Posted on

Golf

Yesterday I played golf. Golf is okay.
My family really likes golf, especially my Mom’s side of the family. My parents had me taking golf lessons at, I’d guess, age 7 or 8. They wanted to make sure I knew how to play and the basic rules of golf. At the time I was never very excited about it but now I’m grateful they did that.
Today golf is probably the most convenient sport to play with my friends. I play softball in the summer. All softball requires is that I show up with a glove. But you have to get together a team of nine or more and schedule a season. Golf involves lugging a heavy set of golf clubs so public transit is out of the question. But you only need a friend or two and you can play a round. 
I have never been particularly good at golf. Golf isn’t about physical strength, or physical fitness at all really (hello John Daly). It is about technique, consistency, and mental strength. These are not traits you find in young people. During my teenage years I found golf too frustrating and only played it when I had to do so. About two years ago, I became interested in golf again. I have mellowed out a bit and also have an easier time accepting I’m not going to be great at golf. So I take it as a relaxing physical activity I can do with friends and family. If I’m lucky, I’ll have one or two good shots in a round.
One problem I still have is my instinct to try and hit the ball hard. Just as mental strength is more important than physical strength, a smooth swing is more important than a hard swing. When I approach the ball and take a few practice swings, I do just fine. But then I step up to the ball for my actual shot and my body kicks in like I am trying to hit a home run. 
Being good at golf requires a consistent swing. When I put some time in to work on my swing I can play decently. But when I play sparingly it is hard to internalize the improvements to my swing. If I want to get any good at golf, I guess I will just have to play more.
Posted on

Destination: Arizona

Today I am flying to Phoenix, Arizona for the Students For Liberty Arizona Regional Conference. While there I will stay with my maternal grandparents who live in Scottsdale. They spent most of their adult lives in Crystal Lake, a suburb of Chicago, but started splitting time between Illinois and Arizona after retiring.

I have been to Scottsdale at least once a year since my grandparents became “snowbirds” about fifteen years ago. I have many memories there, primarily of swimming, golfing, and playing games. My grandparents have a pool and hot tub in their backyard so swimming is very convenient. They also live in a golf resort community and are members of the Desert Forest Country Club nearby. As a kid we often played Payday, Racko, and a Pokèmon board game. These days it is most commonly Quirkle, Golo, and Gin Rummy.

There are a few pieces of pop culture I strongly associate with visiting my grandparents in Scottsdale. I first remember listening to the album Learning How To Smile Part 1 by Everclear, one of my favorite albums, in Scottsdale. The same goes for Permission To Land by The Darkness (a great album for warm weather). As a kid I watched Good Burger, Spy Kids, and the first Pokèmon movie a lot there.

I have sustained three major injuries while visiting my grandparents. The first time I was about eight years old and I slipped in the shower, slamming my jaw on the soap dish and biting through my lip. The second time, I was maybe eleven. While attempting to set up a telescope on the deck, I ran inside. Well, I ran into a sliding glass door and chipped my front tooth pretty bad. The third (and hopefully final!) injury came about by hitting the brakes on my bike while riding downhill. I flipped over my handlebars, suffering a concussion which knocked me out and a broken wrist. I was about 13 when that happened.

Here’s to hoping for a productive, enjoyable, and injury-free trip to Arizona!

Posted on

Sports Journalism is Terrible

Sports journalism is awful. Simply dreadful. It is full of cliches, empty rhetoric, and utter nonsense.

While at the gym today, I saw a segment on Sportscenter (the premier sports journalism show) about the firing of Seattle Mariners manager Lloyd McClendon. In the segement, one of ESPN’s top baseball experts Tim Kurkjian said more General Managers are willing to fire Managers today because the relationship between GM and Manager is more important than ever before. Kurkjian was asked a simple yet (would be) illuminating question: why is this? That is, what has changed to make this relationship more important.

Kurkjian gave a classic non-answer, offering up “the GM and Manager need to be on the same page” for five minutes, which is essentially repeating the question. An absolute garbage answer. I can’t say I’m too surprised. Kurkjian didn’t present any basic statistics about the rate of manager firings in the MLB over time so I have no reason to believe his claim is even true. If I had to guess, if pressed, Kurkjian would admit that deep down he doesn’t really know either.

My inner economist speculates the incentives for good or poor sports commentary are too weak. Sports journalists aren’t forced to revisit their predictions (that means you, John Kruk). I’m a big fan of prediction markets because of the power of price signals to share information. I wonder how a sports analysis website centered around a prediction market would fare. It should provide more accurate insights and predictions, which would lead to greater viewership if other sports fans are looking for that.

