Our colleagues Steve King and Johnnie Putman, Chicago radio personalities and car enthusiasts, recently visited with Jim Peterik, best known for his work with the Ides of March (“Vehicle”) and Survivor (“Eye of the Tiger”). In addition to his massive guitar collection, Peterik also collects automobiles.
In this recent interview with Steve & Johnnie, Peterik shows off his 2008 Lamborghini Gallardo. “A certain gentleman I know who plays guitar had it up to 135 miles an hour on the Eisenhower at 3 a.m.,” Peterik said. The rock legend also shows Steve & Johnnie his 2002 Plymouth Prowler, 1955 Chevrolet Bel Air, and award-winning 1958 Chevrolet Corvette.
King and Putman were the long-time overnight voices on WGN radio in Chicago. Before that, King was a DJ on WLS radio in Chicago during its halcyon Top 40 days. And before that (and I didn’t know this until I read their blog), King was a rock guitarist and songwriter, playing with, among others, Peter Cetera in his pre-Chicago days.
The Ides of March hit fits in two of my favorite categories — brass rock and road songs:
One of the first cable TV talking head shows was the late “Crossfire” on CNN.
The concept was similar to NBC’s “Meet the Press” or CBS’ “Face the Nation,” with an important exception. Instead of having a (supposedly) neutral host and (supposedly) neutral questioners throwing questions at a politician, “Crossfire” was hosted by one conservative and one liberal asking the questions of the guest(s) and arguing among themselves.
The conservative hosts were most often the pugnacious Pat Buchanan (who once walked off his own show after taking offense at something some said) or Robert Novak. The liberals included Tom Braden, a newspaperman who was, believe it or not, the inspiration for ABC-TV’s “Eight Is Enough,” and Michael Kinsley.
The best pair was probably Kinsley and Buchanan, because they didn’t shy away from criticizing their ideological brethren. (Buchanan opposed the Iraq wars and is clearly not a Wall Street Journal Republican. In fact, Kinsley and Buchanan probably should have traded trade positions.)
“Crossfire” got criticized for its raised voices and for hosts and guests interrupting each other. (Which seems quaint today, doesn’t it?) The late left-wing columnist Alexander Cockburn (R.I.P.) claimed the liberals weren’t leftist enough and loved America too much. It was not, however, hosts and guests preaching to the choir, which is pretty much what you get from MSNBC and Fox News now.
Rammesh Ponnuru is a fan of the early “Crossfire,” not what it was before CNN pulled the plug:
Cable-television shows about politics are often blamed for polarizing Americans. To this way of thinking, they are responsible for much of the incivility of today’s political culture and have made it harder for us to work together to solve our problems.
This concern seems overblown to me. While the shows don’t help, their effect is probably small. The main sources of polarization lie elsewhere (especially, I would argue, in the way that courts have put social issues at the center of national politics).
The real problem with the cable-TV shows is that so much of the discussion on them is dumb, one-sided or both. (I trust that readers don’t need me to supply examples.) Their main function seems to be to provide Team Red and Team Blue with their daily talking points and with fresh causes for outrage at the other side. A lot of people seem to like this kind of thing, and it has its place in a robust democracy. …
The one-subject rule made it impossible for the politicians to make it through the show on sound bites alone. That both hosts were journalists made for a fairer debate than the usual practice of today’s political shows, which put journalists up against political operatives. …
The political strategists, on the other hand, will maintain that the sun shines at night if that’s what the message of the week demands. The debate will then feature concessions on only one side. A reborn “Crossfire” should sometimes invite strategists on air, but only when paired off against each other — and only when the day’s subject concerns political strategy. …
The actual “Crossfire” got worse when James Carville and Paul Begala became hosts. They are both very smart men, but they were (and are) still practicing politicos. It got worse, as well, when it added a studio audience. Hosts and guests alike now played to the crowd, which itself could add nothing more intelligent to the conversation than hoots and hollers. …
“Crossfire” was balanced by design, and I bet there would be an audience for it once again. Of course, I’m not a professional TV executive. Then again, the professional executives at CNN sank millions into “Parker Spitzer.” Maybe it’s worth listening to someone else.
