G.U.T. CHECK

How did we get here? (You know what I mean.)

I have a grand unified theory, or at least a unified theory.

1. The internet happened. Before the internet, all information was centralized in institutional places like libraries, newspapers, home reference books, three or four over-the-air television networks and one cable news channel. You had a pretty good feeling that the information you read or heard was true, because it had gone through the layers of checking that these institutions provide (sure, there were some urban legends floating around, but nobody put much credence in them and they were repeated mostly for entertainment value). Suddenly, all this previously accumulated information was readily available at a moment's notice from a wire.

2. Quickly, every single person who had internet access began not only reading the information that had previously only been available from institutions, but also creating information for others to read and reading others' created information. Since the information created from individuals or small groups of entrepreneurs or non-profits wasn't being checked by layers of fact-checkers, it wasn't always accurate. In some or even most cases, it was willfully and intentionally misleading or outright false to advance some money-making scheme or political view. The bad information was formatted in such a way as to look exactly like the good information. People had almost no way to tell the difference.

3. Eventually, many of the purveyors of bad information grew and prospered. The Drudge Report was an early example of this, and that site begat so many other outlets. Left-wingers, right-wingers, sports columnists, business people, scientists, and pretty much any niche group saw the power of bad information and took to it readily. It was easy to create, easy to post, and easy to get in front of people, and lucrative to do so. People swallowed it up heartily.

4. The online experience eventually became very easy to curate. You could set up your online day to read only what you wanted to read from the sources you agreed with and/or trusted. Friendster and Myspace started the trend, and then the invention and widespread use of RSS led to a proliferation of feed curation applications. Facebook took over for Myspace and solidified the idea of a daily feed of personally hand-picked news sources. Twitter was another shot of adrenaline that baked in the feeling of instantaneous reaction to news from people who shared your point of view and reinforced it in real time.

5. All throughout this process, information was becoming less and less institutionalized and the bad information was far outpacing the good. After all, 7 billion people could now create bad information while only a relative handful of institutions can create good information. Certain people, many of whom had done well but were getting older and saw problems ahead, or who had lost a good-paying job to globalization, or who were stuck in some remote backwater, or who were simply predisposed to the concept because they were brought up in religious and/or conservative households, started to buy in to the idea far more than others that the old institutions were feeding them lies and that this new age of information, mostly bad information, was the real truth. The bad information, designed and chosen especially for them, felt so good, while the old institutions were always telling them what seemed in contrast to be bad news.

6. The last presidential election where good information was supreme was probably 2000, although we started to see rumblings in the widely reported lie that Al Gore had claimed to invent the internet. Quickly after that election, the horror of 9/11 happened and people rushed to fill in details of the attack with bad information from the internet. The George W. Bush administration was more than happy to supply them with plenty of it as justification to invade Iraq. As Bush's first term was ending, Karl Rove fully harnessed his delivery system of bad information to engineer the Swift Boat Veterans For Truth, a diabolically named organization that all but sunk John Kerry. This was the first and most egregious example of a decent, reasonable, and worthy politician being completely undone by lies proliferated by the internet. It set a template for the next decade or so where anybody who actually wanted government to accomplish something or had even the mildest of "progressive" ideas could be undermined by the most tenuous of fabricated bullshit. Of course, the internet also served to upend people like John Edwards and Eliot Spitzer who had it coming. It became very easy to decide that every politician was a traitor, a liar, a bum, or an adulterer because of how easy it was to expose them, whether it was true or not. Faith in government itself began hitting record lows, and a completely avoidable housing crisis and recession accelerated people's anxiety.

7. In 2008, the bad information on Barack Obama was staggering in its scope and depth. The fact that he was African-American split the electorate along racial lines, and those who could not countenance a black President began retreating almost solely into this new avalanche of bad information in addition to the enormous cache that they had been slowly and methodically accumulating for themselves over the years. Obama won only because these folks were in the minority in the large states where the Electoral College votes are most numerous, but their numbers were growing. So was the bad information, day by day, month by month. One of its leaders was Donald Trump, who championed the pernicious idea that Obama was born in Kenya.

8. Prior to the 2010 election, the rise of these bad-information-only voters was given a name: the Tea Party. Using their bad information and the social networking capabilities that went along with it (smart phones became commonplace and you could take your bad information with you everywhere), they were able to organize all across the country. Opportunistic business people who saw the power of the Tea Party, like the Koch Brothers and others, bankrolled and focused the group to take down politicians in local and state elections to give the GOP the majority in the House and in state houses, which enabled the GOP to gerrymander congressional districts after the 2010 census. Their power increasing, and the bad information on which they relied to sway others swelling exponentially, the Tea Party continued to grow and win huge victories like Citizens United that opened the floodgates to corporate political donations. They failed to take down Obama in 2012, mainly because the GOP nominating process favored the "next man up" mentality that had been in place for decades and which resulted in a milquetoast candidate, Mitt Romney. Romney didn't win, but the Tea Party made it closer than 2008 had been.

9. Which leads us to 2016. The Tea Party was not happy with the choice of Romney in 2012 and agitated from the beginning of the process to put a more conservative candidate on the ticket in 2016. Into the breach stepped Trump, long a darling of the bad-information-only crew because of his tireless "birther" movement against Obama. Trump was a perfect fit for the Tea Party, with his bluster, his talk of "draining the swamp", his contempt for women and immigrants, and his almost overt white supremacist leanings. Despite all the major media institutions predicting that Trump could never be nominated, the Tea Party pushed him to the top in state after state, and he ultimately won enough delegates.

10. Here we stand, the day before election day. Hillary Clinton is yet another target of a tsunami of bad information, perhaps at an order of magnitude worse than Obama, from Whitewater to Vince Foster to Benghazi and the endless self-inflicted saga of the e-mail server, plus all the bad information generated against her husband and the Clinton Foundation. The previous institutions, such as the New York Times especially, have done their best to expose Trump as a liar, a serial sexual assaulter, a deadbeat, and a terrible businessman, and they seem to have made some traction. However, the election is certainly much closer than it should be and closer than 2008 or even 2012. Clinton may get through, but only by a hair's breadth. We'll see.

