Smoke and mirrors

  No one disputes that cigarettes are dangerous to not only the user’s health, but to anyone who is around the smoke. It used to be OK to smoke at your desk at many of my jobs. At one company, smoking was banned except for a ‘smoking room’. The room was an office in the bowels of the building. It had no furniture, except for chairs lined up against the walls. When you went down there to have a smoke, we would all sit in a circle watching each other smoke, like some sort of AA meeting. At my first job in Iowa, I could smoke at my desk, but after a couple of years the building was smoke free and the smokers would huddle around the lone outside ashtray to smoke, even in the harsh Iowa winters. We visited my father-in-law in South Carolina a few years ago and all the restaurants had cigarette vending machines. We ate at a Cracker Barrel and sat in the smoking section. Since we weren’t smoking, we got a lot of dirty looks from all the smokers around us and I almost bought a pack just to keep one lit in the ashtray at all times, but we managed to get through our meal without any violence.

  The government is always torn between trying to get people not to smoke and spending the tax revenue that smokers contribute. In Iowa, smoking was banned at all public restaurants, but smoking was still allowed at the casinos since the government gets a big cut out of their profits. You can see a carpet of cigarette butts outside any bar in town from where the people hang out to smoke. If only they were gamblers AND alcoholics, they could satisfy all their addictions form the comfort of their gaming table.

  The latest government initiative to keep people from smoking is to replace the little warning about the dangers of smoking with large graphic pictures of corpses, cancer-ravaged mouths, and other disgusting smoking related pictures (See pictures here). While this initiative will make a lot of bureaucrats feel good, I doubt it will stop anyone from smoking. The dangers of smoking are very well known. If anything, cigarette sales may increase since the new graphic pictures may become collectors items like baseball cards. Some nuns from Baltimore recently sold an old Honus Wagner baseball card for a quarter of a million dollars (story here). Guess where the card came from? Yes, a pack of 1909 cigarettes. If the model for one of the corpses on your next pack of cigarettes turns out to be the next Johnny Depp, you could be a millionaire someday.

  While the government is discouraging smoking by making smokers look at pictures, the city of San Francisco is attempting to discourage kids from eating junk food by preventing fast food restaurants from including toys in meals that are do not meet nutritional guidelines (Story here) . Presumably, McDonalds and the like will switch to healthy meals in order to continue to lure the kids into the stores with the toys. I think this misses the point that greasy, fat-filled burgers and fries and sugar-filled soda taste better than celery sticks and salt-free crackers, toys or not. There are no toys at the supermarket in the soda aisle, but the kids still want Coke and Pepsi instead of milk or juice. The toys used to serve as an inducement for the parents to get their children a meal, now they are expected and just used by the fast food chains to compete against each other for fast food loyalty. I can’t imagine the ban on toys getting past a court challenge. Even if the US courts uphold the ban, the World Trade Organization may rule that the ban on cheap plastic toys isn’t allowed due to the negative impact on the Far East countries that produce them. Maybe San Francisco can take a page out of the government’s book and put pictures of obese kids on the meal bags and toy wrappers.

  I'd like to see the government ban smoking and fast food. There are benefits beyond the improved health of the nation. Which would you rather see smuggled illegally into the country, cocaine and methamphetamines or Marlboros and Big Macs?

Trick plays and playing tricky

  Back in the day when I played baseball and fast pitch softball, my favorite ‘trick play’ when I was pitching or catching was to try to strike out a batter early in the game using the slowest pitch possible. The batter would look silly swinging at a pitch that hadn’t even gotten to the plate yet, and most of the other players would make sure that they didn’t look silly also. They would wait for the slow pitch so they could hammer it, but instead would get a steady diet of fast balls that they weren’t ready for, with a few slow balls that were way outside or in the dirt so they couldn’t hit them. When it worked, either I or my pitcher had an easy game to pitch, my opponents hated me, and my teammates thought I was really smart.

  Last Saturday, the Iowa State Cyclones football team was battling the Nebraska Cornhuskers in Ames. It was a close contest and when the score was tied at the end of the final quarter, the 2 teams played an overtime session where each side takes turns trying to score from the 25 yard line. After each side has a chance to score, if the score is still tied another overtime session is played. The Cornhuskers got the ball first in overtime and scored in a touchdown in 2 plays. They kicked the extra point and were ahead by 7 points. If the Cyclones didn’t score a touchdown on their turn, they would lose, but the Cyclones got a touchdown in 3 plays and lined up for the extra point to tie the game.

