notesfromnokomis

Wayfarer’s Handbook

This small book is subtitled A Field Guide for THE INDEPENDENT TRAVELER. Evan S. Rice is the author and he showcases much knowledge about traveling generally — without respect to any particular locale.

The irony of me reading this book is that I don’t plan to travel anywhere. Ohio is as far south as I like to go, Chicago about as far west, and Maine is at the extreme northeastern edge of my normal journeys. With books like this one and the National Geographic Channel, I am loathe to leave the comfort of my couch and my ready to hand supply of safe drinking water. Not to mention air conditioning.

A couple of months ago, I wrote about another travel-type book Atlas Obscura. My son said it was one of my best posts. I suggested that that was because so little of the prose was original, it had largely be taken from the book. He did not disagree, so it’s time to try that approach again.

The book defines a word I had never seen: dromomania, which is an uncontrollable psychological urge to wander or travel. We probably all have it to some extent. Mine is quite local, I like to walk around. Many people like to travel the world. Now you know why: you are a dromomaniac. (p. 37)

There are 1052 World Heritage sites, which are defined as “cultural or natural sites of exceptional significance, beauty, or historical relevance to humanity.” A couple of examples in the United States are the Grand Canyon and Monticello. Can you guess the three countries that have the most World Heritage sites? (p. 62)

Fifty-five World Heritage sites are considered endangered. Examples include the Okapi Wildlife Preserve in Congo and the Ancient City of Bosra in Syria. Those two countries lead the world in endangered World Heritage sites with six and five respectively. Libya also has five endangered sites. (p. 62)

Some countries are smaller than familiar US landmarks. For instance, Vatican City is small than Augusta National Golf Course. Monaco is smaller than Central Park in New York City. Nauru is smaller than the main campus of Penn State. Liechtenstein is smaller than Washington D.C. (p. 101)

The oldest hotel in the world is in Yamanashi, Japan. It has 35 rooms and has been continuously in operation since 705 AD. (p. 169) The oldest restaurant in the world is Sobrino de Botin (Botin Restaurant) in Madrid, Spain. It has been continuously operated since 1725. The signature dish is cochinillo asado (roast suckling pig), which my son describes as delicious.

The book mentions another phobia that many of us have without knowing that there is a word for it. “Nomophobia” is the fear or anxiety associated with being without a cell phone or cell phone service. (p. 186)

Italy has 51 World Heritage sites, China has 50, and Spain has 45. The Sobrino de Botin is not one of them.

There are 44 landlocked countries in the world, but only two that are double-landlocked, meaning that they are landlocked and border only countries that are also landlocked. (p. 196) Hint: until the breakup of the Soviet Union there was only one double-landlocked country.

Another new word: asolare. I love new words, though this one is Italian, so it probably doesn’t count.[1] We all should asolare more often. It means to pass time in a meaningless but delightful way. I’m not sure whether this covers watching TV. (p. 226)

Fun Factoids:

94% of people in the world have never flown in an airplane.

66% of people have never seen snow in person.

45% of people (aged 15 and older) have never consumed alcohol. (p. 231)

I have highlighted the trivia that appeals to me. I encourage you to read the book, which also contains much substance. For example, it explains how to pack efficiently, the importance of sun protection and how it varies around the globe, how to barter and bargain, how to escape a riptide, various myths about wildlife, and how to protect yourself from dangerous wildlife. The book also describes 27 common scams and how to avoid them and includes much more useful information.

Despite feeling better prepared, I will likely continue to do most of my traveling from my arm chair, relying on books and TV to take me to places I want to see but have no desire to visit.

[1] I was having dinner with some friends, including a few professors, the other night. One of them used the word “indolent,” which another had never heard. It amazed me that my very smart friend had no previous exposure to that word. The word is very familiar to me because others have so often used it to describe me — or was that “insolent.”

President Trump

So much has been said and written about our current president that it borders on bizarre to think that an arm-chair analyst from my arm chair could add meaningfully to the subject. Nevertheless, because writing about a topic helps me organize my thoughts, I’m going to forge ahead.

A lot of people voted for Donald Trump, enough for him to become our President. They voted as they did for a variety of reasons, but largely it was pure politics[1] – he was the Republican nominee and a person that Republicans hate was the Democratic nominee. It was an easy choice for most Republicans.[2] Actually, they didn’t really have a choice – it was the brash Republican with a penchant for bullying and belittling or it was their dread enemy.

It is difficult to find objective observers. Most liberals and Democrats reflexively decry and abhor almost anything that President Trump does or says. Most conservatives and Republicans reflexively defend and affirm almost anything that President Trump does or says. More’s the pity.

Whatever you thought about the politics of George W. Bush and Barack Obama, you likely considered them to be decent men. Certainly they approached the Presidency from different angles, different backgrounds, and with different goals and communication styles. But they also approached it with respect for the office and treated the office, their staff, their friends, and their political opponents (in the main) with respect and dignity.

It is a shame that the same cannot be said for President Trump. He was born into an affluent family in New York, perhaps on second base, not third base like George Herbert Walker Bush and any number of Kennedys. He has enjoyed so much of what our country has to offer. Why hasn’t he learned to treat the truth and people like the precious treasures they are. It is even more unfortunate that he now is able to treat great swathes of the republic with the same abrasive bluster that had hitherto been reserved for restauranteurs and subcontractors with the temerity to demand payment for services rendered.

Why does our President insist on spreading untruths? About crowd size? About how many illegal votes were cast? About “tapes?” About the electoral college? He actually said that the electoral college makes it almost impossible for the Democrats to lose? That’s absurd and like many seeming facts that Donald Trump utters is utterly disconnected from reality.

