Boreal B[l]og

A recent Fox News show claimed Minnesota was the first state to allow Sharia Law.  The reasoning included Somali cab drivers at MSP Airport, who refused to transport people who carried alcohol and a Muslim cashier at Walmart, who refused to handle bacon.  The latter was re-assigned.  The former?  Well, if a cab driver doesn’t want to take me, there are a lot of other cab drivers who would be more than happy to jump the queue.  We all must decide whether we are willing to take the financial consequences of our beliefs.

Assuming this is true, and given Fox, I would have liked to see this for myself, these are scare tactics, NOT news.  Sharia Law says that a nonbeliever must be put to death after first being allowed to convert to Islam and refusing.  I have been to Minnesota well over forty times, I have spent more than 300 nights in the state, and I haven’t even seen a mosque.  Fox plays on American fears of Muslims, the 25% who believe Mr. Obama is a Muslim (as if it mattered if he were), and Muslim beliefs.  Let’s look at a few of those beliefs: eschewing alcohol (like Mormons), not eating pork (like Jews), praying in hundreds (which every large Church does during its service).  Fox omits saying Islam requires charity outside of taxes, limits loan interest, which we would do well to adopt, believes in prayer as a time to reflect upon one’s life (doubt many do that), and fasting to remember how the poor feel. I respect these tenets, just as I respect many in Judaism and Christianity.  There is a lot of good in religion.  The Holy Books have beautiful passages.  The idea is good; the execution often is too good, using a different meaning of “execution”.

In other words, Fox News was cherry picking, and the cherries weren’t ripe to begin with.

Let me demolish the argument right now by going back to 1960, before most of the anchors were born.  John F. Kennedy was seeking to be the first Catholic President of the US.  Back then, people then said that if Kennedy were elected, the Pope would be making American policy.  Yes, I remember that.  We also know that the Pope did not make American policy.

Now, we have over 60 million Catholics in the US, our vice-president is one, and I didn’t hear anybody’s saying that an Argentinian (good heavens, a LATIN-AMERICAN) would order, from ITALY, of all places, Mr. Biden or 20% of our population what to do.  Fox missed the boat on that one.  Indeed, in the process of googling this, I saw a picture of women whose hair was covered, and thought they were Muslims.  They were NUNS. Why is it fine for a nun to cover her hair but not a Muslim woman who desires to do so?

This particular clip upset some.  One said the Somalis should “become Americans.”  What is that?  I think she meant waving the flag (even if you don’t look at it when the national anthem is played), have a yellow ribbon on your car (but never have served), go to a Christian Church every Sunday (but deny people who love each other the right to marry).  We have the right to believe what we wish in this country, no matter how detestable it may be.  They believe life begins at conception, have no idea how the fetus develops, but do not care about the baby’s welfare after birth, especially if a person of color.  The Declaration of Independence said all men are created equal, but didn’t say “physically equal”: some have bad genes and really rotten luck.  As a doctor, I saw many with horrific conditions, some preventable, most not.  How do we handle them?  By dismantling safety nets?

What is an American? Somebody who believes what Fox News says, or somebody who thinks about what they say and disagrees?  Somebody who believes food stamps should be outlawed because of an abuse story, yet thinks guns should be available despite very deadly countable daily abuse?  Food stamps have less fraud than Medicare. Illegal gun sales are common, not just anecdotes.

What is an American?  Somebody who thinks America right or wrong, but tosses litter out the window, or puts a box of kittens out in the desert?  Somebody who obeys laws they don’t like, or grazes cattle on public land without paying?  What is an American?  Is it prayer at public events, Christian prayer, that is, insulting non-Christians and non-believers, like me?  Who is “big government” we love to hate?  Do we hate ourselves?  WE ARE THE GOVERNMENT.  Would we demand government tell a Somali cab driver whom he should carry?  He has the right to refuse to serve a person.  Or do rights belong only to “native born” Americans?

Does being an American mean we need to start speaking and writing English better?  I’d welcome that.  Is it knowing American history?  Then why didn’t we learn from Vietnam and not attack another country in a part of the world that we have little understanding of?

Jews eat Kosher; their diets forbid pork, so I don’t see a problem with a Muslim who doesn’t want to touch pork.  I am vegetarian and don’t want to touch meat. The Native American Church is allowed to use peyote, otherwise illegal.  The Catholic Church uses wine, alcohol, in its services, forbidden by Islam.  Ironically, “blue laws,” which restrict the sale of alcohol on Sundays, affect me, although I neither abuse alcohol nor am a believer.  I have to obey religious doctrine in buying alcohol on Sunday.

How is a Somali’s refusal to transport alcohol Sharia Law?  Do we have Jewish, Catholic or Mormon Law in this country?  No, we have religious beliefs of many types, and we try to accommodate those beliefs.  The NCAA doesn’t make BYU play tournament games on Sunday.  Jews don’t work on their holy days, and we allow that.  Catholics celebrate Holy Week, most of of us Christmas.  Sharia Law?  No.  Are there women who wear the Hijab here?  Yes. Sikhs wear head coverings.  So do nuns.  What’s wrong with that?  At the last funeral I attended, the number of people wearing jeans appalled me.  And we worry about covering hair?  I’m ex-Navy, and I soon learned when one did and did not cover.  One salutes only when covered, not otherwise.  Sounds like covering the head is special.

People have strong beliefs.  I have mine, too, that one may read in the nearly three hundred posts here on the blog.  Some are perhaps irrational; others may appear to be but are not.  Decide for yourself this belief of mine:  Fox News promotes hatred and fear, is biased, too often appears in public places, and violates the interpretation of the First Amendment. There are limits to “free speech,” and Fox has crossed them.  If I am wrong on that, correct me.  Then try to convince me Fox is “fair and balanced.”

