When did “what is going to happen” (the future) become more important than “what has happened” (the past)? The question was sparked by comments from Pro Football Weekly editors on how their publication has changed throughout the years. When they first started their weekly publication, they estimated that about 75% of their coverage had to do with recapping and analyzing the previous week’s football games. Now, about 75% of their coverage is about previewing the upcoming week’s games. This shift in focus by the media is prevalent in coverage other industries as well, specifically the financial markets and especially entertainment. When the closing bell rings at the New York Stock Exchange at 4pm, the coverage on CNBC focuses on things such as upcoming earnings releases at 5pm and questions about whether those numbers will beat the street. I think that part of this focus on what has yet to happen is due to these types of 24 hour news networks assuming that you are watching them 24 hours a day. So if you tune in to CNBC at 4pm looking for a recap of the day’s activities, they assume you already know what happened because you were supposed to have been watching their channel the whole day while those events were occurring.

This phenomenon is especially prevalent in the media coverage of entertainment, especially movies. Coverage of movies seems to be singularly focused on what has yet to be released. Entertainment publications are riddled with the latest deals and rumors of any entertainment property that sells its rights to a movie studio. The speculation begins about who will direct and star in the feature film that would be released 5 years from now, if at all. Once a movie has been screened for critics (in advance of its release), it becomes old news. Yet with today’s increasing home viewership of movies through high quality home entertainment systems and cheap DVDs, more and more people are experiencing these movies months after the entertainment media has forgotten about them.

Are we all just living behind the times? Are we all simply experiencing “old news?” Hardly. Rather it is simply that not all consumers feel the need to always live in the future.

Keane’s first album, Hopes and Fears, is a good album in the mold of Coldplay that fit the year 2004 very well. Perfect Symmetry sounds a little too much like generic 80s pop music – so much so that I can’t even single out any tracks to comment upon, as many of them are rather bland. Beyond that, there is nothing really negative about Perfect Symmetry, but there is also nothing compelling that says that this is music that needs to be heard.

Rating: 5 out of 10.

Highway 61 Revisited had been sitting my shelf for years, not being listened to after I didn’t really enjoy The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan.

The opening and closing tracks on Highway 61 Revisited are outstanding. “Like a Rolling Stone” really needs no explanation from even someone such as myself who isn’t a fan of Bob Dylan. “Desolation Row” is the other outstanding track.

The rest of the album is rather forgettable. It matters nothing to me that Highway 61 Revisited is Dylan’s first album to be entirely recorded with a band. What matters is if I can still relate to the music that was recorded. Highway 61 Revisited was released in the same year as Rubber Soul (1965). I can easily see why Rubber Soul is considered a classic because in addition to making an impact at the time of its release and influencing many musicians, Rubber Soul also still makes an impact on people who had never heard the album until 30 years after its release (such as myself). I realize that Highway 61 Revisited is regarded as great album (a glance at Wikipedia has all 8 of their “professional reviews” giving it their highest rating), but two great songs do not make a classic album.

Rating: 4 out of 10.

In the last 10 years, 15 teams have been to the World Series, which is exactly half of all Major League Baseball teams. Those teams are as follows:

• Anaheim Angels (2002)
• Arizona Diamondbacks (2001)
• Atlanta Braves (1999)
• Boston Red Sox (2004, 2007)
• Chicago White Sox (2005)
• Colorado Rockies (2007)
• Detroit Tigers (2006)
• Florida Marlins (2003)
• Houston Astros (2005)
• New York Mets (2000)
• New York Yankees (1999, 2000, 2001, 2003)
• Philadelphia Phillies (2008)
• San Francisco Giants (2002)
• St. Louis Cardinals (2004, 2006)
• Tampa Bay Rays (2008)

It bears repeating: half of all Major League Baseball teams have played in the World Series in the past 10 years. No other major sport can boast this many teams in its championship in the past ten years.

Season 4 of Babylon 5 starts out by leaving some questions unanswered from the end of Season 3, but by no means does that affect the enjoyment of this season. Season 4 seems to move along at a rapid pace, with major developments in the overall story arc that were set up in season 1 being resolved only 6 episodes into this season in the episode “Into the Fire.”

Even as conflict with alien races gets resolved, tensions among individual worlds comes to the forefront for the remainder of this season. Plot lines dealing with the rule of the Centauri and Minbari homeworlds play a role in this season, as well as human conflicts on earth and mars.

Season 4 features several unique episodes. “The Illusion of Truth” features impressions of Babylon 5 as portrayed in the media. “Intersections in Real Time” is a gripping episode which is nothing but an interrogation. The season finale “The Deconstruction of Falling Stars” looks ahead to the future in what seems to be a fitting end to the entire series. I’m not certain of this, but I believe that when season 4 ended, no one knew if there would be another season of the show, so the storylines all wrap up nicely at the end of season 4. The season ends so well that it feels like the end of the series, despite another season subsequently being made.