Since 2016, Republican presidential candidates are 1-0; since 2012, they are 1-1; since 2008, they are 1-2. I’ll save words and just show the winning record of Republican presidential candidates after each election going back to1960: 2-2, 3-2, 3-3, 3-4, 4-4, 5-4, 6-4, 6-5, 7-5, 8-5, 8-6, 8-7. And the two wins before that were by Republican Dwight Eisenhower. It’s not impossible for Republicans to win, it’s likely.

But that doesn’t fit President Trump’s principal narrative, which is that he is singularly amazing. Every time he speaks of himself or his companies or his ideas, the only adjectives are superlatively good – best (almost anything), great (the wall), most beautiful (cake, yes he brags about cake). Every time he speaks about the Democrats or anyone who has ever been less than fawning about him, the adjectives are superlatively bad – worst (almost anything), horrible (treaties), catastrophic (Obamacare).

A couple of days ago, I witnessed the most outrageous display of servility in the history of the United States. In praising the President, his cabinet appeared eager to out-obsequious Uriah Heep while a beaming Donald Trump looked on approvingly.[3] It should embarrass all Americans to think that their President enjoys, perhaps needs, that kind of flattery.

The best recent example of President Trump creating his own reality is his trumpeting of the testimony of James Comey as “vindication.” He thinks that because Comey said four or five things that corroborate something he (President Trump) said that he was vindicated. Obviously he was overlooking everything else that Comey said, including that the President had lied about this or that. He ignored hours of testimony he didn’t like and cherry picked the few things that suited his fancy. Sadly, it should surprise no one.

President Trump has a serious credibility problem. Sure, the people who would vote for him even if he stood in the middle of 5th Avenue and shot somebody continue to believe. But all other reasonable people seriously doubt almost anything he says. It’s not because they are against him, it’s because he says so many things that are not grounded in the truth.[4] Instead of expecting the rest of us to believe his untruths, he should ensure that what he is saying is actually true or he should stop talking. If he could do either of those things (which is incredibly unlikely), he would find that there would be many fewer complaints about him and that his agenda would have a greater chance of success.

[1] There is nothing inherently wrong with politics – though I’m not a fan of the undue power our two main parties exert over the political process.

[2] It was an easy choice for me too because I could not countenance voting for either the Republican or the Democratic candidate – I punted.

[3] The only person who escaped the room with any credits in his personal dignity account was General Mattis.

[4] If he didn’t assert that the inauguration crowd was the biggest ever, nobody would be able to complain about the untruth. If he didn’t say the Electoral College made it almost impossible for a Republican to win, nobody would be able to complain about that claim. If he didn’t mention “tapes,” nobody would be talking about tapes. These are self-inflicted wounds, which can be blamed on no one other than President Trump.

Lecture by the author of “Evicted”

A while back I mentioned the book Evicted, stating “It is extremely well written and it describes a world that most middle class Americans are unfamiliar with: a world of want, a world of existential worry, an underworld in the midst of our land of plenty. Though nonfiction, the book reads like a novel with compelling highly flawed characters. The book concludes with a prescription for solving the problems so eloquently conveyed by its author Matthew Desmond. If you care about our country, you should read this book.”

I stand by what I said, but I should have said more. And now I have the chance because I saw Desmond speak earlier this week. He explained a few of the vignettes from the book, assisted by photos on a backscreen that also displayed him larger than life. He spoke for 45 minutes without notes, alternating between being riveting and merely highly engaging. One key takeaway that he repeated and accentuated is that although most people think poverty causes eviction, often it’s the other way around: eviction causes poverty. His research (beyond what is in the book) suggests that people who are evicted almost always end up in a worse situation.

He stated that poor people who rent spend an undue amount of their income on housing, often more than 50%. They have few good options, especially if they have a prior eviction, which is an irreparable blot on their record. They end up spending nearly as much as a more affluent person would (for a similar sized apartment), though inevitably for a worse apartment (often not really habitable), in a worse neighborhood. But they have to sleep somewhere. Those with children have even fewer options because many landlords (not unfairly) consider kids a threat to the well-being of their property.

Desmond argued that a home, whether house or apartment, is a basic human need that effects many other fundamental needs. He proposes a governmental subsidy that would ensure that poor people would pay no more than 30% of their income for housing. He estimates that the cost would be approximately $22 billion per year. That’s a lot of money and some might suggest that the poor don’t deserve such largesse. If you are one of those people, Desmond considers you incredibly short-sighted. His research indicates that people without stable housing are:

less likely to find or hold on to a job,
less likely to attend school, let alone excel,
likely to spend so much on housing that they can’t afford food, clothing, or health care, and
more likely to commit crimes.

Desmond concluded by suggesting that those who complain that $22 billion for a housing subsidy for the chronically poor is too much money are obviously unaware that the mortgage interest deduction subsidizes homeowners by approximately $170 billion annually. Yes, as a country, we consider it worth $170 billion a year to subsidize the housing of people with enough income to borrow money to purchase a house. But we currently don’t think it is worth $22 billion to help the chronically poor secure stable housing – even though not doing so causes even more problems whose cost is inexorably borne by society. It’s a modern version of let them eat cake.[1]

[1] “Let them eat cake” is commonly attributed to Marie-Antoinette, in response to being told that the poor people of France did not have enough bread to eat. Modern sources concur that there is no evidence that she ever uttered the words or anything like them. Jean-Jacques Rousseau included the quote, attributed to “a great princess,” in Confessions, which was written around 1767, approximately three years before a 15-year old Marie-Antoinette left her native Austria to marry the King of France. https://www.britannica.com/demystified/did-marie-antoinette-really-say-let-them-eat-cake The modern equivalent would be for a famous real estate baron (no names please) to say “they should buy a house,” upon being told that poor people can’t afford rent.

