Folks, No-Fault, and '57 Fords

It doesn't get much more complicated than ObamaCare. So, let's make it simple:  Under ObamaCare, which is universal health care, everyone must have health insurance.

Put that way, it doesn't sound so bad. Certainly, everyone, eventually will need health insurance. Still, people are uneasy. They hear the word "mandate," as in "mandatory," and they get worried that the government will try to make them do something that they may not feel like doing just now.

Try this:  Think "mandate" and then think of a point of reference. For me, that "point of reference" is 1973. I was twenty, and in my third year at Western Michigan University. Prior to returning to school after summer break, I bought a '57 Ford for 50 bucks. It was a two-tone blue, stick-in-the-column tank - no fiber glass there, just pure cast-iron muscle. I did not need car insurance. I just told folks to "Get outa  the way."

But government told me I had to have insurance. (On a fifty-dollar car?) Yes.

That's a mandate. Still, I could not afford real insurance. So, I purchased a "no-fault" insurance package - what we jokingly called "yo-fault" - which was no insurance at all, but a penalty for not buying real insurance. Sound familiar?

Now, the Republicans, on the heels of the Roberts ruling, is calling ObamaCare a "tax." Of course, it is a tax. All government programs tax the public. You want a road built? Tax the public first. National Defense plan, food stamp program, education budget - tax, tax, tax.

So what if ObamaCare is a tax. There are 30 million Americans - most of whom are poor - who are without health insurance, including millions of small children. ObamaCare insures that they, too, will receive those services that can give them a better life.

Sounds like a vintage two-tone '57 Ford to me. Please, get out of the way.

LeBron James: Doing it "My Way" in America

At 6'8" and 260 pounds, LeBron James may be the greatest athlete on Earth. He is hardworking, articulate, and man, can he fly. And he stays out of trouble - no guns, no drugs, no domestic assaults. He has mooned no one.

Yet, those in the sports media have declared LeBron one of the "most hated" sports stars in America. Really?

In 2003, fresh out of high school, LeBron James signed a seven-year contract with the NBA's Cleveland Cavaliers. By the time he had fulfilled that contract, he had taken a last place team to first place in the standings, and then to the NBA finals in the playoffs. He single-handedly doubled the value of that Cleveland franchise. During that same time, he won the NBA's Rookie-of-the-year, two MVP awards, and an Olympic Gold Medal.

Then, as a free agent, during a made-for-television special, LeBron announced, "I'm taking my talents to South Beach (Miami)."  That did it. Apparently, no fouler words had ever been spoken. For the next three years, the sports media and its sycophants went after LeBron with a vengeance. It has been a vile attempt to villianize a fine, young African-American for being himself.

They are Hatfields and McCoys - these types of people - ignorant and cruel. they make something our of nothing, magnify it to illogical proportions, and then draw as many idiots as they can muster down into their vortex. In that mosh pit of inanity, they find affirmation.

These most-imperfect people demand perfection of LeBron (as though they would recognize "perfection" if they saw it.) They not only want to tweak LeBron's game (because being the best isn't good enough), but they want to tweak his personality to fit their image of what he should be.

All the while, LeBron has continued to perform at a level unmatched at both ends of the court despite their damnedest efforts to drain the joy from him and his game. It appears they do this for not other reason than that LeBron has decided to do things his way.

I guess doing it "my way" is okay for Ol' Blue Eyes, but not for a young "brother" in America.

…And Justice For All

Last month, they sent back his remains - letters of an American soldier missing in Vietnam. In one letter, he wrote: "This is a dirty and cruel war."

That is all the Vietnam War was - dirty and cruel. It was senseless violence on an epic scale waged against an agrarian society who had done the U.S. absolutely no harm. We contrived grievances against those people, and then bombed them mercilessly. We killed well over a million men, women, and children, and then, on the Washington mall, built a monument to our suffering.

For a nation known for making its own citizens pay dearly for their crimes, America has never paid for the crimes it committed against the Vietnamese people.

They Don't Like You

A year ago, the Pakistani government was charging the U. S. $250 per supply truck passing through Pakistan to U.S. troops in Afghanistan. Now they want $5,000 per. Sound familiar?

Remember "Godfather II", when Nevada's Senator Geary decides to charge Michael Corleone $25,000 for a gaming license? Corleone asks, "Why should I pay $25,000 when the fee for a license is only $1,000?"  Geary responds: "Because I don't like you, and I intend to squeeze you."

That, Mr. Obama, is your relationship with the Pakistanis in a nutshell.

