Today in 1964, the Beatles appeared on CBS-TV’s Ed Sullivan Shew, for the first time since last week.
The number one British single today in 1967 was written by Charlie Chaplin:
Today in 1974, members of Emerson, Lake and Palmer were arrested for swimming naked in a Salt Lake City hotel pool. They were fined $75 each.
Ian Tuttle finds another similarity between Comrade Sanders and The Donald, winners of Tuesday’s New Hampshire primaries:
“Money, it’s a crime,” said Pink Floyd. Or was that Bernie Sanders?
It might as well have been. “When the top one-tenth of 1 percent now owns almost as much wealth as the bottom 90 percent, that’s not fair,” Sanders told an energized crowd during his New Hampshire primary victory speech Tuesday. “The top three drug companies in this country made $45 billion in profit last year. That is an obscenity. . . . We must tell the billionaire class and the One Percent that they cannot have it all at a time of massive wealth and income inequality.” Despite the noises about incarceration rates and climate change, the theme of Bernie Sanders’s campaign was clear: Moloch! Moloch!
Despite the noises about incarceration rates and climate change, the theme of Bernie Sanders’s campaign was clear: Moloch! Moloch! Nightmare of Moloch! And it’s working. Not only did the Vermont senator win Tuesday’s New Hampshire primary by 22 points; according to exit polling, he won men and women, moderates and liberals, those with college degrees and those without, those who own guns and those who don’t, and previous primary participants and first-timers. The only voters who preferred Hillary Clinton were those older than 65 and those from families making more than $200,000 per year.
In other words, envy sells. And make no mistake, that is what Sanders is selling. After all, socialism is inevitably a politics of envy: Wealth is by definition finite, so more in your pocket means less in mine — and if I have less than I want, it must be your fault. Because Sanders has no room in his cramped understanding of the world for the complex interplay of free economic actors, he must default to simplistic moral explanations — Greed!: of Wall Street bankers, pharmaceutical companies, and America’s 536 billionaires — and simplistic solutions: to wit, frog-marching Goldman Sachs executives down Fifth Avenue and divvying up their stuff. They’ll have less, so you’ll have more.
And everyone wants more.
Coincidentally, Donald Trump — who, like Sanders, crushed his nearest rival by 20 points — is exploiting the same itch. “We are going to make America great again,” he said in his own victory speech Tuesday night, “but we’re going to do it the old-fashioned way. We’re going to beat China, Japan. We’re going to beat Mexico at trade. We’re going to beat all of these countries that are taking so much of our money away from us on a daily basis.” And, later: “We are now going to make [deals] for your benefit. We’re going to make the deals for the American people.”
Unlike Sanders, Trump has no determinate position on any matter of public policy, but that’s of little importance. He is not pitching a movement; he is pitching himself. His promise is not any particular slate of policies; it’s Donald Trump writ large. An America with Trump at the helm is one in which America “wins,” like Trump wins; makes good deals, like Trump makes good deals. In Donald Trump’s America, everybody gets to live a little like Donald Trump. This is at least partly why Trump’s supporters are so vicious toward his detractors: The latter threaten their chances to live bigger.
It’s envy, en masse, on both sides. Somebody else has it (cheaper tuition, cheaper health care, business-class tickets, a Mercedes, &c.), and I want it. Under Sanders, top-hatted Uncle Pennybags will do the perp walk; under Trump, we’ll put the screws to Beijing and Uncle Pennybags himself will cut me in on the deal; but in either case, I get what should’ve been mine all along. And all for the low, low price of a vote.
Those who believe that politics is little more than personal psychodrama played out on a grand stage might be closer than usual to the truth this election cycle. Neither Trump nor Sanders, despite their claims, is ushering in a revolution. They are ushering in a politics more petty, vulgar, and low — more animated by voters’ base inclinations — than any in recent memory. If New Hampshire is any indication, voters are not about anything so high-minded as constitutional government or national security or racial justice or even “hope and change.” They’re about me getting mine, by hook or by crook.
