Coffee -> Radiation -> Water -> Chocolate -> ?

I have to admit I enjoy having "Benjamin" who hijacked fond adversaria, around.

He arrives with bland advice about food that I can't imagine anyone reading through. He asks for nothing, demands nothing, does not engage.

He doesn't know us, knows that we don't know him, but he writes in the first person about his personal preferences and reommendations. In his water post, he takes care to remind us not to substiture his advice for that of a doctor, and disclaims liability.

So far, we have been treated to his thoughts on coffee, radiation, water, and chocolate. What will be next. How will my diet change next week in response to his latest advice.

I wait....

Tipping Story Problem...

The girls and I go to Ponderosa on Friday night. The deal there is that you wind your way up to a cash register to give your order and pay, receive a ticket for your food order and another for your beverage and sit down. The girls are both under three, so they get the buffet for free, but pay for their drinks. I use a coupon for my dinner order, so our total is $15.

We sit down, and the server is supposed to bring us our drinks and my food order, but take 15 minutes to find us. After that the service is average to good, including refills, and my food being brought out promptly.

The tip should be...

Only in America...

It's interesting that the tipping customs in North America are so much more than elsewhere in the world. Is it our merticratic pay-for-perfomance culture?

I'm not so sure, since a number of the reasons given for tipping well (servers have to tip out, they don't get paid a normal wage, etc.) have little or nothing to do with the quality of the service received. The language is that of entitlement rather than earning.

You can compare a tip to a performance bonus for white collar jobs, but there's a few key differences.

• While white collar workers might count on the bonus; their base salary is considered sufficient. Not so for service staff.
  
• A patron having a tough month who leaves no or a poor tip is a jerk. A CEO for a company having a tough year who lowers or eliminates bonuses might not win popularity contests, but will be considered prudent.
  

I think Keifus touched on the answer below. Since we all consider ourselves above average tippers, we walk away from these situation thinking we have some good. It's not quite a Travis Bickle fantasy, but I do think we think to ourselves, "Other people don't appreciate how hard she's working and how unfair the compensation system is. But I do, and I'll make it up to her."

So everyone leaves happy.

Business practices...

K,

Restaurant employers can legally underpay wait staff at something like a quarter minimum wage. (In MA, the base waiter pay is two-something an hour.) Employees need the tips to get paid anything approaching working wages. Depends on where you work, but a fraction of the tips usually go to the other underpaid restaurant schlubs: the busboys and dishwashers, and the person who cooks your food. Waiters also get screwed at tax time, as the two dollars and change is often insufficient to get properly FICAed. It's always fun to come up with a couple grand lump sum in April.

See, the last thing I want to be worrying about at the end of a nice dinner out is the FICA index for wait-staff's wages. It just simply should not be my problem. I think I should only consider the quality of the service received, rather than the compensation and taxation policies. Doing otherwise perpetuates an unjust system.

Of course, it's a lot easier for me to be principled when it's not my rent money we're talking about.

On the jury I was on last week, we had to figure out damages, and one of the jurors said we should add some more because the plaintiff's lawyer would get a certain percentage, and our response was that's not our problem.

I consider myself a good tipper (Does anyone consider himself a poor tipper? Or a bad driver?), but probably not at the standards of a server or former server. I can count on one finger the number of times I have ever left less than 15%, and almost always leave more. If I use a coupon, I add the coupon back in before calculating my tip. If I have the girls with me and they eat "free" but make a mess anyway, I'll add more.

But I do find myself avoiding scenarios that involve tipping, find myself resentful when I feel one is expected but unearned, and anxious about ambiguous situations. (e.g. I wait in line and place an order at a counter, and am given a cup and a number tent. Someone brings me a platter with my food. There are no visible trash cans for me to bus my table, so I leave my tray. Must I tip?)

And I guess I should add with reference to my post yesterday that it's probably a good thing for social equality that most of us know somebody who has worked for tips, and can sympathize.

John McG. (cheap bastard)

WikiFray Symposium: Tip Inflation.

