Josh Hamilton is NASTY

Josh Hamilton is fucking ridciulous. 28 HR in the first round of the Home Run Derby. Just insane.

NCAA Tournament, MLB Opening Day, and More!

Sorry for the lack of updates in the past month and a half. With classes, midterms, and tutoring, I’ve been extremely busy. That being said, I will try and update the blog more often in the future. This post is dedicated to Mr. Zachary Epstein, who requested I update my blog.

NCAA Tournament

So I’m obviously a bit late on this seeing how its March Madness and it is currently April 2, but let me give some thoughts on the tournament. First off, isn’t it ironic that it’s called March Madness yet the Final Four is always played in April? I guess April Awesomeness just doesn’t sound as great as March Madness. The main storyline as we head into the final championship weekend is that for the first time in history, all four #1 seeds have advanced to the Final Four. My own bracket predicted two of those #1 seeds (UNC and UCLA), but wrongly had two #2 seeds (Georgetown and Texas) as well. Georgetown was probably my shakiest pick of the four teams – they hadn’t ever looked like an elite team during the regular season. Then again, I simply didn’t have enough faith in Bill Self to not blow a NBA-talent filled team and lose in the Elite 8.  On the other side, I just didn’t think Memphis’ poor free throw shooting would hold up (and it almost didn’t) but they shored up the free throw shooting and their stars shined (Derrick Rose is so legitimate, it’s not even funny).

I am still standing by my bracket in predicting UNC over UCLA for the national title. I’ll even throw in a little score for you: 85-79. I simply think UNC is playing the best out of the four teams remaining and has the best playing style to counter its potential opponents. UNC’s high-tempo game will be a huge advantage against Kansas and their talented bigs, but to counter, UNC has their own great big men (Hansborough, Ellington, Green, Stephenson) to contain Kansas. It will be a very fun weekend indeed, and as a moderate UNC fan, I’d love to see them win one (more for all of my friends down at UNC than anything else). The great thing about this Final Four is that if any of the four teams starts clicking on all cylinders, any team legitimately has a shot at the title.

Any analysis of the tournament so far would be remiss if it did not discuss the amazing run by Stephen Curry and the Davidson Wildcats. Notice how I put Stephen Curry ahead of his team. The young man (an extremely humble, modest, down to earth kid) would never do such a thing, but anyone watching those four incredible games has to be serious with him/herself – Stephen Curry is the reason they reached the Elite 8 and were one three pointer from advancing to the Final Four. I was able to watch most of the Gonzaga game, a bit of the Georgetown game, all of the Wisconsin game, and a good amount of the Kansas game. Quite simply, the kid has game. When Lebron “the King” James mouths “WOW” and “OHHH SHIT!” to stuff you do on the court, that completely in and of itself validates you. Curry was lighting it up from three, driving past people for easy layups, and just making some ridiculously tough shots. Even more credit deserved for his decision to stay in college for his junior year. He certainly could have declared for the draft and based on his performance been a late first round draft pick. It will be a joy tracking him next season.

MLB Preview

The Yankees are 1-0! Chien-Ming Wang pitched a great, solid game against the Blue Jays last night (starting Roy Halladay), and I am absolutely in love with the Joba Chamberlain-Mariano Rivera combination to end games. With this set up, we can hopefully go back to the late 90’s teams in which if you weren’t leading after 6 innings, it was over. That being said, the AL is fucking stacked. You have the Detroit Tigers – whose line up looks even better than the Yankees or the Red Sox. You have the Cleveland Indians who are just itching to have their young talent explode. And of course, you have the Red Sox (boo! hiss!) who return most of their core from last year’s championship team and are ultimately going to be tabbed the early front runner to repeat. Here are some predictions for both the AL and NL:

AL East: Yankees, Red Sox, Blue Jays, Rays, Orioles
AL Central: Tigers, Indians, Twins, White Sox, Royals
AL West: Angels, Mariners, Athletics, Rangers
AL Wild  Card: Red Sox
ALDS: Yankees d. Angels, Red Sox d. Tigers
ALCS: Yankees d. Red Sox
AL Cy Young: Erik Bedard
AL MVP: Alex Rodriguez

