Miles's blog

If you want to know the difference between the criminal justice systems in Europe and those in America, a few stories from the past week exemplify how widely divergent these systems are when it comes to sentencing.  Anders Breivik was found sane and sentenced to 21 years in prison for killing 77 people in Norway.  Had he been found insane he would have faced an indeterminate stay in a mental institution.  And today a woman in Belgium who helped her husband kidnap and sexually assault children, which resulted in two of them starving to death, has been released after serving 15 years of her 30-year sentence.  Can you imagine the same results in America?

James Holmes killed 12 people, and wounded 58.  He probably will face a trial seeking the death penalty, but even if not, any conviction will lead to a sentence of life without parole.  Unlike Norway, the defense of Holmes will try to show, I assume, that he was insane because that gives him a greater chance at release.   For Breivik, sanely killing 77 people allows him a chance to be released in a mere 21 years when he will still be younger than I am now.  Think about that.  Insanity for him meant the possibility of being held for the rest of his life under Norwegian law.  This put the prosecution in the difficult position of showing that a man who committed a calculated mass murder was out of his senses.  I don’t know the definition of insanity in Norway, but under our law Breivik certainly seemed to understand the difference between right and wrong.  (There was no question he formed intent to kill.)  Had he been crazy, the government of Norway could have put him away to protect the community, but as a sane mass murderer, their system is so light on punishment that his penalty is no more than perhaps a quarter of his normal life span.

In America, we look at things very differently.  Should Holmes be found sane our system will extract the ultimate penalty, either execution or life without parole.  We don’t even consider the possibility of rehabilitation for this kind of crime.  Anyone who kills that many people, and attempts to kill dozens more, has forfeited his right to live among us, if he did so knowing full well what he was doing and that such conduct was wrong.  We demand punishment as justice.

But should his lawyers convince the jury that when he murdered he fit under the legal definition of insanity, then he will be found not guilty.  Our system exonerates those who commit crimes while under the influence of mental illness.  Punishment is replaced with treatment.  Holmes would be required to go to the state hospital (which has some fancy-sounding name now), but only because that is seen, in the eyes of the law, as the place where he can best receive treatment.  Treatment is performed with a goal of making criminals (or rather those acquitted of crimes) mentally healthy, so that they do not present a danger to themselves or others.  Those found not guilty by reason of insanity are subject to release almost immediately in theory, and even the most dangerous mentally ill patients face release at some point under some circumstances.

Unlike Breivik, Holmes will seek to look, act, and be found insane.  Unfortunately for the prosecution, it carries the burden under Colorado law of proving Holmes was sane beyond a reasonable doubt.  I believe Colorado is the only state in the nation where the prosecution carries this burden.  In many states the defendant must prove that he was insane, a completely constitutional requirement.  Colorado’s burden on the prosecution was first derived from the state constitution in a 1960-era Supreme Court case.  I believe it is now codified in state statute. 

Overcoming such a burden is never easy.  In some states should experts disagree about insanity a tie goes to the prosecution.  In Colorado, all close calls inure to the benefit of the defendant.  Holmes has a much better chance of being found insane than Breivik, despite the latter’s clear showings of some sort of mental illness.  (He had to kill, he claims, to protect Norway from immigration issues.)  Holmes, referred for mental health counseling, according to news reports, can use his prior threatening behavior to show he could not appreciate the wrongfulness of his actions despite booby-trapping his apartment knowing that the police would eventually respond.

In Norway, and perhaps Belgium, Holmes would be seen as some sort of misguided young man who should be allowed to rejoin society in a couple of decades while he would still be in his 40s.  In Colorado, however, he may be found to be no more than a sick man who would benefit from treatment, allowing him to be released at some point.  Time will tell whether Holmes’s lawyers are successful in an insanity defense, but if they are, Holmes and Breivik will have something in common aside from being mass murderers—they might both get out and one day be your neighbor.Ho

NBC Nightly News last night reported on a poll done by the Pew Research Center which asked people in the middle class (I am not sure how this was defined or determined) who they blamed for the financial problems of the middle class.  Not surprisingly, the answers were everyone but themselves.

Congress got most of the blame.  Sixty-two percent of respondents blamed Congress “a lot.”  Banks got a hefty dose of blame, 54 percent, as did large corporations, 47 percent.  Former President Bush’s administration bore the blame of 44 percent, compared to Obama’s 34 percent.  “Foreign competition” was held a lot responsible by 39 percent.  And way down on the bottom of the list, almost invisible, was the middle class itself with only eight percent.  That’s right, when people look to blame someone for their problems they look everywhere but in the mirror. 

It is always easy to blame politicians and the government for problems, although I am not sure if people can be very specific about how, exactly, Congress has caused the financial mess.  Too many taxes?  Too few programs?  Insufficient regulation of the financial services industry or too much government intervention into business?  I bet those polled would not be consistent about why they blame the government.

Similarly, have  banks and big companies outsourced too many jobs?  Perhaps they charge too high prices.  Or maybe they don’t pay enough taxes.  Did they give out too many mortgages, or foreclose too often?  Did the bailout salvage companies which should have been allowed to go under?

Far too often the media, and by extension most people, search for someone to blame when bad things happen.  When Hurricane Katrina caused massive destruction and loss of life, it was not the result of a random and unpredictable meteorological event, but the fault of the Army Corps of Engineers.  And, like the media, the fault never lies in ourselves, it is always in our stars.  I don’t know if this is human nature, or the product of a Dr. Spock society which believes the answer to gangs is enhanced self-esteems.  Whatever the reason, as far as I am concerned, unless the middle class, and everyone else, decides to alter their behavior as a result of taking some responsibility, I doubt these problems can be solved.

It was not the government which forced people to try to exploit the rise in housing prices by buying massive homes, filling them with overpriced furniture and expensive toys, and then continually refinancing their mortgages to gain more favorable interest rates in order to increase their disposable income.  Big banks did not discourage Americans from setting aside even the most minimal amount necessary for retirement.  Big corporations did not seduce Americans into spending far more than they earn, putting charge after charge on their credit cards.  While the credit card companies did exacerbate the problem by increasing credit lines and encouraging account switching with low initial rates, almost nobody had a gun to their head when buying a new Playstation or adding channels to their DirecTV.

