Steroids, Major League Baseball and the Cult of Celebrity

Mitchell report article

I don't usually pay much attention to sports articles, but this is about the Mitchell report, which is the result of the almost two-year investigation of performance enhancing drugs in Major League Baseball. In the article it states that 3 to 6 percent of adolescents have or are using performance enhancing drugs, which I guess is a nice way of saying steroids. This does, as the article states, translate to hundreds of thousands of adolescents. There are so many different ways this impacts the lives of teens and I guess there are a number of different reasons for taking steroids, but one of the major contributors to this has to be the cult of celebrity surrounding these wealthy and highly celebrated athletes, some of whom flaunt their wealth like they were movie or rap stars. That is a report only dealing with professional baseball, also. There has yet to be something of that magnitude about other pro-sports, especially football, which has become infamous for the aggressive off-field lives of some of its star players.

There is such a drive to be successful in sports, especially for inner city youth, and particularly among young black men, for whom sports seems to be the only answer for escaping inner city violence or lower economic status. That coupled with the promises of college scouts and coaches, some of whom must be encouraging and or supplying the drugs, only makes for ruined lives if those young people are injured or fail to reach the goals set for them by their coaches and family.

Despite all these issues and the highly visible criminal cases of pro athletes just is further reason why these people shouldn't be made into gods like they are, and why most of them shouldn't be considered role models for young people, otherwise they are modeling the wrong behaviors.

Soft Power and the Exportation of War

Yahoo article on "soft power" speech by Gates

If there is any doubt about the Bush administration's efforts in diplomacy and to reach out for international alliances and support, this is the evidence. What is most interesting in this article is the concept of 'soft power' which really amounts to funding and concentrating on using civilian agencies to affect change in the international arena. This would include diplomacy through the State Department as well as whatever information is being exported to other nations, both in the government propaganda, and as I would also include, in the commercial market. More people in other nations are going to come in regular contact with American messages as consumers in the marketplace then they will just from news sources or agencies of their own government. While this is a slippery slope of truth and lies, the government has already been playing this game in our own country for decades with withholding key information about projects or investigations it deems fit for the public to know.

The statistics of the budget differences and job cuts between the Defense Department and the State Department, as well as those other agencies mentioned, are the most poignant reminder of what real diplomacy means. If the total number of diplomatic representatives equal the number of the crew of a single aircraft carrier, there is something seriously wrong our government's or president's priorities in terms of international relations. This is further highlighted by the US actions in the climate conference in Bali which was set to work on a successor agreement to the Kyoto Protocol. As this article states, the US was the only major economic power to reject the Protocol, with it's calls for reduction in fuel emissions, and it continues to be very vocal in its defensiveness over its responsibility for greenhouse gases and its level of fuel emissions.

Climate conference article

An important part of that article is the Bush administration's response to the target numbers for emissions reduction, saying that it would harm the US economy and that the conference they are sponsoring is aimed at finding an "environmentally effective and economically sustainable" solution to the emissions reduction. Here's the problem with that: they see the economic problems and environmental problems as fundamentally separate with a cause effect relationship rather than an interrelated and inseparable issue with a symbiotic relationship. The environmental impact of economic development and vice versa is too fluid to separate them in an either/or argument. What's probably the most important question is at what levels of environmental change are you willing to live in order for you to have an acceptably sustainable economy? If the climate changes continue, as they have already begun to have dramatic effects on the environment, than their effect on the US economy will begin to have a direct impact on consumers and no matter what the Bush administration thinks will happen, that has a direct impact on the political landscape of this country since consumers top priority is their own financial security.

