Today in 1959, Bertolt Brecht‘s “Threepenny Opera” reached the U.S. charts in a way Brecht could not have fathomed:
T0day in 1968, Apple Records released its first single by — surprise! — the Beatles:
Today in 1969, this spent three weeks on top of the British charts, on top of six weeks on top of the U.S. charts, making them perhaps the ultimate one-number-one-hit-wonder:
Packer fans merely need to look at the historic quarterback carousel farther south on Interstate 94 — or, for that matter, last season when Aaron Rodgers was out due to his collarbone — to realize how lucky the Packers have been to have stability under center for most of five decades.
Just in case you need reinforcement, Lombardi Avenue provides it:
Nearly every year from 1957 stretching all the way into 1970, Bart Starr was Green Bay Packers football. The man coined one of the most “infamous” plays in football history with his quarterback sneak for a touchdown in the Ice Bowl. Not to mention bringing multiple championships to the Vince Lombardi era. Starr also led the Packers to wins Super Bowls I and II.
Exit Starr, and the Packers didn’t see much success over the next decade-plus, but lo-and-behold another rock at quarterback developed. Lynn Dickey was a familiar face from 1976 through 1985. Dickey had the Packers’ record for yards in a season (4,458) up until Aaron Rodgers broke it in 2011. During that 1983 season, Dickey also threw for 32 touchdowns which was tops in the NFL. …
Kiln, Miss., native Brett Favre came over in one of Ron Wolf’s greatest instinctive trades of all-time. Falcons coach Jerry Glanville once described the young gunslinger as a train wreck. Favre would go on to rewrite both the Green Bay Packers and the NFL record books.
Favre brought the Lombardi Trophy back to Titletown with a Super Bowl XXXI victory over the New England Patriots.
Though this would be his only championship, his story was far from finished.
The “Gunslinger” would go on to be the all-time NFL record-holder for touchdowns, yards, completions, starts, wins and the one that kept us up at night, interceptions. Brett Favre was the definition of an Iron Man. When Sunday rolled around there was no doubt that #4 would be under center. The man gave his everything to the fan base, and one would hope come 2015 when he gets his place in Packers history, that will be remembered. …
How do you replace Brett Favre? You bring in perhaps the most accurate passer we have seen in history.
Insert Aaron Rodgers who took over play-calling duties in 2008 and still carries it into the 2014 season.
Rodgers took the 2010 Green Bay Packers back to the glory land and brought the Lombardi back home.
Along the way, Rodgers has become one of the most accurate, pin-point passers of all-time. Not only does Rodgers have the highest QB rating of all-time at 104.9 but it is the only current rating over 100.
Starr, who was sort of Joe Montana before Joe Montana was playing football, wins the best-Packer-quarterback title because of their five NFL championships and two Super Bowls under center. The first two titles (and their first Glory Days playoff appearance in 1960) were the Run to Daylight teams of Jim Taylor and Paul Hornung, People forget, though, that Taylor and Hornung were on their way out by the time the Super Bowl era started. The two Super Bowls were accomplished largely on Starr’s underrated arm and play-calling ability, given that the replacements for Hornung (Donny Anderson) and Taylor (Jim Grabowski) were inexperienced and, as it turns out, overrated.
Starr didn’t throw 40 passes a game, but the passes he did throw were thrown to the correct-color jersey. Starr didn’t have Favre’s arm, but the ball got where it was supposed to go. (Starr’s career interception percentage was 4.4 percent. Starr was the number one rated passer in the NFL and the American Football League in 1962, 1964 and 1966, and he was never ranked worse than eighth.)
People also forget that Starr, as nearly all quarterbacks did in those days, called all the plays. That includes his Ice Bowl quarterback sneak, which was actually designed as a fullback run. Starr suggested to Lombardi that, because of the treacherous south-end-zone footing, that he run it in himself (not bothering to tell his teammates, by the way). Given that they had failed on the first two first-and-goal plays and were out of time outs, that was going to be the final play one way or another. And Starr’s suggestion brought the last Glory Days title to the Frozen Tundra.
