Davos Newbies

David Leonhardt:

For starters, $1.2 trillion would pay for an unprecedented public health campaign — a doubling of cancer research funding, treatment for every American whose diabetes or heart disease is now going unmanaged and a global immunization campaign to save millions of children’s lives.

Combined, the cost of running those programs for a decade wouldn’t use up even half our money pot. So we could then turn to poverty and education, starting with universal preschool for every 3- and 4-year-old child across the country. The city of New Orleans could also receive a huge increase in reconstruction funds.

The final big chunk of the money could go to national security. The recommendations of the 9/11 Commission that have not been put in place — better baggage and cargo screening, stronger measures against nuclear proliferation — could be enacted. Financing for the war in Afghanistan could be increased to beat back the Taliban’s recent gains, and a peacekeeping force could put a stop to the genocide in Darfur.

All that would be one way to spend $1.2 trillion. Here would be another:

The war in Iraq.

These numbers, of course, aren’t new. William Nordhaus and Joseph Stiglitz, among others, did the analyses some time ago. But it’s great that Leonhardt is using his space on the business pages of the Times further to expose the obscenity of this war.

Outside work and family, I spend a disproportionate amount of my time playing tennis. During my years in England, this took the form of often-drizzily Sunday mornings at a cosy but decidedly ramshackle club and the occasional poorly organized match in the Surrey league. Life is certainly different in California. My club has 10 well-tended courts and play is dominated by practice and matches in USTA leagues. In the fall season I had the temerity to play on four teams and captain a fifth.

The payoff for all this effort came last weekend when I traveled with my combo doubles team to the district championships in Los Gatos, near San Jose. (Combo doubles is a competition where players of different standards combine to make a team. Our team is a 6.5 combo, meaning players of 3.0 and 3.5 ratings play together.) Our team was the cinderella of the districts: we had scraped the fourth and last qualifying place in our flight, which covers the East Bay. There we had successively beaten the number one and number two teams to make it to the districts.

I could write a shot-by-shot account, but I think that would bore even me. Here’s the nub: my fantastic partner George and I went undefeated through the three matches of the weekend. Another pair, Chris and Herb, won two out of their three matches. And even though we couldn’t find a winning third pair, we won the districts. George and I had a particularly delicious symmetry: we opened our first match with a bagel, winning the set 6-0, and we closed our final match with a bagel. Out with a bang.

It would be easy to deride this kind of competition as a rather wistful attempt by 40- and 50-year olds to recapture a mythic youth. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that. But more it really was a weekend of highly directed physical and mental effort (I think at least 70% mental) with great people, both on my team and our opponents.

By the way, there was even a blogging angle to the districts. My favorite tennis blog, Peter Bodo’s Tennisworld, pointed last week to a new blog on tennis.com: a couple of club players would be chronicling their progress over the year. I took a look and the man, Joe Pambianco, wrote about preparing for the district championships in Los Gatos. I emailed my team about the coincidence. My teammate Chris read Joe’s blog carefully, which turned out to be a good idea. Chris and Herb played Joe and his partner on day one. Joe had written about what he needed to improve. Guess which shots Chris picked on. Joe records his account of the weekend here.