College sports is a running theme for millions of Americans this week, and for some of our staff too. The week began with both the men's and women's NCAA basketball championships and several collegiate "Spring Game" scrimmages are set for this next weekend - including the annual Red-White game for the Nebraska Cornhusker football team.
For us, the experience of college sports is a bit different, as multiple members of our staff have had long associations with both college education and college sports. Our Editor-In-Chief, namesake, and cartoonist Paul Fell has been both college professor and college football player, while our writing staff includes the former Executive Producer of the Husker Sports Radio Network. Paul's long-running HuskerNutz cartoon series has also long mocked and celebrated the peculiar nature of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln's unusual fans.
In short, we have some significant collective experience in professional media, athletics, and education at the collegiate level.
That's why, to some degree, while we were disgusted and dismayed at the stories coming out of the NCAA men's basketball tournament this year - about the coach's $350-thousand-plus bonuses, while some students complain of going hungry. We've also been cheered by the recent efforts by Kain Coulter and the Northwestern University football team to unionize.
The realities of liberty seem to finally be running down the cartel of the NCAA.
One of our favorite reporters on politics and sports, Dave Zirin of The Nation, has been covering the death spiral of the NCAA closely. If Zirin's dissection of the UConn Huskies men's basketball team on Tuesday didn't convince you there are massive problems with college sports that the NCAA is not only ignoring but encouraging, your problems might be deeper than facts can help.
From UConn's abysmal 8% graduation rate for their student athletes, and UConn's budget deficits and tuition hikes facing their students, to the coach's and network's million and billion dollar paydays, to the NCAA regulations that keep student athletes from even being able to accept meals at times - Zirin is right when he calls top college athletics today 'The Real Hunger Games.'
As Zirin also noted earlier this year, the NCAA has no intention of letting the cash cow star athletes get away without a fight. It's certain the NCAA won't just be throwing legal fees at this issue. They'll also be using all the stereotypical political tricks, including appealing to the basest level "logic."
Indeed, as so many Americans already say, "The kids are getting a free education, right? So what do they have to complain about?"
For the student athletes who go to schools like UConn, 92% of them don't get an education that will help them the rest of their lives. They get lifelong injuries and often have to take on piles of debt (like most college students today). Maybe they get to take with them a few memories of time when they were special - before the next crop of momentary superstars arrived on campus.
It's long past time someone ran down the NCAA and the corrupt system they operate, and truly looked out for the best interests of the students.
If that someone happens to be Kain Coulter and the football team at Northwestern, along with the help of the unions, many of those who've been involved with college academics and athletics will be there to cheer them on - hopefully to a better future for all college students.
Wednesday, April 9, 2014
Tuesday, April 8, 2014
Keeping Democracy
Even before Jon Stewart and the team at The Daily Show pointed it out last night, our staff had been struck over the last few days by a stark contrast in world politics.
Even as the world's largest election in India was beginning, the vote for a new President to replace the outgoing Hamid Karzai was finishing this weekend in Afghanistan. While some journalists were less surprised than others, the election itself was generally without major acts of violence. There were a few reports of scattered violence after the election - including at least one incident that killed some election workers and destroyed some ballots. Even though Afghanistan's citizens were literally threatened by the Taliban with death if they showed up at the polls, their voter turnout rate looks to have exceeded 60%.
We had to ask each other: When was the last time Americans turned out for ANY election like that?
For the record, America hasn't exceeded 60% turnout in a presidential election since 1968 - and we haven't exceeded 40% turnout in a midterm election since 1970. That's an incredibly embarrassing record for a nation that's spent the greater part of the last four decades trying to "promote democracy" around the world - sometimes, at the point of a gun.
With all the technological tools and and experience in voting, logic would tell you that making voting easier, while more accurately reflecting the will of the people, should be easy for Americans. Indeed, at the beginning of 2014, after a six month review, the Presidential Commission on Election Administration released a 112-page report outlining actions that cities, states, and our nation could take to accomplish all of those goals.
Unsurprisingly, Republicans seem to have taken that report as a guide on how to prevent millions of Americans from having their voices heard. From Ohio, to North Carolina, to Wisconsin and elsewhere, for several years now, Republicans have been trying all kinds of unethical and sometimes outright illegal tactics to try and suppress the turnout of those voters unlikely to buy into their propaganda.
As Jamelle Bouie noted last week, it's clear these attempts at voter suppression have been driven by partisanship, an effort to cheat the system in places where Republicans can't compete honestly. Unfortunately, this isn't a new thing for America. As Bouie also pointed out, Americans on the left and right have been trying to rig the system in their favor for most of our history.
