The better, hungrier team won; the Vulcans lost

As I watched the Super Bowl, I couldn’t help but notice how lifeless the Indy coaches looked, and how uninspired and conservative their play-calling was throughout the game. The only gutsy decision of note I can think of was going for it on 4th down once, but even then, they were deep in Saints territory and it was logical to go for it. In fact, all season long I didn’t see Jim Caldwell express one single emotion in his face or body language. He seemed disconnected and aloof. He was either very Zen or very Vulcan in how he went about his business. I understand, some people don’t wear their hearts on their sleeve. But shouldn’t a rookie coach show a modicum of excitement or anxiety or even interest after making it all the way to the Super Bowl? I guess not.

We cannot forget that he also willingly and consciously denied the fans of Indianapolis an undefeated season by dialing it in the last two games of the season. When you don’t come to play, you lose, and they lost twice to finish 14-2. It was certainly logical to rest the best players, but if you take a couple of steps back, the logic breaks down: Tens of thousands of people paid exhorbitant prices for seats and concessions and (involuntarily) donated their taxes to the construction of Lucas Oil Stadium so…what? They could watch their team not try at all, because they’re already in the playoffs and they’re tired? Frankly, it’s despicable. The fans should have gotten refunds. And it’s why Caldwell and Indianapolis didn’t deserve to win.

Players should have refused to sit on the bench; Peyton and Wayne and Co. should have insisted on suiting up for those games; they owed it to their fans, and their coach simply didn’t deserve their loyalty. You don’t give up on games. Not for logic, not for anything. The object of the game of football is to win. Not to survive, not to do a good job, not to conserve, but to win. Any team that forgets this doesn’t deserve to be in the Super Bowl, let alone win it. There was so much expectation that Indy and Manning would win last night, such an air of calm smugness and entitlement, and so much confidence, it seemed last night that Indy totally forgot they had an opponent, and a good one at that.

The Saints never forgot they had one; not for a second, and it never looked like they were in big trouble. Their coach had a pulse; he got fired up; he challenged calls and chose gutsy plays. Sometimes he failed, but it wasn’t because he didn’t try, like Indy. He rolled the dice, and the ultimate result was a win for New Orleans, a city that has direly needed one for going on five years since it was almost washed away. They did it by not playing it safe or conserving or treading carefully, or even by looking ten moves ahead. They simply played their hearts out and were rewarded.

Indy, who beyond anything else, remain an unjustly stolen team, were justly denied victory, and will have to start all over again next year. Who knows, maybe then they’ll give it their all.

Moving forward…unintentionally

Toyota has not had as good a track record for quality as their marketing would have you believe. Despite having less than 17% market share in the U.S., Toyota led all automakers in 2009 safety recalls, with a sizable 4.3 million of them. Truck owners have complained of rapidly rusty frames in their trucks. Lexus owners have fallen victim to defective floor mats that cause pedals to stick. Most recently, Toyota’s “unintended acceleration” problem that has effected so many 2009 and 2010 models that Toyota has ordered all dealers to halt sales and has halted production on eight of them, including Camry and Corolla, two of the ten best-selling vehicles of the decade.

The other models on the halt list: Highlander, RAV4, Avalon, Tundra, Sequoia, Matrix. Most concerning is that the floor mat problem and the unintended acceleration problem are apparently seperate and different issues, and Toyota simply isn’t sure what is causing it or how to fix it, hence the halt. It goes without saying that this fiasco is a major blow to Toyota’s reputation for quality, which has declined since the 1990s when Toyotas cost more than the competition but were built more solidly and without cost-cutting measures. Unfortunately, in this period of declining quality, Toyota has elected to ride the coattails of their past quality on a line of cars that is obviously lacking that same quality. They do this through smug and arrogant marketing campaigns that extol the perfection of their vehicles.

Well, judging from all the recalls and the actual halting of sales, that optimistic, holier-than-thou marketing is simply disconnected from reality. While Ford and GM are spending billions gradually improving the quality of their vehicles, Toyota has moved backwards in a case of intended acceleration – the acceleration of profits above all else; which was not the original Toyota way – and making billions off of the false promise of quality superiority.

