The Tale of Danica Patrick and Other Dubious Legends Produced by ESPN

I hate you ESPN, and its not just because of the aging, douchebag hipsters that host the increasingly vacuous Sportscenter and the absolutely painstaking commentaries of shills like Stephen A. Smith and Joe Morgan (with his lifetime .271 batting average). No, what I'm really angry about is your evolution from a simple, objective sports network into a marketing firm for unproven, often mediocre athletes. Case in point, Danica Patrick.

For those of you who haven't been hornswoggled into Danicamania and its associated drivel, Danica Patrick is a twenty-four year old female driver in something called the IRL. The IRL is, from what I can tell by perusing their website, essentially NASCAR without the chewing tobacco and Lynard Skynard music. As to auto racing, I share the feelings of George Carlin, who once quipped that auto racing was "a bunch of redneck jerkoffs driving five hundred miles in a circle... children can do that." But I digress, because very little of what you hear or see of Danica Patrick is related to her actual skills piloting a four-wheeled rocket. Rather, Danicamania is touted as a vehicle for breaking barriers, promoting fashionable consumption and, most importanly to Patrick and her handlers, selling merchandise.

She's the one with the long hair.

Patrick has been racing for over a year in the IRL, but has never won a race. Regardless of her lack of success, every Sportscenter segment that has covered an IRL race in the last year begins with Danica strking a pose, highlights of the crashes and then some European fellow crossing the finish line and bathing in a bottle of champagne. Cut to aging douche hipster telling us that Patrick finished eighth, or tenth, or wherever. Perhaps in light of this practice of constant exposure, Patrick was given the 2005 IRL Rookie of the Year (though I couldn't find any voting results) and has been featured on the covers of Sports Illustrated, TV Guide and ESPN: The Waste of Paper. That brings us to Memorial Day 2006.

During the Memorial Day weekend, Patrick raced in the apparent World Series of the IRL, the Indianapolis 500. ESPN spent the days before the race following the format laid out above. Danica had time to do some 150 interviews with media concerns. ESPN and other mindless "news" outlets trumpted Patrick's finish. Second? Fouth? No, not even close. Eighth. But you probably already knew that. She's the Gaylord Fokker of the auto racing industry.

Despite Patrick's lackluster finish, she and her marketing machine managed to score over 3,600 separate mentions in news sources covered by Google as of today. The three drivers who finished immediately in front of Partick at fifth, sixth and seventh (Tony Kannan, Scott Dixon and Dario Franchitti) combined for a total of less than ten substantive mentions in news sources as of today. WTF?

In addition to the inordinate amount media coverage Patrick receives, there's another way to tell that Patrick, outside of her race car, is simply a marketing gimmick. If someone has the audacity to write a newspaper article casting the critics of Patrick as sexist, and another castigating Richard Petty (a successful driver) for simply stating his fact-based opinion on Patrick's lack of success, then you know the hype machine is running overtime. Even a seemingly level-headed debate of the virtues of her driving skill is mired in accusations of sexism and the now-universal (and, in my opinion, fitting) Anna Kornikova analogy. It's not sexism or Richard Petty who should be on trial, but rather the needless hype of second-rate athletes with first-class marekting potential.

As long as Patrick continues to finish in the exhaust fumes of other drivers, she simply does not qualify as a sports icon, let alone merit the 3,600 stories extolling her eight place finish. But ESPN and other mindless promoters have and will continue to hype her-- at least until a younger, more attractive female driver comes along to supplant her and, perhaps, garner a few years of unwarranted fame. I hate you ESPN.

[UPDATE 4/25/08: Danica wins the Indy Japan 300. Read my reaction.]

The Shortsighted Nature of Corporate Avarice

In the past few days, as I've received reader feedback on my posting on Bush's immigration speech, a common retort I've received is that I shouldn't mind if my portfolio benefits from a corporation's exploitation of its workers, whether illegal immigrants or not. So, I asked myself, when, if ever, does social responsibility trump a corporation's lawful right to profit? This question has been debated from the time of Adam Smith, who once remarked, “[I]t is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest.” In other words, corporate actors have a vested interest in acting responsibly, as acting irresponsibly or wastefully will, in theory, destroy their enterprise. While I haven't discovered a way to provide this source online, an excellent documentary addressing this question is fairly reviewed here.

