About Me

My photo
Jack is a graduate of Rutgers University where he majored in history. His career in the life and health insurance industry involved medical risk selection and brokerage management. Retired in Florida for over two decades after many years in NJ and NY, he occasionally writes, paints, plays poker, participates in play readings and is catching up on Shakespeare, Melville and Joyce, etc.

Monday, March 20, 2023

03-20-2023 - Incursions on Democracy - Read a Newspaper - Basketball Violence

 

                                                   * * * * 

A Reminder: Currently, I am sending out emails to about 60 individuals letting them know each time that a new posting has been published on JacksPotpourri.  Periodically, I ask that any readers of the blog who had not received an email notifying them that a new posting had been published let me know  so that I might advise them of new postings in the future.  I really would appreciate your doing that.  Reach me at jacklippman18@gmail.com.  Thanks.

Jack Lippman

                              *  *  *    

Incursions on Democracy and Your Remedy to Them

Watching the actions of the governor of Florida, his compliant State Legislature and the voters who have elected them, it is clear that Florida is not unhappy with a reduction of democracy in that State, apparently contradicting the popular will and interests of the majority of its residents.

It is increasingly apparent that the safeguards built into the Florida Constitution are being overturned.  Appeals to State government agencies for at least transparency are likely to fall on deaf ears.  The courts of the State have been taken over by the right wing.

It is hoped that the Florida situation is not representative of the rest of the United States and only peculiar to that State’s government.  It is difficult to blame this upon ignorance, gullibility, or stupidity when clearly, it is what the voters, not necessarily the majority of residents, of Florida have voted for.

The remaining bulwarks protecting democracy are the State’s newspapers.  It is absolutely necessary that Florida residents read a daily newspaper, either in its print or online version.  The Sun-Sentinel, the Palm Beach Post and the local papers in Tampa, Orlando,  and Jacksonville fill this need.  Without them, citizens remain uninformed of how democracy is being attacked in Florida.

If you cherish democracy in Florida, you MUST read a Florida newspaper every day.  What the State government in Tallahassee is doing is only reported truthfully by in these papers.  What the government tells residents is merely right-wing propaganda. You need to read newspapers.

(In dictatorships throughout history, foes of democracy have always attacked and eventually controlled newspapers.  Florida has started down that path with legislation limiting blogs with political contact that are ‘financially supported.’  Watch out. They want to go further.)

JL

  *   *   *

 

 

Basketball Violence

In the past I have criticized college football because of the excessive violence it involves in tackling, trying to create fumbles, and in ‘pass interference’ situations.  It’s time to include college basketball in that complaint.

There’s plenty of it on TV in the NCAA Basketball Tournament.  Notice the efforts made to stop a player who is attempting to drive in for a ‘lay-up’ in ‘the paint’ and the efforts of such players to force the shot blocker out of the way. Both situations, sometimes resulting in a foul being called, sometimes not, are unlike the blocking one sees in football line play.  That’s not the way basketball was supposed to be played.

Professional football and basketball tolerate more violence but that’s what their players are paid for.  It pleases the crowd, but it has no place in college football or basketball, unless we finally acknowledge that these college sports are no more than training grounds for future professional activity, and not just adjuncts to getting an education.

Pickett

A college basketball player whom I admire is Penn State’s Jaylen Pickett.  But looking at him, he transferred last year to that school from Siena College, where he had been playing, through the ‘transfer portal,’ which allows established college athletes to announce their availability to be recruited by other schools.  I believe the ‘transfer portal,’ is damaging to college sports. It makes being on a winning team, more visible to professional scouts, more important than the college whose jersey the player wears and which is giving him a free ride for a four year education. 

Also, even before college, some such athletes attend specialized private schools which concentrate on developing their athletic abilities, either on a post-high school basis or as part of a high school program.  Pickett attended such a program (Spire Institute in Ohio) before attending Siena.  There is even athletic competition between such programs at a level above that of usual high school sports to sharpen players’ skills.

We should not close our eyes to the professionalism which has infected college sports in this country.  It is the opposite of the success of immigrants and children of immigrants who treat college as an educational experience, especially in scientific, technical, engineering and mathematical areas, rather than something intertwined with competitive athletics.  The road to a successful career is far, far, narrower through athletics than through the real purpose of colleges, education.  

You can see what is happening by noting the names of prominent physicians in the nation's best hospitals as well as the names of those scientists involved in important research.

JL

  *   *   *

 

 

Housekeeping               

Email AlertsIf you are NOT receiving emails from me alerting you each time there is a new posting on Jackspotpourri, just send me your email address and we’ll see that you doAnd if you are forwarding a posting to someone, you might suggest that they do the same, so they will be similarly alerted.  ( You can pass those email addresses to me by email at             jacklippman18@gmail.com . )

 

Forwarding Postings: Please forward this posting to anyone you think might benefit from reading it

If you want to send someone the blog, exactly as you are now seeing it, with all of its bells and whistles, you can just tell folks to check it out by visiting https://jackspotpourri.blogspot.com or by providing a link to that address in your email to them.

There’s another, perhaps easier, method of forwarding it too!   Google Blogspot, the platform on which Jackspotpourri is prepared, makes that possible.  If you click on the envelope with the arrow at the bottom of every posting, (it looks like this:  ), you will have the opportunity to list up to ten email addresses, along with a comment from you, each of which will receive a link to the textual portion only of the blog that you now are reading, but without the illustrations, colors, variations in typography, or the ‘sidebar’ features such as access to the blog’s archives.

Either way will work, sending them that link or clicking on the envelope at the bottom of this posting.  Again, I urge you to forward this posting to anyone you think might benefit from reading it. 

             Have a nice day!


                                                            *  *   *
JL





 

        

No comments: