The number one single today in 1957 was the first number one rock and roll single to be written by its singer:
The number one single today in 1963 …
… which sounds suspiciously similar to a song released seven years later:
As you know, there’s a big basketball game tonight …
… thanks to Wisconsin’s domination of Baylor in the West Regional semifinal Thursday night.
Which inevitably means the rest of the country is being introduced to Badgers coach Bo Ryan.
(Before that, a note about last night’s 5-2 hockey loss to North Dakota: North Dakota needed Wisconsin to win the Big Ten title to get in the NCAAs. Had Ohio State won last weekend, the Buckeyes would have gotten the Big Ten’s automatic berth, Wisconsin would have been an at-large pick, and North Dakota would have missed the tournament entirely. And this is how the Fighting Sioux pay us back. May the Ralph Englestad Arena in Grand Forks sink underneath a blowing-out oil well.)
Now, back to the game, and the Denver Post’s Mark Kiszla:
Let me introduce you to college basketball’s invisible genius. His name is Bo. Oh, you know Bo. But we tend not to notice him, because Coach K hoards the championship rings, the silver tongue of John Calipari drops sweeter sound bites and Rick Pitino wears shinier shoes.
His name is Bo. He is a voice of reason in March Madness.
And there’s one more thing: Bo Ryan of Wisconsin just might be the best college basketball coach in America.
Bo loves fundamentals more than you love Mom’s chocolate-chip cookies fresh from the oven. Ryan is old school. His hair is gray. He teaches the nuances of the pump fake with enthusiasm Broncos quarterback Peyton Manning would admire.
“Having played quarterback, pump fakes work. It’s not that hard, and yet it’s amazing how many people don’t use them,” Ryan said Thursday, after his team demolished Baylor 69-52 in the West Regional semifinals.
Thanks to 19 points by 7-foot junior Frank Kaminsky and defense that’s harsher than a Wisconsin winter, the Badgers are one of the last eight teams standing in the NCAA Tournament.
Oh, you know this guy. Bo looks like your uncle who worked in the steel mill, back when America made stuff from steel rather than computer chips. Ryan is definitely the most accomplished Division I coach who has never taken a team to the Final Four.
“I’d be honored to be part of that,” Kaminsky said.
Baylor never had a shot against Wisconsin. Talk about lost in the woods: The Bears missed nearly 70 percent of their 57 field-goal attempts.
“The one thing you can’t control as a coach if they go in or out,” said Baylor coach Scott Drew, a great recruiter who wouldn’t know a teaching moment if a great coach diagrammed it for him on a white board.
His name is Bo. Until this season, his offense has traditionally moved slower than that interminable TSA security line at the airport. Bor-ing. But get this: The Badgers have gone to the Big Dance in each of the 13 seasons since Ryan landed the Wisconsin job at the over-the-hill age of 53.
Ryan does not sell million-dollar fantasies to his players. Unlike Calipari, who has built the NBA’s swankiest green room in Lexington, Ky., a hotshot prep prospect should not enroll at Wisconsin if his dream is one-and-done.
Here is what Ryan seeks in a recruit: “Good students, hard workers, good listeners. People that are pretty focused on what’s going to happen in the next 60 years as well as they are focused on what’s going to happen in the next couple years, because that’s what we’re preparing people for as coaches. We’re preparing them for when they’re in their 30s, 40s, 60s, 70s and 80s.”
This guy sells life lessons. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I’m making Ryan sound like Ward Cleaver. And your eye roll shouts: How quaint.
It’s easy to get cynical when watching the NCAA tourney, which is a license to print money, from the tailor who designs Pitino’s suits to the geek who runs your office pool.
Ryan, however, has never grown jaded, even as he toiled for years far removed from the spotlight as coach of Wisconsin-Platteville.
When rival coaches shake a head in disbelief when told Bo encourages Wisconsin players to skip practice to attend class, Ryan replies: “Don’t you at your school?”
Of course, Wisconsin basketball fans know all this. Ryan won four Division III national championships, two of them ending undefeated seasons, at UW–Platteville. (Even Badger fans sometimes forget that this is Ryan’s second stop at UW, his first starting in 1976 as an assistant to Badger coach Bill Cofield, and then Steve Yoder. Which makes one wonder what might have happened in 1982 when, instead of having first choice Ken Anderson of UW–Eau Claire quit, and then choosing Ball State’s Steve Yoder, what might have happened had UW just hired Ryan.)
Having announced Division III basketball in the past, I can tell you that coaching in D3 is harder in a lot of ways than coaching at the D1 level. There are no charter flights, no athletic dorms, no huge basketball staffs, and, of course, no scholarships in Division III. The only thing Ryan could offer is in-state tuition.
USA Today’s Chris Korman is now paying attention to the Badgers too:
Above a tournament that has been defined by a veteran-laden, calculated Wichita State team losing to a young, instinctive Kentucky team, there hovers this idea that somehow the soul of college basketball is at stake.
