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Baseball’s Failure To Exact A Price For Cheating Could Destroy The Game

Nothing creates a moral hazard more than exposing corruption and yet failing to punish those responsible. That’s what happened in the aftermath of the financial crisis of 2008, and that’s what’s happening in baseball today. The rationale for failing to punish Wall Street corruption in 2008 was that big banks were “too big to fail” and had to be propped up — executive bonuses and all — to save the world economy. The rationale in professional baseball in the aftermath of the Houston Astro’s sign-stealing scandal is that by fully exposing the scandal and holding those ...

The Gov’t Does Not Grow The Economy

The economy might be thought of as a farm, where seeds are planted, and water, fertilizer, and other nutrients are added as needed. The politician, as the farmer, grows the crop and creates prosperity. Another popular analogy is that of a machine. If only the right people in power with their technical know-how pull the right levers and press the right buttons, the machine will pump out gross domestic product. Both analogies are seriously wrong. The government is not a farmer and GDP is not it’s crop, nor is it a machine to be fined-tuned by experts or politicians. President Trump is ...

Finding Something Good About February Is Tricky

Well, February might be the shortest month of the year, but it always feels like the longest. And it might not surprise you to find that it is the most disliked month of the year, according to a Gallup poll. February is still far enough away from spring and still solidly winter to make it the least popular of all of our calendar’s 12 months. But that doesn’t bother February. It still shows up every year with no intention of changing its tune. And nothing good ever happened in February. There are few historic moments that grace mankind’s timeline in these 28 or 29 days. If it ...

Westminster Show Still Delights

Except for the combination of an error in my reservation (my fault) and weather delays leaving me to wander the airport for six hours, my trip to New York City and the Westminster Kennel Club dog show was wonderful, and went by too fast. There was much chatter on Facebook and Twitter, and even national news, about the failure of the judge to give Best in Show to the crowd favorite, the Golden Retriever, GCHP CH Hillock’s Jack Daniel’s RA JH CA RATN CGC, aka Daniel. (I explain all those initials below). My first choice is always the Pembroke Welsh Corgi, but since they rarely make ...

Whistle While You Carpet Clean

As I sit here, on my bed, we are having our carpet cleaned in the other room. The carpet cleaner, a man we will refer to as CeeCee, knocked on our door a little past 9 a.m. He has the mustache of either an evil villain or a silent-movie star or both. It is precisely the type of bushy, curly mustache my 4-year-old daughter has been begging me to grow ever since seeing “Peter Pan” and falling in love with good ol’ Captain Hook. “Mommies can’t grow mustaches,” I told her. “Yes-huh,” she countered. “Grandma has.” I’m just going to leave that one alone. Once we ...

A Musical Disney Challenge For The Kids

Ah, the words of that happy-go-lucky song many remember, lent by the voices of Nathan Lane (Timon), Ernie Sabella (Pumbaa), Jason Weaver (Simba the Cub), and Joseph Williams (Simba, as an adult) in the popular Disney movie, The Lion King. I am sure just hearing the title of that song, paints the picture of the three characters prancing and singing through the jungle, living the translation of the song’s title, that being, “no worries.” There are many, if not all, of the songs that came from Disney movies that will do that, but sometimes we might be a little confused on which ...