Ranking the College Bowl Games

Because even the most insane among us cannot watch them all, Stewart Mandel ranks the college bowl games from the best (Oklahoma-Florida) to the worst (the December 28 Independence Bowl, featuring 7-5 Louisiana tech versus 6-6 Northern Illinois).

The Darfur Crisis (Self Indulgence Edition)

The Foreign Policy Association has published a lengthy piece that I have been working on for quite a while, "Never Again," Again: The Darfur Crisis. It is also available in .pdf, with footnotes, here.

The Opening paragraph:

The pattern is relentless, bleak, frustrating, and odiously predictable. The leadership of Sudan and its murderous minions engage in brazen and cynical acts of murder and foment chaos, either directly or by proxy. The rest of the world responds tepidly if it responds at all. Sudan oversteps, the world criticizes, hinting of ramifications to come. Sudan backs off just long enough for the goldfish-length attention span of the western powers to turn their attentions elsewhere. And then the self-preserving thugs in Khartoum return almost immediately to their cruel and rapacious ways.

[Crossposted at the FPA Africa Blog.]

The Assist

There is a specific genre of books that I'll fall for every time. The writer embeds himself with a team for a season, or a year, or longer, providing the insights not only of the dynamics of a sports team, but in the best cases, also of the humanity at the heart of sports. The latest of these, and one of the best, that I enhaled pretty much in one sitting is Neil Swidey's The Assist, which follows Charlestown (Massachusetts) High School's basketball team over the course of three years. Heartbreaking and tragic, it also just came out in paperback with a new epilogue, meaning that just weeks after buying the hardcover I am going to have to shell out for the paperback. (In other words: One of you may be receiving The Assist for Christmas.)

Utah v. Boise State

Awesome! Now that the DI college football season is done, and given that one of the justifications for not having an actual national championship tournament is that the regular season is in effect a playoff, I am thrilled that we will have a legitimate national champion decided between the only two undefeated teams: Utah and Boise State!

That should be a great game. And by going undefeated, you've earned your opportunity!

Friday Advice

When the nice lady who owns the Thai restaurant warns you that the hot version of the meal you are ordering is "very, very hot," you should probably trust her.

That's some friendly Friday advice from dcat, who is weeping openly as his tongue blisters.

Mumbai, America, and the Global Community

This David Ignatius column in The Washington Post on the Mumbai terrorist attacks asks some important questions. I am always astounded when I hear about how safe Bush administration policies have made us. And I am reminded of how profoundly we have devalued our alliances these last eight years. For while there have been no attacks on United States soil (note: We went longer between attacks on US soil during the Clinton administration and into the first eight months of this one, so the "kept us safe" meme is a bit fraudulent in any case) our allies have certainly faced the horrors of terrorism. Madrid, London, Mumbai, and of course Israel have all faced terrorist attacks. American solipsism has led too many to assume that 9/11 somehow made us singularly victimized and thus singularly virtuous. If, as many have asserted, 9/11 ended the American holiday from history, perhaps 1/20 will mark the end of our holiday from the responsibilities of (and not just expectations from) our alliances.

David Ignatius is right that we, the United States, almost certainly will face future threats of terrorist attacks. But it is equally important to recognize that we, as part of a larger world, have been facing these challenges regularly, and that triumphalism about supposed successes on the home front should not cloud our judgment as to the realities of the world.

Obama Fills the Cabinet

This Michael Gerson column in The Washington Post commends the moderation of Obama's choices for cabinet and other positions thus far. But I am truly unclear what Gerson (whose column is actually quite good) or anyone else expected. Keep in mind: the attempts to paint Obama as a dangerous radical did not work, and they did not work largely because, foundationless as they were, such accusations were idiotic. Obama's judgment and temperament are his strengths, neither of which attributes could be credited to John McCain by the end of the campaign.

Obama is a serous person who, up to now, is making serious choices. The only people who should be surprised by this are people who continued to insist, after the longest, most in-depth election cycle in history, that we did now know who Barack Obama was.

The BCS Mess

Courtesy of this guy comes the heads up about a blistering Jason Whitlock column in which the Big sexy takes square aim at ESPN and fires repeatedly. Now Whitlock has more than his share of sour grapes about ESPN, and his hook into the column, the (he believes overlooked and dismissed) success of Ball State's football team comes with the caveat that Whitlock not only is an alum of Ball State, he played football for them. That said, many of his criticisms hold true.

Whitlock's column once again reminds us of the problematic nature of how the NCAA decides its postseason in college football. In every other sport, indeed in every other division of college football, championships are decided by players on the floor, field, track, pool, court, pitch, or what have you. But not big time college football, where these things are decided (the passive voice is intentional) by an unwieldy agglomeration of polls of journalists and coaches and a secretive computer program. And yet every week during the season the pollsters get it wrong, then blithely go back on tv or in their columns and explain why this time they have it right and how dare you question their judgment. the computers don't have a much better success rate.

