The Edge with Sean Engmann

Money: The Key Principle of Journalism

From our early days in school, through the media coverage that we see throughout our lives, the journalist is depicted as this philanthropic crusader to expose the truth about corruption and to benevolently act as the safeguard for democracy.  These mythical journalists risk life and limb to tell it like it is, and take as a religion the "principles of journalism."  The journalist is always portrayed positively, as the agent of change, or the individual with the courage to take on an opponent who, almost always represents a great evil in society.  Woodward and Bernstein are lionized by journalists for their ability to bring down a Presidential Administration.  Unfortunately, this world in which all journalists are courageous heroes is one of fantasy, and it is far from the real world, where todays journalists will go to incredible depths, threaten national security, protect criminals and destroy to protect their journalistic ethics, or, in other words, to get that big scoop and to make a great deal of money.

The thing with journalism is that it is far from a benevolent profession, it is, rather, a very cutthroat world in which journalists scratch and claw to try to get to the top.  In today's world, as in the world of the past, where the media has a dramatic impact on public opinion, the cutthroat nature of the news business damages the country.  Public figures are subjected to an incredible amount of scrutiny, as they should, but there are cases where members of the media go as far as they possibly can to destroy someone's reputation simply to outdo the other media.  The Clinton Presidency was an example of a media feeding frenzy on the personal life of Bill Clinton, with each media outlet trying to dig further and further to find scandal.  It started with Gennifer Flowers before Clinton was even the Democratic nominee in 1992, and it spiraled from there, with key "sources" being paid six figures for their stories.  Did any of this stuff have any bearing on the country beyond gossip?  No, it was frivolous, we all knew the type of guy Clinton was, yet the country elected him twice, the rest was superfluous.

Today, the big issue throughout the sports media is the steroids issue.  Mark Fainaru-Wada and Lance Williams of the San Francisco Chronicle wrote a tell-all book called Game of Shadows in which, among other things, they did a hatchet job on Barry Bonds.  The fact that they did an exhaustive investigation, and broke down every aspect of Bonds's life is fine, but what's not fine is the fact that they illegally obtained sealed Grand Jury testimony from an "unnamed source" to implicate Bonds and many others in the book.  While Fainaru-Wada and Williams accuse athletes of using illegal performance enhancing drugs to enhance their performance, the two authors essentially did the exact same thing with their book: illegally obtain and publish sealed testimony to beef up their book.  Game of Shadows would not have been nearly as compelling without the Grand Jury testimony, so the two authors stand to make a countless amount of extra money as a result of adding this feature to their book, just as athletes stand to earn more money by injecting themselves with performance enhancing drugs.  The difference: the journalists were following the principles of journalism and exposing injustice.  I say, baloney, it's the same thing.

Journalists hold a tremendous amount of power in their ability to shape opinions, and they do not use that power responsibly.  The standard in the United States for libel against a public figure is extraordinarily high, essentially allowing anyone to freely say anything about a public figure without fear of a libel suit.  The use of unnamed sources can be vital to the ability of a journalist to do his job, however, using unnamed sources to attack individuals should come at a price.  Like in the mob, sometimes going to jail for journalists can be a badge of honor, as these people can refuse to reveal sources and end up in jail to protect their principles.  They should also be civilly liable for libel if they use unnamed sources to attack the reputation of individuals, as the verdict in the court of public opinion is often swift and harsh and the damage to a tarnished reputation is severe.  Journalists should be required to either provide documentation for a source, or face the consequences.

The other major phenomena of modern journalism is the power of the sound bite in making the story.  This is essentially an extension of yellow journalism of the turn of the last century, in which stories were written bombastically in order to sell papers.  Today's journalist takes comments out of context to paint a picture, or utilizes poorly chosen words to paint a picture about a person.  Sure that person may have made a comment, even if he/she didn't mean it, journalists will see blood and pounce.  In an episode of Sports Night, a defunct TV show, the issue was brought up when an athlete made comments about New York similar to John Rocker's, and after the interview, realized how bad they sounded, and wanted them edited out.  The producer was gleeful at the negative comments and refused to take them out, igniting a controversy for the player.

Journalists need to be human beings, not caught up in bringing people down.  It's not about exposing corruption, it's about making a name for the journalist and making money and doing so on the backs of other people.  Not all journalists are like that, but rest assured, they are not looking out for you, they're looking out for their names and their pocketbooks.

Vegas, Lawyers and Lawsuits

About a week ago, I returned from my third trip to Vegas of the year, this time visiting with family.  Trips number four and five should be upcoming soon.  Anyhow, the point of this is not to tell you how often I go to Vegas, but to compare two evils that often make great bedfellows: casino owners and sleazy lawyers.  Upon returning from Vegas, an interesting dilemma presented itself: my brother returned with a slot voucher from Treasure Island for $27.50.  On the voucher, the casino brazenly states that after 30 days, said voucher would expire and be rendered worthless, and that the voucher could not be redeemed by mail.  This clearly could be the makings of a class action lawsuit, so the dilemma is who would I support in such a case, the greedy casino kings, or the possibly greedier, equally opportunistic lawyers?  Sadly, as much as I hate those who run casinos (and as a card-counter who's been ejected from a casino and escorted from the table by security, that is a lot), I hate the sleazy lawyers more.

