Both Sides -- Minus Nastiness

photo: Joi Louviere, Washington Post


The Majority: So black people are upset that a white girl won the campus queen title at historically black Hampton University?

The Minority: Don't say "black people." It's some black people, not all. Even in the picture showing the girls who didn't win the contest, only two out of three look pissed.

The Majority: If it was white people who were saying that they were upset because somebody who won something wasn't white, you wouldn't be satisfied hearing that it was just "some," would you? No, you'd be saying that it was racist, and that any of it was too much. Are you gonna say the same about this?

The Minority: Nope, because it isn't the same thing.

The Majority: Yeah, sure, it's not the same because you're the ones who want to do the excluding. When you're dishing it out, it's fine and dandy, but when you're on the receiving end, it's a national crisis, right?

The Minority: Well, sort of, but not completely.

The Majority: That's real helpful.

The Minority: Here's the deal. If you won't let the kids from down the street into your little club, and you tell them, "Go away and get your own club," you shouldn't be surprised that they'd get mad that they're not allowed to play. And you shouldn't be surprised when, after they get mad, they do go away and get their own club. When they do that, it doesn't make much sense for you to come demanding to get let in.
But let's say you do get let in -- and the kids down the street decide they're going to make you club president for the week. Shouldn't the kid who was gonna be club president that week be mad? Shouldn't he think that the folks who did the excluding in the first place had no business coming around to butt into the club that was only started as a reaction to them being jerks? He's been double dissed. His antagonism toward you isn't the same as you not wanting to let him into your club in the first place.

The Majority: All well and good. But this isn't a club, this is a university. It isn't too likely that any Hampton students were told that they couldn't go to a school because they were black. So they can't be righteously angry at this girl because of anything done to them.

The Minority: This isn't about attending the school. Nobody is saying that she can't come to Hampton at all. This is about winning a beauty pageant.

The Majority: And nobody kept any of these girls from entering the Miss America contest or any other beauty pageant they want.

The Minority: It's not just about entering, though. It's about being able to believe that there is a place where your looks are valued enough that somebody who looks like you can win the beauty pageant. Women of all sizes, shapes, and colors want to believe that somebody considers their looks beautiful, and their husbands, boyfriends, fathers and brothers want to give them that validation. Maybe it's neanderthal paternalism, but one of the ways that validation comes is through pageants whose results say, "These women are our ideal." When you were thinking that a particular contest was one where you or your girlfriend would be getting that validation, it's no fun to see a result that says that the person who was embraced down the street, where you were rejected, can also come down to your clubhouse and get the prize you were hoping for.

The Majority: Why should anybody still need special validation? Vanessa Williams was Miss America before these Hampton kids were even born, and black Miss Americas have come along often enough that they're not even headline news any more.

The Minority: The three runner-up girls in that picture don't look like Vanessa Williams, though, do they? If ladies that looked like Serena Williams were the regular Miss America-winning black women, then these girls probably wouldn't be thinking that they need some special place for validation of their beauty.

The Majority: So special places for validation of white beauty are okay, too?

The Minority: There's no need for special validation when the default mode is giving you constant validation already. There are special contests for plus size women and petitie women, but there don't need to be special contests for women taller than 5-9 who wear size 4 or less.

The Majority: What if you're just a reasonably nice looking white girl that doesn't look like Jessica Biel? Special contests for your particular look, too?

The Minority: Well, "white" is not a particular look. If you look like Nicole Kidman, you're not gonna be entering a contest for Catherine Zeta Jones lookalikes. "White" doesn't really mean anything affirmative; it's more a negative, as in "not black, Latin, Asian or Native American." If what you're trying to promote is "Anybody But Your Kind," Our Kind is not gonna be too fond of that concept.
But if you're promoting a particular look, it happens all the time already, and nobody gripes. The queen of the St. Patrick's Day Parade in Chicago, from the looks of things, is chosen to promote somebody's idea of what an Irish beauty is supposed to look like, which is apparently much more likely to be a redhead than an Uma Thurman or a Rebecca Romijn.
When black women with looks from Alicia Keys to India Arie were all treated the same by the mainstream, they were all considered part of the mix that needed some love that nobody else seemed inclined to give. As time goes by, one end of that spectrum has a bit more chance to get validation elsewhere, but the other hasn't quite received the same affirmation that her kind is prized, too. She's going to feel the same dis by the Hampton result as the redheaded, freckle-faced Irish lass is going to feel if Gisele Bundchen is the next St. Patrick's Day queen.

The Majority: Fair enough. But is any of this the fault of this young lady that won the Hampton pageant?

The Minority: Probably not. So heckling or otherwise disrespecting her would not be cool. This is one of those situations where folks should be aware of the difference between being bothered by the person and being bothered by the statement made by the person's presence in the position. You know?

The Majority: Is this a transition to another subject?

How Does NOW Know?

Statement of NOW President Terry O'Neill

October 6, 2009

Recent developments in the David Letterman extortion controversy have raised serious issues about the abuse of power leading to an inappropriate, if not hostile, workplace environment for women and employees. In the case of Letterman, he is a multi-million dollar host of one of the most popular late-night shows; in that role, he wields the ultimate authority as to who gets hired, who gets fired, who gets raises, who advances, and who does entry-level tasks among the Late Show employees. As "the boss," he is responsible for setting the tone for his entire workplace -- and he did that with sex. In any work environment, this places all employees -- including employees who happen to be women -- in an awkward, confusing and demoralizing situation.

* * *

The National Organization for Women calls on CBS to recognize that Letterman's behavior creates a toxic environment and to take action immediately to rectify this situation.

http://www.now.org/press/10-09/10-06.html

NOW certainly would be correct in saying that when a boss asks a subordinate for a date, there's usually an unequal power relationship that prevents the subordinate from feeling completely free to say "no." They'd be just as correct if they said that it's generally not great for office morale to have employees thinking that a hookup with the boss was the surest way to success. And of course, they'd be right on target if they pointed out that, as a rule, such relationships are best avoided, because the fallout from the breakups is dangerous to both parties, especially the lower-ranking one.

But "usually," "generally," and "as a rule" are not the same as "always." And so far, we don't know that anybody on the Late Show set felt a "toxic environment." The women who were involved with Letterman haven't complained about their relationships with him. The staffers who weren't involved with him haven't publicly griped that they couldn't get ahead without getting with him.

So, on the facts we know at this point . . .

. . . it seems possible that the ladies who dallied with Dave did so because they wanted to;

. . . it seems possible that their freedom to say "no" was never in question because they had hoped they'd be asked, and were planning to say "yes;"

. . . it seems possible that they saw more to gain than to fear from an up-close embrace with the boss's power;

. . . it seems possible that the relationships got started because Letterman and the ladies liked each other for reasons above and beyond mere objectification;

. . . it seems possible that they are fine with the way the relationships went;

. . . and it seems possible that nobody else on Letterman's staff felt unfairly excluded from any of the possible benefits of working on the show.

NOW does itself no favors by ignoring those possibilities. By presuming a crime before any victim can be identified, it reduces itself to a parody. No advocacy group is credible when it's safely presumed that they'll see offensive behavior even before they've bothered to look.

Where Have You Gone, Everett Dirksen?

As historians often remind us, American political discourse has always had its nasty elements. Early pamphlets and newspapers were more openly partisan than Fox. Founding Father Thomas Jefferson helped fund one publisher, James Callender, who wrote that Jefferson's antagonist, John Adams, was "mentally deranged," and a "hideous hermaphroditical character, which has neither the force of a man, nor the gentleness and sensibility of a woman."

So those who claim that today's nastiness is business as usual are probably pretty accurate, when they're talking about the fringe extremes. But what those claims miss is the fact that a whole category of politician has disappeared: the partisan who is also a centrist and moderate. Job one for today's minority party leader is to hasten the success of his allies, which in today's hyper-competitive America, means making governance difficult for those on the other side of the aisle. In a zero-sum world, me winning means you losing, and I've got to do what I can to achieve those goals twenty four-seven. Everybody on my side has to be on board.

It wasn't always that way. Minority party leaders were once able to cooperate with their opposites in the majority. Proof of that fact is no farther away than the public comments of Senator Everett M. Dirksen, the Illinois Republican who happened to be Senate Minority Leader from 1959 to 1969. Could Mitch McConnell make himself say these words about any Democratic president?

