Joe Paterno ... time to go

By Bob Gaydos

The lead on the Associated Press story Wednesday afternoon was straightforward and shocking at the same time:  “STATE COLLEGE, Pa. (AP) — Joe Paterno, the Penn State football coach who preached success with honor for half a century but whose legend was shattered by a child sex abuse scandal, said Wednesday he will retire at the end of this season.”

At the end of the season? Is he kidding? Are they kidding? Are the trustees of Penn State going to let Paterno, living legend or no, get away with that?

Those were my italicized thoughts immediately on reading the AP story, after following nearly 24 hours of non-stop coverage of the Penn State scandal, not only on radio and TV sports talk shows, but on network and cable TV news shows and on the front page of every newspaper in the country.

“Joe Pa,” the 84-year-old face of Penn State was, as usual, setting his own terms for when he would leave his beloved university. Or at least he was trying to. But this time, Standup Joe, as he is also lovingly known around State College, has no leg to stand on. That he was still football coach Wednesday afternoon was an upset in itself. For him to be allowed to coach on the weekend against Nebraska and then stay on to the end of the season would be the most profound insult to the alleged victims of the assaults and their families and would tarnish even more the image of Penn State.

The issue in this case is simple: What legal and moral responsibility did Paterno, as head coach and de facto king of Penn State, have in protecting young boys from sexual assaults from one of his coaches? Again, quoting from the AP story: “Paterno said he was “absolutely devastated” by the case, in which his one-time heir apparent, Jerry Sandusky, has been charged with molesting eight boys over 15 years, including at the Penn State football complex.”

Paterno reported an allegation of such an assault nine years ago to the university’s athletic director after Mike McQueen, a graduate assistant on the football team who said he saw Sandusky in the shower at the university with a 10-year-old boy, reported it to the coach. Legally, McQueen and Paterno apparently feel they did all they had to do.

Maybe so. That’s for the state attorney general to decide. Morally it’s a different matter. And the answer is clear: No, neither man did all that needed to be done. The assistant coach did not try to stop whatever was going on in the shower. Instead, he called his father who told him to leave. They talked about it and told Paterno the next day. Paterno told the AD. Nine years later — during which time Sandusky continued to operate a foundation to serve underprivileged young boys and continued to be seen around Penn State — Sandusky was arrested and athletic director Tim Curley and vice president Gary Schultz were charged with failing to report the incident to the authorities.

But there was Paterno, several times a target for those who thought he was too old to coach and should retire and now holding the record for most football wins among Division I schools, still on Wednesday afternoon attempting to dictate the terms of his retirement.

It is an arrogance and sense of entitlement that no serious board of trustees can allow to succeed. Paterno made much during his tenure of holding his football players to higher standards, morally, than coaches at other schools. It is part of what created his legend. Failing to notify police authorities for nine years, during which time school officials made it clear they weren’t going to pursue legal action against Curley, was more than a lapse in judgment, it was a profound moral lapse. Or maybe the image Paterno has projected all these years was false.

Whatever the case, Paterno and school officials suggest by their callous disregard for the boys and potential future victims that protecting the reputation of the school comes first and, at Penn State, the football reputation trumps all.

It is sad, it is troubling, it is infuriating. In this day and age, there are still adults who do not recognize that there is a moral obligation to do everything possible to protect the most vulnerable among us from predators — even when to do so may harm other people and institutions we hold close. Sometimes we are indeed our brothers’ keepers.

Retire at the end of the season? No way. Joe Pa should have retired with humility Wednesday afternoon. Wednesday night, the board of trustees fired him immediately. Finally, the trustees reclaimed control of Penn State.

bob@zestoforange.com

Kim Kardashian ... soon to be divorced

By Bob Gaydos

There is an art to ending things — careers, relationships, jokes, movies, books, TV shows and yes, even lives.

As a rule, most of us pay too little attention to figuring out how to end something, perhaps because we just don’t like to think about it when we‘re in the middle of whatever it is. The result is most often boring, routine. Hardly artistic.

“Thanks for the 35 years, Joe. Hope your 401k holds up.”

“I, uh, think maybe we should spend a little less time together.”

“He died in his sleep. He was 77.”

Unremarkable.

In truth, just as we give little thought to how to end our own things, we seldom notice other people’s endings, except when someone gets it unmistakably right (“Casablanca,” Johnny Carson or “The Usual Suspects”), or painfully wrong (“The Sopranos,” Joe Louis or Brett Favre).

Take Kim and Kris Kardashian. I mean, uh, Humphries. Or rather, Kim Kardashian and Kris “What the Heck Happened to My Life” Humphries. After a mere 72 days of marriage, the TV reality star announced her marriage to the pro basketball player was done.

“After careful consideration,” she said in a prepared statement, “I have decided to end my marriage. I hope everyone understands this was not an easy decision. I had hoped this marriage was forever but sometimes things don’t work out as planned. We remain friends and wish each other the best.”

Careful consideration? Sometimes things don’t work out? 72 days? That’s quick even for Liz and Zsa Zsa, although well off Britney’s record.

Humphries says he was “blindsided” and found out about it from a TV show. Either this was the worst example of how to end a marriage or the cleverest ploy to juice the ratings for a TV show. Or, as I suspect, both.

