The Prohibition Era: Why?

Hi. Today I’d like to discuss drugs. Kids, as Nancy Reagan once said, “Just say no”…….to not legalizing drugs. Just kidding.

Our country may be on its way to legalizing marijuana and on behalf of the owners of the royalties to Bob Marley’s Legend album and the sellers of Lays potato chips, “It’s 4:20 somewhere”. But is legalizing pot merely the first step to legalizing all recreational drugs? Will this be a slippery toke, if you will? (See what I did there? Not a slippery slope but ….sorry).  For many, the very idea is pure insanity. You read about kids dropping dead from heroin overdoses and some dweeb claims the problem is that this deadly drug is illegal?! This apparent assault on common sense is so strong that I wonder if we will never become like the Dutch and legalize drugs. Amsterdam will remain just a far away sin city of the American imagination and a mediocre Van Hagar song.

Yet the other day I came across the best argument for legalizing drugs I’ve ever read--and it had nothing to do with drugs. I read a thorough academic analysis of Prohibition. (You’re right: it was mostly the Wikipedia page. You’re also right: I only read it after I started watching Boardwalk Empire). And let me just say it’s completely crazy that this was ever a thing. And it wasn’t terribly long ago: from 1920—1933. There are people still living who were around back then. The US Government—which always touts itself as a gleaming beacon of freedom—decided Americans no longer had the right to legally buy or sell alcohol. We could say, “Well, hindsight is 20/20” but many thought it was insane in real time. Winston Churchill said it was “an affront to the whole history of mankind”. And that was an understatement.

So how did this happen? Well for one, more non-white Anglo Saxon Protestant immigrants were coming to America. Nativists (think many Trump supporters) associated heavy alcohol use with immigrants. Germans were our enemy in World War 1, Germans were huger beer brewers, you do the math. I’d like to take the moral high ground here, but a few years ago I went to a Hartford Wolf Pack game and got off the bus at around 5PM with the morning/early afternoon’s St. Patrick’s Day Parade revelers still stumbling around loudly slurring f-bombs and Neil Diamond classics and even I wondered if revisiting Prohibition might be worth consideration. Anyway, upright post-WW1 Ned Flanders-esque Protestants thought they could correct and civilize these wild, dirty, sloshed immigrants who often barely spoke English! Prohibition to the “America: F$%@ Yeah!” rescue. So today’s Trump fanatics might want to consider the potential unintended consequences of their flag waving, wall building xenophobia: a constitutional amendment banning quesadillas and orange chicken. Is this really a high stakes gamble you’re prepared to make?

But the movement was actually somewhat bipartisan. Many social progressives sided with the pro-America conservative Protestants. They saw alcohol as a stumbling block to creating an American utopia. Since many poor people drank like every day was an Irish wake, eliminating alcohol, might remove a stumbling block to social and economic equality. Sure you had to infringe on personal liberty but you have to break a few eggs to make an omelet when you’re trying to save the world. When it comes to reducing freedoms to further a noble cause, neither liberals nor conservatives have ever entirely cornered the market.       

Also the suffragette movement had earned women more political power. They gained the right to vote months after Prohibition went into effect. In particular, the Women’s Christian Temperance Movement helped influence the ban of alcohol. Now I can hear some guys saying, “Man, women ruin everything”. To be fair, many were subjected to their idiot husbands coming home drunk and beating them for letting the pot roast get cold, so it’s understandable why they thought ousting liquor might correct and civilize their cavemen husbands. In a world before socially accepted divorce, it must have been temping to think the father of their children’s underlying issue was alcohol, not that he was a garden variety jerk.   

And the crazy thing is Prohibition may have partially worked. Some think it cut alcohol consumption in half during the 20’s. While usage is impossible to measure through sales (since all sales were under the table) medical cases of cirrhosis of the liver went down and since non-alcoholic cirrhosis is rare, it can be inferred fewer people were getting their drink on at the da club or the speakeasy while dancing to the devil’s music. Jazz.    

Of course many still drank and for them things became far less safe. Legal alcohol had adhered to relatively safe production standards but illegal booze produced in hidden stills was often tainted with metals and other impurities which made people sick or dead. An estimated 1,000 people died every year from this impure homebrew. Oh and the government poisoned alcohol. No, really. This is not a crazy conspiracy theory, it’s well documented. Having cut down on illegal gin running from Canada, the government realized bootleggers had resorted to stealing domestic commercial alcohol so they could re-distill it to make it drinkable. Plug one hole and you create another! So in 1927 Uncle Sam decided to add methyl alcohol, kerosene, brucine, gasoline, cadmium, iodine, zinc, mercury salts, ether, formaldehyde, chloroform, camphor, carbolic acid, quinine, and/or acetone to people’s cocktails. No word on whether guys would attempt to woo flapper girls in speakeasies with lines like, “I think you and I have really great chemistry—and that’s not just the carbolic acid talking”.

Some estimate Prohibition caused at least 10,000 people to die from government poisoned moonshine and bathtub gin. And since the poor were less likely to be able to afford the purer stuff, they were disproportionately killed off for their wicked imbibing ways. Apparently the government believed the death penalty was an appropriate punishment for violation of the almighty Volstead Act as well as a potential deterrent to future drinkers. Maybe fewer people got cirrhosis simply because they weren’t lucky enough to live long enough to destroy their livers.   