(This does make you wonder why Starr was not a more successful coach, given that he could clearly call successful plays. There are therefore two reasons: (1) It’s all about talent in the NFL, even in the 1970s, and (2) you cannot be the general manager and the coach and expect to succeed. Starr could have been a good coach or general manager [probably the former rather than the latter], but not both.)
Favre’s and Rodgers’ careers speak for themselves. (Lombardi Avenue could have mentioned that Favre holds a record that will never be approached, for almost-interceptions. Every game would have at least one instance where Favre would force a pass and it would hit a defender in the hands or between the numbers, and, well, the defensive player demonstrated why he played on defense.) Dickey, whose acquisition from Houston was required by general manager/coach Dan Devine’s disastrous John Hadl “Lawrence Welk” trade (five players to get Hadl, two to get rid of him), was under center for two 8–8 seasons and the Packers’ last playoff season before Ron Wolf, Mike Holmgren and Favre arrived, 1982. It took several seasons (including one lost to a broken leg) to get to that point, but by the early ’80s the Packers had a quality offense, which they needed because of their porous defense. Their offense was also less than awesome in part because Dickey was about as mobile as the Curly Lambeau statue now in front of Lambeau Field, and the offensive line didn’t always give him the time he needed to throw.
The success of Starr, Dickey, Favre and Rodgers makes the interregnums between them stand out. The Packers’ attempted replacements for Starr included:
Dickey was Starr’s last quarterback and Forrest Gregg’s first Packer quarterback. And then after two 8–8 seasons, Gregg cut Dickey, replacing him with .. Randy Wright, who was a good quarterback at Wisconsin, but who, like everyone on the previous list, was really not capable of being an NFL quarterback. (How do we know this? After the Packers cut Wright following the 1988 season, no one else picked him up, the fate of Hunter, Tagge and Whitehurst. The others were picked up by similarly horribly bad teams, demonstrating that the number one reason bad teams are bad is deficiencies in talent, and by extension the ability, or lack thereof, to evaluate talent.) Gregg could perhaps blame his predecessor, who used his 1981 number one draft pick to get Cal quarterback Rich Campbell, but then again maybe Gregg could have avoided trading his 1986 number one pick to San Diego to get defensive back-turned-sexual-offender Mossy Cade.
Meanwhile, Sports Illustrated’s Monday Morning Quarterback interviews an opposing quarterback hard to root against, New Orleans’ Drew Brees:
On the greatest joy he gets from his job…
There are so many teaching elements; things that I can learn every day from this game that apply to other aspects of life—that apply to fatherhood, that apply to business, that apply to relationships. There are certain things about football that you can’t replace. You can’t replace the locker room. Every former teammate or player who I’ve ever talked to, it’s like, ‘What do you miss the most?’ They’re like, ‘I miss the locker room. I miss the guys.’ That brotherhood. That camaraderie. The atmosphere. Guys digging at one and other. Guys cracking jokes. That blood, sweat, and tears element. You’re out on the field fighting for one another. You build up this trust and confidence. This feeling that I’ve got to do it because I don’t want to let the guy next to me down. At the end of the day, that allows you to accomplish things greater than maybe you ever thought because you feel so invested. I love football. Football can only be played one way—with a certain level of intensity and focus and emotion. So I try to bring that out every time we play. …
On his legacy…
What I want people to say about me is that I was a great football player. That I cared about my teammates. I want people to say, ‘Man, I would have loved to play with that guy.’
Jim Irwin announced Packer games for so long that a lot of Packer fans have no idea who his predecessor was, let alone his predecessor’s predecessor.
For that matter, Ray Scott was so synonymous with the Packers in the ’60s that a lot of Packer fans may think that Scott preceded Irwin.