Toyota won its reputation building solid cars that worked without complaint. That today they can’t even keep cars from literally running out of control and worse – don’t have immediate answers as to why and how so many millions of cars sold to people are affected – will go a long way towards destroying that rep, or at least should, just as the Volare and Aspen killed confidence in Chrysler products, or the quick-to-rust Pinto and Vega caused exoduses from Ford and GM.

Toyota is clearly so drunk on power and easy profits, they have lost the plot product-wise. They forgot the most important element of successful – and long-lasting – automaker – make sure the autos work properly. I will be watching and listening very closely to see if Toyota will learn from this fiasco, or will continue their self-destructive ways, and if people will finally wake up to the fact that Toyota simply doesn’t lead the automotive world in quality, and haven’t for many years. This is just a myth being perpetuated by consistent, confident, but ultimately dishonest marketing that has unfortunately worked; hopefully, until now.

Let France be France…whatever that means

As an American, I am encouraged to distrust the French because they’ve surrendered so much throughout their history, running counter to our own “Liberty or Death” credo. If somehow America was invaded by a foreign enemy and that enemy made progress, I am confident we would likely never surrender, preferring total annihilation to subjugation, as unpragmatic as that sounds. Americans don’t surrender. And the toughest French historical figure, Napoleon, wasn’t even French, he was born Napoleone di Buonaparte in Corsica, which is an Italian island France had no business conquering.

In any case, there’s no denying that France has a very strong sense of identity and culture. Again, Americans (and English) often exaggerate the averge Frenchman as a beret-wearing, pencil-mustachioed, white flag-waving frog and the average Frenchwoman as an unapologetically hairy, saucy prostitute. These stereotypes are unfair; it goes without saying. It isn’t unrealistic to state that most Americans probably don’t know that we owe the survival of our young nation to the service of fellows with names like Marie-Joseph Paul Yves Roch Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de La Fayette, and King Louis XVI. These men were French, and with their help we actually got the British to surrender. Yes, the French were quite badass. Unfortunately, that same Louis XVI was beheaded by his own people, who were kind of proto-marxists, and the rabble’s will has been imposed ever since, which may explain why the French surrendered so much thereafter.

Sorry about the dubious history lesson, but there is a new mini-war going on in France over the full veil or burqa. Specifically, the government wants a partial ban on the garment that many Muslim women wear that totally conceals their appearance, which in western cultures, is often an uncomfortable sight. Officials like President Sarkozy, whom I like, state that the ban is to protect the dignity and freedom of women, so already we’ve run into a problem – the circular argument of bans. Bans almost always give some freedom while taking freedom from others.

Take gay marriage in America for instance: those against it say legalizing it would infringe on their freedom of religion. Those for it obviously believe it infringes on their right to marry whomever they want. Both arguments are valid, depending on whose side you’re on. Terms like “wrong” and “right” are relative and thus useless without a mediating authority.  So by banning the burqa, women veiled against their will are freed, but those who want to wear it have their rights infringed upon.

So is the overarching French desire to preserve their culture – which frowns upon women (or anyone else) totally covering themselves, more important that that small amount of women who like burqas and believe they must wear it to honor Islam? Hard call. All I know is, like many European countries starved for workers a ways back, no effort was made to culturally integrate the masses of foreigners who immigrated to France. Most Muslims, now 6% of France, are culturally autonomous, and others have a hard time balancing French and Muslim identities, particularly when their cultural mores so often clash.

But that’s also why governments are chosen by majority, or at least plurality. The needs and the will of the many ultimately out-way those of the few. More sophisticated or integrated governments provide checks and balances to the minority (like America, for better or worse) but at the end of the day, the voice of the majority will ring louder, as it should, because not everybody can get what they want. And if most of France thinks burqas are weird and off-putting and introverted and a strong visual expression of both dangerous religious fundamentalism that has destroyed civilizations past and the abuse and belittlement of the female sex, most of France should have the right to ban it, at least partially.

Let France be France. When you live in France, you apparently must do as the French do. Same with Italy or Austria or Monaco. If you want true freedom to wear whatever you want (for now), simply move to America.

What can Brown do for us

Last year most of the nation celebrated Obama’s inauguration, and it really was something I’ll never forget. However, I wish I could forget the past year. For all the bailouts and spending and political wrangling, very little has been done. For all the power the Democrats have gained, they have very little to show for it.