My favorite criticism of sports journalism came from the blog FireJoeMorgan.com. In over 1,000 posts over 3 and a half years, the bloggers pointed out the absurdities of baseball “experts”. The blog was named for Joe Morgan, who was one of the most high-profile commentators who fit their profile, but addressed many other sports pundits (Kurkjian included).

The blog ran from 2005 to 2008 in which Michael Lewis’ Moneyball was topic of debate within professional baseball. There was a common thread between the sportswriters profiled by FJM: they criticized Moneyball without having a rudimentary sense of what it was really about (Morgan even showed his ignorance regarding Oakland Athletics GM Billy Beane’s role in the book: he is the subject matter, not the author). While they did not identify themselves at the time, Michael Schur and Alan Yang (who went on to create Parks and Recreation) were contributors to the blog.

Posted on

Amash for Speaker?

Kevin McCarthy announced today he is no longer running for Speaker of the House. This is a swift fall from grace for the presumed successor to John Boehner. While we may never know, I am curious what caused McCarthy to pull out from this race. He had a fairly serious gaffe recently, but I didn’t expect it be serious enough to keep him from the Speakership.

Some of my libertarian friends would like to see Justin Amash as the next Speaker of the House. Sure, why not? Amash is a solid libertarian who has maintained his seat against challengers while voting true to his principles. He has nonpartisan appeal in his history of Facebook posts explaining his votes in Congress. I am personally grateful for all the time Amash has given up speaking at Students For Liberty and Young Americans for Liberty events for free including two events I organized while in college.

I have no reason to believe Amash has an actual chance at the Speakership. He is young, not extremely popular among Republicans, and isn’t being suggested by the colleagues who do like him. There are of course a number of other candidates who were being thrown around even before McCarthy bowed out.

The House Freedom Caucus, a group of Republicans of which Amash is a founding member, is supporting Daniel Webster for the Speakership. I don’t know much about Webster so I have nothing to say on his candidacy one way or the other.

However, I’m glad to see Amash gaining clout through a group like the House Freedom Caucus. Before McCarthy even dropped out, a few reporters speculated the House Freedom Caucus’ support for Webster was going to put McCarthy’s chances in doubt. It seems to me the best way to get the attention and support of a political power is not to merely support and partner with them but to scare them. Don’t let them (the powers that be!) take you for granted. I am pessimistic about opportunities for libertarians to gain change through direct political action but if it is going to happen, it will take the following: Show your power, gain a seat at the table, and fight for your top priorities.

Posted on

September Reading

This month, I am attempting to blog regularly to get my writing skills back into practice. My original goal was to write a post every day, but I didn’t set aside time over my birthday weekend to write anything. Maybe I will stick to writing every weekday. Regardless, my goal is to write regularly.

Last month, I focused on reading. In the month of September I read:

  1. Hiring The Best by Martin Yate
  2. The Four-Hour Work Week by Timothy Ferriss
  3. The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels by Alex Epstein
  4. The Last Policeman by Ben Winters
  5. Countdown City by Ben Winters
  6. World of Trouble by Ben Winters
  7. The Problem of Political Authority by Michael Huemer
  8. The Man Who Loved Only Numbers by Paul Hoffman
  9. Anything That’s Peaceful by Leonard Read
  10. Willpower by Roy Baumeister and John Tierney
  11. Thinking As A Science by Henry Hazlitt
  12. The Science of Success by Charles Koch
  13. The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis
  14. Prince Caspian by C.S. Lewis
  15. The Voyage of the Dawn Treader by C.S. Lewis
  16. The Silver Chair by C.S. Lewis
These books fell into three general categories which dominate my overall reading: economics/philosophy, management, and fiction. In total I read 16 books in 30 days at a pace of roughly two days per book. Sure, the last 4 books from the Narnia series (which I still want to finish) are children’s books. But on the other hand, The Problem of Political Authority was difficult and required a lot of attention! 
There weren’t many within economics/philosophy, but my favorite was The Problem of Political Authority. Huemer did a knockout job in the first half of the book and provides a lot of ammunition for anarcho-capitalists arguing with statists about the necessity and moral authority of governments. In finally getting around to Anything That’s Peaceful, I was struck with the importance of faith to Read’s case for a free society. His central thesis aside (which I found convincing), Alex Epstein reminded me in The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels how energizing Objectivists can be because of their love for life. 
While I was not completely sold on the interviewing and hiring system outlined in Hiring The Best, it demonstrated to me the importance of a system. I wasn’t blown away by the findings presented in Willpower but the evidence in favor of willpower’s existence, importance, and potential for cultivation was interesting. Thinking As A Science was underwhelming and felt like more of a pet project than a worthwhile contribution. While I was already familiar with many of the concepts in The Science of Success due to my work in the libertarian movement, I was surprised to see how well it meshed with The Lean Startup by Eric Ries. Paul Erdos, the subject of The Man Who Loved Only Numbers, was an interesting and funny character but the book didn’t draw me in to the mathematical topics. 
The majority of my reading in September was fiction. The The Last Policeman trilogy was a real pageturner that drew me in to the world so much that I woke up the next morning thinking the world was really going to end in a few months. My favorite book was Countdown City, full of humorous insights for a detective novel. World of Trouble was a well-executed finale. I don’t have much to say about the Narnia series, but may write a separate post about it when I finish the other three books.
Posted on

Is the libertarian moment over?