We're going to try to having "symposiums" on different topics. WF members are encouraged to reply on this topic with top posts rather than comments or forum posts. We'll try to have one each week.


Reihan Salam writes:

Generally speaking, I don't like dealing with wait staff. Why? Because I am uncomfortable with being served. And so I generally leave good tips, even if the service is not great. I once dated a young woman who worked as a server and she gave me some basic guidelines: (a) say you had a milkshake and the bill comes to $8 -- you still need to leave at least $4 because someone has to clear the damn table. (b) Leave at least 20 percent.

It seems every circle of friends has this person -- the one who used to work as a server and insists that everyone leave 30% tips for average service. I'm sure WikiFray has one as well, who will chime in soon.

And yeah, somebody had to clear the damn table. For a milkshake, that entails picking up a glass, maybe two an putting it in the basin. That's $4 of labor? Tell that to a migrant farm worker.

And even if it is, it's called a loss leader. The labor for a $15 steak dinner isn't that much more than that for a $7 sandwich. The labor for a $5 glass of beer is the same as for a $2 soda. Yet the tip for those is doubled. If Target sells milk below cost to get me in the store to buy higher margin items, I am not obligated to pay more for it if that's all I buy. It's a business. Some items are more profitable than others.

And note the effect this has on Reihan -- he dreams of a restaurant where he doesn't have to deal with anybody. When the cost of a restaurant milkshake is $12, the $3 dirve thru looks like a bargain. These servers who think they're doing their fellow workers such a service by hectoring everyone into leaving big tips are ultimately harming them.

Add in that it seems that every face-to-face interaction these days involves an encounter with a tip jar. I smell a backlash.

Open thread

Please use the first comment link (to the left of the post count) to sound off.

May I see your ID?

You'll need it, because WikiFray is

Mingle² - Online Dating

Well, we're in good company, or company anyway.

Does this make us porn stars?

Kaus's "special focus"

Maybe it’s a result of reading a week’s worth of posts in one sitting rather than simply one at a time, but there is something creepy about Mickey Kaus’s ,er, special focus on defeating the immigration bill.

A couple of highlights…

Is the cloture vote the “real” vote?

Part of this focus has included counting votes for and against cloture on debate of the bill, on the assumption that if cloture passes, then the bill will pass. Even if some senators ultimately vote against the bill, it doesn’t matter because their votes for cloture have the effect of moving the bill toward forward. Voting for cloture and against the bill is a form of “kabuki” so that senators can advance the bill, but still be on the record as having opposed it. Thus, Kaus is calling us to consider a vote for cloture a vote for the bill, and hold Senators accountable accordingly.

In another context, Kaus appeals to the wisdom of the Framers in making it difficult to pass legislation.

I’m no Robert Byrd, but I’m not convinced that these high-stakes “call your Senator” procedural votes are what the Framers intended, either. It seems that they intended for there to be some space for the yes/no position – that might oppose a piece of legislation, but that it should got to an up/down vote. If this were not the case, it would have been simpler to just require a 60% majority to pass any legislation (or confirm any judges).

I understand that in this particular context, a vote for cloture does have this effect. It just seems to be that this focus on procedural votes is not what was intended. If the current Senate rules in today’s environment have this effect, then maybe they need some tinkering (preferably with a better name than “the nuclear option”.)

A Press-Proof Rally

Kaus laughably writes…

how about some street demonstrations? It worked in the '60s. The trick would be including Democrats, and keeping the protests so free of fringe elements, violence, and anything that could be characterized as anti-Latino prejudice that they couldn't be tarred by the media (which would be looking to pitch opponents as angry bigots).

Hey, while you’re at it, why don’t you organize a pro-life march that the press won’t spin as a handful of religious zealots with links to terrorists like Eric Rudolph?

Or better yet, put together a pro-immigration rally that those opposed won’t spin a gathering storm of Mexican nationalism?

It’s a little late in the day to be whining about how the press portrays the movement.

I think Dana Stevens missed a memo...

