America's Black Hole (Part 1)

This week I came across two really thought-provoking articles. The first was about the world's largest particle collider, which was activated this week, in spite of the fears of some in the scientific community that it might produce a black hole that could swallow the planet. (Such fears have proven to be groundless. So far...) The second article was an op-ed piece about college football. That might seem like an odd pairing, but I think that when viewed together, they say a lot about what our priorities are in this country, and what that might bode for our future in the world community.

Let me start with the op-ed, which was written by Buzz Bissinger, author of Friday Night Lights. Bissinger's piece was about Nick Saban, head coach of the University of Alabama's football team. At a university where the average professor makes $116,000 (and I'm assuming those are fully-tenured professors - I'm sure the T.A.'s and doctoral candidates who are actually teaching their classes are getting by on a mere pittance), Nick Saban makes $3.75 million a year. For coaching football. And that's just his base salary; his contract includes a number of other performance bonuses. For example, if his team wins the national championship, Saban gets an additional $400,000 - he gets less (though still a lot) if the team finishes in the top ten, makes it to a bowl game, etc. And get this: Saban can get an additional bonus of up to $100,000 if a certain percentage of his "student athletes" (not all of them, mind you, just a certain percentage) graduate. That bears repeating: he gets more money, more than most Americans see in a year, if he can just see to it that kids who are ostensibly going to college to get an education actually go through with it.

The focus of Bissinger's piece was that in spite of Saban's bloated contract, not to mention all of the non-salary perks that go with it (country club membership, two cars for his family, use of a private jet), his team won only 6 of its 12 games last year - that's over a half-million dollars per victory. Bissinger pretty much just left it at that, but I wish he had gone on to comment on what it says about our educational priorities when a guy who loses 50 percent of his football games makes over 30 times what successful teachers and researchers do.

Let me say here that I have nothing against sports, though college football has never been my thing. Actually, far from not having anything against sports, I'd say I'm really into them - I'm a rabid baseball fan. (If there is a God who answers prayers and sanctions preemptive wars, then my beloved Mets will be in the playoffs this year.) But however much I might like sports, I can recognize there are places where sports should be the focus, and others where it shouldn't be. School is one of those places where it shouldn't be.

The purpose of a university is, or should be, to teach, to support research, to encourage innovation and independent thought, and to provide a forum in which ideas can be exchanged and debated. When you get right down to it, everything else is just gravy. A football team (and, indeed, any extracurricular activity) can be an important part of enriching the college experience, but it's not an essential part of that experience. The problem is, that's exactly how it's treated in a lot of American universities. In many cases, the football team is the school; academics are just part of a larger life-support system for a semi-professional sports franchise. The emphasis placed on athletic achievement at some schools always baffled me: arguing that a school needs to invest more in its football team is to me like arguing that the Mets organization needs to devote more of its money to developing a more competitive biology department.

Over the past decade, the tension between sports and academics has become something of a hot topic at my alma mater, Rutgers University. Founded in 1766, Rutgers in one of the nation's oldest universities. It's also considered the birthplace of college football; Rutgers met Princeton in what is regarded as the first college football game way back in 18-oh-who-really-gives-a-crap. Since then, the Rutgers football team has, by and large, sucked. But that was cool, because at the same time Rutgers developed a reputation as a really solid school - from philosophy to pharmacy, its individual departments rank among the best in the nation. Two of my favorite professors - one who had previously taught at Harvard, the other at Princeton - were drawn to RU because of its reputation as one of the "public ivies". I was, and still am, very happy with the education I received there, not only from what I learned in the classroom, but also what I gained from living on one of the most culturally and ethnically diverse campuses in the country.

Since I graduated back in 19-none-of-your-damn-business, Rutgers has instituted a policy of increased footballification. The university built a state-of-the-art new stadium, joined the Big East conference, and gave its head coach a Saban-like contract. (Why on earth they decided to take this particular course is a subject too big for this blog.) On the surface, this seemed to pay big dividends. In 2006, perennial also-ran RU capped a magical season by coming from behind to defeat a highly-favored Louisville team in a dramatic upset. As the clock wound down, fans mobbed the field in what was hailed as "pandemonium in Piscataway". In a way, it was nice to see all of those kids so ecstatic, but at the same time I was left with a sinking feeling about what this might mean for the future of my old school.