The idea for a class-action lawsuit here was not specifically mine, my dad actually happened upon this idea while we were dining out.  Such a lawsuit wouldn't be new as greedy lawyers continue to seek out ways to basically steal money from society and tie up the court system with frivolous lawsuits.  Recently, a man who had won $5 on a $2 lottery ticket, but could not claim his winnings because of a time limit settled a class-action lawsuit against the state for over $10,000.  Basically what we have here is a nothing case where nobody was really harmed, but it ties up our courts, and the plaintiff really won the lottery, with a huge payout courtesy of our ridiculous legal system.

In most class action cases, lawyers are simply seeking ways to sue people and grab a piece of the action from successful companies for themselves.  These blood-suckers provide absolutely no service to society in enriching themselves by using the system and threatening companies and individuals.  In the casino case that I mentioned, the casino's policy is a clever and unsavory way of taking peoples money, in fact it is rather despicable.  At the end of the day, however, we are talking chump change, in the vast majority of cases not even approaching even $100.  More likely, we're talking about dollars and dimes here, which really do not hold any significance.  After all, if the money was significant, wouldn't the player think it prudent to go right away to claim his money rather than holding onto a voucher.  My brother's $27.50 is likely well past the median number, and even so the damage of losing that money is insignificant.  My point is that there is no real damage to anyone here, people, in fact, often forget they even have the voucher, illustrating how important they consider the money in the scheme of things.  Even so, those that disagree with the policy have a valid and real recourse, they can simply choose not to gamble at Treasure Island.

In my opinion, in order for you to have a lawsuit worthy of being heard, there should be some real damages involved.  If someone cares enough about the money, they can go to small claims court and argue their case there.  Since we've established that there is no damage of consequence, there should not be a lawsuit, it is simply a waste of everyone's time.  And enter the sleazy lawyer, posing as Robin Hood, he sees injustice, but more importantly he sees opportunity, and in his $5000 suit with $1500 Gucci loafers, he pounces on the scene.  Raving about injustice, he obtains the names of people who gambled at the casino, sends them letters telling them that the casino screwed them and they can get a payday if they join his merry crusade.  People, who never even thought they had a problem are blindsided, but enough respond and the total becomes staggering.  Our hero then sues, the casino settles for a fraction of the lawsuit, and the lawyer takes 50% off the top for himself for being such a great guy, and, eventually some of the plaintiffs get half of their couple bucks back if they're lucky.  Meanwhile, our courts are filled and real cases must be put on hold.  What a system!!!

Basically to summarize, for filing some paperwork, making a few threats and finding a few thousand "victims" who never knew they were victims to begin with, the lawyer gets a huge payday.  How has society benefited?  It hasn't.  Have the victims been vindicated?  No, they get a couple bucks back, big deal, and half of their money was stolen by the lawyer anyhow.  There is no benefit to these types of cases.  Lawyers like this love to threaten and wave their little law degree over the heads of the rest of society and then use the system to enrich themselves and inconvenience society.  Our courts should not be used to enrich lawyers, just as they shouldn't be used as a forum for philosophical debates, they should be used to settle real disputes, with real damages.

The casino owners are not the most savory people around, as their whole business is to bilk people out of their money.  At least they're somewhat honest about it though, and they do provide comps and entertainment.  Casino owners do provide a valuable service, while these sleazy lawyers pretend to be noble while lining their own pockets, claiming their piece of the action, by compounding a collection of cases with no real damages.  These types of lawyers are no better than pimps, using blackmail and extortion to claim a piece.

Youth Sports: Softness over Honor and Victory

When I was flying back from Las Vegas the other day, I came across an article in Sports Illustrated by Rick Reilly, which discusses an incident that occured in a recent 9-10 year old PONY baseball game.  For the record, I do not like Reilly's commentary, though generally well-written and interesting, because to me, Reilly comes across as being very pompous, arrogant and judgmental.  In a recent story, he villified a high school football officiating crew for refusing to allow a legless player to play, without taking into consideration the impact of bringing negative national attention onto a high school referee or taking into account the safety and liability issues that the crew faced that night.  In that case, had the kid gotten hurt, Reilly would've written an article about how stupid the coaches and officials were for letting a legless player play.  My problem with Reilly is that he's a very hypocritical individual who is quick to an opinion which is not very well thought out.  It is true in the PONY case and the football one, and in my opinion, the press that he gets is a contributing factor to the decline of the traditional values of youth and high school sports and the increasing softness being associated with them.

To summarize, the Reilly article focused on a situation in Utah during a PONY league championship game.  It was the bottom of the last inning with the defensive team up a run with a runner on 3rd and two outs with the best hitter up, a slugger capable of hitting a homerun.  On deck was a tiny cancer survivor with a shunt in his brain.  The coaching staff of the defensive team chose to intentionally walk the best hitter on the team, and, supposedly with tears in his eyes, the cancer survivor struck out to end the game.  Reilly contends that this was a travesty, an example of extremely poor sportsmanship, quoting the cancer survivor's father as saying, "It's like going after the weakest chick in the flock."  I disagree, I think it was absolutely the right move, and more so, the morally correct decision by the coaching staff.

As a high school baseball coach, my philosophy first in coaching players is to develop people and to be a leader.  I demand effort from my players, and the players have a right to demand of their coach, at any level, that they are put in the best position to succeed, both as individuals and as a team.  In my opinion, it would have been a disservice to the players who played all season for me, came to the practices and worked hard to make it to the championship game, for me to put their season in jeopardy by deciding that they had to face the best hitter instead of one who is likely to be an easy out. 