  Instead of taking the almost sure extra point by kicking, Cyclone coach Paul Rhoads called a trick play. Instead of holding the ball on the ground for the kicker, Cyclone holder Daniel Kuehl stood up and threw a pass into a 25 mile an hour wind towards an open receiver in the end zone. If the pass was complete, the Cyclones would get 2 points and win the game. Sadly, the wind kept the football from reaching its target and it was caught by a Nebraska player and the Cyclone lost by a point instead of winning by a point or even being tied and playing another overtime session.

Rhoads has been almost universally acclaimed for having the guts to make the decision to stake winning or losing the game on one play. This surprised me since I’ve always noticed that the admiration or ridicule the coach receives for a trick play is almost always proportional to the success of the play. Wisconsin coach Bret Bielema’s manhood was nationally celebrated after he called for a successful fake punt late in a game against the Iowa Hawkeyes that gave his team a chance to win the game (the team capitalized on the chance and won the game in the last 2 minutes). This came a week after Michigan State coach Mark Dantonio pulled off the same trick play in a come from behind win against Northwestern. Last month Dantonio pulled off a successful fake field goal in overtime against Notre Dame.

  I think there were a lot of differences between Rhoads trick play and the ones pulled off by Dantonio and Bielema. For starters, the successful fake punts were called in fairly desperate situations where a failed play would have just hastened an almost sure defeat. Dantonio’s overtime fake field goal call was on a problematic 45 yard attempt, not a fairly sure extra point. I’m sure Rhoads wouldn’t have made the call unless he thought it was going to work, but if I was going to stake the entire game on one play, I’d just as soon have my offense on the field to try to win it instead of relying on trickery.

  Another factor to be considered when going for broke on a trick play is that it is quickly forgotten if it doesn’t work. In a month, no one outside of Ames, Iowa will be talking about the Cyclones failed attempt to beat the Cornhuskers, but if it had worked, it would be celebrated for years to come.

  Two years ago, the NFL’s favorite trick play was to call a timeout just before the opposing team would snap the ball for a game winning field goal. If the time out was called at the right moment, the officials would signal the timeout after the kick was attempted. The kick wouldn’t count and if the kicker made the first kick but missed the second one, the coach was celebrated for his gamesmanship (if not his sportsmanship). If the kicker made both kicks, he would be feted for his fortitude. Eventually, a coach called the time out, but the kicker missed the kick, and then made the second kick. The coach was lambasted as a poor sport that finally got his comeuppance and this trick has been rarely used since.

  Occasionally I would try my 'trick play' on a player who was ready for it. Once I caught the ball with my face. My opponents laughed and snickered while my teammates told me I should have known better. My face was even redder than the blood gushing out of my busted lip. I wasn't so smart that day, but I still remember the look on some of the players faces after they swung and missed at the slowest pitch they'd ever seen and then caught the smirky smile on my face that informed them they'd been had.

Just Like Starting Over

  Last Saturday (October 30th), I ran my first tournament in Des Moines in over 2 years. Part of my assignment as the chess coach at St. Francis is to run 2 chess tournament at the St. Francis cafeteria that are open only to the students of the area parochial schools. I’d rather have tournaments that are open to all, but the Church is protective of their facilities and most of the parents don’t know me very well yet so this is a good proving ground.

Here's some happy prize winners.

  There were 25 players representing 5 schools at the tournament. My fellow St. Francis instructor Bill Broich helped me with the tournament, and he was a big help because while most of the kids in grades K-2 could play the beginning and middle of the game well enough, but when one kid would win all his opponents pieces, they wouldn’t know how to make a checkmate and the other kid would just keep moving into check, so Bill or I would have to babysit until the player with all the pieces eventually left his opponent with no legal moves and the game would be a stalemate or tie game. It was OK because as soon as the game was over, I could go over how to make the checkmate with the kids and parents, so everyone learned something.