Where do we go from here? Let's say Clinton wins, for my own sanity. The Tea Party will be strengthened by the closeness of the result. Bad information and the methodology to share it will continue to increase. I see no way the bad-information-only Tea Party, now often lumped together with something similar called the "Alt-Right", egged on by the GOP big donors who seek to exploit it, won't eventually take over all three branches of government. They have already cemented the House, and may keep the Senate in 2016 and will definitely improve their advantage there in 2018. In 2020, unless Clinton manages some kind of economic miracle in four years, the forces that are allied against her will have solidified, and if the GOP can find a decent human being to run against her that checks off all the Alt-Right boxes (a big if, to be sure), she will lose handily. Soon after, the Supreme Court will be the final branch to succumb to the Alt-Right. At that point, there will no check or balance against bad information. The entire government will be reliant on it to stay in power, and worse, may actually believe it. The slippery slope to a decade or more of policy dedicated to protect the wealthy at all costs, which has always been the GOP's ultimate goal, will surely ensue. I can't imagine the super-wealthy will allow large clamps on immigration or restriction of trade deals, because they rely on these for their wealth. More likely will be a reduction of taxes on billionaires and the imposition of austerity measures on the poor and middle class, with border control being stepped up and made more visible if not any more effective. Climate Change will continue to be ignored and subsidies will flow to the entrenched energy providers over new renewable players, which could set back that movement for decades. Healthcare will continue to get more and more expensive until good care will only be affordable to a tiny minority, while the rest pay very high premiums and very high deductibles and get sicker, or simply go without and risk destitution for any mishap. Our infrastructure will continue to collapse, with politicians spending on it only when a crisis occurs, and always favoring cars over public transit. We will likely see a reversal of Roe v. Wade, gay marriage and women's and LBGTQ rights in order to mollify the Alt-Right and keep them engaged. We'll put ground troops in Syria and Libya, and once again in Iraq in an effort to stomp out ISIS while trillions in poorly accounted-for cash will go to defense contractors. Essentially, we'll see the policies of the George W. Bush administration on a far more ambitious scale and much more difficult to unseat.

I really fear the complete loss of the previous institutions. Libraries and newspapers are already dying. Television is becoming so fragmented that in ten years, there may be no national over-the-air networks, only niche cable/streaming channels that exist only to tell special interests what they want to hear. With all of that fact-checking gone, all we will have is each other for our news, and the world will become a giant game of telephone. Each retelling of an event will become more and more sensationalized and removed from what actually happened. At some point, truth will be completely fungible, different for each person, each version recorded somewhere in the cloud so that each of us can remember the past however we want to remember it, or if we can't find a memory, we'll have our memories sold to us by the most effective salespeople. This will inevitably lead to the end of democracy because no large bloc of voters will ever be able come to a consensus on what is real. Then the strongmen will swoop in to fill the vacuum and decide what is real for everyone. We're talking some serious Orwellian/Black Mirror shit here.

Of course, I'm posting this on the internet, so it's probably all bullshit, too, and definitely just my opinion. Don't forget to vote!

NO, REALLY, THIS IS THE CUBS' YEAR. I MEAN, BARRING THEM BEING THE CUBS AGAIN...

As we head in to 2016 with Cuba being libre (in baseball terms) for the first time since Minnie Minoso was in his 30s, let's WordPad some predictions to, you know, completely ruin everything.

NL EAST

The Mets came within three blown saves of winning it all last year, and have signed their favorite Cuban for another go round. Yo Cespedes is already leading the league in big sports cars used in Training in the Spring (BISCUITS, to sabermetricians). Meanwhile, Bartolo Colon has eaten all other biscuits in the state of Florida. Bryce Harper and the to-date World Series-less Nats have about as much hope in Washington as Merrick Garland. The Marlins guy might actually show up to Marlins games if Giancarlo Stanton and Jose Fernandez stay healthy. It's the final season in downtown Atlanta for the Braves, and they intend to make the least of it. Despite the recent success of the film "Creed", the Phillies will be low on the baseball Rotten Tomatoes index once again this year.

NL CENTRAL

Ah, the Cubs. Theo Epstein has them stacked, packed and jacked for a pennant run. Of course, Global Warming is now here and they still have to play a bunch of four-hour summer day games. I'm sure they'll be in fine form come October! Their rivals the Cards will be playing the part of the 2004 Yankees, in Cubs' fans minds, anyway. I wouldn't count them out. The Pirates really should be winning something, but they have two very rich and disciplined franchises ahead of them. One of those is not the Brewers. Nor is it the Reds.

NL WEST

The year divides by two, so the Giants will triumph. That sounds like it was written in one of George R.R. Martin's lesser texts at some point, so it must be true. Mad Bum, Cueto The Wild, and Pence The Hunter will rain vengeance! The Dodgers have basically doubled the Cuban economy with their island signings, but those won't reap anything for a while, and they lost Zack Greinke. The D'Backs signed Greinke and look like they've fully recovered from their Kirk Gibson-induced grit overdose and are making some strides. The Padres continue their quest to own the transaction wire to not much effect. "Not mowing the outfield, yeah, that's the answer!" say the Rockies.

Division Champs: Mets, Cubs, Giants

Wild Cards: Cards, Pirates

Cards over Pirates

Cubs over Cards

Mets over Giants

Mets over Cubs

AL EAST

The Blue Jays will be erecting a monument to Jose Bautista's epic bat flip, if they can figure out how to re-create it using steel and robotics without getting fans injured. I mean, it was pretty epic. Manny Machado just threw out a guy at first from the Denny's down the street, which will still not help the Orioles. The Rays played a Spring Training game in Cuba and will have to wait until June to surpass the attendance for that game at the Trop. It's Big Papi's last year in Fenway, and to commemorate it, the Red Sox have agreed to let him swear into an open mic at every visiting team. A-Rod will suit it up again for the Yankees. Also, fans can't use self-printed-out tickets, so in at least two ways it will be just like 2004!

