Keith Burgess-Jackson

I leave you this fine evening with a column by Steven G. Calabresi. Result-oriented law professors such as Brian Leiter will hate it.

Even a blind squirrel finds a nut every now and then, and tonight the New York Yankees won a postseason game, 8-4. Alex Rodriguez went 2-4 with one strikeout and is now 2-10 (.200) with no runs batted in and no extra-base hits in three postseason games. For this he is getting paid $25,200,000 per year? Say goodbye to A-Rod, Yankee fans. He won’t be back in the Bronx next year. You should also say goodbye to Joe Torre, Roger Clemens, Jason Giambi, and Jorge Posada. Next year’s Bronx Bombs will look very different from this year’s Bombs.

Yesterday, in Argyle, Texas, I did my 22d bike rally of the year and my 418th overall. It was the first year for this rally, so I didn’t know what to expect. The terrain would probably be familiar, since I’ve done the nearby Flower Mound and Keller rallies many times, but it remained to be seen how well organized the rally was. The weather at this time of year can be anything from hot to frigid. It turned out to be warm (the high temperature for the day was 88° Fahrenheit) and humid. The sun never came out. Whenever I felt inclined to complain about the muggy weather, I reminded myself that I could be running instead of bicycling. It would be truly awful to do a long run in such weather. I’ve done quite a few of them, so I know whereof I speak.

The turnout wasn’t bad for a first-year rally. I lined up near the start so as to avoid slower riders. When I looked back, I saw two or three hundred bikes. None of my wimpy friends showed up. They ride when they feel like it, but not otherwise. Never in my life have I had a friend who is as energetic or enthusiastic as I am about sport. Okay, I did have one, but he died young.

The route turned out to be hilly. I got dropped from the lead pack only seven minutes from the start. I didn’t mind, since I planned to take it easy. That’s why I took my Zune music player. Once I got dropped, on a big hill, I settled into a sustainable pace and enjoyed the countryside. The rally organizer announced at the start that there would be police officers at only some of the many intersections. The other intersections, he said, would have civilian volunteers dressed in orange vests and waving orange flags. These volunteers had no authority to stop traffic, but they did let us know, as we approached, whether vehicles were coming. This allowed us to ride through without stopping. Still, I had to stop a few times. I noticed that some drivers of vehicles came to a stop when they saw the orange flags waving. We fooled them! They could have run over us with impunity.

To my surprise, I covered 18.5 miles during the first hour, despite the many hills and despite the fact that I did almost no drafting. I covered an additional 18.2 miles during the second hour. But it went downhill from there. The wind wasn’t strong (average for the day = 7.8 miles per hour), but there was enough of it to slow my pace when I was riding toward the east. (It’s not often that we get easterly winds in these parts.) I covered 17 miles during the third hour, which gave me an average speed of 17.9 miles per hour. I averaged only 16.5 miles per hour for the final 33:49, which gave me an overall average speed of 17.67 miles per hour for 63 miles. A week ago, in Waco, I averaged 17.64 miles per hour for 65.6 miles. In both cases, I took it easy, after riding hard in Greenville and Bonham earlier in September. The rally season is winding down. It’s time to ease up on the pedals and have a little fun. Speaking of which, I enjoyed my music. I need some new earphones. The ones I have allow too much wind to enter my ears, which obscures the music.

My maximum heart rate for the day was 151. My average heart rate was 119. My maximum speed was 31.9 miles per hour. I burned 1,955 calories. Throughout the ride, it looked as though rain was imminent, but I didn’t feel a drop until about three miles from the finish. Luckily for me, it never rained. It misted. It was enough to cover my glasses, but not enough to soak me to the skin. I’m sorry this post is so boring, but some rallies are unremarkable. Given all the bad things that can happen while riding, being unremarkable is a good thing.

To the Editor:

You complain that the Roberts Court is unprincipled and simply reaches policy results that conservative Republicans favor (editorial, Sept. 30). This is false.

Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas, for example, regularly reach left-wing results where the law compels them. Consider their votes to find flag-burning constitutionally protected, strike down the sentencing guidelines and uphold gargantuan punitive damage awards.

Likewise, no Roberts Court member has ever suggested that the court should protect human life from conception to birth under the murder laws or the 14th Amendment.

It is great to see you endorse the idea that judges should have a non-result-oriented philosophy of judging. Admittedly, some may doubt the depth of your new-found commitment in light of the editorial’s conclusion that the court’s new term should be judged by whether it reaches The Times’s preferred results. Nonetheless, even lip service is a start.

Steven G. Calabresi
Providence, R.I., Oct. 3, 2007
The writer is a co-founder of the Federalist Society and a professor of law at Northwestern University.

Note from KBJ: Here is my post on the Times‘s editorial opinion.

Does anyone besides me keep track of half-birthdays? I was born 50½ years ago today. Didn’t I just turn 50? Where, exactly, did that half a year go?

Micah has commented on some of my posts. Here is his blog. (Note to Micah: You’ll know you’ve made it when you get mugged by Brian Leiter. He flies into a rage at the very idea of a conservative—or religious—philosopher.)