A Bit on Libraries

It won’t surprise you, given how often and much I write about reading, to learn that I love libraries. The public libraries in our country are a wonder, an outstanding resource available to all of us.

Public libraries have five fundamental characteristics:

They are supported by taxes,
They are governed by a board to serve the public interest,
They are open to all,
They provide basic services without charge, and
They do not require anyone to use their services.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_library citing Richard E. Rubin, Foundations of Library and Information Science, 2010.

The library in Worthington, Ohio meets all of these criteria. And it provides outstanding service. It has been rated a Five-star Library every year since 2009. What that means exactly is a bit mysterious. It is an amalgam rating based on library visits, total circulation, circulation of electronic materials, attendance, and public internet usage. http://lj.libraryjournal.com/2016/11/managing-libraries/lj-index/class-of-2016/americas-star-libraries-2016-top-rated-libraries/#_

There are almost 120,000 libraries in the country. http://www.ala.org/tools/libfactsheets/alalibraryfactsheet01 Personal experience suggests that they vary widely, from the grandeur of the main building of the Boston Public Library to the spartan one-room Newport Public Library. At Harvard College, there are approximately 100 libraries, ranging from the massive Widener library[1] to the Qube.[2]

Only 7,349 libraries qualify to be rated by the Library Journal. That “qualify” part is self-selective. The Library Journal can only rate libraries that submit complete data to it. Still, of the 7,000 plus qualified libraries, only 260 receive a star rating – three, four, or five stars. In 2016, there were 84 five-star libraries in the country, slightly more than one percent of all qualified libraries. So the Worthington Library system is doing pretty darn well and doing it consistently, which makes that separate assessment on my property taxes (criterion number one above) slightly easier to swallow.

[1] When I was an undergraduate, we were told that Widener was the third largest library in the world. Maybe it was, maybe it still is, but only if the count is by books under one roof. The more usual way to count these days is system wide. By that measure, the Harvard library system is the 17th largest in the world. Its 18.9 million catalogued items are dwarfed by the largest library system in the world, the Library of Congress, which has 162 million catalogued items. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_libraries

[2] Every academic department at Harvard has its own library in addition to the larger school-wide libraries. Moreover, every residential house at Harvard has a library. I lived in Quincy House, whose square-shaped library is called the Qube. It was famous for its comic book collection; I hope it still is.

Congress should be a fiduciary

The word “fiduciary” has many different definitions all revolving around the concept of trust and acting in the interest of another person or entity. Here are two definitions:

“An individual in whom another has placed the utmost trust and confidence to manage and protect property or money. The relationship wherein one person has an obligation to act for another’s benefit.” http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/fiduciary

“A fiduciary owes (among other obligations) the duty of loyalty, full disclosure, obedience, diligence, and of accounting for all monies handed over, to the principal. A fiduciary must not exploit his or her position of trust and confidence for personal gain at the expense of the principal. Law demands a fiduciary to exercise highest degree of care and utmost good faith in maintenance and preservation of the principal’s assets and rights, and imposes compensatory as well as punitive damages on the erring fiduciary.” http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/fiduciary.html

I am currently a fiduciary as an officer and member of the board of directors of a non-profit corporation. At least two friends have appointed me as the executor of their estates and trustee of their trusts. At one time, I served at the trustee of a retirement plan. I believe I have a pretty good understanding of the duties and obligations of a fiduciary.

I can think of many friends and family members whom I would be comfortable appointing as a fiduciary. I can think of many other people that I would consider appropriate fiduciaries. Many, probably most, judges, teachers, clergy, lawyers, doctors, and plain old regular folks would make excellent fiduciaries. There are millions of fiduciaries in this country at any given time, acting in the best interests of various orphans, incompetent people, and others. Each of them is charged with acting in the best interests of the person or entity for whom they are the fiduciary.

Yet at any given time, the 600 or so people with the most direct influence over the other 320 million of us act on our behalf without the strictures and responsibilities of a fiduciary. I’m talking about Congress,[1] the executive branch,[2] and governors.[3] There are of course numerous others, Supreme Court Justices for example, who exercise considerable influence, though not as directly. I want to focus on the politicians.

Each of them is charged with protecting the constitution. I have taken a similar oath as both an attorney and a member of my local community’s Parks and Recreation Commission. The latter oath is bizarrely substantive given that the commission is advisory and exercises no direct control over anything.

I think we should demand more from our members of Congress, certainly more than a Columbus suburb demands of its Parks and Recreation Commission members. We should require members of Congress to be fiduciaries of our country. We should require them to act in the best interest of the United States.

It’s pretty clear that they currently do not. I can think of at least three interests that members of Congress put ahead of the country’s.

The first, the most obvious, and the most insidious, is their own reelection. Have you ever heard of a member of Congress whose most important goal wasn’t reelection? The disproportionate time devoted to raising campaign funds is another strong indicator of the member’s real interest.

The second obvious interest that trumps the country is party. So many votes in Congress are along party lines that it is unreasonable to believe the results are solely driven by the merits of a given issue. Mickey Edwards wrote a book, The Parties Versus the People, (review coming soon) that outlines the problem and some reasonable steps to address it.

Finally, and (perhaps) most reasonably, many members of Congress put the interests of their district or state ahead of the country. How else to explain the various bridges to nowhere and monuments to nothing that pork barrel politics has engendered through the years? This is tied up with reelection, but it is also something more.

