Johan Santana Goes to Mets. Thank God!

Johan Santana being traded to the New York Mets is the second-worst thing that can happen to the Boston Red Sox. The first? If Santana was traded to the New York Yankees instead.

I can understand the reluctance of both the Red Sox and Yankees to pull the trigger—the price was just too high. First, the Twins would rightly demand, and receive, a basket of either team’s top prospects. Second, both teams would have to agree to pay Santana his 7-year, $140,000,000 asking price. Definitely too rich for the Red Sox, who often eschew long-term contracts; and it’s even too rich for the New York Yankees, who already have the highest payroll in the leagues even though they could use Santana’s arm.

As a Red Sox fan, it’s better that Santana ends up in the National League, where he’s out of sight and out of mind.

Hillary Clinton Not Getting Key Endorsements

Sen. Hillary Clinton’s chances of being the second “black” president (her husband, Bill Clinton, was the first) have been dashed after Toni Morrison gave her endorsement to Sen. Barack Obama. Not only that, now the Kennedy clan have also decided to endorse Barack Obama.

Are endorsements really effective in a presidential election? Does anyone really care what a writer like Toni Morrison thinks anymore? Most Americans consider artists, writers and Hollywood types to be on the fringe of politics; to be ignored and ridiculed, not to be taken seriously. And what of the Kennedys, a political family clearly in their twilight years? Ted Kennedy is viewed both as a liberal lion and a buffoon. Does his endorsement carry any weight?

Rogue Trader Damages French Bank

A French Nick Leeson?

French bank Societe Generale said Thursday it has uncovered a $7.14 billion fraud — one of history's biggest — by a single futures trader whose scheme of fictitious transactions was discovered as stock markets began to stumble in recent days.

CEO Daniel Bouton said the trader's motivations were "irrational," netting the trader no personal financial gains.

A person familiar with the case named the trader as Jerome Kerviel. Bank officials said earlier the trader was a Frenchman in his 30s who probably acted alone. The person spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the case.

Internal control and compliance systems are usually integrated into most trading platforms these days, imposing limits on aggressive (or simply stupid) traders like Jerome Kerviel, just to avoid such multi-billion dollar “mistakes.” Obviously the controls that were in place at Societe Generale were wholly inadequate.

All I can say is: c’est la vie.

My DVD Pile

Let’s see what’s in the DVD pile for the next few weeks:

• Big Love: Season 1 and Season 2
• American Experience: Hijacked
• The Hoax
• Mr. and Mrs. Smith
• The Simpson’s Movie
• Ocean’s 11

What’s in your pile?

Fred Thompson Drops Out

Not surprisingly, former Senator Fred Thompson has dropped out of the race after finally realizing he had no chance of winning the Republican primary, let alone the White House. Thompson’s poor showing in the primaries was not the result of lack of ideas, or charisma—it was heart. To be President, you got to ask for the job, even beg for it. Thompson did neither of these things and the voters noticed. That’s why he lost.

For a trained lawyer and successful actor, he was often ill prepared, both in debates and on the campaign trail. Hardly a confidence builder. He definitely looked the part—tall and authoritative—but he couldn’t play the part. And that was his undoing.

I don’t know what he’s going to do now. Can’t go back to Law & Order since there is both a writer’s strike and the fact that Jack McCoy, played by Sam Waterston, is now the new DA.

The Atlantic: Free For Everybody!!!

TheAtlantic.com is now a free site. To celebrate, here’s a link to an article about Bangladesh by Robert Kaplan, one of my favorite writers, in the January/February issue of Atlantic. A primer:

With rising Islamic fundamentalism, weak government, and not enough dry land for its 150 million people, Bangladesh could use a break. Instead, it must face the catastrophic threat of climate change.

Enjoy!

Anti-War Films Fail To Garner Many Oscars

Oscar nominations are finally out. It was suppose to be a year where anti-war films shined, but aside from Tommy Lee Jones getting a best actor nomination for In the Valley of Elah, there were no takers.

Martin Luther King Day

In honor of Martin Luther King Day in the United States, I present King's famous “I Have A Dream” speech:



Plus King’s famous “Letter from a Birmingham Jail".

