Ichabod's Kin
A place for politics, pop culture, and social issues

Jul
22

What Is WRONG With These People?

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These days are nothing short of temporary social insanity. Such is human nature when stress is virtually intolerable and the body politic is hurting. I say “temporary” because we can only hope and pray that it is.

At such times, certain behaviors are excusable to a degree but there is a difference when inmates attempt takeover of the asylum. Hysteria has become a tactic and fills newscasts with perverse notions and accusations that are patently irresponsible, given the high suggestibility levels among the populace.

Boom times of not long ago were lost to the perfidy of poor foreign and monetary policy. The late systems analyst Edwin Freedman used the metaphor that anxiety is always hovering over society like a cloud, seeking a place to land–and will do so at any provocation, accidental or not, be it fear of other nations or races, e.g. Particularly toxic is the tendency to turn on ourselves.

There is a false claim that Fox network exists because conservative ideas are given no hearing in mainstream media. But among them are many who say they “don’t want to hear” the other side of any issue. I am liberal but I want to hear what others are thinking and saying. Certainly there are news sources I prefer, not because they are liberal but because they air many sides. To say otherwise is one, but not the only, of the bald lies that vex discourse in our times.

At what other time has a major news source, like Fox, dedicated itself to the ruin of our government and its president with a drumbeat of misinformation? I make sure my daily plate of news includes it, in hopes that conservative views will grace themselves with balance and integrity. But modern conservatism is now held hostage by extremists.

For scores of months CNN has given long and generous coverage to matters ranging from Katrina and Haiti to the current environmental disaster– sometimes 24/7; but when I switch to Fox I find successions of noisemakers ranting on about–big, bad liberals. Fiddling while Rome burns?

During elections, Fox weighs in with one-sided coverage of races and unrepresentative polls as if to create the future by suggestion. CNN, though scorched with accusations to the contrary, offers all manner of liberal and conservative dialogue, and moderates them with an insistence on civility. What is it that causes some people to say otherwise, except that they have no idea what is going on at CNN other than what Fox tells them?

One late night an AM station host called on “psychologists and therapists” nationwide for a gabfest of mental and character analysis of Obama. One can only guess that all were pretenders who at best give psychology a bad name. Some said they didn’t dare psychoanalyze Obama without his being their client, then gladly succumbed to the temptation–as unprofessional a tack as can be imagined. At last, Obama was formally declared to have a “narcissistic disorder.” What is wrong with these people?

Another bit of wisdom from Friedman is that leaders be “non-anxious presences” when all others are losing their minds. If anyone is a model of that it is Obama. He does not get into pissing matches with skunks and certainly not with other legitimate leaders who take substantive issue with him. Yet, as on the radio program mentioned, he was deemed dangerous to the country and to democracy.

The same critics dwell instead on the words of people who have little else to recommend themselves besides making money with their mouths. They take no responsibility, let alone accountability–Rush Limbaugh, Anne Coulter and Sarah Palin, but the list is longer. When anything happens in the world they and Fox search diligently for how it can be turned into an Obama roast and construed to be all his doing. When Challenger exploded with God and the whole world watching, I don’t recall the “liberal” media trying to make it look like his fault.

Another bit of wisdom is that nothing lasts forever. Things that ignite with such intensity and burn out of control soon consume themselves as much or more. They also breed their own internal division–in this case, recent news that Libertarians will no longer allow the Tea Party to speak for them, and are mounting opposition to Ron Paul, who predictably stumbled out of the gate from his pole position.

Another factor is when an economic climate improves–as when Father Charles Coughlin nettled FDR and the entire country, then dried up and blew away as better times returned.

I will at least not pretend to speak as a mental health professional or other than one with an opinion when I say that such persons seem to exhibit delusions of adequacy.

Pygmies casting such long shadows merely indicates how late in the day it has become. People in wiser society: it is time to speak up and engage this folly, or risk the night settling in altogether.

Categorized in Politics
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Jul
15

In Memoriam: How George Steinbrenner Compromised the Future of Baseball

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The brain of a sports fan is not a rational one. One may be a loser, broken-hearted, and victim of bad luck, bad genes or bad temper, and all is well if his fave team wins a championship.

Sports writers, announcers, SportsCenter jocks and their kin, of whom there seem to be a frightful number in the world these days, know the truth about how winning happens, especially in major league baseball, but they’ll never tell. To do so is to kill the Golden Goose and risk their jobs.

As has been wisely said, the mass of humanity have lives of quiet desperation, and our obsession with sports is Exhibit Number One that this is so.

Most people care not a fig how others make money or how winning happens in sports. Ulysses Grant won the Civil War thanks to overwhelming numbers, and did the Allies on D-Day. But there is a difference between war and sports; the latter is a matter of “game” and should be as fair and equitable as possible.

George Steinbrenner has died and sports cognoscenti have been out in force, not to bury but to praise him. Buried he will be, but any praise deserves qualified comment. Because the Boss, well before his death, planted the seeds of destruction for the Great American Game.

To say that George did anything or anybody any good is to say that he did so chiefly for himself and for baseball’s free agents. He did so for the latter as a byproduct of his willingness to spend insane amounts of money for the best ones out there and to keep his Yankees on top while everyone else chased them.