There is plenty enough blame all around, but for these poll respondents to ascribe so little to themselves and so much to others reflects a worldview that plays into the politics of hate, fear, and divisiveness.  That is why we have commercials where former Obama voters are now disillusioned.  They thought one man, albeit the most powerful man in the world, would save the day.  The idea that the cause of these economic problems runs deep, and that solutions will require not only government action but individual sacrifice, seems alien to the national debate. 

I doubt my parents’ generation would have laid the blame to such a great extent on others.  They had lived through the Depression and certainly realized macroeconomic factors generated that catastrophe, but emerging from the Depression, they accepted that the greatest protection for individuals and families came from the individuals and families.  Excessive credit, living beyond their means, even credit cards themselves, were seen as problematic if not unwise.  They did buy houses with mortgages, but they often lived in those houses for decades, driving old cars, wearing old clothes, and indulging their spoiled children.  These children grew up in the 80s “Me decade” practicing that excess is never enough.  So much of their money went to expensive clothes, fancy vacations, fast cars, online gambling, and drugs.

So now that the children of these children are facing an uncertain future, but one which appears more bleak than their parents’ past, someone has to take the blame.  Bush, Obama, JP Morgan Chase, Chinese workers, Obstructionist Republicans, and Liberal Democrats, can all suffice as scapegoat.  After all, whatever happens, it is never our fault.

Susan has entered a fantasy football league.  I have agreed to help her with the draft and to take a team if it looks like the league will be short of players.  I hope I don’t have to.  My fantasy football experiences in the past have not  been terribly rewarding.  Fantasy football is only fun, at least for me, if I win.  And it is impossible to win unless you really put effort into it.  By effort, I mean allow it to take over your life.

First there is the draft.  I don’t follow football, I rarely even listen to Mike and Mike anymore.  (They might as well be on the NFL network as much as they talk about other sports.)  So I bought a magazine.  Plus I downloaded a cheat sheet from ESPN. It lists the top 300 players, both by position and overall.  Now I know that Arian Foster is their choice for top pick, if only I knew who Arian Foster is.  Aaron Rodgers is only fourth. How is that right?  Quarterback always rack up the points and it seems that it is virtually impossible to win without a top quarterback.  Time will have to be spent trying to figure out why these players are ranked on this cheat sheet the way they are.  I mean, they don’t have the Giants defense rated in the top 15.  Didn’t the Giants just win the Super Bowl, and wasn’t their defense the strength of the team?  This is already confusing.

Robert Griffin III (and are you as sick as the RG3 use as I am?) is rated as the 15^th quarterback while Andrew Luck is only the 24^th.  Wasn’t Luck drafted first and Griffin second?  Tim Tebow is rated 26^th while Mark Sanchez is 29^th.  I am pretty sure Sanchez is the starter, does ESPN think Tebow will displace Sanchez or that he will see time at a position other than quarterback?  Susan almost certainly will take Tebow.  (Don’t tell her but for her birthday I am getting her a Tebow Jets jersey.)

Of course, I have to figure in the impact of the bye weeks.  For example, the Bears, Saints, Panthers, and Jaguars are all on bye in week 5.  So I shouldn’t draft both Drew Brees (third among quarterbacks, eighth overall, and Jay Cutler (14^th and 99^th). 

Most of these names are complete mysteries to me.  Just ahead of Mark Sanchez is John Skelton.  I don’t know him.  Is he related to Red Skelton?  The cheat sheet lists 35 tight ends, do that many even play?  I have heard of Reggie Bush, he won the Heisman Trophy, but the guy ahead of him is Roy Helu.  I don’t know Roy Helu.  I can see he is on Washington, and I know they are coached by Mike Shanahan and I know he hates running the ball, so maybe I should skip Helu and go down to Beanie Wells of Arizona.  I don’t know anything about Wells, but I do know what a Beanie is.

Even if I can figure out who to draft, I know the winning teams in fantasy football are those who make effective changes during the year.  I remember waking up at three in the morning to check the injury lists and to call the number for adding some running back who is just off the disabled list or cutting some quarterback who broke his whatsit so I can pick up the backup quarterback.  I realize that some guy not even on the list of 300 players will find a way to rack up dozens of points every week after my first round draft pick goes on injured reserve following his fumble in the second quarter of the first game on a play where he took a 10-yard loss.  The winners of fantasy football are those for whom the daily search for a new tight end, or replacement of one defense with another become more than a hobby.  The obsessed are successful; the rest of us lose.

Fantasy football ruins Sundays (and Monday nights and Thursday nights and some Saturdays in December).  Instead of comfortably sitting back and watching the Bears, I slide closer to the tv and squint at the crawls along the bottom of the screen to see if my player just scored or my opponent’s threw an interception.  The NFL games as part of a league with a championship lose all meaning.  I stop caring who wins or loses each week, I only care who scored, who fumbled or how long that field goal was.  I find myself hoping some team takes a five-yard sack so their kicker can tee it up from 51 yards.  Players become mere objects of scoring and not individuals.  I scour the listings to see if Buffalo vs. Tampa is on tv because I have Buffalo’s quarterback and Tampa’s defense; this despite the New England /Pittsburgh matchup on the other channel.

No, I don’t want to buy into fantasy football anymore.  I like to watch football for what it is. And please, under no circumstances mention fantasy baseball to me.

There is a skydiver in New Mexico who plans to jump out of a balloon at 120,000 feet, reach a speed of 700 miles an hour, and then deploy a parachute.  He seeks to break the record of 102,000 feet.  When this daredevil, Felix Baumgartner was asked about the sanity of making such an attempt he shrugged his shoulders and replied:   "They said da Vinci was crazy, the Wright Brothers were crazy. It's a phrase for people who don't understand what you're doing."  Stick to skydiving, Felix, and not history.  Nobody said either da Vinci or the Wright Brothers were crazy.

DaVinci, of course was a highly regarded painter.  For most of his life he supported himself through his painting with patrons such as the Medicis.  Inventing was somewhat of a sidelight for him, but a very successful one.  He created a very effective system of protection for the city of Venice, and he was revered for  his engineering.  Baumgartner may have been referring to daVinci’s futuristic designs of things like helicopters and tanks.  While he may have been crazy in designing things which could not possibly have been created with the materials and workmanship of his time, no one called him crazy because he never sought to build these things.  In fact most of what Leonardo discovered about topics like anatomy and engineering remained hidden in his journals.  DaVinci was a fairly secretive man. If you recall he wrote his journals in a mirror image of Italian. 

