Two Stories; Giving and Taking

This is a story about two stories.  Both are typically American.  Both reflect values.  One story is about values cherished.  The other is about values gone awry.  The stories tell a story; about what is good in America and what is wrong with America.  Each story is about responsibility; accepted and denied. Both stories were on the recent nightly news and were broadcast within minutes of each other.  One story can warm the heart and bring a tear.  The other story is a groin kick that makes you wonder about the double dealing we often think pervades our society.    

Warning: It's Almost Fall

Summer's almost gone       

Summer's almost gone

We had some good times

But they're gone

The winter's comin' on

Summer's almost gone

~ The Doors

“If cross country were easy it would be called football.” ~ Slogan on the backs of many cross country team shirts.

Am I ready for some football?  Well - no.   America is all a twitter, sports talk show hosts are ecstatic and television network and National Football League execs are just beginning a 5 month long fiscal orgasm (For those readers outside of the USA, I’m speaking of American football as opposed to futbol/soccer). 

American football is an absolute dollarific orgy.  On average the 32 NFL teams are worth $1.17 billion dollars each.  The average revenue per team last year was $286 million dollars.  Broadcast revenue from the networks for the current contract, now in its final year, averages $1.9 billion per year.  The new contract starting in 2014 will average $3.1 billion per year.  These are just a few of the bank account boggling figures.  And this doesn't even count the gambling money exchanged – both legal and not. 

Sequestering Morality

Emergency responders like the ones who are here today — their ability to help communities respond to and recover from disasters will be degraded.  Border Patrol agents will see their hours reduced.  FBI agents will be furloughed.  Federal prosecutors will have to close cases and let criminals go. 

~  Remarks by President Obama on Sequestration, February, 19th 2013

"A culture that victimizes it's weakest members is a culture in decline."  ~  John Barry of The Southern Tier AIDS Program.

We’ve been sequestered!  Or is it sequestrated?  I don’t know; either way it comes out to the same thing.  We’ve been screwed.  By our government.  Again.  Actually I couldn’t say whether or not I’m actually part of the “we” that’s being screwed.  I’m in the comfortable middle class and I imagine I’ll come through this without really noticing much.  If I decide I want to take a flight somewhere I might have to show up at the airport a little earlier; so I lose a little sleep.

Life is Not Fair

The game of life is hard to play
I'm gonna lose it anyway
The losing card I'll someday lay
So this is all I have to say

~  Suicide is Painless (M*A*S*H Theme).  Music by Johnny Mandel, Lyrics by Mike Altman

"Life is not fair; get used to it."
~  Bill Gates

"The world is not fair and often fools, cowards, and the selfish hide in high places."
~  Bryant H. McGill; Author and poet.

Within the short space of a week I was reminded more than once that life is not fair. They came of course by way of that universally respected organ of philosophic discussion; Facebook.  

One was a debate about 49er quarterbacks.  I’d expressed displeasure over Alex Smith, the starting quarterback apparently losing his job because his understudy had performed well the week before while Smith sat out with a concussion.  My contention was that Smith had been playing well over the course of the season and done nothing to lose his status as the starting player.  There was an exchange of opinions over the merits of one player over the other with one poster punctuating his comment with, “Life’s not fair.”

A few days later a friend posted a commencement address made (allegedly) by Bill Gates in which he listed 11 things that they don’t teach you in high school.  Rule number one on the list of Gatesian sagacity was; “Life is not fair – get used to it.”  Ouch. 

Let me make it clear, these weren’t the first times I’ve come across that pearl, “Life’s not fair.”   You hear it all the time.  At times its glib bullshit – something to say when you’ve really nothing more of any substance to add to the conversation.  Other times it’s used as Gates intended; a sort of hardnosed, Darwinian, tough love approach to survival in this veil of tears.

Black Thanksgiving: A Real Turkey - 2012 Edition

“CORPORATION, n. An ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility.” ~ Ambrose Bierce.

“The superior man understands what is right; the inferior man understands what will sell.” ~ Confucius

“There is one day that is ours. Thanksgiving Day is the one day that is purely American.”  ~ O Henry

Inching through Berkeley in rush hour traffic (Why in the hell do they call it rush hour when it takes that hour to go 5 miles? Where exactly is the rush part?) NPR brought the impending holiday season into stark blinding reality.  It reported that this year Wal-Mart will be kicking off the holiday shopping season by opening its doors at 8 PM on Thanksgiving night. 