It’s already been suggested that if George is to be hurried into the Hall of Fame, that Curt Flood go there at the same time: Flood fought the battle of free agency and led finally to other players getting it. At the time, no one supported Flood and no acclaim has come his way till now, and that is only if he indeed makes it into the Hall. George owes his own success to Curt, and used free agency to pad mound, field and even bench so that victory would always be his.

Some say, well, George had the dough so why not spend it to win? But he was not the only rich team owner. Some, indeed, had losing franchises because, unlike Gotham City, they didn’t have great populations or longstanding local traditions, not to mention vast media markets. But many current owners have plenty of money and don’t mind making a profit but to them neither the game nor their teams represents the bitch goddess of ultimate success.

In another blog (“Damn Yankees,” in the Sports category) I worried that other owners might try to emulate George’s win-at-all-costs tactic but never dreamed it would be the Red Sox, who tried to out-Yank the Yanks with their disgraceful move on Daisuke Matsuzaka, spending $50 mil just to speak to him–and a similar amount to sign him. This should never have been heard of and Beantown will never make the return on that wicked investment that they paid for.

That, I ventured at the time, and inspired by Steinbrenner, was the beginning of the end for baseball and while it will take a while, its end as the Great American Game would surely arrive, by virtue of a long and agonizing death.

George’s wealth has been put at $1.1 billion, as has that of the Cubs’ Ricketts family, and the Angels’ Arte Moreno–all of whom are surpassed by Bob McLane of the Astros ($1.5 bil), John Malone of the Braves (2.4B) but none near the Mariners’ Nintendo-man owner and his 4.2B.

None but George, however, lusted so much for the Brass Ring as to spend long and senselessly. His team’s value in terms of money was and is more than twice that spent by any other club, including last year’s $450M spending spree during offseason, a rich-kids roster to be housed in the lavish Tower of Babel known as the new Yankee Stadium (while tix sales plunged 7%). Call it the House that Money Built. Another part of the success story being touted is his buying the team in ‘73 for a lousy ten million compared with its current value of 1.6B–keeping in mind it’s 95% leveraged to Stadium debt.

I recall when another year’s lineup, already a Murderer’s Row, hit a slump; the Boss found them whining in the locker room and buoyed their spirits by promisisng to go out and buy a Jason Giambi and a Bobby Abreu, just to make them all smile again–and increase their chance of winning. And he did.

More recently, as alluded to above, he shelled out a king’s ransom to bring in three more world-class, free-agent all-stars: hurlers Sabathia and Burnett–along with slugger Mark Teixeira, who by all rights (like A-Rod before him) should have been Red Sox, but at the time no one could beat the blank checks George waved in the air.

Of late they lusted after Cliff Lee but he got away and their eyes are now on Adrian Gonzalez of the Padres, a team ensconced in first place in its division but Gonzalez is their sole superstar and would go well with another recent all-star acquisition, Curtis Granderson. Call Yankee Stadium what you will, but don’t call it a level playing field.

It is the failure of baseball, that, unlike other sports, it has relied much less on farm teams, drafts and a reasonable trading system, and has been left to the mercies of the One Man who would stop at nothing to outbid everyone else and thereby harness all the talent needed to stay on top.

But isn’t that the American Way? Well, yes, the ugly part of it. The other part is better than that but will never find its way into baseball as long as the Steinbrenner boys are in charge now that the King is dead. In that regard, call George and his boys Tweedle-dee and Tweedle-dum. If, as is so commonly said, “American demands a winner,” at present we have none in the Majors that we can be truly proud of.

As said before, I don’t see how the Yankees and their fans claim to be “Number One,” with straight faces. The fix is in and the game is rigged. But why should they care? That’s New York for you.

Are we getting the picture? Yes, but the focus will blur into the one-line legacy that George was a “winner.” Fine. And baseball will be the loser.

Categorized in Sports
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Jul
12

Thank God for Arizona

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Were it not for the benighted legislators of that state we wouldn’t be having a long-overdue national discussion regarding immigration. If such people did not exist, we would have to create them.

Before, there was no real “dialogue,” just one-sided, loud declamations by people with no knowledge of immigration history and other, always-present xenophobes who can’t stand people unlike themselves.

During my residence in that desert state, I had many an occasion to visit the legislature and hear on its venerable floor the likes of Russell Pearce who rose to say the most terribly disrespectful things about migrants who, of course, were Mexican–things that should not be said to or about people who have a dignity of their own.

Such history was not uncommon to the U.S. Congress in the past when racist, privileged legislators said similar things about blacks and the poor. All the aforementioned were or are powerless, so it’s a bullying tactic that should have been the focus of efforts of the sort we are addressing in schools today.

Pearce & Co are still around today and amid the current controversy. We may not be able to imagine just how much they do not know, but we know what they feel, and in truth it has nothing to do with the welfare of that state. Off and on in our fair land, immigration has been a political football which people like Pearce hope to carry from one end of their cow pasture to the other, as Andy Griffith said in his comedy days, “without gettin’ knocked down or steppin’ in somethin’.”