Bob Knight gave voice to a group of fans tired of the transience caused by the one-and-done rule. College basketball is sloppy now, they say. The players lack passion and sophistication. Fundamentals are ignored. The sport is suffering.
As USA TODAY Sports’ Nancy Armour points out, that argument is hard to listen to. This is the NCAA tournament the NCAA has built. Only it can change the system.
But if you’re intent on finding a team — and a coach — committed to using four-year players employed in a traditional — and beautiful, when it works — system, then here’s Bo Ryan.
His Wisconsin Badgers had few missteps in brushing past a confused Baylor team Thursday night. The Badgers looked every bit as well-schooled and relentless as the purists would have you believe every team in the field once looked.
Crisp passes through Baylor’s zone — manned by quick, long, superior athletes — led to open shots. Or to textbook pump-fakes. If an outside shot didn’t open up, the Badgers worked the ball inside to sublimely skilled forward Frank Kaminsky, and he worked toward the basket or kicked to an open wing. Kaminsky had 19 points and 3 assists.
Wisconsin was even better on defense. Baylor never found open shots. Guards accustomed to slashing through the lane encountered smartly played help defense, which pushed them right toward Kaminsky. He had six blocks. Baylor hit 31 percent of its shots.
Now, maybe the country understands this much: Bo Ryan is the most underrated coach in the country.
He’s also one of the most interesting characters in college coaching.
Ryan likes to be pretend he’s irascible. A Philly guy, he’s actually just blunt. You almost always get an honest assessment of his team when you ask him for one. He’s witty, too, but maybe that’s lost on the rest of the country because he coaches in the same conference as Tom Izzo.
A trip to the Final Four would elicit Ryan’s best quips. His dry humor would be the perfect antidote for the overly charged atmosphere around the end of the tournament.
And how could you not love a guy with a smile like this?
Yes, that’s Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers, who watched Thursday’s game and stopped in the locker room afterward.
Which prompted this comment: “Every time a team from Wisconsin beats a team nicknamed Bears, this guy Rodgers is in the winning locker room.”
(Is there a Rodgers photobomb in the Badgers’ future tonight?)
Earlier this season, USA Today’s Eric Prisbell pointed out:
The sixth-ranked Badgers (12-0) have done it the way they have always done it under 13th-year coach Bo Ryan, highlighting unglamorous skills like precise passing angles, adequate spacing and strong pivots. Ryan’s no-frills system is as effective as ever, even if no jump stops will find there way onto YouTube.
“It is not pretty,” says sophomore Sam Dekker, the team’s second-leading scorer. “It has some rough edges on it. But it’s what we do. It’s not so sexy. But winning is fun. If it’s not sexy, that’s fine with us. We’re not going to be dunking on everyone.”
What they will do is make more free throws than their opponents attempt (196-166). They will be among the nation’s leaders in fewest turnovers per game, as they are this season (third). And they will allow opponents so few open looks at the basket that Wisconsin players say they see the frustration in opponents’ facial expressions and body language.
“There is not this secret magic wand that we wave,” says Wisconsin associate head coach Greg Gard, who has worked with Ryan for two decades. “You follow the system. You work the plan … People get caught up in the flash and the glitter, those types of plays. When you simplify it and slow things down, frame by frame, it’s the basketball fundamentals that come into play.”
Ryan, 65, is among the most accomplished coaches yet to reach the Final Four. He has never finished worse than fourth in the rugged Big Ten. Iowa assistant Sherman Dillard says Ryan has ingrained his system into his players to such an extent that it’s like a “religion the way they play it. They don’t deviate.”
“If you go across the country, take anybody – I don’t care if you’re talking about (Mike) Krzyzewski, I don’t care if you’re talking about (John) Calipari,” Marquette assistant Brad Autry says. “A system. Recruit to that system. Be consistent with that system. I don’t know if there is anybody better than him (Ryan). Year after year, the names change, but it is the same.”
There is also a poignant fact noted by ESPN.com’s Rick Reilly:
Saturday will be 100 hours long for Bo Ryan.
For one, he and his 2-seed Wisconsin Badgers will play for a spot in the Final Four, and Final Fours are to Bo Ryan what fruit was to Tantalus.
Ryan has the highest conference winning percentage of any 10-year-plus Big Ten coach in history — .706 — yet he’s never made it to a Final Four. Thirteen Dances. Six Sweet 16s. Two Elite Eights. Zero Final Fours. The coyote never gets the roadrunner, and Bo Ryan never gets the Final Four.
For two, it’s his dad’s birthday. Butch Ryan — his unforgettable, never-met-a-stranger, life-of-any-party dad — would’ve been 90 Saturday. Butch, who died last August, was always Bo’s plus-one at Final Fours. Why? Because nobody could mend a heavy heart like Butch Ryan.