AL CENTRAL

As a Mets fan, I am now a firm believer in whatever the hell it is the Royals are doing, PECOTA be damned. The Indians have Francisco Lindor for a full seaon to go with Corey Kluber, Cody Anderson, and Cody Allen (the Three Amig-Co's - except you've never heard of any of them, so maybe not) and could make a wild card chase. Likewise for the Twins, who signed Korean slugger Byung-Ho Park, the most prominent Asian to appear in Minnesota since Mike Yamagita in the movie version of "Fargo". Things aren't looking good for the Tigers. GM Dave Dombrowski was fired last summer after he realized his team was about as leaden as Flint's water supply. The White Sox committed a PR disaster by banning Adam LaRoche's son Drake from the clubhouse. Their attempts to clear things up by saying they were trying to ban the singer Drake, male ducks, and/or Drake's Cakes probably won't work.

AL WEST

Hack the Astros! It seems to make them play better. Oh, and so does Carlos Correa. The Rangers are so good, apparently, that Joey Gallo, who can hit the ball to Oklahoma, will start in the minors. Jerry DiPoto is in at GM for the Mariners, replacing a guy whose name defies all attempts at spelling (and therefore I won't try). The beat writers are happy anyway. It looks like another year, another fruitless attempt to surround Mike Trout with a decent team for the Angels. The Athletics GM Billy Beane probably got invited to Michael Lewis' Oscar party for "The Big Short", so he has that going for him. I would short his team if it were a stock.

Divison Champs: Blue Jays, Royals, Astros

Wild Cards: Rangers, Indians

Rangers beat Indians

Royals beat Rangers

Astros beat Blue Jays

Astros beat Royals

World Series: The Mets will repeat their 1986 National League pennant victory by taking the Astros in six games. In the Manhattan Canyon of Heroes victory parade, Yo Cespedes will drive a Lamborghini, a Bugatti, a McLaren Spider, a Ferrari, and American Pharoah ALL AT THE SAME TIME, somehow.

BORED ROOM

I'm in Alaska for another few hours. My trip this week was pretty uneventful. I almost had several, oh, hundred rental car accidents, but managed to keep it together for a week.

Right now, I'm sitting in the Alaska Airlines Board Room. I have three more hours until my flight starts boarding, and Tripit Pro offered me $25 to buy a day pass here, so I figured OH HELL YES!. As nice as the Ted Stevens Memorial Boondoggle is, and it's very nice, sitting anywhere near gate B-5 is like volunteering to be an Ebola doctor. Something like half the human race is sitting in there around now, waiting to get the fuck out of this state, and the noise of that influenza-and-worse-ridden rabble combined with the bopping 50's pop tunes playing on the intercom and the constant blather of gate announcements makes any other place on earth more desirable. The Board Room is such a place, and it has beer!

What strikes me immediately with the Board Room is the completely undeserved air of privilege that suffuses the place. At least two or three past-middle-aged douchebags have come at the front desk ladies berating them for committing the unforgivable sin of not letting them in for a) them not having paid to be here and/or b) them not having enough points or whatever to be here. It's pretty simple, folks. I figured it out. You pay $45 (or $20 with a $25 discount in my case) and you can come in. Being a white guy with gray hair and a blazer is not enough. Nice try.

For some reason, they are playing the local NBC feed on the TV. I endured "Undateable" and "Superstore", and now I am hate-ignoring "Dateline". You'd think for $45 you'd get at least basic cable. There are a bunch of chairs pointing at the TV, as though "Making A Murderer" or at least "Jessica Jones" is running and we should all be paying attention. Instead, it's Lester Goddamned Holt.

And, it's Alaska Fucking Airlines! It's not like it's Emirates or Singapore Air. You're not a globe-trotting mystery man on a rakish adventure. You're going to Yakima. Get a grip.

I'll be back here in May for three weeks. It's turnaround time, and I've been told I only need to work five days a week, but we'll see. Turnarounds and I don't mix well. If I do work three straight weeks, I'll get some OT or comp time at least, not that it's worth it.

Well, about two hours left! Beer will help that go away.

ALASKA PROLOGUE: I'M GOING BACK! ALSO, I DIDN'T DIE

Well, the title tells the first part. I have one more week in Kenai, in January.

The second part was slightly more interesting. I did sit slack-jawed in the Kenai airport for two hours,  and after that, my flight still didn't take off because of wind and snow. I rebooked my flight back home for the following night and finally boarded a plane to Anchorage at about 8:00 pm, and reserved a hotel for the night and most of the next day.

My plane was a Dash 8, which I have come to call "the big one," in contrast to the Beechcraft 1900, which is "the small one." Ravn only flies these two types of aircraft, and both are terrifying in their own right. The boarding and takeoff process was about as normal as possible, except for the flight attendant, who was an older native woman named Diane Ross. She was quite a quipster, that Diane. She said that despite her name, she can't sing and so she has to work doing this job. She slipped in some other bon mots during the safety briefing, such as "There shall be no tampering with the lavatory smoke detector, or we will push the eject button and you'll go out with the toilet. No, that's not true. We have no eject button, plus, we like our toilet."

After the customary twenty minutes that the flight is scheduled, I started looking for the lights of Anchorage, but about all I could see was blowing snow and a darkness as black as Donald Trump's soul. It also occurred to me that the gear wasn't down. Usually, the plane starts descending, the gear is deployed about 2 minutes out, and then we land, but none of this was happening and there was no sign that it would. Finally about 30 minutes in, Diane, no longer her convivial self, gravely announced over the PA, "I've been informed that the landing gear will not go down. The pilots say that they will continue to work on it, and we'll keep you updated." Uh, ok. I ran through several scenarios in my head at that point, most of which ended with "I don't want to die, especially not in FUCKING ALASKA!" If they couldn't get the gear down, I figured they would try a belly landing, which would be dicey at best in this weather and with the giant propellers on either side suddenly turning into sausage grinders if the maneuver was not executed perfectly. I checked my phone for a signal to send at least a text back to my wife, but that particular technology was as operable as whatever was keeping the gear stuck. She would have to take it on faith that I loved her. Fun stuff!

Finally, about 10 minutes later and with no warning, the gear deployed. And I'm here writing this a few weeks later. Also, I spent the day lounging in a king size bed at the Anchorage airport Courtyard Marriott, and I went and got some banana cream pie at the nearby Village Inn. I earned that pie, dammit.

More about Alaska later, Ravn willing.

