Escaping Retirement in BMore

With his second CD coming out since his so-called "retirement", Jay-Z seems to have been unable to move beyond what was considered before his retirement to be one of the most successful rap (and maybe music) careers in the past fifty years. He made his name largely off of the same themes and beats as other rappers, but, due to a lot of skill and a little luck, he rose above them all.

And then, in 2003, Jay retired as a solo artist, committing himself to collaborative work (an album with the rock/hip hop group Linkin Park), entrepreneurial endeavors (heading Def Jam Records and having a partial stake in the NJ/Brooklyn Nets), and activism (supporting the UN's Water for Life Campaign). He had found other things to do, and seemed relatively happy...having Beyonce around probably didn't hurt either.

But only a few years later, he pulled an MJ and came back from retirement. Now, with his second post-"retirement" album on the way, he's doing a mini-tour, travelling to the five most important cities in America: New York, LA, Chicago, Philly, and, of course, my adopted home of Baltimore. How much could such a concert cost? $30? $50? $75?

$100.

That's right, $100. Like Jordan, he might not have the same game he had when he retired. But also like Jordan, he's still go the same name and the history to boot. And it's making me consider shelling out a hundred bucks to see him. Am I crazy? Probably. Alicia Keys' upcoming concert in DC is "only" $50, and Jay probably isn't twice as good (although that could be debated).

But how often does such an opportunity come around? He's up there with the greatest, and it'd be unlikely that I'd ever get to see him again. Tickets for Game 7 of the World Series on StubHub are going for a minimum of $850 and most others in the four (or even five) digits.

I don't splurge often, but if I travelled to DC from New York to see Jordan in a Wizards uniform one last time (even if it wasn't the same guy who hit the game-winner against the Jazz in '98), why not do the same to see Jay-Z before he hangs it up (even if he isn't the same guy from the classic Vol. 2: Hard Knock Life, which also came came out in '98)?

Hey, it just might be worth it.

The State Department and I

So finally the whole COHA-Haiti drama appears to be over. More than a month after my piece on Préval was published, the article was taken down from COHA's website due to the negative responses to my criticism of the Aristide government. (Remember, the piece wasn't even about Aristide but Préval.) COHA's director (my boss), Larry Birns, wrote an apologetic piece praising the criticism of me and disassociating himself and the organization from my views. Meanwhile, my original piece is all over the internet anyway, which, for better or for worse, cannot be erased. All in all, I'm happy with the ending. COHA did what it believed was necessary to preserve its reputation, and I had the opportunity to stand by my work. There are two sides to any story, and maybe this was the best possible compromise.

Most interesting, however, was NarcoNews' response to Birns' piece. (NarcoNews, if you remember, put out the original criticism of my work.) In the piece--which, overall, was complimentary of Birns' retraction (and COHA itself) but critical of the writing and editing process that goes on at COHA--the writer, Dan Feder, couldn't resist attacking my work again calling it "...another report full of dishonest rhetoric and innuendo better suited to the State Department than a critical organization purportedly committed to the defense of democracy in the Carribean and Latin America."

Talk about a loaded sentence fragment! First, if Feder believes all of my work was dishonest rhetoric and innuendo, then he might as well check the 99% of my article that dealt with my analysis of the current state of democracy in Haiti, which no one at NarcoNews has addressed. And if anyone's guilty of biased rhetoric and innuendo, that would be the radical, ideologically driven folks at Narco and not me.

Second, and most interestingly, was the comparison between my work and that of the State Department and the suggestion that the State Department isn't committed to democracy. As someone who would love to one day work at the State Department to help promote democracy in our own hemisphere and elsewhere, could I have received a better backhanded compliment? Rather than post online ramblings forever (which is what the people Narco seem content to do), I hope to to be in a position in which I can actually impact international society and support both the strengthening of democracy and America's reputation abroad. What better place to do that than in the State Department?

So thanks, NarcoNews. You might not have realized it, but you made my day. It's only a few Metro stops and a quick transfer from COHA's office to the State Department's headquarters so, hey, you never know.

Guilty and Charged

So I was reading the Times today, and as I tend to do, I drifted toward the op-ed pieces and came across this article by Thomas Friedman on the role of our generation (Generation Q, in his terminology) in effecting change in global society. On the one hand, as he points out, we do more than should be expected of us given the in-many-ways depressing state of global affairs; from building homes in El Salvador to working in AIDS clinics, members of our generation do a great deal to assist the rest of the world in bits and pieces.

But that's where it ends.

Beyond that, we are helpless. When we see a problem with society, we sign a petition or write a blog (case in point). We turn inward and do something on an individual level, seemingly oblivious to the power that a mass movement can have. From climate change to the growing deficit, there are a number of causes worth fighting for, but how far do we go in that fight? I agree with Friedman that we don't go as far as we can, but I don't know that a return to the '60s-style protest movement would be either practical or successful.

The question, then, is what can be successful? How can we mobilize one another to step out of the library (something us at Hopkins--including myself--do all too infrequently) and create meaningful change? The Iraq War might be a starting point, and obviously the anti-Vietnam War movement would be the model; however, there isn't going to be a draft anytime soon, so it's doubtful that most of us would get up off the couch for that. This is sad, since it suggests that the only causes society finds worth fighting for are the ones that directly impact us as individuals, and there aren't many of those that are shared by enough people to generate a movement.

I am as guilty as anyone of contributing to the aforementioned problems. The blogs won't go (sorry), but hopefully we can find an additional way or two to take things to another, more effective level that unites--rather than isolates--a very critical generation.

P.S. Don't expect any more baseball pieces for a while now that the Yanks are out. The salaries of three of the four teams (Cleveland, Arizona, and Colorado) have a combined salary less than the Yankees do (while the Yankees are debating shelling out more than $30 million next year to resign A-Rod). Worth noting? I think so.

Weathermen Don't Determine the Seasons

It might still be hot here in Baltimore, but fall is officially here. The baseball playoffs got started this week with some regular faces but a few unusual ones. My hometown team, the $195 million (that's excluding Roger Clemens' pro-rated $28 million contract) Yankees, made it into the postseason, with the usual fanfare; if they don't make it all the way to Broadway for a ticker-tape parade, the season will be declared a failure. Meanwhile, the $54 million Colorado Rockies, $52 million Arizona Diamondbacks, and $61 million Cleveland Indians are all in the mix, too, all with a legit shot of making noise this October. Three teams--all in the bottom half in the majors in terms of team salary--with a shot at winning the World Series...sounds pretty cool, doesn't it?

As much as I want my Yankees to win (and I do), there is something attractive about the fact that a few of these second-tier teams are at least competing with the likes of the Yanks, Red Sox, Angels, and Cubs (all with salaries at or above $100 million). And, along with the fact that the $100+ million Mets, White Sox, Dodgers, and Mariners are all sitting at home this October, I think it's a compelling enough reason to silence any arguments in support of a salary cap. The playoffs are always interesting, regularly competitive, and most times exciting, due in part to the unique nature of the teams' economic (but also historical and regional) relationships with one another.

So now, fourteen days or so after the calendar said so, fall is underway. I'll still be rooting for the Yankees--seven years without a 'chip is seven years too many--but I hope the frugal Rockies or D'Backs make a run for it, as well. (I can't say I feel the same way about the Indians, whose series with the Yanks gets underway in fewer than 24 hours.) Money is one of a number of powerful tools in both baseball and life, and only time will tell if is powerful enough to vault the Yanks back into the late-October limelight.