BIG OIL.
So Congress finally decided to put the screws to the oil companies...don't hold your breath on anything coming from it.
For years Democrats pretended to wage war with the corporate executives who run the larger oil companies. The term BIG OIL is one that Big Oil companies hate because it demonizes them when all they are guilty of doing is running a successful business. By throwing them all under the same header, we hold them in the same esteem as BIG TOBACCO .
Big Oil companies maintain that they haven’t misled the consumer. If anything oil companies have brokered their buying power to keep prices at the pump low. Record profits are the product of record consumption.
To some degree that’s true. Nobody really seems overly upset that FAST FOOD has effectively conspired to fatten us up. Ronald McDonald is just as guilty as Joe Camel or the Marlboro Man when it comes to steering children down an unhealthy path but yet we still line up for BOGO Big Macs with little concern for right and wrong.
Then again, fast food franchises are struggling in the current economy. Americans have slowly been opting for healthier food and that’s put iconic chains under the gun to compete. Big oil companies don’t have any competition and they’ve been conspiring to control the market for decades. What’s more, oil companies have been receiving government subsidies. That’s right, in spite of being the only businesses to see consistent growth in what has been a chaotic economy over the past 7 years, nobody has seen fit to pull the free money our federal government has forking over.
Americans are finally feeling the sting of fuel costs and they don’t like it. But what are they going to do? Consumption is finally starting to slow down now that gasoline is at the $4.00 per gallon mark but our society is dependent on internal combustion. Most of the American workforce does not have access to reliable public transportation. Of all the major metropolitan areas in the US only a handful have the infrastructure to get people to work via rail or bus. Uncontained urban sprawl makes it impossible for late-blooming cities to accommodate transit needs.
Americans have to drive our country is built around the car. That’s been an important factor in our development as a country but now, with pollution and fuel consumption becoming problematic our dependence on individual transportation will hurt our ability to compete in the global economy. That’s thanks in large part to Big Oil.
By failing to invest government subsidies into research and development, oil companies have fallen short on the goal of producing an alternative fuel to oil. Now that prices are climbing we’re seeing half-baked ideas such as ethanol being foisted on the market. Ethanol’s been around for such a long time that we shouldn’t have so many problems with efficiency and distribution but the oil companies did just enough to appease certain benchmarks. Once an oil friendly administration assumed control those benchmarks were set aside.
The same thing happened to the Big Three automotive manufacturers. Once Bush assumed control of the White House projects such as electric cars and fuel cells took a back seat. Economy standards were set aside and Americans were buying trucks in record numbers. Now Honda and Toyota have become the automotive juggernauts, Chrysler is owned by foreign interests and Ford is dangerously close to going out of business.
Now that people are upset and questions are being asked, the American consumer is taking the blame. Big Oil is playing the role of victim in this scandal. The reality is that the American people are the victims. Our leaders failed to recognize market trends and corporate leaders gleefully held back the development of fuel efficient technology over the last 10 years. Now that people are warming up to the idea of bio diesel we realize that there aren’t any late model passenger vehicles with diesel available. Now that E-85 seems like a reasonable alternative we learn that all those flex fuel vehicles we’d been hearing about were distributed to states that required them by law, and of course there aren’t any E-85 pumps within a days drive of most consumers.
Americans might be guilty of being naïve but that doesn’t mean we weren’t led astray by people who knew better. Big Oil should be held accountable…
…but they won’t.
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
Monday, May 19, 2008
Big Talk.
Barack Obama is the latest politician to draw the line in the sand and demand that his family be left out of the political fray. Apparently Michelle Obama left a remark out there that was turned into a sound bite that is making its rounds among conservatives.
The sound bite in question features Mrs. Obama stating that for the first time in her adult life she is proud of this country. Of course the Red State take on that comment is that Mrs. Obama has spent a solid 20 years not being proud of her country which is supposedly a bad thing. It doesn’t matter that most Americans aren’t particularly proud of their country, people in politics are supposed to beam with nationalistic pride.
The video is nothing more than a partisan bone for conservative pundits to wrestle over. It’s not going to scare away any Democrats who weren’t already frightened by the fact that Obama happens to be black. However, the fact that Mrs. Obama is now in the crosshairs of conservative critics rightfully bothers the Democratic frontrunner.
He recently issued the obligatory “hands off” ultimatum. Of course there’s nothing he can do about it. His wife is out there on the publicity tour talking to thousands of people. She’s an intelligent woman who might have political aspirations of her own someday. Michelle Obama is fair game and Barack knows it.
So why the posturing? Because that’s part of the game too. If Barack Obama doesn’t puff out his chest and defend his wife he looks weak and that could hurt him more than anything Jeremiah Wright has to say. A man who isn’t willing to go to bat for his family isn’t a man and can’t be trusted to run the country. Not even when our current president never had a real job and spent more time partying than he did parenting.
Both Bill and Hillary Clinton played that card with Chelsea, although it played better for Bill because Chelsea was a child when he was campaigning. Now Chelsea is a young woman who is out there stumping for her mother. Still, when people put her on the spot Hillary voiced her displeasure. George W. Bush drew the same line with his binge-drinking daughters. It’s become such a typical part of the process that one has to wonder if the attacks on family aren’t instigated internally.
It’s funny because there is absolutely nothing these candidates can do about it. If a columnist lambastes Michelle Obama what’s Barack going to do about it? The Constitution prevents Barack from taking legal action and the basic laws of society prohibit physical assault. Barack is powerless to defend his wife and given the fact that his wife is pretty much on her own, he shouldn’t have too.
Bill Clinton couldn’t do anything about the pundits, like Rush Limbaugh, who took shots at his daughter while he was in office and George W. Bush had more trouble keeping his daughters out if trouble and in their pants than he had with critics who wanted to hurt him by attacking them.
Political opponents loath to play that game because attacking a candidate’s family tends to backfire. George H.W. Bush tried to question Hillary Clinton’s influence over Bill and it cost him a lot of points among women. And that was Hillary, nobody likes her. So John McCain isn’t going to put Michelle Obama in his crosshairs. That’s a dangerous gamble.
It’s OK for people like Glen Beck and Ann Coulter to stir that pot; they live in the muck and have no credibility. Aside from a handful of marginally retarded fans, nobody cares what they have to say. They’ll get the mindless masses worked into a frenzy but it’s only going to reinforce votes that were already iron clad. That’s assuming there isn’t a sale on Skoal on election day.
It would have been refreshing for Obama to laugh the criticism off and dismiss it as petty but that’s something McCain would have jumped on. As silly as it is, not acting macho would have given mainstream Republicans plenty of ammunition to question Obama’s courage. People don’t have time for nuance and they don’t like to think about the big picture. Barack Obama has to take a stand and defend the honor of his wife even though she seems perfectly capable of fighting her own battles…even though there’s nothing he Obama can do about it.
Those are the rules of the game and the game is played for your enjoyment. It’s too bad that we spend so much time obsessing about these petty antics and important issues get pushed to the side.
The sound bite in question features Mrs. Obama stating that for the first time in her adult life she is proud of this country. Of course the Red State take on that comment is that Mrs. Obama has spent a solid 20 years not being proud of her country which is supposedly a bad thing. It doesn’t matter that most Americans aren’t particularly proud of their country, people in politics are supposed to beam with nationalistic pride.
The video is nothing more than a partisan bone for conservative pundits to wrestle over. It’s not going to scare away any Democrats who weren’t already frightened by the fact that Obama happens to be black. However, the fact that Mrs. Obama is now in the crosshairs of conservative critics rightfully bothers the Democratic frontrunner.
He recently issued the obligatory “hands off” ultimatum. Of course there’s nothing he can do about it. His wife is out there on the publicity tour talking to thousands of people. She’s an intelligent woman who might have political aspirations of her own someday. Michelle Obama is fair game and Barack knows it.
So why the posturing? Because that’s part of the game too. If Barack Obama doesn’t puff out his chest and defend his wife he looks weak and that could hurt him more than anything Jeremiah Wright has to say. A man who isn’t willing to go to bat for his family isn’t a man and can’t be trusted to run the country. Not even when our current president never had a real job and spent more time partying than he did parenting.
Both Bill and Hillary Clinton played that card with Chelsea, although it played better for Bill because Chelsea was a child when he was campaigning. Now Chelsea is a young woman who is out there stumping for her mother. Still, when people put her on the spot Hillary voiced her displeasure. George W. Bush drew the same line with his binge-drinking daughters. It’s become such a typical part of the process that one has to wonder if the attacks on family aren’t instigated internally.
It’s funny because there is absolutely nothing these candidates can do about it. If a columnist lambastes Michelle Obama what’s Barack going to do about it? The Constitution prevents Barack from taking legal action and the basic laws of society prohibit physical assault. Barack is powerless to defend his wife and given the fact that his wife is pretty much on her own, he shouldn’t have too.
Bill Clinton couldn’t do anything about the pundits, like Rush Limbaugh, who took shots at his daughter while he was in office and George W. Bush had more trouble keeping his daughters out if trouble and in their pants than he had with critics who wanted to hurt him by attacking them.
Political opponents loath to play that game because attacking a candidate’s family tends to backfire. George H.W. Bush tried to question Hillary Clinton’s influence over Bill and it cost him a lot of points among women. And that was Hillary, nobody likes her. So John McCain isn’t going to put Michelle Obama in his crosshairs. That’s a dangerous gamble.
It’s OK for people like Glen Beck and Ann Coulter to stir that pot; they live in the muck and have no credibility. Aside from a handful of marginally retarded fans, nobody cares what they have to say. They’ll get the mindless masses worked into a frenzy but it’s only going to reinforce votes that were already iron clad. That’s assuming there isn’t a sale on Skoal on election day.
It would have been refreshing for Obama to laugh the criticism off and dismiss it as petty but that’s something McCain would have jumped on. As silly as it is, not acting macho would have given mainstream Republicans plenty of ammunition to question Obama’s courage. People don’t have time for nuance and they don’t like to think about the big picture. Barack Obama has to take a stand and defend the honor of his wife even though she seems perfectly capable of fighting her own battles…even though there’s nothing he Obama can do about it.
Those are the rules of the game and the game is played for your enjoyment. It’s too bad that we spend so much time obsessing about these petty antics and important issues get pushed to the side.
Monday, May 12, 2008
Interest without Knowledge
The previous two Presidential elections were contentious to say the least. Opinions split down party lines but no matter how you feel about the outcome you have to admit there were serious problems.
In 2000 the Supreme Court split 5-4down party lines and quashed a thorough recount of the contentious ballots. There were stories about dangling chads, combative election workers and confused old Jews who voted for Pat Buchanan. In 2004 the problems surfaced in Ohio where a the Republican Secretary of State tried to reject thousands of voter registration forms and a company whose owner was a enthusiastic Bush supporter provided electronic ballots machines that seemed to malfunction in key Democratic strongholds.
Most people don’t want to consider the possibility that these elections were rigged but the fact remains that elections are rigged all the time. It’s not just in third world countries. Daly ruled Chicago with an iron fist and maintained control with a stuffed ballot box and it happens in smaller communities all the time. If we’re being honest with ourselves we’d admit that there’s probably some sort of fix at play in every election…it’s just that the 2000 and 2004 elections were so close and the final tally came down to two states that had been massaged to skew results.
Even if you don’t believe the fix was in you have to admit that there were some issues that lend themselves to conspiracy theories. That means that there’s something wrong with the way our system works. Between the last two big elections Americans have been evaluation everything from the registration process, to voter verification. We’ve even seen people question the existence of the Electoral College.
So it’s no surprise that this years Primaries are stirring up quite a bit of controversy. Again, on the Republican side the ticket was decided a long time ago. The only thing that stood out was the way McCain and Huckabee collaborated to destroy Mitt Romney’s bid. Once Romney was out voters sided with McCain and by the time Super Tuesday was over so was the Republican race.
The Democrats were still close. Hillary seemed to have a huge advantage but Obama has a strong following and it has carried over to what people refer to as Super Delegates. Super Delegates are just party alumni who are able to vote for the candidate of their choosing, regardless of the primary results. Even in states Hillary won, these delegates threw support behind Obama.
This has people crying foul. They feel like their cotes don’t count and they’re right. What they don’t realize is that their votes don’t have to count. The parties are private entities designed to consolidate similar ideas into a specific party platform. It’s a tool voters can use to choose candidates who support an agenda they agree with and a device for politicians to help each other win their posts.
The problem with primaries is readily illustrated in, once again, Ohio where the polls were open well after Super Tuesday. With McCain comfortably in the lead Republican pundits called their minions to arms and encouraged them to vote in the Democratic primary and vote for Hillary. At the time Obama seemed poised to run away with the party nomination but he hit a snag in Ohio.
A lot of people dismissed the idea that Republicans threw the Democratic primary but now that the votes have all been counted and the forms have been examined, reports published by the AP indicate that 8% of the people who voted Democrat in switched party affiliations at the polls. The board of elections tracks party affiliation during primaries so there’s no count on the number of unofficial Republicans who made the switch and of course there’s no way to know who these former Republicans cast their cotes for but seeing as how a number of these Republicans were people holding elected office as a party member it certainly seems fair to assume that the majority of these party hoppers were following the advice of the pundits.
It’s not a matter of whether this is right or wrong. One Republican said that he didn’t break any laws and he’s absolutely correct. In the big game of politics it’s within the rules but that’s why the Democrats are willing to let the so-called Super Delegates make tough decisions and go against the popular vote.
It’s great that Americans want their voices to be heard but foolish to expect private political parties to relinquish their power. If you don’t like the candidate your preferred party chooses, then show your dissent in November. The only reason we have a two party system is because we allow ourselves to be limited to it.
In 2000 the Supreme Court split 5-4down party lines and quashed a thorough recount of the contentious ballots. There were stories about dangling chads, combative election workers and confused old Jews who voted for Pat Buchanan. In 2004 the problems surfaced in Ohio where a the Republican Secretary of State tried to reject thousands of voter registration forms and a company whose owner was a enthusiastic Bush supporter provided electronic ballots machines that seemed to malfunction in key Democratic strongholds.
Most people don’t want to consider the possibility that these elections were rigged but the fact remains that elections are rigged all the time. It’s not just in third world countries. Daly ruled Chicago with an iron fist and maintained control with a stuffed ballot box and it happens in smaller communities all the time. If we’re being honest with ourselves we’d admit that there’s probably some sort of fix at play in every election…it’s just that the 2000 and 2004 elections were so close and the final tally came down to two states that had been massaged to skew results.
Even if you don’t believe the fix was in you have to admit that there were some issues that lend themselves to conspiracy theories. That means that there’s something wrong with the way our system works. Between the last two big elections Americans have been evaluation everything from the registration process, to voter verification. We’ve even seen people question the existence of the Electoral College.
So it’s no surprise that this years Primaries are stirring up quite a bit of controversy. Again, on the Republican side the ticket was decided a long time ago. The only thing that stood out was the way McCain and Huckabee collaborated to destroy Mitt Romney’s bid. Once Romney was out voters sided with McCain and by the time Super Tuesday was over so was the Republican race.
The Democrats were still close. Hillary seemed to have a huge advantage but Obama has a strong following and it has carried over to what people refer to as Super Delegates. Super Delegates are just party alumni who are able to vote for the candidate of their choosing, regardless of the primary results. Even in states Hillary won, these delegates threw support behind Obama.
This has people crying foul. They feel like their cotes don’t count and they’re right. What they don’t realize is that their votes don’t have to count. The parties are private entities designed to consolidate similar ideas into a specific party platform. It’s a tool voters can use to choose candidates who support an agenda they agree with and a device for politicians to help each other win their posts.
The problem with primaries is readily illustrated in, once again, Ohio where the polls were open well after Super Tuesday. With McCain comfortably in the lead Republican pundits called their minions to arms and encouraged them to vote in the Democratic primary and vote for Hillary. At the time Obama seemed poised to run away with the party nomination but he hit a snag in Ohio.
A lot of people dismissed the idea that Republicans threw the Democratic primary but now that the votes have all been counted and the forms have been examined, reports published by the AP indicate that 8% of the people who voted Democrat in switched party affiliations at the polls. The board of elections tracks party affiliation during primaries so there’s no count on the number of unofficial Republicans who made the switch and of course there’s no way to know who these former Republicans cast their cotes for but seeing as how a number of these Republicans were people holding elected office as a party member it certainly seems fair to assume that the majority of these party hoppers were following the advice of the pundits.