Free college, free health care, and winning. This election is the Gollum-cry of the masses: WE WANTS IT.
Last Friday a crane collapsed in lower Manhattan, killing a man named David Wichs. The next day the papers told the story of his life: a Jewish immigrant from Czechoslovakia; a math whiz with a degree from Harvard; a thoughtful neighbor and husband; “the nicest, most trustworthy person that I have known,” according to his boss, Mark Gorton, of Tower Research Capital. Mr. Wichs was just 38 when he died.
I never met Mr. Wichs, but reading about him reminded me of so many people I know in his industry—prodigiously bright and slyly funny, reasonably wealthy but rarely ostentatious, family men of the type who show up at school auctions and United Jewish Appeal dinners. Maybe they voted for Barack Obama the first time, probably not the second. They’re the people who, even now, make American finance the envy of the world.
They’re the most demonized people in America.
That’s the import of Bernie Sanders’s remark, in his debate last week withHillary Clinton, that “the business model of Wall Street is fraud.” The senator from Vermont went on to say that “corruption is rampant” in the financial sector, his evidence being that “major bank after major bank has reached multibillion settlements” with the feds.
This wasn’t the first time Mr. Sanders has accused Wall Street of fraud, and it surely won’t be the last. No political or social penalties attach, in today’s America, to the wholesale indictment of this entire industry and the people who work in it. Had another presidential candidate made a similarly damning remark about some other profession—public-school teachers, say, or oil-rig workers—there would have been the usual outcry about false stereotypes, the decline of civility and so on. When Bernie says it about Wall Street there’s a collective shrug, if not nodding agreement.
Some six million people work in financial services in America, according to Commerce Department figures. Take only the securities and investment end of the business, and you’re still talking about 900,000 people, a population that considerably exceeds Vermont’s 626,000. Is Mr. Sanders suggesting that some large proportion of those 900,000 is in on the fraud; that every man among them is a Madoff—including David Wichs? And if they are the criminals he alleges, does he mean to put a few thousand of them behind bars?
Those are questions that ought to be put to Mr. Sanders, and ones his supporters might also want to ask themselves. The strength of the Sanders candidacy is said to lie in the purity of his idealism, especially in contrast to the morally flexible and ideologically ambidextrous candidacy of Mrs. Clinton.
But the reason Mr. Sanders is drawing his big crowds is neither his fanatical sincerity nor his avuncular charm. It’s that he’s preaching class hatred to people besotted by the politics of envy. Barack Obama, running for president eight years ago, famously suggested to Samuel “Joe the Plumber” Wurzelbacher that “when you spread the wealth around it’s good for everybody.”
Mr. Sanders dispenses with the niceties. “I do not have millionaire or billionaire friends,” he boasts, as if there’s an income ceiling on virtue. That’s telling the 10,100,000 American households with a net worth of at least $1 million (excluding the value of their homes) to buzz off.
It is also telling any intellectually sentient voter that the drift of the modern Democratic Party runs in the same illiberal direction as the Trumpian right, only with a different set of targets. Mr. Sanders thinks Wall Street’s guilt is proved by its capitulation to the demands of a government that could barely prove a single case of banker fraud in court.
Another interpretation is that a government with almost unlimited powers to break, sue, micromanage or otherwise ruin an unpopular institution is not a government banks are eager to fight. The problem with capitalism isn’t that it concentrates excessive economic power in the hands of the few. It’s that it gives political power ever-tastier treats on which to feast. Covering for that weakness is the reason Wall Street plows money into the pockets of pliable Democrats like Chuck Schumer, Cory Booker—and Mrs. Clinton.
That’s something Mr. Sanders will never understand, being the sort of man whose notion of wisdom is to hold fast to the angry convictions of his adolescence. That may be why he connects with so many younger voters. But it’s also why his moral judgments are so sweeping and juvenile. Wall Street remains one of America’s crowning glories. To insinuate that the people who make it work are swindlers is no less a slur than to tag immigrants as criminals and moochers.