  I had a good time hanging out with the kids and since the St. Francis chess club provided the trophies, I am going to be able to use the entry fees to rent a facility for the times that the St. Francis facility isn’t available for my open youth tournaments. I was surprised to see that many of the kids are members of the national chess federation, so they will be able to play in the open tournaments. Most of the kids aren’t ready for real tournament chess, but that won’t be an issue since I’ll be having companion beginner tournaments to help them get up to speed. There is nothing more discouraging to a beginning chess player than to meet kids their age that they can’t compete against, but the beginner tournaments tend to level the playing field.

  The best part of the tournament for me was when everything was put away and I was hanging out with some of the kids whose parents hadn’t come to pick them up yet. We had a great impromptu chess lesson where I played one of the kids while another wrote down the moves and then we would replay the game. We played 3 games which I won by getting more pieces out than my opponent, getting my king to safety, and then attacking the opposing king with the pieces I had developed while their defense was hampered by the fact that their pieces hadn’t moved and were unable to defend the king. In each game, the kids understood more and more about developing their pieces and I felt we connected with some one-on-one time. I wish I could give that kind of attention during the Friday classes, but with 35 kids, there is a bit more babysitting even with 3 instructors.

Intense concentration under some watchful eyes.

  My first open youth tournament is over 2 months away and I’m already wondering what kind of numbers I’ll get. Most of the Catholic School kids in Des Moines are kept busy on Saturdays with whatever sport is in season and their attendance can’t be taken for granted. My free tournament in Marshalltown drew 30 players. By comparison, a 2-day tournament in Ames drew 26 players who paid $30 to $50 each in entry fees. Of course there was a $1000 prize fund with $750 guaranteed. Last weekend’s Iowa State Chess Association (IASCA) Grades tournament in Williamsburg drew 84 players. The 2 Grades tournament I ran in Des Moines drew 111 and 131 and the 3 tournaments in Williamsburg have drawn 141,102, and now 84. Hopefully these numbers are more due to a decline in the enthusiasm for IASCA scholastics than a decline in the enthusiasm of scholastic chess players for chess. I’m just starting the publicity this week for the tournament. I’m budgeting for 25 players but I may just roll lucky 7's and get up to 50.

Texas Sports Teams and Democrats

  If you don’t like Democrats or Texas sport teams, this has been a banner couple of weeks. I only recently discovered my dislike of all things relating to Texas sports teams, when I was abused on facebook by a Texas Rangers fan. Since then I’ve gotten to watch the Texas Rangers lose the World Series in front of their cheering Texas fans and the mighty Texas Longhorns lose at home to long time punching bag schools Iowa State and Baylor. I know that Baylor University is in Texas, but not many people identify the Baylor Bears with Texas and besides, Texas University probably pays their players more than the coaching staffs at Iowa State and Baylor combined. But it got even better when the New York football Giants not only beat the Dallas Cowboys in their billion dollar stadium, they broke Dallas quarterback Tony Romo’s collarbone in the process. The Cowboys then proceeded to lose to the Jacksonville Jaguars at home this past Sunday to secure the second worst record in the entire National Football League. As a Giants fan, I’ve always hated the Cowboys but used to respect their machine like efficiency under Tom Landry in the 70’s and the brilliant and gutsy running of Emmitt Smith in the 90’s. Since then, except for the few years when ex-Giant coach Bill Parcells assembled a real team, they have been a laughing stock and few things amuse me more that watching Cowboy owner and GM Jerry Jones prance, grimace, and groan on the sidelines or his luxury box while his team of high priced celebrity players lose yet another game. The only silver lining in the Cowboys dark cloud is that they will probably win some games with their backup quarterback and realize that Tony Romo is not someone who can lead a team to a championship. He might have grown into that if Parcells had stayed on, but once he left Romo became a tabloid superstar without earning it on the field of play. In any event, it has been a fun couple of weeks to be a Texas un-fan.

  The Democrats took it on the chin in the election this week, losing control of the House of Representatives and many state Legislatures. In 2008, the Democrats were able to use the rampant dissatisfaction with President W. Bush to gain the Presidency and huge majorities in Congress, but 2 years later, they found themselves blamed for many of the same problems.