Making drinking a crime was also an amazing late Christmas gift from the government to criminals. (The law went into effect in January of 1920). In the first year alone, a study of 30 US cities estimated that crime went up 24 percent, including a 13 percent increase in homicides. The distribution of liquor was transferred from legal, regulated respectable salesmen to gangsters. And what is a gangster other than a supplier of products customers can’t get at his or her local convenience store? Prior to 1920 gang affiliated black market merchants’ main products were prostitution and gambling, but for 13 glorious, gin soaked, blood soaked years, crime syndicates would also have a monopoly over alcohol sales. It’s no coincidence that this era features some of the most famous gangsters in US history: Al Capone, John Dillinger, Arnold Rothstein, Bonnie and Clyde… It’s estimated that Capone had an income of $100 million per year---a present from incorruptible Prohibition passing politicians which he used to  pay off corrupt politicians to look the other way on his violation of the law. (Except that do-gooder Kevin Costner—I mean Eliot Ness). Capone said, “All I do is supply a public demand….somebody had to throw a liquor on that thirst, why not me?”. Without illegal products to sell, a gangster’s rug is swept from under him so demonizing a product and making it illegal creates a gangsta’s paradise.

Prohibition was also both a job killer and a job creator. What? You lost your bartending job when the bar was forced to shut down? What? The Depression hit? Don’t worry: your local neighborhood mob boss has a huge demand for gin and whiskey to deal with so he’s hiring. Is it productive to society when the suppliers of a product—harmful vice though it may be-- consider murder a viable business strategy to deal with competitors, late paying customers, employees who call in sick, or just anyone who disrespects them? Are the vices of these illegal salesmen more harmful to society than the vice that is the product itself?

Another problem: Prohibition may have prohibited the government from obtaining necessary revenue more than it prohibited people from drinking. They thought they had gained monetary independence from alcohol after passing the 16^th Amendment in 1913 which created the federal income tax. Prior to this, about 40-50 percent of the government’s revenue came from taxing alcohol. Uncle Sam’s livelihood was no less dependent on booze than a bar owner, a karaoke machine maker, or a country music songwriter. But they discovered incomes seem to fluctuate more than alcohol consumption—whether it’s legal or not--so the income tax was in many ways a less reliable revenue stream. The Depression hit, tax revenue tanked, and, adding insult to injury, they were depriving themselves of an obvious revenue source. All told the US government deprived itself of $11 billion in tax revenue over the 13 years. And Prohibition created a costly increased demand for law enforcement. City police budgets went up by at least 10 percent and the feds had to employ thousands of enforcement agents which cost them an additional $300 million.

But it wasn’t all bad. More people joined churches and synagogues! …..because you were still allowed to obtain wine for religious purposes. And more people became pharmacists! …..because you were still allowed to distribute alcohol for medicinal purposes. That’s right, medicinal whiskey was a thing. Anxiety? The flu? 80 proof whiskey is just what the doctor ordered. But fewer people went to the theater or the ballpark. You couldn’t even drink. They must have experienced something similar to Homer Simpson's epiphany when he found himself sober at a baseball game for the first time in his adult life and said, “I never realized how boring this game is”. Prohibition also created the booze cruise! No need to worry about sourpussed federal agents confiscating your stash when you’re over international waters, baby. And the Prohibition did one valuable thing: it fueled modern country radio. Can you imagine a country song without a reference to moonshine? It’s too scary to even imagine.  

So finally Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Congress decided to end the dry madness and ratified the 21^st Amendment which repealed the 18^th Amendment. Having made abolishing Prohibition a key campaign stance while running for President in 1932, FDR repealed it on March 12, 1933 with the quote, “I think this would be a good time for a beer”. Now this was a guy who knew how to make America great again. 

It seems Prohibition is now universally viewed as one of the biggest epic fails in US Government history. It had disastrous unintended consequences and severely infringed on personal freedoms in the process. Yet advocates at the time had very legitimate reasons to argue for it: alcohol is linked to countless diseases, domestic violence, street violence, loss of productivity, lost finances, accidents, etc. In fact, if you tried to formulate a pro-Prohibition argument today you would probably have more supporting evidence than they had in 1919. Today you have the additional argument of about 17,000 auto fatalities per year from DUI’s. Back then few people had cars, there were essentially no highways, and people were more reliant on mass transit—streetcars, railroads, etc. And yet…..no one in their right mind is proposing going back to a ban on booze.

Here at Blog You Like A Hurricane I really try to ask questions rather than supply answers, but in all of this I find it hard not to see some parallels between the historical alcohol Prohibition and our current Prohibition of drugs. I mean is there any question that drug kingpins owe their livelihoods to drugs being illegal? Murderous thugs like El Chapo would be severely undercut and weakened by legalization of drugs just as alcohol supplying gangsters were after 1933. No one wants a Santa Clause without awesome gifts--let alone a creepy gun toting Santa Clause. 

And just as Prohibition caused skyrocketing deaths from unsafe booze, how many drug OD deaths are caused less by the dosage than by the purity of the drugs? Legal drugs would be subject to safety standards that black market drugs are not. Or what about comparing legal prescription drugs to illegal non-prescription drugs? Is Ritalin safer than cocaine? Probably, yet they are both central nervous system stimulants. Are prescription opiates safer than heroin? Probably, but they both come from the opium poppy plant and undergo chemical processes to release morphine and other mind and body altering chemicals. So are the safety differences simply due to the differences between the substances themselves or are Ritalin and Oxycontin safer because they are legal? Being legal, they are subjected to stricter safety control in the lab and safer dosage control by doctors.

Also, as with banned alcohol in the past, there is the question of money and taxes. Illegal drugs currently cost non-drug users a ton of money. Because others want to buy and sell drugs, we all pay big bucks to to punish them for it. There’s the money we have to pay narcotics agents and the money we pay to arrest, prosecute and imprison drug buyers and sellers. And of course, like they did with alcohol in the Prohibition era, we are denying ourselves large sin tax revenues that would come from any legal sale of drugs. All that revenue might be used to rebuild roads, bridges, and schools.

