Sports Alert! – Los Angeles Lakers v Orlando Magic – Sports Alert!

Has B Roll lost it, posting about basketball on The Thom Hartmann Show blog?

I enjoy sports, but I’m not fanatic about it. But I was watching Game 4 of the NBA finals last night and I noticed something. Coming back from a commercial break, they had an outside shot of the arena. It’s named Amway Arena. I thought, “That sucks”, because I know that the people who own Amway are big funders of the far right and the religious right.

This morning, I come across an article in The Nation by Dave Zirin, the only openly progressive sports writer I know of. (OK, I don’t really know of many sports writers, but still…) The title of the article is “How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Lakers” and it can be found at http://www.thenation.com/doc/20090622/zirin

It turns out that the owner of the Orlando Magic is 83 year-old Richard Devos, the co-founder of Amway who has a $4.4 billion fortune, much of which he devotes to promoting right-wing causes. The name Devos may be familiar to you if you’re familiar with Jeremy Scahill’s writings about Blackwater, the mercenary company so infamous that they recently changed their name to Xe (pronounced zee). The son of Richard Devos is married to the sister of Erik Prince, the founder and sole owner of Blackwater. It’s the merging of two billionaire right-wing families.

Below are some excerpts from Ziron’s article:

DeVos has used not only his company but his own epic fortune at the service of his politics. He could be described as the architect, underwriter and top chef of every religious-right cause on Pat Robertson's buffet table. The former finance chair of the Republican National Committee, DeVos is far more than just a loyal party man. For more than four decades he has been the funder in chief of the right-wing fringe of the Christian fundamentalist movement. Before the 1994 "Republican Revolution" made Newt Gingrich a household name, Amway contributed what the Washington Post called "a record sum in recent American politics," $2.5 million. In the 2004 election cycle Amway and the DeVos family helped donate more than $4 million to campaigns pumping propaganda for Bush and company, with around $2 million coming out of Devos's own pocket.

He then used these extra gains to further empower his nonprofit, the Richard and Helen DeVos Foundation, to direct millions to groups that support radical reparative gay therapy, antievolution politics and other "traditional" family values. The organizations they support include Focus on the Family, the Foundation for Traditional Values, the Federalist Society, the Heritage Foundation, the American Enterprise Institute and the Media Research Center, among many others. They also supply grants to the Free Congress Foundation, which claims that its main focus is on the "Culture War." It hopes to "return [America] to the culture that made it great, our traditional, Judeo-Christian, Western culture."

The article also states that Devos is a big contributor to Florida4Marriage, a group that supports Florida’s Amendment 2 which would add Florida’s ban on gay marriage to the state’s constitution.

A thought on executive compensation and the right saying you can't limit it. We have a history of limiting executive pay, we taxed the crap out of it. You can have your 100 million, it will just cost you 90 million. If you can't live well on 10, tough.

B Roll
I did go back to yesterdays blog. Thank you for your thoughtful comments.
I agree with you that capacities, both physical and ontological are a function of use and practice.
My sense of the visualization thing is based on anecdotally. My granddad told me he was disappointed by talkie movies because the dialog was not as good as what he created in his head. Each viewer made up a dialog most appropriate to them.
I was a kid in Wyoming in the late 40s and early 50s and had no TV. When I finally saw shows like the Lone Ranger on TV, I was disappointed because they weren't as exciting as when I just closed my eyes and "saw" the radio show in my head.
The thing about kids playing with sticks speaks to that. I think if kids today had to give up their Gameboys and Wiis they would regain that visualization capacity. I don't think that it is an either/or conversation either. If kids could play with their tech stuff and also had some time when they got to play without it they could have a wider set of capacities.
This is a bit tangential, but some years ago I saw a story about a father with three kids. He attached a generator to a stationary bike and plugged the TV into it. He told them they could watch all the TV they wanted, all they had to do was pedal. He said it was a win/win/win situation. They practiced empathy, negotiation skills, watched a limited amount of TV and got lots of exercise. Practice in lots of life capacities.
I did find some more info regarding research for Mary Gordon's [I had forgotten her name yesterday] on http://rootsofempathy.org
http://rootsofempathy.org/Research.html
There is a list of several research studies, I didn't get into it deeper.
The info Thom gave about mothers seeing too much TV while pregnant is expounded upon in the Edison Gene, that's where I got the info re kids brains developing in ways depending on their exposure to cortisol.
I think the way the technology is used has more to do with the cortisol production that the technology itself. I do think there could be effects from the "flicker" and other cyclic phenomena from the technology.
I think kittens and puppies could give the same results re empathy. When families were larger, kids probably had more opportunity to practice empathy.
I can't remember the name of the thing in quantum physics that says basically that a process is impacted by the fact it is being observed, maybe the Observer Effect.
Thanks for stimulating my grey matter.

