Josh Hancock
Here's a post that I submitted to the discussion board of the Yahoo! Fantasy Baseball league I play in:
I'm interested in other people's take on the whole Josh Hancock saga. Now it appears that at the time of his crash, he was:
- Drunk off his ass (0.157)
- Smoking dope
- Talking to some chick on his cell phone
- Doing 68 MPH in a 55 zone
- Not wearing his seat belt
It's a sad commentary on pro sports that my first reaction when I heard about the crash was that Hancock was probably drunk. It's a sad commentary on our society that there was such a strong backlash against anyone in the media who was investigating or discussing the drunk-driving theory, even after a number of pretty good leads had emerged from witnesses, teammates, etc.
The last time I really sat down and reflected on the ugly nature of the average pro athlete was a few years back when I read an autobiography by Billy Bean. It particularly sickened me to read his descriptions of the aggressive homophobia in baseball--maybe because I knew that things were probably largely unchanged 20 years later. Somehow, I was mostly unaffected by the ugly NBA incidents of recent years, or the Tim Hardaway thing, or the gangster culture encroachment into pro football.
But now LaRussa-Hancock-Gate has reawakened my revulsion for pro sports. I'm going to make a conscious effort to stop feeling bad that I care more about fantasy baseball than real baseball, because the truth is that the entire culture of professional athletics is antithetical to many of the things that I believe in.
What's to be done? How do you try to improve the culture of pro athletics?
I yet live!
Not that I have anything to say right now, but I wanted to rejoin the ranks of humanity that A) have blogs and B) have actually posted something in the past 12 months.
Hopefully I'll get back in the swing of things soon. One inspiration has been that I'm back in the photo-publishing business thanks to getting JAlbum up and running once again locally. I tried Picasa but didn't like it much, and now that I've got a bigger and better Web hosting account, I don't have space limitations to make me nervous about uploading all the photos I have. There should be a bunch of photos in a week's time, since Mom and Dad are coming to visit for five days starting this Thursday...
Focus On Misinforming Your Family
Johnny Letter has struck with an outraged missive to Jim Dobson and his boys at Focus On the Family! The fact that I got an actual case number (below) makes my mouth water in anticipation of the patronizing response I am likely to receive. Here's the case number and response-promise from FoF:
Thank you for submitting a comment or question. We are pleased that we can serve you in this capacity. Please be assured that our staff will review your communication, and you may receive a response from our Correspondence Department within the next 3-4 business days.Should you wish to follow up with this request or our response, please reference the following number: '050531-000625'.
Here's my Letter, angry and red:
Re: http://www.family.org/cforum/fosi/homosexuality/maf/a0028248.cfm
I resent the way the authors of this article mischaracterize both the process of science and the particulars of some notable scientific studies.
Focus On the Family--an organization that purports to be interested in seeking and declaring Truth--should be ashamed of itself for the way it willfully misrepresents basic scientific concepts on this FAQ page.
Here are two examples:
1. "If homosexuality were in the genetic code, then both of the twins would have been homosexual 100 percent of the time..."
This is utterly at odds with any reasonable interpretation of the study, and I suspect that the author knows it. Even nonscientists are familar with the notion that behaviors are influenced both by genetics and by environment, and by making the absurd claim that the study's hypothesis required a finding of 100% correlation between identical twins to be supported is simply indefensible. The author in this case clearly has very little respect for the intellect of Focus On the Family readers. In reality, of course, the observed correlation of over 50% is an extremely strong piece of evidence that genetics plays a very significant role in determining sexual orientation.
2. "Let’s face it: science is meant to be fact . . . not theory."
How ridiculous. The person who wrote this is simply redefining science in a way that is completely irreconcilable with the way that actual scientists practice science. Again, where is the respect for your readers? Either the author is willfully mischaracterizing science (that's what I suspect), or he is woefully misinformed and is not capable enough to do even minimal research on the topic that he is attempting to write about.
As any scientist can tell you, science is 100% theory and 0% "fact." Though science can establish a theory to an very high degree of certainty, all theories are nevertheless considered to be provisional, with the possibility of refinement or complete rejection based on subsequent investigation. Admittedly, many people don't have an intuitive understanding of this point, but scientists tend to be more familiar with the history of science and can thus point out some of the famous periods in history where strongly-held scientific theories were greatly modified or even abandoned (e.g. Copernicus->Galileo->Kepler->Newton->Einstein).
I will read the rest of this FAQ, but I am interested in hearing a response from the author, or from anyone at Focus On the Family who can offer an explanation for these statements.
