Lowballing Hisashi Iwakuma

Submitted by jemanji on 11/05/12 2:24pm
Why don't you just spit in his coffee while you're at it

 

Lonnie, the big cheese at Mariner Central, harrumphs ...

Could you please stop using the expression "lowball"? To me, it means that nothing else matters other than trying to mess a player over, and I really don't think that Zduriencik would have done that.

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=== Webster, Dept. ===

If you don't care for the term "lowball" then out of consideration for our friendship I'll stop using it, sure.  :- )   You might have to remind me once or twice ... >:- ]

Certainly there are words that have different connotations to different people.  When I first started in public speaking, there was a gentleman farmer who asked me not to use the word Kill.  He said, "that's what we use when we kill an animal and don't feel bad about it.  Like, why don't we kill that pig."  Didn't mean that to me, but ... 

The dictionary gives two definitions of the word Lowball:  (1) to quote a price that is lower than the eventual cost, or (2) to give an unfairly low offer.  Me, I don't attach it to the attitude of being slimy or exploitative.  If I'm joking around with my friend and want to buy his table saw, I might lowball him at $50 and he's liable to give me a laugh in response.  On the other hand a boss who "lowballs" you on your raise might be a slimy guy.

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=== Fair and Balanced, Dept. ===

Okay, so in the dictionary a lowball offer is an unfair one.  Did the Mariners do that to Iwakuma?  Unfair is in the eye of the beholder, but it's pretty clear to me that Iwakuma is worth $10-15M per year.  In a good year he's going to be worth $18-25M.   He's only got to be worth 1.2 to 1.5 WAR to earn the salary he got; if you didn't theink he'd be worth twice that, you wouldn't put him in the rotation.  It is understood by everybody involved that the Mariners think Iwakuma will be worth $12M, at least -- if he's healthy! -- and that their negotiating position was such that they had a chance to underpay Iwakuma.  

Iwakuma was in an unusual situation, one in which his leverage was not what it would normally be.   He had to decide, "Stay with the Mariners or go get a market contract?" and the Mariners exploited his weird Saturday deadline situation to sign him at 50c on the dollar.  The contract is indeed unfair to him, in my view.

Somebody might respond, "Oh, I don't know that Iwakuma's necessarily underpaid.  You have to set a % chance that he gets hurt.  Sensible but not accurate, in my view.  When EVERYbody says YEAHHH BABY!  THAT'S A CHEAP DEAL!" Then by definition the deal was "unfair."  Fair has the core idea of being "equal on two sides."  That's what justice and fairness is.  It relates to the idea of seeing both sides' point of view equally.

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=== Snidely Whiplash, Dept. ===

Now we do have to keep things in proportion.  Paying a player $14 mills for two years of playing baseball isn't exactly a mean thing to do.  Dr. D remembers when Johnny Bench smilingly told the world that he was going to be the first $100,000 catcher.... was it Mike Schmidt or Ozzie Smith who got the first $1M salary?

It's an interesting philosophical question.  If YOU were running a pro sports team, would that be your policy?  Pay every player the least you can, and try to apply some downward pressure against the constant upward pressure on salaries?  Or are there some situations in which you would avoid "underpaying" a player?  I remember some NFL GM, maybe Bobby Beathard, saying that when he had a player who "overperformed" his contract, he tore it up and wrote a new one.  He believed in fair contracts.  Of course, he didn't get refunds when contracts were unfair to the player...

Obviously there are circumstances in which a team gives more money to a year-4 player because it wants to cultivate a positive relationship with the player, and doesn't want to go through the ugly arbitration process (in which the player sits there and listens to detailed arguments about his shortcomings).

.....................

Does anybody know what Iwakuma's tax rate is?  Does he pay income tax to the IRS, or to Japan, or to both?

...................

Dr. D signs off on the general philosophy that MLB clubs are entitled to fight against upward pressure on salaries; he doesn't sign off on the idea that all players must be paid as little as feasibly possible in all situations.  