• July 3, 1966
  

Q: Is Lyndon Baines Johnson a good President? How do you evaluate him?

A: Well, he is a skilled president. He is a president who is founded in history. And when he was a majority leader and we were opposite numbers, we went on a theory that this was a two-way street and government had to be made to work, and he still undertakes that, and his door is open any time I want to see him. My door is open any time he wants to see me. My telephone line is open any time he wants to call. And so from the standpoint of a cooperative endeavor between that part of the legislative branch that I have the privilege to represent, and the executive branch, I must say he has done quite well.

• February 7, 1965

. . . it is quite a compliment, I think, when the President who bears another party label from mine calls me to ask how he gets out of a difficulty and extricates himself from a real problem in the Senate. My duty as an American, of course, with an allegiance and fidelity to my country requires than I help him. I would be a poor citizen indeed if I didn't do the same for any President regardless of his politics where the country's interest is at stake.

• March 5, 1961

Q: Senator, a recent Gallup poll after President Kennedy's first month in office asked the people whether they approved of the way he was handling his job. . . .

How would you have voted, sir, if the Gallup poll had asked you?

A: Well, I haven't the slightest idea how I would have voted. I think from the standpoint of diligence and devotion and timing, he has done a very good job.

Could a modern Republican repeatedly sound such conciliatory notes toward Democrats and maintain a leadership position within the party? Arlen Specter would probably say not. Today, a partisan must oppose. That includes everything from withholding votes to shouting "You lie!"

Henry Clay, Senator, Speaker of the House, and Secretary of State, was known as The Great Compromiser. In 19th-century America, that label was an accolade. Today, it would be a snide insult.

The Unused Script

"The presidents of the other three finalists went to Copenhagen.

Why couldn't Obama?

You think the IOC didn't notice that he was the only head of state who didn't come to show his support in person?

We're not just talking about his country, we're talking about his home town. The mayor and everybody else thought the Olympics would promote development, help boost the local economy, and speed the area's recovery. All they were asking him to do was take a quick plane trip and make a little speech to show the IOC that the President is a supporter of the bid.

He couldn't string together a few paragraphs of good things to say about his city and his country?

That shows how much he really hates America!"

Taking One (Or More) For The Team

Then Rickey, a devout Methodist who wouldn't attend ballgames on Sunday and prohibited his players from using profanity, role-played a succession of foul-mouthed bigots of the type he knew would try to provoke Robinson, including a spectator, headwaiter, hotel manager, sportswriter, and a succession of players who would try to spike him with their cleats or bean him with a ball or umpires who would make biased calls. Finally, Jackie demanded, "Mr. Rickey, do you want a ballplayer who's afraid to fight back?" Rickey shot back, "I want a ballplayer with guts enough not to fight back. You symbolize a crucial cause. One incident, just one incident, can set it back 20 years."

Gordon Edes. "Opening a New Wide World: Robinson's Impact Felt Well Beyond the Chalk
Line," The Boston Globe, 28 March 1997; quoted at http://www.jimcrowhistory.org/resources/pdf/hs_in_robinson_rickey.pdf

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama's spokesman publicly disagreed with former President Jimmy Carter on Wednesday over Carter's contention that some conservative opposition to Obama is based on race.

"The president does not think it is based on the color of his skin," White House spokesman Robert Gibbs told reporters.

Save Us From "Government-Run" Health Care!

You can't blame the health insurance companies if they fight the health care "public option" as if their corporate lives depended on it.

Their lives do depend on it, and they know it.

Health Care Service Corporation, the parent company of several Blue Cross/Blue Shield health insurers, is honest about it:

"It is estimated by the Lewin Group that a government-run health plan based on Medicare payment rates to physicians and hospitals would be offered with premiums 30-40 percent lower than private insurance. This would drive more than 100 million people into the public plan in the first year. In a very short timeframe, this mass migration would result in a collapse of many aspects of private health insurance and our current health care system. If a government-run health plan were initially required to offer negotiated payment rates to health care providers, it is widely believed that over time those rates would be ratcheted down and set by government, resulting in the same scenario described above."

That doesn't require much translation. A public option would offer such dramatic premium savings that private health insurers wouldn't be able to compete, and they'd soon go the way of the dinosaur.

Government-sponsored competition doesn't always eliminate private players. The existence of public housing doesn't drive the private housing market out of existence. Public universities didn't make Harvard go away. If the private sector is offering something better, it won't be eliminated by the creation of a cut-rate version funded by tax dollars.

But the private sector can't really do health insurance better, can it? If a corporation collects $1000 in premiums, it can only build snazzy headquarters, pay employees, and give dividends to shareholders by paying out less than $1000 for medical expense reimbursement. A for-profit corporation can only do what a corporation is supposed to do -- improve its bottom line -- by funding less health care, which is exactly the opposite of what society is clamoring for. Sure, a private insurer can try harder to encourage its customers to be healthier. It can try to recruit more young customers who don't need much care. But it will eventually need to try to turn away and dump the bad financial risks: the folks who will need more health care than they can pay for. When it's that clear that private industry needs to do the opposite of what society needs it to do, it's time for society to take up the job.

That doesn't mean that the the insurers' concerns are irrelevant. The current administration decided to throw billions of dollars of life preserver at General Motors only after calculating that letting the company lie in the bed it made would result in a meltdown that would cost more to clean up than to prevent. It may well be that too many lives are wrapped up in the insurers to let us obsolete them. That's a fair topic for discussion.

But that's a different discussion than the one we're currently having. It's high time that we entertain the insurers' true position -- that they desperately need the government to protect them -- instead of the one they're trying to push -- that the public option would inflict un-American terror on the nation.

What's Wrong/Discussion Reset: Big Government

Popular Fallacy: "Welfare" is somehow un-American.

Reset: "Welfare" is one of the reasons the founding fathers formed a government in the first place. As the preamble to the Constitution tells us: "We the People of the United States, in order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."

That's "promote the general welfare." Not "clear a space for efficient markets." And it's a purpose mentioned even before securing the blessings of liberty.

Popular Fallacy: "Big government" is inherently bad.

Reset: Eliminating the armed forces and the Department of Defense would cut the size of the federal government and its budget a whole bunch. Add Medicare, Social Security, and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation to the trash pile, and you're left with a government that's less than half its current size.

And yet nobody suggests those moves. Because everybody understands that if we want government to do something, and it needs to get bigger to do it, we're all in favor.

So when speakers calling themselves "conservative" gripe about a government program and suggest that they've identified an objective evil when they label it "big government," it's worth remembering that they have done no such thing, and that "big government" is objectively neutral. What they've actually done is stated a subjective preference, and that preference is usually that they not be taxed to have government perform that function.

Popular Fallacy: Government can't be trusted to do anything right; to get it done well, the private sector has to do it.

Reset: Some tasks are too big for private enterprise. Others aren't sure enough money-makers to attract private investors. If society needs those things done anyway, there's only one recourse.

Which is why government does the most important job a society can assign: defending its existence.

It is also why you can count on street lights to manage traffic at busy urban intersections and have a reasonable expectation that the driver approaching the intersection from your right has been taught to interpret red and green lights the same way you do.

A corporation couldn't afford to develop and build state-of-the-art defense systems if it had to count on discretionary private funds to pay for them. And society couldn't afford having the rules of the road known only by those who were willing and able to buy the education.

It's not like private enterprise is the most effective way of getting things done, either. The corporation's reason for being is to make maximum profit for its shareholders. If it can do that by building a better mousetrap, defense system, or driver education program, so be it. But if it can make more cash by providing substandard product while driving away the competition or winning the advertising battle, that'll be the chosen route. And if it can't make a profit on mousetraps, weapons, or drivers' ed, they won't get done at all.

The bottom line is that profit-driven corporations are all about promoting their own specific welfare. If they do anything for the general welfare, that's just a happy coincidence.

Popular Fallacy: Social welfare programs are nothing more than attempts to appease the over-stimulated do-gooder impulses of bleeding-heart liberals.

Reset: Social welfare programs are capitalism's best and most practical hope for self-preservation.