I honestly do not know where the direction of the series will go in season 5, but I do know that I enjoyed season 4 immensely.

Rating: 9 out of 10.

Major League Baseball batters use pine tar to get a better grip on the bat. But they always put the pine tar half way up the length of the bat, and then touch the pine tar to apply it to their hands. Why don’t they just put the pine tar right on the handle where they grip the bat?

I never know what to expect from new Star Wars novels anymore. After the highs and lows of the Legacy of the Force series, I was unsure how many more Star Wars novels I cared to read. Having said that, I gave Wild Space, a Star Wars Clone Wars novel by Karen Miller, a chance. Overall, I am glad I did.

The book is stated as being “inspired by the TV series” but other than knowing who the character Ahsoka Tano is, no knowledge of the TV series is required. The best parts of Wild Space are the ones that tie in nicely to the movies, specifically parts of the end of Episode II: Attack of the Clones. These parts only tie into approximately the first half of the book. Almost all of the second half of the book deals with a mission/adventure of Obi-Wan Kenobi and Senator Bail Organa, which while compelling at times, is not the best part of the book. The second half drags a bit towards the inevitable and somewhat predictable end.

Wild Space is an enjoyable book despite some ups and downs, though it is by no means an essential part of the Star Wars universe.

Rating: 6.5 out of 10.

“El grillo” by Josquin des Prez is another Early Music Gem.  This frottola about a cricket is pure fun. The first line of the song translates to “The cricket is a good singer.” The Hilliard Ensemble conducted by Paul Hillier show the lighthearted nature of this song, proving it to be one of my favorites of the Renaissance. The up-tempo performance by the Hilliard Ensemble suites it perfectly. The only thing I need to say further about El grillo is that it puts a smile on my face every time I hear it.

Ever since reading The Illuminatus! Trilogy by Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson, I have been able to see the fnords. The general concept of a fnord is something that according to Wikipedia “subconsciously generates a feeling of uneasiness and confusion, and prevents rational consideration of the subject. This results in a perpetual low-grade state of fear in the populace. This in turn perpetuates the need for Government, because without fear, people don’t need Government… Fnords are scattered liberally in the text of newspapers and magazines, causing fear and anxiety in those following current events. However, there are no fnords in the advertisements, encouraging a consumerist society.”

A fnord is the use of fear by the media. Mainstream media, including tv news, uses fnords heavily. So much so that the purpose of mainstream media is to publicize fnords, meaning the purpose is to perpetuate a “low-grade state of fear in the populace” in order to justify not only the need for government but also the expansion of the powers of government. Think about the subtext of all of the news reports about crime. Why does the media feel the need to report on murders, robberies, burglaries, and other types of crime? The purpose is twofold. One is to spread fear. Two is to justify the expansion of government powers. If crime persists then the populace is more will to allow government to grant itself more power in order to fight crime.

Why is Bernie Madoff such a big news story? Again, the reason is twofold: to spread fear and to justify the expansion of government power. In this case, the fear is of investing in financial products that are not highly regulated, as the government competes with private investment products. Madoff is used as an example of government’s desire to expand its power to regulate financial services.

There are countless subjects and stories in mainstream media which use fear as a means to justify and expand government powers. Another recent example is healthcare reform. The justification for healthcare reform is the fear of losing your job and being without healthcare. The message from the media is that the government can alleviate this fear by further extending its reach into private industry by providing healthcare coverage.

The subtext of fear and expansion of government power can be seen throughout mainstream media when you are able to see the fnords.

I found a great user review of Children of Dune by Frank Herbert on goodreads. The review is as follows:

The Dune series is remarkable in that each sequel gets progressively worse until it’s unreadable.

The first book is truly excellent. It’s mantra on fear alone makes it great.

The second book a very good sci-fi novel.

The third book (Children of Dune) is merely okay.

The fourth book is sub-par, but still interesting.

The fifth book is a pain in the ass to read.

The sixth book will leave you concerned about the author’s health, so terribad is the writing.

But hey, the first book kicks ass!

This sums up Frank Herbert’s Dune series extremely well.

The Black Parade by My Chemical Romance is the album of the decade. No other album is even close for me. Gerard Way and the rest of MCR have taken many of my favorite bands, songs, styles, and elements of rock from over the past 40 years and combined them all into The Black Parade. They have made Pink Floyd’s The Wall for the 21st century. From the opening song “The End” echoing The Wall’s “In The Flesh”, to lines in “Mama” sounding straight out of the “The Trial”, to the concept of the album about a man on his deathbed reflecting upon his life, the influence of The Wall is obvious. Mix in the musical styles of Green Day, Smashing Pumpkins, and a little bit of Queen and you get The Black Parade.