As I ponder this question and search for my own evidence, my thoughts first turn to the Kansas City Royals, a shining example of corporate irresponsibility. With their most recent loss today, the Royals are a major-league worst 10-31. After today's loss, KC pitcher Scott Elarton quipped, "[W]e're just terrible. There are no two ways about it. We're pretty much bad in every facet of the game." Despite the fact that the team is terrible and, quite frankly, has been the worst team in baseball for several years, Forbes magazine recently reported that the team cleared a twenty million dollar profit in 2005. The team vigorously disputes the Forbes report, but (perhaps conveniently) cannot issue any empirical evidence of its finances pursuant to the rules of Major League Baseball. Sources indicate that the Royals, with a thirty-six million dollar payroll and inconsequential external expenses for uniforms, miinor leaguers, etc., will receive in excess of fifty-five million in MLB revenue sharing money this year. Thus, all the Royals need to do to be profitable is simply to exist. It doesn't matter if the Royals ever draw a single fan. Good for the business, bad for its customers. Given the woeful state of the Royals franchise from the perspective of its fans, it should come as no surprise to learn that the owner of the Royals, David Glass, is the former President and CEO of Wal-Mart, a corporation that has received broad criticism for failing to act responsibly.

Apparently, Glass is taking what he learned at Wal-Mart and transplanting it to the sports entertainment industry. It doesn't take much effort to find examples of Wal-Mart, bolstered by tax incentives granted by shortsighted local governments, cruising in to town to usurp the markets once dominated by locally-owned and operated businesses. After a brief war of attrition, local merchants close up shop, layoff their employees and contribute to the recently saturated commercial real estate market. After that, Wal-Mart can, in many senses, operate in a market similar to that of the Kansas City Royals. By simply existing as the only retailer in town, guaranteed to profit, Wal-Mart, like the Royals, has no incentive to "field a winning team," but can, instead, exhaust its welcome package of tax breaks and either timely relocate to another market or leverage its monopoly position to extract an extension of those incentives. To the extent you believe Wal-Mart would not engage in such behavior, you really need to see Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Prices.

A consequence of the destruction of the locally-owned business is a significant decline of reinvestment of local retail profits. The revenue once generated by locally owned businesses is now driven exclusively to Wal-Mart, to be transferred to the institutional investors that own Wal-Mart stocks and bonds, or used by the corporate offices to conquer new markets or create new "efficiencies" to extract even more profit margin from its suppliers. Good for Wal-Mart, bad for the exploited municipalities, low-paid Wal-Mart employees and pinched suppliers. In essence, the profit is taken away from the local economy with little to no local reinvestment. The tax that can be collected by local government on Wal-Mart's local sales is often earmarked for public safety, educating our ever-growing adolescent population, supporting the indigent and rebuilding or expanding the infrastructure required by the beheamoth big-box retailer. Moreover, because Wal-Mart fails to provide benefits to many of its workers, these needs are socialized to the local government and, ultimately, taxpayers. All of these expenses, in the aggregate, always exceed the sales tax revenue. It's the modern business model slam-dunk, socialize the risk and "externalities," while privatizing the profit. At the end of the day, towns that are overrun by national retail chains will get the raw end of the deal.

Of course, it's not only Wal-Mart and other retail giants that fail to reinvest locally, but, rather, a multitude of industries and service companies from your local office of a national insurance company to the local subsidiary of your power supplier. As stated above, these companies are also often enjoying tax relief (whether local, state or federal) and other incentives not available to small, locally owned businesses. Unfortunately, local governments face a Catch-22, choosing between destroying the local economy through granting these tax subsidies in order to lure these businesses to town or suffering through the high unemployment that results from population growth coupled with the flight of manufacturing companies reducing their costs by
relocating to countries with cheap, willing labor. This system, if continued, will ultimately destroy local economies and, eventually, the national consumer economy. Bad for everyone except multinational corporations that can continue to seek out low cost labor, while piling up profits for those few individuals and institutions that can afford to benefit from substanital ownership in the equity or bonds of multi-national corporations.