And as we've seen this year, with three undefeated teams from non-BCS conferences, two of which are almost certain to be shut out of the BCS bowls, even an 8-team playoff would not do the trick. I still advocate, as I have in the past, a 16 team playoff whereby every conference winner gets a bid to the tournament, with remaining spots chosen at-large by a committee very much like the one that chooses the Big Dance for college basketball. One of the main arguments in favor of the current system is that every week there is a de facto playoff, and the regular season means so much. Which is hogwash. Otherwise the three undefeated teams from non-BCS schools would populate those top four spots with Alabama, Texas would rank ahead of Oklahoma, having beaten the Sooners when the two teams played on a neutral field, and USC and Penn State would have every opportunity to compete for the national championship with their one-loss teams, rather than almost certainly be relegated to also-ran status because people have decided that a one-loss team from the SEC or Big Twelve is better than other one-loss teams.

A (minimum) 16-team playoff is the only plausible and legitimate solution. Too bad we are years away from sanity prevailing.

For Bibliophiles

This week's New York Times has two end-of-year book lists, 100 Notable Books of 2008 and Janet Maslin's and Michiko Kakutani's personal top ten lists. And here is the Times Literary Supplement's "Books of the Year" feature as chosen by a number of prominent literary figures. And since you'll be buying all of these books, including, of course, this one once it comes out in the next few weeks, you'll need to think about shelving space. Laura Miller is here to help, though I, for one, am not very good at discarding books.

Bill Clinton for Senate?

At The Washington Post Karl E. Meyer and Shareen Blair Brysac present an intriguing proposal:

Amid the blizzard of résumés blanketing Washington as the Obama era dawns, there is a superbly qualified candidate for full employment whose name has been overlooked. We refer, of course, to William Jefferson Clinton, America's 42nd chief executive and commander in chief. Yet now, by a wonderful combination of circumstances, comes an opportunity to harness his unquestioned political talents to benefit his country, the Democratic Party, New York state and his spouse. If, as is expected, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton becomes secretary of state, New York Gov. David Paterson could send her husband to the U.S. Senate.

It strikes me, however, that getting Hillary to State is a brilliant coup for a number of reasons, not the least of which being that it will be more difficult for her to pursue an independent political agenda or undermine the Obama administration from Foggy Bottom than from the Senate. Bill Clinton in the Senate might prove to be the sot of sideshow the Democrats would as soon avoid. Then again, the Clintons are still a powerful political force, and it seems possible that Bill Clinton in the Senate would mark the sort of changing of the guard that keeps the Clintons heavily involved in politics while maximizing their utility to an Obama administration.

Hot Stove News: Japanese Prospect Edition

It appears that the Red Sox are the frontrunners to sign Junichi Tazawa, an amateur right-handed pitcher in Japan who worships Daisuke Matsuzaka and who was a priority for a number of Major League teams. He would almost certainly start off in the minors after signing a contract, but if recent seasons have taught us anything it is that an abundance of starting pitchers tends not to be a luxury, but rather a necessity as a season wears on and guys get hurt, struggle or as it otherwise becomes clear that too many pitchers is usually not enough.

Deja Vu?

Even without Tom Brady, the Patriots' offense under Matt Cassel has been the strength of the team as the defense has struggled. Raise your hand if you saw that coming.

In the meantime there is a very real possibility that the unheralded backup quarterback who had to step in for the famous starter might have to help the team run the table in order for the Patriots to make the postseason. Coincidence, or shades of 2001?

Defending What (Ideally) Need Not be Defended

In The Chronicle Review Douglas Little reminds us why we need diplomatic history. He's preaching to the choir not only with me but with a goodly portion of dcat's readers. Nonetheless his is a message that needs to get out to a broad audience. We need more diplomatic history, and more military history, and more traditional political history. Not at the expense of much of the good work going on in the historical profession, but rather to strengthen and augment and provide context for that work.

Amen!

Jan Freeman defended wordiness in yesterday's Boston Globe. I raise my glass to her. Brevity is sometimes a virtue. But not always. And not unquestionably.

Not Playing Any More

Play, the fantastic sports magazine that came out quarterly in the Sunday New York Times is closing up shop after an all-too-brief run at the top. Play fell victim to the frankly lousy economic situation facing newspapers and magazines right now. It will be missed.

Harvard Beats Yale

On the eve of the 125th installment of "The Game," the annual football rivalry between Harvard and Yale, The New York Times reviews what Manohla Dargis calls a "preposterously entertaining documentary" of the most famous of all Games, the 1968 29-29 tie.

Chinese Democracy Unleashed!

