Why Mitt Romney will never choose Paul Ryan as his VP

For republicans, this year's presidential bid is a throwaway election.  

Romney’s not going to beat Obama, and republicans are not even sure they want him to.  The Bush recession isn't over, and the slow growth is likely to continue for at least another year or so.  Better for republicans to carp from the sidelines than risk  taking responsibility.

You can tell Romney’s going to lose because despite Obama's hard times, he's still better liked than  Mitt.  Republicans know this, for one very solid reason – they don’t like Mitt either.

You know it’s a throwaway election because no serious republican even considered getting in the race – no Chris Christie, no Jeb Bush, no Colin Powell or Condie Rice.

The question the republican party needs to ponder is - do they really want Romney’s November flameout to drag the Ryan budget down with him?

If Paul Ryan’s on the ticket, November 6 will go down as the day America clearly rejected his much touted plan for returning America to the Days of Deep Depression.  It's one thing to have a bunch of nuns, labor unions, Democrats and Catholic bishops tell you your budget plan is unholy, but when Americans reject in an election, it's toast.  Fait accompli.  

 

If republicans want to go into the 113th congress with the continued hope of further confounding Obama, privatizing Medicare and Social Security, taxing the working person and returning to the Roaring 20’s, they need the pseudo-serious Ryan plan to rattle in their fists as they spew their fire and brimstone.

But when a Romney-Ryan ticket loses, what will they have, except foul temperament and the penchant to blame Obama for everything from the weather to their dog’s unfortunate bowel habits.  

A Romney-Ryan ticket is the death of the republican agenda.

So snooze up, America. It's going to be Portman or Pawlenty for VP.  Or, if Romney wants to suddenly go adventuresome, Marco Rubio to hustle up the Florida vote.  

What we can learn from Colorado Rockies pitcher Jamie Moyer and my buddy Tim Lyons

Slow is not necessarily better.  But it sure is a nice complement to fast.

Last night the Colorado Rockies beat the Arizona Diamondbacks 6-1 with Jamie Moyer pitching 6 1/3 innings, giving up one run and six hits.  Slow pitched, in that Jamie Moyer style.  The D-backs stood around waiting for his 74MPH fastballs and sinkers to catch up to their bats.

But that’s not the slowest accomplishment for the 49 year old veteran (2-3).

In the bottom of the 4th with Jordan Pacheco on 3rd and Dexter Fowler on 2nd, Moyer dribbles a roller down the 1st base line.

So slow a roller, D-backs pitcher Patrick Corbin just stood by in amazement, stunned by its timelessness.

Arizona 1st basement Paul Goldschmidt needed to abandon his post in pursuit of the dribble, and then two time it back to the bag to try and tag Moyer out in time.  Moyer ran slow, but Goldschmidt’s return was a tad slower.  Safe. Had the ball rolled any faster, things might have been different.

But like we said, slow complements speed.

While the play at 1st was creating its own freeze-frame replay, Dexter Fowler rocketed around 3rd and snuck in for a completely unseen score at the plate.   I was there.  I didn’t see it.  Jamie Moyer didn’t see it.    The in-house replay didn’t even catch it.

“I assumed he’d be on third base,” Moyer said after the game.  “Then I looked at the scoreboard, and realized he had scored.”

Sometimes time passes like that.  You don’t see it .  You just notice later on the scoreboard.

When I got home from the game, I saw my buddy Tim Lyons skulking the neighborhood.  He says he was out running, but it was slower than running.  More like skulking.

Then he told me about his latest You Tube video – him performing his own The Ballad of Dick Cheney.  It’s a nice slow waltz.  Slow enough even a guy like me or Jamie Moyer  can get up and dance to it.   Slow enough that you’re likely to notice.

Here it is here.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9YVlFUt1f-0

The Buddha wonders ...

Why meditate?

To know our mind.

Looking at our mind shows us the rhythm of stillness, of this very moment.  The Now.  Often we think of our mind as a continuum.  But the more we see of this very moment, absent of past grievances and future ambition, the more we lose anxiety and see the purity of the present mind.

Sometimes we mistake our mind for the thoughts that travel through it.  That’s like understanding the sky by studying the blueprints of airplanes.

In the Four Noble Truths the Buddha taught us that we suffer because of our attachments.

