Happiness has traditionally been considered an elusive and evanescent thing. To some, even trying to achieve it is an exercise in futility. It has been said that “happiness is as a butterfly which, when pursued, is always beyond our grasp, but which if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you.”
Social scientists have caught the butterfly. After 40 years of research, they attribute happiness to three major sources: genes, events and values. Armed with this knowledge and a few simple rules, we can improve our lives and the lives of those around us. We can even construct a system that fulfills our founders’ promises and empowers all Americans to pursue happiness. …
For many years, researchers found that women were happier than men, although recent studies contend that the gap has narrowed or may even have been reversed. Political junkies might be interested to learn that conservative women are particularly blissful: about 40 percent say they are very happy. That makes them slightly happier than conservative men and significantly happier than liberal women. The unhappiest of all are liberal men; only about a fifth consider themselves very happy.
But even demographically identical people vary in their happiness. What explains this?
The first answer involves our genes. Researchers at the University of Minnesota have tracked identical twins who were separated as infants and raised by separate families. As genetic carbon copies brought up in different environments, these twins are a social scientist’s dream, helping us disentangle nature from nurture. These researchers found that we inherit a surprising proportion of our happiness at any given moment — around 48 percent. (Since I discovered this, I’ve been blaming my parents for my bad moods.)
If about half of our happiness is hard-wired in our genes, what about the other half? It’s tempting to assume that one-time events — like getting a dream job or an Ivy League acceptance letter — will permanently bring the happiness we seek. And studies suggest that isolated events do control a big fraction of our happiness — up to 40 percent at any given time.
But while one-off events do govern a fair amount of our happiness, each event’s impact proves remarkably short-lived. People assume that major changes like moving to California or getting a big raise will make them permanently better off. They won’t. Huge goals may take years of hard work to meet, and the striving itself may be worthwhile, but the happiness they create dissipates after just a few months.
So don’t bet your well-being on big one-off events. The big brass ring is not the secret to lasting happiness. …
The first three are fairly uncontroversial. Empirical evidence that faith, family and friendships increase happiness and meaning is hardly shocking. Few dying patients regret overinvesting in rich family lives, community ties and spiritual journeys.
Work, though, seems less intuitive. Popular culture insists our jobs are drudgery, and one survey recently made headlines by reporting that fewer than a third of American workers felt engaged; that is praised, encouraged, cared for and several other gauges seemingly aimed at measuring how transcendently fulfilled one is at work.
Those criteria are too high for most marriages, let alone jobs. What if we ask something simpler: “All things considered, how satisfied are you with your job?” This simpler approach is more revealing because respondents apply their own standards. This is what the General Social Survey asks, and the results may surprise. More than 50 percent of Americans say they are “completely satisfied” or “very satisfied” with their work. This rises to over 80 percent when we include “fairly satisfied.” This finding generally holds across income and education levels.
This shouldn’t shock us. Vocation is central to the American ideal, the root of the aphorism that we “live to work” while others “work to live.” Throughout our history, America’s flexible labor markets and dynamic society have given its citizens a unique say over our work — and made our work uniquely relevant to our happiness. When Frederick Douglass rhapsodized about “patient, enduring, honest, unremitting and indefatigable work, into which the whole heart is put,” he struck the bedrock of our culture and character. …
Along the way, I learned that rewarding work is unbelievably important, and this is emphatically not about money. That’s what research suggests as well. Economists find that money makes truly poor people happier insofar as it relieves pressure from everyday life — getting enough to eat, having a place to live, taking your kid to the doctor. But scholars like the Nobel Prize winner Daniel Kahneman have found that once people reach a little beyond the average middle-class income level, even big financial gains don’t yield much, if any, increases in happiness.
So relieving poverty brings big happiness, but income, per se, does not. Even after accounting for government transfers that support personal finances, unemployment proves catastrophic for happiness. Abstracted from money, joblessness seems to increase the rates of divorce and suicide, and the severity of disease.
And according to the General Social Survey, nearly three-quarters of Americans wouldn’t quit their jobs even if a financial windfall enabled them to live in luxury for the rest of their lives. Those with the least education, the lowest incomes and the least prestigious jobs were actually most likely to say they would keep working, while elites were more likely to say they would take the money and run. We would do well to remember this before scoffing at “dead-end jobs.”
Assemble these clues and your brain will conclude what your heart already knew: Work can bring happiness by marrying our passions to our skills, empowering us to create value in our lives and in the lives of others. Franklin D. Roosevelt had it right: “Happiness lies not in the mere possession of money; it lies in the joy of achievement, in the thrill of creative effort.”
In other words, the secret to happiness through work is earned success.
This is not conjecture; it is driven by the data. Americans who feel they are successful at work are twice as likely to say they are very happy overall as people who don’t feel that way. And these differences persist after controlling for income and other demographics.
You can measure your earned success in any currency you choose. You can count it in dollars, sure — or in kids taught to read, habitats protected or souls saved. When I taught graduate students, I noticed that social entrepreneurs who pursued nonprofit careers were some of my happiest graduates. They made less money than many of their classmates, but were no less certain that they were earning their success. They defined that success in nonmonetary terms and delighted in it.