Yet, you'd think if Republicans are really as proud of their bare-knuckle political tactics as the blowhards in right-wing media claim, they'd be proud of what they've accomplished. As Dave Weigel of Slate pointed out last week, that's actually the last thing Republicans want to do: Draw attention to how they're trying to rig the system in places like Wisconsin.
With all of the shenanigans by cowardly Republicans, you also might think we'd be mad at the GOP for how they're trying to twist the system - and you'd be partially right on that count.
However, we're also sick and tired of Democrats who won't stand up, get out, reach out, and fight to get every one of their voters to the polls. Sure - you can
Citizens of Afghanistan risked their lives to vote. Americans might have to arrange for a babysitter, or make special travel plans for voting day, or - God forbid - learn how to program the DVR.
Somehow, we don't exactly think of those actions as serious acts of courage.
Even as the world's largest election in India was beginning, the vote for a new President to replace the outgoing Hamid Karzai was finishing this weekend in Afghanistan. While some journalists were less surprised than others, the election itself was generally without major acts of violence. There were a few reports of scattered violence after the election - including at least one incident that killed some election workers and destroyed some ballots. Even though Afghanistan's citizens were literally threatened by the Taliban with death if they showed up at the polls, their voter turnout rate looks to have exceeded 60%.
We had to ask each other: When was the last time Americans turned out for ANY election like that?
For the record, America hasn't exceeded 60% turnout in a presidential election since 1968 - and we haven't exceeded 40% turnout in a midterm election since 1970. That's an incredibly embarrassing record for a nation that's spent the greater part of the last four decades trying to "promote democracy" around the world - sometimes, at the point of a gun.
With all the technological tools and and experience in voting, logic would tell you that making voting easier, while more accurately reflecting the will of the people, should be easy for Americans. Indeed, at the beginning of 2014, after a six month review, the Presidential Commission on Election Administration released a 112-page report outlining actions that cities, states, and our nation could take to accomplish all of those goals.
Unsurprisingly, Republicans seem to have taken that report as a guide on how to prevent millions of Americans from having their voices heard. From Ohio, to North Carolina, to Wisconsin and elsewhere, for several years now, Republicans have been trying all kinds of unethical and sometimes outright illegal tactics to try and suppress the turnout of those voters unlikely to buy into their propaganda.
As Jamelle Bouie noted last week, it's clear these attempts at voter suppression have been driven by partisanship, an effort to cheat the system in places where Republicans can't compete honestly. Unfortunately, this isn't a new thing for America. As Bouie also pointed out, Americans on the left and right have been trying to rig the system in their favor for most of our history.
Yet, you'd think if Republicans are really as proud of their bare-knuckle political tactics as the blowhards in right-wing media claim, they'd be proud of what they've accomplished. As Dave Weigel of Slate pointed out last week, that's actually the last thing Republicans want to do: Draw attention to how they're trying to rig the system in places like Wisconsin.
With all of the shenanigans by cowardly Republicans, you also might think we'd be mad at the GOP for how they're trying to twist the system - and you'd be partially right on that count.
However, we're also sick and tired of Democrats who won't stand up, get out, reach out, and fight to get every one of their voters to the polls. Sure - you can
Citizens of Afghanistan risked their lives to vote. Americans might have to arrange for a babysitter, or make special travel plans for voting day, or - God forbid - learn how to program the DVR.
Somehow, we don't exactly think of those actions as serious acts of courage.
Monday, April 7, 2014
Picking Out Hope On Climate Change
While there's some speculation this morning that officials may have finally found the black box flight data recorders from the missing Malaysian airliner, the fact remains that CNN has been getting hammered on their obsession with the missing plane lately, with good reason.
Last week, CNN - one of the world's largest media organizations, that nominally is supposed to be covering news - effectively ignored the latest report from the United Nation's International Panel on Climate Change in favor of almost continual baseless speculation about the missing plane.
The headlines from the IPCC's latest report are indeed dire, with news headlines like 'Climate Change: The Worst Is Yet To Come.' After looking at the report, we tend to agree with the panel's assessment, though: The facts underlying the information contained in the report are terrifying. Siberia is already experiencing mid-summer temperatures and forest fires, in early April. The arctic sea ice cover this winter was the fifth smallest on record - and we have ice core samples that go back thousands of years. If those facts contained in the IPCC's latest report sound scary, it's because they are.
Meanwhile, even as CNN mostly ignored the IPCC's report, at least they didn't lie about it like Fox did.
Still, ignoring the problem won't make it go away, any more than denying the existence of a polar bear standing next to you won't prevent him from having you for lunch. As more than one famous scientist has said, science and facts remain true whether you believe them or not.
In truth, CNN may simply have been a perfect real-time media example of what Ezra Klein pointed out brilliantly in his first major piece at his new venue Vox.com - that while more facts are often helpful for scientific purposes, more facts also often just make our politics and media more stupid.
