Pro sports' undeserved free pass

Americans have an unhealthy obsession with sports. From the amount of money they spend on skyrocketing ticket prices, to the mega-dollars they plunk down on merchandise and other swag, professional sports occupies a sacred perch that is rarely questioned or challenged.

I can’t remember a recent book that achieved national attention that implicated professional sports or athletes and led to substantial changes in the way that Americans looked at, or resulted in radical behavioral alterations in how they associate with athletics of the professional variety.

Several times this spring, I’ve driven to Norton, Massachusetts, to watch my son participate in a college baseball contest. During portions of my three hour drive, I’ve spent time listening to sports talk radio, most notably content on WEEI, Boston’s preeminent sports talk station. Several times during my time listening, I’ve wondered about the amount of time and energy, as well as the amount of passion that callers obviously devote to their local professional sports team. Seeing that it’s baseball season, most of the focus is on the Boston Red Sox, although, with the recent NFL draft, time was devoted to the Patriots’ draft selections. [I must admit, when the subject veered from the Red Sox, to football, I often changed the station. I’m just not a big enough pro football fan to listen to caller after caller discuss the minutia of the draft.]

I think it was Noam Chomsky, speaking about the aversion of many, to follow politics closely (or their lack of understanding), observing the phenomenon of sports talk radio and fan’s obvious complexity of thought about scenarios and circumstances regarding pro baseball (or football, or even NASCAR, heaven forbid) that made him confident that it wasn’t capability, or intellectual rigor of Americans that made them deficient in understanding political circumstances that affected them more directly than whether David Ortiz hit a home run, or Adam Vinateri kicked a field goal.

I am amazed that Portland’s own sports talk station, WJAB (“The Big Jab”), will spend four hours each morning, five days a week, talking about the Red Sox. Caller after caller will weigh in on the previous night’s game, or some aspect of the team that is obviously troubling them enough to spend considerable time framing their arguments, or points of view.

Like their political talk counterparts, sports talk jocks don’t seem particularly insightful or wide-ranging in areas outside of their sports “expertise.” Like many right (or left, for that matter)-leaning political hosts, many sports-talk hosts seem somewhat deficient in the personality department, particularly in areas of politeness and tolerance of differing viewpoints from their own.

Interestingly, many sports talk hosts seem to be exceedingly patriotic, right-leaning, and several seem to be given to making racist, homophobic and sexist comments, on a regular basis. Several hosts (or host teams, as WEEI likes to pair their jocks) didn’t seem to have any qualms about disparaging last Monday’s marches and planned walkouts by immigrants. Several times, snide comments were made about certain Latino ballplayers, as to whether or not they might not be in uniform. These were usually followed by the co-hosts raucous guffaws, indicating that a certain political ideology and orientation was deeply ingrained in that station’s culture. The intimation was that anyone who didn’t think like them was somehow, less manly, less American, or less intelligent (or any combination of these).

This has led me to consider what it is about sports that seem to play into dominant American cultural stereotypes? Obviously, sports have played a major role in the assimilation of immigrants into mainstream American culture. In my own research, I’ve found that many immigrant families encouraged young boys to embrace baseball, during the first half of the 20th century, as a way to quickly “fit in” to their communities.

Professional sports are clearly part of America’s corporate onslaught, and as such, must toe certain predetermined marks of decorum and parrot certain culturally-prescribed behaviors. If the business of business is business, then the business of baseball (and other professional sports) is also business.

Yet, while corporations increasingly control many national outlets of expression—books, magazine articles, and even mainstream news—occasionally, malfeasance is exposed and corruption within corporate culture is revealed.

Rarely, if ever, even among political progressives, does pro sports receive such scrutiny, even though the culture of professional athletics is riddled with racism, sexism and is very much homophobic. Commentators and writers, who rarely miss an opportunity to skewer our current president for his lack of intelligence, concern for the poor, or privileged pedigree, turn a blind eye to the very same "qualities" in their favorite professional athletes.

While two writers recently wrote a very damning book, about Barry Bonds and his alleged steroid usage, Bonds is allowed to continue his assault on baseball’s home run records, with very little concern voiced by baseball’s millions of fans (and even less by baseball's guardians), nightly tossing down their hard-earned dollars and passing through ballpark turnstiles. While small numbers of fans have found this recent allegation the last straw, revenues continue to shoot skyward, salaries reach new heights of absurdity and players continue to look like cartoon caricatures, sculpted and beefed up with the latest chemical enhancements.