Another glaring example of corporate irresponsibility is pollution. Again, with corporation's acting on a pure profit motive, it's no wonder why they choose to pollute. It's simply cheaper than not polluting. Investing in pollution control is much more expensive than simply bribing regulators and "contributing" to the right people on the House and Senate committees that control energy legislation and regulation. Again, there's precedent for this practice. Remember the Pinto? Prior to the first model coming off the line, Ford Motor Company has been proven to have had extensive knowledge that the fuel system on its Pinto Model would explode in many garden-variety rear-end collisions. Rather than spend the extraordinary sum redesigning the automobile and retooling its assembly line, Ford made an internal "cost-benefit analysis" that indicated that settling wrongful death lawsuits would be cheaper than investing in alterations to its manufacturing process. After eight years and hundreds of deaths, Ford made those adjustments. However, it confessed no guilt, instead settling with the NTSB for an undisclosed sum while admitting no wrongdoing, thus avoiding any nasty civil lawsuits based on admitted criminal behavior.

Returning to my initial prompt, when, if ever, does corporate responsibility trump a corporation's lawful right to profit? The answer, it seems to me, is when the pursuit and capture of profit causes more harm than good. Corporations and their evil step-daughters, the private equity funds, do promote economic growth on a pure profit basis. This growth and the concomitant profits, however, are increasingly going into the hands of fewer and fewer people. We'd all like to believe that the people who receive this disproportionate amount of wealth are all philanthropists and statesmen. That notion is simply too often incorrect. In many instances, personal wealth has become a selfish man's pursuit. In even the best case scenario (the Gates Foundation's effort to eradicate malaria, for example), vast sums of money are appropriated to fewer and fewer causes with little to no domestic, small-scale focus.

I truly believe that an economic system that prohibits monopoly and discourages the pure profit motive produces a more open, clean, egalitarian and stable society. If the above examples of Wal-Mart and the Kansas City Royals suggest anything, it's that avarice, whether individual in Mr. Glass's case or a coalition of Wal-Mart shareholder-executives, will ultimately destroy the object of their exploitation. Fortunately, the Royals operate in a system in which twenty-nine other teams have power over their operations. Those teams will ultimately have to fix the system that allows the Royals to profit solely on money paid by those other teams. However, corporate beheamoths like Wal-Mart face no such peers.

Absent monopolies or significant barriers to entry, markets will act efficiently. However, when the market is as vast as the American political landscape, and is staffed by officials that are beholden to corporate contributors, there is little efficiency or collective good. Corporate avarice goes unpunished and, consequently, unchecked when the only force operating to admonish it is itself propped up by it. While those who exploit in avarice will benefit in the short term, they, and everyone they exploit, will suffer over time.

Your comments are welcomed.

It's a bird, it's a plane... well, maybe we'll never know

As numerous media outlets reported Monday, two videos of the explosion at the Pentagon on September 11, 2001, have been released to Judicial Watch pursuant to a FOIA request.

As an aside, I've been following http://www.flight77.info/, a website documenting a FOIA request for these same videos, along with some colorful, often humorous commentary, since its inception in March 2005. Oddly, the government's response to the flight77.info FOIA request indicates that there are at least eighty-five videotapes in the possession of the FBI that recorded the events at or near the Pentagon on September 11. Those tapes should be forthcoming, but I'm getting ahead of myself.

Back to Judicial Watch who, according to their president Tom Fitton, sought the videos, "to complete the public record with respect to the terrorist attacks of September 11.'' Fitton went on to say that, "[w]e hope that this video will put to rest the conspiracy theories involving American Airlines Flight 77.''

Before you view the videos, you should know that an extraordinary number of news outlets, both print and television, have asserted that these videos put to rest any remaining notion that the events of 9/11 are any different than as reported in the 9/11 Commission report. Now watch the two videos (1 and 2) and ask yourself, was that a bird, a plane or a quick blurb that you just can't make out no matter how many times you try to pause the videos.

