The Pink Elephant in the Center of the Diamond

Politics and sports go hand in hand. If it wasn't for politics, who would care about the Olympics? There is another side to politics and sport, the side that leaves an ugly reflection upon society, and asks questions about the very fabric of who we are. An issue in sport has divided the nation in this way the past 3 - 5 years, and that issue is steroids, which Barry Bonds being the figurehead for cheating in baseball. Now, through the Mitchell Report, we have come to learn of many others (ex. Roger Clemens) using similar performance enhancing products in the same time frame as Barry Bonds, but without the same anger as we saw with Bonds. Is that fair? Why does society point out one person, without the other, and who is to blame for this behavior?

Fairness is a tough thing to tackle, because life is not fair, and the world of sports is no different. We get lost in the ambiance of sport. Everything within the white lines operates in such an organized manner, that the games have the ability to take us away from our everyday lives and for three hours get lost in the joy of a children's game. The simplicity of the rules provides balance and order that we do not find in the other sectors of our lives.

Now I am not convicting Roger Clemens, or any other player named in the Mitchell Report guilty of anything, besides being mentioned in the Mitchell Report. Just being named in a report does not correlate to guilt in any court, besides the court of public opinion. Barry Bonds has been convicted by the court of public opinion a long time ago. So I ask, what makes Roger Clemens or any other player so different from Barry Bonds. We all know Bonds has been vilified by writers, reporters, fans, and even a book, as the monstrous face of the steroid problem in baseball. Now we see it was a systemic problem with more monsters than Richard Matheson's "I am Legend" novel, with no one in the baseball front office willing to play the Robert Neville character.

Who is to blame for the horrific injustice in the arena of sport? The politics for king-makers are not created by the diamond. The sportscasters, radio shock jocks, and even sports reporters have decided long ago Barry Bonds is public enemy number one. And other the other side of the spectrum Roger Clemens always got a pass, the golden ticket as you will to play the white knight that represents baseball and America at its best. Clemens played the symbol of the product of hard work. While the diamond creates stars and even legends amongst peers and fans, the villains are created somewhere else. In our need to jeer or boo. We feel the need to put some, like Clemens on the pedestal, while we let the monsters feast on players like Bonds. Here is the catch, we are the monsters!

In Political News, Where is THE ISSUE?

If you have read the newspaper or the headlines for online news feeds in the last few days, most of the major United States domestic news has been aimed at providing coverage of the superficially over-hyped, presidential race for 2008. The way major news headlines have told us everything we have ever wanted to know about the candidates lives, views on issues and more, but my dissatisfaction is not with the amount of candidate coverage. My dissatisfaction lies on the notion that the most important domestic/international topic is no longer getting covered in today's news, and that is the war in the Middle East. Maybe everyone is tired of talking about and reporting on a war that doesn't seem like it is on the road to resolution anytime soon, but that is the exact reason why we need to continue to make this front page news! As long as the United States continues to send 18 and 19 year old men and women to a region of the world to enforce a political agenda, the war in the Middle East should continue to remain a front page headline.

Higher Education Indoctrination

Last week (November 1st) a discussion topic on Glenn Beck (CNNHN) was debated on the state of higher education, and if modern universities are not educating now just indoctrinating.  The topic that was up for debate, and venomously opposed by Mr. Beck's program was the orientation of new students into the university housing (dorm) system and the accepted university definitions of several life terms and experiences.  The terms that were taken exception to were the definition for what/who is racist, and understanding sexual identity.  Now these are very complex issues that could be discussed as dissertation topics, but they chose to give an editorial commentary on Mr. Beck's television program.  Mr. Beck's conclusion stated that the universities have gone away from institutions of higher learning, and now are houses for left-winged, pro-socialist, anti-American professors attempting to indoctrinate young minds.  In response to these claims I will discuss these assertions to the best of my ability.

First, Mr. Beck had two guests on the program to discuss the state of modern universities and the educational practices thereof, but neither contributor to the program was a higher education professional nor were they a higher education researcher of any kind.  What type of adequate debate can take place when only one side of the argument is represented?  There was an independent film maker and the President of FIRE (The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education) on dare I say a panel.  The university in question was the University of Delaware, and their housing practices, but this isn't really about them.  This is about the way they are dissecting a program to single out the parts that they don't like.  Glenn Beck made a statement "that as tuition paying parents we've got to change that. (That being the composition of university faculty and staff that as he put it were pro-socialist, anti-Americans going unchecked.)"  What about writing a tuition check for your son or daughter makes you entitled to the hiring practices of that institution? If I go to Best Buy to purchase a television, I do not get to comment on their corporate structure.  I can complain about poor service.  I can start shopping at Circuit City, but I cannot tell Best Buy who they can and cannot hire.  Maybe this is for another discussion?  The state of American money and the entitlement people feel by spending it, I just want to remind everyone that no one makes you go to a certain school or store.  If you don't like what you are getting in one place, you can go to the next.

