THE GAME'S AFOOT, PLEASE LET US WATCH IT!

I’ve been watching a lot of baseball this season. All or part of nearly every Red Sox game. On the whole, the coverage and the color commentary is up to par. Not necessarily great, but there’s been worse. Jerry Remy is missed, of course, and those covering for him have exhibited varying degrees of ability. All things taken into account, watching the Sox is not an unpleasant viewing experience.

Except, that is, for all the distracting extraneous material which has no place in the live play by play description of a baseball game and intrudes upon one's enjoyment of the viewing experience. The game is broadcast for one reason only: to provide the fans with the opportunity to enjoy the action on the field, with a descriptive assist by the announcing team. This group is counted upon to describe the action and to provide the inside stuff; little tidbits of information of which the average fan probably has no knowledge or might miss. Nothing that is not intimately connected to the participating teams or the game at hand should be allowed to detract from the contest on the field.

Possibly the most annoying of these many distractions is the interview. It has become commonplace, at least on the Sox games, to be forced to sit through a lengthy in-booth interview. Not during a break in the action, such as between innings or time outs (times out?), but while the play on the field is going on.

We are often forced to endue the sight of the two announcers in conversation with a third party in whom we have no interest whatsoever. If we’re lucky, up in a corner of the screen we are offered a very small inset showing, without sound, the action on the diamond, provided we are blessed with superior visual acuity. The game, the thing we tuned in to watch and for which we pay exorbitant cable or satellite fees, is thrust into the background so some interloper can be made to feel important or, worse yet, try to sell us something.   

The subjects of these interviews range from off the field baseball personnel to former players. From representatives of various fund raising organizations to actors pushing their most recent vehicles. From pluggers of obscure shows on the network to visiting dignitaries of every description. Mayor Thomas Menino of Boston was hysterically funny in a recent appearance, although not intentionally so.

Among these needless features are often live or taped interviews with either or both managers, or players, and live interludes, occasionally in the stands, presented by the third member of the broadcast team, often a Twinkie - a more or less attractive young woman whose visual appeal is usually more apparent than her knowledge of the sport. Often a tidbit of information concerning a recent injury, an unusual play, or other occurrence is passed on to us by this route. Why an intermediary is required when the announcer could simply provide it at an opportune moment is a moot question. These additions to the play by play, especially during less than exciting contests, might even be interesting or amusing, but the point is they could often be held for a break in the action. There is no pressing need to break into the game in order to bring us this information right now!

There is a tendency in all sports broadcasting to ignore the fact that the game is the reason people tune in. The announcers, to a man or woman, appear to believe that they are the show. That if the game were aired without a team of egotists to describe it, no on would watch. The exact opposite is closer to the truth. To put things into perspective for them, some night, when there is no game, let the broadcasters take to the airwaves anyway as a three hour talk show among themselves. Then have them check the ratings so they may ponder what it might be like to be forced to seek real jobs.
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FOOD FOR THE THOUGHTLESS

In an editorial entitled Provenance on a Plate (July 11, 2009), the Cape Cod Times strikes what it considers a telling blow for eating local, naturally grown products as opposed to food produced by “big agriculture”. In spite of the fact that nearly every premise embraced in the piece is untenable, the usual chorus of loonies, and I include the paper’s editorial staff, jumped in with high praise.

They base their conclusions on the dual argument that such produce is both healthier and safer. As documentation they remind us that we have seen “contamination in everything from peppers to peanut butter”. It’s true. There has been contamination in a variety of foods recently, but to use this as an argument to convince us to eat locally and naturally is apples and oranges. Pun intended.

No matter how or where food may be grown, prepared, stored and shipped, it can become contaminated before it hits your gullet. The editor’s argument might credibly apply to any of the steps through which food passes before it lands on your table, but it has nothing to do with it’s origins. The peanuts weren’t contaminated. They got that way in the processing.

What it does have to do with is careless or unscrupulous handling along the way, wherever or however it’s grown. More to the point, incompetent government oversight of the various facilities through which it passes must bear a great deal of responsibility. The same government many want to entrust with our health care. And just where would we get locally grown and produced peanut butter on Cape Cod?

For validation, the Cape Cod Times sites the movie, Food, Inc., and a resolution by “the country's 1,000 Unitarian congregations…exploring how to make ethical eating a part of their lives.” That shouldn’t convince any but the most gullible.

Judging by the movie’s reviews, it’s apparently a documentary in the vein of Michael Moore’s half truth hit jobs against his political foes. The principals appear to be a group of activists dedicated to promoting so-called healthy eating. To them we say, “Eat what you want, but stay the hell out of my kitchen.”