Humphries, an oak tree of a rebounder for the New Jersey, soon-to-be-Brooklyn, Nets, comes off looking like a grade A schlemiel in this. He bought her a ring for $2 million, is a free agent in a sport whose owners have locked out the players and he may not see a paycheck for a year, and, well, he apparently never really got the whole Kardashian created-for-TV family empire.

When nothing is too personal, too sensitive or too intimate to share with millions of strangers, then someone is bound to get hurt. Kardashian has had a sex tape posted on the web and had her famous behind X-rayed to prove it was not enhanced. (“Mom, Dad, you know Kim …”) Her stepfather, former Olympic star Bruce Jenner, has had his face remodeled beyond recognition to blend in. The wedding, every bit of it shown on TV, cost $10 million, but some reports say the family made a profit on it from all the media deals.

And, of course, they had a pre-nup.

Kardashian filed for divorce Oct. 31, citing “irreconcilable differences.” Considering that Humphries is two feet taller than her, that should have been obvious from the start. Even so, it would have been nice — dare I say, decent — if, before telling the Twitter world about the divorce, Kim had given Kris the news face-to-face (sitting down), without any cameras. But then, that would not have been the Kardashian way.

On the other hand, there is the Tony La Russa way of saying goodbye. Aces all around for the St. Louis Cardinals’ longtime manager, who guided his team through a remarkable end of season comeback that put them in the World Series and saw them winning it thanks to more remarkable comebacks. No sooner had the cheering and champagne ceased in America’s heartland, than La Russa announced he was retiring. Bam! On top. Winner of his third World Series as a manager. Sayonara, baseball.

He wasn‘t sticking around to hear any more criticisms of his sometimes odd moves in the series. No more reading about his control freak nature in dealing with pitchers. No more having to put up with reporters who want to ask annoying questions after every game. Pack my bags, I’m bound for Cooperstown.

And so he is and, control freak that he really is, he did it on his own terms. You gotta give him credit for that.

But for sheer genius, the award for the classiest ending in recent weeks has to go to the certified genius who left us far too soon, Steve Jobs. The man behind the Apple empire and all it has spawned, died of cancer last month at 56. In a eulogy delivered during a memorial service, his sister revealed Jobs’ final words: “Wow. Oh wow. Oh wow!”

Move over “Rosebud.” We have a new winner.

bob@zestoforange.com

Look! Up in the sky! Our ancestors.

By Bob Gaydos

So, you know about Nibiru, right? Planet X?

Why are you giving me a blank stare? Nibiru. Or maybe you prefer Elenin. C’mon, it’s this freaky big planet hiding behind the sun that’s supposed to crash into Earth in December of 2011 killing us all. It’s all over the Internet, man. Don’t you ever watch YouTube?

This thing is so big and so scary that NASA and Google have formed a conspiracy to hide the information from us. They don’t want us to know when the end of the world is coming because, well, that’s part of the conspiracy, too.

I can understand your confusion. I am embarrassed to admit that I hadn’t heard of Nibiru either until about a week ago when my son, Zack, and I were watching TV. Something, perhaps some power of suggestion implanted in him hundreds of years ago by aliens, compelled him to ask me: “You know about that, right? That planet that’s supposed to hit the Earth?”

“Uh, no. How do you know this?”

“It’s on YouTube.“

‘‘Oh. And how do you know it’s true?” (Force of habit.)

“There’s a black rectangle on GoogleSky where it’s supposed to be.”

“So it’s a conspiracy?”

“Uh huh.”

(Disclaimer for Zack: He is a very bright 17-year-old with a particularly sadistic sense of humor on occasion. He will go right for your weak spot. Ergo: “How do you know it’s true?” “It’s all over the Internet.”

Of course, it is. David Morrison, a planetary astronomer at NASA and senior scientist at the NASA Astrobiology Institute, estimates that there are 2 million websites discussing Nibiru. It has been the source of countless wasted hours as people either expanded the hoax or wasted precious time trying to convince believers it was nonsense.

For the life of me, after four-plus decades in journalism, I still don’t get people’s attraction for conspiracy theories, the wilder the better. One of my operating principles has always been that the more complex, outrageous the theory being proposed, the simpler the probable answer: It’s about money; it’s about sex; it’s about fear/ignorance. It’s B.S.

So, personally, I am inclined to accept NASA’s statement that there is no mysterious planet hurtling to Earth because they — or one of the millions of other humans who scan the night skies with really good telescopes would have seen it by now. And I accept Google’s explanation that the blank spot on its sky photo was the result of technical problems involving one of their many source for the data. I add credence to this explanation by also accepting the argument that, since GoogleSky is a picture of the actual sky, anyone could simply go outside, look through their telescope at the area in question and see what was there and take their own picture. Apparently no one has thought of doing this.

Simple, common sense explanations.

I also subscribe to the late Carl Sagan’s principle that “extraordinary claims demand extraordinary levels of evidence if they are to be believed.”

And the claims about Nibiru are nothing if not extraordinary. Still, I ventured relatively objectively into the Internet universe to research the subject until I stumbled on the origin of the Nibiru story.