So potentially more money, less crime, safer drugs…..but we’re passing all of that up and the only thing standing in our way seems to be the fear that legalizing drugs will amount to approving of it and encouraging kids to do them. But how many kids are encouraged to do drugs today because they are illegal? Is there anything more typical of youth than wanting to reach for that forbidden fruit? Wanting to do what your parents and teachers have warned you not to do? Instead, isn’t it possible that the approach we have taken with cigarettes would actually work better? Don’t make it illegal—and potentially more tempting as a result—but educate people (and a little scare tactics and shaming never hurt anyone) on its effects to the point where it stops seeming cool but starts seeming like kind of a loser activity. That strategy has seemed to work—far fewer people smoke than they did 50 years ago. Maybe warning labels, ads, propaganda and peer pressure influence our choices more than laws.

And compared with alcohol, drugs come with more of a shadowy, built-in image problem to begin with. To many, even smoking pot is the hallmark of the loser—let alone snorting coke off a mirror or injecting smack into your veins or becoming a toothless meth fiend. I think it’s doubtful that legalizing drugs would lead to skyrocketing usage. And again, if your kid does screw up and makes bad choices, would you want relatively safe regulated drugs or completely untested, unregulated drugs by a shady drug dealer with a porn stache sold from his dingy 3^rd floor studio apartment that are more likely to kill him or her instantly?

And yes, it must be admitted that even regulated heroin or cocaine might also have the potential to kill the user. But every gun sold in the US has the potential to kill the user through suicide or accident--not to mention killing others. Every automobile sold has the potential to end up as a deadly weapon. Motorcycles, swimming pools…… Yet few are suggesting an outright ban on guns and no one is suggesting a ban on cars, motorcycles, or swimming pools.

So who knows? Maybe our current drug policy is just as wrongheaded and harmful to society as Prohibition was 90 years ago and the only difference is we don’t have the benefit of a before and after litmus test to prove it. Or maybe I’m an idiot for even suggesting it? Anything is possible. Either way…..it’s only the Internet so does it matter? Will even four people read this? But I want to thank YOU for stopping by, dear reader. Until next time…..cheers. 

     

 

The Emperor's New Clothes

Hi. Well why not? Let’s break down the Presidential election. But don’t worry: I won’t rehash the latest mainstream media coverage which, in a nutshell, is: “Can you believe Trump said THIS? Has he finally gone too far!?” or “Can you believe Hillary e-mailed THAT? Why hasn’t she switched to texting like everyone else?”. Eighth grade student council presidential races have been covered with more depth, insight, restraint, and compassion than the 2016 road to the White House. Must be all those raging hormones from the 60-something and 70-something candidates.  

I think this race has shown us something more interesting than the fact that an orange haired, orange skinned trash talker with a boardwalk empire but zero political experience can be considered just what this country needs if it wants to be great again. Or that a raspy voiced, pressured speech septuagenarian with hair that looks like he may have recently been electrocuted by a blow dryer and talks about “supa delegates” is the hippest thing on college campuses since Twenty One Pilots. (The common denominator: they both talk about student loans).

But have enough people noticed something (I think) more interesting? On one major issue, Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders agree with each other—pretty much in opposition to Hillary, Cruz, Obama, George W. Bush……. The issue is free trade. Both oppose it. For Trump free trade is a game America is losing and China and Mexico are winning (“We’re getting KILLED by Mexico, no wonder they’ve gotten so cocky by crossing the border and raping our women! Now if you’ll excuse me I’m about to be welcomed to Moe’s so I can dominate a Homewrecker” said The Donald in so many words) while for Bernie it’s just a permission slip for corporate greed: exchange US workers for Mexican and Chinese workers earning slave wages and getting beaten with a not yet fully assembled Macbook Pro if they refuse to work their normal 20 hour shift and you don’t even have to worry about tariffs when you import those cheap goods back here. Win and win.

Yet Trump and Bernie disagree on virtually every other issue. That’s why Republican and Democrat labels don’t always mean as much as we think they do. When the Founding Fathers got together in Philadelphia to try to write The Constitution it turned into a weeks long ugly tug of war between the federalists like Washington and Hamilton who wanted a strong centralized government that superseded state governments and the anti-federalists like Jefferson who wanted each state to remain its own independent government—like kings in Europe or slave driving Pharaohs in ancient Egypt. The federalists of course won in the long run. Now we have a globalized word and I think the biggest question is whether America should still think of itself as a country or are we an empire? And does leaning too far in either direction inevitably compromise the other?

But of course “empire” has a slightly menacing, undemocratic connotation—the Roman Empire, The Empire Strikes Back---so that term is never really used in the mainstream. Instead George H. Bush used the term “new world order“ (before that term itself obtained a menacing connotation) and later people started saying “neoconservative” or “neoliberal” (before those terms acquired a shadowy phantom menace). But it seems like they all mean roughly the same thing: that as the lone remaining superpower in a globalized, interconnected world, America’s (primary?) responsibility is to oversee the rest of the world and steer it in a way that best suits our interests and theirs. “Neo” thinking seems to mark a true 180 degree turn in America: we began as a colony that fought an eight-year war to free ourselves from colonization, now we fight eight year wars to colonize other countries---colonize with our lofty ideals, of course, not a permanent (complete) occupation. We don’t want to rule them directly like an old-school colony, we just want to decide how they are run and who runs them. Communism in South Vietnam? Oh HELL no. Despotism in Iraq? Sharia law in Afghanistan? GTFO! It’s all about democracy and capitalism, baby.