This time they stepped in it: the entire nation sees them and reaction has set in that may devastate the Arizona economy, something dearly unwanted in these times. Of course, they now blame the “government” (meaning Obama) because immigration reform is slow in coming thanks to recalcitrant conservatives in Congress. They forget that Bush allowed a gush of immigration as a union-busting measure.

Indeed, I sat down with many a migrant worker engaged, e.g., in roofing new homes–a hot job in 110-120 degree summer heat. Some carried permanent limps because falls from housetops often resulted in broken limbs, but construction bosses wouldn’t allow them to leave for medical treatment–if they did, they not only lost the job but weren’t paid for work completed. When workers objected, the bosses said, fine, how would they like to be deported?

It was a great situation for the companies: they hired the workers in violation of the law, then used threat of deportation to avoid payment. Other fraudulent practices were rampant, but now the migrants are blamed for the current state of affairs while the employers are, well, rich.

This brings to mind the old Bracero program that lasted from 1942-64 and was an answer to the prayers of U.S. agriculturalists who desperately needed workers. It was also intended to avoid streams of undocumented Mexicans by giving them temporary status here. Sounds good, huh, and much preferable to what we have now?

Well, it wasn’t. It took awhile but what became “documented” was exposure of abusive practices by farmers. By the way, some 4.5 million Mexicans were here during those years and though the program was “controlled” by the government, they were subjected to substandard housing, fraud, harassment and oppression by extremist groups and racist authorities.

As the program ended and they returned to Mexico, fraud was rampant: money withheld from wages or placed into savings on their behalf was not given to them, either a permanent loss or they spent years in courts (at more cost, of course) trying to get it. Sound familiar? And are you listening, Mr. Pearce?

Consider the year the Bracero began: we were amid World War II and the arrival of those workers was a tonic to our survival as many American citizens, like today, refused the back-breaking work–or were off fighting for us.

It makes no difference whether we control immigration or not, our greed destroys what should be the best of a capitalistic system.

By the way, one state opted out of the Bracero program–Texas, which (and get this) preferred an “open” border! My, how times change.

It helps to have a sense of history. In this case it shows that human nature changes little if at all. We use immigration when it suits us, and throw it back when it doesn’t.

Some way to treat “neighbors,” half of whose country we took under false pretenses not so long ago. We are now a richest nation and they are among the poorest, yet we spent lavishly to rebuild countries that wanted our heads in a war going on when the Braceros arrived.

So, thank god for Arizona. Without their knucklehead politicians, we might remain ignorant of truth and history.

Categorized in Politics, Race in America, Social Issues and Uncategorized
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Jun
21

Cents and Nonsense in Santa Fe

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I write at times about travel on large and medium budgets, and recently ventured to see what a modest one could bring in Santa Fe.

First, I’d rather take a beating than to fly as a means of travel. Once the best of options for all reasons, it is now so for only one: time. All else is stressful and upsetting, from the waiting, schedule changes (and panic of whether you will make the connecting flight), and less comfortable seats because more of them enhance airline profits.

Though once rumored that Southwest Airlines would offer seat assignments, boarding remains a scramble. Individual travelers somehow manage always to get in the “A” and “B” lines and, once boarded, quickly spread out so that couples (and heaven forfend you’re a family) must seat separately.

I have often traveled alone and, under such circumstances, gave up even assigned seats on other airlines so couples can be together while I squeeze into a middle seat between passengers large, loud and at times odoriferous. It’s only for a couple of hours and not life-altering in the big scheme of things, but be advised that few others will make such sacrifice for me or you.

Yes, I know about emailing Southwest the day before and upping one’s boarding category, but in the rush of tying up loose ends before a pleasure trip, such does not always come to mind, whereas business travelers do it as part of a prior work day–or have company secretaries do it for them.

Testing a limited budget on a short (five-day) trip to Santa Fe, we used discounted tickets from an elective “bumping” on a previous Southwest flight. This requires a direct call to the airline and risks a poor outcome. Ours included both a connecting flight and, per last minute notification, stops near the nation’s capital in both directions. Apparently, should you be on your way to hell on Southwest Air, you’d have to go through Baltimore. Thankfully, from Albuquerque, there is an extremely low-priced, modern and comfy train to the capital.

Our reservations in Santa Fe were pricier than preferred and our
tired arrival at the Inn on the Paseo turned an already inconvenient trip into a bit of a nightmare. Theirs is a late check-in (4 p.m.) and we arrived early. Big deal: most hotels and motels cordially take your luggage if there is a wait, or accommodate you anyway . But the Inn desk was unattended and we phoned from the porch to advise that we were on site but not in a hurry, and would wait patiently on the shade of the porch.

Suddenly the innkeeper appeared and not in a happy state. She considered our pre-4 p.m. presence an imposition, and although our reservation was for a “DeLuxe (King) Studio” we were banished to a lesser one with the excuse that we did not have a “reservation” but a “request,” regardless of our printed confirmation.

Two of the room’s lights were out, the fireplace did not work as directed, nor did the hair dryer. As other guests departed, we were not offered the courtesy of the promised suite. Other roomers, including a middle-aged biking group, realized that their room prices varied from full to half price. Another couple got our room, and for half the freight.

