Football, Politics, and Haiti

Peyton Manning
Originally uploaded by Leyinglo

The Super Bowl was a satisfying, even heart-warming, experience, both in terms of the well-played game and the remarkable New Orleans story. The themes of redemption and renewal were moving and I willingly suspended my usual cynicism that kicks in when athletes give glory to God for helping them win a game.

I figure that if we don't blame God for 200,000 bodies buried in Haitian rubble (and I don't), then God should get no credit for a team of Saints winning a football game. It was one of those feel-good things that thankfully defies explanation.

That being said, there was another level of nonsense surrounding the game that connects to a cultural phenomenon that I think is unfortunate and potentially dangerous.

It is illustrated by a piece about the Super Bowl written by Jason Whitlock, the Kansas City Star's sports columnist viz. cultural provocateur. He is analyzing the performance of Peyton Manning, quarterback of the losing Indianapolis Colts, and widely considered one of the best players ever to play the game. Whitlock writes thusly:

Down a touchdown late in the fourth quarter of Super Bowl XLIV, 5 yards from a first down and 31 yards short of a tie score, Manning tossed his Ruthian legacy into the arms of Tracy Porter, throwing the interception that decided the game and, in all likelihood, cemented Manning’s reputation as a big-game disappointment.

I have neither credentials nor interest in judging Manning's career. But I do want to register an objection to this silliness that takes one moment, one errant pass, one interception and makes that the linchpin that defines a career. (For the record, in his twelve year career Manning has completed 4232 passes for 50,128 yards, 366 touchdowns, and 181 interceptions.) And ONE pass, ONE interception "cements" his reputation as a "big-game disappointment?'" Give me a break!

Scott Brown North End Rally
Originally uploaded by Paul Keleher

But my real issue here isn't about football, except to the extent that sports are often guilty of this kind of hyperbole. The games are marketed with hype and exaggeration and overstatement.

In the end, however, it's only a game. But when the same issue begins to appear in the larger culture there may be reason for concern.

Take for example the election of conservative Republican Scott Brown to the Massachusetts Senate seat vacated by the death of Senator Ted Kennedy. I certainly acknowledge that Brown's victory was significant and that it signaled some shifting in national politics since the 2008 presidential campaign. What got to me, however, was the inability of the media to restrain themselves from making this single off-year election one of the defining moments of our generation. One blogger reporting on that race referred to the "cacophony of cataclysmic change that is coming from Left, Right, and Center."

The "cacophony" is precisely the problem. A vast number of journalists, pundits, bloggers, and water cooler commentators, many working to fill the 24/7 news cycle of cable television and the Internet, create a cultural phenomenon before any kind of thoughtful reflection can occur. In Brown's case the hype created a larger than life figure descending into Washington, DC with cameras recording every step and talking heads breathlessly reporting on what he had for lunch as he made his way like a conquering hero to receptions around the Capitol.

Just today I heard of some polling that makes the point even while sending chills down my back. Respondents were asked to rank their favorite for the GOP presidential nomination in 2012. No candidate had a margin of any consequence, but Mitt Romney and his multi-million dollar political makeover was in first place. In second, embodying the notion that we get what we deserve, is Sarah Palin, another media creation who manages to present herself as a populist even while charging $100,000 for one speech to her own supporters. You gotta admire audacity like that.

And in third place as a GOP candidate for leader of the free world? Yes indeed, that honor belongs to Senator Scott Brown whose own mother probably didn't know who he was two months ago. But here he is, not far removed from a nude layout in Cosmo (think a female candidate would have got away with that one?), suddenly anointed as America's savior du jour. Well, at least it can be said of the Senator that he has nothing to hide.

These days we allow the media to create heroes, define cultural movements, and tell us when some event has vast importance. We have actors declared to be stars upon getting one small movie role and a DUI. We have teenage singers writing their memoirs. We have unknown politicians who become household names because of some rude or thoughtless remark.

The plea here is for some sense of proportionality that honors achievement over time and provides for thoughtful reflection and intelligent dialogue.

We have a culture of celebrity that creates and hypes personalities made of straw. While not wanting to exemplify the kind of overstatement I am criticizing, I really believe this is a danger to our civilization and way of life.

It is not unlike the construction standards in Haiti. Buildings were not anchored as one would see in the developed world; they virtually sat on the surface of the land with no foundation of any depth.

And then the earthquake came.

Honk! Honk! "You've Got Mail"

Onstar display - General Motors
Originally uploaded by TechShowNetwork

Okay, enough is enough.

Over the years I've been a persistent advocate for new technologies and the resulting cultural transformations that attended them. While I acknowledge that not all of them have had a positive impact on society, I do think that many of these tools have not only increased productivity but also have shrunk our world, erasing artificial boundaries and connecting people across cultures in powerful ways.

And so way back in the early 1980's when the personal computer was just being birthed I bought an IBM PCjr, complete with a floppy disk that was actually floppy and 128KB of RAM, an amount of memory that wouldn't hold one photo of my granddaughter Ashley in today's hardware. (For those of you with more than 128KB, pictures of Ashley are available on request.)

