Boreal B[l]og

This past week, the current Heisman Trophy winner (football’s best player last season) was seen and heard outside on campus shouting obscenities related to a woman’s anatomy.  This was well documented, as most shocking events are, and he was suspended for the first half of the next football game.

A half game suspension.  You might need him the second half.  Football matters.

There is a code of student conduct at this university, and the spokesman assured the media they would investigate to see if the player’s behavior required greater sanctions.

It did.  Two days prior to the game, the player was suspended for the whole game.  Wow. The coach’s name was not part of the signatures on the suspension document, and he had no comment, the significance of such not clear.

The press reported more:

• At the news conference following the incident, the player said, “I have to tone it down.”  TONE IT DOWN?  To what?  Using proper medical terms?  This is a man in the public eye; a downside of which is having to control one’s speech and behavior better than the rest of us. If I swear loudly in public, I am told to shut up.  If I continue, I get arrested.  I won’t make the news.  This person is one of the best football players in the country, a role model, yet he feels that outrageous, obscene behavior in public needs only to be “toned down”?

• While playing baseball for the same university, he was suspended 3 games plus community service after stealing $32.72 of crab legs.  This is theft.  Does the university have sanctions about students who steal?  I noted he didn’t steal a textbook.

• A student complained he assaulted her in 2012.  The state attorney declined to pursue the case, which is not necessarily wrong.  The location, type, and evidence of the assault may or may not be easily prosecuted, and if you were that woman, would you take on a famous football player in court?  It would require immense courage. The university is reported to be still investigating.  Two years later?  Why the delay?  Until the end of football season?

• He is under investigation for another 2012 incident where he broke 13 windows in a “BB gun battle”.   How long does it take to decide innocence or guilt and bring justice?  Admittedly, my medical background biases me, because I didn’t have two years to figure out what was wrong with a patient.  Sometimes, I had only two minutes.
• He was held at gunpoint by campus police for shooting squirrels on campus.  The year wasn’t mentioned, but this behavior is not only sociopathic (shooting squirrels on campus is not equal to hunting deer), but animal abuse, which correlates highly with sociopathy and human abuse, bringing me back to his comments about and behavior towards women.  There is a short step between screaming obscenities and assaulting women. Oh, he did allegedly assault a woman, so that step was likely taken, unless the university finally finishes their investigation.  When does he go from abuse of women, BB gun fights, and shooting squirrels to shooting people?  How much warning does the university need to conclude this man is trouble?

• A Burger King employee called police because the player stole soda. The media did not mention what happened, but I suspect a minimum wage working person’s comment against a Heisman Trophy winner’s behavior was not going to carry much weight.  Crab legs are more expensive than soda, but theft is theft.

• The university in question was becoming “less tolerant” towards this person’s behavior.  That is encouraging to know:  apparently in this southern state, there are limits: assault, shooting animals, a BB gun fight, theft on two occasions, breaking windows, and screaming obscenities is enough to decrease tolerance.  My mother’s tolerance for my behavior was making me pay and apologize for stealing a 3 cent fireball when I was 8 and washing my mouth out with soap when I swore.  Yeah, nearly 60 years later, I still remember that.

The student-athlete, since that is what the NCAA calls him, was suspended for one game.  The concern has been raised that such behavior will affect his professional career in football.  Wow.  He’s a sociopath with access to firearms.  My concern is that he will some day injure and perhaps kill a woman, a minimum wage worker, companion animals or have his name on another US shooting rampage, and everybody will wonder how this could have happened.  I won’t. I will know that the university considered football; money from it and alumni donors were more important than dealing with an armed sociopath, and I say that term as a 1982 diplomate of the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology.

As a neurologist, I have issues with football:  it damages the brain, but people love the game.  There is a tremendous amount of money involved, none goes to the “student athletes” or to scholarships, other than athletic ones.   Far too many alumni still have their lives revolve around the team’s record.  It was sad in Friday Night Lights that many who played high school football felt that was the high point in their lives.

I believe compensation for football-related brain injuries was overdue, if not overdone.  However, I believe if the game is not changed, those who now play it are voluntarily choosing to do something dangerous. I don’t feel I should be taxed to pay for their medical care, should it be related to multiple concussions. Let the NFL, the highly paid players, or the coaches pay.

I admit it: I believe those who make millions playing with a ball should be taxed at a higher rate than the rest of us. I am not jealous.  I live comfortably on far less.  I don’t believe “He who dies with the most toys wins.”  I believe my retirement should be spent volunteering in my community.  America is the land of opportunity, not outright greed and outrageous behavior by stars and willingness by many to buy their apparel, pay big bucks to see games, pay coaches in the glory sports 6,7, or 8 figures, yet pay assistant coaches in other sports (track and field, for example) $20-$40 K.

Let the market decide?  NO.  The markets have not been shown to self-regulate, any more than physicians or any other group.  If we self-regulated ourselves, there would be no litter on the roads, limitation on campaign donations, and those who pass on the right and cut in front of you, when the right lane is closed ahead, would not exist.  You have seen them, I’m sure.

America is the land of opportunity, not unbridled greed or uncontrollable behavior.  It is an opportunity for the university to stand up for what is right, regardless of the cost. Justice for all?  Yes, for those who were harmed by the player’s words and actions, and for those who will be spared harm by removing him from the society until or unless he shows his remorse through appropriate actions.

You see, I don’t listen to what people say.  I watch their feet.