It’s not a matter of whether this is right or wrong. One Republican said that he didn’t break any laws and he’s absolutely correct. In the big game of politics it’s within the rules but that’s why the Democrats are willing to let the so-called Super Delegates make tough decisions and go against the popular vote.
It’s great that Americans want their voices to be heard but foolish to expect private political parties to relinquish their power. If you don’t like the candidate your preferred party chooses, then show your dissent in November. The only reason we have a two party system is because we allow ourselves to be limited to it.
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
American Hero
Just when you thought the Roger Clemens saga was going away it hits you in the face with a steroid-laced 95 mph fastball in the form of one-time country music sensation Mindy McCready.
McCready had a hit single on the redneck charts back in 1996 and proceeded to self-destruct. Since then it’s been a made-for-TV story about drugs, alcohol, domestic violence and the subsequent stints in rehab and jail. Mindy is a train wreck and, as is the case with all train wrecks, people often wonder why…why do people who seem to have it made fall apart so completely?
Usually we don’t have a good answer. Winona Ryder, Christian Slater, Tom Sizemore…they all defy explanation. Mindy McCready’s success was confined to a pretty small niche but surely people in that niche wondered why she would implode after she achieved success.
Now we have an answer: sexual abuse. Mindy McCready was involved in a sexual relationship with a 28 year-old man when she was only 15. That man? None other than Mr. Roger “I’m a good guy” Clemens. According to people close to the situation, Clemens hooked up with the teen karaoke singer back in the early 1990s. Clemens doesn’t dispute this but he insists that the relationship wasn’t sexual. McCready commented that she couldn’t refute the sexual allegations. She didn’t go into detail but that admission puts Clemens in a tight spot. He’s the one who has been clamoring about the quality of his character in the wake of the steroid scandal.
Clemens is involved in a courtroom suit/countersuit battle royale with Brian McNamee, the former trainer who implicated Clemens in the Mitchell Report. Clemens has been calling McNamee a liar ever since and he hopes to prove it in court. Now, he’s on public record denying a sexual relationship with a woman who has confirmed the story. That’s going to come back to haunt him in court. McCready will be called as a witness and Clemen’s will have his precious character called into question.
Of course Clemen’s could face even more trouble. The news of the affair will most certainly have an impact on his marriage. Clemens was married with two children when he first met McCready and if Roger’s wife has reason to believe that he betrayed her she will have a golden opportunity to put the screws to him. She could unravel every lie that he’s told and produce testimony, perhaps even evidence, that Roger has been using steroids for years.
Lost in all of this is a very serious issue: statutory rape. Clemens was a multi-millionaire professional athlete. At 28 he was the best pitcher in major league baseball. Mindy McCready was a 15 year-old girl trying to find a break in the music industry. Now it’s possible that McCready was little more than a groupie who was enamored with the superstar pitcher and Clemens, like so many other famous men, probably took advantage of more than his fair share of groupies but 15? Come on, Roger, that’s going too far. Cheating on your wife is one thing, but cheating on your wife with a teenaged girl—well, that’s something right out of Roman Polanski’s playbook…and he’s still in exile.
Not too long ago Roger and Brian sat before a Congressional Committee so elected officials could parlay the steroid scandal into some good pre-election battle face time. Roger wined and dined a number of lawmakers and it paid off during the hearing when Republicans took turns bashing Brian McNamee. Of course McNamee’s response to being called a liar by Representative DanTom Burton was to point out that he had implicated three players and two had already admitted to the committee that they did indeed use performance enhancing substances. Roger’s long time BFF, Andy Pettitte, substantiated McNamee’s story by informing the committee in a closed hearing that Roger Clemens told him he used HGH. Still, Clemens was likened to Jesus.
Clemens didn’t handle himself well. He lost his composure several times and seemed to be covering his tracks, still his Republican buddies applauded him for being a baseball hero and suffering through the humiliation of being implicated in the steroid scandal. How do they feel about Rocket now? Roger’s mantra has been that he is a man of great character, but now this character is a borderline pedophile. People go to jail for having sex with 15 year-olds. Just ask Genarlow Wilson who, at the age of 17, found himself locked up for allowing a 15 year-old to perform oral sex on him. Roger wasn’t 17.
Roger likely won’t go to jail for his relationship with McCready but the fact that she has corroborated the story pretty much proves that Roger Clemens is a dirt bag. He could face perjury charges for lying to Congress and he’s going to see a significant portion of his wealth signed away to his wife after she divorces him. He’s going to get what’s coming to him.
Before the McCready story broke there are plenty of people lined up on his side. These apologists had a litany of excuses for their hero. What do they have to say now?
Clemens is a liar, a cheater and a statutory rapist…sounds like he’s primed for a run at the Senate. He might as well... Roger’s got a better shot at getting into Congress than he does the Hall of Fame.
McCready had a hit single on the redneck charts back in 1996 and proceeded to self-destruct. Since then it’s been a made-for-TV story about drugs, alcohol, domestic violence and the subsequent stints in rehab and jail. Mindy is a train wreck and, as is the case with all train wrecks, people often wonder why…why do people who seem to have it made fall apart so completely?
Usually we don’t have a good answer. Winona Ryder, Christian Slater, Tom Sizemore…they all defy explanation. Mindy McCready’s success was confined to a pretty small niche but surely people in that niche wondered why she would implode after she achieved success.
Now we have an answer: sexual abuse. Mindy McCready was involved in a sexual relationship with a 28 year-old man when she was only 15. That man? None other than Mr. Roger “I’m a good guy” Clemens. According to people close to the situation, Clemens hooked up with the teen karaoke singer back in the early 1990s. Clemens doesn’t dispute this but he insists that the relationship wasn’t sexual. McCready commented that she couldn’t refute the sexual allegations. She didn’t go into detail but that admission puts Clemens in a tight spot. He’s the one who has been clamoring about the quality of his character in the wake of the steroid scandal.
Clemens is involved in a courtroom suit/countersuit battle royale with Brian McNamee, the former trainer who implicated Clemens in the Mitchell Report. Clemens has been calling McNamee a liar ever since and he hopes to prove it in court. Now, he’s on public record denying a sexual relationship with a woman who has confirmed the story. That’s going to come back to haunt him in court. McCready will be called as a witness and Clemen’s will have his precious character called into question.
Of course Clemen’s could face even more trouble. The news of the affair will most certainly have an impact on his marriage. Clemens was married with two children when he first met McCready and if Roger’s wife has reason to believe that he betrayed her she will have a golden opportunity to put the screws to him. She could unravel every lie that he’s told and produce testimony, perhaps even evidence, that Roger has been using steroids for years.
Lost in all of this is a very serious issue: statutory rape. Clemens was a multi-millionaire professional athlete. At 28 he was the best pitcher in major league baseball. Mindy McCready was a 15 year-old girl trying to find a break in the music industry. Now it’s possible that McCready was little more than a groupie who was enamored with the superstar pitcher and Clemens, like so many other famous men, probably took advantage of more than his fair share of groupies but 15? Come on, Roger, that’s going too far. Cheating on your wife is one thing, but cheating on your wife with a teenaged girl—well, that’s something right out of Roman Polanski’s playbook…and he’s still in exile.
Not too long ago Roger and Brian sat before a Congressional Committee so elected officials could parlay the steroid scandal into some good pre-election battle face time. Roger wined and dined a number of lawmakers and it paid off during the hearing when Republicans took turns bashing Brian McNamee. Of course McNamee’s response to being called a liar by Representative DanTom Burton was to point out that he had implicated three players and two had already admitted to the committee that they did indeed use performance enhancing substances. Roger’s long time BFF, Andy Pettitte, substantiated McNamee’s story by informing the committee in a closed hearing that Roger Clemens told him he used HGH. Still, Clemens was likened to Jesus.
Clemens didn’t handle himself well. He lost his composure several times and seemed to be covering his tracks, still his Republican buddies applauded him for being a baseball hero and suffering through the humiliation of being implicated in the steroid scandal. How do they feel about Rocket now? Roger’s mantra has been that he is a man of great character, but now this character is a borderline pedophile. People go to jail for having sex with 15 year-olds. Just ask Genarlow Wilson who, at the age of 17, found himself locked up for allowing a 15 year-old to perform oral sex on him. Roger wasn’t 17.
Roger likely won’t go to jail for his relationship with McCready but the fact that she has corroborated the story pretty much proves that Roger Clemens is a dirt bag. He could face perjury charges for lying to Congress and he’s going to see a significant portion of his wealth signed away to his wife after she divorces him. He’s going to get what’s coming to him.
Before the McCready story broke there are plenty of people lined up on his side. These apologists had a litany of excuses for their hero. What do they have to say now?
Clemens is a liar, a cheater and a statutory rapist…sounds like he’s primed for a run at the Senate. He might as well... Roger’s got a better shot at getting into Congress than he does the Hall of Fame.
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
Schilling in the Name
John Freshwater wants to be a martyr. As a middle school science teacher at a public school in Mount Vernon, Ohio Freshwater has gone out of his way to draw attention to himself and his faith. The center of the controversy seems to revolve around his decision to keep a bible on his desk. It seems innocent enough and Freshwater claims that the bible is for his own personal use. Fair enough.
Still officials put the screws to Freshwater and he enlisted the support of local religious activist Dave Daubenmire who was at the center of a controversy back in 1999 when he was sued by the ACLU for leading the football team he coached in prayer sessions before and after practices and games. His school district ended up footing the bill for an out of court settlement, but Daubenmire parlayed the ink into a cottage industry. Now he has a ministry and a website dedicated to his glory. You can even make a donation. Surprise, surprise, surprise.
It’s interesting that www.ptsalt.com seems more committed to promoting Coach Dave than it does Jesus Christ but in the wacky world of evangelicalism that’s really the name of the game. Vanity and greed. It’s not about morality it’s all about a salary. (Apologies to Kris Parker.)
As you start to delve deeper into the Freshwater saga, which you can by visiting The Columbus Dispatch, you realize that this guy was itching for a fight. He wanted to cross the line so he could be the center of a controversy (i.e. attention).
Why? Maybe he wants to start his own ministry. Perhaps Daubenmire is selling how-to guides online and Freshwater bought one. There’s also the possibility that Daubenmire put him up to it in order to drum up some publicity. That seems to be the big issue on Coach Dave’s website. Nothing brings in those donations like a big fight against Liberals and their godless agenda.
Of course the ACLU will take some flack even though the ACLU has a track record of winning cases on both sides of the issue. It’s ironic because Freshwater volunteered to monitor meetings of his school’s chapter of the Federation of Christian Athletes, an organization the ACLU has championed. What the ACLU fights against is the participation of school officials in these student led meetings. Freshwater crossed that line and not only participated but cast out demons and conducting healing sessions.
It’s amazing how Christians eat this stuff up. They believe they’re persecuted and that our society promotes atheism. The reality is that our society still promotes Christianity. It’s only recently that people have started to push back and challenge some of the conventions that allowed Christians to assume a position of power over everybody else. So now when somebody points out that the city park is a public area and shouldn’t be used to display a religious nativity scene Christians see it as an infringement when the reality is that they were the ones infringing on everybody else.
That’s what Freshwater is doing. The school has been very careful to respect Freshwater’s beliefs, the issue is that he’s using his position as a teacher to proselytize. That’s fine in a Christian school, but Freshwater chose to teach in a public school system. He’s got to follow certain rules as do all teachers.
On local blogs Christians are whining that if Freshwater had a copy of the Quran on his desk that this wouldn’t have been an issue but the issue wasn’t the fact that he had a bible on his desk. The issue was why it was there. Through his actions Freshwater made it clear that he was using that bible to influence the beliefs of his students. More succinctly he wanted to be suspended over this. The more press the better. He’ll milk it for all it’s worth and retire from his public teaching position to start his own ministry under Dave Daubenmire’s wing…the typical Christian pyramid scheme. Then Freshwater will recruit some other teacher and the cycle will start all over again.
Unfortunately most Christians, particularly those of Freshwater and Daubenmire’s ilk, simply refuse to respect the beliefs of others. When Daubenmire was leading his football team in prayer he didn’t stop to think about how kids who weren’t religious might feel. It’s ironic because Christians claim to honor the Golden Rule: Do unto others as you would have others do unto you. How would Freshwater feel about his child’s science teacher displaying a copy of Anton LaVey’s Satanic Bible? What would Daubenmire do if his son’s football coach led the team in a Buddhist chant before each game?
Christians don’t have a real answer for that question. They’ve either convinced themselves that these things happen everyday and nobody says a word or they’ll turn it around and cite dubious stories about Christians being fed to the lions.
When Christians behave like Freshwater and Daubenmire that doesn’t sound like such a bad idea.
Still officials put the screws to Freshwater and he enlisted the support of local religious activist Dave Daubenmire who was at the center of a controversy back in 1999 when he was sued by the ACLU for leading the football team he coached in prayer sessions before and after practices and games. His school district ended up footing the bill for an out of court settlement, but Daubenmire parlayed the ink into a cottage industry. Now he has a ministry and a website dedicated to his glory. You can even make a donation. Surprise, surprise, surprise.
It’s interesting that www.ptsalt.com seems more committed to promoting Coach Dave than it does Jesus Christ but in the wacky world of evangelicalism that’s really the name of the game. Vanity and greed. It’s not about morality it’s all about a salary. (Apologies to Kris Parker.)
As you start to delve deeper into the Freshwater saga, which you can by visiting The Columbus Dispatch, you realize that this guy was itching for a fight. He wanted to cross the line so he could be the center of a controversy (i.e. attention).
Why? Maybe he wants to start his own ministry. Perhaps Daubenmire is selling how-to guides online and Freshwater bought one. There’s also the possibility that Daubenmire put him up to it in order to drum up some publicity. That seems to be the big issue on Coach Dave’s website. Nothing brings in those donations like a big fight against Liberals and their godless agenda.
Of course the ACLU will take some flack even though the ACLU has a track record of winning cases on both sides of the issue. It’s ironic because Freshwater volunteered to monitor meetings of his school’s chapter of the Federation of Christian Athletes, an organization the ACLU has championed. What the ACLU fights against is the participation of school officials in these student led meetings. Freshwater crossed that line and not only participated but cast out demons and conducting healing sessions.
It’s amazing how Christians eat this stuff up. They believe they’re persecuted and that our society promotes atheism. The reality is that our society still promotes Christianity. It’s only recently that people have started to push back and challenge some of the conventions that allowed Christians to assume a position of power over everybody else. So now when somebody points out that the city park is a public area and shouldn’t be used to display a religious nativity scene Christians see it as an infringement when the reality is that they were the ones infringing on everybody else.
That’s what Freshwater is doing. The school has been very careful to respect Freshwater’s beliefs, the issue is that he’s using his position as a teacher to proselytize. That’s fine in a Christian school, but Freshwater chose to teach in a public school system. He’s got to follow certain rules as do all teachers.
On local blogs Christians are whining that if Freshwater had a copy of the Quran on his desk that this wouldn’t have been an issue but the issue wasn’t the fact that he had a bible on his desk. The issue was why it was there. Through his actions Freshwater made it clear that he was using that bible to influence the beliefs of his students. More succinctly he wanted to be suspended over this. The more press the better. He’ll milk it for all it’s worth and retire from his public teaching position to start his own ministry under Dave Daubenmire’s wing…the typical Christian pyramid scheme. Then Freshwater will recruit some other teacher and the cycle will start all over again.
Unfortunately most Christians, particularly those of Freshwater and Daubenmire’s ilk, simply refuse to respect the beliefs of others. When Daubenmire was leading his football team in prayer he didn’t stop to think about how kids who weren’t religious might feel. It’s ironic because Christians claim to honor the Golden Rule: Do unto others as you would have others do unto you. How would Freshwater feel about his child’s science teacher displaying a copy of Anton LaVey’s Satanic Bible? What would Daubenmire do if his son’s football coach led the team in a Buddhist chant before each game?
Christians don’t have a real answer for that question. They’ve either convinced themselves that these things happen everyday and nobody says a word or they’ll turn it around and cite dubious stories about Christians being fed to the lions.
When Christians behave like Freshwater and Daubenmire that doesn’t sound like such a bad idea.
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
But Obama was right!
"Here's how it is: in a lot of these communities in big industrial states like Ohio and Pennsylvania, people have been beaten down so long, and they feel so betrayed by government, and when they hear a pitch that is premised on not being cynical about government, then a part of them just doesn't buy it. And when it's delivered by -- it's true that when it's delivered by a 46-year-old black man named Barack Obama (laugher), then that adds another layer of skepticism (laughter).
