Revelations 2008

I never thought I would make it here!  I would be a great class president because I promise to put 2 new pop machines in the cafeteria, and I'm also gonna get a glitter Bonne Belle dispenser for all the girl's bathrooms...Who wants to eat chiminy-changas next year? Not me.  See, with me, it will be summer all year long. Vote for Summer!

-Summer

 Napoleon Dynamite

Now that Obama has won the election, he is beginning to show his true colors.  Important issues which were not addressed during his campaign are being brought to light, which will put an interesting twist on the next set of approval ratings and have voters seriously reconsidering their votes.   Not only does our president-elect want to eliminate daylight savings, he is pushing strongly for an eight team playoff in college football.

Daylight savings time is an archaic tradition that was once thought to provide more daylight waking hours so as to reduce the use of incandescent lighting. However, the practice is fairly controversial as it benefits afternoon "leisure" activities such as shopping and sporting events while other ways of life such as farming, are adversely affected.  There is some controversy as to whether DST was invented by Benjamin Franklin, who invented

most things, or by William Willett, who according to Wikipedia, is often ignored or overlooked as the true inventor and advocator.  I find this questionable since Franklin's idea was for everyone to get up earlier in the summer to make use of the long days and was suggested in 1784 while Willett, who was not born until 1856 proposed a completely different idea: to physically change the clocks (Franklin also advocated the use of cannons to wake Parisians at sunrise in the summer months).  According to the New York Times, DST, which has always been thought to save energy, in fact uses about 1% more energy while  annoying us about 25% every time we have to change.                      Portrait of William Willett 

By my calculations we would save about 50% in annoyance energy alone if we stopped using DST for good.

 

 

2nd major issue of note: eliminating the BCS bowl system which has been compared to privatized companies in corporate America and demonized in similar fashion by Ralph Nader in this article.  I especially enjoy how he points out the ridiculous protests of anti-playoff maniacs who argue that student-athletes (football players) will not have enough study time while March Madness, a 64 game tournament for other student-athletes (hoop teams) clearly leaves enough time.  I've been saying this for years.  Josh Levin of Slate Magazine compares college football beautifully (and hilariously) to lobbying reform which he calls, "the chenille throw of American politics."  Obama meanwhile is pushing for his eight team playoff on a 60 Minutes interview, his first on TV since election night.  In the interview with Steve Kroft, he also gauges his level of intelligence on the fact that he's "not going to compare his mother in law to a new dog."  He says, "I don't tell my mother in law what to do, I'm not stupid, that's why I got elected president."  It's good to know the man has some smarts and he's not afraid to use 'em (a refreshing change of pace).

When asked about a college football playoff he proclaims its importance off the bat.

"Look," he says, (puts down Michelle's hand and excuses himself to her. "Oh, yes please," she says, "don't mind me").  He then proceeds to rationalize the playoff system by saying that "sensible people" would say the same, and "I don't know any serious fan of college football who has disagreed with me on this so, I'm gonna throw my weight around a little bit.  I think it's the right thing to do." 

As my dad said, when he first saw this segment, "He has a flaw." Although I agree that the BCS bowl system is fundamentally problematic (especially in the last couple of seasons and the apparent arbitrary nature of it all) I'm not sure cutting back on the regular season for an 8 team playoff is the solution.  This system would heavily decrease the value of inter-conference play while simultaneously over-valuing a shorter game schedule within conferences.  Division I-A Teams only play about 12 games per season as is, the majority of which are within the conference.  Would games outside of conference play be eliminated?  By that standard, this year's Pac-10 would look something like this to date:

USC  7-1

Oregon 6-2

Arizona 4-3

Cal 4-3

Stanford 4-4

UCLA 3-4

Arizona St. 3-4

Washinton St. 0-8

With 2 more games to go for Oregon St. to potentially upset USC for the title.  Oregon fans will definitely oppose the shorter season as it gives their team even less opportunity to wear the 400+ combinations of game-day unis.  Others will surely have to agree although perhaps for different reasons.

If you are still reading you're thinking, Hmm, 9 games does not seem like enough to determine a clear winner and you're right, not only because even pros play around 16 games per regular season, but also because college teams improve vastly from week to week and if the conference is at all close the best team in the conference doesn't seem so great, or at least not better than the 2nd or 3rd place team.  Short of canceling the national championship in years when teams are only so-so, a playoff does seem like a viable option in theory, but may in practice turn out to be another system to badmouth especially if we continue to have wild, unpredictable seasons.  On the other hand, perhaps a reform would put an end to anouncers' speculation about who will be #1 from week to week: they might actually know for a change.