In a nutshell: The doomsday scenario of collision with another planet was first described in 1995 by Nancy Lieder, a self-described “contactee.” She claims to be able to receive messages through an implant in her brain from aliens in the Zeta Reticuli star system. She says she was chosen to warn mankind of an impending planetary collision which would wipe out humanity in May 2003. Oh yeah, this catastrophe was supposed to happen eight years ago, but when it didn’t, the doomsday fans looked around and found the Mayan calendar prediction of a 2012 cataclysmic end. Convenient, no?

Lieder gave the planet the name “Planet X,” which astronomers traditionally reserve for planets yet undiscovered. She further attached it to a popular book, “The Twelfth Planet,” which pinned the Nibiru story on ancient Sumerians, who supposedly believed humans evolved on Nibiru and stopped briefly on Earth to colonize it.

At this point, I was becoming somewhat less objective. I found more support for the Nibiru theory on websites that also wrote about extraterrestrials, the Illuminati, mind control, Freemasons, the matrix, and other prophecies. The constant theme was that, despite its size, no one could see Nibiru — and thus prove its existence — because of a grand conspiracy by government and science (and apparently Google) to hide it from us, to what end I still cannot fathom.

I leave it to psychologists to explain why some people feel the need to create grand hoaxes and conspiracy theories and why so many more people feel the need to believe them. I suppose it makes life more interesting, but I’m a “keep it simple stupid” kind of guy. Plus — and this is just between you and me — I know the U.S. government has a massive, secret, anti-alien unit that will make toast of Nibiru. It’s under the Denver Airport. Zack saw it on YouTube.

bob@zestoforange.com

The coyote came out of nowhere and disappeared into a corn field.

By Bob Gaydos

I saw a coyote the other day. Not on television, but about 150 feet in front of me. I was sitting in my car, having my morning coffee-and-newspaper fix (old habits) when I caught a glimpse of something moving on the road in front of me. The road is a quiet one that parallels a state highway on one side and a corn field on the other. No houses, businesses or other distractions. A rare hideaway in a suburbanized world.

That’s probably why the coyote sighting surprised me. The animal came out of nowhere — actually, it would have to have been from across the busy highway to my left — and moved purposefully across the road and into the corn field on my right. It took maybe 10 seconds, not long enough for me to realize what I was seeing and grab my camera from the backseat. So you’ll have to take my word for it.

The scraggly looking critter — and they are particularly ugly animals — disappeared into the corn and out of my life. I have since returned to the road for coffee and contemplation. But thus far no coyote. Not that I really expect a revisit. Then again, I never expected the first one.

At the same time, I have been thinking how remarkably unremarkable the brief event was — Hey, everybody’s seen a coyote around here — and yet how unremarkably remarkable it was — Really? Everybody’s seen a coyote around here?

I think it was just plain remarkable, though I haven’t figured out precisely why.

For starters, I guess, it gives me something a little offbeat to throw into conversations when I don’t feel like talking politics.

“Hey, Bob, what did you think of that Republican debate the other night?”

“Yeah, you know what? I saw a coyote the other day — middle of the morning, big as life, right in front of me, ugly as could be. Ran from the highway into the cornfield. Where the heck did he come from? How dangerous do you think he might be? How far do they travel? What are they doing down here anyway? Are they instinctual survivors? Do they eat cows? Can people shoot them legally?”

Good political questions all, turned masterfully into environmental musings.

The coyote sighting, plus my firsthand experience with the earthquake — sitting in my car again, in front of my home, listening to two idiots on a talk radio sports show discuss the Mets for some reason, when the car starts shaking back and forth like it’s in a Category 3 hurricane, then repeating the scenario a few seconds later — are godsends for future social chitchat. No harm, no foul, plenty of aww shucks.

But is that remarkable? Or just luck?

In any event, it got me thinking about the unpredictable encounters we have in our lives every day and how they affect us, or not. For example, I stopped in at QuickChek for my morning coffee recently and was struck by the sound of a loud, female voice engaged in earnest (although clearly not a business) conversation. This was over the sound of the piped in music and usual hum of store business. Scanning quickly, I spotted the culprit, in a far corner, cell phone to ear, oblivious to her decibel level and intrusion into other people’s lives. I later spotted her on line, still talking into her cell phone and cradling two half-gallon-size fountain drinks in her arms. I may have said a prayer of gratitude that I didn’t know her.

On the other hand, a few days before Madame Megaphone and the coyote, I was starting my coffee routine at QuickChek when I noticed a gentleman of a certain age — you know, mature — swaying and bobbing in perfect step to the piped-in music as he added sugar to his coffee. He was smiling too, broadly, and I swear he was humming.

“You’re having a better morning than I am,” I volunteered.

“He woke me up this morning,” came the happy reply.

Say what you want about the value of living life with a positive attitude, people do not often invoke Him in public — certainly not in a convenience store to strangers — in order to explain their joyous attitude. And this gentleman was indeed joyous. I’d said I felt cranky. My bones. He said I could talk to my bones and change that.

Remarkable.

He even let me go before him in line.

Total honesty: I had a much better day after that encounter and, like the coyote, I’ll probably never forget the joyous gentleman, although I do look for him in QuickChek every time I give them some of my money.

