The minimum wage debate has been going on for some time now, the issue being whether it's good public policy to raise the minimum employers can pay per hour for work performed. Proponents specify $10.10 as an appropriate minimum. They argue that it's improper, even immoral to pay such low wages to unskilled workers, most of whom are adults, many trying to support families, often having to supplement their wages with public assistance. This is mostly in the form of food assistance. Thus, tax payers are supplementing the employers who pay low wages, incidentally giving them a competitive advantage over businesses that do the right thing.
Opponents of raising the minimum wage contend that if employers are obliged to pay more in wages they will lay off some of their employees, effectively killing jobs. They also argue that the market will supply a remedy for low wages as unemployment drops and employees are in a better position to bargain for more money. Finally, they cite the alleged loss of freedom associated with being under government compulsion to pay higher wages. Some people don't confine themselves to arguing against raising the minimum, claiming it would be good to lower it or eliminate it altogether.
Everyone has an opinion, it seems, so here's mine. I'm for raising the minimum wage for all American working people. Ten dollars and ten cents seems reasonable to me, though I don't quite know how that came to be the target. Notice I said ALL working people, including people who are not covered by current minimum wage legislation. My daughter-in-law waits tables, and by golly she deserves a steady wage so she doesn't have to worry about being stiffed by miserly diners.
The argument that raising the minimum wage kills jobs has just enough truth to convince those who want to be convinced. In other words, yes, a high minimum wage would make it more attractive for an employer to replace human workers with machines. But $10.10 per hour is not high enough to tempt very many employers. Arguing that such a small wage increase would cause more unemployment is specious. It suggests that employers are keeping excessive employees on as some sort of charitable project. We know that isn't so. Employers hire enough people to do the work they must have done, and no more. If they must pay more, they will cover the added expense in one or more of three ways - find some other way to lower expenses, raise prices, or (horrors!) accept a lower profit margin.
Lowering other expenses might, as already mentioned, include buying labor-saving machines. More likely, though, it involves finding more efficient ways to reduce costs - better climate control, reducing paperwork, better targeted advertising and so forth. Business owners who choose to raise prices hope no one notices, or that their products and services are in such demand that the public will be willing to pay more for them.
Finally, there is the matter of the businessperson's profits. Let me just say that in a private enterprise economy the profit margin should be razor thin. The entrepreneur should live in constant dread that some competitor will think of a way to make a better product, or as good a product at a lower price.
Let me tell you a little story. My first job was as a bagger at a Publix supermarket in Miami Florida (on Miller Road if you really want to know). It was 1965, I was sixteen, and my minimum wage salary was $1.15 per hour. We baggers were told not to double bag the large paper grocery sacks (no plastic back then) because they cost Publix two and one-half cents each. If we were asked to double bag, we should use the smaller bags that only cost a penny. The Publix supermarket chain realized a profit of two cents for every dollar spent there, so double bagging with the large sacks wiped out the profit from a whole lot of groceries going out the door.
That's what I mean by a small profit margin, but Publix was, and is, a successful company. Would they have done without some of us if they had to pay us more - say $1.50? It would have resulted in longer lines, and dissatisfied customers. I'll grant you that most grocery stores now have self-check lanes for people making only a few purchases, but more machinery is almost a given in our twenty-first century world. (They also have scanners now, whereas half a century ago the checker had to ring up each item on a manual cash register. For that matter, most purchases are made with credit or debit cards now. When I was a boy, purchases were made by cash or check, and a check had to be approved by the manager, who had to be summoned and who had to okay the check while other customers waited in line.)
So what is the debate really all about? It's about profit, of course, maximizing profit versus paying a living wage to people who often are not very upwardly mobile. By the way, the argument that a low minimum wage acts as a spur to the working person to improve his or her skills to gain a better job doesn't seem to be justified from a statistical standpoint. Many people are, for want of a better word, trapped with the skill set they acquired in their younger years.
So raise the minimum wage. If Congress is too deluded or too churlish to raise the minimum generally, at the very least, make the minimum the same for wait persons as it is for everyone else. Give my daughter-in-law a break!
Monday, March 31, 2014
Thursday, February 13, 2014
Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?
The Parable of the Good Samaritan
25 On one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?”26 “What is written in the Law?” he replied. “How do you read it?”
27 He answered, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’[a]; and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’[b]”
28 “You have answered correctly,” Jesus replied. “Do this and you will live.”
29 But he wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”
30 In reply Jesus said: “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, when he was attacked by robbers. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him and went away, leaving him half dead. 31 A priest happened to be going down the same road, and when he saw the man, he passed by on the other side. 32 So too, a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. 33 But a Samaritan, as he traveled, came where the man was; and when he saw him, he took pity on him. 34 He went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he put the man on his own donkey, brought him to an inn and took care of him. 35 The next day he took out two denarii[c] and gave them to the innkeeper. ‘Look after him,’ he said, ‘and when I return, I will reimburse you for any extra expense you may have.’
36 “Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?”
37 The expert in the law replied, “The one who had mercy on him.”
Jesus told him, “Go and do likewise.”
Just now I re-read the Bible passage of the Good Samaritan. The story has been on my mind today because I became involved in a Facebook debate concerning panhandlers. I'll post the entries here, deleting the name of one of the contributors and saying, for the sake of full disclosure, that Pat Maasch is my sister. It started with my Facebook post, as follows.
Meanwhile, my local news channel just ran a story about the "problem" of the increasing number of panhandlers. Is it any wonder there are more people out begging for money after long term unemployment benefits were ended? An interviewee actually said there are more beggars because that's easier than finding work. You try standing all day in below freezing weather being judged and humiliated and see whether you wouldn't rather have a job.
Back to the Samaritan. In the parable, Jesus says the man fell prey to robbers who left him, beaten and nearly naked, half-dead by the side of the road. Both a Pharisee and a Levite saw the man but couldn't be bothered to help him. A Samaritan - an outcast - took pity on the guy, dressed his wounds, took him to an inn, and paid for his lodging and meals.