There are likely other interests that unduly influence members of Congress more than the best interests of our country, among them personal gain. I believe members of Congress and high ranking members of the executive branch should always put our country first. I believe they should act in the best interests of the country and that they should be held to the same fiduciary duties as trustees. I believe they should “exercise highest degree of care and utmost good faith in maintenance and preservation of the [country’s] assets and rights.” As long as we continue to complacently vote (almost) exclusively for Republicans and Democrats, they will have no reason to act in the country’s best interest.

[1] 100 Senators and 435 members of Congress

[2] Including the President, Vice President, members of the cabinet, and various high level appointees and directors (for example of the CIA and FBI). Here I estimate 65 for simple math, the only kind I have conquered.

[3] 50 governors, who are different because, in my opinion, they should act in the best interests of their state, though of course not to the detriment of the country.

The Fiduciary Rule

The implementation of the Fiduciary Rule has been delayed as the Trump administration studies it. The part of the Fiduciary Rule that requires advisors to act in their client’s best interest would be great for investors. It’s suitability for financial professionals is much less salutary.

Currently a financial professional is held to a rather mediocre standard. Their advice about investments is considered appropriate as long as the investment meets their client’s “defined need and objective.” Such investments are considered “suitable.” http://www.investopedia.com/updates/dol-fiduciary-rule/ The standard sounds pretty good until you consider that it allows financial professionals to consider their own interests when providing advice.

There are hundreds of diversified mutual funds and exchange traded funds that invest in the US stock market. Most of them are “suitable” for you if your objective is to invest in the US stock market. Given the vastly different cost structures among the funds, some are more suited to your financial health than others. That is where the current allowed disconnect between your goals and your advisor’s goals can hurt you.

Most funds are no-load, meaning that they do not charge an up-front sales fee, but many funds charge fees, often from 3-5%, but as high as 8.5%. Assume that two people invest $10,000 in funds that buy substantially similar stocks. At the end of the transaction, the no-load investor would have $10,000 invested in the stock market and the other investor would have $9,150 invested. I know which person I would rather be. http://www.fool.com/school/mutualfunds/costs/loads.htm For an argument suggesting that load funds can be better than no-load funds in the abstract, see https://www.thebalance.com/no-load-vs-load-funds-2466715.

Moreover, ongoing management fees effect costs at least as much as load charges. A quick screen on schwab.com reveals that there are 125 mutual funds that invest in large capitalization value stocks that are rated four or five stars by Morningstar.[1] The annual management fees average 1.07%, but range from .26% to 1.96%. Remember that these funds all invest in approximately the same value-oriented stocks of large cap US companies. The funds are, of course, not exactly the same, but they are similar in profile. For simplicity’s sake, I will assume that the funds stay flat except for fees. At the end of five years the fund with the cheaper fee would have declined to $9,871, not great (obviously) but not bad given that stocks didn’t move. The other fund would have declined to $9,058. Ouch. Fees matter.

The dollars that pay the fees don’t simply disappear from your account, they go somewhere. That somewhere is to your financial advisor or the company he or she works for. They hate the Fiduciary Rule because it would prevent them from purchasing funds that charge a high load (which goes to them) when a substantially similar fund with a lower load or fee structure is available. Paying more fees is rarely in your best interest, though it is often in your advisor’s.[2]

There are various aspects of the Fiduciary Rule that are arguably good or bad. It depends in large part on your perspective. I am not aware of any investor advocacy groups that are against the Fiduciary Rule, whereas virtually the entire financial services industry is against the rule. There are likely sound reasons not to adopt the Fiduciary Rule, to delay it, or to modify it. But forcing advisors to consider the fees their clients pay when making investment decisions is an overwhelmingly good reason to implement the rule. Advisors should not be required to be perfect, but they should act in their clients’ best interest, not their own.[3]

[1] A four or five-star rating means that after assessing risk, return, consistency, and other factors, Morningstar considers the fund to be in the top third of its peers. http://www.investopedia.com/terms/m/morningstarriskrating.asp

[2] I suspect that a significant majority of advisors act ethically and would not recommend funds that have higher loads or fees solely because they have a higher load or fee. But some advisors are almost certainly tempted beyond their ability to resist. The rule would have little impact on ethical advisors even as it severely curtailed the excesses of unethical advisors. That strikes me as a good thing.

[3] Teaser alert (if you read endnotes), I’m working on a post about another group of people that should be held to a higher standard. This post was supposed to be a one-paragraph prelude, instead it is a one-post prelude.

Baseball is changing (but only a little)

The Major League Baseball season commenced with little fanfare. I guess when each team plays 162 games, there is no reason (or no way) to generate early excitement. Except by resorting to trivia questions. Here’s one: name any of the three players to accomplish all of the following in the same season: finish in the top ten in the majors in batting average, on-base percentage, home runs, and stolen bases and win a gold glove.

Hint – it didn’t happen before 1950.

Baseball is trying two things this year that cause traditionalists to cringe. The first will only occur at the lowest level of professional baseball: the Gulf Coast League and the Arizona League. Both are rookie-level leagues that play a limited schedule, fewer than 60 games. These two leagues will experiment with a concept designed to shorten extra-inning games.

A normal MLB game lasts nine innings and approximately three hours, but games can last much longer. A game tied after nine innings continues until one team is ahead after a complete inning. Last year, MLB teams played an average of 12 extra-inning games, with most ending within an inning or two. But some last deep into the night, as many as 15 or 18 innings. To diehard baseball fans, that is wondrous extra baseball. But even diehard fans have to work and the stands at most stadiums suggest that fans would rather the game conclude after nine innings than after 13. (To non-fans, even rain-shortened five-inning games are too long, let alone the longest professional game ever which lasted 33 innings.)

