Picture a nice size orange.  Imagine it cut it in half.  Stick two thin wires into the orange.

Then close your eyes and think of a surgeon placing the orange in the upper left edge of your chest, just below the collarbone, and plugging the wires into your heart.

St. Louis Blue Jay Bouwmeester now has an Implantable Cardioverter Defibrillator, around the size of that orange, monitoring every beat of his heart.  If the processor in the ICD detects an issue it can jolt his heart with electricity to restore proper beat, or, it can act as a pacemaker to restrict or increase his heart beat rate.

Such technology isn’t cheap:  roughly $30,000 to $50,000 for the device, plus installation and monitoring cost.

Still, ICDs have an impressive track record of saving and extending lives.  Best guess is that 800,000 Americans now have ICD’s, with about 120,000 joining JB this year.  (If those numbers don’t seem to match-up, well, many, many ICD owners never have to worry about device durability.)

Like me, Bouwmeester seems to have experienced a bit of Sudden Cardiac Arrest aka Sudden Cardiac Death.  Only the intervention of medical professionals and an Automatic External Defibrillator changed that last word to “arrest,” as happened in my case.

Ironically, ICDs emerged from the Cold War.  Hubert H. Humphrey visited Russia in 1962 and was awed by their efforts to re-start hearts.  “Let’s compete with the U.S.S.R. in research on reversibility of death.”  [Congressional Record, 10/12/62]

By 1985 researchers had prototype ICDs and by the early 1990’s they became available to the public.  Thanks to the level of need and the price point, multiple companies keep improving the product, issuing new generations of devices.  A new recipient such as JB can look forward to a decade of trouble-free service before his ICD needs to be replaced or recharged.  (My 2009 model had a projected life of seven to nine years:  it will hit 11 years this July.)

Yes, an ICD cheats death and offers peace of mind.  Living with it isn’t all fun and games.

In the mass of papers I came home with after my installation was a form for a handicap placard or a disabled drive license plate.  Having a defibrillator, you see, makes you disabled by Missouri Department of Revenue standards.  That ICD exempts you from employment in many professions: while I don’t recall seeing National Hockey League player on the list, I suspect that liability-wary lawyers will keep JB off the ice as a player.  (I’d bet he could coach to his heart’s content.)

And, with an ICD comes a long list of warnings.  The latest list from Boston Scientific (who made my device) is 47 pages including, for example, saying Don’t Tour Hydroelectric Facilities.  Caution is required around other stuff producing electromagnetic fields, including cell phones.  (Hand units should always be used at the ear furthest from the ICD.)  Some store security systems can get an ICD owner’s attention, and, don’t sit an electric car while its charging. [https://www.bostonscientific.com/content/dam/lifebeat-online/en/documents/BSC_Electromagnetic_Compatibility_Guide.pdf ]

The section on airport security keeps changing.  Today it advises that quick exposures to metal detectors shouldn’t cause an issue.  Back around 2010 I had several jolting experiences with TSA equipment, as well as encountering a prevalent bureaucratic disdain for accepting the government’s rules, including my right to a hand search.  To be safe, I still demand a hand pat down – a process which adds anywhere from one to 45 minutes of extra time at the checkpoint.

Sadly, most TSA workers don’t understand how their own equipment works.  For example, the back scatter machines emit very little radiation on the traveler:  that traveler is standing over the guts of the machine which create a helluva electromagnetic field.  Also, if TSA’s equipment miss that metallic orange size bump in a chest we’re all in danger.

Yes, with an ICD comes a formal looking wallet-size ID card to show TSA and other security people…it’s worthless.  Security types either grant the pat-down or refuse, regardless of the card.

I expect that in a few weeks Jay Bouwmeester will be back home.  It will be a changed life but he can still be anywhere with his family, exercise and do as much as 99% of the population.

And, after about a year you get use to that bump in your chest.

The post The ABC’s of ICD’s [the device implanted in Blues player Jay Bouwmeester] appeared first on Occasional Planet.

I recently read that legendary Indiana University basketball coach, Bobby Knight, said that the best thing about that job was how great the fans were. I couldn’t help but wonder what he meant by that.

Did he mean that the fans were truly educated about basketball, the skills needed for a player to be successful and the strategy to create and winning team? Did he mean that they were the most respectful fans towards opposing players and fans?

I don’t think so. If Knight has been somewhat cerebral about technique, his passion in the game would border on demonic. His on-court demeanor included throwing chairs across the court to constantly berating referees over calls, whether they were justified, not justified, or just plain ambivalent; it didn’t seem to matter.

So, good fans must have meant those who would back him and the team, no matter what. He didn’t want doubters, only those who would consistently be uninhibited in their fierce loyalty to the flagship team of the Hoosier state.