Part of this is Republican intransigence, and it is, after all, the role of the minority to push back against the majority with everything they’ve got, but they are no longer the underdog, and GOP’s rock bottom was passed long ago. The election of a Republican to Teddy Kennedy’s senate seat is far more bruising psychologically than politically, though losing a 60-vote supermajority is definitely bruising.

I must admit I didn’t pay much attention to this election process, not being a Massachusetts resident. But from what I heard and read, the Democratic candidate, Martha Coakley, and her campaign sleepwalked into the election like it was a formality. Being so flippant and aloof in the midst of so much volatile national populist anger was a bad move. If she had fought hard, she may have eked out a win, but this was a special election: only people who care enough will turn out to vote, and the conservatives simply cared more.

The Democrats didn’t have a statement to make other than “This is Massachusetts, this is the state of Kennedy, and we’re going to hold this seat.” The Republican voter, meanwhile, had a very bold statement to make: This wasn’t just about Coakley vs. Brown at all. This was a referendum on Obama’s and Congresse’s impotence thus far. The supermajority collapsed after less than six inconsequential months. Had Republicans had 60 votes, we wouldn’t recognize our country anymore. But the sly pragmatism and patience seems to have backfired; Obama apparently has infinitely more patience than his constituency. When he promised change, they wanted it, and they wanted it now. They didn’t get it, hence the anger and disappointment.

60 votes should have been enough to do a lot, but instead, nothing was done. Every one of Obamas proposals and policies are in flux. Even if healthcare reform had been fully passed – with or without a public insurance plan – healthcare is not as important to Americans as having jobs and decent wages. Heathcare is in the way. Yet Congress is so consumed by healthcare, solutions to the job problems haven’t even been addressed, let alone set into motion.

We are sitting on a massive deficit with fewer jobs and lower wages with taxes already too high from the Bush years, wondering how we’re going to get out of this funk. The two sides of the aisles have directly opposed strategies, so when you merge them, you get the worst of both worlds. Brown’s victory will only be another wrench in the already slow gears of progress. If healthcare isn’t passed before he’s elected, it will grind Congress to a halt just when it needs to be swift and realign itself towards unemployment repair.

I have been exceedingly disappointed with Congress this past year. They have been dilatory, far too cavalier with our money, and far too indifferent to our livelihoods. Perhaps the loss of a supermajority will get them to wake up a bit and start using the power they still have before the people take it away and give it back to the other side.

Many bickering voices vs. one clear one

The USA used to be about TCB. Our greatest moment probably came in the 40s, when we defeated two autocratic, expansionist, evil regimes on two different continents at the same time, saving hundreds of millions from subjugation and death. In the process, our economy, reeling from the depression, was given a much-needed jump-start, while the majority of soldiers who returned home formed the basis of a true middle class of folks who were neither rich nor poor.

We didn’t do all of that by spending months in Congress fiddling with bills. Once it was obvious to all that our intervention was crucial if the Allies would have a chance, we simply switched gears and got the job done. I wasn’t alive for those days, but to me they seemed simpler; more cut-and-dry. America and the Allies were good; the regimes of Germany and Japan were bad and had to be stopped. Had I lived in those days, you can bet I’d have shipped off to fight the Nazis or the Japanese with everything I had. It probably wouldn’t have even been my choice, thanks to the draft, but I don’t think I’d be bitter about it; the cause was just and worthy. I’m not buying that at present.

The single voice that America had in those days is gone now, replaced by three: the Left, the Right, and the ‘Independent’. Perhaps government was just as slow and inefficient (it was designed to be so) and perhaps the political spectrum was just as polarized back then, but for some reason it just seems to have gotten worse and worse, ever since our great victory. Perhaps it’s because technology has so dramatically quickened the pace of the economy, culture, and civilization in general. Certainly not everywhere, but certainly in the U.S. and the other big players like the EU, China and India.

At this breakneck pace, China is thriving, while America struggles to keep up due to, well, all the checks and balances China doesn’t have to contend with. China has one voice, and is speaking clearly; while two of America’s three voices are in a constant shouting match while the third, Independants, wait passively at the sidelines either out of pragmatism or perhaps simple disgust for the whole enterprise. While the shouting match is in progress, America’s decline seems assured.