My colleague Holman Jenkins once cracked that some plausible ideas vanish in the presence of thought. I would add that some widespread beliefs vanish in the presence of decency. That goes as much for Bernie Sanders’s economic prejudices as it does for Donald Trump’s ethnic ones, a thought that ought to trouble the placid consciences of this column’s more liberal readers.
Someone should tell Comrade Sanders that according to God and Moses, theft and envy are prohibited.
Today in 1961, singer Jackie Wilson got a visit from a female fan who demanded to see him, enforcing said demand with a gun. Wilson was shot when he tried to disarm the fan.
The number one album today in 1964 encouraged record-buyers to “Meet the Beatles!”
On Valentine’s Day, this song, tied to no anniversary or birthday I’m aware of, nonetheless seems appropriate:
The number one British single today in 1968 was written by Bob Dylan:
The number one British album today in 1970 was “Motown Chartbusters Volume 3”:
UWBadgers.com promotes the season-opening Badger football game at Lambeau Field in Green Bay against LSU:
The 2016 college football season opener pitting Wisconsin vs. LSU could be played anywhere on the planet and it would be a marquee event.
Powerhouse schools from the Big Ten and Southeastern conferences rarely make time for one another outside of bowl games, so when they do the national spotlight is going to be intense regardless of where the meeting takes place.
This is one of those moments when the venue makes the contest ultra-special.
UW will play the Tigers in Green Bay on Sept. 3 in the Lambeau Field College Classic, marking the first time a major college game will be played at the legendary 59-year-old NFL shrine.
“Tradition-rich Lambeau,” Wisconsin Director of Athletics Barry Alvarez said. “You mention that name and people’s eyes light up.”
Though it will be played in the state and 150 miles from Madison, it is classified as a neutral-site game. The format is similar to 2014 when UW opened the season playing the Tigers at NRG Stadium in Houston.
A sellout crowd of 71,599 saw LSU rally for a 28-24 victory over the Badgers two years ago, but it’s expected that tickets to the rematch will be much harder to come by at 80,735-seat Lambeau Field.
According to a dispersal plan drawn up by Packers officials, Wisconsin will get 40,000 tickets, LSU 20,000 and the NFL club will control the rest, which consists mostly of premium seating (suite and club seat). Ticket prices range from $91 to $118. Student tickets will cost $48. …
This marks the third straight season the Badgers will open with a neutral-site game against an opponent from the SEC. In addition to the loss to LSU in ’14, they dropped a 35-17 decision to eventual national champion Alabama at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas, last September.
All three games were negotiated separately, according to Alvarez, who added there are multiple benefits to playing them at neutral sites.
“I think it sends a message that we want to schedule stronger,” he said. “Our league has made a commitment that we’re going to improve our non-conference games.
“I think it’s healthy. I think it’s good for our players and staff to really focus in the offseason. I think that it’s fun for our fans — especially this one because you’re playing in-state.”
Alvarez said there have been preliminary talks with the Packers about playing future neutral-site games at Lambeau Field. UW currently has an opening for its 2018 season opener.
“It’s easier to get a neutral-site game,” Alvarez said. “Some schools don’t want to play a home-and-home. They’d rather do a one-year deal than home-and-home.”
Alvarez said multiple Power Five schools have expressed an interest in having a home-and-home series with the Badgers and he’ll continue to pursue such an arrangement.
Neutral-site opportunities provide flexibility at a time when the Big Ten is moving from an eight-game schedule to a nine-outing format. UW bases its annual budget on staging seven home games at Camp Randall Stadium, but there will be years when there will only be four league games at home instead of five, and that revenue void needs to be filled.
Demand for Wisconsin-LSU tickets figures to rival the moment in 2011 when Nebraska made its highly-anticipated Big Ten debut at Camp Randall.