The McCarthyism of the 1950s uncovered communist flirtations started in the 1930s, and communism was popular in the 1930s because of depression-era poverty. When enough people start thinking that the current system is only offering them a life that's miserable, they start imagining ways to do away with the current system. World history shows what happens when the powers that be try to squash those imaginings: sooner or later, the little people employed to do the squashing realize that people they'll never be like are demanding that they lock up or shoot little people just like themselves. Before you know it, the powers that be have gone the way of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, and your country is being run by somebody with a military title.

Fortunately, America didn't handle its potential unrest that way.

New Deal social programs, whether effective or not, offered at least the promise that the lifestyle the average American could expect if he hit rock bottom wouldn't be so bad. The extra promise offered by the GI Bill and the boom that followed the Second World War made it easy for millions of working-class men to believe that hard work could give them middle class education, income, lifestyles, and respectability.

By the 1950s, the soldier or cop from next door didn't need to resent the fact that he had to defend some muckety-muck from the kid on the corner; he, too, could be that muckety-muck in a matter of a few years, so he could understand the need to keep that corner kid in check. When society keeps him thinking that he has a vested interest in the status quo, and that he isn't just some chump defending the interests of a few rich guys, society is doing itself a big favor.

Modern Kids Go Back To The Modern School

For a delusional moment, The Dad congratulated himself on his family's good fortune.

Both daughters were happy to see the start of the new school year. At their ages, The Dad dreaded the end of summer and hated having to go back to the classroom. His daughters, through good fortune, and maybe (not to brag or anything) good parenting, had no such attitude. They were raring to go back. Who knew what advantages that enthusiasm for education would bring them over time?

Then the Second Grader brought home a page describing the homework rewards program for her class. Complete your assignments, and you get sweets, treats, toys and accolades. The page brought The Dad back to reality. And provoked a few recent memories.

Both daughters had been in classrooms where the students got prizes for going several days without discipline trouble. Every child's birthday earned recognition. Some rooms named a star of the week, every week, not as reward for extraordinary behavior, but just to make sure every kid got a turn to be a big shot. Add to that the daily recesses, the regular dispensing of goodies, and the dramatic praise for every positive behavior, and it was no wonder that the daughters wanted to get back to school.

What kid wouldn't? The modern classroom is a full time joyride. The Dad realized that, as special as his daughters are, their enjoyment of school probably isn't all that remarkable. He decided he'd take the opportunity to offer a little perspective.

The Dad: You know what the prize was for doing all your homework when I was a kid?

Second Grader: Candy.

The Dad: No.

Second Grader: Cookies.

The Dad: Nope.

Second Grader: Toys.

The Dad: Unh-unh.

Second Grader: Money?

The Dad: [shakes head]

Second Grader: I'm all out of guesses. What was the prize?

The Dad: No beating.

The Second Grader thought that was laughable.

What's Wrong: Something You Really Couldn't Say Today

Two months before signing into law the Voting Rights Act of 1965, President Lyndon Johnson gave the commencement address at Howard University in Washington. To read his words in 2009 is to be stunned at how far away from his sentiments America has come:

The voting rights bill will be the latest, and among the most important, in a long series of victories. But this victory--as Winston Churchill said of another triumph for freedom--"is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning."

That beginning is freedom; and the barriers to that freedom are tumbling down. Freedom is the right to share, share fully and equally, in American society--to vote, to hold a job, to enter a public place, to go to school. It is the right to be treated in every part of our national life as a person equal in dignity and promise to all others.

But freedom is not enough. You do not wipe away the scars of centuries by saying: Now you are free to go where you want, and do as you desire, and choose the leaders you please.

You do not take a person who, for years, has been hobbled by chains and liberate him, bring him up to the starting line of a race and then say, "you are free to compete with all the others," and still justly believe that you have been completely fair.

Thus it is not enough just to open the gates of opportunity. All our citizens must have the ability to walk through those gates.

This is the next and the more profound stage of the battle for civil rights. We seek not just freedom but opportunity. We seek not just legal equity but human ability, not just equality as a right and a theory but equality as a fact and equality as a result.

* * *

The Negro, like . . . others, will have to rely mostly upon his own efforts. But he just can not do it alone. For they did not have the heritage of centuries to overcome, and they did not have a cultural tradition which had been twisted and battered by endless years of hatred and hopelessness, nor were they excluded--these others--because of race or color--a feeling whose dark intensity is matched by no other prejudice in our society.

Nor can these differences be understood as isolated infirmities. They are a seamless web. They cause each other. They result from each other. They reinforce each other.

Much of the Negro community is buried under a blanket of history and circumstance. It is not a lasting solution to lift just one corner of that blanket. We must stand on all sides and we must raise the entire cover if we are to liberate our fellow citizens.

* * *

Men are shaped by their world. When it is a world of decay, ringed by an invisible wall, when escape is arduous and uncertain, and the saving pressures of a more hopeful society are unknown, it can cripple the youth and it can desolate the men.

There is also the burden that a dark skin can add to the search for a productive place in our society. Unemployment strikes most swiftly and broadly at the Negro, and this burden erodes hope. Blighted hope breeds despair. Despair brings indifferences to the learning which offers a way out. And despair, coupled with indifferences, is often the source of destructive rebellion against the fabric of society.

There is also the lacerating hurt of early collision with white hatred or prejudice, distaste or condescension. Other groups have felt similar intolerance. But success and achievement could wipe it away. They do not change the color of a man's skin. I have seen this uncomprehending pain in the eyes of the little, young Mexican-American schoolchildren that I taught many years ago. But it can be overcome. But, for many, the wounds are always open.

Perhaps most important--its influence radiating to every part of life--is the breakdown of the Negro family structure. For this, most of all, white America must accept responsibility. It flows from centuries of oppression and persecution of the Negro man. It flows from the long years of degradation and discrimination, which have attacked his dignity and assaulted his ability to produce for his family.

This, too, is not pleasant to look upon. But it must be faced by those whose serious intent is to improve the life of all Americans.

Only a minority--less than half--of all Negro children reach the age of 18 having lived all their lives with both of their parents. At this moment, tonight, little less than two-thirds are at home with both of their parents. Probably a majority of all Negro children receive federally-aided public assistance sometime during their childhood.

The family is the cornerstone of our society. More than any other force it shapes the attitude, the hopes, the ambitions, and the values of the child. And when the family collapses it is the children that are usually damaged. When it happens on a massive scale the community itself is crippled.

So, unless we work to strengthen the family, to create conditions under which most parents will stay together--all the rest: schools, and playgrounds, and public assistance, and private concern, will never be enough to cut completely the circle of despair and deprivation.

* * *

There is no single easy answer to all of these problems.

Jobs are part of the answer. They bring the income which permits a man to provide for his family.

Decent homes in decent surroundings and a chance to learn--an equal chance to learn--are part of the answer.

Welfare and social programs better designed to hold families together are part of the answer.

Care for the sick is part of the answer.

An understanding heart by all Americans is another big part of the answer.

And to all of these fronts--and a dozen more--I will dedicate the expanding efforts of the Johnson administration.

What's Wrong: Things That Can't Be Said Today

Modern American politics, at least at the national level, is mostly about electing people who are gonna help me get mine, and about defeating people who are trying to help you get mine. There's a little wiggle room in that principle, of course. The rich can be taxed extra without excessive fallout, provided that the threshold for "rich" is shown to be high enough. But you can't even say you're prepared to raise taxes on the rich without showing most folks they'll be getting a share of the proceeds, unless the beneficiaries are in a few tiny categories of sacred cattle, like seniors, the military, law enforcement and firefighters. The general idea of using government resources to help anybody else is now considered so un-American that most politicians shy away from ever suggesting any such thing.

That wasn't always the case, though. American politicians used to be able to say that government needed to do more for some subsection of the population. To calibrate just how far we've come from that direction, imagine a modern candidate for president or U.S. Senate saying any of the following:

1. "I stand for the square deal. But when I say that I am for the square deal, I mean not merely that I stand for fair play under the present rules of the games, but that I stand for having those rules changed so as to work for a more substantial equality of opportunity and of reward for equally good service."

2. "We grudge no man a fortune in civil life if it is honorably obtained and well used. It is not even enough that it should have gained without doing damage to the community. We should permit it to be gained only so long as the gaining represents benefit to the community. This, I know, implies a policy of a far more active governmental interference with social and economic conditions in this country than we have yet had, but I think we have got to face the fact that such an increase in governmental control is now necessary."

