Calvin Coolidge emerged to prominence as the Governor of Massachusetts. While in that post, the Boston Police went on strike. This was an era where strikes were all too common and very problematic. Coal Miners, for example,would often threaten to strike and leave most of the nation without heat for the Winter.

The “Boston Police Strike” became a national headline, with other governors and police departments watching anxiously, as the results of this strike would greatly influence cities across the country. Coolidge resisted pressure to a shocking conclusion, which I won’t spoil here. His extremely bold decisions catapulted him to political prominence.

That would lead him to a nomination as the running mate for Republican Presidential Candidate Warren Harding, They would campaign and win on “normalcy,” an end to the uncertainty and bevy of new laws from the Wilson administration. Now the Vice President of the United States, Coolidge was surprised at how little power the office really held and the lack of respect he was given in Senate. Of course, Warren Harding would die in office and leave Coolidge to carry out his policies.

As President, Coolidge slashed taxes and the national debt. For the first time, the nation saw airplanes traverse the skies. Coolidge would be the first to light a Christmas Tree strung with electronic lights on the White House lawn. The carving of Mt. Rushmore was commissioned, with the inscription written by President Coolidge.

He would complain that ”Democrats spend money like water,” and would veto a bevy of wasteful spending bills coming from both parties (popularizing the “Pocket Veto”). His administration would be the first to use “scientific taxation” now popularly referenced as the Laffer Curve. He would keep the size of the federal government in check, even when floods in the South and his native New England, tempted more, and he would humbly leave office after his first full-term, in respect of the example George Washington set.

Upon leaving office, he rejected offers to work on Wall Street, fearing a stock market collapse (The Great Depression loomed). Instead, he accepted a position authoring a newspaper column. He disagreed with the policies of his former staffer, now President, Herbert Hoover. The surplus he worked so hard to create would disappear as government spending rose to combat the depression. As the deficit grew under Hoover new taxes came into law. His surplus would turn into a $2 billion deficit and the tax rates he worked so hard to lower would be raised to a whopping 60%, exasperating the nation’s problems. In one of his columns he wrote, “A higher tax means real wages are lower… every home is burdened.”

When Hoover eventually failed in his re-election bid, FDR promised “bold, persistent experimentation,” quite the opposite of the “normalcy” Harding/Coolidge rode into office years before. The nation had turned back to the progressive policies that failed during the Wilson administration. Coolidge would pass away shortly thereafter, leaving a legacy of humility and honor in the US Presidency, one that has often been overlooked.

I purchased Coolidge brand new on Ebay, and certainly got more than what I paid out of it. Now I’m selling it back and buying my next book, The Damascus Countdown by Joel Rosenberg. If you’re at all interested, I’m covering shipping. It is listed on Ebay here.

With the partial addition of Notre Dame, the nine-game schedule became too cumbersome and Swofford acquiesced, moving back to the eight-game schedule that all wanted in the first place. Notre Dame had saved the schedule, but many were left scrambling to find a fourth out of conference opponent. Clemson was forced to add a second FCS school, when Kent State was no longer available. Wake Forest had to plan a home and road with Louisiana-Monroe. They’ll start 2014 on the road, against the Warhawks.

Now, the ACC is announcing plans to schedule permanent rivalry week matchups. That means for schools like Duke, that don’t play a out-of-conference foe during rivalry week, they’ll be assigned a consistent conference opponent to play in that slot every season. It may look something like this.

Clemson vs. South Carolina (Columbia Campus)
Georgia Tech vs. Georgia
FSU vs. Florida
Wake Forest vs. Vanderbilt
VT vs. UVA
UNC vs. NCSU
Louisville vs. BC
Miami vs. Duke
Syracuse vs. Pitt

Albeit late, this is exactly what should have been done immediately following the new additions. Although the botched it early on with the flip-flop on the nine-game schedule, this is great news for the conference. Hopefully they are able to work it out and add some intrigue and consistency to the conference schedule.

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- Hermit Gosnell Case: Seven counts of first degree murder and one charge of third-degree-murder for medical incompetence that lead to the overdose death of a 41 year-old woman. That’s what Dr. Hermit Gosnell faces. His workplace was raided in response to the “high-volume” of Oxycontin he was prescribing. It was in that raid that authorities found the bodies of babies killed after botched abortions. It is alleged that he was performing partial-birth abortions after the 24-week legit limit. On occasion, these children would be born, alive and viable, and would be put to death after birth. For a fairly straight-forward report, see the PBS video below.