FAREWELL, FORTY-NINE

I write this on the occasion of what may very well be my last few hours in the Large State Of Alaska. It feels like it might be, anyway or at least the last time I come up here on someone else's dime. I've traveled here for the fifth time this year and I am typing this in the cafe of the Kenai Safeway while I wait for my plane to Anchorage. It seems as appropriate a place to part with this land mass as any. I've come in here mostly to get distilled water for my CPAP machine and quarters for laundry, but also groceries, terrible ready-made meals at the deli, and candy bars. This time, I decided to buy an iced latte at the sort-of "Seattle's Best" sort-of coffee bar, and the young sideburned tweaker who took my order made the drink in a paper cup, like an animal. An animal, I tell you!

What have I learned on my many journeys? Alaska is a place for desperate people, living desperate lives, with guns. Alaska is a place for moose, not knowing they are living desperate lives and getting hit by pickup trucks, when not being shot by guns. Alaska is a spectacularly gorgeous place, with oil, and the oil is quickly running out. I read today that the state is grappling with budget cuts and low revenue from the dwindling oil leases, and the populace has taken a particularly self-serving approach to these problems that defies all political labels: we want our Permanent Fund Dividend checks every year, and we don't want to pay higher taxes! So, socialism and conservatism, as it suits them. This is completely understandable. As I mentioned, they are desperate. And they ALL have guns, so they will probably get both of these things, at least until all the oil runs out, and then they certainly won't get one of them.

I've also learned, or rather re-learned, that small cars and snow don't mix. I'm not sure why it never occurred to me to get an SUV on this trip, but I didn't. I suppose it was an altruistic attempt to save the French conglomerate I work for a few euros, but frankly, and Frankly, fuck them. The excellent AirBnB I've been staying at has one disadvantage, that being the driveway that sits perched on a precipice off a sloping unpaved road. This is normally negotiable when not covered by feet of snow, but this morning, this was not the case. As I backed out with my Nissan Sentra, a car that should definitely be banned in this state and probably most others, it slid to the left and almost caused me to plummet the six feet off a terrace down to the parking area below. I tried going in reverse but could not due to a) gravity and b) said feet of snow. Forward was a non-starter, although at least the car itself did start. I called Avis to send me a tow truck, and the tower (and his wife, dog, and almost definitely, his gun) extricated me from my arctic predicament. On past trips, I've slid into snow banks with a Toyota Corrolla and Nissan Altima. Next time, if there is one, I shall heed Denis Leary's many warnings and go American.

I have two hours until the plane departs for Anchorage. The local commuter airline has changed names from Era to Ravn (they dropped the 'e' to save money, undoubtedly). The trip to Anchorage is 20 minutes of what it must have felt like shortly after the Wright brothers incorporated. The pilots do everything themselves except load the luggage. I do enjoy seeing them turn for home with the nose pointed down, and you can see the runway lights through the cockpit window. It's one of the only thrilling things left in air travel, an industry that has removed all romanticism from flying and checked it to the final destination of "Never Again".

Well, that shall be it. I need to gas up the rental car and sit slack-jawed in the Kenai airport for a couple more hours. May we meet again under more auspicious circumstances, Land Of The Midnight Sun!

ALL WE HAVE TO FEAR

Wait...if that is the real reason, how the hell did the Dow ever become a positive number in the first place?

HIGH LATITUDE, LOW POINT

I'm in Alaska, the state we most regret. I'm here as a contractor working at the plant where I used to work as an employee. It took me over a week to get a badge, even though I am in the system, because they couldn't figure out that my new company changed names last year. When I did get the badge, it identified me as still working for my old company, so go figure. Ah, The Last Frontier!

When I got here, the steaming pile of excrement with whom I made my lodging reservations informed me that he didn't have a place for me for the full month, and that he would be moving me sight unseen to a cabin across the river. I wasn't happy, but I was exhausted and needed to sleep, so I went with it. The next night, I was in bed at 9:30 pm, and this same lovely human shitstorm banged on my door. I didn't answer, so he called me and asked if he could come in and take photos of the furniture because the last renter damaged it. Again, I was tired and relented. The next morning, I found a room at a hotel and packed up my stuff. I called the corporate credit card company and had the charges removed.

The hotel only had a room for a week, so I made another reservation for a hotel further from work for the remainder of the time. The new hotel doesn't have a cooking plate, so I have to eat out every meal. They do have a restaurant on the property, but it only opens at 7 am and I have to be at work by then, so I have to cook oatmeal in a paper bowl instead. To top it off, I picked the exact week that they are remodeling the guest laundry, and I am writing this from a nearby laundromat, where America's Most Likely Meth Addict Children are playing nearby.

Other than that, Emperor Hirohito, Nagasaki and Hiroshima are doing well (to put a Pacific Ocean spin on it). I'm at least getting to charge my 40 hours per week to a customer, and the worst part of the commute is having to worry about moose pedestrians.

WHY, YES, I WAS BORED

JE SUIS NOT BEING READ, AS USUAL

My thoughts on the Charlie Hebdo tragedy, tossed to the void.

Let's say that you had a next door neighbor whom you had on good authority to be a homicidal maniac. He has threatened his family, say, and you hear he has posted nonsensical rants on a foreign web site in a language you don't understand that if he ever sees a person riding a bicycle on the sidewalk past his house, he would take out an assault rifle and kill that person. For whatever reason, the police can't trace his IP address well enough to connect him to the rants, and the threats to his family were vague enough that they couldn't intervene, and he is free to live next door to you.

Do you ride your bicycle on the sidewalk in front of his house? What if someone else in the neighborhood decided that this usurpation of freedom was beyond their tolerance, and they rode their bike on the sidewalk past his house, thumbing their nose at him, and your next door neighbor, as promised, bolted out of the house with an assault rifle and shot and killed them? Since this would finally gave the police the ability to arrest and haul off your next door neighbor, isn't your other neighbor a hero?

In that situation, I personally wouldn't ride my bike on the sidewalk past my next door neighbor's house. I rarely ride a bike, and when I do, it's of no consequence to ride in the street for a few feet to avoid the sidewalk in front of his house. Does that make me a coward? I suppose, but I'm not sure. Of course the other neighbor certainly is a hero. He or she gave his or her life so that the rest of us in the neighborhood could be free. But should he or she have done that? What if he or she had a spouse and kids who needed his or her income, and now they are destitute?

