Dave's Verse

Ever since Bernie Sanders chose to support a candidate who was questionable on abortion rights while ignoring one who wasn't, there have been think pieces after think pieces in every major media outlet lauding Bernie's decision to be open to Democratic candidates who are against abortion in some form or another (despite the fact that Bernie is still technically an Independent) and telling us that in order for the Democratic Party to ever win again it basically has to stop supporting abortion. What these pieces amount to is an Underpants Gnome Theory of Abortion, which goes something like this: Step 1: Democrats say they don't really care about abortion all that much and will support candidates who campaign on the fact that they are against abortion. Step 2: ...? Step 3: Democrats win all the races. The anti-abortion Democrats never have to vote on the issue of abortion. Women's rights are forever secured and we all live happily ever after. None of these pieces (...

I haven't paid any attention to the NCAA tournament since Duke lost (in typical fashion). But this post from LGM got me thinking about Duke hate again: I am sure you are all rooting for Oregon against Michigan and its Trump voters. Regardless, we can all agree that it’s great that Duke and its seemingly endless supply of privileged white players lost. Wait, so the implication is that Coach K shouldn't get good players if they're privileged and white because white men are too privileged by society? This argument would have merit if that's all he was doing, fielding a team full of mediocre white players because his team only serves to continue to further white male privilege. But the notion that this is even remotely what is happening is preposterous. I legit struggle to think of white players that got significant playing time who were mediocre. Gregg Paulus comes to mind. That kid was shit and I think he was only there because this was the time where K was refusing...

I picked a great time to rewatch one of my favorite shows and one of the most important ones to me personally, Buffy the Vampire Slayer. With all of the misogyny with Trump and Republicans it's nice to see a great female hero figuratively smash the patriarchy. And this happens to be the 20th anniversary of the show first airing. So it's all come together for good timing. The first five seasons were as expected. 2 and 3 still stand out as the best, truly some of the best tv ever. Season 4 is pretty solid despite less well defined "big bad". Season 5 has a stronger big bad in Glory, but fewer good stand alone episodes. Season 6 is known as the really dark season. And apparently some fans are really down on it because of that. I remembered it being dark but not all that different in quality than season 5. And with Joanna Robinson of Vanity Fair pointing out that the big bad of the season are basically a bunch of alt-right internet trolls before that was a thing, I was ...

I used to work for a state Democratic party. So I saw the challenges of trying to win races in a red state up close. And for the most part, it's not going to change. I say that because with Democrats' embrace of civil rights in the 60s and the southern strategy of the Republicans, TN and much of the south change from being a Democratic stronghold to a Republican stronghold. This took a while, in part because it took a while for voters to fully get the signals and change their partisanship (which is something that rarely changes) and because they were used to voting for incumbents that they liked. Once Democratic incumbents retired voters finally made the switch. So we aren't going to get a lot of those people back, at least as long as the Democratic party is committed to equality and not being racist and sexist, which I obviously think we should. Sure, some of these people could be open to voting for us on economic issues, as they did with President Obama in 2008 and 2012...

Brian Burke at ESPN asks why NFL passing numbers are exploding . It's no secret that the passing numbers in the NFL keep climbing. Analysts have been calling the NFL a passing league for the past few years, but the truth is it has been so for two generations, and there's no end in sight for passing's ascendancy. He does a good job looking strictly at the numbers. But one area I think worth discussing is the widened talent pool of potential NFL QBs. For much of NFL and college history, only white guys were QBs. Given that non-white guys make up a significant (if not the majority) % of the other positions on the field, it would make sense that when you start letting non-white guys play the position, you get an influx of talent. Combined with that new talent, you push out some of the less talented white guys who may have been holding onto positions simply because of a lack of resources. So now the NFL is choosing from a wider, more talented pool of players. This also wor...

