2008 Presidential Prospects

In the United States, politics is a component of the entertainment industry much like the field of crime (referred to as "crime-drama") has become absorbed by the entertainment business. When contemplating the postmodern business climate, what can be said? More is better? Newer is better? Contemporary scribes do not compose tablets of clay that keep logs of various events, such as the appearance and disappearance of the Moon and other celestial orbs, or how many eggs and/or figs were transferred from one Akkadian citizen to another. Our postmodern scribes are downing tablets to control high blood pressure and cholesterol numbers. Ancient tablets that glued an imperial culture together are replaced by colored tablets to adjust moods and private parts.

The above has almost nothing to do with the 2008 presidential race in the United States except that the surface always seems to thicken and harden during presidential political campaigns making access to deeper substances difficult.

More than twenty moons will have come and gone before any citizen casts a ballot for the next president of the United States.

Nevertheless, right now, there are enough aspirants from the two dominant political parties to construct a preliminary league to see who will vie for serious contention as the road to the election unwinds. A five game series to estimate which political party might have the advantage in November 2008 was played and you can review the data from that series by using this link to a report constructed by a team of Cosmic Baseball Research Alliance scholars.

Game Report: Words @ (Tell Leilan) Tablets

The remarkable fact is that the tablets, born in Akkadia in ancient northern Mesopotamia, survived to be excavated nearly four thousand years later. The

Tablet L0-20 was 2 for 5 at the plate Link to Game Report

tablets and the other archives and artifacts at the Tell Leilan site have added important clues to the mystery of the Akkadian civilization's sudden demise. Was it barabarians from the Zagros Mountains.?

Sargon founded a new capital, called Agade, in the far north of Sumer and made it the richest and most powerful city in the world. The people of northern Sumer and the conquering invaders, fusing gradually, became known ethnically and linguistically as Akkadians. The land of Sumer acquired the composite name Sumer and Akkad. The Akkadian dynasty lasted about a century. During the reign of Sargon’s grandson, Naram-Sin (r. about 2255-2218 BC), the Gutians, a belligerent people from the Zagros Mountains, sacked and destroyed the city of Agade.

Dakota Fanning May Not Join Pisces

What happened?

Obviously, Fanning met the basic criteria required to be on the roster, she was born February 23, 1994. Additionally, according to published records, her father played minor league baseball for a living for a time. In one online source, Dakota Fanning's father is referred to as a "baseballer."

Speculation: Fanning started out in show business in 1999 when she made commercials for Tide detergent. She appeared in several popular films with popular male stars such as Sean Penn and Tom Cruise. In July 2006 the entertainment/show business pipelines filled with news that the 12 year old actress had filmed a rape scene in a movie that had just completed filming in North Carolina. That film, entitled Hounddog, is being screened at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival that got underway on January 18 (The festival's schedule indicates the film will be screened on Monday January 22 at 8:30 PM). The controversy is expected to be a distraction for the young woman. Maybe that explains Fanning's reason to execute a quick exit from cosmic baseball. However, what legal issue or complication could be tied up with that reason?

[T]he fictional depiction of childhood sexuality puts any artist on the bleeding edge of cultural examination --The Backrow Manifesto by Tom Hall

Depicting childhood sexuality can be controversial. Louis Malle's beautiful 1971 film, Murmur of the Heart (Le soufflé au coeur), stirred controversy when the 15 year old Benoit Ferreux played Laurent Chevalier who makes love with his mother, Clara Chevalier played by Lea Massari. Presenting incest in the context of childhood sexuality is a safari through a Freudian jungle.

Originally released in 1971, Murmur of the Heart stirred considerable controversy at the time, and its Oedipal refrain and climax still disturb thoughtfully, but its real strength lays precisely in Malle's disregard for any moral or political contexts: his concern here is with evoking the child's perspective, not that of a judgmental adult... --Josef Braun

If Fanning cannot join the Pisces, what is the team's other options for a centerfielder?