So for the neoconservatives, the Iraq war was a self-help class. First we’re going to help you get rid of all this negativity in your life (Saddam Hussein) and then we’re going to coach you on self-empowerment by rebuilding your country as a democracy! An extreme makeover. A whole new you, Mesopotamians. On paper, was this wrong? Who can argue that a free country is better than a dictatorship or an Islamist state where you have all the rights of citizenship—unless you’re a Sunni in a Shia majority country, a Shia in a Sunni majority country, a Jew, a Christian, or a woman….everyone else is cool.   The problem is America always finds itself singing that same sad song along with Bonnie Raitt “I can’t make you love with me if you won’t”. Why do we think we can convince nations to follow our noble lead when the icebreaker isn’t a handshake and a smile but dropped bombs (and food aid because we’re really nice when you get to know us!). Also we don’t share their religion. Also we don’t speak their language. But why can’t they understand how awesome democracy and Quarter Pounders are? These people just won’t listen! The neoconservative dream of exporting democracy and free markets seems to make more sense in a think tank than in reality. Our democracy pitch is like running Five Guys ads in a country of vegetarians.

But are the neoliberals that much more in touch with reality? As best as I can understand, they are the cousins of the neoconservatives who may not be QUITE as keen as using military might to spread Americanism across the globe but are no less devout in their missionary zeal to remake the world in our own image. Last night I caught the end of an interview with Obama’s treasury secretary Jack Lew on Charlie Rose. (By the way, after all these years when will a guest finally say, “Charlie, would you mind turning up the lights? I don’t know if we’re in that stage of our relationship for mood lighting”). This guy was basically reading from the neoliberal handbook. Asked about corporate taxes, he began with something like, “This system is broken”. For a split second I was hoping against hope for a Bernie Sanders-style attack on corporations ducking taxes. Nope. He bemoaned the high rates of corporate taxes and rather than forcing American companies to stop sheltering their money in Ireland, his answer is to be their best friend and lower taxes enough so they will maybe, possibly, cross-their-fingers-and-hope-to-die bring their money back here. Again, he’s a Democrat, not a Republican. A government official, not a CEO. And we wonder why Bernie supporters are so rabid?

He was also asked about TPP—the Trans Pacific Partnership. This, to this blogger’s expert knowledge, is roughly an expansion of free trade into East Asian countries along the lines of agreements we signed with Mexico in the 90’s and China in 2000. It’s favored by most major establishment politicians on both sides but opposed by, you guessed it, Bernie and Trump. But Lew was gushing over the fact that Vietnam is busy raising its worker standards as we speak to be complaint with TPP! Attempting to play benevolent life enhancers to the Vietnamese…. this sounds familiar. First we tried (and failed) to help South Vietnam avoid succumbing to communism (and it only cost us 50,000 American lives) and now our trade agreements are raising living standards for their workers. The US: the re-gifters that keep giving. But how many of their future workers will replace current American workers?

I’m not arguing for Trump’s idiotic brand of “let’s build a wall!” isolationism. The world is way too interconnected for that to even be possible. I will never vote for Trump in a million years. But can this movement of “let’s put America first again” be written off entirely? Isn’t there a special brand of insanity inherent to expending a decade's worth of effort which cost us $1.7 trillion US tax dollars and the lives of 4,500 US soldiers (more than double the amount of casualties on 9/11) to try to bring peace and freedom to Iraq while simultaneously passing laws like the Patriot Act that reduce our freedom at home? And what about signing trade agreements which have helped prop up the economies of Mexico and China and raised the profit margins of American international corporations but have cost millions of good paying American manufacturing jobs? We can’t be isolationist but can the argument be made that our leaders have sold out country in their quixotic quest to save the rest of the world (and maybe their cynical scheme to further enrich their campaign donors) be dismissed?

It’s odd in a way. We always hear we live in a cynical age, yet all of these policies seem to stem from a tragic naïvete. That's assuming, of course, the proponents of these ideals truly believe what they say. Was it simply naïve to think we could build a flourishing secular democracy in a highly religious, highly divided society like Iraq? Is it naïve to think we can let millions of American workers serve as sacrificial lambs in American multinational corporations’ race to the bottom but our economy will magically reproduce new, better jobs? Where are they? And why would outsourcing create them? Is it because the resulting increased corporate profit margins will beef up R&D and in turn spur new industries and jobs? That seems like a fairy tale only slightly less far fetched than the Easter Bunny or Pretty Woman. Faith in outsourcing and its economic permission slip free trade just seems like a variation of trickle down economics. And trickle down economics should be called economic stenosis. Stenosis in the body is an abnormal narrowing which reduces flow of nerves and blood. Helping the rich get richer only seems to cause the flow of wealth to narrow and remain at the top. Thanks to trickle down economics, CEO’s earn far more than ever while the bottom 80 percent of society has gotten poorer. People who know more than me and listen to less 80's hair metal say our nation is producing just as much wealth. So it’s not a lack of money, it’s a lack of movement and flow of money. Our economy isn’t bankrupt, it’s diseased.