The experiment involves placing a runner on second base at the beginning of each extra inning for each team. There has been much weeping and gnashing of teeth among traditionalists. I’m not sure whether I like the rule, but I’m glad that MLB is willing to experiment. Let’s face it, relatively few people enjoy the extra-long games, least of all the players who likely have a game the next day.

The tweak significantly changes the run expectancy. A normal inning starts with no runners and no outs and on average yields .461 runs. With a runner on second and no outs, teams average 1.068 runs. This approximate doubling of run expectancy will almost certainly result in fewer long extra-inning games. For now, it’s just an experiment at the rookie level. Still, it has been tried at the youth level for years and has also been used in the World Baseball Classic, where runners are placed on first and second starting in the 11th inning. The baseball gods have not yet) exacted retribution.

The other rule change is occurring at the major league level, with, I would suggest, less fanfare than associated with the beginning of the season. The intentional walk is one of the least interesting parts of a typical baseball game; that it’s of dubious strategic value is beside the point. Last year, teams averaged 31 intentional walks, roughly one every five games. The overwhelming majority consisted of four high and wide pitches and then a batter jogging to first base.

Very occasionally something outside the routine happens. For instance, Miguel Cabrera once hit a single on a pitch that wasn’t quite far enough outside. In his career, Cabrera now has one hit in 223 intentional walk attempts. Every once in a while a team pretends it’s going to intentionally walk someone and then throws a strike, though that’s probably even more rare than a Cabrera hit during an intentional walk. The general point is that, in the vast majority of intentional walks, nothing happens. So the rule now is that a manager can signal for an intentional walk and the batter will immediately go to first base without requiring the pitcher to throw four unnecessary and uneventful pitches.

This rule has been used at the youth and high school level for decades. Nobody thinks they aren’t playing baseball because of it. It is efficient, it is simple, and it is not earth-shattering. Still, the traditionalists roar, invoking as they so often do a parade of “what will they do next” scenarios.

Trivia answer – Willie Mays 1957, Joe Morgan 1976, and Matt Kemp 2011. (Credit to Bill James for asking the question and providing the answer. His website billjamesonline.com is outstanding.)

The game has been tweaked again and again since the beginning when batters could request a high or low pitch, when players didn’t use gloves, when catching a batted ball after only one bounce was an out. The number of pitches that constitute a walk changed frequently in the early years, peaking at nine before mercifully sinking to the current four. Deep into the 20th century, the home team manager could still decide whether to bat first or last before the league established a rule and settled the matter in the 1950s.

Few changes have made the game materially worse, though nine balls for a walk must have been brutal. Most rule changes have improved the game, perhaps only incrementally, but better is better. Let’s give the rules a chance – as long as they don’t try that putting a runner on second thing during the playoffs or World Series. By the way, the playoffs started in 1969, almost 100 years after the first professional baseball game was played. Imagine baseball without playoffs, even purists aren’t pushing for that.

Nuclear Weaponry (of a sort)

Nuclear weapons are often invoked and, fortunately, rarely used. They are in the news in two different venues these days. I’ll ignore the whack-job dictator of North Korea and his penchant for threatening to use nukes and will instead focus on the US Senate and its version of a nuclear arsenal. The so-called nuclear option is anything but — at least I don’t think it threatens the existence of the republic.

The US Senate, formerly lovingly and currently mockingly referred to as the greatest deliberative body in the world, was open to unrestrained debate until 1917. But in that time there were very few filibusters.[1] According to a Washington Post article, “between 1840 and 1900, there were 16 filibusters.”[2] That seems about right. Every once in a while a momentous issue demands unlimited discussion.[3] www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/post/is-the-filibuster-unconstitutional/2012/05/15/gIQAYLp7QU_blog.html?tid=a_inl&utm_term=.021830de08ed

Despite its relative nonuse, the filibuster became embedded in the culture of the Senate, based on the belief that “any senator should have the right to speak as long as necessary on any issue.” https://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/common/briefing/Filibuster_Cloture.htm

Like many other governmental structures in this country, the filibuster has its roots in ancient Rome. The Roman Senate had a rule that all business before it must be concluded by the end of the day. A long-winded senator could inadvertently speak so long that dusk and the motion under consideration fell. Cato the Younger started purposely speaking until nightfall to forestall certain initiatives of Julius Caesar. Thus was born the intentional filibuster.

It’s a quaint notion, one that reason and experience show to be utterly without merit. Have you heard a senator speak recently? When was the last time a senator said anything that made you sit up and take notice, that excited you about the prospects of senatorial action, that made you think that particular senator had something to say that wasn’t clouded over with partisanship? I’m not going to say it never happens, just that it is a preciously rare occurrence.

The original filibuster was a test of endurance. The person wishing to extend debate had to, you know, debate. How picturesque. The best known use of a filibuster occurred in a fictional setting. You should watch Mr. Smith Goes to Washington to see the toll an actual filibuster exacts. It will help you appreciate and respect practitioners of a true filibuster. Alas, our actual senators are made of less stern stuff. They apparently decided that, even for them, talking on and on is not worth the effort, hence the virtual filibuster. Senators can now check a box and reap the benefits of the filibuster without expending any energy or missing any bathroom breaks. Senators can now debate without limit without debating.

Our nation would be better served by a rule that prevents senators from speaking than one that allows them to speak without limit. We should let them negotiate among themselves and with the executive branch and the house, let them investigate executive overreach, let them vote, let them do any number of other things, and we should require them to spare us the partisan gibber-jabber. Surely I jest, but a man can dream, can’t he.