So what level of environmental change is acceptable? Will we be OK with the Bush administration's views of 'environmentally effective and economically sustainable' policies if it causes enough of a change in seasonal temperatures that will drastically effect crop growth and the use of ground water to prevent crop loss? What about shifting major weather patterns so that areas of the country which are used to plentiful rainfall and warm but temperate seasons suffer harsher summer temperatures, droughts and harsher winter weather? What about an increase in the number of hurricanes and tropical storms from the interactions of shifting weather patterns and the sustained weather patterns over the Atlantic Ocean? What about the impact that weather patterns and rising sea levels will have on transportation? What about land-loss, especially around coastal marsh and swamp areas and beaches from increasingly violent weather, and the impact that would have on their local ecosystems and wildlife, most notable the systems that directly effect the fishing and seafood industries? What about the increase in the use of energy and fuel due to the amount of increasing usage of air-conditioners and heating units due to hotter summer temperatures and colder winters?

The last point is that why is the targeted number in the fuel emissions reduction five percent below that of 1992? If there has been an increase in the amount of fuel emissions since then, especially considering the rate of technological advancement? This is a question easily answerable by looking on the highways at the number of SUV's versus the number of compact/fuel efficient cars. And there is another issue which the Bush administration seems to have missed the boat on. Where Congress developed their own energy plans which would increase the rate of required standards for miles/gallon for new vehicles, and especially over SUV's, in the next few years, the Bush administrations policy, and the energy bill they had drafted, was a joke in comparison. If you want to accept any responsibility for the environmental impact of our consumer economy and lifestyle, don't propose legislation that includes no real changes. As we are in an age of fuel efficient cars, hybrid technology and the eventual usage of more advanced fuel sources such as hydrogen to power automobiles, promoting low increases in fuel standards is an obvious throw back to special interest politics that favor Bush's friendly oil companies and his own business interests and investments over the real possibility of economic freedom offered by advancing technology. By economic freedom I mean freedom from the need for foreign oil, which seems to be something very important to actual US citizens.

Perhaps it is an environmentally responsible solution that the Bush administration's funding of diplomatic resources is so low, but it is also not indicative of their professed diplomatic efforts. If this president had honestly valued diplomacy over direct action and multilateral versus unilateral tactics, than his financial support would have followed his principles and we'd see evidence of real diplomatic change and friendships around the world. Instead we have the largest military budget in history, the most advanced military technologies, which have yet to see the results that were promised almost a decade ago, and an alarming decrease in the integrity and influence of the United States around the world. Perhaps this wasn't the candidate to chose in 2000 after all. What is the candidate who lost doing right now? He is advocating for environmental change and positive international cooperation to improve economies through pollution free industries, a subject he just won a Nobel Prize for. That is a real American president.

Bush oversteps authority and denies children health care

Yahoo article about the SCHIP veto

Presidential power lies in the executive branch, which makes the president the executer, the one who oversees that laws are being enforced, not a legislator, and while he is ultimately able to preside over whether a law is fair and viable, it isn't for him to strong arm Congress into submission by holding hostage important legislation.

That isn't just a symptom of the current administration, it's been something that has been going on for a long time, a way for the president to have some imput in laws being created. However, when a president starts issuing demands and is inflexible in his position, holding up the legislative process and strong arming Congress, that is a major step over the line. That is something President Bush has been guilty of almost since the beginning, and it has never been more apparent than it is right now. There is a large majority of both parties who want to pass the legislation for the children's health care bill, a bill he vetoed once already and required changes. This is the second veto, after they already made changes to the bill, and which he remains adamant that he get his way or that they need to meet impossible demands for him to compromise even a little.

This bill is incredibly important for helping to insure twice the number of children already provided for in the program. These are children whose families aren't poor enough for Medicaid but who cannot afford private insurance. The president's position is that it is a step back moving children from private insurance to public insurance but instead the government should be moving children from public to private insurance.

There are a number of very important issues threading through this argument and several major problems with the president's warped values regarding the economic disparity of those people who should pay and those people who actually can pay for private insurance. It is important in this whole debate to consider that the quality of care that people receive is very different from that of those who have comprehensive private insurance. There is quite a big difference as well between the care received at various levels of affordibility of co-pays, premiums and extraneous medical expenses. Not all insurances are equal and having been on public insurance I can attest to the fact that it is far better to have reliable and convenient access to a pharmacy, a general practitioner who is a qualified doctor rather than a student, and nursing staff that actually care about your welfare.