I bet all of us hope we would be as compassionate. Perhaps we think we would do as well as the Samaritan did by the robbery victim. Let me just mention one or two other things about the story, however.
We don't know anything else about the robbery victim. He could have been a good guy or a bad guy. All we do know is that he was in desperate obvious need. Nor so we know a whole lot about the Pharisee and the Levite, except that they passed the half-dead man on the other side of the road - I'm guessing so they wouldn't have to hear his pleas for help - and that they were part of Jewish religious cults and were known for their presumed rectitude.
Finally, we don't know much about the Samaritan, just that he was a nice person and had two pieces of silver on him. Maybe they were his last bits of cash, who knows? My point is that he doesn't know the robbery victim either. It doesn't say anywhere in the story that he questioned the injured man to find out what had happened to him. For all he knows, the guy might have lost a fight that he had instigated himself. All he knows is that the man needs help, so he pitches in and helps.
Panhandlers on the roadside aren't in such obvious need as the robbery victim in the parable. And yes, in a nation of more than 300 million people, there are some folks who want to make only a minimal effort at life, and would rather ask for money than work for it. In fact, in a nation of more than 300 million people, there's just about nothing we can imagine that doesn't happen from time to time.
So, to sum up, should we give money to panhandlers? Does doing so just enable them to live idle lives? Possibly yes, as they say, but probably no. What I do know is that I'll give money to beggars as I'm able to, and won't bother myself about their motivations.
Wednesday, January 29, 2014
"Bible-Mindedness"
A Facebook friend posted a survey which attempted to rank American cities on the basis of how "Bible-Minded" they are. It probably won't come as a surprise to readers to learn that the survey concluded that a number of towns in what used to be called the "Bible Belt" were considered to be most "Bible-Minded." Conversely, the least "Bible-Minded" cities were in the northeast, and on the west coast.
Looking at the results, I wondered what criteria were used to make these determinations. I'd be willing to guess they estimated percentages of the local populations that said they attended church regularly, went to Bible study classes, could quote passages of Scripture, and claimed they said daily prayers.
I'm not against any of those things, mind you, in fact am in favor of them, but doubt that's all it takes to be "Bible-Minded." (Actually, I stridently deny that's all it takes to be "Bible-Minded.")
People who engage in the activities I just mentioned, and who don't follow up with what my parochial school nuns called the "corporal works of mercy" seem to me to be like the object lesson in Jesus' parable of the Pharisee and the Publican. I hope you remember the story. The Pharisee stands at the front of the temple and brags to God about how holy he is, while the Publican - a despised tax collector - lingers in back and begs for mercy as a sinful man. The lesson was that the Publican will find a merciful God and the Pharisee will not.
So, I wonder, was the amount of money given to worthy charities part of the survey-takers' calculations? I don't know.
I do know that the states that are allegedly most "Bible-Minded" have the highest rates of homicide and assaults with intent to kill in the United States. That's right, the very places identified as most "Bible-Minded" seem to pay the least attention to the commandment, "Thou shalt not kill." We hear in the news about the terrible murder rate in big cities like Chicago, but the statistical evidence clearly shows that Americans are most prone to kill each other in the states that were once part of the Confederacy. (Years ago, when I was a park ranger, I saw the FBI statistics that indicated more law enforcement officers were killed by gunfire in wildlife enforcement than in any other activity, and more of those officer deaths were in the south than anyplace else. And that persisted year after year.)
Another method of weighing "Bible-Mindedness" might lie in looking at the percentage of marriages that end in divorce. Once again, the places where divorce is most common are the same places the survey alleges are most "Bible-Minded." (I was divorced myself once, so I'm living in a glass house as I mention this.) The Bible, as we know, is ambivalent about divorce. The Jews of the Hebrew Bible were permitted divorce under some narrow circumstances, and the Talmud comments extensively on the matter, but the Christian Bible seems to prohibit it. "What God has joined together let no man put asunder." Catholic teaching through the centuries is that divorce is anathema, but other Christians take a somewhat more lenient approach. The fact still is that divorce is most common in those "Bible-Minded" places.
Shall I even talk about race relations? Jim Crow, legal segregation and lynch mobs are things from the past, and it's wrong to condemn the children for the sins of their fathers - or grandfathers. These horrors, by the way, happened throughout the country, but there's no denying they were worst in the south. No part of the country can claim to be free of residual racism, but de facto segregation remains more entrenched in the south than elsewhere.
And what of persistent poverty? Over and over, Jesus tells his followers that they must give of all they possess to the poor. It's a central message of the Christian faith. Where does poverty linger most in the United States? I think we all know.
I'm feeling Pharasitical myself as I write this, so will end here, except to reiterate that trying to determine where people are most "Bible-Minded" is much more complicated than the survey might lead us to think it would be, and that this survey allows people living in the areas spotlighted as "Bible-Minded" to become complacent and smug.
Looking at the results, I wondered what criteria were used to make these determinations. I'd be willing to guess they estimated percentages of the local populations that said they attended church regularly, went to Bible study classes, could quote passages of Scripture, and claimed they said daily prayers.
I'm not against any of those things, mind you, in fact am in favor of them, but doubt that's all it takes to be "Bible-Minded." (Actually, I stridently deny that's all it takes to be "Bible-Minded.")
People who engage in the activities I just mentioned, and who don't follow up with what my parochial school nuns called the "corporal works of mercy" seem to me to be like the object lesson in Jesus' parable of the Pharisee and the Publican. I hope you remember the story. The Pharisee stands at the front of the temple and brags to God about how holy he is, while the Publican - a despised tax collector - lingers in back and begs for mercy as a sinful man. The lesson was that the Publican will find a merciful God and the Pharisee will not.
So, I wonder, was the amount of money given to worthy charities part of the survey-takers' calculations? I don't know.