If you can discern your own project and discover the true currency you value, you’ll be earning your success. You will have found the secret to happiness through your work.
There’s nothing new about earned success. It’s simply another way of explaining what America’s founders meant when they proclaimed in the Declaration of Independence that humans’ inalienable rights include life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. …
There’s nothing new about earned success. It’s simply another way of explaining what America’s founders meant when they proclaimed in the Declaration of Independence that humans’ inalienable rights include life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. …
But today that opportunity is in peril. Evidence is mounting that people at the bottom are increasingly stuck without skills or pathways to rise. Research from the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston shows that in the 1980s, 21 percent of Americans in the bottom income quintile would rise to the middle quintile or higher over a 10-year period. By 2005, that percentage had fallen by nearly a third, to 15 percent. And a 2007 Pew analysis showed that mobility is more than twice as high in Canada and most of Scandinavia than it is in the United States.
This is a major problem, and advocates of free enterprise have been too slow to recognize it. It is not enough to assume that our system blesses each of us with equal opportunities. We need to fight for the policies and culture that will reverse troubling mobility trends. We need schools that serve children’s civil rights instead of adults’ job security. We need to encourage job creation for the most marginalized and declare war on barriers to entrepreneurship at all levels, from hedge funds to hedge trimming. And we need to revive our moral appreciation for the cultural elements of success.
We must also clear up misconceptions. Free enterprise does not mean shredding the social safety net, but championing policies that truly help vulnerable people and build an economy that can sustain these commitments. It doesn’t mean reflexively cheering big business, but leveling the playing field so competition trumps cronyism. It doesn’t entail “anything goes” libertinism, but self-government and self-control. And it certainly doesn’t imply that unfettered greed is laudable or even acceptable.
Free enterprise gives the most people the best shot at earning their success and finding enduring happiness in their work. It creates more paths than any other system to use one’s abilities in creative and meaningful ways, from entrepreneurship to teaching to ministry to playing the French horn. This is hardly mere materialism, and it is much more than an economic alternative. Free enterprise is a moral imperative.
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1 comment on If it makes you happy …
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While you slept last night, I worked.
For 25 years (if you count my seven years in institutional public relations), I’ve worked in journalism.
The Newscastic GIF factory created two lists that, well, total 25 — first, the 15 things we journalists have to do before we can consider ourselves real journalists, including:
Write a 15-inch story in 30 minutes
Have a meltdown in the restroom at least once
Replace two of the major food groups with coffee and liquor
Own your own police scanner
Eat in your car more often than you do at a table
Get fired for no good reason
Forget what it’s like to have a weekend off
Being told to “fuck off “ and “go to hell” by a source (or an editor)
Wake up in a cold sweat thinking about tomorrow’s edition
Can no longer read a story without scanning for typos and errors
Conduct an interview while in a towel
Rip into a spokesperson over the phone
I admit that most of these have happened to me, though I’d replace “car” with “desk” in the eating item and “bathroom” with “office” in the meltdown item. I may have been told to go to hell, and I may have told someone(s) to go to hell, but, you know, the F-word is kind of inappropriate in the workplace. (At least at a volume others can hear.) As for being fired for no good reason, in business, there’s always a good reason, and possibly one or more documented reasons.
I don’t believe I’ve ever awakened in a cold sweat about the next issue, though the work needed on the next issue has kept me awake at times, though really not recently. By this point, I’m familiar with the amount of work that needs to get done, and I’m also familiar with the feeling it’ll never get done. And yet, at its appointed day (unless the Postal Service screws up delivery), there it is.
The 15th item on this list was “Couldn’t imagine doing anything else.” I’m not including it because (1) the young woman pictured looks like no journalist who has ever lived on this planet, (2) you should never love your job, because your job doesn’t love you, and neither does your employer, and (3) the more correct sentence is “I can’t do anything else well,” because you should work at what you do best, not what you’re most passionate about, or whatever term a two-bit motivational speaker or writer uses.
The remaining 10 items would have been usable 25 years ago — 10 ways to not look stupid in this line of work, including:
1. NEVER, EVER ASSUME
When we say never assume, we mean never, never, never, never, ever. Sure, 99 percent of the time you’re right when you assume but it’s that one time when you are wrong that assuming will bite you in the ass.
2. WHEN YOU DON’T KNOW WHAT THE HELL IS HAPPENING, ASK YOUR SOURCE
This goes back to the first rule – don’t assume. Ask a source to explain what the judge said, what the vote meant, or just what the hell is going on. Being clueless is not as bad as being wrong. Most sources will be happy to explain what’s happening rather than have it reported wrong.
3. DO YOUR HOMEWORK
Journalists can’t read a press release or court briefing three minutes before and expect to be prepared. Journalists are expected to know the basics of any story (the who, what, when, where, and how). Being unprepared wastes time – your time and your sources’ time.
4. HAVE DIRECTIONS
With the advent of Google Maps and GPS, there’s no excuse not to know where you’re going. Sometimes even being five minutes late could mean the difference between a great story and a mediocre story. Even if you think you know the address, before heading out of the newsroom, double check your directions.