There are other kinds of fans at sporting events. These are the ones who rarely shout or yell. They may be quietly taking in the game, engaging in analytical conversation with friends about the game and players, or even having off-topic conversations that seem relevant at the time. On many counts, they are the “good fans.” They may not support the coaches wish for a multi-million-dollar contract extension, but they probably think that the players should be paid for their work.

The conventional wisdom about “good fans,” particularly those of college and high school teams, has a striking resemblance to the common wisdom about “good political supporters.” Donald Trump has taken the hypothesis that “it’s all about the crowds,” and with a little help from FBI Director James Comey and the Russian oligarchs and spy agencies, turned it into a truism. The New York licensor of vanity told us to pay attention to this crowds, not the polls. It turned out that he was on to something.

This theory is not one that is solely in the domain of the right. Bernie Sanders was considered to be the most engaging Democratic nominee because he drew the largest and most enthusiastic crowds. It also turns out that he had the most thoughtful, insightful and pragmatic ideas of any of the Democratic candidates. Was it coincidence that he combined vibrant public support with well-conceived ideas, or was it cause-and-effect. It’s hard to say, although since many Democrats are more evidence-driven than Republicans, it’s possible that there is a correlation.

But the primary point is that it is probably not a good idea to assess whether a political candidate is a good candidate or a bad candidate based on how closely he or she comes to attracting a crowd similar to what Bobby Knight had at Assembly Hall at the University of Indiana. Knight, somewhat like Trump, feasted off “dumbing down” his crowds, and laughing all the way to the bank.

Sporting events can actually be played without crowds, but doing it that way would be unfair to those who want to watch an athletic contest up close and personal and with all the benefits of being “on scene” rather than receiving the game in digital form.

Why do we need rallies in politics? What do we learn about the candidates that we can’t find out from reading the papers, watching them on television, or visiting the web sites of those few candidates who actually provide on-line substance over image?

Certainly, it is necessary for members of the public to see candidates “up close and personal.” There is a vibe that is related to reality that can only be received if one is in the physical presence of someone else. But is it really necessary for candidates to go day after day, trying to draw the biggest and most enthusiastic crowds, when they are going to just say the same thing they said the day before, and the day before that, and the day before that?

The problem is exacerbated, particularly in early caucus and primary states such as Iowa and New Hampshire, when residents of virtually every small town feel that they are entitled to have each candidate show up at their doorstep. If the candidate doesn’t do that, the candidate doesn’t love, or even value, them, and thus should be disqualified. When Woody Allen said that “90% of life is showing up,” he was being facetious. Political candidates have better things to do than to try to pander to every potential voter. Maybe Libertarian Presidential Candidate Gary Johnson would have known what Aleppo was had he not been numbing his brain on the campaign trail.

There may not be a compelling reason for the fans of college sports to be more cerebral and less rabid. But there are convincing reasons why voters at political rallies should be more thoughtful, less rowdy, and less demanding than college basketball fans.

The best way to move forward on this count is for voters to say things like, “we’ll see you at the debate, but not at the rally. We’re interested in content; not entertainment. Please us, but don’t pander to us.”

The post Why is modern political engagement modeled after school spirit? appeared first on Occasional Planet.

The Chicago Cubs are in the 2016 World Series. Good for them. They’re a great team. So, why am I so bitter and resentful? Why did I root against them vs. the LA Dodgers? Could it be that I’m a St. Louis Cardinals fan, and that my allegiance—like that of so many sports fans–is a tribal thing? And is my identity as a liberal/progressive just another form of tribalism?

Growing up in the 1950s and 60s, I think I had come to expect evolutionary social progress. In the 1970s, I thought we were on the brink of shedding our tribal identities and becoming a more open, accepting, inclusive and big-thinking society.

Things have not turned out that way.

In fact, we’ve gone in the opposite direction. Looking at the American political landscape, it’s clear that, rather than thinking beyond our political party identities, we’ve become more entrenched. That goes for individuals as well as politicians. Democrats and Republicans have become warring tribes. Donald Trump behaves more like a tribal warlord than a person aspiring to the presidency—inciting violence and vengeance instead of looking for peace among people with differing identities and opinions. We’re the red tribe against the blue tribe. Congressional representatives who call themselves leaders are more akin to clan elders than to rivals seeking ways to overcome their differences for the good of something bigger than themselves. [I’m talking to you, Mitch McConnell.]