King was a great orator, gifted leader, and an energetic activist. If King weren’t a preacher, he would still be a great man of letters.

Unfounded Fears Of An American Theocracy

M. Abdul Hafiz, columnist for The Daily Star, proffers his opinion on who will be the next President of the United States. Like most international commentators, he leans Democrat, of course; and naturally he’s weary of Republicans, especially of Huckabee. He writes:

The US constitution, in its first amendment, prohibited state support for the establishment of a religion -- a stipulation further articulated and reinforced by Thomas Jefferson, the third US president. However, much of the recent invocation of religion can be attributed to the increasing enthusiasm of the fundamentalist Evangelical Christians. Their activities were openly promoted by the Republicans during Bush's presidency, which, inspired by the neo-conservatives, produced a heady mix of religion and politics. The result is that an obscure Baptist Christian preacher Rev. Mike Huckabee surged forward in the polls in Iowa on the strength of his religious background. This trend has already distorted the secular character of American polity. Unless checkmated, the entire civilisational achievement of the great nation will be at stake.

Fundamentalist Christians have been involved in American politics off-and-on since the United States was founded, but they’ve never been successful in turning the United States into a theocracy that Mr. Hafiz fears. We can thank the Founding Fathers for their vision: first, for separating religion and government, which was a novel idea in the 18th century; and second, for constructing a constitutional mechanism— a system of check and balances—that makes a theocracy almost impossible. If somehow Huckabee became president, the prospect of American turning into a “Christian” nation would be next to nil.

World Bank Fires Anti-Corruption Head

An employee does her job and gets fired for her efforts:

The World Bank on Wednesday announced the resignation of Suzanne Rich Folsom as director of its anticorruption unit, or INT. "She was not forced out, she was not asked to leave," said external relations chief Marwan Muasher. That's one way of putting it.

Ms. Folsom is, in fact, leaving the bank of her own accord for a private-sector job, having recently completed a devastating report on $569 million worth of corrupted bank projects in India. But this is a story of a resignation by a thousand cuts. Along with her top deputies, Glenn Ware and Allison Brigati, Ms. Folsom departs having survived years of relentless vilification by a bank staff and even senior leadership determined to undermine her anticorruption efforts

She “left to pursue other opportunities” is a popular euphemism for being forced out, one step short of being fired. I had hoped Ms. Folsom would stick to her guns and force the World Bank to fire her. The ensuing publicity would have brought much needed attention to an organization that—like the International Monetary Fund and United Nations—is rife with corruption and bureaucratic malaise.

This incident also underscores the need to either reform both the IMF and WB, or eliminate them entirely. The United States, which provides the lion’s share of the funding for both entities, should demand changes in order to increase transparency and accountability—American taxpayers demand it from their government, why not international insitutions? Failing that, the United States should unilaterally withdraw from both the IMF and WB.

Book Review: Hatchet Jobs

I admit it. The only reason I bought Dale Peck’s Hatchet Jobs: Writings on Contemporary Fiction was the result of reading his snarky excerpts published in blogs and magazines. Normally I don’t read literary criticism; I find much of it obtuse and inaccessible to a lay reader like myself.

But when Peck writes “Rick Moody is the worst writer of his generation”, he begs to be noticed, and he got plenty of it. People—the types who adore car crashes at NASCAR races and fisticuffs at a hockey game—hunted down his reviews, most published in The New Republic, for the literary equivalent of a bloody beating. In the end, like myself, they were disappointed to find that the reviews were pretty ordinary.

From the reviews I have read so far, Peck is not the type to mince words—he is frank, and often brutally so. This frankness, at times, leads him to make snarky comments. Peck doesn’t like the fact that his reviews are reduced to the literary sound bites. Alas, we live in a culture where people make their opinion from five-second sound bites, not 7,500-word essays.

DVD Review: Wall Street Warriors: Season 1

Wall Street Warriors is a good attempt at a good idea, but ultimately fails in its goal: to provide an insider’s glimpse into those warriors who live or die on Wall Street. A product of MOJO HD, a high-definition men’s channel, it profiles a slew of financial professionals over six half-hour episodes, and therein lies its flaw.

