Happy Birthday, Vin Scully!

Yesterday Vin Scully celebrated his 85th birthday.  The Los Angeles Dodgers Hall of Fame broadcaster was born November 29, 1927 in New York.  Some of my earliest memories are of listening to him at home as a boy on summer evenings as he recounted the baseball exploits of Sandy Koufax, Junior Gilliam, Don Drysdale, Maury Wills, Tommy Davis, Duke Snider and the rest of the boys in blue.  Three generations of Southern Californians have cherished Scully as a dear friend for 54 years.  Before that, he called the games for the Dodgers for 8 years when they were still in Brooklyn.  His service of 62 years with the same team is a record without parallel in sports.

Vinny has been acclaimed as the greatest baseball announcer of all time.  He calls a game simply but vividly in an expressive tenor.  He is personal and personable.  "Good evening to you, wherever you may be," he often starts out, "time to pull up a chair and settle down for a fine matchup tonight." References to poetry, songs, literature, and anecdotes about the players, both Dodgers and opponents, and even the umpires, spice up the narrative.  Sixty-two years of history and memory serve to weave  the mystique and nostalgia that is so much of baseball in Scully's rich tapestry.  We hear comparisons of Albert Pujols to Henry Aaron, or how a current player's stance, technique or demeanor is remindful of Jackie Robinson, Mickey Mantle or Willie Mays.  He is not a "homer;" he calls a game even-handedly and gives due credit to the achievements of the worthy foes as well as the Dodgers. 

It's been a wonder to hear this friendly and intimate voice for over fifty years, and it's clear that each new year is a gift.  These days Vin is on contract a year at a time, depending on whether he thinks he can still keep up.  He doesn't go on road trips east of the Mississippi any more.  I feel like he's my friend, though I've never met him.  I'm sure I'm not the only one, considering the fact that he once won a fan vote as the favorite all-time Dodger--yes, as a write-in over the team's great star players!  He always did such a wonderful job he was even given special contracts by the networks to do the major golf tournaments, world series and the super bowl.  You can click on the next link to hear a local Los Angeles sportscast from his birthday last year play their list of his 5 greatest calls.

All in all it's been a marvelous life for the self-described "scrawny, red-headed, left-handed kid who couldn't hit" to be such a big part of the game he loves for better than six decades.  Even more, not only has he lived those 62 years of joy, he's brought his warmth, love of the game and love of people into the cars, living rooms, headsets and hearts of millions with him along the way.   

Going to the Inauguration

Today I began firming up my arrangements to attend President Obama's Second Inaugural in Washington, D.C.  It will be held Monday January 21, 2013--appropriately enough, it will be Martin Luther King Day.  I'm excited to be able to go and be part of this quadrennial rite of American democracy.     

The first thing I did was call a friend in Northern Virginia to see about staying over for a few days.  I've known Greg Guernsey since high school.  He and wife Lorene said they would be happy to take me in.  With that in hand I went ahead and booked the flight.  I used Delta Skymiles to get one out of Fresno to Dulles with stops in Salt Lake and Detroit.  The return trip will go through Cincinnati and Salt Lake back to Fresno.  I also got a rental car and bought a special Inaugural commemorative D.C. Metrorail pass good for unlimited transportation on the subway and bus system for the day.

I'm travelling in on Saturday the 19th and flying out on Wednesday the 23rd.  That ought to give me time to perhaps do a little tourist visiting on Sunday and Tuesday.  There are myriad historical and other points of interest in the vicinity and it's been since 1997 that Joan and I took the kids to the area. I'll need to do a little research and see what looks both interesting and manageable.

One thing I'm waiting on is a call from my congressman's office.  I phoned them last week to get on a list for a ticket for seating at the ceremony at the Capitol steps.  Every national legislator gets some tickets so I thought I'd give it a try.  Chances are I'll just be standing with the other thousands farther back along the mall, but since Rep. Devin Nunes is a Republican I'm hoping there won't be too many of his regular supporters who want to go and maybe I'll get lucky!  They did say they could assure me of getting a ticket for a Capitol tour. 

I'll be posting on this now and then as developments go forward.  I've been a big Obama supporter so it's particularly meaningful for me to attend what will be my first time at an Inaugural.  For that matter, there's every good chance it will be my only time.  And that being the case, who better to see than the nation's first minority president being sworn in as the re-elected incumbent?    

  

      

Democrats Get More Votes but Republicans Win House of Representatives

It's really important who wins elections in years ending in zero.  Those are the years the U.S. Census is taken, and the Census forms the basis upon which every state's election districts are drawn.  The fact that Republicans did so well in the 2010 "off-year" (non-presidential) election meant that with newly-won control of many state legislatures and governorships, they were able to redraw election districts so as to maximize their chances of winning as many seats as possible.

A party does this by packing as many residents of the other party into a few districts where they have large majorities, and giving themselves perhaps less decisive but still safe majorities in as many of the rest of the districts as they can.  This practice is called "gerrymandering," named after Elbridge Gerry, a Massachusetts politician famous (or perhaps notorious) for perfecting this strategem in his state in the early 1800s.   See the famous Boson Gazette cartoon of the "gerrymander."

Most people who keep up with the news know that Republicans have retained control of the House of Representatives.  What few know, however, is that although a handful of close races are still to be decided based on absentee and provisional ballots, it appears that Democratic candidates for the House of Representatives actually out polled their Republican rivals nationally this year by more than 550,000 votes.  The current tally is 53,952,240 for Democratic candidates and 53,402,643 for Republicans.  Out of the more than 107 million votes that is a narrow percentage victory of 50.26% to 49.74%.  If the seats were awarded proportionally the Democrats would have 219 seats and the Republicans 216.  But instead, thanks to gerrymandering, Speaker John Boehner and his Republicans will have a comfortable 235-200 advantage. 