The Wright Brothers, on the other hand, were never called crazy primarily because they worked in secret.  Like most of those who pursued powered flight at that time, the Wright Brothers began with gliders, a technology which had been around for a long time.  Their advancement to powered flight based on a lot of existing technology.  The Wrights developed most of their testing equipment and plane design alone, but not because they feared public ridicule.  Quite the contrary, even after knowledge of their flight became an international sensation, the Wrights sought secrecy in order to preserve their patent. 

Powered flight was not seen as some sort of stunt or even an impossible achievement.  Others had been claiming achievement of powered flight for some time, and models had proved successful.  So while many did ridicule the idea that something weighing hundreds of pounds might fly, the majority of people knew that development of a practical airplane was just a matter of time.  Nobody said they were crazy, and nobody would have said so.  Unlike Baumgartner, whose goal may perhaps be a laudable advance in science or technology, but one with no foreseeable practical application, the development of the first airplane has been a dream of people since they looked up and saw birds.  By the turn of the 20^th century, the race was on.  The Wrights were not engaged in a stunt, they simply had a leap of insight before anyone else.  Certainly they had a somewhat unorthodox outlook to the development of airplane controls, but nothing outlandish. They were called liars when they could not duplicate their flight at first, but never crazy.

Baumgartner might have been on more solid ground had he said people told Columbus he was crazy.  Columbus had a very poor sense of the size of the Earth, and he thought he could sail east from Europe and hit Asia.  Of course, he was off by thousands of miles and, lucky for him there were some islands and a continent in his way.  Columbus tried to peddle his idea to monarchs all over Europe who kept turning him down.  Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain decided to take a chance, even though, apparently, they thought he was crazy, too.  Baumgartner could take solace from Columbus’s success, although it was more by accident than design, so maybe not.

A lot of people thought John F. Kennedy was crazy for saying we could go to the moon, when at the time he said it America had only been in space for 15 minutes.  Marconi’s request for funding from the Italian government to develop what we now call radio was seen as so fantastic, that the clerk who received wrote “to the Longara” on it.  The Longara was the Roman insane asylum.  James Cameron was often reviled as unrealistic in his expectations for the movies “Titanic” and “Avatar.”  The idea that a meteor caused extinction of the dinosaurs was considered crazy when first proposed, as was the idea that mosquitoes spread disease. 

I have read a little bit about string theory, M theory, and quantum physics, all of which strike me as totally insane, but they are accepted science.  Lots of people said Picasso, Pollack, and Kubrick were crazy.  (Strangely, few said van Gogh was crazy, but then few knew who he was at all.)  Google is inventing a car which will drive itself, an idea people in Detroit think is crazy.  History provide Baumgartner with lots of examples of people who were thought crazy, but weren’t.  Me, I think jumping out a balloon at 120,000 is pretty crazy, but then I used to say I never needed a cell phone, an iPad, or air conditioning in Denver, so what do I know?

I went to a movie yesterday which included a young couple with a small baby.  The child’s name?  Miles.   Before the movie started they showed a commercial for a new tv series called “Revolution.”  The hero’s name?  Miles. Susan read an article about Nicholas Sparks the other day, which included a reference to his son.  His name?  Miles.  I was at the bank the other day and when I gave her my check to the teller to deposit she informed me that her baby’s name was—you guessed it—Myles.  What is up with all these Mileses (Myleses)?

My entire life I enjoyed having an uncommon name.  It was sufficiently out of the ordinary that I have met very few others with the same name, but not off the wall like Apple Martin or Blanket Jackson or Satchel Allen.  “Miles.”  It is simple, straightforward, somewhat traditional, but enough different that I never have to call people and say “Hi, this is Miles Madorin.”  Just the first name is enough.

I have only met a handful of other people named Miles.  I can’t imagine having a friend with the same name.  I always thought it was tough for Mark Pautler and Mark Randall having to work together for so long with people always getting them confused.  Poor Meg had to put up with numerous other Megans (spelled in a myriad of incomprehensible ways like “Meaghan”) in school.  And I am dating a Susan, while my brother (Mark) has been married to one for 40 years.  My mother’s name was Janice, which is also Susan’s mother’s name.  I am so glad my name was unique enough that I never met a woman who had to say “my last boyfriend’s name was Miles, so I can’t go out with you.”

Mark Randall used to joke that there were two people in the prosecution community that he could refer to by only our first names without having to tell people who he was talking about—me and Tamar.  (This got so bad that one day when he was pretty frazzled at the legislature he called me to ask Tamar’s last name.  Regrettably, I could not remember it.  Please do not tell her.)  I enjoyed this individuality. 

When I was a kid, of course, I hated being different.  Many a night I wished my mother had named me Matt or Mike.  (I never wished to be named Frank or Bob.  I like the initials M.M.  This led, of course, to my daughter being named Megan, thanks to a very understanding mother.)  I have heard all the jokes.  People routinely call me “Kilometers” then laugh as if they were the first ones to think of that.   If that is the best you got, keep your mouth shut.  When I was a kid someone would occasionally call me “Millie” or “Millies” and that led to more than one fight.  My aunt would sometimes call me “Milo” a nickname I despised then and still do.  If you think you are cute and call me that, be prepared to defend yourself.  People who feel they are kings of irony, and being well-aware of my personality, have on occasion called me "Smiles."  I have never felt the need to speak to them again.

The use of the name Miles in movies, however, is not completely unprecedented.  In a failed 1984 movie called “Electric Dreams” the lead character is named Miles.  The movie is basically a love triangle between Miles, a woman he is pursing, and a computer, also attracted to the same woman.  Miles is not a very winning character.  One of the funny bits of the movie is that when Miles first logs onto the computer (and remember this is 1984 before home computers were terribly popular and were still somewhat intimidating) he mistyped his name as “Moles” and the rest of the movie the computer calls him by that moniker.  That is why to this day Noel still calls me “Moles,” which helps explain why I had the initial reaction to him that I did.  (If you don’t know that story, ask anyone.)

I have no idea how this current crop of Mileses  spell our name.  I do not endorse spelling the name with a “y.”  It seems to add some sort of old world pretension.  I have always liked to be able to say to people on the phone (especially those in India who answer when I call the cable company), that my name is “Miles, just like the distance.”  However, I still allow those with the improper spelling into the Miles Club.  Up to now it was somewhat of an exclusive group, but I fear it will become overrun.

I never really learned why my parents chose to pull the name Miles out of the dusty pages of English history. There were no family members with my name,  it was certainly not traditional in our community, and, although it did provide the alliteration they sought, Miles does not go particularly well with Madorin.  One-syllable names like Mark, Mike or Matt sounds far superior. 

