TAIL TRACK.

Barring signal troubles, links to any posts of substance ought to work.

A CORRECTION.

Last week we incorrectly described the timing of Thanksgiving, "as early as the 17th and no later than the 23d."

Let's not rush the shopping season more than it already is.  "In fact, the earliest that Thanksgiving can possibly fall is November 22, which is what it was this year. (Fun fact: the latest it could ever fall is on November 28, and that's when it will take place next year.) "

Good thing, though, that I got the fall plowing and haying done on Black Friday.

THE GHOST OF CHRISTMAS PRESENTS.

Self-checkout or not, the beginning of the 21st century has not been kind to retail.

That's the now closed Boston Store in downtown Milwaukee.  Toward the end of operation, it conducted retail activities at the ground and second floor, and the chain's offices were somewhere upstairs, as were loft apartments.

The two-level store that stands today at 4th and Wisconsin, while bright and attractive, is a tiny fraction of what once was eight floors of merchandise offering virtually everything a machinist at Falk or an office clerk at Schlitz could want: records and tapes in the basement; wine, liquor and men's apparel on the first floor; women's and teen fashions on the second and third levels; furniture on the fourth; appliances and hardware on the fifth; domestics on the sixth; and a golf shop, a ski shop and "Harry's Cafe" on the top floor.

There used to be buildings along Wisconsin Avenue between Fourth and Fifth streets, although I've been away so long that I don't recall what was there last.  With the Midwest Center (or whatever it is now) across the Avenue and the latest incarnation of the Milwaukee Arena (replaced for basketball first with the Bradley Center and then with the Forum: meanwhile, the monstrosity atop Penn Station in New York persists) you'd think this real estate would be valuable for something other than a parking crater.

It also used to be the case that the picture windows would have animated displays, and the halls and stairways would be decked.

Not this Christmas.

Here's how it used to be.

A version of this jingle would air each Festive Season, starting after Thanksgiving.  You're hearing a later version, as it does not mention the "monorail train" that used to decorate the toy department.  The "Secret Gift Shop" on the second floor was an interesting service, in which younger children would bring their gift lists and store employees would assist the kids in completing the list, then boxing up the stuff in specially marked boxes.

Perhaps contemporary kids can take advantage of some sort of online service to accomplish the same thing.

THEY NEVER LEARNED NOT TO BE STUPID ABOUT BEING SMART.

Don't say I haven't called attention to the obnoxious condescension of Democrats and their spear-carriers in education, entertainment, and journalism.

It's nowhere near enough.  Take Hawaii senator Mazie Horono.  Victory Girl Nina Bookout is laughing through her tears.  "Senator Mazie Hirono at least had the smarts to inform us that the Democrats think we are all dumb. So there’s that."

David Catron extends.  "It is true that Democrats are afflicted by an irresistible urge to tell everyone how smart they are, even while proposing something stupid. "

By all means, read the articles for elaboration, or just get the picture:

Why is Donald Trump president?

Left to right:  "You didn't build that."  "Mean country."  "What the meaning of 'is' is."  "Basket of deplorables."  Malaise.  (I know, he didn't use the word, but it stuck.)

Meanwhile, the usual claque at the usual place is up to its usual foolishness.  "Yet the figure who [Washington Post columnist Eugene] Robinson declared irrelevant was the subject of much of the MSNBC show's A-block."

That, dear reader, is the quintessence of being stupid about being smart.

A MOST INTRIGUING MAP.

Atlanta's Business Chronicle notes the proposed route expansions for Virgin Rail Brightline in the United States.

Brightline, America's first new major private intercity passenger railroad in over a century, launched service between Miami, Fort Lauderdale and West Palm Beach, Florida, in May 2018. It plans to expand to Orlando and Tampa. Pending the closing of the previously announced XpressWest acquisition and receipt of necessary federal approvals, it also plans to begin next year building a railway to connect Las Vegas to Southern California.

In its Nov. 16 IPO filing, Virgin Trains USA named the 240-mile Atlanta-Charlotte route, with an 8.4 million population, as one of eight U.S. expansion corridors. These cities “possess what we believe are key attributes for a successful intercity rail network using existing infrastructure,” it said.

There is potential elsewhere in the Southeast.  Note that my map did not consider Atlanta-Savannah-Jacksonville and beyond, but perhaps investors with real money at stake will.  I'm also intrigued that Virgin Rail Brightline might want to get involved in Texas, where there are some electrified high-speed rail proposals involving Japanese and French railroaders.

Now, might Amazon be interested in participating in a latter day Amazon Railway Express?

VOX DOES THE TIME WARP.

Kaitlyn Tiffany doesn't like self-checkout stations.

Far from novelty or spon-con child’s game, self-checkouts pop up everywhere now: at the new Target in Barclays Center where I buy my useless seasonal objects and knockoff Urban Outfitters clothes; at the CVS where I buy my disgusting seasonal candy; at the Panera Bread where I buy a seasonal autumn squash soup and half a grilled cheese. I’ve heard they are in grocery stores throughout the city, but I refuse to look.

I saw a self-checkout in the Urban Outfitters in Herald Square and almost called the ACLU: Some lucky employee sits on a stool near the self-checkout stations and does nothing but remove ink tags from things before you buy them? Sure. What is a person if not just a slightly more dexterous arm than the ones that robots so far have?

She'd be a real fun date at a Christmas party, wouldn't she?

I am not alone in fearing self-checkout. John Karolefski, a self-proclaimed undercover grocery shopping analyst who runs the blog Grocery Stories and contributes to the site Progressive Grocer, tells me, “I’m in a lot of supermarkets around the country. I watch people. I can tell you that I’ve been in stores where the lines that have cashiers are very, very long, and people are a little upset, and there are three or four self-checkout units open and nobody is using them.

“Wouldn’t the shopper be better served, customer service improved, if those weren’t there?” he asks. I’m not arguing. “Why do I want to scan my own groceries?” he asks. I have no idea! “Why do I want to bag my own groceries?” he asks. An equally reasonable question with no reasonable answer. The simple solution, he points out, would be to hire enough cashiers to serve the number of customers that typically shop at the store. I agree, and this seems very obvious.

I can't resist.

Of course, a Tiffany would want enough cashiers to serve the number of customers that typically shop at a store, and there is a price point for that.

News flash: it's not Wal-Mart's price point.

Self-checkout is sold to us as a high-tech upgrade, but that’s just adding insult to injury — eliminating jobs by making people who have jobs do more jobs. When Walmart installs a new self-checkout, it’s not “automating” the process of checkout; it’s simply turning the register around, giving it a friendlier interface, and having the shopper do the work themselves.

Yes, eliminate-the-middleman, whether it is the farmer (thus greengrocers) or the warehouseman (thus big box retail) or the clerk (thus self-service shelves) or the cashier (thus the unexpected items in the bagging area) is a form of do-it-yourself, and apparently the do-it-yourself grocer offers enough benefits that people take advantage of the shorter wait times, occasional (or not-so-occasional) hiccups notwithstanding.

There's something else I'd note.  Sometimes what makes the attended checkout lines so long is the retailer's insistence on playing 20 Questions with everyone.  The robot stations generally just sell me my stuff.

SO TO HONOR HIM.

Usual protocol when national figures lie in state in the Rotunda is that the hall be cleared when current or former presidents or some other Distinguished Visitors enter.

Tuesday night, though, with wait times of up to five hours in conditions that were chilly for Washington, former president George W. Bush requested that the public be allowed to continue to enter.

Unattributed BBC News screenshot retrieved from Google Images.

He and his brother, former Florida governor Jeb Bush, also took the time to circulate through the room, thanking people for coming.

Over the past two days, I dipped into the C-Span coverage of the public passing through the Rotunda.

What struck me was that despite the apparently large crowds, the pace of people was not rushed, and there were lots of kids, with Mom or Dad able to pause and explain something, and the kids generally getting a clear view from the roped-off area.  On occasion, there would be Catholic school kids in their blazers pausing to watch and genuflect.

Lester Holt signed off NBC Nightly News yesterday with a selection of clips in that vein.

That is all.

THE LATTER DAY FAST MAIL.

Once upon a time, the Post Office expedited first class mail by picking up and kicking off mail sacks on the fly.

Now comes Amazon, intending to automate the sorting and the delivery to your front porch.

Amazon patent application detail retrieved from Drone Life.

The full patent application includes details of the mechanized Railway Post Office in a container.

I suspect technology enthusiasts are making too much of the plans.

