As previously promised, this is a post, musing on the premise put forth by A.O. Scott in the New York Times a month or so ago. Here’s a link to the piece:

The Death of Adulthood in American Culture

A.O. is the film critic for the Times, so he kind of sees everything through the lens of media. But in this article, he goes beyond media to explore some ideas that I would argue now have a profound impact on the rest of the world. But I’ll get to that. Each of the following five paragraphs starts with a quote from Scott’s essay.

The supremacy of men can no longer be taken as a reflection of natural order or settled custom.

Here’s the notion he discusses in the first quarter of his essay. Using characters from television as examples, he posits that patriarchy is, for all intents and purposes, a mind set no longer operable. Tony Soprano and Walter White – two white males struggling to hold on, and failing to do so. Tony is suffering from anxiety, and Walter has terminal cancer, and has not properly provided for his family, including a not-yet-born child. In the case of Tony, he seeks help from a tough, female therapist, who either treats him like a child fears him. Tony’s last name is the title for a female opera singer, likely not a coincidence. We watch his behavior, alternately fascinated and repulsed. Walter White – stereotypical middle-class ‘white’ guy – immediately goes from a position of no authority to one of great authority through becoming a murdering monster meth cooker, a rather drastic way to maintain the illusion of authority. But I think the interesting thing – and throwback to traditional literature – is how the two of them end – badly. So the message here is: guys, you can try to be in charge, but in the end, you’ll go too far and end up dead.

Adulthood as we have known it has become conceptually untenable

Untenable as a concept. What? So if Tony and Walter are trying to be the grown-up in the room, what’s everyone else doing? Trying to avoid growing up and being responsible. According to Scott, and a professor from Montana named Leslie Fiedler, referenced extensively by Scott, American literature is full of characters avoiding responsibility.

From the start, American culture was notably resistant to the claims of parental authority and the imperatives of adulthood

Here Fiedler and Scott go back to reflect on popular characters from American literature, Tom Sawyer, Huck Finn, Ishmael and Queequeg from Moby Dick. Tom and Huck are, in fact, children who avoid any form of responsibility, fleeing civilization and conformity. Ishmael, an alter ego of Melville, goes to sea to break away from the shackles of mundane life, dominated by women and order. I could name some others – how about Holden Caulfield? He’s struggling with the requirements of adulthood and ends up becoming a hero to real teens struggling with the same issues. Or more recently, Theo Decker in The Goldfinch. He reacts to orphanhood in his early teens with drug use, theft and sociopathic tendencies he does not understand. Theo prevails in the end, but only through the acts of another male, another one cast in the same genre as Tony and Walter. I suppose the only way for men to be noticed these days is to become criminals.

Maybe nobody grows up anymore, but everyone gets older

What happens to men caught up in perpetual responsibility avoidance? Scott uses Louis CK as his prime example, with some additional commentary on the films of Judd Apatow and the Adam Sandler-type bromance comedies. These are men really too old to engage in these kinds of behaviors, yet they continue to act this way because they’re stuck, still needing to avoid the responsibility of adulthood but too long in the tooth for their earlier antics to be believable. But are there archetypes from anywhere other than comedy? How about real life characters who serially cheat on their wives? We’ll talk about another famous cheater a little further down in this blog post.

I do feel the loss of something here, but bemoaning the general immaturity of contemporary culture would be as obtuse as declaring it the coolest thing ever

So Scott sort of gives up on his own argument, saying it’s a shame this is the new reality, but whaddaya gonna do? His use of the word ‘obtuse’ is interesting. The dictionary definition is tactless, boorish or insensitive. I don’t really think that’s the word he should have used. Maybe ‘pointless’. You arrive at the same conclusion (whaddya gonna do?) but this has nothing to do with sensitivity. It’s really all about ‘be careful what you ask for, ’cause you’re liable to get it.’ And I really think that old saying sums it up nicely.

The struggle between the sexes over the ages has been about control, and that’s the long and the short of it. To differing degrees, men have had it and women have wanted it. From a man’s perspective, they had it, felt challenged by women to give up some of it, did so, found it freeing to do so, and now they don’t want to stop giving it up. Let somebody else be in charge for a while. We’re gonna take a break.