The more prudent question in this PONY is why was the cancer where he was to begin with?  Clearly his position in the lineup did not take into account his best interests given his physical condition.  Should he even have been playing?  In regards to the kid's position in the lineup, it was very irresponsible for the coach to put the worst hitter behind the best hitter simply because having to protect the best hitter is a tough spot.  Clearly, the kid was not able physically, or mentally, to handle it.  There's always talk about why the worst player gets "hidden" in right field in Little League, and that's simply because that's the best spot for him to have a chance to succeed.  Put the kid at shortstop, he physically couldn't handle the failure, and probably couldn't deal with it mentally, so the kid would quit in all likelyhood. 

Our current society has placed a premium value on participation, and has instituted participation rules, and while there's some logic to it at the lowest levels, it does not take into account what's best for the kids involved all the time.  The problem with mandatory participation rules is that they discourage hard work, foster a sense of entitlement and they put kids in a position to fail.  It's no fun to sit on the bench, but it's less fun to consistently fail and be unable to compete and to consistently let your teammates down.  I fully believe in the concept of throwing people into the fire, but they have to at least possess some of the tools as well as the mental ability to compete.  Today's mentality is more like, "My Jimmy is gonna play and play where he wants because we paid to be a part of this league/to go to this school."  When a kid like this cancer survivor plays, yeah, it might be an inspiration to his parents, but the kid could not handle the game, so it really isn't fair to either him or his team for him to be out there.

Youth sports are about fun and sportsmanship, but there is also a very significant value that we are losing, and that's the ability to compete.  Any time, no matter how young the kids, there is a league set up and a championship game, winning the championship should be the team's goal, and winning games should be a top priority.  To say winning and losing at this level isn't important is wrong, wins and losses are always important, and only get more important as athletes climb the ladder to high school, then college and eventually the pros.  Competition is a key value in life, and winning as a goal should not be set aside by anyone.  Anyone who says that it's about the fun and not about winning is not a winner.  Sure you can have fun on a losing team, but those experiences are more about being a part of a team, and really have nothing to do with the games themselves.  One of the worst things I think you can do as a kid is coddle them with entitlements and teach them to ignore, rather than to address failure.  Participation rules punish the talented players and prevent the weaker players from growing as players and people, depriving them of valuable tools to succeed because they teach kids that feeling good is more important than competing and winning.

Finally, as coaches, our role is to further the kids and the game.  Villifying coaches for wanting to win is wrong.  Kids will remember when they win championships their entire lives, and the coach has an obligation to, within the rules, do his best to allow that to happen.  Coaches need to be role models and prepare players for the next level, and life in general in exactly the same way that teachers in the classroom do.  The sad thing in America is that 60 percent of the country polled side with Rick Reilly, saying that the kid should never have been walked.  One of the great things about sports in general and especially baseball is that you cannot hide, you will be tested and everyone who plays the game will be humbled at some time.  If any player, at any level can't handle the challenge of being "picked on" either mentally or physically, that player should not be in the game.  The player was set up to fail. Period.  Because to not walk the star would mean that the weak player can hide behind the star and skirt by under the radar.  That is not a good quality or value for an individual in life, and kids who are instilled with such values will have many more problems later in life than just striking out with the championship on the line in a 9-10 year old baseball game.

Freedom and Security

The big news of the day today was that British, American and Pakistani intelligence services infiltrated and thwarted a massive terror plot by Islamic terrorists aiming to down 10 U.S bound aircraft simultaneously.  The planned attack, a spectacular attack similar in scope and devastation to the September 11th attacks represented the first planned attacks of that scale since 9/11.  Our intelligence was tested, and it responded in spectacular fashion, and many of the post 9/11 measures put in place played key roles in blunting this attack and arresting 24 gutless cowards who should be dealt with brutally.  A major issue recently as the memory of 9/11 has faded in the minds of many Americans is that of our civil liberties versus the ability of our government to protect us from these inhuman thugs who seek to butcher Americans and destroy our way of life.  While the issue is certainly worth considering, many of the arguments of civil libertarians are theoretical in nature and rooted in academia rather than in reality.  The reality is that we need the Patriot Act, we need wiretaps and we need to continue to give law-enforcement and the government latitude to conduct this War on Terror and to protect us.

Over the last couple of years, as the memory of 9/11 has faded, the arguments against some of the tactics used in the War on Terror have grown louder.  While there is in all political theory a liberty versus security tradeoff, some of the arguments made by civil libertarians have bordered on the absurd.  Using primarily the 4th amendment, civil libertarians have routinely argued against rational security measures, claiming that they reduce our freedoms.  The civil libertarians use the slippery slope argument, claiming that surrendering any of "our Constitutional liberties" will lead to tyranny and oppression by our government.  These people simply are not living in the real world.  No law abiding citizen who has nothing to hide stands to be hurt by any of the counter-terrorism measures implemented by the Bush Administration, and many of these measures which may lead to slight intrusions or minor inconveniences pay major dividends in terms of identifying terror plots and taking action to infiltrate cells or arrest terror suspects.