The idea is that the train does the long-haul travel, while the hubs would serve as repairing hubs for UAVs that launch from the train for local deliveries, and return for maintenance and further delivery pickups. It's quite clever, and evident of Amazon's strong focus on creating a powerful drone-delivery system of their own.

The publicly available patent calls these hubs "Ground-based mobile maintenance facilities for unmanned aerial vehicles" which "may be coupled to locomotives, container ships, road tractors or other vehicles, and equipped with systems for loading one or more items onto the aerial vehicle, and for launching or retrieving the aerial vehicle while the intermodal vehicles are in motion." This expands upon the idea of using railroad infrastructure and widens the concept to a far broader scope. Amazon is planning on finalizing not only the land and the air, but the sea, as well.

It makes sense—a container ship could launch deliveries before reaching the coast, as soon as it geographically makes sense to send UAVs off. There would be no waiting for the ship to dock or unload hundreds of containers with massive cranes. Amazon is clearly pressing forward with the concept of a nationwide system of drone delivery, and we'll surely hear of more such patents from them in the near future.

Yes, a container ship could launch at sea, if Amazon's special containers were all at the top of the above-decks stacks.

Read through, though, and contemplate the possibilities for rigorously timed train operations.

Instead of providing stationary warehouses to store frequently purchased items in populous areas, Amazon could use a system of moving warehouses and drone stations- launching a delivery drone when they are closest to the desired destination.

Presumably the factories are still fixed locations: will Amazon be integrating backwards? But in populated areas, perhaps you're updating something like this, with battery-powered streetcars or buses?

Perhaps my imagination isn't creative enough, but wouldn't the logistics be simpler if the mobile warehouses and metropolitan delivery vehicles were operating according to a set schedule?

It would require a sophisticated computing system to monitor and maintain the fleet, determine correct launching points, and determine “rendevous” points for the drones’ return.  The patent describes a “maintenance vehicle” which “comprises a plurality of batteries, at least one robotic arm and at least one system for launching an aerial vehicle or retrieving the aerial vehicle within a compartment of the first intermodal maintenance vehicle…”  The robotic arm, it seems, is to help change batteries.  The idea behind the patent is twofold: first that product might be stored in moving warehouses, and second that the delivery drones could be maintained and repaired in the same moving warehouse.  Using standard freight containers would allow the transportation method to change as appropriate.

Will each of these mobile warehouses be attended by a drone mechanic?

If you can contemplate delivering parcels in this way, you can also contemplate receiving parcels.

The patent points out also that the system could be engineered in reverse, to receive deliveries.  If successfully implemented and widely adopting, [c.q.] the idea of moving delivery stations could have an impact well beyond Amazon.

Yes, just as Railway Express and the Railway Post Office helped deliver manufactured goods to the hinterlands, a century ago.

SEMPER FI.

Among Amtrak's recent efforts to lose friends and alienate people, their decision not to provide rolling stock for a Toys for Tots special in New York's Capital Region stands out.

The Marines, Norfolk Southern, and the private railcar operators stepped up.  "While putting together a train like this takes a lot of work even when everything works well, this year's version had extra complications. Amtrak, which had provided the equipment for the train in recent years, told Toys for Tots in August that it would not be involved this year, due to changes in how it deals with charter trains."  The train ran.

[Private railcar and vintage diesel locomotive owner Bennett] Levin, who was part of the group that left Binghamton at 6 a.m. Saturday and got back to their hotel at 11:30 p.m., says "everything was perfect." He had brought an electric train set with him that Bachmann Trains had donated to him for the ride. At one of the stops, a special needs child was in the crowd, and volunteers learned that the boy had said that he wanted a train set, which his parents couldn't afford. They gave the set to the boy.

"He looked at the box, and turned it over and over looking at it, and he had a smile on his face. You knew you were doing God's work," Levin says.

As for whether he would get involved with next year's train, he says "I'm always available if I can add something of value."

Amtrak did ultimately get involved with this year's train as well, donating two baggage cars. Former President and CEO Joe Boardman, who had supported the train when he was in office, was on Saturday's train as a guest. He praised the efforts of the volunteers, and added "I would just like to share how much we appreciate the support of [NS CEO] Jim Squires, a first class corporate citizen."

The effort to deliver toys to counties north of the Capital Region will continue on Sunday, Dec. 9. A convoy of buses, trucks and police vehicles will head north from Saratoga to Rouses Point. In previous years the train would travel CP tracks on that route. The railroad declined to be involved this year, [Marine SSgt Patrick] Lurenz says, so the group coordinated the convoy to deliver the toys to the not-for-profits along the route.

Mr Levin's vintage diesels probably bowed out on the common carriers with this train, as he does not intend to install positive train control apparatus on them account their relatively infrequent use on the main lines.

The children of all ages have a happier Christmas.

EVERYTHING ELSE IS ELABORATION.

Reason's Matt Welch, When the World Convulsed, George H.W. Bush (Mostly) Let Freedom Happen.  "Let one the lessons of his passing be that sometimes American presidents don't have to know it all, and don't have to control it all, either."

So mote it be.

GOOD LUCK WITH THAT.

Brian Addison, of The Long Beach Post, urges, "Get out of your car. It’s the only way to save California."  It's not advice, it's an imperative.

While much has been said about making cars cleaner and more efficient, very little has been said about why people drive so much or for such great distances on such a regular basis. With a severe housing decrease in the foreseeable future—particularly affordable housing in transit-rich areas—those displaced from urban centers have become much more likely to buy a vehicle to get to and from work.

This, in turn, has brought a second wave of aggressive legislation that focuses on creating housing near transit, what is called transit-oriented housing, in order to meet a new slew of climate change goals. The state has pledged to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions to 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2030. In addition, over the past decade, it created a first-of-its-kind law such as SB 375, the Sustainable Communities and Climate Protection Act of 2008.

And those lofty goals for 2030? You can pretty much book it that they will not be met the same way the 2020 goals were. Why? Because the 2020 goals mainly dealt with improvements to the electrical grid and commercial freight transit. The 2030 guidelines deal with the great white whale of California emissions: The private automobile.

The report makes one thing completely clear, and critical, about the state’s very survival: We have to drive less and our lack of progress or inability to curb our individual car driving to date has “put California at risk of not achieving the important public health, equity, economic, mobility, housing, and other benefits that [SB 375 is] expected to deliver.”

You can pass all the feel-good legislation you want. The trick is in obtaining compliance.

Fully ambulatory Californians will have to walk, bike, and use mass transit much more. Much, much more. Climate experts say able-bodied Californians will have to walk by foot four times as much as they do now, and will have to bike nine times as much.

In other words, the report is adamant that a reduction in the growth of single-occupancy vehicle travel is essential if we are to achieve an emission level that is 40 percent below those of 1990,  by 2030. Tack onto this Gov. Jerry Brown’s new carbon neutrality goal, which the state hopes to achieve by 2045, and the habits of residents who use their car for everything becomes paramount.

This is not just about long, daily commutes to work, the type of trip perceived as “essential,” since 46 percent of all passenger car trips are under 3 miles. And it’s not about gas versus electric vehicles since, according to the report, even if zero-emission car sales increased tenfold, the state would still have to reduce the miles traveled by cars by 25 percent in order to meet the 2030 goal.

Will have to.

Do you propose to set up a guillotine on Rodeo Drive?

Not since 1968 has there been such heat and fury in the streets. Thousands of ‘gilets jaunes’ stormed the capital at the weekend to rage against Emmanuel Macron and his treatment of them with aloof, technocratic disdain. And yet leftists in Britain and the US have been largely silent, or at least antsy, about this people’s revolt. The same people who got so excited about the staid, static Occupy movement a few years ago — which couldn’t even been ar[ou]sed to march, never mind riot — seem struck dumb by the sight of tens of thousands of French people taking to the barricades against Macronism.

It isn’t hard to see why. It’s because this revolt is as much against their political orthodoxies as it is against Macron’s out-of-touch and monarchical style. Most strikingly this is a people’s rebellion against the onerous consequences of climate-change policy, against the politics of environmentalism and its tendency to punish the little people for daring to live relatively modern, fossil-fuelled lives. This is new. This is unprecedented. We are witnessing perhaps the first mass uprising against eco-elitism and we should welcome it with open arms to the broader populist revolt that has been sweeping Europe for a few years now.