But what’s left when the smart ones decide to take a break? This is what’s left: the tea party pinheads. The vast majority of the Tea Party members are men, and they are desperately trying to bring back patriarchy, with their positions and policies on equal pay and abortion. Maybe that’s why Washington is perceived as so out-of-touch with the rest of the country. But they’re not out of touch – they’re out of synch, and subconsciously they know it. That’s why they alternate between being angry and fearful. It must be how the dodo bird felt, just before becoming extinct. But what’s the impact of this? Ah ha…that’s the thing, gentle readers.

The rest of the world is watching our peregrinations, and frankly they’re confused and distressed. When our patriarchy defeated the Soviet Union’s patriarchy, we were supposed to step up to the plate and take over, to benefit the rest of the world ’cause we were the good guys. That was the script. But did we do that? Uh, nope. We spent the early 90’s worrying about the state of the economy, then when it was booming, worrying about whether or not Bill Clinton had sex with an intern in the White House. The Newt era was just a hint of what was to come with the tea partyites.

Bill’s affairs were his attempt to get away from the controlling world of presidential responsibilities and his wife, i.e. a retreat from adulthood and patriarchy. The Newts wanted to administer patriarchal (or maybe matriarchal?) punishment by shaming Bill through impeachment. The cynics – especially Newt, the cynic-in-chief – knew it would end with naught. In fact, the failure to impeach Clinton built up such frustration amongst the faithful, it led to the next Republican revolution. Newt was dumped, and the party evolved to the two-headed hydra you see today: men trying to look reasonable on the one side and men trying to look disagreeable and unreasonable on the other. But men, nonetheless. The unreasonable side was unable to effect the change they wanted, because the Senate was in the hands of the Dems. Next Tuesday, that will more than likely change. With both houses of Congress under their control, which head will prevail?

So what’s the impact of all this on the rest of the world? If we’re not willing to be in charge – and clearly we’re not – who is? Nobody is willing or able to take over the reins of world dominance. So back to that ‘be careful what you wish for..’ thing. We wished to defeat the demon known as the Soviet Union, and succeeded in doing so. The two Bushes tried world dominance through war. The first succeeded but didn’t finish the job. The second failed to succeed, and only succeeded in alienating most of the rest of the world. Remember – we were the good guys. Under Buscheney, we revealed to the world that we really were the same as the bad guys. And through drones, torture and constant eavesdropping, America continues to reinforce the message that we can’t be trusted or relied upon when things get tough. We will protect ours, and as for the rest of youse guys – fahgettaboutit. Tony and Walter would approve. But the results are unfortunate for many in the rest of the world. You can ask the million-plus Syrian refugees about that. They are hopelessly caught between failed attempts at patriarchy from Assad and ISIS, with no grown-up to intervene and save them. And I fear this misery will spread to other places caught in the same trap. Putin’s Russia immediately comes to mind.

Interesting footnote – here’s a diagram of the comments on Scott’s essay. Half the comments reject his thesis outright, clinging to the current or old ways. The other half agree with his thesis, and half of those who agree say they have no desire to act like adults. Guess that says it all, huh? Where are you on this, gentle reader?

Kansas City tied it up last night, performing nearly perfectly and showing us the Giants did not and will not intimidate them. But there was one interesting element that made the game worthy of national news.

Relief pitcher Hunter Strickland behaved in a less-than-gentlemanly fashion over a double and a home run on his mound-time. He behaved like all these other athletes that are currently in trouble with the NFL. Ray Rice, Adrian Peterson: they’re just the tip of the iceberg. Google “athletes in trouble with the NFL”, and you get a whole page of pictures, the majority of whom are African-American. What’s the story here? I think it is likely a combination of performance-enhancing drugs (roid rage) and – in the case of the NFL – head trauma impacts. Look at the picture of these two Baltimore Ravens. Can you look like that just through exercise? I think not.

It would appear that American professional sports are having a huge impact on players, their families and the viewing audience psyche. Weekly headlines about domestic abuse, child abuse, suicide – the similarities to returning soldiers’ behavior can’t be missed. Are we condemning a whole generation of young men to violence, on their families and themselves – through the violence of making a living? It would certainly appear so.

