Crazy Week

This has been a crazy week.  I feel like it would be a helpful public service to take a minute here and just sort of review everything. 

First, on Tuesday morning, the Supreme Court announced that they had decided to gut the 1965 Voting Rights Act.  Not a good start.  Now, to be fair, were we really going to let minorities keep voting in the south forever?  I mean, come on.  Plus, this Supreme Court is very into the founding fathers, and if you had asked Thomas Jefferson about this he would have said something like "What?  Why would I let my slaves vote? What's wrong with you?".  I assume those are the two basic arguments opponents of the Voting Rights Act made.  I can't think of anything better.

Seriously though, this was terrible.  It seems to me that the right of citizens to vote should be marginally more important than the right of states to not be minimally regulated based on their long histories of institutional racism, but then again, I'm not a big time fancy lawyer. You may not be a minority voter, and if you don't care about minority voters I can't make you, but just remember that the Supreme Court, the group of people who interpret the laws for your country, cares about the rights of states more than it cares about the rights of individuals, and that's pretty sad.

Also, there's no truth to the rumor that Alabama will now be granting an extra vote to anyone who shows up at the polls wearing a confederate flag somewhere on their clothes, and two extra votes to anyone who shows up wearing nothing but a confederate flag. 

But while that was happening, something awesome was also happening, in Texas (seriously).  The Texas State Senate was trying to pass a bill that would severely restrict abortion rights in Texas, because that's what Texans do I guess.  Tuesday was the last day of the legislative session and Texas State Senator Wendy Davis decided she was going to filibuster until midnight so they couldn't pass the bill.  She started a little after 11AM and kept going with no breaks for like 10 or 11 hours. 

I didn't really see any of the filibuster because I had work all day and also none of the cable news networks covered it and it took me a while to realize it was going on, but I tuned in on YouTube around 11PM Texas time and I feel like I caught the best part.  Apparently the Republicans in the Texas Senate were claiming that Senator Davis violated the rules of the filibuster three times, and in Texas three strikes means your filibuster is out.  The Democrats appealed this ruling and I tuned in while the Texas Republicans were googling "how to make a woman stop talking" (supposedly they were actually reviewing parliamentary rules and such, but based on what I saw my theory sounds more plausible).

They finally started Senating again after about 10 or 15 minutes, and that's when Senator Davis' colleagues started trying to help her out.  First, Senator Older Librarian Lady (I don't know any of the names except for Wendy Davis) stepped up, and she was a whirlwind of parliamentary inquiries.  I'd say she took up a good ten minutes just politely asking questions.  Unfortunately she eventually ran out of steam when she ran into some circular "because I said so" Senate logic from the guy running the Texas Senate (hereafter known as Captain Mustache, though I may be making up the fact that he had a mustache, but he looked pretty mustachy to me).

Then they moved on to debate on the appeal of the ruling that ended the filibuster.  Senator Beauregard T. Crockett went on for about ten minutes until Captain Mustache got tired of listening to him and just let some other guy call the vote on the appeal.  My favorite part of this section was that it took me and most of the people commenting on YouTube about five minutes to realize Beauregard was on Wendy Davis' side.  It was sort of jarring when it hit me.  He was just so southerny and Texasy.  Good for him though.

After the Republicans voted down the appeal, it was time for Senator Hispanic Lady in a Pants Suit, and she was awesome.  Senator Pants Suit peppered Captain Mustache for a good 7-8 minutes with her own hurricane of parliamentary inquiries.  When Captain Mustache finally got tired of her, she finished by asking what a female Senator has to do to get recognized over her male colleagues.  What happened next was, literally, the best thing I've ever seen in a Senate Chamber.  OK, that's pretty specific, but still.

The gallery, who had been super well-behaved up to that point, sensed that the Democrats were sort of out of ideas and the Republicans were getting ready to vote on the actual bill.  Captain Mustache finally stopped falling for the parliamentary inquires and may or may not have turned off some microphones so the Democrats couldn't bother him anymore.  You know what they say in Texas, fool me 114 times, shame on you, fool me 115 times, shame on me.  So, with the vote coming and the Democrats defeated, the gallery, in response to what Senator Pants Suit said, proceeded to cheer and chant for about 18 minutes until it was a few minutes after midnight.  At one point, Captain Mustache tried the old "if you stop cheering we'll stop voting" trick, but the gallery didn't fall for it.

This was fun to watch and really impressive/inspiring, but I went to bed thinking the bill had still passed, seeing as Captain Mustache said it did.  When I woke up, I found out that Captain Mustache is a liar and a cheater and the bill had, in fact, not passed.  The bill will almost certainly pass eventually, Texas isn't getting any smarter, but this was an awesome moment of democracy and I'm glad I had the chance to see it.

That was just Tuesday.  Wednesday featured two almost simultaneous happenings.  Two things which received news coverage almost inversely proportionate to how important they were.  First of all, we found out that while the New England Patriots may not have won a superbowl in a while, they've been secretly leading the league in murders (allegedly).   And that's really all I have to say about that because the TV won't shut up about it and I just don't care.