The ‘gilet jaunes’ — or yellow-vests, after the hi-vis vests they wear — are in rebellion against Macron’s hikes in fuel tax. As part of his and the EU’s commitment to cutting carbon emissions, Macron is punishing the drivers of diesel vehicles in particular, raising the tax by 7.6 cents for every litre of diesel fuel. This will badly hit the pockets of those in rural France, who need to drive, and who can’t just hop on buses as deluded Macronists living in one of the fancy arrondissements of Paris have suggested they should. These people on the periphery of French society — truck drivers, provincial plumbers, builders, deliverymen, teachers, parents — have rocked up to the centre of French society in their tens of thousands three times in recent weeks, their message the same every time: ‘Enough is enough. Stop making our lives harder.’

Californians generally lead a more pampered existence than rural Frenchmen. What is Mr Addison thinking?  The French uprising "is a perfect snapshot of the most important divide in 21st-century Europe: that between a blinkered elite and ordinary people who’ve had as much bossing about, tax rises, paternalism and disdain as they can take."

M. Macron, though?  Best summarized by Jonathan Miller.

[H]is hubris, arrogance and almost autistic detachment from the French in the street is in a class with Marie Antoinette. Except that this time around, the courtier whispers, ‘Mr President, the people cannot afford diesel.’ To which the cloth-eared Macron has, in effect replied: ‘Let them buy Teslas.’

This morning the French government suspended the fuel tax hikes.  "Before long, the government will have to decide whether to continue putting the world elites’ conception of environmentalism ahead of the economic interests of French citizens and the interest of national unity." Or recognize that the environmentalists' vision requires force to implement.

Levying taxes on individuals to combat climate change – or for the accomplishment of any social betterment project – is unfailingly undertaken in the name of the sanctity of life. Yet if life is an invaluable state and condition, so too is that of the right of personal property. A life absent the ability to enjoy the products of our toil by utilizing them directly or voluntarily exchanging them with that of others is a life circumscribed, and thus a life forcibly, purposely denigrated in quality.

Yes, and the survival of the dirigiste project is at stake.

For more than 100 years, European governments have built their invasive states, with the public sector controlling ever more of life. The promise of combining security and prosperity through state enhancement has failed to achieve its promise. And what does the political class propose? More government power, this time in the name of green energy.

At some point, it is too much. Just as the citizens suffering under Soviet rule finally said no more, the people suffering under social-democratic rule might someday do the same. Observers have waited decades to see reforms that might forestall such a thing. Reforms haven’t happened. Now the people are in the streets, setting fires and protesting the police.

What comes next might not be pretty.

WHEN THE TECHNOCRATIC VISION COLLAPSED.

David Leonhardt attempts to revive that Old Time Religion.

The October 1944 edition of Fortune magazine carried an article by a corporate executive that makes for amazing reading today. It was written by William B. Benton — a co-founder of the Benton & Bowles ad agency — and an editor’s note explained that Benton was speaking not just for himself but on behalf of a major corporate lobbying group. The article then laid out a vision for American prosperity after World War II.

At the time, almost nobody took postwar prosperity for granted. The world had just endured 15 years of depression and war. Many Americans were worried that the end of wartime production, combined with the return of job-seeking soldiers, would plunge the economy into a new slump.

“Today victory is our purpose,” Benton wrote. “Tomorrow our goal will be jobs, peacetime production, high living standards and opportunity.” That goal, he wrote, depended on American businesses accepting “necessary and appropriate government regulation,” as well as labor unions. It depended on companies not earning their profits “at the expense of the welfare of the community.” It depended on rising wages.

For a quarter century, it worked.

Freedom is like that.  Plus, part of the victory dividend resource curse was the expectation, irrespective of your political stance, that the objective conditions for continued prosperity would always be with us.  We see that in the pop-culture treatment, early in the Reagan years, of former hippies entering middle age as yuppies.  It's more subtle than that, as there were more young people who had a bourgeois bent, despite all the efforts of the academic culture of the era to make bourgeois a dirty word, than there were smelly hippies, but yes, the hippies and the long-haired radicals had the idea there would be enough of the productive economy to sustain them once they got bored with their crusades.  Thus we find ourselves here.

The Best and The Brightest, however,  looted the victory dividend's effects and blanked out its causes.

In the years that followed, corporate America largely followed this prescription. Not every executive did, of course, and management and labor still had bitter disputes. But most executives behaved as if they cared about their workers and communities. C.E.O.s accepted pay packages that today look like a pittance. Middle-class incomes rose faster in the 1950s and 1960s than incomes at the top. Imagine that: declining income inequality.

And the economy — and American business — boomed during this period, just as Benton and his fellow chieftains had predicted.

Things began to change in the 1970s. Facing more global competition and higher energy prices, and with Great Depression memories fading, executives became more aggressive. They decided that their sole mission was maximizing shareholder value. They fought for deregulation, reduced taxes, union-free workplaces, lower wages and much, much higher pay for themselves. They justified it all with promises of a wonderful new economic boom. That boom never arrived.

There's probably a research opportunity somewhere, figuring out, if that is possible, how much real incomes in the United States might have declined had businesses gone on with the Treaty of Detroit.

Fewer people have to make do on the equivalent of a dollar a day these days.  "The world attained the first Millennium Development Goal target—to cut the 1990 poverty rate in half by 2015—five years ahead of schedule, in 2010." That improvement in living standards in the developing world, however, was a Marshallian improvement, and gadgets in hand or polemics are scant comfort to, for example, U. S. citizens who might genuinely be enjoying higher living standards at the same time that they have lost ground to neighbors who are relatively even better off.

Yes, we could investigate whether the shareholder value craze encourages short-term thinking.

We could investigate whether the payoffs to winning tournament markets are inefficient.

But let's not pretend that a restoration of the Treaty of Detroit and the Divine Right of Technocrats is either desirable, or likely to succeed.

IT'S BEEN CRUMBLING FOR A LONG TIME.

So much for the Experts suggesting the Green Bay Packers would contend for the conference championship this year.

Observers can’t help but wonder: What is wrong with the Packers?

It’s been nearly a year since Ted Thompson stepped down as general manager. But to understand what is happening in 2018, you must look back a few years. Many interviewed for this story say the Packers’ struggles can be traced back to Thompson’s final years as GM; others who won’t say it still suggest it with their actions.

Thompson, of course, had a wildly successful overall run in Green Bay. He began his career as a front-office executive in Green Bay in 1992. After leaving for a five-year stint in Seattle, he returned to the Packers as general manager in 2005. The first selection of his first draft was Aaron Rodgers, and the team went to the postseason nine times in 13 seasons of Thompson’s GM tenure, including a Super Bowl XLV title. He will deservedly be inducted into the Packers Hall of Fame in May.

Perhaps so, although if you're going to follow the draft-and-develop model, you've got to have draft choices developing in two or three years. The 2015 draft class was a failure.

There might have been the proliferation of the football equivalent of deanlets and deanlings, and arbitrary administrative ukases at work.

Ron Wolf, the Hall of Fame GM who ran the Packers from 1991-2001, had a saying: Football is the most important thing. If we do the football part right, the result will be wins. It was a message about seeing the bigger picture, not sweating the small stuff, and taking care of the things that really mattered. Some in the organization felt like that message had been lost.

Some of the team rules became byzantine. No backwards hats on the sidelines. No undershirts showing from underneath practice jerseys. All players must coordinate and wear the same color shoes, as determined by the team. When players leave the locker room for practice, the equipment staff tidies each locker, clearing it of any unsightly hangers or extra gear.

Thompson set the rules, and it was up to Russ Ball, the VP of football administration/player finance who was seen as the only person in the building with Thompson’s full trust, to enforce them. One former Packer said that over time, these small rules add up and wear players down, causing some to question why certain things are the way they are.

“It’s an insane level of control,” says one person close to the organization. “No fun, it’s all about the Packer brand and being a vice president. The most important people in the organization are the VPs. The players and all that, that comes later.”

That's not to say that conditions in the locker room and on the field were otherwise good.

Even after a win over Buffalo, Rodgers criticized the offense and blamed the game plan. “It was as bad as we’ve played on offense with that many yards in a long time,” he said. “There was no flow to the game… We were championship defensive level and non-playoff team offensive level today. That was not great, by any stretch of the imagination.” (Rodgers later clarified that he put most of the blame on himself rather than the coaching staff.)

That mini-controversy was nothing compared to what CBS cameras captured during a victory over the Bengals last season. After taking a sack late in the third quarter, Rodgers looked to the sideline. It didn’t take an expert lip-reader to decipher his message. “Stupid f---ing call!” And then again for good measure. “Stupid f---ing call!” The following week, when Rodgers walked into his individual meeting with McCarthy, the head coach had the broadcast clip pulled up on the screen, ready to review and discuss. Early in Rodgers’s career, McCarthy spent a lot of time coaching him to better control his body language when he was frustrated.