Since then, Rutgers has committed to investing $100 million into making that brand-new state of the art stadium brand-newer and even more state-of-the-art. According to reports, that coach's Saban-like contract contained a clause that would allow him to bail on his contract (but keep the money) if these improvements were not made. So far this season, the Rutgers football team has played two games. It has lost both, by a combined score of 68-19.

When I hear about those $100 million improvements, I can't help but think about the normal students at Rutgers - you know, the ones who can't throw a football. I wonder how many of them still have to live in those spartan, depressing, bunker-like river dorms. I wonder if the incoming first-years will have to endure living with two other roommates in rooms that can barely accommodate two people. I wonder if those old, refurbished buses still billow all that black smoke. I wonder if the food still sucks. Most of all, I wonder how many programs are going to have to suffer because this football team just can't operate unless its stadium has a few more luxury boxes. When I was at Rutgers, the university closed a women's center that, among other things, provided support to victims of sexual abuse and domestic violence. I wonder how many of those battered women will be able to sit in those luxury boxes and watch their football team lose.

Defenders of this footballification as I called it will probably say that the increased revenue generated by a team's success actually goes back to funding for research, facilities, teachers, etc., but I just don't buy that. The bigger the beast gets, the more it needs to feed - the bigger a football program gets, the more it needs to spend to stay that way. But what about the boost of "pride" that a student body gets from having a winning football team? Well, consider this: in 2007, Rutgers ranked #59 in US News' list of the nation's best colleges. This year? #64. I don't really get much of a boost of pride out of that.

So what does all of this have to do with a particle collider? I'll get to that in my next post...

Lipstick on a pig

Once again, the TV press is doing a bang-up job informing Americans about the issues that really matter in this election...

In a recent speech at a campaign stop in Virginia, Barack Obama referred to the Republicans' vow to bring change to Washington as "putting lipstick on a pig" - the implication being that no matter how nicely you dress (or field dress) it up, it's still the same ugly thing it's been for the past eight years. The Republicans have spun this as a direct slap at GOP VP candidate Sarah Palin - I guess, because, you know, she wears lipstick and all. A GOP spokesman called the remark "disrespectful and offensive".

You know what - I think he's right. It really IS disrespectful and offensive. I mean, using an idiom that refers to anything remotely connected with women must be sexist, right?

RIGHT?



In case you didn't hear the context on that one, McCain was answering a question about Hillary Clinton's health care reform proposals. While Barack was using the idiom to describe the Republican campaign in general, McCain used it in response to a question about Hillary in particular. But when he did it, it wasn't sexist, it was funny - didn't you hear everyone laughing at the end of that clip?

He's always been a funny guy, though, that McCain. Have you heard this one?

"Why is Chelsea Clinton so ugly?
Because her father is Janet Reno."

HA! That's a joke McCain told at a Republican fundraiser back in '98. He subsequently apologized to President Clinton for the remark. But think about this: McCain made a joke assailing one woman's femininity and ridiculing a LITTLE GIRL's physical appearance, and the establishment media at the time deemed it "too vicious to print" (That's what the Washington Post said, anyway). Barack refers to lipstick while attacking Republican policies, and the media is all over him for being "disrespectful and offensive". (By the way, I'd like to take this opportunity to say that I think that Chelsea Clinton is kinda hot.)

Oh, and while the talking heads have been going ape over this crap, here's what's been happening in the real world:

- The Taliban (you know, those guys who actually WERE connected to the 9/11 attacks) are gaining ground in Afghanistan

- The unemployment rate is the highest it's been in five years

- The government just bailed out Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac at a cost of tens of billions of dollars to American taxpayers

- Earlier this week, a suicide bomber in Iraq killed 6 and wounded 54, in the same market where last month a bomb killed 28 and wounded 72.

And on, and on...

I've said this before, but I'll say it again: If you're going to get sucked in by all of this superficial, meaningless garbage, then you deserve to pay for all of the bridges to nowhere and billion-dollar bailouts that go with it. But for God's sake, would you please stop dragging the rest of us down with you?

PLEASE!?