I do know that the states that are allegedly most "Bible-Minded" have the highest rates of homicide and assaults with intent to kill in the United States. That's right, the very places identified as most "Bible-Minded" seem to pay the least attention to the commandment, "Thou shalt not kill." We hear in the news about the terrible murder rate in big cities like Chicago, but the statistical evidence clearly shows that Americans are most prone to kill each other in the states that were once part of the Confederacy. (Years ago, when I was a park ranger, I saw the FBI statistics that indicated more law enforcement officers were killed by gunfire in wildlife enforcement than in any other activity, and more of those officer deaths were in the south than anyplace else. And that persisted year after year.)
Another method of weighing "Bible-Mindedness" might lie in looking at the percentage of marriages that end in divorce. Once again, the places where divorce is most common are the same places the survey alleges are most "Bible-Minded." (I was divorced myself once, so I'm living in a glass house as I mention this.) The Bible, as we know, is ambivalent about divorce. The Jews of the Hebrew Bible were permitted divorce under some narrow circumstances, and the Talmud comments extensively on the matter, but the Christian Bible seems to prohibit it. "What God has joined together let no man put asunder." Catholic teaching through the centuries is that divorce is anathema, but other Christians take a somewhat more lenient approach. The fact still is that divorce is most common in those "Bible-Minded" places.
Shall I even talk about race relations? Jim Crow, legal segregation and lynch mobs are things from the past, and it's wrong to condemn the children for the sins of their fathers - or grandfathers. These horrors, by the way, happened throughout the country, but there's no denying they were worst in the south. No part of the country can claim to be free of residual racism, but de facto segregation remains more entrenched in the south than elsewhere.
And what of persistent poverty? Over and over, Jesus tells his followers that they must give of all they possess to the poor. It's a central message of the Christian faith. Where does poverty linger most in the United States? I think we all know.
I'm feeling Pharasitical myself as I write this, so will end here, except to reiterate that trying to determine where people are most "Bible-Minded" is much more complicated than the survey might lead us to think it would be, and that this survey allows people living in the areas spotlighted as "Bible-Minded" to become complacent and smug.
Monday, January 20, 2014
TR, Taft and Progressivism
Recently, I've been reading Doris Kearns Goodwin's history of the progressive age, The Bully Pulpit. The book concentrates on the two careers of Theodore Roosevelt and William Howard Taft, and contains some interesting items. I was aware of some of them, but others have been surprises.
Probably the most upsetting part of the history, so far, is the tragedy of Theodore Roosevelt's home life. His sister "Bamie" suffered from curvature of the spine that made physical activities painful for her and rendered her nearly an invalid. Then, while Teedy, as his family called him, was a sophomore at Harvard, his much loved father died of colon cancer, in great agony, and before Roosevelt could reach New York to say good-bye. If that wasn't enough, Roosevelt's mother passed away after a short illness when Roosevelt was twenty-four, and on the same day his wife succumbed to Bright's disease after giving birth. That's right, he lost his mother and his wife on the same day, both after very short illnesses.
It was an overwhelming loss for Roosevelt, who tried to find solace in work and then by heading west to spend a year as a cattle rancher in North Dakota. After he returned to New York he remarried and resumed custody of his toddler daughter, only, a few years later, to confront the horror of his brother Elliot's disintegration in alcoholism, and his death.
Taft's history was comparatively placid, but not less interesting. Known as "Big Bill" at Yale, he had grown up in rather affluent circumstances and had been pointed towards a law career from early childhood. His rise can be attributed to his affable scholarly demeanor, but also to the ambitions of his wife Nellie. A far better politician than Taft, she is credited with urging him into the political arena when he always wanted to be a judge. The Supreme Court was his ultimate goal, not the White House.
Taft was able, friendly, and a conciliator, good qualities for most occupations, but not for the presidency.
In addition to following the lives of the two presidents-to-be, Ms. Goodwin traces the progressive movement of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries through the staff of McClure's magazine, the best forum for political idealism of its time. And before talking about the magazine, she dwells on Henry George and the single tax.
As a young man, George had puzzled over the conundrum of rising productivity in the machine age and increasing poverty. Why were some people becoming enormously rich while others struggled through life sinking gradually into worse and worse distress? Then, according to George, one day while gazing at San Francisco from a distance,
George's argument was that all improvements on property belong to the person who made those improvements, or bought them, but the land itself belongs to all citizens. Therefore, taxes should be reckoned and paid on the basis of what unimproved property is worth. He called it the single tax. If enacted, there would be no need for income tax, sales tax, tariffs, or any other tax.
Now, it seems to me that such a scheme would require an army of assessors to value property, and lead to endless disputes about the size of the assessments. But then, don't we have an army of IRS agents now, not to mention the army of lobbyists in Washington and every state capital, endlessly trying to get tax breaks for their clients?
And why am I bringing this up on a January day in 2014, when George's idea went into the dustbin a century ago? Why, because we have the same dichotomy now that was so troublesome back then. I have taken to thinking of it as the lottery economy, in which a lucky few become enormously rich by doing nothing of anything approaching commensurate benefit to the country, and the rest of us plug along in life trying to keep body and soul together and having a tougher time of it every year.
Need proof? Just look at any highway junction or shopping center parking area, and you'll see beggars now, where there were none a generation ago. We need another Roosevelt. We could use another Taft.
Probably the most upsetting part of the history, so far, is the tragedy of Theodore Roosevelt's home life. His sister "Bamie" suffered from curvature of the spine that made physical activities painful for her and rendered her nearly an invalid. Then, while Teedy, as his family called him, was a sophomore at Harvard, his much loved father died of colon cancer, in great agony, and before Roosevelt could reach New York to say good-bye. If that wasn't enough, Roosevelt's mother passed away after a short illness when Roosevelt was twenty-four, and on the same day his wife succumbed to Bright's disease after giving birth. That's right, he lost his mother and his wife on the same day, both after very short illnesses.
It was an overwhelming loss for Roosevelt, who tried to find solace in work and then by heading west to spend a year as a cattle rancher in North Dakota. After he returned to New York he remarried and resumed custody of his toddler daughter, only, a few years later, to confront the horror of his brother Elliot's disintegration in alcoholism, and his death.
