MorseCode

Random Writings on Just About Everything.

Monday, December 20, 2004

If You Build It

This Washington Post article makes it sound like the possibility of a last minute deal being worked out between Mayor Anthony Williams and City Council Chairman Linda Cropp is increasing.

This is a good thing, and I hope it happens. I'm not a DC taxpayer (except for sales tax on way too many lunches), so I understand my thoughts on the matter are relegated into the "please shut up" bin of most DC residents and officials, but I hope they go ahead and approve a stadium deal. I also hope they manage to put together a decent amount of private funding for it...but a baseball team would help the District. In economic terms, it's probably a minor long term profit for the city over a few decades, but in the fuzzier psychological sense, it would be a real boost for the city.

There's something to be said about the pride of having a sports franchise to rally around. While the Washington Redskins have struggled for the last decade, the rehiring of Coach Joe Gibbs sent a wave of positive feeling unlike anything I've seen through the city and the metro area as a whole. Important victories and championships have that same effect, bringing together diverse residents into something resembling an actual community.

If DC manages to get some acceptable form of the stadium deal passed, it'll at least create something tangible for the city as a benefit. There is a chasm of fuzzy opportunities for any state to spend money, often in practical ways with laudible goals, but results are relatively difficult to measure. Building a stadium will mean DC has a baseball team, which will provide approximately 162 days of public entertainment, and provide a continuing stream of revenue from local fans (like me) who'll trek into or within the city to catch NL baseball.

The other thing that opponents of the stadium should keep in mind is that the Washington Nationals situation is unique among sports francishes, in that they aren't part of a larger state. A DC-based baseball team is acting in competition with other entertainment interests in the suburbs. It can produce a genuine net-gain for District of Columbia interests. If your city is going to be overun with commuters and other outsiders every day, why not squeeze them for every last possible dollar of the discretionary income, because it's unlikely you'll ever get a commuter tax. That's not a tremendous factor in decisions in, say, Miami or Denver, but in DC that's a major issue in the economics of things, and stadium opponents should consider that before sighting certain economic impact studies which don't take that into account.

Hopefully, the City Council works things out in the end and approves something that can work for baseball to return to the nations capital. If not, this Orioles fan will just have to be content with 1-2 weekend games up at Camden Yards in '05.

For Those Who Didn't Notice

A couple of weeks ago I split my blog in two.

MorseCode will continue to be the repository of posts on most subjects related to news, politics, sports, and random thoughts on a variety of subjects. It's not really meant as a journal so much as a place for me to think out loud and share things I think are either important or at least of interest...

MorseCodePop is the "other" blog, where I'll be posting thoughts and occasional news on film, books, comics, music, and other cultural stuff...it's basically where my inner geek will run wild. If you haven't visited it yet, please pop on by (no pun intended). I'll be posting a review of House of Flying Daggers sometime later this week if you're interested, so stop on by when you get the chance...

Actual Good News...

...If you're an Orioles Fan.

They've signed Steve Kline, a very good left handed relief pitcher last with the St. Louis Cardinals.

I'm very happy with this move, as upgrading the bullpen was an important but cheap goal for this offseason and Kline was one of, if not the, best relievers on the free agent market. This certainly leaves the Orioles with the option of trading talented-but-inconsistent closer Jorge Julio, perhaps in a package to add some starting pitching depth. B.J. Ryan could slide into the closer role relatively comfortably, with Kline the set-up man.

However the O's front office handles the addition of Kline, this is a good move and hopefully a harbinger of other smart additions this offseason.

Sunday, December 12, 2004

Audacity

I can't be the only one disturbed by the kinds of stories I'm reading in the paper today.

First we've got the verdict on just what happened to Ukrainian presidential candidate Viktor Yushchenko. He was poisoned with dioxin, and he's been pretty clear he thinks he knows who did it: his own political opponents...

Then we've got the wonderful stories of Bush Administration espionage incompetence. They've been spying on Mohamed ElBaradei's phone conversations, specifically trying to implicate him in some kind of corruption in his dealings with Iran. As usual, they've found nothing, but they're talking rather casually about this...

Many may wonder why the Bush adminstration is held in such low regard by many not just in the US but abroad, and this is a pretty good example. While this type of spying goes on all the time, they've basically taken a posture of open warfare against...well, pretty much everybody, domestic or foreign, who doesn't say what they want to hear.

These stories are disturbing largely cause they seem to confirm that we've regressed into a slightly more brutish phase around the world, where there's little pretense of anything but the naked exercise of power, in any form.

I don't want to sound naive about these things, because I'm not. I can handle the fact that the world is a nasty place and people do stuff that ranges anywhere from unethical to outright evil. It's the fact that it's SO out in the open recently. Things like the prison torture scandal play into this as well, as it just seems like the world has spiraled into a moral black hole, where power and audacity are the only values.

Power and Audacity in a moral vacuum is not a winning combination for us, any of us, in the long term.