Welcome back everyone. I hope you all had a safe and happy Thanksgiving. I'm back at school now on the downhill run for the semester. Finals start in less than 3 weeks and it'll be Christmas before we all know it.
It is now very well known that Susan Rice, United States Ambassador to the U.N., is one of the leading candidates to replace outgoing Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Rice is deeply involved in the scandal surrounding the Benghazi terrorist attacks on September 11th and this makes her a very dicey choice for the position. Senate Republicans have solid reasons to be deeply concerned about her appointment and right now they are doing their jobs. The Senate and the American people have the right to know just what happening in Benghazi two and half months ago and until Rice can be straight with us, she has no business being confirmed to be the next Secretary of State, or to be doing her current job for that matter.
Unfortunately, a vast majority of Liberal Democrats, in the government, in the general public and, sadly, even in the media, refuse to see it this way. People in this camp are already back on the war path trying to play up sympathy for Rice, claiming that the "mean, old, angry white men" in the GOP are only going after Rice because she is a woman.
Right along with this, they also bring up how women still comprise less than 20 percent of Congress. DNC Chairperson Debbie Schultz has also been hellbent on this path again recently, claiming the GOP has gotten "more white" while trumpeting that she has helped bring a "majority minority" to the Democratic side of the House for the new Congress.
We are at a point now where even if Rice doesn't get the official nomination for Secretary of State, meaning it would instead most likely fall to Sen. John Kerry, Liberals everywhere will scream that it is because of gender and, in Rice's case, also race-based discrimination. Even if Obama nominates Kerry for the post, it will still somehow be blamed on the GOP and the media won't be rushing out there to discredit such a frivolous claim.
Has anyone on the left ever even considered the idea that the reason there aren't a lot of women in Congress or in high positions of government leadership is simply because they simply aren't the best candidates for the job? That the electorate votes for the best candidate for the job, male or female? I know that's how I vote. And guess what, Ms. Schultz? On election day I favored the FEMALE Republican in my home district. Too bad she lost to a WHITE MALE Democrat in a race that bordered on a landslide. I wonder how that race sits with Ms. Schultz. I'd love to see her explain it.
I'd also love to see her trumpet her "majority minority" with an incoming Maryland Congressional Delegation that includes 9 Democrats (of 10 total seats), in which there are just two women (Sen. Barbara Mikulski and Rep. Donna Edwards) and just two blacks (Edwards and Rep. Elijah Cummings). The other six are "old, white men", just the type Schultz routinely likes to paint as the evil enemy.
Tuesday, November 27, 2012
Tuesday, November 20, 2012
Maryland to the Big 10: A potential mistake?
I usually use this blog to discuss politics but today I figured I would take a step back and talk about the deal that has sent my school, the University of Maryland, from the ACC to the Big Ten Conference. Maryland is a charter member of the ACC. If the math is correct, next year will be the school's 60th (and now last) season in the conference, which is a pretty big deal from where I sit.
Look, I honestly want to believe this is all for the best, that Maryland will end up being fine in the Big Ten, but I and many others have some serious concerns about this move that I feel have not been addressed by those in charge of making the decisions. So let's jump right into it.
1. The issue of the exit fee:
Maryland faces a $50 million fee just to get out of the ACC and join the Big Ten. Where is that money going to come from? The athletic department is, for all intents and purposes, BROKE! That's why we had to cut seven teams last year! Many people are saying the fee really won't be that high and Wallace Loh, our university president, is convinced that the amount would not hold up in court. Well Dr. Loh, how much would it cost this university in legal fees to find out the sum doesn't hold up in court?
Some have said that the Big Ten itself is willing to pitch in to cover some of the exit fee and others have even speculated that Kevin Plank, a UMD alum and the founder of Under Armour, will be paying a large portion of the fee. To Mr. Plank: If the rumors are true and you can afford to spend millions of dollars to help Maryland exit the ACC, how come you couldn't spend millions of dollars last year to stabilize the athletic department and save the teams which were ultimately cut?
2. The Revenue Sharing:
This move to the Big Ten is all about money. Dr. Loh said as much himself on Monday. But people are missing some key points! Everyone keeps saying "We're going to get $24 million from the Big Ten every year regardless of what happens with our own sources of revenue." Well that isn't quite accurate.