3. "The really big fortune, the swollen fortune, by the mere fact of its size acquires qualities which differentiate it in kind as well as in degree from what is possessed by men of relatively small means. Therefore, I believe in a graduated income tax on big fortunes, and in another tax which is far more easily collected and far more effective - a graduated inheritance tax on big fortunes, properly safeguarded against evasion and increasing rapidly in amount with the size of the estate."

4. "The man who wrongly holds that every human right is secondary to his profit must now give way to the advocate of human welfare, who rightly maintains that every man holds his property subject to the general right of the community to regulate its use to whatever degree the public welfare may require it."

5. “A strict application, let us say, of economic theory, at least as taught by Adam Smith, would be, ‘Let these people take care of themselves; during their active life they are supposed to save enough to take care of themselves.’ In this modern industry, dependent as we are on mass production, and so on, we create conditions where that is no longer possible for everybody. So the active part of the population has to take care of all the population, and if they haven’t been able during the course of their active life to save up enough money, we have these systems.”

The speakers--

Quotes 1-4:




Quote 5:




Those sentiments are pretty moderate, though, compared to another comment so lengthy and so shockingly out of line with currently accepted expression that it deserves its own entry . . .

What's Wrong: Politics As Tribalism

Ex-Washington D.C. mayor Marion Barry.

Ex President of the United States George W. Bush.

Flip sides of the same coin. And proof positive of the nature of politics in America: tribalism.

I'm voting for the candidate who is most likely to be for me. I'm voting against the candidate who is most likely to be for you.

The competence of the opposition isn't particularly relevant. Even if the guy who is for me hasn't done a good job, I'd rather vote for him than the apparently competent guy who is for you.

In fact, a scoundrel, crook or idiot who is for me is better than a righteous, intelligent go-getter who is for you. Flaws in the candidate who's for you are crucial; those same traits in the guy who's for me might be virtues. If they're not virtues, they're forgiveable, and I'm mad at you for bringing them up.

Even if the guy who's "for me" isn't really for me; even if he's really for himself and his cronies, if he's willing to publicly accept the label of being for me, he's a better choice than the guy who's for you.

I'm horrified that people like you would continue to vote for guys like your guy despite all the evidence that he is the wrong man for the job. In fact, you must be stupid or worse to continue to support the likes of him. Meanwhile, I'm going to continue to vote for my guy, pretty much without any regard for what you might say or show about him.

------------------

All of that, by the way, is fine, to a point.

Where is America, in relation to that point?

To be continued . . .

If You Tilt Your Head Just Right And Squint . . .

. . . you can see the parallel:





See the similarity?

Sure you do.

Before Marvin Gaye's performance at the 1983 NBA All-Star game, singers were walking a minefield when they took improvisational liberties with the national anthem. Jose Feliciano tried it at game 5 of the 1968 World Series in Detroit, and the reaction from Establishment-aged folks was that he had been traitorously disrespectful. (Feliciano: "I didn't think I was doing anything wrong.") From then on, performers might embellish the Star Spangled Banner for youthful crowds where anti-Establishment statements were embraced, but in front of mainstream audiences, you sang it straight. If you didn't, the best you could hope for was that nobody noticed.

Gaye got huge props for his rendition of the anthem. Such huge props that he provoked scores of performers ever since to approach the song as if it were a jazz standard: a vehicle just waiting to be treated to their own interpretation; a tune that they, too, could use to make or enhance their artistic reputations, just like Marvin did. A few, like Whitney Houston at Super Bowl XXV, were successful. Many more, lacking the talent of a Gaye or a Houston, bored or bombed. Good or bad, we have Gaye to thank/blame for showing them that it was safe to go where angels had previously feared to tread.

As did Barack Obama. His elections to the Senate and the White House would have been unthinkable only a few short years before they actually happened, and his candidacy for each office was met with the laughter and scorn of folks who were sure that he had no chance. His victories will most certainly inspire many a politician to pursue long-shot campaigns that would have been given no hope by conventional wisdom and old-school pollsters.

Not coincidentally, it would seem that one such candidacy is for the Senate seat Obama vacated to enter the White House: that of Cheryle Jackson. Traditional political analysis would probably figure that the presidency of the Chicago Urban League, Jackson's current position, is an unlikely resume item to win friends and influence people in downstate Illinois. That analysis would also calculate that now is probably not the time for recent members of the staff of impeached governor Rod Blagojevich to be trying to capitalize on that credential.

It may well be that Ms. Jackson is the greatest Illinoisian since Abraham Lincoln, and that she will be able to prove it to the state's electorate. But whether she is Whitney Houston or someone who sends us to the refrigerator or bathroom with six minutes of over-wrought vocal gymnastics, it'll be obvious that Barack Obama was the Marvin Gaye who showed the way. We will certainly have him to thank/blame for countless improbable candidacies in the years to come.

Professor Gates' Disconnect

By now, we all know which facts are beyond dispute: Harvard professor/celebrity Henry Louis Gates came home to Cambridge from a trip, found his front door jammed, and enlisted his driver in forcing it open. Someone observing the scene called police and reported it as a break-in. Police officers arrived, questioned Gates, and eventually learned that he did indeed live at the house.

We don't know who said what wrong thing first, or how the incident escalated, but Gates was not pleased with some part of the encounter, and asked the investigating officer for his name and badge number. The officer exited Gates' home through the front door, Gates followed him, and was arrested on his front porch for disorderly conduct. The charges were quickly dropped.

Gates has discussed the incident as if it is an example of how black men in America are treated by police. He's right about part of the equation. If you're an average guy in an encounter with a police officer, his badge gives him license to hold all negative attitudes -- yours and his -- against you. Unless and until all the traditional negative attitudes have disappeared from black-white encounters, a black man running into a white cop is likely to end up on the receiving end of a few more negatives than his white neighbor crossing the path of that same cop. Gates, like Leroy Average Brother, has reason to think that his close encounter with police went sour more quickly than it would have if he looked different.

Gates probably knows that there are Harvard professor/celebrities who would have been treated like the big shot pillars of the community they consider themselves to be. "Very sorry sir, nothing personal. All we knew was that we got a phone tip that two men were breaking in the front door. We're glad it turned out to be a false alarm, and we want you to know we're here for you in case the call is real next time. Are you all set with getting that door fixed?"

It's also probable that what Gates got instead was tone and body language that said something more like, "Who the hell are you to be questioning me? You're lucky I didn't dent your skull for taking too long to show me some ID." It's a very rare black man vs. police encounter where both behave as if law enforcement is the side that has to be careful and accommodating. Almost every black man in America knows that he doesn't have status that trumps a police officer's feeling that he is freer to vent on you than your neighbor.

Galling as that fact may be, though, it's still worth Gates' time to recognize that while he may have been lined up for disrespect for the same reason as Mr. Average Brother, that dis took far less severe form than Leroy would have expected. Insert Leroy into the scene -- upscale neighborhood, report of a burglary, front door forced open, Leroy Average Brother found inside -- our boy Leroy is lucky to avoid becoming the latest Amadou Diallo. If Leroy happens to go unshot, he'd know to cut his losses at the scene, hold his temper and tongue, and express any irritation about the incident to someone other than the offending officer. And if Leroy couldn't help venting his frustration, even if only by running off at the mouth, he'd likely have some cuts, bruises and lumps to show for it, along with some extra charges like resisting arrest and assaulting a police officer. Gates told officers that he was uncomfortable with his arms cuffed behind his back and the arresting officers loosed his wrists and recuffed them in front of him. Think they would have done the same for Leroy?

If the reaction to Gates' trauma is something less than boiling outrage even from the Leroys of America, it's probably not because they think race is no factor in police treatment of black men. It's more likely that folks are feeling the disconnect between Gates' treatment and his reaction.

If Gates had received the Leroy treatment, had lumps on his head, broken bones and swollen eyes, there'd be a wave of anger as a result. Millions would be upset at the demonstration that the wrong appearance makes you unsafe from the police in your own home. Getting denied the upper-crust treatment you think you've earned doesn't quite have the same widespread resonance. This is not nearly Rodney King; it's a bit more like Oprah being turned away from the Hermes shop in Paris.

The most obvious solution when you're denied the BMOC/HNIC treatment: make the mope recognize that he should have known who he was messing with. Make some phone calls. Pull some strings. Get the guy transferred to a hellhole. Or fired. Behind the scenes, leaving no fingerprints. Let him and his former coworkers suspect that the day his life started to spiral downhill was the day he got on your bad side.