But -- so the questions you're most likely to get about me, 'Well, what is this guy going to do for me? What's the concrete thing?' What they wanna hear is -- so, we'll give you talking points about what we're proposing -- close tax loopholes, roll back, you know, the tax cuts for the top 1 percent. Obama's gonna give tax breaks to middle-class folks and we're gonna provide health care for every American. So we'll go down a series of talking points.
But the truth is, is that, our challenge is to get people persuaded that we can make progress when there's not evidence of that in their daily lives. You go into some of these small towns in Pennsylvania, and like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing's replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. So it's not surprising then that they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.
Um, now these are in some communities, you know. I think what you'll find is, is that people of every background -- there are gonna be a mix of people, you can go in the toughest neighborhoods, you know working-class lunch-pail folks, you'll find Obama enthusiasts. And you can go into places where you think I'd be very strong and people will just be skeptical. The important thing is that you show up and you're doing what you're doing." --Barack Obama
When I first heard about Barack Obama’s comments regarding embittered Middle Americans I was shocked. Not so much that he said it but that somebody was finally paying attention. The fact of the matter is that many of the people living in Western Pennsylvania are gun toting bible thumpers who enjoy feeling sorry for themselves. Ask any reasonable person who lives or has spent a significant amount of time in the area and they’ll confirm it. The handful of people who took offense to Obama’s statement prove his theory.
What’s funny is that most of outrage seems to be coming from people who have never heard of Latrobe, Oil City, or Washington ( PA not DC) and the only thing most politicians know about Johnstown is that there may or may not have been a big flood there. Obama’s comments appropriately describe towns in Ohio, Michigan and Indiana as well and if you’re going to talk about bitter, narrow-minded people you can throw that same lasso around West Virginia and Kentucky.
Taking Obama’s full quote into context it’s quite obvious that he feels sympathetic toward these people. I live around them and I don’t. Obama wants to help them rediscover the American dream. I’d just as soon close all the exit ramps on I-70 between Washington DC and St. Louis. Now that’s elitist.
As somebody who grew up in one of the areas Obama was talking about, I found nothing he said offensive. What I did find offensive was Hillary Clinton trotting out her Larry The Cable Guy impression in order to connect with the people she thought would be upset by Obama’s comments. Talk about out of touch. When did Scranton turn in to Birmingham? Does that country-fried drawl and stories about shooting guns with grandpappy after church really work? And then she bellied up to the bar for a shot and a beer. Nice. Next week she'll be belching the alphabet and farting on demand. Hey kid, pull my finger!
Perhaps it does work. George W. Bush managed to convince the NASCAR set that he was just a farmer from Texas and not some spoiled rich kid born with a silver spoon in his mouth that was so big the man still can’t form a sentence. Somehow, Bush managed to spin a keg party at an Alabama Armory into military service that was more honorable than John McCain’s half a decade of torture.
Of course, Bush always sounds like a hick and he’s made it quite clear that he is genuinely stupid. Perhaps not so much as the people who voted for him, but he’s definitely running on fumes. Hillary, on the other hand, seems to have multiple personalities. She becomes Butterfly McQueen quoting Reverend James Cleveland when she’s pandering to black voters and channels Loretta Lynn in front of white blue collar types.
The real Hillary Clinton grew up in a wealthy community before graduating from Yale by way of Wellesley and when she’s glad-handing for the big money you can bet that her diction and grammar are perfect. So why the buck and shuffle for the unwashed masses? Does she really think that the average American is that stupid? Maybe that was a tactic she learned at the world headquarters of poor white trash, Wal-Mart. Perhaps Sam Walton’s ability to parlay provincialism into billions of dollars convinced Hillary to patronize potential voters with ersatz folksy charm.
Who needs to talk about the issues and present solutions to problems when we can zero in on a sound bite that was taken out of context? Imagine what a wonderful presidential race this would be if everybody in it was more interested in talking about their ideas rather than waiting for the opposition to slip up. What’s frustrating is that Obama didn’t slip up. He made a valid point that should be discussed in detail.
Friday, April 04, 2008
Hypocrisy Games
I’m not going to single any one person out because a lot of people are hopping on this boycott-the-opening-ceremony bandwagon. I realize that China’s record on human rights leaves quite a bit to be desired and I suppose that something should be done but skipping out on the opening ceremony is not going to change things. It’s actually a little trite. So China’s not quite evil enough to warrant a full boycott of the games, eh?
Personally I think Olympic boycotts are pretty gutless. Why should the athletes have to suffer for society’s inability to solve these problems? For the most part these are kids who, for better or worse, dedicate their lives to being the best in a particular sport. For most, since gymnasts and long distance runners seldom have professional opportunities, the Olympics is their one moment to shine. The vast majority of Olympians get one shot at the podium because the games only come around once every four years.
The International Olympic Committee had the chance to make a statement by rejecting China’s bid to host the Olympics which would have been fair because the games would have gone on but for world leaders to even consider marring the games by dragging political issues into a celebration of athletic competition and sportsmanship is a dereliction of duty. Don't hide behind the Olympics to pick a fight with China.
China’s been in the Human Rights cross hairs for decades but that hasn’t stopped countries around the world from openly and aggressively trading with China. Right here in the USA we depend on China to provide us with cheap goods and services so we can have more disposable income to spend at Applebee’s. China’s economy is growing at a remarkable rate even though that growth has been on the backs of an oppressed workforce. Where’s the outrage the other three years out of the Olympiad?
The Olympics always give me hope. Race, religion, culture and creed are put aside in the name of sport and for a few weeks every four years the rivalry between various nations becomes good natured. Why ruin that?
There are those who argue that ignoring China’s abuses to celebrate the games is betraying they who can’t defend themselves. By allowing China to preen on the global stage we are condoning brutal oppression. I say that the opposite is true. By taking a stand against China on the Olympic stage we make a mockery of those very issues. Boycotting the Opening ceremony says that we want to put on a good show of compassion but after everything is said and done we welcome a return to business as usual. That’s because we’ll be watching the Olympics on electronic devices manufactured in China.
Worse than not caring about an issue is pretending you do. Boycotting the Olympics is just a big public display that does nothing and boycotting the opening ceremonies is a little more than a wink in China’s direction. If you want to send a message, hit China where it hurts. Don't use the Olympics as a soap box.
Personally I think Olympic boycotts are pretty gutless. Why should the athletes have to suffer for society’s inability to solve these problems? For the most part these are kids who, for better or worse, dedicate their lives to being the best in a particular sport. For most, since gymnasts and long distance runners seldom have professional opportunities, the Olympics is their one moment to shine. The vast majority of Olympians get one shot at the podium because the games only come around once every four years.
The International Olympic Committee had the chance to make a statement by rejecting China’s bid to host the Olympics which would have been fair because the games would have gone on but for world leaders to even consider marring the games by dragging political issues into a celebration of athletic competition and sportsmanship is a dereliction of duty. Don't hide behind the Olympics to pick a fight with China.
China’s been in the Human Rights cross hairs for decades but that hasn’t stopped countries around the world from openly and aggressively trading with China. Right here in the USA we depend on China to provide us with cheap goods and services so we can have more disposable income to spend at Applebee’s. China’s economy is growing at a remarkable rate even though that growth has been on the backs of an oppressed workforce. Where’s the outrage the other three years out of the Olympiad?
The Olympics always give me hope. Race, religion, culture and creed are put aside in the name of sport and for a few weeks every four years the rivalry between various nations becomes good natured. Why ruin that?
There are those who argue that ignoring China’s abuses to celebrate the games is betraying they who can’t defend themselves. By allowing China to preen on the global stage we are condoning brutal oppression. I say that the opposite is true. By taking a stand against China on the Olympic stage we make a mockery of those very issues. Boycotting the Opening ceremony says that we want to put on a good show of compassion but after everything is said and done we welcome a return to business as usual. That’s because we’ll be watching the Olympics on electronic devices manufactured in China.
Worse than not caring about an issue is pretending you do. Boycotting the Olympics is just a big public display that does nothing and boycotting the opening ceremonies is a little more than a wink in China’s direction. If you want to send a message, hit China where it hurts. Don't use the Olympics as a soap box.
Friday, March 21, 2008
Let it Bleed
I’m glad gas prices are going up. I hope they reach $10 a gallon before Bush leaves office and we have a President who isn’t bought and paid for by Big Oil.
I know what that means: A bloodletting. The economy will collapse and millions of people will be out of work. It will make the Great Depression look like a stock market correction. Good. We have it coming.
We have it coming because people commute to white collar jobs in a one ton pickup trucks. Kids are dropped off for school in Hummers. Nobody takes the bus and few people actually carpool. To be fair, most cities don’t provide adequate public transportation. Urban sprawl forces millions of people living in urban areas to commute 10 or more miles to a job in a suburban development where busses don’t run. Things like that simply didn’t matter, gas was cheap and so were used cars. Nobody had to worry about the logistics of the daily commute.
Well now they do. Since Bush has taken office the cost of a gallon of gas has nearly tripled. His apologists will tell you that’s because of a number of economic factors but somehow domestic oil companies have enjoyed record profits. Net Profits.
Nevertheless, we still have it coming. It was only a matter of time before another, stupider version of Warren G. Harding was planted in the White House by corporate interests. Oil Companies are going to screw us as hard as they can for as long as they can, but it takes two to tango. We’re the ones who grabbed our ankles and let them do it.
There was a gas crunch in the 70s. Not only was oil expensive, it was also hard to find. OPEC cut our supply and we were crippled. That’s when Honda and Toyota proliferated the US market with compact cars. Fuel efficient vehicles gained a foothold in the US and, as Americans got creative with their commuting habits, oil prices came back down.
And they stayed down. They stayed down so long that Americans were able to stop buying those puny “rice burners” and start buying big cars again. By the end of the 1980s truck sales started to rise and by 2000 the SUV became the most common vehicle on the highway. Fuel efficiency was a joke. People were buying horsepower and getting 12 miles per gallon was fine and dandy because the average American felt safe driving a massive hunk of steel down the road. It didn’t matter if crash test surveys demonstrated that larger vehicles were less safe in a crash, Fanny F-150 liked riding high and stretching out.
Of course, the volatility of the oil market never went away. OPEC tried to manipulate supplies when Clinton and George H. W. Bush were in office but they were able to leverage diplomacy to keep supplies up and costs down. The result is that Americans didn’t pay attention to the writing on the wall. We kept on trucking oblivious to what was on the horizon.
Oil is a finite resource. There were only so many prehistoric bogs that got converted into crude and we’ve been burning it up at an exponential rate. Even if it’s cheap, the supply is limited so it makes sense to conserve it and aggressively look for renewable sources of combustible fuel. That’s why coal is a lousy answer. No matter how many mountains they level or rivers they foul Big Coal companies won’t find enough coal underground to last. Fossil fuels take hundreds of millions of years to create but only second to burn. We need to find something else. This latest oil crisis is proof of that.
Gas is well on it way to four bucks a gallon and people are still cruising around in hulking trucks and midsize sedans with big engines. They aren’t cruising as much, but they aren’t looking for alternatives either. It would seem that our squeal point is somewhere closer to the five dollar mark but before it gets there we’ll have a new Administration in Washington and prices will fall. The question is whether Americans will take the lesson they’ve learned to heart and strive to find a better way or if they’ll go right back to the SUV.
I don't think we'll learn and that's why I hope those prices keep rising.
I know what that means: A bloodletting. The economy will collapse and millions of people will be out of work. It will make the Great Depression look like a stock market correction. Good. We have it coming.
We have it coming because people commute to white collar jobs in a one ton pickup trucks. Kids are dropped off for school in Hummers. Nobody takes the bus and few people actually carpool. To be fair, most cities don’t provide adequate public transportation. Urban sprawl forces millions of people living in urban areas to commute 10 or more miles to a job in a suburban development where busses don’t run. Things like that simply didn’t matter, gas was cheap and so were used cars. Nobody had to worry about the logistics of the daily commute.
Well now they do. Since Bush has taken office the cost of a gallon of gas has nearly tripled. His apologists will tell you that’s because of a number of economic factors but somehow domestic oil companies have enjoyed record profits. Net Profits.
Nevertheless, we still have it coming. It was only a matter of time before another, stupider version of Warren G. Harding was planted in the White House by corporate interests. Oil Companies are going to screw us as hard as they can for as long as they can, but it takes two to tango. We’re the ones who grabbed our ankles and let them do it.
There was a gas crunch in the 70s. Not only was oil expensive, it was also hard to find. OPEC cut our supply and we were crippled. That’s when Honda and Toyota proliferated the US market with compact cars. Fuel efficient vehicles gained a foothold in the US and, as Americans got creative with their commuting habits, oil prices came back down.
And they stayed down. They stayed down so long that Americans were able to stop buying those puny “rice burners” and start buying big cars again. By the end of the 1980s truck sales started to rise and by 2000 the SUV became the most common vehicle on the highway. Fuel efficiency was a joke. People were buying horsepower and getting 12 miles per gallon was fine and dandy because the average American felt safe driving a massive hunk of steel down the road. It didn’t matter if crash test surveys demonstrated that larger vehicles were less safe in a crash, Fanny F-150 liked riding high and stretching out.
Of course, the volatility of the oil market never went away. OPEC tried to manipulate supplies when Clinton and George H. W. Bush were in office but they were able to leverage diplomacy to keep supplies up and costs down. The result is that Americans didn’t pay attention to the writing on the wall. We kept on trucking oblivious to what was on the horizon.
Oil is a finite resource. There were only so many prehistoric bogs that got converted into crude and we’ve been burning it up at an exponential rate. Even if it’s cheap, the supply is limited so it makes sense to conserve it and aggressively look for renewable sources of combustible fuel. That’s why coal is a lousy answer. No matter how many mountains they level or rivers they foul Big Coal companies won’t find enough coal underground to last. Fossil fuels take hundreds of millions of years to create but only second to burn. We need to find something else. This latest oil crisis is proof of that.
Gas is well on it way to four bucks a gallon and people are still cruising around in hulking trucks and midsize sedans with big engines. They aren’t cruising as much, but they aren’t looking for alternatives either. It would seem that our squeal point is somewhere closer to the five dollar mark but before it gets there we’ll have a new Administration in Washington and prices will fall. The question is whether Americans will take the lesson they’ve learned to heart and strive to find a better way or if they’ll go right back to the SUV.
I don't think we'll learn and that's why I hope those prices keep rising.
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
Sex, Sex...was all I heard.
The headlines were misleading. When I read that New York’s governor had been linked to a prostitution ring I thought he was some sort of pimp. I read the story thinking I would be treated to some intricate scandal where Eliot Spitzer was a key player in a multi-state prostitution scam. When I read the article I was disappointed to discover that Mr. Spitzer was only client #9. To me, that’s hardly being linked to a prostitution ring. I’m not connected to Amoco just because I bought gas this weekend. Granted I did get the sneaking suspicion I was being screwed as the price rolled past $50, but that’s different.
Nevertheless, Eliot Spitzer was caught doing wrong. He broke the law and he broke public trust. People are calling him a hypocrite because he apparently campaigned on an ethics platform but from what I could ascertain his ethical focus was within the realm of business practices. He was going to clean up Wall Street. I don’t know that he ever voiced a problem with the notion of nookie-for-hire. There’s a big difference between a conservative who foams at the mouth when speaking of family values getting caught in a nubile boy’s pants and a moderate intent on establishing economic integrity hiring a call girl to boogie on down to Washington to show him a good time.
It’s odd that we hold politician to such lofty standards in their personal lives but we don’t give much thought to the corruption that occurs in their professional world. Spitzer is going to be forced to step aside amidst this scandal when it’s got no bearing on his performance in office. Sure, somebody will argue that if his wife can’t trust him neither can we but that’s nonsense. We know that personal relationships are a separate issue, and while Spitzer broke the law, it’s a law most reasonable people feel is unnecessary.
Consenting adults almost always barter for sex. Whether it’s dinner, a movie and a nice bottle of Petite Petite (that was being saved for something special) or a cash exchange, sex is almost always a transaction. There are exceptions, especially several years into a long term relationship, but those are rare.
That’s not to excuse what Spitzer did. He knows how the game is played and he took his chances when he arranged for his favorite call girl to hook up with him in D.C. It’s a sign of reckless behavior and poor judgment. To that end, one can make a case that he is not qualified to lead. It’s just unfortunate that we don’t hold the actual performance of our elected officials to the same standards. Do we have to wait for a Democrat to book a high-end hooker or a Republican to have a guy on guy romp in an airport toilet before we question their integrity?
