Well, the Cardinals are now the world champs. Even though they weren’t my team, I was all tense and excited through the 9th. I don’t know, it was all heartwarming somehow, clinching at home. Tony La Russa, the first manager I ever followed (when he coached my precious Althletics). The Joe Buck and Tim McCarver were so in love with Albert Pujols (who isn’t?). They were the 83-regular season wins underdogs, overcoming the predictions of a quick World Series for Detroit (I guess that resurgence, which winning championships totally spark, right? yeah, will have to wait), winning at home.

Poor Tigers, couldn’t generate offense, the insane and poorly timed errors. Fear of success?

The cutest part though was little (c’mon, he’s adorable at 5′7″!) David Eckstein (giddily) accepting the MVP trophy and his first brand new car of his own - a pretty cool Corvette. He appeared to appreciate it a little more than Miguel Tejada.

Things I won’t miss:

• Jeannie Zalasko saying the weirdest, stupidest things - I don’t remember being so perplexed by her before.
• The John Mellencamp “Our Country” commercials, even after they stopped showing the creepy, offensive version.
• The fact that everything had a sponsor - even the instant replay!
• That the A’s weren’t there.

Last night I finished The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon. I wanted something short after the interminable (though quite interesting) The Mighty and the Almighty. I didn’t quite expect the The Curious Incident to only take four days on the train, but I devoured this book finishing it last night, almost similar to when I read Pride and Prejudice pretty much in one night because I just had to find out how it all ends. I love this book.

The point of view of one autistic boy, Christopher Boone, is so believably honest and heartbreaking. His approach to being a detective is amusing and so strangely logical. There’s a lot of math, which is funny to say about a novel, but somehow, like all of the unexpected things, it works. The twists were great and unexpected and you uncover the mystery as Christopher does, really slipping into his mind effortlessly. What’s great is that because the book is written from Christopher’s perspective, as if he is actually writing it, the novel is extraordinarily accessible. I highly recommend it.

I know that the whole (half) idea of a blog is seat of your pants commenting, but I have to bring up an interesting story from last week on NPR that was part of a Morning Edition series on what’s causing economic stagnation in Africa. One of the more intriguing points was that the undermining effect of second-hand clothing from the West: 

In Mozambique, cotton producers say that it’s not just agricultural subsidies that are stacked against them. They say the West also dumps second-hand clothes into Africa at prices that stifle local textile production.

Vincent Marush Sando, who coordinates a domestic-cotton promotion campaign in Mozambique’s capital Maputo, says Africa should place stiff import duties on used clothes from the West.

It was a logical theory - products whose manufacturing costs have been absorbed in their prior sale are logically much cheaper to distribute that new, domestic clothing.

What got me thinking about it again was a listener letter this morning on Morning Edition essentially calling bullshit on the idea that secondhand clothes could harm the economy because there would still be jobs generated by transportation costs.

Except, that’s not the point. Such a counter-argument is seemingly based on a flawed premise, i.e., there are no  “transportation costs” associated with domestic clothing production or that the difference in costs is greater than all the other jobs created and required by home-grown textiles, which I can’t imagine being true. The story talked of factories employing hundreds being shut down, not some sort of nearly costless subsistence clothing production with no transportation costs. It would seem that in addition to jobs in transportation, the home-grown industry would include jobs in the textile mills and clothing factories and jobs in the fields producing the cotton. Competition is good, but you can’t deny that this is a bit unfair. The second-hand clothes only have transportation costs so their prices can be comparatively low, regardless of quality. (Though I will presume that any designer or very high quality used clothing is ending up in “vintage” stores and consignment shops not Mozambique.)

I can’t pretend to know what sparked the letter writer’s response, but when I first heard the story last week, I was struck most by the implication of it - that charity was working against development. A funny thought, given that when you think of charity, you imagine something that usually supports or is neutral to development. Homeless shelters, giving blood, disaster relief, donating to cancer reasearch - none of these competes with business.

But the company picnic T-shirts and the hats and tees from the sports teams that lose championships would compete with the textile industry. And that’s a terrible result and hard to believe because it’s so instinctive that donations = good. People don’t want to think of their hopefully selfless act of charity being a remotely destructive force, so it’s an unacceptable conclusion.

Perhaps the most neutral approach would be to send money abroad and donate your clothes locally.

The Cardinals finally took the Mets in a nailbiter Game 7 to advance to the World Series, which is great. Not as great as if the A’s had won the ALCS (or, heck, not been swept!), but I’m happy . . . for Matt. Anyway, it’ll be interesting to see how the Cardinals on a day’s rest match up against the Tigers who’ve been waiting for six whole days. Good luck, Cards.

Last night I finished The Mighty and the Almighty: Reflections on America, God, and World Affairs by Madeleine Albright with Bob Woodward. Albright is, of course, the former Secretary of State and was my college’s commencement speaker the year after I graduated - Bill Cosby was the year before I graduated. (Similarly, in high school, Tom Hanks was the graduation speaker the year before mine. I have no luck with that.) But I’m not bitter.

Anyway, The Might and the Almighty is a very interesting exploration of the way faith and religion influence political motives and choices in various countries and contexts. Albright has the unique perspective of being able to tell stories about how she approached certain world leaders and international issues with a respect for the influence of faith. Also, Albright has the luxury of dropping brilliant quotes from Bill Clinton (who also wrote the introduction) all over the place. It’s a good read and ultimately, Albright’s optimistic that if we all appreciate each other’s faith , but even she acknowledges there are a lot of “ifs” that stand in the way of that kind of resolution.

We are so not going to talk about this.

So now the St. Louis Cardinals have advanced to the NLCS so we’re one step closer to my dream World Series. Now I’m off to send bad vibes to the Mets and the Tigers.

Nice. Very nice.

But the big question is who do we want to play next?

The Tigers, who were hot for much of the season but have since cooled, or the Yankees, who have magical powers - except for that A-Rod fella.

Walk on the left! Stand on the right! Walk on the left! Stand on the right! Walk on the left! Stand on the right! Simple escalator etiquette. Most people get it, but increasingly, especially in the morning (like this morning in the BART/Muni Metro station), it seems like people don’t.

Even the government wants you to get it!

Apparently, though, this is an even bigger problem in DC or people there are really, really vocal about it. See here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here . . .

You should also read “One Small Step for Man … … and one giant leap for economists: How we figured out why people walk up staircases but not up escalators.” It’s not exactly on point, but isn’t it fascinating to read a 4 year old article about economists trying to figure out “If people stand still on escalators, then why don’t they stand still on stairs?” (yes, I wrote “why don’t they stand still on stairs”)?

Also, this story is kind of funny.

Athletics 3 - Twins 2, yay; Cardinals 5 - Padres 1, again good; Yankees 8 - Tigers 4, ugh.