We have a hedge fund manager, an analyst, day trader, portfolio manager, and an upstart. You can already see the problem. A half-hour (including commercials) is hardly enough time to explore the personalities let alone what they do for a living. And some characters get more time than others. Timothy Sykes, the upstart, who manages a micro hedge fund from his apartment, seems to get the lion’s share of the attention. And I can see why: he’s young, ambitious, enthusiastic, charismatic, and very lovable, although a bit obnoxious at times. The analyst, on the other hand, gets five minutes, and by series end completely disappears from view. And the portfolio manager is often identified as a hedge fund manager, which will lead to confusion, since there is another hedge fund manager already being profiled

Not to say this series is a complete lost; it’s still interesting in many ways; and the bonus material on the DVD makes up for some of the deficiencies. Rent it from Netflix.

Identity Politics Coming Home To Roost

Have been very busy of late: digging out of a snowstorm, busy at work (surprisingly!), and dealing with wife’s ear surgery. But I’m never too busy to comb the internet, looking for interesting stories like this:

Somewhat surprisingly, as the campaign has tightened, racial tensions have bubbled to the surface with the two camps exchanging accusations. Those tensions are reflected in this week’s polling data. Overall, Clinton and Obama are close nationally in the Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll. But, among white voters, Clinton leads 41% to 27%. Among African-American voters, Obama leads 66% to 16%.

The Democrats have always played the race card in elections, often with spectacular results. It’s all fine and dandy when using it against hapless Republicans, but now that a black man has a chance to win the Democratic nomination, is either Clinton or Obama going to play the race card? Knowing Hillary, she’ll use every weapon in her arsenal to win, including some good, old-fashion race baiting. Obama, to his credit, is not really playing the race angle, but who knows what will happen when finally faced with the prospect.

"Hindu Extremist" Kill Rajiv Gandhi?

William Dalrymple writes good books on India, but even he makes mistakes. In a column in The New York Times, Dalrymple, in comparing the assassinations of Rajiv Gandhi and Benazir Bhutto, makes the following falsehood:

WHEN, in May 1991, former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi of India was killed by a suicide bomber, there was an international outpouring of grief. Recent days have seen the same with the death of Benazir Bhutto: another glamorous, Western-educated scion of a great South Asian political dynasty tragically assassinated at an election rally.

There is, however, an important difference between the two deaths: while Mr. Gandhi was assassinated by Sri Lankan Hindu extremists because of his policy of confronting them, Ms. Bhutto was apparently the victim of Islamist militant groups that she allowed to flourish under her administrations in the 1980s and 1990s

Rajiv Gandhi was not killed by a “Hindu extremist,” but a female homicide bomber from the LTTE, a cultish, Marxist—and very secular—insurgent group violently fighting for a Tamil homeland in Sri Lanka. The LTTE is no more Hindu than the various factions of the PLO (Fatah, PFLP, PFLP-GC, etc) are Islamic, even though they are portrayed as such.

No doubt about it. There are plenty of Hindu extremists around (including one who shot Mahatma Gandhi), but a relatively few of them have become homicide bombers. In fact, I’m at wits end to come up with even one.

Political Punditry: Like Looking At Tea Leaves

The only thing I know is that political pundits—no matter how smart they are, or what experience they may have—came out looking like idiots after yesterday’s results from the New Hampshire primary, where they foolishly and prematurely declared Sen. Hillary Clinton politically dead after her poor showing in Iowa, and, not to mention, her misleading “poll” numbers.

Even a neophyte like myself knows Iowa is an unreliable prognosticator; yet the political pundits (you know who you are!) insisted that Obama Barack would take New Hampshire by double-digits. No doubt Barack still did well in New Hampshire, but if it proves anything: it’s going to be a tough primary season between Barack and Clinton (Edwards has no chance), each winning a handful of states, with none getting an outright victory.

It is increasingly looking like a very interesting Democratic National Convention in Denver. Hope it’s bloody!