In Slate, Dana Stevens concludes her odd piece about abortion politics and Knocked Up with this nugget...

That same Atlantic blog post concludes with the opinion that the movie is "almost naively pro-life"—that Alison decides to keep her baby because "killing it" would be "obviously and terribly wrong," and Alison, bless her heart, is not a "bad person" who would do such a thing. The 77 percent of Americans who support abortion rights—and the 40 percent or more of American women who have exercised that right—can be excused for wondering where that supposedly obvious moral consensus is coming from. Roe v. Wade may be in perpetual danger of erosion, but look on the bright side: We still have more choices than most pregnant women in the movies.

Stevens doesn't source her 77 percent number, but that is the highest number I have ever seen for either side of that issue, and she says it is those who "support abortion rights," so I would tend to believe it was those opposed to an outright ban.

Remember -- the topic here wasn't Roe v. Wade, or any effort by the government to restrict abortion. It was about a movie not presenting abortion as a legitimate option for its female protagonist experiencing an unplanned pregnancy.

Now, as a veteran of abortion debates, I thought the consensus was that conflating support for abortion rights with enthusiasm for the procedure itself was a dirty trick by the pro-life side designed to portray the pro-choice side as amoral monsters. I thought the party line included phrases like, "nobody likes abortion," and "safe, legal, and rare."

Indeed, the entire pro-choice argument rests on the principle that there should be some space between what is considered immoral and what is criminal. Keep you rosaries off my ovaries, etc. People can feel how they want about abortion, so long as they don't try to translate it into criminal santions. This is the argument Catholic pro-choice politicians, including the current Speaker of the House, use to explain how they can reconcile their faith, which unambiguously condemns abortion, with their pro-choice positions.

But I guess that 77 percent number was too big for Stevens to resist.

So, should we take Stevens at her word? Does opposing banning of abortion imply moral approval? Should people's position on Roe v. Wade be based on anything more than moral appoval or disapproval of abortion in general (or things like parial-birth abortion in specific, since each Democratic presidential candidate lamented the Supreme Court not finding it to be protected)?

I don't think affirmative answers to those questions would lead to conclusions Stevens would be very happy with. Which is why NARAL took the word "abortion" out of its name, pro-choice politicians say things like "reproductive self determination" and "a woman's right to choose" rather than mention abortion explicitly, and pro-lifers are condemned for graphic depictions of abortion. From the pro-choice movement, "shmashmortion" would qualify as rare candor.

But if Stevens want to rip the facade off, that's fine with me. You just don't get to eat your cake and have it to. You don't get to claim 77 percent of the public has no moral problem with abortion, and then blanche when we link a permissive abortion legal environment with cultural approval of abortion.

More:

Ross Douthat responds, since the article was in large part in response to his comments.

Ezra Klein has something closer to what a a pro-choice reaction is, if pro-choice really isn't just a euphemism for "pro-abortion."

Stop trashing fathers...

Andrew Sullivan examines Mitt Romney's statements about same sex partnership, and advises him, "going around trashing mothers is not the best politics. Especially when the next generation is so over this crap. And especially when one of those moms is the daughter of the vice-president."

Of course, Romney has no plans to start "trashing mothers" in general, nor does the "Christianist base" expect him to. What social conservatives desire is cultural acknowledgement that, in general, the best arrangment for raising children is a mother and father who are living together?

Will there be exceptions to this? Absolutely. Do they deserve our support and assistance? Yes. Does that mandate pretending that these arrangements are the ideal and treating them as such? I really don't think so. Is failing to do so tantamount to "trashing mothers?" Clearly not.

Because the message that goes out isn't just what a great mothers Mary Cheney and her partner are. The message that goes out is that fathers are unncecessary. Again, that doesn't mean that every father is a good father, or that anyone raised without a father is doomed. Just that fatherhood involvement is something that should be encouraged, and that treating arrangements like Mary Cheneys as equivalent moves us in the opposite direction.

