'Roid Rage

Too little. Too late. Too bad.

It would be nice if that's all that had to be said when trying to comprehend, 24 hours later, the unsurprising bombshell that former Oakland and St. Louis slugger Mark McGwire lobbed to the media: that he had done steroids (and other performance enhancing drugs) over a dozen years - during virtually his entire playing career - including the then-magical assault he and Sammy Sosa made on the single-season home run record in 1998.

And it would be nice if McGwire's explanation for why he did what he did could be viewed as a full, complete admission of guilt and left no questions in its wake.

And it would be nice if, when appearing on television with interviewer extraordinaire Bob Costas last night, I wasn't so skeptical of his crocodile tears and the gut feeling that this wasn't just an attempt to "come out of the steroid closet" to enhance his Hall of Fame chances.

And it would be nice if I could be as forgiving of McGwire as some would like me to be.

I'm torn on this. Like many observers, I have mixed feelings on The McGwire Problem. And like Tevye, the spiritually active father of five daughters who had seemingly daily personal discussions with the Almighty in Fiddler on the Roof and philosophically weighed pros and cons on a regular basis, for every postulate that finds its way into my left hand, I find an equally perplexing counter argument in my right.

On one hand: McGwire wishes he "had never played in the steroid era."

On the other hand: McGwire was the baseball slugger who essentially helped kick off the era in which steroids were prominent.

And on the other hand: McGwire was not the sole abuser. Do we have a choice but to judge players on their performance during an era in which there was an uneven playing field? And what about the abused of amphetamines and other similar products in the 1960s, 1970s, 1980s?

And on the other hand: He's had a long time to express his remorse and plead his case since retiring in 2001, including his infamous "I don't want to talk about the past" stance before the U.S. Congress in March 2005.

And on the other hand: The same people (whether the media or fans) demonizing McGwire today are the ones who glorified him nearly 12 years ago, even though there were suspicions a'plenty about him and his peers during the day. (Heck, Sports Illustrated named McGwire and Sosa "Sportsmen of the Year".)

And on the other hand: McGwire is a cheat, a fraud, a wolf in sheep's clothing, who profited millions by thumbing his nose at the concept of "good sportsmanship."

And on the other hand; If this prompts other prominent players associated with the steroid era (Barry Bonds? Roger Clemens? Sosa?) to go public and hammer home how widespread usage was, then perhaps McGwire's coming out party can benefit Major League Baseball (and other team and individual sports) and, more importantly, the legion of young adults who continue to idolize MLB (and other) athletes.

And on the other hand: How can I look past the numbers that were - are forever - tainted? The 70 home runs in 1998, the 583 career dingers? Putting an asterisk next to his statistics in the official MLB database cannot suffice.

McGwire wants us to accept his "apology" without further questioning, so he can move on with his life. He calls the entire steroid thing "foolish" and "a mistake," and while I agree with the former, my stomach churns over the latter in a way that Pepto cannot resolve.

A mistake? Only in the dictionary, where it is defined as (among other things), "an error in action, calculation, opinion, or judgment caused by poor reasoning, carelessness, insufficient knowledge, etc." Continual substance abuse, purportedly cloaked in secrecy from coworkers, administrators, family, friends, confidants, over an 11-year period hardly constitutes "a mistake." It was a choice, and a foolish (to use his words) choice at that. After all, Olympians had been suspended for steroid abuse prior to McGwire beginning the injection process. To designate it as "a mistake" is, to me, foolhardy and a slap in the collective face of reason and logic.

I - and the American populace - aren't that stupid.

So I sit here, trying to put the entire McGwire saga in perspective. Yeah, I'm torn on this. But not bent out of shape to the degree that I will lose any sleep. My life does not revolve around the McGwire circus. There are many bigger issues on the Gaba table that need to be addressed. I've never met McGwire. My salary, job status, social life, etc., do not rely on his presence. We have a war in Afghanistan, ongoing economic concerns, the fallacy of No Child Left Behind, and a thousand other seemingly more vital and imperative issues surrounding me.