Butch laughed so hard one night at the Final Four he had to go to the hospital. He’d fly cheesesteaks in from his hometown of Philadelphia. Got in a dance-off one year with MC Hammer. Jumped up on stage with a trio of female singers in New Orleans once and sang so well with them that they let him keep all the tips, which he used to buy everybody hurricanes. Was voted Final Four All-Lobby every year.
Forget that. He was All-Bo every season. When his son coached the 1998 Division III UW-Platteville team to a 30-0 national championship (one of his four national titles there), Butch snuck into the background of the team celebration photo and held up a sign that said, “BRING ON DUKE.” Bo didn’t even know until the pictures came back.
Butch was a one-man Optimist Club. He always called Bo “Ace,” and every time the tournament knocked Bo on his butt, Butch would take him by the neck at the Final Four and go, “Ace, you’re gonna get here next year, just you watch.”
But Butch never did get to watch.
“More people knew my dad at Final Fours than me,” Ryan remembers after his Badgers crushed Baylor 69-52 Thursday night to make it to another Elite Eight. “It was our bonding time. Hell, I always had time there ’cause I’ve never been able to play in one of the dang things. But now he’s gone and it just seems like maybe this year …”
He didn’t finish the sentence, but you can. After all those years of going with his dad to the Final Four, all those years of Butch cushioning the blow of not making it, here Ace is with maybe his best chance yet to make one, and no Butch.
“It’s hard, man,” Bo says. “Sometimes I walk by all the pictures of him on the wall at home and, you know, it’s just hard. … But if we go, I gotta figure he’ll be there somewhere. No way he wouldn’t make it.” …
“We want that for Coach,” Badgers forward Sam Dekker says. “And he wants that for us.”
“I’d be honored to be part of that,” said 7-footer Frank Kaminsky.
Ryan, ever superstitious, won’t go there much, so that’s why you ask his old friend Wisconsin athletic director Barry Alvarez.
“Oh, he wants it bad,” Alvarez says. “Because, I would think he’s gotta get tired of hearing that bulls—. I mean, he’s a great coach. He goes down to the wire against Syracuse (in 2012), it goes down to the last possession, and it doesn’t go his way. Now all of a sudden he’s a lousy coach?”
No, Bo Ryan is a very good coach, partly because Butch taught him that — and a few tricks, too.
Such as the time Bo’s Little League coach had to work, and Butch took over. They were down 11-5 in the top of the last inning and nobody on the team seemed too worked up about it. So Butch had them pack everything up — bats, balls, all of it. If they didn’t care, he didn’t care. “Everybody on the team starts yelling, crying,” Bo remembers. “Not me. I knew what he was doing. … Sure as I’m sitting here, we come back and win 12‑11. So I learned early — sometimes you send messages in different ways.”
Bo’s message to Wisconsin this close to paradise?
“Thank you for giving me 40 more minutes of basketball with you guys,” he told his team.
As you know, I did not pick the Badgers to get to the Elite Eight. Thanks to the hockey team’s season’s ending last night, and thanks to my national champion pick, Louisville, getting punched out last night, I can enjoy tonight’s game undistracted by another game or my brackets, since my brackets are now officially as demolished as Baylor’s season.
Only one more thing to say:
The number one British single today in 1963 may make you tap your foot:
Today in 1966, Mick Jagger got in the way of a chair thrown onto the stage during a Rolling Stones concert in Marseilles, France.
The title and artist are the same for the number one album today in 1969:
The headline is from “Star Wars: A New Hope,” not “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” and it was spoken by Luke Skywalker, not Han Solo.
So I’m mixing my movie references for this item about “Raiders,” starring Ripon College almost-graduate Harrison Ford, as worried about by Jim Geraghty:
This is a bad idea, in its current form. But it doesn’t have to be.
Our ever reliable sources are informing us that while Harrison Ford might still play Indiana Jones in the next film of the franchise, the window of making that happen is getting smaller and smaller.
There is a date and if Indiana Jones 5 is not moving forward by then, the studios are 100% prepared to recast a younger Dr. Jones and ready up a new trilogy.
Let’s be realistic, Harrison is not the box office draw he once was and he is only getting older.
Don’t think of it as a reboot but just recasting the same way the James Bond (Sean Connery, Roger Moore, Pierce Brosnan, Daniel Craig) movies have been doing for the better part of five decades.
And who just might be one of the actors that the studio is looking at ? The word is that they are looking at several but Bradley Cooper is at the top of the list.
Like I said, as is, this is a terrible idea. We’ve actually had four actors play Indiana Jones besides Harrison Ford — River Phoenix as Young Indy in the beginning of Last Crusade and then Corey Carrier, Sean Patrick Flanery, and George Hall in The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles. But when you say, “Indiana Jones,” everyone thinks of Harrison Ford. He owns the role. It’s his. Leave it to him.