  I think the big winner of these elections is President Obama. Without a Democratic majority in Congress, he won’t be pressured by his base to follow a too-liberal agenda and now he can throw some of the blame for the nation’s problems on the same Republican shoulders that have just claimed power. Instead of being skewered for not doing enough to advance the cause of gay rights or illegal immigrants or abortion or ... no matter what he actually accomplishes, he will now get credit for any small thing that does manage to get done. Just as voters forgot how much they wanted Democrats to be in charge in 2006 and 2008, they forgot how hated the Republicans were in those years, but they will soon remember. Also, now that Obama has been seemingly weakened, there will be Republicans crawling out of the woodwork to try to gain the nomination to run against him for President in 2012. They will be bashing each other so much that whoever does get the nomination will either be severely weakened by partisan attacks or a fringe candidate with a small energetic base that won’t be able to gain the votes of the middle-of-the road majority. The currents odds on Obama’s reelection is 4/5 (bet 5 to win 9). If I can ever get to Las Vegas, I’ll make the bet in a heartbeat. It is an even surer thing than it was a week ago.

Cut out the election middleman

  Elections always interest me and this year’s is no exception. Who would have thought that 2 years after the Democrats won the Presidency, House and a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate, the Republicans are looking to win control of the House back and may even win the Senate back?

  Some of the anger against the Democrats is frustration about the economy, but there is also a lot of buyer’s remorse about the bailout, stimulus, and health care bills. Unemployment is over 9.5% even though the stimulus package was supposed to keep it down to 8%. The bank bailouts have led to record profits for banks but people are finding it harder and harder to get loans. And there are still plenty of troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, Iran is producing Uranium, and even exporting their nuclear technology to other countries.

  These are all things to be concerned about, but the Democrats have done almost everything they said they were going to do 2 years ago. Their main problem is that the casual voters who put them in power expected instant fixes like the last 15 minutes of a detective or doctor TV show and since the resolutions to our country’s problems aren’t that easily solved, these same casual voters will move on to the next batch of ideas that have ‘quick-fix’ potential.

  There has been an incredible amount of money spent on campaign ads this year in Iowa. I couldn’t even get away from the election advertisements by watching football this weekend. The only positive campaign ads I’ve seen are from Senator Chuck Grassley, whose reelection is a foregone conclusion.

  Living in Marshalltown, I get to see the ads from both the Des Moines and Cedar Rapids media outlets. I’ve seen a lot of pre packaged ads against members of the Iowa Legislature where the incumbent Democrat’s face is shown with President Obama and Nancy Pelosi (mentioning their support for ‘Obamacare’), then noting the incumbent’s vote for the biggest budget in Iowa history, and then pointing out how they voted to cut money for education while voting for ‘heated sidewalks’ (The heated sidewalks were for a pilot project in an Iowa town for a downtown revitalization and were scrapped from the project). The ads conclude by showing me one more look at the face and name of the scoundrel who is wasting my tax dollars and telling me ‘xxx. Wrong for Iowa. Wrong for Us!”. There are 2 different versions of this ads, with a different incumbent pasted into the candidate’s role. The fast food attack ads are a pretty good idea, but with winter fast approaching, I sort of like the idea of heated sidewalks. We wouldn’t have to shovel snow and could save a lot of money and fuel by cutting out the visits to the doctors for shoveling related industries.

  I think the country’s economic problems would be solved if we would have elections every 6 months or maybe even quicker. But why should the newspapers, TV and radio stations, and advertising companies get all this money? After all, aren’t the candidates paying all this money to get our votes? In 2008, Max Sanders faced charges when he tried to put his vote for bidding on eBay, but this is old thinking and I am ready for a change I can believe in.

  I say we should cut out the middle man and allow the candidates buy our votes directly. We could sell our vote early or see if the election is close and we can get a better price. Of course, there is the risk that a blowout would make out vote worthless, but how much would a 2000 Florida presidential vote have been worth? This could be a true celebration of our capitalist system. It would only be a matter of time before the people of China, Iran, etc... revolt over the right to be able to sell their votes also.

  Until that happy day comes, if my blog happens to display the ‘DON’T LET SARAH PALIN WIN’ ad, please be sure to click on it. It is the best paying ad I’ve ever had shown on my blog and I only have 2 more days to cash in. Proceeds willl go to the 'HAHSF (Hank Anzis heated sidewalk fund)'. Thank you!