The constant arguments against the increased security usually are based in the theoretical world, and the academic world.  Thomas Jefferson is often quoted as saying, "Anyone willing to trade liberty for security ends up with neither."  The faulty assumption is that there's an equal tradeoff of liberty for security.  For instance, allowing law enforcement more latitude in wiretapping and conducting searches with a lesser burden of proof does not infringe upon the normal law-abiding citizen at all, it simply gives the government a better tool in sniffing out threats against us.  Would I do anything that would cause me to fear the government having knowledge about it?  Of course not, and neither would the vast majority of Americans.  Do I care if the government searches my library records or e-mail?  Of course not, because I have absolutely nothing to hide.  Same thing with my financial records.  Additionally, there is no way that the government can use anything against me that has nothing to do with national security, and there are recourses in place in case they do.  So at minimal to no cost to the individual citizens in terms of liberty, the nation gains valuable tools for improving security and fighting against terrorists.  We are not yielding liberty, we are still free, and now, with these commonsense measures, we are better equipped to protect ourselves against terrorist attacks, much as they are in Britain and Israel.

The other politically correct issue involved here that makes no sense is that we do not profile at the airports.  In other words, we don't use the knowledge most available to us when screening for potential terrorists.  The reason is because of the politically correct lobby trying to require us to be sensitive to the needs of Muslims.  Last time I checked, the only people who wanted to crash planes into buildings and blow up thousands of people in midair were extreme Muslims.  As a result, it would only make sense to scrutinize Muslims much more heavily than those of other nationalities and religions.  I would say the same thing about Irish people if the IRA were galivanting around blowing up planes and threatening our society.  According to a recent Gallup poll, 90% of Muslims in Britain identify with their religion first, and their country second, paving the way for homegrown terror.  This is a clear sign that the Muslim community needs to be much more closely scrutinized not only in Britain, but also here in the United States.  A close family friend of mine is Muslim from Turkey, and he recently returned to the region, and although he clearly would never commit an attack against America, he has mentioned that he thinks he's been wiretapped, and I am glad about it, because it means that we are not asleep at the switch.  Also, he has nothing to hide, so the wiretapping does not concern him.

The major problem that I have with the opponents of our increased security measures is that their arguments are based in theory rather than in logic and they are much more suited for a debate in a political philosophy class than they are for a real world policy debate.  Using the political theory model, the number one role that a government has is to provide security to the people, security from external threats, protection against fellow citizens as well as protections from the government.  Adopting these measures does not infringe upon the rights of the law-abiding American, nor do they bring about any sort of political persecution.  One could argue that the laws were much more stringent politically during the Cold War on communist sympathizers than they are now, yet no law has ever prevented people from holding beliefs or trying to bring about lawful change within the government.  The terror laws brought on by the Patriot Act, strict British intelligence laws, coordination with the Pakistanis, the villified Guantanimo Bay prison and the much maligned NSC wiretaps saved 4000 plus lives today and countless economic damage.  We should be grateful for those who've had the guts to stay the course in the War on Terror rather than relent to the doves and put academic theory in the way of national security.

The Problem With Religious and non-Religious Nuts

As the expression goes, more people have died in the name of God than in by other cause.  Throughout history religion has been and still is the major cause of conflict in the world, one needs to look no further than the Middle East to confirm that fact.  Radical Islam is currently the biggest threat to the world.  Rather than focus on world issues and historical issues of religion, I'd prefer to look at domestic problems within the United States regarding religious zealots.  The problem with religious zealots in America is that they try to impose their values through laws on society and largely do not base their arguments on logic or what's best for the country, but rather on what their interpretation of the Bible says.  Additionally, there's a counter lobby of secularist extremists whose arguments, like those of religious zealots, are rooted in their hatred of religion, rather than in logic.  Both extreme elements, the religious right and the Godless left are very dangerous to society and at the heart of the cultural conflict right now that is, unfortunately, being settled in the courts.

The major problem with the religious right is not necessarily that they put blinders on to science and the reality of modern society, but that they have a clear agenda that they seek to impose on the rest of society.  In addition, many of their suggestions are harmful to an element of society, particularly certain minorities.  We'll start in the area of education and the drive against the teaching of the theory of evolution in favor of creationism.  Conceding for a moment that evolution may not be a proven fact, there's an overwhelming amount of evidence suggesting that it took place, certainly enough evidence to make it worthwhile to study in school.  To the religious right, this is an inconvenient fact which gets in the way of their creationist theory from the Bible, so there's a lobby seeking to ban the teaching of evolution in schools.  This policy of ignoring evidence because it contradicts a worldview is very dangerous, and amounts to a policy of indoctronation.  On the flip side, the secularists seek to only teach the theory of evolution, without mention of any other theories, which can be dangerous, but not quite as much as the ultra-religious seeking to ignore a widely supported theory.  If we, as a society, choose to simply ignore inconvenient information, we would be back in the dark ages in a heartbeat.

Another issue with which I take issue with the approach of the religious right on is that of gay marriage.  The far right has a hatred for homosexuality and all that it represents because they consider it a sin.  Rather than viewing gay individuals as people, the ultra-religious view them in the lower class of sinners because they simply have adopted a different lifestyle.  The religious right has chosen not to accept the lifestyle by individual gay people, and tries to impose their values on gay people who have clearly rejected at least some of them.  If Joey wants to marry Vinny, how does that mere fact impact my life?  It clearly does not impact me in any way, so why should it matter to me if it would make Joey and Vinny happy to be married?  It shouldn't.  The whole idea of the institution of marriage is a construct anyhow, and there's nothing particularly sacred about it (especially given the extremely high divorce numbers).  Preventing gays from marrying, assuming there are no additional complications (which, of course there are) is simply eliminating an element of happiness that gay people could enjoy.  That goes for polygamists too, by the way, if some people want to set up a polygamist family and obey all other laws, just for their happiness, they should be allowed to do so.