A Focus on Violence by Returning G.I.’s

By LIZETTE ALVAREZ and DAN FROSCH
Published: January 1, 2009
FORT CARSON, Colo. — For the past several years, as this Army installation in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains became a busy way station for soldiers cycling in and out of Iraq, the number of servicemen implicated in violent crimes has raised alarm.

What to do? Figure out the correlations and causations and find means of treatment and modification of the games. It’s too late for those already affected, both on the playing fields and in the theater of war. But it’s not too late to change the outcomes for those who haven’t yet succumbed. The first step is acknowledging the depth and breadth of the problem, and doing more about it than the lame statements of NFL Commissioner Roger Goddell.

Hunter Strickland’s behavior may peak the interest of the Baseball Commissioner’s office, as this was the second incident of him losing control just this month. But it likely won’t change the outcome of this series. I predict the SF Giants will take the next two games, both of which they will play at home. So with the last game hanging in the balance, the two teams will return to Kansas City and shoot it out. I’m hoping KC pulls it off, just as they did in the 7th game the last time they were in the Series in 1985. But that assumes Strickland doesn’t put a gun in his pocket, and shoot anybody that gets a hit off one of his pitches. Now that would make for a dramatic end to the series, in true reality show style. Not funny.

So it’s Malaysian Airliners Flight MH 370 lost somewhere; not the one that Putin himself shot down, but the other one that disappeared from the radar after turning south, they say into the south Indian Ocean. But hey, Kim Jong-Un is lost too. Are they lost together? Did the young-un arrange to steal that plane to add to North Korea’s ‘civilian’ fleet so he could travel the world in style? He went to Africa to pick up the plane, after they removed all the passengers who died of a mysterious disease called hypoxia. That’s where the plane is – in Africa. Kim went there, looking for his plane and to visit Obama – you know, the African guy pretending to be an American? Instead, the Young-un found Ebola. So dontcha see how all those pieces fit together?

The NY Times has finally caught on to what’s happening in France – The next “New Wave”. Back in the post-war period in France, filmmakers like Godard, Renoir and the guy who had the cameo in Close Encounters Truffaut were making new and ‘edgy’ films that starred Jean Paul Belmondo, Jean Seberg, Yves Montand’s wife Simone Signoret, Deneuve the lovely and other, less well known but equally effective character actors. America in the 70’s built on their work; Warren Beatty with Bonnie & Clyde, Scorcese with Taxi Driver and Polanski with Chinatown were much influenced by the French techniques. Well, gentle readers, the Times has picked up on this new Wunderkind, Emmanuel Macron – the guy I wrote about several posts ago. He’s the new economics minister that a desperate Hollande tapped to help him out of the mess he’s created by vacillating between his home grown socialism and trying to please the EU. Didn’t work – can’t get there from here.

So it turns out this young fella Macron started out as a philosopher studying Machiavelli – good training for the complicated reality of French politics. He’s stood up to the EU, daring them to punish France for doing what everybody knows all the member countries should be doing. The fellow married his French teacher from high school – now that’s an interesting factoid, eh? OK, maybe not, but the Times felt compelled to put in in their introductory piece about the guy. So is the Grey Lady becoming a gossip mag? Gotta sell those papers, huh?

OK, enough Times bashing. Here’s the point – Macron will lead the charge, but eventually Germany is going to find itself in a pickle. They’ll watch their ‘partner’ states unite, threatening to leave the union unless Germany lets the European Central Bank do what it needs to do to allow Europe to compete on the global stage. It’s about time – 6 years of deflation with no end in sight. Fifty percent unemployment amongst young people in places like Spain, Greece and Italy? That will have a very long term effect on not just the economics but also the politics of those countries – Greece being the prime example. Europe will likely vacillate between extremes – violent nationalism laced with anti-Semitism on the one side and radicalized socialism on the other. Not good for stability; not good for long term economic growth through exports and their old standby tourism. But here’s the point I’m making – a new wave of economic thinking, modeled on what Shinzo Abe has done for Japan, will be led by France if Hollande can stand the heat from his gang of socialist cronies. If Macron does not succeed in leading the charge, Europe will be one step closer to violent confrontation, first within their respective countries and then against the recalcitrants in Germany. Not good for anyone – so let’s all root for Emmanuel and his New Wave.