Scott worked for CBS-TV, and Irwin worked for the Packer radio network, originated on WTMJ radio in Milwaukee since 1929. Before Irwin, who was preceded by Gary Bender, the Packer radio chronicler was Ted Moore, who died last week, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports:
Moore, blessed with a radio-friendly baritone, was a constant presence on the airwaves in his prime, calling games for the Packers, football and basketball games for the University of Wisconsin, and one year calling Marquette University basketball. He broadcast UW basketball for 22 years.
Moore spent 48 years in the radio and television broadcasting business. But he was best known for his work with the Packers. At the Ice Bowl, with the Packers trailing the Dallas Cowboys, 17-14, in the NFL Championship Game, Moore peered through a small unfrozen section of the press box window and called quarterback Bart Starr’s sneak into the end zone.
“The Green Bay Packers are going to be world champions, NFL champions for the third straight year,” Moore yelled.
A native of Bristow, Okla., Moore graduated from UW and worked for a number of stations in Madison, Marshfield, Neenah, Menasha, Green Bay and finally, in 1958, at WTMJ radio and television.
In 1960, he began doing Packers broadcasts and had the good fortune of working for the team that dominated the ’60s under legendary coach Vince Lombardi. Moore was on hand for five NFL championships and two Super Bowls.
In 1962, according to a biography prepared by the Wisconsin Broadcasters Association, Moore was NBC’s play-by-play voice for the Green Bay Packers-New York Giants NFL Championship Game.
After 10 seasons with the Packers, Moore spent the 1970-’71 season calling games for the Baltimore Colts. That happened to be the season the Colts defeated the Cowboys in Super Bowl V on Jan. 17, 1971, earning Moore a Super Bowl ring—Moore also worked for WEMP and WOKY in Milwaukee. He was later inducted into the Wisconsin Broadcasters Hall of Fame. …
Packers President and CEO Mark Murphy said Saturday that “Packers fans lost an iconic voice with the passing of Ted Moore. His play-by-play calls delighted the radio audience during the remarkably successful Lombardi era. Our sincere condolences go out to his family.”
Moore’s impact is actually understated here. The only way Packer fans in the Green Bay and Milwaukee TV markets were able to see the Packers on TV was when they played on the road. All home games, even playoff games, were blacked out.
The other remarkable thing was that Moore worked by himself until Irwin arrived in Green Bay. (He worked for WLUK-TV before moving to Milwaukee.) A Milwaukee Journal sportswriter appeared at the half, but having done a few football games by myself (once by accident of my would-be partner, as you know), I can attest that that is hard work.
Moore also had a voice that isn’t heard anymore — really deep and rich. (There are a lot of distinctive voices you don’t hear anymore because of the decrease in smoking and drinking liquor. Whether or not Moore smoke or drank, that kind of voice is kind of out of style now.)
Moore’s numerous other assignments included Badger football. That was back in the days when any station that wanted to broadcast the Badgers could. In the 1970s and 1980s there were two separate networks — Irwin broadcasted for WTMJ and its network, Moore and Earl Gillespie broadcasted for another network, and WIBA radio in Madison did games too, with its general manager, Fred Gage, at the microphone. (Rank has its privileges.) Two other Madison stations did games for a couple seasons in the ’80s, bringing the Madison-area Badger fan choice to, yes, five.
Moore also did, for a couple of seasons, Badger basketball on TV. On VHS tape someplace I have a copy of the finish of a game he did, the 1978–79 season finale for Wisconsin against Michigan State. The next day’s newspapers reported the spectacular Wes Matthews half-court shot that beat the buzzer and the Spartans, 83–81. That turned out to be the final collegiate loss for MSU center Earvin Johnson, whose team went on to win the 1979 NCAA Final Four. Magic Johnson then turned pro.
Today in 1966, the Beatles played their last concert for which tickets were charged, at Candlestick Park in San Francisco.