There’s no need to rehash the criticisms of Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull; needless to say, most of the fan base left deeply disappointed, and has likely concluded that it doesn’t want, or need, any more Indiana Jones movies. But we sure as heck would love to see more movies in the tone and style of Raiders of the Lost Ark.
So allow me to offer Disney two possibilities.
Option One: Tell a 1930s–1940s–1950s pulp adventure story featuring another adventurer, perhaps someone who’s heard of Indiana Jones or mentions him as a rival. (In Raiders, Indy himself mentions he has rivals going after the same treasures he does: “This is where Forrestal cashed in… He was good. Very good.”) A lot of real-life archeologists are mentioned as “the real life Indiana Jones” or claimed to be the inspiration for Indiana Jones —Roy Chapman Andrews, Hiram Bingham, Percy Fawcett, Howard Carter, Frederick Mitchell-Hedges, among others. Alternatively, let Cooper play one of Professor Jones’s first students, determined to emulate Indy. Maybe even bring in Ford for a cameo; maybe this student is looking for the one treasure Indy never found. Make clear this is a story that’s taking place in the world of Indiana Jones, but that Indy is enjoying retirement with Marion.
Option Two: The other possibility — one I prefer — is to tell a story that takes place in the modern day. Cooper could be a descendant of Indy’s, or just some young archeologist who’s uncovered Indy’s personal papers (his own “grail diary?”). Maybe today’s archeologists dismiss Jones as a bit of a lunatic and reckless daredevil. (See Professor Jones Gets Rejected for Tenure.) But our protagonist — a bit of a stand-in for the audience — thinks Indy is the coolest guy that ever lived and is determined to follow in his footsteps.
Like in the other scenario, he finds a reference to some long-lost treasure that Indy sought but could never locate … and of course, a key missing clue has only now been found at some recent archeological discovery—the gold at the Temple Mount, the Egyptian city buried under the Mediterranean Sea, even the ship found underground at the site of the World Trade Center.
Like Indy, our Bradley Cooper character begins with a bit of a mercenary side to him, chasing fortune and glory — maybe even talking aloud to his unseen late mentor, “I hope you’re watching from up there, Indy, ‘cause I’m gonna do what you never could!” — but gradually learns to be a more well-rounded person, caring for others, and learning there’s more to life than just treasure and punching people.
You can still tell a pulp-style Indiana Jones story in today’s world; our globe still has enough far-off dangerous and exotic corners — the mountains of central Asia, the pirate-laden waters of Southeast Asia and the horn of Africa, the jungles of the Amazon, just about anywhere in the Middle East … Just remember to include femme fatales and feisty companions, comical sidekicks, villains that you love to hate, constant fistfights, gunfights, chases, and at least once, a menace of a lot of dangerous animals in a confined space — perhaps the saltwater crocodiles of Ramree Island, Burma. …
Most importantly — and perhaps the element that makes Bradley Cooper the right guy to carry the torch — any new films need to remember to include the two key moments of every Indiana Jones sequence:
[A DANGEROUS SITUATION DEVELOPS]
Our hero suddenly realizes he’s bitten off more than he can chew, eyes bulge, and we share with him a split-second of panic or “oh, crap”
This is what I look like when I’m on cable news and realize the show changed topics without telling me.
[THROUGH HIS QUICK WITS AND PHYSICAL SKILL, OUR HERO ESCAPES]
Our hero smiles.
This is what I look like when I’ve steered the topic back to the one-liner I wanted to use.
You’re welcome, Disney.
I’m not a reflexive hater of remakes, though most of them shouldn’t have been remade, particularly the movies made from ’60s and ’70s and ’80s TV series. I’m a huge fan of the original “Star Trek” and “Hawaii Five-O,” but I can tolerate their remakes.
The “Raiders” franchise isn’t a remake itself exactly. It is a throwback to the adventure serials and melodramas of the 1930s and 1940s, a movie form that had been forgotten until George Lucas and Steven Spielberg teamed up on “Raiders.” You can tell how successful an idea is by the number of imitators it spawns, such as Tom Selleck (the original choice for Jones, though Selleck was “Magnum, P.I.”) in “High Road to China,” Richard Chamberlain in “King Solomon’s Mines” (which was both a remake and a, shall we say, inspired ripoff), and “The Mummy” movies with Brendan Fraser.
The problem with most remakes, however, is that it’s impossible to recapture what made the franchise iconic in the first place — how the actors played their roles. Some series set in a particular time are unable to transition to contemporary times — “The Avengers” (Patrick Macnee, not the other one) and “Starsky and Hutch” come to mind, along with possibly James Bond, though interestingly that has survived six different James Bonds. (Imagine the challenge of trying to remake a ’50s or ’60s TV detective series, such as “Peter Gunn” or “Mannix.” Or, for that matter, a “Magnum” movie, which has been proposed.) Setting is not an issue with the “Raiders” franchise, since it’s set in the past.