The insurance lobbies throw millions of dollars at the Congress members who seem never to miss a shot, quietly of course, we never hear them bragging about how much money they got for selling out their constituants.

This is legalized bribery and until this pratice is abolished, though I hardly see how, since Congress would have to vote a law which they will never do, how can there be any real change? The same House members and Senators get elected for years on end;

Campaign Finance Reform
The reason we cannot get anywhere with changes such as health care reform or any major legislation is because of corporate lobbying of Congress. We need to make bribing Congress illegal again. Campaign Finance Reform, including ONLY public financing of campaigns, must be instituted to free Congresspeople from enslavement by corporate lobbyists.
After THAT, we could potentially pass CFR...

The nine most terrifying words in the English language are, “We’re the United States, and we’re here to help.”

From B Roll updates Reagan - June 12, 2009

Todd,

As for progressive taxation, history is full of justifications if you care to look, but to point out a couple of my favorites:

The wealthy should pay a larger share of society's support cost because they have a lot more to lose if it fails. Sorta like insurance against chaos. It costs a lot more to insure a Lotus than a 1970 a Dodge Dart. And if the brakes fail on my Dart and I smash into the Lotus, they'll get another Lotus & I'll get yet another Dart. And without a fist fight breaking out.

But all else aside, taxing extreme and inherited wealth is the best way we have of limiting the highly destructive effect of its inordinate influence and control over society. Reagan & Bush's tax cuts for the wealthy was used to buy more tax cuts & less regulation & more media outlets, etc. which produced more wealth, which was used to buy even more power & influence... This cycle continued to the point where there was so much wealth that it had no where left to go. So, 'it' influenced the creation of new 'investment instruments' where it could be parked (sold to us), That worked out well, didn't it?

You may consider it un-fair to some particular individuals, but most societies and most humans that value the welfare of society as a whole over the interests of a minority of individuals, consider it just. The rising tide that lifts both the yachts and the kayaks it's the rising tide of the middle class, and the waters remain much calmer, the weather more pleasant. When the yacht captain Tinkle's down into the harbor, the kayaks don't rise much and the whole place begins to stink.

As to your point about the linkage between what you call our rising American socialism and the demise of our country:

In the past, the world accepted child labor, education only for the wealthy, etc, but the work and human morality continued to evolve. As wealth increased, most saw the obvious societal dangers of weak links in the chain. They also saw the advantage to everyone of using some of that wealth to strengthen the fabric of society. And we're all better off, including the wealthy.

The 1950's in America were what you might define as our most Socialist era, in that we had highly-progressive taxation, well-financed public education, huge government infrastructure investments, and a large amount of free college education (the GI Bill). We churned out tons of engineers and unprecedented engineering projects, most notably in the fields of electronics & aerospace.

Today, the Scandinavians produce the largest and most complex engineering projects on the planet. These are produced by a proliferation of engineers, which result from their free college education to all who work hard enough to make the grade. Their entire standard of living, including health, longevity, birth rate, crime, disposable, and overall happiness, would be the envy of every American, if we only knew. They are not Socialists in that they have not privatized everything, but they also understand that privation is not the right answer to everything.