Even at its best, “Crossfire” had its critics. They called it a “shoutfest,” which it usually wasn’t. They faulted it for hardening our left-right division. But the value of a show like “Crossfire” isn’t that it ends or even reduces partisanship. It’s that it forces partisanship to be more intelligent and honest. That’s a service we could use now more than ever.
I’ve been on several shows with a variant of that kind of format, though as a guest, not a host. I still appear from time to time on Wisconsin Public Radio’s Joy Cardin Week in Review Fridays at 8 a.m. I was on the late WeekEnd show on Wisconsin Public Television Friday nights. I also was on WTMJ-TV’s “Sunday Insight with Charlie Sykes.” I also did a similar format on the former Jo Egelhoff show on WHBY radio in Appleton.
In all of these cases, to avoid sounding like a completely partisan idiot, you have to not only be able to argue your own points, but to counter contrary points, and often on the fly since you never know for certain what your foil(s) will say. Exposure to points of view other than your own helps improve your arguments of your own views. And disagreement makes for better TV than several people all agreeing with each other.
I think CNN should bring back “Crossfire,” particularly if they can find a liberal and a conservative to host who do not necessarily always sing from the left- or right-wing hymnal. A conservatarian, perhaps.
Most of us—no matter how many time-saving techniques we employ—don’t have enough time to waste. When we do, we try to fill the void with more tasks. The problem with all your productivity? Turning down the volume on life is extremely beneficial. We fight against boredom, distraction, and procrastination all the time, but that doesn’t mean you should get rid of them completely. …
Being bored, procrastinating, and embracing distraction all help your brain function. In turn, you understand decisions better. You learn easier. You even foster creativity and productivity better. …
Some experts say that people tune things out for good reasons, and that over time boredom becomes a tool for sorting information—an increasingly sensitive spam filter. In various fields including neuroscience and education, research suggests that falling into a numbed trance allows the brain to recast the outside world in ways that can be productive and creative at least as often as they are disruptive. …
Insight problems involve thinking outside the box. This is where susceptibility to “distraction” can be of benefit. At off-peak times we are less focused, and may consider a broader range of information. This wider scope gives us access to more alternatives and diverse interpretations, thus fostering innovation and insight. Indeed, [the study] found that participants were more successful in solving insight problems when tested at their non-optimal times. …
Distractions aren’t just necessary for creative types and problem solvers, they’re important for you to focus.NY Magazine explains:
Focus is a paradox—it has distraction built into it. The two are symbiotic; they’re the systole and diastole of consciousness. Attention comes from the Latin “to stretch out” or “reach toward,” distraction from “to pull apart.” We need both. In their extreme forms, focus and attention may even circle back around and bleed into one another. …
In his book Wait: The Art and Science of Delay, author Frank Partnoy suggests that procrastination is integral to good decision making. He also suggests a simple two-step method is necessary for making good decisions and being happy. He calls this, “don’t just do something, stand there.” At a presentation at the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA), Partnoy lays out his process:
Think about what the greatest amount of time you could delay before taking an action or making a decision.
Wait until the last possible moment in that time frame.
The Atlantic has an interesting story titled “The Land of Big Groceries, Big God, and Smooth Traffic: What Surprises First-Time Visitors to America,” which starts from a story from public radio’s “This American Life”:
This American Life, talking to refugees who’d moved to the U.S., mostly from conflict zones, found that the foreigners were shocked by a number of things that Americans might consider routine: public displays of affection, high obesity rates, families shipping their elderly parents off to nursing homes, dog-owners kissing their pets, and widespread gun ownership. …
The stories are self-reported and some of the user accounts are anonymous, so it’s difficult to tell whether some of their answers might be exaggerated or even false. But there are some consistent themes in what surprised them (bolstered by my own anecdotal encounters with expats in the U.S.), which might say as much about the people who visit the U.S. and assumptions they bring with them as about America itself.
