Michael Vick and the Court of Public Opinion

Don’t you just get tired of the court of public opinion?  Everyone has an opinion on Michael Vick.  The latest to lobby in is President Obama.  Or how about this guy who thinks Vick should be executed?

There is definitely a double standard.  Depending on the issue of the day, you get a guy like Michael Vick who did 19 months in jail plus 2 months home confinement and literally was on the fringe of bankruptcy.  Then you have no one talking about people like Donte Stallworth who killed a human being because he was driving while intoxicated.  Stallworth got a whopping 30 days in jail.  No one talks about Stallworth, but everyone talks about Vick.  Or how about Ray Lewis who was present at the scene of a murder?  Or Pacman Jones who is now playing again? The point is not that people don’t deserve a second chance.  It is that the court of public opinion consistently has double standards.  

Remembering Bob Feller

Bob Feller, a Cleveland sports icon died this past week.  It is hard as an outsider to appreciate the influence Bob Feller had on the city of Cleveland.  He is the only Cleveland sports player to have a statue put up in his honor.  It is a statue of him as a young man throwing his nearly 100 mph fastball.  Bob Feller was loved and admired in so many ways.  He was admired as a man who gave up four years of a baseball career to serve in the military.  He was admired as a man who made the city of Cleveland his home and was a fixture representative of the Indians in the good times and the bad. 

Bob Feller went to every single Indians fantasy camp.  He readily posed with the campers.  He was never one of those guys who thought too much of himself.  When I attended 10 years ago, he regularly hung out with the guys.  One time I was sitting eating lunch by myself when he sat down across from me and entered into a conversation.  Two young kids sat down next to me and also engaged in the conversation.  Then one of the kids asked Bob “What are we going to do now Grandpa?”.  Feller pitched in every game the campers played against the Indians alumni.  They were careful to pitch him against the guys that couldn’t hit a line drive that might hurt an 80 year old man (so that did not include me). 

There aren’t too many these days like Bob Feller in the generation of athletes that are hung on themselves.  I wish there were more.

Is a Good Education a Lottery Win?

I watched recently the movie “The Lottery”.  It was about Harlem school children trying to get into the Harlem Success public charter school.  This school like most (not all) charter schools is dramatically outperforming their counterparts in the public schools.  I recently heard Ron Richard, President of the Cleveland Foundation talk about the sorry state of Cleveland schools.  The issue is not money, it is effectiveness.

The main problem – the teacher’s unions.  The unions goal is job security, even if it is at the expense of children’s education.  Our schools are woefully underperforming other countries.  Only 50% of kids in the inner city will graduate.  Of those the average kid is reading at an 8th grade level.  Only 20% are actually reading at their grade level.  The unions don’t care about your kids, they care about their jobs.  That is why unions are not about reform, but about politics.  New York City in the last two years has fired only 3 out of 55,000 tenured teachers.  It is nearly impossible to fire a poor performing teacher. 

It will take a grass roots effort to root out the unions and get accountability in the public schools.  The logical path is to offer alternatives whether publicly or privately funded.  Harlem Success takes the same public funds and turns out a good product.  It is the fact that the teachers are held accountable and the teachers themselves are not hamstrung by an ineffective system.  

10 Things I Hate About the NBA

Boy, it was really hard to watch last Thursday’s return to Cleveland by Lebron.  It was not a hard prediction, but I did project in my previous blog that the fans would make Lebron feel the “heat”.  They did that and it probably stung for about a quarter before Miami dominated the “contest” and made it a non-event.  Lebron had perhaps his best game of the season.  In watching the game, it reminded me of everything I absolutely detest about the NBA.  Here they are in no particular order:

1. Too many teams make the playoffs.  Why play 82 games during the regular season?
2. Games are hideously expensive.  To sit in the nosebleed section costs at least $50. 
3. Related to #2 – players make way too much money.
4. Too much stupid stuff on the sidelines, before and during the game. 
5. Players falling in love with 3 point shot.
6. Celebration of the individual and not the team.
7. Players from opposite teams are too cozy.  What happened to the competitive fire
8. Too many foul shots and some really ugly foul shooting (Shaq, Ben Wallace, Dwight Howard).  How could an NBA player shoot 50% from the foul line?
9. The really dumb rule which allows you to call time out while falling down. 
10. Too many games decided in 4th quarter.  A foul call here or there changes too many games.

Government Pay Again in Bubbleland

I continue to be amazed at the continuing “bubble” our government leaders live in.  Obama made a big deal on how he was freezing government salaries.  He was saving 5 billion dollars he says?  Hello?  Last I checked you only save money when you cut.  Kind of like going on a Christmas spending spree and saying that you saved money because you bought at sales prices. 

You see in the real world, when you are underwater, you cut costs.  But not in Bubbleland.  I reported in an earlier blog that government salaries are quite out of whack from what private sector is.  As long as there is a vested interest to protect and not to take serious the crippling budget deficit, then no meaningful progress will be made.  How about an across the board cut of 30% starting with your salary?  That is what we have had to do in tough times in our company.

Lebron Back in Town

Tomorrow is the big day.  Lebron is back in town as the Miami Heat visit the Cleveland Cavaliers.  Lost in the shuffle is the fact that Zydrunas Ilgauskas (or “Z”) will also be back in town as he also defected to Miami.  Lebron says this year is not as fun.  Apparently it is because he now has a coach that won’t let him walk all over him.  Now we have “bumpgate” because supposedly Lebron bumped into the Miami coach intentionally at a timeout.  Miami Heat are quickly becoming the soap opera of professional basketball.   I really believe he now thinks he made a mistake. 

Here is my prediction tomorrow.  First the easy part.  Big Z will be cheered, perhaps even a standing ovation.  He left under the right circumstances and in the right way.  He conducted himself with class and professionalism.  He is one of us.

I am fearful that something ugly will happen with Lebron.  There is a lot of pent up hostility towards that young man.  Booing is the least of what could occur.  Throwing things could happen.  Hopefully not.  I hope Lebron doesn’t do the rosin powder thing.  Again it will be an “in your face” thing that will probably set a very bad tone. 

Cleveland is a very proud town.  Lebron didn’t just reject Cleveland; he threw it back in our faces.  We are not much bigger than a small town – no, we are a small town.  We take it personally, like family.  Sure we got over it because this town has a lot more to offer than just a narcissistic misguided young man.  But we don’t like to be embarrassed.  For that reason, he will get the full brunt of it.