OXI - 28 Οκτωβρίου 1940 ( sofia vembo )

Giant World Series Preview

This should be an interesting World Series, played by two outsider teams in the Rangers and the Giants.

But before looking at the Series, how great is it to NOT have the Yankees or the Phillies in the Fall Classic?  It actually would have been a pretty good match up - in spite of the two most obnoxious fan bases this side of Durham or the Tea Party - like last year's was.  

But who wants a rerun? Reruns are for the summer, both in terms of TV shows and the NBA finals, which always feature the Celtics and/or the Lakers.

How unappealing are the Yankees? It made folks like me fans of a team: once owned by George Bush; based in a state that is barely civilized (first in executions, last in citizens with health insurance - per capita - and test scores); that plays in a metropolitan area dominated by SUVs and highways; based in a state that declared it's independence from Mexico so it could preserve slavery, then joined the US and later the Confederacy for the same reason.

I was also happy to root for fellow North Carolinian Josh Hamilton.  Most folks know his story; a former number one pick whose career was nearly undone by drugs, alcohol and too much free time.  I appreciate the way he says his religion changed and saved his life and Jesus saved his soul, and to my knowledge Hamilton has never claimed that Jesus helps him hit a baseball or the Rangers win. When you sink to the depths Hamilton did you probably realize the limitations of religion. Jesus can save your soul but it's up to you to do something with it once he does.

Nolan Ryan's philosophy of letting starting pitchers figure out how to get out of jams without looking to the bull pen is also admirable.  And Ryan has maintained his cool, Gary Cooper-like image.  

But it's easy to root for the Giants.  Tim Lincecum and Buster Posey are compelling players, and Madison Baumgarner, a country boy with a country club name, is also from North Cack.  The Giants play in a beautiful - and privately funded (check out this blog post on AT&T Park) - stadium and represent one of the world's greatest and most liberal cities, a city that is also Sierra Club's home town.

And bottom line, they represent the National League.  Got to stick with the NL (unless Tony LaRussa is managing).

One reason it should be an interesting Series is that both teams have huge holes. After Cliff Lee I'm not that impressed with Texas' starting pitching.  And the bottom third of their line up is more like a National League team, full of outs, than an American League one.

The Giants have even more holes in their line up. They have Posey and Aubrey Huff on offense, get a little from Freddie Sanchez, and that's it. Their line ups - in the playoffs! - have had a spring training-like quality: let's give Uribe some innings at short today;  Torres has a sore back so let's have him play center today at home rather than bus to Peoria tomorrow; Cody Ross is looking for a job and at bats, we should give him a look, etc.

But the Giants have lots of starting pitching, led by Lincecum - who has looked nervous in the post season - and Matt Cain is almost as good.  Third and fourth starters Jonathan Sanchez and Baumgarner have pitched big down the stretch and in the playoffs.  

I'm rooting for both the Giants but also for a seven-game Series.  We haven't had a really good World Series in a while, since the Angels-Giants maybe, or Marlins over the Yankees?  Last year's was pretty good but had a terrible ending.

This year the Series will have an interesting ending.  Either way it will be the first World Series title for each respective city. The Rangers (Dallas, Fort Worth?) have never been in a World Series, and the baseball Giants have not won a championship since moving from New York in the late 50s.  

And for a sport that is supposedly top heavy it will be the 10th different champion in the last 11 seasons (only the Red Sox of all people have repeated in the last Spinal Tap-decade).

So I'll take the Giants in seven, with Aubrey Huff as MVP. 

Diabetes in Greece

Greece has always juggled the west and the east.  For a while, actually a long while, basically from the conquests of Alexander the Great and the founding of Alexandria in 350 BC to the fall of Constantinople in 1453 (an 1,800 year run; for contrast the Tea Party threatens to end our run after only 235 years) the Hellenes pulled it off.

But now Greece can't win for losing.  