So, yeah, I suppose at some point I can forgive McGwire for lying to me, to the powers that be, to Americans and baseball fans globally. It just might take a little longer than he would like. Perhaps a dozen years or so.

That seems fair.

How To Have Empathy Without Really Trying

Last week, I happened upon a column by Liz Jones of the London Daily Mail. The title alone - "There I stood, homeless with my Prada case" - was appalling, and ended up being more tolerable than most of the rest of her column (of which the full text can be found on this link).

Suffice to say, Ms. Jones ended up looking really bad; her attempt to connect with the concept of homelessness fell apart when considering her own version of "out on the streets" was due to maxing out her credit cards and being denied a stay in a posh hotel. It's hard to feel empathy for someone who so poorly succeeds at manufacturing personal hardship.

But it doesn't mean the problem doesn't exist.

OK, this is a tough one for me, because I realize many of the "homeless" I see traveling to and from work, to and from my parent's winter residence in Boca Raton, to and from ... basically, any place I travel these days ... are probably "homeless" for reasons beyond their control. After all, these days, many of us seem to be living one paycheck away from this very situation, and it's uncomfortable enough facing that reality daily (although, to be honest, how many of us actually face this realistically?). Today, "job" stands for "just over broke" even more than it did when I first heard the phrase in the late 1980s. The problem - which has been around for years - has increased dramatically the past few years, thanks in part to the stunning increase in foreclosures - and the stunning increase in joblessness - as part of the financial meltdown we have experienced.

But these have only led to an increase in the problem. It's not like there was no such thing as homelessness in the United States during the boon times. According to various studies, poverty ranks as the primary reason people are homeless. This makes sense. With wages not keeping up with inflation, and with limited options for affordable and/or safe housing in some markets, even gainfully employed people find it difficult to keep up with mortgage or rent payments.

Additionally, individuals who suffer from substance abuse, mental illness or physical illness, make up a large percentage of the homeless population. For example, developmental disorders such as ADD, ADHD, Asperger's, autism, and dyslexia, which interfere with a person's ability to interact with others, can result in homelessness if that person does not have an adequate family support structure.

And that leads to what I believe is one of the real major reasons for homelessness - a reason that no one seems to talk about, because we're too busy either ignoring the problem or blaming government or keeping the window rolled up tighter than grandma's knitting and (metaphorically) plugging our noses when we approach an intersection with panhandlers holding Sharpie-designed cardboard box sides.

In a country the size and wealth of the United States, to have one homeless person is a crime; to have an estimated 7 million is ... infinitely beyond criminal. And the saddest thing is, they are homeless in large part because they don't have a fallback in place, either because it never existed or it was abused.

I've never been homeless, but I've been jobless and seemingly as close to homeless as it can get. It ain't fun. But one reason I really wasn't in as dire straits as others was that I had family there to fall back on, if need be. And if that failed, I had a strong network of friends on which to rely.

For many homeless individuals, no such options exist, or - it stands to reason - they wouldn't be homeless. They would have, at least temporarily, a roof over their heads, and while they may not "own" or "rent" a home, at least they have some form of shelter. But in our society, crowded houses lead to complications, because we "need out space" and too many bodies restricts this option. Or the hosts are taken advantage of in some way, shape or form, leading to a falling out (and eventually eviction of the individuals they were assisting).

So what do we do? Many of us are on a tight budget. We worry that the spare change we offer will go to alcohol, tobacco, various other drugs, even though logic dictates it would go toward food for the moment. What are our short-term options, understanding the long-term solution includes finding these individuals jobs and affordable housing? According to Boake Moore, an IT sales engineer by trade who founded a non-profit coffee company called Mission Grounds Gourmet Coffee (which donates all its profits and proceeds to helping orphans and impoverished children, and helping homeless children in the United States), you can do the following:

- Instead of giving money to panhandlers, donate money to shelters that take care of them. Too often, sadly, well-intended gifts are converted to drugs or alcohol - even when the "hard luck" stories they tell are true.
- If the person is hungry, buy them a sandwich and a beverage. And sit and talk with them. Taking time to talk to a homeless person in a friendly, respectful manner can give them a wonderful sense of civility and dignity. And besides being just neighborly, it gives the person a weapon to fight the isolation, depression and paranoia that many homeless people face.
- Their immediate needs are the basics - food, clothes, and shoes. So bring food to homeless shelters. Get with local grocers and ask if you can have the daily leftovers and date-expired food; take these to the shelter. (If you like set up a weekly trip and take them enough food every week, now you are making a big difference.)
- Bring extra shoes, coats and clothes to the shelter. Have a clothes drive in your neighborhood, Do it on a monthly basis, if you like; the homeless residents next month are most likely not the homeless residents who were there this month.

Too often, we only seemingly concentrate any attempts to assist the homeless during the holidays, in part because it's cold and snowy (in areas where cold and snowy are winter conditions), and in part because it's the "season of giving." But homelessness has no calendars; it follows no preordained schedule; it does not pause when the sun comes out. Along with many other negative aspects of our world, let's work to wipe "homelessness" from our lexicon ... one person at a time.

Vote For Me!

I plan to run for office.

Actually, that's not true, which right off the bat makes me a perfect candidate for a role in the political arena.

I have been active in three political campaigns as a volunteer. In 1980, I worked for independent presidential candidate John Anderson, who unsuccessfully broke away from the Republican Party. In 2000, I pounded campaign signs into the ground for David Traill, who was running for the Florida House of Representatives, and did so again for him a few years later, when he ran for the Martin County School Board.

Volunteering was not my only foray into politics. When I graduated from Central Michigan University in 1988, I landed a sports writing position at a small daily newspaper in suburban Battle Creek, Michigan. In 1990, I found myself in the northeastern Lower Peninsula, covering sports and some local politics, and by 1992 I was writing about municipal and county politics in suburban Detroit. The primary hotbed I handled was the various Oakland County officials and offices, including those of its Executive, Clerk/Register of Deeds, Sheriff, Treasurer, Prosecutor, Circuit Court, Road Commission, Drain Commission, and Board of Commissioners.

From 1992-1999, and again during the summers of 2000, 2002, and 2004, reporting on the various aspects of county government was my life. Some of the issues seemed mundane; others were mundane. But there were plenty of other topics that reared their ugly head (metaphorically speaking, of course), and I still have the clips filed away in three-ring binders. Among the juicier topics:

Assisted suicide: Dr. Jack Kevorkian was a major player at the time, and his crusade was in the national spotlight. In part this was because of the renegade nature of his cause; in part it was because his loud and obnoxious legal representation, one Geoffrey Fieger, scored victory after victory in the court system against Oakland County Prosecuting Attorney Richard Thompson (proving that damn good legal skills outweigh a loud and obnoxious media presence any time).
Sheriff's Department perks: In the early 1990s, The Oakland County Sheriff had designated more than 400 "special deputies" from the citizenry, most of whom had donated money to his previous campaigns, and a number of whom were Detroit-area celebrities or political players.
Convention attendance: The role of traveling out of area to attend political conventions or workshops by members of the county commission came to a head when some individuals proclaimed such attendance was an abuse of taxpayer dollars, regardless of the information brought back to the area.
Work-release allegations: The Sheriff's Department came under fire by the Prosecutor's office for purported wrongdoings in its work-release program, but nearly all of the 71 felony charges were dismissed.
Campaign issues: These covered the gamut, from questions about the legality of campaign signs (and the videotaped illegal tearing down of some such signs), distorted campaign literature messages, violations of campaign finance reporting, and claims of anti-Semitism.

Covering these, and other political (and non-political) stories kept me on my toes and gave me an adrenaline rush that could last for weeks. I loves digging into the issues, filling out Freedom of Information Act requests, analyzing campaign financial data, investigating highway and landfill construction projects, and keeping an ear to the ground on anything and everything political. In a county that was represented overwhelmingly by Republican Party officials (every major elected leader, and two-thirds of the county commissioners, were GOP), it was always a challenge to report on the issues as fairly and balanced as possible.