Look at McCain. He’s been linked to a slinky lobbyist with a reputation for flirting with geezers to get a little leverage. Rather than taking a long hard look at how this relationship might have affected public policy people are more infatuated with whether or not McCain got frisky with a hired hoochie. Is that really important? That’s why companies hire attractive women to do that sort of work in the first place. I’m not saying that all female lobbyists are eye candy but submit two resumes, one for a policy wonk who obtained a masters degree in political science from Georgetown while interning for three senators and another for a community college grad who happened to win a few beauty pageants and see who gets called first. Sex gets a point across as well as it sells. And you can bet that McCain borrowed a blue pill from somebody before he went to dinner with that cute little girl from down the hall.
People cheat on their spouses all the time. Could you lose your job if you cheated on your spouse? Not unless you work for her/him. Sometimes we in the general public will say things like, “if I pulled something like that I’d be fired” when we know it’s not true. People in the real world get fired when their performance suffers. So you can get arrested and still have a job as long as you can post bail and be back at work before you violate company policy. And you can definitely cheat on your spouse and hold down your job. That might change if you cheat with the 19 year-old intern in accounting but as long as you keep your nasty bits out of the company’s business you’ll be back at work on Monday.
There was a time when people didn’t care about a politician’s personal life. History is filled with philanderers and pederasts. James Buchanan was gay; Jefferson had illegitimate children; JFK may or may not have joined his brother and Marilyn Monroe for a threesome; LBJ ate live armadillos for breakfast; Nixon flipped lit cigarettes at his wife for fun; Ronald Reagan enjoyed urinating on Asian boys; and George H. W. Bush disciplined at least one of his children by dropping him on the head. The list goes on.
Suddenly we live an in age where sex sells and everything else is boring. John McCain might very well want to launch a dozen nuclear missiles into Vietnam if he’s elected but we’re more focused on whether or not he got freaky with a lobbyist. Mark Foley was run out of DC on a rail, proving that a live boy can still end a career even if a dead girl can’t, but the cronies who kept him on committees that are supposed to review laws that punish child abusers are unscathed. Tom DeLay basically had to dare the country to punish him before he was ousted and Ted Stevens has been playing it fast and loose for years with no accountability. Larry Craig was a crooked politician who managed to deftly avoid any legal trouble over suspicious donations and pork projects that benefited his contributors but it was a lovelorn act of desperation that put him on the hot seat.
It’s funny, we don’t seem to make a big stink over our elected officials missing votes or failing to show up for hearings but if we find out the reason they were absent is because they were having sex with somebody they weren’t married to the fur starts flying. The public might be to blame, but the headline on Spitzer’s affair proves that the media is playing a big role in fanning those flames.
We do the same thing with professional athletes. When LeBron James got ticketed for speeding it made national news. Some people were even enraged with LeBron’s glib answer to the question. He didn’t even express remorse. Colin Cowherd, a nationally syndicated idiot who takes up airspace on ESPN even characterized LeBron’s brush with a radar gun as one of the problems with the mentality of the professional athlete. Really? Speeding’s the scourge of out nation’s youth. Thanks Colin, now go back to apologizing for how awful West Coast football is.
Regular people don’t get charged with assault everyday but when some working class stiff gets a little rowdy at a bar and fists fly it’s not grounds for that guy to lose his day job but if Tracy McGrady get’s involved in a fracas outside of a night club the general public laments the fact that he’s back in the starting lineup the very next day. “If I got arrested for assault they wouldn’t let me out of jail so I could be at work the next day.” Yes, they would, all you have to do is post bond.
And ultimately the publicity of these altercations has a very negative impact on the athlete’s career. We don’t acknowledge it because he’s still shooting baskets but players like LeBron James have a lot of contracts on the side. In fact, Lebron James makes more money as a spokesman than he does as a basketball player. Let’s say LeBron got pulled over for speeding but found himself arrested for possession of narcotics, carrying a concealed weapon and driving while intoxicated. Let’s say he was in the car with four naked underage girls while all of this took place. He’s got the money to hire a savvy enough legal team to make charges disappear but his public image would have taken a huge hit and LeBron would suddenly be less marketable. Endorsements would dry up. Sprite, Bubble Yum and even Nike would exercise clauses in their contracts to drop LeBron from their payrolls. Just ask Kobe Bryant about that. His brush with the law might still be costing him millions.
Why do you think Vince Carter and Allen Iverson have seen their endorsement opportunities disappear? Part of it might be age but most of it is because the public is tired of watching them act up. So you see athletes, celebrities and even politicians actually do pay a price for getting on the wrong side of the law. Larry Craig wasn’t the only man busted for soliciting sex in the men’s room. When Joe Schmoe ties one on at B-Dub’s after work and gets ticketed for trying to score a blow job from a cop at 3:00am it doesn’t make headlines. He can call in sick the next day, plead guilty, pay a fine, go back to his life (and his wife) and nobody will be the wiser. But the people processing arrests don’t call reporters when Joe Schmoe’s name pops up.
Again, that’s the way this game is played. The stakes are higher for famous people and politicians fit into that category. The sting that nabbed Spitzer also identified other patrons but none of them were on the public’s radar. Spitzer is paying a much higher price for his illicit frolic because he’s in a higher position. It’s not fair but then again life rarely is. The irony is that the public is really cheating itself by placing emphasis on issues that have little to do with a politician’s performance. Could you imagine Thomas Jefferson being forced out of politics because of extramarital affairs?
Nevertheless, Eliot Spitzer was caught doing wrong. He broke the law and he broke public trust. People are calling him a hypocrite because he apparently campaigned on an ethics platform but from what I could ascertain his ethical focus was within the realm of business practices. He was going to clean up Wall Street. I don’t know that he ever voiced a problem with the notion of nookie-for-hire. There’s a big difference between a conservative who foams at the mouth when speaking of family values getting caught in a nubile boy’s pants and a moderate intent on establishing economic integrity hiring a call girl to boogie on down to Washington to show him a good time.
It’s odd that we hold politician to such lofty standards in their personal lives but we don’t give much thought to the corruption that occurs in their professional world. Spitzer is going to be forced to step aside amidst this scandal when it’s got no bearing on his performance in office. Sure, somebody will argue that if his wife can’t trust him neither can we but that’s nonsense. We know that personal relationships are a separate issue, and while Spitzer broke the law, it’s a law most reasonable people feel is unnecessary.
Consenting adults almost always barter for sex. Whether it’s dinner, a movie and a nice bottle of Petite Petite (that was being saved for something special) or a cash exchange, sex is almost always a transaction. There are exceptions, especially several years into a long term relationship, but those are rare.
That’s not to excuse what Spitzer did. He knows how the game is played and he took his chances when he arranged for his favorite call girl to hook up with him in D.C. It’s a sign of reckless behavior and poor judgment. To that end, one can make a case that he is not qualified to lead. It’s just unfortunate that we don’t hold the actual performance of our elected officials to the same standards. Do we have to wait for a Democrat to book a high-end hooker or a Republican to have a guy on guy romp in an airport toilet before we question their integrity?
Look at McCain. He’s been linked to a slinky lobbyist with a reputation for flirting with geezers to get a little leverage. Rather than taking a long hard look at how this relationship might have affected public policy people are more infatuated with whether or not McCain got frisky with a hired hoochie. Is that really important? That’s why companies hire attractive women to do that sort of work in the first place. I’m not saying that all female lobbyists are eye candy but submit two resumes, one for a policy wonk who obtained a masters degree in political science from Georgetown while interning for three senators and another for a community college grad who happened to win a few beauty pageants and see who gets called first. Sex gets a point across as well as it sells. And you can bet that McCain borrowed a blue pill from somebody before he went to dinner with that cute little girl from down the hall.
People cheat on their spouses all the time. Could you lose your job if you cheated on your spouse? Not unless you work for her/him. Sometimes we in the general public will say things like, “if I pulled something like that I’d be fired” when we know it’s not true. People in the real world get fired when their performance suffers. So you can get arrested and still have a job as long as you can post bail and be back at work before you violate company policy. And you can definitely cheat on your spouse and hold down your job. That might change if you cheat with the 19 year-old intern in accounting but as long as you keep your nasty bits out of the company’s business you’ll be back at work on Monday.
There was a time when people didn’t care about a politician’s personal life. History is filled with philanderers and pederasts. James Buchanan was gay; Jefferson had illegitimate children; JFK may or may not have joined his brother and Marilyn Monroe for a threesome; LBJ ate live armadillos for breakfast; Nixon flipped lit cigarettes at his wife for fun; Ronald Reagan enjoyed urinating on Asian boys; and George H. W. Bush disciplined at least one of his children by dropping him on the head. The list goes on.
Suddenly we live an in age where sex sells and everything else is boring. John McCain might very well want to launch a dozen nuclear missiles into Vietnam if he’s elected but we’re more focused on whether or not he got freaky with a lobbyist. Mark Foley was run out of DC on a rail, proving that a live boy can still end a career even if a dead girl can’t, but the cronies who kept him on committees that are supposed to review laws that punish child abusers are unscathed. Tom DeLay basically had to dare the country to punish him before he was ousted and Ted Stevens has been playing it fast and loose for years with no accountability. Larry Craig was a crooked politician who managed to deftly avoid any legal trouble over suspicious donations and pork projects that benefited his contributors but it was a lovelorn act of desperation that put him on the hot seat.
It’s funny, we don’t seem to make a big stink over our elected officials missing votes or failing to show up for hearings but if we find out the reason they were absent is because they were having sex with somebody they weren’t married to the fur starts flying. The public might be to blame, but the headline on Spitzer’s affair proves that the media is playing a big role in fanning those flames.
We do the same thing with professional athletes. When LeBron James got ticketed for speeding it made national news. Some people were even enraged with LeBron’s glib answer to the question. He didn’t even express remorse. Colin Cowherd, a nationally syndicated idiot who takes up airspace on ESPN even characterized LeBron’s brush with a radar gun as one of the problems with the mentality of the professional athlete. Really? Speeding’s the scourge of out nation’s youth. Thanks Colin, now go back to apologizing for how awful West Coast football is.
Regular people don’t get charged with assault everyday but when some working class stiff gets a little rowdy at a bar and fists fly it’s not grounds for that guy to lose his day job but if Tracy McGrady get’s involved in a fracas outside of a night club the general public laments the fact that he’s back in the starting lineup the very next day. “If I got arrested for assault they wouldn’t let me out of jail so I could be at work the next day.” Yes, they would, all you have to do is post bond.
And ultimately the publicity of these altercations has a very negative impact on the athlete’s career. We don’t acknowledge it because he’s still shooting baskets but players like LeBron James have a lot of contracts on the side. In fact, Lebron James makes more money as a spokesman than he does as a basketball player. Let’s say LeBron got pulled over for speeding but found himself arrested for possession of narcotics, carrying a concealed weapon and driving while intoxicated. Let’s say he was in the car with four naked underage girls while all of this took place. He’s got the money to hire a savvy enough legal team to make charges disappear but his public image would have taken a huge hit and LeBron would suddenly be less marketable. Endorsements would dry up. Sprite, Bubble Yum and even Nike would exercise clauses in their contracts to drop LeBron from their payrolls. Just ask Kobe Bryant about that. His brush with the law might still be costing him millions.
Why do you think Vince Carter and Allen Iverson have seen their endorsement opportunities disappear? Part of it might be age but most of it is because the public is tired of watching them act up. So you see athletes, celebrities and even politicians actually do pay a price for getting on the wrong side of the law. Larry Craig wasn’t the only man busted for soliciting sex in the men’s room. When Joe Schmoe ties one on at B-Dub’s after work and gets ticketed for trying to score a blow job from a cop at 3:00am it doesn’t make headlines. He can call in sick the next day, plead guilty, pay a fine, go back to his life (and his wife) and nobody will be the wiser. But the people processing arrests don’t call reporters when Joe Schmoe’s name pops up.
Again, that’s the way this game is played. The stakes are higher for famous people and politicians fit into that category. The sting that nabbed Spitzer also identified other patrons but none of them were on the public’s radar. Spitzer is paying a much higher price for his illicit frolic because he’s in a higher position. It’s not fair but then again life rarely is. The irony is that the public is really cheating itself by placing emphasis on issues that have little to do with a politician’s performance. Could you imagine Thomas Jefferson being forced out of politics because of extramarital affairs?
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
Happy St. Patrick's Day!
Saint Patrick’s Day is coming which means this country will engage in one of the biggest displays of hypocrisy known to man. With the pseudo-holiday falling on a Monday that means a lot of people will spend a whole weekend lying about their heritage. Some people will admit to being along for the ride but most will actually claim to have enough Irish in them to justify taking Monday off so they can start drinking early, or recover from drinking all weekend long. Irish flags will be waving and city officials will gleefully allow public waterways to be temporarily polluted with allegedly nontoxic green dye.
No protesters will line the streets to denounce this display of ethnic solidarity. Nobody will be told to go back to Ireland. You see, we’re all for ethnic pride as long as you pass the melanin test. If you’re sufficiently pale you can wave the flag of your homeland all you want but for those among you who happen to be a little on the brown side, forget it. Take pride in your African roots and you’ll be mocked for it. Wave the Mexican flag and people will call you a traitor. But get plastered by 9:00 and put on a “Kiss me I’m Irish” button and the whole country celebrates with you.
I’m told that I have a little Irish ancestry so I probably could get away with celebrating St. Patrick’s Day. My last name, Croyle, seems Irish even though it originates from France. The problem is I just don’t care. I don’t take a lot of pride in my ethnicity because it simply doesn’t define me. It's not like I earned it. I’m half Polish but aside from eating pierogi and kielbasa from time to time we never did anything to celebrate our heritage. We were non-practicing Polacks and as for the dash of Irish my dad’s side of the family contributed, it was pretty much diluted by the English, Welsh, German, Dutch and French ancestry that got thrown into that big pot of Croyle gruel over the years. We didn’t make a big deal out of what we were. It always seemed that the “who” was more important. Ethnic agnosticism.
Now don’t get me wrong. I don’t begrudge these cultural celebrations. To me it’s sad that St. Patrick’s Day has reduced being Irish to early morning drinking binges, boring parades and prolific use of the color green but when you get right down to the basic concept of understanding where you came from and keeping that history alive I think it’s great and a few people actually take the time to reflect on that during the chaotic Spring Break spectacle we’ve made out of March 17th.
Other ethnic groups celebrate their culture and heritage. We might not have a specific day for celebrating Italian lineage but there are plenty of Italian festivals around the country. Name a nationality and you’ll probably be able to find a celebration for it sometime this year. Greeks throw a big “Wrestle me I’m Greek” party every year and I know there are Hungarian, Serbian, and Yugoslavian shindigs in most of the bigger cities. Nobody seems to mind. We even embrace various Asian cultures as they engage in their celebrations throughout the year. Chinese New Year is usually a pretty big deal in various locations around the world.
Cinco de Mayo is the most notable Hispanic holiday. It’s actually Mexican Independence Day but for most Americans it’s another day to get loaded. Corona with lime, por favor. Of course in places with organized Mexican-American communities the holiday has become more of a reflection of ethnic pride and that has started to rub Americans the wrong way. It was fine when it was limited to border towns with high Latino concentrations but now that northern cities are starting to see hundreds of brown-skinned people waving Mexican flags a line had been drawn. If you want to celebrate being Mexican, you can go back to Mexico.
And it’s not just Mexicans. White people snicker at the mention of Kwanza as if it’s just some made up holiday black people came up with to feel special. Of course Kwanza doesn’t stir up hostility like festivals that promote African culture. Again, if you love Africa so much you should move back there... even though 95% of the black people living in this country were born here. In fact most African Americans come from families that have been in the US longer than most white people. Half of my ancestry hopped off a boat around 1915. The other half probably owned the ancestors of some of those people celebrating their African heritage. So these African Americans might have more of a right to celebrate where they came from than their white counterparts. Still, anything that might be labeled “Black Pride” is viewed as an example of reverse racism.
That’s a common argument tossed out by the polemicists. Why is it OK to chant “Black Power” or “Black Pride” but not OK to stand up for "White Pride"? The truth is that it would be if White Pride and White Power weren’t directly tied into hating everything that isn’t white. Aside from a very small handful of black people who make money off of racial inequality, the underlying theme of “Black Power” or “Black Pride” is to promote the positive aspects of African American culture. The underlying theme of “White Power” is hate. Black Power is saying we’re equal to you. White Power is saying no, you’re not.