At one point my dad told me they were going to call me Matt, but my mother changed her mind at the last minute.  He did not remember why.  It is entirely possible she never told him why.  I got a hint, though, when I was in my 20s.  I was reading the newspaper feature “Today in History” for my birthday when I saw this notation:  “1621– Miles Standish is appointed as first commander of Plymouth colony.”  I can imagine my mother sitting in her hospital bed wondering what to call this blubbering blob with an already too-large nose and deciding that Matt was just not going to fit, so she seized upon a hero from history with a name none of her friend’s kids would have.  She probably hoped that giving me an uncommon name would lead me to be an uncommon person, possessed of all the strength, leadership, and charisma of Miles Standish.  Oh well.  I like the name, anyway.  I am just glad I wasn’t born on St. Swithun’s Day.

Prosecution offices already employ lots of experts in fields other than law, including those with expertise in computer science, information technology, graphics, media, and other fields.  In the future prosecutors may need to employ geneticists also.

According to a hypothetical study reported in the journal Science, judges gave lighter sentences to those who were identified as being genetically predisposed to violence.  There was some prevailing thought that these offenders were somehow not responsible for their actions and therefore did not deserve maximum penalty.  The judges chose to overlook the obvious conclusion that these people were more likely to commit violent crimes in the future and, therefore, longer sentences would protect the public from these inevitable crimes.

This study, and these responses, are frightening on so many levels.  Let’s start with the basics, how can anyone know who is prone to violence?  I am always skeptical of these kind of scientific conclusions because science in areas like this seems to be changing all the time.  The things science thinks they know which turn out to be wrong are legion.  Cutting-edge science like this makes me wary.  Perhaps in the old days this sort of evidence would be excluded as unreliable, but under the new rules most of this sort of thing will come in, I guess.

And just what does “predisposed to violence” mean?  Does that mean 100 percent of the people with whatever trait they are identifying commit violent crimes, or 10 percent?  If it is less than 100 percent then when does individual accountability come in?  Somehow judges are thinking “the defendant couldn’t help himself,” but is that really true?  Science can look at the brain, but it can never read a mind.  How can we ever know what someone could have helped or not?

And even if someone is “predisposed” does that mean they are not responsible, or should not be held totally accountable?  The victim, of course, does not care whether the defendant was predisposed or not. 

We are all the result of our brain chemistry—from brain surgeons to athletes to doctors, we all just work with what we are born with.  We celebrate those who use these attributes to achieve great things.  We don’t disregard the achievements of Stephen Hawking by just putting it down to his being “born smart.”  We celebrate his genius.   All of us revere the super intelligent and are grateful we have such people in our world.  Similarly, we don’t downplay Peyton Manning’s touchdowns by saying he was predisposed to reading defenses.  Why should we excuse the crimes of violent criminals by allowing their brain chemistry to reduce their culpability?

This kind of evidence strikes me as strange in a death penalty case.  The argument that a killer should be excused because of his brain chemistry seems to run counter, in some ways, to the evidence of a bad childhood.  Either he was born this way or he was made this way.  A mass murder, like say James Holmes, is obviously not right.  Something inside snapped to make a, to that point, fairly normal grad student into one of the worst mass murderers in American history.  We know he suffered from some sort of mental illness.  Now the defense can check out both his brain (nature) and his upbringing (nurture) until they find just the right kind of evidence to appeal to the jury’s sympathy.  And you know they will find something.

I have never done a death penalty case, so I am not sure how to argue for a jury to sign a death warrant, but I do wonder why this argument, which is no more than an appeal for sympathy for someone who is likely to kill again, works.  To me it argues more forcefully for execution.  I guess it appeals to the good side in most of us, the side which wants to be sympathetic to those less fortunate than ourselves. The kind of response normal people have, not those who are predisposed to violence.

Everyone knows that I love reading books. I have over a thousand of them. (Which I thought was a lot until I read about Larry McMurty.  The famous author runs a used book store for which he just held a sale.  After the sale he was holding on to 150,000 books.  Wow.)  There is something special about holding a book in your hands, turning the pages, reveling in the printed word sitting there, unaltered and unchangeable.  Books are forever, in a sense.

One of my favorite places in New York is the Morgan Library, about which I have blogged before.  Seeing all those thousands of antique and rare books is a truly awesome sight.  (Awesome in the original sense of the word, meaning awe-inspiring, not as currently used to mean anything cool.)  The thought that someone hundreds of years ago hand-drew every letter on a book 500 pages long makes the Morgan collection something special.

Along the same line, I have always liked reading magazines and newspapers.  These periodicals are convenient to hold, easy to carry, and quick to read.  You can get a lot of information in small bites, often with very informative and entertaining features.  I have read the daily newspaper all my life. 

However these traditional publications are facing almost-certain extinction.  Electronic media has overwhelmed reading things printed on paper.  I read books, magazines, and newspaper on my iPad, and while I regret the loss of traditional media, it is easy to see why electronic publication will inevitably crowd it out. 

For example, I have subscribed to Entertainment Weekly for many years.  This week’s edition is a preview of the movies coming out this fall.  Reading the magazine you can see a nice photo of the stars, along with a concise description of the film.  Electronically, however, you only have to touch the screen to see the trailer for the movie, a completely different experience.  Should I be curious about the actors (you know, when you see someone and you wonder “who is that and where have I seen him before”), I need only quickly open my IMDB app and I can determine who is in the film, what else they have been in, and what else they have coming up.  Even finding this information, much less without having to exert my gluteus muscles, prior to the internet would have been almost impossible. 

The New York Times is available to me every day through an app that, while not cheap, brings the news and a lot more.  The Times now creates an interactive feature that presents information in ways unavailable in print.  I have been looking at a lot of them surrounding the Olympics.  They have a fascinating study of how Usain Bolt’s winning 100 meter dash compares to all other Olympic medalists in history.  You can see Bolt sprinting across the finish line 20 meters ahead of the 1896 gold medalist, and almost four meters ahead of “Bullet” Bob Hayes, the fastest man alive, circa 1960.  Heck, Bolt even beats himself from four years ago by a couple of feet (although 2008 Bolt beats this year’s silver medalist).  (All these interactive features are free online.)

I enjoyed the interactive on the evolution of world records in various sports.  The track graph was particularly fascinating, as virtually every record, especially for women, was set in the 1980s.  I mean, really, a track record standing for 20 years?  You have any doubts that Florence Griffith-Joyner was taking some sort of performance-enhancing drugs?