And if Madame Megaphone returns, as I fear she will, I will do my best to tune her out and tune in to the piped-in music. Let’s hope it’s upbeat. If you happen to see me there with a cup of coffee, humming with a dumb ass grin on my face, I’m probably having a good, if not joyous, day. I’ll be heading out to my road to catch up on the news and wait for the next coyote.

bob@zestoforange.com

Michele Bachmann and ... God

By Bob Gaydos

Good lord, does Michele Bachmann really believe that God is taking sides in the American presidential campaign? More to the point, does the Republican congresswoman from Minnesota expect us to believe that she knows which side God is on because she can interpret the messages He sends us in the form of catastrophic natural events?

It would appear so. The tea party darling, who has repeatedly demonstrated an appalling lack of knowledge of history or an understanding of science, has now offered American voters a glimpse of her evangelical Christian faith in which, apparently, God controls all natural events and directs them at certain people to deliver a message. Let the bodies fall where they may.

Speaking in Florida a few days ago, Bachmann said: “I don’t know how much God has to do to get the attention of the politicians. We’ve had an earthquake; we’ve had a hurricane. He said, ‘Are you going to start listening to me here?’ Listen to the American people because the American people are roaring right now. They know government is on a morbid obesity diet and we’ve got to rein in the spending.”

So God punished the East Coast, home to those dreaded Democrats and liberals, with a rare earthquake and then a hurricane that killed 45 people and caused billions of dollars in damage because Democrats in Congress and the Democratic president would not go along with her views on how to fix the country’s financial problems?

Really? That’s all God has to worry about these days? Poverty and sickness and hunger and bigotry and religious fanaticism have all been dealt with, so let’s balance America’s budget? This is frightening on so many levels, even for Bachmann and, I might add, an insult to God.

Of course, Bachmann, as is her wont (and her habit) reacted to criticism of her comment by having an aide say it was only a joke. Oh, OK. Hear that Vermont? She was only kidding. You farmers who lost all your crops and you people whose homes were made unlivable, stop griping. Can’t you take a joke?

The thing with Bachmann is that she always has to backtrack on some dumb statement and always excuses it in an offhand manner as a meaningless misstatement or a joke. Which means she’s either dangerously clueless or — the really dangerous option — absolutely convinced that anything she believes is right and true and those who disagree with her are wrong and false. And, one may then assume, deserving of a vengeful God’s wrath until they are converted.

But she’s even got this God thing wrong. Disclaimer: I do not believe, as did the Greeks and Romans, that God, or the gods, are sitting around controlling natural events to reward or punish humans. But if one did believe this, then it would appear that conservative Republicans in the Deep South and Midwest, home of many fundamentalist religious zealots who support Bachmann and Texas Gov. Rick Perry, have not been heeding God’s messages.

The worst natural disaster by far in America this year has been the record-setting drought that has engulfed 13 states, all but one in the South and Midwest. The states of Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oklahoma and South Carolina — homes to so many Republicans and true tea party believers — have suffered for months with no relief in sight. Worst of all is Texas, where Gov. Perry has tried to out-God Bachmann in his presidential campaign. The outlying drought state? Alaska. How ya doin’, Sarah?

There’s more. Sixty-two tornadoes devastated Alabama on April 27. From May 22 to May 22, central and Southern states were hit by 180 tornadoes, with 177 killed, 160 in Joplin, Mo. alone. Cost: $4.9 billion. In all this year, Midwest and Southeastern states have been hit by about 750 tornadoes, causing more than 500 deaths and $16 billion in damage. There was also a hail storm that a did a billion dollars in damage in Oklahoma. God must have been really ticked at those Okies over something, no?

So, wasn’t anybody in these states listening to God when he told them to compromise on the debt crisis? Or was He telling them to take global warming seriously? I have to admit that, apparently along with Bachmann, I didn’t catch His meaning in these instances, but I did notice that all those states readily accepted help from the federal government to deal with the destruction of the natural disasters.

Actually, let’s keep this simple. If Michele Bachmann truly believes that God is punishing Democrats with lethal natural disasters for not agreeing with her on the budget, she hasn’t got the brains to be president. If she thinks this is a joking matter, she hasn’t got the heart.

bob@zestoforange.com

George Pataki

By Bob Gaydos

So George Pataki is thinking about running for president. So what’s new?

The former New York governor has flirted with making a presidential run a couple of times in the past, only to bow to the inevitable arguments against him: much of the country doesn’t know who he is, other candidates have raised a lot more money than he could hope to raise and, oh yeah, he is a traditional Republican from the Northeast, with traditional Republican values, in a party that not only doesn’t share those values anymore, it has become downright hostile to anyone who holds them and claims to be a Republican.

They even came up with an acronym for such Republicans: RINOs. That stands for Republicans in Name Only. Pataki ranked 6th among RINOs in a recent listing, not encouraging in an era when RINOs are a threatened species outside of the North. Today, the Republican Party is dominated by dinosaurs, which as any schoolchild knows, were put on this planet by God to provide food for Adam and Eve. Just ask Rick Perry.

Perry is the current governor of Texas, which gives him more current name recognition than Pataki. Texas’ ranking dead last among states in adults with a high school diploma gives Perry further cache with the people calling the shots today in the GOP — the ladies who come to tea.