It was during this time that I realized the more I reported on various aspects of county government, the happier I was that I was on the outside looking in, rather than in the role of a lawmaker. My campaign volunteer work only confirmed this. Mind you, I try to maintain the altruistic viewpoint that being an elected official is a noble cause, intended to represent the will and desires of a people to the best of one's ability - you know, "of the people, by the people, for the people" ... despite all the evidence to the contrary. And I believed - and still believe - the majority of elected officials run for office to do just that.

Unfortunately, I have seen enough - as a high school and college student, as a citizen, and as an investigative journalist - to convince me that, as much as the idea sounds wonderful, and as effective an elected leader I believe I'd be - the role of commissioner, representative, senator, whatever, is a role best held by someone else. I'd rather be on the outside looking - and digging - in, and believe I can be more effective in the political arena serving in that capacity.

Reading Is Fundamental

One of the traps I have fallen into the past few years is getting so wrapped up in work and the Internet (and the two overlap way too often) that I have not dedicated as much free time for myself as I should.

Perhaps that's one of the drawbacks of our modern world, that our seeming reliance on electronic toys - cell phones, computers, iPods, the Nintendo Wii, etc. - has taken us too deep into the realm of couch potato reality. Mind you, this is the same type of argument that was made when radio was invented, then when television came onto the scene, when VCRs hit the market, and when cable saturated the screen.

It's also an argument that many would call a cop out. And those people are probably right.

As a teacher of British Literature, I often end up reading the very material I am addressing in the classroom: Beowulf, The Canterbury Tales, The Tragedy of Macbeth, Jonathan Swift's A Modest Proposal, poetry by Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron, Shelley, Keats ... basically, a bunch of Dead White Guys.

Not that there's anything wrong with reading these works and writers. But I end up reading the same works and the same authors year after year ... after year ... and while this (hopefully) helps young adults' minds grow (through the analysis of these works and their connection not only to the politics of the world in which they were written, but to the politics of the world of today), it ends up being reading for works' sake, not for personal gain.

It's not that I don't have reading material at home, either. I have a library of several hundred books, many of which I have read multiple times. But there's plenty of untouched works in my collection as well, including (but not limited to): Truth and Duty: The Press, the President, and the Privilege of Power (Mary Mapes); The Fun of It: Stories from The New Yorker (edited by Lilian Ross); The Essential Kabbalah (Daniel C., Matt); Boychicks in the Hood: Travels in the Hasidic Underground (Robert Eisenberg); Barack Obama's The Audacity of Hope; Thomas L. Friedman's The World is Flat; and three Harry Potter novels.

No, for the most part, it comes down to a personal commitment - or lack thereof - to dedicate 15 minutes here, an hour there, to park myself on the couch, grab a cold glass of water, put on some George Winston, and crack open the pages of a saga from the past.

Around Thanksgiving, my mother loaned me a copy of the most recent Mitch Albom novel, Have A Little Faith. It sat, gathering dust, for the several weeks between that holiday and Christmas, begging for attention. One night last week, I lazily glanced at the cover and said to myself, "Let's take a read, shall we?"

So I parked myself on the couch ... grabbed a cold glass of water ... put on some George Winston ... and immersed myself in Albom's publication.

I won't say it was the best I've ever read, or the worst. I don't know where I'd actually "rank" it overall, since I've yet to finish it. But it is a good, clean read so far, offering me plenty to ponder about myself and the world around me, to mull over where my life's travels have taken me religiously and where I might plot my life's religious GPS in the near future.

For that, it makes for a great read.

I have almost completed Have A Little Faith, and am already contemplating my next read. Will it be Frederick Forsyth's The Fist Of God for the umpteenth time? Into Jane Leavy's Sandy Koufax: A Lefty's Legacy for a fifth time? Or will I finally delve into Eric Burns' historical review of the beginnings of American journalism, Infamaous Scribblers?