“But don’t be a globalization Luddite!”, some might say. It’s all driven by technology and you can’t stop technological progress, dude. Is it driven by technology or has technology simply caused us to think it’s beyond our control? Is globalization supposedly necessitated by technology the HAL 9000 computer from 2001: A Space Odyssey who says, "Just what do you think you're doing, Dave?" just before you have to unplug it? The Romans said “All roads lead to Rome”. This was actually a reference to technology—roads. Those were kind of a new thing, but they connected Rome to the rest of the world and made it easier to inculcate the Roman Way on all those barbarians and North Africans they conquered. But I say conquered? Oh no. The Romans were about a “pax Romana”—Roman peace. Through war  today and their amazing efficiency, the Romans would bring peace to all tomorrow. The Romans had a little Attila The Hun in them but had plenty of United Nations as well. The Romans themselves were in many ways proponents of technology and globalization (on their terms) 2,000 years ago. A new world order….until it all blew up because they became corrupted from within and too many barbarians like those filthy bearded, beer drinking rednecks and hillbillies the Goths and Vandals decided they preferred sacking Rome and listening to the lamentations of their women to drinking Roman wine and chilling by a fountain. All roads led to Rome….until they led to the Dark Ages.

There has to be some happy medium between Trump provincialism and staunch globalism. The former fails to see the forest through the trees but the latter may focus on the forest so much that it smacks into the trees right in front of it. The original patriots opposed British colonization of America from across the ocean in sharp contrast to the Tories who supported it. Maybe the new patriotism is opposing American colonization of others across the oceans—be it in the form of wars to “liberate” them or outsourcing the gift that is slave labor jobs —particularly when doing so comes at the huge expense of American tax dollars, jobs, and lives. And maybe the old patriots and the new patriots can sight the same justification for their grievances: no taxation without representation. The colonists were being taxed by the British government while being denied even a single seat in Parliament. We’re paying through taxes, lost jobs, and military casualties and have we really gotten what we’ve paid for it considering the price? Do we Americans always end up buying high and selling low in this brave new world? Have oil companies, weapons manufacturers, and tech companies reaped most of the benefits of America’s global empire of influence while we foot the bill with taxes, nemployment/underemployment, and lost lives? 

But join me and we can shatter this empire and return us back to the humble republic we all know and love. I don't know where we're going and I don't have a driver's license but join anyway!  

Fully Armed Against Change

Thanks for stopping by. Today I’d like to talk about guns. Wait, where are you going? Don’t worry, I’m not going to write an editorial on why we need better gun control. I’ve heard people voice opinions either way but I’ve yet to hear a single person say, “I just can’t seem to make up my mind on the issue. I wish someone would come along to write a blog". 

And there are more interesting things to talk about. Like why do we have so many guns anyway?

I grew up in a town with more cows than people (although I’m not sure if this oft repeated claim was ever confirmed by a census taker, so it might have just been jealousy fueled slander from those East Windsor losers) and while the “hilarious” Smellington moniker seemed a bit exaggerated and immature, it’s quite true that at certain times of the year, the smell of cow manure was an everyday olfactory reality. America is the only major country on earth with more guns than people. And while the smell of gunfire isn’t on every street corner, we do have more gun violence than other 1^st world countries. Just as with cows there comes cow shit, with more guns does there come more gun violence? I’ll meet many gun owners half way and borrow from Lynard Skynard: “Oooo that smell, can’t you smell that smell? The smell that’s around you”.

Or maybe not. Maybe it’s a coincidence. But either way guns are to America what cows are to Ellington. Dairy farming accounts for the cows, but what accounts for our abnormal accumulation and possessive clinging to guns in the face of even perceived threats to maybe, possibly, potentially take them away?

Again, in the hopes of being as non-political as possible, let’s not talk about the NRA, or Ted Cruz, Smith, or Wesson. I think the issue possibly has more to do with gender anyway. And possibly race. According to my exhaustive research (Google’s top search selection) white males make up 31 percent of the population but they make up 61 percent of gun owners. They are also the most likely to staunchly barricade themselves against any proposed change to gun laws. It’s practically a special interest issue. No, they aren’t the only gun lovers out there (evidenced by the 2001 hip hop classic "My Dogz Iz My Gunz" by Sticky Fingaz—amongst countless other joints) but if those 31 percent and their political champions in Congress were not given any say in the matter, we would probably have much stricter gun laws tomorrow. Or soon afterwards. Gun non-control almost seems like white males’ last stand.

Because what else do we know about white males? A demographic yours truly belongs to. (Though I can’t claim to be nearly as manly as I am white. I would need to be Mr. Universe to balance that scale). White males used to rule America. Before 2008 not a single President wasn’t white. England had a queen for decades in the 16^th Century (when English royals weren’t just gossip TV stars) but we, the country that has always taken pride in our inclusiveness, had none. We, the country that declared “all men are created equal”. Oh wait……I see the problem there. For a country that has been so progressive in other ways, we’ve really been shockingly conservative and even backwards in our gender and racial roles.

But that’s all changing. We have a (half) black President, we have a female, African American, and Latino Republican candidate. Non-Hispanic Whites are at an all time low 63 percent of the total population and falling. Women represent 60 percent of Bachelor’s Degree recipients. Men represent 90 percent of the prison population. (To paraphrase Chris Rock, guys like to keep it real. Reeeeeal dumb). White males are so 1945. My grandfather, who let me just was not really a racist as far as I knew but mostly a product of a very pre-politically correct generation, used to like to joke, “Black is beautiful, tan is grand, but white’s the color of the Big Boss Man”. Not anymore.   

But assault on white male virility and independence (or at least the perception of it) doesn't stop there. Not by a long shot! If you haven’t heard about the “pussification of America” you probably don’t have a social media account. Everything is now much more about inclusion, diversity, sensitivity, multiculturalism….exactly the sort of stuff no one bothered with when one group had a monopoly on all the power. While political correctness often seems guilty of overreach to me (it’s not only wrong to say offensive things, it’s wrong to say inoffensive things that someone might misinterpret as offensive) it does seem to be an inevitable offshoot of a country in which power and prestige is increasingly shared by many groups, not just pale people with a penis. (Nope. I’m not deleting that because alliteration is classy). Political correctness is a subtle, constant reminder that the once mighty Pale King has had to (partially) abdicate his throne. It's almost as if before 2008, the Magna Carta hadn't been even drafted yet to fully challenge this statistical minority group's centuries long exclusive dominance. 