Emily over at Pajiba has a different take on Civil War : I’m not usually in the habit of publicly disagreeing with my fellow writers, but I feel it a service to warn you that both TK’s review and Rotten Tomatoes have lied to you. Captain America: Civil War is a garbage movie. Sure, it had its amusing moments. It had some terrific acting, and some amazing action sequences. And a plot so filled with holes I could use it to water my plants. Emily, you brave soul. Thank you for this. I'm not sure if the "garbage" line is tongue-in-cheek. If it's not I'll disagree on that point. It was entertaining enough to overlook the problem of hinting at making a political movie in this universe. I think Cap is a lot less wrong than others, apparently. Tony is a selfish prick who is doing this because being a selfish prick killed a lot of people. I don't buy the larger, political reason for him pushing the accords. I despise the UN hatred that goes on in the US. Read a fu...

No spoilers Avengers part 3 Captain America: Civil War is typical Marvel in every way. It's fun, funny, well-enough-executed, a bit overstuffed, and a plot not really tied up that well in service of future movies. It seems to have the same cinematography and score as the others. Though don't see this in 3D, completely useless and even makes a lot of the early fight scenes tough to follow. What it does unquestionably better than BvS (which for some reason I haven't reviewed here, probably because I put my thoughts on twitter) is coherent editing and a nice narrative flow. I like BvS but there no getting around the fact it lacks there (maybe the director's cut saves it, idk). The tone is so different than BvS. Every other line has to be a joke, though now they don't have Joss Whedon so it's not the same. But some of the actors make up for it (mainly Rudd, Robert Downey Jr.'s schtick is a little stale). Maybe I need another viewing but I'm not convin...

"They cast Ben Affleck as Batman!?" "Zack Snyder is directing a Batman movie?" "Why is the trailer for Batman v. Superman so DARK and SERIOUS? Why doesn't DC make jokes in movies like MARVEL?" If I have to listen to that for another 2 months I might just I'm not saying you can't judge a movie by its trailer, its casting, or its director. I mean, I know right away I won't like a movie if it stars Adam Sander. But I think Batman v. Superman is getting unfairly maligned. And I'm worried that if people go in with too many preconceived notions about the movie it will blind them as to the actual quality of the movie (Like what happened with Man of Steel, people wanted the Donner movie and were mad when they didn't get it). There are legit criticisms of Zack Snyder's directing and Ben Affleck's acting/role choices. Snyder arguably directs for style over substance. I think all of his movies that I've seen look interes...

The Miami Dolphins fired their head coach Joe Philbin today after another humiliating loss to long time division rival the New York Jets. There were hopes that coming into this season, the team could move past the consistently mediocre results it has achieve for seemingly decades and make it to the playoffs, perhaps even winning the division that the New England Patriots have cheated their way toward winning won most of the past two decades. But no. Barring an extremely unlikely turnaround under the interim head coach, the Dolphins will miss out on the playoffs yet again. The disappointment this team's fans have felt has become as predictable as the Dolphins throwing the ball less than 5 yards on 3rd and long situations. We can point to numerous causes for such mediocrity. Certain Philbin and his coaching staff deserve a long of blame. But as bad as they were, it's not like they were coaching a team filled with all-pros at every position. There are problems with starters a...

There's been a lot of talk about the pope since he visited the US. The pope will draw attention because he's the head of a large, worldwide organization. But Francis is probably drawing more attention than normal because he says some fairly progressive things, at least for a religious leader. This has all sparked some debate over what the catholic church should look like moving forward. This piece from Ross Douthat showed up in my twitter feed and I wanted to highlight some things I found interesting. Which brings us to the issue that prompted my column: The debate, encouraged and I think guided in a pro-change direction by Pope Francis, over whether to admit the divorced-and-remarried, people in unions that the church has traditionally considered adulterous, back to communion while they’re still in a sexual relationship with their new spouse. I’ve written at length, as have others more qualified than myself, on why this allegedly-pastoral change would, in fact, represent a...

