I posted a few days ago about a “major blog relaunch”.  I’m happy to announce that I am going to start a new project–Third Vent–here on WordPress.  Thus this brings Cultured State to a close.  I’m not going to delete this space; I still think it belongs here as a reference to my earliest musings over the last three years or so.

I intend to get on a regular posting schedule–I’ve committed to at least one major post a week–and trying to get out in the blogosphere a little more.  I don’t intend for this new project to be an SEO/Money generating project.  It’s going to be what my style has always been, except much more concise, much more focused.  That’s a challenge in and of itself, but in order to get my writing skills where they need to be, my posts need to be more concise.

So, the new address will be simple: vcthree.wordpress.com.  The subjects there will be what the subjects were here: politics, sports, life.  But I’m going to write a little more about me, too.

Thanks to everyone who read these rants over the years.  This is not the end; it’s a beginning of a new phase.

See you over at the new place, which…as of Dec. 6th, is still under construction.

I hope to have a first post up by Monday at the earliest; Tuesday night by the latest.

“Why should these hundreds of students with no real vested interest in the District of Columbia, rather than the hundreds of thousands of voters who do have a vested interest, decide my fate, the potential fate of our city and the possible fate of workers who need sick leave?”–Carol Schwartz, D.C. Council (R, At-Large), 9/15/2008.

Answer: It’s a democracy, madam. It may not seem like it, given that you are (were) the highest ranking—and only—Republican in official city government, and likely have been since 1984, but this is what happens in primaries when you have a challenger who finds a way to beat you and is successful.  And if the students there have the legal right to vote in Washington, D.C., who are you to question it?

You lose.  And you have lost.

Now I know that seems crass, especially in a city that continues to reelect Marion Barry to any political office, but that’s the plain truth of the matter—you have lost.  And if think that devaluing the student vote is a smart way to start off your write-in campaign, good luck with that on November 4^th.  You’re going to need it.

You just can’t say things like these and expect to sit on that council again.  I mean, do you not think that the challenger who defeated you in D.C.’s Primary Election, Patrick Mara, will use that to his benefit; especially since your claim is that those students helped to put him over the top?

No matter their basic insignificance to you and your efforts to keep your job, Ms. Schwartz, students have absolute import in the economic efforts of the District of Columbia, even for the short abundance of time they are spending there.  They work and spend taxes in that city; they spend money in that city.  How patronizing to imply that students have no vested interest in the city in which they attend school, when it’s more than likely they’re the ones serving the councilwoman her coffee in the morning.

Or would you rather they spend all their money in Northern Virginia, Montgomery or Prince George’s Counties?

And how easy is it to suggest that it was the students who put Mara over the top, when it was you, Ms. Schwartz, who seemed to run a campaign that says to this observer, over 40 miles north of there, “you know me, you know my name, and I’m going to win again, because…well, it’s me!  Nobody beats me.”  Those students could not have simply accounted for a 20 percentage point win for Mara on their own.  Let’s face facts: Mara beat you in the primary because he outworked you on the ground, and in the community; his message hit the right tone with voters, while you expected to ride your own coattails to another primary win.

In that effort, you failed.

And no wonder you lost—typical Electoral Incumbency Syndrome.  I’ve seen it happen to many politicians in this area, and you’re now a statistic in that category.  Too many years in office, too many easy primaries, not enough work put in after 16 years.  Now you are forced, Ms. Schwartz, to run perhaps your hardest campaign since you ran for mayor and nearly defeated Barry in 1994.

Perhaps this is the impetus you need to finally understand that you cannot simply float in on name recognition, unless you are Marion Barry—unfortunately.  In a city that is 92% Democrat, where you are the lone elected Republican by a mercy law, you can’t afford a luxury of laying back and expecting the Republicans in D.C. to just assimilate to you, because next to your name there’s the R.  Now we’ll see how hard you’re willing to work to keep your job.  Because Mara’s shown he’s willing to work just as hard to take it. And now, he has the advantage of being the Republican candidate, whereas you, councilwoman, now have to resort to a write-in campaign.  That might have worked for former mayor Anthony Williams, but I’m not sure that’s going to happen for you.

But if it is going to happen at all, you might want to stop denigrating a voting bloc that you’re going to need in the fall, just for starters.

If you don’t understand the DTV transition set for February 17, 2009, don’t be too alarmed. I don’t understand much of it either, but what I’m finding out as the Day the Television Dies approaches is that the cable television industry isn’t telling the whole truth on what’s about to happen to your cable service.