And because white males dominated for so long, amongst many there crept in an almost unconscious assumption: said dominance was not due to an unnatural manipulation of opportunities and education but rather due to their naturally superior strength and intellect. It’s not that these folks necessarily hated women or people of color….it’s just that they believed they just weren’t as naturally qualified as they were to run things. God and Darwin's will, don't you see? Now let me get that door for you.... So I think to some eyes, our new paradigm is not the fulfillment of the promise of inclusion that we’ve always claimed to believe in, but an unnatural corruption of the pitiless but unavoidable laws of nature. America’s favorite casino owner wants to “make America great again” but considering his stances on Mexicans and Muslims and his particular vitriol for Carly Fiorina, isn’t The Donald's secret Impossible (Pipe) Dream actually to make America more firmly white and male again? A return to a supposed lost paradise where no one asks you to "marque dos" for Espanol and the Carly Fiorina’s of the world are running Tupperware parties, not high tech companies?    

                

But this is about guns. And the question is does anything I just said relate to the gun issue? It’s impossible to say or prove, but my theory is….maybe. (I would make a terrible propagandist). The traditional iconic virile American male is the cowboy, the soldier, the cop, the gangster. All of them are packin’. Guns are the ultimate phallic symbol of power (either that or I’ll never trust a Kiss song lyric again). Guns aren't gender neutral, they aren't transgender, they are the most truly masculine of machines. So deep down, does the whole gun issue come down to this: you can make us attend Sensitivity Training, you can make us go to Bed Bath and Beyond, we will even change diapers, but don’t even think about taking away our gunshow loophole!

(BTW, Gunshow Loophole would make a pretty good punk band name).  

Of course what do I know? I’m no alpha white male. It was only with a sense of great moral ambiguity that I rooted for the Larry Bird, Kevin McHale, Danny Ainge, and Bill Walton Celtics of the 80’s. It it wasn't for Robert Parish and Dennis Johnson I would have felt like I was rooting for a Klan chapter. I was the kid who loved Guns n’ Roses but also wondered if instead of saying “back off, bitch!”, perhaps Axl Rose should have said, “back off, miss!”. I mean….isn’t any relationship a two way street? I’m a disgrace to every red blooded, pickup driving, gun toting white male in this country. In the past year and a half I’ve drank more green tea than I care to admit. I've learned that quiche is actually pretty good. I always have to shave my beard when I grow it because I start to scare myself in the mirror. I applied for my Man Card and it came back riddled with bullet holes and DENIED stamped on it with a recommendation to eat a steak, watch a spaghetti Western, and start a hedge fund.

But even a non manly-man like me has been known to worry about his masculinity. I say I'm not a bro, not a jock, so I don't care. But I'm lying. Why did I develop such a sharp sense of humor? Is that a form of aggressiveness in lieu of becoming an outside linebacker? I may not be a bro, but I’m no flower child either. Would I be if I wasn’t so afraid of being seen as a total wimp? I don’t know. But even the flower child guys of the hippie era were thrusting their chests out too against war mongering fascists in the government, etc. Guys are always trying to show you how tough they are! Some feel tough by having guns, some feel tough by not having guns. But maybe if everyone figured out how to be less tough we have less things we needed to be tough about? And maybe if fewer people had guns fewer people would need guns to feel protected from others who have guns? It’s a vicious cycle that’s spun in the wrong direction but it can spin the other way too. Don’t ask me how—again, I’m just a jerk with a blog.

Or we just need to stop thinking in overly dramatic absolutes? Yes, white males now have to share things where they once had a monopoly. But to hear some describe it, whites are on their way to becoming “second class citizens”. Settle down. Sharing is not slavery. And does trying to restrict the flow of guns reduce a country to an effeminate shell of itself? Canada has stricter gun control but they still have plenty of gun owners and their national sport involves skating up to guys and smashing them into the side of an ice rink and waiting to see if they punch you in the face. Do Canadians seem drained of their manhood to you? Those Canucks are no quiche eaters! (I'm pretending to forget Justin Bieber is Canadian--every rule has an exception). 

In conclusion, to my fellow white, male 31 percenters, our day of unchallenged glory is over. The frontier has been converted into a Pinkberry. The kids stopped listening to Weezer and started listening to Weezy. But it’s okay. Sharing is okay. And no gun will protect you from the power of political correctness, black Presidents and female sportscasters anyway, so why take it out on Bambi and Bernie? Maybe we don’t need guns to be powerful anyway. Maybe we just need love! Love is the answer! In fact didn’t Kiss so eloquently instruct on this issue 40 years ago when they wrote:

No place for hidin' baby
No place to run

You pull the trigger of my 

Love gun (Love gun)

Love gun (Love gun) 


I wonder if Imagine would have been a better song to quote. 

Baseball: What Ken Burns Didn't Tell You

Hi, today I would like to talk about baseball. “Ewww, why bother”, you ask? “Baseball is dying!” they proclaim in the media. Except the media has apparently been ringing baseball’s death knell since the 1800’s yet just when you think it’s gone for good it always stages more comebacks than Bette Midler and my forehead acne. Baseball isn’t dying even if the media keeps trying to kill it. Last year the NFL earned $10 billion, major league baseball earned $8 billion, the NBA earned $5 billion and the NHL earned just under $4 billion. An 8 billion dollar failure? We’ll have to wait for the eighth Avengers sequel before we see that again.

