Francis

I have a lot of thoughts about Pope Francis, but I've struggled with sorting them out. He's been getting showered with all manner of media hosannas lately, including being named Person of the Year by Time Magazine. Much of that praise stems from the rhetorical flourishes that Francis has delivered concerning things that the media don't like very much, especially the chimerical scourge of unfettered capitalism, which exists precisely nowhere in the world right now. As I think about Francis and his remarkable first year, here are my tentative conclusions:

• While the points of emphasis might be different, nothing Francis has said contradicts long-standing Church teachings; Leo XIII was saying essentially the same things in Rerum Novarum, an encyclical that dates back to 1891.
• Francis is a reformer and some of the most important work he's doing is behind the scenes, including cleaning up the Curia. Walter Russell Mead has noticed and there's more about the particulars here.
• While stipulating that it's a gross simplification of the larger theological questions involved, Catholics are taught that salvation requires more than faith and that good works are needed as well. From what I can tell, Francis isn't particularly fond of checkbook salvation and that he's particularly concerned about the propensity of some Catholics to eschew the hard work involved in saving souls. Although I'm wrenching it out of context, this concern was well stated by, of all people, the longtime music critic of the Village Voice, Robert Christgau, who once observed that the Police song "Spirits in the Material World" missed the obvious point that we are also matter in the material world. Francis never loses sight of that.
• While I believe that Francis is a consequential figure, I still think he's a transitional figure. The real story within the Church remains the next generation of leaders, who came of age under John Paul II. The next Pope will be the one to watch.

Value Proposition

Another Obamacare success story:

Oregon, once touted as a model for President Obama's health care law, signed up just 44 people for insurance through November, despite spending more than $300 million on its state-based exchange.

The state’s exchange had the fewest sign-ups in the nation, according to a new report today by the Department of Health and Human Services.

That's about $6.8 million per signup. For the same price, you could get two Nick Puntos. One could argue that the success rate in Oregon is a little bit below the Mendoza Line.

Kinda like a 360 Interview, Except More Expensive

Kathleen Sebelius demands an investigation:

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said in a blog post early Wednesday that she is asking the department's inspector general to investigate the contracting process, management and performance and payment issues that may have contributed to the flawed launch.

We could save a lot of time and effort by sending Sebelius to this website, which works, by the way.

Cool stuff on the side

While I recommend a number of blogs and other websites, sometimes it's easy to forget the amount of cool stuff that they can provide. Even if you're not a Packers fan, I really want to call your attention to the Packerville U.S.A. blog, which has some amazing things to see, and some only tangentially related to the Packers. The proprietor of the blog, who uses the nom de blog "Mr. Lambeau," finds some really neat old memorabilia and posts it there. A few examples:

I love this old ad from a Boys' Life magazine in 1966:

Stock up now!

While some of these logos are still in use, including the fearsome Bear and the stoic Viking, you don't see much of the cartoon Cowboy and the mighty Cardinal framed with the Gateway Arch. I don't see Jerry Jones resurrecting that image any time soon.

Mr. Lambeau also finds and reproduces the images from old game programs, including this one from 1947. Here's an example of midcentury marketing of a local company that has long been a nationwide brand:

That ain't Mr. Whipple

And in addition, here's a rogue's gallery of players who were set to visit the old City Stadium for the 1947 season:

Sid Luckman!

It's easy to forget, but the mighty National Football League wasn't necessarily that mighty back in '47 and we've come a very long way from those days.

Get Your MoJo Workin'

We don't call out the august work of Mother Jones very much around here, but I find it difficult to argue with anything Chase Madar says in this piece:

By now, the militarization of the police has advanced to the point where "the War on Crime" and "the War on Drugs" are no longer metaphors but bland understatements. There is the proliferation of heavily armed SWAT teams, even in small towns; the use of shock-and-awe tactics to bust small-time bookies; the no-knock raids to recover trace amounts of drugs that often result in the killing of family dogs, if not family members; and in communities where drug treatment programs once were key, the waging of a drug version of counterinsurgency war. (All of this is ably reported on journalist Radley Balko's blog and in his book, The Rise of the Warrior Cop.) But American over-policing involves far more than the widely reported up-armoring of your local precinct. It's also the way police power has entered the DNA of social policy, turning just about every sphere of American life into a police matter.