Gates will serve his image well if he can get satisfaction for his personal insult in that kind of private way. He'll make better use of his public platform by focusing attention on how Leroy gets treated.

Michael Jackson

Broad poetic license is granted for the purpose of praising the dearly departed in the course of a eulogy.

So when Magic Johnson told the world that watching Michael Jackson made him a better point guard, heads were cocked and eyebrows were raised not because the words were out of character for the moment.

It was because they were unnecessary. Magic didn't need to exaggerate to give Michael Jackson the praise he deserved. Later speakers, like Berry Gordy, groped for the correct note. But when Gordy found it, he and everybody else heard that it rang true, and the bell has been sounding ever since.

Michael Jackson was the greatest entertainer ever.

"Greatest" does not necessarily mean "most talented." Jackson didn't compose as much or as well as Stevie Wonder or Smokey Robinson. He didn't have the vocal chops of Luther Vandross or the instrumental virtuosity of Prince. He didn't stamp a single sonic style for all time the way James Brown did. Sammy Davis was Jackson's peer in singing and dancing, plus he had enough extra skill in acting, comedy and impressions to win an overall talent decathlon.

But greatness is measured by more than the height of a performer's peak. Roger Maris hit 61 home runs in a single season and Hank Aaron's one-year best was only 47, but nobody would dare to suggest that Maris was a better home run hitter. Greatness is a measure of the sum total of your flight path: how high, how far, and for how long. Add up those columns, and Jackson can't be matched.

How high did MJ fly? His His Motown career with his brothers began with four straight singles that went to number one on Billboard's U.S. pop charts. He went even higher as a solo artist: five straight multiplatinum albums, one of which, as everyone knows, is the top-selling album of all time. 12 number one singles, and 13 more that were in the top ten.

The distance of the Jackson flight pattern was unprecedented, and it's not likely to be duplicated. Jackson came along when the development of technology enabled facts, sounds, images, and people to move around the globe with an ease unknown to prior generations. Cultural fads that took months to cross oceans during Sinatra's peak years and weeks at the start of Beatlemania happened in a matter of days when Thriller was released. And the whole world saw the premiere of Black Or White at about the same time.

Jackson's career was perfectly timed to take advantage of shifting trends in another way: during his prime, more of the world than ever before began to use the new ease of travel and transport to import American culture. The fraying of the Soviet Bloc and the end of the Cold War opened up new markets for Coca-Cola and McDonald's, but they also meant that Beat It and Bad were not seen as evil capitalist symbols the way Blue Suede Shoes and Hound Dog would have been. The result: Michael Jackson played to sellout crowds in football-sized stadiums not just in New York, London, Tokyo and Paris, but also in Moscow, Prague, Budapest, Bucharest and Warsaw. Add those cities to Jackson concert stops that would have been too much trouble to reach in 1955 or 1965, like Tunis and Tel Aviv, Mumbai and Manila, Bangkok and Buenos Aires, plus Cape Town, Santiago, Mexico City and Sao Paolo, and you've got a star whose reach could not have been imagined in the world that existed at the start of his career.

The increasing ease of information transfer helped make Jackson a star whose like had not been seen, and it's also likely to keep him from being eclipsed. The world had opened up just enough for everybody to be a recipient of the same information in the 80s and 90s, but it hadn't quite reached its current point -- where everybody can generate and disseminate their own information. Today's audience is more fragmented and has more producers creating content for every identifiable niche. Which makes it much more difficult to reach the kind of cross-section of viewers and listeners to make a Thriller-sized blockbuster possible. In 2009, a would-be Michael Jackson might spring his own version of the moonwalk at a broadcast like Motown 25, but fewer homes will have three generations of viewers sitting around the same TV to see it. Grown men will be watching ESPN, little kids will have Disney on their own sets, plenty of women will be watching Lifetime, and the core music-consuming audience of teens and twentysomethings will spend less time being awestruck than their 80s counterparts and more time trying to create knockoffs, spoofs, and superior moves to upload to YouTube. With so many more distractions in today's media world, it'll be hard for anybody to grab as much attention as MJ did at his best.

The duration of Jackson's stardom will be just as tough to match. I Want You Back, the Jackson 5's first Motown hit and a Billboard #1 single, was released in 1969. You Rock My World, Michael's last single to reach the top ten on the Billboard pop charts in the U.S., was released in 2001. That 32-year span, remarkable when considered in isolation, is even more majestic when viewed in comparison to the longevity of other music icons. In 1995, 32 years from the Beatles' first appearance in the Billboard U.S. top ten, Paul McCartney was ten years past his most recent top ten single. In 1987, 32 years after Elvis Presley's first charting single, he was 15 years past his last top ten single and ten years gone from the face of the earth. Jackson's stardom was steady during that long span. Either as a solo artist or in combination with his brothers or others, he had at least one top ten single in 13 of the 20 years from 1970 to 1989, and six more in the 1990s.

Jackson's longevity is the obvious explanation for the outpouring of emotion triggered by his passing. We've known Michael Jackson for 40 years. For the first twenty years, we'd seen nothing more sinister than a sad dissatisfaction with his appearance and a harmlessly weird reluctance to grow up. By the time things began to look worse, we'd known and liked him for so long that some of us refused to believe he'd done anything wrong, others wished he hadn't, and plenty more preferred to avert our eyes and thoughts. Until the end, we'd hoped against hope that he could find the uncompromised happiness that filled so much of his music. His death makes it clear that there will be no such finding for him in this life, and that's a sad fact to have to digest.

If A-Rod Could Have Been Honest . . .

He might have said something like:

"As you all know, I tested positive for steroids in 2003.

That's because I was using them.

I'm not going to say which ones I was using. And I'm not gonna say when I used them, where I used them or how I got them. I'm not trying to offer any steroid endorsements, and I'm not trying to incriminate myself or anybody else. As a league, we agreed to the 2003 testing not to get anybody prosecuted or suspended; the point was to see how widespread the steroid using was. We all have a better idea of the answer to that question now.

Yes, it was cheating. It was against the rules, and that's what cheating is. I was breaking the rules, and I knew it, so I have to own up to the label.

Why did I cheat? The same reason that hitters cork bats and pitchers doctor balls. It was to get an edge. I've heard some people say, 'He didn't need to break the rules to do well. He was doing well enough.' But nobody is doing 'well enough' in baseball. No hitter gets a home run in every at bat. Everybody wants to get better. If you're hitting .300, you want to hit .310. If you're hitting .340, you want to hit .375. I thought that using could make me better, and so I used. If I thought I could have gotten the same results by eating spinach like Popeye, I would have done that, too.

Yes, I lied about it. That's human nature. I was doing something that I knew was against the rules, and I didn't want to advertise that fact, so when I was asked about it, I lied. Once I'd lied, I lied more to cover up what I was doing and to hide the fact that I'd been lying about it. When you cheat and then lie, that's the cycle you lock yourself into.

Am I happy I was caught? Of course not. When you get caught in a situation like this, you do feel some sense of relief at not having to hide the truth any more. But if you thought you'd rather have that relief than keep up the facade, you'd come clean on your own. Obviously, I didn't do that.

Since I used on purpose and lied about it, it wouldn't make sense for me to sit here now and act like I really felt terrible about what I did. I knew I was cheating. I also knew that plenty of players in the history of baseball broke the rules to get an edge, and the battle between them trying to cheat and the folks trying to catch them was just a part of the competition to win. I knew that using steroids was more serious than throwing spitballs, because I knew there were laws against drug use. But I figured those laws were kind of like laws against using marijuana: on the books, but not really enforced. That was clearly the case in baseball at the time, because there wasn't any testing or punishment for juicing. Since then, the league has made it clear that it is going to take drug use seriously, and that steroids aren't just like stealing signals from the centerfield scoreboard. That's why I'm not using any performance enhancing drugs any more.

I know that some fans supported me personally or the game in general because they did not know the extent of the cheating and lying on my part or in the rest of the game. I'm sorry to those fans for being such a disappointment to you. Of course, I'm sorry to any current or former teammates who will now have to suffer the intrusion of questions about me, or feel the taint of guilt by association with me. If the edge I got by cheating was the difference between anybody staying in the majors or having to leave, I'm sincerely sorry to anybody in that category. And as for all the other players I've competed against, I know that if they want to think less of me as a man and a player because they know I've cheated, I have to accept that as a fair consequence of what I've done."