We visited with Aunt Jopie week before last – had a terrific time. I got her to watch The History Boys – the movie version from ’06. She and I both need the closed caption on, particularly for viewing people who speak quickly and with British accents. There was plenty of that in THB. But my favorite line from the movie – in fact, I think it likely all my favorite lines from that film – are spoken by the only female teacher seen in the plot, Mrs. Lintott, or “Totty” to the boys. Frances De Le Tour plays her in the film, and apparently also played her on the stage. But here’s the best one:

Mrs. Lintott: Can you, for a moment, imagine how depressing it is to teach five centuries of masculine ineptitude? And

History is a commentary on the various and continuing incapabilities of men. What is history? History is women following behind with the bucket.

Great lines – great truths.

BTW: this is just the beginning of a series of thoughts that will culminate in a big blog post inspired by the A.O. Scott musings on the Death of Adulthood in American Culture – or some words to that effect. I think I gave you the real title before – but if not, you’re going to read so much about this, we’ll get it to eventually.

Gotta go – making a lemon sugar syrup for two lemon buttermilk pound cakes. The family is gathering for a pulled pork dinner. Kyle is bringing Chris and the telescope, so we can only hope for good weather tonight. Supposta be – fingers crossed.

Well, just as predicted, the A’s are out – defeated in the 12th inning by a dogged Kansas City Royals team. Still, there’s nothing in the media challenging tri-B’s actions. I suppose once Brad Pitt has played you in a movie, you become a teflon-coated manager. But the real question is: since everyone does seem to acknowledge his experiment was a mistake, will he learn from that mistake? I predict that whether or not he learns from his error, the team is toast for years to come. He proved to those players – Coco Crisp, Josh Donaldson, Brandon Moss, Derek Norris, Josh Reddick – willing to put their heart and soul into the game – that they were mere pawns in the Billy Beane sweepstakes called ‘making it to the World Series’. Will these guys ask to be traded? You betcha. Will Bean Ball have to build an entirely fresh team, comprised of new kids on the block, years from reaching any kind of higher level of performance? Um, yes. So I intend to cancel my MLB subscription, rather than watch the demise of not just the team, but sabermetrics. Money always wins. That’s the message. And who will win the World Series? I’ll stick my neck out and say it’ll be between the two LA teams – Angels and Dodgers. Trout will be the MVP. Watch, wait and mourn.

On to other topics. Roger Cohen’s column in this morning’s New York Times concerns itself with the nuclear negotiations between the US and Iran. Here’s the last line from his column:

A deal can and must be done for the simple reason it is far better — for Iran, the United States, Europe and Israel — than any of the alternatives.

This immediately summoned images of Neville Chamberlain in 1938. He returned from his discussions with Hitler with what became the Munich Agreement, giving away Czechoslovakia to the Germans, bragging that the sacrifice of that country would provide “peace in our time” for Europe and indirectly for the US. But the ironic part of this is that last country mentioned – Israel. Their forebears didn’t fare so well from the Munich Agreement. As soon as Czechoslovakia was secured, Czech Jews started on their path to extermination. You know the rest of the story.

I’m certainly not equating this situation to pre-WWII German aggression – just commenting on Roger’s choice of words and how they summoned up a recollection of that quote from Chamberlain. My position is that these negotiations with Iran are just the beginning. The real threat to the Middle East is radicalized Sunni Islam – the genie created by Saudi Arabia that just won’t stay in the bottle. So reality is that Israel and Iran could be the last two countries standing after Da’ash (the Anglicized description of the Arabic word for ISIS/ISIL/IS/ – maybe just I next) – takes the radical notions espoused by Al Qaeda and the Taliban to new heights. No schools for women. No religion other than Islam. No variation of Islam other than Sunni. Those kinds of strategies certainly are comparable to the Nazi totalitarian state. And a few bombs dropped on a few convoys will not change the equation one whit, regardless of who’s dropping them. An all-out ‘hearts and minds’ campaign, as well as military action to address the evil known as radical Islam is necessary. It must be financed, supported and – in fact – led by non-radical Sunni Islam. That is the only answer, just as the rise of Hitler could have been stopped by right-thinking Germans after the Beer Hall Putsch failed. But a fearful German populace succombed to Goebbel’s sly propaganda. And a young male Sunni populace, long deprived of dignity and meaningful lives – succomb to the lure of whatever radicalism is selling this week. That usually means death for these young men and women, either via the suicide bomber route or in battle with drones, F-18 Hornets and RAF Tornados. Picture how depressing life must be if that’s a better alternative to what you’ve got now.