Eva Longoria Named New Pisces Coach

Referred to frequently as a consummate Latin beauty, the Texas-born Eva Longoria (3/15) will replace Edgar Cayce (3/18) as the team's coach.

Before bursting on the cultural radar screens as a sexualized character in a popular American television series, Ms. Longoria attended college and earned a Bachelor of Science degree from Texas A&M (Kingsville) in Kinesiology. (Kinesiology is a branch of physiology that studies the mechanics and anatomy of human movement. According to the school, a degree in Kinesiology (Education) prepares you for a career in teaching, coaching, personal training, fitness leadership and many other exercise-/movement-related fields. You can coach various sports and teach in either physical education or in your support field (history, math science, heath, etc.).

En route to stardom Ms. Longoria won the Miss Corpus Christi USA title in 1998. She was number 91 on Maxim magazine's "Hot 100" list in 2004. She became the "hot new face of fall 2004." In 2005 and 2006 Maxim put her on the top of their list, number 1. She won an ALMA (American Latino Media Arts) Award for Outstanding Actress in a Daytime Drama (The Young and the Restless, 2001-2003). In 2004 with the release of the ABC television series Desperate Housewives, Ms. Longoria achieved national stardom. She was named one of the "50 mas bellos" (50 most beautiful people) by People en Español (2005).

Chelsea Clinton, Paradise Pisces General Manager, was apparently concerned that Longoria might have difficulty passing through the ethics criteria. There was concern about Longoria's outspokenness on gender issues, (""I love being a woman. I love the sexiness we get to exude. But the best thing about being a woman is the power we have over men.") The is candid about her intimate life and there are several published reports about private issues such as masturbation and her "bedroom" activities with National Basketball player Tony Parker, to whom she is engaged and scheduled to marry in the summer of 2007.

She is grateful about her success: ""I'm a late bloomer, my looks came pretty late and success happened at the age of 30. But I'm pleased about things not coming to me immediately because it makes you appreciate it when you finally get it"

"I grew up on a ranch and used to go target-shooting with my dad," the Latina activist told an interviewer. This comes close to the image of a young boy going out back to play catch with his father.

Longoria's knowledge of human movement and her birth date qualify the youngest daughter of Enrique Longoria Jr. and Ella Eva Mireles for her new position inside the Cosmic Baseball Association. Goodbye Edgar. Hello Eva.

Longoria/Cayce

Game Report: US Archivists @ E-Content Managers

Game Report: Salemites @ Pisces

The Salem Salemites have weathered the nomination process well. Well enough that they were eligible to play a simulated game against the Cosmic Baseball Association's 2006 champions, the Paradise Pisces. Not surprisingly, the veteran Pisces easily defeated the Salemites. The team nomination/election rules permit one loss at this level but it is not a good omen. Another simulated loss to any team would likely result in the failure of the Salemites to earn election to the league. Now, the only other nominated team that has a chance of getting to the evaluation game level is an unnamed team of solar system asteroids.

Woodrow Wilson Will Catch for Gerald Ford

Today, January 2, is a national day of mourning for the 38th President of the United States who died on Tuesday December 26, 2006. A funeral at the National Cathedral in Washington DC will start at 10:30 AM Tuesday morning. Ford assumed the presidency in an hour of national turmoil and division. Current President George Bush (43rd chief executive) said last week that, "With his quiet integrity, common sense and kind instincts, President Ford helped heal our land and restore public confidence in the presidency." Vice President Ford took over the presidency on August 9, 1974 when 37th President Richard Nixon resigned from the office. In addition to his accomplishments in the field of politics, Ford has been a consistent number one man at the number two position on the cosmic baseball field. Affable and well liked he has worked with some of the more temperamental pitchers on the team.