Today in 1970, Edwin Starr was at number one on both sides of the Atlantic:
Britain’s number one album today in 1981:
The number one song today in 1982:
Jonah Goldberg begins writing about ISIS, or ISIL, or Those Who Need to Be Killed, by recalling George W. Bush’s calling the 9/11 perpetrators “evildoers”:
“Perhaps without even realizing it,” Peter Roff, then with UPI, wrote in October 2001, “the president is using language that recalls a simpler time when good and evil seemed more easy to identify — a time when issues, television programs and movies were more black and white, not colored by subtle hues of meaning.”
A few years later, as the memory of 9/11 faded and the animosity toward Bush grew, the criticism became more biting. But the substance was basically the same. Sophisticated people don’t talk about “evil,” save perhaps when it comes to America’s legacy of racism, homophobia, capitalistic greed, and the other usual targets of American self-loathing.
For most of the Obama years, talk of evil was largely banished from mainstream discourse. An attitude of “goodbye to all that” prevailed, as the War on Terror was rhetorically and legally disassembled and the spare parts put toward building a law-enforcement operation. War was euphemized into “overseas contingency operations” and “kinetic military action.” There was still bloodshed, but the language was often bloodless. Major Nidal Malik Hasan, a protégé of al-Qaeda guru Anwar al-Awlaki, shouted “Allahu Akbar!” as he killed his colleagues at Fort Hood. The military called the incident “workplace violence.”
But sanitizing the language only works so long as people aren’t paying too much attention. That’s why the Islamic State is so inconvenient to those who hate the word “evil.” Last week, after the group released a video showing American journalist James Foley getting his head cut off, the administration’s rhetoric changed dramatically. The president called the Islamic State a “cancer” that had to be eradicated. Secretary of State John Kerry referred to it as the “face of . . . evil.”
Although most people across the ideological spectrum see no problem with calling the Islamic State evil, the change in rhetoric elicited a predictable knee-jerk response. Political scientist Michael Boyle hears an “eerie echo” of Bush’s “evildoers” talk. “Indeed,” he wrote in the New York Times, “condemning the black-clad, masked militants as purely ‘evil’ is seductive, for it conveys a moral clarity and separates ourselves and our tactics from the enemy and theirs.”
James Dawes, the director of the Program in Human Rights and Humanitarianism at Macalester College, agreed in a piece for CNN.com. Using the word “evil,” he wrote, “stops us from thinking.”
No, it doesn’t. But perhaps a reflexive and dogmatic fear of the word “evil” hinders thinking?
For instance, Boyle suggests that because the Islamic State controls lots of territory and is “administering social services,” it “operates less like a revolutionary terrorist movement that wants to overturn the entire political order in the Middle East than a successful insurgent group that wants a seat at that table.”
Behold the clarity of thought that comes with jettisoning moralistic language! Never mind that the Islamic State says it seeks a global caliphate with its flag over the White House. Who cares that it is administering social services? Hitler, Stalin, and Pol Pot did, too. That’s what revolutionary groups do when they grab enough territory.
There’s a more fundamental question: Is it true? Is the Islamic State evil?
As a matter of objective moral fact, the answer seems obvious. But also under any more subjective version of multiculturalism, pluralism, or moral relativism shy of nihilism, “evil” seems a pretty accurate description for an organization that is not only intolerant toward gays, Christians, atheists, moderate Muslims, Jews, women, et al. but also stones, beheads, and enslaves them.
I have found it interesting for years that liberals, who are tolerant toward all the groups Goldberg mentioned except Christians and Jews, continue to defend those who seek to kill and enslave “gays, Christians, atheists, moderate Muslims, Jews, women, et al.”
Daniel Mitchell considers the latest feature of evil corporate America, the “inversion” of Walgreens and Burger King, the latter accomplished by purchasing Tim Hortons:
Every study that looks at business taxation reaches the same conclusion, which is that America’s tax system is punitive and anti-competitive.