These features are not restricted to sports.  They have graphed out all the IPOs for tech stocks since 1980 to compare to Facebook.  There is a fascinating one on droughts throughout the 20^th and 21^st centuries, and another on wellness in America.  The Times’s website also has multimedia presentations, slide shows, and videos.  In addition, there are links in articles to older articles to provide background and additional information.  In short, reading online or on an app allows for access to a great deal more information presented in a very entertaining format.  Newspapers, I am afraid, will be increasingly irrelevant.

So another artifact of my youth, indeed much of my adult life, is fading into oblivion, joining record albums, dial telephones, and rolodexes.  Pretty soon I am going to feel old.

The Olympics closing ceremonies contained some parts which were fun, some which were stupid, some which were kind of creepy, and some which I can’t comment on at all because NBC chose to exclude them from their coverage.

I like that they chose to highlight British musicians of the past 50 years.  Hearing and seeing legends like Brian May and The Who (or rather the two who have survived from The Who) was thrilling for me.   Brian May wrote “We Will Rock You.”  His royalties must be in the millions every year just from its playing at sporting events.  For him to play it live at the Olympics was perfect. (By the way, when did the word “perfect” become the accepted way to express oneself for things which are acceptable?  This seems to have caught on now as a figure of speech in situations where a simple “ok” would do.)

Spice Girls reunions can only be fun.  I think they looked great, even Posh Spice despite having birthed four future members of Great Britain’s 2024 soccer teams.  George Michael, on the other hand, I thought looked like a cliché of a rock star trying to hang onto his leather-clad youth.  Give it up, George, and embrace middle age.  I even tolerated Russell Brand doing the Beatles. 

However, I did think the creation of John Lennon’s face was kind of creepy. Eric Idle was amusing, but like most Monty Python sketches, he went on too long.  I could have done without the rap music and who is Jessie J (although I admit she can sing).

Conspicuous by their absence, at least to me, were Elton John, The Rolling Stones, and Adele, (not to mention The Moody Blues, Deep Purple,  ELO, Rod Stewart, The Police, Herman’s Hermits, The Dave Clark Five, Freddie and the Dreamers, Petula Clark, Lulu, and Katherine Jenkins).  Oh well, there is only so much time.

But to NBC, apparently, even the time spent was too much.  The network delayed broadcasting the ceremony until almost 8:30 here in the eastern time zone, and even then they deleted portions.  Unbelievably, they did not show The Who in prime time, choosing instead to air a new sitcom about a veterinary practice, and only televising one of the most legendary bands in the world after midnight. 

Meg tells me that in both the opening and closing ceremonies there were dance performances excised by NBC, including one in the opening ceremony honoring the victims of a bombing in London in 2005.  Last night Britain got to see a prima ballerina dance with 200 others, but NBC apparently thinks Americans are too crude to watch ballet.

This debacle mirrors what I thought was a piss poor performance by NBC, which repeatedly chose feature stories about British peerage, stressed-out mothers, and athletes’ struggles over actual event coverage.  I wanted to watch the American women’s volleyball team play for the gold Saturday night, but at 11:15 they had not shown a single minute of the match.  I assume that since America lost, NBC believed they needed to show a one-hour history lesson on World War II by Tom Brokaw.  I am as big a World War II buff as anyone, and I enjoyed the piece, but I turn on the Olympics to actually see the events.  Hopefully, the next Olympics will not be forced on us in tape delay format since the time zone in Rio is only an hour different from New York.

Now the world heaves a sigh of relief.  Missy Franklin, Gabby Douglas, and the entire Chinese gymnastics team can return to high school.  Michael Phelps and Misty May can ease their way into retirement.  Synchronized swimmers, team handballers, and ping pong players fade into obscurity.  LeBron, Kobe, Serena, and Brazilian soccer players can return to making millions, while we will soon forget David Boudia, Holley Mangold, and Oscar Pistorius. 

Somewhere a 12-year old is going to gymnastics class today dreaming of a gold medal she might win next time.  Teenage swimmers start today on the four years of pain that Michael Phelps is glad he is done with.  Each of us now turn our attention to more pressing matters like the upcoming election, fantasy football, and which of the new tv shows will be a hit.  (I am guessing that neither “Animal Practice” nor “Go On” will survive until the next winter Olympics in February 2014.)

I enjoyed the Olympics, but I am glad it is over.  Now maybe I can get to sleep at a reasonable hour.

Susan bought a dresser for her daughter’s room yesterday, and like most furniture you buy today, some assembly was required.  Are there three more painful words than “some assembly required?”  The people in the store, however, assured us that assembly was easy.  That should have been our first clue.

If you want to feel truly stupid, try to assemble something made in another country (in this case Malaysia) using their instructions after being told that such a project is “easy.”  Three hours after we started I would have described the process as anything but “easy.”

First we had to take everything out of the box because the piece they wanted us to start with was, of course, on the bottom.  After several minutes of trying to figure out which way that piece had to sit in order to attach everything we got started.  This involved lots of putting piece J together with piece C and connecting them with screw 5 using Allen wrench 12.  Many times we were forced to carefully examine the screws, bolts, washers, and other paraphernalia to determine which was number 5 and which was number 10.  An unfortunate misunderstanding on my part led to screw 11 being placed where bolt 10 should have been, resulting in splitting of the wood.  Like I said, if you want to feel stupid . . .

On more than one occasion we had to undo something we had already done because I put the piece on backwards, upside down, or confused the front with the back.  I tried following the instructions, but they were not always clear.  One part of the instruction form had not copied well, and the text was vague and hard to read.  There were pictures, but they did not always contain the same level of detail as the part.

When we finally finished we had a freestanding dresses, with drawers fitting in where intended.  We also had several screws, some washers, and a few other assorted parts whose purpose was unclear.  I know of at least one screw we neglected to put in, but where those other ones are supposed to go is a mystery.  I am hoping the thing does not collapse as soon as clothes are placed inside or something heavy, like a tv set, is placed atop it.

This sort of do-it-yourselfing has always been beyond my grasp.  I got an “F” in shop class, a grade I did not dispute because, looking at the thing I tried to make, it was obviously well-deserved.  My ineptitude has grown throughout the years, so that I am pretty much incapable of making anything more complicated than a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.  Yesterday was another trip along the road of frustration. I really do wonder where all those extra parts were supposed to go. 

