Photo finish

Murphy-Tedisco is a dead heat. Weeks, maybe more, of recount, fighting, lawyer money, Bush-Gore, Franken-Coleman, Syracuse-UConn...
There is such as thing as too much excitement.

On the death of newspapers

A great rant, this, about the bankruptcy of the Chicago Sun-Times:

I worked for these folks, and continue to work for the company now mercifully free of them on a freelance basis, just in case anybody was unclear where my burning rage at newspaper mismanagement that then calls itself a "revenue decline" or blames "changing tastes of readers" comes from. Who needs the Internet to kill journalism when you have clowns like this walking away virtually unscathed?

Read it all.

Slapped around

Another post on ESPN Insider, about whether you really need depth in the NBA playoffs. The stat freaks come out at night, and some of them give me a thorough browbeating, though they offer no data to counter it. We stand by the story.
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The company you keep

US Soccer wants to return the World Cup stateside. A worthy goal, pun intended. But the soccer federation just added to its bid group one Henry Kissinger, who's had long associations with, among other undesirables, AIG. And the Yank bid group also trumpets its a board member formerly with Goldman Sachs, a firm that isn't exactly popular these days. Guess they're the type of folks who are friendly with the masters of FIFA, though.

Don't get even, get mad

Up late Friday writing this pre-game analysis of Louisville-Michigan State's regional final. These things are fun to read in hindsight, at least when I haven't made myself look like a complete fool.
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Goal keeping

Have a story up on ESPN's soccer site about Yank goalie Brad Guzan heading into tonight's U.S.-El Salvador World Cup qualifying match, here. Because it's all about the world game.

The jail economy

Change is coming to the North Country's prison economy, as NCPR's blog points out. But state pressure to reform drug laws, and thus reduce the number of drug offenders behind bars, is only part of it. Sen. Jim Webb of Virginia is introducing federal legislation to overhaul the entire prison-industrial complex.

With 5% of the world's population, our country now houses nearly 25% of the world's reported prisoners. We currently incarcerate 756 inmates per 100,000 residents, a rate nearly five times the average worldwide of 158 for every 100,000. In addition, more than 5 million people who recently left jail remain under "correctional supervision," which includes parole, probation, and other community sanctions. All told, about one in every 31 adults in the United States is in prison, in jail, or on supervised release. This all comes at a very high price to taxpayers: Local, state, and federal spending on corrections adds up to about $68 billion a year.

The movement is long overdue. The growth of the prison system, and its increasing cruelty, is a shame of the nation. To read this New Yorker piece on the growth of solitary confinement, despite the fact that the practice is torture, despite evidence that it doesn't work, and despite proof that it creates even more violent prisoners, is to cringe.
The answer is obvious. Shut down prisons. But it's not easy. One thing not covered in Webb's Parade Magazine article is the fate of corrections officers, and the communities that have become dependent on them. Are there retraining programs in the works? Severance deals? How will the government, in essence, buy off these powerful unions who've grown in response to public and political demand, however misguided and bloodthirsty that demand is?
The hope is that someone will figure out a way to put the manpower to use, close to home, perhaps on long-overdue government maintenance projects, or in some other crime-fighting capacities. But smooth and efficient re-allocation of resources hasn't been this country's strong suit lately.