- Terrorism in Boston: Receiving the most media attention of recent weeks, the terrorist attack in Boston, carried out by a pair of Chechen, Muslim brothers frightened the nation and temporarily shutdown Boston. As with so many other attacks there was no impetus other than hatred. If you feel you need more, see the Boston Globe’s page here: BOSTON GLOBE

- Benghazi Scandal: I will attempt to remain as objective as possible here. The American diplomatic mission at Benghazi, Libya, was attacked on September 11, 2012 by a heavily armed group. Witnesses from Benghazi have come forth and said they “begged” for additional security in the days before the attack. The State Department rejected such calls for security. After the compound fell under siege, help did not come, despite emergency calls for assistance. State Department whistle blowers claim it was clearly communicated to the State Department that it was a terrorist attack with links to Al Qaeda. The White House reported that it was a response to an anti-Islamic video on YouTube. If testimony is true, three major questions arise 1) Why wasn’t security given in advance? 2) Why wasn’t security rushed to Benghazi immediately upon the attack? 3) and most scandalous, why was it reported that the attacked was sparked by an offensive video if intelligence immediately informed them otherwise? When asked what his reaction upon hearing the “YouTube Video Cause,” he said “my jaw dropped.” It shall be interesting to see what comes of this. Unfortunately, its become increasingly politicized. Republicans seem to wish for the worst (with Hillary’s possible 2016 Presidential run) and Democrats appear uninterested in learning more (for the same reason).

Update: Pressure mounts to appoint special committee

- Jodi Arias: Receiving, in my opinion, more coverage than it deserves, the Jodi Arias trial has been the sensational murder that has captured the attention of the nation. She was convicted of first-degree-murder for stabbing her boyfriend to death while he was showering. In an exclusive post-conviction interview, she said she would prefer the death penalty over life in prison.

- IRS anti-Tea Party Scandal: Unfortunately, this one is not just a right-wing conspiracy theory, as they made a public apology.

On Friday, the IRS apologized for what it acknowledged was “inappropriate” targeting of conservative political groups during the 2012 election to see if those groups were violating their tax-exempt status.

Thanks for reading and staying informed. To quote the video above, “I just feel overwhelmed.”

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The Bad

Although ESPN acted as if ACC fans should be flattered that the Chick-fil-A Bowl was chosen as one of the six rotating bowl games in the College Football Playoff, we’ve lost our best bowl game. From ESPN:

There’s more good news for the ACC. 

The BCS conference commissioners on Wednesday selected the Chick-fil-A Bowl, a longtime member of the ACC’s bowl lineup, as one of an elite group of six bowl games to host the new College Football Playoff.

A different ESPN article puts it more appropriately:

The conference needs to find a replacement for the Chick-fil-A Bowl, which will join the Cotton, Fiesta, Orange, Rose and Sugar Bowls as the hosts for the new playoff structure that will begin following the 2014 college football season.

So just like that, the ACC loses their marquee non-BCS bowl. Some of my early memories as a Clemson fan are from the 2003 Peach Bowl against Tennessee and the first bowl game I ever attended was the 2007 Chick-fil-A Bowl against Auburn. I loathe losing our affiliation with such a rich historic bowl.

#ACC loses Chick-fil-A Bowl as it’s No. 2 bowl (behind Orange) as Chick is one of 6 bowls designated for new college football playoff. #UVa

— Jerry Ratcliffe (@JerryRatcliffe) April 25, 2013

The ACC also adds three schools to the bowl lineup (Notre Dame, Syracuse, and Pittsburgh were all in bowl games in 2012) and upgrades from Maryland to Louisville so improving the bowl lineup is critical.

The Good

Should an ACC team make the College Football Playoff in a year when the “Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl,” as it will again be called, is a host, they would most likely end up in Atlanta–a consolation to losing the bowl tie-in. For most ACC fans, this would make for a much easier trip than New Orleans, Glendale, Los Angeles, Dallas, or Miami, the other rotating playoff sites. It seems plausible that SEC and ACC teams will generally be given preference by the selection committee in other years as well.