To control budget we did not rent a car but used the free shuttle services of the Hotel Santa Fe (where we wished we had stayed) to certain destinations. We also enjoyed one of our best meals there and all services and requests were met with courtesy and in timely fashion. Otherwise we used “shoe leather express” to and from the plaza and up and down Canyon Road where good galleries and restaurants abound.

Reasonable lunch and dining prices can be found in certain places on the Plaza for eat-in or take out–or on its corner where a cook-stand has quite tasty fajitas and tamales for enjoyment on nearby benches. We set aside two meals for more sumptuous dining and were not disappointed: El Farol and The Compound, both on Canyon Road.

Regrettably, our budget was “busted” by the excessive charge for disappointing accommodations at Inn on the Paseo, and we shall not soon forget joyless Joylene the innkeeper. It didn’t help that others on the shuttle raved about their various accommodations elsewhere, including gracious assistance.

Not being the vindictive sort, I do not recommend that travelers avoid the Inn on the Paseo; but if overpricing, downsizing of room without notice or price adjustment, and rude treatment are your cup of tea, it could be just the place for you.

Inn on the Paseo does not deserve its listing in the AAA directory, and is part of a consortium connected with the Hotel Santa Fe, which should be more careful with whom it associates. They have been notified, as will be AAA. Travel writers are duty-bound to warn others of unpleasant experiences by those who precede them.

In this case, be forewarned.

Categorized in Travel
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May
27

Memorial Day and the Right to Die

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The poet Auden said “existence is believing we know for whom we mourn, and who is grieving.”

Memorial Day may mean trips to cemeteries to decorate graves, parades with war veterans marching and orations, honor guards and gun salutes.

But times have changed. Wars that ended in victory fade to a more distant past, and memories are fresher of unpopular conflicts that divide our country and perhaps, we think, are a waste of young lives. It is less a day of fanfare than one of quiet memory for loss of the most precious resource of all, for any reason–loved ones, family, friends.

The reason for religion may be the reality that we are all going to die. Yet who believes in facing death? Freud said all of us know we’re going to die, but none of us believes it. And who of us learns from the dying and death around us?
Founders of hospices and memorial societies, and leaders of funeral reform did, and we’re learning to “celebrate” lives of others at the time of their deaths, as often in outdoor, scenic places as in churches and funeral parlors. Cremation too is becoming more normative.

Meaningful literature has addressed death: Agee’s A Death in the Family; de Beauvoir’s A Very Easy Death; Camus’ The Plague and The Stranger; Huxley’s Time Must Have A Stop; Mann’s Death In Venice; Plath’s Ariel, Sarton’s As We Are Now; Tolstoy’s Death of Ivan Ilyich; Waugh’s The Loved One; Alvarez’s The Savage God (with emphasis on suicide); Mitford’s The American Way of Death and Kubler-Ross’ Of Death and Dying. But who’s read them? Freud also said that only when death is faced do we have a chance to be truly moral about it.

Perhaps most controversial has been the raising of stakes regarding death and dying in the “right to die” movement, though most of us think we prefer to free ourselves and others from unnecessary pain and from outliving the possibility of quality of life.

The elephant in this room, of course, is Jack Kevorkian. Assisted suicide, in the minds of many, violates the age-old belief that only the giver of life–be it “God” or nature–should also be the taker of life.

Suffering was once viewed the same way till we decided that the only moral and ethical response to pain was to alleviate it in both illness and dying. Yet Kevorkian is seen as a heretic of the worst sort for declaring that we have precisely the same right to determine the hour of our own deaths when suffering is unabated and unredemptive.

So when is suffering unredemptive? It’s long been believed that the death of soldiers redeems the liberty of their nation; and the death of Jesus is held by many to have redeemed believers from eternal death. But where is the good cause, and who else is redeemed, when we suffer unimaginably with disease or illness from which there is no respite, and is clearly terminal?

Again we face changing times and new ideas that challenge our thinking and sensibilities. Yet all of our convictions have been instructed by experience, sometimes painful ones, that make us search for other answers to issues of life and death.

If living well is the best revenge, is not living well also dying well? And instead of pondering what will be after death, should we not inquire whether we can take dying into life?

In dying we lose life and being, and are lost to those who love us. What do we do with that and how do we do it with a sense of meaning? One who chose assisted suicide was a clergyman who said he wanted to give meaning to his death, because his suffering could not, and he did not want it to rob his death of meaning.

Memorial Day can be a time to consider how not to cheapen our present lives. The idea of “hospice” was once strange and controversial as a way of confronting death realistically and allowing both the dying and their survivors to make the most of their last, precious moments. It was also a corrective to what Jessica Mitford said was both a dying process and funeral practices that had come to be an enormous denial of death, not to mention a costly one.

Hospices restored a sense of humanity to dying, and our response to death should always be that of compassion and understanding, not of judgment.

Categorized in Social Issues
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May
13

It Was Never Easy Being Green

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You’d think nature worship went back to the Beginning–whenever that was, and we decry pollution, have national parks and license hunting. And the English and Europeans come here to “get away from it all,” find a more pristine life and fewer people. Doesn’t that all mean something?