It’s been 35 years since Jim Bouton’s Ball Four ripped the veneer off baseball’s protective cocoon. There hasn’t been another book written since that brought similar cries of outrage and betrayal and changed the way a particular professional sport is looked at and how its stars are treated. Bouton’s book was truly ground-breaking, because prior to its publication, baseball players were thought to be whiter than the driven snow and at least on par with mom’s apple pie—not a bunch of drunken, whoring, crude human beings that they’ve always been—with the steroid allegations, we can also add “cheater” to the litany.

Despite efforts by a few writers, professional sports once again occupies a unique place in our current climate of bread and circuses, continually receiving kid-glove treatment from members of the media that no other business, or corporate entity does. This, despite a culture that is as corrupt, if not more so than anything found residing at Haliburton, Enron, or occupying the corridors of power in Washington, DC.

Maybe the role of sports isn’t intended to set a standard and indicate what’s best about our country. Maybe its role is to be a mirror, reflecting all that’s wrong with America, paraded before the rest of the world, once again revealing our ugliness and true nature, dripping with corruption and stained by the lucre that currently plagues it.

What the May Day marches might mean

The previous two centuries were characterized by the arrival of immigrants to our shores. These immigrants, while despised and castigated, provided the muscle and the strong backs that were necessary to build the U.S. economy. While fully integrated in American society today, some 150 years after they first arrived, the Irish immigrants that began coming to America, elicited similar reactions and calls for action that today’s Hispanic and other immigrants of color are experiencing. Similarly, these immigrants were often forced to live in substandard conditions (cellars and shanties), partly because of poverty but also because they were considered bad for the neighborhood. Articles from the day mentioned that these immigrants “were unfamiliar with plumbing and running water.” Often, the poor living conditions bred sickness and early death. It was estimated that 80 percent of all infants born to Irish immigrants in New York City died. Their brogue and dress provoked ridicule; their poverty and illiteracy provoked scorn.

The Chicago Post wrote, "The Irish fill our prisons, our poor houses...Scratch a convict or a pauper, and the chances are that you tickle the skin of an Irish Catholic. Putting them on a boat and sending them home would end crime in this country."

Despite being despised, the arrival of Irish immigrants came at a time when manual labor was needed to fuel the American economy. As the country grew, men with strong backs were needed to do the heavy work of building bridges, canals, and railroads. It was hard, dangerous work, but these new immigrant laborers were willing to accept the brutal work and miniscule wages offered. A common expression heard among railroad workers of the time was "an Irishman was buried under every tie." Desperation drove them to these jobs, like many Mexican immigrants of today, who accept agricultural jobs, meat packing occupations, domestic work and many other occupations that whites consider below their dignity. Today, St. Patrick’s Day is celebrated by non-Irish and Irish alike.

Just like the Irish, the Mexican immigrants and others that gathered Monday, to rally, parade and enact economic boycotts in Los Angeles, New York, Denver and even Ashville, N.C. were utilizing the same tools of solidarity that allowed the Irish and other immigrant workers before them, to acquire dignity and forge a place of belonging as Americans.

Despite the xenophobic rhetoric that has accompanied immigrants before them, economic conditions and lack of opportunity in their homelands drive immigrants to our communities in the U.S. The desire for better lives and living conditions for their families cause them to persist and persevere, despite calls to the contrary from the Sensenbrennars, Tancredos, Lou Dobbs and others.

The immigration debate has energized elements of the progressive community from their slumber and has provided a context for groups to come together around a common cause and realize once again the power that resides in grassroots movements and in people.

The call for boycotts from many of the immigrant organizers sent shockwaves of fear running through the corporate suites from New York, to Washington, to Los Angeles. The president himself said that “boycotts weren’t the answer,” as he prefers his subjects to be meek and docile and accept the scraps the fall from the masters' tables. Basically, we all should just shut up and be happy with our lot in life. If that lot doesn’t include a golden parachute, or a trust fund, life has become more and more difficult, however.

While the media has done its best to ignore the crowds that gathered and the unleashing of economic clout held in check for too long, Monday’s May Day celebration was a sign that real change comes from the rediscovery of the tactics that our forgotten labor history teaches.