These are all difficult questions. The Charlie Hebdo case has important parallels with this admittedly low-value hypothetical. The Hebdo cartoonists did not have to depict the prophet Mohammed, but they felt compelled to do so to protect the idea of intellectual freedom in the light of an irrational and monstrously violence-inducing taboo. They suffered the ultimate consequence, one they knew was very real, and of course are heroes to all of us who value freedom. However, I can't say that I would do the same. If I were a satirical cartoonist, I could imagine that it would be easy to make a cogent point about intellectual freedom in regard to Islam without depicting Mohammed. Cartoonists do it every day, and are not being cowardly for it, in my opinion. Still, the victims of the Hebdo tragedy are heroes nonetheless, because they allowed the authorities to remove these particular terrorists from the face of the Earth, they strengthened the rest of our resolves and they brought widespread attention to their ideals. Of course, none of that makes them any less dead, or their loved ones any less bereft.

Thomas Jefferson said, "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." It was relatively easy for him to say in 1787. The revolution he advocated had already been prosecuted successfully by others, he was filthy rich, and his chances of being in personal danger had passed. That doesn't make it any less true, but it does make it less brave. Today, it is regular folks. some with a bravery I will never understand, that must live Jefferson's truth, and this brand of Islamic extremists are the worst kind of tyrants - tyrants without borders. As in 1787, the only effective countermeasure is the willingness of those who stand for freedom to spill their blood. This is a duty to which I hope I am not called, nor for which I would volunteer, but if called, I hope I will serve.

TWO ARTICLES PER YEAR JUST SEEMS RIGHT TO ME

Hey, everybody! I'm still extant. And also breathing. I quit my last job because they were giving me way too much time to blog, and we can't have that. Seriously, I would sit there in my cube coming up with all kinds of posts that I didn't eventually write. It was making me crazy. I needed to move to a job where I could forget I had this blog, you know, like the rest of the 7 billion+ on earth have done long ago.

My new job is with a major conglomerate that makes the very product that I had spent 20 years mastering as a customer. You could say it was inevitable that I would work here one day, and hey, I just did! I like it here a lot, mostly because I am busy. Very busy. I am reaching the point in my career that I had been hearing about, where there is nobody left in North America who does my kind of work. I'm one of the last ones, and it's kind of lonely. In my cubicle area, there are about 10 nationalities and even more languages. Because I speak the English, and know what sweet tea is, I have to work with the redneckiest Texas down home southern good old blechs, while my colleagues get to fly off to Brazil or Dubai. Works for me. I may get to go back to the Large State Of Alaska in September, but that might be the extent of my travels.

There's a lot of disgruntlement afoot at my new job. A lot of these guys have been around for decades, and they imagine they can do better working for oil companies, which they maybe could, but for whatever reason lack the will or actual skills to make the move. The company has been traded around like a 1978 Manny Sanguillen less-than-vintage baseball card, but it seems to me it has landed in the best possible hands. The veterans here are wary, as I imagine they should be, but based on my experience, this seems like a professional, smart, focused company that knows the business very well and happens to be French, which makes it more difficult to understand and also makes the gun-toting nimrods here have indigestion from a dyspeptic melange of ignorance and xenophobia. I'm cool with it. If they can turn a profit, sell good products, and get us projects to do, I don't really care if they think snails are haute cuisine.

Other than that, my life plods on into advanced middle age. My dreams fall by the wayside almost daily, and others I knew in my youth surpass me almost hourly. I find comfort in small things, like a Mets two-game winning streak. You know, not often, is what I am saying.

2014 MLB PREDICTIONS - IT'S OUR F*CKING YEARLY ARTICLE!

Someday, the snow will melt, and newly-average-sized men (Bartolo Colon excepted) will be playing with bats and balls in taxpayer-funded stadia. It's baseball again! Here's your yearly guide to what will (not) happen. This is all subject to video review back in New York.

NL East

The Nationals will have Stephen Strasburg and Bryce Harper in the same lineup again, until the former bumps his porcelain arm against a feather pillow and breaks it, and the latter surfs a wave of lava on a stainless steel surfboard while riding a Harley through a brick wall while drinking a Four Loko, broheme, and only lands on the 15-day DL. The Braves have already lost two pitchers to Dr. James Andrews' scalpel, but will dip into their endless pool of Upton brothers to stay above water. Things aren't looking good between new manager Ryne Sandberg (Graduate, Old School, 2005) of the Phillies and his recalcitrant shortstop Jimmy Rollins. That's not hard to imagine given that Rollins owns the one World Series ring between them. The Mets, like Jimmy Stewart, have an invisible entity named (Matt) Harvey plaguing them. GM Sandy Alderson pledged the fans a 90-win season, which only Bernie Madoff's former customers believed. Meanwhile, speaking of con artists, the Marlins' art-collector owner Jeff Loria has already agreed in principle to trade ace Jose Fernandez to the Yankees when his free agent contract is due in exchange for A-Rod's centaur painting.

NL Central

Yeah, we get it, the Cardinal Way. It used to be spending bounteous amounts of Busch family cash and beating up on inferior teams, and now is solely the result of hooking David Eckstein to an MRI machine and transmitting his brain waves to the players to increase their "grit". Whatever. The Pirates are now a contender thanks to Andrew McCutchen, who kind of looks like a pirate. The Reds will add the fastest man in baseball, Billy Hamilton, to a roster possessing the fastest thrower in baseball, Aroldis Chapman. This will somehow help them win games of baseball, the slowest sport there is (now with replay challenges!). Ryan Braun is back for the Brewers after his unfortunate bout of failing a drug test, succeeding at an appeal by accusing his urine collector of being anti-Semitic, being named in the Biogenesis report, finally taking a 65-game suspension, and meeting with his urine collector to apologize. This actually happened. The Cubs have a new mascot who doesn't wear pants, much like Harry Caray around the 8th inning of an interminable summer day game in the early 80s.

NL West

Yasiel Puig rescued the $2 Billion Dodgers from the brink last season. This year, their main concern may be figuring out what to do after they clinch on August 27th. This is not a great division. The Giants are probably the main competition, assuming the newly clipped Tim Lincecum will be allowed in the stadium without his parents' permission. The D'Backs continue to evaluate players based on "who Kirk Gibson thinks is a winner" instead of "facts", which should at least yield predictable results. The Padres are counting on two really solid, productive weeks from Carlos Quentin. The Rockies are going to crack this high-altitude problem "one of these decades".