We shall see. Meanwhile, I think I'll light a Yankee Candle as well next time ... just to add to the moment.

Do Not Taunt Happy Fun Ball

A number of years ago, during one of NBC's Saturday Night Live upswings (early 1991), a parody advertisement was aired on the weekly satire/comedy program - a skit about a toy rubber ball that is accompanied by a long series of warnings and disclaimers, including:

- Warning: Pregnant women, the elderly, and children under 10 should avoid prolonged exposure to Happy Fun Ball.
- Caution: Happy Fun Ball may suddenly accelerate to dangerous speeds.
- Happy Fun Ball contains a liquid core, which, if exposed due to rupture, should not be touched, inhaled, or looked at.
- Do not use Happy Fun Ball on concrete.
- Discontinue use of Happy Fun Ball if any of the following occurs: itching, vertigo, dizziness, tingling in extremities, loss of balance or coordination, slurred speech, temporary blindness, profuse sweating, heart palpitations.
- If Happy Fun Ball begins to smoke, get away immediately. Seek shelter and cover head.
- Happy Fun Ball may stick to certain types of skin.
- When not in use, Happy Fun Ball should be returned to its special container and kept under refrigeration. Failure to do so relieves the makers of Happy Fun Ball, Wacky Products Incorporated, and its parent company, Global Chemical Unlimited, of any and all liability.
- Ingredients of Happy Fun Ball include an unknown glowing green substance which fell to Earth, presumably from outer space.
- Happy Fun Ball has been shipped to our troops in Saudi Arabia and is being dropped by our warplanes in Iraq.
- Do not taunt Happy Fun Ball.
- Happy Fun Ball comes with a lifetime warranty.

I have been reminded by this on a seemingly regular basis the past few years due to real commercials that have been airing on network and cable stations. Specifically, when dealing with "direct to consumer" (DTC) advertising done by pharmaceutical agencies.

DTC media advertising used to be nonexistent, and even when it started to creep into the mainstream, it was minimal at best. This all changed in 1997, when the US Food and Drug Administration loosened rules governing such marketing. The result some dozen years later: one seemingly cannot watch television without being inundated with any of the $4.3 billion in advertisements for Lipitor, Zoloft, Paxil, Flomax, and a slew of other medication.

Now, I have no clue if our society is better off today because of the multitude of medical options we can embrace. I'm sure some people have seen their lifestyle improved to various degrees, and I am equally positive others have seen no improvement whatsoever. And I am equally unclear whether the overkill of advertisement has led to the purported lifestyle improvements, although I'm pretty sure the pharmaceutical powers (GlaxoSmithKline, Eli Lilly, Pfizer, Merck, etc.) are making some serious profits.

So how does all of this relate to Happy Fun Ball? Easy: the multiple disclaimers that are tossed about orally and visually during the scenes where men scamper to the bathroom because of overactive bladders, or where couples lazily stare into the sunset in his-and-hers bathtubs in the middle of a pastoral field of green. For example, Viagra warns viewers of the following:

- If you take medicines that has nitrates in them you should not take Viagra.
- The most common side effects are headaches, facial flushing and upset stomach.
- Less commonly, bluish vision, blurred vision or sensitivity to light may occur.
- And - of course - as with any ED medication, if an erection lasts more than four hours, seek immediate medical help to avoid long-term injury.

What about Celexa, a drug that purportedly deals with depression? Its list of mild side effects include nausea, headaches, drowsiness, dry mouth, dizziness, insomnia; serious side effects include mood or behavior changes, anxiety, panic attacks, impulsive or hostile behavior, increased depression, and ... suicidal thoughts.

OK, those are some serious side effects!