That’s why celebrations of ethnicity are fair game but broad celebrations of race are, well, racist. Ethnicity is about heritage, culture and history. It’s about taking pride in where your ancestors came from and what they did. People of a particular ethnic group share similar experiences and they like to take some time to reflect on that. More importantly, they invite they rest of us along for the ride. Ethnicity is what makes this country great: People of different backgrounds finding common ground…not just respecting one another, but celebrating our differences as much as we do our similarities.
Most black people in North America don’t have a specific ethnic heritage they can trace. Slavery essentially made black an ethnic group. Our white ancestors stripped Africans, who came from different backgrounds, of their history and forced them to create a new culture from scratch. It was a covert culture hidden in field songs and locked behind the doors of black churches. So that’s why “Black Pride” isn’t racist. But that won’t change how most white people react to darker people celebrating their heritage. How dare they? Those nappy-headed Bushmen should hop on the next boat to Liberia. And any Mexican who raises a flag other than the Stars and Stripes should be sent back over the fence. If being an American isn’t good enough, get out.
But what about those red-headed Irish jerks with their stupid green beer and House of Pain mix tapes? Shouldn’t they go back to Ireland? It’s something to think about. St. Patrick’s Day is coming and we should have a plan.
No protesters will line the streets to denounce this display of ethnic solidarity. Nobody will be told to go back to Ireland. You see, we’re all for ethnic pride as long as you pass the melanin test. If you’re sufficiently pale you can wave the flag of your homeland all you want but for those among you who happen to be a little on the brown side, forget it. Take pride in your African roots and you’ll be mocked for it. Wave the Mexican flag and people will call you a traitor. But get plastered by 9:00 and put on a “Kiss me I’m Irish” button and the whole country celebrates with you.
I’m told that I have a little Irish ancestry so I probably could get away with celebrating St. Patrick’s Day. My last name, Croyle, seems Irish even though it originates from France. The problem is I just don’t care. I don’t take a lot of pride in my ethnicity because it simply doesn’t define me. It's not like I earned it. I’m half Polish but aside from eating pierogi and kielbasa from time to time we never did anything to celebrate our heritage. We were non-practicing Polacks and as for the dash of Irish my dad’s side of the family contributed, it was pretty much diluted by the English, Welsh, German, Dutch and French ancestry that got thrown into that big pot of Croyle gruel over the years. We didn’t make a big deal out of what we were. It always seemed that the “who” was more important. Ethnic agnosticism.
Now don’t get me wrong. I don’t begrudge these cultural celebrations. To me it’s sad that St. Patrick’s Day has reduced being Irish to early morning drinking binges, boring parades and prolific use of the color green but when you get right down to the basic concept of understanding where you came from and keeping that history alive I think it’s great and a few people actually take the time to reflect on that during the chaotic Spring Break spectacle we’ve made out of March 17th.
Other ethnic groups celebrate their culture and heritage. We might not have a specific day for celebrating Italian lineage but there are plenty of Italian festivals around the country. Name a nationality and you’ll probably be able to find a celebration for it sometime this year. Greeks throw a big “Wrestle me I’m Greek” party every year and I know there are Hungarian, Serbian, and Yugoslavian shindigs in most of the bigger cities. Nobody seems to mind. We even embrace various Asian cultures as they engage in their celebrations throughout the year. Chinese New Year is usually a pretty big deal in various locations around the world.
Cinco de Mayo is the most notable Hispanic holiday. It’s actually Mexican Independence Day but for most Americans it’s another day to get loaded. Corona with lime, por favor. Of course in places with organized Mexican-American communities the holiday has become more of a reflection of ethnic pride and that has started to rub Americans the wrong way. It was fine when it was limited to border towns with high Latino concentrations but now that northern cities are starting to see hundreds of brown-skinned people waving Mexican flags a line had been drawn. If you want to celebrate being Mexican, you can go back to Mexico.
And it’s not just Mexicans. White people snicker at the mention of Kwanza as if it’s just some made up holiday black people came up with to feel special. Of course Kwanza doesn’t stir up hostility like festivals that promote African culture. Again, if you love Africa so much you should move back there... even though 95% of the black people living in this country were born here. In fact most African Americans come from families that have been in the US longer than most white people. Half of my ancestry hopped off a boat around 1915. The other half probably owned the ancestors of some of those people celebrating their African heritage. So these African Americans might have more of a right to celebrate where they came from than their white counterparts. Still, anything that might be labeled “Black Pride” is viewed as an example of reverse racism.
That’s a common argument tossed out by the polemicists. Why is it OK to chant “Black Power” or “Black Pride” but not OK to stand up for "White Pride"? The truth is that it would be if White Pride and White Power weren’t directly tied into hating everything that isn’t white. Aside from a very small handful of black people who make money off of racial inequality, the underlying theme of “Black Power” or “Black Pride” is to promote the positive aspects of African American culture. The underlying theme of “White Power” is hate. Black Power is saying we’re equal to you. White Power is saying no, you’re not.
That’s why celebrations of ethnicity are fair game but broad celebrations of race are, well, racist. Ethnicity is about heritage, culture and history. It’s about taking pride in where your ancestors came from and what they did. People of a particular ethnic group share similar experiences and they like to take some time to reflect on that. More importantly, they invite they rest of us along for the ride. Ethnicity is what makes this country great: People of different backgrounds finding common ground…not just respecting one another, but celebrating our differences as much as we do our similarities.
Most black people in North America don’t have a specific ethnic heritage they can trace. Slavery essentially made black an ethnic group. Our white ancestors stripped Africans, who came from different backgrounds, of their history and forced them to create a new culture from scratch. It was a covert culture hidden in field songs and locked behind the doors of black churches. So that’s why “Black Pride” isn’t racist. But that won’t change how most white people react to darker people celebrating their heritage. How dare they? Those nappy-headed Bushmen should hop on the next boat to Liberia. And any Mexican who raises a flag other than the Stars and Stripes should be sent back over the fence. If being an American isn’t good enough, get out.
But what about those red-headed Irish jerks with their stupid green beer and House of Pain mix tapes? Shouldn’t they go back to Ireland? It’s something to think about. St. Patrick’s Day is coming and we should have a plan.
Tuesday, February 05, 2008
Mock Congress
Congress is taking a long hard look at professional sports. A few years ago several key figures in Major League Baseball were called to testify before Congress on the proliferation of steroids and other performance enhancing substances in professional baseball. Raphael Palmiero famously called Jose Canseco a liar and wagged his finger at the Senators for wasting their time pursuing such flimsy allegations. Then he tested positive for steroids a few months later.
Recently, Baseball solicited the assistance of former Senator George Mitchell to lead an in depth investigation into the use of performance enhancing substances. The result was a detailed report based on numerous law enforcement operations that connected professional athletes to steroids and human growth hormone. Names were named and media frenzy ensued.
Now Roger Clemens, who magically became a more dominant pitcher in his 40s than he was in his 20s is in the crosshairs. He was named in the report but denies the veracity of the investigation. He will face Congress under oath and answer their questions regarding the legitimacy of his baseball legacy. Somehow it seems as though this is a job for law enforcement. Clemens broke the law. He should be arrested, convicted and punished in such a manner that he reveals the names of others involved. Just like any other druggie. Congress doesn’t usually demand testimony from crack dealers, so they shouldn’t waste time with Rocket.
Meanwhile, Arlen Spector has called for a hearing into the infamous, and poorly named, Spygate controversy involving the new England Patriots getting caught violating NFL rules. Like many NFL fans, Spector believes that the NFL might have conspired to cover up a much bigger scandal than was initially reported. That’s probably true but why should Congress care? Even if the NFL rigs its games that revelation isn’t going to impact my life any more than the high cost of health insurance.
Initially I had a hard time taking issue with Congress for probing the steroid issue. Steroids are illegal and when professional athletes use them they set the standards of performance so high that aspiring players have to use steroids to have a chance at reaching that level. That forces the next level of players to use steroids. It’s a vicious cycle that doesn’t end until you have unscrupulous fathers injecting testosterone into their unborn children. Anybody who has attended a Little League game in the past 10 years knows that’s not nearly as ridiculous as it should sound. If there wasn’t a serious effort to discourage the use of steroids in the pros, how could we expect to keep it out of everything else?
However, the subsequent investigation into the steroid problem seems opportunistic. If Congress really meant business about it they would have charged Palmiero with perjury. They could have gone after Mark McGwire with more vigor or simply ordered the FBI to start making arrests. You see steroids, though not formally banned by baseball until 2003, had been illegal since 1990. Even if a player like Mark McGwire could justify his abuse of steroids by claiming a technicality he still broke federal laws by purchasing, possessing and using controlled substances. But Congress chose to let everybody off the hook. So why round two?
More perplexing is the inquest into the NFL’s actions regarding Spygate. There are no federal laws prohibiting one team from secretly taping another team’s practices. Even if the NFL swept the issue under the rug it stands to reason that it was a business decision. Most people acknowledge that this sort of cheating is rampant in football. Teams are always looking to gain an advantage. If that means deciphering an opponents defensive signals or decoding the audible indicators quarterbacks use to change plays, so be it.
Cheating takes on different forms and while ethical puritans will not stoop so low as to make a distinction between various types of cheating, there is this pesky little thing called reality. If a receiver gets away with scooping a pass off the ground or a running back recovers a fumble through illicit acts of aggression in the pile long after the whistle has blown it’s considered to be part of the game within a game. It’s not a violation of the rules unless you get caught. So players get away with holding, pass interference and cheap shots all game long. Is Congress going to investigate that?
Maybe they should. Not from the perspective of the players getting away with it but rather why officiating seems to be inconsistent. There’s a lot more at stake if an official is conspiring to influence the outcome of a game. There’s a lot of money changing hands in Vegas and even more being wagered illegally. I could see Congress wanting to know if the fix is in for certain contests, but delving into a coach trying to gain an edge over his competition seems petty. When you think about the results produced, probing the steroid issue isn’t exactly worthwhile either. These things should be delegated.
What’s frustrating about all of this is that Congress seems to have the time, money and manpower to get to the bottom of private sector entertainment but we can’t seem to draw a bead on some of the scandals involving the Bush Administration. Oil prices are through the roof, the U.S. economy is circling the drain and our soldiers are fighting a war that was supposedly over four years ago but Congress can’t get us any straight answers on why. Instead, they’re going to talk to Roger Goodell and get to the bottom of Spygate once and for all. Are you kidding me?
There’s no clearer sign that our government is completely corrupted than this. How can anybody make sports a priority over everything else this country is coping with? It’s offensive that we have elected officials who feel that solving the problem of steroids in baseball or cheating in football is more important than, well, ANYTHING ELSE FACING CONGRESS. The ketchup viscosity studies the FDA wasted money on in the 1980s might have had more social relevance than Spygate. Why are we paying these guys?
It’s not enough to run them out of office. This dereliction of duty is nothing short of criminal. With our soldiers at war you could make a case that this is a form of treason. We elect these clowns to protect and defend us from enemies foreign and domestic, not to joust the windmills of professional sports.
You know, it’s enough to make a guy move out of the country…but what good would that do? Our government gets into everybody’s business. Too bad it never tends to its own.
Recently, Baseball solicited the assistance of former Senator George Mitchell to lead an in depth investigation into the use of performance enhancing substances. The result was a detailed report based on numerous law enforcement operations that connected professional athletes to steroids and human growth hormone. Names were named and media frenzy ensued.
Now Roger Clemens, who magically became a more dominant pitcher in his 40s than he was in his 20s is in the crosshairs. He was named in the report but denies the veracity of the investigation. He will face Congress under oath and answer their questions regarding the legitimacy of his baseball legacy. Somehow it seems as though this is a job for law enforcement. Clemens broke the law. He should be arrested, convicted and punished in such a manner that he reveals the names of others involved. Just like any other druggie. Congress doesn’t usually demand testimony from crack dealers, so they shouldn’t waste time with Rocket.
Meanwhile, Arlen Spector has called for a hearing into the infamous, and poorly named, Spygate controversy involving the new England Patriots getting caught violating NFL rules. Like many NFL fans, Spector believes that the NFL might have conspired to cover up a much bigger scandal than was initially reported. That’s probably true but why should Congress care? Even if the NFL rigs its games that revelation isn’t going to impact my life any more than the high cost of health insurance.
Initially I had a hard time taking issue with Congress for probing the steroid issue. Steroids are illegal and when professional athletes use them they set the standards of performance so high that aspiring players have to use steroids to have a chance at reaching that level. That forces the next level of players to use steroids. It’s a vicious cycle that doesn’t end until you have unscrupulous fathers injecting testosterone into their unborn children. Anybody who has attended a Little League game in the past 10 years knows that’s not nearly as ridiculous as it should sound. If there wasn’t a serious effort to discourage the use of steroids in the pros, how could we expect to keep it out of everything else?
However, the subsequent investigation into the steroid problem seems opportunistic. If Congress really meant business about it they would have charged Palmiero with perjury. They could have gone after Mark McGwire with more vigor or simply ordered the FBI to start making arrests. You see steroids, though not formally banned by baseball until 2003, had been illegal since 1990. Even if a player like Mark McGwire could justify his abuse of steroids by claiming a technicality he still broke federal laws by purchasing, possessing and using controlled substances. But Congress chose to let everybody off the hook. So why round two?
More perplexing is the inquest into the NFL’s actions regarding Spygate. There are no federal laws prohibiting one team from secretly taping another team’s practices. Even if the NFL swept the issue under the rug it stands to reason that it was a business decision. Most people acknowledge that this sort of cheating is rampant in football. Teams are always looking to gain an advantage. If that means deciphering an opponents defensive signals or decoding the audible indicators quarterbacks use to change plays, so be it.
Cheating takes on different forms and while ethical puritans will not stoop so low as to make a distinction between various types of cheating, there is this pesky little thing called reality. If a receiver gets away with scooping a pass off the ground or a running back recovers a fumble through illicit acts of aggression in the pile long after the whistle has blown it’s considered to be part of the game within a game. It’s not a violation of the rules unless you get caught. So players get away with holding, pass interference and cheap shots all game long. Is Congress going to investigate that?
Maybe they should. Not from the perspective of the players getting away with it but rather why officiating seems to be inconsistent. There’s a lot more at stake if an official is conspiring to influence the outcome of a game. There’s a lot of money changing hands in Vegas and even more being wagered illegally. I could see Congress wanting to know if the fix is in for certain contests, but delving into a coach trying to gain an edge over his competition seems petty. When you think about the results produced, probing the steroid issue isn’t exactly worthwhile either. These things should be delegated.
What’s frustrating about all of this is that Congress seems to have the time, money and manpower to get to the bottom of private sector entertainment but we can’t seem to draw a bead on some of the scandals involving the Bush Administration. Oil prices are through the roof, the U.S. economy is circling the drain and our soldiers are fighting a war that was supposedly over four years ago but Congress can’t get us any straight answers on why. Instead, they’re going to talk to Roger Goodell and get to the bottom of Spygate once and for all. Are you kidding me?
There’s no clearer sign that our government is completely corrupted than this. How can anybody make sports a priority over everything else this country is coping with? It’s offensive that we have elected officials who feel that solving the problem of steroids in baseball or cheating in football is more important than, well, ANYTHING ELSE FACING CONGRESS. The ketchup viscosity studies the FDA wasted money on in the 1980s might have had more social relevance than Spygate. Why are we paying these guys?
It’s not enough to run them out of office. This dereliction of duty is nothing short of criminal. With our soldiers at war you could make a case that this is a form of treason. We elect these clowns to protect and defend us from enemies foreign and domestic, not to joust the windmills of professional sports.
You know, it’s enough to make a guy move out of the country…but what good would that do? Our government gets into everybody’s business. Too bad it never tends to its own.
Friday, January 18, 2008
Freedom of Speech doesn't get you a free pass
Responsibility. Liberty sets us free from the shackles of governmental control but that freedom is far from being free. The price we pay is responsibility. Failure to accept responsibility can be costly. Recently we saw yet another example of somebody in the media behaving irresponsibly. And while Kelly Tilghman has been held accountable for making racially insensitive remarks regarding Tiger Woods' dominance in golf, nobody seems willing to hold her responsible. Apparently she's the victim of this horrible PC movement. The funny thing is that the story was all about Tiger Woods even though the comments weren't. She didn't say anything disparaging about Tiger. What she did was actually worse.
I don’t know Tiger Woods so I can’t tell you whether or not he was simply taking the high road when he dismissed Kelly Tilghman’s stupid comment about young golfers needing to “lynch” Tiger in some dark alley if they wanted to succeed in golf. Maybe he really doesn’t see what all the fuss is about. As a golfer the remarks are actually flattering but as an African American they're offensive.