There are limits on filibusters, decency is one, but the most important is cloture. In 1917, the Senate tired of its own self-administered straitjacket inhibiting the passage of legislation and adopted Rule 22. The rule allows the Senate to end debate. Initially, it took 66 senators to invoke cloture, but at least debate could be restricted. Now the rule allows 60 votes to close debate – unless the leaders of the Senate decide to allow fewer votes to close debate.

The leaders did just that in November 2013, when the Harry Reid-led Democrats decided that enough was enough. They voted 52-48 to end a filibuster of President Obama’s various executive and judicial nominees. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filibuster That nuclear blast did not exterminate the republic, but it opened the door to more. Talk about foregone conclusions.[4]

Recently, senate Democrats stated that they just didn’t know enough about Neil Gorsuch to vote on him. Poppycock. They didn’t want more debate they wanted less Gorsuch. This time Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell decided that enough was enough and the Republican-controlled Senate voted to end the filibuster by a simple majority vote. Gorsuch now sits on the highest court in the land and the republic still stands.

The rule that “requires” the Senate to act by a super-majority of 60 votes leavens the political process by forcing legislation or nominees closer to the center. The party in the majority would accommodate enough moderates in the other party to reach 60 votes. That no longer works because there aren’t many moderates left, the parties vigorously enforce orthodoxy, and the spirit of compromise has left the Capitol.

Every step away from a moderate position emboldens the politicians more. Mitch McConnell recently stated, after Gorsuch was confirmed, that he felt vindicated. If by “vindicated,” he means “I used partisan maneuvers to my advantage and I won,” then he should feel vindicated. But did the country win?

Leave aside Gorsuch because no single nominee matters all that much in the long term. What McConnell did was really quite shameful. He refused to hold hearings, which, as far as I can tell, is one of the few things the Senate is any good at. He refused to schedule a vote on a duly nominated candidate for the US Supreme Court. He should realize that that will make it easier for the Democrats to do the same thing to a Republican nominee in the future. He should have scheduled hearings and a vote. Then the Republicans could have voted against the nominee and we would be where we are, but we would have arrived with integrity and respect for the process.

I like the filibuster rule, but it has become too easy. The minority party can simply check a box and the majority party can sit on a nominee. Neither of these positions advances the spirit or the letter of senatorial conduct. Instead, we should demand that Senators engaging in a filibuster stand up and talk until they exhaust themselves. We should demand that Senate leaders schedule votes on properly presented nominees. We should demand that they stop playing all these reindeer games.

The so-called nuclear option, which is a rule change that enables the Senate to act based on a majority vote, does not strike me as unduly explosive. But continuing to engage in partisan legerdemain will continue widening the wedge between the parties. That will likely ultimately yield ruinous consequences. As both the Bible (Mark 3:25) and Abraham Lincoln (June 16, 1858) assert, a house divided against itself cannot stand.

[1] The filibuster is a parliamentary procedure that allows debate on a matter to be extended. The practical import is that a vote on the matter under discussion can be delayed or, in extreme cases, prevented.

[2] Also according to the article, the first filibuster took place 50 years after the ratification of the Constitution.

[3] Conversely, in 2009-10, there were 130 filibusters.

[4] Nominally, it still takes 60 votes to pass legislation. But it’s just a matter of time before that barrier is breached.

A Basketball Curmudgeon Speaks

The NCAA basketball tournament is one of the highlights of the year in sports. No other event has so many win-or-go-home games: 63 to be exact, once the play-in games have concluded and the 64-team tournament begins.

As much as I enjoy the tournament, I’m not as keen on basketball as I used to be. The game has changed so much since I learned to watch and play it that I often feel like I’m watching a different game from the one I grew up with. Everyone over 40 knows what I am talking about.

What happened to traveling? Well, unfortunately, the rule changed. Now, a player gets two steps after he stops dribbling; it used to be one and a half. That’s a huge difference. Of course, many plays involve more than two steps. The rule that prohibits traveling is more in the nature of a suggestion these days than mandatory.

Today’s players appear to run with the ball. And sometimes they do, watch here for ten of the worst walking “violations” that weren’t called. The video quality isn’t great, but the traveling is. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wSZGCfKvlTI#t=196.3300 For one truly egregious offense, watch Kirk Hinrich practically waltz with the ball in his hands. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qExFbDuOdyE But probably the worst example of traveling that wasn’t called was perpetrated by superstar Dwyane Wade. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LNdDsriVwmU This one was so bad that even his teammate (at the time) LeBron James made fun of him.

Carrying the basketball used to be an offense as well. We were taught to dribble with our hands on top of the ball. That is so passe that on some possessions there isn’t a single dribble that would have passed muster in the 70s. If I had been able to travel and carry like today’s players, well – I still wouldn’t have been any good, but I would have been called for fewer violations.

At times I watch a game and think these guys would never have scored in the old days because the refs would have blown the whistle on every possession. That wouldn’t be much fun. I’m not sure when and where the tipping point occurred. I’m not even sure whether it started in the NBA and trickled down or started with younger players getting away with what had hitherto been violations and migrated upstream.

Some of the changes in basketball are for the better. I’m happy the players no longer wear short shorts. The following link shows highlights from the 1982 championship series between Larry Bird’s Celtics and Magic Johnson’s Lakers. These guys were practically wearing underwear. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p_WU1WNl-jI I believe the long shorts trend started with Michigan’s Fab Five. Here’s a picture of them just nine years later. https://www.google.com/search?q=fab+five&rlz=1C1EODB_enUS512US556&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwicu9a0rYPTAhVEWSYKHU7JD8UQ_AUICCgB&biw=1024&bih=589#imgrc=—v0ORiWALpXM: Sadly the movement to covering the legs progressed to the wearing of tights. So a good trend went too far.