Well, yes, but things changed along the way, and pioneers don’t live forever, and when they die no one seems to be left but developers. So do we really love nature or do we just think we do?

Our early settlers ran from one civilization, then created another one. They quickly realized they were in a battle with the wilderness. Tocqueville said that, for Americans, living in the wild created a bias against it, and as a result they had little good to say about it. William Bradford, hardly a charming little puritan of the Hallmark Card variety, called his first view “hideous and desolate”–and he was talking about Cape Cod, for god’s sake.

To other humans who were already here–whom we call Indians or Native Americans, this was an awe-inspiring spectacle. Chief Standing Bear tried to get along with whitey until the mess at Wounded Knee, and said that to the white man nature was a “wilderness” of “wild” animals and “savage” people. The Indian, he said, did not think of it as wild but “hospitable; not forbidding but friendly.” And they trod softly on this good earth.

For them there was and still is no word for “wilderness,” only terms that mean “green places” and they found it curious that white settlers felt caged in and the whole scene “nightmarish.” They had left other cities behind but were never at home in the wilderness, either. The U.S. Forest Service once tried out new words for nature, but threw up their hands and finally just let the word “wilderness” be whatever we think it is.

Add to that, our settlers thought the Indian had no redeeming qualities and that whites could degenerate from the briefest encounters with them. Oh, DUH-uh! And it got a lot worse when those fun folks became fully genocidal towards the Indian.

Now the pendulum has swung and we’re all romantic about nature and even make a religion of it; that’s why we buy cabins in the Berkshires and the Blue Ridge. We can thank Rachel Carson for raising our consciousness, and Charles Reich’s ‘70s book, The Greening of America, but we can thank John Muir the most. When land was set aside for protection, you had to fight to keep it that way, and all struggles need a champion.

When Muir heard Thoreau had made a careless comment about there being such a thing as “too much wilderness,” he thought it was a sad commentary on Henry and his crowd. To Muir, the wild was the house of God and where we go for salvation.

And when developers wanted a fight, they got one from him. They came up with the word “conservation,” which really meant something between wise use and planned development and Muir threw back at them the word “preservation”–meaning no compromise with wilderness as a means to satisfy human needs. That was a bloody struggle and from it came–the Sierra Club.

Muir even joined Teddy Roosevelt on a tour of the Yosemite, but didn’t let the invitation soften his attitude, scolding the Prez for bragging about hunting and told him he ought to “get beyond the boyishness of killing things.” Then he convinced Teddy to support California’s return of the Yosemite Valley to the federal government as a park by that name–and later the Grand Canyon as a national monument. So good deals can be made other than by playing golf with your clients.

Truth is, our modern appreciation for the outdoors is almost as ruinous as development. The earth can take a lot of tramping on and survive, but no longer without our help. When we let up or look away, someone’s trying to make a buck from it: look at European mountaintops killed by acid rain, or American lakes once vibrant for sport and recreation, now filled with toxic chemicals.

It is often said that those who hunt and fish a lot are the most conservation-minded and that is true to an extent, but I grew up among that crowd and know that many of them care not a fig when they go too far. It’s just a way of life and nobody’s going to stop them.

We’re part of a vast and interdependent  web of life, and we can choose  to tread softly on this good earth–the garden that is our home. The alternative can kill us all.

Thoreau had few lapses like the one mentioned above. His first public speech was at the Concord Lyceum. Barely twenty years old, shy, slight and stooped of frame, he began with immortal words that were a hint of an extraordinary life about to unfold: “I would speak a word,” he said, “for nature.”

So should we all.

Categorized in Social Issues
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May
09

Damn Yankees

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[Baseball, sad to say, is a spectacle of all the other teams chasing the Rich Kids. It isn’t a miracle that the Yankees win so often, it’s a huge one that they ever lose]

Given that it is  the rest of the baseball world’s perennial hope to beat the Yankees every year, a little objectivity is in order.

To fans everywhere, the Yanks are quintessential winners and consummate reps of the Great American Game. And there are reasons. I remember when there were no teams west of Chicago, and the St. Louis Cardinals represented the entire Southland, including sports-happy Texas. New York was by far the largest and wealthiest market. The Yankees were expected to win, and did. To the rest of the nation, the Big Apple could well have been in another galaxy. Kids who were loners or losers always declared themselves Yankee fans and thereby claimed a pyrrhic dignity, though they might never hear or see a Yankee game.

New York had an early corner on the greatest number of fans and the biggest bucks to grab the greatest players in the game. What they didn’t have, they could always get, like, you know, the Babe. Later, when fans in Kansas City had only the exploits of Roger Maris to enjoy,  Royals owner Charles Finley, strapped for cash like all teams outside the Big Apple, had to cough him up to, who else, Gotham City, which already had Mickey Mantle.

Such is the way of the world, and in baseball, too. It is human nature to be given to short memories, so I’ll stick with more recent history–such as when Yankee morale was daunted by a losing streak and a measure of grief filled the locker room. George Steinbrenner eased the sobbing by buying Jason Giambi; when subsequent mewling was heard, Georgie gave the Phillies an offer they, too, couldn’t refuse for the likes of Bobby Abreu.