Taft's history was comparatively placid, but not less interesting. Known as "Big Bill" at Yale, he had grown up in rather affluent circumstances and had been pointed towards a law career from early childhood. His rise can be attributed to his affable scholarly demeanor, but also to the ambitions of his wife Nellie. A far better politician than Taft, she is credited with urging him into the political arena when he always wanted to be a judge. The Supreme Court was his ultimate goal, not the White House.
Taft was able, friendly, and a conciliator, good qualities for most occupations, but not for the presidency.
In addition to following the lives of the two presidents-to-be, Ms. Goodwin traces the progressive movement of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries through the staff of McClure's magazine, the best forum for political idealism of its time. And before talking about the magazine, she dwells on Henry George and the single tax.
As a young man, George had puzzled over the conundrum of rising productivity in the machine age and increasing poverty. Why were some people becoming enormously rich while others struggled through life sinking gradually into worse and worse distress? Then, according to George, one day while gazing at San Francisco from a distance,
I asked a passing teamster, for want of something better to say, what land was worth there. He pointed to some cows grazing so far off that they looked like mice, and said, 'I don't know exactly, but there is a man over there who will sell some land for a thousand dollars an acre.' Like a flash it came over me that there was the reason of advancing poverty with advancing wealth. With the growth of population, land grows in value, and the men who work it must pay more for the privilegeOr, as Will Rogers advised years later, "Buy land. They ain't making any more of it."
George's argument was that all improvements on property belong to the person who made those improvements, or bought them, but the land itself belongs to all citizens. Therefore, taxes should be reckoned and paid on the basis of what unimproved property is worth. He called it the single tax. If enacted, there would be no need for income tax, sales tax, tariffs, or any other tax.
Now, it seems to me that such a scheme would require an army of assessors to value property, and lead to endless disputes about the size of the assessments. But then, don't we have an army of IRS agents now, not to mention the army of lobbyists in Washington and every state capital, endlessly trying to get tax breaks for their clients?
And why am I bringing this up on a January day in 2014, when George's idea went into the dustbin a century ago? Why, because we have the same dichotomy now that was so troublesome back then. I have taken to thinking of it as the lottery economy, in which a lucky few become enormously rich by doing nothing of anything approaching commensurate benefit to the country, and the rest of us plug along in life trying to keep body and soul together and having a tougher time of it every year.
Need proof? Just look at any highway junction or shopping center parking area, and you'll see beggars now, where there were none a generation ago. We need another Roosevelt. We could use another Taft.
Thursday, November 7, 2013
No More Football (For Me)
Probably, I started paying attention to football when I was about eight years old. I remember playing at recess in the third grade at Blessed Sacrament school in Tallahassee, Florida. I remember it because the son of the Florida State University football coach, Tom Nugent, was in my class. His name was Terence Daniel Nugent, but he liked to be called TD, for obvious reasons.
Many of the eight-year-olds had helmets, so I began annoying my father to get me one. I wore him down and he bought me one, but it was an old leather kind of helmet and the other kids had new shiny plastic headgear. I was a little embarrassed to wear it.
That same year, I recall watching Notre Dame play Oklahoma on television. The Sooners owned an enormously long winning streak, I think forty-seven games in a row, but the Irish won, seven to nothing, much to my satisfaction. I had been told, after all, that Notre Dame was a Catholic school, and I already had some slight feelings of inferiority as a Catholic in Tallahassee.
By the time I was ten, the family had moved back to Miami, and my father began taking my brother and me to Miami Hurricane games. Aside from the father-son bonding, I guess the highlight of those games was seeing the Heisman Trophy winner for 1959, Ernie Davis, when UM hosted Syracuse in the Orange Bowl. Syracuse didn't do much passing in that game, I don't think. Their offense was pretty much, "Davis to the left, Davis to the right, Davis up the middle." Years later there was a movie about Ernie Davis called, "The Express" which I recommend.
By ninth grade I had become pudgy and I had always been a slow runner, and asthmatic, so I quickly gave up efforts to make the Columbus High junior varsity team. I watched a lot of football games, in person and on the tube. I do remember seeing a Miami Dolphins game, in 1966 I guess, the only pro game I've ever attended. In those days the Dolphins, only one year removed from their expansion team origins, were practically giving tickets away. I had a grandstand seat in the Orange Bowl for one dollar. That night, th e Houston Oilers clobbered the Dolphins and their rookie quarterback, Bob Griese.
At Florida State, I went to many games, often alone, sometimes with a date. Football games were formal occasions then. Men wore ties and coats, women wore dresses, stockings, and make-up. It seems very quaint to think of it now.
Since then, I've been to a few high school and college games, but most of my exposure to football has been via television. Gradually. I've become disenchanted with the sport and with the entire football culture in American life. I guess this started when I heard that an FSU offensive lineman had to come out of a game because he was bleeding from both ears. He was bleeding because the opposition lineman was jamming his fingers through our boy's helmet earholes on every play.
Aside from dirty play, there was the matter of illegitimate payoffs of one kind or another to college players. I read that one high school player decided to go to Syracuse after making a visit to campus where one of the cheerleaders was encouraged to spend twenty minutes in the back seat of a car with him. I doubt they were discussing defensive strategies. Rumor had it at FSU when I was there that the star wide receiver on the team was being paid a large stipend for turning out the lights in the physics building each evening. I don't think anyone became upset with him if he forgot to do it.
Sex and money, the two motivators in many a young man's life. In the years that followed it often seemed that prize athletes - not just football players, though they seemed to get most of the press - came to believe they could get away with anything. Sex assaults, bullying behavior, stupid behavior while driving are hardly confined to football players, but they do seem particularly prone to them.
And the money. Football coaches are almost always the highest paid employees at state and many private universities. I ask my readers, does it make sense at an institution of higher learning, to reward a coach with something like twenty times the salary a tenured professor makes? Or more, as it often is now?