NL East: Mets, Braves, Phillies, Nationals, Marlins
NL Central: Cubs, Cardinals, Brewers, Reds, Astros, Pirates
NL West: Padres, Dodgers, Rockies,  Diamondbacks, Giants
NL Wild Card: Dodgers
NLDS: Dodgers d. Mets, Cubs d. Padres
NLCS: Dodgers d. Cubs
NL Cy Young: Johan Santana
NL MVP: Albert Pujols

WORLD SERIES: Yankees d. Dodgers

-K

Roger Clemens, HGH, Steroids, and More

So the past few months in baseball have not revolved around some blockbuster trades – like Santana to the Mets or Bedard to the Mariners (I would argue the latter is a better deal than the former) – but rather the Mitchell Report and the consequential fall out from that report. The two BIGGEST names in this report are Roger Clemens and Andy Pettite.

Andy Pettite has since come out and said that he used HGH twice – once when injected by Brian McNamee and once when he injected himself with HGH supplied by his father. His conduct in this matter has been admirable. Whereas many people have dodged questions (“I am not here to answer questions about my past” – Mark McGwire), and some people have flat out lied about their usage (Barry Bonds, seriously?), Andy Pettite has stepped up to the plate and come clean with the public and the press. His one hour news conference yesterday afternoon showed his commitment to letting the complete truth be known. He has shown the principle that taking the blame and admitting guilt in the short run is way better than the alternative of risking his legacy and lying for the long term. His conduct through this process will only help the game, not hurt it.

Roger Clemens, on the other hand, is digging himself a deeper and deeper hole. I won’t comment on whether I think he’s lying or telling the truth, but I really hope its the latter. I am a huge Roger Clemens fan, and I certainly hope all of his performance since the late 90’s has been natural and not substance enhanced. We all know he has some of the more ridiculous work outs in the summertime, so many think that he could be clean. More to come later when we find out the entire situation on Clemens.

-K

Super Bowl Prediction

So my predictions from the conference championships were pretty crappy. No matter how much I hate Boston and its fans, I’d be crazy to think the Giants can pull this one out against a great defense and the best postseason quarterback of our time and possibly ever. I’m going to go ahead and take the Patriots.

Patriots 28 d. Giants 21

Not as big of a blowout as many expect, and I think it’s going to be a good game. Did you know that NE has won its past three Super Bowls by only 3 points each? So there’s no reason to assume (other than a terrible game by Manning) a blowout by the Pats. Thats why my money will most likely be on the Giants when I bet tomorrow.

-K

NFL Playoffs: Conference Championships

Soooo excited for tomorrow’s football action. I’m a life long Packers fan and to see them back in the NFC championship game is amazing. Here are my picks:

Patriots 38 def. Chargers 24
Packers 31 def. Giants 20

No surprises here – really hoping for a Patriot-Packers Super Bowl!!

-K

Obama ‘08

A few months ago, I wrote an entry about a large chunk of my political views and if you read that post, you might deduce that I’m either a Republican or Libertarian. For the upcoming election in November, however, I stand by the fact that I am a Democrat. On some of the most important issues to me, I definitely support the Democratic candidates. I want universal (or nearly universal) health care for all Americans, I want a drawback of troops from Iraq when the situation deems it a possibility, and I just want change from the current Republican stronghold on the Oval Office.

This post is brief – there will be more commentary on the Obama-Clinton primary race I’m sure – but I would like to formally support Barack Obama in his bid for the presidency. When someone asks me the question “Why Obama and not Hilary?”, I think my most basic response is that I think Obama has the ability to actually invoke change domestically and internationally. Domestically, I believe that Obama and Hillary are very similar on many of the major issues I care about. What I do think is that Obama is the Democratic candidate that will actually attempt to be bi-partisan when possible and work with the other side to get his agenda passed. Internationally, and I think this is what separates him most from Clinton, Obama will be able to rebuild the bridges and ties that George W. Bush has broken during his eight years in the White House. If you have ever seen Obama speak at a debate or rally, it’s just an incredible feeling that comes over you. He might be the greatest speaker that this nation has seen since JFK. I really think his charisma would go a long way when dealing with other foreign leaders. Also, let’s be serious about this whole experience thing. A 46 year-old dubbed with having little experience running for President – sound familiar Bill Clinton??