Of course there’s a chance that Tiger finds those remarks more than a little offensive. There’s a distinct possibility that Tiger would love to see Kelly Tilghman fired. The problem is that Tiger Woods is not just a golfer he’s a brand and an icon. Tiger has more important things on his mind. So when some idiot pops off with an off color comment he just pulls his hat down and focuses on his game.
That’s why he wins. Tiger rarely says anything. He maintains a professional distance and that's why so many people dislike him but they have to respect him. And that's what counts. By the time he's finished every other golfer in the history of the game will be a footnote. Tiger has already gone where no other golfer has gone before. He is one of the richest and most famous people in the world and he's done it without pandering to the public or branching into other businesses. Instead, he has taken over golf. Every golfer on the PGA tour has seen their earnings increase since Tiger has joined the PGA Tour. Tiger's presence at an event increases sponsorships and attendance. He might be the single most important athlete in the world. Tiger doesn't have time to worry about anything else. So when somebody throws his name into an inflammatory comment he ignores it.
Fuzzy Zoeller got a pass from Tiger Woods when he trotted out some tired old joke about fried chicken and watermelon. Like Tilghman, Zoeller claimed he was a friend of Tiger’s and didn’t mean any harm. Tiger didn’t deny a friendship but actions speak louder than words. While Fuzzy was making the rounds trying to salvage his image, Tiger kept his mouth shut and played golf. Tiger and Fuzzy aren’t exactly BFFs and you probably won't see Kelly Tilghman over Tiger's house for dinner. In fact, Tiger released his statement through his agent. The personal touch speaks volumes. Tiger let's his enemies dig their own holes.
I don’t know Tiger Woods so I can’t tell you whether or not he was simply taking the high road when he dismissed Kelly Tilghman’s stupid comment about young golfers needing to “lynch” Tiger in some dark alley if they wanted to succeed in golf. Maybe he really doesn’t see what all the fuss is about. As a golfer the remarks are actually flattering but as an African American they're offensive.
Of course there’s a chance that Tiger finds those remarks more than a little offensive. There’s a distinct possibility that Tiger would love to see Kelly Tilghman fired. The problem is that Tiger Woods is not just a golfer he’s a brand and an icon. Tiger has more important things on his mind. So when some idiot pops off with an off color comment he just pulls his hat down and focuses on his game.
That’s why he wins. Tiger rarely says anything. He maintains a professional distance and that's why so many people dislike him but they have to respect him. And that's what counts. By the time he's finished every other golfer in the history of the game will be a footnote. Tiger has already gone where no other golfer has gone before. He is one of the richest and most famous people in the world and he's done it without pandering to the public or branching into other businesses. Instead, he has taken over golf. Every golfer on the PGA tour has seen their earnings increase since Tiger has joined the PGA Tour. Tiger's presence at an event increases sponsorships and attendance. He might be the single most important athlete in the world. Tiger doesn't have time to worry about anything else. So when somebody throws his name into an inflammatory comment he ignores it.
Fuzzy Zoeller got a pass from Tiger Woods when he trotted out some tired old joke about fried chicken and watermelon. Like Tilghman, Zoeller claimed he was a friend of Tiger’s and didn’t mean any harm. Tiger didn’t deny a friendship but actions speak louder than words. While Fuzzy was making the rounds trying to salvage his image, Tiger kept his mouth shut and played golf. Tiger and Fuzzy aren’t exactly BFFs and you probably won't see Kelly Tilghman over Tiger's house for dinner. In fact, Tiger released his statement through his agent. The personal touch speaks volumes. Tiger let's his enemies dig their own holes.
Tiger would probably love to see this all blow over. He's got his sites set on another season and wants to crush the latest crop of pretenders who think they can challenege him. Rumor has it Phil Mickelson is healthy and ready to win a couple of majors. Tiger would like nothing more than to humilate him on Sunday. This Tilghman issue is the last thing Tiger needs.
Thanks to Al Shaprton and a shameless cover onGolf Weekly magazine the issue is refusing to go away. Malign Al Sharpton all you like but he made a great point: if somebody had made a similar comment about gassing a Jewish sports figure there would be an international fuss. Kelly Tilghman is getting a bit of a pass partly because nobody watches the Golf Chanel and partly because she’s a sexy white chick.
Some people have gone so far as to ask why the term “lynch” is so offensive. It’s not. The context in which Tilghman used it was. The word “gas” isn’t offensive either. And while it’s true that white people were lynched there is no denying the fact that far too many African Americans were hanged in this crude manner with staggering just forty years ago. It might not have been what you would call common practice but it happened often enough to make “lynch” a pretty inflammatory word. Genocide isn't funny.
And there’s little doubt in my mind that Tilghman did not mean to imply anything malicious. She might be friends with Tiger and in a closed conversation amongst mutual friends far more offensive things might be uttered in jest. Dave Chappelle and Chris Rock make very comfortable livings crafting jokes out of much more offensive commentary. The problem is that Tilghman wasn’t in familiar company and she doesn’t get paid to make jokes. In fact, she gets paid to offer insightful commentary on golf. Jokes aren't in her job description.
Should Tilghman be fired? I think so. It’s not that her remarks are that offensive but when she assumed a position in front of a camera she accepted certain responsibilities and one of them is to have her brain engaged before she runs her mouth. Sports broadcasters have been canned for similar offenses. For me it’s not even a PC issue, it’s about professionalism. People get fired for screwing up at work all the time. Little mistakes are one thing but failing at your core responsibilities is another. We have far too many washed up jocks passing themselves off as experts. Tilghman seems to fit in that category.
The real problem I have is the context of her comment. Not the racially insensitive aspect of it, but the shameless ploy at trying to be funny. I know she was joking but she was trying to rehash a joke Nick Faldo made about younger golfers ganging up on Tiger Woods to take him on. She interjected “lynch him in a back alley”. Is she a golf bimbo? It just seems liek she was reaching for an opportunity to showcase wit that simply isn't there. Clearly Kelly was hired because she has many of the same attributes your local weather girl has. If she’s allowed to return to her position, Tilghman will likely be reminded that short skirts and form-fitting tops are what she is supposed to bring to each broadcast. Other than that, stick with the script and nod when you're lost.
It doesn’t matter whether Tiger took umbrage or not. Tilghman didn’t direct her comment to Tiger, it was made about him. It’s not a personal issue. The thing that troubles me is that we all know this. When you put something out there for the world to hear the world gets to pass judgment. Everybody stands to pay a price for putting a foot in his mouth but that price isn’t consistent. If you make a living in front of a camera chances are you simply can’t afford it.
Wednesday, January 09, 2008
Money Ball
It’s all about the money.
The NCAA crowned its national champion in football with the officially unofficial BCS Championship game. It’s unofficial because at the formerly anointed Division I-a level, bowls are not formally part of the NCAA season.
During bowl season we hear a lot of talk about student athletes. It’s designed to make us feel good about what college football represents. The NCAA would have us believe that these young men are playing football for the love of the game while they better themselves through a well-rounded college education. The reality couldn’t be further from the truth.
Nothing typifies a good thing gone bad like the two teams in the BCS Championship Game. While both Louisiana State University and The Ohio State University both excel on the field both programs leave quite a bit to be desired in the class room. An astonishing number of athletes spend more than four years on campus and yet still fail to obtain a degree and those who graduate seldom do so in a curriculum of any value. Look through the roster of either team and you’ll see a lot of players majoring in things that seem rather vague and quite impractical.
To be fair, successful programs such as Ohio State attract players who are destined to play in the NFL and many choose to leave early. While fans and educators often lament the early departure it’s hard to fault the players for being lured away. They simply want to get paid for their vocation.
You see, once you get to the collegiate level football isn’t always fun. Players are required to juggle a full academic schedule, for whatever its worth, with a full athletic schedule. Officially coaches are limited to the number of hours they can require the so-called student athletes to focus on football but unofficially the players are coerced into participating in voluntary practices and film study sessions led by team captains who report directly to the coaching staff. Even at the high school level athletes know that the term voluntary always comes with quotation marks around it.
Unlike high school, there’s money to be made at the collegiate level. Ohio State generates enough revenue to make a lot of professional franchises jealous and a big reason for the tidy profit is that the players don’t draw salaries. Like the NFL, the NCAA inks hefty television contracts and locally schools are able to negotiate radio rights. Endorsements and sponsorships roll in every year but the players take the field for free. Some equate the scholarship to a salary but when you consider the revenue generated by the NCAA a scholarship is hardly fair compensation.
That’s why the biggest and best programs cheat, and the NCAA lets them. USC encountered a shallow puddle of tepid water when stories of Reggie Bush’s financial arrangements surfaced. Officially the NCAA is investigating but anybody who has followed these investigations knows that findings aren’t always objective and the crimes are often molded to fit the punishment. The NCAA doesn’t want to disrupt its cash flow by putting the screws to a consistently profitable program and USC is the cornerstone of the NCAA’s western market. Don’t count on USC to receive much more than a firm slap on the wrist if anything.
The NCAA gave Ohio State the wink and nudge routine when Maurice Clarett encountered some trouble. Even though the paper trail led right up to Jim Tressel’s office, Ohio State was able to demonstrate plausible deniability and Clarett shouldered the blame for any and all wrong doing. Even though there were credible allegations that Clarett cheated in several classes and was violating NCAA rules when the Buckeyes beat Miami for the 2002 BCS Championship, the NCAA didn’t issue any sanctions that jeopardized the season. Was that because Ohio State was clean, or was it because Ohio State generates millions of dollars in profits for the NCAA?
Tressel, by the way, is no stranger to NCAA infractions. While coaching the Youngstown State Penguins, where he won four Division I-aa national titles, Tressel was part of a pay-to-play scandal. YSU was slapped with a minor sanction for failure to maintain institutional control over certain aspects of the program but other allegations went unexamined. The NCAA did enough to sustain the appearance of propriety.
Tressel’s not alone. Scandals have plagued big programs around the country. Bobby Bowden is notorious for looking the other way, Barry Switzer was effectively run out of the college ranks for blatantly paying his players. Dennis Erickson’s Miami teams were rife with controversy but only the most outlandish violations draw meaningful sanctions from the NCAA. It’s when schools go so far as to embarrass the NCAA that the wrath of the NCAA is felt. As long as an effort is made to maintain the image of propriety, the NCAA will skew its investigations to implicate the players and not the program.
The NCAA is a powerful monopoly. It has conspired with the NFL to prohibit players from pursuing a professional football career until they are at least three seasons removed from their graduations. While the NFL doesn’t officially require players to play three years of college football, what other choice is there?
And choice is the last thing college players have. Once a player commits to a particular school transferring to a more favorable setting is difficult. The NCAA discourages players from transferring by requiring them to sit out a full season. Some provisions make it impossible for a player to pick up a scholarship from another program. On one hand, this discourages players from behaving irrationally and transferring every time they have a problem but the NCAA doesn’t make any distinction in the reasons for transferring. The junior running back that lost his starting job to the next Barry Sanders? The pocket passer who saw the coaches who recruited him fired in favor of some yahoo with a spread offense? The linebacker who was just told to gain 50 pounds and play tackle? Too bad.
Of course the NCAA doesn’t have a problem with coaches who can’t keep commitments. Rich Rodriguez is in good standing in spite of lying about his flirtations with Michigan and then refusing to coach his team in the Fiesta Bowl. Bobby Petrino left the Louisville Cardinals in lurch to pursue an NFL job with the Falcons. Then he left the Falcons high and dry to take over the Arkansas job. If the NCAA is going to allow guys who demonstrate a track record of greed and dishonestly to continue coaching why should the players be restricted in their options. A regular student can transfer at will without penalty. A student who participates in a NCAA sanctioned sport can transfer without restriction but a football player under scholarship has to jump through hoops and sit out a year. Why?
Money. The NCAA knows that an unfettered transfer process would make it impossible for bigger programs to sit on talented players. When Troy Smith won his Heisman trophy his backup was a blue chip recruit who was considered one of the top quarterback prospects in the country. Justin Zwick patiently sat on the bench waiting for his turn and lost the starting job to Smith. The rest is history…much like Zwick’s career. If Zwick could have transferred without penalty to another Division I-a program he might have polished his game in system better suited to his skills and developed into an NFL quarterback. In the end, Zwick stayed put and faded into obscurity but you can bet Ohio State felt pretty good about having a fifth year senior riding the pine behind their star player.
And that’s not Ohio State’s fault. As an Ohio resident and a Buckeye fan I watched Zwick’s career up close. He threw a nice looking ball and had the physical attributes NFL scouts love. Maybe he was missing some of the intangibles or maybe he was mired in a program that doesn’t know how to develop great quarterbacks. Troy Smith might have won the Heisman, but he’s got a long road ahead of him in the NFL and Ohio State isn’t known for producing great signal callers at the next level.
The fact of the matter is that the last thing the NCAA cares about is the student athlete. Everything is in the best interest of money. And the players don’t see a dime. At least not officially.
The NCAA crowned its national champion in football with the officially unofficial BCS Championship game. It’s unofficial because at the formerly anointed Division I-a level, bowls are not formally part of the NCAA season.
During bowl season we hear a lot of talk about student athletes. It’s designed to make us feel good about what college football represents. The NCAA would have us believe that these young men are playing football for the love of the game while they better themselves through a well-rounded college education. The reality couldn’t be further from the truth.
Nothing typifies a good thing gone bad like the two teams in the BCS Championship Game. While both Louisiana State University and The Ohio State University both excel on the field both programs leave quite a bit to be desired in the class room. An astonishing number of athletes spend more than four years on campus and yet still fail to obtain a degree and those who graduate seldom do so in a curriculum of any value. Look through the roster of either team and you’ll see a lot of players majoring in things that seem rather vague and quite impractical.
To be fair, successful programs such as Ohio State attract players who are destined to play in the NFL and many choose to leave early. While fans and educators often lament the early departure it’s hard to fault the players for being lured away. They simply want to get paid for their vocation.
You see, once you get to the collegiate level football isn’t always fun. Players are required to juggle a full academic schedule, for whatever its worth, with a full athletic schedule. Officially coaches are limited to the number of hours they can require the so-called student athletes to focus on football but unofficially the players are coerced into participating in voluntary practices and film study sessions led by team captains who report directly to the coaching staff. Even at the high school level athletes know that the term voluntary always comes with quotation marks around it.
Unlike high school, there’s money to be made at the collegiate level. Ohio State generates enough revenue to make a lot of professional franchises jealous and a big reason for the tidy profit is that the players don’t draw salaries. Like the NFL, the NCAA inks hefty television contracts and locally schools are able to negotiate radio rights. Endorsements and sponsorships roll in every year but the players take the field for free. Some equate the scholarship to a salary but when you consider the revenue generated by the NCAA a scholarship is hardly fair compensation.
That’s why the biggest and best programs cheat, and the NCAA lets them. USC encountered a shallow puddle of tepid water when stories of Reggie Bush’s financial arrangements surfaced. Officially the NCAA is investigating but anybody who has followed these investigations knows that findings aren’t always objective and the crimes are often molded to fit the punishment. The NCAA doesn’t want to disrupt its cash flow by putting the screws to a consistently profitable program and USC is the cornerstone of the NCAA’s western market. Don’t count on USC to receive much more than a firm slap on the wrist if anything.
The NCAA gave Ohio State the wink and nudge routine when Maurice Clarett encountered some trouble. Even though the paper trail led right up to Jim Tressel’s office, Ohio State was able to demonstrate plausible deniability and Clarett shouldered the blame for any and all wrong doing. Even though there were credible allegations that Clarett cheated in several classes and was violating NCAA rules when the Buckeyes beat Miami for the 2002 BCS Championship, the NCAA didn’t issue any sanctions that jeopardized the season. Was that because Ohio State was clean, or was it because Ohio State generates millions of dollars in profits for the NCAA?
Tressel, by the way, is no stranger to NCAA infractions. While coaching the Youngstown State Penguins, where he won four Division I-aa national titles, Tressel was part of a pay-to-play scandal. YSU was slapped with a minor sanction for failure to maintain institutional control over certain aspects of the program but other allegations went unexamined. The NCAA did enough to sustain the appearance of propriety.
Tressel’s not alone. Scandals have plagued big programs around the country. Bobby Bowden is notorious for looking the other way, Barry Switzer was effectively run out of the college ranks for blatantly paying his players. Dennis Erickson’s Miami teams were rife with controversy but only the most outlandish violations draw meaningful sanctions from the NCAA. It’s when schools go so far as to embarrass the NCAA that the wrath of the NCAA is felt. As long as an effort is made to maintain the image of propriety, the NCAA will skew its investigations to implicate the players and not the program.
