Droning on

I’ve taken a lot of classes as a college student. As a result, I’ve come up with more than a few ways of wasting time during lecture. One of my personal favorites is FanGraphs – an analytically inclined baseball blog. The irony of reading up on new hitting metrics during my stats lectures was delicious and I like baseball, so it’s a pretty good marriage. One of their tricks is to post two stat lines without identifying the player. If done right it illustrates for readers how their preconceived notions of player value may have clouded their judgment when evaluating talent. For example, which of these players would you rather have:

Player A – batting avg.: 0.302; on base %: 0.360; slugging %: 0.522*

            Player B – batting avg.: 0.251; on base %: 0.332, slugging %: 0.475*

*Stats per Baseball Reference, contract info (below) via Cot’s Contracts.

Player A is clearly better right!? Well player A is Aaron Hill, a second baseman for the Arizona Diamondbacks who pulls down $5 million a year and didn’t even make the all star team this year. Player B is Mark Teixeira; he of the $180 million contract and New York Yankee fame. Unless they had already done their homework, few baseball fans would guess that Aaron Hill had a better 2012 than Mark freakin’ Teixeira! Anyways, if you’re into this sort of thing it can be quite fun, and since the presidential election was just a short while ago it might be a cool trick to apply to politics. So, try this one on for size:

President A – drone assassinations: 278; enemy combatants detained: 2,400; awesome quote: “I’ve now been in fifty-seven states; I think one left to go.”

President B – drone assassinations: 52; enemy combatants detained: 1,400; awesome quote: “I know the human being and fish can coexist peacefully." 

CATHOLICS VOTE NO

Minnesota always has been home and always will be home. We’re damn proud of our lakes, high school hockey, Prince, and Paul Wellstone. We were the first state to answer Abraham Lincoln’s call for volunteers at the start of the Civil War and we have one of the best social safety nets in the country. But in one week we could also become the 31^st state to rewrite its constitution to ban same-sex marriage.*

*This is civil marriage – a legal contract recognized by the state that privileges two parties to state-recognized benefits – not the sacramental union in the Church (which also happens to be recognized by the state). This is an important distinction.

We’re also proud to call ourselves Catholics. It is a beautiful Faith and the Church does some wonderful work from advocacy on Capitol Hill to feeding the homeless at the Dorothy Day Center. Nevertheless, the Minnesota Catholic Church and its exceptional support of the amendment to ban gay marriage are major reasons that the vote Tuesday remains too close to call. It would be a tragedy if Minnesota votes yes – not just for the LGBT community, but for our state, and for our Church. 

Reaction Paper 2*

*This essay was written for my PubPol 754 class (hence the lousy title). It has been slightly modified for posting on the blog (or at the Michigan Daily**, “the Blog”) The ideas – save for one grammatical correction – remain my own, but the message has become even more salient in light of the Regents’ decision earlier this week to file an amicus curie brief supporting the overturn of a recently passed Michigan law banning grad student unionization. Universities file court briefs occasionally, but near as I (or anyone I spoke with) can tell, the governing body of any university taking a such strong stance on a strictly partisan procedural issue is unprecedented.

**Ignoring AP style since 1890. Also, meta alert: footnote within a footnote!

The most recent chapter in the saga of unionization at Michigan began last May when UM regents, against the advice of top university officials, voted to give Graduate Student Research Assistants (GSRAs) the option to join the umbrella union for teaching assistants and other student employees. While this was a rare schism between the administration and BoR, it is a startling one. Not only did the board grossly overstep its authority, but vote tallies and quotes show that GSRA unionization was a strictly political question for the regents, with both sides toeing party lines and giving no indication that they had seriously considered how unionization would affect the university. As a partisan body (right now there are 6 Democrats and 2 Republicans), it makes sense for members act and vote in accordance with party dogma. The million dollar question is whether or not that makes sense for the university, its faculty, and its students.

State of the unions

There comes a point in every debate where both parties become wrong; it’s part of what makes American politics great, or at least entertaining. Even Abraham Lincoln suspended habeas corpus* and saw Atlanta burn during the Civil War.** Like William Sherman, Lincoln’s firebug general, the University of Michigan’s “Students Against GSRA Unionization” and their allies began to march stubbornly in that familiar direction Wednesday when the State Senate passed a bill to define Graduate Student Research Assistants as students – and therefore unable to unionize – for all posterity. SB 971 now moves on to the House of Representatives and we safely enter that all-to-typical political territory where both sides of an issue sides start making missteps.

Your Hometown

So I was one of the four thousand or so people who was lucky enough to see President Barack Obama speak at the University of Michigan January 27^th. My apologies for getting this post up late, but there are two things I want to comment on that I haven’t seen elsewhere.

Notes on "The State of the Union"

While we were watching President Obama’s state of the union address Tuesday, a couple passages jumped out at us. Here they are, along with our thoughts (please hold your applause until the end):

Iowa Caucuses: Don't Forget to Take Your Gopiac

Last week, I was driving on the road out of the promised land – some refer to it as “Interstate 35” - through northern Iowa. It was the weekend before the Republican Iowa Caucuses, but because of some stellar luck, I got a sneak preview of the results. Out of all of the GOP presidential candidate bumper stickers I saw, most were for Rep. Ron Paul. The others, well....OK I only saw two...and they were both supporting Paul.

With this knowledge, I did pretty well in predicting the winner. Or, at least the third place finisher.

Think Local. Drink Local. Protest Local?

I like the phrase “all politics is local.” The things that are most important are the things that are closest to you. Incidentally, those are often things you know the most about and have the most power to influence. That’s why I spent a semester as an editor begging UW-Madison students to stop writing about Israel-Palestine and another year on an editorial board sounding off on things like the what to name the new union and the University muscling Brothers Bar and Grill off its corner. Being able to recognize issues you want to influence is only half the battle – you have to know whom to lobby to make your voice heard.

Boo Bishop-Bashing Board. Hooray Church!

In the Minnesota Daily last week, the Editorial Board presented quite an appalling proposal.  Their piece suggested that people of faith – specifically Minnesota’s Roman Catholic Bishops and Minnesota Catholics – do not have a right to express their beliefs in the public arena.

According to the the article, because the Minnesota Bishops are on the wrong side of the pending gay marriage amendment, they should not be able to persuade state legislators and lead advocacy campaigns.  This is a flawed argument because the right to participate in these activities is not dependent on where one stands – otherwise public discourse would be futile.