Now, I did issue a caveat in my last argument and I must now say that I am personally opposed to any type of marriage that is not between a man and a woman at this time.  The reason is because of the faulty rationality of the court system and the knowledge that gay rights activists will continue to push them envelope into the realm of adoption.  In a clear example that the far left has no logic, and won't leave well enough alone, it is almost guaranteed that as soon as gay marriage becomes legalized, there will be a push under the 14th Amendment (equal protection) to require adoption agencies to consider homosexual couples on equal grounds for adoption as heterosexual couples.  This is insanity, and knowing the court system, this precise situation would be legislated from the bench.  For a child, the natural environment in which to grow up is with a single father and a single mother.  That's not to say a homosexual couple may not make great parents, but preference must be given to the heterosexual couple because that is the environment best suited to the child.

Yet another major issue which is divider is the abortion/birth control argument.  The reality of the world is that abstinence is a thing of the past.  I personally, at age 24, cannot think of one person my age who has decided to abstain from sex before marriage.  It simply is not a part of today's world.   The practical thing for society to do is to allow and to promote birth control to prevent unwanted pregnancies from happening, as these types of pregnancies cause society a multitude of problems and cost everyone money.  While societal institutions should not actively encourage teenage sex, they should provide education on how to prevent pregnancies and to promote safety.  That is simply the logical approach.

While birth control is good, and a healthy preventative measure for society, abortion is bad, and it should not be accepted as a reasonable means of birth control.  While I consider whether to have an abortion a woman's choice, as she will have to live with the physical and emotional consequences of that decision, consequences that us men have the convenience of avoiding, society should not encourage abortions, nor should any late-term abortion be allowed without threat to the mother's life.  Additionally, abortion should not be a unilateral decision, as the father should be given the option to solely take care of the baby.  It is not fair that a father has to support an unwanted child for 18 years, while a mother can simply abort an unwanted child that the father wants to raise.  Ultimately, fewer abortions are better for society, and life should be promoted.  While there is a legitimate debate as to whether a fetus is alive, I think a consensus can be achieved that a fetus is more alive than sperm and egg before conception, and it becomes more alive with each passing minute, and that it's better for society in general avoid abortion.

While much of my initial argument has to do with the fallacies of the religious right, there are plenty of secularist extremists whose equal lack of logic is potentially destructive to society.  Their premise, that there is a separation of church and state, is a fallacy itself (I will discuss in future blogs) and they carry this premise to the extreme, seeking to eliminate all forms of religion in this country.  While religious extremists represent a threat to America, the United States is, in fact, a religious country with religious traditions, though not tied to any particular religion. 

A pertinent example is the vigilant opposition to faith-based initiatives, proposed by President Bush at the beginning of his presidency and during his term as Texas governor.  Faith-based initiative are basically programs aimed at helping homeless people, single moms and generally downtrodden people get back on their feet.  Often these programs were tied in with some church or some form of religion.  The plan was for the government to provide funding to these effective programs to help people who needed help.  The plan was noble, however, the anti-religion crowd had a field day opposing these programs, simply on the basis that religious institutions were being funded to do this work.  The plan would be perfectly fine, say the critics, if the institutions were secular.  That argument has absolutely no basis in logic.  Religious institutions are situated perfectly to help the types of people who needed help under this plan, so what's the harm?  How does giving a Catholic church or a Jewish temple funding to carry out a program hurt the country or its citizenry in any way?  Does it promote religion?  Sure, but so what?  The only people who it could "hurt" are those who seek to completely eliminate all forms of religion in this country.

Another example of the secularist crowd overstepping its bounds has to do with the multitude of court cases against religious displays and the use of public grounds by organizations, such as the Boy Scouts, who are quasi-religious.  Recently, lawsuits have been filed to remove Christmas scenes and even a Ten Commandments monument.  Additionally, a lawsuit which attacked the "Under God" clause in the Pledge of Allegiance was successful.  My question is, what is the harm that these displays are causing?  Very little if any is the answer.  They certainly are not establishing an oppressive environment.  Yet they are part of the local culture, which is being attacked for no clear reason.

Both the religious and the secularist extremes are dangerous to America.  Both are devoid of logic and seek only to promote their narrow ideology, and cost taxpayers millions of dollars in their fights in the courts.  America needs to reject both sides of extremism and continue to make logical public policy.  Courts also should adopt the stance that the Constitution is not a means by which they can write law and create policy.  A vigilant minority should not be able to impose on the majority its narrow values through the court system.

Minimum Wage Blues

One of the biggest issues that is arising once again in this election year is a tired old one, whether or not to increase the minimum wage.  As the Republicans use tax cuts as an election year ploy to stir up their base, so do the Democrats with the minimum wage.  The story is always the same, a worker living solely on the minimum wage is living below the poverty line, and how can we in an advanced, civilized, enlightened country allow people to work for wages below the poverty line.  The solution?  Let's just say that they can't be paid anything below a certain wage and magically everything will be alright.  The problem with such a simplistic plan is simply that it does not work and leads to numerous unintended consequences which serve to hurt many which the minimum wage laws intend to help. 