This situation reminds me of Mel Brooks’ classic comedy routine, “The 2000-year-old Man.” Brooks plays the title role, with sidekick Carl Reiner as a newspaper reporter interviewing him. Among other questions, Reiner asks, “Back in your caveman days, did you have national anthems?” Brooks answers, “Oh yeah.” “Well, can you sing yours for us,” asks Reiner. Here’s an animated version of what happened next:

Of course, as Brooks hilariously demonstrates, belonging to a tribe and asserting your group’s superiority is as old as human society. So, I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised that our political culture reflects that human inclination.

And as a baseball fan, I probably should have expected this. Team allegiances have been a fixture in the sports world for more than a century. As my 102-year-old mother has reminded me many times, when she was a young girl in Cleveland, her father made her memorize the nicknames of all of the major league baseball teams—most of whose players were natives of the towns they played in and for. You could say that these fanatic loyalties were the precursors—and perhaps even the role models—for the fixed political identities that have emerged in the late 20^th and early 21th centuries. A Cubs fan is a Cubs fan forever. Same for the Yankees, the Dodgers and the Cardinals, too. Win or lose. Ditto for people who identify as Republicans or Democrats.

The ironic thing is that, as I muse on this topic, I find myself rooting in the World Series for the team from the city I grew up in, and whose nickname is “The Tribe.”

The post Tribalism in baseball and politics: World Series edition appeared first on Occasional Planet.

Throughout the coming weeks of sport and competition, keep in mind the cost Rio and Brazil are bearing to host us. More than 77,000 citizens have been forced from their homes and communities and placed in public housing far out on the peripheries. Many can’t afford their new rent.

Since 2009, “Pacification” forces have been deployed throughout many of Rio’s working-class communities, (paradoxically) killing 307 residents in 2015 alone  — the majority young, black men. A “shoot first, ask later” attitude matched with virtual impunity has lead to the deaths of children by stray bullets, innocent youth by prejudice and suspicion, and a retaliatory spike in violence and crime (followed by a 103% increase in police killings only recently). An involved property developer was quoted admitting the “pacification” strategy was really one of deliberate isolation, designed to hide the squalor and disarray working-poor communities are subjected to not by gangs, but by the government. His goal, he said, was to make Rio, or at least give the impression of, “a city of the elite.”

Very few plans for improvements in these communities that helped win Rio the games in 2009 were implemented. The single metro line that was completed only reaches the most affluent areas, and bus lines have been changed to avoid poorer areas. Some of those areas have been literally walled-off from highways and travel routes. Rio legislation requires community participation in budgeting, yet the community as a whole has been left in every meaning of disregard. The internationally-lauded family financial assistance program that helped raise 50 million Brazilians into the middle class over the last decade recently ran out of funding. Schools and hospitals have seen funding cut and even been closed over and over while politicians and elite public servants raise their salaries and ignore the constitution (well, at least they’re working to change that so their activities wouldn’t be illegal…). Even the police and other first responders, who are clearly playing such a central role in this event, went without pay because of shameless corruption and mismanagement on the city and state levels.

On the Federal level, President since 2010 Dilma Rousseff was ousted several months ago amid the largest corruption scandal in Brazilian history on accusations of accounting tricks in order to clean up her record for reelection. The Senate investigative committee, full of those who voted to impeach her, found no evidence at all of the crime. More than half of those in Congress who voted to impeach her, however, are implicated and/or convicted in the multibillion dollar scandal, among others (of course). Several recorded conversations have been leaked revealing that the motivation behind impeachment is killing the investigation. The former-Speaker of the House Eduardo Cunha, who championed and prioritized her impeachment process over the past year, was found guilty of multiple counts of corruption and stripped of his title (though not his perks, unlike Dilma). Current President and former-Vice President Michel Temer — who is also implicated in the ongoing scandal — operated very closely with Cunha to drive the effort for impeachment, promising cabinet offices to leaders of major parties to draw support. Within three weeks, three cabinet ministers in Temer’s all white, all male, all millionaire cabinet had resigned facing corruption charges (including, ironically, the anti-corruption minister). REMINDER THAT HIS PREDECESSOR DILMA WAS THE COUNTRY’S FIRST FEMALE PRESIDENT.

This so-called “soft coup” by the pragmatic corporatist party of Temer, Cunha, and Rio’s mayor — Eduardo Paes — has been fueled in large part by the country’s mass-media, who have a history of supporting conservative coups. For instance, when paper Folha de São Paulo polled Brazilians on their thoughts on Dilma vs. Temer, Folha published results construed to show that the majority of the country wanted Temer to remain president until the end of the term. In reality, originally unreleased data implied that a clear majority still wanted new elections. Domestic media as a whole are now suggesting Temer run for reelection in 2018, though he is legally banned from doing so for violating campaign finance laws in his last personal campaign. Other media have downplayed anti-Temer protests and highlighted and even exaggerated anti-Dilma acts, while offering mostly pro-impeachment commentators on air and in print.

