  My name is on there somewhere.
·         I remember driving around Central Texas at night, singing along to whatever tape was in the cassette player.
·         I remember a bunch of friends crashed on the floor of our apartment, waking up to find Sesame Street on the TV and my hat somehow on someone else’s head.  And, believe it or not, there was absolutely no alcohol involved.
·         I remember Rock-n-Bowl on Saturday nights from midnight to 2 in the morning, followed by trips to Whataburger or IHOP or Taco Cabana (for tortillas and queso, of course).
·         I remember a group of about 12 of us going to the Hootie and the Blowfish concert at Deep Ellum Live in Dallas.  We got back to Waco at about 3:30 in the morning on a Monday morning, after the obligatory late night stop at Whataburger.  I had a test at 9am the next morning.  I didn’t do very well on that test.
·         I remember Roscoe and Nellie.
·         I remember Sweet Pea and Bunnykins.
·         I remember the APO office, decked out in all of its colorful glory during pledging.
·         I remember Red Rules, Yellow is the Color of Jaundice and We Lie, We Cheat, We Steal, We Win
·         I remember finishing up Big Sib Hunt at a rickety old roller rink alongside I-35.
·         I remember standing on top of the Baylor sign on University Parks (next to Hooper-Schaefer) dressed up like a cave man during Big Sib Hunt.
·         I remember service projects at Animal Shelter and LaRue’s Learning Center.
·         I remember initiation at Armstrong-Browning Library, which was named America’s most beautiful library last year.  The toast song always sounded better there.
·         I remember the first time I met my wife, the night I finally got the courage to ask her out and the first time we kissed (which just so happened to be the night my window AC unit blew out the fuse and knocked out my power.)
·         I remember ringing in the year 2000 with a party at our apartment that involved card games and lots of interesting nicknames.
·         I remember everybody freaking out about Y2K, which wound up being much ado about nothing.
·         I remember 9/11 and how surreal it was to watch the towers fall.
·         I remember how excited and scared I was when my son was born – after my wife was in labor for 25 hours.
·         I remember how emotional I was when my daughter was born.  We didn’t know what we were having and when we found out it was a girl, I started bawling.  Happy tears, mind you!
·         I remember when I thought 30 was old and 40 was ancient.  I don’t feel that way anymore.
·         I remember now that I have to go, so I think I’ll stop.  I’m sure I’ll have more I will remember and will do this another time…

Ways that Work is a Lot Like Grade School

30 years ago this year, Robert Fulghum published an essay called "All I Really Needed to Know I Learned in Kindergarten."  There is a lot of truth in that statement and it got me to thinking: it's also very true that adulthood isn't all that different from childhood.  With that in mind, here are some ways that Work is a lot like Grade School:

• You have someone telling you what to do and judging how well you do it.  In school, that "someone" is your teacher and he or she judges you via your grade on your report card.  At work, that "someone" is your boss and he or she judges you via your performance score on your annual performance review.
• There's always someone sucking up.  In school, that person is the "teacher's pet" who is always trying to help the teacher and get in good with him or her.  At work, that person is the one who is always fawning on the boss and trying to schmooze him or her.  In both cases, the others in the class/department are highly annoyed by the suck up and are talking about that person when he or she is not around.
• You spend most of your day every day doing something you really don't enjoy doing.  When you're a kid in school, you don't like most of your subjects.  Maybe you like history, but you hate math and science.  Or maybe you like math, but you hate language arts and music.  Either way, you spend most of your day doing something you don't really enjoy but you tolerate and work at it because you have to.  This same thing is true for most people at work.  There may be portions of your job that you enjoy, but it's probably a fair bet that you spend as much or more time every day doing things you don't really enjoy but that you tolerate and work at because you have to.
• There are bullies and there are people who are bullied.  In school, the bully is the mean kid who steals your milk money and maybe knocks you down during recess.  He or she gets their kicks picking on people who are smaller or weaker than them.  At work, the bully is the jerk employee who uses his or her position to dominate the people lower in the company than him or her and takes advantage of them.
• You spend your day in a room surrounded by other people with no privacy and no protection from germs.  In school, you're in a classroom with a bunch of other kids, all working almost elbow to elbow with little personal space.  When one kid comes to school sick, you can almost see that illness pass from one kid to another as it works its way around the class.  At work, especially with the recent popularity of open work environments, you're in an office with a bunch of co-workers working side-by-side at desks with little personal space.  When one employee gets sick, you can almost see that illness pass from one employee to another as it works its way around the department.
• There's always somebody whining.  In school, it's the kid whining that he didn't receive the grade he deserved or the kid complaining that she didn't get picked for the lead role in the school play.  At work, it's the employee complaining about their last performance review or the promotion they didn't get.  The whiner eventually becomes just as annoying as the aforementioned suck-up.
• Sometimes you will really like the person in charge; other times, you won't.  In school, we all have teachers that we really like and other teachers we couldn't stand.  At work, you'll have some bosses that you really like and other bosses you can't stand. 
• You hate Mondays.  I don't think this one needs any further explanation.
• You have to share the restroom with others - and the toilet paper is like sandpaper.  Seriously, I think the same toilet paper company provides the same cheap, giant industrial rolls of toilet paper at both school and work.  What's a guy gotta do to get some two-ply Charmin?
• There are custodians who come around in the afternoons and evenings to empty the trash and clean up the bathrooms.  And I feel sorry for whoever has to clean up the pee on the floor of the restroom used by the males in the building.
• The place is a ghost town between Christmas and New Year's.  Even though your company may not close down during that week, most people are off and won't be there.