And the injuries. "Football is a rough game," I still can hear coach Aiello telling us during my brief effort to play high school ball. Rough I can support. Broken bones I can tolerate. Men I have known who did play high school ball often tell me how difficult it is to get out of bed in the morning now, how their knees creak, and pop.
The simple truth is that anyone who plays football for any length of time is just about guaranteed to have health problems later in life.
What has finally tipped me away from football, however, is the head injuries. It appears that concussions are endemic among football players, and brain damage occurs all too often. Young men are selling out their later years for a chance at fleeting fame and fortune.
It isn't right. I venture to say it's immoral. And I have decided that I'll have no part in it. So no NFL Sundays for me, no BCS bowl games, even though FSU might well play for the national championship. I'll have none of it.
I miss it already.
And don't even get me started on the exploitation of the young women who become pro football cheerleaders.
Many of the eight-year-olds had helmets, so I began annoying my father to get me one. I wore him down and he bought me one, but it was an old leather kind of helmet and the other kids had new shiny plastic headgear. I was a little embarrassed to wear it.
That same year, I recall watching Notre Dame play Oklahoma on television. The Sooners owned an enormously long winning streak, I think forty-seven games in a row, but the Irish won, seven to nothing, much to my satisfaction. I had been told, after all, that Notre Dame was a Catholic school, and I already had some slight feelings of inferiority as a Catholic in Tallahassee.
By the time I was ten, the family had moved back to Miami, and my father began taking my brother and me to Miami Hurricane games. Aside from the father-son bonding, I guess the highlight of those games was seeing the Heisman Trophy winner for 1959, Ernie Davis, when UM hosted Syracuse in the Orange Bowl. Syracuse didn't do much passing in that game, I don't think. Their offense was pretty much, "Davis to the left, Davis to the right, Davis up the middle." Years later there was a movie about Ernie Davis called, "The Express" which I recommend.
By ninth grade I had become pudgy and I had always been a slow runner, and asthmatic, so I quickly gave up efforts to make the Columbus High junior varsity team. I watched a lot of football games, in person and on the tube. I do remember seeing a Miami Dolphins game, in 1966 I guess, the only pro game I've ever attended. In those days the Dolphins, only one year removed from their expansion team origins, were practically giving tickets away. I had a grandstand seat in the Orange Bowl for one dollar. That night, th e Houston Oilers clobbered the Dolphins and their rookie quarterback, Bob Griese.
At Florida State, I went to many games, often alone, sometimes with a date. Football games were formal occasions then. Men wore ties and coats, women wore dresses, stockings, and make-up. It seems very quaint to think of it now.
Since then, I've been to a few high school and college games, but most of my exposure to football has been via television. Gradually. I've become disenchanted with the sport and with the entire football culture in American life. I guess this started when I heard that an FSU offensive lineman had to come out of a game because he was bleeding from both ears. He was bleeding because the opposition lineman was jamming his fingers through our boy's helmet earholes on every play.
Aside from dirty play, there was the matter of illegitimate payoffs of one kind or another to college players. I read that one high school player decided to go to Syracuse after making a visit to campus where one of the cheerleaders was encouraged to spend twenty minutes in the back seat of a car with him. I doubt they were discussing defensive strategies. Rumor had it at FSU when I was there that the star wide receiver on the team was being paid a large stipend for turning out the lights in the physics building each evening. I don't think anyone became upset with him if he forgot to do it.
Sex and money, the two motivators in many a young man's life. In the years that followed it often seemed that prize athletes - not just football players, though they seemed to get most of the press - came to believe they could get away with anything. Sex assaults, bullying behavior, stupid behavior while driving are hardly confined to football players, but they do seem particularly prone to them.
And the money. Football coaches are almost always the highest paid employees at state and many private universities. I ask my readers, does it make sense at an institution of higher learning, to reward a coach with something like twenty times the salary a tenured professor makes? Or more, as it often is now?
And the injuries. "Football is a rough game," I still can hear coach Aiello telling us during my brief effort to play high school ball. Rough I can support. Broken bones I can tolerate. Men I have known who did play high school ball often tell me how difficult it is to get out of bed in the morning now, how their knees creak, and pop.
The simple truth is that anyone who plays football for any length of time is just about guaranteed to have health problems later in life.
What has finally tipped me away from football, however, is the head injuries. It appears that concussions are endemic among football players, and brain damage occurs all too often. Young men are selling out their later years for a chance at fleeting fame and fortune.
It isn't right. I venture to say it's immoral. And I have decided that I'll have no part in it. So no NFL Sundays for me, no BCS bowl games, even though FSU might well play for the national championship. I'll have none of it.
I miss it already.
And don't even get me started on the exploitation of the young women who become pro football cheerleaders.
Wednesday, October 30, 2013
Immigration Revisited
Friday, July 23, 2010
On Immigration
I pity the poor immigrant, who wishes he'd stayed at home
--Bob Dylan
The immigration issue has been heating up in recent months, especially here in the west. Arizona has passed draconian measures to control illegal entry to their state and similar proposals are before other state legislatures. Hispanic residents of these states are indignant, feeling they are being subject to police harassment and are being used as a political football.
The number of people living in the US illegally is estimated as somewhere between four and twenty million. They came for numerous reasons, but economic opportunity certainly is the most often cited enticement for people to enter the US. In this, they are no different from generations of people who came to America in the last four hundred years.
Current immigration law favors people who have a skill or profession that will (allegedly) be of benefit to our country, or who have money to invest here. So, if you're a doctor, or can hit a breaking pitch, or have a large wad of cash in your pocket, you can go to the front of the immigration line. Such folks are not exactly your poor, your tired, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free. Other applicants are admitted by quotas among the nations on a lottery basis.
Naturally, the numbers of people in foreign lands who want to reside in America vary widely. People in nations where there is a huge demand for legal emigration might wait all their lives for a chance to come here legally. Is it any wonder that desperate people are not willing to wait patiently for legal status?