The NAACP: A Search for Relevance in the 21st Century

The question of "relevance" ever haunts the NAACP these days, and for good reason. As it is presently constituted, it is irrelevant.

Start with the name, NAACP, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. It was in 1994, fully 18 years ago, when I wrote to the NAACP leadership, after attending one of their membership banquets at the Hilton in downtown Kalamazoo. I implored them to change their name to NAAPC - National Association for the Advancement of People of Color. Sounded like a no-brainer as we approached the 21st century. This particular membership drive was geared toward young people. I suggested: "What young people would join an organization whose very name - "Colored People" - insults them? The leadership rejected my idea.

Why does the NAACP persist in denigrating itself and the people it supposedly represents? Because the NAACP is a dancing bear - it dances for its supper.

Deep down, the NAACP knows it has not accomplished anything in years. Perhaps the leadership - Ben Jealous, et al - imagines there would be no donations to the NAACP at all, except those donations have come because of that iconic name. Unfortuantely, the very name - NAACP - has become synonymous with self-congratulatory fetes, and subsequent lethargy.

Recently, the NAACP passed a resolution in support of same sex marriage as a civil right. Many wonder why the NAACP would take up this issure considering the majority in the African-American community rejects gay marriage. All seem to agree, however, that is was an attempt to "remain relevant," (and cash in on what political pundits are calling an abundance of "gay money.")

There are bigger issues in America, like the resolution put forth by this citizen declaring the institution of slavery in America a Crime Against Humanity. Such a resolution in the hands of a once-august entity such as the NAACP, could help bring this nation to the brink of racial healing for which it so deeply longs.

Then there is Major League baseball and its system of apartheid (better known as "Jim Crow baseball") that has persisted since baseball's inception in 1839. And though this forced segregation ended in 1947 with Jackie Robinson's entrance into the Major Leagues, the achievements of those Negro League stars who toiled in that separate (but equal) league are whitewashed from baseball history as though they never happened. This, too, is a post in the structure that helps sustain the racial divide in America. We cannot change baseball's sordid past, but with the NAACP's help, we can correct it.

And what of this criminal justice system which consistently preys upon poor families in America? There is little pretense at "justice" there anymore - it is just "criminal" the way they squeeze monies from these poor families even as they drain them of their hope.

America's prison system has become a den of human rights abuses - none more egregious than its penchant for keeping men and women imprisoned who, anywhere else, would be free. Even China and Iran compare favorably.

Now they seek to privatize their prison industry - prison for profit.

Where prisons' goal becomes profit, it conflicts with the liberation interests of humans everywhere. The very trajectory is contrary to the course of justice set forth in the U.S. Constitution. And America's prisons beome plantations - people, once more, are made chattel. Who will speak up for these dispossessed?

Want relevance, NAACP? Change your name. Then, declare a moratorium on feasts and fashion shows. Get back to earning your celebrations.

Justice has been known to skip a generation - no fault of its own. It happens most often when those charged with protecting the rights of others go to sleep at the switch. Fortunately for us all, justice marches on.

Wake up, NAACP. You've been asleep too long. Justice is up ahead. If you try, you may intercept her at that next great moment in history. If you do not, you will go down as the biggest mat-head since Rip van Winkle.

Is Gay Sex Simply True Love Gone Awry?

At the risk of sound rude (and ignorant), may I take this moment to speak on behalf of the so-called "straight people" everywhere? We have questions:

How do we tell which of you is the man, and which is the woman?

And what is your story…anyway? Shakespeare wrote, "Some men are born great, some achieve greatness, others have greatness thrust upon them." Does that notion apply here? Certainly, some people are born gay, (I suppose), while others purposely seek a gay lifestyle, (I suppose). Still, there must be those who have homosexuality thrust upon them - by force, or circumstance. Simply put, we do not know who you are. And, if you come out of the closet, that can be scary too.

We can pretend that gay people are like the rest of us, but they are not, (unless we all are gay). I doubt that 1% of the world's people are gay. If they are, that would amount to roughly 70 million homosexuals on Earth, which is fine. (It is not like they can reproduce).

No one doubts that a man can love a man, and a woman can love a woman. We only wonder whether it is prudent to "do something about it."

When a gay man says, "I love him," we say, "Okay, but must you have sex with him?" A man can love a child, but he cannot have sex with that child. He can show his love for that child by taking the child to a ballgame, buying him ice cream, or taking him fishing. All the while, he must control himself. If he loses control and indulges himself in his love for that child, then that love becomes sick; it becomes a crime.