Nebraska just joined the Big Ten in 2011 and they are only receiving $14 million per year as a result. It will be a few more years before they receive "full membership" and thus full benefits. Maryland is expected to receive a similar deal, meaning that, at least for the first several years, our university would be earning LESS in the Big Ten than it now does under the ACC television contract, which has a value of over $17 million per year.
Finally, adding more schools to a revenue sharing pot means each school will be getting LESS money overall. There are claims that this could be offset by getting the Big Ten Network, the conference's TV station, to break into markets in Maryland, New Jersey and New York, but I don't see how that is going to work and bring in all that much more money. I already get the Big Ten Network in my Central Maryland home through Verizon Fios. The network won't be expanding into Maryland, it's already here.
3. The loss of fan base:
It is no secret that thousands of loyal Terps, including alumni, feel betrayed by the decision to change conferences, to just throw nearly 60 years of history, tradition and rivalries aside. To the people that say Maryland has no ACC rival, that we only imagine the rivalries we have with Duke, UNC and UVA, that doesn't matter. We think the rivalries exist and we get excited for and LOVE those games. With these teams no longer on the schedule every year, thousands of people are quite angry. And the reasoning "we can always schedule them for non-conference games" just doesn't hold water for me. Very rarely does a team schedule a non-conference game it thinks it could lose. Schools generally (but certainly not always) prefer weak non-conference opponents to pad their stats and records.
Currently this is an non-issue for me, as I get all of my tickets to home games for free, but once I'm no longer a student here at Maryland, I refuse to pay money to watch our football team get hammered week in and week out by the likes of Michigan, Michigan State, Ohio State, Wisconsin and Penn State. One of my friends tweeted yesterday, "When Ohio State comes to play Maryland, it will be a sea of red, but not Terp red." And he's right. We can barely get Maryland fans to home games as it is now. I worked concessions at our home game against Florida State on Saturday. I'd have to say that well over half the crowd was there for FSU and they were the ones buying most of the food from us, not the Maryland fans.
4. Local recruits will probably not stay local:
I talked to a Maryland alum yesterday who is convinced that Maryland's move to the Big Ten will keep local recruits local. He said that instead of leaving Maryland to play for schools like Michigan, Michigan State and Ohio State, that these recruits will now want to stay home so they can play against them for the hometown team. That's not how it's going to work! Local talent will not stay home to play against Michigan or Ohio State, it will still go to Michigan or OSU because Michigan or OSU has a dominating program! A program that can wipe the floor with Maryland.
5. Big Ten is a downgrade for our non-revenues:
For those who do not know what a "non-revenue" is, this is the term that applies to every college sport that isn't football or men's basketball. Some of these other sports may charge for admission, but the price is usually very low and the teams cannot cover their own expenses. At Maryland, I believe a regular season men's soccer ticket costs around $5. Women's basketball tickets are just $10 for the general public. Softball and field hockey are completely free.
The ACC is without question the best conference in men's soccer and for proof of that I can point to Maryland, UNC and Duke, three powerhouse men's soccer programs nationally. The Big Ten just isn't there. The same holds true for ACC women's soccer, although not necessarily with the same schools I mentioned for the men.
When it comes to field hockey, the ACC is the who's who of the sport. Going back to 1987, there have been just three NCAA Division I Field Hockey finals that did not feature an ACC team. 2008-2011 were all-ACC finals and Maryland and UNC played each other in the final in 2009, 2010 and 2011. Syracuse, joining the ACC next year, has a fantastic field hockey program. The only Big Ten school that jumps? Maybe Northwestern.
Lacrosse is going to take a huge hit, both men's and women's. Lacrosse is Maryland's sport and ACC teams such as UVA and UMD have been the teams one has to beat if they want to have a shot at a national title in that sport. In the Big Ten, lacrosse isn't even an official sport offered by the conference. So would we have to go independent in that sport then?
Men's basketball will probably end up being okay when it comes to competitiveness by the time 2014 rolls around, but the major criticism is that the style of play in the Big Ten is too slow and too boring. Plus, who wants to watch UMD vs. Minnesota? Not I. Women's basketball will have the same issue. On the bright side, they would be playing for the Big Ten in the annual Big Ten-ACC Challenge, which has seen the Big Ten come out on top in recent years.