Simply stated, the combination of a very high tax rate on corporate income along with a very punitive system of worldwide taxation makes it very difficult for an American-domiciled firm to compete overseas.
Yet some politicians say companies are being “unpatriotic” for trying to protect themselves and even suggest that the tax burden on firms should be further increased!
In this CNBC interview, I say that’s akin to “blaming the victim.”
While I think this was a good interview and I assume the viewers of CNBC are an important demographic, I’m even more concerned (at least in the short run) about influencing the opinions of the folks in Washington.
And that’s why the Cato Institute held a forum yesterday for a standing-room-only crowd on Capitol Hill.
Here is a sampling of the information I shared with the congressional staffers.
We’ll start with this chart showing how the United States has fallen behind the rest of the world on corporate tax rates.
Here’s a chart showing the number of nations that have worldwide tax systems. Once again, you can see a clear trend in the right direction, with the United States getting left behind.
Next, this chart shows that American companies already pay a lot of tax on the income they earn abroad.
Last but not least, here’s a chart showing that inversions have almost no effect on corporate tax revenue in America.
The moral of the story is that the internal revenue code is a mess, which is why (as I said in the interview) companies have both a moral and fiduciary obligation to take legal steps to protect the interests of shareholders, consumers, and employees.
The anti-inversion crowd, though, is more interested in maximizing the amount of money going to politicians.
Actually, let me revise that last sentence. If they looked at the Laffer Curve evidence (here and here), they would support a lower corporate tax rate.
So we’re left with the conclusion that they’re really most interested in making the tax code punitive, regardless of what happens to revenue.
Another graphic comes from the Daily Signal:
Burger King is based in Florida. Tim Hortons — named for the National Hockey League player who started the chain and formerly owned by Wendy’s before it went public separately — is based on Oakville, Ont.
The number one single today in 1961 was made more popular by Elvis Presley, not its creator:
Also today in 1961, the Marvelettes released what would become their first number one song:
Today in 1964, the Beatles met Bob Dylan after a concert in Forest Hills, N.Y. Dylan reportedly introduced the Beatles to marijuana:
Meanwhile, to our east, We Support Organic does not support this:
Michigan residents lost their “right to farm” this week. This is a new ruling by the Michigan Commission of Agriculture and Rural Development. Gail Philburn of the Michigan Sierra Club told Michigan Live, the new changes “effectively remove Right to Farm Act protection for many urban and suburban backyard farmers raising small numbers of animals.” Previously backyard and urban farming were protected by Michigan’s Right to Farm Act but The Commission has ruled that the Right to Farm Act protections no longer apply to many homeowners who keep small amount of livestock. Kim White, who keeps chickens and rabbits, said, “They don’t want us little guys feeding ourselves. They want us to go all to the big farms. They want to do away with small farms and I believe that is what’s motivating it.” The ruling will allow local governments to ban goats, chickens and beehives on any property where there are 13 homes within one eighth mile or a residence within 250 feet of the property.
The Right to Farm Act was created in 1981 to protect farmers from the complaints of people from the city who moved to the country and then attempted to make it more urban with anti-farming ordinances. These new changes will affect residents of rural Michigan too. Shady Grove Farm in Gwinn, Michigan is on six and a half acres and homes 150 egg-laying hens that provide eggs to a local co-op and a local restaurant. This small Michigan farm also homes sheep for wool and a few turkeys and meat chickens to provide fresh healthy, local poultry. “We produce food with integrity,” says Randy Buchler of Shady Grove Farm. “Everything we do here is 100 percent natural — we like to say it’s beyond organic. We take a lot of pride and care in what we’re doing here.” Shady Grove Farm was doing its part to educate and provide healthy, local, organic food to the people of Gwinn. It reflects the attitudes of hundreds of other small farms in Michigan and thousands of others popping up around the nation.
As you can imagine, the site believes organic food, however that’s defined, is superior to the evil food processors. That’s not the point here. Similar to unpasteurized milk, people should be able to choose what food they want to buy. Property owners should be able to grow what they want to grow on their own property.
