Dear Mike Matheny: The #Cardinals now have a bullpen; learn to use it

The Beard, aka Yukon Cornelius, aka Jason Motte, is back!
David Carson/St. Louis Post-Dispatch

And, to use it correctly, now that, per the Cardinals' official Twitter account, Jason Motte is back.

Per Bernie Miklasz, no more pitching Trever Rosenthal too frequently, like four nights in a row. Please, Mike Matheny, move beyong the Sub-Genius Skipper level now.

This also removes the last excuse for you not letting Carlos Martinez be a starter, come the next hole in the rotation. And there will be one; Jaime Garcia is still fragile. Joe Kelly, still on the DL, looks like he could be. Tyler Lyons can go back to Memphis and go back to figuring it out. No more excuses for not playing "your guys." That goes for more than just Martinez, but he's a definite Exhibit No. 1.

Besides, none of those folks are power pitchers with multi-pitch arsenals. Time to start starting Martinez at the next reasonable chance. I know, and agree with him, that John Mozeliak says it's not time to be trading. But, it may be, at some point. Knowing to the fullest degree what's in the cupboard helps.

Beyond that, this is simply a test of Sub-Genius Skipper to see if he moves beyond "my guys" now. It's also a bit of a test, especially if it is thought that trade time is nearer, if Mo will push Matheny on this more.

Boo-hoo for Scott Boras and Stephen Drew

Looks like superagent Scott Boras and client Stephen Drew, on one side, and the Boston Red Sox, on the other, have mutually imploded.

Boston, frustrated by the play of Will Middlebrooks, has resigned Drew for a prorated percentage of the $14.1 million qualifying offer it gave him as a free agent.

Middlebrooks is below the "Mendoza Line," named after baseballer Mario Mendoza of hitting infamy, but above the Kozma Line, named for Cardinals shortstop Pete Kozma of sabermetric hitting infamy.

I assume that, since Drew is the new kid on the block, he replaces Middlebrooks at third rather than John Farrell moving Xander Bogaerts over from short. Since Middlebrooks is headed to the DL, that's obvious for the short term. But, I assume it stays that way after he comes back.

It's also interesting that Boston decided not to go with Brock Holt as a stopgap during Middlebrooks' injury, or for the longer term. It makes one wonder if Middlebrooks won't be staying in AAA down at Pawtucket even after his rehab is done.

This does have implications outside of Boston in an AL East that so far has been an example of craptacularness.

The Yankees lead, but with CC Sabathia now on the DL, that ain't lasting. No matter how good a manager Joe Girardi is. And, they have nothing to trade with. If Carlos Beltran is also racked up for an extended period of time, forget it.

Tampa? Could increase the pressure to trade David Price, good overall but enigmatic this year with new-found gopherballitis.

Orioles? Color me meh, and Nelson Cruz will come back to earth.

Don't sleep on Toronto, if it can rehab its bullpen.

So, this helps Boston out, but it is nowhere near a "driver's seat" move.

Anyway, back to the world of Scott Boras below the fold.

Texas guv race — Abbott, Davis debate over debates

So far, Greg Abbott has agreed to just 1.5 debates during the general election campaign.

The second one, on Oct. 3, would only be broadcast by Gannett stations. Even with a "live online feed," restricted coverage means we must count this as just half a debate in publicity terms.

Davis has countered by wanting six. It's true that the person trailing usually wants more.

That said, Davis was smart to bring this up early.

As for a debate in July? Unless that's just an easy throwaway negotiation point, that's dumb. She should have said five, not six, and started her calendar after Labor Day. Asking for a debate that early makes you look desperate, and that's the last thing you want right now.

A debate with a Spanish simulcast? Smart. Puts Mr. "I Just Found Out I Have a Mexican Wife" on the hot seat a bit. Also undercuts claims that she's afraid of a debate in the Valley.

I also hope that she proposed dates that aren't all on Friday nights, i.e., Texas worship services at high school football.

A Wednesday deadline for Abbott's camp to respond, even though we're in mid-May? See "desperation," above. Especially since the Valley debate that Abbott's accepted was on the table the end of last month.

Davis also would have been smart to appeal to an outside body, like the Texas chapter of League of Women Voters.