A few years ago, the musical artist Lazyboy released a song called "Underwear Goes Inside the Pants," a satirical analysis of today's society, In part, he takes a humorous stab at the DTC craze:

You know we have more prescription drugs now. Every commercial that comes on TV is a prescription drug ad. I can't watch TV for four minutes without thinking I have five serious diseases. Like: "Do you ever wake up tired in the morning?" Oh my god I have this, write this down. Whatever it is, I have it. Half the time I don't even know what the commercial is: people running in fields or flying kites or swimming in the ocean. I'm like that is the greatest disease ever. How do you get that? That disease comes with a hot chick and a puppy.

Sounds to me like the only thing missing from Lazyboy's world is a Happy Fun Ball!

Anger Management

New Year's Day means quite a few things to people: recover from hangovers; watch major college football bowl games on TV; make some personal resolutions that are usually unachievable in the grand scheme of things; practice writing the new year over and over, so you don't mess up when writing personal checks.

To kick off 2010, I did a few of these things. I watched some football action on the tube, and I made several personal resolutions that hopefully are actually achievable (to work out more consistently, eat out less often, and eat more wisely (whether in-home or out and about). Technically, I pounded out the resolutions several days in advance, but the important thing is to actually make them happen.

Like with working out, I've never been consistent with blogging - I might post observations several days in a row, then shove the commentary off to the side for months. I think if you review my history here, this will be self-evident.

Regardless, here I am ... ready to begin the daily process. I hope you find it enjoyable, and you are always welcome to comment.

I resolve not to get angry with inconsiderate condo residents who leave clothes in the dryer unattended for hours while my fresh-from-the-wash clothes wait for their turn in the tumbler.

This probably wouldn't be as big a deal if I did my laundry either (a) inside my own condo unit or (b) at a laundromat. The former is not currently an option, and I didn't really feel like going to the local megaplex with a single load of clothing. So it was the condo complex facilities for me.

After the wash was done (delayed by a good 15 minutes due to a power surge that knocked out power to the building for a fraction of a second, but required me to pay an additional $1.25 to the machine to complete an actual wash cycle), I opened one of the dryer doors to discover ... dry clothes. Same with the second dryer. Given I had started my wash a good 45-50 minutes prior, and the dryers were not operational, and the clothes weren't exactly warm, this meant someone in the condo building had left their clothing unattended for several hours.

I decided to wait 15 minutes, to see if someone showed up. Went back into my unit, watched some football, updated my Facebook status, popped my head back into the laundry facility. No change.

I pondered my options, with the primary objective being that I did not want to have my damp clothing sitting around, gathering mildew. I could have gone door-to-door, asking residents if they had left their clothing in the dryer. I could have dumped the clothing on the floor, or in the trash, or consolidated the two dryers' contents into one dryer. (This, of course, was based on the assumption that both dryers' contests actually belonged to the same resident.) I could have done many things, some of which would have denied me any opportunity of receiving the Nobel Peace Prize. Yes, I could have been very, very mean.

But I ended up being Mr. Nice Guy. I grabbed an empty box, tossed the contents of one dryer into it, and put my stash in the machine, leaving the box o' clothes on a shelf in the laundry room.

An hour later, I retrieved my clothes, and since the box was still in the room, I returned the homeless attire to its previous temporary residence and retrieved my box as well.

Now, this resolution was never intended to be a play-by-play commentary about the way I do laundry. This is about not getting angry over a situation that - for some - could have resulted in an explosive tantrum. Or at the very least, some not-so-nice actions. I mean, some of the Facebook comments lend credence to this. Among the suggestions my friends made as to how to handle the situation:

- I think I maybe would have "accidentally" splashed some bleach in the dryer after I took my clothes out. Oops!
- You could always be a gentleman and pull them out on the floor for the inconsiderate SOB. Maybe if they realize the inconvenience they are causing and have to pick up their clean clothes they'll get the message.
- An accidental restart with a sharpie. (P.S.: Open the cap.....)

Creative answers, all. But I chose to take the road less traveled, and find humor in the situation rather than anger. After all, it's the first day of a new year. Do I really want to open 2010 with a need for anger management classes? I think not. In the big picture, it was not worth getting upset over.

Now, if I hadn't had an empty box available ...