I don't think Zduriencik is an unfair man, no; as far as I can tell, he's a model of loyalty and integrity.  But if I were in his shoes, I would consider (consider) resolving a personal philosophy that "I'm never doing a player harm by paying him $487,000 to play baseball."  You're always talking about rich guys making deals with other rich guys as to who's going to be a little richer.  It's a fundamentally different question than the one that asks, "Should you take the cloak away from a poor man?"

Hisashi Iwakuma sure did wind up with a disappointing MLB payoff, though, didn't he?

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This week's new DVD releases include 'The Amazing Spider-Man' and 'Arthur Christmas'

Submitted by LauriePerry on 11/05/12 2:17pm
Another great opportunity to see some excellent films.

One of the few movies that I sincerely regret not seeing in the movie theater this year is Marc Webb's The Amazing Spider-Man. At the time, reviews were good, not crazy-good, and I'd just spent big bucks seeing The Avengers. Also: I was about to spend even bigger bucks to see The Dark Knight Rises. With money being a little tight, I had to prioritize.

Thankfully for me (and anyone else who also missed it), The Amazing Spider-Man, starring Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone, is available on Blu-ray and DVD on Tuesday. And I'm also thrilled to report that after a very long wait, Arthur Christmas has arrived on DVD too!I'm not sure why on Earth it took so long to get the CG-animated family comedy Arthur Christmas out on Blu-ray and DVD. The film actually came out in U.S. theaters this time last year (or close to it). That's one heck of a long wait, isn't it? Either way, I have seen this film and I can highly recommend it to everyone. If you have kids, they'll adore it and yes, as parents, you'll probably enjoy it as well. The animation is fantastic and the story is really, really funny.

As for The Amazing Spider-Man, I'm moving this one up in my movie queue. I'm a little behind, though I did manage to knock out Rock of Ages (meh, it was okay), The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (delightful) and Safety Not Guaranteed (awesome) over the weekend.

Speaking of Safety Not Guaranteed, let's discuss Mark Duplass, shall we? He stars in Safety, and he's phenomenal. I've got a big crush going on him. Apparently, his work in the indie dramedy Your Sister's Sister, alongside the likes of Emily Blunt and Rosemarie DeWitt, is also outstanding. The film garnered rave reviews from critics, and it's out on DVD this week as well.

The choices, once again, are pretty solid this week, no matter what your favorite genre. Has anyone seen any of these movies already? I can recommend Arthur Christmas, but I'm not 100 percent sure on the other two.

Secret of the Secret Sauce revealed!

Submitted by erika on 11/05/12 1:22pm
It's not just mayo and ketchup

McDonalds' Big Mac Secret Sauce is no longer such a secret. And it isn't, as many people have claimed, just mayonnaise and relish or just mayonnaise and ketchup. Oh no, my friend! It is mayonnaise, sweet pickle relish, yellow mustard, white wine vinegar, garlic powder, onion powder and paprika. 

(The paprika adds a slight bit of taste, but is mostly there to add color. The color of the added paprika is no doubt what caused a lot of people to believe that Secret Sauce involved ketchup somehow.)
 
The secret was revealed in an official YouTube video where the company's executive chef answered questions from the audience. Someone asked what is in McDonalds' secret sauce, and Dan Coudreaut revealed the answer.

I think most people were taken aback that McDonald's would finally divulge the contents of their famous Secret Sauce. Personally, I was also surprised that the ingredients proved to be so pedestrian. Where is the xanthan gum? The disodium inosiphate? The wacky chemicals that I assume infuse every single item at McDonald's? In fact, this is literally a recipe that you can make at home. Many people probably have all the ingredients in their kitchen right now.
 
Coudreaut explained that the secret to Secret Sauce is that it involves contrasting flavors: sweet and sour. Add those to a hamburger patty and you really have something special. In this, it follows a lot of classic food aesthetics. The Thai food aesthetic comes to mind, with the way it strives to balance sweet, salty, sour, and spicy. 
 
Special Sauce is actually part of a long tradition of creamy condiments that mesh sour and sweet. Most people assume that it is Thousand Island Dressing, which is a similar concoction that was popular in the 1950s. (My grandmother made a sauce by mixing mayonnaise and ketchup; she called it Thousand Island, although it wasn't quite. But what it was, was cheap.)
 
