Author Archives: Tom

Dylan does Christmas

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bob-dylan Andrew Ferguson is not impressed with Bob Dylan or his new Christmas CD:

The production and packaging are professional. The band is competent in a midnight-at-the-Nashville Hyatt sort of way–maybe a little heavy on the tremolo but still. And the songs themselves are fine, of course. The arrangements, though, are jarringly slick, with sleigh bells and gossamer strings and cooing girl singers–as if Dylan had chosen to lift the backing tracks from an Andy Williams Christmas special circa 1968. Oozing just beneath his asthmatic croak, the arrangements give an effect of overwhelming creepiness. His voice gets worse with every track. You wonder whether someone left the karaoke machine on in the emphysema ward at the old folks’ home. He doesn’t sing notes so much as make exhausted gestures in their general direction, until at a break he falls silent and is rescued by the backup singers, who reestablish the melody in the proper key. But then he starts singing again.

Yeah well, maybe ol’ Bob blew the Christmas CD. But even at the age of 50 in the video below from almost 20 years ago, Dylan could still rock with the best of them — Roger McGuinn, Tom Petty, Neil Young, Eric Clapton and the late George Harrison. Enjoy.

A European’s view of American health care finance reform

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Muddled thinking

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owen daniels Everyone who follows football around these parts is feeling bad for Texans’ TE Owen Daniels, who blew out an ACL in this past Sunday’s game against Buffalo. He is done for the remainder of the season.

At the time of the injury, Daniels was having the best season of his four-year career and was leading NFL tight ends in receiving yardage.

But what is really bad about Daniels’ situation is that he and his agent rolled the dice and rejected the Texans’ offer of at least $15 million in guaranteed money for signing a multi-year contract before the beginning of this season. As a result, Daniels is playing this season under a one-year club tender called for by the collective bargaining agreement that pays him $2.8 million.

Daniels and his agent apparent rationale in rejecting the offer was that the Texans were low-balling in comparison to what other first-tier tight ends have received over the past couple of seasons. So, they decided that Daniels should take the risk of injury and play well this season so that, after the season, he could force the Texans either to match a higher offer from another team or let him go to the higher bidder.

But given the high risk of injury in the NFL, how could Daniels and his agent leave at least $12.2 million on the negotiating table? What were they thinking?

Now, Daniels will probably not be able to a complete season at full strength until the 2011 season. And there is no certainty that another lucrative offer will be awaiting him then even if he fully recovers from the injury and plays well.

I don’t like the NFL compensation system. I believe it is far too highly-regulated. The system wrongly prevents the players who endure terrible physical risk and create most of the wealth for the owners from offering their services to the highest bidder.

But what I like even less is muddled thinking that results in a huge financial loss for a talented young man such as Daniels.

Why is Timothy Geithner Still Employed?

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Last week, we learned that Timothy Geithner, while the head of the New York Fed, let Goldman Sachs and several other large investment banks fleece the Fed in connection with the AIG bailout.

Then, over the weekend, we learn that the Geithner-orchestrated $2.3 billion federal government investment in C.I.T. Group last fall without requiring debtor-in-possession financing protections under chapter 11 of the Bankruptcy Code is going to result in a total loss of that investment. Why? Because C.I.T. has decided to file bankruptcy now.

Now, in the big scheme of things, $2.3 billion is not all that much money when placed in the context of the federal budget and the American economy.

Heck, it’s not even close to as much as Geithner left on the table for the investment banks in regard to the AIG bailout.

But Geithner has proven beyond a reasonable doubt that he is in over his head. This bailout stuff is not rocket science.

Why is Geithner still Treasury Secretary?

2009 Weekly local football review

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Ryan Moats (AP Photo/Don Heupel; previous weekly reviews for this season are here)

Texans 31 Bills 10

The Texans (5-3) dominated the game, but somehow found themselves trailing the Bills (3-5) after three quarters.

Previous Texans teams probably would have folded, but this one seems to be improving on defense enough that the offense can shoot blanks for awhile and the game will not be lost (but remember, this is the Bill’s offense that we’re talking about here). The Texans’ offense finally straightened things out in the fourth quarter, hammered away at the Bills’ tiring defensive front and the Texans won this one going away with three rushing TD’s in the final quarter. All in all, not a bad way to prepare for next Sunday’s showdown at Indianapolis against the Colts (7-0).