So to summarize – negotiation with Iran over nuclearization will likely be the first step in a lengthy diplomatic process that will culminate in getting Israel and Iran to the table to figure out how to collaborate to change the face of the Middle East. A nuclear Iran will beget a nuclear Saudi Arabia, which when combined with a nuclear Israel, means a triangle of death, destruction and lingering radioactive fallout, with millions of innocent lives lost. That is a prospect nobody should favor, and one that requires the US to take the lead. So maybe the petty bickering in D.C. can stop for a while so the current – and likely next – administration can try to sort this out? Makes sense to me. How about you?

Finally, let’s talk about writing. I’m two thirds of the way to finishing China Tea and WKKG, so one’s mind turns to the next plot line. Obviously there will have to be a finale for the Matryoshka series, involving Ishmael, Feng Tian and his daughter, Cecilia and Emily. I’ve decided to bow out of this one – maybe kill myself off, along with Nikolai. I’m contemplating focusing on Ishmael, and looking to Moby Dick as inspiration for the last in the series. Moby Dick is about obessession with killing the white whale. I’m toying with Ishmael being revealed as a time traveler from the future, obsessed with destroying earth. Why? Because he believes earth destroyed his planet by introducing toxins into the atmosphere to allow humans to colonize. Those toxins destroyed the occupants of his planet, all except Ishmael and a few others who escaped in their ship called The Essex (i.e. they stole the ship from the colonizers). So I’m back to reading in addition to finishing China Tea and WKKG. I’m also working on an opus of a blog piece, based on a wonderful essay by A.O. Scott in The New York Times magazine called “The Death of Adulthood in American Culture”. More about that later.

So that’s the buzz – never a dull moment.

So more than 60% of Americans favor going after ISIS – as long as we don’t send actual troops to do the ‘going after’. In the absence of troops – and if I hear one more person on TV say “boots on the ground” I’m going to throw the remote at the flat screen – that means other ways to attack. F-16’s are expensive to fly, and we know the military’s budget is being slashed. So what’s the obvious solution? Drones. Drones. The God-damned Drones. They’re baacckkk!

Those little white toy airplanes in the sky that deliver mayhem and death to the wicked as well as the innocent – the ‘collaterals’. We will be chasing down those little white Toyota trucks with 50 cal’s mounted in the bed with little white specs of aerial death – operated by small, either callow or callous men sitting in comfortable chairs in Virginia, playing what they have come to think of as a video game. There’s no death and destruction – just antiseptic puffs of smoke and flame when viewed at the altitudes at which they operate. And the victim on the ground never knows it’s coming until one second before it does. Hello. Goodbye.

What is it about this name-morphing group ISIS – ISIL – IS that has so attracts our attention? Beheadings of people who look like us – who are us. And don’t you think Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi nee Ibrahim Awwad Ibrahim Ali al-Badri al-Samarra, roughly translated Ibrahim from Samarra is well aware of the impact of these actions? You betcha. Come on back – I can beat you now. You’re on my home turf, and I have money and plenty of nihilistic young men with suicide vests willing to kill themselves – and you.

But here’s the thing. The current Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi replaced a predecessor Abu, one Abu Abdullah al-Rashid al-Baghdadi. This character started out as a piece of creative fiction by Al Qaeda, designed to put a local ‘face’ on their activities. His lines were read by an actor. Then the fiction turned into a real guy – allegedly killed by a joint effort of Iraqi and American forces in 2010. But the details surrounding his identity and death are sort of murky. But that didn’t stop generals and politicians from applauding his alleged demise, and calling it a big step in the eradication of Al Qaeda. Right. Maybe not.