That would be Michele Bachmann, congresswoman from Minnesota and Sarah Palin, former governor of Alaska, former Republican vice presidential candidate, current barnstorming media star and, still, potential presidential candidate. The two women have captured the heart and mind of the Republican Party, such as they are. In the process they have made regard for the facts and respect for science and history irrelevant within party ranks by playing shamelessly to the fears and resentments of many of their constituents.

They have frightened grownups out of the party — or at least out of decision-making roles — and, bolstered by shameless media exploitation by Fox News and other outlets, made the Republican Party home to nay-sayers, whiners, quasi-patriots, demagogues and hundreds of elected officials who have sacrificed their principles — their souls — to appease the loud rabble so they won’t come after them. This is today’s version of the late Lee Atwater’s GOP Big Tent: It’s a lot smaller and you need to pass a loyalty test to get in.

In sum, it is not Pataki’s party’s finest hour. Which prompts me to offer a modest proposal: If he really wants to run for president, why not run as a Democrat?

Yes, he spouts the traditional Republican line about no taxes and less government, but he was governor for 12 years and he knows the truth. Executives find ways to raise revenue, whatever they may call it, and they recognize that compromise at some point becomes necessary to, well, govern.

Neither principle is accepted philosophy in today’s GOP. It’s not because the longtime office holders in Congress and elsewhere don’t recognize their validity, but rather because they have been scared off by the tea partiers, some of whom seem to think they are living in Egypt or Libya and need to overthrow a government that has brutalized them.

Pataki, who has been touring the country under the auspices of a non-profit group he formed — No American Debt — says he hasn’t heard any of the many Republican candidates “offer specific solutions” to getting rid of the national debt and the deficit. Quite true. Nay-sayers can only say nay. They do not offer solutions. (A lot of Americans have apparently caught on to this tendency of the tea partiers and blame them and Republicans they hang out with in Congress more for the recent debt fiasco than they do Democrats.)

But Pataki’s problems with Republicans is social, not financial. He is a pro-choice, pro-gun control, pro-union, pro-government involvement, pro gay rights, pro-environment kind of guy. In other words, a Democrat, insofar as conservative Republicans — which is redundant, if you ask me — are concerned.

If he’s really serious and not just lonely for attention like Rudy Giuliani seemed to be in the last GOP presidential primary chase, Pataki should consider challenging President Barack Obama for the Democratic nomination and hope to gain the support of more conservative Democratic Party members and the thousands of independents looking for someone with moderate political views and a healthy does of leadership capability.

That may or may not be Pataki, who certainly can‘t match Obama in the charisma or oratorical competitions. But Perry and Bachmann rely a great deal on personal charm for their success as well. Yes, they are vulnerable on the “That’s Just Flat Out Not True” scale, but the only Republican who tried to go there against Bachmann — former Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty — dropped out of the race after doing poorly in a hoked-up straw poll in Iowa. He and Pataki are about equal on the charisma scale.

In short, there is no evidence as yet that Republicans are ready and willing to listen to — and support — candidates who do not live in an alternative universe, one where government never taxes anyone but the middle class and RINOs are fair game for anyone with a gun, which, by law, of course, is everyone.

bob@zestoforange.com

Texas Gov. Rick Perry

By Bob Gaydos

Some national political pundits are already promoting Texas Gov. Rick Perry to the head of the Republican class of presidential candidates because he is the chief executive of a state so large it can be regarded as a “mini-nation.” If you haven’t been paying attention, Perry is another folksy straight-shooter who once vetoed a bill that would have made it illegal to execute mentally retarded inmates. He has bragged a lot lately about his record insofar as creating jobs is concerned. Since he wants to be the chief executive of the whole dang nation, I thought it would be a good idea to check out exactly what kind of country we’re talking about. What is life like in Perryland, aka Texas?

For a detailed analysis, I went to the Texas Legislative Study Group’s fifth annual report on the state of their state, entitled “Texas on the Brink.” (You’re sensing something, aren’t you?) Full disclosure: The Texas Legislative Study Group does research on issues affecting Texans and prepares reports and policy papers for state legislators to help them decide what to do. It is a liberal-leaning group. However, all I’m presenting here are facts the group has compiled in assessing where Texas stands today in relation to other states. Texans do not quarrel with the study group’s facts; they merely disagree on their relative importance. That’s fine, I guess, if you’re happy living in Texas, but, as I said, Perry, who is as rigid as any other conservative candidate out there, wants to turn the whole USA into Perryland.

So, let’s start with jobs, shall we? Perry’s braggin’ on how Texas has created more jobs than any other state during the recession. True enough. Yet its unemployment rate in June was 8.2 percent, which was higher than New York’s. And last year, nearly 10 percent of the state’s work force, more than half a million people, were paid the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour, or less. That ties Texas with Mississippi for having the highest percentage of minimum-wage hourly workers. Not where you want to be number one.

Of course, Texas always has available jobs because of its huge energy industry. It also isn’t big on regulating business, has low taxes and housing prices and a warm climate. Those factors may attract people from other states to go to work in Texas, but as a national policy for creating jobs, it cannot work — unless we ease immigration policies on Canada. Mexico is clearly another story.