Last year, in this very space I published a post titled Black Thanksgiving: A Real Turkey in which I criticized the marginalizing of our great American holiday, Thanksgiving, in favor of a new ritual; that of bundling up and leaving the holiday festivities for a round of bargain hunting hysteria.  I protested, vehemently I might add, the decision by Wal-Mart to open at 10 PM on Thanksgiving night.  In its audacity, Wal-Mart not only didn’t take my beef with them seriously, it upped the ante and decided to open its doors two hours earlier than last year.  The very effrontery of it all.  Obviously Walmart doesn’t know who it’s dealing with.  No, really, they don’t.  They don’t have the foggiest idea who I am and even if they did they wouldn’t care.  I’m that gnat on the ass of an elephant (or more properly the ass of an ass). Nonetheless I feel compelled to play David to Sam’s Goliath. 

An Open Letter From a Breaking Heart

This is a post written by Calvin Peña.  I met Calvin, who is one of my daughter's friends, through social media.  This post by Calvin started out as a message that he sent me in response to my last post; America Heal Thyself IV.  His words resonated so I asked him permission to publish it as a post.

An Open Letter From a Breaking Heart

Calvin Peña

Even when I was a regular church-goer I never thought I would break down and cry at a Bible verse.  Think again.  I came across a verse in Matthew 25 recently that brought me to uncontrollable tears: "He will reply, 'Truly I tell you, that whatever you did not do for the least of these, you did not do for me." 

Money; The Root of Regulation

"Regulation is strangling businesses of all sizes in California, and we've got to streamline regulation so it's easy, not hard, to do business."
Meg Whitman 

"That role for government is breaking up the monopolies, insisting on public disclosure, insisting on public audits, insisting on restitution whenever someone has been cheated."
Dennis Kucinich

"Let me say that I don't like money.  I work and I earn it because it's fundamental to survival. I spend it on necessities and frivolities and I donate it (thought not as much as I should) to causes more worthy than those that get my money for the necessities and frivolities. Let me repeat; I don't like money. It is evil and it inspires the evil in people."
Paul Anderson (Me)

 

This all started with yogurt; Greek yogurt.  Greek yogurt and phony Greek yogurt to be precise.  Then it went to foreclosure and bank regulation and from there it went to a legislator ranting about laissez faire and now it’s grown into an argument about the morality of making money. 

It's The "O" Games - Oh My!

“The Olympic Games are the quadrennial celebration of the springtime of humanity.”
Pierre de Coubertin

“Every party needs a pooper, that’s why we invited you.”

From a little ditty.

Being the curmudgeonly party pooper is a tough job but someone has to take it on.  The “O” Games have begun and the world and NBC are all atwitter.  You’ll notice that I’m not using the proper word to describe these quadrennial events that are equal part sport, nationalism and soap opera (Currently two years separates the winter and summer games.  In years past the winter and summer games occurred in the same year).  I’m staying away from the actual word itself because it has an armor plated copyright, defended with badger-like tenacity and I don’t have a lawyer with the horsepower of the “O” Organizing Committee’s lawyers to fight off any suits over my use of the “O” word (In fact I don’t have a lawyer of any horsepower). 

I’m being extra cautious because according to a story on NPR the “O”, organizers in London are being O-verly zealous this year about protecting the copyright.  The “O” games lawyers (If the games were being held in nearby Dublin, could we call them O’Lawyers?) are working O-vertime making sure that nobody sells fake merchandise, hijacks the rings to promote their laundry business or dog sitting service or misuses the “O” word.  We have an “O” Boulevard here in nearby Walnut Creek; I’m wondering if the town fathers are consulting the city attorneys.

Derek Jeter, Three Thousand Hits and a Christian

     Yesterday Derek Jeter got his 3000^th hit which just happened to be a home run.  He was only the second player to achieve that mark with a dinger, the other being Wade Boggs.  When a ballplayer’s milestone hit just happens to be a long tater it creates something of a logistical problem; a problem that leads to anything from an informal negotiation to a court battle.

     There was a time when a fan would settle for a short meet and greet with the player and an autograph or two in exchange for a home run ball.  That sort of behavior is now frowned upon.  Nowadays it’s expected that the fan will enter into hard negotiations with the player, the team or both.  Shockingly (he said with tongue firmly in cheek) a cottage industry has developed around home run balls.  Called ball hawking it is capitalism on steroids, pun intended.  In simple terms the ball hawk snags the ball and then tries to take the player to the cleaners (Yes I know what you’re going to say and I’ll take that up later).