The economics of affordable health care among the families that may or may not qualify for the public insurance is never as easily defined as it seems in news articles and headlines. Anyone who has filled out FAFSA knows that the various forms of income and property that go into estimating a person's ability to pay for this or that can skip over huge factors that would qualify them for pay. Saying that a number of families make over the median doesn't account for the number of those families who live in cities with high costs of living. It also doesn't account for the families with one or more family members with managed health issues, which may include the child. Children with asthma have different needs than children without, so do children with diabetes, children with behavioral disorders or mental health issues, or children with learning disabilities or other disabilities whose parents may even make more than enough to pay for private insurance but whose insurers refuse to insure their child due to the risk level or financial cost of that child's care. If private insurers do decide to cover children with managed health care needs, how much of a premium will they charge? That factor or other cost of care issues are major contributors to even middle class or upper middle class families from being able to qualify or afford private insurance.

If the president wants to move more people from public health care to private, what is going to provide for that shift? It is already difficult enough for people to get health insurance through work. Even if they do work for a company that provides insurance options, the coverage options may be limited or the premiums will vary depending on those same factors of family health status as mentioned above. And then there are companies such as Walmart, who maintain a huge number of part-time employees so that they can provide a workforce for their stores without having to invest anything in employee benefits. A company's interest in providing health care isn't altruistic either. Businesses exist to make money and when a business provides health coverage, its primary purpose is driven by their desire for a healthy and efficient workforce. Perhaps the reason for taking a part-time position is because the family needs additional income, in which case it isn't likely that they would have extra to pay for rising health care costs, especially if they have multiple children or managed health care needs. If there are adults taking advantage of the program, why doesn't the president use a line-item veto instead of a full veto of the bill?

Probably the most central issue in the administrations position on the bill is the cost and its resultant rise in taxes. This could be easily remedied by reassessing the United States' military commitments around the world and not just in the Middle East but in regions like South Korea, African states, and former Yugoslavia. If taking money away from the Defense Department would weaken our military and take money away from already difficult salary and benefits budgets for enlisted soldiers and families, then that is only an even greater reason to reassess our commitments, our ability to spend, and question what is actually being done with the hundreds of billions of dollars in the Defense Budget. Also, isn't the health of millions of American children worth a raise in taxes? Why not address other issues at the same time and tax companies who have cut large numbers of jobs in the US only to export them to other countries to take advantage of cheaper labor and substandard regulation of required working conditions. That would punish companies having their products made by children in foreign sweatshops and provide health benefits for more Americans.

I feel like it is not too difficult to see a connection between the health and welfare of our American children and their success in education and becoming successful adults. As these things are interrelated and education is another area on which many people believe we should designate more money, it would seem to me that improving any conditions which have secondary effects on the education of children would be positive. Also, shouldn't every child receive the best quality health care no matter what amount of money their parents make? That's a question of values that seems to not have reached President Bush's deeply rooted respect for life.

CO Shootings and Question of Culpability

Colo. church gunman had been kicked out

The third shooting of this type in one week, I think this further highlights my earlier posting. I also wonder, in this case in particular, how much this youth ministry organization participated in this boy's problems and eventual breakdown.

Obviously he had mental health issues that seem to have gone unaddressed, justifying to yourself the actions the shooter took requires serious illness. That isn't to say, however, that this organizations refusal or treatment of this young man didn't add fuel to his madness. It is also likely that the deeply religious environment he grew up in wasn't instrumental in the formation of his warped reality. While the mental illness would have been there either way, the form of their reality comes from that illness warping and interacting with the environment they grow up in. Also, there may or may not have been any help for him or support from his family in getting access to quality professional help.