A couple of notes. Backup RB Ryan Moats played really well (23/126 yd/6 rec/63 yd/3 TD’s) in relief of fumble-prone RB Steve Slaton. Somewhat surprisingly, there did not seem to be any drop-off in production in going with Moats over Slaton and, if anything, it appeared that Moats hit the holes quicker and with more authority than Slaton. And without the fumbles.

Also, the Texans lost their second-best receiver — TE Owen Daniels — to what appeared to be a serious knee injury that will probably end his season. Will we now have a James Casey sighting?

Finally, for some reason, CBS did not show a replay of how Daniels got hurt (he was not involved in the pass on the play in which it occurred). However, Coach Kubiak was furious with the referees on the sideline at the time. Why on earth did the CBS announcers simply ignore how Daniels’ injury occurred and why Kubiak was so upset?

Texas Longhorns 41 Oklahoma State 14

As noted last week, I expected the second-ranked Longhorns (8-0/5-0) to beat the Cowboys (6-2/3-2) relatively easily if the Horns’ offense did not give the game away. As it turned out, the Horns’ rugged defense forced five Cowboy turnovers, returned two of them for TD’s and generally suffocated Okie State’s high-powered offense. An impressive performance, indeed.

Despite this story line, ABC’s absurd television production subjected viewers to dozens of shots of QB Colt McCoy and his parents, plus non-stop blather about McCoy’s Heisman Trophy prospects.

Note to ABC — McCoy specifically, and UT’s offense in general, is not having all that good a season. Yes, McCoy had a very good season last year. But that was last season.

This season, there are at least a dozen QB’s in major college football who are having a better season than McCoy. Yes, Texas remains undefeated, but that is largely the result of its stout defense and the fact that the offense has not stunk it up so badly in any game so far to blow one (although they were close to doing so in the OU game).

So, please. Give this "McCoy for Heisman" stuff a rest.  

The Horns have a non-conference scrimmage next Saturday in Austin against Central Florida (4-3/3-3) of C-USA before finishing the regular season at Baylor (3-5/0-4), at home against Kansas (5-3/1-3) and at A&M (5-3/2-2). With its probable opponent in the Big 12 championship game being either Kansas State (5-4/3-2) or Nebraska (5-3/2-2), the Horns appear to have the easiest route of any of the top teams to the BCS National Championship game.

Houston Cougars 50 Southern Miss 43

15th-ranked Houston (7-1/3-1) QB Case Keenum’s legend continues to grow.

This was one of those back and forth Houston games in which the opposition — this time a pretty good Southern Miss (5-4/3-2) team — couldn’t stop the Cougar offense while the somewhat undermanned Houston defense was having trouble slowing down the other side.

Nevertheless, Houston usually wins these games, except when it turns the ball over more than the opposition, which it did in this game. So, when Southern Miss scored the tying TD with only 51 seconds to go, this game looked as if it was headed to overtime.

But Keenum proceeded to direct a five-play, 78 yard drive in about 30 seconds to pull out the win in regulation. His stats on the day — 44 of 54 for 559 yds, 5 TD’s and 1 interception. As I’ve noted many times, Keenum is playing at the highest level of any QB in major college football this season.

The Coogs face another tough test next Saturday at Tulsa (4-4/2-2), which is looking to bounce back from a home loss on Saturday to SMU. After the 70-30 shellacking the Cougars put on Tulsa in Houston last season, expect the Golden Hurricanes to be primed for an upset next week.

Texas Aggies 35 Iowa State 10 

For the second straight week, the Aggies (5-3/2-2) generated a productive, balanced offense and won going away against the outmanned Cyclones (5-4/2-3). In their final four games, the Ags have two games in which they could win their sixth game and become bowl eligible — at Colorado (2-6/1-3) next week and home against Baylor (3-5/0-4) on November 21st. The other two games — OU (5-3/3-1) and Texas (8-0/5-0) — appear to be long shots for an Aggie victory.

Thus, next week’s Colorado game appears to be critical for the Aggies’ season. The Ags will probably handle Baylor, which is playing out the string after losing star QB Robert Griffin for the season. A loss to Colorado would likely mean a 6-6 season for the Ags and a marginal bowl bid. Despite its poor record this season, Colorado is not without talent, so the young Aggies will have their hands full in Boulder next Saturday. But 7-5 final record sure looks better than 6-6.