Division Champs
Nationals
Cardinals
Dodgers
Wild Cards
Pirates, Braves

Pirates beat Braves

Dodgers beat Pirates
Nationals beat Cardinals

Dodgers beat Nationals

AL East

Big Papi single-handedly defeated global terrorism by swearing at it into a live mic and then won the Red Sox  the World Series. One hopes things won't be quite as eventful this season, but I wouldn't bet against him if Obama deployed him against Putin. The Rays manager Joe Maddon will lead the league in successful replay reviews, because he's probably figured out the ideal calls to challenge and has devised an elaborate scheme to capitalize on the camera's parallax effect and advantageous light angles. He's a smart man. In New York, Derek Jeter will receive retirement gifts of Sports Illustrated swimsuit models from each of the Yankees' visiting opponents. Not photos, the actual models. The Orioles' Chris Davis hit 53 homers last year. Urine collectors everywhere hope he did it legitimately. Along those lines, Toronto Mayor Rob Ford is eagerly awaiting the crack of the bat when the Blue Jays take the field. Or something close to that.

AL Central

Dartmouth-educated Brad Ausmus takes over the potent Tigers. When the Rays hit town, he and Joe Maddon will get crazy and spend the mornings as guest docents at the Michigan Science Center. The Indians are becoming contenders with such stars as Michael Brantley, Jason Kipnis, Bryan Shaw, and Cody Allen. Astonishingly, these are not names I selected at random. Lorde has made the Royals her pre-season favorite, but she is from New Zealand and only knows baseball from reading National Geographic. Cuban defector Jose Abreu joins the White Sox, who have as much future as Fidel Castro. All the Twins have is future, and it's not starting this year.

AL West

The Rangers fired Nolan Ryan in a front-office power struggle, probably their worst move since selling the franchise to certain C student from Yale. Adding Prince Fielder and Shin-Soo Choo will overcome that for now, until Prince discovers Texas BBQ. The Athletics didn't get to stage an ALCS beard-off with Boston last year, but Josh Reddick and Eric Sogard have nothing to be ashamed of. Mike Trout will one day bankrupt the Angels or whatever team he decides to play for, but for now, Anaheimians, enjoy his relatively low-cost tenure while it lasts. Felix Hernandez gets another year of being the King Of Wishful Thinking (yes, I googled a Go West song from the soundtrack of Pretty Woman) for the Mariners. Finally, we come to the 30th and worst team in baseball, the Astros. I hear they still exist, but Comcast will not allow me to watch them here in Houston. Bless you, Comcast.

Division Champs
Red Sox
Tigers
Rangers
Wild Cards
Rays, Athletics

Athletics beat Rays

Red Sox beat Athletics
Rangers beat Tigers

Red Sox beat Rangers

World Series

Dodgers and Red Sox. With one out in the 9th of Game 7 at Fenway and the Red Sox down a run, Yasiel Puig will rob David Ortiz of a 2-run game-winning home run by leaping atop the short bullpen fence in right. He will climb off the fence and throw a laser to the plate to nip a tagging Dustin Pedroia. Or is Pedroia safe? Replays will be consulted...it's really close...then Bud Selig himself will decide that, as his last act as commissioner, he's going to call the World Series a tie.

THEY SAY IT'S MY BIRTHDAY

And they would be right. I am 47. Today is going better than the birthday when I attended someone else's birthday party, but probably not as good as some others, although I can't recall any really good ones. My birthday has always been an afterthought, nestled in among the hazy days after New Year's Day and before the year really gets going. I am not complaining. It's just a day. On January 3rd, 1967, I was inside my mother's body, and the next day, I wasn't. My mother can no longer remember it, and I never could. My sister was celebrating her own birthday that day, and probably didn't think it was that great to have me literally spewing bodily fluids all over it. Oh well. I didn't ask to be born, and at least I'm holding my own, with a job and a house, and I'm paying taxes. I'm not contributing much else, but at least I'm pretty much a net positive, not that this blog puts me over the top. Forty-seven. I go on.

HEY, FOX NEWS, COMMENT HERE!

Surely, you've read this. I'm guessing they are still doing it, and in an attempt to get anyone to comment, here we go:

Fox News, you suck! You are a pro-Republican propaganda machine with shit-for-brains "newscasters" and even stupider pundits! Bill O'Reilly is a rage-aholic sex maniac, Sean Hannity lies whenever he opens his mouth, and Roger Ailes is a fat tub of goo!

There. It might not work, but it felt good.

EVERYTHING OLD IS STILL OLD...AGAIN

Hey, I just realized I haven't posted in this piece of shit since we moved. We are back in Pearland! Not that anyone gives a fuck. I am alone in a sea of electrons, and whatever. Anyway, we moved. We sold our house, and bought a new house. That process was routinely horrendous. We ended up selling our house in San Antonio to the first person who offered, who was a pathological liar. Her and her father low-balled us at first, and said they needed to move in within 2 weeks. After we rejected that offer, they waited two months and gave us a slightly better offer, and said they had to move in within 3 weeks. We rejected that as well. Then they waited another couple of weeks, and asked us what our bottom line was. We gave it to them, and they accepted it, except they also wanted our sectional sofa. Apparently,  they don't really understand what "bottom line" means. We said no to that, and then they finally accepted our true bottom line offer, and gave us a month to vacate, which exposed all of their previous deadlines as lies.

After we closed in San Antonio, we started looking in earnest in the Houston area. The Clear Creek school district is worth about $30,000 more in sale price than nearby districts, which tells you all you need to know about the fucked up state of education in this country. Since we don't have kids and we intend to stay here until we retire, we opted to eschew CCISD and look in Dickinson. Dickinson is a melange of bible-thumpers who were born there and immigrants and transplants who can't quite afford the Houston school and property taxes and the school district premium for houses (like us). It's not the ideal location, but it is close enough to work and doesn't cut too deep into our finances, so we should be able to deal with its eccentricities.