I guess I disagree with your contention that we have become more socialist as we have declined. I see just the opposite. In 1980, we were the Scandinavia of the day, but Reagan began a long process of moving that line between which societal costs were socialized and which were privatized. Jump forward 29 years, and now all we produce is financial contracts. Trickle-down/Voodoo economics was touted as a rising tide that would lift all boats. The only thing that rose was income disparity, which is why the working people of this country experienced is as Tinkle-Down Economics.

Todd, we were sold a whole raft of pigs, all in the same poke, complete with lipstick.

- The aggregate of universal self-interest will produce the most good, and that every citizen is entitled to only as much life, liberty, and happiness as they can wrestle away from everyone else. It's OK if more for 'Me' means less for 'We'.

- Wealth in the abstract is guided by morality. It can not harm society and will not use any means available to continue growing.

- A piece of paper called a Corporation has the same Constitutional rights as a thinking, loving, laughing, crying, wondering, caring, parenting, living, dying human being.

- Money is speech, and that those with more money are guaranteed more 'free' speech by our Constitution.

- And above all, a democracy's elections can be privately financed. (the word 'oxymoron' come to mind)

I would agree with you that the government (or 'socialism' by your definition) is not the solution to health care, or any other of societal issue for that matter. But neither is privatization. I will vote for the solution that mixes the two. Health care that is publicly-insured and privately-delivered. It's called Single-Payer.

My TowMotor awaits.

Regards, and please pardon the crummy writing
Forklift Driver

Bill Jezzard,

Just in case you look back here:

I didn’t get the impression you were in favor of the material abundance we both commented on, quite the contrary. Maybe my response wasn’t clear enough. My position is mainly that from my layman’s perspective, I’m agnostic about the material abundance we have except from the ecological concerns and as an indication of the economic gap between the more and less privileged populations of the world. I hadn’t even taken into account issues of what it might be doing to our children’s brains.

I don’t know whether our children have lost the ability to visualize. I never thought about it. But now that you raised the issue, my instinct is that what and how they visualize may have shifted to ways that are more appropriate to the environment they grow up in. Their visualization may be more oriented towards electronic media which they experience constantly. This may be problematic for two reasons, at least: 1) No matter how digital our world gets, we’re still analog, at least for now. Who knows what the future holds. 2) The plug can be pulled on the electric/digital world from time to time. What will they do if their overly dependent on it? I would think it would be wise to raise our children to be competent in both the digital and analog worlds.

I’d agree that most children have a built in capacity for empathy and it’s either enhanced or diminished by their environment, mainly their families and cultures. It’s long been my theory that our thoughts (including emotions) are similar to physical skills. Physical skills tend to improve with practice and we know that neural pathways are created and strengthened through practice. I believe our thoughts are similar. If we have repeated opportunities to be empathetic it becomes second nature to us. If we practice being angry or self-centered that becomes our second nature, or as I sometimes call it our default setting. It’s like holding a branch of a tree into an unnatural position. But unless it’s held in that position for a very long time, it will snap back to its natural position as soon as you let go. Our conscious mind can push our thinking to go in a particular direction, but stress can loosen our conscious grip and we instinctively snap back to our old way of thinking.

That Canadian program sounds interesting, but I do have a few questions about it. The first is that I wonder if a kitten or a puppy would have the same effect. Maybe it would or maybe it wouldn’t. I can’t recall hearing of a child being afraid of babies, but I we all know that some children are afraid of animals. I can also see it as being possible that children might become more possessive towards an animal than they might over a little human.

I do remember that there have been programs in prisons that have shown that having an animal to take care of or even a garden to tend has many benefits, including reduced violence among prisoners involved.

The article isn’t very long and doesn’t give a lot of detail about the research. Articles like this usually mention the magic phrase, the gold standard of scientific research “double blinded”. I noticed the phrase isn’t in this article. You’d think, from the kind of people the article says were involved in the study, double blind protocols were used, but it isn’t stated. I wonder whether the people interpreting the behavior of the children knew which children were in the study group (with the baby) and which were in the control groups (without the baby)?