Two last interesting pieces of information. The move to the Big Ten means that Byrd Stadium will become the 5th smallest football stadium in the Big Ten at 54,000 once you factor in the Rutgers stadium. Problem is, we can't even fill those seats! This is less than half of the capacity at Michigan, 109,901. And they fill that stadium every week.
Maryland will, however, have the 2nd largest basketball arena in the Big Ten, about 1,000 shy of Ohio State and about 230 more than Michigan.
Like I said, I really hope this move ends up working out for the best, although I will miss the ACC, but it just seems like there is too much that could go wrong. Basketball will probably stay competitive, but we'll be lucky if football ever wins again. And if the seven sports Loh cuts don't come back, there will be hell to pay.
The move also throws out years and years of history and tradition. And all of this for a few extra million dollars per year. With Wallace Loh, it's always about the money, the bottom line. Tradition doesn't seem to matter to him.
Jimmy Williams
Look, I honestly want to believe this is all for the best, that Maryland will end up being fine in the Big Ten, but I and many others have some serious concerns about this move that I feel have not been addressed by those in charge of making the decisions. So let's jump right into it.
1. The issue of the exit fee:
Maryland faces a $50 million fee just to get out of the ACC and join the Big Ten. Where is that money going to come from? The athletic department is, for all intents and purposes, BROKE! That's why we had to cut seven teams last year! Many people are saying the fee really won't be that high and Wallace Loh, our university president, is convinced that the amount would not hold up in court. Well Dr. Loh, how much would it cost this university in legal fees to find out the sum doesn't hold up in court?
Some have said that the Big Ten itself is willing to pitch in to cover some of the exit fee and others have even speculated that Kevin Plank, a UMD alum and the founder of Under Armour, will be paying a large portion of the fee. To Mr. Plank: If the rumors are true and you can afford to spend millions of dollars to help Maryland exit the ACC, how come you couldn't spend millions of dollars last year to stabilize the athletic department and save the teams which were ultimately cut?
2. The Revenue Sharing:
This move to the Big Ten is all about money. Dr. Loh said as much himself on Monday. But people are missing some key points! Everyone keeps saying "We're going to get $24 million from the Big Ten every year regardless of what happens with our own sources of revenue." Well that isn't quite accurate.
Nebraska just joined the Big Ten in 2011 and they are only receiving $14 million per year as a result. It will be a few more years before they receive "full membership" and thus full benefits. Maryland is expected to receive a similar deal, meaning that, at least for the first several years, our university would be earning LESS in the Big Ten than it now does under the ACC television contract, which has a value of over $17 million per year.
Finally, adding more schools to a revenue sharing pot means each school will be getting LESS money overall. There are claims that this could be offset by getting the Big Ten Network, the conference's TV station, to break into markets in Maryland, New Jersey and New York, but I don't see how that is going to work and bring in all that much more money. I already get the Big Ten Network in my Central Maryland home through Verizon Fios. The network won't be expanding into Maryland, it's already here.
3. The loss of fan base:
It is no secret that thousands of loyal Terps, including alumni, feel betrayed by the decision to change conferences, to just throw nearly 60 years of history, tradition and rivalries aside. To the people that say Maryland has no ACC rival, that we only imagine the rivalries we have with Duke, UNC and UVA, that doesn't matter. We think the rivalries exist and we get excited for and LOVE those games. With these teams no longer on the schedule every year, thousands of people are quite angry. And the reasoning "we can always schedule them for non-conference games" just doesn't hold water for me. Very rarely does a team schedule a non-conference game it thinks it could lose. Schools generally (but certainly not always) prefer weak non-conference opponents to pad their stats and records.
Currently this is an non-issue for me, as I get all of my tickets to home games for free, but once I'm no longer a student here at Maryland, I refuse to pay money to watch our football team get hammered week in and week out by the likes of Michigan, Michigan State, Ohio State, Wisconsin and Penn State. One of my friends tweeted yesterday, "When Ohio State comes to play Maryland, it will be a sea of red, but not Terp red." And he's right. We can barely get Maryland fans to home games as it is now. I worked concessions at our home game against Florida State on Saturday. I'd have to say that well over half the crowd was there for FSU and they were the ones buying most of the food from us, not the Maryland fans.