Fans of the Cornhuskers began arriving in Madison four days before the game. There were so many of them that they rented out Union South for a viewing party and UW officials obliged the throng by setting up a theater area outside the stadium for those who couldn’t get tickets.
If there’s similar interest from LSU fans, accommodations could possibly be made at the Resch Center across the street from Lambeau. That decision would involve Green Bay president Mark Murphy and his staff.
“We’ll have to see how tickets go and what the demand is,” Alvarez said. “If it makes sense, that’s something we’d look into.
“The Packers have been great. Murph and his whole crew have been easy to work with. They’ve always been very cooperative with us and I look forward to working with them.”
The Badgers have played football games elsewhere in the state going back to 1889 — Beloit, Marinette and Milwaukee — but never in Green Bay.
The Wisconsin men’s hockey team played an outdoor game at Lambeau Field in 2006, but that’s it.
There is, however, a potential major problem with the opponent. The New Orleans Times-Picayune and States-Item reports:
Gov. John Bel Edwards laid out an absolute worst case scenario Thursday night (Feb. 11) for Louisiana if state lawmakers refuse to go along with the package of tax increases he has proposed.
In a rare statewide televised address, Edwards told viewers that the state would be forced to take extreme action — such as throwing people with off of kidney dialysis and shutting down hospice services — if new taxes didn’t go into place over the next few months.
“The health care services that are in jeopardy literally mean the difference between life and death,” Edwards said during a live address carried on several television stations.
The governor didn’t stop at health care services, but also detailed catastrophic cuts to higher education. He said new revenue was needed to prevent universities from running out of money before the semester ends. LSU, the state’s wealthiest higher education institution, would only be able to pay its bills through April 30, unless some tax increases went into place.
The governor went so far as to say that LSU football was also in jeopardy, due to a threatened suspension of spring classes that would put college athletes’ eligibility in danger next year. He said the state would no longer be able to afford one of its most popular programs with middle class residents — the TOPS college scholarship — without tax hikes.
“Student athletes across the state would be ineligible to play next semester,” Edwards said. “I don’t say this to scare you. But I am going to be honest with you.”
The governor’s staff announced Thursday that the state’s current year budget deficit has reached $940 million — a price tag larger than the annual spending on LSU’s Baton Rouge campus and all of New Orleans public higher education institutions combined. The state must find a way to close the gaping budget gap by June 30, when it shuts the books on the fiscal year.
Once it resolves that budget crisis, Louisiana will be facing an immediate $2 billion shortfall in the next fiscal cycle, which starts July 1. Edwards is proposing cuts — but also large tax hikes — to deal with the financial crises both this year and next year.
Note that Edwards mentions LSU classes, not LSU football spending. An SI.com comment claims …
LSU football grosses about $74.3 million, with about $25.8 million in expenses, netting about $48.5 million profit. He’s using scare tactics to push his tax increase.
Well, of course Edwards is using scare tactics to push his tax increase. Louisiana is to the South what Illinois is to the Midwest in terms of corruption and bad government.
However, LSU football is bigger in Louisiana than any UW sport is in Wisconsin, and that’s in a state that has more than one Division I football team. If Edwards’ threat is carried out, Edwards runs the risk of duplicating the fate of Huey Long.
The number one single, believe it or don’t, today in 1961:
In an unrelated development that day, Frank Sinatra began Reprise Records, which included artists beside Sinatra:
Proving that politics makes strange bedfellows, former superintendent of public instruction Herbert Grover writes something nice about a proposal by a Republican, Rep. John Nygren (R–Marinette):
No elected official has any authority over the decisions of the Wisconsin Interscholastic Athletic Association in spite of the fact that the organization dictates a substantial portion of the program offered by our public schools. The Department of Public Instruction has a nonvoting liaison to the WIAA board.
WIAA has absolute control of sports activities in our public elementary and secondary educational institutions. The — impossible — alternative of a local school board would be to drop sports activities if they disagreed with the WIAA.