Discussion Reset: The NCAA

The NCAA is shocked -- shocked! -- that former University of Southern California basketballer O.J. Mayo might have been given money and other goodies by an agent's go-between while he was in high school and during his one year in college. If that happened, NCAA rules have been violated. Not only that; according to ESPN, it's a misdemeanor in California for sports agents to give stuff to student-athletes. So Mayo, the agent, the alleged agent of the agent, USC, and everybody under the sun is gonna get investigated for this. Just like another recent USC star in another sport, Reggie Bush.

My question is: Why?

I understand that the NCAA has rules, and it wants to make sure that its participants abide by those rules. But in this case, I don't understand what evil the rules are meant to prohibit, and I don't understand why society at large would spend any of its resources to enact laws to enforce rules that benefit the NCAA, which is just a private club.

I get the NCAA prohibition on school boosters paying kids, and the expansive definition of booster: basically anybody who wants a kid to go to a particular school. If money could buy college rosters, Tiny College would stand even less of a chance of ever being competitive with Gigantic State than it does today.

But what's alleged in the Mayo situation, so far, at least, isn't that somebody was paying him to get him to go to a specific school. If that turns out to be the case, I understand the NCAA's desire to squash that kind of thing. Supposedly, though, some agent who figured Mayo to be a sure-fire NBA player wanted to start paying him to get on his good side early so that he could become his agent and get a percentage of the millions he'll make if that dream comes true. The stories surrounding Mayo when he was nearing the end of his high school days were that various advisers were looking to see if there were ways to avoid the need for college at all: the NBA rule against drafting guys straight from high school had kicked in, and the suggestions were that some folks around Mayo were looking to see if he could spend the year playing professionally in some non-NBA forum, like Europe or the Harlem Globetrotters. So if people were paying Mayo, it looks like it had nothing to do with his choice of college.

And if that's the case, who's it hurting?

It makes sense that the NCAA doesn't want its ranks filled with ringers: college kids are at a disadvantage if they have to play against professionals, and if the NCAA doesn't want the Tiny College kids to play against old guys from the Eastern Industrial League, fine. But does O. J. Mayo have any greater advantage over a Tiny College kid because some agent gives him some cash? No, I think it's the other way around: the agent wants to give Mayo some cash only because it's already clear he's better than the Tiny College kid. If that agent gave Mayo a Hummer, a wardrobe, and courtside tickets to the Lakers game, none of that gives him any on-court advantage. If these prohibitions are there to protect the Tinys, they don't make sense.

Nor do they make sense if they're there to protect some sort of outmoded ideal of what it means to be an "amateur." Maybe a century ago, there was some perceived nobility in playing collegiate sports purely as an afterthought and not very well. And that may still be true for many participants in many sports on many college campuses. But that isn't the case for top level basketball and football. Kids at the powerhouse schools in those sports are supposed to be the next best thing to the top professional ranks, with the best of their members clearly preparing as well as they can to take that next step up. How do they demean the sport by fixing their eyes on the pro prize? Why is a college athlete banned from participating in his sport just because he hires an agent in contemplation of turning pro? Does a kid in a college theater program get banned from the school stage if she gets an agent to try to get her auditions on Broadway? Does a journalism student get banned from the school newspaper for doing an internship with the Washington Post? I see no reason why preparation for professional sports should irrevocably taint a college student any more than any other half-step toward earning a living doing whatever you're doing in college.

Are we supposed to believe that these rules are there to protect the athletes themselves? I don't get that one, either. Colleges don't prevent students from getting into premature relationships with employers, creditors or significant others. Some of each are bad, and some of each are good, just like the agents who want to woo tomorrow's pro stars. The NCAA could limit authorized contact to those agents who are approved by the players' associations of the pro leagues the kids aspire to; the lists are already out there and readily available. Banning relationships with agents is throwing the baby out with the bath water.

If the baby you want to save is the kid's interest, that is. But it seems more likely that the NCAA is trying to preserve its own product. It wants to punish kids for even thinking about leaving the college game, and it holds over their heads a threat that only the smallest group of the most gifted players can ignore: if you're caught looking to the pros and you're not as good as you thought you were, you'll lose your chance to play in college, too.

That sense of self-preservation is natural. What isn't natural is that society spends its resources on enforcing NCAA rules. The NCAA is just a private club of member schools. If you don't follow the rules of your local Elks or Water Buffalo chapter, they'll kick you out, but there's no criminal law consequence. Why should there be for failing to follow rules of a bunch of well-to-do schools? How come it's a crime for an agent to give money to a student-athlete, and not to give the same amount of money to a student?

The NCAA has been getting the benefit of the doubt, along with a free ride on society's coattails, for far too long. If there's no apparent greater good, why should we continue to act as if they're on the side of right and justice?

Discussion Reset: "Free Markets"

"Free markets."

I see the term used as if everybody understands it to refer to an absolute good. The Cato Institute, for example, calls "free markets" a "traditional American principle," right up there with individual liberty and peace. As if everybody understands that regulation of markets is an unnecessary evil, only to be tolerated barely, if at all.

Like the way food products are sold with the term "all-natural." If it's all natural, it must be good, right? And free markets are better than markets with regulation, right?

Well, let's hold it a minute.

Unless I have my homespun medicine wrong, leprosy and bubonic plague are all-natural. And completely unregulated markets gave us feudalism and snake oil salesmen.

The bottom line: "free market" only describes an unequivocal positive if you're in a position to exploit it. If that free market puts you in a position to get exploited, or to have to clean up the fallout of someone else's exploitation, then "free market" probably describes an unequivocal negative.

When we're talking about what's good public policy, "free market" shouldn't be swallowed as necessarily a good thing any more readily than we'd take a big gulp of all-natural crude oil.

Discussion Reset: Unions

Sometimes, American conversation takes off down a path and stays on that path indefinitely, without recognition of obvious realities that should redirect things a bit. Sometimes it's worthwhile to take a look at those realities and step away from those well-worn paths.

So it is with some of the discussion that is provoked when the subject of unions comes up. Unions get blamed for plenty of problems. The state of public education, for example. Supposedly, a big part of the problem with public schools in America is the behavior of teachers' unions: they are accused of being more concerned with protecting their jobs and making those jobs easier and more lucrative than they are with teaching children.

Unions are prime suspects when an explanation is needed for the decline of America's auto industry. They demanded fat pensions and medical benefits whose costs drag down the potential quality and value of every vehicle that rolls off a Detroit assembly line. They insisted on work rules that filled factories with unnecessary employees and kept them paid whether those factories were making cars or not.

Darts get thrown at unions even in sports discussions. They're at least partly to blame for major league baseball's steroid woes, you know. After all, baseball's owners and commissioner wanted to have a strict testing and punishment policy long before all the juicing got out of hand. The only reason they couldn't implement one is that the players' union wouldn't allow it.

So there's this general background noise that's humming the tune that unions, since they are watching out for their own interests and are unconcerned with bigger pictures and greater goods, are doing something that is somehow wrong.

And that is where some rethinking is in order.

Unions, in attempting to ensure that their members get the hugest possible money for the smallest possible effort, and that they don't have to do anything that troubles them, are not doing anything that is remotely evil.

What they are doing is exactly what unions are supposed to do. They are using the power of collective bargaining to negotiate arrangements that are best for their members. While individual members of a union may feel an obligation to interests other than their own, the unions themselves are supposed to be looking out for their members.

When the battle between union interests and employer interests produces results that are bad for third parties, that's not the fault of a union; it is the fault of the belief that unregulated combat between opposing interests necessarily produces positive results for anybody other than the winner of the battle.

If we are willing to see corporate employers attempt to make as much money as possible, it is only right that we are willing to see their employees' unions try to take as much of that money for as little work as possible. When we don't like the fallout, we shouldn't blame the unions, we should blame our trust that those struggles are going to be good for us.

Changing Horse Racing

I'm a horse racing fan.

That would have been an unremarkable statement in 1948 America. But sixty years later, with racing now overshadowed by spectator sports that previously garnered only a fraction of its attention, racing fans are a bit more of an oddity. As a fan in today's America, I get the feeling that I belong to a steadily shrinking cult -- kind of like the players of straight billiards who have to explain to the rest of us how they can play pool on tables that don't have pockets.