4. Local recruits will probably not stay local:
I talked to a Maryland alum yesterday who is convinced that Maryland's move to the Big Ten will keep local recruits local. He said that instead of leaving Maryland to play for schools like Michigan, Michigan State and Ohio State, that these recruits will now want to stay home so they can play against them for the hometown team. That's not how it's going to work! Local talent will not stay home to play against Michigan or Ohio State, it will still go to Michigan or OSU because Michigan or OSU has a dominating program! A program that can wipe the floor with Maryland.
5. Big Ten is a downgrade for our non-revenues:
For those who do not know what a "non-revenue" is, this is the term that applies to every college sport that isn't football or men's basketball. Some of these other sports may charge for admission, but the price is usually very low and the teams cannot cover their own expenses. At Maryland, I believe a regular season men's soccer ticket costs around $5. Women's basketball tickets are just $10 for the general public. Softball and field hockey are completely free.
The ACC is without question the best conference in men's soccer and for proof of that I can point to Maryland, UNC and Duke, three powerhouse men's soccer programs nationally. The Big Ten just isn't there. The same holds true for ACC women's soccer, although not necessarily with the same schools I mentioned for the men.
When it comes to field hockey, the ACC is the who's who of the sport. Going back to 1987, there have been just three NCAA Division I Field Hockey finals that did not feature an ACC team. 2008-2011 were all-ACC finals and Maryland and UNC played each other in the final in 2009, 2010 and 2011. Syracuse, joining the ACC next year, has a fantastic field hockey program. The only Big Ten school that jumps? Maybe Northwestern.
Lacrosse is going to take a huge hit, both men's and women's. Lacrosse is Maryland's sport and ACC teams such as UVA and UMD have been the teams one has to beat if they want to have a shot at a national title in that sport. In the Big Ten, lacrosse isn't even an official sport offered by the conference. So would we have to go independent in that sport then?
Men's basketball will probably end up being okay when it comes to competitiveness by the time 2014 rolls around, but the major criticism is that the style of play in the Big Ten is too slow and too boring. Plus, who wants to watch UMD vs. Minnesota? Not I. Women's basketball will have the same issue. On the bright side, they would be playing for the Big Ten in the annual Big Ten-ACC Challenge, which has seen the Big Ten come out on top in recent years.
Two last interesting pieces of information. The move to the Big Ten means that Byrd Stadium will become the 5th smallest football stadium in the Big Ten at 54,000 once you factor in the Rutgers stadium. Problem is, we can't even fill those seats! This is less than half of the capacity at Michigan, 109,901. And they fill that stadium every week.
Maryland will, however, have the 2nd largest basketball arena in the Big Ten, about 1,000 shy of Ohio State and about 230 more than Michigan.
Like I said, I really hope this move ends up working out for the best, although I will miss the ACC, but it just seems like there is too much that could go wrong. Basketball will probably stay competitive, but we'll be lucky if football ever wins again. And if the seven sports Loh cuts don't come back, there will be hell to pay.
The move also throws out years and years of history and tradition. And all of this for a few extra million dollars per year. With Wallace Loh, it's always about the money, the bottom line. Tradition doesn't seem to matter to him.
Jimmy Williams
Review of Atlas Shurgged, Part 2
I went and saw Atlas
Shrugged Part II about a month ago so that I could write a review on the
move for the paper that I write for here on campus, The Terrapin Times
(umdtimes.com). Now that the review has been published, I’d like to share it
with all of you, with some slight modifications from how it appeared in print.
I highly recommend this movie to everyone and I also recommend you go back and
watch part one. It can be found on Netflix or can be purchased on iTunes for
just $6.99.
Atlas Shrugged Part
II is the second in a trilogy of movies bringing Ayn Rand’s 1957 New York
Times bestselling novel to the big screen. Set “sometime in the near future”,
the United States as depicted in Atlas
Shrugged is quite simply falling apart. Brilliant and creative minds are
vanishing left and right, unemployment has climbed to over 20 percent, gas has
reached over $40 per gallon as energy prices skyrocket, more business are
closing every day and the government is asserting more and more control as it
all gets worse.