When we understand our mind as a thought it invokes, we attaching to that thought as if it is our mind.  We are getting stuck.

Meditation helps us see our mind empty of its thoughts.

How many hours should a novelist spend on their novel each day and why am I not doing it right now?

Aidan Donnelly Rowley got it exactly right (http://bit.ly/1pUZtH). There's an anxiety that creeps through all writers. All that wasted time in a day. Why am I not writing?

I read the blogs of other disciplined writers who comment they've "written their 3500 words for today", or managed to put in their 4 hours of writing time. These are writers. People driven by anxiety. Anxiety has forced them to prescribe a formula to tackle their anxiety and meet deadlines too. Man, that sounds so writerly.

I wish I had more anxiety in my life. More ways of getting stuff done.

I'm lucky if I lately I can sneak in a half hour or less on writing each day. Plus, it usually comes at the end of the day after work, dining, dog walking, cleaning and a snifter or two. I'm a novelist, but can only squeeze in a half hour per day (or less)! Could a surgeon say that thirty minutes really makes him a surgeon? A newsboy claim that thirty minutes a day makes him a truly gifted dispenser of newspapers.

Shouldn't I feel anxious about this?

The truth is, writing is a lot like meditation for me. It's not that it's got to be perfect or any specific period of time - there is no such thing as time when meditating. As long as it's exploratory, as long as it digs deep inside me and pulls out lessons I haven't yet learned, then it's worth each and every second, no matter how few.

That's meditation.

And that's efficient writing too.

Publishing is a Business. So what's that mean?

Really great article by Eric on his blog PIMP MY NOVEL. Eric works in sales at a NewYork publisher, and has great insight into the business of publishing.

Check it.

http://pimpmynovel.blogspot.com/2009/10/p-1-of-4-basics.html#comments

We are made up of false beliefs

Eventually, we all need to be willing to face the deepest, darkest beliefs we have about ourselves. Only in this way can we come to know they are only beliefs, and not the truth of who we are.

- ezra bayda, from The Three Things We Fear Most

What are these things called dogs - children or wolves?

Interesting update on an old Piaget experiment. Here's how it works.

Take a toy, an ordinary toy, and a kid 10 months of age or younger. Have an adult put the toy in Hiding Place A. Let the kid loose. He'll drag, crawl, or catch the first bus accurately to Hiding Place A to get the toy.

Do it with a dog. Same results. They'll go to Hiding Place A each and every time.

Dogs are just like our children.

All right, well, let's add some confusion and check it out further. Have the adult now move the toy to Hiding Place B. The babbling child still first crawls to Hiding Place A and only then moves onto Hiding Place B.

But WWDD (what would doggie do)? The dog will ALSO move first to Hiding Place A, and only then proceed to Hiding Place B. Creepy!

Children and dogs are really no different, until it comes to the Health Care , but that's a different experiment concerning the number of sheep you can get to stampede away from change.

Interestingly enough, wolves behave differently from either kids or dogs (wolves raised by humans/not wild wolves since there's no toys in the wild). Put the toy in Hiding Place A and the wolves will find it. Then put it in Hiding Place B, and the wolves say the hell with Hiding Place A, I'm headed straight for B and they'll find the toy there too. Wolves be not fooled.

Lesson: toys are no deterrent against wolves in the wild.

Second lesson: there's more similarity between babies and dogs than between dogs and wolves. So which species evolved from which?

Particularly, it seems, both dogs and babies look to the adult as a teacher with information to convey. They'll follow rules set by the teacher rather than believe their own "lying" eyes. Wolves don't fall for it.

But now throw in a whole bunch of adults, like say, a set of parents or a church congregation. Have the whole bunch of them put the toy first behind Hiding Place A, and then move it to Hiding Place B. What happens? The babies still crawl to Hiding Place A, and only then to Hiding Place B to actually find the toy.

But that's when dogs get all wolfish, and go right to Hiding Place B. It seems dogs can tolerate one alpha human adult laying down the rules, but more than that it's as confusing as democracy, and they'd prefer to go with their own understanding of where the toy is hidden.

While babies believe any old adult that comes along, even as they mature into voters, which would explain an election or two we've seen.

The lesson - it takes a village to raise a child, but just one human to raise a pup. Or, put another way, pups are more cost effective than children.

Now that's baseball.