Years ago, soon after I began practicing, a colleague brought his wife to see me.  After a workup, I diagnosed her with probable MS.  About a month later, the colleague somewhat gleefully called, telling me he had his wife seen at University Hospital by an expert, who felt she did not have MS.  I don’t remember my reply.  I probably was quiet, concerned I had erred.

At a medical meeting dinner, years later, this same colleague was seated at the same table as I, and he told someone aloud about his wife’s treatment at UCLA for “MS.”  I stayed quiet; he didn’t show any sign of having made a faux pas. I was wise enough not to remind him. Being right doesn’t require one to say it.  My mistake that first day?  I told both of them what I thought was wrong, not what they wanted to hear.

Ted Cruz said the President was acting outside the law on immigration, when in fact Mr. Obama’s actions are in accordance with a 2008 law, signed by Mr. Bush, requiring deportations from countries other than Canada and Mexico to be processed here.  The Central American refugees came through not only a hole in the border but a hole in a law Mr. Cruz and his colleagues are in charge of making.  Mr. Boehner won’t move any law on immigration through this year.  He has the power to do something great, but he won’t.

DML News tells listeners what they want to hear: “we’re screwed,” bad immigration stories, things wrong in Washington, nuclear material missing, how Obama is destroying the country and wasn’t born here (which has become really tiresome), Benghazi an impeachable offense, and we should take action in Iraq.  The big problem in Iraq didn’t happen this year; it happened when we invaded it.  Remember Colin Powell’s “Pottery Barn” comment?  Remember the horrible year, 2006?  No, that is ancient history, and people don’t like to hear about inconvenient history.

Mr. Obama inherited two wars, an economy in shambles, a banking system almost shut down, an incipient depression, a horrible deficit (the war funding was kept off budget) and a divided Congress.  If one doesn’t want to hear that, I’m telling it anyway, because I tell people what I think, if it is truthful.  Surprise:  Obama hasn’t fixed everything yet.   Surprise:  He has had nearly zero Republican support.  If Ted Cruz or Rick Perry becomes President, by golly, we will have everything fixed and right with America in 100 days, max.

To those who believe that, please comment in detail exactly what needs to be done, and send to me, because I‘m curious.  Please address the following: how we will balance the budget, give every American health insurance, deal with immigration, the EU, Iraq, Iran, Palestine, North Korea, Russia, China, fix infrastructure, schools, and climate. I want details.  Please, tell me how we should deal with California’s water crisis using knowledge of what an acre foot is.  In this blog, I have addressed the budget, Iraq, schools, climate, and California’s water crisis.  It isn’t what a lot of people want to hear.  I may be wrong, but I used facts and offered detailed suggestions.  An acre foot is about 325 K gallons of water, by the way.

People don’t want to hear about climate change, because it bothers them.  People want politicians to tell the truth, until they do, and then vote for the opponent, because the truth is so unappealing.  The world is not simply a matter of US troops fixing what is wrong.  Superheroes don’t exist.  We cut FEMA to save money but then complained when government wasn’t immediately present after Katrina.  Remember Katrina?   Remember Sandy?  Who was president during each, how was the response and in what year did each occur?  If you are an American and can’t answer at least 7 of those 8 questions, shame.

Tell me how we fix unfairness that gives the Deep South more government money than they send, yet has taken a trillion dollars from New York State in the last 20 years.  Yes.  Look it up.  Incredibly, the South gets money from big government, hates same, and many of its states rank 45th or below in major health care indicators compared to the rest of the country.  What gives?

We live in a complex world, unable to be simplified in 30 seconds.  Immigration is no exception. I think overpopulation is the most significant issue we face, along with consequential environmental degradation and climate change.  In my lifetime, not likely to be more than a decade or two, I will survive. People, like Ted Cruz, in their 40s, are going to reap the wind they have helped sow.

I am a strong believer in public education, not only because people with education get good jobs, they have fewer children.  Complex problems are not addressed with simple answers: it is easy for Mssrs. Flake and Cruz, who don’t have to run the country, tell people what they want to hear.  Like my doctor colleague, they blast guys like me who conclude something else.  You are wrong, they say, and yes, I might be, words not one of them has used.  I have been right on evolution, climate change, the stock market bubble and Iraq, not because I am particularly brilliant, but because my education taught me to think about issues, open my mind, look at all sides, and draw conclusions, which subsequently I may change.  

We need good ideas about immigration; we need skilled workers who are legally here.  The 2008 law needs to be changed, and Mr. Cruz should be leading, not using his charisma and debating ability to tell people what they want to hear.  We must deal with illegal immigration, not win a debate, and there is no perfect solution.  Nobody wants to hear that.  Nobody is even saying it.

Nobody can balance the budget or pay for everything we want without raising taxes.  This is a mathematical truism.  Instead, politicians tell us what we want to hear:  “I will protect America’s elderly and borders, we will have a strong military, and I will do it without raising taxes.”  If we believe that, we are either downright stupid or believe in magical thinking.

I was sorry the woman had MS.  I was sorry for all the families to whom I told a loved one was either brain dead or irreversibly brain injured.  I am sorry for the people whom I told had metastatic cancer to the brain or carcinomatous meningitis.  I told the truth.  Many of my colleagues disliked me, for I said things that people didn’t want to hear.  Many referred patients elsewhere, not to me.

What interested me was that a dozen of these physicians—I counted— brought themselves or their family members to me, even though they sent neurological consults to the other guy.