Of course, I do not expect a response. In reality, I have the strong feeling that I am far, far more concerned with Truth than is Focus On the Family, which is clearly willing to make terrible intellectual sacrifices for the promotion of its misguided agenda. In choosing such remarkably disingenuous ways to present a justification for your worldview, you are not only doing your core audience a major disservice, but you are strongly contributing to the decay of modern society that you so decry.
It is truly a shame that Focus On the Family cannot do a more truthful job of reconciling its beliefs with the world outside of its walls.
With Regret,
John Lum
813-632-0843
Quantum Taters
This will be of no interest whatsoever to anyone, but it needs to be published somewhere, so tough luck. I submitted the essay to an online publication called Baseball Prospectus, where--given the nerdiness of their typical article--I actually thought I had a good chance of seeing print, but no dice. To quote from my rejection letter:
I'd sat [sic] first thing you need to do is make the writing more accessible.Oh well. Fuck you guys! I'm happy with it the way it is, so here goes...
[BP Writer] may use complicated stats, but he doesn't obfuscate the text with
words that seem complicated for the sake of being complicated. Write it
like you're describing the concept to a bseball fan friend who doesn't
fully understand it, not as if you're writing your master's thesis.
Quantum Taters: Marginal Utility in Head-to-Head Fantasy Play
Suppose you’re in a head-to-head fantasy league and you’re losing the steals category more often than not. If you have the opportunity to pick up Dave Roberts at what seems like a minimal cost to your team, should you do it?
To make use of the chart, you must first measure or predict a team’s performance level in a given category. For example, if I had assembled a 2004 lineup with an aggregate OBP that was just 10% above the league average (and indeed I did feature The Great One on my team), I would have won the OBP category in nearly 80% of my weekly matchups over the long term. At the other extreme, I might conceivably have put together a speedy squad with 30% more steals than the league average on draft day and still ended up winning the steals category only about 60% of the time. How can this be?
| Category | Dave | Δ Tm Avg | Δ % Lg Avg | Δ Wins/Wk |
| SB | 45 | +1.41 | +40.5% | +0.138 |
| R | 79 | -0.390 | -1.22% | -0.016 |
| HR | 6 | -0.716 | -8.32% | -0.068 |
| RBI | 41 | -1.76 | -5.74% | -0.064 |
| OBP | .337 | -0.00244 | -0.681% | -0.020 |
| TOTAL | | | | -0.030 |
In the final analysis, the likely impact of switching out an average player for Roberts in this league is to subtract about 0.030 wins per week from a team’s total—a fairly negligible impact, especially given the possibility of a flat spot in the league’s distribution of homers or steals, but a result that nevertheless does not endorse the trade. You would almost certainly get a negative return on the Roberts transaction if you had to bench or trade an above-average performer in order to make the deal happen.
- The opponent’s score in a given category for each matchup was randomly selected from the 264 observed data points comprising the entire 2004 season for that category.
- The measured team’s score was determined using the same procedure, with the following adjustments:
- After a series of scores was generated, it was first scaled by the desired performance factor (0% - 200%), then contracted about its new mean by a ratio of the average team standard deviation to the league-wide standard deviation for that category. These ratios varied from 0.83 to 0.99.
- The resulting score sets were compared pair-wise to determine the expected value resulting from a given performance level versus the league.
Schiavo-Rant!
What better way to post my first item in months than to join the thousands of other bloggers who are blogging away about Terri Schiavo? I was spurred to action by a short article (they are all short, have you noticed?) on FoxNews.com written by a young priest. He brazenly compared Terri Shiavo with Jesus Christ and implored us all not to forget the humanity of Terri.
My ranting response (mailed to him as well as some Fox News feedback channel) follows:
-----------------------
Father Chern,
I read your column on FoxNews.com (http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,151335,00.html), and I had some thoughts of my own.
It seems to me that the main similarity between the Terri Schiavo tragedy and Jesus's crucifixion is that they epitomize their societies' respective culture wars.
In Jesus's time, the Jewish ruling class were outraged by Jesus's apostate sect, and they recognized the danger its populist appeal represented to their established power structure. In reaction, they put Him through the most public, sickening ordeal imaginable to serve as a clear object lesson to other would-be heretics. Ultimately, however, the rear-guard efforts of the reactionary establishment were overwhelmed by the more progressive philosophy of the Christians.
Today, America has its own entrenched power structure. Its mighty leaders are also clinging to the last vestiges of a fading, reactionary worldview, in which the only acceptable definitions of "pro-life" and "family values" are, ironically, ones that spring straight from the Old Testament scripture of Jesus's antagonists. Unfortunately for Terri, Michael, and the Schindlers, our latter-day pharisees have no compunctions about capitalizing on Terri's tragedy for the basest of political motives. And so, we all suffer as the likes of Tom deLay and Jeb Bush do their utmost to turn Terri's life into a sickening, mass-media object lesson, threatening all who dare to embrace the progressive notion that we have the right to end our own lives with some dignity.