5. KNOW WHO YOU’RE TALKING TO
Nothing is more insulting to an elected official or a big-shot business executive than some journalist asking, “And what’s your name?” These people are walking egos and if journalists want to have just five minutes of their time, they must stroke those egos. Learning who’s who is critical for journalists.
6. KNOW YOUR HISTORY
A news story without context is almost useless to readers. Editors don’t have time to sit down and explain the 20-year history of the monument that is about to be torn down. They say journalists are the writers of the first draft of history but journalists need to know a little history in order to do their job. So before heading off to an assignment, do a Google news search, talk to the reporter who wrote the last article on the issue, or troll through the newspaper’s morgue.
7. HAVE STYLE
Nothing pisses off an editor more than reading the copy of a journalist who obviously hasn’t fallen asleep while reading the AP Stylebook. The AP Stylebook should be a journalist’s Bible.
8. GET EVERYTHING YOU NEED THE FIRST TIME
Journalists usually have one shot to get all the information they need. Believe it or not, sources don’t sit at their desks just waiting for a journalist to call. When meeting with a source or attending an event, get all the information you’re going to need. Sure, there might be a follow-up question or two but there’s no guarantee you’ll get those answered before deadline. Get all the information you can while you have them on the phone or in person.
9. HAVE A BACKUP PLAN
Harddrives crash, voice recorders fail, batteries die. Too many journalists have been burned by having something go out on them. Don’t just record the interview, take notes as well because one day that recorder will fail. Back up your copy after every drink of coffee, make copies of your files, and keep a back-up battery for your cell phone in the car. Trust us, you’ll need it some day.
The last item is actually something I’ve learned in sports announcing, particularly when your equipment never seems to work 100 percent right. Even if (as has happened to me) you have to borrow someone else’s cellphone to broadcast a game, you have to get it done.
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Today in 1963, James Carroll of WWDC radio in Washington became the first U.S. DJ to broadcast a Beatles song:
Carroll, whose station played the song once an hour, got the 45 from his girlfriend, a flight attendant. Capitol Records considered going to court, but chose to release the 45 early instead.
Today in 1969, 50 million people watched NBC-TV’s “Tonight” because of a wedding:
The number one British single today in 1973:
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Occasionally after a big win over a big Packers rival — usually the Bears or Vikings — I like to bring blog readers the perspective of the losing side’s news media, which often turn on the team they’re covering.
That particularly is the case with Sunday’s improbable 37-36 Packers win over Dallas, in which the Cowboys blew a 26-3 halftime lead. The comeback matched the 1982 season-opening game in which the Los Angeles Rams scored the game’s first 23 points, but the Packers scored the last 35 points.
The Cowboys are one of the Packers’ three biggest outside-the-division rivals. (The other two are San Francisco and the New York Giants.) There’s the Ice Bowl, of course (along with the NFL championship game one year earlier), and the Cowboys’ domination of the Packers in their infrequent ’70s and ’80s meetings. But when Jerry Jones bought the Cowboys, and when the Cowboys ended three consecutive postseasons, that’s what stokes a rivalry.
Perhaps this photo of Jones should be on page 1 of today’s Metroplex newspapers:
Or, in the words of Cowboys fan Hank Hill of Arlen, Texas:
ESPN Dallas called the game a “Total Meltdown”:
The Cowboys had a 23-point lead against a backup quarterback and could not close the deal as they continued to find inventive ways to lose in 2013 as well as continue their December woes.
Tony Romo threw two fourth-quarter interceptions. The first led to Green Bay’s game-winning touchdown and the second killed any chance the Cowboys had of coming back for the win. …
Romo’s final pass was picked off by Tramon Williams with 1:22 to play and it sent the Cowboys fans rushing to the exits and the large number of Packers fans into hysteria after Walt Coleman overturned what had been called an incomplete pass.
Two weeks after Sports Illustrated gushed over Romo, the Dallas Morning News has a different opinion:
1.) Another poor finish to put on Tony Romo’s resume. The Cowboys’ franchise quarterback threw two interceptions in the final minutes and he has no one to blame but himself. As great as Romo has been at times in his career, there’s no denying that his critical mistakes is what he will be forever known for. Romo had a chance to put this game on ice when he threw deep to Dez Bryant late in the fourth quarter on first down. Yes, the Cowboys should’ve ran the ball, but Bryant was wide open and Romo under threw him. The two picks followed and the Cowboys might’ve just watched a playoff berth go out the window.
2. The defense was bad, but you shouldn’t have expected anything different. The injuries and poor scheme have done this franchise no favors. It’s not fair, but the offense has to carry this team. Sunday against a bad Green Bay club, they couldn’t get the job done. The blowout on Monday night was bad, but the way they lost Sunday is even more embarrassing.
The Fort Worth Star-Telegram has a quote about Romo’s interception that set up the game-winning touchdown that will make Cowboys fans scream:
Five plays later, Romo was intercepted by Sam Shields at midfield with 2:50 left in the game.