But if you go to the ESPN site right now you may note how they order their sports: NFL first, NBA second, MLB third. ESPN is the most powerful sports media driver of public perception in America and they seem to strive to create the (non evidence supported) argument that baseball is 3^rd in popularity and falling fast. The fact that ESPN and ABC are part of the same conglomerate and ABC has an NBA contract whereas Fox has the baseball contract…….maybe not a coincidence? Average attendance at an MLB game last year was 30,000. And that’s with 81 games on the schedule! Averaging 30,000 81 times? That’s more than the NBA, NHL, or even an Eagles reunion tour could ever dream of. Last offseason The Miami Marlins signed slugger Giancarlo Stanton to a $325 million dollar extension. $325 million in a supposedly dying industry? And he can hit 500 foot home runs? AND his name is Giancarlo? If he gets tired of baseball, he has the name and the muscular build to inspire a romance novel dark, mysterious yet irresistible stranger. I don’t know…..51 Shades Of Gray? It’s not hard to imagine the words “Giancarlo” and “smoldering” in the same sentence. Take that, geeky death of baseball predicting journalist guy.   

“But look at World Series ratings!” the critics say. True, they are never nearly as good as Super Bowl ratings. But the Super Bowl isn’t really a game, it’s a circus. It’s a permission slip to drink too much beer, eat too many chicken wings, and bet too much money knowing no one will judge you for it. It’s the Super Bowl! It features a halftime performance from a pop superstar that everyone can trash on the Twitter and Facebook in real time. It’s an excuse for cabin fever suffering people to have a huge party in early February. It provides a once-per-year throwback to the days when everyone was watching the same thing because they only had five channels and no Internet. Comparing Super Bowl ratings with anything is not a fair fight. It’s like saying if you’re not George Clooney, you’re the Elephant Man.  

And nothing as weird as baseball can ever go away. Yes, I would submit that despite its national pastime, Americana, fathers and sons having a catch in the back yard, if you build it they will come reputation, baseball is possibly the weirdest sport ever invented. It’s so weird that no one notices its weirdness because it’s so ingrained into the game! Take this snippet I read about Red Sox 1^st baseman Mike Napoli: Before the Red Sox latest homestand, he had a .162 average (19-for-117) to go with three homers and 11 RBIs. Over the course of the just completed homestand he hit .429 (9-for-21) with five homers and 10 RBIs. WTF? Did Napoli forget how to hit and suddenly remember again? But these wild, irrational streaks happen constantly in baseball. Every hitter is a streak hitter no matter his skill level. Lebron James may have off games but he’s never going to go 2 for 23 from the floor one night and 22 for 24 the next night. Tom Brady—regardless of the air pressure on the ball—is not going to complete 5 of 39 passes with 3 INT’s one week and complete 33 of 36 with 4 TD’s the next. A Bradley Cooper movie isn’t going to gross $500 million worldwide while his next film goes straight to Starzz. Most people at the top of their professions generally fall within a certain bell curve from one game or movie or album to the next—except in baseball. Or let’s consider the guy who personifies the everyday steadiness and consistency of baseball perhaps more than anyone in recent times: former Orioles shortstop/3^rd baseman Cal Ripken, Jr., who broke Lou Gehrig’s record for most consecutive games played. He is the embodiment of consistency. Or is he? In 1990 Cal hit .250, in 1991 he hit .323 with 34 HR’s and 114 RBI’s. The next year? .251. The next year? .257. The next year? .315. And that’s just baseball! Even hitters who generally put up the same numbers each year will have weeks/months where, like yours truly in gym class softball, they are lucky if they can hit the ball out of the infield.

And pitchers? Forget about it. Performance wise, baseball players all embody a kind of bipolar disorder, which is probably why they so often develop weird superstitious, obsessive compulsive habits they have to repeat endlessly such as eating fried chicken before every single game, avoiding stepping on foul lines like they were land mines, obsessively taking off or putting on their batting gloves in the batter’s box, or injecting steroids into their buttocks in a clubhouse bathroom stall. (Sorry—they I mean they used to do that. And like Mark McGwire, I’m not here to talk about the past. And like Sammy Sosa, no habla Ingles). In a game of such wild, hard to control inconsistency, ballplayers have to cling to whatever consistent, controllable things they can.  And the beauty of all this wild inconsistency? We get to see even the greatest players fail. A lot. Sometimes in epic ways. Sometimes for long periods of times. This makes them seem human. Superstars in other sports fail in much less extreme, much more short term ways. This makes them seem superhuman. But superheroes are boring and not even the best examples for the rest of us because they create standards none of us can live up to. Superman is a crashing bore.    

Baseball also provides us with a healthy reminder that sometimes spitting in the workplace is okay. Actually it’s more than okay. Admit it: it would be easier to slog through some dreary Mondays at the office if spitting wasn’t so frowned upon by management. Spitting is so common in baseball that it actually becomes invisible. My grandmother used to say to me, “Ryan, why do they have to spit so much?”. I would then think, “Oh yeah, he DID spit just now”. By contrast, if I had been watching 60 Minutes and an Iranian diplomat gave Leslie Stahl a little more lip than she was looking for and she spit on the floor, I would have totally noticed. Or at the last State Of The Union address if Obama had said Republicans cannot play political games with the debt ceiling any longer and John Boehner right behind him had spit, that would have stuck out like a sore thumb. Only baseball has managed to normalize the (all natural) act of spitting! You probably did it this morning when you brushed your teeth. The freedom of being a ballplayer is the freedom so say, “The world is my bathroom sink”.