The industry is telling you “not to worry—if you have cable television, you’ll be fine.” As it turns out, that’s not entirely the case. A more honest statement would be that if you have cable, and a digital converter box that is HD/DTV ready, you haven’t much to worry about.

If you’re like me, and have a direct-to-TV connection, and that TV is not Digital Cable Ready, be prepared to kiss your ESPN, Comedy Central and cable news buh-bye, unless you’re willing to pay to get a converter box or CableCard (for most Digital Ready TV’s).

Think I’m joking? Call your local cable provider—you know who they are; they’re the only cable provider in your municipality—and ask them.

Better yet, read what MSNBC’s Bob Sullivan wrote in July on the subject here.

The bottom line, here, is if you have a direct coaxial connection to your TV? Your cable’s going down. And more importantly, not necessarily on 2/17/09; it could be any day now. As a matter of fact, if you live in Wilmington, North Carolina, it’s coming at high noon, on Monday.  No, Tropical Storm Hanna didn’t knock your cable service out–Time Warner did, and on purpose.

That’s right; any day now, you will turn on your set, and you will see nothing but snow. And you’ll be on your way to the phone, calling BigCableCo to ask if the cable has gone out, and they will tell you that you need a box, because they’ve gone to full digital. You, and a million others on that system will overload customer service centers, be on hold for hours, and be told that you’d either have to come on down and pick up a digital box—which will bump up your bill by at least $5 (oh, and did I mention you will have to upgrade to digital service tier by default?)—or have said box delivered to your house in the dreaded four-hour appointment  time frame.

If you think calling the FCC to complain is an option, save it; they’ve already made their verdict on the matter:

“However, if you subscribe to cable service, the DTV transition should not affect any TV sets that are connected to your cable service. The DTV transition applies only to full-power broadcast television stations – stations that use the public airwaves to transmit their programming for free to viewers through a broadcast antenna. Cable companies are not required to switch their privately-owned systems from analog service to digital service. In fact, if your cable company offers any analog service, it is required to provide you with your local broadcast stations in analog so that you can watch them on an analog TV without a cable set-top box.

Some cable companies have decided to switch to digital service. This is a business decision made by the cable companies and is not required by the federal government. Your cable company may decide to move certain cable channels off of its analog service tier and onto a digital service tier, or it may decide to switch to all-digital service at once, so that there is no analog service tier for any subscribers. If your cable company decides to move some or all of the channels it provides onto a digital service tier, it may notify you that you need to get “digital cable” equipment to continue receiving that cable service. This may include renting or purchasing a digital cable set-top box or purchasing a digital cable ready TV equipped with a “CableCARD” slot. This digital cable equipment is different from the digital-to-analog converter boxes discussed above, and digital cable equipment is not eligible for the $40 coupons. If you have a digital TV, you may be able to view broadcast stations through your cable system without additional equipment. You should ask your cable company about the equipment options that may be available to you, including any options to purchase equipment from a retailer if you do not wish to rent equipment from your cable company. –Statement from the Federal Communications Commission, “DTV Transition Does Not Require Cable Systems to Switch to Digital”

Note that the qualifier in that statement is that “as long as the Cable companies offer any analog service…” which then leads into, “…but if they decide to go all-digital tomorrow, that’s their call.”

So, you’re SOL if you don’t have a converter box or CableCard to hook up to, and even though the transition date has been given in February of 2009, it is merely a deadline—doesn’t mean that service will last that long. In fact, I predict that 95% of the cable bandwidth will have gone digital before that date, and most of the transition (or analog shutdown) in most of the major markets in the U.S. will happen within a week of the conclusion of the Super Bowl.

Further, this idea that you can merely walk into a Circuit City and purchase equipment to convert cable is a crock; the cable companies invest millions of dollars in trying to keep control of those converters.  Basically, the FCC is telling you what the Cable company is telling you; walk into the store, look for CableCo’s kiosk, and buy (lease) the equipment there.

You’ve been warned.

So, Jericho Scott can’t pitch for his youth baseball team, because the league is “concerned” for the well-being of other players, and he’s just too good for that league.

And it has nothing to do, not a whit, with his team being 8-0, and a likely favorite to unseat the defending champions, sponsored by Carlito’s Barber Shop.

Whatever excuse makes you happy, New Haven Youth Baseball League. Just don’t expect me to buy it. Call me a skeptic, but I see motive, I see opportunity; I see a kid being blackballed for nothing more that to preserve a favored sponsor’s status in the league, and you should be ashamed of yourselves.

Jericho Scott is only trying to play baseball—he just happens to be very good at twirling a baseball that nobody can hit.

