Bound To Piss You Off

It’s Better Than It Looks: Reasons for Optimism in an Age of Fear – Gregg Easterbrook - (Public Affairs)

As I was working my way through Gregg Easterbrook’s latest book, It’s Better Than It Looks: Reasons for Optimism in an Age of Fear, I found myself alternately nodding my head, scoffing out loud, and groaning at some of the conclusions he was drawing and the commentary he offered on a wide range of things. I think the agreement was spurred more by what I feel is my inherent optimism than anything Easterbrook pointed out.

On further reflection I think that It’s Better Than It Looks will probably offer something to piss off everybody who reads it at one point or another. It may be as simple as this book being more of a macro worldview in a time when we have become more and more micro focused.

On guns, always a hot button issue, Easterbrook bemoans “lax gun laws.” Thinking logically, laws inherently cannot be lax – only enforcement of laws can be lax. If Easterbrook is claiming that the laxity is that we are somehow short of laws regarding guns, I would argue that the 20,000 current laws on the books regarding guns are probably far short of anything I would describe as lax.

When you boil it down, reality is never really as it seems; it is the perception that counts with most folks. Easterbrook focuses a chapter of hunger, or more specifically why we don’t starve and makes the case that we live in an abundant world that produces enough food so no one should go hungry. It may be the difference between starvation and hunger and the words we use to describe both of those states of being.

We are inundated with a constant stream of messaging about the number of children who go to bed hungry every night and the national programs proclaiming that a donation will be made to feed kids for every ________ purchased. Add to that the outcry over potential cuts in school breakfast and lunch programs and the new advent of backpack programs where kids get sent home on the weekend with a supply of food to get them through the time without those breakfast and lunch programs. All this in a day and age when 45+ million are on food stamp programs. The whole why we don’t starve may be a tough sell.

What gets missed in the mix is the massive decline in two parent families, climbing illiteracy rates, the declining results in public education paired with skyrocketing costs and the utter lack of personal responsibility/accountability. It begs the question…is it really Better Than It Looks?

A Different Perspective on Football

I have to give columnist, author and football fans Gregg Easterbrook credit; when it comes to writing about football he brings a different perspective to the game. He avoids the clichés of being a drooling, face painted fanboy or a moronic, shouting sports talkshow host’s mind numbed blather; instead he delivers an at times well-considered, almost intellectual approach to delivering his thoughts on the game.

While in his prior book, The King of Sports, Easterbrook reasoned that the game and the NFL was in need of reform, his latest outing, The Game’s Not Over – In Defense of Football, his premise appears to be that the game and the league are on the right track and he is coming to the defense. And it is that that point that the premise goes off the rails.

He offers up reasoning for saving the NFL and the game itself, from the issues it faces; issues that in many instances the NFL has either created or brought on itself. Easterbrook makes an interesting case that the NFL is merely a microcosm of the world it inhabits, turning a mirror on it merely reflects what is going on in society.

Easterbrook’s claim that the NFL is the recipient of what amounts to public financed corporate welfare falls apart quickly. His ridiculous comparison between the 2008 Obama campaign paying the city of Chicago for the costs of renting Grant park for its victory celebration and attendant police costs, while the NFL negotiated a rent free, cost free use of the same park for the NFL draft a few years later as some sort of a corporate shake down. The simple fact is no one forced Chicago to agree to the deal, they could have just as easily said no and watched the NFL take their traveling circus to another locale and all of the millions of dollars of revenue to restaurants, hotels, bars, retail, etc, etc, with it. Chicago wanted that economic impact and it was willing to make the investment to get it. I have major doubts that anyone can place a similar economic impact on an Obama campaign event.

The same is true for those municipalities that pony up HUGE money to build monolithic stadiums for NFL teams to play in. The simple fact is there are currently 32 NFL franchises and likely upwards of 50 or more cities that would be willing to vie for a team and shell out the dollars needed to build an even bigger and better, and by that I mean lucrative to the franchise owner, stadium on the taxpayer dime.

The same holds true for the concussion argument. Does anybody really not know the risks involves in playing a high impact sport and the consequences it has for the human body? Oh and those elite athletes skilled enough to play at that level receive compensation that meets or exceeds the inherent danger. Sorry hard for me to feel sorry when you knew the risks going in.

The King of Sports – Football’s Impact on America – Gregg Easterbrook (Thomas Dunne Books/St. Martin’s Press)

The concept of this book is a critical examination of the societal impact of professional and college football on the United States, conceived and penned by a global warming alarmist, scholar who toils as a fellow for the Fulbright Foundation and Brooking Institution think tanks and lays claim to watching
“too much football.” What could possibly go wrong?

Easterbrook who has been dubbed “the thinking man’s John Madden” authored the “Tuesday Morning Quarterback” column for the uber-liberal, Slate.com and ESPN.com; that was noted for its snarky takedowns of football honchos and every level. Easterbrook’s more recent endeavors could lead you to wonder if Easterbrook would prefer the NFL become the professional flag football league.

 

The King of Sports – Football’s Impact on America, starts out with a shocking love note to all things Virginia Tech football and coach Frank Beamer. Easterbrook opines on all that is holy about the Hokies program. If that was a way to set the tone for the rest of the book, it derails quickly.

Overall there is a disjointed, unconnected feel to the way this book is put together. Instead of coming off as a coherent, well balanced examination of the sport, ends up reading like a mixed bag of random columns that just don’t quite hang together. Can’t say I had high expectations going into this based on accolades from the likes of MS-LSD’s Chuck Todd.