Since illegal immigrants risk deportation to the place they risked their lives to leave, we can hardly expect them to come forward and meekly accept expulsion. Even if all immigrants did volunteer for repatriation, however, the logistics of removing them are daunting. If we use the commonly cited total of twelve million illegals and an average capacity per airplane of two hundred (a generous average) then it would require sixty thousand flights to carry all of them out of the country. The country's bus lines could help take deportees to adjacent lands, but this would not diminish the number of flights very much. I'm not saying it couldn't be done or shouldn't be done, but lets not kid ourselves into thinking it would be quick, easy or inexpensive.
This also gives rise to another question. Can we ethically just dump deportees in the country they left at a border town or their capital? It might be argued that what happens to them once they're across the line is not our business, but the problems of one country often become the problem of other nations. Economic stress in other countries is the reason we have this situation in the first place.
The Obama administration has proposed that illegal immigrants will be obliged to pay a fine for entering the country and back taxes and then can be placed at the back of the line for those awaiting citizenship. Much as I like and respect President Obama, I think this is ludicrous. Illegal residents of the US are paid in the underground economy and records of their earnings will be spotty at best. Would you tell the truth about your earnings if doing so would cost you money you worked hard to get, and the government couldn't check your statement? I suspect this proposal is just a sop to conservative critics.
So here's my immodest proposal. The quota of legal immigrants from high demand countries like Mexico should be raised drastically. Three million legal permits per year is reasonable to me. Applications for legal entry could only be received and processed in the individual's home country. A criminal check would be made on prospective immigrants, confined to felony warrants or convictions or outstanding judgments against the person. No fees or taxes would be collected.
What would we get by doing this? Well, start with regaining control of the border. Once there is a real chance of coming to America legally, I suspect the incentive to enter by breaking our law will diminish. In addition, once immigrants have legal status they can take jobs in the above ground economy, pay taxes and contribute to social security. Five million additional contributors to social security would not solve all the problems of the fund, but would certainly help.
And why would anyone who is here already return to his native land to re-enter legally? They could demand at least minimum wage for their work. They would not have to fear the police, and if victimized by crime could seek justice in the legal system. They would have the same chance to advance and prosper as any American citizen.
There is one exception to this policy. The parents and siblings of so-called "anchor children" must be given legal status immediately. I realize this is not fair to other immigrants, but there is no other workable solution. Kicking the family of such a child out of the country effectively means deporting an American from our country, or leaving the child behind. Neither of these constitutes a family value in my opinion.
For those who want to expel illegal immigrants from the US, I ask that you examine your motives. If you're outraged because our laws have been broken, I'm with you, but if your objection to illegals is cultural, or you think they drain the economy, we part company.
I welcome comments on my plan.
Saturday, October 26, 2013
The Life and Times of Jesus
Recently, I read Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth by Reza Aslan. This is my book report.
First of all, let us say that Professor Aslan has excellent credentials concerning the first century and events in southwest Asia at that time. That is to say, he holds a PhD degree in religious studies and is a tenured professor, I think I recall, at North Carolina State University.
Dr. Aslan says in his preface that he became absorbed into the Christian tradition and fascinated by it as an adolescent. Since he has become an adult, however, he has decided that Islam is the truest reflection of God's desires for humanity. He is able to look at the life of Jesus with some detachment therefore. The first question any Christian would ask, of course, is whether Aslan is prone to prejudice concerning Jesus. Let's allow him to speak for himself, through his book, and then decide.
Judea, Galilee, and to a lesser extent the Jewish diaspora in Greece and what's now Turkey, were in a state of ferment at the time Jesus was born. Occupied and tyrannized by successive foreign powers, most recently the Romans, the Jews could hardly have helped being resentful and living in anticipation of a great leader, a warrior king, a messiah, who would expel the pagans and restore the kingdom of David in all its glory. That, Dr. Aslan writes, is what they believed in as the messianic tradition. Also, the Jews were furiously resentful of the priestly caste who lived in (comparative) luxury while trying to appease the Roman authorities. More than one high priest was assassinated during the years around the lifespan of Jesus.
The time and place were rife with would-be messiahs. Often considered outlaws by the Sanhedrin and the Romans, they zealously proclaimed the coming kingdom and offered themselves as kings. Almost all came to violent ends, usually at the hands of the Romans.
It was into this world that Jesus was born. Professor Aslan dismisses the birth narratives of Matthew and Luke out of hand, however. He claims that Caesar Augustus never ordered a census, though Quirinius did. This occurred in 6 CE, when Jesus would have been about ten years old. No shepherds, no wise men, no birth in Bethlehem, and no virgin birth.
He does believe that Jesus was a Nazarene. Nazareth was a tiny hamlet then, perhaps home to one hundred people. Certainly, it was not populous enough to support a carpenter, much less a family of carpenters. (Dr. Aslan pays considerable attention to James, Jesus' brother, as well as at least one other brother and possibly sisters.) There was a new Roman town abuilding near Nazareth, however, Sepphoris by name, and Aslan speculates that Jesus would have found work there as a day laborer.
Exactly when Jesus encountered John the Baptist is not known with any certainty, but the professor feels it was a hugely significant event. Jesus remained as a disciple of John until the wild holyman was arrested. Only then did Jesus start a ministry of his own.
The men who wrote the gospels, of course, emphasized that Jesus was unlike the false messiahs of those times, that he proclaimed a kingdom not of this world, and by inference at least, that good people must comply with civil authorities, even tyrants. Dr. Aslan just doesn't think this was the real Jesus at all. "I come not with peace but with a sword," Jesus says, contradicting this view of a non-violent savior. That's the Jesus of Dr. Aslan.
Now, about the passion and death of Jesus. According to the professor, Jesus arrives in the big city of Jerusalem for the passover, perhaps greeted by enthusiastic crowds, perhaps not. He does go to the temple on Tuesday for the ritualistic cleansing and there causes a great disturbance. The temple was huge, however, and Aslan tells us it's likely that many people there that morning never noticed what was happening.