Both A-Rod and Mark Teixeira, by all rights, should have been Red Sox but Boston was obliged to consider creative financing, as most of us do, and once again the Steinbrenners waved blank checks, and the rest, again, is history.

Baseball, sad to say, is a matter of everybody else chasing the rich kids. It isn’t a miracle that the Yankees win so often, it is a huge one that they ever lose. They should be up ten games by every All Star break, and twenty by end of season. An ESPN announcer, ticking off the Yanks starting lineup, once paused to say this was, in reality, an all-star team. Indeed it is, and the best that money can buy.

This sense of entitlement pervades their fans, and when a loss in the making, they’re outta there by the seventh inning.This rise of Red Sox Nation, the existence of which Hank Steinbrenner denies, has helped to change that culture of late; the Yankees, formerly ultra-blase about winning, have taken to jumping up and down like school kids after a win, hugging and kissing like they really love each other, instead of the old ho-hum trot to the lockers for showers and late-night on the town, a la the days of Mantle and Martin.

The Yanks, curiously, are also a “whitebread” team; notice the dearth of players of “color” and, when seen, are not long for such rarified air. Since the days of Elston Howard, who would guess, were they not told, that there is a tiny glimmer of “diversity” in light-skinned A-Rod, Jeter, Cabrera and Cano; and more lately, Sabathia. When the promising but very dark Alfonso Soriano came aboard, he made a handful of errors and in a trice was exiled–while lousy clutch-hitter A-Rod left tons of runners on base over years of play, but enjoys the infinite patience of fans and management.

They could have had Manny but made no real effort: aside from his skin, Manny would never have caved for a Yankee haircut, as did Johnny Damon. Teams like the Angels and Dodgers are replete with color, so you’d think the Big Apple is WASP City with a team to match.

Even a Boston sports writer tried to make a case that the Yankees have as much farm system talent as anyone but neglected to mention, in his infinite generosity, that the Bronx also added to last year’s roster three super stars–two world-class pitchers (one is A. J. Burnett)and a premier slugger–almost one-third of the starting lineup. Who can’t win with that that kind of fire-power?

Their new, overdone stadium is another benefit; they say it wasn’t built as a launching pad for homers, since all teams benefit when playing there–which overlooks who plays there far more than the rest.

All of which is a manager’s dream, and Joe Torre was an average skipper who put up with the Steinbrenners to bathe in their Midas Touch; and who was Joe Girardi, really? Fact is, anyone will do; they could stick a face with interchangeable parts on the manager’s bench and still come in first.

So why hasn’t the Big Apple won it all, in regular fashion, in recent times (save for last year?) Sure, chalk one up to the human spirit, but be really thankful for playoffs.  It’s one thing to have a Murderer’s Row swinging away through the regular season; it’s another to have narrow windows of time when you’re limited to only part of your star-studded pitching stable–given that other teams can scratch up that much for the short duration.

So, fans, sports-writers and -casters, not to mention announcers– don’t forget: it’s a miracle that the Yankees lose at all, not that they win. And how, thusly, do they and their fans keep a straight face when they do?

Categorized in Sports
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May
06

How to Spot a Terrorist

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Well, you can’t, anymore. Not since “Jihad Jane” or, Colleen LaRose of Pennsylvania took up the cudgel of intended violence on behalf of terror. Most of us harbor no love lost for certain people and politics, but we do not recommend bumping them from this mortal coil as part of the remedy.

“Jane” was touted as an example of the “evolution” in the face of terrorism. Well, get ready to deal with that because it’s not only the latest rock-in-the-shoe in this world of woe, but will be the fashion for years to come. Now of course is the next page of it, in the person of Faisal Shahzad–whose face I’m already tired of on daily news. I now know what he looks like, and what I’d rather see is the mug of the next most likely to try and terrorize us.

One thing is certain, when invisible Jihad Janes and Joes turn their anger inward on their own country, we too will suffer what other parts of the world have endured forever and a day. In time it will change our debate over domestic security as well as foreign policy, not to mention issues of world hunger, political oppression and how and whether we can get along with foreigners we don’t like.

It is human to keep unpleasantries on a back burner till they come close to home–a variation of the old “Not In My Backyard (NIMBY)” complex. Ten years ago while serving as consultant in and around Washington, DC I was absorbed with a book about a little-known Islamist terrorist. Colleagues resented my taking every spare moment to stick my nose in it instead of hanging out, drinking single malt scotch and b.s.-ing the night away. But I deemed the book a blueprint for future terror activities in the U.S.

Months later, ensconced in Arizona, I was pulling on hiking shoes for an early morning mountain trek and saw news that planes had just struck the Twin Towers in New York City. The mastermind of that devastation was the subject of the book I couldn’t put down the year before: Osama bin Laden.

It is now known that no few of bin Laden’s highest-ranking cohorts opposed such flagrant attack, fearing it would but wake a sleeping giant and, in time, quash future success against the Great Satan, America. Well, did and did. And that is curious in that I fully expected a much less dramatic but nonetheless carefully laid and punishing plan, beginning with recruitment of potential domestic jihadists in vital centers around America–a pattern followed typically by plotters far from our shores. Why bin Laden went instead for the Brass Ring of the Twin Towers is a mystery not uncommon to evil minds that ends in their undoing.