An “innovation” I could live without is the obligatory hand slap after every single first foul shot. Hit or miss, the shooter’s teammates are compelled to approach him and slap hands. I can’t remember the last time a guy shot a foul shot and didn’t get the hand slap. What a collective waste of time for players and viewers alike.

Let’s ride with the negativity. Most of the announcers drive me crazy (it’s not a long trip). I realize that talking for two hours straight about anything is a difficult job. And I admit that I would be horrible: tongue-tied, muttering all kinds of ridiculous things. Still, I feel compelled to point out a few foibles among the talking heads.

Gross generalization number one – former players are brutal in the booth. They tend to be more akin to cheerleaders than thoughtful analysts. They provide insight into how players think, sort of, but without an assessment of the big picture. Among their worst “crimes” is speaking in cliches, one after another after the other.

Gross generalization number two – the talking heads ask too many questions. What is the point of a commentator saying “how big is that” after a shot is made? Or how good a play was that? Why don’t you tell me. You are the expert, analyze the player, describe the play, do something other than ask me rhetorical questions.

Gross generalization number three – announcers turn too many plays into melodrama or a theme. During the tournament, an announcer, upon watching a player drive and get fouled, said: he knows how to create contact and get fouled. Sure – maybe. And maybe he just got fouled. That something happened doesn’t mean it was intentional or indicative of some singular ability to make that thing (getting fouled) happen. And not every shot made late in a game is the result of guts or experience or anything really. These guys are good. They take a lot of shots, some go in and some don’t. Stop turning every play on the court into a test of character. Usually the play depends on talent, often on luck, and, every once in a while, solely on character.

Gross generalization number four – the talking heads love to praise coaches. After a player makes a quick move into traffic, spots a cutting teammate, threads a pass through defenders, and the teammate grabs the pass with one hand and makes a contested shot, the announcer is more likely to praise the coach than either player. Especially if the play occurred after a time out. Anything good that happens after a time out is 100% attributed to the coach.

Gross generalization number five – the talking heads all received the same memos. For instance, they love talking about “length.” The players are big. They are tall. And starting a few years ago, they are long. It doesn’t even make sense. Lions are long, particularly if you add in the tail. Players are perpendicular to the ground and athletic, some are wide; none are long.

I realize that they mean “long” in a different sense than it is typically used. The average arm span for a person approximates that person’s height. The announcers feel obliged to comment on any player whose arm span is greater than his height, calling that player “long.” According to Dr. Katrina Parker, an average adult male’s arm span is approximately 5cm greater than his height. https://www.utmb.edu/pedi_ed/core/endocrine/page_09.htm So the excessive chatter about height is unnecessary, not helpful, and downright wrong in the sense that the players aren’t any “longer” than we might expect.

Announcers and analysts are also required, as a reasonably close game winds down, to remind us that two minutes (or 90 seconds or 45 seconds or some similar not very long period of time) is an “eternity.” They used different words, like “boatloads of time” or “forever” or some such.

I’m going to mention a couple of comments I found especially enjoyable. I’m aware that this isn’t fair — because misspeaking is inevitable given how much chatter occurs – so I won’t mention names.

While suggesting that the refs were calling more fouls that they might have called in a regular season game, the commentator noted that players would have to adjust “regardless of how officials let them play in their respectable conferences.” I’m sure that both conferences represented are respectable. I’m not sure whether the commentator was (unsuccessfully) trying out a new word or simply misspoke.

“When you’re a shooter and when you get a layup on your first shot, threes are going to be easy.” Huh? As far as I know, there is no statistical support for this proposition. If there were any basis for this statement, teams would try much harder to make sure their three-point shooters take more layups early in the game. Furthermore, I’m pretty sure that a three-point shot is never “easy.”

“I love to see guys who aren’t good free throw shooters shoot through their percentages.” Huh? He almost certainly meant better than their percentages. But he was basing that comment on two foul shots, which proves nothing. Percentages indicate how many shots a player would make out of one hundred shots (per cent). That a player who shoots as poorly as 50% makes two shots in a row ought not surprise a thoughtful person any more than that a tossed penny would be heads two times in a row.

“Oh, what a put back. Almost.” A player rebounded a shot and shot another. He missed. What drama. Wasn’t there time for the announcer to wait an extra nano-second to see whether the shot would go through the basket, not just in its vicinity? Rats, now I’m asking rhetorical questions.

I will be watching the games tonight. The traveling and the carrying and the excessive praise of the coaches will annoy me, even as the athleticism, effort, and talent of the players beguiles me. I hope the games are close, but I’ll be watching even if they aren’t.

First Do No Harm

Dream Land – The True Tale of America’s Opiate Epidemic by Sam Quinones is an outstanding book. It should be required reading for every politician, doctor, and government bureaucrat in the country. It tells a sad maddening tale of a drug crisis that kills tens of thousands of Americans each year, a crisis that didn’t have to happen.

The topic is engaging, the writing direct and compelling, and the lessons to be drawn significant and applicable to fields far beyond drug abuse. The story flits between Mexico and the United States, between drug runners and medical doctors, from California to Ohio and places in between. The book is exceptional. Read it.