Impossibly well-stocked supermarkets: If you’ve ever visited a grocery in the developing world, you can probably understand the wonder that many foreigners feel at first seeing America’s gleaming stores, stuffed with remarkably fresh produce from every season, no matter the time of year. A South Asian friend specifically noted the “variety” in the groceries, and some have asked me, incredulous, what happens to all the produce that doesn’t get sold.
Americans really love Old Glory: For Americans like me, growing up in schools where you’re expected to fold your hand over your heart and pledge your allegiance to the U.S. flag every morning seems normal, even banal. But this is less common in other countries, and I’ve found that study-abroad students can find it surprising, even creepy. A Quora user from Brazil added that he was surprised by “the amount of US flags you see around, from every spot, in every city I’ve been to.”
They also love God: “Americans are a lot more religious than I ever assumed from watching American television,” a Pakistani friend told me when asked what surprised her about first coming to America. An Irish Quora user cited “Prayer breakfasts in the White House. Educated people believing in creationism. The number of churches and denominations. People actually going to church.” …
So much junk food, if you can call it food: An Indonesian friend mused at “popularity of synthetic food products,” from Baconnaise to Bud Light Lime-a-Rita to spray-on butter. Quora users from several corners of the globe said they were in awe of the portions; one from Eastern Europe (which, in my experience, has enormous portions) said he still had to split restaurant entrees with his wife. Several Indian Quora users described their awe at the mass and accessibility of American food. Several were surprised by the free refills. “Even most of McDonalds, KFCs etc outside the US don’t have that,” one wrote. Another was surprised by “How you can take your remaining food back home in a box from a restaurant.”
How do they get everyone to obey traffic laws?: Quoting cab drivers is sometimes considered the epitome of lazy journalism, but there is one trend I’ve found in talking to foreign-born cabbies working in the U.S. and to foreign-based taxi drivers who’ve visited the U.S.: amazement at how devoutly American drivers follow the rules of the road. Compared to the U.S., driving in many developing world cities can feel like organized chaos, with motorists ignoring not just stoplights and speed signs but lane markers and even the direction of traffic. If you go to Cairo and rent a car (side note: don’t rent a car in Cairo), you’re obligated to follow the standard every-man-for-himself style if you want to get anywhere; drive like you’re back in the U.S. and you’ll never leave the parking lot. The miracle of American roads, as outsiders have described it to me, is that it only really works if everyone follows the written rules and unwritten norms alike, and they do.
Nothing like what I saw on Friends: The U.S. is about as famous as a country can get. People around the world experience it through the American films and TV shows that dominate global entertainment. But those media portrayals can sometimes add more confusion than they dispel. A Chinese friend once insisted that of course 20-something Americans all get news boyfriends and girlfriends every single week: she’d seen it on Friends, and Seinfeld, and Sex and the City, and a half dozen other TV shows. They couldn’t all be lying.
Nothing like what I’d heard at home: This quote from another Indian Quora user captures just how dim a view much of the world takes of some American social customs, particularly our practice of putting elderly in retirement homes:
Many Indians are very surprised to find out that there are large numbers of Americans who actually love their parents and siblings and wives and children and have normal, healthy relationships with them. Our media has them convinced that all Americans are very self-centered people who throw their kids out of their homes after high school, don’t care for their parents, and divorce their spouses. And, I swear, it is literally true that many Indians do not believe that this is not true until they have been to the US and seen examples of good healthy family relationships themselves. I have had heated arguments with people who’ve never been to the US, but can give lectures on how screwed up family values in the US are.
It is no surprise that a full third of the American electorate now self-identifies as independent. The conventional wisdom holds that we independents can’t decide if we are liberal or conservative and end up stuck somewhere in the middle. …
It is fitting that mixing red and blue produces the color of a bruise. A quarter century of pandering politicians “moving to the middle” has delivered to us the worst of both worlds – a permanent welfare/warfare state that is bankrupting us both economically and morally.