In the years that followed I've Googled and gargled and I've Twittered and twiddled. I've dialed up the Internet with a 300 bps modem, and waited for that screeching sound over the phone that signaled a connection was made. I've processed words and spreadsheeted numbers. I've instant messaged and text messaged, and I've even used my cellphone to make phone calls. In the days before the auto save feature I've written documents of several pages in length and then lost them into the ether, where I assume they await my redemption on judgment day. That's going to be a busy day.

I've paid my tech-friendly dues throughout my career, holding off the luddites, trying to convince them that "Jesus saves" was actually a technological instruction rather than a theological one. The outcome of that discussion is still in doubt, but it's now in the hands of others. I worry.

But today I heard an advertisement on my car radio that launched me into a great sucking sound--an inhalation of air that usually only occurs when I punch the wrong button on my radio and find I've tuned in Rush Limbaugh.

The ad was from General Motors, promoting the OnStar feature in some of their cars, which they describe as an "in-vehicle security, communications, and diagnostics system." Fair enough. I've got no problem with this satellite-based program that reports crashes and dispatches emergency vehicles, not unlike a home alarm system. They say that if you lock your keys in your car you can call an 800 number and they will unlock it remotely. I've never been wild about the idea that no matter where I am some guy in Detroit can lock or unlock my car. But oh well.

Now however comes the stunning news that their program does a series of mechanical diagnostics and then YOU GET AN EMAIL FROM YOUR CAR with the results.

That's it. No more. I'm drawing the line right here. This ain't happening.

I am writing today to the management of General Motors and will be telling President Obama that this has gone too far. I WILL BE ACCEPTING NO EMAILS FROM MY CAR. I was an avid supporter, Mr. President, and I'm calling in my chits. Stop this in its tracks or that picture of you as a newborn baby in a fur parka might just get anonymously sent to the Christian Science Monitor.

I've fought the good fight. But there are times when a stand must be taken and no compromise is acceptable.

Gotta run. My refrigerator is calling. Apparently we're out of lunch meat.

Ashley, Grandpa, and Baseball

We took our granddaughter Ashley to the Kansas City Royals baseball game the other day. She missed being selected on the giant scoreboard as "Fan of the Game," probably because she wasn't in her seat at the time. She didn't get to meet the team mascot Sluggerrr when he stopped by our section, also because she wasn't in her seat at the time. She didn't get featured on the scoreboard's Kiss Cam--it seems she wasn't in her seat at the time. She did, however, get kissed quite a bit.

Her first game, which I had long been looking forward to, was a lot of fun, but it wasn't quite as I had imagined it would be,

I had thought she would sit on my lap most of the game as I explained to her the nuances of defensive alignments, told her stories from my love of baseball going back almost a half century, and helped her understand that she shouldn't cry when the fans suddenly erupted in a deafening roar that scared her. "This is the Royals, sweetheart. When yelling happens, that's a good thing, believe me."

I needed to give her context here. You see, Ashley, there was the crazy owner Charley Finley and the deified owner Ewing Kauffman. There was small market economics and why we hate the Yankees. There was the World Series in 1985 and virtually no series ever since. There was George Brett and Frank White, hemorrhoids and pine tar, and there was this handsomely remodeled stadium, the K (which goes back to the deified thing).

Ashley seemed to prefer the carousel. Whether there should be carousels in ballparks is a question that should be debated in a by-invitation-only conclave of folks wearing ball caps, badly-faded t-shirts with Dan Quisenberry's name on them, and possibly carrying a tattered baseball glove just in case a foul ball comes their way.

I choose not to take up that issue here. If it takes a carousel to get Ashley to the ballpark that's good enough for me. I know that as time goes by we'll learn from each other the things we love and explore the things we want to share.

In that spirit, please permit me this brief note to my granddaughter:

And so, Ashley, love of my heart. I'm oh so glad you went to the Royals game with us. It was great fun.

Oh, and just one other thing, Sweetheart.

Next time, maybe for an inning or two, you think maybe you could stay in your @#$%&%* seat? I need to explain when it's good to try the suicide squeeze and when it isn't. It's about lefthanders and righthanders, bat control and basepath speed, pitcher velocity and upcoming lineup.

Okay, okay! I know it'll take a while. I'll be patient.

Say, maybe next time you could show me that carousel?

Between innings, of course.

{{{}}} Love, from Grandpa.

Torture, Execution, and the Other Cheek

Waterboarding
Originally uploaded by nobt

As a long-time opponent of the death penalty, I have been listening with considerable interest to the national debate on waterboarding and other forms of torture (now delightfully sanitized by the CIA as "enhanced interrogation techniques"). President Obama has repelled the popular notion that torture helps keep us safe in an era of terrorism. Instead, he says, it is our values that ultimately save us, not our ability to extract information from prisoners through a veil of pain and fear.