We found a neighborhood and a builder we liked, and they had a spec house for sale. The lady who was there when my wife first saw the house said all kinds of things about getting modifications and changes done, such as extra tile and a screened porch. Then after we brought our real estate agent in to meet the sales manager, suddenly it was "this house is being sold as is, no changes." The sales manager for this subdivision is a uniquely unpleasant 30-something woman who has fake tits and likes to work out obsessively. I dubbed her Boobzilla. We immediately went over Boobzilla's head to get what the other lady was promising, and after much passionate beseeching, we got them to take a cashiers check to rip out some carpet and install new tile. Boobzilla seethed, which was fine with us.

Finally, after all that drama, we closed, and my wife is painting the entire house. We may actually move in one day, who knows.

Generally speaking, life pretty much sucks right now. We still spend our nights in my father-in-law's crappy roach-infested rental house with one toilet. My sister-in-law used to live there but moved out more than 8 years ago, and left the place in a state of blight that post-earthquake Haitians wouldn't tolerate. My wife cleaned out most of the filth before we moved in, but it's still pretty disgusting. It doesn't help that we have two dogs and two cats who contribute to the decrepitude just by existing.

As for the job, it seems as though I have arrived at a point in my career where I am too expensive to do actual work, and the various powers that be would prefer that I manage others, and thus better earn my salary by taking a position that is harder for them to fill. It's pretty stupid how that works, since I am very productive at doing actual work, but I would be horrible and counter-productive as a manager. It's as if at my age and experience level, they think my work will not be valuable enough to justify what they are paying me. The problem is, they hired me to do actual work, but they are not giving me much to do, which is the worst case scenario. I kind of wish I would get offered a management job just to stay busy, although I know I would ultimately fail at it.

Well, that's all for now. Life continues, unabated.

TIME/LIFE

I was driving from the San Francisco airport to my hotel room in the East Bay hills, listening to KFOX on the radio, when I heard "Time", the amazing song by Pink Floyd from "Dark Side Of The Moon". What a song. The ominous rising cacophony of clocks at the beginning; the languid, melancholy lyrics, telling an unsentimental tale of wasted youth and "quiet desperation"; the haunting, bluesy, background vocals; David Gilmour's soaring guitar riffs. Just fantastic.

Then, next, as if to cleanse the palate and then shove 50 pounds of garbage down one's throat, KFOX played Third Eye Blind's "Semi-Charmed Kind Of Life", written by front man Stephan Jenkins. I will henceforth explain why this turd of a tune is the antithesis of "Time". And quite possibly an early signal to the decline and end of time itself.

I'm packed and I'm holding 

I'm smiling, she's living 

She's golden, she lives for me 

She says she lives for me ovation, she got her own motivation 

I guess this means that he is carrying some drugs, and he has a blonde girlfriend who at least pays lip service to being in love with him. And off we go! 

She comes 'round and she goes down on me 
And I make her smile 
It's like a drug for you 
Do ever what you want to do 
Coming over you 

Ah, the poetry! Never has a blowjob with a facial sounded so gosh darn peppy. Come on, Irving Berlin, where was this kind of stuff back in the day?

Keep on smiling, what we go through 
One stop to the rhythm that divides you 
And I speak to you like the chorus to the verse 
Chop another line like a coda with a curse 
Come on like a freak show takes the stage 
We give them the games we play 

Ok, now here we have some musical terms that make no sense, just to make sure that we understand that these folks are musicians, another drug reference, in case we were confused, and the singer would like to emphasize that he has ejaculated very heavily on his girlfriend.

She said 

"I want something else 

To get me through this 

Semi-charmed kind of life 

Baby, baby 

I want something else 

I'm not listening when you say 

Goodbye..." 

Doot (x24) 

Now the chorus, not speaking to me like a verse or a coda or anything else. Here, the singer is making clear that his girlfriend needs drugs to get through her middle-class existence, and probably only allows herself to be debased because the singer gives her free drugs. Also, when in doubt, just sing "Doot" 24 times.

The sky was gold, it was rose 
I was taking sips of it through my nose 
And I wish I could get back there 
Some place back there 
Smiling in the pictures you would take 
Doing crystal meth 
Will lift you up until you break 

The singer would like to make it known that crystal meth is his drug of choice, and that he likes to snort it. Refreshing honesty, I suppose, or civilization-crushing candor. You decide.

It won't stop, I won't come down 
I keep stock 
With a tick tock rhythm 
A bump for the drop 
And then I bumped up 
I took the hit that I was given 
Then I bumped again 
Then I bumped again, she said 

He did so many lines of meth, he had to rely on his girlfriend to explain to him exactly how many lines of meth he did. And civilization is on the ropes!

How do I get back there to 

The place where I fell asleep inside you 

How do I get myself back to 

The place where you said 

(Chorus)

Meth made this guy so dynamic in the sack that he literally fell asleep while schtupping his girlfriend. Why would one want to brag about something like that? It's pretty depressing for both parties, if you ask me. No one asked me, of course, but here we are.

I believe in the sand beneath my toes 
The beach gives a feeling 
An earthy feeling 
I believe in the faith that grows 
And the four right chords could make me cry 
When I'm with you I feel like I could die 
And that would be all right 

Now we move on to a paean to the beach, completely out of nowhere. Another musical reference is thrown in, because four chords makes it seem like he knows what he's talking about. Much of rock and roll consists of progressions of three chords, and it's actually pretty good, as opposed to this monstrosity. Does this guy even know four chords? Doubtful.

All right 
And when the plane came in 
She said she was crashing 
The velvet it rips 
In the city we're tripped 
On the urge to feel alive 
But now I'm struggling to survive 
Those days you were wearing 
That velvet dress 
You're the priestess, I must confess 
Those little red panties 
They pass the test 
Slides up around the belly 
Face down on the mattress 

This is the rap section, which is often omitted on the radio, but which KFOX dutifully left in to try our patience. Another couple of drug references, and then an ode to some red panties, and some more debasement, possibly of the anal variety.

There's more, but I think we get the idea.

Let's review: Stephan Jenkins is a musician who has a girlfriend, who submits to demeaning sex acts, through which he can't even stay awake, in exchange for meth, and he likes the beach.

This dude dated Charlize Theron for THREE YEARS!

I hope you are right, Mayans.

