Moneyball's subtitle is "The Art of Winning an Unfair Game." Baseball is as artful as it is unfair precisely because it's as irrational a sport as it is a scientific one. The Cubs and Athletics practically sellout every game but haven't won a title in ages, the Marlins have won two titles in a decade yet they can't draw any fans. It does not make any sense.

But it does, because more than numbers, what baseball fans love more than anything else are stories. Obama had a better story to tell than Clinton in the democratic race and that's largely why he won. One of the reasons that Wesley Clark's comments have gotten so much attention is that Obama's response unmasked a concern of his campaign, and that is that John McCain may be as good a story-teller, or have as good of a story as the skinny black kid with the funny name.

More than not bringing a title to Oaktown, Beane's legacy may be that he took the story out of the Athletics. Once people started focusing on the numbers, they forgot about those teams from the 70s and 80s and the characters who made them national phenomenons, larger than life figures such as Rollie Fingers, Reggie Jackson and the "Bash Brothers" Jose Canseco and Mark McGwire. Obama might want to consider putting aside the speeches until the fall and think of this summer as if it's one big BBQ and the eyes of the world are on him waiting to tell his story. We may have heard it before, but we'll gladly listen again.

Jeff, I do not know about you, I’m still open to public-financing, as are a lot of artist-practictioners throughout this country who could use some of the financial support thrown behind Barack Obama during this campaign season. In an ideal world the money turned down by Obama and potentially McCain would be re-distributed to fund education and arts initiatives. But I digress….

In other news, Joe Klein seems to have agreed with my theory that Republicans will retain control over the military during Obama’s tenure. Klein suggests that Obama should retain Roberts Gates as Secretary of Defense declaring that “[Gates] has been a superb Secretary of Defense, as good in that post as his predecessor, Donald Rumsfeld, was awful.” Any thoughts on whether the Republicans will in fact hold on to the military?

The question I have for you this week is: what on earth happened to the Republican party?

Surely when Newt Gingrich led the Republican Revolution in the early 90s never did he imagine in his wildest dreams that in 2008 the Republican party would feature a septuagenarian atop its presidential ticket, a Democratic controlled house, and that Republicans would be struggling to find viable candidates to fill Congressional. Well here we are in 2008 and that is precisely the case.

Case in point, here in New York, after Staten Island representative Vito Fossella stepped down the Republicans selected mogul Frank Powers to run for his seat. Sadly, Powers passed away and the Republicans were sent scrambling again to find a suitable candidate. Powers’s untimely death was yet another unfortunate setback for a party that has been reeling for much of this decade, and which suffered a string of disheartening defeats in the 2006 midterm elections.

Worst yet, as the Democrat’s brand is soaring in light of Hilary Clinton and Barack Obama’s historic campaigns, the Republican brand name appears to be going out of style. Ironically, it’s not as if the Democrats are the ones downgrading the Republican brand, it’s the Republicans themselves. Listen closely to McCain or any of his surrogates from within the party talk these days and you’ll hear them use the term “Conservative” to describe themselves a lot more than they use Republican. On the contrary you do not hear Democrats going around announcing themselves as Liberals. This is not simply because in some circles the “L” word is a dirty one in American Politics, but all Democrats are not liberals—a lesson that Joe Lieberman has been determined to teach us since 2000. Former Democratic vice-presidential nominee Joe Lieberman’s transformation into John McCain’s #1 cheerleader is not the only peculiar development over the last eight years; as interesting as Lieberman’s transformation has been the disappearance of figures such as Bill Frist, Tom Ridge and Christine Todd Whitman, who at one time represented a more-centrist Republican party, one capable of going toe to toe with the kinds of candidates being groomed by the DNC and DLC. Eight years later, neither of these retain their prominence as party spokespersons, and as with many of their Republican peers who have retired from the spotlight, they were not adequately replaced within the party.

The Republican, rather Conservative party has also let Fox News and flamboyant talk-show hosts such as Rush Limbaugh set its agenda. Throughout this campaign many of the memorable “right-wing” sound-bites were not uttered by anyone working directly within the Republican party, but rather by sundry commentators on Fox. Since 2000 Fox has transformed itself from a mouthpiece of the Republican party dispensing party memos as news reports, to being an unwieldy beast that the Republicans themselves barely know how to control and therefore work to their advantage. What this has created is a news cycle that often features back and forth debates between prominent Democrats and Fox-News hosts instead of their Republican counterparts, or as has often been the case throughout this campaign, absurd-racist-sexist comments such as calling Barack and Michelle Obama’s embrace a “terrorist fist jab” or referring to Michelle Obama as “Obama’s Baby Mama” overtakes John McCain’s attempts at getting his own headlines and making Americans familiar with his agenda.

