Fidel on Rahm
Speaking of commies (Uncle Joe was), here’s an editorial penned by Fidel Castro, who is apparently fascinated by Rahm Emanuel. I can’t do it justice just by choosing a section and linking the rest, it needs to be seen in full. From Granma Internacional:
Yep. This is our press at work.
Okay, look: I know why Michael Steele said what he said about government jobs (or, if you’re Steele, “jobs”) and why the Republicans repeat outrageous things over and over. Because it works. Not so much because it works on the general public, but because our traditional media is so lazy and weak-minded that if the Republicans repeat something enough times, even something as baffling as “the government doesn’t create jobs,” they’ll just go ahead and pick it up and pretend it’s fact.
But it’s still so depressing to see it happen right in front of you.
Here’s CNN’s John King, talking to a guest about stimulus projects:
One mayor I talked to this past week, for example, says he wants to use some of this money to build a new wave pool in his community, with a water slide. He says it creates jobs– is that the kind of project that passes your sniff test?
(emphasis King’s)
We can talk about whether or not we should be using stimulus money to build wave pools. Fine. I don’t mind if we have that discussion. But King asks the question as if there’s a possibility that building something doesn’t create any jobs. How does he think these things get built? Water park fairies?
(While we’re at it, how cool would that be? Do the water park fairy chant and all of a sudden a couple of them show up and make a wave pool for you in your backyard. How do we get some of these?)
See the video at Media Matters. (Of King, not of the fairies. They have yet to be caught on video, but the one who snags that will be rich! Rich, I tell you!)
Pay for Play
I don’t know a whole lot of people who are feeling particularly betrayed by the recent outing of A-Rod’s steroid history. First and foremost, he’s a Yankee, and that’s always a problem. But secondly, steroids in baseball strikes us as kind of boring these days–like complaining about the lack of healthy hot dog choices at the ballpark. It isn’t that we condone or even approve of steroid use–the health risks to the players just don’t seem worth it, not to mention it contaminates the purest American sport there is. Those issues notwithstanding, it just doesn’t seem worthwhile to give that much attention to something that doesn’t have to be the tragedy everyone is making it out to be.
This is not to say that nothing should be done about the problem, however. But how should baseball react, given that for the past fifteen years at least, everything they’ve done hasn’t actually accomplished anything except to foster an atmosphere of distrust in players, management, and–most disastrously–the sport itself? The answer, I will suggest, really comes from the big man himself; although it varies a bit in its application and tenor.
Taking a hint from President Obama’s proposed salary cap for CEO’s who use government bailout money, we suggest that baseball “legalize” steroid use–no condemnations, no disappointment, no asterisks. The poetry in our plan is this: all players will be tested regularly, just to see. If a player wants to use steroids, hoping they will enhance his performance, then fine; but any player who chooses to do so will limit his income to 500,000 dollars a year–still a nice chunk of change, but nowhere near the dough they would make if they chose to play clean.
This salary cap would incentivize clean performance and would also be a boon to managers and owners alike, who would be freed from the fallout of the discovery that their star players are, in fact, on the juice. Plus, imagine the savings! On A-Rod alone, the Yankees could score what basically amounts to a 27.5 million dollar coupon. Of course, there would be a stipulation that a season clean would entitle the player to a salary renegotiation–but that shouldn’t be a problem for either the player or the owners.
As it stands now, the punitive mindset only hurts baseball and pushes all of the dirty little secrets under the rug. Legalization of steroids is not legitimization, and a salary cap reflects baseball’s most poignant of truths: that none of us are perfect all of the time; we are inclined to make errors. But those errors are counted and are as much a part of the game as they are a part of ourselves. A salary cap for steroid use makes room for the humanity inherent in baseball, and also draws the line between those who play to win, and those who play because they cannot help but do so.
Fletch
Jeremy
Zack!
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