If my wife wears a cover in Minnesota, it is to protect against mosquitoes, not Sharia Law.

At the recent Track and Field championship in Eugene, I heard numerous announcements and saw commercials on the big screen about “student athletes”. I don’t like big screen ads during competition, since it is distracting, and I doubt the money generated goes to help students in financial difficulty or to pay grad students better,

It appears the NCAA is pushing the term “Student athlete” vigorously, as former UCLA basketball star Ed O’Bannon is suing them about not receiving compensation for the NCAA’s use of pictures of former “student athletes”.  He was joined by Oscar Robertson, who puts Mr. O’Bannon in lofty company.  O’Bannon was one of the few who succeeded professionally in his sport.  He led UCLA to the NCAA basketball championship in 1995.  He was drafted 9th but played only 2 years in the NBA and 8 years in Europe.  He now sells cars in Las Vegas.  He disappeared, but his reappearance now may be the most important thing he does in his life: change the sham that college football and basketball are played by “student athletes.”

Universities generate $4.5 billion from football and basketball alone, enough to cancel 190,000  student loans of $24K, the average for Oregon.  Or pay grad students better.  Or pay the players who actually do the work, not those who benefit from such work.  Alabama’s football coach makes $5.5 million; Arizona’s basketball coach $2 million, and he is far from the best paid.  The median salary of an associate (tenured) professor of physics is $70,000.   In Eugene, Matthew Knight Arena cost $227 million, a 2002 “facelift” at Autzen Stadium was $20 million.  The NCAA generates nearly $1 billion, mostly from the “March Madness” basketball tournament.  I heard numerous times 89 championships and 450,000 “student athletes,” with 90% of the revenue returning to the schools.  Why would the NCAA be saying what per cent goes back to the schools, unless they felt they were under fire?

So, $100,000,000 remains, and I write the number, because seeing it is often useful. The $4,500,000,000 ($4.5 billion) is one-seventh of what America spends on the NIH, which I think does a lot more good for people, but I might be wrong.  Sports are perhaps more important than finding cures for diseases like Alzheimer’s.

The issue the NCAA doesn’t appear to understand, or at least doesn’t want to admit, is that football and basketball are different:  athletes and coaches involved in these sports are not the same as athletes and coaches in other sports.  John Calipari at Kentucky has well over a $35 million package for the rest of the decade.  An assistant football coach makes 6 figures, one has made a million; an assistant track and field coach makes about $20-40K.  Look it up.  I did.

The question for the NCAA is this: how much should men’s basketball and football players be paid?  It isn’t “whether” but “how much?”  These players are abusing their young bodies, not mentally mature, and vulnerable to being used.  They often do not finish college, taking a slim chance they will have a pro career, that in the case of even O’Bannon was short. The probability a college football player’s playing professionally is 2%; basketball is 1%.  OK, 1.2%.  The probability of graduating without a degree and without playing a professional sport is a minimum 15-30 times higher, approaching 70% in some places. These players are not going to find good jobs, their joints worse than mine, and I am 3 times older.  Football brain damage isn’t even being factored in here.

The concept of “student athlete” works if it is a Dartmouth runner who loves to run but must meet high standards of an Ivy League school.  The runner may perform well enough to be in the 5000 meter finals in Eugene, but he was lapped well before the end. This is a student athlete.  He loves track, but his life work will be something else.  Dartmouth, like all Ivy League schools, does not offer athletic scholarships.  If a university does, it is subsidizing an athlete, not a student.  This to me, a Dartmouth alumnus, is an important distinction.  Only a third of the 450,000 get athletic scholarships; four sports: football, men and women’s basketball, and women’s volleyball, give full rides.  Is that payment?  If it is, then they aren’t primarily students.

Football and basketball players are too often athletes who happen to attend classes.  Their graduation rates approach 70%, better than it was, but a significant number of programs graduate fewer than half. What was their major? I doubt it was physics, chemistry, mathematics, English, or literature.  Many athletes on full athletic scholarships are a farm team for the pros, leaving college when they believe they can turn professional.  To put their faces or names on a shirt, while they are in college, so that the NCAA or the school can make money, is using them as pawns.  This happened to Michigan’s “Fab Five” 20 years ago.

There are student athletes, and there are student athletes.  The NCAA compares both equally, and they are not.  The volleyball coach at the University of Arizona knew full well that successful recruiting and funding of his program depended upon a successful football and basketball program. Eleven of Arizona’s 13 programs listed lost money, including volleyball.  The profits from men’s football and basketball were about $26 million, more than enough to compensate.  Graduation percentages are tricky, and I don’t like the 6 year definition; I got through Dartmouth in 4, and the Dartmouth man who ran the 5000 at the NCAAs will likely do it in 4, too.

I am concerned about big corporations buying advertising, using handsome young men and pretty young women with nice voices to push a toxic agenda, be it chemical, like ExxonMobil, or sport, like the NCAA.  Money talks, it talks too much, and it is time to shut it up. Money could be used to pay for good professors, not coaches, lessen the burden of student debt, develop first rate researchers, writers, educators, and try to lift more poor out of poverty.  Ads? Request retired people like me to help tutor or use our experiences and wisdom.  Bet they wouldn’t cost much on a Jumbotron.   This is the 21st century.  We need educated people to understand the growing complexity of this world. Fox News has a simple answer for everything.  There are few simple answers, and that makes life difficult. Instead of embracing complexity, we pay tens of millions to a coach to help young men put a ball through a metal rim.  If your team wins, you feel better about life. Is escape the point?

When I cared about basketball, O’Bannon was a name to be feared in Arizona.  Now, I wish him every bit of success off the court.  Stay with this cause, sir, for this is where you may make your mark in life.  I bet you never expected that.