When working conditions were deplorable across our country, in the early years of the 20th century, workers gathered together with fellow workers and organized around common demands—demands for a shorter work day, better pay, access to health care and better housing—similar demands that go wanting in our own day and are denied by the very same bosses that have always sought to exploit workers and keep them divided and in check.

For the past 35 to 40 years, we’ve allowed power to take from us the rights that others fought for and many died for. We’ve allowed the lifestyle of consumerism to lull us to sleep and forget that our corporate overseers never have our best in mind, only how to further exploit our daily labor for their own benefit.

Monday’s marches might be the first stirrings of a movement that could become hard to put down. It’s certainly worth watching to see if some of the alliances forged around immigration will continue to strengthen and could lead to a resurgence of grassroots, people-powered democracy.

Juan Gonzalez had a great column in Tuesday's New York Daily News on the subject of immigration and solidarity.

My addiction to blogging and America's addiction to cheap oil

OK; so I said I was walking away from blogging--well it's damn hard to break a habit that is so deeply ingrained into your daily routine. I've done this for over two years and frankly, I've found the habit intoxicating. Honestly, my recent post was not a ploy to get people to laud my miniscule contribution to the blogosphere--I was genuinely burnt out and feeling tapped out.

Basically, I guess I'll probably continue to post at least weekly, here at Words Matter, but I'm not going to freak out if I don't. I have alot on my plate with the non-fiction anthology in progress, part-time job that continues to require more of my energies than I care to think about, etc. However, there is alot going on in the world and obviously, some people do read my posts. I guess I just need to be a big boy and not be all wounded because I don't have the amount of traffic that other bloggers do.

Having said that, there is much to stay abreast of, particularly pertaining to the price of gasoline and the utter delusional approaches Americans are taking in dealing with the beginning of what I believe to be Jim Kunstler's scenario laid out in last summer's, The Long Emergency. He has an excellent post at his blog, about Americans and our inability to come to terms with the peak oil issue, using Elizabeth Kubler-Ross's well-known sequence of emotional reactions, which humans go through, when facing certain death. Personally, I enjoy reading the myriad of comments his posting elicits. If you can overlook some of the carping, there are some bright folks who have some interesting contributions to add to the discussion. His blog certainly has much more diversity than the recent stories flooding the news about rising gas prices and the empty comments coming from the usual, "man-on-the-street" interviews.

A site called LiberalRapture.com has this post about how most will try to rationalize the current situation and how few recognize that it might an indication we've reached our global peak of production.

As I wrote last summer, reading Kunstler's book, as well as some of the other books on the market about peak oil might be helpful. Also, check out this list of 30 thesis, for a look into what a post-carbon world might look like.

Prison-Industrial Complex

Back in 2003, while still working for "the man" and plotting my escape, I'd wake up early to write and throw a tape in the tape player, to record The Jeff Rense Program. Later, listening to my tape during my 35 minute commute allowed me to bypass the usual drivel passing for commercial radio and catch up on some cutting edge news, Jeff's prescriptions for better health, as well as the assorted conspiracy fodder and UFO stories.

For the uninitiated, Rense's program runs the gamut of tinfoil hat topics, but what sets him apart from other conspiricy peddlars, is Rense's great interview style and mixture of topics that could best be called prescient. Plus, it was more provocative and entertaining than the usual corporate hacks reading their infomercials passed off as news and journalism.

Interestingly, the topic of the U.S. building detention centers/prisons always intrigued me, but three years ago, it seemed alarmist to think bad thoughts about the issue.

But, directly from the Halliburton corporate website, we have this press release, indicating that these friends of George and Dick have been awarded an IDIQ contract for building U.S. detention facilities, in support of the Department of Homeland Security.

Three years later, only to the truly deluded and those in denial would stories like this and this seen far-fetched and beyond the pale.

The current crew in power, with their veil of secrecy, are plotting our nation's demise, as I type this.

Neil Young is sick of living with war (and I am too!)

At his age, Neil Young should be kicking back and enjoying the latter years of his life. Hell, Prairie Wind seemed to be the type of record that indicated that this rock icon might be nearing the age where he put away the Crazy Horse-style electric stuff and became mellow Neil. As always, Young confounds us, at least the pre-release buzz seems to indicate so.

I've got more about the upcoming broadside against Bush over at the other site.