Though most Brazilians did and do support Dilma’s impeachment for her lack of charisma along with her being head of government during a major scandal, just as many or more did and do not want Temer as president (he received a shockingly low 1% of the vote in a presidential poll only months ago). He’s less popular now than Dilma at her worst. Yet, he, unlike Dilma, refuses to entertain the notion of new elections. With no vote or other input by the nation, he is pushing major “reforms” with a huge swing to the right from the previously social-democratic government, privatizing the nation’s resources and slashing any and all social programs (in order to please “Goldman, Sachs and the IMF” and his adoring foreign investors — those with no investment whatsoever in the country or people, only in making money), while simultaneously increasing the salaries of the judges who will vote on whether to proceed with Dilma’s impeachment and whether or not to indict he and those in his party and new coalition. That coalition heavily features the right-wing party who has lost four consecutive elections to Dilma’s center-left party.

Clearly, there is quite a bit for Brazilians to be angry about, so please — POR FAVOR — cut them some slack over the next few weeks. They, like most of us, would prefer to continue to be able to go to school and to get an ambulance in under 5 hours. Keep them and their struggles in sight and in mind. An investment of your patience, attention, and empathy will go a long way to finally grant the longtime “Country of the Future” its rightful place as a country of today.

The post The social and political costs of the Rio Olympics appeared first on Occasional Planet.

Like many people, I have mixed feelings about the Rams leaving St. Louis for Los Angeles. In some ways, they parallel the mixed feelings I’ve always had about football. Football strategy brings a dimension of chess to the world of athletics, but the inherent violence is in conflict with what might be called healthy competition (witness the Cincinnati – Pittsburgh playoff game of January 9).

It has been said that life imitates baseball, and in many ways I think that is true; I hope it is. Baseball is essentially a happy game that runs the entire emotional gamut of the human experience. Life also imitates football, but football is a much more foreboding and grim game than baseball.

Despite the fact that I feel that a part of my life has been pilfered by the move of the Rams, and that I have very little love for the NFL or the ownership of the Rams, I will not turn my back on the game. Rather, I’ll lament that I will no longer have a front-row seat to the drama that characterizes so much of what in my view is wrong with American life, but also includes moments and individuals of inspiration. I’ll miss not being close up to:

• Hearing how coaches, commentators and others say that what’s most important is the well-being of each player. This, while every effort is made to make players robots and cogs in the wheel of a well-oiled offense or defense.
• How the captains of industry, the owners and the NFL administrators, are driven by private avarice at the expense of the public good. Yes, it happens all over America (and the world), but nothing exemplifies it better than the NFL.
• How the League incessantly engages in self-congratulation for being so charitable – something that is easy to do when you’re wealthy. Just like Republicans, they’re charitable at the expense of supporting justice. Not a word about the “haves” in society having an obligation to help those who are most in need (i.e. support for a government social and economic safety net).
• The omnipresence of gaming the system, whether it’s the illegal or questionable drugs that players take or the gambling by tens of millions of addicted fans.
• The organizational psychology of both winning and losing coaches. Bottom line is that some nice guys finish first and some nice guys finish last. Tyrants also take turns winning and losing. Go figure.
• The empty seats at the end of virtually all games, indicative of how many fans love the game so much that they can’t wait to beat others out of the venue to get home first.
• The “officials’ time-outs” that come at the most non-natural of times and thoroughly interrupt the game, but are necessary because the game is really just a vehicle to drive viewers to the commercials.

On the good side

• The beauty of a sweep play with the pulling guards getting in front of the runner and clearing the path for a graceful runner to elude remaining defenders
• The arc of the long pass (captured so beautifully by NFL films); the pass that falls into the hands of a receiver in stride.
• The fact that some really decent human beings can play this often-savage game and come out with their personalities intact.
• The fun of being a fan and wondering whether the quarterback-impaired Rams will look outside the box for bad-boy Johnny Manziel or good-soldier improviser Robert Griffin III. Also, isn’t it about time for the Rams to at least have a high level African-American coach?

What the Rams do on a day-to-day basis will become more and more distant to me, and I’ll miss that. But maybe that won’t last forever. “Shark” and basketball’s Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban said a year ago that the NFL will self-implode in ten years. I could kind of go for that, no more violent tackle football. Instead we could have a low-budget friendly Touch Football League featuring the athleticism and the mental rigor and creativity that makes football so great. Well, I’m dreaming wildly, while the Rams are simply California dreaming.

The post Life will be harder to understand without the Rams appeared first on Occasional Planet.