I've seen The Dark Knight probably around 20 times. It took me until seeing it at an old theater in Nashville over the weekend to realize something about the Gotham of the Nolan trilogy. It has crappy health insurance coverage. And the lack of coverage helped lead to the death of Rachel Dawes, the creation of Two-Face, and the turning of Batman into The Dark Knight. Like all Nolan movies, he drops a hint about what will happen in the movie very early on. After the opening of the Joker heist, we cut to Gotham at night. Two guys are about to make what looks like an illegal drug deal when one of them looks up and sees the Batsignal in the sky. He walks away from the deal for fear that Batman will stop him. Then we cut to Gordon on top of the Major Crimes Unit roof, where he has turned on the Batsignal, waiting for Batman to come talk to him. Detective Anna Ramirez joins Gordon on the roof with a cup of coffee and asks if he, "Ever plans to see his wife again." To which ...

Jeb Bush is running for president, because you know, our economy and politics are purely merit-based. And because his former president brother was in office such a short time ago, he's getting questions about how he compares to his brother, mostly regarding the biggest decision his brother made, invading Iraq. (I'm not sure if that sentence is a mess grammatically or just sounds messy reading it in my head) On some level, Jeb and most Republicans know that the Iraq War wasn't a glowing success. Maybe Dick Cheney is still 100% convinced that it was the right choice and everything worked out perfectly. But most Republican presidential candidates aren't giving a full-throated defense of the decision. In fact, many are implicitly acknowledging that it was a bad decision when they say stuff like what Jeb said : “I would have [authorised the invasion], and so would have Hillary Clinton, just to remind everybody,” Bush told Fox News television in an interview to be aired l...

Rolling Stone picks up on one of my favorite topics , what rises to the level of a constitutionally protected religious belief: The Satanists announced this week that they're demanding exemptions to anti-abortion regulations — like Missouri's 72-hour state-mandated waiting period — claiming such measures violate their religious beliefs. It's an obvious, and brilliant, ploy to test how serious conservatives are about their supposed belief that a person's "religious liberty" rights mean they can opt out of laws they simply don't like. The Satanists are trying to prove that conservatives are hypocrites whose interest in religious exemptions only applies to situations where they can take away someone's birth control, or ruin a same-sex couple's wedding. This may look like trolling, and on some level it might be. But this gets to the heart of every other "religious freedom" issue that has come up recently. What is a belief that gets prote...

No spoilers The new Avengers movie is a typical Marvel movie, solidly entertaining but not a ton of depth. I felt a bit weird after it because I love Joss Whedon. I expect to love everything he does. But while Age of Ultron is a good, fun movie, I didn't love it. There are no glaring problems with it. No "what about these potholes" bullshit. It feels a bit too big at times. But it's paced well and there's never really a dull moment. It's got a lot of the Whedon-style banter. And each character gets their due, which is probably enough to consider the movie a success in and of itself. But I just didn't have that gut emotional reaction to it. Maybe it's just me and my Batman blinders when it comes to superhero movies. Though speaking of Batman, I think that gets at the problem I have with Marvel movies. Batman has great villains; the Joker, Bane, Ra's al Ghul, etc. Along with Batman's status as a vulnerable non-god, the villains really help ...

Something I found annoying : ESPN’s Bill Polian, on ESPN2's mock draft show: “The Dolphins need to run the ball. That offense is an off-shoot of Chip Kelly’s and is a running offense. So if Todd Gurley passed their physical, take Todd Gurley and don’t look back. He changes their whole team.” Polian seemed like at least a halfway competent GM. And I get that he has to be able to talk about 32 teams. But damn, they do pay you to be able to know something about all of those teams. So it would help to know that the Dolphins were 12th in total rushing yards last season while being only 22nd in rushing attempts. That's because they were 2nd in yards per rush attempt. Most of that was due to Lamar Miller gaining 5.1 yards per attempt. (Note: I looked that up in about 5 minutes. What excuse do Polian and other pundits have for not knowing that information?) Miller had an excellent season as the Dolphins' primary running back. Ryan Tannehill even had a good year running the bal...