The surmounting issue is who can play Indiana Jones, assuming Ford is too old to play Indiana Jones. (Even though, as you know, it’s not the years, it’s the mileage.) It takes a particular kind of actor to be credible to the moviegoer while veering from one deadly scenario to the next in the space of a few minutes. In different settings, John Wayne was utterly believable in every Western he ever acted in, and Charlton Heston brought believability to the science fiction movies he was cast in, from “Planet of the Apes” to “The Omega Man” to “Soylent Green.” That’s what casting Shia LeBoeuf in the fourth Indiana Jones movie was supposed to do, but apparently he failed, since he’s not being mentioned in Indiana Jones V.
Fans of a particular franchise inevitably judge the remake on the original, even prequels, and the remake usually loses in the comparison. Really: What other actor could do this?
It comes from First Things:
I am growing weary of the continual complaints from traditionalist Christians about current trends in Western culture. Not that matters aren’t growing darker. Believe me, in more than twenty years as a committed activist on behalf of the sanctity and equality of human life, I have witnessed the downward slide.
But hasn’t the time come for us to suck it up? Consider the much worse cultural milieu in which the early Church existed. The Roman Empire’s values were entirely antithetical to Christian ethics and belief. The official state religion was polytheistic. Meat served at feasts was dedicated to idols. As to the sanctity of human life: Slaves were tortured and crucified at the will of owners. Under the law ofpaterfamilias, unwanted children could be exposed or sold into slavery. Gladiators at public “games” butchered each other to satisfy the bloodlust of the crowd.
But did the early Christians whine about it? No—they witnessed against it by the way they lived. Indeed, St. Paul instructed—in words increasingly relevant to our age—that Christians should not judge those outside the Church while continuing to interact with general society even though most live by fundamentally different moral values. Otherwise, he wrote, believers “would need to go out of the world.”
We must live “in, but not of, the world” a fact recognized not just by St. Paul but also by Stoic philosophers like Epictetus, who wrote, “There is only one way to happiness and that is to cease worrying about things which are beyond the power of our will.” A continual focus on “culture war” striving can, contrary to Paul and Epictetus, lead us to lash out, which is to go in the wrong direction. …
This takes discipline. So, focus on those “internal” things that give your life meaning; faith, personal philosophy, family and friends. Take the time to recreate, travel, learn, and relax with hobbies. Do these things and we will be at the cause of our lives, rather than the effect of the cultural environment—to the point that the dysfunctional world we inhabit will lose its ability to disrupt the things we care most about.
Please don’t misunderstand: This isn’t surrender. Nor is it political or cultural disengagement. We owe Caesar what is his. In our free society, that means participating in the public square, making our views known, voting—and too often of late, gritting our teeth and bearing it when things slide in the wrong direction.
Today in 1964, the Beatles were the first pop stars to get memorialized at Madame Tussaud’s Wax Museum …
… while in the North Sea, the pirate Radio Caroline went on the air:
The number one British single today in 1970:
Today needs some music …
… because it’s a big Badger day.
The men’s basketball team plays Baylor in the NCAA West Regional semifinal in Anaheim at 6:47 p.m. on TBS, followed 15 minutes or so later by the hockey team’s facing off against former Western Collegiate Hockey Association archrival North Dakota in the Midwest Regional semifinal in Cincinnati at 7 p.m. on ESPNU.
The basketball Sweet 16 berth came after UW’s come-from-behind win over Oregon Saturday …
… which ended just before the Badgers’ 5–4 overtime win over Ohio State …
… to win the first Big Ten hockey title. The Badgers were going to get an NCAA berth anyway, but to win a tournament is cool, particularly when it ends the season of O!S!U!.
This is not usual for fans of Wisconsin sports. Recall that in 1982 the Brewers were playing in the American League Championship Series during a Badger football win at Ohio State, and in 2008 the Brewers were playing for a playoff berth during a Packer game. Those are the only two instances that immediately come to mind with two simultaneous huge games for Wisconsin fans. (Which means you should replace your TV remote batteries before tipoff.)
In 1982 and 2008 the Brewers had to win to keep playing. Tonight, the Badgers also have to win to keep playing. It is therefore possible that both teams could win, which would set up Final Four- and Frozen Four-berth-clinching games Saturday. (The West Region final appears to be at either 5 or 7:30 p.m., and the Midwest Regional final is at 5:30 p.m.) It is also possible that both teams could lose, depressing an entire state’s sports fans, who should nevertheless be thrilled that UW teams are playing far better than, in the case of the basketball team, their long and inglorious history. (As in 47 years between NCAA tournament berths.)
As you know, I didn’t have Wisconsin playing basketball after last Saturday. (Which demonstrates why you should be pessimistic about your teams — either you’re right, or you’re happy because you’re wrong.) Tonight’s game seems to be a repeat of Oregon, right down to the green uniforms, unless Baylor wears its black uniforms …
… though Baylor may be better than Oregon. Wisconsin’s traditional style of play usually requires the Badgers stay ahead the entire game to win; big second-half comebacks are usually not a recipe for a Badger win, though “usually” does not mean “always” …
The hockey game, meanwhile, is a renewal of the former WCHA rivalry between the Badgers and the Fighting Sioux, which includes one of the most bizarre incidents in the history of college hockey.