Stan Kroenke’s recent verbal abuse of St. Louis may, at long last, have awakened this town to the sick relationship it has had with the NFL and Kroenke, the owner of the St. Louis Rams football team.

The verbal abuse came in Kroenke’s application to the NFL to relocate the team to Los Angeles.In an attempt to justify moving the team, Kroenke said:

St. Louis lags, and will continue to lag, far behind in the economic drivers that are necessary for sustained success of an NFL franchise…

Any NFL Club that signs on to this proposal in St. Louis will be well on the road to financial ruin, and the League will be harmed…

St. Louis is not capable of supporting three major sports teams. No other NFL franchise would be interested in the current proposed riverfront stadium…and it doesn’t make economic sense to be in the city.

That hurt. And this cruel assault on St. Louis’ self-esteem is typical of abusive behavior. [Interestingly, the harsh criticisms in Kroenke’s letter to the NFL came after years of zero communication from Kroenke, who St. Louis pundits have dubbed “Silent Stan.” The silent treatment is yet another symptom of abuse.]

But until the Rams—curiously—made Kroenke’s letter public, St. Louis football fans and civic “leaders” desperately wanted to keep the Rams in town. So desperate, in fact, that city leaders were willing to spend hundreds of millions of tax dollars to build a new $1 billion football stadium to regain Kroenke’s love, and that of the NFL, too.

Now, the anger aroused by the otherwise silent Stan’s criticisms of St. Louis may be raising awareness of just how unhealthy this town’s relationship with Kroenke and the league has been.

Abuse

What’s an emotionally abusive relationship? The Center for Relationship Abuse Awareness defines abuse as

…a pattern of abusive and coercive behaviors used to maintain power and control…. Abuse can be emotional, financial, sexual or physical and can include threats, isolation, and intimidation. Abuse tends to escalate over time.

An abuser is a grand manipulator and will sulk, threaten to leave, and emotionally punish you for not following their idea of how things should be. An abuser will try to make you feel guilty any time you exert your will and assert what is right for you.

In the St.Louis/NFL case, the abuse began years ago, in 1995, when the city built a domed stadium as a way of enticing an NFL lover, er, team to town. Then, city leaders agreed to lease out the newly constructed dome to the Rams under a rather strange contingency forced on them by the NFL: The Rams’ lease required [St. Louis] to provide an updated “first-tier” stadium for the Rams — in the top eight of 32 National Football League teams — first by 2005, and again by 2015.

In other words, the stadium had to stay pretty to keep the love. Then, in 2013, the Rams complained that the dome had let itself go, was soft in the middle, and needed $700 million in cosmetic surgery and body work. And when the city said no, the Rams threatened to walk away.

More recently, less than a week after Kroenke submitted his St.-Louis-hating proposal, the NFL piled on. Preparing for the long-awaited owners’ meeting, at which the fate of three teams [St. Louis, San Diego and Oakland] could be decided, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell dissed St. Louis’ proposal for a new stadium, calling the plan “inadequate and unsatisfactory.”

An emotional abuser goes through life feeling entitled to be treated like royalty, and wants you to be a willing servant. He or she expects you to do everything and will not help at all.

Rams owner Stan Kroenke got rich by marrying a Wal-Mart heiress and by developing Wal-Mart anchored shopping complexes all over the US. He wants out of St. Louis, and he apparently feels entitled to get his way, even if he violates NFL rules. He has already purchased hundreds of acres of land in Inglewood California, where he intends to build a sports-stadium, entertainment and shopping mega-complex—with his own money.

He has offered zero dollars to help build a new stadium in St. Louis.

Victims’ reactions to abuse

The Advocacy Center says

When an abuser calls their partner names, puts them down and plays mind games it can make the victim feel bad about themselves. Many times victims believe that the abuse is their fault or that they deserve the abuse.

Over the past few years, as Kroenke and the NFL escalated the threat to leave St. Louis without a football team, fans responded as abuse victims often do: They begged and protested their undying love.

A facebook page launched in 2014 by Rams fans said: “Our mission at Keep the Rams in St. Louis is continue to build our tradition in St. Louis, with our passion and commitment. Let’s show the world that we LOVE and support the Rams; and we want them to stay in St. Louis.” The group said it hoped to show Los Angeles and the rest of the country that St. Louis loves its football team and that team should stay right where it is.

There are probably even some St. Louis football fans who actually do blame this whole mess on themselves and on the city’s political leaders, for not attending games, for not supporting the stadium tax giveaway, and for not being the razzle-dazzle city that would make the NFL and Kroenke love us more.

Breaking away?