As is the nature of most concept albums, The Black Parade is one of those albums that demands to be listened to from start to finish, rather than picking out a few singles to listen to. Having said that, the song “Welcome to the Black Parade” stands out as such a great track that it deserves its own commentary (which I have previously written).

What separates albums such as The Wall or The Black Parade is the raw emotion that pours through the music. Most of the music that Roger Waters wrote between 1977 and 1992 (either solo or with Pink Floyd) resonates with such a range of emotions that I can’t help but be moved by it. The Black Parade succeeds in capturing that emotion in such a way that no other album has since 1992’s Amused To Death by Roger Waters.

So if The Black Parade is the album of the decade, why only give it a 9.5 rating instead of a 10? The only minor point I can make with The Black Parade is that it never seems to step out of the shadow of its influences. While all music is influenced by what has come before it, most times when listening to music I hear its influences during the first couple of listens. After listening to music more than one or two times, the best music becomes something all its own and you forget that the riff from “Smells Like Teen Spirit” is straight from “More Than a Feeling” by Boston. Even after repeated listens, I can’t help but think that Brian May himself from Queen is playing a guitar part in “Welcome to the Black Parade” or that the way the lyrics “You should have raised a baby girl/I should have been a better son” from “Mama” are sung sound like they were lifted straight from “The Trial” on The Wall. But the truth is that this quibble doesn’t distract from The Black Parade being a truly great album – the album of the decade.

Rating: 9.5 out of 10.

The baseball historian in me would have liked to have seen John Smoltz, Greg Maddux and Tom Glavine all enter the Hall of Fame together in the same class. This would most likely have been the case if Smoltz hadn’t attempted to give it one more try when he pitched for the Red Sox this year. Maddux retired last year, Glavine was released before he ever pitched an inning this year, so both are eligible to be inducted in 2014. Now Smoltz has to wait another year, assuming he doesn’t pitch again next year.

Maybe some baseball writers will not vote for Maddux and Glavine on the first ballot with the intent to vote for them on the second ballot along with Smoltz.

We’ve seen the stock market hit its high for the year already. I’m predicting that last week’s 9,424 on August 12 will be the high for all of 2009.

Weasels Ripped My Flesh is a highly inconsistent album where the avant-garde experimental moments distract from the music. The album really only has about 15 minutes of actual music on it, whereas the rest is just noise. The first minute each of “Toads of the Short Forest” and “Dwarf Nebula Processional March and Dwarf Nebula” contains some nice tunes that are fun to listen to, but aside from a Little Richard cover of “Directly From My Heart to You,” the music really doesn’t start until “My Guitar Wants to Kill Your Mamma” which is the standout single on the album with its Hendrix-like riff.

“Oh No” and “The Orange County Lumber Truck” are Zappa classics that he would use throughout his career in various forms and concerts, and are worth hearing in what could be considered their definitive versions on this album. But the fact remains that the last three aforementioned songs are really the only ones worth listening to on Weasels Ripped My Flesh.

Rating: 5.5 out of 10.

The band Motorhead gets a lot of credit these days as being pioneers of heavy metal. The band is regularly sited as influencing many of the most popular metal bands of the past 25 years. But for me, Motorhead is overrated.

Yes, Lemmy is cool. He’s an uncompromising personality who’s still going strong after 30 plus years. He’d be a great guy to have a few beers and hang out with. But if you put aside the fact that Lemmy is cool, the music of Motorhead just doesn’t hold up. Granted, they’ve released tons of albums and I haven’t heard all of the stuff they’ve done in the last 20 years, but their legacy and influence was made longer than 20 years ago (which is the music of theirs that I have heard).

Other than the fact that Lemmy is cool, nothing I’ve heard convinces me that Motorhead is anything other than overrated.

The past couple of years there have been so many books I’ve wanted to read that I decided if I wasn’t enjoying a book after reading about 100 pages of it I would stop reading it. It isn’t worth my time to continue trudging through a book if an author hasn’t done a good enough job in the first 100 pages to make me want to continue reading it. There are too many other books I want to read. Since I don’t want to review a book that I didn’t complete, I won’t write a full review or rate these books, but rather list them here and make a brief comment about them.

• A Fire Upon The Deep by Vernor Vinge: I could not figure out what the heck was going on the first 100 pages of this multiple award winning science fiction book.
• Heretics of Dune by Frank Herbert: Is there a new Kwisatz Haderach? Can a lush and green Dune really be bad for the planet? By book 5 in the Dune series, I no longer cared enough to find out.
• Neuromancer by William Gibson: Considered a classic my many, but the gritty language and unengaging characters turned me off after 100 pages.
• Startide Rising by David Brin: I simply wasn’t able to take the talking dolphins seriously.
• Memory by Louis Bujold: Maybe I shouldn’t have started with book 8 in a series?
• Lord of Light by Roger Zelazny: Are the characters gods? Are they humans? After 100 pages I didn’t care.
• Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman: Was this supposed to be funny?
• Happiness by Matthieu Ricard: Nothing revelatory here except for how much it dragged.