One of the movie’s characters, Francisco d’Anconia,
played by Esai Morales, explains the title perfectly about halfway through the
movie when he says, “If you saw Atlas, knees buckling, arms trembling, but
still trying to hold up the world with the last of his strength, what would you
tell him to do?” He goes on in that sequence to say that he would tell Atlas to
shrug, to just let it all fall away.
Central to the movie and trilogy as a whole are two key
pieces of legislation: the “Fair Share Law” and “Directive 10-289”. The Fair
Share Law makes it so that all companies are to produce the same amount as any
other company in an industry regardless of size, with what is produced being
distributed according to need. The penalty for breaking this law is 10 years in
prison and a fine of $50 million. Other parts of the law prevent businesses
from moving from poor states to rich ones and implement a federal tax on the
state of Colorado, undergoing an immense and very profitable oil boom at the
time, to redistribute the wealth to those states which are struggling. People
are only allowed to own one business. Owning the entire manufacturing process
for a good is now impossible.
Directive 10-289, introduced in the middle of the movie,
goes even further. It fixes the quantities of materials companies are allowed
to buy and produce, makes it illegal for anyone to be fired and freezes all
forms of income at current levels. After this law was signed, a news anchor
added, “With the stroke of a pen, the nation of life, liberty and the pursuit
of happiness has been altered forever.”
What makes this movie relevant is just how close this
country appears to be to something like what is depicted in Atlas Shrugged. No, we aren’t at 20
percent unemployment, but U6, or so-called “true” unemployment, is stuck around
15 percent. No, we haven’t collapsed into socialism yet because capitalism has
proven superior time and time again. However, there is a real “Recovery Czar” in
the current administration, who has duties very similar to those of the
“Recovery Czar” and “Unification Board” from the movie. As the news anchor in
the movie rightly said, it only takes the stroke of a pen to fundamentally
alter the path of a great nation.
Although Rand’s 1,168 page novel was first published 55
years ago, she wrote the story without giving any specifics as to the time,
giving the story a quality of timelessness that allowed the movies to be set in
the future beyond 2012 without any problems.
The movie definitely could have used a major boost in its
special effects budget, but that problem really did not take away from the
story as a whole. The movie features a host of well recognized actors,
including Robert Picardo from Star Trek:
Voyager; Jason Beghe and Arye Gross, recurring actors on several television
shows including Castle, CSI, Law and
Order and NCIS; and Kim Rhodes,
probably best known by our generation as Carey Martin in The Suite Life of Zack and Cody. It is worth noting that all the
roles in Atlas Shrugged were recast
between parts one and two.
Most film critics have given Atlas Shrugged Part II incredibly negative reviews. Rotten Tomatoes
gives the film a 0 percent rating, despite users on Rotten Tomatoes giving the
film a rating of over 80 percent. Users on IMDB have given the film a 5.4 out
of 10 rating. In this case, the critics should not be believed in any case. Atlas Shrugged is an excellent story and
it could not be any more relevant than it is right now. It shows in a very
accurate way what happens when a government decides to redistribute the wealth
in the name of the “greater good”.
Jimmy Williams
Tuesday, November 13, 2012
Keep Up the Good Fight
Hi everybody. Sorry I've spent another week plus away from the blog. I was in Dallas for an editor's conference the first weekend of November and I had a test on the Wednesday after the election and another test today. Not surprisingly, I didn't do so well on the test last Wednesday. Scheduling it for the day after the election wasn't the smartest decision in my opinion, but I digress.
Look, I'm not going to waste a terrible amount of my time or yours digging too much into the results of last week's election simply because everyone else is already doing it. I won't let the results of the election go and I'm sure to make repeated references to it in the future, but we cannot change the results. Sixty million Americans were fooled by one of the best liars this country has ever seen. On top of that, an estimated 3 million Conservatives stayed home because they believed "Mitt is too moderate." One would think they would rather have Mitt over Obama though because if Mitt is too moderate, then what does that make Obama?