And what do people find when they settle in Texas? A snapshot of Perryland compared to the other 49 states:

• It ranks 38th in average hourly earnings of production workers on manufacturing payrolls.
• Government employee salaries rank 24th.
• Percent of workers who belong to unions: 41st.

Of course, Perry has offered the usual argument about creating more jobs leading to greater wealth, better education and more opportunity. Here’s the state of education in Perryland (where teaching creationism is the governor’s answer to so many ills.):

• The average salary of public school teachers (2009-2010): 31st
• Current expenditures per student: 38th
• State and local expenditures per pupil in public schools: 44th

Now, for a lot of our more conservative countrymen, these numbers might seem encouraging, since they feel New York and other states spend far too much on education in relation to the results. Well, the proof is in the pudding. Here’s how going cheap on schools has paid off in Perryland:

• On SAT scores, Texas ranks 45th in the country.
• Its high school graduation rate is 43rd.

And for real braggin’ rights:

• In the percent of the population 25 and older with a high school diploma, Texas ranks 50th, dead last, in the country. (Some cynics might say that explains the election of the state’s last two governors.)

That takes care of opportunity, but that’s not all folks. All those low-income workers coming to Texas where the living is cheap have this to enjoy, courtesy of Gov. Perry:

• Texas is 1st in percent of the population without health insurance.
• Percent of non-elderly uninsured: also 1st
• Percent of low income population covered by Medicaid: 49th
• Percent with employer-based health insurance: 48th
• Per capita state spending on mental health: 50th
• Per capita state spending on Medicaid: 49th
• Physicians per capita: 42nd
• Dentists per capita: 39th
• Registered nurses: 44th

Stay healthy, man.

And as far as being a low-tax state: A 2009 study found that families in the bottom 20 percent of the income scale pay more than three-and-a-half times as great a share of their earnings in taxes as the top one percent of Texans.

It all sounds like a very 21st century Republican approach to governing. Now, I’m all for reassessing budget allocations and belt-tightening all around, but I reckon I’m just not ready to turn the whole goldarn country into Perryland. Not just yet.

Bob@zestoforange.com

Amy Winehouse

By Bob Gaydos

Last week, fellow Zest columnist Michael Kaufman posed some questions about the death of Amy Winehouse — in sum, why was it “allowed to happen” — and suggested that, since I also write a published column on addiction and recovery, perhaps I might have some thoughts on the subject.

Which, of course, I do. They are not based on any special insight into the psychological makeup of the singer, nor any knowledge of her medical history or even a hint of the kind of environment in which she grew up. To some extent, all of this unique information may matter in trying to determine why Amy Winehouse died so tragically at age 27 (the precise cause has not been announced). On the other hand, hers has all the earmarks of a typical alcohol and drug-related death. Her celebrity made it newsworthy, but don’t for a minute think that the parents of other, less-talented young men and women who succumb to addiction do not understand and share the profound sorrow of Amy’s parents.

Addiction is a remarkably democratic disease, an indiscriminate killer. Could Amy’s death have been avoided? Possibly. There is always the chance with addiction that a person can be “saved” from himself or herself. Most of the time, this hope rests with the family and friends of the addict, the ones who bear the brunt of the pain of the addictive behavior. For her part, Winehouse seems to have bought into the stereotyped alcohol-and-drug-filled life of the tragic, young musician early on. Now she will live forever as the dark flip side of the sex, drugs and rock ’n roll theory of life.

She has company there, of course. In the immediate aftermath of her death, the internet was full of observers welcoming her to the infamous “27 Club.” These are talented, immensely popular young performers who died at age 27, all of whom led self-destructive lives fueled by alcohol and drug abuse. The most prominent other members are Jimi Hendrix, who choked on his vomit after combining sleeping pills with wine, Janis Joplin, who overdosed on heroin while drinking, Jim Morrison, whose cause of death was listed as “heart failure,” and Kurt Cobain, who committed suicide.

Addiction is obviously not fussy about the manner in which it kills. But truth be told, while thousands die each year from some cause related to excessive use of alcohol or drugs, many more simply live out their lives with untreated alcoholism or drug dependency. A lot of it is not pretty. Much of it is avoidable.

Most public discussion of addiction focuses on the behavioral symptoms of the disease. Most people still think of it as a cultural, social or criminal matter, rather than a health issue. Society for the most part treats it that way. We never ask why someone suffering from heart disease or cancer who refuses treatment can’t be “committed” for their own good. It’s their choice. Is a person in the grip of addiction capable of making a rational decision on receiving treatment? Maybe not, seeing as denial is a primary symptom of the disease. But there is no way to legally require an addict to get treatment, even if a crime has been committed. We tried committing alcoholics to mental wards for many years only to learn that it didn’t work.

What does work? Or, more specifically, what might have worked for Amy? Here’s where knowing her medical and family history could help, since science has established a genetic predisposition to addiction as well as identifying the likely center for this activity in the brain. But people without a family history of alcoholism or brains hard-wired to require more pleasure receptors also become addicts.