However, there is a different and more important middle; and that is the space between conservative and libertarian on the continuum. Let’s call it conservatarian. Many thousands of readers of this column aren’t certain if they are conservative libertarians or libertarian-leaning conservatives. This conservatarian middle is what wins elections these days – need convincing?
Conservatarian is the space claimed by the Tea Party that sent a record number of reformers to Washington, D.C. and state capitols around the nation in 2010.
Conservatarian is the gravitational pull that compelled even establishment RINO’s to vote to audit the Federal Reserve.
Conservatarian is the energy that made Ron Paul the last man standing against Romney when all the others fell by the wayside.
Conservatarians are the reason Wisconsin’s Governor is named Walker.
Some people can’t see past the things that divide libertarians and conservatives; and there are indeed enough to warrant the two different nameplates. But I prefer to focus on the things that unite us, because when we are united we win elections.
And when we win elections we at least give ourselves a chance to restore liberty as our nation’s first principle instead of just writing about how nice it would be to live free again someday.
Polling has shown that Americans, by a 2:1 margin, want less government, not more. Less government is the bedrock conservatarian ideal – we are the 2 and liberals are the 1. While libertarians and conservatives may differ about how much less, we both want a whole lot less of the stuff than we have now.
Free trade, individual liberty, sound money, school choice, lower taxes, a fairer tax system, family sovereignty, gun rights, religious freedom, Constitutionally limited government, tenth amendment, property rights – conservatarians are united in support of these things.
The welfare state, warrantless seizure, world government, crony corporatism, nationalized industry, nanny-statism, vote-rigging, corruption, excessive regulation, sovereign debt, central banking, “nation-building”, bailouts, TSA, and forced unionization – conservatarians are united in opposition to these things.
President Ronald Reagan ran twice as a conservatarian, extolling the virtues of freedom and American exceptionalism while railing against government. He did not hide his libertarian leanings when appealing to conservatives, and he did not disguise his conservative values when appealing to libertarians. You may recall that he pummeled the liberal establishment…twice. …
Every election brings up the specter of the 3rd party “spoiler”. Listen, if every single conservatarian – conservative, libertarian, and “tweener” – goes out and votes their conscience, then President Obama will be crushed.
Whether it is 70-30 or 60-30-10 does not change the mandate. In fact, a strong Libertarian Party showing across the country would help keep the shallow-rudder GOP from drifting once they get back in power.
So what about you? Can’t decide if you are a libertarian conservative or a conservative libertarian? Don’t worry – just call yourself a conservatarian and let the political parties join you.
Just in time for the Olympics, Bleacher Report has compiled a list of the 100 worst athletes in sports history.
My immediate thought is that this is a bogus list because I’m not on it. Anyone who saw me attempt to play softball in the late Lancaster men’s league in the late 1980s knows that I deserve to be on this list, for inability to connect bat with slowly-pitched softball, running as if I was in an NFL Films highlight (and remember NFL Films films in slow motion), treating hit balls as if they were hand grenades without the pins, and for having a throwing arm that was weak, yet inaccurate.
Nevertheless, this incomplete list includes …
100. Michael Haddix [formerly of the Packers]
The eighth pick of the ’83 draft actually did record some decent numbers at first glance. 1,635 yards on the ground and 1,310 receiving for fullback Michael Haddix…not bad.
But considering it took him eight seasons to total those numbers and he finished his career with an average of 3.0 yards per carry, Haddix remains locked in scrub territory. …
96. Dan McGwire [who played at Iowa before …]
Known more as the brother of former slugger Mark McGwire rather than as a first-round bust. Dan McGwire remains the tallest quarterback drafted into the NFL (6’8″), he finished his career with limited opportunities and lacking highlights.