“It’s a run call. That specific time, we should have run the ball,” Romo said. “It’s tough. They overloaded the side we were going to run the ball to. It’s my fault putting the ball in position for the defense to make a play.” …
Two plays after the ensuing kickoff, Romo was intercepted by Tramon Williams with 1:22 left to play. On first down, Romo threw 9 yards to Beasley. On second down, Williams intercepted Romo on a similar play intended for Beasley. Beasley stopped on the route and Romo threw outside.
The News’ Rainer Sabin pursues the failure-to-run angle:
The Cowboys seemed determined to throw even in situations that didn’t require them to pass. Case in point: The interception that was the Cowboys’ coup de grace. The original play was a run but Tony Romo checked out of it and sealed Dallas’ fate.
“Certainly it didn’t work out well for us,” head coach Jason Garrett said. “We’ll go back and look at what we did.”
The film will show that the Cowboys curiously marginalized DeMarco Murray in a game he averaged 7.4 yards per carry and gained 134 yards. Murray faded in the background as the Cowboys carried the ball seven times in the second half and played like a team aiming to overcome a deficit as opposed to one trying to maintain a lead.
It was uncertain how Murray felt about how his reduced involvement after his day began with great promise when he sliced through the Packers front during a 41-yard dash in on the team’s second possession. After carrying the ball 18 times in a game in which Tony Romo had 51 dropbacks, the third-year tailback disappeared from the locker room by the time the media invaded the premises. But the man he runs behind, newly-acquired fullback Tyler Clutts, was there. Asked to explain why the Cowboys didn’t keep feeding the ball to Murray, Clutts didn’t give a definitive answer.
“I don’t know,” he said. “We’ve got to control what we can and we didn’t do enough to win the game. Simple as that.”
Clutts joined the team earlier this month. By then, the Cowboys had shown that they were so committed to throwing to the ball that they sometimes paid for their allegiance to that pass-first philosophy. In a close-shave victory over Minnesota last month, Tony Romo dropped back 54 times and the Cowboys called eight running plays.
A week later, in a blowout loss to New Orleans, they dug themselves a hole at the end of the first half when Romo misfired three consecutive times on one series. The Saints got the ball back, scored a touchdown and cruised to an easy win. Essentially the same scenario unfolded last Monday in a deflating defeat to Chicago. Near the end of the second quarter, Romo threw errantly on three straight downs, the Cowboys punted, and the Bears scored just before the break to take a commanding lead.
Then came Sunday.
“At different times in the second half, we probably could have run the ball more,” Garrett said.
But they didn’t. After building a substantial lead, the Cowboys, who entered Sunday throwing 64.1 percent of the time, were reluctant to feature Murray. In the final two quarters, the Cowboys carried out 11 plays on second-down – when the decision to run or pass is usually a toss-up – and Murray was handed the ball on only one of them.
Garrett, who hears Callahan’s play-calls through the headset he wears, acted as if he was powerless over how the offense was managed during the period when they lost control of the game.
“We wanted to mix run and pass,” Garrett said. “…We’ll go back and evaluate and see how well we did that.”
About clock management: In the NFL, the 40-second play clock begins after the end of the play, when the official either waves the game clock to a stop or raises his hand and blows his whistle. (In high school and college, the play clock starts when an official spots the ball at the new line of scrimmage.) So if an NFL team does nothing but hand off and gains not one single yard, that team can take 2 minutes, plus however long the plays take to run, off the clock. Given that, the only way the Packers could have stopped the clock in the fourth quarter is by using their time outs and with the two-minute warning. The bizarre thing is that, thanks to Shields’ interception, Packers fans probably thought Eddie Lacy scored too soon with 1:31 left.
But as the News’ Brandon George reports, it wasn’t just the offense:
The Cowboys actually forced Green Bay to punt Sunday six days after Chicago never did in a Monday night meltdown.
But Packers punter Tim Masthay was nowhere to be found in the second half.
After only allowing Green Bay a 57-yard field goal in the first half, the Cowboys’ NFL-worst defense showed its true colors in the second half.
The Packers scored touchdowns on all five second-half possessions before they kneeled three consecutive times to end the Cowboys’ misery.
After the Cowboys blew a 26-3 halftime lead, owner Jerry Jones still said he has “a lot of confidence” in defensive coordinator Monte Kiffin because of his experience.
The Cowboys played the entire second half with their top four linebackers out with injuries. Their top two defensive linemen – DeMarcus Ware and Jason Hatcher – combined for only one tackle.
“The second half was a complete debacle,” Cowboys cornerback Brandon Carr said, “and they took advantage of us. We couldn’t get off the field once again.”
A Cowboys’ defense that held Green Bay to 1-for-6 on third-down attempts in the first half couldn’t get the Packers to punt in the last two quarters.
Green Bay converted 6-of-7 third-down attempts in the second half. The only one they didn’t convert was the third-down kneel by Green Bay quarterback Matt Flynn to end the game.
The News’ Tim Cowlishaw blames, well, everyone:
An organizational failure of epic proportions. Sunday’s 37-36 loss to Green Bay at AT&T Stadium was nothing less and, when it comes to head coach Jason Garrett, the hot seat is back in play.