The NCAA is a powerful monopoly. It has conspired with the NFL to prohibit players from pursuing a professional football career until they are at least three seasons removed from their graduations. While the NFL doesn’t officially require players to play three years of college football, what other choice is there?
And choice is the last thing college players have. Once a player commits to a particular school transferring to a more favorable setting is difficult. The NCAA discourages players from transferring by requiring them to sit out a full season. Some provisions make it impossible for a player to pick up a scholarship from another program. On one hand, this discourages players from behaving irrationally and transferring every time they have a problem but the NCAA doesn’t make any distinction in the reasons for transferring. The junior running back that lost his starting job to the next Barry Sanders? The pocket passer who saw the coaches who recruited him fired in favor of some yahoo with a spread offense? The linebacker who was just told to gain 50 pounds and play tackle? Too bad.
Of course the NCAA doesn’t have a problem with coaches who can’t keep commitments. Rich Rodriguez is in good standing in spite of lying about his flirtations with Michigan and then refusing to coach his team in the Fiesta Bowl. Bobby Petrino left the Louisville Cardinals in lurch to pursue an NFL job with the Falcons. Then he left the Falcons high and dry to take over the Arkansas job. If the NCAA is going to allow guys who demonstrate a track record of greed and dishonestly to continue coaching why should the players be restricted in their options. A regular student can transfer at will without penalty. A student who participates in a NCAA sanctioned sport can transfer without restriction but a football player under scholarship has to jump through hoops and sit out a year. Why?
Money. The NCAA knows that an unfettered transfer process would make it impossible for bigger programs to sit on talented players. When Troy Smith won his Heisman trophy his backup was a blue chip recruit who was considered one of the top quarterback prospects in the country. Justin Zwick patiently sat on the bench waiting for his turn and lost the starting job to Smith. The rest is history…much like Zwick’s career. If Zwick could have transferred without penalty to another Division I-a program he might have polished his game in system better suited to his skills and developed into an NFL quarterback. In the end, Zwick stayed put and faded into obscurity but you can bet Ohio State felt pretty good about having a fifth year senior riding the pine behind their star player.
And that’s not Ohio State’s fault. As an Ohio resident and a Buckeye fan I watched Zwick’s career up close. He threw a nice looking ball and had the physical attributes NFL scouts love. Maybe he was missing some of the intangibles or maybe he was mired in a program that doesn’t know how to develop great quarterbacks. Troy Smith might have won the Heisman, but he’s got a long road ahead of him in the NFL and Ohio State isn’t known for producing great signal callers at the next level.
The fact of the matter is that the last thing the NCAA cares about is the student athlete. Everything is in the best interest of money. And the players don’t see a dime. At least not officially.
Monday, December 10, 2007
So, What Next?
It’s hard to say whether Michael Vick’s 23 month sentence fits the crime or not. On one hand, by legal definition, dogs are simply property. In recent years steps have been taken to enforce animal cruelty legislation but penalties are sometimes laughable. You would face more severe consequences for getting pulled over with a bong in your front seat than you would if you happened to be dragging a dog behind your car.
On one hand, Vick didn’t hurt anybody. He ran an illegal dog fighting ring. The 23 months he was sentenced to serves as punishment for breaking interstate commerce laws. The animal cruelty charges carried minor penalties. Ultimately Vick didn’t commit a crime against another person. He is not a threat to himself or others. So 23 months seems kind of steep, if you’re being objective.
Of course it’s hard to be objective. Like so many people, I too love dogs. It’s really hard for me to dismiss Vicks crimes as victimless when I think about what dog fighting entails. Even if Vick hadn’t been accused of brutally exterminating dogs that didn’t perform to his expectations I would still want to see a sentence of significant duration. Even if Vick walks the straight and narrow in prison the best he can hope for is to trim three months off his sentence. That means he’ll be in prison until the summer of 2009. That’s a long time. Long enough to drive home a powerful message.
I have no doubt that Vick’s days of dabbling in illegal enterprises are over. I have serious doubts as to whether or not I could handle nearly two years of incarceration. That’s a long time to sit in stir. Vick’s punishment, however, goes well beyond the prison sentence. He has become a pariah. He stands to loose millions of dollars while he is in prison while former employers and sponsors seek to recoup money paid to Vick in good faith that he would remain a respectable spokesman. Vick could emerge from prison carrying substantial debt with no means to earn an income sufficient to recoup his losses. The NFL is not obliged to reinstate him and even if he does get a nod from Commissioner Roger Goodell, Vick will not command a high salary.
The question is whether or not this is worthwhile. Vick’s punishment is fair provided it helps discourage the underground activity of dog fighting. If the Federal Court pursues less recognizable practitioners with similar zeal we might take a big step toward putting an end to the brutal endeavor. If the Court continues to treat low profile suspects with kid gloves then Vick’s punishment is nothing but window dressing and it will prove to be horrible unfair and arbitrarily punitive.
Michael Vick’s received his punishment. He is on his way to paying his debt to society. Now it’s time to let Michael Vick go about the business of earning a second chance. Rather than worrying about what will happen when Vick gets out of prison we need to focus on the criminal justice system. Was this just a good show for the cameras?
On one hand, Vick didn’t hurt anybody. He ran an illegal dog fighting ring. The 23 months he was sentenced to serves as punishment for breaking interstate commerce laws. The animal cruelty charges carried minor penalties. Ultimately Vick didn’t commit a crime against another person. He is not a threat to himself or others. So 23 months seems kind of steep, if you’re being objective.
Of course it’s hard to be objective. Like so many people, I too love dogs. It’s really hard for me to dismiss Vicks crimes as victimless when I think about what dog fighting entails. Even if Vick hadn’t been accused of brutally exterminating dogs that didn’t perform to his expectations I would still want to see a sentence of significant duration. Even if Vick walks the straight and narrow in prison the best he can hope for is to trim three months off his sentence. That means he’ll be in prison until the summer of 2009. That’s a long time. Long enough to drive home a powerful message.
I have no doubt that Vick’s days of dabbling in illegal enterprises are over. I have serious doubts as to whether or not I could handle nearly two years of incarceration. That’s a long time to sit in stir. Vick’s punishment, however, goes well beyond the prison sentence. He has become a pariah. He stands to loose millions of dollars while he is in prison while former employers and sponsors seek to recoup money paid to Vick in good faith that he would remain a respectable spokesman. Vick could emerge from prison carrying substantial debt with no means to earn an income sufficient to recoup his losses. The NFL is not obliged to reinstate him and even if he does get a nod from Commissioner Roger Goodell, Vick will not command a high salary.
The question is whether or not this is worthwhile. Vick’s punishment is fair provided it helps discourage the underground activity of dog fighting. If the Federal Court pursues less recognizable practitioners with similar zeal we might take a big step toward putting an end to the brutal endeavor. If the Court continues to treat low profile suspects with kid gloves then Vick’s punishment is nothing but window dressing and it will prove to be horrible unfair and arbitrarily punitive.
Michael Vick’s received his punishment. He is on his way to paying his debt to society. Now it’s time to let Michael Vick go about the business of earning a second chance. Rather than worrying about what will happen when Vick gets out of prison we need to focus on the criminal justice system. Was this just a good show for the cameras?
Wednesday, October 24, 2007
In the Name of God
The Golden Compass is the first book in the controversial His Dark Materials trilogy, by Phillip Pullman. The film adaptation, starring Daniel Craig and Nicole Kidman, will be coming to theaters this December. Even though nobody has had a chance to screen the movie conservative Christian groups such as the Catholic League have gone on the offensive. Bill Donohue, the Grand Inquisitor of the Catholic League is furious because Pullman is allegedly a “militant atheist” who penned his trilogy to encourage impressionable teens to question their faith. Even if the movie softens its content to deal with more abstract conventions, Donohue maintains that it will draw readers to the books where Pullman’s viscous agenda is unchecked by Hollywood executives.
The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Rowan Williams, disagrees. He read the trilogy and met with Phillip Pullman. Dr. Williams sees the books as a direct challenge to dogmatism. While Pullman formally identifies himself as a humanist, he does not have an axe to grind with religion in general but the power structure within organized religion that utilizes fear to instill a sense of conformity and compliance. That’s actually a pretty common trait among atheists and agnostics.
In 1999, Kevin Smith released a brilliant exploration into his own religious background. Smith, a Catholic, examined his faith with a satirical eye and delved into the roots of spirituality. The result was a hilariously clever but poignant movie entitled Dogma. Before Dogma was even released Bill Donohue and his minions were out in force protesting the release of the film and demanding boycotts. Ultimately Smith’s film was not an indictment of religion so much as it was man’s ability to corrupt it. Kevin Smith rarely pulls punches with his writing, and casting Chris Rock as the voice of reason made it difficult for a lot of people to absorb the message but in the end Dogma lets God off the hook and indicts man for the flaws in religion. Of course most of the people who could keep the vulgar content of the movie in perspective and actually get the point were lost when they saw who Smith cast in the role of God.
The problem with people like Donohue is that they refuse to open their minds. It’s OK for Mel Gibson to rake in millions of dollars by cashing in on Christ but the minute somebody challenges the authority of organized religion they call for boycotts. These people behave like spoiled children, throwing monumental tantrums whenever anything doesn’t go their way. There’s no civility or respect, just pigheaded protests. Donohue sometimes goes beyond acts of civil disobedience filing lawsuits and even employing borderline criminal intimidation tactics to force people to comply with his agenda.
Ironically, Donohue is a perfect example of religion gone bad. He’s a blustering, beet-faced bully who spends so much time preaching from on high he doesn’t see the fact that he is the problem. Donohue is all about money, power and control…which is exactly what Jesus took issue with when he threw the merchants out of the temple.
Donohue doesn’t practice Christianity as defined by Jesus. He embodies the sort of imperialistic dogmatism that stigmatizes organized religion. Donohue’s Catholicism protects pedophiles from the criminal justice system because the Church must appear infallible. Donohue’s Catholicism has a high powered legal team. Donohue’s Catholicism spends more time waging a war on the way people express their holiday wishes rather than simply expressing his. Here’s an idea: Do unto others as you would have others do unto you. Ring a bell? Jesus approached those who denied him with open arms; Donohue, and his ilk, does it with a clenched fist.
The Golden Compass is not an attack on faith at all, it’s a critique of those who exploit faith for personal gain. For centuries religion has been used to control and oppress people. Its purpose was to consolidate power within the confines of the Church hierarchy. The reason Donohue and the Catholic League take it so personally is because no religious institution has been so corrupt for so long. That’s not an indictment of Catholics, most of whom are wonderful people; the problem is with executive branch of the Church headquartered in Rome. For more than a thousand years the Vatican has positioned itself in front of God. Critics of Catholicism believe that Catholics actually worship the Pope and for a number of years that was the case. This is why old school Catholics, like Donohue, refuse to acknowledge the fallibility in their own religion. If the Vatican is flawed so is the entire religion. It’s hard to find another religion that has been so successful at putting God’s reputed power in the hands of a few men. When it happens on a smaller scale, society calls it a cult.
That’s what makes religion dangerous. When people suspend rationality and put their faith in a dogma created by man rather than spiritual concepts they become slaves to dogmatism. That is the basis of atheism. The problem isn’t with God, it’s with man. The Golden Compass is the latest installment of an exploration into the nature of religion. It’s going to ask questions and challenge conventions. If that makes you uneasy you’re on the wrong spiritual path.
The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Rowan Williams, disagrees. He read the trilogy and met with Phillip Pullman. Dr. Williams sees the books as a direct challenge to dogmatism. While Pullman formally identifies himself as a humanist, he does not have an axe to grind with religion in general but the power structure within organized religion that utilizes fear to instill a sense of conformity and compliance. That’s actually a pretty common trait among atheists and agnostics.
In 1999, Kevin Smith released a brilliant exploration into his own religious background. Smith, a Catholic, examined his faith with a satirical eye and delved into the roots of spirituality. The result was a hilariously clever but poignant movie entitled Dogma. Before Dogma was even released Bill Donohue and his minions were out in force protesting the release of the film and demanding boycotts. Ultimately Smith’s film was not an indictment of religion so much as it was man’s ability to corrupt it. Kevin Smith rarely pulls punches with his writing, and casting Chris Rock as the voice of reason made it difficult for a lot of people to absorb the message but in the end Dogma lets God off the hook and indicts man for the flaws in religion. Of course most of the people who could keep the vulgar content of the movie in perspective and actually get the point were lost when they saw who Smith cast in the role of God.
The problem with people like Donohue is that they refuse to open their minds. It’s OK for Mel Gibson to rake in millions of dollars by cashing in on Christ but the minute somebody challenges the authority of organized religion they call for boycotts. These people behave like spoiled children, throwing monumental tantrums whenever anything doesn’t go their way. There’s no civility or respect, just pigheaded protests. Donohue sometimes goes beyond acts of civil disobedience filing lawsuits and even employing borderline criminal intimidation tactics to force people to comply with his agenda.
Ironically, Donohue is a perfect example of religion gone bad. He’s a blustering, beet-faced bully who spends so much time preaching from on high he doesn’t see the fact that he is the problem. Donohue is all about money, power and control…which is exactly what Jesus took issue with when he threw the merchants out of the temple.
Donohue doesn’t practice Christianity as defined by Jesus. He embodies the sort of imperialistic dogmatism that stigmatizes organized religion. Donohue’s Catholicism protects pedophiles from the criminal justice system because the Church must appear infallible. Donohue’s Catholicism has a high powered legal team. Donohue’s Catholicism spends more time waging a war on the way people express their holiday wishes rather than simply expressing his. Here’s an idea: Do unto others as you would have others do unto you. Ring a bell? Jesus approached those who denied him with open arms; Donohue, and his ilk, does it with a clenched fist.
The Golden Compass is not an attack on faith at all, it’s a critique of those who exploit faith for personal gain. For centuries religion has been used to control and oppress people. Its purpose was to consolidate power within the confines of the Church hierarchy. The reason Donohue and the Catholic League take it so personally is because no religious institution has been so corrupt for so long. That’s not an indictment of Catholics, most of whom are wonderful people; the problem is with executive branch of the Church headquartered in Rome. For more than a thousand years the Vatican has positioned itself in front of God. Critics of Catholicism believe that Catholics actually worship the Pope and for a number of years that was the case. This is why old school Catholics, like Donohue, refuse to acknowledge the fallibility in their own religion. If the Vatican is flawed so is the entire religion. It’s hard to find another religion that has been so successful at putting God’s reputed power in the hands of a few men. When it happens on a smaller scale, society calls it a cult.
That’s what makes religion dangerous. When people suspend rationality and put their faith in a dogma created by man rather than spiritual concepts they become slaves to dogmatism. That is the basis of atheism. The problem isn’t with God, it’s with man. The Golden Compass is the latest installment of an exploration into the nature of religion. It’s going to ask questions and challenge conventions. If that makes you uneasy you’re on the wrong spiritual path.
Tuesday, October 02, 2007
Due Process Compromised by Political Aspirations
Shameless self promotion and justice don't mix.
In spite of its many flaws our criminal justice system is superior to most around the world because of the presumption of innocence. Until a person pleads or is proven guilty they are presumed to be innocent. While the court of public opinion is willing to take an arresting officer at his word the court of law cannot.
In the grand scheme of things a misdemeanor charge of solicitation is not a big deal. Greater crimes are committed every day and one could make the case that prostitution is a victimless crime that really isn’t worth fighting. Why invest all that money in vice when those crimes generally involve consenting adults?
Prostitution rarely entails jail time. Public interests simply aren’t served when tax dollars are spent feeding and housing people who buy or sell sex. These cases are of such little importance most prosecutors amend the charges to petty offenses such as disorderly conduct. Small fines are paid and people are sent on their way.
Antonio Henton is a promising young football player for the Ohio State Buckeyes. He’s a third string quarterback who has athletic ability reminiscent of Heisman Trophy winner Troy Smith. Most people around the country haven’t heard of him because he doesn’t play but in the microcosm that is Columbus he is a celebrity. So when Antonio tried to solicit sex from an undercover officer late one September evening the ensuing arrest was big news.
In Columbus police often practice a catch and release tactic when it comes to vice. A wayward man will get caught trying to close a deal for a 20 dollar holler and spend 15 minutes wearing handcuffs in the back of a squad car while the police run his criminal record and humiliate him. If he’s got no priors and seems sufficiently deterred from future indiscretions they’ll let him go. No need to ruin a guy’s life over a blow job.