We are currently living in a time when the issues of globalization and immigration are at the forefront of American politics, and labor is the key issue.  The lines are being drawn between a populist policy of isolation, closed borders and tariffs, and free trade policies.  Many of those who support a raise of the minimum wage also decry companies outsourcing jobs to other nations and see large corporations that sweep up mom and pop operations as being evil.  Additionally, labor unions largely support increasing the minimum wage and strictly enforcing the border simply to line their own pockets by drowning out competition and thus increasing the demand for and price of union labor.  Raising the minimum wage will hurt immigrants, the working poor and small to midsize businesses the most.

A look at the simple economics of having a minimum wage illustrates the pitfalls of such a system.  Establishing a price floor is inflationary by nature, as employees who were making above minimum wage will now have to be duly compensated, creating a ripple effect throughout the economy.  As a result of the ripple effect, the buying power of the new minimum wage will not be what it was before the wage was increased.  Consequently, the reason the minimum wage has to be constantly increased is to keep up with this ripple effect.  The reason this effect exists is because the minimum wage is above market value, and the market will eventually compensate for the discrepancy. The minimum wage is by definition a short term solution.

Additionally, as the minimum wage is above the market value, there will be an increase in unemployment, which is an economic fact.  In France, in provinces where there was rioting last fall unemployment was around 40% and the minimum wage there is twice what it is in the United States.  The key here is to look at the impact of the unemployment and who it's hurting.  To do so, we need to take into account who are, in fact, the majority of minimum wage employees in this country, and how many people use the minimum wage to live on.  Statistics show that the median household income of minimum wage employees is around $40,000 annually.  Most minimum wage employees are seeking entry level jobs or are spouses of family breadwinners looking to gain a foothold in the job market.  Additionally, nearly two-thirds of minimum wage employees gain a raise within the first year of employment.  With labor costs increasing due to the increased minimum wage, middle-upper class teenagers will be much more likely to survive the increased competition than will those from the inner-city who need the jobs the most.

The cold hard fact is that someone whose labor is worth 5.75 an hour is unemployable and out of work when the wage increases to 7.00 an hour.  By raising the minimum wage, we are pricing these people out of jobs.  Additionally, someone who is willing to work more for less money should be allowed to do that if he needs to in order to make ends meet.  Raising the minimum wage means more competition for secondary jobs, and it also forces companies to seek out technological means for more cost-effective labor.  The minimum wage prevents people from working for whatever they are willing to work for.  In doing so, it prevents the poorest and least skilled people from entering the job market to gain skills and prove reliability.

One of the biggest ironies in this story is that those who oppose large corporations feeling they're cold and evil also support the minimum wage increase that gives them an additional leg up on the competition.  WalMart, Blockbuster and the large corporate chains are able to absorb the increased labor costs much easier than say John and Betty's Video store.  I know from my experiences in running a cafe in San Francisco that small businesses operate on a very thin margin.  Increased costs of labor brought on by the government may serve to be the straw that breaks the camel's back, eliminating economic viability.  The result: more large corporate entities entering neighborhoods and replacing mom and pop stores, because the mom and pop stores cannot compete.

While the minimum wage and increasing it are ideas that are meant to help, they end up cutting off the job market to the poor and to immigrants and they make it harder for small businesses to compete.  Additionally, they serve to increase the comparative advantage of foreign countries in terms of labor.  The result: fewer jobs, higher prices and fewer companies that can compete.  The idea of raising the minimum wage is simplistic and hurtful to those it intends to help.

The Ongoing Steroids Saga

Well for the last year it seems like the only story in sports, particularly baseball and the Olympic sports has been the use of steroids and performance enhancing drugs.  The prevalence of performance enhancers has really been evident for a long time and I generally consider them to have been a part of sports for a long time.  The fact is that with sports nutrition alone and the advances in kiniesiology and weight training alone that the athletes of today are in much better physical shape than they ever were before.  In baseball, Lou Gehrig was considered uncommonly strong because he carried heavy equipment in the offseason.  Now, everybody is training all day seven days a week to maintain shape.  With scientific advances and the amount of money at stake in athletics nowadays, suggesting that there should be a way to link athletes from one era to another is a fallacy as todays worst athletes would outperform the best of the past.  Essentially what the prevalence of steroids and performance enhancers have done over the past decade is raise the bar of athletic excellence and produce some of the most exciting moments and the highest level of competition that has ever been seen.

The sport in the harsh glare of the steroids controversy is baseball, where the shroud of secrecy has been removed and the public now is being bombarded with how steroid use saturated the game.  It has been no secret though that since way back in the 1950s and 60s professional baseball players have been using amphetemines or "greenies" to improve their competitive edge.  Jim Bouton in his book Ball Four detailed greenies as being readily and visibly available in the clubhouse, and that he and others popped them regularly prior to games and his book chronicled the 1969 season.  The other point that has not been mentioned is that steroids literally saved baseball.  The power surge of the mid to late 90s, particularly the homerun chase between Sammy Sosa and Mark McGwire in 1998 brought millions of Americans bitter about the 1994 strike back to the game.  The power numbers now being put up captivated fans and it was very exciting baseball to watch, an elevated form of baseball with players routinely doing superhuman things almost on a nightly basis.  Steroids in baseball were essentially the goose that laid the golden egg.

