Archive for 2017

WALL STREET JOURNAL: The Politicization Of Everything.

Healthy democracies have ample room for politics but leave a larger space for civil society and culture that unites more than divides. With the politicization of the National Football League and the national anthem, the Divided States of America are exhibiting a very unhealthy level of polarization and mistrust.

The progressive forces of identity politics started this poisoning of America’s favorite spectator sport last year by making a hero of Colin Kaepernick for refusing to stand for “The Star-Spangled Banner” before games. They raised the stakes this year by turning him into a progressive martyr because no team had picked him up to play quarterback after he opted out of his contract with the San Francisco 49ers.

The NFL is a meritocracy, and maybe coaches and general managers thought he wasn’t good enough for the divisions he might cause in a locker room or among fans. But the left said it was all about race and class.

All of this is cultural catnip for Donald Trump, who pounced on Friday night at a rally and on the weekend on Twitter with his familiar combination of gut political instinct, rhetorical excess, and ignorance. “Wouldn’t you love to see one of these NFL owners, when somebody disrespects our flag, to say, ‘Get that son of a bitch off the field right now, out, he’s fired. He’s fired,’” Mr. Trump said Friday.

No doubt most Americans agree with Mr. Trump that they don’t want their flag disrespected, especially by millionaire athletes. But Mr. Trump never stops at reasonable, and so he called for kneeling players to be fired or suspended, and if the league didn’t comply for fans to “boycott” the NFL.

Well, Trump’s got his opponents arguing against the National Anthem, so maybe he’s not as dumb as you think. But whenever you wonder why we’re in a situation where Trump’s driving this sort of narrative, remember that we got Trump because the respectable political class did such a sorry job that there was an opening for Trump.

THE PUERTO RICO MESS: Reader Ed Steiner emails:

Before he appoints Peter Thiel to the Sup Ct Trump should put him in charge of reconstructing Puerto Rico. And have Icahn and Schwartzman as part of the team. As Taleb says, guys with skin in the game who know how to actually play the game.

Endorsed. Related: Puerto Rico’s Power Woes Are Decades in the Making: Years of underinvestment and massive debts left the energy grid vulnerable.

As residents here grapple with power outages across the entire island, the task of turning the lights back on falls to an electrical utility beset by rickety infrastructure, workforce reductions and financial woes so deep it declared a form of bankruptcy in July.

Earlier this month, Hurricane Irma sideswiped the island, knocking out power to about 70% of the customers of the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority, or Prepa. The utility had made significant strides in restoring electricity when Hurricane Maria struck on Wednesday, wiping out power to 100% of its customers.

The “damage is catastrophic,” Ricardo Ramos, chief executive of Prepa, said Friday on CNN. He said previously that it could take months for power to be restored across the island. . . .

Prepa’s problems have been decades in the making. Early in its history, it earned praise for powering Puerto Rico’s industrialization efforts in the 1940s and 1950s. But over time, it became less efficient, energy analysts say.

Its generating plants, which rely on imported oil for about 60% of their energy production, are mostly obsolete and require major upgrades or outright replacement, said Miguel Soto-Class, president of the Center for a New Economy, a nonpartisan think tank in San Juan that has done in-depth analyses of the utility’s finances.

Power outages on the island are common. A fire at one of the utility’s plants in September triggered a blackout across the island that left many customers without power for days.

Yet prices are high.

Weird how often you hear stuff like this about Democrat-monopoly jurisdictions.

NEWS YOU CAN USE: 6 Low-Impact Workouts That Burn the Most Calories. Personally, I like high-intensity intervals for cardio and lifting for exercise. But I do walk or swim (for like 30 minutes) on the days I don’t go to the gym.