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?

And how have they fared since tri-B’s exceptional trades? Let us recap:

8/1 Lost 0/1 to Kansas City 8/2 Won over KC 8/3 Lost to KC
8/4 Won Over Tampa Bay Rays 8/5 Won over TB 8/6 Lost to TB
8/7 Won Over Minnesota Twins 8/8 Won over MT 8/9 Won Over MT
8/10 Lost to MT 8/11 Won over KC 8/12 Lost to KC
8/13 Lost to KC 8/14 Lost to KC 8/15 Lost to Atlanta Braves

That’s 7 wins and 8 losses for an average of 0.466. That is the an average slightly above the Houston Astros, 4th in the American League West. Oakland is now only 1 game ahead of the Los Angeles Angels. Oakland will play the Angels 6 times before the end of the month. Care to project where the results will be by 8/31? I shudder to think. But what the heck – I’ll just put it out there and predict by 8/31, the Oakland A’s will be 3 games out of first place to the LA Angels. As I said before, they will be battling with Seattle for the Wild Card slot. Nice goin’, Bean Ball.

Dictionary dot com defines fever as an abnormal condition of the body, characterized by undue rise in temperature, quickening of the pulse, and disturbance of various body functions. So World Series fever would be a disturbance of right thinking in pursuit of a now likely unattainable goal. Like Napoleon in Moscow. Hitler in Stalingrad. King Arthur in Monty Python. You get the idea.

Post Script: Oh, this is the best part. The guy they ousted Chavez to make way for, Jason Hammel, the 6 million dollar man? He’s won 1 game since joining the A’s July 4th. His current ERA is 6.75 (that’s really bad). Jesse Chavez’ ERA is 3.33. His salary is $480k. So Billy has paid 11 times as much for Hammel as he was paying Chavez, and the man has won one game. One game since 7/4. It’s beyond comprehension.

There’s talk about bringing Jesse back. Not gonna happen. Billy’s going to ride this runaway train all the way to the station. Nice goin’, Bean Ball.

I didn’t watch Oakland lose to the Kansas City Royals last night. They scored no runs. Kansas City, a shot-in-the-dark team that is (was) of greatly inferior quality to the A’s won with 1 run. I find that highly emblematic of the situation that BB Boy has inflicted on what was the greatest team in baseball.

I predict Oakland will be duking it out with Seattle for the wild card slot in the AL West. The Angels now have it all to themselves. Why do I say that, you ask? Experience in building a team. When you break up a high performing work team, it takes a really long time to rebuild it. Longer than BB has left in this season. So he will have destroyed the team, with not enough time to build it for the World Series, which, as previously mentioned, he got the fever for. It is just too much.

No more MLB for me. I’ll have to find another addiction to fill my retirement evenings. More serious effort at writing than two chapters a week, I suppose.

Why did he do it? Why? Because he never really believed in sabermetrics. It got him some attention – it got him Brad Pitt as his avatar! But former players always return to their roots. The old way of doing business. And sabermetrics be damned. Burn that damn book! (Nod to Gavin McQuade@Realmoneybadger for that illustration). Let me be specific.

If you saw the film or read the book, Moneyball, recall the scouting coaches describing prospects as looking “right” or “not right”. It would appear that taking Jesse Chavez out of the rotation is an example of him not looking “right”. Or giving up Cespedes for another outfielder, just to get a pitcher to replace the pitcher that he got to replace Tommy Milone…I could go on and on. But BB has started the downhill slide that will end in a really bad outcome.

It reminds one of Greek or Shakespearean tragedy. The golden fleece is just outside your reach, so you do what you think you have to do to get it, and sacrifice yourself and those around you in the process. The A’s are destroyed, and BB will lose his job for killing them. May they rest in peace.

Yoenis Cespedes, former Oakland A

Well, he’s gone, in exchange for a pitcher to compensate for the bad pitcher BB Boy (Billy Beane) bought from Chicago (Hammel: a pig in a poke if I ever saw one, and a slightly better pig in a slightly better poke in Smurza) and a batter that is past his prime and not anywhere near the calibre of Cespedes. Billy has World Series Fever in the worst way. That’s like going for broke at the craps table when you haven’t paid last month’s mortgage payment.

Oakland was a team with heart, brains, moxie, humor and love of the game. They are now a lop-sized agglomeration of strangers that will not be a team. The leftovers (with a nod to the HBO show) are already playing hurt, and they’ll stop trying as hard. They’re off today, but wait and see what happens tomorrow. Billy’s gonna get himself fired over these moves, and the firing will be generated by the fans who came to embrace sabermetrics. Sabermetrics – remember what that is, Billy? Guess not. Too bad.

Not sure if I’ll watch their demise. Depends on how the writing goes. I feel like I can wrap up Matryoshka in the next month or so. Then I will start working on a couple of projects. The outline for the flu story is one (already here in the Writing tab). I have another idea for a longer story that has a working title of “Who Killed Kitty Genovese?” Betcha don’t know or remember (if old enuf) who she is. Google her and see if there ain’t a story there. ‘Cause I’m gonna have plenty of time now that I don’t have to devote 18 to 20 hours a week watching Oakland struggle. Qué lástima.

UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE: HE LOST ANOTHER GAME TODAY. BILLY’S GOING TO HAVE TO MAKE SOME TOUGH CHOICES IN THE NEXT DAY OR SO.
HEADLINE: READ ALL ABOUT IT. HAMMEL PITCHED BADLY AND THE A’S LOST LAST NIGHT TO THE BOTTOM OF THE BARREL TEXAS RANGERS. WHAT WILL BILLY DO? WHAT WILL MELVIN DO? THERE MIGHT, IN FACT, BE CRYING IN BASEBALL.

This is the last one, at least for a while. Writing two chapters a week about the adventures of Cecilia is usually all I can manage. But, as previously mentioned, these three things were bugging me. So I’ll get on with it and then you won’t likely hear from me, at least until I get riled about something else.

But before I launch into it (baseball), I find it astounding that I write my pieces, and within a day or two the majors pick up on the same points. The tunnels in Gaza? – one day lag and Anne Bernard writes about them in the NY Times, albeit insufficiently. Ukraine? Major media outlets and my favorite economic columnist Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, discuss the economic symbiosis between the countries in western Europe and Russia. Always ahead of the curve.

Now, to the topic du jure – baseball. We’re well past the mid-point, which is really 4/7’s the season gone. The All Star game is done, won illegitmately by the American League with a ball called fair that was really a foul that ended up scoring the final two runs. Mike Trout was deservedly selected as the MVP and got a corvette out of the deal. Yuch. But at least my boys, the Oakland A’s, are still ahead of the entire pack. BUT (why is it there’s always a but?) the second place team in the AL West, the Los Angeles Angels, are hot on their heels. So yes, gentle reader, that means the top two teams in baseball are in the AL west. That’s good, you say? No, that is bad. And why would that be, you ask? Here’s why.

Billy Beane, the wunderkind GM of the A’s, Mr. Moneyball himself, pulled off a trade that the baseball media thought was a coup. He got Jeff Samardzjia and Jason Hammel from the Chicago Cubs, in exchange for some change and top minor league prospects. Great! New blood in the bull pen, you say? Not so fast. In both their initial outings, neither pitcher has been exceptional. In fact, I’d argue Hammel is a disaster and will likely be traded by or near the end of the season. Samardzjia was supposed to be the plum in the trade. But in order to manage the financial end of this, Tommy Milone had to go back down to the minors. That’s the bad part.

Tommy has been with the A’s, up and down from the farm team, for two years. I’d argue the team likes him, and he’s a decent, left-handed pitcher. Pulling in these two guys and sacrificing Milone has upset the balance within the team. They continue to win – sort of – but they aren’t on fire as they were. Oops – there I go with the emotional words. Let me rephrase that: their statistical averages have deteriorated since this bone-headed move was made by Bean Ball Billy. That’s better.

But, you’d argue, there’s time before the World Series for the new guys to settle in and start to perform at their potential – at least Samardzjia? BTW – that’s pronounced SA MAR JA. I pronounce it SMUR JA, as I’ve developed an instinctive dislike for this pitcher, this deal and fear the impact on the team, as you can read from previous words. Back to the point – there’s time for this to work out before it gets serious and important in October, right? But there’s a problem with messing around now: and that problem is called the LA Angels.

There’s a huge logistical and psychological advantage to winning the division, versus being a wild card team for the playoffs. Winning the division gives you more rest time before you have to compete. Wild card teams are dragged from pillar to post, having to prove their worthiness in order to continue to advance. So you want to enter the playoffs as the division winner. If LA pulls ahead and stays ahead – even if by one win – that would be bad. So, the A’s don’t have time to monkey around getting these new pitchers settled in. They just don’t. And if Bob Melvin, the team’s manager, is forced out of deference to Billy’s Folly, to continue to use these two guys, I predict a bad end. And now I read that Tommy wants to be traded. Nay, I say, Nay! Billy: admit you blew it, move Hammel and bring Tommy back. If you fail to do this, you might not make it to the pennant, and I’m sure you won’t play in the World Series. So there…the soothsayer has spoken. Watch, wait and hopefully, don’t weep. Wait..no! Everybody knows: there’s no crying in baseball.

POST SCRIPT: Okay, so Smurja had a decent day yesterday. But I’m not ready to concede yet. Hammel pitches tonight against Texas. Texas has the worst record in baseball, so it should be easy, right? We’ll see…

Let’s do a Vulcan mind meld on the next topic: the conflict in Gaza between Israel and Hamas. Ben Birnbaum has written a comprehensive assessment of the peace overtures undertaken by Israel and the Palestinian Authority, at the behest of the State Department representatives, Martin Indyk and John Kerry. It appears here in the New Republic.