The man now at the center of the steroids controversy is Barry Bonds, who has never admitted nor been proven to use steroids, but a mountain of evidence suggests that he has.  Bonds, at a very late stage in his career catapulted his Hall of Fame career into a legendary one, by obliterating the single season homerun record and now chasing Hank Aaron for the all-time career mark.  Throughout the 1990s Barry Bonds and Ken Griffey Jr. were considered as being head and shoulders above everyone else.  In 1998 the spotlight shifted to Sosa and McGwire, both obviously using performance enhancers, and two inferior players were now getting the endorsements and adulation, threatening Bonds's stature.  The result?  Bonds decided that he's a better ballplayer and proved it by using performance enhancers himself and transformed himself into far and away the best player in the history of baseball at the end of his career.  The contrast is Griffey, who seemingly has not used and his career has been marred by injuries as nature has taken its natural toll on his body.

Bonds and the top sluggers were not the only users, in fact most of baseball used performance enhancers.  Relief pitchers were now able to recover faster from their outings, and middling players used and turned into legitimate starters.  The game of baseball, in my opinion, from 1997-2004 was played at the highest level it has ever been played because of steroids, and I'm grateful to have seen many games from that era.  Going to a game now is an exercise in the routine, and I can see a noticible difference in the quality of play from just 3-4 years ago.  What has happened, though, is that the competitive balance of the game has been restored (see the Detroit Tigers this year, the White Sox last year and the '03 Marlins for proof) as teams with young talent can now compete.  Teams with huge payrolls before were the only ones who could afford the huge salaries that the goliaths of the game commanded.

From an athlete's perspective, I do not fault them at all for using performance enhancers, especially considering how effective and prevalent they were.  I do not blame Bonds for using to restore and secure his place in history.  I also do not blame that relief pitcher for using to extend his career and his earnings for a couple more seasons.  Those couple of seasons meant the world for securing financial stability for him and his family.  For the minor leaguer who used to get to the majors, it meant the ability to have the security of a Major League pension.  In terms of the quality of the game, and the history of the game, the quality was never better than during the steroid era and from a historic perspective, it is really impossible to compare teams and players from different eras.  Baseball is a game meant to be played by living people against each other, not to be compared across eras.

The bottom line on this story is that baseball needs to go in one direction and stick with it.  They need to be intolerant on any use of performance enhancers or to allow them.  Lifetime ban or allow their use, no middle ground.  It's much like the drug war that we're experiencing in America, where half measures have served only to overcrowd our prisons and have done nothing to combat the drug use.  Additionally, the federal government should step in with very harsh mandatory penalties against anyone who is a provider of performance enhancers to athletes (the Victor Contes and Greg Andersons of the world).  There's so much money involved that anything less amounts to a slap on the wrist.  The other alternative is to seek out performance enhancers that are safe and just as potent as steroids, HGH, etc and to legalize them, and allowing athletes to compete at the highest possible level.  Additionally, baseball should stop any investigations into the past and focus squarely on the future as looking into the past will only open wounds and hurt the game.

The Recruiting Rat Race

I just returned from Las Vegas, where I officiated basketball in two of the three major recruiting tournaments (the Adidas Super 64 and the Nike Main Event).  In total, I worked three of these major recruiting tournaments this year, including the Easter Classic in April, all in Las Vegas, as well as a major AAU tournament over Memorial Day weekend in Reno, so I think I have a good perspective on the rat race that is summer basketball.  Summer basketball is a cutthroat world, a world where big money is at stake for a lot of people, many of whom have nothing to do with the athletes and a larger number who couldn't care less about the players.  Athletics in general has become much more cutthroat and it involves many people beyond simply athletes and coaches.  For all the bad that surrounds it though, the new world has generated better athletes and creates opportunities for many players to get a chance at a college scholarship, the question is whether or not the opportunity outweighs the atmosphere of arrogance and opportunism that prevails now in all high level club sports.

Today I opened two sports magazines, ESPN and The Sporting News and each magazine contained articles featuring summer basketball.  ESPN featured the "Top Rated 6th Grader in the Country."  It discussed how parents pay top dollar to send their grammar school and middle school age kids to top flight camps to be seen and to be rated.  Discussions also took place about kids not growing to be as big as they need to be and seeing their dreams of the NBA thus being shattered.  The Sporting News article featured a player from Southern California by the name of Taylor King who's going to Duke.  I worked one of his games in the Spring and didn't think he was even the best player on his team, and the article essentially said the same thing, saying that his stock has plummeted.  Here's a guy who's barely 18 and having to do media damage control.

The atmosphere that surrounds summer basketball is not positive and it rubs off on the players, particularly the top players.  The AAU coaches of some teams are paid up to six figures to assemble a team of prospects, scouts for the internet bilk parents out of money by creating these ratings going as low as 4th grade, and come up with deals to send the kids to training camps.  Professional agents are buttering up parents, as are college coaches, because they need to to maintain a program. 

With all this attention, the level of arrogance on the court is very high, and often the players don't have much of a sense of reality, rather, they have a sense of entitlement.  I worked the Houston Hoops team, whose owner runs the Vision Sports tournaments and I had never seen that level of arrogance toward us as officials as well as the other team (not exactly humble, they were the Cuttino Mobley All Stars from Philly, who were overmatched).  Working that game, I had to resort to cussing at the players, calling technicals and getting in the faces of players just to gain respect and control the game.  Basically I had to be a total prick to gain their respect. 

The reality though is that most of those players will play D1 college, but the attitude of that team was not of the hard work and responsibility needed for a student-athlete to succeed.  Because they have been pampered and been given a sense of entitlement, the players in this game clearly do not understand what a gift their talent will give them: a free college education.  Most likely the college scholarship their incredible talent will get them will be squandered because these individuals lack responsibility and perspective to understand what type of opportunity they were afforded.  They will view their classes as a waste of time and struggle to succeed.  It is a major shame, and the reason is that so many people are making big money off of them and their dreams now that they're filled with delusions, babied and they lose sight of the big picture.