The Jewish priestly class certainly noticed, however, and decided Jesus had to go. By Thursday night they had assembled a large arrest party, and, tipped off as to Jesus' location by Judas Iscariot, they made the pinch in the garden of Gethsemane. Please notice, Aslan says, that they took a bunch of people, expecting a brawl, and that Peter drew a sword to defend Jesus, confirming the professor's view of Jesus as not abjuring violence. Jesus, however, knowing his arrest must lead to his death, tells Peter to stop. He skips over the episode of Jesus putting the high priest's servant's ear back on, perhaps not believing it happened.
Of the trial, the crucifixion, and Jesus' death, Aslan follows what many other secular historians believe. Jesus was condemned as a blasphemer by the Sanhedrin, taken before Pontius Pilate (And there is documentary evidence that he existed.), who sentenced him to death after only a moment or two - just one more bit of business on a Friday morning - and Jesus suffered an awful death in the time honored Roman way.
What happened then? The gospels tell us that Jesus rose from the dead, and appeared to many people before ascending into heaven. Dr. Aslan does not believe in the resurrection - it does contradict everything we know about death after all - saying it's irrelevant what happened to Jesus' body. What is important is that the apostles began telling the Jews about Jesus and gathering a small number of believers. One of them, Stephen, was soon stoned to death in Jerusalem for blaspheming.
The murder of Stephen was a great event, Dr. Aslan claims. It clarified the thinking of the apostles and placed them squarely outside the mainstream of Jewish thought and practice. Led by James, Jesus' brother, they continued to tell any Jews who would listen that Jesus was the messiah and the fulfillment of the Hebrew prophesies. (Aslan says the Hebrew prophesies cannot be interpreted as leading to Jesus by any reasonable person.) Gradually the apostles and their followers became more and more estranged from the Jews of Jerusalem, though still complying with the Hebraic laws concerning diet and circumcision.
Enter Paul. Sometime during the two or three decades after Jesus' death Paul, who had been a Pharisee, comes to believe in the Jesus of the apostles and begins preaching to the Jews of the diaspora and to gentiles. He is soon summoned to Jerusalem by James and the others to answer for what they regard as apostasy - that gentile believers need not abstain from foods the Bible forbids, or undergo circumcision. Paul agrees to mend his ways, though he does call Peter to book for trying to have it both ways, but now carries his message further afield, ultimately to Rome, though Peter arrives first and warns the church there to be wary of Paul. How or when the two men died is not very important to Dr. Aslan.
What is important is the Jewish rebellion against Rome and the suppression of that rebellion by the imperial legions. Wholesale murder, rape and destruction accompanied the Roman army, culminating in the famous mass suicide at Masada. Thereafter, the locus of Christianity shifted away from Israel and the church grew among the gentiles much much more than among the Jews.
Dr. Aslan thinks it would have been impossible for Jesus to have become knowledgeable about the Hebrew Bible, growing up in what was almost literally the back of beyond. His scanty knowledge of the Bible explains the often confusing acts and sayings attributed to him. Now, I quarrel with that. I much prefer to think of Jesus as a bookish boy, a real Yeshiva paragon, devoting every spare moment to studying the Torah and the other books of the Bible. It's hard for me to imagine any other version of Jesus arguing successfully with his neighbors, much less the Pharisees.
Likewise, I think Dr. Aslan takes some interpretive liberties. Documentary evidence about Jesus by contemporaries is almost entirely non-existent, it's true, and the historian must speculate a bit. Aslan is right to say the first gospel, Mark's, was written something like forty years after Jesus' death, meaning by someone who probably didn't know him, but that doesn't give him license to guess about Jesus' life any more than it gave to Mark, Matthew, Luke and John. (On the other hand, if Mark was writing his gospel at about the age I am now - sixty-four - he might well have known Jesus, or known of Jesus, as a young man.)
Get this book and read it. I think Dr. Aslan has made an honest effort to explain Jesus and the beginnings of Christianity, though his version of it is much different from what we learned in Sunday school.
First of all, let us say that Professor Aslan has excellent credentials concerning the first century and events in southwest Asia at that time. That is to say, he holds a PhD degree in religious studies and is a tenured professor, I think I recall, at North Carolina State University.
Dr. Aslan says in his preface that he became absorbed into the Christian tradition and fascinated by it as an adolescent. Since he has become an adult, however, he has decided that Islam is the truest reflection of God's desires for humanity. He is able to look at the life of Jesus with some detachment therefore. The first question any Christian would ask, of course, is whether Aslan is prone to prejudice concerning Jesus. Let's allow him to speak for himself, through his book, and then decide.
Judea, Galilee, and to a lesser extent the Jewish diaspora in Greece and what's now Turkey, were in a state of ferment at the time Jesus was born. Occupied and tyrannized by successive foreign powers, most recently the Romans, the Jews could hardly have helped being resentful and living in anticipation of a great leader, a warrior king, a messiah, who would expel the pagans and restore the kingdom of David in all its glory. That, Dr. Aslan writes, is what they believed in as the messianic tradition. Also, the Jews were furiously resentful of the priestly caste who lived in (comparative) luxury while trying to appease the Roman authorities. More than one high priest was assassinated during the years around the lifespan of Jesus.
The time and place were rife with would-be messiahs. Often considered outlaws by the Sanhedrin and the Romans, they zealously proclaimed the coming kingdom and offered themselves as kings. Almost all came to violent ends, usually at the hands of the Romans.
It was into this world that Jesus was born. Professor Aslan dismisses the birth narratives of Matthew and Luke out of hand, however. He claims that Caesar Augustus never ordered a census, though Quirinius did. This occurred in 6 CE, when Jesus would have been about ten years old. No shepherds, no wise men, no birth in Bethlehem, and no virgin birth.
He does believe that Jesus was a Nazarene. Nazareth was a tiny hamlet then, perhaps home to one hundred people. Certainly, it was not populous enough to support a carpenter, much less a family of carpenters. (Dr. Aslan pays considerable attention to James, Jesus' brother, as well as at least one other brother and possibly sisters.) There was a new Roman town abuilding near Nazareth, however, Sepphoris by name, and Aslan speculates that Jesus would have found work there as a day laborer.