Two touchdowns, six picks, 745 yards and a rating of 52.3 in five seasons. Oh, and by the way, Brett Favre was drafted in the second round of that 1991 draft. …
86. Doug Strange [formerly of the Cubs]
With a batting average of .233 and 31 homeruns in nine seasons, infielder Doug Strange cemented himself among the most obscure players in baseball history.
81. Fred Merkle
When you’re nicknamed “Bonehead” and the highlight of your career is a play referred to as “Merkle’s boner,” you may want to find another career.
While a .273 average and 82 homeruns in 19 seasons isn’t quite as horrific as some may believe, Fred Merkle’s baserunning fail as a 19-year-old will forever shadow his very ordinary career.
“I am not like other players, I am Tony Mandarich, and they have to understand that. If they don’t like it, that is just the way I am and they are going to learn to like it.”
From perhaps the most heralded offensive line prospect ever (chosen second overall by the Packers in ’89) to arguably the greatest bust. What a road for the Mandarich.
Mandarich was on the cover of the second issue of the late Marketplace Magazine. I noted this in the late Marketplace of Ideas blog, which got a response from Mandarich, all the way from Arizona. The story was about the marketing opportunities for the Packers’ second round pick. He played three years for the the Packers, then, after a three-year absence, played three more years for Indianapolis, which means that he did exceed the average NFL career length, about 4.5 years.
17. Jim McIlvaine [formerly of Marquette]
A second-round pick of the Bullets in 1994, center Jim McIlvaine is known more for his controversial signing with the Sonics than he is for his mediocre play.
With Shawn Kemp, Gary Payton and a solid collection of role players filling out the lineup, Seattle was left with a void at center, and decided to sign this free agent shot-blocker to a seven-year, $33.6 million contract (despite averages of 2.3 points, 2.9 rebounds and 2.0 blocks per game the year before).
Not only was he useless on the court, but McIlvaine’s contract angered the Seattle faithful, especially Kemp and Payton. The team crumbled the following season. …
11. Tommy Lasorda
Long before winning two championships and two Manager of the Year awards with the Dodgers, Tommy Lasorda was an undrafted hurler looking for a shot.
But in three Major League seasons, Lasorda took that opportunity and turned it into a 0-4 record with a 6.48 ERA. He had plenty of time to study the diamond from the bullpen.
Lasorda won two World Series, managed in two others, led the 2000 Olympic baseball team to a gold medal, and went off on an epic rant after a game in which the Mets’ Dave Kingman hit three home runs and drove in eight. Lasorda also tried to lobby Dodgers management to go with him instead of another left-handed pitcher, Sandy Koufax.
6. Maurice Flitcroft
Scoring a 49 over par, 121 at the 1976 Open (the worst ever in the tournament’s history) was all “chain-smoking shipyard crane-operator” Maurice Flitcroft had to do to cement his name in the record books.
A true legend.
5. Bob Uecker
Some know him as George Owens from the 1980 sitcom Mr. Belvedere, others as comically inebriated broadcaster Harry Doyle from Major League. But once upon a time, Bob Uecker was a mediocre catcher getting his feet wet in the Majors.
Even if he only hit .200, at least Uecker has a homerun off legendary southpaw Sandy Koufax to smile about. And he’s always smiling.
When pro sports fans talk to sports media types, one of the most common questions is: What is _______ really like?
Ryan Riddle was a University of California teammate of Packer quarterback Aaron Rodgers:
I remember the first time I saw Aaron Rodgers, sitting in the back of a bus loaded with college recruits and family. My first observation was that he looked like a little high school kid who had just discovered hair under his armpits. …
Coincidentally, Aaron’s first summer in Cal was spent living in an old, enormous, relatively empty frat house just off campus right across the hall from myself. There were a few of us temporarily lodged away there for the month; we paid rent by doing odd clean-up jobs around the house.
Aaron shared a room with his Butte junior college teammate, tight end Garrett Cross, while I was in a room with running back J.J Arrington. That summer month in the dirty frat house gave Aaron, Garrett and I time to get to know each other well enough to all agree to become roommates once the season and fall semester started.
