The Phait Is Phover

The wait is over, announces Sportsillustrated-dot-com, the Phillies win their first World Series since 1980. I am glad to hear it, and happy for the rare Phillies fan who has entered my life, but let's have a little perspective: in a league of thirty teams, the Phillies won it twenty-eight years ago. I don't know, and won't research, how many teams were in the league in 1980; it won't have been many fewer.

Oh my God! That wait was so average in length!

Three Nights Still Remain In October

Everybody stop what you're doing and read Ulalume.

The Athletical Is Political

It's a great, if nerve-racking, time to be a Democratic voter and a fan of The University of Texas football. Our boys are Number One, but will they be at the end of the year?

Sit back and enjoy the ride, I think, and my sentiments were echoed by the drunk fan who, being driven away from the stadium after UT's 56-31 victory over Missouri by some (hopefully) sober friend, regaled the gaggle of burnt-orange-clad smilers milling about on the street with the result of the previous week's game: We beat OU!

Yes, take her easy. Relish. We won't always be Number One, so make sure not to let the atmosphere of hope and good feelings be wasted with teeth-chattering and ulcers.

Before the Mizzou game I picked the winner (correctly) and the score (closely, 48-24, deemed optimistic by the consensus). Late in the game, with the score 49-24, I admit to hoping backup Texas quarterback John Chiles's lone pass of the game would fall incomplete instead of being caught for the touchdown. But its catch means more for the quarterback and receiver than the brilliant prediction would have meant for me; I was being childish.

Childish, like an American voter when it comes to tax policy. There is virtually no political discussion of the absolute, ideal tax-rate scale our government should use (except from flat-tax proponents, who are probably wrong). Everything is framed in relative terms to the current (poor) tax-rate scale: are we being given a tax cut or a tax hike - let alone what the damned tax rate should be.

I think that there is an efficacious rate at which to tax each income bracket - one that pays for what Americans want the government to pay for without stifling incentive to do work and expand business. One that will result, at times, in yearly deficits without leading to explosive debt buildup. These rates change with the economy: broadly speaking, you raise taxes when the economy is doing well and cut taxes when the economy falters. Which brackets to cut, and how much (i.e., to favor the rich or the poor) is hotly debated, and we have the economy of the last eight years as evidence of what happens when the rich are favored.

Our economists and politicians should feel free to argue where we are with respect to the ideal tax rate schedule without fear of being electorally castrated if some tax rates are currently too low. A good-faith adherence to the American ideal of never raising any tax rate above 50% should keep any politician from being labeled pro-big-government, that cruellest of labels in a right-wing country. Beyond that, let the politician's record speak for itself: is he a responsible steward of tax dollars?

The economy is now poor, as a result of tax cuts targeted towards rich people. But never mind the reason. Because the economy is poor, our man Obama should raise taxes, even on the highest brackets, at his (and our) own peril. It would be wise for him to freeze the tax rate at the top and, as he has promised, cut taxes for the lower and middle classes.

But Senator McCain's tax argument is the height of inanity, Einstein's insanity: cutting taxes for the rich has gotten us into this hole; let's get out of it by . . . cutting taxes for the rich. The political brilliance of it is that he may now claim that every American deserves a tax cut, and he, and not our man Obama, is the one who will deliver it. That is, Senator McCain uses a premise that is literally correct to support a conclusion that ignores the underlying reality.

Sort of like when my man R. claimed he had been a better prognosticator of the Missouri game's final score when he guessed a common-sensical 37-31 UT: at least he had the score half-right.

Oh What A World

When everything else in life is going well - not, mind you, that it is - but when everything else in life is going well I will worry about the fate of the Universe. I will also worry about aging and death; it seems to be my outlook's lot to hover just above some horrifying inescapability, now managing the resolve to rise above and gather rosebuds, now sinking below into the blackness of the things I cannot change. I am blessed to have an equilibrium sufficiently above despair that I don't do anything stupid.

When I was studying astronomy as an undergraduate Dr. Wills discussed the Big Bang and framed the current, broadly accepted scientific debate as to whether the spreading Universe was sufficiently dense to cave back in on itself or not (in which case it would expand forever).

Now, let's be reasonable: railing against the True State of things (and I do believe there is one, objectively speaking, although I won't get into why, here) is taking windmill-tilting to a ridiculous extreme. Given the chance, I would actually not shatter this state of things entire, nor remold it nearer to my heart's desire, Old Khayyam, because my heart is a fickle little bastard and I would bet on the Universe being a bit more beautiful than anything I, little piece of it, could dream up. Although, yeah, it's tempting sometimes. So whatever is going to happen is fine by me, at least officially.

But I, at 18, pretty quickly hoped for the former, denser alternative: the Big Crunch that would suck all of space and time back in. Whether this would mean a following Big Bang (as I imagined and hoped) or just the end of it all, anything would be better than the slow decay of all energy, momentum, and life, until all is dust, forever floating away towards an expanse exceeded only by what it would be the day after. For the next Big Bang would mean rebirth (excellent) and a sucking in, not to be followed by another Big Bang, would at least leave room for other Big Bangs to come along instead. (For if it happened once it is the height of vanity to suppose it won't happen again.) But the never ending expanse of our pitiful little mass-glob would sweep out all potential space and dash any mortal dream of a happier future. (Is this really right? I have no idea. It's fun to conjecture, but I am an earthworm trying to read Khayyam - what place at the reality table may I claim? I will leave it as it lies.)

Then a couple of years ago I was informed by a posthumous footnote in The Varieties of Scientific Experience by Carl Sagan that in 1998 the Universe was deemed too light to support my bold hope - we would continue to expand forever, wrapping all existence in deadly gray. Shit.

But now Scientific American and Martin Bojowald have come to my rescue: Bojowald claims that space, like matter, is not infinitely divisible but is made of a fabric of tiny - well, maybe particles isn't the best word, but that there's a tiniest size that's appropriate for something to be thought of as a piece of space. Pack too much mass into it (a trillion Suns per proton-size!) and gravity regurgitates it. Pack all the matter of the Universe on the head of a pin and it will explode. There is no case of infinite density, as was previously thought to precede the "first" Big Bang. Redemption!

So I hold out hope for eternal existence. I personally won't be there, for I am alive now, and will die well before the next Big Bojowald Bounce. And call me vain, but once you leave existence, you never come back. . . .