So, if we're scoring this in political chess match terms? Davis gets a C-minus at best on debate debating so far. Thought the Battleground Texas shake-up of her campaign staff would have done better on this one. It's never a good idea to look desperate while trying to not look desperate.

And, if Abbott simply stiffs her, like Rick Perry did with Bill White, what then? I know that you don't telegraph a Plan B in public, but you've got to have one.  And, given the "July" and "late response" items I noted, it had better be a good one.

Anyway, it's not a real debate of Brandon Parmer of the Greens and Kathie Glass of the Libertarians are not there, right?

Is the #9/11 Museum gift shop tasteless, or not?

As New York City's 9/11 memorial and museum get ready to open on Friday, some people are objecting to the museum's store.

The New York Post, bastion of Murdoch-ism, of all people, calls it tasteless, though in not so many words. (That said, people who object to a cafe there are being ridiculous, I think.) That said, it's not alone.

Think Progress, that bastion of nuanced left-edge neoliberal Obamiacs, defends the place, primarily by comparing it to the Oklahoma City bombing memorial and museum.

There's two BIG differences, though.

First, OKC, at $12, costs half as much to enter as 9/11. Yes, I know everything is more expensive in New York, but still.

Second, OKC doesn't have a "crypt" of survivor remnants.

And, if Think Progress wants to compare the 9/11 museum to Auschwitz in having a store, I'm sure Auschwitz doesn't have a crypt, either.

I think that there's one other thing at stake, with that crypt, besides tastelessness.

It's that good old American exceptionalism.

There's still greed, too.

Hey, the FDNY stuff is "officially licensed and co-branded"! And, the charging of such rates after a $5 million donation store donation from a law firm that sued the city over first responder injury payouts probably adds to a lot of people's sense of tastelessness.

Let's look more at that money.

Invest it at, say, a 5 percent return and you've got $250K a year in revenue stream right there. You can sell a more tasteful line of tchotchkes, lower your admission price from $24 to $20 or $18 and still do fine on revenue.

Or you could go over the top and find every one of the most nutbar 9/11 conspiracy theory videos out there — I mean, start with Alex Jones and go more loony than that — and see what sort of gravy you can rake in.

That said, beyond greed, there's one other American commodity in hot trade here, one that probably carries more of a premium in NYC than in flyover land.

Vanity.

That law firm's already cashed a pretty big check of it for its $5 million donation, all of which was tax-deductible, of course.

Texas Lege: More #TexasSolutions budget fear-mongering in 2015?

Texas House Speaker Joe Straus

On the surface, Texas Speaker of the House Joe Straus' call for all gas tax revenues to actually be devoted to roads sounds great, doesn't it?

Especially when, a year ago, TxDOT was talking about turning interstate access roads in oilfield-heavy areas back to gravel. But, per this Straus column (hat tip, Bay Area Houston), there's more beneath the surface.

First, Straus notes that money from dedicated funds was sequestered in the past. With that unavailable, wait for GOP wingnuts to talk about the need to cut the rest of the budget even more.

Here's Straus:

This November, voters will also consider a constitutional amendment transferring some revenue from oil and gas production taxes to the highway fund.

Given that surplus oil and gas taxes currently go into the Rainy Day Fund, that means less money there, as John also notes at Bay Area Houston.

But, wait? Didn't we just pass a constitutional amendment last year that said we'd use excess RDF money to fund revolving loan accounts for water infrastructure projects? Er, yes!

Of course, the likes of Straus will say that money's being borrowed, not taken, the water money. And, it's that financial brilliance that illustrates Denial ain't just a river in Egypt. And Straus represents the not-totally-nutbar wing (or back porch, or single piece of decking flagstone) of the Texas GOP.

Of course, as the drought which is NOT caused or abetted in any way by human beings, according to anybody to the right of Straus, continues, Denial ain't a river out in West Texas, either.

Borrowed, stolen, wisely used, whatever, the wingnuts will call it another "run" on the RDF, which they want to protect like Jack D. Ripper's precious bodily fluids.

So, expect fear-mongering over that in 2015, too. Wingnuts withholding vital essence from the state of Texas.

Meanwhile, Eye on Williamson notes the ultimate problem. It's "Texas solutions" that never mention taxes; he's referring to this column by Chuy Hinojosa. Of course, the Pointy Abandoned Object State™never has any trouble coming up with new fees for services, programs, and licenses, but, we can't call any of those "taxes," now, can we?