Exactly when Jesus encountered John the Baptist is not known with any certainty, but the professor feels it was a hugely significant event. Jesus remained as a disciple of John until the wild holyman was arrested. Only then did Jesus start a ministry of his own.
The men who wrote the gospels, of course, emphasized that Jesus was unlike the false messiahs of those times, that he proclaimed a kingdom not of this world, and by inference at least, that good people must comply with civil authorities, even tyrants. Dr. Aslan just doesn't think this was the real Jesus at all. "I come not with peace but with a sword," Jesus says, contradicting this view of a non-violent savior. That's the Jesus of Dr. Aslan.
Now, about the passion and death of Jesus. According to the professor, Jesus arrives in the big city of Jerusalem for the passover, perhaps greeted by enthusiastic crowds, perhaps not. He does go to the temple on Tuesday for the ritualistic cleansing and there causes a great disturbance. The temple was huge, however, and Aslan tells us it's likely that many people there that morning never noticed what was happening.
The Jewish priestly class certainly noticed, however, and decided Jesus had to go. By Thursday night they had assembled a large arrest party, and, tipped off as to Jesus' location by Judas Iscariot, they made the pinch in the garden of Gethsemane. Please notice, Aslan says, that they took a bunch of people, expecting a brawl, and that Peter drew a sword to defend Jesus, confirming the professor's view of Jesus as not abjuring violence. Jesus, however, knowing his arrest must lead to his death, tells Peter to stop. He skips over the episode of Jesus putting the high priest's servant's ear back on, perhaps not believing it happened.
Of the trial, the crucifixion, and Jesus' death, Aslan follows what many other secular historians believe. Jesus was condemned as a blasphemer by the Sanhedrin, taken before Pontius Pilate (And there is documentary evidence that he existed.), who sentenced him to death after only a moment or two - just one more bit of business on a Friday morning - and Jesus suffered an awful death in the time honored Roman way.
What happened then? The gospels tell us that Jesus rose from the dead, and appeared to many people before ascending into heaven. Dr. Aslan does not believe in the resurrection - it does contradict everything we know about death after all - saying it's irrelevant what happened to Jesus' body. What is important is that the apostles began telling the Jews about Jesus and gathering a small number of believers. One of them, Stephen, was soon stoned to death in Jerusalem for blaspheming.
The murder of Stephen was a great event, Dr. Aslan claims. It clarified the thinking of the apostles and placed them squarely outside the mainstream of Jewish thought and practice. Led by James, Jesus' brother, they continued to tell any Jews who would listen that Jesus was the messiah and the fulfillment of the Hebrew prophesies. (Aslan says the Hebrew prophesies cannot be interpreted as leading to Jesus by any reasonable person.) Gradually the apostles and their followers became more and more estranged from the Jews of Jerusalem, though still complying with the Hebraic laws concerning diet and circumcision.
Enter Paul. Sometime during the two or three decades after Jesus' death Paul, who had been a Pharisee, comes to believe in the Jesus of the apostles and begins preaching to the Jews of the diaspora and to gentiles. He is soon summoned to Jerusalem by James and the others to answer for what they regard as apostasy - that gentile believers need not abstain from foods the Bible forbids, or undergo circumcision. Paul agrees to mend his ways, though he does call Peter to book for trying to have it both ways, but now carries his message further afield, ultimately to Rome, though Peter arrives first and warns the church there to be wary of Paul. How or when the two men died is not very important to Dr. Aslan.
What is important is the Jewish rebellion against Rome and the suppression of that rebellion by the imperial legions. Wholesale murder, rape and destruction accompanied the Roman army, culminating in the famous mass suicide at Masada. Thereafter, the locus of Christianity shifted away from Israel and the church grew among the gentiles much much more than among the Jews.
Dr. Aslan thinks it would have been impossible for Jesus to have become knowledgeable about the Hebrew Bible, growing up in what was almost literally the back of beyond. His scanty knowledge of the Bible explains the often confusing acts and sayings attributed to him. Now, I quarrel with that. I much prefer to think of Jesus as a bookish boy, a real Yeshiva paragon, devoting every spare moment to studying the Torah and the other books of the Bible. It's hard for me to imagine any other version of Jesus arguing successfully with his neighbors, much less the Pharisees.
Likewise, I think Dr. Aslan takes some interpretive liberties. Documentary evidence about Jesus by contemporaries is almost entirely non-existent, it's true, and the historian must speculate a bit. Aslan is right to say the first gospel, Mark's, was written something like forty years after Jesus' death, meaning by someone who probably didn't know him, but that doesn't give him license to guess about Jesus' life any more than it gave to Mark, Matthew, Luke and John. (On the other hand, if Mark was writing his gospel at about the age I am now - sixty-four - he might well have known Jesus, or known of Jesus, as a young man.)
Get this book and read it. I think Dr. Aslan has made an honest effort to explain Jesus and the beginnings of Christianity, though his version of it is much different from what we learned in Sunday school.
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If we don't want people working here illegally and not paying taxes on their work, then clearly, we need enforcement not on the illegals, but rather on the companies that hire the illegals and make it profitable to cross the border illegally. If it is more expensive to pay the fines for illegals than it is to hire people legally, these companies will stop flouting the law.
I have to think that it must not be much of a secret where all these illegals are working. Our government turns a blind eye to the companies that exploit these people to their detriment and ours. Meanwhile, they toss a 'bone' to the people frothing at the mouth about this out-of-control problem by promising to enforce the incarceration of the illegals. The system continues to self-propagate because it is in the interests of some very rich people that we have a shadow population - one that works for a tax-free pittance from them while enjoying some of the government services the rest of us have paid for (probably not the police, but fire, medical, schools, water etc).
The illegals aren't the problem. The companies hiring the illegals are the problem.
I hope no American is so hard-hearted as to deny these people or their children access to needed services. "Sorry, Maria, your parents brought you here illegally, so you can't come to our public school."