What did I miss?  I'm sure there are other comparisons that would further prove that work is a lot like grade school.  I'd like to hear your thoughts!

Thanks for reading.

Sports Shorts

Here are some of my thoughts on recent developments in the world of sports:

• Baylor football has finally hired its replacement for Art Briles: Matt Rhule, who comes to Waco from Temple, where he's guided the Owls to back-to-back 10 win seasons.  Some may think it's a questionable hire, given Rhule's utter lack of connections to Texas.  While it may not as be as sexy as if BU had hired Tom Herman or Les Miles, I like it.  Rhule has experience creating a winning program and he will certainly have more resources and access to football talent in the Big 12 at Baylor compared to what he had in the American at Temple.  Obviously, time will tell, but given the mess at Baylor, Rhule seems like a good fit: a disciplinarian who is young and charismatic.  Sic 'em, Coach Rhule!
• I think it will be interesting to see what happens to Art Briles this winter.  He's made no secret of his desire to coach again (and soon), but you really haven't heard his name mentioned for any openings.  In fact, Houston issued a press release to specifically state that they WEREN'T going to interview Briles, something I'm not sure has ever happened before.  I realize that there are opposing viewpoints on Briles amongst the Baylor faithful.  While I think the Board of Regents and Baylor in general deserve some blame, I absolutely believe that Briles should have been held responsible for the things that happened on his watch.  He took on some players who had questionable pasts at other schools and it wound up blowing up on him.  Even Briles admits that he set up a system where he was the last to know things, which tells you a lot.  What will tell us even more is if he doesn't get any job offers this winter.  Somebody with his on field results should have his phone ringing off the hook.  If nobody calls him, it will speak volumes what folks outside of the Baylor Bubble think of him.
• The College Football Playoff needs to be expanded to 8 teams: the five Power 5 conference champs and then the next 3 best teams.  If they can make a real playoff work in FCS, Division II and Division III, there's no reason they can't do it in FBS.  The fact that there's not room in the playoff for the champions of what was unquestionably the best conference in the country this year (the Big 10) is ridiculous.  If they aren't going to expand it from 4 to 8 teams, then at least stop insulting our intelligence by telling us that conference championships and head-to-head results matter.  You've already proven that isn't true, so just drop the charade.
• I admit to taking a lot of enjoyment over the debacle that is the Los Angeles Rams this season.  LA fans, who gleefully made fun of the supposed lackluster support of St. Louis fans, are quickly seeing for themselves what a mess they have inherited.  The Rams are already playing in front of empty seats and the best TV ratings they've had in LA this season are still worse than the worst TV ratings they had in St. Louis last season.  Even more ridiculous is the fact that they gave a contract extension to Jeff Fisher, who is poised to become the losingest (is that even a word?) coach in NFL history.  This is a guy who hasn't coached a team to a winning record since George W. Bush was president!  And somehow he not only doesn't get fired - he gets an extension!  That sums up the incompetence of sports ownership embodied by Stan Kroenke.  13 consecutive non-winning seasons and counting!
• Speaking of Stan Kroenke, is there a worse owner in professional sports?  The Rams stink (again).  The Avalanche are terrible (again) and their attendance stinks.  The Nuggets are perennial losers who are in the bottom handful of the NBA in attendance.  The fans of Arsenal do anti-Kroenke chants during games.  I guess when the deck isn't stacked in his favor (like it is in business, thanks to marrying a Walmart heiress), he isn't such a good businessman after all.
• Cleveland won a championship in the NBA this year.  The Cubs won a World Series this year.  Surely that means that a Stanley Cup is in the cards for the Blues soon, right?  Right?  It has to happen eventually, doesn't it?
• I used to view Scott Drew as a great recruiter but a mediocre coach.  But given what Baylor has accomplished on the hardwood since he implemented the two-three zone several years ago, I think he's proving to be a really good coach as well.
• Thank goodness BU has a good basketball team because Mizzou and SLU are awful.  They should schedule each other so that at least one of them can get a win!

That's all for now.  Thanks for reading!

Post Election Thoughts

Well.....it's over.  The seemingly endless 2016 election is over.  Without a doubt, this was the longest, ugliest, most expensive election ever.  Some of you are ecstatic with the result.  Others of you are despondent.  Still others, like me, fall somewhere in between.  Regardless of your political leanings, it's time to look back on this election and try to determine what we've learned.  I'll do my best to try to do this recap without offending anyone...