I will say this much – I really don’t mind Clinton as a candidate or a person. I think she’d do a fine job of leading this country over the next four (or eight) years, and if anything, much better than the current administration. What Barack Obama’s bid for the presidency has done, however, is to reinvigorate and reignite my generation into politics. You look across college campuses and so many people want to be involved in the political process this year, it’s really quite amazing. Win or lose, Obama has done something great for America already.

-K

State of American Society

The past month has been pretty crazy – but in a good way. I was able to get out of the country to warm weather right before Christmas with a week long family cruise to the Eastern Caribbean. After a few days back home for the holidays, I went off to Europe for a lovely 9 day Eurotrip with Michelle and Fawn. We covered five cities in total – Venice, Warsaw, Prague, Berlin, and Amsterdam (though they covered more – that was only the part I was in on). I don’t like to write much about my personal life in this blog, so to put it succinctly, the trip was amazing and so much fun.

Anyways, to the topic of this post. Last month after having a birthday lunch with my parents and aunt, we did what all Asians do – go to Sam’s Club and shop in bulk! After a glorious shopping spree, it was time to check out and leave the building. I decided to not wait in line with my parents and wait for them at the exit. If you’ve never been to a Sam’s Club, Costco, or BJ’s before, they usually have someone monitoring the exits and checking receipts to make sure you haven’t jacked a 50″ plasma TV or something else of great value. Unless you do have a really expensive item in your cart, however, its usually just a glimpse of the receipt to make sure you have roughly the same # of items in your cart as it says on your receipt, maybe a check of one or two specific items, and then you’re on your way.

There was an elderly woman checking receipts on that day, and while waiting in the lobby, I noticed something extremely disturbing (my Dad, who is usually pretty oblivious to most things, also saw it… which means it was most likely quite blatant). A Hispanic woman and her son were going through this receipt check and the elderly woman stopped them to look at their receipt. She then proceeded to go down the receipt item by item and asked them to confirm that each was in the shopping cart. It took a few minutes, but finally the woman was satisfied and let them go. The next few customers were then brisked through with very little security and then my Mom passed by and we left the store. The more and more I thought about it, the angrier I got. If I was as angry at the time when this act of racism occurred as when I was when I got home, I would have brought it up with management and filed a complaint with the employee.

It’s so sad to see this type of indirect racism continue in America. I grew up in suburban America as a first generation Asian-American. The community I live in is definitely one consisting of primarily middle-upper class families and I went to public school up until 8th grade in this environment. I then attended a Northeast boarding school consisting primarily of privileged students – I recently did some work for the Alumni Office and something like 17/240 were black and probably something around another 20/240 were non-White. In any case, I have never experienced direct racism in my life, but there have been many instances where I’ve felt my being Asian has prevented me from “fitting in” completely. I can’t exactly describe it, though I’m sure there are other minorities out there who can relate to what I am saying. In any case, I hope that as my generation and future generations go through society, this indirect racism will slowly begin to fade away.

-K

Election ‘08

So I normally don’t like to write publicly about my political views, but I feel like now would be a good time to get some things out there. This post was primarily inspired by my very Liberal friend Michelle who has long stood that I am a dirty Republican or Libertarian – when she gets angry she’ll even call me both within the span of 30 seconds! Election Day was yesterday, which means we are 364 days away from the big presidential election in 2008. I can’t wait for that day – whether it means Clinton, Obama, Edwards, Thompson, Romney, Guliani… all would be better than the man we currently have in the White House (though Guliani would barely be an improvement). Of course, I am no different from the rest of the population in that I have my own opinions on how good each one of these candidates would actually be in the White House.

I was born and raised in a New Jersey suburb by first-generation immigrant parents. I would consider my family to be in the middle class. Naturally, being middle class and from New Jersey, my parents always voted for the Democrats. They would always preach “never vote Republican – they’re only for rich, greedy people”. So really since I’ve started to understand politics at it’s most basic level (which might be around the 1992 Bush-Clinton election, but more likely the 1996 Clinton-Dole election), I’ve always blindly supported the Democratic candidate on all levels – President, Senator, Governor, Congressman, Mayor, etc. I supported Gore in 2000 against George W. Bush, mainly because I thought Gore seemed much more intelligent and well-spoken. Simply put, Bush was a retard… maybe even worse. In 2004, I was really quite apathetic about the whole presidential race and supported Kerry with very little enthusiasm. I just didn’t want to see Bush with another 4 years in office. Unfortunately, both of those races turned out unfavorably and George Bush has been in office for the past 7 years making terrible, stupid decisions and screwing this nation to hell.

