Tim Einenkel's Open Salon Blog

Memo To White People: There Is No War Against You

Tue, 16 Jun 2009 14:06:27 -0400

Let’s be clear: Andrea Peyser of the New York Post would have never written her op-ed yesterday, expressing her outrage towards late night talk shows if last week Sarah Palin didn’t have the need to put herself back in the media spotlight.

In her latest op-ed Peyser uses last week's joke by David Letterman about Sarah Palin's daughter and a joke by Conan O’Brien about Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Jewish woman to declare that there is a “war on white women, only this one is being fought with water balloons and whoopee cushions wielded by men who think statutory rape and racial slurs are funny. I’m not laughing.”

She declares that the jokes by these two would have Johnny Carson rolling over in his grave and would cause Lenny Bruce to have a fit. She may wanted to do a bit more research on Lenny Bruce—as Roy Edroso writes in a Village Voice blog entry “Lenny Bruce? But he made fun of the Pope!” As a good conservative, wouldn’t Peyser have thrown a fit about this joke? (I guess she didn’t get the memo).

It is unfortunate but Andrea Peyser falls in the same category of race relations paranoia (of all political persuasions) as many I have spoken or listened to on the media airwaves since the United States elected its first black president. There’s an uncomfortable fear they have that is played upon by the likes of Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Ann Coulter and Sean Hannity that “black people are taking over the country” that Andrea Peyser, like many, fall victim to.

When Newt Gingrich called Supreme Court Justice nominee Sonia Sotomayor a racist against white people, the race relations paranoia gene kicked in and no further research into understanding Sotomayor’s “racist” comment was deemed necessary.

She, like many hear a few jokes about white people, then write op-eds declaring there is a war on white people but aren’t pissed off when a State GOP staffer sends a racist image of President Obama, Michelle Obama is compared to a gorilla or a New York Post cartoon depicts President Obama as a dead chimpanzee.

The “war on white people” is nonexistent. It’s not being fought with water balloons and whoopee cushions. The idea that people like Andrea Peyser is given a forum to persuade the public that there is one may be laughable if it wasn't so dangerous.

Reason # 7 to Stick Out Your Tongue

Wed, 11 Mar 2009 13:03:39 -0400

Thanks to a new gadget created by Kazuhiro Taniguchi of Osaka University more people will appear crazy in public. Taniguchi, the chief researcher at Osaka University's Graduate School of Engineering Science in western Japan has invented a new gizmo called “Mimi Switch” or “Ear Switch” which will allow a person to simply use facial expressions (smile, lift an eyebrow or wink) in order to change the music on their iPod, start the washing machine, turn on lights and other electronic devices. The device senses movements inside the ear, which are caused by the person's facial expressions. It then transmits readings to an attached micro-computer, which in turn translates them into commands for the music device, washer, etc.

So, the next time you see somebody walking down the street with their tongue out, there is a good chance they either forgot to turn off the toaster before they left their home or have decided to skip to a new track.

Taniguchi explained his invention:

"An iPod can start or stop music when the wearer sticks his tongue out, like in the famous Einstein picture. If he opens his eyes wide, the machine skips to the next tune. A wink with the right eye makes it go back. The machine can be programmed to run with various other facial expressions, such as a wriggle of the nose or a smile. It monitors natural movements of the face in everyday life and accumulates data. If it judges that you aren't smiling enough, it may play a cheerful song. If the system is mounted on a hearing aid for elderly people, it could tell how often they sneeze or whether they are eating regularly. If it believes they are not well, it could send a warning message to relatives."

Q&A: A Baseball Prospectus for the Steroid Era

Wed, 4 Mar 2009 12:03:13 -0500

Originally posted on AirAmerica.com

Major league baseball continues to grab front page headlines with the game's highest paid player, Alex Rodriguez, admitting to using banned performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs). Many believe this era of baseball (unofficially being called the Steroid Era) has tainted the game. Baseball, more than any other professional sport, is a game where performance statistics are meticulously recorded. The PED revelations have called into question the veracity of these "numbers."

Steven Goldman, contributing editor to Baseball Prospectus, believes that each era of baseball has had an X factor which has given baseball players some sort of advantage. Baseball Prospectus is a yearly publication that employs advanced statistical analysis to predict the future performances of individual players as well as their teams. The statistics take into account a wide range of data: how many times does a player get on base? Which ballpark do they play in? Air America’s Tim Einenkel sat down with Steven Goldman to discuss whether steroids have changed the future of statistical analysis, how much of an advantage PEDs give a player, and Alex Rodriguez’s Hall of Fame chances.

TIM EINENKEL: What are the positives and negatives regarding how the MLB and the player's union have handled the steroid era?