True enough, we are the country of E Pluribus Unum, but politically, we are divided, not united, as our voice is. A country as huge and powerful as America cannot progress if the two sparring voices have directly opposing definitions of progress. Within the walls of the Capitol and between blue and red state lines, we have cultivated an increasingly indomitable stalemate, a state in which each disperate voice neutralizes the next, with no tangible result.

Meanwhile, rapidly developing global competitor like China is using its clear single voice to produce tangible results, and the debt we compile in maintaining our bickering, schizophrenic republic fuels their development. As our treasuries empty, theirs fill. As we bicker, they blossom. Here’s the catch of couse: America is for all its faults still a free country. Whether or not they are capable of articulating it, at least half of all America is of the strong opinion that oversocialization of government will inevitably to an authoritarian system like China’s, which many deem could quickly descend into something resembling Imperial Japan or Nazi Germany.

Regardless of the likelihood of that, here’s the America we live in: Everyone gets their say, so nobody truly wins, and everybody loses, because the country stays still and stagnates. In China, only one side gets their way, and win or lose, the country continues moving forward (in economic terms, not in human rights.)

Is there any middle ground? In America, even the middle ground takes sides. For Obama’s election, they chose the left, but presently, they seem more right-leaning, after the honeymoon gave way to the cold hard reality: America’s problems pile up faster than the government can fix them, and whatever party is in power (be it the right from 2000-08 or the left now) invariably enters a period of decline after a failing to deliver the goods. Both sides – both voices share that failure. An inability to cooperate, to compromise, to unify is what is pushing us into decline; not one side or the other; but both.

China’s inner struggle – that between the government and those opposed to the government – is pathetically one-sided affair in favor of the former. It is a country that has decided to abandon certain truths that we Americans consider self-evident in favor of unopposed consensus and unfettered progress. And progressing they are. We’ll just have to wait and see which approach will be more successful: Many bickering voices speaking at once – all flawed – versus one clear voice…also flawed.

I want an avatar.

Avatar has a lot of problems. The humans are a bit too casually evil (or in the case of the main antagonist, a 60-year old colonel with a Jose Canseco body, crazy evil.) The scenes with hundreds of Na’vi dancing in unison is cheesy, as are many of their rituals. The plot is a bit too dependent on luck and coincidence. The aforementioned Colonel’s enormous command ship is a bit too invulnerable in the climactic battle. It is hard to imagine the enormous cost of travelling to Pandora, settling there, and building up a huge military would be offset by the monetary gains from the unobtanium. It is ultimately hard to believe that a human settlement could survive on Pandora long enough to build up such an enormous arsenal of weapons and equipment. Neytiri’s navel is too low on her abdomen. Sigourney Weaver’s Avatar looks too human. And finally, and most offensively, the Avatar title itself is in the second-dumbest font ever created, Papyrus (Comic Sans is the dumbest.) The Crocodile Hunter’s title card used this font, as did little Jimmy’s third-grade book report. You know what happened to them.

If it sounds like I’m nitpicking, I am. All of these problems added up simply could not ruin my experience of Avatar. It was as entertaining to watch as it was gorgeous to see and hear, which was very. While I was emersed in this three-hour epic, I always had the feeling I was watching the future, and not because that’s when the story takes place, but because so many new technologies were used to create it. As we’ve witnessed with films from hacks like Roland Emmerich, Michael Bay, Robert Zemeckis and David Twohy, CGI can be overused and abused. It can be used as a crutch. It is not that in Avatar. I thought it would be, but it never descends into that. The Na’vi’s bodies and faces move and twitch and look so convincing. Perhaps our brains will never be fooled into belieiving a place or animal or person in a film we know can’t exist is real, but no film before has ever gotten closer to doing just that.

Avatar also has the most love and care and attention to detail put into it that I’ve seen since the LOTR trilogy. And while some of the dialogue and acting could have been tighter, it was actually better than I expected, and far better (and more sensical) than anything recently done by Bay, et.al. James Cameron shames them all with this effort. Their voluminous spectacles of CGI wizardry pale in comparison to Avatar, not just technically, but artistically. The film made me grateful people are still around in this industry who will go the extra mile to make a film not just cool-looking, but good. People who will almost go too far. I appreciate the effort, and hope to see it again, in 3D this time.