In Europe, particularly France, and in Cajun cooking, remoulade is the all-purpose sauce that goes with everything. A good remoulade is reminiscent of tartar sauce, but with a much more complicated flavor. It is usually served with meat, everything from fish and chips to thinly sliced roast beef. 
 
The Cajun version is often spicy, with a dash of Tabasco or other hot sauce to give it a nice kick. It is frequently served with cold cooked shrimp as an appetizer, or with hard boiled eggs.

Corruption 1 - The Yukuza at Fukushima

Submitted by phoenix on 11/05/12 1:16pm

           I have covered Fukushima extensively in these posts but I have just come across something that I had not seen before. There have been recent articles lately about the involvement of the Yakuza in the Japanese nuclear industry and the presence of members of the Yakuza at the Fukushima nuclear plant that suffered the catastrophe in March of 2011.

         The Yakuza are a Japanese criminal syndicate with extensive ties to business and politics in Japan. They are acknowledged and regulated by the government. Their money comes from “extortion, blackmail, construction, real estate, collection services, financial market manipulation, protection rackets, fraud and a labyrinth of front companies including labor dispatch services and private detective agencies. They do the work that no one else will do or find the workers for jobs no one wants.” One Yakuza member said that when a woman reaches the bottom, the only work left is the sex trade. When a man reaches the bottom, the only work left is at nuclear reactors.

          TEPCO, the company that owns the Fukushima plant, has a long history of scandals, corruption, unreported safety problems, doctored documents, altered photographs, etc. A book titled “The Yakuza and the Nuclear Industry,” was recently published in Japan. The author claims that TEPCO was not an anomaly but part of a nuclear industry rife with corrupt politicians and bureaucrats, lax regulation, bribery, lobbyists and unscrupulous companies. And the book claims that the Yakuza was right in the middle of all this.

         With their ties to construction, real estate and the financial industry, it should come as no surprise that the Yakuza were involved in the construction and staffing of many of Japans nuclear plants. The author says that subcontractors paid the Yakuza to get construction contracts at Fukushima and that money intended for construction was funneled to the Yakuza.

        When the author went undercover to work at Fukushima, he found that there was a two tier system of employees. The lower tier supplied by the Yakuza consisted of homeless men, unemployable men, men who owed the Yakuza money and even mentally handicapped individuals. Unlike the upper tier of employees who had good radiation protection gear and monitoring, the lower tier got poorer equipment and was not monitored as carefully for radiation exposure. There were reports from Fukushima that some employees were told to cover their radiation badges to reduce exposure readings. This all ties in with older reports I have read where homeless and older poor people were hired to clean up a nuclear spill. They were given mops and bucket and were not told how dangerous the work was.

        In general, the working conditions were horrible with non-functioning temperature monitors and suits that made going to the bathroom or drinking water almost impossible. People often passed out from the heat. The masks did not filter out all of the radiation in the air and were often ill-fitting. If they went to the TEPCO staff doctors, they were given cold medicine. Anyone who complained was fired.

         Many of the workers fled when the tsunami hit Fukushima. A few men stayed behind to try to deal with the disaster and it is claimed that some of them were Yakuza. After the disaster, the government raised the level of acceptable exposure and then even stopped monitoring radiation at all in some parts of the plant. The Yakuza was enlisted to find emergency workers. They went all over Japan to find people, saying “Bring us the living dead, the people that no one will miss.” The workers were poorly prepared and some were threatened when they tried to quit. If TEPCO didn’t know what the workers were going through, they should have. Now that the Yakuza involvement has been revealed, TEPCO claims that they are telling their subcontractors to cut ties to organized crime.

         However questionable the involvement of the Yakuza at Fukushima, the real criminals are the politicians, bureaucrats, and businessmen who, through a combination of greed, corruption and incompetence, allowed a preventable disaster to occur which could ultimate threaten human civilization.

Yakuza member  from Jorgo/Open access:

Symbols of the 90s: The Aeron Chair

Submitted by erika on 11/05/12 12:52pm
Sleek, bizarre and expensive - The dot-com boom in a nutshell!