What science is also telling us now is that it is important to begin when children are young to establish a lifestyle that does not encourage the indiscriminate use of alcohol or drugs to “feel good.” One that does not glamorize or demonize alcohol, but rather offers an honest perspective on it. Kids’ brains are malleable. They mimic their elders and have little concept of their own mortality.

Amy’s parents may well have done this, but the key is to keep doing it even when the child resists. There’s no such thing as caring too much, of giving too much information. But the singer also had the burden of tremendous success, with the pressure to keep performing. The stress on young people in this situation is unimaginable to most of us. If she was inclined to use alcohol and drugs to deal with stress to begin with (and her music suggests as much), the inescapable presence of alcohol and drugs in the pop music industry could have been enough to drown out any voices of reason coming from loved ones. Amy Winehouse, while young, talented and vulnerable, was also a tremendously profitable business. Money talks. Business associates can be persuasive enablers. (Even Charlie Sheen has been offered a new TV sitcom.)

This is my personal opinion. I would say, given her history, Winehouse needed a lot of time away from performing and professional help in detoxing herself from alcohol and drugs — neither of which she got. She may well have rejected both. But if her music family had combined with her biological family and persisted in their efforts, if, say, they made performing impossible for her until she had received professional help in treating her addiction, Amy Winehouse might still be with us. People in recovery tell those who are still struggling not to give up before the miracle happens, because you never know when that miracle — the death of denial –may happen.

And as for her fans, rather than memorializing Amy Winehouse as the latest member of a foolishly glamorized group of talented dead addicts, how refreshing it would be for them to start honoring a different group — all the talented, clean and sober performers living in recovery. Talk about your miracles.

Bob@zestoforange.com

Michele Bachmann's strappy sandals

By Bob Gaydos

Can high heels really cause migraines? Apparently, Michele Bachmann thinks the answer is yes. She also continues to do well in polls of possible Republican presidential candidates. And so, we will once more sit in on Professor Bachmann’s class. The subject this time is health, not history.

Let’s start with a statement of fact: There is no scientific or biological evidence that wearing high-heel shoes can trigger migraine episodes. There’s not much anecdotal testimony on any cause and effect either. This is not in any way to belittle the sometimes debilitating effect such headaches can have on those who get them (women are three times more susceptible). Indeed, if the issue were merely migraines and how they affect Bachmann’s ability to handle her job as a congresswoman from Minnesota — or potentially, president of the United States — there probably wouldn’t be much of an issue.

Some ex-Bachmann aides (of which there are a lot) gave out the information on the migraines and said she took a bunch of pills to deal with them. They said she was sometimes incapacitated for a day by the headaches. Bachmann herself confirmed the migraines, but said she was always able to function. She said she takes prescribed medications for the headaches and side effects.

This is not unusual. Several presidents had to deal with painful health issues, but managed to fulfill the stressful duties of the Oval Office. John Kennedy and Thomas Jefferson suffered from migraines, to name two. So, assuming she is being forthright on the issue, doubting Bachmann’s ability to serve as president simply because she’s a woman who suffers migraines would be patently unfair.

But Bachmann’s the one who brought up the high heels, immediately making it a gender issue as well as a possible health issue. Her son, who is a doctor, said his mother noticed “a correlation” between the headaches and days when she is wearing heels. “The truth is she wears high heels all the time and she doesn’t get migraines” all the time, he said. “But she has found a correlation, though a correlation does not necessarily equal causation. It’s an unknown cause.” He pointed out she was wearing high heels during stressful situations.

Bachmann says she started wearing high heels as a little girl, when she wore her mother’s, and has always loved wearing them. In fact, high heels are a critical component of a certain type of modern powerful-woman package: Well-tailored expensive suit, stylish hair, high heels. I can be feminine and effective. Do not doubt me.

Fine. But high heels and migraines?

I decided to check with Orange County’s most famous female high-heel wearing politician — Mary McPhillips — to see if she ever had a problem with shoe-related migraines.

“No, never,” she said with a chuckle. “And I walked in a lot of parades wearing high heels. In fact, if I changed the color of the shoes, people asked me why.”

McPhillips, a funeral director who served as a county coroner, a member of the state Assembly and as Orange County executive, said the only physical problem she ever had because of wearing high heels was when she switched to wearing flats or low heels. “Your calf muscles have to change,” she said. “My legs would ache.”

Why did she even wear high heels all the time in the first place? Did it make her feel more powerful?

“When you’re 5-4, the heels at least put you on eye level with your constituents,” she said. “Now, when I wear flats, say to go to the store, people say, ‘You’re so short. Where are your heels?’ ”

Would she have any shoe advice for Bachmann, whose politics are 180 degrees from those of McPhillips?

“Try a pair of sneaks.”

Which brings me to my real problem with this whole issue. If Bachmann, who presents herself as a serious candidate for the highest office in this land, really believes that wearing high heels can occasionally trigger debilitating migraine headaches, why in the world does she continue to wear high heels? After all, she is willing to ignore scientific evidence on a host of other issues and speak and act based on her beliefs. So to me, this is not a gender issue, but a judgment issue. I suspect that if the equally style-conscious Mitt Romney thought tight, Italian leather shoes caused him headaches, he wouldn’t wear them.