In 1980, Greece officially joined the west when it became a member of the European Union. It may sound odd to think of the founders of western civilization as joining the west but Greece has historically looked east. Consider everything from defeating the Persians to Alexander the Great spreading Hellenic values and culture as far east as India to the melding of Greek and Egyptian cultures in Alexandria to the eastern Roman empire based in Constantinople, all those things happened facing east.  Combine that orientation with unhappy events that came from the west: the conquest of Constantinople by the Catholic crusaders of the Fourth crusade in 1204 - the event that really started fostering Greece's anti-western bias - and the perceived western favoritism towards the Ottoman Empire in opposition to an independent Greek state.  In modern times,  US and NATO support for the Colonels during the military dictatorship from 1967 to 1973, and similar support for Turkey during their 1974 invasion of Cyprus, re-enforced Greek mistrust of the west.

That ambiguity was finally settled when Greece joined the EU in 1980. And Greece has benefited from being part of the EU. Since 1980, EU money has flowed into Greece in the form of funding for infrastructure and farm subsidies, and in increased tourism and the construction of vacation or second homes for prosperous northern Europeans.  Bottom line, the country is much more modern than it was in the 1970s, and after decades of exporting people it now imports people from poorer parts of the region, not just the Balkans but from the Middle East and north and west Africa.

But Greece has suffered, too.  Parts of Greece look like the worst of Florida, with cheap hotels full of sun burnt tourist wandering from taverna to t shirt shop in a bloated holiday stupor.    

And now we find out the vaunted - and healthy - traditional Greek diet is taking a hit.  I found out this week that almost 9 percent of Greeks have type II diabetes, a shocking number but even worse when you consider that 20 years ago the disease was unheard of there.  That's how quickly the Greek diet has changed from healthy - primarily due to 160 days of fasting in conjunction with the Greek Orthodox calender and a lower living standard - to a western junk and processed food one.  

Greeks also used to shop at local shops for fresh food - from bakers, butchers, etc.  But supermarkets - full of processed food - are taking over in Greek cities and villages. 

The Greek lifestyle has changed as well.  As it is in the American south, where for decades folks stayed healthy even when eating a fried foot diet, both Greeks and southerners no longer do much hard, physical, historically-rural work.  Like Americans, most Greeks live in cities and work at a desk or behind a cash register at a tourism-related business.  

Finally, junk and processed food - potato chips, ice cream and candy bars, sugar soda - is everywhere in Greece.  Greek life is so western that Ariadne and Evan don't actually notice much difference between the U.S. and the motherland.  I just asked them to compare Athens and Washington, and Greek like with American life, and Evan said "Athens is a lot older" and that "Greeks eat a lot more food and spent more time eating" than Americans.  Ariadne said she wished "we had siesta time in America," noted that neither city has big sky scrapers, and though Athens is not as clean as Washington it is much cleaner than New York.  


Joining the EU and the west has been a huge win for Greece. Even with the current economic crisis Ellas has never been this prosperous.  Hard to believe that Greece survived the 4th Crusade, the Ottoman Empire, and a military dictatorship but may lose out potato chips and ice cream. 


A Few Random Thoughts

•  One reason things are kind of looking up in Greece is increased foreign investment.  Cosco, the Chinese trading company, has signed a 35-year deal to run the port of Pireas, a deal that will bring in billions of dollars.  Qatar is also investing heavily in Greece's energy infrastructure. Greece and Turkey are starting to cooperate with green energy companies to build a new, regional, energy grid.
• And the French are going as nuts as the Greeks did in reacting to an increase of the retirement age there so we are no longer on the front page.
• Finally, since I brought them up I do want to point out that: Evan hit a triple in his game on Saturday, a line drive that reached the warning track in the air, and Ariadne has a A- minus average so far in the first trimester, with her lowest grade a B.

Ads on CHB

As some of you have noticed, and a few have even commented publicly, I run Google Ads on my blog. So far, I think I have raised 149 pennies as a result, money I have plowed back into the site.  