I’m not saying that all of the above books are bad, I’m just saying that for whatever the reason I simply decided not to finish reading them. In hindsight, my enjoyment of a few of them may have more to do with my own reasons than any reason of the author’s, such as starting with book 8 of a series. Some I would not rule out trying again at some point, such as A Fire Upon The Deep. But for each of these, I felt that after a certain point in the book my time would be better spent reading something else.

Think about this:

The federal government wants stock prices to remain low in order to attract investors to treasury bonds.

The federal budget deficit is running at record levels. In order to finance the deficit, the federal government issues treasury bonds. If no one bought treasury bonds, the government would not be able to finance their deficit without having the federal reserve purchase treasuries directly through money it “prints” from nothing. In order to avoid that obviously inflationary measure, the government needs to attract investors into purchasing treasury securities.

If returns on stocks are flat or negative, or if recent history has proven that the stock market is subject to potentially large losses, investors will naturally turn to the safety of bonds. The income from treasuries is seen as one of the safest investments there is. Even if demand for treasuries increases to the point where 3 month treasuries are only yielding 0.01% (as they were in December 2008), that was still seen as a better investment than stocks at the time.

In this respect, the federal government competes with private companies for funding (through private and foreign investment) and has every incentive to make their financial product seem as attractive as possible.

Anyone who thinks that Pedro Martinez is going to make any meaningful contribution to the Phillies did not watch him pitch with the Mets the last two seasons.

The Year 1000: What Life Was Like at the Turn of the First Millennium: An Englishman’s World by Robert Lacey and Danny Danziger was not coincidentally published just before the turn of the last millennium. Millennial hype aside, the book intends to describe what life was like around the year 1000,  rather than be a history of events occurring in the year 1000. The book’s primary source and focus is the Julius Work Calendar, a document written sometime around the year 1000 describing and illustrating life at the time. While I did appreciate the light tone of the writing, the subject matter bounced around somewhat too much despite the attempt to focus each chapter on a single topic related to a month of the year as described by the Julian Work Calendar. There may have been a few interesting facts and nuggets of information, specifically regarding the origins of certain words in the English language, but overall the book left little lasting impression on me.

1215: The Year of Magna Carta by Danny Danziger and John Gillingham is a very similar book both in its theme and writing style (one of the authors is the same as The Year 1000) but the results are somewhat more enjoyable in 1215. Instead of the Julius Work Calendar, the focus of 1215 is centered around the Magna Carta. The discussions of the document itself are saved until the latter third of the book, with the beginning focusing on life in England after the Norman conquest and then more of what you would describe as the historical aspects of the time, specifically the reign of King John. This broader focus actually makes for a more informative and enjoyable book.

I haven’t read many other books on this subject, but I would say that if you are interesting in learning about medieval England, skip The Year 1000 and give 1215 a try.

Rating for The Year 1000: 5 out of 10.
Rating for 1215: 7 out of 10.

In yesterday’s Yankee game, Derek Jeter was called out on an attempted steal of third base on a play where the replay showed that Jeter avoided the tag at third. But in my opinion, the umpire made the correct call. The throw beat Jeter to the bag, and the third baseman applied a tag on Jeter. The tag missed Jeter only because Jeter held his left hand and arm back as he slid head first into third base, where his body moved forward right into the tag but his hand and arm never got tagged.

When I saw the play originally in real time on TV, there was no doubt in my mind that Jeter was out. Why was that? Because the throw beat Jeter to the bag and the third baseman applied a tag on Jeter right as he hit the base. I truly believe that anyone umpiring third base that day would have made the same call. It was only through Jeter’s clever but unnatural holding back of his arm was he able to avoid the tag and the human eye would only pick up on this in a slow motion replay.

Even watching the replay and knowing that the tag was not applied, I still think Jeter should have been called out. I am a believer that if the throw beats the runner and a tag is reasonably attempted, then the runner is out no matter if the tag actually touches the runner or not. I think that the general principle of the defense executing a play in getting the ball and being in a position to apply a tag upholds the spirit of the law even if it does not conform to the letter of the law.

Also, I think that the most difficult judgment call that a baseball umpire has to make is if a tag has been applied or not. When arms and legs are moving at the speeds which professional athletes move, it can be extremely difficult to judge if a glove grazes someone’s jersey or if it misses by a fraction of an inch. Because of that, I feel that it is reasonable to assume in any case where it could be argued that a tag was or was not made, then a runner should be called out. I realize that this still leaves room for interpretation and judgment by an umpire, but I think this is actually an easier judgment call to make than trying to determine if a glove makes contact with a runner.