Phthursday Musings: Rousing Q&A

On those horrible couple of social media sites earlier today, I threw open the doors, inviting people to solicit my opinions about various things, so as to generate critical musings. I knew this was likely to a) get buried by the social media algorithms and/or b) lead to absolutely horrible questions but, what the hey, right?

Rigoberto asks: What would be your top three choices of countries to which to expatriate with your family?

I’m a practical person, and the most practical answer to this question is Canada, because it’s right there, and because I technically work for a Canadian corporation. So we’ll put Canada at #1.

I’m also a romantic person. What on earth do I mean by that, in the context of expatriating? I think I mean that it’d be wonderful to be in a place where every morning we could wake up and breathe the air and could believe we’d never need to be anywhere else, what with all of the beautiful people and beautiful scenery and beautiful politics and beautiful man-made devices. Also, though, my wife would be super pissed to move to somewhere notably cold. Is that a romantic consideration or a practical consideration? I’m not sure. But I’ve already put Canada at the top of the list, haven’t I? So I guess I need to think of a warm and romantic place, and off the top of my head, I guess I’m going to have to select the south of Spain. Spain at #2.

And then for #3 I’m going to go with a flyer, a place I frankly don’t know much about what it would be like to live there, but which is kind of an even more romantic selection than the above, while also ticking the warmth box, and say Uruguay.

So my answers: Canada, Spain, Uruguay.

Your image is the Uruguayan flag:

Mister Ultra Specific asks: What's your take on the economy?

The way to understand what “the economy” is to picture the flow of money between people and companies and governments and whatever and whatever. The economy is to money what the circulatory system is to blood, or what plumbing is to the water supply. This is a wild oversimplication but I make it in order to answer the question.

The economy “works” when circulation is good, and the economy “fails” when circulation is poor.

At this point in time in history, people and corporations at the very top of the economic system are so ruthlessly hoarding money that it cannot remotely credibly be said that the economy is “working”.

Using the plumbing metaphor, think of a situation where you’ve got a leak somewhere. You’re getting the water you need for whatever functions you’re trying to perform (shower, laundry, toilet, etc.) but you have all of this water leaking out somewhere.

A well-functioning economy is one where there’s no problem with the pipes. What we have right now, though, are a lot of sectors of “the economy” where people are essentially creating leaks in the plumbing, and siphoning cash off that way, without sufficiently participating in the proper overall money flow. So much of the excess wealth we see is directly related to some kind of middleman or another which has imposed itself upon the system and has been allowed to persist. Examples of such things are pharmacy benefit managers, middleman entities between the drug companies and the actual pharmacies. Indeed, there are a lot of examples in the health care space in particular. I think it’s a fair argument that health insurance itself is an example of this.

The demise of manufacturing in favor of a wide open service sector has hypercharged approaches like this, where companies are making millions by imposing themselves, without actually providing services that are truly needed.

In a free-for-all capitalist realm, middlemen like this will siphon off whatever they can, and then they’ll fight you about not wanting to pay reasonable corporate taxes.

In a more sane system, a more coherently regulated one, entities like these wouldn’t be able to exist in the form they currently exist.

Until serious attempts are made to address these sorts of things, the economy is just going to get worse. It’ll go through recessions or depressions and correct itself somewhat but its overall trajectory will continue to be in a direction of poor circulation, and, ultimately, increasingly bad shit will go down as a result.

Your image is this silliness borrowed from this webpage:

Sangamon Geordie asks: Does Newcastle United FC have a chance to buy James Maddison from Leicester City FC?

No. You can not have The Fedd. Move along.

Your video is precisely what you have coming:

Silly McGee asks three baseball questions:

1) Why do the Cubs suck so bad?

2) Please please tell me the Dodgers will not be in the world series

3) And, what's up with the Angels?

The Cubs went for the dynasty, the dynasty didn’t pan out, and they’re still unclear as to what they want to be. Also, their owners are assholes.

If I were going to lay down money today on which NL team will make the World Series, it will be… oh my god, I’m going to say this… the Mets. In a seven game series with the potential that they could have a healthy Max Scherzer and a healthy Jacob DeGrom plus what I consider the extreme likelihood that they will spend a lot of extra money at the trade deadline… yeah, sorry, kids, Mets. But, that’s not the Dodgers. So good news?