When I take a step back and think about the Presidential race in 2008, it really will be the first time in my life that I will be capable of watching the Presidential debates and actually making sense of them for myself. It will be the first time that I really cared about who we put into the Oval Office. It will be the first time that I can evaluate each candidate for his or her character and policies and make my own educated decision on who to support.

I believe in a very weak national government. In that sense, you could consider me an anti-Federalist of sorts. Why do I believe in a weak federal government? When I think of the federal government, I think about the following things: taxes, social programs, healthcare, education, and national security. There are many more things that the legislative and executive branches of the government do of course, but I am pointing out these issues as the ones that come to mind first and matter most to me as an American and prospective voter. I’m going to try and address each one of these issues below with my view on them and why the federal government sucks.

Social Programs

So what exactly are social programs? In my opinion, social programs are anything set up by the government to help those in need. We could be talking about the guy who just got fired because the economy is in recession and needs unemployment to help him through a tough time. We could be talking about the single mother of four who is struggling to bring food to the table and needs food stamps and welfare. We could be talking about the veteran coming back from Iraq who needs medical attention at a VA hospital. Or we could be talking about the recently retired couple who needs Social Security to live life without a job. I have no problem with the government trying to help out with social programs – in fact, I think it’s a great thing and probably their responsibility to do so. At the same time, however, how successful are these programs at actually helping out their targeted groups?

I understand that all of these social programs are inherently well-intentioned. At the same time, though, I think there are also a lot of bureaucratic flaws to almost all of them. Perhaps the worst of these flaws is the massive amount of red tape that people need to go through to even start receiving benefits. I don’t know how many stories I’ve read in the New York Times about veterans coming back from Iraq clearly injured and needing medical help and not receiving it based on an extremely outdated system of evaluating injuries. When claiming unemployment, some people who are actually unemployed and need the benefits are denied while some people continue to cheat the system through a set of loopholes.

And then there is Social Security, perhaps the epitome of why I dislike federally established social programs so much. Social Security is currently in state of disarray – maybe that word is even too generous for its condition. When Social Security was first established by FDR back in the 1930’s in the Second New Deal, the vision of the program was to tax working Americans to eventually help ease the financial burden of retired Americans. It was great in theory, and pretty good in practice… until World War II rolled around and the Baby Boomers were born. That great influx into the American population has put Social Security into the tenuous position it is in today. Back in the 1970’s, there were something like 30 working Americans to support every retired American. Today, that number has gone all the way down to 3. Soon, it will probably become 2. I am by no means claiming that I have a solution to Social Security. If I did, I’d probably be one of George Bush’s best friends right now. I think on one hand very wealthy people don’t need Social Security benefits (what’s a $1000 check going to do to their multi-million dollar retirement fund), but on the other hand how are you going to justify having the upper class pay a SS tax if they aren’t recipients of its benefits. I think it’s a really tricky situation – one that does illustrate, however, how social programs meant for the good can actually go wrong.

Education

One of the cornerstones to George Bush’s educational policy is the “No Child Left Behind” Act. While this act certainly has been a lofty goal and steps have been taken towards improving public education, we are still far from being at a satisfactory level. I have had many discussions with friends about the current state of education in America and I think we all pretty much agree that the main problem in most public schools is the quality of teaching being provided.

College seniors at universities across the nation are always confronted with a great deal of options. Some choose to go into the private sector and work for companies, go to graduate or medical school, work for the government, etc. What’s not usually up on that list of options (unless you are majoring in Education or have a passion for teaching), however, is “go to urban school district and teach little kids”. In very basic economic terms, the costs outweigh the benefits. Quite simply, funding for school districts located in either urban or poorer locations is insufficient to attract good teachers. If someone is choosing between taking a job with a company for $80k a year or teaching for $40k a year, most people will chose the company job even if they really enjoy teaching. It’s a plain fact of reality, and it’s something that is currently weighing down our educational system.