The old “clock management” issue that troubled Garrett in seasons past was reopened Sunday…even if Garrett all but suggested he has no control over it.
Meanwhile, the bad news for Garrett is that the Cowboys have blown four leads of 20 or more points and, while one came in 1965 before the team ever had a winning record and another in 1988 when Tom Landry was about to get fired, the top two have come on Garrett’s watch.
Here’s another stat that isn’t pretty. The Packers tied their team record for biggest comeback (23 points), and they’ve only been in the NFL since about a decade before the Great Depression.
What the Cowboys are experiencing is a fairly standard December recession. Still, I think the head coach has plenty of help in making these awful things happen.
Garrett’s not the type to point fingers directly, pull a Bill Parcells and say “I’m not the one who committed all those penalties.”
Then again when asked about the failure to protect a lead — specifically about throwing late when they should have been running and forcing Green Bay to use timeouts — Garrett could not have been more direct.
“The idea was to run the ball and use the clock,” he said, then explained how the system allows Tony Romo to change to pass plays if he sees nine defenders geared to stop the run.
He also made it clear about where those play calls are coming from.
“Bill (Callahan) calls the plays,” Garrett said. No hesitation, no suggestion that his headset gives him any more access to play calls than a Jeff Gordon fan listening to the 24 team’s radio during a NASCAR race.
Cowboys owner Jerry Jones said last month that Garrett was coming back for 2014. That doesn’t mean it’s written in stone — he was pretty steadfast about Chan Gailey coming back in 1999 right up until he fired him two days after a playoff loss in Minnesota. …
We are running out of things to say about how bad Monte Kiffin’s defense is, how irrelevant DeMarcus Ware has become, how many relative no-name receivers Brandon Carr can’t cover (add the Packers’ Jarrett Boykin to the roll call) and so on.
A Green Bay team that managed three points in the first half scored five touchdowns in the second, three of them on 80-yard drives.
The Cowboys offense could have limited the carnage had Romo avoided those (gulp) two late interceptions. Yes, the entire world should know by now that Cole Beasley cut short his route on the final ill-fated throw. Beasley, Garrett and Romo made sure of that with their post-game remarks.
The Star–Telegram’s Randy Galloway adds:
The easy answer is this:
Fire everybody. Now.
But since there’s nobody to jettison Jerry Jones, that allows his butt to wiggle off the hook. For nearly two decades, Jerry has done no time for his multiple football crimes.
Speaking, however, of blame:
Honk if you are guilty of having overrated Mr. Jones’ current maggot-mess of a football club.
Personally, I’m leaning on the horn based on a seasonlong assessment that the Cowboys were the epitome of NFL mediocrity.
The month of December, however, has totally exposed the fallacy of that theory.
Mediocrity would be a pronounced upgrade. Instead, this is simply a decaying club, which between Chicago last Monday night and here at the Big Yard on Sunday afternoon is rotting from the head down. Jerry’s head.
But let’s not waste time here. We need to get right to Tony.
Green Bay’s second half offensive tsunami swept the Cowboys into the history pages for dubious franchise deeds with a 37-36 win column rescue by the Packers, drawing the obvious question of “worst loss ever?”
The answer is yes. Simply because it was the latest loss that defied logic.
But at his going financial rate of $108 million, Tony Romo was outplayed for the second game in six days by a backup quarterback. This time, Matt Flynn. Last week, Josh McCown.
In Romo’s defense, he isn’t facing the depleted Cowboys’ defense, which even outdid itself in incompetence by giving up five straight touchdown drives in Sunday’s second half as Green Bay rallied from a 26-3 intermission deficit.
Then again, it’s not like the Packers, or the Bears last week, don’t have some serious defensive problems of their own.
But Romo throwing interceptions on the Cowboys’ last two possessions, one pick while attempting to milk a five-point lead, the other while attempting to get into field-goal position for the trusty foot of Dan Bailey, is the way this loss closed out.
The last pick was not Romo’s fault. Young receiver Cole Beasley simply cut off a sideline route.
The other one? Good grief, Tony. …
Romo dodged a defender who came loose on the play, but then his pass was a tad behind Miles Austin. Such a game-changing opportunity did not elude cornerback Sam Shields.
But so much of the second half came down to the Cowboys not using the run game enough, particularly since it was effective all afternoon.
Then again, when the game became a shootout, the emphasis was on the Cowboys putting up points. “It’s easy to look back now and say, ‘Run the ball, run the ball,’ but at the same time, if they are going to have numbers [the Packers stacking the defensive box], it’s a tough situation,” Romo said.
“What I have to do is a better job of protecting the ball, and I didn’t do a good enough job of that. I will next time.”
Aikman and play-by-play voice Joe Buck proved an excoriating tag team in their critique of the Cowboys play calling and clock management in Dallas’ 37-36 come-from-ahead loss to the Green Bay Packers in front of a national television audience.
In the end, Buck concluded the loss “is going to go down as one of the worst defeats in the history of the Dallas Cowboys.”
Added Aikman: “It’s hard to explain but the clock management by the Dallas Cowboys was about as bad as I’ve seen.”