Coping with the futility of Copenhagen

What a surprise: the oil-producing Middle Eastern countries who make hundreds of billions of dollars just by pulling black ooze out of the ground and selling it to people are the biggest skeptics of climate change! Who’d have thunkit? Additionally, those least skeptical and most gung-ho are apparently all the tiny little non-aligned nations who consume and pollute the least - only because they don’t have the money or population to do so. They, by the way, would be fools not to use the conceit of climate change to promote their desire for the bigger nations to shell out for them. Then there are those heavy users: America, China, India – whose cultures and infrastructures are so massive and loath to change of any kind, they can’t really do anything even if they wanted to.

In America’s case specifically, our government is actually designed to move slower than the glaciers are melting, and it does. So with such difference of opinion between producers, consumers, and all the little guys, realistically nothing will get done at Copenhagen. Maybe some dignitaries will get some needed sleep during the endless 5-minute speeches by every single frickin’ nation and it’s dog. What does this crap really accomplish? Awareness? The protesters outside are already aware…

While I don’t recycle 100% of my organic and inorganic refuse or reuse my bath water like most urban Japanese, I like to think I personally have a fairly small carbon footprint. Yes I drive a car every day, but it’s a tiny Honda Civic, and you know how efficient and clean-burning they are. I also very rarely take planes anywhere, though I do take trains. My apartment’s monthly electric and gas bills are only a fraction of those of my parents’ semi-suburban, five-bedroom home in an upscale Baltimore neighborhood. I don’t live in squalor, nor in overt luxury. I feel like if every American lived like me, not only would there never have been any recession, but we’d easily be using half the fossil fuels we’re using now. The fact is, not all Americans can live like me, even if they wanted to.

Those who stand to lose money on climate reform have a very good motive for wanting this process to move as tentatively as possible: they don’t want to lose money. They like money…who doesn’t? I know, monks. But in any case, while tearing down all of the world’s coal and oil powerplants and replacing them with European-style nuclear plants, wind turbines, and solar arrays would definitely save a lot of oil and slow the release lot of greenhouse gases from entering the atmosphere, actually doing this would cost untold billions of dollars, not to mention an incredibly long time, considering what it takes to build an onramp in America.

Those who are getting all angry-blooded to the point where they feel they have to get out and march and get hit by pepper spray fail to realize that it isn’t a question of the human juggernaut being unwilling to make fundamental changes to the way it takes care of business – it’s a question of being not entirely able. It is so easy to say the world will end unless we do something, but no amount of scientific research or evidence will sway some. And some on a global scale is a lot. Some is enough to stop progress dead in its tracks until some of the doomsday scenarios actually play themselves out, be it the global drought of fossil fuels in the next century or the receding of coastlines along heavily populated areas.

Having your country disappear under the ocean is a frightening prospect, but most Americans don’t even know the Solomon islands exist, and I’m willing to wager most Chinese and Indians don’t, either. If nearly three billion people don’t know – let alone care – about the Solomons’ existence, how can one expect those people to commit to change to prevent the Solomons from slipping into the sea, particularly when that change may not even prevent that calamity?

All the anger and outrage and horror stories in the world won’t change one inexorable fact: the world changes slowly. Slower than the angry would prefer. You can have a Copenhagen every month, but in the end, those benefiting the most are the translators, who undoubtedly clean up at such functions. Consensus is next to impossible between myriad factions with directly opposed positions, and that’s what we’ve got.

A bangin’ tuna dish

This is a hearty meal for a cold evening, and easy to fix since there’s no fresh ingredients (though you can use fresh, it’ll take a lot more time.) After a successful go last night, I think I’ve perfected my version of Tuna Noodle Casserole. It’s not that complicated:

1. Boil water.

2. Add egg noodles and frozen diced mixed vegetables; cook till noodles are done.

3. Add a can of cream of mushroom condensed soup to the noodles after draining them, reserving one canfull of the water to thin the soup.