Baseball is also the only sport that embodies what we say America is about but kind of isn’t really about. So the Golden State Warriors’ best player is Stephen Curry. In a 1 point Warriors victory the other night he took 21 shots, the next closest was Klay Thompson who took 15 shots. So Curry took almost 1/3 more shots than their second best player—and that relatively low margin for basketball is only because he’s an unselfish player. He took 21 of his team’s 77 total shots—so something like 1/4 of all shots. (This blog is unconcerned with exact math). The Washington Nationals best player is Bryce Harper. Last night he had 4 plate appearances while the Nats’ #8 hitter, the .233 hitting Michael Taylor, had 3 plate appearance—and probably only because his turn in the order didn’t come around a 4^th time. Red hot, superstar Bryce Harper had 4 of his team’s 31 total at bats last night—just under 1/8.

Is Bryce Harper less selfish than Stephen Curry? Actually he comes across as infinitely more selfish and immature and I’m not just saying that because his name is Bryce. But unlike basketball, football, hockey, soccer…..unlike every team sports I know of, Bryce Harper plays in a sport of mandated equal opportunity. There are no rules preventing your best basketball player to shoot as often as he likes or your superstar quarterback to throw as many passes as you want him to throw, but in baseball your best player has to take this turn just like everyone else. He has 1 spot and only 1 spot in your 9 man batting order and he can only bat when his spot comes around just like your backup catcher who may be hitting .189 and is only in the lineup because you’re resting your starting catcher in a day game after a night game. We all know this, but I don’t think anyone steps back and reflects on just what a radical game of equality of opportunity baseball is compared with every other sport and…..life. Even when the rulebook doesn’t dictate it, baseball’s inherent radical equal opportunity surfaces almost by accident. A manager can pitch his best pitcher any time he wants, but because pitchers are stretching the limits of the human arm and shoulder beyond where it should be stretched to begin with, an ace starting pitcher likewise has to wait his turn in the rotation just like the 5th starter who may have a 5.54 ERA. (Or, in the case of the 2015 Red Sox, the “ace” who may have a 5.54 ERA).

Let’s say baseball’s doomsday prophets have an argument. But if baseball is seeming more quaint and out of step with today’s society, could the reason have less to do with the slow pace and everyone’s apparent ADD than with the reality of a game where you are treated like an equal even if you’re not an equal? Maybe we have become so complacent about accepting that the CEO should make 409 times as much as a company’s everyday staff member that we can’t even relate to a game where (at least between the foul lines) the superstars are afforded zero preferential treatment over the everyday journeymen players? And the concept of batting orders and pitching rotations is so ingrained that no one even proposes changing it. I suppose you could make an argument that—for the benefit of entertainment and TV ratings—a manager can choose to bat his best hitter twice in the lineup and have someone else just be a designated fielder. Or he can bat his best hitter in the ninth inning even if he’s not due up that inning. That might be great for “fan interest” and capturing the “young demographic” but these are terrible ideas! And they are terrible because they would kill the team aspect of baseball that makes it so unique. Often you are only as good as your worst hitter or the 25^th man on your roster. People like to say baseball is less of a team game because no one passes the ball to each other but looked at another way it’s the most team game there is. It’s much harder to simply rely on your best player to carry you. It takes contributions from everyone and that’s the whole beauty of it. It’s a less narcissistic game.

Another weirdly beautiful thing about baseball is unlike other sports it’s not a game of keep away. Football, basketball, hockey, soccer….all games of passing/handing off the ball/puck to your teammates and trying to prevent the other team from getting their dirty paws on it. Baseball couldn’t be more different. It’s a sport in which you, the one with the ball, are the one—the only one—who feeds the offense the ball and gives the hitter at the plate a chance to crush a ball 500 feet off you. Of course the pitcher tries to make pitches that the hitter won’t be able to turn into souvenirs but he still stands essentially defenseless before his opponent and hopes it all works out. Now isn’t this a better lesson for life? We can pretend our opponents don’t exist and try to maneuver where we want to go without them interfering—kind of the way politics works these days—or we can actually be the ones who serve our opponents what they need to succeed but take the leap of faith that our skill and guile will get us through. Baseball represents a far more inclusive, self-confident way of dealing with our enemies. No wonder it’s “dying” in 2015 America!

It’s also the only sport that can treat seasonal affective disorder for unfortunate souls living in the north. I had some anxiety and depression this past brutal, awful, God forsaken, heinous, evil winter but spring training was a beacon of light in a dark, snow filled dungeon. I actually started watching meaningless games on TV when I normally just wait until Opening Day. And I realized you can listen to virtually every game on the MLB app on your phone. Grapefruit League games in Florida started at 1 every day, Cactus League games in Arizona started at 4. I became a daily listener. The games provided a portal into a world where it was 81 degrees and sunny. You could even overhear vendors yelling, “Cold beer here! (And water)”. It all sounded like it was coming from pure heaven even if it was only Jupiter, Florida. Football? Watching those guys doing drills in the heat of July just seems like hell on earth.

So baseball may not be our “national pastime” anymore but, like blue jeans, it has too much going for it to ever really die. It’s not the Trapper Keeper of team sports. In thirty years it might still be going strong while the head injury ridden, scandal ridden, domestic violence ridden NFL starts to seem barbaric to a new generation like boxing already does today to mainstream audiences. People of the future may turn to baseball and, to paraphrase Obi Wan Kenobi, say that a baseball bat is a more elegant weapon for a more civilized time.