A man can love his sister, and she can love him back. But he cannot have sex with her - that is taboo. They certainly cannot marry and have children - that would be an abomination. Yet, both are grown. She may be a doctor, and he a lawyer. Intelligent, successful, and in love - yet, we are repulsed at the thought of them consummating their union. As a society, we would deny them the chance to lawfully spend their lives together as man and wife based on our revulsion at the thought of them coupling.

Fifty percent of the American people seem to want a constitutional amendment giving a man the right to couple with another man. Just this past week, the NAACP passed a resolution endorsing same sex marriage as a civil right. Yet, I doubt that one percent of the American people would consent to bestowing the same rights upon a man who wants to spend the rest of his life with his sister. Why deny a brother-sister couple the same civil rights, when given the choice, most men on Earth would marry their sister before they would marry another man.

The survival of any species is dependent upon its ability to produce offspring. That is the basic function of sex on this Earth - to insure the continuation of life. A man and a child can do that; a brother and a sister can do that. Two men cannot; neither can two women.

Why then this rush to wed one man with another? Who has convinced us that this is good, or necessary, or just?

If adult brothers and sisters want to have sex, no one can stop them. But, just because we cannot stop them, that is no reason to cheer them on. It is the same with grown men. If they want to have sex with each other, that is their business. But why do we, as a society, feel compelled to encourage this willful indulgence? It is as though we have conceded that since we cannot stop them, we should join them. Is that supposed to make us feel good about ourselves? Does our approval make it right? Or does it simply make us complicit in love gone awry?

Historically, incest and homosexuality have been condemned throughout all major societies. Today, both continue to be prohibited by custom or law in most societies around the world. More and more, however, Western societies - including the U.S. - while continuing to condemn incest, increasingly embrace homosexuality as a viable lifestyle.

Are we to believe a split has occurred, much like the split millions of years ago that sent apes in one direction and man in another - a split that insures one branch of this modern-day tandem makes it out of the trees, while the other does not?

Or, could it be that both incest and homosexuality are what they are, what they have always been, and what they always will be - not books to be read, but bookends - the extremes of our lusts, beyond which, sickness and deformity await mankind?

Cleaning Baseball Of Its Jim Crow Past

Baseball has been living a lie. Invented by Abner Doubleday in 1839 to be "America's game," it proceeded to draw the most un-American lines - lines designed to exclude African-Americans from the game. In what they called a "gentleman's agreement," organized baseball erected a color bar against black men that lasted until 1946. And for the next 173 years, it has lied to itself, to the American people, and to the world. It is the kind of lie that has left baseball in a perpetual state of fear (of being found out). At times, like during all-star games between white Major Leaguers and Negro League players, "organized baseball" has had trouble breathing.

This past month, they celebrated 100 years of baseball in Boston's venerable Fenway Park - harking back to that glorious day in 1912 when the Boston Red Sox (formerly the Boston Americans) played the New York Highlanders, (re-named the "Yankees" in 1913). Glorious? It was Jim Crow baseball. It would be 47 years after that "glorious day" - nearly half of Fenway's existence - before the first black man, Elijah Green, was allowed to join the team in 1959. How do we celebrate injustice in this country without wincing with each "hurrah!"?

It is time the era of Jim Crow baseball was put in its play - separated from the myth that made legends of men like Ty Cobb, who practiced his bigotry with the same zeal with which he played the game; and men like commissioner Kenesaw Landis who, from 1920 to 1944, guarded the gates like fanged Cerberus.

Let us put an asterisk around all of Jim Crow baseball now - around it hallowed moments, its stars, their hallowed records. Speak no more of Cy Young and Ty Cobb, old Ebbets Field, Roger Hornsby, and Babe Ruth, lest you preference those remarks with an asterisk that states:  THESE MEN PLAYED BASEBALL DURING THE JIM CROW ERA WHEN AFRICAN-AMERICAN MEN WERE NOT ALLOWED TO COMPETE AGAINST THEM.

If some of the greatest ballplayers of the time were not allowed to compete (because they were the wrong color), how could any of the records compiled during that era not deserve an asterisk? How could Babe Ruth be the "greatest baseball player of all time," as ESPN's Tim Kurkjian recently proclaimed, when men his equal, or better, were not allowed to challenged him on the same field where he won his accolades?

It am not saying, "Throw out the 'Jim Crow' records." I am saying, put them in their proper context. You think that will diminish the game they played? Baseball did that when it committed its sins of apartheid.

