Month: January 2007

Balancing Pacifica

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Kucinich talks of bringing back the “fairness doctrine”; probably it won’t go anywhere, but it reminded me of how much we listen to NPR, how wonderful and how irritating it is.

The left seems awfully worried about the right’s AM dominance, but for years, while we hauled our kids around to lessons and when I was running the shop for 16-hour days, the local public station played in the background. When she was in junior high, my middle daughter wrote a poem to Martin Goldsmith. It wasn’t a school girl crush, but rather about the pleasure she felt in the music he introduced, in his voice, in the peace those lovely string quartets brought to her radio every night. His show, Performance Today, is now hosted by Fred Childs and with her out of the house, I go back to my more regular fare. Still, it provided a wonderful experience, even for someone as musically illiterate as I am.

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Congratulations to James Rummel!

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James is our new Blogosphere Air Pistol Champion, 5 Meter Division. Congratulations also to runner up Dan from Madison, who I love like a brother even though he gives me a hard time.

In recognition of his outstanding performance, James receives this Chicagoboyz Certificate of Achievement to display on his blog:

James R. Rummel, you are the man!

Keep an eye on the Shooting section of the Chicago Boyz Forum for the latest info on this and other shooting events.

Quote of the Day

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…One writer argues travel has lost its romance because it is too easy. Sorry, but travel has lost its romance because it is too hard, though hard in a different way than it was fifty years ago. In 1957, travel was difficult like a safari. In 2007, travel is difficult like getting a hip replacement in the British medical system.

–Warren Meyer

Milton — Samurai William

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Milton, G., Samurai William: The Adventurer Who Unlocked Japan, Hodder & Stoughton, 2002, 400 pp.

[cross-posted on Albion’s Seedlings]

Some thirty years ago, beach readers basting themselves in the sun were reading the fictional adventures of an English sailor, a navigator or “pilot”, cast ashore after a Dutch shipwreck off Japan in the early 17th century. John Blackthorne was the ultimate “fish out of water,” making his way in an alien violent land through physical strength, mental acuity and prodigious love-making, rising finally after various reversals of fortune to become the trusted confidant and friend of the military supremo of the time — the Shogun. Battling ninja, the Portuguese, Jesuits, scheming Japanese lords, cultural confusion, and romantic tragedy, the novel left Blackthorne an older and wiser man at the peak of his powers.

Like many fans of James Clavell’s Asian novels, I enjoyed the story for what it was … laced with the critical potboiler elements of exotic settings, sex and violence (followed closely by clothes and food) … a great yarn … an uninspiring 1980 TV mini-series — but I thought no more about it until I glanced recently at the cover of a paperback version of Milton’s Samurai William in a bookstore. Hmm. That tale looks familiar.

It turns out that Clavell’s fish-out-of-water story was based broadly on actual events. Englishman William Adams was a crewman on a small fleet of Dutch ships attempting to open trade with the Far East by passing through the Cape Horn and sailing across the Pacific. Adams and a handful of starved, sickened survivors of the single Dutch vessel to make it to Japan were curiosities at first to the reigning shogun (Tokugawa Ieyasu). They were saved from crucifixion on a whim, despite the best efforts of the Jesuits to see that Adams and his crew met an immediate and very bad end. Adams was tossed into a Japanese prison after his first interview with the Shogun.

But the shogun quickly realized that the anjin or pilot was an unusually intelligent, skilled, and self-possessed man. Though not formally educated, his technical and geographic knowledge was substantial. And his ability with languages was to become a key factor in the subsequent history of Japan. For William Adams, English Protestant pilot, formerly of Limehouse in London’s docklands, was to become the European translator for the most powerful man in Japan.

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As Serious As Football

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This morning was a chance to ponder the mysteries of life.

As a New England Patriots supporter (the Calgary Stampeders having missed the NFL playoffs again this year), I’m still in shock over the Pats’ upset 24-21 win over No. 1 seeded San Diego yesterday. The Patriots had no business winning that game. Tom Brady was unexpectedly off-target with many of his passes. More than once I was yelling at the TV screen “what the [heck] are you throwing at?” The experts last week, almost to a man, picked San Diego to win. The folks in San Diego were booking airline tickets for the Superbowl in Miami in early February. The city of San Diego was advance planning their Superbowl parade celebrations on city streets. Yet somehow New England scored 10 unanswered points in the last five minutes of the game, and won the game on a missed San Diego field goal in the final few seconds of play. What planet are we on?

And what would sports writers and fans make of this strange, strange turn of events? Of opportunities lost on both sides? Of outstanding athletes blowing very hot and very cold over the course of sixty minutes of play? Of the top seeded team, with the NFL’s MVP, losing at home?

It was an eye-opening experience to surf the Web this morning because I don’t read much sports journalism. The game was dissected in a thousand different ways. A few writers were clearly “in the bag” for one team or another but by and large I learned a great deal more about the game through the eyes of people who know it far better than I. It was clear, however, we’d watched the same game. The reference points, and the general sense of what was important, were the same.

It was a column by Pete King on the Sports Illustrated website which brought me up short and gave me reason to think. Here’s first-year NY Jets coach Eric Mangini’s post-season comments to the press corps:

I want to thank all of you guys. I know it’s been a long season for you. I appreciate your patience with me. I know I haven’t been Don Rickles in here. I’m trying. I think I made some progress. I’ll continue to try to make progress. I think the things that you guys do is extremely important. You’re the conduit to the fans. I just appreciate your patience with me and your understanding and your support throughout the course of the season.

“A conduit to the fans.” Jeez. That’s right. The media’s there to inform the fans.

It got me thinking. Most sports writers have an opinion. And certainly the local sports writers have an investment in communicating as much about their teams as humanly possible. Fan appetite for information is insatiable and where newspapers, TV and the Internet can’t satisfy it, fans will simply manufacture it themselves. Their passion is legendary.

Yet something still distinguishes sports media from the “current events” media — the MSM — that I usually read. Most of the sports media actually recognize that there are things that the coaches and players will not tell them. Never have. Never will. That the media do not require, and will not get, a briefing on all the details of a game plan, and certainly don’t need ongoing espionage operations to do a good job for their employers and readers. Coach Bill Belichick of the New England Patriots is legendary for his non-informative press conferences, yet sports reporters still line up to hear his words. One reason. His team wins, mostly.

Part of the “good guys” winning requires that the media play it straight. They can read between the lines all they want. They can dream up whatever schemes, plans, and strategies they think will prevail. They can interprete the slightest facial twitch or player limp in whatever way they want. But they cannot, must not, seek to betray confidences that would benefit the opposing team. A reporter who consistently attempted to sabotage the local team’s game plans would quickly be looking for work in a different discipline. Fans have too much invested in their teams to let that kind of behaviour continue.

Thus my broader view for the day — America will get the MSM it wants when America takes its national security as seriously as its football.

We don’t need “happy hacks” (to quote Mickey Kaus) but we do need media who recognize that they’ve got some skin in this game. That there are things that they do not need to know, immediately, under a system of representative government. That their role in life is not to undermine the effectiveness of the local team. Yes, we want to know the strengths and weaknesses. But winning the game … not exposing how the game is to be won … is what ultimately counts to the fans.

Bill Belichick, Tom Brady, and the New England Patriots move on to the AFC Championship against Indianapolis next week. And the fans couldn’t care less what they discussed LAST week. Thank goodness the media in Pats’ world are actually required to love football more than themselves. Football fans can still dictate how the game is played.

Maybe America needs a few more fans.