Now, my post title is tongue and cheek. Obviously, Sullivan is not intending to trash fathers; he wants equality for committed same sex couples. I get that. I wish he would somehow indicate that he gets that those opposed aren't out to "trash mothers," either.

Thoughts on PBS...

We don't get cable in the JohnMcG household, so we have five or six TV options, one of which is the local PBS station.

Currently, they're in pledge drive mode.

A few observations on this:

• It seems like these come around more often then they used to.
  
• It also seems like we sit through a lot of things that sure look like commercials. But they don't break into the kids programming anymore, so that's nice.
  
• I seem to remember that the pledge period was like sweeps months for the networks -- they trotted out their best programming. Not, it seems the relationship between the performances and PBS is more, er, bidirectional. In other words, it seems like the artists being featured are keeping their careers alive by being on PBS. So we get Dennis DeKamp, the Moody Blues, the "source energy" guy, Johnny Mathis and lots of Susie Orman. The artists get exposure, PBS gets some tickets to give away to members.
  
• On a non-pledge drive related note, I have noticed that Bill Moyers is the abolute master of booking someone to say a certain thing, and then acting surprised when he says it. He'll be interviewing the author of a book called, "The President is a liar," and during the interview, Moyers will act shoced and ask, "so you're saying that the president has been lying to the American people??" Always a treat.
  

Why Giuliani (and Romney) won't do for pro-lifers

George Will writes about the appeal of Rudy Giuliani to social conservatives, in spite of his positions that go against them. He writes:

So, last year, perhaps a million women and their doctors committed murder. However much a person deplores abortion and embraces that legal logic, nobody believes that either the legislation or the constitutional amendment that Republican platforms have praised will be passed. Hence the sterility of today's abortion debate. And hence the inclination of some social conservatives to focus on limiting abortion by changing the culture, and their willingness to evaluate candidates by criteria unrelated to abortion.

This social conservative gets off the bus at the last comma there. I am committed to ending abortion, and that this will include government action, but I am coming to the realization that doing so means more than just electing candidates who check the "pro-life" box on the form. That's where this "changing the culture" stuff comes in.

Part of "changing the culture" is choosing leaders. And for me, at least, choosing a leader who embraces war, capital punishment, and torture of detainees moves the culture in the wrong direction.

Which is why it is my opinion, that in spite of being "pro-life," and having a record completely consistent with pro-life values, George W. Bush has done more to hurt the pro-life position than help it. He has given evidence to all those inclined to believe that pro-lifers only care about people until their born. He claims to be pro-life, but has exercised zero leadership on this score, focusing instead on things like the war in Iraq and privatizing social security, which calls our seriousness into question. And his polarizing style, which some conservatives are now getting a taste of in the immigration debate, turns people away who might have grown sympathetic to pro-life arguments.

Given that, why would we want to elect a president who seems to share all these negative qualities, but doesn't even pretend to be pro-life? If we're now concerned mostly about culture, what would electing such a leader from what used to be the pro-life party do to the culture?

Some say that as long as Giuliani is functionally pro-life, i.e. appointing "strict constructionist" judges, which we're supposed to trust is secret code word for "inclined to overturn Roe v. Wade, it doesn't matter. The same argument is made for those who are concerned that Mitt Romney's recent change of heart on this issue has more to do with electoral calculation than person conviction.

But, as this president has shown, the presidency is more than just checking the right box when confronted with a problem. The president sets the agenda, and chooses which battles to fight. I have no reason to believe that either Giuliani or Romney would actively work for the unborn. They may make the right calls when given no choice, but my suspicion is that they would avoid the issue as much as possible.

The message this sends to those inclined to dislike the pro-choice movement is that we're not that serious about the issue. Yeah, we'd like to elect a president who's pro-life, but that candidate need not make it a priority. The important thing is sticking it to the pro-choicers.