To my surprise I am actually enthralled with soccer.  I am writing this at halftime of the gold medal match in women’s soccer, America vs. Japan.  I am sitting here yelling at the tv, holding my breath when Japan gets close and cheering loudly when America scores.

I have never liked soccer.  Even when I was a kid I never even liked playing soccer.  To me the field is too big and controlling the ball too difficult.  Scoring opportunities are rare.  At the end of the game the shots on goal for each time can usually be counted on one hand.  All in all, I think the game lack the kind of compelling action to keep my attention.

Well, usually it does.  To see teams run around for an hour and  half to score a single goal strikes me a excellent exercise for the players, but not enough drama for the spectators.  However, two days ago I tuned into the America v. Canada semifinal and was completely taken in.  Unlike most soccer games, this one was replete with drama.  Canada led 1-0 when I turned it on, and through the course of the next hour America kept forging ties and Canada continued to take leads.  At the end of regulation the score was tied 3-3.  Nearing the end of the extra period the score was still tied, and it looked like a penalty kick shootout would decide the match.  But America scored and I found myself jumping up and down.

Now, I am glued to the tv.  This blog will be short because I will end it as soon as they kick off the second half. 

I realize soccer is the most popular sport in the world.  And while it will never replace baseball in my affections (or American football or hockey), I am beginning to understand its appeal.  The rarity of goal-scoring opportunities allows for drama every time the ball gets in the vicinity of the goal.  The slow way offense unfolds allows for a gradual increase in tension, very much unlike hockey, where defense can change to offense in a second and a shot on goal will take place moments later.  Generally, soccer offense proceeds at the place of soccer players, the ball taking time to traverse the length of the huge pitch.  (I am even getting into soccer lingo.)

I doubt I will continue this soccer fascination after the end of the Olympics, any more than I will try to tune in any beach volleyball.  But for now, I am a red, white and blue fanatic.  OK, the game is back on, gotta go.

It is almost lunch time and I was thinking about grabbing some fast food.  The choices in St. Augustine are similar to those in most areas of the country: the usual burger places, Panera, Subway, KFC; basically everything except Chipotle (a major deficiency).  One of my options is Chik-fil-A, but I am reluctant to go there, despite a recommendation that the food is good.  Maybe it is, I have not been to one of those places for a long time, but now I feel that I cannot patronize Chik-fil-A (for reasons other than the stupid name). 

The chief executive of Chik-fil-A has expressed his opposition to gay marriage, saying such an act invites “God’s judgment.” This, understandably, riled up gay rights organizations who planned and participated in some sort of demonstration last week at the chain. However, Chik-fil-A’s expressed policy to operate on “biblically-based principles” has drawn support of erstwhile presidential candidate and current media pundit Mike Huckabee.  His day of support last Wednesday apparently drew record crowds to the chicken seller. 

Now, I fear that going to Chik-fil-A, even for a simple chicken sandwich, is taking a stand on gay marriage in particular and “biblically-based principles” in general.  (I am curious what “biblically-based principles” are, aside from being closed on Sundays.  Do they support having their CEO lose a limb of one if their workers gets disabled in a workplace accident, for example?)  I do not want to pay money to a restaurant which would turn around and use it to support politicians and initiatives with which I disagree. 

I hate that such considerations go into so mundane an activity as buying lunch at a fast food place.  I mean, I don’t keep track of the politics and positions of the owners of every operation I want to do business with.  The Colorado Rockies are owned by the Monfort brothers. I think they support Republican candidates, but I am not sure.  Should this make a difference?  They also support charities like the Kempe Center and Special Olympics.  Do I need to weigh the relative merit of these activities before I buy a ticket?  I don’t think so.

How about Wal-Mart?  The Walton family contributes a lot of money to Republican causes.  Does that mean I should avoid them and go to Target because I have no idea who gets my money if I shop there?  I don’t think so.  We just have to keep these considerations separate most of the time.

I used to hate it when I first came to Colorado and the labor unions were stridently opposed to Coors Beer.  In those days Coors had a cachet on the East Coast where it was unavailable, and one of the benefits of moving west, I thought, was living in the home of the fabled brew.  I have no great love for labor unions, but I did not like to think that buying a case of Coors was seen as union-busting, while changing my mind and picking up some Bud was support for the right-wing Coors family politics.  This problem was resolved when, after a few months, I realized there is nothing special about Coors, and I could make my beer purchases based on consideration outside labor relations.

Every day we all make lots of choices about what we are going to buy.  Most of the time we don’t even know who is getting our money, much less  whether they support higher taxes, abortion rights, or the work of the EPA.  And we don’t care.  The money we spend on practically everything will ultimately end up in the hands of those who own the means of production, in other words the One Percent.  Whine if you will about the excess of money in political campaigns, but pretty much whatever you buy will end up going to those whose wealth far exceeds yours and which might very well fuel a Super PAC to elect some guy you would not vote for for dog catcher. 

There are exceptions.  I found out in the 1980s that the Imperial Palace Hotel in Las Vegas was owned by a neo-Nazi who celebrated Hitler’s birthday. I am not sure this was really true as I read it in the National Enquirer, but I came to believe it, so I stopped going there.  (I see that he died in 2002 and the hotel is now owned by the Caesar’s Palace people, so I guess I can go back.)  Something that extreme I think did require a boycott, at least by Jews.  I fear Chik-fil-A has now fallen into the same category, not so much because I want to keep money out of the hands of those who run it, although I do, but because the media will now use their profits as a scoreboard of support.  (See this Smart Money article.)  I do not want to publicly support the mean-spirited position of those who run Chick-fil-A.  Does anyone know the politics of Wendy Thomas?

Outlined against a blue-gray October sky, the Four Horsemen rode again. In dramatic lore their names are Death, Destruction, Pestilence, and Famine. But those are aliases. Their real names are: Stuhldreher, Crowley, Miller and Layden. They formed the crest of the South Bend cyclone before which another fighting Army team was swept over the precipice at the Polo Grounds this afternoon as 55,000 spectators peered down upon the bewildering panorama spread out upon the green plain below.

That is the greatest sportswriting of all time, the lead of an article in the New York Herald Tribune, October 18, 1924, penned by the greatest sportwriter of all time, Grantland Rice.  It was one of the first examples of great writing I was given in my first journalism class.  Read it again.  It is poetry.  The imagery of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse running roughshod in a football game in New York is delicious.  Compare that to an article in today’s Montreal Gazette about a classic soccer game in the Olympics where America defeated Canada is overtime.

Canada forced a great team to make great plays. Megan Rapinoe’s second goal was a knife; the winning goal, on a header by Alex Morgan, was just a fabulous goal. Canada’s players said the result was a robbery, and you could say they were right. But you couldn’t say the Americans didn’t play their asses off, too

Yesterday at the Polo Grounds, Notre Dame kicked ass on Army, whipping the crap out of them behind four really good running backs.  Lots of people in the stands cheered a whole bunch during the game.

Like many old people, I bemoan the loss of the world gone by.  I decry the modern world’s lack of decorum, courtesy, and self-sacrifice.  Most of all, I am pained by the lack of class.  I realize that class is somewhat of a subjective assessment, and that one man’s crudity is another man’s informality, but the abject lack of ability to express oneself cogently and cleanly strikes me as a sign that society is on the downslide.  I don’t expect any current writer to approach Grantland Rice, or even to emulate his style, but the horrific writing I am forced to read daily causes me to miss the old days.

Sportswriting, and to a greater degree sports broadcasting, has been taken over by low-quality, lowest-common denominator reporting, in which the reporter is more interested in showing how hip and cool and clever he is, rather than celebrating the accomplishments of the athlete in ways which are interesting to read. 

Rice could have said “Yesterday at the Polo Grounds Notre Dame, behind their four impressive running backs, secured a hard-fought 13-7 victory over a game but overmatched Army team.”  Nobody would have criticized him for this kind of presentation.  But sportswriting in the 20s, before broadcast media was pervasive, prided itself on a style somewhere between Shakespeare and the Hardy Boys.  Their readers were far less educated, far less literate, and far less verbal than today’s readers, but their stories possessed a quality which is not only long-absent from modern journalism, it would now be seen as old-fashioned and boring.  Better to think of some cool nickname than invoke Biblical references.

Any of us who write regularly try to find a style comfortable to write, easy to read, and descriptive.  I would love to call up the Four Horsemen, Greek gods, or Impressionist paintings, but I just don’t have that skill.  But I never write about people’s asses.  The idea that an editor of a mainstream paper did not have this sentence rewritten is astounding to me.  I am sure leaving it in reflects some sort of cultural mystique about how cool the Gazette is.  Too bad.  Cool used to be command of the language, now it is more about command of the barroom.

There is often conflict and confusion when advancing technology bumps up against sports rules and practices created when such technology was unthinkable.  In 1976, Renee Richards caused a stir when she wanted to play professional tennis.  The problem was that Renee had previously been a mildly successful amateur tennis player named Richard Raskind.  Following a sex change operation, the newly-female Richards sought to use her prior tennis skills, and 6 foot, 2 inch frame, to take on the women.  The tennis establishment resisted, but Richards won the right to play in court, going on to have a short professional career. 

Forgetting the issue of whether courts of law are the best places to make these decisions, the entire concept of the fairness of allowing someone to be placed in a better situation through the implementation of modern technology presents a very tough challenge.  Apparently the downside of changing gender has been a sufficient deterrent to prevent a flood of transgendered athletes.  (I would think that the required use of a public toilet would forever discourage a man from wanting change his gender.)

The Olympics is now facing a technology problem of a completely different kind.  Oscar Pistouris ran the 400 meters for South Africa despite have suffered a double amputation of his legs below the knee at age 11.  Pistouris is certainly the fastest runner in Paralympics competition, and he is competitive in the open competition, reaching the semifinals in London.  Pistouris runs on two strong-looking metal blades which would appear to allow for a level of springiness giving him a competitive advantage over everyone else.  Originally, the governing body of track and field barred Pistouris from racing against those without prosthetics (“able-bodied” does not seem like an apt term because Pistouris certainly is plenty able), however the Court of Arbitration for Sport (and who these people are and why they should have the final say eldudes me) overturned that decision, ruling that Pistouris should be allowed to compete.  That makes Pistouris the only athlete competing in both the Olympics and the Paralympics.

While I respect both Pistouris’s accomplishments and his tenacity, I am troubled by his participation in the Olympics.  The Court of Arbitration for Sport ruled his prosthetics give him no competitive advantage, a ruling I do not accept.  And even if true, it is not difficult to imagine that someone will invent prosthetics, for running and other sports, which do provide an unfair advantage.

Even if Pistouris’s prosthetics themselves do not provide enough spring or leverage enough to give him extra speed, his physical condition itself, when assisted by technology, does give him some benefit.  By having no limbs below the knee, Pistouris’s heart need not pump blood either as far or to as much tissue as the hearts of other runners.  I cannot believe that this alone does not give his body a benefit as the race wears on.  Unlike his competitors, Pistouris need not worry about a sprained ankle or broken toe.  He seems to be able to screw spikes directly into his blades, so I imagine he can alter them for the track surface and weather. 

The advances of technology certainly will create prosthetics which will increase speed.  What if Pistouris was a swimmer?  Could he strap fins to his legs?  It takes little imagination to see how custom prosthetics could help volleyball players, swimmers, and many others.  Should Lee Majors be allowed to win a gold medal?

I would be more comfortable with Pistouris’s involvement if he ran wearing the same prosthetics he uses in his daily life, which I presume are modeled closely on a human body.  Renee Richards, after all, did not become a woman merely while playing tennis.  But Pistouris runs on blades, much different I assume than what he wears to a formal banquet.

I realize lines must be drawn.  It would be absurd to abolish all forms of technological aid.  Shooters should be able to wear glasses and have laser eye surgery.  Athletes who undergo surgery to repair injuries of course cannot be banned, even if the surgery requires permanent implantation of pins, or even a pacemaker.  I hope someday to see a heart transplant recipient on the Olympic medal stand.  But somewhere a line must be drawn.  A repaired anterior cruciate ligament is not equivalent to replacing your lower leg with springs nor your hands with paddles.   I don’t know where the limits of assistance must stop.  Are implanted pumps for insulin too much of an advantage for athletes with diabetes? 

Sports are compelling because we marvel what other humans can do that we can only dream about.  Usain Bolt’s speed, Gabby Douglass’s graceful athleticism, Michael Phelps’s power in the water draw us to watch because they do things no one else can do.  Introducing a technological component diminishes our sense of awe.  I want to cheer my heroes to reward their hard work and physical gifts, I do not want to applaud the quality of their technicians.