Seriously, has there ever been a point in this nation’s history where the party who has just spent eight years in power has entered an election cycle in such disarray? The Republicans do not appear to have any prospects in their farm system, they’ve rebranded themselves as conservatives therefore either alienating or confusing many voters, and their allies in the media are outfoxing them?

What in the world happened to the Republicans?

I’d like to start out by asking everyone to turn to the person seated to your left and your right and say to that person, “When I see you again.”

“When I see you again.”

It may seem improbable that a person can garner a Ph.D. from Yale University without ever graduating from the eighth grade—but in fact it is true and you are looking at one such person right now. I never graduated from the eighth grade.

Sure, I got my diploma, passed all my classes and was an honors student, but I never graduated from eighth grade.

Little did Ms. Saint-Louis and Principal Fralin know when they extended the invitation for me to speak today that this would be my first eighth grade graduation—and had my parents been in town today I might have asked to borrow a robe so that I could march in the procession with this year’s class.

No, I never graduated from the eighth grade. I never sat where you were right now basking in the adulation of my middle school teachers and parents.

When it came time for me to attend graduation I had long grown weary of hearing my parents agonize over money that I decided not to bring forth another cost for them to incur. In my mind we would all benefit if I saved them the cost of the cap & gown, and the yearbook that came with my graduation packet. When June arrived and my parents realized that they had not received any notices about graduation, I told them, I simply told them I decided not to attend. When my teachers intervened, I dug in deeper and held fast to my decision. When my friends said I was being “stupid” and “selfish,” I simply brushed them off. When my music teacher told me he’d fail me if I didn’t attend and play in the band—I reminded him that his class was an elective. Looking back on it now—better yet—looking out into faces in this crowd I can not believe that I would undermine years of work and effort by so many people for a measly fifty dollars. How could I have been so naïve?

I’ll tell you how: I was fourteen years old. Like some of you in this audience I was fourteen wishing I were seventeen so that I could get my license and a car. I was fourteen wishing I were eighteen so that I would be on my way to college and out of my parent’s house. I was fourteen and saw the wonder and beauty in everything else accept being fourteen.

Man, what I wouldn’t give now for having someone else pay my mortgage, buy my groceries, my clothes and all I would have to in return is go to school for eight hours a day for nine months and have the other three months to myself. Don’t get me wrong life gets better as you get older, the girls get prettier…and some of us boys even start acting our age…but what you have going now, is a pretty good deal.

THE FILLMORE PROJECT, sponsored by the San Francisco Arts Commission Pilot Initiative: Artists and Communities, is a community integrated research project that will develop into an original dance-theater production celebrating the rich musical and multicultural history
of San Francisco's Fillmore district. During the research period of the project artists Jacinta Vlach (www.jacintavlach.com) and Howard
Wiley (www.howardwiley.com) will engage individuals and organizations from the Fillmore in critical discussions exploring the theme of
the project: urban redevelopment and its impact on the culture of communities. This is the first of a series of Community Forum Days that
will give the community the opportunity to share information and stories that will ultimately shape and inform the final production of THE
FILLMORE PROJECT.

JUNE 19th's COMMUNITY FORUM DAY will include a narrated slide show of photographs by legendary documentary
photographer David Johnson. Johnson, who was Ansel Adam's first African American student, is best known for chronicling the
Fillmore District during its jazz heyday in the 40's and 50's and was recently honored by District 5 Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi. The
slide show will be followed by a special interview with internationally renowned jazz saxophonist Jules Broussard and live music
provided by critically acclaimed jazz composer Howard Wiley and his group: The Angola Project. Additionally, the event will be fully
catered free for the public.

WHEN: Thursday June 19th 6-9pm

WHERE: The African American Art & Culture Complex: 762 Fulton St. @ Webster, San Francisco

About the Fillmore: The music that poured out of the Fillmore during the 1940's and 1950's established San Francisco as a
major destination of the international jazz scene. This renowned jazz scene attracted many musical greats such as John Coltrane,
Billie Holiday, Charles Mingus, and Duke Ellington. The Fillmore Jazz era in many ways mirrored the cultural renaissance taking
place in Harlem at the same time. During World War II Fillmore's Japanese residents were explicitly removed from their homes
and imprisoned in government internment camps. Following the urban renewal policies of the 1950's and 1960's an addtional
displacement occurred with large segments of the Fillmore's African American residents. Socio-politically, the Fillmore is symbolic
of the ways that public policies impact the economic, racial, and subsequently the cultural landscape of a community.