Slate has a great profile about the design and manufacturing history of the Aeron chair. I have to confess, I had never considered the chair's origins before. For one thing, I always assumed that Herman Miller had designed it. (Isn't that why they called it the "Herman Miller Aeron Chair"?)

I can't think about Aeron chairs without thinking about the dot-com boom of the 90s. When they first arrived on the scene, Aeron chairs looked so bizarre compared to normal office chairs. They looked like UFOs landing in a parking lot full of sedans and minivans. Black, sleek, and made with non-intuitive fabrics. There was no plush, for one thing, just plastic mesh. And yet, people swore they were the most comfortable chairs in the world.
 
The whole thing was counter-intuitive and genre-breaking and - if you will forgive a bit of 20teens vocabulary - "disruptive." It seemed to encapsulate the rise of the internet, and the counter-intuitive tsunami of dot-com success that swept us all up in its grip. 

And of course, the Aeron was ridiculously expensive. A thousand dollars for an office chair? Their price, in concert with their sleek design and elite brand name, made them an object of lust. If you were an elite employee working for a dot-com start up, you knew you had made it when they gave you an Aeron chair.
 
Gossip among my coworkers frequently hinged on who had left for which company, and whether or not they got Aerons. The Aeron became a symbol for 90s success, as much as wacky slides in office environments, conference rooms kitted out with beanbag chairs, razor scooters, and Segways.
 
Then of course after the dot-com boom, you could find barely used Aerons on the market for pennies on the dollar. I remember hearing about a friend of a friend who bought an entire cargo container of Aerons at auction for a song. He resold them on Craigslist for several hundred dollars apiece and made thousands on the deal. 
 
And of course, every news article about the dot-com bust had to feature an empty Aeron chair. Ideally in some abandoned location, like a parking lot, or lying on the floor beside a pile of discarded wires. The Aeron became the symbol of the dot-com crash as easily as it was the symbol of the 90s dot-com bubble.
 
These days you can buy a knockoff Aeron chair for about fifty bucks at Ikea or Office Depot. No one is going to be fooled by your fake Aeron, but I have to admit, the plastic mesh really is nicely breathable compared to the traditional foam-and-fabric office chair.

One surprising secret to being a successful writer

Submitted by erika on 11/05/12 12:13pm
Get a comfortable chair!

Sometimes it's easy to overlook the obvious. Many aspiring writers spend a lot of time contemplating the perfect writing location, hopping from café to café, from desk to couch to kitchen counter. We trade productivity secrets and "hacks" like the Pomodoro method and Mac Freedom.

But how much thought have you given to your chair?
 
As they say, the secret to being a successful writer is "butt in seat." It's as simple as that. But too often, I find that people cheap out when it comes to the actual seat. It may be a repurposed kitchen chair with a hard wooden seat and no back support. Or a clapped out office chair that perpetually sits three inches too low. 

 
Café chairs are just as bad. I have never found a single one that provided proper lumbar support. But I understand that many people feel they can only tune out their day-to-day distractions when they leave their home, so that may provide enough value to outweigh the discomfort.
 
Think about the chair you usually sit in to write. Ask yourself, would you sit in that chair to read a book or watch television? For how long? If you couldn't stand to watch TV for more than half an hour in that chair, then it should not be the chair you try to write in.
 
The less comfortable your writing chair, the more distracting it will be. Nothing disrupts your mental flow like physical discomfort. A bad chair can make your feet restless, your back ache, and your arms tired. None of these things are conducive to getting proper writing done. 
 
Your chair should be comfortable enough for you to sit in for at least an hour without getting pinched or bent or achy in a strange spot. (And this is while seated upright at the keyboard, mind you. We're not talking recliners, here. You need to maintain proper typing posture.)
 
If this describes your writing chair, then do yourself - and your career as a writer - a favor and buy a new one. You can pick up a reasonably decent (if bare bones) office chair for around $50 new at an office supply store. Even cheaper at a thrift store or on Craigslist.
 
Look for something that a secretary would sit in. Avoid the allure of the mock leather "executive chair." I have had many of these, and none of them is comfortable for more than ten minutes at a time. 
 