As for the Unitarians, if they want to make “ethical eating”, whatever that is, a part of their lives, let them. Just so they don’t try to foist their beliefs on the rest of us. According to their web site it has to do with climate change and animal rights. What doesn’t, these days?

The biggest hole in the whole scenario (pun intended) is that it simply isn’t possible to live on locally produced food. Maybe in places like California, or Florida, but certainly not in the north. Haven’t these people heard of winter? They’re advocating “…co-ops or buying clubs, where a seasonal fee gets you a bag of whatever is being picked that week.” I can’t wait to see what’s in the bag the Cape Cod members get this coming February.

The advocates of this endeavor seem oblivious to the fact that large agricultural corporations are necessary to provide the variety of foods to our supermarkets that we have come to enjoy and expect. One sentence is particularly scary: “Americans accustomed to grocery stores with a rainbow of shiny, cellophane-clad produce have to adjust their expectations.”

Why do we have to adjust our expectations? Because some extremists say we do? As any eight year old worth his salt would tell them, “Who died and left you boss?” The logical solution to providing fresher and safer food would not be to deny us any products, but to find new and better ways to make everything safe and available.

To their credit, the editors do admit that there would be no monetary savings to switching to local, naturally grown food. They acknowledge that there is at present no “…distribution system for local produce and seafood that is cost-effective for providers.” Their concluding sentence is a laugher: “If we want food that's grown locally, we have to create the demand for it — and be willing to pay the price.” They want us to pay more for less. Once that would have been surprising, but from a nation with huge oil reserves for which it isn’t permitted to drill, while choking on high petroleum prices, this food thing is par for the course.

As for the health claims they make, the stuff we’re eating now an’t be that bad. After all, people are living longer than ever and staying more active in their later years. Isn’t seventy the new fifty? How do they account for that?

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JUDGE THE LAWS, DON'T MAKE THEM

In recent years there have been a number of questionable rulings by various courts throughout the land. There was the infamous case in Alabama involving the display of the Ten Commandments in a public building. Then there was the removal of “Under God” from the Pledge of Allegiance, even though the deity is mentioned in the national motto and His name appears on coins and currency. Racial discrimination against whites has been de facto legalized by the ruling that Affirmative Action is permissible. A blow against free speech was struck when the courts allowed the McCain-Feingold Campaign Finance Reform Act to stand. Most people believe that this law, which bans political advertising by third parties in the sixty days prior to an election, should have been overturned as being in contravention of the First Amendment.

In the infamous Roe v. Wade, which made abortion legal, the court somehow found that the constitution approves infanticide. The argument is that it’s covered by the penumbra found under the imaginary right to privacy and that a woman may do as she pleases with her own body. Well, she did. That’s why she’s pregnant in the first place. And why, one must ask, does this same convoluted reasoning not legalize prostitution? Could the reason be that Rush Limbaugh’s aptly named “Femininazis” favor the one but not the other?

More recently, the pompously titled Supreme Judicial Court of the People’s Republic of Massachusetts has told us that same sex marriages must be recognized by the Commonwealth because they are not specifically banned. In doing so, four judges have redefined a word whose meaning has been perfectly understood by everyone, everywhere, practically forever: that “marriage” means the union of a man and a woman.

Most of these decisions run counter to the will of the people. A judge’s job is to rule on questions of constitutionality and legality. The constitution is pretty clear and literal. It wasn’t meant to be distorted by a bunch of political appointees, who are answerable to no one, in order to promote political correctness. Judges should not be allowed to usurp the power of the legislature and make law. Legislating from the bench must be curtailed. The legislature can do so easily, by rectifying the imaginary laws judges sometimes discover, but they apparently lack the necessary fortitude to do so.

Electing judges instead of appointing them is one way to solve the problem. Forcing them to stand for reelection periodically would make them accountable for their decisions. The argument against electing judges is that it would politicize them. Some feel that a lifetime appointment makes a judge independent of political pressures. Wouldn’t it be better for a judge to be a political hack than to have him appointed by one as a reward for party loyalty? At least we’d have a chance to learn his qualifications and evaluate his track record.

Another way to improve conditions would be to continue having judges appointed, but for a specific period of time, not for life. He would then be subject to a periodic review and an up or down vote of the legislature for another term. It would then be incumbent upon the people to pressure their legislators to approve or disapprove judicial candidates. This would make judges accountable without forcing them to raise funds and campaign for election, or reelection.