With 15 teams sharing the bowl lineup, the ACC is looking to get to nine or even 10 bowl tie-ins. As I wrote back in December (of 2012), the New Era Pinstripe Bowl played in Yankee Stadium would be an appropriate fit. It now appears that the bowl will be added to the lineup. It would feature an ACC v. Big 10 matchup, something the bowl season currently lacks.  

More importantly, it looks like the ACC will get the Gator Bowl back. A tip of the cap to Notre Dame for that addition. As I wrote back in December:

Part of the reason they [the Gator Bowl] abandoned their affiliation with the Big East was due to restrictions on how often they could select Notre Dame. Such restrictions don’t apply in the ACC’s agreement and matchups like Northwestern v. Mississippi State aren’t impressing anyone.

In years that the Big 10 sends a team to the Orange Bowl, which figures to be at least half the time, the ACC will take their spot in the Capital One Bowl, the highest paying non-BCS bowl in the current system. Agreements with the Gator, Capital One, and Pinstripe bowls are not yet finalized.

Additionally, it looks like the ACC will hang on to the Russell Athletic (Formerly Champ Sports), Music City, and Belk bowls, with the Belk working on upgrading the ACC’s opponent to an SEC foe. Assuming an Atlantic Coast Conference team isn’t in the four-team-playoff and the Big 10 sends a member to the Orange Bowl the ACC bowl lineup would look something like this, give or take:

Orange: ACC Champion (vs. Big 10 or Notre Dame)
Capital One: ACC #2
Gator: ACC #3
Russell Athletic: ACC #4
Sun Bowl: ACC #5 (or ACC Championship Game runner-up)
Belk: ACC #6
Music City: ACC 7
Pinstripe: ACC #8 (indicated they will favor local schools)
Independence: ACC #9
Military: ACC #10

That’s not too shabby. They’ve wisely structured it so either Notre Dame plays in the Orange Bowl and the Capital One is taken by the Big 10 or Notre Dame shares in the ACC Bowl line-up and the Capital One goes to an ACC member while the Orange Bowl pits a Big 10 team against the ACC Champion (the second ACC vs. Big 10 matchup of the bowl season).

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The city of Atlanta, state of Georgia, Georgia World Congress Center & Atlanta Falcons have agreed to build a retractable-roof stadium, with a potential cost of around $1 billion, on the GWCCA campus in time for the 2017 NFL season.

This is great new for the Falcon fans, especially those who don’t live in Atlanta and won’t have to pay for this new stadium (with their tax funds). Ever better news, they’re not planning a cookie cutter Bank of America style stadium. They have some pretty outlandish ideas to incorporate (on top of the retractable roof). This video details some. They include club seats that vibrate during big plays, a lounge for fantasy footballers, and a 100-yard sports bar. It is to be a landmark that people will come from all over to see.

 

Could we see a Chick-fil-A Bowl or a National Championship played in this epic new stadium? I believe so. In fact, I’m confident we’ll see a National Championship played in Atlanta within the next 10-15 years. It is the capital of college football and it just feels right. The college football playoff is already making it appear likely. Atlanta is quickly starting to feel as major as Los Angeles and Chicago. Not just little brother anymore. Good for the Falcons!

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The ACC has improved as much as any during the madness. They added one of the most prominent programs in college football, Notre Dame, as a partial member and a Final Four team from a tremendous television market, Syracuse. After Maryland left for the Big 10 and the conference’s stability came into question, they managed to replace the Terrapins, one of their weakest members, with the nation’s best basketball program that wasn’t already in the ACC (save Kentucky). Louisville will also be one of the three or four best football programs in the conference. They also added Pittsburgh (unfortunately, I don’t have any special compliments for Pitt, except they are a decent school in a decent sized market).

In less exciting news, Georgia Southern and Appalachian State from the FCS’s Southern Conference and Idaho and New Mexico State from the now defunct WAC are joining the Sun Belt. Make no mistake, there will still be little shifts like these. For example, USF, Connecticut, and  Cincinnati remain in the now sub-standard Big East, but with the Big 12, ACC, and SEC in position to retain all their members, major shifts to the college landscape appear to be slowing down. We can expect a few more small changes, maybe some less than glamorous additions to the Big 12, but all the major programs appear to be locked up now. Am I forgetting anybody? Looks like we can take a breath and enjoy college football without the fear of Apocalypse, at least for a little while.

