NFaiLure

Ratings are in the cellar.
Fans are burning their stuff.
Stadiums are half-empty.
Sponsors are getting worried.

So how in the world did the NFL, the NFL, make such a mess of things?

What do you suppose is behind the appeal of professional athletics?

I think the sports fan tries to find some way to identify with the athlete: so that the athlete’s victory somehow is the fan’s victory as well. So maybe the athlete’s hometown is my hometown too. Or maybe he went to the same school as I did. Or maybe his birthday’s in November, and mine is too. 

Over the last several years, it’s become harder and harder for the fan to identify with the professional athlete. Not even considering the vast difference in financial/lifestyle, I recall several years ago when it seemed that every week there were reports of an football player beating his wife/girlfriend/child, and NFL’s response was a series of commercials with players looking at the camera in disappointment and telling the camera (or the fans, I suppose) to quit beating their wives/girlfriends/children. I’d venture that for the vast majority of the fans, beating each other is not a normal way of life.

I love our country. I love its flag. With the ongoing anthem-kneeling controversy, I really don’t know how to identify with them anymore. They are showing their hatred and disdain for what I love.

I’d suppose I'd just as soon watch a matchup between the Taliban and North Korea. :-)

Let's Reduce Teen Unemployment

Unemployment among teens is 24%.

Let's reduce teen unemployment. Here are a couple of thought experiments, and then a suggestion.

1. Pretend you are holding a garage sale this Saturday. You've got a lot of stuff to get rid of, and so you decide to make things simple on your neighbors, you will price each individual item at $10. At the end of the sale, you might have $20-$30, and a ton of your unsold stuff.

2. Pretend that all the gas stations in your state decide to sell gasoline at $10 per gallon. What will happen is that everybody is going to complain, some people will drive across the border to get to cheaper gas, some people won't drive at all, and a few desperate souls will endure the new expense. The gas stations, though, will find they aren't selling much gas anymore.

Price floors create surplus.

A minimum wage law is a price floor for workers. A minimum wage law is going to create surplus workers, that is, unemployment.

What if the minimum wage law were only to apply to workers over 21 years old? What if an employer were free to pay a teenaged worker a minimum of say 75% of minimum wage? (I'm suggesting a minimum, not a maximum wage.) What would happen to teen unemployment? My guess is teen unemployment would drop like a rock.

The Burgermeister Meisterburger is an Environmentalist Wacko!

There's been a lot of news lately for those of us wondering what we can do to save the planet from global warming.

According to Climate chief Lord Stern, “Meat is a wasteful use of water and creates a lot of greenhouse gases. It puts enormous pressure on the world’s resources. A vegetarian diet is better.” He assures us that eventually it'll be quite normal for us to inquire about the carbon content of our food. Perhaps they can put that information on the nutrition panel.

And Robert Vale of New Zealand tells us in his book "Time to Eat the Dog" that pets are not eco friendly, and that we apparently need to swap Fido out for something a little more palatable. Apparently, a fish causes the same amount of carnage to our planet as two mobile phones. I had two mobile phones, and I have three fish. I wonder whether I should flush the phones or the fish.

So we need to give up meat, and pets. Got it.

I've been thinking about the impact toys have on the environment. Think about it: all the carbon emitted to produce them, the plastic, the batteries they consume, the lead in their paint--really, they are basically boiling cauldrons of toxic carcinogenic polluting choke hazards. We really ought to ban them. Really.

Which got me thinking about the Burgermeister Meisterburger, the grouchy villain of the children's classic "Santa Claus Is Comin' to Town." He fell and hurt himself, blamed the toy over which he tripped, and banned them all. He was not going to be happy until everybody was miserable. Much like Vale, Stern, and others. The Burgermeister must be an Environmentalist!

No Tea For Me

Tomorrow is April 15. Tax day. The day you turn your paperwork in to the IRS to prove that you have paid enough income taxes for the year and either request a refund, or pony up what you still owe. Various gatherings are planned for the day: groups protesting taxes, the growth of government, wasteful government spending, etc. Many of these protests are being called 'tea parties," a name inspired by Rick Santelli's wildly famous rant on CNBC a few months ago.

There was a tea party in my neck of the woods about two months ago. It was put together by the Upstate Young Republicans. There is a tea party planned at our State Capitol tomorrow, and at other cities across our state.

I have a very hard time getting worked up about these tea parties. "We'll teach 'em a lesson! We'll buy them a TEA BAG!" Don't hurt yourself making that bold statement, guys. The issue is that these people think that if only their party were in power right now, then "none of this would be happening." And they are precisely wrong. There is only one difference between today's Republican and today's Democrat parties, and that is a difference of degree. If the Democrat party says "the Government is great and we want to quadruple its size," the GOP says "the Government is great and we want to triple its size" and they think that this position, being the lesser of two evils, makes them deserving of the conservative vote. Of course, the GOP won't actually say this. Especially when they are in the minority.

Venting a frustration with a bunch of friends might be fun way to spend an hour or two, but it doesn't actually accomplish anything. So no tea for me, thank you very much.