The Wisconsin State Journal’s Phil Hands contributes …
And remember …
Well, that’s embarrassing: This blog would have been great had I not incorrectly reported the Badger hockey game’s day of the week. It’s Friday, not tonight. Hopefully UW wins tonight and Friday to validate my premise.
USA Today reports …
A USA TODAY/Bipartisan Policy Center poll taken this month, the fourth in a year-long series, shows no change in the overwhelming consensus that U.S. politics have become more divided in recent years.
But sentiments have shifted significantly during the past year about whether the nation’s unyielding political divide is a positive or a negative. In February 2013, Americans said by nearly 4-1 that the heightened division is a bad thing because it makes it harder to get things done.
In the new poll, the percentage who describe the divide as bad has dropped by nearly 20 percentage points, to 55% from 74%. And the number who say it’s a good thing — because it gives voters a real choice — has doubled to 40% from 20%.
“Honestly, I feel like Congress is designed to be slow, so it could be frustrating but that’s how they are designed to be,” Gage Egurrola, 23, a salesman from Caldwell, Idaho, who was among those surveyed. “It helps stop bad policies. …
The shift in public opinion toward Egurrola’s view may reflect broadening acceptance of Washington’s polarization as an inevitable fact of life. Skepticism about the government’s ability to solve big problems, fueled by concerns about the Affordable Care Act, could play a part as well. It sets a landscape that could boost Republicans in the November elections, minimizing the impact of Democratic charges that GOP forces have been obstructionist.
Now, Americans say it’s more important for their representative in Congress to stop bad laws than to pass new ones. On that, there is no partisan divide: 54% of Republicans and 51% of Democrats say blocking bad laws should be their priority. …
Like it or not, Americans express few hopes that the friction that has prevented action even on issues on which most Americans agree — the need to overhaul immigration laws, for instance, or raise the minimum wage — is about to ease anytime soon. Nearly half predict Congress’ job performance will stay the same over the next two years; one in five say it’s likely to get worse.
Just 28% expect it to improve.
… and Jim Geraghty comments …
A key goal of the framers was to create a Senate differently constituted from the House so it would be less subject to popular passions and impulses. “The use of the Senate,” wrote James Madison in Notes of Debates in the Federal Convention of 1787, “is to consist in its proceedings with more coolness, with more system and with more wisdom, than the popular branch.” An oft-quoted story about the “coolness” of the Senate involves George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, who was in France during the Constitutional Convention. Upon his return, Jefferson visited Washington and asked why the Convention delegates had created a Senate. “Why did you pour that tea into your saucer?” asked Washington. “To cool it,” said Jefferson. “Even so,” responded Washington, “we pour legislation into the senatorial saucer to cool it.”
We would like our divisions even more if we had a more federalist approach!
We’re a divided country because we have 317 million people, and at least two major strands of thought and philosophy about the role of the government.
To echo a thought or two when Glenn Beck said he feared he had divided the country… we have red states and blue states, with different cultures, voting patterns, and broadly-held philosophies about government. Ideally, we would have let each part of the country live the way they want, as long as its laws didn’t violate the Constitution. You want high taxes and generous public benefits? Go ahead and have them; we’ll see if your voters vote with their feet. Let Illinois be Illinois, and let South Carolina be South Carolina.
Last fall I took a trip to Seattle, Wash., and the surrounding area. It seemed like every menu, store display, and sign emphasized that the offered products were entirely organic, biodegradable, free range, pesticide-free, fair trade, cruelty-free, and every other environmentally-conscious label you can imagine. (The television show Portlandia did a pretty funny sketch about the ever-increasing, ever-more-specific variety of recycling bins, with separate bins for the coffee cup, the coffee-cup lid, the coffee-cup sleeve, and the coffee-cup stirrer; there’s a separate bin if the lid has lipstick on it.) Maybe it’s just a natural consequence that when you have Mount Rainier and Puget Sound outside your window, you become a crunchy tree-hugging environmentalist. If that’s the way they want to live up there, that’s fine. The food was mostly excellent. Let the Seattle-ites elect a Socialist to their city council. Let Sea-Tac try a $15/hour minimum wage and see if the airport Starbucks starts charging twenty bucks for a small latte.
As long as other parts of the country are allowed to pursue their own paths, that’s fine.
But a big part of the problem is that we have an administration in Washington that is determined to stomp out the state policies it doesn’t like. The president doesn’t want there to be any right-to-work states. His Department of Justice is doing everything possible to obstruct Louisiana’s school-choice laws. They’re fighting state voter ID laws in court, insisting that it violates the Constitution, even though the Supreme Court ruled, 6 to 3, that requiring the showing of an ID does not represent an undue burden on voters.