Neither solution is perfect. Perhaps some of you know other, better, ways to stop judicial legislation. Whatever the method, It’s obvious that something must be done to restore the balance of power which the founding fathers intended - and soon. Soon our elected representatives will be asked to approve Mr. Obama’s choice of Sonia Sotomayor to fill the vacancy created by the resignation of Justice Soutar. One must wonder how she would have voted on the aforementioned issues. We can make a fairly educated guess on how our esteemed president hopes she will adjudicate. Let’s hope that  the president’s selection will not simply be rubber stamped out of party loyalty or liberal bias.

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THE MESSIAH HAS NO CLOTHES

There are any number of wise individuals in our society who have found within themselves one particular talent or ability, nurtured it, found a market for it, and earn a most satisfactory living by utilizing it to the exclusion of anything else. There are, for instance, gentlemen who profit from installing safety bars in the homes of the elderly and infirm. Nothing else - just that. In and out of a house in, literally, minutes, cash in hand.

There’s a man who makes cup plate holders. For those who don’t know, cup plates are those small. commemorative colored saucers that some people collect. A home craftsman, he makes racks and stands upon which they can be displayed. He has a waiting list of customers.

There are people who clip the toenails of diabetics, the visually impaired, and others who cannot do so for themselves. They visit homes, senior centers, and other venues to perform that much-needed service. They recognize a need and they help satisfy it.

And so it goes. People everywhere discover something they’re good at and ride it for all it’s worth. President Obama is one such person. He has found that he’s very good at public speaking. Even his detractors must admit that. It’s what got him, inexperienced and unproven as he is, elected in the first place. He has polished this skill to the ultimate degree and exercises it at every opportunity. If no opportunity arises, he creates one. After all, he’s the president and, when he speaks, we must listen. We can’t avoid him. He’s all over the media.

Unlike the others, who who make use of their God given talent, whatever it may be, in order to earn a living or help others, Mr. Obama provides no service. Neither does he manufacture anything, and he lives off us, the taxpayers. All he does is talk. And even in that, he says nothing. His campaign slogan is a perfect example. Catchy and easy to remember. To the undiscerning mind at once hopeful and promising  at the same time. One word, uttered in many ways. Change.

Mr. Obama promised us ‘change’. He never spelled out what that ‘change’ would be; what form it would take. He left it to each of us, individually, to interpret that single word to mean the kind of ‘change’ we would like to see. After all, everyone is dissatisfied with something in government. It was easy, then, for each of us to convince ourselves that the ‘change’ promised by candidate Obama would be exactly what each of us as individuals would like it to be.

The reality was that, in meaning all things to all people, it actually meant nothing. If one were opposed to the war in Iraq then, ‘change’ to him meant that an Obama administration would bring that conflict to a close. If one were unhappy with the economy, then that person was made to believe that Mr. Obama would ‘change’ it to suit his needs. Whatever a voter might feel was wrong with his particular situation or with the country, ‘change’ was seen by that individual as the solution to his or her problems, real or imagined.

As for the economy, Mr. Obama loses no opportunity to remind the nation that he inherited the fiscal crisis. Of course, the inference, and he naturally makes no effort to correct the misconception, perhaps doesn’t even know it’s not true, is that it was the fault of the previous administration. In reality, the financial meltdown was the result of the failed policies of the Democrats who took control of congress in 2006. Mr. Bush and others tried to warn Barney Frank and his fellow legislators of the consequences of their lax agenda, to no avail.

On the whole, to a gullible electorate Mr. Obama comes across as the virtual messiah they want him to be. Clear thinking people see him for what he is: an attractive man in an empty suit who is eminently gifted at reading from a teleprompter and spouting platitudes without an original or practical thought in his well barbered head. He is the front man for a gang of Clinton retreads bent on transforming the United States into a copy of failed European socialist republics – even as those entities regularly turn to America to rescue them from problems which are often of their own making while our president embarrassingly apologizes for us around the globe.


So our duly elected president does the only thing he’s good at. He constantly presents himself on the television screen with almost daily speeches, press conferences or “town meetings”, foisting upon an incredibly naive public vague proposals which are the very antithesis of what made America the greatest country on earth. He is nothing more than a consummate salesman, a living, breathing infomercial hawking a vastly overpriced commodity of extremely dubious value – promoting policies which will deprive us of freedom, incentive and initiative while making us completely dependent upon government for all our needs. He would turn a nation of proud individualists into the human equivalent of fawning lap dogs, as a list of his non-accomplishments clearly demonstrates.

Let’s hope Mr. Lincoln was right when he said, "It is true that you may fool all of the people some of the time; you can even fool some of the people all of the time; but you can’t fool all of the people all of the time."