Non-fans get to hear about the sport in mainstream media in no more than four instances in the average year: the three Triple Crown races and, to a lesser extent, I think, the Breeders' Cup. On those occasions, true racing fans speculate among ourselves about why the sport doesn't get the kind of attention it once did. There are some explanations that are beyond the capacity of the sport to change: for one, racing once had a state-sponsored monopoly on legal gambling, but there are now plenty of legal wagering alternatives, including many that offer a chance for a bigger win and demand no special attention or expertise.

Another factor, though, is a situation created entirely by people inside the racing industry. The modern American thoroughbred is more fragile than its predecessors. That fragility is displayed in one form that is certain, and in another that is suspected, but perhaps not proved. Neither is helpful to the sport.

Today's thoroughbred races less frequently than did his ancestors of just a few generations ago. Many commentators have compiled statistics demonstrating the decline in the average number of races run by horses in various categories. They prove the point, but there's an obvious, non-statistical shortcut to the same conclusion. Churchill Downs, home of the Kentucky Derby, shares the spring racing calendar in Kentucky and does not open until one week before the Derby, which is run on the first Saturday in May. That one week before the Derby was traditionally considered plenty of time for a contender to get in a prep race and still be rested enough to be at his best in the Run For The Roses. In fact, five days was considered enough, as was demonstrated by the fact that Churchill's main prep, the Derby Trial, was run on the Tuesday before the big race. In 1948, 1952, 1953 and 1958, the Derby Trial winner was also the winner of the Derby itself. In 1949, 1959, 1964 and 1965, the Derby Trial winner started the Derby as the favorite. In the 1970s, Derby contenders still ran in the Derby Trial. In the 1980s, Churchill, recognizing the belief that horses were starting to need more rest between races, moved the Derby Trial ahead as much as they could, to the Saturday one full week before the main event.

Despite that move, no trainer pointing his horse for the Derby today seriously considers the Derby Trial to be what it is named. Not a one of the 20 starters in the 2008 Derby had run in the Derby Trial, because no trainer today would run a valuable three-year-old a mere week before a big race. Today, the Derby Trial, despite its name, is more likely to be a prep for the second jewel in the Triple Crown, the Preakness, run three weeks later. In 1975, each of the 15 Kentucky Derby starters ran in a prep race within two weeks of the big day. This year, not a single one of the 20 starters did.

Any sport will suffer when its performers don't perform often enough to build up some name recognition. Which is why the NCAA and the NBA don't like their basketball players going from college to the professional ranks so quickly: when your favorite college team isn't bringing back any of its stars from last year, it'll take you longer to decide that you care about the new squad; and when your NBA team spends its first round draft pick on a guy who only played three national television games in college, it's hard to get excited. Today's best horses tend to run only a few races, and as soon as they've shown a flicker of special ability, they're retired. Nobody's building up any Seabiscuit-style following.

The suspected but not proved manifestation of modern thoroughbred fragility may have reared its head in last week's Derby. As everyone now knows, Eight Belles, one filly running against 19 colts, ran a race outstanding enough to thrash all but one of her opponents, but some distance after crossing the line, broke both of her front ankles and had to be immediately put to death on the track where she fell.

There have always been tragic, fatal breakdowns in thoroughbred racing. Even in Triple Crown races. (Black Hills in the 1959 Belmont, for example) But the fatalities in the prime time events seemed relatively rare. Until recently. The grouping may just be happenstance, and the inclusion of the Breeders' Cup to the picture adds at least seven events to each year's ledger, so we're not talking about similar sample sizes, but each of the last three calendar years has produced a fatal injury in a marquee race: Pine Island in the 2006 Breeders' Cup Distaff, George Washington in the 2007 Breeders' Cup Classic, and Eight Belles. And not least: Barbaro. He was an undefeated Derby winner, with the look of one who was on his way to special achievements. More eyes than racing usually gets were anticipating a view of the best the sport currently had to offer. Potential fans got caught up in the story of the efforts to save him, and their hopes for him were dashed after months of emotional investment.

Horse racing isn't just failing to attract new fans, it is horrifying fresh batches of would-be fans every year. With this year's Derby fresh in our minds, fans of the sport are again asking what should be done.

Animal rights activists have a simple answer: abolish racing. There is inarguable consistency to their argument. Even in the safest form imaginable, the training and racing of thoroughbreds will cause some of them to suffer injuries, including many which will be fatal. They suffer those injuries and fatalities for the profit and entertainment of humans; if there is any great intrinsic good for the horses themselves in being raced rather than being treated to a pet's life of leisure, I'm not aware of it. And unlike humans who risk life and limb in pursuit of the rewards granted to the winners in our spectator sports, the horses aren't thought to be able to understand the risks we're asking them to take. "Stop racing," the animal rights folks say, "and you'll at least stop all the harm people subject the horses to by asking them to run."

I can't disagree.

I'm just not that noble yet.

I may be that noble someday, but for now, I have to admit that I am willing to know that other living creatures are risking their lives for my entertainment. I've seen other racing fans write that the horses want to run, that they risk their lives running on their own in fields every day, and that the fatal injuries in racing are relatively rare. None of those responses disproves the notion that injuries and deaths that would not otherwise occur happen as a direct result of racing. The reality, as I see it, is that most fans are willing to abide that fact if the injury/fatality rates aren't beyond some unspecified level that constitutes "too much." It's feeling like "too much" now, though, and so many fans are weighing in with their thoughts on steps that might reduce injuries to a level that makes them feel really rare again.

Since everybody else is, I'll join in -- with the same solution I've been mumbling to myself for a couple of years now: instead of changing the game to follow the trend in breeding, change it in the other direction to provoke the breed to change for the better. Lengthen the races instead of shortening them. Introduce participation bonuses for horses who can finish in the money for multiple objectives in a season.

It can't just be done at the top of the food chain, though. And it can't be done overnight. Announce a participation points-based series of distance stakes for older horses starting next year, and you'll have nearly as many no-shows as the races get now, plus a few horses taped together to trot around the track to try to get an appearance fee when they should be in the barn.

No, this kind of thing has to be done throughout the condition book, and over a period of time. A track could announce that in five years' time, five and six furlong races will be carded as rarely as two-mile races are today. Starting four years from now, two thirds of all of the races in the condition book would be at least one furlong longer than currently carded, maybe two, and maybe a half mile. The most common distance on a day's program would be a mile or a mile and an eighth instead of six furlongs. More than half of the races carded would be a mile or longer, and a third would be ten furlongs or longer. Beyond that four-year mark, races would gradually stretch out even more.

At the same time, the track could restructure its purse program to skew some of its rewards toward participation bonuses. At all levels of racing. Races for individual conditions, whether in the claiming ranks or in stakes, could be grouped together over the course of a meeting, with a race or two at the end as climaxes, and bonus payouts for high point totals achieved by in-the-money finishes.

The other notion that would accompany these announced changes: when they came, they'd bring with them a race-day ban on medications like Lasix and Bute.

What would result? Some might speculate that the result would be empty barns and no entries for the races of the track that announced these changes. And I do agree that they'd be pretty drastic for any one track to be able to pull off.

But the reason I think they could be implemented now to an effect not possible in previous generations is that there is an unprecedented level of consolidation in race track ownership. NYRA has been a big fish since the 1950s with its ownership of New York's three biggest tracks, Aqueduct, Belmont and Saratoga. But there are other whales besides NYRA these days. Churchill Downs Inc. owns its namesake track, the home of the Kentucky Derby, plus Arlington Park, Fair Grounds and Calder. The Magna Entertainment Group owns Pimlico, the home of the Preakness, plus Santa Anita, Gulfstream, Laurel, Golden Gate, Lone Star and Thistledown.

When a single state announces that its racetracks are going to have a reasonably well-funded program of restricted races and purse bonuses for horses bred inside its borders, that's enough to change trainer behavior in what kind of horses they buy and where they choose to race them. Eventually, it changes the behavior of owners and would-be breeders as well. If a single state's breeding program can have an impact, I have to believe that any two of NYRA, Churchill and Magna implementing changes like these would be impossible to ignore.