We talked about St. Cloud's implement of mass destruction last month. While it's easy to downplay the notion of finding common ground with the modern Left, concern about the power of the police is a legitimate issue across the political spectrum. Anyone who thinks the matter through understands that a government with too much police power can turn on its citizenry at any time, and for what are often arbitrary reasons. There's ample room for common ground on this issue.

The Faces of Diversity

Scroll away.

Football Roundup

Football this weekend was a lot more interesting than politics. It often is. So let's talk football.

• While readers of this blog know that I am a Packers fan, the Vikings/Ravens game yesterday was something to behold and deserves first mention. I don't know that I've ever seen more exciting plays happen in such a compressed time frame before. I have to say that Cordarrelle Patterson is pretty astonishing; he seems to be a hybrid of Percy Harvin and Randy Moss, but he's bigger and stronger than both of them. The dump pass he caught in the last minute, which should have been the game winning score, was something to see. He's like a runaway antelope when he gets going. It's taken the Vikings all season to figure out how to use Patterson; now that they have, he's going to be an issue for every opponent the Vikings face, likely for a long time.
• I'm always happy when the Packers win, but I almost wonder if yesterday's 22-21 victory over Atlanta isn't a glittering lump of pyrite. The Packers started out the season well, but following the injury to Aaron Rodgers they've been a train wreck, culminating in the Thanksgiving Day beatdown they suffered in Detroit that was the worst Packers game since 61-7, back in 1980. This is a deeply flawed team that has trouble playing defense. Rodgers solves many, many problems, but it's difficult to see the Packers doing much if they were somehow able to find their way into the playoffs. Still, it's going to be tempting for the Packers to try, especially since Rodgers is itching to get back in there. The opportunity for the Packers remains, because the three remaining games (at Dallas, home to Pittsburgh and at Chicago) are all theoretically winnable, especially if Rodgers it at the helm. Still, you have to think that the Packers might be better served to let Rodgers heal properly, take the lumps that will knock them out of the playoffs and then reload for next season. I'll bet they go for it, though -- the Lions are eternally the Lions and if the Packers win out, there's an excellent chance that the Packers would sneak in as the division champions. While the 2010 season indicates that once you get in, you have a puncher's chance, I don't think this team is nearly as good as the 2010 squad was.
• Meanwhile, the Badgers and the Gophers are going bowling. Bucky draws South Carolina in the Capitol One Bowl, a tough assignment but not an impossible one, as the Gamecocks aren't the most talented offensive squad around, despite having noted offensive genius (just ask him!) Steve Spurrier calling plays for the Garnet and Black. Meanwhile, the Gophers return to Houston, this time for a game against a pretty ordinary Syracuse team that snuck into the festivities at 6-6. I suspect that the Gophers will be able to dispatch the Orange with little difficulty. Both the Gophers and Badgers open as slight favorites in Vegas, but that might change. The larger question for the Bucky in particular, and the Big Ten generally, is whether or not the league can stand up to the bullies of the SEC. Three teams get a chance: Bucky against South Carolina; Iowa against LSU, and Nebraska against Georgia. On paper, all would be winnable games for the B1G, but all are difficult matchups. While I think the gap is closing a little bit, this could be another disappointing year for the league.

Get Your Filner

Justice served:

Bob Filner has almost vanished from public view since a defiant resignation speech as San Diego mayor amid widespread allegations that he sexually harassed women. He returns to the spotlight at least once more.

The former 10-term congressman will be sentenced Monday for one felony and two misdemeanors for placing a woman in a headlock, kissing another woman and grabbing the buttocks of a third. He pleaded guilty in October in an agreement with prosecutors, who will recommend that he get three months of home confinement and three years of probation.

In case you were wondering, you can find out what party Filner belongs to if you read the article. Just be prepared to wade through nine paragraphs to find out.

Read of the day

Joel Kotkin, on the demise of Bloomberg and the implications for the urban gentry. An excerpt:

Becoming the ultimate playground to the rich made things worse for most middle class New Yorkers by imposing higher costs, particularly for rents. In fact, controlling for costs the average New York paycheck (costs) is among the lowest in the nation’s 51 largest metro areas, behind not only San Jose, but Houston, Raleigh, and a host of less celebrated burgs. A big part of this is the cost of rents. According to the Center for Housing Policy and National Housing Conference , 31 percent of New York’s working families pay over 50% of their income in rent, well above the national rate of 24 percent, which itself is far from tolerable.