Regardless of the outcome of the election, the lies that Obama told to get reelected and the lies the main stream media told to help get him reelected, it is safe to say that you and I still know the truth. And come 2016, when we have gas over $6 a gallon, a $20 trillion national debt, unemployment back around 10 percent and skyrocketing energy and food prices to go along with out of control inflation, I'm confident everyone else will see it, too. The money will run out folks, that is unavoidable.
Now is the time to stay the course, to keep up the good fight. The Republican Party does not need to moderate itself further. If it does, more of our Conservative base will stay home next time around than did this year. We have Marco Rubio, Allen West, Mia Love, it's time to put them to good use! The problem isn't our party's positions, it's that our positions are a lot harder to explain to voters, especially youth and minorities, than are Obama's positions of "we'll get the 'rich' to pay more so I can spend more and then you'll get more free stuff!" Or, "I need some time here, everybody! Just look at this mess I inherited from myself!" Obama doesn't put it quite like that, but that's essentially what he means.
But seriously, the GOP needs to figure out how to explain its positions better because they are hard to get. Just after Obama had been declared the winner of the election on Tuesday night/Wednesday morning, I got into a heated debate with people on my floor over politics. They have no idea what quantitative easing is and they didn't know what Romney meant when he said we needed to crack down on China, just to name two things they were clueless about. To be honest, that even took me a long time to figure out, but at least I figured it out! Their biggest concern on Tuesday night? That Mitt Romney "beat up a gay kid in high school." Seriously?!
We've already seen the signs that America is headed for trouble in a second Obama term: The stock market crashed epically to finish out last week and it's been flat for the past two days. Boeing has now announced plans for layoffs along with nearly 50 other companies. The layoffs range from in the 20s to nearly 4,000 proposed layoffs at Pepsi Co. More companies are almost certain to follow. And let's not forget the companies who were planning on hiring only if Romney won.
So like I said, keep up the good fight, I know I certainly will. May God bless you all.
Jimmy Williams
Look, I'm not going to waste a terrible amount of my time or yours digging too much into the results of last week's election simply because everyone else is already doing it. I won't let the results of the election go and I'm sure to make repeated references to it in the future, but we cannot change the results. Sixty million Americans were fooled by one of the best liars this country has ever seen. On top of that, an estimated 3 million Conservatives stayed home because they believed "Mitt is too moderate." One would think they would rather have Mitt over Obama though because if Mitt is too moderate, then what does that make Obama?
Regardless of the outcome of the election, the lies that Obama told to get reelected and the lies the main stream media told to help get him reelected, it is safe to say that you and I still know the truth. And come 2016, when we have gas over $6 a gallon, a $20 trillion national debt, unemployment back around 10 percent and skyrocketing energy and food prices to go along with out of control inflation, I'm confident everyone else will see it, too. The money will run out folks, that is unavoidable.
Now is the time to stay the course, to keep up the good fight. The Republican Party does not need to moderate itself further. If it does, more of our Conservative base will stay home next time around than did this year. We have Marco Rubio, Allen West, Mia Love, it's time to put them to good use! The problem isn't our party's positions, it's that our positions are a lot harder to explain to voters, especially youth and minorities, than are Obama's positions of "we'll get the 'rich' to pay more so I can spend more and then you'll get more free stuff!" Or, "I need some time here, everybody! Just look at this mess I inherited from myself!" Obama doesn't put it quite like that, but that's essentially what he means.
But seriously, the GOP needs to figure out how to explain its positions better because they are hard to get. Just after Obama had been declared the winner of the election on Tuesday night/Wednesday morning, I got into a heated debate with people on my floor over politics. They have no idea what quantitative easing is and they didn't know what Romney meant when he said we needed to crack down on China, just to name two things they were clueless about. To be honest, that even took me a long time to figure out, but at least I figured it out! Their biggest concern on Tuesday night? That Mitt Romney "beat up a gay kid in high school." Seriously?!
We've already seen the signs that America is headed for trouble in a second Obama term: The stock market crashed epically to finish out last week and it's been flat for the past two days. Boeing has now announced plans for layoffs along with nearly 50 other companies. The layoffs range from in the 20s to nearly 4,000 proposed layoffs at Pepsi Co. More companies are almost certain to follow. And let's not forget the companies who were planning on hiring only if Romney won.
So like I said, keep up the good fight, I know I certainly will. May God bless you all.
Jimmy Williams
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)