Woodrow Wilson, the 28th President of the United States, joined the Washington Presidents as a pitcher in 1983. However, pitching was not where his talent resided. He was inactive until the 1996 season when he returned to the roster as the team's starting first baseman. After three very good seasons, he slumped and the team made Wilson inactive again after the 1999 season. The important question is does Wilson have any idea about what to do behind the plate? Wilson does not maintain the same reputation for gregariousness as Ford, so there is the question about what kind of battery mate he will be for those temperamental presidents who pitch.

Who was the better president? Republican Ford was never elected to the presidency. He was "voted" by his colleagues in the U.S. Congress to replace Vice President Spiro Agnew who resigned for ethical reasons in October 1973. The U.S. Senate confirmed his appointment 92-3 and the House approved his becoming a replacement Vice President 387-35. On Sunday September 8, 1974 Ford announced that he was granting a "full, free, and absolute pardon unto Richard Nixon for all offenses against the United States" that may have been committed between July 20, 1969 and August 9, 1974. Ford's approval rating had been in the 70 per cent range prior to the pardon. Subsequently it dropped significantly. His accidental assumption of the presidency, a position he never overtly sought was terminated when he lost the 1976 presidential election to Democrat Jimmy Carter. As the country's commander-in-chief, President Ford was in office during the final moments of the Vietnam tragedy. In April 1975, North Vietnam invaded South Vietnam. This effectively ended the 15 year Vietnam War that cost more than fifty thousand American lives. Ford offered Vietnam War draft dodgers and deserters a condition amnesty but the program was unpopular and unsuccessful. Ford was the target of two assassination attempts. Both would-be assassins were women. It was less clear at the time than it is now as we retrospect at the time of Gerald Ford's physical demise, that Ford was called upon to be a national healer. He performed admirably in that role. He said to the nation when he assumed the presidency, "our long national nightmare is over." In that respect, Gerald Ford was a good shepherd.

On April 2, 1917, Democrat Woodrow Wilson asked the United States Congress to declare war on Germany. On November 11, 1918 after more than one hundred thousand American soldiers died in a war that took over nine million lives, the Germans agreed to an armistice ending World War One. Wilson was an intelligent and arrogant soul described by contemporaries as "self-righteous." "too pure," "too idealistic," "priggish," and "stubborn." These characteristics, in part, led to the United States rejecting Wilson's revolutionary idea of a "general association of nations". The Wilson's association never got organized because the U.S. Senate rejected the League of Nations concept. Nevertheless, Wilson had domestic successes. In 1913, the Federal Reserve Act became law followed by the Clayton Anti-Trust Law of 1914. Two amendments to the U.S. Constitution were ratified during Wilson's administration. The Eighteenth Amendment (subsequently repealed by the Twenty-first Amendment in 1933) prohibited the manufacture, sale, and transportation of alcohol. The Nineteenth amendment granting women the right to vote in political elections was ratified in 1920. Wilson did not however attempt to resolve the domestic tension between the African-American population and the ruling Caucasian establishment.

If Ford's tagline had to do with ending a national nightmare, Wilson's tagline is "the world must be made safe for democracy." The Ridings-McIver Presidential Rankings of 1997 call Woodrow Wilson the sixth (6) best president of all time. Gerald Ford is ranked at twenty-seventh (27).

Ford has been an excellent catcher with good, reliable defensive and offensive skills. President Abraham Lincoln a veteran pitcher on the Presidents once said after a tightly battled victory, "No one calls a game better than Ford, with him quality is job one; he is built Ford tough. Will Woodrow Wilson be an adequate replacement? We do not know. Rest in peace President Ford.

"Over the years, I played in the congressional baseball game with the greats - Ford, Bush and Michel." - Congressman Silvio Conte

Happy New Year to Our Members, Friends and Fans

The New Year gets started with a flurry of activity...

The CBA will create a new team for Season 2007

The Paradise Pisces draft a new player and get a new field manager

The Delta Dragons draft two new players

The Board looks for a new Chairperson

Members and website visitors ask for more shirts & caps

CBASE ("player database") design to be upgraded in 2007