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The Auburn Tigers are one of Clemson’s prime competitors on the recruiting trail. I’d go as far as to say they are our biggest competition for top recruits. (What do you think? Post in the comments below.) I grew up in Atlanta and attended three Clemson vs. Auburn games. I’ve met dozens of Auburn fans over the years, and have the highest opinion possible of that fan base. It almost makes me sympathetic to the plight their university may face. Almost.

Let’s start with this:

A six-month investigation by ESPN The Magazine and “E:60″ into the spread of synthetic marijuana at Auburn reveals that a dozen students on the football team, including its star running back, Michael Dyer, failed tests for the designer drug. The investigation also found that because the school did not implement testing for the drug until after it won the national championship in January 2011, as many as a dozen other seniors who used synthetic marijuana were never caught.

April Book of the Month: Coolidge by Amity Shlaes

In my disgustingly forced noble efforts at self-efficacy I added a new blog feature (complete with Amazon ads on the right sidebar) to read and (often) review a book each month. For March, I read a well-known and highly regarded book on human behavior by Dr. Dan Ariely, Predictably Irrational

Predictably Irrational is the first of two books (the sequel, The Upside of Irrationality is just as good) that explore irrational patterns of human behavior. What makes this book appealing to marketing research professionals, is that his assertions are not based on academic theory, but controlled experiments.

Without spoiling anything, I’ll share my favorite experiment.

Chapter 7: The High Price of Ownership

Author, Dan Ariely, is currently a professor at Duke University so it’s only fitting that one chapter uses Blue Devil basketball for an experiment. In Chapter 7, Ariely explores our irrational tendency to fall in love with what we already own.

Duke basketball tickets, in tiny Cameron Indoor Stadium are no doubt a tough find. As such, students camp out for weeks just to be entered into a lottery for tickets to the big game. After one such lottery was held, following weeks of camping in line, Ariely got the list of students who entered the lottery and called those who didn’t win. He asked how much they would be willing to spend on a ticket and worked his best to drive up the price.

Because all the lottery entrants had camped out, there is no rhyme or reason to believe that either the winners or losers had more desire to go to the event. After all, they had all camped out, and a lottery randomly determined who would get tickets among them.

He then called those who won a ticket in the lottery, and asked what it would take to buy it from them, trying to find a buyer and a seller with compatible prices. Remarkably, there was not a single pair with compatible prices. Those who didn’t win a ticket were only willing to pay on average $170 for a ticket, while those who did win asked for a whopping average price of $2,400.

What changed for these people in the few hours since the lottery that would justify a $2,230 chasm in valuation? Ownership.

This is why everyone in your fantasy baseball league thinks their players are due for breakout seasons and it’s so hard to complete a worthwhile trade.

The book is packed with interesting experiments like these and was worth my time. I’d recommend it. You can buy it below or just leave a comment in the comments section and I”ll give it to you for free if you cover the $6.00 of shipping.

April’s book of the month will be Coolidge by Amity Shlaes. Hopefully that one is good too.

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I previously wrote about The Rocket Summer opening for Switchfoot at the Georgia Theatre in Athens. As I’d written, his stage presence was phenomenal and I enjoyed the show, but was disappointed by the limited time he had on stage. His subsequent headlining tour, where he would invariably have a longer set list, did not include any stops I would be able to attend. Fortunately, The Rocket Summer has just gone back on tour and stopped in Charlotte, NC on 3/22/13.

I was able to make it to the Charlotte show, and as before, his stage presence was great. This time performing in front of his own fans (as opposed to Switchfoot fans) he came off-stage and into the crowd for one song and during the encore joined the crowd to dance in the closest thing to a mosh pit you’ll ever see at a rock/pop concert.

The show was in a small venue, the Tremont Music Hall, with only a few hundred in the crowd. After the show, artists from each band were out socializing with the remaining fans and I was able to ask Bryce Avary, the man that is The Rocket Summer, about the meaning behind my three favorite songs.