In an applied sense, that discovery by Yale Law professor Dan Kahan and his team may also mean that some people are too stupid - or more appropriately, too identity-protective - to effectively handle the political responsibilities of taking political action on critical topics like climate change mitigation.
That tendency to remain frozen, due to inherent identity-protection mechanisms, can be seen in the example of the American people. Even when they're not facing voter suppression issues, as so many are this year, thanks to the Republican Party, Americans all-too-often still don't get out and vote. Meanwhile, Afghanistan's citizens - whose lives as well as their identities were quite literally threatened with death by the Taliban if they voted - came out to vote anyway, in record numbers this past weekend.
To us, that difference in voting actions further proves the point, that the courage to act is what's really needed on climate change right now - or as Jedediah Purdy called it recently in The Daily Beast, "the politics of the impossible."
The good news is, the impossible is already happening in a few places around the world.
For example, China's closing nearly two thousand coal mines this year and replacing them with solar, wind, and hydroelectric plants instead. Not to be outdone, India is boosting their solar output by thirty percent by next year. Both of these actions prove that the politically impossible is already becoming possible, in measurable degrees. What's even better is that the IPCC's report notes that the effects of climate change can still be reduced, so long as the world acts now.
That, in fact, appears to be the best bet for wise Americans right now who care about the very real future of life on Earth: Push and support those politicians favorable to fighting climate change to do everything they can to act, right now, over the wailing and crying of the ignorant deniers.
Later, when the polar bears are picking the remains of some climate change deniers out of their teeth, or the National Guard is rescuing climate change deniers from the latest costal flooding, we'll be more than happy to engage those climate deniers in a discussion about where and how to use our government resources.
We have a feeling they may be slightly less protective of their identities - and slightly more receptive of facts - at that point in time.
Last week, CNN - one of the world's largest media organizations, that nominally is supposed to be covering news - effectively ignored the latest report from the United Nation's International Panel on Climate Change in favor of almost continual baseless speculation about the missing plane.
The headlines from the IPCC's latest report are indeed dire, with news headlines like 'Climate Change: The Worst Is Yet To Come.' After looking at the report, we tend to agree with the panel's assessment, though: The facts underlying the information contained in the report are terrifying. Siberia is already experiencing mid-summer temperatures and forest fires, in early April. The arctic sea ice cover this winter was the fifth smallest on record - and we have ice core samples that go back thousands of years. If those facts contained in the IPCC's latest report sound scary, it's because they are.
Meanwhile, even as CNN mostly ignored the IPCC's report, at least they didn't lie about it like Fox did.
Still, ignoring the problem won't make it go away, any more than denying the existence of a polar bear standing next to you won't prevent him from having you for lunch. As more than one famous scientist has said, science and facts remain true whether you believe them or not.
In truth, CNN may simply have been a perfect real-time media example of what Ezra Klein pointed out brilliantly in his first major piece at his new venue Vox.com - that while more facts are often helpful for scientific purposes, more facts also often just make our politics and media more stupid.
In an applied sense, that discovery by Yale Law professor Dan Kahan and his team may also mean that some people are too stupid - or more appropriately, too identity-protective - to effectively handle the political responsibilities of taking political action on critical topics like climate change mitigation.
That tendency to remain frozen, due to inherent identity-protection mechanisms, can be seen in the example of the American people. Even when they're not facing voter suppression issues, as so many are this year, thanks to the Republican Party, Americans all-too-often still don't get out and vote. Meanwhile, Afghanistan's citizens - whose lives as well as their identities were quite literally threatened with death by the Taliban if they voted - came out to vote anyway, in record numbers this past weekend.
To us, that difference in voting actions further proves the point, that the courage to act is what's really needed on climate change right now - or as Jedediah Purdy called it recently in The Daily Beast, "the politics of the impossible."
The good news is, the impossible is already happening in a few places around the world.
For example, China's closing nearly two thousand coal mines this year and replacing them with solar, wind, and hydroelectric plants instead. Not to be outdone, India is boosting their solar output by thirty percent by next year. Both of these actions prove that the politically impossible is already becoming possible, in measurable degrees. What's even better is that the IPCC's report notes that the effects of climate change can still be reduced, so long as the world acts now.
That, in fact, appears to be the best bet for wise Americans right now who care about the very real future of life on Earth: Push and support those politicians favorable to fighting climate change to do everything they can to act, right now, over the wailing and crying of the ignorant deniers.
Later, when the polar bears are picking the remains of some climate change deniers out of their teeth, or the National Guard is rescuing climate change deniers from the latest costal flooding, we'll be more than happy to engage those climate deniers in a discussion about where and how to use our government resources.
We have a feeling they may be slightly less protective of their identities - and slightly more receptive of facts - at that point in time.
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