During that time, I would say Aaron was a fairly reserved guy who had a distinct sense of humor, which he seemed reluctant to unleash because of its “nerdish tendencies.”
I predict that no one has ever written about Rodgers’ predecessor’s “nerdish tendencies.” California and Mississippi might as well be on different planets.
Riddle has an interesting story to tell about one of Rodgers’ low career points, a 35–21 loss to Oregon State:
Aaron started the game playing horrible football. He was extremely uncomfortable, completing just two of his first 14 passes. The speed of the game and constant pressure Oregon State applied to our offense was clearly giving Aaron more than he could handle at the time. Head coach Jeff Tedford decided to let the young quarterback play his way through the struggles.
By the time the final whistle had blown, Oregon State had won 35-21. Aaron finished the game despite the paralyzing boos of the home crowd. He completed just nine passes on 34 attempts for only 52 yards, no touchdowns, and an interception.
I was too busy playing in the game to really notice how well Aaron had publicly handled such a terrible performance in what was his first complete game in front of his family, friends, and the home crowd in general. Unfortunately, this was a bad day in Mr. Rodgers’ neighborhood.
That night, back in our dorms, Aaron had been in his room all night with the door closed. So one of our roommates Francis and I decided to check in on him to see how he was holding up. When we went in the room, Aaron was laying in bed crying, profoundly disappointed in his performance. He told us that he felt as though he let the entire team down and the entire loss was his fault.
I could remember us trying to offer up some words of encouragement, which did seem to dilute his state of utter despair. But for the most part, this was an emotional process that Aaron absolutely had to go through to become the quarterback he is today. That was the worst game Aaron had ever played in his entire football career. In the end, he emerged a stronger person, better leader, and will be forever reminded of his own humility.
Readers, though, want to know the real Rodgers.
During college, Rodgers was ridiculously enamored with Jessica Simpson; he seemed to even have it in his head that they were somehow going to get married. I believe this was around the time that she and Nick Lachey were newlyweds and had their own reality TV show. …
Funny to think of all the fantasy crushes men have in a lifetime, Aaron actually had a legitimate shot at his fantasy girl, but his desire for her fizzled out right around the time he was actually in a position to get hooked up with her. But “hooking up” with girls was never something Aaron prioritized in life.
Aaron was raised a devout Christian, and lived a life of strong religious values. He never spent his time in college drinking or partying. His discipline in life and foundation of beliefs were very admirable in an environment where he was often the odd man out. …
Aaron was rarely, if ever, a guy you would find giving fiery speeches to his teammates, nor was he a big vocal leader. Rather, he would come in every day completely prepared to succeed at his job. I often wonder how much Aaron must have learned over the years from Brett Favre in terms of leadership and earning respect from his teammates. I’m sure, however, Aaron will always prefer to lead with his actions first and foremost. …
The world may know a charismatic, somewhat-stylish guy with lots of cool and a personality made for marketing. But the Aaron we all knew in college was much different. He used to drive around campus on a small scooter with a big bike helmet and the exact same hair cut as Lloyd Christmas from the movie” Dumb and Dumber,” which ultimately became one of his nicknames. …
The biggest complaint Rodgers consistently received as a roommate from the guys at the dorm was he routinely poured himself bowls of cereal and would never wash his dishes. He was the main culprit for creating a sink full of dishes that he would never clean, no matter how long the dishes sat there, or how many times you said something to him.
Novelist Andrew Klavan on “Batman: The Dark Knight Rises”:
The movie is a bold apologia for free-market capitalism; a graphic depiction of the tyranny and violence inherent in every radical leftist movement from the French Revolution to Occupy Wall Street; and a tribute to those who find redemption in the harsh circumstances of their lives rather than allow those circumstances to mire them in resentment.