Opposition to the death penalty puts one at precisely the same intersection between expediency and principle. The inmates on death row are rarely perceived as nice people. Most of them (not all, but most) are guilty of the crimes for which they were sentenced, often horrendous in scope. They do not warrant our sympathy and in most cases they should never again walk freely beyond their prison walls. The cause of abolition is not about them, it is about us. It has to do with the values that are foundational to this nation and that define our place in a global society.

I can already hear the clucking of right wing tongues against bleeding heart liberals who do not have the stomach to do what is necessary to protect our nation from suicide bombers, rapists, and murderers. And, in fairness, many of those clucking tongues do not come from the political right alone. Positions on this issue do not fall cleanly along ideological lines. Often it is personal experience that shapes one's view.

Against the death penalty
Originally uploaded by Steve Rhodes

The arguments against the death penalty are numerous--it is disproportionately applied to minorities and the poor, it is far more costly than life imprisonment, it is barbaric, it has taken the lives of the innocent, and there is no evidence that it serves as a deterrent. These and many similar arguments can be documented and are good and sufficient reasons to abolish it. But there is one that trumps them all: IT IS WRONG!

Arguing from moral principle, as Obama has with the torture issue, makes one an easy mark for those who argue from positions of self-righteousness, machismo, or expediency. The bad guys are clearly bad guys. There is no disagreement there. When people are afraid it is easy to let go of civil liberties, constitutional theories, and even logic. Fear becomes the defining issue that pushes others to the sideline.

In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus is reported to have said "...if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also." (Matthew 5:39 NRSV) By citing the teaching of Jesus I do not mean to build public policy around biblical proof texts. We have way too much of that already, often to our detriment. I mention it only because it is a principle found not only in the Judeo-Christian tradition but in most of the great religions of the world. Although it is often used by proponents of pacifism, I prefer to think of it as a broad social principle that rejects vengeance and violence and embraces human dignity and worth as one of the values that is at the foundation of our culture.

Believing in that principle is pretty simple. Living it is not. Rejecting torture in times such as these is one important message that speaks to the world about the soul of our nation. Becoming the last nation in the Western world to abolish the death penalty would demonstrate that Americans truly do believe in the culture of life of which we often speak, but all too rarely embody.

Simplicity is Just So Darn Complicated

Obama Explains
Originally uploaded by AndrewCline

I had to testify in a civil trial recently (not a personal matter--just a subject about which I had some knowledge). When the lawyers were "prepping" me they continually urged me to give the shortest and simplest answers possible. I'm sure I frustrated them because my tendency is to say things like, "Well, my answer is yes, but you have to appreciate the context and know a bit of history in order to understand what I mean." I'm not sure what lawyers intend to convey when they roll their eyes back into their heads, but I think it has something to do with billable hours.

These days there seems to be a yearning for simplicity. It's related in part to the economic collapse. Americans have awakened to the reality that basic assumptions just weren't so much of a sure thing after all. We all knew that putting money into a 401k or similar financial instrument would mean that it all would be sitting there once the gold watch is awarded and the rocking chair ordered. And now that has all turned to dust amidst a bewildering array of Ponzi schemes, insurance conglomerates, hedge funds, government bailouts, and multi-million dollar bonuses for failure.

It used to be that when something was thought to be a sure thing one would say that you could "take it to the bank." Don't look for that little catch phrase anytime soon.

I suppose most of us who mercifully don't feed daily on economic news just assumed that some smart people understood all this stuff. We certainly didn't, but neither did we care as long we knew those smart people were doing their job. We have now come to the horrifying realization that not only were they not doing their job, but THEY don't understand this mess either.

There is one thing that is clear from the Congressional hearings and the "expert" punditry of recent months. No one--I repeat NO ONE--knows what the hell is going on.

And now it falls to our new president, thankfully one both gifted and eloquent, to become the guy to make sense of this in terms that we economic simpletons can understand. In addition to the boatload of issues on his plate, Barack Obama has also had to become the Explainer-in-Chief. The irony is that few political figures in recent time have been as willing as Obama to talk about nuances and complexities and to eschew simple answers to deeper questions. But alas, simplicity seems to be the pathway to hope in these difficult times.

Stephen Covey, author of the Seven Habits books, often quotes Oliver Wendell Holmes thusly:

I would not give a fig for the simplicity this side of complexity, but I would give my life for the simplicity on the other side of complexity.

I note that in using this quote more recently Covey has offered up only his "right arm" rather than his life in exchange for that elusive simplicity (Covey, The 8th Habit: From Effectiveness to Greatness, New York: Free Press, 2004, page 103). I suspect this may be related to the devaluation of all things in our present climate. He's probably keeping the left arm under a mattress somewhere.

The quote, however, is provocative and useful. The crisis we are going through is devastating to millions of people. There is only one compensation that I can think of and that is the hope that we will be driven back to this country's fundamental values of respect, opportunity, justice, and a rule of law driven by a democratic spirit. In the name of free enterprise we have sanctioned greed and honored plunderers. They must pay their due, but we must learn their lesson.

In the end, it's the simple things that really matter, no matter how complex they may be.