There's a lot of speculation out there about the movie based on the teaser trailer. That's fair up to a certain extent. But I want to point out that there seems to be a lot of preconceived notions about what the movie and characters should be. Snyder invites that to some extent by saying he's drawing from The Dark Knight Returns. But drawing is not adapting. And I don't think we should expect the same things we've seen from these characters and their stories. The cinematic universe Batman and Superman share doesn't have decades of friendship to build upon like Miller did in The Dark Knight Returns. So, along with the fact that we don't know how it will play out, it's not completely fair to hold Snyder to that expectation. I also don't think it's fair to hold Snyder to the expectations of what Superman is/should be while also expecting him not to just remake the original Donner Superman movie. I'm as adamant as anyone that Batman shouldn...

Peter Steinfels asks if there's any liberals left that will protect religious freedom. Sure, to a certain extent. I'm all for allowing some of these things: They may include refusing to fight in defense of the nation, rejecting certain foodstuffs or medical treatments, discouraging young people from secondary or higher education, honoring celibacy or condemning a variety of sexual practices, sacrificing animals, drinking alcohol, or ingesting hallucinogens for ritual purposes, prescribing certain head coverings or hairstyles despite school or occupational rules, insisting on distinct roles for men and women, withdrawing from friends and family for lives of silence and seclusion, marching in prayer through neighborhoods on holy days, preaching on street corners or otherwise trying to convert others to these persuasions. I'd be many liberals would be open to allowing them as well. Then he specifically he asks that liberals: let the question be debated and the legislatio...

Here's a great reminder that the health care market is not very comparable to traditional markets: The charge for a lipid panel ranged from $10 to $10,169. Hospital prices for a basic metabolic panel (which doctors use to measure the body's metabolism) were $35 at one facility — and $7,303 at another ... Hsia's previous research looked at the cost of an appendectomy in California and found similarly gigantic variation. For an appendectomy with no complications, she found that hospitals in the state would charge anywhere between $1,529 and $186,955. Different grocery stores tend to charge different prices for my favorite Haagen Dazs ice cream (chocolate chocolate chip). But the price varies from about $4 a pint to $5 a pint, not $4 to $4000. And if there was such a difference, I would be able to easily tell because the price would be indicated on the product before I bought it. And unlike an appendectomy, I could choose not to purchase it and still go about my day not dy...

If there's a hell it will probably feature me sitting in traffic for eternity. It's personally soul-crushing, economically annoying, and environmentally unhealthy. Nashville isn't the worst city for traffic, but it's bad. And expecting population growth to continue, the problem seems to be destined to get worse in the coming years. The city's mayoral candidates at least acknowledge there's a problem, but offer few potential solutions. Here's a few could help a bit : Mayoral candidate Linda Eskind Rebrovick, a former business executive, has discussed practical measures like the installation of real-time adaptive sensors on traffic lights that respond to sensors on roadways to trigger them to green or red. She suggested the city could also offer new cell phone apps to direct drivers to available parking downtown and elsewhere. You might have noticed that app idea from somewhere: App idea: track free available parking spaces in downtown areas so you have a...

Inspired by this post at Football Perspective: http://www.footballperspective.com/greatest-qb-of-all-time-wisdom-of-crowds-edition/. Wanted to post it here because for some reason I can't submit a comment on the site. I'll probably go into more detail on each one in a bit. But I posted some of my overall thought process below. 1. Dan Marino 2. Peyton Manning 3. Brett Favre 4. Fran Tarkenton 5. Johnny Unitas 6. Steve Young 7. Joe Montana 8. Tom Brady 9. Dan Fouts 10. Ken Anderson 11. Roger Staubach 12. Sid Luckman 13. Sammy Baugh 14. Len Dawson 15. Aaron Rodgers 16. Sonny Jurgensen 17. Norm Van Brocklin 18. Otto Graham 19. YA Tittle 20. John Elway 21. Drew Brees 22. Joe Namath 23. Boomer Esiason 24. Kurt Warner 25. Terry Bradshaw My baseline was Chase's posts ranking QBs. Quantifiable production is very important (though not something like wins or rings, obviously). And since I'm not terribly old I have to trust era adjustments for the QBs I n...