"The Old Man And The Big C"

Submitted by erika on 11/05/12 11:58am
Blargh

This episode kind of struck me as being like a casserole of leftovers. You've got your brown rice from the other night, some pieces of steak from last Thursday, and maybe you whip up a batch of egg noodles to help stick the whole thing together. The end result is palatable, but just barely. It's a whole bunch of pieces of stuff that would have been better if they were fresher, and on their own. You mash it all together and it's just a mess.

Maybe I should start with the stuff I liked. Because I did genuinely laugh a few times during the episode, so I have to give them credit for that. I liked it when Stewie called Brian on Brian's use of "Stew." ("You know what you did!") I also liked the way that Quagmire instantly turned into a creepy old guy once he stopped wearing his toupee, implying that he has been a creepy old guy all along, and it's a fine line between "middle-aged swinger" and "creepy old guy." (Which is 100 percent true.)

So, the other stuff. The not-so-good stuff. I cringed at Quagmire's mortification at being exposed as a bald guy so publicly, when I'm pretty sure I was supposed to laugh. And they dropped this plot for no apparent reason. I'm also not sure why Quagmire didn't just go back to wearing his dang toupee. There really was no need for him to be in the hospital in the first place, except that it was an excuse to kick off the next plot.
 
Brian and Stewie come up with a lot of theories as to Carter Pewterschmidt's suddenly healthy appearance, and every single one of them is better than the one that turns out to be true. What a half-hearted dig at the pharmaceutical companies. 
 
The truth is that if you had a cancer cure, you could charge three million dollars a dose, while still offering the standard treatments (chemotherapy and such) at the normal price. Why not monetize the cure, instead of letting it sit idle in a safe? 
 
The worst crime perpetrated by this episode was the slack pacing. It's easy to forgive some crappy plot points when the episode moves along, but this one seemingly had no velocity. It was a lifeless dud, which in many ways is worse than the preachy self-righteous episodes that they tossed out at us last season. Yikes.
 

"Adventures in Baby Getting"

Submitted by erika on 11/05/12 11:34am
Yet another "Mom wants another baby" plot

The trope that "mom wants another baby and dad flies into a tizzy" is a well-worn staple of sitcoms. In fact, it's so common that I could have sworn The Simpsons had done it in the past. But I guess not. I guess I must have been thinking of the thousands of other "mom wants another baby" episodes. 

It even retreads fairly specific territory. Near the end, Homer and Marge decide that their last resort is the sperm bank where Homer secretly made hundreds of deposits over the years. This is also the last resort for Francine in the American Dad "mom wants another baby" episode. It's not the episode you want to invite comparisons to, either, because American Dad really pulled out all the stops. Just thinking about the cartoon mascots at the vasectomy lab makes me giggle.
 
This episode had some truly funny moments (as when Skinner describes the school as "a hurricane shelter with voting booths," or M. Night Shyamalan's Flop House.) It's just a pity that they were in the service of such a pedestrian plot. The voice talent really proved their chops in this episode, though; Dan Castellaneta's read on Homer's "An ON PURPOSE baby?" absolutely slays me. 

I also thought that the episode really missed out by not making a callback to the famous Canyonero. (It's a squirrel-smashin' deer-smackin' drivin' machine!) The whole thing starts when Marge has to shop for a new car; why not even mention the Canyonero? Never mind that the thin excuse for Marge's baby fever is that her new car won't fit a fourth child. A problem that the Canyonero (which smells like steak and seats thirty five) would not have.
 
You know what I would like to see some day? An "aging parent wants a new baby" episode where it's dad who wants a new child. It's always the mom who wants a new baby, the same way it's always mom who goes on strike, and mom who does all the nagging, and a thousand other sexist tropes embedded so deeply in our culture that I fear our ability to ever dig them out.
 
Anyway.
 
In the B plot, Lisa leads the boys on a merry chase after the mystery of her after-school disappearances. This plot had little intrigue for me, since I figured it out the instant I saw Lisa's dropped note. Maybe I spend too much time on font download websites, where oddball "uses all the letters" phrases are the norm. The AV Club review nailed it with the comment that this plot is "not any funnier than it sounds."
 