Looking at the field, the candidate most likely to bring about the cultural transformation needed is Obama. Yes, I know, his position is indistinguishable from the other candidates, including his recent criticism of the Supreme Court for not finding a right to partial birth abortion in the Constitution. But it is my opinion that we've ridden this current political structure as far as it can take us, and it's not far enough. Even if a President Giuliani or President Romney nominates and confirms a Supreme Court justice who becomes part of a majority to overturn Roe v. Wade, it would be a hollow victory indeed, and be greeted with an enormous backlash.

Ending abortion will require a cultural and political transformation. Such a transformation will require a leader unsatisfied with the current politics, and courageous enough to change it.

Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney seem to be fine with today's politics (it got them where they are), even if it means that evils like abortion and torture continue. So long as they get to be president.

That won't do.

Can both sides lose?

I'm having a hard time finding a a side to support in the comprehensive immigration debate.

On the one hand, the Administration seems to be doing a replay of the Iraq war sale, and I didn't much care for that the first time. This includes:

• Asserting that immediate action is required, when it might not be.
  
• Name-calling against all those opposed.
  
• Aspirations of some grand historical event that will establish a legacy.
  

Add in that part of the motivation seems to be to try to win Latino voters to the Republican Party, and I'm even less enthused.

On the other hand, I'm not too thrilled with those opposed either. There's
the subtext of xenophobia and racism. There's the extreme labelling.

And now, there's the feigned shock that the Bush Administration would engage in ugly name-calling against those who stand in the way of its political goals. Can you imagine? George W. Bush imply that his political opponents are unpatriotic? The nerve! I thought he was a uniter, not a divider! Who could have foreseen this turn of events?

Warner and the McCanns

Follow the link for context, then continue if you so desire...


It seems like Warner would be on solid ground if she omitted the next-to-last paragraph of her original piece.

As it is, it looks like she is laying the blame of the abduction at the feet of the SAHM movement. I read a good bit of American parenting commentary, and I've yet to find a condemnation of resort babysitting services, let alone the suggestion that leaving children alone is a prefereable alternative. If the McCanns were really moved to do what they did by societal condemnation of outside child care, it's hard to imagine that this would be the first or last time they would do something stupid based on societal influences.

This is as distasteful and hateful as blaming it on lasseiz-faire parenting.




Can we agree on two principles?

1. The McCann's decision to leave their children alone in a hotel room was a stupid mistake.

2. The face that they made this stupid mistake does not make them "bad parents," or mean that they deserve what happened to them. Many parents do things equally or more stupid with no consequence. They were unlucky. Accountable, but unlucky.




I'm reminded of a case study dave posted to the Fray some time ago (now sadly unlinkable), about a parent who threw their kid out of the house, who then was beaten and raped (if I remember correcty), and asked us to assess blame.

What I took away from that is that with all the culture wars, we lose sight of our basic duties. We decide whether we're in the "tough parent" or "easy-going parent" category, and act consistent with that self-image rather than just being a parent. Maybe throwing the kid out was consistent with the "tough parent" script, but it is inconsistent with the basic responsibility of providing shelter.

Similarly, if we accept Warner's thesis that the McCann's did what they did based on cultural stigmaitization of hired child care (which I don't), then it seems they did so because they were following the script of stay at home parents rather than simply parents, making avoiding hired child care a higher priority than providing care at all.

It seems the thing to do is not to point fingers at one side or the other of the "Mommy Wars," but to agree on what basic responsibilities all parents have, regardless of where they align themselves.

It may not be as fun as throwing stones at working mothers or stay at home mothers, but it would probably do more to help.

My idea...

Paul Stamatiou writes that to make a lot of money on the internet, all you need is a great idea.

Here's my idea; whether it's great or not is not determined.

As the blogging market shakes out, withfew exceptions the individual blog is not the dominant model. Most of the leading blogs are either affiliates or under a corporate umbrella. This has numerous advantages -- I know that I do not write enough that a daily check of a personal blog for me would be worthwhile.

What was nice about the individual blog model was that there could be one source for all of someone's writings. As it is my writing is spread out, some stuff here, other stuff at my personal blog, some in comment threads (including WordPress, Blogger and HaloScan), Fray posts, newsgroups, and other forum software.