I can admire a pair of shapely legs fitted out in high-heel shoes as well as the next heterosexual guy (that’s another Bachmann column and an admittedly sexist comment). But if a woman who wants to be president thinks the shoes are triggering serious migraines and continues to wear them anyway, she’s merely reinforcing the suspicion that there’s more style than substance at work. She’s also flirting with being relegated to Bimbo Land and Sarah’s got that constituency all sewed up.

Bob@zestoforange.com

By Bob Gaydos

If Derek Jeter had been the leader of a powerful Greek army in the fifth century BC, there would be no Greek tragedies.

Derek Jeter

Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides would have been out of luck, out of work, or trying to make ends meet by writing lyric poetry. And we know how well that gig still pays today.

If there had been Jeter Rex rather than Oedipus Rex, there would have been no patricide, no gouging of eyes. And who needs to marry his mother when he dates the likes of Tyra Banks, Vida Guerra, Miss Universe Lara Dutta, Jessica Alba, Jessica Biel, Victoria Secret’s Adriana Lima, Mariah Carey, TV personality Vanessa Minnillo and current flame, Minka Kelly, the cheerleader in TV’s Friday Night Lights and Esquire Magazine‘s “Sexiest Woman of the Year” in 2010?

You catch my drift.

Perfection really is its own reward.

If Jeter’s athletic skills had translated to football rather than baseball, the best college football player every year would be awarded the Jeter Trophy, not the Heisman. If he played basketball, we’d talk about Michael, Kobe, Wilt, Oscar and Derek. (Lebron still has some explaining to do.)

It could be no other way. That much is clear, finally and irrevocably. Derek Jeter, the Golden Boy of the New York Yankees, captain of the team, five time world champion, all-star, role model, Mr. November, Captain Clutch, and future Hall of Famer just told Messrs. Ruth and Gehrig to scrunch over a bit in Yankee Stadium’s Monument Park so they can make room for Number 2 when he retires, which may not be as soon as some mere mortals believed.

Sorry Babe, Lou. You, too, Joe and Mickey. The kid’s got more hits than any one of you. More than 3,000 now and you all know how hard that is to do. None of you did it. Oh yeah, Babe, you’ll like this. His 3,000th hit was a home run and not a cheapie either. He’s got that flair for the dramatic you used to have, without all that bravado. Yeah, he’s humble, too, which isn’t easy when you go five for five on the day you hit 3,000 and drive in the winning run to boot.

Even the other team applauded him.

Leo …? Hey, Durocher, you listening out there? You know that whole “nice guys finish last” theory you lived your life by? Jeter never heard of it. He is nice to what some people regard as a boring fault, which says more about them than him. And not just nice. He’s also respectful, hard-working, considerate, smart, diligent, reliable, consistent, classy and handsome. If he wasn’t so identified with the New York Yankees, he could pass for Minneapolis.

If he were a chef, his steaks would be succulent, his veggie omelet perfectly fluffy. If it wasn’t, he’d do it until he got it right. No charge for the misses.

There is a theory on how to live one’s life to the fullest. It used to be called the Golden Rule — do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Today, some people talk about doing the next right thing, or passing it forward and reaping the rewards. Indian religions — Hindu, Buddhist, Sikh — call it karma. Simply put, in a world in which every single thing is connected, every individual act, every deed, has a corresponding reciprocal effect. Do good things and good things will happen to you. Do bad things, etc.

Derek Jeter is Captain Karma. The exception that proves the rule. Most of us are too “sophisticated” (and self-centered) to embrace such a simple philosophy of life. Most of the time we give it lip service at best. Not Jeter. Play back any interview he ever gave after some outstanding play. “The important thing is we won.” “I just try to do the best I can for the team.” “Individual honors are nice, but the main thing is to work together, pick each other up.” “I just try to stay focused and put the bat on the ball.”

Over and over. The guy never misses a beat. It can’t be an act. Even the great Olivier strayed from the script sometimes.

Jeter has more money than Croesus and more Little Leaguers mimic him — getting set in the batter’s box or trying to master his jump throw from deep in the shortstop hole — than any other player of his time. No contest. His memorabilia is the biggest seller in sporting goods stores. People even name their kids after him — Jeter, not Derek.

And yet, as with all the tragic Greek heroes, there is a chorus sitting at the edge of the stage, just out of his spotlight, waiting for some slight slip, some chink in the Jeter armor. After all, didn’t Achilles have his? With Jeter, they say it is his age. (Makes sense to look there because if he had any flaws in his behavior, some scandal mag or blog would have found it by now, given the high-profile dating life he’s led.) They — the skeptics — say he will exhibit hubris when it comes time for him to let younger players assume his key role, in the lineup or in the field. No way Captain Karma, now 37, can keep it up, say the doubters. He is not perfect.

Maybe not. But did you catch what happened with that home run ball he slugged for hit number 3,000 — a ball immediately valued at six figures on the open market? A modest, young man from Highland Mills, N.Y., a lifetime Jeter fan, retrieved the ball and said he didn’t want any money for it. He just wanted to personally give Jeter the ball because “he earned it.”

Sounds an awful lot like good karma to me.

(With a bow to Jim Murray, simply the best.)

Bob@zestoforange.com