None of these themes necessarily arises out of filmmaker Christopher Nolan’s politics, of which I know nothing. Whatever his politics, he is an artist committed to creating, in Shakespeare’s words, “abstract and brief chronicles of the time.” This is where Mr. Nolan’s honesty comes in.
There are, after all, no socialist filmmakers in Hollywood. There are only capitalist filmmakers (Michael Moore, for one) who make socialist films. Likewise, none of the coiffed corporate multimillionaires who anchor the network newscasts can honestly support the Occupy movement which, taken to its logical conclusion, would result in their being hanged from lampposts.
Yet while repeatedly tainting the free-market tea party movement with a racism it doesn’t espouse and linking it to violence it doesn’t commit, many creatives and journalists lend moral support to the socialist “occupiers”—underplaying the widespread vandalism, lawlessness and grotesque anti-Semitism characteristic of their demonstrations.
“The Dark Knight Rises” is a stinging, relentless critique of that upside-down and ultimately indefensible worldview. And why not? Our chattering classes frequently tell us that art should speak truth to power and shock the bourgeoisie. It just never seems to occur to them that “the power”—and the modern Babbitts of the bourgeoisie—are themselves.
Mr. Nolan’s response to them—the perfectly cast, brilliantly choreographed conclusion to his Batman trilogy—is a sophisticated vision of the way economic systems actually work and don’t work. The essence of that vision is encapsulated in two scenes that purposely echo one another.
In the first, the embittered villain Bane, mouthing revolutionary bromides, stages an assault on the stock exchange. In the midst of the uproar, we hear a police officer say of the stock market, “That’s not my money, that’s everyone’s money”—a recognition, in other words, that the 1% and the other 99% do the work of free trade together.
Later, after Bane’s revolution has destroyed the investment class with mob violence and show trials and thus plunged Gotham City into chaos, Catwoman and her fellow thief enter a ransacked house. “This used to be someone’s home,” mourns Catwoman, her conscience awakening. “Now it’s everyone’s home!” exults her unrepentant colleague, gloating over the ruin. …
But the heart of the film is not money. It’s people and what they choose to make of the injustices of their lives. Catwoman is the linchpin of that theme. She is the link between those like the heroic capitalist Wayne, who allow hardship to temper their souls, and those like Bane, who cling to their hurts and demand to be repaid in societal destruction. Catwoman begins as a thief making revolutionary proclamations: “There’s a storm coming.” She ends up confronting the true nature of that storm and a choice between that and freedom’s better way.
Free markets lift us all. People’s “revolutions” inevitably result in tyranny. Forgiveness and self-betterment redeem society while embittered extortions in the name of “social justice” poison it. None of these simple truths is hidden in the film. That is why left-leaning critics on both coasts have reacted to the movie with the same willful blindness with which they view history.
Today is the official start of the Olympics, because today is when NBC carries the Olympics opening ceremonies, even though events began Wednesday.
One could say the official start of the Olympics is the first official blasting of “Bugler’s Dream,” the name of which you may not know, but the music of which you do:
This, however, is the official Olympic theme song:
The best thing about the Olympics may be that, for sports fans, TV-watching improves tremendously. The Olympics are now all over the cable or satellite dial, with CNBC, MSNBC, Bravo, the NBC Sports Network and Telemundo all carrying events. And, for those of us without a working TV in our houses, it’s all available online.
That’s the good news. The bad news is that NBC’s Olympics coverage is not really geared for sports fans; in fact, event coverage degenerates into soap opera, a trend that began with ABC-TV’s “Up Close and Personal” vignettes during their coverage. (Speaking of up close and personal: my wife was a translator — Spanish and, unexpectedly, Portugese — for Olympic volleyball in the old Omni for the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta. One night, I was idly watching late-night coverage back in Wisconsin when it was suddenly interrupted for news of the Centennial Olympic Parkbombing. That caught my immediate attention because the Omni wasn’t far from the bombing site, and I wasn’t sure if she might not have been in that area at the time. She wasn’t, I found out after one after-midnight phone call to the house where she was staying.)