So some parents feel uncomfortable that their children have to learn about some difficult topics when they get to college, but isn't that what college is for?  To make the point that some people are offended by the definition of a racist, should be moot.  In the resident training program from the university in question (Delaware), a racist is a person who resides in and profits from a racist society.  So by this definition an African American, in America, cannot be a racist, because African Americans do not and have not profited in any form of the American racial hierarchy.  This may be an uncomfortable topic of discussion for many, but that doesn't make it untrue.  In our modern society, we like to embrace our 'oneness'.  We celebrate our diversity, by having unity weeks and diversity pride parades (gay pride, black family reunion, Latino pride, etc.), but we don't discuss how the wealth of our society has been unevenly distributed throughout the history of this country.  If you happen to be someone who came from a group of people that could not own land or had to be subject to Jim Crow laws until recently, your outlook on racial disparity has to be different from the people who are trying to live it down.  

Also on this topic, we must understand the difference between a racist, and a person who is prejudice.  They are discussing being racist.  Someone can be ashamed of a system in which a hierarchy had been created, that they themselves had nothing to do with and not embrace it, but that does not make that person exempt from profiting from the history of what was created.  To be or display prejudice, would be the thinking or acting on preconceived beliefs about one's race, gender, sexual orientation.  That is different from racism, and we all know the power is in the definition.  It is a weird thing in American society to discuss race, because for so long it was broken down into two groups.  You were either white or black.  One was acceptable, and the other was not.  Now, as a society we have come a great distance from that time in history, but we must not forget that the era of civil rights was just 40 years ago.  You cannot just wash away a history of behavior in one generation, and a society that is still operating on terms that have been in place for hundreds of years.  He want to forget the mistreatment of people in our society.  We want to relieve ourselves of the guilt that we feel for this American holocaust, by saying things are different now, and they are, but that doesn't change the things that took place.  Just because we feel guilty, doesn't exempt someone from it.  That is the purpose of a university is to challenge thoughts, that you may not embrace or accept, but that does not make them any less real.

The university experience as a whole, IS AN INDOCTRINATION, but that does not make it negative!  It is the indoctrination for young adults into adulthood.  Many of the ideas that circulate around in institutions of learning are not parallel to the ideas that the average high school student take for granted, nor are they always the accepted ideas that would be thought at your home.  Why do you think that universities are their own entities with university villages or college towns?  It is because you are not at home anymore in your suburb that made you so comfortable.  University is about expanding your mind, not just expanding your wallet.  So many people believe that college is simply about earning a degree to get a job.  It is not!  It is a place of learning on many levels, and in some cases learning some things that are not so comfortable for you to talk about.  Now the university experience is not perfect, but nothing in life is perfect.  If we are at a place in society that we are complaining that our children are forced to hear things we are uncomfortable with, we as a society are doing a lot of things wrong, and that does not start and stop with the university system.

Blood Thirsty

Michael Vick has recently done something he has become very comfortable doing, NO I'm not talking about dogfighting! I'm talking about his ability to create a stir while being altogether unique. Previously when the public would speak on the one-of-a-kind talent of Vick, it was understood that they were speaking of an unquestionably gifted football star. Now they are speaking of an infamous felon, who took the lives of dogs that did not meet his fighting expectations.

What brings us to this point? A debate on the legality of dogfighting? No. The story of a fallen superstar to which society has built up on a pedestal because of his freakishly stunning football talents? No. A discourse from PETA about the treatment of animals in this country? Maybe. The lessons we continue to learn and find out about ourselves, and the gruesome society we live in? YES! Getting down to it, Michael Vick's actions are difficult to stomach, but not as horrible as we make them out to be. Is he the person that many sports fans have come to cheer and respect as a upstanding young man? The answer is not as clear as we would like to think, it is yes and no.

To put a spin on the angry Dennis Green rant "they are who we thought they were", only in this case we feel the hurt and anger in the voices of fans because Michael Vick wasn't the man everyone thought he was. I would argue exactly the opposite.  We as football fans never knew him off the field.  " He was who we thought he was" on the field, an electrifying talent that brought fans to their feet and opposing defenses to their knees.  A young player striving to reach his potential, in a sport very few get a chance to play at the highest level.  Off the field is a different story.  We as fans, invest so much in the sporting experience, we forget some of the most basic concepts that come along with that investment.  