In the broad sweep of history, today's reactionary culture warriors are doomed to the same fate as their first-century counterparts. In the meantime, anyone who is truly concerned about the humanity of Terri and her family should be doing everything in their power to draw the curtains on her sham crucifixion and allow her life to end in peace.
Respectfully,
John Lum
-----------------------
Thank-You, Gentle Reader!
My fellow Democrats here in Tampa sure do like to try to use my lumrant words against me, for some unknown reason! I am going to look upon it as a positive thing: it suggests that there must be at least a handful of readers of my site outside my immediate family. Gentle Reader, I write today for thee.
For the benefit of my traditional audience (my sister and my brother, unless I'm mistaken), let me explain: a recent e-mail to a group of local Democratic "leaders" featured yours truly on the distribution list. An unhappy response challenged my inclusion, which would perhaps have been debatable if the leadership group had been discussing matters of Super Secret District Leader Democratic Strategery, but of course that was not the case. My offense was that I had expressed disinterest in the local political game some time back while focusing on the stretch run for Kerry, who seemed to be doing a better job of making things happen for all concerned.
A classic e-mail battle ensued, which I steered clear of. My only comments at the very end were to implore everyone to attempt to focus on things that could actually build us up, as opposed to dividing and hampering us.
Before I continue my rant, I wanted to mention a couple of local newspaper columns that were published this weekend in the St. Pete Times. The first one was written by a reporter who covered the DEC election on Wednesday, and the second one was a human-interest piece about Alvin Wolfe, the DEC District Leader I worked with during the election.
Both of those articles will probably be archived and unavailable sometime soon, so the upshot is that the first one gives a pretty good accounting of the DEC election, and the second one praises Alvin for his public-service efforts, including the campaign work he did this past fall. The author of the election piece correctly concludes that we Democrats need to support our leaders and work ourselves out of the hole we're in, but he fails to do any homework to investigate or analyze the personal track record that our re-elected DEC leader has posted so far. Hmm...sort of reminds you of the kind of "reporting" that we've had to suffer through during the first Bush administration, doesn't it?
I found it ironic that it was the Alvin Wolfe article that contained the one piece of hard, analytical election-related info published that day (the recruitment of over 30 precinct captains)--and doubly-ironic since I was the primary owner of the "recruit precinct captains" task in our district! It's conceivable that ours was the only district that adopted the recruitment of precinct captains as a formal goal, which reflects both the disorganization of the DEC effort and the paranoid, don't-share-the-power attitude that seemed to dominate their thinking during the election push.
OK, where was I? Oh right--my "outing" by my intrepid Democratic colleagues. Well, I guess now I have another data point on the source of the outing, anyway, if not the rational explanation for why anyone would bother.
Keep reading, Gentle Reader!
More Election Failure: Pettiness and Manipulation Writ Small!
The last few weeks I have been helping out a local candidate in his bid to become Chair of the county's Democratic party. Out of respect to him, I'll leave his name out, but anyone involved knows who it is.
My motivations were clear and pretty unassailable (or so I like to think). Between May and November, I got to work directly with the local DEC leadership as well as the largely more experienced crew who came into town to represent the Kerry campaign. To make a long story short: the local folks ran primarily on emotion and good intentions, while the imported people ran on strategy, tactics, communication, metrics, and accountability. Guess which side I favored? Hint: it's the side that accomplished more, and has more evidence of their accomplishments!
We all lost, of course. But it had become clear to me that we desperately needed a change in the local structure if we were going to turn things around anytime soon. I can't claim that the Kerry people had a perfect plan or executed it perfectly, but I can claim that they made a plan and executed it, and I consider that to be the minimal set of actions necessary to achieve success.
After a period of wound-licking following November 2, the next red-letter day on the local political calendar was December 1. That's when, according to the party's by-laws, every DEC officer would be out of a job and there would be an election to determine who would fill those leadership positions going forward. At first, I figured that Change was a hopeless cause and I shared those feelings with some friends, for two main reasons:
- Who in his/her right mind would be willing to run for the unpaid position of DEC Chair and try to make something positive out of the mess we had on our hands?
- The current leadership had, by alienating a large faction of the group and watching them leave the DEC in 2002, then stacking the deck with likely supporters, consolidated a power base that seemed pretty unstoppable. If they decided they wanted to elect Jeb Bush, it didn't seem like anyone could stop it.