Take Ohio, for example.  President Obama won a 1.9% victory there statewide, and Democratic Senator Sherrod Brown prevailed for re-election by 5.2%.  But 12 of the Buckeye state's 16 congressional districts went to Republicans, thanks to the way the districts were set up.  Check it out here.  In Pennsylvania the case was much the same.  Obama won there by 5.2% and Democratic Senator Bob Casey was re-elected by 8.9%.  Yet 13 of Pennsylvania's 18-member congressional delegation will be Republicans.  Here's the source for Pa. 

In both these states, Republicans got governors and legislative majorities elected during the 2010 wave and put these to good partisan use in drawing election maps skewed to their interest.  It will be exceedingly difficult for the Democrats to gain congressional majorities in either state, or those like them until at least 2020, and then only if they do well in the elections that year.  It's a quirk of the American electoral system, and it certainly makes not only winning, but when you win, of paramount importance. 

Young Voters Show Power in California for Proposition 30

It was with tremendous relief that I woke up Wednesday morning and learned that California's Proposition 30 passed with 54% of the vote.  When I went to bed Tuesday night it had been trailing by four percent.  I knew that if it failed it would result in an additional $3 million in cuts to College of the Sequoias where I teach and the cancellation of hundreds of classes our students need.  We are already serving 3000 fewer students than we did five years ago and are the only institution of higher learning in our predominantly rural vicinity.  For those of you who don't know, Prop 30 was Governor Jerry Brown's initiative to impose a 1/4% sales tax for four years and a 1% to 3% income tax increase on upper income earners for seven years to raise about $6 billion per year, 98.5% of it for education.

I am grateful to the voters of California, and especially to the younger voters.   This proposition became THE great cause for college students in California this election.  At COS our Associated Student Body and Young Democrats campaigned very hard for it.  They secured 600 student endorsement signatures in two hours to fill a full-page newspaper ad the teachers ran in support of Prop 30 last week.  They registered hundreds of voters and made sure they voted by mail or on election day.  This effort was repeated across the state and produced an amazing result.

As Scott Lay, President of the Community College League of California, reported in his newsletter under the title "Winners:"  

Young voters - I know I've been harping on this. Polling firms undersampled 18-29 year old voters through the cycle, particularly after Prop. 30 became a rallying cry on campuses. In the last four presidentials, 18-29 year olds have ranged from 15% (1996) to 22% (2008). So, why were they only expected to be 12% of the California electorate in Monday's Field Poll projections? In the end, the exit poll found that 28% of California's electorate were 18-29 year olds. And, with their 63% yes vote on Prop 30, they single-handedly put Jerry Brown's tax measure over the top. This also led to a 1.9 million 20-point margin for Obama in California that ensured that he won the national popular vote.

In addition to Scott's analysis above, when the dust settles I expect it will be shown they also had a great deal to do with Democrats securing 2/3 supermajorities in both houses of the state legislature.  Pretty impressive, wouldn't you say?  Who says young voters are apathetic?  Give them an issue that strikes close to home and they proved they are very much a force to be reckoned with.

What's At Stake in This Election

A number of questions will be answered on Tuesday November 6, 2012.

Will Medicare be preserved or will it be turned into a voucher plan?

Will Social Security be preserved or privatized and tied to the ups and downs of the stock market?

Will Obamacare be fully instituted or will we go back to having 47 million uninsured citizens at the cost of 45,000 lives per year?

Will Pell Grants for college students be expanded or drastically cut back?

Will workers continue to have the right to organize and bargain or will this be taken away?

In foreign policy, Mitt Romney is surrounded by many of the same neoconservative advisors who believe most overseas problems can be solved militarily and who convinced the last internationally ignorant president into starting a war in Iraq. Will they be back advising the next president?

If they are, will the United States continue to follow strong but measured and effective international policies or will we initiate another land war in the Middle East, likely this time against Iran and/or Syria?

Will FEMA remain a federal responsibility or will it be privatized or turned over to the states, most of which lack sufficient resources to do its job?

Will the economic philosophies of Herbert Hoover and George W. Bush be reintroduced?  Or will we go back to investing in the education, technology and infrastructure necessary to compete in the 21st century?

Will child nutrition, aid to schools, head start, Medicaid, disaster relief, veteran's programs for PTSD and other such services be drastically slashed so millionaires can keep from going back to the tax rate they paid under Bill Clinton?

Will the capital gains tax be eliminated so people like Mitt Romney won't have to pay any taxes at all?

Will the sensible regulations on finance emplaced under Dodd-Frank be repealed, and the unimpeded exotic markets in risky instruments like derivatives come roaring back?

Will we throw in our lot with those who deny science or those who embrace it?

Will we elect those who scoff at human-induced climate change or those who intend to do something about it?

Will we safeguard the gains made over the past 60 years in voting rights, women's rights and gay rights or will we empower those who want to roll these all back?

Will we reaffirm the principle of the separation of church and state or will we put in power those who believe it is their obligation to use the power of the state to enforce their version of religion on everyone else?

Will a sensible immigration policy finally be put in place, or will racist and xenophobic sloganeering continue to serve as a substitute for one?

Will anonymous billionaires continue to buy elections and politicians or will sensible campaign finance trasparency and limitations be enacted?

In the final analysis, do we believe that community needs and interests can be served by the democratic process or do we believe that everyone is on their own?