Here.

Sad that a country built on freedom (and capitalism) must now not speak plainly about its virtues. And it would seem that most favor socialism’s tenets in deed if not word. But old stuff. I bring it up only because I think those of us hoping for onions in (on) our candidates will get Mom’s Cream of Wheat instead. A full-throated defense of capitalism will (apparently) doom a candidate today. Alas, it would likely have doomed Reagan.

Will Nehs

Note from KBJ: Is Will right? Is our society becoming feminized? If so, (1) what’s the cause and (2) is it good?

1. There could be four three-game sweeps in the four division series. So far, the Arizona Diamondbacks have swept the Chicago Cubs and the Colorado Rockies have swept the Philadelphia Phillies. The Cubs and Phillies looked uninspired, even overwhelmed. I feel sorry for Cub fans. Several generations of them have come and gone without a World Series winner. I feel fortunate to have had two World Series winners—1968 (when I didn’t deserve it) and 1984 (when I did)—in my lifetime. I can die happy. This doesn’t mean I don’t want any more winners; it means that, should the baseball gods not smile on me during the second half of my life, I am content. The scenes of Cub fans were revealing. They didn’t gnash their teeth the way fans of the Boston Red Sox do. They seemed resigned to their fate, as if they would be more surprised by winning than by losing. I saw scenes of parents with their children. The children seemed to be learning about grief, loss, defeat, and humiliation. That’s what it has come to mean to be a Cub fan: getting your hopes up and having them shattered.

2. I can’t wait for today’s game between the New York Yankees and the Cleveland Indians. It’ll be played in Yankee Stadium, and you can be sure that Yankee fans will be at their obnoxious best. Will their cheering (and booing) ensure a Bronx Bomb victory? Perhaps. But all Cleveland has to do is win one more game (of three). I have a question for Yankee fans, who seem to make up the bulk of my readership. Suppose the Yankees get swept by the Indians. What changes are in store? Will Joe Torre be back? Will Brian Cashman be fired? Will Alex Rodriguez return? I can’t imagine that Yankee fans will allow things to continue. Expectations are too high for that.

3. With Manny Ramirez back in the lineup, the Red Sox look tough. Even if the Yankees come from behind to win their series with the Indians, it will be difficult for them to beat Boston in a seven-game series, especially if Boston has several days of rest. In short, it’s highly unlikely that A-Rod will make it to the World Series for the first time. He is an expensive dud.

4. The Rockies have won 17 of their past 18 games. That’s mind-boggling. In 1984, my beloved Detroit Tigers started the season 35-5. Can the Rockies keep it up?

5. Some of you may have noticed that, for me, baseball is a morality play. It is about desert, suffering, joy, and redemption. It is about the relation of individuals to the larger group of which they are members. It is about loyalty, affiliation, and belonging. It is no mere game. If you think of it merely as a game, or as a business, then you’re not properly engaged with it.

6. Here is Will Leitch’s blog post about the Yankees.

Will Nehs, who got up early today, sent a link to this column by Jonah Goldberg.

From my eighth to my twelfth year the Latin books which I remember reading were, the Bucolics of Virgil, and the first six books of the Æneid; all Horace except the Epodes; the Fables of Phædrus; the first five books of Livy (to which from my love of the subject I voluntarily added, in my hours of leisure, the remainder of the first decade); all Sallust; a considerable part of Ovid’s Metamorphoses; some plays of Terence; two or three books of Lucretius; several of the Orations of Cicero, and of his writings on oratory; also his letters to Atticus, my father taking the trouble to translate to me from the French the historical explanations in Mongault’s notes. In Greek I read the Iliad and Odyssey through; one or two plays of Sophocles, Euripides, and Aristophanes, though by these I profited little; all Thucydides; the Hellenics of Xenophon; a great part of Demosthenes, Æschines, and Lysias; Theocritus; Anacreon; part of the Anthology; a little of Dionysius; several books of Polybius; and lastly Aristotle’s Rhetoric, which, as the first expressly scientific treatise on any moral or psychological subject which I had read, and containing many of the best observations of the ancients on human nature and life, my father made me study with peculiar care, and throw the matter of it into synoptic tables. During the same years I learnt elementary geometry and algebra thoroughly, the differential calculus and other portions of the higher mathematics far from thoroughly: for my father, not having kept up this part of his early acquired knowledge, could not spare time to qualify himself for removing my difficulties, and left me to deal with them, with little other aid than that of books; while I was continually incurring his displeasure by my inability to solve difficult problems for which he did not see that I had not the necessary previous knowledge.

Note from KBJ: I thought of the Tour de France (of all things) while reading this paragraph. On rest days, the riders must ride for at least a couple of hours (at lower intensity) to keep their legs from relaxing. It’s a rest day, but that doesn’t mean there is no riding. When Mill finished his required reading, he read for pleasure. My mother would have said, “Get outside and play!” Although I envy Mill his learning, I’m glad I was raised by my mother rather than Mill’s father. I would never trade baseball for Homer.