4. Simmer and stir. Add some shredded chese (colby in my case), pour a generous amount of Smoked Chipotle Tabasco sauce in. Add a dash of garlic powder and black and white pepper and salt to taste. It’s ready.

5. When serving, top a bowl with those canned french fried onions for some crunch, and extra Chipotle if desired.

End the game of chicken (tax)

Everytime a relatively exciting, innovative product comes to market elsewhere in the world, there’s always some reason it doesn’t come to America, at least initially: The steering wheel has to be moved, the diesel engine isn’t 50-state legal, the seats are too narrow for fat Americans, etc. Thus Americans have been left out in the lurch from some of the finest products from their own homegrown companies like Ford and GM. Because Europeans pay so much for their cars and the fuel to power them, they demand higher quality, and they get it.

But now that efficiency and quality, not simply power and size, have become priorities for Americans as well, it is behooving automakers to bring more European models to these shores. Only one problem: the segment most in need of an efficiency overhaul – that of light trucks – is roadblocked by the Chicken Tax. Light trucks and vans are taxed 25% over their sticker price in Europe. Avoiding the tax involves ridiculous process of dismantling assmebled vehicles, shipping them here in pieces, and reassembling them – hardly efficient. This means even American companies like Ford can’t make decent profits off of European-sourced vans and trucks. If Ford can’t make good profits, they can’t run their business properly back home, and have to lay off workers to stay afloat, and so on.

So there are two good reasons to remove light trucks from the Chicken Tax: the American light commercial vehicle fleet will grow sleeker and more fuel efficient thanks to vehicles like the Mercedes Sprinter, Ford Transit Connect, Fiat Doblo, and Mahindra Pickup becoming cheaper and more competetive. And companies like Ford and GM that make more efficient trucks and vans abroad can make bigger profits here, which means they can stay in business, which is what everyone wants. Except Bob Corker.

Can wars even work anymore?

Obama’s catching a lot of flak for his new Afghanistan strategy. Libs are angry he’s sending more troops, Cons are angry he isn’t sending enough, and wants out in 18 months. My initial take is one of unsurprise. It’s fair to say most of the people who voted for Obama didn’t know who they were getting, or that they’d get someone who’d end all wars instantly. These people were misinformed, and in any case are just plain impatient.

He threw his political opposition a bone. That’s what the Afghan surge is. To those who wanted it, enjoy it, don’t stick your nose up. Because frankly you’re lucky you’re getting 30,000 additional troops and not nothing. As Bush II made wars and messes worldwide, Obama is at least trying to end wars and clean them up. The argument that the enemy will wait us out is scurrilous, because the only timeframe they won’t wait out is forever, and wars can’t last forever.

Sure, I’m a bit annoyed Obama didn’t just say screw it and order his generals to start packing – such a move would surely burnish his cred as an imminent Nobel Peace Laureate. War is hell, and we have enough hell on our own home soil. War can’t be used as a crutch to make us feel safer, because having troops in those areas doesn’t make us all that safe, it just makes them unsafe. Furthermore, our fighting force is entirely volunteer. That is, thousands of Americans for myriad reasons – be it honor or paying for college or because their father did it – decided to volunteer to fight for America. Those soon-to-be 100,000 troops in Afghanistan equal 0.032 percent of our population.

So if the war is so necessary, why are so few Americans fighting in it? There are estimated to be 120,000,000 males and females age 18-49 deemed “fit for military service.” What do those other 119,900,000 people know that the troops don’t?  What are those millions doing, when they could or should be fighting? Well, many are griping about the war we’re not participating in, and worried about their jobs and health and family. But mostly they’re just living their American lives, something an active soldier can’t do because they’re constantly in mortal danger in a foreign land. Occupying and holding random countries simply isn’t fair to a volunteer force.

In my view, human soldiers became obsolete long ago. Robots can bomb and kill in our stead, as needed. They’re just slogs, bogs, quagmires, doldrums of death, seas of irrelevancy. So I say end them all. If an individual or group wants to attack us, our presence in any number of foreign countries won’t change or affect that desire. There’s no chivalry in conflict between nations or entities. Wars like WWII were good and righteous and decisive, but such wars will never come again. Borders are too gray; the world is to heterogeneous. Wars don’t work anymore. It’s time to abandon the notion that they ever will again.