Kroenke’s gratuitous comments to the NFL have sparked an angry backlash from his victims. They’re calling his criticisms “preposterous pot shots.” Missouri’s governor zinged back, saying, “Our fans support their professional and amateur teams—Especially ones that win.” St. Louis Mayor Francis Slay shifted the blame back to Kroenke, saying “If the Rams leave, it will not be for something the region failed to do. Or the fans.” The St. Louis Post-Dispatch published a half-page dartboard, with Kroenke’s image in the bullseye, and the best of #kroenkecomplaints around the perimeter.

But is any of this enough? Vicitms can cry, hurl zingers, self-justify, or throw the blame back to the abuser, but will it make a difference? Kroenke and the NFL still have the power to decide. The only power citizens, policymakers, and the little people have is to walk away—not just physically, but emotionally, too– from the madness. Some suggest that victimized cities band together and form a coalition–perhaps even a collective-bargaining organization–that would refuse to be blackmailed, extorted and pitted against each other by professional sports leagues and teams.

This is not just about St. Louis. I’m looking at you, too, Oakland and San Diego, and all of the other cities who have  been–and will be in the future–bullied and abused by NFL owners and the league.

So, instead of continuously trying to placate these abusers, maybe NFL cities should be going to court to petition for orders of protection.

The post The NFL’s abusive relationship with cities and fans: St. Louis edition appeared first on Occasional Planet.

Republicans could learn a lot from  just-deceased baseball legend Yogi Berra, like “when you come to a fork in the road, take it.” They seem to find most forks in the road befuddling and reason for impasse, rather than making clear decisions.

But a few weeks prior to the demise of Berra, another quotable ballplayer–former St. Louis Cardinal Joaquin Andujar–died as well. Perhaps Andujar’s most famous quote was when he was asked by a reporter to describe the nature of baseball. Andujar responded: “You can sum it up in one word–you-never-know.’” When you think about it, that’s a great three-word description of baseball. The more you drill down into the intricacies of the game, the more you seen things that never occurred before. Withina single game, obvious predictions repeatedly prove wrong, and the wise fan can only conclude about baseball, “You never know.”

What makes baseball unpredictable is that the empirical evidence is always changing. That’s kind of like the real world. If we use this axiom in the political world, we know that Democrats deal with new information much better than Republicans do. This is not just an impression; it is based on evidence from scientists studying “The Republican Brain.” We also know that Republicans tend to be surer of their positions; less willing to thoughtfully consider the possibility that they might be wrong.

Of course, if logic prevailed, baseball players and others close to the game such as reporters would subscribe to the “you-never-know” theory and apply it to politics as well as other dimensions of life. However, it seems that many baseball aficionados compartmentalize things in their lives, another characteristic of the Republican brain. They apply different rules to politics than to baseball. While those close to baseball embrace the unpredictability of their game, the same people often have difficulty applying that principle to other areas of life. The little evidence we have about the politics of baseball players is that many of them (at least the white players) tend to identify with Republicans. A couple of them have been elected to Congress in their post-baseball years. Wilmer “Vinegar Bend” Mizell was elected to Congress from North Carolina’s 5^th District as a Republican in 1968. His election was part of the beginning of the new tide of Republican domination of the South, following the successes of President Lyndon Johnson and progressive Democrats in passing new federal civil rights legislation.

Former pitcher Jim Bunning served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1987-1999 as a Republican from Kentucky. Next he served twelve years as a Republican senator from the Bluegrass State. A glance at other professional athletes who have served in Congress since 1936 shows that most have been Republicans. Sports like football and basketball also live under the “you-never-know” axiom, though perhaps not as much as baseball.

It would be helpful if professional athletes could apply the “you-never-know” principle to dimensions of life outside of their sport, specifically the unpredictability. Some scientific phenomena, like the force of gravity when a brick falls off a building, are predictable. But others, like the role of gravity in predicting tomorrow’s weather, are much more complex and require a measure of humility from all who engage in predictions. It’s sad that so many people who say that baseball reflects life really don’t follow that to its logical conclusion: be cautious about being certain with regard to most things. Politics, and ultimately our society would be better served if more people in power, both Republicans and Democrats, would be cautious in moving towards locked positions. Like baseball, life is complicated.

The post What Republicans could learn from a dead baseball player appeared first on Occasional Planet.

Assigned reading for today: Huffpost article on the pros and cons of publicly subsidizing wealthy NFL team owners’ desire for new stadiums. Along with other stuck-in-the mud cities, the article cites otherwise impoverished St. Louis’ current pathetic efforts to retain a NFL team (any NFL team). The money quote:

If the benefits aren’t flowing to cities, they are instead going primarily to NFL owners. A 2012 Bloomberg analysis found that since 2000, new stadiums had helped double team values across pro sports, and Baade noted that while it appears NFL teams are now putting more of their own money in than they used to, they are doing so primarily out of revenue streams — luxury boxes, personal seat licenses and other in-stadium revenues — that either wouldn’t exist without a new stadium or are larger because of it.”The public sector is underwriting most of the risk,” Baade said, “while most of the benefits that accrue, accrue to the teams.”