“Jane” was on her way elsewhere, as we know, but she’s American, lived on a small-town street bedecked with porch-flags and, we think, should have had no thoughts of murder based on terror politics. Faisal made his fumbled attempt at mayhem and was on his way out of the country.

It is troubling is that such people have decided that the USA is as good ground as any to teach democracy a lesson. Hers is an unlikely face among mugs on Most Wanted lists, to say the least, and she and others like her would have a devastating effect on our domestic tranquility should they practice their derring-do closer to home. I’m surprised it’s taken this long for her kind to be so involved.

Judging from the book mentioned, I had come to expect, instead of the events of 9/11, the kind of mischief that could damage our morale much more and for longer times than one day of drama in 2000: imagine suicide bombers inside our malls where people are shopping their hearts out in a daily ritual to stave off boredom and depression (or little hand-made goodies stuffed inside McDonald’s wrappers and dropped in trash cans) or at movies wherein we lose ourselves in characters much more interesting than we are. Car bombing, another common recourse elsewhere in the world, is an unhappy one to contemplate around our own city halls and courthouses.

Our homes could become like that of Lars Vilks, the Swedish artist whom “Jane” was after, who offended Muslims with irreverent depictions of the Prophet Muhammed; his abode requires electrified barbed wire and a safe room.

Hence, whoever would severely daunt American morale need only keep us away from our favorite stores and movie plexes. And not to forget sporting events, where the crudest of home-made bombs could ruin precious moments of last-gasp Hail Mary passes or buzzer-beating three-pointers. Hockey would not be a preferred site for terrorism, given the mayhem already on the ice where the freedom-loving are out to kill each other, anyway.

Let’s just say that Jihad Jane is the pretty face of all that we would deem ugly. Shahzad is a handsome such face but his purposes are more than ugly. And either of their kind may be coming to a multiplex very close to you in the near future.

Categorized in Social Issues
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Apr
29

Goldman Sachs: Poster Boys for Capitalism

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Ah, where do I begin? Having heard so much clap-trap from the right wing, there’s little we can say or do to convince people that “socialism” is not gonna get their mama.

But a picture is worth a thousand–no, make that a million, words: that gang of financial poker players queued, like a police lineup,  before the recent Senate investigating panel, the purpose being not to find which one is guilty but to ascertain just how reprehensible is the whole bunch.

Much of the bluster was gone from these big spenders who had looked on their clients as chumps for easy picking. Dare anyone say that these are “model” Americans to whom we should all look up? Whoever would, give me a buzz–I know a Bridge To Nowhere for sale. But apparently moral bankruptcy still lives: as we speak, my phone is ringing off the hook.

Now how do we get the next point across: that there are capitalists —and then there are capitalists, just as there are socialists. Right-wingers would like us to think that the latter is a stage of, or synonymous with, communism. Some moderate politicians won’t even mouth the word socialism, let alone say it outright, for fear that screaming meamies will go on the attack and FauX News will showcase them that very day. Such is the power of scare tactics on the part of some conservatives, but fortunately it goes only so far–after all, there is a limit even to the number of the clueless and impressionable.

As for historical movements of the “right,” well, there’s classical conservatism–a time-honored view of society and government; but then there are slimy forms ranging all the way to fascism and nazism. Of course, the shrieking you hear in the background is from rightwingers warning me not to dare call them fascists, but they need to simmer down: it’s not typical of liberals to do so, and that’s why you don’t hear us misusing such terms in your daily news roundup. But you will hear right-wingers calling all liberals “socialists,” as on FauX News’ self-proclaimed “fair and balanced” reporting.

What I will dare to do is to revisit the capitalist Poster Boys mentioned earlier. They are an argument against capitalism if ever there was one. Social and political theorists have long acknowledged, while nonetheless debating, the merits of both capitalism and socialism. The U.S. is not thoroughly, let alone correctly, capitalist anyway. We are also a long way from socialism, though your friendly neighborhood Tea Partyer will don a Frankenstein costume and go door to door warning of it.

We’ve had free public education in America for a long time, but you wouldn’t know it when you see who lines up behind Sen. Mitch “Verbal Slurp” McConnell–all of whom should know better. If they understand what someone is saying, they take it to mean that the speaker must be a right smart feller, however disingenuous the case he is making. My homeboy Rush Limbaugh is another whose celebrity is long past its shelf-life but as long as he talks in one or two syllables he will be deemed a genius by those who resist stretching their minds for the sake of enlightenment.

And, hey, I’m not done yet with Goldman Sachs. You will hear people say, “But not all capitalists are like that.” Okay, name one. Oh, there are some and I can name them too, but if someone says Wall Street is full of ethicists, think again. I’ve had my glimpse of the business world, long enough to get the drift and excuse myself before being guilty by association. I know how even those in much less than corporate settings get hungry enough to think of clients just the way Wall Street types do, putting on one face for clients and later refer to them as “pigeons,” and the like. It’s not just an individual thing, it’s a business and corporate culture. And, yes, it hurts those among them who are truly honest and moral, especially when it comes to other people’s money.