Conditions for those further down the economic scale, of course, are even worse. The urban poor in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles or Philadelphia , notes analyst Sam Hersh, find their meager resources strained by high prices not common in less fashionable cities like Buffalo or Dallas. “In some ways,” he notes, “ the low cost of living in “unsuccessful” legacy cities means that quality of life is in many cases better than in those cities widely regarded as a success.”

The dirty little secret here is the persistence of urban poverty. Despite the hype over gentrification, urban economies—including that of New York—still underperform their periphery. Nearly half of New York’s residents, notes the Nation are either below the poverty line or just above it. Just look at the penultimate symbol of urban renaissance, Brooklyn. The county (home to most of my family till the 1950s) suffers a median per capita income in 2009 of just under $23,000, almost $10,000 below the national average.

Marquee cities haven’t “cured poverty” or exported it largely to the suburbs, as is regularly claimed. Cities still suffer a poverty rate twice as high as in the suburbs. Demographer Wendell Cox notes that some 80% of the population growth over the past decade in the nation’s 51 largest cities came from the ranks of those with lower incomes, most likely the children of the entrenched poor as well as immigrants.

As always, a lot more at the link. This won't end well.

Benster and D Pick Your Games -- No Cinderellas This Time Edition

Old dude, say goodbye to NIU!

I don't even greet NIU, usually.

I understand that. Here's the thing -- NIU is not going to the BCS, which means that the final BCS as we know it will be entirely the playground of the big boys. That's all right with me; the Boise States were cute, but that day is dead now. They aren't likely to get a fair shot any time soon. But we concentrate on the world the way it is, not how it could be, or maybe should be.

That's a surprisingly sensible view coming from the guy who is concerned with HYYYYYYPPPPPE!

I'm maturing here. Well, maybe not quite entirely. I'm still capable of HYYYYYYYYPPPPPPPE!!!! Watch me work!

Aw-Barn Tiger/War Eagle! (-1) vs. Mizzou Tigers, in Atlanta. Ooh, it's the alma mater of Night Writer, the mighty Missouri Tigers, who this year have proven that they can hang with the big, bad boys of the SEC, at least for one year. I know a lot of people were thinking that Alabama would be here, but they lost last week in amazing fashion to their bitter rival Auburn, which begs the question -- is Nick Saban headed for Texas? Or is he going to replace Chris Peterson at Boise State? It's good to have options here. But that's not for me to decide. Anyway, Auburn always gets lucky in these big games. They wouldn't even be here, if not for a tipped pass that got them past Georgia a few weeks back, to say nothing of returning a missed field goal for about 172 yards for a touchdown last week. I know, the field is only 110 yards, but remember, I'm all about the HYYYYYYYPPPPPPPE! It's real simple -- Mizzou has the better offense and Auburn expended too many bullets to get to Atlanta. Mizzou 42, Auburn 21.

Hmmm. Maybe. I think Mizzou is very good and I'm especially impressed with their wide receivers, who are Calvin Johnson-like at the collegiate level. Since we were at Camp Randall last week being bitterly disappointed, I didn't get to see the Auburn game, but I would remind you of Branch Rickey's famous observation concerning luck: luck is the residue of design. You get lucky if you are in a position to be lucky, which Auburn has been all season long. I think that continues for one more week. Auburn 24, Mizzou 21.

Michigan State Sparty the Spartan (+5.5) vs. The Ohio State University, in Indianapolis. I'm willing to bet that Sparty wants this game badly, but there's a catch. The reason I brought up the NIU game at the beginning of this post is because NIU's loss opens up that last BCS spot for the Spartans, pretty much regardless of what happens tonight in Indy. I don't think the Spartans will lose their focus, but they now know they have a ticket to Pasadena in their pocket. As it happens, Ohio State is going to Pasadena either way, but they'd prefer to wait until a little later in 2014 before they travel. OSU has been good all year, but there's a catch -- this is the best defense they've seen yet. Last week Ohio State got ambushed in the Big House and barely lived to tell the tale. Ohio State has also been ambushed in Columbus by Iowa and Wisconsin, but they've survived. Now, they're facing a Spartan team that might finally break its curse of choking in big games. I hate to do this, but self-interest is on the line. Ohio State 42, Michigan State 39.