Not too long ago Columbus vice officers busted a full service upscale brothel just outside of downtown. Much ado was made over the operation which had been infiltrated and tracked for months. It was reported that the clients who visited the brothel were high profile businessmen and public figures in the area but prosecutors decided to drop charges against all parties except for the brothel’s owner, Tamara Flory. She was sentenced to a few months in prison and released to probation for the next several years.
So precedent has been set. Prostitution is no big deal but yet Antonio Henton was arrested and it qualified as breaking news. Local channels interrupted regular programming with a crawl that announced Henton’s arrest and temporary incarceration. He spent the night in jail and was arraigned the next morning. That’s where things took an interesting turn.
The only place a person should expect justice is in the court room. The general public will jump to conclusions, police will make mistakes and the media will sensationalize a story to draw more viewers to the 11 o’clock broadcast of the local news. The court is the only place where judgment is not passed until justice is served and the judge is the only person who can see it through. We elect judges to be fair and impartial when others are not.
Amy Salerno is the judge who presided over Antonio Henton’s arraignment. Not surprisingly Henton entered a plea of not guilty and requested bail. Instead of recording the plea and advising Henton of his obligations Salerno lambasted the young college student with an opportunistic diatribe that one can only assume she labored over until the wee hours.
"Mr. Henton: I have to tell you sir that I and many fans and graduates of Ohio State University are very disappointed to see you here today in my courtroom. Considering, sir, the fact that you are an ambassador of Ohio State University; your visibility in the community, you need to keep that in mind, sir. "As well as the fact that you need to show up at court and henceforth you need to conduct yourself and comport your actions according to your status in the community, sir. "I can tell, sir, your head is hung down and you're looking extremely sad. I know you do not wish to disappoint your team members either, sir. I will give you a $2,500 cash or surety bond or appearance bond. Gook luck, sir, both off and on the field. Thank You."
It was a fine lecture and perfectly appropriate if Henton had entered a guilty plea but given the fact that a defendant is supposed to be presumed innocent until proven guilty, Salerno’s comments were out of line. In fact, Salerno’s comments seem prejudicial and might very well serve to compromise the prosecution’s case. How can Henton expect a fair trial when his arraigning judge opted to address him in such an inappropriate and unprecedented manner? It would not be surprising to see the case get dismissed before the trial date and if Henton is found guilty it could be overturned on appeal. Salerno should know better.
I’ve been in a courtroom. Like Henton I was arrested for a first degree misdemeanor. Unlike Henton I was able to post bond within minutes and spent only a few hours locked up where as Henton spent the night in a cell and reported to his arraignment in prison garb and handcuffs. I was able to plead not guilty in a shirt and a tie. I did not speak to a judge not did a judge address me. I entered my plea with a paralegal who handed me a paper outlining the rest of the process. While I wasn’t facing charges of soliciting I was sitting next to a man who was and he received the same treatment. So I personally think that Henton was given undue attention given the nature of the charges but I’m not a judge or an attorney so I can’t attest to it from a legal perspective. I just know my experience did not include a lecture from the judge. To be honest, I was disappointed with the assembly line manner in which everything was handled.
Even if Henton’s arraignment wasn’t out of line, the manner in which Salerno addressed him was. It resembled a closing statement after a guilty verdict. Licking County Common Pleas Judge P. Randall Knece agreed in a response to Columbus Dispatch columnist Ann Fisher’s column on the matter. The full text of his email can be read on her blog.
Salerno’s comments reveal a serious problem with our criminal justice system. Salerno is a career politician. She has been walking the streets of Columbus politics for the better part of 25 years. When she realized a prominent Ohio State athlete was on her morning docket she smelled opportunity so she loaded up those Law and Order DVDs and stayed up all night practicing her landmark statement. The only problem is that is was completely out of line for the context of that case. She laid on the heavy drama and played to the cameras, which are a rare fixture in the Franklin County Courthouse, hoping to mine that soapbox moment in November. It was a clear cut case of premature judicial ejaculation. Salerno got all excited about a high profile case and shot her legal wad all over the arraignment. Gross? You bet…a gross miscarriage of justice.
When former Ohio State superstar Maurice Clarett faced the much more severe charges of armed robbery an carrying a concealed weapon his judge didn’t go out of his way to enter a sobering statement during the arraignment. In fact, Maurice didn’t hear such strong words after he accepted a plea and faced sentencing. What compelled Salerno to make such a scene in a much less important setting?
Henton isn’t a menace to society and his crime has no victims. If Salerno sabotaged the case with her ego and Henton goes free people can still sleep at night. If Salerno’s comments end up sealing Henton’s fate and he is found guilty he’ll pay a few hundred dollars in fines and court costs and be on his merry way. The problem isn’t what Salerno did to Henton. The problem is that Salerno has made it clear that our criminal justice system is fragile and that a rogue judge with an agenda can easily compromise the one principal that sets our system apart. Can we trust a judge like Salerno to handle more serious crimes? In the end, Salerno is guilty of a much more severe crime than that which Henton is accused of. We’re fortunate the charges weren’t more severe.
Innocent until proven guilty? It’s not supposed to be conditional.
In the grand scheme of things a misdemeanor charge of solicitation is not a big deal. Greater crimes are committed every day and one could make the case that prostitution is a victimless crime that really isn’t worth fighting. Why invest all that money in vice when those crimes generally involve consenting adults?
Prostitution rarely entails jail time. Public interests simply aren’t served when tax dollars are spent feeding and housing people who buy or sell sex. These cases are of such little importance most prosecutors amend the charges to petty offenses such as disorderly conduct. Small fines are paid and people are sent on their way.
Antonio Henton is a promising young football player for the Ohio State Buckeyes. He’s a third string quarterback who has athletic ability reminiscent of Heisman Trophy winner Troy Smith. Most people around the country haven’t heard of him because he doesn’t play but in the microcosm that is Columbus he is a celebrity. So when Antonio tried to solicit sex from an undercover officer late one September evening the ensuing arrest was big news.
In Columbus police often practice a catch and release tactic when it comes to vice. A wayward man will get caught trying to close a deal for a 20 dollar holler and spend 15 minutes wearing handcuffs in the back of a squad car while the police run his criminal record and humiliate him. If he’s got no priors and seems sufficiently deterred from future indiscretions they’ll let him go. No need to ruin a guy’s life over a blow job.
Not too long ago Columbus vice officers busted a full service upscale brothel just outside of downtown. Much ado was made over the operation which had been infiltrated and tracked for months. It was reported that the clients who visited the brothel were high profile businessmen and public figures in the area but prosecutors decided to drop charges against all parties except for the brothel’s owner, Tamara Flory. She was sentenced to a few months in prison and released to probation for the next several years.
So precedent has been set. Prostitution is no big deal but yet Antonio Henton was arrested and it qualified as breaking news. Local channels interrupted regular programming with a crawl that announced Henton’s arrest and temporary incarceration. He spent the night in jail and was arraigned the next morning. That’s where things took an interesting turn.
The only place a person should expect justice is in the court room. The general public will jump to conclusions, police will make mistakes and the media will sensationalize a story to draw more viewers to the 11 o’clock broadcast of the local news. The court is the only place where judgment is not passed until justice is served and the judge is the only person who can see it through. We elect judges to be fair and impartial when others are not.
Amy Salerno is the judge who presided over Antonio Henton’s arraignment. Not surprisingly Henton entered a plea of not guilty and requested bail. Instead of recording the plea and advising Henton of his obligations Salerno lambasted the young college student with an opportunistic diatribe that one can only assume she labored over until the wee hours.
"Mr. Henton: I have to tell you sir that I and many fans and graduates of Ohio State University are very disappointed to see you here today in my courtroom. Considering, sir, the fact that you are an ambassador of Ohio State University; your visibility in the community, you need to keep that in mind, sir. "As well as the fact that you need to show up at court and henceforth you need to conduct yourself and comport your actions according to your status in the community, sir. "I can tell, sir, your head is hung down and you're looking extremely sad. I know you do not wish to disappoint your team members either, sir. I will give you a $2,500 cash or surety bond or appearance bond. Gook luck, sir, both off and on the field. Thank You."
It was a fine lecture and perfectly appropriate if Henton had entered a guilty plea but given the fact that a defendant is supposed to be presumed innocent until proven guilty, Salerno’s comments were out of line. In fact, Salerno’s comments seem prejudicial and might very well serve to compromise the prosecution’s case. How can Henton expect a fair trial when his arraigning judge opted to address him in such an inappropriate and unprecedented manner? It would not be surprising to see the case get dismissed before the trial date and if Henton is found guilty it could be overturned on appeal. Salerno should know better.
I’ve been in a courtroom. Like Henton I was arrested for a first degree misdemeanor. Unlike Henton I was able to post bond within minutes and spent only a few hours locked up where as Henton spent the night in a cell and reported to his arraignment in prison garb and handcuffs. I was able to plead not guilty in a shirt and a tie. I did not speak to a judge not did a judge address me. I entered my plea with a paralegal who handed me a paper outlining the rest of the process. While I wasn’t facing charges of soliciting I was sitting next to a man who was and he received the same treatment. So I personally think that Henton was given undue attention given the nature of the charges but I’m not a judge or an attorney so I can’t attest to it from a legal perspective. I just know my experience did not include a lecture from the judge. To be honest, I was disappointed with the assembly line manner in which everything was handled.
Even if Henton’s arraignment wasn’t out of line, the manner in which Salerno addressed him was. It resembled a closing statement after a guilty verdict. Licking County Common Pleas Judge P. Randall Knece agreed in a response to Columbus Dispatch columnist Ann Fisher’s column on the matter. The full text of his email can be read on her blog.
Salerno’s comments reveal a serious problem with our criminal justice system. Salerno is a career politician. She has been walking the streets of Columbus politics for the better part of 25 years. When she realized a prominent Ohio State athlete was on her morning docket she smelled opportunity so she loaded up those Law and Order DVDs and stayed up all night practicing her landmark statement. The only problem is that is was completely out of line for the context of that case. She laid on the heavy drama and played to the cameras, which are a rare fixture in the Franklin County Courthouse, hoping to mine that soapbox moment in November. It was a clear cut case of premature judicial ejaculation. Salerno got all excited about a high profile case and shot her legal wad all over the arraignment. Gross? You bet…a gross miscarriage of justice.
When former Ohio State superstar Maurice Clarett faced the much more severe charges of armed robbery an carrying a concealed weapon his judge didn’t go out of his way to enter a sobering statement during the arraignment. In fact, Maurice didn’t hear such strong words after he accepted a plea and faced sentencing. What compelled Salerno to make such a scene in a much less important setting?
Henton isn’t a menace to society and his crime has no victims. If Salerno sabotaged the case with her ego and Henton goes free people can still sleep at night. If Salerno’s comments end up sealing Henton’s fate and he is found guilty he’ll pay a few hundred dollars in fines and court costs and be on his merry way. The problem isn’t what Salerno did to Henton. The problem is that Salerno has made it clear that our criminal justice system is fragile and that a rogue judge with an agenda can easily compromise the one principal that sets our system apart. Can we trust a judge like Salerno to handle more serious crimes? In the end, Salerno is guilty of a much more severe crime than that which Henton is accused of. We’re fortunate the charges weren’t more severe.
Innocent until proven guilty? It’s not supposed to be conditional.
Friday, September 28, 2007
The Great Racial Divide
Republican pundits often complain that minorities, particular African Americans, are tricked into believing that the Democrats have their best interests at heart. They counter that the Democratic Party has made the African American community dependent on handouts and softened standards that make it impossible for minorities to compete in the open market. It’s an interesting point, inherently flawed but undeniably interesting.
Most minority groups believe that Republicans just don’t care about their needs. Colin Powell once criticized the Republican Party for wanting to tell African Americans what they need rather than engage African American leaders in a discussion about what they want. And the truth is that the social programs Democrats have tried to implement fail because Republicans are consistently trying to dismantle them. Rather than offering some ideas on how to build upon affirmative action and use it to achieve true progress, Republican want to tear it down and let the open market dictate social progress. The problem is that we have already been there…it was called segregation.
Minority leaders insist that they are not biased against Republicans at all; the problem is that the Republican Party ignores them. This point was driven home Thursday night at the All-American Presidential Forum at Morgan State University. The debate was intended to showcase Republican candidates addressing issues important to the African American community. The top four Republican candidates declined to attend. According to moderator Tavis Smiley, some of the campaigns declined to participate because the crowd was expected to be hostile and unreceptive but the official excuse for skipping the event was scheduling conflicts.
Fred Thompson, John McCain, Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney were all busy raising money for their respective campaigns. Of course the six candidates who did show played to the crowd and took their shots at the front runners but Newt Gringrich even called them out stating that the invitations for the debate were sent out in March providing every candidate with ample opportunity to make proper arrangements. The four Republican front runners also skipped a forum earlier this summer hosted by the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials.
While everybody acknowledges that the African American community is not likely to support a Republican candidate anytime soon, the snub drives home the point that Republicans just don’t care. Former Representative J.C. Watts, a rare African American Republican, characterized the decision not to participate as stupid and said that it reinforces the belief that race is an issue with most Republican candidates. The White House even released a statement reiterating the importance of reaching out to every community.
So why would these front running candidates have the audacity to skip such an event? The simple fact of the matter is that the heart and soul of the Republican Party is the angry white male. Listen to the pundits. Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, and Ann Coulter all rail against minority groups and the programs that are designed to help them. In 2000 Karl Rove sabotaged John McCain’s campaign by calling registered Republican voters in the south and informing them that McCain was father to a biracial child. It was true that McCain had adopted a child from Asia but the implication was that McCain had a black child and McCain was slaughtered in the primaries. Republicans sell traditional values, which means life as it was before the Civil Rights movement. Yes the good old days when the blacks were at the back of the bus, the women were in the kitchen and it was perfectly legal to run queers out of town.
As much as the Republican Party wants to play up the big tent image, the money is coming from white people with white issues on their minds. Republicans don’t care about minorities. This recent snub proves it.
Most minority groups believe that Republicans just don’t care about their needs. Colin Powell once criticized the Republican Party for wanting to tell African Americans what they need rather than engage African American leaders in a discussion about what they want. And the truth is that the social programs Democrats have tried to implement fail because Republicans are consistently trying to dismantle them. Rather than offering some ideas on how to build upon affirmative action and use it to achieve true progress, Republican want to tear it down and let the open market dictate social progress. The problem is that we have already been there…it was called segregation.
Minority leaders insist that they are not biased against Republicans at all; the problem is that the Republican Party ignores them. This point was driven home Thursday night at the All-American Presidential Forum at Morgan State University. The debate was intended to showcase Republican candidates addressing issues important to the African American community. The top four Republican candidates declined to attend. According to moderator Tavis Smiley, some of the campaigns declined to participate because the crowd was expected to be hostile and unreceptive but the official excuse for skipping the event was scheduling conflicts.
Fred Thompson, John McCain, Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney were all busy raising money for their respective campaigns. Of course the six candidates who did show played to the crowd and took their shots at the front runners but Newt Gringrich even called them out stating that the invitations for the debate were sent out in March providing every candidate with ample opportunity to make proper arrangements. The four Republican front runners also skipped a forum earlier this summer hosted by the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials.
While everybody acknowledges that the African American community is not likely to support a Republican candidate anytime soon, the snub drives home the point that Republicans just don’t care. Former Representative J.C. Watts, a rare African American Republican, characterized the decision not to participate as stupid and said that it reinforces the belief that race is an issue with most Republican candidates. The White House even released a statement reiterating the importance of reaching out to every community.
So why would these front running candidates have the audacity to skip such an event? The simple fact of the matter is that the heart and soul of the Republican Party is the angry white male. Listen to the pundits. Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, and Ann Coulter all rail against minority groups and the programs that are designed to help them. In 2000 Karl Rove sabotaged John McCain’s campaign by calling registered Republican voters in the south and informing them that McCain was father to a biracial child. It was true that McCain had adopted a child from Asia but the implication was that McCain had a black child and McCain was slaughtered in the primaries. Republicans sell traditional values, which means life as it was before the Civil Rights movement. Yes the good old days when the blacks were at the back of the bus, the women were in the kitchen and it was perfectly legal to run queers out of town.
As much as the Republican Party wants to play up the big tent image, the money is coming from white people with white issues on their minds. Republicans don’t care about minorities. This recent snub proves it.
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