More importantly, the Supreme Court (remember them from yesterday?) announced that they had struck down a section of the Defense of Marriage Act and had also declined to rule on Proposition 8 in California, effectively restoring marriage rights to same-sex couples in California.  Both of these rulings were, while not perfect, full of all kinds of good stuff for marriage equality.

Here's how you know this was a big day for marriage equality.  Fox News almost completely ignored this story all day.  If you've never watched The Five on Fox, they basically get five of the stupidest people you could ever find (OK, four of the stupidest people you could ever find and Dana Perino, who is adorable), put them at a table and have them talk about politics and stuff.  I watched them for pretty much the whole hour yesterday, they didn't go anywhere near this.  I'm not sure Republicans have any idea what to do with this now.  Even the Roberts court won't back them on homophobia.  It's a bad week for bigots and religious nuts.

Fox spent the rest of the night talking more about Paula Deen than they did about two historic Supreme Court decisions.  Ya know, I was originally on the fence about Paula until she went on TV this week like a blubbering idiot and cried about how you can go ahead and cast the first stone if you've never said something you regret.  You know what Paula.  How about she who has never said the n-word can keep getting paid ridiculous amounts of money to melt butter on TV.  Go away.

And then, as if all of that wasn't enough, today the Senate passed an immigration reform bill.  Sure, it's probably dead on arrival in the House, but still, the Senate did a thing!  I had to check with all three cable news networks to make sure MSNBC wasn't hallucinating.  So it was a crazy week, and here's what I learned:

1) Seriously, cable news is awful.  They spent more time this week on Paula Deen, Aaron Hernandez and George Zimmerman than they did on the awesome Texas filibuster and three really important Supreme Court decisions.  A friend from college pointed out to me the next day that while the filibuster was going on CNN was airing an important discussion between Piers Morgan and Dr. Drew regarding blueberry muffins.

I guess CNN gets a pass, I have a lot of questions about blueberry muffins.  Why not chocolate chips? Can I trade you one blueberry muffin for four mini-muffins? Can you tell me what blueberries taste like because I don't really know?  I guess if I had watched Piers Morgan and Dr. Drew instead of the filibuster, I'd know the answer to these and many other muffin related questions by now.

2) No matter how obviously you murder someone, you can always find people on TV to take your side. I watched like five minutes of George Zimmerman coverage, because MSNBC literally stopped in the middle of a great discussion of the DOMA ruling so they could show us silent pictures of the Zimmerman trial, and you know what I'm already 100% sure of?  George Zimmerman is definitely a murderer (allegedly).  Even if you believe every word of his story, his basic story is "that guy was punching me, so I shot him in the chest".  That's not a proportional response!  I'm not a Florida law expert, but it can't possibly be legal to shoot somebody in the chest for punching you.

3) I will stay up way later than I planned to in order to watch anything that even remotely reminds me of an episode of The West Wing.

4) I think...oh wait, forget about what I learned, because also, I almost forgot about this, the President made a big speech about climate change and said he's going to start doing a bunch of executive orders to get on top of that whole thing.  I don't know if he'll actually do anything, or if it'll actually work, but that was like the 8th biggest story this week.  Crazy week.

Why Are You So Bad At Your Job?

I've been thinking about this for a while and game 6 of the NBA finals was sort of a tipping point for me.  First, Tony Parker clearly got pushed when he tried to make a game winning shot at the end of regulation.  He also flopped, but still, he was fouled first.  Then, Manu Ginobili got mauled by more than one Miami player on his way to attempting a lay-up near the end of overtime.  Manu also took about 4 steps.  Neither one of those things drew a whistle.  Then Danny Green got tackled by Chris Bosh while trying to make a game tying three at the buzzer.  Van Gundy commented that he was OK with the no call but "is that a foul in the first 46 minutes of the game? Definitely!".  That's not how rules work Jeff!

Quick sidenote on the NBA finals.  I guess I'm rooting for the Spurs, but I kind of don't like either of these teams and I feel like neither outcome will save me from a summer of having to hear about Lebron all the time, so I mostly don't care who wins. 

Anyway, back to the point...why is it so hard to find competent officiating for major professional sports?  It's an honest question.  I sometimes feel like the NBA is secretly only allowed to recruit referees from prisons that are full of prisoners whose crimes somehow related to their complete inability to understand the rules of basketball.

Before we get to actual sports though, a quick honorable mention for soccer.  We'll talk about the NBA more in a little bit and when we do, just remember that flopping started in soccer.  Soccer referees throughout the world were so incompetent at discerning the difference between an actual foul and a flop that flopping became something of a soccer tradition, like 0-0 ties or standing around and not doing anything while the game is actually happening.  The influx of European players to the NBA was immediately accompanied by the advent of NBA flopping (I'm looking at you Vlade Divac).  There's no excuse for American referees to be just as useless as European soccer referees, but still, like most things, some of this is all soccer's fault.

Let's start with the NHL because, as usual, hockey is better than everything else.  I honestly can't remember the last time I walked away from a hockey game thinking that the officials had influenced the outcome of the game in any real way.  Hockey officials are the exception that prove the rule.  You could read this and say I just hate all referees, and you could be right, except you're not, because I don't hate hockey refs.