The frustration the quarterback revealed in the Buffalo game might have been a continuation of his discontent with the new draft choices that was evident in training camp.

The new draft choices, however, are not yet familiar with improvisational football.

The spread system played into Rodgers’s strengths as a sandlot playmaker. But that style of play requires tremendous chemistry between the quarterback and the other 10 players, who must have a similar “feel” for how any given play is developing and what their quarterback will do on the fly. The roster turnover made that nearly impossible to pull off in 2018. Jordy Nelson, long Rodgers’s favorite target, was released in March, while Randall Cobb, the longest-tenured Packers receiver, has missed half this season with a hamstring injury and third-year receiver Geronimo Allison lasted just five games before going on injured reserve with a groin injury. Rookies Marquez Valdes-Scantling and Equanimeous St. Brown have been asked to take on significant roles alongside Adams and first-year Packer Jimmy Graham. Valdes-Scantling and St. Brown are too green to keep up with Rodgers’s improvisational style, making a more highly schemed system a necessity. Though, judging from how the offense has struggled to find its footing at times, the change might have been forced upon Rodgers and Co. before they were ready.

The defense has battled injuries and inexperience as well. Gutekunst’s big free-agent signing on that side of the ball, defensive lineman Muhammad Wilkerson, is out for the season with an ankle injury. The first-year GM was aggressive at the trade deadline, but it was to gather future assets rather than find immediate help. Along with sending struggling running back Ty Montgomery to the Ravens just days after his costly kick return fumble against the Rams, Gutekunst dealt fifth-year safety Ha Ha Clinton-Dix, an impending free agent who had played every snap for a secondary relying on first- and second-year players, to Washington for a draft pick. The Clinton-Dix trade sent mixed signals to the locker room, as it was seemingly a rebuilding move (though one that guaranteed Green Bay an extra pick in the 2019 draft, rather than waiting for a compensation pick that might not come in 2020 if they are aggressive in free agency this winter). Lately, the cornerbacking group has been ravaged by injuries, putting first-year defensive coordinator Mike Pettine, who prefers an aggressive man-to-man defense, in a bind.

It has also been a season of near-misses. A September meeting with the Vikings ended in a tie in part because of a controversial roughing the passer penalty on Clay Matthews, one that wouldn’t have been called had it happened after September. Veteran kicker Mason Crosby missed four field goals and an extra point—indoors—in a upset loss in Detroit. A potential comeback at Washington was foiled by another questionable roughing flag on Matthews. Back-to-back road losses to the Rams and Patriots turned on ill-timed fumbles. And head coach Mike McCarthy’s overly conservative decision to punt on a fourth-and-2 late in Seattle cost them a chance to win despite a defense plagued by injuries at all three levels, and a scheduling glitch that required them to travel two time zones and play a game on three days’ rest.

Thus, the head coach who is second only to Curly Lambeau Himself in years of service and total victories is dismissed.

McCarthy's stature within the organization and to its fans relative to those legends seems to pale in comparison. Lambeau is the most important person in the history of the franchise. Lombardi is arguably the greatest coach in football history. Holmgren restored the Packers to the top of the football world after Lombardi left and the franchise won just one playoff game over a 24-year span. McCarthy won a Super Bowl and finished his tenure with a .618 winning percentage, but it's difficult to find a Packers fan who wanted him to coach their team in 2019.

The standard is still five championships in six championship games in eight seasons.

Maybe, in the era of 32 teams, that's an unrealistic standard.

Rodgers has won almost exactly the number of Super Bowls we would have expected given the success rate of other quarterbacks, and if the Packers had sneaked past the Seahawks and into Super Bowl XLIX, he would be right in line in terms of expected appearances, too. I think the expectations for eight (approaching nine) full seasons from Rodgers should be something in the range of two Super Bowl appearances and one win.

Yes, although a trophy named for Vince Lombardi, even if that's simply a matter of timing for the merger and some recent deaths, ought be in Titletown, U.S.A. more regularly.

That noted, there's more than one succession the Packers ought be contemplating.

Maybe Rodgers thinks he’s doing that with all the scrambling out of the pocket and playing an unconventional street-yard game. But he’s not. Rookie receivers like Marquez Valdes-Scantling and Equanimeous St. Brown need to be put in positions to succeed, not in positions that satisfy the quarterback’s desire for perfection.

They shouldn’t be immune from criticism, but why does Rodgers have to do it so publicly on the field? If it’s in the name of good leadership, it’s not really working because the two rookies combined for two catches for 19 yards, both by Valdes Scantling. The longest completion to anyone not named Davante Adams was 11 yards.

The way the game went Sunday, you would have taken the offense that played against Seattle or Minnesota over this one. The Packers put up 17 points against a warm-climate team with all kinds of problems with its run defense and not enough corners to cover Northwestern’s receivers.

Yes, and history rhymes.

And who’s to say Gutekunst isn’t going to do to Rodgers what Ted Thompson did to Brett Favre? Maybe next year or the year after that, he drafts a quarterback with loads of potential, someone exactly like Rodgers when he was selected in 2005.

Then there’s the new coach and his offensive system. Suppose the new guy doesn’t want to give Rodgers all the freedom to change plays and tell his receivers to run routes differently than McCarthy did.

Those are all legitimate possibilities.

Rodgers is going to want to hit the ground running with a new coach and a new offense, but success might not come as quickly as he thinks it will.

You can criticize McCarthy all day for not adapting his offense to the talent he had, but the bottom line is he didn’t have enough of it to succeed on offense. When you’re playing with rookie receivers and young running backs and your two veteran tight ends are too slow to beat anyone down the field and your offensive line depth doesn’t cut it, you’re not going to go to many Super Bowls.

We'll be watching the position coach hires for clues.

Let's close with a trivia question.  The Green Bay Packers opened the 1959 season with three straight wins, over the Bears, Lions, and 'Niners.  Who was the quarterback?

CIVIL SOCIETY IN THE STATE LINE.

Sunday was not the best day for travel or for train-watching, and yet the Canadian Pacific Holiday Train drew a respectable following, including a goodly number of first time spectators, to trackside.

The objective is to replenish the local food bank, and our neighbors came through.

The train is making a swing through Iowa, and will make its trip from Chicago to the Twin Cities and points northwest later this week.

A BICENTENNIAL.

Illinois joined the Union on this day in 1818.

Political junkies like to hail native son Ronald Reagan and transplants Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses Grant, and Barack Obama.

I'm not sure concentrating on the politics is wise, Illinois (sometimes, "Chicago") being shorthand for "Democratic corruption."

Let us, rather, call the roll of more meaningful Illinois contributions.  High-yield, drought resistant corn.  One-stop catalog shopping, with delivery.  Entertaining clear-channel radio.  World's Largest Store.  We Broadcast Better Music.  World's Greatest Newspaper.  We're Chicago's Federation of Labor.  Crossroads of commerce, on the rails, clogging the roads, in the air, unfortunately for the ecosystem, on the waterways, in the commodities exchanges.

And, although it pains me to say so, isn't the most respected defensive position in football middle linebacker for the Chicago Bears?

Enjoy.

THE HARD WAY.

The end of November is time for the Mid-American Conference football championship game, in Detroit's Ford Field.  Once again, Northern Illinois represent the West Division.

The opponent was Buffalo, and the smart money had Buffalo as a prohibitive favorite.

For fifty-eight minutes and thirty seconds, the smart money looked right.

The game lasts sixty minutes.

The Bulls (10-3) squandered a 19-point lead in the final 15 minutes, 17 seconds, as the Huskies cut the deficit to five early in the fourth quarter, on a 28-yard touchdown reception by D.J. Brown with 17 seconds left in the third quarter and a 32-yard TD reception by Spencer Tears, 2:09 into the fourth. Then, Brown’s 35-yard catch lifted the Huskies to a one-point lead with 1:09 left, and the Bulls had to scramble to create anything that resembled a comeback drive.

The Huskies had possession for only 11:23 of the second half, but kept the ball out of UB’s hands at the most opportune time – the final drive of the game.

Northern Illinois defensive end Josh Corcoran had to sit out the first half account a targeting penalty in the final regular season game. His return in the second half undoubtedly made blocking assignments more difficult for Buffalo.  Buffalo's defense, which entered the game highly regarded, "collapsed" as viewed from New York, but it was just another day at the office for Northern Illinois.  "NIU’s offensive onslaught in the second half was a surprise to everyone but the Huskies. An offense that entered the game averaging only 19.9 points per game torched the Bulls' defense for 137 passing yards after halftime by quarterback Marcus Childers (21-for-33 passing, 300 yards, four touchdowns)."