So the visual all this conjures up is from that movie Starship Troopers, the kids against the bugs. But the kids found that no matter how many bugs they killed, there were always more. The movie came from a sci-fi novel written by Robert Heinlein, a prolific writer in the 50’s and 60’s. Here’s a line from a synopsis of the book from Wikipedia:

There is an explicit contrast to the “democracies of the 20th century”, which according to the novel, collapsed because people had been led to believe that they could simply vote for whatever they wanted… and get it, without toil, without sweat, without tears.”

Sounds like Robert’s prediction was dead-on. Less than 2% of the population contributed to the combined wars in Afghanistan and Iraq for the last 12 years. The impact on the 2% was significant, as we’ve discussed before. When Barry O put the dual conditions of approval of immunity for American soldiers – signed off on by the Iraqi Congress – it was a sure way out. No more ‘boots on the ground’. Now Baghdadi wants us back. We’re the best recruiting tool he has, and the juiciest target that he’s confident he can defeat.

So essentially we’re in a no-win situation, spawned in large part from getting involved in Iraq and Afghanistan in the first place. I know – can’t change the past, only the future, but don’t we ever learn anything? Do we really believe we can defeat these bigger, stronger bugs with drones and airstrikes? We cannot, and will not. And – hey, take a step back here and think for a moment. Is it our job to do so? Why aren’t the folks that own the real estate stepping up? ISIS is a creation of Sunni Islam. They give blood and treasure to support this creature. Do you think there are any Christians, or even Shia Muslims amongst its ranks? Not a one. So to go after them is to go after Sunni Muslims. I can see the recruiting poster now.

Somerset Maugham retold an ancient story from that area – called it Appointment in Samarra. Here it is:

There was a merchant in Baghdad who sent his servant to market to buy provisions. In a little while the servant came back, white and trembling. He said, “Master, just now when I was in the marketplace, I was jostled by a woman in the crowd. When I turned I saw it was Death that jostled me. She looked at me and made a threatening gesture. Now lend me your horse, and I will ride away from this city and avoid my fate. I will go to Samarra and there Death will not find me.” The merchant lent him his horse, and the servant mounted it. He dug his spurs into its flanks and as fast as the horse could gallop he went. Then the merchant went down to the marketplace and he saw me standing in the crowd. He came to me and said, “Why did you make a threatening gesture to my servant when you saw him this morning?” “That was not a threatening gesture,” I said, “It was only a start of surprise. I was astonished to see him in Baghdad, for I had an appointment with him tonight in Samarra.

So we leave Iraq in 2011, thinking we’re finished with this death thing in Baghdad. And where are we now? Trying to figure out whether to stay, or flee to Samarra. Or maybe we can send drones in our place so we don’t have to choose. But we’re postponing the inevitable. I’m resigned to the reality that war will be with all of us for decades to come. The build-up to the big one. Reminds one of the 1930’s.

Here’s a quote from this morning’s NY Times by Firmin DeBrabander on the topic of drones:

The United States is gradually becoming a warring nation with fewer and fewer warriors, and few who know the sacrifices of war. Drones represent the new normal, and are an easy invitation to enter into and wage war — indefinitely. This is a state of affairs Machiavelli could not abide by, and neither should we. It is antithetical to a democracy for its voting public to be so aloof from the wars it fights. It is a feature, I fear, of a democracy destined to lose that title.

I think that sums it up nicely. Do I have a better way? Not any more…there was a time, but now …yeah. No.

Here’s a quote from Tom Friedman’s column in this morning’s New York Times:

When you have a region beset by that many civil wars at once, it means there is no center, only sides. And when you intervene in the middle of a region with no center, you very quickly become a side.

I think that is a marvelous way to describe the current situation in the middle east today. The Republican insistence that we go bomb somebody – everybody – is reminiscent of the leadup to 2004 and the great Folly in Iraq, brought to you by the Dick.

We would quickly become a ‘side’, and ironically a side every other side despises because we don’t belong there. It isn’t our war. Sorry, but that is the truth. I know it’s a knee jerk reaction post 9/11 to want to jump in and ‘fix’ whatever is going on, but the fix just leads to more of whatever is going on, leading to other, more dastardly ‘fixes’ that create more of whatever is going on … well, you get the idea.