This is not to diminish Pistouris’s achievements or denigrate his efforts.  I have no doubt he has worked as hard as any athlete there.  But his success is based in part of technological enhancements outside of that which no other athlete uses.  To me, his situation goes too far.

Missy Franklin is the “It gir” of these Olympics.  Not only has she performed well in the pool, but her positive demeanor and big smile have won over everyone from Barak Obama to Justin Bieber.  I guess Missy is excited that the power of television will bring forth an introduction with the Biebs.  Maybe she can get a ride in his $150,000 electric sports car (although she had better be prepared to go really fast on the Los Angeles highways). 

Missy is an unusual person.  She turned down hundreds of thousands of dollars in prize, appearance, and endorsement money to retain her amateur standing.  This allowed her to swim in the Colorado girls high school state championships.  She won the 100 yard backstroke, a nice tune up to her gold medal at the Olympics in the same event.  She must have been coasting in the high school meet because she only won by four seconds.  Can you imagine how it felt to be the other swimmers in this race?

Actually, I can.  I had a similar experience in my final race in high school.  Most of you probably don’t know that I was the captain of the swim team.  Not that I was much of a swimmer.  But my brother was a great swimmer so when he went to practice as a kid my mother took me there, too.  My brother Mark developed into a champion swimmer in high school, setting records that lasted literally decades, I barely learned to swim from one end to the other.  I joined the swim team in high school because I couldn’t do anything else.  (Those who remember when we used to play basketball at lunch will attest to the accuracy of that statement.)

Suffice to say I was not very good.  I won a couple of races every year when we competed against schools without swimming pools or where they could only enter someone who just passed his guppy certification.  In my senior year I was swimming the 200 and 400 free style, long events for which the coach did not want to waste any of his competitive swimmers.  The 400 free is not a real long race in the Olympics, running well under four minutes for 400 meters.  I, on the other hand, would take more than five minutes to swim 400 yards.  While I was swimming I could see that the officials and coaches would leave the pool area to get coffee, use the bathroom, or make phone calls.  I believe for one meet they actually watched an entire episode of “All in the Family.”

At any rate, my final meet was the league championship.  I knew my competitive swimming career was coming to an end after eight years, but I was neither wistful or nostalgic.  Mostly I was grateful that I would not have to spend significant portions of every day wet, cold, and looking like a skinny, very pale, drowned rat. 

I had little chance to win anything, but my chances were significantly diminished when one of the schools in our league, Harvard-St. George, entered someone in the 400.  Harvard did not have a pool, nor a team.  What they did have was a kid named Jon Erikson.  Erikson had not raced a single race that year, nor paid any attention to swimming in the worst athletic league in the Chicago area.  Mostly he spent his time training for a more demanding pursuit.  Jon Erikson, you see, had already swum the English Channel.  At age 14.

Erikson’s father Ted had also swum the English Channel.  I remember him on the pool deck, sporting a stylish salt and pepper goatee, looking like an athlete.  The younger Erikson appeared on the deck for the preliminary heats, having spent no time at all around the meet before that.  He spoke to no one.  Of course we all knew who he was, and I was somewhat in awe as we stood next to each other at the starting blocks, waiting for the previous heat to finish.  This was a long time ago and my memory is not that great, but I recall that Erikson was a lot bigger than I was (all 145 pounds of me).  He said nothing to me, but seemed like some sort of Greek god.

The gun sounded and off we went.  Well, actually, off Erikson went.  I never actually saw him again.  Every lap a blur went by me, and I felt his wake wash over me.  I have a vague memory that he lapped me at one point.  I am sure that by the time I finished Erikson had not only completed his race, but he had left the pool deck.  Seriously.  I never saw him again. 

Erikson went on to swim the English Channel again, both ways in 1976; and in 1981 he was the first person to swim it three ways non-stop, a feat which took more than 38 hours. 

So I can appreciate how those poor girls in Colorado felt losing to Missy Franklin.  I bet Missy at least talked to them.  In 40 years they will have one hell of a memory.

I now spend most of my time avoiding the internet, the news media, even the radio in an effort to avoid discovering the results of the Olympics before the tape-delayed broadcast every night.  During previous Olympics this was just a minor annoyance.  All I had to do was basically keep the radio and television off.  I think in 2008 many of the events were shown live because the time difference between Beijing and America allowed for that.  But this time, most events seem to take place in the afternoon or evening our time.  Media, both social and professional, is all over the results within seconds of the event’s completion.

That means that unless I work scrupulously to avoid the results, they will attack me.  I can’t watch any channel on television, except for NBC who televises the Games.  At least I thought I could watch NBC.  But on Saturday the local St. Augustine station revealed the results of a swimming race which was going to be broadcast later that night.  They used the same emergency tone they use for weather alerts, so by the time we realized that they had just spoiled their own broadcast, it was too late.  The station received hundreds of e-mails and Facebook messages complaining, and have assured us this won’t happen again.

But even the NBC Nightly News can’t avoid spoilers.  Usually they just put the results on the screen and don’t talk about it, but last night Brian Williams could not resist, and I had to cover my eyes and mute the television.  Geez, it should not be this hard.

They should just televise everything live.  Whatever time things come on, we should just see it.  If the news division thinks these results are important enough to discuss during their newscast, they should be important enough to show live.  After all, they didn’t tape delay the invasion of Iraq.  If the Olympics are news, they should be covered like news.  Perhaps this would cut into ratings and profits; so be it.  The idea that results can be withheld to keep ratings high is become a myth anyway.  Pretty soon, most people who plan to watch at night will already know what they will see.  Once that happens ratings might drop for the night broadcasts, but they will increase for the daytime telecasts. 

Television has called the tune too long for sports as it is.  The NBC nightly broadcast goes until midnight here in the Eastern time zone.  How many children can watch until the end?  World Series games start after 8 p.m. in the east.  Should a third of America risk sleep deprivation just to try to watch sports?  This kind of scheduling makes it impossible to both enjoy sports and to live a normal life.  I am not working so I can sleep late and nap, but for anyone with a job, I can’t imagine that watching the Olympics until midnight every night is at all comfortable.  If so many people are going to miss the end of the broadcast anyway, put the events on live.  People can watch them at 3 p.m. easier than 11:30.

I realize the chance that this will change is minimal.  My father used to relate to me the golden rule: “The one with the gold makes the rules.”  As time goes on this has become strikingly true.  American television generates more money than any other revenue source.  They will call the tunes, and sports executives will dance.  Pass the coffee.