It continues to feel bizarre to me when families of those who commit violent crimes, especially crimes like these, say they had no idea something like that would happen, their child was always well behaved, they can't understand how their child could have done such a thing. A person doesn't commit such a horrible crime without at least a little warning and certainly not without some long pattern of behavior or health problems. It is partially the responsibility of their family and friends to help prevent events like this from occurring. While they are grief-stricken and baffled, they should have been more careful and supportive beforehand and then they wouldn't be in the situation they are in now.

It is also puzzling that he was let go by the youth ministry due to undisclosed 'health' problems. In a culture of religious conservatism and intolerance that can often be a vague reference to homosexuality, especially when they don't want to admit or accept the idea of gay people being among them. If this man was mentally ill and gay, one can only imagine what treatment he received and rejection he felt from a religious culture he was born into and raised to be a part of.

It would be cruel to say that any of the victims deserved or caused their fate. It is, however, important to remember that in the context of the religious institutions being targeted, it is easier to understand the shooters motives in reference to the issues above and to see the culpability of a culture more willing to toss away someone too different or too sick, than to offer than effective care and open minded compassion.

CIA tapes and losing credibility

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20071209/ts_alt_afp/usintelligenceiranattackstorture

This article says we might be losing credibility in our Justice Department because of the destruction of those interrogation tapes. I think that given that those tapes were of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay and have been there without any form of due process for the better part of a decade, that the destruction of the tapes is just further proof of what people already know: that our Justice Department will do whatever it has to to pursue what it feels is right, no matter how that violates the rights of others.

Part of the Problem

The tragedy in Omaha and continues with the release of the photos from the security cameras in the mall. I won't post the link to the article, but if you are desperate you can just go to yahoo. I had to see the photos to look at the article, unfortunately, but I just think that it is a sick thing that people would want to view the photos and video, and maybe even more so that the media would seem eager to publish them.

The Mall Shooting

So here we have another example of where our culture fails to recognize the incredible importance of mental health and not letting people who have health needs slip through the cracks. What I find so incredibly tiring about these situations, which are becoming more and more frequent it seems, is that there are signs that seem to be ignored by those around these unfortunate shooters. This one actually spent time in mental health facilities, and put out messages to friends about his health problems and eventual crime. Where were these friends when he needed their support? More than that, where were they when they received what must have been disturbing messages about what he'd do?

I'm not sure how much responsibility should be placed on the shooter when he actually reached out whether for help or attention to those who should have taken notice, and they did nothing. At the very least they should have turned the messages in to police and perhaps this would have prevented a tragedy. I was watching footage on my local news station and it showed authorities removing rifles from the place where the teenager was living, multiple rifles. The report also said that he managed to fire off thirty rounds in what must have been only a short few minutes, meaning it wasn't a hunting shotgun but some sort of semi-automatic rifle.

Is it so impossible for people, especially the gun lobby, to see the connection between automated weapons and violent crimes? Is it that hard to understand why there should be further restrictions on who can acquire such weapons, where they can purchase them and how long they have to wait while a background check is being processed to insure that they are legally able to purchase the weapon and licensed to do so?

Weapons are designed for one thing only: to kill things. That is the simple truth and has been since the beginning of time. People with mental health problems shouldn't be able to get their hands on guns of any kind, much less semi-automatic military style rifles, and much less multiple guns of that type.

While the boy who committed the crime shouldn't be thought of as a victim and while he bears most of the responsibility for his actions, we can't completely absolve those people around him who he reached out to specifically and our culture more generally of its responsibility in this horrible, and terrifyingly more frequent, crime.

Technorati Profile

Michigan to Not Be Represented at Democratic National Convention...