Hurricane Sandy: The result of weather modification technology?

Submitted by erika on 11/05/12 11:12am
Some believe HAARP caused Sandy

I'm a little surprised (and frankly a little disappointed) to see so few conspiracy theories springing up in the wake of Hurricane Sandy. But one theory that crops up over and over is the idea that Sandy was created by the secret ability of governments to control the weather. Either accidentally or deliberately creating a superstorm.

The HAARP antenna array bears a lot of the brunt of this sort of thing. HAARP has long been a darling of the conspiracy theory set, due to its seemingly mysterious nature and a lot of overheated conjecture. (After watching the Jesse Ventura episode about HAARP, I came to the conclusion that HAARP theories largely boil down to people not understanding what science is or how it works, and a sort of generalized anxiety about government security.)
 
Chemtrails are showing up in Sandy chatter, too. Under normal circumstances, a passing jet airplane will leave behind a trail of condensation in the sky. These white trails may linger for minutes, even hours after the plane passes, depending on the high altitude weather conditions. 

But some claim that these are more than mere condensation trails: they are crop dusting us with chemicals, or seeding the upper atmosphere with (depending on the flavor of theory) chemicals to cause climate change, or particles to reflect sunlight and prevent climate change.
 
Certainly these jet trails are commonly seen in the sky above New York City and lower Manhattan. It is, after all, one of the world's busiest skies. At times, the aviation traffic is as bad as the vehicular traffic below.
 
Conspiracy theorists on both sides of the aisle are pointing to Sandy's timing as evidence that it was deliberate. Those on the left believe that Republicans created Sandy in order to make Obama look bad, and to disrupt the ability of liberal and non-white New Yorkers to get to their polling places. Those on the right believe that Obama engineered Sandy to force Americans to rely on his good will, thus engendering positive feelings towards the incumbent that would translate to votes.
 
(Neither side can account for the fact that Romney has openly advocated dismantling FEMA in the past. Even Republicans are disowning him on that point right now.)
 
And on the other hand, you have those who believe that Sandy is the result of climate tinkering gone out of control. I suppose for some people it's easier to believe that the government is to blame for a disaster of this magnitude, than that the world's climate is changing for the worst. 

Writers, don't get fleeced by "paid feedback" services!

Submitted by erika on 11/05/12 11:04am
And avoid burdening your friends and family with your MS

It seems like no matter what artistic branch you practice, there is a healthy crop of people out there who are ready and willing to take your money in return for basically nothing. Although the details vary depending on the art form, they all basically come down to the same thing: "I will evaluate your work for $X."

Typically the person promising these services has a long, yet peculiar, list of credentials. They probably portray themselves as grizzled veterans of the scene, with credits from a lot of shows and movies that you haven't actually seen, or only vaguely remember. They will also include lots of testimonials from past students, very few of which will be names you have heard of. 
 
Here is how it works: you send in your manuscript, they read it and evaluate it and send it back with their feedback. But this person's feedback is worthless. And yet, they will charge you a lot of money for this so-called "service."

If you want feedback on your work, there are plenty of legitimate places to get it. Writing workshops abound, and although I personally feel like they are a den of wolves, many people feel that workshopping their manuscripts has been helpful. 
 
Taking courses and reading books on the subject is also helpful. This puts you in the position of evaluating your own work, which can be difficult on many levels. But it also teaches you how to do better in the future. 
 
Friends and family are probably the worst source of feedback on your work. Your friends and family won't tell you, so I will: they don't want to read your stuff. It's a burden. And when they read it, they won't give you their real feedback, because they don't want to hurt your feelings. Your unpublished manuscript may feel like a cherished newborn to you, but to everyone else it's a big bowl of toxic waste to be avoided at all costs.
 
One of the best ways to get solid feedback on your writing is to join an online community. You can submit your writing for other people to critique, frequently in exchange for your own critiques of other writers' work. (Incidentally, critiquing the work of other writers is a great way to hone your own writing skills.)  Of these services, I have heard the most and best feedback about Scribophile, which works on a karma points system, and has built a great community of savvy writers who are serious about the work.
 

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