Most of the ads are for Dish Network, Toyota (both of which I have mentioned in talking about Greek TV and our car, I guess) and usually the ads are for Carolina merchandise, Ranger Rick has gotten some traffic on there, and vacations to Greece.

But somehow, I assume via my critiques and frustrations with the U.S. Senate, some Republican ads have run.  Even though I recently belittled capitalism and always use the term 'tea baggers,' an ad for '39 seats in 39 days' popped up on my blog.  And two months ago I received a fund raising letter from non-other than Sharron Angle.

Wacky weird stuff.  So for all those bots that search blogs I'll say it again: capitalism stinks, right-wing boobs stink and tea baggers stink (and just to be gratuitous, Dukies like Ron Paul, Rand Paul, Ken Starr, Richard Nixon, and Elizabeth Dole really stink; though I have to admit the Paul boys make Nixon and Dole look like, you know, reasonable people).

Sports and Politics

Those fine endeavors share a number of traits.  One, money generally ruins or at least perverts both of them.  Two, you keep score.  Three, the worst part of each is speculation and hype.

I thought of the third one in response to the preseason hype around the Miami Heat AND the breathless speculation about the November midterms.

The preseason Heat hype is pro basketball at it's worst.  The trio of James, Wade and Bosh may indeed one day win a championship, but until they do all the hype is worthless.  I love the coming out/pep rally teams hold when they sign a new player, and the wall to wall coverage of practices and the video of players walking into a gym.  The fog machines, the stupid dancing and preening, all before a game has been played.  Stupid fans fall for the bread and circuses when they should only celebrate two things: wins and effort.

In sports there is no need for hype or pregame shows.  You can talk all you want but at the end of the game there will be an indisputable winner and loser (except is soccer/football, which needs to eliminate the tie since you play games to win).

One last thing on the Heat; will someone explain to me the fascination with Chris Bosh?  He's a very good player and I hear he has a good sense of humor.  But he's not that good.  He was a good player on a decent team in Toronto, but he's not Dwight Howard.  Or, for that matter Pau Gasol and Al Horford or a bunch of other big men.   Rather than third amigo I imagine Bosh as more of a third wheel.  

And just as I am not handing the Heat the 2011 NBA championship - not sure they are better than last year's finalists in the Lakers and Celtics - I also urge folks to resist the hype around the Republicans in the upcoming midterms.

But like with sports, the 24-hour news cycle demands speculation until game time/election night.

The Dems will certainly lose ground in November, as parties in power do in midterms.  In the Senate the retirements of Byron Dorgan and Evan "Worthless" or "This Job is Hard So I Quit" Bayh make defending those seats difficult, but Harry Reid will still be majority leader on November 3rd.

Best of all, Nancy Pelosi will still be Speaker of the House.  There is no way the Rs can flip that many seats.  

To me it was always a long shot. The Democrats defending swing seats, folks like Piriello, Space, Boccieri, Teague, etc. are smart and know what they are doing AND how to run in those districts.  

I was incredibly impressed by Rep. Boccieri's speech at the recent LCV Victory Fundraiser.  He's been taking tough votes for two years now, including voting for the climate bill even though Ohio gets 80 percent of their energy from coal, but best of all knows how to frame those votes and defend his beliefs.  The D caucus is full of stars like that, representatives who know what they're doing and will get reelected.

I spent about an hour on Monday phone banking Greek-American voters in Tom Piriello's district with the Greek-American Progressive Network.  Out of 16 voters contacted, 13 were voting for Piriello, a PIRG alum, 2 were undecided and only one was voting against him.  Obviously Greek-Americans are not representative of the body politic at large (many consider us superior to none-Greeks, for instance) but that's a great ratio.

I will take a stab at predicting the outcomes of all the swing races this week, so stay tuned.

But I hate the hype about the tea baggers.  Then again, the hype will likely help the Dems in November.  I think the nomination of crazies like Christine O'Donnell, Sharon Angell, and others will help drive an uptick in Democratic enthusiasm, or more precisely turn out, on November 2nd.