That would include the play calls that ran through Coach Jason Garrett, once Aikman’s backup with the Cowboys and still his friend.
Just minutes before as the Packers were en route to their game-winning touchdown Aikman called out star defensive end DeMarcus Ware, who had been invisible all game.
“This is where DeMarcus Ware needs to show up,” Aikman told America. “He was challenged this week. He’s been a non-factor all afternoon.”
Ware didn’t show. …
Recall that the Cowboys led 26-3 at the half and they still led 29-17 as the third quarter wound down. Inexplicably, the Cowboys insisted on throwing the ball despite a successful running attack by DeMarco Murray, who was running with ease. He was averaging seven yards per carry. Running eats clock. Just what the Cowboys needed most.
After three consecutive incompletions all Aikman could say about the choice of plays had been a “big mistake.”
In the wake of one seemingly ill-timed Romo pass, the four words America heard were: “Are you kidding me?”
Considering the source it was a four-word indictment harsher than anything tweeted or written in its wake.
And there was Buck coming off the top rope when Packers defensive back Sam Shields intercepted a Romo pass on a second-down-and-six at the Cowboys 35 yard-line with a little less than three minutes remaining. Murray had just rushed for four yards.
“Why the Dallas Cowboys refused to run the ball in this situation is inexplicable,” Buck said. “The play calling of the Dallas Cowboys will come under serious question.”
USA Today poured gasoline on the fire:
After a furious Green Bay Packers comeback on Sunday cut a 26-3 halftime Cowboys lead to 36-31, Dallas had the ball up five points with just over two minutes remaining. On a second-and-6, when almost every other NFL team would be running the ball to milk the clock, Romo dropped back, scrambled away from a rush and threw an inexplicable, indefensible interception that led to the game-winning score for the Packers.
Then, when he had a chance at redemption with 1:20 remaining and his team down one point, Romo threw another pick, ending the game and bailing out the Philadelphia Eagles for an earlier loss in Minnesota. Now, the NFC East is in the hands of Philly, not Dallas, because Romo couldn’t keep the ball away from the Packers.
The Romo defenders, and there are plenty out there, will say the biggest story of the game is the absolute second-half collapse of the Dallas defense. It’s not Romo’s fault his team’s defense gave up five second-half touchdowns on the first five second-half possessions to a team that could barely win a game without Aaron Rodgers as a starter. And it’s not his fault the Dallas play calls were for passes instead of runs on the clock-killing possession at the end of the game.
These things are all true — though, there’s criticism when teams throw late (“they’re being too reckless) and there’s criticism when they run, (they’re playing it too safe) and these gripes always fit snugly into the game narrative. The Dallas defense is terrible and the playcalling was baffling. But the defense didn’t throw behind Miles Austin on the first pick, nor did it float a pass to a wideout who stopped on his route on the second. That’s on Romo and that’s life in the NFL. Quarterbacks are the heroes and quarterbacks are the goats and there’s rarely an in between.
The Cowboys were not the only victims Sunday:
This police motorcycle reportedly was run over by the Packers’ team bus.
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Jennifer Rubin of the Washington Post:
Lefty pundits will tell you that the source of all dysfunction inside the Beltway is Republicans. Let’s concede that a segment of Republicans — the “no” crowd, the shutdown squad, the spoilers of Plan B on the fiscal cliff — have been beyond unhelpful in addressing our countries problems. But frankly the key to unlocking gridlock is taking President Obama out of the picture.
Consider that the lopsided budget deal came about because Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) essentially shut out the White House. An immigration bill got through the Senate only because Obama was kept at arm’s length; whenever he popped up, the process tended to stall. The resolution of the shutdown came from Senate Democrats and Republicans, not Obama. The original Budget Control Act was also a bipartisan legislative solution after Obama undid the grand bargain with the House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio).
Even on foreign policy progress happens unless the White House intervenes. Republicans and Democrats were linked arm in arm on Iran sanctions and an additional House resolution until the White House bullied the Dems into holding off (for now). Agreement on the defense authorization act and compromise on sexual assault investigations also excluded the White House.
Maybe the key to progress, then, is keeping both the far right and the president out of the mix.
It is easy to see why the president is a disruptive factor. For starters, he believes opponents are stupid or evil and refuses to take their concerns as genuine. If you don’t understand the other guy it’s awfully hard to make a deal. That in turn leads to his favorite, unhelpful tactic — traveling around the country to excoriate Republicans. All this does is stiffen the spines of the left flank in his own party while annoying the Republicans.
The problems don’t stop there. A refusal to communicate with Congress (even members of his own party), a disinclination to get into or present the nitty-gritty details of legislation, a determination to make the other guys look bad even at the expense of a deal and the predilection for second-rate yes-men who don’t give him an accurate picture of the Congress or the country all combine to make Obama one of the least effective executives in recent times. His single “achievement” is the disastrous Obamacare, jammed through on a party-line vote when he had majorities in both houses. Since then? Nothing.