I believe that the videos prove nothing, unless the absence of evidence is truly evidence of absence. Anyone who definitively states that there is an image of an American Airlines 757 on either of these videos is either delusional or lying. How is it then that it can be widely reported that the videos "dispel conspiracy" theories? That's disgustingly irresponsible, shabby journalism. Moreover, how do these two grainy videotapes "complete the public record with repsect to the September 11," as Mr. Fitton asserts? Quite to the contrary, there are numerous unanswered questions relating to not only the explosion at the Pentagon, but the inexplicable collapses of WTC 1, WTC 2 and, most notably, WTC 7.

As for the Pentagon attack, numerous questions remain unanswered and, most importantly, univestigated. For example, you would expect that bodies (or at least some tissue) would be recovered from any plane wreckage. The DOD/NTSB team was able to conduct autopsies on some tissue "recovered" at the site of the explosion and were able to match the tissue samples to fifty-eight of the people on the Flight 77 passenger list. However, the full passenger list has never been released to the public and, interestingly, the version that was released immediately after September 11 did not contain the names of any of the terrorists. The fact that there were five samples of tissue that did not match the DNA samples provided by the family members of each of the 183 victims that were either on Flight 77 or in the Pentagon has been billed as conclusive evidence that those five samples are all that is left of the alleged flight 77 hijackers.

Coincidentally, or perhaps consequently, the released passenger lists for American 11, the flight that allegedly struck WTC 1, are a monumental clusterfuck. Click here for a thoroughly sourced discussion of the AA 11 passenger lists.

In addition to the questionable reasoning involving the conclusion of the Pentagon DNA tests, there remains the question of how an admittedly inexperienced pilot, alleged to be Hani Hanjour, was able to conduct such extraordinary maneuvers in a commercial jet, descending 7,000 feet in under two minutes while maintaining a perfect 270 degree banking turn over the Pentagon. Full, objective details on Flight 77, including flight path and radar data can be found here. Flight of fancy indeed.

There's so much more out there about 9/11. It's not my goal to here to put forth one theory in front of any others, but, rather, merely to alert you to the fact that while news outlets report that the "the case is closed," it should not be closed until a truly independent investigation, with access to all information, classified and not, is completed. Unfortunately, most of the evidence has gone the way of the WTC steel, never to be seen again. Sure makes it difficult to figure out how a dissipating pool of kerosene jet fuel can bring down a 110 story steel skyscraper perfectly upon itself. Excellent discussion of the physics (or lack thereof) of the WTC collapses is here.

If you wish to learn more, I offer several links below that are the result of my own relentless search through the morass of 9/11 websites. While I won't assert what theory or theories I believe may have some veracity, I will tell you that I firmly believe that the 9/11 Commission Report is not the end-all, tell-all on 9/11. That feeling comes not only from my review of the collection of independent evidence, but also the clear indication from the Bush administration that it does not hesitate to lie and obfuscate as a means to justify its ends. WMD, anyone?

An excellent overview of all 9/11 theories, from the moderate to the mundane is here.

The most complete 9/11 timeline ever created is here.

Primary sources, the best source of truth, recorded from actual witnesses to the events of 9/11 can be found here.

The mysterious story of WTC 7 is here (site is dead, but data saved by the ultra-cool Wayback Machine).

The underreported story of mistaken identity of the alleged hijackers is here and here.

Indulge your wildest conspiracy theories here.

Finally, a good blog that follows 9/11 developments can be found here.

Comments welcome.

Rah Rah Sis Boom Bah

In case you missed it, our fearless leader was on TV tonight talking tough on immigration. Text of this horseshit can be found here.

I only read the text, as I just couldn't pull away from Heaven's Gate on my DVR. Regardless of my failure, I wanted to share one comment to Bush's speech, in which he told the tearful tale of Guadalupe Denogean, a Mexican immigrant who, after joining the United States Marine Corps in 1978, finally became a citizen in 2003.

After reading this bit, I stopped to wonder aloud how someone who was admittedly not an American citizen can serve in the country's army for twenty-five plus years. How did Guadalupe Denogean get into the U.S. Army in the first place in 1978? Apparently, the military has only had a "dodge bullets for citizenship" program for immigrant soldiers since the late 1990s.