And the Angels. The The Angels Angels Of Anaheim.

This was the subject just this week of the Poscast. So I’m borrowing a bit from Joe Posnanski and Mike Schur here. But I’d tick off these major reasons:

1. Very poor drafting

2. Very poor contracts (Albert Pujols, Josh Hamilton, Anthony Rendon)

3. Not seemingly doing a good job of developing pitchers especially

4. Anaheim

On this last point, just think about it: They have the most awesome player on the planet, and the consensus best player of the past decade, but have you ever seen anybody anywhere wearing Angels gear?

Your video is Shohei Ohtani’s upper deck blast in Seattle:

Schlage61701 asks: Is mayonnaise an acceptable condiment on a cheeseburger?

Good god, man, mayonnaise is not acceptable in any way, shape, or form, on a cheeseburger, as a condiment, as a fire retardant, as a peace offering to the XZOPoaahnbfds from Alpha Centauri. Nothing, nowhere, never.

Your image is Patty Mayonnaise from Doug:

Judy Blue Eyes asks: What's the difference between a village, town, city, municipality?

The definitions of these words are all matters of state law (or national law elsewhere) so it depends on what state you are in, and on the convoluted nature of the statutes of the various states.

All that said: Villages, towns, and cities are all types of municipalities. And in Illinois, at least, my one limited understanding is that cities and towns are allowed to have slightly different forms of municipal government, whereas villages are more limited.

Your image is Valerie Harper, star of the very short-lived sitcom City:

RastaGamer asks: Can you share your thoughts on the Socialists for Pritzker movement/meme? How serious should those on the left be about this? Will he? Could he win? Would he be successful at the federal level?

“Socialists for Pritzker” is some dumb Twitter thing, right? So uh no I don’t take it seriously, it’s a dumb Twitter thing.

Also “movement/meme” is simply a virguled oxymoron.

As for the question about JB Pritzker as a potential presidential candidate… my operative assumption is that if Biden seeks reelection he will be begrudingly handed the nomination and any of this surrounding discussion is moot. So assuming that Biden is one term, and if I were to throw out a handful of names who I might consider somewhat likely presidential candidates in 2024, including the likes of Harris and Buttigieg… I think Pritzker would be my personal favorite in the clubhouse, for the simple reason that I’ve seen him do an overall positive job as an executive. I wouldn’t exactly be stoked - I am frankly disinclined to be stoked about supporting a billionaire heir for President - but since he was elected Governor of Illinois, Rahm Emanuel bailed on Chicago (awesome), Michael Madigan retired (awesome), Michael Madigan indicted (awesome), and I frankly think that without Pritzker in power, all of that would not have turned out quite so awesome.

All that being said, I’d really like to see the emergence of other would-be candidates. I’d like to see the emergence of a new standardbearer from the Sanders wing. (I don’t think this will be AOC.)

Your image is JB Pritzker with Rod Blagojevich, borrowed from the Chicago Tribune:

Norman Thwatch asks: My shiftervan seems to be down on torque. Do you think a valve adjustment would help?

You know, a lot of people, a lot of things have been down on torque lately. What I think your shiftervan needs, what I think a whole lot of people need, is an attitude adjustment.

You take that shiftervan out to the driveway, you sit it down, and you tell it in no uncertain terms, it’s time to be up with torque.

And if that doesn’t work… yeah, a valve adjustment would probably help.

Your image is Mike Watt’s 1956 Fender Precision bass:

Morton “Tazewell” Washington doesn’t even ask a question, just says: 2022 World Cup

So, the World Cup is going to be in Qatar, all of that is atrocious, we know all of that is atrocious, somehow Sepp Blatter isn’t in jail, blah blah. I’ll ignore all that.

I’m actually going to give predictions! For each group I’ll predict which two teams advance, and then I’ll give some sketchy predictions for the knockout rounds, which are kind of impossible to predict but whatever, here we go:

Group A: Qatar, Ecuador, Senegal, Netherlands. Ecuador won’t go quietly but Senegal won the African Cup of Nations and they are loaded, especially with Sadio Mane up front, and I think the Dutch are a powerhouse that have been down and will rise back up.