     A few cases in point here.  In 2008, A’s rookie Carlos Gonzalez hit his first major league homer.  A ball hawk named Tom Snyder caught the ball and asked for a jersey and two signed bats.  The A’s rejected the offer saying that uniforms take too long to replace.  So in what I would consider a bizarre bit of negotiating, Snyder asked for $10,000 which the A’s also rejected.  Snyder left with the ball and Gonzalez probably figured his souvenir 1^st home run ball was gone.  Not so, as Snyder traded the ball a week later for a signed photo with Gonzalez (a fair deal he should have taken in the first place).  The “gentleman” who caught Ken Griffey’s 600^th home run ball asked for, as Griffey put it, “a few things that were out of hand.”  The imagination sort of reels over what “out of hand” means.  Griffey never got that ball which eventually sold for $42,000 at an auction. The stories about the McGwire and Bonds “record breaking” home run balls are now legend.  McGwire’s 70^th in the ’98 season sold for $3 million and the Bonds 73^rd single season ball went to court over who actually caught the ball.

     Returning to Jeter’s 3000^th; it was caught by a fellow named Christian Lopez.  According to the folks who are supposed to be experts in the matter, the ball would be worth about $250,000.  As the ball sailed over the fence the Yankee brass were probably opening the safe and pulling out the checkbook.  Lopez was located and asked his price.  Nothing; Lopez wanted nothing.  Well the Yankees weren’t going to accept an outrageous offer like that so they gave Lopez four front-row Legends seats for the remainder of the season, including the playoffs and a gaggle of signed Jeter memorabilia.  In addition he had his photo taken with Jeter and met with Reggie Jackson and other Yankee stars (and I would imagine, got their autographs as well).

     Now, back to that “cleaners” thing.  Yeah, yeah I know, Jeter’s salary will average $16 million dollars over this season and the next two, and the Yankees are one of the richest franchises in sports, so between the two a couple hundred thousand is nothing.

      A quick review of the comments section of any article on Lopez/Jeter says that in the eyes of many of his fellow Americans, Lopez is a bloody fool.  A few choice samples from Yahoo Sports for your reading pleasure:

                “What a fool!!!!! He looks like he eats a lot. Will regret that he didn’t take the money.”

                “Christian did a STUPID thing, nothing admirable about it. His girlfriend should dump him.”

                “The right thing was to get paid so your family will be set....just sayin”

     And here’s one of my favorites, “All you people who talk about morality, integrity, the right thing to do, etc. when it comes to this make me sick. Since when does anybody who catches a ball have a moral obligation to return it?”

     A couple of thoughts.  To be fair, a number of commenters commended Lopez for what he did, citing integrity, moral obligation and honesty.  None of those really apply here.  The ball was not stolen property.  According to Major League Baseball rules, the ball belonged to Lopez free and clear so there was no compelling reason, legal or moral to give the ball to Jeter.   So why did he do it? I would like to think it’s because he’s a good guy.  I also would like to think that I would do pretty much the same thing.  I’ve often posed that same question to myself and my answer has always been that I would probably ask for an autographed ball and an autographed picture of me with the player.  And I think that’s a fair deal.  As a baseball fan those would be some nice mementoes for the mantle.  I seriously could not see myself asking for a horse choking bankroll.  It isn’t in my makeup and apparently it isn’t in Lopez either and if that makes us chumps then fine, we’re chumps. 

     As it worked out, in my opinion anyway, Lopez got a pretty nice little package.  Had he gone into a hardball negotiation session, I doubt that he would have been offered that deal and may have ended up settling for less.  He could also have opted to auction the ball.  As to the comment that Lopez’s girlfriend should dump him, it’s quite likely that the quality that made him give the ball to Jeter is just what she is looking for in a mate.  Maybe she just isn’t in to opportunists.

     This story might also say something about Derek Jeter.  With the possible exception of some Red Sox and Mets fans Jeter is seen as one of the classiest guys in sports.  A milestone hit by A-Rod, or the aforementioned Bonds might not invite the kindness shown by Lopez.

     And so this leads me to a final comment on the whole affair.  In a short time Derek Jeter will retire and when he does it will leave one less in a meager pool of classy athletes who would invite the kind of goodwill shown by Christian Lopez.