I have a major problem with the league administration, as they have not only banned Scott from pitching—they’ve disbanded his team. That a league administrator’s employer is allowed to sponsor a team in that league, and that team coincidentally happens to be the defending champion, and that team having made an offer to Scott to join with them (which he refused—after all, he’s only some kid playing ball with his friends) opens a obvious question: if Jericho Scott joins this team of champions, would he have been allowed to pitch, and would that team have been suspended?

Of course he’d be allowed to pitch, and no one would be so concerned about a 40-mph fastball. Suffice to say, they wouldn’t be all that concerned about it, if Scott was pitching for them, rather than against. That’s what this is really about, essentially—eliminating opposition that they aren’t confident or prepared to defeat on the field of play, and doing so in the appearance, no matter how feigned, of being fair.

Moreover, would anyone be making an argument that he should “move up” and play against older kids—never mind his physical development, or the fact that he has to rotate and play other positions, or face competition that he might not be ready to play against—if either he joins that team, or the team he was on goes 3-5 and misses the playoffs?

I’m thinking, no.

Scott chose to play for his own club, where his friends were, and now that club having gone undefeated with him;  Scott is barred from pitching? And if they send him to the mound for his assignment, the other team just up and quits, with no punishment from the league? Then the NHYBL disbands his team and disperses his teammates?

What kind of league is this? Apparently one where the administration tries to predetermine who shall play for whom, which team gets the better players, and which team (or sponsor) gets the honor of playing in the postseason. And if you happen to have a kid that the league wanted on another team, and that kid refuses (politely), and goes on to dominate you, the league will attempt to ban him from playing you, then advocate for other teams quitting if they have to play against him, then blow the team up, and preserve the artificial order of competitive balance. Not just Jericho Scott; presumably anyone who has any talent at all, that doesn’t play for the predetermined champion of the league.

And any suggestion that he move up and play older kids, based solely on the fact of his pitching ability alone, really doesn’t comprehend sports, or the point of athletic development. That mindset is no different from every knucklehead that told a teenager in high school, based only on the fact that he ran faster than everybody else and could dunk, that he was NBA Lottery bound. There’s a lot of former potential first-round draft picks either in Europe or in one of many assorted mailrooms in the U.S. today, for they hired an agent (like a fool) based on what people—who didn’t know jack—told them, and puffed their heads up with hot air. The point: just because they have one skill at one level, doesn’t mean they’re ready to go to that level, and shouldn’t be pushed there, but by their own talents and mental capacity.

Therein lays another problem with youth sports: one kid does one thing well, and instead of letting the coaches take their time and develop that skill, we (the adults) want to rush it up to the next level, hype the hell out of it, and burn the kid out in the process. Because Todd Marinovich never had any mental development problems, and Michelle Wie just killing out on the LPGA Tour right about now.

All the hype about Scott’s pitch speed should be tempered by this fact: he’s nine, and isn’t looking for a Nike contract. Chances are, he might not play baseball five years from now, and everyone’s theories on his ability to pitch against 11-year olds at age 9 ½ will have meant zero-point-zero.

All I know is, Scott (and a great deal of other kids, lest they be forgotten) is being denied his right to play by adults who either can’t stand competition, are completely insane, or—more than likely—both. And if that’s the message they want to send to the players of this co-ed, “developmental” league, the NHYBL should fold, for the good of everyone involved. Or they can let him finish the season, in the name of sportsmanship. What kind of development is it to teach a group of kids that, when faced with adversity and challenges, it’s better to eliminate the obstacle by whatever means necessary, or just simply…quit? It’s like Ronald Reagan, as Knute Rockne, saying to the Fighting Irish:

“And the last thing he said to me, “Rock,” he said, “sometime when the team is up against it and the breaks are beating the boys, tell them to go out there with all they’ve got…and then walk off the field and quit.”

As parents and adults continue to take the fun out of youth sports, why do we wonder how professional athletes are so jaded, arrogant, and affected?

There were a range of emotions that I had watching Sen. Hillary Clinton give her unity address in Washington this afternoon. But I think that I carry some sadness in watching her effectively end her run for president today, and it comes from just being around my own family of my mother, and sisters, and aunts, and grandmothers. It would have been just as amazing and challenging to watch a woman actually finish the fight to win the White House, as it will be watching Sen. Barack Obama do the same.

Certainly, Sen. Clinton did not break that “highest and hardest glass ceiling”. But whether there’s one giant crack, or eighteen million cracks, I think there’s an agreement—the next woman that gets up as high as Clinton did can smash it with nothing more than a tap. Clinton’s candidacy, even with its flaws, just made it easier for your daughters (and mine, if I’m ever blessed enough to have one) to become President of the United States. Clinton managed to do what Shirley Chisholm, Patricia Schroeder, and, yes, Geraldine Ferraro never could.