Medium's Justin Coffin asserts, "Northern Illinois is Impossible."

The MAC is a chaotic place for most programs. That chaos is fueled by the coaching turnover that is painful for the schools that endure departure and cute to the folks who call this place “The Cradle of Coaches.” The biggest indicator of upcoming disappointment in this league is, largely, any success at all. The big, rich schools will come and steal dream coaches using their lucrative TV deal money at the first sign of progress, and that’s just the way things are.

NIU thrives in the chaos. The Huskies win consistently when the environment is better designed for them to fail, so of course they won another MAC title on Friday night when all signs deep into the game pointed to an imminent Buffalo victory. Of course they stepped up on defense. Of course Childers, a quarterback averaging barely over five yards per attempt on the season, completed 21 of 33 passes for 300 yards and four touchdowns against the MAC’s third best scoring defense. Of course they came back from 19 down to win. Of course they did it “the hard way.”

In the last decade the Huskies have lost two coaches to bigger jobs and had to regroup after losing a Jordan Lynch, a finalist for the Heisman Trophy, to graduation. Where so many others failed, the Huskies continued winning. Central Michigan, Kent State and Bowling Green have all played for or won a MAC championship in the last 10 years. All three of those programs are in the midst of their worst stretches of football in school history. NIU hasn’t stopped winning.

Let's just enjoy it while it lasts.

Next up: the Boca Raton Bowl, December 18, facing the University of Alabama at Birmingham Blazers.

Rod Carey enters bowl season with an 0-5 record in bowl games as head coach – the Jan. 1, 2013, Orange Bowl game, was as an interim head coach. A win would mean NIU’s ninth of the season, which would mark NIU’s highest win total since 2014.

“In the past, we have not been successful in bowl games. And that’s the fact of it,” coach Rod Carey said. “You can’t change that. But that’s not about me. It’s not about past records. It’s about this group of guys having the opportunity which we feel great about to play a 14th game and compete together.”

Yes, the opponent is that University of Alabama at Birmingham.  "UAB (10-3) returns to its second consecutive bowl after having its program reinstated six months after its December 2014 disbanding and just completed a conference title-winning season as it defeated Middle Tennessee, 27-25, in the Conference USA Championship Game."

Buffalo will play Troy State, or is it simply Troy these days?  I'm not sure what it says about the state of college football that what used to be the Go Daddy Bowl in Mobile, Alabama has since become the GMAC Bowl (would you buy a used car?) and is currently the Dollar General Bowl, and it's just before Christmas, rather than part of Mobile's Mardi Gras opening ceremonies.

I still wonder, though, if the football program is good value for money?

TONIGHT'S RAILROAD READING.

Chicago Boy David Foster signs up for a "Take the Throttle" program at The Essex Steam Train and Riverboat that takes place after the high tourist season.

Essex also offers a training and experience program for people who would like to learn a little bit about operating a steam locomotive.  Being interested in steam power, I signed up.

The program includes some written material to be reviewed at home, a group classroom session of about an hour, and then an individual hour operating a locomotive under the guidance of an experienced engineer.

From the post, it appears that the serious work of raising the fire and getting steam pressure up is taken care of by railroad personnel ahead of time.  (O ye who complain when your car has to warm up for thirty seconds this time of year ...)

On arriving, I was surprised at the scale of the operation.  Although I was there in the off season (early November), judging by the parking lot and the number of railcars the place must be quite busy during prime months.  First was the class, which covers safety rules and basic steam locomotive principles.  It was taught by the railroad’s machinist, who described himself as the “spare parts department.”  Next was a group visit to the locomotive cab to familiarize ourselves with the layout of controls and indicators.

The Essex museum do a serious tourist business in the summer. It's in a thickly settled part of the country, alas, without a direct connection to Amtrak or Connecticut Department of Transportation trains.  As part of the 2013 O Scale Convention, our group went there for a train ride, cruise, and riverside lunch.

There are a lot of controls and indicators for an engineer to be aware of, and a steam locomotive does not give the same sort of feedback a motor vehicle does through the steering wheel and brake pedal.  That's where being attuned to the stack talk helps the experienced engineer.

On a steam locomotive, the cutoff point of steam admission to the cylinders can be controlled by the engineer.  Early cutoff lets the steam do more of its work expansively, improving fuel economy at the cost of some reduction in power.  The reverser sets the cutoff point as well as controlling the direction of travel–while the reversers on early locomotives were manually-operated and required considerable strength to operate (and sometimes led to broken arms), the reverser on #40 is a fingertip control, using air pressure to do the hard work.

It was a drizzly and somewhat chilly day, but very comfortable in the locomotive cab. (The boiler backhead is very hot, do not touch!)  Basic controls and indicators include the throttle, the reverser, the boiler pressure gauge, the injectors, the boiler water glass, and the brakes with their associated pressure gauges.

It takes nimble hands to get a steam locomotive started. The cylinder cocks have to be open to prevent the pressure of condensed water in the cylinders from blowing out the cylinder head. The sanding valve might have to be open just before the start if the rails are wet. Generally, the reverser is set to full forward or full reverse to start. Get the highball, yank the throttle open briefly to prime the cylinders, close it, open it slowly. Building up speed is a matter of opening the throttle and coming in on the reverser. That's the secret to a steam locomotive being able to pull any train it can start, as it picks up speed it's making more power strokes in a minute, and the expansive power of steam being admitted to the cylinders is enough to sustain the movement.  Don't forget to sound the whistle and bell as required!

That is a locomotive with a train on, which makes the art of handling the train even more challenging than running a light engine.

We ran about 4 miles, limited to a maximum speed of 15mph as required by the Federal regulations under which this railroad operates, then ran in reverse to return. For this run, only the independent air brake…which controls brakes on the locomotive and tender..was used; if we had been been hauling train cars, then the automatic air brake, which operates brakes on all cars almost simultaneously, would have also been employed.  (Proper management of the braking system is essential: the instructor cited the example of a train in which over-use of the independent air brake caused the steel tires which are shrunk-fit on the locomotive wheels to overheat and delaminate, stalling the train on a bridge.) Operating the independent brake is unlike using a car or truck brake:  you use the brake control to increase, decrease, or hold the air pressure level and hence the braking force.

On the other side of the cab, the fireman has a lot of work to do.  Even for this minimally-light train (‘light’ being a relative term: locomotive & tender weighing over 100 tons), there was a lot of coal shoveling involved to keep the steam pressure up…and the fireman also has primary responsibility for monitoring the boiler water level and adding water as required–low boiler water can lead to a catastrophic explosion. Water is added to the boiler via a clever device called an injector, which performs the seemingly-impossible task for forcing water in against the boiler pressure by using that same pressure.

On the workaday railroads, the engineer often had the responsibility of running the injector. "Fireboy, keep her hot, I'll keep her cold!" It's likely that Essex assign a second qualified engineer to do the firing, the better to assure the visitor of a safe trip.

Steam locomotives (and a few diesels, to this day) have shrunk-fit tires so as to make the replacement of a flat tire (another consequence of sliding wheels) a matter of heating the damaged or worn tire, removing it, and shrinking a new one on less of a production than replacing the entire wheel, which would require counterweighting and balancing work.  The independent brake at least permits graduated responses to conditions, with more or less braking force.  The automatic brakes on freight cars don't work that way: once applied, they can only be fully released, and if you attempt to apply them more tightly, there might not be enough air pressure left in the system to achieve the desired effect.

It is possible to stop a steam locomotive, and a train, using only the reverser, although that's a risky practice.

In addition to the Steam Experience opportunities Mr Foster notes, the Illinois Railway Museum on occasion sells opportunities to take the throttle on Russian Decapod 1630, "Uncle Boris."

CROSSING THE LINE.

It's Christmas, which means it's time for the Smug to find Much to Marinate In.  "There is a fine line between responsible elitism and irresponsible tyranny by a vocal minority."

Yup.  "Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer" set the know-it-alls at Huffington Post off.

The Victory Girls have a holly-jolly riposte.