Ben Birnbaum’s piece about peace

Clearly I am no expert on anything related to these two countries, their policies, attitudes and means of getting through life. But maybe that’s a good thing: the experts in all these areas have had no success whatsoever in getting these recalcitrant players to work together and stop killing innocents on both sides. So with that understanding, in I’ll plunge.

I know: by now you’ve become inured to seeing pictures of women and children in Gaza wailing about their lost loved ones. I get that, gentle reader. A naive person would ask, “Why don’t they just leave?” That’s likely what that same individual said about residents of the Lower Ninth Ward in New Orleans, in assessing the aftermath of Katrina. But if you are a refugee, a person scrounging for her daily living, or someone asked to leave their home containing multiple generations, it isn’t that simple.

First and foremost: where does she go? How does she get there? Travel is severely restricted in Gaza, because of suicide bombers and the justified fear of attacks. Even if civilians could leave, their hard scrabble existence would be eliminated, leaving them to the potential for a worse fate than braving Israeli bombs and now a ground attack. So I get that.

What about the other side? One can sympathize to some degree with their desire to root out Hamas from Gaza, eliminating the tunnels that allow them access under the wall built by Israel. The wall was built to insulate Israel from the mayhem brought to their homes, streets and shops by hapless, hopeless individuals willing to blow themselves up, rather than live in these current conditions. Apparently the wall strategy didn’t work too well. It never does, neither around Israel to keep the bombers out nor between the continental US and adjacent countries to the south. But I say, acknowledging the irony: the wall created the basis for Hamas to attack Israel. But not for the reasons you might think.

Here’s the point I’d like to make, that somewhat echoes yesterday’s post. Here it is, again: “Economics have been the true cause of every major clash of geographies, throughout history.” I think I’ll embroider a sampler containing that phrase, because it is so true, when you can get down to the heart of these conflicts.

Here’s a piece from a ‘down-under’ newspaper, reprinted from The Times of Israel with some good visuals added.

The Real Deal Going on Between Israel/Gaza/Egypt

The story details how Hamas has been surviving economically as a result of the tunnels dug under the wall, leading to both Israel and Egypt via the Sinai (see map below). According to the article, 40% of their income came from taxes and tolls on those tunnels, which apparently numbered between 350 and 400, with up to 1200 entrances on the Palestinian side. But then it was Al-Qaeda that screwed the pooch. They used the tunnels to infiltrate the Egyptian side and killed 16 Egyptian military officers. What was that all about? Later. Suffice it to say, that gave Egypt the justification to start addressing the tunnel issue and shutting them down. Then when Morsi and the Brotherhood were overthrown in a coup d’etat by General Sisi, the Egyptians went at it tooth and claw. So tunnels closed down: no money for Hamas, prices in Gaza begin to skyrocket, and you have all the makings of a violent confrontation.

While all this was going on, Kerry, Indyk, Abbas, Tzipi Livni, Erekat, and various others were negotiating a peace that they could not manage, not any of them. Window dressing, you say? No, I don’t think so. Kerry and the Americans were naive – maybe uninformed? But I feel sure Netanyahu knew, and played them. Then three Israeli kids get killed, and then a Palestinian teen dies a sordid death at the hands of Israeli vigilantes. Everybody jumps in, and then you see the rockets’ red glare.

So what’s the solution? What’s the solution to any conflict? The people causing the mayhem must be listened to and their issues addressed. Everybody wants to earn a living, and the ghetto called Gaza, recently compared to the Warsaw ghetto, in some universe has a right to be upset. So does Israel. But both sides are so busy explaining why their rights trump the other’s, there is no capacity or motivation for resolution.

Here’s the really terrible irony in all this. While they’re busy fighting one another over a tiny piece of territory, the militant wing of Sunni Islam is taking control over the Syria/Iraq/Jordan geography, in an attempt to consolidate their holdings. They’re doing all this under the watchful eye of the Saudis, who keep their hands clean but tacitly acknowledge and support their efforts. At the end of their rainbow is a caliphate that has no room for either Shia Iran or Infidel Israel. The real boogie man is out there, taking large sums of money from Iraqi central bank branches in the Sunni Triangle, and dispatching or expelling non-believers like Christians from their territory. When they’re done with that, then it’ll be Iran and finally Israel. That day will arrive, and Israel will wish for the gold old days when it was just the Palestinians in Gaza they had to be concerned about.

POST SCRIPT: I did a little research regarding the relative sizes of Gaza and the West Bank, compared to Israel. The West Bank covers 2180 square miles. Gaza covers 139 square miles. Israel covers 8019 square miles. If you add them all together, the West Bank is 21% of the total. Gaza is 1.4% of the total. So the 1.4% is browbeating the country that’s 15 times bigger than it is. And Israel is smaller than New Jersey. So that makes Gaza the size of Detroit, and the West Bank about the size of Delaware. So Detroit is driving New Jersey to waste blood and treasure in a war that cannot be won by either side. Go figure…and now the citizens of the piece the size of Delaware are rising up against New Jersey in sympathy with Detroit. Makes you stop and think for at least a half a second, yes? Never mind…