No real news there, but the point of view still seems to be too revolutionary for set-in-their-ways Missouri political elites represented by Governor Nixon and St. Louis Mayor Slay.

I do understand that Mayor Slay and Governor Nixon like the idea of union jobs that would probably result from a stadium project along with what they possibly hope would be some concomitant North Side development. But there are other ways to spend infrastructure dollars and create jobs that would actually benefit the city’s citizens instead of ripping off taxpayers. In this regard, the article notes that a new report “links the subsidization of new stadiums to higher poverty rates and lower median incomes in their home cities, and it found that most NFL cities fared worse by both measures after paying for a new stadium.”

[This post was originally published on Show Me Progress.]

The post NFL stadiums vs. the public welfare appeared first on Occasional Planet.

It seems that everyone I know in St. Louis is opposed to a new football stadium that just might keep the Rams in St. Louis. This is particularly so among political progressives who are rightly offended by the blackmail that Rams owner Stan Kroenke and the entire National Football League are placing on a mid-market team in a struggling community.

Kroenke is the second wealthiest of the 32 NFL owners and perhaps the most greedy and insensitive to his fan base. The NFL purports to value stability in franchise location, but it rarely stands in the way of any recalcitrant owner who wants to pick up his or her marbles and play elsewhere.

Unless an owner chooses to move out in the  middle of the night (as owner Robert Irsay did, when he moved the Colts from Baltimore to Indianapolis on March 29,1984), cities generally have sufficient time to make proposals to the owner. It’s not uncommon for owners to threaten to move to another city in order to get a sweeter deal from their current cities. But Stan Kroenke has not even pretended to be interested in keeping the Rams in St. Louis. He has not negotiated with the city and has refused to take calls from the governor, the mayor, major civic leaders, and CEOs of Fortune 500 companies in St. Louis.

Yet, despite his indifference to St. Louis, it’s possible that the team will remain. A two-man task force was appointed by Missouri Governor Jay Nixon to try to keep the Rams in St. Louis. Dave Peacock, a former Anheuser-Busch executive and Bob Blitz (aptly named), a high-powered attorney, have been doing legal and financial gymnastics to put together a plan for St. Louis to have a new stadium. They are doing this via subterfuge, rather than with support from the team’s owner.

All of this bodes well for a city that has had a serious self-esteem problem, dating back to 1854 when a railroad bridge over the Mississippi River was built at Rock Island, IL. The bridge allowed merchants in and around Chicago to reach western markets twenty years before Eads Bridge traversed the Mississippi at St. Louis. St. Louis has been playing catch-up ever since, especially following the World’s Fair of 1904.

St. Louis did not become a National Football League city until 1960, forty years after the league’s inaugural season. However, it has pulled off some good football coups since then. The team that came to St. Louis in 1960 was the football Cardinals from Chicago, obviously a much bigger city. Twenty-seven years later, St. Louis lost the “Big Red” (as they affectionately came to be known) to Phoenix. But eight years after that, in 1995, St. Louis snatched the Rams from Los Angeles, because St. Louis had built a state-of the art domed stadium in anticipation of attracting either an expansion team or a “franchise on the loose” team. The lease agreement for the Rams in the then TWA Dome in downtown St. Louis was so favorable that owner Georgia Frontiere did not mind leaving the much bigger LA market for her smaller home town. Unfortunately for St. Louis, the lease had a provision in it that the Rams could opt out after 20 years, if the Dome (now named the Edward Jones Dome) was not considered to be in the top twenty-five percent of NFL stadiums. With the dizzying construction of new stadiums in the NFL built by cities with guns to their heads in order to keep teams from jumping to a different market, the Jones Dome is now considered one of the worst in the league, after only twenty years. To make things worse, Frontiere died in 2008, and Stan Kroenke, who had been a minority owner, was able to seize control of the franchise. Now Kroenke wants to build a new “state of the art” stadium in Inglewood, California and move the team out to his planned theme park there in a much larger market than St. Louis. However, because two other franchises (San Diego and Oakland) want to move out of their home bases and jointly play in a showcase stadium in LA, the move of the Rams may not be easy for Kroenke.