It would be nice to have a way to integrate all these sources into one page.

Now, this would require cooperation from each of these sources, but I don't think it would be terribly onerous. It would pretty much take each of them to have RSS feeds by username, since they require userid logins.

Then, these feeds could be mashed together for an integrated view of whatever I've posted online.

I also think there will be increasing demand for tools to manage one's online profile.

Off topic

Studio 60, Josh Hancock, and the harrowing bus plunge...

• Now that sweeps are over, NBC is playing out the string on Studio 60. Last night's effort featured no screen time for Bradley Whitford, Amanda Peet, or Matthew Perry, a renewal of flirtatious banter between Allison Janney and Timothy Busfield, the startlingly original subplot of a black superstar's womanizing coming back to haunt him when he meets a woman he loves, and the cast expressing fatigue with the Matt-Harriett romance, which they've been building the show around. Can see why it's cancelled.
  
  
• Well, any good will there was remaining for Josh Hancock's memory just went down the toilet. They won't win, but we shouldn't even waste resources defending against lawsuits for wrongful death for someone who wrecked one car while drunk, got drunk again, then drove again, and sped while talking on a cell phone. I guess I should shut up before Hancock's family sues me for libel.
  
  
• You can read my first person account of my bus plunge over at MBB
  

Some amnesty's OK

The main criticism of the immigration bill seems to be that it is too good a deal for those who are currently here illegally. It's been labelled the "amnesty" bill or other things.

I can somewhat understand this perspective -- these people are in violation of the law, and lawbreaking should not be rewarded. It sends the message that if you want to come here, get here by any means neccesary, and wait for the next amnesty.

But in looking at the current situation, it seems like the illegal aliens are not the primary immoral agents. That would be the employers, who were aware of the law, and broke it anyway. They did not patriotically sacrifice in order to honor are laws. No, they gladly employed these people, paid them below standard wages, didn't pay their part of social security, and pulled in the profits.

And they're getting amnesty, too, though nobody seems too outraged about that. There's not going to be any effort to punish those who have happily been benefitting from the curcurrent system. They're not going to have to pay back social security payments.

No, our outrage is reserved for those who risked their lives to get here in the hopes of establishing a better life for themselves and their children, and have been working shitty jobs for sub-standard pay for opportunistic employers, and us as consumers so we can pay a price for goods that is much less than their cost. They must pay. They must be punished. Those who exploited them, well, what are we gonna do about that now? In fact, let's set up a "guest worker" program so they can continue the practice.

Oh, but the immigrants sometimes wave the wrong flags at their rallies. And they don't arrive speaking our language. That's why they should pay, yeah. It doesn't have anything to do with their skin color.

On that.....

Daveto asks (and answers) the question of whether the NBA's policy of suspending players who leave the bench during an altercation has to do with the fact that most of the players are black, and most of the NBA's audience is white.

I agree with his affirmative answer, but I don't think that ends the conversation.

From the NBA's perspective, it seems this means they are doing the right thing. They are running the business. Their customers demand a certain product (world-class basketball without bench-clearing brawls). The NBA's task is to provide it.

Which brings us to the demand side.

As Simmons has noted, bench-clearing brawls in baseball and hockey don't bring about nearly the concern that they do in the NBA. But I'm not sure the reason for that is entirely racial. The crowd is much closer to the action in basketball than it is in other sports, and there isn't much of a physical barrier. As the Ron Artest incident showed, the crowd can easily get involved in an NBA scuffle, and help it turn ugly.

Of course, this begs the question of whether it's "ugly" because the crowd's involved, or "ugly" because it's black guys fighting instead of white guys. Not sure we'll ever be able to tease that out.

Which may bring us back to the NBA's culpability. They could have better security, but that would take away from the atmosphere. Jack Nicholson might not pay the same price for his courtside seat if there were a barrier between him and the court, so there won't be a barrier any time soon.

Plus, the NBA exploits animosity. Why have the Lakers and Heat played each other the last three Christmases? Didn't they play up Reggie Miller jawing with Spike Lee?