The WIAA budget comes from membership fees and money generated by tournament activity performed in public facilities plus some advertising revenue captured largely during the tournaments. There is no elected public oversight of the money raised or how it is spent. …
For all practical purposes WIAA is a private organization that dictates activities of public schools. WIAA should be required to submit to the Wisconsin open meeting law. The public is entitled to know the salaries and fringe benefits of all WIAA employees. The public should know if all the board members, including WIAA employees, are members of the state retirement system, and if not what other retirement program is provided. …
The public should know how many meetings are held, where they are held and what expenses are picked up for board members by the WIAA, including entertainment expenses. The public should know what types of agreements WIAA board members have with local school boards when absent from the school district for WIAA activities. …
I find Rep. John Nygren’s voting record on children, public education, taxes, the environment and whole list of issues repugnant.
But! On this issue he is correct. It’s our money, our schools, and our open government.
Grover, by the way, is a former state Assemblyman. A Democrat, of course.
I would be curious about how Grover feels about my modest proposal to eliminate the WIAA and have his former department regulate high school athletics, since athletics is part of education.
WisSports.net’s Travis Wilson writes about the onset of February Fever and March Madness:
“Rage against the dying of the light.”
That line from Welsh poet Dylan Thomas has stuck with me for many years, and I’ve found it applicable for numerous situations. To me, it exemplifies fighting with all you have against a looming end. And, it is my best advice to the thousands of basketball players who will embark upon the final legs of their high school careers in the coming weeks.
For many teams, their fates were decided long ago, through offseason work (or lack thereof), dedication to the program, genetics and even what town a family chose to move to. There is little hope for a team sitting at 4-18 to advance more than perhaps one game in the playoffs. While a team near .500 may get to sectionals occasionally, the vast majority will not come close.
But, for many other boys and girls hoops squads, their postseason success is not only still in the balance, but in their hands to a large extent. One of my favorite quotes during my time coaching was, “The difference between winning and losing is often just a little extra effort.” Focusing just a little more during practice, pushing through when you feel a bit winded, hustling just a bit harder to get back on defense on even one trip down the court. It all adds up and can make the difference.
Because let me tell you one thing: if you truly are a competitor, once it is over, you will spend the rest of your life trying to replicate it.
Perhaps you’ll be one of the 3.4 percent of high school participants that go on to play in Division I, II or III (along with a few more that play NAIA or JUCO), which will fill that gap considerably.
Perhaps you’ll look to stay involved in the game by officiating, or coaching or pushing your children to participate. Maybe you’ll become a lowly prep sports reporter.
(Or announcer, though it’s hard to replicate a career that consisted of zero games.)
Perhaps you’ll try to recapture that feeling, however fleeting, by playing intramurals, rec league, men’s league or pick-up ball. But none can truly replicate the high-school basketball experience. Running out for warmups to a rocking pep band and raucous big-game environment, the bus rides, the summer tournaments, the anticipation, the team meals, the coaches … the friendships.
Being a part of a team with someone, especially a small-roster sport like basketball, creates a bond that can be found few other places in life. There’s a good chance you’ve grown up playing with these people for years, maybe since third or fourth grade. You might not even like all of them, but that bond of brotherhood/sisterhood is still there.
Sadly, there are those that have likely checked out already, who are looking forward to the end. I honestly feel sorry for the ones who feel that way. Then again, even the toughest competitors are only high schoolers, and the power of the moment can be difficult to grasp. It often takes the finality of it being over to truly grasp how much something meant, and how rare it is to feel that way.
High-school sports are not and should not be the pinnacle of your life, but they are something unique that you cannot replicate.
So as you lace ’em up in the coming weeks, do all that you can to delay the unfortunate truth: your high school basketball career will end.
“Do not go gentle into that good night.”
The number one R&B single today in 1961 was Motown Records’ first million-selling single:
The number one single today in 1972:
Birthdays begin with that well known recording star Lorne Greene:
Steve Prestegard.com: The Presteblog 