Furthermore, a sober look at the situation revealed that there were only 138 people who would be allowed to vote on 12/1, and a quick survey suggested that we had a good bit of support for our new candidate. So, off we went. I revised my outward stance from Situation: Hopeless to Situation: Flicker Of Hope. I set up a voter tracking database for our little fifth column to share (a la the Kerry campaign), and we commenced our discovery and recruitment efforts. Our man did not have an official campaign manager, so a group of 5-10 of us worked together to shepherd things forward.
Fairly soon, it became clear that a lot would ride on our candidate's ability to win over some of the power brokers in town: local politicians, business and union leaders, and leaders in the various ethnic communities. The rest of us did what we could by sleuthing contact information for the 138 voters, making phone calls, and soliciting advice from various contacts around town. We lined up as many votes as we could, we worked to get proxy votes in place for supporters who could not make the 12/1 meeting, and we continually kept track of how the vote looked based on the information we had accumulated.
The good news is that, on the eve of the election, we had a mathematical chance. We had banked about 56 votes, to the opposition's 51, leaving some 30 people whose stances were either unknown or--according to them--undecided. We were hurt by a sizable bloc of union/labor voters who had been instructed to support the opposition candidate; we did not seem to have much support from minority voters; and we were sickly certain that a large number of the unknown or undecided voters were planning to vote against us.
An aside: leading up to the election, I talked with two members of the opposition group who made some reference to "my Web site". In one case, the person was talking about www.johnlumisabigdumbfuckingidiot.org, but it was unclear what the deal was in the other case. I found myself wondering why the hell any of these people were focusing on my Web presence, but I decided not to worry about it. Transparency, right? I'm all about it.
Election night. Our guy came packing buttons and platform statements. He made an excellent speech. And we got our butts kicked, 72-44. In the end, not all of our people showed up, a lot of the opposition people were there, and a few of the votes that we counted on defected to the other side--not unlike the conventional-wisdom diagnosis of the recent Presidential election.
Another similarity in the two elections is that substance got its ass kicked by emotion. Neither candidate talked much about their platform, but our guy did emphasize his idea of creating more Democratic clubs in the area outside of the formal DEC hierarchy so that we could harness a larger number of people and direct their energies more locally. Lamentably, both candidates either made race-related statements themselves or had surrogate speakers who made racial comments. More Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt came from a weirdly ominous and vague statement from the opposition candidate regarding sexual orientation and implied bigotry.
All in all, it was another acutely embarassing evening for local Democrats, and I felt bad for any "newbie" Democrat who happened to show up for the first time yesterday. It was embarassing because the meeting lacked structure, featured equal--and equally unprofessional--numbers of weirdly-hostile rants and meandering snoozefests, and was almost completely devoid of anything constructive regarding our party's future. Anyone without a firm grip on the notion of causality and its attendant complexity would simply point to that meeting and say: "This is why the Democrats lost in 2004."
I can only hope that the new officers--thralls of the opposition candidate, every one--will take action to turn this group into a legitimate organization: one that has goals, seeks to unite local factions, places reasonable people into further positions of leadership, recruits capable workers, and above all endeavors to function like a true organization. And by this last item, I mean that we transform our goals into operational plans, make our leaders accountable for those plans, and put metrics into place to determine whether further changes need to be made to the plans or the personnel involved. I will continue to participate in the local DEC and attempt to lead from within as best I can.
On a final, personal note: the only real offense to me during this stretch took shape on the night of the election. A friend of mine came up to me and said that another DEC member on the other side of the room was not supporting our candidate because of some offensive statements he had encountered on John Lum's Web site. If my corporate experience taught me nothing else, it is that you need to confront problems like this with direct communication. So, I went over to the guy, offered my apologies, and tried to understand what had happened.
What had happened was pretty clear: someone on the opposition side had made a calculated decision that they would attempt to smear my candidate's reputation by smearing me! Apparently, e-mails were circulated that directed DEC members to my Web site and provided specific links to material that--it was felt--would reflect negatively on me. And it obviously worked, though it was completely unnecessary in the end, in light of the landslide for the other side.
Here's my plea: I understand that some stuff on here could be deemed offensive by some people. I can make individual apologies if need be, but I won't be beholden to the Political Correctness Police, and I will not compromise by giving up the level of transparency that I want here. What is offensive to me is that a fellow Democrat would be so small-minded as to mount such a smear attack on another Democrat, especially when there is no formal professional connection between me and the ultimate target of the smear. At every level, Democrats cannot stoop to this sort of ad hominem, unscrupulous, and indefensible behavior; and if they do, they need to admit to themselves that they either have lost their way, or that they never understood what it meant to be a Democrat in the first place.