And I watched quietly, as the junior senator from New York gave her address to her supporters, wanting to reserve judgment until she finally had finished and exited the stage. For all the resentment and anger and disgust I had for Clinton, which had been thawing out the last four days, Clinton melted it all away when she said:

“Every moment spent looking back keeps us from moving forward.”

And that’s when it hit me. The time has come to dig a plot and bury the hatchet.

We’ve spent of time parsing over this Democratic primary, rehashing the resentments, replaying the highlights (and lowlights) of this campaign season ad nauseam. And here we are in June, less than five months from the national Election Day, and even now, we’re still doing it.

Undoubtedly, I could write more than a sonnet about how her campaign failed miserably, and with a touch of mockery, taunt her and her supporters. It would be easy to do, given the resentments I carried for weeks about her campaign.

Or, perhaps, we could quibble about the supposed inevitability of Clinton’s run, or her supposed narcissism, or the racist dog whistles, or everything and anything that might have pissed you off about Sen. Clinton.

We could do that. I certainly have the last four months.

Or, we could focus on the man who is living off a legacy of a failed candidacy for president eight years ago; who is trying to sell America on the idea that he’s still that candidate, and isn’t the obvious and typical Republican, bought and paid for by the special interests. We could focus on the candidate who served in our Armed Forces, under many of the same benefits that are barely offered to our troops today, and does not support giving them a better opportunity now. This man who makes unconvincing appeals to voters not inclined to support him; John McCain is no more a maverick than I a race car driver, simply because I own a car. The media will sell him that way, based upon his second-place finish to a man—who he now embraces—that attacked his family in the most sleaziest way in 2000.

But this isn’t 2000, and John McCain isn’t that candidate he was then. Perhaps he never was that candidate. He is what he is—a Republican looking for votes anywhere he can find them.

That some Clinton supporters could consider giving this man an audience, much less a vote, speaks to me as utter hypocrisy. 15 months ago, it was about electing a Democrat to the White House; because it was time to reverse what this God-awful Bush Administration had done to this republic.

Now, because the Democrat(s) you chose isn’t going to win, for whatever reason, you’re going to vote to…continue the status quo? You’re going to vote against your interests? Out of spite?

Are you outside your mind?

I understand the emotional investment into a candidate, but this is not, I repeat, not college football; it’s not Michigan-Ohio State. This is your life, and who you choose as president has an enormous effect on how you will live, not just the next four years, but the next decade. But I don’t need to tell you that; you know that already.

15 months ago, Democrats were committed to electing a Democrat to the White House. There was no qualification, no asterisks, no ifs, ands, buts, or maybes to that statement. So when I hear many of these same Democrats state that they would consider a vote for McCain, I have no alternative but to challenge their commitment—to getting out of Iraq, to getting our economy back on track, to women’s rights, to civil rights, to the advance of science and healthcare, to restoring the respectability of this nation to the world. How committed can you be to those things, and call yourself a Democrat, if you’re willing to sell them down the river because your candidate lost, or whatever oblique, and/or bigoted excuse you want to use against Sen. Obama?

My response to that: do whatever you need to do, vote how you want. But live with the consequences of doing so—that means no more complaining about the war, or lack of equal pay, or whatever else you’ve been complaining about all these years. You yield your right to complain about any of it when you vote for John McCain. And try explaining your stance—a liberal/moderate Democrat voting for McCain—to a family of a soldier on his way to another Tour of Duty in a country that we invaded on a pack of lies.

(And this, coming from a person who wrote in his blog space in March that he would consider voting for McCain himself. Trust me on this—it’s not a good idea. And that post, in the interest of unifying Democratic supporters on either side, has been deleted.)

I suppose that my larger point, here, is that we all need to put the resentments of the Democratic primary in the past. I’ve had to do it. It’s easy to hold a grudge, but it kills you all the same. I’ll close with Sen. Clinton’s own words.

Now, the journey ahead will not be easy. Some will say we can’t do it, that it’s too hard, we’re just not up to the task. But for as long as America has existed, it has been the American way to reject can’t-do claims and to choose instead to stretch the boundaries of the possible through hard work, determination, and a pioneering spirit.

It is this belief, this optimism that Senator Obama and I share and that has inspired so many millions of our supporters to make their voices heard. So today I am standing with Senator Obama to say: Yes, we can!

It’s time to commit to moving forward. Starting now.