To be fair, there's definitely some built in advantage here.  Most hockey calls are relatively subjective and the NHL has taken concrete action in the rules to avoid flopping and exaggerating to get calls.  Also, most hockey commentators are Canadian, so they're generally pretty nice abooot stuff and they don't kill the refs too much even when they do miss a call. 

Hockey officials also get extra bonus points because A) if you count each skate individually, hockey players are carrying three deadly weapons at all times and B) hockey officials have to know how to skate, making them the only officials I can think of who actually have a skill. 

One more important point here.  Since, when you grow up, you learn that none of your dreams actually come true, I don't live in Canada.  Our syrupy neighbors to the north take hockey at least as seriously as we take football, and I imagine that if I were to walk into a Winnipeg sports bar in January I'd hear Canadians using their awesome accents to politely complain about all the bad calls in last night's Jets game.  So maybe it's all just a matter of perspective. 

Speaking of football, the NFL is sort of a mixed bag.  On one hand, I feel like there's been a disputable or debatable call on every football play I've ever seen.  The NFL provides a constant stream of questionable officiating, and I'm not sure I've ever fully agreed with a call in an NFL game. 

But the thing is, I'm not sure I've ever fully disagreed with a call in an NFL game either.  Officiating football is really hard.  Take a look at the basic situation for NFL refs:
-Players basically assault each other on every play and it's perfectly legal...
-except for the quarterback, who has like one square foot of area where you're allowed to touch him.  -I'm not sure if anybody in the world is 100% clear on when you're allowed to hit a receiver.
-Commentators constantly point out that there's holding on every play, which seems true enough, but you obviously can't call it on every play. 
-The rules change slightly every time someone gets another concussion.
-And there are all these complicated extra rules about eligible receivers and things happening down-field and whatnot. 

It's a lot, is what I'm saying.  Watching a group of guys try to properly officiate an NFL game is a lot like watching your dog try to work the microwave.  He's not going to get it right, but it's not really his fault either.  Plus it's football, so it's not like we're going to stop watching, so who really cares.

Now we come to baseball and this is where I start to get annoyed.  Baseball umpires have the easiest job I could possibly imagine.  First of all, most baseball rules were written 150 years ago.  People were less creative back then, so you have really simple rules like "if the ball beats the runner to first base, the runner is out" or "if a fielder catches the ball before it hits the ground, the batter is out" or "women aren't allowed to vote", etc. 

Secondly, if baseball were moving any slower, the games would be happening in reverse.  Baseball umpires are the only officials I can think of that literally never have to worry about watching more than one thing at the same time, and that's because there are four of them (six in the post-season) and there's almost never more than one thing happening at the same time.  Unlike other sports, baseball doesn't really have things happening off the ball that the officials have to worry about.

So, to recap, the job of a baseball umpire can be summed up as "watching the shiny ball and describing what happens around it".  And yet, way too many baseball umpires are just terrible at it.  I honestly feel like you could train four smart horses to umpire a baseball game and you wouldn't necessarily notice the difference in call quality.  I'm also 100% sure baseball umpires could be 100% replaced by some well placed sensors, a locator chip in the ball and a computer.  Why haven't we done this yet?

Finally, we come to the NBA.  Why is every basketball game I watch an officiating catastrophe?  I don't even know where to start.  You get two steps when you pick up your dribble.  TWO!  Can NBA referees not count to three?  I could replace NBA refs with the smartest kids in a nursery school and get better calls on traveling violations.

And the blocking/charging calls.  I know, that's not so easy, but still.  If you put me in a room where I couldn't see the game and just told me whenever there was a blocking/charging call situation and I just flipped a coin to decide which one to call, you wouldn't be able to tell the difference between my results and the results we get from NBA refs.  You know I'm right about that.

And the flopping.  So much flopping, so easy to fix.  Just stop making the calls.  Next time a defender dives to the ground like he was shot trying to draw a charge, don't call a charge, or a block.  Just let them keep playing so the offense gets two points because one of the guys on defense is rolling around on the floor like a moron. 

And then there's Lebron.  Yes, Lebron gets his own paragraph because watching NBA referees officiate Lebron is one of the most frustrating things I've ever seen in sports.  Every time Lebron goes to the basket he uses his off hand to clear out his defender (which is super effective for him, because he might be the strongest person in the history of everything).  Not only does he never get called for this, but half the time the defender gets called for a foul for viciously assaulting Lebron's left elbow with his face.  I sometimes think NBA referees all have a secret memo from David Stern which reads, in part, "Our research shows that people like watching Lebron score, so if you see anyone trying to stop him from doing that, just call them for something, we don't really care what". 

You know why people can't stop spinning conspiracy theories about the NBA using officials to manipulate games and playoff series results?  It's because people watching are just trying to think of a plausible explanation for how the officiating could be so consistently awful.  And the most frustrating part is, we never get an explanation.  Why are referees the only people in the world who never have to be accountable for their job performance?  Why don't they have to do a press conference at the end of the game like coaches and players do?  Just once, I'd like to see a reporter get to raise his hand in a press room and ask the lead official of an NBA crew "Why are you so bad at your job?"