Chuck Klosterman reviews the long, long, long awaited Guns 'N' Roses/Axl Rose album Chinese Democracy at The Onion's AV Club. I'll give two excerpts. First, the intro:

Reviewing Chinese Democracy is not like reviewing music. It's more like reviewing a unicorn. Should I primarily be blown away that it exists at all? Am I supposed to compare it to conventional horses? To a rhinoceros? Does its pre-existing mythology impact its actual value, or must it be examined inside a cultural vacuum, as if this creature is no more (or less) special than the remainder of the animal kingdom? I've been thinking about this record for 15 years; during that span, I've thought about this record more than I've thought about China, and maybe as much as I've thought about the principles of democracy. This is a little like when that grizzly bear finally ate Timothy Treadwell: Intellectually, he always knew it was coming. He had to. His very existence was built around that conclusion. But you still can't psychologically prepare for the bear who eats you alive, particularly if the bear wears cornrows.

Then from the conclusion:

Still, I find myself impressed by how close Chinese Democracy comes to fulfilling the absurdly impossible expectation it self-generated, and I not-so-secretly wish this had actually been a triple album. I've maintained a decent living by making easy jokes about Axl Rose for the past 10 years, but what's the final truth? The final truth is this: He makes the best songs. They sound the way I want songs to sound. A few of them seem idiotic at the beginning, but I love the way they end. Axl Rose put so much time and effort into proving that he was super-talented that the rest of humanity forgot he always had been. And that will hurt him. This record may tank commercially. Some people will slaughter Chinese Democracy, and for all the reasons you expect. But he did a good thing here.

He gives the album an A-, but I bet the reviews are all over the charts. And while the album is supposedly available, it is nowhere to be found on Amazon. So maybe this is all part of an elaborate ongoing farce.

Team of Rivals

In an op-ed in The New York Times the historian James Oakes takes issue with both the novelty and the efficacy of the "Team of Rivals" model of putting together a cabinet that. Many people have pointed to the Lincoln model, popularized by Doris Kearns Goodwin's book, as the one that President-Elect Obama might be following as he continues to put together his cabinet. Oakes provides a model of using historical insight to shed light on current concerns.

(Update: Reader Mark points out this Matthew Pinsker op-ed in the LA Times on the same topic.)

Handouts and Chutzpah

I have to admit, I am not certain how to think about the myriad and complicated bailout plans both passed and proposed. On the one hand, I am wary of giant corporations that clearly screwed up royally suckling at the teat of federal largesse when they will reject government oversight or regulation whenever possible. On the other hand I worry that not providing federal help will make a nightmare economic scenario all the more intractable. I keep remembering the unseemly way that the airline industry after 9/11 ran to get handouts while the smoke was still wafting from the charred remains of those horrible attacks despite having resisted federal oversight and despite security malfeasance by the airlines and airports having contributed to the perilously unsafe situation we faced.

Now we are considering helping out the Big Three automakers. I am not theoretically averse to this, though I do hope that any of this support comes with serious strings attached. Let's see a few austerity demands, not to mention provisions for the common good (hello electric car!) come with any federal support. But it becomes a lot more difficult to sympathize with an industry that sent the three CEO's to Washington on private corporate jets or that at least one of the CEOs earned @28 million last year.

As Anne Kornin writes at the Set America Free Blog:

I am reminded of Nero and violins. That $36 million GM private jet is the cost of making 360,000 cars gasoline-ethanol-methanol flexible right there (it’s a $100 cost per car,) breaking oil’s monopoly in the transportation sector through fuel choice. And GM has 8 such jets. Add up the Ford and Chrysler plane fleets and we’re talking the cost of making several million cars gasoline-ethanol-methanol flex fuel vehicles. Given that taxpayer money is on the table here, the trade would seem only fair. I for one don’t appreciate having taxpayer money be used to pay for someone’s private jet and 8 digit salary. If they earn it, fine, hats off, but once their hand dips into taxpayer pockets for a handout, that’s quite a different story. And I would guess others share the sentiment. Let Congress know what you think.

As I say, I am fairly ambivalent about all of this and want to see it play out. I am not averse to strategic aid to struggling industries. But right now my inclination is to say that the auto industry appears to be the victim of its own profligacy and that any help should begin with paring waste at the top of it and any other industry or field in which those at the top do little to sacrifice while cutting jobs, paring benefits, and asking for government aid but maneuvering for little oversight.

Blogging Africa: Self Indulgence Alert!

In an exciting change, the Foreign Policy Association is combining the South Africa Blog with the Africa Blog, which will be the new permanent site of FPA Africa commentary. I will continue to post on South African issues, but this transition will be better for me, as keeping both blogs has not always been easy, it will be more convenient for readers, and will serve the FPA best. Basically everybody wins. Shortly those who attempt to access the South Africa Blog will be redirected to the Africa Blog.