WATCH OUT, NATE SILVER!

Part 1 of my prediction has come true. Stay tuned for the rest!

TCP'S ALASKA: THE FINAL COUNTDOWN

Well, my time in the great (great - unusually large in size or dimension) state of Alaska has nearly come to an end. I've sold my vehicle and most of my furniture, and I have a plane ticket bound for home. This lovely (sarcasm - harsh or bitter derision...oh never mind) place has seen fit to bestow on me a raging cold on my way out. I will do my best not to sneeze directly on other Alaskans as I leave, but if they breathe in my germs, that's their own fault.

What have I learned on my sojourn to the 49th state? Oh, so much.

1. Never put a garage door opener on your keychain. If you do, $600 will fly out of your bank account.

2. Never ask S****** B******* S***** to fix said garage door. They will very aggressively not do that.

3. If you need to do something, do it yourself. Even if that means having to learn our horrible system for ordering stuff. That would have saved a bunch of migraines and misery.

4. Bears will mostly run away, but moose will happily run at you and kick or bite you. Luckily, I only learned this in the paper.

5. Pickle Hill is where they put the tower for the local public radio station. I wish I could have hung out with those folks more. They seemed nice.

6. Baseball in Alaska - as cold as you imagined it would be.

7. Softball in Anchorage - Just Say No. Or you will be saying, "Can you call me an ambulance?"

8. Turnarounds are hell. Again. And they don't get any less hellish as you get older.

9. It's better to join the nice gym close to your house that is closed on Saturdays than the rat trap gym far from your house that is open every day, because, duh, you will probably not go to either gym as much as you hoped, and you will never get that smell out of your head.

10. Drive-up espresso is the libation of the gods. I will miss it dearly.

ETRE EN MANQUE, HOMMES

Today (along with this coming Wednesday) is one of the two days of the year when there are no scheduled MLB, NFL, NBA, or NHL games on the calendar. Because Wimbledon added a roof to Centre Court, there was no rain at the PGA or LPGA golf tournaments, and MLS doesn't play on Mondays, even the minor sports are off today.


I'm itching, man, it's like spiders are crawling all over me, man. I gotta have a hit, man. I'll take anything, man, Tour De France? Fuck yeah, give me that fucking Tour De France, mainline that shit, man, stab me in the heart with that Tour De France shit, man, I GOTTA HAVE IT!!!!


Oh, this shit is horrible, man. It's just a bunch of skinny guys on bikes and French people clanging cowbells. What the fuck is a peloton, man? Get me some good shit, man, I NEED IT, I NEED IT NOW!!!!

I'D WATCH IT

In light of "Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter", TCP has commissioned a script even more fantastical and improbable. The first page or so is below:

GEORGE W. BUSH:

CORRUPT BANKER HUNTER

A film by

Alan Smithee

FADE IN

INT: OVAL OFFICE, NIGHT

GEORGE W. BUSH

Well, my work for the day is done. Signed the Affordable I Don't Care About Women's Health Act. Supported the troops by sendin' another 10,000 of 'em to Iraq. Asked some guy about where Osama might be hidin'. It's been a full day.

JOSH BOLTEN

Yes, sir, it certainly has been.

GEORGE W. BUSH

Well, Boltman, I'm gonna turn in. See ya in the mornin'.

JOSH BOLTEN

Good night, sir.

GEORGE W. BUSH

Night.

GEORGE W. BUSH waits until JOSH BOLTEN leaves the Oval Office.

GEORGE W. BUSH (to himself)

Good, he's gone. Thought I'd never get rid of him. Now on to my night job...Corrupt Banker Hunter!

GEORGE W. BUSH puts on a flak vest, and grabs a hidden backpack, which he checks. We see his POV as he looks into the backpack. It has night vision goggles and weapons in it.

GEORGE W. BUSH (to himself)

All set. Let's..uh what was it that guy said? Roll. That's right.

EXT: WHITE HOUSE ROSE GARDEN, NIGHT

GEORGE W. BUSH sneaks through the Rose Garden to a large rock. He hits a button on his wrist, and the rock opens to show a passage. He enters the passage and comes to a fire pole, which he slides down. He enters the Corrupt Banker Hunter Cave.

INT: CORRUPT BANKER HUNTER CAVE

We see a huge underground lair, with computer screens everywhere. Sitting in front of the central computer screen is DICK CHENEY

DICK CHENEY

Where ya been? We got Blankfein, Dimon, and Fuld going Code Red!

GEORGE W. BUSH

Got here as fast as I could, Chainster. Now, let's hunt some corrupt bankers!

And it goes on like that, never getting any more plausible.

A NEW HOPE: PART X

Full Name: Gavin Glenn Christopher Joseph “What Am I, Fucking Royalty?” Cecchini

Position: Shortstop

Born: December 22, 1993

Height: 6’2”

Weight: 180 lbs.

How acquired: 2012 June Amateur Draft, First Round, #12

Uniform number: N/A

MLB experience: None

Best season: N/A

Injury history: None.

2012 salary: $2.3 million signing bonus

Actual scouting notes: Prince Gavin is a high-schooler from Lake Charles, LA. He has a lot of tools, which based on the selection of Brandon Nimmo last year, is going to be a common theme with Mets first rounders under Alderson and company. For what they are worth (nothing), his numbers at Barbe High School included a .467 BA and a .527 OBP, with 7 homers and 31 stolen bases. Scouts like his bat, baseball IQ, and speed most, and are not that high on his glove.

Weird, wild stuff: His brother, Garin “My Brother Has All My Middle Names” Cecchini, is in the Red Sox organization. His dad coaches his high school team, and his mother is his batting practice pitcher. That has to be interesting. “Gavin, did you clean your room?” “Nope.” ZING! (high hard one at the batting helmet). Gavin signed with the Mets for $2.3 million. He and Garin can now afford one hell of an Xbox setup during spring training. No telling where he will end up in 2012, but he will likely open 2013 in Port St. Lucie. I can’t imagine he’ll sniff Citi Field for at least three years if not four. Best-case scenario looks like J.J. Hardy, who hits between 20 and 30 homers a year when healthy and plays a decent shortstop. Worst case is a guy like Omar Quintanilla, who hits well in the minors but can’t hold a major league job.