There are studies (probably many studies) showing that the expectations of the experimenters can have an effect on the results of the experiment. The study that is probably best know is one in which the experimenters were told that one group rats (or mice) were regular rats and another set were super intelligent. They were told that they were supposed to put the rats in a maze and see how quickly they were able to work their way to the end. But, as you probably know, the subject of the experiment was the experimenters not the rats. The result was that the experimenters handled the “smart rats” very nicely, but handled the “regular rats” roughly. The rats that were handled nicely performed better in the maze than the other rats, but they were all just regular rats.

The purpose of double blind studies is to eliminate experimenter bias as well as subject expectations. The purpose of peer review is to a large degree to make sure that proper protocols were set up and followed. Peer review wasn’t mentioned in the article either.

And then there’s the issue of repeatability. Can other researchers get the same results using the same protocols? It seems this is the only test of this method, and it may be the only test. This isn’t the kind of research that is tested by different teams.

I don’t know about the study that found that watching TV raises cortisol levels in children. I know that Thom has mentioned a study that found that mothers who experience a lot of stress during pregnancy produced high levels of cortisol which got into the systems of the children they were carrying and that led to the same result you described.

But if the study about TV is correct, I wonder if it’s the technology or the content that’s responsible for the raised cortisol levels.

I have to admit I am also interested to know what happened to the $9 trillion dollars the FED “lost,” what I understand is money that the FED “loaned” to financial institutions in recent years, and now cannot account for—none which is helping people who have lost their homes. That this is both outrageously incompetent and probably criminal need not be gainsaid. This lack of accountability is beyond the scope of the imagination of the mere mortal. I also find it interesting that banks are hastily repaying TARP money, for the reason that they need to get out from under the executive compensation restriction in order to pay “top” executives “top” dollar in order to retain them. Have these people learned nothing? Are they that contemptuous of the American people? Have they no sense of shame, morality or ethics? These “top” executives” helped drive this country’s economy into the ground, and they still have the utter gall to demand their “proper” compensation.

Also in the news is the federal lawsuit on behalf of residents of Baltimore against Wells Fargo, for predatory lending that specifically targeted African-Americans and seemed deliberately designed to take every last dime from new home-owners until their homes could be foreclosed on. People who bought homes on the lower-end of the price scale (in Baltimore mainly African-Americans) were charged higher mortgage rates than people who purchased homes on the higher-end, as well as mysterious fees and surcharges.

Great show on Thursday; I felt as if Thom and I were on the same page for once. Brian Tackett’s comment that we shouldn’t let guilt or shame prevent our children from learning from the past is in direct conflict with the wishes of the likes of Mathew Vadum, who doesn’t want the dirtiest laundry of the right aired. We shouldn’t be talking about these things at all according to the right, and organizations like the SPLC should be assailed for exposing hate groups. Why? Because the difference between the right, the hard-right, the far-right and the racist-right is only a matter of degree, whether it is the role of government or taxes. They also share a common ideology that white is the ultimate right, and other races are interlopers. With the white race “under siege,” how best marginalize non-whites is their principle area of disagreement.
I watched the recent Weather Underground documentary, and I have to admit (putting their underground activities aside) I didn’t find their commitment to social justice the least bit embarrassing, although their communiqués were, to quote a former leader of the student left, “Kindergarten” stuff. I was particularly fascinated by Bernardine Dohrn’s unequivocal and utterly fearless pronouncements, as when she declared it was inexcusable how anyone could enjoy Christmas after the murder of Black Panther leader Fred Hampton by Chicago police; the documentary, however, glossed over Dohrn’s unfortunate comments concerning the Sharon Tate murders. Interestingly, integration of police forces around the country was accelerated not by equal opportunity considerations, but by the desire to infiltrate black militant groups—including the officers who were involved in Hampton’s killing.

I wrote in Ron Paul's name.

Over the past 75 years, democrats have controlled the House 78% of the time, the Senate 72% of the time, and the White House 52% of the time. Between 1933 and 1999 (66 years), the democrats controlled ALL THREE AT THE SAME TIME for 33 years. Republicans? Two.

So given those stats, how is it that so many people STILL look to democrats to make their lives better?