That might be the first time you've actually picked Ohio State in a game. Putting your hatred for all things Buckeye aside is a sign of maturity, I think. It's going to be a lot of fun; I think the Spartans are a tough-minded team. But the prize is in sight for the Buckeyes and they won't falter. Ohio State 24, Michigan State 17.

Minnesota Vikings (+6.5) vs. Baltimore Ravens. It's an all-purple showdown in Charm City, baby! The Vikings have been playing a little better lately and are doing their level best to (a) save Leslie Frazier's job and (b) royally screw up their draft position. Will the trend continue in Baltimore? Well, considering that the Packers struggled in Baltimore earlier this season, and that the Ravens are still in the hunt, one would think that the Vikes would have a tough assignment this week. Baltimore 19, Minnesota 6.

I think you've hit on the dynamic here, Seabiscuit. The Ravens are as mediocre as their record would indicate, but they do have incentive, given the general crappiness of the AFC this year. If this game is in Minnesota, I think the Vikes win. It's not. Ravens 27, Vikings 20.

Hotlanta Falcons (NL) vs. Glorious Green Bay Packers. If ever NBC had a reason to flex out a game, this would be the one. Both teams were considered Super Bowl contenders when the season began, but now, they both kinda suck. I love my Packers to death, but, seriously, what happened in Detroit? That was the worst Packer game I have ever seen in my lifetime. It kinda looked like this:

It's interesting -- I hadn't realized that Mike Tomlin appeared in a Monty Python movie before! Bottom line is this; Atlanta is facing a very angry team just looking to save their season, while the Falcons are trying get on the bus to leave 2013 behind. Packers 45, Atlanta 17.

Have the Packers even scored 45 points since Rodgers got injured? Insane as it might seem, if the Packers could win this game and get Rodgers back, they might still be able to sneak into the playoffs, because the Lions are quite capable of choking it up. But I kinda wish they wouldn't; I'd keep Rodgers on the sideline and reload for 2014. Packers 21, Falcons 14.

Dallas How 'Bout Them Cowboahs (Pick) vs. Bear Down Chicago da Bearz. No Jay Cutler again for da Bearz, who ought to consider dumping Cutler, quite frankly. Josh McCown has played well enough to keep his job as a backup, and at this point the Bears should continue to play the hot hand anyway. Alshon Jeffrey is now getting scary and when combined with Brandon Marshall, da Bearz have something going on offensively. The problem is that their defense is about out of bullets. As far as the Cowboys, who knows? Either they show up, or they are like the kids in the rugby video. You never know. Da Bearz 28, Cowboahs 17.

Good point. The Cowboahs are showing up this week. Dallas 27, Bears 24.

Time for another Very Special Comment from the Benster. There will be no SEC teams in the BCS National Championship Game this year. That is a good thing, because the SEC is a very top-heavy conference. In a given year, they might have three very good teams, but then they have a bunch of teams that are average, at best. Tell me -- aren't the best conferences supposed to be balanced? Take a look at the Big Ten. Ohio State is a very good team. Michigan State is a good team as well. Wisconsin and Iowa have shown they can play. Nebraska and Minnesota have all had very fine seasons. Penn State, had they been eligible for a bowl, would represent the conference well. So to all those Big Ten haters, let me ask you this -- is your conference really balanced? Or do you mindlessly believe what other people tell you?

Ben out!

The List

As some day it may happen that a victim must be found,
     I've got a little list--I've got a little list
Of society offenders who might well be underground,
     And who never would be missed--who never would be missed!

-- W. S. Gilbert

So the Archdiocese coughed up a list of priests who have been credibly accused of abuse of minors. There weren't any real surprises on the list, and all of the priests in question are no longer active. Some are dead.

I've only met one of the priests on the list, Mike Stevens, who the Archdiocese had stashed away at my old parish (St. Adalbert) after he'd been criminally convicted of abuse back in the 1980s -- his case is one that did go through the legal system. I'm pretty sure that most parishioners at St. Adalbert didn't even realize that Stevens was living in the rectory; the only reason I knew he was there is that I served on the parish's finance committee and had regular visits with the pastor, Fr. Tim Kernan. Stevens ended up becoming an IT guy for the Archdiocese, but he never had any role in the ministry at St. Ad's. The only time I ever saw Stevens wear vestments was when he attended Fr. Kernan's funeral in 2001. Stevens is no longer a priest and is "believed to be residing in St. Paul, Minnesota," according to the information on the list.