Group B: England, Iran, USA, Wales. USA couldn’t have asked for a better draw. Wales is the weakest of the European teams, and Iran did well in qualifying but I just don’t see them as the strongest Asian team, and wow, nobody from South America here. Christian Pulisic, here’s your chance!

Group C: Argentina, Saudi Arabia, Mexico, Poland. Mexico - Poland will be a huge match. This prediction was interrupted by my child entering the room, handing me an earbud, asking me if I wanted to hear his favorite song… and rickrolling me.

Group D: France, Australia, Denmark, Tunisia. Australia barely made it, and Tunisia was a bit of a surprise. Denmark’s got my man Kasper Schmeichel in goal, you know. And France, well, France. They’ll win the group. But will they get much farther?

Group E: Spain, Costa Rica, Germany, Japan. Costa Rica is not as strong as they have been in the past. Japan, I really don’t know how good they are. It’s hard to pick against the two powerhouses.

Group F: Belgium, Canada, Morocco, Croatia. Bad draw for Canada. Belgium’s a tournament favorite, Croatia was runner up in 2018. I could imagine Croatia not being as strong, but they’ve got a lot of big names for a small country.

Group G: Brazil, Serbia, Switzerland, Cameroon. How did Serbia and Switzerland wind up paired together again? Last time this happened, Xherdan Shaqiri broke out the double eagle. Here’s predicting it happens again. Cameroon is going to be tough though.

Group H: Portugal, Ghana, Uruguay, South Korea. I can’t pick against La Celeste, even if this might be the tightest group of all. And I’m going to send South Korea through with them. Portugal, I think, is not what they have been in the recent past. Tough luck, Ronaldo.

Knockout 1st Round: Germany gets a bad draw and gets bounced. Mexico gets a favorable draw and makes it through.

Quarterfinals: A couple of European favorites will collide early. There’s often an unexpected winner in this round, and the door will open for… Senegal.

Semifinals: The matchups are too unpredictable at this point, but I’ll go with England getting this far, and crashing out here, and the South American teams getting no farther than here.

Final: Belgium 2, Senegal 1. Senegal is that good. But this is when Belgium’s golden generation finally breaks through. If he’s healthy, for my money, the absolute best player in the world is Kevin De Bruyne, and he is surrounded by a still-stacked team.

The thing to keep in mind about all this is that even in November it’s going to be hot in Qatar, and often when you get to the end, it’s deep teams which survive, and I think it might be even worse this year because it’s in the middle of the club schedules. Senegal might be a particularly bad pick for those reasons. Chalk would be to just say, sure, France, England, whatever. But what fun is that?

Your video is something you’re going to see a lot more of this year, Sadio Mane doing something extraordinary:

McBainIceToSeeYou with an even shorter non-question: LIV

LIV sucks, the Saudis suck, yeah.

But you know what really sucks? Golf. And that we have to talk about golf.

I have long been convinced that the prevalence of golf in American society is some combination of laziness and long con. If professional golf disappeared tomorrow nobody would care. We’d all find something else to occupy our time. Golf is simply the sports equivalent of whatever awful militaryesque investigation show CBS still spits out on Wednesday nights, NCIS: Toledo or whatever.

If you like playing golf, that’s cool. Seriously, that’s fine. Go play golf. I’m not talking about that.

It’s just odious as all get out that with so many entertainment options to choose from gold is so consistently shoved down our throats. It’s old school top 40 radio, where they play the hell out of it even if it’s not very good, and after long enough we’re familiar with it and then when it’s on we find ourselves humming along.

I hope LIV collapses spectacularly, because it’s an awful thing, but I hope the PGA collapses right along with it, that it all gets wiped off television, or at least relegated to The Ocho.

I was at the gym tonight and ESPN2 was actually showing professional women’s lacrosse and that was way more interesting than anything golf. Show us more of that. Turn those exceptional athletes into celebrities.

Your image is a stylish 1974 Volkswagen Golf:

And that concludes this installment of Rousing Q&A. If you liked it, be sure to comment that you want to see more of this. Shoot, I’ll do it again next week if the demand is high enough. Consider yourselves challenged.