Is the libertarian moment over? Did it ever even begin? Jerry Taylor, President of the Niskanen Center, argues that libertarianism as a political ideology is struggling in the United States. “The collapse of Rand Paul”, Taylor argues, shows just how little public support is out there for libertarianism. Taylor’s argument is in direct contrast with speculation that the U.S. has been approaching a possible “libertarian moment”.

I agree with Taylor regarding the present and short-term future. Rand Paul, the most libertarian candidate in the current U.S. Presidential race, is drawing anemic poll numbers despite a slew of press pieces pointing out his unique views within the Republican field. I don’t predict the number of libertarian public officials or policies to significantly increase in the next five years. Those political outcomes are the result of the interest group jockying within the constraints of the “Overton Window” of public policy. The current state of opinion is not very libertarian.

I don’t think the collapse of Rand Paul’s polling numbers tell us much about the full political prospects of libertarianism. While Rand Paul is arguably the most libertarian member of the Republican field, there is a legitimate case to be made that his campaign would be in better position if he branded himself as more of a libertarian. Jacob Sullum argues Rand Paul is not very libertarian on drug policy. This year Paul proposed a 16 percent increase to the defense budget. Ed Crane wants to know why Rand Paul has stopped using his libertarian views to distinguish himself.

This is no “no true Scotsman” defense of libertarianism. For the record, I think no true libertarian can be elected President of the United States right now. How close a candidate can get to electoral success, however, we can’t judge from Rand Paul. Take it from the man himself, he’s “not a libertarian”.

More importantly, Taylor fails to address the most promising (for libertarians) input into the American Overton Window: young people. Self-identified libertarians are a larger share of the population among young people. A YouGov poll found that 20% of millenials identify as libertarians, higher than the 15% figure across all demographics. This isn’t an earth-shattering shift, but it is a trend in the right direction for libertarians. Political beliefs at the start of adulthood tend to hold relatively steady throughout one’s lifetime. Ray Fisman found evidence of this political inertia at least within the confines of the two-party system. If this is indeed true, the growing contingent of young libertarians should hold during the lifetimes of millenials.

One more thought: Taylor rightfully points out that the candidate of choice for “libertarian-inclined Republicans is Donald Trump, the least libertarian candidate in the race”. A large portion of this can likely be explained by sad but harsh truths to libertarians: many of the libertarian-inclined Republicans are probably not very libertarian and this demographic may be more concerned with race than we would like to think. But don’t discount the desire of many libertarians to see the (political) world burn. Donald Trump is political kerosene right now.

I’m not certain young Americans will turn out to be a net-positive force for libertarianism. I don’t think Rand Paul or any libertarian candidate has a shot at the Presidency right now. But Rand Paul’s failing campaign doesn’t tell us much about the political prospects of libertarians and the growing interest in libertarianism among young people is a reason for libertarian optimism. 
Posted on

Homecoming at MSU

On Saturday Kelly and I drove up to East Lansing for homecoming at Michigan State. We spent the day with my old housemates Kyle, Nick, and Jay, along with Jay’s girlfriend Kara and our friend Charlie. It was a long yet fun day.

Kelly and I woke at 7am in order to begin tailgating before the noon game. We arrived around 9:30 and met up with our group. We then called Ubers to take us to the house of the younger sister of Mollie, who used to live with Kyle’s girlfriend Kate and went to high school with Kyle. We spent about 45 minutes hanging out there before walking across campus to the tennis courts, a tailgating hotspot. Along the way my friend Dillon, who I worked with as a counselor at Boys State, came up to us. We caught up with him and his girlfriend Emily for about 10 minutes before reconnecting with out original group at a tailgate hosted by the family of Hailey, Nick’s new female companion.

We headed for the stadium and arrived just in time for kickoff. Despite a forecast of clear skies, it poured for a majority of the game. Our friends left at halftime and we left after 3 quarters. We all watched the last quarter from Harrison Roadhouse. MSU barely squeaked out a victory over Purdue after jumping out to an early 21-0 lead. We have lost 7 starters to injury and I’m starting to worry about this team.