Some pundits make the case for strengthening the executive branch to avoid gridlock. Congress is so messy, so riddled with “special interests,” you see. Well, there is a reason the Founding Fathers tried to make Congress preeminent (Article I is the Congress, with top billing). Surely they were concerned with an executive who would become like the monarchs of the Old World and exercise dictatorial power. But there is another excellent reason to tip things Congress’s way: Because of staggered terms you have legislative continuity (even more so with gerrymandering) and a body of collective judgment that is broader and more diverse than a single chief executive can offer. If you have one cruddy president and an executive-heavy government, the country is out of luck for his term (need I say more?); whereas the Congress is generally not hobbled by a single defective person or rotten idea.
You don’t want to make permanent, constitutional changes based on one president or even one era of government, but the Obama example should remind conservatives that Congress is really where the action should be. The give and take –checks and balances and legislative process — as we know, is slow and deliberate, making radical change difficult. That has generally served conservatives well. But what about the crazies on the right (especially) running amok? And how do we solve problems that need solving?
These concerns are real, but the solution is not an institutional or constitutional one. Certainly, campaign finance laws that push money out of political parties and into the hands of extreme groups that can boost similarly extreme candidates is one problem that has a fix (repeal McCain-Feingold). But more generally, Congress can improve its output by also strengthening leadership in both bodies. Note the difference between the shutdown and this budget fight, the latter in which an emboldened speaker of the House is willing to rhetorically and legislatively beat down the far right.
Ironically with outside money and the end of earmarks, leaders have lost tools for keeping members in line. That leaves leaders with fewer mechanisms to move their body, but election of strong-willed leaders, seniority rules and committee assignments still offer some levers. (Telling cranks on the right that the “Hastert rule” never really existed and isn’t the way the House will run is another tool to force compromise within the majority and move legislation.)
For the next three years, we are likely to operate with a dysfunctional and inept executive. In foreign policy that is frightening. In domestic policy it’s the perfect opportunity for Congress to reclaim institutional authority, bolster internal controls and see if real work can get done when they keep the president at bay. Perhaps in divided government and a polarized country, big issues (e.g. entitlement reform) can’t get done, but middle- and small-sized gains are possible.
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One year later, did the Newton, Conn., school shootings succeed in getting Americans to support gun control?
John R. Lott Jr., author of More Guns, Less Crime, reports:
President Obama has pushed hard for gun control this year and New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg has spent millions of dollars on ads, but the administration’s promise to coordinate “a November lobbying effort and plan events to commemorate the first anniversary of the Newtown, Connecticut” has gotten little traction.
Last year the Newtown shooting, with it horrific slaughter, lead to an immediate national movement for gun control. But that was short-lived, and opposition to gun control is currently very strong. Indeed, it appears to be the strongest in decades.
A recent CNN poll finds the highest level of opposition to any new gun control measures since CNN started asking about it in 1989. Rising from only 28 percent opposed to new gun control measures then to 50 percent today. And it’s not the only poll with such findings. Gallup finds that opposition to stricter laws has risen from 19 to 50 percent.
What’s more, these polls don’t reflect that most people in favor of gun control don’t have strong feelings about it. Monthly Gallup polls from June to October this year reveal it’s just not viewed as a pressing issue. …
Recent newspaper headlines mirror these polls. Over the last couple days the Washington Post announced “How gun control is losing, badly (in charts)” or “Gun-control groups are shifting efforts and resources to handful of states.”
Even at the state level the New York Times paints an anemic movement, counting up the passage of state gun laws, 39 tightening restrictions and 70 liberalizing them.
It almost seems as if gun control advocates like the New York Times are going out of their way to make their side look weak.
The more restrictive laws are going to do a lot more to reduce gun ownership than the liberalizations will increase it.
Maryland is now going to charge over $350 to license and register handguns and buyers will have to undergo four hours of training.
Yet, the Times viewed that as equivalent to West Virginia’s change that exempts concealed-carry permit holders who have already undergone background checks from another background check when they buy a gun.
A frequent claim by control advocates this year has been that 80 percent to 90 percent of Americans are in favor of expanded background-checks legislation. But the polls showing such overwhelming support really ask little more than whether people want to stop criminals from obtaining guns, not whether voters actually favor the legislation that the Senate was voting on. …
The newest strategy by gun control advocates seems to be a stealth strategy — sneaking in fees and taxes for obtaining guns. These are penalties that will reduce gun ownership, particular for the very people who need them the most, the most likely victims of crime, the poor in high-crime urban neighborhoods.
Hmmm. Maybe a majority of Americans don’t think gun control will work. Maybe a majority of Americans support the Constitution, unlike the Obama administration. Maybe a majority of Americans don’t believe something — anything! — must be done as knee-jerk responses to unexplainable events like Newtown.
So Americans do not in fact support proposed gun control, and yet bureaucrats and liberals work to take guns away from people. I bet if a poll asked Americans if they were tired of being treated as infants, mental defectives, misguided or just plain evil by politicians, the Yes response would be close to 100 percent.