This you-must-comply attitude can be found in the states as well, of course. Hell, in New York, Governor Andrew Cuomo wants to drive pro-lifers, Second Amendment supporters, and those he labels “anti-gay” out of his state. Mayors decree that they won’t allow Chick-Fil-A in their cities because of the opinions of the owners. In Oregon, state officials decreed that a baker must make a wedding cake for a gay wedding; the state decrees you are not permitted to turn down a work request that you believe violates your conscience or religious beliefs.
The country would be “torn apart” less if we were allowed to address more of our public-policy problems on a local or state basis. But anti-federalism is in the cellular structure of liberalism. All of their solutions are “universal,” “comprehensive,” or “sweeping.” Everything must be changed at once, for everyone, with no exceptions. Perhaps it’s a good approach for some other species, but not human beings.
… as does Reason:
Well, of course there’s political division in a nation of over 300 million people. We’re not the damned Borg. If we didn’t have strong disagreements over policies that reach deeply into our lives, that would be really weird. Recent years have brought us Obamacare, the surveillance state, and metastasizing federal spending, to barely scratch the surface. The fact that we so strongly perceive political polarization around us may have less to do with increasing policy disagreements than with the fact that so many one-size-fits-all solutions are jammed down our collective throats even though we’re not, you know, a collective. …
The Americans growing increasingly comfortable with a country that disagrees with itself are, after all, the same people who say that government is burdensome, who have little regard for federal employees, and who see big government as the greatest threat. Having been on the receiving end of the implementation of government policy and very much not liking it, Americans are painfully aware that many of their fellow countrymen want the government to do things that they themselves oppose.
What policies Americans define as “bad” certainly vary from individual to individual—differing definitions of good and bad policy are at the heart of that perceived political divide.
But Americans will always disagree with one another. The fact that we’re growing content in that disagreement and see slowing and stopping the implementation of policy as a key goal for lawmakers is all the more reason to avoid top-down, centralized decisions that force one part of the country’s population to suffer the detested policy preferences of another faction.
This has been reality in Wisconsin for a long time. If there has been a time in this state’s history where there were more differences between Democrats and Republicans, I’m not aware of when that was. (Yes, that includes the Civil War, since Wisconsin was on the correct side.) You could point, I suppose, to the wars of the 1990s between Republican Assembly Speaker Scott Jensen and Democratic Senate Majority Leader Chuck Chvala, but that assumes the voters slavishly follow what the politicians do.
The interests of people in Madison are quite obviously not the same as the interests of people in Neenah, or Tomah, or your favorite farm community. This is why the push for redistricting reform would change little of the Wisconsin political landscape. Do you really believe Madison will ever elect a Republican before the Second Coming? (Which officially atheist Madison doesn’t believe will take place, of course.)
This is, by the way, the fault of both parties specifically and big government (defined any way you prefer) generally. When politicians leave office much better off — thanks in large part to their salaries 80 percent better than what their constituents make and their corresponding Rolls-Royce benefits — than when they first get elected, politicians have great incentive to do anything short of killing their mothers to stay in office. Get elected, and even Republicans are struck with a strange form of Stockholm syndrome, as if suddenly everything government does comes from the lips of God. (See Schultz, Dale.)
Meanwhile, political rhetoric has devolved to the point where a politician or candidate is called “divisive” when he or she is doing nothing other than disagreeing with he or she who calls him or her “divisive.” I don’t think Mary Burke is divisive; she’s just wrong. (Or, based on her so-called jobs plan, a master of the obvious.)
Maybe I lack imagination, but I can honestly never see this changing. What would change it?
Dan Calabrese manages to take two positions on global warming, or whatever the envirowackos are calling it:
Remember, the whole “climate change” debate is a canard and always has been. Big government types, both in Washington and around the globe, are hyping this hysteria as a way of justifying things they want to do anyway. Massive tax increases and controls on industry are not some emergency steps they propose to take in the face of an emergency. They are the fundamental core of left-wing thinking, and they can’t make them happen without convincing people that we’re all doomed without them.
That is one of the reasons the following question is rarely considered: Even assuming man-made “climate change” is real, why are we to assume it would be a terrible thing? Just because the scientists working for the UN and cited by Democrats and the media say so?
Calabrese quotes American Thinker, which quotes the Non-Governmental International Panel on Climate Change:
The authors find higher levels of carbon dioxide and warmer temperatures benefit nearly all plants, leading to more leaves, more fruit, more vigorous growth, and greater resistance to pests, drought, and other forms of “stress.” Wildlife benefits as their habitats grow and expand. Even polar bears, the poster child of anti-global warming activist groups such as the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), are benefiting from warmer temperatures.