“Colors” (Do You Feel, 2007) - I had always pondered the meaning behind this song and told him my theory was that it was about marriage, and that the “colors” referred to in the line “under these colors” were like the colors of a crest representing marriage, although I originally thought the line was “under these covers.” That was my theory at least. (MetroLyrics actually has his lyrics incorrect, as they mistake “colors” for “covers,” which he said was a common mistake.)

Avary said that it in fact is about marriage and touring. The colors allude to the skies in the cities where they toured. The lyrics capture the struggles of the gauntlet that is long nights on the road, but being blessed to do it with his wife.

“So Much Love“ (Do You Feel, 2007): Probably his most popular song, I asked what “So Much Love” was about, telling him that I initially thought it was about a girl, but more recently had interpreted the lyrics to be about the uncomprehending love only God can give. See below:

Oh, I swear, I know, I believe it
Oh, I can’t stop hearin’ all the singin’
Oh, my soul has never had this feelin’
And it feels like

So, so, so much love in you
You got so much love in you
I’m amazed that I’m talkin’ to you
You look like the songs that I’ve heard my whole life comin’ true

Others in the conversation joked that it must be about people climbing out of pianos, as seen in the music video that offers nothing for clarity. He said he often hears about a spiritual interpretation, and he has no quarrel with that, but it honestly wasn’t written with such a direct meaning. He continued saying

“It’s one of my most vague songs and it’s funny that it became my biggest.”

He also mentioned how hard it was for him to look back and think about a song he wrote nearly seven years ago and always remember exactly what it meant to him at the time.

“Ashes Made of Spades” (Life Will Write the Words) – Finally, although the meaning is a little more obvious, I had to ask him about my favorite Rocket Summer song. He said “Ashes Made of Spades” is about the “power of the Holy Spirit” (which is fairly clear in the lyrics) and that the “ashes made of spades” are a metaphor for the cards your dealt in life being set aflame and overcome through the power of the Holy Spirit. So I’d say I was pretty close on that one, but to confirm it first-hand was very cool. I told him I enjoy listening to that song on the way to Church most Sundays, and I’ll enjoy it even more now.

The Rocket Summer had a contingent of groupies who he had gotten to know personally. They were mostly Columbia, SC people who had followed him around on his East Coast stops. Who knew he had groupies? Anyway… be sure to check out the Rocket Summer on Spotify, he has a fairly extensive discography, and it’s all on there.

The Rocket Summer Live at Tremont Music Hall in Charlotte, NC

One of the opening acts was Royal Teeth, a new energetic group from New Orleans. They only have an LP thus far with the full album set to release this coming summer. The best song on the LP is one called “Wild” which they are giving away as free download here.

I had listened to it a few times before the concert and enjoyed it, so I asked him if it was about what it seemed, a young romance. The lead singer of Royal Teeth said it was originally about just that, but it slowly evolved during the writing process and now the playing process to be about “giving up your real job to do ‘this’” (referring to touring with a start-up band).

The evolving meaning of a song to its own writer was something I had never considered and find very cool. It prompted me to wonder and ask if bands, and Royal Teeth in particular, intend to leave their songs open to interpretations. He told me that they do try to write lyrics that are clear and specific enough to communicate their message, but they also want to leave it open so it resonates with each listener’s own life and what they’re going through. So while the broad message remains the intact, it can take on a different interpretation to mean something special for each individual.

For some silly reason I feel like Katy Perry hasn’t thought about that…

Anyway, the Royal Teeth were very good, so be sure to get their free download, I mean, it is FREE so download it now and enjoy.

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Head Coach, Brad Brownell, offered some harsh, honest wisdom in his season wrap-up interview. The quotes are absolute gold.

One of the toughest excerpts was directed right at the seniors:

Some guys got to play more minutes than they should play, or they got to stay out there when they were making mistakes because there weren’t enough guys. Because Milton and Devin were clearly better than our younger post players they probably got to play through some things where if there was another guy that had been older and was very productive, you could take one of them out, like a Bobo (Catalin Baciu). There were times they felt like they were better, and it was harder for me to coach them the way they need to be coached all the time, which sometimes is to take them out.

That’s not even the harshest bit. Be sure to check out my full article on what I thought was an extremely encouraging season wrap interview here, or watch the whole interview below.

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