Note to Chuy,  Battleground Texas, and all others: You ain't getting anywhere if you keep to tiptoe around the manure passing for GOP financial brilliance. If your "solutions" don't involve telling Texans services cost money, they ain't solutions. So, if I hear "Texas Solutions" out of one more Dem mouth, I'll reach for Jerry Patterson's revolver.)

(Note to McBlogger: See, you can write stuff like this stone cold sober and without a single profanity, either.)

And, neither Bay nor Eye mentioned the bigger storm cloud over 2015 budgeting. I'm going to assume that the state loses the final, re-heard version of the school finance lawsuit, and that the financial remedies imposed by Judge Dietz are significant.

Per the reason Dietz decided to re-hear the case, after the 2013 Lege seemed so generous, there's this:

"Any and all funding changes are temporary at best. There is absolutely no requirement they be in existence beyond the year 2015," said Rick Gray, a lawyer for the Equity Center, which represents about 400 school districts, the bulk of them poor, in the sprawling litigation that involves five other parties. "It was an exceedingly small step in the right direction."

Exactly. And, per everything I mentioned above, stand by for some new Pointy Abandoned Object State™solution. For schools. For water. For roads.

And, these problems are all incestuous and intertwined. I already noted that we could have a roads funding state amendment competing with a water one. Well, part of the reason not all of the gas tax is going to roads is that hundreds of million of dollars of it has been going to ...

Wait for it ...

Wait for it ...

Look below the fold for it ...

#Anxiety — an inside story

My Age of Anxiety: Fear, Hope, Dread, and the Search for Peace of Mind by Scott Stossel

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


A very good, and somewhat sad, and definitely sympathetic read here.

I had seen the excerpt from this book in a recent issue of The Atlantic, where Stossel is the editor, so this jumped off the shelves when I spotted it at the library.

Stossel mixes biography with scientific research on anxiety to tell us what we seem to know pretty well, what we may know, and what we still really don't know, about anxiety.

As Stossel and others know, and as he documents well in the biography part, is that a tendency to anxiety seems inherited. But, is it? He mentions a bit about epigenetics, the "tags" that can control when, how and for how long genes are activated (that's oversimplifying) and how anxiety is one of the big topics in epigenetics research. He also mentions psychodynamics, and the idea of how anxious children may learn to be anxious from anxious parenting, and thus pass that on. Meanwhile, he notes that starting with the wonder, in the 1950s, of the first drug that seemed to help depression, then others for anxiety, neuroscientists have promoted happier living through better chemistry.

This plays out in Stossel's search for help, with a "Dr. Stanford" telling him he just needs to tweak, or up, his meds, while "Dr. Harvard" says he needs to discuss his family, his personal life, and specific anxiety situations, including some existential ones.

Stossel hints they're both partially right, and that as a generally non-confrontational sufferer of anxiety, he can't tell them that neither is fully right.

Stossel, whose one grandfather was a dean at Harvard, started seeing a child psychiatrist in elementary school. That same grandfather had multiple institutionalizations later in life and eventually had to leave Harvard. His wife committed suicide. That's on his dad's side. Similar, albeit somewhat lesser, "strains" of anxiety run in his mom's family.

So, Stossel knows anxiety is real, even crippling.

His own story included gulping both Xanax and booze before flying and before giving public speeches. He admits on the latter that it's a fine issue, trying to find the sweet spot between being halfway numbed out on his anxiety and slurring his words. He also admits he knows he's playing with addiction/alcoholism fire.

Stossel also notes that he stand on the shoulders of giants -- previous literary giant sufferers of anxiety, and tells bits of some of their stories in this book as well.

I'm with Stossel in the general idea that, sadly, we don't have a complete handle on the causes of anxiety yet, only that they're complex, and the problem itself is still only roughly defined — general anxiety disorder, and its DSM definition, overlap a fair degree with major depressive disorder. I'm also with him that the "one neurotransmitter, one solution" idea of many neuroscientists and Big Pharma is way, way, way too reductive. Given that the "big three" of dopamine, norepinephrine, and serotonin all have multiple different receptor sites on neurons, and we don't know which ones antidepressants and anxiolytics affect, and we don't know what others of the roughly 100 neurotransmitters also may or may not affect anxiety or depression, this approach is reductionistic indeed.


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