“Despite thousands of scientific articles affirming numerous benefits of rising temperatures and atmospheric CO2, IPCC makes almost no mention of any positive externalities resulting from such,” said one of the report’s lead authors, Dr. Craig D. Idso. “Climate Change Reconsidered II corrects this failure, presenting an analysis of thousands of neglected research studies IPCC has downplayed or ignored in its reports so that scientists, politicians, educators, and the general public can be better informed and make decisions about the potential impacts of CO2-induced climate change.”
The authors look closely at claims climate change will injure coral and other forms of marine life, possibly leading to some species extinctions. They conclude such claims lack scientific foundation and often are grossly exaggerated. Corals have survived warming periods in the past that caused ocean temperatures and sea levels to be much higher than today’s levels or those likely to occur in the next century.
Calabrese adds:
The authors also make what should be the rather obvious case that forced movement away from fossil fuels would cause devastating instability in the energy supply, destroy jobs and lead to economic chaos – all of which would be ridiculous when fossil fuels remain not only the most plentiful but also the most reliable energy source on Earth. When newer sources become viable through the advancement of technology, great, throw them into the mix. But in the meantime, there is no reason to force it when the alternative sources aren’t ready and fossil fuels remain plentiful, safe and clean.
None of this is necessarily to say that man-made global warming is real. I remain a skeptic, a position I base in part on the failures of their predictions to come to pass, in part on the way they try to silence their critics (which doesn’t usually indicate confidence in your own position) and in part on an understanding of what motivates them.
But what the NIPCC has done here is throw another useful question into the mix. Not only is it absurd for us to just take global warmists at their word that it’s happening, it’s also absurd to just take them at their word that it would be a bad thing. This report makes a compelling case that it would be far more beneficial than troublesome.
In either case, we have people purporting to tell us what will happen in the future – in spite of the fact that the same people have not been successful in previous attempts to do so – and also telling us that we must stop all debate and do everything they say. Now.
Why?
Why should we believe their assessment of the situation is accurate?
Why should we believe the consequences will be what they say?
Why should we believe the right solutions, assuming we need solutions, are ones they want?
Why should we discount a study from another group of climate scientists, this one not associated with government, just because it disagrees with the conventional orthodoxy on the issue?
Meanwhile, there is more bad news for the doomsayers, according to Breitbart:
The economic costs of ‘global warming’ have been grossly overestimated, a leaked report – shortly to be published by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) – has admitted.
Previous reports – notably the hugely influential 2006 Stern Review – have put the costs to the global economy caused by ‘climate change’ at between 5 and 20 percent of world GDP.
But the latest estimates, to be published by Working Group II of the IPCC’s Fifth Assessment Report, say that a 2.5 degrees Celsius rise in global temperatures by the end of the century will cost the world economy between just 0.2 and 2 percent of its GDP.
If the lower estimate is correct, then all it would take is an annual growth rate of 2.4 percent (currently it’s around 3 percent) for the economic costs of climate change to be wiped out within a month.
This admission by the IPCC will come as a huge blow to those alarmists – notably the Stern Review’s author but also including everyone from the Prince of Wales to Al Gore – who argue that costly intervention now is our only hope if we are to stave off the potentially disastrous effects of climate change.
Sir Nicholas (now Lord) Stern was commissioned by Tony Blair’s Labour government to analyse the economic impacts of climate change. Stern, an economist who had never before published a paper on energy, the environment, or indeed climate change, concluded that at least two per cent of global GDP would need to be diverted to the war on global warming.
Stern’s report has been widely ridiculed by economists, whose main criticism was that its improbably low discount rate placed an entirely unnecessary burden on current generations. Even if you accept the more alarmist projections of the IPCC’s reports on “global warming”, the fact remains that future generations will be considerably richer than our own – and therefore far more capable of mitigating the damages of climate change when or if they arise.
But Stern’s Review, published at the height of the global warming scare, was seized on by policy makers around the world as the justification for introducing a series of economically damaging measures, including carbon taxes, more intrusive regulation and a drive to replace cheap, efficient fossil fuels with expensive, inefficient renewables.
This is why Lord Stern has been variously described as “the most dangerous man you’ve never heard of” and been held responsible for some of the worst economic excesses of the green movement.
When you see wind farms covering every hill and mountain and most of the valleys too, you can blame Stern. If you can’t pay your heating bills, ask Stern why this has happened. When children are indoctrinated and dissenting voices crushed, it is at Nicholas Stern that you should point an accusing finger. When the lights start to go out in a few years time, it’s Stern who will have to explain why.
Despite years of having mainstream economists pointing to the flaws in the Stern Review there has been an almost unanimous collective shrug from the media, more interested in climate porn than the wellbeing of their neighbours.
Today in 1958, CBS Records announced it had developed stereo records, which would sound like stereo only on, of course, stereo record players.
The irony is that CBS’ development aided its archrival, RCA, which owned NBC but also sold record players:
Steve Prestegard.com: The Presteblog 