I feel as though in a representative government, any infringement on the rightful representation of a group of people's voice is an infringement on their basic constitutional rights. Despite there needing to be organization and policy for the sake of making that representation more effective, delegating over the rights of a group when allowing others freedoms is against the fundamental principles of the exercise of free speech and a representative government.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071201/ap_on_el_pr/primary_scramble

What AIDS Means to Today's Youth

http://health.yahoo.com/news/healthday/moreyoungamericansarecontractinghiv.html

This article features a long list of statistics from the CDC (Center for Disease Control) about the recent disturbing spike in reported new cases of HIV infections among teenagers and young adults. For the most part, at the present time, it is most dramatically affecting young gay men and the black community. This, however, is symptomatic of the nature of the marginalization these groups suffer in our society and also is a precursor to wider infection rates among other minority groups. Also, among gay men, the trend of new cases of reported infections is not limited only to young men but to all age groups. The reason why the statistics are lower among young white people are probably many, however one possible answer is a possible decreased likelihood of them getting tested. It has become routine that when doing blood tests of any kind that HIV screening is often done, something I know from personal experience. This is sometimes an option the patient can choose and sometimes something the doctors will order as part of policy or routine. Depending on the discretion of the doctor or the regional practice within hospitals, it is possible that it is less likely to be done on white patience due to the way in which HIV education is often targetted towards urban gay and black youth.

The nature of the public face of HIV, and the above mentioned targetting of specific groups is also a suspected cause for the spike in reported cases. As mentioned, many ads for new drugs show attractive men with athletic bodies living fully despite their HIV/AIDS status. It is also not in the media eye what happens as the disease develops so that the fear of contracting it has been taken away. Young people feel invincible anyways, a trend that is commented on often. That in addition to the invisibility of AIDS victims in our modern media and daily lives creates the atmosphere of complacency. People don't see the effects that the drugs still have on the body, or the way in which it affects people as they age with the disease. They also don't get an accurate representation of the facts of actually getting access to those drugs and the health care costs related to 'living a full life' with AIDS.

Among gay men, at least, the complacent attitude young and older people have developed have included and been accompanied by a huge rise in the use of Crystal Meth. It started as a party drug, but because of the nature of it, quickly spread to one of the most common substances abused among gay men. It has also been resulted in the appearance and rise of the subculture called 'barebacking', which promotes the practice of unsafe sex as the only real path to sexual pleasure. This trend has gone from a counterculture among older gay men, 'bears', and S&M practitioners to a wide variety of other subcultures within the gay male community. This practice and subculture relies heavily on an intentional ignorance of HIV and other STD infections, ignoring statistics and adopting a 'whatever' attitude about the actual affects of the disease. As this is also a practice that promotes and relies on a similar attitude of invincibility, these attitudes also promote a lack of regular testing.

Whatever the reasons for the rise of infections, one of the most dangerous aspects of this rise is the portrayal of this information among the media. As with the first emergence of HIV and AIDS during the 1980's and 90's, it is too easy for it to be portrayed as a gay or black disease. Given the lack of reliable information on the use of condoms as birth control among heterosexual groups of all ethnic minorities, or information on the number of partners in various sexual habits, it is impossible and wrong to say that it isn't just as likely among other minority groups, and especially given the lack of promoting testing among these minorities. That is the most major contributor, I feel, to the spreading of the disease. Accompanying all of this awareness and information, is the promotion of testing, or lack thereof. It is standard practice of health classes across the country to discuss safe sex and STD/STI's and organizations such as the CDC and Planned Parenthood have made the latest information on prevention and statistics widely and readily available, so the access to such information is everywhere, so any ignorance on the disease would seem more intentional than not to me.

The truth is that people DON'T see people suffering from the disease on a daily basis. They don't hear from people like my friend in New York who knows that if he ever moves from the city he'll have only a few options as his medical care requires that he's on welfare. The medications alone cost $3,000 per month, much less the routine trips to the clinic for checkups, the modifications he's had to make to his diet and activities due to the connection of his physical levels of exhaustion with the severity of symptoms of the disease and the side-affects of the medication. Young and old people alike who do not know a person living with the disease, or aren't aware of someone in their life who is, are not going to know the amount of effort and money that go into living the full life advertised in the HIV medication ads. That makes them complacent, ignorant and irresponsible. Ultimately HIV/AIDS is reemerging as a major threat and hopefully people will wake up to reality in both preventing its spread and in the nature of their personal understanding of the disease itself.