We do not know these athletes as well as we think we do. While we cheer and jeer our sports superstars, sometimes we forget they are just people who live lives away from their game.  We appreciate the passion and remarkable talents they display on their craft every game.  We understand the type of work ethic and drive that one must possess to reach the higher echelon  of professional sports success.  Many of us would have to admit that the level of passion they describe is lacking in our everyday lives.  Outside of the stage known as professional sports, many of the athletes live rather normal lives.  A house with a wife (or husband), several kids, and managing all of the daily tasks that come with those responsibilities.  All of us, that means everyone, has done things that we are not happy with.  Everyone has had to overcome a few disappointments along the journey we call life, and overcoming those disappointments is what measures to be judged upon, not the mistakes, because we all fall down every once in a while.

Everything to Everyone

As most of you know, I work at a mid-sized university of 15 thousand students.  For some, this is a very rewarding experience, but for me I want to bang my head against the wall due to utterly unnecessary initiatives I am subjected to in Director's meetings.  The newest plan of action is to create an Inter-faith council, and give them a large office space on campus in the university center.  I am not against formalized religion, even though I do not subscribe to one, but why would you create that type of group for a university campus?  Beyond the obvious concerns of what faiths make up their Inter-faith council, and the dangers of discriminating the less popular or accepted, it makes one ask, what is the goal of the modern university?  Why are modern American universities trying to become everything to everyone?

The university must ask within itself, "what is our mission?"  If the mission of the modern university is to enlighten young minds with learner-centered teaching, public engagement, intellectual freedom, multiculturalism, why would you promote a one-sided way of thinking by introducing religion?  Religion is not the enemy of higher education by a long shot.  I just feel that introducing "university approved" religions would send the wrong message to the students that did not practice them.  How can you go about spouting off comments of multiculturalism and intellectual freedom, and then introduce old-hat philosophy like a government/school/official set of religious practice on campus?

 People that go to a restaurant and have appreciate a nice bottle of wine would let you know, that if you fill half the bottle with water, the wine will not be any good.  That is how I feel about the modern university structure we are trying to move toward in our society.  We are filling the bottle with water, and not concentrating on what makes the university such a special experience.  A university is an environment with open doors and open minds that provides a platform for social discourse, which creates a learning unique to any other stage in life.  Anything less than that, should not be tolerated, but I guess we can no longer ask for excellence.  In a society that puts more emphasis on convenience over substance, I may just have to settle for the watering down of American institutions that continue to fall behind the rest of the world.

What Does a New Jail or Prison Fix?

I want you to ponder this question, what does a new jail or prison actually fix? I ask you this because we as Americans are so quick to impose a tax to build a new jail or sentence convicted citizens to lengthy terms, that we actually forget about the rehabilitation process. I want to know what you think about what jails and prisons actually fix.

~Lew

Who gets a Pass?

Maybe it is just me, but I notice on a very regular basis that steroids sparks divisive conversation. And on almost every instance the name Barry Bonds comes up. "What do you think about Barry?" "How do you feel about Barry breaking the record?" I think I depress the question askers with every response. "I am not only happy to see the greatness that is an athlete eclipsing a great milestone like the homerun record, I could not be happier for Barry Bonds!" Amidst all of the controversy and troubles he can still achieve great things. To me this is a display of the best of human spirit, if we believe it we can achieve it. I have read reporters calling Barry a fraud and a cheater, but to me I can only see him as great. A man who has never tested positive of anything gets defined as a cheater and a fraud, but others in his profession and around professional sports get a pass. Why is that?

How can someone, anyone define the greatest player since Willie Mays (if not ever?) as a fraud? A player that has accomplished so many things in his career, in comparison, I would be willing to bet that none of the naysayers (be it fans or journalists) have accomplished anywhere near that much in their own careers! A record as difficult as 755 homeruns certainly does not come over night, and it doesn't come from the tip of a needle. Only hard work, twenty plus years of standout play, and a passion to be the best you can possibly be can result in that many home runs. A player with the most 30+ homerun seasons, tied for the most 40+ homerun seasons, and the single season homerun record seems like a player one could hardly accuse of the lack of a credible resume.

So if Barry is a fraud? What defines a fraud? Last year one of the freshest faces in sports tested positive for performance enhancing drugs and the sporting news community laughed it off like hiccup. How does Shawne Merriman test positive for steroids, then go on to be the cover boy for ESPN the Magazine the next issue? Is he not a fraud? Or is it simply that they like Shawne Merriman, and reporters have an axe to grind with Barry? I don't ever want to hear any praise for a player that tests positive for steroids, but is excused because the press like him, if they can't give the same respect to another player that has never tested positive of anything besides arrogance. We see the power of the press everyday, with the way a good writer can influence the beliefs of so many readers. I want to see the end of irresponsible reporting, not on the behalf of Barry Bonds, but the improvement of public knowledge. There is nothing more powerful than ignorance, and nothing sounds more ignorant than someone trying to tell me that Barry Bonds isn't the greatest player of my time.