There are other cases and other priests who aren't part of this list; another list is supposedly forthcoming. I know two of the priests who have been accused of misconduct recently. One does seem to be guilty, since he has resigned; the other, I'm not so sure about. Releasing the list won't change much. The problem will continue.

Mandela

You can read many things about Nelson Mandela on the internet today. Two points I'd make:

• He managed the transition from apartheid about as well as he could; he could have been Robert Mugabe on steroids, but he chose a different path. As a result, South Africa is one of the few countries on the African continent that isn't being run by an autocrat. That counts for a lot.
• He wasn't a saint, but he was wise enough to see the long-term implications of the path that the African National Congress could have taken. He got rid of his wife Winnie, who was a nasty piece of work, and while he did include his ANC colleague Joe Slovo (a full-on Communist) in his initial government, he didn't let Slovo run rampant. As it happened, Slovo died early on, but while he was alive he could have done a lot of damage. He didn't. More importantly, since Nelson Mandela left office at the appointed time, with an orderly transition of power, he set a precedent that has served his country well. 

Things could change for South Africa, of course, and there have been some troubling signs in recent years, but at the time of his death, it's tough to dispute that Nelson Mandela left the world a better place than he found it. RIP.

The next problem for Obamacare

So, you need to see a specialist? Well, maybe you can't. The invaluable Walter Russell Mead explains:

The discrepancy between policy and the problems it is supposed to address has never been clearer than in the health care debate. The Seattle Times reports on the network restrictions that are increasingly limiting Washingtonians’ ability to see key doctors and hospitals without incurring major financial risk. The plans offered in the Affordable Care Act exchanges, it turns out, keep premiums low by drastically reducing the number of providers covered. 

My personal brush with the health care system happened nearly seven years ago, when I was diagnosed with a pituitary tumor and had surgery to remove it. I wrote about the process at the time it happened; it was an amazing thing to watch the system leap into action. From the moment of diagnosis to the end of the first day, I was able to see the clinic doctor, a neurosurgeon, a neurologist, an otolarynlogist and an endocrinologist. The next day, I would see an ophthalmologist as well. That's five specialists. The endocrinologist remains my principal doctor to this day. In a drastically reduced network, I might have had access to these people, but chances are good it would have wiped us out financially.

There's a lesson in this -- keeping the costs down might be important, but it's going to have implications that we aren't yet prepared to handle. And as always, I must caution those who are gung-ho for single payer to consider the obvious question: what is your recourse if the single payer doesn't pay?

More Manure in Gift Wrap

Peggy Noonan tells tales out of school:

It’s a shock for most people that it’s a shambles. A fellow very friendly to the administration, a longtime supporter, cornered me at a holiday party recently to ask, with true perplexity: “How could any president put his entire reputation on the line with a program and not be on the phone every day pushing people and making sure it will work? Do you know of any president who wouldn’t do that?” I couldn’t think of one, and it’s the same question I’d been asking myself. The questioner had been the manager of a great institution, a high stakes 24/7 operation with a lot of moving parts. He knew Murphy’s law—if it can go wrong, it will. Managers—presidents—have to obsess, have to put the fear of God, as Mr. Obama says, into those below them in the line of authority. They don’t have to get down in the weeds every day but they have to know there are weeds, and that things get caught in them.

The it in question is Obamacare, of course. And, as his wont, the Leader of the Free World is lying about the state of play:

White House officials say that with the worst of the website problems behind them, the president will return to a familiar political argument: criticizing Republicans for opposing the "Obamacare" law without providing their own ideas for solving national health care woes.

"They sure haven't presented an alternative," Obama said. "You've got to tell us specifically what you'd do."

Is that so? Of course it isn't:

But the claim that Republicans have offered no specifics about how to improve the health care system is patently untrue. To date, Republicans have introduced at least four comprehensive bills to address health care as alternatives to Obamacare.