Rice (0-8/0-4) was idle this past weekend. The Owls have a tough game at SMU (4-4/3-1) before returning home to play Tulane (2-6/0-4), which appears to be the Owls only remaining realistic chance for a victory this season.

Secret Agent Man

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One of the most underappreciated rockers from the 60’s, Johnny Rivers.

Jonathon Winters’ Stick

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Before Robin Williams and Jim Carrey, there was Jonathon Winters. Enjoy.

John O’Quinn, R.I.P.

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The Houston legal community remains in shock over the death yesterday in a car accident of famed trial lawyer, John O’Quinn. He was 68 years old at the time of his death.

O’Quinn was a remarkably talented plaintiff’s lawyer and became one of the wealthiest attorneys in the country as a result. And a controversial one at times, too.

But those who only knew John through news reports never knew the man.

John had a heart as big as Texas, as reflected by his generous donations over the years to the University of Houston and its Law Center, Texas Medical Center institutions, and numerous other charitable organizations.

Moreover, John’s big heart extended into legal cases, too. Most recently, John took on the case of former mid-level Dynegy executive Jamie Olis, whose criminal case epitomizes the brutal nature of the government’s criminalization of business in the aftermath of Enron’s demise.

After taking on the case, John told me that his review of many of my blog posts on the Olis case was one of the reasons that he decided to take on the case. He never received a dime for the work he did on the case, but he didn’t care a lick. He simply was appalled by what the government had done to a decent young man and his family, and he was intent on doing something about it.

My most recent contact with John was at University of Houston Law Foundation board meetings, which he attended faithfully for many years (he was the law school’s largest benefactor). John was a delight to work with at such meetings, intensely interested in what was going on at the law school, but always wonderfully good-natured about the inherent limitations of such boards to do much more than raise money and encourage the Dean to hire good people.

My lasting memory of John will be leaving our last such meeting together, talking about the Olis case as we walked to our cars. We observed to each other on just how difficult it had become to be a wealthy businessperson in America. He cracked that it was almost enough to turn him into a criminal defense attorney.

Make no doubt about it, John O’Quinn was one of the most talented trial lawyers of his time. His preparation regimen for trial was legendary, and his ability to connect with jurors was the best that I have ever seen in the courtroom.

I will miss John very much.

Funeral arrangements for John O’Quinn:

Viewing Tuesday, November 3, 4:00pm to 8:00pm
George H. Lewis Funeral Home
1010 Bering Drive
Houston, Texas 77057
(713) 789-3005

Funeral Wednesday, November 4, 11:00am
Second Baptist Church
6400 Woodway
Houston, Texas 77057
(713) 465-3408

Update: Links on Q’Quinn’s life and death:

John Council and Brenda Sapino Jeffreys

Rick Casey

Observations of colleagues

O’Quinn and the medical community (see also here)

Q’Quinn’s environmental legacy

Q’Quinn’s real estate investments

O’Quinn’s car collection with Tim Spell’s anecdotes

O’Quinn’s obituary

Mary Flood on O’Quinn’s funeral

Bluffing Geithner is Profitable

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Say what?

Timothy Geithner — while heading up the New York Fed in 2008 — left upwards of $13 billion of taxpayer money on the table to the likes of Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch and Deutsche Bank during negotiations over payment of AIG’s credit default swaps because “some counterparties insisted on being paid in full” and Geithner “did not want to negotiate separate deals.”

As regular readers of this blog know, I thought the federal bailout of AIG and various other Wall Street firms was a bad idea from the start because it prevented our insolvency and reorganization system from allocating the risk of loss among the creditors of the financially-troubled firms.

Nevertheless, after various political forces stoked a climate of fear, Congress approved broad bailout legislation even though it was clear at the time that few of the legislators understood what they were approving.

Not surprisingly, various large creditors of the financially-troubled firms did very well for themselves under the bailout legislation. Can’t blame them for protecting their shareholders’ interests, now can you?

But really. Geithner got fleeced for billions in regard to AIG’s bailout by investment banks that had no negotiating leverage whatsoever. What were the banks going to do if Geithner had demanded that they take a discounted amount? Risk a global financial meltdown by demanding that the Fed pay AIG’s CDS’s at par?

Geithner let them get away with it. And now he is out Treasury Secretary.

So it goes.