How about we sit this one out and worry about NATO, Ukraine and Vlad the Soon-to-be Desperate One. Vlad is going to get desperate in the very near future when his folks start feeling the effects of extreme sanctions that are going to start pinching their pockets real hard. That’s where our focus should be at the moment – not the middle east. A bunch of contractors being burned led to Fallujah #1 in Iraq – remember that? Go in – no don’t – go back in – withdraw. Wasted lives. War crime. Enough, already.

Well, Gentle readers, it’s the first day of September – 3 weeks to the beginning of fall. Time for a recap of results versus predictions.

Let’s begin with the Oakland A’s – the once mighty team brought low by the antics of one Billy Beane, General Manager and former advocate for sabermetrics. His zeal to reach for the golden fleece of a World Series win has resulted in disaster. I predicted the A’s would be 3 games behind the Los Angeles Angels in the American League West. So let us check the results, and where are they? Not 3, not 4 but 5 games behind the Angels. I’d also predicted in a previous post on the topic that the A’s would be competing with the Mariners for a wild card position. Where are the Mariners? 9.5 games behind the Angels, so 4.5 games separates the two. But there are two wild card slots available for the whole American League. So the A’s may be competing with their normal arch-foe, the Detroit Tigers for a wild card slot. It would appear that we’ll see Baltimore, LA and Kansas City as the division winners. Then it’s Oakland, Detroit and Cleveland in that order for the wild card. If Oakland manages to eke out wins against Houston, Seattle and the Rangers, they may have a chance at the wild card. But it’s really irrelevant. Even if they get the wild card, they’ll be out in no time. Beane has destroyed this team, and any hope of winning even a pennant. Billy needs to be worried about keeping his job. His contract runs through 2019, but it wouldn’t be the first time a team ousts a GM and negotiates a settlement. Watch your back, Billy – the press is gonna eat you alive on 10/1.

Next topic – the economics of the French and the EU. As previously mentioned, Francois Hollande, the Socialist President of Franch, shuffled his cabinet in order to deal with the failing economics of his country. The Economics Minister, Montebourg, apparently criticized the government over the policy of austerity. Apparently, Monsieur Montebourg also is stuck – in true socialist fashion – with not wanting to mess with labor policies that keep France behind the rest of the EU in reforms. So maybe he did have to go. And the new Economics Minister, one Emmanuel Macron, is young and has new ideas, quite contrary to the normal socialist ethos. So there’s gonna be lots of fireworks in the future, as France struggles to figure out who or what it is. In the meantime, Mario Draghi, the head of the European Central Bank, finally got the memo (he must have read my previous blog post). He has finally determined that it’s time for quantitative and qualitative easing, support for employment through devaluing the Euro, and advocating the same kind of structural reforms that have put Germany and Spain in a position to recover. So who’s left? France and Italy, the last bastions of socialist notions that keep the sinking ship continuing its descent. It’s apparent that there’s only one path, painful but necessary. So when will we see these things happen? When will the EU recover and bring the western world back to economic prosperity? I suspect we’ll see something better by 2017. In the meantime, remember Vlad the Impaler? The guy that thinks he has them by the short ones? Timing is everything, Vlad, and what’s a little more pain when they’ll be enduring the pain of restructuring? The big loser with all this will be Russia and Rootie Tootie Pootie. He figured the west for wimps. Surprise! He figured Angela, that old Eastern bloc physicist, to be his ally. Surprise! He figured the U.S. to be a paper tiger that he could push around. Well, that remains to be seen. If we aren’t firing bullets at him, as card carrying members of NATO, then we’ll likely continue to work with Europe on economic sanctions. But NATO will be the big question. If Poland believes that NATO won’t intervene when a desperate Vlad goes after them, it could get to be a genuine test of wills. Look at the map: see that little red section in the north of Poland that says Kaliningrad? Then under it says “To Russia”. Kaliningrad is part of Russia, all the way over in Poland. It’s the home of the Baltic fleet. Fairly important to Russia, ya think?

This is beginning to look like a caper with significant consequences for all parties. But with any luck on his part, Barry O will be done with his second term, and Mitt Romney will have the problem to reckon with. Recall, during the 2012 race for president, Mittens said Russia would be our biggest problem in the near future. Be careful what you predict, Mittens! It’s gonna be your challenge now. You can’t put that dog in a cage on the roof.