Whilst making tongue-in-cheek social justice commentary about Rudolph, they have neglected the key takeaways of this story from years ago. Although he was bullied, left out of all of the reindeer games, unaccepted, different-quirky even-young Rudolph was able to overcome and do something absolutely great. He saved the day! He made kids smile. And his story is magical. He didn’t stomp his hooves and whine and go to a “safe space” and resign himself to life being too hard as a red-nosed reindeer and call it quits. He didn’t blame others and become a victim. He didn’t expect special treatment or demand it from his peers because he was different. He may have shed some tears and that’s okay. When given a challenge, he rose to the occasion and excelled and proved his biggest critics and his bullies wrong. He persisted.

Yes, and he went down in history.

Maybe the Huffington Post and the rest of the Problematic Christmas crowd got polka-dot elephants at Christmas back in the day, and they're ever after mad at the world.

FINIS.

Before the floundering Green Bay Packers kicked off to the Racine Chicago St. Louis Arizona Cardinals, Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel columnist Pete Dougherty suggested, "Mike McCarthy-Aaron Rodgers marriage has run its course with Packers."

At this point, it doesn’t matter who’s more to blame. All that matters is Rodgers isn’t buying what McCarthy is selling and isn't playing anywhere near an MVP level. That’s why the Packers are 4-6-1.

Make that 4-7-1.

There was an NFL Network report on Sunday that Arizona Cardinals rookie head coach Steve Wilks wasn’t guaranteed a second season. A win over the Green Bay Packers might remedy that.

As for Green Bay Packers coach Mike McCarthy, his future might have been sealed on Sunday.

The Packers were already in the middle of a terrible season, and a loss against a bad Cardinals team at home makes it much worse. Green Bay lost when Mason Crosby’s field-goal attempt to tie the game on the final play went wide right. Arizona got the upset 20-17 victory. The Cardinals were 2-9 before Sunday. And they were competitive against the Packers for the entire game. That says a lot about the Packers.

Aaron Rodgers tried firing his team up last week by laying out how the Packers would win their last five games and make the playoffs. Green Bay didn’t even get the first of those five wins, which should have been the easiest one.

And with an absolutely flat, disappointing loss at Lambeau Field to one of the worst teams in the NFL, that should truly be the end of the McCarthy era.

It was.  The standards are tough in Green Bay.

Several USA Today sports pundits had Arizona losing to Green Bay in Green Bay as the lock of the week, last week.  Yes, and Hillary Clinton is president.

The ominous signs in Titletown were present five years ago.  (Yes, before that late-game collapse in the conference championship game in Seattle.)

We'll have a more detailed assessment later this week.

I. ADVENT.

Santa Claus comes to town, despite occasional heavy rain and thunderstorms.

The train stopping for Santa to interact with children of all ages is a recent feature of the show.

THE YOUNG KNOW NOT SUCKITUDE.

Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel sports pundit J. R. Radcliffe asks, "[I]s this the most frustrating season for Wisconsin football fans in recent memory?"

That "in recent memory" is salient, as the Badgers were terrible for about thirty years, from the 1963 season to the surprise trip to the Rose Bowl, and the Packers were terrible for almost as long, with no titles after the Lombardi era to what we now know as Super Bowl XXXI.  "1990-92 - End of an era (and good riddance)."

Two crappy years back-to-back (2017, 2018): that's enough anecdotal evidence for someone who argues by example to say "trend."

ALREADY FAILING ITS MARKET TEST?

Railway Age asks D. P. Alan to evaluate Brightline's partnership with Virgin Group.  The train service impresses.

Brightline spokesperson Ali Soule told this writer: “We are at the intersection of transportation and hospitality” and the station and on-board experiences proved her right. There were plenty of employees around to cater to every rider’s needs, and their attitudes were positive and helpful at all times. Of course, they also made sure that passengers stayed in their assigned places and did not wander too far. For riders in the extra-fare “Select” class, the railroad offered wine, coffee, snacks like chips and granola bars, breakfast pastries in the morning, and cheese, crackers and cold cuts in the afternoon. There were also wine, beer (the Jai Alai IPA is local and appropriately hoppy, even though in comes in a can) and snacks available on board. “Non-Select” passengers had to pay for them.

Soule also pointed out some of the features of the car design, including some inspired by the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), like unique restrooms and small grabirons attached to the seats, so passengers did not need to grab the backs of the seats to steady themselves. In reality, they were not needed, because the track was the smoothest this writer has ever experienced. It was possible to fill a cup to the brim with beer and watch it for a few minutes, without a drop being spilled. That feat is impossible on Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor (NEC) or anywhere else Amtrak goes.

I believe somebody conducted a similar test with a cup of coffee on the press run of the Hiawatha in 1935, and the coffee stayed in the cup at 112 mph.  The challenge, dear reader, is in providing a train service from somewhere to somewhere, and that's not so promising, in Mr Alan's view.

On Sept. 18, Brightline acquired XpressWest, a high-speed rail venture that would run trains between Southern California and Las Vegas along the I-15 corridor, beginning in 2022. The Southern California end would be in Victorville, a town east of San Bernardino and 119 miles from Los Angeles by rail. Amtrak’s Southwest Chief stops there, but the only way that Angelinos can get there on public transportation would entail a long ride to San Bernardino on a Metrolink train and taking an infrequent local bus from there to Victorville. Motorists could park in Victorville and take the train the rest of the way to Las Vegas.

It does not appear to this writer than either market is fertile ground. It would cost motorists convenience and money to drive to Victorville and take the train, while the trip would be extremely long and difficult for transit riders. If management could figure out a way to run through to Las Vegas from Los Angeles, that would be a different story. It would probably require an agreement with Amtrak and BNSF, which owns the route to Victorville.

Yup, despite quips about "there being no there there" where downtown Los Angeles is concerned.

Virgin, though, is relatively new to U.S. travellers.

Virgin is an established brand, but more in Europe (it is based in London) than in the U.S. It is also a widespread conglomerate, both geographically and in terms of other business lines. With regard to travel, it is building ships for a cruise line to be based in Plantation, Fla. (Virgin Voyages), so it is establishing a related travel-based presence in the region. It is not quite as clear how well-respected the Virgin name is in this country, which does not prize the concept of virginity as much as other places in the world. Virginity is a status that many people lose relatively early in their lives. It seems that a company courting that status is moving in the other direction.

Virgin Group has holdings in the travel, hospitality, publishing, media, entertainment, retail, communications, sports and other industries. It has also given up more branding positions throughout its history than it owns today. It retains a minority share in Virgin Atlantic Air Lines, which did well in 2015, but has lost money more recently. It has discontinued or sold other airline holdings, but it retains tour operation Virgin Holidays.

With respect to rail, it still owns 51% of Virgin Rail Group, having sold the other 49% to Stagecoach, which owns such American companies as Coach USA and Megabus. Virgin’s experience operating rail franchises in the U.K. has been spotty, with a history of operating the Intercity Cross-Country, East Coast and West Coast franchises. It lost all three at different times, but regained the West Coast franchise until next April. It is currently bidding to keep that franchise under its brand with a 20% position, along with French railroad SNCF (30%) and the other 50% held by Stagecoach Group.

That's where market tests come in.

Everybody, including rail managers and rider-advocates, have been watching Brightline’s progress to determine whether or not it would be feasible to introduce passenger trains back into the private sector. It now appears, at least to this writer, that it is not. The railroad had plenty of land in downtown Miami, Fort Lauderdale and West Palm Beach that could be developed. That land is a great asset on the balance sheet, and it would contribute much more to the bottom line after it is developed. Other privately owned railroads do not have that special asset.

There is a difference between a balance sheet and a cash flow statement, and it appears that even Brightline and its owners did not have the cash to build the new railroad they planned. So they needed an investor. They got some cash, and they paid the price. The trains may run to Orlando someday, but the experiment failed.

So, if you wish to experience Brightline, you had better get on an Amtrak train or a plane soon, and go to South Florida to ride the brightly colored train. You do not have much time.

Whether other railroads will seek relief from ancient regulatory constraints on the ownership of real estate and commercial properties, the better to provide developments for development-oriented transit, remains to be seen.

NUCKING PUTZ?

David "Voluntary Xchange" Tufte expands on our report that the Wise Experts at Oakland University (if they called it Michigan State University at Troy you could have the Trojan Spartans I suppose) issued students with hockey pucks, yes, hockey pucks, as a way of deterring active shooters.

Just go, enjoy it.  A sample.  "Wouldn’t a baseball be better than a puck, on a purely aerodynamic basis? Better range? Higher accuracy?"  Go and read.

Back in the day, I used to put my body in the way of pucks.  When they're powered by somebody who knows how to use a hockey stick, they pack a wallop.  But they're lousy projectiles: either a baseball, because it's symmetric, or a manganese steel Frisbee, because it's aerodynamic and hardened, would be more effective at longer ranges.