2016 was "The Year of the Political Outsider": It's a thing that first arose during the primaries.  The two candidates who were perceived as the political outsiders gained the most buzz.  On the Republican side, it was businessman/reality star/loose cannon Donald Trump who drew huge crowds to his rallies and who gained a large, devoted following by speaking his mind and appealing to those frustrated with business as usual in Washington.  On the Democratic side, it was former independent, self-proclaimed socialist Bernie Sanders who drew a large following (especially of millennials) with his anti-establishment, big government viewpoints.  While the latter was not able to gain his party's nomination (partly due to unfair tactics by his own party), Trump did.  In a year in which so much press and excitement was generated by these non-traditional candidates, I suppose it shouldn't be a surprise that Trump emerged victorious, especially since he was running against a candidate who was the very definition of a political insider.  The political outsider theme also played out in the Missouri gubernatorial race, where Navy SEAL/Rhodes Scholar/never held public office Republican Eric Greitens tapped into the anti-establishment momentum to win over a well established Democrat.  2016 was the year in which "career politician" became a popular insult thrown in the direction of entrenched members of both parties.

Except That It Wasn't Always:  Interestingly, in a year where political outsiders received so much press, virtually every incumbent Senator was re-elected.  People constantly complain about how much they dislike Congress and yet all but two of the incumbent Senators (Mark Kirk in Illinois and Kelly Ayotte in New Hampshire) won their re-election battles.  So, we hate Congress but yet we re-elected almost all of the people we say we hate.  This baffles me.  I personally advocated the "vote the bums out" approach and voted in that manner, but it appears that most people are hypocrites on this point.  This is another reason why I advocate for term limits, because it may be the only way to create any churn amongst our elected officials.

It's Really Hard to Three-Peat: Very seldom in sports does a team manage to win three championships in a row.  The same is true in politics: it's very difficult for a political party - either Republican or Democrat - to win the White House three elections in a row.  In fact, since 1950, it's only happened once- when the Republicans won three straight presidential elections in 1980 (Reagan), 1984 (Reagan) and 1988 (George H.W. Bush).  Other than that one instance, no party has been able to hold onto the White House for more than 8 years since the FDR/Truman dynasty of the 1930s and 1940s.  Not even in 2000, when the Democrats had the economy in great shape as Bill Clinton was finishing up his second term, did the incumbent party keep the White House for a third straight time.  With that in mind, perhaps we shouldn't have been surprised that history repeated itself and the Democrats were denied a three peat.

Perhaps Trump is Smarter Than We Give Him Credit For?: One of my earlier blog posts relayed my opinions about Donald Trump, so I won't rehash them here.  (To read more, see my earlier blog post "The Inevitability of Donald Trump" from March.)  However, I think we may have to acknowledge that Trump got the last laugh and that maybe he outsmarted everyone.  He ran his campaign his way.  He broke all the rules and did all of the things you'd advise a candidate NOT to do and he still won.  He said incendiary things and poked his own party leaders in the eye and still won.  When pollsters and the doubters and the naysayers and even his own party said that he could never win this election, Trump smugly said that he could and would.  And he did.  He saw the energy and size of the crowds at his political rallies and told everyone who doubted him that they were wrong.  As unlikely as that seemed, he was right.

The GOP Gambled Big...and Won: In retrospect, the GOP's decision to stall on filling the Antonin Scalia vacancy on the Supreme Court worked.  I was critical of it in an earlier post and still think it was an abdication of their duties, but it worked out for them.  If Clinton had won, I'm guessing the lame duck Congress would have held hearings on Merrick Garland and confirmed him because they would have perceived him as being more moderate than whatever candidate Clinton would put forth.  Of course, they risked Obama rescinding Garland's nomination and replacing him with someone less moderate.  But, they rolled the dice that they could win back the White House and fill Scalia's spot with a conservative and they won big.

There are a Lot of Angry Americans - and That's Unlikely to Change: If there's been a theme to the last several years in the country, it's been anger.  From the Tea Party to Occupy Wall Street to Black Lives Matter to the pissed off working class voters who embraced Trump's campaign, there are a lot of angry people in this country.  Unfortunately, I don't see that changing soon. Instead, we'll just have a new group of angry people.  Where the right was upset with nearly everything Obama did for the past 8 years, I suspect the left will be upset with nearly everything Trump will do the next 4 years.

Time will tell whether or not the results of this election will be a good thing or a bad thing for the country.  I'm sure everyone has their opinion now, but we also can't predict the future.  For those of you who are happy with the outcome of the election, I ask that you be magnanimous toward those who are upset.  For those of you who are upset, I ask that you not lash out at those who are happy.  At the end of the day, we are all Americans and we are all human beings trying to make our way in this crazy world.  No election result changes that.

Thanks for reading.