Post Script: Here’s the last paragraph from today’s New York Times about NATO.

It is a far more crowded agenda than Mr. Obama anticipated last spring, when the summit meeting was to be focused on winding down NATO’s combat mission in Afghanistan. By 2015, it is scheduled to become a training and assistance force of 8,000 to 12,000 troops, two-thirds of them American.

2/3 of 12,000 is 8,000 American troops. Do you really think 8,000 Americans and 4,000 ‘others’ from the region will stop the Russian army, currently estimated to be 766,000 active and 2.5 million reserve troops. Who are we kidding? It strikes me that this is the Fulda gap all over again. Never heard of the Fulda gap?
Here’s what Wikipedia says about it:

Fulda Gap
The Fulda Gap is an area between the Hesse-Thuringian border, and Frankfurt am Main that contains two corridors of lowlands which tanks might have accessed in a surprise attack effort by the Soviets …

Here’s the map showing its location:

In 1987, 4,500 Americans in the armored division patrolled and protected this point at the border between Germany and Czechoslovakia. Today, both the Czech Republic and Slovakia are part of NATO. So obviously the location is secondary, but the ratios look about the same. And in ’87 when Erik the Younger was posted there in his first stint in the army, he was informed that his job as a scout was to find the enemy, report back and die. What a deal, huh? Let’s be sure we’re not repeating that history with this next generation of young gentlemen. Haven’t we killed or maimed enough of this generation in a futile attempt at achieving questionable ends? I say yep.

I’m tired of looking at Tri-B’s face, so let’s move on to other news of the day. Apparently, French President Francois Hollande has dissolved his government in order to shuffle the cabinet. Why? Because the Economics Minister, Monsieur Montebourg, told the truth: austerity policies are killing the economy of France, and frankly of the entire European Union. Heresy! He must go! But is it heresy?

Growth in the European Union for the past 5 years (yes, count them – 5 years) has been lackluster to actual deflation. Even Germany has not been spared this fate, in spite of their robust, low-wage model. One of the few countries in the EU that is doing semi-OK is Spain, because they couldn’t fall any farther. They have an astronomical unemployment rate, so they probably can get people to work for free, just to kill the boredom. That would certainly make your exports cost-effective, eh? Here’s a look at recent economic results (thanks to Ambrose Evans-Pritchard for the graphic).

There has been a real paucity of leadership in the EU lo these past five years. I suppose Angela Merkel is the closest thing to a leader, but for political reasons, she pretty much does the bidding of the pro-austerity infliction gang in her party and her country. Japan, if you’ll recall “got the memo”, and started devaluing the yen and their stock market went through the roof. The Euro is strong against other currencies, which is helping to fuel the fires of deflation. It’s the 1930’s all over again, without the leadership of one A. Hitler. He debased the mark, in an attempt to pay for reparation debt with toilet paper currency, and ran the German economy with an off-the-books economic sleight of hand that produced the war machine that nearly toppled the world. If an unemployed house painter could figure that out, how come the best minds in Europe find this baffling? I think I have the answer.

I suppose it’s human nature to say “just one more quarter in the slot machine and this thing will finally pay off.” Never mind that you’ve mortgaged the house and burned through the kids’ college fund to continue the slot game. Essentially, that is what the collective minds of the European Central Bank and the various turnstile-leadership members of France, Italy, Portugal, Spain, Greece, Cyprus and Ireland have done. As previously mentioned, only Germany has barely kept her chin above water, but is currently sinking because of the limited trade between the countries. Great Britain, not a member of the EU but greatly affected by its policies, has pretended to embrace austerity, but figured out they needed to use quantitative easing about the same time Japan got the memo.

So what will come from all this? They’ll continue to tinker around the edges, never making much progress with improving things for their citizenry. And then – like as not – the ultimate economic solution will finally come to the fore – let’s declare war on someone – or on one of us – and crank up the deficit spending machine to pay for bullets. A recurring theme throughout history that Vlad the Impaler is certainly doing his best to stir up.

So, gentle readers, be prepared to see major conflict continue to occur throughout the remainder of this second decade of the new millenium. Ain’t life great?