As election day draws closer it will become clearer and clearer to liberals that we need to turn out to turn back the tea baggers and the Dukies (like Rand Paul) and save the republic.  

Finally, I also have to point out that the President continues to draw big crowds on the campaign trail.  As another PIRG alum, Chuck Todd, pointed out this week the Beltway crowd may think Obama is damaged goods but the public does not.  Obama drew more than 25,000 voters to a rally in Wisconsin and a huge crowd in Maryland, too.

There is still lots of work to do, and thanks to the Reagan Memorial known as the Supreme Court outside groups are spending millions helping Rs, but look for the Ds to do better than expected, and more importantly look for Reid and Pelosi to keep their current jobs.  

In other words, don't believe the hype.

Back on the Braves Bandwagon

Even though they won today, our Nats will not be in the playoffs.  Sorry if I'm the first to break that news to CHB blog readers.  At least the Nats were a little more relevant this season and finished with 69 wins.  More importantly, they avoided 100 losses.  

Instead of limping through another lost season there were some highlights.  At one point they were 20-15 and in second place.  And of course we saw the debut - and injury - of Steven Strasburg, we drafted and signed Bryce Harper, and saw serious promise in players like Ian Desmond, Danny Espinosa, Wilson Ramos, Jordan Zimmermann, Sean Burnett, and Drew Storen. 

Plus, we started the best brawl in baseball this season!

There is finally legitimate hope for Washington baseball.  Even without Strasburg improving to 81 wins is NOT out of the question next season.  Hopefully we resign Adam Dunn and sign Carl Crawford to protect our one legit star in Ryan Zimmerman and add to the roster of youngish talent. Then who knows?   

But progress will mainly depend on finding a legit lead off hitter, and the development of their core of young starters.  If Zimmermann, John Lannan, Ross Detwiler, Jason Marquis and Livan Hernandez can hold things together they could make a run at a .500 record in 2011.

This October I am happy to get back on the Braves bandwagon.  As many of you know, I moved to DC from Florida and was a pretty serious Braves fan until the Nats came to town in 2005. Though Chipper is out for the rest of the season I will happily root for Bobby Cox to make a deep run in the postseason.  The guys wins, and knows how to lead. 

However, it is hard to see anyone taking down the Phillies in the National League, especially with a pitching staff that will go Halladay to Oswalt to Hamels.  Their bullpen is still a little vulnerable but they have six or seven legit stars on the that team.

In the AL, the dark horse pick seems to be the Twins.  I don't know much about the American League teams; when we got the Nats I also stopped following the Orioles.  I do know the Yankees have only one reliable starter in CC Sabathia, that without a healthy Evan Longoria the Rays look vulnerable, and that Nolan Ryan is instituting some interesting changes in how the Rangers handle pitchers and train starters.  

So I guess I'm going Twins versus Phillies in a World Series that will pit America's second most obnoxious fans versus those who eat lutefisk.

A few more sports notes

• Evan and I tried to watch the Skins game versus the Eagles, and even with the drama of McNabb going back to the city that traded him that game had no zip or energy.  It was flat out boring, and we quickly went back to MLB Network's look ins to the Braves-Phillies and Giants-Padres games.  Baseball is way better than football.
• But the Heels are relevant again after dismantling ECU over the weekend.  As T.J. Yates told the News and Observer, 'we're probably the happiest 2-2 team in America.'  The Heels are getting some of their suspended players back, and despite all that off the field tawdriness it's hard to give up on the Heels.  Traditional nemesis Clempson visits Chapel Hill next week.  A win over the Tigers will even the Heels' ACC record at 1-1.
• Evan's Little League Phillies lost over the weekend but he had a nice game.  He's generally been a dead pull hitter throughout his Little League career, but he had a great at bat late in the game, taking an outside pitch - with 2 strikes - to right to drive in two runs.  Oddly enough, he has played in four games and has yet to have a ball hit to him even though he has played at third, short, first, and center field. He's played four innings at first and has not even made a put out.