To make matters doubly confounding was Bush speaking disparagingly of people using "forged documents" to enter the country and obtain employment. Did Denogean use forged documents to enter the military? If not, how exactly was he able to enlist? If he did use forged documents, does that diminish his honorable service? If not, then why is it okay to "cheat" your way into getting wounded in an unjustified war and not to "cheat" your way into obtaining a job? Denogean, now on the other side of the fence (pun intended), says he does not favor amnesty for undocumented immigrants and stated that, "This is the land of opportunity. You can make it what you want... But to do it right, you have to be legal."

Denogean becoming "citizenized." April 11, 2003 (really).


Could it be that this three-year old "rah rah" story is just a feeble minded attempt to link the immigration issue to one of the many issues Bush is taking a beating on in the polls?

Iraq quagmire? Don't worry, we'll have a guest soldier program.

National Security? You bet we're going to address that with the immigration bill. It might have been Mexicans on 9/11... Mexican Al-Qaeda, of course. With WMDs.

Economic problems got you down? Sure, we'll just have a guest worker program , but that doesn't mean employers will have to give 'em minimum wage or government-subsidized health care. Oh, and by the way, corporate exploiters of immigrant labor, you're absolved of any blame because, even though you assiduously checked all those W-2 documents before hiring your labor for a nickel an hour, it's clear that the immigrants are master document forgers. You're clearly not to blame... at all.

In fact, the program has been designed such that you won't have to pay benefits or SSI or FICA taxes for any guest workers. Instead, checks should be made out to your Republican representative(s) just in time for the primaries. You see, it's a win-win. Go team.

Mother's Day on the way

I spotted this article this evening. Please take a minute to read it. An insightful, meaningful message on Mother's Day. Reprinted from: http://www.blueoregon.com/


My Final Mother's Day
T.A. Barnhart
Mother's Day is Sunday, and I'm not looking forward to it.
Last July 3rd, my mom went to her local Albertson's in Winter Haven, Florida, to finish making a special dinner for her husband, Bob. She and Bob married during my senior year of high school in Billings, Montana; November 1974. Since then, they had not missed a single holiday together until Bob's leg problems landed him in the hospital for the Fourth of July 2005. My mom had health problems of her own, in spades, mostly the lung cancer that was unavoidable after 55 years of smoking. But Mom had her ways that couldn't be denied, and making Bob a special post-holiday welcome-home dinner for the 5th was something she was going to do. Tired or not, her activity level reduced by the inability of her lungs to process even the oxygen-enriched air she was breathing through plastic tubes, she was going to do what she always did: something for someone else.
Her last words, to the woman at the checkout at Albertsons, were "I don't feel well." And then she fell, and that was pretty much that. Not a very dignified way to go, but for anyone who knew my mom at all, it was the equivalent of Bing Crosby going down on the golf course. Mom, for whatever faults she had as a mother, loved to do for others. She had her quirks in this, but at her memorial, the common theme was "El Rene just loved to help other people."
Her death came as a shock, a heart attack that resulted from years of strain on her heart and lungs. I was expecting a slower, more ugly death from cancer; this was better in that regard. But there was no time to prepare, no chance to repair bridges or say goodbye or ask questions about long-lost relatives whose stories I would so love to know. I didn't think ahead to a day like last July 4th, when my mom would be gone forever. Who does? We don't like to think of death, so we generally avoid thoughts of it. I wish I had done so just once, just once gotten on the phone and said a few things. She knew I loved her, and I knew she loved me, and whatever separated us, well, I hope it didn't matter to her.
Don't screw up this Mother's Day. If your mom is still around, make the most of this Sunday. Call her or visit; send a card, flowers, wine, warm socks. If you are angry with her or hurt by how she raised you or bitter or just distant, get over it. It's not worth it. To be honest, my parents didn't do a great job. They loved me, but they left so many gaps. Their marriage went south when I was 10 or 11, and from that point on, I was left on my own, emotionally. I don't blame them because I know the people they were, the stuff they had to deal with in their own lives. My dad and I have a good relationship now, for which I am eternally grateful. My mom lived a good and happy life down in Florida with Bob, and I am glad she did. I'm sorry I didn't get down there to visit; I wish my kids had known her more than just a couple of visits up here when they were little. And I will always regret that I didn't get to say goodbye, that my final Mother's Day slipped past me in secret. Sunday will be a day to remember and to mourn, again; I hope it's also a day some of you will fix things with your mom. Your time is short, and it's always shorter than you think.
May 12, 2006 T.A. Barnhart

A letter from Iran...