This also appears to be — surprise! — a bureaucrat exceeding the authority he should have. The Michigan Legislature did not pass a law amending Michigan’s Right to Farm Act; the Commission of Agriculture and Rural Development did.
Since district attorneys in Milwaukee and Dane counties can’t be bothered with actual crimes, the MacIver Institute has to do their work for them:
After a failed legal battle with the John K. MacIver Institute for Public Policy, Sen. Jon Erpenbach (D-Middleton) turned over 1,571 separate emails containing over 2,100 total pages from public employees across the state and country who contacted him about Act 10.
The MacIver Institute filed an open records request in early 2011 with Erpenbach looking for correspondence his office received regarding “Wisconsin’s collective bargaining laws for public employees” sent between January and March of 2011.
Erpenbach initially turned over 25,000 pages of emails but redacted the names, email addresses and other identifying information of the senders. This prevented MacIver from determining whether the individual contacting Erpenbach was a government employee using taxpayer resources on taxpayer time or if the individual was a private citizen using his or her own resources.
After Erpenbach refused to turn over unredacted emails, the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty filed a lawsuit on behalf of the MacIver Institute in February 2012, asking if it was legal under the state’s open records law for a politician to decide if public data can be redacted.
After a lower court sided with Erpenbach, a three-judge panel in the Wisconsin District Two Court of Appeals reversed the decision, ruling against Erpenbach in April 2014. …
While the MacIver Institute continues to investigate some of the information found in the emails, we have finished our initial analysis that shows 1,020 of the 1,522 emails sent by Wisconsin state government employees were sent during normal business hours.
For the purposes of this analysis, MacIver used the standard of 8am to 5pm as normal business hours. A government employee’s work week can vary and may be different than 8am to 5pm. Without access, however, to departmental records that show each government employee’s individual work hours, it is impossible to make that assessment.
UW-Madison led the way with 487 total emails sent to Erpenbach, 60 percent of which were sent during normal business hours. UW Health followed with 142 total emails, 75 percent of which were sent during normal business hours. Waunakee School District took the number three spot, sending 123 total emails, 87 percent being sent during business hours.
Several emails from the UW-System asked if there was anything they could do to support the 14 Democratic senators who fled the state in an effort to stall a vote on the Budget Repair Bill.
One emailer from the UW-System asked if there was “any legal way of giving financial donations” to support the 14 Democratic senators as they stayed in Illinois. The employee also asked if they could be added to a “mailing list for action.” Another wrote about “sponsoring a 50 state bus tour” for the 14 AWOL senators.
Though a majority of the emails called on the senator to vote no on Walker’s reforms, many mentioned they were not opposed to increased contributions for health care and retirement but supported collective bargaining.
The issue here is less about when they were sent (note the paragraph about “normal business hours”), but where they were sent from — that is, whose email account. It would be one thing if a state employee used a state computer during “normal business hours” to email Erpenbach from his or her personal Gmail, Hotmail or Yahoo account. That would be technically using state resources, but non-Republicans might not get exercised over that.
When, however, emails are sent from such addresses as, using MacIver’s list, _____@wisc.edu, _____@uwhealth.org or _____@waunakee.k12.wi.us, there isn’t any question about whether taxpayer-provided resources are being used. That would include …
Erpenbach spent more than $170,000 of taxpayer funds on private attorneys defending his desire to redact public information after he disagreed with Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen’s legal strategy.
We begin with an interesting anniversary: Today in 1965, the Beatles used the final day of their five-day break from their U.S. tour to attend a recording session for the Byrds and to meet Elvis Presley at Presley’s Beverly Hills home.
The group reportedly found Presley “unmagnetic,” about which John Lennon reportedly said, “Where’s Elvis? It was like meeting Engelbert Humperdinck.”
Steve Prestegard.com: The Presteblog 