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The number one British single today in 1965 wasn’t just one song:
Today in 1970, five Creedence Clearwater Revival singles were certified gold, along with the albums “Cosmo’s Factory,” “Willy and the Poor Boys,” “Green River,” “Bayou Country” and “Creedence Clearwater Revival”:
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The number one single today in 1973:
The number one British single today in 1979 was the last number one British single of the 1970s:
The number one British single today in 1984:
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It figures that after yesterday’s marathon musical compendium, today’s is much shorter.
The number one album today in 1959 was the Kingston Trio’s “Here We Go Again!”
The number one single today in 1968:
Today in 1977, the movie “Saturday Night Fever” premiered in New York:
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This has nothing to do with the University of Wisconsin, despite the title.
It has to do with what some call the “culture war” on which conservatives are one side, and about which Stephen M. Klugiewicz writes:
Conservative intellectuals tend to be a dismal sort. By natural disposition we are pessimistic people. We cannot really be blamed for this, when one considers the history of mankind and particularly the sorry history of human governance. From starting unnecessary wars to enslaving whole peoples to reducing the masses to poverty through excessive taxation, man, when clothed with the right to rule others, has shown himself to be a tyrant-in-waiting.
Moreover, we conservatives realize that human nature is intrinsically inclined to do evil, that utopias are unachievable and their pursuit dangerous, and that we are apt, over time, to lose our moorings to the commandments of God and His laws of nature. We thus tend to hold out little hope for the future.
As justification for our inherent pessimism we need only to look at the peculiar and sorry times in which we live: an era in which the Founding Fathers are considered “dead white men,” but in which the Constitution they made is held to be living; a time in which political compromise is valued as a priority but commitment to principle is reviled as naïve, quixotic; an age in which any kind of perverse speech or lifestyle is celebrated in the name of freedom, but in which free enterprise is stifled in the names of equality and compassion; a time in which information reigns supreme, but in which logical thinking is scarce; an era in which we have attained the greatest technological know-how but in which we have the least understanding of beauty, goodness, and truth.
Added to all this is our conservative tendency to revel in the nobility of lost causes. This in itself is not a bad thing at all—quite the opposite in fact. As T.S. Eliot said:
“We fight for lost causes because we know that our defeat and dismay may be the preface to our successors’ victory, though that victory itself will be temporary; we fight rather to keep something alive than in the expectation that anything will triumph.”
But we have not taken Eliot’s words to heart. We mistakenly look for permanent victories, political and cultural, and when they do not come, we despair. We seem not to realize that it is not permanent victories that we should seek but rather the preservation of “the permanent things,” which is victory enough.
Keeping alive the flame, however, does not mean hiding its light. After all, a flame that is not open to the air will be snuffed out. Like Isaiah we are under the Divine injunction to be “a light to the nations, to open the eyes that are blind.” This means that conservative thinkers should not talk exclusively amongst themselves, as we are prone to do. (One might recall that perennial philosophical question: “If an intellectual presents a paper at an academic conference, does it make a sound?”) Instead, we need to shine forth the light of truth, goodness, and beauty through the best available means that can reach the masses; today that means the internet, and specifically online journals like The Imaginative Conservative.
As Sam Gamgee says in Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings: “There’s some good in this world, and it’s worth fighting for.”
In fighting our worthy battle, American conservatives can position their forces on the ramparts of certain premises: that the Founding Fathers, despite their flaws, still have much to teach us today; that the Constitution is actually dead, in the sense that its actual written words need to be taken seriously; that free enterprise is inextricably linked to political freedom and ordered liberty; that inquiry, to be free, must be grounded in reason and must be directed to the ascertainment of truth; and that information and technology are not goods in themselves unless they serve the good and the beautiful. …
Western Civilization is undeniably in decline and indeed its very existence is in doubt. Yet these thoughts ought not to drag us conservatives down into a morass of defeatism. Sadly, though, some conservatives are indeed calling for retreat. They say that the hour is too late, that a remnant must run to the barricades and shield itself and whatever is left of Western Civilization from the barbarians at the gates. Like Tolkien’s King Theoden, they seek a Helm’s Deep in a desperate attempt to preserve the world of men from the hour of the Orc. But I call on conservatives to refuse to cede the current hour to darkness, and I join with the Aragorn of Tolkien and Peter Jackson in declaring:
A day may come when the courage of men fails, when we forsake our friends, and break all bonds of fellowship; but it is not this day! An hour of woe, and shattered shields, when the Age of Men comes crashing down; but it is not this day! This day we fight! By all that you hold dear on this good earth, I bid you stand, Men of the West!”
As a non-intellectual, I’m not sure conservative intellectuals should be dismal at all. Klugiewicz’s history of mankind (which also proves the importance of religion, because without it we would surely devolve into a dog-eat-dog world that would make Somalia look like Utopia in comparison) demonstrates that we should be pessimists, but because pessimists are either proven right, or things go better than they should. (Concept stolen from George Will.) The only way the fight ends is when you’re dead, and the only thing John Maynard Keynes said that made any sense at all is that in the long run we are all dead.
Ive called politics like sports except that the season never ends. Politics is definitely a zero-sum game — one side wins, which means the other side loses. There is no final victory, but you have to keep winning. Unless, that is, you don’t think the future of your children is important.
Steve Prestegard.com: The Presteblog 