It would be nice if the Olympic movement was only about athletic achievement. For that matter, it would be nice if the Olympic movement was motivated only by athletic achievement. It would also be nice if the Olympics was a place where international disagreements could be set aside for a couple of weeks. None are the case, of course; in fact, anyone who says the Olympics should be free from politics doesn’t know much about the Olympics, of which USA Today’s Richard Benedetto said, “Sports and politics are running mates.”
The Olympic movement has been the poster child for political intrigue for almost its entire existence, dating back to the days when Baron Pierre de Coubertin resurrected the Olympic movement in the 1890s. Coubertin believed that professional athletes soiled sports, so, when Jim Thorpe was discovered to have played “professional” baseball ($2 a game), he was stripped of his medals even though his losing his medals was against Olympic rules. Adolf Hitler viewed the 1936 Berlin Olympics as a chance to show off the superiority of his master race. Several Arab countries boycotted the 1956 Melbourne Olympics to protest Israel, and 20 years later many African countries boycotted over South Africa. The 1968 Mexico City Olympics was marred by the Mexican government’s massacre of more than 200 protestors.
Four years ago, the Weekly Standard‘s Dean Barnett wrote that “Unwholesome Olympics politics are more the rule than the exception,” including the 1936 Olympics and boycotts by the U.S. in 1980 and then of the U.S. by Soviet bloc countries four years later. In a completely different category would be the murder of 11 Israeli athletes by Palestinian terrorists in the 1972 Munich Olympics, an obscenity basically blown off by International Olympic Committee head Avery Brundage, a truly loathsome figure in sports history. (As for now, same thing.)
Beyond boycotts, each of the winter and summer Olympics between 1948 and 1988 was an athletic attempt for the U.S. and the Soviet Union to show off its superiority against the other. This was a rather stacked race given that the U.S.S.R.’s “amateurs” were not amateurs at all. Some viewers see NBC’s coverage of the Olympics as excessively pro-American to the point of being jingoistic. And we haven’t even discussed various medical scandals tied to the effort of outdoing the competition.
Commercialism has been a recent complaint, and yet the three U.S. Olympics held in the past 25 years — Los Angeles in 1984, Atlanta in 1996, and Salt Lake City in 2002 (run by some guy named Romney) — all were profitable. (I was in Salt Lake City three years before the Olympics, and one business group that benefitted from the Olympics before the Olympics were road builders.) The Athens Olympics in 2004, the Turin Winter Olympics in 2006, and the Vancouver Winter Olympics in 2010 ran deficits. We’ll never know how much money the 2008 Olympics in China lost, since China lacks, you know, freedom.
This has all made me a bit cynical of the Olympic movement, a feeling expressed by Mary Riddell of London’s Telegraph:
What voters want from these Olympics is a chance to forget about politics. In bleak times, when people lose faith in their leaders and their gods, they seek saviours from other spheres. The rise of comic book superheroes, such as Superman and Wonder Woman, coincided with the collapse of the American dream after the Great Depression. It is not an accident, in an age when many of the super-rich have been exposed as charlatans and politicians can offer no escape from crisis, that Spiderman and Batman are back, over-riding political incompetence and corporate greed, to rescue the world from the forces of evil. …
Great events, lauded as founts of bravery and revival, are always invested with more significance they can bear. So keep it simple. In an age warped by unfairness and inequality, ordinary Britons must be willing and able to reclaim the Games. The biggest jamboree of the recession was devised as the people’s Olympics. It will live or die on that criterion.
Still, the Olympics can generate stunning achievement, including gold medals by athletes you’ve never heard of, such as American Billy Mills in the 1964 10,000-meter run, or Nadia Comaneci in 1976 gymnastics, or Cathy Freeman in the 2000 400-meter run. And, of course, there was that hockey team in 1980. (1960, too.) The Olympic Games is worthwhile watching, as long as you don’t watch too closely.
Steve Prestegard.com: The Presteblog 