Years ago I asked, "Is anybody in charge at Oakland?"  Apparently the answer is "Terminally Stupid People."

I wonder if the Oakland students will bring their pucks with them when they venture into Detroit for a night in Greektown or at the casinos or at a hockey game.

One concluding note: another question from Voluntary Xchange.  " Oakland has chosen to poorly arm a broader group, rather than to better arm a smaller group … work out the calculus on whether that’s a good choice or not."

Northern Illinois University has prior experience with active shooter situations, and their response includes a smaller group of people who might be armed.  "There are sufficiently many veterans and twenty- and thirty-something students here that the signature of an undercover officer will be difficult to pick up."

As far as I know, the only university-issued hockey pucks here are for the latest intercollegiate sport.

POLICY BASED ON ANECDOTE FAILS.

I'm no fan of Thomas Friedman, spinmeister for the technocrats, peddler of policy nostrums in sound-bites, flattener of worlds.  Neither is Belén Fernández, whose The Imperial Messenger: Thomas Friedman at Work is part of Verso Press's Counterblast series, touted as challenges to "the apologists of Empire and Capital." The Puritan and Leveller counterblasts were short pamphlets, whilst Imperial Messenger is a book that really requires careful reading.

Book Review N^o. 35 will highlight the observations Ms Fernández makes about Mr Friedman's style of argument, if in fact you can call it argument.  Her book sorts a number of his columns into sections called "America," "The Arab/Muslim World," and "The Special Relationship."  Let us stipulate that the author is the sort of Third World-o-phile who takes a more sympathetic view of the antics of Moslems in general and Palestinians in particular than do I, and that she's more inclined to view the shortcomings of Latin American failed states as Made in Washington than as the fruits of the late Roman Empire and Bolivaran socialism.

Fine.  We can debate that.  We can debate that on stronger grounds than those underpinning a Thomas Friedman column.  To be blunt, there's d**n little in a Friedman column for me to rely on, should we engage in such a debate.

The preface, page xi, is a good place to start.  "Friedman's writing is characterized by a reduction of complex international phenomena to simplistic rhetoric and theorems that rarely withstand the test of reality."  In reality, a Thomas Friedman article never comes close to producing a theorem, but so it always is with argument by anecdote.  Mr Friedman's own words, introducing the concluding remarks, page 135, is a good place to finish.  "When widely followed public figures feel free to say anything, without any fact checking, we have a problem."

Yup.  Fake News.  It's priceless, then, to have Mr Friedman lamenting a crisis of authority.  Ms Fernández and I would likely agree that Mr Friedman continuing to be an Honored Guest on Meet The Press is part of that crisis.  "Thomas Friedman as pope, Chuck Todd as loyal cardinal, Helene Cooper and Robert Costa managing the Index, and Danielle Pletka as Devil's Advocate."  As it was in the beginning, it is now and ever shall be, turf out the wise experts!

(Cross-posted to 50 Book Challenge.)

AMTRAK'S DILBERT MOMENT.

Railway Age editor William C. Vantuono publishes some Amtrak braggadocio.

“We made significant advancements to improve safety and the customer experience, posting our best operating performance in company history” said Amtrak Board Chair Tony Coscia. “We remain on track to cover total operating costs from ticket and other revenues in the next few years, which will allow us to focus funding on business improvements and expansion (8).”

“With refreshed train interiors, improved amenities and renewed stations and infrastructure, our customers are noticing a difference,” said Amtrak President and CEO Richard Anderson. “We are continuing to make passenger rail the preferred mode of travel for business and leisure.”

That comes after the obligatory bullet points, the carrier suspecting that readers can't follow an argument in ordinary prose.

He then performs an essential public service.

Editor’s Notes (translating much of the euphemistic, corporate-speak nonsense language in Amtrak’s press release):

(1) Passenger car upgrades.

(2) Cleaner passenger car interiors.

(3) Private, portable cubicles for breast-feeding mothers not much bigger than an ADA-sized porta-a-potty. A nice touch, though.

(4) The Trump Administration so far has refused to provide any federal funding for the Gateway Program.

(5) Cold boxed meals instead of hot food served in a dining car. Various Amtrak sources have told Railway Age that the brand-new CAF USA-built Viewliner II dining cars—part of a multi-million-dollar-order for baggage cars, sleepers and diners—are having their expensive cooking equipment removed and undergoing conversion into lounge cars.

There's more, equally unsparing.  Equally refreshing, as well.

THE PERMANENT GOVERNMENT AT WORK.

Who are you going to believe, the apologists for Business as Usual or your eyes?

Take the most recent Meet the Press.  (Please?)

It opens with moderator Chuck Todd unloading on Our President.  The first guest, from a remote studio, is Utah Senator Mike Lee.  The transcript does not indicate where Mr Todd becomes truculent and argumentative, although the interruption and the length of his questions provide a clue.  (Just play the video if you require further convincing.)

CHUCK TODD: Let me start with the president's back and forth with the chief justice. It was really the heads of two branches I think having a debate about the Constitution perhaps and I feel as if that's in your wheelhouse. So let me ask you, what was your reaction to the president's dismissiveness of the rebuke that Chief Justice Roberts gave to him about how the judiciary works and how it should be represented by public officials?

SEN. MIKE LEE: Look, it's not entirely unprecedented for a president of the United States or another public official to criticize court rulings, in some cases, Supreme Court rulings, as President Obama aggressively criticized the Supreme Court's ruling in the Citizens United case. Now look, this isn't my style. I get very uncomfortable.

CHUCK TODD: He didn't call them "Bush justices" though, did he?

SEN. MIKE LEE: No, he didn't. But, you know, I served with a number of colleagues in the Senate, including some on the Judiciary Committee who routinely accuse the current Supreme Court of being in the pocket of big business in the United States of America. This makes me feel uncomfortable too. I'm a lawyer by training and as a lawyer, I try to express disagreement about the courts without impugning the court's motives whenever I can.

CHUCK TODD: This seems –

SEN. MIKE LEE: But as a president of the United States, he certainly has the right to express his opinion on these things.

CHUCK TODD: The problem is, when he speaks, he carries with him a big following that goes down these rabbit holes with him. He's gone after the judiciary, he's gone after the integrity of our election systems, he's now again contradicting his own CIA, the Justice Department, the free press, we, I could go on and on. You rebuke him rhetorically quite a bit when he does these things. But his behavior never changes. Do you ask yourself what's the point in rebuking him?

SEN. MIKE LEE: Well, he has been elected president of the United States. We all know that he has an unconventional style, he has a different approach than other people have taken to this job. But he is in fact the president of the United States and it's some of these same styles that helped get him elected in the first place. And so what I can do for my part as a United States senator is to help steer him in a direction that I think is consistent with his policies and in the best interest of the American people. I do think for what it’s worth --

CHUCK TODD: Do you have a breaking point? Do you have a breaking point?

SENATOR MIKE LEE: Oh sure. Look, any time somebody violates the Constitution, I'm going to call them out on it and do what I can from my position as a member of the U.S. Senate to stop it. But I do think, to the president's credit, and to what you were saying a few minutes ago about the need for a president to pivot after an election perhaps didn't go his way during a midterm, I think President Trump is doing that. Sometimes with this president, you've got to look not just at what he says, but also at what he does. Look at the fact that in the days following the midterm election, President Trump has come out aggressively for criminal justice reform. This is a big bipartisan opportunity. And I look forward to getting it done.

CHUCK TODD: I want to ask you something about what you said though recently. You said that you were so worried about political rhetoric and the rancor and that it's reached such a fever pitch that you said, quote, "It's going to drive our politics toward violence. Ultimately, this will come down to a binary choice, federalism or violence." That's a pretty extreme diagnosis of the current problem.

SENATOR MIKE LEE: It's not extreme. In fact, it's probably the least controversial speech I've given in a long time. Look, according to a recent poll conducted by NPR, 80% of Americans believe that our political divisiveness in this country, especially at a national level is driving us to a point that could result in violence. This is a real, legitimate concern. It's one of the reasons why the Founding Fathers were right in setting up a government that at the national level would be in charge of only a few things that are distinctively unavoidably, and by designation of the Constitution, mandated to be at the national level while reserving all other powers for states and localities. Recognizing there's a whole lot more agreement on a regional basis, on a state by state, or community-by-community basis, than there will ever be at the national level. And I think that is the best way, it may well be the only way, to avoid some of this divisiveness.