On the other hand, summer basketball gives opportunities to those who might have been overlooked.  The teammates of big name players may get looks from schools, and these are the hard workers who understand the type of gift a free college education is and will take advantage of the exposure.

As a high school baseball coach and basketball referee, I have a unique perspective on the whole "club sports" game.  Unfortunately there are a lot of bad people involved who will ruin lives to make an extra buck and who don't care for the athletes at all.  There are also good people too, and the system is what it is.  Sport specialization is a reality of the day, and I was even more convinced when I was e-mailed about a job opportunity for "talent scouts" who conduct tests on 10-12 year olds to determine what sport they have the best opportunity to succeed in.  In baseball, a typical way athletes get identified for top teams is to pay for private instruction from local coaches and they play on travel teams, sometimes for coaches who don't have the well-being of the athlete in mind.  In hockey, junior hockey is very similar to the basketball circuit.  Club soccer, particularly for girls can be very competitive to get into.  The result in all these sports though tends to be that the most dedicated, hard-working, sacrificing athletes succeed.  The difference between these sports and basketball though is that there is far more perspective in other sports.

The reality of the day is that club sports and specialization are here to stay, and they are big money enterprises.  The system enables the best players in each sport to have the best possible shot to succeed and provides a mechanism for hard work, determination and dedication to pay off.  It gives many people the opportunity to earn a college education, and in general, I have no problem with the system.  But in basketball, there are problems, stemming from a sense of entitlement and popularity and a lack of perspective.  Ranking players in grade school is absurd, and it's this type of absurdity that threatens amateur sports from youth leagues through college.

Bread, Circuses and Triviality in the Courts

I know it is an odd subject and title for my first blog, but what's the deal with some of the cases that the federal courts are hearing and have been hearing? Specifically, I am refering to free speech cases in which a couple of doses of common sense and maybe a bit of empathy would go a long way toward saving this country millions of dollars in legal fees. The cases, some of which I will more specifically reference later typically involve offensive behavior, symbolism or an attempt to impose a minority view on the majority. My problem with these cases is that they have no basis in reality and are symbolic in nature, there are no real damages, and the cases generally don't serve to impact society as a whole, and definitely do not positively impact society. So, my question is, why do our courts even bother to hear them and how much money do we end up wasting trying symbolic cases? Shouldn't our courts be concerned with matters of consequence and settling real, meaningful disputes rather than wasting our money settling what amounts to academic "what if" scenarios?

The case that caused me to write this blog was a recently decided case from Southern California where a 16 year old teenager was reprimanded for wearing an anti-gay t-shirt to school.  This is a good case to look at in light of several other cases from the other end of the political spectrum involve students wearing shirts or taking symbolic action to protest war, etc.  The details of these cases are beside the point that I would like to make here.  The teenager in question in our original case was asked by the principal of the school, reasonably, to remove the shirt, and the student said he'd rather be suspended (though he was not).  The actions of the teenager are not reasonable actions, but symbolic actions to try to make a point that somehow some injustice was befalling him.  Who, may I ask, is harmed by this turn of events?  Who is the victim?  My answer is the taxpayer, who is now forced to foot the bill for a federal court case and possible appeal to the U.S Supreme Court.  There's nothing more to this case than the fact that it is a somewhat interesting case study in the 1st amendment meant for a classroom or a mock trial, not a federal court.

The major problem that I have with cases like this is that the plaintiffs usually are people acting out to try to draw attention to themselves, often in a negative way.  The laws of common sense largely do and should govern society as do the considerations of time, place and manner.  Any reasonable principal for the purpose of preventing conflict would restrict that type of shirt from being worn.  Similarly, any reasonable principal should restrict clothing that is offensive to a number of people in the school community regardless of the message because the potential consequences of the resulting outrage far outweigh any damages that may be suffered by someone who is not allowed to engage in the offensive behavior.  That, my friends, is common sense, as the authority here is simply acting to protect a larger number of people, and the damage to the one is negligible.  That is the way society is run, and should continue to be run.

Unfortunately, rather than laughing these cases off as inconsequential, our courts eagerly embrace them, continue to take them and cost us millions.  The reason?  Judicial precedent, which many judges now seem to feel supercedes the law itself.  The case, in other words, isn't simply about whether or not it was right for the principal to tell Johnny he couldn't wear his offensive, anti-gay t-shirt, but rather it becomes about freedom of expression in general and impacts the way the 1st amendment is read.  The judges want to use this case to impact the next case and in effect change the law and the administration of the law to best fit their world-view.  It is the worst form of judicial activism, and it's costing us way too much money. 

On both sides of the aisle there is a push to engineer court cases to manipulate and change the law and it needs to stop.  On the left many are trying to undermine the values of majority America by systematically using the 1st Amendment to attack American institutions and the values of the majority.  The recent attack on the Pledge of Allegiance is a great example, as are the attacks on the Boy Scouts of America.  On the right, many are pushing hard to engineer a case to overturn Roe v. Wade (which itself was a gross display of judicial activism, but that's for another day).  The result?  We are wasting a ton of money and not hearing cases of consequence in a timely manner.  Judges are supposed to use the law to settle disputes and determine guilt and innocence in matters of consequence, not to enter a theoretical, academic world in order to use trivial cases to try to make law.