STEVEN GOLDMAN: The main positive, in terms of how the steroid era has been handled is that after a long period of ignoring the problem, baseball is doing what it can to get the PEDs out of the game. The problem is that they’ve handled the perception of what they’re doing poorly, in part by failing to manage the seemingly constant drip-drip of players being outed for offenses that predate the testing regime. Contrast that drumbeat, which may yet be augmented by the other players on the 2003 fail list with Alex Rodriguez, with the number of players who have failed a test in the NFL. You can’t, because the NFL doesn’t release that information.

TIM EINENKEL: The Alex Rodriguez steroid revelations came out after the publication of the book. If you had found out before the book came out, would these discoveries have had any effect on the PECOTA (Player Empirical Comparison and Optimization Test Algorithm, a sabermetric system for forecasting Major League Baseball player performance) projection for him this season and beyond?

STEVEN GOLDMAN: No. As Nate Silver, the inventor of PECOTA, discussed in our book Baseball Between the Numbers, the statistical footprint of PED usage is almost too small to detect. In addition, PECOTA is more interested in Rodriguez’s recent performances, not what he did five years ago.

TIM EINENKEL: Unlike Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens, does the Alex Rodriguez confession help his case? His legacy?

STEVEN GOLDMAN: No. It dents it badly. Rodriguez was always unpopular, at least in New York, for personality issues and other things only tangentially related to his playing career, or perceptions of his failings that weren’t necessarily reflected in his performances. Now those same haters have an additional reason to dislike him.

TIM EINENKEL: What is Alex Rodriguez' chances of getting into the Hall of Fame?

STEVEN GOLDMAN: It’s tough to predict a vote that might not come up for another 12 or 15 years—we could learn a lot more about the effects of PEDs in that time, or Rodriguez’s usage, or both. If the vote happened today, he probably wouldn’t get in.

TIM EINENKEL: How many more players do you think will be outed as steroid users? Will this have a continued negative effect on MLB or has the MLB reached its low point?

STEVEN GOLDMAN: It depends on whether the other 103 names on the 2003 are released… Whether we’ve reached the low point or not really depends on who is outed. The public hasn’t cared much about the vast majority of players who have failed tests because they’ve been fringe players. If a Derek Jeter or Albert Pujols were accused, the damage would be extraordinary.

TIM EINENKEL: If steroids truly give a player an advantage, why aren't there 100 plus Alex Rodriguez's in baseball? How does he differ from the rest?.

STEVEN GOLDMAN: The problem here is that “if.” They probably don’t. They’re also expensive, dangerous, have nasty side effects, and there is (now) a stigma attached to usage. Prior to the beginning of testing, they were still all of these things, but without the stigma of exposure and publicity. .

TIM EINENKEL: Is it fair to say that each period of baseball has had some sort of X factor which has caused a performance advantage? How so?.

STEVEN GOLDMAN: You mean in terms of pitchers using the spitter and the emory ball? Ty Cobb and his sharpened spikes? Corked bats? Sign stealing? Weight training? Aspirin? During his 1941 hitting streak, Joe DiMaggio chain-smoked cigarettes in the dugout to calm his nerves. That was an artificial advantage. Bill Veeck used to move his stadium fences out when the Yankees came to town. That was, too. When the National League integrated more rapidly than the American League, they had a wider field of talent to choose from. Then there were amphetamines, whose usage was almost certainly more prevalent than steroids. There has never been an even playing field. Heck, genetics are the ultimate unfair advantage. Barry Bonds’ father was a great player in his own right. Few players start with that kind of advantage. Obviously, that last is taking things past the point of parody, but it gets at the chimerical nature of fair play in sport. PEDs happen to be where we draw the line right now, but it could easily be drawn any number of other places. It’s an arbitrary decision..

TIM EINENKEL: Do you think its statistically possible to predict steroid usage?.

STEVEN GOLDMAN: If you actually mean “predict” as in “anticipate who will use,” then no. If you mean “detect,” the answer is also no. Again, as far as we can tell right now, PED usage doesn’t influence player performance very much. These drugs help build muscle. How that translates into changed performance is still very much an open question.

Originally posted on AirAmerica.com

Steven Goldman is a contributing editor to Baseball Prospectus. In addition to writing the historical analysis column “You Could Look It Up” for BaseballProspectus.com, he has edited and contributed to the BP-authored books. He has contributed to the BP annual since 2005 and has been the co-editor of the last four editions. He is the creator of the long-running “Pinstripe Bible” column for the YES Network and is a commentator on the network’s Hot Stove television program. He previously wrote for the New York Sun, and currently blogs about politics and history at wholesomereading.com. He lives in New Jersey with his wife, Stefanie, daughter Sarah, and son Clemens.