In the evening, we got in to P.T. O’Malley’s just before they restricted entry. P.T.’s is where we celebrated my 21st birthday. We had a good time there, including Jay knocking over a drink while attempting to say hi to some girls and Kelly dancing to Footloose. We stopped for wraps at Conrad’s, classic East Lansing drunk food. While walking down the street we recognized a friend of Nick’s. Kyle pointed at him and went “hey its…” with no clue what his name was, which was awkward but hilarious. In our hotel room Kyle said, out of nowhere, “my old boss…” and didn’t finish his thought. Good work Kyle.

It was a great weekend. I’m lucky that this group has continued to get together in East Lansing every year and it was great to have Kelly join the fun. Hopefully next year we’ll do it again, without the rain!

Posted on

Michigan State vs Purdue

Tomorrow Kelly and I are heading up to East Lansing to see Michigan State play football against Purdue. Michigan State football is in the middle of a golden age. Since Mark Dantonio took over the program in 2007, the team has had 79 victories and 31 losses. Excluding his first three years, his record is 57 and 14. Over the past four seasons MSU has won the Outback Bowl, Buffalo Wild Wings bowl, Rose Bowl, and Cotton Bowl (which had a classic comeback victory).

My Dad went to Purdue so I grew up a fan of Purdue’s football and basketball teams. During those years, they were actually pretty good. Drew Brees, who went on to a superstar career in the NFL including a Super Bowl victory, led Purdue to a Big Ten Championship and a Rose Bowl. A few years later, Kyle Orton led Purdue to four straight bowl games before having a decent NFL career. These days, Purdue football is dreadful. Current head coach Darrell Hazell is 5-23, and his predecessor Danny Hope went a mediocre 22-28. So far this season they have only beaten Indiana State and lost to Marshall, Virginia Tech, and Bowling Green.

One weakness in MSU’s team this year is the secondary. Michigan State’s pass defense is ranked 114th out of 128 FBS teams. This is simply abysmal, especially considering one of our four games was against Navy which is ranked dead last in passing offense. Despite Purdue’s rough start to the season, their passing offense is a formidable foe. If they can reduce their interceptions (7 in 4 games), their 257 passing yards per game is more than enough to win a Big Ten game. Tomorrow all eyes will be on MSU’s cornerbacks and safeties to perform.

This year MSU has started the season with four straight wins and an amazing second place ranking nationally. Tomorrow’s match-up against Purdue will be one of many cupcake games against Big Ten teams including Rutgers and Indiana. In two weeks we will face off with a Michigan team defying preseason expectations after a 31-0 victory over BYU under first-year coach Jim Harbaugh. After defeating Oregon (ranked seventh at the time but now out of the top 25 after a brutal 62-20 loss to Utah) the match-ups against Michigan and Ohio State on November 21st are the two remaining tests to prove we are contenders for a national championship.

Posted on

3-3-5 Defense

My high school football team ran a 3-3-5 defense. This means that there were three down linemen, three linebackers directly behind the linemen, and five defensive backs (two cornerbacks, one free safety, and two “spurs” or strong safeties). Your typical football defense is a 4-3 or 3-4, which will have four linemen and three linebackers or vice versa. This leaves four defensive backs, two cornerbacks and two safeties.

What makes the 3-3-5 defense unique is there are only six players lined up in the box and only three on the line of scrimmage. However, there are five defensive backs to cover the pass or blitz, which is one more than a 4-3 or 3-4 scheme. This means the 3-3-5 is suited to defend against offenses that pass more than they run.

Running a 3-3-5 defense in high school was really unwise. Generally high school offenses will be either run-heavy or balanced with play action and short passes making up a majority of the passing game. High school offenses with a quarterback who can throw the deep ball accurately, and talented wide receivers who run good routes and catch the ball well, are rare. At least, a lot more rare than teams with what you need to run the ball: a competent offensive line and a running back who can power ahead for at least four yards a carry.

Stopping the run in a 3-3-5 was difficult. Five offensive linemen faced off against our three down linemen. By the time linebackers came up to stop the run, the offense usually had a solid hole and momentum. In hindsight, I think the 3-3-5 places a high priority on linebackers filling their gaps based on their read of the guard. I was taught to read my keys and react but I don’t think this was emphasized enough by our coaches.

Unsurprisingly, we had a decent pass defense but we were pretty poor at stopping the run. I would be interested to see our past statistics against run and pass players. I also wonder if my coaches ever did that. Each offseason we had the opportunity to switch to a new defensive system, such as the standard 4-3 and 3-4 or even a 4-4 scheme. We switched from the Wing T offense to a Spread offense during my time playing football at Saline High School. I have mixed feelings about that switch (I think it worked out the first year, but we should have switched back to the Wing T or something similar for my Senior year due to personal) which I may write about some other time.