I now rest my case with Goldman Sachs’ man of the moment, France’s own Fabrice “Fabulous Fab” Tourre, and a real piece of work he is: young, more smart-ass than smart, one who can look U.S. senators in the eye and, like a psychopath, add to the lies already in his repertoire–which is French for his list of skill-sets in fraudulence. Were an honest man to so speak, his tongue would stick to the roof of his mouth.

Hey, Fab, like some “French” fries? Oops, sorry, the slammer doesn’t serve them, but they have huge pots of comeuppance. You may not enjoy it, but we don’t enjoy you, either.

For one thing, you’ve given Capitalism a bad name. Again.

Categorized in Politics
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Apr
25

Rise of the Bathroom Police

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[Massachusetts still is wrangling with a notorious bill that brings out all self-appointed guardians of morality. If you’ve noticed its head having been raised again in the news, read this post from last year for helpful background. Then ask yourself: when are we ever going to stop doing what we do to people we don’t like?]

Spring of 2009 brought a bill into the Massachusetts legislature, urging upon the citizenry a curious restriction on use of public restrooms–designed of course to further punish and harass people whose only offense to polite society is to be different. Such legislation and its proponents are not to be feared, but resisted.

Here we are again with another issue that evades proper categories of “rights,” “anti-discrimination,” “harassment,” and is plunged instead into that ugly little place called sex, one that Americans have the most problem thinking about, dealing with and discussing.

A bill before our legislature relates to gender-based discrimination and hate crimes, and is seized on by clergy, “family” orgs and, with help of the press, effectually dubbed “the Bathroom bill.” Other days have seen the “NIMBY” designation (“Not In My Backyard”) which had to do with feared encroachments of anything different and unusual, including the presence of nonwhites in neighborhoods.

Now it’s about public places and people we don’t know or understand yet, largely because we haven’t wanted to. “Out of sight, out of mind,” is the motto in this land of the free and home of the clueless. If the past has seen posses and vigilantes, modern times calls for Bathroom Police (BP), who are scarier than the proverbial monsters under your bed.

This new bill, which one would think legislators would run in any direction but at, is sponsored by–whoa: 100 of them, including our own Mike Costello, to whom I here tip my hat as a man of courage and enlightenment–as long as he doesn’t back down. And I’m among all who say the pending legislation certainly needs work, as bills of any kind do at initial stages. But the BP will have none of that–they will flog the idea as they would a mean, red-headed kid, hoping thereby to stifle all debate and assert an American version of sharia (Islamist law).

This should be solely about assurance of rights and bans on discrimination and harassment towards transgendered persons, and how such can best be done. But it is not, thanks to the BP. It is, to use their very words–“depraved,” “perverse,” “immoral,” “wicked” and “unloving”–and right away you know we’ve got a real BP on our hands. Do not fear it. Fear instead those who consider anything but heterosexuality and original gender as abominations. Henceforth you will hear chapter and verse from Luddite interpretations of the Good Book and voices of religious ignoramuses, hoping that we are all impressionably knee-jerked by nature. You will find them emerging from their fave coffee shop, having just used therein a unisex bathroom perhaps therein, and thinking nothing of it; after all, a caffeine fix trumps moral principles, if only long enough to get it. For years we have all shared restrooms with people whose gender or dressing habits we were not aware of–not to mention senators and congressmen whose shoes edged towards ours from the next stall and we just assumed they had big feet.

Oh, but quoth they, this is about places where people are together to indulge bodily functions. Yep, everybody gotta go. So the problem is how best to manage this without forcing resort to alleys or walls outside bus stations, as I have seen in Italy. The clincher is that the BP never think of anyone but themselves. “Protecting women and children” is but the red herring used to call people names and rain down judgment on them for being, well, different. Yeah, where is the love, now?

They never think that the transgendered have long been vulnerable to violence, sometimes by friends, family and fellow churchmen of the BP. Their only dilemma then is whether to condemn the behavior or the people who do it, and that ain’t never gonna happen. That’s where piety and prophetic words and action hit a stone wall.

While new resident of a Western city, I received a phone call from one who quickly and honestly identified as transgender. No other clergy would come to serve as chaplain and lead a prayer at an annual Memorial for transgendered victims of violence. I agreed to so serve, and what I heard and beheld that night is unforgettable–not information gleaned from the news media, which only reported that such and such person had been killed under vague conditions. As I sat and listened to the solemn litany, without other comment, of names, dates and circumstances of area citizens who had been beaten, kicked, bludgeoned, shot, cut and dragged to death, in shocking number, I can’t tell you what it did to me.

It was not a large though a significant crowd, and I learned later that many avoid the annual recital due to fear of public exposure and thereby loss of jobs, careers, professional contacts and, of course, the hazards of similar violence towards themselves. It occurred to me that some self-righteous bastard might weigh in on me, to rid the kingdom of God of just another false prophet. And who else will speak for all of that?

Here’s what we must do: get a full, legal, constitutional hearing on the civil rights and liberties in this matter; create a final bill that is humane, sensitive, fair and, yes, loving towards all. And let the Bathroom Police have their say but by all means heed them not.

They but cloud the air and give us the creeps.

Categorized in Gays and Society
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