I think the current concept behind Teach for America is a great one. While the program itself may have a few flaws – participants are only required to teach a 2 year term and a recent study came out showing that children in classrooms taught by Teach for America teachers did not necessarily do better on standardized tests – its definitely a step in the right direction. The main point, however, is how a program like Teach for America would be funded. Not through the federal government, but rather private donations from philanthropic foundations. If you take a look at its website, its largest donors come from various organizations. An ideal system, in my mind, would be one that takes in both private donations and government subsidies to help train teachers. I don’t know how feasible this is, but I think an ideal system would be to have participants locked up for anywhere from 4-6 years because I honestly believe 2 years is a bit too short for a person to learn from his/her mistakes and improve.

In general, I don’t think the federal government is a body well-equipped to deal with the current problem. I certainly think they can provide funding, but their current system is clearly not working. Until you can provide individuals with incentives to not take a job at a company or private school, the public school system will continue to suffer.

National Security

This is the one area of the government which I think is actually necessary to the well-being of the American people. It’s also a job that probably only the federal government can do relatively efficiently. I use the word “relatively” because I still think the government is wasting tons of money on stupid shit regarding national security, but in general, I don’t have many complaints on this front.

Healthcare

The government offers Medicare and Medicaid (I still don’t know the difference between the two) as a government health insurance policy. Because people are not required to purchase this insurance (and the government has no system to monitor it), health insurance coverage in this nation is still a problem for many Americans. The way I see it, there are three major groups at risk right now: old people, poor people, and young adults (from 22 – 30). Old people are at risk since many of them need pills that are not covered by lots of prescription plans. These pills, which in some cases are necessary for them to live, are hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars on the open market. Poor people are at risk since hospitals and private practices charge a shitload for all the services they provide. For people with insurance, the insurance companies just say “fuck you” to the hospitals and practices and give them a price they’re willing to pay. For people without insurance… a routine surgery could be tens of thousands of dollars. Many poor people do not understand the importance of health insurance and are unwillingly to pay for a plan. Inevitably, many of these people get screwed. Young people, surprisingly, are at risk simply because many are too ignorant or overconfident. A healthy person out of college is most likely thinking “I’m young and in good health, why would I need to pay for health insurance?”. And then something freaky happens that requires he/she to be sent to the Emergency Room and then they get a bill for $10,000. Oops.

The current system is simply unacceptable when it leaves these three important groups extremely vulnerable. While, admittedly, the third group in this case is probably vulnerable because of their excessive pride and stupidity, it still leaves a better system to be wanted. I think the system that Mitt Romney (who I am a fan of…) has put into place in MA is definitely a great starting point and it appears that many of the Democratic candidates for ‘08 (Clinton, Edwards, Obama) are all seeing it that way as well. I think that the government should mandate its citizens to buy healthcare if they are able to afford it. If not, then subsidies should be provided to help them pay for the insurance. Of all the welfare the government provides, healthcare subsidies would probably have the greatest impact on the greatest number of people. In it’s current state, however, the government deserves a very low mark for its efforts on this front.

Taxes

Perhaps the issues I feel most passionately about. I am going to write about my view on taxes truthfully and honestly – you can construe it to be that I am a terrible, mean, evil person, but I think you would be wrong in that assessment. In a few years, I will (hopefully) be earning a decent salary at whatever job I end up doing. This salary will go on to be heavily taxed by the federal and state governments for all the programs and initiatives I have written about above. I believe in helping people who are not as fortunate as myself when I can. I remember donating to the Red Cross after Hurricane Katrina and sending a contribution to Idol Gives Back earlier this year. I just don’t want the government touching my money when they go off and waste it away in so many inefficient, incompetent ways.

If you look at each sector of the government that I have laid out (which mind you is a gross generalization since there are far more functions of the government than those I have listed), the only part that I see necessary for taxation is National Defense and maybe social programs (if the government would spend the money more wisely and if there wasn’t so much bureaucratic red tape). Education as I have outlined could be supported by some government subsidies but also by major philanthropic organizations.