You can read about all four at the link; the sponsors of these alternatives, which have gone nowhere because they haven't been getting a hearing, include Sen. Tom Coburn, Rep. Tom Price, Rep. Paul Broun, and Rep. Phil Roe. What do all these solons have in common? They are all Republicans, all southerners and, most importantly, all doctors.

The key thing to understand isn't that this president and his administration are willing to lie to your face; rather, the key thing is that most of this president's supporters are lying to themselves. Back to Noonan, sharing her cocktail party chatter:

For four years I have been told, by those who’ve worked in the administration and those who’ve visited it as volunteers or contractors, that the Obama White House isn’t organized. It’s just full of chatter. Meetings don’t begin on time, there’s no agenda, the list of those invited seems to expand and contract at somebody’s whim. There is a tendency to speak of how a problem will look and how its appearance should be handled, as opposed to what the problem is and should be done about it. People speak airily, without point. They scroll down, see a call that has to be returned, pop out and then in again.

It does not sound like a professional operation. And this is both typical of White Houses and yet on some level extreme. People have always had meetings to arrange meetings, but the lack of focus, the lack of point, the sense that they are operating within accepted levels of incoherence—this all sounds, actually, peculiar.

And when you apply this to the ObamaCare debacle, suddenly it seems to make sense. The White House is so unformed and chaotic that they probably didn’t ignore the problem, they probably held a million meetings on it. People probably said things like, “We’re experiencing some technological challenges but we’re sure we’ll be up by October,” and other people said, “Yes, it’s important we launch strong,” and others said, “The Republicans will have a field day if we’re not.” And then everyone went to their next meeting. And no one did anything. And the president went off and made speeches.

It's what he does. The notion that this president is smart and competent has never made much sense. He's very good at running a campaign, but like most sales guys he doesn't really give a damn about what happens in the back office. The problem is that Americans are dealing with the back office now and it's not been properly staffed for a very long time.

1000 Words

Seriously, what the hell is wrong with these people?

Billion Dollar Babies

Update: My friend Brad Carlson provides a succinct explanation of what the hell is wrong with these people.

A Ringing Endorsement

The punchlines pretty much write themselves:

President Barack Obama has at least one segment of America behind his health care law: the legalized prostitutes at the Moonlight Bunny Ranch.

The girls who work at the Bunny Ranch tell KRNV-TV that it was nearly impossible for them to get health insurance before because of their profession.

“Having this profession, we aren’t exactly offered group health insurance,” Taylor Lee said. “It’s hard because I do have a pre-existing condition so I really support Obamacare. I’m excited.”

I would imagine that Lee and her colleagues have all manner of pre-existing conditions, but let's not prejudge the pre-existing. A colleague of Lee's warns against such assumptions:

Caressa Kisses said that insurance providers equated them to illegal prostitutes who have sexually transmitted diseases.

“We’re independent contractors. We have to get our own insurance but this is truly a blessing,” Kisses told KRNV. “I hope they work the kinks out and that affordable health care happens for all because it is really needed.”

Independent contractors -- so that's what the kids are calling it these days. And working the kinks out is a specialty of the house, one would imagine.

Hacktastic

Well, this is a promising development:

It could take a year to secure the risk of "high exposures" of personal information on the federal Obamacare online exchange, a cybersecurity expert told CNBC on Monday.

"When you develop a website, you develop it with security in mind. And it doesn't appear to have happened this time," said David Kennedy, a so-called "white hat" hacker who tests online security by breaching websites. He testified on Capitol Hill about the flaws of HealthCare.gov last week.

"It's really hard to go back and fix the security around it because security wasn't built into it," said Kennedy, chief executive of TrustedSec. "We're talking multiple months to over a year to at least address some of the critical-to-high exposures on the website itself."

Yeah, I want to sign up for that.

5-0

I am 50 years old today. It's astonishing how quickly this milestone arrived. As I recall, 1975 lasted longer than the current decade, and time is only picking up speed.

Although navel gazing and thumb sucking are evergreen blogging topics, it's not cool. Instead, here's a window into what the world looked like on December 2, 1963:

A few months later, the Beatles would appear on a very different variety show and everything would change. It was a time when a few jokes certainly didn't hurt, considering what had happened only 10 days before:

And the day I arrived, this guy died:

And this was the #1 song on the pop charts:

Yeah. It was a long damned time ago.

Guess not

So is the Obamacare website working yet? Ask CNN.