The change I'd expect is that there would be less demand for the kind of horses that look like speedballs early. And less demand for bloodlines that carry iffy prospects for durability and stamina. Maybe it will still be the case that the horse able to run the fastest mile and a quarter on the first Saturday in May of his three-year-old season will be a grandson of Mr. Prospector out of a granddaughter of Storm Cat. But without medication, maybe that horse won't make it to the starting gate at all. Today, I imagine that the midlevel buyer or breeder gambles that some slightly above average descendants of the aforementioned Mr. Prospector and Storm Cat will be throwbacks far enough that they can achieve greatness, look the part well enough to make a good impression at a sale, or throwback at least far enough to be the quickest at six furlongs in Thursday's third race at Nowhere Downs. After these changes, I'd expect that same buyer or breeder to think more about an offspring of an Ascot Gold Cup winner.

If you know that there are good places for you to run them, you'll be more likely to buy and breed horses that have stamina. If durability brings with it extra money-making potential, you'll be emphasizing that more, too. I'm no horseman, but I hear tell that the physical types that lean toward stamina also tend to be more sound.

So maybe then the Skip Aways of the world, who aren't quite as fashionably bred as some of their less accomplished contemporaries, would get some more love from breeders because of their proven toughness over multiple campaigns. Maybe a Silver Charm would be too big a star at stud to be sold away to breeders outside the United States. Maybe winners of the St. Leger or the Melbourne Cup could become relevant and start showing up in American pedigrees again.

And maybe, with their opportunities for generating cash at stud somewhat diminished when they haven't proven their durability, the Smarty Joneses and Afleet Alexes of the world wouldn't be rushed off to stud quite so quickly.

The hope, obviously, is to make it more attractive to breed some of the types that will stay on the track longer -- both in each individual race and over the course of their careers. It seems to me that this would be in the interest of a racetrack owner who is planning to stay in the game with multiple properties for the long haul. The benefit is apparent at both ends of the sport. The states and tracks need their racing revenue, so they'd like to see the number of dates and races stay up; if there are more healthy horses running more often, there are fuller fields everywhere, which makes for more betting and more money for everybody, even in Thursday's third at Nowhere. At the top end, every sport benefits when star performers get onto the radar screen and stay there for a while. Horse racing tells potential fans that a star is on the horizon, and more often than not, they're gone by the time anybody pays attention: Point Given in 2001, Smarty Jones in 2004, Afleet Alex in 2005 and the tragic Barbaro in 2006 were all gone from the track by September of their highlight seasons. No matter how fast his speed figures were, most folks outside of hard-core racing fans never heard of Ghostzapper; racing wins fewer new fans from a dozen Ghostzappers than it would from a single Kelso.

So this is a shout-out to NYRA, Churchill and Magna. Get together -- no, I won't be holding my breath in the meantime -- change the game, force a change in the breed, and we'll all reap the benefits of the sport you're so heavily invested in.

If You Remember Beta vs. VHS . . .

You might remember some of these other battles for the American consumer's affection:

Hot Wheels vs. Johnny Lightning: I hear tell that Johnny Lightning cars were faster. And they did have a corporate sponsorship deal with Al Unser's Indy 500-winning race team. But I was a Hot Wheels guy. Cooler car designs, easier to lay out the track. Righteousness prevailed in this one.

Wrestling vs. Roller Derby: Hard to imagine it now, but the two had approximately equal profiles at one time. Nobody except kids took either seriously. In fact, where I grew up, the wrestling audience was a little younger; at about ten, you forgot about Moose Cholak, Baron von Raschke and Dick the Bruiser and started paying more attention to the Joanie Weston, Earline "747" Brown and Ralphie Valladeres. The fact that Roller Derby was a bit more popular and more appealing to a slightly older audience is evidenced by the making of the 1972 Saturday-afternoon-for-kids-at-the-movies flick Kansas City Bomber, starring Raquel Welch. Roller Derby's proprietors probably still can't understand how wrestling got to be so much bigger in the last couple of decades -- which is why we keep seeing attempts to revive the skating spectacle.

Direct Drive vs. Belt Drive: It used to be a young man's job to be well-informed on the merits of the latest consumer electronics technology, in case he ever fell into enough money to buy some of it. Back when music was listened to in homes and generated by the scraping of phonograph needles across grooves in vinyl discs, there was a period of some disagreement about the best method for rotating the platter that turned those discs. This disagreement wasn't of the "reasonable minds can come to different conclusions" variety. In fact, it was somewhat more intensely argued than spats about religion, because you could at least understand how someone would adopt the religion of his parents and not want to think any more about it. Turntables, on the other hand, were items you were free to choose on your own, and only a fool would choose anything other than the best kind when spending the kind of money we hoped to be shelling out some day. The best kind was either the kind that connected the record platter directly to the rotating motor (Pioneer, Technics, Denon) or the kind that drove the platter with a belt from the motor (Dual, BIC, AR, Thorens). The winner? Almost all DJs embraced direct drives, and if they still play records, that's the kind they use; home listeners have mostly settled on belt drives. As a reflection of the split decision, I have one of each.

Texas Instruments vs. Bowmar: Who was going to be the leading seller of the newfangled reasonably small, affordable calculator? Texas Instruments calculators were generally bigger and clunkier than the Bowmar Brains, which looked cooler, had a better display and wittier commercials. Seems as if there was some difference in the relative successes of the decisions made by the respective corporate management teams, though.

Atari vs. Intellivision: If it was for kids, Mattel would dominate the market, right? After all, where was Johnny Lightning in the 1980s? Well, not so fast. Intellivision had games with more detailed graphics and play. But there were fewer of them. And the controllers were clunkier and less intuitive. On top of that, Mattel made an interesting branding choice: it tried to position itself upmarket from Atari, with a more expensive system, more involved games, and ads featuring author George Plimpton as the spokesperson. The video game system for grownups who like to read? Don't think it sold quite as well as Mattel might have hoped.

VHS vs. LaserDisc: No, the battle with Beta wasn't the only format war for VHS. There was also LaserDisc. Then again, LaserDiscs couldn't record and needed the size of a record album to hold no more information than today's DVDs. Their prime advantage was picture quality, at a time when most consumers didn't see much wrong with over-the-air TV signals retrieved by an antenna. So maybe this was more of a minor skirmish.

Hyundai vs. Yugo: Car prices were creeping up through the 80s: though $7995 was the base price for a sports car as cool as a Mazda RX-7 in 1979, the same amount was only getting you an entry level economy car eight years later. A couple of carmakers decided that America could appreciate a bit less car for a bit less money; the Yugo and the Hyundai Excel both advertised base prices of under $5000 for the 1987 model year. The country that produced the Yugo has since separated into component parts that survive and, I hope, thrive. The cars had the separating part down, but I haven't seen any evidence of any Yugo bits surviving. Meanwhile, Hyundai is going upscale, aiming its new Genesis models at the customers who had happy experiences with the early cheap cars and are ready to spend a bit more on their transportation. If you're stumped by the concept of an "upscale" Hyundai, you might want to consider the possibility that your parents were probably similarly stumped by the concept of an upscale Toyota. Lexus marketeers ignored them to focus on you and seemed to do okay with that approach, so it may be time to face the possibility that you've entered the age group that sellers of trendy consumer goods willingly shun.

SACD vs. DVD-Audio: Scratching your head at this one? Don't recognize either of the combatants? You're not alone. This was a battle with no winners. After selling us on the idea that the Compact Disc would give us perfect sound forever, audio equipment manufacturers turned their attentions to improving on perfection. They came up with "high resolution" audio formats: they used the same sort of discs as the familiar CD to provide sound that was as much of an improvement over standard CD quality as high-definition TV was over standard broadcasts. Sony and Phillips came up with Super Audio CD, while Panasonic developed DVD-Audio. The two discs were incompatible, which meant one thing: format war. Consumers, remembering Beta vs. VHS, decided to get some answers before plunking down their cash on new players and a bunch of new discs. Like, "Which format sounds so much better than CD that I won't be able to resist replacing my old music with new discs?" Answer: Neither. And, "Which format is used in so many new releases and reissues of old favorites that I'll have the chance to start making most of my music purchases in high-res form?" Answer: Neither. Plus, "Which format will make portable players, players for cars, and players for some place other than a audio snob's home system?" Answer: Neither. Which means that the burning question for audiophiles circa 2001, "Which will become the format that wins?" got the same answer: Neither.