Time to integrate Negro League baseball - its stars, their records - into the fabric of baseball history. If that means Cy Young is no longer baseball's winningest pitcher, so what? What is will really means is that he was only baseball's winningest pitcher until Smokey Joe Williams and Satchel Paige both passed him by over 50 years ago.

Once you've asterisked Jim Crow baseball, put Negro League baseball into its proper context. Negro League baseball was "organized," too. It was also more "American" than the Jim Crow baseball we persist in celebrating. Where Jim Crow base ball excluded African-Americans, Negro League baseball included all men - black, white, Hispanic. Even a woman made the roster of a Negro League club. She was Toni Stone; here father had played in the Negro Leagues. She began playing in the Negro League's minor league system, for the New Orleans Creoles in 1949. She made it to the Negro majors in 1953 where she played a single season for the Indianapolis Clowns, and hit .243. The following year, she retired.

So what if her stint in the league was an attempt at boosting gate receipts. She was given a shot. In other words, if you were able to play, you were given a chance to play in the Negro Leagues. In that way, Negro League baseball was a true reflection of what America aspired to be: "The land of opportunity."

There will be no integrity in baseball until it expunges its racist past by incorporating that which it has feared most - Negro League players. Yes, the record books will change - they will become more honest. And, look on the bright side: Once baseball has taken that grand step, it will have solved its Barry Bonds problem in a fell swoop - you know, the one neither A-Rod nor Pujols can solve because both men are running out of gas. Josh Gibson, with his 962 career home runs, will rescue baseball and its most cherished record from all taint of steroids. He will do it at the same time he helps cleanse baseball of the taint of Jim Crow.

A wise mans once said, "That which you fear shall haunt you until you confront it." It was the same way with slavery. After 250 years, the South predicted such a mass emancipation would disrupt all of American society. So? Was that any reason to keep a race of people enslaved longer? Of course not. It was not their fault that they had to be freed. Any disruptions that mass emancipation created was the price America had to pay for committing such crimes against humanity in the first place.

Same thing with Jim Crow baseball. any disruptions caused by opening baseball's doors to Negro League stars and their records, is the price baseball must pay for denying these men their full rights as American citizens in the beginning.

Of course, Major League baseball will resist. It is in its nature - an instinct honed over years of misplaced persecutions and unwarranted fears. They will say that they do not trust the validity of Negro League records. Why, then, should anyone trust the records of Jim Crow baseball?

Is Josh Gibson's 962 career home runs any more fantastic than Cy Young's 511 pitching victories compiled from 1890 - 1911? (Three of the greatest pitchers of the modern era - Tom Seaver, Nolan Ryan, and Roger Clemens - won only 311, 325, 341 games, respectively.) Neither is Gibson's 84 home runs in 1936 - the true single season record for home runs, (not Bonds 73) - any more incredible than Jack Chesbro winning 41 games in 1904, and Ed Walsh winning 40 games in a single season four years later.

The African-American community put its love of baseball into the hands of those Negro League players and scorekeepers, just as the white community put its love of the game into the hands of Major League Baseball. They are the same hands - American hands. It is the same love - American love.

Men and scorekeepers; scorekeepers and men. You cannot beat the man, so you attack the scorekeeper? Is that all you got, baseball; is that your last line of defense against your African-American brethren?

Enough! You are the scorekeeper - you kept score at the gates of Jim Crow. Now you want to blame your victims for not being the great scorekeeper you were. As Abe Lincoln would say, "That stunt won't scow."

Time to put Josh Gibson's and Buck Leonard's numbers alongside those of their contemporaries - Ruth, Gehrig, and Hornsby. So, too, must Satchel Paige's and Smokey Joe Williams' career pitching stats take their rightful place alongside those of Cy Young, Walter Johnson, and Grover Alexander Cleveland. These men not only played in a league the equal of the "Majors," but when it came to "put-up time" - in head-to-head matches, the Negro League players defeated the Major leaguers where it counted: on the field, between the lines.

Pitcher Smokey Joe Williams, alone, was 20-7 against Major league competition. Josh Gibson, who hit .347 over a 17 year career in the Negro Leagues, hit .426 against Major league pitching. So says your scorekeepers, scorekeeper.

The gig is up. Kenesaw Landis is dead; so is Jim Crow baseball. Time to scrape away the last vestiges of that sorry period in American sports history. Release baseball from that musty dungeon so that it can breathe; so that it can experience this rebirth. Time baseball claimed the integrity it has never had. Time it reclaimed its infinite mystique.