It continues in a similar vein for a few more rounds of questions.

The next guest is longtime Maryland Representative Elijah Cummings, in studio.

CHUCK TODD: Let me start with the Saudi issue first and foremost. Because I know you've been on this issue as well. You have the president disagreeing with his C.I.A. What responsibility at Oversight? Do you look to see if he has financial motivation for making the decision? And is this something Congress needs to look into?

REP. ELIJAH CUMMINGS: I think it's definitely something that we need to look into. And we probably will. Keep in mind, Chuck, one of the things that we’re concerned about in Oversight is the emoluments clause and wondering whether the president is acting in his best interest or those of the American people. And I think this will be appropriate and there are other committees that will be looking at this too.

CHUCK TODD: You have so many subpoena requests.

REP. ELIJAH CUMMINGS: That's right.

CHUCK TODD: And you have members on the Democratic side of the aisle who have all of these investigations they want to start. Your job is to prioritize this. Explain your priorities. Explain what the prism of how you're going to make these decisions about what's worthy of the committee's time and what will look like sort of crass, partisan politics.

REP. ELIJAH CUMMINGS: Well, there are a number of subpoenas that we have requested, some 64. And these, Chuck, are things that we would have normally done under Republican or Democratic administration. But let's be abundantly clear. The American people said to us through this election, "We want accountability. We want to check on this president of the United States." But they also said something else. They said, "We want you to solve our problems." And so a lot of our emphasis is going to be on, and laser focus, on things like the skyrocketing cost of prescription drugs, protecting our healthcare, dealing with things like issues like opioids. And one that is near and dear to me, voting rights. We're going to look at all of that. Now as far as President Trump and his administration, again, the American people have said to us, "They want robust, transparent investigations with integrity." So I haven't figured out exactly what order they're in, because they're all important. But I guarantee you, we will look at it quite a bit.

CHUCK TODD: I want to put up a quote here actually from Jason Chaffetz, who you were the ranking member when he was chair of the Oversight Committee on the Republican side of the aisle. And he says, first of all, he makes the following claim: "I sent letters and subpoenas to the Trump administration and got no response. I was stymied every step of the way. What makes you think Elijah Cummings will get a response?"

REP. ELIJAH CUMMINGS: Well, they--

CHUCK TODD: Is he right, by the way? Was he stymied? Even a Republican?

REP. ELIJAH CUMMINGS: I think, oh, no doubt about it. But I also think that the Republicans were aiders and abettors with regard to helping President Trump do some of the unfortunate things that he's done. Because President Trump knew that there was not going to be any pushback. Now he knows there's going to be some pushback. And it's going to be serious pushback because that's what the American people want. Now, I don't know what will happen. We're going to be very careful with issuing subpoenas. I don't want people to think that the first day I walk in there, we're going to have 38 subpoenas going out the door. Not going to do that. We're going to do it very carefully and make sure that it's done with integrity.

CHUCK TODD: You did not have your own subpoena power when you were ranking member.

REP. ELIJAH CUMMINGS: That's right. For a long time.

CHUCK TODD: And it was the first time that had ever happened, compared to previous congresses, correct?

REP. ELIJAH CUMMINGS: Right.

CHUCK TODD: Do you plan on granting your ranking member, whoever it is on the Republican side, subpoena authority?

REP. ELIJAH CUMMINGS: No, no.

CHUCK TODD: So why not? Explain why you wouldn't. If you believe this is something that should've been granted to you when you were in the minority.

REP. ELIJAH CUMMINGS: I didn't say that. They who have power in Washington, have all power. And I think the American people have said they want checks and balances. The subpoenas that I wanted to issue would be much different than what I've seen. I want to issue subpoenas that go to the very heart of our democracy and protecting that democracy.

And subpoenas, by the way, that may involve, say, private industry like the pharmaceutical companies with these skyrocketing drug prices. So it's our opportunity, I will consult with them, I will work with them, unlike they did with me. But, but no.

CHUCK TODD: This is one of those "what's good for the goose is good for the" -- I mean, I guess the point is that, when do you stop?

REP. ELIJAH CUMMINGS: Chuck, let me be clear. I'm hoping that we will return to a level of civility now. And that's what I'm hoping for. I hope that we can have leadership that just doesn't move to common ground, but move to higher ground. And I plan to lead that way. And one other thing. Our Democratic party, although we may not have been elected by all the people, we've got to govern as if we were.

CHUCK TODD: So what does that mean? You've got to work with this president in some ways, don't you?

REP. ELIJAH CUMMINGS: Oh yeah. Oh, I would love to work with President Trump. I want to hold him accountable not only to the American people, but I want to hold him accountable to himself. Keep in mind, he is the one who said recently that he's for prescription drugs going down. He's the same one who said that he wants-- he complained during the election about the infrastructure and how our airports are so poor and our roads. And now’s the time. Chuck, we only have two years. That's nothing. And so we've got to get it done. We don't have to hit the ground as Democrats running, we have to hit the ground flying.

That was a good win, Coach. What is your game plan for next week, Coach?

Why does "fake news" have such traction among Normals?

And so it goes.  News Busters picked up what they describe as a "freakout" by Helene Cooper during one of the panel sessions.  Danielle Pletka is again the token opposing voice, such as it is.  But note again who Mr Todd lets talk and who he interrupts.

CHUCK TODD: Dany?

DANIELLE PLETKA: The problem again is that I think there's a perception among those for whom Donald Trump speaks, and let's admit that Donald Trump does actually speak for some people, that--

CHUCK TODD:I think 46% is a number that seems to be the number -

DANIELLE PLETKA: Well, and --

CHUCK TODD: for people wondering. It seems to be at least that.

DANIELLE PLETKA: And, and, and that's a pretty substantial bunch of people.

CHUCK TODD: Yes, it is.

DANIELLE PLETKA: The problem for many is that they perceive this as an agenda that is much more about corporate and much more about law and much more about the kind of governance that America has and much less about climate. So from the standpoint of those who have doubts about this, and I don't think we can have any doubts that there is climate change, whether it's anthropogenic, I don't know, I'm not a scientist. I look at this as a citizen and I see it so I understand it. On the other hand, we need to also recognize that we just had two of the coldest years, the biggest drop in global temperatures that we've had since the 1980s, the biggest in the last 100 years. We don't talk about that because it's not part of the agenda. The United States has been dropping in C02 emissions since we pulled out of Paris. There are actually good things that are happening. We are not using dirty coal anymore. It's the Europeans who are using dirty coal. There actually is some corporate leadership on this. Yes, we need to deal with these problems, yes we need to mitigate the things we see. But we shouldn't be hysterical.

CHUCK TODD: Helene, it does seem as if there's actually more corporate interest in doing something than there is government interest.

HELENE COOPER: Yeah, it's just the problem is it's not the corporations that are polluting the most. And I actually think we should be hysterical. I'm going to disagree with you on this. I think anybody who has children or anybody who can imagine having children and grandchildren, how can you look at them and think this is the kind of world that through our own inaction and our inability to do something, that we're going to leave them? I think I'm really glad that you're actually having us talk about this on this show because I think it was the height of cynicism to release this report on Black Friday by the Trump administration. And I just think that at some point, we are going to need not just the political leadership, but also the corporate leadership to actually sit down and do something about this.

CHUCK TODD: It does seem as we're afraid of buying this insurance policy. Why are we afraid? Elise, why is the Republican party in particular afraid of buying this insurance policy?

ELISE JORDAN: I think it goes back to deeply-entrenched corporate interests within the Republican party and this is a very defined policy platform that you can see how Republicans have been historically very influenced by their donors on this plank. And you're not going to see it shift.

CHUCK TODD: You think it's distrust that somehow the environmental left will use it to go after other interests rather than--

ELISE JORDAN: I think that philosophically, the anti-regulation bend is there. But I do think that if you look at donors, there's a direct correlation there.

CHUCK TODD: Right-

DANIELLE PLETKA: This is why education of the citizenry is essential. In the end, the citizenry has the power. And it's like it was a movement. There was an environmental movement, but it has to be upped up now. And every young person has to realize that they're fighting. But old people are fighting for the young people too now. I care about them. We all care about those kids. You're so right.

CHUCK TODD:We need better civics.

DANIELLE PLETKA: We have a responsibility, better civics.

The unstated premise is that Wise Experts are going to somehow Fix Things.

I'll close with an aesthetic note: those Rachel Maddow glasses aren't going to make Chuck treat Dani any better.  Lose them, particularly with that flyaway hair.  Just saying.