For there to be professional football in St. Louis, the city does not need a new stadium. The dome may be a little dingy, but it is quite serviceable. The thing about it is that like all stadiums, it looks better when the team is winning. Shortly after the St. Louis Rams won the Super Bowl in 1999, the team began losing and has done so repeatedly. As happens in cities as large as New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles, solid fan bases can disappear when losing sets in. There’s nothing to say that the Jones Dome could not be rocking on Sunday afternoons with a winning team, especially one that had the offensive flair of the Rams at the turn of this century. In basic terms, it’s a structurally sound edifice where more than 65,000 fans can see football on a regulation-size field.

But the league formula is for teams to build new stadiums, generally at taxpayers’ expense, to deepen the coffers of the owners. This will not stop until the federal government uses its anti-trust powers, as previously reported in Occasional Planet. So, if St. Louis wants to remain an NFL city, it has to do what the unelected powers-that-be say – build a new stadium, perhaps every twenty years or so. If St. Louis does not accede to this blackmail, it will not only lose its current NFL franchise, it will also lose some of its already diminishing self-esteem.

So what can St. Louis do to make keeping the Rams a “must-do” for the NFL? It can do what no other city has done. It can have two stadiums for one team. Here’s how it would work:

Every game day, the football fans of St. Louis would congregate at the intersection of North Broadway and O’Fallon. This would be about three blocks removed from the Jones Dome and three blocks from the “to be named later” new stadium. Each fan would bring his or her cell phone. Then using the texting survey program, Poll Everywhere, the fans would vote for which stadium they would like to see the game played. No more compromises with a retractable domed stadium. Instead, on a beautiful fall afternoon, they could have a wonderful outdoor experience literally on the banks of the Mississippi. But if there was a blizzard, a downpour, or even the threat of inclement weather, the fans could opt to go to the tried and true Jones Dome and live in the comfort and luxury of the 1995-vintage dome.

The fans could begin their texting earlier in the week and Las Vegas could be taking odds on in which stadium the game would be played. Fans could congregate on Saturday at the Muny Opera in Forest Park and have great debates about where the team should play. The whole saga could become a reality TV show and fans/taxpayers would use the royalties to replenish their wallets or government coffers. Opposing teams would fear coming into St. Louis where the Rams would have the oddest home field advantage of any team in any sport because opponents would not know the conditions of the upcoming game.

Frankly, I think that the call for a new stadium is a big shakedown, as it was for baseball’s Busch Stadium in the early 2000s. But until we as citizens adopt the only logical solution – federal control of the NFL, we have to further accommodate ourselves to tolerating the absurd. St. Louis can lead the nation.

The post St. Louis’ absurd political football scenario, and how to solve it, absurdly appeared first on Occasional Planet.

When do you know that a social trend has gained full traction in America? One way is to listen to the pronouncements of pundits, think-tankers, pollsters and professors. They’ll conduct sociological studies; they’ll sample public opinion; and they’ll make the case with statistics. And, in the aggregate, they’ll probably get it right.

But if you really want to know what’s on the radar screen of most Americans, look and listen to advertising, tv shows, sports, movies and music. That’s where theory meets reality. That’s where savvy manufacturers and artists do what capitalists do best: capitalize on the zeitgeist.

I think we all knew that racial integration had really begun to take hold when at-the-time-beloved Bill Cosby [now disgraced, of course] became the tv pitchman for that all-American convenience food—Jello Pudding. More recently, Cheerios ads began featuring an interracial family.

And now, the Kiss Cam has broken the same-sex romance barrier. On May 2, 2015, the Kiss Cam at Los Angeles’ Dodger Stadium zoomed in on two men, who did what all obliging Kiss Cam couples do: they smooched on camera. And the crowd cheered!

That, my friends, is progress–especially considering the fact that, in 2000, a lesbian couple was kicked out of Dodger stadium simply for kissing as they sat in the stands.

Just for a little background, the kiss cam tradition originated in California in the early 1980s, as a way to fill in the gaps in play in professional baseball games, taking advantage of the possibilities of the then-new giant video screens. But until recently, the Kiss Cam was a hetero-only deal. Over the years, some Kiss Cam operators would use the lens to create a homophobic joke: framing two men on the Kiss Cam screen with the word “KISS” beneath their faces. That was supposed to elicit laughs and “ewws” from the crowd. And it probably did.

As CNN’s John D. Sutter puts it:

For years I’ve half-jokingly told friends that we’ll know gay equality is here when same-sex couples are featured unironically on the kiss cam — when two dudes who are asked to kiss on screen actually do it and get awwwws, not laughs.

And now that [at least] one Kiss Cam—and one enlightened crowd– has validated on-camera same-sex smooching, that great and glorious day when people can unashamedly love whomever they choose may be dawning in the American psyche.

The post Kiss Cam: The new social barometer appeared first on Occasional Planet.