Humans are inherently selfish and, in moderation, that’s not a bad thing. Adam Smith’s “invisible hand” guides economic activity as people (and countries) gravitate toward their competitive advantage. But the invisible hand also applies to illegal markets. In a small province in Mexico, that competitive advantage is a surplus of opium and labor. It turns out that among the competitive advantages of the United States is an abundance of money and greed. (Who knew?) A basic theme of the book is that our doctors and pharmaceutical companies primed the pump, creating many addicts who were ripe for a cheap fix, providing perfect entre for the Xalisco Boys.

The tale begins, almost fictionally, with a short letter to the editor of the New England Journal of Medicine, published on January 10, 1980. Graduate student Jane Porter and Doctor Hershel Jick submitted a one-paragraph letter which concluded “despite widespread use of narcotic drugs in hospitals, the development of addiction is rare in medical patients with no history of addiction.” And then the law of unintended consequences took over.

The letter was referenced again and again – over 900 times in scholarly papers. http://www.businessinsider.com/porter-and-jick-letter-launched-the-opioid-epidemic-2016-5 It became de rigueur for doctors, pharmacists, and nurses, although there is no evidence that any of them ever read it. To wit, it was referred to as “an extensive study,” “a landmark study,” and “a landmark report.” It never purported to be any of those things and it wasn’t. It was a simple letter based on observations in a controlled setting. Still the letter helped spawn an entire industry: pain.

Doctors began treating pain, the so-called fifth vital sign, aggressively, and increasingly with opiates, despite residual reservations (held over from medical school) about the addictive power of opium-based products. Even the best and most cautious doctors were worn down by colleagues and pharmaceutical companies who continually touted the Jink letter. Despite strong reasons to believe otherwise, the gospel that “opiates are not addictive” spread throughout the medical community.

And the law of unintended consequences kicked in again. Lesser doctors, unscrupulous even, opened pain centers, liberally dispensing OxyContin and similar drugs. These doctors regularly failed to conduct true medical evaluations. Among the worst of the breed, one doctor routinely saw patients for as little as 90 seconds, once prescribing 46,000 controlled substance prescriptions in nine months. It boggles the mind, as does the money generated. Most of the prescriptions required a doctor’s visit at $250, cash only please. Often the drugs were then dispensed at the doctor’s office for $200 or so, again cash only.

The ready availability of the prescription drugs, primarily OxyContin, attracted drug addicts, not just those in pain. Pain can be properly and appropriately treated with opiates, but the pill mill doctors were anything but proper and appropriate. And addicts never are. Because they could get more pills prescribed than they needed for their fix, they began using the pills as currency. The street value was roughly $1 per milligram. A single 80 milligram pill of OxyContin had street value of $80, making the prescription’s costs seem reasonable.

People drove addicts to and from doctor’s appointments, fronting the money for the visit and the drugs in return for half of the pills. That was a good economic investment, if a moral catastrophe. $450 invested per visit (see above) garnered $1,200 worth of pills (15 pills times $80 each). And the drivers were not limiting themselves to one prescription run per day. People able to procure a medicaid card received a bonus windfall as the cost of the drugs dropped to $3 for the co-pay. With profit margins like that, it’s not surprising that many poor and desperate people succumbed to temptation — or that given the abundance of Oxy available, more people began using.

People also began dying from Oxy overdoses, enough deaths to attract the attention of police and others. As pressure was brought to bear, Oxy prescriptions started to decline and become harder to get. This chagrined Purdue Pharma, which continued to espouse the non-addictive nature of OxyContin right up until they paid a fine in excess of $600 million for misbranding. And then, amazingly, things got even worse.

With so many long-time heroin addicts and newly-minted Oxy addicts searching for a fix, the path had been paved for the Xalisco Boys. They sold black tar heroin. They sold cheap, under $15 a fix; they sold conveniently, basically by delivering it to the addict; they sold without violence, none of them carried weapons; they sold honestly, all of them were on salary and subject to be returned to Mexico for any insubordination; they sold pure unadulterated heroin, which was much more potent and deadly than the powder more conventionally available. And overdose deaths skyrocketed. Approximately 47,000 people died in the United States from drug overdoses in 2014. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/01/07/us/drug-overdose-deaths-in-the-us.html?_r=0

The trajectory from a one-paragraph letter to 47,000 annual deaths is a true trail of tears, one that I hope we never repeat. As I read the book, I was screaming (on the inside) “read the letter, don’t just refer to it.” We (all humans) have a tendency to accept what we hear or read from an expert at face value. We shouldn’t, unless they have proven reliable in the past. Just because somebody, however expert, once said something, doesn’t mean it was true then. And it most certainly doesn’t mean it is true now given how rapidly circumstances change.

I can’t help wondering what other solitary paragraphs are out there lurking as virtual time bombs waiting to cause another explosive crisis. Who knows? But we must all be more skeptical of everything we read – not just when the other (political) team is doing the writing.

It dismays me that so many doctors were not careful enough to double check what they were being told. It infuriates me that some doctors went out of their way to “create a narrative so [primary care doctors] would feel more comfort about opioids in a way they hadn’t before.” Dr. Russell Portenoy, Dream Land, p. 309. Portenoy had financial ties to several drug companies at the time he was encouraging the use of more opiates. He has conditionally recanted, stating that based on current standards, he had provided misinformation. https://www.minnpost.com/second-opinion/2012/12/doctor-who-encouraged-wider-use-opioid-painkillers-having-second-thoughts Based on what I read in the book, Portenoy provided misinformation according to any standard you might choose to impose.

Why didn’t more doctors question the extensive use of opioids sooner? We might never know. I hope they are more distrustful the next time a time-honored and proven precept is so egregiously flouted. I hope we all are.

One final reminder – read Dream Land. It’s well worth the money and the time.