At the end of the day, I don’t want the money that I have painstakingly earned to go to taxes that may or may not help people. I’d feel much more comfortable making a few large donations to charities and foundations of my choice every year. In fact, if the government mandated that I give X% of my salary to such organizations, I honestly wouldn’t have too much of a problem with that because I could pick what causes and places I’d be giving to (and be able to do my due diligence on how well the money is used in each of these organizations). Just don’t tax my money to fund your search for “Weapons of Mass Destruction” in Iraq. Don’t tax my money to build pet projects that congressmen and senators routinely order to be built in their home districts or states. And if you do tax me, please use the money wisely!

-K

Colorado Rockies World Series Bound!

Wait… did I really just type that as my title? “Colorado Rockies World Series Bound!”. I mean, I did predict this at the start of the MLB playoffs, but I thought it was a long shot at best. Instead, the Rockies have completely steamrolled the rest of the competition. First it was a 3-0 sweep of the Phillies where they outhit, outpitched, and outplayed their counterparts from the city of Brotherly Love. Then it was a 4-0 sweep of the Diamondbacks, the team with the best record in the National League. It seems like the only thing that will stop this team right now is the 8 day layoff between their clinching win and the first game of the World Series.

I still can’t really analyze this team without yelling out “The Rockies?!?! The COLORADO ROCKIES?!?!”. So I will go to sleep for now, but more to come in a bit.

Yankees Disappointment

So it’s taken some time for me to actually recover and reflect from the Yankees 3-1 ALDS loss to the Cleveland Indians. In the past few years with our high-powered offense and $200 million+ payroll, I’d always get infuriated when we lost in the ALDS. In 2005 it was to the Angels and in 2006 to the Tigers. I couldn’t understand why the Yankees lineup, which looked like an All-Star team from top to bottom, couldn’t hit their way through the playoffs. I’ve finally seen the light in regards to playoff baseball: it’s all about pitching and clutch hitting.

Cleveland deserved to win this past series based on those two factors: their starting pitchers outpitched ours, and their clutch hitting was phenomenal (compared to our non-existent clutch hitting). Obviously in the few minutes following Posada’s strikeout to end the series, I was yelling expletives all over the place. But the next morning, I found myself not terribly mad as I had been in the past two years, just extremely disappointed.

Why disappointed? Because this year I really thought we had a World Series caliber team. The pitching with Wang-Pettite-Clemens-Mussina could have been better, but it was still very solid at the top with Wang and Pettite. And the offense was clicking on all cylinders as the postseason came around. If we had performed as we were expected to, it should have been a much closer series, if not a win for us. In reality, Chien Ming-Wang threw not one but TWO absolutely awful games in Games 1 and 4. I’m not playing Monday Morning QB in second guessing Torre, but Mussina looked pretty solid in relief of Wang during that Game 4. Why not just start him and replace with Wang in relief if things got ugly? Also, we had so many opportunities offensively throughout the entire series – with the exception of Game 2 when Carmona was filthy – but never were able to capitalize. So many god damn double plays… and not enough hits with RISP.

I’ll get to the Joe Torre situation and how George Steinbrenner has handled the whole thing probably at a later date in its own post once Yankees top brass has decided Torre’s fate. I will say this much now: If Torre wants to come back and go through another season, and feels like he is capable of managing at the top of his game, he has deserved that right in his tenure as Yankees manager to come back next year.

I can’t wait for next year’s baseball season. I’m really looking forward to the new look that the Yankees will have. The way I see it, we really need to get one more solid OF to accompany Melky/Abreu/Matsui (with Abreu or Matsui DHing). DJ mentioned Aaron Rowand as a solid replacement, so we’ll see what happens on that front. Everything else really depends on what the free agents on the team decide to do. If Mariano Rivera and Jorge Posada stay, I see us with a very very good team next year. Wang, Pettite, Hughes, Chamberlain (it was announced yesterday that Hank Steinbrenner will insist on having Chamberlain be converted to a starter) will make for a very strong rotation. Our lineup will be lights out once again with or without Alex Rodriguez. The only very weak spot I see right now is our bullpen, but hopefully we can address that in the off season. Calling it now… Yankees 2008 World Series Champs.

-K