It's not surprising to me that the Bush administration would dismiss the recent letter from Iranian Presdient Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Given the administration's outright refusal to accept opposing points of view or perspectives that do not square up with its own agenda, we should expect nothing less than efforts to attack the messenger, but not acknowledge the arguments posited in the message. Moreover, Ahmadinejad claims in the letter that it reflects the "words and opinions of the Iranian nation." If the administration can (and clearly does) ignore 65%+ of the "words and opinions" of the American nation, why should it pay any attention to the people and leaders of Iran? When Bush stated today that "diplomacy is the first option," we should be very worried. Diplomacy was also stated to be the "first option" in Iraq, when, as we know now, diplomacy was never really an option at all.

We rarely hear about Iran's rights to peaceful nuclear development guaranteed any signatory of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). The NPT expressly provides signatories with the inalienable right to develop nuclear fuels for peaceful purposes, including Iran's stated desire to acquire and exploit nuclear technology for power generation. Instead, the Bush rhetoric focuses on it preconceived notion that Iran seeks to develop a nuclear bomb to threaten "our allies in the region," and, in some wildly irresponsible circles, "Amercian soil." No one seems to remeber that when this debate started, there was a non-partisan announcement that Iran, even if it worked around the clock to develop a bomb, was AT LEAST ten years away from any viable, deliverable nuclear weapon system. That timeline does not even compensate for the decades it would take for Iran to develop missle technology to carry a nuclear payload over an inter-continental distance. Thus, the nuclear threat from Iran to the United States seems to be a threat similar to oh, let's say, Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction in 2003.

Please don't jump to the argument that "it's better to do something now then to wait and see." While that would be common sense, the problem is not with the timeline, but the administration's putative solution. Now is the chance to get in front of the parade and demand a peaceful inspections process similar to that imposed on India in the recent India-U.S. nuclear pact. If it can work in India, a nation on hair-trigger alert that has every motivation to develop, test and proliferate in a nuclear race with Pakistan, it can work in Iran. Perhaps by showing a bit of respect (gasp) to the rights of other soverigns in the Middle East, the U.S. can begin what is sure to a long, yet lasting, route to peace in the region. Given the recent implosion of the Palestian Authority and the full-scale civil war that may result from it, there appears to be no better time to cut the imperialist cowboy shit and collaborate with Iran on a meaningful, productive solution.

Not only does a diplomatic solution make political sense (in both the domestic and international arenas), it makes fiscal sense. At this point, over $300 billion has been directly spent/transferred to the military industrial complex for the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts. Speculation is that an additional $200-400 billion will be spent before the books are closed. Thus, with direct costs of approximately $500-800 billion, along with indirect costs (healthcare for injured veterans, propaganda and potential settlements for the rampant abuse of Iraqi prisoners and civilians) that are clearly substanital, these "wars" (though there seems to be no opponent) will ultimately cost at least one trillion dollars. At a time of a burgeoning federal deficit and an increasingly dismal outlook for the American dollar, we simply cannot afford another unnecessary, and currently unjustifiable, war.

So Bush, read the letter from Ahmadinejad. Write back with your opinion. Schedule some talks, and attend yourself. Spend time to listen to the concerns of the Iranians and respond in kind with your concerns. Come to a peacful solution and then turn to your attention to Iraq and Afghanistan. Stop meddling with the Iraqi polical process and pull back the troops to guard the oil wells and pipelines that were our only true goal in the invasion. Restore oil production and complete the promised domestic reconstruction without spending additional dollars. Then look to Afghanistan and try to figure out a way to eliminate or moderate poppy production without destroying the entire state economy (good luck with that one.) Finally, come clean on why the world's greatest military force can't or won't capture Osama bin Laden.

But, whatever you do, stop being a douche and "keeping your cards close to your chest." Simply read and answer the letter.