Playing by the Rules

The controversy around the suspension or Amare Stoudemire and Boris Diaw for Game 5 of their playoff series brings to light a number of issues.

First, they were obviously in violation of the rule, and the application of that rule was correct. Whether that rule is prudent is another question.

One argument offered in their defense is that it is a natural reaction when one sees a teammate down to come to his defense. There's a couple problems with this.

One is this notion that "what feels right" ought to govern our laws, especially if some noble instinct is behind this feeling. So we shouldn't punish someone who comes to the aid of a teammate. If it would "feel right" under some circumstances to torture, then we can't rule out torture. If you'd want to kill the guy who murders your wife, then we should have capital punishment.

This is a dangerous way to construct moral laws.

We have rules to punish those who are malicious, and deliberately do what is wrong, yes, but also as a guide to inform our consciences, since our gut feel is not always right. In the moment, I might not understand the consequences of torturing a detainee; the rules help me to understand.

The other is that, in the context of a game like basketball, you act according to the rules , not according to natural instinct. It is completely unnatural to dribble the basketball if you want to move around the floor with it. But that's the rule, and anyone who plays basketball trains himself to dribble. Similarly, NBA players should know by know that leaving the bench triggers severe punishment, and train themselves accordingly.

Of course, the consequence for travelling is loss of one possession, whereas the consequence for leaving the bench is missing a game, which may turn the series. That seems unfair -- NBA players should know not to leave the bench, but a playoff series should not turn on that. It doesn't have much to do with which is a better basketball team. Plus, the travelling rule is more or less intrinsic to the game of basketball than staying in the bench area.

Which brings me to another point -- it seems that the outcomes of professional sports series are increasingly determined by who manages the rules correctly.

I've touched on this before. The Spurs may win this series because the Suns didn't remember the rule about leaving the bench. AFC supremacy between the Colts and Patriots is determined by how closely the refs call contact against the defensive backs. Bill Simmons notes that Bruce Bowen has built a career around skating inside the rules, and how players play for calls. The Miami Heat won the Finals last year in large part because the refs called a foul every time Dwyane Wade drove toward the basket. Curt Schilling writes about how the umpire's strike zone plays in to his approach.

The result is a game that bears little resemblance to how the game is played at an amateur level, as Simmons wrote. You can't build a pick-up basketball offense around having a guard drive toward the basket, jumping into a defender and getting a foul.

I'm not entirely sure why this is the case. Perhaps the game has become so sophisticated, and information so widespread, that this is the only edge left to be gained. Or silly rules like the leaving the bench rule raise the stakes for compliance. Or maybe it's a "winning is everything" type attitude that says that whatever happens is good so long as it helps your team win, regardless of what is has to do with who's the better team.

During the World Series, I was critical of Tony LaRussa for not pressing for a suspension of Kenny Rogers when the substance was found on his hand. But now I'm beginning to see his point. LaRussa wanted the Cardinals to win the World Series by playing better baseball on the field, rather than leveraging the rules to greater advantage.

If the Spurs win the championship (and the Suns appear to be their toughest competition on that front), will they know that they were really the best basketball team, or that they were better at obeying a particular rule? How will that effect their satisfaction in that accomplishment?

In the last Baseball Abstract, Bill James suggested a variety of rule changes, and summarized the motivation for them as, "quit screwing around and play baseball." I suggest we apply that to other sports as well. It's hard to see what staying in the bench area has to do with playing basketball.

Easy sports column fodder department..

In response to this, I suspect we'll see lots of columns with lines like the following in the next few days...

• Apparently, an actual death isn't enough to break baseball's addiction to beer. One wonders how many deaths it will take.
  
• Once again money talks. Is it too much to ask baseball players to wait an hour or two to get home before having a postgame brew to save a few lives? Sadly, the answer appears to be yes.
  
• Cynics may note that the Brewers play in a sparkling new retractable domed stadium named "Miller Field," and wonder what Miller has bought with their dollars.