Morning Fog

Golf Holds The Line

I am not a golfer, and I would never have known, if the Washington Post had not enlightened me, that there was such a thing as an anchored putter, or that it is on the verge of being banned.

That won't stop me from shouting a loud "HURRAH," though.  Too many other sports have introduced changes over the years, for example in basketball where that whole three-point shot didn't exist.  (Incidentally, basketball also used to have a penalty for what was known as "traveling" - was that changed at some point, maybe while I was overseas? - but one way or the other, no one much seems to care if the players take three steps, or twenty, without dribbling. 

Then, there's tennis, a game I played for quite a few years.   But those new gigantic, wide raquets?  Or two-handed strokes?  Give me a break! 

Most of these modern changes seem to me aimed not at making it a better, tougher, or more challenging sport, but a more interesting, lively, or higher-scoring spectator experience.  Pro sports are really the diametric opposite of real sports, because they encourage people to sit on their behinds rather than getting any exercise.

Changes for these reasons may increase advertising dollars and professional players' and teams' profits, but they don't do much for the "sport" that the game's non-pro afficionados play.   If a strict and clear line could be drawn between the amateur and professional games, I might be more in favor, but it's inevitable that the changes introduced for non-sporting reasons creep into the weekend duffer's game too.

Golf may not even technically be a "sport."  It's more of a game, but one that involves a degree of skill and effort, no doubt about it.  But I applaud the effort to preserve tradition, and to ensure that records set now are comparable to those set decades ago.

Gun News

This week's New Yorker carried an interesting portrait/interview of Colorado Governor Hickenlooper, a Democrat who started in office with a typical red-state stance that he has since moderated, saying that over time he has changed his mind and come to believe certain controls like background checks can be at least partly effective. 

Yesterday I received by e-mail a copy of an article from Michael Bloomberg's very own periodical noting the already well-documented downward trend in violent crime across the nation.  The article pointed out that this would make it even more difficult for those who favor "gun control" to pass legislation.

On the other hand, we have the Mothers' Day reports of more mass shootings, this time in New Orleans.  "Normal" crime may be down, but random mass shootings -- can anyone doubt it? -- appear to be on the rise.

Putting it all together, it seems that it would still be quite reasonable to try to reduce the placement of rapid-fire weapons and large magazines into the hands of private individuals -- even so-called "law-abiding" ones.

It used to be said, regarding car accidents, that in 9 of ten cases, the cause was "the loose nut behind the steering wheel."  The same can be said of incidents like Columbine, Newtown and now - depending on what police find - New Orleans -- a loose nut behind the trigger.   This would appear to reinforce the NRA's point that "guns don't kill people." But that's a simplistic and meaningless slogan, since clearly such incidents require both the nut, and the gun - a gun of a certain type.   No gun, no mayhem.  Why not work on both sides of the equation?

 

Terrorist Disposal Problem

A smallish community in Virginia agreed to bury the dead Boston Marathon terrorist Tamerlan Tsarnaev.   As far as I'm concerned, that's a good outcome.  Whatever the motives, the officials of this cemetery stepped up to do the necessary and the humane (regarding the bad guy's family) where others did not.  Now, there are a lot of questions, only some of which are being asked.

Far too many cemeteries refused to consider the burial.  Was it for religious reasons?  No, not really.  Most urban areas have a separate Muslim cemetery, or a Muslim section.  (Even Doswell, it turns out, has a Muslim section.)  Actually I'm sure most of us understand that the rejection came from fear - fear of appearances, fear of bad publicity, fear of reprisal.  To me, that's not a very kosher form of Christianity (if I may coin a term).

Many of the good people of Doswell, Virginia (a town whose name I've never before heard, in all my 20+ years living in Virginia), according to press accounts, have some questions, mainly of the "can we dig him up and move him somewhere else" variety.   (Kind of makes me think of all those "sick jokes" that were so popular in the 1960s.) 

But maybe the real question for those who question the decision on Christian grounds is "what is the message of Christianity?"  For the right answer, we might turn to the woman mentioned in the Washington Post article on this subject, who took it upon herself to apply real Christian thinking to the problem, and set about to locate a cemetery that would accept Tsarnaev's mortal remains.   

On the other hand, I can only applaud with one finger the fellow also reported in that article, who objects to the burial because the bomber's "soul shouldn't rest."  Is the body the same as the soul?  I didn't think so.

I suspect the Doswell cemetery - assuming Tsarnaev stays - will have a lot more visitors for a while, and will probably need to continue having the local police close it to curiousity seekers.  In the long run, this little tempest will be forgotten, and the whole affair will be a historical footnote, the answer to a trivia question, maybe the subject of a tiny note in the Doswell Chamber of Commerce's list of "attractions." 

 

A GOP Blockage

As Nero is said to have fiddled while Rome burned, the Republican Party, too divided within itself to formulate any realistic or constructive policy alternatives to Obama administration initiatives, continues to rely on political games to ensure nothing gets done to deal with the country's burning issues.

They seek to derail a hard-won bipartisan effort to fix this nation's immigration law; they believe they can (and should!) prevent the national debt limit from being increased; they hope against hope that they can turn a meaningless accusation of deception in Benghazi into a blockbuster weapon that will make any Hilary Clinton run for the Presidency impossible; and they continue to throw up procedural obstacles to the most basic functioning of government, i.e. the appointment of judges and cabinet members.

Some would argue this is "politics as usual," but it appears to go far beyond "the usual" into the territory of the nihilistic. 

Personally, I think they're wrong about Clinton.  I'm doubtful that she will run, and even if she does, modern political history suggests that it's the Republicans' turn to field the next chief executive (while the House, incidentally, reverts to Democratic control).  

So Clinton is an unlikely winner, if the GOP can nominate a candidate that brings their party back together, and closer to the middle.  They'd be better off devoting their efforts to finding that candidate, rather than defining themselves as the Party of Blockage.  But their refusal to be realistic about the Republican defeat last year suggests they're unable to do so just yet.  

Dying Industry: The Traditional Media

Yesterday we learned that the owners of a Washington, DC media empire crowned by WJLA TV, the national capital's ABC affiliate, have put almost all of it up for sale.  The stated reason is that viewers of television news (and television generally) are declining, and so is ad revenue, so the smart money is abandoning television to move into more trendy online services.

I fear they're probably right about the declining prospects for traditional media.  Newspapers can already see the handwriting on the wall, too.

But I am concerned that the trend toward the instant and the online is more than just an upshift from an older technology to a new one.  What we lose is any incentive toward balance and objectivity in our news reporting.  The underlying difference is that radio and television stations were pushed into balance by (a) regulation and the licensing process, (b) the need to try to please people from all points on the spectrum of opinion, and (c) the need to attract advertisers who were also striving to appeal to everyman.  They could not have survived without seeking to provide unbiased reporting (not that they always succeeded).

In the brave new world, however, there are no controls on wild, extravagant bias.  The reach of the web and the low cost of having a presence on it mean that even outlets devoted to very small niches of opinion may be able to survive, even thrive.  They may not even need advertising if they have a patron; and there are no bothersome licensing requirements of evenhandedness. 

In the end, we have more splintered media, each providing its own coloration to events and developments; and we get a public divided into segments, used to hearing only opinions they agree with, and getting the mistaken impression that everyone thinks as they do.